[Fic] Pirate Treasure
Title: Pirate Treasure
Characters: England, America, mentions of Spain and Romano.
Ratings/Warnings: PG-13, AU, piracy and fantastic racism
Summary: Pirate Captain Arthur Kirkland aims to take revenge on his rival Captain Antonio Fernandez and finds something he wasn't expecting.
Arthur Kirkland wasn’t a good pirate; he was a great pirate, the greatest pirate captain in the seas, if you asked him. And as a great pirate, when his stuff got stolen by other, lesser pirates, he wasted no time going to steal it back.
Captain Antonio Fernandez had boarded his ship and stolen all of his treasure, and his ship, and his crew. Technically his crew had mutinied, stolen the ship and the treasure, and delivered them to Fernandez as a sign of their new loyalty after leaving him for dead, but Fernandez must have probably put them up to it in the first place. He care less about the crew now, not if they were going to be like that, but as a pirate Arthur couldn’t just let Fernandez walk away with his treasure, and he really liked that ship.
After several months of trying to navigate the sea in a tiny rowboat, Arthur found Fernandez’s hideout tucked away in the corner of some forgotten island, and was able to successfully infiltrate it. He located his ship in one of the lonelier docks, emptied her of all unwanted cargo and passengers, apologized for his prolonged absence, and set out to find the treasure room.
Arthur opened door after door, searched room after room, and snuck past guard after guard, but still couldn’t find the treasure room. A few hours before sunrise, he found himself in a large, empty room with a giant fish tank built into the wall. He hit his head against the tank in frustration.
“Where the hell is all the treasure?”
It was his fault, he supposed, for assuming Fernandez still had his treasure. It was likely that he had already spent it after so long, or, even more likely, the treasure was never here. Fernandez might have had another island for stashing treasure.
“The treasure’s in the next room,” a voice said.
Arthur turned around, pressed his back against the tank, and glared into the darkness, “Who’s there?”
“I’m up here.”
He looked up to see a young man at the top of the tank, arms dangling over the side, smiling at him, “Hello.”
“Hello,” Arthur blinked, “You are?”
“Alfred,” he nodded, “You’re not one of the pirates?”
“Not one of Fernandez’s pirates, no,” he furrowed his eyebrows. Why was there a boy in a fish tank? He didn’t seem to be with Fernandez, but it could be a trap, “I am a pirate though.”
“Oh,” Alfred deflated and sunk into the water, “I see. Makes sense, you’re after treasure and all, but, you came here on a ship, yes?”
“Sort of,” Arthur thought back to the tiny row boat he crashed against some rocks on his way in, “I will definitely be leaving on one though.”
“Do you mind, um,” he scratched his cheek and looked away, “Giving me a lift?”
“That depends,” Arthur crossed his arms, “where do you want to go?”
“Home, but I can’t tell you were that is because you’re a pirate,” he shrugged, “Anywhere away from here would be good though.”
From what he could see, Alfred arms and visible chest were muscled, much more than Arthur’s own, but his eyes and tentative smile were bright and childish. If push came to shove, Arthur could probably take him in an unfair fight, “I could do that. Come down here and help me carry the treasure.”
“I, uh, can’t.”
Arthur raised an eyebrow, “What do you mean you can’t?”
Alfred dipped an arm into the water and pulled up a chain, and Arthur noticed the large metal collar around his neck, “I can’t really leave the tank.”
“Shit,” Arthur jumped, gripping the top of the tank, and pulled himself up to crouch on the edge where Alfred was. He grabbed the collar and examined the lock, “Do you know where the keys for this are?”
“N-no,” Alfred shifted.
Arthur grunted as he dug into his pocket for his trusty lock pick and began picking the lock, “You must have made Fernandez very angry for him to chain you to a tank.”
“It’s really more because I exist,” he let out a nervous laugh, “I was just careless.”
“I know Fernandez is a bastard, but even by his standards, that’s low,” he finally got the lock and tossed the collar back into the tank where it went under with a plop, “Simply existing is no reason chain someone to a tank.”
It was then that he noticed Alfred had a tail instead of legs.
“You’re a…merman,” Arthur leaned back and almost fell off the edge
Alfred caught his wrist to steady him, and he had blue fins on his arms and gills on his chest, how did he miss that, “Y-yeah. Did you really only realize it just now?”
