Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Before a dying man washed up onto his beach (well not his beach, but you know… semantics, and all that), Stede Bonnet was having a rather awful morning. 

The morning was marked by a torrential downpour, pounding against the shutters of his lighthouse with a purpose (and this was his lighthouse, indeed) and crashing against the jagged rocks below. He woke before dawn to find a new leak had managed to find passage through his last haphazard patch job on the roof, and promised himself for the eighty-third time that he would get someone from town to come out and do a proper job.

(He never would. It would require knowing someone to ask.) 

He left his bed neatly made, with a soup tureen perched on the down comforter to catch the worst of the leak, and set about making a pot of tea. “Anything can be solved once you’ve got a cup of tea, that’s my motto,” he remarked to no one in particular. The wind howled back with a vengeance, and he heard a faint crack as somewhere above him, something hit a window. “Right,” he agreed. 

He continued with his chores- fetching oil, writing logs, and always, always, keeping the lamp lit. All underscored by the wind, screaming through the eaves and battering down the windows. During it all, he tried to keep his spirits up. He whistled. He sang small snatches of old songs he remembered from childhood. All with an optimism that some may have called “forced.” Stede called it necessary.  

Tomorrow, he reminded himself, someone would come. Likely Lucius, always unimpressed and never able to stay for tea, Lucius with his little sniffs and ohs and hmms. The storm would end, and someone would come, as they did twice a month. To bring him food, and his mail, and the occasional small amusements he requested from town. Stede had kept the books from last time piled neatly by the door, ready to exchange, as well as a very nice looking red waistcoat that had grown slightly too large on him but that he thought Lucius might like. 

Last time Lucius had made the trip, Stede had managed to engage him in what he considered a “spirited” conversation about the weather. Stede considered this excellent progress. Lucius had even looked him in the eye- and more than once! 

(Stede had not received any mail in nearly four months. He still asked for it. He was afraid to stop asking.)

He knew that Lucius coming more than once was already a grand gesture. He knew that the people in town whispered about him. He knew that he was considered… you know. Whatever one considers a man living in a lighthouse, and conducting his duties in silk waistcoats and cravats. Whatever one considered them.

Today he was wearing a fine blue suit (which at this point had yet to be stained with a stranger's blood), and managed to appreciate his reflection when he caught it occasionally in a mirror. He did try, no one could accuse him of not trying. He bathed. He shaved. He dressed. He did all these things, as though any moment a sudden Governor’s Ball would spring out of a coat closet- and if one did, who would be caught unawares? Not Stede Bonnet, that’s for certain. 

It was thirty eight seconds before he saw the dying man that he remembered the soup tureen, and hurried rather unelegantly up the stairs to find it nearly sloshing over completely. He managed to catch it by the handles, tutting slightly in irritation at the puddle on the comforter. 

“Oh, lovely,” he declared, irritated, to the empty room. “That’s going to take all day to dry in this weather.” He balanced the tureen on his knee, managing to unbar the shutters with one hand and pushing them open into the wind. Stede hoisted the tureen up onto the sill, muttering to himself. “And that’s if it dries…” 

Stede turned into the wind, prepared to empty the water, and saw a man, face down in the ocean below. His hair floated in a halo around his head. The water around him was a scarlet cloud. 

The lighting crashed, and Stede spilled the full soup tureen down his shirt. 

The ocean Sang of death and blood. 

The Man in Black knew he was dying, and was gratified to find he didn’t mind it. He had… well not, worried. He couldn’t do things like that anymore. 

He had wondered , occasionally, when the waves were quiet and he slipped into something not-quite-awake, if death would be painful. He had earned pain, for he knew he would reap what he had sowed.

He was due pain. He deserved it. 

But this was not pain. This was… nothing. As in, lack of anything. It wasn’t bad. It was rather nice, given the alternative. 

He floated, and tumbled, and crashed head over heels in the waves. He tasted copper- a familiar taste, to be certain, to be very certain. Odd when it was his own, though. 

The lesser creatures of the waves fled from him, and deep below him, where no human eyes had ever seen or ever would see, there was the Singing. They were Singing for him. About him. About what he had become. He couldn’t understand the words, not anymore. 

He figured they were saying, “Good riddance.” 

He wished they would shut the fuck up. 

He wished…

…

He wished a lot of things, he realized, here at the end. It was almost interesting. He hadn’t realized he was still capable of wishing. 

The Singing went on. It always did. 

This storm was for him, he knew. Churned by the Song in the deep, the ocean carried him along in angry, punishing turns. Whether it would drown him or he would bleed to death, he wouldn’t be around long enough to find out. He supposed it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter anymore. 

But couldn’t they stop Singing? 

“Enough,” he tried to say, but he couldn’t breathe. “Enough,” he tried to say, but his mouth was full of blood. 

On and on they Sang, down in the deep. 

He wished he was dead. 

“I’m coming, mate!” Stede called over the wind, already up to his waist in the water.

The ocean was black around him, black as ink, and he couldn’t see his feet anymore. He tried to tell himself that it was the silt kicked up by the waves, or the sand, or some type of seaweed, and not…

Blood. The water was full of blood, clouds of it, more than he had ever seen, and Stede thought for a second, stupidly: “Well, that’s this suit ruined.” He then mentally backhanded himself, and pushed forward towards the man in the water. 

“Don’t worry, mate!” he called again, the words ripped from his mouth by the wind. “I’m coming! Hang on!” He didn’t know if the man could hear him. If the man could hear anything, anymore. 

The man was floating, still facedown, which Stede (though not a doctor) was confident in thinking was a bad thing. He couldn’t see the man’s face, only the back of his head and long, graying hair floating around him. He seemed to be in ripped leathers, black- or perhaps they just looked it, under water, weighed down. With every brutal wave, another cloud of red drifted from the man’s underside. Stede thought that was bad, too. Probably. 

Stede fought against the waves, cursing under his breath (as a gentleman does, gentlemen don’t say Fuck aloud, not even when they’re freezing their bollocks off in the ocean, not even then). The water seemed to hold him back, pulling at his waistcoat and sucking at his shoes, but he pressed on. He was close. He was close. 

Don’t Let Him Go. 

Stede stopped in his tracks, nearly falling over into the surf. He was chest-deep now, with waves beginning to crest over his shoulders. He froze in place, no longer feeling the needles of cold in his skin. 

Someone had spoken, just now, he was sure of it. He knew it, down in his soul, that someone had just spoken to him. But who? Where? 

Don’t Let Him Go. 

Stede gasped, and inhaled a mouthful of seawater. The sound was everywhere- under the water, with every wave, with every pound of the surf. Like an earthquake. Like an opera. Like he was a string on a harp, being plucked. The sound was around him. Inside him. 

Don’t Let Him Go.  

Stede stood silently, and watched the man’s gray hair drift across the surface of the water. There was a short pause.

The ocean held its breath.

Then Stede Bonnet coughed, said “Okay,” and grabbed the man by his shoulders.

The storm stopped. 

He was dead. He must be. The Song had stopped, and it was blessedly quiet in his bones.

He was dead.

It was surprisingly uncomfortable, being dead. Surprisingly gritty . He hadn’t expected that, but supposed it made sense. Why should he be comfortable? Where had he earned comfort, here at the end-

“Sorry about that! Let me just… turn you over… There! Can you hear me? Hello?”

….Huh.

He hadn’t expected the talking, either. Who was talking? Death?

He felt something on his chest, momentarily. Something fluttery. Something… warm.

“OH! Oh, you’re breathing! That’s what that is! I think! I hope! Oh, dear… oh, dear, oh dear… you’re in a bad way. What happened to you, mate? Face out of the sand, at least, that’s for the best-”

Death gripped him by the armpits and started dragging him backwards. 

He had expected Death to be… stronger. Less huffing and puffing. 

“I’ll get you up to the house, don’t you worry, don’t you worry at all- just give me a minute here, there’s quite a bit of sand in our way, unfortunately. That’s the disadvantage of living on a beach, you know- the sand. Some would call it a perk, I suppose! Try getting it out of your carpets, I’d tell them.”

Was this Hell? Was he in Hell? Is that why Death wouldn’t shut the fuck up? 

The Man in Black felt sand scraping his back, and sea air burning his lungs, and salt stinging his eyes, and heard nothing but the whistle of wind and the cry of sea birds. 

Why couldn’t he hear the Song? Where was it? Where?

He hadn’t expected to miss it. 

Stede had never wished harder in his life for a one-story house. 

He had managed to get the stranger up two flights of stairs, twisting around the inside of the lighthouse, and oh, what the carpets must look like , he shuddered to find out later . Seawater poured down his back and out his sleeves and squished in his shoes and he tried to remind himself that if he hadn’t been soaking wet, he’d be sweating now. He hated to sweat. For the best, then. 

But the water in his shoes, and the water on the stairs, and the blood mixing with both of them- he told himself it didn’t matter. Not now. He would think about that later.

He couldn’t afford to think about certain things, at the moment. Not the sudden way the storm had ended, all at once, like letting out a worried breath and loosening its grip. Not the way the ocean seemed to help him back to shore, gently rolling under his feet.

Not the voice. Definitely not the voice- and already, that seemed like a dream. Had he heard a voice? He couldn’t have. He was a rational man. He was a maritime professional. He didn’t hear voices. He didn’t hear singing. 

He finally- blessedly- reached the top of the stairs, and gave the stranger one final tug across the threshold into his bedroom. Stede paused, panting in the silence, staring around wildly.

It suddenly occurred to him, then and there, that he had absolutely no idea what to do. He looked around again, as though someone would be standing nearby with cue cards. What To Do When a Man Starts Bleeding to Death On Your Beach (Not Really Your Beach, But Semantics, You Know).

“Mph…” said a strange voice, and at least it had the decency to actually say it, not… whatever that other voice had been. If he had heard a voice. Which he hadn’t.

Stede looked down slowly, like the stranger would be there and ready to bite him. There was nothing to see from his spot behind the man’s back- just the top of a gray head, an impenetrable gray beard, a few scraps of black leather, and a brown stomach with a bloody jagged hole in it. Bloody - the expletive, and the adjective. He would have considered this a fine joke, if the man wasn’t currently engaged in dying.

But the man had mph -ed, and Stede decided to take that as a good sign. 

“Into bed, then,” he said, and started pulling on the man again, crossing the floor, toppling end tables and upsetting the carpet. “Into bed, and we’ll take a look at you. That’s what we’ll do.” The man’s bare feet bumped over the floor, and he let out another low noise. 

Stede managed to push and roll him onto his bed, remembering the damp comforter- was that only a few minutes ago? That was a lifetime ago. The stranger flopped down onto the mattress, and Stede was oddly gratified to hear yet another mph. 

“Right,” Stede said into the quiet room. He paused. “Right,” he said again, as though it would kickstart his brain into suddenly having an idea. He moaned, running a hand through his wet hair. “Oh, dear…”

Stede realized his blue suit was beginning to constrict his arms, and with a silent apology to his tailor, ripped the jacket off. He tried to free himself as much as he could, and by the time he was in trousers and an undershirt, shivering slightly, the stranger had started to cough wetly. 

“Oh, dear,” Stede said once more for good measure, and rushed to the bedside. He forced himself to look at the ragged hole in the man’s stomach, and pushed down the bile that rose in his throat. It wasn’t good. It could have been worse- Stede had halfway expected the man to be cut in half, with all the blood in the water- but it wasn’t good.  

“Pressure,” Stede muttered to himself. “Apply pressure. I think. Oh, I hope.” With yet another quiet scream to his tailor- Nigel, I really am sorry - Stede hurried to his wardrobe, grabbed the first clean shirt he saw, and pressed it to the man’s stomach.

The stranger groaned and bucked under Stede’s hands, and he held on, watching the shirt soak through with water and blood. “Sorry,” he said, wincing. “Sorry. I’m sure that isn’t pleasant. It’s for the best, I think.” 

The stranger settled after a moment, breathing shallow and pained, and Stede thought to try to make him comfortable. He reached up and tried to push the stranger’s hair out of his face, still talking, afraid to stop.

“It’ll be alright. You’ll see. I’ve never done this before, you know- patching someone up. Oh, wait- once, I skinned my knee and applied my own bandage! Of course, I was twelve and fell off a horse, but really how different could it be? Just remove the horse, and add the ocean. We’ll work it out, alright? We’ll work it out-”

The stranger opened his eyes, and Stede stopped talking. 

There was silence. The stranger stared up at him, all brown eyes and dark lashes and rough angles, and Stede thought he could hear singing again. 

“Hello,” Stede said, at last. 

The stranger blinked up at him, and Stede watched a drop of saltwater work its way down the side of his cheek, towards his beard. He wondered why he wanted to brush it away. 

“Hello,” he said again. “I’m Stede.”

The stranger blinked again. “Hello, Stede. I’m dead.”

Stede laughed nervously, feeling the goosebumps rise again on his back. “I hope not,” he said.

The stranger coughed slightly.

Deep below, the Song began again. 

Chapter Text

The sun had slunk behind a cloud and a thin moon climbed into the sky, as evening crept murderously closer towards the lighthouse. 

The room was silent except for the sound of water sloshing, and Stede could hear his heart pounding in his ears. He fought down a shiver as he wrung out yet another rag and placed it, gingerly, onto the Man’s forehead. The Man’s skin was hot to the touch, and Stede tried to fight down another shiver. 

What if he dies, you nut? What then? What if he dies?

The Man had not moved from the bed, not since Stede had not-so-gently flung him into it hours ago, not since he had declared himself dead and then sunk back down onto the pillow. The Man hadn’t done much of anything since then. Except mutter. And bleed. His eyes had fluttered shut, and inwardly Stede was glad. 

He thought every so often about the Man’s brown eyes, and had come to a very confused conclusion that if the Man had kept looking at him, staring at him bewildered under wet lashes… well. He may have just sat there until the Man bled out all over his silk sheets. 

The reason for this was… another thing he didn’t have time to think about. 

He thought he had done well so far, considering he was working with a lack of proper materials. He had no medicines, no instruments, and the only book he had managed to find on first aid seemed to be woefully out of date. The section on fevers instructed the reader that “hot blood” came from “too many gnomes living in one’s lymphatic system,” and Stede was rather sure that was wrong. But over the past hour, the Man’s wound was washed clean of salt and sand, and the bleeding had slowed. Stopped? No. But slowed. 

The problem now was what to do next. The book made it explicitly clear, and Stede was now perched on the corner of the bed, flanked on one side by the gnome-hating first-aid manual and on the other by a bucket of water and a pile of rags. 

In his hand, he held a needle and thread. 

Stede swallowed against a suddenly very dry throat, and re-read the passage of the book for the tenth time. “Push the needle…”

Another swallow. 

“... through the skin, roughly two centimeters to the right of the wound.” Stede whispered. “Enter at a ninety-degree angle, and be sure not to…”  He swallowed again, making a slightly strangled noise. “...Be sure not to pierce the layer of fat beneath the skin- Oh, god .” Stede pushed the book away, rumpling the wet bed sheets and breathing hard. 

The Man muttered again, eyes darting beneath his eyelids and mouth slightly open in a pant. His skin looked ashen beneath his tan, and the terrible hole in his stomach gaped at Stede like a frowning mouth. Stede felt shame burn away his nausea. Here was a man dying in front of him, and he couldn’t even do him the decency of trying to help him. 

He was weak. He was weak. He was-

Stede shook his head, trying to stop the spiral before it started. “No time for self-pity, Bonnet,” he muttered. “Man up. Man up. It’s just a few stitches. Like… darning a handkerchief.” He tightened his grip on the needle, leaning over the Man’s stomach. 

He took one more deep breath. “Just like a handkerchief.”

Stede poked the needle under the Man’s skin, and the Man exploded. 

Pain. The Man in Black came to life in a flurry of pain and rage.

There it was, the anger, yes, the old familiar anger that anyone would dare to hurt him, would dare to think he could be hurt. He was Blood In the Water. He was The Abyss. He was The Deep Dark. He did not hurt . He did not bleed . He had almost forgotten, in his hurry to die, that this was what kept him alive. 

The anger. 

He roared and cursed, arms flying out in front of him and to the side of him and behind him, grasping, reaching, strangling, choking. Around him came the sounds of breaking glass and crunching wood and this, at least, made sense to him. These were familiar sounds.

But he realized now that the walls, the walls- the walls were stone. Not wood. Stone. Cold and hard and- he realized, gasping for air- unable to be splintered under his grip, no matter how hard he pushed. 

He couldn’t get out. He was trapped, trapped, trapped, like a fish in a net, like a fool, stupid, stupid, stupid boy-

The stone walls were closing in around him, everything was too bright and too cold and too close, and he would never get out, not ever, not ever, not ever . He would die here, in the air, on the cold ground, just like his-

He took another ragged breath, and reached up, as high as he could, his arms meeting only cold, mocking stone that scraped his skin. Fuck. Fuck. No way out. No way out. 

He was Death and he was Dark and he was Fucked, he was Trapped and Foolish and Weak, Weak, Weak-

The Man in Black pressed himself into the corner, arms folded over his face, stone walls scratching his back, and fought to breathe. 

Stede Bonnet sat on the floor of his room, pressed against the wall, and watched. He was shivering again, uncontrollably, and couldn’t bring himself to care. All around him was the sound of wreckage- splintering wood and shattering glass and a creaking crunch as the bedframe collapsed under the weight of-

Oh my God, Oh my God, What is that? His brain chanted it mercilessly, uselessly. WHAT IS THAT? WHAT IS THAT? WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?!

The lamps had been long since knocked over, and darkness filled the room, but he could see them in the thin light of the moon. Long, boneless black shapes, writhing through the air and across the floor, grasping, probing, reaching. One of them reached for him and he gasped, leaning away and watching in silent horror as it passed only inches from his face. Suckers the size of teacups whirled past him. 

Stede scrambled backwards, slamming his head against the edge of a low table and collapsing to the ground. He clutched the back of his head and willed himself not to faint. 

Or maybe he should faint. He gave it a quick moment of consideration, as across the room, the Man crunched an end table into splinters. Maybe he’d faint, and he’d wake up, and this would all have been a terrible dream. He’d be home, in bed, with a servant bringing him a morning cup of tea, and his father there to scold him, he really shouldn’t oversleep, not today of all days-

Stede blinked his eyes open. No , thank you. He’d take a monster over that possibility. Any day.

Stede braved a look back up and oh, my God - the moonlight had filled the room in earnest now, and he could see everything far too clearly. The Man was pressed up against the far wall, curled in the center of a whorl of tentacles, black tentacles reaching from somewhere behind him- somewhere within him. Around him, these Things , these tentacles crashed and groped, but for what, Stede didn’t know. What did he want? He couldn’t see the Man’s face, only a set of arms covered in black ink, shielding him-

Stede blinked.

No. Not shielding him. Hiding him. 

Stede tried to ignore the splintering wood and the groan of the floodboards beneath him, and watched the Man. Not the arms… just the Man. 

No. Yes. Maybe?

Yes. There. Hard to see in the moonlight, almost impossible. But there- a shudder. Traveling down the Man’s arms, down his shoulders…

The Man was shivering. 

Was he…?

Afraid?

The Man in Black heard his heart in his ears, and wondered if he would suffocate. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t breathe. His eyes were squeezed shut and his chest was burning and his arms were numb and he was going to die, that much was certain, it was only a matter of-

“...It’s all right.”

The Man in Black froze. His heart hammered on, nearly a hum now, loud enough that he had only barely heard…

The voice cleared its throat. “It’s all right, mate.” 

There was a long pause, during which he wondered if he had finally lost his mind. It very clearly wasn’t fucking alright , because he was suffocating, couldn’t they tell, he was drowning on dry land, and his fucking lungs wouldn’t work, and-

“Here now. It’s all right. Really. I’m not… going to hurt you.”

And here, the Man in Black laughed. Not loudly, and not long, but he couldn’t help it- a short bark of a laugh crept out of the locked cage where his chest used to be.

Who could possibly hurt him?

Impossibly, somewhere in front of him, something laughed back. Nervously, yes, but still. “Yeah, there we go. Alright. Take a breath, mate. It’s okay.”

And he could, suddenly, take a short breath- though it burned, oh it hurt , and he fought the urge to cough. 

“There we go! Good!” coached the stupid little voice that thought it could hurt him. “Right, uh… could you lower your… arms? Please?”

The Man in Black thought for a long moment, and managed to say, roughly, “...Which ones?”

And now the voice did laugh, truly, ridiculously. “Well, uh, all of them, if you wouldn’t mind terribly. It’s a little… crowded in here. At the moment. And then we could see each other, and have… have a chat.” 

He took another breath. And another. 

And he lowered his arms. Just the two. Not all. Not yet.

Sitting across from him, barely visible in the moonlight, was a man. Blonde, short, and…

…Smiling. 

Someone was smiling at him. 

“Ah. Hello!” He was smiling, and it wasn’t the way Izzy smiled, not with hungry eyes and teeth, begging for him to do worse , to keep going . No. He was smiling like…

The Man in Black blinked. 

