Black
Pearl Tales
is the official archive of
Black Pearl Sails
and Black Pearl Library.
Pirates of the Caribbean
is the property of the
Disney Corporation.
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a Challenge:
"I
should have..."
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By Sequence_fairy ~ A Bet Laid ~ - Rated 'R'
By Sal323 ~ Foretold ~ The boy is birthed beneath a gory moon, his mother dead before dawn. Blood smears the tiny face, destiny writ large upon pale velvet skin. “Him yours now,” she says, pressing the mewling scrap into his father’s arms. “I’ve many a brat,” Teague growls. “Taken none to me heart.” “Dis one different.” Eternity aches in her bones, caged and restless, but the boy makes her blaze with hope. “Him for de sea.” Later, when his bright spirit has drowned and teardrops burn like candles in the lakou, she wonders if she should have kept him safer, and closer to home.
By Geek Mama ~ Catch the Wind ~ His darling wife gone to dust along with their son, and now Elizabeth, too, the light of his days. What now did it matter who had won, or what he became? “I’m sorry, Governor,” Norrington said, and there was honest emotion in the man’s face. Weatherby rasped, “I should have been… stricter in her upbringing.” But a sob of laughter escaped. An absurd thing to say, given who she was. Who he was. And the degree to which everything had gone wrong. Norrington smiled, but the hand he put to Weatherby’s shoulder gripped hard. They were one in their grief. *** And a sequel by Cat "Take the line, take the line!" Elizabeth,frantic in her pleading watched helplessly as the line slipped off the small boat carrying her father. "I am so proud of you!" His words, full of love and forgiveness were like a dagger to her heart. So much he had suffered for her, sacrificed for her. Now he was slipping away and she had so many things she needed to tell him. Words left unsaid in her impetuous youth. "I'll give your love to your mother, shall I?" As always, to the end, her father was selfless in his love for her. She buried her head on Will's shoulder and wept. By Greenisbeauty ~ Three Words ~ He opened one eye curiously to peek over her shoulder. Her body stiffened as she felt him shift in their tangled position to rest his head upon his hand. Suddenly she felt the gravity of her words, with the terrible knowledge that he had actually been awake to hear them. Silence hung above them, dancing mischievously with her quiet confession. She dared not turn to meet his gaze. Curses. “I should have kept my stupid mouth shut,” she said almost inaudibly. A small chuckle escaped him as he leaned and placed a kiss at the nape of her neck. Her body flushed beneath his lips. It said nothing, but everything. She exhaled, holding no breath but his upon her shoulder.
By Tuesday_suit ~ Imprinted ~ He knows he has nothing to fear from the Dutchman’s captain, remembers when the man was naught but a whelp with a talent for crafting swords. The crew looks upon the ghost ship with wary glances, watching as the captain stands upon the deck. Bold as brass. The Caribbean sun beats down, glinting off the waves. Sweat glistens. “Do you mind?” He is reaching for the buttons before the ferryman draws breath to answer. His shirt flutters to the ground, revealing a maze inked on golden skin. One mark stands out: on his chest, a small black swan. Will smiles. “So now you are hers. I should have known.”
By Cersia5 ~ Drinks On Me ~ - Rated 'R'
By Tiamary ~ Wife ~ He tied the dinghy to the dock. He took the compass out of his pocket and opened the lid. It pointed right.
His jacket and breeches were damp with seaspray, his boots half covered in sand when he saw her sitting barefoot in trousers and a loose white shirt. She looked lonely.
He whistled and she raised her head. Her mouth dropped open. “He” froze but “she” flew to him, “she” flung her arms around his neck, as he cursed his own pride and stubbornness. If he’d forgiven her sooner, he’d now be holding Elizabeth Swann, not William Turner’s wife.
By Sequence_fairy ~ Last Horizon ~ “I should have been more careful,” he muttered, drawing in a ragged breath.
