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1.
Stede Bonnet wakes to the sound of wind in the rafters over his head, a faint breeze on his cheek and thinks he’s back home.
It only lasts a moment.
When he opens his eyes, he’s staring up at the wooden ceiling of the prison camp, Ed’s snoring below him, and the whole of yesterday comes crashing back.
The English, Act of Grace, death death death death - he’d nearly felt the cool embrace drag him away, if it hadn’t been for Ed. What a man.
What’s worse, however, is the whole ‘legally being dead’ thing. Now, that’s the true pickle of the situation. After a few minutes or so of just being lost in thought, he starts musing, sort of uncaring about whether or not Ed is listening, or even if he’s actually awake. “I wonder if they had a funeral. I mean, what would they bury?” He rolls over onto his side to look down to the bed below. “Would it be an empty- Ah!”
Ed is listening.
He’s listening, and he’s completely bare-faced. His whole beard is gone.
He looks like a new man. A different man.
About ten years younger, too. It’s… baffling. Stede isn’t sure if he likes it. “What’ve they done with your face?”
“Oh yeah, the beard - it wasn’t regulation, so it had to go.” Ed, however, doesn’t seem to have a problem with it. He’s happy, it seems. Happy with the idea of folding things, being told what to do, trapped in one place forever.
It’s… strange.
It’s upsetting, almost.
Stede forgoes breakfast and stomps out to the edge of the island to sit, stuck in his thoughts. It gives him time to reflect on the moment, where he’s stuck. When he left his family to take up piracy, he… didn’t really think of the consequences. Stuck on an island, held prisoner by the English for years and years and years - it’s no life.
He feels guilty. He feels ashamed. Most of all - he feels a little lost at sea.
It’s ironic, because they’re stuck on an island.
Ed joins him sometime later. “There you are.” He sits down, shuffles up against the same rock as him. They talk about fake heads, about escape plans, and Ed-
Ed kisses him. Asks him to run away with him. Go to China, flee the island, leave-
In that moment, he gets it. He seems to understand. Ed… cares for him. Ed wants him. How had he not noticed?
Nothing more seems to matter when Ed is there, so he says yes.
Then later that night, he’s terrified out of his mind, being marched across the sand towards the sea by Chauncey Badminton, gun held to his back, and he hopes more than anything that he’ll be rescued, that he’ll be saved, that Ed will have some form of cunning plan to pull him out of this-
But maybe he deserves it.
“The Stede Bonnet reign of terror ends tonight.”
He doesn’t even feel the bullet hit him.
2.
Stede Bonnet wakes to the sound of wind in the rafters over his head, a faint breeze on his cheek and thinks he’s back home.
It only lasts a moment.
When he opens his eyes, he’s staring up at the wooden ceiling of the prison camp, Ed’s snoring below him, and Stede’s - screaming. Panicking.
He falls out of bed, nearly trips on the floor and stumbles across to the tiny sliver of shaving mirror outside by the privy, hands scrubbing at his forehead. He’s dead. He’d died.
Then why does the island feel so real?
He drops to his knees, scrabbling at the sand. The grasses part like they should, and he digs his nails into the earth, expecting to see blood drip down from his face, but there’s -
Nothing.
“Stede.” A hand claps him on the shoulder, and he nearly screams again. “Stede. Mate. Are you alright?”
Ed crouches down beside him, his hand still warm and quite comforting. “Think you were having a bad dream, bro. It’s good. You’re awake now.”
And Stede notices, with some horror, that Ed is beardless.
It had been a dream? But it had all felt so real. The rocks, the thoughts, the kiss, the gunshot-
He takes a second, tries to steady his breath. “Did you- uh. I’m- sorry for waking you.” He claps a hand on Ed’s shoulder and stands, vehemently ignoring the other former pirates pretending not to be looking on. “Bad dream. You must be right. What happened to your face?”
“Oh yeah, the beard - it wasn’t regulation, so it had to go.” Ed squeezes his shoulder, looking genuinely quite concerned. “You sure you’re okay? That was some pretty loud screaming. Like you saw a ghost.”
“I’m fine.” Stede says, but he’s not. His heart stutters wrong for a moment. “It’s fine.”
It’s not.
