Fountain of Youth.
Halloa. I bring more. :D
Title: Noli me Tangere
Pairing: Eh. None really. Mercer and Beckett just act like an old married couple. As they do.
Rating: PG-ish
Characters: Everyone and their grandmother. Plus new people from Pirates 4. :D
Summary: Somehow, through the magic of plot holes, Mercer and Beckett survive 3 and are chillin' in London when Sparrow shows up. Let the quest (race) for the fountain of youth begin!
Part I
Part II
Part III
Part IV
Part V
Barbossa brings a flask of rum and sits with Mercer up in the crows nest. It's night, there are stars above them and a full moon. The night is quiet with crew sleeping on deck due to the heat.
'From Jamaica.' He hands it to the other man who takes a swig, gives it back. 'You wanted to talk.' Barbossa knows why but the memory of manners crops up occasionally. He'll let Mercer take the reigns of the conversation.
'You and Sparrow. Why do you want him dead? I had thought you were on working terms.'
'We are. For now.'
Wind, the sails ripple. There is a creaking sound and Mercer kicks back the trap door. Dark eyes are looking up at them, a white smile.
'Angelica,' Barbossa steps back with a sweeping gesture. 'Next time knock or Mercer'll have your guts for garters.'
'Oh, sorry.' Spanish accent is soft, a gentle outward tide. She hoists herself into the nest and takes Barbossa flask. 'Thank you. I wasn't aware there was a meeting. Secret, yes?' Her eyes are glittering, she is amused, gently so. 'So. You are Mr. Mercer.'
The clerk nods, smirking. He can see why Sparrow is taken with her. She is a force of nature. A torrential downpour. In India there is a monsoon season. The natives prepare for it, hate it, love it, it is completely entwined in their lives. They need it but it doesn't need them. It is a love affair that Europe cannot imagine. Only taking and no giving at all. Even in the most treacherous of European affaires (the French kind) - there is always some giving. Angelica is the monsoon season and poor Sparrow the helpless island at sea. Awash with something he doesn't understand. Perhaps, Mercer thinks dimly as he takes the flask from her, Sir is right. I need to stop thinking so much.
'I have that dubious honor.'
She laughs. It's rich, bright, full, un-lady like. Mercer can see that Barbossa likes it. Ah. He thinks. So this is why Barbossa wants the younger pirate dead. When in doubt, it's probably a lady.
'Mr. Mercer,' her accent clips his name short, staccato. He is standing with Gibbs watching the horizon. Sir is below deck peeling potatoes or chopping potatoes or mending rope or anything from an endless list of things that need to be done aboard a ship. Gibbs smiles in greeting. He has recovered from his shock of having yet another female on board. Bad luck, that is. Mercer had shrugged and Sir had said that it might be better than having no female on board. 'Well, I get sick of staring at your ugly faces all day'. Gibbs had laughed then, another slap and Becket had visibly winced. The young lord is getting better! Beckett had snarled that if he hit him again he would get Mercer to stab him in his sleep.
In short, Mercer reasoned, they were getting along fine.
'Miss Angelica.' He had asked for her surname the previous night. When they were in the crows nest with Barbossa and rum. She had laughed, shaken her head, and said that her father would never giver her his and she didn't want her mothers. I can make do with out, gracias signore. Colonial accent. Her mother was probably native, or half native, or might-as-well-have-been native.
'Don't 'Miss Angelica' me, signore Mercer. I have a question about Barbossa.'
'Oh?'
'He wears the colours of the navy. His coat. And he has trimmed his beard. Why?'
'He is a privateer. For old Blighty.'
She blinks. Almond eyes disappearing behind almond lids. He is fond of her, he decides. In an abstract - pretty trinket in the window - sort of way. He decides not to tell her, he doesn't think she'll understand. She is so used to men liking her for one reason alone.
'Old Blighty?'
'King and country.'
And there is her rich laugh again. It fills the deck, the sky, the deep ocean below them. The day suddenly seems brighter for it. Sparrow is watching them from the helm and his envy could paint the entire ship malevolent green. Mercer simply smirks at the pirate, decides to have some fun, and leans in to whisper to her. Lips brush hair. He is telling her no secrets, nothing new, only things everyone on this ship already knows.
'It's true, Barbossa has made a full conversion to cause of England. You could as well, if you'd like. My master can make arrangements. Next port we stop in, get you papers. It would be one less navy on your back.'
She catches Sparrow's eye, realizes the game and decides to play along. Her voice is a sultry whisper and she can see Gibbs snickering into his ale.
