(see intro for disclaimers)
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Ethan Dreyfus, proprietor of the Faithful Bride, stood behind his bar, drying glasses with a questionable looking towel and looking over the Thursday night crowd with suspicion tempered by disinterest. Business was slow tonight, and the patrons seemed, for once, more interested in drinking than fighting or whoring. Most of the girls who operated out of the upstairs rooms were milling about looking bored, engaged in snippets of conversation amongst themselves, all attempts at drumming up business rebuked. The night was cool, if humid, the day having seen more rain than was common.
A pall of uneasy lethargy seemed to have settled over Tortuga this night, as if something had everyone collectively keeping their heads down. It was the last night of the new moon, and the darkness outside seemed thicker, the torchlight weak, confined within small, damp halos that didn't even try to penetrate the gloom. When the low din in the tavern dipped even lower, the muffled growling of thunder could occasionally be heard, but distantly, as if the storm were circling the island, but had not yet made up its mind to strike.
Dreyfus shook himself out of that thought, almost laughing at himself. He was beginning to sound as superstitious as his old friend Joshamee Gibbs. Gibbs would have said a night like this was for the devil, and decent folk who knew what was good for them would stay indoors with a warm fire and a strong drink. Then he would have given that drink five others to keep it company.
Briefly, Dreyfus wondered what had become of Gibbs, who'd not been seen in Tortuga for almost three months now. He didn't lend much energy to wondering, though. People often went missing in Tortuga. Either they washed up again eventually, or they didn't.
"This is for the bloody birds, old man."
Giselle took a seat on one of the bar stools, and Dreyfus poured the yellow-haired woman a drink. "No takers tonight, eh?"
She snorted. "I'd stand a better chance with the missionaries than this lot. Everybody's keeping their own company tonight. Ain't like this town, Dreyfus."
"Mebbe it's the weather. S'got spirits as damp as the streets."
"Sure is makin' things dry for me," Giselle complained. She tossed her drink back and thumped the glass down on the bar. "Ah, the hell with this. Might as well catch me a few hours' shuteye, since that bed ain't gonna be gettin' used for nothin' else tonight."
"Better hunting tomorrow, lass," Dreyfus called wryly after her as she headed upstairs.
Midnight gave way to the wee hours of morning, and the Bride's patrons dissembled, drifting reluctantly out to the street, up to their boarded rooms, or, in the case of a few, nodding off right at their tables. Dreyfus left them where they were; it wasn't worth the energy it took to drag them to the street. Not to mention that it could be hazardous to a man's health to startle most of Tortuga's drunks awake. He much preferred the idea of them drooling on the tables to him bleeding on the floor.
"Martin!" Dreyfus barked, gaining the attention of the lanky teenage boy relighting some of the candles in the main room. "This place is deader than the grave, lad. I'm off to bed. Serve them that comes in and leave the sleepin' dogs lie. I'll be back after dawn."
"I beg your pardon, sir," The voice was rough and quiet, scraping through the air like a blade being pulled from a sheath, and it drew Ethan Dreyfus up short. "But I wonder if I might detain you from your retirement for a few moments."
Dreyfus gave the man standing just inside the door a brief once-over. He was strikingly tall, dressed in clothing that was neither shoddy nor particularly fine, long hair bound back at the base of his neck.
"If you're wanting to drink, the lad will tend to you, as long as you want to stay," Dreyfus informed the newcomer.
"I'm not here to drink."
Dreyfus allowed himself a small frown, slightly annoyed. "Then seems to me you're wastin' my time," he said gruffly. "It's been a long night, good man, and mostly an unprofitable one, so if you'll excuse me--"
"I said I wasn't here to drink," the tall man said, taking a few steps closer, and as he walked, Dreyfus noticed for the first time the cutlass hanging at his hip. "But I by no means intend to waste your time. In fact I think you'll find your night is about to become extremely profitable."
The man tossed a bit of cloth knotted into a makeshift pouch on the table nearest him, where it landed with a weighty and metallic clink that did wonders for clearing the fog of weariness from Dreyfus' mind.
"Martin. Take a walk."
When the boy had gone, Dreyfus pulled out a chair and sat, gesturing for the tall man to do the same. "What is it I can help you with, friend?"
