Barbossa pulls out his spyglass and surveys the shore. It hasn't changed much since they made anchor, but it never hurts to look captainly and commanding. Not to mention that he'd been flirting quite successfully with Jack Sparrow as they came on deck and now needs a diversion to keep him from leering like an idiot in front of the crew. He can hear Jack fidgeting behind him, but he's damned if he'll let himself be goaded into turning around.

Then there's another spyglass levelled at the island. It's bigger and longer than Barbossa's, ridiculously long in fact and with a distinct droop about the far end that suggests there's not much to be seen through it. Raising this monstrosity to his eye, understandably apprehensive lest it fall apart in the process, is—of course—Jack Sparrow.

Barbossa lowers his own, sensibly large and powerful instrument, and does his best to look exasperated, privately gloating that Jack has joined his game of yours-is-smaller-than-mine. They both know it's not just spyglasses.

For all his efforts, he fears his expression is more avuncular than imposing. A fear shamefully confirmed when Jack bats his eyelashes and smirks.

"My point, Hector luv—in case you were having trouble getting a firm grasp, as it were—is that there's such a thing as too big." With that, Jack tugs the rickety prosthesis off his compact little spyglass and lobs it over the side like the rubbish it is.

"Aaaah!" says Barbossa, casting around for a reply. Also for reassurance they've not been overheard. "But don't that depend upon what exactly ye be plannin' on doin' with it?"

Jack plucks Barbossa's spyglass from his hand and collapses it roughly, wincing at the squeal of metal on metal. "And let's not forget provision of an adequate means of lubrication." He slaps the spyglass back into Barbossa's palm. "I believe the boat's waiting."

Luckily, all Barbossa needs to do on said boat is nod and grunt. By the time he trusts himself to speak, they've disembarked on the island and Jack is halfway down the beach, heading for the corpse of his nemesis; the time for innuendo has passed.

He'd expected terror, triumph, or a blend of the two—all in different ways equally conducive to seduction—but Jack's capriciousness has wrong-footed him once again. This looks more like pity, or grief. Surely not even Jack Sparrow could be contradictory enough to mourn the monster that slew him...

Inwardly consigning all beautiful, inconsistent, heartbreaking, pirate ragamuffins to a lingering hell, Barbossa braces himself for another attempt to untangle the workings of Jack Sparrow's mind. Thank God the wind is blowing the worst of the stench out to sea.

"Still thinkin' of runnin', Jack?"

No reaction.

Watching the Kraken's vast eyes reflect the sorrow in Jack's, Barbossa begins to see. The monster's ignominious end diminishes its victim: Captain Jack Sparrow, slain by the invincible Leviathan doesn't have the same ring once said invincible Leviathan is a stinking mountain of gull food. And too much time has elapsed for Jack to claim a part in its demise.

Aye, thinks Barbossa to himself, though he's wily enough not to say it aloud. The Kraken swallowed ye like a shucked oyster, Jack, and yet here it be, like jellyfish after a gale. What hope for any of us against the powers as did that?

It seems like an opportune moment to nudge Jack in the direction of the Brethren Court and fulfilment of Barbossa's accord with Calypso, but Jack beats him to it.

"Summoning the Brethren Court then, is it?"

"It's our only hope, lad."

"That's a sad commentary in and of itself."

Like shooting fish in a barrel. Jack doesn't even quibble being called "lad" again, like in the old days. Come to think of it, a touch of nostalgia might be just the thing to soften the sorrow in that gaze, perhaps set them back on course for Barbossa's original goal.

"The world used to be a bigger place," he says gently.

"World's still the same. There's just... less in it." Jack turns as if to leave, his expression more doleful than ever. At this rate, he'll be bringing up the sorry subject of Bill Turner next, which is not at all the heading Barbossa has in mind, so he hurries to make correction.

"Best be makin' the most of it then, while we be still here."

As a ploy, this seems somewhat obvious, but Jack visibly brightens—if only at the chance to start an argument.

"Eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow (not to mention yesterday) we die? Is that what you had in mind, Hector? Wine, women, song, and so on and so forth?"

"Or as near as we can come." Barbossa smiles invitingly, trying to keep his lips over teeth he knows have sadly deteriorated in the dozen years since he and Jack last shared a ship.

