Leeloo wrote:The deck of the Smokescreen groaned and sighed with age and exhaustion. The wood was salt-puckered and beaten from the wind, creaking underfoot as the four crossed. The wind punched Jensen in the back of the head, flaring his hair and biting at his exposed neck. His jean legs flapped as though in distress. He grabbed at his collar and pulled it up about his ears, shrinking impossibly further into the thin protection of his coat, holding his gun steadily in the other hand.
Jensen had managed to tackle it from Manny’s hands (weird wording..."managed to tackle Manny and wrestle it from his hands..."?) once they were on the ship, but he still held onto it protectively, pointedly ignoring Kai who walked a few paces to his right. His clear whiskey-brown eyes scanned misty blue seas, and he reminded himself to scold Carrie the minute they were alone about taking this job. (How about "...to scole Carrie for taking this job the minute they were alone"? It flows a little better.)
Jamaica was caught in a spell of bad weather, and the ship was not [s]so[/s]happy about it. The sudden change in temperature, time, and the ground beneath his feet made his head swim a little, as it always did. He couldn’t remember who told him that the more he moved through the different Worlds the easier it would be. It never did. (This phrasing is weird...wrong tenses or something. "He couldn't remember who told him that moving through different Worlds would becom easier each time. It never did." I'm not really sure how you'd want to word it; it just doesn't make a ton of sense right now.) He still felt a light sense of nausea tug at the bottom of his stomach every time.
Carrie appeared to his right, yelping in surprise as she hit the deck on her knees, “Ahh-ow! Why does that always take me by surprise? I never factor in the [s]fact[/s] (idea? the whole redundancy thing again) that the ground will be moving when I step through,” she grumbled, staggering to her feet. She breathed in a lungful of heavy, salty Jamaican air and beamed.
“Now this is why I love the Worlds. You can step from a top floor locker room at an English rural comprehensive in the ordinary World, and onto a pirate ship docked in 17th century Jamaica. Makes me tingle all over.” (Nice. We get a little more information about the "Worlds" but not too much.)
Jensen raised an eyebrow suspiciously, “Are you Ok? (okay) You seem very…over-zealous.”
“I had four sugars with my coffee this morning,” she admitted, biting her lip, “But come on. We’ve got work to do.”
She followed Manny and Kai who were retreating from the roaring winds down the rickety stairs below decks (below THE decks, or below deck). Jensen took a moment to breathe in some fresh, clean air before trailing after her, his heart sinking further with every step he took into the bowels of The Smokescreen.
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Manny ducked as a bottle of rum sailed over his head and exploded against the wall, “Don’t go wasting the booze!” he yelled at a shipman who growled in response. Carrie pulled a face (I'm not sure I like this phrase, but that's just me) when she realised it was not through viciousness but simply because the man had no tongue. Manny's fellow pirate made a gesture to imply terror, then pointed to where Manny had been standing.
“Look, I brought some Hunters,” Manny said, pointing out Jensen and Carrie, “They’ll load those ghosts full of rock-salt and send them back to the sea."
Jensen scratched the back of his head where the lump that had been steadily forming all morning was beginning to itch. He’d hunted infestations of ghosts a number of times before, but for some reason he was struggling to get the sights of his gun fixed on this group before they whizzed away. They seemed faster and stealthier than ghosts he had hunted in the past.
“These things just aren’t dying,” he said, shaking his head, as the pirate ran away to find a better way to defend himself, “It’s taking two or three shots for each.”
“Maybe they had their breakfast this morning (haha, you should say something like "Maybe they had their Wheaties this morning." I have no idea why, it just sounded funny in my head. *gets back on subject*),” Carrie pointed out, loading her Magnum with another round.
“Ha-ha.”
The air in front of them flared with an angry white explosion of movement, cold hands curling at their faces.
“Duck!”
Manny threw himself to the floor and Jensen fired. Two more bullets sent the ghost screaming and wailing into nothingness.
“I hate those things!” Manny cried, clutching onto his hat with desperate fingers, “Bleugh! What are they doing? What do they want?”
“We’ll ask that question after we’ve dealt with them.”
Half an hour later, hunched in a seat in Manny’s quarters, Jensen snapped, “What sort of infestation do you call that? Five ghosts?”
“There were more!” Manny protested, throwing out his arms, “They just disappeared when you arrived.”
“Sensible,” Kai grunted from where he lay stretched out on the futon.
“Shut up (comma) you,” Jensen snarled, “I’m not in the mood.”
“Did they go?” a new voice piped up, (no comma) from the futon. Hunt, sitting in between Kai’s legs, blinking through the candlelight, was oddly dressed for a pirate although no-one (no hyphen between no one) expected anything different from him. He wore a long grey-blue World War Two captain’s coat, with long stripy socks drooping about his ankles, and apart from a pair of boxers; (comma instead of semicolon) nothing else.
