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Author: Guede Mazaka
Rating: R. Graphic imagery of sickness.
Pairing: Grégoire de Fronsac/James Norrington, Norrington/Sparrow, others later.
Feedback: Good lines, bad ones, etc.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Notes: PotC/Brotherhood of the Wolf crossover; post-movie for both. Am following the general history of 1766 in New Orléans, when the city was turned over to the Spanish amid protests by its mostly French citizenry, but am not sticking strictly to the timeline, so slight AU in respect to that. Supernatural aspects.
Summary: Norrington is not in a sensible state of mind.
***
James had never been so grateful for a chair in his entire life. Its legs were of different lengths and so it skewed to the right, but it was far steadier than his own feet were. He was vaguely concerned about the fact that he couldn’t feel any uncomfortable protrusions in the seat despite the small cloud of stuffing leaking out of the cushion, but he thought it might be old habit; on a ship the benches were plain hard wood. Only Spanish fops or pirates had anything more luxurious.
His mind seemed to have forgotten how to hold fast and was leaping from fragment to fragment regardless of its relevance. And Sparrow, though he seemed patched together from a thousand countries, shouldn’t have had a place here. He wasn’t here—James had probably mistaken a similar timbre, had frightened some ordinary ruffian into taking to his heels before Grégoire had come back. If James hadn’t entirely imagined the episode in the first place…and if that was so, even more reason to banish Sparrow from his thoughts. There was no point in dwelling on failure.
“Drink, m’sieur.” A girl, scarcely past the first flush of womanhood, peremptorily handed him a lopsided, filthy mug. She curtly nodded into a short bow and held it.
After a confused moment, James remembered his…well, he could hardly call them manners, but the word would have to do till his mind settled enough to think of the proper one. He fumbled out a coin and shook it into her hand; her eyes flicked to his shaking fingers, and then she slouched away in a sullen whirl of skirts.
Somewhere off to the side, a tittering rose and crested in a rapid, sharp-edged exchange of whispers. Feeling more than a little out-of-place, he gripped the cup with both hands and took a deep draft. At least they’d given him a wide-mouthed mug so he had more to hold onto.
Something was wrong, James thought. Whatever they’d given him tasted horrible, but in a distant, transparent way, as if the foulness were merely a thin overlay on his tongue.
“Drink the rest. It’s the only reason they’re letting you stay here and spoil their business.” Fronsac stalked into the small room, then restlessly paced around the edges while the madam of the brothel helped in an aged, wrinkly skull trailing an old-gold robe.
James flinched and blinked hard. His sight resolved into an old woman with huge sunken black eyes and yellow-brown skin, as if she were a book weathered by time. A more likely explanation was that she was the inevitable offspring of a city where French trappers, Indians and African slaves freely commingled. She certainly looked as if she’d the knowledge of three continents.
The other man finally shrugged off whatever demon had been riding him for the past quarter-hour and stopped, leaning against the wall by James’ chair. He folded his arms across his chest and nodded toward the various objects the old woman was spilling on the floor from a soft leather bag, the only clean thing about her. Beside her, the madam was producing small plates and cups seemingly from her huge, soiled red-silk skirt. “Sea-salt, candle and flint—that’s to keep the spirits at bay once they’re called up. Rum and tobacco, pepper-chicken—gods have simple tastes here,” Fronsac snorted, not quite laughing.
He was surprisingly sober about the whole business, which made James twist to face him. “You—you believe this nonsense will tell you something? Why not—”
“Yes, the authorities will tell us something truthful, just they’ll let you and your ship go on the next tide.” A whip cracked up Grégoire’s voice and jerked his head around to stare at the window. Out the window, though the glass was too smeary to be seen.
James began to retort, but halfway through he lost the exact point and stammered to a stop. He drank some more of whatever they’d given him, which still tasted bad but did tend to linger in his throat, soothing it so he didn’t need to swallow nearly as often. That was good, since it was getting more and more difficult to work up any spit.
“There’d be no point in letting us go now. We couldn’t leave anyway,” he muttered, staring at the brownish liquid.
A loud scratch made him jump and look up, only to meet wide white rolling eyes and a toothless mouth. The old woman barked something at him in a shockingly deep voice, her consonants visibly pumping her throat.
