Skull and Crossbones

By: Neko-chan



A/N: Well, today I finally got to see "Pirates of the Caribbean"! (Ne, today is 7/13/03) Anyway, I was inspired to write a pirate-focused ficu--but it has nothing to do with the actual movie. Well, it does, in a way. But lots of fiction have stories about pirates. And now it's my turn to attempt a fanfiction pirate-based ficu on my own. *cackles* Also, I have used a couple of phrases and scenes from "Pirates of the Caribbean." For those of you who've seen the movie... you'll understand why I couldn't resist the temptation of using them. D

Just to give you guys a heads up, there WILL be lots and lots of original characters, but I will try my hardest not to create any Mary Sues or Gary Stues. And I _will_ commit suicide if one of my characters does become one of... _them_.

WARNING: Will contain shounen-ai. Yami no Yuugi/Yuugi-focused. Other pairings will be made apparent in the story. Language. (Hey, they ARE pirates, after all!) ::End::

DISCLAIMER: Yu-Gi-Oh! does not belong to Neko-chan in any way, shape, or form. She does pine for a Yami no Malik-sama plushie, however. ;_; "Pirates of the Caribbean" is owned by Disney. Neko-chan wishes that it wasn't so, for she wouldn't mind owning a 'William Turner'-pet and 'Jack Sparrow'-pet. "Skull and Crossbones" is _inspired_ by "Pirates of the Caribbean," not based upon it. All original characters are copyright to Neko-chan. Use of them without permission will cause your death. A very _slow_ and _painful_ death. The lesson? Don't steal Neko-chan's original characters.



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Chapter One: Captain Blondebeard

The night air was filled with screams. Cries and wails of pain echoed against the alleys and the houses, multiplying them so that it seemed as if the whole entire port city was writhing in agony. Mixed in with the pain-filled cries was laughter--mocking and sadistic and cruel. The men pillaging and destroying seemed all the more evil with the fires as their backdrop. All Hell seemed to have broken loose from its bonds and restraints this night.

The city was engulfed in flames.

Shadows flickered across terrified features, making the huddled figure look ancient and withered. He whimpered and drew his legs closer to his body, his eyes tightly squeezing shut. The internal litany of 'Please don't see me, please don't see me, please don't see me' continued for what seemed like hours deep within his mind, running over and over again with no end in sight. And yet, still, he cried and begged and whimpered, small cries escaping his lips to meld into the roar of the flames above him.

"Please, please, please, please, please..." the hoarse whisper was finally let loose from his mouth. "Oh, Kami... please!"

"And what do we have here, mates? Looks like a little one actually managed to get away from us," a cold voice hissed from the shadows just beyond his range of vision. The small boy's whimpers increased and he buried his face even deeper into the shelter of his knees.

"Looks like the poor thing is scared stiff," another voice commented.

"Who wouldn't be, seeing your ugly faces, you scallywags?" This time, it was a female speaking. She stepped into the light made by the flickers of the fire and the boy paused momentarily in his continuous litany to look up. She was tall--made even taller by the heeled boots that she wore. They came up to mid-calf and went over baggy pants; an ordinary tunic and overcoat completed her outfit. Her hair was long, coming to the backs of her knees. In the eerie twilight provided by the fire, the color of her hair looked either auburn or red--the small boy couldn't tell which. Small sections of her hair was divided up into braids while the rest hung freely about her body.

As the woman stepped closer, the boy finally noticed something that hadn't been apparent before: Tucked in her belt were two pistols and a sword. A very _sharp_ sword.

The boy gave a cry and quickly jumped up, about to sprint for safety. He finally realized just who these people were--had known who they were from the start, but had been denying who they were to himself from the moment he had heard the first voice. Pirates.

The very same pirates who had set fire to his home city.

Quick as a snake, the woman's hand darted out and seized his wrist. She pulled him to her and gripped his chin, lifting his face to look into her own. Her dark eyes widened for a moment... but then she began to smile. "Ah, buckos. We're saving this one for the cap'n. Come on, the fires are nearly spent and we'll be pulling out soon enough." She shoved the boy into the arms of the other two pirates and smiled. "Bring him with us." The woman continued to smile and finally gave the boy her full attention, " Seems as though you, my fine little friend, will be joining us on a sea voyage soon enough."

