(A/N: This fic. THIS FIC. Also I still kind of want to smack Tulio in the face.)

Part 3: Guybrush is Very Angry, Tulio is Fucked

Guybrush needed very badly to talk to Tulio, because he wasn't going to stand for this sort of shenanigans. He'd never really been the jealous type, but this was even more ridiculous than the eight-verse pirate song he'd been forced to endure two adventures ago. This was his wife. He wasn't going to take this sitting down.

Unfortunately, before he got a chance to stand up, an anxious Miguel was hovering in front of him, blocking his view of Elaine and Tulio.

"What is it?" he asked, snippy.

Wringing his hands, Miguel gave the last answer Guybrush was expecting. "I think I'm predicting the future."

"Say what now?"

Miguel sat next to him, and Guybrush glared back at Tulio again, who was helping Elaine take inventory of what was left after the storm. They were both laughing over something, which made Guybrush Very Angry. As an excuse to keep an eye on them rather than looking at Miguel, Guybrush pored over some navigational charts while he kept talking.

"The storm earlier this morning, I dreamt about it last night."

"Could have been any storm."

"It wasn't just any storm!" Miguel insisted, loud enough to draw the attentions of Elaine and Tulio. Interests piqued, they crossed over to Guybrush's navigating station and Miguel explained it to them too.

"But how do you know it was that storm?" asked Elaine.

"Because I - you fell overboard," said Miguel, strangely. "And Tulio rescued - you, and said the exact same thing: 'If you're going to be on a boat, you ought to invest in some swimming lessons.'"

"You saw her fall over?"

"...Yes."

"And everything else played out exactly the same?"

"Yes!"

Elaine was the most intrigued. "Do you have a history of prophetic dreams?"

"No, none at all. I don't know what could have caused this."

Guybrush had an idea. "Have you touched or picked up anything out of the ordinary lately? Maybe some radioactive bananas, or - "

"Well, I've got this."

From the depths of his pockets, Miguel produced the metal canister that had gotten Guybrush into this mess in the first place.

"You kept that?!" he and Tulio demanded at once. Guybrush shot Tulio a glare, which he didn't catch. He was only just barely above saying "jinx!" just to shut the Spaniard up.

Miguel was trying to explain himself. "Well, I don't know, I figured if it were so important to that woman it was probably worth something!"

"That thing reeks of voodoo," said Guybrush.

"You can smell voodoo?"

"It's an acquired skill."

"Well, I'll tell you what, I'm way more inclined to believe your voodoo zombie pirate Insult story now," said Tulio.

"Gee, I appreciate it," Guybrush said acidly.

"You be sure to tell us if you have any more visions," said Elaine. "I should like to know in advance next time if my life is going to be in danger."

"Will do," Miguel assured her, though he seemed a bit hesitant.

"Well, we barely lost anything in the storm - quite an accomplishment!"

"The only problem now is that we're so off-course, it'll be easier just to shoot straight for Monkey Island than to swing around past Mêlée," said Guybrush, tapping his charts. "Sorry about that. Honey."

"Oh, it's all right, Guybrush," said Elaine. "They'll get on without me. I guess all that's left now is for us to check and see how much damage was done down below. Tulio, would you mind helping me - "

"No!" cried Guybrush and Miguel at the same time. Tulio and Elaine looked at them, and they looked at each other.

"Er, what I mean is, I'll help Tulio check it out," said Miguel. "You ought to be resting, after your brush with death this morning and all."

"Exactly!" said Guybrush, relieved.

"Well, if you think so..."

"Go on, Tulio, I'll meet you there in a moment. I'm just going to discuss one more thing with Guybrush here..."

So Elaine went back to her room and Tulio belowdecks, and Guybrush was left staring expectantly at Miguel.

"Look, I'm going to have a word with Tulio," he assured him once the other two were out of earshot. "I can't believe him. He can be a bit of an ass sometimes, especially about women - ugh, I just wish it would get through his thick skull sometimes."

Miguel wasn't looking at him any more, but at the hatch into which Tulio had vanished, with a look in his eye that Guybrush - though he was often criticized as imperceptive - was pretty sure he recognized.

"Thanks, for that," he said.

"Even more than literally, I feel like we're in the same boat," said Miguel. The two blonds smiled at each other, and Miguel followed Tulio down, leaving Guybrush to go back to the helm, and ponder on Elaine.

xxxxx

Tulio was fucked, and he knew he was fucked.

