Chapter Text
Given the events of the past twenty-four or so hours, Pete's still convinced this roundtable discussion of Stede's will turn into a funeral service at any moment. Lucius is whole and—well, maybe not whole, but he is breathing again, at least. Pete isn't clear on all the details, but the point is that Lucius is alive, tucked into Pete's side, cradling his injured hand and the new wooden finger upon it. Being stabbed to the mast like a living, breathing figurehead doesn't seem to have slowed Stede down much, either. Even so, none of the facts really reassure Pete that Fang won't be committing more than someone's finger to the sea before lunch.
Then again, facts don't seem to matter much on the Revenge. There isn't even a table on deck, round or otherwise. Surely he doesn’t mean the capstan—no one’s that bad of a sailor, not even Stede Bonnet, and certainly not Pete.
Lucius taps his new wooden finger against Pete’s temple. “You’re thinking awfully hard over there,” he says.
“Just tired,” Pete tells him, and he honestly is, what with not daring to catch even a wink of sleep since this whole debacle with Lucius’ finger started in the jam room. Roach had told Pete to quit his vigil after the laudanum incident, but Pete’s heart had been pounding too loud in his ears after they’d nearly offed his… His whatever they are to each other. Pete’s uncertain exactly what it means to Lucius when a guy he regularly sucks and fucks and cuddles makes him a new pointer, but Pete knows exactly what it means for him to have made it.
“Mmm, same.” Lucius snuggles his head in between the side of Pete’s face and his shoulder, then straightens up again with a wince. “Could sleep for a year if my back would shut up, ugh.”
“Oh please don’t sleep for a year, hon!” exclaims Pete, loud enough for Buttons to give him an odd look from the other side of the gathered company. “I don’t think that’s good for you,” he adds more quietly.
But Lucius only laughs around a yawn. “Just an expression, babe. Can’t snooze during Captain’s…” Lucius waves his newly-fingered hand around listlessly; the wooden appendage juts out, awkward as a sore thumb, which is only marginally better than the toe it looks like. “His whatever-this-is. Probably supposed to take notes about his brilliance or something equally ridiculous.”
“Nothing particularly brilliant about getting stuck to a mast,” mutters Pete, “even if he did somehow manage to win the duel.”
"Yeah, well—" Lucius shrieks nearly as loudly as Karl does as he swoops overhead in an arc before landing neatly on Buttons' head once more.
"On yer feet fer yer captain!" shouts Buttons. The crew grumbles as they begin to stand up.
"Co-captains, actually," Stede says, the knuckles of his right hand white as he grips the neck of a new bottle of rum. "We've only recently decided."
Buttons mulls over the new information, glancing from Stede to Ed, who leans against the mast Stede's attached to. "The fuck's a co-captain?" he asks, looking down at Roach.
"They are, apparently," Roach says around the sewing needles clamped between his teeth, eyes remaining focused on Stede's wound.
"On yer feet fer yer co-captains!"
The Swede raises his hand. "Do we need to find additional feet since we are standing already?"
"They don't even need to be standing, really," Stede says after swallowing another mouthful of rum. "This is more informal—a sit-down meeting of equals, some of us more equal than others, of course."
"On yer seats fer yer captain!" Buttons drops to sit on the deck, leaving Karl squawking as he loses his perch.
Ed swats loose seagull feathers out of Stede's face. "Co-captains, mate."
"Co-captains!"
Wee John groans. "I've only just got up!"
But Stede ignores his grousing. "Welcome all to our first ever inaugural post-fuckery debrief!" he instead says, far too brightly for a man with a mortal-ish wound, in Pete's opinion. "Now I know not everything went exactly according to plan, but I do feel comfortable in declaring it a smashing success."
"More of a stabbing success, really." John settles himself on a stack of crates.
Roach snorts from where he kneels. "This is less stabbing and more skewering."
"If ye say so." John shrugs. "Ye're the surgeon."
"Since fucking when?" Roach spits the needles into his hand, then slips them into a pocket on his apron. "I'm only listed as ship's cook on the manifest."
