For Want of a Nail

Chapter 4

by

The Dala

Norrington did not look up from the map he was scrutinizing. "Please leave my study, Mr. Sparrow."

Jack, blanket wrapped around his shoulders, ran a finger along a bookshelf. It was late, past midnight, and yet here Norrington was, wide awake and too bloody active. Jack had heard him tossing restlessly in the room next door, before he'd gotten up and padded quietly down the hall in his bare feet. After a quarter of an hour of trying to get to sleep himself, Jack had given up and followed the Commodore.

"What are you doing awake, anyhow?" Norrington wanted to know. He glanced up at Jack, who was struck by how much younger he looked, out of uniform and out of that ridiculous white wig. In its natural state his hair was a dark, rich brown, cut rather short but long enough to hold a tendency to fall forward over his brow. He was wearing only a plain white nightshirt and a forest-green dressing gown that suited his eyes in a manner he probably wasn't even aware of.

"How old are you?" Jack asked curiously instead of answering the question.

Norrington's cheeks flushed a light pink. "I don't see how that information is pertinent to your recovery."

Jack shrugged it off. "Back to my original purpose," he said, propping himself against the desk. Norrington rolled his eyes and scooted his chair a few inches back. "I'm filthy, mate."

"I quite agree," said Norrington crisply. "What do you propose I do about it?"

"Well," said Jack, "I've smelt you and you seem to clean yourself regularly." Norrington looked perturbed at the thought that Jack had noticed how he smelled. "So I can only assume that you bathe," Jack continued, "and therefore you must be in possession of a tub, and I would very much like to use it."

"You want to take a bath," said Norrington, apparently seeking confirmation though his voice was perfectly flat.

He nodded and leaned forward on purpose, hoping that Norrington might catch a whiff of him—he was indeed quite dirty, with all the fever-induced perspiration, and his body's odor was not pleasant by any stretch of the imagination. From the pinched look that suddenly came over Norrington's face, he suspected it had worked.

"A very short bath," Norrington warned. "You must get out before the water cools, as I can only imagine what sort of turn your health would take after a cold soak."

Jack grinned fetchingly at him. It had the same effect it always did: it put a distressed little frown on his lips. Jack never got tired of making him do that—it was a cheap thrill, but an infinitely satisfying one. "I follow your orders, Commodore." He saluted and Norrington sighed in long-suffering irritation.

Twenty minutes later, Jack was lounging in a fairly large, very expensive-looking porcelain tub. The pleasure of feeling the layers of sweat and grime soak away was nothing short of divine. A fine lass and a bottle of strong rum would be his ideal, but he was willing to take his pleasures where he could get them.

Trailing a hand in the now-dirty bathwater, Jack thought idly about his current situation. He had been six weeks away from the sea, and his longing for it was almost too painful to contemplate. It was a subtle distinction in his blood, like a good voice singing just slightly off-key. And he hated few things as he hated being helpless against the ravages of his illness, which struck in varying degrees so that sometimes he felt ready to take on the entire royal Navy and yet would be hunched over a basin ten minutes later, throwing his guts up. Still, Elizabeth and Will came to see him frequently, and he and Norrington had settled into a kind of routine.

Norrington—now there was a subject worthy of bathtime meditation. It was so easy to upset the delicate balance of his little world. Jack had a great disdain for routine, while men like Norrington lived by it. He had no friends more intimate than the Turners and he had more pride than he knew what to do with. Embarrassing him was a simple matter, and yet he was difficult to charm—and Jack had tried his damnedest to do so. He still wasn't entirely certain that Norrington wasn't planning on hanging him, though he seemed a genuinely good man. He figured that even the vaguest overtures of friendship might put a stop to that plan.

Of course, there was also the little factor of attraction.

Jack would admit to himself, if to no one else, that he had wanted Norrington even before all of this business. The man was handsome, to be sure, and he was comprised of a curious juxtaposition of stiff formality and honest vulnerability. He tried hard to be properly distant and detached, but Jack had never seen eyes so frank and open, so prone to betraying whatever he was feeling. And his mouth held a certain sensitivity that Jack found quite promising—it was almost akin to the soft set of Will's mouth.

He allowed himself a brief thought about Will for a moment before dismissing it. Even if Elizabeth had not been in the way, the memory of the boy's father was.

What, on the other hand, was in the way of his seducing Norrington?

The Commodore's dislike of him, of course, though there were brief moments when it seemed to lessen. The idea of him not being the sort to sleep with other men did not even occur to Jack as a potential barrier. He had lured many into his bed who had never been in such a situation before.

If it did nothing else, it would give him another avenue of power, merely because he had a great deal of experience and Norrington clearly had little to none. And an affair would definitely help to alleviate the dreariness of his life in Port Royal—the dreariness of Norrington's life, when it came right down to it..

Elizabeth would kill him if she knew what he was plotting. She genuinely liked the man, even if she wasn't willing to marry him. Then again, he doubted Norrington would ever be in a mood to tell her, so that wasn't much of a deterrent.

His mind wandered off in thoughts of his planned seduction. Norrington would be standing before him, perhaps tipsy on some mysteriously procured liquor, and his lips would part slowly as Jack kissed him. He might taste of peppermint or sugarcane—something sweet, but not overly so, and heavy. Jack would undress him slowly and deliberately, slipping his hands inside the cumbersome officers' coat, snapping the buttons on his starched white shirt, while those wide green eyes fluttered closed and Norrington moaned into Jack's mouth...

