Song in Red & Gray: Chapter 21
Title: Song in Red & Gray-Chapter 21: Drugs
Author: ophelivia
Rating: R-NC17
Word Count: 2,030
Pairing: Beckett/OC
Characters: Rose, James and special cameos by MURTOGG & MULLROY!
Summary: "Do just what I tell you and no one will get hurt." A series of vignettes spanning both films.
Status: In-Progress
Disclaimer: I don't own the Pirates characters. Rose is mine, but I should mention that she began in an RPG over on fanfiction.net. This story has nothing to do with the plot of that game. The prompts for each chapter are from 50_smutlets
Warnings: Power plays, S&M, emotional manipulation, prostitution and implied slash. The chapters will go in no real order. I'm picking the prompts at random. For this chapter: serious angst, mild blood and James flippin' a bitch!
Okay in contrary to what I said about the last chapter this is, if I do say so myself, really a big step for me. It's now 3am and I'm going to kill myself in five hours when I have to get up for class but it's worth it to bring this to y'all. Dedicated to absolutely everyone who left positive feedback on the last chapter. You guys showed me how to make this one work!
Earlier chapters here
2-25: Drugs
The admiral walked in, body of an unconscious woman wrapped in his coat. Dreamlike. Both covered in blood.
Whispers. Wind over fire. James remembered suddenly these were not his men. They wore navy, weren’t navy. Company all. Crimson coats would’ve seen no blood. They thought he couldn’t hear them.
“My, my. What here?”
“Didn’t know the old dog had it.”
“Took it a bit far.”
“I’ll bet she’s right pretty once you clean all the shit off her.”
They laughed. Laughed at this man they’d been bribed into serving. And looking at them now, as James held Andrew’s pillaged twin in his arms how he hated them. Who could he trust?
“Masters Murtogg and Mullroy!”
The pair before him before another breath was drawn. Tremblingly silent, but eager as ever. Their gazes never wavered.
“Mullroy I’d like you to find a surgeon.” The Admiral’s voice, breathless, haggard. “The lady is badly injured. She needs a professional.”
“Aye, sir!” Mullroy’s double chin wobbled as he nodded vehemently.
“Good man.”
“A-and me, sir?”
The other, half his friend’s size, looked with keen brown eyes.
“I need you, Mister Murtogg,” James grunted, shifting Rose in his arms. “To go to my quarters immediately. I’ll be along in a moment. After I finish here.”
Leaning in.
“This is the twin sister of Lieutenant Gillette,” he whispered. “I trust you to give her all the respect you would have afforded him.”
The words held sway. These two, thought naught but bunglers, the last of James’ former life. Murtogg especially, who’d worshiped Andrew so. And now he nodded, took her without pause. Looked at the bloodied face searching for the slightest hint. As James had done. Still looking as he cleaned blood away while she lay on the Admiral’s bed, when his friend returned with James and the doctor.
“Blimey,” Mullroy sighed.
“Like he’s back,” Murtogg agreed sadly.
Cutting away scraps of dress. Wounds. Bruises aged black to gold. White scars, cuts scabbing over.
Legs bore the worst.
“This one,” the surgeon said, “isn’t just clumsy.”
James was silent, scared by what he saw.
Andrew’s face, but body was his own.
“We have to set her wrist,” the surgeon murmured. “Deep gash down her chest where the bodice cut, and a few others. Needs stitching.”
“He attacked her with a knife,” said James.
Oil made the needle glow. Entered. Rose opened her eyes and screamed.
She thrashed, needle still hanging inside her chest. James had to tie her feet with what was left of her clothes.
“Head back,” the surgeon ordered.
James’ hands went into the fiery curls. Her eyes fogged, unseeing orbs that rolled in her head like one possessed. The contents of a bottle into her mouth.
“All right love, drink for me. There’s a good girl.”
James noted to hire this man. Rose collapsed against him, screams now intense sobbing. And suddenly words. Pouring from an unlocked mouth and soul.
“Géillim! Go mo tiarna géillim. Go a ghlór, go a shúl, go áhilleacht agus ahirgead agus pléisiúr táim aithríoch!”
