Up on the quarterdeck our gallant captain stands...

[simplestgift]

Who: seventeensir lists_to_port and a noprevaricating.
What: Just a little mischief.
When: June 24th, evening.
Where: House 36
Summary: Horatio is planning Very Brave Very Stupid Things.  So Archie is hiring Jack to make sure those Stupid Things don't happen.
Rating: It's friends kidnapping each other, so...nothing too serious.  PG-13 tops.

After his conversation with Jack, Archie had learned two things.

1. He was forbidden to lift anything for four more weeks, including protesting best friends.

2. He was given prescription narcotics for pain management.

The second made the first much easier to deal with. At the moment, he was innocently making coffee, having skimped on his pain meds today to have enough to use for this purpose. The new house was much, much roomier than the old flat had been, but there was an increased chance of Horatio meandering by the kitchen and seeing what he was doing. So he kept the saved pain medication innocently in one hand. The general shop had had a granite mortar and pestle for crushing herbs. When Horatio ducked out of the house on an errand, Archie quickly dropped the pills into the mortar and crushed them. The coffee was decaffeinated and stronger than he normally made it. This would do.

The trouble with not taking enough pain meds was obvious, but Kennedy had come up with tricks to take his mind off pain long ago. He hadn't wanted to go to Dr. Hepplewhite every time Simpson gave him cause, so he'd developed a way to shrink his consciousness.

"Through the forest have I gone.
But Athenian found I none,
On whose eyes I might approve
This flower's force in stirring love.
Night and silence. --Who is here?
Weeds of Athens he doth wear."

Horatio was back, and Kennedy was pouring the coffee, his voice the barest whisper.

"This is he, my master said."

The crushed pills went into one cup of coffee, and he stirred in time to the text he recited.

"Churl, upon thy eyes I throw
All the power this charm doth owe.
When thou wakest, let love forbid
Sleep his seat on thy eyelid:
So awake when I am gone;
For I must now to Oberon.

Horatio! I made coffee!"

Comments

[captainhornblower]

Horatio strode through the living room then dining room and into the kitchen at Archie's call. At his hip was his flintlock pistol. He'd retrieved it from the smithy, and the weight felt familiar. Comforting.

He managed a smile, chasing away the thoughts that had nipped at his heels the entire way home. Thoughts of duels and Grell and failure. He had one scar-- one mark of his failure to carry out simple justice. It had taken intervention to see the right thing done then... This time would be different. He wouldn't fail Archie again. Though damned if he didn't wish Archie wasn't coming. There would be no talking him out of it, Horatio knew.

Damned stubborn man.

"Coffee?" he said as brightly as he could, reaching for one of the cups. "Wonderful."

[simplestgift]

Archie handed him the cup with the crushed pills. "Cheers."

This was completely wrong, but sometimes things like this had to be done for the sake of one's friends. Something told him Horatio would forgive him.

[captainhornblower]

"Cheers," Horatio replied, raising the cup with a chuckle before he took a drink.

He looked at the coffee when he tasted it. Strong. Nothing to complain about there, he decided, taking another long drink.

[simplestgift]

Archie sipped at his coffee, fairly sure the narcotics wouldn't knock the captain out, but would make him more manageable in a few minutes. Unless crushing the pills did something? He really wasn't sure, but wasn't about to ask McCoy and raise his suspicions.

"Any good?"

[captainhornblower]

"Very."

He took another drink and bowed his head briefly. The hand holding the side of the mug-- rather than its handle-- left it and braced against the kitchen counter slightly. The feeling mostly passed, but it was enough. Just a brief dizziness, he told himself. Unexplainable... but gone.

Surely gone.

[simplestgift]

If Hornblower looked, he might have seen guilt cross Kennedy's face. Very, very obvious guilt. Now, of all times, he started to realize how Horatio must have felt, knocking him over the head with that tiller so long ago. He really had had the easy end of it, hadn't he?

"You...you should sit down."

[captainhornblower]

"I'm fine, Archie. I'm--"

He went to take another drink of the coffee and almost dropped the cup. He managed to edge it onto the counter before he nodded.

"Bit of dizziness," he murmured, waving a hand, not wanting to worry his friend. "Nothing more serious. But perhaps..." A slight nod. "Yes. Perhaps I should sit." Or lie down, he considered. Sleep was sounding appealing.

...Which was what this was, he was sure. He was finally letting himself relax, and every bit of him, mental and physical, was throwing itself into the new task. Perhaps he hadn't been sleeping enough, as others had said.

[simplestgift]

All right, good. He seemed to be relaxing, not frightened or uncomfortable. Archie caught his elbow and led him gently to the couch. "Easy, now. You'll be all right."

[captainhornblower]

"Must be catching up with me," Horatio muttered, hand on Archie's shoulder to keep himself steady, though still mindful of not trying to put his weight on Archie.

His slightly foggy mind had not connected that the rest of his thought 'These last couple weeks...' had not been voiced.

