Chapter Text
Jack was in hell. He was pretty sure this was a circle of hell.
Admittedly careening was never what you would consider a fun time off the ship, but this time had been plagued with what he could only refer to as ‘the kind of fuckery expected of lesser ships.’
It didn’t help that he wasn’t terribly good at careening. Too skinny to lend weight to the leveraging of the ship to one side, too gangly to fit into the bilge to find holes to patch, not great at even application of tar and pitch, but what he was good at was distraction and sewing. The first was handy in the sense of keeping the men happy with both fuck tent and food, the second meant his contribution was in the sails, which he could deal with from the shade of a tent instead of toiling under the sun.
Anne was the smallest, which meant she was scrabbling around in the bilge corking holes. She would come out of it every few hours, reeking of death and piss, suck back an entire bottle of rum, and vanish back with her teeth sunk into an orange to ward off the scent.
The ship creaked, inching further onto its starboard side, and a streak of rust bolted out, heading straight for Jack’s shade. Flint stopped on the sail Jack was currently fixing, shaking sand out of his fur and looking at Jack like it was his fault.
“Don’t look at me,” Jack told the cat, eyeing him as he kept at his work, “Anne offered you a perfectly good box to stay in and you shunned it. You get crushed by the ship it’s your own damn fault.” Flint’s tail flicked a couple times, staring Jack down before settling to clean the sand from between his toes. Jack hm’ed in approval, moving to a different part of the sail so as to not dislodge the cat. Once the animal’s feet were clean, he trotted up to Jack, rubbing his head against his elbow.
“Absolutely not. The last time I pet you I had a snake in my bed.” Flint butted against him again, the stitch he was working on going into the sail crooked. Jack stopped, sighing and glaring ahead. He wasn’t going to let a cat bully him into attention. He had one of those already, and he captained the ship, the four-legged one could harangue Anne.
“Barking up the wrong tree, cat.” Flint chirped at him, climbing over his lap to get his attention away from the project in front of him. “Wrong tree!” he repeated, scooping the cat up and depositing him on his other side. Flint’s tail smacked him in the arm, the cat apparently not letting this go without a parting word. Jack ignored it, pulling up the second torn sail to start repairs on. Pain exploded in his elbow and he jerked back, half expecting to have rammed it into a rock or something. Flint stood behind him, licking his chops and looking so damn smug about biting him that Jack saw red.
“MOTHER FUCKER!” Charles’s head shot up at the shout, surprised by Jack’s lung capacity more than the actual words. Sighing, he sat the bucket of tar down, walking around the side of the Ranger to see what his quartermaster was bellowing about. Jack was throwing things at Flint, the cat just out of range of Jack’s arm and looking downright affronted that he would get such a reception. “Bite me again you goddamn ginger goblin, I’ll turn you into a fucking muff!”
“Hey!” Jack and the cat both snapped up to look at Charles, advancing on the pair. Jack took the distraction as an opportunity, throwing the fid he’d been holding at Flint, the handle smacking the cat in his giant head. Flint yowled, more angry than hurt, streaking off into the brush away from the beach.
“That red monstrosity fucking bit me,” Jack growled, sounding uncharacteristically angry as he held up his arm. Charles was about to say how bad it could be, but whatever bite was under Jack’s shirt was already bleeding through. Fucking cat. Charles was pretty sure Anne was the only member of the crew that hadn’t been bitten by it yet.
“It’s a cat. It bites.”
“Oh you’re on his side, Chaz?”
“It’s. A fucking. Cat.” Charles enunciated, knowing full well what his face was doing in the direction of his quartermaster. “Shouldn’t you be used to redheads biting you by now?”
“Oh for-” Jack made an exasperated noise, kicking at the bucket he’d been sitting on. “Don’t you start, I’m already bleeding.”
“Go find the cat.”
“.......You can’t be serious.”
“You scared it off. I didn’t. I’m not dealing with Anne when it’s missing. Get going, before it runs as far as Nassau.” Which is how Jack managed to be stomping down the road, kicking at bushes looking for the fucking cat. This was hell. Hell was looking for one fucking cat on an island, bleeding and hot and secretly hoping the damn thing was eaten by a snake.
“Flint! Flint, damn your fucking hide, get back here!” he hadn’t expected a response, which was good, because he didn’t get one. After an hour, he was debating the merits of just telling Anne he’d lost the fucking cat and suffer the anger and the sulking. If the cat wasn’t in the next barn he encountered he was going to do it.
There was a house near the barn, and Jack reasoned that it would probably behoove him to request permission to look around for the problematic pile of fur, if for no other reason than to avoid getting shot by the owner. He knocked on the door, taking his hat off in an attempt to look more respectable.
“Pardon me, ma’am, we’re careening nearby and our ship’s cat seems to have gotten away from us. Have you seen him, perchance?”
