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Author: Guede Mazaka
Rating: R. Violence.
Pairing: Grégoire de Fronsac/James Norrington, Norrington/Sparrow, Grégoire/Jean-François.
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: Life is neither a tragedy nor a comedy, but instead is a painful combination of both.
***
“You may be feeling better, but it’ll only be temporary unless you stay in bed.” Grégoire checked the powder in his pistols, then shoved them back under his coat. He started to gather up his things, but had to stop and reassure Annette when she peeked back in the room, bearing a large package of food.
Behind him stood Beaumont, who had no problem fending off Annette’s hateful looks, but whose hands started to knead the chair back against which he was leaning whenever Grégoire looked in his direction. Once he glanced at James, and the expression on his face was equally divided between bitterness and wistfulness. But neither emotion actually seemed to have much to do with James, considering how Beaumont immediately dropped his eyes towards Grégoire’s boots.
“I know. I’ve seen men with yellow fever before,” James replied, a little irked. He swung his legs off the bed. His head briefly swam with nausea, but it was much weaker than the past few spells had been, and it was not followed by any delusional visions. “And that is why I need to see to my men and ship while I have the chance.”
“You can send a message.” Having dealt with Annette, Grégoire came over to the bed. He had to brush past Beaumont, and he did so in a curiously peremptory fashion. Apparently Beaumont was no longer considered a threat, but it seemed out of character for Grégoire to behave so carelessly. Even when he was walking through a street of strangers, he still remained very aware of his surroundings, but now it was as if he simply didn’t know Beaumont existed. Or he was trying very hard to pretend the man didn’t.
Beaumont flushed and began to take offense, but upon being confronted with Grégoire’s back, his face went through the most extraordinary convolutions. First he was angry, then his lips twisted his expression into contemptuous, and finally he faded to…regretful. He shoved his hands in his pockets and took a step backward before turning around to quietly slip out the door.
“Of course I could send a message. And the Governor might send word that we’re permitted to leave, but we wouldn’t be able to because the captain would be still on shore,” James snapped. His coat was neatly folded over a nearby chair and he reached for it, only to have his hand smacked away by Grégoire.
The other man sat down on the bed, taking James’ wrists in his hands so James couldn’t stand. “Now you’re being ridiculous. What makes you think the Governor will suddenly change his mind? With pirates shepherding werewolves towards him?” He quickly raised two fingers and pressed them against James’ parting lips. “I thought you wanted to know about those.”
James leaned back to free his mouth and tugged his wrists from Grégoire’s grasp. Twisting around to have another try at his coat caused his ribs to protest, but that was actually a welcome pain, since it meant the fever had receded enough for him to differentiate between sensations.
This time, Grégoire let him get his coat. An objection did begin to shape Grégoire’s mouth, but he seemed to have second thoughts and cut it off. While James put on the coat, Grégoire quietly sat and stared at his hands, a small, ironic smile on his face.
The right sleeve went on without any trouble, but when James tried to pull the other one around his back and slip his hand into it, something twisted. At first he thought it was the coat and he fumbled at it, but then he felt a stab in his lower back. James lowered his arms to relieve the strain and consider his options. He was breathing rather hard, he suddenly noticed. And the trembling of his fingers was beginning to turn into spasming.
“How did he get out?” Grégoire asked. He glanced over at James, face halfway between quizzical and amused. But his eyes held a sobriety that cut deep.
“I think…there’s this—I have an acquaintance.” It was not the most honest way of putting it, but at the moment, James did not want to add the walking confusion that was Jack to the mix. “I didn’t realize he frequented New Orléans…he came to visit and I believe he let Beaumont go.”
Grégoire was no fool, and he didn’t spare the truth. But though his eyebrows arched and his tone bespoke disbelief, there was no scorn in him. “He’s a pirate. I thought one of your duties was hunting them.”
“So did I,” James muttered. He began to lift his arms again, then put them back down and turned to fully look at Grégoire.