Jack casts a disparaging glance at Pintel and Ragetti still capering about the Kraken's corpse. He tips his head away from the beast, indicating the lush vegetation behind the shore.

"Reckon we could come a lot nearer if we was over there," he says. "We might look for that freshwater spring. Or... all sorts of things." He saunters off in a mostly inland direction.

Barbossa contains himself just long enough to send Pintel and Ragetti back to the main group with orders to set a lookout and search for the spring (leaving the two Captains to survey the area above the Kraken undisturbed). Then he lunges up the beach. He joins Jack among the first trees and eliminates the risk of further mood shifts by shoving him against a trunk and catching him up in a crushing kiss.

Jack moans and grabs handfuls of hair, pulling Barbossa closer still and opening his mouth greedily.

It's better than fresh apples to a man ten years dead. Barbossa gives himself over to the touch, taste, sound, and indeed smell of Jack, restored to him beyond all reasonable expectation. He'd give thanks to the Heathen Gods for the miracle except that he doesn't want to draw their attention to anything they haven't already noticed. So he just deepens the kiss and sets his fingers to work on the lace of Jack's britches.

Barbossa can feel Jack's hands slipping inside his shirt. Then he finally gets Jack's britches to fall open, and remembers he has a plan. Reluctantly, he closes the kiss and removes his mouth from Jack's, which of course twitches right back into speech. He can feel Jack's breath hot and moist against his neck as Jack's voice moans words of passion into his ear. "I've not forgiven you. I don't trust you."

Well, not exactly words of passion then, but their husky, ragged tone is good enough for Barbossa.

"Likewise, I'm sure," he whispers in response, then swoops down and moulds his mouth tight around Jack's cock.

"Ub," says Jack. "Ubgrrrprrzzbnnnwwuh..."

Barbossa grunts, spares a glance upwards, and nearly loses himself in eyes gone wide and dark enough to swallow a shoal of Kraken. But then he does some swallowing of his own and smudgy dark lids flicker down, shielding him from the abyss.

He's out of practice, especially at this end of the process, but he takes it as deep as he can, clamping both hands around Jack's hips when their bumping threatens to overwhelm him. Jack tastes of salt, tar, rum, and gunpowder, as well as other things less widely appreciated but which concentrate the savour of Barbossa's adult life: bilges, fish, rot, and unwashed pirate.

It's well worth a little suffocation to feel Jack's fingers convulse around his head, and hear his cries of lust and desperation. When Jack begins to spurt, Barbossa stretches his throat and takes it all, feasting on taste and texture as if this were his last moment on earth—a terror now likely postponed at least for as long as it takes to assemble the Brethren Court.

Jack slumps back against the tree, panting, undone, and utterly irresistible. But soon his eyes narrow and he fixes Barbossa with a look of deep distrust.

"What are you after, Hector?" he asks. "I've already said I'll come to your Brethren's Tea Party, so what the blazes was that in aid of?"

Barbossa sighs. "Must there always be a hidden agenda, Jack?"

"You," says Jack crisply, re-lacing his britches. "Me. You and me. Me and you. If there were no hidden agenda, what would all the underhand machinations and clandestine schemes have to lurk behind, eh? So what is it you want?"

Barbossa sighs again. He seems to be doing that a lot since Jack came back from the Locker. "Just at this moment, Jack, the only thing I be wanting be yerself, bent over that there rock, absent interruptions and undue haste."

Jack crinkles his nose and makes a show of inspecting his fingernails. But Barbossa sees his Adam's Apple bob up and down.

"I like it!" Jack pronounces at last. "As your plans go, it's really rather good, although I have to disagree with you about the rock. Totally unsuitable in my opinion. But, no doubt, we can locate a better one somewhere in the vicinity. As you say, there's no call for undue haste."

This is easy for Jack to say, but considerably harder for Barbossa, staggering behind in britches that have become agonisingly tight around what he likes to call the Forty-two Pounder.

At last, Jack stops meandering through the undergrowth and halts in a small clearing containing half a dozen large rocks and a tree trunk, all of which look entirely suitable to Barbossa—but then at this point so would the ground. Or a holly bush.