"Head Chef," corrects Stede, "but regardless, we have vanquished both foe and fiend and—" His eyes scan the crew. "Hang about, where is our Mr. Hands?"
"Banished back to the QAR," Ed tells him, gesturing out to sea, "as were his terms."
"Damn, I've missed it!" Stede takes another forlorn swig from the bottle. "Did he have any parting words? Lucius, read back the record."
Pete looks at Lucius, who seems equally perplexed by the proceeding. "Um, I haven't made a record yet actually? On account of the whole having to snip off my finger to save life and limb thing?"
"But I remember what he said!" Roach chuckles as he dabs at Stede's wound with a bit of gauze. "'A pox on all you twats, and especially on all of your twats!'" Pete thinks his Izzy impression could use serious work, but knows better than to say so.
"That seems uncharacteristically repetitive of him," Stede admits.
"I think he was referring to both our characters and some of our crew’s, uh, physical characteristics,” says Roach, gesturing vaguely at Jim, who looks perhaps two seconds away from stabbing everyone on board.
Stede's frown deepens. "There can't be that many twats aboard, can there?" he asks as the crew looks at each other with various levels of concern. "Hands up, everyone with a twat!" Astonishingly, his hand is the first in the air, though Stede lowers it again quickly with a pitiful whine of pain.
Pete’s sweating, and it has nothing to do with the morning sun hitting the back of his neck. Only Roach and Lucius know his secret, though only Lucius knows what his dick looks like. That had been stressful enough, those long roving fingers having gone to fondle Pete’s groin in the storeroom and coming up emptier than he likely expected. The chances of Stede also saying, “Oh fuck yes, I love this for us,” seem very slim. Pete hopes so anyway—he hasn’t felt the urge to fuck a captain in years, and Bonnet’s too frilly for his tastes. Then again, any words from Stede would be preferable to the heavy anxious silence that has fallen over the deck thicker than the gathering clouds in the east.
"For fucking," and then Jim says something in Spanish that's too advanced for Pete to understand. The look on Jim's face as everyone else around them slowly joins in raising a hand needs no translation however. "Wa—wait a fuckin' minute, all of you?" they ask incredulously, face turning an alarming shade of scarlet as they take in the co-captains’ sheepish palms. "I knew about Olu, but… All of you‽"
Pete feels similarly, but Lucius slumps in relief beside him. "Oh thank God," he says, giggling, "that was even worse of a secret to keep than Jim's."
Stede shrugs as best as he's able. "Well th—"
“No!” Jim shouts, leaping to their feet, pointing around at everyone, arm loose as a badly braced yard in a gale. “Back it up: why did you all give me such a hard fuckin' time if we’re all in the same boat‽”
“Uh.” Pete scrunches up his face and levels his best you can’t be that stupid stare at Jim. “We’ve never all not been in the same boat?”
“They mean that we’re all different-than-usually sexed,” Lucius tells him.
“Then why’d they even mention the boat?”
Jim rubs their furrowed brow and says something about either a father or a potato, Pete thinks. Whatever it is, Oluwande starts snickering.
“Look, Jim, mermaid's curses are no laughing matter,” says Frenchie with a barely restrained eye roll. “Couldn’t have you singing us all to our doom with your breasts, now could we?”
“He’s got a point,” Pete whispers to Lucius.
“Not really,” Lucius says, “at least not when Izzy’s rack was still aboard.”
Pete hums in concession just as Jim asks, “How do you all have facial hair? And where the fuck did everyone's apparently musical tits go‽”
The responses don’t vary much; Pete almost has to wonder if there’s only the one sea witch serving the entire Atlantic. Frenchie seems horrified—”I keep telling you, John, she was an herbalist!”
“Just a fancy word fer sea witch, innit.” says John. Frenchie looks like he might faint.
