Codex - Rough Drabbling (Pirates of the Caribbean/Buffy the Vampire Slayer Crossover)

I want to write.

So I'm just going to write.

Rough drafts following, snippets of things that may come, Pirates, Pirates, PIRATES...crossover. Buffy. I love Buffy. 'Nuff said.



1. The arrival of Norrington brought a new and interesting pattern to Buffy's house. Spike may've found him, but Mr. Pirate Time Traveler liked her house, it was...comfy. So as he traveled in search of a way to return to his time--which was apparently a lot harder than it sounded in her world where various magicks wander about--he'd always end up back in SunnyHell, and rest at her house. But Norrington had a proclivity toward fairness, and it wasn't something Buffy wanted to discourage, not at all: he took up the bulk of the chores around the household when he stayed, and now he was even paying her, handsome sums too.

The Slayer did not want to question how or where he got the money, because, "Hello, PIRATE," and she was desperate for the cash, she was still having trouble supporting Dawn and herself, she was freakin' desperate and didn't want to add a guilt trip on top of it all. And so Buffy takes up a more fair share of the chores when Norrington stays, makes her home more suited to playing hotel to the pirate.

2.

Buffy knows she doesn't know a lot about Norrington, being all tight-lipped and brooding flipping mysterious. Yet she's aware he's just being private, and probably not naturally inclined to burst out his life story. (It's cool, Buffy doesn't want to tell him she was dead before, rather takes a childish delight in keeping that secret, nice to have someone think of her as always belonging to the Earth.) She calls him pirate, even though Spike found him in a tattered Navy uniform; he acts pirate enough, at least what her day and age thinks is pirate, the inkling they have of such a creature.

Norrington does not dispute this description, so Buffy has no mind to change it.

3. Recently ensouled, Spike had found Norrington as nothing more than a bloody mess in an alley. Guilty, he remembers first the way the Navy man smelled, metallic sweetness on the air, remembers how he wanted just to sink his teeth in....

Spike dragged him to the nearest hospital, told the doctors they were brothers so that he may follow and keep an eye on him. (By then, his hair was already returning to its natural dirt honey color.) The vampire would watch the stray dog of a man--Steve, part of the lie fed to the medical staff--mumble "Jack, Jack" in his fevered sleep.

Dr. Lysander asked with quirked brow about the fucked up brocade, and Spike would kick himself for not thinking to replace the man's clothes with something more up-to-date. (But he was bleeding so much, and the vampire's makeshift bandages weren't enough, and he was bleeding, smelling so delectable....)

Not long passed before "Steve" finally woke up, looked warily around the pristine white room, sized up the vampire, a bead of sweat making way down the side of his face along his neckline.

(All in all, a boon to the vampire, who had found someone who could get him through his soul-induced insane chatter, while teaching said someone about the 21st century.)

4. Cars and airplanes are the worst, Norrington is bloody frightened of them. Blasted things screaming down the ground, screaming above the air. Now, things have mellowed to the point that he will seat ram-rod straight and clench the sides of the seat in any car/airplane. The only time Norrington ever marginally relaxed was the first time he took a plane accompanied by someone else, Ms. Summers had business to do in London, something that he had an interest in, thus a joint effort. (Seating beside him, she had quietly took his hand after staring at him emotionlessly, and he had slumped down just a bit.)

5. Dawn liked Norrington. A lot. On the level of Xander and Spike before.

Buffy grew concerned over this crush, because she had started looking into history as Norrington boarded with her sometimes, and during her sometimes questionable research, became of the opinion that Dawn's age was disturbingly close to the "reasonably wed" age in the pirate's time.

Yet for her, it was an easy, teasing interrogation of Norrington about his intentions toward her baby sister. (Buffy was surprised herself; natural law states she would be throwing down the ass of any who dared to even stare at Dawn in such a way.) He had regarded her, then smirked, assuring her there would be no "romantic intent" in the future.

Buffy was relieved, though still annoyed: Dawn still fawned over the pirate...and maybe that was the whole problem all along.

6. Riley Finn does not like Norrington.

Self-fashioned, "bloody" pirate crossing his path and messing up his job in the most embarrassing ways, evading capture with varying degree of impossibility and insanity, and DAMN the way Spike and Angel praise this damned Norrington just for the fact that he drives him crazy, and WHY does Buffy keep defending him, he's. A. Criminal.

(And damn Norrington's calm and reasonable and almost apologetic tone as he tries to strike up a temporary truce during this latest catastrophe, and Angel's and Spike's pissed off--correct in judgement--looks as he refuses bitterly, even when the pirate still wishes to try....)

7. The Watchers' Council does not like Norrington.

He doesn't care for them much either. Didn't like them back home--home as in 17th Century Caribbean with Jack and the Pearl, not the Colonial Dale with Ms. Summers' family, no, not at all, he isn't steadily yet quickly becoming fond of the whole lot and loath to say a permanent farewell to them all--doesn't like them now, they're still the same as a whole.

Personal experience, really: Norrington had chosen to serve others in addition to himself, the Slayer did not. He was payed a salary for his work, the Slayer is not--and this is where the tangent starts, the crux of the matter.

Giles is not part of the whole, and is naturally inclined to being a decent Watcher, and in ways it's very easy for Norrington to talk to him--so he asks why Buffy doesn't get a salary. (Remembers walking in on her hour-long money calculations late at night, her sweating over food and clothes for Dawn.)

Giles is bitter, blunt in his bastardization of the Council, and Norrington joins in. Strained--angry, not wanting to out of dislike for them, but necessary--he asks Giles if he still has enough standing with the Council to institute a fair salary for Ms. Summers.

Behind the glasses his eyes darken: "I'd rather not bring Buffy to their attention."

When Norrington questions, Giles startles, as if it was uncalled for. The man can very well hear an audible click as something is recognized in Giles' eyes. "You don't know, do you," he asks in a soft, disturbingly frail voice. Norrington shakes his head no, face hardened and apprehensive: he was treading into bad territory.

Giles explained, starting with Glory.

8. Upon learning that Norrington tangled with vampires quite a lot during his travels, Buffy gave him one of her crosses from the small chest she kept all of them in, telling him that in this style they were most portable, thus most useful. (She gives him her mother's, gold and still shining; doesn't tell him it's her mother's, just to please be careful with it, if you can.)