Upon first glance, he was nothing more than a fellow brigand.

A jaunty fellow with equal measure of pretensions to grandeur and fine style. In truth, before making his acquaintance, Barbossa found Jack Sparrow to be an inexperienced, callow youth. And annoyingly youthful, at that; much in the way young men are wont to be when they believe themselves to be the cock-of-the-walk, and carry themselves thus.

Jack Sparrow was a gypsy thief, an Irish/English bastard with Indian blood somewhere along the lineage, who carried himself like an arrogant rooster, dandified and possessing far too much impudence and poise a man of his years should carry. Barbossa found him brash, intense and overconfident, and this dark young man who spoke too loudly in the tavern in the harbor was easy pickings for an older gentleman of fortune such as himself, to seduce and beguile and perhaps even simply lead astray. It would be easy to part him from his ship, for example, let alone any venture, fortune or captaincy he held. Barbossa found Jack Sparrow irritating.

Or so it was until Barbossa learned that Captain Jack Sparrow of the Black Pearl (and what was such a young, untried man doing with a ship as grand as that, anyway?) was far older than he looked.

Of course there'd never been any question of his inveigling his way aboard the Black Pearl (far too fine a ship for such an inexperienced fellow to captain, or to keep, surely?) and into Jack Sparrow's trust.

With bright, dark eyes that gave away far too much boyish enthusiasm, and a keen, secretive, husky voice that was far too eager to take an older gent such as himself into his confidence, Jack revealed his life's calling, and before long, he was falling victim too easily to Barbossa's friendly encouragement to ever find him worthy of anything but scorn. As if a man of his years and experience would truly be so enraptured in what such a fool, a stripling and a dreamer such as Jack thought he knew about anything.

The Caribbee beckoned, said Jack, an easy harvest with rich pickings for any man bold enough to reach out and help himself. Barbossa knew better. It was a sea of sharks with many national flags flying from their masts that lurked in those waters. Rich, to be sure, but not without a price. With three navies having already subdued most of the old Brethren by outright force or subtle infiltration via employment in their own national cause, privateering had long since driven the true pirates out of the Caribbean.

Shrewdly, he'd played along, wondering when his youngish-seeming Captain would blunder. Sure enough, there were other tales, as Jack told his First Mate over rapidly-dwindling drink. Tales of gold and plunder beyond most men's wildest dreams. It was only a matter of finding it. Or of finding one specific island, rather.

Barbossa took note that, when pressed about it, Jack would only grin and change the subject. Leading him on. Playing him for the fool, and stringing him along like a child with the hope for further stories. That rankled, it did. Deep inside. That a man of his stature and years would be treated thus by Jack Sparrow. To be humored.

He carefully covered it with an indulgent smile, careful to always stand by him, and careful to always be seen at his right hand. First Mate, to be sure, and it wasn't something to be taken lightly. He wasn't putting up with all of these wounds to his pride just to see it go to some other hungry bastard who thought to try for himself.

Well, it was only a matter of time before they'd left the Old World behind and departed for the West Indies, there to help themselves to the stout ships toing and froing from the colonies, and the sugar ships laden with rum and gold. Not to mention the Spanish traders bearing gold and heathen slaves. The Caribbean was indeed fertile ground for any pirate to quickly make his name and fortune, if he didn't mind the risk of dancing on the gallows if he were caught.

Six weeks to cross the Atlantic was by far the most optimistic estimate any sailor could hope for, yet the Black Pearl surpassed all expectations, bringing them into the Caribbean Blue in less than that time. The only man unsurprised was Jack Sparrow, who cast knowing sneers and loving glances up at the black sails, as well as the Rackham colors that Sparrow had adopted.

Flying the flag of Captain Death? Barbossa had sneered privately himself; Jack Sparrow was craven. He'd seen his sort before, in ports the world over; men quick to talk big yet unable to actually prove the stories were anything but. It was fitting, Barbossa had mused, that Sparrow would take Rackham's colors, for his liver shared Rackham's hue to a shade.

