deeper waters

Regulus stood over the ship’s edge, his torso curled around the railing, looking down into the churning ocean and asked himself, genuinely, how the bloody fuck his older brother was alive and on the same pirate ship he was. 

Sirius. Living, breathing, burning. His body, not cold and vacant at the bottom of some lost shore, but pumping blood, hot and thick, to lungs that expanded and contracted, to a heart that thumped accordingly, to legs that walked and a chest that heaved and hands that devoured Remus’s skin like they were starving. 

Sirius. No longer a phantom in the house of Regulus’s memory, but someone tangible, someone he could greet and hug and then beat the living shit out of for lying to his face. 

Why not? said his mind. Why bloody not? 

Why not him? 

Because the light in the hallway was dim. Because Regulus was delirious from heat and thirst and exhaustion. Because there was no fucking way. 

Because he was Regulus Arcturus Black and he could not get his hopes up again. 

Regulus shook his head and rocked on his heels. He was seeing ghosts. 

Why not?

Regulus didn’t dare go back to the hallway and take a confirming look. No, that was invasive and deeply terrifying. What if Padfoot was just some random bloke who happened to look like Sirius? What if the salt water had finally reached Regulus’s brain and made him go off-the-fucking-rocker insane? What if he was wrong?

Even less comforting; what if he was right?

If he was right, if he really witnessed his presumed dead brother macking a pirate, everything he knew about Sirius and the way his life ended (or rather, began anew) was a complete put up job. 

No, Regulus could not do that to himself. But one way or another, someone would have to tell him for certain. Marlene and Lily were out of the question; they were the easiest to get to, but unquestionably loyal to the ship. Besides, Regulus reasoned they might not know anything at all about Sirius, much less be willing to hear him out on what he had seen. Mary could be a good resource, but Regulus didn’t see her much on deck and doubted she was any less dedicated to Lady Lily’s secrets than Padfoot himself. Peter was too quiet. Regulus was wary of him. Remus, for reasons now obvious, couldn’t be depended on to tell Regulus the truth anymore. 

No one would tell him the truth anymore.

No one but James. 

James was not at the helm or hunkered away in the captain’s quarters. Regulus’s search was brief and frustratingly fruitless. What did he even plan to do? Pull a page out of Marlene’s book and knife him for answers? No, that would be foolish. From their interactions, fraught and emotional as they were, Regulus had already figured that James didn’t respond to threat. Nor did he give in to opposition of any sort. 

James was tricky in that way, instinctive to a fault, always willing to go the extra push to accomplish a goal. In the same sense, James had an endless well of patience and a persistent temperament of enthusiasm. Regulus wouldn’t be shocked if James was actually allergic to frowning. Bad energy just bounced right off him. Regulus would have to play nice for once. 

That wasn’t a hard thing to be, around James. Regulus wandered the ship aimlessly, pacing the deck like a caged animal.

“Oi!” called out Peter from the crow’s nest. 

Regulus looked up, screwing up his eyes in the face of the unclouded sun. Peter gestured for Regulus to join him in the basket.

Climbing the mainmast terrified him, but Regulus was a stubborn bastard and wouldn’t buy himself the humiliation of backing down from Peter’s challenge. Peter watched with smug delight and Regulus shimmed up the mainmast, his arms straining with effort.

Regulus collapsed in the basket with a huff. The air felt thinner already. He didn’t dare look down.

Peter snorted, “You doin’ okay?”

“I’m fine,” said Regulus, irritated, “What do you want?”

“I just wanted to see if you could make it up.”

“Well, I can.”
“Barely,” Peter returned his focus to the ocean stretching before them. He passed Regulus a canteen. When Regulus did not drink, Peter grabbed it back and took a swig.

“See?” he put the canteen back in Regulus’s hands, “No one here is trying to poison you, princeling. No offense, but I don’t care enough about you to try.”
His blunt sentiment was strangely comforting. Regulus sipped from the canteen.

“How’d your first day go?”

“Good.”

“Hold out your hands.”

Regulus did. Peter poked absently at the skin under his knuckles.

“Calluses. They’ll hurt for a while, but it makes you stronger. Resilient. Look,” Peter held out his own hands for comparison. His palms were thick with scabs, healed over blisters dotting the pale surface, “If Remus has you working the rigs, that’ll happen.”