The boy began to quake as the pirates' laughter echoed throughout the night.



* * *



The tankard of ale unexpectedly dropped down beside him while his first mate hooked an arm around the chair opposite of him and plopped down into it haphazardly. The captain of the pirate ship the Rogue looked down at the ale and cocked an eyebrow at the girl. His first mate was in a suspiciously good mood. He wanted to know why--oftentimes, it boded unwell for others who stood in her way.

She gestured towards his drink with her tankard and lifted her own eyebrow in response. "Drink it before it gets warm. You know as well as I that it tastes like horse piss if it gets too warm. So, drink up! We've much to celebrate this night."

"Oh? And how is that, Red?"

The girl shrugged and idly played with a braid. "Just the usual to celebrate--killing, pillaging, raping, stealing. We've managed to get more loot than last time. Isn't that cause enough to celebrate, cap'n?"

Yami--named by the Japanese merchants he had terrorized and stole from when he had first become a pirate--scowled and took a sip from his tankard. ...and grimaced. As irritating as his first mate was sometimes, she was usually right about her liqueur: The lukewarm ale _did_ taste like horse piss. Red noticed his expression and laughed gaily, snickering as he spit it out on the floor of his cabin.

Once that was accomplished, he wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his overcoat and glared balefully at the ale. Finally, he sighed and turned his attention to the girl sitting across from him; she who was giving him the most innocent expression she could come up with.

"Red... I have known you for five years. I made you first mate because you're devious and intelligent and because you won't give up fighting until you're dead. I know you better than anyone else. Red, tell me what you're planning or I'll shoot you here myself."

The red-headed girl continued playing with the one braid and smiled at Yami indulgently as he cocked a gun and aimed it at her. She finally blinked long lashes and turned her attention to the doorway. "I've brought you a gift. Isn't that enough cause for a celebration... cap'n?"

Yami eyed her suspiciously once again. "You've brought me... a gift."

"Hai~," she caroled innocently. She normally didn't use his native Japanese unless she was planning something that he probably wouldn't like or was cursing the ears off of his crew. Yami had taught her Japanese early on and she had returned the favor by teaching him her own native tongue--Gaelic. He had quickly discovered that Gaelic was an extremely difficult language to learn, though he knew enough of it to curse her soundly when she did something exceptionally stupid. Like now, if the niggling suspicion was proven correct.

"Oi, get your ass in here, baka!" she yelled, throwing an empty glass bottle at the door to alert the guard outside to come in. Yami shook his head and rubbed the bridge of his nose--sometimes, just sometimes, he wanted to know what he had been thinking in making her his first mate. It hadn't particularly helped when Red had quickly made friends with the other two females on the Rogue: Mai and Isis.

They were... interesting together, to say that least.

As he was thinking this, the guard came into the quarters, dragging a slight burden behind him. When the guard stopped, Yami was finally able to see what that slight burden was. He blinked and huge violet eyes blinked back. Long lashes brushed against cream-colored cheeks while the small boy bit his lip in fear, his melancholy gaze darting down to the floor when he noticed that Yami's eyes had widened to an almost comical extent.

"This is Yuugi, Yami. I found him huddled in a corner of an alleyway in the last port town we attacked. He was alone and he looked so much like you... So I decided to bring him along on the Rogue!" Red cheerfully exclaimed, returning her booted feet to the floor and standing up fluidly.

Of course, she hadn't mentioned the fact that Yuugi had been dressed in little more than rags and had been so dirt-encrusted that it had taken nearly two hours of scrubbing to get him clean. Now the small boy was dressed in one of her extra tunics and breeches, the clothing looking almost comically huge on him. But Yami didn't need to know that. After all, what he didn't know wouldn't hurt him.

"He's going to be our new cabin boy and your personal servant. Yuugi, this is Captain Yami of the pirate ship the Rogue. Though... with that dark of a scowl, I'm surprised no one has ever mistaken him for Captain Blackbeard. Just you wait---years from now, people'll be calling him Captain Blondebeard! 'Course... cap'n would first have to grow a beard in order to be called Blonde_beard_..." She smiled innocently and widened her eyes. "So, Yami, what do you think of your present?"

Yami sighed and shot Red his fiercest glare. "You're lying about something. I want the truth from you. _Now_, Red."