'Thank you for the offer, signore. But I think not. See, esperanza is the name my mother wanted to call me. It is my secret name, and I'll keep it. Cold England takes esperanza from our hearts. You understand, yes?'
--
'Tell me a story,' Beckett asks to night air. Mecer shifts so he is facing his master and not the wall. There are soft lines around the younger man's mouth. They are new, he wants to wipe them away. Clean the tanned, suddenly too thin face so it is as it was before. Pale china white, smooth, English.
'About what?'
'Something from history. Something I know the end to.'
'A young woman once captured the heart of a king,' he stops. Frowns. There had been whispers on deck that day. Revenge. A Queen's Revenge. 'Her name was Anne and she was beautiful in her own way. The king who wasn't really a man, more a boy at heart was Harry. For ten years they danced, they flirted, she said yes-yes-yes-no. And he said please-please-please-why not? They say she sold her legs in inches. Rubies for the first inch. Emeralds for the second. Sapphires, diamonds and so on. The king would have to pay in gold and silver and with the moon and stars for the final few inches. The ones that matter.
But then, after their marriage - which was secret, underground, with only a handful of witnesses - Harry saw another gem. A pale girl, milk skin, not bold in the way Anne was. And so Anne went with grace to the arms of her Savior. A quiet man of God told his secretary - she was once Queen of earth and now she is Queen of heaven. But I still look for her in the rose gardens.
But Anne was never one to go quietly. Too much fierce blood in her, too much fire. She declared on the scaffold that the day the king dies dogs will drink his blood. She died as doves flew from a tree. When Harry died years later dogs drank his blood which leaked from his coffin.'
'You and your love for the morbid,' Beckett mumbles it sleepily into Mercer's arm. 'You need a title for the story.' The clerk pulls him close, careful to avoid the man's back though it is slowly getting better.
He ponders it for a moment then decides; whispers it into his master's hair, 'Queen Anne's Revenge.'
--
They live in a world lit solely by fire. It is a boon, it is a burden. But then, they know no other way and so life marches on in a steady acceptance of dimming eyesight by the age of thirty five.
Mercer wakes. His master is sitting up, face scrunched in annoyance. Carefully he slips off the bed, keeping his back to it.
'Sir?'
The back starts. Beckett's head shakes. Go back to sleep. He'll be back soon. Shoulders are tense as he leaves and Mercer finds himself drifting in and out of consciousness. Sheets stir and the lord is back, more relaxed. He yawns and burrows his head into the pillow that is their bundled up coats.
'Feeling better, sir?' He says it dryly with glittering eyes. There are some needs that are necessary to attend to.
'Must you comment on everything?' The lord tries to sound annoyed but fails. Amusement plays with the usually stern lines of his mouth.
'You've freedom to mock me as well, sir.'
'What? That you're a monk? Hardly as fun.'
Beckett sees Mercer's face. The humour briefly there.
'You think I'm a monk, sir? I'm flattered, I suppose.'
'Flattered?'
The smile jumps from soft humour to laughter. There is no answer. Beckett never expected one.
--
Barbossa has old maps spread on a desk before him. Sparrow is staring at them with desolation on his face. The compass is still. So, he does not truly want the fountain of youth. Not enough.
'Ponce de Leon spoke of the fountain of youth being here, Beimini.' The older pirate's finger traces over a section of islands. 'But we've already looked there. Nothing.'
'There are myths of aqua vitae all over the world,' Beckett sneers. He had asked Mercer to look into the supposed fountain of youth and came to the conclusion that it was just that. Supposed. He watches the pirates with contempt. Barbossa feels that many things could be made right in the world if he could only wipe the arrogance off the lord's face.
'True, but when has that ever stopped us, eh?'
'Herodotus wrote that it was in Ethiopia, the Spanish believe it's in La Florida, the Arabs believe it's across the Land of Darkness-'
'Your master has done his research,' Barbossa sneers to Mercer who has sense enough to simply shrug. He is watching the key to the map drawer with casual interest. Barbosa just smiles.
'Land of Darkness?' Sparrow perks up, he leans forward resting elbows on the table.
'Mandeville wrote of it, called it Hanyson, and said that no one crosses it but there are apparently in the land. The locals can hear them calling at night, their voices soft, feint, but present. Alive. Arabs will tell you that Alexander the Great crossed the land on his quest for the fountain of youth. He was lead by a sage and they did eventually find it. Though it clearly did Alexander little good. They revived a salted fish in it, I think.'
