Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

1.

Izzy dubiously eyed the third and most recent addition to his and Blackbeard’s super secret on-shore reconnaissance search party. “Do we really need to bring the monkey?”

“What do you mean, ‘do we really need to bring the monkey?’ Of course we need to bring the fucking monkey.”

“Okay, boss, fine! But I just don’t see what-”

Blackbeard rounded on him. The monkey, furiously trying to escape where Blackbeard was trying to make it perch on his shoulder, rounded with him.

“Look, Izzy,” Blackbeard snapped at him as the monkey snapped at the side of Blackbeard’s exposed neck, which he narrowly dodged. “All the cool, chill guys? Do you know what they all have in common?”

“I-”

“Spider monkeys,” Blackbeard interrupted him, just as the monkey let out a terrible screech and started clawing at Blackbeard’s head. Blackbeard pulled back on the tiny leather harness he’d made for it, keeping it just out of reach. “They all have these tiny little spider monkeys that they - ow, stop that! - that they carry around with them, because they’re fucking cool-looking or whatever. They’re like a spider and a monkey but like, fucking put together, man. They’re fucking abominations. It’s like, you see a guy and you look at him and you think - ‘hey, that guy, he’s just standing there, but he’s got a spider monkey! He looks really – he looks really cool and chilled out.’ And then you’re like, ‘Hey! That’s a pretty cool guy. I wish I was like him! He seems pretty fucking cool, right? I’m not gonna mess with him! I’ll - I’ll leave him alone. He’s got a spider monkey!’’

Izzy stared at him. “What?”

Blackbeard snatched up his knife-belt from the desk. “Whatever, man,” he said, making for the cabin door. He held the squirming little nightmare monkey a safe distance away from himself in a vice grip. “Just hurry up, will you? We’re bringing the monkey!”

The cabin door slammed in his wake. Izzy stared after him. After a moment, he let out a very long sigh.

“A fucking monkey,” he muttered to himself in the gloomy cabin, feeling even more beleaguered than usual as he made to follow Blackbeard to the deck. “A goddamn motherfucking monkey.” 

2.

The rowboat ride to the shore of this some random fucking island was tense and quiet. Neither one of them said anything for about fifteen minutes. 

“You hate the monkey, don’t you?” said Blackbeard.

“Do I hate-” Izzy eyed the monkey in question, currently perched on the bow of the rowboat with its face turned to the wind like someone’s twisted idea of a masthead. Wouldn’t be entirely inaccurate, came the uncharitable thought. “I mean –”

“You can just say you hate it,” said Blackbeard.

“I don’t – hate it,” Izzy lied. “But – but – it’s just – I thought you said this was a stealth reconnaissance mission.”

“Yeah. It is.”

“But – so why-”

“You know what your problem is, Izzy?” Blackbeard loudly changed the subject. “You just don’t get it.”

Izzy scowled. “Get it?”

“Get it.”

“Get what?”

“It, Izzy. It.”

“Right,” drawled Izzy. “It’s just, won’t a monkey, you know. Won’t it be-“ his voice cut off when he registered Blackbeard was currently giving him the darkest death glare Izzy had ever seen him give anyone. He swallowed. “-loud?”

“What would you rather we do with it then, hm?” Blackbeard leaned forward in his seat, cocking his head and staring Izzy directly in the eyes. “Throw it overboard? Just drown the fucking thing? Right here? Right now?”

“I mean,” Izzy shrugged. “Possibly, yeah?”

“Well, we’re not fucking doing that, Izzy,” said Blackbeard. 

“Alright, alright!” Izzy held up his hands placatingly. “Whatever you say.” He wondered if he could throw the monkey overboard in the night and get away with it. Probably not. But maybe it would be a good idea to put a preemptive stop to . . . whatever this was. It would probably be good for the crew. For Blackbeard. For somebody. Maybe just for Izzy, unless he ended up overboard next. He wondered if it would come to that. The final catalyst being, of all things, a monkey. “Whatever you say, boss,” he said.

3.

The reason Izzy assumed – Izzy hoped – that they were sneaking onto this island in the middle of the night had something to do with the as-always threatening invitation Blackbeard had received to the more-or-less Tri-Decadal Gathering of The Court of the Pirate Brethren. The invitation had come directly from Henry Avery himself, and Blackbeard had been asked not only to just show up and look cool, but also to show up and participate in a ‘collaborative brainstorming and project development session.’ 

It had gone like this: Izzy had brought it up, and, in response, Blackbeard said what he always said, which was, “I’m not fucking going to that,” to which Izzy had argued, “Boss, just think about it. It’ll be good for morale!” to which Blackbeard replied, “The fuck’s wrong with morale?” to which Izzy had told him, “The crew’s been feeling neglected!” to which Blackbeard had countered, “What am I, their mother?” to which Izzy had pressed, “You’ve just left the Queen Anne’s Revenge floating in the middle of the sound for five months!” to which Blackbeard had petulantly and sarcastically said, “Who?” which had snapped something in Izzy, who had then slammed his knife right into the arm of the chair in which Edward had been lounging, inches from his wrist, leaned right into his face, and hissed something to the effect of, “You might not give a shit about this crew but I fucking do and I will not sit here and fucking watch as you let everything we’ve built fade into fucking obscurity so by fucking god we will be going to this thing because we need something to help us get back on our feet after that ridiculous shit you pulled and at this point with what’s left of this useless fucking crew I’m convinced each and every one of these pirate captains could have us blown out of the water if we offend so much as even one of them by blowing off this invitation so for the sake of everyone on this fucking ship and our ever-so-dwindling reputations, we are going to come up with something brilliant for this meeting and we are going to fucking attend.”

And so here they were. They pulled ashore by sundown, coming up onto the sands of a deserted beach. Nothing but a thick, humid jungle stretched out beyond the shore. It had always been an irritating habit of Blackbeard’s to only tell Izzy and the rest of the crew only just what he thought they needed to know at any given time, but this went beyond even that. Blackbeard had plotted the entire navigational route here himself and hadn’t even bothered to tell Izzy the name of this fucking island, what exactly they were doing here, or why it had to be such a secret. And then Blackbeard said:

“Alright, Izzy. You wait here. Guard the boat. Be ready to cast off as soon as I get back. I’ll only be a few hours. Probably. And, oh -” he halted in the sand. “Keep an eye on the monkey.”

Izzy stared after him. “Keep a - what?”

“I said, keep an eye on the fucking monkey!” Blackbeard hissed back at him as he neared the shadows of the treeline, an empty burlap sac slung over his shoulder. From somewhere, he unsheathed a fearsome-looking machete Izzy was pretty sure he’d watched Ivan gut someone with last week. “I’ll be back eventually!”

“Wh- Edward!” Izzy hissed after him, even though, as far as he could tell, they were the only people around for miles. “Captain, wait!”

But it was too late. Blackbeard had already started to hack his way into the undergrowth and as Izzy watched, dissolved right into the jungle darkness with a nothing but a faint, “Fuck you, vines!” reaching Izzy on the shore. 

“What the fuck?” Izzy stared into the jungle until he felt a sudden wet sharpness on his hand. He looked down to find the spider monkey gnawing on his fingers.

4.

Blackbeard had picked up the monkey in a tavern in Port Royal approximately five minutes after the death of its previous owner and it had fucking hated him ever since. Blackbeard suspected this was because the monkey suspected that Blackbeard killed the monkey’s previous owner, but it truly had just been a freak accident; a freak accident involving someone else in the tavern poisoning the monkey’s owner’s drink, and the monkey’s owner, well, drinking it. Granted, Blackbeard had watched the man’s drink be poisoned, but so had about six other people, and nobody around the man had bothered to warn him about it except for the monkey, who’d screeched furiously and yanked and yanked on the man’s sleeve as he started to drink, only to be shoved off the table and ignored as, before long, the man started to choke. 

He’d just stood there, numb, watching the man die; watching as they drug the body out. That all of this was occurring about five or so weeks after The Incident and only about three-to-five days after The Other Incident which was the incident involving some anonymous peddler boy reading the news aloud to him in the dusty Jamacian streets - the news, the news, the news involving a jungle cat and a carriage accident and fucking pianos that fell out of the sky and had absolutely nothing to do with his decision to snatch up the monkey when no one was looking and drag it all the way back to the ship. He only kept the wretched little thing now because, as everyone knew, it looked cool, badass, and also mysterious to have a freaky little monkey swinging around on your arm. Much cooler than something like a parrot, even though parrots could fly and talk and looked really colorful and nice and could talk and didn’t try to bite you or smack you on the face and could fucking talk and actually maybe parrots were better than creepy spider monkeys after all but whatever. This little monkey was cool and furthermore fun to be around. Even if all it ever did was seethe, scramble, and bite. 

“Will you chill the fuck out, man?” he said to the monkey now, as it was doing just that - that is, the opposite of what Blackbeard wanted it to do, which was sit eclectically on his shoulder and chitter at his enemies through its freaky sharp teeth, hanging off his hair and peering at them with its just-too-intelligent beady little eyes. He still remembered the look on Fang’s face when he’d first brought it on board. “It’s not a pet, it’s a novelty!” he’d snapped in Fang’s direction at the time, entirely unprompted by anything but Fang’s crestfallen look of utter, utter betrayal, which had been deeply embarrassing for both of them and thus forced Blackbeard to beat a hasty retreat to his cabin without another word, whereupon he still hadn’t looked Fang in the eye since.

“We could still just throw it overboard,” Izzy suggested from the other end of the rowboat, where he alone was doing all the rowing, all the way back to the ship. “That fucking thing tried to bite my fingers off.”

“I know,” Blackbeard said. “That’s why I keep it around.”

By the time he realized this was the wrong thing to say, it was already too late. Izzy’s eyes cut from Blackbeard to the monkey and for a moment he looked so confused and disturbed but also, not that at all, to the point that Blackbeard was suddenly forced to pretended to be very occupied with a chipped bullet hole in the side of the dingy, very pointedly not looking at Izzy’s foot with the severed toe (which had taken months to heal because Izzy kept stepping on it) and dear fucking god he wanted out of this boat right now -

Izzy mumbled something under his breath. 

“Sorry Iz,” he said loudly, “didn’t catch that?” 

“I said of all the pets-“

“I fucking told you,” Blackbeard jumped on this as harshly as he could, doing his best to help the rest of him in there somewhere who was screaming and yelling and desperately trying scramble back out of whatever the fuck this was he’d just fallen into face-first. “It’s not a pet. It’s a novelty.”

“- a fucking monkey,” interrupted Izzy. “I just - why a fucking monkey?” 

“Would you rather it be something else, then? Like a parrot? A novelty parrot?”

“I hate parrots,” Izzy muttered.

“Oh? Well, I happen to love parrots,” said Blackbeard. “They can talk, and whatever. You’re kinda like a parrot, Iz.” Goddamn it, why the fuck had he said that? 

“Stop saying I’m a fucking parrot,” said Izzy, who thankfully sounded legitimately angry about this. “If anybody was a fucking parrot it was-“

He stopped talking immediately.

Now this was better. “No really, Izzy,” Blackbeard said pleasantly. He leaned forward in his seat. “Go on. Who was a fucking parrot?” 

