vows of verity
Regulus’s hair flew about in the chill, brine scratching his face as he marched across the deck. He didn’t know where he intended to go or how he was to survive without the crew, but his anger was buoyant and carried him anyway.
“Regulus!”
It was James, following behind him, bright voice carrying over the wind. Regulus refused to turn and face him. James, the absolute fucking liar who had authorized his kidnapping, tried to flatter him into compliance, just to use him like everyone else did. Regulus was accustomed at this point, being stripped dry and bared out for slaughter, hung by his feet to dangle and wonder what he had done to deserve this. In his heart, he already knew.
It had begun to rain, whippet thin bullets of freezing water that shot down onto the deck and cut through his shirt. James’s hand reached out to cuff Regulus on the shoulder, forcing him to flip around at last.
“Where are you going?” said James.
“I don’t know, leave me.”
“Regulus, I-”
“What?” snapped Regulus, “You what? You’re sorry? Sorry you lied to my fucking face? Sorry you kidnapped me? Sorry you didn’t have the guts to just tell me the truth and own the fact that you’re a spineless prick?”
“That’s not fair.” James sniffed.
“You’re bloody right it’s not fair. None of this is fucking fair!”
Regulus grabbed the front of James’s coat and slammed him against the door to the captain’s quarters. He leaned in close enough for James to hear him over the building storm. James’s skin was hot despite the rain, burning through Regulus’s shirt as he spoke.
“You’re seriously fucked, James, you know that? I’m not a nobody. I’m a Black, for fuck’s sake. People will be looking for me.”
To his credit, James didn’t flinch, “Like they looked for your brother?”
“You think you know everything, don’t you?”
“I know you can’t go back home. I know some part of you knows that this is a good thing,” James said, infuriatingly calm.
Regulus threw him against the door and stalked off again. Abruptly, the urge to balance on the railing of the ship, the way Barty had done on the Rosier porch, gripped Regulus and would not let go.
How thoroughly unreal that night had become. How distant and insignifiant he was in this great big ocean.
Regulus clambered onto the railing.
The ship swayed, as all ships tended to do, and Regulus teetered. He stuck his arms out, he lifted his chin.
He wanted so badly to feel like a god again.
His boot slipped and his knee hit the rail, but he popped back up. He screamed into the ether, voice raw with grief and not entirely his own anymore.
He wanted to fall, to feel the zephyr catch him in its arms and lower him into the maw of the ocean, teeth closing around his body and pulling him below the surface. He wondered what it was like to drown, whether or not he would struggle, if he would meet Sirius in the afterlife. But these thoughts were for naught, a maelstrom of fears that quickly manifested into reality.
His body tipped.
James’s hands closed around Regulus’s arm and yanked him back on deck. Regulus hit the wood with a groan, lost in the rain.
“What the bloody hell are you doing?!” James shouted at him.
“Let me go!” Regulus struggled against his grasp, crying, “Let me go! I want to go!”
“You can’t, you’ll die out there!”
“Then it will be just as well!” Regulus stopped fighting. He collapsed into James’s arms, letting the storm soak him up, letting James’s heat ward off the chill that burrowed into his soul.
“You have to stay,” pleaded James, “You have to stay and learn the truth. You can’t go back there. You can’t.”
“Let me go,” Regulus whimpered, once more.
But James just held him tighter.
Regulus woke up shivering in his cot. Peering through the window, he saw it was still evening. The rain had grown stronger, more insistent. Regulus laid his head back down, pulling the blanket up to his chin and letting its reassuring weight lull him back to sleep. It smelled heady and spicy, something inherently warm about it in a ship full of cold, briny water. It reminded Regulus of summers at Evan’s estate, when the sun beat down on the rose bushes and released a thick blanket of perfume over the gardens, strong and comforting. Regulus’s fingers worried the crimson fabric as sleep dragged over his body. In the corner of his eye, he thought he saw James, resting on the floor next to him.
Some hours later, sunlight shone through the small window. Morning had crashed over the ship like a tidal wave. James was gone, the room seemed huge and hollow. Regulus pushed the blanket off of himself, desperate to walk around. It collapsed in a red pile on the ground.
No, it wasn’t a blanket.
It was James’s captain’s coat.
Snatching it up, Regulus sought out the sun.