Pete wonders if he should share his own story, since it’s different enough. He thinks the old medicine woman living on the outskirts of his family’s settlement might be affronted at being called a witch, never mind being associated with the ocean, should she even still be alive. A glance over at Lucius shows his mouth clamped firmly shut, no inclination of sharing, which doesn’t surprise Pete. Lucius had loved hearing Pete’s adventure and even called him, “something of an embellisher,” which Pete can only assume means he’s even better at storytelling than he thought he was; as far as Lucius’ own adventure toward becoming a man, he’d been hesitant to share more than a few words in an unfamiliar tongue.
Granted, Lucius had made up for it by using his tongue in a number of other wonderful ways, so Pete still counts it as an overall win.
“Ed, I don’t understand,” Stede begins. “How did Izzy know?”
“That's just how Iz is," explains Ed. "'S why I made him my right hand. Massively perceptive man, my Iz."
"Well—" Stede grunts as he rests the bottle on the blade still protruding from his gut. "Well that hardly explains Lucius."
"One," Lucius says, "how dare you, and two, I'm an equally massive slut." He turns to give Jim a saucy wink; Jim growls back, and not in a necessarily sexy way if Oluwande's frantic tug on their elbow to join him down on the decking is any indication.
Stede sighs, a nearly inaudible huff given Jim's continued Spanish monologuing from Oluwande's lap. "Can we safely move on to the next order of business?"
"Speaking of the devil," says Frenchie, "might be prudent to make certain Mr. Hands is safely back aboard his vessel, Captain."
A series of uncategorizable expressions play across Ed's face as Fang doubles over giggling. "I'm sure he's fine," he says in a monotone.
"Nonsense, Ed! That was good thinking!"
Frenchie brushes something non-existent off of his sleeve. "Ta."
"It's important, as a people-first manager, to support your men as they develop," Stede continues after hiccupping. Ed steadies the bottle as Stede lets go of it. "Does anyone have an eyeglass?"
"Stop moving!" Roach snaps, pulling one bloodied wad of gauze away as he presses a fresh one into place. "This is delicate work!"
As Roach and Stede snipe at each other, Ed accepts his own glass from Ivan. He looks especially legendary and piratical as he adjusts the lens, Pete decides, albeit less so when he starts to laugh.
"Oh yeah," says Ed, and Stede pauses mid questioning Roach's lineage. "Iz's back aboard alright."
"Let me see." Stede snatches the eyeglass out of Ed’s fingers.
"Suit yourself."
If Ed made nine faces, then Stede is making… Well twice that many, and Pete's not looking away from whatever this someteenth expression is long enough to add it up on his fingers. Stede looks constipated, but Pete figures that's just the sword in his stomach talking.
"What on earth are they doing to him?" Stede asks in an oddly high-pitched tone. "Is that legal?"
Ed snorts. "Pirates, mate."
"Right, of course, but is he in danger?"
"None he doesn't want to be in," offers Ivan, grabbing Fang’s elbow to steady him before he laughs himself off of his perch.
Roach holds the latest gauze in place with his elbow. "Nathaniel," he says, snapping his fingers at Buttons. Pete expects bloodshed, but Buttons simply hands over his glass with a private smile. Roach takes a look at the situation on Blackbeard's ship and whistles. "I've never seen so many sausages out on a deck at once," he muses.
Beside Pete, Lucius squirms until his uninjured arm is free. "Quick question, Captain Bonnet."
"Yes, Lucius?"
"How does one go about getting banished to the QAR? It sounds fantastic."
"Know I could do with another of Captain's vacations." Oluwande keeps stroking Jim's hair, craning his head to look around their pouting face. "Preferably one with lots more of those little tropical umbrella drinks."
"A fantastic idea, Oluwande!" Stede says above the mass assent. "But perhaps with less running the ship aground and being captured this time." He looks down at the sword, eyes a bit glassy. "And also actual medical services?"
"Yeah," says Roach, handing the glass back to Buttons, "he's done a number on your liver. The best I can offer you is a cork, a prayer, and a nice wine to go with it."
Stede somehow manages to pale further. "I thought there was nothing important on that side."
