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Ed spots them from across the market. Pretty white petals mottled with pink like a delicate starfish. He likes the color. Reminds him of a blush spreading across smooth cheeks, the pop of yellow at the center like a strand of blond hair he wants to reach out and touch—
“Ah! You’ve got quite an eye. Those are lilies.” Stede gestures him forward. “Come, let’s have a look, shall we?”
Ed spares a glance at Stede’s stockinged calves as he trots on ahead, fine buckled shoes clacking against stone. The man has abnormally good legs. Stede has abnormally good everything, really. Abnormally good. Yep. That’s Stede Bonnet in a nutshell.
“Yeah, alright,” Ed mutters and shuffles along, head down to avoid eye contact with any fellow market goers.
This wasn’t exactly what Ed had in mind when Stede proposed a day off-ship. It’s not as embarrassing as treasure hunting, that’s for sure, but the kind of markets Ed’s used to have a lot more blades and blood and a lot fewer brocades and bouquets. He doesn’t fit here among merchants selling such refined goods. He belongs among what Stede deems “proper maniacs,” though there’s nothing all that proper about pirates.
Still, Ed can’t help but be drawn to the flowers. They look so soft, so rare. He brushes his knuckles against the petals.
“Aren’t they lovely?” Stede murmurs. “These represent prosperity. Lilium, they’re called.”
“S’that existential Latin?”
“Ecclesiastical, and no, just the regular kind.”
“Didn’t know there was a regular kind.”
Stede lifts a finger and gently strokes the edge of a petal, coming ever so close to Ed’s hand.
Too close. Not close enough.
Ed jerks back and clasps his hands behind his back. “Should we get some for the ship?”
“Oh, heavens no!” Stede lets his arm fall back against his side. “Lilies are terribly toxic to cats, you know.”
Ed didn’t know, as it so happened. He shrugs. “Don’t do pets, remember?”
“Right, right.” Stede nods. “Well, we must keep it in mind going forward. After all, we do things a little differently on The Revenge. Can’t have something aboard that might poison a member of the crew.”
Ed contorts his face into a smile, even as his head thunders with Izzy’s voice.
A member of the crew? That pathetic little thing?
His former first mate never met the cat in question, but Ed can’t help but imagine his reaction. At first, Izzy’s voice in his head felt like a warning, an omen of ill things to come. Perhaps the grumpy bastard was right all along and Ed shackled himself to an anchor of sorts, doomed to drown in a mess of his own making. But the longer he listens, the more Ed believes that Izzy is not his conscience telling him what he ought to do, but the opposite. It is a warning. The kind he can use to avoid becoming that kind of man. The kind who runs from change, who baulks at soft things, who doesn’t like cats.
They found the little tortoiseshell kitten in the jam room near a week ago. It looked so small in Wee John’s arms, all fluffy and bright eyed. Frenchie had tried to throw it overboard, naturally, but Lucius wrestled the stowaway back to safety.
Stede hoped to come to a unanimous agreement, but talking it through as a crew failed to yield a compromise that left everyone happy. Ed offered to threaten the holdouts, but one look from Stede was all he needed to know it was the wrong gesture.
In the end, they voted on it. There were only two votes against—Frenchie and Buttons, the latter of which voted once in favor and once against on Karl’s behalf—so little Loaf, as Roach dubbed it, was allowed to stay.
“Right, can’t have that,” Ed says, eyes still trained on the pink freckles dotting the lily petals.
“Oh, Ed!” Stede claps a hand on Ed’s shoulder for the briefest of moments. “Look! Orchids!”
Ed turns to follow Stede’s gaze to a collection of small potted plants with bright purple blooms. His hand flutters up to his shoulder absently, fingers trailing in the absence of Stede’s touch.
“Weird lookin plant,” Ed says, but he doesn’t really think so. Weird isn’t the word for it. Wonderous, maybe. That’s what Stede would call it.
Stede is already chattering on by the time Ed’s brain catches up. “See how the flowers are completely symmetrical? Marvelous, really!”
“Yeah, symmetry. Love that.” Ed nods, staring down the plant intently, reaching for a clever observation he can offer in response. “Real small, too. Just a baby.” He winces, hearing his words sail right past clever, landing haphazardly somewhere near obvious instead. Nailed it.
