This was originally posted in November of 2004 and later withdrawn for lack of response. Now, with PotC: DMC coming out, I thought I'd give it another go.
Same concept, same AU as "Writer's Perogative"...different muse and definite strangeness.
As usual, the only elements in this story that I own are myself and the electrons I composed it with. Enjoy.
Skeletons in the Closet
It's a cool November evening, and I'm chilly despite the flannel nightgown I'm wearing. I climb out of bed without turning on the light, and opening my closet door, I grope inside for my nice warm robe. Did my feather boa slither off the shelf? What is--?
Yanking the chain for the overhead light, I yelp at the leering skeletal face of the man standing there. "Hello, my dear," he greets me, toothy as a shark. "Don't you look fetching. All ready for bed?"
"What are you doing here, Captain Barbossa?" I ask, trying to quell the uneasiness I feel at his unexpected appearence.
"Call me Hector, please," he invites me. "After all, we're old friends. As to what I want--" His gaze lingers on my bosom long enough for me to get a little queasy. No. Absolutely not with him, especially in his condition. Yuck. "I'd like an accomodation."
"What? Oh no! No way! You are not moving in with me, and that's final!"
Barbossa sighs. "No, you silly girl, not that meaning of accomodation. I was thinking more in terms of--what's that Latin phrase? Quid pro quo."
Quid pro quo? I've backed out of the closet, and turn on the bedroom light as he follows me into the room. "What are you talking about? And how come you're still all bony? We're not in the moonlight."
"Because I'm dead," he says, not sounding at all happy about it. "Not un-dead, dead dead--shot through the heart when the curse was finally lifted, and me with a to-do list as long as the Pearl's yardarm."
"And you want what from me?" Although I'm starting to suspect I know--the same thing they all want.
"Why, you're The Writer!" He sweeps off his plumed hat and makes a mocking bow. "I want you to mend it. Lift the curse, but don't kill me."
"Why would I want to do a thing like that?"
The dead pirate leans close and growls in my ear. "You'd have so much fun writing a sequel. Wouldn't you?" Damn him, he's right. "And besides that, you owe me."
"How do you construe that, Hector? Owe you for what?"
He tsk-tsks. "What a selective memory we have," he rebukes me. "You recognized my face long before you became enamoured with that pretty boy, Sparrow."
"Captain Sparrow," I say automatically. Jack has made that a habit, drat him.
"You wound me!" he says. "I thought you favored older men. And here you are, carrying on with daft Jack Sparrow, who's only a lad. Be lucky I don't ask for equal time!" Barbossa circles me like he smells blood in the water.
The thought of devoting that much time and verbage to the crusty old pirate is horrifying. "If I do what you ask, and write it so that you survive and are uncursed, you'll go away?"
Hector's chuckle is a throaty purr. I suspect he'd be smiling if he had the flesh to do so. "Unless the Plot Bunnies have other ideas. I can't control them."
"No one controls the Bunnies," I say ruefully. "But if if you're alive and uncursed, you'll go away for now?"
"I will."
"Then we have an accord," I declare.
We shake on the deal, and I head for the computer to start writing.
Sitting in the recliner in my library, the Marquis deSade looks up from the book he's perusing. "You have the most enchanting taste in literature, Madame," he says, and I see the cover of volume two of A.N. Roquelaure's erotic trilogy.
"Yes, you would gravitate toward that sort of thing, wouldn't you?" I mutter, turning the computer on. "And it's Mademoiselle, I've never been married."
"A minor matter of ecclesiastical paperwork. I refer to your worldly experience, Madame, as you are no longer une printemps poulet." He grins lecherously. "You have a certain licentious quality--even if your erotic prose has a lamentable tendency to euphemism."
"Excuse me? I what? I'll have you know, I have never, ever, resorted to the words 'throbbing manhood'!"
"No," he drawls, "but you have been known to rely on extended metaphor for the act of coitus."
"Ratings, damn it!" I exclaim, wishing my geriatric computer would finish booting up so I can start writing Hector out of my bedroom. "It was a matter of being erotic without being too explicit. You know that I know--"
"Yes, you do. And as one writer to another--" Oh, now that's a comparison that makes my blood run cold! "--I did like that interlude with the blind man and his adventurous paramour. It made me squirm a bit, and it takes some novelty to do that."
"Merci, Monsieur le Marquis," I respond through gritted teeth. "Now, if you'll excuse me, the muse calls."
"And what is so wrong about a throbbing manhood, pray tell? I believe I may have coined that particular phrase. I'm rather fond of it." DeSade blows me a kiss and turns back to the book he's holding. Letting him have the last word annoys me, but it's probably the best way to keep the peace. I say nothing about what a cliche he's inflicted on the world of romance novels.
Confronting my monitor, I open a fresh document with a sense of reprieve. The idea of those two under the same roof with me at the same time is almost enough to send me scurrying for the gin, but that's probably not the best idea; all I need now is to wake up a rambunctious Bunny and I'll be in real trouble.
Okay, final confrontation--oh, hell, if I'm going to fiddle with canon, I'm going to bring in the bass fiddle. "I'm going to kill that fucking monkey too, while I'm at it," I mutter.
"A fucking monkey?" The Marquis looks up hopefully. "That would be a novelty." Ee-ew!
"There's such a thing as being too literal," I say, pounding away at the keyboard and having the nasty little simian spitted by a dagger that one of the inept pirates tried to throw at Jack. "But if you want it, you can have it."
"It's dead," comments the Marquis as the monkey appears on his lap.