“She…thinks you could use a…a…” Fronsac played with his fingers, brow furrowed “…a grounding. You need to stay on land, or steady yourself—it’s difficult to translate the expression she’s using.”
“I think I understand the gist of it.” The air wavered, first only around the candle-flame she’d just lit, but then the ripples quickly spread outward to dizzy James. He gulped down more of his drink and half-closed his eyes, trying to ignore the low throbbing in his head. “Werewolves and hoodoo do seem to be more compatible than the Spanish and…anyone else.”
Grégoire whuffed through his nose, clearing it—the women were now burning a pinch of something incredibly pungent—and rubbed at it. Beneath his fingers, he was smiling a little, but his former good humor was far from restored. “These houses…they always have someone that knows what science hasn’t understood yet. You can’t have the wrong baby here…you understand?”
“Perfectly.” Perhaps he was ill and not quite in control of himself, but James hadn’t yet lost the power to think. That probably was the worst of it: he could think, and so he could catalogue every single slip he made into helpless delirium.
His sharp tone earned him an even sharper look from Fronsac, though the other man refrained from commenting on that. Instead he chewed on his thumbnail, watching the women work. “What they know is lust and men…it’s not the same as murder, but it might be close enough. I used to be able to—”
Busy draining his mug, James nearly missed the abrupt end. He started to lower the cup to the floor, but leaning only a little over made his vision fade and his head swim with lugubrious drums. So he jerked himself back up and tried to nonchalantly cradle the mug between his knees. They were trembling now as well, and when he willed them to be still, they only shook harder so his nails rattled against the crockery.
Without a word or a look, Fronsac plucked the mug from him and set it on a table barely big enough to hold it.
James felt the inside of his cheeks catch flame. When he pressed his tongue against them, he only succeeded in further drying it out. “You used to what?”
“Nothing. I used to believe in nothing but scientific investigation.” Grégoire retreated into the shadows, listening to the low weird murmuring the old woman was now making. His lips were still moving, but it wasn’t English or any kind of French that James had ever heard.
* * *
God in heaven, but he missed Mani. His old friend would’ve been able to find the trail quietly, simply, without any of this nonsense with hand-passes and offerings. And he most likely would’ve had something to put Norrington to sleep as well. It was disheartening merely looking at the man, what with the sweaty gleaming forehead, the reddened stunned eyes, and the hands that Norrington kept trying to tuck into his sleeves so the shake wouldn’t be so visible.
So why, why didn’t Grégoire ask the madam to slip a little discreetness into Norrington’s drink and then drop him off in a secure bed somewhere? She certainly would’ve been willing, considering how her reticence about discussing “feminine tricks” had completely evaporated when he’d shown her his gold. And she’d already offered them lodgings, though that had been for an entirely different reason.
He absently wondered how much of a cut she took from the thieves who suffocated and robbed the more unaware customers.
The old mambo raised her hand, signaling that she almost had it, and Grégoire nodded. Then he noted the madam sidling around to Norrington’s other side and took a step towards the other man; she betrayed a bit of disappointment, but backed down. While Norrington barely noticed. If Grégoire left him anywhere other than his ship, he’d be rolled and dumped in the swamps before daybreak. And if Grégoire did take the long loop back to the man’s ship, odds were good that Norrington wouldn’t stay on it. He had that kind of determination and curiosity, though he dressed it up in words like “duty.” So there was nothing for it but to coddle the man along and hope he stayed sensible enough to keep out of the way if anything happened.
There was a sound like a gentle rain, and Grégoire looked back just in time to watch the mambo toss a handful of salt across the wooden floor. She did it careful and precise to make an even coating of it. And then she lifted her arms and—spasmed. Her eyes rolled back in her head, her mouth gaped wide and shivering so he could see her tongue flopping about within it like a skewered worm. She was making sounds just on the edge of hearing, shuddering creaking noises that wailed the madam into jerking back against the wall, that yanked up Norrington’s head to stare.
“Good God…” Norrington shook himself and moved his gaze to the wall behind the woman.
