Chapter Text
I suppose what everyone would want to know was how they met up again. Found each other—though not exactly. Teach was not looking for Bonnet, and Bonnet couldn’t locate Teach. It was Izzy Hands who reached Stede Bonnet, reunited the crew, and surrendered the Revenge. It was Izzy who fetched Ed Teach and brought him to Stede. It was the crew, under Oluwande, who marooned them in a lighthouse keeper’s hut for a week. Nice hut. Food, water, and one plain bed. Everyone was fed up with them separate, so they’d kill each other now or patch it up. There were amused plans for either contingency, floated on balmy, spiced rum seas under canvas, sun, and moon.
Seven days. They lived.
+++
Ed—Blackbeard—had kept the bath tub, at least. But by the time Izzy (and Jim and Fang and Frenchie) had reconnected with him…with them, the remnant of his crew in Nassau…it was Izzy’s Revenge. Alright, he’d been corrected before about this, navigating all the scars and open wounds of the past year, it was Revenge taken over by Izzy. With a concord among the crew, this time, who found Izzy, this time, a fit captain and a salvation from Ed. From Blackbeard. Who was mysteriously missing. Dead, with luck, said his own former crew. Marooned, claimed Izzy in public and private, clamp-jawed over any details. In the mean time, ownership of Revenge (his ship! his beautiful, ravaged ship!) was under negotiation.
Izzy was acting peculiar, so far as Stede could tell. He sought clarity from Fang, who wanted nothing to do with the subject. He tried Oluwande, who was absent minded since the restoration of Jim. Reunion with Jim. Sort of. Izzy was grim, as before. Haunted sometimes. But easier with the crew, communicating and even-tempered; with the crew. With Stede, he was curt, practical, and distant, neither nasty nor friendly. His disdain was almost polite. Stede asked, three times, alone with him, if Ed were still alive. “You are,” he answered. “Didn’t have much trouble finding you.” He looked far from sure.
They granted Stede use of his cabin, emptied and refilled with tasteless and macabre tat. There had been, and still was, treasure on board. Frenchie told him that shares of loot amassed under Blackbeard had been meted out to the remaining crew under Izzy (a good number had robbed and fled before that; some taken and shot or hanged). They were working with a skeleton crew when they hit Nassau. Surprisingly, an amount had been reserved for Stede, which he in turn divided with his crew. Surprisingly, under Izzy, with Stede’s dubious assistance, the Revenge robbed two more fat and terrified merchant ships. At a meeting in front of the capstan, Stede proposed lowering Blackbeard’s flag and ordering a refit of the battered Revenge at the shipyard of Charles and Charles, where she was built. Their pockets were lined, they were adequately clothed, their bellies were full, and all desired a rest. Izzy agreed.
They stopped in Charleston first, to take on water and supplies. They were chased out when Wee John set fire to a tavern and Buttons did something unspecified but horrid to an apothecary.
They discovered Lucius employed at the shipyard, living with the second Charles.
When the refit was settled, anticipating his cabin’s renovation, Stede returned to Charleston in disguise for a brief shopping spree. For an extended shopping spree. For a refreshing and soul-satisfying and facial restorative spree. Although he believed his current simple, rugged, entirely piratical daily attire suited him, his hair and skin and hands were neglected. He consulted his motives and his purse. He still wanted the option of fine things. Ed had liked him in fine things. When he saw Ed again, he wanted to look his best. He wanted to look familiar, a thought that raised other, wistful, memories. They were few, but intense. Most were in fond and sad recall of favorite stockings, waistcoats, books, and dressing gowns. And his barber’s preferred attention and voice and hands. The half-orange from Alma he’d managed to keep. The razor from Portman he’d lost: his talisman, their shared talisman, and his last physical link.
Months of this dragged on. In the environs of the shipyard, they were pleased to discover a settlement of enterprising inhabitants that offered clients housing, food, and a tavern. For a price. Most of the crew feathered their temporary nests and settled in. Hunting was good. Local spirits were good. The neighbors were well built. They made music on the beach and engaged in satisfying salacious behavior, into which Stede was not invited. Izzy obtained for himself a private boat, a prize—a sleek, small ship requiring a small crew, a ship that brought a settled look to his face. He named it the James. He left on several trips.
He left to bring back Ed, if he lived. They were all to consider that a possibility until he returned.
