AN (1/18): I fully intended on just writing an epilogue and calling it good...however, I couldn't just leave Jack on that island with no hope. That would be a bad ending to a book...though, I think more sad endings should occur...but he needs to be saved. And Bootstrap needs to be dropped to the depths...redeem himself (which was pointed out to me by a truly great RPer...).
And the cereal reference before...well, I'll make another one here, and say that it's a Malt-O-Meal brand...
There's lots of other references in this particular chapter...see if you can figure 'em out!
Chapter 26: Rumrunners
"Is this a ship which I see before me, sails toward me location?" A pair of dark brown eyes blinked several times as a pair of hands slowly rubbed at the dark eyes and smeared kohl onto the bags underneath the sleep deprived man's eyes. Surely he was imagining things...there couldn't be a ship here so soon. Nope...he hadn't been punished long enough. It had only been three days, after all, and he'd barely made a dent in the supply of rum he'd miraculously found in a hole in the ground. Perhaps the rumrunners were here to pick up their cache...hmmm...that was probably a bad thing. He'd be in trouble for tasting their wares. But...he was too drunk to actually be seeing anything properly, right?
He hoped so. It'd be very difficult to convince someone to take him off this island since he'd been eating their wares. A miracle. But...if anyone deserved a miracle, it was him, right? Jack Sparrow was captain no more...a man rejected by those he thought were friends. The sun certainly wasn't helping his troubled mind as he lay on the beach, lovingly stroking the pistol Barbossa'd given him nearly once an hour. He still had a way out...especially if those sails turned out to be clouds. Jack really wasn't sure if he was actually seeing a ship or not. Yesterday afternoon, Jack had been positive he'd seen his mother swimming in the water right next to the shore, a look of complete worry on her face as she struggled to get her water-soaked dress out of the clutches of seaweed. He'd been unable to move and help her, for his logical side knew that there was nothing out in that water but sharks. Of course...after the vision of his mother disappeared, he saw a mermaid that looked like his sister swimming towards shore. Perhaps the women of his childhood just wanted to bother him for giving up. The mermaid-Jodi had sung softly to try and lure him into the water. But he'd resisted. It was absurd, thinking that Jodi was half fish...he knew she wasn't. And these sails on the water were just another manifestation of his worry that he'd actually have to pull a trigger on himself...while Jack didn't feel like living, he didn't really feel like dying. He wanted revenge much more than anything else now.
He sighed softly and reached over to the pistol once more. It really was a fine piece of work, for it was Barbossa's personal pistol. It was rather remarkable that Barbossa'd actually given it to Jack. Unless, of course, Barbossa planned on raiding the island later to pry it from Jack's dead hands and to see how he'd finally decided to end it all. But Jack wouldn't give Barbossa that satisfaction...no. He definitely wouldn't. He couldn't kill himself, for that would mean that Barbossa really won.
"I swear they're gettin' closer," Jack commented with a yawn a few moments later as his gaze drifted from the pink seashell held in his other hand back out to sea. This hallucination was very realistic...Jack could almost see the men going up into the rigging and such to get the ship to come to a stop after they dropped an anchor in. It was a fine ship, a flute flying English colors. Flutes were a very popular ship because they had more cargo space than other smaller ships. Ideal for a rumrunner not wanting to draw attention to himself. Of course, Jack was still convinced it wasn't a real ship. How could it be?
Even when he saw a skiff filled with several crewmembers headed towards the beach, Jack refused to believe it was actually someone that could be his salvation. Surely he was doomed to die on this island...there was no hope of him ever getting the Pearl back from Barbossa now. Not after that humiliation.
However...even a depressed Jack Sparrow couldn't deny the fact that there was a voice in the air. Someone was shouting about seeing a man on shore...and was ordering his men to get their guns out. As if Jack was really a threat...actually, that helped him muster the courage to actually sit up as the skiff neared the shore and was dragged onto the beach. Five rather swarthy individuals stepped off the skiff. They were clearly first-rate sailors, based on the way their hands were calloused and the tans they had. It was enough to make Jack nearly scowl and weep all at the same time.
