"Re-Ascending" (in my SH AU "A Study in Crimson" series), rated G (Watson's Woes' 2016 April Prompt)
Title: Re-Ascending
Author: gardnerhill
Verse: My Sherlock Holmes Pirate AU A Study in Crimson
Word Count: 221B
Rating: G
Warning: None.
Summary: A sequel to Ascent.
Author's Notes: For the April 2016 Watson's Woes Monthly Prompt, “Stormy Weather.”
***
Rain lashed my body. Thunder boomed. The Baker heaved up and down the ocean swells.
Captain Shear-Lock stood at the wheel, his attention focused only upon steering through the wild mess.
I looked straight up the mainmast to my goal, one hand fisted in a ratline, an ice ball in my gut. The last time I’d been up these lines I’d been flung off into the sea and nearly drowned (I still owed the bos’n Angel for saving my life). Aye, and it was because you let go the rigging like a green-horn, I reminded myself.
It was my turn to stand lookout, one-handed or no. I was a Baker. And I needed to prove to the captain that I’d learned my lesson.
I gripped the nearest ratline with my hand and pulled myself up.
The rain-soaked sails and rigging whipped back and forth, dousing as well as shaking me like a rat in a terrier’s mouth. I clung with hand and elbow-crook and feet, my saw-hand strapped to my back. At every sail-drop I hoisted myself up another line. Whip, drop, another line. Don’t look up, don’t look down.
I tumbled into the crow. Safe.
I saw the captain’s hands unclench from the wheel.
And only then did I realise that of all Captain Shear-Lock’s deeds, this was his bravest.
Author: gardnerhill
Verse: My Sherlock Holmes Pirate AU A Study in Crimson
Word Count: 221B
Rating: G
Warning: None.
Summary: A sequel to Ascent.
Author's Notes: For the April 2016 Watson's Woes Monthly Prompt, “Stormy Weather.”
***
Rain lashed my body. Thunder boomed. The Baker heaved up and down the ocean swells.
Captain Shear-Lock stood at the wheel, his attention focused only upon steering through the wild mess.
I looked straight up the mainmast to my goal, one hand fisted in a ratline, an ice ball in my gut. The last time I’d been up these lines I’d been flung off into the sea and nearly drowned (I still owed the bos’n Angel for saving my life). Aye, and it was because you let go the rigging like a green-horn, I reminded myself.
It was my turn to stand lookout, one-handed or no. I was a Baker. And I needed to prove to the captain that I’d learned my lesson.
I gripped the nearest ratline with my hand and pulled myself up.
The rain-soaked sails and rigging whipped back and forth, dousing as well as shaking me like a rat in a terrier’s mouth. I clung with hand and elbow-crook and feet, my saw-hand strapped to my back. At every sail-drop I hoisted myself up another line. Whip, drop, another line. Don’t look up, don’t look down.
I tumbled into the crow. Safe.
I saw the captain’s hands unclench from the wheel.
And only then did I realise that of all Captain Shear-Lock’s deeds, this was his bravest.