“Tongues!” Murtogg whispered. “Shall I fetch a priest?”
“Not tongues, dolt,” Mullroy snapped. “She’s talking Irish. Géillim. ‘submit.’ Tiarna. Lord. I submit to my Lord.”
They stared at him.
“My grandmother was half,” he mumbled. “Know a few prayers.”
“Submit to my Lord,” repeated Murtogg. “Makin’ peace with God then?”
Rose wailed again at the needle’s kiss. Her sobs loud, her words fast, only just sustained by breath.
“Luí le chéile go é stadfaidh mo croi …Ach santaím céard déanann sé go mé …” she panted. “Maróidh sé mé ach santaím céard déanann sé go mé!”
James knew these weren’t words to God.
The surgeon sutured final cut, looked to him and the sallow marines.
“The wrist. All of you hold her.”
Like a vice James laid one arm across her stomach, Murtogg clutched one arm,
Mullroy her legs. He looked down them, their horrors, swallowed.
“Just hold on,” the Admiral ordered. He felt he was saying to them all.
Crack.
Rose howled like an animal. This time everyone understood.
“ANDREW!”
That scream echoed inside James long after he’d paid the man. After he’d glimpsed Murtogg trembling against the wall outside. After he threw away the bloody shirt and wept washing his face.
She woke again screaming, quieted with him there. Then she crawled, ignoring splinted limb, bruises, into his lap, swung one slack arm around his shoulders. Clinging. Sightless. Head on his heart.
What could he do but hold her?
I submit! I submit to my Lord. To his voice, to his eyes, to beauty and money and pleasure I am penitent.
Making love to him will stop my heart, but I covet what he does to me. He will kill me but I need what he does to me!
∞
Her eyelids lead, mind a void. Rose moaned.
“She’s comin’ to!”
Shut up! She thought groggily. With great effort her eyes pried open. The room swam. With clarity came two faces leaning, red coats, muskets at their backs.
“I’ll beat you each apart! I’ll take you both together! I’ll-Oh fuck…!”
Spinning. Rose but a hand to her forehead. And when she tried bracing herself found she couldn’t move the other. A hand reached for her.
“There, miss. You shouldn’t be movin’.”
“Where am I?” Firm, but not unkind. “Why won’t my arm move?”
“’S broken, miss.” Tiny fellow with thin wrists, hesitant voice. “This is Fort Charles. We’re takin’ care of you.”
When had anyone ever told her that? Rose blinked, smiled after a moment.
“Thank you,” she murmured.
Raising her eyes, putting on her whore smile full scale.
“Am I allowed to ask the names of my rescuers?”
They looked at each other, as if they’d forgotten and the other might remember. The little one finally sputtered:
“Oh! Daniel Murtogg. And back there that’s--”
“Jules Mullroy, milady.” Portly but an open face and little upturn to his lip making seriousness impossible. “But it wasn’t us, you must thank Admiral Norrington.”
Rose went cold. In slow desperation waded through memory like water. Waves crashing…The beach. The beach. What happened on the beach? God damn why couldn’t she think?
The two men noticed nothing. They were asking if she needed anything. They would serve her. Was she in any pain?
Pain, Rose thought, was constant.
“Perhaps, miss, you’d like to see the Admiral now?”
She nodded, managing to look secure. Mullroy bowed to her again and left. Murtogg stayed. Desperately trying not to look at her. She smiled at him and he blushed.
“Miss?”
“Please,” she corrected. “Rose.”
He paused, thought about this.
“Miss,” he said again. “I…was rather wonderin’…if…”
Here it comes.
Murtogg moved forward slightly on the bed. Rose readied herself. One kiss was all she could manage at the moment.
“Forgive me, miss,” thin voice suddenly stronger, just a little. “But...is it true? You are…the lieutenant’s twin?”
He said it as if Andrew lived. As if any moment he’d walk in looking for her. With such pride for him…for her. Rose nodded.
“I am. I was.”
He made a strange sound, almost like a repressed sob. When he looked at her his lip was curled in on itself.
“A fine man, miss,” he almost choked. “The finest. I served under him…before the accident.”
