A Gajevy AU oneshot mix of Pirates of the Caribbean and The Mummy.
Rated M for language and possible frightening descriptions.
This is what happens when you eat too many chocolate espresso beans and ask chat for a prompt (thanks btw). Up all night writing due to heavy insomnia, unending inspiration, and literal magic beans.'
Treasure Hunters: Morgan's Lost Chest
'Salty' wasn't a term used in his daily vocabulary, but Gajeel was sure it was a better word than what came to mind for the tiny spitfire currently berating his excavation team on the main deck. With a quick sigh, he tilted his head and emptied the soda can of its last drops.
The Sea Withers' weather deck carried the large various equipment needed to unearth what they all hoped would lead to the fabled Morgan Chest, reputed to have been lost for centuries when the pirate crew's mutiny went awry.
Golden treasure hidden away waiting to be uncovered sung its siren song.
When he approached the crew on deck, the woman - her finger pointed at one of his team member's chest- turned her attention to him. Her eyes darkened upon the sight. "You," she said with a low hiss.
He greatly wished at that moment that like the gold-laden chest, she too could have become lost.
"May I help you?" He asked. His indifference to her plight was tinged with condescension. His brow furrowed as he put his hands on his hips.
"This is how you treat a colleague!? I worked my butt off to get the rights for this location!" She cried and moved towards him, and though he towered above her, she wielded the finger like a sword.
Gajeel watched the index finger wag at him, almost making him go cross-eyed. He then looked at her reddened face. "Levy, is it?" He started.
Her cerulean locks shook with her anger. "Do not 'Levy' me. I mean it."
He smirked. "I was here first."
Levy all but threw herself at him. "Of course you are! You stole my papers!"
A short sound came from his mouth as he corrected, "I commandeered them."
Levy looked as though she were about to explode. She balled her fists and cocked back ready to throw one when someone came up and redirected her.
Laxus held her away from his team leader as Gajeel called to drop anchor. He let her go to roughly pull herself away from him and righting her t-shirt in the process. A dirty look was all she could muster.
There was nothing she could do about the deranged crew leader and the theft of her hard-earned property. It was by all rights her claim, whatever should they dig up. Taking a deep breath, she tried to calm herself for the sake of their one goal.
"Alright, listen up ladies!" Gajeel called. He pulled his polarized sunglasses down to his face. "A-Team down to ground and scout, B-Team unload the ee-quip. Slow an' steady."
"What about her, sir?" Laxus asked. He gestured to the only woman on site.
Gajeel turned. He didn't want to have to deal with her griping about what he did or did not do. He shrugged. "She stays on the ship."
"I most certainly will not!" Levy shouted angrily.
"Fine," he snapped. He struggled not to roll his eyes. She was a definite pain in his ass and it wasn't even noon. "You can come. But no complaining. Stay on my six. I'm not gonna search for your body if you turn up missing."
Levy was already on the rope ladder on the way down to the small boat below as he spoke.
She, however, rolled hers.
"Gee, thanks. I'll keep that in mind," she said aloud, and then added quietly, "You butthole…"
Once they were on the shore, both teams worked to bring the equipment to solid ground. While they hauled the last of it, Gajeel let the gentle waves lap at his boots as he surveyed the length of the beach.
Most of it was sand as far as the eye could see in either direction. Not more than forty yards inland the sand gave way to grass and trees. Further in was a mixed mass of rock and greenery of which the top could not be seen.
He slowly started up the sand towards a fallen tree trunk.
"Where are you going?" Levy asked. When he didn't answer, she pursed her lips and trudged after him, incoherently muttering along the way.
When she caught up with him, he was standing with one foot up on the log looking down at the map of the island in his hands.
"It's supposed to be here," he said to himself. His finger swirled over an area on the unfolded paper.
Levy peered over his arms to see where he was pointing. "How long do you think it'll take?"
"Dunno."