He’d been afraid that he’d somehow said too much, though three commonplace words shouldn’t have been able to constitute a confession. His instincts, however, were right, for Grégoire was smiling like he was about to be led to the hangman and he’d seen that, after life, death was a poor joke.
When the hand touched James’ cheek, he flinched away. It stayed in place, and after a moment of knowing better, James allowed himself to drift forward. Grégoire let his fingertips smooth along the line of James’ cheek and rest briefly against the tip of James’ eyebrow. Then he raked his fingers across the side of James’ head and pulled them together in an almost savage gesture.
Kissing while sane and aware and kissing while delusional and dizzy actually had little difference, James found. No matter in what state he started, he soon reached the same condition of blurring submergence into sensation.
And then he was ripped back to full consciousness as Grégoire abruptly moved away. The other man reached behind James, then pulled James’ sleeve about and held it while, still startled, James put his arm into it. Then Grégoire helped him with his sword and his few other belongings.
“I can take you as far as an inn on the dock. If you have to leave, your crew can reach you without too much trouble.” Grégoire stood up, then bent down to offer James an arm. “It’ll be within hearing of where I and Jean-François are going as well.”
“I hate sitting about.” James took the arm and pushed himself upwards. He stumbled a little, but managed to right himself without too much trouble. If he went slowly and didn’t tax his strength too much, he should be fine.
Still holding James by the elbow, Grégoire led them to the door. “I can see that. But pushing yourself back into a collapse to reach your ship merely because you can’t help me with the loup-garou isn’t an improvement.”
“I can’t do nothing!” James retorted, trying to make the other man understand by sheer volume of voice. He dug his nails into Grégoire’s arm and stretched out to grab the doorknob, fearful that Grégoire might be changing his mind. “I cannot let—”
“How much are you worrying because of the past and what you didn’t know?” Before James could open the door, Grégoire caught the edge with his fingers. But instead of shutting it, he flung it wide open and dragged them into the hallway.
Someone gasped and James had the merest glimpse of Beaumont’s startled face before they were hustling down the stairway. His feet were tangling and his knees already wanted to fold in on themselves, but his temper was not lacking for energy. “And who are you to talk about forgetting the past?”
Grégoire paused in his headlong rush and whirled about as if he were going to take James apart into small pieces. He actually yanked so James fell off-balance against him, but the jarring motion seemed to touch something in Grégoire. His pupils widened and snapped narrow, then slowly relaxed to their normal size. After a long, silent moment, Grégoire tipped James back on his feet and stepped away.
“I wondered how he found out.” A tip of the head towards the staircase indicated who Grégoire meant.
James dropped his head, regretting the lapse in judgment. Perhaps he’d been fevered when he’d betrayed Grégoire’s confidences to Beaumont, but that only excused his involvement in Beaumont’s discovery. It did not, however, excuse his own comment. “I…apologize for that.”
“As I said—unhealthy.” Fingers brushed over the back of James’ wrist, making him shiver for reasons that had nothing to do with disease. Then Grégoire wrapped his hand around James’ and pulled him forward. “But you make me wonder,” Grégoire muttered.
Outside was a light two-horse carriage, which Grégoire had apparently hired. In terms of crude monetary compensation, James already owed him so much. And coins did not take into account the way Grégoire helped him into the back, or how Grégoire ignored the tension between him, Beaumont and him as they drove towards the docks. Instead it was light, witty conversation that made James smile, but that didn’t make him laugh too hard so his throat was spared the pain.
He watched from the window as Grégoire paid the innkeeper for the room and the stalls—at this time of evening, they wouldn’t find anyone trustworthy to return it—and he continued watching as Beaumont circled about Grégoire’s side, still uncertain but unable to keep from throwing out a line in hope. The youth appeared to be smitten—no, that was too romantic of a word. Fascinated, then. Understandably.
