Pirates of the Caribbean: Water of Eternal Life, a pirates of the caribbean fanfic

Disclaimer: It is to my intense dismay that I must report that I do not own any part of the Pirates franchise, least of all Jack Sparrow.

Notes: Set (very long) after the end of At World's End. No real spoilers in the prologue, but there will be many in the forthcoming chapters. If there are forthcoming chapters.

Pirates of the Caribbean - The Water of Eternal Life

prologue

"How," said a voice above her, "do you feel about pirates?"

She glanced up tiredly from the beer mug she nursed; her shift had just finished at one of the fancy tourist traps that raked in money by the potload. It paid, but there was nothing like dealing with a bunch of tourists all day to utterly destroy your faith in humanity. It only began with the shirts they wore and the things they wanted pictures of. And the speaker sounded like a tourist.

She looked up, and did a double-take. If the guy was a tourist, he was a tourist to the planet; his eyes were thickly lined in kohl, his dark hair braided, beaded, and then possibly chewed upon. He wore a weird little hat; his heavy coat smelled mustily of the centuries and a little of something sour and bleakly alcoholic. He had either a thin mustache or evil moss growing on his upper lip. He moved with the exaggerated grace of a drunkard into the third stage; it was a moment before she realised that he had moved into the seat opposite hers in the booth.

"I don't remember asking you to sit," she said, a little darkly.

The man digested this, hands clasped together on the table. His nails were crusted with dirt, still grimy from some presumably unspeakable task. "I don't remember having ever met you," he said after a while, and flashed a stained smile mingling with gold teeth. "Which I'm sure I would do if ever I had before, so clearly I cannot have, since I make a point not to forget visions of such loveliness."

"I'm still in my waitress dress from work," she pointed out.

"And it makes you all the more lovely," he assured her, radiant.

She eyed him warily. "I don't go for all that kinky stuff," she told him. "And I don't get picked up by men in bars."

"Excellent," said the stranger, "you're probably too heavy for me to pick up anyway." She narrowed her eyes at him; oblivious, he beamed. "Now. How would you feel about..." He leaned in to her ear and whispered something.

A moment passed.

The resulting splash and slap echoed through the bar. The waitress off-duty stamped out, coat flying in folds from her arms as she made determinedly for the door, which slammed with a tinkle behind her.

At the table, her companion grimaced and peered out from the booth, left and right, before withdrawing again. Carefully he pulled off his hat and wrung at it vaguely before placing it back on his head and staring sadly at the soaked table for the waste of proper beer. Then, abandoned and still dripping, he glanced briefly up and down the bar, and brightened.

"And how," he said, interspersing himself between a bright-haired young lady and a large man of questionable integrity, "would you like to take a ride on a pirate ship, hm?"

Unlike the first, this lady looked intrigued. The man behind the interloper furrowed his brow, debating whether this offer involved him and if so, in what way, and whether he would like that way.

One arm around the young lady, the interloper signed the bartender for a drink. A mug of something rich and dark came sliding down the length of the bar; he caught it expertly in one hand, raised it, and drank deep. "Now I," he said extravagantly to the armful of lovely girl, setting the glass back down and signing for another, "just happen to have in my poss-- possessessess--" he frowned. "Possessessessesses-- just happen to have one of the finest pirate ships known to man. Sitting. Right there in the bay. Under the moonlight and the stars. What say you to a... private tour?"

At the word 'private' and the sight of the lady occupied by someone else, neurons flickered in the boyfriend's brain. He started to growl.

"Thank you," the girl said, still smiling, "but Arnie gets seasick." She gestured.

The interloper glanced over his shoulder. "I'm sure the sea is sick of you, too," he told Arnie generously before turning back to the girl. "Well, then. I happen to have on my person a large sum won from the generous gamblinghouses of this beautiful place, and find myself in urgent need of enter-entertai-- fun. I don't suppose a lovely young lady like yourself and..." he cringed, "Arnie would be willing to give me a tour?"

The girl giggled, touching her hand to the curls pinned behind her ear. "Well," said the girl. "We're tourists ourselves, but sure, we'd be happy to have you along. Wouldn't we, Arnie?"