He forgoes breakfast and stomps off to the rocks, heart pumping strangely in his chest. He feels… anxious, a little. Like he’s done something wrong.
Ed’s beard - shocking. Ed’s demeanor, the same.
Everything had been the same as in the dream. Down to the feel of the sheets and the gust of wind as he woke.
He contemplates for a moment about the nature of the universe and how much they really don’t know. He wonders about the old astronomers, about how they thought the earth was flat - and wonders what implicit lifelong truths he believes will soon come to be false.
That’s where Ed finds him.
“There you are.” Ed says, sliding into place along his side like he’s always belonged there. His presence is a balm.
The eerie similarity of his words are not.
Ed kisses him, and it’s perfect. He really hopes he’s not still dreaming.
“Maybe we can start over.” Ed says, holding his hand so, so gently. “Reset.”
It doesn’t work.
Chauncey Badminton walks him towards the ocean, and Chauncey Badminton shoots.
He doesn’t feel the bullet.
3.
Stede Bonnet wakes to the sound of wind in the rafters over his head, a faint breeze on his cheek and thinks he’s back home.
It only lasts a moment.
When he opens his eyes, he’s staring up at the wooden ceiling of the prison camp, Ed’s snoring below him, and- “No. No. No. No.”
He’s swinging his legs over the side of the bunk, dropping and stumbling on the floor - it’s a little too high - and storming out of the bunkroom towards the splintered shaving mirror. There’s no blood on his forehead and no bullet in his head.
And he remains living.
“Fuck.” Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.
“Stede.” A hand claps him on the shoulder, and he whirls, ready to spit fire at someone.
But it’s just Ed, and Ed looks concerned. “Stede. Mate. Are you alright?”
The same words.
A hysterical sort of sound bubbles up in his chest, and he can’t hold it back. It’s a mixture of a sob and a laugh, and it bursts forth within him as he holds his hands to his eyes. “I- I don’t know.”
Ed rubs his thumb over his shoulder in a way that’s probably supposed to be quite conciliatory, but Stede barely feels it. “Think you were having a bad dream, bro. It’s good. You’re awake now.”
“Am I?” Stede whispers. “Am I?”
He can’t tell.
He tries the usual; pinching himself, kicking a tree, even gets one of the other pirates riled up enough to slap him, but nothing works.
By the time he’s exhausted every option, Ed’s still looking on, but he looks genuinely worried by the state of affairs. He’s not the only one.
“What’s going on with your face, mate? ” Stede spits, winded and fed up, as he slides down the edge of the bunkroom. He’s maybe bleeding a little.
Ed just takes a seat across from him, holding his hand out a little like he’s trying to calm a frightened dog. “The beard - it wasn’t regulation, so it had to go. What’s going on with you?”
Stede whimpers, banging his head back against the bunkroom. “I think I’m in Hell.”
Ed nods slowly. “Is there a reason you think that, or…”
“What would you do if I skipped breakfast and just… walked away from here?” He knocks his head back against the wall again. It doesn’t do much more than make it ache.
“Yeah, I’d probably come find you, ae.” Ed says. He scoots over so he’s sitting next to Stede, and rests a careful hand behind his neck, fingers cool against the soft skin there. “Maybe bring some bread. How about you don’t bash your brains out on this wall, ae?”
“It’s the only way.”
“It’s the only way to do - what? Kill yourself?”
“Ed.” Stede gasps, turning to face him. “I’ve died twice already. Tonight, Chauncey Badminton comes to me and kills me. Why not just end it here?”
“I think…” Ed says, gingerly. “I think-”
“Yeah?” Stede replies, tears streaming down his face. “What do you think?”
“I think you’ve probably had a little too much sun.”
“EUGH.” Stede huffs, and slams his head back once more. The funnel web spider living inside the wall decides to take that opportunity to bite him on the nape of the neck.
This time, the death isn’t quite so sudden, and he definitely feels it.
4.
Stede Bonnet wakes to the sound of wind in the rafters over his head, a faint breeze on his cheek and thinks he’s back home.
It doesn’t even last a moment.
He swings his legs over the bunk, jumps to the floor and trips, striding purposefully out towards the shaving mirror. There’s no blood on his head, obviously, but he does slam his hand down on the spider hiding in the wall as he passes.
