veronica_rich | Short POTC gen fic

Title: The Pirate Boy
Rating: PG for language
Summary: A sort of “in-between” standalone scene from what seems to becoming a short post-POTC:AWE series from Bill’s POV; the stories are A Debt to be Paid and With Interest. This is a shorter, slightly different, kind of cheesy story about Liam Turner, age 8, scratched out in fairly short order and unbetaed.
Disclaimer: Disclaimer: Surely you don’t think these belong to me? Nah, they’re Buena Vista’s and Bruckheimer’s
A/N: Thanks to readers

yoiebear and

metalkatt. Any errors, as always, are my own.
Feedback: Is fabulous

Feet pounding the dirt as hard as they could, Liam nearly missed the alley until he was on top of it. His skidding stop nearly took his feet out of the buckled shoes, but he managed to turn and charge down it nonetheless.

Unfortunately – it was a dead end.

Knowing he wouldn’t be able to hide or exit before the heavier, pounding footsteps caught up, Liam bent, hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath and think. Anger flared, interfering with the attempt to consider his options calmly. Why did those boys pick on him? What had he ever done to them? Just because he was smaller and his face wasn’t ugly and dirty all the time?

Of course, just as bad were the kids whose parents had directed them to play nicely with the son of the Pirate King. Liam Turner was no fool; he knew they wanted him to play messenger back to his mother, or invite them over to spend time at his house, so she would ask their names and remember their parents favorably. He didn’t understand why those adults hadn’t yet learned that Mum could see through all that nonsense; he also wondered at people who used their sons and daughters to such ends.

The footsteps were closer, and eight-year-old Liam straightened to face his would-be tormenters. “Bugger,” he muttered, savoring a rare opportunity to say one of his grandfather’s forbidden words out loud.

Two large, rough boys came across the alley entrance and the two smaller boys behind nearly collided with their backs as they slowed and stumbled in toward Liam. All of them were guffawing through heavy breathing, and Liam stayed away from the wall, taking a few steps out so as not to be completely against it if a chance for escape presented itself.

“Running away again, Turner?” the tallest asked. “Guess you’re named right, after all!”

“Yeah, maybe his name oughtta be Turn-tail!” one of the smaller boys added.

“Or Turncoat!” the other larger one said, feeding their laughter as they drew closer.

Liam frowned at that. “I’m not a traitor!” he rebutted. “You should get your insults right.”

The speaker’s face darkened, but a couple of the other boys snickered. Liam wondered what he could do with this – nothing immediately presented itself, but it couldn’t be that different from fencing. “Look for weakness,” Mum had told him during Liam’s all-too-rare sword lessons so far. “Smallest things will save your life, if you know what they can mean.”

“Turn-tail here thinks he’s smarter than us,” said the tallest one, who Liam now remembered a couple of other kids talking about. His name was Spook, and he was the ringleader here. “Don’t you?” he belligerently accused, moving closer.

Liam didn’t answer, his mind racing. If he ran for the alley opening, he’d never make it before one or more grabbed him, the way things stood. He thought about how fast his various limbs could move.

The other big kid, thicker around the middle, shook his head. “Just get him,” he directed the group, and they advanced.

“Oh, you don’t want to beat me up!” Liam made an oversized, exaggerated gesture, waving his arms forward as if to shoo them all away. “What’d be the fun of that? Look how small I am!”

“Huh?” It gave them pause. “Well … yeah!”

“What kind of story is that?” Still using exaggerated hand gestures, Liam wondered what Captain Sparrow would think of him if he were here; better yet, would he do? He wasn’t a big man. “You really want to pick on me? Nobody’ll be surprised you pounded me.” Inspiration struck. “What you ought to do is find someone even bigger than you, and … and challenge him!” They looked skeptical, and Liam knew he wasn’t going to win, but as he bought time, his young brain searched for a way out.

As he thought of something else to say, the group shifted so that Spook was to his right. Between him and the other three boys was a path to the street; it wasn’t much, but it was more than he’d had a few seconds ago. He felt himself sweating beneath the small leather holster around his right shoulder, under his shirt. Daddy had fitted it to him on his and Mum’s last visit on the Empress, and given him a small dirk to go in it.

They were all moving subtly closer, and Liam took a deep breath, his muscles bunching. If he were going to do anything, he knew it had to be before any put on a sudden lunge, because he couldn’t duck that.

And then, he spotted it. A risk – but no worse than staying here in about ten seconds. Besides, no adult had gone by the alley opening since he ducked down here, and he couldn’t wait to be rescued anyway. He lifted his left hand and pointed toward Spook’s midsection, where a badly-worn belt was tied, missing the buckle. “Your trousers’re real loose.”