+++
The sky was different here, back in this world. It changed, over the sea. It changed over open land, over island sand, over trees. He wanted to tell Portman that. He wanted to share it with Ed. Someone, probably Portman? had told him that the color of the sky reflected in the sea was…maybe it was the color of the sea itself that was…important? to navigate or something? Mental note, ask about that. Izzy would know. Asking Izzy possibly basic-information-for-captains was not pleasant. Asking Buttons led to confusing answers. Portman would tell him, without making him feel wanting. Ed. If he truly ever saw Ed again (his stomach flipped, his heart was a hot stone, he couldn’t go on). He sat on a rock, his legs in the blood warm sea, letting waves splash over his swollen ankle. He’d tripped and fallen and ripped his stocking, and his foot hurt. Everything he did hurt. But. It was better than last week, and the week before.
Ed, Ed, Ed, Izzy had fetched alive Ed and this is what their crew had planned for them.
*
“The fuck are we going, Iz?” I know this place and damned if I’m setting another foot forward without a fuckin’ good explanation. What is he thinking? Is this his, Stede’s idea of a joke? Is it Iz pissed over Little Billy, who for the goddamn record came on to me. All your sandy crew were eyeing me, the wifed up ones and the lone bible-thumper and the rest out and out reprobates, not an especially tasty selection, by the way, Iz, you buzzard, and none of them giving you a tumble. ‘Cause I asked. And you, “Don’t fuck my fucking crew, is that too much to ask?” when it was four of ‘em already humbled, after him, dicked down, sucking off, or hanging from the… where was I? Too much to ask your goddamn Captain, Iz. Me. You took my weapons and my ship without a kiss my hand and abandoned me in Bridgetown; then came back only to trap us on this boat the size of my palm for a month’s voyage and you will suffer for that, a little. And I’m only not stabbing you outright because it was Jock you left me with, Stede’s barber bosom friend, you cunning crocodile. And if I’d known it would have got up your arsehole like a Mexican pepper, I’d have seduced that cold bastard all the way, with Ned… oh, Ned. I miss your paws and whiskers.
“Mind your way. Watch your fucking boots, there are snakes. Painful, but not poisonous, if a limb of Satan like you were susceptible. You know where we are.”
“Venomous.” So Stede schooled me, over brandy, talking about snakes and such, after St. Augustine. “I’m sitting on that rock under that tree and not moving until you explain. Too hot to walk, even at your crippled pace.” That was mean and that will come to bite you in the arse, Jock would have said. Stede would have said it more genteel and with those two always in my head now, no wonder I tried to fuck them out. Think of Ned’s knowing eyes, the comfort and the love in their light, and miss him, instead. “Stede. You can say it. Stede Bonnet is who you mean to make me confront and I tell you plainly, Iz, any such endeavor will be at my plan and my will. If at all.” But damned if my heart didn't pick up its beat and my palms began to sweat and a peach-pit in my pipes stopped my breath at the thought. God damn you, gentleman Stede. “My plan. My will.”
Izzy leaned against a tree and mopped his brow with his sleeve and thought for the hundredth time how he’d like to punch Edward in the throat. That’s love, that is. Was. Pretty safe to say ‘was’ now, with others, finally for choice. “Your plan, is it? Your almighty will? You live at my pleasure and the pleasure of the crew.”
“Pretty well pleasured I’d say! No complaints.”
Hundredth and one. One-two punch, to the throat and the balls. “Shut up, you miserable degenerate dick. I’m talking of your crew. Bonnet’s reunited crew. The crew that mostly wants to see you dead. Do you have any plan and will prepared to change their minds?”
“What of the Queen Anne? My crew on her, and damn me for ever leaving.” Would I go back? How many are left to mind that I can put a name to, other than those who hopped with me to Revenge? Do I ever fucking want to see the Queen’s decks again?
Izzy hadn’t thought of that ship, or any others left of the once fleet. Huh. Hadn’t thought to tell Edward, who hadn’t bothered to ask. “She’s gone. Headed up to Halifax with a hold full of Spanish gold.” Cuffy and a score more had walked away to divers ports from Nassau with their shares. “Under a new flag, I was told. They weren’t subtle about it. They dumped two captains overboard until Bonny and Read took command.”
Ah. S’pose I don’t want her, after all. “Plan’s same as always, Iz, unless you’re a mutinous bastard, too. Make a stand, kill all who don’t follow orders.”
“Kill, you great idiot? Kill Jim, kill Oluwande, kill Buttons and John Feeney and Frenchie and Ivan and Roach? Kill Fang?”
“Congratulations, you learned their names.”
“Kill Stede?”
Shut up. Not serious, either of us. “Stede’s not crew.”
Weak answer, and he knew it. Izzy held a hand up, to judge the sun’s height. “Pick up the bag and follow me. It’s not far.”
