Prince of the Seven Seas - l.s

Chapter 24

Louis woke up rather slowly that morning.

For some reason, the bed he slept in felt more comfortable than it had when he had first been tossed on it the night previous by Harry.

Thankfully enough, the pirate captain had gone and fitted on the new, cleaner sheets without anymore teasing on the subject of why the sheets were dirty in the first place. It was already obvious he knew why the sheets had been bundled in the corner, but Louis felt a bit more secure in the fact that Harry didn't bring it up again.

The ordeal was embarrassing enough to remember.

He and Harry still talked while Harry worked on making up the bed for him. Louis had stood off to the wall and found himself conversing back with the brunet that nearly appeared like a different person with the talk they shared.

Louis found himself learning more and more about the pirate captain that he had a feeling more than half the crew onboard had no clue about.

The uncomfortable and awkward atmosphere he shared with Harry had slowly began to ease up with that and for once when Louis went to bed, he had a dream he could actually remember that wasn't completely bittersweet.

Perhaps he was going mad? Perhaps the salt water was getting to him?

Either way, he knew that the moment he had a dream where he and Harry were sitting together and smiling and laughing like they were best friends meant that he needed to reevaluate how he saw the younger male.

It was still early, or at least with the way the light angled into the porthole within the room showed Louis that it couldn't have been too late into the morning.

With his fever from the night previous practically gone and the pain in his arm nonexistent, it was easy to say he felt way better than he had yesterday.

Maybe that was the reason the mattress seemed at the softest it had ever been at since his time onboard?

His thoughts broke at the sound of the door opening.

Immediately, he tried to brush the stray pieces of hair from his face as he sat up with an expectant look at the entrance to the room.

The moment Harry walked in, Louis found himself breathing out a sigh lowly.

"Well, good morning to you too." Harry narrowed his eyes to the royal while walking across the room toward the rack on the wall that held his hat up. He didn't have on neither his boots nor overcoat as per usual and Louis was able to deduce that the captain had just woken up and was coming into the room for the first time in the morning.

Louis shook his head, "Yeah, good morning." He muttered beneath his breath before he removed the sheets from over his body to move his feet over the side of the bed.

He reached to grab his boots and he felt the edge of the mattress sink as Harry took a seat.

Weakly, Louis attempted to speak in order to break any potential tension that could arise between them, "So another day at sea..." It was pathetically worded and he knew Harry would mock him for trying to start a conversation in that fashion.

"Hm?" Harry hummed out in his distracted tone, though Louis knew better.

That didn't mean that the strange air around them wasn't settling over.

Louis was by no means socially awkward; in fact back at the palace he prided himself in being able to charm and communicate with virtually anyone that appeared shy or closed, Eleanor was a shining example of that. But it seemed that whenever it came to Harry, everything was put into a different outlook.