Final Round - Part 2
AN- I had a lot of fun with this story, really. I'm not much of a humorous person, so I appreciated all of you out there who humored me and told me I was. *smiles* Thank ye all!
And as for those that suggested I write something else after this, I'll think about it. Depends on the response here, I suppose. I tend to lose interest in all the long fanfics I write, so... we'll see!
~Seph
~*~*~*~*~
Several minutes later, Elizabeth had returned. True to her words, she found Jack a dress, a frilly pink oversized one that would fit even the rogue. It was not one she would lament over ruining, but from the pirate's reaction, Jack would definitely lament over wearing.
"Darling, really, I don't think this is necessary." Jack had gotten up as soon as Elizabeth had appeared and was in the process of backing away. His fingers were twitching before him, as if they would provide meager protection against the horrible gown. "Pink's not my color..."
"Come on, Jack." Trying to be supportive of the pirate's fate, Will stepped up beside his friend and placed a hand on Jack's shoulder. "No one will know, it's only us." Jack shot him a very dubious look that made Will sigh. "You have to, it's your dare." Jack never explained to them what the loser must do, but Will thought just the prospect of losing might shake the captain, and Jack didn't strike him as the type who liked to lose.
At least Jack wasn't backing up anymore, the blacksmith thought as he began to guide a really reluctant pirate to where Elizabeth was waiting with both dress and corset.
Jack took one look towards the item that would surely impede upon his breathing and glanced towards at Elizabeth hopefully with his most charming smile flashing. "Can we use a bodice instead?"
Again, she crushed his hopes. "No, we agreed to a corset." That girl was worse than Barbossa, the pirate readily decided. While musing over that, he wondered if he should have shot her on that island after all. It would have saved him a lot of grief...
Noticing the impatient glares that his two friends, yes, friends as friendly as his mutinous first mate, his mind grumbled, Jack sighed with a tone of resignation. There can be no living with the lass, nor Will after this... Which puts the thought to Jack's mind that those two were perfect for one another. "Perfectly unfit for piracy," he muttered as he proceeded to take off his coat.
"You said something?" Will's attempt to look innocent was ruined by the wide grin swinging across his lips. Makes him look like a bloody fool too, Jack's mind added in a feeble attempt to lighten his sinking heart. Another glance at the corset and dress made him decide that nothing in that attire could keep his heart floating.
So, with utmost unwillingness, Jack removed the rest of his effects. The belt with both cutlass and pistol was carefully placed over the love seat's armrest beside his outer coat, which had been thrown carelessly there. His captain's tricorn joined the items, and Jack winced when Elizabeth very unmindfully threw it over the hilt of his cutlass to clear room for the rest of his items.
Holding up both hands in motions to pacify the cruel way the lass was treating his poor effects, he turned to Elizabeth with a pleading look. "Easy on the goods, darling."
Elizabeth held up the whale bone corset in reply, causing Jack's eyebrows to suddenly raise. "Isn't that the one I cut open?" He winced when he caught Will turning a harsh glare on him.
"You cut open her corset?!"
Switching to pacifying the younger man instead, Jack found himself taking a step backwards. "An action I quite regret, I assure you."
"It was when I fell from the battlements, I couldn't breath." Elizabeth explained as she thrust the hard item into the Jack's hands. The look the pirate gave the item would lead one to believe that it was the corset's fault he had to wear it.
Awkwardly, he placed it around himself. It wasn't that Captain Jack Sparrow had no experience with these items, he had removed them often enough from women, though the fiery lass behind him being a peculiar case, but he never had to put one on before. And of all the amazing feats the infamous pirate can perform, lacing up a corset all by his onesie was not one of them.
Just as he was contemplating if he should ask someone to help so he could get his dare over with or not, Elizabeth, he didn't know whether to bless or curse her, saw his predicament. "Don't move," she instructed as she took up the lacings.
"Darling..." Jack began protesting, hoping to make a final stand against this humiliation. In the place of answering, Elizabeth pulled on the lacings, and instantly, protesting was forgotten as a sharp yelp was extracted from him instead. Jack had heard complaints of corsets being confining, but he never thought they would be this tight!
Even Will looked a bit sympathetic as he watched the captain squirm. "Does it have to be so tight?" In his point of view, Jack looked nearly as miserable as when Elizabeth poured out his rum.
