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[bushel-o-apples.livejournal.com]

[OOM: At Tía Dalma's cabin, Barbossa grows restless.]

The door opens, and for a moment Barbossa stands just past the threshold, swaying slightly, arms half outstretched to the sides to better keep his balance, sword held in his right hand. To those familiar with his reality and its denizens, the similarity to Jack Sparrow's usual stance could almost be comical. To those who aren't, maybe the fact that the door behind him shows what is quite unmistakeably a ceiling can shed some light on why he seems to be trying to regain his balance. Finally, he steadies himself up and sheathes his sword, looking around with half-lidded eyes. The corners of his mouth are slightly downturned, more in general annoyance at the world than actual displeasure. Noticing Bar, he walks over with a limp that a trained eye could discern is not as bad as he makes it appear. Now, if only there were someone behind the bar that he could ask for the other's whereabouts...


[EDIT: Slowtimed till a moment where the mun can be on properly.]

Comments

[pirate_jack]

[ooc: And for general fyi, this isn't plot-locked! Just wacky fun. Er. Yes.]

There's someone else in the bar as well, slouched in a corner booth at some point after his earlier conversation outside with Gibbs.

Not that he's slouched for all that long. Jack bolts upright, eyeing the new arrival.

"Bugger." His grin is sharp and dangerous. "Seems as they're just letting anyone at all in the door these days."

[bushel-o-apples.livejournal.com]

He turns, not sharply but neither slowly. His eyes crinkle and his lips curve in a smile as honest as his black heart and as true as Ragetti's wooden eye.

"Jack...! My pleasure. And what a surprise, too, that even with those lax standards, they would allow you in. How's life? Ah, excuses. I forgot for a moment the tables got slightly turned as to our respective... Vitalities." He doesn't try to hide how much he has enjoyed that little barb, no.

[pirate_jack]

"Héctor!"

He gets quickly to his feet, spreading both hands wide in what could be a welcoming gesture.

"As you see, mate. Dead but not done, aye?"

A beat.

"Seems we've got more in common than might have been expected after I shot you."

[bushel-o-apples.livejournal.com]

"Yes, for one we have both turned out to be remarkably hard to get rid of, haven't we?"

Oddly, he is smiling now, wider and seemingly in genuine amusement. He limps his way over towards Jack's booth.

"So what now? Do we hold on to old grudges or shall we start anew, clean slate et caetera...? I'm all for the latter. After all, it's stupid for a living man to hold a grudge against a dead man, isn't it?"

He stands, head slightly cocked back, looking at Jack with half-lidded eyes as he extends a hand.

[pirate_jack]

"Living?"

Jack recoils as though Barbossa's got the plague, staring at him -- first in shock, and then in unfeigned curiosity.

"Now just how did you go about cheating death this time, mate?"

[bushel-o-apples.livejournal.com]

After maybe an initial fraction of a second of surprise, Barbossa smiles wider and takes a step towards Jack, backing him into the booth.

"Jack, Jack..." His tone is very much friendly. The tone of an older friend both amused and sorry at the younger's foolishness "Do you really expect me to be willing to share -that- kind of secret? And even if I was, why would I choose to share it with you, of all the double-crossing, dishonest bastards out there?" He steps into the booth and reaches out, as if to put his arm around Jack's shoulders.

[pirate_jack]

This time Jack doesn't pull back, but instead grins at him with wickedly exuberant cheer.

"That'd be because you know me. I'm Captain Jack Sparrow."

The emphasis on a particular words is pointed and very clear-- as is the sound of the pistol being cocked as he aims it at Barbossa's chest.

"Savvy?"

[bushel-o-apples.livejournal.com]

Barbossa actually laughs, shaking his head sadly and pushing the barrel of the gun aside with a calm, slow gesture.

"Don't be a fool, Jack. You had one shot for me and you fired it some time ago, remember? At Isla de Muerta? And now, unlike then..."

He passes his arm over Jack's shoulders, head bowing conspiratorially

"You actually -need- me alive."