Izzy’s expression remained carefully neutral. He looked down at the now-full burlap sack between Blackbeard’s knees; the one he’d returned from the jungle with. “Are you gonna tell me what’s in the bag?” 

“I don’t know, Izzy,” said Blackbeard, unmoving and unblinking. “Why don’t you finish that fucking sentence first?” 

“Fang,” Izzy said tightly. “I was gonna say Fang.” 

“No you fucking weren’t,” Blackbeard said, voice low and dangerous. “Izzy, what’s the most important rule we have on this ship?”

“I didn’t break any rules, boss,” Izzy said. 

“Oh, I think you did, Izzy. And what rule was that?”

Izzy muttered something totally incoherent, looking off sidewards with impressively-forced nonchalance at the black night-waters of the sea. 

“Sorry, Iz, couldn’t quite hear that-“

“No one mentions St-“

“Exactly,” Blackbeard interrupted him harshly. “Which you just tried to fucking do - don’t act like you didn’t - which is pretty fucking pathetic of you, really, Izzy, because he doesn’t fucking matter, does he?”

“No-”

“He doesn’t fucking matter. Doesn’t fucking matter to you, definitely doesn’t fucking matter to me, in fact, I’d completely forgotten all about him until just now when you brought it up. And it’s really fucking weird, Izzy, that you did. Like, let it go, man! Just let it go! Why are you still so obsessed over some random dead guy, who doesn’t even fucking even matter? Hm? Reason me through that one!”

Even in the moonlight, he could see Izzy’s face coloring red. “Like I ever gave a fuck about that motherfucking prissy little-“

“Good,” Blackbeard snapped over him. “So maybe, you won’t break the most important fucking rule on this motherfucking ship ever again. Do you know what happens to people who break the rules on my ship, Izzy?”

Izzy looked at him. “They get. . . punished?” 

“That’s right,” said Blackbeard. And then he realized he’d walked right into this one. He had to get off this boat. Why in the name of god was the ship still so far away?

Izzy visibly swallowed, and, of course, he didn’t exactly look afraid. Not exactly at all. “That’s fair,” he said faintly.

“That’s -“ Blackbeard scowled at him and sat back in his seat. “What?” 

Izzy blinked. “I’m - what?”

“What?” 

“What?” 

“Wh - look,” he, - Blackbeard - whatever, decided to quickly change the subject because the only other option was jumping out of the boat and swimming back to the Revenge by himself and he was pretty sure he just saw a shark. “Do you wanna know what’s in the bag or not?”

Izzy blinked. He cleared his throat once and seemed to shake himself. “I - uh, yeah. Yeah, of course I do.”

He suddenly remembered he didn’t really want Izzy to know. “Just a few things,” Blackbeard said cryptically. “Here,” he rummaged around in it until he came back up with a handful of coins, which he tossed haphazardly in Izzy’s direction. They clattered all over on the boards at Izzy’s feet. “Your share of the prize so far.”

Izzy eyed the scattered coins. He kept rowing. “And how,” he said, “exactly are a couple of fucking coins going to help us with the fucking summons to the fucking court of the fucking pirate brethren?”

“Ugh,” Blackbeard rolled his eyes. “Why is it always the brethren court this and court of the brethren that with you, man? My life doesn’t fucking revolve around those fucking posers.”

“Be that as it may, captain, I’m just saying, they’re gonna want something bigger than this!” Izzy kicked at the scattered coins on the boards, slowly sliding into the puddle of brackish water in the center of the dingy’s sloping floorboards. “This isn’t going to fucking appease them, Edward!”

“Oh, I’ve got something to appease them, Izzy,” Blackbeard leaned forward in his seat again, this time, right up in Izzy’s face. While he missed his beard sometimes, he really felt like he’d grown into this new look, as the mask of kohl around his eyes made this sort of move more effective and intimidating than ever before. “I’ve got something to appease them for days. And what the fuck did you just call me?”

5.

Back in the dark, echoing predawn of The Revenge, Izzy was blinking down at the book Blackbeard had produced from the burlap sack, sitting innocuously on the desk between them. His mouth was slightly open as he looked at it, presumably in horrified and outraged shock.

“This,” he stated. “This is it?”

“Yep,” said Blackbeard.

“A – a book?”

“A ship’s log,” Blackbeard corrected him.

“A ship’s log,” Izzy repeated him, almost sarcastically. And really, the fucking nerve on this guy sometimes… “And how’s a fucking ship’s log gonna go over as your contribution to the fucking pirate brethren court?” Izzy looked like he was about to explode. He looked like that a lot, really, but unfortunately he never followed through with it. 

“Izzy, you are literally the only guy on the boat who wants to go to this thing,” Blackbeard told him. “Just chill out, man, okay? I’m fine. I’m chill! Why aren’t you? And I haven’t even told you what it says yet.”

“Well, what – what does it say?”

“I’m glad you asked, Izzy.” Blackbeard settled back in his new-ish desk chair, propping both his feet up on his new-ish desk. “This,” he tapped the cover of the book with a finger. “Is the ship’s log I stole from the deserter I killed who was trying to hide out on that completely deserted and totally uninhabited jungle island.” Izzy blinked at him. “In this ship’s log,” Blackbeard went on, “is the schedule, route, and security details,” he leaned forward a little in his seat. Izzy was going to love this. “For a Spanish Treasure Galleon,” he paused, really letting that sink in. “Coming directly,” - an evil sneer, here - “from Spain.”

Izzy blinked at him again, harder this time. Blackbeard could practically see the cogs turning in his obsessive, high-strung little mind as it digested this new information. This totally true and real information. 

“Shit!” Izzy finally declared, pushing himself back off the desk from where he’d braced on both hands, looming. “Shit, captain!” he declared again.  

“You’re goddamn right, shit,” Blackbeard smacked his open palm on the cover of the book. “You were worried I’d show up to this stupid. . . this stupid little meeting thingy empty handed, is that right?”

“No!” Izzy blatantly lied. “I never doubted you for a minute, boss!” Indeed, he looked thrilled. “Fuck, Edward, this is –“

“Huge. Yeah. I know.”

“Fuck,” Izzy said again.

“Yeah.”

“Fuck -“

“Yeah.”

“I mean –“

“Yeah. But look. Izzy,” Blackbeard held up a finger. “There’s one more very important thing.”

“Sure, boss,” Izzy breathed. “Anything.”

Blackbeard leaned forward. He gestured Izzy closer until Blackbeard’s lips were hovering directly over his ear. 

“Keep this a fucking secret,” Blackbeard said, softly, gently, into Izzy’s ear. “Or I’ll rip your fucking tongue out. And this time,” wordlessly, without moving, he cast his eyes up to where the monkey was now, perched high in the shadowy beams of the cabin. Watching. “I’ll feed it to the monkey.”

Izzy looked too. Blackbeard could hear his throat click as he swallowed. The demented little glimmer in his eyes - and had that always been there? Had it? - that should’ve been fear but wasn’t - brightened, and Izzy started to nod, fervently. “Of course, boss. Of course. Of course. I won’t breathe a word.”

“Good,” Blackbeard leaned back in his chair. “You better fucking not. This stays between us, Izzy. Got that? Just between us.”

“Just between us,” Izzy repeated.

“Yes.”

“Of course. Just between us.”

“Yes. Okay. Good.”

Izzy nodded again. “Good,” he said.

“Right. Good.”

They stared at each other.

“Okay,” Blackbeard cleared his throat. “You can – uh – go. Dismissed.”  

“G-” Izzy cleared his throat also. “Got it,” he said. “Yes, sir. Yes, captain. I’ll-” Izzy nearly backed into the door. Blackbeard watched him expressionlessly. “Yes, good,” he said one last time, and then he turned on his heel and stumbled out.

As his footsteps faded up on deck, Ed slowly craned his head around to watch after him at the door. He waited, very still, until the sound of Izzy’s footsteps disappeared completely. Then he swung his feet off the desk and grabbed the book. He went first to the main door of the cabin and bolted it shut. Then, with a single cautious glance at the fucking monkey, still gnawing on something in the ceiling, he made his way in a wide arc around it to the empty shelves of the once-library. Empty, that was, apart from the inconspicuous dagger stuck deep into the boards. The dagger had once looked more like a small dress figurine, but Ed had ripped that to pieces months ago and replaced it with something much less obvious and way more cool-looking.

He pulled on it and the secret chamber behind the shelves creaked open. He lit a candle and elbowed his way in, the stolen journal tucked under his arm.

What had become of the auxiliary wardrobe greeted him in the pre-dawn gloom. The racks of autumn vibe and summer linen - what was left of them, anyway - had been shoved back each on one end of the racks and replaced thusly by maps and crude drawings pinned into the boards of the walls behind them, some connected here and there by lengths of red thread Ed had untangled off a fraying dinner jacket. Multiple empty rum bottles, more nautical charts, some anatomical drawings, and the stub ends of candles littered the top of a table Ed had dragged in there at some point - he shoved most of this to the floor now to make room instead for the new voluminous book to spread across it. It was almost the size of the journal the boy used to carry around. The journal that had saved -

He wondered what had happened to it. It had disappeared somewhere in the midst of it all. It was gone now, forever, he supposed. Perhaps Izzy had thrown it overboard himself. Or maybe the boy had hidden it somewhere deep in the ship where even Ed could never find it.

Speak of the devil -

From the shadows of the candlelight came the voice of a specter. “What is that?”

Ed had been waiting for it. “I’m glad you asked, ghost,” he told it. “It’s a journal.” He chanced a glance over his shoulder in the direction of the voice. As always, the hollow revenant of the boy gazed back at him; the black circles around its eyes nearly the same pitch-black as the kohl smeared across Ed’s own. There were a few new gangrening barnacles growing along the edge of a cheekbone. The poor starfish always stuck to the side of his face was starting to peel off. Seawater dripped from his hair and onto the boards. Or, at least, Ed figured it was supposed to be seawater.

“I’m glad you’re here actually,” Ed told the spirit. “I need you to read it for me.”

The ghost gave him a very affronted look. As it did, the starfish peeled off his face completely and hit the boards with a wet schwick. 

They both looked down at it. Wordlessly, Lucius bent down, picked it up, and slapped it back on his face. 

After a heavy moment of silence, Ed said, “Well?”

“I’m sorry,” said the ghost, not sounding sorry at all. “What on Earth makes you think I’m going to read something for the man who murdered me?”

Ed narrowed his eyes. The thing was, as the months drew on, statements like these had become less accusatory and more of something like a challenge. Or a dare. A dare to try and get Ed to say something like, “Actually, I strongly suspect that you strongly suspect that I strongly suspect that you aren’t really a ghost at all and are in fact Lucius in the flesh who I in fact failed to murder because you crawled your way back onto this ship instead to live in the walls like some kind of sea-rat while you put on this ghost-act fuckery to try and make me feel guilty, isn’t that right, you little shit?” And it was a dare to try and get Ed to say that, because it sounded almost more bizarre and improbable and more like some deranged and desperate wish-fulfillment than being haunted by an actual ghost in the first place. But either way, whatever it was, they’d both let it go on now for far too long to the point that it would just be embarrassing to start questioning it now. That, and Ed wasn’t about to be the first one to crack.

