Smooth Sailing

Friday

Content warning for fatphobia and misogyny.

Sailing Terminology: A header is a gust of wind that pushes you off course. A lift is the opposite of a header, so it speeds you up.

James had begun to dread practices on the water, which was an incredibly inconvenient development with the race approaching. He had 24 hours to go, Coach Rolanda reminded him, until he was racing alongside Regulus, who seemed apathetic about the whole thing. It wasn't that he wasn't trying; in the boat, he'd started following instructions. He was stiffer than ever, though, when it came to any sort of conversation. This was not the Regulus Black who'd been caught staring at his helmsman on Wednesday afternoon. James knew that the Black siblings were nothing if not unpredictable, but the only way he knew how to combat their moods wasn't working.

James wore a tank top to that practice, not wanting to repeat the Shirtless Debacle, as Sirius had started calling it. Still, Regulus barely spoke a word to him, although he supposed that was better than the arguments that had marked the first few practices. For two hours, conversations got shut down like this:

"I'm sailing away...set an open course for the virgin sea..."

"Are you seriously singing right now?"

"No, I'm James-ly singing right now. Lighten up; we've got a straightaway ahead of us."

"All right. Let out the mainsail a bit. We're not in a hurricane."

James would turn back to his task and Regulus would turn back to his, and they'd work in silence for the next few minutes until James would try to bridge the gap again, but the stubborn friendliness that had turned Sirius Black from a strictly formal acquaintance into James' best friend and roommate did not seem to have any effect on their brother. As James had learned, though, the siblings were like night and day. Sirius was always the one to start singing in a boat, usually in some ridiculous impression. Regulus couldn't even appreciate the puns James was throwing at him.

"James, did you rig the boat today?" Regulus asked. James looked up.

"Ah, he speaks! I did," James said. Regulus had been a few minutes late to the day's practice, so James got to do things his way.

"The tension is incredible." Regulus actually grinned as he gave the compliment.

"Well, you know, I get by with a little help from my friends." James ran a hand through his hair subconsciously.

"Was that a bloody Beatles reference?" Regulus asked incredulously, but his twinkling eyes gave away his amusement.

"Maybe. Anyways, you have Maimouna Zabini to thank for the tension. It's easier with two people, you know."

"She's the one with the braids, right?" Regulus pointed at a boat where two women were practising the course for Saturday's race.

"No, that's Emma Vanity, her helmsman. Zabini is the one with the huge diamond earrings," James said.

"Do you reckon they're real?" Regulus commented.

"I'd hope not, otherwise she's one capsized boat away from losing one of them. I don't think she's that careless."

"Nah, only with her husbands," Regulus said cryptically.

"Do you know her too?" Regulus seemed to know everyone, though he supposed Zabini wasn't too far off from the Blacks in social status; from what James knew, she was some kind of heiress.

"Know her? I went to two of her weddings," Regulus said. "My parents declined the invitation to the third."

"That matches up with what I've heard. It sort of reminds me of Mrs. White in Clue, but less evil and more..."