Ship In A Bottle || South Park Pirate AU

One

In which Kyle has a close call with a rope necklace.

The ship which had been shadowing them was growing closer. Kyle might have had the foresight to fret over this, but he was far too preoccupied with how he would obtain his next meal.

Kyle had very quickly realised he was not a good stowaway. It was damn near impossible to sneak food from the crew, as their portions were all so meagre that they never let it out of their sight, and often wolfed it down in one. The scent of the captain's soup was one he might have turned his nose up at back home, but two days had now elapsed with nothing but sea air to fill his stomach. Against his better judgement, he was enticed into the captain's cabin. Perhaps he could nick a few scraps without being noticed.

Kyle slipped in as silently as he could. This was not an easy feat. The old ship's floorboards creaked and complained whenever so much as a whisper of pressure was placed upon them. He stationed himself beneath the desk and held his breath as he waited for the captain and his meal to arrive.

The squeak of door hinges was drowned out by Kyle's heart pounding in his ears, so that when a pair of legs appeared in front of him, he was quite unprepared. The captain – Cartman, as Kyle had overheard him called – set his tray down on the table with a grunt and began to tuck into his meal.

Kyle waited until the smacking of chops had subsided, and there was movement no more. He listened closely as Cartman's breathing softened to one of a sleeping man. Only then did Kyle dare to snake his left hand upwards. His fingers closed around what felt like an unfinished hunk of bread, and his spirits soared, but before he could begin a tactical retreat, a hand was abruptly clamped over his own.

"Gotcha."

Kyle found himself wrenched upwards by the wrist until he was face to face with Captain Cartman.

"I knew I smelt a rat on board." Kyle made a vain attempt to run, but Cartman grasped a fistful of ginger curls and jerked him back into place. "Did you really think you'd get away with this?"

Kyle was close enough to smell the stench of Cartman's breath. Lip curling, he refrained from struggling further. The least he could do was maintain what little dignity he had left. It wouldn't do to writhe hopelessly in an iron grip like Cartman's.

"Clyde!" Cartman hollered, and again, when he received no response. "Christ," he grumbled, "what that man has ever done to earn the rank I've given him is beyond me."

And so Kyle was dragged unceremoniously by his hair out of the cabin and across the deck. Clyde was in the crow's nest, gazing out to sea with a telescope. Kyle followed his line of sight and found it had settled on their shadow ship. It had grown closer still. From this distance, he could just barely make out the title, painted in white cursive on the hull:

Nobody

There was no time to dwell on this.

"Clyde!" Cartman roared.

Clyde flinched, fumbling his telescope. It tumbled from his hands and hit the deck with a clatter. He peered sheepishly down. "Sorry, Captain! I was—I was just—" He stopped. "Who's that?"

"Stowaway," Cartman spat. "Thought he could hitch a free ride to the Caribbean. Thought he could get a free dinner, too." Cartman twisted Kyle's head to look at him. "He thought wrong."

Kyle glared back, unblinking, determined to maintain his obstinate silence.

"There's a coil of rope up there," Cartman addressed his first mate. "Bring it."

Clyde hooked the rope over his shoulder and scampered down the rigging. "To bind his wrists?" he asked.

"And his neck." Cartman caught the slip in stoicism on Kyle's face and grinned, displaying his teeth. They were as rotten as he was. "That's right, boy. You're going to be our new dangling man." He shoved Kyle at Clyde. "I'll gather the crew. We'll make a real spectacle of it."