Chapter Text
ED
It must’ve been the blood loss that made it so hard for Ed to stay conscious. He’d certainly endured broken bones many times before. Once, he’d even had a cannonball dropped on his bare foot and still managed to finish a raid despite his toes being mashed to bits. But now, as Hornigold brought down one blow after another, Ed drifted off, hearing and seeing things—unhelpful things—as soon as his eyes fell shut.
The goal here was absolutely not to succumb to mental images of Stede in his nightshirt, alone, terrified, and soaked in ocean water. He didn’t need fictional conversations where he’d tell Stede what had happened and then give him a final farewell.
But the more Ed fought to stay awake, the louder that imaginary tune sounded. At first, he’d thought it was a bird, or some sick fuck on Hornigold’s crew whistling while watching Ed get his shins bashed in. But no. It was music—prettier than the kind you’d hear in a tavern.
What baffled Ed most was how that music soon became all he could hear.
There was just such… feeling behind it. And the soaring, flittering melody made the ache in Ed’s chest overpower the torment in his legs.
Stede.
The feeling of the tune seemed so very Stede-like with its delicate intonations. This had to be the flute he’d given him. That meant Stede received it, somehow. Did that mean the Revenge and her crew were all right?
Ed forced his eyes open.
Greenery expanded into the horizon.
Ed blinked again, expecting to return to the grime of Hornigold’s ship, but no. The chants and jeers were gone, and now emerald grass bent beneath his feet. Trees filled with flaming red blossoms dotted the hillside as silence lingered throughout the skies. Ed wiggled his toes inside his boots, finding his limbs fully intact and his leather pants unmarred by rips or streams of his own blood. The melody continued, its longing notes filling Ed’s ribs with the kind of radiant warmth that reminded him so much of that day on the beach when the sun had been low and Stede’s hair had been golden.
He gazed up at the purple clouds. A single seagull soared overhead.
Panic lanced through Ed’s guts. No. He shouldn’t be here. He needed to be on Hornigold’s ship! He needed to be the distraction or else the crew would be firing their cannons and doing hell knows what to the survivors!
Powering forward on his very unbroken legs, Ed stormed to the top of the hill, desperate to get a get a handle on his surroundings—to see how far he was from the water.
Reaching the summit, his face stung by the wind that whipped his barely covered chin, Ed slowed.
There were two figures in the grass partially obscured by boulders and foliage. One sat. One stood. Both were clad in high-collared black garments, somewhat regal and very warrior-like.
Ed stepped closer, his hand going to his hip where his knife ought to have been. Blast. He’d given that lousy thing to Izzy.
No time for fear. Ed pushed a tree branch aside, then immediately paused dead in his tracks, reeling with a sensation like a cannonball to his chest.
Buttons and… Jim?
Buttons was the one seated, his legs crossed, his gaze facing forward. Jim stood at Buttons’ shoulder, twirling a knife and looking ready for action.
“WE NEED TO KNOW HOW MANY MEN ARE SURROUNDIN’ YE CAP’N,” Buttons said.
Ed looked over his shoulder, once to the left and once to the right. “Uh, no one?” He was incredibly confused.
Jim cocked their head. “He means on Hornigold’s ship. We’re preparing our attack. As you may have figured out, we’re in another…” They flailed their hands, appearing to struggle for an explanation. “What the fuck is this place called, again?”
“THA GRAVY BASKET, CAP’NS.”
“Yeah, so we’re in this gravy basket or whatever,” Jim explained. “Which you probably figured out when you went through that cave.”
Ed’s brow pinched. “What cave?”
Fuming, Jim spun to face Buttons. “He didn’t have to go through the cave either! Am I the only one who had to do the cave?”
“The fuck is the cave?” Ed asked.
Jim cracked their jaw. “It’s this place where you see some shit and feel some shit and it’s probably all very useful for personal development, but I’m really fucking personally developed right now”—here Jim gave Ed a hard stare that conveyed an unspoken bitterness about a certain kidnapping—“and I really wish I coulda’ gone straight to the knife-throwing.”
Ed squinted, still confused.
“CAP’N BONNET AND LUCIUS WENT THROUGH THE CAVE,” Buttons said. “THEY’RE WHY YOU’RE HERE CAP’N. THEY FIXED THE SHIP AND NOW WE HAFTA FIX YOU.”
