Arthur woke up slowly, at first only able to tell that he had woken up because of the in comfortable position he felt his body was in.
He was sitting up, his back up against a support beam, with his hands chained behind him. His legs were sprawled across the floor in no particular position, and he was slouching, his head hanging down with his chin almost touching his chest. He found it incredibly hard to open his eyes, and when he finally was able to force his eyelids apart his vision was blurred. His head throbbed dully where he'd been hit, and the harder he tried to focus his vision, the worse the pain got.
It took an unbelievable amount of time for Arthur to be able to focus his vision, and once he finally was able to focus, he began to lift his head. The act of lifting his head took great effort, and his vision faltered, but he quickly lifted his head all the way, and then leaned it against the pole behind him for support.
He had his eyes closed, so that he could try to let the pain in his head fade faster. He heard someone stand up, and then exit the room. Arthur continued to let the throbbing of his head subside, and when it did he finally opened his eyes to look around the room- slowly, of course.
The room had only one door that Arthur could see, and that was a door in the wall in front of Arthur, placed in the right corner. The wall to Arthur's right had a porthole, and the wall on his left had a table pushed up against it, with two chairs. One of the chairs was pulled out and facing Arthur, the other pushed under the table. Arthur didn't try to look behind him, just kept his head in place for the time being. Arthur suddenly realized that he didn't have his jacket, and that he didn't feel the weight of the pouch around his waist. He couldn't tell if his secret pouch was there; it was too light to notice anyways.
It was a few minutes before the door opened again, and in that time Arthur's headache was mostly gone, and Arthur had managed to look around the room and see that the "support beam" he was chained to was in the center of the room- it was too much like an interrogation room in the palace to be ignored.
The pirate who'd been in the room before held the door open, and a much better dressed pirate entered the room. Arthur looked up at the pirate, and internally groaned. He knew exactly who this was, and it was probably the last pirate whose ship he'd have wanted to get caught on.
"Bonjour." Francis said, looking down at Arthur with a holier-than-thou smirk on his face. It made it look like Francis was about to announce how he'd just won a game of cards.
Meet Captain Francis Bonnefoy, a famous pirate from France, who is known to constantly sail English waters to stock up on supplies. While having committed many crimes in France, he hadn't committed a single crime in England, so he used that to his advantage. Of course, the English didn't like him any more than the French did, but unlike the French, they didn't have anything to hold him for.
Along with all of that, Captain Francis was known to be a sexaholic- he went through men and women alike in the blink of an eye. Worse than that, the people he made love to typically disappeared off the face of the planet.
Francis waved his hand and the pirate holding the door nodded, closing the door and exiting the room. Francis sat down in the chair, crossing his legs and leaning back, his blue eyes staring down at Arthur.
"'Ello..." Arthur said, because of the expectant look Francis was giving him.
At that, Francis' face broke into another holier-than-thou smirk, and he nodded.
"Arthur Kirkland." He said in his heavy accent.
"Francis Bonnefoy." Arthur said, mostly to keep the conversation going, though also to say, 'yeah, I know who you are too. So what?'
"Captain Francis Bonnefoy, se vous plaît." He said, and then leaned forward in his seat. "Tell me, Arthur... Why did you come into my ship and try take my gold? You obviously know who I am." Francis said, knowing that Arthur knew about Francis' reputation as well- Francis knew that mixed look of anger and envy very well.
"I know you, not your ship." Arthur replied shortly.
"Ah, of course." Francis leaned back in his ship. "And you expected to... What? Jump off the ship and swim back to shore?" Francis asked, and Arthur wanted to slap him for his obvious arrogance.
"Of course not. I didn't know the ship was even moving." Arthur snapped. He had decided before Francis got there that he would be open with any information that wouldn't get him into any more didn't want to chance Francis finding out about a lie he told.
"You have never been on a ship before?" Francis asked, his eyes showing true curiosity.
"Not that I recall." Arthur said, half sarcastic and half an inside joke about his memory loss.
Francis stared at Arthur's face for a long time, seeming to analyze him. Arthur wished he knew what the Captain was thinking.
"You are worth how much now?" Francis asked. Pretty sure that's information that could come back to bite me in the ass... Arthur thought, and decided to just go silent for this one.
"Exactly. Which is why I will keep you on my ship until the return trip to England, where I'll hand you over to the guards and take your bounty." Francis said, and Arthur was silent as he contemplated this.
"It will be a few days, of course, but until then I'm sure I can keep you entertained..." Francis said, a purr in his voice that Arthur wasn't a fan of.