"Yes." Jack tried to glance behind him but the lass pushed his head back around. "Stay still," she commanded before explaining to Will, "He won't fit in the dress otherwise." Jack frowned and looked towards Will with a slapped pirate look on his face. How could she sound so matter-of-factly when tying a corset, on a man, was beyond both men.
With a final tight pull and a sharp yelp from the pirate, the gruesome task of putting on a corset was complete. Elizabeth stepped away to admire her work even as Jack waved his arms out to his sides and did the same. Will tapped his chin with a finger. It amazed him to see how even in a corset, Jack's demeanor still hasn't changed.
Waving his arms about him in a large grandeur, the pirate tilted his head to one side and took a swaying step forward to study his ridiculous reflection in the window's glass panes. One eyebrow raised and fell before he turned and gave Elizabeth his grandest close mouthed smile. "You did a great job, luv." His smile broadened to reveal his teeth as well. "Now can I remove this thing?"
"No, of course not! You still have to put on that dress." Moving around the bound up pirate, Elizabeth picked the pink dress up from where it was draped across the love seat's backing.
Jack attempted to back away, and would have succeeded too if Will wasn't once again between him and his way out. So instead of moving in the opposite direction from that frilly thing, he ended up bumping against a solid wall of flesh. Grimacing, Jack took a step forward and faced the approaching woman. "I had rather hoped we were beyond this..."
If Captain Jack Sparrow had kept the Mistress Luck under his sails for so long, it would seem that on this day, his mistress had deserted him. In the following minutes, despite his lavish protestations and uncooperative movements, the infamous captain of the feared Black Pearl, the same man who made a daring breakout from under the seven agents of the East India company, the one who could conjure up a miraculous leaving from an island he was marooned, could not escape a simple woman's garment.
After several uncomfortable minutes, the most uncomfortable being for the pirate himself, Elizabeth and Will finally got Jack to wear the lacy pink dress that Elizabeth had so thoughtfully picked out. And upon completion, all three of them had to agree that the captain looked absolutely comical.
Grimacing while watching Will suffer between peals of unsuccessfully stifled laughter, Jack turned to find Elizabeth was making no effort at all to stifle hers. He glanced down at himself, and as if coming to a decision, a slow admiring smile spread across his features. "Well, I suppose..." He extended his arms out to the side again, "...this dress doesn't look too bad."
If Will had thought about reducing his rather loud chuckles, that final comment had unraveled him. The blacksmith found himself laughing to the degree that he had to support himself against the sofa seats.
Right at that critical moment, the double doors to the room swung open with a wooden whoosh. Silence fell like a blanket over the room until it was at last broken by a father looking for their daughter. "Elizabeth! There you are! Commodore Nor-"
Three pairs of eyes turned hastily to the doorway and locked upon the two figures standing there. Inwardly, Jack groaned. Could the governor and commodore have chosen a less opportune moment to come searching for the dear Miss Swann?
"Well, if it isn't Mr. Sparrow-"
Jack grinned up at the commodore as he weaved subtly past his two stunned friends towards where his effects were placed. "Captain," he corrected mildly. "If you please," he added as an afterthought for speaking to a commodore.
Norrington continued as if he hadn't heard the interruption, "-in a dress." From beside the commander, a groan of disgust sounded from the governor.
The pirate's eyes widened, and in an imitation of thoughtlessness, he glanced down at the frilled garment he wore. He was grinning when he looked up again. "A small misunderstanding," he explained with his fingers dancing through the air for emphasis. "Y'see, young Mr. Turner, the lovely Miss Swann, and I-" His explanation was cut short with an impatient wave from the commodore.
"Enough with these excuses." Jack watched as the commodore turned his head to further shout orders behind him, thereby leading the captain to believe there may be a troupe of unfashionable red coats just waiting outside. An excellent reason for him to cut his visit short.
Hastily, Jack threw on all of his removed items of clothing before the soldiers could storm in. The battered old coat that went swooping around his dress frilled shoulders bulged slightly to accommodate for the width of the dress and his belt with all its effects came to wrap snugly around his corset narrowed waist. The treasured hat was the last to be picked up, and that was fit fondly over the top of his head.