Ed’s bewilderment was not alleviated by any of these words, and now a million questions competed for control of his tongue. He decided on the only question that mattered. “Where’s Oluwande?”
Jim’s eyes became soft at the sound of Oluwande’s name. “Sabotaging Hornigold’s cannons. Doing captain shit.”
“Nice,” Ed said, wishing that’d been his idea.
As baffling as all this was, at least Ed had a mission: a ship to attack. “So, there’s about fifteen assholes around me on the Ranger, not including Izzy and Hornigold. That said, those two are pieces of shit and their crew hates their guts…”
Jim and Buttons shared a narrowing glance—quite a sight given that Buttons and Jim were probably the two most opposite people on the Revenge’s crew, but now readily conspiring together.
“Still,” Ed said, recalling everyone’s helplessness when he’d last laid eyes on them. “We’re not in good shape for an attack—just judging by what I saw before we left the ship. And we’re outnumbered.”
Slight smile flickering, Jim gave their knife another lazy twirl.
“And you only got one knife,” Ed added.
Buttons met Ed’s gaze. “YE GOT TA LISTEN TO THE FLUTE, CAP’N.”
“Yeah,” Jim said, as though what Buttons had said somehow made a lick of sense.
“YE GOT TO LET IT IN,” Buttons said.
Since there was no point in arguing, Ed turned his attention to the flute song. The haunting melody coiled like ribbon silk in his ears, pushing heat into his eyes. The million questions in Ed’s brain began to fall quiet, though Ed wasn’t sure why.
Slowly, Jim crouched—lowering themself into the grass like a hunter stalking prey. When they rose once again, they had about eight knives in each of their hands.
They smiled. “See? Listen to the flute, Blackbeard. You listen to the flute and then you reach into the grass.”
Now Ed really listened, savoring the small, breathy gasps between notes and the glorious discord between the two separate sounds. He hadn’t noticed that before—that there were two separate players—both of them encouraging him on, and one of them definitely Stede. Even just the sound of that man’s breathing could make Ed’s heart threaten to burst.
Mirroring Jim’s crouch, Ed slunk low—taking it a bit more slowly due to his leg brace and old joints. When he reached into the grass, his fingertips met countless handles and blades. Every knife he would need was well within his reach.
Jim’s white teeth flashed. “See?”
Ed smiled readily. “I see.”
“I think we’re ready to do this,” Jim said.
Surging warmth cascaded through Ed’s veins. Months ago, he’d snatched Jim and marooned Oluwande… nearly killed Lucius. Now this misfit crew were working together to help save him.
“You shouldn’t be helping me,” Ed said. “Not now. Not after everything I did.”
Jim rolled their eyes.
“What?” Ed asked. “I kidnapped you.”
“Yeah, you kidnapped me, but if you die, Stede’s gonna be sad, then working for him is gonna suck ass. Also, we gotta fuck up Hornigold and his ship or else they’ll keep coming for us.”
Ed grunted, glad this was all happening for selfish reasons on Jim’s part. “So, we’re ghosts then? We’re doing a ghosty fuckery, that it?”
Wickedness darkened Jim’s features. “We’re gonna be Hornigold’s worst nightmares.”
#
The thing about ghosts, hexes, and the supernatural is that it’s all a bit chaotic—especially during something like a fuckery. There’s the time problem. See, time goes in all different directions when you’re not in the world. Which is doubly confusing for someone like Ed who was both in the world and not in the world. And so, while the Ed of the breaking wheel kept getting his shins smashed, the Ed of the gravy basket was sawing through his ropes, releasing Ed’s wrists then scrambling to release the caged prisoners. But whenever the Ed of the gravy basket would cast a glance at the Ed of the breaking wheel, he’d see he’d gone from having his shins smashed in to having them not-yet-smashed… which happened several times until the Buttons of the gravy basket managed to sink his metal teeth into Hornigold’s neck once and for all.
A geyser of blood shot skyward from Hornigold’s neck. It spewed with obscene gusto, raining down on Izzy who was already plummeting backward thanks to the knife pinned at his throat. Those gathered assholes who’d been cheering Ed’s mutilation were all struck silent.
The Ed of the breaking wheel, finding his wrist knots cut, forced himself up despite the blistering agony below his knee. “Told you, shitheads. Don’t fuck with a witch during an eclipse.”