He couldn’t remember the last time someone had smiled at him. 

He lowered his arms. 

The shapes crept backwards, into the space behind the Man, into the darkness and finally, blessedly gone, and Stede wondered if this is what it felt like to lose one’s mind. 

“Thank you,” he said gratefully, and the Man stared at him. They were across the room from each other, Stede under a table near the stairs and the Man sitting in the slightly-crushed pile of pillows and linen that used to be Stede’s bed. The Man’s arms were hanging limply by his side, legs splayed in front of him, chest heaving with difficult breaths. 

The wound in his stomach had started to bleed again, and Stede decided then and there that he would simply have to lose his mind later. 

“Oh, here,” Stede said, reaching for the bucket of water and realizing mid-grab that it was now upside down, halfway across the room. “Ah… well. Let me get you a rag.” He managed to push himself to his knees, and then to his feet, the eyes of the Man watching him in something close to shock. 

“What?” the Man asked hoarsely.

“A rag,” Stede said again, hurrying to pile in the corner and fishing out something that looked clean-ish. “For the… blood.” The Man looked at him, bewildered, and Stede felt the need to clarify. “You’re bleeding, you know? Your stomach?”

The Man looked down at the gash in his stomach, blinked and said, “Ah. Right. Yeah.” 

“How did that happen, eh?” Stede asked, keeping his tone light.  He was getting closer to the bed, to the Man, but he couldn’t go too quickly, couldn’t frighten him, because then…

…Well. He would move slowly. That much was clear. 

“Some, eh… dastardly sea battle? All swords and cannons?” Stede continued, taking another step. “Perhaps a duel to the death?” 

“Shark attack,” the Man said casually. 

Stede gawked at him. “Really?”

“No.” The Man looked at him, and after a moment- Stede felt his heart skip in his chest- winked. 

“Oh! You’re joking!” he said, trying to avoid sounding relieved. “Good one! Very good, shark attack, right.” Stede took another step towards the bed. “What was it really?”

The Man watched him for a long moment. Then: “A harpoon.”

Stede tried to smile again. “Not really.”

“Yes.” The Man stared at him, unblinking. “Really.” 

There was a short silence. 

Stede offered the Man the scrap from the floor. “Right. Well… rag?”

The Man stared at Stede, and slowly reached for it. He only got halfway before wincing and falling back against the remains of the pillows, clutching his stomach, and Stede forgot he was terrified long enough to finish his trip across the floor and try to help the Man sit up. 

“Sorry, sorry, stupid of me- here I am, rambling on when you’ve got a hole in you. Never mind how you got it, eh? I was just going to…” Stede tried to push a few ripped pillows behind the Man’s back, and suddenly caught a glimpse of silver flash against his side. “Ah, here we are!” he crowed, and- gently as he could- pulled the needle free from where it hung loose in the flesh. 

The Man hissed, and Stede was close enough now to place a hand against the Man’s side, trying to comfort him and also trying to quiet the screaming voice in his head- what are you DOING, don’t TOUCH him, you don’t even know what he IS!

“Fuck,” the Man gasped. “What was that?”

Stede held up the needle, inwardly grateful it hadn’t somehow slipped into the Man’s stomach when he had… gotten upset. “Sorry. Just, eh, my poor attempt to stitch you up. I shouldn’t really have tried, I’m not a doctor, but it seemed better to have an unattractive scar than a hole in one’s stomach, you know? And I had found a few medical texts to reference, but-”

“That’s it?” The Man interrupted, staring at the needle with an expression that Stede could only describe as… embarrassed. 

“What’s it? The needle?”

“But it’s so…” The Man faltered for a moment. 

“What?” Stede asked.

“...Small.”

Stede tilted his head at the Man. “Well, yes. It’s a needle. They tend to be that way.”

“Yeah, but…” The Man seemed slightly outraged. “It hurt. It’s so small .”

“Well, that doesn’t mean it can’t hurt,” Stede reasoned, leaving the Man for a moment and trying to find the medical text again, because there was no way he was going to attempt this again without thoroughly reading the instructions. “Sometimes it’s the most innocuous little things that do the most damage. Like… uh… the appendix.”

The Man was watching him, making no effort to move from the bed. “The what?”

“The appendix,” Stede continued, fully aware that he was rambling in a way that used to get him laughed at. “Tiny little thing in your guts, like a little balloon. Sits there, does nothing, serves no purpose, and then… whammo!” He straightened up, finding the Man watching him in fascination. “It explodes!”

The Man’s eyebrows shot up. “It explodes ? Fuck me.”

“Well, not explodes ,” Stede corrected himself. He continued around the room, turning over a few fallen pieces of furniture and setting them upright. “But it makes you very sick. Sometimes dead. Tiny little thing, too.” Stede finally managed to see the corner of the book under a shattered tea set, and retrieved it gratefully. 

The Man seemed to approve, nodding. “Devious little bastard, that appendix.” 

“Yes, I’ve always thought so,” Stede agreed, setting up a chair near the bedside and settling down. He paused, setting up the book to the proper page and trying to ignore the eyes of the Man fixed intently onto the top of his head. “Anyway. Let’s, uh… let’s give this another shot, eh?” 

The Man blinked at him. “The needle?”

“Yes. If that’s alright.”

The Man studied the needle in Stede’s grip, silent for a moment. “...Will it hurt?” he asked finally. 

“Yes,” Stede said. 

The Man looked at him, nodded, and sat back against the headboard. “Alright.”

He was halfway through the wound when the Man spoke again. 

“You haven’t asked.”

Stede looked up, feeling his neck pop and wincing slightly. “Sorry?”

“You haven’t asked,” the Man said again. 

Stede rubbed at the kink in his neck. “Asked about…?”

The Man looked at him like he was insane (and maybe he was, who knew at this point). The Man’s gaze moved, and Stede followed it to the wreckage of the room around them. The toppled chairs. The splintered wood.

Stede swallowed hard. “Ah… right. To be honest… I thought it might be rude.”

The Man chuckled, in disbelief. “Rude?”

Stede smiled. “Well, that it might be a sore subject. Did you want me to ask?”

There was another silence. 

Stede waited. The Man stared at him, eyes wondering. Finally, he said: “...No.”

Stede nodded. “Then I won’t.” He bent back over his work. 

Stede heard another chuckle above him, and was glad that the angle he was working hid his blush. “Fucking unbelievable,” he heard the Man mutter as he lay back against the bed. 

“I’m Stede, by the way,” he said after another moment. “Stede Bonnet.”

The Man was quiet for a long moment, so long that Stede thought he may not have heard him- or possibly fell unconscious. But then, quietly:

“...Edward Teach.” 

Stede grinned, starting another stitch. It was getting easier. 

“Lovely to meet you, Edward.”

“Ed.”

“...Ed.”

Chapter Text

It was surprisingly easier to tidy up than Stede thought it would be. 

Glass trinkets placed back into the cabinets, barring the ones broken beyond repair. Errant papers gathered up from the corners where they lay scattered from overturned drawers- some returned to their hiding places, some laid flat on the table downstairs to dry. Puddles soaked up with every spare towel, sheet, and tea cozy he had on hand. 

And as long as he tidied, he wouldn’t have to try to sleep. 

His attempts earlier in the night had gone sideways, as he suspected they would. With the wound in his stomach finally, mercifully closed, Ed had slipped into a doze on the last few stitches. Stede watched his breathing slow, his eyelids struggle to stay open- out of fear, or stubbornness, he couldn’t begin to guess. But eventually, sleep had won and Ed’s eyes closed for good with a low sigh. He lay on the broken remains of Stede’s bed, one arm crossed haphazardly over his chest and the other dangling over the side.

His chest was rising and falling steadily, if with a slight wince each time the stitches stretched. Stede had come up to check that Ed was still breathing several times already, and had managed to convince himself after the fifth trip upstairs that it wasn’t likely to stop anytime soon. 

Ed would be alright. He told himself this, almost as a prayer.

Ed would be alright.

It was only when he had laid down to try to get some sleep of his own that other thoughts began to creep in. Only when he had curled up onto a corner of the rug near the kitchen that the weight of what had happened began to settle in, finally superseding the adrenaline. His brain ticked like a metronome, unending, and every time his eyes began to close his thoughts wrenched them open. 

Ed would be alright. But who was Ed?

There was a stranger upstairs, a strange man with tattoos and no shoes and the power to crush his dresser like it was a walnut. And Stede had opened his door to him, carried him past the threshold like some grim parody of a wedding night and thrown him into bed. Stede had invited the stranger in. 

Come into my parlor, said the spider to the fly.

Except Stede was the fly, the supid little buzzing fly. And Ed wasn’t a spider but something else. Something much much bigger, something that probably didn’t stop at flies, something dangerous and foreign and…

Stede groaned, rolling over.

…And Ed needed help. Ed needed his help, and Stede wanted to help him. 

This was the conclusion Stede reached over and over, this was what bothered him so immensely. Ed was a stranger, he was dangerous, he was… something else . But if Stede had known that before running into the surf, before pulling him up the stairs… would it have made a difference? Would he have left the monster to drift away with the tide?

He tried to tell himself he would have. Something deeper in him knew the truth. 

But why? Because he was a softheart, like the boys used to tease? Because he was naive, like his father would say under his breath? Because he was a fool? 

He must be. Why else would he let Ed stay sleeping, staying resting in his bed while he tried to sleep on a rug downstairs with an oven mitt for a pillow? 

Stede lay thinking for nearly an hour, his thoughts pressing in on all sides, until they were suffocating him, until he could barely breathe.

Until he got up, lit the stove, put the kettle on, rolled up his sleeves, and set about giving the house a good spiff-up. He tidied. 

He tried to be as quiet as he could as he neared the bedroom, but heard no noise to suggest he had roused his houseguest. Stede gradually began to grow closer and closer, further up the stairs, until he had effectively done all the work he could do without crossing the doorway into the bedroom. 

Which was where he found himself standing, around two in the morning, with his hands already raw from soaking up seawater off the stairs below. Stede stood outside his bedroom door, one hand on the doorknob, frozen. 

He had been standing there for nearly a full minute already. 

He huffed, letting go of the doorknob and running his hands over his face. “It’s your room ,” he whispered to himself harshly. “You have every right. He is a guest in your home, and you’ve been very gracious so far. Not every host would sew up their houseguest.”

But then, his brain whispered back, Not every houseguest would pick up their host’s ottoman and splatter it against the wall. That’s rude, when you get down to it. 

“That’s true,” Stede admitted. 

And certainly, his brain continued, Not every houseguest poses a threat to their host's life. Do they, Stede?

“Well…” Stede hesitated. He tried a grin. “I don’t know. Aunt Ethel certainly put a strain on our wellbeing whenever she came to visit. She did almost give us all botulism, when we let her cook the Christmas ham-”

Are you joking, at a time like this? His brain had taken on a different tone. A sneering, frustrated, very familiar tone. 

That Thing behind your door is dangerous. It’s a beast. A monster. Any rational man would have already gone for help, or better yet- grabbed the largest knife from the kitchen and forced it to leave. And you… typical you, Stede. You’ve given the monster feather pillows and told it to put its feet up. And why? Because you felt sorry for him? Because you thought he was AFRAID of you? 

His father laughed, harshly. Who in their right mind could be afraid of you, boy?

Stede leaned his forehead against the doorframe and squeezed his eyes shut. “I didn’t know,” he whispered.

Well, now you know, his father hissed in his ear. Now you know. And what are you going to do about it, boy? What are you going to do? 

Stede took a breath, turned the doorknob, and rushed into the room. He slammed the door behind him, closing it on his father’s final word. 

Coward. 

As the door slammed loudly, Stede realized his error too late, and winced. He froze in the darkness, waiting for something to come grab him, rip him apart, punish him for his foolishness-

Only nothing came. The room stayed dark and quiet, except for the quiet sounds of breathing from the bed. Stede left out a slow breath. He turned over his shoulder to find Ed lying still, in the same position he had left him in. Ed’s brow was furrowed, and his eyes were moving underneath his eyelids, but he was asleep. 

“Well,” Stede whispered, trying to break the silence and stop his own heart from beating out of his chest. “Aren’t you a heavy sleeper?” There was no answer, but he wasn’t expecting one. After a long moment, Stede slowly got to work. 

He spent nearly an hour tidying in silence, making a very quiet headway into the disaster the room had become. He righted chairs, gathered up books, swept broken glass from the floor, straightened picture frames… the ones that had survived, anyway. 

The biggest problems, of course, would take far longer to sort out. The furniture that had been crunched into splinters. The window over the bed that had a spiderweb crack, where an errant… arm … had slammed into it. The seawater drying slowly and mustily inside the floorboards and the carpets (and oh, his poor, poor, Persian rug, it would never be the same). 

As the hour came to an end, he caught a glimpse of a corner of white paper under a fallen side of the comforter, and crept towards the bed. His bookshelf would need to be reorganized, but he had been relieved to find so far that all of his volumes were intact. Only a few were left unaccounted for, and once he had those recovered, he could leave and try to force some sleep to come. 

It was only after he reached the foot of the bed and gently lifted the corner of the comforter back that he heard a noise coming from near the headboard. Harsh breathing, and underneath that, almost a whine. Stede turned to check on his patient- all he needed at this point was for Ed’s stitches to come undone. 

But Ed’s stomach wasn’t the problem. His houseguest’s relaxed splay had tightened imperceptibly, the hand on the covers now white-knuckled in a death grip on the sheets and the hand hanging over the side clenched in a fist. Ed’s eyes were darting back and under his eyelids, sweat standing out on his brow and the bare skin of his stomach. His chest rose and fell unevenly, and as Stede watched, Ed let out a low moan. 

Stede stood frozen, unsure what to do. He thought of consulting the medical text once again, though it had gotten rather soaked through during Ed’s… tantrum. Was he having a fever? Or something worse? Was there further damage, deeper inside, past what he could help? 

Ed moaned again, and then- to Stede’s surprise- whispered into the quiet. “No… please …”

Stede felt his posture relax. A nightmare. Nothing medical, at the very least. Poor fella, but nothing to be done. Nothing Stede could do, at the very least. Stede shook his head slightly, finally picking up the book at his feet and turning to creep towards the shelves. 

But then, Ed let out a low sob. “No… no, please… don’t leave me…”

Stede stopped, turning to look at him in surprise. Yes, Ed was still asleep- his eyes were clenched tight, head turning slightly against the pillows. He wasn’t talking to Stede. But who was he talking to? Who was leaving? Who would leave Ed? 

“Please, I can’t…” Ed muttered. “I can’t… don’t leave…” He let out another sob. 

Then Stede was crossing the floor towards the bed, was sitting down on the mattress, was leaning towards Ed to hear him better, and out in the hallway his father was calling to him in anger because what the hell was he doing? And Stede pushed his father’s voice further down the hall, and placed a pale, raw hand on top of Ed’s clenched fist. 

“Ed,” he whispered, and he felt heat under his grip, felt Ed’s skin clammy with sweat. A fever, then, he was right. He felt for the man; Stede had suffered fevers before, and knew of the twisted dreams that came with them. “Edward,” he whispered again. “It’s alright. You’re dreaming.”

To his surprise, Ed flinched at his touch, and drew away, and surely this wasn’t the creature who had flipped a table only a few hours before. Ed moaned again, eyes squinting open only slightly, and Stede saw fever in the glaze of his eyes. 

“No,” Ed muttered. “No. No. Don’t leave… don’t…”

“I’m not leaving, Ed,” Stede whispered back, and he felt heat rise on the back of his own neck, up his ears, in the pit of his stomach. Maybe he was coming down with something himself. “I’m not leaving. You’re dreaming, Ed, it’ll be alright.”

“No, I…” Ed panted slightly. “I can’t hear it… I can’t hear…”

Stede leaned closer, confused. “Ed? You can’t hear me? I’m right here, mate. I’m not going anywhere.” 

“Can’t hear… the Song…”

Stede drew back, face slack in shock, and the heat was gone. Now he was cold, cold from head to toe. He must have misheard. Of course he did. Because he had just finished convincing himself a few hours earlier that he hadn’t heard a voice , pulsing through the water of the ocean. He hadn't heard singing . He certainly hadn’t heard a song …

Don’t let him go.

He had been quite convincing in his absolute denial, as a matter of fact. So Ed couldn’t have said…

Stede swallowed, trying to ignore how his mouth had gone dry. “Can’t hear what, Ed?” he said as casually as he could. 

To his surprise, Ed’s fist unclenched against the bedsheets and traveled up, and before Stede could pull back any further, Ed’s hand had wrapped around the collar of his shirt and pulled him in closer. And now he was staring at Ed’s face, watching his brown eyes peer up at him through a haze of dreamy fever. Now Stede was hot again, hot and cold, and it was very unpleasant, and also somehow, not so unpleasant. 

“Can’t hear it,” Ed was whispering, half-lidded eyes darting back and forth from Stede to something past Stede, something Stede couldn’t see. “The Song… where’s it gone? Where… Why can’t I hear it? Why… where’s it gone?”

Stede cleared his throat, very aware that there was little space between them, and unsure of what to do. “Oh, er… yes, the Song! The, uh… I’m sure it’ll be back soon. They’re probably just… taking a break. Maybe they nipped off to get a quick drink,” he babbled, “but they’ll be back, don’t you worry-”

“No,” Ed moaned, eyes squeezing shut again, head turning on the pillow. “No, they’ve left… they’ve left me… they left me alone, I can’t hear them…” 

Stede nodded along, trying to pry Ed’s fingers off his lapel. “I’m sure they didn’t leave, mate, I’m sure they’ll be back,” he tried to soothe, as his shirt began to cut into the back of his neck. “Ed… you’re slightly choking me, you know…”

Suddenly, Ed’s eyes opened again, wider now, blazing with fever, and Stede knew that he wasn’t here, not in this room. Ed was somewhere else entirely at the moment, somewhere Stede couldn’t see.

Ed’s other hand snaked up from the side of the bed and- oh, God - grabbed the other side of Stede’s collar and now they were closer, only inches apart, and Ed was staring at Stede with his brown eyes and Stede stopped worrying about his shirt. 

“You don’t understand…” Ed breathed. “I could always… always hear them… even when I didn’t know what it meant, anymore… I could always hear them…” 

Stede swallowed hard, unable to look away. “Hear them where?” he whispered.

Ed blinked, as though trying to focus, gaze now fixed somewhere behind Stede’s shoulder. “Deep below…” he murmured. “Deep, deep below… where the light can’t reach, but the stars seem twice as close… that’s where they Sing.” Ed’s voice was a whisper, and as a chill ran down his spine, Stede got the uncanny sense Ed was reciting something, something very old.

Something he perhaps shouldn't be listening to. 

“That’s where they Sing… and the waves rise and fall to the sound of their voices…” Ed continued, voice catching slightly. “And all of the beloved creatures hear their Song, and know it…” And Ed let out another sob, and his grip tightened on Stede’s collar. “And I can’t hear it… they’ve left me… they left me… alone…”

Stede tried to catch his breath, tried to think of what to say, drowning in brown eyes, and finally, settled on- “You’re not alone, Ed.”

There was a pause. Ed rolled his eyes back to Stede’s face, seemingly focusing immensely. “...What?” he said finally. 

“You’re not alone. You’re not out there, anymore. You’re here, with me. In the lighthouse.” Stede reached up again and managed to grip Ed’s hands on either side of his collar, and felt them burning under his grip. “Maybe that’s why you, uh… can’t hear them. You know? Maybe a proximity thing.”

Ed blinked at him again, eyes glazed but breathing slowing. “Yeah?” he murmured, sounding very unsure, very young. “You think?”

“Yeah, mate,” Stede assured him, gripping Ed’s hands. “I’m sure of it. They haven’t left you. I’m sure they wouldn’t do that. I’m sure they wouldn’t.” 

Ed said nothing, only watching Stede from a few inches away, his breathing the only sound in the room. Stede felt another chill crawl up his spine. 

“And you know,” Stede said finally, trying to break the tension, break the silence, “I’m not going anywhere. I’m not leaving you, Ed. I won’t.”

Ed’s expression shifted slightly, ever so slightly, and Stede felt his grip loosen on his shirt. “Yeah?” he murmured again, eyelids starting to sink. 

Stede nodded, still holding Ed’s wrists. “Yeah.” And then, for reasons he couldn’t grasp, Stede followed this up with: “I promise.”

Ed let out a breath, and Stede felt his grip loosen entirely until Stede was holding Ed’s wrists slack, just above his stomach, still leaned in close despite his collar now freed. Ed sank back against the pillows, and his eyes rolled closed. 

It was quiet in the room for a moment. 

Stede forced himself to move, gently setting Ed’s hands down on the sheets and taking a deep breath of his own. He leaned back, noticing how small the room suddenly seemed, noticing how his heart was hammering in his chest again.

Noticing how he didn’t want to move. 

Stede leaned down to pick up the book he had dropped, and prepared to stand up to leave. But Ed’s brow furrowed again even as his eyes stayed shut, and his hand groped blindly for Stede’s hand, and Stede felt himself sink back down, down to sit by the side of the bed, back pressed against the bedframe and legs splayed out over the carpet. 