"Well, what do you think we should do first? I mean," she paused mid-sentence to swat at a flying insect crossing in front of her face. "Taking account for everyone on the payroll who follows us there."
Gajeel bit his cheek and then turned his head away from her to spit. "Dunno yet."
"I mean for tonight. For dinner and sleeping arrangements. It's not going to happen over-"
Cutting her off with a huff, Gajeel turned his head to her, the map crinkling in his fists. He seethed, "I don't know, dammit! And I'm not gonna know if you keep runnin' your piehole. I've never been here before, ya know."
Levy scowled at him and at the tone he used with her. She blew out a breath. "Neither have I but I did research before my approved documentation was stolen."
That piqued Gajeel's interest. He calmly looked at her.
"What kind of research?"
Levy opened her mouth to speak but promptly shut it. She gave him a sarcastic look -a wag of her eyebrows and a head tilt- and crossed her arms over her chest. She wasn't going to oblige if her questions would be waved off and ignored.
He shook his head, his eyes narrowed. "Naw, don't give me that bullshit. Since we have to work together, it's in your best interest to tell me everything you know. To help the rest of the crew. For a successful excavation."
She waved a hand out in front of her face and looked at him in her peripheral to see what he would do while she kept silent on her secret knowledge.
He didn't wait long. He breathed a rough sigh and let slip a quiet curse before going back to the map.
And she wouldn't tell him either. If he was going to be an asshole on all fronts, then some secrets were worth keeping to herself. And right now she was the only one she could trust.
The sun disappeared beyond the horizon when the crew finished settling the main camp. Small tents were pegged in the stretch of green vegetation between the beach and the rest of the jungle-like terrain. The night air cooled the island considerably. It was something which Levy had forgotten to take into account when she bounded off in search for Gajeel's ship.
She sat shivering on the same log from earlier in the day in front of the lively fire. Focusing on the orange flames, she jumped when something soft dropped onto her head.
"Put it on before you freeze." Gajeel sat down unceremoniously beside her.
She uttered her thanks and pulled the sweatshirt over her shoulders. Warmth quickly seeped into her bones. A deep breath drew in a fresh manly scent, which told her he had recently worn it.
A coffee mug in his hand, he sipped at it and cleared his throat, keeping his eyes on the burning wood. The two of them sat in silence for some time, listening to the camp crackle with the crew's intermittent conversations and the nightly music of the island's various insects and other wildlife.
Levy looked over at the expedition's captain. Her fellow relic hunter seemed to be the type to hate waiting on others but also refused to ask for help or directions. As much as she hated the idea of him taking her claims for himself, he had a point in that they were now in it together whether it was desired or not.
They had to work as a cohesive team.
"You wouldn't like it even if I told you." Her voice cracked when she finally spoke.
His immediate response to her statement told her he had indeed been waiting on her said research.
"That so. And what would that be?"
"It's said there's a curse on the gold, any who open the chest or touch its contents are doomed for eternal misery in Davy Jones' Locker."
Gajeel coughed down the hot liquid. He snorted back a laugh and caught her gaze, her eyes alight from the glowing fire. He asked simply, "And you believe that shit? Are you an archaeologist or a superstitious historian?"
The woman was slightly taken aback. "Do you really think I'd be telling a made-up story? There's proof in the texts I found in Port Royal."
His hard stare bore a hole into her skull. Ha ha. She was pulling his leg. She had to be. When she stared back just as hard, he knew she was serious. Turning back to the fire, he gave a smile and said, "There's no such thing as curses."
A cold wind brushed through the camp. It stirred the fire and blew the hair from both of their faces.
"The ocean wind from the beach," he said, a matter of fact. He sat back and stretched out his legs.
Levy pursed her lips and stood up. She raised her chin but squinted down at him. There was no way the impossible man would believe it without physical evidence, and there was no way of obtaining it.
He stared back with a smug expression and put his hands behind his head.