“Shhh,” Elizabeth said, pressing a wadded cloth to the gash in his side. The blood flowed, hot and red – reminding her of the mulled wine she’d partaken in once. She was losing him, in the clinical and logical part of her mind, she knew that. In her heart, she was hoping for a miracle.
He coughed; drops of blood stark-looking on his ashen skin. She worried her lower lip, frowning at him, watching the slow rise and fall of his chest. He coughed again, and with a burst of strength, grasped her wrist. “Look at me Lizzie,” he said, his voice a pained whisper. She looked at his face, and he smiled weakly, and squeezed her arm. “I just want to see your face, one last time.”
She gasped, her eyes going wide, “no,” she murmured, “oh no. You can’t die on me Jack, I need you, please…” her voice cracked, a sob escaping her.
He shook his head, “find me at the last horizon,” he said softly, and then, went still, his last breath captured in her desperate kiss. By Tiamary ~ Change of Heart ~ Will left his sobbing wife on the beach and headed for the Dutchman. He should have stolen her away and let his father be damned. * Will gazed across the endless sea, brooding on the lonely eternity ahead of him. He should have let Jack stab that damned heart. * A new group of souls was making passage. Their fear of damnation melted away at the sight of their Captain. Will knelt before a little girl who had drowned at sea and told her she was going to Heaven to meet some pretty angels. She smiled. Today Will Turner has no regrets. By Sal323 ~ Heritage ~ Arms dangle loose at his side, sword grazing the floor; insolent eyes challenge with a rogue’s smile. He’ll fight like a thug, Will thinks, without form or finesse. “Do you think this wise, boy? Crossing blades with a pirate?” Will learns, fast, that form and finesse are overrated. But, aspiring to steal the Commodore’s treasure, he’s disgusted to uncover the natural born street-fighter within; he had hoped for better things. “Pirate’s in your blood, boy,” Sparrow tells him later, “so you'll have to square with that some day.” Will won’t believe a word; I should have left him to rot. By Djarum99 ~ Instruments of Darkness ~ “Here there be monsters...” Barbossa knows. When stars glow hot in midnight kohl and the water whispers velvet, he alone bears witness as guilt's tremor takes her hands. Something like pity clouds those sea-wolf eyes - for her, for Jack’s mocking ghost. His wraith lingers, sly and wanting, chiming silver in cornered shadows, pressing lean against spray-slick rails, whipping ratlines into tangled insolence. She tastes desire in the salt-wind’s burn, breathes deep - his body had been still, his mouth so soft beneath that Judas kiss, discovering secrets bound in betrayal. Phantoms - truth, and lies. ”We’re good and lost.”
~ I Should Have ~ Duty and desire wage a war of unspoken words. Her eyes brim with tears he knows she cannot shed. Her lips tremble beneath the weight of what he knows she must do. A blur of red, and she is gone, coattails flapping in her wake. He aches to reach out, to grab her by the arm and pull her back to him, to tell her what he should have told her every day from the moment he met her. But he doesn't. He can't. She belongs to another. “If you were waiting for the opportune moment... that was it.” By Sal323 ~ Inevitable ~
Silently, she traces the arc of soft skin and bone; muscles shift beneath her touch, flexing across the graceful lines of his back. His question is phrased in a breathless caress; she answers with a kiss, long denied. Later, sweat-damp and tangled, he sketches her regret with a fingertip. “Lizzie?” He’s stunning by lamplight, smoke-smudged and ardent beneath a fall of damp hair. “It’s just…” She sighs against his lips. “We should have done this sooner.” By Sequence_fairy ~ Regrets ~
