Chapter Text
“The gentleman pirate, I presume.”
It had been emblazoned across him, on the left side, for as long as he could remember.
Not that it had mattered.
~.~
“You’ve heard of me?”
It had appeared when he was three, on his belly. At the time, he had been excited. Was his soulmate someone famous? What were they famous for?
~.~
Normally, soulmarks were removed, if one could afford such a procedure. Very few in polite society Barbados had them, and that was fine. Oh, perhaps they wouldn’t go through the process if it was generic enough, if they were vague enough that you probably wouldn’t know them even if you shook their hand - one of Stede’s classmates had a simple “Hello,” which had been spared - but they simply didn’t come into the equation. Marrying your soulmate was for peasants, caring about who your soulmate was was for peasants.
And that was the identifiable, albeit socially acceptable, soulmarks, the ones that displayed that your soulmate was normal, that you were normal. Stede’s? Stede’s was concerning at best, damning at worst. A pirate? Was this some sort of joke bestowed upon their family? His destiny, according to this goddamned mark upon his skin, was an embarrassment waiting to happen.
The irony, of course, was that those words couldn’t be removed, not when he got them. They were simply too large, taking up almost the entirety of his lower torso. The doctor said that they could try, but Stede likely would not survive the procedure, that they could very likely cut straight through into his stomach or other vital organs, and that was before the healing process, which would be torturous. It would be best to wait a couple of years, when the words would take up a much smaller, less dangerous area.
His father only paused for a second too long before agreeing.
~.~
Of course, Stede was a strange one, and when the time did come when he was large enough could have the dreadful mark removed from the left side of his lower torso safely, he said in no uncertain terms that it was a part of him and it would be staying on his person for the foreseeable future.
Father Bonnet, of course, was livid. But he knew, despite his son’s general disposition, that he would not budge on this. He couldn’t get Stede to kill an animal for food, and he would not convince him to remove the mark that brought shame to their family. Stede was only seven, but he had had that mark on his body for as long as he could remember. He was attached .
He made his son swear that he would not go chasing after the destiny the mark promised, that when the time came he would marry a nice girl without a soulmark, and that was that. He did not speak of the mark again, not for a long time, for fear of acknowledging it would make the future it implied come to pass.
~.~
By eight, Edward was wishing his soulmate would whisk him away. He had heard tales of people being bonded with someone above their own social standing. Part of him hoped for that himself. Mostly he just wanted someone kind.
“Mum, when will I meet them?”
Mrs. Teach knew a great many things, despite her lowly station.
She knew about his hopes and dreams, the ones where some rich landed aristocrat would steal him away, the ones where he would use the skills she’s begged her to teach him, despite her telling him they don’t and would not matter to people like them.
She knew that soulmates almost never worked out, and those who got married were wretched couples nine tenths of the time, at least in her experience. They bound poor unfortunate women like herself to men they likely wouldn’t look twice at normally, simply because, in their naivety, they thought they were meant for each other. Her son was sweet, but there was no guarantee he would stay that way, or that his soulmate was at all.
She knew the rich almost universally removed their soulmarks, and she certainly didn’t fault them for it. She wished she could do that for her son.
But she couldn’t change the fact that that procedure was expensive, and she couldn’t bear to ruin her son’s innocence on the subject. Not today. Not when every day living in squalor, with a drunk for a father, destroyed his spirit. She smiled, not forced enough for Edward to notice, and responded, “Soon, I hope.”
~.~
By the time he was fourteen, he had seen the life fade from his own father’s eyes personally, being the one who stole it from him. He ran, boarding the first ship that didn’t ask too many questions, which would take him away from any possible repercussions. He worked hard, but he knew that old life was over. His childhood, his innocent dreams, were unreachable.
By fourteen, he realized he’d rather never meet them, that the accepted idea - that words only mattered to children and dreamers - had a point.
(By fourteen, he knew he was a monster, and that the other half of his heart, if he were to ever meet them, would be the same.)
~.~
The other children ridiculed Stede for anything they could think of, and his soulmark was far from an exception.
It started when his shirt caught on Chauncy’s jacket as he was pushing him away. it tore, just slightly, and the damage was done. They had seen the top of what was clearly a word, in dark black, etched into his skin. Chauncy’s eyes lit up, reaching for his shirt, and saying “Well, let’s see it then,” and Stede, not knowing a way out, obliged.
The children pointed, laughed, and said awful things like “Well, having a soulmark at all is sad enough, but at least he’ll never meet them! Imagine, Stede, a pirate!”
For the first time since he told his family in no uncertain terms he was keeping it, he doubted himself. It was causing more harm than good, and it would never happen. Stede’s destiny was different, words did not define a person, and even if they could, he didn’t have the freedom for that.
He kept the words.
~.~
He remembered his promise, of course.
That didn’t mean he wasn’t surprised when his father took him to meet his wife-to-be.
“I always thought if I got married, it would be -” Don’t say to my soulmate, you aren’t a child anymore, the stories are for children, everyone knows that. “For love.”
