Title: 'Cause Islands Are a Girl's Best Friend
Author: Troll Princess
Fandom: Pirates/X-Men
Pairing: Jubilee/Elizabeth Swann, written for Round Six of The Pairing List That Ate Fandom
Summary: Let's just say that Elizabeth had ended up on that island with someone else. And then let's say there was femslash.
Disclaimer: "Dear Troll Princess' teacher, please excuse her from gym class, as she has borrowed my characters, mythology and universe for her own storytelling purposes. And also, because today is volleyball day and she's universally acknowledged to be absolute crap at it. Love and other indoor sports, the real owners of said characters."
Part Three
Any sailor keeping watch on a ship passing the small island -- an unlikely scenario indeed at this rate -- would have spotted a large bonfire burning brightly on the small patch of land that actually had the gall to call itself an island, and the occasional cascade of exploding sparks that shot up into the sky like a colorful geyser of light. And, if this particular imaginary sailor had looked closer, he also would have noticed two natives dancing wildly around said bonfire under a full, chillingly white moon and, given the beliefs of such times and geographical locations, one couldn't fault him for assuming the worse and making a hasty exit in the opposite direction.
After all, if he wanted to run away from imagined voodoo before he found out he'd stumbled upon two pretty, young, drunken women, that was his loss.
"... me only wish is when the Savior comes for me and you ..."
Jubilee paused in dancing around the bonfire with Elizabeth (who, it turned out, loosened up quite nicely with a good two-thirds of a bottle of rum in her) and took another swig from her own bottle before yelling in the same Irish accent she'd learned (albeit badly) from Banshee, "He kills the cast of Riverdance, and Michael Flatley, too!"
The bottle in her hand, as light as it was, still managed to knock her off-balance, and Jubilee stumbled and tipped to her side like an actor in a V-8 commercial. The mental comparison made Jubilee burst into hysterics, even as she tripped awkwardly into Elizabeth's open arms.
Jubilee's giggles being as contagious as they were, Elizabeth immediately started laughing as she righted the other girl and asked, "Who, might I ask, is Michael Flatley?"
"Evil incarnate," Jubilee said, sinking awkwardly onto the sand with her bottle still in hand. "With a dorky headband."
"Ah." Elizabeth promptly sat down next to her, not nearly as gone as Jubilee was but quite warm and drunk enough to let her guard slip further away with every passing second. Jubilee did that to a person, she realized after some admittedly slower-than-usual contemplation. The longer you stayed in Jubilee's presence, the easier it became to place your fears and worries aside and simply relax. And the Lord knew, she hadn't been able to catch her breath in days. Being held captive by cursed pirates didn't exactly help anybody feel comfortable, unless of course, you were delusional, dead, or had a strong affection for rotting bands of thieves.
Anxious to keep from getting back on that subject again, Elizabeth forced a smile and said, "So, Jubilee. I must know. Why aren't you more anxious to leave?"
Jubilee let loose with a loud hiccup, something she found hilarious, and after another round of giggles, she flashed Elizabeth a smirk. "You don't know my friends. This happens all the time. You know, one of us gets lost or killed or cloned, and then the rest of us sit around and angst about it for a while before we do something about it. They should be done moping any minute now."
Elizabeth couldn't help but grin at Jubilee's apparent casualness towards her imminent (or perhaps, not-so-imminent) rescue. "Still playing the mislaid time traveler, are we?"
"Oh, come on. I've been doing my best impression of a flare gun and you're not buying the interdimensional mambo story? I'm crushed."
"I suppose there's only so much magic a girl can be asked to believe in in one week," Elizabeth said quietly.
Jubilee leaned back on the sand to get a better look at the stars, then noticed the wistful expression on Elizabeth's face. "You're not still worried over that Will guy, are you?"
The British girl cocked an eyebrow at that. "I did mention the part where undead pirates are going to kill him, didn't I?"
"Well, yeah, but it's not like they're going to do it immediately, right? I mean, from what you told me, they have to go back to their stupid hideout and kill him there. Plus, he's got a gang of good pirates and their captain as back-up, sort of. You keep talking about him like you're the only one who can save him."
Elizabeth's jaw clenched, and she said with the same vehemence she usually had when she was sober, "I can't let him die. Not after he saved my life --"
"Is he cute?"
"Jubilee!"
"Oh, come on." Jubilee said. "It's a viable question. Exactly how handsome is the saucy chap, hmm?"
Elizabeth tried to keep a straight face at that, but she couldn't help the way the corners of her mouth tugged upward at the mere thought of Will. "If you must know, very."
Jubilee wiggled closer with a wicked sparkle in her eyes, giving Elizabeth a friendly nudge in the side with her elbow. "C'mon, details. I'd ask for closest celebrity resemblance, but with my luck, you'd say Johnny Depp and then I'd be really depressed." She caught herself fairly quickly this time, and she rolled her eyes before adding, "If you even knew who Johnny Depp was."
For a long moment, Elizabeth's eyes shimmered with dreamy tears, her nearly-empty bottle dangling from her fingertips as she stared into the fire. "William Turner is perhaps the bravest, strongest soul I know. He looks upon me as one looks upon an angel fallen from Heaven, and touches me as if he couldn't possibly be worthy of me. Will is a pirate, no matter what he believes, because he has stolen my heart and he doesn't even know it."
Jubilee stared at Elizabeth for a long time, and the other girl looked up as if expecting her to blurt out some rambling, inappropiately blase response.
