Oh great fortune; oh, by some miraculous conspiracy of the heavens did this quaint little seaside town just so happen to have exactly what he was looking for! How charming it all was: the sturdy ships, the awful smell of fish that clung to everything, the sailors that left the top buttons of their shirts undone just to tempt him like sirens at sea – it was a breath of fresh air. Fresh… uh, fishy air.

Edwin blocked the sun with one hand and squinted down at the other. The ink on his hand had smudged, smearing a once-legible address into an unreadable swirl.

He'd made it to… a house. Couldn’t exactly double-check that it was the right one, now, before possibly disturbing the wrong individual entirely. Edwin clicked his tongue and wiped his hand against the inside of his sleeve, erasing what he could.

Then he lifted it and rapped his knuckles firmly on the door. Straightened his lightweight, tailored jacket, ran his fingers through his hair – like a… like a proper sailor, or an incompetent rich man’s interpretation of one.

“Helloo?” called Edwin in a light, chipper tone. “Is someone in need of a sailor?”

Probably wasn’t the best choice of words to call out. He wasn’t a sailor either.

It was evening. He was expecting no visitors, but hoping for one. Such was why he had busied Mr. Benjamin in the task of cleaning out the basement (no one went in the basement to holiday, this was practically a gift-wrapped favor to the landlord). Sometimes, Crane had the evenings off.

A knock! A blessed knock! Had his last letter finally left him wanting? Zechariah took his feet off the desk, put his shoes back on … and paused in the hallway mirror. Did he need the vest at this hour? No. He chucked it in the office and shut the door. He combed his hair, then ruffled it so it did not look as though he had, in fact, just combed it. What did those strumpet sailor boys do? He rolled up his sleeves, unbuttoned his top buttons.

Then he heard the wrong voice.

Were Edwin the nosy type, he might notice the curtains were left open. He might even catch the frown and pause as a well-dressed fellow turned around and looked contemplatively down to his own chest. Whatever conclusion he drew resulted in him buttoning back up some (but not all) of his shirt, and leaving his calculatingly rolled sleeves where they rested above his forearms.

He made his way to the door, disappointed but also determined to secure a good showing for the Regatta. Perhaps the advertisement had not been for naught.

“Come in,” he said, curtly.

Without ado, he gestured for him to follow him into the sitting room … where a rifle hung in arm’s reach on the wall. Zechariah sunk immediately into the pretty and yet incredibly uncomfortable seat closest to it, crossing an ankle at his knee. On the coffee table, a newspaper was still open to the latest on Oscar Wilde.

“You are …” he paused, looking Edwin up and down, “a sailor?”

Not a fisherman, certainly. He would have smelled the ghost of Simon that from the hall.

Ohhhh. Buttons.

There was nowhere else for his eyes to go! As soon as the door was opened, there they were. Undone. Leaving just enough of (Who was he looking for again?)'s chest to be a temptation, but not a scandal.

Edwin smiled at the curt greeting given.

Without further ado, he stepped inside, following after Mr. Rolled-Up Sleeves with a casual, confident stride. His wandering gaze found the rifle before anything else, but did not linger long. A man ought to have means to defend himself, or... something like that, something else that Edwin didn't care enough about. His eyes danced over a newspaper, caught but a glimpse of a familiar headline before the other man spoke.

“Indeed,” he said, solemn. “I just returned from a rather long expedition at sea, in fact.”

It had been a long expedition. There just hadn’t been any water or boats involved. Edwin crossed the room, inspecting what he could of it without daring to look too curious.

“I’m here to offer my services, should you still be in need of a crew.”

The fellow smiled, and Zechariah stared judgmentally back. The sailor’s eyes had dropped a little too far down to meet Zechariah’s … and he wondered if all those jokes about seamen held a grain of truth.

So, when Zechariah took a seat, he steepled his hands between his legs and leaned forward, offering what could be chalked up to an accidental view down said shirt of his abs (and if he strained or had nice night vision, the top of his pubis, too).

The sitting room was clean – overly so. As though the main human interaction it saw was a dusting. There were knicknacks from here and there. A set of German cutlery, opened for the sheer sake of showing what it was rather than usage; a full bag of coffee from some far-off plantation. Most of them pulp novels, bookmarks still in them – most of them toward the middle or end. Most of them looked to be murder mysteries, though he may or may not recognize the titles of a few of the racier bodice rippers (particularly the French ones). The majority of his library was in English, though there were a fair amount in German, too.

Ah! Fresh from the waters. Perhaps he did it all the time, then.

The fellow with the wandering eyes was quick to emphasize his mission, and Zechariah heard the call all too clearly. Underlings! There was no greater pleasure in life than underlings. Whip a Catholic, fuck a Methodist, screw an Anglican on paper and remember with fondness the time he stepped on him, but what brought true joy to life? Power and authority over others!

“What is your experience?” he asked, confidently, with absolutely no basis to be confident on.

Accidental or not, a nice view was a nice view. Edwin was perhaps a little less discreet about his viewing of it due to the article this fine gentleman had left open.

