Skull and Dagger

“A ship with only two women on board,” Quinn continued to rant, a slightly drunken slur in his voice, “an’ the capsin…catspin…captain’s!” he finally got the right word with a victorious exclamation. “And the castpin doe’n’t even use ‘em right!” He finished angrily.

Jeph giggled in an inebriated manner. “If the captain was half backwards, he’d be catnip!”

Quinn found this equally hilarious in his current state and laughed uncontrollably for a minute before the anger took over him once more. “Waste ‘f a woman!” he practically roared.

“A real man woulda shown her who’s boss by now,” Jeph agreed, shakily trying to pour from one of the spouts in the nearby barrel into the mug. He thoroughly lacked the coordination to do so in his current state, however, and quite a bit of the dark liquor spilled onto the floor.

“Suzacatly!” Quinn exclaimed, raising his mug in Jeph's direction before taking another deep swig of ale. “Pretty little blond thing just begging for me to take her…” He abruptly slammed his fist down on the table, causing all the cups there to rattle. “I saw her first!” he insisted.

“Way firster,” Bert agreed from the back corner of the room where he’d passed out a bit earlier. It was quite clear that he had no idea what the conversation was about anymore, but he was too drunk to care.

“Yeah,” Quinn agreed dumbly, blinking a couple of times and trying to remember what he was talking about. “She’s mine!” he finally shouted out once he remembered.

The door to his cabin opened in response to that. Quinn and Jeph turned in surprise while Bert just groaned at the light that was being let in.

It took Gerard all of three seconds to figure out exactly why they all had such blank looks on their faces, and his eyes narrowed in response. “We can hear you shouting from the far side of the ship! Are you drunk?” he demanded disapprovingly.

“We are not *hic!* drunk!” Quinn insisted unconvincingly.

Gerard batted the foul-smelling air away from his nose. “You are drunk,” he sighed in annoyed. “Great. Just great!” His tone turned furious then. “What kind of second officer are you?!” he demanded. “You have duties! Responsibilities to this ship!”

“Oh yeah,” Quinn said with drunken sarcasm, “tell me all about them. Hey guys!” He turned to Jeph and Bert. “Listen up! Wayisius gonna tell the secret of how he got chosen to be first mate over me.” His eyes narrowed at Gerard, and he quickly leapt to his feet in an aggressive move.

Gerard rolled his eyes when Quinn's lunge brought on a wave of dizziness and the other man staggered about the room, muttering vague threats.

“I’ll get you…show you to order me around…take that slut ‘f yours for a ride, too…”

At that, whatever good humor Gerard had had about the situation vanished, and pure rage overtook him. Quinn gasped, wide-eyed, when he was suddenly thrown violently across the table. He landed right on one of the rickety wooden chairs, smashing it to pieces.

In an instant, Gerard had caught him up by his shirt again and threw him up against the wall. The young man’s normally hazel, brown eyes had turned a fiery black with rage, and he scowled at Quinn, not intimidated at the other man’s size for even a second.

“You. Never. Talk. About. Elizabeth. That. Way.” Each word was spoken with precise venom.

Quinn's eyes widened, and for the first time ever, he found himself afraid of Gerard's wrath. “I-I didn’t mean…” he began to laugh nervously, the extreme danger he was in sobering him instantly.

“NEVER!” Gerard shouted.

“N-Never!” Quinn agreed nervously.

Gerard's rage didn’t abate since he knew the other man didn’t really mean it, but at that moment he was distracted by a cry from on deck.

“Ship off the port bow!”

Gerard frowned at that and released Quinn. The drunken man slumped to the floor in relief. “You stay here,” Gerard directed the three of them. “The state you’re in, you’ll only cause trouble…” And, with that, he dashed out to see what was happening.