Jack spins slowly on the spot, tapping his chin and pointing one finger at each rock as he appraises its qualities in a low murmur. "Too tall...  Too short; too wet. Too crumbly. Hmm... Not bad at all. Could be a possible but I'm not entirely happy about the grey: too depressing. Ah! What have we here?" He wanders over to poke the latest candidate. "No, quel dommage! Too hard."

"Too hard?!? God's tits, Jack, it's a blasted rock!"

Jack appears put out by this outburst. Turning his back on Barbossa, he flounces to what looks like a granite bluff rising among the trees and begins to climb.

Barbossa sets off in pursuit wondering aloud which of them is the greater fool. He's muttering about rejoining the rest of the landing party when Jack's voice floats down through a clump of ferns.

"Now this, Hector, is what I call a fucking rock."

Barbossa forgets all about the landing party as he registers the intonation of the last two words: not "bloody pirate" but "grappling iron". As he tramples a path through the greenery, his spine smoulders like a slow match. The Forty-two is run out and ready for action.

Jack scrambles over some projecting roots to settle himself on a ledge. Leaning back against the sloping wall above, he spreads his legs wide, raises them in the air, and wiggles them. Point proven, he grins lewdly, lowers his legs, and begins to unravel his sash.

Barbossa mutters something obscene and scrabbles through vines and loose scree to scale Jack's crag. He's uncomfortably aware that he's flushed and puffing like the walrus Jack sometimes accuses him of resembling.

"No, no, no!" Jack chides, holding him at arm's length. "No undue haste, remember? Can't you see I've still got me boots on? If we're goin' to do this prop'ly, we'll need to get rid of those, else I can't get me britches off, savvy? You really must learn to think these things through, mate."

Barbossa growls, seizes one of Jack's boots, and flings it down the slope. The other one follows, flapping and bouncing. Jack wriggles out of his britches and squashes them into a pad between coat and tail bone, but then—gods be praised!—he grasps the ledge with both hands and flicks his sleek, naked legs over Barbossa's shoulders, easy as slinging a rope over a rail.

Lunging forward, a tiny, lucid corner of Barbossa's mind has time to observe that Jack was right: this is a perfect fucking rock. A tug and a wiggle of Jack's hips sends his bare behind jutting out into mid air exactly level with the straining front of Barbossa's britches. He tries to work out how he can take a hand off Jack's arse and undo his laces without Jack either sliding to the ground or having to shuffle back onto the ledge.

Luckily, Jack—breathing heavily himself now—reaches round with both hands and wriggles distinctly trembly fingers round his own buttocks to tug at the knots. Which are stuck fast.

There follows a lot of ineffectual thrusting, wriggling, tugging, and groaning. (Barbossa tries to make a comment about not being the only one who needs to think things through, but it comes out as "You-really-ohJackfuckJack-bloodylace-think-sweetJesusChristonacannonball-through," which Jack sensibly ignores.)

At last, there's the sound of much-abused linen meeting its match. Jack claws the still-laced placket downwards and releases the beast within. "Nnnnng!" he stutters as though someone's hands were wrapped around his windpipe as tightly as his own clutch Barbossa's yard. Then a whimper that sounds gloriously close to "please".

Encouraged by his release and Jack's evident desperation, Barbossa finds hidden reserves of self-control. He draws breath, fixes Jack with a sceptical look and inquires, "Ye did think to bring that means of lubrication, I trust?"

Jack curses, but nods. "Pocket!" he squeaks. "Coat. Starboard."

Supporting Jack with pelvis and right hand, Barbossa reaches his left hand into the leather folds. It's a long way down. He's about to admit to having secreted a flask in his own, more accessible pocket, when his fingertips brush against metal. As he draws his find triumphantly towards the light, he catches Jack's sly smile and realises what should have been obvious at once: this is the flask from his own pocket. Heaven only knows when Jack managed to lift it.

"Attar of roses," he notes, sniffing the stopper. "I'd not have thought ye'd such good taste, Jack."

"Knew you'd like it." Jack crinkles his nose. "Now stop poncing about and just use the bloody stuff!"

Barbossa's hands seem to be shaking. Oil splatters around the general area, adding the sweetness of rose petals to the robust bouquet of rock, crushed ferns, and randy old pirates. It's a heady brew. He draws a deep lungful and sets to work preparing Jack with several fingers, visions of telescoping spyglasses dancing before his eyes.