The deck was a disaster. Barrels had tumbled, ropes tossed by the wind, wrapping around the masts like fat snakes. Peter wandered around, picking up this and that, tying down parts that had fallen loose in the storm. Marlene, not even attempting to look helpful, was throwing knives at a target painted on the mainmast.
“Morning Reg,” Marlene said, noticing Regulus climbing up the stairs, “Where you goin’?” Regulus joined her side. Marlene flung another knife. It hit wide.
“To find James.” Regulus stared out into the ocean. Still there, unfortunately.
“I see you followed my advice.” Marlene prodded the captain’s coat in his hands with one of her knives.
“It’s not like that.”
“C’mon. Don’t be shy.”
Another knife soared through the air, sinking into the third ring.
“Really, Marlene,” insisted Regulus, “It’s not.”
“No shame in the game, man,” Marlene said. She grunted as another knife left her hand and went wide again, “I play for the same team myself.”
She threw. Metal flashed. Second ring.
“You need to follow through.” Regulus said indifferently.
“What?”
Regulus gestured to her throwing hand. Gently, he took her wrist and guided her through the motion, pulling her arm forward and down.
“After you throw, you need to let your arm naturally follow through the path of the blade,” he explained, “Like pitching a ball. If you don’t follow through, it lands wide.” He nodded to the target, studded with misses.
“May I?” he asked Marlene. Shrugging, Marlene handed over her last knife, the one she had held to Regulus’s throat a day before, and stepped aside. Regulus planted his feet, inhaled measuredly, and threw.
The thunk of metal striking wood. Bullseye.
Regulus did not contain his small, proud smile.
“Holy shit!” Marlene ran over to inspect the winning throw, “You got it dead center.”
She pulled the other knives out of the mainmast. Regulus sauntered over and yanked his free.
“Where’d you learn to do that?” she asked, genuinely curious.
Regulus thought of the weekend evenings when he and Sirius would sneak out to the forest and play war in the woods behind the Black manor. There, Sirius would teach him to wield a short sword, fire a bow, throw knives at the poplar trees. The night before he disappeared, he had demonstrated how to use a sabre.
“This is how the pirates do it,” he had said.
“My brother taught me,” answered Regulus truthfully. He inspected the knife in his hand, running his thumb over the seal. He tapped it, “Where did you get this, Marlene?”
Marlene took the knife from him and flipped it in the air.
“Nicked it off a trader ship a few years back. Thought it looked neat, so I swiped it from the captain’s chest,” Marlene tilted her head, hair spilling into her eyes, “Why do you ask?”
Regulus rubbed at the seal, feeling out the grooves of the rose imprint, “This is the seal of the Rosier family.”
“Oh, yeah. We’ve gotten a few of those ships.”
Regulus’s mouth twisted, “My friend is a Rosier. The ships must have been his father’s. Do you remember what it carried?”
“Raw material mostly, nothing we can use.”
Regulus hummed and handed the knife out to Marlene. She didn’t take it.
“But it’s yours,” Regulus insisted.
“Not really. You said it was your friend’s. What’s his name?”
“Evan.”
“You known him a while?”
Regulus couldn’t hide the longing in his answer. For this fifteenth birthday present, Evan handed Regulus a knife identical to the one in his hand now.
From my family’s personal collection, Evan had said, You’ll always be welcome here. With me. It would be difficult to describe the impact that had on Regulus, the sense of belonging he had felt, the rush of gratitude.
“All my life,” Regulus finally said.
Marlene pushed the knife away, “Then you keep it. Maybe one day you can return it to him.”
“Marls, I couldn’t.”
Marlene scoffed, “I’ve got a thousand others. Consider it a barter for the coat. Plus-” she winked, “If you’re going to be a pirate, you’ll need a shank or two.”
A pirate, though Regulus, God. What a week.
“Is that what I am?” he murmured, more to himself than anything else.
“Lady Lily doesn’t take prisoners. You might as well help take care of her,” Marlene repositioned herself into throwing stance, “Go find James.”
Regulus did.
James was back at the helm, but this time his handle on the wheel was light and carefree. His hair was tied back from his face, tuft of it sticking out from a tie, downy as a baby bird’s. His wire glasses were perched on the bridge of his nose, elegant and significant. Remus sat beside him, flicking his eyes between a map and the compass balanced on his knee. Even young in the day, the sun was unbearable and both boys were shirtless. Regulus, never one to be self-conscious or embarrassed, tracked his eyes along Remus’s chest, which was shredded with scars. He wondered what monster could do that to someone. He wondered how Remus could bear that sort of pain.