"Well, as much as I would love to stay..." Jack started as he slowly backed himself up towards that huge window he had seen earlier. Aside from the doorway that was quite thoroughly blocked by the two wigged gentlemen, the window would be his only other escape route.
A sudden twist in the paths his mind was wandering down made Jack pause in mid phrase. Training his eyes on the blacksmith standing halfway between him and Norrington, he asked, "Truth or dare, lad?"
When Will turned, he bore the expression of a man both confused and exasperated. In his gaze, Jack saw clearly his question of how could such a game continue when Norrington and his men was just around the corner, but being the true friend the blacksmith was, the lad answered, "Dare."
Jack had to give the boy credit for choosing dare in such a situation, but that wasn't the answer the pirate had wanted. What were the chances, the captain thought, that only time he wanted the lad to choose truth, and he picks dare. Letting out a short sigh, Jack motioned with his hand, "Say truth, lad."
Confused but trusting his friend, the young blacksmith obliged. "Truth."
Instantly, a golden teeth grin spread ear to ear on Jack's features. "Will..." He began the process of climbing out the window. Already, one leg was thrown over the sill, and luckily, since the room faced the back of the house, there were no red coats there. Yet.
Perhaps Jack allowed that thought to come too soon, for at that exact moment, several said gentlemen in bright long garbs of red, lead by their upstanding commodore, came rushing into the room. The pirate glanced at them warily as he threw his other leg over the ledge as well. At least they hadn't thought of surrounding the house.
From the back recess of his mind, he wondered if he shouldn't have taken Will's 'dare' after all and made the blacksmith stall them a bit, put those three hours of practicing per day to a good use. But upon reflection, there was the slight problem that the lad doesn't have a weapon.
"Jack, get out of here!" The shrill cry of the governor's daughter interrupted Jack of his reverie, and looking back up, he found Will was attempting to stop their uninvited guests anyway, sans weapon. As he peered closer, he realized that Will wasn't quite as empty handed as he had supposed, the boy was holding a bronze candleholder. A moue was spreading across the pirate's face as he regarded that desperate situation. The lad just couldn't survive a perilous situation without performing idiocy, could he? No infamous pirate in history ever faced down soldiers with a candle holder!
As Jack made himself ready to leap one off the high ledge of the window to the ground half a story below, he turned his head to give the struggling blacksmith a final question. "Lad, will ye watch me swing the gallows?"
And in the heat of battle, attempting to fend off several soldiers with a candleholder and its complimentary fat taper, Will spared a moment to look over his shoulder to shout loudly in response, "Aye!" Not realizing his mistake, it took a stranded look from the pirate captain, and a soft gasp from Elizabeth before Will's eyes widened and he shook his head. "I mean no!"
The answering grin was a wide one, and that trust of friendship required no other words, not htat he had time for them. Before those soldiers could overpower the poor lad, Jack leapt out of the house.
As per planned, Anamaria met him in the bushes, and together, the two made their way secretly away from the estates.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Short Epilogue:
The crew stared as Anamaria climbed aboard the Pearl with their captain... who was wearing, beneath his coat, a dress, a pink dress.
Jack stared right back at them, unabashed and refusing to be ashamed. "What are you scabrous dogs staring at?! Raise topsails! Man the braces, you barnyard humbugs! Get to it!"
In the face of their captain's orders, the gathered individuals quickly scattered, each going to their individually assigned tasks, all but two that was. Gibbs stood where he was, standing against the ledge with his canteen in hand, and Anamaria remained beside Jack. Both of them, it would seem, would not leave until they got a story from him.
"Woman needs to learn how to take shallow breaths," he muttered, to no one in particular. He was thinking of one individual to be certain, but said individual was still back in the governor's house. She should consider herself fortunate that Jack was the one wearing the corset, and not her. In the face of all that excitement, he will not condemn himself a second time by saving her.
When his low murmur raised already curious eyebrows even higher, Jack faced his two trusted crew mates. So in the form of three words, he told them in a tone that spoke of exasperation, "Truth or dare."
Jack paused, and a voice in the back of his mind told him he forgot something. Looking down at himself and seeing the pink clothing he still had on, the thought that went awry suddenly returned. Smiling pleasantly, he turned to the only lady onboard. "Anamaria, man the wheel. I'm gonna find me some rum."