He couldn’t leave. He had promised. 

He sat and watched as Ed’s hand clawed at the sheets, and finally placed his own hand over Ed’s. “Alright,” he said quietly. “I’m not leaving.” Stede tried to make himself comfortable on the ground, as Ed’s forehead relaxed again, and resolved that he wouldn’t be tidying any more tonight, and he certainly wouldn’t be leaving. Not until the fever broke, and Ed came back from wherever he had gone. 

Stede noticed the book he had dropped near his knee, and picked it up to read the title. He fought down a slightly-hysterical laugh. The universe must have been playing a cruel joke, that much was certain. 

Stede turned to the first page and began to read aloud, and Ed was quiet behind him.

“Once, deep beneath the sea, in the Kingdom of the Ocean, there lived a little mermaid…”

He woke with the sun shining rudely and directly into his eyes through the crack in the window, and Stede blinked awake to find himself on the floor of his bedroom, next to the bed, his head bent backwards at an unnatural angle to rest on the mattress behind him. He lay still for a moment, wincing at the light and wondering what had happened.

Had he fallen out of bed? Maybe he had sleepwalked, he hadn’t done that since he was a child and snuck a full glass of milk before bed-

And then Ed muttered in his sleep behind him and the night before came crashing back to Stede, and he remembered.

He was on the floor of his bedroom because he had brought a sea monster inside, and as he was a gentleman, it was only seemly that the monster be given use of his bed. That was only polite, after all. 

Stede lifted his head slowly, wincing as his muscles protested and his joints popped, and turned to check on his houseguest. Ed was sleeping quietly, eyes still beneath their lids and forehead smooth, and Stede rested a hand ever-so-quickly against Ed’s side to check. Sweaty, but cool. The fever had broken somewhere in the night, likely somewhere between the little mermaid seeing the Prince on his ship but before visiting the sea witch and giving up her voice. 

Stede remembered the book and went to pick it off the floor, straightening the pages and tutting slightly at himself- he had broken the spine. Stede checked that the rest of the book was untarnished, and as it fell back to the first page he saw:

“ FAR out in the ocean, where the water is as blue as the prettiest cornflower, and as clear as crystal, it is very, very deep; many church steeples, piled one upon another, would not reach from the ground beneath to the surface of the water above. But we must not imagine that there is nothing at the bottom of the sea but bare yellow sand.

No, indeed; the most singular flowers and plants grow there; fishes glide between the branches, as birds fly among the trees here upon land. And in the deepest spot of all, stands the castle. Its walls are built of coral, and the long, gothic windows are of the clearest amber…”

Stede slammed the book shut, feeling another, familiar chill down his spine. 

The Song. Stede could hear the capital-S in the way Ed had said it. The Song that Edward had seemed so insistent on telling him about last night, wracked with fever and spouting nonsense. The Song in the deep, where the stars shone… or something like that…

Stede shook his head and winced as his neck popped again, forcing himself to rise from the floor and cross the room, roughly shoving the book back onto his shelf. “Wake up,” he muttered to himself. “Wake up, Stede. Stop dreaming. Songs and voices and…” He huffed out a breath, leaning against the bookshelf. “It’s nonsense. Children’s stories.”

How like his father he sounded, to his own ears. 

Stede paused for a moment in the silence of the room, hearing only Ed’s breathing and…

And outside, in the thin light of the morning, the gentle crashing of the surf. 

“This is insane,” Stede said out loud to the air in front of him. He was standing down on the beach, in the small sandy inlet where only a few hours ago he had dragged Edward Teach up the beach. The night and the waves had washed away the bloody trail they had left behind, and Stede was very glad about it. It would have made what he was about to do feel even more foolish. 

He stood barefoot on the sand, still wearing the thin shirt and breeches he was wearing last night, having stripped out his soaked jacket, overshirt, shoes, and socks. The sand was cool beneath his feet but not cold, and the early morning in Barbados was pleasantly warm. In front of him, the ocean stretched out into nothingness. With the sun just rising, the surf was calm, and rolled onto the sand in wide, lazy arcs. 

Stede took another breath. “This is absolutely insane,” he said again. He halfway expected an answer this time, but the only one he got was the rush of waves and a distant cry of a seagull. In three more steps, his feet would be in the water.

What on earth do you think you’re doing out here? Is this the way a gentleman behaves? Is this the way a sane man acts? His father was behind him now, on the sand, in his ear. You’re losing your mind, Stede, as we all knew you would, out here, all alone. You were never a man who could handle the stress.

You were never a man, period. Only a boy with his head in the clouds, a boy who-

“Oh, do shut up ,” Stede said desperately, and took four steps forward. 

The surf washed up over his feet, and he left his father laughing mockingly behind him as he walked gamely forward into the waves. He pressed onwards, the water reaching his knees, then his waist, until he was up to his chest, shirt soaked. The ocean was far calmer than it had been last night, gentle in the early morning sun, and Stede tried to forget how stupid this all was as he braced himself in the sand under his feet. 

Stede tried to think of what to say that wouldn’t sound completely insane. He gave up, realizing that everything would, and threw caution to the wind. “Hello,” he said, and waited.

Nothing. 

He tried again. “Er, hello?... Would whoever spoke to me last night, uh… make yourselves known?” He waited. 

Nothing. The seagull called again, distantly. Sounding a bit too close to laughter.

Stede felt embarrassment start to curl in the pit of his stomach. “Look, would you mind just saying anything , please?” he called, slightly desperately. “Anything at all? It’s just… I’ve had a hell of a night. A sea monster broke my bed and ruined my Persian rug, and I helped him because obviously I’m an idiot with no self-preservation, and…” 

He brought a hand up to wipe his face, forgetting in his rant about the seawater, and let out a groan as he spat salt from his mouth. “Look, I think I’ve earned a short response, so I can at least tell my fath… I mean, tell myself that I haven’t completely lost my mind!”

And… nothing. No response. Certainly no singing. Stede closed his eyes and let the water rush over his shoulders, and consigned himself to insanity. Perhaps it would be nice. Plenty of mad lighthouse keepers out there, talking to birds and growing long white beards and drinking the oil. He’d be in good company. 

He took a bracing breath in, just as a larger wave crested over his head. For a split second he was completely submerged, water in his mouth and in his ears and down his lungs, and-

And something was there. 

Stede broke the surface again, coughing and sputtering, blinking the stinging salt out of his eyes. He tried to catch his breath, stunned and terrified and… oddly elated. 

Because something was there- not in person, not standing next to him, nothing like that. But when his head went under, just for that moment, he had the same feeling he’d had last night. The feeling of… sound . Beyond hearing, beyond his own senses, beyond just a voice in your ear. He had felt it, rather than heard it. It was inside of him. 

And now it was gone, with the waves. Stede considered things for half a second, before taking as deep a breath as he could and ducking back under the water.

He let himself sink, falling to his knees against the rolling sand underneath him, eyes open despite the salt. The world became a watery blue painting, light creeping in at the edges, and Stede willed himself to stay down. 

Are you there? He thought as loud as he could. 

And the ocean answered. 

He felt, rather than heard, what Ed must have been talking about- the Song. The rising and falling that pulled the waves, the sweeping call that guided the tides. Louder than whale song, thrumming through his bones like a tuning fork. He couldn’t make out words, couldn’t tell if there were words- but he felt it, suddenly, in his bones. 

It was asking him a question. He knew that, knew it as though he’d asked it himself. 

Stede answered aloud first, forgetting where he was, words turning to bubbles around him. He remembered, and tried to reassure them as best as he could. Tried to feel the words, rather than say them. 

Edward is safe. 

I won’t let him go. 

If this was madness, he welcomed it completely. Stede felt the sound sweep past him, around him, through him, like that same string being plucked on the enormous harp. He felt his muscles unclench, felt his eyes drift shut, and only barely remembered to hold his breath. He was inside the Song. He was part of it. 

He had never been a part of anything. 

Of course Ed had feared losing this- Stede never wanted it to stop. Stede let himself sink further underwater, coming to rest on the sand below, and it was suddenly unimportant how little air he had left. So unimportant that he had been down for a full minute- and then, for a minute and a half. His chest was tight and his eyes were burning, but it didn’t matter. He wanted to keep listening.

He would have stayed there forever, in the euphoria of the noise, in the blanket of the Song.

He would have, if someone hadn’t grabbed him under the arms and dragged him upwards. 

Stede’s head broke the surface and he gasped on instinct, feeling air finally fill his lungs, and he realized that his eyesight had started to tunnel. He gasped and coughed, and blinked salt from his vision, and as the arms brought him towards the shore, he felt fear and dread curl through his stomach. 

He was… drowning. He had been so caught up, so enraptured… he had forgotten himself. He had forgotten all sense. He had been drowning, and he didn’t care. As long as he could keep listening. 

“Oh, god,” he coughed, coming back to the present, to the world. “Thank god, Ed, I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me, I was… oh, it’s incredible , Ed, I see what you meant-”

“Stede, for god’s sake, shut up , ” came a familiar, petulant voice behind him, interrupting him angrily. “What the hell are you talking about?” 

Stede felt the sand come up underneath him again, and as he came to rest on the beach he pulled away and turned around. He felt the words die in his throat. 

Lucius Sprigg was standing behind him, soaking wet and furious, staring at Stede in shock and confusion. Stede stared up at him from the sand, face dawning in realization- today was the day, he had gathered his books and the waistcoat only yesterday, he had forgotten, he was an idiot .

Lucius pushed his hair out of his face and glared. 

“Who the fuck is Ed?”

Chapter Text

In his dreams, Edward was washed in blood. 

It came from all directions- pooling around his ankles, then his shins, then rising swiftly to blind and choke him. He struggled to keep his head above the surface, gasping for air. 

In his dreams, dark figures darted on all sides, some with faces he swore he remembered, some with only watery eyes, some with only reaching hands. They were begging him, pleading with him, as they had done a hundred times before.  

In his dreams, Izzy was there. Izzy, grinning at him with empty eye sockets and a mouth full of sharp teeth. Blood dripped from his mouth and his hands, and he reached up to hold Edward’s face. Izzy smiled. 

I’ll show you where they’re hiding. Kill them all.

He tried to pry Izzy’s fingers from his face, but the grip was like iron. Izzy’s hands moved to his neck, and they squeezed.

Kill them all, Edward.

In his dreams, he treaded water, for he had forgotten how to swim. He fought the waves, coughing, choking, for he had forgotten how to breathe. He drowned. Again and again, he drowned. He wondered if this was how the Englishmen felt when he had cast them into the deep. 

He wondered how long they had stayed afloat. 

Kill them all, Edward. Kill them all.

In his dreams, his mother was there. She was there, running a cool hand over his burning forehead, smiling at him with watery eyes, her face spinning in his vision. He reached for her, his hands closing on empty air.

And then she was gone, moving backwards, pulled away like a fish on a line. He couldn’t rise to chase her. He couldn’t lift his arms. He was alone, in the dark, in the heat. In the silence. 

“Ed.”

She was calling for him, she was calling, like she did that night on the docks, and he couldn’t move… he couldn’t breathe…

“Edward. It’s alright. You’re dreaming.”

…Only that was not his mother. 

In his dreams, Edward opened his eyes and saw a darkened room, lit faintly by moonlight. In his dreams, a face came towards him, only it was not his mother. 

But someone placed a hand on his. Someone told him he was dreaming. Someone listened to his pleas.

Someone promised not to leave. 

In his dreams, Edward heard the words of a fairy tale read to him in a quiet voice, and felt the cold hand upon his own. 

He slept. 

When Edward woke, it was to the unpleasant feeling of being covered in cold sweat, and to a pain in his stomach. He opened his eyes, spat some unruly beard out of his mouth, and blinked.

Sunlight was streaming in through a window near his head, hitting him rudely and directly in the face. Ed groaned, threw a hand over his eyes, and offered the sunlight a middle finger. 

“Fuck you, sun,” he muttered, and winced as the movement sent a fresh bolt of pain through him. “You too,” he added, as a warning to his stomach. Rude bastard, hurting this early in the morning. Just puke and get over it. Don’t be so dramatic. 

He tried to remember where he had spent the night before, where this window had the balls to shine without a heavy curtain. Had he made it to his quarters, aboard the Revenge? Had he passed out on the deck again? He winced at the thought- last time he had done that, Izzy had read him his rights the following morning about reputation. 

If you’re going to be a falling-down drunk, have the fucking decency to fall down where people can’t see you. You’ve got a reputation, for Christ’s sake. 

Ed groaned and tried to sink deeper into the mattress. Izzy never had the common decency to be hungover. Always up at the crack of dawn, fully dressed, alive for another day and ready to make that everyone else’s problem. He maybe had ten precious minutes of self-pity before his first mate came barging through his door…

…Except it wasn’t his door.

Ed sat still for a moment, then slowly slid his hand down his face. He was lying in a pile of the finest sheets he had ever seen- was that silk? Silk was a nice fabric, right? There were embroidered flowers on the duvet cover. He thought he may have smoked some of them once. On a dare, but still. 

This was not his quarters. These were not his fine sheets- he shouldn’t even be touching them, let alone sweating on them. He went to push himself up, and fell back against the flowery fucking duvet, gasping. His gaze drifted down his chest and came to rest on a line of stitches in thick, black thread. They stood in an ugly line across his stomach, and he gaped at them.

Sometimes it’s the most innocuous little things that do the most damage.

A chirpy little voice came to mind suddenly, and the night returned to him in a wave. 

The fight. The fall. The waves.

The harpoon that Edward had… failed to avoid. 

The lighthouse. And the lighthouse keeper… Steve?

Stede. Stede Bonnet. Edward forced himself to sit up, gripping the edge of the bed as his head swum with memories and nausea.

Stede Bonnet, who had dragged him from the surf, who had pulled him from the clutches of death, who had sewed him shut. Who Edward had mistaken for first the Devil, and then his mother, all in the span of a night. 

Stede Bonnet, who had listened to him rant feverishly about god knows what, and then read him to sleep. 

…Odd little man, that one. Edward was surprised to find himself smiling- even as it fell in the next moment to horror and realization. 

He had told Stede about his dreams- about The Song. Stede knew. Edward managed to finally pull himself upright, feeling his heart pounding in his chest. He tried to reason with himself- he had been half out of his mind with fever, who knows what the fuck he had said? It wasn’t as though he was the first man alive to spout nonsense in the grip of a fever. With any luck, Stede would check it off as nonsense, the ramblings of a dying man…

Then Ed noticed the cracked windowpane next to his head, and remembered that he had never been lucky. Remembered that the odds of Stede not knowing exactly who and what he was were approximately fucking zero, thank you very much. 

He had slipped last night, had let himself panic and thrash and break, and Stede had seen it. Had a front-row view actually, as Edward’s gaze fell on the writing desk across the room. He remembered Stede’s face, pale and terrified, remembered nearly taking his head off with an errant arm, how could he possibly not know-

Here now. It’s all right. Really. I’m not… going to hurt you.

Edward paused, stunned at the memory. He breathed out a laugh, with no humor in it. Who the fuck did this guy think he was? I’m not going to hurt you? Yeah, obviously, man. No shit. You may as well say to an oncoming bullet, hey fella, slow down, I’m not going to hurt you. 

Then he remembered how their talk had ended. Edward stopped laughing. 

Did you want me to ask?

Then I won’t.

Edward sat in silence, staring at the space beneath the writing desk. He sat like this for nearly a minute, with the stupid duvet underneath him and his stomach threatening to either split in half at the seams or throw his dinner up all over the nice rug. 

Did you want me to ask?

Then I won’t.

And he hadn’t. 

Who the fuck did this guy think he was?

Edward wanted to find out. 

“...A morning swim?”

Lucius stood staring at him, looking for all the world like an angry, wet cat, and Stede felt the fake smile he had pasted onto his face twitch at the edges. 

“Oh yes, absolutely!” he stuttered through chattering teeth, trying to pretend Lucius hadn’t saved him from drowning less than ten minutes before, trying to pretend they were having this conversation over breakfast and not soaking wet next to the ocean at an ungodly hour of the morning. “Can’t start my day without a good soak! Bracing, isn’t it? Just the thing to get the old blood pumping. So sorry if I alarmed you.”

Lucius blinked at him, still breathing heavily. “A morning swim.” he repeated, flatly.

Stede nodded, still grinning. “Yes!”

“Fully clothed,” Lucius said, equally flatly. 

Stede looked down at his clothing, currently running with saltwater, and looked back up. The grin twitched again. “Yes, of course. Otherwise, I… get cold.”

“Fully clothed,” Lucius continued. “Sitting on the sand, not moving.”

“I was taking a break,” Stede said.

Lucius blinked. “...Underwater.”

The smile was starting to hurt now. “Yes,” Stede said.

Lucius rubbed at his face for a moment, wiping his hair out of his eyes. “Stede…” he said despairingly. “We’re not… close, you know? What’s my duty of care in this situation?”

Stede finally let the smile drop, confused. “Duty of care?” 

“I mean,” Lucius continued, trying to avoid eye contact. “If things have been rough recently… God, I’m sure they have, with how you live…”

He sighed, finally making eye contact with Stede. “...Listen. I’m sure you’ve got a lot to live for…”

Stede felt himself nearly burst out in hysterical laughter, and tried to compose himself with a cough. “No! No, oh, no Lucius… you’re very sweet. That isn’t it at all, I assure you. Just the embarrassing misadventures of a man in the midst of a particularly strenuous morning dip.”

Lucius sighed in relief, turning away and wringing out his jacket. “Oh, thank god. I’ve never been good at comforting people. Once I tried to sit vigil at my aunt’s bedside, and ended up in a screaming match with a nun.” He looked up at Stede’s silence, guiltily adding: “In my defense, she started it.”

“I’m sure,” Stede said generously. He started up the sand, ushering Lucius along next to him. “I’m sorry for getting you wrapped up in all this Lucius, I won’t keep you any longer. I’m sure you’ve got plenty of errands, other folks to save from drowning, you know.” He tried a laugh that fell flat. “I’ll just grab my mail and my deliveries, and you can be on your way-”

Lucius looked at him in disbelief, hair still dripping in his eyes. “I can’t come in and dry off?”

Stede felt his heart start to pound, in panic. He thought of Ed, asleep upstairs, in a ruined bedroom. He thought of the cracks in the windowpane, of the splintered wood of the bed. 

“Oh, I wouldn’t want to keep you from your work!” Stede said, slightly winded in his effort to stay ahead of Lucius on the sand. 

“I don’t have any more deliveries besides you,” Lucius protested. “Do you think anyone else in their right mind would live out here? No offense.”

“None taken,” Stede said smoothly. “But, uh… well, the sun is coming up! You’ll be dry in no time!”

“Couldn’t I just have some tea? Or a towel?” Lucius had passed him now, they had crested the dune and the rocks, and now Lucius was standing between him and the door to the lighthouse. Stede tried to smile, pushing down the scream of frustration rising in his chest. 

“Lucius,” he said with all the poise he could muster. “I’m afraid it’s not a good time. I am not prepared to accept visitors, the house is in a state, I haven’t even dusted. I’m very sorry- we will have to do this another time.” With that, he gave one final smile, feeling it bounce off Lucius’ outraged expression. “Where are my deliveries?”

The younger man looked at him wearily, shoulders slumping. “Over there,” he said, waving vaguely towards the door. “I left them at the door when I ran down to get you.” 

Stede gave a brisk nod, walked swiftly around Lucius, and headed towards the front door. He tried to remember how his father treated the help, cool and barely patient. He tried not to turn around, even when he heard Lucius start to talk to himself. 

“Oh, yeah. Great,” Lucius said bitterly, somehow both under his breath but loud enough for Stede to hear him. He heard the boy continue, as he started to trudge down the path away from the lighthouse. “I only walked all the way out here before the sun came up to drop off your books, those weren’t heavy at all, by the way. No worries. I’ll just walk on home, probably die of frostbite on the way. Couldn’t be bothered to put the kettle on for old Lucius, no no, the house hasn’t been dusted, don’t you know… I only saved your life after all, no need to thank me… I’ll just be going, don’t worry about it…”

Stede steeled his back, and had reached the front door. He may have even gone inside, and avoided what would come next.

But then Lucius sneezed, and Stede felt guilt throttle him. He groaned, and turned around. “Lucius?” he called.

Lucius- who had made it all of two feet on his walk so far- paused with a carefully surprised expression. “Yes?”

Stede reached down, picked up the package by the door, and tried a weak smile. “I was just putting the kettle on.”

Lucius was already walking past him into the house, dripping onto the carpet. “Black, three sugars. Ooh, it’s tiny in here, isn’t it?”

As Stede let Lucius pass through the front door, Edward was leaning against a wall of the bedroom and trying to determine the likelihood that anything in this room could be used to kill him. 

His conclusions had ranged from “yeah probably” (a set of letter openers, silver candlesticks) to “maybe with enough oomph” (a painting on the wall of either a very ugly dog or a very fat deer) to finally, “it would almost be fun finding out” (a stuffed pheasant, a model ship).

