mercy of the open air
Sirius and Regulus shimmied down the mainmast as quickly as humanly possible with the icy rain tearing across their faces.
“Where’s Peter?” Regulus screamed, “He was supposed to be down here for the relay!” Sirius shook his head. They rushed to the helm, where Remus and James struggled with the wheel.
“We found her!” Sirius shouted. James blinked as if that could somehow clear the droplets from his glasses.
“What?” said Remus over the wind.
“Narcissa’s Revenge!” Regulus filled in, desperately trying to keep a visual fix on the ship.
This got Remus’s attention. Fast.
“Show me where. What direction?”
Remus chased after Regulus as he bolted to the bow port side. Sirius took Remus’s place at the helm.
“Everything go okay up there?” James asked, strained with effort.
“Yeah,” Sirius chuckled, “Yeah, it kinda did.”
“So I’m not going to have to take sides in the Black War?”
“No. And let’s be honest James, you would be daft not to pick mine.”
“Sirius, mate, I don’t mean to be coarse, but your brother’s got a mouth on him that might convince me otherwise.”
“Prongs-”
“I mean seriously, Padfoot. It’s like you wouldn’t believe-”
“James!”
“Yeah?”
“Shut the fuck up-”
“His hands alone-”
“- and man the damn ship.”
Sirius removed his hands from the helm and let it spin. James nearly slipped over himself trying to catch it.
Remus peered through his looking glass, eyes screwed up against the relentless storm. Regulus tightened his coat around himself.
“Do you see it?” Regulus yelped.
Remus collapsed the looking glass.
“That’s her alright,” he started towards the captain’s quarters, Regulus hot on his heels.
James’s room was mercifully warm and dry. Remus began to shuffle through papers and maps on the desk. Regulus could only watch on, yearning to help but not knowing how to.
“Is everything okay?” asked Remus.
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
“With Sirius, I mean,” he did not meet Regulus’s eyes.
Regulus sniffed, “Yes. Everything is fine.”
“You didn’t fight?”
“No. He explained it all well enough.”
“Oh. That’s good.”
Remus finally found the map he was looking for and started scribbling on the paper.
“Thank you.” Regulus said, the words spilling from his mouth before he could stop them.
Remus cast him a suspicious glance, “For what?”
“For saving my brother.”
Remus gulped nervously, as if he couldn’t determine whether or not Regulus was being sincere.
“Regulus, I’m sorry for not saying anything sooner,” Remus stammered.
“Remus, it’s fine. Really. I’m actually sort of glad you didn’t,” Regulus said, “I wouldn’t have believed you anyway. I needed to hear it from him.”
Remus nodded, reassured.
“He loves you. Very much,” Regulus continued, “I am happy you found each other. God knows he deserves someone like you.”
Remus snorted, “I should hope he loves me. We’re getting married.”
A confession, offered so easy and simple, seemed impossible. But the hitch in Remus’s tone confirmed his unease with Regulus’s reaction, the pretense of being met with unkindness all too familiar to the both of them.
The smile that touched Regulus’s lips was one of deep regard and felicity.
“No kidding,” he said.
“No kidding,” Remus echoed.
Regulus’s tone was shy. “May I come? To the wedding.”
Remus thought his heart might crack.
“Of course, Reg. We both want you there.”
Lily burst through the doors of the captain’s quarters, dripping wet and frightened.
“Remus, the ship,” she panted, “Narcissa’s Revenge. It’s not more than two miles out.”
“What?” cried Remus, shell-shocked, “That’s practically on top of us. There’s not a chance in hell it crossed that fast.”
Marlene stumbled through the doors, nearly knocking Lily over.
“Then you better start stripping Lupin, ’cause I hear hell is nice and hot this time of year.” Marlene marched across the room, shoved a short sword into Regulus’s hands, and hugged him.
“You’re a badass, Reg,” she whispered, her voice raspy in his ear, “You’re a fucking badass pirate and you’re not going to die today, okay?”
“I’m not going to what-”
“Reg, just remember what Lily and I taught you and you’ll be fine.”
Marlene was gone as quickly as she came. Lily was not far behind her.
“That was disconcerting,” Regulus sputtered.
“That’s just her way,” Remus said and then frowned, “I think she was kidding. She must be kidding.”
“I hope she was kidding.”
“Probably not though.”
“Remus-”
“James will want you both on deck,” Lily said as she was leaving, “Don’t be long. We’ve got a ghost ship to sack.”
