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Ed always got fidgety while Stede was doing the accounting. (Stede had wondered how it was done on Ed’s ship, until Ivan and Fang had been in his office reporting on the results of a raid while Stede had accidentally left the ledgers out and Ivan—across from Stede’s desk, reading the numbers upside down, had pointed out, you’ve dropped a ten there, Captain Bonnet. Since then, Ivan had become—well, he was already invaluable, but in any case, he helped check Stede’s numbers.)
Ed pulled a small, plain book off of the shelves, held shut with a cord, a loop of ribbon peeking out over the top where the bookmark didn’t quite sit correctly.
“This one’s different,” said Ed, going for the cord knot. “What’s this?”
“Wait!” said Stede, feeling his face flush.
Ed paused, and looked back at him.
“Ah, that’s my journal,” said Stede, brightly. “Er, if you could just... I’ve kept it since I was 16 or so. If you don’t mind. It’s rather… personal.”
“So, don’t read it,” said Ed, crossing the room to hand it to Stede, “is what you’re saying.”
“Yes,” said Stede gratefully, “don’t, please. It’s very embarrassing to look back on now.”
“Kinda cute, though,” said Ed, and Stede fumbled the transfer of the journal and dropped it on the floor.
“I—!” said Stede, having no idea what to say.
“I got it,” said Ed, stooping down to pick it up, and something fluttered out—old, yellowed newsprint. “Oh.”
He bent down for that, too, as Stede wondered—what on earth had that been—Ed picked it up. Stede, still trying to rack his memory for whatever on earth he might have thought was so important that he wanted to keep it in his journal, and when he remembered he very nearly vaulted over the desk to snatch it out of Ed’s hands.
While he was trying to quickly gauge the logistics of doing so, Ed, however, already in motion, had turned over the little square in his hands.
Second plan, given that the first plan of catch the paper before Ed did hadn’t panned out: Crawl under his desk, possibly to die there, or possibly just to get wasted on the secret bottle of rum that he kept in reach in case of emergency.
Ed frowned, crinkling his nose. He held it close to his face, and then held it far away.
“Stede,” said Ed, “why’ve you got an old picture of Izzy in your journal?”
twenty years prior
“Oh, Baby Bonnet, is that you?”
Stede would’ve loved to see a potted plant at that particular moment. A thriving ficus. Perhaps even a fern, if it were large enough. As it was, he was trapped in a nearly empty, gilded hallway, his parents nowhere to be seen—and even if they were here, he wasn’t sure he could have withstood the horror of them hearing fucking Francis Belleville-Blythe call him Baby Bonnet. His father would have been furious, and not with Francis. His mother would have been ashamed.
He ought, he knew, to do something—just about anything, other than stand there. Perhaps he should just start walking in the opposite direction.
“It is! Baby Bonnet!”
He squeezed his eyes shut, and someone bumped into his shoulder.
“Hey, fuckin’ watch it—hold on. You all right?”
“I see a—school companion,” said Stede, wincing as the words came out.
The man he’d bumped into—boy, really, hardly older than Stede himself, in a well-pressed naval uniform—squinted up at him. Ah, that’s right. Captain Hornigold’s crew had been invited, the navy an exciting diversion for the girls in town, though of course they weren’t really supposed to make themselves acquainted with sailors. This particular sailor, with a coarse accent in a curiously flutelike voice, seemed to Stede to be rather an example of the reason why, although there was something—compelling about him. He was clean-shaven, with a few small nicks along his chin, where the shave must have been freshly done for the evening, and his eyes were a stormy dark color. Stede almost forgot entirely about Francis.
“Ah, there you are,” said Francis, approaching them, heels clicking on the marble floors, and giving Stede his widest grin. “Baby Bonnet, what a surprise! How have you been?”
Francis was tall, and Stede remembered he had been excellent at polo. He had not been among Stede’s primary tormentors—that honor would go to Nigel and Chauncey Badminton, those absolute fucking bastards—but he had been among those laughing.
“You know him?” said the sailor.
“From school, yes,” said Stede, and, oh, he had already said that, so the sailor probably thought he was very stupid.
“Seen anyone recently?” said Francis. “I saw Alfie last week. Do you know, he’s taken to pottery, of all things!”
“Fascinating,” said Stede, who couldn’t think of anything to say besides, well, if that’s all then, I really must be going.
The sailor was still looking at Stede curiously, and back up at Francis.
“And what’s this?” said Francis. “Sorry, I seem to have interrupted you. Is this your friend, Bonnet?”