[pirate_jack]

"I do?"

Jack sounds both startled and intrigued-- and not a little suspicious.

He doesn't put the pistol down, but neither does he try to re-aim it or to pull away from the other man.

"Now why's that, then?"

[bushel-o-apples.livejournal.com]

"Of course you do, Jack, don't be foolish. Who else do you expect to lead this rag-tag pack across half the world and half again to find you? Pintel and Ragetti?" He sneers "I won't comment on those two, though they -are- the kind whose devotion you attract, no doubt."

He pauses, shaking his head

"Young Will Turner isn't a sailor, as much as he and his little miss Swann want to call him a pirate. And she has a will" Absolutely not a pun, of course "but not the nautical savvy or the cold head this kind of enterprise needs. Gibbs, on the other hand, is a sailor and a stout soul, but he is a follower, not a leader. And none of them know, Jack. None of them have been on both sides of the line like you and I. None of them have seen half of what we have, or dug up half the secrets of the earth, the sea and Hell itself"

He makes a pause, letting these truths sink in

"Savvy?"

[pirate_jack]

Black eyes go wide in unfeigned shock.

"You?! They came to you?"

A beat, and then he recovers and grins, gold glinting from a tooth as he does.

"And now here we are. Not sure as how I'd call it you leading them, though, mate, as they all found their way here first."

[bushel-o-apples.livejournal.com]

"As I said, Jack, who else...?"

He smiles back, pleased and amused at the moment, and looks around

"Oh, this is all well and good, Jack, but it's not like being alive. And it's not the sea, is it...?" A small pause, letting that one sink in as well "And Fate doesn't take kindly to shortcuts, so when we finally set out to free you from Davy Jones' Locker, we will have to go the long, hard way."

His smile is somewhat... Sad? No, not really, but thoughtful, yes.

"You are really off the edge of the map now, mate. And I am your best bet at getting back"

Then he breaks into a delighted grin and flourishes a hand out of his coat pocket

"Fancy an apple?"

[pirate_jack]

"Think I'd have noticed if it were the sea, Héctor," Jack drawls, then brightens and snatches the apple. "Ooh, thanks!"

There's slight tension in the set of his shoulders still, but he ignores it as he crunches into the apple, swallows, and then gestures with it at the other man.

"See, me being dead makes no never mind as to enjoying the simple pleasures what a man should be able to enjoy in life, unlike the ten years it was you spent walking cursed and suffering after you went and marooned me on that godforsaken spit of land, which by the way was no more than what you deserved for it."

He sounds cheerful at this conclusion.

"My experience is much more better. Funny old world, innit?"

[gorgonfondness]

Some people would wait until they knew for sure someone was around.

Some people are timid like that.

The narration isn't one of those people today, as she believes people should be freakin' talking to Barbossa, so Barbossa is getting some female company.

(Unless the other narration does not want it, in which case ignore this comment plzkthxbai.)

Mia was about to walk outside, again in the odd outfit of jeans and a sleeveless shirt, again carrying her staff and a bouquet of roses.

Yesterday's bouquet of roses, as she hasn't figured out what to do with it yet.

But before she gets very far, she notices Barbossa.

And generally, she's fond of pirates.

"Need something?" she asks, instead of the usual You new?

[bushel-o-apples.livejournal.com]

He looks at the girl briefly. Being around the likes of Miss Swann and Anna María has rendered him quite impervious to women wearing such improper clothes as trousers, so he merely nods. His tone is polite, since despite the clothes she doesn't look much like a commoner girl, what with the fair skin and all.

"A glass of water would do me a world of good, miss"

Yes, he has mistaken him for a waitress. What to say in his defense? He is quite concentrated on his talk with Jack at the moment.

(Insert at any point in the former conversation, really)

[gorgonfondness]

Mia smiles a little.

"Perhaps I should tell you your first drink is free regardless of what it is, but people do not appreciate water as much as they should."

She regards Bar.

"Miss Bar, a glass of water for each of us, please. I'm rather parched myself."

