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Second Nut Out of the Locker: Like Nuts for Bananas


by Powdermonkey


Characters: Barbossa, Jack Sparrow, Jack the Monkey
Rating: R+ for slash, merciless innuendo, and shameful treatment of undead monkeys. May contain nuts.
Disclaimer: I nicked it.
Originally Posted: 7/4/07
Beta: tessabeth
Summary: On the voyage back from World's End, Barbossa, Jack, and the monkey, continue their quest for captaincy, eternal life, and tasty nibbles. But who's looking for which? AWE missing scene.



Wanting Jack Sparrow dead is a feeling Barbossa knows all too well, and the frustration of this want is unpleasantly familiar too. What sets his current ache apart is that, this time, he wants Jack Sparrow dead for the unlikely reason that late last night, dead Jack Sparrow turned out to be frightened, needy, and altogether more amenable to the charms of a mature and capable pirate captain than that mature and capable captain had dared to hope. He very much doubts whether restored-to-life Jack Sparrow will feel the same.

Damn Ragetti for barging in on them at the crucial moment! Since then, it's been unrelenting neediness of a much less attractive kind: ship becalmed, crew fretful, chart cryptic, Calypso (but best to be calling her Tia Dalma still) volubly prophesying eternal torment if they cannot escape, but distinctly less forthcoming about how escape might be accomplished. And all of them from Ragetti and Pintel up through the parrot, the dwarf, the Chinese, through the monkey, the blacksmith, the bloody Governor's daughter, confounded Jack Sparrow, and all the way to the immortal sea goddess herself, all of them apparently look to Hector Barbossa to make things better.

To be fair—though fairness is not a thing he generally cares for—neither of the Jacks has been directing demands or blame in his direction recently. Perhaps this is in recognition of energies—and bananas—expended to persuade small, furry Jack to return less small, smooth Jack's britches. Not to mention the rum and flattery required to keep dead Jack from wringing undead Jack's neck.

All the rest of his alleged crew, however, are slow to help and quick to blame. He knows this is what being Captain is all about, but really, he'd hoped for better from some of them, considering the whole expedition was their scheme, not his. If they are indeed doomed to Tia's eternity roaming trackless seas, he sincerely hopes they won't be roaming them together.

Barbossa hates to fail, but knows he is conspicuously not producing a plausible plan of action to take them out of the doldrums. He falls back on his old ploy of standing at the helm, fixing a weather eye on the horizon, and generally looking as captainly as possible. The pose would be more effective if the ship were making any progress through the water.

He's beginning to think he'll have to divert their attention by triggering another of Gibbs' anecdotes, when he notices Jack is up to something. (Not the monkey, who is crouched on the quarterdeck rail spewing the bananas that his undead stomach couldn't digest. Not him, but the daft, dangerous, pretty one.) All morning, he's been poring over that damn chart that only he can read; now he's scampering about the ship, excited by things on the horizon that only he can see. And of course, the rest go traipsing after him like a flock of bloody sheep. Port rail, starboard rail, port again, starboard...

Barbossa sighs and rolls his eyes. Rolls. Eye rolling over the chart. The chart where sunrise sets and down is up. The ship tilts back as the human sheep rush to the opposite rail, and Barbossa understands what Jack Sparrow saw ten minutes earlier.

Then it's almost like the old times. Jack provides the inspiration; Hector has the sense and authority to see it properly put into practice. Jack waves and points and explains nothing (though he does somehow incite more people to run back and forth in that ridiculous fashion). Hector ensures they unstow the cargo and loose the guns, and tries to synchronise their efforts for maximum effect.

Against all probability, it works. The ship rolls clean over, but instead of drowning or breaking up, all—even the loosed guns—is restored to fresh air and sunshine amid a bright green flash: the flash that can only signal Jack Sparrow's release from the world of the dead. Every silver lining has a cloud.

Predictably, live Jack Sparrow soon has a pistol pointed at Barbossa's chest. But then, Barbossa, having predicted correctly, has been aiming his own pistol at Jack for well over a minute.

Rather more interesting: Jack's first targets were not Barbossa at all, but Miss Swann (Well, she did kill him.) and young Turner. (Now why would that be? In league with Miss Swann?) In fact, quite a large number of pistols are being levelled at a rather smaller number of people. Otherworldly navigation, solving impossible riddles, and laughing in the jaws of annihilation are apparently things best left to Cap'n Barbossa, but when it comes to bluster, threats, and violence, everyone wants to join in.