“Into an ambush, Iz?” They had to stop before real damage was done. Iz would never set me up for murder. Iz is the last fucking crew I have. “I say again, what’s the plan?”
Izzy spat. Plans via birds, notes carried by fucking birds, meaning Revenge was at sea again and somewhere close. Birds crapping on his yards, on his clean deck. “It’s this way.” Talk and walk, he’ll have to follow. While I have breath. While Batty rows the dinghy around to that point, there, to take me off away. “Crew took a vote, without Bonnet. After he’d talked an hour. Ship’s not his, ship’s not yours, not yet. You’ve got a week to sort it out or kill each other.”
Oh, balls. I know this path, this sand, these rocks. This fucking lighthouse at the end. He heard the click of a pistol cocked, behind him.
*
It took a dinghy to reach here and would take something like that to leave. Pete and John and the Swede rowed him out from the Revenge, new name still under discussion, dropped him and his over-packed baggage and an inadequate supply of food and toiletries and necessaries and left. Two trips. There was no other boat on this sort of island bit of land, this bulbous and raised embankment at the end of a sandbar. There was a stone hut and a lighthouse, the only reason for this place to be known. There was a collapsed volcano, if he understood properly, that had littered the seabed for some distance around, and something about a coral reef and ghosts of drowned sailors or they were teasing him again. Some treacherous reason to warn ships away. There, he could see her, there, the Revenge pulling up her mooring anchors and letting down some sails and sailing away. They’d sat in place for two days, watching for the James, and there she was, he could also see. Did they see Revenge? Was Ed on the James, as promised? Agreed to meet?
If he even was, if there was anyone at all coming, if he was not going to spend seven days here alone, starting at every, every – whatever kind of noise would presage a rowboat drawing near. He would not fret, he would not look, he was a proper toughened pirate now. A pirate captain, he had faith in his crew, his crew who were at heart good folk, if somewhat impatient, unromantic, irritable, and coarse. Somewhat. Head down, he walked a full circuit around the lighthouse three times. He fell and wrenched his ankle worse sliding down to this rocky place to sit with his back to the lighthouse, where he could dangle his leg in the water and watch this bit of the horizon, this empty bit.
*
“This is the way it has to be. Grab your dick, be a man, and deal with it.”
“I can still take you, Iz.” The fuck, the fuck, the fuck, the sea roared in his ears, sloshed through his brain. Right there, the lighthouse right there and the keeper’s hut right there and in it a rock to break his heart upon. “I don’t agree to this. Take me back to the boat. That’s an order.” No overlooking eyes? No anyone to hear? The noise was loud enough to block his ears and nose, to blind his sight.
Izzy kept his pistol level. “You’re smart. Act like it. We’ll be back in a week.” There was Batty, there was the dinghy waiting, and Batty standing with another pistol in his hand. Not one of the fuckers, Batty, Izzy hoped, or with wounded pride to nurse. The whole sorry whoreson crew he’d have to replace. He couldn’t walk backwards well. Edward smirked at him, as if he’d guessed. “Twat.” And turning, on a breath he hoped wasn’t seen, he gave Edward his back and walked to the little boat. He watched Batty’s face, which didn’t move, he slid down the rocks to drop in, rocking the dinghy, and didn’t look behind. First free air he’d had in a month, being rowed home to the James. He wiped sweat from his face again with his sleeve.
Izzy hadn’t taken Ed’s weapons, this time. Ed’s pistol had been primed and holstered in reach when Izzy had pulled his out.
He thought it might have been an odd sort of courtesy, Izzy courtesy, to make a show of force to keep him here. To save his face. That idea unraveled quickly under consideration. It was Izzy being Iz, was all, Izzy desperate to deal with him. Izzy being captain, and hadn’t that been an experience on his little toy boat with his little boring crew, not even pirates. Common seamen, tripping over themselves in awe of his cuckoo self dropped into their nest (Stede bird facts; Stede stories). Fuck if he’d hang back. No more waiting. He walked up to the hut, stewing in his own bile, stomping his boots (as Izzy no longer could, for more than ten steps), chewing his mustache. Could see the place clearly, at the lighthouse. The hut door was open. Who leaves a door open, waiting for an enemy, without sitting opposite with a weapon prepared and aimed… Stede. Courteous, welcoming, heedless, despairing, idiot, loving Stede. No, no.
