Ten linked drabbles and double drabbles.
Characters: Jack, Barbossa
Author:
p0wdermonkey Rating: popcorn fun for all the family
Disclaimer: It wasn’t me; it was the fairytale creatures.
Once upon a time in the Twenty-first Century
Jack wasn’t surprised to hear from Hector again. Not that they set much store by calendars, but still. A new millennium was the kind of thing that made an immortal pirate feel old, and the best company for an immortal pirate who was feeling his age was another immortal pirate. (And not, despite initial expectations, a large bottle and a couple of girls approximately one tenth of said age-although those things made good accessories.)
“Be ye plannin’ on buzzin’ me in any time this millennium? Champagne be gettin’ warm, an’ so be I.”
Hector’d never learned the knack of updating his speech. Instead, he started telling people he came from the Isle of Mull. Most of them believed him. (Nearly got himself lynched in Cornwall though. Jack had to buy a lot of drinks to pacify the locals that time.)
*
Whatever Jack was expecting to emerge from the elevator, it wasn’t this.
Hector Barbossa-the man who dodged the twentieth century by becoming a cattle farmer in Africa, a recluse in the Australian outback, and finally a wildlife warden on a Pacific atoll-has gone urban.
Well-fitting grey suit, open shirt, loafers, and-this is the biggest shock-a shave and a haircut! A very smooth shave and a run-your-fingers-through-it haircut. And a tan (which has to be out of a bottle because there’s no way, not even with lotions and lamps and whatever they have these days), but it’s a very enticing tan.
Jack finds himself wondering how far it extends under the clothes.
“Hector! You’re looking good,” he says, trying not to sound as if he means it quite as much as he does.
*
“Thanks,” murmurs Hector. His manicured hand pushes his sunglasses up, ruffling the haircut. Pale eyes twinkle against the tan.
By the time Jack’s dealt with all that and is ready to wonder what happened to ‘Thank ye, Jaack’, it’s happening again:
“You don’t look so bad yourself. Very, hmm… relaxed.”
Jack drags his eyes from those sparkly blue ones and inventories: bare feet, torn jeans, purple T-shirt, rings. Not bad. He should perhaps have cleaned the dirt from under his toenails-and fingernails. Come to think of it, a shower would have been good… He pushes his hair back, trying to comb some of the tangles out with his fingers, and rubs his chin.
“Was thinking of growing the beard again,” he lies.
What the fuck has happened to Hector’s voice? It’s all smooth and deep and… sophisticated.
“Wot?” Jack asks. He tries again. “What happened to the… No, who be ye an’ what’ve ye done to Cap’n Hectorrr Baarrrrbossa, scourrrge o’ the Spanish Main?”
Even Hector’s chuckle is all hms and huhs-no trace of a harr.
Jack teeters between captivated and horrified-decides captivated is more fun. He reaches up to twiddle a strand of haircut.
“I like you,” he declares. “Whoever you are. Come inside.”
*
Hector sets a bottle of champagne (Louis Roederer Cristal-that’ll do nicely) on the coffee table and sprawls on the couch, making no comment as he clears a space among the litter.
Jack finds this charming-the lack of snide remarks, that is, not the actual litter, which consists mainly of takeaway cartons, bottles (beer, wine, scotch, rum, and Dr. Pepper), note-pads, ashtrays, glasses (shot, wine, and reading), printouts, coffee mugs, laptop, orange peel, remote controls, pencils, books (mostly library, mostly half read), wrappers, pens, technological gadgets, plates, etc.
*
“You wrote this, Jack?”
“Y’know. Wonderful new voice. Very happy for you both an’ all that, but I have to say I miss the old ‘Jaaaack’.”
“You wrote this, Jaack?”
“Better! Yes. I did.”
“The Last Resort: a sexy comedy about a crew of Z-list celebrities marooned on a Caribbean island…”
“…by the predictable yet totally unexpected collapse of civilization. I do remember what it says, thank you, Hector. I wasn’t that drunk.”
“You’re always drunk when you start harping on about marooning.”
“Champagne?”
*
Twenty minutes later, Hector puts down the script. He’s still chuckling.
“This is good!”
“Yeah?” Jack props his bare feet on the coffee table, thumbs through a Little Mermaid notebook. “Been rejected by…” he find the page, runs a grubby finger down it. “Six studios and four agents. So far. Not counting the no replies.”
“Have you sold anything?”
“Course I have! Half a dozen humorous greetings cards and a spot for Cap’n Crunch’s Ocean Nuggets.”