Instead, Jubilee smiled and said, "Wow. No wonder he fell for you."
For a moment, Elizabeth felt as if she had an ally, a true, honest voice unhindered by societal dictates, but common sense stifled her growing happiness soon enough, and she focused unhappily in the bottle in her hand. "It's no matter. He is a blacksmith."
"So? Is that like being a crack dealer in this time or something? All that tells me is he's got a steady job, which trumps my last two boyfriends."
Elizabeth smiled almost condescendingly. "A blacksmith cannot marry a governor's daughter."
"Why? Are you really a man?"
"What?"
Jubilee made a face and waved her hand in the air. "Never mind," she said. "Look, do you like him?"
"Of course."
"Does he like you?"
"Well, yes --"
"Then hook up, for crying out loud. If you sit around letting everybody else tell you who should marry, you end up on reality TV. Or maybe that's the other way around ..." Jubilee's voice trailed off as if it had given up and gone to bed all of a sudden, but then she recovered her faculties and said, "Whatever. Just look at it this way. If your side wins, he'll probably get to raid the pirate booty or get a reward or something and you're set for life, and if your side loses ... well, then there's a dead blacksmith and a bad pirate infestation, and really, how bad is that? You know, except for the part where it totally is."
A warm smile crossed Elizabeth's face, wavering only when Jubilee raised her bottle to her lips and took another swig of rum. "I suppose I should attribute that long-winded diatribe to the drink," she said.
"Hell, why not? God knows I don't normally talk this much."
Elizabeth highly doubted that, considering that if she'd gotten any impression since she'd landed on the island, it was that it would be much easier to dance with a shark than to keep Jubilee quiet for more than a few precious seconds. But once you got past the bluster and wordy rambling, what she said inevitably made a strange sort of sense. And even when it didn't, it was bound to be amusing. "You aren't as frivolous as you appear to be at first glance," she said.
Jubilee looked over at her with her head cocked curiously to the side, and in the shadows, her dark blue eyes reflected the bonfire as flickering, dancing sparks. "Uh, thanks. I think."
The pair of them stared at each other for what could have been forever, in some other alternate dimension, and Jubilee shivered as the bottle clutched in her fingers easily slid to the sand. And suddenly, it hit her that she was really not as drunk as she thought she was but drunk enough to get away with more than she normally could, and there was a tropical beach and a bonfire and a beautiful full moon and Jesus, if Christian Bale were on this beach with her, she'd probably be permanently attached to him at the hips by now --
Aw, what the hell, she thought, and went in for the kill.
The first brush of Jubilee's lips across Elizabeth's sent a wicked shiver of anticipation through her, and she moved closer to the somewhat startled British girl. For a moment, Elizabeth froze, not sure what she was supposed to do with the strange girl currently kissing her. Jubilee tasted of chocolate and rum, and Elizabeth was sure that after drinking as much as she had and eating so many of Jubilee's exotic treats, she must taste the same. But something about the soft velvet of Jubilee's skin, the spicy fragrance of her short hair as it brushed Elizabeth's skin, the teasing flicker of Jubilee's tongue against her lips ...
The bonfire popped loudly, a sudden crack that set both girls skittering in opposite directions as if someone had fired off a gun right next to them.
"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have --"
"That was --"
Elizabeth smiled weakly, then, trying desperately to avoid the other girl's still heated gaze, Elizabeth darted over to her pallet on the other side of the bonfire.
Jubilee watched her curl up on her makeshift bedding, Elizabeth's arms wrapping tightly around her knees as she got as comfortable as possible on the dusty blanket they'd boosted from the rum cellar. Oh, this was just perfect, Jubilee thought, wondering how she'd manage to make it this long without screwing up an awkward situation. Of course, usually she did it by not shutting up, whereas this time she'd done it by not only shutting herself up, but also shutting up the only other person on the island.
Granted, very nearly with her tongue, but still ...
You ... you got a freebie, right? One experiment with another chick, and then back to the land of the usually straight people. Kinda like a Get Out of Heterosexuality Free Card.
Right?
With a nervous frown, Jubilee contemplated going over and talking with Elizabeth about the whole makeout session, but instead she lie back on her outspread coat and stared up at the perfect, pinprick stars dashed across the midnight sky.
She couldn't possibly be ... it was just one kiss. That didn't count. There had to be, like, a gay entry fee or something. You know, five kisses, some public fondling, and at least one earth-shattering orgasm. Ooo, or maybe a gay height requirement. "You must be this tall to ride the lesbian."
Jubilee groaned and rolled over to face away from the bonfire. Oh, God, she didn't even want to think about what Drake was going to say about this one if he ever found out. Then again, Jubilee'd bet her entire CD collection on Bobby having a nice, comfy reserved spot in the back corner of some extremely large closet somewhere right next to a pile of ugly stirrup pants and some crappy porn. So maybe his opinion on the whole gay thing wasn't exactly respectable.
Ha! Elizabeth had to be a mutant. That's just all there was to it. This whole attraction that was suddenly popping up had to be the other girl's fault, Jubilee thought with a slowly growing smile. I mean, look at her. All gorgeous and thin and friendly and with that really sexy British accent --
Oh, cripes, I'm talking myself into this whole lesbian thing.
C'mon, you. Think of hot guys. Orlando Bloom. Brad Pitt. Keanu Reeves. Orlando Bloom.
Jesus, I kissed a girl. I kissed a girl.
And not only that, now I have that stupid novelty song stuck in my head. Well, shit.
Oh, yeah. This was definitely going to suck.