A man sighed softly, putting his hand down lightly as his men aimed their pistols in preparation for killing the pillaging fox who'd obviously gotten into their supplies. He was the weathered captain of the Albatross, a rumrunner extraordinaire. His men instantly put their pistols down as he approached the squashed looking figure in front of him. To this rugged captain with dark hair and even darker eyes, Jack looked like some sort of crushed exotic bird. He felt just a pang of pity, as though he could tell the hardships Jack had gone through. He shoved the pang out of his mind, however. He couldn't afford to be sympathetic. "What exactly are ye doin' wiv me supplies?" he asked tersely. It was mostly for show...he could tell that the man before him was on the brink of losing his mind.
"Well," Jack responded, allowing the barest hint of a smirk to grace his features, "I was dropped on this island a few days ago an' decided t' explore my realm, so to speak. Me first mate thought'd be funny t' make me governor of this 'ere isle...so, I suppose the question is, what are you tryin' t' do wiv my supplies?"
The captain smiled slightly and shook his head. How could a man so close to utter destruction still respond with such arrogance? "I'm afraid that you're being replaced, governor," he replied, shaking his head as his men laughed. "Get up." He pulled his pistol out of his belt loop, cocked it, and pointed it at Jack. "I don't take kindly to smart asses on me island. This is our cache."
"Figured as much," Jack replied with a chuckle as he lazily got up to his feet. Were these men really here? How he wanted to reach out and touch them... Of course, even he wasn't daft enough to do that. "Tiger, tiger burning bright in the forests of the night; what immortal hand or eye dare frame yer fearful symmetry?" A bit of random nonsense...to see if perhaps the men would melt into one of the fierce tigers he'd seen in India. They didn't, however, and Jack was starting to convince himself that maybe they really existed.
"How long 'ave ye been 'ere, boy?" the captain asked, frowning at Jack's chuckle. He was supposed to be intimidating, not funny...how this man expected to get off this island by stealing supplies was really quite beyond him. Sure, he looked like a squashed bird...but he wasn't against ending their misery. It was rather evident what sort of captain he was based on the two deep slashes across his cheek. It almost looked like someone had done that deliberately. He had a patch resting on top of his left eye. It was quite a mystery as to what exactly was behind the patch. Had he lost the eye? Had he merely injured the eye? Was it for show? It certainly didn't make him look like a person to kid around with, though, and Jack was certainly playing with potential fire as one of the captain's crew members with lazy brown hair spilling into his face tightened his grip around his sword and his pistol at the same time.
Boy? Jack smiled slightly at the man who was about his height. He wasn't that much younger than this mystery captain...well, he could be, but it wasn't like he was some cabin boy or something. "Three days," he responded almost mutely as a man with blonde hair with dark roots and a green shirt shook his gun menacingly. Did it really matter?
Only three days? Why was Jack reacting so horribly now? It'd make more sense if he'd been here a week...two weeks...but three days? This man seemed to have nearly lost his mind. He wasn't reacting at all worried about the fact that there were hostile men on the island that would probably kill him. Perhaps the sun was baking his sense out. "Ah. What'd they put you 'ere for?"
"Cap'n Swarthy...is all this really necessary?" the man with the blonde hair asked suddenly. He didn't like having all these questions...the man obviously had done something wrong, and should be dealt with accordingly. They didn't give men rides if they stole from their caches, after all.
"Quiet, Klaus," Swarthy said warningly, breaking his one-eyed gaze from Jack for just a moment to reprimand his over-zealous quartermaster.
Jack glanced between the two of them and waited for the looks of supreme distrust on both their faces to vanish for the most part. He smiled very briefly and slowly said, "Decided tha' they'd like treasure more'n a captain, I suppose. Thought tha' I wasn't good enough t' be captain anymore. You find a glimmer o' happiness in this world, there's always someone who wants t' destroy it."
"Very true," Swarthy agreed, a frown on his face as he slowly lowered the pistol. He'd experienced that dreadful feeling of complete abandonment. Who on earth hadn't? "Ye know...the punishment for stealing from our cache is death. Unless ye 'ave somethin' of value t' trade for your life."
Of course. Jack frowned slightly and seemed to be looking around the island. "Well...I could give ye unlimited access t' me island, mate. Wouldn' even 'ave t' pay t' stow stuff away 'ere." He seemed genuinely to think it belonged to him...