Sparrow is nodding, eating the tales. The fantastical is his life blood, besides, he says, the more outrageous the story, the more likely it is to be true. He asks - where is this land of darkness? Sir looks to Mercer, waiting for an answer.
'Near the black sea, the eastern coast of it I think. It was once part of the Georgian Kingdom in the 16th century but eventually broke away to create the Principality of Abkhazia before being absorbed into the Ottoman empire.' He pauses. They are still waiting. 'It's a long way off and I don't trust the sources. Sir John Mandeville was prone to...exaggeration.'
'So you take the Spanish account?' Barbossa is curious, cautious. Something occurs to Mercer, who frowns, glances at the maps then back up.
'I thought Sparrow has a map,' He says. 'One that will actually get us there.' Neither pirate meets his gaze. There is uncertainty in the air. Mercer eyes them, eyes the map on the desk, the compass, the room, then frowns again. 'And where's the Black Pearl?'
--
'They lost it to the sea again?' Beckett is amused that night. They're sitting up in the bunk sharing a flask of brandy. Beckett hates the rum so Mercer siphons what he can from Barbossa's slightly better alcoholic tastes.
'Seems so, sir.'
'Who told you?'
'Gibbs. And Angelica confirmed it. Apparently she was part of the endeavor to relieve Barbossa of the vessel. They hadn't meant to sink it.'
'Does Sparrow hope the fountain will bring it back?'
'Maybe not the fountain. But something or someone associated with it.'
Beckett it silent. Outside a wind is growing, there will be rough waters ahead. The are doubling back from Argentina into the Caribbean. Barbossa wishes to stop at Puerto Rico, where Leon was supposed to have first heard the legend.
'Something or someone?'
Mercer smiles, he has been waiting for the question. 'Tell me sir,' he says taking the flask from his master, 'what do you know of the loa, as I believe they're called in Haiti.'
'Loa?'
'Voodoo spirits, sir.'
--
Mercer wears gloves, except at night, in bed. Beckett once asked why. 'It means nothing,' his clerk had replied. 'Except that I wear gloves.'
'I once did. When I was younger. Now I don't anymore,' the lord shrugs. 'And it means nothing as well, except that I don't wear gloves anymore.'
Title: Noli me Tangere
Pairing: Eh. None really. Mercer and Beckett just act like an old married couple. As they do.
Rating: PG-ish
Characters: Everyone and their grandmother. Plus new people from Pirates 4. :D
Summary: Somehow, through the magic of plot holes, Mercer and Beckett survive 3 and are chillin' in London when Sparrow shows up. Let the quest (race) for the fountain of youth begin!
Part I
Part II
Part III
Part IV
Part V
Barbossa brings a flask of rum and sits with Mercer up in the crows nest. It's night, there are stars above them and a full moon. The night is quiet with crew sleeping on deck due to the heat.
'From Jamaica.' He hands it to the other man who takes a swig, gives it back. 'You wanted to talk.' Barbossa knows why but the memory of manners crops up occasionally. He'll let Mercer take the reigns of the conversation.
'You and Sparrow. Why do you want him dead? I had thought you were on working terms.'
'We are. For now.'
Wind, the sails ripple. There is a creaking sound and Mercer kicks back the trap door. Dark eyes are looking up at them, a white smile.
'Angelica,' Barbossa steps back with a sweeping gesture. 'Next time knock or Mercer'll have your guts for garters.'
'Oh, sorry.' Spanish accent is soft, a gentle outward tide. She hoists herself into the nest and takes Barbossa flask. 'Thank you. I wasn't aware there was a meeting. Secret, yes?' Her eyes are glittering, she is amused, gently so. 'So. You are Mr. Mercer.'
The clerk nods, smirking. He can see why Sparrow is taken with her. She is a force of nature. A torrential downpour. In India there is a monsoon season. The natives prepare for it, hate it, love it, it is completely entwined in their lives. They need it but it doesn't need them. It is a love affair that Europe cannot imagine. Only taking and no giving at all. Even in the most treacherous of European affaires (the French kind) - there is always some giving. Angelica is the monsoon season and poor Sparrow the helpless island at sea. Awash with something he doesn't understand. Perhaps, Mercer thinks dimly as he takes the flask from her, Sir is right. I need to stop thinking so much.
'I have that dubious honor.'
She laughs. It's rich, bright, full, un-lady like. Mercer can see that Barbossa likes it. Ah. He thinks. So this is why Barbossa wants the younger pirate dead. When in doubt, it's probably a lady.