Anger. Quick as lightning. Fueled by the empty look in the boy’s eye and her ever present barrenness.
The door opened suddenly and he bolted from her side. At attention. And there in the doorway, a mirror image of the day they’d met, Norrington. Skeleton in a fine topcoat.
He approached Murtogg. They saluted. The boy left without a look back and the anger grew.
When he turned to her his face became tired and drawn. Shocked, Rose let the silence pass between them until, very softly, James asked:
“Can you remember?”
He had a way of doubling whatever she was feeling in half the time. It was as if he’d read her mind. It unnerved her, so she tried again.
“The beach,” she murmured. “I…went for a swim. And then…someone…”
A flash of red.
“Mercer!” she whispered. “It was Mercer, he…he…”
A pause.
“Why’d you do it?”
Voice perfectly level, eyes intense, focused. His turn to be unnerved.
“Why?” she persisted.
He ignored her, checking the splint. Silence reigned. Frightened her. Suddenly another flash.
“What happened to my dress?”
James’ coughed, reddened, averted his eyes.
The look that came then to Rose’s face was like nothing he’d seen. Terrible suffering, crisis. Horror. All directed at herself now. Sounding like a child.
“You saw me?”
Something broke. Her mouth went small and hard. Her every muscle contracted. She shook her head at him in disbelieving fury.
“You son of a bitch!” she swore at him. “You meddling bastard, who do you think you are?”
“You’re not well you should sleep.” James said dully.
“You saw me naked!” she screamed again. “Bring me here so all your toadies get their kicks while I was out! Like what ye saw, did you? Did the boys like it? A little gift from the Admiral to keep ‘em quiet!”
“Stop now.”
Resolve wavering. He stood, turned away. Her thoughts sped.
He’d saved her. He had saved her. And she was screaming at him half-drugged ravings. She was in James Norrington’s debt. It couldn’t be true. She felt she was losing her mind. So she grabbed anything anger could offer. Wrong as it was, she held her hatred tight.
“That boy, that Murtogg, he said Andrew died in ‘the accident,’” she rambled. “The accident! Is that what you make them call it ‘round here? He was ready to cry. My God, my family, all those men dead and you call it an accident? How do you live with yourself?”
“ENOUGH!”
He exploded. Picked up the chair and hurled at the opposite wall. Rounded on her.
“I never called it that!” he shouted. “My God in Heaven, woman, what, what is wrong with you? I saved your life last night and this is what you dare say to me? Insulting my men? How could you ever believe…?”
He shook his head coldly.
“We had to peel the dress off with our hands because nothing was left. Your shift would not come off even with shears so caked was it in blood. Of course I bloody saw you naked! Everyone sees you, you’re a whore!”
He stopped. Gone too far. Now his voice cracked and he whimpered uncontrolled.
“Do you have any idea what I risked? Do you…do you know what he’ll do when he’s told…”
He stopped, gasping for breath, words like sparks between them. They stared at each other. Rose whispered: “Oh God.”
Neither had thought of Beckett.
“My dagger?” she mumbled, fingers pressed to her mouth. Norrington shrugged miserably.
“I went back looking. I didn’t find it.”
“No, that can’t be,” she said rapidly. “It, it has to be here somewhere doesn’t it? I keep it with me at all hours it has to be here. It can’t be lost, I need it. It’s mine. He’ll be furious if I lost it, it can’t be-”
“Rose!”
James was shaking her. She stared at him, sobering as if the fit had not occurred. Again the fear.
“This is your fault,” she hissed. “He did it to you and now he’s done it to me too! God, how I hate you.”
“I know you do,” he answered evenly. “Rose, I know you blame me. I blame myself as well. I hate myself.”
Tears at that.
“But in the night while you slept I held you as you called for Andrew. For Andrew and him both. We are all each other has in this world under his rule. No one can know what we know of Lord Beckett. If we don’t merge we’ll die or worse. Please, Rose, I beg you please. Let me help you.”
She stared at him for a long, long time. With his large green eyes and white face. This man with the collar at his throat. For the briefest moment she thought of saying yes.