It was the model ship that he was examining most of all, leaning against the curio cabinet. He marveled over the tiny sails and the minuscule ropes. There was even a small pile of cannonballs, right there on the deck, smaller than his pinky fingernail. Who spent the time making something like this? Worse- who had the money to pay someone else to make it?

Edward noticed his breath was fogging up the glass of the cabinet and wiped it away, embarrassed. He shouldn’t be here, in this place, touching this man’s fine things. He would dirty them, somehow. They’d stop smelling of lavender, and smell of brine, of salt. Of him. 

Edward leaned back, keeping his hand pressed against his stomach, keeping his movements slow. Enough of the gawking. Enough playing pretend. It was time to leave, it had to be. He was grateful to Stede, confusing though the man was, but he couldn’t stay any longer. Not with everything in this room watching him, leering at his unkempt hair, his bare feet. 

He had to get out. Find the door, avoid waking Stede if he could… maybe leave a note, in thanks. 

He snorted. And say what? “Thanks man, sorry about your room. Don’t tell anyone about this, or I’ll kill you. Cheers- Edward.”

No. Better to leave now, in silence. He pushed himself up off the wall where he was leaning- and promptly had to catch himself on the edge of a table, his vision winking with stars. His stomach screamed with pain past the stitches, and he dry heaved. 

Edward muttered curses and fought to stay standing. If he could make it across the room, what then? Kill himself, toppling down the stairs? He was trapped, with no way out. Trapped amongst decorative spoons and tiny china plates. Shame burned his cheeks, and he was grateful he hadn’t trimmed his beard. No one should see him like this. Izzy hissed at him, in his head. 

You’ve got a reputation, for Christ’s sake.

Just as he had started wondering how hard it would be to rappel out the window, Edward heard noises on the stairs, drawing nearer. He shrank back against the wall of the bedroom, ignoring the new stab of pain in his gut as his back hit the wall. 

Then, the door to the bedroom burst open, and Stede Bonnet was standing there, soaking wet and panicked. Stede’s gaze traveled from the empty bed, to Ed in the corner, and then back and forth a few times more. 

“…Why are you out of bed?” he hissed at Edward, closing the door quickly behind him. 

Edward blinked. “…Why are you wet?”

“Never mind, I’m glad to see you up and about. You seemed rather touch-and-go for a bit, you know,” Stede said hastily, making his way across the room in an anxious rush. He continued to speak, trying to divide his attention between a stunned Edward and the chest of drawers in the corner, and failing at both. “How are you feeling?” Stede asked over his shoulder, pulling open the top drawer and tearing through the contents. 

Edward tried to format a question, to sum up all of the ones fighting for space in his brain. What’s happening? Why are you all wet? What happened to the Little Mermaid at the end?

But the one he landed on, the idiot that he was, turned out to be: “Why do you have a tiny ship?”

Stede turned, pausing for a moment, his hands full of fabric (and surely they couldn’t all be silk, there had to be another kind of fabric…). “A tiny ship?” he repeated, and Edward gestured lamely towards the cabinet. Stede brightened. “Ah! You saw my curio cabinet!”

Having no fucking clue what a curio was or why you needed a cabinet for it, Ed nodded.

“That was a gift from my mother, when I was a boy,” Stede said fondly, returning to his search. “I fancied myself a pirate; taking the rowboat out in the garden pond, sword fighting the topiary hedges. Mother purchased it for me for a birthday- my tenth, I believe.” He offered Ed a smile. “I called it the Unicorn. Good name for a ship, eh?”

Ed, who had served for a time on a ship called the Witch’s Left Tit, fought down his initial opinion and said: “Yeah, pretty good.” He watched Stede let out a short sigh of victory, as he pulled a long swath of yellow fabric from the drawer.

Ed fought the urge to stare, as Stede wrapped the dressing gown around himself. He had never seen anything like it- it looked like spun gold, and fell in heavy, soft waves over Stede’s shoulders. “Much better,” Stede said under his breath, taking a short moment to straighten the robe in a mirror. His hair was beginning to curl as it dried; Ed watched a small drop of water drip from a curl, snake its way down Stede’s neck and under the collar of the robe. 

And again, Edward said: “Yeah, pretty good.” Edward felt his face heat up for a second time, and wondered if the fever was returning. 

Stede turned to him, seemingly far more comfortable in his armor of golden embroidery, and seemed to notice for the first time the state that Ed was in. “Oh, look at you,” he said. “No shirt, no shoes…”

Edward braced himself for the comment coming, preparing for what he had been trying to do himself. It would hurt more, coming from Stede.

It’s time for you to leave. You don’t belong here. 

Then Stede was pulling another swath of fabric from the drawer and crossing the room towards him, holding up something that was red and fringed and threaded with pictures of birds and too fine-looking for even Edward’s eyes to be touching it. “You must be cold,” Stede was saying. “I’m so sorry I didn’t offer it sooner, and after a fever… Here. Put this on.”

Edward drew back against the wall, staring wide-eyed. “What? No. What?”

Stede took another step forward, holding out the robe. “Come on,” he said, having the audacity to even sound annoyed. “If you won’t stay in bed, I won’t have you catching cold.”

Edward took his hand off the wall, caught Stede’s wrist, and squeezed. Not much. Just enough. “No.”

Stede froze where he stood. There was a beat of silence, Stede’s wrist in Ed’s grip, with the robe hanging between them. Ed watched Stede’s eyes flick from his face to the spiderweb crack in the window. To the splintered bed frame. Then back to him, and oh, he knew that look. He knew that dread, that anxious anticipation, please make it quick.

He knew that fear. It had never looked worse on anyone than it did on Stede. Ed felt something inside of him curdle in shame. 

He slowly loosened his grip on Stede’s wrist. “…I don’t want to get it dirty.”

Stede blinked, and Ed watched his expression change slowly, watched him push the fear down and replace it with the old anxious-to-please poise that Ed had already begun to recognize. Stede gave Ed a shaky smile. “Oh. Oh! Oh, don’t… don’t worry about that. Please, I insist.”

Reluctantly, Ed took a handful of the fabric. It was gorgeous. He would ruin it. Stede beamed at him. 

Then, from downstairs came an unexpected noise: a voice, calling up to them, petulant. “Stede? Is something the matter?”

Stede jumped as though electrocuted, and hurried back to the drawer. “Oh, no- Lucius.” He raised his voice to call down the stairs. “No, all fine! Just… sorting through my linens!” 

Edward fell back against the wall, holding the robe with one hand and with the other, reaching for a knife at his waist that was no longer there. He cursed under his breath. “Who is that?” he hissed at Stede. 

“Lucius,” Stede hissed back, frantically searching for another robe in the drawer. “He’s a delivery boy, he comes every so often. I forgot he was coming today, and then he just barged inside, and he won’t leave, and now I’m trapped- I had to get him a robe, all the towels are still wet.” Stede finally settled on something, tearing it from the drawer and hurrying to the door. “I’m going to get rid of him as quickly as I can- stay here, stay quiet. I’m sorry about all of this.” 

Stede paused at the door, hovering between the room and the hallway, peeking back at Ed. “Quiet,” he cautioned one last time, and then he was gone, latching the door behind him. 

Muttering curses at the sea for stealing away his knife and gun, Edward considered his options from his position by the cabinet. He may not know what a curio was, or a topiary hedge…

But he knew a raid when he saw one. Barged inside, and he won’t leave? Trapped? Say no more, mate…

Stede was heading down now to “get rid of him,” but let’s face it- Stede wasn’t a fighter. Not the way he was. And if Stede’s attack failed, if this Lucius thought he could catch fucking Blackbeard unawares…

Edward draped the robe over his shoulders, allowing himself only a moment to revel in its warmth and softness- and how it smelled of lavender. Izzy sneered again.

You’ve got a reputation, for Christ’s sake.

Ed headed for the letter openers. 

The kettle came to a boil slower than Stede had ever thought possible, as he made himself busy preparing some bread with marmalade. This breakfast may have been under duress, but he was still Stede Bonnet, and he broke out the fine plates. The ones for guests. 

Lucius sat, bundled in a blue dressing gown and sniffling pathetically every now and then. He had finished a full kettle’s worth of tea already, and was draining the last dregs of his most recent cup as Stede willed the water behind him to boil. 

“It is a rather nice waistcoat,” Lucius was saying, nodding his head towards the pile by the door that Stede had carefully put together yesterday morning. “Thanks very much. Don’t know when I’ll have a chance to wear it. Maybe Easter.”

“Really?” Stede asked, trying to butter a piece of bread as casually as he could. “I’ve always considered it sort of a ‘muck-around’ waistcoat. An everyday piece.”

“It’s lined in satin,” Lucius said, raising an eyebrow at him.

Stede felt a small pang of embarrassment. “…They all are.”

“Right,” Lucius said under his breath. He drained his cup of tea at last, placing it on the saucer and looking around the room. Stede snatched it up, turning back to the stove as Lucius stretched lazily behind him. “What happened here?" Lucius asked. “Looks like someone tried to break in. Or out.”

Stede nearly dropped the saucer, placing it down heavily. “What? No, of course not.” He tried to sound airy. “We had that storm last night, it always seems to hit the worst out here on the coast. I’m sure I’d much rather spend those nights in town, curled up with a book… maybe a cheeky brandy.”

When he turned back around, Lucius was looking at him, and Stede was thrown by his expression. If he hadn’t known better, he’d say Lucius was… smug. “Oh, yeah? The storm, hm? Was it?” Lucius asked, grinning. 

Stede nodded slowly. “Yes? What are you insinuating?” Lucius shrugged, turning away- and Stede was sure that was smugness, he’d seen it enough times before to tell. Stede huffed slightly, sitting back down at the table. “Lucius.”

Lucius shrugged again, a slight smile playing around the corner of his mouth. “Oh fine, you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.” Stede gave up, and had just taken a bite of toast when Lucius added:

“I could always ask Ed.”

Stede choked noisily as he inhaled marmalade, thumping himself on the chest.  Lucius watched him, unbothered. “I’m sorry?” Stede managed, eyes watering. 

“Stede. Please. Give it up,” Lucius said, suddenly leaning in, conspiratorial. “Do you really think I don’t know what’s going on? Give me a little credit. A single man, middle aged-”

Stede let out a noise of protest. Lucius rolled his eyes. “…Nearing middle age, living out in the middle of nowhere, wearing satin…” Stede stared blankly, and Lucius huffed impatiently. “Stede, I’m trying to tell you- I get it. I’m sure it gets lonely.”

Stede felt his ears begin to burn, and sputtered, mind blank. “Now, wait one moment-”

“Hey, hey, hey- I’m not judging! I would never judge.” Lucius tried to reach across the table, reassuringly, as Stede felt his brain completely flatline. “In fact, I hope you know how much more I like you now, now that I know you’re not some crazy man talking to seagulls. This,” Lucius said with a wave around him, “this I get. I’m impressed, actually, the lengths you went to hide it. You know, most of us just pay a girl to go out with us every so often. Buying a lighthouse? That’s dedication. That’s style.”

“I am… that’s not…” Stede stuttered. He felt himself give a hysterical giggle, and clamped down on it hard.

Lucius leaned back, giving a quick look towards the upper floors. “So… who is he?”

“Who?” Stede squeaked out. 

“Ed,” Lucius said, with a raised eyebrow. “Don’t deny it, I know he’s here. I could hear you two talking- your walls are thin, you know, just as a helpful tip for the future. He sounds very butch, yeah? A sailor?”

Stede gaped at Lucius silently, and behind him- blessedly- he heard the kettle start to whistle. “There’s the tea!” he managed to say- a little too loudly- and stood so suddenly he whacked his knee against the table on the way up. Swallowing a curse, Stede turned to the stove, grateful to hide his face from Lucius. 

Lucius sighed behind him. “You really aren’t going to tell me?”

“Three sugars, right?” Stede asked faintly, pouring the tea shakily. 

He heard nothing else from Lucius, and busied himself with making the tea as slowly and noisily as possible. He couldn’t begin to unpack what Lucius could possibly be referring to, not now. Not until he had a moment alone. With a large drink. Or two. 

Stede forced himself to take a deep breath, willing the blush to sink from his face. “Lucius,” he said, attempting to sound casual. “As lovely as it’s been having you, I do think you ought to be getting along-”

He was interrupted by a piercing scream from upstairs. 

Stede whirled around, finding the table empty, as Lucius screamed again. Stede gaped for a moment, and then heard:

“The next one’s going through your fucking ear and coming out the other side!”

Ed.

Stede had never climbed the stairs as quickly as he did then, and it was seconds before he came across the scene upstairs. 

The door to the bedroom was wide open, and there was a flurry of red and blue from the far wall. Ed, wearing the robe Stede had foisted on him, hair flying behind him, a wild bearded man in silk, had Lucius pinned against the curio cabinet. Lucius was currently screaming, and Stede followed his gaze to see one of his letter openers buried point-first into the wooden door of the cabinet. Edward had another in his fist, the point pressed underneath Lucius’ chin.

Stede gasped. “Ed! No! Put him down- oh god, my letter openers! Those were a gift!” 

Lucius was gasping for breath, babbling. “Oh god, oh please, don’t kill me, don’t kill me, I’ll never tell anyone-”

Ed growled, roughly shoving Lucius against the cabinet with a rattle. “Shut the fuck up.” He turned over his shoulder to Stede, grinning wildly. “Sorry man, the only other option was the bird and I didn’t want to break the ship.”

“Ed,” Stede said, quickly crossing the floor towards the pair. “Put him down, let him go, for god’s sake!”

Ed looked at him in surprise and confusion, unmoving. “What? You said he had you trapped. You said you were going to kill him.”

“Oh God,” Lucius gasped. “Oh god, please. I swear I won’t tell anyone! I promise, if you even knew half of the flings I’ve had, they’re much more embarrassing than this!”

Stede was next to the pair, and tried to grab Ed’s arm- letting go as he saw Ed flinch, and the tip of the letter opener poke a small, red pinprick in Lucius’ throat. “Ed… I meant that Lucius had me trapped… you know. Socially.”

Ed turned to look at him, blankly. There was a pause. “…Socially.” Ed echoed, finally. 

“Yes,” Stede said, trying a nervous smile. “You know. The trappings of, uh, societal obligations? Being a polite host and all that. Even for an uninvited guest.”

“You invited me,” Lucius hissed. 

“Only after a very intentional guilt trip on your part,” Stede hissed back. 

Lucius glared. “I could have frozen to death.”

“I wish you had,” snapped Stede.

“Sorry,” Ed interrupted, eyes closed as though his head hurt. “Are we killing him?”

Stede cleared his throat. “No, please.”

Ed opened his eyes, looked at Lucius for a long moment- then released him. Lucius slid down the door of the cabinet, as Ed lurched backwards with a groan and sat heavily on the bed. “I don’t understand you fucking people,” Ed muttered.

Stede tried to remember how to breathe, and offered Ed a shaky smile. “Thank you.”

On the floor, Lucius looked down at his stomach and let out a screech. “Oh, my god! Blood! I’m bleeding! I’m bleeding!” 

Ed chuckled slightly, looking up at the small patch of blood on the front of Lucius’ dressing gown. “Take a fucking breath, man. You’re fine. It’s not even your blood.”

Lucius breathed a sigh of relief- then screamed again. “Oh, my god! Someone else’s blood!”

Ed leaned back, and under the red robe, Stede saw a slow flow of blood coming from a row of popped stitches. He looked up at Ed, and was met by a guilty smile. “Told you I’d get it dirty,” Ed breathed out, pained.

There was a beat of silence in the room, and Stede took stock of the situation. Ed lay on the bed, bleeding and wincing. Lucius lay on the floor, whimpering. Stede took a deep breath, and put his hands on his hips. 

“Right. I have to tell you both- this is still not the worst breakfast I have ever hosted. Gather yourselves up, shake hands, and let’s all go downstairs and have some tea. And marmalade.”

Chapter Text

Stede latched the front door tightly behind him, and turned to watch Ed take his seventh slice of bread in under thirty minutes. Ed scraped the jelly bowl with the edge of a sugar spoon, spread it roughly on the bread, and tucked in. 

“Fuck me,” he heard Ed mutter with his mouth full. “Marmalade. ” 

Stede fought down the urge to let Ed know exactly how much Lucius charged to bring French pain all the way from town out to the bluffs, and reminded himself that it was good his guest had an appetite. “Yes, indeed. A favorite of mine.” He busied himself making a new pot of tea.

Movement out the window near the sink caught his eye- the faintest speck of red against the gray of the hills. That would be Lucius, making a fast retreat back to civilization. After shaking Ed’s hand as briefly as he could, the delivery boy had aggressively declined any further breakfast and nearly sprinted out the door. He left them with nothing but a view of his back and a hurried promise not to tell anyone about Edward’s presence- after which Ed finally saw fit to put the letter opener down. 

Stede fought down the guilt he felt at the glimpse of Lucius’ half-run down the road, trying to keep the image of the letter opener against bare flesh from rising to mind again. He forced his shoulders to lower from rising towards his ears, and plastered a smile on.

“This particular brand,” Stede continued, barreling forward, “was imported from Heathrow. See the label? Fortnum and Mason?” He turned over his shoulder to wink at Ed. “That’s the good stuff. A shame it’s near impossible to get a decent scone out here. You’re missing out on half of the experience.” 

Ed, who had just lifted the jelly bowl with the intent of licking it clean, slowly set it back down onto the tablecloth. “Imported?” he asked, raising an eyebrow. 

“Oh, yes,” Stede said, turning back. “I won’t bore you with the numbers. In making my monthly budget, I realized that all I needed to do was cut out half of my coal expenditure. Problem solved. Of course, winter was slightly tricky at times, but still- one must have their creature comforts, yes?” 

Ed nudged the jelly bowl back to position, not looking Stede in the eye. A short, awkward silence fell over them. Stede tried not to fiddle with his hands, and set about picking imaginary lint from the sleeve of his robe. 

He realized that now that the danger had passed, now that the tension had died… he had absolutely no clue what to say to the man sitting across from him. Nowhere seemed a proper place to start. Not the letter opener against Lucius’ neck. Not the firm grip on his wrist, with red velvet hanging between them. Not the two hands on his collar, nor the fiery gaze of fever or the whispered stories of what went on beneath the waves. Not the crushed furniture upstairs, or what he had seen Ed do- what he had seen Ed become- in the thin light of the moon. 

Certainly not his ill-fated experiment this morning. Not what he had heard under the water. Not what he had almost let himself do. No. Not that. Not yet. Possibly ever. 

Ed cleared his throat roughly, shattering the silence. “Is that where you’re from? Heathrow?”

Stede smiled, grateful for an easy topic. One unrelated to knives and… tentacles. “Me? Oh, no, no- well, my family is originally from England, yes. But I was born here.”

Ed looked up at the rafters of the lighthouse. “Here?”

Stede laughed. “Well, not here here. Barbados. Just outside Bridgetown. Ever been?” Ed shook his head, shrugging one shoulder. Stede continued, “In any case. My father moved my mother here before I was born, to tend to his land. I was brought up around fifty miles from here. If you look on a clear day from the very top floor, you can almost see it. Sort of a… green smudge.”

“Then why are you here here?” Ed asked, and Stede felt color rise to his face. His smile felt a bit stretched at the edges. Behind him, as though heaven sent, the kettle whistled and he (for the second time that morning) avoided the question and stood to pour the tea. There was another short silence, broken only by water pouring from the kettle. 

“Sorry,” Ed said behind him, sounding cautious. “Is that a bad question?”

“No, no,” Stede said, trying to sound airy. He turned back around with the teapot, careful to make sure his smile was intact. “Not at all, no worries. It’s a… complicated question. Or rather, a simple question, but a complicated answer.” He looked up to see if Ed would be satisfied with that response- and saw his houseguest watching him silently and expectantly. 

Stede sighed inwardly, buying some time by adding two lumps of sugar into his cup, then offered the sugar bowl to Ed. Ed considered it- and the tiny tongs- for a moment, then reached across, grabbed a handful of cubes with his fingers, and piled them into his teacup. Stede fought down a smile, as Ed stirred his tea. 

“Well,” Stede said slowly. “I was meant to be there. Home, I mean. My family home. That was the plan; for me to inherit and run my father’s land and homestead.” 

Ed nodded, trying to sip his tea- which with all the sugar in it, had taken on the consistency of wet sand. “Sounds like a cushy gig, to be honest,” Ed said. 

“It was a very generous offer, but…” Stede searched for the right words, and finding none, settled on, “...I felt bound to decline. There were words. Some on my part, some on my fathers. Eventually, I decided that I would leave.” He took a sip of tea.

Ed gave him a look. “Bound to decline? Why?”

Stede tried to smile again, shrugging. “Oh, I… just didn’t feel it was the right move for me.” He straightened his silverware, to have something to do with his hands. “I came out here nearly a year ago. Took the trust my grandparents had left me, had some of my things sent for at the beginning, then just… cut ties. And here I’ve been ever since.” 