Jack spoke of taking gold the easy way, forcing ships to yield and not shedding any blood to take what they wanted. Life was easy to squander, but not to Jack Sparrow. Barbossa was glad to see that the Captain's rather un-piratical, pacifist nature caused some distress amongst the rest of the crew, as well as some disgust. Gleefully, he assured Jack that the crew would be just as pleased to have gold as opposed to bloodshed, and meanwhile noted that it would be far easier to part the Black Pearl and her Captain than he'd hoped.

It would be easy. Nothing could be simpler. The Black Pearl would be his. It was only a matter of time. He could afford to bide his time and allow Jack Sparrow to lower his guard yet further, so that when the moment came, the ship would be his for the taking, and the title of captain, too.

After their first raid, a brig weighed down with supplies and gold bound for one of the French settlements on Hispaniola, Barbossa was illumined to discover his Captain was made of sterner stuff. Brandishing pistol and cutlass, Jack was as fierce a sight as any eager member of their crew when they boarded the surrendered vessel.

Grinning wildly, with his unkempt dark hair tossing about his sharp face, Jack seemed a true devil, one of the old Brethren, and the crew had been more than happy to follow his lead.

And in truth, Barbossa had been glad to ignore the slight he might have been caused as First Mate to have the Captain leading the boarding party and to even be the first to land on the other deck, taking charge of the other ship as though he'd done it a hundred times before. For it had been worth it to see the sight. It was true: Jack Sparrow cut a fine figure. The previously muttered fears on their crossing of the Atlantic, that their Captain had yet to prove himself worthy of the name, were put to rest.

Another raid soon followed, and again Captain Sparrow seemed to set the example.

Later, in the stews and dens of various ports they drunkenly and wealthily staggered into, the whole crew was happy to find the gold made them very popular indeed.

Too popular, one could say, and Barbossa had to wonder at the as-yet-undisclosed origins of Jack Sparrow who refused to divulge any tidbits of his past, as the young-looking Captain swilled about the streets with the best of them, always with at least one wench on his arm—if not two.

A perfect sea-rat, taking to leading raid after raid as if he'd been born to it. Always with very little threatening needed, and never much bloodshed. To be sure, some blood was spilled, but always the fools'. There were always those men that could not yield even under threat of death. And the Rackham flag was never flown as a jest. But Barbossa could smell something rotten about the swiftly growing legend of Jack Sparrow, even then. Something decidedly not born and bred quayside.

Something a little too charming, and too endearing. Too friendly.

There was a careful distance, Barbossa began to notice. Jack was happy to burble through rum and ale and feasting in any tavern, about the future and his hopes and dreams. But never the past. Where he'd been. What sights he'd seen. He played the part of a pirate a little too well for Barbossa's liking, and that was what rankled. Did Jack Sparrow think it was all a game? Perhaps it was, and they were winning it thus far. But when it came down to it, the real prize would be the Black Pearl, and he fancied Jack Sparrow had no idea.

Which was perfect, of course. Except for one little problem.

Barbossa found he was beginning to like Jack.

Jack was carefree, and easy, and altogether merry most of the time; often brimming over with zealous enthusiasm and almost garish, foppish displays of good-humored, good-natured complacency. And, without fail, never losing his dignity or balance. He carried himself as a captain, and Barbossa began to look forward to each private moment in the greatcabin alone with Captain Jack Sparrow as he would share a drink with his First Mate after a successful raid, and Jack would occasionally take up a single coin from their takings to weave into a lock of his wild hair.

Dark, long tufts of swiftly growing hair Jack had refused to cut but instead began to tame into braids, that made him look more savage than he was in truth, but suited him well. And in the five or more weeks it had taken to cross the ocean to this warmer clime, Jack's appearance had altered a little, but not so much as it did now, as he quickly adopted the interesting barbaric attributes of some of the Cimarron free-slaves from African tribes.

