Title: Moderation

Author: Lady P (piratemistress) Many thanks for the prompt and very perceptive beta from mermaidinblack!

Disclaimer: These characters aren't stolen, just borrowed – borrowed without permission. For personal, not commercial, purposes.

Summary:Oneshot, 3,000 words; post-AWE speculation, but not terribly deep. A rather silly vignette of a victory celebration with Jack and Elizabeth and too much to drink.

Rating: M/MA (Semi-ridiculous smut is still smut, I suppose.)

In the afterglow of victory, there were no enemies among the gathered pirates, no clannish loyalty, no held grudges. Camped on the outlying island not far from Singapore, the allied groups set about feasting, celebrating and drinking, and Jack and Elizabeth were no exception. Will was only a day behind and would reach them on the morrow.

Sao Feng and friends were setting something up on long tables near the water as Jack and Elizabeth rose, rather unsteadily, to their feet. Jack eyed her, she saw, not with suspicion – or not much suspicion, since she really had proved herself when it counted, and he'd joined her in battle enough to trust her as much as he ever had, or would; no, he seemed to be making certain that she actually could stand upright. Two empty bottles lay crookedly on the sand nearby, and so would Jack and Elizabeth, if they weren't careful.

"Oh, imagine the songs there'll be about this one!" Jack said, waving a nearly-empty bottle in a huge gesture as he and Elizabeth strolled away from the campfire, though perhaps lurched would be a better word.

"Lots of songs!" she agreed, stealing glances at Jack in the firelight, and consequently failing to see a rock poking out of the ground; there was a thump and she was surprised to find her nose having met soft sand rather suddenly. "What... I..."

Jack collapsed beside her, laughing uproariously, one knee sideways on the sand, the other supporting his elbow. "Oh... Lizzie... that was precious, I... haven't seen anything so good since Marty bet us he could reach his chin to his bunghole." He reached out to turn her over but she smacked his hand away; or she tried to, but missed by a bottle-length and clawed empty air.

He pulled her toward him awkwardly, her chest against his knee, her nose and mouth becoming flattened against his breastbone. "Jack, I can't breed – le' go," she said.

"Did you say, you can't breed?"

She pushed away and her head swam. "No, I said... good Lord, how much have we had? How much have I..."

"Never enough!" Jack said confidently, raising the bottle back up. "Some things in life need no moderation."

There was a long silence. Elizabeth considered his words, feeling her blood throb and hum from the drink. She wondered if he could have meant the two of them; since they'd stood back to back in battle they'd needed little else between them to mediate. He continued to peer at her as she lay with her cheek on the sand. "Are ye planning to get up, love?"

"Not at present," she replied in as dignified a tone as possible. She did roll onto her back. The liquor was warming her everywhere, nicely, and sadly, too, reminding her of things she normally kept tightly leashed. "Jack..." she began.

"No, no no," Jack said, stretching out his legs beside her. "That sounds awfully serious for a victory celebration."

"But it's important," she insisted, rolling to lay her head on her elbow.

"Still no."

"Jack, will you let me speak!"

"'Spect you're too drunk to talk, and I'm too soused to listen," he said, flopping on his back. In the distance the campfire leapt and blurred.

"But I have to tell you something, before I forget."

"Not accepting soaking-wet apologies."

"Soaking-!"

"Yes, that's right."

"For your inferm – informashun," she began with effort.

"See? You are too drunk to talk."

"—I'm not bloody apologizing!"

He was quiet for a moment, and she took that as her cue to continue, with regal confidence in her voice to offset her swimming senses. "As I was trying t'say, I wanted you to know that I... well, it's sort of difficult to explain... but I sometimes think we're too much alike to get on well, you know? And that's why everything's all wrong. Or seems wrong. It's not... it's not your fault... I don't dislike you... I only thought, well, all for the best." She took a deep breath, realizing she had rambled, but he didn't respond. "Jack?"

Silence.

"Jack!"

"Wha- hm? Y'say something?" came a thick voice, his eyes still closed.

"Yes, I bloody said something!" she snapped, smacking his chest with the back of her hand. "Were you asleep?"

"No," he lied. "Could never fall asleep with you c'mpletely dressed and half-liquored; you'd have to be un-dressed and totally liquored, or else half-dressed and half-licked and half-naked... did I already say half-dressed?"

"There were three halves in that sentence; arithmetic not a strong suit of yours?"

The bottle's neck jutted into the air again, lifted by his hand. "Who's counting? Down with moderation!"

She snatched the bottle from him. "Will you just listen?"

He rolled to face her, his eyes dancing in the darkness, bright only half because of the liquor. "You were about to declare your undying love for me."

