In The Nick Of Time

Much thanks to Desiring Pirates, HeartJD and Rejerito for your reviews! You three keep me going! Please, gentle readers, let me know what you think!

Now, on with Chapter 2:

As was expected by Gibbs, life aboard the Pearl had been set upon misery’s course. Jack was inconsolable this time, and inebriated beyond his usual drunkenness which only ever served to ‘take the edge off.’ The Pearl hadn’t moved from the docks in nearly ten days since what Jack had come to refer to as “the night of the bloody swans” and the crew were growing impatient. Pirates made money from plunder, and the plunder was out on the high seas, not in the docks. Tortuga with its taverns and whores had drawn Jack’s men dry of their wealth, as pirate wealth was usually short lived as soon as a vessel made port. It was time to sail again, to capture another prize, and all seemed to know it, except for Captain Sparrow, who stayed locked up in his cabin, brooding and drinking.

Meanwhile the crew began to cast lots, drawing names to see who it would be that would have to brave the moody elements of their Captain, and go and knock upon his cabin door, and then dare to suggest that their ship leave the harbor once more. While Jack was most of the time a relaxed and blithe Captain, not one of his crew wished to disturb him whenever he was pining the loss of Ms. Elizabeth Swann. It wasn’t Jack’s ire they feared arousing, nor was it due to threat of some great injury or death from approaching Jack at this moment which made his crew apprehensive. It was the sheer despair their Captain was in that they feared; despair so thick and tumultuous that by just reading it upon Jack’s face personified it enough to grab a man within its dreadful fist and squeeze the life out of him.

How was it that any man could be so affected by a woman; particularly Captain Jack Sparrow who had never had a long term relationship in his life? But it was no longer time to wonder why; the crew of the Black Pearl had to act. If they couldn’t goad their Captain into setting sail, then perhaps it was time for a new Captain. Pintel still held a handful of straws with no one having drawn the shortest one yet when the door of Jack’s cabin swung open and Jack himself chose who it would be that must go and speak to him.

“Mr. Gibbs!” Jack yelled, his voice wavering on the copious amount of rum he’d practically been living off of the last few days.

Gibbs sighed and shook his head, regretting that it was he who Jack most trusted aboard the Pearl. Gibbs had already tried three times to talk sense into Jack, but Jack himself was too drunk to make any sense. This current summoning, though it sounded urgent, wouldn’t be any different and Gibbs knew it. He could see the waver and sway in Jack’s stance, and had there not been a doorframe there to lean against and hold onto, the Captain would not have been standing at all. Still, he was the Captain, for now. “Aye, Cap’n?” Gibbs called in answer, looking up at Jack from the deck and beginning to hope Jack would just pass out where he stood.

“Mr. Gibbs,” Jack slurred, “I need ye to come smartly and kindly escort this drunken hallucination from me quarters!” Insisted Jack, gesturing with a half empty bottle of rum. “She won’t listen to me.” He added rather bemusedly, then lost his balance and almost fell backwards as he retreated into his cabin and slammed the door.

“Of all the blasted things!” Groaned Gibbs, but as he pushed his way through his fellow crewmen he was glad that he at least had a chance to put down the mutiny they were beginning to discuss.

It was such a sorry sight that greeted Gibbs when he stepped into Jack’s cabin. For there lay Captain Sparrow, flat on his back across his rumpled rack, a bottle of rum loosely clutched in his hand and pouring out its contents all over the floor. Jack himself was a mess, grimy and smelly, his clothing spotted with perspiration and grease, the kohl that lined his eyes smudged and streaked down his face to his goatee. And Jack didn’t move except for drawing slow, deep, snoring breaths as his glazed eyes were fixed and staring straight up at the ceiling. Gibbs sighed and wondered if there was anything that could pull Jack out this pit he was in. He’d seen the lad looking better after escaping the worst of the world’s prisons, but then, there was no other prison like that of a broken heart.

“Ye’re lookin’ a might spliced to the mainbrace, Cap’n.” Announced Gibbs, understating what he really could have said to describe what he saw inside the cabin.