His initial reaction was to beat his head against the wall, but he was refraining, working instead on setting every barrel of gunpowder or tiny chest of treasure in the hold upright again. Also steadfastly ignoring Miguel when he dropped down to start helping him. He refused to even look...at...him -

"Cut it out!" Tulio said at last.

"Cut what out?" Miguel asked back innocently. As if he didn't know.

"You're doing it?"

"Doing what?"

"The - face!"

"How do you know?" Miguel said, and suddenly he wasn't joking any more. "You won't even look at me."

So Tulio, helpless as he was against his blond partner, turned to look at him, letting the empty crate he'd been righting go slack in his hands. Miguel's bottom lip was quivering, making him look totally pitiful and making Tulio feel pretty lousy. Tulio refused to let it get to him, though.

"Part of me wants to sock you in the face," Miguel declared, "but you don't even deserve that much."

"What are you talking about?" said Tulio, clinging back to the crate again.

"You know exactly what I'm talking about!" Miguel shot back. "No, you know what I'm talking about? That little voice, that you always tell me I don't have?"

"Miguel - "

"You appear to have lost yours. Maybe I ended up with it - "

"Look, Miguel - "

"She's a married woman, Tulio!" Miguel's face was far from his cute little pathetic look now, all hurt and outraged in the way that felt like Miguel really had socked him in the face. Or maybe the gut.

"It's not like I'm taking advantage of her," said Tulio. "She likes it, too. You've seen how she's been acting around me - "

"You're tempting her!"

"I can't help it if I'm tempting!" Tulio shouted defiantly. "If I'm what she wants!"

"You son of a - "

"And I can't help it if she's what I want!"

"Are you trying to convince me, or yourself, hmm?"

"What are you - "

"Are you going to be able to con these two like we planned?" Miguel demanded. "Or are you falling for her? Is this going to be like Chel all over again?"

And Tulio recoiled just liked he'd been socked in the face. "We said we wouldn't talk about Chel."

"I just don't understand why you're always falling for the worst possible women!"

"Well unlike you, Miguel, I can't predict the future, so I'm never going to know they're bad until I try."

"Here, then!" shouted Miguel, and he knocked the crate from Tulio's hands and forced the voodoo canister into them instead. In the process the lid got dislodged a bit, from all the jerking around, and from the slim crack a beam of purple-green light and mist shone out and struck Tulio. For a moment he felt like he could see his skeleton through his skin, and then he was looking at -

Himself? It almost looked like him, but something was different. This wasn't what he saw in the mirror; this was Tulio as someone else saw him. He was wearing a thick golden chain around his neck and a diamond-encrusted crown on his head, and -

And whoever's eyes he was seeing himself through, he was kissing. Hard. (Tulio knew he was a good kisser, but damn.) They pressed together close, and whoever he was must have had some gold on too because it clanked together, and there was a hand rough on the other-Tulio's jaw and oh. Oh. Oh, suddenly he was snapping back to the hold, and he knew whose eyes he'd been looking through, because he was staring right into them now, all green and clear and hurt and pitiful.

Tulio went back to steadfastly ignoring Miguel, picking up the things around the storeroom, and trying to figure out if there were a way to change the future.

And whether or not he wanted to.

xxxxx

"No, I'm not!" she reassured him.

"But you're around him so much - "

"I still don't trust him, Guybrush," said Elaine. "I've just been keeping an eye on him."

"But when he was hauling you out of the water - "

"I was so addled from the ocean that I thought it was you!" Elaine realized what she had said and put her hand softly to her mouth. That had sounded terribly sappy, hadn't it.

Guybrush's eyes lit up like she'd offered him a bottomless fountain of grog. "Really?"

She smiled at him. He was just too adorable for his own good - hardly a fearsome pirate. "Yes, really," she said. "Tulio is an attractive man, but if an evil zombie pirate can't lure me away from you with all his voodoo magic, I don't know what can. You'll always be captain of my heart." Might as well lay it on thick, she figured. She leaned up on her tiptoes to kiss him tenderly, stroking a little at his hair, and then she flicked his earring. He always liked that.

Sure enough, when she pulled back away from him his face looked drunk and sated. "Mmm, yes ma'am."

"If it makes you feel better," she said, trying to soothe his sensibilities, "I'll leave Tulio alone."

Guybrush was still grinning. "You can do whatever you want if you just kiss me like that again."

So she did.