Pintel's life was not going okay.

On the plus side, he'd survived a decade of decay both physically and somewhat mentally.

What was threatening to drive that last bit of sanity away was the fact he'd been stuck in a dirty cell, guarded by soldiers who never seemed to run out of petticoat jokes. There were precisely three jokes and each one had been told differently a hundred times.

Two, he had fleas. He was certain they were fleas, he'd had them once before, and they didn't bear forgetting. Getting used to them was a big pain in the ass.

Another pain in the ass was huddled over in the corner, making pathetic noises and rubbing at a swollen eye-socket, wooden prosthetic in his other hand. Pintel had stopped bothering to tell him not to rub it. What was the point? If it made him happy, let the fool scratch his flesh off and get even more infected. Pintel scowled at his general direction when the sounds became more distressed.

"What is it now, then?" He snapped, scratching at his hair. "Splinters again? Don't expect me to help you pluck 'em out. Told you to leave that damn thing away from your face."

He looked up at the lack of response, already feeling bad for it. Ragetti was touching the reddened flesh around the socket gingerly. Not even arguing with Pintel for his harsh words, his sole attention was on his hurt. Must be hurting something awful then.

"Put some water on it, aye?" Pintel asked, nudging the pitcher over to Rags. Ragetti shook his head and pushed it back.

"Nah, not this water. G-Guard pissed in it while you was sleepin'." There was a tone to that. Pintel expected the guard had done more than soil the water.

"And he did what else?" Pintel demanded, not one to let things lie.

Rags could tell he was getting riled up and tried to budge around it. "Water don't help none. Just stings more. G-Got a pin? I can tr-try to get the splinters out m'self." No, he couldn't. Even if he had a mirror. Ragetti and Pintel both knew it was just a fancy way of asking help. And they also both knew that Rags wouldn't behave well during the process, however he might try.

"Not a good idea to be poking' it, and they took all manner of sharp things off my person when we was interned here. Water or nothing', Rags. And you can pour the piss out the window for all I care, it's water they'll be givin' ye." Pintel snapped.

"H-He said we weren't to be getting' water till I drank it all," Ragetti said plaintively avoiding Pintel's gaze. It wasn't the first time he'd been forced to either.

"He said what?!" Pintel yelled, fired up. "Damn the lot to hell e'er they was born!" He marched to the bars and grabbed the pitcher, hurling its contents out into the corridor. It hit the wall, making a stink and slopping down the bricks.

Ragetti moaned and covered his head. They'd come charging now with their sticks and their fists, why didn't Pintel ever bloody think before he started a fight anymore? It was the both of them that caught it in the end!

"Get yer stinkin' crusted strumpet holes down here an' give us proper water!" Pintel yelled, among other colorful words and phrases. In fact, Pintel quite lost himself in his virulent swearing, shaking the bars and kicking them, making all kinds of racket.

It was unfair. He was alive, Ragetti was alive and he'd promised Ragetti about the glass eye and he ought to be able to keep the promise even if it meant they still hanged in the end. Pintel didn't like breaking promises. One of the reasons he seldom ever made them.

He didn't stop until he almost couldn't breathe, lungs heaving for it and too dazed to notice the lack of guards that should have been opening the cell door in a hurry. He could take all of them in the rage he was in.

And then he heard it, the sharp pants of terror in the corner and his courage flagged, determination sinking downwards in a spiral. Because he remembered he couldn't take them all, not before they got to Ragetti. Pintel gave a nervous glance up the hallway, but the guards on duty weren't running down the stairs on some sadistic delayed reaction either.

They had to have heard them. There were guards on duty, right?

He knew he and Rags were now to be the last ones hanged; they'd just strung up poor Willie two mornings ago. The guards had made them stand before the window. Pintel watched but Rags kept trying to turn his face, which hadn't gone at all well. The way Pintel saw it, they weren't serious enough to warrant for more than entertainment. Well, that might still happen later when the guards came back and saw the lovely message left on the wall.

Rags was in a state. His back was against the wall, arms bunched across his chest, good eye wild and staring up and down the hallway. His whole frame shook and his posture suggested that while he was just as indignant at their treatment, he was too damned beaten and sick to hold up well under the consequences of complaining.

Three more minutes and nobody came. "They're ignorin' us," he said, trying to placate Ragetti. "S'allright. They're probably dry and comfy by a fire somewhere in this blasted weather we're havin'. Probly didn't here a thing."

"Tha's good," Ragetti muttered, rubbing at his arms. "Cause it's gonna be bad enough without all the things you called 'em." Pintel looked at his friend and waited for the giggle that 'oh, but they been frightfully good ones.' But if all that was to be said it was said with a shady little grin that passed over Rag's face. No giggle out of him, not even a nervous one.

