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It turns out Davy Jones’ locker is less of an actual locker, and more of a shipwrecked frigate at the bottom of the ocean, preserved inside an air pocket the size of a volcano. And Davy Jones himself is not the fiery eyed, smoke wreathed monster of legend, but a normal looking man. Something of a dandy, even, for a pirate. Hair and beard neatly trimmed, shot through with streaks of grey, cream-coloured waistcoat and breeches in the modern fashion, and a carved bone pipe that he sucks on thoughtfully before saying, “What the fuck’s a Stede Bonnet?”
“A pirate,” Ed says. “Just shy of my height. Blond hair, dark eyes. Talk your ear off, dresses like he’s on his way to marry the queen.”
Jones blinks slowly, puffing away. “Doesn’t sound much like a pirate.”
Ed rubs the back of his neck with one rough palm. “Yeah, well, he’s the fuckin’ Gentleman Pirate. Kills with kindness.”
“How would that work?”
Ed assumes it’s an aristocracy thing, like passive aggression. Really strong handshakes, poison in the pastries. Maybe you let someone borrow money off you and then jack up the interest until they die of shock. “Fuck if I know,” he says eventually. “But he’s a pirate alright, so he should be here.” He gestures around the patently empty ship, the ropes coiled neatly, cannons stowed. Nary a footstep in the dust other than his own.
Jones tilts his head back, blows a smoke ring or two up into the air where it disappears into the darkness, and presumably, eventually, up into the water. “And he died at sea?”
“Stabbed,” Ed says flatly.
Jones makes a circular motion with one beringed finger, motioning Ed to go on.
Ed shrugs. “Not much to fuckin’ tell, man. We were boarded by the Dutch a couple months back. Bit of a commotion. Stede didn’t make it.”
Jones chews on the stem of his pipe, thick brows drawn low over unreadable eyes. “I don’t remember the Dutch navy boarding a pirate ship recently. Was it a pitched battle?”
“I guess it was pretty bloody,” Ed says carefully.
Jones hums. “That’s quite a tale.” He knocks his pipe out against the rail, the ashes falling over the side and down to the sand below. “Are you sure that’s how it happened?”
Ed meets his eyes. “I wouldn’t lie to the devil.”
“I heard Stede Bonnet was stabbed not by an enemy combatant, but by his so-called friend.” Jones tucks the pipe away inside his jacket, rests a hand lightly on the sabre at his belt. “A traitor hidden behind a curtain, like Polonius.”
Ed swallows. “Yeah, well, I don’t know where you heard that story, but I can tell you for a fact…” He trails off, brow furrowed. The fuck does Davy fuckin’ Jones know about fuckin’ Hamlet?
He clears his throat. “Actually, man, bit of a topic change, but I wanted to say I’m kind of a fan.”
“Oh?” Jones says with some suspicion.
Ed leans to one side slightly to dig around in his pocket, struggling to get his sweating hand into the leather. “Yeah, and I just want to say that I’m really sorry about all this shit.”
Jones tightens his hand on his sword, leans back in case Ed’s about to pull out a weapon. “What shit?”
Ed lunges forward and grabs Davy Jones’ shoulder with his free hand, knees him hard in the balls, and makes a dash for the captain’s cabin.
He slams the door behind him and holds it shut flush against his back, boots bracing against the flaking wood underneath him. Scans the room - the sofa, the bed, the collection of swollen, waterlogged books piled high in wobbling stacks. He grabs a chair and wedges it under the handle just as Jones reaches it, wrestling with the doorknob from outside and cursing.
“Ed?” comes a somewhat hoarse voice from the corner.
Stede Bonnet, a vision in only slightly salt-stained cerulean silk, gets up from behind the desk. “Ed!” he says, with unbridled delight. Then his eyes widen, his jaw drops. “Wait, you’re dead already? It’s barely been a minute!”
“I’m not dead,” Ed says quickly, shoving the sofa up behind the chair to keep the door firmly closed. “I’m really ill.”
Stede opens and closes his mouth a couple of times. “Is that good?”
“Better than dead,” Ed says brightly, crossing the room to reach him. “Come on, I’m here to rescue you.”
Stede just looks at him for a moment, his eyes ranging from the raked back curls atop Ed’s head, all the way down to his scuffed leather boots, and back up again. “But…how are you here?”
“I bribed a witch for a ticket to Davy Jones’ locker. Drank snake venom, smoked some shit.”