Her boyfriend had not stopped growling.

"Arnie?" Her voice went to flint and steel, but to no avail; the last of the signals had fired the warning signal of having one's girlfriend in imminent danger of being stolen away by a dark and smelly stranger.

With a roar, Arnie rose to his feet, found words inside his skull, and spat them. "Go to bars to steal girls much, do you?"

The stranger tragically detached himself from the girl. "Regrettably, no." He looked back. "Just the one girl, anyway."

Arnie's girlfriend giggled against the bar, swinging in mild circles on her stool, while Arnie growled again. Behind him, burly crowds amassed.

"Somethin' wrong, Arnie?" what appeared to be a large boulder dressed in leather said. It cracked granite knuckles in the stranger's direction. "Someone bothering you and your girl?" Arnie did not speak, but they both narrowed their eyes consideringly at the interloper.

He smiled brightly, and bounded to the top of a stool. "Gentlemen," he said, addressing the bar with a little wobble, "good evening. These fine men are about to start a bar fight of epic proportions. Flying glass. Beer slung in faces. Beautiful women for prizes. If anyone would like to come to help the underdog, now is the time."

He waited.

"Anyone," he said. "Anyone at all."

There came a murmur. A large portion of the crowd rose to their feet, and meandered towards hm. The interloper grinned, though his smile thinned as they bustled past him, filing out of the door and into the streets at night.

The bar was mostly empty now. The interloper looked twitchily around at the bartender placidly cleaning glasses, at the girl's bloodlust-shot eyes, and Arnie with his three friends. "Just you," said Arnie, cracking his own knuckles, "me, and a little thing called your in-e-vi-ta-ble doom."

And the fight began.

As Arnie threw a punch at his head, he heard the jangle of a bell like the one over the bar door. A dark shadow slipped past his sight and settled into a seat, but the stranger was busy ducking, and so did not see the man nodding with faint courtesy at Arnie's girlfriend as they settled in to watch the fight.

Braids flying behind him, he dove beneath a table and crawled past it onto bare flagstones just as one of Arnie's companions grunted and laid into it with a ferocious smash. He scrambled to his feet to run just as a shadow darkened his path. He looked up into the black face of something very like a caveman.

"Heh," he said feebly, and essayed a wave.

Fingers tightened around his throat, dragging him to his feet. "We never want to see your face 'round here again," Arnie grunted, glaring. "Got it?"

"Absolutely," the stranger promised, and smiled his golden smile. His free hand came whistling back; a mug broke against Arnie's bald head.

With a sigh, Arnie crumpled to the ground.

The interloper, now free, staggered a little, feeling his throat. Recovering, he circled around the burly man, toeing his body.

"Man," he slurred, swaying, "don't you know who I am? I'm Cap'n Jack--"

Someone threw a bottle at his head; it broke against the tricorne hat he wore. Very slowly he turned and met the eyes of someone familiar.

"It's good to see you, Jack," said the newcomer, in a voice that distinctly said otherwise.

"Ah," Jack said, smile twitching down at the corners. "It's you. Haven't seen you in a," he stepped daintily backward over the wreckage of a table; his heel caught on a broken leg and he stumbled, "Krakon's age or two. Missed you loads. Let's do this again in another Krakon's age so that I'll have more time to miss you..."

He ran for the door. Behind him the man touched his fingers over his heart and grinned. The sword at his hip gleamed slackly.

As Jack hurtled through and into the street, he fell over a cane someone held at the bottom of the doorframe, as if deliberately anticipating an opportunity to trip him. Flailing wildly, he stumbled across the narrow street and into the fruit stall opposite. Recovering himself blearily among the mangoes, his eyes found two dainty feet in high black heels advancing upon him. Sad, wary, he looked up into the face of the worst enemy known to rum.

"Hello, Jackie," the woman said, her lovely features grim, still clutching the cane as though she might stab him with it. A slim hand closed around a fistful of braids. "What did you do with the water from the fountain of youth?"

"Nice to see you, too, Elizabeth," said Jack, and winced. "How's married life working out for you these days?"

to be continued?

feedback: is always appreciated.