"What were you thinkin', Bootstrap?" the sailor groaned. "Givin' up all that loot for a stinkin' halfbreed brat?"
"Hey!" Bill smacked him with a pillow, looking genuinely angry. "You don't have an issue with Stevie. Why does this little kid bug you so much?"
"Stevie's a hardn'd sailor, Boots! This is a plantation slave! What's 'e gonna do on a pirate ship?" The sailor slapped the pillow away, only a second or two too late to actually hit anything but air.
"He can learn! I can teach him! You'll see, Sully. This here boy's gonna be something special someday. I can tell." Bill turned to said boy, sitting sedately on the other man's hammock and watching the whole exchange with enormous brown eyes, and smiled.
The boy smiled back. He didn't care if the others didn't like him. As long as Bill smiled at him like that, with such kindness in his eyes, he'd be all right.
"Bill. Consider this fer a moment." Sully fixed Bill with an angry stare. "Yer the cabin boy on one'a tha most bigoted pirate vessles in the Spanish Main. Do ya really think that yer the best person ta be playin' dad wit a eight year old Mulatto sugar farmer?"
"Well…" Bill sighed, sitting himself down next to said boy. "Maybe I'm not. But consider this for a moment, Sullivan."
Bill looked straight into the other pirate's eyes. His warm brown orbs took on an almost fiery quality, a glitter in them that was easily the most beautiful thing the little boy had ever seen.
"If I don't take care of him, who else will?"
Sully paused, then sighed and bowed his head. He hauled himself up off his hammock and picked his way across the rocking floor to the rickety wooden stairs. He looked back over his shoulder at the other man.
"Allrighty, then. Jus be careful, all right? It ain't done no one any good to get their heart broke."
Sully scrambled up the stairs and onto the deck. Bill slowly sighed, his hand absently running itself through his new ward's tousled hair.
"He's right, ain't he, boy? This ships' no place for you." He looked down at the boy and smiled again, but this time he was so sad it made him want to cry. "Maybe you'd be better off back at the beach with nothing but the crabs and the coconuts for company."
"No!" The boy cried, wrapping his little arms around his saviour's waist with all the strength a child used to hard labour could muster. "Don' sends me away! Please don' sends me away! I wants to stay wit you forever an' ever!"
Bill laughed and returned the impromptu hug, holding it for just a second before hauling the little boy up and putting him up on his feet.
"Forever's a really long time, mon petit oiseau. But I can assure you of one thing." Bill grinned and tweaked his little nose. "You're gonna be wantin' rid of me long before I'm ever wantin' rid of you."
The boy grinned. He was never going to wish Bill away. Not ever.
A short one, I know. The next one will be longer. According to the Webster French-english dictionary, mon petit oiseau means 'my little bird'. But once again, don't quote me on this.
Ahem! And now for a warning.
The next chapter is going to be a little lemony. Well, limey, really. Jus so you know.
Till next time,
Jiia