“No,” said Stede, “I, er, bumped into him on my way—that way.”
“Oh, that makes sense,” said Francis, “couldn’t quite see you taking up with sailors. Really, I’m not even sure why the fleet was invited to the party. Sort of a rough crowd, aren’t they? Sorry, I should have asked—are you an officer?”
Francis’s eyes flicked towards the sailor’s shoulders, where the uniform gave him away as a simple seaman. There was a pause, as Stede met the sailor’s gaze, and Stede tried very hard to convey, sorry, he’s dreadful, I don’t know him and I don’t want to be here either. Whether or not the sailor understood it was anyone’s guess.
“…No,” said Stede’s new companion, ominously. “I’m not. Israel Hands.”
“Stede Bonnet,” said Stede, grateful that introductions of a sort were being made, and sticking out his hand to Israel. Israel swallowed, and shook it.
“Baby Bonnet, as we liked to call him,” said Francis, and he slapped Stede on the back. “Pleasure to meet you, Mr. Hands.”
Stede noticed that Francis did not introduce himself.
“Right,” said Israel. “Well, I’ll be off, I suppose, to do whatever it is that us rough types do at these types of parties. Perhaps I’ll get loudly drunk off of wine that I could never pay for, or perhaps I’ll just ask women above my station to dance with me. Not sure yet, I’ve only just got here. Depends on which one would piss you off more. Can I get a hint, perhaps?”
Francis’s jaw fell open. Stede barked out a laugh, surprised, and Israel gave him an almost imperceptible smile.
“The wine, almost certainly,” said Stede.
“Good,” said Israel. “I dunno how to dance.”
“May I accompany you to it?” said Stede, feeling rather gallant.
“Yeah, sure, why not,” said Israel, and Stede—wanted, for a moment, to hold out his arm and take Israel’s, but couldn’t quite bring himself to do it, and they left Francis there.
“And then,” said Israel, waving his third glass of wine, “then, the bastard had the audacity to tell me that I had it wrong.”
“No!” gasped Stede, though he had no idea why this was a problem, because if Stede imagined anyone telling himself he was wrong about anything, he personally would have agreed with them and tried to exit the situation as quickly as possible. The thought of insisting on being correct, and actually doing anything about it was utterly unfathomable.
The two of them had found a pair of comfortable chairs in the bar room, which was candlelit and dim, and Stede was currently draped across the arm of one of the chairs, almost hanging off the chair itself, chin propped up on his hands, listening to Israel expound upon the rudeness of pretty much everyone in the world, it seemed. Israel himself didn’t seem exactly polite, Stede thought, but he did seem to have met a rather greater than usual population of individuals who were annoying, disrespectful, or downright unpleasant, at least to Israel, though Stede rather thought that many of these stories might have been mitigated with perhaps allowing for a certain amount of grace in interpersonal interactions.
He wasn’t about to say that, however, to Israel. Additionally, there was something about Israel’s voice—the breathiness of it, the way that it rose and fell when he spoke, that made Stede want to listen to it forever.
“Yeah,” said Israel. “Ridiculous, right? So I drew my sword.”
“That seems to be escalating things rather quickly,” said Stede.
“Well, he was a twat,” said Israel. “All dressed up nice in his frilly shirt, like yourself, no offense. I don’t think he expected to have a sword drawn on him for trying to throw his weight around and pick on a poor sailor just trying to make his way down the street.”
Stede glanced down at his shirt. It did contain rather a lot of ruffles, although he’d thought he looked very good in it. He felt himself flush.
“Very rude,” agreed Stede. Somehow—Stede wasn’t sure how—they had gotten to the story, from Israel trying to tell Stede about making his way through the town to get to the party tonight. “Did you at least win the fight?”
“Oh, yeah,” said Israel, proudly, “I’m the best on the ship with a sword. Didn’t kill the man, of course, but I did catch him on the face. Serves him right. Gives him something to remember the day by.”
He smirked at that thought, and flagged down one of the servants passing by with a plate full of little raspberry tarts—he had gotten rather more comfortable with this gesture over the course of the evening—and shoved it in his mouth in one bite.
Stede felt… rather drunker than he expected.
