catslash | (no subject)

You know, I knew it would happen someday. I just always figured that that someday would come in an alternative universe.

I've written het.

It's not het with slashy subtext, either. It's just plain het.

I'm not thrilled with it, because I got up at one in the morning to write it and it reads like it, but Caro thought it was decent and so I shall post it here. I'd kind of like to expand it, so I'm not going to post it in any communities until I decide what exactly I'm going to do with it. If anything.

And yes, I went with Stephen Norrington anyway. Bring a little dignity back to the name, associate it with something other than a make-up artist with directorial delusions of grandeur.

TITLE: "Knowing"
AUTHOR:

catslash
RATING: A light PG-13 for vaguely risque subject matter.
PAIRING: Elizabeth/Norrington
SUMMARY: A wedding night. Could, I suppose, be considered an AU, or just a futurefic.
DEDICATED: To Caro, as this is not the first time I've written in an unfamiliar area; I wrote my first Ranma 1/2 fic at her house, too.
DISCLAIMER: I'm sure the Mouse would be thrilled to know that I'm actually not being all icky and gay with its characters for a change.

Commodore Stephen Norrington looked at the lovely young woman he had taken to wife. Elizabeth sat on the edge of the bed, body rigid with the kind of ultra-refined posture brought on by nerves. As she watched him, apprehensive, he stood there and wondered helplessly at how to take the next step.

He was no virgin, of course, not at his age. Being in the military, he had also heard countless bawdy stories of wedding nights and blushing brides. And he had no need, as some men did, to question his wife's, er, purity - there had been snide remarks aplenty following her public choice of Will Turner and his equally public (not to mention sudden) departure, but Norrington believed firmly in Elizabeth's sense of virtue.

As for the whispers about what must inevitably have happened to a girl amongst a crew of pirates, then stranded alone with that notorious Jack Sparrow . . . well, he hadn't asked if anything had - happened (how could he?), but. But if it had, such scum was far too low to besmirch the honour of so fine a woman as Elizabeth, no matter how they might try.

(Besides, as far as the crew went, given what he had seen in the moonlight the night of that incredible battle, he seriously doubted that they, at least, could have been capable of such acts.)

So he knew what was to happen tonight, he knew the mechanics of the thing, and he knew above all that his wife was pure. What he did not know what how to change things from this tableau of anxiety to that first moment of warmth and intimacy.

Surprisingly, it was Elizabeth who broke the tense silence.

"I think this bed's meant for both of us. It's certainly too large for just me." She laughed, nervously, and then he did. And quite suddenly the tension had gone, and he was able to cross the room and draw her up into his arms and kiss her.

As the night progressed, he came to know one more thing. He knew that his wife was a passionate, adventurous woman.