Chapter Text
Ed wrinkles his nose as consciousness returns to him. Why do the blankets feel so scratchy? They’re usually so soft, and Stede always says they’re made from the finest Egyptian cotton or whatever. Maybe it’s time to wash them.
He rolls onto his side, seeking out Stede’s familiar warmth and hoping to just fall back asleep without even opening his eyes. Instead of the warm body that should be there, however, Ed’s hand smacks hard into a wooden wall, and he feels the familiar pinching in his knuckles that says he got a splinter from it. He curses under his breath and opens his eyes to find that he’s facing a bare wooden wall, not the fancy window that frames his and Stede’s bed.
“What the fuck?” He mutters, sitting up and automatically pushing his hair back from his face. He grimaces at its rough texture — he just washed it yesterday with that new yummy soap Stede got for him at the last port, so why isn’t it soft like it usually is these days? Ed examines his hands next, finding the splinter from the wall in the back of his index finger. As he pinches it out he realizes he’s not wearing the ring Stede gave him, either, and he’s missing his newest tattoo on his left wrist.
Shaking his head, he climbs out of bed, wrinkling his nose at the way the leather he’s wearing sticks to his tacky skin and tugs weirdly after he presumably slept in it all night. “Stede?” He calls, looking around and trying to figure out why his surroundings look so familiar. If he’s been kidnapped, then why does this room look like somewhere he’s been before?
“Captain?” The rough voice is one Ed hasn’t heard in months, and he grabs his knife from the nearby table and rushes the door, pressing Izzy Hands to the wall as soon as he enters the room, the knife to his neck.
“How fucking dare you, Iz! I told you never to show your fucking face to me again! Where the fuck am I? Where is Stede?” He growls, leaning close into Izzy’s space and pressing his free hand into the wall by the man’s head.
“What — Captain, what the fuck are you talking about?” Izzy demands, his face twisted in a familiar scowl. “I’ve got an update about the English hostages you wanted.”
Ed blinks, searching Izzy’s face and finding genuine confusion behind his usual scowl. “What’s the date, Iz,” he asks, his voice flat.
“Captain-“
“What’s the date!” Edward shouts, digging the knife into Izzy’s neck just a tad, just enough for him to really feel it.
“August 30th, Blackbeard,” Izzy replies, really glaring now, like he used to whenever he thought Ed was asking random things just for the fun of it.
“1717,” Edward mutters, mostly to himself, but Izzy nods against the knife anyway.
“Yes, Captain. Did you want to know about those English soldiers or not?”
“Yeah,” Ed mumbles, releasing Izzy and moving away. He gazes around the room as Izzy speaks, recounting the story Ed already knows. He tells the story much differently than Stede eventually does — will? Ed doesn’t fucking know what’s happening here.
He supposes this could be some awful fuckery the crew is pulling on him. But why would they get Izzy involved? Everyone hates Izzy. Or else Izzy has kidnapped Ed somehow and is now trying to convince him that the last year has never happened? But that doesn’t make any sense. Ed tugs at his beard, and sure enough, it’s longer and rougher than it was when he went to sleep. He’d have to have been drugged to hell and back to not remember being kidnapped and to be out long enough for his beard to grow this much.
It doesn’t make any more sense than any other option, but the only thing he can think of is that he must be in the past, on the day before he met Stede Bonnet.
“So what’s the plan, sir? Do we open fire? Or would you rather we just attack them, kill them, throw them out to the sharks, sir?” Izzy asks, and Ed scowls to himself, keeping the expression hidden by his hair.
“No,” he replies, doing his best to keep the anger he feels out of his voice. “Wait ‘til they make landfall, then invite them aboard the ship.”
Ed faintly hears Izzy agree before the door closes behind him. He’s not paying attention anymore, instead looking around for a mirror. His eyebrows crawl up on his forehead when he realizes his quarters on this ship — what was its name? He can’t even remember — don’t have a single looking glass. There’s a silver ashtray on the desk, though, and Ed does remember that. He took it from a raid after it caught his eye, and he used to spend quite a bit of time running his fingers over the intricate carvings of vines and leaves running around the rim.
He dumps the ashes unceremoniously on the desk — there aren’t that many, actually, because Ed remembers he used to try not to use this one too much, afraid of ruining it — and flips the small tray over to gaze at his slightly warped reflection in the smooth underside.
