A/N: I'm still a little unsure of myself with this story; its not wanting to acquire a plot at all. We'll have to see. I do very much appreciate feedback! Thanks for reading.

Chapter Two: Death and Introductions

She stared angrily at the man she had slapped, who glared back with drunken outrage. A theatrical gasp broke from her, an exhalation of breath she didn't need to draw, as she fully realized what, precisely, she was looking at. Not just a man; something less. Something different. Something familiar.

"You're dead!"

"I'm not," he disagreed vehemently, immediately.

"You are! You're all bones."

He glanced down at himself, then back up at her, his gaze wandering slightly along the way. "I just don't get much to eat, is all."

"Nonsense." She folded her arms. "I know a dead man when I see one."

"Nonsense yerself," he retorted. "Don't ye think I'd know if I was one or not?"

"If you thought I was a doorknob," she said, rolling her eyes, "then who knows what else you might be mistaken about."

He frowned. "That's merely a result of me bein' presently incarpa— incr— incarpes— incapas— drunk. Drunk, due to liquor." She snorted. "Very well then," he said stridently. "A test o' yer so-called knowledge—" And he stepped back into shadow, out of the moonlight, arms wavering as though he had difficulty keeping his balance. Another gasp of surprise came from her as suddenly he appeared a fully fleshed human man, tan from the sun and warm with life. Thin still, but with wiry muscles apparent through his shirt; his rolled-up sleeves displayed tattoos and scars of a misspent but, she surmised, wholly enjoyable life. "There. Proof enough for ye?"

She shook her head in wonder. "I can hardly believe it."

He spread his hands and looked down at himself once more, as though to say that was all there was to it. "Poke me."

"I beg your pardon."

"Poke me!" he repeated irately, grasped her hand and dabbed at his cheek with it. "Ye'll see I'm flesh enough, and quite alive." He suddenly seemed to comprehend the fact that he was holding a skeletal wrist in his hand, and warm brown eyes widened slightly as they looked up, up along the bare arm-bone to the frequently detached socket, to where the denuded hard whiteness disappeared into the ragged sleeve of her dress. His mouth moved slightly, and eventually he managed, "Which is more than could be said fer ye. Cor, a man ought not to be presented with ordeals o' this nature when 'e's not operatin' at full speed." He dropped her hand and watched as she drew it quietly back to herself, letting the bony fingers twine the still-fleshed digits of her other hand. His head tilted to one side and back, examining her in a way that made her slightly uncomfortable; she folded her arms defensively over the front of her dress and returned his stare. His upper lip curled slightly, revealing the gleam of gold-capped teeth.

"Ish," he said indistinctly. "It ain't that new kind of scurvy there's been rumors of, is't? I know I ought to go and get meself checked out by some sort of doctor every so often, but its difficult when yer a wanted man, y'see, and anyway me clothes are gettin' t' the point where they're rather caked on to me skin— all the salt, y'know—"

"That's disgusting," she said. "Not to put too fine a point on it."

"I've never 'ad any complaints," he said, sounding injured.

"I wasn't complaining," she said, folding her arms once more and leaning a bony hip against the door, "I was commenting. Will you tell me what kind of dead man you are? I've never seen one who could travel back and forth between the conditions, with such ease. I've never seen one who could change back and forth at all." She shook her head at him slightly, then glanced around herself, gave a slight shrug. "I've never been to this part of Upstairs," she said softly. "Its— so colorful—"

"Aye that it is," he agreed boisterously. "Never was there a place quite as 'colorful' as Tortuga."

Her dark eyes flicked back to him, compulsively, and lighted on his wide brown ones. "Tortuga?" she repeated wonderingly. He nodded, a short decisive dip of his head, ratted hair brushing forward over his cheeks, a thick strand catching on his lips. He tucked it impatiently away as he prepared to wax poetic about the myriad wonders of the township.

"No better place t' go, if ye're recently cursed and have naught better t' do. The trick would appear to be, when engagin' the efforts of one of yon women—" A wavery hand gesture in the direction of a cluster of girls on the street corner, who were evidently enjoying themselves immensely as they neatly divested a drunk of his trousers and money purse. "The trick would be," he reiterated, eyes wide and somewhat lost, "t' strictly avoid the moonlight. Turns out yon lasses, though quite fond of a cap'n when he's in fine form, are a bit edgy when confronted with a cap'n who's not got much form at all. Truth be told, it weren't until the rum somehow— got distracted on its way down—" He stepped back into the light and gestured at his ribcage, which showed clearly, gaping openly with a dull white gleam of bone. She nodded seriously, recognizing the issue and acknowledging it as a problem with the dead often had to deal with. He looked down at himself thoughtfully. "I don't see what th' problem is, meself," he clarified. "Not that much different."

She put out one hand and, tentatively, pushed him back into the dark.

"We're equally dead, it would seem," she said, tilted her head at his skeleton self and sighed. "If for different reasons, and if in different ways." She smiled at him and shrugged. "Perhaps you could tell me your story."

He blinked at her, leaned back to eye her sideways.

"Y' want t' hear it?"

"I've got nothing better to do."

"Point taken, luv." His hands scrabbled behind him, grazing nails and knuckles against the wood of the pub as he searched absently for the doorknob— the real one, this time. He tucked his chin down and eyed her gravely, finding her to be— well, on the whole, somewhat ragged and blue, which was odd, although not quite so odd in view of the circumstances. And perhaps she could be forgiven for being ragged— after all, he was ragged. She was, he admitted to himself, quite pretty— had she not been, there was little likelihood that he would have done what he did next.

Twitching, meandering fingers finally located the knob, and the door swung open to reveal a press of people intent on getting steadily, deeply drunk. He swept his arm out and invited her to join them.

"Buy ye a drink?" he said, and gave her the full force of his brightest, smarmiest grin.

She looked in the doorway, looked at him, looked back at the room— in the back of his mind he wondered exactly how she would react to all this. Ladies— if she was a lady, and he supposed if he got drunk enough he would find out eventually— did not often take kindly to being invited into pubs. What would she do? How would she react? Would she denounce the inhabitants of the pub for being Godless, mindless barbarians? Was he due for another slap?

She smiled slightly, with one corner of her mouth, and stepped delicately into the room ahead of him. He followed with a lopsided grin, blessing the total lack of windows in the pub. Then again, with this— creature with him, it was unlikely that the occupants of the pub would notice even if he did appear as a skeleton. Most of them were drunk out of their minds anyway— they probably wouldn't notice anything unless they were abruptly divested of their alcohol.

She led him knowledgeably to a table in the corner, signaled politely to the pub keeper, who was the only one not-drunk in the entire room and therefore the most unhappy. He waved her away, and she settled back comfortably, as though she knew she would be served sooner or later. Evidently she was somewhat used, at least, to pubs. Her eyes drifted across the table and up the figure of the man seated across from her.

"May I ask your name?"

"Jack Sparrow— Cap'n Jack Sparrow."

She held out her hand— the one that still had skin on it. He took it with a deep nod, the almost-mocking quality of which she didn't seem to notice.

"I'm Emily," she said, squeezing his fingers. "The Corpse Bride."