You've Got the Buckles, Now Swash Them!

Disclaimer: I own nothing involving Pirates of the Caribbean, much to my great disappointment. The names of the people in this story have been changed for the protection of the author.

Dedication: This story is dedicated to my darling beta reader Diocletian, who wanted me to write her something for Christmas, and to my favorite drunken pervert "Nat." You guys are the best.

Chapter 1: Deer In Headlights

It was an unusually cool day for August. The sky was clouded over and it was starting to get foggy. 'It's going to be really bad when we're closer to the coast,' Blair thought warily to herself from behind the wheel of her silver Pontiac Sunfire. The car glided down the narrow suburban road and came to a stop in front of a white house in the heart of the small village.

Two young women stepped out of the car, both nineteen, and neither all that tall. Blair, the one who had been driving, was the shorter of the two, and had medium length dirty-blond hair, grayish blue eyes and an incredibly pale complexion. The other girl, Alexis, or Lex, was almost as pale with long dark ash hair and green eyes.

They walked up the driveway to the door and knocked. There was no answer. Blair narrowed her eyes at the door in annoyance, staring it down, almost willing it to open. This was not the first time no one had answered the door at this particular house and it would probably not be the last. "Open up, dammit!" she shouted at the defiant door as Lex laughed at her.

"They're not going to answer," her friend stated as Blair knocked again, louder than before. "They never answer."

In a bit of a huff after realizing that there was no sign of anyone inside, Blair strode away from the house towards her car. "Oh, she's gonna damn well answer!"

"She's probably not even awake yet..." Lex called after her, trailing off as Blair crawled back into the car. "What are you doing?" she asked as her friend emerged from the vehicle with a small cell phone in hand.

"I'm going to call her," the shorter girl stated matter-of-factly, putting the phone to her ear. Alexis rolled her eyes.

"Oh right, because they always answer the phone," she muttered sarcastically.

As Alexis turned back to the door to try knocking again, she screamed at the sight of a pair of dark brown eyes staring curiously back at her from the window. At the sound, Blair smirked to herself, tossed the phone back into the car and returned to the door as it was opened. The dark brown eyes belonged to Natalie, who was more commonly known as Nat, the tallest and oldest of the three girls at twenty-one. Her hair was long and black with red streaks, and like the other two she was considerably pale, although clearly of native descent.

"Don't do that!" Alexis yelled at her, annoyed as she waited for her heart rate to return to normal. Nat just cackled to herself, amusement shining in her bloodshot eyes as she shielded them from the still-bright morning light. She then stumbled back into the darkened house, clearly hung-over. Blair and Alexis suppressed a laugh as she only just missed running into the doorframe leading into her kitchen.

"So what are you guys doing here?" Nat asked walking over to the microwave, almost walking into the counter in the process.

"What?" Blair demanded. "I called you last night, one of the few occasions when I actually got an answer I might add, to remind you. You said you were set!"

"At least tell us you're packed?" Lex cut in mid rant.

"Oh right. That," Nat said guiltily, pulling a cup of coffee from the microwave. "Well, I started packing," she began innocently. "Then Mike showed up and we got drinking…" She continued while foraging for milk. "Suffice it to say, I spent half the night vegged out on the couch watching Euro Trip. 'Course, by the time we went to watch the movie, we were so trashed that it took us three hours of watching the start menu to realize that it wasn't the movie." As she finished, she leaned against the counter, drinking her coffee as the others suppressed a laugh.

"That's lovely," Blair began in that sweet, innocent, manipulative tone she had perfected through years of "But right now you should be packing." Nat just groaned into her cup.

"But I'm hung-over…" she whined.

"Well, that's your own damn fault!" Blair stated vehemently. "Go on…" She began nudging Nat down the hallway towards the stairs. "Go, go, go."

"But—" Nat started to argue, turning to face them at the bottom of the stairs.

"Oh no, you don't," Lex abruptly cut her off. "You bailed on us last year, no more lame-ass excuses."

"Yeah, you're coming with. Even if we have to carry you to the car."

"And you know we will."

There was a slight pause as Nat glared at them and then she broke into a whine. "I'm being oppressed!"