"They never seem to mention on bounty posters just how attractive the thief is in reality..." Francis said after a long pause, almost to himself, as he reached out to stroke Arthur's cheek. Arthur blushed and turned away, trying to hide it by looking out the window and changing the subject.
"Er, how long will it take?" Arthur asked, and Francis followed his gaze to the window.
Francis sighed in annoyance at Arthur's quick subject change, but gave in anyways. "Under a month, if God is on our side. If not, than... Maybe two." Francis said.
Arthur nodded dumbly, not trusting himself to try and talk without somehow bringing up appearance. Francis, however, seemed to be waiting for Arthur to say something.
"'The hell do you want now?" Arthur asked, looking back at Francis.
"This is the part where people typically ask what they'll be doing during their stay." Francis said, still watching Arthur.
"So what, you want me to ask about whether or not I'll be sleeping with you? Not my thing, really." Arthur said, and Francis only seemed to get happier.
"I know you'll come around one day, mon ami. And I plan on being the reason you do." Francis said with a little smile.
Arthur's face heated up, and he tried to see that sentence as an innocent, not-meaning-sex-at-all sentence, but he couldn't figure it out, so he gave up on it.
Arthur's stomach suddenly growled, cutting off any sort of train of thought.
"Oui, Oui. That will be tended to as well," Francis said, "although first- can you cook?"
~~~Some Time Later...
Francis wasn't sure if Arthur had been telling the truth when he said yes, and in all honesty neither was Arthur.
Arthur knew some of what to do in order to make crumpets, but he didn't know if Francis had the right ingredients or anything other than an abundance of stale bread and fish that seemed to come from the beginning of Earth- and they smelled like it too.
One of Francis' crew members came in at some point, and asked Francis something in a low voice. Arthur wouldn't have understood the French anyways, but it was so low that even if he did he wouldn't have been able to hear it. Francis looked at the pirate before him and frowned. "I'm needed here right now. That can wait."
Arthur wished that Francis would just take whatever it was and run of with it so Arthur could figure this out on his own.
The pirate continued to insist, and Francis gave him a look and asked, "que mauvais?" and the pirate made a hand motion at Arthur and then pointed to the door, which made Francis frown.
"I... Have some things to attend to. You can cook something tomorrow." Francis said, making a dismissive motion with his hand and muttering something to the crew member before exiting the room.
Arthur was bewildered at Francis' actions- first a strong veto, then a hesitant acceptance and suddenly a full on approval. That, and the fact that Francis had just left Arthur alone with a single pirate who not only looked scrawny but didn't seem to know what to do. His face said it all- he wanted to run of after Francis, but he was required to stay with the prisoner.
His responsibility won over and he turned to look at Arthur, who'd been standing by the pantry from his previous action of digging through it fruitlessly.
"You speak English, right?" The pirate asked, and Arthur was relieved that someone other than Francis spoke his language.
"Er, right. That is... Do I know you?" Arthur asked, thinking he recognized the sailor.
"Was famous in Britain for quite some time. Happen to know the name 'Gavin Free'?" He asked, and It dawned on Arthur who he was talking to.
"The mental scientist? Yes, the one who tried to slow down time by-"
"Right. Captain found the shipwreck of mentals and took most of us in. Tons of the crew members are from that ship." Gavin said, and Arthur thought to when he'd first heard about the 'shipwreck of mentals'. It was when some ship full of mentally ill people crashed into a rocky island. Most of the passengers were never found- Francis was probably why.
"Well, nice talk, but I'm supposed to take you to the Captain's room, per his orders." Gavin said, straightening up. Arthur noticed now that Gavin's shirt was really a straight jacket with all of the buckles and extra long sleeves cut off.
"The Captain's... Wha- Why?" Arthur asked, hoping for something comforting.
"I don't know, he didn't exactly explain it. Besides, he probably just wants you in a place where the crew can keep an eye on you without having to sit around and do nothing." Gavin said, shrugging, and although all that he said was probably true, Arthur could guess Gavin wasn't mentioning the obvious for a reason.
"Um, alright." Arthur said, because Gavin seemed to be waiting for a response.
Gavin nodded, walking over to Arthur and grabbing his arm to lead him.
"I won't try and run while you're right there, you know. You don't have to-"
"I know you won't, but letting a captive walk next to you instead of leading him around the ship is frowned upon." He explained, and Arthur frowned but didn't say anything else. He focused only on attempting to think of a legitimate reason why the Captain would want to have Arthur waiting for him in his room.
A/N: yes, I made a slow-mo guys reference, but I'm not calling it a crossover because Gavin is a very minor character. Anyways, thanks for reading!
Translations:
Bonjour - Hello
se vous plaît - please
mon ami - my friend
oui - yes
que mauvias? - how bad?