Pintel felt a twist in his gut. He didn't want to lose Ragetti before the lad was even on the gallows deck. Things were bad enough. "Rags . . ." he started, reaching out for the younger man.

A soft pattering began behind them and Rags blinked turning to the window. He lifted his face and moved toward the bars, closing his eye. The raindrops marked clear patches upon his cheek as Pintel watched in consternation. Ragetti had always hated the rain since it was followed by gales of wind and thunder and stinging cold spray off the sea.

But now he was smiling into it. The boy had apparently lost whatever marbles still lay rolling about in his skull, and Pintel didn't know what to do or say at a time like this. He simply watched, warily, until Rags, face wet and streaked with dirt, pulled back his face and ran his fingers through strands of wet dirty hair, smiling strangely. Rags licked the moisture off his dry lips, swallowing the water as though they were drops of the finest wine. He looked at the window again, smiling. "Thank ye," he said softly, sounding touched.

"Thank who?"

"Th'Lord. For the rain."

Pintel stared blankly. ". . . Wot?"

"The rain - it 'elped I think. I ain't afraid of it. And its water. E's sendin' us some water to make up for the guards I think. Someone's lookin' out for us, aye?" Ragetti's face was broken with a smile. Pintel just looked at him.

"Someone's lookin' out for us?" he spat, words acid and Ragetti recoiled from him immediately, ducking his head. Pintel grit his molars to keep from saying another word further, mindful that he'd done enough damage just adding fuel to the guard's fire. But that had been too much to keep entirely quiet on. Someone looking out for them indeed.

In this prison you didn't pray to God, you prayed to a dog with keys and to the Devil with your dignity.

And speaking of the Devil, there came a jangling as the beast walked up from the lower prisons to settle beneath a bench and put his head down on his forepaws. Pintel sneered at the dog which didn't deign to grace him with a bored glance.

"God is," Ragetti said quietly. "It's been hot days on end. Well, it ain't much, but it's somethin', isn't it?"

"If you expect me to start singin' hymns for a bit of rain, you're off your block, Rags." There wasn't a bite to it this time, but Pintel wasn't happy to be anywhere near this conversation right now.

The dog sneezed from under the bench. Pintel ignored it. Rags on the other hand, said, "God bless you." And he meant it. Just to prove a point.

Pintel's eyes rolled nearly to the back of his head before there was another jangling and a thump. He looked to see the dog had lifted its head, ears perked and tail wagging in interest. That tail hadn't ever wagged before.

"Rags, say that again?"

"Say wot?"

"God bless ye?" Pintel tried himself. The dog cocked his head and one paw shifted towards them.

Rags was paying attention now. He and Pintel looked at one another. "Here boy," Pintel tried, grinning full of rotted teeth. The dog stared back and huffed, settling back on his side to regard them. "Good God," Pintel spat in disgust, "Why'd I even get my hopes up--"

"Look!" Rags pointed.

The dog rolled back onto its belly, looking expectant for something.

"You don't think --" Pintel groaned suddenly, figuring it all out. Rags looked at him questioningly. Pintel looked exasperated for a moment longer and then pursed his lips whistling. "Here, God! There's a good boy, God, you come right here you scurvy mongrel!" he exclaimed. The tail wagged again. Its owner scooted forward a foot, crawling on his belly.

Ragetti looked on in quiet shock. "Tha's the bugger's name?"

"Apparently! Here, God," Pintel said firmly, patting his knee. He smirked as the dog wriggled forward another few feet. It whined and got up, just out of reach still. "Who in their right mind would name a dog God?"

"It's backwards for dog, tha's what," Ragetti said, clearly disapproving. "Don't mean nothin', jus someone bein' clever with their letters is all," he said hopefully. "Cause otherwise it's blasphemy."

"Sit, God! Good boy!" Pintel ordered, beaming. He reached out and took the keys. They felt good in his hand, a solid weight and cool to the touch. Freedom.

"Nah, nah, he didn't mean it, don't sit, m'sorry," Ragetti mumbled, crossing himself in a tizzy of fright and probably listening for the telltale signs of horrible thunder outside. The only sound to be heard was the amused gurgling of rainwater in a gutter above.

Pintel pulled on the keys gently, but the dog didn't let go. It was expecting something in trade, probably a treat. Pintel didn't have anything resembling a biscuit in his pockets and if he had it wouldn't have been an acceptable bribe at all.

Ragetti was pressing his hands together and it was a loud clatter of cart wheels raking across the cobbles than an actual exclamation from the heavens that startled him into dropping his eye. The dog's ears perked right up and Pintel grabbed the offering as it rolled to him.

"'Ere we go, like a tasty chew-thing?"