The room was dark, save for a sliver of moonlight that shone in from the only window up near the ceiling. The water in the tank reflected the moonlight to an extent, but the water was still dark enough that he couldn’t clearly see Alfred’s legs, or tail as it turned out, unless he was on top of the tank.
The perfectly adequate reasoning completely escaped Arthur and he could only gape at him, “But, how are you here? Merpeople almost never leave Mermaid Cove. Why are you here?”
“I was just, careless,” Alfred sighed and let go of his wrist to sink further into the water, “Sailors are always trying to find Mermaid Cove, but I don’t know why. It’s a very boring place and nothing ever happens there. So I left.”
“And then Fernandez caught you?”
“I was doing fine on my own for a while, and it was great. I was meeting new merpeople and seeing new things. Back at Mermaid Cove we’re always warned about humans, especially pirates, and how they’re dangerous, but I was curious and I got too close to his ship. He caught me, and now he’s going to sell me to the highest bidder.”
Arthur lowered his head, hiding his eyes behind his fringe, “You, know that for sure? Or is that just what you assume humans do with merpeople?”
“Yeah, but it’s true too. All the pirates are talking about it whenever they pass by my tank.”
Arthur frowned. It was try there was many a person who would pay a king’s ransom for a merperson, especially an attractive one like Alfred, but he had always abhorred such practices and he taught his crew to do the same, or at least he thought he taught them. Fernandez was a bastard, but he never struck him as the kind of bastard who would sell a person. Then again, merpeople were only very pretty fish to some people.
Even though Alfred’s situation was pitiable he had a mission to complete and treasure to steal, and if he could only take one, he wanted the treasure. Arthur jumped down back onto the floor and walked to the door.
“Hey!” Alfred shouted at him, “Where are you going?”
“To get what I came for,” he stopped with his hand on the door, “the treasure.”
“What about me? You promised you’d take me with you!”
“I made no such promise!” he turned and glared at him, “Even if I did, I am a pirate! What good are promises to me? Besides, your coming with me was contingent on your being able to help me carry the treasure, which you obviously can’t, seeing as you can’t stand out of the water. I’d have to carry you back to my ship, I can’t carry you and the treasure, and I can’t make two trips. You’ll only slow me down.”
“But,” Alfred bit his lip, “You can’t just leave me here.”
“Of course I can,” and without another word he left the room.
-
The next room, just like Alfred said, was full of treasure, too much treasure for Arthur to carry on his own. He’d have to pick and choose. Lucky for him the first thing he found was a giant silver wheelbarrow, meaning he could choose quite a lot.
Movement by the door forced him to dart behind a giant gold tomato as his former shipwright and one of Fernandez’s crewmates entered the treasure room.
“Are we still selling the merman tomorrow?” the shipwright asked, kicking a nearby ruby.
“Yeah,” the other pirate grabbed the wheelbarrow, “About time too. He’s taking up too much space.”
“Shame we can’t keep him,” the shipwright sighed, “It’s hard to find mermen in this day and age.”
“We got all those paintings and statues for Lovino the other day. We don’t need another wall decoration.”
“Still seems like a waste.”
“The fish ain’t ours to waste, it’s the Captain caught him, and he wants to sell him. It’ll be better off in some mansion anyway. Rich people can afford better water. Fancier tanks too, although they’re a lot smaller. The stupid fish won’t care though.”
The two pirates exited the room, and Arthur snatched a jewel incrusted saber as he followed them.
-
The door opened, and Alfred automatically retreated to the corner of his tank. Maybe if the pirates couldn’t see him, they’d forget about him, and then he could make his escape, somehow. The busy-browed pirate from before was right about one thing, he couldn’t move very fast out of the water. At least he unlocked his collar so he could move about easier.
There was a knocking on the glass, and Alfred had to surface in order to get away from the noise.
“Alfred,” whoever it was whisper called, “Get your tail over here, we need to go.”
He swam over to the edge and was surprised to see Bushy Brows with a wheelbarrow, “You, came back?”
“I, well,” he stammered and looked away, “I couldn’t find the treasure room, and I wasn’t about to leave empty handed.”
Alfred laughed, “What kind of pirate can’t find treasure?”