[simplestgift]

Kennedy eased his friend onto the couch, the dull pain in his back and shoulder pressing against the edges of his mind. Deep breaths, and he started reciting in his mind, his lips moving as he did so.

Then crush this herb into Lysander's eye;
Whose liquor hath this virtuous property,
To take from thence all error with his might,
And make his eyeballs roll with wonted sight.
When they next wake, all this derision
Shall seem a dream and fruitless vision.

"Rest now. You deserve a little sleep."

[captainhornblower]

"You sound like William," Horatio said, voice already drowsy.

He was, however, submitting to what he assumed was his own exhaustion, resting against the back of the couch and tilting his head back. He flexed his hand slightly. There was an odd kind of weight to his body, a sensation he could not fix a cause for, but he also was not trying very hard to do so.

[simplestgift]

Kennedy sighed softly, reaching for his journal.

"Now, when thou wakest, with thine own fool's eyes peep."

[captainhornblower]

"Thought you'd like it." Being so close to the library, he means. He's heard the quote, connected with a play, and been amused in his dazed state.

Also, as he settled in and begins to nod off, he is half leaned back against the couch... half leaned on Archie. Hopefully his good shoulder. If not... Well. He won't put up a fuss at being nudged the other way.

[Later, after lol Horatio-drugging shenanigans]

[all7seas]

Jack Sparrow didn't like this plan at all. For one, it would involve carrying a not-insubstantial navy captain from the village to the seashore. The transporter would help, of course, but it was still a ways to go.

Then there was the fact that he would have to keep said Captain locked in an attic for an indefinite amount of time. Logistical headache, that; and Jack Sparrow was not fond of taking prisoners, especially ones that didn't really deserve it.

He waited for any signal from Lieutenant Archibald Kennedy: soon it would be time for dark skullduggery to commence, and Captain Sparrow---though unhappy about being dragged into matters---still felt mostly responsible for them. Still, it meant seeing Horatio Hornblower in uncomfortable and/or embarrassing straits, which was something, at least.

And so he was going to go along with it: reluctantly, but perhaps with a smidgen of satisfaction mixed in with that reluctance.

[simplestgift]

The signal came over the journals, filtered.

"You can come in now. He's asleep."

[all7seas]

"Understood, son."

Jack left off his pacing beneath the trees and approached Kennedy's quarters quietly, opting not to knock on the door before walking in. The pirate resisted the urge to pocket any of the other sailor's belongings as he entered his home.

"And just how asleep is he, eh?"

[simplestgift]

Probably a good idea. "It worked almost immediately. Even if he wakes, he'll be in no position to..." He pauses, blinks, and sighs. "Where are you taking him?"

[all7seas]

The pirate stood over the sleeping sailor and nudged him once, twice. No movement. No movement was a good thing.

"To my place, I expect; it's far enough away from the action, and close enough to the sea so he won't pine away on us. Also? Plenty of space. You can take the bottom half, eh? I'll drag the top."

The attic of Cullen House would serve. It was still pristine and whitewashed, since Katie McCoy hadn't taken it over as her promised play space yet. It was the least prison-like prison that Jack could conceive of on such short notice.

Of course, problematically, Buffy was still staying with him. But perhaps they could manage this in such a way that she wouldn't ask too many questions.



Wishful thinking.

[simplestgift]

Kennedy muttered something under his breath that became more audible as he took hold of Horatio's legs and hoisted. Oh so this was why he wasn't supposed to lift anything.

"Our dreadful marches to delightful measures.
Grim-visaged war hath smooth'd his wrinkled front;
And now, instead of mounting barded steeds...

Are we going to carry him all the way to the barracks?"

[all7seas]

To be fair, the upper half of Hornblower was very much the heavier portion, and Jack had him under the arms and was lifting him as he considered this.

"Not spouting poetry all the way, but aye---to the barracks. Unless I fetch a wheelbarrow...

Kennedy? You certain you're up for this?" Jack could probably make it the entire way home with the other sailor slung over his shoulder. It would be tiring, but he was a very sturdy pirate in that capacity.

[simplestgift]

"I'm fine." He muttered something else. "It isn't poetry, it's Richard III." The muttering was reduced to movements of his lips as he recited the rest of the speech in his head. "You're telling me you've never seen Richard III?"

[all7seas]

"Iambical pentameter. Poetics. And no, I've never seen it performed, sadly. Too busy not being hanged for that. Although I did read The Tempest as a lad." He angled toward the door, hoping Kennedy would be able to follow.

"You say the word, lad, and I'll handle him myself."

[simplestgift]

Kennedy did keep up, lips still moving. "How can you not have seen Richard III? It's like not seeing Romeo and Juliet."

[all7seas]

"Did I not just explain myself to you? I'm not a cultured man like yourself, Archibald." Jack fumbled behind him for the door. "I saw what I could. Othello, for one; and once the fellows got up a production of Hamlet, though it didn't end well. Quite a bloodbath, really."

[simplestgift]

There was a visible twitch as his full Christian name was spoken. "Don't call me that. And it doesn't take culture, just a little time. The theatre isn't restricted to upper classes, John."