Should have had rum

“What is it Gillette, what sort of treachery is this?” James asked with his teeth chattering although less now, he felt the waves of heat returning. “Poison. That, Sparrow, is why it was so simple for you to take this ship, I imagine there was almost no fight at all?” Sparrow’s eyes widened and he nodded, this one time lost for words. Gillette retrieved his sword and flicked out of the blood-spattered deck a tiny frog. “A local species, hallucinogenic, deadly. Sparrow, how long had your crew been drinking before we arrived?”

Jack Sparrow sat quietly thinking, realization dawning on him that the French had left a cargo of poisoned wine for him to take and that the French crew had been a sacrifice in support of their country’s efforts against his privateers. “Maybe two hours, at most three.” His gaze went to Elizabeth whose hysterics about the death of Will Turner had calmed, her dark gaze met his. “You should have had the rum, love,” said Jack lifting his bottle. Sweat matted her hair, it jogged in her face as she rose to confront him, but the toxins of the poison made her legs weak and she sank beside the commodore again.

James was not sure if Elizabeth wanted to be held but she made no resistance and instead clung tightly around his shoulders as she sobbed anew. So many times he would have given anything to have her this close, but never like this, this was wrong, she was going to die. He shut his eyes in concentration, felt the roll of the ship, Elizabeth’s breath upon his damp skin, the heave of her body as she cried, the thought that there must be a way to stop it, to take away the pain for her. He felt cool hands wiping his brow. “Gillette, did the French say anything about an antidote?” He coughed- his throat felt very tight as Gillette remained silent. “Sparrow, do you know of this?”

“Opium.” His dark eyes offered no hope even with the answer. “I happen to have no Opium.”

James coughed, wracked with pain at each spasm, Gillette sank beside him and held him, trying to stop the coughing even as blood flecked on his lips. In his jolting Elizabeth sank to the corner of the fainting couch and watched with newly opened eyes as Gillette lovingly held James with a look of concern and hope that betrayed it as something other than brotherly love.

“You love him” She hadn’t meant to say it, but it came out anyway. Gillette’s eyes pierced her to her soul as if to say that all this time she had been his obstacle. James let himself slump against Gillette. His coughing stopped and with his sleeve he wiped the blood from his mouth- frothy pink blood.

Elizabeth began to cough too. It was clear to James she was only moments behind him in the effects of the poison. “Do we have time to get to port before the poison kills us?” James asked an honest question; Gillette felt it deserved an honest answer. “No.” He hesitated as if he were going to say something more. Sparrow sighed exasperatedly. “If you have something that is in need of telling you’d best do it soon before the time of telling is over and it can’t be told!”

“I do love you James, I have loved you since the moment that I met you. I have loved no one else but you. You inspire me, you tantalize me, you are my friend and my companion. I do not know what I should do with myself if you were to die. I need you to know how I love you.” Gillette’s words came out a tumble and were followed with a very shocked Ms. Swan watching a kiss between two men as she never would have imagined.

Gillette’s kiss was to James a confirmation of what he had suspected for so long, of unspoken longing finally shouted, of love that could never been and now wouldn’t. James did not stop Gillette from kissing him, but he did not kiss back either.

James pulled away looking him dead in the eye. “I always knew, but I could not return the emotion beyond the love that I would share with my brother. To me, Gillette, you have always been like a brother.” James saw no heartbreak in Gillette because Gillette’s heart had broken the day James had asked Miss Swan to marry him.

“Elizabeth,” James began, she steeled herself for her dose of unrequited love, “I have enough opium in my desk to save your life.”