'Mr. Mercer,' her accent clips his name short, staccato. He is standing with Gibbs watching the horizon. Sir is below deck peeling potatoes or chopping potatoes or mending rope or anything from an endless list of things that need to be done aboard a ship. Gibbs smiles in greeting. He has recovered from his shock of having yet another female on board. Bad luck, that is. Mercer had shrugged and Sir had said that it might be better than having no female on board. 'Well, I get sick of staring at your ugly faces all day'. Gibbs had laughed then, another slap and Becket had visibly winced. The young lord is getting better! Beckett had snarled that if he hit him again he would get Mercer to stab him in his sleep.
In short, Mercer reasoned, they were getting along fine.
'Miss Angelica.' He had asked for her surname the previous night. When they were in the crows nest with Barbossa and rum. She had laughed, shaken her head, and said that her father would never giver her his and she didn't want her mothers. I can make do with out, gracias signore. Colonial accent. Her mother was probably native, or half native, or might-as-well-have-been native.
'Don't 'Miss Angelica' me, signore Mercer. I have a question about Barbossa.'
'Oh?'
'He wears the colours of the navy. His coat. And he has trimmed his beard. Why?'
'He is a privateer. For old Blighty.'
She blinks. Almond eyes disappearing behind almond lids. He is fond of her, he decides. In an abstract - pretty trinket in the window - sort of way. He decides not to tell her, he doesn't think she'll understand. She is so used to men liking her for one reason alone.
'Old Blighty?'
'King and country.'
And there is her rich laugh again. It fills the deck, the sky, the deep ocean below them. The day suddenly seems brighter for it. Sparrow is watching them from the helm and his envy could paint the entire ship malevolent green. Mercer simply smirks at the pirate, decides to have some fun, and leans in to whisper to her. Lips brush hair. He is telling her no secrets, nothing new, only things everyone on this ship already knows.
'It's true, Barbossa has made a full conversion to cause of England. You could as well, if you'd like. My master can make arrangements. Next port we stop in, get you papers. It would be one less navy on your back.'
She catches Sparrow's eye, realizes the game and decides to play along. Her voice is a sultry whisper and she can see Gibbs snickering into his ale.
'Thank you for the offer, signore. But I think not. See, esperanza is the name my mother wanted to call me. It is my secret name, and I'll keep it. Cold England takes esperanza from our hearts. You understand, yes?'
--
'Tell me a story,' Beckett asks to night air. Mecer shifts so he is facing his master and not the wall. There are soft lines around the younger man's mouth. They are new, he wants to wipe them away. Clean the tanned, suddenly too thin face so it is as it was before. Pale china white, smooth, English.
'About what?'
'Something from history. Something I know the end to.'
'A young woman once captured the heart of a king,' he stops. Frowns. There had been whispers on deck that day. Revenge. A Queen's Revenge. 'Her name was Anne and she was beautiful in her own way. The king who wasn't really a man, more a boy at heart was Harry. For ten years they danced, they flirted, she said yes-yes-yes-no. And he said please-please-please-why not? They say she sold her legs in inches. Rubies for the first inch. Emeralds for the second. Sapphires, diamonds and so on. The king would have to pay in gold and silver and with the moon and stars for the final few inches. The ones that matter.
But then, after their marriage - which was secret, underground, with only a handful of witnesses - Harry saw another gem. A pale girl, milk skin, not bold in the way Anne was. And so Anne went with grace to the arms of her Savior. A quiet man of God told his secretary - she was once Queen of earth and now she is Queen of heaven. But I still look for her in the rose gardens.
But Anne was never one to go quietly. Too much fierce blood in her, too much fire. She declared on the scaffold that the day the king dies dogs will drink his blood. She died as doves flew from a tree. When Harry died years later dogs drank his blood which leaked from his coffin.'
'You and your love for the morbid,' Beckett mumbles it sleepily into Mercer's arm. 'You need a title for the story.' The clerk pulls him close, careful to avoid the man's back though it is slowly getting better.
He ponders it for a moment then decides; whispers it into his master's hair, 'Queen Anne's Revenge.'
--
They live in a world lit solely by fire. It is a boon, it is a burden. But then, they know no other way and so life marches on in a steady acceptance of dimming eyesight by the age of thirty five.
Mercer wakes. His master is sitting up, face scrunched in annoyance. Carefully he slips off the bed, keeping his back to it.
