This story was voted Best Humor at the potc votes livejournal awards! Thank you to whoever voted!

(puts on Tour Guide Barbie face) Hi! This tale takes place in the Caribbean, on the island of St. Kitts. St. Kitts is home to the Brimstone Hill Fortress. Called the Gibraltar of the West Indies, Brimstone Hill was a major naval outpost for the English in the 18th century and is one of the best preserved forts in the Americas. Covering over 38 acres, its massive Fort George citadel is protected by seven-foot thick walls of black volcanic stone, which was known as brimstone in the 18th century.

Now if you'll just file neatly into this time machine and strap yourselves in, we'll be off to the 18th century for a good dose of pirate therapy! I hope no one's allergic to wheat berries, because that's all the snacks we have. And warmish water. Thank you!

A/N: This is pre-CotBP, during the Wicked Wench days. Beckett has not been made a lord yet. He is only an agent of the EITC... this does NOT make him more humble or considerate. This story is rated for language (though I'll do my best to keep it tame) and is not slash. This story does, I think, have a touch of romance in its future.

Disclaimer: Pirates of the Caribbean belongs to Disney and therefore to Mickey Mouse.

Chapter 1

The brand hurt like an opera diva singing flat.

Of course, being physically marked was not new to Jack Sparrow; his poor body bore multiple scars from many...acquaintances. But there was no shame in a nobly-gained mark. Jack was all too happy to follow the masculine tradition of prizing combat scars and really felt quite complacent with his appearance.

More importantly, every woman who had-ahem-seen him echoed his contentment. If women liked it, he'd be a fool to hate it.

But this was different.

After being forced to watch the only ship he ever fallen in love with drown with her sides blown out, he'd been taken ashore and dragged into an elegant office. After he saw the iron heating in the fireplace, it took five guards to restrain him. Eventually they just forced him to the floor. Two more guards had pulled his right arm into cold vulnerability. Pinned.

Then Beckett, that rabid agent of the East India Trading Company, the monster responsible for everything that was bad in the world, had sauntered up with the scent of hot metal hanging around him. He'd looked down at Jack…smirked…and then pressed cherry-red iron to-

Jack shuddered. His wrist was swollen, blistered, and oozing clear stuff. He wanted to cover it somehow, but the very thought of touching the brand made him nauseous. The name of his prison was Brimstone and it just figured that he'd hurt as if he'd dipped his hand into the stuff.

But this was the heart of the matter: he'd never felt so cowed by sophistication. Alas and alack, there was a time when dreadlocks just didn't hold up to snowy wigs. That was the deepest wound of all–he'd worked long and hard on his dreadlocks. The women had liked them, too.

Fingering his hair, he sighed. Then he admired the melancholy sound. Then he curled his lip at his wrist. He never wanted to see Beckett again. He had decided he was mortally allergic to the pert-nosed, ice-hearted, girl-skinned wretch.

He'd understood the East India Trading Company's method concerning pirates to be Brand the Buggers Right Before Hanging Them. But for Captain Jack Sparrow, Beckett seemed magnanimously willing to drop the efficiency clause. Why? Because to hang Jack immediately after branding meant that he would suffer for a mere four minutes...and seven seconds.

(The four minutes were for manhandle-the-prisoner-onto-the-gallows, noose-putting-on and lever-pulling. The seven seconds were for the hangman to wipe his nose at least three times. Hangmen always had drippy shnozzes and when things got stringy as they often did, well...)

No, Beckett wanted Jack to suffer for at least five hours. Maybe longer, since Jack had been suffering for five hours in his cell and there was no sign of the inevitable priest ready to hear his confession. Poor priest wouldn't have lasted through the whole thing anyhow. The last priest Jack had confessed to had simply walked out after Jack's nunnery story, which was one of the best.

The odd thing was, Jack was at peace. Utterly serenely calm. Placidity reigned.

Mostly because he was out of his cell and walking away.

The author would tell you how he got out but we'd be standing here by the locked cell door for five minutes and then we'd lose him. And we'd be stuck in this labyrinth of British concoction and never see the light of day again. Let us instead hasten in his sauntering wake.

Still holding his wrist, Jack slithered past torches and dripping walls and aged wood doors with tiny windows in them. No more than a wraith, he became...very hard to follow. Concentrate or we'll get lost.