“I don’t want to hear it from you!” he snapped, then cleared his throat, “Do you want to come or not?”
“Can I get your name first? Or I can just keep calling you Bushy Brows.”
Bushy Brows frowned, “It’s Arthur. Captain Arthur Kirkland.”
Alfred pulled himself out of the water, flipped in the air, and landed on his back in the wheelbarrow, “Let’s go.”
“Yes,” Arthur pushed the wheelbarrow to the open door, paused to poke his head out, and then continued through.
Out of the corner of his eye Alfred saw two bodies tucked away in the corner and if he heard the saber on Arthur’s belt rhythmically hitting the wheelbarrow as they made their escape he ignored it.
He’d already decided anywhere was better than here, and he wasn’t about to start seconded guessing himself now.
-
They’d escaped Fernandez’s hideout without detection and were a safe distance away by the time the sun rose. Arthur had filled one of the barrels below deck with seawater for Alfred to soak in on deck while Arthur tried to figure out how to sail an entire ship all by himself.
“We should be fine,” he said after a few hours of running around deck. He sat down and rested his back against Alfred’s barrel, “As long as we don’t hit a storm or an ocean current or anything too hard.”
They fell into a comfortable silence before Alfred broke it, “Thanks for busting me out.”
Arthur hummed and closed his eyes in response.
“Are, are you really going to let me go?” Alfred shifted in his barrel, “I mean, I did cost you all that treasure and you are a pirate so it would only make sense that you try to sell me and-”
“I’m not going to sell you,” Arthur cut through his babble, “if that’s what you’re worried about. I don’t sell people.”
“Oh,” was all he said in response.
“You can leave whenever you want,” he waved his hand in the air, “You can jump overboard now if it pleases you, I won’t stop you. We have plenty of supplies and I need to pick up a new crew somewhere anyway, so tell me where you want to go and I’ll take you there.”
Alfred leaned back and looked up at the sky, watching the birds fly by and the clouds drift across the endless blue. He could feel the ship being tossed about in the waves and the sun shining on his face. Never in his life had he felt freer.
“Would you mind if I just, stayed on your ship for a while?”
Arthur smiled and turned his face towards the sun as well, “I wouldn’t mind at all.”
Characters: England, America, mentions of Spain and Romano.
Ratings/Warnings: PG-13, AU, piracy and fantastic racism
Summary: Pirate Captain Arthur Kirkland aims to take revenge on his rival Captain Antonio Fernandez and finds something he wasn't expecting.
Arthur Kirkland wasn’t a good pirate; he was a great pirate, the greatest pirate captain in the seas, if you asked him. And as a great pirate, when his stuff got stolen by other, lesser pirates, he wasted no time going to steal it back.
Captain Antonio Fernandez had boarded his ship and stolen all of his treasure, and his ship, and his crew. Technically his crew had mutinied, stolen the ship and the treasure, and delivered them to Fernandez as a sign of their new loyalty after leaving him for dead, but Fernandez must have probably put them up to it in the first place. He care less about the crew now, not if they were going to be like that, but as a pirate Arthur couldn’t just let Fernandez walk away with his treasure, and he really liked that ship.
After several months of trying to navigate the sea in a tiny rowboat, Arthur found Fernandez’s hideout tucked away in the corner of some forgotten island, and was able to successfully infiltrate it. He located his ship in one of the lonelier docks, emptied her of all unwanted cargo and passengers, apologized for his prolonged absence, and set out to find the treasure room.
Arthur opened door after door, searched room after room, and snuck past guard after guard, but still couldn’t find the treasure room. A few hours before sunrise, he found himself in a large, empty room with a giant fish tank built into the wall. He hit his head against the tank in frustration.
“Where the hell is all the treasure?”
It was his fault, he supposed, for assuming Fernandez still had his treasure. It was likely that he had already spent it after so long, or, even more likely, the treasure was never here. Fernandez might have had another island for stashing treasure.
“The treasure’s in the next room,” a voice said.
Arthur turned around, pressed his back against the tank, and glared into the darkness, “Who’s there?”
“I’m up here.”
He looked up to see a young man at the top of the tank, arms dangling over the side, smiling at him, “Hello.”
“Hello,” Arthur blinked, “You are?”
“Alfred,” he nodded, “You’re not one of the pirates?”