“I dunno, man,” he said now. “Just fucking read it, will you?”

“Unbelievable,” said Lucius.

“Fine. Whatever. Don’t read it. I don’t care.”

Lucius crossed his arms. “Does that ever actually work? You clearly fucking do.”

“Why are you being such a dick?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Lucius leaned forward, threateningly, arms still crossed. Alarmed, Ed leaned back. “Maybe because you murdered me.” 

For an uncomfortably long and silent moment, they stared at each other.

“Are you gonna read it or not,” said Ed. 

“God, I can’t believe this,” Lucius uncrossed his arms and threw them down against his sides with such violence that some of the seawater from his dripping shirtsleeves splattered Ed directly in the face. “Fine,” he finally snapped. He stomped into the light to squint down at the open pages and somehow, this made him look even more dead, and for a moment Ed really did wonder. 

“I can’t fucking believe I’m doing this,” Lucius snarled, mostly to himself, though. “What even is this?” He peered at the date and the headline for the entry on the page Ed had tediously picked his way to earlier with his limited vocabulary and knowledge of dates. “A diary accounting the daily goings on of the dress shoppe owned by Miss Ellen-“

“Just read the fucking thing,” Ed snapped at him. “And don’t drip any of your,” he waved a hand at Lucius’ soggy…soggyness, “juices on it.”

“Oh my god. You are such a dick-” 

“Oh my god,” said Ed “Just read it-”

“I am reading it.”

“No you’re n-”

Lucius cleared his throat loudly. “Fourth of November, 1717,” he started, even louder. “Saturday - A fine day. Have loaned use of dress shope to darling friend, the recently widowed Miss Mary -” Lucius’s voice stopped deader than he was.

“Go on,” Ed said smoothly.

“Um,” said Lucius.

“Bonnet,” Ed helped him. He could read that much. He knew what the name fucking looked like. Like he knew the markings on the English flag or the warning symbols stamped on barrels of gunpowder. “You can fucking read it. Darling friend, the recently widowed Mary Bonnet-”

“Okay, okay,” Lucius muttered irritably. He cleared his throat, a little quieter this time. “Er- the er – the day started off quite peacefully, as any other, when disturbing news reached my shop of an escaped jungle cat-”

Ed listened. Here were the details he’d been searching for. The first-hand account. The little things left out of the papers. Finding this journal had been an insane stroke of luck. He’d just wanted to poke around a little that night, see the place it’d happened, try and find some kind of explanation to what he knew to be the truth. He’d only broken into the dress shop in the first place because why not and also maybe because there was a dinner jacket on display in the window he’d wanted a closer look at. He’d been in the process of pilfering through the cash register because again why not and he supposed he had to bring something back to Izzy when he’d noticed the journal/diary/whatever just sitting there spread wide-open on the counter and he’d thought, what if-

When Lucius got to the part about the carriage, it finally clicked. 

“That’s it!” he exclaimed, slamming a hand down on the table and loudly interrupting Lucius, who jumped. “That’s it!” He said again. “That’s it, boy! Don’t you see? That’s how he did it!” He felt like the heavens had opened up and the angels were singing in his head. For a moment, it was just enough to make him forget The Crushing Weight Of It All and next thing he knew, he was laughing and laughing and laughing. Maybe even crying a little.

“Oh, god,” said Lucius, beleaguered. “What now?”

“The carriage!” cried Ed. “The carriage is the key!” He pointed wildly with a gloved finger, blackened nail and everything, at the crude drawing of a carriage on the wall, connected behind it by the red string to a very poor drawing of something that looked vaguely like a large house cat. “First, mauled by a tiger-“

“It just says here, ‘jungle cat’-”

“- whatever. Run over by a carriage - but he wasn’t, was he? Because of the dust!”

Lucius stared at him helplessly. “What?” 

“The dust!” Ed repeated. “She talks about all this - all this dust in the road! That’s when he makes the switch! Don’t you see? There’s a corpse in the carriage, right? She says in the journal – she says right there,” he pointed furiously in the vague direction he imagined the passage to be, “she says that the carriage stopped for a moment, right? After it hit him? And there’s all this dust flying everywhere, no one can see a thing, people screaming everywhere, ‘Ahhhh! Oh god! Nooo! Someone help! Aaahhhhhh!!!’ Well. That’s when it happens! He replaces the corpse with - with himself, or himself with the corpse – whatever, and BAM!” Ed smacked his open palm on the table. Lucius jumped again. “Carriage drives off, snaps the corpse’s neck, piano drops from the sky, corpse is disfigured beyond recognition, et. cetera et. cetera et. al and so forth and bam! Fuckery accomplished!”

He looked triumphantly to Lucius, who he found staring back at him, the look on his face slotting perfectly into the category of disturbed.

Ed felt his ecstatic grin slip. “What?” He demanded. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“The thing is,” began Lucius, with uncharacteristic gentleness (at least where Ed was concerned). “How would a piano just - fall out the sky?”

“I don’t know, probably some guys were holding it up? It doesn’t fucking matter about the fucking piano! The point is - the carriage! A corpse! Don’t you see?”

Lucius was still giving him that look. “I really, really don’t,” he said.

Ed gave him his darkest glare. Unfortunately, these had, at some point, stopped working on the ghost. Probably at the point adjacent to the third or fourth time he’d sat there staring at Ed like he was a particularly fascinating and disgusting insect as Ed drunkenly wept and lamented all of his sorrows to the ghost from the floor in the middle of the night, which was another reason why it was better for everyone if they both continued to believe that Lucius was definitely absolutely firmly irreversibly dead.

“What’s, ‘I really don’t’, supposed to mean?” Ed demanded now, even though he knew in the back of his mind exactly what it meant. You sound completely fucking batshit insane. “You think I’m crazy or something?”

“Well…”

“I’m not crazy,” Ed insisted. “This is crazy!” He threw an arm at the stringed-up diagrams on the wall; at the pages of the journal. 

“You don’t have to tell me,” muttered the ghost. 

“I mean - you little fucker - nobody dies like this! He’s practically – practically trying to send me a message! I mean, mauled by a tiger? Ha! He’s not dead!”

Lucius was still giving him that look. Only now, it had twisted into something that appeared disturbingly concerned. If he’d been a real alive person and not a ghost, Ed would’ve slapped it off him.

“Quit looking at me like that!”

“Looking at you like what?”

“You know what I’m talking about. There! Like that! You’re doing it again!”

“Listen,” Lucius slowly held up his hands, like Ed was the feral jungle cat. “I’m only saying, you know. Maybe – maybe it’s time we started entertaining other. . . options? More healthy - erm – well. Let’s maybe just take a step back from,” Lucius peered at Ed’s chaotic stinged diorama on the wall, “hidden messages in,” he cocked his head, “large house cats? And maybe think about why we think this is happening.”

“First of all, it’s a tiger,” Ed informed him. “And second of all, you wouldn’t get it.”

“Right,” Lucius was still cringing. “Well,” he sighed. “I suppose this is a more constructive hobby than passing out drunk on the floor. Even if it can only end in abject heartbreak and failure.”

“Why do I even talk to you,” Ed said. “Piss off!”

“I can’t,” the ghost said, regretfully. “My restless spirit cannot know peace until I’ve fully driven you to the irreversible depths of self-destructive madness.” The familiar face scrunched up apologetically, as it had so often in life. “Sorry.”

“Fuck you,” said Ed. “He’s fucking alive. And I’m going to fucking find him so I can fucking kill him myself.”

Lucius’ face scrunched up again. “Right,” he said.

6.

The thing was, Stede had gone and done the one thing he could’ve possibly done to effectively distract Ed from the man’s abject world-shattering evil dastardly unforgivable betrayal, which was die. Or pretend to die, which meant he’d pretended to die, and then. . . what? Disappeared? This was the particular depth of whatever madness Ed may-or-may-not have been spiraling into that he would absolutely not let himself entertain. Stede faked his death, left his home, and disappeared – to where? And why? Where was he going? And had he, Ed would not let himself ask, gotten yet to the place he was trying to go? And what if he hadn’t? What if all of it had been for –

No. One delusion was enough for now, and he had to prove that one right or wrong first before moving on to the next. Fucking Stede. Fuck Stede. It did occasionally occur to Ed, on top of the ghost and everything else, that he may very well be losing his mind.

1.

“You can’t leave us like this!” the once-captain of the once-fishing vessel was calling at the top of his lungs, still clutching at the wound in his (left) side as his (but his not anymore - ha!) middling schooner cast off from shore, without him. “We’ll starve out here! We’ll die!”

Stede leaned over the rail of his new ship. “Should’ve thought of that before you were dicks!” he yelled back. “Au revoir! You - you dickheads!”

“Nice one, Captain,” Black Pete said from beside him. He, too, gave the now-marooned fishing crew little wave.

“Fuck you!” the voices of the fishermen faded across the water. “You’ll pay for this, Edwards!”

“Sorry?” Stede pretended to put a hand to his ear, straining after the voices as if he were trying to listen to them. “I can’t hear you!”

“Fuck you!!!” came the distant cry from shore.

From the other side of Stede, Olu, too, stared after the castaways, growing smaller and smaller, like little mean ants hopping around on the shore. “Hope that’s the last we see of them,” he remarked.

“And good riddance!” Stede resolutely turned away from the rail. “Floggings! On a fishing vessel!”

“Well, you did lose them an entire week’s worth of catch with that misplaced tie-line, Captain,” Olu pointed out. 

“Fuck his tie-lines!” Stede threw an arm in the air. “He can choke on his tie-lines in hell!”

“-‘at’s the spirit, Captain!” said Buttons, from directly behind Olu, who jumped.

“Yes, Mr. Buttons, I rather think it is!” Stede agreed. The manic glint that had appeared in his eyes about an hour ago when this had all started to go down was still there. “Well, gentlemen,” he turned to the rest of the crew and actually started to rub his hands together, evilly. “What part of our new ship shall we inspect first?”

2.

The middling-size schooner that had charitably scooped the erstwhile crew of The Revenge out of the sea was certainly nothing to write home about. When Stede, much to the consternation of the rest of the crew, had happily and blatantly lied to the captain of the vessel that they were all of them experienced fishermen who’d simply all gotten lost on this rowboat in a storm, the man had reluctantly allowed them transportation to the nearest port city, in exchange for their working under him and his crew along the way. 

It had gone exactly as well as anyone could’ve expected. Unsurprisingly, they were all shit fishermen - apart from, it must be said, Buttons - and it was only a matter of time before everyone else figured it out. Olu, for one, had hated the work. He hated fish and he hated the way they smelled and he hated the creepy ways they flopped around, and all of this had been half the reason he’d turned pirate in the first place. He’d avoided contact with the fish as much as he conceivably could, which, of course, did not go unnoticed on a fishing vessel, particularly one on which he was supposed to be working. But he knew he wasn’t the only problem; nobody on the new ship could stand Black Pete, simply due to his attitude, Roach kept getting in increasingly escalating fights with the cook, The Swede had fallen overboard no less than three times while dragging in the trawling nets, Wee John kept napping through his duties, and Buttons just freaked everybody out.