“They are small!” Stede smiles, eyes crinkling like he doesn’t find Ed’s statement at all boring. Like Ed could say anything in the world and he’d find it interesting.
Ed briefly considers testing that theory, but suddenly he can only think of anecdotes about sharks and swords, neither of which are dull—in either sense of the word.
“But actually, these are quite old,” Stede carries on. “An orchid takes a long time to flower. Years, even.”
“Well, that’s a waste, isn’t it?” Ed juts his chin at the plants. “If they don’t flower til they’re practically dead, what’s the point?”
“I don’t know about that.” Stede trails a finger along the petals, worrying his lip between his teeth in thought. “Seems to me flowers are beautiful no matter how long they take to bloom.” His eyes find Ed’s and catch them, murky and warm and searing with kindness of a violent sort.
It’s quite the hostage situation Ed’s found himself in and he doesn’t dare blink.
“I’ll give you two for the price of one,” says the merchant.
Murder seems an easier option than breaking eye contact. Ed could probably slam his knife into the merchant’s neck without looking.
But then Stede tears his gaze away. “Oh, that’s very kind, but I don’t know if—”
“A nice pair, these two.” The merchant pushes forward a second orchid, a deep velvety red so dark it’s almost black to rest beside the other.
Ed glances down at his ensemble, then at Stede’s purple waistcoat with the gold stitching Ed likes so much.
“Very nice,” Ed agrees, not taking his eyes off Stede.
A quiet choking sound crackles behind them and Ed jumps.
Lucius lurks a few feet away, quite forgotten. He holds his sketchbook aloft, hand frozen inches from the page, and his brows are knitted into a web of exasperated disbelief.
“Oh good, Lucius. They’ll suit the library quite nicely, don’t you think?” Stede ushers Lucius forward to get a better look.
Lucius, shoulders so high they’re tickling his ears, hesitates before saying, “No, Captain. Actually, I don’t think—not so much. About the orchids suiting the library, I mean. I do think in general, rather a lot—”
“Could put a stop to that,” Ed says a bit louder than he intends.
“Right.” Lucius gulps. “What I mean to say is, I don’t think orchids will do particularly well at sea. It’s not exactly the right conditions for… for optimal growth and blooming and, well, you know, continued living.”
“What do you mean?” Stede turns to face Lucius head on. “We did just fine with the fern.”
“The fern,” Lucius repeats.
“The fern! The one we liberated from those fishermen!” Stede turns to address the merchant, as though his credibility as a gardener is on the line. “Found it in a right state, you know, but now that it’s aboard my vessel, it’s thriving! Foliage has never looked so green!”
“Thatscauseitsfake,” Lucius mumbles.
“What’s that, boy?” Stede whips around, wavy blond hair falling across his face with movement.
Ed is overcome with the unbearable urge to reach out and sweep it away behind Stede’s ear.
“I, uh, well.” Lucius raises the sketchbook higher, disappearing behind it so that he appears to be nothing more than a sketchbook on legs with rather expressive eyebrows peaking up over the top.
“Spit it out,” Ed growls. He’s not overeager to hear what Lucius has to say by any means, but if nothing happens soon—and really very very soon—he’s afraid his hands will mutiny, striking out as independent sailors to begin the process of exploring the uncharted territory of Stede Bonnet.
Lucius lets out a sound like a wounded squirrel and exhales hard. “It’s a fake, okay? You killed the real one, so me and Frenchie replaced it with a bit of green fabric we found. I think it was a cravat or something. Doesn’t matter. Point is, if you water a plant with salt water and it’s not, you know, kelp, it’ll probably die.”
“I—I killed it?” Stede stammers.
“Yes, Captain. ‘fraid so.”
A little breath escapes Stede and his shoulders slump forward. “Oh.”
Ed’s hands are at his belt before he can stop them, flashing steel in the sun, and pressing the tip of his dagger to Lucius’s belly. “Take it back.”
“Woah!” Lucius’s hands snap up, dropping the sketchbook open to a rather well realized still life of a belowdecks set Ed, unfortunately, recognizes as Izzy’s.