"I know what I read, Mr. Redfox, captain," she said, holding her arms tightly over her chest against the cold air. "I don't need or want your condescending-"
In her rush to leave, the toe of her boot caught part of the log that had rotted off. Before she could throw her arms out to catch herself, she stumbled forward in the direction of her broad-shouldered rival.
The coffee mug spilled its contents on the ground beside Gajeel as Levy's weight dropped straight down into his lap.
Standing one moment, the next she was gazing up at the surprise plastered on him. She was well aware of his arms tightly folded over her body.
He gaped wide-eyed. "You ok?" He asked.
"Y-yea," she murmured, still shocked at the sudden change. Her nose briefly grazed his cheek and she could smell the dried sweat on his skin.
And for some reason, it smelled good.
A blush crept into her cheeks. She scrambled to her feet, left as quickly as the dark would let her and hoped he wouldn't bring it up in the morning.
Gajeel observed with a heightened excitement as the last bit of debris was removed from the roped-off digging area. Three full days of digging away as much dirt as possible in the humid air had taken most of the remaining patience he had left.
The deep pit revealed what appeared to be broken bits of old pitch-covered wood. Pieces of frayed rope and other non-degradable material surrounded an old, half-buried chest.
"Break out the cooler," Laxus called out. He stood above on the topsoil. He tossed their leader a glass container which sloshed with golden-brown liquid.
Gajeel untwisted the cap. "A round of Captain Morgan!" He exclaimed, then brought the bottle to his mouth for the first sip. He passed it to the closest man.
As he and the others celebrated their discovery, Levy felt an uneasiness. She had suspected some kind of supernatural boobytrap, but none came to slow down their progress. The lack thereof made her become overly cautious.
"Come on," Gajeel said to her without looking her way. No trace of their brief conversation the few nights before -and what had accidentally occurred between them- appeared to be of any concern to him.
Levy watched from her perch above them on the ground untouched by the digging equipment. Glancing around at the surrounding environment, she couldn't shake the odd feeling. She wanted to warn him again, but would her heed only fall on deaf ears?
"Gajeel, wait," she called anyways.
Standing by the chest and posing for pictures with other crew members, he seemed not to notice her. Only when the pit cleared away did he remember she had called to him.
He put one large hand on her shoulder and said, "We found it."
"Yes, I can see. Please don't touch it yet."
He huffed. "Levy, I'm telling you, there's nothing going to happen."
Despite his rebuke of the truth and reliability of her "research", he took his hand from her, but kept his other hand on his hip. With her experience in professionally recovering lost artifacts for science and the occasional museum, he let her take point to inspect it.
Levy approached the chest, assuming control of the situation. Bending at the waist, she put her hands on her knees.
Behind her came a clearing of a throat. Gajeel shifted his weight. He tried to not notice her short blue jean shorts rising up the underside of her thigh. His gaze averted, but only for a second. An inaudible grunt of slight arousal settled in his chest.
Oblivious, her eyes roamed over the old wooden box. Rusty iron strips were nailed into the decaying wood at the corners. Bugs crawled over parts around the bottom. It looked like anything someone could dig up if one went deep enough. The closer she got to it, the more it revealed of itself.
Walking around it and without physical contact with it, she closely inspected the front side. The standard keyhole lock from the era was missing. Red crumbly bits of rust settled on the iron rest where it would have been. A faint inscription was etched on the domed lid above the iron edging. A black substance stained its surface.
She frowned. Her stomach threatened to empty itself. The ancient documentation in Port Royal had to be accurate.
"What is it?" Gajeel asked.
Pointing, Levy read aloud the message carved into the rotten mahogany, "'Gold, silver, all treasures this chest has carried now lives to tell of souls long dead and tarried'."
Gajeel's brows furrowed. "The fuck," he grumbled. He quickly moved to her side, his eyes on their prize. "What does that even mean?"
He reached out a hand to flip the lid away to peer inside. Levy gasped and caught his arm, pulling it towards her.
"No! Don't do that!"
"Levy!" He roared in frustration.
