Title: Time Cannot Erase
Characters: Grapple, Mallot, Jacoby, Sara (OC), Allen Hobbs (OC), Molly (OC)
Disclaimer: The song lyrics that inspired this story are from Evanescence's 'My Immortal'
Summary: An unconscious biography of a character that is marked with death, angst, violence, love and blood. As he ponders his past and contemplates the future, memories plague him of his highest and lowest moments in life.
Author's Notes: Not much. I wrote this as a one-shot fic originally but changed it, as it was way too long in my opinion.
New chapter, wee bit longer then the last. Thanks for the reviews, yarr! Less Current time speaking from Grapple this chapter. Lots of stuff going on, though, in the past.
Chapter Five: Debt and Trial
I hadn't a clue what Collin was doing back here. He knew he wasn't welcome, and if he wanted a drink, there were plenty other bars in Tortuga where his life wouldn't have been endangered. For a moment I puzzled that he might have already been drunk and merely forgot, or perhaps he had lost his sanity somewhere along the line and his mates were trying too put him out of his torture by bringing him to the Black Dragon to have him executed. Whatever the reason Collin was there for, I wasn't going to let him have his way.
About five minutes after he arrived, I eyed Sara stalking about with a tray hoisted onto her shoulder, beer and ale sloshing over the rims of the mugs. She was slightly off, from the look of her, weaving this way and that through the tables and people as usual but with a subtle lack of grace only somebody who observed her as often as I did would have noticed. Giving one last look over at Collin and his cronies, and I approached Sara from the side as she finished handing out her burden to here men at a table near the centre of the room.
I remember her being so tense as I put my hand on her shoulder. She didn't relax, and it bothered me.
"Oy, you alright?" I asked her, and she merely flashed me a small smile before nodding her head.
"Of course I am." She exhaled right then and bent forward a bit, her hands going to her stomach. She started breathing rather hard and then her hand came up to cover her mouth. Almost immediately after that, she pushed past me and rushed to the door on the northern wall, which led out to the back and the barn.
About to follow after her I was stopped when I heard an unfamiliar voice shout my name from a very close proximity. Knowing that whoever it had been wasn't merely referring to a grapnel hook with rowdy volume, I turned around and grumbled "Wot do you-?.
I was promptly punched in the face.
Stumbling back with a hand over my nose and trying to ignore the blood that was gushing forth from it, I glared at the man who had walloped me, backing into a table and thus disturbing the men sitting at it. However, instead of the expected reaction of frustration and anger and calls of "Watch it!", I was rather disturbed to witness the silencing of the entire tavern.
After a brief moment there was the scuffling sound of a chair being vacated to quickly and Mallot was standing up, hammer in hand and looking rather shocked yet furious at the assailant. My attacker was a sturdy man a good few years older then myself (he looked to be about thirty while I was merely twenty-something rather) with brown hair tied in a ponytail, and an expression on his face that wasn't pleased yet it wasn't disconcerted either. He looked grim as though he'd rather not have done it but thought it best he had.
"Collin sends 'is regards from outside," the man said, voice heavy with a Brazilian accent, and my eyes flickered towards the seat Glencairm had been sitting at. He was no longer there and I realized what was happening. He was trying to draw me outside to go after him, that way he wouldn't be liable for anything that would have happened to me under Hobbs' watch, and Hobbs wouldn't have seen him causing trouble in the tavern.
"Clever bastard, innit he?" the man said, noticing the look on my face as I figured everything out. I grunted and tried to sniff, which resulted in my attempts at stifling a choking cough. After I gained control, I looked up at the man.
"Cowardly, more's loike it," I said. "Him shending you in to draw me out."
The other man shrugged and seemed rather unconcerned. He must of spotted Hobbs, for he put on an apologetic smile and apologized for the inconvenience.
He leaned down a bit so he was more level with by bowed head and lowered his voice his he noise in the tavern started picking up again, forcing me to strain to hear him.
"I don't much be caring about you, but I do care about the way he be trying to get at you. Collin's got this lovely little bird outside that be singing sickness and he not be making it easy on her. He told me to tell you that if you don't, and no offense from me meant for I be quoting this, "Get your no good criminal-colony ass out back" he's going to be doing away with your girl, among other nasty things."
He straightened out, for which I was glad for; he couldn't have seen my horrified expression from where he was looking at me from. "Shame, really. She be seeming a right mockingbird, that 'un."
About that time, Mallot arrived and stood beside me. "Who the Hell are you comin' in 'ere and punching Grapple right smack in the face, eh?" Mallot's voice was rather high-pitched with indignity and loud. A few heads turned and I noticed Hobbs approaching us from the side, Kade and Barbossa sitting at their table and looking highly interested in what was going on.