What’s the big deal, said the voice of remembrance in his head, you did.
Regulus pushed away the thought and cleared his throat.
James noticed him first.
“How are you feeling?” he asked, rather genuinely.
“Fine,” Regulus’s response was curt, harsher than he meant it to be. He corrected himself, “I came to return this.”
He held out the captain’s coat, a brilliant red in the sunlight. Remus gaped, but recovered quickly.
James reached out and took the coat, slow and willfully. He smirked.
“Hope you weren’t too cold,” he said flippantly. Regulus blushed, a shameful sort of reaction.
Remus coughed and stood up.
“I’m going to check in with Peter,” he said, and then to Regulus, “Be sure to eat something.” He started down the stairs.
Regulus claimed Remus’s spot on the deck next to James. Better not to be face to face with his chest, he reasoned. Instead, he looked out across the deck, watching Peter and Marlene and Remus mill around like little miniatures.
“Thank you,” Regulus said abruptly.
James swallowed, “For what?”
“For not giving up on me,” Regulus looked up at James, “I was being difficult last night. I’m sorry you had to deal with that.”
“My pleasure really.”
Regulus sighed, long and exasperated. He wanted a cigarette.
“This is probably a lot to take in,” James conceded.
“Yes. It is.”
“Do you remember what I said to you last night?”
Regulus nodded, “I have to stay and learn the truth.”
Suddenly, James tied off the wheel and sat beside Regulus. His profile was stark against the blue sky, his skin warm in the daylight. Regulus’s stare roved over James’s body, wishing he would say something.
“I didn’t lie to you, Regulus. I want you…” said James.
Regulus’s breath caught, a hook in his chest.
“I want you to be here,” James continued, “I hope soon, you’ll want to be here too.”
“Lily said I’m not a prisoner.”
“You’re not.” James said, defiantly.
Regulus spread his arms, “But how can I leave? I cannot swim to shore. I cannot call for help. You’ve trapped me here.”
“We’re all trapped, Regulus. It isn’t such a bad thing, to be with those you love. To sail beside them, to work and eat and play in their company. To be part of this crew,” James sighed, breathless, “was the most amazing thing that could have happened to me. I know I can survive anything with these people. They will be with me through storm, through death and defeat. They will celebrate my triumphs and hold me through my failures.”
James nudged Regulus meaningfully, “You’re part of this crew too, Regulus. And I will only tell you the truth if you will honor our code.”
Regulus raised his eyebrows, “What about Narcissa’s Revenge? I suppose helping you locate the ship is part of my conditional acceptance?”
James shook his head, “That doesn’t matter.”
Regulus scoffed, “I don’t believe you.”
“Then don’t,” said James, “Don’t believe me. Just promise you will let me help you. Say you will be a part of my crew.”
Regulus met James’s gaze. He toyed with his knife, Evan’s knife, turning over James’s proposal in his mind.
James was being sincere, that much was true. But Regulus knew there was more to his intentions by the way James had held onto him the night before, fear and abandon in his ferocity. He knew by the way James spoke to him, soft and sure. He knew by the way James’s boot struck the planks, the way he gripped the helm, the way his shoulder rested against Regulus’s, as if his body ached to convince Regulus still. There was more to James and his vows of verity than he verbally let on. If Regulus truly meant to assimilate into the crew, perhaps he would learn just what James hid beneath his heart.
Why not?
“I promise I will try,” said Regulus finally. James laughed, relieved.
“Good,” said James, “That’s good to hear.”
A merciful breeze picked up around them.
“Thank you for returning my coat,” James added, “I hope I wasn’t presumptuous in thinking it would be comforting.”
Regulus’s mouth quirked upward, “It was.”
“Comforting or presumptuous?”
Regulus did not answer, “Everyone has a job on board, do they not? What are my assignments?”
James grinned, “Eager. I like it. You can start by helping Peter clean the deck. You said you don’t know much about ships, but you’ll learn day by day. Mary and Lily always need help in the galley.”
Regulus nodded.
They sat pressed together for a few minutes longer, the sea swallowing up the silence, before James had to get back to the helm and Regulus to his new crewmates.