Sodalite and Aventurine (Larry Stylinson au)

CHAPTER I

He'd like to call himself the deadliest pirate alive, but there was one other person who was vying for the crown.

Captain Harry Styles.

And his brig, the Pearl Rose, was in this harbour next to the Spanish ship.

Which made things difficult.

Louis and Liam walked inland in silence, feet falling into step as the dock whined beneath them. Up ahead, a shadowy figure was sitting on a pile of crates at the edge of the dock. There was a lantern above them but their hat, leathery and worn, kept their face from view. In their hand, they held a pocket watch. It glinted in the light as though they were holding a flame.

Louis took another step and the timber below his foot groaned like it ached.

The figure looked up and Louis still could not see their face.

And then, as though they were expecting the two of them, they stood and started to approach.

"Are we sticking to the plan then, Sir?" Liam whispered as the figure drew closer.

"Of course," Louis whispered back. "Not like a Styles is going to keep us away from that ship. He doesn't even know what we look like."

"But he knows the name of our ship."

"Well," Louis grinned. "We know the name of his."

A lamp in the distance, dull and flickering, squeaked in the gentle ocean breeze; it was the same wind that touched just the wispy ends of Louis' fringe. The figure was close enough to see now. It was a man. His face, bulbous and blotchy, was half lit by a lamp to their right.

"Name, please," the man grumbled, pulling out a logbook.

"Jules," Louis said, coming to a stop. The man was a good head taller than him, and perhaps three times as wide.

"Jules-?" the man repeated as though the alias didn't fit in his mouth.

"Mercury," Louis replied breezily. The name rolled off his tongue easily, like he'd said it a thousand times.

He had.

"Jules Mercury?" the man questioned, lifting his chin. "That's a peculiar name."

"I'm a peculiar man."

Louis went to slip past him.

The man moved in front of him with the heavy beat of boot on wood. "Well, Mr. Mercury, you're still going to need to register your ship."

"It's not much of a ship," Louis said innocently, glancing back at the jolly-boat at the end of the dock. They'd left the Dagger two miles out, where these bloody dockmasters wouldn't recognise it.

"Well, it floats," the man replied flatly.

Louis sighed and looked indignantly up at the man. "What, no charity for a mere merchant trapped to the confines of a half-sunk dinghy?"

The man took half a step closer so he towered over Louis, and then he prodded Louis' jacket with his notebook. "No merchant would have the coin for this."