But all of them put together had nothing on Stede. Within two days of coming on board, he had committed all manner of atrocities, up to and including falling out of his below-decks hammock every time he attempted to climb into it (he was constantly trying to get anybody on hand to help him and once it had taken no less than five crew members, all roused from sleep at the sound of Stede yelling as he fell to the floor), being solely responsible for the loss of at least three trawl-nets because he had no idea how to tie any sort of knot that wasn’t used on a cravat, and he’d even attempted to organize the ‘first-ever fishing-boat sea-shanty singing competition!’ right in the middle of a crucial sighting of a school of tuna. Worst of all, he’d done all of this while happily encouraging the rest of his incompetent crew they were doing a stellar job, and to keep it up!

In the end, it had all finally escalated to Stede openly and loudly criticizing the captain’s ‘managerial approach to seamanship,’ directly to the man’s face, and inviting him to, ‘open a clearer line of interpersonal dialogue with the crew. . . to maybe solve some of these issues?’ This, of course, inevitably led to the fishing boat captain - who really did seem to be taking this fishing business rather seriously - demanding Stede be flogged for insubordination, like they were in the goddamn English Navy. This, naturally, had likewise been the final straw for Stede, who, out of nowhere, had proclaimed, “We’ll see about that!” And then he’d run the captain through with a rapier he’d somehow been hiding behind his back the entire time.

The most tragic thing about it all, was it had actually been shockingly, uncharacteristically, and insanely fucking badass. It had breathed new life into the previously moral-less crew of The Revenge, and had been all the motivation they’d needed to spring into mutinous action. The tragic part was that, at the end of it all, Stede was still only just himself.

“Take note, all!” he was currently saying now, to exactly two people - Olu and Buttons, “as the first successful effort in commandeering a vessel draws to a victorious conclusion for the crew of The Revenge!” he ducked into the now-vacant captain’s quarters, sweeping his arms open wide. “Behold the spoils of battle!” 

Still struggling to process everything that had just happened, Olu had been following reluctantly in Stede’s wake, feeling not-unlike someone who’d just witnessed an innocent little parakeet savagely rip apart a cobra. The final and worst tragedy of all, was that, now, Olu had finally become too curious for his own good and had to see what exactly the parakeet was going to do next. It was a bit like watching a highly unpredictable and entertaining play, only from way too close. It did not escape his notice that Stede wasn’t the only person he knew who drove this impulse. He missed Jim so much. Although Jim was more like a cobra than a parakeet. Or maybe more like a mongoose. He wasn’t sure why he was thinking about so many animal metaphors at a time like this this. 

“Quite a fine vessel, don’t you think, Olu?” Stede was saying. “I see a lot of potential for - eugh,” his optimistic demeanor dropped like a curtain as his increasingly-disgusting boots trod directly into a puddle of something even grosser than they were. “What is this?” he pulled a face, trying to shake his boot free from something that could only charitably be called eel slime. 

“Eels, cap’n!” declared Buttons at full volume, still, for some reason, standing right behind Olu. “Ye hang ‘em up and ye skin ‘em!”

“I see,” Stede sounded a little put-out, casting his gaze around the cabin and, indeed, at the many hanging, skinned, dripping eels strung up, for some reason, everywhere. But he recovered quickly. The thing about this derelict fishing vessel was the entire thing perpetually seemed to be covered in slime, no matter where you looked. “Gymnothorax funebris,” he said, nudging an eel that had slipped to the floor with the toe of his boot. “The green moray. Oh, look! That one has little spots on it! Well,” he dropped his hands to his sides, “it’s a fixer-upper, no doubt about it. But! We’ll have her ship-shape in no time!”

“All things considered cap’n, the fact that she’s movin’ tells us she already is ship-shape.”

“Perhaps to your standards, Mr. Buttons, but not to mine!” Stede declared. “Now, first things first, we need to gather the crew. It’s time to come up with a name for our new ship! I simply refuse to call it the The Conchord.”

3.

“We can’t call it The Revenge 2,” Black Pete was saying. “It’s too obvious!”

“Plus, we don’t even have any canons,” Olu agreed. “What if someone sees the name, realizes we’re pirates, and starts shooting at us?” 

“Yes, the lack of canons really is a problem, isn’t it?” Stede mused. “Black Pete and Oluwande have a point – for now, the strength of this vessel lies in its subterfuge. No one to see us coming, and all that!”

“Not until we steal a bigger ship, anyway, right?” Roach interjected. He, for one, had a very pleased glint in his eye. Probably because he’d finally gotten to maroon the other cook. For which, truthfully, no one could blame him.

“Exactly right, Roach,” said Stede. “Not until we steal a bigger ship!”

“Fuck yes,” whispered Pete.

“But can we call it the Revenge 2, like, secretly in our heads?” Wee John asked. 

“Of course we can!” Stede told him. “In fact, I encourage it! We just won’t repaint it on the back of the ship. Yet.” 

This seemed good enough for Wee John. “Fuckin’ sweet,” he said.

“Um, one more thing, captain?” said the Swede. “What about a flag?”

“Ah, yes,” said Stede. “A flag. Well. As we are currently masquerading as a fishing vessel, I think perhaps it’s best if we make a fake flag, just for now. One to really throw people off the trail. Until we get more cannons, that is. Or until we find Ed and the rest of the crew with the real Revenge.”

For a harsh moment, no one said a thing. You could’ve heard a pin drop on deck. In fact, Olu was pretty sure he did. 

“Oh, come on, guys!” Stede said desperately, as the silence just stretched on. “Don’t be like that! I’m sure it was just a misunderstanding! We’ll get it all sorted out, you’ll see!”

Once again, no one said anything. No one even looked at Stede. And so, Stede barreled onwards. “In the meanwhile,” he declared, “let’s get underway! If you need me, I shall be in my cabin, plotting! And, well, sorting through the - ah - eels.” He spun to go and took a single step before immediately slipping on a bright yellow one lying in the middle of a puddle of goo.

4.

The new flag of the Revenge 2 flapped proudly in the easterly trade winds. Stretched taunt, the haphazardly sewn-on letters, spelling out “FISH 4 SALE,” could be read on full display. That is, if you could read. 

“That ought to throw them off!” Stede, who’d designed and personally overseen the creation of the flag himself, gazed up at it proudly. “No one will bother us now! And no one will have any idea who we really are until it’s too late.”

“Love the flag, Captain. I think?” said the Swede. “But, what if someone sees it who can read? And they want to buy some fish?”

“What sort of question is that?” Stede would not be deterred in this, his moment of artistic triumph. “Nobody buys fish straight from a ship!”

“They definitely kinda do though,” said Olu.

“Well, whatever!” Stede declared. “We shall burn that bridge when we get there! In the meantime, Mr. Buttons, lower the trawl nets!”

“You cannot be serious,” said Black Pete. “You actually want to fish?”

“I have never been more serious,” said Stede. “If we’re going to sell this ruse, we’ve got to really sell it.”

“Aye aye, Captain!” Buttons gave an enthusiastic salute, and was off.

Olu hung back as everyone else wandered off. Again, he hated fish. Jim had never cared for them either. No - Jim didn’t care for them either.

“You know, apart from the fish, those nets really do pull up the most fascinating creatures,” Stede mused, watching Buttons go. “Did you see that little wriggly thing Wee John pulled up the other day? The one with all the legs? Oh, I do wish Lucius had been here to sketch it. Someone really ought to be writing all this down. Or, well, some of it, anyway. Probably not all of it.” 

“No,” Olu had to agree. “Definitely not all of it.”

“Did he really throw out all of my things?” Stede suddenly asked him out of nowhere, like a cheetah leaping from the long grass to ambush and devour a poor, hapless little gazelle, just trying to get a drink of water. “None of the others will tell me much. I think they’re still upset with me.”

Olu desperately wished he’d cleared out with everyone else while he still had the chance. “I mean,” he started reluctantly, “he kinda did, yeah?”

“Everything? Even my books?” Stede’s voice sounded ridiculously small.

“I mean, yeah,” Olu heartlessly confirmed. Because Jim was still on that ship, and maybe he hadn’t quite stopped partly-blaming Stede either. “Like, every single one.”

Stede seemed to sag a little. He looked away from Olu and out at the sea. “I didn’t think-”he started. “I mean, I didn’t know-” his face twisted a little. “People usually don’t - I mean, it’s usually better for people once I’m gone. I never even thought that, that. I didn’t realize he would,” he stopped talking.

Olu wasn’t about to touch whatever this was with a ten-foot oar. “Well, it is what it is, Captain,” was what he said. Whatever. He wasn’t Lucius. 

Stede let out a sigh. “I do hope we manage to find them.”

“Me too, Captain,” Olu swallowed back something in his throat. “Obviously.”

“I’m sure Jim is just doing just fine-”

“We really don’t have to do this, Captain.”

“I mean it!” Stede looked back to Olu and his eyes were full of an earnestness that Olu, despite himself, found frustratingly endearing. “I’ve never met anybody tougher than Jim!”

“Yeah,” Olu said quietly. “Me neither.”

Stede looked hopelessly away again. “Oh, I’ve really mucked things up, haven’t I?” 

“I mean-”

“No, no, Olu. There’s no need to defend me. I know this is all my fault.”

“Well…”

“No, stop! Don’t try to deny it! I’ve really screwed the carriage with this one.”

“Screwed the…carriage?”

“Exactly,” Stede cast his remorseful gaze towards the horizon. 

“Well,” Olu sighed, defeated, unsure why he was even doing this. If Jim was really dead, he was never going to forgive himself. “Look at it this way, Captain,” he said anyway, because unfortunately sticking with Stede was the best shot he had, and the man had just led them all in stealing an entire ship, with sails and everything. Even if it was sort of - small. Still, maybe, just maybe, there was hope. He had rescued them all from certain cannibalistic death, anyway. “I suppose we are one step closer today than we were yesterday.”

5.

The Revenge 2 was less than a week out from the island where they’d abandoned the fishing crew when it happened. 

“Captain!” cried Buttons from above, where he was sat with his bare feet dangling over the lower sailyard of the mainmast. “Ship approaching!”

“Shit,” Stede sprang to his feet from where he’d been trying with all his might to scrape up a puddle of eel slime. He’d been at it for three hours now, and it still looked like it was going nowhere. “Should we maybe tell him he’s using the wrong end of the brush?” Wee John had asked earlier, watching it all from afar like a naturalist studying a rare and grotesque animal in the wild. “Nah,” Olu had shook his head. “Let him figure it out.”

“Shit! Shit, shit, shit-” Stede was saying now, scrambling to the rail. He took the telescope Olu wordlessly held out to him and jammed it to his eye. Olu had been standing at the rail himself trying to squint at it through the scope, before remembering there was a reason he wasn’t typically on lookout duty. He couldn’t see shit.

“I can’t see a thing!” Stede likewise declared. He straightened up and handed the spyglass to Olu again. “Olu, you try! See if you can spot them!”

Olu took the spyglass. He squinted into it again. “Sorry Captain, I’m not seeing it.” He handed the spyglass back to Stede.

