Sorry for the late update! I've had exams. Jack Sparrow sends his regards :-P

2.

Jack stood frozen in the shadow of the gigantic, looming building whose pointed iron fence he was leaning against. He clutched the railings behind him for support, feeling the cold, old familiarity of that metal.

Nothing else in this entire place looked even remotely recognisable in comparison.

It was the persistent, wild, thumping noise echoing through the street that made him most afraid. It had a tune to it, somewhere behind all of the crashing bewilderment, but no tune he had ever heard, and none he ever wished to hear again.

Afraid.
Yes, he had just admitted that he was afraid. And he would do it again.

He was afraid.

If only Gibbs were here. Gibbs was sure to be even more afeared than Jack, and then Jack would be able to play the daring, dashing front man. Even when quaking in his boots.

He dared to move - rushed to the blue box, tried the door. Locked.
Blast.

Was he to wait until those strangers returned?
Ask them very politely to restore him to his rightful place in the hold?

And probably be blown to bits, or taken captive in that strange, paradoxical thing.
The whole bigger-on-the-inside notion was too spooky for him to process, at any rate. He would rather steer away from that kind of unknown magic.

What he needed now was simply a stiff drink.

He threw himself flat against the blue box as a couple of cackling males sauntered by, aiming in a drunken zigzag fashion for a door that had a luminous pink sign above it. A sign that read, rather nonsensically, the word 'Pink'.

As if the people here needed to be told the names of colours on great big whacking luminous planks.

"Eeehhh, George! Get us a rum an' coooke!" one of the men lilted in a high-pitched Scouse accent, flicking a wrist flamboyantly.

RUM.

Wherever rum was, Jack was very close behind.
He immediately sprung from hiding and launched himself at the door that the young scallywags were entering through.

He was stopped by a gruff-looking, muscular man dressed in all black.

"You alrigh' maaate?" the burly bloke asked, in a similarly heavy Liverpudlian tone.
"Why yes, thank ye." Jack tried to squeeze past, but was again detained.

"People don't usually dress so antique for Pink. You lost your stag party, liiike?"
"... What?"

"Why are you dressed like a piiirate?"
"Why are you dressed like a..." Jack cast about, but found no name for the blazer jacket, polo neck jumper or smart suit trousers he was absorbing, "Like a bloody great black thing?"

"Don't play smart wi'me, mister. It's uniform, in't it."
"Ah, yes. Ye could say mine was a kind'er uniform as well, mate."

"So you are on a stag do? I haven't seen any o' your folk in 'ere."
"My folk." Jack mused, ignoring the 'stag do' confusion. It must be a term for pirates up here, "Yes, I suppose there aren't any more of me around here. At present."

"Perhaps they're somewhere where there's more birds, liiike."
"Birds?"
"Women. You're not from round 'ere, are you?"

"I most certainly am not. Look. Mate. All I want is a drop of rum. Then I'll be on me way." he lied deftly.
"Well, I suppose. In you go, then. You dafty."

Jack was allowed into the dark, throbbing place, covering his ears against the noise.

The people here were so oddly dressed.
And they all danced very peculiarly - in a kind of ungainly, heaving, explicit fashion.
He never knew men could dance with other men that way.

He headed straight for the bar in the semi-darkness.
"Rum, please mate."

The bartender glanced at him.
"And what?"

"Rum."
"And what? Coke? Lemonade? Soda?"

"Rum, please."
"What, on the rocks?"
"What?"

"With ice?"
"Why would I want ice?"

The bartender gave up.
"How much?"
"How much rum? A bottle, if you wouldn't mind, mate."

"I can't serve you a whole bottle, sir. I can serve you a double on its own."
"Double?"
"Two shots!"
"Two what?"

The man looked like he was about to kick something. Mainly Jack.
He fetched two small metal containers.

"Two of these! This is the amount of rum I can give you!" he huffed.
"That it?"

"You can order a few more glasses of the same."
"Right, gimme five o' those doubles as a start."

"That'll be fifteen pounds, please."
"I've got twenty guineas. What coin are you on about?"

Jack shook his money out of a pouch and extended his hand.
The bartender gazed at it very reproachfully.

"Fifteen pounds please."
"What are pounds?"

"Are you having me on? Look, I'll need to ask you to leave if you don't pay."

"Here, fifteen pounds." came a gruff voice from beside Jack.
Jack glanced about, and jumped in momentary shock and disgust.

A hefty fellow was sitting at the bar too, wearing - Jack wasn't entirely sure what he was wearing. Only that it was bright pink and glittery, and that his hair was too sleek and blonde and loose, and that the rings on his fingers weren't the masculine kind Jack wore (or at least, which Jack thought were masculine). He had a matching glimmering pink money pouch from which he had taken some paper with a face on it, paper which he now extended to the bartender.

The fellow serving took it reluctantly, and gave Jack an evil eye before making the 'money' disappear behind the bar, and exchanging it for a different coloured paper which he returned to the pink man.

Jack wanted to say thank you, but he was still a little overwhelmed.