James sat on the bed, hands folded on his lap, and waited till he could no longer see Grégoire. Then he got up and slipped down to the stables; the stableman had just begun on what appeared to be his nightly bottle and was more than happy to saddle up a horse for James. Doubtless he was relieved to have one less animal to distract him from his rum.
The wig went into the saddlebag with little regret, as it’d already been too battered to be salvageable. His sword he strapped to the saddle, since its weight taxed his strength too much. His coat was folded away with more care, and then James had to stop and catch his breath before he substituted a spare coat that Grégoire had left with him. It was loose and slightly long-sleeved, and it smelled like the other man, and James found himself inhaling deeply as he put it on. His nose also caught the rum fumes drifting from the stableman, and for a moment he was not only lightheaded but also divided.
He rode out to the piers and stared at his ship. She was riding high in the water so he could see she’d need careening soon. If he could collect enough hands to replace the ones lost; he watched for several minutes and the only movement he saw was the bright gleam of gold braid rising and falling—an officer going among the sick lying on the deck. It moved in a jerky, irregular way, as if the man had to fight to stay upright. Then it reached the railing and floated downwards as the man slumped.
James felt his heart climb into his throat and lodge there, pulsing and aching. He opened his mouth to call out—
--and he shut it, swallowing against the faint trace of nausea that had crept into him. The sails were still properly furled and the failing light glinted off the windows in the bow, so someone was still tending to basic housekeeping duties. All he could do here would be temporary, and would not quiet the nightmares.
He turned the horse around and headed along the docks for the edge of town.
* * *
“He’s not a bad man, your commodore.” Jean-François had on a coat he’d “borrowed” from the closet of Annette’s master, and every few seconds he would shift about in it. The garment had been tailored for a man shorter but broader than him, so the shoulders were only half-filled and the sleeves dangled over his hands into his knotted fists. He shot a look at Grégoire to check Grégoire’s reaction. “Are you going with him afterward?”
“He’s himself, not mine, and you’re more intelligent than that.” They were almost where Grégoire had overheard the pirates last night, which was also where Jean-François said the loup-garou were brought in from the bayou. Or rather, kidnapped, since apparently the loup-garou had an extreme distaste for the city.
The other man shrugged, then had to grab for his coat before it slid off his frame. He tugged the falling side back up before clutching the front closed and hunching beneath the fabric. “Maybe I don’t know how a Parisian acts, since I’ve never met one before.”
“Stop trying to please me,” Grégoire sighed. A strand of hair shook out of his queue and he swept it back with one knuckle. “I already said I’d take you to Martinique.”
“I don’t know anything about Martinique…” For the time of one step, Jean-François swayed in to peer at Grégoire’s face. Then he warily drifted back, nervous eyes flicking everywhere.
Since it was only them, it was foolish to take a direct approach, and indeed, Grégoire had no intention of martyring himself at the altar of the unknown hero. He was neither angry enough nor grief-stricken enough for that; in fact, what best described his mood was most likely depression. It was a dull, detached, numbing feeling, and he frankly couldn’t care about it. So it was easy to ignore his mood and start searching for a likely roof or room in an abandoned house.
Jean-François began to kick at a pebble in the road, but when Grégoire looked at him, he stopped so quickly he nearly tripped. “How far is Martinique? Do you have to sail?”
“Yes. If you want to change your mind, now would be a good time to do so. Once we’re on the ship, we’re going to Martinique and we are not turning back.” A jagged gleam caught Grégoire’s eye and he looked up to see the upper room of what had once been a cozy, respectable two-story house. But now the front door was missing and rats peeked down from the balcony, which had a huge jagged hole that ate across into the side of a nearby window for an entrance.
He ducked into the first floor, saw nothing, and continued on to where the staircase should have been. It was predictably missing, but there was an old ladder leaning against one wall. Grégoire took it and propped it against the hole in the ceiling, then tried a few of the rungs. They held.
