a/n Oy, vey, wow. I haven't written Sparrabeth since I was using my old pen name (StrawberriL2393) on this site. Writing it, I wondered if any of the people who used to read those stories still keeps up with me? Or if there are a whole new host of POTC writers born of the "On Stranger Tides" generation? No matter. Let me say I haven't been present in this fandom since my freshman year of high school, though I remain an avid Sparrabeth 'shipper. This is likely to be my only foray back into this fandom, unless my intrepid Beta provides me with enough material to get something out for her. That being said:
This is mean to be campy, cheesy, quirky, and a bit crack-y. It's difficult to get back into the swing of writing Jack (as you know it can be as tricky as the man himself). It's basically a bit of silly!Jack waxing philosophical; I think I've managed to somewhat adequately recapture the way I used to write him.
and, it is for Mila.
Rum Logic
On a day when the sea was sedate and the Caribbean sun was sweltering hot and pelting the crew mercilessly with its molten rays, a certain slightly inebriated—nay, permanently intoxicated—pirate captain loudly summoned his first mate into his cabin for what he deemed a private, man-to-man, clandestine conference.
Mr. Joshamee Gibbs, blustery and shrewd, was accustomed to the Captain's whims and quirks, and placidly obeyed orders to join the infamous Jack Sparrow in his cabin for a drink. They had fair winds, following seas, and no heading—old Jack was probably bored out of his muddled mind; even the fiercest of sea-loving seafarers missed a port and a warm woman now and then.
"Shut the door, Mr. Gibbs," ordered Jack, waving his hands about as if he were swatting a fly away from his nose.
He dropped lazily into a wooden chair and promptly leaned back in it, kicking up his feet and crossing them on the desk to the left of him. His hat hung off his black dreadlocks at an odd angle and his dark kohl liner was smudged with sweat around his eyes.
Jack pulled two bottles of rum off his desk and chucked one at his first mate. He uncorked the other and took a deep, lengthy drink, apparently forgetting Gibbs was there and ignoring him for a moment as he swallowed and stared profoundly out the window. Mr. Gibbs was as used to Jack staring profoundly, usually at the helm of the Black Pearl, as he was to Jack storming about doing odd things, he said nothing and was content to drink the provided rum.
"Mr. Gibbs," Jack said loudly, rather shouting at the bearded fellow.
Gibbs jumped, his eyes widening.
"Cap'n?" he asked gruffly, sloshing the rum around in a swirl as the ship rolled.
Jack fell silent again and then lifted his rum, letting the sunlight from the cabin window glance off of it and admiring it as if it were precious gold. His dark eyes narrowed suspiciously.
"'Ave you noticed, Mr. Gibbs, that in the past fortnight, we've had a bit of vexation as it pertains to establishing a heading?"
"Seems a bit more'n a fortnight, Cap'n," Gibbs answered frankly. "Seems to me it's been upwards of three months or so."
"I don't think I requested you regale me with a mathematical performance, mate," Jack retorted dramatically.
Gibbs lifted his eyes to the ceiling.
"All'm saying, Cap'n, is that we haven't really had a heading since we wriggled out of Port Royal with the Royal Navy's reputation in our hands," he took a swig of the rum. "We had our purpose there for a bit while we shook off Norrington's men, but we ain't had treasure or tail to chase since Isla de Meurta."
Jack drank his rum and glared at the first mate over the rim of it.
"Thank you, Mr. Gibbs, for that stunningly redundant synopsis of our adventures."
"Beggin' your pardon, Cap'n," Gibbs retorted, rolling is eyes. "Don't know what you're on about."
"My compass provides our heading," began Jack roguishly, "the heading takes us to gold, jewels, pleasures of the flesh—other pirate-y knicks and—knacks," he waved his fingers around, his voice gruff.
"Aye, the compass," Gibbs agreed sagely.
"The compass is not working," Jack announced bluntly.
"It ain't workin'?" asked Gibbs, leaning forward on his knees. He shook the fist he was holding the neck of his rum in. "Damn thing's magic, magic ain't about to just quit on ye," he growled.