The mambo was now swaying from the waist up, strangely loose and limber for her age. Occasionally she would sweep down; Grégoire thought she meant to brush away the salt, but when she raised herself it was still on the floor, albeit with corkscrewing lines and jagged shapes drawn in it. After a moment, he realized she was drawing a map.
She was taking her time about it, and his blood was itching to go out. That face…it didn’t bear thinking on, Grégoire told himself. The glass had been flawed and dirty, the night had been dark, and he’d already had ghosts slipping about his head. It wouldn’t have been a surprise if one had been teased out by the wan moonlight.
“What kind of naturalist are you?” Norrington suddenly asked, voice soft. “To know such things…and you believe in reason as well. The French Court—”
“The French Court needs its butchers, like anyone else. I made them stuffed skins to gasp and gape at in safety.” Grégoire flipped aside his coat and took out his hipflash, then unscrewed the top for a draught. He hadn’t been able to get hold of anything resembling decent in weeks, but then, that probably meant he’d choke on the fine stuff. “The king’s taxi…taxidermist. I don’t suppose you’ve heard of Gévaudan? No—not a surprise, given what happened. There was a werewolf, too. Only it turned out to be some mad noblemen and their pet lion.”
The mambo suddenly lunged at the floor, fingers curved clawlike. They stabbed down and came up with salt flying from their tips. Chest heaving, she collapsed backward and lay limp as a wet rag. But when the madam came forward, the mambo suddenly lifted her head and delivered a glare worthy of a basilisk, if those existed.
They might after all, considering what else did. “I killed the lion, but they all wanted a monster wolf. So they sent me to Africa, and that’s where I found out there really are such things. You?”
Norrington appeared fixated on the old woman, and indeed, the way she’d fallen left one baleful eye trained on him. He didn’t seem to realize his jaw was hanging slightly open between his panting breaths, leaving the too-red flicker of his tongue visible. “I’ve fought the dead. Pirates, that is. They would die and come back to life, and in the moonlight they were nothing but bones…and then they were human again. I hung them, and they didn’t crawl back out of the dirt. I’ve never found out why.”
It neatly explained his seesawing reactions; he’d seen too much to not believe the supernatural was real, but he didn’t understand it in the least. Not even on the prickling, edge-of-sight way Grégoire did, much less the calm deep instinct that Mani and, to a lesser degree, the mambo did.
She rose, sudden and smooth as a snake. Her eyes were cages for shades of malevolent yellow and resigned brown. “Là. You find something there.”
“Another dead soldier, maybe. Greasy Spanish dogs.” The madam spat at the floor, but her deferential demeanor as she lifted the mambo to her feet told a different story.
She knew she wasn’t going out into the night, so she could afford such words. Ignoring her, Grégoire cupped his hand under Norrington’s elbow and hefted him to his feet. The man was a little steadier—it seemed the mambo’s brew had worked a little—but he still kept a heavy grip on Grégoire’s forearm as they made for the door. When they’d drawn abreast of the women, Grégoire slowed a little to slip an extra coin into her hand. The last he saw of that house was her yellow grin shaping around some sound. He hoped it was a blessing.
“She marked a street by the Cabildo,” Norrington muttered. He stumbled and fell heavily against Grégoire, then righted himself. His hand squeezed between them to clutch at his ribs.
“No better place than right up the governor’s asshole. They call it Pirate’s Alley because they drag pirates down that way to the jail.” Grégoire spotted the woman who’d directed them earlier and gave her an abbreviated bow. Then he maneuvered Norrington into a side-alley, which would be slightly more walking but should take less time than fighting through the crowds. Nearly morning and they were still coming for the whores. “And because after one’s pulled through, the other pirates come out of the bushes and go right back to selling their goods.”
He couldn’t see Norrington’s face, but he didn’t need to in order to know the other man was curling his lip in distaste. That was made plain in Norrington’s voice. “The Spanish couldn’t keep order in a henhouse.”
A laugh escaped Grégoire’s mouth, and he had to admit that Norrington wasn’t so bad when he dropped the diplomatic act. “And the pirates?”