What appears is two glasses of water, a bouquet of roses, a small gift, and a note that says Darling Mia, I'm sorry, and I love you.

"I will pick those up later, thank you," she says, still a little sad from last night.

And Bar takes the roses, gift, and note back.

Good thing, too. She'll need them later.

[bushel-o-apples.livejournal.com]

"After spending so long as I have without tasting it, I assure you they would, miss"

He picks up his own glass of water, looking down at it for some seconds, feeling the cold of it, the moisture of condensation upon the glass under his hand. Positively -basking- in the sensations before finally taking a long drink from it.

"Ah, yes indeed. Almost as good as the memories of it"

A smile at Mia, strange and kind of unsettling on a face so marked by debauchery and hardship, and he returns his attention to Jack

(OOC Not really attempting to cut you off or anything, Mia-mun. It's just Barbossa is quite engrossed in his current conversation with Sparrow. We can millitime this conversation to another moment, so we can continue with it, though?)

[gorgonfondness]

The smile is a familiar one, in a sense.

She picks up her glass and, while she doesn't show as much appreciation for it as Barbossa does, there is.....

Well, respect. Almost like the one a student would give to a teacher.

Water, after all, is another form of ice. To know one, you must know the other.

When Barbossa's attention is free, she asks, "So, I take it you are from Captain Sparrow's world?"

*ooc: Curse my reading comprehension! I didn't really get what you had meant by former conversation anyway as I rushed through my reading before posting. Bad mun! =o But yeah, millitimed to later works for me.*

[bushel-o-apples.livejournal.com]

He looks out of the booth, towards where Jack went.

"I sometimes wonder, miss. I sometimes wonder. But yes, in a less metaphorical sense, we are from the same good earth. I take it you aren't?"

His curiosity is... Well, less than you would expect from 'naught but a humble pirate' and his gaze is more interested than amazed right now. Skipping the borders of death does that to you, apparently.

(OOC Sorry, was AFK )

[gorgonfondness]

At this point, Mia is assuming Barbossa has been here before and was simply too tired to order from Bar.

"I am from a world called Lunar. We look upon a heavenly body that might be Earth, but we call it the Blue Star. It's possible that we are your moon."

She gives a little nod and takes another sip of water.

"Am I right in assuming that you are also a pirate?"

He does sort of have that look about him.

[bushel-o-apples.livejournal.com]

He nods at her explanations on her own world. After what he has seen, people from the Moon don't seem all that much an impossible, do they? HEr next question, though, makes him laugh.

"It was the hat, I bet, that gave me away, miss"

Well, it is gaudy enough to only be considered proper by a pirate. Borad-brimmed, adorned with blue ostrich feathers... Yes, definitely no honest sailor would wear something like that.

[gorgonfondness]

She shakes her head with a smile.

"No, it was partly your appearance all together and partly you speaking to Captain Sparrow as though you knew him. Though something tells me you would not call him Captain as I do. But none of the pirates I grew up around wore hats."

[bushel-o-apples.livejournal.com]

"Sadly, Jack can be called many things but not a captain. His crews abandon him, his ship... Has a tendency to be either stolen or sunken. He could be one of the good ones, if only he stopped trying so hard. But a proper captain? I don't think so, the poor sod"

A shake of his head, he manages to seem both sad and disappointed. The sly, lying bastard that he is.

[gorgonfondness]

"Well, Captain Sparrow introduced himself as such to me and I see no harm in calling him that. It's what he likes to be called, just as I prefer to be called Mia instead of Majesty Mia."

Even though she's earned her title.

She shrugs and sips.

[bushel-o-apples.livejournal.com]

"Ah, but do you not see the difference? You drop a title like 'Majesty', miss, whereas he claims one which is almost as important at sea. That being 'Captain'. Where your choice shows humility, his shows but the hubris he sadly is a prey to"

He sips his water and sighs a little. Truly, he sounds like an old friend of Jack sorely disappointed by his current predicament.