Fuck.
Well, obviously something is wrong.
For someone as well read as he, he’s never read anything like this. A recursive loop? Doomed to be stuck in the same day for the rest of his life? Trapped?
Maybe he is in Hell.
He’s certainly committed enough sins to be sent there.
“Stede.” A hand grasps him on the shoulder. “Stede. Mate. You alright?”
He doesn’t even need to turn to know who it is. He doesn’t know why he asks, but he still does, before he’s even turned around. “What’s up with your face?”
“Oh yeah, the beard - it wasn’t regulation, so it had to go.” Ed says.
The same words. The same, same words. Stede’s certain that if he keeps this up, they’ll be speaking the same for the rest of the day, and the night, until Chauncey…
No. He’s a being with free will and almost scholar-like control of his emotions. He swallows back the panic.
Time to rewrite the narrative. “You look good.”
“Thanks.” Ed looks oddly chuffed by the compliment. His fingers squeeze into Stede’s shoulder, just a little bit. “I don’t hate it. Figured it's time to accept our fate. Besides, kind of comforting, really, once you get your mind around it. Not having to run anymore, or hide. It’s a simple life.”
Those words- too. They’re the same. Why are they always the same? Stede fights for something different - something completely out of left-field - something to utterly uproot the narrative where it stands. “I have a full shelf of erotic literature back on the Revenge.”
“What.”
Stede takes off then, walking out of the camp, towards the rocks, towards the sea. He’s uprooting the story, taking control of the narrative. He’s not going to be predictable. “I have a full shelf of erotic literature back on the Revenge. Filthy stuff. Absolutely abhorrent. The English would stone me if they knew some of the atrocities pictured in those books.”
“Why… are you telling me this?” Ed says. He’s following about three steps behind him, ploughing through the jungle quite admirably, completely shoeless.
“Because I want you to know more about me. I want to throw off the readers. I want to break myself out of this loop.”
“You are making… no sense.” Ed huffs. “Completely none.”
“Good. That’s the ideal. Did you know that there’s a full book of erotic stories about tentacles on that bookshelf? They’re wholeheartedly lewd. I’m almost surprised you weren’t drawn to them, because of your persona being the Kraken and all.” Stede slumps down on a tree stump. The frenzied walk towards the beach is somehow harder when he’s annoyed. “I have lived this moment before, Ed.”
“This moment?” Ed looks around him, and then steps towards him, knees brushing up against the tree stump too. “Really? Can you tell me what I’m going to do next?”
“Well, I mean- not this moment exactly- but a variety of moments like this and-”
Ed kisses him, and it’s perfect. The angle isn’t awkward, and the uncomfortable churn in Stede’s gut calms for a moment. He pulls Ed closer, lets his fingers wander through his hair and along his spine, and it’s-
“Oh, you would be the type.” Chauncey Badminton sneers, from somewhere far away, and then there’s a gunshot.
5.
Stede Bonnet wakes to the sound of wind in the rafters over his head, a faint breeze on his cheek and thinks he’s back home.
It only lasts a moment.
When he opens his eyes, he’s staring up at the wooden ceiling of the prison camp, Ed’s snoring below him, and the whole of yesterday comes crashing back.
He screams so hard that he bursts an eardrum.
No breakfast.
Beach.
Ed.
Kiss.
Chauncey.
Death.
6.
Wind.
Rafters.
Snoring.
No breakfast.
Beach.
Ed.
Kiss.
Chauncey.
Death.
7/8/9/10…23/24????
Windrafterssnoringnobreakfastbeachekiss.
Chauncey.
Death.
52.
Somewhere amongst the loops he wakes, cool air against his cheek, to the sound of Ed snoring below, and he thinks about Mary, and what he’s done to deserve all this.
It’s a long list.
Leaving his family, becoming a pirate, doing more than his… fair share worth of raids, fighting and living and burning bright.
His father would kill him for it.
Mary though, and his children. He wishes he could write them, to apologise. He wishes he could write them, to make amends.
But writing requires time, and time is something he doesn’t have. If he wrote the letter, it would hardly leave the shore before the day ticked over and he’d be returned to his bed, like he never wrote the thing in the first place.