The other man suddenly stumbled, forcing Grégoire to grab for his waist. For a moment, it was ducking flailing limbs and palms slipping along rough cloth, feeling the muscles flex frantically beneath them. Then Grégoire caught a hem with his fingertips, walked up his fingers to clench a handful of Norrington’s jacket and heaved the other man up against the wall. If anyone was walking by, it probably looked as if he was trying to rob Norrington—which wasn’t anything unusual in New Orléans, so no one would disturb them.
Norrington slumped so hard against the brick that his teeth grated a bit. He stared back at Grégoire with wide, panicking, pleading eyes and opened his mouth…then snapped his head aside. His breath slowed down as he fought to regain control of himself. The vein in the side of his neck was torn into sharp relief by how he was holding his head, and so every rough beat in it could be seen.
Grégoire shifted to put his elbow under Norrington’s arm to hold up the man, then awkwardly got out his watch, which was miraculously still ticking. He cradled it between his palm and Norrington’s collarbone as he took the man’s pulse.
“How much further?” Norrington finally said. He was starting to slur his words.
“Not far. A few minutes.” Though they’d better find a room once they’d gotten there, because Norrington barely had that much left in him. His pulse jumped one moment, nearly disappeared the next. “There’s a few inns around, and they’ll probably be so happy to see anyone that we’ll be able to get you a room.”
From somewhere, Norrington managed to dredge up an impressive burst of temper. He yanked his head around and attempted to rear up in outrage. “I am not—”
Then his knees gave out and he slammed down his arms on Grégoire’s shoulders barely in time. His sword rattled loudly against the wall and then jabbed Grégoire with the hilt when he caught Norrington.
“You can’t stand,” Grégoire said, unable to think of any way to make things clearer to the other man.
“I—never—knew what happened with those pirates,” Norrington hotly replied. His nails sunk hard and deep into Grégoire’s back as he tried to lever himself to where he could look Grégoire in the eye. But his feet slipped and he only ended up cracking his chin against Grégoire’s shoulder, which was painful for both of them.
It didn’t deter Norrington in the least; on the contrary, his voice seemed to have absorbed all of his strength. “I never did. My men died trying to kill them, and they just stood up again…but then they didn’t. And I never, ever found out why. Do you know what it’s like trying to explain to a new widow that—that—you can’t, actually. You feed them a lie, and you lie in bed at night wondering.”
And then everything seemed to drain out of Norrington: energy, fire, bones. He sagged in Grégoire’s arms and pressed his face into Grégoire’s neck. It sounded and felt as if Norrington was trying to control his breathing, but couldn’t quite.
“Maybe you’re better off that way,” Grégoire finally said. His opinion came from before Gévaudan; it was rooted in New France with the smallpox-speckled dead of Mani’s tribe, all wrapped in the blankets of the French army. “Sometimes it’s not worth knowing why.”
Norrington’s head went up, but this time it was fever-strength powering him. The whites of his eyes were inflamed and they made the green of his irises glow by contrast. “I think I should be the judge of that.”
“Then if you die, it’s your own doing,” Grégoire snapped. He shoved off the other man and angrily walked away a few yards. Then he stopped and stared at the sky.
Goddamn. More properly, goddam: it was a fitting name for an Englishman, no matter how brave and dauntless and stubborn he was. He actually reminded Grégoire a little bit of Marianne, and a little bit of Jean-François, back before the man had revealed his true nature.
When he came back, Norrington was on his knees and staring at a pool of blood-laced vomit. He had his hands clutched to his breast as if he were praying.
Grégoire felt his stomach sink a little—it was going to be a bad case. Then he brushed aside that thought and concentrated on getting Norrington to his feet. He gave the man a handkerchief so Norrington could wipe his mouth and have something to do while Grégoire more or less carried him the rest of the way.
“I think…” Norrington started to say, tone wrung-out with aching despair.
“Were-leopards walk only at night; I’d wager it’s the same for werewolves. It’s almost dawn. We’ll stop at an inn and rest till evening.” A likely-looking building presented itself and Grégoire pivoted them towards it.
For a moment, he was accompanied only by silence. Then, hesitantly: “Thank you very much, Grégoire.”
“And you can’t even say my name properly,” Grégoire sighed.
