Pirates, Parrots, and Pining (oh my)
Remus Lupin, Captain of the pirate ship Werewolf, always has a plan.
Granted, the number of times his plans succeed can be counted on a single hand (okay fine, if he’s being completely honest, could even be counted on Quartermaster Peter’s silver hook-for-a-hand), but the point is that careful planning and strategizing is an important part in any intelligent Captain’s toolbox.
Sirius Black, Captain of the Black Dog, is making things up as he goes. Irritatingly, this seems to be working for him.
Even more irritatingly, they keep winding up accidentally raiding the same ships.
If Remus Lupin has to argue with that smug, handsome bastard one more time about whose turn it is to steal from Navy Captain Snape, he may just end up drowning the man.
Or even worse, kissing him.
Read the rest on AO3!
7k words, rated M
fluff & humour & enemies to lovers (and an ever increasing amount of parrots sent to poor Regulus as pets).
@lynxindisguise gets all credit for being a brilliant AU brainstorm machine ❤️. First scene below the cut!
1728 - a hidden cove in the middle of the Caribbean Ocean
“I don’t believe this,” Remus Lupin throws his hands in the air, frustrated beyond belief. “What are you doing here, Black?”
Sirius Black, recent Captain of their pirate fleet’s newest vessel, The Black Dog, grins and wipes a bead of sweat from his chiselled face. “Raiding the Navy, as per our lovely Queen’s request, same as you.”
“Do I really need to point out that us both raiding the same Navy ship is overkill?” snaps Remus, swinging around and punching a Navy sailor square in the face. The man, who had clearly been hoping to catch the arguing Captains unawares, squeaks and goes down with a painful thud.
“Not my fault!” Sirius raises a pistol and squints up into the white-hot Caribbean sun. After a moment, he cocks his head and fires. The last rope keeping several sailors attached to the mast as they shoot at the pirates below snaps, and the sailors themselves go tumbling down in the sea like coconuts from a palm tree. He winks, clearly expecting his fellow Captain to be impressed by the (admittedly excellent) marksmanship.
“Jamie! Delivery for you!” Sirius barks over the side, eyes still on Remus.
Down below, The Black Dog’s Quartermaster James Potter is scooping up bedraggled prisoners into a rowboat. He looks up, the sun glinting off his glasses and sending little sparkles of light over the ship like magic pixie dust. “Cheers! Now, stop flirting and get on with it, yeah?”
“We are not flirting -” Remus begins hotly, and then stops when he realises Sirius has just shouted the exact same thing.
“Well it sounds bloody rehearsed if we both say it!” he complains and it’s Sirius’ turn to throw up his hands in exasperation. “How did you even find this ship? Pete and I have been carefully tracking Snape’s movements for weeks, ever since we found out he was tailing Lily again.”
Sirius shrugs. “Intuition, I suppose. I told James this morning I had a good feeling about heading west. Navy ships looking to sneak past pirate routes often use this cove. Caught sight of their sails a few hours ago, decided to follow them, and here we are.”
“Of course,” Remus sighs. He doesn’t know why he’s even surprised anymore. Ever since Sirius Black joined the fleet, he’s had an uncanny ability to turn up at the most inconvenient of times, always when Remus is about to execute the final stages of a careful, meticulously planned heist, raid or treasure search. Even more annoyingly, he never has a plan himself - he just wanders around the ocean, improvising his way to success, and stumbling across them at the perfect moment to “help” (and split the bounty).
Remus wipes his own much less handsome brow with the hem of his shirt. When he raises his head again, it’s to find Sirius staring at his exposed midriff, grey eyes unfocused and hazy.
“My eyes are up here,” says Remus dryly, though he has no doubt Sirius is just horrified by the number of scars criss-crossing his torso. The life of a Pirate Captain is a tough one - especially when you’ve been doing the job for as long as Remus has. Sirius has only been on the scene for about eighteen months, and has barely any scars at all on his irritatingly perfect body.
Perhaps he’ll be put off by this glimpse of what his future holds if he keeps going, and decide to quit.
Well. One can only hope.
Sirius’ eyes snap back up to his face. “Right,” he breathes and then blinks, looking like he’s coming back to the present. “Right. I’ll just. Go interrogate Snape.”
“What?” Remus glares at him. “No. This is my job, and I will be sending the report back to Lily, thank you very much.”
“I would like to remind you that until my crew got here, you were losing, Lupin. We saved your lives!”
“We were doing fine!”
“We absolutely were not doing fine,” Peter pipes up helpfully from where he’s just finished tying Captain Severus Snape to the mast. “You found us in the nick of time, Sirius.”