“Not one of Fernandez’s pirates, no,” he furrowed his eyebrows. Why was there a boy in a fish tank? He didn’t seem to be with Fernandez, but it could be a trap, “I am a pirate though.”
“Oh,” Alfred deflated and sunk into the water, “I see. Makes sense, you’re after treasure and all, but, you came here on a ship, yes?”
“Sort of,” Arthur thought back to the tiny row boat he crashed against some rocks on his way in, “I will definitely be leaving on one though.”
“Do you mind, um,” he scratched his cheek and looked away, “Giving me a lift?”
“That depends,” Arthur crossed his arms, “where do you want to go?”
“Home, but I can’t tell you were that is because you’re a pirate,” he shrugged, “Anywhere away from here would be good though.”
From what he could see, Alfred arms and visible chest were muscled, much more than Arthur’s own, but his eyes and tentative smile were bright and childish. If push came to shove, Arthur could probably take him in an unfair fight, “I could do that. Come down here and help me carry the treasure.”
“I, uh, can’t.”
Arthur raised an eyebrow, “What do you mean you can’t?”
Alfred dipped an arm into the water and pulled up a chain, and Arthur noticed the large metal collar around his neck, “I can’t really leave the tank.”
“Shit,” Arthur jumped, gripping the top of the tank, and pulled himself up to crouch on the edge where Alfred was. He grabbed the collar and examined the lock, “Do you know where the keys for this are?”
“N-no,” Alfred shifted.
Arthur grunted as he dug into his pocket for his trusty lock pick and began picking the lock, “You must have made Fernandez very angry for him to chain you to a tank.”
“It’s really more because I exist,” he let out a nervous laugh, “I was just careless.”
“I know Fernandez is a bastard, but even by his standards, that’s low,” he finally got the lock and tossed the collar back into the tank where it went under with a plop, “Simply existing is no reason chain someone to a tank.”
It was then that he noticed Alfred had a tail instead of legs.
“You’re a…merman,” Arthur leaned back and almost fell off the edge
Alfred caught his wrist to steady him, and he had blue fins on his arms and gills on his chest, how did he miss that, “Y-yeah. Did you really only realize it just now?”
The room was dark, save for a sliver of moonlight that shone in from the only window up near the ceiling. The water in the tank reflected the moonlight to an extent, but the water was still dark enough that he couldn’t clearly see Alfred’s legs, or tail as it turned out, unless he was on top of the tank.
The perfectly adequate reasoning completely escaped Arthur and he could only gape at him, “But, how are you here? Merpeople almost never leave Mermaid Cove. Why are you here?”
“I was just, careless,” Alfred sighed and let go of his wrist to sink further into the water, “Sailors are always trying to find Mermaid Cove, but I don’t know why. It’s a very boring place and nothing ever happens there. So I left.”
“And then Fernandez caught you?”
“I was doing fine on my own for a while, and it was great. I was meeting new merpeople and seeing new things. Back at Mermaid Cove we’re always warned about humans, especially pirates, and how they’re dangerous, but I was curious and I got too close to his ship. He caught me, and now he’s going to sell me to the highest bidder.”
Arthur lowered his head, hiding his eyes behind his fringe, “You, know that for sure? Or is that just what you assume humans do with merpeople?”
“Yeah, but it’s true too. All the pirates are talking about it whenever they pass by my tank.”
Arthur frowned. It was try there was many a person who would pay a king’s ransom for a merperson, especially an attractive one like Alfred, but he had always abhorred such practices and he taught his crew to do the same, or at least he thought he taught them. Fernandez was a bastard, but he never struck him as the kind of bastard who would sell a person. Then again, merpeople were only very pretty fish to some people.
Even though Alfred’s situation was pitiable he had a mission to complete and treasure to steal, and if he could only take one, he wanted the treasure. Arthur jumped down back onto the floor and walked to the door.
“Hey!” Alfred shouted at him, “Where are you going?”
“To get what I came for,” he stopped with his hand on the door, “the treasure.”
“What about me? You promised you’d take me with you!”
“I made no such promise!” he turned and glared at him, “Even if I did, I am a pirate! What good are promises to me? Besides, your coming with me was contingent on your being able to help me carry the treasure, which you obviously can’t, seeing as you can’t stand out of the water. I’d have to carry you back to my ship, I can’t carry you and the treasure, and I can’t make two trips. You’ll only slow me down.”