“I’m not changing my mind,” Jean-François said, so fervent that he couldn’t have been lying. He scrambled after Grégoire and nearly broke the ladder with the added stress he put on it. “I’m not. But—what are you doing? Are you staying in Martinique? Oh—there’s where they land.”
Jean-François pointed at a small strip of beach about a hundred yards from the house’s back. It was partly shaded by a drunken snarl of a shack and a few scrubby bushes, but otherwise Grégoire had a clear shot.
He walked back into the room and knelt down, unslinging his rifle from his back. Then he spread out a rag on the floor and set his powderhorn and bullets on it. “No. Get down so you can’t be seen from the road.”
“Then where are you going?” The other man obligingly bounced back into the darkness of the house and also squatted down, watching as Grégoire picked among his bullets. He flicked out a finger and rolled one towards him. “That’s the best one.”
Grégoire looked down at the hand he was using to hold the rifle and found it, as he’d expected, white from the force of his grip. He willed it to relax and didn’t breathe till he saw the color bleeding back into it. “All you asked was to be taken out of the city. That’s what I’ll do.”
“Are you still confusing me with him?” Jean-François abruptly dropped back and sat, pulling his knees up to his chest. His temper was showing in the red streaking down from his cheekbones and the hard jittery glint in his eyes. “I’m not.”
“It doesn’t matter whether you are or you aren’t.” The bullet Jean-François had selected was indeed the best of the lot, but Grégoire perversely went through them all one last time before he picked it up. He began to load the rifle, but the rising irritation in him made him stop and look hard at Jean-François. “The alley had about as much to do with you as God does with shit.”
Though he flinched, Jean-François didn’t hesitate. “I know plenty of priests that would say God is just as responsible for the creation of shit as he is for the creation of heaven.”
“Priests,” Grégoire snorted. He loaded the rifle with short, efficient, exasperated movements of his hands and set it aside. Then he laid his hands on the dirty floor and bowed his head, trying to remember what was necessary and what was not. “This isn’t a bargain you can make. Do you realize why I’d be taking you along, if I did?”
He waited for an answer, but a quick one failed to come. The moments dragged on, eating away at the air as a fever did at a weak body, exposing angles of bones and thinning out skin till nothing remained but the bright, bright eyes.
At last Grégoire had to look up; Jean-François was still staring at him, stone-faced and bitter-eyed. Their gazes only met for an instant before the other man glanced down at his wrists, which were very red and very raw. “I realize more than you give me credit. He’s a gentleman, your Norrington, but he isn’t for you, is he?” Jean-François shrugged and dropped his hands out of sight. “And I’m not thinking you are for me, but I want to leave because here I’m stuck and I’ll just rot, not because it’s New Orléans. You rot the same no matter what the city.”
“You’re still a fool,” Grégoire sighed. Then he sat up and listened, for there was a faint low splashing coming near, and he suspected that it was the pirates.
A thin mist was collecting on the surface of the water, so he heard the noise separate into oars and cursing voices and muffled growling long before the pirogue hove into view. He pushed up till he was balanced on fingertips and toes, one hand arched over the rifle, and squinted at the boat.
In the middle was a thrashing gray thing half-covered with tarps, which had to be the loup-garou. Occasionally a white tooth would flash and one of the pirates unfortunate enough to be seated beside it would cry out, only to be loudly and abusively shushed by the pilot. The man at the rudder was the drawling Creole Grégoire had seen last night.
The boat slipped forward onto the sand for a good ways before it started to slow and crunch, so it was a singularly shallow-bottomed affair. As soon as the first grinding noise arose, pirates started leaping ashore and grabbed at the oarlocks to yank the pirogue fully onto the shore. Grégoire quietly edged out onto the balcony and pulled up his rifle. He slotted it between two railings and took aim for the loup-garou.
A hand grabbed his shoulder. Jean-François glowered back Grégoire’s silent snarl and jerked his chin at the road below. Coming down it was the Irishman. “Hurry up, hurry up,” he called out. “Goddamned Ulloa’s gotten panicky, and something don’t feel right.”