Hastily, I straightened out and was overcome with an odd sense of dizziness. Sniffing hard, I swallowed back the bloody hork and unhappily noticed my nose hadn't stopped bleeding, though there was a considerable less amount of gushing going on.
"It's fine, Mallot, nuffink personahl," I mumbled as best I could, the Brazilian smiling humorously at the damage he had indirectly caused my voice.
"Fine? 'Tis not fine, I'm throwing him out, wot!" Hobbs informed me, the same offended tone of Mallot's creeping into his voice.
"Ah, for the best, hm," the Brazilian remarked, "I suspect I should at least be telling you whom I be, hm?" He grinned toothily and introduced himself as 'Firbleau' before turning around with a nod, and leaving us just as abruptly as he had made his entrance.
After a moment, I pinched my nose and looked to Hobbs. "I haff tuh-"
"Yes, yes, of course ol' bean. I say, chaps, odd night, hm?" Hobbs babbled half to himself, running a hand over his head. "Mallot, go with him, make sure he doesn't walk into a wall and hurt it further."
"Yeah…" I agreed, not really paying attention, and Mallot gave me a peculiar look as Hobbs started walking away. After a moment, Mallot half-dragged me by the arm behind the bar and fished out a bottle of whiskey before launching into an odd assortment of accusations, multiple of 'Why didn't you let me kill him?', suspicions, and all around remarks about how offended he was.
"He's got Sara," I muttered, and Mallot shut up for a moment.
Eyes ridiculously wide and easily putting serving platters to shame, his jaw worked for a moment before producing any sound.
"We got to tell Hobbs, Grapple."
"No!" I snapped, then more calmly, "No…" I explained that Collin knew about me and Sara, and if Hobbs knew I'd be good as dead anyway.
When I said before Hobbs would have killed me had he known I was secretly courting his daughter, I wasn't exaggerating. It was the blunt truth, and most unfortunately it was a fate that most certainly could have awaited me.
"It won't just be Collin waitin' for you, eh?" Mallot pointed out and I merely nodded. "So…" he concluded, and looked at me with an expectant look. I groaned, knowing that he wanted me to ask for his help.
Of all the people in the world, there is nobody whom I trust more then Mallot, and I'd confidently put my life in his hands. I had always been like that, and vice versa. The simple problem was I had become very reluctant to ask him for anything in gratitude for and guilt for making him keep Sara and my secret.
"Just…please," I grumbled, and he started chuckling, shouldering his mallet with the air of someone about to go into battle thinking they were immortal.
"Of course, eh," he grinned and we started walking towards the door on the northern wall, which led out to the back and the barn.
Looking back, I don't know why I was so bloody moronic. We should have told Hobbs, and even if Collin revealed Sara and me to him, Hobbs probably wouldn't have believed it, and Sara might have been safer…
I guess I'll never know.
It was late at night, or early in the morning depending on how one looked at it. The moonlight (God curse it!), so nobody had noticed the squabble behind the tavern. Of course, it being Tortuga, not many would have given a damn anyways. Fighting and rape was an all to familiar element in everyday life on the island.
The door creaked open as though the sound had been magnified by tenfold. Wincing and straining my eyes to see in the light from the open doorway behind me, I could only make out a few dark shadows. Beside me, Mallot sucked in his breath and I caught him starring at me.
"Wot?"
"Your eye is all," he mumbled. "The reflections from the lights are making it glow red. It startled me."
I almost cuffed him upside the head for being so cowardly but restrained myself. Here he was helping me with something he had nothing to do with, and I was supposed to be grateful. Instead of hurting him, I merely smirked and we proceeded forward, shutting the door behind us.
"'Bout time you showed up, boy," Collin's voice came from right in front of the barn doors across the yard, and I growled, quickening my pace. I started raising my arms as if to strike him when I got there, but he stopped me.
"Tut, tut, tut, not so fast, boy." Collin grinned. From the lights in the windows and other buildings plus the moon, and I could tell he was smirking. He raised his arm and gestured somewhere off to his side. My eyes followed the line and I nearly leapt forward when I saw four men holding Sara back. She was whimpering quietly and I realized she had been gagged. She kept trying to throw herself forward, get away from them, kicking and flailing madly…
"Bastard," I grunted lowly. He had tied Sara's hands behind her back. Her skirts were pushed up past her knees and there were dark bruises visible, even in the poor light. Her beautiful face was stained with tears.
Collin started laughing. Laughing! And then one of the men holding Sara flung her to the ground. She didn't make a noise as she landed with a dull thud. The four blokes stepped away from my Sara and each one of them pulled out either a sword or a pistol. Grinning still, Collin unsheathed his cutlass from his belt and ordered me to unwind my grapnel.
"Never try to put ol' Collin Glencairm down, boy," Collin was telling me, but I was only half listening. "You're nothing…"
Dah remembered Collin. I stopped listening completely.