Oh, his traitor mind. Pistol in hand, he peered through the open door, door open inward, open into an empty room. He stepped into the empty hut, with one main room (fireplace hearth, shelves, table, chairs, sideboard; cooking pots and basic wares), one bedroom off to the side (no door; a window, a bed, a cupboard, a blanket chest), one curving wall of the lighthouse itself that the hut was built against. No sign of habitation. He dropped his bag on the bed (My bed) and stood over it, wrenching its ties. He couldn’t think what he wanted from it. Been waiting for him in the dinghy, with a smaller one Izzy took. In the empty hut, only the sound of waves and gulls heard through the window and door. He took out the first thing to hand, a bottle of rum. In the main room, he set it unopened on the table. He moved the larger chair, with arms (My chair), to face the door. No, damned if he’d sit and wait. He settled his weapons in place and left the hut, left its door open, I’m courteous, too, to see what he could see and meet who he might meet.
*
Stede heard him coming. There were loose pebbles along the edge of this incline, to his seat at the water’s edge. At the calmer side of this point, away from the current. He wanted to say the lee side, without any confidence. Stede had slid most of the way down to this spot, this shelf that looked picturesque, lapped by the water. It would be harder to climb back up. Should he turn and look? What should he say? He’d prepared six different, or not quite the same, opening statements. He’d assigned them numbers, then decided the numbers were too much like ranks, so reassigned them code words, appropriate to their emotional intent. Content. He had worked hard to keep faith that Ed was alive. He had tried to talk of him to Fang, to Olu, to Jim, to Frenchie, to a very hostile and snappish Lucius, to Buttons, to—
“Is that a turtle or a rock?”
Ed! Actually finally Ed! Stede blinked his blearing eyes, twisted to look behind and up and a little to the side where the voice came from. He brought up his sore foot to brace against the ledge, to try to stand, but it wouldn’t bear his weight. On hands and knees, he steadied himself. Oh, Ed. “It’s a turtle. Please don’t step on him!” He’d privately named him Auguste, watching him crawl about. He wouldn’t wipe his eyes. He carefully rose to his knees, his skinned knees. “Hello.” Goodness, Ed looked fine.
Ed stood on the edge of the bank, with his hands on his hips, hands not far from his pistol and knife, staring down. Auguste extended his neck, cautiously, watching those boots. “Did you bring sugar?”
Stede could not think of how next to move. What if he slipped? What if he fell? He supposed he could slide right off the ledge, and wade or paddle or swim around to the shallow sandy bit; if there were no sharks, he was bleeding, or spiny things to step on, his shoes were there out of reach, or stinging jellies… “Yes.”
Ed canted a hip and flipped his hair over his shoulder (why, Stede couldn’t tell, as it wasn’t in his eyes). “Good.” He turned around and Stede gasped, “Ed! A hand, please!” but he hadn’t seemed to hear. He stalked away. Stede sighed. Or a different kind of fall.
*
Won that one. Also: knew that rock had legs. Good eating, a turtle. Stede brought sugar. Didn’t his hair look fine in the sun and breeze…oh, shut up! So did mine. Saw him looking. Lean on the doorframe and breathe, dickfuck.
The night before Izzy came for him, the day and night, with the wife’s donation of Stede’s old clothes and the barber in his arms—they’d talked about this. Was he ready to meet him; who loved who; running away. He’d run from that memory. He’d raged through Izzy’s little boat and Izzy’s little crew and Izzy’s very short supply of patience, all sailing with the wind to this inevitable, abrupt, end. Called to a reckoning, and he really should have let that memory catch him.
He hadn’t. What he had was a week to “sort it out or kill each other.”
Ed left the door open. He paced around the hut’s main room as he had the deck of Izzy’s boat.
He’d seen Stede, hadn’t killed him. Won that.
Stede brought sugar. He opened every cupboard and chest in the hut. I’ve done this before. No sugar here. There was no evidence of Stede at all. Ed had laid claim to an empty place, with its single waiting bed. Why? The Stede he knew, on their short but deep acquaintance, spread himself around. Always eager to share. What did I know? How many folds he made in each of his neck cloths in the top shelf of the rosewood fancy furniture I stove in with my boot.
He was pressing his fingers onto the points of iron hooks above the hearth when the man himself walked in.
He said, “Hello, Ed.”
Ed stared at the hooks. What’s the least, the very least, that gets me out of here? He turned to face Stede and Oh.
He was wet and worse for wear. One ankle was wrapped in a black kerchief. He carried one shoe. He leaned on an oar from somewhere for support. His clothes, these strange clothes, seen up close were plain. A linen shirt, sun bleached, untied at the neck, its sleeves rolled back. Not a ruffle or bit of lace for Ed’s eye to catch on. Rings on his fingers, better, a bit of solace. He had on a short leather waistcoat, embossed with wandering patterns, tempting to trace. It was the color of caramel, dark where water stained. Not bright, not new. His breeches, though, closely observed, were of singular cut and fit, fine russet wool, buttoned and laced, wet to the waist and sandy, as his stockings—but Ed’s mental tongue ran dry, at his torn stockings and the contours they clung to. Oh. Stede. This ache under my scarred, safe side; is this what my liver does? Was it pierced after all, to reopen now?