"You can tell me the last known whereabouts of the Black Pearl."
Dreyfus was silent for a bit longer than he intended, mainly because his tongue had gone dry in his mouth.
"And before you say that there's no such vessel, you should know two things. Firstly that there is a large tea stain on the floor of the captain's cabin of the Black Pearl, just inside the door, put there at breakfast time during a particularly rough storm about eleven years ago, and secondly that I am a man who probably dislikes having his time wasted even more than you do." The tall man smiled, showing rather more teeth than Dreyfus thought necessary.
"I've seen the ship, sir," Dreyfus said cautiously. "I know she's real. But it's been years since she's docked in Tortuga."
"I don't care when she docked here last," the stranger said, a touch more of a growl in his tone than before. "I want to know where she was last seen in these waters and when. All news of that sort washes up on this stinking rock sooner or later. It's a simple matter of asking the right people, in the right way." The tall man leaned back in his chair and leveled an opaque gaze at Dreyfus. "What will be the right way with you, Mr. Dreyfus?"
Christ, he should have turned in an hour ago. When the whores in the Faithful Bride weren't getting so much as a pinch on the rump, it was a bad omen. Maybe old Gibbs had known his shit after all.
"Last I heard of the Black Pearl was an attack on Port Royal, around three months ago. About a dozen people killed." Dreyfus offered.
"They got off easy, then," the tall man said, somewhat distantly. "Three months...and nothing since then?"
"There was a...a fight, a few days, maybe a week later. On the open water."
"A fight with whom?"
"The Dauntless." When the man was clearly waiting for him to elaborate, Dreyfus hurried on, a touch incredulous. "The British dreadnaught? Surely you must know of her, mate. She's a bloody monstrosity. She's killed more pirates than gangrene. The Dauntless has been the lone terror of every man who sails under the Roger for nigh unto ten years now."
"Really?" the tall man said with mild interest. "Perhaps she's about due some competition for that mantle."
That left Dreyfus with jaws slightly agape, but the stranger was already continuing.
"So tell me, how many pirates did this terrible Dauntless slay in the fight with the Pearl?"
"Can't say. Way I hear it, both ships sailed away, but the Dauntless went home with a bellyful of the Black Pearl's crewmen."
A dark eyebrow arched up. "Home?"
Dreyfus licked his lips nervously. "Yeah. Port Royal. Took 'em back to hang, though I've heard tell that there's some left, even now."
The tall man leaned forward in his chair, pressing both hands to the table, hard, his gaze suddenly seeming more sharply focused. "Alive?"
Dreyfus licked his lips, and wondered what he was setting in motion this night. But the tall man was waiting, dark eyes fixed as if to strip Dreyfus' flesh away and pull forth the knowledge he sought like meat from the bone, so it didn't do to wonder very long.
Dreyfus nodded. "Aye."
"Alive," the man repeated, more quietly, his eyes shifting to stare off somewhere...else. For what seemed like the longest time, he sat still as stone, while Dreyfus tried not to fidget. So still was he that Dreyfus jumped, jerking back with a start when the man rose up, cat-quick, from his chair.
The tall man pushed the money he'd thrown on the table closer to Dreyfus. "I thank you for your time. This should more than compensate you for time lost here that could have been spent sleeping." An odd expression came over the tall man's face at that, something that dimmed the frightening spark in his eyes, leaving him looking older. "Though if I might offer my personal thoughts on the matter, one shouldn't lend excess hours of one's life to slumber. The world has the nastiest habit of carrying on without you. God only knows what you'll find when you open your eyes again, if you leave them closed too long."
The man touched the brim of his hat in a gesture of farewell, or thanks, and turned to take his leave. For reasons he'd never fully be able to explain, Dreyfus jumped suddenly to his feet and called to halt the stranger, who only half turned.
"It ain't none of my business, mate," Dreyfus said, "but I...I have to know." I have to know what I was made part of. If I'm throwing someone to the wolves. "What is it you want with the Black Pearl? If there's any truth to what the tales say...well, there ain't nothin' waitin' for you there but death, sir."
The man's profile twitched into a specter of a smile. "You don't know how right you are, Mr. Dreyfus. As for what I want...the Pearl has robbed many a soul of life and limb. I'm just one more who lost something to her."