“You want hurry, you help with this.” The Creole suddenly seized the loup-garou by its throat chain and heaved it out of the boat. It flopped heavily, spraying sand about, and then staggered up to spot the Irishman, whereupon it promptly tried to lunge. The pirates were somewhat slow about dragging back on the chains.
“Christ Jesus! You goddamn son of a whore—” The Irishman scrambled backwards and fell against a tall stack of broken crates, panting. “I should cut off your fucking bollocks for that.”
Arguing leaders was an opportunity that Grégoire was not about to miss. He lifted the rifle and aimed for the loup-garou again. He was pulling back the trigger when he remembered the yellow eye of the lion rolling up to beg him; Grégoire abruptly shifted aim and snapped back the trigger.
The Creole jerked, then slumped backward and fell in a crumple. He wasn’t quite dead—his legs were kicking, but his crew assumed the worst and they swarmed the Irishman, waving about pistols and cutlasses. He took a shot in the arm, but managed to down two of the crew and make it to the cover of a doorway. The other three pirates immediately dove behind piles of debris.
They’d run out of bullets soon enough and would be going at each other with swords, so it was best that Grégoire got down to the road and made sure they all died. He hastily gathered his things and turned to the ladder, only to see Jean-François’ head disappearing. A swift check revealed that Grégoire was missing a pistol.
Despite his annoyance, he had to admit he was impressed with the smoothness of the theft. He hurried down the ladder and slipped out into the street, heading for the shoreline. Jean-François was moving towards the other end of the shooting, but if he’d survived this long in New Orléans, he should know how to use that pistol.
The loup-garou had been left unattended, but it was so heavily chained that it couldn’t do much more than drag itself along. When it saw Grégoire, it instantly started whipping itself about, turning the lead-chains into dangerous whirling weights. He ducked one and didn’t quite another; it bashed into his arm and he only caught it by sheer force of will, for his muscles had gone numb. Then they burned, but he ignored that and yanked at the chain, trying to see how the beast was bound. No manacles—it seemed that the pirates had taken a few long chains and locked them together wherever they crossed.
Grégoire had his pistol in his hand and when he saw a chance, he shot it at one of the locks. It cracked off, but a red spray went with it, so it hadn’t been a clean shot. The loup-garou abruptly stilled, staring at Grégoire as he shoved his pistol back in his belt. There was reason in its eyes, albeit a savage blurred kind.
“Grégoire!” Jean-François shouted.
He looked up and the other man gestured wildly back at him. A dead pirate was at Jean-François’ feet, the Irishman was slumping against the doorframe with eyes rolled back…a gleam caught Grégoire’s eye and he threw himself aside just in time to avoid the pirate’s charge. His knives flowed into his hand and he crossed them to block the next blow. Scissored them outward to throw the other man back, then lunged forward past the pirate’s guard. His left blade went into the gut and grated on bone; hot thick fluid splashed his front and quickly chilled.
The dying man made one last try, but Grégoire easily beat down the wild swing and swung him out of the way, letting the pirate’s own weight take him off Grégoire’s knife. A glance back at Jean-François saw him ably dealing with the last pirate. Rolling the tension out of his shoulders, Grégoire turned back towards the loup-garou.
The Creole had heaved himself around to face it, and he was flinging a handful of some powder at its face. Its eyes went wide and then the reason vanished, the fury rose, and Grégoire threw himself towards Jean-François. “Back! Back!”
He didn’t have any loaded pistols left and he knew knives alone wouldn’t stop it in time. His hand flailed back, hit a shoulder and he yanked Jean-François towards the house; if they made it to the second floor, that might delay the beast long enough for him to reload.
But his feet also caught something and he stumbled. Instead of running like a sensible man, Jean-François grabbed for him.
