Xanti stood in front of the museum, looking up the marble steps to the front door. He was stuck in line and if it weren’t for what was at the end of this line, he wouldn’t bother waiting.

He had heard days before on the news as he sat in a pub in Ireland that papers had been found on an island that has been deserted for hundreds of years. The island was suspected to have been a docking place for pirates in the seventeen hundreds to do maintenance on their ships. Xanti had scoffed at what they thought. Sure, maybe a ship or two had stopped there but any real pirate would know that that island was used to maroon people. Only ships that docked there were the ones that were too run down to make it farther and even then it was few and far between.

But it was the papers that had actually caught his attention. He knew the island well, had been stuck there for a bit actually. And these papers… could it be?

He had almost choked on his rum when he heard the news reporter say that the papers found were proof of pirate activity on the island. The pages had been cleaned and were in clear Spanish. They told the tale of a pirate captain over a year’s span but most of the pages were too worn with time to be read.

The few pages that were being released for a public viewing were going to start in New York then make a world tour, ending in their final resting place of a pirate museum in Puerto Rico.

Xanti knew he had to be one of the first ones to see the papers and find what tales were still alive. Hence why he was standing in this long line before the sun had even risen above the water.

Many people had commented on his choice of clothing and a few even told him he was stupid for dressing the way he had, that this was a museum not a movie premier. His response was to ignore them.

His outfit -which consisted of brown leather pirate style boots, slightly loose black dress pants, a tight red and black striped shirt, a skull and cross bone on his arm, large gold loop earring and a bandana tied around his forehead and into his shoulder length black hair- was something he wore on a daily basis. Or at least he wore something similar every day. He was still a pirate, just of a different variety now. He became slightly paranoid as police would drive by but he knew the only part of him that could give him away were his eyes. He had been a pirate for way too long to be stupid and show his face to this modern world.

Finally the front doors opened and people were filtered in. The wait to get inside was longer than he had expected, but he should have guessed that people were going to be stopping and taking their time to read the few pages that had been salvaged. If they could read the language, of course.

The sun was high in the sky by the time Xanti made it into the museum’s air condition. To keep things simple, the staff had set up the display in the front room so that people could filter in one door, read and admire, then filter out the other entrance. That explained one reason why the line was so long outside.

He slowly walked up to the first entry. He turned his head and looked down the not very long display. There were maybe ten sheets there and only three of them were full pages, the rest of them were half pages, quarter pages, or even just slivers of page. He looked at the first page and began reading it. He knew it all and relived it in his mind.

December 26, 1795
Captain’s Log
My last journal has been made full and I have been given a new one by my wonderful first mate. He does well by me and to date, he and I have been through a lot together. Many crews have come and gone, many lost to illness, storms, or battle. But he, with his particular gift, has remained by my side throughout the years and there are not words enough to explain the gratitude I hold towards him.
I begin this new journal the day after Christmas. I can hear the crew out on the deck, drunk and merry, while I sit here in my quarter’s writing at my desk. There isn’t much time for a Captain to join in the celebration, not when there is treasure to be found and headings to be plotted. Not to mention I am not a huge fan of excessive drinking and rum is normally saved for injuries.
There aren’t many ships out tonight nor were there many during the day. That was the report from my cabin boy at least and while he is just a lowly cabin boy, I trust his word. He knows to never cross me again.
My first mate, who was working with me on the maps, has left to get rum for us. I do not want to partake in it, not when there is work to be done, but I know as soon as he returns there will be no questioning it.
Captain I am but he knows how to get me to

The page was ripped after that. Xanti smiled softly. He remembered his first mate. He made sure in his journals to keep it sounding a business relationship, but in reality his first mate had been his lover. His chest ached at the memory and now he was questioning whether coming here was a good idea or not. He pushed on to the next entry despite his thoughts.

This one was only the bottom part of the entry and Xanti noticed that it was out of order. What made them think that this entry belonged here, in this place of all places? He looked over at the third sheet, a full page, and decided that this one had actually come after that one and before the piece after it.

Oh well, they had done their best.

He returned his attention to the paper in front of him.

successful plundering. I have spent many years Pirating in the sun and I must say that these past many years Pirating in the dark has a better turn out not only in the treasure, but also in the survival of my crew. The ships we attack do not know that we are coming. We put out our lanterns and sail silently towards the other ship, working based on the moon and the other ship’s lanterns. And when we attack, they are never the wiser.
Tomorrow I will split the win amongst the crew, keeping to the code. A Pirate ship without a code is too much like the navy and I will not have my ship thought of as anything but a fair ship. My men remain happy and I remain captain.
The first mate has come in, so until the next time I write,
Xanti Marcos

Xanti wondered if the people around him could hear his heart thudding against his rib cage or if it was just him. He closed his eyes for a moment, trying to remember these days, these old moments before that wretched day…

He opened his eyes again and moved to the next page. It was a full page, but many words were faded and smudged.

January 18, 1796
… stepped on a rusted nail.

He figured that he was talking about himself in that line. It made sense.

