Title: Several Awkward Moments That Happened One Night When Elizabeth Was Drunk
Fandom: Pirates of the Caribbean
Characters/Pairing: Barbossa and Elizabeth. (But it can totally be Jack/Barbossa if you want it to be.)
Rating: PGish
Word Count: 1,694
Summary: In which Barbossa and Elizabeth have a slightly inebriated chat on the one-year anniversary of her coronation.

Author's Note: So today I totally found this over-a-year-old fic on my hard drive, buried deep within folders upon folders which had no names! GOSH I AM ORGANIZED. Anyway, I found it, cleaned it up a bit, and decided to inflict it upon the world. Enjoy!

Thanks to laserdragonlj for the title, which I think sums all of this up rather nicely.

Though he thoroughly enjoyed his alcohol (as did any pirate worth his salt), from an early age Barbossa had realized that remaining the least inebriated person in any given situation usually proved advantageous. However, on many occasions during the long years following his rise to the captaincy of the Pearl, he would reflect that perhaps, had he spent more time under the influence of mind-altering substances, Jack Sparrow would have been an easier man to tolerate.

This thought occured to him once more as he sat at a table beside the Pirate King, who was, at the moment, celebrating the one-year anniversary of her election by partaking of the finest liquor that Shipwreck Cove had to offer.

"Your Majesty -"

"Captain Barbossa," she interrupted, waving a finger at him disapprovingly, "I should rather think we're past all this. As your King, I hereby decree that you shall call me Elizabeth."

He paused, pondering. Though being on a first-name basis with the Pirate King would be most impressive, it didn't sound half as grand rolling off the tongue as that title did. "Mrs. Turner," he suggested with a patient smile, "and we'll call that familiar enough for the time bein'."

Elizabeth laughed briefly, and if her eyes softened for a moment it was difficult to tell, as she quickly took another long drink from her glass. "And there's another anniversary to celebrate."

Barbossa tried to recall how to look sympathetic.

"It was a lovely wedding," she continued, before he got very far into it, and Barbossa was grateful to have moved past what could have been an incredibly awkward situation for the both of them. "Couldn't have asked for a better one. I mean, there was that first attempt, with the gowns and the fanfare and the... well, the planning, but the day ended with me behind bars. That was most unexpected."

"I wouldn't imagine that'd be how many brides predict their wedding'll go, no." He punctuated his reply with a good-natured roll of his eyes. Now that gesture was more familiar territory.

"Neither of them were. However, all in all," said Elizabeth, thoughtful, "I believe the one you performed was much nicer. Dignified weddings come and go, but most, I think, don't involve gentlemen with eels where their heads ought to be."

That had been nice. "To a thoroughly memorable ceremony," said Barbossa, grinning wolfishly, and the pair raised their glasses in a toast.

"Did you know," began Elizabeth after a brief moment, leaning in far closer than he deemed strictly necessary -- but then, he was used to this sort of invasion of personal space by now -- "that after we properly began our courtship, it was very nearly a month and a half before Will kissed me?"

"'Tis both a pity and a crime that a fine lady such as yourself should have had to wait so long," he said. He wondered, vaguely, if he sounded compassionate. It wasn't a tone he used often, and it simply wouldn't do for the moment to seem anything other than genuine, even if the odds were good she wouldn't remember it in the morning. No, perhaps it would be better to just change the subject. "The boy taught you to handle a sword, though, did he not? The time spent on that endeavor should count for somethin'."

"Oh, the swordfighting!" Elizabeth gestured grandly with the arm that happened to be holding a glass full of rum. Politely as possible, he nudged her hand back down to the table, where it was far less likely to smack him in the face. Jack the monkey gave a worried chirr and skittered to the shoulder furthest from Elizabeth. "Yes, the swordfighting, every day, for hours on end! That was absolutely lovely. We would get hot, you know, and a bit sweaty, and very excited, and there was never anyone around but the two of us. I don't suppose you can imagine how that would end, Captain?"

Had Barbossa been a lesser man, there would have been uncomfortable shifting. A nervous twitch. Perhaps awkward stammering. It was truly a testament to his nerves of steel that he managed only a curious raise of the eyebrows. "I dare not venture a guess, Mrs. Turner."

"He would walk me back home, hand in hand, and politely bid me good-day." Tilting her head back, she finished the glass.

And just what was one supposed to say in response to that? There were, from time to time, situations when offers of murder, no matter how polite and conversational, simply weren't appropriate. "There there," he said, and reached out to pat her hand. It seemed the thing to do. Halfway through the gesture, he thought better of it, and altered course to grab a grape to feed to the monkey. Best to work his way up to tangible displays of affection. Perhaps in another year or so.