Ed nodded slowly. “Running a lighthouse.” 

Stede felt his ears burn slightly. He had wondered how long it would be until this came up. “Ah. Yes. Well. I’m not really… running it. Per se.”

Ed raised an eyebrow again. “Per se?”

Stede laughed awkwardly. “Well, actually… this lighthouse was decommissioned years ago. Determined it was too small, or too oddly placed… whichever, I suppose it doesn’t matter. It hasn’t had a keeper for quite a long while. You should have seen it when I moved in. I spent nearly a week just shaking out the spiders.” He shuddered. 

Ed blinked again, in what Stede hoped was a sense of impressed wonder, and not a dawning realization that Stede was actually slightly insane. “But the lamp was on,” Ed said slowly. “Last night… I saw it. The lamp was on.”

Stede nodded, and now the smile was really beginning to ache. “Right. Yes. That. That’s a… hobby of mine.”

Ed looked fully gobsmacked by this point. “A hobby?”

“Yes. Lighthouse keeping. Turns out, it’s a bit of fun, when you get into it. I update logs when the ships go by, if I can make out the name. And most nights, I’ll light the lamp. The last keeper left oil behind, and as far as I can figure, it doesn’t expire.”

“But you’re not getting paid to do it?” Stede shook his head, and Ed blinked wildly. “Then why do you do it?”

Stede shrugged, willing the heat to fade from his cheeks. “I suppose… ambiance?”

Ed blinked again. “What the fuck is ambiance.”

“Oh, you know,” Stede said quickly, waving his hand. “Atmosphere. Setting the mood. The mise en scène , if you will.”

There was another short silence, during which Stede tried not to crawl underneath the table. 

Ed finally put his cup down with a clatter, leaning back in his chair until it creaked. “Stede… can I call you Stede?”

“That’s my name.”

“Right.” Ed rubbed the back of his neck. “Stede, man. I’ve been around, you know? Seen some shit. I’ve met some folks in my time. Some real weird fuckers. I met a guy once with a conjoined twin, they shared a liver. They ran a bar together, until the twin ran off with his wife.”

Stede blinked. “ Ran off? How’d he manage that?”

Ed’s mouth twitched for a short second. “Not literally. Listen- in all of that, with all of them… I mean, I’ve never seen anybody like you. ” 

Stede felt his smile twitch. “I’m afraid I don’t follow.”

“Man, you’re out here with your silk sheets, and your curios, and your… I don’t know, fucking budget for marmalade. I don’t get it. I don’t get you.” 

Stede’s stomach dropped, and suddenly he was eleven again, he was eleven and being pelted with rocks on his walk home from school, he was running down the path with blood pouring from a cut over his eye and the other boys chanting in his ears-

Baby Bonnet. Pansy. 

Freak. 

And then Ed, for the first time since he had pulled him from the ocean, smiled. Really smiled, not the feverish confusion of the night before, or the feral grin with a knife to Lucius’ throat. His eyes shone, and Stede felt whatever apology he had been preparing get washed away. Stede’s mouth felt very, very dry, and inanely he noticed that Ed had a dimple under one eye.

Ed pointed at him, and said: “I don’t get it, but I like it.”

Stede felt the blood rush to his ears again, and then to his whole face. Ed was grinning at him, friendly, excited- and now it was Stede’s turn to be gobsmacked. He cleared his throat. “Sorry?”

“Yeah, man,” Ed nodded, picking up his tea again. “You got it figured out, haven’t you? Place to yourself, with your nice clothes and your books, no one around for miles- what do you have to do all day? Nothing. Just eating toast, playing with your little ships…”

Stede blinked, trying to catch up to the conversation. “I don’t play with the ships, they’re purely decorative.” 

“Whatever,” Ed waved him off. “Point is- doing whatever you want. No one to tell you what to do. Instead of what, running a homestead, whatever that is? No thanks. You had the right idea.” He punctuated this with a pound to the table, and the silverware clattered. “Fuck Bridgetown, man.”

Stede finally smiled back, this one coming far easier. “Well. I… er. Thank you. That’s kind of you to say. Not everyone would share your point of view, unfortunately. As far as I’ve heard, most of the friends I left behind think I’m quite mad.”

Not that they’d call themselves friends, he added silently. 

“Forget them,” Ed was saying, running a finger around the sides of the sugar bowl to find any remaining crystals. “People are afraid of what they don’t understand. Always have been, always will be.”

“I agree,” Stede said with a nod, and then Ed was smiling again, and he felt a buzz in his chest. He smiled back, wider. “Where are you from, then?” Stede asked.

And then silence reigned over both again, then the smile fell from Ed’s face and was replaced with a stormy look, and oh, he was stupid, stupid, stupid. Ed’s finger stilled inside the sugar bowl, and pulled his hand back, moved his gaze down to the tablecloth. He almost seemed to shrink.

Stede squeezed his eyes shut, embarrassment throttling him. “Oh, I’m sorry, I’m terribly sorry- I promised not to ask, and then I go and stick both feet into my mouth.” He opened his eyes to find Ed staring at the sugar tongs, and fought the urge to reach across the table, to reach for his hand. “I’m sorry, Ed. You don’t have to tell me.”

Ed took a breath and looked back up- his gaze hardened, slightly. Stede watched his eyes travel up and down Stede’s frame, seemingly trying to come to some conclusion. After an excruciatingly quiet moment, Ed spoke again. 

“Are you going to tell anyone about what happened last night?” Ed asked him, and Stede started. 

“About what you said?” Stede asked, speaking quickly. “No, of course not. It’s none of their business, anyway. I’ll forget you had ever said anything, I’ll-”

“What? No. Not that,” Ed cut him off, roughly. His grip tightened on the stem of the teacup. “I mean… about what I did.”

And Stede felt his fear fade, felt it turn to concern. “Oh, Edward, no. No, I would never- of course not! Is that what’s worrying you? A few pieces of furniture, easily replaced. You didn’t mean it. You were…” He caught himself before he said afraid, and managed to turn it into: “...caught off guard. Anyone would have panicked. I should be apologizing for my poor attempt at stitches.”

“No,” Ed interrupted, harshly. There was a short silence again. Stede watched Ed as he glanced up slightly, almost nervously.

“I mean… what I am.”

Stede had a flash of memory- long arms, moving in the moonlight- and felt his mouth go dry again. “Ah,” he said faintly. “That.”

“Yeah,” Ed said quietly. “That.” 

Stede thought for a moment before speaking again. He had an odd memory poking at the back of his skull- as a child, bending to see under a bush, reaching out towards a stray cat. Moving slowly. Not wanting to scare him off, but also not wanting him to lunge, claws out. 

“No,” he said simply. “I won’t tell a soul.”

Ed looked up at him with a closed expression, as though deciding whether to believe him. Stede cleared his throat. 

“You told me not to ask,” Stede said slowly. “So I haven’t.” Ed nodded, once again not looking at him. “Did you… want me to ask?” 

More silence. Ed was staring a hole in the table, running a finger around the rim of his cup. Stede watched it, noticing the nail had been painted black. Ed even had tattoos on his hands, on his fingers- how much had they hurt? 

“Yeah,” Ed said, so quietly Stede nearly missed it. 

“Yeah?” Stede clarified. Ed nodded.

Silence. Stede thought hard, crafting the question, then asked:

“So… how long have you been a mermaid?”

Ed’s gaze rose sharply, blank and baffled, and just as Stede had begun to wish for death- Ed burst out laughing. He bent over the table, running a hand through his long hair, laughing so hard it almost sounded like a sob. Stede tried a weak chuckle, as Ed leant back, smiling again (thank god). 

“A mermaid?” Ed was saying, still laughing. “A mermaid? That’s a new one- I’m not a fucking mermaid, man.”

“Oh, I’m sorry if that was offensive,” Stede added quickly. “What do you prefer- octopus person?”

A new wave of laughter overcame Ed, and it was a few seconds before he managed to answer. “No, definitely not. There’s not a… name for what I am. Not really.” He thought for a moment. “People have come up with a few, though.”

Stede leaned forward, deeply grateful for the tension being broken. “Oh, yes? Any I might have heard?”

“Nah. Probably not,” Ed said quickly, looking back down at his teacup.

Stede topped him off from the teapot, chattering. “Right. I hope you don’t mind, I have about a thousand questions. Where do the… arms come from? Can you breathe underwater?” He started, suddenly alarmed. “Do you need to breathe underwater? Should I run the bath?”

Ed smiled slightly. “No, man. I mean- yeah. I can breathe water. I can breathe air. And… I dunno. They’re my arms. They’re there when I need them, they’re not there when I don’t. I don’t know where they come from, they’re me. Where do your arms come from?”

Stede smiled. “Point taken.” A new thought occurred to him. “Have you… always been like this?”

Ed looked confused. “As opposed to like what?”

“I mean… were you born like this or… oh, I don’t know. Cursed? Enchanted?” Stede was gesturing, and nearly knocked over his cup. “Maybe some sea witch took issue with you?”

Ed laughed again, more gently. “You know a lot about this, do you?”

“Oh, when you read as much as I do, you tend to deep-down expect something like this to happen,” Stede said excitedly. “I used to try to talk to stray cats as a child, just in case one of them was a witch in disguise. I’ve waited all my life for… I don’t know. Magic.” 

And then, before he could stop himself, Stede added: “You certainly took your time getting here.” He paused, blushing slightly. “Sorry. Ridiculous thing to say.”

Ed smiled at him. “Not at all. Sorry I kept you waiting.” Stede felt his stomach burning again, and tried to look very interested in refilling his tea. 

Ed cleared his throat, looking away and putting Stede out of his misery. “But, yeah. I’ve never met a witch. I’ve always been like this.” His expression took on a slightly distant look. “Edward Teach, born on a beach,” he said quietly. 

“Born on a beach,” Stede echoed with a grin. “Your mother and father- they’re like you, then?”

Ed’s smile fell completely, and Stede swore the room dropped a few degrees. Not looking at him, Edward said quietly: “My mother was.” 

There was a silence, this one colder and heavier than the ones before it. Stede kicked himself once again, damning his own curiosity. “Are there… a lot of folks like you?” Stede asked, anxious to change the subject.

Ed rubbed at his face, straightening his beard. “Not too many. They tend to be… spread out, if you see what I mean. The ones I’ve met, you could count on one hand. They weren’t too eager to talk. Most just left. A few of them tried to kill me.”

Stede gasped. “How awful.”

Ed shrugged. “It’s fine. They’re dead.” 

Stede choked on his tea. “Dead?”

“Sure. That’s part of the life, you know?” Ed reached towards his side, as though to gesture to something, and cursed under his breath at the empty belt loops. “Ah, damn. You wouldn’t happen to have a sword I could borrow? Feel naked without one.”

Stede shook his head, eager to move on. “You’re welcome to any of the cutlery, if you like. What’s the life?”

Ed blinked at him. “You know… pillaging. Plundering. Pirating.” 

Stede looked at him with stars in his eyes, and now it was Ed’s turn to feel his face grow warm. “You’re a pirate?” Stede asked, voice rising in excitement. 

Ed nodded, not allowing himself time to reflect on why Stede’s expression made his stomach flip. “Yeah, man. What did you think I was?” He gestured down at himself- black leather, tattoos, recently-repaired stitches and all. “Not exactly a lot of work opportunities for someone… something like me.” 

“Oh, Ed!” Stede said, affronted. “Someone like you could do anything he likes, I would think.”

Ed forced his grin down, and rubbed again at the back of his neck. “Sure. Uh… anyway. I’ve been on the ocean since I could fire a gun.”

“Did you have your own crew?” Stede asked in wonder.

“Sure,” Ed shrugged. “People come and go. But… yeah. Some guys. You know.”

“A first mate?”

Ed thought of Izzy, thought of what his opinion would be on marmalade, and came to a quick conclusion that he would be an explanation for another time. “Sure,” he simply said.

“Your own ship?”

“The Queen Anne.”

Stede ooh -ed, impressed. “Oh, nice. Subversive. Much better than the Unicorn .”

Ed shrugged again, enjoying the praise but feeling slightly embarrassed. “It’s alright.”

“Alright? It’s very, very impressive, Ed!” Stede leaned forward, eagerly. “I used to dream about it as a boy, and here you are. A real pirate captain, sailing the seas, taking what he wants and giving nothing back, and now- drinking tea with me! Who’d have thought? Oh, but this is all so exciting!” 

Ed smiled, raising his eyebrow. “The ocean stuff, or the pirate stuff?”

“Either! Both!” Stede laughed, and Ed marveled at him. The poise was gone, and with his back relaxed instead of ramrod straight, his smile genuine instead of rigor mortis- Stede seemed to have aged backwards by ten years. There were two high spots of color on his cheeks, and Ed watched his hands gesture excitedly, yellow silk flying. “Where is your ship now?” Stede was asking. 

“Oh, she’s probably somewhere off the coast, licking her wounds,” Ed said. “I imagine they’ll take her into port in a few weeks, we were running low on supplies. Got into a scrape, right before I… well. Met you.”

Stede blinked, tilting his head. “Off the coast? Still?”

“What do you mean?” Ed asked. “Where else would they be?”

“I mean, wouldn’t they have come looking for you?” Stede asked, suddenly concerned. “You know… man overboard, turn the ship around? Isn’t that what they do?”

Ed felt his face fall slightly. “...Usually, yeah.” 

“Should we try to signal them? If they’re coming this way?” Stede tapped the table, smiling. “I have some flags somewhere, and there should be a book on semaphore upstairs.”

“No, no,” Ed interrupted quickly. “They’re not coming.”

“Why ever not?” Stede frowned. “A fine thing to do, leave their captain to find his own way back-”

“Stede. They think I’m dead.”

Stede blinked at Ed’s expression- halfway between nerves and guilt, for reasons he couldn’t fathom. “Dead?” Stede said, faintly. He remembered, then, the state Ed had been in when he fished him from the ocean. Remembered the cloud of red around him. “...Oh. Yes. Right.”

“I mean,” Ed added quickly, “I can’t blame them. I thought I was dead, too. Took a pretty hard hit.”

“Yes,” Stede said, nodding to the line of stitches. “A harpoon, I think you said? How did that happen?”

“Not the first time,” Ed shrugged. “People will try anything, when they see… you know.”

“The arms?” Stede asked, holding up his hands and waving his fingers. Ed fought a smile. 

“Yeah. The arms.” He ran a hand just over the top of the stitches. “Usually they panic, but sometimes, they’ll break out the big guns. If they have any. Harpoons are messy, but slow to fire. Usually, I can get out of the way.”

“Not this time, I suppose,” Stede said, slightly teasing.

Ed’s expression shifted slightly, in a way Stede couldn’t pin down. “No,” he said quietly. “Not this time.” 

“Well then,” Stede said cheerfully, rapping on the table. “We’ll just have to get you back on your feet, and then we can track down your wayward crew. I’m sure they’ll be thrilled to get you back.”

Ed blinked, sitting up straighter. “What?”

Stede stood, taking his and Ed’s teacups and moving towards the sink. “Well, you don’t expect to run off now, do you? I saw you stumble on the stairs. You couldn’t lift a paddle, in your state. No, I’m afraid you’ll have to convalesce a while longer-”

Ed stood up so suddenly he rattled the silverware on the table. “No, I-” he stuttered, holding his stomach with one hand, and looking around the room. “I can’t… That’s not… I’ll head out, I can…” He put a heavy hand on the back of his chair, trying to ignore the pain in his stomach and the dizziness behind his eyes. 

And then Stede was there, holding his forearms, steadying him. “Edward,” Stede said gently. “It’s alright. Truly. Please don’t ruin your stitches again, I don’t think I could manage a third time.”

Ed stiffened, freezing in place. Stede was very close, too close, and… well. Ed could see a scruff of peach fuzz on his chin, not yet having had a chance to shave. The sunlight coming in the window behind him turned his blonde hair white in silhouette. Edward watched Stede’s Adam’s apple move as he swallowed. He felt heat in his face again, and (for the second time that morning) was glad for his beard. 

“But… no,” Ed said, nearly desperate because Stede must not understand. 

“Yes,” Stede said simply, smiling at him, and oh, he was too close.  

Ed shook his head. “I broke your bed.”

Stede shrugged. “I’ll get another.”

“I hurt your friend.”

“Lucius? He’ll be fine. He’s got a flair for the dramatic.”

Ed let out a short laugh, rubbing at his face. “Why are you doing this?” Ed asked quietly, and Stede tilted his head. 

“Doing what?” Stede asked, shifting his grip to help Ed lower back down into his chair. 

“...This,” Ed said almost helplessly, gesturing around him and pulling his arms out of Stede’s grip. “All of it. Asking questions… and, you’re not going to tell… and, I don’t know, whatever the fuck convalescing is, I could do it somewhere else… you don’t have to…” Ed trailed off, looking away.

Stede blinked at him. “What? Help you?” He smiled, and before he could remind himself not to, he placed a hand on Ed’s shoulder. “Because I want to, Ed. Alright?”

Ed looked up at him, eyes wide and Stede was struck with the same thought he had last night, while Ed was in the grips of fever, begging him not to leave- that he looked young. 

Ed said nothing after that, not as Stede tidied up after breakfast, not as he helped Ed up the stairs and back into the ruined remains of the bed. He didn’t speak until Stede was beginning to leave the room. “Once the stitches come out,” Ed said into the silence. “I’ll go.”

Stede considered this, from across the room. After a moment, he turned back to Edward. “Alright,” he said, smiling. “I’ll check the medical book. Should be a few weeks.” 

Ed nodded, and Stede once again turned to leave- only for Ed to call behind him. “Stede?” Stede turned back to look, and found Ed watching him with a careful expression. 

“Last night,” Ed said slowly, “when I was…” He trailed off for a moment, staring into space, then shook himself slightly. “I think we talked. Did we talk?”

Stede felt a chill up his spine, and tightened his grip on the doorknob. “Oh. Yes… we did. We talked.”

Ed was watching him intensely. “Did I… tell you anything important?”

Stede tried to laugh, and winced as it came out far too loudly. “Oh, no, no- just some mutterings, that tends to happen with fevers, I could barely understand what you were saying.”

Ed watched him silently. Then: “You’re a bad liar, Stede.”

Stede laughed again, weakly. “Yes. I’ve been told.” 

“Whatever I said…” Ed trailed off, looking down at his hands for a moment- then back up, intent. “Forget it,” he said seriously. “Forget I said anything about it. Trust me.”

Stede raised an eyebrow at him. “You mean… the Song?”

Stede watched Ed’s expression shift from anger, to something quieter. Something closer to grief. 

“Stede. Promise me. Just forget it.” 

Stede tried to smile, turning towards Ed and holding up a hand in a vow. “I promise. It’s as good as forgotten.”

Ed nodded, looking away. “Yeah. Good. It’s nothing important, anyway.”

Neither was telling the truth. 

An hour later, as Stede was sitting at his kitchen table trying to work out how he was going to get a bed delivered to the bluffs, there came a rough knock at the door. He started, images of sea monster pirates filling his brain before he scoffed at himself and crossed the room to open it. 

Lucius stood in the doorway, panting, a sheen of sweat on his forehead. Stede started, confused. “Lucius! What a… surprise. Did you change your mind about the tea?” Noticing Lucius’ gaze was aimed behind him, scanning the room, Stede added an amused: “Edward is upstairs.”

Lucius’ posture relaxed slightly. “Oh. Yeah. Great,” he said nonchalantly. “No, I forgot- I had this in my pocket, it’s for you.” Stede watched him fish into an inner pocket of his jacket and pull out a soggy looking paper that was only barely recognizable as an envelope. 

“What is that?” Stede asked, taking it between thumb and forefinger. 

“It’s a letter,” Lucius explained, wiping his hands on his trousers. “I forgot about it because- well. You never get mail.”

“Thank you, Lucius,” Stede said cooly. “I’ll have to lay it out to dry, I suppose.”

“Yeah, sorry about that,” Lucius said, equally cooly. “I must have forgotten to take off my coat in my hurry to fish you off the ocean floor.” 

Stede rolled his eyes slightly, and turned to place the letter down on the table. “Oh, alright, yes, thank you very-” His gaze settled on the front of the envelope, and the words died in his throat.

The handwriting had smudged, the ink running in lines down the paper, but he recognized the words. What’s more, he recognized the handwriting. He looked at the return address, and his heart sank. 

Edward Bonnet. The Bonnet Estate. 

Stede felt his fingertips go cold, and the letter dropped to the table from his numb grip. Four months. It had been four months of silence from his father, from anyone. That was painful enough, to know they had stopped writing. To know they had given up. 

Stede hadn’t expected it to be worse that his father had started again. 

Behind him, Lucius leaned into the room. “You alright?” he asked, forgetting in the moment that he had decided not to care about Stede’s feelings. 

Stede blinked down at the letter, and snatched it up. He moved to a drawer in the kitchen and opened it, dropping the letter inside onto a stack of similar envelopes. All from The Bonnet Estate.