Spook’s expression puzzled at the non-sequitur, and he glanced down. “Huh?”

His hand now halfway up, Liam reached into the neck of his shirt, clutched the hilt of the dirk, and yanked it free. Trying to calculate so he wouldn’t hit the body, he slashed into a gap of the belt and yanked hard toward himself, ripping the cracking leather. Before the older boy could react, he grabbed the fabric at Spook’s hips and pushed down, then used the crouching position to push off for the alley entrance, resisting the urge to stop and look back as he heard braying laughter from the other boys.

Shipwreck Town consisted of lots of twists and turns, and Liam knew most of them well. Unfortunately, he didn’t have the luxury of using them – if he didn’t get to the dock in just a few minutes, his mother would delay the Empress’s departure and he’d catch hell for it. He winced at the thought.

“WILLIAM TURNER!” she would yell. “We work with a narrow enough window for meeting with your father anyway! Why would you do this, young man?” Then she’d press him on whether he’d come straight to the dock from lessons, and he’d never be able to lie well enough to convince her he hadn’t stopped by Mrs. Rockman’s to play with her new black puppies yet again before putting out to sea for two months. (Had he gone straight to the dock, he’d already be on board scratching Missy, the ship’s cat. But sometimes there was just something about a dog, Liam thought wistfully, that even the best cat didn’t have.)

He ran as hard as he could, occasionally hearing yelling or scuffled, running steps somewhere behind. He didn’t dare pause to look, keeping his head partway down and his arms pumping. As it was, he’d be a little late and Mum might warm his bottom, anyway.

Finally, he reached the edge of the small town and spotted Elizabeth Turner’s ship not far away. He sped up, doing well until his foot hit a rock and he stumbled, going into a sideways roll in the dirt. Before coming to a complete stop, he gathered his feet, but getting one back into a shoe slowed him further. As he was doing this, he heard a bellow from behind and turned. Spook was about twenty yards back, gaining, and mad as a wet hen with her eggs stolen.

Shite! he thought, this vocabulary courtesy of his mother when she didn’t think he was in earshot. (He’d overheard it in an argument she’d had with Daddy last year, behind the door of her cabin. Liam had sat outside with his knees to his chin, afraid but unable to get up and leave in case he missed something important. He had fled, however, when indecipherable noises started from the cabin several minutes later, and a sudden thumping against the door made him think they were coming out to find him eavesdropping. When he’d finally seen them an hour later on deck, they’d both looked cheerful and Daddy had even agreed to give him his first sword lesson. Liam doubted he’d ever understand weird adult behavior.)

All this, and a few birthdays past, as well as some other favorite times, went through his mind as Spook approached, only able to run because he was gripping his very-loose waistband in his fist. The other fist was up and ready for a wide-eyed, terrified Liam. Is this life going before my eyes? he wondered. And if he kills me, will Mum be too angry at me to take me out to sea so I can live with Dad and Old Bill?

The dirk clutched in his left hand, Liam’s brain was still frozen when it came up next to his head. Realizing his only chance, he stared at Spook’s lower hand and let fly as hard as he could, closing his eyes halfway through and gritting his teeth. Figuring he’d gone spectacularly wide, but had at least distracted the boy, Liam turned clumsily and started running again.

A shriek stopped him, and he turned to see Spook waving his left hand, then clutching it with his right as his big trousers waited a couple of running steps to fall and catch him around the ankles. Liam blinked and angled his head to see better, noting red seeping through the boy’s right fingers.

Uh oh, my goose is cooked when he gets up. Liam made for the ship again, then thought better and dangerously doubled back, passing a still-yowling Spook and scanning the ground until he spotted the dirk. He stopped only long enough to snatch it up, and as he ran wide of Spook again, now trying to stumble to his feet, Liam hollered, “That’s MY knife!”

Remembering Captain Sparrow’s account of how Dad had saved him from the gallows, Liam approached the gangplank suffused in pride. “MUM!” he called. “Mum, guess what? You should’ve seen it! I just-“

She stood on deck, arms crossed, expression dark. “William Turner-“ she began, voice far too low for a happy greeting. It was only then he noticed the rest of the crew behind her, loitering, obviously waiting for her orders to set sail. “You’re a half-hour late. You’re in one piece, you’re not bleeding, and there are not four horsemen behind you. Where have you been?”

Well, he thought. Goose, meet oven.

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moonspinner.livejournal.com

Well, he thought. Goose, meet oven.

LOLOLOL! Someone didn't appreciate his daring do. :p Nice story. I'll have to go and read the others. (And I really like Will III's name.)

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Short POTC gen fic

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