It’s dark, and her hair glows in the candle light, platinum against his ebony dreads. He strokes her hair gently, watching her sleep, a sated smile on her face. She’s beautiful by candlelight, and that’s not just the rum talking. He presses a gentle kiss to her forehead and slips out of the bed, dressing silently and casting one last glance at her sleeping form. “Ah, Giselle,” he murmurs, and she stirs, but settles back to sleep. “You should never have ended up like this. I should have looked after you…” Regret haunts his voice, and he steals quietly from the room, leaving a satchel of coins on the night table. By Djarum99 ~ Loyalty ~ Dawn’s horizon devours Tortuga’s weary lights, swallowing choices born of desperation, love, and rum. Jack Sparrow’s bravado hangs threadbare, his swagger in tatters - Gibbs smells fear, a thing he avoids at all cost in captains. Jack’s a coward only under the harshest sun, a hero if you squint; the devil’s dice have tumbled and the portents all bode ill. And Elizabeth - starry glory, pride and promises, spinning witch-webs between smithy, commodore, and a thrice-cursed pirate. Doom stalks her shadow, smug and grinning. Gibbs remembers burning flesh, Beckett’s lash, dark-eyed pain and debts unpaid. “What be our heading, Captain?” By Fried_flamingo ~ Tangled ~ The comb is bleached white, stained yellow by a waxen glow. Bone or wood, she wonders, before raising it to her tangled pall of hair. Tarnished gold beneath a layer of grime and sin. The rough hewn teeth are jagged. She feels them bite her scalp. If I press harder, will I bleed? If I bleed, will it be enough? The witch-woman looks on with eyes like history; all transgressions, past and present, are written there. The comb catches on angry knots, woven thick. I should’ve tied it back, she thinks. I should’ve tied it back before I killed him. By Geek Mama ~ "She Needs You" ~ By Breathless_dawn ~ Change ~ “I should have known better than to trust a pirate.”
Will looks at her and she feels oddly transparent. Sometimes she wonders if he is still the same, after all these years of ferrying souls. He seems so much different than she remembers, but then she realises, she’s changed, too. They all have. When she thinks on it, she cannot tell which of them has changed the most, and for whom.
“But it was the man, not the pirate, you came to trust, wasn’t it?”
She meets his gaze and he merely smiles. She thinks it looks like Jack’s. By Fried_flamingo ~ Wounded ~ Her mouth is warm, wet, like freshly spilled blood. Teeth graze his throat, his shoulder, and he remembers another mouth with teeth that were not so gentle. I’m lost, he thinks. I can’t see the sky anymore. Whispers gust across his skin, her words slice him open. Each wound, a ragged, silent maw. Love bleeds from him and he can’t stem the flow. I’m sinking, he thinks. The ocean isn’t deep enough for how far I might fall. “Tell me what you’re thinking,” she asks, her hands a sweet damnation. “I should’ve let you drown.” She doesn’t question his lie. By Blacklilac17 ~ Opportune Moment ~ Elizabeth understood perfectly what Jack meant by “the opportune moment”, that fleeting instant that can change one’s life forever. She had missed her opportune moment when she had pushed Jack away on that island. She should have gotten utterly, blissfully drunk on rum. She should have kissed Jack, she should have given herself to him (she always blushed slightly at the impropriety of this thought) and she should have fallen asleep with her head on Jack’s bare chest, hearing his heartbeat in her ears, her rum-tainted breath mingling with his, and their dreams sailing away together into the tropical night. By Desiring_me ~ Who Taught You? ~ - Rated 'R' By Tuesday_suit ~ Hands ~ His hands were the most expressive part of him. His eyes were flashes – endless pools of black that slipped between truth and mocking, honesty and deception. Not to be trusted. The golden skin, roughened by time and experience, stretched out over delicate bones. What stories those fingers could tell, of gripping swords and grasping rope, circling around the neck of a rum bottle while spinning a fanciful tale. And they could trace a line of fire across her flesh that burned with the heat of the brightest Caribbean sun. Remembering his passion, Elizabeth smiled. I should have given in sooner. By Cmgacrux ~ Covet ~ - Rated 'R' By Erinya ~ Sparks, Flying Upwards ~ I should have known, I should have stopped his hands on me, should have spoken, should have moved away, should have said the name "Will," dropped my marriage vows like ice into that heat and let it dwindle, die. But it had been so long since touch, since my body flared to life, and oh, Jack. The way he looked at me, like he knew he should step back, too, and wouldn't, couldn't. Not again, not anymore. We'd danced that dance too long, across