AN- I had a lot of fun with this story, really. I'm not much of a humorous person, so I appreciated all of you out there who humored me and told me I was. *smiles* Thank ye all!
And as for those that suggested I write something else after this, I'll think about it. Depends on the response here, I suppose. I tend to lose interest in all the long fanfics I write, so... we'll see!
~Seph
~*~*~*~*~
Several minutes later, Elizabeth had returned. True to her words, she found Jack a dress, a frilly pink oversized one that would fit even the rogue. It was not one she would lament over ruining, but from the pirate's reaction, Jack would definitely lament over wearing.
"Darling, really, I don't think this is necessary." Jack had gotten up as soon as Elizabeth had appeared and was in the process of backing away. His fingers were twitching before him, as if they would provide meager protection against the horrible gown. "Pink's not my color..."
"Come on, Jack." Trying to be supportive of the pirate's fate, Will stepped up beside his friend and placed a hand on Jack's shoulder. "No one will know, it's only us." Jack shot him a very dubious look that made Will sigh. "You have to, it's your dare." Jack never explained to them what the loser must do, but Will thought just the prospect of losing might shake the captain, and Jack didn't strike him as the type who liked to lose.
At least Jack wasn't backing up anymore, the blacksmith thought as he began to guide a really reluctant pirate to where Elizabeth was waiting with both dress and corset.
Jack took one look towards the item that would surely impede upon his breathing and glanced towards at Elizabeth hopefully with his most charming smile flashing. "Can we use a bodice instead?"
Again, she crushed his hopes. "No, we agreed to a corset." That girl was worse than Barbossa, the pirate readily decided. While musing over that, he wondered if he should have shot her on that island after all. It would have saved him a lot of grief...
Noticing the impatient glares that his two friends, yes, friends as friendly as his mutinous first mate, his mind grumbled, Jack sighed with a tone of resignation. There can be no living with the lass, nor Will after this... Which puts the thought to Jack's mind that those two were perfect for one another. "Perfectly unfit for piracy," he muttered as he proceeded to take off his coat.
"You said something?" Will's attempt to look innocent was ruined by the wide grin swinging across his lips. Makes him look like a bloody fool too, Jack's mind added in a feeble attempt to lighten his sinking heart. Another glance at the corset and dress made him decide that nothing in that attire could keep his heart floating.
So, with utmost unwillingness, Jack removed the rest of his effects. The belt with both cutlass and pistol was carefully placed over the love seat's armrest beside his outer coat, which had been thrown carelessly there. His captain's tricorn joined the items, and Jack winced when Elizabeth very unmindfully threw it over the hilt of his cutlass to clear room for the rest of his items.
Holding up both hands in motions to pacify the cruel way the lass was treating his poor effects, he turned to Elizabeth with a pleading look. "Easy on the goods, darling."
Elizabeth held up the whale bone corset in reply, causing Jack's eyebrows to suddenly raise. "Isn't that the one I cut open?" He winced when he caught Will turning a harsh glare on him.
"You cut open her corset?!"
Switching to pacifying the younger man instead, Jack found himself taking a step backwards. "An action I quite regret, I assure you."
"It was when I fell from the battlements, I couldn't breath." Elizabeth explained as she thrust the hard item into the Jack's hands. The look the pirate gave the item would lead one to believe that it was the corset's fault he had to wear it.
Awkwardly, he placed it around himself. It wasn't that Captain Jack Sparrow had no experience with these items, he had removed them often enough from women, though the fiery lass behind him being a peculiar case, but he never had to put one on before. And of all the amazing feats the infamous pirate can perform, lacing up a corset all by his onesie was not one of them.
Just as he was contemplating if he should ask someone to help so he could get his dare over with or not, Elizabeth, he didn't know whether to bless or curse her, saw his predicament. "Don't move," she instructed as she took up the lacings.
"Darling..." Jack began protesting, hoping to make a final stand against this humiliation. In the place of answering, Elizabeth pulled on the lacings, and instantly, protesting was forgotten as a sharp yelp was extracted from him instead. Jack had heard complaints of corsets being confining, but he never thought they would be this tight!
Even Will looked a bit sympathetic as he watched the captain squirm. "Does it have to be so tight?" In his point of view, Jack looked nearly as miserable as when Elizabeth poured out his rum.