Silent tears drip down his cheeks and he rolls over, pulling the thin bed sheets closer to his chest. He doesn’t want to move, so he just… doesn’t.
“Stede.” Ed hisses up to him, after some time.
He doesn’t respond.
Ed says some more things, things that probably matter, but inside his head it’s peaceful, and the nightmare feels very far away. It’s like the world outside is muffled, painted in muted colours, and he can’t make the effort to focus.
Stede is so very tired.
The next thing he hears is, “Move your arse over, Stede.”
He blinks and squints through stinging eyes over at Ed, who’s climbing the bunk’s ladder, clutching something that smells delicious wrapped in a large palm leaf. “I don’t think this bed is made for two.”
“Don’t care.” Ed says, still climbing. “Shift.”
So Stede… shifts over, and Ed lies down, and there they are, two fully grown men lying in a prison bed that’s far too small for them, anchored together from neck to knee, almost. The faint nausea in Stede’s stomach seems to calm, for a moment. That’s Ed, though. Kind of a balm.
“I got bread.” Ed says, and passes him one of the parcels. “Cause you’re all sad and you skipped breakfast.”
“I always seem to.” Stede replies, sort of hazily, because he truly doesn’t remember when he last ate… anything, really, but especially breakfast. The days of the loops are hazy, and he’s not attended the morning meal at the prison for any one. He picks at the bread, raising it to his mouth.
It’s surprisingly nice, and fluffy - but then again, he has been trapped in a loop for days. Nice of Ed to think of him, though. Really, it had been kind.
“What’s up with you?” Ed says, after the bread. He tosses the rolled up palm leaf towards the door. The wind just batters it back in.
“It’s not worth explaining.”
Ed accepts that, despite his obvious curiosity. “‘kay. Fair enough. Tell me later, if you want to. Do you get like this sometimes?”
“Lately more than most.”
Ed nods, jostling a little closer. He smooths a hand down Stede’s arm, gaze serious. “Yeah. I get that too. Like, real dark, real dramatic - you’d hate that guy.”
Stede rolls over to face him. Their faces are quite close. He thinks, by now, that he should be used to this. The intimate moments between them. The warmth Ed feels for him.
The echoing warmth that he’s come to learn he feels back. “The Kraken?”
“Yeah. Total dick.” Ed holds onto his hand, as though anchoring himself for stability. “It was the worst, you know. At the end. When I saved your life I was maybe two days from topping myself?”
“What. No.” His blood stills, because even now, even… however many loops in, he’s never seen Ed die. The thought is horrifying. World changing, even. “You weren’t?”
“You have no idea how boring it was. Maiming, trying to drown each other, fighting - nothing changed, and nothing improved. Dying was the only thing I hadn’t tried.” Ed turns over their joined hands and presses a kiss to Stede’s knuckles. “You stopped me from drowning, mate.”
“Oh.”
That, really, is quite the emotional weight for a man to take.
They lie intertwined for the rest of the day, just trading moments, secrets, memories, touches. Ed tells him of his home, of poverty, of Gerald - the fancy salesman who sold him nothing but flirted every time he came through town - of becoming a pirate.
Stede speaks about his family.
Both Mary and his children; and the new family he and Ed had grown together.
The night grows dark and a chill springs up from across the water, and Stede knows it’s nearly time.
“Don’t forget this.” He begs, pulling Ed close. “Please. I simply couldn’t bear it.”
Ed just gazes at him, his scarred thumb wiping away one tear as it drips down Stede’s cheek. “Why would I forget this?”
“It’s not up to you.” Stede whispers, and the prison’s clock strikes midnight as everything fades away.
53.
Stede and Ed go swimming in this loop. The motions feel fuzzy to Stede, as he pulls himself through the water. He’s so, so tired.
He drowns, in a rip tide that pulls him out to sea.
54.
Hunting for edible snacks out in the forest. Ed shows him some foreign bugs. Muddily, Stede points out some trees. His head rings every time a stick cracks underfoot.
Maybe he’ll just die like this.
55.
Panic, skipped breakfast, a breather on the rocks, Ed kissing him like it’s his first time and-
A twig snaps behind them.
Chauncey appears, half mad, pointing his gun at them both. The barrel is shaking.
“I knew you’d be like this.” He sneers, and then without warning, fires.
There’s so much blood.
