This chapter was kind of a pain to write because I'm just so excited for the next chapter. I wanted to be writing that one. There is a super minor cameo of a couple characters from a somewhat obscure Leijiverse show in this one, so kudos to you if you recognize them.
Zero looked determined to scrub holes in his skin with lye soap. He sat as much of himself as he could in the round wooden tub, his knees poking out of the water. We were both a bit too tall for them, and the freshwater Tadashi heated up for us had gone cold before I managed to scrub myself clean.
Now I'd grown accustomed to the chill of it. I leaned on the edge of my tub, soaked hair covering what my eyepatch usually hid. "How exactly do you think I should go about apologizing to my distressed newblood?" I asked. If Tadashi was to be believed, Yama spent a good portion of the ordeal beating his forehead against a galley table.
"You could let me take him," Zero said without looking my way. Any signs that we'd been together were long gone. No bite marks or scratches marred skin, and the air smelled of bitterly clean lye.
"You can't have Yama." I didn't understand why he never had a newblood of his own if he wanted one so much. "You don't even know what your destination is, and some of your passengers are humans. It's not safe to put him on a ship like that for a long period of time."
Zero gave a noncommittal hum and stuck the soap bar between his knees. There, he rubbed his arm against it. It seemed he'd adapted well enough, so perhaps I had nothing to worry about. He might remain one of my few equals at swordplay regardless.
"If you'd truly like to make it up to the boy, you could start by thinking more about his needs," he said, ignoring my eye lingering on him. "Raising a newblood is like raising a child. You must be mindful of them."
That sounded nice in theory, but bringing up children was not a strong suit of mine either. Luckily for me, my own child could pick up complex tasks with little help. I didn't need to do much in the way of raising him, whether I wanted to or not. Yama was different. He was intelligent, certainly, but he was raised far from the real world. And yet, his exposure to reality came in the form of too much too quickly. All at once, he was both naïve and too experienced.
In comparison, I did not believe feeling my heartbeat during sex was all that terrible. Then again, I had not been a virgin in ages.
Once clean and dressed, I skimmed the dark halls in search of him, but the ship appeared empty. Most of the crew were assisting the Karyū, helping the injured and loading it with our spare supplies. Perhaps Yama went to help as well.
Taking the stairs two at a time, I made my way out into the salty air. The waves churned beneath us, and the wind smacked my hair into my face. Stars appeared in fragmented clusters above, hidden by dark clouds. Zero would need to pull out soon. This storm would be an ugly one.
I blinked at the sound of Tetsuro's voice, unsure if I wanted to understand the reason behind his words. "So you've never masturbated?" he asked.
My eye turned without my permission, and there was Yama, blushing under a pile of boys. It appeared they'd trapped him against the railing. Meowdar was seated in his lap, Tetsuro sidled up against one shoulder, and Tadashi napping against the other.
It would have been a cute scene if not for their discussion. Yama looked like he wanted to curl up and die. "I-I wouldn't say I never, but- Well, the church frowned on that sort of thing. It's just not really… Can we talk about something else?"
Meowdar reached back and patted Yama's cheek with a smile. "Such things are not a necessity. Some people do not even like sex, and that is fine. But if you would like any assistance, we can help you-"
I cleared my throat as I approached, certain I did not want to know where this was going. Though the other boys remained unchanged, Yama's eyes darted to me in his usual startled animal fashion. I might as well have set off an explosion in front of him for the way he looked at me, but his gaze flashed away as quickly as it came.
"Hey, Captain," Tetsuro said with a wave. "We took over coddling Yama for you like you said."
"I don't recall saying that." Whatever I said, it did not include the word coddling. Regardless, I would have preferred the coddling remain limited to Tadashi. "Are you certain you're not harassing him?" I asked.
"I'm fine," Yama muttered, rubbing at the blush across his cheeks. "This has all been very…informative."
Before I could ask, Meowdar explained precisely what I feared. "We educated him on the natures of sex. That church taught him many wrong things, and he only knew of sex between one male and one female. I hope we covered all the bases for him."
I had a feeling Tadashi fell asleep after drawing our baths, leaving his younger companions to make poor decisions while he was unaware. One of the drawbacks of him being a half-breed was his near-narcoleptic sleep patterns, but perhaps it was for the best. While Tetsuro and Meowdar seemed fine explaining away sex to Yama, I doubted I could form coherent sentences in a similar attempt. It felt as though there was a deep line carved between the act and the explanation, especially when it came to someone as naïve as Yama.
Though I wasn't sure I approved, I couldn't scold them for being informative. "I appreciate it, but you should go help the Karyū with final preparations. They must leave soon."
