Yes sir, Captain (Completed with trailer) [ReaderxPirate]

Chapter 16

"Captain?" You peeked inside the Mapping room.

He was sitting at a chair, facing out the window in the stern of the room. Silent.

You pulled up a chair and sat next to him.

"Captain? You there?" you asked him, trying to look into his eyes.

He looked down into his hands in his lap.

"Well, the crew is settled and checking on the ship, so I came in here to get you."

"I know. I heard," he muttered.

"Hey," you said, and scootched the chair closer. "Something's up. Do you want to...talk about it?"

He looked at you and scowled. "Princess, you realize I'm a Pirate Captain. I don't think it's in me to talk about my 'feelings.'"

"And I didn't think I had it in me to bark orders at a crew of adult pirate men for you. Or to survive being kidnapped by adult pirate men, sold as a slave, and bought by the first kind, adult pirate Captain I'd ever met or heard of."

"You're really emphasizing the 'adult' of that."

"Yeah, I am. Because I'm sixteen, I'm a kid, and it's scary to lose yourself, to lose ownership to your own life, to an 'adult pirate Captain,' or to lose anybody else to anything else."

"I'm not an 'adult pirate Captain,' Anika," he said. He paused.

He looked hesitant to continue.

But he did anyways. "I'm eighteen."

"But you..." You stopped. Oh my gosh. But he's... "No, Captain, you're twenty-nine."

"No I'm not. I'm eighteen, and obviously unfit to lead a pirate ship."

"No." You were stunned, but couldn't let him see that you were. "If...if anyone can lead us, you can."

"No I can't."

"Your shirt," you said.

"What about it?"

You smiled to quote the Captain to himself. "Take it off."

He looked at you suspiciously, but stood up and, after a moment of hesitation, took off his shirt, revealing the many scars that crossed him.

"I'm going to put two and two together and say you got those to save someone. That at one point in your life, you were captured, with someone else, who happened to be a friend of yours, and you got tortured in their place. But then they died anyways." You had been listening attentively to his sleep-talking.

He looked surprised. "I..." He looked away from you. "Yes."

"Then, my dear Captain, count every single one of those scars and think how much that person you got them for wouldn't want you dwelling over things like this." You put one hand to touch a very large scar over his heart. "So move on. To some, death is a thief. To some, it is peace. Don't make those peaceful spirits have to resurface. Leave bad memories in the past. Cherish yesterday. Don't dwell on it."