* * *
The room was cramped for two men, but it overlooked one end of the infamous alley, so James supposed matters evened out. He could sit on the bed and lean against the windowsill, and from there he could see nearly everything.
They actually weren’t in an inn, but in what had shortly before been a very fine house that had held a large, rich family who’d all fled further inland. Currently there was only a pair of watchmen and a housekeeper, the former of whom were susceptible to Grégoire’s gold and the latter to his charm. Which was certainly impressive, given the woman hadn’t batted an eye at surrendering a room to an obvious fever-victim.
He winced at the words and promptly began to push them away, but stopped himself. They were true, and if he was to have any hope of living through it, he did need to acknowledge the facts. No matter how much it pained him to do so.
“I…” His hand jerked up and he was swallowing some of the soup the housekeeper had brought him. Disgusted with himself, James set the bowl down on the sill and shoved it away.
He tried again. “I…I have…”
“The messenger’s back from your ship.” Grégoire walked in, scrap of paper in hand. There were deep dark bags under his eyes, but otherwise his health stood out starkly against the shuddering, white hand James reached out to him. He slipped the note between James’ fingers and then laid down on the bed, head pressed up against the wall.
The note was nearly illegible, with the tops of letters suddenly scratching for the edge of the paper, but James could still recognize Gillette’s hand. Basically it said his message received and acknowledged, and then it listed the dead.
“What did you tell them?” Though his eyes were closed, Grégoire didn’t sound in the least bit sleepy.
“That something had come up with the Governor that I had to see to. They’ve enough money on-board to buy whatever they need.” James leaned his head against the wall and said a short prayer for his gunner and midshipman. “If they can get anyone to come to them,” he had to add.
The other man moved a shoulder, then pushed himself up and pulled a pistol out of his coat. He shoved it beneath the pillow, throwing a look at James as he did, and then resettled himself on the mattress. “You can probably make arrangements with someone in the alley. I understand a few of the pirates do try to be gentlemen.”
“A few of them shouldn’t be pirates. They’re too—” And James couldn’t even believe he was contemplating Grégoire’s suggestion. Willingly dropping money into the hands of pirates…though they seemed to be doing quite well, to judge by the bustle below. There were fresh vegetables and cuts of meat still red with blood among the items being traded, and his mouth was trying to salivate with the anticipation, though it was so dry that that hurt. “They have to have a way out of here…they can’t have stockpiled everything down there. They’re bringing it in from outside the city.”
“Oh, of course they are. And they guard their ways in and out like they would their ships. Believe me, I’ve tried to buy a guide—they’re too afraid you’ll show their way to the governor. Or to a rival.” Grégoire opened one eye and favored James with a knowing, irritating smile.
For a second, he had another face and black hair and—James blinked and it was gone. “God damn this fever.”
There. He’d admitted it.
James took a deep breath and picked up the bowl. He rewarded himself with a long drink of the thin broth, then resumed looking out the window. Men in patchwork finery flipped torn lace cuffs around to emphasize their vigorous bargaining, or strolled arrogantly from pile to pile of ill-gotten booty. A few women were dispersed throughout the alley, mostly slouching along behind a pirate or hanging teasingly off his shoulder. Once in a while, one would walk by with her own cutlass or long knife belted tight to her waist and her chin up at an angle that reminded James of…what was her name? After the Pearl had outrun them at Santo Domingo, she’d hung over the stern and laughed so loudly he’d heard it standing on his deck, clenching fury and reluctant admiration in his fists and frantically directing the men to clear the fouled sail. Damned Sparrow and his fox crew and his own slippery intelligence…
For that matter, damn him for running before James had even had a chance to explain his business. If he’d just acted like a sensible man and stayed put, James wouldn’t have been searching so far north and they wouldn’t have ended up diving into New Orléans to avoid the hurricane.
Except the sensible reaction for a pirate seeing a commodore of the English Navy was to run, and to run at all costs.
James quickly finished his soup and edged over to lay his burning brow against the cool glass. Though Grégoire hadn’t said as much, his careful way of handling James after the incident in the alley made it clear he thought James’ fever was quickly advancing. And James thought so as well; his stomach was paining him and he couldn’t even think about seeing blood clots coming from his mouth without shuddering. So he watched the pirates instead, hoping for a distraction.