'Sir?'
The back starts. Beckett's head shakes. Go back to sleep. He'll be back soon. Shoulders are tense as he leaves and Mercer finds himself drifting in and out of consciousness. Sheets stir and the lord is back, more relaxed. He yawns and burrows his head into the pillow that is their bundled up coats.
'Feeling better, sir?' He says it dryly with glittering eyes. There are some needs that are necessary to attend to.
'Must you comment on everything?' The lord tries to sound annoyed but fails. Amusement plays with the usually stern lines of his mouth.
'You've freedom to mock me as well, sir.'
'What? That you're a monk? Hardly as fun.'
Beckett sees Mercer's face. The humour briefly there.
'You think I'm a monk, sir? I'm flattered, I suppose.'
'Flattered?'
The smile jumps from soft humour to laughter. There is no answer. Beckett never expected one.
--
Barbossa has old maps spread on a desk before him. Sparrow is staring at them with desolation on his face. The compass is still. So, he does not truly want the fountain of youth. Not enough.
'Ponce de Leon spoke of the fountain of youth being here, Beimini.' The older pirate's finger traces over a section of islands. 'But we've already looked there. Nothing.'
'There are myths of aqua vitae all over the world,' Beckett sneers. He had asked Mercer to look into the supposed fountain of youth and came to the conclusion that it was just that. Supposed. He watches the pirates with contempt. Barbossa feels that many things could be made right in the world if he could only wipe the arrogance off the lord's face.
'True, but when has that ever stopped us, eh?'
'Herodotus wrote that it was in Ethiopia, the Spanish believe it's in La Florida, the Arabs believe it's across the Land of Darkness-'
'Your master has done his research,' Barbossa sneers to Mercer who has sense enough to simply shrug. He is watching the key to the map drawer with casual interest. Barbosa just smiles.
'Land of Darkness?' Sparrow perks up, he leans forward resting elbows on the table.
'Mandeville wrote of it, called it Hanyson, and said that no one crosses it but there are apparently in the land. The locals can hear them calling at night, their voices soft, feint, but present. Alive. Arabs will tell you that Alexander the Great crossed the land on his quest for the fountain of youth. He was lead by a sage and they did eventually find it. Though it clearly did Alexander little good. They revived a salted fish in it, I think.'
Sparrow is nodding, eating the tales. The fantastical is his life blood, besides, he says, the more outrageous the story, the more likely it is to be true. He asks - where is this land of darkness? Sir looks to Mercer, waiting for an answer.
'Near the black sea, the eastern coast of it I think. It was once part of the Georgian Kingdom in the 16th century but eventually broke away to create the Principality of Abkhazia before being absorbed into the Ottoman empire.' He pauses. They are still waiting. 'It's a long way off and I don't trust the sources. Sir John Mandeville was prone to...exaggeration.'
'So you take the Spanish account?' Barbossa is curious, cautious. Something occurs to Mercer, who frowns, glances at the maps then back up.
'I thought Sparrow has a map,' He says. 'One that will actually get us there.' Neither pirate meets his gaze. There is uncertainty in the air. Mercer eyes them, eyes the map on the desk, the compass, the room, then frowns again. 'And where's the Black Pearl?'
--
'They lost it to the sea again?' Beckett is amused that night. They're sitting up in the bunk sharing a flask of brandy. Beckett hates the rum so Mercer siphons what he can from Barbossa's slightly better alcoholic tastes.
'Seems so, sir.'
'Who told you?'
'Gibbs. And Angelica confirmed it. Apparently she was part of the endeavor to relieve Barbossa of the vessel. They hadn't meant to sink it.'
'Does Sparrow hope the fountain will bring it back?'
'Maybe not the fountain. But something or someone associated with it.'
Beckett it silent. Outside a wind is growing, there will be rough waters ahead. The are doubling back from Argentina into the Caribbean. Barbossa wishes to stop at Puerto Rico, where Leon was supposed to have first heard the legend.
'Something or someone?'
Mercer smiles, he has been waiting for the question. 'Tell me sir,' he says taking the flask from his master, 'what do you know of the loa, as I believe they're called in Haiti.'
'Loa?'
'Voodoo spirits, sir.'
--
Mercer wears gloves, except at night, in bed. Beckett once asked why. 'It means nothing,' his clerk had replied. 'Except that I wear gloves.'
'I once did. When I was younger. Now I don't anymore,' the lord shrugs. 'And it means nothing as well, except that I don't wear gloves anymore.'