(Disclaimer: Pintel and Ragetti aren't mine.)
Just the Way it Should Be
Evening rolled in a few short hours later, and the Urchin's crew found themselves crowded below deck in their dining quarters once again. Pellinore had estimated that their next destination—a port in northern Jamaica—was only a few days away, and with no more enemies left to run from, he'd decided his men could all afford a dinner break. Pintel, to say the least, was wary about joining his fellow buccaneers, especially with Ragetti in tow, but he was too starving to pass the chance up. Besides, his younger mate needed to get back all the energy that he'd bled away earlier, and food was the only thing that could do the job properly.
After nearly five minutes of watching the kid stuff his face with everything in arm's reach, Pintel figured that Ragetti had realized this as well. The balding man rolled his eyes calmly at the humorous sight and turned his attention back to his own meal. There was no need to worry about the lad hogging too much of the pushy pirates' food; most of them had concluded that rum was a much more effective elixir anyway.
One such crewman was Cormac, who sat to the right of Ragetti. The scruffy crewman seemed to be particularly enjoying his brew that evening, and was laughing so hard from his comrades' stories about the battle that more of the drink was ending up in his beard than in his mouth. Then with an enthusiastic tilt backwards, he finally swigged down the rest of the rum and slammed his empty mug victoriously onto the table in front of him. Suddenly without anything to preoccupy his half-intoxicated mind, the pirate then turned to glance curiously at the boy beside him.
Ragetti wasn't wearing his bandage anymore; the bleeding had stopped a while ago, and he'd disliked how the homemade tourniquet kept covering his good left eye as well. Now there was nothing to prevent Cormac from staring straight into that empty little socket, and he keenly did just that. There was a pause as he watched the oblivious lad, smirking sadistically, and then a nasty idea sparked in the drunk pirate's head.
Keeping his eyes on the ten-year-old, Cormac calmly reached down and felt around inside his weathered jacket. A second later, he found what he'd been fishing for, and carefully drew out the brand new prize he'd stolen from a fallen enemy that morning: a pistol. Without further delay, he adjusted his grip on the weapon and pointed it directly at Ragetti's head.
The youngster gave no response as he continued eating.
Cormac's lips stretched to hold back laugher. The kid couldn't see it! That little idiot couldn't see anything on his right side! A small chuckle managed to escape at that point, but the crewman quickly covered it up and moved his pistol closer. Now it was right next to Ragetti's face, still unnoticed.
Cormac paused again to bask in his glorious discovery, and he would've moved the gun closer still, but at that moment, Ragetti finished pounding a hardtack roll down his throat and decided he wanted another one. The boy heartily reached for the bowl again, turning his head slightly to the right as he did so. And just like that, he forgot all about his pressing hunt for food.
"Ahh!"
Ragetti flew back the instant he saw the gun, tumbling off of the bench and scrambling backwards to huddle against the wall. Pintel's head snapped around when he heard the commotion, and when he saw Ragetti fuming silently on the floor and Cormac waving his pistol, he realized what'd just happened.
Cormac cackled loudly at the boy's rewarding reaction. "Cert'n'ly took yeh long enough to notice it, yeh lit'l Cyclops!" he crowed.
Pintel growled and stood up. "Wot the bloody 'ell are yeh doin' aimin' that fing at 'im?!" The entire crew's conversation abruptly came to a halt.
"Oi, easy, mate!" Cormac said as he also stood. He calmly lifted his pistol, revealing that it wasn't even cocked. "I was just foolin' with the kid!"
"Foolin' wif 'im?!" Pintel echoed hotly.
Cormac nodded with a hint of spite. "Aye. I just wanted to see if 'e could see me pistol comin' next to 'im!"
Pintel was about ready to tear the other man's head off. "His eye's missin'!"
"I know," Cormac said, flashing a sneer of a smile. "An' he didn't see it comin'!"
Under any regular circumstance, Pintel would've gladly slugged Cormac in the face at this point, but a short distance away, forgotten on the floor, Ragetti slowly looked up at his mocker with an expression of almost uncharacteristic anger. In the course of three days, he'd been trapped under a table, stabbed in the eye, terrorized by a crewman, and now this miserable fellow was taunting him viciously for his injury. It was all building up inside the boy, all the pain and fright he'd been forced to endure, and at that moment, something snapped in his head, and the wild dog mind that Pintel had once forbidden suddenly returned to Ragetti with a vengeance. He noticed Cormac's other hand dangling at his side as the pirate scoffed his last comment, then letting go of his timid child thoughts, the lad leapt to his feet, grabbed the hand, and did the first thing he could think of.