He doesn’t look that different, behind the hair and beard. They’re both awful, though, frizzy and tangled and making him look half-mad. He tugs a hand through his hair and winces at the harsh yank when he hits a tangle. Ed is hit with a wave of longing for Stede and the hairbrush he runs through Ed’s hair each morning. Ed can brush his hair himself, of course, and he does sometimes, but it’s nice that Stede is willing to do it, that he enjoys sitting behind Ed and just taking care of him.
God, how is he supposed to do all of this again? How is he supposed to go back to his old life, to live without Stede now that he’s had him? How is he supposed to go back to the same boring routine, the same constant downward spiral when he knows that it could be so much better?
At least it’s August 30th. He’ll save Stede’s life tomorrow, and everything will kick off. Will he have to do everything the same way, go off with Calico Jack and get captured by the English and everything, or will he be able to change things now that he knows how it should end up, how everything has already happened?
Or will trying to avoid the pain make him change things too much? What if, in trying to avoid getting captured by the English or Stede nearly dying, Ed somehow manages to cause something even worse to happen? What if he ends up getting Stede killed?
Ed can’t help but shudder at the very idea. It reminds him of when he first heard about the fuckery Stede pulled in Barbados, before he knew it was a fuckery. Those couple of weeks when he thought Stede was really and truly dead were some of the worst of Edward’s life.
Fuck, he misses Stede. The bastard has gotten Ed so used to asking for comfort that not being able to seek him out and get a hug makes his chest ache.
He forcefully turns his mind away from Stede, a massive feat on a good day. Instead, he pulls half of his hair into a messy ponytail and ties it off with a strap. He wanders out of his quarters a few minutes later, the filtered sunlight coming in through the one grimy window not enough warmth for him when he’s already so… fuck, he supposes that homesick is the word for it.
Ed has never really had a home worth being sick for before. He can’t say he enjoys the feeling.
As he wanders the ship, his mind making the odd note of where it could do with some extra decoration, he can’t help but notice how the crew seem to avoid his eyes. They nod to him and greet him, saying “good morning” and “Captain” as he passes, but none of them meet his eyes. A younger man — just a boy, really, he must be a year or two younger than Lucius — who Ed thinks hasn’t been on the crew long actually cringes away when Ed walks by, like he’s scared Ed will skin him alive for re-tying part of the rigging.
The Revenge’s crew hasn’t feared him in… months. Maybe longer. Ed misses them, too. He misses other people calling him Ed, misses being seen as a person rather than as the terrifying, legendary Blackbeard.
He ends up standing alone at the bow, gazing through a spyglass at the Revenge, far ahead of them on the water. He can’t make anyone out from here, and he knows that at this point Stede doesn’t even know that Blackbeard’s taken an interest in him. Still, he can’t help but imagine Stede on that ship, missing Ed just as much as Ed misses him.
Stede doesn’t even know that there’s anything there to miss, though. Not yet.
Fuck, Ed has a headache.
He spends the rest of the day trying not to think about what’s happening, what it means, what he can do about it, if he can do anything about it. Izzy bothers him a few times, trying to convince him to just sink Stede’s ship and be done with it, but Ed just glares at him until he slinks away. It’s oddly therapeutic, he thinks.
As the Revenge approaches the Republic of Pirates, Ed paces the deck, unsure what to do. He could go down there right now instead of sending Izzy, could stop Stede from going with that asshole who sells — sold? fuck, his head hurts — him out to the Spanish, could save him from getting stabbed and nearly hanged.
But what if him being there makes it worse? What if him being there changes things enough that they both get captured, as unlikely as it is, and he has to watch Stede really die?
It soon becomes clear that the Revenge won’t reach port until the morning, so Ed goes to bed without coming to a decision. He lies there for a long time under scratchy blankets, staring up at the ceiling of his unfamiliar quarters, still in his leather pants because he used to just get drunk and fall asleep in his clothes rather than getting changed, and he doesn’t even know if he has pajamas on this ship.
Ed rolls onto his side after a while, squirming to try to get comfortable in the too-cold bed and staring at the wall. He knows the Revenge is several leagues that way, that he’s staring in the vague direction of Stede Bonnet as he tries to fall asleep. It’s hopelessly pathetic, but Ed can’t bring himself to care.
“Goodnight, Stede,” he whispers at the wall, finally closing his eyes and eventually drifting off into an uneasy sleep.