He's just beginning to wonder about the effect on gunpowder of being plunged under the ocean and supernaturally restored to the air, when Jack pulls the trigger. This sets off everyone else's trigger fingers, followed by a lot of soggy fizzing, and—in Barbossa's case—some unpleasantly vivid flashbacks.

Once it becomes apparent that no-one is going to die from a shot to the heart this time, he pockets his useless pistols and turns away. The Turner whelp is prattling about working together and needing water. He's even found an island with a spring, and seems to think they are near it.

Barbossa is about to explain that the chart doesn't work like that or they would also have to be off the coast of Florida and somewhere slightly to the east of Lower Saxony. He refrains only because it would likely entail further, tiresome explanations (viz. that Hector Barbossa understands just enough of Sao Feng's chart to be baffled, while Jack Sparrow can apparently read the bloody thing blindfolded and hanging by his ankles from the yardarm, an image that causes Barbossa to lose track of the continuing discussion for a moment).

He's brought rapidly back to reality by the sound of Jack sending him off with a shore party. Pah! Does the lad think him an utter fool? The inevitable bickering ensues, interrupted by young Turner's startling suggestion that both Captains go with the shore party. This does have a certain perverse logic, when you come to think on it. No-one aboard has sufficient motive (or indeed initiative) to maroon both of them, so provided they stick close to one another...

The thought of sticking close to Jack Sparrow on a remote tropical island, with Jack likewise compelled to stick close to him, settles it. Bootstrap's baby can mind the ship.

First, however, they need to find the island. He studies the map, trying to remember Jack's crazed talk of rolling up and flattening out, and North being off the map in another direction entirely, but all it gets him is a headache.

"Cap'n Sparrow," he says as ingratiatingly as he can bear. "How far would ye say we be from Mr. Turner's island? Or any source of fresh water?" he adds, to show he's not entirely unaware of how this thing works.

"How far?" parrots Jack. "D'you mean how far by the chart, Mr. Barbossa?"

Barbossa clenches his hands behind his back, but smiles sweetly at his fellow Captain.

"Aye, Cap'n Sparrow. If ye'd care to put those navigational skills of yours to use for us."

Jack looks at him, all wide-eyed innocence. Waiting. The little bastard!

Silently promising Sparrow unspeakable torments in the future (while praying for him to be appeased and co-operative in the present), Barbossa waves a hand graciously and mumbles, "Ye've such a facility for it, an' it'd be savin' me time an' effort."

Sparrow beams at him and saunters to the chart. They lean over it together, co-conspirators once again. Didn't take much, really.

"That island—that's days an' days away," announces Jack, stabbing at Turner's islet with a grubby finger. "This one, ooh... sixty, sixty-five miles. We could be there tomorrow. Thataway." He flaps an arm along what Barbossa knows will be a near-perfect bearing. Cotton and Gibbs know too, for they go about adjusting helm and sails without waiting for clearer instructions.

Tia smiles; the Chinese look blank, probably beyond surprise by now; Turner is puzzled, but accepting. Only the Swann lass sees fit to raise a challenge.

"But those islands are practically touching each other!"

Jack meets her gaze, something he's avoided for most of the voyage, if Barbossa's any judge. "So they may well be," he concedes, giving her a meaningful look. "In the sight of an angel, or a destroying fury from another realm. But seein' as most of us are mere mortals, we'll be takin' the slow way round." He taps the side of his nose and winks. "Navigational skills, luv."

With that, he rolls up the chart and hands it to Barbossa. "You'd best take care of this, eh? Seein' as you're Chart Man." The look in those black eyes means, "I could tell them any time."

Barbossa sighs and groans for appearance's sake, but he knows he's been let off lightly. He stands a few hours at the helm, glad to have a simple heading at last, over a mundane ocean.

He watches Jack dart around the Pearl, running his hands over every rope and rail. Sometimes, Jack's fingers creep inside the neck of his shirt. Barbossa remembers doing the same thing, not checking for a heartbeat (why would he when his whole body throbbed with it?) but simply relishing that restored pulse.

At other times, Jack mutters and seems to be searching for something in his hair, checking perhaps that he's escaped the Locker with a full set of trinkets.

The temptation to approach him is nigh irresistible, but Barbossa's too wily for that: he bides his time until Jack comes swaying towards the helm of his own accord. Close up, he's shiny with excitement, but drawn and exhausted deep down, for he can't have slept since before he died. Not all the darkness around those eyes is kohl.

