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[santa-sock.livejournal.com]

Title: In Perfect Time
Rating: G
Media: Fic
Characters: Brook, Laboon, Yorki
Word Count (if applicable): 298
Prompt: Skill
A/N: Because darnit, the internet needs more Brook fics, and that's why I'm here.

They’d been doomed the moment someone named the whale. No one said so, but somehow they knew. Maybe it was pirate instinct, honed by years on the deadly sea. Maybe it was the fact that big scary men were using baby talk and making funny faces whenever they looked over the railing.

Maybe it was the times they caught their musician on the deck at night, or at the edge of a beach or pier with his violin resting in his lap. If they were stealthy they could overhear the patient explanations directed at a large round shape in the water, although no one could resist for long the urge to tease Brook about trying to tutor a wild animal.

“Don’t you pay them any mind, Laboon,” was all he’d ever say, so much like someone’s grandmother that it only made the teasing worse - especially if the captain was there, for Yorki was gleefully relentless and it was a wonder that Brook always forgave him after.

When they poked fun at him for insisting the whale was learning to understand humans, Brook would only say again, “Don’t you pay them any mind at all.”

Maybe it was later, when Brook was about to play one afternoon and nobody noticed him give a knowing nod at the sea, or maybe it was when a loud series of squeaks and whistles immediately joined the sound of his violin in flawless 3/4 time. Maybe it was Brook’s mile-wide grin, or the sudden rush of men to the railing to see how proud of himself Laboon was. Maybe it was the way one particularly broad-shouldered pirate whimpered “c-cute” before fainting right there on the deck.

Maybe it was the way their captain was too busy roaring with laughter to say a word.