Jack held up his hand and examined a ring. He put it to his teeth and bit it thoughtfully.
"Aye, I've got a mind to how magic works," he muttered. He took another drink and turned to Gibbs, arching a black eyebrow. "I've taken the lack of action in our recent days prancing around the seas to get more drunker than usual-er," he explained, utterly butchering the language in his usual Jack-ish way.
"'Ave ye?" Gibbs asked dryly. "We hadn't noticed, Cap'n."
Jack turned his nose up. He examined the rum again, and then reached into his pocket and yanked out the compass. He flipped it open, stared at it, swore at it, glared at it, and then snapped it shut.
"Still broken," he announced.
"What do we do, Cap'n?"
"Shush, hush, I'm getting at it, I've got it," Jack drawled. He held the compass flat in his palm and stared at it distrustfully for a moment. "It seems drunken stupors are shockingly conducive to unraveling one's inner thoughts, Mr. Gibbs," he announced theatrically, "and I seem to have figured out why the compass is plowing on in it's annoying attempt to drag us back to Port Royal."
"More rum?" Gibbs tried hopefully, looking down into his slowly diminishing share. He lamented how quickly the liquor went, and then downed another healthy mouthful.
"No, not more rum, you buffoon," snapped Jack. He cocked his head. "Much more better. Actually—rum-ish, I suppose. Women can be rum, as it were. They are addictive and," Jack shook his compass violently, "head-muddling."
"There's a woman in Port Royal?" Gibbs asked, brow knitting uncertainly.
Jack snapped his eyes onto those of his first mate, glaring seriously. He nodded curtly, and flipped open the compass pointedly.
"The compass commands me to return to Port Royal," he said, "because…"
He trailed off, and Gibbs leaned forward eagerly, mouth hanging open, curious to hear what their heading was finally going to be—pillaging, trickery, pursuits of silver and rubies and diamonds?
Jack snapped the compass shut loudly.
"It seems I have accidentally and completely unintentionally…fallen in love with Miss Swann."
Gibbs blinked. He dropped his rum bottle on his foot, cursed, and picked it up, fumbling around. He blinked again—what? His head cocked to the side like a baffled cocker spaniel's would, and he crinkled his face up.
"The woman?" he asked, calling to memory the feisty young lass he'd once sailed from England with—and who was surely just now marrying her bonny blacksmith.
"No. The bird."
Gibbs stared at Jack slackjawed.
"Yes, the woman," Jack answered sarcastically, rolling his eyes.
Gibbs thought about it for a moment, and snorted. It figured—trust Jack bloody Sparrow to go all weak-kneed and moony-eyed over some little slip of a governor's high society lass from the aristocracy. After all, Jack never got into things that were particularly good for him.
"Fittin'," snorted Gibbs. "You bein' Sparrow'n all. Two of ye can fly off into the sunset."
"This is not a laughing matter, Mr. Gibbs," growled Jack indignantly.
"'Course it is, Cap'n," roared Gibbs. "You leadin' us on a wild goose chase 'cross the ocean 'cause you can't get your head outta some lass's petticoats?" he shouted with laugher, and then raised is eyebrows. "Or should we call it a wild Swann chase, eh?"
Jack thrust out a finger menacingly at Gibbs' bottle of rum.
"Drink your rum, mate, or I will be forced to hang, draw, and quarter you before the crew for failing to assist me in my plotting," he threatened maniacally. "As it is your job to do."
Gibbs pretended to sober up slightly and obediently drank.
"What are we plottin'?"
Jack stroked his beard, looking thoughtfully.
"How do I go about…wooing a woman such as Lizzy? Elizabeth. Er. Miss…Swann."
Gibbs stared thoughtfully, and then snapped his fingers as if he'd a sudden idea.
"Turn yerself into Will Turner!"
Jack glared at him. Gibbs roared with laughter again.
"I rather enjoy my," Jack gestured below his belt, "manhood," he paused mysteriously and held up a finger, a wicked glint in his jester's eyes. "The question is, how to I persuade the lady to enjoy my…manhood."
"Kidnap her," Gibbs suggested.
"I think not," Jack protested. "That particular course of barbaric action worked against Barbossa, and look where that old chap's ended up."
