simon_doctor | (no subject)

(no subject)

It was an attempt to do something normal. Something comforting.
You try and you try / To untie the knots / With the grace of a sailor / And the will of a fox
It was a mistake, was what it was.
Both shaking like a leaf / Both staring at the lights / Both trying not to sleep / Both trying not to fight
The Complete Works of William Shakespeare wobbles precariously on the edge of the bed where she set it down too quickly, and the thump it makes falling to the floor is louder than the sound of Kaylee's footfalls receding hurriedly down the hallway.
And it`s nights like this / When I`m scared to death / Will the morning come quickly? / Will there be anything left?
He only stops long enough to pick it up before hurrying after her.
Here we go again

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The best place to go is the place where things will always make sense.

By the time he'll get to the engine room, she'll be peering into the case, her back to the door, her hands at work pulling her hair back, severely.

And now that he's followed her here, he has no idea what to say.
Here we go again
He hovers just outside, for a moment.

Funny thing about metal corridors -- they carry sound well.

Like the sound of off-key humming, accompanied by booted footsteps in a strangely swaying rhythm.

Jack Sparrow saunters past the corridor leading to the engine room, glancing sideways as he does-- and then stops, looking curiously at Simon.

"Well now. Hello there, mate."

Simon's head whips around, looking -- not displeased, but rather vehemently startled.

"Captain Sparrow? I, ah ... what are you doing here?"

Kaylee turns around, slowly, hands falling to her sides.

Her eyes go to Simon first. They linger on Jack, and then go back to Simon.

She turns around again.

"Exploring," he says, gesturing grandly at the corridor's walls, floor, toward the engine room and away again in the direction he'd been going.

"Was headed that way, savvy?" A beat, and a wicked grin. "And what mischief is it that you're seeing about being up to? The two of you," he adds, with exaggerated courtesy.

"...Nothing really. At the moment."

That is not the face of a young man up to any mischief at all, sadly.

Kaylee looks over her shoulder.

Smiles, a very little, at Jack. (It doesn't quite reach her eyes.)

Doesn't look at Simon.

"Didn't know you was on board."

"Might be maybe because I was waiting for the opportune moment to tell you," he answers promptly, but black eyes are gleaming with wicked promise as he looks back and forth between Kaylee and Simon.

Jack abandons his previous plan and strolls forward, swinging an arm around Simon's shoulders and dragging him along as he steps into the engine room. With his free hand, he gestures grandly around, saying,

"Don't suppose you'd be willing to explain what all the bits of shiny are here, lass?" A bright grin. "Bet the lad could stand to hear it, too. Criminal mastermind like him's the kind of fellow as needs to be familiar with all sorts of things, aye?"

Kaylee shoves her hands in her pockets. "I don't know." Her head tilts a little; her smile is still tiny, but it's taking on an air of challenge. "How much time you got? Hell of a lot of shiny in here, if you take my opinion for it."

Jack's still got an arm around Simon. Kaylee tries to tell herself that the awkward will go away if she focuses on Jack.

Yes.

Simon has made one surreptitious attempt to extricate himself from Jack's grasp, and then given up.

And ... he can't remember the last time he helped Kaylee out with any part of her job, and that's a tiny spasm of guilt.

"All the time in the world, luv. 'Course," he adds thoughtfully, "don't know how well that works when we're on a ship what's sailing between worlds herself."

Jack takes a step sideways, dragging Simon with him, and picks up a rainbow-colored parasol. He waves it around with a flourish at the room, then absently props it on his shoulder-- accidentally knocking Simon in the head with it.

"Sorry, mate."

"--ow."

Simon rubs at the side of his head, and tries very hard not to glower.

"Feds've got standard time -- UAPT. Stands for Union of Allied Planets Time. That's what we work off, mostly, out here -- only when we land somewhere we go by local -- watch it." Kaylee's mouth twitches, because really, her smile shouldn't be getting bigger because Simon got knocked in the head.

(For one thing, she's not mad at him. It's just -- it's funny.)

"That thing's a long way from home."

The parasol comes off his shoulder again as he waves it around to emphasize his point.

"Never been all that fond of what the official sorts like to be calling standard, savvy?"

To Simon,

"Didn't hit you that hard, son." A beat, and he looks curiously at him. "Don't do all that much fighting, do you?"

"I try not to. As a general rule."

He's trying to decide whether it would be prudent to step outside of the parasol's radius, if Jack keeps waving it around like that.

He's also trying to get over a sudden strong sense of the absurd.

"You got to measure time somehow," Kaylee says, reasonably. Also, judiciously ignoring the way Jack is waving the parasol. Simon's own fault if he gets hit. "Makes it a hell of a lot harder to earn a living if you don't."

"I like your style, mate." A beat, and a speaking glance at Simon's clothing. "Not that style. Much more better to negotiate than fight, though, aye?"

Jack looks entirely too smug all of a sudden, and points at Kaylee with the parasol.

"Measure it, or turn it around." A beat, as he reconsiders. "Never mind."

...okay, she won't mind.

Besides, what he said first is too amusing to let it go. "What's wrong with his style, huh?" A step forward, another, and she leans against the front of the engine casing.

Jack looks Simon up and down and makes a face, then gives her a horrified look.

"'S all... neat. Proper-like. Dull."

Pointedly, he spins the parasol around in brown fingers, sending the rainbow colors spiraling.

"You seem to have more of a liking for color, luv."

Simon glances from his own clothes to Jack's, and starts to speak. And then doesn't, as Jack addresses Kaylee.

"You don't," Kaylee points out. "So seems to me you ought to like his style."

Somebody is still bitter that she did not get to paint Jack's cabin purple.

(For some value of 'bitter'.)

And now Jack looks even more horrified.

"You can't possibly mean that, lass. Tell her--"

This to Simon, again, as Jack turns to look expectantly at him.

"--tell her, son."

"I ... it, ah, it doesn't really ..."

Simon stops. Glances at Kaylee.

Smooths his face to deadpan.

"I don't see why not. It might suit you."

"Never say nothin' I don't mean," Kaylee says, airily.

Feeling...obscurely reassured, somehow.