“Alright, alight. I’ll try again,” Stede took it back. He squinted. “Oh, there-! Wait, no. I think that’s just a wave-”

“Two ships, cap’n!” cried Buttons from above. “English Navy, by the look of ‘em!”

Stede nearly dropped the spyglass. He whipped his head around to look up at Buttons. Beneath his peeling sunburn and scrappy beard, he’d gone a little pale. “Fuck!” He said. “Are you sure?” Frantically, he squinted back into the spyglass. “Maybe they’re going the other direction?” 

“‘fraid not, captain!” Buttons shut him remorselessly down. “And ‘seems they’ve spotted us!”

Stede nearly dropped the spyglass again. “Are they coming this way?” his voice had gone a few desperate octaves higher.

“Coming right this way, cap’n!”

“Fuck,” Stede took a moment to visibly compose himself. He took a deep breath. “Fuck! Alright, everyone! Quickly!” He clapped his hands together and spun around. “Hide the weapons! Hide all the weapons!”

“Um,” Wee John raised his hand. “What weapons?”

“All of them!” cried Stede. “Everybody, listen up!” He called this across the decks to the rest of the crew, all of whom were already staring at him. “From here on out just – just everybody try to be as fishy as possible!”

“Fishy?” asked Olu.

“Yes, Oluwande! Remember, this is a fishing boat, not a pirate ship! I cannot stress how important it is that we all act as fishy as we possibly can!”

At the sound of all the commotion, Roach’s head popped up from below decks. “Did someone say fishsticks?” he asked, holding up a tray. “And I didn’t put any eel in them this time!”

6.

The two English naval warships had them boxed in on both broadsides. Olu watched with the calm sort of certainty that he was about to die as the largest ship dispatched a rowboat full of blue coated servicemen in their direction.

“Humble fishing vessel!” called up an officer, as the rowboat came up alongside them. “It has come to the attention of His Majesty’s The King of England’s Royal Navy that you are commercially selling fish from this naval vessel!”

“Shit,” hissed Stede, who was crouched behind the rail next to Oluwande. “They saw the flag!”

“Of course they saw the flag!” Olu hissed back at him.

“Oh, god, what are we going to do?” 

“You’re the captain –”

“I know-!”

“Tell them we’re closed for business! Tell them we ran out of fish!”

“Well, that isn’t what the flag says, is it? It says fish for sale! They’ll know we’re lying!”

“Oh, for god’s sake-”

Stede sprang to his feet before Olu could stop him. “Hello there!” he gave a very bright, very nervous wave. “We do indeed have fish for sale! Because we are a fishing vessel! A real one! And that’s all we are!”

“Noted,” came the terse reply. “Permission to board for health inspection?”

Stede turned to Olu with a horrified look on his face. ‘Health inspection?’ he mouthed.

Olu gave him his most desperate, most confused shrug.

“Humble fishing vessel,” came the voice of the English officer again, a little more insistent this time. “Permission to board for health inspection!”

“Fuck,” squeaked Stede. He dropped back into a crouch next to Olu. “We’ll never pass a health inspection!”

“Captain,” Olu urgently gripped his shoulder. “That is so not the issue right now! Just say yes before they blow us out of the water!”

“Fine – fine!” Stede popped back up over the railing like a particularly grubby meerkat. “Permission granted!” he piped back, before ducking back down again. “Quick everybody!” He turned to hiss at the rest of the crew, his fingers going bone-white where they still gripped the edge of the rail above him. “Start cleaning!”

7.

Stede trailed after the dispatch from the royal navy like a man being led to the gallows. 

“Hrm,” one primly dressed officer was raising his eyebrows at the plank of wood onto which he’d clipped the piece of paper on which he’d been taking tiny little notes with the largest quill even Stede had ever seen. They’d only just finished a single walk around the deck and already the page was filled with unhappy little marks.

“So far,” announced the officer, “His Majesty’s Royal Health Inspection Crew of the English Royal Navy has identified no less than seven areas in your operation in need of immediate corrective action.” Stede and Olu looked at each other in alarm. “First and foremost,” the officer went on, “we have observed several major infractions related to employee dress and –“ a single curl of a lip “- personal hygiene.”

“Right,” Stede said faintly.

“Several glaring issues” the inspector went on, cocking an eyebrow as he looked over his document-thing, “with requirement one, section two, subsection a-6: employees wearing proper dress and work uniform, including,’” the man pointedly, slowly, rolled his eyes up to Buttons, still sitting barefoot atop the lower sailyard. “Proper footwear. Hrm.” He made another, very strong mark on the paper.

“Right, well,” Stede stammered, “you see, there was this, erm, storm-“

“Hair-restraints worn,” the officer loudly spoke over him. He only had to glance at Stede, who, to be fair, did look the part of someone who’d been scraping by on a derelict fishing boat for weeks with only one pair of clothes and the single razor they’d all been sharing between them; everyone else only occasionally feeling forgiveness enough towards Stede to tell him where it was. “That would be a no.” The officer made another check. “Fingernails are short, unpolished, clean -“ another curdling sidewards glance at Stede’s nails, unfortunately still suffering from his recent battle with the eel slime. He quickly tried to hide them behind his back, but it was too late. “Most certainly not,” said the inspector. Check.

Stede dropped his hands back to his sides and let out an offended exclamation. “Now hang on just a minute-”

“Smoking is observed only in designated areas away from preparation, service, storage, and warewashing areas,” the inspector went on. Stede shot a sharp glance at Roach, who quickly tossed his lit cigarette over his shoulder, where it landed in another puddle of eel slime. It was unclear if the health inspector noticed, but Stede was pretty sure he did. “Jewelry is limited to a pocket watch, simple earrings, and a single plain ring.” Another roving glance around the deck. Wee John’s hands flew to his ears in an attempt to clandestinely cover his many earrings by acting as if he were tucking strands of hair behind both his ears, at the same time. This unfortunately just drew the inspectors attention more than it would have before and he put down another mark with a tisk. “I shudder to think what we shall discover below decks.”

“Oh, we really don’t need to go down there,” Stede said quickly. “Most of the fishing happens up here!”

“Most, but not all, Captain, ah, Edwards, wasn’t it? I think you shall find the vigilance of the English Navy is more persistent than that. No inch of this ship shall go unturned on my watch. Now, below decks we go. Lead on!”

8.

They tromped down the short staircase to the single below-decks room, which doubled as the kitchen, the sleeping berth, and, well, just about everything else. 

“Onto Food and Dry Storage,” the Navy health inspection contingent all peered as one into the schooner’s dim, tiny back closet, where Stede himself was just now realizing he’d never actually been. “Temperature is between 50º F and 70º F.” The navy officers glanced, frowning, around the humid hotbox of the room. One of them dramatically mopped sweat off his brow with a lace handkerchief that Stede found himself suddenly and intensely very jealous of. “Well, I don’t know about you lads,” he said, “but I’d say it’s certainly warmer than that.” The other officers gave condescending chuckles of agreement.

“We’re in the Caribbean!” Stede desperately protested. “In the summer!”

They ignored him. “All food and paper supplies are 6 to 8 inches off the floor.” Instantly, the inspector’s eyes fell right onto a sack of onions sagging, guiltily, directly on the floor. Three or four of them had rolled out of the sack and onto the blackened boards.

“I was going to pick those up right before you got here!” Roach let out a nervous laugh and tried to kick the bag behind himself, out of sight. Unfortunately, he missed it, and hit one of the loose onions instead. Everybody watched as it rolled clear across the room, squelching straight into the largest puddle of eel slime yet.

Silence filled the room. The lead inspector cleared his throat. “The,” he cleared his throat again. “The FI-FO - First In, First Out - method of inventory is being practiced.” He raised an eyebrow and glanced around the shelves.

“Of course it is!” cried Roach. He pointed at the runaway onion. “That one was definitely the first in! And now, it’s the first out!”

The lead officer’s two companions looked at each other. The one with the clipboard cleared his throat again. “Empty boxes and containers are removed from site,” he read on. Black Pete looked directly down at the two empty crates he was sitting on. Stede tried to clandestinely side-step in front of them, in order to block both Pete (not wearing a hair-restraint) and the crates from view. This also did not work.

The inspector made several more marks on his sheet. “And finally,” he looked up from the notepad. “All work surfaces are clean to sight and touch.”

Everybody looked around the room. Nobody said anything. The inspector’s eyes fell wordlessly down to his clipboard. And, despite everything, Stede did feel a twisted sense of savage victory at the look of utter, utter despair in the man’s eyes.

Roach finally broke the silence. “We will sell you the fish fifty percent off!” he said. “And that is our final offer!”

9.

The whole crew stood stiffly on deck, craning their necks to watch above them in solemn silence as the British Navy health inspection officers slowly lowered the flag. The letters ‘FISH 4 SALE!’ flapped dejectedly in the winds the whole way down.

“Never in all my years of service have I seen a place of business in such disreputable disrepair,” the lead health inspector was proclaiming, as if announcing their public executions. “As of today, the His Majesty King George’s Royal English Navy is suspending all commercial activities involving the selling of fish and fish-adjacent products from this vessel! Forthright!”

All three Englishmen, as one, stomped their feet together to attention and gave eerily synchronized, sharp salutes.

“Well, that’s hardly fair, is it?” Stede spoke up. “You caught us off guard! We didn’t even know you were coming!”

“Surprise inspections are part of it!” the health inspector barked in his face. Stede jumped back a little. “And thank heaven and King George for that!” He gave Stede one last withering look-over. “Nobody - I say, nobody - wants to eat fish caught by someone in their,” the man’s nose wrinkled, “bare feet.”

“Well – maybe some of us do,” muttered the Swede.

“At least try one of the fishsticks?” Roach insisted, holding up the same immaculately polished silver tray he’d inexplicably pulled from somewhere. “For your health!”

All three officers turned to give Roach identical looks of disgust. He shrank back a little.

“Your official health inspection score is .2%!” The inspector ripped off a sheet of official-looking paper from his clipboard with their score on it in thick black quill-ink and stabbed it straight into the middle of the mainmast with a knife. It fluttered there tragically in the breeze. “The point-two percent we allotted to you, only because we feel sorry for you! If you wish to re-obtain your commercial fishing food-vendor license, you may re-apply in the London offices on Fleet Street after the end of the current fiscal year but before the beginning of the upcoming fiscal year, and wait six to eight weeks in order to-”

“Six-to-eight weeks?” cried Stede. “London? But that’s so far away!”

“Not my problem, is it?” said the officer. And as they all watched, he balled up their new flag and threw it directly overboard. Stede let out a little whimper watching it go. “And that’s six-to-eight business weeks. Good day!”

10.

“I mean, that coulda gone worse,” Black Pete said, as the crew stood watching the two English ships disappear over the horizon.

“Could’ve gone worse?” Stede demanded. “Could’ve gone worse? That was a disaster! They’ve shut down our entire business, Pete!”

“Well, it wasn’t exactly our business, was it?” Olu pointed out. “It was mostly that other guy’s business. You know. That guy we stole the ship from? And actually, it wasn’t even his business. It was just a business we made up.”

“That’s true, I suppose,” Stede conceded, but he still sounded put-out. “It’s only just, in the middle of the English Navy shutting us down, I suddenly had a brilliant idea.” He let out a long, morose sigh. “Oh, if only we still had that commercial fishing food-vendor license!”