"I did say I was going to kill it," I remind him, giving Barbossa a flesh wound and letting him play dead while Jack gathers up treasure and Will misses the opportune moment. "There! That ought to make the bastard go away."
"What am I supposed to do with a dead monkey?" The Marquis's voice rises. "It's oozing gore all over my breeches, I won't be able to read them!"
"Here." I rummage in my desk drawer. "Not one, but two rollerball pens and a fresh steno pad--yours to scribble in to your heart's content--somewhere else! And take the monkey with you!"
"I'll put them to good use," he promises, eagerly taking the proffered supplies---I'm not sure whether he means them or the monkey, but when I collect the pages from printer, he's gone, and as is the carcasse. The abandoned book lies face-down in the chair.
Oh, good, one down...thinking of the waiting Hector, I detour into the kitchen before returning to my bedroom. There, I'm traumatized for life by the sight of Barbossa wrapped in my peach chenille bathrobe, fondling my furry leopard print pillow. It would serve him right if I wrote him into an Ed Wood crossover. He's just having way too much fun. But, I'm glad to see, he's no longer cursed.
"Enjoying yourself?" I inquire, holding out the pages.
"Did you have to kill Jack?" Barbossa sounds petulant; all I can see are his blue eyes as he rubs his face against the faux fur.
"There was nothing in the accord about keeping the monkey!" I say as he scans my creation. "I've met my end of the bargain."
The live pirate sighs as he gets to the final page, where instead of the monkey appearing at the end of the credits, Barbossa rows away from the island with a longboat full of treasure. "You have. I'll be off now..."
"Wait. I know you've got a 'to do' list, but since you haven't had any solid food for a few hundred years, you might want to start slowly." I hold out a single-serving cup of applesauce and a plastic spoon. "Here."
Captain Barbossa beams at me. "You do have a soft spot in your heart for old Hector!"
"Yeah, yeah. Don't spread it around." I blush. "Smooth sailing."
When I retrieve the fallen robe and carry it and the pillow out to the laundry, I reflect that muses aren't always easy to cope with, especially the darker ones. With the washer gurgling behind me, I head back to my room. A shadow looms on the wall ahead of me as I walk down the hall, and a pair of hands covers my eyes. "Surprise!" whispers a voice into my ear.
By now, I'm resigned to being haunted by this particular muse in one guise or another. Okay, who is it this time? Reaching up, my hands encounter a suit jacket with a shirt cuff and rectangular cuff links beneath it. Well, that lets out Inspector Javert. I reach behind my back to get a better idea of whether the shirt is polyester---although since he didn't herald his arrival with ringing maniacal laughter, I don't think it's Casanova Frankenstein. A tailored silk shirt meets my fingers, then a slim leather belt with a flat rectangular buckle.
A husky chuckle in my ear: "Lower, Princess."
With that, it dawns on me. "You know, Steven, it's times like these when I understand why Evelyn had a hobby of attempted murder. This is all your doing, isn't it? You dragged those guys over here to give me a hard time."
Steven Price laughs. He draws the hair up from the back of my neck and nuzzles it lightly. "Evelyn was only after me for my money. You know better."
"Yeah, it's fictitious money, maybe because you're that stock character, the Eccentric Millionaire." I regard him fondly. It could be the way he channels Vincent Price, or the Eyebrow Thing, both of which he does to perfection, but I do like the impressario.
"Billionaire," he says, mock-seriously. "Don't short-change me."
"Even if it's fictious?" I tease him. "Do you miss her?"
"Evelyn?" He's startled. "Why?"
"You're just such a cute couple...kind of the dark side of Nick and Nora Charles, if you know what I mean."
"You're scaring me. Tell me you aren't planning to--"
"You scared me first. I couldn't figure out what brought the two of them out of the woodwork."
"That was me," he smirks. "Actually, I was thanking Hector, and saying that I ought to drop by and visit you...the Marquis just came along for the hell of it. I think he was attracted by your profile."
"What do mean, you were thanking Hector? Thanking him for what?"
"You didn't hunt up a copy of my movie until after you'd seen his movie. In fact, you were actively avoiding it, weren't you?"
"It was a remake, and I really liked the original. But y'know, it turned out it wasn't nearly as cheesy as the first one--well, the production values, anyway. The script--"
"Oh, come off it, Princess!" He toys with the bow on my nightgown. "No one seriously expects a film like that to hold up to scrutiny. It's another kind of thrill ride, that's all. Check your cerebral cortex at the door."
"You didn't answer my question. About Evelyn."
He gives me a hurt look. "You'll do whatever you want to do anyway," he says, glancing away.
"I can tone down her bitchiness, you know."
"The bitchiness didn't bother me. I rather enjoyed the banter, if you want to know the truth."
"What, then?"
"Can you make her love me for myself, and not my money?"
"You know, that tends to be a side-effect of trophy wives," I tell him severely. "If she's going to like you for yourself, you're going to have to be attracted to her for something besides her long legs and lovely looks."
"Her charming personality? Wicked sense of humor? Home cooking? Look," he pleads, "you've slashed stranger couples, I'm sure you can pull this off."
"I'm sure I can," I assure him, wondering if this is what fairy godmothers feel like after a long day granting wishes. "But I'm not going to do it tonight. I'm tired, Steven. I'm going to bed. Alone. Go enjoy being a widower while you can."
As Steven Price departs, he gives me a roguish grin. "Sweet dreams, Princess!"
Hey, I never said I wasn't a bit odd--! (And I've since changed my profile...)