Tetsuro jumped up with a "Yes, sir!" Meowdar only followed because of Tetsuro's hand latched onto his collar. As Tetsuro tugged Meowdar away, they bickered about leaving Tadashi behind. They were as clingy as burrs and always liked to roam in packs. But for a rare moment, I had my boys to myself.
"Should I go too?" Yama asked, his voice strained.
"Only if you want to." I strode to his side where Tadashi rested and eased my arms under the small, sleeping form. I was met with a soft growl, like rousing a baby bear, but he remained a ragdoll as I took his place at Yama's side.
Yama still appeared tense, keeping his gaze away from me, but he made no attempt to move. I settled Tadashi in my lap, his head against my chest. "Not a baby, dad," he mumbled. I would have been met with more of a backlash had he been fully awake, but he was too tired to care for the moment. His breathing evened out almost instantly.
"The Karyū will need to leave before sunrise," I told Yama. "There will be a bad storm tonight."
Yama nodded, eyes locked on his hands in his lap.
"I do apologize for what you had to see. Perhaps I should have warned you." It was a struggle to keep my words from bouncing with a laugh. "And the heartbeat, well, I should have been more mindful of that also."
"I can't believe you and Zero had sex," he hissed. His pulse began to pound in my chest. "That's terrible. You can't do that!" His eyes snapped to me, glaring. "You're not married! You can't have sex until you're married!"
I nodded, my lips pressed together to fight back a smile. Yama was certainly naïve, but he always managed to surprise me. "And who do you propose should marry us?" I asked. "The church?"
"Maybe you should have thought of that before you became a vampire," he grumbled.
"Perhaps. But like you, I didn't have much time to think before I was turned. Still, marriage was never much of a concern of mine."
He didn't respond, watching the crews of both ships mill across the Karyū's deck. We lapsed into silence as I watched them as well. I hadn't made many human friends during my stay in Zero's city. It was for the best that we didn't. After a decade or two, they began to question our lack of aging. But I did recognize some of the humans attempting to help on Zero's ship. It was easy to tell them apart by the way they squinted in the lack of light. Some allowed a vampire to take them by the hand and lead them around. I'd never seen so many humans and vampires getting along in such a way.
After another harsh gust of wind helped dry my hair, Yama spoke up over the waves. "I want to help, but I'm scared to," he said.
"Because you're a newblood? You've fed recently, so you wouldn't accidentally bring harm to anyone."
"No," he sighed. "I know so many of them, and they know me and Ezra. It's cowardly of me, but I can't stand to face them after all that's happened."
Yes, it was cowardly, and it was cowardly for me to not want him over there either. If those people did know him as Ezra's brother, I didn't want them forcing any blame on him. He already did that enough himself.
Even so, I would tell him otherwise as many times as I needed to. "Yama, I know it is difficult for you to believe, but what happened isn't your fault. I'm more at fault than you ever could be. If you'd like to stay here, however, that is fine. I don't mind your company."
He answered with a small huff but made no move to leave. As preparations wrapped up on the Karyū, Zero crossed the connecting planks between the ships. He looked just as upset to see me as always. "Harlock," he said as he neared. "We'll be leaving shortly. There's quite a storm coming, so this little boat of yours had better be as sturdy as you say."
He was lucky my arms were full. "Don't go insulting my ship. Tochiro built her, so she'll be fine. You sure you'll be alright without your arm?"
Yama looked startled by my question, but Zero shrugged. "I've got another."
"Think you'll return to your ship after you find a place for those people to settle?" I asked. "I miss you failing miserably in your attempts to stop my pirating ways."
Zero's hardened expression broke with a smirk. "We'll see. I may decide to go back to making life hard for pirates, but I have something else I must do for now. Yama." He turned to my confused newblood. "You're welcome to join us if you'd like. Unlike Harlock, the people with me aim to settle down in one place."
Yama shook his head, regret heavy in his eyes. He offered no explanation, but I wondered if he might have gone had it not been for his guilt.
Zero nodded. "Very well, but if you ever need anything of me, you can send a letter my way. As long as my name is on it, it will reach me in time."
"Is that offer open for me too?" I asked.
"No, you can go die."
I couldn't help but smile. "I love you too, Zero."
Along with his usual unamused glare, he reached down and snatched Tadashi from me. "You and your small friends could come with me as well," he said as Tadashi roused again.
Finding himself cradled by yet another person, Tadashi's expression sank to a pout. "We're not small," he grumbled. "But someone has to make sure Dad doesn't do anything too stupid, so I can't leave for now."