"Cap'n Sparrow," Barbossa calls, polite as can be, "if ye'd care to double-check the headin', we could be leavin' things in the capable hands of Mr. Gibbs while we go below to consider our strategy."

Jack spares an offensively casual glance for the chart and the position of the sun, then adjusts their course a fraction to starboard.

"Lead on, Cap'n Barbossa!" Evidently, Jack has resolved to be polite too. "Actually," he confides as Barbossa closes the cabin door. "I've already considered my strategy: I intend to find some rum, and then consume it as far away from Elizabeth Swann as it's practical for me to travel without a drink. After that, who knows?"

Barbossa decides the Brethren Court can wait a while. He lets himself sink into the window seat beside Jack. The mess has been cleared up and the broken pane replaced with a timber one. "Me own plan be to get some rest while I may. We've been the best part of two days without a night now, an' ye can lay we'll be needin' our wits about us for some new danger soon enough."

"Aye. Prob'ly slimy great tentacles feelin' their way through the gun ports as we speak." Jack shudders as he smiles, and Barbossa's not sure he's joking at all.

"Have ye checked yer hands?"

"'Course I've bloody checked 'em! They're clean." Jack holds out both scarred and grubby hands, then turns them to reveal palms that are startlingly—literally—clean; evidently, his search for Black Spots has been thorough. So he does know how soap works.

Barbossa only stops himself from reaching out for those bare, pink ovals by standing brusquely and turning away. "No Black Spot, no Kraken, no cause to be a-pissin' yerself," he snaps.

"Prob'ly not," concedes Jack from behind him, "but I'm a little short of role models here, and I like to know what the rules are before I bend 'em, savvy? Christ, I need a drink!"

"Rum's gone, Jack," he says, seizing the lifeline of this distraction, "mostly into you an' your Mr. Gibbs, but I do have an excellent bottle or two of wine, always assumin' it survived bein' turned arse up and dragged 'tween worlds."

He locates a bottle and two greenish glasses in a locker, and returns to the window seat as if he'd stood only to fetch them.

They drink for a while in silence. The wine seems unaffected by metaphysical upheavals, although the way Jack gulps it he probably doesn't care, or even notice.

Barbossa notices, however, and sips slowly. He also notices how Jack cups his glass in both hands and sinks his face into the fragrance, how his Adam's apple rises and falls with each gulp, and the pulse pounds in his neck. He remembers the appetites that followed his own resurrection...

"Ye'll be wantin' some food with that," he says, holding out the monkey's dish of nuts for lack of anything more tempting.

Jack eyes it doubtfully. Then hunger wins out; he scoops a great handful and gobbles the lot, eyes shut tight, lost in sensation.

Barbossa nods to himself and wonders who Jack'll be choosing to slake a different hunger. Not the Swann chit: fear still outweighs lust for that one, if he's any judge of such matters (which he is). It might go the other way with Calypso, depending on how much Jack knows. Not that he'll get anywhere, for Calypso seems to've set her sights on the Turner boy since he showed up in her shack with his fine airs and his touch of bloody destiny. (He's not sure anything can distract Calypso now she scents freedom so close, but he knows it'll take more than Jack Sparrow. More than Hector Barbossa too, which is altogether more alarming.) The lad himself, perhaps? But he's seen only cold distrust between Jack and him, for all he's the spit of old Bootstrap. Gibbs, then? He chuckles. Loyalty's a wonderful thing, but Jack always had a fancy for a fine figure and a quick wit...

He smoothes his beard, makes sure his wolf-tooth earring is good and visible, and leans over to fill Jack's glass. Jack looks at him with wide, dark eyes; he remembers the hint of a blush below the tan as those lips demanded saltier nuts. Aye, Hector Barbossa's not entirely lost his touch, nor Jack Sparrow his fancy.

If only they could be counted on not to murder each other, 'twould be plain sailing.

"Did ye know the powder was wet?" The question has left his lips before he knows he's asking it.

Jack blinks. Collects himself. "It seemed like a plausible hypothethingumajig. But who knows how anything's goin' to behave crossin' between worlds, eh?" He favours Barbossa with a look that is just wilfully enigmatic. Then, as if to refute any suggestion of soft-heartedness, adds, "I shot you once before!"

Barbossa runs a hand over tired eyes. "I was wonderin' if twice might be sufficient."

Jack seems to give this serious consideration before he says, "I dunno, mate. How many times did you maroon me an' steal me ship?"

