Chapter Three
"Now Bill, ye can't refuse a woman from Tortuga!"
"Yes I can. All I have to do is walk in skint," Bill answered, "and besides- why should I give up on Jocelyn?"
"Because it's been three years since you proposed to make an honest woman of 'er. No lass I've met 'as ever been worth that."
"You haven't met many lasses who'd agree to stay with you free of charge..." he muttered.
"I 'eard that."
"Jack, you've been a rogue for... how many years now?" Bill picked up a mug out of a drunkard's hand and filled it up from the barrel of ale beside him, continuing to walk.
"Twenty-five years! And I'd like to keep it that way," said Jack exuberantly, cupping his hands under the broken cork on an ale barrel. He drank from his palms, slurping it up in an odd fashion. Will handed him a mug of ale, urging him to move on. Jack grasped the cup, starting their pace again, "...Showoff."
"You give all the sober pirates a bad name."
"Sparrow is never a bad name, drunk or sober," he said, noticing a woman with striking red hair, a revealing dress, and more than two times the average amount of makeup sitting on an ale barrel.
"Scarlett! How've ye been, love?"
The woman staggered towards him, stopped several inches from his face, and smacked him with all her might. His head whipped around. "'Ow d'ye think I've been?! Leavin' me 'ere all alone for three bloody 'orrible months!"
Jack rubbed his sore jaw and explained in his sweetest voice possible, being he was drunk... "Scarlett, yeh've got to understand. I had... important business propositions."
"Important business propositions," she mocked, "IMPORTANT BUSINESS PROPOSITIONS MY ASS! GET OUT OF 'ERE, YA GREAT OAF!"
She smacked him again, walking off the other way.
Jack groaned slightly, rubbing his jaw, a fresh red handprint appearing on his face.
Bill stared at Jack, "...Business propositions?"
"Well...in a manner of speaking, yes."
He gave Jack a doubtful look until he couldn't bear it anymore. "Alright! I plundered a shop and the manager was ready ta string me up. So, he agreed to let me off scot-free if I loved 'is daughter, Gizelle."
"...Did you?"
"Of couse not! But what would ye say to a man who wanted ye dead?" Jack sighed, "I'd marry HIM as long as I knew I had a plan to escape before I 'ad to go on 'oneymoon."
"It's really some... disease with you, in't it, Jack? You are not able to fall in love!"
" Maybe it's just that I've never met that... girl, the type you go on about."
"Type?"
"You know... all that lovey-dovey romantic codswallop," said Jack, flipping a coin off his thumb to a girl he passed.
When they were approaching the pub, Will looked at him quizzically with a warm smile, "No, no. Go on, I want to hear this. What would your perfect woman be like?"
"Well..." said Jack with a drunken laugh. The smile slowly faded from his face as he stared transfixed at a young woman with deep greenish-blue eyes and dark brown hair sitting on a crate full of rum bottles.
"Like that," he murmured, walking unsteadily towards her. She looked up, seeming completely puzzled.
"Yes?" she said.
After a few moments of uninterrupted blinking, Jack replied with a hiccup, falling forward onto her.
...When Jack awakened, he was lying down in a dimly lit, squalid room that he vaguely recognized. The beautiful woman he'd obviously passed out on was sitting at the foot of the bed talking with Bill, who was seemingly uncomfortable in a faulty wooden chair by the door. But there was one person he hadn't noticed...
"JACK!" said a sickeningly sweet voice, "My li'le Sparrow!"
"God 'elp me," he muttered.
Gizelle, a young blonde jezebel, sat across Jack's legs and laid her head on his shoulder, "My lovely li'le Sparrow..."
"...Lovely?" said Bill, all his attention on Jack. "She's been here the whole time, waiting for you to wake up." He nodded thoughtfully. "Oh!... You must be Gizelle."
She turned her head to him perkily, "I am. 'ow'd you know?"
"Oh, Jack has told me so much about you, haven't you, Jack?" said Bill devilishly.
"Bill! You shouldn't talk so much, what with that broken jaw," Jack uttered.
"Nonsense, Jack. 'e's been talkin' with Fiona the whole time."
The young woman looked thoroughly entertained by their ridiculously casual talk. She could tell Jack was headed toward disaster, so she picked up the conversation.
"Gizelle and I work at this inn."
"Yeah, Jack. And tonight..." said Gizelle seductively, "we may even be two fa one, aye?"
"I have to pay the girl I love?" Jack asked.
She frowned, "Daddy says I 'ave to work tonight. So... I'll work." Jack cleared his throat nervously as Gizelle swung her legs around and straddled his lap. He grinned sheepishly.
"Ah- I don't believe he'd let ye get payment by such means, love."
"Well 'e don't 'ave to know... As long as I pay 'im back," she answered, surveying Bill, "Oy Jack? Would ya friend like service?"
Bill stammered a thank-you-but-no as best he could to save what poise he had left being stuck in a room with an embarrassed and straddled Jack.
Gizelle giggled, "Come on now. I'll bet Fiona'd love ta."
"Gizelle!" growled Fiona.
Bill's face was tinged with pink.
"Sorry, love. Bill's got a lass," said Jack to Gizelle, "an' he's the loyal type."
She pouted, getting off Jack and walking over to sit on Bill's lap. "Come over 'ere with us. I don't bite."