“Is that how Remus got his? The scars, I mean?” asked Regulus.

Peter shook his head, “No. That’s a different story.”

“It was magic, wasn’t it?” Regulus suggested, “Remus said necromancers will use physical sacrifice to raise the dead. Did he try to do that? For James?”

Peter scratched his chin, “He had them before he joined crew. You’re right, magic wielders will use blood to fortify spell work on the sea. What Remus left out of his explanation was that it does not have to be the blood of the necromancer that is used.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, oh. Remus hopped ship a lot before he settled with us. I’m sure he found himself on the wrong boat with the wrong captain at the wrong time. It’s not so uncommon for that to happen to drifters like him. Like us.”

“Where’s he really from?”

“Wales?” Peter guessed, “I dunno. He doesn’t talk about it.”

“So everyone here just…what? Decided they wanted to be a pirate and climbed aboard?” That didn’t sound likely to Regulus. Everyone on the crew seemed so close. 

“Pretty much, yeah. James and Lily knew each other before. I honestly thought they were married my first few months, but they’ve got this history. Totally platonic now. They’re like brother and sister, really. Remus was second, I believe. Then came me and Mary. I knew her a bit from school, but we didn’t chat a whole lot until we both met James. Then Marlene. She was actually taken from one of the ships we took down in the North Sea.”

“She was?”

“Yup,” Peter nodded, “She’s a McKinnon. They’ve got loads of cargo ships. She was traveling with her family when we nicked them. When Padfoot boarded and took over, he didn’t come back to Lady Lily alone,” Peter paused, thoughtfully, “She used to be very different than she is now.”
“How so?”

“Quiet. Meek. Not nearly as canny. I think she really found herself here.”

Marlene, a former captive like Regulus, willingly turned. Regulus wondered if she ever felt as lost and confused as he did, how she got over it. He wondered if she missed her family at all.

Peter babbled on, “Padfoot was the most recent before you came along.”

“But I thought he was first mate. Shouldn’t Lily be, because she’s been here the longest?”

“Not necessarily,” said Peter, “You’re right, it’s usually a position passed through seniority, but James really took a liking to him. And Remus was first mate before Padfoot. He stepped down willingly so Padfoot could take his spot.”

Why would he do that? Regulus almost followed, but he already knew the answer. If last night’s observation was any inclination, any stranger would know that Remus cared deeply for Padfoot. The feeling was not unreciprocated, either. 

Regulus suddenly grew weary of Peter’s company, of his high, nasally voice and cryptic half-stories, “Do you know where James might be?”

Peter sniffed, “Might be on the nav deck.”

“You can’t see him from up here?” Regulus said, sarcastically. The sky seemed to press against him, threatening to squeeze the air from his lungs. 

“Princeling, I see everything from up here. Now go. Out of my nest.”

Regulus learned the hard way that getting down from the mainmast was much more tortuous than getting up. 

Regulus had no clue what the ‘nav deck’ was or where it might be, so he clambered below decks to escape the merciless sun. The hull’s breath was thick and humid with condensation. 

He almost reached the turn when a hand shot out and heaved him through a door.

The space was claustrophobically small and cramped, a closet really, and the captain James himself was backed against one wall, a hand bunched in Regulus’s shirt. In his other hand, he held a candle that burned weakly. 

“Shh,” James hushed Regulus when he began to protest, “No one can know I’m in here.”

“I know you’re in here, James,” Regulus said gruffly. Then he noticed the cigarette between James’s teeth and the quarter sized hole in the wall that filtered in a beam of daylight illuminating the plumes of smoke in the air. Regulus smirked.

“Taking a break, are we?” he jeered.

James chuckled, “Yeah, a little. Lily’s like an old maid when it comes to smoking. She seems to have it in her head that these bloody things will kill me one day.”
“I’m sure you’d do a fine job of that on your own,” Regulus’s sudden humor made James smile. His teeth shone white in the candlelight.

“Don’t tell on me.” James said.

“Not if we can share.”

Regulus gently took the cigarette from James’s mouth and took a drag. Smoke, wonderfully viscid and warm, filled his chest. He sighed deeply. James watched with surprised interest.