Another warning.
“Ed, no!” Stede presses fingers to Ed’s knuckles with one hand and scoops the other under Ed’s palm. He is gentle even in this, with a knife tangled between their fingers.
But Ed doesn’t need Stede’s words or his touch. He is already backing away.
“My bad,” he says gruffly. His tongue feels too large for his mouth, Stede’s hands too smooth for his touch. He drops the latter and scrambles away. “I’ll just. I’ll head back. Yeah. Yep.”
And he doesn’t look back, too afraid to see the hurt in Stede’s eyes, the quiet pain of the realization that Ed is still Blackbeard underneath, no matter what Stede calls him.
“That was strange, wasn’t it?” Stede says in Ed’s wake, the words carrying even as Ed hastens to leave the market.
“No, not really,” Lucius replies. “Man’s got it bad for you.”
And truer words have never been spoken. Ed does have it bad. So bad. And bad is the opposite of good. So, Ed bottles up the feeling and shoves on the cork. He’ll leave it behind like a message in a bottle for no one but the seagulls to find.
When Ed returns to The Revenge, he is greeted by a stalwart Karl perched atop Buttons’s head. The rest of the crew mills about in various stages of productivity. Fang, Ivan, and Black Pete sit in a circle playing cards with a deck Ed happens to know is short a few queens, Roach and the Swede are hammering something that probably shouldn’t be hammered, and Oluwande is hammered (and also shouldn’t be). Jim’s departure did a number on him, that’s for sure. There was a time when Ed would’ve thought it pathetic for the man to be pining so obviously, but now Ed’s right there with him. He left Stede behind at the market only a quarter hour ago, and already he’s itching for his company.
“Where’s Cap’n?” Buttons asks.
“Dunno.” Ed shrugs. “Don’t care.”
“That’s a load of bullshit,” Olu mutters, swaying slightly on his feet.
It is a load of bullshit. Ed always cares where Stede is, always looking for the Gentleman Pirate to see what he’s looking at, what he’s smiling at—is it him? And sometimes it is, which makes Ed feel like a rather exquisite cashmere himself.
“He and Sideburns stayed back to pick up a few things.”
“Like what?” Asks the Swede, genuine curiosity sparkling in his eyes.
“Better not be another treasure map.” Black Pete gets to his feet and elbows Roach out of the way to take his hammer and begin ineffectually hitting the side of the boat. “We’re busy enough without running off on a wild goose chase again.”
“I just hope they remember to pick up more sugar.” Roach leans back and crosses his arms, content to let Black Pete take a turn at not fixing the ship. “We’re almost out.”
“How? We never eat any sweets.” Black Pete, still hammering, completely misses the boat, his arm swinging freely through the air a couple times before he finds purchase again. “Is this another 40-orange glaze cake situation?”
Roach holds his hands up. “I swear, it wasn’t me. Captain’s got a sweet tooth or something.”
“Or something,” Olu bumps his shoulder against Roach’s, eyes trained on Ed.
Ed clears his throat. “Yeah, weird. Cake. Sweets. We’re pirates. Don’t need that shit.”
But Ed’s mouth waters at the mention of sugar. It wasn’t until the Swede’s teeth started falling out and their trip to St. Augustine that he’d realized what a luxury that cake was. Stede presented it to him on a delicate floral platter—a completely mental thing to bring to sea—and let Ed take the first slice. It was light and tangy and oozing with sweetness. Ed loved every bite.
“It’s all that tea,” Black Pete says. “He takes it with way too many sugars.”
“Think I’ll have some,” Ed says, thinking maybe he’ll try his with eight sugars this time, but before he can reach the door leading below deck, it slams open and Frenchie barrels through it followed closely by a shuffling Wee John.
“You keep that thing away from me,” Frenchie’s saying as he heads for the other side of the ship. “Unnatural lil beastie doesn’t belong on a ship anyway.”
“Loaf’s just a baby.” Wee John holds up the little ball of fluff, its body barely filling his palms. “It don’t mean no harm.”
“Doesn’t matter, does it? Whether it means harm or not.” Frenchie holds up his pointer finger like a trophy. It looks entirely unscathed but for a tiny drop of blood at the tip.