"Don't mention it." the bloke purred with a teasing smile, shifting his chair to get a little closer to Jack, "The name's Terry. I've been looking for a strapping young male like you all night. Care to dance?"

"... Excuse me?"
"You like a bit of the meat an' veg, don't you? You are here, after all. Why are you dressed like a pirate?"
"I am a pirate."
"Ooooh, are you a fancy dress man? So am I. Well, obviously." Terry looked himself up and down for a second, then beamed at Jack.

Jack took hold of the first glass and downed it in one.
"Wahey! We are a party animal!" Terry whooped.

Jack decided to ignore everything Terry was saying to him from now on.

It was as he was polishing off the fifth glass of rum, trying to ignore Terry's constant chatter about things like my flat and cheeky BJ or maybe more, that he felt the most unusual sensation he had ever felt in his life.

Terry had taken thumb and forefinger, and gently but definitely pinched Jack's rear.

"Woah!" he yelled, causing several people around them to stop and look around, "What the blazes are you doing?"
"Am I being too forward?" Terry asked innocently, "I have just bought you a lot of drinks, darling. I think I deserve some attention from you at least."

"Sorry mate, I don't swing that way. Besides - my one and only love is the sea."

With that, Jack set down the last empty glass and bailed.

Terry yelled something angry after him, but he was too busy running down the street at full tilt, arms flailing in a manner that the raucous, effeminate men around him were familiar with, and therefore did not abuse him about.

He ran until he was out of breath, which currently wasn't very far, what with the alcohol sloshing about in his stomach and through his veins.

He was standing outside another gargantuous building - every building was gargantuous, and he felt that he was hopelessly lost already. The blue box was good and gone, even if he had wanted to return to wait for its owners.

A large black iron-wrought door opened to his left, and a couple of ill-lit figures descended the two steps onto the street. They wandered off, unaware of him, but left the door ajar.

It looked quiet and dark in there.
He tiptoed across and peered in. It was just a small cave-like room, with another door in the opposite wall. Locked.

He sat down on the rough carpet and leant his head against the cool white brick.

This tiny hideaway would have to do for now. The rum was beginning to kick in properly and he was in no state to continue wandering strange streets alone.
It was all not worth thinking about at present.

His head lolled halfway to his shoulder.
Was he fainting away?
Or just falling asleep?

He was exhausted. He couldn't remember how long it was since he'd last slept.
It was easier to sleep than worry about all this.
Worrying wasn't his style. And he'd done an awful lot of it within the past hour.

His head swam.

It may have been five minutes or five hours later when somebody's voice began to poke him sharply out of unconsciousness.

"Excuse me. Excuse me."

"You're not allowed to sleep in here. This is a private building."
"Mmmhhuuuuuun."

"What?"
"Go 'way."

"You're not allowed to be here, please leave."
"I got nowhere else to go." he retorted without opening his eyes.

The voice wasn't Liverpudlian. It was well-educated and gentle.
"I'm sorry but people who sleep in doorways generally don't. It doesn't make any difference. You really have to leave this building."

"Don't make me do that, luv."
He finally forced his eyelids back and blinked blearily up at the figure standing over him.

The blurs finally turned into lines, and he realised that he was staring at a curly-haired blonde beauty in a fitting pair of trousers, made of some odd plum-coloured canvas material, and a light blue top that flowed around her middle in the light breeze coming through the open door.

The open door.
There was sunshine pouring through it. Which was why the girl above him was so clearly manifest in her attractiveness.

"Please move along." she tried again, and this time he smiled, picked himself up, and offered her his most alluring leer as he leant against the wall at her level.

"I am exceedingly sorry, Miss. An' your name would be?"
"None of your business. Why are you dressed as a pirate? Bit of an enthusiastic fancy dress, isn't it? Where did you get all that stuff?"

He considered telling her that he was really a pirate, but refrained, as nobody else had believed him so far. Instead, he nodded and smirked as though he were in on her little joke.

Did they really not have pirates in Liverpool?

"Well, then." she pushed, "Thank you for leaving the premises. Have a good day. I hope whoever kicked you out lets you back in again."

He was about to ask what the blazes she was going on about, and to explain that the only place he'd been kicked out of was his ship, and he didn't even know how.

He didn't.
He was too concerned with the manner in which her eyes were flickering up and down his garments, and the way she was pushing a curl back behind her ear.

"Of course, Miss." he murmured in his huskiest tones, giving her another winning smile, "I hope to see you again soon, at some point. In the indeterminate future."
"Not here again, I hope." she scolded lightly, shooing him out of the iron-wrought door into the street, "Do you need a couple of pounds to buy yourself some breakfast?"

"Pounds. Yes. Pounds." he agreed, remembering last night's fiasco.
She reached into a beautifully decorated pouch at her hip, and produced another piece of paper, and handed it over rather freely.

"Like I said, have a nice day. Now get out." she smiled sweetly.
"Ye wouldn't say that if ye knew who I was, darling."

"Oh yes? Who are you, then?"

He stepped out onto the pavement, still looking at her with a roguish grin on his face.
"Me? I'm Captain Jack Sparrow."

"Never heard of him." she replied, and shut the door in his face.