There’s so much blood.
It’s like the world’s moving on slow motion, like he’s pushing through the motions underwater, because Ed’s falling this time, and Ed’s dying, and Ed’s-
Dead.
Stede stands, hands coated in blood - Ed’s blood, Ed’s blood, his red, red blood and says, strangely calmly, as though he can hear anything more than just a high-pitched shriek in his head, “Kill me.”
“My pleasure.”
And Chauncey pulls the trigger.
56/57/58..124/235/449/501
There’s so many ways to die on an island in the Caribbean.
Stede nearly composes a list.
- Stabbing = surprisingly not painful, just slow.
- Spiders = very painful.
- Being shot = terribly predictable.
- Being hanged = oddly fuzzy and light, at least for the first few moments. Then, panic.
- Wild dogs = 0/10, would not recommend, especially not to a friend.
- Mushrooms = hallucinatory, in a way that’s fun.
- Other mushrooms = hallucinatory, in a way that’s not fun.
- Throwing oneself off a cliff = terribly violent, especially if he hits a few spikes on the way down.
- Drowning = the absolute worst.
502.
Stede Bonnet wakes to the sound of wind in the rafters over his head, a faint breeze on his cheek and thinks he’s back home.
It only lasts a moment.
When he opens his eyes, he’s staring up at the wooden ceiling of the prison camp, Ed’s snoring below him, and the world is muddy and weak at the edges, like the sunlight is flowing through a tea filter.
He does not know how many loops he has lived through, but he knows there are many.
Rolling over, he looks down at Ed. The man is still sleeping peacefully, but in a moment, Stede knows he will awaken, cheery and pleased to be there.
He is so, so tired.
Maybe it is easier to simply play the role.
“Do they really think I'm dead? Or did Mary report me dead out of spite? I wonder if they had a funeral. I mean, what would they bury?” He looks down at Ed, forces himself to take in the new, freshly unbearded face. “Would it be an empty... Ah!”
There’s no actual surprise in his tone, but it awakens Ed all the same.
“Stede?” He says, then, “What…?”
“What’ve they done to your face?”
“Oh yeah! Yeah, the beard wasn't regulation, so it had to go. Feels weird. From here to here, is freezing.” He gestures, sort of hazily, runs his hands along his cheeks.
“But- you’re Blackbeard.” Stede pushes himself up, tries to remember the exact moments from the first loop. “You can't be Blackbeard without your black beard.”
They speak, make jokes about his beard, about their ages, and then it’s time to skip breakfast and head off to the rocks.
Stede’d thrown himself from them once or twice, a hundred or so loops back.
They’re not so pretty now.
Ed arrives, they talk, and Ed kisses him, and it’s… practically perfect.
If Stede wasn’t feeling quite so hollow, maybe the moment would resonate a little more. It’s been a long time since he’s gotten this far, taken this exact series of steps to wind up in this exact place.
Ed, though - his joy bursts across his entire face. He’s delighted, beautiful, joyful. He’s happy.
Stede wishes he had that innocence, that naivety.
Not any more.
“I'll work out all the details. You... think up some new names. Cool ones.” Ed stands, moving to dash off back to the camp, and out of Stede’s life- when-
He frowns, and sits back down. “Why are you crying?”
“I’m not.” Stede replies, and scrubs the tears away. He hadn’t even realised he had welled up. It’s not like it matters. “I’m not.”
“Well, that’s not true. Tell me. Do you not want- this?” Ed gestures, sort of expansively at himself, at them both, and then back to himself again. “Cause that’s fine. We can just stay here- we can do whatever- when-”
“You and I die tonight.” Stede croaks. He is so, so tired. He just doesn’t have it in him any longer to pretend to try, to pretend to care. He smoothes his hand along the rocks and leans back, staring out at the horizon. He’s done.
“What?” Ed inches closer, sits back down next to him, cross-legged. “Pretty sure you just said we die tonight.”
“Yep.” His throat hurts. “Sometimes it’s you first, sometimes it’s me. That’s easier, cause it means that you don’t. But we die, every single time.”
“Stede.” Ed’s looking genuinely worried now. He takes Stede’s hand again, rubs it between his fingertips. “Stede, you’re going to have to give me a bit more than that, mate.”