“Peasants,” Father Bonnet said, with a tone of voice that implied they were no better than the dirt on his shoe, “marry for love.”
Then, continuing in an even more disgusted tone, because they both knew what Stede meant:
“Peasants marry their soulmate.”
~.~
He learned to ignore his mark. As he aged, as he learned how to be the best pirate he could be - the best that ever lived, some told him - he spent less and less time thinking about it. Thinking about the person those words belonged to, dreading meeting them.
He decided to cover his body in black patterns, so that the words didn’t stand out so much on his skin.
When one of his artists suggested he could cover the words completely, that it could be as if they didn’t exist at all, he pretended he didn’t hear them.
~.~
His soulmark did have one use, he had come to find out. Even he couldn’t deny that.
One day, in his twenties, he was fighting some English bastard who was simply not taking “the stuff on this ship is mine now, fuck off” for an answer. He ducked when he should have dodged, and the man’s sword went right through the left side of his stomach.
Right through the words.
He waited for the blood to crawl up his throat, but it never came. His grin was all teeth when he disarmed the man.
From that point on, he used the words as a beacon, a guiding light. When he needed to be stabbed, he guided himself so the blade went directly through the words, warping them more and more every time, but never to the point of illegibility.
If he went to his quarters after every stabbing to make sure he could still make it out, shedding a tear every time he had to squint a bit more to make out a letter, well, that was no one’s business but his own.
~.~
Mary asked about the mark on their wedding night.
She was from another area of the island, of course. Word hadn’t spread to her that he still had it, not that he advertised that fact. She hadn’t known he was still in possession of it, of course, not until after they had been shoved down the aisle. She of course had had it removed, after it had appeared six months after her birth on her wrist, as anyone in her position would have.
Stede disrobed, and he saw her flinch. After their conjugal duties were complete, she said to him, in an almost offhand way, “So. You still have your words, huh?”
“Yes,” Stede said, matter-of-factly.
She nodded, and continued, “Ever thought about getting them removed?”
“Not really.”
“Alright,” she said, turned over, and went to sleep.
That was the beginning of the end, really.
~.~
Stede understood why she was concerned over his obsession with pirates. Why she specifically didn’t want him playing games with their children surrounding them, why she simply looked away when they took walks on the beach and he looked longingly at the ships. She didn’t love him, didn’t even like him all that much, but she was trying to make this work. And pirates were a taboo subject, really, who would want to go gallivanting about with them?
And, of course, she knew those words. She knew why he felt called to leave her, to leave his children. She, like everyone else, didn’t understand why they mattered so much to him. Please, Stede, she had said once, please, please be here for us, it’s not worth it to chase after a children’s story for peasants.
He ignored her. He had been doing that a lot lately.
And besides, she had that obsession with painting, even though everyone knew she was hopeless at it. How is this dream any worse?
~.~
Edward hadn’t been Edward in years. Blackbeard, the legend around his name, consumed him. People cowered when he walked into a room. When he needed that, he used it to his advantage. When he didn’t, he got Izzy to say something about how he was insane, flighty, could turn on a dime.
In reality, he was just bored. There were only so many ships you could burgle, so many people you could maim and indirectly kill, before it became commonplace.
He needed something new.
When he heard about this new man on the high seas, this ‘Gentleman Pirate’ who sounded like he couldn’t run a ship to save his life, his head perked up. Ah, finally, something that wasn’t routine.
(No one understood the science of soulmarks, of course. They didn’t matter, and even if they did, they’d be considered more of an art than anything else. But if Ed - Blackbeard - felt the old knot of scars on his side throb when he first heard Stede’s name, well, he didn’t think much of it.)
~.~
When Stede ran away into the loving embrace of his commissioned ship, he was looking for adventure. He was also hoping, perhaps, to meet people who felt similarly about soulmates as himself. He would be working with so-called ‘peasants,’ from now on. Surely some of them had lovely experiences meeting their soulmates, had a lovely life with them waiting somewhere in the world.
This was not the case. Not at all.
“Soulmates? Wasn’t there a trend a while ago that people were expected to marry em?”
“Ha! Imagine!”
Apparently the lower classes didn’t think your soulmate was your one true love, either -
“My uncle married his soulmate. That generation, you know? What a bitch. Died under mysterious circumstances a few months later. Mysterious my ass, we all think she poisoned him.” Black Pete said.
“My second cousin married her soulmate.” Wee John said, with a pinched look on his face. “Bit weird, yeah?”
Some of them hated their soulmates -
“Neighborhood boy for me.” Frenchie said. “We were always at each other’s throats, eventually we moved. You know how it is.”
Some of them cared for them, loved them even, but no more than they would otherwise -
“My little brother’s my soulmate, if you could believe it.” Oluwande told him. “I mean, I guess they got that part right, I love the kid to death. But no more than my other siblings. If anything, I hated it when I was younger, because everyone assumed we’d grow up to be the closest. Not really, he lives down the street from my sister, but it’s kind of hard to keep in touch when one of you is drifting around the ocean.”
