PotC ficlet

[icarus_chained]

Once more, for comment_fic. Somewhat bizarre -_-;

Title: Reason and Rime
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Pirates of the Caribbean
Continuity: Runs through DMC and AWE, with a ... slightly different take on James
Characters/Pairings: Joshamee Gibbs, James Norrington
Summary: All the time, that voyage to Isla Cruces, Joshamee had known there was something ... wrong ... with the ex-Commodore
Wordcount: 586
Prompt: Norrington, the albatross about his neck
Notes: Knowing the plot of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner will help a lot
Disclaimer: Not mine

Reason and Rime

Joshamee watched the man. The entire voyage to Isla Cruces. Not always up front, not always direct. He had enough else to be worried about, this voyage. But still. He just ... made sure his eyes never strayed too far from the sozzled figure on the main deck. Not from distrust. That was fairly standard on a pirate ship of any water, and certainly to be expected with this man, of all men. It wasn't that. It was that, even in the middle of all this, this madness that followed Jack, there was something about the ex-Commodore that raised the small hairs on his neck.

He did mention it to Jack. Not really in expectation that Jack would listen to him -the man did that rare enough even without his present worries- but simply as insurance. For luck, for forewarning. So that the fates would know he knew, and be wary of enacting themselves too soon. He told Jack that there was something ... wrong, with Norrington, a wrongness that couldn't be explained by drink or despair. Joshamee'd seen enough of those in his time, too. He knew them. This was something else.

Jack, naturally enough, didn't listen. None of them did. And later, after Isla Cruces, maybe Joshamee wouldn't be too certain himself, how much of the feeling had been a forewarning of treachery, and how much ... something else. How much of it was the faint glimpses, when the light caught the man wrong, of a shadow hung about his neck. How much of it was the distance in his eyes, when the drink couldn't quite hide it, of a man who's seen something, who's lost something, who's had something ... touch him. How much of it was the strange fire, the causeless ferocity, in that fine, sea-green gaze.

How much of had been that moment, in the still of a morning, when he'd watched Norrington stand at the rail, bottle just run dry in his hand, and whisper softly, laughingly, raspingly, "Water, water, everywhere, Nor any drop to drink", and felt the chill slip into his spine.

Joshamee was a man given to superstition. He knew that. Enough men had told him. Even this one, once upon a time. Even Jack, who was practically his own legend, and dropped himself regularly among gods and ghosties. Joshamee knew his nature. But all that voyage, all that time, he'd kept his eyes on the man. Never in distrust. Never in suspicion. But in fear. Fear that he'd let something other on the ship. Fear that it had been no hurricane that had stolen the Commodore's crew and left him living to sink into Tortuga's pit of despair. Fear that he, Joshamee Gibbs, had let aboard a man hung, deathly, with an albatross about his neck.

So when it happened, all those months later. When all had been settled, and only Jack's mad questing for immortality and a (repeatedly) stolen ship left to deal with. When Joshamee had looked up, in the midst of drunkeness, and caught a haunted, sea-green gaze, and the small smile of a man who had spit in the face of Davy Jones himself. When that happened. Joshamee felt, this time, not fear, but a small thrill of satisfaction. Superstition his arse. He'd known, so he had. Back before Isla Cruces, before any of it.

It had never been Death the Commodore had feared. And Davy Jones had come a shade too late, for that man's bargain.

The albatross, and the Night-mare Life-in-Death, had seen to that.