“I don’t think we ever had one to begin with, Captain,” Olu reminded him. 

“Oh, well,” Stede waved a hand, miserably. “It’s too late now. But, I was just thinking – once I realized how thoroughly this disguise fooled the English – how masquerading as a transient fishing restaurant might actually be a good place to start at getting us into - other places.”

“Other. . . places?” Olu asked carefully.

“Yes! Other places. Like – oh, fancy parties, to plunder them, you see! Or – or closer to bigger ships, to steal them. And to get into other – other pirate places, and so forth. You know. For things and whatnot.”

The worst part was, it wasn’t exactly a terrible idea. At least, it wasn’t quite as hair-brained as some of Stede’s other ill-concocted schemes. Still, the devious little glint beginning to light up Stede’s eyes couldn’t have been a good indicator of things to come. 

Sure enough, horrifically, he perked up completely, and snapped his fingers.

“We’ve got to get that flag back.” He turned around and called across the deck: “Does anybody know how to swim?” 

“Or, Captain,” Olu really wasn’t sure how much longer he was going to survive this job. No wonder Lucius had been so snippy all the time. “We could just - sew a new one?” 

Stede seemed to think this over. “You know, Olu, I think you’re right. That’s a much better idea. Well! Let’s get started. Does anybody know where the craft supply box went? Oh, whatever. It’s got to be around here somewhere. Come on, Olu. Let’s see where Roach went with those fishsticks.”

Olu wondered, not for the first time, how exactly he’d ended up here. Jim, if you’re out there, he sent up a silent prayer to anyone who could possibly be listening as he trailed reluctantly after Stede, please don’t be dead. 

1.

“They sent another letter,” Izzy was saying. “Fourth one, now.”

Ed glanced up from where he’d been meticulously carving the ugliest-looking mermaid he could manage right into the middle of Stede’s stupid mahogany desk. “Who?”

Izzy stared at him. “The court of the pirate brethren?”

“Oh, yeah! Those guys.” Ed went back to his carving. It was actually turning out better than he’d wanted it to, the tail being frustratingly symmetrical. He bent back over to vigorously carve at just half of it with a thicker line to help throw it off.

Izzy continued to stand there and stare at him. And stare at him. And stare at him. Ed tried to give the mermaid some nasty little fangs but they just made it look cooler. “They’re asking for an RSVP,” Izzy added bluntly. 

Ed pointedly put down the knife. “Are you kidding me right now, man? An RSVP? A fucking RSVP? Blackbeard doesn’t RSVP.”

“Right,” Izzy was watching him strangely. “Thought not.”

Ed raised his eyebrows at him. “Is that all?”

Izzy didn’t move.

“Well?”

Izzy’s face held that careful blankness again. 

“You told me it was a deserted island,” he said.

Oh, great. Ed pulled his best, ‘what the fuck are you talking about’ face. “What the fuck are you talking about?” he said.

“That island. Where you killed that deserter for that ship’s log. You said it was deserted.”

“Yeah, well, I mean. It had that one guy on it-” 

“It was Barbados,” Izzy bit out. “You took us to the ass-end of fucking Barbados.”

“Yeah. The deserted end. You got a fucking point you’re trying to make here, man?” 

This was also, Ed knew, his own little sort of dare. Izzy was still staring. 

“Is that really a ship’s log?” He asked indirectly, like a coward.

Ed slammed the knife into his desk and stood. As always, he loomed over Izzy. “What the fuck is this? Of course it’s a ship’s log. Are you fucking questioning me?” he stabbed the knife into the desk again. “Are you?”

Izzy didn’t even flinch. “You know what they’ll do to you, don’t you?” was all he said. “If you show up to that meeting empty handed?”

“I’m fucking Blackbeard. They can’t do fucking anything to me.”

“I think we both know that’s not true.”

“How dare you. I don’t have time for this shit, Izzy. Get the fuck out.”

“You’d better fucking hope, for your sake,” Izzy’s voice was high and level-sounding, “that that ship’s log is exactly what you say it is.”

Ed leaned in very close to him. “I thought I told you what would happen to you if you ever threatened me again.”

“This isn’t a threat,” Izzy said. “It’s a warning. For you to be fucking careful. They’ll fucking kill you, Edward.”

“I’d like to see them try,” Ed hissed at him. And then he scoffed. “‘Is that really a ship’s log.’” His heartbeat was hammering in his ears. “I can’t fucking believe you sometimes, man. What the fuck else would it be? Now get the fuck out.” 

2.

A day later. He was lying listlessly on the shelf of the cabin’s back windows, gazing out at the churning wake kicked up behind the ship when the door opened and he heard Izzy’s footsteps limp across the room. 

“Tea for you, captain,” a clink as he set the chipped metal mug typically used for grog on the counter next to Ed’s head. He’d thrown all the pretty ones out. He tried to picture them, now, chipped at the bottom of the sea somewhere. Baby starfish all over them. He was not jealous of a bunch of baby starfish. 

“Great,” he said, without looking away from the window. 

“We’re about a week out from Tortuga,” Izzy went on. “If the wind holds.”

“Cool.” 

Izzy cleared his throat. “Everything, uh, good?”

Ed rolled his head around to look at the mug. The tea was bound to taste disgusting because Izzy never put any sugar in it, and Ed could never bring himself to try and ask him to. He had a sudden violent urge to knock the mug to the floor. 

“Yeah,” he said, staring at it. “Everything’s fine.” 

“Alright, well, in that case, the crew was wondering i-“

“Izzy,” Ed rolled his head back around to the ceiling. He let out a sigh. “Do you think I’m crazy?” 

“W- I mean,” a beat. “What makes you ask that?”

Ed stared at the ceiling. He pressed his lips together. “No reason,” he said, voice tight. “No reason, really.” 

“Well, okay, then. If that’s all, then-”

“It’s just that,” he was not going to fucking cry in front of fucking Izzy. “I think that. I think that I might maybe be. For real this time.” 

“Might maybe be - what?” 

Ed blinked at the ceiling. “Nothing,” he said. “Nevermind.” 

He didn’t have to look at Izzy to know exactly what look he’d be giving Ed. At any rate, he definitely didn’t want to see it. 

“I’ll just come back later, then, yeah?” Izzy didn’t sound very sympathetic. Ed hated him very viciously for a moment and then hated himself even more.

“Yeah,” he said. “Why don’t you just get the fuck out.” 

3.

Ed waited for the ghost to appear all night. It wasn’t until the sky in the east started to glow purple and gold that he realized he couldn’t wait any longer and decided now was as good a time as any to concede defeat.

In the shadowy back corner of the auxiliary wardrobe, there was a coat-hook that, when pulled, opened another hidden door to another hidden hallway that looped around the broadside of the ship and branched off here and there to several little nooks; these, among others, included a snack room, the secret library, and a ‘backstage dressing room.’ 

Ed crept his way along the broadside hallway now, silent as a cat. He hadn’t set foot in here, or let himself think about the mere existence of these passageways since - “Don’t tell anyone!” An excited whisper. “You’re the first person to ever see them! I’m waiting for a special occasion to surprise the crew, but, honestly, I don’t know if they’ll like it very much-”

“I like it. I love it!”

“Yes, well, I knew you would.” A fond shoulder, clumsily knocking into his. “Oh! Over here! I want to show you-”

Anyway. He felt incredibly ill the entire way. Dim shafts of the rising sun cut through the boards and across the musty passageway, each one splicing through Ed like a knife. But he kept going. The gentle surf rocked rhymically just on the other side of the hull beneath his feet. Most of what he saw on the way was as he remembered it, apart from the snack room (thoroughly raided) until he reached the small chamber under the ship’s bow.

There was a hammock strung up between two beams on either side of the little nook, in which Ed could see the shape of someone clearly fast asleep, snoring loudly and everything. The entire area smelled of unwashed human being and, essentially, the briny deep. There was a short wooden end table pushed up against the back wall, covered with what looked like various paints and make-ups, including one of the little jars of Ed’s own kohl that had gone missing a week ago. On the floor between it and the hammock sat a bucket full of water. Ed peered into it to see what looked like an entire barnacle colony branching up the sides, and several starfish hanging out in the bottom. 

He fixed his full attention back on the sleeping figure in the hammock, still snoring, chest rising and falling with each breath, just like an alive person’s would. Ed stood there staring at him for a moment, and then he bent down and gave the boy’s shoulder a shake. 

“Hey. Hey, ghost,” he whispered, leaning in close, right next to the boy’s ear. His shoulder under Ed’s hand was warm and dry. Another shake. “Ghost. Hey. Wake up.” 

“Mmfmfk,” muttered Lucius, blearily. He started to twist around in the hammock. “Wh-Jim . . ?” He squinted his eyes open, fixing them on Ed’s face. “What time - AAAAAAHHHHkfmmph!!” 

Ed quickly clamped a hand over the boy’s mouth. “Sh-sh-sh!” he whispered, reassuringly. “It’s just me!”

“MMH MHY MFKJG GRMMD!” said Lucius. 

“Shhh! It’s okay! It’s okay! It’s just-“ And then, in an unexpected feat of strength, Lucius managed to knock Ed’s hands loose and flailed right out of the hammock, landing on his backside on the boards by the starfish bucket with a painful-sounding thunk. Desperately, his terrified saucer-eyes never leaving Ed’s face, he groped blindly around in the bucket, splashing water everywhere before he pulled out a starfish and slapped it on the side of his face.

For a moment, they just stared at each other. Ed, frowning down at Lucius; Lucius, staring up at Ed, chest heaving, starfish on his face slowly wriggling. 

Never once breaking eye contact, Ed slowly, slowly leaned down. He pinched the starfish by the tip of one of it’s spindly pink legs and, carefully, inch-by-inch, peeled it back off Lucius’ face.

It came off completely with a wet little schicht. Ed tossed it like a frisbee back into the bucket, where it landed with a deafeningly-loud plop. 

“There.” He gave the reddish, left-behind starfish-imprint on Lucius’s cheek a little pat. “Now, listen. I need your help with something.” 

Lucius slapped his hand away with incredible vitriol for someone who had just woken up. He was staring up at Ed, chest still heaving like he’d just tried to outrun, well, a tiger. “Like hell,” he snarled.

Ed straightened back up with a frown, holding his now-stinging hand close to chest. “Aw, come on-”

“How are you even here!?” Lucius demanded. 

“Well,” Ed started. “It is, sort of, technically, my ship-”

“Fuck you!” Lucius snarled, trying to scramble back from Ed on his hands and feet, only to immediately knock into the wall behind him. “Get the hell away from me!” 

“Alright, look,” said Ed. He took a deep breath. “Here it goes. I’m really, really, really sorry-“

“Oh god-”

“Let me finish! I’m really sorry, and I felt, yknow, kinda bad about it, sometimes. A lot. About all of that um. Pushing you off the boat stuff or whatever, I mean.” 

“I know you felt sorry about it,” Lucius said mercilessly. “I could hear you crying about it all the time.”

“Well, I didn’t cry that much. So.”

“No,” Lucius cringed a little. “You did.”

