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It starts with a hot stab of jealousy as the little boat disappears into the dark, taking Edward and Jack with it. Stede had almost resolved himself to be angry with Ed for thinking so poorly of himself, but as the two of them vanish together into the night, he hears Jack's brash voice again, the memory presenting itself so abruptly and vividly it fools his ears into thinking he can hear it out loud.
Blackie and I have had our dalliances.
Nothing to be ashamed of.
Dalliances. Stede knows what that means, he's not completely naive. He went to boarding school, and okay he wasn't exactly popular but put a dozen teenage boys together in a dormitory with no girls and no privacy, and things are going to happen. Nobody had ever talked about it, no one had ever asked if you'd done it, you just… sometimes did. If there was a boy who didn't hate you and neither of you could sleep because, well… It just felt better, didn't it, if you helped each other out? You'd get flogged if you were caught, but that was part of the thrill. Doing what you weren't supposed to be doing.
Stede hadn't given it much thought in a while. He'd married, because he had to, and married sex was as tedious as married life, but he'd always figured it was boring because it was allowed. Encouraged, in fact. He'd never really understood why certain types of sex were encouraged and others got you a flogging, but he'd assumed that was the allure of intimacy with other men; the danger, the scandal, the sense of adventure. He'd never betrayed Mary (well, not until the day he did ), but the fantasy was, more or less, how he'd managed to father two children.
Now, he's not so sure. Now, he suspects there might be more to it than that.
Anything goes at sea.
And he's well aware of Lucius's antics around the ship.
And now he knows that Ed has…
And Jack, that unkempt, unpleasant rotter of a man…
Fuck.
Stede almost trips over his feet as he stumbles to his cabin, snatches up his telescope, and figures out which window gives him the best view of the cove. The rum may go right through you, but enough of it remains in his system that his thoughts keep getting tangled up in each other. He's thinking of school, of the strange intimacy of someone else touching him, of Ed, of Jack in the next dorm bed looking over at Ed and Ed's grin in the dark, and how many times? How often? And It's allowed, it was allowed this whole time, I could've said something or done something or…
Mary's face flickers into his mind's eye and a stab of guilt punctures the jealousy, but it barely lasts a moment. His wife and children seem so distant now, like long-lost friends. Since Ed arrived in his life and put on his clothes and slept every night on his plush velvet couch, nobody he knew before has mattered quite as much. Of course the children, the children matter and always will, but do they need him the way Ed seems to? Do they even want his company, the way Ed seeks him out? And, ultimately, they aren't here. They aren't here and Ed is, and this is happening.
Ed is drifting away on a little boat with a man who… Who he's… Well. Who he's what , exactly? The rum tumbles his mind down another dark alleyway where he finds the awful sight of Ed and Jack doing something in the dark. Something intimate, no doubt, but is it the quick and functional tryst of schoolboys who've never seen a woman wearing less than three layers of clothing, or is it something else? Something softer? Do Ed's fingers linger the way they do over Stede's shirtsleeve when he can no longer resist the allure of the silk? Does Jack use his mouth, do they kiss? Do they hold each other in the dark?
"Fuck," says Stede, and scrambles up onto the windowsill to get a better look. The boat is bobbing in the surf, and its two passengers are an arm's length apart, stowing the oars and doing something with rope.
Oh. Right. Obviously. Reality is much easier to recognise without the interference of rum.
"Stupid rum," Stede mutters. "Horrible stuff. Much prefer a good brandy. Don't you, Ed? Of course you do. Man of taste, I've said it before."
There is someone laying on the couch, but it's not Ed so he ignores their complaints about his muttering and clambering and the tapping of the scope on the window, and has another look. The little boat has made shore now, and the slender, graceful, unmistakable shape of Ed is hauling it up the sand and away from the tideline. He's easy to see because he's moving, because the moonlight glints off his belt buckles, because Stede could pick him out of a crowd from any distance, but Jack is harder to find. Stede may not have been able to pick him out from among the seaweed sprawled across the beach, except that he lifts his head to yell something at Ed before flopping back down again.
There he is , thinks Stede, that scoundrel . That cad. That absolute rat-bastard. The man who Stede had allowed on board his ship, who had hurt his crew, who'd made Ed believe that the two of them, Ed and Jack, were alike. Who'd tried to make Stede believe it.
Stede has never really hated anyone before, not really , not with the kind of fire that burns in him now - although that might also be a touch of indigestion. But this wretch of a man had led Ed to believe that he was no better, that he, too, was some sort of senseless thug. It was a crime Stede had no idea how to forgive, nor did he have any clue how to make Ed see in himself what Stede saw. His grace, his gentleness, his passion, the softness of his smile… Everyone knew that Blackbeard was clever and strong and fast and brilliant. But had anyone ever told him that he was beautiful, that he was thoughtful, that he lit up the room when his smile reached his eyes? Because someone should've. Someone should've.
"I should've," he mutters. "Stupid, stupid! I should've told him."
"Probably should've, yeah," mumbles the figure on the couch. Sounds like Olu. Stede blinks at him in the dark, but Olu isn't moving, just laying where Ed used to lie. Keeping his spot warm. Good old Olu.
"Good man," Stede mutters, then turns back to the telescope. The clouds have cleared a little, and he can see Ed lying face-down in the sand with Jack beside him, laying on his back, both still enough to be sleeping. After a few minutes, Jack rolls over. Away from Ed. Good . Keep rolling. Roll into the ocean and drown, will you?
It wasn't supposed to go this way. Stede Bonnet's great sailing adventure was supposed to be - well, an adventure. Exploring distant lands, discovering wonders, seeing the world, maybe a bit of light plundering and possibly some swashbuckling, although he was yet to find anyone who could explain what a swash was and how, exactly, one ought to buckle it. Instead, he's become a killer, he's been stabbed more than once, he's been captured, he's eaten some extremely mediocre cake, and, apparently…
He lets his forehead thump against the glass and hugs the telescope to his chest.
Apparently, I've fallen in love.
And realised it far too late. And lost out to a whip-wielding maniac with a truly ghastly moustache.
There's movement over on the beach, the moonlight just about picking out a figure staggering upright and falling back down again, Jack's awful bark of a laugh carrying through the air, followed by a few lines of a song Stede doesn't know. He scowls and lifts the scope again, ignoring the pained mumbling from the sofa, pulling his battle-robe around him, and settling in for the night.
Over on the beach, under the full moon, Edward closes his eyes and ignores the rock jabbing him in the back, the scratch of sand where it didn't ought to be, the stink of seaweed and of Calico Jack. Closes his eyes and dreams of soft things. Dreams of silk and cashmere and plush velvet upholstery, of delicate lace cuffs falling across pale, smooth hands as they grip the rail beside his own, of coiffed blond hair and warm brown eyes and a bottomless, endless, sincere kindness that warms him like the sun.