Miranda wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting when she opened the door, but a man in his mid-twenties that was at least half-beanpole with a reasonable attempt at manners wasn’t it. It made the second visitor she’d had that day, the first being what she suspected was the man’s cat, shooting through her open front door and under her skirts like he owned the place. She’d already become fond of the orange grumpy-faced thing.
“Would it by any chance be an orange one? Large, angry faced, prone to acting like it owns wherever it stands?”
“Yes, ma’am, that sounds like you’ve met Flint.” Miranda’s hand made it to her mouth before the laugh left her, but it was a near thing. Flint. The cat’s name was Flint.
“What’s your ship, Mr....”
“Rackham. John Rackham. Quartermaster for the Ranger.”
“Well, Mr. Rackham, I suppose you’d best come inside. Wouldn’t do for you to lose......Flint...” she swallowed the mirth as best she could, “to another open door.”
“Thank you, ma’am.” Jack took the invitation, stepping over the threshold and standing awkwardly in the doorway while she shut the door. He liked the small house immensely. “I do apologize for the intrusion, it’s not like Flint to run off like this.”
“Would his escape have anything to do with why you are currently bleeding, Mr Rackham?” Jack had the decency to look sheepish, and Miranda could easily guess the rest. Cat had bitten him, he’d chased the cat, the cat had picked her of all places as asylum. She was beginning to wonder if she’d developed a reputation among the red-haired creatures of the island for being a place of safety when the world was raging at them. “If you would be good enough to sit, I’ll bind that for you. Would hate to have you bleeding on my rug.”
“Where the fuck is Jack?” Anne asked Charles, dumping a bucket of seawater over herself. She smelled like a soaked shitbucket, but the caulking had been finished. Charles was still a mess of tar smears and stuck sand himself, but they were going to be able to float the Ranger again in the morning, so it was worth it.
“Looking for Flint, probably. Bastard ran off.”
“Th’fuck’d he run off for?”
“It’s a cat. I assume it ran off because it’s a cat.” Charles chucked his boots further up the sand, walking into the sea to try and scrub off without any further addition. Anne glared up the beach in the direction she imagined Jack had gone before joining him. Jack had better return with the cat, or she was walling him into the bilge and leaving him there.
Jack returned with the cat just before nightfall.
Anne wasn’t sure where he’d gotten what looked like a picnic hamper to box the little bastard in with, but it did the job, even if Flint looked like he’d never been more offended in his life. Anne didn’t care, lifting the giant ginger into her lap and giving him a good scratch behind the ears, setting off an immediate cacophony of purring.
“Thought you fuckin’ lost him.” Anne grumbled in Jack’s direction once they were in the tent. Flint sniffed at her chin, giving her a disgusted face before settling in to lick Anne’s face as clean as he could possibly manage.
“Would it have been so bad if I had?” Jack asked with an attempt at levity. Anne would have likely answered him, but Flint was paying particular attention to a corner of her nose and she didn’t want to risk him sticking a paw in her mouth.
“Th’fuck it take you so long for? You’re supposed to be so smart and you can’t catch a fuckin’ cat?”
“Being clever and being fast are, pardon the pun, rather different animals, darling,” Jack pointed out, “And the day wasn’t a total loss in the end.”
It was nearly a month until the Ranger made port again, heavily laden with cargo, which quickly turned into a crew flush with cash. Jack spent the usual amount of money the first night out with the crew, keeping a pair of eyes on Charles and Anne until both collapsed into their respective beds the following morning. He decided to take a bit of advantage of the sleeping crew for some personal time.
“Mrs. Barlow?” Miranda looked from her garden, shading a hand over her eyes despite the hat she wore. Jack stood in front of her, hamper over one arm with an air that she would nearly say was nervousness.
“Lost your cat again, Mr. Rackham?”
“Thought I should return this,” Jack offered, holding the basket out, “and thank you for your help.” Miranda took the basket. It was heavier than she’d imagined it would be.
“Did you return the cat as well?” she asked, opening the lid. He had not returned the cat, the basket full of a few small jars and a parcel wrapped in rough cloth.
“We um.....we caught a prize, and....well I didn’t think this should go to waste.” she was going to cry, she decided, unwrapping the cloth to reveal a collection of Shakespearean plays. “Since you at least know who Shakespeare is....” Jack prattled on, looking antsy, “thought they’d go better here than being sold for whatever pittance the Guthries are giving...probably better suited-”
“Mr Rackham,” she cut him off, brushing her skirts clean and rising to meet him, a smile belying the tears shining in her eyes, “I would appreciate it if you would call me Miranda. Could I tempt you with some tea, and perhaps some literary discussion?”
Jack’s face split into a wide grin, picking the basket up and following her towards the house. “Miranda, it would be an honor.” The bite on his elbow twinged, long healed but still a reminder on occasion. Finally, someone on this fucking island with a little bit of culture. He was going to buy that damn cat a fish the size of itself for picking here to run off to.