"Come on…" Blair grabbed her by the arm and hauled her up the stairs. Lex remained in the hallway, turning her attention to the aquarium sitting there against the wall. Inside, sitting nonchalantly on a rock, was a three-legged bullfrog, which was staring at her with a decidedly evil glint in its eye. Lex raised her hand to the top of the tank and tapped it. As soon as her finger touched the plastic, the frog lunged at it, but bounced of the barrier with a loud thud. Blair laughed as she walked by and into the kitchen, Nat close behind her.

"Would you leave Gimpy alone?" she demanded as Lex laughed at the frog as it bounced off the plastic again.

"I'm telling you, Nat," Lex said over her shoulder. "Your frog's evil."

"She is not," replied Nat indignantly. "She's sweet."

"Evil!" Blair's voice declared from the kitchen. She walked back into the hall, carrying a flashlight. "And you," she waved the light threateningly in Nat's direction, "are supposed to be packing."

"Yeah, yeah. I need the laundry." She walked towards the basement door. "Unless you wanted to beat me with the flashlight first?" Blair glared after her.

"Don't tempt me."

After half an hour, much packing, and plenty of Nat trying to weasel her way out of the entire thing, they were on the road. After two hours of driving, the conversation had died down (mostly because Natalie was passed out in the back seat sleeping off the hangover). Lex leaned over to put her Pirates of the Caribbean soundtrack in the CD player.

"Oh come on, I told you about mine," Blair whined from behind the wheel. She had spent the last fifteen minuets trying to guilt Lex into telling her the entire plot of her most recent fanfic, and she was not going to give up without the information.

"No. You already snuck all the good stuff out of me," Lex said with mock-bitterness. Blair suppressed a mild urge to cackle. "Besides, you'll have nothing to look forward to." Blair made a squeaky indignant throat noise.

They were driving down a stretch of road near the water's edge and, as Blair had anticipated, the fog was bad. They cut a turn on a stretch of road above the water as they continued to try and weasel their stories from each other. As they did, a deer happened to wander out into the road.

The car came around the turn and the headlights shone on the stunned animal. Blair slammed on the brakes, but thanks to the amount of moisture on the pavement, the car slid off the road and over the cliff. To the accompaniment of Blair and Lex's terrified shrieks, it plummeted down into the ocean below.

The silver Sunfire slowly sank under the surface of the water with the three motionless people inside. The beginning of 'The Medallion Calls' could be heard playing inside as the car disappeared. After a moment, when the car was no longer visible and the water completely calm, a shockwave suddenly shot across the water in all directions. And then all was quiet once more.

Meanwhile, Captain Jack Sparrow stood proudly atop the mast of a… well, what used to be a boat, the remainder of which was steadily sinking. He stood stone-faced, concentrating on the approaching dock, blissfully unaware of the questioning stares he was getting from the people around him. As the boat sailed perfectly to a stop in front of the dock, the pirate confidently stepped off the mast just above the water and strode down the dock.

"Hey, hold up there, you." Jack pivoted around to see the old man he had just brushed by walking towards him with a young boy at his side and he stepped forward. "It's a shilling to tie up your boat at the dock." Jack gave a questioning look to the flag hovering above the water. "And I shall need to know your name," the harbormaster finished.

Jack dug in his pocket. "What do you say to three shillings," he inquired, putting three coins onto the open logbook. "And we forget the name?" The harbormaster paused and eyed him a moment and the boy raised an eyebrow.

"Welcome to Port Royal, Mr. Smith," he replied, snapping the book shut. Jack raised his hands in mock praise as the two continued on. Jack also continued on his way, stopping momentarily at the harbormaster's station to filch a money purse. He shook it lightly and smirked at the soft jingle before he continued on his way.

A mile or so down the beach on a rather secluded stretch of sand, three figures were laying unconscious, light waves washing up around them. Slowly, they each began to stir and take in their surroundings as they pulled themselves to their feet. A low "Whoa…" was all that came from Lex as she looked around at the white sand and palm trees.

"What the fuck?" Nat added as she took in the incredible blue sky and the radical change in temperature.

Blair whipped around, all the while muttering, "Omigod, my car, where's my car?", looking for anything that remotely resembled New River Beach or any sign of her doomed Sunfire. There was none. Then she looked skyward as if to shout out to any deity that may have actually been listening.

"WHERE IN THE SEVEN CIRCLES OF HELL ARE WE!"

Edit-03/03/18