#paulhating

"Let. Me. GO." you snarled at the guardsman to your left. You couldn't believe that the rest of your crew abandoned you after the heist - if you could even call them your crew anymore... They wouldn't have even cracked that safe without you.

The pirate's life, you sighed, miserably.

Honestly, screw them. They'll remember they can't do shit on that ship without you, come back for you, and you'll be freed from these rusting handcuffs soon enough.

The rust scratching against your wrists was honestly worse than being dragged across the ground, head bumping against every crack of gravel and worn pathway. You were convinced the redcoats policing Saint Martin who had caught you were doing it just to piss you off even further. Why were you being dragged, you ask? You had already attempted to flee twice and you had just made it to the jail*.

(*Jails during the pirate era were located inside military fortresses & not jailhouses as seen in, for instance, cowboy media)

Your tangled hair kept blocking your view, so even if you managed to escape, you'd have no idea where you were. You'd never gone to this island in particular, and even though you were your crew's cartographer & human compass, you didn’t doubt it’d take you a bit of time to relocate yourself.

The course street bumped under you until it turned into the smooth, adoquine flooring of the jail underneath your worn trousers. You could hear the incoherent mumbling of inmates from their assigned cells, iron shackles fumbling about.

Just a little further, could you hear the stormy waves crashing against the stone walls of the fortress. You knew that was both good and bad news. Nearer to the sea meant nearer to freedom, but that also meant they sent you down to the higher security sector of the jail - meaning you'd be getting sentenced - and soon.

The redcoats stopped on their path, snapping you out of your thoughts when they found, what they thought to be, an appropriate cell to throw you in.

" 'Oh, dirty Maggie Mae, they have taken her away and she'll never walk down Lime Street anymore' " You jerk your head towards the singing to catch a glimpse of the fool you’d be sharing the cell with and before you have the time to realise, they toss you - falling face-first onto the damp dirt floor.

" 'Oh, the judge, he guilty found he-' oh what?" did the older man cut off. You lifted your head in pain as you heard the gate slam closed, one of the guards telling you off on his way out while the second restrained your arms above you, a tight clasp buckling into one of the many iron rods smelted into the wall.

"I'd give this one less than three days before their times up." the guardsman told himself, securing the cell's gate one last time. That's not good. Damn it.

"Aye, you need any help there?" the pirate at the other end of the tight cell asked, his voice mellow & scouse. His breath smelled putrid, somehow hinting at alcohol despite being sure he must've been pent up here for longer than you've been around for.

"I don't need help." You sputtered, swiftly worming your way up to a sitting position. You couldn’t stand being tied up, especially in front of strangers.

This pirate was way older than you had first noticed - he had to be at least 70 years old. And if he was any younger than that, then, man, he must’ve went through several addictions when he’d been younger.

"Oh, the judge, he guilty found he-"

"Woah, woah, woah. I will not be hearing you sing shanties right now."

He lifted his long, dark, thinning eyebrows towards you in both surprise and amusement.

Ugh, a lunatic, probably. You complained to yourself.

"Need quiet to ge' out don'tcha?'' he correctly guessed.

"Yes, now if you don't mind, I'd like to be left to my own thoughts." You spat at him, only for it to reach his knee.

They had you handcuffed to the wall behind you, hands above your head. If you shuffled yourself sideways, you could stand up, so you hadn't been too smartly bound from escaping. Which only meant those redcoats couldn't be very smart - of course, they couldn't possibly be; as they could've been anything at all and they chose guarding inmates for the rest of their days. The sky seemed to be dimming through the clearing near the ceiling. Could you fit through that? Probably not. But it was worth a shot. The old pirate caught your silent plotting and spoke, droopy eyes gazing at you indefinitely.

"D'you want to get up there?" He had a very distinct, polite tone for a pirate. "With a waist like that, you could totally fit through."

Your head spun at his comment.

"What?"

"You could fit through that gap is what I said. No one's making you if you don't want to." he crooned, raising his shoulders in retort. Not having the patience to entertain him, you gave another look at the gap, the night sky darkening the atmosphere of the hall of cells.

That only meant you were most likely facing East, since you hadn’t seen the sky turn orange at the horizon before sunset.

"You remind me of a friend, y'know." he mumbled, eyes distant, elsewhere.

"Bet they weren't as fantastic as this, huh?" You gestured to yourself, not wasting a chance to boast about your looks, eyeing your itching wrists. He smiled smugly at you, scratching his chin thoughtlessly.

"You're not chained???" you scowled.

"Oh... No, those deteriorated a while back. Neve' mentioned them so they let me be. You know, I wrote a song once, called Let It Be." he began, before you cut him off.

"I don't have time for this, old man. C'mon, free me too." It didn't take him more than two steps before smashing your cuffs free. They clankered down onto the dirt with a mighty crash, and you looked out to the moon just outside, taunting you. When you snapped back, you realised this old hag was still holding your arm!!!

"Aye! What's your problem??" You pushed him back, causing him to tumble (due to his old, crinkly frame). You look down and see something poking out of his trousers. He shuffles before you take any further guess and by that point you panic. Oh shit man, he has a fat ass… He must’ve been sexy as hell when he was younger, no joke. Right then, your eyes buzzed into a zing (like the type of shit dracula from hotel transylvania was on).

He catches you looking, and once he stands back up he apologises. "I’m sorry you had to see that… I was saving it for later."

Blood rushes to your face as you look into his bewitching, hazel eyes, mostly dark now cause it’s nighttime and hazel eyes go into nightmode, and he closes in.

"May I?" He says, brushing his worn fingers past his heavy duty trousers. You can’t help but glance back down at him before nodding. Man, you didn’t have many days left anyway, at least let’s go out with a bang. And a bang it was, cause this bro literally whips out a girthy Revolver instead of what you were thinking he’d dangle out & turns 66 degrees counter-clockwise to the right and shoots the lock on the gate of the cell, the echoing blasting through the hall and waking up several inmates.

Your eyes grow in horror & you grab his face.

"What the fuck was that????"

He turns back to you sorrowfully as he tucks the gun into the holster on your leather belt.

"A skeleton walks into a bar and orders a mop," he began, tears welling up in your eyes.

"What the fuck are you talking about-"

"He orders a beer and a mop." You slap the shit out of him before embracing him in a kiss. His lips taste like they once were a beautiful pair of juicy plump grapes now turned raisin, but you don’t care. You’ve never met such aura in your life before and once you heard that sexy scouse accent you almost pissed your pants.

Getting one last look at that sexy diva, you run. Sweaty hand gripping the revolver. Inmates were yelping a ruckus but your mind was too blurry to care. You could hear a group of armed redcoats’ swords crashing into each other as you ran for your bloody life down that dimly lit hall that seemed to last forever.

"And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make!" you could hear one last time before you blast the last gate open and dive into the sea below you and into the free world. The salt of the sea burned against your cheeks and your heart stung with the pain of kissing a poisonous flower solely for its beauty. Would you truly be free again?

His words still ring in your head…

‘A skeleton walks into a bar, and orders a beer and a mop…’