“Please leave me alone,” she sobbed instead.
Author: ophelivia
Rating: R-NC17
Word Count: 2,030
Pairing: Beckett/OC
Characters: Rose, James and special cameos by MURTOGG & MULLROY!
Summary: "Do just what I tell you and no one will get hurt." A series of vignettes spanning both films.
Status: In-Progress
Disclaimer: I don't own the Pirates characters. Rose is mine, but I should mention that she began in an RPG over on fanfiction.net. This story has nothing to do with the plot of that game. The prompts for each chapter are from 50_smutlets
Warnings: Power plays, S&M, emotional manipulation, prostitution and implied slash. The chapters will go in no real order. I'm picking the prompts at random. For this chapter: serious angst, mild blood and James flippin' a bitch!
Okay in contrary to what I said about the last chapter this is, if I do say so myself, really a big step for me. It's now 3am and I'm going to kill myself in five hours when I have to get up for class but it's worth it to bring this to y'all. Dedicated to absolutely everyone who left positive feedback on the last chapter. You guys showed me how to make this one work!
Earlier chapters here
2-25: Drugs
The admiral walked in, body of an unconscious woman wrapped in his coat. Dreamlike. Both covered in blood.
Whispers. Wind over fire. James remembered suddenly these were not his men. They wore navy, weren’t navy. Company all. Crimson coats would’ve seen no blood. They thought he couldn’t hear them.
“My, my. What here?”
“Didn’t know the old dog had it.”
“Took it a bit far.”
“I’ll bet she’s right pretty once you clean all the shit off her.”
They laughed. Laughed at this man they’d been bribed into serving. And looking at them now, as James held Andrew’s pillaged twin in his arms how he hated them. Who could he trust?
“Masters Murtogg and Mullroy!”
The pair before him before another breath was drawn. Tremblingly silent, but eager as ever. Their gazes never wavered.
“Mullroy I’d like you to find a surgeon.” The Admiral’s voice, breathless, haggard. “The lady is badly injured. She needs a professional.”
“Aye, sir!” Mullroy’s double chin wobbled as he nodded vehemently.
“Good man.”
“A-and me, sir?”
The other, half his friend’s size, looked with keen brown eyes.
“I need you, Mister Murtogg,” James grunted, shifting Rose in his arms. “To go to my quarters immediately. I’ll be along in a moment. After I finish here.”
Leaning in.
“This is the twin sister of Lieutenant Gillette,” he whispered. “I trust you to give her all the respect you would have afforded him.”
The words held sway. These two, thought naught but bunglers, the last of James’ former life. Murtogg especially, who’d worshiped Andrew so. And now he nodded, took her without pause. Looked at the bloodied face searching for the slightest hint. As James had done. Still looking as he cleaned blood away while she lay on the Admiral’s bed, when his friend returned with James and the doctor.
“Blimey,” Mullroy sighed.
“Like he’s back,” Murtogg agreed sadly.
Cutting away scraps of dress. Wounds. Bruises aged black to gold. White scars, cuts scabbing over.
Legs bore the worst.
“This one,” the surgeon said, “isn’t just clumsy.”
James was silent, scared by what he saw.
Andrew’s face, but body was his own.
“We have to set her wrist,” the surgeon murmured. “Deep gash down her chest where the bodice cut, and a few others. Needs stitching.”
“He attacked her with a knife,” said James.
Oil made the needle glow. Entered. Rose opened her eyes and screamed.
She thrashed, needle still hanging inside her chest. James had to tie her feet with what was left of her clothes.
“Head back,” the surgeon ordered.
James’ hands went into the fiery curls. Her eyes fogged, unseeing orbs that rolled in her head like one possessed. The contents of a bottle into her mouth.
“All right love, drink for me. There’s a good girl.”
James noted to hire this man. Rose collapsed against him, screams now intense sobbing. And suddenly words. Pouring from an unlocked mouth and soul.
“Géillim! Go mo tiarna géillim. Go a ghlór, go a shúl, go áhilleacht agus ahirgead agus pléisiúr táim aithríoch!”