The loup-garou covered the space in two bounds. It rose on the third—
--and a flung sword took it in the throat. The beast dropped, gargling and spitting blood. Its knees crumpled and it fell onto its forelegs, but then it was up again and turning toward a pale, pale James trying desperately to control his rearing horse. Grégoire was already moving when he cursed the man’s stupidity, lunging for the Irishman’s corpse. One of his knives clattered out of his sleeve, but he had to let it go because there wasn’t time.
He ripped open the Irishman’s coat and felt about, positive that a man such as him would carry more than the gentleman’s two pistols. And it was there, an oblong heavy weight in the tail of his coat. But when Grégoire pulled it out, he saw that the bullet wouldn’t be large enough to take down the loup-garou.
It would have to do. He spun around and shot, knocking the beast aside just as its teeth were sink into the flanks of James’ horse. The stallion screamed its fear and danced aside, giving Grégoire a perfect view of the pain-maddened loup-garou, with James’ sword in its neck and…and Grégoire’s knife in its ribs. Jean-François met his gaze with a terrified face, but pointed towards the Creole, who’d finally died. “He didn’t fire his pistol!”
But the loup-garou was between Grégoire and the Creole.
And then it was not about the beast, because James suddenly made a hoarse, strangled cry and did not balance with his horse’s next wild buck. He was scrabbling for a handhold even as he fell off, but he found none.
Something whooshed past Grégoire’s head. A hoof, and that was when he realized he’d run up beneath James. He grabbed an arm floating in the air, clawed his hand beneath it and yanked just as the stallion struck out at the menacing loup-garou with its front hooves. James rose and was nearly wrenched out of Grégoire’s grip, but Grégoire held on and something snapped. The release of strain threw him back and the other man came with him, trailing a broken stirrup.
“The loup-garou—” Jean-François faltered, then ran across the road and stood beside Grégoire. A bare yard away, one pulped socket eyelessly glared at them, while the rest of the loup-garou’s bulk stretched over the dirt. It had become the maimed body of a swarthy, stocky man and Grégoire mouthed a silent prayer for him, forgetting that he no longer believed.
The stallion screamed a last time before kicking its heels and taking off. Through the dust cloud it’d stirred up came swaying the man Grégoire had met on the roof. He stopped short of the loup-garou’s corpse and made a quick bow to Jean-François, who was awkwardly holding a cutlass he’d apparently just seized. “Beaumont. If you’d be seeing Madame Cecile and her hoodoo woman any time soon, please pass ‘em my regards. And Anamaria’s to Grace.”
James murmured incoherently into Grégoire’s shoulder, limp as a rag. When Grégoire touched the man’s forehead, he found it burning hot, and he could already feel the sweats starting to slick James’ skin. The damnable man had plunged himself right back into the fever.
“Is he ill again?” Without so much as a by-your-leave, the pirate sidled up to James’ other side and felt at the pulse in his neck. “Damn. She said it’d last longer than that…’course, he would go runnin’ around with rougarou and Frenchmen instead of resting.”
“What? What did you give him? And who are—” Grégoire stopped and stared, remembering what James had said, and the name he’d called out while they were waiting to see the madam. “Jack Sparrow.”
The man winced. “Captain Jack Sparrow. Can tell Norrington’s the one who told you about me. Now, how about we go somewhere a little less…bloody?”
* * *
James woke in a damp tangle of sheets and pillows, a hard but rocking floor beneath him and the smell of salt tanging his nose. He squeezed his eyelids together and blew hard through his nose. “I am not going to hallucinate,” he told himself.
Then he opened his eyes and saw his cabin. And Grégoire, sitting beside his pallet and reading a well-worn book. When James gasped, the other man put down his book and had a hand to James’ forehead before he could blink. Grégoire ran his fingers down to James’ throat and felt his pulse, stroked them over his cheeks and across his lips, and all the while, the man stared at James as if he’d been resurrected.
“You’ve been unconscious for nearly a week,” Grégoire finally said. He started to lift his hands from James.