One of the crew members hopped down into the pit. "If you two aren't gonna, let me, for fuck's sake..."
He quickly threw the lid back.
Levy, still clinging to Gajeel's arm, shut her eyes. Gajeel glanced down at her as she squeezed his limb tighter. Her forehead brushed against his bicep.
The crew member fell silent. No one spoke. The seconds that ticked by seemed more like minutes. Gajeel shifted his weight once again in his impatience.
"Well?"
The crewman's shoulders fell. His tone was one of shock. "It's empty."
Levy's eyes shot open. She spoke at the same moment as Gajeel.
"It is?"
"Come again?"
He shook off Levy's hold and was beside the brave crew member in one stride, dead set on seeing for himself. It had to be a joke. They spent way too much time and effort to come up short.
There was nothing inside. Not even dirt or sand.
Levy had hoped that despite the warning that there would lie some kind of treasure. It didn't have to be gold or other precious jewels or the like. She would have been ecstatic with an old half-filled journal. Or a comb. Or even a spoon.
She looked at Gajeel, defeated. "Now what?"
A dull, dumping sound filled the pit, like a pile of dirt dumped onto concrete. It gradually became louder.
A surprised cry spouted from the only person known to have touched what was supposed to have been a bountiful riches.
Gajeel looked in disgust at the crewman's arm as it turned a pale green with a shattered cracking pattern snaking across the skin right before his waking eyes.
He put his arm in front of Levy and backed them both to the excavation pit's edge. "Lax, are you seeing this?" His voice seemed both distant and as if he were shouting at the same time.
Laxus replied. "Yea…"
The others were watching the scene unfold, not knowing what was going on or what to do; obviously, no one had trained for something such as this.
The first mate hesitantly pulled the pistol from his holster and brought it up. He didn't want to point it at his friends, but what was happening below to one of them was not normal by any standards. "And I don't like it."
The man's skin went from the pale green to gray, the cracks webbing out began to widen, until one of his wrists severed from the rest of the lifeless limb. The man who had opened the chest was decaying at an unbelievably fast rate.
Levy abruptly turned upon the realization. She made a grab for the hanging rope ladder. Her breaths came shallow and hurried, her only thoughts were of getting out unscathed.
The crewman's face began to change colors. He twitched and jerked while the deterioration accelerated. One of his kneecaps slid diagonally down to the side, causing his leg to turn unnaturally when he attempted to take a step. When he moved his head, the gray skin cracking like dried mud broke loose. The mandible beneath unhinged itself from the skull, permanently propping open the man's mouth.
"Climb faster," Gajeel murmured.
The undead stepped out in his direction.
"Faster, Levy," he repeated with more force.
His colleague was halfway up the ladder. He shoved his hand upwards and cupped one of her ass cheeks, pushing her the rest of the way so he could begin his ascent to get the hell out.
Once she was at the top, a gunshot fired once and echoed into the rest of the island. Levy turned to see Gajeel hurrying up the ladder and the undead shipmate now without an arm on his way towards them.
Laxus fired another shot that missed.
"Has anyone else touched the chest?!" Levy shouted. Goosebumps traveled down her arms and legs. She hoped and prayed it was just the one.
If others had as she suspected, no one confessed. A commotion of mixed shouts and warnings came from the campsite. A few crew members cleared out of the way before the same thing that had just occurred in the pit began to eat away at two more.
Morgan's curse was spreading.
Gajeel scrambled to his feet once he reached solid ground. He yanked the ladder out in case the undead could come up after him. The rotted body loosed a sound that would have been a snarl and clawed at the dirt wall.
"So much for buried treasure, shoulda known," Gajeel roughly spat. In two quick strides, he was right next to Levy.
She gave him a disapproving look. "I tried to tell you."
"Yea, yea." He took her hand and swiftly guided them away from the excavation pit.
The main camp was in disarray. The undead was numerous, turning the others who had ignorantly treated the dig site as every other they previously created.
"We gotta get to the ship before they do."