“Fuck,” groaned Regulus, “I needed that.”

James blew out the candle. Regulus stole another short breath before holding it out to James. James didn’t take it, but leaned across the nominal divide and pulled a mouthful.

Regulus rolled his shoulders, lengthened his spine, let his body relax against James; knees to knees, hips to hips. The searing air no longer seemed stifling, but a solace from the salty climate above deck. Mingling with the smoke was James’s distinct smell of spice and sunshine, sweat evaporating into the air. 

“Two of my friends,” Regulus suspired, “smoked like this.”

James tilted his head, hair falling into his eyes, “How so?”

“When we were teenagers, we would sneak into the coat checks at galas,” said Regulus, brutish with sentiment, “And Evan would steal his mum’s cigarettes. We would sit on the floor and smoke, not saying a single word. But we all knew what the others were thinking.”
“What were you thinking?”

“How we wished that every day could be full of those moments,” Regulus confessed, “My family was not good to me. Evan and Pandora were the first people who ever showed me what it meant to love by degrees, to appreciate each other with every second we had together.”

“Your brother was not the first?” James’s voice was hesitant, scratchy.

Regulus nodded, “No. Sirius loved me greatly and all at once. He loved me like a maverick loves the beach. There, and then gone.”

James cleared his throat, the urge to apologize shocking through his body in a lightning bolt of grief. 

“You and Pandora,” James looked up, “Was she your…” James didn’t have the heart to finish, the courage to seek outright what he really wanted to know.

“Lover?” Regulus concluded. He shook his head, “Not in the customary sense, but we are technically engaged.”

“What?” At this news, a cloud of spoke spurted out of James’s nose the wrong way, throwing him into a coughing fit.

“It’s a false engagement. We do not care for each other like that,” Regulus said, “But Pandora is not from a family as fortunate as mine, without the luxury of choice. Her mother conspired to make a match for her, with someone much older. She is dear to my heart and I feared that if I did not intervene, she would be forced to wed a much worse man than I,” Regulus took a drag, “We would be a good match, if things were different. If I felt differently.” 

Smoke curled from Regulus’s mouth as he spoke.

“Much like you and Lily, if I am not mistaken,” he added.

 James’s eyes, usually honey color in the light, now shone infinitely black under his glasses, turbid with confliction and desire. Desire for what, Regulus wished to know.

God, he wanted to know.

James laughed, short and self-conscious, “You’re not mistaken.”

“She and Mary,” Regulus implored, “They are something of a match too, aren’t they.”

“They are.”

“I take it you were the other woman?” Regulus said with a smug smile.

“Why do you assume I’m the other woman?” James played at scandalization.

“You’re very charming in a very noncommittal manner.”

“Sod off, Regulus-”

“Very self-absorbed in your own beauty…”

“Reg-”

“Really shameless. Like, horrendously shameless about your affections.” Regulus finished as James attempted to swat at him. Their laughter was a bubble in the sea.

“Do you have someone,” said James, chuckling, “-someone else? Another woman of your own.”

“Do you?” Regulus shot back. 

“I’m captain, you answer to me first.”
Regulus rolled his eyes. James persisted.

“Do you see yourself with anyone?”

Regulus took a drag and blew the smoke in James’s face teasingly.

“In so many words,” Regulus said lowly. 

James’s mouth quirked. Slowly, deliberately, he took the cigarette from Regulus’s fingers, closing the space between them. He took a final pull before stubbing it out on the side of the wall and flicking it out into the sea.

Regulus was still, so very still. Baited. Waiting. He was lost in the heat of the smoke, of the day, of James’s hands as slid up Regulus’s neck and buried in his hair. He was lost in the way the ocean pressed them together, the roll of his hips into James’s, the agonizing deliberateness with which James dipped his head down and kissed him.

It was a real kiss, long and volitional and demanding. Regulus had kissed plenty of boys in his life, but James was something else entirely; he tasted like smoke and salt, like a longing being satisfied. Regulus skimmed his hands up James’s shirt, aching for more of him. In the moment they broke apart, Regulus let their breaths meld together, let himself savor every divot and junction where their bodies met, before coming back up again, crushing himself against James like a dying man to air. 

Regulus drowned in James’s touch, sinking himself into deeper waters.