"Yes." Jack tried to glance behind him but the lass pushed his head back around. "Stay still," she commanded before explaining to Will, "He won't fit in the dress otherwise." Jack frowned and looked towards Will with a slapped pirate look on his face. How could she sound so matter-of-factly when tying a corset, on a man, was beyond both men.
With a final tight pull and a sharp yelp from the pirate, the gruesome task of putting on a corset was complete. Elizabeth stepped away to admire her work even as Jack waved his arms out to his sides and did the same. Will tapped his chin with a finger. It amazed him to see how even in a corset, Jack's demeanor still hasn't changed.
Waving his arms about him in a large grandeur, the pirate tilted his head to one side and took a swaying step forward to study his ridiculous reflection in the window's glass panes. One eyebrow raised and fell before he turned and gave Elizabeth his grandest close mouthed smile. "You did a great job, luv." His smile broadened to reveal his teeth as well. "Now can I remove this thing?"
"No, of course not! You still have to put on that dress." Moving around the bound up pirate, Elizabeth picked the pink dress up from where it was draped across the love seat's backing.
Jack attempted to back away, and would have succeeded too if Will wasn't once again between him and his way out. So instead of moving in the opposite direction from that frilly thing, he ended up bumping against a solid wall of flesh. Grimacing, Jack took a step forward and faced the approaching woman. "I had rather hoped we were beyond this..."
If Captain Jack Sparrow had kept the Mistress Luck under his sails for so long, it would seem that on this day, his mistress had deserted him. In the following minutes, despite his lavish protestations and uncooperative movements, the infamous captain of the feared Black Pearl, the same man who made a daring breakout from under the seven agents of the East India company, the one who could conjure up a miraculous leaving from an island he was marooned, could not escape a simple woman's garment.
After several uncomfortable minutes, the most uncomfortable being for the pirate himself, Elizabeth and Will finally got Jack to wear the lacy pink dress that Elizabeth had so thoughtfully picked out. And upon completion, all three of them had to agree that the captain looked absolutely comical.
Grimacing while watching Will suffer between peals of unsuccessfully stifled laughter, Jack turned to find Elizabeth was making no effort at all to stifle hers. He glanced down at himself, and as if coming to a decision, a slow admiring smile spread across his features. "Well, I suppose..." He extended his arms out to the side again, "...this dress doesn't look too bad."
If Will had thought about reducing his rather loud chuckles, that final comment had unraveled him. The blacksmith found himself laughing to the degree that he had to support himself against the sofa seats.
Right at that critical moment, the double doors to the room swung open with a wooden whoosh. Silence fell like a blanket over the room until it was at last broken by a father looking for their daughter. "Elizabeth! There you are! Commodore Nor-"
Three pairs of eyes turned hastily to the doorway and locked upon the two figures standing there. Inwardly, Jack groaned. Could the governor and commodore have chosen a less opportune moment to come searching for the dear Miss Swann?
"Well, if it isn't Mr. Sparrow-"
Jack grinned up at the commodore as he weaved subtly past his two stunned friends towards where his effects were placed. "Captain," he corrected mildly. "If you please," he added as an afterthought for speaking to a commodore.
Norrington continued as if he hadn't heard the interruption, "-in a dress." From beside the commander, a groan of disgust sounded from the governor.
The pirate's eyes widened, and in an imitation of thoughtlessness, he glanced down at the frilled garment he wore. He was grinning when he looked up again. "A small misunderstanding," he explained with his fingers dancing through the air for emphasis. "Y'see, young Mr. Turner, the lovely Miss Swann, and I-" His explanation was cut short with an impatient wave from the commodore.
"Enough with these excuses." Jack watched as the commodore turned his head to further shout orders behind him, thereby leading the captain to believe there may be a troupe of unfashionable red coats just waiting outside. An excellent reason for him to cut his visit short.
Hastily, Jack threw on all of his removed items of clothing before the soldiers could storm in. The battered old coat that went swooping around his dress frilled shoulders bulged slightly to accommodate for the width of the dress and his belt with all its effects came to wrap snugly around his corset narrowed waist. The treasured hat was the last to be picked up, and that was fit fondly over the top of his head.
