Chapter Text
Stede stared into his wardrobe, not really looking at all the clothes in front of him, gazing through them with unfocused eyes as he thought about how much he did not want to be back at the manor that had been his childhood home, preparing for supper with his absolute reprobate of a father. Ah, well. His valet coughed politely.
“What do you think, Phillips?” Stede shook himself out of his thoughts, grimacing apologetically.
“The green silk with golden thread would be acceptable,” Phillips allowed. From him, it was high praise indeed. He had already been old when Stede was born, which made him close to ancient now. Stede wasn’t sure exactly why he was still working at the estate, it certainly wasn’t that he still needed the money. Stede’s father was a poor investor and a generally terrible sort of man, but his ego meant that he’d prided himself on paying his staff ridiculously high salaries for decades. It was the only thing in his estate management paradigm with which Stede could even sort of agree. So, for whatever reason, Phillips stayed, which meant that Stede had become very, very good at understanding that when he said ‘acceptable,’ he meant ‘very nice,’ and so on. It was Phillips who had first suggested that a country gentleman’s son might benefit from an education abroad, and it was from following Phillips around the huge, empty house as a boy that Stede had come to appreciate the significance of fine clothes, fine place settings, and fine manners.
“Right you are, of course. Thank you, Phillips.” Stede sighed, letting his arms droop to his sides as the older man pulled the chosen waistcoat from the wardrobe, and moved to inspect his elaborate collection of tailcoats for one that matched appropriately. “How’s he been lately, anyway?” Stede shrugged, pretending that he was interested in his shirt cuffs, that he wasn’t holding his breath.
“He is…Much the same as ever,” Phillips said through pursed lips. Which was, of course, what Stede had been afraid of, but at least he hadn’t gotten worse.
“Fantastic,” Stede sighed, and mentally resigned himself to the next several months being spent in varying degrees of misery, until he could figure out another pretense to leave the estate and his villain of a father far, far behind.
***
The long, elegant table stretched nearly the length of the formal dining room, heavy-laden with excellent food; a fire roared in the grate, and the wall paintings and furniture were as beautiful and opulent as ever. It should have felt comforting, returning from a lengthy time abroad to a great house that sat virtually unchanged from the image that sat in Stede’s childhood memories. As things stood, Stede hated the house, this dinner was miserable, and he was suffering.
“But, I’ve told you, I don’t want to get married, not right now at least. There’s– there’s so much more out there , when I was on the Continent–”
“I should never have indulged that foolishness,” His father interrupted, gesturing menacingly with the dinner knife he had been using to slice into a quail breast moments before, his voice gruff.
“Yes, well, but you did.” Stede blinked, feeling his mouth turn down at the edges. They’d been over this before, several times, actually. “And, and, there were plenty of gentlemen I met on the Continent who hadn’t married, and they were engaged in scholarly pursuits, and travel, and bettering themselves, in a gentlemanly way, of course–”
“And those gentlemen had something you very much lack. It’s not at all comparable.”
“Oh, come now, Father, an Eton pedigree can’t be that important,” Stede tried to laugh. He was being charming, he was absolutely sparkling despite everything, and he knew it. It happened, sometimes, when he was trying hard to please someone, like he could see from outside of himself how well he was playacting, making his voice and body do the exact, correct thing at the perfect moment to make him likable and good and nice. Which only made it that much more annoying when the other person refused to be charmed appropriately, damn it all to hell.
“Cash, you blundering idiot.”
“Ah. Yes, we’re back on that, are we?” Stede smoothed the goldweave braid that edged his coat cuff self-consciously, not wanting to meet his father’s eyes. For the last several years, he’d been aware, tangentially and vaguely, of there being some sort of lurking economic woe. But, with the way his father was happy to spend obscene sums in the pursuit of his own interests, it never felt solid to Stede; a boogeyman used to whip up his sense of familial obligation, to make him feel small and frivolous, to keep him in place.
“And we’ll be back on that, so to speak, until you do your duty to this family and finally marry. You’ve put it off far too long: the estate’s debts continue to mount, your frivolities have been entertained to its detriment, I might add, and you turn twenty and nine this year. It is time, beyond time. I don’t enjoy making ultimatums,” Here his father shrugged expansively, knife and fork still in hand. It was only Stede’s very good manners and years of practice sitting through miserable dinners very like this one that kept him from making a rude sort of laughing sound in the back of his throat at the irony. “But, the fact of the matter is: if you don’t select a bride by morning, I will be selecting one for you. You’ve been coddled long enough.”
He took a calm sip of wine and went back to attacking the food on his plate. Stede swallowed around the sudden lump in his throat, his appetite having completely disappeared.