He closed the drawer, and tried to breathe- tried to force himself back into the moment, into the room. Forcing the cold ice in his stomach into a little box, into an envelope of its own. To Deal With Later. He’d file it with all the other similarly-marked boxes that lived in his brain, stacked neatly, never to be opened. It had worked so far.

…Though it was getting crowded. 

Stede turned, and when he faced Lucius it was with his old, customary smile. “Fine, yes!” He stepped back towards the door- then paused. Stede’s gaze traveled up, to the floor above his head, as though he could see up two floors to the bedroom. He thought of his houseguest, hopefully napping, hopefully dreaming more pleasant dreams. 

He thought of the promise he had made not even an hour before. 

It’s as good as forgotten. 

Stede reached back towards the drawer, this time grabbing a piece of blank parchment and a quill. “Lucius,” he said carefully, writing a quick but neat notice on the paper. “I was wondering if you’d be willing to assist me on a project.”

Lucius leaned on the doorframe. “A project?”

“A book. I’m thinking of writing a… compilation, of sorts. A compilation of stories.” Stede continued writing, choosing the words carefully. 

Lucius raised his eyebrows. “What kind of stories?”

“Oh, you know,” Stede said, with forced casualness. “Fantasy stories. Tall tales. That sort of thing. I thought I’d do interviews. Talk to sailors…” He finished writing, folding the paper and holding it out to Lucius. “Would you be able to post this up in town?”

Lucius took it and, before Stede could protest, opened it to read it. His eyebrows went up and down again. There was a short pause, before Lucius looked back up at him, oddly crafty. “I’m rather good at calligraphy,” he said, to Stede’s surprise. “Maybe I can make a few copies of this, get it spread around.” 

Stede nodded, slightly confused. “Yes, sure. That would be wonderful, actually. Thank-”

“And actually,” Lucius interrupted smoothly, “this place is pretty hard to find if you don’t know where you’re going. Maybe you could use someone to show people the way. You know… arrange transportation.” 

Stede narrowed his eyes. “That would be very helpful, thank y-”

“And while I’m already here,” Lucius continued, shrugging, “maybe you could use someone to help with notation. It’d be pretty hard to take notes while you’re talking. I’m happy to assist as your, uh… scribe. And I wouldn’t ask for much- maybe just, you know. An hourly rate. Plus expenses.”

“Lucius,” Stede said, realizing the angle too late and kicking himself. “I’m sorry, but I don’t want- or need - any help. This is a personal project. My personal project.”

Lucius looked at him for a long moment, and Stede waited for the protest. But then, Lucius shrugged. “Yeah, no, you’re right,” Lucius said, sighing. “Sorry. Don’t know what I was thinking. I’ll just take this and be on my way.” He held up the paper, refolding it. 

Stede sighed inwardly, smiling as always. “Wonderful. I’ll see you next week.”

Lucius started to saunter away, talking over his shoulder. “Too bad, though. I really don’t have much going on. Not many jobs lately. Just spend my days sitting around town, chatting with whoever happens by.”

“That’s nice,” Stede said, beginning to shut the door. 

“Yes, it’s lovely,” Lucius was saying. “Just chatting with anyone, about anything that comes to mind.” 

Stede paused. He opened the door fully, to find Lucius standing at the doorstep again. Lucius’ gaze flicked meaningfully towards the upper story of the lighthouse, then back down to Stede. 

“Or anyone that comes to mind,” Lucius said innocently. 

Stede paused, looking at Lucius incredulously. “Am I being extorted?” he asked. 

“Not really,” Lucius said reasonably. “Extortion is if I was going to kill you, or something. What you’re being is blackmailed.”

“Right,” Stede said faintly. “Well. An assistant. When can you start?”

Lucius smiled, smarmily. “Oh, immediately, I think. I’ll need money for a blank manuscript. And ink. And some nice pens.”

Later that afternoon, a flier went up on the town’s notice board. The calligraphy was stunning. 

Beyond the breaks, beyond the rocks, beyond the shores of Barbados, a rowboat bobbed in the waves. It held a single occupant, who was currently in the middle of two activities.

Rowing, and cursing. 

Mutiny. It had been a long time coming, that much was for certain. With Edward’s erratic orders, his fucking moods …

It was hard enough to convince men to follow a monster. Harder still when you weren’t sure if you were walking out of his jaws, or into them. 

But he wouldn’t take no for an answer. Wouldn’t let them sail away, not with their captain sinking beneath the waves behind them in a curtain of red. It wasn’t his fault that they didn’t know Edward like he did. Edward was not dead. He couldn’t be. 

Edward was not allowed to die, until Izzy decided he could. 

So now he rowed, and cursed. He cursed the sun on his back, and the blisters on his hands, and his fucking captain, that fucking bastard, for putting him through this all. How dare he not dodge that harpoon. How dare he make Izzy look like a fool, give the men an excuse to laugh and jeer. How dare he fucking die. 

Fucking insulting. Fucking embarassing. 

As he made his way slowly, slowly, towards the beaches of Barbados, he made a vow. 

When he found Edward Teach, found whatever rock Edward had decided to crawl under, he would punish him. For all of this. For everything.  

How?

Well.

He had plenty of time to decide. 

ATTN: ALL MEN OF THE SEA- SAILORS, MERCHANTS, SMUGGLERS, ETC.

ANY SUCH MAN WHO HAS HEARD THE SONG OF THE SEA, PLEASE INQUIRE AT THE LIGHTHOUSE. 

THIS IS NOT A JOKE. 

Chapter Text

If the first twenty-four hours with Edward in the lighthouse had sped past like the wind, the next forty-eight dragged on endlessly. 

Not that it was Edward’s fault, no, assuredly not because of Edward. Stede felt guilty even considering that hypothetical. No, Edward had been an absolutely ideal houseguest, ever since Stede had helped him back up to bed. He had spent the last two days mostly sleeping, or at least, resting in the remains of Stede’s bed (which would have to be the way it stayed for a while , because Lord knew, Stede couldn’t figure out how he was going to replace it).

When Edward wasn’t sleeping (fever-free so far, thankfully, blessedly), Stede found Edward staring out the window near the bed, or taking slow, careful steps around the bedroom, stretching gently and seemingly working a kink out of his knee. Attempts to start a conversation were stilted, awkward, entirely too self-aware to turn into anything beyond pleasantries. The plates of food Stede delivered every morning and evening were returned licked clean, with a muttered apology every time for the journey Stede had to make up the stairs to drop them off. 

Stede was running out of ways to say “don’t mention it,” and had settled on just a smile and shake of the head. Yet there it was, every time, like clockwork- Sorry, mate. 

It was always sorry, with Edward. Never thank you. 

No, it wasn’t Edward’s fault. Edward, who passed the last two days asleep more than awake. Edward, who looked so deep in thought sometimes that Stede felt embarrassed to even come into the room. Edward, who seemed to be trying to pass his time here as invisible as possible. 

No, Stede knew that the awkwardness in the air came not from Edward, but from him. From Stede Bonnet, who left awkwardness in his wake, as he always did. 

Stede had tried to return to his life, as he had known it before Ed came floating in on the waves. He tidied his house- the rooms without Edward in them. He made his meals (his and Edward’s, now he was cooking for two). He read his books, retrieving them at first one at a time and then in one large stack when he noticed his little greetings to Edward were falling on deaf ears. Stede even lit the lamp both nights, lugging old oil up the stairs and pausing on the landing afterwards to see if he could hear any sound from the bedroom. 

He couldn’t. Of course not, why would Edward notice a silly thing like that? What had he expected? Edward popping out of the bedroom, eyes alight with wonder- oh, Stede, that’s magnificent, look at the light on the water! Oh yes, Edward, I agree- did you see the rocks to the East that look like-

No. Of course not. Ridiculous. 

Then why could he imagine it so clearly? Why couldn’t he stop imagining it?

Stede had found himself imagining quite often, over the last two days. More and more frequently, his thoughts drifted from his work and towards curious, embarrassing, half-formed images. Drifting gently, almost mockingly, into his mind's eye, leaving him dry-mouthed. 

Edward’s smile, feral and wild, thrown over his shoulder as he pinned Lucius against the cabinet in an effort to rescue Stede, because he thought Stede needed rescuing.

Edward’s hand, his strong fingers, wrapped around Stede’s wrist, red silk hanging between them, the pressure on Stede’s arm firm and terrifying, for so many reasons. 

Edward’s eyes, brown and bottomless, peering up at him from the bed, eyelashes wet with seawater. Edward’s eyes, hazy with fever and too close, begging Stede not to leave him. Edward’s eyes, ancient and young all at once, baffled at the idea that Stede would want to help him. 

…It was often Edward’s eyes. 

But the worst, the most confusing, was that sometimes, more often at night than in the steadying light of day, it wouldn’t be memories. Rather, it would be memories… but only at first. Then it would turn into something imaginary, something that ran away from Stede in dizzying circles that filled his stomach with heat. 

Sometimes, it would be Edward’s smile, but not so bloodthirsty, not so sharp at the edges. It would be a soft smile, like the one he had seen only a glance of at breakfast, with the dimple under one eye. It would be a smile that would be especially for Stede, not mocking or making fun, but just for him, and even because of him. 

Sometimes, it would be Edward’s fingers wrapped around his arm, but their grip would soften. Edward’s thumb would drift to the hollow of his wrist, gently brushing down his skin and sending goosebumps down Stede’s back. It would be Edward’s hands, resting on Stede’s upper arms, strong enough to hold him in place or move him wherever Edward wanted him to go. 

And most often, it would be Edward’s eyes, with a million different expressions. Eyes that could say tell me more or you’re so smart or thank you or best of all, don’t leave.

Eyes that might even sit half-lidded, pupils blown, maybe even drifting down towards Stede’s mouth… or lower than that…

But then the kettle would whistle, or he’d nearly scald himself on the edge of a pan, or he’d realize he had been reading the same sentence ten times in a row, and Stede would feel his neck and arms grow warm with shame and embarrassment. He’d shake himself, and buckle down, back to his work, back to his tasks. 

Ten minutes later, it was Edward’s eyes again and burnt bacon in the frying pan. 

No, it wasn’t Edward’s fault that the days dragged on mercilessly, that the lighthouse had never felt so small. It was Stede’s, and his own foolish brain filled with half-formed thoughts that scared the living hell out of him and filled him with shame. Edward was his guest, he was his patient, he was a broken man, in so many ways. For Stede to have these thoughts felt… shameful. Wrong.

Edward was relying on Stede to get back on his feet again, not to lie around, burning bacon and making the world’s most awkward small talk. It wasn’t Edward’s fault that Stede was broken too, broken in a way Stede couldn’t examine without feeling like he was doing something deeply, innately, personally wrong. 

So, Stede tried to spend his time that he wasn’t checking on Edward, as far away from Edward as he could get. Which, due to his lonely promontory, wasn’t very far at all. 

Still, Stede had taken more walks in the last two days than he had in the last two months, wrapping a coat around himself and trudging over the sand and rocks and hard-to-see paths that occasionally cut their way through the grasses. He walked briskly, head up and mind firmly fixated on each step he took so that it didn’t have the opportunity to go anywhere else. He walked miles, in very fine shoes that weren’t meant for walking, going nowhere and anywhere that wasn’t the stifling air of the lighthouse. 

If Edward didn’t get better soon, Stede would have the finest calves of anyone in Barbados, or he would lose his mind. Possibly both. 

So, two days into Edward’s stay, when Stede saw a faint, familiar spot of red on the horizon, he could have collapsed with relief. He paused where he stood, nearly toppling over as his shoe caught the edge of a stone, feeling a drop of sweat trickle down his starched collar. It was definitely a spot of red, and if Stede strained his eyes, he could see a smaller spot of blue bobbing along next to it. 

“Oh, finally,” he breathed, and beat a hasty jog back to the lighthouse. Thankfully now it could be all business, all questions, and his mind could stop its useless caterwauling and do something constructive. It wasn’t until he was in his kitchen, wrapping a doily around some biscuits and preparing to meet his guests down the road, that it suddenly occurred to him that he maybe, just maybe a little, should feel guilty about the whole thing. 

After all, Edward had told him to drop it. He had told Stede, very seriously and with great importance, to forget all about the fantastic things he had told him. To forget about the Song. Wasn’t this a betrayal, a violation of some kind? Stede hesitated in the kitchen, in a fine suit of caramel and crimson, teetering on the edge of whether this made him a very bad person. 

Not that he was a good person. Stede had already decided that he was probably a bad person, or at the very least not good, but wasn’t sure if the snooping made him worse. 

“Well, think this through,” Stede said to himself, quietly, on the off chance Edward was awake upstairs. He had taken Lucius’ thin walls comment to heart. “It’s not… snooping.” He paused. “Well, yes. Yes, it is,” he admitted in a rush. “But it’s… well. Ed’s worried you’ll get in over your head.”

Stede suddenly remembered the waves cresting over his head, and felt a bit ill. 

“Bad choice of words. Ed’s worried that these… stories… are dangerous. That you’ll do something foolish, right?” Stede went back to knotting up the doily, a tad more aggressively than strictly necessary. “Not that you haven’t already done something foolish… But!” 

He straightened up in realization, his typically useless brain providing a momentary rush of brilliance. “You only did a very foolish thing because you didn’t know it was foolish. So, reason stands, if you knew exactly what the foolishness would lead to, it would actually keep you from further foolishness. Which means,” he continued, really on a roll, “that actually, learning more about whatever Ed doesn’t want you to know is safer than not knowing about it, since if you don’t know about it, you might do something foolish again!” 

Stede stood in the center of his kitchen, hands on his hips, triumphant and deeply in denial.

“Edward!” he called upstairs, hoping that his houseguest wouldn’t hear him, hoping he’d stay asleep for the rest of the day. “I’m going out again! I’ll be gone for quite a while! You’re welcome to any of the books! Don’t overwork yourself, please!” 

Stede had no way of knowing, as he left the lighthouse and speed-walked down the path towards the two colored spots, that his houseguest was awake. Edward had been awake all day. 

He had been preparing. 

Twenty minutes after Stede had vanished up the road in a caramel-and-crimson blur, Edward Teach, the pirate formerly known as Blackbeard, the Deep Dark, the Abyss, was on his knees dry-heaving into the sand and fighting the urge to whimper. He hadn’t whimpered in years, and he sure as shit wasn’t about to start now.

Edward swallowed the bile in his throat, ignoring his arms shaking as he held himself up against a rock. “Fucking hell, man, come on,” he muttered to himself, furious. “Get up. Get up, you sack of shit.” But his body, his weak, old, washed-up body refused to listen to its Captain. It stayed where it was, halfway down the slope of sand between the lighthouse and the water below. 

He felt anger burning through his nausea, anger that his two days lying on his back still hadn’t been enough. He had agreed, painful though it was, to Stede’s ministrations. Allowed his host to fuss over him, to bring him his meals on a platter like some invalid. Edward had really tried hard to relax- which even he knew was an oxymoron, even if he didn’t know what oxymoron meant. 

He had justified it, those forty eight hours of out-of-character rest, on the notion that he was saving his energy to do something important. Something he had to do quickly, in the time before Stede came back from wherever the hell he kept going. Not that he blamed his host; he had expected it, after Stede had learned the truth. After he had told Stede who he was- what he was. Of course he wouldn’t want to stick around. It was likely only Stede’s own innate goodness that kept him from simply packing up and heading out, to safer lodgings, far away from Ed. 

It was not lost on Ed that he hadn’t told anyone the truth in years- that the last time was Izzy, and that was an entirely different situation. That had been truth dripping in boasts, in blood. That had been the truth as a threat. Izzy’s face had been equal parts horror and fascination and thrill. Izzy hadn’t wanted to leave, not after the truth, not after he learned who Ed was- what Ed was. Because Izzy was Izzy, and Izzy would never leave. 

He couldn’t have possibly expected the same from Stede. So let him go, he told himself, let him go and live his own life. The life that you’re keeping him from. You can handle your own business. You always have.

Edward took a deep breath, steeling himself, then pushed himself back up into a standing position. He took a few rolling, slippery steps down the sand bank, breath coming shallow and pain already starting to pinch his insides, past his stitches. 

“Fuck me,” he chanted as a sort of prayer, a prayer not to fall. “Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me.” He was making progress- slow, painful progress. The ocean was growing closer, the lighthouse further away. But his legs were shaky, and his head was swimming, and his stomach was screaming past the black thread. 

God, he had grown old. A wound like this, twenty years ago- he would have thrown back a shot of whiskey and laughed it off. This wasn’t his first stomach wound- it wasn’t even his first harpoon. What he had said to Stede was true- harpoons were slow, and usually, almost always, Ed would get out of the way. 

But not this time. 

Stede had made the joke, not noticing the ice water that filled Ed’s veins. 

No, Stede, not this time. 

Then, Izzy was murmuring in his ear, his tone just as cold as ice. Izzy, who saw through Edward in ways Ed never wanted him to.

Not this time, Captain, Izzy said, with a sneer. You certainly saw to that, didn’t you, Edward? Interesting, that. The harpoon, the man who shot it- a boy, really. He’d never handled something like that in his fucking life, you saw it coming from a mile away. 

“Fuck off, Izzy,” Ed muttered, his voice a growl. 

Izzy chuckled in response. You saw it coming from a mile away, boss. 

So why didn’t you move?

“FUCK!” Ed shouted, stumbling to a stop at the bottom of the dune as pain and guilt and denial washed over him in one nauseating wave. His bare feet tangled beneath him, and he toppled forward into the sand. Ed caught himself on his forearms, wincing with a choked shout as the movement sent shockwaves down his chest and through the wound in his stomach. He lay there for either a minute or an hour, it didn’t matter which. He lay in the sand, eyes closed, heart beating, head swimming, until his vision cleared and he could push himself up. 

The ocean was in front of him now, waves lapping in easy, wide strokes that brushed the sand with a gentle rushing noise. Ed swallowed hard, forcing himself to his feet. He had to get there. He had to fix whatever he had broken by staying away for so long.

He couldn’t hear the Song.

It had been happening slowly, for years, the gradual lowering of the volume. The constant gentle noise, the distant scales and chords that hummed in his chest- they trickled away, like he was leaking. The tighter he tried to hold onto it, the faster the Song seemed to vanish, until he could only feel it as though through a thread, a single harp string, a tug from beneath his ribcage that pulled him desperately towards the sea. Subtle enough, slow enough, that he had been able to ignore it, pretend it wasn’t happening. 

But here, on land, it seemed so much worse. 

Edward hadn’t been on solid ground for so long in years, not since his childhood, not since he decided to leave. His life had been spent on one ship or another, the wood under his feet the closest to land he ever wanted to get. Even on the rare, rare occasion that he and Izzy would go ashore (usually when they had no men left, or no food, and no ships around to take as a replacement), Ed would insist they find a new ship before the next day. 

Be it a Navy-issued clipper or a halfway-sunk fishing tub, anything to get back on the water and away from dry land. 

But now he was grounded, and he had noticed the silence that had begun to slink into his bones. The Song drifted away, and silence replaced it. The silence was terrifying. It was a wave, but not a gentle to-and-fro. It was a blanket of gray, a heavy blanket that settled over him that he knew, if he let it settle completely, would never lift again. 

Was this how men lived on land, alone with their thoughts, alone in the quiet? Always, always, so alone?

When he tried to sleep, to rest (he was saving his energy, he kept reminding himself), his mother’s voice echoed to him from the end of a dark tunnel. 

You belong to the sea, Edward. You belong to the sea. Always. 

It was his mother’s voice he heard again, as Edward pushed himself through the sand in a bent-over walk, one hand pressed to his stomach. The sand rolled and dipped under his feet, but he was so close now, too close to let something like pain or nausea or the threat of his insides becoming his outsides stop him. 

He had to stop the silence, he had to, he had to stop the silence before it consumed him. 

Edward reached the ocean, felt the water rush over his feet, and smiled, his head thrown back towards the sun. 

Then he fainted. Without a whimper. 

Stede cleared his throat, trying to fight down the multiple questions that were currently fighting to be voiced, and settled on. “So… your name was…?”

The man across from him, bald but for a mane of blonde hair and with a wide-eyed expression that seemed to look directly through Stede rather than at him, saluted. “Buttons, sir.”

Stede blinked, and turned to look at Lucius, who was leaning against a rock nearby. Lucius offered him a long-suffering look that said You asked for this, and went back to scribbling in his notebook. It was a very nice notebook, Stede had to give him that. 

The three of them had met at a nice stopping point a ways away from the lighthouse, far enough that Stede could speak without worry of Ed overhearing, but close enough that he could still see the lighthouse and the window into the bedroom. They were currently sitting off to the side of the road, on a few boulders. Rather, Lucius and Stede were sitting. Mister Buttons was standing rigor-mortis straight. Stede was becoming curious if the man could even bend at the waist. 

“Well, Mister Buttons,” Stede said, attempting to position himself with as much decorum as he could manage. “Thank you very much for coming to speak with me.”

“It couldn’t wait, sir,” Buttons said, in a nearly impenetrable Scots accent. He was still saluting. “Your notice that the boy posted caused me great concern. I had to speak to you immediately. I apologize for my tardiness.”