Ed looked like Ed. He could not think, without checking, how he was dressed. He wished he’d been shaved, he wish he’d blacked his face, he wished he’d brushed his hair, he wished he were wreathed in blood and flames.
Stede’s gaze was growing glassy. To Ed’s silence, he said, “Are you settled in here? I put my things in the lighthouse. You’re welcome to…”
“Stop!” Ed snapped, come back to life, gripping the top of his chair.
Stede’s mouth did something unfamiliar. “You’re welcome to share my provisions. It’s very good to see you again.” He didn’t sound or look like anything was good. He sounded polite. He looked like someone who could be called Captain Bonnet, dragged through surf and sand. Captain Bonnet moving his oar to turn away. “I have to change clothes. I hope we can speak over dinner.”
“No!”
“Ed, I’m…”
“Shut the fuck up and sit the fuck down.” His voice echoed from the walls. Mine! My bed, my chair, my you. My hand on my knife. Now!
“Would you like to rephrase that?” Stede’s face had paled and his hand on the oar shook. Not fear. Anger?
“Fuck it.” Pain? Ed had a long stride and two good booted feet. Stede had an oar and no idea what to do with it. He caught him off balance, or unprepared, or shocked; or Stede was relieved. He shoved him, he grabbed him by both arms and Stede squeaked and dropped his oar.
He’d lost the plan, the thing he was going to do with him, to get his hands on him, the urge to get a fistful of that shirt to feel how truly, awfully it reminded him of their last time. He’d gone beyond touching his shirt, he had him slammed against the wall, he had him blocked and caught and Stede didn’t struggle. He clutched Ed’s elbows and shivered. He bent his head until it touched Ed’s chest. That was a hell of a way to fight. “I’ll sit if you stop shouting. If you let go. You’re hurting me.”
His head was below Ed’s chin. His hair he could feel, through his short, short beard. He could smell it, if he could breathe in. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go.
“Ed, please. We can talk.”
If I let go, I’ll never have you again. He wouldn’t bend his own head. Took in that breath and said what he’d only then devised. “No talk. I don’t want to hear a fucking thing you have to say.” Stede’s fingers moved against his arm. His thumb fit into Ed’s elbow’s inner crease, his bared arm. That’s what Ed was wearing, only his shirt exposing his arms and belts and weapons and the leather trousers Stede would expect. He gave his wandering mind a slap. “Nothing you’ve done, nothing I’ve been.” He felt Stede’s breath against his chest. He tightened his grip.
“Are we friends?” Stede asked. His voice was low, but didn’t shake. “Are we not enemies, please?”
The least, the very minimum. “I was forced to meet with you here, to come to terms. My terms.” Liar! “Take it or leave it.” I have him in my hands, I can feel the heat of him. Take it.
Stede raised his head Yes, curls across my chin and looked Ed in the ear. “I agreed to this. The crew said, come back friends or dead.” (Fuck it out or fight it out, was how they put it, assuming far too much.) “Either of us dead, they probably meant. Or both. We…” he swallowed, Ed stared at the movement of his throat. “Did you ask me a question, there?”
Did I? Can I trust you? “Not a question. Demand.”
“Oh, Hell. Yes. Alright, anything you want. Let go or give me a proper hug hello.” His voice wavered, but his hands were steady and sure on Ed and when Ed loosed his grip and moved back, Stede followed him, stepped right into his space and slid his arms around him.
Proper… He didn’t have an obscenity for that. His head still spun. His hands found themselves on Stede’s back. He could feel the raised pattern on his waistcoat and pressed down to follow its lines. And feel Stede’s (damp and sandy) curls against his neck. Friends swam back through his gut, and Stede pulled them together, hard. Oh. Damn. Then patted his back. Friends? “Not enemies. For the week,” he muttered into Stede’s hair. This felt not so bad, this was something he could…but Stede gasped and pushed sideways.
“Christ, my ankle. Sorry.” Stede dropped his arms, he staggered on one leg, reaching for the wall and the oar. No need for that. Ed could have held him up, Ed could have gathered him back in. He crossed his arms. He didn’t know where to look. The floor. The table. the chair that wasn’t his. “Sit down before you fall. Why are you wet?” He turned his back. There was rum on the table, too. He could look at that. “Wasn’t a hug,” he told the bottle, pulling out its cork.