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Part 22 of OFMD Whumptober 2025
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OFMD Whumptober 2025
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Published:
2025-10-22
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1,145
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1/1
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Snowed Under

Summary:

Stede was a fucking idiot. He was going to die, and it was all his own damn fault. He did everything he was told he shouldn't do. Hubris? Or maybe he just didn't care if he lived any more. Well he bloody well cared now. There was something to be said about confronting death head on to realise that he didn't actually want it. Fuck.

OFMD Whumptober Day 22: Trapped

Notes:

A huge thank you to my beta reader for this whole whumptober series ourflagimplodes who has been an invaluable cheerleader and helped me through my imposter syndrome with lovely comments! Any mistakes left are my own.

You can find the songs I wrote these fills to on this playlist , the song numbers correspond to the fill I wrote as I listened to them.

The song for this fill is Run by Snow Patrol

As with all of my whumptober fills for this year, please be mindful of the tags.

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Work Text:

Stede was a fucking idiot. He was going to die, and it was all his own damn fault. He did everything he was told he shouldn't do. Hubris? Or maybe he just didn't care if he lived any more. Well he bloody well cared now. There was something to be said about confronting death head on to realise that he didn't actually want it. Fuck.

Luckily he'd remembered something from his survival training and managed to cup his hands over his mouth as he tumbled. He was also pretty sure he'd managed to stick a foot out of the top of the debris, but if there was no one around to see him that wouldn't exactly help. Only Stede Bonnet, certified idiot, goes skiing off piste with no plan and no buddy and gets himself buried in a fucking avalanche.

Eighteen minutes. Eighteen minutes until he suffocated or froze to death. Why was that what he remembered from his survival course? Eighteen minutes of slowly dying while his avalanche alarm clipped to his belt drove him insane. Maybe by the time he lost consciousness he'd be happy to get away from the noise.

He wondered if the kids would miss him. They'd been happy with Mary and Doug since the divorce, and he didn't want to disturb them. Maybe it would be easier for them to pretend they'd always been a happy family unit once he was gone. Once he wasn't reminding them of his existence by facetiming at inconvenient moments or embarrassing them by picking them up at school. He tried to shake off that train of thought, and instead wondered how long it would take his new friends to notice he was gone. Well, employees-slash-friends. He hoped their next cheques wouldn't bounce if his accounts ended up in probate. Oluwande was more than capable of taking over the business, if he wanted to. Well, hobby-cum-business. Maybe they'd all be happy to move on to a job without a ridiculous boss.

Melted snow dripped between Stede's fingers, soaking into his gloves. He wished his breath was strong enough to melt the rest so he could escape, but instead he felt it start to refreeze, coating his hands in ice. He knew it wouldn't be long now, that was another thing they had warned about on the survival course. Soon he'd run out of oxygen thanks to that godforsaken ice.

He closed his eyes and concentrated on breathing slowly and keeping his mind as clear of regrets as possible. He didn't have enough time to go through them all anyway. No point in starting if he wasn't going to be able to finish. After a minute he thought he heard voices. Perhaps he was hallucinating. He thought he remembered reading somewhere that that can happen when your brain dies. Synapses firing off as they fail, that kind of thing. Then they got louder and louder, closer and closer, and then Stede could hear the crunch of snow boots. Rescue.

"I'm here!" he yelled, as loud as he could. "I'm alive!" He wiggled his foot frantically and almost cried when he felt a hand take hold of it and wiggle it back. "I'm almost out of air!" he yelled.

"On it!" came a very muffled reply.

 

What kind of fucking idiot goes off piste by himself on a mountain with a high avalanche risk? Ed had been gobsmacked as he'd noticed the lone figure skiing lazily down the mountain from his and Fang's vantage point. Then the inevitable had happened. Ed had tried to yell a warning as the slab broke away, but he was too far and the avalanche was too loud. He and Fang were powerless to save the stranger. They could, however, try to spot them and maybe they'd have enough time to dig them out. Of course Ed ended up on an avalanche rescue on his only day off from mountain rescue in a fortnight.

Thank fuck they had an avalanche alarm. They never would have found him without it. As he and Fang split up to try and hone in on the noise, Ed scanned the debris field for anything that might give away where they were. He knew he had an ever shrinking window of time to get to the skier and dig them out. If the cold didn't get to them, the lack of oxygen would.

 

Ed was getting frantic as time passed. They were at over ten minutes before he finally spotted something - a boot! There was book sticking out of the snow! He called to Fang and took off across the debris as quick as he could. He shouted at the top of his voice to try and alert the owner of the boot that he was coming, but it was a crapshoot whether they'd be able to hear depending on how deep their head was buried. As he got closer the boot began to wiggle. They were alive! He grabbed it and wiggled back, and a muffled voice called out from the snow below. Ed hadn't quite heard what they'd said, but he replied anyway.

"On it!"

Neither Ed nor Fang ever went off piste without a full survival kit each, so they were each shovelling snow within moments. They left the legs alone and instead concentrated on getting as deep as they could as quickly as they could. Whoever was stuck beneath them only had a couple of minutes of air left, if they were lucky.

More and more teal snowsuit was uncovered as they dug before finally arms, and then hands covering a face. They moved to their gloved hands to pull snow and ice away from their face without having to worry about the sharp edges of the shovels. Ed pulled the hands away from the face and the person behind them took a deep, gasping breath.

"Thank you!" he said. "Thank you, thank you, thank you! I thought I was going to die!"

A blond haired and red-faced man, it looked like. "No worries, mate. Just glad we were here to get you out of this mess."

"Me too," he replied. "I think I've been rather foolish."

Ed let out a laugh. "You could say that. But hey, you've learnt your lesson, yeah? No more off piste skiing by yourself." Ed pointed at Fang. "Hell, I'm a professional and I always make sure I've got a buddy." Fang waved. "Now, let's get you outta here properly, and then we'll get you off this mountain."

The man smiled. "I would very much like that."

He's cute, even if he is an idiot, Ed thought as he began digging again.

"So, to whom do I owe my daring rescue?" the man asked, and Ed laughed again.

"I'm Ed," Ed said, "And he's Fang."

"Nice to meet you Ed and Fang. I'm Stede. Stede Bonnet."

Notes:

Come scream about gay pirates with me:

Bluesky: ramsaybaggins

Tumblr: ramsaybaggins

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