“It hardly touched you!”
“Knives in its feet!” Frenchie waves the finger around.
Ed sighs and ambles over to clap Frenchie hard on the shoulder. “Get a grip, mate. It’s just a kitten.”
“Kittens are still cats.”
“Look at it, man.” Ed points at Loaf in Wee John’s hands. The kitten squints in the sunlight and yawns, showing off sharp teeth. “It’s half the size of your face.”
“Only cause it hasn’t stolen anyone’s breath yet.” Frenchie shrinks back as Wee John steps closer. “It’ll get bigger. We should toss it back while we have the chance.”
“You can’t do that! It’ll die on its own.” Wee John clutches the kitten to his chest.
“Yeah, we voted on it. It’s already decided,” Black Pete chimes in.
“True, true.” Ed nods along, almost certainly fueling Black Pete’s ego for another week. “Even Karl’s come round, haven’t you Karl?”
Karl lets out a loud caw.
“Aye, cap’n. Karl believes in democratic rule,” Buttons translates. “He also believes in reparations and pineapple on pizza.”
Roach shudders.
“Hi, all!” Comes the sound of Stede’s voice. It is like sunshine to Ed’s ears, and effectively ends the feline argument, for now anyway. “It is I, your captain, returned with spoils aplenty!”
Roach rushes to the side of the boat, hope in his gaze. “Sugar?”
“Better than that! Something you can really sink your teeth into.” Stede’s hair bobs into view, followed by his achingly wide smile.
“That’s a bit misleading but okay, sure,” Lucius grumbles from behind him, carrying a large crate in his arms.
Black Pete rushes to help him bring it aboard, though somehow it becomes more unwieldy with two people and they both knock various limbs against the boat, the box, and each other before coming to rest atop a few barrels.
“So, no sugar then.”
“Don’t look so disappointed, Roach.” Stede does a little hop, swishing the tails of his jacket just so and flexing his calves—those damn calves. “I’ve got just the thing to turn that frown upside down.”
“Is it a puppy?” asks Wee John. “Cause I don’t think Loaf would like that very much.”
“It’s not a puppy, though you’re on the right track.” With a flourish, Stede gestures to the crate and makes to remove the lid. His face grows taut and his brows pinch together in the middle forming a little divot. “Mmm it’s stuck.”
Ed is more than happy to push past the others to come to his rescue. One more second of staring at that little forehead dimple would be more debilitating than a week at sea without water. With a flick of his wrist, Ed pilfers the hammer from Pete and uses the other end as a prybar to wriggle it loose.
“Is it a rabbit?” asks Ivan.
“A pig!” suggests Fang.
“Could be a sheep.” Roach leans in. “Mutton stew with a bit of rosemary…”
“If it’s another cat, I swear I’ll mutiny again,” says Frenchie.
“It’s plants.” Black Pete, who’s lurking behind Stede, leans in with a blank look.
“Air plants!” Stede swishes over a notch, his shoulder brushing Ed’s just slightly.
“What the fuck is an air plant?” Frenchie asks.
“Thank you for asking, Frenchie!” Stede reaches into the crate, elbowing Ed on the way. “Oh, sorry about that there.” Stede pats Ed’s side with his palm, his touch soothing and searing in equal parts even through Ed’s shirt.
Ed doesn’t move. Doesn’t breathe. Who needs oxygen when you can have Stede Bonnet’s elbow in your ribs?
“S’alright, mate,” Ed manages eventually, then against every instinct in his body, he continues, “Go on, show us the plants.”
Stede’s lips twitch into a smile, and though everyone’s watching, Ed feels as though it’s just for him.
“Air plants are clever little things, really.” Stede reaches into the box and produces a spiney looking plant, light dusty green and smaller than a dragonfly. “Gardening at sea is bit of a tricky business. There’s only so much fresh water, of course, and it’s best we save that for the crew. Lucius set me straight on that point, so thank you, Lucius.”
“Question, captain.” Frenchie raises his hand. “If water’s to be saved for the crew, don’t you think it’s a bit stupid to keep a cat on board?”
“Loaf is part of the crew!” Wee John exclaims.