Or, well, he thought it was the wine, anyway. He hadn’t had very much yet—certainly he’d had more at dinners at home with his parents, especially when they started talking about his future—but something in this wine, perhaps, was a little bit more potent than usual. He found himself caught up in the way that Israel wrinkled his crooked nose when he spoke, though Israel did this mostly in disgust, because Israel seemed to be irritated with very nearly everyone and everything he came across, Stede thought it might actually be rather nice to see him laugh, to see his face crinkle with joy instead of irritation. He liked the way that Israel’s short-cropped dark hair fell across his face, the way that it feathered out, looking soft and extraordinarily touchable, the way that Israel’s eyes glittered with shrewdness.
He did not often spend this much time thinking about other people’s faces. Stede blamed the wine.
“Anyway, what about you?” said Israel, after a moment, where Stede realized he’d been thinking about how much shorter Israel was than Stede himself, even though Israel did seem to be a few years older. But… strong, most likely, because he was a sailor. Probably lifted a lot of things on the ship deck, or climbed in the rigging. Did sailors wear shirts when they were on ships? Would Israel be muscular underneath his dress uniform?
Wait, why would that matter, specifically? Stede tried to drag his thoughts back to the conversation.
“Er,” said Stede. “What, exactly, about me?”
“What do you do?” said Israel, a little shortly, like he was annoyed that Stede hadn’t been paying attention, and Stede felt his cheeks grow hot. “Why are you here? What was that jackass trying to talk to you about?”
“Oh, me,” said Stede, “I’m, er, my father owns a lot of land. I went to school with that—” Stede looked around. They were safe. “—Jackass. I didn’t like him very much.”
“Yeah, I got that, funny enough,” said Israel. “Weird, ’cause I always assumed you rich types always got along with one another.”
“We get along all right,” said Stede. “I suppose we’re nice enough to each other, now.”
“Not if you call him a jackass, and he calls you Baby Bonnet, you don’t,” said Israel. “But what are you doing at a party with all these people you don’t like?”
“I’m here because my mum knows the lady who owns this house,” said Stede. “They’re really good friends. And she has a daughter that my mother is trying to see if I can marry.”
“Oh,” said Israel, “That’s kinda fucking weird.”
“Yes, it really is! Isn’t it? I thought so, too!” cried Stede, desperately grateful.
Everyone else he’d tried to talk to about it—his parents, schoolmates he happened upon in passing in town, the maids cleaning his room and the valet who’d helped him to get ready for tonight—had reminded him that this was the way of things and the entire point of parties like this. Eligible young bachelors meeting eligible young bachelorettes, and all that.
“Guess I don’t know a lot of people who got married, though,” said Israel. “But their parents don’t pick for them when they do. Not that it helps much, all the time. Maybe it would.”
He stared into the fire, expression suddenly stormy again.
“Well, there’s at least two other girls,” said Stede, unsure if he was supposed to pursue this line of conversation, but feeling as though it would be rude to ask more details, “that my parents are thinking about. They’re not here tonight though. I was supposed to go look for Jane at this party, see if I could talk to her.”
“Did you find her?” said Israel.
“No,” said Stede. “I didn’t go to look. I was, er, going to do that. I think. Before Francis found me.”
“Hang on,” said Israel, “Are you going to get in trouble if you’re talking to me?”
“No!” said Stede, although it was a lie. “No, of course not! I’m, er, supposed to mingle. Get to know people of my own social standing, and all that.”
Israel snorted, and Stede realized his mistake as soon as he said it.
“Right,” said Israel, setting his glass down on a table next to his chair. “I’ll leave you to it, then. Think I just saw the captain rounding up some of the other boys.”
“Er,” said Stede, “it was lovely to talk to you. Will I, er, find you again? Will you be back at another ball sometime soon?”
Israel stood up.
“Doubt it,” he said. “We’re setting off tomorrow.”
For a moment, in the flickering candlelight, Stede wanted time to—freeze. He wanted to sit there, Israel looking down at him, something thoughtful in his face, his expression smoothing out.
“Nice talking to you, too, Bonnet, I suppose,” he said, and he turned on his heel and left.
Stede sat by the fire the rest of the night, and his parents were angry indeed at him the next day when he said he hadn’t been able to find Jane, but she and her mother left for England three months later, and when she came back half a year later her family was very busy with Jane’s new baby sister, and Stede’s parents decided that Mary was higher up in the running, anyway, so it worked out in the end.
The first time that Stede caught wind of Israel Hands in the newspaper was for Israel’s promotion to officer, very nearly a year after the party.
“I knew him!” said Stede excitedly, over breakfast.
“How on earth do you know him?” said Mother.