She sniffed imperiously. "You'd like that, wouldn't you? Sorry, but I'd be more likely to declare my undyling – un- die- ing – love, that is – for that rock. That isn't – "

"Rock, eh? But we've got so much in common."

"We... " She paused, regarding him impatiently. "So you were listening? You agree that you and I are alike?"

"No, no. Me, and the rock."

She rolled her eyes, draping a hand across her eyes in defeat. "Never mind. You and the rock, naturally. Both of you thick. And dull."

"And hard."

"Jack..." She opened her eyes a crack to watch as he flung one of his hands casually between his legs, cupping himself for a second.

"Hm, on second thought, I must have had more rum than I thought," he muttered. "No matter."

Her cheeks heated; somehow his playful banter was not quite the same as actually watching him toy with his body as though he did it all the time. Come to think of it... he probably did do it all the time.

"C'mere," he said quietly, and she instinctively obeyed the soft siren-call, rolling toward him. He extended an arm to wrap around her shoulders, but he wasn't watching, and his knuckles collided with her teeth. "Ow," they both said, an octave apart.

"Careful!"

"Sorry." After his apology, she successfully nestled in the crook of his arm, and opened her eyes to look at the stars. "Ah, my Lizzie," he sighed.

"Your Lizzie, indeed. Have you forgotten Will shall join us tomorrow?"

"Rum's wonderful for forgetting. Should try it." He turned his head toward her, and his eyes slowly opened before a deliciously devilish smile spread across his lips. "'Course, there are other, equally delightful mnemosynes to drink of."

Before she could protest he'd leaned over and kissed her, his lips cool with the night air and his breath rum-warmed; she knew the others were far away and off making camp and setting up long rows of bamboo, but in her newfound recklessness she also didn't care if anyone saw. She opened her mouth to kiss him back, knowing it was partly the rum, partly not; when she felt his hard thigh between her legs, heating her there, too, she groaned.

"Mmm, my saucy pirate lass," he whispered over her lower lip. "Would I were a little less drunk and a little younger, and a little closer to me cabin."

She laughed at this, abruptly so, and he jumped back a little as she snorted. "So - first you kill me, then you laugh at me," he said, trying to sound wounded. This only struck her as funnier, and she laughed some more, flinging an arm around his neck.

"Do shut up, Jack," she said softly, the smile still in her voice, and lifted her lips to his again.

This time there was little play; the kiss became deep and hard and he raised his knee to grind her sex more firmly against his leg. Her bottom was pressed into the sand.

"Mm, let's play a game," he murmured against her lips when he came up for air.

"A game?"

"Aye."

"What sort?"

"You're the young innocent miss, and I'm the brutal pirate who's going to ravish you."

She opened one eye to glare at him, drawing on what little she did know of men's bodies to conclude she was in little danger of that. "Unless you're planning on employing the bottle as a prop, that seems somewhat unlikely."

"Why, that's a rather dirty suggestion from such an innocent miss as yourself," he said through a grin. "Now, can you play, or not?"

"Certainly. I might be a young pirate miss now, but I can certainly feign innocence."

"Feign, eh?"

"Well... exhibit?"

"All right." He leaned back and rolled off of her, extending his hand. "Come, I don't fancy sand in certain places – those trees are a bit more welcoming."

With effort they both rose and stumbled toward the trees, Elizabeth sailing on a cloud of rum and exhilaration, failing to see how anything could go wrong when everything was finally right. He took her hand as they disappeared into the trees, and then suddenly he had shoved her up against one. A palm, she concluded, from the smooth bark. She looked up. Yes, a palm.

"Ready?" she said, allowing her gaze to fall back to him.

He rolled his eyes, "You can't say, ready, that spoils the whole thing. Have I got to abduct you again?"

"That was an abduction? Pintel did a better job of abducting me than that."

Jack frowned. "They told me you had asked for parlay."

"So I did. All right, then. 'Oh, fearsome pirate captain, I shall do anything to save my dear city from ruin.'"

Jack knitted his brows together in confusion. "Just a moment – am I Barbossa in this scenario? Did you just turn me into Barbossa?"

She frowned. "I didn't mean to."

"Bugger it all, now you've mixed him up in this. As if I wasn't having enough trouble."

"All right," she sighed. "Well – never mind the abduction. The young maid and the pirate meet by chance in the woods."

"I like it already," he murmured with a smirk, sidling closer and snaking the fingers of one hand around her waist.

"'Take your hands off me, filthy scalabag!'"

Jack opened his eyes to look at her murderously. "It's 'scalawag.'"