“Please, you can’t be serious, things can’t be that dire for the estate. There must be alternatives.” He tried to keep his voice level, calm, not the too-high squeak it so often tried to creep into when he wasn’t paying attention, when his emotions rose too close to the surface too quickly.
“Alternatives, bah. Listen to you, you’re an embarrassment to this house and to me. Any normal son would be pleased that I was only asking him to marry. Pray, that you’d had a brother to manage the estate and we could have stashed you away in a vicarage somewhere, that would have suited your delicate constitution. Compeyson down the road was begging his father to marry, when he was ten years younger than you are now. I never understood why you couldn’t be more like him.”
“Truly, you’d want me to be both dense and an ass? I think not.” Stede muttered, trying to ignore the sting of his father’s words. A vicarage really might have been nice, he thought. At least he’d have had plenty of time to read, even if the kit did leave something to be desired.
“Tomorrow. At breakfast, I’ll have your decision. And that’s final, boy.” He stood abruptly, glowering with a wicked intensity as he threw his napkin onto the mess of his plate, nearly knocking into the footman who came to clear it as he stormed out of the dining room.
“Right, yes. Tomorrow.” Stede agreed weakly as he stared down the hall at his father’s receding back. The footmen were all making a very admirable show of having ignored the entire thing. Stede turned to look at them now, feeling the mask of his face start to crumble. “Um, does anyone happen to know if he’s got a list in mind? Of eligible bachelorettes? I’m afraid I’ll rather be needing it.”
***
Stede stood before the mirror again, after having banished Phillips so he could have a proper sulk, feeling quite small as he inspected himself. He’d slipped out of his formal clothes and into a comfortable pair of buckskin trousers and a somewhat simpler linen shirt, though it still did boast nicely frilled cuffs, with the intention of taking his old skiff out to clear his head. He could only imagine it was still collecting dust in the old boathouse, and had been looking forward to becoming acquainted with the one beloved thing from his childhood that had made the lonely marsh-side estate seem alright: sailing. He supposed that would all have to end now, too. He had a very difficult time believing that whoever he picked for a bride would appreciate him shirking his husbandly duties to run around pretending to be some sort of seafarer. Never mind if he enjoyed it far more than riding or shooting or whatever lordly hobby was in fashion at the moment.
He frowned at his reflection. He didn’t think he was not handsome , exactly, but he had a very hard time imagining someone thinking that he was much of a prize. It felt wrong to be thinking about marrying someone when he brought so little to the bargain. Not money, somewhat meager land holdings which had been impressive a generation ago but thanks to his father’s lax management had failed to grow as they ought to, and certainly not passion. It wasn’t that he was afraid of women, as some of his school friends had teased, he just wasn’t really sure what he was meant to do around them. It was very hard to imagine marrying one. But, he sighed, apparently he would be, and soon.
He thought about leaving a note for Phillips, but the old valet knew him well enough that he’d be able to figure out where Stede had run off to, and besides, leaving a note rather undermined the entire point of storming off in a huff. He crept through the half-lit halls, across the empty lawn and down to the boathouse, feeling the weight of the palimpsest of years heavy on his shoulders. He had thought things would be different, coming home this time, after several years away; he thought he’d come into his own in a new way on his Tour. But, there was something about being back in the old manor house that made him shrink back into the boy he’d been as a child, old patterns returning like destiny or fate. He hated it.
Stede stewed with his thoughts, riotous and unpleasant, bouncing between anger at himself and his father until it nearly made him dizzy, for as long as it took him to pull the dust cover from the skiff, to double-check the lines, to drag it to the shore, and to catch the first gust of wind in the small sail. The craft, which would have fit two boys if he’d had anyone to share the hobby with as a child, was barely large enough for the man he’d grown into being. If he reached out an arm, he could dance his fingertips through the spray from waves breaking against the hull; if he wanted to come about, he’d lean nearly his whole body out over the sea. It was light and familiar and by god was it fast. He felt the wind at his back, pulling him along and pushing him out further from the shore like an encouraging old friend. Stede let his shoulders relax, breathing easily for the first time in hours as he let out the sail, allowing it to catch more wind, to glide along the surface of the waves with even more speed and grace. He didn’t have a destination in mind, and despite the time away, he knew the familiar coastline well-enough to feel confident in finding his way home, even in the dark. The sun was beginning to think about setting, lighting the sky a brilliant, fiery orange. He closed his eyes, relishing the way the salt air felt in his lungs, humid and close and warm. He knew if he looked over his right shoulder, he’d see the tall columns and chimneys of the manor house rising behind him, a looming monster with a mind of its own, a hulking pile worthy of Horace Walpole’s pen. Stede did not want to see it, did not want to be reminded of his unhappiness, so he did not look back, and because he did not look back, he did not see the storm clouds gathering in the east.