"Still thinkin' there's such a thing as too big, are ye, Jack?"

Jack swallows. Shakes his head. "It is big," he concedes. He slicks oil up the Forty-two's barrel and around the muzzle, cocks his head to inspect his handiwork. "And getting bigger." He rubs helpfully. "But I like a challenge."

"Good!" says Barbossa, sounding more like "Grrr!" He points the Forty-two straight at Jack's gunport and pushes forward, just a couple of inches. It's hot and tight, more intense than his memories and dreams.

Jack's fingers, displaced from the Forty-two, clutch at Barbossa's shoulders. The rest of Jack freezes, eyes blank, not even breathing. Jack's face is a wondrous sight—all the more so for the rictus of pain that flickers over it—but Barbossa holds still. Pain is easy to come by, but Jack used to be one of very few who could take him with pleasure. He wants that again.

Then Jack's breath comes out in a rush and his eyes focus. "Not so big," he lies, defiantly writhing and wriggling himself further down the barrel of the Forty-two. Barbossa braces them both as Jack pants and whimpers, taking him deeper and deeper into that dark, clutching heat. After a few more inches, self control falls apart—swiftly followed by self awareness and coherence—and he starts to thrust back.

Jack is sweet and soft as any young Tortuga strumpet (albeit a tarry young strumpet with scars and a beard). Barbossa throws consideration to the winds and butts and bucks as impulse dictates. Jack's thighs tremble against his chest. The Forty-two is buried to the breech and both of them are sweating and groaning.

"Mmmmmmm!" moans Jack. "Mmmore!"

Sweet Jesus, the lad's a wonder! Barbossa pounds away harder than ever.

Jack's legs open wider as he arches his spine, throws his head back and his full weight forward and down.

Barbossa staggers under the impact, but keeps his footing. Jack clings to him with all four arms and legs, like a monkey climbing a palm tree. The Forty-two is rammed in so far that Barbossa imagines only the retaining rope around the cascabel keeps it from vanishing altogether. That and what feels like Jack Sparrow's full bodyweight jammed against his pubic bone.

He's wedged much too tight for thrusting now. All he can do is sway slightly, alternately crushing Jack against the rock and releasing him. At the same time, Jack is somehow rocking himself back and forth on the Forty-two, head thrown back and keening like a cat in heat.

The rhythm builds until Barbossa—dimly aware that he's cursing and grunting and praying to gods he's never even heard of *—can hold out no longer. He puts a hand to Jack's straining yard, thankful that the tight space between their bodies is slick with sweat and rose oil.

Jack mewls like a kitten as Barbossa's fingers wrap around him. That sound and the pulse pounding fast and strong under Barbossa's grip provide the final spark. The Forty-two roars and fires in what feels like a full broadside, fully returned. Listening to both their screams echo and fade away, Barbossa wonders if it was ever this good before, even with Jack.

Jack has slumped down the rock and melted against him, adorably breathless and vulnerable.

The predator in Barbossa stirs at such helplessness. But Jack's a predator too, and Barbossa is old and wily: he's watched a mongoose play dead to lure a cobra into striking distance. So he merely strokes Jack's tangled head and murmurs endearments while he waits for strength to return.

"Cap'n! Cap'ns! Over 'ere!"

Barbossa tries to pretend the voice isn't real. Or that its owner is about to be devoured by a tiger. Anything that would allow him to ignore it. But it persists. In fact, it's getting closer.

Jack's eyes flutter open. "Oh," he states, presumably referring to the damned voice, "bugger!"

"Again? So soon?" smirks Barbossa.

But Jack has untwined his legs from Barbossa's waist and is gingerly lowering himself off the ledge.

Barbossa sighs and tries to fasten his ripped britches into place with his belt.

Jack wobbles and falls against him, arms tight round his waist.

"Not sure me legs'll take the strain just yet," he mumbles with an awkward little smile.

Not all feigned then. Wrapping him in supporting arms, Barbossa sinks his teeth into Jack's topknot and growls. He'd happily let Calypso and the rest of the crew rot if it could buy more time alone with Jack like this.