"Isn't that what I said?"

"Elizabeth, you're killing it," Jack groaned. "Killing it!"

"I'm sorry! What shall I say?"

"Anything! Nothing! No – that's it. Shut up."

"If you would only tell me what you wanted me to-- hmf," she said as he cut her off with a sudden, plunging kiss that weakened her knees and softened her stiff spine against the trunk of the palm.

He eventually moved his mouth to glide his lips along her jaw and down her neck, and she found her voice again. "Please don't hurt me, pirate sir, I'll do anything you ask..."

"Anything?" he replied, low in his throat.

"Anything," she repeated in a breathy parody of her own voice.

He smiled a wicked smile, and deftly unbuttoned her tunic in only a few seconds, followed by her shirt, and then Elizabeth was surprised to realize her breasts were exposed to him and the night air, and she swallowed as he dropped his eyes to them.

"Jack... this is only a game... isn't it?"

"Sh. Don't slip out of character," he reminded her in a gentle whisper.

Then his hot, wet mouth surrounded a nipple, and the back of her head struck the palm's trunk as her head fell back. "Oh, God," she said. "What are you... that is positively..." He switched to the other one, and similar heat radiated up and down her body, loosening her even more than the liquor had. "Jack."

"Hm?"

"...Don't get carried away."

"No, you're the one who's supposed to be carried away. You've been abducted."

"More approached than abducted, I'd say."

"Dickering over semantics, now?"

"No, I'm not... dickering... at all..." He had lifted her up so that her legs fell around his hips, and her back rested on the tree. "I'm a little concerned about being ravished."

"You're a little concerned? Girl ought to be terrified!"

"Well, I can't help it if you're not quite terrifying," she said. Judging from the nondescript landscape of his body between her thighs, she was quite safe, but she couldn't resist adding, "I still don't know what you're going to ravish me with."

"Buggerin' hell," Jack groaned, leaning his forehead against her chin. "If you keep talking about him like that, it'll never happen... it's like a curse."

She smiled, a mischievous one she didn't use too often. It caught his eye. "A curse? And what, pray tell, must we do to... lift it?"

"What goes down, must come up," he said, leaving her perplexed, and then stood back, letting her stand. "I meant, stand up, first."

She eyed him warily. "And then?"

"You're in fear for your life, remember? You'll do anything? Anything?"

"I suppose," she said dryly.

Jack sighed. "Could you sound a little more enthusiastic?"

"No."

"Try for me?"

"'Oh, I'll do anything a'tall to keep from perishing at your brutal hands!'" She lifted a brow. "How was that?"

"Better. I'll believe it more if you're on your knees."

"You want me to kneel?"

"Are you begging for your life and virtue, or not?"

"Fine," she answered, and sank slowly to her knees. "What, precisely, would you like me to do, oh-terribly-frightening pirate?"

He frowned down at her. "Well the sarcasm sort of ruins it."

"Oh, for heaven's sake, Jack," she said, exasperated, resting her forehead tiredly on his thigh. That was when she felt it – a tiny jump inside his breeches, beside her cheek. "Was that -?"

"No no. No talking," Jack said hurriedly, hastily shoving a hand inside his trousers, the other one outside, and it seemed to her that he was trying to unfasten them from the inside and outside at once.

"Oh, here, just let me –"

"Just wait a moment, will you?" His hand was mysteriously busy inside his breeches before he finally withdrew it. Then they were unfastened, and she reached for the sides, noting a small tremor in her hand as she prepared to disrobe Jack Sparrow. The thought gave her pause, but not for long. Rum made her bold and carefree, and she wanted to look, she decided. The breeches fell, and Jack took a pained breath.

"Now, listen carefully, my dear. All you have to do is – God," he said, a hand coming out to support him on the tree, as she gave up waiting for instructions and charged ahead. "Yes, that," he groaned. "Yes... yes... yes."

She'd surprised him, she realized through the vague floating sensation of the liquor... hell, she'd surprised herself. She'd spent the better part of a month aboard a pirate ship, hearing her fair share of shanties, and she'd seen a few things through cracked-open doors in the servants' quarters, before. She wasn't a complete idiot. But she had never exactly pictured herself doing this, indulging her instincts as she discovered them, especially not with Jack, and it was delicious and wonderful... if growing more and more difficult by the second.

After a few moments had passed, she sat back, a bit unsure how to continue. "Jack –

"For God's sake, don't tell me you've stopped to talk," Jack hissed, forehead flat on the back of his hand, on the trunk of the tree. She didn't take exception to his tone, but stifled a giggle, since his breeches were wrapped around his boots in the vicinity of his calves, his cock rising straight up from beneath the tails of his tattered white shirt like a wayward yardarm. He certainly didn't seem very intimidating in that state.

