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For weeks Blackbeard had thought about every possible way he would meet Stede again and every possible way he could react. Perhaps he’d stab him between the ribs, quick and easy. Or he could tie him to something heavy and toss him overboard. Shoot him in the face, lock him in the brig, set him on fire. Whatever the situation, Blackbeard always counted on seeing Stede again.
“Boss…I’ve got some news for ya but I don’t reckon you’ll be very happy t’hear it,” Frenchie said, coming into Stede’s quarters (they weren’t Stede’s quarters any longer, hadn’t been for a while now, and yet he couldn’t stop thinking of them as such.)
“Out with it Frenchie,” Blackbeard growled. If he was going to be forced out of his murderous daydreams, the least the other man could do was be a little more competent.
Frenchie stared down at his feet and twiddled his thumbs nervously. ‘Good,’ Blackbeard thought. If his crew wasn’t wary around him then he was doing something wrong. “Well…it’s just that…we heard some rumors around the port that…Stede Bonnet….is…uh…dead, sir.”
“Dead?” Blackbeard asked blankly, shoving down any emotion that arose simply at hearing Stede’s name spoken aloud.
“Yes, sir. Something about a large cat and a piano.” At that Blackbeard turned away from Frenchie back toward the window, wordlessly dismissing the other man.
Stede Bonnet was dead? Served the bastard right, and while the cause of his death sounded ridiculous, it seemed like exactly the kind of fate that would befall such a lunatic. Blackbeard only wished that it had been at his hands that Stede had suffered, so he could make him pay for his crimes.
He swiped under his eyes and his fingers came back wet and smudged with black. He didn’t care that Stede was dead, truly, he didn’t. Anything he felt for Stede died when he unleashed the Kraken. He would prove it.
Blackbeard stomped up to the deck, any crew members he encountered skittering out of his way. “Izzy,” He snapped at his first mate. “The next ship we encounter we behead every last member and drop their fucking bodies in the sea.”
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Another few months and a very bloody trail of bodies later and Blackbeard was well and truly over Stede’s death. He only allowed Stede to occupy his mind once…maybe twice a day. Nothing more than that. He even stopped dreaming about strangling Stede to death every night.
“Captain!” Came the cry from above deck. “There’s a ship in the distance and a rowboat headed straight toward us!”
“Let them come,” He shouted back. “We welcome them aboard and hang ‘em all. Teach them to mess with Blackbeard.”
He thought it a bit odd that anyone would dare approach his vessel after seeing their flag, which signaled that it belonged to the most fearsome pirate across the sea, but at least the poor fools would provide him with some much-needed entertainment.
Blackbeard stalked to the deck and took his place, waiting for the massacre to begin. He stood in the back, near the cabin, waiting in the shadows for the first sucker to step onboard. He watched as Fang and Ivan tossed over the pathetic rope ladder. He watched as the first pair of hands gripped the side of the ship. He watched as Fang and Ivan hauled the man onto the deck. He froze, heart missing a beat in his chest, as his eyes locked on to the face of a man he had only seen in his dreams, often being stabbed, choked, or in various stages of dismemberment. In front of him stood a golden-haired ghost who seemed to be very much alive.
“Edward, as I live and breathe, it’s really you.” Stede Bonnet was grinning at him. Why was he grinning at him? What right did he have to come back from the dead and smile at Blackbeard and look at him with his soft eyes that crinkle in the corners and turn Blackbeard's stone heart into wet cement?
Blackbeard stepped out of the shadows and made his way toward Stede, his pulse racing, and emotions building a storm in what was left of his heart. Stede left him, Stede died, Stede is the cause of everything that has happened since that night on the docks. Once he reached where Stede stood he threw his arms around the man’s throat, holding him in a vise-like grip.
“What the fuck are you doing on my ship?” Blackbeard roared. “If you were smart you would have never shown your vile face around here.”
“Ed--” Stede choked out. Blackbeard eased his grip slightly, just enough to where he wouldn’t kill the man…yet.
Blackbeard grinned, part of him relishing the physical pain he was causing Stede, though it would never be enough to make up for all the ways Stede hurt him. “Ed is dead,” he hissed. “Ed died that night on the docks as he waited for you to appear. Ed died as the sun rose and the last bit of hope drained out of him.”
Stede’s breaths were labored but he reached a hand out and placed it lightly on Blackbeard’s cheek. He rubbed at the black paint underneath his right eye. “What do you mean Ed’s gone? He’s right here.”
Blackbeard hated the way Stede’s touch set his skin alight and his heart beating after all the time he’d spent telling himself that he wanted nothing more than to see Stede cold and lifeless. And yet, he allowed Stede’s hand to linger on his face a while longer before ripping it off and crushing it in his own hand.
