"What are you doing?" asked a familiar voice behind Frenchie, and he yelped.
"Holy shit, man, you scared me," he said, trying to catch his breath as he turned around to look at his partner.
"Sorry," Wee John answered sheepishly and sat down beside him. "Just came to check on you. Roach said that dinner's almost ready."
Frenchie looked at the clock on his desk and shook his head. He had only meant to sit down to write for a few minutes, but apparently, hours had passed without him even noticing. "Fuck, sorry. I didn't realize it was dinner time already. Must've gotten a bit lost in my journaling."
Wee John gave him a curious look. "You have a journal?"
Frenchie looked at him in surprise and held up the book he had been writing in. "Uh, yeah?" The two of them had been together for months now, and they were practically inseparable. How had Wee John not realized that Frenchie had started a journal?
"Stede had one," he explained, "so I thought I should start one, too. And it really helps with all the captaining stuff, so—"
"Wait, that's your journal?" Wee John asked, raising an eyebrow. "I thought that was a sketchbook. You know, like the one Lucius has."
"What? No, it's a journal!" Frenchie protested. "See, I was just writing about the raid today—"
"Yeah, but you didn't write about it, though," Wee John pointed out. "You drew pictures."
"Oh, that." Frenchie ducked his head. "Yeah, I, um, I'm not the strongest writer. Or reader. I don't really know how to explain it—it's like the letters keep jumping around, and the words all blend together… So I thought I'd just draw in my journal instead of writing to make it easier."
He half expected Wee John to laugh at him for his silly idea, but instead, he just gave him a wide grin and a pat on the shoulder. "That's cool! Really creative."
"Yeah?" Frenchie asked shyly. "You don't think it's weird?"
Wee John shrugged. "Maybe a little bit? But you know what the capt—Stede and Ed," he corrected himself, "told us. It's a safe space ship. Especially with you as the new captain."
Oh. He hadn't thought about it that way. But Wee John was right—they had all worked very hard to make sure that their ship was a safe space for the whole crew, and that should include the captain, right?
"And besides," Wee John added, sighing, "I get what you mean."
"Really?" Frenchie asked curiously.
Wee John nodded. "I love knitting. Calms my mind like nothing else. But I can't follow patterns for the life of me, so I'm just making them up as I go. Sometimes, you just have to do things your own way."
That made a lot of sense. The two of them had never quite followed the rules, not in their pirating and not in their relationship. They had always chosen a more creative approach—and most of the time, it had worked out, even if it had seemed a bit weird at first.
"Hell yeah, babe. I love doing things our own way." Frenchie grinned and took Wee John's hand. "Now, you said dinner's ready?"