I stepped on a rusted nail. I had been awoken midday by the cabin boy who said there was a problem. And problem there was. A… ‘Another ship’ Xanti inserted has attacked, a ship with no colors. Pirate. Such cowards didn’t give us time to change our colors. I ordered… ‘a warning shot to be fired’ as well as the flag changed to mine. Surely once they recognized the flag they would turn and run. My name has been spread across the seas as a ship to veer away from. I have no qualms with killing everyone on board and sending their ship in flames to Davy Jones’ Locker.
‘The warning shot’ didn’t work and the other ship came closer. I could see the men ‘prepared to board,’ grappling hooks in hand to hook onto our rail. I ran up to the helm and grabbed the wheel while shouting orders. Unfortunately my first mate couldn’t join in the fray. He would have enjoyed it.
I turned the ship, prepared to ram them. I would do any trick to get them to back down. More than half of my crew was still asleep or just waking up and it would end in misery and need of a new ship if in fact we did have to engage in battle with these fellow Pirates.
There are no heroes amongst thieves. I should remember that, but sometimes I give others the benefit of the doubt more often than I should. One day I will learn my lesson, but for now I’ll keep with my ways.
As my ship got closer to theirs, their captain veered away from us and caught the wind, high tailing it away. I ordered the sails changed and locked the wheel.
As I was coming down the stairs, I felt a sharp pain in my heel. I fell back onto the stairs and pulled my foot up. I could see the head of the nail pressed against my heel. This wouldn’t end well. The ship’s doctor was called and said that more likely than not my foot would have to be cut off.
But at that moment a man in the shadows of the stairs ordered me into the quarters.
My first mate.

That was where the page ended. The pirate knew there was more, he could recall it in his mind, but there was no more on the paper under the thick protective glass. So he moved along.

The next entry, only a sliver of the page, made his racing heart stop mid beat. He took a deep breath and lifted a hand to touch the glass, wanting so much to feel the paper, hold it in his hand.

“Sir, please don’t touch the glass,” a man said and he pulled his hand back.

“Sorry,” he whispered.

He wondered if anyone had noticed that the words were not only in a different language but also a different hand writing. Surely they had to have noticed. But there was no note stuck above it or below it to explain it away.

Yes, it had come from his journal, and the language was one that it had taken him many years to fully learn. Many years after losing the writer of the note to top it off. It was the native tongue of his first mate and lover: Romanian.

His emerald green eyes scanned the paper, taking in the words that had to be explained to him in English back then.

Before time gets away from us again, I’m going to put into written words things I have told you many times over, Xanti. But I want you to remember this:

And that was it. The rest was torn away. He stared at the paper and he could suddenly feel the arms of the man who wrote the note around him and he was thrown back into his ship, sitting at the desk with his pen sliding across the page. Behind him came his blonde haired and pale skin lover and slid his arms around him, resting his chin on his shoulder. In silence the pen was taken from his hand and dunked into the ink well. In beautiful handwriting that the Pirate captain could only wish to be able to copy the first mate wrote his note in the middle of his entry.

He knew the last three words of that line. He leaned closer to the glass, finding that those three words were missing and just those three words… It was suspicious.

He was so close to the glass that it was beginning to fog up.

“Sir…” the man from before said.

“Hold on… I think I see something…” He put a hand up, his eyes following the tear.

“I doubt you see anything the archeologists didn’t find.”

Xanti ignored the man’s words and kept to looking at the page.

They tore it! They took the words off!

He stood and frowned, sorely tempted to leave in an angry flourish right at that moment, but there were still six other entries to read.

He crossed his arms over his chest and moved to the next entry, fighting the rage in his chest. Of course, they couldn’t have a pirate portrayed as gay, right? That wouldn’t be right, that wouldn’t be a good role model, right?

He grumbled to himself. He wanted to see those three words again and maybe feel the flutter in his heart as he always did all those years ago.

He shot a look over to the last entry. Just seeing the hand writing alone made his heart flutter and he could feel the hot breath on his ear, the words whispered to him.

Then he realized that there actually was hot hair on his ear. He spun and his hand made contact with the man’s cheek that had been looking over his shoulder. He stood there and stared. Oops.

“Sorry…” he muttered.

A security guard from by one of the doors ran over and helped the man up. “How did you get in here?” the guard asked.

The man he had just helped up began mumbling incoherently, something about a blonde looking for the man with the green eyes. And then… oh lord he began singing some country song asking some green eyed kid what her momma’s name was.

The guard apologized and pulled the homeless out of the building.

Xanti was puzzled, but turned back to the glass to read the entry, pushing what the crazy man said to the back of his mind.

April 7, 1796
We’ve made port on a deserted to make much needed repairs on the ship and remove the barnacles from the hull. Ships never look large until you get them on the shore of a beach. I’ve always found that interesting about ships. So much of it is below the water, and thusly those annoying barnacles get stuck to the wood.
I should be helping on the ship, but I had to help my first mate into the shade of the trees. Unfortunately we have to do the repairs in the day time so we can really see what we’re doing. I know that if this were happening at night, my first mate would be all over the ship, helping give orders and doing the work as well. But his condition calls for something other than direct sun light and I cannot have him harming himself. So here I sit for a little bit, keeping him company before I go and work on the repairs with the others.

