milliways_bar | (no subject)

Entry tags:

gibbs,
jack sparrow

(no subject)

Gibbs works the deck this fine midsummer's morn, singing a song about the life and death of the legendary Captain Kidd. Alas, it's not a song with a happy end as Captain Kidd made for the gallows. But sometimes songs learned in youth have a way of sticking with you.

Come say hello to the old pirate.

[ooc: online much of the day but there will be pauses for errands and such, and offline for the weekend at 5 pm Eastern]

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[ooc: here for an hour and a half, and could not resist the chance!]

"Mr. Gibbs."

The voice comes from behind him, as Jack saunters along the deck in his direction.

Jack Sparrow's been sleeping less these days. It goes with the increasing restlessness.

"You're in a fine and feisty mood this morn."

"Good morning, Captain." Gibbs smiles for a moment, before seeing how lousy Jack looks. "Yes, I suppose I am. Things have been better of late here, for me."

"Glad to hear it." Jack flashes a sharp grin back at him, and the morning sunlight gleams from the gold of a tooth.

He strolls up to the railing and places both hands on it, looking out over the water.

"Ship's in good shape today. She's as ready as she ever is." Though she still has no place to go. "Would be a find day to sail."

Brown knuckles visibly whiten as his grip tightens on the wood.

"Aye, and it would be at that."

Jack lets go with one hand, spinning to face Gibbs.

"Don't suppose as you might happen to have a heading in mind?"

He sounds perfectly serious.

"Er, well, we could take her around the lake, just to let her free for a bit." Gibbs takes the captain's requests seriously, even if he thinks it would be an insult to ship and crew to sail on this puddle.

He seems to be considering it. Jack takes a few steps toward the stern, trailing his hand over the wood and looking up toward the black sails above them.

"Just for a bit. Find her another harbor."

"Shall I make ready?" He tries to sound enthusiastic.

It's an attempt, aye-- but Jack whirls around, eyeing him.

"Something the matter, Mr. Gibbs?"

"If the captain is asking...well, this lake is fine for a small vessel, it's true. But for the Pearl...she deserves better." He knows Jack won't get too angry. Right?

"Aye. That she does."

He turns away again, this time tangling one hand absently in a hanging lanyard.

"Much more better than this."

Gibbs pauses. He can feel it, somehow. The time is near. The time to return Jack to the world is coming.

"Captain, are you supposin' that soon she and you will be back on the seas?"

"Something strange in the wind this morn," he mutters-- but Jack's face hardens as he spins back to Gibbs.

"Need I be reminding you, Mr. Gibbs, that I'm a man what's found himself caught in death and floating on a lake far from any ocean that ever was?"

Black eyes are glittering with something near-feral.

"No, sir, captain, sir. You need not." Gibbs does quiet for a second. He does sometimes nearly forget that the Jack he knew is dead, and that in some ways this Jack is a shade.

"What's in the wind?"

"Thought not."

And just like that, he's grinning with wicked cheer once more.

"Just means as there's something what's more of a trick needs be figured out."

Jack tips his head back, looking up at the sky and the clouds.

"I don't rightly know-- might be something of the sort that's come to be natural for here, or..."

"It's midsummer today, captain. Perhaps that means something here? With the sun so high and all?"

"Wouldn't be surprised at all, Mr. Gibbs."

Jack glances over at the other man, grinning.

"Seen stranger things than that by far."

"Aye. And most of them aren't here." OK, he actually hasn't SEEN the strangeness of the world. But he has heard much of it. "There was one midsummer, I recall, when the sun didn't set. When it was light from dawn one day to night the next."

Jack cocks his head sideways, rattling the beads in his hair.

"How's that work then?"

He sounds intrigued.

"I think that if you sail far enough north, the sun doesn't entirely set. I met a sailor from Russia once, many long yers ago, who even said that in his native land there are whole weeks where it's never dark at this time of year, and that in the winter the sun never rises at all." A horrifying thought to a resident of the tropics. "Of course, I was lucky enough never to be sent so far north as to see that."

He shudders violently.

"Suppose it's needed to deal with all the ice and cold what's up that way."

"I think the sun itself is not wanting to be with that cold and ice. Any more than we are." A winter in the Bar has cured Gibbs of any nostlagia for English winters.

"Can't argue with that."

Jack's lazy drawl is very grim.

"Still, it's a strange sight, seein' the Sun refuse to set, hovering over the sea. Somehow, that strikes me as wrong." He looks at the normal-seeming sky above. "Better to have the sun act as the sun should."

"Doesn't seem as though that's a worry we have to have here, Mr. Gibbs."

"No, it seems not. But in this place, with the universe fallin' apart outside the window and the odd creatures lurking, can we ever be certain?" Gibbs still hasn't got full faith in the Bar.

"Not much what we can be certain of, save the two important things," Jack reminds him, in easy companionable tones.

"I'm good with it."

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