Currently Ed’s mortal body is laid out on the deck of the Revenge, surrounded by a chalk circle and various braziers of smouldering herbs that had made even Buttons make the sign of the cross. The poison had reached his shrivelled heart in seconds and begun to slow his pulse, beat by beat by painful beat, until eventually he could no longer feel his fingers, his legs, his face, and he began to slip below.
If he concentrates, he can just about hear the falling sands of the hourglass the witch placed by his left ear, the remaining minutes before his ticket runs out.
He makes a grab for Stede’s wrist, tugs him towards the windows at the back of the ship. “Let’s get a fuckin’ move on.”
Stede pulls against him gently, back towards the door. “Why is the door barred?”
“I kicked Davy Jones in the bollocks.”
“What?” Stede says with a yelp. “David? Why on earth would you do that?”
“Maybe because he’s keeping you trapped in the land of the dead?” Ed says, baffled.
“Keeping me - Ed, I’m not kidnapped, I died. Where else do you expect me to-” Stede trails off, finally noticing Ed staring at him. “What?”
“David?” Ed pronounces carefully, squinting. “You’re on first name terms with the fuckin’ devil?”
Stede snatches his wrist out of Ed’s grasp. “I certainly don’t think of him as the devil! And might I remind you that it’s been two literal months, and it’s perfectly natural to form attachments to…and anyway, I certainly won’t be lectured by a man who stabbed me to death!’ He seems to remember this suddenly, his cheeks going pink and his eyebrows shooting up to somewhere near his hairline. “In the back, I might add! Right in the middle of a fuckery!” He looks into the middle distance wistfully. “I missed my big finish.”
Ed grimaces. He’d been hoping Stede might not remember his untimely end, some kind of post-death amnesia, or that he might not know who his murderer was, what with having stabbed him through a curtain and all. “Yeah, I did…do that. I admit it. But I didn’t mean to, man.”
Stede looks confused - then suddenly pales, puts one hand on his chest. “Wait, really? It was an accident? God, Ed, all this time I thought…wait, you mean you tripped? Or perhaps the rocking of the boat-”
“Oh, no, nothing like that. I just mean I didn’t want to do it.”
Stede blinks. “But you did do it?”
“Yeah,” Ed shrugs, scuffing the toe of his boot on the boards.
“That’s not a bloody accident then, is it?” Stede says through clenched teeth. “That’s just…regret! We all have that!”
With something akin to a cannonball blast, the door to the cabin suddenly bursts open, shattering the chair propped under the handle to splinters and firing the sofa at speed into the opposite wall. Davy Jones walks in calmly, brushing sawdust from his lapels and pulling at his cuffs in what strikes Ed as a Stede-ish manner.
Ed whirls around, placing himself in front of Stede, dagger out for all the good it may do. “Stay behind me. I’ll take care of this.”
“Don’t be silly,” Stede tuts, and steps out from behind him. “Sorry about all this, David. This is Ed. The one I was telling you about.”
Jones raises an eyebrow. “The traitor who murdered you.”
“Aw, come on, man,” Ed whines, eyes darting over to Stede now standing beside him. “I said I was sorry.”
“You didn’t, as it happens,” Stede says primly.
“Well, I am.”
Stede tips his head to one side as if listening carefully. “Am what, pray?”
“I’m fuckin’...you know what.” Ed shifts, picking at the hilt of the dagger with his thumbnail. “Shouldn’t’ve done it. Wish I hadn’t.”
Stede puts his hands on his hips, turns back to Jones pointedly, as if to say, ‘See what I mean?’
Davy Jones smirks, dips his head slightly.
Ed clears his throat. “Look, I’ve come to take Stede back where he belongs, okay? Don’t try and stop us.”
Stede sighs, turning to face him. “Ed, I’m dead. This is where I belong. I assume I don’t have a body left up there, or if I do, it’s in pretty poor shape.” He pauses with a slightly sickened expression. “Oh God, you didn’t have me embalmed did you? Or stuffed?”
Ed glares at him. “We buried you at sea.” Wrapped in sailcloth, gently tipped overboard. There’s nothing left of Stede’s mortal remains, save a single blond curl pressed between the pages of a book Ed has hidden in Stede’s desk.
“So what would I do up there? Become a ghost? Haunt the crew? Or perhaps you expect me to possess some poor soul?” Stede looks him up and down sharply. “I hope as my murderer you’ll be first in line to volunteer.”