"Well, as much as I would love to stay..." Jack started as he slowly backed himself up towards that huge window he had seen earlier. Aside from the doorway that was quite thoroughly blocked by the two wigged gentlemen, the window would be his only other escape route.
A sudden twist in the paths his mind was wandering down made Jack pause in mid phrase. Training his eyes on the blacksmith standing halfway between him and Norrington, he asked, "Truth or dare, lad?"
When Will turned, he bore the expression of a man both confused and exasperated. In his gaze, Jack saw clearly his question of how could such a game continue when Norrington and his men was just around the corner, but being the true friend the blacksmith was, the lad answered, "Dare."
Jack had to give the boy credit for choosing dare in such a situation, but that wasn't the answer the pirate had wanted. What were the chances, the captain thought, that only time he wanted the lad to choose truth, and he picks dare. Letting out a short sigh, Jack motioned with his hand, "Say truth, lad."
Confused but trusting his friend, the young blacksmith obliged. "Truth."
Instantly, a golden teeth grin spread ear to ear on Jack's features. "Will..." He began the process of climbing out the window. Already, one leg was thrown over the sill, and luckily, since the room faced the back of the house, there were no red coats there. Yet.
Perhaps Jack allowed that thought to come too soon, for at that exact moment, several said gentlemen in bright long garbs of red, lead by their upstanding commodore, came rushing into the room. The pirate glanced at them warily as he threw his other leg over the ledge as well. At least they hadn't thought of surrounding the house.
From the back recess of his mind, he wondered if he shouldn't have taken Will's 'dare' after all and made the blacksmith stall them a bit, put those three hours of practicing per day to a good use. But upon reflection, there was the slight problem that the lad doesn't have a weapon.
"Jack, get out of here!" The shrill cry of the governor's daughter interrupted Jack of his reverie, and looking back up, he found Will was attempting to stop their uninvited guests anyway, sans weapon. As he peered closer, he realized that Will wasn't quite as empty handed as he had supposed, the boy was holding a bronze candleholder. A moue was spreading across the pirate's face as he regarded that desperate situation. The lad just couldn't survive a perilous situation without performing idiocy, could he? No infamous pirate in history ever faced down soldiers with a candle holder!
As Jack made himself ready to leap one off the high ledge of the window to the ground half a story below, he turned his head to give the struggling blacksmith a final question. "Lad, will ye watch me swing the gallows?"
And in the heat of battle, attempting to fend off several soldiers with a candleholder and its complimentary fat taper, Will spared a moment to look over his shoulder to shout loudly in response, "Aye!" Not realizing his mistake, it took a stranded look from the pirate captain, and a soft gasp from Elizabeth before Will's eyes widened and he shook his head. "I mean no!"
The answering grin was a wide one, and that trust of friendship required no other words, not htat he had time for them. Before those soldiers could overpower the poor lad, Jack leapt out of the house.
As per planned, Anamaria met him in the bushes, and together, the two made their way secretly away from the estates.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Short Epilogue:
The crew stared as Anamaria climbed aboard the Pearl with their captain... who was wearing, beneath his coat, a dress, a pink dress.
Jack stared right back at them, unabashed and refusing to be ashamed. "What are you scabrous dogs staring at?! Raise topsails! Man the braces, you barnyard humbugs! Get to it!"
In the face of their captain's orders, the gathered individuals quickly scattered, each going to their individually assigned tasks, all but two that was. Gibbs stood where he was, standing against the ledge with his canteen in hand, and Anamaria remained beside Jack. Both of them, it would seem, would not leave until they got a story from him.
"Woman needs to learn how to take shallow breaths," he muttered, to no one in particular. He was thinking of one individual to be certain, but said individual was still back in the governor's house. She should consider herself fortunate that Jack was the one wearing the corset, and not her. In the face of all that excitement, he will not condemn himself a second time by saving her.
When his low murmur raised already curious eyebrows even higher, Jack faced his two trusted crew mates. So in the form of three words, he told them in a tone that spoke of exasperation, "Truth or dare."
Jack paused, and a voice in the back of his mind told him he forgot something. Looking down at himself and seeing the pink clothing he still had on, the thought that went awry suddenly returned. Smiling pleasantly, he turned to the only lady onboard. "Anamaria, man the wheel. I'm gonna find me some rum."