He wants to say he marooned Jack twice, but only had to steal the ship once, because the second time she was still his. But he reminds himself that, just for once, annoying Jack Sparrow may not be the most pleasurable course.

"More to the point," Jack continues, "how many more times d'you intend doin' it?"

He forces a smile, though only one corner of his mouth obeys. They need to kill each other, and Jack, damn him, is sharp enough to know it.

He is saved by a scratch at the door and a shrill screech. "Steady, Jack!" he calls. "I be a‑comin'." (He won't say "Daddy's coming" in front of the other Jack, and it feels like betrayal, which is laughable really, when he thinks of the things he's done. Especially to pretty Jack.)

Who rolls his strumpet's eyes and asks, "Could we not manage without the monkey, just for once, Hector?"

Such a pity, the way Jack's taken against his namesake. With an unaccustomed twinge of shame, Barbossa tries to calculate whether locking little Jack out might help bring the original to his bed. The scheme is doomed, of course, and he can't tell if that's a relief or a disappointment.

"None o' that now, Jack," he says, with his hand on the latch. "Ye know he'll only be findin' his own way in if I don't."

Both their eyes go to the charred hole in the bulkhead, hastily patched with battens that stand out splintery and white against the smooth black timber.

Barbossa picks up the monkey and returns to the window seat. When little Jack is settled on his lap, he takes a deep breath and says, "It'd make matters a sight easier all round if the two o' ye could learn to get along."

Little Jack picks fleas and ignores him. Pretty Jack gawps at him, then pouts. "It hates me."

"Now, why would he be doin' that?"

He knows Jack will notice the mockery, but he can't help himself.

Jack is indignant. "It wants you for Captain! Prob'ly thinks this is your ship an' I'm the one tryin' to steal it."

"No call to be fanciful, Jack!" He's not even trying to hide his laughter now. "He don't know I be Cap'n, nor care whose ship it be. He just likes me because I stroke him and give him food."

He stretches his arm along the seat-back, but pretty Jack shies away.

"Well, it does like you—astonishing though that might be—an' it thinks I'm after..." He bares his teeth just like a monkey. "It thinks I'm after its place in the cabin, or its nuts, or somethin'..."

Barbossa very much wants to ask what exactly, but he adopts his best calm and reasonable manner to say, "Well, ye do lock him out o' the cabin and eat his nuts."

Jack adopts an expression presumably meant to convey airy disregard for simian property rights. It just makes him look shifty. Louche, even. This, in Barbossa's opinion, is a good look—at least on Jack Sparrow.

"Why don't ye try to make friends, eh? It don't take much." Barbossa picks up the dish of nuts. Little Jack chirrups excitedly, but it's big Jack he offers them to. "Go on! Feed him a nut!"

Jack pulls a face, but he takes a nut from the dish. "What, like this?"

"Ye need to hold it closer; let him see ye want him to take it." Barbossa clamps little Jack in a death grip to keep him from leaping up and snatching the nut before time.

Jack edges it closer, jerks it back. "It's gettin' that evil look in its eyes. I think it's gonna bite me."

Barbossa sighs loudly, pretends he can't feel frantic claws digging into his thighs. "Will ye just be givin' it to him!"

Jack leans as far back as he can while gingerly extending his hand towards little Jack, who cocks his head and chirrups endearingly. Jack brings the nut in range, and little Jack reaches out with both paws... and sinks his teeth into Jack's index finger.

"Ow! Fuck!" Jack sucks the bleeding digit, and swings his other hand round to thump the monkey.

Only the monkey is gone. And Barbossa realises he is shaking little Jack by the throat, threatening to sink him to the bottom of the ocean for all time if he hurts one hair of Jack Sparrow's dishevelled head.

And Jack Sparrow—still sucking his finger—is grinning fit to burst.

"'Tis but a way to train him," Barbossa explains hastily. "I'd not care meself if he ate every last one of yer greasy dreadlocks, but I need little Jack here to think ye matter to me."

"I see," says Jack.

Barbossa is very much afraid that he does.

Little Jack whimpers and cringes, clutching Barbossa's ankle. He reaches down automatically to pat him on the head.

"Shall we try again?" asks Jack. "Or shall we wait for gangrene to set in, whereupon we can just cut off my whole finger and feed it that?" To Barbossa's amazement, he holds out another nut.

Little Jack, back on Barbossa's lap, now distinctly chastened, accepts the second, slightly bloodstained peanut with good grace, and even strokes the sore finger with every sign of concern.