It took about all the strength James had, but he caught Grégoire’s hands and folded them within his own. “What happened?” he whispered.
“The loup-garou’s dead, and so are the pirates that were smuggling them in. They were…one of them was on the governor’s staff, and he was angling to have his own private city, with the help of local backing.” The other man gently pulled one of his hands loose, but let James continue to have the other one while he poured some water. Then Grégoire lifted James’ head and held the glass to his lips. “We still didn’t save the governor, so I hope you weren’t trying to do that. The morning after, the whole city rose against him and drove him out.”
“I never particularly cared for Ulloa, except for his hold over this ship.” James swallowed another mouthful of water and let it scrape away some of the searing dryness in his throat. He tried to tip the glass for more, but his hands were once again shaking and he couldn’t. But Grégoire could and did. When James was done, he made sure to murmur a thanks, however inadequate words really were.
Then he cocked his head to listen, because through the door came faint shouts that sounded like working sailors. It had only been a week. There was no way that his crew could have recovered so quickly, even with the best treatment in the world.
“We’re about to dock at Martinique, as I do not think I or Jean-François would be welcome in a British outpost. And no, don’t offer—I need to collect my next fee from the French government anyway.” Grégoire put the glass away and sat back, brushing his free hand over James’ hair. It felt as if it’d grown too long for a wig to sit comfortably on it. But it had been a long time since he had had hair long enough for stroking, and somehow he was loathe to think about cutting it back. “Your…ship is being sailed by pirates. No, “commandeered” was the word he used.”
James suddenly felt as if he should be hitting his head against the floor. Or he should be trying to sit upright, but he had neither the strength nor the will for either. “Sparrow is sailing my ship?”
“No, a woman is. Anamaria.” Awe and irritation briefly mixed in Grégoire’s eyes. “She says she’ll take you to just outside Port Royal and then she and her crew will leave you to let yourselves in, as she phrased it. By then it should be safe for you to enter port.”
Outside someone shouted, and this time James could make out the words. From somewhere came the strength to propel him up on his elbows; he threw an arm over Grégoire’s neck before his muscles could fail him, but he was too late in the case of his tongue. “I—I want to thank you. You are—you have been one of the most generous men I’ve had the pleasure to—oh, damn it. Everything I say will be too cold and empty and small.”
So he kissed Grégoire instead, and he drowned in it. Then, slowly and reluctantly, he pulled himself back up and broke surface. Opened his eyes to see Grégoire watching him with a sad but warm gaze.
Grégoire looked down and tugged James’ hand up to his lips. He branded an impress of his mouth into the back, then rubbed it with his cheek. “This isn’t like the loup-garou, or like the dead-not-dead pirates you spoke of.”
“And I don’t want an explanation for this.” What James wanted was, somehow, for reason to win him through, but it was precisely reason that was keeping him back. He leaned so he could rest his cheek against Grégoire’s, and then when Grégoire replaced that with his hand, James turned into the touch for as long as he could. “There’s something Eliz—a friend of mine says: take what you can, and give nothing back.”
Careful as a mother with her firstborn, Grégoire recradled James in the blankets. “You can’t take this,” he told James. And he was right. “But you’ll be happy. You’re a commodore and a gentleman yourself, and you’re a man who has seen too much to not be wise. You’ll be happy without me.”
“I think you will, too,” James admitted. But there were shades of happiness, and one of them made him grab Grégoire’s hand for a last time. “If you’re right, then I must be as well.”
Or they were both wrong.
It was a cruel thought, and it didn’t stand up under the pressure of the light kiss Grégoire left on James’ brow. Then Grégoire stood up and quietly walked out of the cabin, leaving the room smaller and darker and more crowded with shadows than James remembered it being. He shuddered into the sheets and closed his eyes, trying to dream of blue skies and parrot-men. And he did, and all of his dreams looked like sketches done in a familiar hand.
***