Ed swallows, throat suddenly dry. Plans weren’t exactly his forte, he was an improv guy, and the witch they’d picked up in Barbados hadn’t had many suggestions as to what might happen to Stede once he brought him back above. The thought of Stede just - climbing inside, settling in the marrow of him, tucked away behind his heart, a whisper in the back of his head, makes him shiver all over.
He conceals it with a scowl. “I don’t fuckin’ know, do I? We’ll figure that out once we’re back up there.”
Stede sighs. “Ed, If there were a way for me to return to the mortal world, I’m sure David would have attempted it already. I’ve been taking advantage of his hospitality for a good while.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Ed sees Jones look up towards the ceiling as if it’s suddenly very interesting.
“Where are all the other pirates then, Stede?” Ed gestures around the empty cabin.
Stede frowns. “Perhaps there’s been a run of good luck for pirates recently? Calm seas, lucky escapes, that sort of thing?”
“There hasn’t,” Ed says darkly.
“So what are you suggesting?”
Ed spins his dagger lightly with his wrist, keeping the point roughly in the direction of Davy Jones. “Everyone knows that when a pirate dies at sea, the devil drags them to the bottom of the ocean and eats their bloody heart from their chest.”
“Ed!” Stede says with horror, not at the mental image but at Ed’s rudeness.
Jones makes a small noise of disgust, wrinkling his nose. “Is that what they say?”
“There hasn’t been any heart eating going on since I’ve been here, I can tell you that!” Stede says with a flat gesture. “Goodness me.”
“Why would I eat hearts? They’re all gristle and tubes. Not even the best part,” Jones says, making a face. “No, I just turn them into fish.”
Stede and Ed make eye contact briefly. He turns to Davy Jones. “Sorry?”
“Well, where else do you think fish come from?” Jones says, with a gesture to the window.
“Um…I suppose…” Stede runs a hand over his cravat. “When two fish love each other very much-”
“No.” Jones tips his head back and forth, considering. “Well, yes. But not all of them. No, any pirate who ends up here, I transform them into a creature of the deep, and just…” He flaps a hand towards the window again, the black waters beyond. “Those who love the ocean are granted a second life beneath the waves. That’s the way it goes.”
“So, every time I’ve eaten fish,” Ed said slowly, brow furrowing, “that means…”
Thankfully, Stede cuts him off. “Okay, fish people. Yes. That’s fine. So why not me?” He frowns. “Am I not pirate enough for-”
“No!” Jones says hurriedly, one hand out. “Of course not. It’s not that.” He sighs, sits down in an armchair that looks somewhat shark-bitten. “It’s not easy, turning people into fish, you know.”
“Bet I could do it,” Ed mutters.
“There’s an art to it,” Jones continues, ignoring him. “Assessing the personality of a person and matching them to the perfect amphibian. Oh, it’s easy to take a cowardly milksop and place them in the body of a jellyfish, or a bloodthirsty wretch and transform them into a vile dolphin.”
Vile? Stede mouths to Ed with a frown.
Rapists, Ed mouths back, though from Stede’s puzzled expression, he either hasn’t come across that particular trivia tidbit, or can’t read his lips through his beard.
“Most pirates are so,” Jones holds a hand up as if trying to pluck the perfect word from the air, “boring. So expected.” He tips his head to Ed. “No offence.”
“Piss off.”
“I’ve gotten so good at this game that I can do it with my eyes shut,” Jones says sadly. “I only need to speak to someone for a moment or two and I know exactly what they should be.” He sits up a little straighter, turning to Stede. “And then I met you.”
“Oh,” Stede says faintly. “Well, that’s very-”
“I have no idea what kind of sea creature would suit you best, Stede. You are so very much…yourself.” Jones clears his throat, looks away. “So, yes. I have been selfish. And I have kept you longer than perhaps propriety allows.” He stands up. “But so what? Would you rather go back to your actual murderer?”
“So there is a way back,” Ed says with a grin.
Stede tuts at him with a frown. He turns back to Davy Jones. “Look, David…I can’t deny it’s been a bit of a lark down here with you. I certainly appreciate all the trouble you took fishing all of those books out of the ocean for me, even if most of them are unreadable. But I can’t deny that there are things about the mortal world that I miss, if only a little.”
“Like what?” Jones says.
“Um…food? Sunshine? Other…” Stede swallows, “other people?”
“It’s me or the fish, Stede Bonnet,” Jones says darkly.
“Or I could just fuckin’ stab you to death,” Ed says, motioning with his blade.
Davy Jones smiles slowly. “You’d be dead before you took a single step.”