Pretty Jack mutters something about mangy, flea-ridden, zombie primates—Barbossa refrains from mentioning pots and kettles—but condescends to tickle furry Jack briefly behind the ears and feed him another nut.

A precarious peace descends.

"So," Jack says at last, returning confidence accompanied by the return of what Barbossa thinks of as his Admiralty manner, "should I conclude that you sailed all the way to World's End because you wanted the monkey to think you missed me?"

Now this is a question Barbossa's been expecting—albeit not in this form—and he has answers prepared, plenty of answers. The problem being that he's still not sure which to use.

"'Twas Tia Dalma's notion," he explains, truthfully as it happens. "I be merely a hired hand, so to speak."

"Tia," Jack repeats, thoughtfully. "Not Elizabeth, then."

The look of regret in those black eyes is a fine thing, and Barbossa's not one to spoil it by mentioning that Elizabeth believes the scheme to be hers.

"Now, why would Tia do a thing like that?" Jack muses.

"She's not confided that information as yet."

Not truthful, that, but if Jack knows he's needed only for his Piece of Eight and his potential role in unleashing a probably vengeful sea-goddess, he's unlikely to cooperate. No more would Barbossa, had he a choice in the matter...

"You're frightened, Hector."

How does Jack flip a conversation upside down like that?

"Ain't we all?"

"'Course we are, but the boot's on the other foot now, savvy? I'm back fair and square, while you find yourself suspended midway between life and death, mortally afeard that she'll shove you the wrong way if you don't keep her sweet."

"Now, Jack," he prevaricates, "what makes you think such a thing?"

"You mean other than you letting her on this ship, taking orders from her, and risking death or worse on my account—none of which notions you would entertain for one lousy second if you thought you'd any halfway viable alternative?"

Barbossa takes refuge in partial truth. "I promised to deliver you to Shipwreck Cove and the Brethren Court. That be all I know."

Jack narrows his eyes. "I wonder."

He nearly tells him then, for if anyone can cheat Calypso and live to tell the tale, 'tis surely Jack Sparrow. But, why should Jack help when he could simply tell her Barbossa was looking to double-cross her, gaining a powerful ally, and ridding himself of an old enemy into the bargain? It's what Barbossa would do if their positions were reversed.

So all he says is, "What do ye know about Tia Dalma?"

"She's scary; she's beautiful; she doesn't get any older; she's got thighs like velvet and cast iron; she ain't human. Oh, and she's got crabs." He grins. "Also an unhealthy interest in William Turner the younger. I don't fancy your chances there, mate."

Barbossa, who did at one point—before he fully understood what she was—fancy his chances, is forced to agree. But at least Jack doesn't appear to be thinking in terms of sea-goddesses imprisoned in human form, which is something.

"'Tis no great loss," he says—for two can play at capsizing a conversation—"Turners were never me type."

Jack gives him an odd look and throws his weight back in the seat, finally making contact with that outstretched arm. "Well, you're not entirely lacking in judgement then," he grumbles. "But I wouldn't fancy your chances with anyone if you don't trim that scraggly beard. You look like a nanny goat with scabies. And not in a good way."

Barbossa (who applies walrus oil to his beard every night to thicken it) feels this is somewhat rich, coming from a man with a pair of scrawny caterpillars dangling from his chin. Then again, he probably deserves it for that Turners crack.

"Ah!" he says, allowing his fingers to curl down and fondle Jack's shoulder and availing himself of all the powerful magnetism at his disposal, "... but it tickles so sweet!"

At this point, Jack the monkey gives a disgusted little cough and jumps off his lap—no doubt dislodged when he leaned forward to give Jack the full force of his clear blue gaze—and starts bouncing and chattering on the bunk.

This doesn't fit the plan at all, so Barbossa finds a bunch of the little pink bananas Jack loves, and coaxes him onto his perch, where he remains for a while, happily distracted by fruit.

Wicked Jack watches the proceedings with a glint in his eye. "You know, I think I'm gettin' bored of nuts," he murmurs. "You got any of those bananas for me, luv?"

Barbossa crooks a thumb into his waistband, feeling his face crack into a leer. "Be ye wanting' these stubby little things?" he inquires, waving at little Jack's hoard. "Or would ye be after somethin' more substantial?"

Jack leers back. "Substantial's gen'rally good with me." Then, suddenly serious, "Although size ain't everythin', Hector."