"It's not your teeth I'm afraid of..." Bill said finally, standing up and leaving the room. Then, he entered again, and took Fiona's hand, leaving Fiona with a startled look on her face.
"Well now!" said Gizelle, sitting on Jack who was now sitting up, "Give me the money when ya done."
Once they had left the room and the door was closed, Fiona met his eyes fearfully, "But I thought-"
"You thought right," said Bill, "and I will pay you for your company. Let's go get a drink, shall we?"
She smiled, following him down the staircase to the pub across the road. A half-asleep bearded man served their drinks, then passed out on the floor next to their table. The night life never died down in Tortuga, mostly due to the fact that almost every shop had a pub, and inn, or a brothel on either side of it.
"I can't believe that's the infamous Jack Sparrow," said Fiona bitterly, taking a drought of rum.
"Believe it... This is one of his more sober days."
"No... the drunkenness is fine. I mean that he would ever love Gizelle." Saying that, she took a long drink from the bottle.
Bill stopped her before she finished it, pulling it slowly away from her mouth, "He doesn't love her, so stop trying to drown yourself in rum."
Her laugh was hollow, "You think I'm drinkin' because of him? I just mentioned 'im doesn't mean he's the reason I'm drinkin'."
"Then what is? Surely you don't want to end up falling off your chair and lying on the ground till morning."
"I wouldn't be. I know you'd carry me back to the inn." Bill smirked when he heard this. Fiona started again, "It's Gizelle. She's gettin' me into something I don't want. I mean, fooling with their minds is alright, but..."
"...But?
"But foolin' with anythin' below the waist is completely different, and I don't want her reputation."
He put his drink down slowly, "I know what you're getting at, but... if you're so against Gizelle's... indecency, then why is it that you're working with her? It can't be for the payment..."
"There's only so many jobs a woman can get in Tortuga, and besides... I do have another job," she said cleverly.
"Oh really?"
"Yes. It's only useful to be with Gizelle because she pulls in quite a few rich gents with shallow pockets..."
Bill's eyes widened, "You don't mean..." Fiona nodded. "You're a pickpocket?"
"Thief, actually. Best in all of Tortuga. I'm never caught. Just kiss the men for a while until you get 'em off-balance; they wouldn't notice if you shoved a firecracker in their knickas."
Bill seemed shocked, then laughed, "Well well well. I think we have a new job for you. If you'll join us." He reached in his pocket and handed her seven gold doubloons.
"I can't accept this!" she gasped, "It's more than I've ever made."
"It'll be spare change compared to what you can make if you join us," he said, kissing her hand as a gesture of parting. "We'll be leaving in the morning. Whether or not you come with us, those are yours." He rose and left for the inn.
As he walked away, she pocketed the doubloons and followed him. "What will Gizelle think if she sees you alone?"
Bill shot a glance backward, "We'll head for the room across the hall. Walk out if you hear their door open and give her whatever change you have left."
"Alright... I've got enough tips from the last two days to hold 'er off..." said Fiona, walking along the edge of the road to the inn, ascending the steps to the room across the hall, just like Bill had said.
She got her change out of her pocket and waited until she heard the door creak open across the hallway. "I'm going out," whispered Fiona, opening the door a bit and slipping out of the dark room. She didn't look up until she realized there was a pair of large tan feet where Gizelle's should have been. Fiona looked up slowly.
"BLEEDIN' CHRIST!" she screamed, shielding her eyes with her hand, "Mr. Sparrow, what right do you have to be in the hallway stark naked?!"
"Bloody hell, man- go put some clothes on and stop scarin' the ladies," Bill said from behind the door.
"Then give me some of yours, Bill- Gizelle 'as thrown me out and taken me only set of clothes."
Fiona escaped the indecent exposure in the hall by cracking the door open and slipping into the room with Bill. "Give 'im some of your clothes, Bill, or we're not leaving this room." He groaned, taking off his bandanna and shirt.
"Only a bloody friend would let him wear a shirt on the bottom... Tell him we're square now. He'll understand."
Fiona closed her eyes and walked into the hallway, "Jack, take the clothes... Bill said you two are square now."
Jack chuckled, taking the shirt and holding it horizontally. "Can ye help?"
She opened one eye slowly, then said, "Jack! Yer ass is showin'!"
"Ye think I didn't notice? 'elp me with the scarf."
"It's a bandanna."
"Fine. Don't care what ye call it, just 'elp me, if you don't mind."
With some indistinct muttering and incoherent curses, she tied the bandanna, giving her a decent look at his backside before she covered it with the 'scarf'.
"Many thanks, love," he said at almost a grunt, turning to her. "You know, I..."
"...'ave a nice ass–" said Fiona, trying to catch herself in mid-sentence, without success.
Jack a roguish smile spread across his face, "Do I?" Fiona had a shocked look and stammered, "Well I- I mean I..." she quickly composed herself, "Don't be too thrilled, Sparrow. I'm blind drunk and I don't know where that came from."
"The 'ell you don't!" said Jack, looking directly into her eyes. When she turned away, he grasped her upper arm, whipping her around. "...The 'ell you don't," he repeated, smiling softly. Before he could advance, she slipped out of his grasp, walking to her room.
"G'night, Captain Sparrow."
So it was that the infamous Captain Jack Sparrow slept alone, being rejected (for the first time in his life, I might add) in a makeshift loincloth by the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.
A/N: Wa-ha-ha! This was the most enjoyable chapter I've written so far.