"Forgive me for sayin' so, sir, but if that's the case, this is a fool's errand you run. No one reclaims what the Black Pearl has stolen from them."
The tall man turned more then, looking him squarely in the eye, and Ethan Dreyfus shrank from the hollowness, the void of empty hatred he stared into. Being tight-lipped had threatened to get him killed only minutes earlier, but he feared saying too much was about to bring him to an even more abrupt end. "Pour them their drinks and shut the fuck up" had, until now, worked quite well as a personal philosophy for Dreyfus, and he mentally kicked himself in the ass for not heeding it for another five bloody minutes.
"You know something, Mr. Dreyfus? I believe you're correct," the tall man said, in a tone so low it was difficult to discern over the thunder, which had gotten closer, and louder. "It's none of your business."
Dreyfus didn't regain the ability to swallow until after the tall man had disappeared through the doorway, and the rain begun to hammer in heavy drops on the roof.
.........................................................................................
"No."
"Yes."
"No."
"Yes."
"Jack, no!"
"Yes. And in case we were unclear on this, yes."
Anamaria D'martinique, first mate of the Black Pearl, crossed her arms over her chest, fingers flexing in and out of fists, and silently repeated her daily meditation that it really was possible to have a complete conversation with Jack Sparrow without slapping, punching, or throttling him. There was no need to resort to violence when logic would suffice. Anamaria's was not, of course, a particularly diplomatic sort of logic. She preferred unvarnished facts. "This is above and beyond even your normal level of idiocy, do you realize that?"
"Yes."
The fact that Jack's head and shoulders were obscured by the large trunk he was rummaging through, leaving her talking more or less to his backside, annoyed Anamaria a bit, though in truth it would probably be easier to curb the urge to knock him in the teeth if she wasn't actually looking at his face.
"This is...it's..." she sputtered, hunting for a suitable condemnation.
"Insane?" Jack offered helpfully, leaning to look at her around the lid of the trunk.
"Yes!"
He grinned, a dimpled flash of white and gold. Most people skirted around that word and its variants when Jack was involved, which he often found amusing, but could, on occasion, be irritating. Anamaria, however, was not most people, and firmly believed in calling a spade a spade. Or a madman mad, as the case may be.
"Jack, get your nose out of that damned trunk and talk to me."
"I need to find my boots. Hold that." He flung something that might at one point in its existence have been described as clothing towards his first mate. Ana snatched it out of the air and dropped it on the floor.
"You're wearing your boots, Captain." This was said with a surprising amount of patience; one never wanted to assume that Jack Sparrow's state of awareness was sharing living space with one's own.
"My dress boots."
He probably intended it as a clarification, but the concept of Jack owning formalwear of any type didn't quite fit into Anamaria's brain, no matter which way she twisted or wiggled it. "When did you have dress boots?" she asked, momentarily swayed from the topic of their argument.
"Ten years ago. Left 'em in this very cabin."
"And it didn't occur to you that Barbossa would have thrown them out with the rest of your belongings?"
Jack sat back on his heels, gaping at her in such a way that it was clear it hadn't, in fact, occurred to him. "That bloody bastard threw away my good boots?"
"He turned your crew on you, stole your ship, and left you to die, so I'd guess he'd probably be responsible for the boots, too, Captain."
Jack made an incredulous noise in his throat and slammed the lid down. "That piss-blooded, treacherous undead son of a whore," he spat, flopping down heavily to sit on the trunk. He crossed his arms, unintentionally mirroring Anamaria, and stared at his feet, pouting. "I can't wear these to Will and Lizzie's party," he said, dismayed.
She should have windburn considering the speed at which the conversation had gone from preposterous to infuriating to surreal. Anamaria strode over to stand in front of him. "Jack. Captain. You can't do this. You can't sail the most infamous pirate ship in the Caribbean into the harbor of the town you were almost hung in and go strolling into the engagement party of the governor's daughter."
"Well, not in these boots I can't, no. Do you know what that spot on the left one is?"
She checked herself in mid-lunge, fingers curling on the air, drawing the slightest flinch and worried frown from Jack. She drew a deep breath and forced her arms down to her sides.
"You're not going. Never minding the little fact that it's suicidal, you have a ship to run and a crew to see to."