"The truth? You want the truth?" Gray eyes blinked at him innocently. He fought the urge to give the order to dunk her overboard. Idly, he wondered if she would float...

"Hai, I want the truth from you, Red. NOW."

For the second time in a row, she blinked innocently, her lashes batting at him in a flirting manner. He growled at her and she laughed. "Well. You want the truth, Yami? I brought Yuugi aboard the Rogue so that you and he could screw each other until your eyes rolled back in your head and you collapsed of exhaustion."

Yami's jaw dropped and he could only gape at her, his mouth opening and closing like a dying fish's. Yuugi, on the other hand, turned bright red and buried his face in the guard's pants leg. The guard, used to the bantering between his captain and his first mate, stared blankly ahead, determined not to hear or understand a word of what they were saying. So far he had been able to accomplish his goal. Of course, that could easily be remedied--but he hoped to his god that that wouldn't be the case.

"Now, dear heart, I know how much you adore and love me, but you must understand that it would have never worked between the two of us," Red continued on wistfully, reaching forward to pinch one of Yami's cheeks. "I would have never been able to return your love, no matter how close we'd have become. Oh, how cruel the Fates have been to the two of us!"

That said, she snickered to herself and swaggered out of the cabin, off to find Mai and Isis, leaving three extremely dumbfounded males behind. Yami was the first to recover, jerking out of shock to send a dark scowl towards Red's retreating back.

"One of these days I'm going to have you walk the plank, Red!"

"Even the sharkies need to eat sometime, Yami!" she retorted over her shoulder.

Once she was completely out of earshot, Yami mumbled something about 'Davie Jones' locker,' 'planks,' and 'sharks' under his breath while continuing to glare off in the direction in which Red had gone off in. Yuugi blinked and edged forward.

"Why are you so upset at Red-san?" he quietly asked, titling his head to one side while staring at the pirate captain quizzically. The ruby-eyed man paused in his muttering to finally give the smaller male a once-over. Closer up, Yami could see that he had grossly misjudged Yuugi's age. Though small, he looked to be about sixteen or seventeen--just several years younger than Yami himself.

Yami blinked again and once more turned his gaze to the direction in which Red had gone, scowling darkly. "Because she's irritating. And she's devious. And she's planning something I know that I won't enjoy."

"But isn't Red-san your friend?"

The captain shrugged. "Red is Red. That's the only way to describe her. Now..." he began, eyeing his small guest. "Who are you and why did Red bring you here to my ship?"

Yuugi smiled slightly and bowed to the pirate captain, never taking his eyes off of Yami's own. "My name is Mutou Yuugi. And Red-san took me because..." His violet eyes quickly flickered down but then once again returned to Yami's a moment later. Of course, Yami could easily tell that Yuugi was going to lie to him: The violet orbs were flat and blank--no emotion seeped out nor did any seep _in._ "Iie... I do not know why Red-san took me aboard your ship, Captain Yami. Perhaps you should ask her yourself."

The ruby-eyed boy tilted his head to one side, still staring at Yuugi with an assessing gaze. He finally smiled, his eyelashes forming into black crescent moons upon his cheekbones. Yuugi blinked--and the spell was broken.

"So, Yuugi... Would you like to join me for lunch?"

And the much smaller boy returned the smile, his own lashes gently falling over his eyes. "Hai. I would like that very much, Captain Yami. Domo arigatou."

"You are welcome, Yuugi."

"...ah."

"Whatever you do, don't drink the ale, Yuugi! It's horse piss!" Red's voice was heard caroling from up above them on the deck. Isis laughed and Yami could hear Mai add in some choice expressions for herself--something akin to it not being fair to get Yuugi drunk just to take advantage of him. Of course, the rest of the crew burst out laughing.

Yuugi giggled.

It was then that Yami decided that he would kill Red, make Mai walk the plank, and get a completely new crew as soon as humanly possible.

Red and Mai added something more and the crew laughed harder.

"I hope neither of them float..." Yuugi heard Yami mutter to himself.





A/N: *cowers in fear* Gomen ne! Gomen ne! I couldn't resist starting a new ficu! *scurries off to hide from reviewers*

Random Note: I like Red. And Mai. And Isis. And Yami. And Yuugi. And Yami no Malik-sama. And I like Jack Sparrow. *group glomps them all*