oceans, to the Locker and back again. Kings and pirates never had much use for "should." By Pearlseed ~ I Should Have ~ "You are the worst pirate I've ever heard of," he stated disgustedly. A small grin, head tilted, deferentially "But you have..." Why hadn't it ended there, the daft pirate's capture, finally! Why was the hanging scheduled at dawn? All proper by us! All by the book! With another deep sigh, he watched the Interceptor racing away, grinning pirate at the helm. Gritting his teeth, he struggled not to strike the young officer to his left, realizing he was only furious with himself. "Why that's the best pirate I've ever seen!" With grudging respect and weary acceptance, "So it would seem!" By Florencia7 ~ Inundreamable ~ “I should have undreamt you before we've met...,” a shadow of her hand brushes over his lips in the semi-darkness of another commandeered night. He catches her hand, gold ring on her finger betraying her shadow in the mist of dark silence. “Can't ye now, Lizzie?” His guilt-shattering voice, always closer than expected, always expecting her to be closer than she could. “No.” She smiles, her smile invisible, half-sincere, half-broken, as she slowly presses her palm to the beating of his heart. “Now, I want to dream you,” she whispers through a kiss. “Until the sea do us part...” By Fried_flamingo ~ The Fourth Rope ~ She watched him drop, saw the rope break his neck, heard the snap. The crowd didn’t cheer as she thought they might. When it was over, they drifted away, the show not as satisfying as anticipated. Some remained to watch them cut him down. A rope was waiting at Gallows Point and the sea spray yearned to touch him. Elizabeth pictured those clever hands, stilled. One man stood alone, the sullen wind blowing loose hair across his tight, pale face. You should have done something, Will, she thought. The breeze picked up the words and threw them back at her. By Veronica_rich ~ To Thine Own Self ~ "I should have …" Not died for his wife? Not helped Jack secure the heart? Not aided Jack to lure the enemy into negotiation? Not turned tables on those who painted him the fool? Not tried to save his father? Where would second-guessing end, once embarked? Should he have stayed at the workhouse or with his drunken uncle? Left Jack in jail and Elizabeth with … God knew what? Let Jack twitch on a rope? Hang regrets. Turner laughed, curiously buoyant as he finally saw he would have done nothing different. Calypso smirked. "See? You de freest o’ dem all." By Danglingdingle ~ Dear Heart ~ Love, dear heart. Paralyzing, heart stopping, breath hitching, tingling, overwhelming bastard of a feeling it is. Killing me in a moment in the coldest of bloods, if only to save the loved one, even if it’s your destiny. No pain for love, except for the roiling, brandishing heat of the furnace of the soul. But he’s safe. Love is granted room to calm, seeping into touch and voice, given to directions where it’s misunderstood and abused. The words themselves lay unspoken at least untill we meet again. No regret, except for that one, the one where I should have told you. By Compassrose7577 ~ I Should Have ~ “’I should have—‘? You mean guilt? Na! Can’t help you there, mate. I have little knowledge of that silliness. Guilt, remorse, regret: bloody waste of time, that. Haven’t the foggiest what any of them might feel like. Never look back, that’s me motto. If you can’t control it, then you can’t help it, and if you can’t help it, then there are no regrets. “‘I should have…!’ Pah! Bloody nonsense, truth be told. “Now, truth. There’s a topic upon which I happen to posses great authority. Any questions there, son, you come to Ol’ Jack. He’ll set you straight.” By Faeritales ~ Perhaps Not ~ Barbossa had spent far more time on the Other Side than any living man should ever have to claim. He was not eager to make the voyage again, though at least this time, he had the promise of return. He’d blame Jack for getting himself dead, but the girl, it seemed, had forced his hand, forced this journey. Elizabeth Swann. I should have killed her when I had the chance. He felt her eyes on yet him again; he caught her curious gaze, but with a flush of her cheeks, she turned sharply away. Barbossa quirked an eyebrow. Perhaps not…
~.~
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