Then his eyes went huge and he plastered himself to the wall.

That door. That cell door with the scratches that formed a bowl of fruit, if he looked at it with his head tilted approximately thirty-two degrees. He'd passed it enough times to know that the little window oozed evil like mucous between its rusted bars. Ew. Jack's cheek twitched as he remembered the hangmen and their extravagant nasal leakages.

He looked down the hall. An intersection was mere yards away. He had to work up his nerve, tally-ho, sally forth, pip pip, just do it. Just do it. It was written on the wall across from him, underneath an odd swoop drawn in charcoal! He blinked quickly and it disappeared.

"We're bein' followed by ghosts wit' charcoal," he whispered to the air in front of his nose.

Slowly, inch by inch, Jack slid down the wall into a crouch. Fingers to the floor, he rotated so he faced the intersection. Liquid brown eyes narrowed and focused. Like a cat, he wriggled a little.

When he launched himself with supreme grace, muscles exploding in heavenly unison, his boot slipped. He cursed, slammed flat to the floor, remained so placed for approximately 0.002 seconds, then scrabbled forward like a demented aardvark.

Stop laughing, he'll hear us. And it isn't funny. You'll see why.

Before Jack's tongue (which he was sticking out in his effort) was past that evil door, two chubby hands wrapped around the bars. A high giggle issued from between the hands like a foul vapor. "Jacky!" cried a breathy, high voice, "I done my hair like yours! Jacky, come back and see. Dear Jacky..." Hair was pushed between the bars. Gray with grime, it was plastered into a single dreadlock.

By this time Jack had his feet under him and was moving at Mach 3. He zipped around the corner and up a flight of stairs...

"Jackieeeeeeee!"from behind.

Oh. At the top of the stairs was a circular landing with a table in the middle, a table with a quartet of guards sitting around it. Jack careened straight onto the guards' table, somersaulted, and landed on the other side. On his feet.

The guards Johnny, Lawrence, Rob, and Gilbert gaped at him. Fat Gilbert's pipe fell into his lap.

Jack glanced at the scattered cards, then simpered. "Good game. Good odds. Good bye."

He lunged drunkenly for the next flight of stairs. At that instant, the pipe burned through Gilbert's breeches and he leaped up with a yowl, beating at his legs. His mates clattered after Jack. Rob got elbowed in the eye because the stairs were only three feet wide and there was a distinct absence of the gentlemanly Please-After-You.

This next flight of stairs opened into a long corridor just like the one Jack had left. As he sprinted down it, Lawrence and Johnny reached the top of the stairs and knelt, bringing muskets to bear. "Escaped prisoner! Stop him!" they bellowed. Cell doors rattled as the occupants tried to see out.

Three new guards, Kilroy, Watson, and Tom, ran into Jack's path from the left. He squawked, wiggled his fingers at them, and they yelled in surprise and jumped away. Jack whisked himself around the corner. With a crack like thunder, Lawrence and Johnny fired. Kilroy, Watson, and Tom were thrown into the wall. Their cries of pain followed Jack down three steps, across a guard room, and up three more steps.

A new corridor stretched out before him. He would never find his way out.

Then white daylight flashed in his right eyeball and he threw himself at it. Down a short corridor with a windowed door, grab the ring, pull – the door opened! Jack threw himself out and shut it behind him.

"Dratted luminosity!" he muttered, squinting.

A rectangular yard, ten feet by thirty, presented itself. This was where lucky prisoners got the occasional breath of fresh air. There were muddy puddles in the corners and the stone walls were blue-gray. Cold. Not a spot of green. Above there was blue sky with a miniature cloud set on fire by the sunset. Most importantly, there was another door across the way. Jack scuttled to it, pulled it open, and slipped into gross darkness. His eyes thanked him. And guess what they saw.

A tiny hall leading into...another long corridor. Jack wearily started down it, then froze.

That voice. Beckett.

"You said Jenkins've cracked by now." The tone was icily moderated, each syllable neither skipped nor pronounced too carefully.

"Sir, he kept faintin'. We must've revived him five times."

"We don't have time to wave smelling salts under convicts' noses like ladies in a salon. Either find a method that works or dispose of him. I need results by tomorrow night."

"Yes, sir."

Faintly, there came the ringing of a bell. Drat.