Lady Lily might not have possessed a very large population, but one could search the entire seven seas and not find a single crew so brilliantly loyal, so violently loving of their ship and of one another. Marlene jerked the cannons into firing position, Mary and Lily rushing along the gunner line, filling the tanks with gunpowder and setting out flint. Sirius and James had tied up the wheel, rushing down to get a look at the ship. Remus ran out with his map, thrusting it at James and yelling, his message lost to the storm. James was going literally hysterical, jumping and dancing about like a madman, completely ignoring all other stimuli around him, eyes laser focused on his fated ghost ship. Peter was nowhere to be found.
Regulus almost slipped running to the edge of the railing.
Narcissa’s Revenge was so close he could taste the mussels on its hull, feel the pull of its sails and the chill of its spirits. Regulus could reach out and touch it, if he wanted. Fear threaded through his ribcage. He didn’t even notice the rain stopped, replaced by the bellow of thunder.
“James,” Remus said, “I don't like this. It’s way too close.”
Marlene’s hand itched at the cannons, “Captain? Permission to fire?”
James ran a hand through his damp hair.
“Why aren’t they firing on us?” he muttered. He strode forward and pressed himself to Regulus’s side at the railing.
“This is her?” James confirmed, “This is Narcissa?”
“It has to be. You were right. The figurehead is a near twin,” Regulus adjusted his grip on the rails, “James, why aren’t they attacking?”
“I don’t know.”
The air itself felt charged, tense, waiting. James opened his mouth and howled.
“Come on out!” he screamed, “Come and get me! I’m right here!”
James’s answer from Narcissa’s Revenge came in the form of a knife that sailed across the divide between the ships and embedded itself in the wood next to Regulus’s hand. James screeched and jerked back.
Regulus stayed perfectly still, for the seal on the hilt of the knife was one of a rose, the contortion of the iron a stamp in his memory.
Pitched against the side of Narcissa’s rails, stood Evan Rosier, his arm extended with the velocity of his knife. Evan, the only man alive who could throw even better than the Black brothers, the only man whose personal collection of blades had found itself, even across the sea, in Regulus’s hand.
At the sound of his knife sticking home, Evan sneered and jumped onto the railing to get a better look at Regulus.
“Hey there baby,” he called out proudly, “Climb aboard.”
Narcissa’s gangplank hit Lady Lily with a resounding and offensive smack. James flicked his head to face Regulus, horrified.
“Regulus,” James said, excruciatingly cautious, “Who is that?”
“A friend,” Regulus answered, though he wasn’t so convinced of that now.
“He doesn’t look like a Malfoy.”
“No,” agreed Regulus, “He doesn’t.”
Regulus looked up the slope of the gangplank. As he stepped on the board, James snatched him by the sleeve.
“Reg,” James’s eyes were impossibly wide with panic, “Reg, what are you doing?”
“I need to talk to him.”
“Think about this, please, Reg-”
“I’ll talk to him. I’ll convince him not to attack Lady Lily. We can still get out of this.”
“Get out of what? They haven’t fired!”
“That’s not to say they won’t soon. James, let go of me.”
“You can’t go up there. We don’t know what they’re waiting with-”
“James, let go-”
“It’s a ghost ship, for crying out loud!”
“James! Let me go!”
The sharpness of Regulus’s tone scared James to his core. Still, he didn’t move a muscle.
“Reg, if you’re thinking of going with them, don’t. Don’t leave me,” he pleaded.
Regulus’s mouth snapped shut.
James gasped, “Don’t leave me. Don’t go with them. I only just got you, Regulus. I can’t let you leave. I…I won’t let you. You can’t do this. I won’t be able to survive it.”
Regulus stepped down.
“I won’t be able to survive it,” James faltered, “Sirius might be able to, but I’m not like him. God knows, I’m not like him at all. I can’t do that. I can’t just go on living without you now. Regulus, please.”
Another step closer.
“I just got you, Reg,” James echoed, “I’ve only just got you. I can’t possibly let go.”
Just that morning, Regulus had begged of James a very similar wish. Regulus had grabbed his hand and petitioned whatever sorry gods watched over him to favor his stars just this one time. With this one boy.
Never let me go, he asked a sleeping James. Regulus supposed that perhaps it wasn’t his prayer that was beckoned that night.
Regulus, ever gentle, ever reverent, took James’s face in his cursed hands and kissed him. Kissed him in the way he had seen Remus embrace Sirius; always with the promise of more. James’s tears stuck to Regulus’s cheek.
Regulus broke away, but not entirely.
“I’ll never let you go,” he vowed. James’s voice broke with the returning oath.
“And I will always come back for you.”
James released Regulus to the mercy of the open air.