He wasn't certain at what precise moment in the fantasy he fell asleep, but he had definitely not reached its inevitable conclusion when shouting and pounding on the bathroom door awakened him.

The water had turned to ice around him and it seemed to be inside him too, running through his veins. He tasted blood as violent shivers caused his teeth to knock together with his tongue between them.

There was silence on the other side of the door, then a great solid thump before it flew open. Norrington landed hard on his hands and knees.

"You locked yourself in, you idiot!" he panted.

Jack was too wary of biting his tongue again if he tried to answer. His efforts to move succeeded only in one hand reaching out of the white tub.

Norrington got to his feet and grabbed Jack by the shoulders. His face was tight with worry and a touch of fear.

"You must get out, you've been in there for nearly an hour—"

"C-can't move," Jack stammered, clenching all the muscles in his body in an attempt to still their shaking. It didn't work.

He found himself lifted under the arms and hauled upright. When he stumbled, they both nearly took a fall on the blue-painted tiles, but Norrington managed to keep his balance. Jack pressed his face into Norrington's neck, aware that he was unable to stand under his own power and not caring. Norrington's skin smelled of talcum powder and ink.

The air hit Jack's body with the force of gale winds. He hadn't been this cold since he was a boy, huddled in front of the stove in January and dreaming of warm tropical climates...

Without a word Norrington lifted him carefully, one arm going under Jack's knees while the other clasped firmly about his waist. Jack was mildly amused at the tableau they formed: Norrington ever the stalwart hero, carrying Jack like he was a damsel in distress—if such damsels were blessed with certain facets of male anatomy and went about naked as the day they were born, and soaking wet besides. It would have been the perfect time to put his plan into action, had he not been concentrating on just staying conscious. He gave up the struggle only when Norrington deposited him in bed, tucking the blankets securely around him.

~~~

He was no longer shivering like a drowned cat. His head was clear but his muscles ached, and his fever was a hurt in and of itself. It felt like a tangible thing inside his head, searching out the still-sane parts of his mind and burning them away. He kept his eyes closed as he tried to fight it.

The cloth left his skin and Norrington's fingers pressed under his jaw, checking his pulse. They were toughened fingers on hands that had known hard work, probably hard sailing. Jack had felt that when Norrington had gripped his hand the day Elizabeth nearly drowned. He appreciated those hands on his body, even in such a cursory manner as this.

"Sparrow?" said Norrington. He sounded anxious. After a pause during which Jack failed to respond, he tried again, the name coming surprisingly softly: "Jack?"

At this Jack opened his eyes. The light in the room was dim, which was good. Norrington was peering down at him, looking pale and frightened.

Jack touched his tongue to his lips; they were cracked and dry, but he wanted no water. He could tell his stomach would reject even that.

"Is it—how do you feel?"

Jack stared straight up at the ceiling. Norrington's eyes were full of pity and Jack wanted none of it, but neither did he have the strength to scandalize him out of it, or to make him angry enough to forget it.

"Everything... hurts," he whispered, astonished at his own admittance. It seemed illness loosened his tongue better than any drink might have.

Norrington reached out as if to take Jack's hand, but he reconsidered and snatched it back to his lap. "Your fever's so dangerously high," he said, the customary calm of his well-bred voice totally gone. "If I could only send for a doctor—"

"No," said Jack. His teeth clenched as his left thigh spasmed; he bit his tongue once again and focused on that pain to the deficiency of the others. Norrington caught his faint whimper, however, and this time he did fold Jack's hand in his own.

"Tell me what I can do," Norrington said desperately. "I've given you medication, but..."

Jack shifted his gaze to Norrington's frantic face. He knew this offer was only made because Norrington hated to lose control of anything, but he did not want to face the demons in his head alone, not when he was helpless like this. He would have given anything to have Bill at his side, or Will, or Elizabeth. Norrington would have to substitute, inferior substitute though he would be.

"Talk to me."

He didn't hesitate before replying. "What shall I say?"

Jack closed his eyes again, seeing colors dance and swirl like the northern lights against his lids. "Anything. Just talk."

"I—I have a cat," said Norrington haltingly. "Did you know that? Probably you didn't... well, anyway, I have a cat. Her name is Annabelle. She's fat and gray, and she hasn't caught a single mouse in the past five years. I brought her with me from England. My officers made fun of me behind my back, but I wasn't going to leave her. She likes anchovies and cheese... Sparr—Jack? Are you..."

"I'm awake," Jack murmured. "Keep babbling."

"I do not babble. Do you keep cats on your ship? I think it's a benefit to people to keep a pet. Perhaps it's silly to dote on an old cat, but I haven't got much else to dote on, have I? Don't answer that."

Somewhere between the realms of sleep and awake, Jack smiled. Norrington kept talking, and he kept his light grip on Jack's hand, until Jack's temperature dropped a few degrees.

He started to pull away, but Jack's fingers tightened around his.

"Your name, good Commodore," said Jack without opening his eyes.

Norrington shifted in his chair, but he stayed.

"It's Gabriel," he replied in a quiet voice.

The faint trace of a smirk appeared on Jack's lips. "Gabriel. Pretty," he mumbled, only half-aware of what he was saying. "Strength of God, angels and baby Jesus and whatnot."

"No, I'm only me," he heard Norrington protest faintly, before he fell off the edge of sleep and heard nothing more.

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