“If you couldn’t love Ed, then you’d never love who I’ve turned into,” His voice broke a little, betraying the bottled-up emotions he’d tried so hard to push down and down and down. He looked around the deck hoping nobody else had heard it and was relieved to find that Fang and Ivan had practically disappeared.
Stede gave him a pained look, either because of what he said or the way he was still crushing Stede’s hand in an iron grip, Blackbeard wasn’t sure. But the part of him that loved Stede and never wanted to see him in pain was at war with his angry and heartbroken side that wanted Stede to suffer.
“I did love you, Ed. I do love you.” He said Blackbeard’s name so reverently that he almost believed him. Almost.
Blackbeard whipped his knife out of his pocket and in a flash it was pointed under Stede’s chin, just barely pressing into his kneck. “Don’t you lie to me. Don’t you dare fucking lie to me. You’d have to be a special kind of lunatic to lie to a man with a knife at your neck.”
“Have I ever lied to you, Ed?” Stede was always so blasé about people trying to kill him and now was no different. “I admit it was a challenging thing to come to terms with and I handled it in all the wrong ways, but I assure you, with the utmost conviction, that I do love you.”
In that moment Stede was looking at him so earnestly, so genuinely, as if he was looking right at Blackbeard’s heart plastered there on his sleeve. As if he could see it, the pathetic shriveled little thing it was, and still thought it worth something. He let his knife fall to the ground and turned away from Stede, feeling as if he was undeserving of all the tenderness in his gaze. The anger drained away completely, replaced by a bone-deep weariness and something that felt strangely like…relief. He felt Blackbeard get smaller and smaller until, for the first time in months, he felt like Ed again.
“You left me. We were supposed to run away together but you left me. And when I heard you died--” Ed cut himself off before his voice could break and betray him again. He took a deep breath and continued, “when I heard you died, I lost myself. You wouldn’t look at me like that if you knew all the things I’ve done.”
He still couldn’t look at Stede, so he walked to the cabin instead, intending to go to the safety and privacy of their quarters (used to be theirs? Could be theirs again?). He figured Stede would follow.
“I’ve heard about it all, people talk. I don’t care about any of it. I know I am to blame for it anyway.” Stede said once they reached the privacy of their quarters. Ed stood at the window and Stede was somewhere behind him. Silence stretched out between them before Stede spoke again.
“I’m sorry I left you, Ed. I just felt quite like a…well like a fool. Like someone undeserving of your affection. What right did I have to allow you to love me? I didn’t want to bring about your downfall or ruin your reputation.” He sounded broken, resigned. Ed hated it.
Ed turned around and took Stede’s face in his hands harshly, forcing Stede to look him in the eye. “What part of me asking you to run away with me implied that I cared about my reputation more than I cared about you?”
Stede’s eyes looked a bit misty, and Ed’s resolve crumbled. He leaned in and finally, finally, kissed Stede. All of the betrayal and heartbreak and love welled up to the surface and he allowed it to come through in the way he pressed his lips to Stede’s. Stede kissed him back equally as fiercely and Ed believed him. He believed that Stede loved him, he believed that Stede was sorry, he believed that Stede didn’t care that he was a monster-- that perhaps Stede didn’t see him as a monster at all.
“Stede I marooned your crew,” Ed said, pulling back slightly. Stede let out a soft ‘mhmm’ and proceeded to kiss the side of Ed’s mouth, then his cheeks, then his forehead.
“I killed Lucius,” he tried again. He needed to put everything on the table, he needed Stede to know everything he’d done so there would be nothing hidden between the two of them. Stede only laughed against Ed’s cheek.
“You didn’t kill Lucius, you nut. We found him in the middle of the sea, wet and miserable and acting a total drama queen, but very much alive.”
Ed laughed softly, relieved. Stede led him to the sofa and sat him down before heading to the bathroom and retrieving a cloth. He began wiping gently at the paint smudged around Ed’s eyes and mouth. When he finished he flashed Ed one of his dangerously heart-melting soft smiles.
“There you are my love, how I’ve missed you so. You’re not heartless or broken or a monster. A bit worse for wear perhaps, but still so lovely.” Stede cupped his cheek so lovingly that Ed could do nothing but lean into it.
He had tried so hard to heartless and for a while he had succeeded. Killing was easy when you were angry at the world and all that it had to offer. But he was tired of being angry all the time. He was tired of being The Kraken and Blackbeard, he wanted so desperately to be Ed again. He wanted to be the man that Stede saw him as. For the first time since that night on the docks, with Stede’s hand on his face, his heart began to beat properly.