"Ah, but that's the beautiful part, Anamaria," Jack said, irate pout giving way to a gentle and thoroughly infuriating half-smile. "My ship is in fine order, my crew well schooled in the maintaining of it, and best of all, everything will be in the safekeeping of my supremely capable first mate, whom I have naught but the utmost confidence in."
Anamaria opened her mouth, wagged a finger at him, and found herself backed into a corner. Jack, for his part, said nothing more, but cocked his head to the side and let that smile grow a little wider.
Ana's lips pursed as if she'd gotten a mouthful of lemon. "You're a maddening bloody bastard is what you are," she growled, poking Jack viciously in the shoulder, before turning on her heel to storm out of the cabin. She felt her anger at losing the argument being upset by stirrings of something that felt suspiciously like elation at Jack's praise, and damned if she was going to show the mad idiot how touched she was when he was determined to ignore any sense she tried to show him regarding this stunt of his.
"All right, listen up, all of you!" she shouted across the deck in a tone that never failed to bring even the most grizzled sailor among them scrambling to her summons. If the crew of the Black Pearl followed their captain out of a kind of mystified loyalty, respecting his methods as well as being too intrigued to see what he'd do or say next to leave his company, then they leaped to the orders of the first mate like they feared the stony wrath of Medusa for stepping too slowly. Hands on her hips, Anamaria let the tiniest of sighs escape her. "Our captain has some business to attend to ashore."
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Listening to Anamaria weave her story for the crew, Jack reflected, not for the first time, that it might not be completely on the up and up to conceal the real reason he was going, but one mutiny and ten years of relying solely on oneself, honing paranoia to a razor-edge, weren't exactly conducive to openness. It had been tempting to simply slip away for a few days, leaving nothing more than a note with a date and a location to meet him again, but the more he'd toyed with that idea, the less he'd liked it, and not just because he feared the thrashing he'd get from Anamaria once he was back on board. Jack knew in his heart he could trust this crew, enough to leave his beloved ship in their hands.
Granted, there had been that business right after the fight at la Muerta, but even then, when they'd left without him, they had technically been following his orders. And the fact that they'd returned for him at all... no, Jack had no misgivings about how this crew measured up against his old one.
Weren't even mine, though, he mused, also not for the first time. They'd been Barbossa's creatures, down to the last man. It had been Barbossa they followed, taking their cues from him as he bided his time, shadowing Jack like a circling shark. And I was bloody naïve enough – bloody stupid enough – to think I was being obeyed when I was being used.
He'd been cocksure, and he'd been trusting, and the combination had swum right up and bit him in the ass. Just as Bill had warned him it would.
Oh, Bill.
That was the bit of it that still dropped Jack's heart into his stomach. When he was standing at the Pearl's helm, the wind and the waves washed away all the sting of the betrayal he himself had suffered. He had his ship back, and there was no point in dwelling on the years he'd been without her. They'd lasted long enough in their time, and that time was over now. Jack was more than content to leave it behind.
But Bill had lost a great deal more, and no matter how much better the days were now, not one of them went by that Jack didn't remind himself of that.
Bill hadn't even wanted to be a part of the venture to la Muerta. He'd listened, patiently and without laughter or criticism, when Jack had laid out his plans, and then, to the dumbfounded shock of his young friend, had gently explained that he wasn't going to take part in any of it. He had a family to feed, back in England, and chasing Aztec fairy tales wasn't going to get it done.
Jack had been hurt, more deeply than his pride had been willing to let even his dear friend Bill Turner see, but he'd concealed it. Or he'd tried to. Bill had probably known. He'd always known everything else going on behind Jack's eyes.
"I'm sorry, Jack," he'd said quietly, reaching out to lay a hand on Jack's shoulder. "But I can't justify it. I've got responsibilities. I can't abandon them to go running off on some wild goose chase with no payoff."
It had been a perfectly sensible argument, something Jack had little use for to this very day. At twenty-two he'd had even less, and Bill's reasoning had somehow translated into a lack of faith in Jack's abilities, and even worse (though he'd have waded through moray eels before admitting it) a declaration that Jack just didn't matter that much. Less than the family Bill had left, at any rate, though even through hurt feelings and insulted pride, Jack had known that was irrational and untrue, and had, thank God, never given voice to it. It shamed him now to even recall thinking such a thing, and there was precious little in the world capable of shaming Jack Sparrow.