Still, he was not a dog. His gaze wandered down that nice buttoned shirt as easily as it traversed everything else, taking in the tidy sitting room and the signs of life that decorated it. Mr. Meijer could have a lot of money – could just as easily have the illusion of it. It was a nice room either way.

Edwin glanced over his shoulder at the question. He’d wandered nearer to the books, but turned before he had the chance to glimpse their titles.

Experience, yes, what was his experience… he hadn’t any. None at all. He’d been on ships before, but the extent of his work upon them had been raising his hand and beckoning for another glass of wine. What to say, then? Well-traveled? Extensive?

“Oh, I’ve dedicated years of my life to the sea,” he replied. “Always return to land in tip-top shape as well, as you can see,” Edwin made a vague gesture across himself.

“Edwin Lei, by the way. Are you much of a sailor yourself?”

A quick glance, not lingering but not avoiding either. As though it were a mere accident, he lounged back against his seat. It felt like an iron maiden looked. He hoped he did not stay long.

The fellow was giving this room the most thorough inspection anyone not related by blood had (… at least in front of him). It was infuriating enough with Nesah and Ruth, but with a stranger … Zechariah’s gaze flitted to the rifle, and then to the empty fireplace.

Ridiculous. The man was just nosy. It was hardly a shooting matter.

… It better not be a shooting matter. He hardly even played darts any more.

Years of his life to the sea. Oh, God. It was exactly what he wanted to hear but he also wanted to hear Simon’s voice, alive and begging forgiveness that he would never give, and yet all it drew from Zechariah was an uncomfortable shift. Did the sea seep into this man’s skin so deeply it never scrubbed clean, too?

“God, no,” Zechariah answered, as if he were offended by the question. “Anyone can drive a boat.”

That would show him! Him. No. Euch. He need not prove anything to Simon’s ghost.

“Can you swim?” he said, less tersely.

Certainly not the welcoming sort, this Mr. Meijer.

Such was the case with all sirens, he supposed – a handsome lure with an unpleasant everything else.

Edwin smiled at the answer given as if it’d been the one he’d wanted; really, it annoyed him to have his experience dismissed. It might have been fake experience, piled on top of a bunch of other falsities, but this temptress didn’t know that!

It was quite alright, however. Better to be dismissed for that than questioned any deeper.

“Sure I can,” said Edwin, turning fully to face the man in the stiff-looking chair.

Could he, though? He couldn’t say that he’d ever tried.

“But I doubt we’d have any need for swimming if I’m aboard your vessel, sir. I can assure you that.”

Hm. This idiot seemed easy to please. He hoped he had a lot of money and an inverse amount of sense. Those were his favorites over a barrel.

The fellow – a Mr. Edwin Lee – assured him once again that a sailor could sail. How did a sailor have clothing that nice? Perhaps he was a … cloth, sailor. Yes. No matter.

Edwin did manage to get a skeptical blink out of Zechariah with his blatant flattery. Truly? Did he mean that? … Of course he meant that. Zechariah had just extolled how easy this man’s job was, and he was confirming what he knew all along: Simon was an idi- ahem, that anyone could sail.

He relaxed just a fraction, but then the back of the chair bit into that single layer he had stripped down to. This caused him to straighten with an even more pinched expression.

“You are quite right, Mr. Lee. We meet at the north side of the beach, an hour before it begins.”

Oh. Had he taken that for a compliment, rather than the 'sailor's' own overconfidence? Edwin still couldn’t tell if that pleased Mr. Meijer whatsoever. In fact, he only looked more pinched for it.

What an odd sort.

His eyes grazed the chair, searched the area around him, but caught nothing to suggest that anything but the presumed-sailor’s words had caused the look.

Edwin’s smile didn’t falter as he corrected, “Lei.”

Closer to the English ‘lay,’ if he had to draw comparisons.

One mistake was hardly intentional, but one was all he’d tolerate.

“Excellent,” he continued, stepping away from the books. “I’ll be there. Have you already found the rest of your crew then?”

So Mr. Lei was particular about his name.

“Lay,” he repeated, carefully this time, though he did not catch any emphasis on tones that Mr. Lei might have made.

He respected that.

“Zechariah Mire, Esquire. It rhymes with ‘choir’, ‘pyre’, ‘fire’, and not with with ‘rager’.”

All the more because his name was given written more often than verbally, and oh, was it a major pain in the ass to cure people of that mispronunciation.

Fuuuuck. The left side of the seat seemed to be poking into his very soul, located slightly off kilter of his left cheek. He shifted, then sucked his teeth. This was why he rarely invited guests.

Well, that and he hated guests.

“Just about,” Zechariah answered. “Mr. Benjamin was a lifelong sailor before he came into my employ.”

Honestly, he was hoping he could row for four without admitting out loud that that was his driving prayer.

“Mr. Longbottom a man of all trades.”

A teenager, his brother’s help, and someone who should probably not be running off to play pirate with Zechariah while Uriel was injured – but he suspected that part of the appeal.

“There was another man who wrote, but his name was smudged.”