"Only to ask what to do, it's not as simple as... before," she said, glancing up in confusion.

He sighed, and regarded her from between blackened lashes. "'Lizabeth... do you want to be ravished?"

"Do you mean... actually?"

"No, theoretically," he snapped, clearly out of patience. "Yes, actually! Here. Now. Tonight. Yes? No?"

"I... you want me to decide right this minute?" She looked away, down, at the ground, the trees. "I'm... I'm not thinking clearly just now. I don't know what it means, whether it means anything..."

Jack gave another exasperated sigh, and she felt his warm fingertips at the crown of her head as she sat beneath him. "All right, darling, since I'm half seas over, meself... the poor maid can pleasure the pirate until he forgets all about his plans to ravish her."

"What should I...?"

"Give me your hand."

She lifted her hand and placed it gently in one of his, looking up to see what he would do next. "Not there," he said dryly.

"Oh. Oh, I see."

"Yes, there we are. Now..." and his voice trailed off as she picked up where she'd left off a few minutes before.

Elizabeth closed her eyes. Sounds reached her ears from the trees, the beach. Insects sang and leaves whispered. Jack whispered, too, small words of encouragement that compelled her to do as he was asking, but she ignored his pleas at times as the minutes passed, enjoying the fairly new sensation of having him entirely at her whim.

The gentle evening breeze carried distant shouts and laughter of men, and yet it seemed that she and he were alone in the world. Only for tonight, she reminded herself as she thought of Will, her love, her future. Jack was only for tonight, only a little. A small taste of excess before she returned to a balanced, fulfilling life.

She continued to tease him until each stroke seemed to rip a groan from his throat, and then she had mercy on him and stopped resisting the pressure of his hand at her nape. She gave in completely, letting him use her as he would; it didn't hurt her, at least it can't have hurt her more than her betrayal had hurt him...

There was an explosion; a loud boom from over the water, and Elizabeth jerked back, startled, as she watched Jack explode, too, right in front of her eyes. It seemed like cannon fire, and knowing Jack couldn't possibly have made that sound – however forceful his personal event - she was mystified for a few seconds until she heard Jack whisper, "Fireworks."

He took a moment to catch his breath, and then Elizabeth felt herself being dragged to her feet by his hands beneath her arms. She felt weak-kneed and curious inside, strangely damp, swollen and hungry for his taste. "Come on," he said to her, bending to raise his breeches and close them. "We can continue this later on, but the fireworks are not to be missed."

She swallowed the vague trace of a new, salty-sweet taste, desire – his, she realized, but hers too. Once he was decent, she turned to walk out toward the beach, only to be stopped by his hand on her bare stomach. "Ah – Elizabeth?" he prompted, nodding toward her chest.

She glanced down to see her shirt and tunic still unbuttoned, her breasts bare to the evening. A blush crept into her cheeks as she hastily closed both, horrified that she'd been so out of herself between the rum, Jack, and everything else. Her eyes flew to his, and his dark pupils were merry, daring, more carefree than the high-pitched cries of the rockets in the distance, more black and bottomless than the night sky. She was naked, more naked than ever, and he must have sensed her shame.

"Don't be embarrassed, love, everything looks as it's supposed to. Attached in the right spots." He smiled mischievously, saying, "At least, everything I've seen so far," before reaching out to assist with the buttons. He didn't come out and say she was beautiful, and yet she hardly expected him to; gentle teasing from Jack was far more affectionate and complimentary than overblown flattery.

He pulled her back out to the beach and they sat hurriedly, curling their legs beneath them, as the pirates lit long rows of fuses; Elizabeth stopped watching them and watched the sky, instead, awed and fascinated by the bright colors and resounding thunderous noise. It was too much. Her ears rang and she saw spots even in the darkness. Eventually the show ended, the smoke settled and faded, and Jack gathered her closer to his chest, saying, "Now that's the kind of victory celebration I prefer."

She found herself burying her face in his shirt, suddenly exhausted. He leaned back, tightening his arms, and though she knew the morning tide would come, her love with it, and separate them from such simple pleasures, she also knew she would sleep peacefully the entire night, upon the sand with Jack, just like that. The sun would rise on the rest of their days apart; something tugged at her heart, asking why she would foolishly, uselessly wish - even through all that rum - that it wouldn't. "Those fireworks were beautiful," she murmured as consciousness slipped.

"Oh, yes," he replied in a similarly low, sleep-ridden voice, "they were beautiful, indeed."

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Comments greatly appreciated!