"Oh that's his panic voice," Lucius tells Pete. "That never ends well."
"Ed, you said—"
"No-Liver Neville lived without his just fine!" insists Ed with a bright smile that flips upside-down almost immediately. "Did collapse a few days after though. Unrelated reasons, I'm sure."
Stede gulps. "Oh dear."
"We're near the Republic, Captain Blackbeard," Ivan chimes in. "There's bound to be a disreputable surgeon or three hanging about Jackiez."
"And maybe even a live one inside!" adds Fang. His final giggle turns into a hiccup.
"Splendid!" Stede says in a tight voice. "Shore leave at the Republic of Pirates, everyone?" The crew bursts into cheer. "Yes! Yes, good," and Ed catches the side of Stede's head as it drops toward his shoulder.
Stede leaves the ship on a stretcher, carried by Fang and Ivan, flanked by an increasingly worried Blackbeard. Pete, however, is fine to use his own two feet, his and Lucius' combined vacation bonus jingling in his pocket. He knows it's a risk to fiddle with it here in the Republic, an island full of thieves, but the sound of the coins clinking against each other in their little sack makes him feel more important.
Maybe this is how birthed men feel about their testicles. Pete's still a little miffed the medicine woman wouldn't exchange his parts, only shooed him away with a promise that he'd appreciate her someday.
"Babe," hisses Lucius, rubbing at the base of his wooden finger, "cut it out!"
"What? More infection?"
"No, the—the advertising happening in your trousers!" Lucius jerks his head toward the other side of the street where a group of boys play. "I know I was a ruthless pickpocket at that age; can't imagine how bad this lot is, living here and all."
"Aren't you still a ruthless pickpocket?"
Lucius smirks momentarily. "Flattery will get you everywhere with me, but it will not dissuade the children from robbing us blind."
"I can fight those babies."
"Oh, I'm sure," he says in a voice that makes Pete question if Lucius truly is. "You'll backflip into a kicking spree."
"Well, yeah, hon. Of course I will."
Lucius sighs. "Just take your hand out of your pocket, alright? For me?"
"Yeah, babe." Pete manages, though his fingertips immediately itch for the cool familiarity of the metal. He'd do anything for Lucius, especially now; this is the most he's really talked since yesterday morning. Lucius had seemed to take the loss of his finger in stride at first, but grew quieter and more glum as the day progressed. Even if he's only exchanged a sullen mood for anxiety, Pete welcomes the change. "Sorry," he says, and wraps his arm around Lucius' waist, uncaring of who sees.
They settle into a slower stride, Lucius leaning into Pete. "We've got the room sorted at least," he says eventually, the boys long behind them. Lucius sounds more like his lascivious and confident self.
"Nice of Karl, to fly ahead for us." Pete lets his fingers slide along the waist of Lucius' breeches. "Not sure what a seagull's gonna use a finder's fee for though."
"The gulls have a thriving gig economy, don't you know?"
Pete blinks, then takes a quicker step to catch up. "I didn't know that, actually."
Lucius laughs as they turn the corner onto the little side street indicated in the address Karl had brought them. "Yeah babe," he says, "we're living in the future."
"Speaking of living." Pete steps over a man either dead drunk or simply dead. "Are you sure this is the right place?"
"'Top of number four South Lorraine,'" Lucius reminds him. "This is South Lorraine, which would make this…" He turns his head back to count the little row houses again. "No, that can’t be right."
"I'm not great with numbers, but that's definitely a five tally on the front."
"And this one's got a three." Lucius turns to the mostly empty lot between the two buildings. "What's the one across the street?"
"Uh. Looks like nine smudgy lines." Pete peers around Lucius and asks, "Isn't that a sign with four there?"
"You mean in the rubbage heap?" Lucius then groans as he realizes, "And that's a tent behind it, isn't it?"
"More of a lean-to."
"Even better!" Lucius lets his head fall back with a frustrated, closed-mouth hum, arms dangling at his sides, hands no longer planted on his hips. "We can't stay here," he tells the clouds above, "absolutely not."