“Tongues!” Murtogg whispered. “Shall I fetch a priest?”
“Not tongues, dolt,” Mullroy snapped. “She’s talking Irish. Géillim. ‘submit.’ Tiarna. Lord. I submit to my Lord.”
They stared at him.
“My grandmother was half,” he mumbled. “Know a few prayers.”
“Submit to my Lord,” repeated Murtogg. “Makin’ peace with God then?”
Rose wailed again at the needle’s kiss. Her sobs loud, her words fast, only just sustained by breath.
“Luí le chéile go é stadfaidh mo croi …Ach santaím céard déanann sé go mé …” she panted. “Maróidh sé mé ach santaím céard déanann sé go mé!”
James knew these weren’t words to God.
The surgeon sutured final cut, looked to him and the sallow marines.
“The wrist. All of you hold her.”
Like a vice James laid one arm across her stomach, Murtogg clutched one arm,
Mullroy her legs. He looked down them, their horrors, swallowed.
“Just hold on,” the Admiral ordered. He felt he was saying to them all.
Crack.
Rose howled like an animal. This time everyone understood.
“ANDREW!”
That scream echoed inside James long after he’d paid the man. After he’d glimpsed Murtogg trembling against the wall outside. After he threw away the bloody shirt and wept washing his face.
She woke again screaming, quieted with him there. Then she crawled, ignoring splinted limb, bruises, into his lap, swung one slack arm around his shoulders. Clinging. Sightless. Head on his heart.
What could he do but hold her?
I submit! I submit to my Lord. To his voice, to his eyes, to beauty and money and pleasure I am penitent.
Making love to him will stop my heart, but I covet what he does to me. He will kill me but I need what he does to me!
∞
Her eyelids lead, mind a void. Rose moaned.
“She’s comin’ to!”
Shut up! She thought groggily. With great effort her eyes pried open. The room swam. With clarity came two faces leaning, red coats, muskets at their backs.
“I’ll beat you each apart! I’ll take you both together! I’ll-Oh fuck…!”
Spinning. Rose but a hand to her forehead. And when she tried bracing herself found she couldn’t move the other. A hand reached for her.
“There, miss. You shouldn’t be movin’.”
“Where am I?” Firm, but not unkind. “Why won’t my arm move?”
“’S broken, miss.” Tiny fellow with thin wrists, hesitant voice. “This is Fort Charles. We’re takin’ care of you.”
When had anyone ever told her that? Rose blinked, smiled after a moment.
“Thank you,” she murmured.
Raising her eyes, putting on her whore smile full scale.
“Am I allowed to ask the names of my rescuers?”
They looked at each other, as if they’d forgotten and the other might remember. The little one finally sputtered:
“Oh! Daniel Murtogg. And back there that’s--”
“Jules Mullroy, milady.” Portly but an open face and little upturn to his lip making seriousness impossible. “But it wasn’t us, you must thank Admiral Norrington.”
Rose went cold. In slow desperation waded through memory like water. Waves crashing…The beach. The beach. What happened on the beach? God damn why couldn’t she think?
The two men noticed nothing. They were asking if she needed anything. They would serve her. Was she in any pain?
Pain, Rose thought, was constant.
“Perhaps, miss, you’d like to see the Admiral now?”
She nodded, managing to look secure. Mullroy bowed to her again and left. Murtogg stayed. Desperately trying not to look at her. She smiled at him and he blushed.
“Miss?”
“Please,” she corrected. “Rose.”
He paused, thought about this.
“Miss,” he said again. “I…was rather wonderin’…if…”
Here it comes.
Murtogg moved forward slightly on the bed. Rose readied herself. One kiss was all she could manage at the moment.
“Forgive me, miss,” thin voice suddenly stronger, just a little. “But...is it true? You are…the lieutenant’s twin?”
He said it as if Andrew lived. As if any moment he’d walk in looking for her. With such pride for him…for her. Rose nodded.
“I am. I was.”
He made a strange sound, almost like a repressed sob. When he looked at her his lip was curled in on itself.
“A fine man, miss,” he almost choked. “The finest. I served under him…before the accident.”