“But,” Alfred bit his lip, “You can’t just leave me here.”
“Of course I can,” and without another word he left the room.
-
The next room, just like Alfred said, was full of treasure, too much treasure for Arthur to carry on his own. He’d have to pick and choose. Lucky for him the first thing he found was a giant silver wheelbarrow, meaning he could choose quite a lot.
Movement by the door forced him to dart behind a giant gold tomato as his former shipwright and one of Fernandez’s crewmates entered the treasure room.
“Are we still selling the merman tomorrow?” the shipwright asked, kicking a nearby ruby.
“Yeah,” the other pirate grabbed the wheelbarrow, “About time too. He’s taking up too much space.”
“Shame we can’t keep him,” the shipwright sighed, “It’s hard to find mermen in this day and age.”
“We got all those paintings and statues for Lovino the other day. We don’t need another wall decoration.”
“Still seems like a waste.”
“The fish ain’t ours to waste, it’s the Captain caught him, and he wants to sell him. It’ll be better off in some mansion anyway. Rich people can afford better water. Fancier tanks too, although they’re a lot smaller. The stupid fish won’t care though.”
The two pirates exited the room, and Arthur snatched a jewel incrusted saber as he followed them.
-
The door opened, and Alfred automatically retreated to the corner of his tank. Maybe if the pirates couldn’t see him, they’d forget about him, and then he could make his escape, somehow. The busy-browed pirate from before was right about one thing, he couldn’t move very fast out of the water. At least he unlocked his collar so he could move about easier.
There was a knocking on the glass, and Alfred had to surface in order to get away from the noise.
“Alfred,” whoever it was whisper called, “Get your tail over here, we need to go.”
He swam over to the edge and was surprised to see Bushy Brows with a wheelbarrow, “You, came back?”
“I, well,” he stammered and looked away, “I couldn’t find the treasure room, and I wasn’t about to leave empty handed.”
Alfred laughed, “What kind of pirate can’t find treasure?”
“I don’t want to hear it from you!” he snapped, then cleared his throat, “Do you want to come or not?”
“Can I get your name first? Or I can just keep calling you Bushy Brows.”
Bushy Brows frowned, “It’s Arthur. Captain Arthur Kirkland.”
Alfred pulled himself out of the water, flipped in the air, and landed on his back in the wheelbarrow, “Let’s go.”
“Yes,” Arthur pushed the wheelbarrow to the open door, paused to poke his head out, and then continued through.
Out of the corner of his eye Alfred saw two bodies tucked away in the corner and if he heard the saber on Arthur’s belt rhythmically hitting the wheelbarrow as they made their escape he ignored it.
He’d already decided anywhere was better than here, and he wasn’t about to start seconded guessing himself now.
-
They’d escaped Fernandez’s hideout without detection and were a safe distance away by the time the sun rose. Arthur had filled one of the barrels below deck with seawater for Alfred to soak in on deck while Arthur tried to figure out how to sail an entire ship all by himself.
“We should be fine,” he said after a few hours of running around deck. He sat down and rested his back against Alfred’s barrel, “As long as we don’t hit a storm or an ocean current or anything too hard.”
They fell into a comfortable silence before Alfred broke it, “Thanks for busting me out.”
Arthur hummed and closed his eyes in response.
“Are, are you really going to let me go?” Alfred shifted in his barrel, “I mean, I did cost you all that treasure and you are a pirate so it would only make sense that you try to sell me and-”
“I’m not going to sell you,” Arthur cut through his babble, “if that’s what you’re worried about. I don’t sell people.”
“Oh,” was all he said in response.
“You can leave whenever you want,” he waved his hand in the air, “You can jump overboard now if it pleases you, I won’t stop you. We have plenty of supplies and I need to pick up a new crew somewhere anyway, so tell me where you want to go and I’ll take you there.”
Alfred leaned back and looked up at the sky, watching the birds fly by and the clouds drift across the endless blue. He could feel the ship being tossed about in the waves and the sun shining on his face. Never in his life had he felt freer.
“Would you mind if I just, stayed on your ship for a while?”
Arthur smiled and turned his face towards the sun as well, “I wouldn’t mind at all.”