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TITLE: "Apples"
AUTHOR:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
catslash
RATING: PG
SUMMARY: The irony of it all is, he'd never liked apples.
NOTES: Written for the![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
pirates500 challenge: "Take one of the following words and use it as your theme: rain, rum, ruin, rascal." I chose the word "ruin" and ran with it. Never did get to work the word into the story, but I think I like it better that way.
DISCLAIMER: It's all about the Mouse.
***
For years, Barbossa refused to admit the real reason why the apple display caught his eye. He pretended instead that it had been the monkey, which had bounced and chittered ridiculously on his shoulder. Why he had accepted it as stakes in that card game, he'd never know. But it might like an apple. That might shut it up for a few minutes.
(In that moment he hit upon a name for the monkey - who else had he known that couldn't keep quiet for two minutes at a time? - and as soon as he'd named the monkey he'd decided to keep it.)
Barbossa himself had hated apples as a child. Fruit, he felt, should be soft and sweet. This crunchy tart nonsense belonged strictly to the vegetable family. The hatred had grown into an odd obsessive loathing, where the very smell of an apple could throw him into a full-body shudder. The thought of a bite nearly caused a rash.
He paused and considered the little stand, ignoring the wary woman who sat behind it.
The apples were green. How could green fruit possibly exist? After it was ripe, anyway.
Thoughtfully, he picked up an apple and weighed it in his hand. He did shudder, but not from the contact with the ridiculous fruit.
He could scarcely feel it in his palm. It looked as though it ought to be cool and smooth, with a flat spot or two where it was beginning to bruise. For all he knew, he was jagged and red hot.
He hadn't realized that the numbness had spread to his hands.
He studied the apple. He could see it, it was there, the vendor's hawk-eyed gaze told him that he wasn't seeing things.
The apple was shaking.
No. That was him.
With a growl, he crushed the apple in his hand. The juice dripped down his hand to the ground, soaked into his sleeve and coarsened the fabric.
Was there breeze to chill the wet skin? He didn't know.
"You're going to have to pay for that."
He looked up, uncomprehending. The woman stared at him firmly.
Pay. Yes. Not worth causing trouble, not over an apple.
He took out three of those damned gold pieces. "I'll have them all."
**********
Sunset found Barbossa in his quarters, surrounded by sad remnants of apples, by chunks and cores and scraps of skin. His hands were sticky with juice. At least he assumed they were.
He had eaten so many apples he ought to be sick. Several times over, in fact. But he wasn't sick. Or satisfied.
He was hungry. And he hadn't tasted a thing.
He would revisit this moment thousands of times over the next decade. A moment of perfect clarity, of simple realization.
The stories were real. The curse was true.
A ray of moonlight shone through the tiny window onto the floor below. For some reason he would never understand, he stood and stepped into it.
And was not surprised by what he saw.
AUTHOR:
catslashRATING: PG
SUMMARY: The irony of it all is, he'd never liked apples.
NOTES: Written for the
pirates500 challenge: "Take one of the following words and use it as your theme: rain, rum, ruin, rascal." I chose the word "ruin" and ran with it. Never did get to work the word into the story, but I think I like it better that way.DISCLAIMER: It's all about the Mouse.
***
For years, Barbossa refused to admit the real reason why the apple display caught his eye. He pretended instead that it had been the monkey, which had bounced and chittered ridiculously on his shoulder. Why he had accepted it as stakes in that card game, he'd never know. But it might like an apple. That might shut it up for a few minutes.
(In that moment he hit upon a name for the monkey - who else had he known that couldn't keep quiet for two minutes at a time? - and as soon as he'd named the monkey he'd decided to keep it.)
Barbossa himself had hated apples as a child. Fruit, he felt, should be soft and sweet. This crunchy tart nonsense belonged strictly to the vegetable family. The hatred had grown into an odd obsessive loathing, where the very smell of an apple could throw him into a full-body shudder. The thought of a bite nearly caused a rash.
He paused and considered the little stand, ignoring the wary woman who sat behind it.
The apples were green. How could green fruit possibly exist? After it was ripe, anyway.
Thoughtfully, he picked up an apple and weighed it in his hand. He did shudder, but not from the contact with the ridiculous fruit.
He could scarcely feel it in his palm. It looked as though it ought to be cool and smooth, with a flat spot or two where it was beginning to bruise. For all he knew, he was jagged and red hot.
He hadn't realized that the numbness had spread to his hands.
He studied the apple. He could see it, it was there, the vendor's hawk-eyed gaze told him that he wasn't seeing things.
The apple was shaking.
No. That was him.
With a growl, he crushed the apple in his hand. The juice dripped down his hand to the ground, soaked into his sleeve and coarsened the fabric.
Was there breeze to chill the wet skin? He didn't know.
"You're going to have to pay for that."
He looked up, uncomprehending. The woman stared at him firmly.
Pay. Yes. Not worth causing trouble, not over an apple.
He took out three of those damned gold pieces. "I'll have them all."
**********
Sunset found Barbossa in his quarters, surrounded by sad remnants of apples, by chunks and cores and scraps of skin. His hands were sticky with juice. At least he assumed they were.
He had eaten so many apples he ought to be sick. Several times over, in fact. But he wasn't sick. Or satisfied.
He was hungry. And he hadn't tasted a thing.
He would revisit this moment thousands of times over the next decade. A moment of perfect clarity, of simple realization.
The stories were real. The curse was true.
A ray of moonlight shone through the tiny window onto the floor below. For some reason he would never understand, he stood and stepped into it.
And was not surprised by what he saw.
From: (Anonymous)
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Write another one!
~Anji
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