The careful, thin dark lines applied beneath his lids, Jack explained, were only practical, to cut the light off the shining Caribbean waves in the bright sun. But the effect was an unpleasant heat that twisted in Barbossa's gut.

Never mind that the Cimarrons who'd brought the custom over the sea with them hardly applied it so carefully themselves, or that against Jack's face such outlined eyes made him resemble less a slave or Afrikaner and more like a whore. It was effete; hardly becoming a man—let alone the captain of a buccaneer crew. Yet Jack made it look as though he were the true pirate, to wear it. He wore it with aplomb and grace, bearing himself as though naught was out of place.

It quickly became a part of Jack, and no one cared to notice, except for Barbossa himself, who began to question that he'd ever found it repugnant. It suited Jack so well, after all. Another of their idiosyncratic Captain's eccentricities.

Barbossa's confusion and ire grew when, not only was it revealed that Jack had never had his ear pierced, but that Jack refused outright to have his earlobe stuck through with the needle. Many a sailor, whether 'on account' or not, or having come to the Caribbean through piracy or even the British or French Navy, pierced their ears for good luck and sure safety against drowning. Yet Jack swam like a fish, laughing at such fears, and adamantly refused the needle, claiming his hair already had enough charms in it without needing more.

As if Barbossa's simple gold hoop he wore strung through his ear was somehow less than true pirate style, and merely a simple sailor's affectation—and superstitious to boot. Though Jack never said, naturally. He didn't have to. His glances were dismissive enough. Barbossa wondered at his feelings upon the matter and could not decide if Jack were truly adopting a superior attitude, or if he were seeing things that were not there in truth, but illusions of his own creation. The possibility that he might be seeing either one in Jack, or in himself, caused him confusion and ire, to the extent that he feared to even try to investigate deeper. For in either case, he ran the risk of playing the fool, and revealing too much. And it simply would not do, to be hungering at the heels of his Captain like a common cur eager for whatever scrap of attention the younger man might toss offhandedly to him.

Barbossa wondered at the angry desire he felt, to be the one to take up the needle and shove it through that pale bit of flesh, to make the bright bit of blood appear and lick it away with rum and his tongue. He wondered why it always came back to settle in his mind like a buzzing pest of a fly that he couldn't shake, whenever he drank.

Like quicksilver, Jack Sparrow's moods darted as aberrantly as his namesake on swift wings. And luckily, his smiles were always just as quickly bestowed upon his First Mate as anything or anyone else.

So Barbossa was often left to wonder at the needless jealousy and darkness he felt cover him when those smiles and easy gestures were turned towards another.

Five months in the Caribbean, Barbossa began to wonder if perhaps he wanted to even bother wresting the Black Pearl from Jack (for all that she was still a grand ship, far too fine for a man such as Jack), for life was good; time passed quickly, the sun shone down and the waters gave up fat ships whenever they needed them.

And the Black Pearl's reputation swelled, flying through ports and towns like wildfire. She was still twice as fast as any Navy ship, and easily bore them to freedom and safety when pursued by enraged military vessels.

It seemed nothing could go wrong. The New World truly was their oyster, and their ship was the biggest, the best, the most beautiful Pearl in it.

It was then that Barbossa realized he'd been following in Jack's footsteps, walking in his Captain's shadow, and liking it... Liking it! Without thought for his own fortune or destiny.

It was then that he realized he wasn't even angry to find it was so.

It was then that Barbossa found he'd grown to see the Black Pearl as his home, along with the others that settled into the easy life of a buccaneer in relatively under-defended, unsuspecting ports that'd long since thought themselves safe from the deprivations of pirates. The pirate hunters of the various Navies had done their work well, but had left it open for such as them.

And it was then that Barbossa knew he'd come to be more than fond of Jack Sparrow than was advisable, considering his plan to eventually take the man's ship and rank.

Jack Sparrow was weak.

Barbossa wondered if the game would be more interesting if he upped the stakes, and made it a little more personal.