"Pint, no!" Ragetti wailed and Pintel held it against the dog's nose, heedless of the thin man flailing upon him to grab back his treasure.

The dog sniffed at it and Pintel pushed Ragetti back, bouncing the eye on the floor. The dog barked, keys dropping from its mouth and Pintel tossed the eye at it as he scrabbled for the keys. It happily ran after the prosthetic and shortly Rags heard wood being gnawed upon. "Pint," he whined. "He's gonna break it --"

"Quiet," Pintel hissed, trying another key. That didn't fit either. Christ. Would be just his luck if the dog carried around keys belonging to a different building. A right laugh it would be, wouldn't it? Damn guards. There! Something gave and the lock popped open. Pintel opened the door, wincing at the creak and started up the steps, but not Ragetti.

Ragetti knelt at the bench. "Give me back me eye," he begged, reaching for the dog. Pintel heard something and grabbed Ragetti's arm.

"Glass eye, lad. If we make it alive, I'll get ye a glass one somehow, I swear it. This isn't the time to niddle with that thing cause you're in no state to wear it!"

The dog got up however and ran ahead of them, still chewing on the eye. Pintel ran ahead, keeping a firm hand on Ragetti's wrist.

He started down one alley, and God ran down another, and Ragetti suddenly broke free and ran after the mongrel making Pintel stumble and stop. Fuck. He cursed and ran after the man, they were going the wrong way! He ran too fast to notice that in the direction he'd been heading, a troop of red-coats were just making their way out of a tavern, ready to relieve their colleagues of their posts at the Fort. More importantly, Pintel was down the alley after the boy and the damn dog before the soldiers had noticed i them /i .

"Come back with me eye! Heel!" Ragetti wailed, and Pintel cursed, having a hard time keeping up. The dog made a good run of it, outrunning Rags who easily outran Pint with those damned long legs and by the time he stopped beneath a pier, Rags was scolding the dog and demanding the return of his precious wooden trinket. Pintel leaned against a post and breathed hard, not sure whether to want strength back in his legs first so he could kick Ragetti in the arse or in his hands so he could wring the boy's neck. He didn't know how much time they'd wasted, but now they had to somehow regroup and get to the docks

Then Pintel blinked. Oh.

"Good boy," Pintel wheezed and glanced over at a small boat tied to the end of the pier. It floated underneath in thigh deep black water, knocking against the sides of the dock gently. It was no trouble to get to it. Rags left off once Pintel said they'd be taking the mongrel with him. Eventually the dog had gotten tired of trying to break the wooden ball in his jaws. He was now licking the sides of his muzzle roughly, trying to dislodge splinters.

"Don't much care for that, do ye?" Rags snapped, and rinsed his eye off in the water. He popped it in, satisfied, until the saltwater made him pop it right out again, howling and scrubbing at the area. Apparently someone had forgotten what salt felt like on wounds. Pintel exploded with laughter, hands leaving the towline to clutch at his sides.

Rags joined a moment later, finally laughing and it was as good to hear as anything. The rain beat down on the water around the dock and the dog made a low sound of warning at something which ceased the merry-making. Pintel and Ragetti looked across the water to see rowboats full of soldiers - more than he'd ever seen in Port Royal - making their way to shore. A horse joined them on a towed barge, rider atop it, glowering calmly ahead.

Rags shrunk a little against Pintel, watching. "Why so many soldiers?" he whispered. Pintel shrugged, not sure. Clearly there was some to-do going on which was why there'd been no guards around. A change of command it seemed. Both heard orders given on the beach.

i Find the Governor's daughter, do not harm her, deliver her in custody to me. You there, go find a blacksmith's shop by the name of -- /i

"I don't know but it ain't concernin' us. We's stayin' put while they go off to find what they're lookin' for. When the rowboats stop, we'll head out, right then?"

Rags nodded and they settled into silence in the boat. The dog curled up at their feet and found something better to chew on.

"Pint . . . You still think there's nobody lookin' after us?" Ragetti asked, smirking.

"You hush. Or they're gonna be lookin' after one less," Pintel warned. Ragetti smiled, satisfied, until he happened to look down and saw what the dog was chewing on.

"Oi! You bad dog! That's the Bible!" He hissed, reaching down to grab it from the dog, but Pintel put an arm around Ragetti and held the lad still from it.

"Leave it. It's the damn funniest thing I seen all day."

"Pintel!" Ragetti fussed, but he didn't squirm away. He stared down as God happily gnawed teeth holes into the leather cover of the book and dribbled all over the third page of Genesis. He also realized this was the first time in years that Pintel could actually touch him.

"Good dog I guess," he muttered figuring it was a decent enough tradeoff for things. He closed his eye and leaned against Pintel's shoulder. It was rather warmer than he remembered.

END