Stede sighs, puts one arm out to stop Ed, his palm warm over his suspended heartbeat. “Ed, just give it up. I’ll be fine down here. I have been.” He rubs his fingers over Ed’s waistcoat unconsciously, eyes distant. “Surely your…ticket will run out eventually anyway?”
“It will,” Ed says, eyes not leaving Jones’.
“So there you go,” Stede says with a shrug. “You wake up back on the ship, leave me down here, and I’ll see you in a few decades.”
Ed can hear the hourglass beside his ear in the waking world, the sands slowing to a mere trickle. “Stede, when my ticket runs out, I die.”
Stede drops his hand. “What?” he says in a hollow voice, turning to face Ed fully, his eyes wide.
Ed shrugs simply. “Either I go back with you, or I don’t go back at all.”
Stede takes hold of one of his lapels, his face pale. “Ed, no, you can’t do that. You…you’re the greatest pirate who ever lived. You have to go back.” He nods firmly. “The world needs Edward Teach.”
Ed places his hand over Stede’s on his collar. “And Edward Teach needs Stede Bonnet.”
Stede’s whole face crumples at that, his eyes damp. “Oh, Ed…” he says softly. “You bloody fool.”
Ed squeezes his fingers with a wry smile.
“That settles it,” Jones drawls behind Stede. “One dolphin, coming right up.”
Stede turns sharply, his expression tight. “Honestly, David, you are many things, but I never thought you could be cruel.”
Davy Jones seems to get shorter all of a sudden, his shoulders hunching a little. “Well, I-”
“Do you honestly believe you could keep me somewhere I no longer want to be?” Stede places his hands on his hips. “I can be quite the annoying houseguest, you know.”
“It’s true,” Ed says from over his shoulder. “He gets really shitty if you use his decorative soaps.”
“I should think you would find me rather unpleasant to live with if you were to murder the man I…” Ed sees Stede clench one of his fists tight, then slowly, consciously, relax it, smoothing his fingers out against the silk of his breeches. “The man I love.”
Ed feels the word pass through his chest and settle in his heart, as if Stede had possessed him after all.
Jones raises an eyebrow. “You mean the man who killed you?”
Ed winces.
“Yes, well,” Stede looks at him over his shoulder, eyes narrowed slightly. “He didn’t mean to do it. I’m fairly convinced he won’t do it again.”
Ed licks his finger, hastily paints a cross over his heart.
Stede breaks into a small smile, then schools his face back to sternness, turns back to Davy Jones.
“I won’t send you back,” Jones says petulantly, folding his arms. “It breaks all the rules.”
“Surely pirates make their own rules,” Stede says lightly. “It’s either you send us both back to the mortal world, where you know as well as I do that we’ll both be passing through here again sooner or later. Or else…” Here Stede takes a deep breath, steeling himself to do something very against his nature, “I won’t tell you what happens to the little wooden boy.”
Jones freezes, eyes wide. He slowly raises one hand to his chest. “You wouldn’t.”
Stede pulls his cuffs taut from the ends of his sleeves. “You know I don’t joke about literature, David. I can’t imagine you’ll be getting any legible books down here in the near future, or that you’ll run into another pirate who’s familiar with the story of dear little Pinocchio.”
“Probably think it’s a posh brandy,” Ed helpfully chips in.
Davy Jones sags back into his armchair, his arms resting between his knees. “Fine. You win, Stede Bonnet.”
Stede steps back to stand by Ed’s side, takes hold of his free hand. “Don’t think of it as goodbye, my dear. Just au revoir.”
***
Ed wakes up gasping for breath, his lungs refusing to reinflate, to allow any air in. He clutches at his throat, claws at it.
The witch leans over him, gives him three hard thumps on the ribcage, and something in his throat seems to loosen. He gasps, then pants for breath, every inch of him on fire.
“Lie still,” they say. “You died, remember?”
Ed flaps his mouth open and closed desperately, unable to form words, his throat punishingly dry. All that comes out is a squeak.
“I think he’s trying to say something.” Lucius’ concerned face swims into view above him. “Where’s the captain, Captain?”
Ed gestures with one arm to the side of the ship, thumping the palm of his hand on the deck.
Lucius looks up in that direction. “In the water?” he says, getting to his feet.
Ed can hear his footsteps retreating as he hurries over to the rail.
Suddenly, a faint, lilting voice rings out. “I say!”
“Oh my God,” he hears Lucius mutter.
“Hello? Lucius? Help, I don’t know how to swim!” Stede yells from the open water.