"An escaped prisoner." Beckett's voice was Sahara-dry. "This place becomes more spectacular by the minute." His precise, clicking footsteps approached. Then stopped. "I suggest you refuse to let Jenkins sleep."

"It will be done, sir."

"Mercer here will see to that. Mercer, bring me whatever results you get tomorrow night."

"Yes, sir."

The footsteps resumed. Jack shrank, his eyes black. He cradled his wrist protectively.

Beckett was a white flash to Jack's gaze, like an angel passing through the gloom. A fallen angel, Beckett was, from his perfect hands to his white coat a porcelain vessel of arctic cruelty. The smart clicking of Beckett died away. Soon after, the other speaker quickly shuffled in the other direction. He was followed by almost-silent steps. Only then did Jack rise from the ink shadows, face lined and grim.

Reaching the corridor, he peeked left, then right. Except for the bell, this could've been catacombs, it was so still. For a moment he frowned at the floor, considering his options.

He could follow Shuffle and Mercer, or Beckett. Left or right. The chances that Shuffle was headed for an exit were iffy. Shuffle was obviously an interrogator, and those monsters never left their lairs on purpose. They needed a stable environment to grow the bodily fungus that was such a vital part of their image. Beckett's toady, Mercer, who had accompanied Shuffle, was a wolfish man. Always dressed like an undertaker, he had a wiry frame and a grim face with obsidian eyes. Jack did not want to tangle with Mercer, ever. To contrast, Beckett would not linger longer than he had to, because grime would gray his wig. And he was Mercer-less. Chances for escape were much better in Beckett's direction.

"Bugger," Jack said through his teeth, and then slid to the left.

He made it down the corridor without attracting any attention. At the end, he was forced to go right, and was faced with a new intersection.

Right: a lit kitchen. Left: new long corridor. Ahead: stairs headed down into doom.

Jack went left. The corridor's dark end did not look very hopeful. Where had Beckett gone? Jack started when someone sobbed, then kept moving, wary. It was too quiet...

Cutler Beckett strode into the corridor's end, and for a moment Jack's eyes traced his pert profile. Then Beckett turned, stared, then slowly faced Jack with his hands behind his back.

There was a deadly silence. Unable to breathe, Jack waited for twenty guards to clatter up behind the agent. Instead, he heard Beckett speak.

"The escaped prisoner. I should have guessed."

"Y'should've," Jack murmured, still frozen.

Beckett took one step forward. Jack jumped back. Then whirled and rushed back down the corridor.

"Guards!" Beckett shouted.

At the intersection, Jack twisted right, determined to retrace his steps. But men's voices could be heard from that direction–Jack made a one-eighty and stumbled down the stairs into doom just as Beckett reached the intersection with three guards.

"He went downstairs," the agent said with his typical flatness. "Do fetch him."

"Yes, sir..."

Jack was already turning a corner. It was getting darker. This was the wrong way; he'd probably end up on the shores of a sulfur lake. A blur of light from yet another guard room...someone was snoring. Down more stairs, this time into almost complete blackness. The smell was of the dead.

Jack softened his steps when passing a door whose handle was crusted with hairy mold. Behind it, someone was laughing and laughing. Shuddering, Jack was still hearing that insane cackle when he spotted a stairway going up an instant later. Hearing the wild pursuit behind him, he danced up the steps and into a corridor with more than two torches. Delighted, he rushed to its end, and up more stairs–

He'd gone in a circle. An upsy-downy circle but a circle all the same. There was the kitchen on his left and the long corridor on his right; he couldn't see into either. Before him, another blank corridor...

And no Beckett in sight.

Oddly, this made Jack want to stand very still for years if that was what it took to locate the diminutive dragon by sound. He wished he was foolish enough to just run for it, but he was too blasted accustomed to being hunted. Curse the various hunters who had warped him so! He tried to quiet his breathing, and listened.

Either Beckett had wandered off or he could breathe quieter. The guards were still on the loose below...there was nowhere to go but forward. Clenching his jaw so hard his gold teeth squeaked, Jack took one step.

Click. He whirled, his various beads making a racket.

Then he cursed so fiercely his guardian angel probably flew away crying.

Thanks for reading! Mickey Mouse says Please review - positive and negative critisism is welcome. I need to know if I should keep posting!