Some of them didn’t think about them at all -
“A woman!” Lucius giggled. “Imagine! God, my mom was of that generation where she expected us to get married. Me! Married! to a woman! She lives somewhere in England, now, I think. Probably. What was her name again?”
So he was still an outsider, even in that way. Go figure.
~.~
So, Stede let go of his romantic idea of meeting his soulmate, at least for a time. Maybe he was in the wrong about this. Maybe soulmates didn’t matter.
Maybe he’d hear those words while up against the wrong side of a sword. Maybe he never would even get to respond in kind.
Were there people without soulmarks at all?
~.~
Blackbeard kept hearing about this strange man who chose to take up piracy. Who chose to take up piracy? He had to know. So, it was decided, he would meet this man. He wanted to understand what made him tick.
It took longer than he was expecting.
Finally, finally, he found him, right as the man was being attacked on all sides, on his own vessel. Pathetic. Interesting. He didn’t know if he wanted to kill him now, put him out of his misery, or wait until after he was able to have a conversation with him, understand him, if only to alleviate his boredom with his career choice for a time.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a man flat on his back, recently stabbed.
Dressed in some of the nicest clothes he’d ever seen.
Ah. Bonnet.
He walked toward him, getting close enough that he could probably see him through his no doubt blurring vision.
Opened his mouth to speak -
~.~
“The gentleman pirate, I presume.”
Stede, even through the searing pain, felt a flash of recognition. Those words. Those were his words! The words that he stared at every morning, the words everyone - everyone - told him to ignore. Despite that, despite everything, he had had decades to come up with what he would say in response. He had an essay in his head, about how he wanted to tell them that he had been waiting for them, in some ways had always been searching.
He was losing blood. Fast.
Before he could consider his carefully chosen words, delirium was starting to kick in. He opened his mouth to start, but what came out was -
~.~
“You’ve heard of me?”
Ed leaned back like he had just been slapped.
He finally heard the words etched into his skin. So this was the context. His soulmate dying. Of course.
Well. Make a choice now. Believe the words you’ve been saying to yourself since you were a teen, or reach for what you’ve been yearning for since you were a child.
“Oh yeah, I’ve heard of you.” He responded, buying some time, even though he knew what he’d do. He knew the second the words had come out of Bonnet’s mouth. “I’ve heard all about you.”
Stede smiled a bit, and then promptly passed out.
Ed ran to stanch the bleeding.
~.~
When he came to, in the light of day, the man who had said the words he had been waiting his whole life to hear was there, tending his wounds.
He was beautiful.
“That was a close call, wasn’t it? Got pretty stabbed up there by some Spaniards.”
He said it so nonchalantly, Stede may not have mentioned anything if he wasn’t still delirious, but instead, he shot up, because all he could think was, “You’re my soulmate!”
Ed’s mask dropped. He had hoped Stede was one of the rare ones - one of the dreamers - who cared about that sort of thing despite everything. Someone like him. But he couldn’t know for sure until he saw how excited he sounded. He smiled down at him gently, his eyes softening. “I know.”
“I’m -”
“Stede Bonnet. The Gentleman Pirate. I know that, too.”
“Ah.” Stede started to relax. “And your name is?”
Ed Laughed. “Edward. Ed. You can call me Ed.”
Ed stuck out his hand for a shake. Steed took it.
“And my crew?” He couldn’t be nervous. Ed was here. He knew that didn’t mean everything was sunshine and roses, but Ed seemed as pleased with this turn of events as he was. Maybe - maybe he and Ed. Maybe they could beat the odds.
“Safe. I made sure of it.”
“Well. Thank you. Ed.”
They sat, looking at each other, taking everything in, until it began to get awkward.
Stede cleared his throat as he sat up. Hesitated for a moment. Then went full speed ahead. “So…may I see…” He gestured vaguely towards Ed’s left side. The same place where his soulmark is.
Ed wordlessly began to remove layers. And then, finally, it was right in front of him. The words, his words, surrounded by patterns and overrun by - my god, is that multiple scars from what looks like swords - but there. Undoubtedly still there.
“Ah.” Stede said, not wanting to take his eyes off of the mark. “Thank you,” Finally looking up, directly into Ed’s face, he decided he needed to be sure. Wouldn’t do to have any confusion. “So. Soulmates. What do you think of those? For transparency’s sake?”
Ed looked at Stede for a moment, considered him. Looked away. Shrugged. “I always liked those fairytales. The ones where soulmate means your true love. I know this is the real world. But. If you’re like that too…and I have a feeling you might be…well…” he trailed off.
Stede smiled. “I’d like that very much.” He said, and reached up to capture Ed in an embrace.
~.~
After learning a bit about one another, exploring books and secret closets, Ed said, almost offhandedly, “Oh, just for, as you said, transparency’s sake. Not everyone calls me Ed.”
“Oh?” Stede responded, barely paying attention. “What do they call you, then?”
“Blackbeard.”
Stede’s head turned towards him so quickly, Ed was concerned about whiplash.
“What?”