Xanti chuckled softly. Ship repairs, how much fun was that to read about? He had to keep track of it back in those days, just as he did now. Except now the repairs were normally done more often since the engines on these new motor boats would always blow out and the last thing any modern Pirate needed was to have their engine blow out while trying to outrun the National Guard or whatever they were called now. He never paid much attention.

But he didn’t have to worry about barnacles now; that was a bit of a plus, he guessed. He hated trying to peel those things off with daggers while worry about not stabbing himself or breaking the wood on the ship.

He looked next to him and moved to the next station as the man moved along. The people in front of this guy were gone, so they more than likely didn’t read the language and were just looking for Pirate’s sake.

Xanti turned his attention back to the entry before him.

It wasn’t much of an entry actually. It was a full page drawing of his first mate. The sight made him grin and he could feel the water in his eyes. He blinked, forcing it back. He wasn’t going to cry in public over a drawn picture. And the drawing, he was sure, wasn’t even close to the real man. Again he wanted to touch the glass but knew he would get yelled at again. He sighed and had to wait for the man before him to move along so he could move away from this. But did he really want to? Or did he want to continue staring, continue to bring back the better memories of his existence?

Before he knew it he was being asked to move along by the woman behind him. He rolled his eyes and moved along to the next entry. Here were more words, again in that beautiful handwriting.

October 12, 1796
My Captain…

Xanti was disrupted by the woman behind him giggling over the picture and claiming the man drawn was hot. “You have no idea,” he whispered to himself then returned his attention to the writing before him.

My Captain enjoys hurting himself, it seems. Yesterday he got a splinter from the helm and today he sliced his ankle on a sword that was left out of place. He can rest assured that I will find the man the sword belonged to and he will pay for his carelessness. For now, my Captain is asleep in his bed. He looks too pale to be healthy but he did end up losing quite a bit of blood. He should be better by sunset tomorrow. Until then, I am in charge but I would prefer to sit in here and make sure he doesn’t try to pass in the night. Speaking of which, I must remind him that we need a new needle; the one I’ve been sowing him up with is getting old.
I wonder if he keeps hurting himself on purpose just for the attention. He should know that he has mine and everyone else on this ship’s full attention. He is our Captain and we would all follow him to the depths

End.

Xanti sighed. Why weren’t there more to these journals? He wanted to read more, see his hand writing more.

And most of all, he wanted to go back in time. But that wasn’t an option. He was stuck here in the now and there was no going back. He would have to move on eventually. How did he move on from such a love, though? How did he just forget it and find something new to keep himself occupied with? There inlaid the irony of his situation.

Well now he was just sounding like a spoiled child, he even had his arms crossed over his chest with a small pout. He quickly dropped his hands, letting his thumbs slide into the pockets of his pants. He’d think more on this later.

The next entry was well… there wasn’t much there, really. It was half a page of a drawing that originally took up two pages. It was labeled at the top as ‘The New Ship.’

He remembered that day. Well, they had been on the new ship for a few days but he had only then had the time to draw it out. He liked documenting the ships he owned. This one was bigger than the one they had been on before and afforded more space for beds below the deck. That was what he loved about the ship. Not to mention the one from before had been falling apart.

There wasn’t much to look at here thought. Some sails and words naming the different bits and pieces. He quickly moved to the next page as soon as the man had moved on.

November 30, 1796
There’s a storm brewing and it’s going to be a bad one. The clouds are already roaring and sending lightening to the waters around us. The wind is still small and every so often sun will peek through the clouds. It’s almost impossible to tell if it’s day or night without the sun and my first mate is walking around the ship more. I haven’t told anyone, but I don’t think we’re going to make it to shore before the storm hits. Of course I haven’t told them that we will make it, but I am sure they assume that anyways. But we won’t. This storm is moving in quickly. My first mate next to refuses to leave my side as the wind slowly builds up. I know that if I lose the ship and everyone on it, including this journal, I will have my first mate. If anything, of that I am sure.
I can hear the wind howling past the windows behind me as I sit here at my desk. It’s an eerie sound and I think it will give me nightmares once I am asleep. If I sleep.

Xanti stopped reading. It hadn’t turned out the way he was sure it was going to. His first mate… gone forever, greedily taken by Davy Jones. He turned his face away from the glass and acted as though he was looking at the… was that a trash can? He sighed and looked next to him. The man preceding him was gone now, out the door.

As he made his way to the very last page of the journals he had written so very long ago, he wished that that one page had never been found; or at least that he had never seen it again. It broke his heart all over again to read the words.

December 3, 1796
This is the last page of my journal and blood only writes so well and so much, so I will keep this brief.
I’ve become shipwrecked and lost the one thing that has meant more to me than even my life, and as a Pirate we never find anything as such. But I was lucky. I did.
Sadly, with this shipwreck, I have lost my most Precious Treasure.
So I sign, one last time.
Xanti Marcos