Zero appeared content with the answer, settling Tadashi down on his feet. "I'll take my leave then. I'm sure I'll see you all again someday. I never can seem to get rid of you."
His presence must have served as a barrier against the storm because when the Karyū left, the rain arrived. It came down first in a few drops then in buckets, crashing onto the deck. The drops were small but sharp against my skin. "I guess I shouldn't have bothered with that bath," I said over the downpour.
Yama raised one arm over his head as a makeshift shield against the rain. Rather than leave me there as I stubbornly held my footing, he tugged me the direction of the lower decks. "Come on," he yelled. "The waves are getting rough. We'll fall off."
I looped my arm around his waist and tugged him to my side. The deck was as slick as ice when wet, and I didn't trust his feet not to slide out from under him. "We won't fall," I said. "Let me show you something before we go down."
"I'm still in my good clothes!" he roared, his hands locked on my arm for stability.
"They'll dry."
While the rest of the crew dashed below deck, I dug a handful of gold pieces from my pocket and tossed them into the waves below. Yama looked at me like I'd lost my mind. "Wait," I said.
One mop of tangled blue hair popped up from the water's surface, followed by another. They looked like twins, a young boy and girl with sickly pale skin and pointed ears. Yama stared down with his mouth open.
"Greetings," I called. "This storm looks like it's going to be a bad one. Would you mind keeping an eye out for rocks and help guide my ship southwest? I can pay you more if you'd like."
The two nodded. "This will do for today," the girl said in a voice of silk. They slipped back underwater as the waves began to pick up.
I had to drag Yama a few paces toward the door before he remembered how to use his feet. "Merfolk?" he asked distantly.
"Sirens," I corrected. "Their songs have no effect on us, so they take compensation in return for controlling storm winds in our favor."
"Sirens are not real," he whispered as we ducked below deck.
"But you believe in demons?"
He didn't respond, tugging out of my grasp instead.
As we peeled ourselves from our soaked clothes, he stayed as far away from me and the desk as possible. Even with the boards as a buffer around us, the rain roared. Thunder crashed like falling trees, and the waves tossed us back and forth like an unfortunate rowboat. I was accustomed to it, and my feet held me steady on instinct. Yama hadn't found his sea legs yet. He stumbled with each shift, grabbing for the furniture to keep himself from tumbling over. It seemed everything was nailed down but him.
As a particularly loud roll of thunder crackled overhead, he jolted with a yelp. "Are you alright, Yama?" I asked.
"What if we capsize?" he hissed, his eyes wide. I wasn't certain he'd heard my question. He began pacing the length of the room. "We'll all drown! This ship is too small for a storm like this!"
He seemed more angry than frightened. As another wave smacked against our side, he staggered my way. I reached out and caught him by his upper arms, momentarily lifting him off the ground to replace his footing. "There's no reason to fear capsizing," I said. "No man alive has built a better ship than Tochiro, and even if we were to somehow capsize, the sirens would carry us to the nearest shore. They are much friendlier than their reputation suggests."
"But don't they crash ships?" he whispered. He looked like he'd taken a bad blow to the head. It was nostalgic in an odd way. I was equally frightened the first time I experienced a bad storm at sea. Tadashi was the same, curled up in a ball of blankets in the corner of his room.
"They do crash ships, but they tend to stick to ships they don't like." Taking Yama by the arm, I led him to the bed. He sat down at my prompting, but his worries were far from quelled.
"How do you know they won't do that to us?" he demanded. "They could just lead us to some sharp rocks." With an intelligible grumble, he burrowed under the blankets, tugging them over his head. He did not appear concerned that he was on my side of the bed.
I walked to the other side and took his spot. "Yama." I patted the part of him I assumed to be his back. "Would you mind if I told you a story?"
"I don't care," he said through the muffling wall of blankets.
He'd been so interested in digging my past out of me before, I hoped it might distract him, though he didn't seem quite as intrigued for the moment. Nevertheless, I looked back over the centuries and began my tale.
"My father was a pirate, you see, one of the earliest of revered pirates and one of the most feared. He helmed the Deathshadow, a remarkable ship. He would send home portions from his plunder through a network of channels to ensure it couldn't be tracked. Things were far worse then. Disease was rampant, and the city I grew up in was a disgusting place. But the wealth from my father afforded me and my brothers a much higher education than most commoners could ever dream."
The top of Yama's head appeared from under the blankets. His wet hair stuck up in all directions, his eyes locked on me. The rest of him was still hidden, but at least I had his attention.