“Well, I-”

“I mean, it was like, all the time.”

“Okay, whatever,” snapped Ed. “Look. I’m really sorry, blah blah blah, and all that, and IpromiseIwonteverdoitagain. Okay?”

“Oh, really?” Lucius perked up with saccharine sweetness. “Well in that case, I’d love to help you!”

“Oh,” Ed brightened. “Really?”

“Fuck no!” Lucius screamed, startling Ed back into the side table, rattling all of the little containers. “You think you can just - just waltz in here and apologize for my murder?”

“Well, technically,” Ed pointed out gruffly, reluctantly, “I couldn’t help but notice that. That you’re not, like, y’know, not really actually, um,” - Lucius narrowed his eyes and cocked his head. Ed swallowed. “Dead,” he finished lamely.

Absolutely nothing in Lucius’ expression changed. “What the fuck does that have to do with anything?”

“I’ll let you punch me in the face,” Ed offered, desperately. “Just once.”

“Oh, fuck you. You want to apologize? Get me the fuck off this ship!”

“Well, actually,” said Ed. “That’s kind of what I need your help with.”

Lucius narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “What?” 

“Well, it’s. . . part of it, anyway-”

“Oh, here we go-”

“No, just listen. There’s this stupid little pirate meeting thingy Izzy is, like, obsessed with going to, for some reason-”

“The tri-decadal gathering of the court of the pirate brethren,” Lucius rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah, I know. Sound travels when you live in the fucking walls-”

“Well, anyway,” Ed went on, not letting himself think too hard on the implications of all that, “I think I’m going to fake my death there. And since you’re, like, kind of experienced with that sort of thing-”

“Oh, god,” Lucius cringed. “Is this still about-“

“No,” Ed cut him off. “No, it isn’t about that!”

“Whatever,” Lucius threw out. “Like I care. Look. I’ll help you, on one condition.” Ed raised his eyebrows in question. “Take me back to the island where you murdered the rest of my crew.”

Shit. Ed had been hoping Lucius hadn’t known about that. Jim or someone must have told him. “Oh,” was all he said.

“Yeah, oh,” Lucius snapped. “Otherwise, you and your little schemes can go straight to hell.” 

“Look, mate,” Ed hedged. “It’s been months - they probably, well. People get marooned all the time! It’s just part of the off-boarding, er, firing process out here, really. They probably got picked up by another ship by now-”

“Or,” Lucius practically bit, “they’re fucking dead, and there are seagulls munching on their bones right now.”

“Or - or, there’s always the risk of that, yeah.” 

“You are such a piece of shit,” Lucius told him, his voice going choked-up. “I can’t believe he ever loved you.”

Ed stood very still for a few moments before he found himself sinking down to the floor across from Lucius. He knocked his head back against the side table and scrubbed a hand over his face. It came away black with kohl. He frowned down at it. He could feel the boy staring at him a little guiltily.

“I guess I didn’t, exactly, mean that,” he apologized reluctantly. 

“Well, uh,” the words burned the back of Ed’s throat and he suddenly wished for a bottle of rum to wash them back down with. Unfortunately, the closest one was all the way back in Stede’s cabin. “He kinda fucking didn’t,” he said. “He kinda fucking didn’t care about any of us, did he? We were just - just playthings. Just a fun,” he felt his mouth twist, “little adventure. We were just -“ he looked up at the ceiling. He couldn’t make himself say anymore. 

Lucius was still glaring at him.

“Well,” he snapped. “At least he didn’t try to murder me.” 

Ed blinked up at the ceiling. 

“Yeah alright you got a point,” he muttered very quickly. He thought very hard and very fast about a lot of things and suddenly realized - shit. 

“Sorry? Didn’t quite catch that-”

“Nevermind,” Ed mumbled. 

“Also,” Lucius, undeterred, went on. “Can we circle back to how you murdered my boyfriend?”

Ed cast him a derisive look. “He’s probably fine-”

“Then take me back to that island you left him on and fucking prove it!” 

“Fine!” Ed threw up his hands. “Fucking - fine! We’ll go back to the fucking island!” 

“And I get to sleep in your cabin,” Lucius added. “For a month.”

“What? Then, where am I supposed to sleep?”

“I don’t fucking care!”

“Fine,” Ed bit out. “And then you’ll help me. Deal?”

“I’ll help you if Pete is still alive.”

“Fine,” Ed said again, some nervous dread clenching his chest, just a little. Because even if they didn’t find the desiccated skeleton of Brown Peter (or whatever the fuck his name was) slowly bleaching out in the island sun, Ed still had no idea how he’d ever prove the man was still alive. He had a sudden vision of Lucius forcing Ed to sail him all around the West Indies for the rest of their days, searching forever for a long-dead person who would never be found. But then, he realized, with a feeling like sinking into a pit, that this was exactly what he was already doing anyway.

“Fine,” he said, once-fucking-more, and held out his hand. “Deal?”

“I’m not shaking your hand.”

Ed dropped it. “Fine ,” he said, for like the fourth fucking time. “Deal, already, fuck-“

Lucius was still glaring. Likely he would never stop. “Whatever,” he said. “I’m moving in tonight, by the way. To your room. And if you can’t find anywhere else to sleep, you can’t sleep up here either.” 

“What? Why not?” demanded Ed, who’d been planning on doing exactly that.

“Because, Bret and Jemaine don’t like you,” said Lucius. “And they live here, too.”

“Who the fuck are Bret and Jemaine?”

“The starfish?” Lucius said, as if this were some very obvious thing that Ed should’ve already known. 

“Oh, okay. Whatever. Weird. I wasn’t planning on sleeping in here, anyway.”

“Sure you weren’t,” said Lucius. 

1.

“A food ship?”

“Think of it!” Stede gestured with his hands in the air, as if he were picturing this fictitious food boat even now. “Like a restaurant, only on a ship! A ship that travels from place to place. Instead of getting people to come to us, we go to them! On the water!”

Roach tisked, twirling his meat-cleaver between his fingers like a baton. “Sounds like a risky business venture to me.” 

“Oh, pish-posh!” said Stede. “It’s innovative! Creative! Original! And we’ll be the first people to do it. We’ll have a corner on the market!”

“Um,” said Wee John. “What market?”

“You know, the market.”

Everyone shot each other identical looks of speculation.

“Yeah, the thing is,” Black Pete spoke up, “I thought we were supposed to be pirates?”

“Well, of course we’re pirates! It’s all a ruse, Pete!”

“But like, is it though?” asked Olu. “Cause I can’t stand fish.”

“Well, who amongst us really can, Olu? Of course this is only temporary. A way to fund our piracy until we get a real ship back.”

“That is so not how piracy works,” remarked Black Pete. 

If Stede heard this comment, he acted like he didn’t. 

“I think it’s a fine idea,” he went on. “And the world deserves to experience Roach’s culinary genius! I mean, fish sticks? What a concept! And with my people skills, Buttons’ eye for fishing, Olu’s pragmatic managerial business acumen,” “- my what?” “- and the work ethic of the rest of this fine crew, I think nothing can stop us!”

“Except for like, getting back to being real pirates, right?” said Black Pete. “And rescuing the love of my freaking life?” 

“Yes, of course, Pete! Again, this is all just a ruse!  A fuckery, if you will. Just until we manage to get a bigger boat with guns, and all that. And it will give us access to, you know, places to look!”

There was a chorus of uncertain murmurs. 

“Oh, come on, you guys!” said Stede. “I really think this could work!”

The crew all exchanged silent glances. And then, Roach let out a very loud sigh. 

“Fine. I’m in,” he announced. “But only because I want to stick it to those English bastards. Get it? Fish sticks. Ha!” 

Stede brightened considerably. “As noble a cause as any!” he encouraged. “Anyone else?” 

Wee John looked thoughtful. “Can I help sew the new flag?” 

“Of course!” 

“Fuckin’ sweet.”

“I’ve always liked boats and food,” said the Swede. “I think it could be fun.”

“Excellent!”

“Fine, I’ll fucking do it,” Black Pete crossed his arms. “But only until we get a new ship or find my sweetie. And as long as we’re still badass pirates.”

“Obviously! And don’t forget, we’ll still be robbing our venues blind. And we’ll certainly be needing the Dread Black Pete on board for that!”

Black Pete shrugged, casually. “Yeah,” he said, “I guess you probably will.” 

“Absolutely!” said Stede. He glanced up to the sailyard. “Buttons?” he called up to it. “We’ll need you and Livy to help catch the fish!”

“Aye aye, Captain!” Buttons called from above. 

“Caw caw!” said Olivia. 

“Fantastic! So that just leaves -“

Every eye on the boat turned to Olu. 

Olu looked back at everyone, alarmed. “What?” he demanded, crossing his arms defensively. “Why’s everyone looking at me?”

“Because?” said the Swede. “You’re the captain?”

“What?” Olu demanded. “No, I’m not!”

“What?“ said Stede. “No, he‘s not!” He looked over at Olu. “Are you?” 

“No!” Olu cried defensively.

“Yeah, but, you are kind-of in charge,” said Wee John. “So.”

“Well, all right,” Stede crossed his arms also. “Don’t forget I’m technically in charge, too.” He looked over at Olu with wide, pleading eyes. “Well, Olu?” he said. 

They all stared at Olu, waiting for his answer. Olu stared back at them. Anticipation hung heavy in the air.

“Okay, fine,” Olu said at last. “But I’m not touching any of the fish. Not until they’re cooked.”

“That’s perfectly fine with me!” said Stede. 

“I do have one condition,” Roach held up a finger. “You,” he pointed it at Stede, “are not allowed in the kitchen. At all.”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way!” said Stede. “It’s settled then, let’s start this food boat!” And there it was again; the gleam in his eye. “In the meantime,” he said, “I’ll get started on booking us some venues!”

1.

The island he’d dropped the crew on was conveniently on the way to Tortuga. Ed spent a few cramped nights on the way trying to nap behind some crates in the jam room, hoping no one would notice, until he woke up in the middle of the night to Frenchie tripping over him on a secret quest to the kitchens for a midnight snack. It had been a harrowing experience for both of them and after that, he did the reasonable thing; told Lucius to piss off, strung up a hammock in the auxiliary wardrobe, and barricaded himself in each night to curl up under Stede’s heavy cashmere jackets. He slept better than he had in months. 

2.

“I think one of the fuckers stole my favorite compass,” he told Izzy, already feeling its weight in his pocket as he ordered the anchor lowered, just out of sight of the island. He fully intended to toss it triumphantly into Izzy’s hands upon his return. “Can’t find the fucking thing anywhere. Might as well take a look, since we’re this close. Hold down the fort. I’m gonna go see if I can find it on their corpses.” 

When he was sure no one was looking, he banged a fist on the side of the hull from the rowboat. After a few seconds, the hidden porthole creaked open. God, Stede really had been a maniac, hadn’t he? A secret door in the hull of the ship. It was downright unnatural it was still afloat. 

After a very undignified struggle that neither one of them would speak of ever again, Ed and Lucius together managed to extract Lucius from the porthole and down into the rowboat where Ed immediately shoved him under the cover he’d left half-on on. “God, it’s so hot down here!” Lucius complained. 