“Quite right, Wee John. Loaf is a vital member of the team.” Stede hands the air plant over to Frenchie like a consolation prize.
“Bloody cat,” Frenchie mutters.
“Now, the fascinating thing about air plants is they don’t need much water. In fact, the merchant said the humidity at sea should be enough to keep them alive for a long time.”
“How do we go about plantin’ it?” Wee John asks, leaning to get a better look at Frenchie’s plant.
“That’s the beauty of it!” Stede claps his hands together. “Air plants don’t need to be planted. They’re air plants. They don’t need roots to live.”
“Does it do anything?” Frenchie turns the plant over in his hands.
“It looks nice, Frenchie. You can display it on a bit of beach wood or somewhere on the ship if you like.” Stede grabs a handful of air plants and begins passing them out one-by-one. “You all can. There’s one for each of you.”
The crew forms a disorderly line, taking their plants from Stede like rations. Ed watches as Stede carefully selects a plant for each of them and gently places it in their palm.
“Take good care of it,” Stede says to each of them with such reverence that Ed believes he would devote his entire life to raising and nurturing an air plant if Stede told him to.
“I’m naming mine Margaret after my uncle,” Roach proclaims.
“Oh, that’s a great name for a plant.” Wee John strokes the long leaves with the tip of his finger. “Think I’ll name mine after Jim.”
“I was going to name mine Jim,” the Swede says.
“Well, they can’t both be Jim,” Olu mumbles.
“I’m sorry, did you want to name yours Jim?” the Swede asks.
“What? No, course not.” Olu shakes his head, but he looks a bit sick, though whether from drink or feelings, Ed can’t tell.
“What are you going to name yours, babe?” Black Pete asks Lucius, head bent over the other man’s shoulder, hands resting on Lucius’s hips.
“Hmm.” Lucius leans back into Pete and turns the air plant over in his hands. “Well, it’s little, and kind of mean looking—all twisty and gnarled--so I think it’s only fitting, really… meet Izzy, the air plant.”
And that’s about enough for Ed. He climbs up to the crow’s nest, quiet as can be. He turns his back on the crew sharing in their little air plant activity together and sets his eyes on the horizon, wishing he were more like an air plant. When he was Blackbeard, he didn’t have roots. Never needed them before. Ed’s fingers grip the mast. He doesn’t let go.
Stede finds him near sunset, an orange glow cast across the water as they sail away from port. It’s been hours, and Ed’s vaguely aware that he’s a little hungry and a lot thirsty. The chattering of the crew has died down a bit, and from his vantage point he can see the crew tending to their air plants.
Near the stern, Wee John and Loaf are napping, the little kitten encircled in his arm. Beside him, the Swede has absconded with his and Wee John’s air plants (after much trepidation and debate, named Jim and Oluwande) and is making loud smooching noises as he presses the plants together like they’re kissing. Frenchie is lying on his side, eyes wide open, staring at Loaf. Every so often, he reaches out his finger and cautiously touches the tip of the kitten’s nose.
“There you are.” Stede hauls himself up beside Ed. “You disappeared for a bit.”
“Didn’t want to be in the way.” Ed clears his throat. “Nice thing you did there, for the crew.”
Stede eyes him with a pillow-soft gaze, gentle in its searching. “Yes, I think so. It’s done quite a bit for morale, at least.”
“Never was a fan of pets aboard my vessel. Too much clean up. Besides, you just can’t say no to their little squishy faces. But I dunno. Think you’re on to something with the air plants.”
Lowering himself to sit beside Ed, Stede leans against the mast, letting their shoulders bump as The Revenge crests wave after wave. “At the very least, I hope it will teach them all a bit about personal responsibility. Having something to look after will nurture their caring side as well.”
“Well, looks like it’s working.” Ed points below where the rest of the air plants are collected on the crate lid. Fang meticulously tucks each of them in under scraps of burlap, quietly serenading them with a lullaby.
“Mostly,” Stede says. “Buttons ate his, but I suppose that’s all right. He has Karl, after all.”
“Fucking mental. Love that guy.”
Stede smiles, though there’s something missing from his expression that feels restrained. “I’m sorry we couldn’t take the orchids with us.”