After all, Jack was friendly, but overly so. He was a rake and very popular with all the wenches everywhere he went, but in the manner of a flirt rather than a true debaucher. And Jack Sparrow, Barbossa began to see, was not simply a youthful, handsome man.

Jack was beautiful.

To be sure, it was not bells and whistles and fireworks from the Orient when Barbossa realized he'd come to regard Jack with the brand of affection one held only towards a trusted shipmate in the dark, when a knowing hand might be offered for another mate too long at sea to find proper relief. And to be sure, Barbossa was not such a fool that he imagined Jack would ever bother to do such a thing with any of his crew. Let alone his First Mate.

No, Jack was not such a fool himself to ever take the chance of letting down his guard in that fashion. He was the captain, after all, and he knew full well the dangers of allowing any of his crew to grow too close or enjoy favors that might endanger his own position.

Barbossa also began to see the necessity for all the ladies draped on either arm, as Jack helped himself to the female population that, it must be said, seemed eager for his attention as well as his coin. Barbossa began to quickly see the need to always have a lady or two draped on his own arms, himself, lest his observations be noticed in the wrong light.

For it began to pain him, as time passed and the autumn rolled by, to see the endless faceless procession of women enjoying Captain Jack Sparrow's company.

Barbossa knew it wasn't only the comradeship he wanted, for they were mates, even beyond the need for such things as declarations of 'trust' and 'honor'. They'd fought and bled together more than once as the months passed, and had helped themselves to what the Caribbean Islands had to offer, standing side by side.

No, it wasn't the thoughtless, warm gesture of a hand on a shoulder, or the offer of someone to lean on to get from one end of the room to the other, when the drink became the master, and one's senses roiled like a storm-tossed ship.

Nor was it the obvious rutting pleasure he found in wenches and whores in all the ports they stayed in week after week, often on Jamaica itself in coastal towns under the very nose of the British Navy.

Endless women who all seemed to share the same names after a while. Women who, in the dark, were nothing more than a span of warm flesh and an appropriate hole in the darkness of his own private thoughts that he could turn into anything, anyone, even in his most drunken carousing.

Even if it were Jack that he turned them into, the muffled squeaks and lusty, hoarse, whispered moans easy to imagine belonging to a dark-eyed, dark-haired man who was too pretty to bear the sight of anymore without first taking a swig of fortification.

It was a glut; of gold and blood and rum and swords and shot, and cannon-fire and ships, and endless days of vibrant freedom, and nights that tasted of gritty desire never assuaged but always slaked, and rouged cheeks and powdered faces, plump lips that never quite satisfied, sweetness that was always too soft and never salt-weathered.

Eyes that weren't dark enough, skin that wasn't bronzed enough, bodies after a while that simply were not male enough. Although Barbossa's lip curled at the thought of bothering to take another man the way he desired to take Captain Jack Sparrow. One or two experiments with willing lads had quickly proven disappointing enough.

It had become a desperation, an obsession, and Barbossa knew it would never be fulfilled without tasting that final, forbidden friendship that was so much more than any man had any right to... without going mad from the lunacy such a course offered. The horror of knowing that he had found the one man in the world that he wanted more than any other, let alone any other thing—it wasn't to be borne. The one thing he feared more than all else was Jack's ridicule. Jack's rejection.

Far easier to ignore it and pretend the envy didn't bite deep, when wantons pressed their greedy mouths to his Captain's in plain sight in every inn and tavern.

But Fate is a harsh and beguiling mistress, with whims of her own, and Barbossa wondered if he might conspire with her to see to it that even the slightest ease of his urgent longing might be appeased.

If he could have Jack but the one time, he reasoned, he could slake the desire and be free of its cruel sweetness, the terrible chains that bound him to Jack without ever allowing him any respite from the absence of Jack's body. Just once. Only one night. It would no longer rule him, making him the unwitting Captain's slave.

And he began to lay his plan, taking some measure of comfort from the thought of what lay ahead should his scheme prove successful.

Eventually, and in very little time at all, Barbossa found his plan hatching to his advantage.