"Whatever pleases you, William," Jack had said curtly, those many years ago, and had shrugged Bill's hand roughly from his shoulder. "I'm quite sure I can manage to scrape by without you."
That had been that, both their minds made up, dead set that each was on the right path. And then Bill had learned whom Jack had found to serve as first mate in his place, and all bets had been off.
You knew what he was, Bill. You knew and you tried to warn me, and I wasn't going to hear any of it.
And when he hadn't been able to talk Jack out of hiring Hector Barbossa and the dregs of humanity who came with him, Bill Turner had changed his mind about going along.
"He's a monster, Jack. And if you think I'm letting you go traipsing off to the edge of the world with that venomous, murdering son of a bitch at your back, you truly are daft."
That had flown like a dead duck. Jack had railed at Bill, swore and snapped and told him in no uncertain terms that Captain Jack Sparrow didn't need anyone nursemaiding him.
But in the end, he hadn't denied Bill passage. Bill had been on the Black Pearl when the crew mutinied, because he didn't trust Barbossa, and he feared for Jack. It was, more often than not, the last thought that drifted through Jack's mind before sleep was allowed in.
"You had to be right about it, Bill, damn you anyway," Jack sighed aloud, softly. "Always had to bloody be right. Used to piss me off something terrible. And it didn't save either of us that time. You should have stayed the hell out of it, like you wanted to in the first place. Or at least had the sense to keep your bleedin' big mouth shut after they pitched me overboard."
"Please, Bill. Don't do anything stupid." They were the last words Jack had ever spoken to his friend. And what did the bloody jackass do at the first turn? Went and got himself killed, for justice and honor and all such shit.
Well, not exactly killed, Jack reminded himself, only to immediately sever the thought at its root. It might well be cowardly, but he was blatantly unwilling to let his imagination have any sort of room to maneuver where....that was concerned. Those sorts of thoughts would drive a man mad more surely than three days without water in the Caribbean sun. He wouldn't, couldn't think of Bill like that. Down there.
Jack was then spared, for the moment, at least, further thoughts of that nature by the fortuitous arrival of his quartermaster. "Well, Ana's set to be a regular little ray of sunshine today," Joshamee Gibbs observed with a chuckle as he entered Jack's cabin. "Working your charm again, I see."
"What can I say, Gibbs? It's my curse, and there's no lifting it, unfortunately," Jack said, one hand tossed out in a sweeping gesture, inclining his head in a little bow. The grey-haired pirate snorted in response.
"Can't be all bad, considering it must come with the ability to deflect lightning," Gibbs retorted good-naturedly. "Or is it that you throw just enough truth in with the bullshit to avoid being blown to ash in your boots?"
"Speaking of boots, did you know Barbossa threw me good ones out?"
"The dog!" Gibbs gasped in exaggerated horror. "Maybe someone will raise him from the dead and you can kill him again."
Jack shuddered, giving his quartermaster a reproachful look. "That's so bloody far from anything even resembling funny, Gibbs."
"Sorry, Cap'n," Gibbs glanced around at the scattered piles of Jack's possessions. "Still goin' through with this, then?"
"I am, and if you're here to give me the second verse of the lecture, I shall put to you a more productive use of your time and offer you a drink." Jack replied, reopening the trunk and tossing a few things haphazardly back in. He wasn't surprised when Gibbs declined the offer; the man drank less and less these days. Gibbs made a more sober pirate than he'd ever made a naval man.
"You'll hear no sermon from me. I've known you longer than she has, Cap'n. No sense spitting into a gale, is there? Besides," Gibbs continued after a moment's hesitation, his blue eyes twinkling, "I would see my captain smile again, and if this is what it takes, then God speed."
Jack straightened, one dark eyebrow arching. "What are you on about, Gibbs?"
Gibbs crossed his arms, trying not to grin so large that Jack would think he was being made fun of. "You've had a face on you like the front edge of a hurricane these past couple of weeks, Captain Sparrow, ever since we got wind of the Man o' War striking near Port Royal. The news about Miss Elizabeth and young William brought the first sign of sun I'd seen from you in some while. You're on pins and needles to see them again, and don't you go denying it."