Thankfully, Elizabeth seemed content to change the subject. "I always wondered, you know. About the monkey."

"Did you now?" Well, he thought, there was a topic of conversation that had far less chance of becoming awkward.

"Why he's named after Jack, I mean."

... Or perhaps not.

"I always thought the resemblance to be fairly obvious," he replied with a casual smirk.

"There is a certain... something, yes." She seemed to be studying the small creature intently. Jack was studying her just as intently, wondering, Barbossa assumed from years of experience, whether to bite her or flee for his own good and return to bite her later when she didn't expect it. "At first I really did think it was a joke, and not a particularly clever one at that. It's a bit beneath you, I think. But then," she began, a dangerously smug look making its way onto her face, "it all came together."

"And just what conclusion did you come to, I wonder." Barbossa's tone strongly suggested that he wasn't interested in hearing an answer.

"Imagine, for a moment, if I found a... a puppy, shall we say, and named it Will?" Elizabeth took a slow drink, watching him over the rim of her glass.

Barbossa tilted his head back, making a show of pretending to contemplate this notion. It had the singular and intended effect of making it emphatically clear that he was not, in fact, imagining anything whatsoever. "Then you'd have the beginnings of a regular army of Williams, I believe."

"Not at all the answer I was looking for and you know it." Her self-satisfied smile didn't waver for an instant.

Less amusement registered on Barbossa's face this time around. "Sorry to disappoint." The monkey chittered, hopping down onto the table to investigate the food for himself. Barbossa made certain to watch him as impassively as possible.

"It would be a disappointment if it wasn't expected, Captain. The reason is just as obvious as the reason you'd hide it, and I can't say I blame you. Still, I should think you of all people could be more subtle about it." She took a drink, and he could see the fiendish gleam in her eyes -- Elizabeth was going in for the kill. "You missed him, didn't you?"

Barbossa slammed his glass down on the table, standing to further emphasize the absolute moral outrage boiling over from the fathomless depths of his very soul. "That spineless, deplorable, pilferin' cockroach? He's an unholy terror and a blight upon the name of upstandin' pirates everywhere, and the world'd be better off rid of him for good!"

Elizabeth smiled pleasantly. "I quite agree," she replied without missing a beat. "I wish he were here too."

As far as Barbossa was aware, nowhere in the Pirate's Code did it say that it was permissible to engage the King in epic battle for having the audacity to suggest that you may not despise your mortal enemy quite as much as you would like others to believe (or, at the least, maintained a healthy balance of unadulterated loathing and a sort of inexplicable affection as well); however, that did nothing to stop him from seriously contemplating the prospect.

After a very long moment of weighing this, he sat back down.

The monkey scampered back onto his shoulder. Barbossa fixed the creature with an accusatory glare, which, by the sound of Elizabeth's laugh, wasn't nearly as fearsome as he'd intended. Grudgingly, he offered him another nut, nodding towards the King.

"Very well, Your Majesty. And just what d'you hope to gain from this bit o' enlightenment?"

"Why, Captain Barbossa! I am both shocked and offended at the very suggestion that I would use something as underhanded as that to my advantage --"

"Don't feign innocence around me, I've known you far too long for that."

"-- when I could just as easily sit here, content in the knowledge that I'm privy to one of your most well-kept secrets." Elizabeth smirked in a way she could only have picked up from Sparrow himself. It was just as maddeningly obnoxious as he remembered, and yet he couldn't help but warm a little more to the lass for it. "Quid pro quo. It's only fair, after everything I've confided in you."

"Aye," he replied, "if you wish to take it that way. Just don't let this victory go to your head."

Elizabeth raised her glass. "To love?" she suggested.

Barbossa rolled his eyes heavenward. "Most certainly not."

"To friendship estranged."

"Try again."

"To... currently bitter rivalry, and the hopes that it may once again bloom into --"

Barbossa heaved a put-upon sigh. "May I?"

"I would like to give it one more attempt," she said, very nearly pouting.

"Very well, Mrs. Turner, but please, this time without any further ridiculous implications."

Elizabeth paused, an air of serious contemplation overtaking her features. "Aha!" she said finally, smiling brightly. "I have it!"

"Let's hear it, then."

"To Captains Turner and Sparrow. May they never lose whatever it is that makes them so maddeningly endearing."

"And may they be in one piece when we next meet 'em," he replied with a grin, "yours for your pleasure and mine for the enjoyment of takin' him apart myself."

-end-