He bit it.
Cormac screamed, and an instant later, Pintel did slug him in the face. The blow sent the taller man toppling backwards, crashing erratically into the other two crewmen beside him, but even that wasn't enough to satisfy Pintel's blind rage. The stocky pirate immediately seized Cormac by the arms, and with a roar of effort, threw his enemy straight across the table. There was a chorus of angry shouts and tumbling wood as Cormac crashed to the floor on the other side, and Pintel and Ragetti briefly exchanged approving glances. They had both enjoyed that immensely.
Pintel scowled across the table at his dazed opponent again. "Yeh see that comin'?"
Cormac responded by springing back up and hurling himself at the shorter man. The two collided loudly and went down, but rum had decided the victor long before any of their punches could; Pintel easily threw Cormac off of him and put another fist to the drunkard's face.
At that point, Rub had decided that he didn't like Pintel either, and dove off of the bench to add his two cents to the fight. No sooner did he do this than Wood leapt up to stop him with an elbow to the gut, and the pair were suddenly caught in their own one-on-one face-off. Rub growled and delivered a blow to Wood's bandaged right arm, earning a painful howl from the younger man, and Yager urgently jumped in to break them up. Across the table, Ashby also remembered that he didn't like Cormac and threw a loaded rum mug at him. However, not wanting to cast away his own alcoholic beverage, he'd snatched up the impromptu weapon from the crewman next to him. The crewman, Snitch, voiced his disapproval by slamming Ashby onto the tabletop face-first.
Before long, it was a total free-for-all. The entire crew was at each other's throats, punching and tackling everyone in sight for any reason they could think of—pointless or legit—and Pintel and Ragetti were right in the middle of it. Pintel still wasn't finished with Cormac; he'd let the lousy thug walk all over him before and hated himself for it, but now that brute had pulled a fast one on Ragetti, and the balding protector wanted to pound the regret right out of him for it. Behind the two, hopping rowdily onto the table, Ragetti snatched up a wooden bowl and wildly proceeded to swing it at anybody who wasn't Pintel. All the while, the kid was barking and yapping at the top of his lungs—he was loving every second of this brawl.
Unfortunately for Ragetti, the fun was doomed to be short-lived, and the deafening sounds of shouting and crashing quickly traveled above deck to the captain's cabin. A minute later, heavy footsteps came thundering down the steps and Pellinore arrived lividly onto the scene. The Englishman's blazing eyes scanned his disorderly crew, then he lunged ahead and forcefully yanked Jiminy out of the fray.
"Who started this?"
Just like that, the ruckus died and all heads turned to gawk at their commander. Jiminy recoiled at Pellinore's furious tone and frantically pointed. "Aye… it were Mr. Pintel and the kid started it, Cap'm!"
The seething captain had little trouble believing this.
"Pintel!" he blasted when he spotted the stocky figure. "Explain yourself!"
The other did so with casual frankness. "It's quite simple, Mr. Pellinore." He paused to haul Cormac up by the collar. "This sot was tauntin' Ragetti 'ere, pointin' 'is pistol at 'im!" Then he looked over at Ragetti for confirmation. "Ain't that right?"
The lad bobbed his head up and down huffily. "Pointin' 'is pistol…" he mumbled.
Pellinore nodded arrogantly at this answer, showing a much deeper meaning in his eyes. "Oh yes, at the very same boy I told you not to bring onto my ship in the first place, Mr. Pintel."
The bald crewman sneered and released Cormac, throwing him back harshly. Seeing that he had the upper hand, the captain continued in a coolly snide tone.
"His youthful carelessness has given him a remarkable talent for getting into trouble. Perhaps you should better exercise keeping both eyes on him, seeing how he cannot do so himself."
The room erupted with laughter. Pellinore forced a triumphant look onto his face for the sake of the moment, then turned to leave. Right before he completely showed the crew his back though, his eyes shifted over to Cormac's and lingered briefly on the dazed pirate. Pintel caught this furtive glance, and once the captain was gone, he turned to study Cormac as well. The taller pirate still had his new pistol in hand, and he was fingering it curiously, seeming to consider a hidden understanding that Pellinore had communicated to him through that look. Realization suddenly flashed in his eye, and he brought the weapon a little closer, trying to conceal it.
And then he cocked it.
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Soon to be updated…
