I see the bad moon rising / I see trouble on the way

[lucetimods]

Who: Everyone!
What: There are these crazy masks everywhere, you see. And does the moon look strange to you?
When: The 23rd through the 30th. (If you want to backdate a thread in here to the 22nd for some reason, feel free. A separate log for the day of Halloween will go up at a later date!)
Where: Everywhere!
Summary: Things are starting to get a little spooky around here. What with masks that range from silly to creepy to downright menacing turning up everywhere, the people wearing them beginning to act strangely, and that menacing moon looking down.... why, it's starting to feel a little like Halloween.
Rating: Anywhere from G to hard R for violence, I'd imagine.

BOO!

.... ahem. Details are here! Have fun, everyone! (Oh, and please do remember to add character tags!)

Comments

[all7seas]

"I am sticking this dagger between my teeth, Kennedy."

Because Jack assumes that telling the truth isn't worth slicing his cheek open.

[simplestgift]

"Don't do that. You might hurt yourself. You fret about me coming to harm and then you do things, and it's as if you don't care if you live or die and it worries me very much, Jack."

[all7seas]

"Listen here and listen well: I care........very much about not-dying, Kennedy. You might say I've directed most of my energies for most of my life in the service of that one ideal. And I've done very well by it."

The dagger is not between his teeth...yet. Jack twirls it by the hilt, nervously.

[simplestgift]

"But you're always doing mad things, and perhaps you know what you're doing, but it frightens me. You frighten me, and not just for your own sake."

A pause. BACKPEDALING.

"B-but I don't think you'd hurt anyone, I..."

He manages to shut his mouth.

[all7seas]

"Then you're wrong." Jack's voice is cool; even. "I've hurt many people in my time, lieutenant. Some have deserved it; some have not. And some just get in the way."

[simplestgift]

"...But you're not cruel, are you?"

[all7seas]

"I've been called such, aye." He hesitates. Jack has done cruel things, though usually they've been for the good of those he cares about. "But cruelty is always a matter of perspective."

[simplestgift]

"It is. I've known the cruelest sort of man, and you are not much like him at all. Not really."

[all7seas]

"Hmmm? The cruelest sort, eh?"

Jack often wonders about Archie.

"Like I said; there's cruelty of different kinds. For example, I killed a man so his daughter might live."

[simplestgift]

"That isn't cruelty. That's simply a difficult choice."

[all7seas]

"In her eyes? It was the cruelest act I could have committed."

[simplestgift]

"But your intent was not cruel."

[all7seas]

"So you separate cruel acts from cruel intentions? Interesting."

1/2

[simplestgift]

"Jack, I gave up my good name to save Horatio from the noose. By his account, I must be terribly cruel."

done

[simplestgift]

And that's when Archie has his "oh shit" moment.

[all7seas]

"Hmmm? What's the matter?" Because Jack isn't quite seeing this connection. "Why would your sacrifice be cruel in Hornblower's eyes?"

[simplestgift]

So the part Archie really wasn't supposed to talk about isn't even the part Jack is focusing on. But he's been asked a question, so his mouth answers.

"Because he did not want me to do it. I was so very afraid he would ruin everything because he wanted people to know the truth about me after my death. I think the only reason I could get away with it at all is because I was dying anyway. Even now, he knows his career exists at the sacrifice of a dear friend's good name."

Stop. Talking.

[all7seas]

"Hmph. Seems to me he should be over the moon about it."

An ambitious man, after all. So Hornblower had tromped on his dying friend's good name as well as his wife's affections? Well, who was Captain Jack Sparrow to judge, really? It just seemed odd to see honorable Navy men committing those sorts of sins. Human nature; such an odd universal little animal of a beastie. Then:

"It also appears to me he is grateful, though, for you letting him step on your good name like that to get what he wanted. In my time, son? My name's all I've truly got left. Or was, til I got my Pearl back in her bottle and all." He still hadn't recouped all of the money he'd spent on bribes to help free Gibbs. "I don't take kindly to people using it in underhanded ways, especially if those underhanded ways do not in any way profit myself at all."

[simplestgift]

"Let me?" Oh, Jack, what did you just play with? "He tried to stop me, Jack. I didn't tell him what I was doing and he guessed too late. I had to beg him on my deathbed not to ruin it, and he still went and told my parents."

[all7seas]

"So what's the trouble? You gave it? He took it."

[simplestgift]

"He's not the sort who'd be happy with a man being convicted in his stead, Jack. Perhaps you are, but he wouldn't allow it for anyone, least of all a friend. Now most everyone believes I'm a mutineer back home, and he would not live with it for the world, but he must. It hurts him very deeply."

[all7seas]

"Perhaps I am, eh?" He wasn't. "I'm certain he's highly hurt by it an' all, Kennedy. Of course."

[simplestgift]

"Are you? I don't expect you two to like each other, but at least he respects my choice to be your friend."

[all7seas]

"Eh? What's THAT supposed to mean, hmm?"

[simplestgift]

"I mean, Captain Jack, that he keeps his opinion of you to himself. You make it no secret you hate him, and you leap headfirst on any chance to tell me so."