“I spoke to him at Jane’s mother’s party last year,” said Stede, feeling his face go bright red, and he wasn’t sure why. “Er, he was very—”
He paused, struggling for words. Nice wasn’t a word that one could use to describe Israel Hands, and in any case, Stede had once described the valet as very nice and his father had visibly grimaced, so Stede had tried to find other words since then. He wasn’t entirely sure what was wrong with the word nice.
“He was very, er, interesting,” said Stede, finally.
“What on earth were you doing speaking to sailors?” said Father, cringing again, and that was that.
The second time that Stede caught wind of Israel Hands in the newspaper was a wanted poster, several months later.
WANTED - ISRAEL HANDS - PIRACY & CRIMES AGAINST THE CROWN
“Oh, my goodness,” said Stede. “That’s the one I told you about, that I met at the party!”
“Well, is that a surprise?” said Father, flipping through the paper. “These rough types turn to violence when honest work isn’t enough for them. Greedy, really. He might have gained more notoriety as an officer, and perhaps even gotten himself promoted further, if he hadn’t decided to turn to crime. The navy offers that option to men, if they choose to raise themselves up.”
“Yes, Father,” said Stede.
When his father set the paper aside, Stede pretended to still be eating, until everyone else had cleared from the table. He stole the newspaper, and spirited it away to his room, and then acquired a pair of small scissors to cut out the picture, unsure as he did so why he was doing it.
The little picture, due to the process of printing and the cutout they had used, was faded around the edges. Features were exaggerated, like Israel’s crooked nose—dashingly handsome in person, shadowed to look menacing in the picture—but still recognizable, to someone who had met Israel in person. How long had it been? A year?
Was that a tattoo? On his face? Stede peered more closely at the paper, and yes—it couldn’t have been an accident, that was a tiny X just underneath Israel’s eye, on his cheek.
KNOWN TO CONSORT WITH EDWARD TEACH, THE MAD PYRATE ALSO CALLED BLACKBEARD
Wouldn’t such a tattoo be painful? Those sorts of things were done with needles and rather a lot of stabbing. Stede pictured it, Israel holding still while someone held a small, sharp needle near his eye—the resulting mark, on his face, always drawing the attention of anyone who met him for the first time. He wondered, briefly, why the man he’d met at the party would have done such a thing—what would compel someone, to mark themselves so publicly, with something so small and evidently meaningless—
And why did he want to see it, in person?
And who on earth was this Edward Teach?
present day
Stede was struggling for words, and Ed was doubled over laughing.
“Er,” said Stede, “well, he doesn’t remember me, surely.”
His face was still flushing. Time had, of course, tempered whatever that had been, and also the fact that the first time he’d met the pirate named Israel Hands, the man had been hardened by time and was such an asshole that Stede barely even noticed the little X mark on his face, and Stede had been too busy trying to fight for his life and pull off a trick to go, oh, yes, do you remember me at the party, twenty years ago, perhaps?
“And anyway, he was dreadful when I met him again,” said Stede, and Ed wheezed. “Honestly, he was rather unpleasant back then also, looking back. I just had never met anyone like him.”
“Does he know?”
“Does he know what?” asked Stede. “Does he remember meeting a little rich boy at a party years ago, and getting drunk? I doubt it.”
“I was a hand on that ship, too,” said Ed. “Didn’t get invited to the party, though.”
“Oh, my goodness!” said Stede. “We might have met, if you had!”
Ed sat up, wiping his eyes, and—Stede was suddenly caught up in a brief daydream, imagining Edward at the age of twenty, eyes as bright with laughter as they were now, but his face less lined, and less sorrow in his expression when he slipped into thought. Young Edward, in the handsome uniform he’d seen Izzy in, tall and thin where Izzy had been short and muscular. Would he have tied back his curls, or left them loose? Would he have bothered to shave, or would he have had the black beard which he’d take his name from already, by that point, or had he been too young to grow it out yet?
Stede knew now, what he would have felt back then--would have made quite the fool of himself for Edward, he was sure, because he had certainly made a fool of himself over Izzy, but picturing it—ah, well. Twenty years—more than the life he’d lived at that point—in the future, and Stede felt rather old. Age tempered things somewhat.
All he felt, for the boy he had been, in his ruffled shirt and best bright blue suit, utterly miserable, and the boy that Ed might have been at the party, who (judging by current Ed) would probably have been sweetly and nervously chatty, was fondness. How young they would have been, how many years they would have ahead of them before they found themselves. Perhaps they would have found themselves quicker, if they’d met back then, running off together in a mad bid for freedom that evening, or perhaps—as Stede had done with Izzy—they would have just met, briefly, unaware of who the other could be to them, the very definition of ships passing in the night.