“You once loved a travelling salesman called Gerald.” Stede whispers. He’s so far away. “You have so many secrets, Ed. So many. You told me once that you were going to kill yourself if you hadn’t met me.”
Ed’s fingers are still atop his hand. “Who said that?”
“You did.” Stede hisses, staring him down with the remainder of his strength. “You did. Another you. A past you. I have lived this day thousands of times and I can’t escape. All I do is watch you die or die myself and I’m just- I’m just done. I can’t do this any more.”
“I’ve never spoken to anyone about Gerald.” Ed says, after a moment. “No-one at all. I was going to take that secret to my grave.”
Stede snorts. It’s wet and a little choked. “You have done. Many times.”
“Oh.”
“The fortune tellers and the wise folk in the Republic of Pirates speak tales of such-”
“-reliving of moments.” Stede finishes his sentence. “When something goes wrong in the fabric of creation, something must be done to fix it.”
“I’ve told you that already, I guess?” Ed says, looking more than a little shocked, but in the scheme of things - he’s still taking it pretty well. No stabbing yet, which is better than the third time.
“More than once. You also said there was no escape.”
Ed shrugs. “Doesn’t sound like me. Tell me, what were you trying to do when you got trapped in this loop?”
“I was going to meet you at the docks, late at night. You were going to steal a dinghy. We were going to row away to China. And then I-” He can’t bring himself to say it. He swallows heavily, then tries again. “I have been shot by Chauncey Badminton, so many times. ”
“Eugh, that prick.” Ed pats him on the shoulder, almost thoughtfully. “You’ve tried everything, I take it?”
He really has. “Yeah. I’ve tried… everything.” Every night, he’d failed. So many deaths, so many loops. He’d failed.
“Great.” Ed stands, and brushes the sand from his pants. He offers Stede a hand. “Come on, then. We’re leaving.”
“What?” Stede takes his hand, lets himself be pulled to his feet.
“You haven’t tried to escape during the day, have you?” Ed grins at him, eyes wild. The wind whips up his hair a little.
“No…”
“Cause it’s a bloody batshit idea, of course, mate. They won’t be expecting it. We’ll get away scot free.” Ed grabs his hand, and with that pronouncement, he pulls him along towards the shore.
“We’ll never get away, Ed.” Stede huffs, running along behind him. “There’s no way. They’ve got ships faster than us. Where would we go?”
“You don’t know until you try and you’ve never tried .” Ed yells back at him, as he jogs even faster. “Besides, if we fuck up, then you just try again till we don’t.”
“I can’t see you die again-”
Ed waves a hand. “You won’t! Come on. ”
They round the corner of the hill and stop at the edge. Down below is a jetty, with a series of dinghies attached to it. A couple of guards, looking bored out of their skulls, stand about, smoking. They’ve swords, but no guns.
Ed frowns. “Well, I was gonna say their ships go up in flame like mad, but since there are none of their ships here, we don’t even need to bother.”
“What’s the plan? ” Stede hisses, ducking back behind a large fern as the guards look in their direction.
Ed shrugs. “Sprint like hell, punch those two in the face, row away real fast and hope they don’t catch us?”
“How well reasoned and well thought out!” Okay, so he’s a little hysterical. He thinks he has reason to be.
“Stede.” Ed sighs, turning to face him. “We’ve got this chance. Let’s take it. I don’t want you to be stuck here anymore. Even if I am great company.”
Stede pokes his nose out and sees that the guards have wandered back under the shade of the palm trees by the shore. Now or never, he supposes. Maybe, after so long stuck in the loop, it’s time to take that leap. Fuck it. Fuck it. He doesn’t even know what he’s going to say before he says it, but the words just spring from him.
Maybe it’s the exhaustion, but he can’t stop himself. “I didn’t know before. At the start of the loop. When you kissed me and left me on that beach. I was scared - I didn’t know what to do. But I know now. Ed.” He reaches for him, pulls him close. “I love you.”
And finally - finally , he kisses him.
Ed’s eyes are so, so fond when they part. “Yeah, you’re not bad yourself, mate.”
“I spill my guts to you and you just say I’m fine?”