A half snarl growl from the freshly dead warned Gajeel of its proximity in time for him to snatch up one of the cooking pans by the fire and connect it with the side of its ugly, deformed face. The remnants of their earlier breakfast unstuck itself to snag on the zombie's protruding nasal bone.
It fell to the ground, but of course, nothing could kill an undead in this case, given that it was unleashed via a curse.
He picked up another pan and shoved it into Levy's hand. "It won't kill them, but it'll keep you alive," he stated. He gave her a hard, meaningful gaze, shifting to both of her eyes. "Stay on my ass, Lev."
At her nod, he looked both ways for incoming bogeys and then rushed forward in the direction of the beach.
Gunshots echoed, screams and shouts of men running for their lives met their ears. They lept for the grassy trail which led straight for the ocean. Skinny tree trunks and other tall plants flashed by in a blur as they hightailed it, as fast as the overgrown vegetation would allow.
Gajeel used his pan like a sword and wacked two unsuspecting undeads clear off their broken feet. Bits of dust plumed out in small clouds from the contact made with his makeshift but effective weapon.
When they reached the beach's hot sand, he looked over his shoulder. The fierce little woman abruptly stopped and swung her frying pan like a baseball bat at the zombie following close behind her.
She gave a short grunt with the effort. The bottom of the weapon smacked the unnatural creature, its head popped off and flew back the way they came. Dust clouded the air in her wake. The undead body crumpled in a heap to the ground.
A clean headshot.
The display of power greatly impressed Gajeel.
Her next step onto the beach was a stumble, but he was there to catch her in one of his arms.
"Careful," he murmured. His gaze lingered on her face as he set her upright.
She saw the look in his eyes. A red-tinged her cheeks. Before he could see it, she grabbed his arm with her free hand and gave a tough tug. Her voice was breathless, "We can't stand around, come on!"
They ran for The Sea Wither still at anchor a distance away in deeper water. The smaller boat they came to shore in sat untouched on the dry sand, the motor flipped upside down inside for storage.
When Levy bounded into it, Gajeel started to shove the boat towards the water. They heard a loud shout for them to wait.
Laxus lead a few others out of the fray. They wielded various objects from camp, frantically booking it over the loose sand. The first mate slowed to a stop and immediately helped Gajeel in pushing the large vessel.
The others threw themselves into the boat, breathing heavily, scared out of their wits. Odd weaponry lay on the boat floor: another frying pan, a shovel, a machete, a long stick, a foldable chair. She gave credit for creativity within the group of people still alive.
"Alright, let's get the hell out of dodge," Gajeel said to Laxus and nodded.
Two other crewmen pulled their leader into the boat while Laxus readied the motor by securing it onto its mount. He yanked the pull cord and it suddenly came to life.
"What about the equipment? Everyone else still out there?" A man asked. He gripped his crowbar with white knuckles.
"It's not worth the risk. Not right now."
With the motorboat gaining speed towards their ticket home, Gajeel looked back to see more decomposing bodies now emerging from the cursed island. He took a breath and turned to Levy. "Whoever's left isn't going to last," he admitted aloud for everyone to hear above the motor's roar.
Biting her lip, Levy had to turn away from the beach. She shook from adrenaline still coursing through her veins. The cold sea air didn't help either. She felt the warmth radiating from Gajeel when he sat next to her. What comfort she could feel came from him.
The boat slowed when they arrived at the ship. One by one they wasted no time in boarding the massive ship. The first thing he did after making sure what remained of his crew were safely aboard, Gajeel entered the bridge and created a distress call on the appropriate channels.
Levy sat in one of the main chairs and listened as he successfully made contact with the mainland. In her relief knowing there would be a rescue, her gaze shifted from the ships controls to the beach.
"Gajeel, y-you need to s-see this," she stuttered. Fear was again present in her voice.
He put down the radio and glanced up. He did a sharp double-take. "You gotta be kidding me! These fuckers can swim?!"