“What d’you think?” said Ed, apparently tangled along the same lines of thought, “would you have wanted to talk to all the sailors?”
“I’m sure you would’ve been way more fun than Izzy,” said Stede loyally. “Actually, a lot of people would have been way more fun than Izzy.”
“Oh, he was fun, back in the day,” said Ed, “a bastard, but always good for a fight.”
“Yes, I rather got that impression,” said Stede, pursing his lips.
“But you thought it was dangerous, and all sexy, I’m sure,” said Ed, and Stede felt himself go red again.
“I—I didn’t know what to think of him! He was so… you know, you know how it is with young men in uniforms, when you’re young, there’s a certain allure!”
“There’s really not,” said Ed.
“Well, when you’re young, and you’ve never really met any of them before, and you’re drunk at a party, there is,” said Stede. “Not when you’re a pirate and they’re trying to kill you, of course. When you’re young it’s very romantic.”
“I do need to tell Izzy all about his certain allure. And the romance of it.”
“You wouldn’t! Oh, Ed, if you ever loved me, promise me you won’t!”
And what a thing it was to say that so casually, to have Ed lean over the desk and kiss him soundly—a promise, just like every other, that they made to each other a thousand times a day.
“I won’t, only, it’s really funny,” said Ed, “because it reminds me of something.”
“What?” said Stede, his heart suddenly in his throat.
“Yeah, think I need to get Izzy for this one,” said Ed, grinning, and he disappeared. Stede tried to go back to the accounting, but couldn’t quite manage. When Ed returned, Izzy was in tow, slinking in like a wet cat, eyes as stormy as ever.
“Izzy, you were telling me this story ages ago,” said Ed.
“What?” said Izzy.
“Aw, come on, Izzy,” said Ed. “How you met a dashing young fellow at that party that Hornigold took you to?”
“Oh, fuck no, Edward,” said Izzy. “Don’t do this to me.”
“How you talked his ear off and tried to make yourself sound so cool for him—and, in the end, ’cause he told you he was supposed to be talking to people of his own social standing, Iz, you panicked and ran off—”
Stede felt his heart skip a beat.
Oh.
“Only Izzy, I think you forgot to tell me the name of that fellow,” said Ed. “Or maybe it didn’t matter so much back then, because you told me this story a couple years ago. I never forgot, though, tragic as it was.”
Izzy was silent, though he looked rather like Stede expected someone might look if they were in one of those ridiculous medieval torture devices. Teeth gritted, eyes darting everywhere in the room.
“Er,” said Stede, and he was suddenly desperately aware of the picture that was still in his hands, fragile with age, “I, saw you in the papers, after that. First for your promotion, then for…”
He held up the tiny clipping. A corner of it crumbled off onto his desk.
Izzy went bright red.
“Kept it in my journal,” said Stede. “Because I…”
He trailed off.
“This is fuckin’ ridiculous, Edward,” said Izzy, taking a step back. “Bonnet and I met on that island, where he tricked me into giving up a hostage.”
“I’m sorry,” said Stede. “I should have said it differently—”
“What does it matter now?” said Izzy, and if Stede had thought that it made him feel old to imagine Ed in Izzy’s place at the party, Izzy seemed to age ten years before him just thinking about Stede’s apology. “You said what you said back then.”
“I would have been kinder!” said Stede.
“I was leaving the next day, what did it matter?” said Izzy. “It’s not like we were going to write each other letters, or whatever. And you… you were all caught up in trying to mingle with the rest of your social class, or whatever the fuck it was.”
“Look how well that worked out,” said Stede, and for the briefest of moments, Izzy looked shocked enough that Stede thought he might laugh. “I would have… tried to make sure you had company.”
“It was twenty years ago,” said Izzy. “Surprised you even kept that stupid little piece of paper with my face on it that long.”
“It’s a bad likeness, really,” said Stede, growing bold, “you were more handsome than that.”
Izzy choked out an incoherent reply, something about going back to the upper deck to do whatever it was he’d been “fucking working on before Edward dragged him down here to dredge up the past and reminisce like a bunch of old men,” and Ed slapped him on the back—but from behind Izzy, Ed gave him a wink, as if to say, good job, well done mate.
And as Izzy fled back up to the deck, Stede somehow found himself smiling back at Ed.