Cannibalism

Disclaimer: I don't own them.

A/N: This is in celabration of me seeing the teaser for Dead Man's Chest! I love it. Cannot wait.

XoX

"Barbossa wasn't eight feet tall Jack."

The captain stopped, spun around and looked at both of his minutely tipsy second mates. That wasn't right. He squinted. Seeing double was not a good sign.

"Yes, I'm well aware of that fact, but many thanks for that clarification regardless."

Maybe if he spoke like he knew what she was going on about she would leave him alone. She didn't, instead she frowned at him, the sort of threatening frown that most people associated with mothers or evil monsters. The sort that made most full grown men shake in their boots. Jack, being superior to the rest of full-grown-manlihood (which is not, in fact, a word), smiled politely and completed his journey up the gangplank and onto his ship. Yes, it was his ship. Nobody else's. His.

She greeted him with a familiar groan and quieted in anticipation of the pending argument.

"Then why did I hear you tell every goddamned lady you saw that he was and you took him down single handedly?"

Well that was rather obvious: he wanted to get laid. The plan had been going along splendidly until she reminded him that it was his turn to mind the ship. Responsibility was stupid. It should die.

What had she said again? It was getting hard to remember. Maybe he'd put away a little too much grog.

"Because."

That was the safest answer he could think of, since he happened to know that she never asked aye/nay questions. Quite suddenly he realized that she was standing in front of him. How had she managed that? He was reasonably certain that she couldn't teleport. But one could never be certain. Maybe she was hungry. Maybe she wanted to eat him… That wouldn't be very good.

"Oh dear," he muttered.

He really did not feel like being eaten. Maybe if he asked politely she-

"What?"

She didn't sound very concerned. That wasn't very nice of her, now he couldn't even remember what 'what' was. That wasn't very easy to think, and Jack was fairly sure that it wouldn't be easy to say.

Her tummy gurgled, reminding him that she wanted to eat him.

"I don't taste very nice."

One of her eyebrows floated up in confusion. No… in feigned confusion.

"Really."

He nodded. She stepped closer. That didn't work.

"Do you believe in cannibals?"

Maybe he could convince her that cannibals didn't exist! Then she wouldn't eat him.

"Yes. Why?"

"Because you shouldn't."

That made a lot of sense. For a second he was rather proud of his logic.

"Why?"

Well, it would be conductive to his survival if she didn't.

"Because eating people is bad."

She smiled then, it was brief and amused and very, very obvious that she was laughing at him. How un-nice.

"So is stealing their boats."

Well he wasn't sure what to say to that. Just like he wasn't sure what to say when she placed both her calloused hands on either side of his face and edged their faces so close together that their noses were brushing against each other. His eyes, against his will, slipped down to look at her lips and the edge of his tongue ran over his dry and chafed ones nervously. Too many drunken fantasies had filled his mind to worry about his imminent death and he decided, as a spur of the moment thing, that he could think of a lot worse ways to die. He lifted his gaze, with much effort, to hers and was about to give her permission to eat him when he realized that she was focusing on his right eye. One hand left his cheek and pulled both of his lids apart so she could get a closer look. Then rather promptly she let him go and took a step back.

"You're gonna have one hell of a pounder tomorrow," she informed him with a grin.

Then she turned on her heel and marched back down the gangplank and out of sight. Leaving her captain feeling rather puzzled and certain of only one thing: he liked it when she checked him for unavoidable hangovers.

XoX

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