"Not acceptable, boy," Swarthy responded with a slight frown. "Can't ye come up wiv anything better? If we killed ye, we could take yer island wiv no problems a' all." He sighed as his men laughed arrogantly. "Wha's yer name, lad?"
"Jack Sparrow," Jack despondently replied. How dare they threaten to take his island away? It was his...and his alone, until he figured out how to get off. It suddenly dawned on Jack, however, that the rumrunners could get him off this godforsaken spit of land... There were murmurs among the five men as they placed where exactly they'd heard the almost legendary name.
"Stuff it," Pintel growled as he kicked belligerently at the bars of one of the cells in the brig. He'd been sitting watch all bloody day, listening to Bootstrap Bill moan and groan about the way they'd treated Jack and such. It was enough to drive a simple man up the wall, hearing the same argument day in and day out. Captain Barbossa was still deciding what sort of punishment to put on the man who seemed to be trying to incite a mutiny.
"I'm just saying...we reacted a bi' harshly," Bootstrap insisted, brushing an errant strand of his hair back behind his ear. He looked absolutely wretched, but most of that was from emotional turmoil. He'd convinced Jack to go without a fight...accomplished his goal, really, but he felt like a complete idiot and turncoat. He'd abandoned Jack when Jack needed him most because of Lauren and his son...they needed a husband and father, respectively. Sure...he knew Jack had a remote chance of getting off the island. But it was a chance, after all, and Jack Sparrow seemed to have all the luck.
"No we din'," Pintel insisted, opening one of his yellowed eyes and glaring at Bootstrap. "He would've brought us t' our death...ye know tha' 'e wasn't a sound captain. Din' know right from left. Cap'n Barbossa did 'im a favor, really, by cuttin' the apron strings, so to speak. Besides...no' yer place t' decide wha's right an' wha's wrong." The eye closed again as he leaned back in the simple chair. Maybe Barbossa didn't realize how boring this really was...sitting here.
"If we'd kept wiv Jack, he probably would've realized there was really a curse," Bootstrap remarked quietly, putting his hand on one of the bars. He hated this cage...hated waiting for his punishment. It was only now that he was starting to realize what sort of Hell he'd helped the others put Jack through. If he was uncomfortable in this cage...he could only imagine how Jack must've felt.
"Stuff it, Bootstrap!" Pintel exclaimed, kicking at the cell and squashing Bootstrap's fingers against the metal. He probably broke a few...but Bootstrap could feel no pain. Pintel couldn't even feel the bones grating against the metal through his boot. Of all the curses in the world...they'd ended up with one of the worst. Cursed to live forever and feel nothing...while that didn't sound too bad, it got terribly old really fast. They were currently on a mission to find every single one of those 882 identical coins and to return them. Barbossa was certain that that would make it so they would be un-cursed. And since he was sure, the crew was sure. All except for Bootstrap. He thought that they all deserved this horrible fate of not feeling anything at all... and suspected there was more to their redemption than merely righting what was wrong with the situation.
Bootstrap smirked very sarcastically at Pintel. "No." An argument between the two was obviously brewing as Hector Barbossa himself slowly descended the stairs to the brig, a smirk on his face. Bootstrap turned to face the man, a look of almost feral hatred on his face. "Have ye finally decided, then?" He smiled complacently, resembling Jack for just a split second as Barbossa calmly surveyed him.
"Aye, lad, I 'ave. You're of no use t' us here, ye know. Sowin' discord among me crew like some sort of mutineer. I've put up wiv ye long enough." Barbossa smiled malevolently at the man as he slowly walked towards the cell. "Come on, then...meet yer martyrdom."
"You do realize I won' die," Bootstrap quipped as he eagerly waited for them to open the cell. It was true, for Ketchum had been shot a month before in the chest and hadn't died. That's when even Ragetti and Pintel had realized they were immortal beings. Cursed, yes, but immortal.
"Aye, I do," Barbossa replied as Pintel unlocked the cell door and grabbed Bootstrap's arm. It only took a few moments for them to reach the decks of the Pearl. She certainly looked as though she'd seen better days. The sails had been replaced with black cloth some time back, but there were numerous holes that Barbossa didn't think were necessary to fix. Who needed sails without holes on a ship that was crewed by the un-holiest men in the Caribbean? It didn't seem to impede her speed, anyway.