At the sound of his voice, Jensen dug his fingernails into the wood of his seat, scraping his teeth against the soft inside of his lip.
Carrie interjected, “Yeah it’s Ok (okay), Hunt, they’re all gone.”
“But why did they come?” Kai asked, shuffling around to get more comfy ("comfortable"...comfy seems like a word you would use in dialogue, not description). In the process (In the process of what?) Hunt slid down next to him, wrapping his coat around him and resting his head on Kai’s arm as though to go to sleep, “Ghosts don’t usually crop up in Other Worlds. ("Quotations Marks" :) )
"Ooh, wait, I found this in the newspaper, it was talking about ghosts. Um...wait, let me get it," Manny suddenly cried, springing to action.
As Manny fussed around with bits of paper on his desk, Carrie leant in close to Jensen and whispered clearly in his ear: “Put your hackles down and stop staring at him.”
Jensen turned and blinked at her.
"I'm not staring."
"You look murderous."
Once Manny had handed over the newspaper print, Jensen didn't wait for Carrie to make their excuses to leave.
"Sorry Manny, we really should be getting off. Um…school, and everything….important day today. Ring you later. Call us if there are any more ghosts," Carrie said with her sweetest smile to cover up the feeling of bitterness that Jensen seemed to have left behind him.
"Will do. And read that article. Pretty interesting. Oh, and remember; it's my nineteenth birthday on the twelfth. We're having a party. Shame you couldn't stick around tonight, actually, we're having a retirement party for the oldest guy on my crew."
"Sorry. Jensen...really needs to hand in some coursework at school."
She waved goodbye in a distracted manner and fluttered away after Jensen.
The second she'd caught up with him she whispered, angrily, “I hate having to lie to people, and Manny
is our friend. I had to say you were handing in coursework, by the way, if he asks.”
Jensen didn’t seem to hear. He rounded on Carrie suddenly and snapped, irritably, “I can’t do it, I can’t do it, Ok?”
“Can’t do what?” she asked, although she knew all too well what Jensen was so angry about.
“I can't sit there and watch Kai be near him, Ok (okay)? It....Kai and Hunt are the last people I want to be in a room with.”
He lowered his voice but it was still frayed with anger and frustration, “That kid freaks me out."
"Who? Hunt?"
Jensen grunted an affirmative, "Nevermind the fact that when I walked in on them, he just stood there and smiled even though he knew all too well it was my boyfriend that was kissing him. (*does a double take* Sorry. Did you write about this? I think I missed it...can yo udescribe it in more detail?) And he’s weird.”
“I think he’s cute,” Carrie conceded, with a shrug, deciding it was best not to talk specifically about the infamous time 'when Jensen walked in on them’.
“And, Ok (okay), he’s a little strange, but it’s no wonder. He did wake up a year ago in a bathtub in a hotel with no memory, Jensen. He’s just…not all there [s]in the head[/s], let’s say.”
“He’s insane! He isn’t just a few fries short of a Happy Meal, he’s missing some chicken nuggets and the little toy too! Now come on, we're going home. I heard that invitation Manny gave you for tonight, and I'm not sticking around to drink with gnarled old pirates and watch my ex-boyfriend paw at his new plaything," he snarled, furling his coat around him imperiously and heading towards the end of the boat.
"Should we sign in at school? They were on our backs last week about missing 'Afternoon Enrichment'. Do you want to go?" Carrie asked, running to catch up, "Or hot-chocolate and marshmallows at my house?"
"Well seeing as we're doing 'expressive dance' in Enrichment today, I think I'll (opt? go? choose?) for the hot-chocolate," Jensen conceded, striding through the trembling disc of air back into the Locker Room.
"Good idea. If you had to express yourself through dance today you might hurt someone."
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Okay! Comments:
Firstly, I never, ever, EVER would have guessed that Jensen was gay. It felt like you sort of sprung that on us for the heck of it, and it was very jarring. I was dizzy. He struck me as the kind of person who didn't care about any romance - it was very weird how he suddenly started angsting about his ex-boyfriend with a new lover. Maybe you could foreshadow that a little bit? I got the impression that he hated Kai because Kai took the job he wanted or something. Their whole relationship is strained but I'm still confused as to why that is.
Secondly - you have some seriously great description, but keep in mind that description isn't everything. Five sentences of poetic prose about the wind in the sails is beautiful, but unless it's driving the story it should probably be closer to two sentences. Does that make sense?
Thirdly, Hunt seemed to come out of nowhere - first it was just Manny, Kai, Jensen and Carrie, and all of a sudden there's a weird little kid sitting on the futon. Who is he? Why is he? He seems like a really interesting character, and I feel like he deserves more screen-time than just one sentence and a "few fries short of a Happy Meal." Okay? :D
Sorry to sound so critical. This chapter just confused me in a lot of places. I still really like the story. Nice job. I'm looking forward to more. Keep it up!
Points: 1090
Reviews: 241
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