"Dead."
"Serve 'im right, bloody festering pustule of a mutinous traitor."
Gibbs nodded firmly, and then he snapped again, raising his glass.
"Kidnap Turner!" he threw out.
Jack made a face, sticking his tongue out in distaste.
"And subject myself to a self-righteous soliloquy about his refusal to engage in the sordid art of piracy while he proceeds to engage in the sordid art itself?" Jack scoffed.
"Well, way I figure it, Barbossa kidnapped Elizabeth, and she's now off to marry Turner—you kidnap Turner, and Elizabeth'll off and marry you!"
"That isn't logic at all, Mr. Gibbs, that is nonsense."
Gibbs shook his bottle.
"Rum logic," he said wisely, and then shook his head. "Cap'n, it's all nonsense. Shake some sense into that compass and get Miss Swann outta yer head."
"That is precisely what I'm attempting to do, is get her out of my bloody head and into my bed."
"S'not what I meant, Jack."
Jack held his compass up to eye level and peered at Gibbs over it.
"By your rum logic, whomsoever comes to rescue a person is the person the kidnapped person invariably ends up marrying," he drawled, eyeing Gibbs pointedly.
"Uh," Gibbs grunted, confused. Had he said that?
"Marrying or, in my case,—kissing and doing womanly and manly things with," Jack went on rakishly, his eyes glittering mischievously, "so it would seem, using the formula that you laid out for us, Mr. Gibbs, I shall have to place myself in a position to be rescued by Miss Lizzy-beth—er, Miss Swann—and thus upon being rescued, she shall be obliged to pledge her troth to me...and we can bother about that bit later because what I actually desire part is the part that comes after the wedding when the sheets and the legs get all—tangly."
Slackjawed again, Gibbs stared at the Captain.
Triumphantly, Jack leapt up from his chair, a terrifying smirk flying across his lips.
"I've got it, Mr. Gibbs," he growled. "I shall have to place myself in some sort of dire distress and tug at the strings of her girly lady-pirate heart!"
"Just how're you gonna do that, Cap'n?" Gibbs asked, exasperated.
Jack swayed dashingly on his feet and downed the rest of his rum, tossing the bottle haphazardly onto the bed. He flicked open his compass and watched the needled swirl madly around, searching, following, seeking a pretty bird who was miles away, unaware of the effect she'd had on the Caribbean's most notorious scurvy swashbuckler.
"I've not gotten that far yet," he admitted loudly, and rather stupidly confidently for a man so misguided by an enchanted compass that told him he was in love with a high society sweetheart. "Mark my words, Mr. Gibbs, I will go about finding a way to put myself in a lamentably dangerous position, truly damsel-ish and distress-y, but also irresistibly irresistible and handsome," he paused and took a bow, looking up with a glare that bespoke of nothing exactly promising for Mr. Gibbs or the crew.
It was Jack's old, impish, devil-may-care, look that always meant he was up to mayhem and madness.
"Mark my words, Mr. Gibbs," he repeated. "Miss Swann will rescue me—and then by law of rum logic and fairy stories of all ages, she will catapult herself head over heels in love with none other than the ravishingly good-looking Captain Jack Sparrow."
"That ain't how fairy stories goes, Cap'n," Mr. Gibbs said skeptically.
Jack glared at him defiantly.
He looked back to his rabidly spinning compass.
Elizbeth Swann had no business binding herself to a blacksmith—and so, he decided arrogantly, that was how this fairy story was going to go.
Rum logic, enchanted compass, Pirate, princess, and all.
I sincerely had no idea where I was going after the bit about him being in love with Elizabeth, but it ended up being appropriately prophetic, when you think of Lizzy rescuing Jack from Jones' locker. On top of that, it also seems to be a commentary on how (had it been anything but Disney) Elizabeth certainly would have ended up an untamed Pirate Lady of the sees, hooking up with her Jack counterpart on the sly. ;)
Well, I do hope I've managed to give some fun. It's always weird going back to a fandom-you're out of touch with the common fanon and what not, if you know what I'm saying.
-Alexandra
story #122