I Can Take The Sky From You, (Flynn)

[Blades Bill]

It wasn't in the pantry.

It wasn't in the fridge.

It wasn't anywhere near the bar.

It wasn't anywhere to be found.

"Blades" Bill O'Dell, sky pirate, cook, and all around decent guy, was searching the Marie Antoinette for his bottle of Mount Gay 1703, a delicious, hard to find, and above all, EXPENSIVE bottle of rum that he'd been saving for a rainy day.

They'd just gotten a good haul of computer parts. It was good enough for him.

Searching the ship, he came upon his captain, Flynn Blake (he guessed... it sounded fake, but as long as the money kept coming in, he didn't give a care if he called himself Malcolm Reynolds) and immediately asked, regardless of what surrounded him, "Hey, boss. Seen m'rum?"

[Flynn Blake]

The bottle was in Flynn's hand. His feet were on his desk and he was leaning back in his chair. He had a sombrero pulled down over his face.

"Nope." He said calmly and took a long drink from the bottle.

[Blades Bill]

"Hey-!" Bill began, shocked. He stared at the perfidy in front of his eyes. You simply did NOT drink 1703 from the BOTTLE. It wasn't RIGHT. You put it in a tumbler, with ice, or in a shot glass for sipping, like you had a bit of CIVILIZATION in you! You didn't guzzle it like cut-rate gut rot! This was SIN!

"What are ya doing, ya crazy bast'rd?" he asked in disbelief.

[Flynn Blake]

Flynn tipped up his sombrero. "Drinkin' m'rum! Wassit look like?"

[Blades Bill]

"Drinkin' MY rum, Flynn," he said, the edge in his voice rising, but contained. "Y'know I put that away special for m'self! Why can't ya drink yer own?"

[Flynn Blake]

"S'my ship! S'my rum!" He pointed at him. "If you wanted it secret you shoulda stored it at the base. S'not my rum there."

[Blades Bill]

"But I bought it with MY money, Flynn," he protested. "'S'not salvage, 's'not shares, it's MINE, plain 'n'..."

At that point, Bill just bowed to the absurd. The captain was a mad man. That much was sure. But sometimes he latched onto things, didn't let go, and the best solution was just to roll with it and see where he took you. Usually it was worth the trip.

Bill headed over to the table in the room, and removed two glasses from the case there, and put them in front of Flynn. "At least use a glass, ya mad bastard... and give ME some. Y'salvaged it, so I'm entitled to my share."

[Flynn Blake]

Flynn took off his sombrero and looked it for a long moment before tossing it onto Bill's head. Then he leaned over and poured him a glass. He continued to drink out of the battle because sipping from a glass simply wasn't swash-buckly enough.

"Who's mannin' the pots if you're up here blubbering about being stolen from on a pirate ship? Why in the sky's name do I even pay you?"

[Blades Bill]

"Y'pay me because the pots are CLEAN right now," he reminded Flynn as he tipped up the hat and landed in one of the seats with HIS rum, "and because I've gained a maddenin' habit of pulling your arse out of the fire... literally on one occasion, as I recall it. Y'never listen to me when I tell ya y'shouldn't be in th'galley..."

[Flynn Blake]

"S'my galley! S'not my fault s'haunted and that I slept with that particular poltergeist's mother! How was I s'posed to know that would make it more angry? I thought it'd accept me as a father figure."

[Blades Bill]

Bill had heard that story. He knew there were hauntings on skyships, but he was still half-sure Flynn was just drunk out of his skull.

"Well, now you know not to," he stated through a grin and a mouthful of the smoothest stuff to ever come out of St. Michael Parish. "And now you know why y'pay me th'big bucks."

[Flynn Blake]

"Yes. Because we know old Blades Bill would never sleep with anyone, much less the ghosts' mom."

[Blades Bill]

"Right, and Flynn Blake is th'height of repressin' necrophilic intentions!" he shot back cheerily. "As if I need to remind you about Montenegro Station!"

Ah, Montenegro Station, he reminisced. Best station commander's daughter in the skies...

[Flynn Blake]

"I still don't believe anything other than you happened to fall with your cock in the right spot." He took another long drink of rum.

[Blades Bill]

"Nations have risen and fallen o'er someone's cock falling in the right spot," he defended. "Troy, Egypt, England and Henry the Eighth... you'd be surprised how much of th'world's history would be different if people weren't horny bastards."