“Shhhh,” Ed hissed. “Keep your head down!” 

“Why does this keep happening to me!” 

“Shhhhh!”

The distinct lack of bleached bones sticking out of the sand as the rowboat came nearer and nearer to the island was more of a relief than Ed expected. It didn’t necessarily mean much; a single storm with high winds and waves could’ve washed them all away. He scanned the whole place for any trace of the crew, steeling himself before Lucius could see it first, but as the dingy slid up into the sands, nothing became immediately apparent. 

Lucius emerged from beneath the cover with a dramatic gasp for air, face redder than a tomato. “Fuck this,” he breathed. “God, they’d better be alive.” 

They dug around in the sands for a bit. Nothing. On a rock, under the sparse shade tree, Lucius pointed out a crude sketch of several stick figures stabbing to death another stick figure with a long curly beard. “Look,” he said. “It’s you.” 

“Oh, yeah?” Ed said, something like elated relief filling him, because he’d just noticed something else scrawled on the other side of the rock. “Look at this,” he pointed at the distinct tally marks someone had scratched into the rock, marking the days. 

There were only two of them. 

“Fuck,” Lucius bent down to look closely at them. He rubbed a finger over them. “Does this mean -” he looked desperately back up at Ed. “Were they only here for two days?”

It was almost too much to hope for, but Ed said, “Looks that way, yeah.” He tried to remember if there’d been a hurricane or something that could’ve blown them all away. He didn’t think so. Then again, he’d been very drunk most of those early weeks. There’d been whole days lost to him. Hope was a strange feeling. Hope and maybe luck. A second chance? 

“Someone could’ve rescued them,” breathed Lucius. 

“Yeah,” said Ed. “Definitely could’ve.” It’d happened to him, once or twice. 

“Oh, what’s this?” Lucius pointed to something Ed hadn’t noticed before. It was a tattered piece of red silk, faded a little pink in the sun, but still recognizable, tied to a thick branch of low shrubbery with the shittiest knot Ed had ever seen. 

He stared at it, unbelieving. Slowly, bent down to it and, very gently, ran his thumb and forefinger across it. There was simply no way. He’d thrown it overboard, he was sure of it. Had it washed ashore? Was that even possible? Who’d tied it to the tree? And why? No one even knew -

Almost no one. Feeling the boy’s eyes on him, trying to ignore them, he carefully untied it. 

“What is that?” Lucius demanded. “Is that some kind of marooning signal? Does it mean something? Do you think one of them put it there? What is it?”

“I don’t,” Ed couldn’t believe it, his thoughts were going to wild crazy places. Tigers and dust. “I don’t know,” he said. He looked at it in his hands, ran his thumb over it again. Carefully, he folded it up and placed it in the inside pocket of his jacket, safely out of sight. “We’ll, uh, hold on to it, though. Just in case.” 

“Um, okay,” said Lucius. When Ed turned back to him he was studying Ed with narrowed eyes. “You know this still solves nothing, right? They could definitely still be dead. And - and even if they aren’t, I’m still angry with you.” 

“Look,” Ed said, feeling strange and dizzy with the heat, maybe because he was slightly hungover. “I’ll help you find him. I promise. I’ll help you find them all.” 

Lucius blinked at him. 

“You can,” Ed cleared his throat. “Stick with me, I guess, if you. If you want. And we can. Look.” 

Lucius’ eyes went even narrower. “Let’s just go back to the ship, hm? Before we make any rash decisions here.”

“I mean it,” said Ed. “I want to help.”

“Well, good, because it was your fault in the first place,” Lucius stalked by him, back to the rowboat. “I’ll just climb back into the fucking hotbox here, shall I?”

“Don’t bother,” Ed said. “I’ll tell Izzy to piss off. The rest of them know you’re alive anyway, don’t they?”

Lucius stared at him, the look he gave Ed neither confirmed nor denied this. 

“Look,” he said instead. “I hate to say this, but if you really want to fake your death, won’t it be easier and more effective if he doesn’t suspect a thing?”

“Oh.” Ed hadn’t given much thought to Izzy’s reaction. Probably on purpose. It occurred to him that he hadn’t thought about Izzy at all, in fact, in his half-baked ideas on how to do it. Only, looking at it now, he realized Izzy might have been the most important person to fool all along. That he always had been. The world rocked on its axis. Tuned, like it really was round. “Oh, yeah,” he said. Izzy. What was he going to do about Izzy? Good old, weird little Izzy. “I guess that’s maybe true,” he felt strange as he said it. 

“I know,” snapped Lucius, climbing back in under the rowboat and shimming under the front cover. “Now just row back as fast as you can before I actually die of heatstroke!”

1.

“Crew meeting!” Stede announced from atop the sort-of quarterdeck the following week. “Everybody! Crew meeting!”

The once-fishing schooner was small enough that it was impossible to pretend you couldn’t hear him. Everyone groggily gathered around the deck, looking like they’d all rather be anywhere else, like still asleep.

“First things first,” Stede practically slid down all three stairs between himself and the crew to join them. “With some help from Buttons and our beloved Livy, I’ve gathered a list of potential venues for our consideration. We can vote on the ones we want to do the most!” He still hadn’t been able to find any paper on board, and so he cleared his throat and held up the palm of his left hand, on which he’d tried to write them all down instead. “Firstly,” he read, “there is the birthday party of the niece of the viscount of,” Stede squinted at his hand, turned it this way and that, “well, something. The point is, Penelope-something is turning ten! How about that? And, everyone attending will be very rich! And it’s right on the Dry Tortugas! Perfect for some good old-fashioned robbery, once we fishstick our way in!” 

“Sounds good to me, I guess,” Black Pete said. 

“You really wanna rob a ten-year-old’s birthday party?” Olu asked. 

“Secondly,” Stede went on as if he hadn’t heard this, “- and this one sounds exciting - the highly exclusive, pirates only,” Stede rubbed at his palm with a finger and squinted hard at it, “Haunted and Evil Week of Scary and Badass Music and . . . Orgy? Festival?” He looked up at the sailyard. “Was that right?”

“Aye!” Buttons called down to him. “The Annual Haunted and Evil Week of Scary and Badass Music - semicolon- Festival and Orgy! Where the moon hangs full o’ blood, and the stars dance to the songs o’ witches. And only the fiercest o’ killers survive!”

“It’s basically a week long beach rager,” Olu said. “Me and Jim went to the one last year.”

“And there be a singin’ competition, too!”

“Oh, please can we go?” said the Swede. “Please, please, please?”

“Eh,” said Roach. “I don’t know. It’s gotten a little corporate over the years.”

There were mutters of agreement all around.

“Well, if there’s going to be an orgy there,” Stede pointed out, “people will get hungry! They’ll need food! Electrolytes! Extra protein! And it says there’ll be pirates!”

“I heard someone dies every year,” Black Pete said wistfully. 

“Eh,” Roach said. “Sell-outs.” 

“Yeah,” scoffed Wee John. “It’s a bit of a knock-off, to be honest? None of the real, like, serious pirates go anymore.”

“Yeah, they’ve both got a point,” Olu said. “It kinda sucked. The first one was up in Ocracoke. And that was supposed to be badass. Like, the formative cultural event of 1700. Everyone else just keeps trying to recreate it.” 

Black Pete sighed nostalgically. “Now that was a party.” 

“Oh!” said Stede. “Were you there?”

“Well,” Pete shifted. “I mean I’ve . . .heard about it. I went to the one in Trinidad two years ago. Honestly, it was so lame.” 

“Yeah,” scoffed Wee John, “that’s ‘cause it was a William Kidd one. He could never beat the O.G. -“ His voice cut off midway through the G syllable, eyes going wide. He looked quickly at Oluwande, and then at Stede, and then away again.

“Who is the ‘Oh Gee’?” asked Stede.

“Uh. Don’t remember,” Wee John said quickly.

“Some…guy,” said The Swede.

Black Pete muttered something unintelligible.

“Oh, fuck,” said Olu. “Forgot about that.”

“T’was Blackbeard, it was!” said Buttons.

“Buttons,” hissed Olu. 

Stede narrowed his eyes at them all. But then he just looked incredibly sad. “I suppose that does explain the name,” he said, a little wistfully. And then, a sigh. “Ed always did have such a way with words.” 

“The point is, captain,” Olu said quickly. “He never shows up to any of the others. It’s, like, kind of a whole thing. Everyone knows he never goes near them. So, really, it would just be a waste of time to even bother with it.”

“Yeah,” Black Pete scoffed. “Blackbeard’s like, waaaay too cool for that knock-off shit. He wouldn’t be caught dead there.” 

They all looked at him. Even Stede, this time.

“Okay, but, you do realize who this is we’re talking about, right?” Olu said. “The same guy who made us sing songs with him and then left us on an deserted island to die?”  

“He made you sing songs with him?” Stede interjected.

“I’m obviously not saying he doesn’t still suck,” Pete snapped at Olu. “The guy’s definitely a total asshole.” 

“Whatever,” Olu rolled his eyes.

“What sort of songs?” Stede pressed

“I dunno, do I?” Olu really didn’t want to talk about this with Stede, who was definitely not on the same page as the rest of them, re: Blackbeard. “Just regular ones?”

“No,” Wee John interjected. “They were definitely sad ones.”

“If there is going to be a singing competition?” said The Swede. “Please can we go?” 

“I’m telling you,” Roach raised his eyebrows with a tisk. “They’ve sold out-”

“I think,” said Stede, looking uncharacteristically thoughtful. “Maybe we should give it a shot. Even if Ed and the others won’t be there, it’s the closest thing to a lead we have yet! And there are lots of pirates there, aren’t there? Maybe someone else has seen them!”

“Yeah, but the thing is, they mostly aren’t like, real pirates anymore,” said Olu. “Most of the really serious ones are like, too serious for that, these days.” 

“Fuckin’ posers,” agreed Wee John. 

“Yeah,” scoffed Pete. “Not like us.” 

They all glanced at each other. 

“But,” Stede started delicately, “I bet we’d sell lots of fishsticks, hm? And maybe even make some friends?”

“Well,” Roach didn’t sound convinced. “First, let’s hear the other venues.” 

Everyone looked at Stede. Stede looked back at them. 

“What?” he said. 

“Other venues?” Black Pete prompted. 

“Oh! Yes,” Stede said. “Venues. Other ones. Well,” he looked at his hand. He put his hand back down. “The thing about that is, that was all of them.” 

“That was… all of them?” Olu asked.

“Yes,” Stede said. “Yes, that was it.”

They all looked at him. 

“Well, it’s a start, isn’t it?” he cried defensively. “And don’t forget, we’ll be robbing them both blind.”

“Hell yes we will,” said Black Pete.

Nobody else looked entirely too pleased with this.

“Only two venues though?” Wee John asked. “That, like, isn’t a lot.” 

“Well, I’m going to keep looking, aren’t I?” Stede added desperately. “I promise!”

“Well,” Olu sighed. “It is a start, isn’t it?” 

There was a mumbling chorus of agreement across the deck.

“Excellent!” said Stede. “In that case, we’ve got a birthday party to attend! Set sail for the Dry Tortugas! Does anybody know how to get there?” 

-

TBC