“Oh, no,” Stede said, waving a hand in dismissal. “You’re the first one here! Hardly tardy.”

“Even so, sir,” Buttons said, gaze shifting towards Lucius. “I would have been here sooner. The very night I read the notice. But young Mister Lucius was reluctant to escort me.” 

Lucius looked up from his writing at last, irritated. “You showed up at my house! You stood on the porch for five hours! ”

“It was a matter of life or death,” Buttons said flatly. He was still saluting. 

“I didn’t even tell you where I lived!” Lucius said, voice rising. “How did you find out-”

“Sorry,” Stede said, anxious to interrupt. “Do you know each other? How did you become acquainted?”

Lucius went back to writing aggressively, and Stede noticed that his ears were slightly pink. “We ran into each other a while back, I guess. We’re not close or anything. God, no.”

Buttons finally lowered his arm, standing at attention, his head thrown back to look at them down his nose. Stede wasn’t sure if he had blinked yet. “I apprehended young Mister Lucius during an effort to purloin my valuables,” Buttons said with a hint of malice. 

Stede turned to Lucius, outraged. “Lucius! You were robbing him?”

Lucius huffed. “Oh, please. I was pickpocketing you, and I was twelve. It’s been years.” 

“Men never change,” Buttons said gravely. “You’re lucky I managed to apprehend you myself, rather than reporting your crimes to the authorities.”

Lucius rubbed at his face. “Oh, for- the only thing in your pocket was birdseed.”

Buttons shot a look at Stede, guilty. “I was holding it for a friend of mine,” he muttered, defensively. 

Stede, who was coming to the rapid conclusion that this was a terrible mistake, and indeed yet another very foolish thing, stood up and placed a hand on Lucius’ shoulder. “Well, Mister Buttons,” he said with careful cheerfulness. “I think this might have been a mistake on my part. I’m sorry to have wasted your time, and I thank you for making the journey. I believe I’ll be going home now. Lucius can show you the way back to town-”

Lucius’ hand found Stede’s arm, and caught it in an iron grip. “Do not leave me alone with him,” Lucius hissed. “He talked about fish the entire way out here. It was hours of nothing but fish. Stede, I swear to god, do not leave me alone with him.”

“You wanted to know about the Song of the Sea,” Buttons said, turning to Stede, and it wasn’t voiced as a question. Stede saw nothing behind Buttons’ eyes, and was becoming surer by the moment that the man didn’t blink.

Oh, for god’s sake, Stede’s mind whispered, and didn’t it sound just like his father again? He’s mad, Stede, they’re all mad. You’re surrounded by madmen. You’re in good company. 

“I’m terribly sorry,” Stede said, trying to extricate his sleeve from Lucius’ fingernails. “The notice was just, uh… a joke. A joke in very poor taste. I am so sorry to waste your-”

“Deep below,” Buttons said, staring Stede down, pinning him to the spot. “Where the light can’t reach, but the stars seem twice as close.”

Stede froze in place. Buttons watched him, and Stede saw something very disturbing behind the man’s eyes. 

Something very dangerously familiar. 

“Lucius,” Stede said in a hushed tone. “Start writing.”

Edward lay with his back on the sand, legs dangling in the water, bare feet drifting up and down as the waves washed over the shore. His eyes were closed, his brow relaxed. 

The Song hummed pleasantly around him, rising and falling with the waves, wrapping him in a cocoon. It was quieter, much quieter to be certain, and he didn’t understand it. He never did these days, hadn’t for years. 

But it was back , and that was enough. Even in his weakened state, barely conscious, Edward knew it had returned. It hadn’t abandoned him. Not completely.

Not yet.

He tried to believe that it sounded happy to see him. 

For the first time since he had washed up on the beach, he slept without dreams. 

“You’ve heard of Sirens, then?” Buttons was asking, walking at a brisk pace and seemingly unaffected by it. Stede was nearly jogging to keep up, and Lucius had begun swearing under his breath as he tried to write and walk at the same time. 

They had begun an odd march around the coast, Stede directing them onto one of the numerous barely-visible paths he had discovered on his many frenzied walks. Buttons led the way, Stede following and Lucius bringing up the rear. An odd procession. 

“Sirens?” Stede asked, a little breathless at both the pace and the subject matter. “What, as in… Ancient Grecian sirens? The Odyssey, that sort of thing?”

Buttons gave him a stormy look, not ceasing his pace. “I’ve never been to Greece,” Buttons said with finality. “Is that a yes or a no, Mister Bonnet?”

Stede nodded, resolving not to try to make conversation. “Right. Me either. But yes, I have heard of them.”

Buttons gestured to the ocean, making an odd gesture- like a pastor, crossing his congregation, but more complicated. “They’re out there, even now. Probably watching us. Sirens. Fish men.” His tone took on a ghost story-like cadence. “Or sometimes… among us. Their fins split, walking on two feet. Fish men could be around you at any moment. There used to be more of them, but they’re still out there. Maybe even next to you. No way to know for sure.”

Buttons drew himself up, about to deliver what he clearly believed to be a dark truth. “Except… they smell of brine. And they have gills on their ears.”

Behind them, Lucius snorted.

Buttons ground to a stop, Stede nearly running into him. “You doubt me, boy?” Buttons asked, his voice rising. His expression was stormy again, and Stede felt Lucius shrink back behind him. “You doubt me about the fish men?!” Buttons’ voice rose to a shout.

Lucius let out a nervous laugh, raising his book in front of him. “No, not at all. They sound terrifying, out there in the dark, with their gills on their heads-”

“On their ears!” Buttons shouted, furious. “Pay attention! Write it down right, in that fancy book of yours!” Lucius nodded, hiding his face behind the notebook, ducking further behind Stede. 

“Mister Buttons,” Stede interrupted, eager to move on and halfway worried Buttons would kill Lucius right in front of him. “What do you mean, there used to be more? What happened to them?”

Buttons’ gaze shifted to Stede, flipping back to calmness like Lucius wasn’t even present. “What happened?” Buttons asked, beginning to walk again. “Man does what he does. Man built boats, and hunted them down. Killed them all.”

Stede blinked, stumbling slightly. “Killed them?”

“All,” Buttons said roughly. He amended after a moment, “Well. Not all. But most. The ones left now… few and far between. Hiding in the dark corners of the sea.”

Stede felt a pang of sadness, thinking of Edward again. “Sounds like a lonely way to live.”

“We’re all lonely,” Buttons said, and Stede had the unnerving feeling once again that Buttons was looking through him, right to the heart of him. 

“Yes, well,” Stede sputtered, trying to hide his expression from this odd, odd man with wild eyes. “You mentioned the Song of the Sea?” 

Buttons nodded slowly, turning away from Stede again. “The tales are told by many a sailor,” Buttons said. “Sirens on the rocks. Singing their songs to lure foolish mortals into a watery grave. You know the stories, I’m sure.”

Stede hoped Buttons and Lucius couldn’t see the blush creep up his ears. “Oh, yes. I know.” He tried not to think about the waves crashing over his head. 

“It’s bollocks, all of it.” Buttons snorted wetly and spat aggressively into the sparse grass, a note of finality. “Not that they sing. They do, of course they do. But not to lure men into their graves.”

Stede felt a small pang of relief in his stomach, a relief about a worry he hadn’t allowed himself to consider. “No?”

Buttons shook his head. “If a man follows a pretty song into the sea, it’s his own fault. Not the siren’s. If they’re stupid enough to do it, they’re stupid enough to die.” 

Stede’s relief turned into embarrassment, and he fought a much stronger blush. “...Right. Yes.” 

Buttons walked a few paces in silence. “They sing, Mister Bonnet, because it’s what they were born to do. Birds fly. Fish swim. Sirens sing.” He tilted his head. “Of course, sirens swim as well. And I’ve heard that some fish fly…”

“Yes, yes,” Stede said quickly, trying to keep Buttons on track. “But… why? For what reason?”

Buttons came to a stop again, slowing slightly. The three men were on a low bluff, overlooking the ocean. The sun was beginning to set, and the ocean stretched out in front of them in an endless swath of yellow and gold. With a few pink clouds dotting the sky, the view was magnificent. 

Buttons was silent for a long moment. 

“They sing to stay together, Mister Bonnet,” he said, as seriously and soberly as Stede had ever heard him sound. “That’s what I think. They sing because their Song pulls the tides, pushes the waves, reaches out to the creatures of the sea and guides them on their way. The Song of the Sea, Mister Bonnet- it’s the sound of the hearts of the Sirens. It’s what ties them together.” 

Buttons spread his arms, raising his voice slightly, looking out over the ocean. “The moon pulls the tides, so they say, Mister Bonnet. But who pulls the moon?” 

Stede blinked. “...What?”

Buttons turned to look at Stede again, and Stede fought the urge to look away. “That is why men follow the Song to their death,” Buttons said, as though he himself hadn’t just changed the subject. “The Song of the Sirens reflects their hearts. It reflects the truth. And men always seek the truth, Mister Bonnet. Even when it's painful to know, even when it would kill them.” Buttons’ expression was stormy again. 

“Men have to know, Mister Bonnet. That is why they die.” 

Stede felt ice in his stomach, felt the same feeling he had felt earlier- that this was, indeed, another very foolish thing. But damn him… Buttons was right. 

He did have to know. 

Stede tried to word his next question carefully. “If the sirens sing, because that’s what they’re born to do… What if they stop singing? What would happen if, say, a siren couldn’t… hear the Song, anymore?” 

Buttons blinked at him, face expressionless. 

“Or, rather,” Stede said, hurriedly, trying to sound casual and strictly hypothetical. “What if the Song… sort of… left one of them?”

Buttons took a quick step towards him, and Stede jerked his head back to avoid accidentally slamming their foreheads together. Buttons stared him down, head thrown back, eyes wild and distant. 

“I would pity them,” he said plainly. “For they would surely be lonelier than any living soul. A siren without a song would die. Slowly. Painfully.”

Stede swallowed. “Die? Of what?”

Buttons looked at him as though it were obvious. “A broken heart.” 

There was a short silence. Behind him, Stede could hear Lucius’ pen scratching on the pages of the notebook, and imagined the words in careful calligraphy. 

He would die of a broken heart. 

Stede tried to clear his throat, and took a small step away from Buttons. “Well, thank you, Mister Buttons. You have been very helpful.”

Buttons nodded, sticking out a hand for Stede to shake. Stede did, and tried to ignore the dampness of Buttons’ hand. 

“I will take my leave of you, Mister Bonnet,” Buttons said, offering Stede a nod. Stede nodded back. 

“Thank you,” he said, and meant it. “This has been… very helpful. If you think of anything else-”

“Not to worry,” Buttons said, airily. “I know where to find young Lucius.” 

“Oh, wonderful,” Lucius said quietly behind him. 

“Come along, lad,” Buttons called over his shoulder, as he turned on his heel and started walking briskly down the path, away from Stede. “I won’t be caught out with the sun setting. Not with the will o’ wisps out for blood.” 

Stede watched him go, as Lucius closed the notebook and came up beside him. “What an interesting man,” Stede mused.

Lucius looked at him as though he were joking. “He’s insane.” 

“Lucius! He’s eccentric.”

Lucius rolled his eyes, beginning to walk after Buttons and whispering harshly to Stede, “You know he talks to birds, don’t you?”

“Wrong again, lad! The birds talk to me!” Buttons called, from twenty yards away. Stede wasn’t sure how he had heard them. Lucius let out a long suffering groan and started off after Buttons, visibly unwilling to catch up to him. 

“Thank you, Lucius!” Stede called after them, offering a wave. He tried to smile, tried to forget the sentence bouncing around in his head.

A broken heart. 

Lucius looked back at him, over his shoulder. “You know,” he called, “if Ed’s a big secret, he probably shouldn’t be out sunbathing. Just a thought.”

Stede felt his stomach fall, and turned back towards the beach. He searched the sand, disbelieving, and- yes, there. There, how had he missed him? A spot of black on the white sand. Lying on his back. Not moving. 

Stede was running before he could even think about what it would do to his shoes. 

Edward woke to someone shaking his shoulders, and blinked against the sun in his eyes. 

“Fuck,” he spat angrily, “I’m up, I’m up!” He thrashed, trying to fight off whoever was stupid enough, was selfish enough to wake him from the best sleep he had had in weeks, from the lovely place with no dreams-

Stede. Stede was looking down at him in a panic, and Ed felt the anger seep away. “Oh. Hey, Stede.”

Stede sputtered, prancing sideways to avoid a wave washing up on shore. “Oh, hey?” he squawked, and Ed fought down a smile. “What- how- what are you doing out here?” 

Ed blinked at him, raising his head to look down at his bare feet, bobbing in the surf. He reached for the Song- and it was there. Quiet. Quieter than he would like. But it was there, humming at the edge of his hearing. He remembered a beat too late that Stede had asked him a question. 

“Oh, right, yeah. I, uh… went for a walk.” It came out sounding more like a question than he intended it to. “You know, I stretched my legs. And then I decided to, er… take a little nap.” 

Stede moved back down to stand next to him, as the wave washed out. Edward tried not to notice how finely he was dressed- doubtless he had been seeing company, some friends, someone he had dressed up for. “Edward,” Stede said, patiently. “Can you get up?”

Ed scoffed. “Yeah, man. Of course.”

There was a pause. Another wave washed in, Stede moving up the beach to avoid it, then washed out. Ed’s legs bobbed in the swell. 

Ed cleared his throat, fighting the urge to blush. He reached up towards Stede, not looking at him. “Give us a hand, yeah?”

Stede bent down and grabbed his hand without hesitation, helping him gently to his feet, taking care not to jostle his stitches. Ed watched Stede’s jacket darken with seawater, and flinched. “Sorry, mate,” he muttered. 

They started up the beach, back towards the lighthouse. Ed tried to pull away, tried to walk on his own, but Stede was there- holding his arm, helping him along. He wouldn’t let go, and he offered Ed a very disarming smile. “Edward, there is no need for sorry,” Stede said with a slight laugh. “Why are you apologizing?” 

Ed shrugged, looking down at his feet. “Dunno. Feels like I should.” He tried to keep his tone casual, tried to keep the guilt out of it. “I didn’t want to bother you.”

Stede slowed them down, turning to look at him in full. “Is that what you think? That you’re bothering me?” His expression was almost incredulous, and Ed blinked. 

“...Well, yeah. You know. You’re a busy guy…” Ed trailed off. “I didn’t want to get in the way.”

Stede’s grip on his arm tightened. “Edward,” he said, relief in his voice. “You do not bother me. I thought I was bothering you.”

Ed blinked, feeling slightly hysterical. “What? When?”

Stede gestured around them, uselessly. “You know, the last few days. That’s why I… was away so much. I didn’t want to be a bother.”

Ed could have laughed. “So… the reason we weren’t talking for two fucking days… is neither of us wanted to bother the other.”

Stede did laugh, and it was a wonderful sound. “It appears so,” he said, and he was back to the relaxed posture, the pink cheeks. “I’m very sorry, Ed, if I’ve seemed distant. I was keeping my distance, because… well. I was trying to avoid annoying you-”

“You’re not annoying, man,” Ed said quickly, and then, before he could find a less embarrassing way to say it: “I don’t want you to keep your distance.” 

Stede looked at him, silently, stars in his eyes again, ears and face very pink. The ocean was very loud behind them, suddenly. 

Just as Ed was searching for a way to temper the comment, to undo whatever he had just done, Stede said quietly: “Neither do I.” 

They watched each other for a moment, coming to some agreement that neither had words for. Ed cleared his throat. “Alright, then.”

Stede smiled, not his usual practiced, manic grin; a soft smile. “Alright, then,” he echoed Ed. Ed felt nauseous for a moment, but not in an unpleasant way. 

They started moving again, more slowly this time. Stede was quiet for a moment, as they picked their way over the sand. “Well,” he said suddenly. “Instead of sorry, from now on, let’s try thank you. That’s much preferable for me. Alright?” 

Ed looked up at Stede, slightly confused. “Thank you?”

And Stede looked back with a glowing smile, his expression all soft and gentle, with something at the edge of it that Ed couldn’t name. Some kind of relief. “You’re very welcome, Ed.” 

Ed blinked.

The Song hadn’t left him. Not yet. And Stede was smiling at him. He hadn’t left him either. 

He looked back down at his feet. 

Thank you, he said again, but this time just to himself. 

Stede was right. It did feel better than sorry.

Stede let out a bracing breath, knocking some sand off of Edward’s back with a gentle sweep of his hand. “Well, now. How about a bath?”

Ed felt nauseous again.

Chapter Text

“Oh, Ed- would you prefer lavender, cherry blossom, or something more pour homme?”

Stede felt a drop of sweat drip down the inside of his collar, and tried to convince himself it was only from the humidity in the room. It wasn’t often that the old copper bathtub in the corner of the ground floor got much use, and indeed, he had caught Ed’s grunt of surprise when the Japanese screen had been moved aside from its place next to the kitchen. Not to say that Stede didn’t value his cleanliness, but he had realized early into his foray into “off-the-grid” living that boiling enough water to fill the damned thing was often more trouble than it was worth. No, a basin of boiling water and some nice lathered soap was good enough.

But this was for a guest- moreover, this was for Ed. There was not a stop that would not be pulled, tonight. 

The stove was burning away, heating what must have been their tenth kettle of water, filling the entire lighthouse with a thick, humid heat that made Stede rather dizzy if he stood up too fast. The chest in the corner had been thrown open to reveal Stede’s collection of various bath sundries and toilettes (the size of this collection he felt was rather reasonable, even if the lid of the chest could only be closed if it was being sat upon). The bath stood nearly full, the surface covered completely with a layer of bubbles and foam. A few candles burned in the corner of the kitchen, and between them and Stede’s ministrations, the room smelled like a florist’s shop had exploded. 

Stede had already fought off two separate attempts that Edward had made to help, first in boiling water and then in filling the tub, until his houseguest had been shoved into a kitchen chair and left to watch Stede bustle about like a whirlwind. He thought Edward’s eyes would cross, as Stede looked back over his shoulder and saw him blink, overwhelmed. 

“What?” Ed asked, slightly weakly. 

Stede straightened up, trying to discreet in wiping his forehead. “Lavender, cherry blossom, or uh…” He checked the label of the third bottle, having never opened it before. “…Tibetan Musk. Hmm. According to this, it’s distilled from… the gland of a deer.” Stede shrugged at Edward, smiling slightly. “Can’t say that one sounds all that appealing, but it’s your pick, Ed!”

Ed shrugged slightly, looking red in the cheeks from the heat. “…Are there any that don’t come from a deer’s ass?”

Stede chuckled. “Lavender it is.” He shook a few violet drops into the bath, just as the kettle started to whistle on the stove. Stede grinned brightly and hurried to fetch it. “Ah, lovely! This should be the last one, thank goodness, and then you’ll be all set.”

Ed watched him from his spot at the table, appearing slightly embarrassed. “Man, you don’t have to do this,” he tried to say as Stede sped past him and blew out the stove. “Going through all this trouble… I’d be alright with a bucket and some lye soap. Really.” 

“Nonsense,” Stede said airily, snatching up the kettle with a flowery pot holder and crossing back to the tub. “Aside from the fact that I have never owned lye soap…” (He fought down a shudder.) “You are my guest, of course I have to! What’s more, I want to,” He spoke loudly over his shoulder over the splashing, as he emptied the water into the basin. “If I didn’t want to, I wouldn’t be doing it. Alright?”

He was rewarded to see the faint smile on Ed’s face. “Yeah, alright,” Ed muttered. “Sorry.”

Stede stood, placing his free hand on his hip. “Excuse me?” he asked pointedly.

Ed’s cheeks went red again, and he ducked his head. “…Thank you. I don’t think I’ve had a hot bath in…. longer than I can remember.”

“Ah, that’s what I thought you said. All the more reason to do it, then. You’re welcome, Ed,” Stede finished pouring the water, relieved he had a reason to turn his back and hide his smile. He heard a low, bashful chuckle from the kitchen table, and another bead of sweat dripped down his collar. 

Stede rose, rested the kettle on the potholder on a nearby table and put two hands on his hips, deeply satisfied in a job well done. “Alright!” he sighed. “Et voila. A finer bath, you’ll never find, if I do say so myself.” 

Ed pushed himself off the chair, wincing slightly and holding his stomach. “Probably not,” he agreed. Stede watched as Ed pulled his gloves off, and began unbuckling his belt. 

From across the room, Stede felt his mouth go dry. It suddenly occurred to him that, yes, baths did typically involve one getting… well. Well. 

“I’ll just let you, uh…” Stede stammered, moving towards the stairs as quickly as he could, skirting the outside of the room. He kept his gaze averted, feeling the beginning of embarrassment creep up the back of his neck- and something else, as well, something he didn’t care to encourage, thank you. “There’s soap in the little dish on the side, I chopped up a fresh bar- you can call me if you need anything, anything at all, I’ll just be upstairs, uh… reading…”

“Stede?”