Jack casually kicked the side of the trunk, and the lid fell shut again. "You're being absurd. And over sentimental. It's unbecoming. I'm going because I savor the idea of appearing in the lion's den, right under the lion's powdered, incompetent nose. If I have time to lift a glass, or better yet a bottle, to the lovebirds, so be it."
Gibbs rocked back and forth on his heels, thoroughly enjoying himself. "With all due respect, Cap'n, you can go blow that smoke up someone else's ass."
"We've not had a crumb of excitement on this vessel in ages, Gibbs. I'm not going to sit about getting complacent and lazy, even it means I have to go hunt up some hell to raise."
"You know how many cannonballs we put into the Man o' War when we come up on 'er, Jack? Five. And she was docked, Jack. Captain Montero pissed himself twice before you took your gun out of his teeth long enough for 'im to tell you they hadn't even sailed within sight of Port Royal."
"But I rather think he wasn't lying to us, don't you?" Jack said, the corner of his mouth twitching up. "Not too many people who manage to deceive and evade effectively when they're wetting themselves."
"Oh, no doubt, no doubt!" Gibbs ceded, laughing heartily. "And I reckon the message to steer clear of Port Royal made it almost to the Atlantic before his trousers dried, Cap'n."
"Well then those were five cannonballs put to good use, weren't they?" Jack's tone was light, but Gibbs caught the look in his eye. It was a more subdued version of the one that had come upon the pirate captain when he'd first heard murmurings about an attack on Port Royal by Paolo Montero's ship. The rumor had been false, which was fortunate for Montero and his men. He wouldn't have gotten off as lightly as a pair of soiled trousers if William Turner and Elizabeth Swann's town had truly been his target.
Well, all right, a pair of soiled trousers, a pistol up his nose, five cannonballs in his hull, and a looted cargo hold, but Montero had still been one fucking lucky dog, because Gibbs had watched Jack go five shades of pale and his warm brown eyes go black when he thought Port Royal had been harmed. And for all the lengths Jack would go to avoiding bloodshed when he wasn't absolutely forced to it, Gibbs certainly wouldn't have wanted to be the one counting on that particular aversion as a sole saving grace when the Black Pearl's captain was on the warpath. Gibbs knew for a fact that the number of lives Jack had personally taken could be tallied well before a man ran out of fingers, and not one of them had ever been in anger, or with any kind of pleasure. Not even Barbossa, in the end. Whatever else it had made of him, life had never given Jack Sparrow a taste for cruelty or cold-bloodedness, and Gibbs suspected it never would, but it never did to assume you knew the worst someone was capable of.
"Make people believe you're willing to do worse than you actually are, and chances are better you won't have to go even as far as you are willing to go, which'll get you where you need to be a lot quicker and cleaner than if they don't believe you're willing to do even as much as you really are," Jack had once said of his methods, and Gibbs, after resisting the urge to go a bit cross-eyed (as he could sometimes feel the need to do while absorbing Jack-logic), had seen the merits of that approach.
Gibbs gave Jack a long, searching look now. "Tell me straight, Jack. Would you really have done Montero in, if it had been Port Royal?"
Jack, sitting cross-legged in the middle of the floor with a chart across his lap, took his time before raising his eyes to Gibbs. "Really?" he echoed. "Really, Gibbs, I don't know. It wasn't Port Royal, and that's all that really matters. What if's don't make the sun rise or the wind blow. And the dead aren't brought back by dishing out more death." Jack's eyes drifted away at that, and he drew one knee up so he could rest his chin on it, hands wrapped around his shin, going quiet and looking so young and sad that Gibbs averted his gaze after a moment, feeling like he was trespassing on something private. Then Jack tilted his head so that it was his cheek on his knee, and waited until he had Gibbs' eye again. "I don't know what I would have done, Gibbs. Maybe nothing. Maybe something I wouldn't have been able to sleep for doing." He grinned then, and straightened up, and as quickly as it had come, the sorrow lifted from his face. "What I'm going to do now is pay a visit to two young fools about to fasten the shackle, God help them both."
"I believe that's 'tie the knot', Cap'n," Gibbs corrected.
"Either way it's bloody bondage, isn't it?" Jack retorted, leaving Gibbs once more roaring with laughter.
TBC