“Traitor!” Remus’ glare turns to the short man before him, who waves it off with a well-practised shrug.
Peter has no fear of him anymore, having been Remus’ steady companion since they were both world-weary teenagers and first got recruited to join Pirate Queen Lily Evans’ newest fleet in the year 1718. At the time, nobody of any importance had cared about a young slip of a girl and her ragtag crew of pirate captains, each of them with nothing more to their names than the (ragged) clothes on their backs and a fierce determination to prove themselves.
Now, ten years later, there’s a waiting list to join the Dread Queen Evans’ fleet. Which is why he has no idea how Sirius managed it (considering his lack of pirating experience), other than the fact that James apparently vouched for him, and is almost definitely sleeping with Lily.
Bloody nepotism.
“Whenever you’re done arguing,” Snape’s irritated drawl brings him back to the present. “You might as well give up now, because I shall never betray my country.”
Remus tears his eyes away from Sirius and over to the sweating man tied to the mast. Right. Business. He smiles pleasantly. It’s the sort of pleasant smile that has made men dive overboard, just to escape. “Is that so?”
“Erm.” Snape looks suitably unnerved. “Yes?”
“Oh. Well, that’s a disappointment,” Remus says, sighing. He fingers the pistol at his hip. “I was hoping we could do this the easy way.”
“Is that a threat, Lupin? Cute. I can make threats too. I’ll see you hanged for this, you know.”
“Oh no,” Remus assures Snape cheerfully. “I don’t think you will see me hanged at all.” He slides the pistol from its holster and taps it against his leg. This, he knows how to do. Getting information from bastards like Severus Snape is an artform he’s had years to perfect. “I think we should have a little chat, and then if you tell me what I want to know, you may get to see another sunrise, but that depends on how charitable I’m feeling.”
Snape has gone pale, but he sticks his nose in the air regardless. “You’ll never make me talk, pirate scum. Never! Your days are numbered!”
“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Sirius suddenly growls and strides forwards to grab Snape by the lapels, ignoring Remus’ very reasonable protests that he’s got this covered, Black, what are you doing, get back here. “Stop threatening Lupin, you’re not laying a finger on him, do you hear me? You’re going to tell us RIGHT NOW why the Navy has you trying to find Evans’ hideout, and then I’m going to feed you to the bloody sharks.”
There is a short pause and then Snape smirks. “Don’t you mean OR I’m going to feed you to the bloody sharks? If you’re going to do it regardless, what incentive are you giving me to talk, you complete fool?”
Remus facepalms. Sirius glances over his shoulder a little sheepishly, sees this, and scowls. “Like you were doing so much better, Lupin.”
“I was, actually, thank you, Black.”
“Yes, I can tell by all the nothing you got out of the git!”
“Oy!” Peter shouts, and both pirates look up in time to see Snape has managed to snag Sirius’ dagger from his waist and cut himself free. He runs to the side of the ship and does a surprisingly graceful swan-dive into the water, making for the shore.
“Now look at what you’ve done! By God, Black, you’ve ruined everything,” Remus groans. Sirius looks surprisingly hurt for a moment, then rearranges his face into an unaffected, haughty expression.
“I’ve no time to waste talking to the likes of you, Lupin. I’m going after the scoundrel. James! I’m coming down, get the rowboat ready!”
And with that, he and his gorgeous midnight-black hair are away with the wind, leaving only an abandoned, slightly-on-fire navy ship and a thoroughly annoyed Remus Lupin in his wake.
“There there,” Peter pats his shoulder comfortingly. “At least he left us the loot this time, even if you both botched the interrogation with all your flirting.”
Remus closes his eyes. Bloody Sirius Black.
—------
Dear Sirius,
Would you like to know where I have just been?
I have been in a meeting with one Captain Severus Snape of the Royal Navy, who has reported to me that a man who looks very much like myself accosted him and his crew off the coast of Tortuga. This pirate apparently chased him almost all the way into town, and he escaped by the skin of his teeth.
He then proceeded to inform me that this pirate scum went by the name Sirius Black, and wasn’t that my brother’s name?
I proceeded to inform him that my dear brother died by drowning two years ago while nobly serving in this very Navy, and how dare he remind me of such a painful event, and then threw him out of my office.
May I kindly remind you when we decided to fake your death so that you could escape your duties as heir, there were three stipulations for when you are interacting with the Navy? They were as follows:
1. Do not go by your real name
2. Wear a mask over your eyes. I bought you that nice black one for a reason.
3. DO NOT GO BY YOUR REAL NAME
Be a less conspicuous dead man, for the love of God.
Cordially Yours,
Lord Regulus Black
Rear Admiral, His Majesty’s Royal Navy
