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

[all7seas]

"And what's to prevent him from calling for help?" Jack clearly did not think much of this idea.

[simplestgift]

"Nothing. But I'd rather he have a way to contact me. What if Grell were to suddenly appear at your house?"

[all7seas]

Sparrow stopped short at that, nearly dropping his burden. Then he continued on with slow steps. "Won't. She won't show, not there. She doesn't even know where the house is."

[simplestgift]

"I never told her where I lived, Jack."

[all7seas]

Jack adjusted Horatio over his shoulders. He didn't seem like the help-calling type, in the end---such was the pirate's opinion at least.

"I've MY journal." Kennedy had a point, but Jack was still concerned with what he saw as the problem of Hornblower having access to a journal. What if Grell used it to contact and find the man, who was so desperate for this duel? There were worse treacheries possible than merely that of Horatio calling for help.

[simplestgift]

"He can't use it to contact me." That was what it came down to--Kennedy wanted to be sure Horatio was okay. He wanted to make sure things weren't going too far.

[all7seas]

"If you're worried about him and furthermore do not have any faith in me, Kennedy, speak now or hold your peace. He's not getting a journal."

[simplestgift]

"It isn't about not having faith in you, Jack." But Kennedy would never, never have more faith in Jack than he had in Horatio. Not in anything. Except, perhaps, an ear for music. "I just don't like the idea of leaving him in a room somewhere with naught but the clothes on his back."

[all7seas]

"He'll...have other things. Besides clothes. I don't fancy having a bored Hornblower in my attic, now do I? That would be frightfully annoying.

You mind getting the door there, sir?" He gestured toward the barracks with a twist of his head. Jack's breathing was definitely becoming more labored, now; it had been a long walk with a heavy burden, and they were only halfway there.

[simplestgift]

Kennedy opens the door with a sigh. "Very well. It'll most likely come to him on its own, in a couple of days. It's what they do, isn't it?"

[all7seas]

"Aye, another Malnosso witchery, that. We'll make a test of it, eh? Can journals fly past locked doors?

"Bloody hell, Hornblower; you should come with your own tote." Gently, the pirate laid the unconscious man down on the floor so that he could deal with the transporter controls. "You can go through first, Kennedy---that way you can catch him on the other side."

[simplestgift]

"Bloody witchery? How do you think I'm here, I wonder?" He tucked the journal into his jacket with another sigh. "I'll see you on the other end." Stepping onto the platform, he was gone in an instant.

[all7seas]

"How do I think you're here? How, Kennedy?" Jack mumbled these words to an unconscious man after the younger sailor had vanished. He was trying to get all of Hornblower to fit on the platform and it was taking a lot of shoving and squeezing and perhaps a kick or two but nothing that would show a bruise.

"Bloody miracle, that's what you are. Miracle Boy Kennedy, Boy Flogging WONDER of the Renowned Frenchy-Fighting Pellew Boat. Get IN there, Hornblower!"

Another shove and the folded-up form of Horatio Hornblower was crammed onto the platform and vanished seaward.

[simplestgift]

"Captain Jack Sparrow. That's no dragon you're fighting, it's a windmill, you damned lunatic. You're not even that heavy, Horatio." Kennedy hauled Hornblower off the platform by his underarms. "Allll right, I've changed my mind. The crown o' th'earth doth melt, my lord, O withered is the garland of war..."

Two more hoists, and Horatio was off and the platform cleared.

[all7seas]

When Jack figured he'd given even a recovering, wound-weakened Kennedy enough time to unfold Hornblower and stow him someplace safe, he stepped onto the platform and took himself away to the seaside.

"Right. I'm here, no need to get excited, Kennedy. Where's our precious baggage?"

[simplestgift]

"Here." Archie felt underneath his jacket, behind him, to make sure he hadn't ripped anything open that wasn't quite healed yet. Then he changed his mind--he didn't want to know about it if it was.

[all7seas]

"No, I meant Hornblower, you great gaping cod." There wasn't a lot of enmity behind those words---more affection, than anything else. Jack tried to lift with his knees to save his back, an old trick he had learned while helping to store cargo on merchant vessels he'd crewed on.

"I expect walking with him through this deep, sliding sand will be a joy."

If anyone told him how much he sounded like Leonard McCoy at that moment, Jack would have denied it.

But he did.

[simplestgift]

Archie happily complied. "A pleasure to see you, too, Leonard." Hornblower had been at his feet when he'd made the pronouncement, anyway. He rubbed his fingers together, wincing a little at the tacky feeling. Wonderful. Well, what McCoy didn't know...

[all7seas]

"Did you just call me....?


Right." Jack adjusted Horatio's position on his shoulders and forged ahead through sliding white sands. If he had known that Archie had aggravated the wound, he might have taken time to see to it, or perhaps even to call the doctor he had unknowingly mimicked. But he didn't.

[simplestgift]

Oh, no. Kennedy wasn't about to bring attention to this.

"How far to the house?"

[all7seas]

"Not very. You'll rest up, eh? You'll take something to eat and drink and rest before you think about returning, Kennedy. You can even spend the night if you wish--plenty of space."

They had to skirt the ruins of the old fort before passing between its walls and the sea; only then would they come upon Cullen House, its many windows that always needed washing catching the last glow of the sunset. It was a nice location by modern standards, and a horrible one by pirate standards, being so obvious and out in the open. But Jack had not wanted to toy with solitary coves when he was already so cut off from the world.

[simplestgift]

Kennedy rambled along quietly, checking the bleeding every now and again. It was slow, so maybe he could still get back before Jack found out about it. It would probably stop on its own, very soon. Upon seeing the Cullen House in its new location, he squinted.

"Is that a pair of legs lying there?"

[all7seas]

"What? You've never seen a house-killed witch before, Kennedy? Or do you just enjoy striped stockings?" The pirate's tone was mirthless as one of Horatio's arms flopped over and whacked him on the face.

"Oh bloody Hornblower......."

He had honestly forgotten that Katie's witch-legs were still there. And if anyone asked him about it, he would insist that they remain there. For luck, perhaps; pirates could be superstitious about such things, no matter how many witches they offended.

[simplestgift]

"The house must have crushed her while the legs continued walking, then. They're a goodly ways away."

[all7seas]

"There are stranger things under the moon, I suppose." With a grunt on the word "moon," Jack gave up on carrying Horatio and began to drag him, hands firmly planted under the other man's armpits, the rest of the way to the house, giving the disembodied witch legs a little wave as he passed them by. Horatio's heels made two even grooves in the sand as they went.

Sparrow had momentarily forgotten that Buffy would be home, probably waiting for him to return.