"I've definitely paid more for worse," offers Pete. He raises his foot out of the way of a fleeing rat.
"Not the point."
"And it's gonna be hard to find somewhere better in the Republic on this short of notice," Pete continues. "That's why we went with Karl."
"I'm never using Air B&B again." Lucius digs around in the bag slung over Pete's shoulder, then promptly plops down in the dirt with his sketchbook.
"Whatcha doing, sweetie?"
"I'm gathering evidence." The stick of graphite slips from Lucius' fingers as he tries to commit the first stroke to paper, the perpetual pointing of his new finger keeping him from gripping it properly. Lucius tries to catch it as it rolls off the page only for the graphite to upend itself over the wooden prosthesis and tumble to the ground anyway. "At least," he says, clumsily picking the stick up between his thumb and middle finger, "I'm attempting to."
"Maybe you'll have to take the finger off to draw," Pete suggests, but Lucius shakes his head.
"Not an option. Even less of an option than staying here."
"Why?"
"Because it isn't!" Lucius snaps as he drops the graphite again. He sighs again. "I'm sorry, babe. Just… Incredibly frustrated right now and was very much looking forward to a proper bath and a bed and the scenic view we were promised in the advert."
Pete nudges Lucius' hip with his toe. "I mean, this is definitely a scene. Can't deny that." He holds out his hand for Lucius to take, pulling him back up beside him. "We'll figure it out. There's gotta be somewhere to stay that isn't roughing it. Where was everyone else going?"
Lucius makes a face. "Ugh, some boarding house with lots of cots and probably a worse smell. Hardly lends itself to the art of seduction, being surrounded by forty grody gentlemen and the aroma of old wet horse."
"Our first time was in the hidden cupboard near the livestock," Pete reminds him as they turn back onto the main road. "I might be a lot of things, but an expensive date is not one of them."
"See, that's just it." Lucius slips his elbow around Pete's. "All we've shared so far are stolen moments in shared spaces. Maybe I want to seduce you properly."
"With Captain's money?"
"With Stede's money, yes." Pete slows his pace, Lucius still chattering, but Pete not really hearing the words. He doesn't have a problem with dipping out of Bonnet's coffers—Stede's fault for not having a proper bookkeep aboard, really—but something about being seduced seems uncomfortably close to being taken care of.
Which Pete neither needs nor wants, of course. That wouldn't be very manly of him. Besides, Lucius is the more, well, feminine of the two of them, isn't he? Pete should be taking care of and seducing him, not suddenly thinking about all the times Lucius has effortlessly taken charge of make-out sessions and wondering if he might, perhaps, maybe, be interested in—
"You good?" Pete looks up from his feet and nearly jumps at how close Lucius' face is to his. Lucius puts his hand on Pete's cheek. "Come on, babe, say something."
"No... No one's ever said that to me, I mean," mumbles Pete. “That I need seducing, proper or otherwise.” He has to look away, eyes escaping whatever concern must lie in his lover's.
"If that's not alright, then I won't say it again," Lucius says gently, and some sudden strange terror seizes in Pete's chest at that potentially being the end of the ride before he'd ever even jumped on.
"No! I mean, not no," Pete explains, lowering his voice again as a chicken crossing the road startles into squawking. "No, as in I don't…" He deflates, closing his eyes to make getting the words out less difficult. "I'm very okay with it. Just not the kind of guy that, um, typically gets that. Seduced, you know."
With his eyes shut, Pete doesn't know Lucius has leaned in to kiss him until their mouths have met. It stirs something low in his belly, long secret and laid to rest. There's a wolf whistle from a passing merchant's cart, and the reek of backfiring goat, and it breaks whatever spell had placed itself.
Lucius only smirks, the man of three days ago once more. "Then let me make you one," he says, like it's a simple matter of letting it happen, as if anything in this life could be simple.
Then again, the world feels less complicated with Lucius' fingers twined with his.