“Obviously I’m fucking besotted with you, Stede. Is that what you wanted to hear?” Ed grips him again, drags him into a rough hug. “And I really hope we don’t die here, mostly for your sake, but if we do -”
“No.” Stede says. “Don’t finish that sentence.”
“Okay.” Ed stands up, head poking out from behind the fern. He pulls Stede up with him. “Let’s go then.”
With a wink, he takes off down the hill, screaming, “Hey! Guess what, fullas?! It’s me. I’m an escapee. I’ve escaped!”
For fuck’s sake.
Stede, shaking his head, takes off down the hill after the man he loves.
The guards fight dirty, but they’re not that clever. A couple of jabs to the neck and chest and then Ed’s got the swords of one. He tosses one of the swords to Stede, and together, they fight the final guard until he falls into the water and doesn’t come up.
“Drowning.” Ed shakes his head. “Terrible shit, that.”
“Tell me about it.”
Stede’s hands are shaking as he unknots one of the dinghies - because he’s never gotten this far before. He’s nauseous and dizzy and tired and he feels the dirt of a thousand loops on his skin as he collapses into the boat and they-
Start.
Rowing.
Away.
Which is about when it turns to shit.
Chauncey Badminton comes roaring down the hill on a horse, of all things, and he screams, at the top of his lungs, “Don’t you fucking dare, Bonnet!”
“Faster.” Stede hisses, and pulls at the oars faster himself. “We’ve got to be faster.”
“Yeah, sure am trying, mate.” Ed says, hurriedly. “I’m not a wind god.”
Chauncey leaps from his horse and sprints down the jetty towards him. He drawls his pistol and fires, the shot going wide. It’ll take him a moment to reload, but it’s a moment that they don’t have.
Fuck. Fuck.
Think.
“Just kill me.” Stede squeaks, and stands, passing the oars to Ed. He’s died before, he’ll do it again. It just seems a little bit… worse, like this. After they’ve come so far. “Just me. Leave him.”
“You’re both as bad as each other.” Chauncey spits, still packing the powder into his pistol, with a ludicrous vigour. Under another circumstance, it could be quite funny.
“Nah, I’m worse.” Ed yells, puffing and rowing. “Definitely worse.”
“Just-” But then Stede remembers. Fuck. The rip. “There’s a rip.” He hisses, out the corner of his mouth. “A rip tide. Just out there a bit. It’ll drag us out.”
“How do you-” Ed shakes his head. “Don’t tell me.”
Stede scans the sea for a break in the waves - a flat section that shouldn’t be there. “It’s- there-” He says, and points. It’s far, but it’s not too far, and-
“Bonnet.” Chauncey sneers. His gun clicks. “You’ve been a terrible guest.”
He fires.
Stede trips.
He falls.
He falls.
He collapses against the side of the boat.
503.
Stede Bonnet wakes to the sound of wind over his head, a faint breeze on his cheek and thinks he’s back home.
It only lasts a moment.
No. No. No. No.
He opens his eyes to see…
The faint orange of the dawn sky.
“Stede.” Ed gasps, and the boat rocks ominous as he throws himself in his direction, wrapping him in his arms, a whirlwind of hair and excitement. “Fuck me, I thought you’d never wake up.”
“I’m free.” Stede breathes, and then suddenly, he’s crying again, all at once, like the dam finally broke. It’s the overwhelming sense of relief, mostly. “We escaped. I’m out of the loop.”
“I know.” Ed kisses him then, right on the tip of his nose, all over his cheeks and forehead and down to his lips, overjoyed and nonsensical. “We’re free. I love you, you fucking ludicrous egg.”
Well, there’s not much more of a pronouncement than that.
They bob along in the ocean for a bit. There’s nothing at all in sight.
“Think I might write Mary, once I get my letter paper back.” Stede says. Ed’s hand is still firmly clutched in his, and he’s running his thumb over the back. They're both pressed together, almost within each other's skin. “Tell her the estate, the house, everything is hers. Think I fancy a spell of being actually dead.”
“But not actually dead.” Ed knocks him in the thigh with his knuckles.
Stede laughs. “No. I’ve done enough dying for a lifetime, thanks. By the way, do you have any idea where we are? At all?”
“Oh no, mate. Not a fucking clue.”
But somehow, like this, that doesn’t really seem all that concerning.
Fin.