The Pirate King Ch. 11

The look of disgust on his face was all I needed to know, but he continued anyway. "Drey again. He's called me that since we were kids, you know." I frowned; I had never noticed. "I think he picked that name because worms are sexless, and you know how he feels about how I dress, and act, and." He broke off, anger clear on his face.

I didn't know what to say.

"But he wasn't happy with a nickname, no. He has to go and fuck everything up. He knows what I do, knows how I do it, so you know what he decides he's going to do?" I shook my head, but Val wasn't looking at me. "He goes out and pays my rival brothel owners, the ones who are now actively engaging in the shadow slave trade? Real sweet guys. He pays them to buy up men and then tell them that it was me who orchestrated the whole thing. In the beginning I think it was mostly for him, I honestly think it was a game, the way he got off. You remember how he is, he just tagged my name to it as an added bonus but pretty soon it became systematic and then..." Val's face was tight, drawn together so that nothing he didn't want slipped past. "It does terrible things for my reputation."

"Why?" Not why do they do this; people are cruel. It's just the way we were made. But why did Dreyfus go wider? Why make it something more?

Val understood my question. "Because he doesn't like what I've been doing with the industry." He turned away, his eyes out past my form. On the sea. When he spoke again, his voice was deeper. Colder. Held the weight of the kinds of memories simple words should never have to carry. "And because he's Dreyfus."

When Val left the sea, it was no secret that it was because he was tired of the violence. That he no longer wanted men to fear him at every step. I had watched him build an empire based on trust, and love, and had loved him for it. Had looked up to him for it. What a way, I had thought, to escape the shadow of our father - become your very own light.

Dreyfus, apparently, had been watching as well.

I sighed at that, feeling the weight from Val's words settle over me. "I'm sorry." Sorry for what that man had done to him for years. Sorry for not stopping it when we were younger. Sorry for not seeing it for what it was when we were older. Sorry for not being here, these past three years, to keep it from happening again.

"I said, don't hate yourself," Val intoned drily. I reached out and put my hand over his, felt his squeeze into the sand. I knew this hurt him more than he would ever admit. He knew that it hurt me just as much.

We sat on the border of the land and sea for some time, Val and I, the brother than left the sea and the one that died for it, feeling the salt water wash over our feet and try and drag us into it's depths.

Val eventually sighed. "Where's your man?"

"Back at the room." I frowned, remembering the last moment as I had left. "I don't think he realized you were my brother until I was leaving."

Val started. "Brother!"

I turned to him, eyes questioning.

"Tell me you talked to him about it."

I half shrugged.

"Brother!" Val hissed.

"I didn't think it was important."

"Didn't think." Val sighed. "Fuck, you can be so dense." He stood, reaching down to indicate that I also should be standing. I frowned up at him. "We're going back to fix this right now."

"He's fine." I took Val's hand anyway. It was good to see him acting with such direction.

"He is not fine. He thinks I'm this god-awful being, and you just dropped on him that we're family."

I shrugged again, as best I could in the movement of my body becoming upright. "I told him that it wasn't you."

"What?" We were moving, him leading the way, so he couldn't give me the look I'm sure he wanted to.

"Who he was talking about. I told him it wasn't you."

Val stopped, looking at me incredulously. "And you think he'd believe that."

I blinked. "Yes."

"I." Val threw up his hands, then continued walking. "You know, I don't know what else I expected."

I wasn't sure what he meant, so I just let it go.

As we approached the room, Val hung back. I never let him fall behind me, matching my pace to his. I wanted to be able to keep an eye on him, make sure he was doing okay. He seemed to be dragging his feet up until the last few feet, where his natural tendency for posturing took over and he pulled himself up, flipped his hair and strode into the room.

I heard a shout of surprise and walked in after him.

"Val," I said, indicating the man now intentionally casual in the chair he had been previously occupying, "meet the Captain." The Captain was standing, tense, his hand on the knife he wore ever-present on those pants I loved oh-so much. I moved over to him and slid my hands around his waist. "Captain," I murmured into his ear. "Meet Val." Val refused to look over at us. "My brother."

I felt the Captain slowly relaxing in my arms. I knew he was more comfortable when he sheathed the blade he held. I kissed behind his ear in appreciation for him trying, and was rewarded with him melting even further into my arms. Only when his body was molded to mine did I try to speak again.

"Val isn't the Worm."

Both Val and the Captain immediately tensed.

"That isn't -" the Captain began, as Val met my eyes with a dark look and muttered, "Brother."

The Captain shuffled his feet in my arms as he heard Val speak. When he began again, his voice was less sure. "He says he trusts you."

Val looked out the window at the sea.