He's always been a tad touchy that Barbossa's hung like a donkey. Appreciative, but touchy. Which leaves only one problem, really.

"Then I propose a truce until we've refilled the water casks. Agreed?"

"Agreed!" says Jack promptly. "But I still don't trust you not to stick a knife in me back if you think Tia'll stand for it."

"Meaning you'll be tryin' to knife me in the back by way of prevention," sighs Barbossa. "So much for truce."

Jack takes a step towards him. "Wouldn't dream of it," he whispers, "not with the bloody monkey watchin' over you." Then he slips both arms round Barbossa's waist, and tilts his face up for a kiss.

Barbossa can't feel them, but he knows those pickpocket's hands will be getting busy. So he holds off from the kiss to put his own arms round Jack and covertly relieve him of pistol and cutlass.

"Pistol an' cutlass," says Jack instantly. "Bet you don't know what I got."

"My pistol an' cutlass?" guesses Barbossa wearily.

"Also the second pistol, a dagger, the throwing knife, the garrotte, a spyglass, an' a couple of peanuts." He lets each item drop onto the rug as he names it.

Barbossa sighs again. "Would ye mind givin' me a moment to catch up with ye?"

Jack smiles gold and silver, and spreads his arms wide. Barbossa steps in to relieve him of baldric, belts, and sash; goes through his pockets, and pats down his shirt and britches, removing items of malevolent metalwork as he goes.

"Mmm..." mumbles Jack. "You missed the slingshot. In me britches... No, a bit higher... just... oooh... aye, just there."

"Feels more like a harpoon. Your turn."

"All done, luv." Jack nods—somewhat breathlessly—towards a pile of weaponry, which does appear to contain all Barbossa's concealed protection, even the bolas. (How in Hell did he get those?)

Barbossa gathers the clinking assortment up in the rug and deposits the whole bundle in a chest on the far side of the cabin.

"Clothes next," he growls, and lets Jack divest him of boots, shirt, and britches. Then he does the same for Jack, who presses up against him moaning and licking with entirely satisfactory desperation.

"I'll be leavin' ye that little harpoon, in case of emergencies, though—should the need arise—I fancy me own big one'll be of greater use."

Jack growls and kicks his shins, but the growl sounds like "gimme" and he's grabbing so tight he's practically climbing, all the while making those little whimpering noises of his.

Hector cups Jack's smooth, round buttock in his hand, slides his fingers further round. "Best leave no stone unturned," he breathes into Jack's ear.

The whimpers gain pitch and intensity, then suddenly turn to moans and drop two octaves.

"We'll just be takin' the edge off these harpoons—to be on the safe side—then we'll make for the bunk, aye?"

"Aye!"

There's no more talking for a while.

They are still standing—barely—propped against each other, sweaty and gasping, when a throwing-star thunks into the wall over the bunk, and another one pierces the pillow.

Pretty Jack yelps and takes cover behind Hector, unharmed if you don't count the fright. "I thought you said it was safe to head for the bunk now."

"I'll tell Cotton to take care of Jack awhile."

He tucks little Jack under his arm, scolding him half-heartedly, and goes to find Cotton, remembering to shrug on coat and britches just in time.

When he returns to the cabin—minus monkey—Jack is lying naked on the bunk: naked and fast asleep. Barbossa sighs and covers him with a blanket.

The throwing-stars are back in the chest, but a sidelong glance under the pillow reveals a vicious-looking dirk. Barbossa thinks about removing it, but suspects this would wake Jack. He decides it's been a long, hard two days, and Jack needs his rest.

Anyway, he has a nasty little knife of his own tucked into his bandana, so he merely eases Jack towards the far side of the bunk, kisses him softly on the forehead, and slips in beside him.

"I missed ye, Jack," he whispers, and falls into a deep sleep, troubled only by dreams of monkeys in eye-paint sawing at his beard with tiny harpoons.

~


______________________________________________
Nuts Out series:
First Nut out of the Locker
Second Nut Out of the Locker: Like Nuts for Bananas
Third Nut Out of the Locker: Intense, with a hint of Kraken
Fourth Nut Out of the Locker: Two's Company
Fifth Nut Out of the Locker: Small Island Paradise
Sixth Nut Out of the Locker: Madness and Brilliance
Seventh Nut Out of the Locker: Goats and Monkeys
(Almost) Eighth Nut Out of the Locker:Sibling Rivalry
Ninth Nut out of the Locker: Last Men Standing



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