Ed isn’t expecting that. He can count on his fingers the number of times someone has apologized to him, and of all the debts he feels he’s owed, not buying the orchids isn’t one of them.
“No worries, mate. Orchids don’t belong at sea.”
“They don’t,” Stede agrees. “But then, neither do I.”
“Who told you that? I’ll kill ‘em.”
Stede places a hand on Ed’s forearm. “Lots of people. And maybe they were right. If not for you, I doubt I’d have managed this long. I would have died at the hands of the Spanish, or some other pirates, or my own crew. I’m rather unfit for this life, if you haven’t noticed.”
“Don’t know about that.” Ed’s voice comes out gruff and ragged. “You knifed that one bloke through the eyeball and you beat Izzy—twice.”
“Well, I suppose there is that.” Stede sighs, letting out a long breath. Ed would give anything to be held as tight as the oxygen in Stede’s lungs. “Still, the thing is I don’t particularly belong at sea, but I’m here anyway, and I don’t plan on leaving.”
“You don’t.”
“I don’t.” Stede’s eyes settle on Ed’s hands and Ed does his best not to move them, else he break whatever reverie has captured Stede Bonnet’s attention. “Sometimes I think belonging isn’t about other people and how they perceive you, it’s about where you choose to be and if you choose to stay.”
“If you choose to stay.” Ed’s just repeating Stede at this point. Original thought feels as unreachable as the sun on the horizon, slowly dipping beneath the waves.
“An orchid can’t choose for itself. Wouldn’t be fair to take it aboard only for it to die.” Stede looks up to capture Ed’s gaze. “An orchid can’t choose,” Stede repeats.
A silence hangs between them, a curtain Ed doesn’t dare pull back, and the unspoken words fill the space.
An orchid can’t choose, but I can.
Ed doesn’t mean to lean in. It’s only a fraction of an inch, so small it could be passed off as an answer to the shifting wind. Their knees knock together lightly, once, twice, like a rising tide lapping at a rocky shore.
And then, in a move Ed can hardly believe he was stupid enough to make, he ruins it.
He blinks.
And in that moment between open and closed, Stede shifts away.
“I got you something,” he says, reaching behind him and producing a little clay pot.
“An air plant?” Hope chokes in Ed’s throat, unsure if it’s better or worse to be excluded.
“No, not an air plant.” Stede holds out the pot for Ed to take. “Something different. Something special.”
Better, then, Ed decides. So much better.
It’s a small pot. Ed can encircle it easily with both hands. Inside, there’s a bit of dry dirt and the weirdest plant he’s ever seen. It’s all puffy and coiled like long wavy tubers. It looks spiney or fuzzy, he can’t tell which, and it’s a dark muted blue-green, like the ocean.
“It reminded me of you,” Stede says.
Ed’s heart seems to sweat and shrivel like peach left in the sun. Something reminded Stede of him, and that alone feels miraculous and grand, but it is this ugly, twisted thing. It doesn’t even have any flowers—not like the orchid, which was rare and delicate and lovely. All things Stede is. Not Ed.
“What is it?” Ed asks.
“I’m glad you asked!” Stede says with all the gracious enthusiasm of a school teacher. “This is a succulent.”
“Like a succubus?” Ed nearly drops the plant.
“No, no.” Stede reaches out to steady the pot in his hand, his light touch bruising in its gentleness. “A succulent is a kind of plant, not a monster. They come in all shapes and colors, and the best part is they don’t need much water, just a lot of sun, so it’s perfect for a ship. I thought we could put it in the window downstairs and watch it grow, together.”
Ed stares at the plant clasped between their hands. A kraken of a plant if ever he’s seen one. But he finds it doesn’t matter what kind of plant it is. Hell, it could be made of cloth like the fern. Ed doesn’t give a shit. Ed would do just about anything as long as Stede keeps saying the word together.
For days, the succulent does nothing. It’s just bulbous and vaguely blue and—Ed discovers—soft like cashmere. Stede is attentive in a way Ed could not have imagined, sitting in the window with his tea each morning and staring lovingly at the weird little plant. Sometimes he talks to it, tells it plant-themed jokes, murmuring little endearments and encouragements when he thinks Ed isn’t watching.