"And I. I won't apologize for trying to keep him safe." I kissed the back of his head at the hardness I heard in his voice; I knew he would rip apart the world for me, my brother included. I would do the same for him. "And also, I've seen you. You've been pointed out to me. 'That's the Worm. That's the one who's done this.'" He shuffled his feet again; I could tell he'd seen the flinch that had passed over my brother's face at the mention of the nickname. "You know?"

"Yes," Val responded. His voice was collected. Careful. Filtered. "I know." He stacked himself up and brought his eyes over to the Captain's. "There is someone who does not like what I do."

"You can say it's the King," I interjected from my position wrapped around my love. Again, both the other men stiffened. I ignored it, continuing to speak to Val. "He has experience with him."

"You know the King?" Val's eyes had snapped to me while I spoke; now they landed firmly back on the Captain. "The current Pirate King?"

"He sailed with him," I told him.

"And you know this. And you think, that's great! A nameless former associate of the King?"

I sighed. I thought we had covered this. "I'm nameless too."

"How do you know I'm nameless?" the Captain asked, a hint of suspicion in his voice. Then he shifted in my arms to look up at me. "You're nameless?"

I smiled down at him and kissed his forehead.

Val ignored us. "How long did you sail with the King?"

"Why didn't you tell me you were nameless?"

"I did," I told him. Or at least, I thought I had. "The sea took my name when I died."

His frown deepened. "You're dead?"

Val threw up his arms.

"I thought I told you that as well."

"No," he said, turning to look at me fully. "I knew the men called you Ghost, but." His eyes tracked over my face. "Dead."

"Dead," I repeated. I wondered if he would understand.

But of course he would. I saw a flicker of anger, then resolve. "Who killed you?" he asked, and his voice was dark and warm and the kind of sound a knife makes as it comes unsheathed and I shuddered even before his hand landed on my cheek.

"Does it matter?" I responded quietly, knowing that it did.

He waited.

"The King."

His eyes darkened to a shade of black previously known to only the bottom of the sea, shadows compressed by the weight of the sea or, in his gaze, the gravity of the knowledge he found pressed upon him. I watched him process this, his eyes growing darker by the moment.

"My love," I murmured, but he held up his hand.

"We'll kill him," he stated. Commanded. And the sea in me rose, beating, pounding, and I could only respond with a kiss.

"How long did you sail with the King."

I had forgotten Val was there; so had the Captain, by the way he jumped. I pulled his head into my neck and smiled at Val. "He arrived after I left, and then he tried to kill him sometime after that."

There was a moment of silence.

"When did you -" the Captain said, while Val leaned forward, clutching the arms of his chair and hissed, "Kill him?"

"Well," the Captain said a bit huffily in the following awkwardness. "It didn't work."

"Obviously." Val all but threw himself back in the chair.

"Three and a half years ago," I answered the Captain. "That's when I died."

"Was it really that long," I heard Val mutter.

The Captain frowned. "That's when the crown changed hands."

Yes, I thought. Yes it was.

The Captain pushed away from me and looked up. "Wait. So you sailed with the last King?"

Val started. I shrugged. "I suppose."

"You didn't tell him?" Val looked livid. His gaze was flicking, hard, between me and the Captain. "Are you going to tell him?"

"It's disrespectful to talk of the dead."

"You're not." Val pinched the bridge of his nose between his forefinger and thumb. "The only thing you are is infuriating."

"How long did you sail with him?" The Captain's eyes were shining.

I shrugged again. "For as long as I can remember."

He frowned. "What does that mean."

I looked down at him, eyebrows raised. "I have never not sailed with the King."

"Or at least a king," Val added for me, filling in at least one of the ways that statement was true.

"You sailed with the King before that?"

"Aye," I told him, "but he wasn't much of a King."

"Or a he," Val added.

"And before that?"

His question was met with icy silence. Val looked at me, perhaps expected me to field this question; I wanted nothing to do with it. The Captain would understand. He would never expect me to go down paths I had long ago blocked off to satisfy idle curiosity.

He understood immediately and took my hand in his. I squeezed, and he squeezed back.

"So when did you. Your little coup, or whatever. When was that?" Val managed to make it sound like he was asking about a party, not something he himself had violently reacted to just moments ago.

"Uh." The Captain took a moment. "Two years ago."

I frowned. "Natch told me he came aboard two years ago, after you had fled."

I watched as those brows slammed together in thought. "No. Maybe. I mean, time gets kinda -" Suddenly his eyes flew wide open, his hand flying to his mouth. "Oh, shit! Natch! I told him that if I wasn't back in two hours he should burn the city to the ground, starting with your brother's brothel."

"Mother fucker," Val muttered, and was out of the room before I knew it. The Captain was close behind, shouting about recognition and terror and a better chance of not dying with him, or something.

I looked down at the hands that had just held his and sighed. Well, I thought. At least I would get to see Natch.

I turned and moved through the broken door after them.