“I don’t want to hear it. What are you doing here Jack? Paying rent? In a city? Inland? Sitting on a couch and getting fat on oily pizza?”
“Am not!”
“Then what’s that bulge above your waistband?”
Jack sniffs.
“I may be a little out of condition. Think of it as my way of integrating with the local culture. And, for your information, I’m doing what I’ve always done best: pillage and plunder.”
"I don't think it's plunder if you get it delivered."
*
“This century’s got the planet locked down so damn tight there’s nothing left worth stealing. The real plunder’s inside people’s heads, mate. There’s fortunes for the taking in dreams and fancies. I just need the right gimmick.”
“Jaaack,” says Hector. (Always good that) “You have gimmicks coming out of your ears.”
Jack’s not sure what to make of this, so he clowns around, lifting his hair up and checking his ears, pretends to extract a huge gob of wax from one of them. (Well, he pretends it’s huge.)
“This is LA, Jack-Jaaack. Daft won’t work here: everything runs slick and smooth.”
Jack narrows his eyes. The alternative would be admitting Hector’s right.
“You do the writing, Jaaack. Borrow their dreams and sell them back to them. Let me handle the marketing. I know how to talk to these people.”
“You always were more style than substance.”
“These days, lad, that’s what they call an asset.”
Jack can think of other names but he lets them lie. He’s imagining the new, smooth, tanned and sunglassed Hector Barbossa (or whatever he currently calls himself) pitching Jack’s scripts to the studio suits over a power breakfast. The suits won’t stand a chance.
“Aye!” he says, grinning. “We have an accord.”
*
“What happened to the monkey?” asks Jack one day. Centuries haven’t dimmed his reluctance to use its name.
“With an associate in Columbia. Well cared for. City’s no place for an animal.”
So Hector still avoids pronouns when speaking of his incongruously gendered pet. Pathetic really.
“Columbia, eh? So that’s what paid for the makeover.” He resists the temptation to inquire about the “associate”.
“Private business is no part of our accord. Don’t ask and you won’t be lied to.”
“Fair enough.” Jack shrugs to indicate utterly spurious indifference and lack of resentment. “Get satellite TV out there, do you?”
Hector’s perfect tan crumples in puzzlement.
“Just wondered if she’d seen herself,” says Jack sweetly. “She’s the starring role - along with your good former self. Ahoy there, mateys! I be Cap’n Crunch. Even the monkey goes nuts fer me nuggets. Aaarrr! The actor does it better, of course-wonderful old ham.”
You could fry ocean nuggets in Hector's glare.
*
“That’s it,” announces Hector, flicking his phone shut and dropping it into the Armani jacket on the back of Jack’s couch. “We’ve sold them all! Every last one!”
“Not James and the Giant Squid?”
“Coming soon to a cartoon network near you. Just so long as you can make the squid more friendly and give it an upbeat ending. They don’t hold with death on the kiddie networks - plays havoc with the spin offs. And they want a positive female role model.”
“No worries.” Jack is already tapping on the laptop. “James’ best friend, Elizabeth, persuades the squid to become vegetarian. It teaches them how to breathe under water and they all live happily ever after. (And have lots of weird, tentacley babies, but we’ll draw a veil over that part.)”
*
“Trouble is,” says Jack. “I’m beginning to run low on material.”
“How about the swashbuckling tale of Captain Barbossa and his band of fearsome, undead pirates?”
“World ain’t ready for that one,” says Jack firmly. “Fairytale endings, that’s the ticket. I’ll put you in it though. You can be a hideous green ogre who transforms into a handsome prince.”
Hector preens, briefly fracturing his cool.
“Will you be my beautiful princess?”
“But the ogre’s transformation’s an illusion. Inside he’s smelly and hideous as ever.”
“An’ he knows that be just what the princess likes best!”
Oooh, the voice, the voice is baaack. But there’s no time for that now.
“Aye! Because she ain’t a princess. They’re both ogres. They belong together. She just happens to be an exceptionally pretty ogre.” He flutters his eyelashes.
Hector rolls his eyes and pokes between T-shirt and waistband.
“Sometimes. It’s the pizza. No, it’s a spell. That’s it! A curse. But she figures it’s more fun being ogres than princessing with all the beautiful people.”
Silently, Hector fetches the laptop.
“This is the one, Hector! It’s going to be huge. We’ll buy our own island. We’ll buy a whole archipelago!”
“And live happily ever after?”
“Until the sequel, anyway.”
***