"I learned a great deal in just about every subject – tactics, sciences, history, cartography, mathematics. My father wanted me to be a scholar, to have a respectable life. Unfortunately for him, that high-class life was horribly boring to me. It didn't help matters when Father died in a blaze of glory. He left a piece of his fortune for me. I stored away most of it and used the rest to go to the sea. I hung around in bars in a port city until I overheard a conversation about the sort of ship I was looking for. And with a bit of smooth talking, I was a pirate. I met Tochiro on that ship as well, and we've been stuck together ever since."
Yama flinched against another crack of thunder but continued staring my way. It seemed he wanted me to continue. I didn't have much else I wanted to say, but it seemed I had no choice.
"That ship was also where I first met Zero. He was a mercenary hunting pirates, and he was well known for doing his job well. We engaged in a duel, and it was one Hell of a fight. I'd never been so impressed by someone's swordsmanship. We both earned several scars from that." I hadn't felt the smile on my face until it faded then. "But one of the men on my ship shot him in the back. Zero's men grabbed him and retreated then. I thought he was dead for sure with a wound like that. The next time I saw him, it was like looking at a ghost."
"Was he turned?" Yama asked.
I nodded. "I'm not sure who his sire was. He's never been one to say. I imagine it was someone among his crew. He was turned several years before me, so we have more of an age gap than we appear to. After the whole incident against Zero, I decided to leave the crew. Tochiro came with me, and I used another piece of my fortune to buy the supplies and men to build a ship to his specifications."
"The Arcadia?"
"No, that was the Deathshadow, or Deathshadow II, I suppose." Another smile rose to my face. "She was a beauty. I was too young to properly helm a ship like that. With the devil's luck, we managed our way through scrapes for years, but several mercenary ships teamed up against us. I had the highest bounty on my head of any living pirate, and every pirate with a high bounty falls eventually. Tochiro and I were captured and sentenced for execution."
The roar of the rain swelled. For a moment, it seemed Yama might hide again, his brow furrowed against the sound. Instead, he pushed himself up to my side. Rather than let my arm fall asleep with him pressed against it, I wrapped it around his shoulders, waiting for a protest that didn't come. "So what happened?" he demanded instead. He did not appear too focused on our position.
"I was executed."
"Oh, come on," he sighed.
"No, it's true," I chuckled. "At least, it's almost true."
"So you were turned then?"
"That's right, and that's the end of the story."
Yama sank back into the blankets, grumbling about how I was a liar, but he remained against my side. Even after the lack of capsizing, he returned to that spot for the second day of the storm. On the third day, I asked him why. He puffed up like a startled cat.
"You smell nice!" The words seemed to tumble from his mouth. "And it's just really calming, you know. It's because you're my sire, and…" He scratched at his face and began to scoot away. "I can stop."
My arm tugged him back. "No, I'm quite fine with it," I assured him. It was soothing to have him fall asleep there, a bundle of warmth pressed to me. I started to wonder how long it had been since I'd felt that, but trying to count back the years was too painful.
After another two days, the storm faded. I stopped needing to pay the sirens, and Yama built the gap between us once again. The trip became an uneventful haze of passing days. Tochiro built strange, unnecessary devices, Tadashi became free of bandages, and everyone in the crew took turns teaching Yama how to jump and hit like a proper vampire. Even with training, he had little skill for it. His sense of what was possible often kept his feet firmly planted and his punches weak. He would learn in time.
Just when I thought I might melt into the deck from stagnation, Kei yelled down from her nest. "Land! And ships, of course. Lots of ships."
Yama leaned out from the railing, watching for the nearing port. The ships came into view first. Kei's observation was correct. There were a great many in every size and color. Flags with countless crests waved in the moonlight. Behind them was a city covered in pinpricks of light. Of course, the place never truly slept. This was a far cry from the Spanish port. Once close enough, we dropped anchor and settled into the harbor.
Yama scanned the flags across the sky, frowning. "Is it alright that they're all just flying the pirate flag in the open like that?" he asked. "Won't they be arrested?" He noticed our flag still flying as well. "Won't we be arrested?"
The men looked a bit too excited as they lowered the plank to the dock. I hoped they wouldn't start too much trouble. "There's safe harbor here, meaning we can't be arrested so easily," Tochiro explained. "Things here are a bit outside of the law."
"Where is here?" Yama asked, frowning.
"You don't know?" one of the men called with an eager grin. "You're in Port Royal, kid!"
What time period does this take place in? Originally I said 1700s, but that's not possible if they're at Port Royal. It's just one big mystery.
And thanks to the people who reviewed my smut attempt, haha. It'll be a while before this fic has a reason to have an M rating again, but that was a fun diversion. Glad it could be entertaining.