Seamen scrambled in every direction, at least half a dozen diving overboard. Choking, Hornigold clutched his severed throat, blood drenching his fingers as he fell first to his knees, then flat on his face into a pool of bright scarlet.
Ed wrung the ache out of his wrists. They were only slightly blistered from the ropes. He was back to being one person—the agony in his leg far too terrible to keep him half out of himself.
Barely remaining upright, Izzy stammered. “What the fuck are you, Edward?” He looked awed and too terrified to attempt to fight back against his invisible assailant.
Ed dully regarded the pathetic man’s open-mouthed spluttering. “Hornigold was a particular piece of shit. But Izzy, I don’t feel like seeing you die today.”
Somewhere in the ether, Jim groaned, annoyed.
“Put him in the cage,” Ed said. “Let his crew—whatever’s left of them—decide what they wanna do with him.”
Izzy shrieked as his body pitched backward, a fearsome thrust launching him into the cage. Jim—still invisible but nonetheless capable of fuckery—snatched the lock and key. In no time they had Izzy trapped like a dog.
Panting, Ed regarded the few remaining seamen who were crouched, petrified, in the shadows. “Your captain’s dead. His first mate is caged. The Ranger is your ship now.” Holy hell, Ed’s broken leg was making his vision turn white. “But let this be a warning—if you ever see the Revenge on the horizon, just sail the other way… get as far away as possible. Do not… and I repeat… do not ever fuck with the Revenge and her crew, because we will fuck you harder.”
Scatters of affirmative grunts sounded as light began to fill the sky.
Bright blue waters once again spread across Ed’s field of vision. Nearer, the Revenge waited silently in a sunbeam. She’d suffered some splintered timber and her sails were singed, but she remained afloat and, for that, Ed said a silent prayer of gratitude.
After tightening a piece of rope to stop his own bleeding, Ed hobbled over to the railing just as Buttons—the solid, smelly, filth-covered Buttons of the world—climbed onto the Ranger’s deck.
Ed actually fell into the man’s arms.
Hugging Buttons had certainly not been on Ed’s list of things he expected to happen that day, but when several of your bones get broken and then hitches in time put them back together again, and then you get smashed once more, and you’ve been bleeding from a compound fracture in your shin… well, it can make a fearsome pirate captain do odd things like plummet onto the chest of the Revenge’s strangest crewmember.
“ARE YE FULLY OUT OF THE GRAVY BASKET, CAP’N?” Buttons asked.
“Yeah,” Ed said gratefully. “I’m out of the gravy basket. What about you?”
“I’M ALWAYS IN THARE A WEE BIT. JUSTA KEEP AN EYE ON THINGS.”
Ah. That made sense.
Oluwande hurried aboard next, then helped Ed keep his mangled leg steady as he lowered himself into the dinghy. Jim was lying supine between the benches, looking up at the sky with a vague, wonderous expression.
Reaching over, Ed gently pinched their boot. “Thanks, Jim.”
Oluwande’s jaw clenched. “Now is a pretty shitty time for sarcasm.”
“Nah man.” Ed settled parallel to Jim with his leg propped up. “Jim handled Izzy for me.”
Oluwande’s eyes narrowed at Ed, utterly befuddled. “What exactly happened back there? Half Hornigold’s crew took to screaming and diving overboard.”
Ed grin silently.
“What?” Oluwande asked.
“I’ll explain later,” Jim rasped.
Now Oluwande’s eyebrows had gone all the way up in his hatband. Yes, this was all going to take some time to explain.
Ed gazed out over at the several seamen flapping and flailing in the swells. Hopefully, the remaining crew on the Ranger would lower a dinghy for them.
He sighed.
There’d been a time in his life when he would’ve carved the lungs out of every man who cheered while he bled. The old Ed would’ve hung each one of them by their earlobes as he gutted their chest cavities. Those bastards weren’t Ed’s concern anymore. The only thing that mattered now was getting the Revenge and her crew to a secluded atoll—somewhere with plenty of shade, fresh water, and safety.
Ed flopped back into the bottom of the boat and covered his face with the bit of rag Buttons had given him. He could still hear the ribbon-like melody of Stede’s flute and, as the boat bobbed in the swells, Ed breathed in the sour stink of the cloth and let himself cry.
He’d never actually done that before—wept because he was happy.