He got one. At first he didn’t know why his eye was following a certain path over the crowd. Then it gradually dawned on him that the movement was familiar—a kind of liquid hop-skip-dodge that echoed a waterdrop wriggling its way down a windowpane. The movement belonged to a man with a red bandanna and black hair.
Something creaked. Glancing down showed that James had a white-knuckled grip on the sill. He immediately looked up again, terrified that it would be another hallucination and he’d be left facing nothing but his own steady decline.
Jack Sparrow was in the alley. And his head was tilted back so the sun caught his face, and he was staring back.
An exclamation rattled James’ ears. Only a second later, when Grégoire bolted upward and snapped a query did James realize it’d been him making it. He looked at Grégoire, then grabbed the man’s hand and dragged him to the window. “There—do you see a man with a red headscarf and a bone in his hair? It’s black—his hair, and he’s an Oriental look about him—”
“Where?” Grégoire pressed something hard between them when he tried to look out. He cursed and pulled the bowl from James’ slack fingers, then tossed it so it clattered dangerously onto a nearby table. “Where?”
“There—oh, God. My God, what’s happening to my mind—” There wasn’t anyone remotely resembling Sparrow in the alley, and James felt as if he’d just lost his last anchor. “He was—he was—I saw him, damn it!”
Something seized his hands; he fought against it and then tried to slam his head forward, but he missed. Hit air, toppled forward and there wasn’t anything to keep him from falling. The edge of the mattress was not hard, but nevertheless it sent pain shrieking through his chest when he landed on it. He gasped and gasped, but he couldn’t get any air and his ribs were on fire. Somehow he got one arm beneath him and started to push up, but then arms wrapped around him and locked him in place, half-bent over the side of the bed.
The floor seemed to rush up at him and his head snapped back. When it went down again, his mouth was full of coppery bile and he couldn’t breathe. He threw up.
Eventually he had nothing left and he went limp. Someone else wiped off his mouth, pulled him back onto the bed so he could see the expensive porcelain chamberpot he’d just desecrated with red-flecked vomit. James felt a laugh and a scream bubble up inside of him and he pressed his lips together to keep them there.
“Done?” Grégoire asked. He was breathless and his voice ragged on the end of the word.
“I think I’m losing my mind.” James dully plucked at the hands pressed against his ribs and belly. “You’re very good at this.”
The other man laughed for him, exactly as black and hollow as James felt. But then Grégoire moved his hands to squeeze James’, rub warmth back into them. “I’ve had a lot of people grow sick and die on me, commodore. I don’t intend to add another to that score.”
He let go and moved away, pulling out from behind James. Confused, James grabbed for his wrist and tugged him down. “Where are you—”
“Just going to find another bed. I think you’ll need all of this one.” Grégoire jerked at his hand, frowning when James didn’t let go. He leaned closer and took James’ chin between his thumb and index finger, tilting it up so they were eye-to-eye. “Rest, Norrington. It’s the only cure.”
Perhaps for James’ body, but his mind was clearly a different matter. He grabbed Grégoire’s shoulder and punctuated each word with a flex of his fingers. “It’s James. And if you leave, then how am I supposed to tell what’s real and what’s not?”
“If you stay in bed, then you won’t have to make many of those decisions, you damnable man,” Grégoire retorted, tone roughening with his irritation. He started to lift his hand from James’ face and his thumb slipped, drifting across James’ lower lip.
They both froze. It might be another hallucination, James told himself. It probably was. And if it was a hallucination, then he wasn’t really leaning forward to graze the webbing between Grégoire’s thumb and finger with his mouth, and Grégoire’s pupils weren’t really going that wide and dark and hungry.
“Putain de merde,” Grégoire snarled, suddenly throwing off James. He stood up and paced once about the room, then jolted to a stop and flung out his hand at James. “You stupid, stupid ass of an Englishman! You’re—”
Then he stopped. A second later he’d lunged for the window and was staring out it, and a second after that, he’d swung out the door. It crashed against the wall, then bounced back and slowly drifted to half-closed while James watched.
***