But Ed is always watching. He can’t tear his gaze away. It is a tender thing, to see Stede this way. He is reminded that Stede is a father. Of two children, he said. But Ed knows he is also a father to eleven crewmen. And now a really ugly plant.
Ed wonders if he’d be a good father, too. He wonders if he’ll ever find out.
After one week, the succulent grows two inches.
Stede is so excited, he knocks the plant over, spilling dirt everywhere.
“It’s all right, my love, we’ll put you back in. Everything will be fine. You’ll see,” he mutters as he cleans up the mess, petting the succulent like a kitten.
Ed thinks perhaps it’s not so bad that the plant reminded Stede of him. Not if this is how he treats it. Ed would give up his human form to be a succulent if it meant Stede would whisper sweet nothings to him like that.
After two weeks, half the crew’s air plants have died, though not from neglect, necessarily. Lucius’s, the Swede’s, and Ivan’s all experience casualties at the hands of Loaf the kitten, who has taken to hunting them like prey.
“She’s a natural killer,” Black Pete proclaims, patting Lucius’s arm comfortingly. “Izzy the air plant didn’t stand a chance.”
“Are we sure Loaf’s a she?” Lucius asks, not particularly torn up by the demise of his air plant. He turns to Wee John for an answer.
“Didn’t think it was proper to check,” Wee John says with a shrug. “Respect its privacy, and all that.”
“Don’t be stupid,” Black Pete says. “All cats are girls.”
“What do you mean all cats are girls?” Frenchie asks. “It’s a girl and a cat?” But his outrage is only half-baked. Between Loaf’s antics with the air plants and its warm, fuzzy face, Frenchie has been quite won over by the kitten. His remaining apprehension appears to be nothing more than a front to save face.
“All cats are girls and all dogs are boys. Everybody knows that,” says Pete.
“Yeah I don’t think that’s how it works, mate,” says Frenchie.
After much debate, they decide Wee John’s right and it’s not appropriate to look.
“Besides, not like gender ever had much to do with what’s downstairs,” Wee John says.
They decide Loaf’s not a girl and not a boy. Instead, they determine Loaf’s gender is Jim.
The succulent gets taller, sending out a long shoot like a tentacle. It reaches toward the window, drawn to the warmth of the sun.
After three weeks, the only crew members whose air plants still live are Olu and Fang. They place them together in a little crystal bowl Stede gave them. Every night, Fang tells them an abridged version of whatever story Stede is reading them.
Ed joins Stede during his morning succulent watch. They sip their tea and talk. Sometimes Stede tells Ed nautical-themed jokes he comes up with. Sometimes they’re actually funny, though Ed always laughs heartily either way.
“How’s this—Did you know if you flip over a dinghy you can wear it as a hat?” Stede begins.
Ed lets out a chuckle. “Good one.” It’s not a good one, but Ed doesn’t care.
“That’s not the punchline, Ed.” Stede nudges Ed’s knee with his own. “Did you know if you flip over a dinghy you can wear it as a hat? Because it’s cap-sized.”
Ed blinks at him, brain mostly still focused on the knee nudging.
“It’s cap-sized.” Stede repeats.
A laugh bursts from his belly, low and warm and not at all contrived. “That’s actually really funny. I haven’t heard that one before.”
Stede grins. “I’m glad I could introduce you to something new.”
And one day, Stede is making their tea—seven sugars, yes, I know—and Ed makes his way to the little window seat alone.
“Good morning, planty,” he says in his best imitation of Stede, but he doesn’t get any further because something has changed. The succulent isn’t a twisty bulbous mess of blobs.
Well, yes, it is still all of those things. But it’s not just those things.
The long stem has opened into a deep, vibrant, purple flower. It’s the shape of a star, flat with petals spread wide. Ed can’t help himself. He lifts a finger and runs it along the side. It’s soft and fragile, not at all like the rest of the plant. It’s, dare he think it, pretty.
“Would you look at that!” Stede says when he sits down beside Ed. He hands over the tea and smiles, just as bright and warm and brilliant as the flower. “It finally bloomed.”