Fic post! "Maritime"
Title: Maritime
Author: miri_away
Date: July, 07
Type: Original
Genre: Humor, Gen,
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Harley glanced back at the screens and seriously considered biting her lip. Life on a ship is never stable: a gay twin brother, drunken uncle, and pirates on the wake, all before breakfast.
AN: I wanted a pun or some cute phrase. So I thought of the corniest titles, combined them, and then put it in a random situation and came up with this. P.S> I just noticed the title--which I changed at the last minute--and it's not the pun I was talking about; cookie for anyone who can get it.
--
Maritime
miri_away
"Harlz, dawling," Jenna-Jutsu drawled, "the galley needs new spoons and...such."
Harley couldn't help but think His Majesty was probably making a fool of himself with all his feminine gesturing and, from the sound of it, plastic heels. Even she wouldn't wear those on this ship...or any ship for that matter; to spare what little corners of her mind that hadn't been tainted from months at sea with her loud uncle and obscenely gay brother, she decided she would most definitely not look away from the screen.
"I said--"
"You were volunteering, right?" Papa grunted from his cot. Harley had known he was awake not two minutes before but had suspected he was on the verge of nodding off. As usual, she had been wrong when it came to him: not even a seasoned, weathered, leathery sea turtle could handle the grating falsetto that was Jenna.
The big man himself sat up and whistled for attention. Harley hates how automated her responses are.
Making his way down from the deck in an exaggerated swagger, a mock pout on thin lips and a mock want in too-thin, too-fast hips, Jenna-Jutsu made it plain he was only in the small room because he'd already been on the way (and not, he'd reason if asked, that he too answered the Whistle like the good hand he was). "Cap'n?"
"You two are in luck: that nice boy at the market is coming on board."
Harley raised her eyebrow. Jenna, not Jutsu, grinned.
Captain Icky went on to explain how he was tired of sending either one of "you twins" out on the town to fetch supplies and taking "you twins" back in with fines or restraining orders. Jutsu would normally argue that they never stayed long enough for those technicalities but then he probably remembered this was the third time they'd visited this port. The season was slow and their route had gotten smaller, shrinking into tighter rings that circled whatever land mass they ran into until, Kali help them, they ended up renting a room or two until they became stir crazy enough to set sail again. He wouldn't argue that having a cute towny on board, even to gather and drop off a list of things, wasn't such a bad idea.
"Right, so, when we get to shore?"
Captain Icky eyed his nephew with suspicion. Harley, feeling it her duty as an older sibling, did the only acceptable thing she could think of in terms of protecting her audacious excuse for a relative.
"Ow!"
"Obvious." She retorted.
Icky nodded in approval and went to repay the sea to the chorus of "why the boot? It's always your damn boots!"
Harley glanced back at the screens and seriously considered biting her lip. "The shore ain't movin'."
"Well, we haven't reset 'cause--"
"You've been at the bottle all night," she stated more than accused.
"Yes, but y're the control freak and took the watch and the wheel when you knew Icky had that duty--"
"You probably think that's worse than almost jumping overboard twice with my thong on but you must've forgotten, dear brother mine, that he was at the bottle with you and was in no shape to take watch. Dope."
"It was not dope; it was--"
She punched him, then dragged his face towards the infared image. "What do you see?"
"Besides your hairy armpits? OW! oh."
"What do we do?
He gave a good show that was titled: Thought About It. "Hope they're not police. Seriously, that blip could be anybody. Fishermen or, or a canoe full of fake Eskimos. Go to sleep and stop--oh dear gawd did it speed up? Is it fixing us with missile?"
She cursed herself for falling for the trick. However, thoughts of revenge and a nice nap fled with feeling as she checked the stats that returned after her last subtle ping. "Nope. Not patrol. Not even on the record. Pirates, Karate Boy. Whoda thunk: you end up right straight outta a hang over,"
"I am so sober now."
Holding off the distress call meant she could buy her family a few minutes of Bliss--so long as their stalkers didn't know they knew they were being a watched, they weren't a threat, oh she needed sleep-- and a chance to gloat. It might be her last. "Suck it up, tramp. What do we do?"
"Test?" He asked, shocked.
"Test." She nodded. "Life and death situation aside, how else am I supposed to ensure you're ready to sail your own ship? This is perfect! Lesson: Don't Drink Unka Iky's Piss-n-Moon-Shine-Martini-When-On-Duty."
"Enough lessons! It--we call for back up."
"Nope." Despite it all--the suddenly obvious call of gulls, the now frantic squips from the control board, and their uncle's faintly baudy singing--she remembered she was supposed to set an example. Instead, she played My Brother's Rock, and smiled reassuringly before reaching for her gun, just in case.
He grinned a shaky grin and continued as if it was one of her fire-or-fired tests and he was, as usual, failing. "Hope they'll let us off easy and only use handcuffs instead of whips?"
Quips aside, the atmosphere was thick. At least, she thought absently as she watched his hand move to his waist, Jutsu had the sense not to throw all of his blades overboard. Below deck, their uncle was clanking in the engine room, oblivious to the danger not far to the east of them. Right, back to business, their mother would usually say in a situation like this.
"We've got a shot at this port. Fifty-fifty. If we stay here any longer they'll catch up and we'll never make." Then, when she'd successfully turned the ship around slow enough to seem notfrantic, she glared at him. "If you hadn't mixed your god damn drinks--"
"Icky mixed those drinks. And they're Scottish, so there."
"You never could keep star charts."
"Whiner."
"Nagger." All the same, he looked anxious. Part of this life is drama: he knew, had to know, he was being watched by a high-frequency, long-range 'scope, probably one with a cross hair; she'd taught him to be cautious and saw he either wasn't awake yet or was playing the unconcerned, so-not-aware-of-impending-bullet cabin boy quite well. Or sick. "What--I'm gonna puke--should I tell him?"
She sighed. "Tell him that heterosexual pirates are coming."
He glanced out a west-facing window. "They can't all be hetero."
"Go get Icky. Now." When she could tell he was more nervous than anything, anything not related to a hang over that is, she hit him where it hurt because he could never deal with her brand of pain. "Maybe not," she admitted, watching his face fall before adding--because he was such a bad actor and would need real incentive to walk out this room knowing there was a laser dot on his chest-- "but they might all be female."
She prepared the controls and called in a few favors from her favorite gods. "Do what you do best," she muttered.
Her brother ran passed the threshold and, after years of tattle telling his shrill never lost its charm: "Papa Cap!"