Jack’s head slowly turned towards Gibb’s voice, but even after his head stopped moving, his eyes seemed to float there unbalanced in his skull. He squinted, trying to focus on only one of the four first mates that stood before him. “She’s scuttled me, Mr. Gibbs,” Jack grieved to one of them, his drunken tongue just barely forming the words. “Scuttled me, keelhauled me, and done me over with the cat o’nine tails!” He huffed so heavily that his body seemed to just deflate, like it had sunk even deeper into the scanty mattress than it was already.

Had there not been talk of mutiny afoot, Gibbs would have laughed, for Jack presented such a comical thespian figure of hopelessness. “Now Jack,” he answered, steadying himself against the smile that fought to overtake his face. “This is where yer inclination towards the over dramatic disserves you to its most ablest, sir.”

At that, Jack’s spinning head lifted up and his eyes narrowed. “Over dramatic, am I?” He asked annoyed. “Have ye ’er loved a woman, Gibbs?” Jack asked, some how finding the strength and balance it took to sit up in his rack. “Have ye ‘er seen her face in the darkness of yer closed eyes? Have ye ‘er rolled yerself o’er in the dead of night and felt her beneath ye, her arms around ye, her legs too, her whisper in yer ear promisin she’ll love ye forever and beggin ye to set yer manly charms upon her and drive yer prick good and deep in her fore and aft until she’s layin there under ye power, breasts squeezed in yer hands and the rest of her all molten like and wicked in her desires until that sweet channel ‘tween her thighs erupts around yer root and shivers ye both to—“

“Lad!” Gibbs suddenly interjected, causing Jack to thankfully hault the titillating tirade that made his bleary, kohl streaked eyes burn like coals with love and lust. Gibbs had been near covering his ears with his hands. “Cap’n, it’s just that I’ve known Ms. Swann since she were a wee lass!” Gibbs reminded Jack as the Captain regained some composure.

“Oh, of course,” replied Jack, now feeling a bit awkward for having been so unreserved, but finding himself steady enough to get to his feet. “I make apologies for any improprieties I may have imposed then, Mr. Gibbs.”

“Tis understandable, Cap’n, tis understandable.” Gibbs nodded, glad to see that Jack was becoming clearer headed. Now was the perfect time to get both Jack and the Pearl moving. “But may I make a suggestion, sir?”

“I know,” Jack nodded back. “Confide about Ms. Swann in someone else’s ear.” He said, and then picked up another rum bottle and took a swig.

Gibbs sighed again. “Beggin ye to put the bloody bottle down, sir, and no, that’s not what I was meanin’.”

“What then, Mr. Gibbs?”

“May I suggest that instead of sittin’ in port full of heartache and bile over the girl, we set a course for Port Royal and go and get her?”

Jack set the bottle down heavily and raised both eyebrows, a look of serious consideration on his dirty face. But his expression soon darkened again and he once more took up the bottle, flinging himself down into his rack again. “She’s probably married the whelp by now and birthed a passel of fat babies.”

Gibbs threw his hands up. “Sink me!” He yelled, “the crew is close to mutiny, Jack, ye’ve got to set the Pearl on a heading and strike out after a prize, whether it be Spanish gold, silver ingots, elephant’s tusk or Elizabeth Swann!”

“Mutiny?” Jack suddenly quipped, standing up once more. “Again?”

“Aye, again, Cap’n!” Assured Gibbs. “The time to strike is now, sir! Build their faith back up in ye, and build it back up in yerself! And for the love all that is holy in this world, go and claim that lass as yer own!”

Jack began to smile and glanced towards the sea charts on his desk. He knew this was prime season for the trade routes to be busy. Capturing another prize would make him feel less heartsick, and also at this instant, save his position as captain. Yes, the Black Pearl would set sail again! But to Port Royal? Well, of that he wasn’t so sure. “But what if she won’t have me, Gibbs?” Jack asked, more genuine emotion coming through in his quivering voice than he had intended.

Gibbs forced a smile onto his face, for he could guarantee Jack nothing of Elizabeth’s favor. He reached out though and put a hand on Jack’s shoulder. “Cap’n, which of the many vessels and towns that we’ve plundered was ever in want to have you?” He asked him. “And in the end, did it matter?”