There was a cannon sitting near the plank Barbossa had forced Jack off all those months ago. It seemed to be staring at Bootstrap ominously, mocking him for ever joining this miserable crew. It was a miserable crew with yellowed eyes staring at him with more malice then he would see if he ran into a woman's tea party with a gun in his hand and if he'd grabbed the hostess's daughter to fulfill some lewd desire. Shaking his head, Bootstrap allowed himself to be pushed right next to the cannon. "Goin' t' shoot me overboard, then?" he asked with what was almost a sneer.
"Nay," Barbossa responded with another malevolent smile. "We're goin' t' strap your bootstraps t' the cannon an' toss ye overboard. Can't 'ave mutineers on me ship." The crew laughed lightly, gleefully jumping to the task of tying his legs so tight to the cold cannon that he couldn't move at all. In a few minutes, they wheeled the cannon towards the plank and lifted it after a quick count of three.
Bootstrap was watching the procession numbly. They were going to drop him to Davy Jones' Locker? With a cannon? If they did get the curse lifted...he'd drown under probably a mile of water. If not...he'd probably be stuck for at least a few years. Good thing he'd sent that medallion off to Will a few weeks previously, before he'd been placed in the brig. Barbossa would never be able to find that last piece, and he might be able to unstrap his bootstraps from the cannon and find his way to land. The thought of such a long journey underwater was frightning...for Bootstrap barely knew how to swim. Of course...he had to help Jack, for he had to help his oldest and truest friend get his ship back.
"Off ye go, then," Barbossa said triumphantly as he personally kicked the whole contraption of misery into the water and Bootstrap began his perilous journey below. The light blue waters quickly faded into near black as the cannon pulled Bootstrap down to the ocean floor. His journey to survive was just beginning...
CrazyPirateGirl: Well, tis really over now...except for the whole epilogue thing. I hope you liked the closure of this chapter...well, the quasi-closure. And no...it wasn't a reference to Apple Jacks. Keep trying to guess, though! I never realized that you could think that it was Apple Jacks...anyway, I've got a whole slew of other references in this chappie...I'll name 'em all in the epilogue, if no one catches all of 'em.
darkmistylagoon: Thank you so much for your constant support! I'm glad you liked the last chatper...it was very hard to write. This one was a lot easier. Of course, Jack is pretty much insane, if you can't tell...he's got some issues to work out. And you picked up on the Ides of March! Woo! Go Misty! I was going to say Ides of March in the chapter...but thought that would be too obvious...anyway, thanks for the review!
Aliana Archer: Nope...the reference wasn't to Captain Crunch. Good guess, though. And the 15th of March is the Ides of March, and is in Julius Caesar. Thank you for the review, and I hope that you dislike Barbossa...
Jack: I'm glad you like the end. And...go ahead an' replace me. I don't mind... the chances of us ever actually meeting are slim to none. And he is now off. Good for Jack...his mind is all crazy, if you didn't notice...Thanks for the review.
orcachick2005: Sleeping in is uber fun! There was this one time I slept in until 5 PM...yeah, my mum thought I was dead or something. And I had lots of interesting dreams that I promptly forgot when I woke up. I hate getting up...
Barbossa does have a very strong point. Jack doesn't act like men of that century did...and certainly doesn't act like a pirate. He's a gentleman rogue pirate, according to Johnny...and this is bound to change his attitude a bit. He seems rather...paranoid, in the movie, doesn't he? And afraid to tell anyone anything...
The Apple Jacks is a good one...but not the one intended. You've probably never heard of this particular brand, unfortunately...so, if you can find the most odd references made in this chappie, I'll put you in my next story again...
I'm glad you think I used enough imagery...I get worried, sometimes that I leave out the important details. I'm odd like that, though. And this chapter probably doesn't make much sense...but that's because it's the result of sleep deprivation. If you have any suggestions, feel free t' make 'em. I value your opinion.
sunkist3208: March 15th is the Ides of March and the day that Julius Caesar was stabbed...supposedly. And the cereal reference is really hard to catch...I doubt anyone will get it. Since you were the first to review...you get a loverly picture of a unicorn! It's all shiny and such...and the unicorn is standing in the sea.
And yay! I lurve ocelots! And the cockroaches...they sound scary... Thanks for the review an' constant support!