Stede froze, only a few feet from the foot of the stairs, suddenly feeling the air in the room wasn’t just humid, no, it was stifling. He swallowed hard, doing his best to seem unflustered as he turned to Ed with a smile. “Yes, Ed?”

Edward was staring at him from across the room, next to the bath, one hand bracing himself on the edge of the tub and the other against his stitches. Stede saw that he had undone his jacket, and saw underneath a glimpse of Ed’s purple shirt and- he swallowed hard- the smallest flash of the brown skin of Edward’s stomach. 

“Could you help me?” Edward asked, calmly. 

Stede heard a roaring in his ears for a moment, and fought the urge to swallow again. “Excuse me?” he asked, not enjoying how high his voice came out. 

Ed gestured at his chest, and Stede envied how untroubled he looked, how relaxed, and all the while Stede felt his heart threaten to pound through his four layers of shirts and vests. “Just with the top,” Edward was saying. “It hurts like a bitch to lift my arms over my head, and I’d rather not pop my stitches and have my guts start falling out all over the place. I can do the rest.”

Stede felt his gaze drop for a second onto Ed’s leather trousers and mentally backhanded himself, forcing his gaze back up to Ed’s face- and feeling shame throttle him at Ed’s patient, trusting expression.

Get a grip, Bonnet, have some self-respect, have some decorum, for Christ’s sake. The man needs your help, he’s basically an invalid, and here you are… here you are…

Rather than let himself explore exactly what it was that he was doing, Stede nodded, crossing towards Edward. “Of course, yes,” he said quickly. He crossed the room, hoping Ed didn’t catch him wiping his sweaty palms onto his trousers. 

The jacket, mercifully, was easy enough, and Stede fought down his questions about the purpose of a jacket with only one sleeve. He turned and folded it as neatly as he could, turning back and realizing… Ed truly did have tattoos everywhere, didn’t he? With his left arm uncovered, Stede could see a whole new selection- crosses, skulls, stars, a bird that looked like a fat, wingless chicken…

…and tentacles. A shoulder full of tentacles, layered and reaching towards Edward’s face, rendered beautifully against his skin. Looking far more graceful than Stede remembered their real-life counterparts. Stede studied them for a long moment, lost in thought, until he heard Edward clear his throat. He blinked, looking up to meet Edward’s curious gaze. Stede chuckled, nervously. “They’re lovely,” he managed. Ed shrugged and hummed an agreement. “What do they all mean?” Stede asked. 

Ed thought for a second. “…Most of them? That I was drunk and had some money on me.”

Stede let himself laugh, grateful for the release of tension, and wished Edward wouldn’t smile like that, wished that damn dimple beneath his eye would just cease to exist. “Yes, right,” he said, as casually as he could. “Well, er, let’s…” Stede trailed off, feeling his mouth go dry once again. 

Ed stood, silent, waiting, his hand pressed against his stitches, watching Stede through slightly-lidded eyes. The room was too warm, the smell of the lavender was too strong, and Ed was too close, far too close- but Stede shook himself mentally. The faster he worked, the faster he could retreat upstairs and the faster he could cease embarrassing himself. 

Stede reached out and gripped the edge of Edward’s shirt, trying to avoid his fingers running into Ed’s hand, trying to avoid touching his stitches… or his skin. As delicately as he could, Stede pulled Edward’s shirt up and over his head, hearing the few chains Edward was wearing clink softly in the silence of the room. Edward tried to help him, leaning backwards slightly, until they stood still again. Stede had Edward’s shirt gripped tightly between both hands, and Edward…

Edward stood in front of him, naked from the waist up, and oh god, he really did have tattoos everywhere, didn’t he? Stede saw a small seabird on Edward’s collarbone, and then felt his gaze travel down, across Edward’s chest. The only light in the room was from the candles, and in their soft glow, Edward’s skin looked lit from within. Soft in some places, wind-scarred in others, and dotted here and there with dark freckles from the sun. And there were scars, here and there too, a collection from years and years at sea. A slash here from a sword perhaps, a shiny burn mark there. A collection of small scars on the left side of Edward’s stomach, where had he gotten them? 

Stede tried to think of when he had seen anything so beautiful in all his life.

He tore his eyes away from Edward’s stomach, from his hipbone, and instead studied a scar on Edward’s shoulder. In a wild, careening moment, Stede tried to remember what was stopping him from touching it- from running a single finger down that scar on Edward’s shoulder. Tried to remember what was stopping him from placing a hand on Edward’s chest, or running his fingertips over Edward’s spine, or-

“Uh... Stede?”

Stede’s eyes snapped back to Edward’s face, and Stede saw the expression there, saw Edward’s eyes wide in surprise or confusion or possibly embarrassment, and Stede felt his stomach fill with ice. He remembered now, every reason he shouldn’t touch Edward, every reason he couldn’t. 

“Right!” Stede said quickly, and far too loudly, the noise almost echoing in the silence of the room. “I’ll leave you to your washing- er, your bathing- er, you know! Enjoy!” Stede forced his fingers to open, forced himself to drop Edward’s shirt onto the chair with his jacket, forced himself to turn and walk as quickly as he could without it becoming a run. He pelted up the stairs, only managing to half-shout “Call if you need anything!” before slamming the door behind him.  

Edward stood alone in the quiet room, staring at the crumpled shirt.

“Huh,” he said softly after a long moment, and then went to take his pants off. 

Nearly a half an hour later, Stede had managed to get his heart rate nearly back to normal. He sat in his bedroom, stiffly in a chair, and tried to pretend he was reading the book that sat open on his lap. He had thrown open every window he could, and the night air seemed freezing cold compared to the sauna downstairs. In the cold, in the chill, it was easier to think clearly. 

It was much easier for him to realize exactly how insane what had just happened to him was. 

He had gotten lost in the moment, that much was obvious- and that was insanity, in itself. Stede Bonnet had never been someone to get lost in any moment; his ability to be all too aware of himself at all times bordered on a complex. Yet he had, for just an instant, slipped away headily into a sort of madness at… what?

At Edward Teach, something in his mind whispered. It was most unlike the voices that he usually heard; it seemed to be lacking a certain sense of self-loathing. 

Stede thought it might have been his own. 

Preposterous. Ah, there was his father. This he recognized. Preposterous, and shameful. The room was warm, that’s all. You always did have a weak constitution.

Right, of course. The room was warm. That must have been it. Stede fought down a smile; this new voice of his was delightfully droll. Was the room warm when you noticed his freckles, the first night he came here? Was it too humid to think, when he grabbed your wrist and you forgot your name? Is that what that was? 

Preposterous, his father spat again. 

“Gentlemen, please,” Stede said out loud into the silence of the room. “Neither of you is helping.” 

Deeply sorry, his own voice murmured. Your father is just a bit of a prick. 

At least I’m not losing my mind, his father hissed back. 

“That is an excellent point,” Stede murmured, rubbing a hand along his forehead. “Talking to oneself is probably not a good sign. Objectively speaking.”

I don’t think you’ve spent all this time talking to yourself, his own voice was saying, and it sounded very close now. I don’t think so at all. I think you’ve been afraid to. 

Stede didn’t look up, preferring to keep rubbing his temples. He felt a headache coming. “Afraid of what? Talking to myself?”

Talking? No, not at all. Afraid of listening. 

Stede froze, and heard his own traitorous voice hum in agreement. 

That’s right. You’re afraid of what you might think, if you took the time to listen. You got carried away by Edward. Is it so impossible?

And the thing was, Stede realized… it wasn’t. 

Stede tried to remember when he was a young man, listening to the other young men discuss their lady loves- discuss the delicateness of their dainty little wrists, or the gentle curve of their waist, or the… mesmerizing angle of their chin? Whatever it was, he had nodded and agreed, and secretly thought it all had to be a private joke.

He had listened to men wax poetic about their lady’s figure, had read scores of poems about the gentleness of lady-kind… and had assumed that those men, like he, were playing their parts. Surely no one felt like that, not really. Not like poetry. Surely everyone followed the motions, just as he did. They were just better at their parts, was the problem. They never slipped up. They never forgot their lines.

Yes, sure, Margaret had a lovely set of ankles, can’t beat those ankles, bet her shins were even better. Yes, of course, Elizabeth had a collarbone you could grate cheese on, absolutely. But, lads… all the poetry, all the swooning, all the… nonsense. We are joking, aren’t we? Or surely exaggerating, just a tad?

But Edward… he finally understood. Terrifyingly, wonderfully, he understood. 

Now, lads, Edward Teach… I could talk for hours about his shoulder blades. I would pen a treatise about the way his skin catches the light of a flickering candle, spend a page on each tattoo. I could write a sonnet about the dimple beneath his eye. 

I could write poetry about Edward Teach. 

So then. Well. Well. 

…There would certainly be some boys he knew growing up who were owed five pounds, from a long-ago bet just won.

Then, in the midst of his haze and panic, from downstairs came a call:

“Stede? Hey, Stede?”

Stede jumped a mile into the air, worrying for a moment, insanely, that Edward had somehow heard him thinking loudly from all the way downstairs. Stede felt the book slide from his lap, managing to catch it before it hit the ground. He stayed like that for a long moment, bent in half at an awkward angle, before he realized that the pause had gone on far too long.

Trying to slow his heart yet again, Stede called as casually as he could, “Er, yes, Ed?” 

“…Could you help me out for a second?”

“Yes, of course!” Stede shouted back, before he could give himself any time to overthink what that could possibly mean. He didn’t want to give himself time to think at all, at the rate he was going. Stede shelved his book hard enough to bruise the spine, and heard one last whisper from his own head as he approached the door. 

Stop thinking so damn much, Stede. Just listen. 

Ed watched a single, enormous bubble drift by his nose, and wondered for the thousandth time how he had ended up where he currently sat. Less than a week before, he had been arguing with Izzy over how long the men could be kept on shift, or threatening to cut off some poor bastard’s kneecaps and then make him walk, or telling Fang and Ivan he’d give an extra ration of rum to the first of them who could catch a fish and bite the head off. 

Now, he was reclining in a copper bathtub in a pile of bubbles so sweet-smelling they threatened to make him sneeze, with a towel waiting to dry him off that was probably more expensive than any suit he had ever owned. Softer, too. 

All of it felt incredible, and nothing about it felt right. 

The water was hot enough to boil a lobster, and through the clouds of steam he saw Stede drift down the stairs. He had changed into evening clothes, had put back on his yellow robe, and the long sleeves billowed the steam around him in waves. Stede had an odd expression on his face- strangely focused, almost intense. Edward wondered what he had been reading about. 

“Ed?” Stede called, from the other side of the room. “Everything alright?”

“Yeah,” Ed called, reaching an arm to dangle out of the water. “Could I get a towel? I’m about done, here.” 

He heard Stede take a few steps closer, then give a disappointed grumble. “Already? You’re not even enjoying the bubbles! The water hasn’t even cooled! Ed, your hair isn’t even washed! I didn’t sacrifice the best of my notions for nothing!”

Ed turned as far as he could, saw Stede glaring with his hands on his hips, and fought the urge to roll his eyes. “Come on, man. I ducked my head. I’m done. Help a guy out and get me a towel.”

Stede didn’t budge. “Edward, there is sand in your hair. I can see it from here.” 

Ed grumbled. “I’m holding it for a friend.” 

“Very funny.” Stede sighed, and Edward watched as he shook off his robe and folded it delicately over the back of a chair. Stede walked towards the tub, rolling his sleeves up. “Turn around,” he said with an offhanded confidence that sent a fresh wave of heat into Ed’s face. 

“What?” Ed managed. 

Stede shot him a look of impatience, pulling a kitchen chair towards the head of the tub. “Turn around, sit back,” Stede said. “I’m going to take care of your hair.”

Ed sunk down into the bubbles, slightly panicked and more-than-slightly embarrassed. There was still a thick layer of bubbles and foam across the surface of the tub, and it wasn’t as though growing up amongst pirates had instilled in him any particular sense of modesty… but suddenly, Stede felt very close, and he felt very exposed. “I can wash my own hair,” he protested. 

Stede sat, giving him a single raised eyebrow. “Apparently not,” he said simply, and Ed did roll his eyes. Stede rolled his eyes back, frustration plain on his face. “Ed, for goodness sake- if it helps, after you’re done you’ll surely be borrowing some my clothing and I simply refuse to let you get sand and salt on them. The stains would never come out. Consider this a deeply selfish action on my part. If it helps.”

Ed considered this for a long moment. He raised an eyebrow back at Stede and eventually said, “…It helps a little.”

Stede grinned at him. “Good. Sit back.”

“Selfish bastard,” Edward muttered, not managing to his his smile as he leaned back. He closed his eyes and held his breath, expecting soap in his eyes or water in his nose or-

Oh. Oh. 

Stede had threaded his hands through the back of Edward’s hair, rubbing his scalp gently, and it was all Ed could do to keep from groaning. Unconsciously, he leaned into Stede’s touch, and was rewarded by deft fingers washing his hair and massaging his skull. Ed had to fight to keep his eyes open. 

“See?” Stede was saying. “Not so terrible, after all.”

“Not so terrible,” Ed managed to say softly.

They sat in silence for a few moments, with just the sound of water sloshing and the faraway sound of the ocean crashing. Ed did eventually let his eyes flutter shut, sinking lower into the bubbles, as Stede gently washed and rinsed his hair. Nothing was said between them, beyond a muttered apology if Stede pulled a particularly bad tangle. 

And then, with Stede gently combing through his curls, with his ears below the surface of the water, Edward heard something he considered to be impossible. 

Singing. 

His eyes shot open, as he pushed himself above the surface of the water, heart pounding, hands gripping the sides of the tub. Stede let out a shout of surprise behind him, but he wasn’t listening to Stede, he was listening for something that couldn’t possibly be happening, not anymore, not after all this time-

Nothing. 

Silence. The room was filled with the same silence as it had been, and Ed felt cold, even in the heat of the water, even in the heavy humidity of the room. A spike of cold hammered its way through his chest, and he felt it spread through his veins. Nothing. Nothing. As always. 

“Ed, are you alright?” Stede was saying, and Ed finally turned to look at him, watching him shake water off his sleeves. “What happened? Ed?”

Finally catching his breath, Ed let himself sink slowly back into the water of the bath. “Sorry, man,” he muttered, squeezing his eyes shut, too humiliated to look. “I’m just… I think I’m losing my fucking mind.”

Stede didn’t say anything for a long while, wringing out the front of his shirt. “Oh,” he said finally, delicately. “Well, that’s… that’s alright. We all go a little mad sometimes. Louis Carrol, eh?”

Ed was about to tell him that he didn’t know who this Carol was and that she could keep her stupid fuckin’ thoughts to herself, when- impossibly- he heard it again. Quiet, barely there, but unmistakable. 

Singing. 

He opened his mouth to request that Stede just drown him now and get it out of the way, when he saw Stede’s expression brighten. “Ah!” Stede said, crossing to the window and unbarring it. He pushed the window open wide, and as a rush of cold air caused the candles to sputter, Ed heard the noise grow louder.

Distantly through the open window, the sound of men’s voices echoed weirdly and hauntingly over the ocean and around the room. Just clear enough to barely make out the words. 

“Well we’ll be alright, if we make it round the horn… we’ll be alright, if we make it round the horn…”

Stede stood with arms akimbo, hair fluttering slightly in the breeze, gazing out the window into the night. “There must be a ship coming into port, farther down the coast,” he was saying cheerfully, as Ed tried to force his heart rate to return to normal. “Every so often I’m treated to the sounds of a shanty… such a lucky treat, for you to hear it! I always thought it gave the place a sort of… air of legitimacy, you know?” 

Stede crossed the room back towards the bath, and Ed was glad for the umpteenth time that the heat of the room gave him an excuse for a blush. Stede’s shirt was soaking wet, all down the front, and sort of… clinging to him. He forced himself to watch a bubble along the surface of the water, as Stede lowered himself back down onto the stool.

There was a long while of silence, as Stede’s hands carded through his hair again. Slowly, gratefully, Ed felt his muscles begin to relax again, soaking in the heat from the water and the gentle touch of Stede’s fingers against his skull. The air took on an odd mixture of humidity and the occasional cold breeze from the open window, and cutting through the silence was the distant sound of the sailors, raising their voices together. Ed let his ears drop below the surface again, the lyrics echoing to him weirdly off of the copper sides of the tub. 

“And we’ll roll the old chariot along, we’ll roll the old chariot along, we’ll roll the old chariot along…”

“…And we’ll all hang on behind,” he murmured under his breath. 

“Ed!” From behind him came a delighted and surprised exclamation, and Ed’s eyes snapped open to find Stede staring down at him with an expression so sweetly delighted it nearly hurt Ed’s teeth. “I didn’t think you sang!” 

Ed managed a weak chuckle, because Lord, was that a difficult subject. He opted for a non-specific answer, and said as casually as he could, “You can’t grow up on the docks without learning a shanty or two. Everyone knows Drop of Nelson’s Blood, anyway. It’s an easy one.”

“Well, please, don’t let me stop you,” Stede said, sitting back on the stool. “Take it away.”

Now Ed did laugh in full, at the expectant look on Stede’s face. “Not for free, man. Not for free. Trust me, you don’t want to hear me sing. Izzy used to say I had a voice like a foghorn.” 

Something changed, then. He couldn’t put a finger on it, as Stede didn’t move on the stool, didn’t move a muscle. His face didn’t change, his expression just as casually happy as before. But something… stiffened. Ed felt as though a mask had lowered itself over Stede. A mask of Stede’s own face, with that grin painted on. “I’m sure she’s mistaken,” Stede said cheerily, and that had changed too; Stede’s voice had hardened. Almost brittle. 

Ed, at a loss of what else to do, simply said: “He.”

The mask tightened at the edges. Stede grinned on. “Ah. He. I’m sure he is mistaken.” He threaded his hands back into Ed’s hair, and again, it had changed. The touch was less sure, more careful, more clinical. 

“Do you sing at all?” Ed asked, with forced casualness. “Hit up any… I don’t know. Any… lighthouse keeper concerts?” 

Stede laughed, a little too much. “Oh no, no, no. Only to myself. And in any case, I’m sure my own selections would pale in comparison to what you’re used to. I don’t believe Greensleeves gets much airtime on pirate vessels.” 

“I don’t know,” Ed asked slyly. “How does it go?”

There was a beat, and then Stede said, almost like before: “Nice try.” Something genuine fluttered around the edge of his masked smile. 

They laughed, neither in full. Another beat. Stede’s hands continued their work with no special attention paid, and Ed felt a pang of loss. 

Quickly, as though he was forcing himself to ask, Stede blurted out: “So. Is… Izzy particularly skilled at performance? He seems to have such a professional opinion of yours.” 

Ed stayed at a loss, and wished he could find the thread to pick up. “He is, actually, yeah. Not that you’d guess it to look at him. And you have to get him pretty fucked up before he’ll sing a note. Plus one time, the rest of the crew started giving him shit over it- ooh, sing it again, Mister Hands, and all that. He ended up stabbing a guy.” Ed thought for a moment. “Which is… how most stories about Izzy end, honestly.” 

Stede hummed noncommittally behind him, and Ed pressed onwards, recklessly, trying to fix something without knowing where to look for the break. “He’s alright, Izzy. Known him most of my life. Saved my ass a few times. Good first mate. Alright fun, when I can get him to take the stick out of his ass. But that’s a challenge in itself-”

“First mate?” Stede asked suddenly, and Ed heard a slight catch in his voice. He looked up at his host in confusion, and saw him staring down at Ed with a strangely intense expression that Ed couldn’t begin to read. 

“Yes?” Ed responded carefully. “He’s my first mate. Or… was. Can’t really have a first mate without a ship, I guess.”

Stede blinked at Ed, and Ed saw the corner of a mask begin to lift. “I see. So… Izzy is your… coworker?”

Ed blinked back, nervous to say something wrong and reset the mask on Stede’s face. “…He’s my friend?”

And just like that, Stede smiled widely, the mask shattered, and the room felt warm again. Ed didn’t know what he had done, or how he had done it, and didn’t really care. Stede let out a breath that Ed suspected he had been holding for the past few minutes- and oh, his palms returned to the back of Ed’s head in full, happiness and relief evident in his touch. “Ah,” Stede said with almost a sigh. “How lovely. I can’t wait to meet him.”

Yes, you can, Ed thought, but decided to stop the Izzy talk. 

There was a short beat of silence, and Ed felt a shiver run down Stede’s arms. He craned his eyes back, and asked: “You alright?”

Stede nodded, blowing a strand of hair out of his face and offering Ed a smile. He was relaxed again, eyes bright in the candlelight, golden hair lit from behind like an oil painting, two spots of color in his cheeks. “Fine, thank you. Just a bit chilled.”

Ed’s gaze flicked down to Stede’s wet shirt, and fighting down the urge to apologize, said quietly, “Oh. Well… the water’s still hot.”

Stede laughed slightly, with a sense of nervousness playing around the edges. “No need to rub it in, Ed-”

And before Ed could stop himself, before he could remind himself of all of the reasons it was a bad idea, he said:

“You could get in.”