Anger. Quick as lightning. Fueled by the empty look in the boy’s eye and her ever present barrenness.
The door opened suddenly and he bolted from her side. At attention. And there in the doorway, a mirror image of the day they’d met, Norrington. Skeleton in a fine topcoat.
He approached Murtogg. They saluted. The boy left without a look back and the anger grew.
When he turned to her his face became tired and drawn. Shocked, Rose let the silence pass between them until, very softly, James asked:
“Can you remember?”
He had a way of doubling whatever she was feeling in half the time. It was as if he’d read her mind. It unnerved her, so she tried again.
“The beach,” she murmured. “I…went for a swim. And then…someone…”
A flash of red.
“Mercer!” she whispered. “It was Mercer, he…he…”
A pause.
“Why’d you do it?”
Voice perfectly level, eyes intense, focused. His turn to be unnerved.
“Why?” she persisted.
He ignored her, checking the splint. Silence reigned. Frightened her. Suddenly another flash.
“What happened to my dress?”
James’ coughed, reddened, averted his eyes.
The look that came then to Rose’s face was like nothing he’d seen. Terrible suffering, crisis. Horror. All directed at herself now. Sounding like a child.
“You saw me?”
Something broke. Her mouth went small and hard. Her every muscle contracted. She shook her head at him in disbelieving fury.
“You son of a bitch!” she swore at him. “You meddling bastard, who do you think you are?”
“You’re not well you should sleep.” James said dully.
“You saw me naked!” she screamed again. “Bring me here so all your toadies get their kicks while I was out! Like what ye saw, did you? Did the boys like it? A little gift from the Admiral to keep ‘em quiet!”
“Stop now.”
Resolve wavering. He stood, turned away. Her thoughts sped.
He’d saved her. He had saved her. And she was screaming at him half-drugged ravings. She was in James Norrington’s debt. It couldn’t be true. She felt she was losing her mind. So she grabbed anything anger could offer. Wrong as it was, she held her hatred tight.
“That boy, that Murtogg, he said Andrew died in ‘the accident,’” she rambled. “The accident! Is that what you make them call it ‘round here? He was ready to cry. My God, my family, all those men dead and you call it an accident? How do you live with yourself?”
“ENOUGH!”
He exploded. Picked up the chair and hurled at the opposite wall. Rounded on her.
“I never called it that!” he shouted. “My God in Heaven, woman, what, what is wrong with you? I saved your life last night and this is what you dare say to me? Insulting my men? How could you ever believe…?”
He shook his head coldly.
“We had to peel the dress off with our hands because nothing was left. Your shift would not come off even with shears so caked was it in blood. Of course I bloody saw you naked! Everyone sees you, you’re a whore!”
He stopped. Gone too far. Now his voice cracked and he whimpered uncontrolled.
“Do you have any idea what I risked? Do you…do you know what he’ll do when he’s told…”
He stopped, gasping for breath, words like sparks between them. They stared at each other. Rose whispered: “Oh God.”
Neither had thought of Beckett.
“My dagger?” she mumbled, fingers pressed to her mouth. Norrington shrugged miserably.
“I went back looking. I didn’t find it.”
“No, that can’t be,” she said rapidly. “It, it has to be here somewhere doesn’t it? I keep it with me at all hours it has to be here. It can’t be lost, I need it. It’s mine. He’ll be furious if I lost it, it can’t be-”
“Rose!”
James was shaking her. She stared at him, sobering as if the fit had not occurred. Again the fear.
“This is your fault,” she hissed. “He did it to you and now he’s done it to me too! God, how I hate you.”
“I know you do,” he answered evenly. “Rose, I know you blame me. I blame myself as well. I hate myself.”
Tears at that.
“But in the night while you slept I held you as you called for Andrew. For Andrew and him both. We are all each other has in this world under his rule. No one can know what we know of Lord Beckett. If we don’t merge we’ll die or worse. Please, Rose, I beg you please. Let me help you.”
She stared at him for a long, long time. With his large green eyes and white face. This man with the collar at his throat. For the briefest moment she thought of saying yes.
“Please leave me alone,” she sobbed instead.