But the voice is insistent—and closer than ever. Evidently, the fools have found something they can't figure out on their own: a notice, perhaps.

He lowers Jack gently to a sitting position. "Ye stay here an' get yer breath back while I fetch yer boots." Then he kisses Jack lightly on the mouth, and once on each eyelid, just to see them close and open again.

Miraculously, Jack allows this without protest or mockery. He even lifts one hand to stroke Barbossa's cheek. "Was nice," he murmurs. "Very."

Barbossa scrabbles around, retrieving Jack's boots from among the stones and briars. If he found diamonds and gold as well, he'd gladly offer it all to Jack on bended knee. But when he returns with the boots, Jack is dressed and hopping cheerfully down the slope on his bare feet, that mocking smile back in place, glinting in the sunlight.

"Cap'n! Cap'n!" calls the confounded voice. "Over 'ere, quick!"

"On me way!" bellows Jack briskly and bounces off through the greenery, leaving Barbossa to puff and pant in his wake.

On finding the spring clogged by the rotting corpse of a Chinese pirate, (now, did it really need a Captain to tell them the water was fouled?) Barbossa is able to regain some initiative and authority at the price of tasting the tainted stuff. (Yes, of course it's plainly poisoned, but equally plainly, it'll take more than one dab to harm a man who's been to death and back—twice.) He fancies even Jack looks quite impressed by his bravado. The real question is who's been killing Chinamen and positioning the remains to cause maximum surprise and inconvenience to any crews who just happen to pass this way on their voyage from Davy Jones' Locker to Shipwreck Cove. As he flips the dead man over, he already knows it can only be Sao Feng and he must have an ally in Barbossa's crew, which probably means Bootstrap's whelp is not as dim as he seems.

Sensing they've all been outbid for Tai Huang's loyalty, Barbossa sidles away from the heaviest concentration of Chinese crewmen. Jack, who doesn't know enough about their dealings in Singapore to piece it together, stays put.

Then Ragetti shouts as the Empress hoves into view and, with the sound of a score of pistols being cocked, all becomes horribly plain.

Jack tries to wriggle out of it, of course, but his expression is grim as they are led off at gunpoint. Whether he's more appalled by a second Turner betrayal or the prospect of meeting Sao Feng again, Barbossa can only guess.

But as Chinese pistols prod him towards the beach, he pictures young Jack in Singapore, corseted tight and painted white as a daisy, simpering under a parasol as he gains admission to the Cheng stronghold on the arm of the handsome young Cheng heir, Sao Feng. Then again, three days later—corset discarded, loose hair and shreds of dress flapping behind him—barrelling down the steep street to the dock, clutching a bundle of charts in each flailing fist, hotly pursued by a yelling, gesticulating, gunpowder-exploding mob of furious Chinese pirates.

It's always been Barbossa's opinion that the only reason Jack reached the departing Pearl unscathed was because most of the furious Chinese pirates were laughing too hard to shoot straight or run properly. Except, that is, for Sao Feng, who leaped over the rail and would have run Jack through had Barbossa not laid his face open with a sword cut and sent him splashing into the harbour.

That day ended with a flask of sake and a chrysanthemum-scented Jack giggling in the Pearl's hold among bales of silk.  Barbossa suspects today will go rather less well.

He tries to place himself next to Jack in the boat, but ends up with Ragetti, who sniffs the air in Barbossa's vicinity with exasperating and obvious puzzlement.

"Wot's that smell?" he asks, just as Barbossa is about to inquire if he's missing a nostril as well as an eyeball.

"I fell into a thicket," Barbossa replies, with a look of menace that would silence anyone with the brains of a clam.

"Oh!" Ragetti beams delightedly. "Din't know there was roses round World's End. 'S nice, that!"

Barbossa snarls. "This ain't World's End, ye gibberin' cretin. We be back in the real world now."

Ragetti twitches and apologises repetitively.

Barbossa casts a weary glance towards Jack Sparrow—currently failing to endear himself to a burly Chinaman with a blunderbuss—and mutters gloomily, "I'd've thought that much were plain."


The End for now. More will likely follow. That's the trouble with Nuts.

______________________________________________
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

* In case anyone was wondering, these are the Heathen Gods of Hair Care and Dental Hygiene.