***
Stede heard a horrible creaking noise which he suspected was his skiff’s mast threatening to break. The wind and rain tugged his hair from its neat queue, and he made an intense effort to not cry. This was fucking typical, wasn’t it? He’d thought the evening sail would calm his nerves, now here he was: holding onto the tiller and halyard for dear life as the world dissolved into roaring water and darkness all around him. He thought he saw a flash of lightning from the corner of his eye, and his stomach dropped to somewhere below his knees. The wind shifted, and the boom swung with a horrifying swiftness as the small craft turned about unexpectedly, buffeted by the violent gusts of wind. Stede threw himself down so his cheek was nearly pressed to the daggerboard and narrowly missed being brained.
The hull bucked as it hit a swell, and if he hadn't already been so close to the floor he feared he might have been tossed out of the boat entirely. He dared to poke his head up, trying to search the now very dark sky for stars, trying to see the shore, anything. It was absolutely useless. The pounding rain seemed to merge with the crushing waves, until everything was a horrifying, churning mess of grey. The waves were rising so high, and the wind was so fierce as the lightning crashed; he had the sense that the ocean was creating a tunnel, a gaping maw that wanted nothing so bad as to swallow him up. Stede craned his neck, turning his head again as he tried to think of what to do, and in that moment realized his mistake. The wind shifted again, and the boom swung directly toward his forehead with a sickening, unavoidable speed and heft.
It was funny, he thought, in the very slow second it took for him to process what was happening– barely more than an hour ago, his biggest problem had been trying to pick a name he vaguely recognized as belonging to someone not-terrible from a list of marriageable young women. He almost laughed as he slumped to the deck and allowed the darkness to take him with it, one last glimpse of the cold, rough sea lit by searing lightning burned against his eyelids.
***
It was too early for goddamned Jack Rackham to be standing on his front stoop, hand raised to bang on the front door again just as Ed ripped it open, and yet. Here he was. A light drizzle had already started, and Jack’s lank hair was not responding well to it. Two years ago, or if Ed had been in a slightly worse mood, he might have laughed in a meanspirited sort of way. As it was, he scrubbed a hand across his face and sighed. This was what happened when you let your somewhat shiftless, perpetually in between D-list acting gigs ex stay on as a groundskeeper/stablehand/sometimes tour guide at the historic site you managed and also lived on: you were bound to get some unexpected, unwelcome early morning house calls.
“What’s up,” Ed let the door swing open as he turned to go back inside, gesturing lazily that Jack could follow. He needed a cup of tea, badly. It was a costumed day for him, where he’d actually be out in the historic district, leading special tours for visitors in addition to his normal administrative duties, but he was nowhere near ready to go. He had a billowy cotton shirt tucked into his breeches, and he’d managed to pull his hair into a decent approximation of an eighteenth century gentleman’s ‘do before his morning had been so rudely interrupted, but he’d need to really shake a leg if he wanted to finish his routine, get a bit of work done in the archives before guests arrived, and also deal with whatever it was that Jack needed.
“You know how I've been looking into ley lines recently, right?” Jack talked with his hands, spreading his fingers wide and squaring his shoulders, like he was trying to set the scene. Ed felt his brow furrow, mentally sighing as he buckled in for one of Jack’s wonky obsessions of the week. He’d liked it better when it had been crystals and tarot, at least those had had some kind of aesthetic value he could get behind.
“Sure,” Ed grimaced into the tea kettle as he filled it with water from the tap.
“Well, I was out on the beach, at the edge of the property, last night, trying to commune with nature or whatever, but it started raining and storming.” He waggled his fingers and eyebrows simultaneously, and Ed had the distinct impression that communing with nature actually meant smoking a fat joint . “Anyway, I was looking out at the ocean, wishing it’d stop fucking raining, just wishing I could vibe, trying to decide if I wanted to pack up and go home, and out of nowhere, I see a tall ship.”
“Okay,” Ed allowed, tucking a strand of hair behind his ear where it had escaped from his queue as he reached for his favorite mug.
“Like, an old one. And I was like, holy shit, fuck, you know? And then, then it was gone,” Jack’s eyebrows had climbed up into his hairline as his eyes grew wider and wider. He looked like he wanted to start pacing around the cramped kitchen, but there really wasn’t the space for it so he settled for wringing his hands.
“So, it was dark, and you saw a boat. On the ocean. Where boats go. And then you couldn’t see it anymore? Not sure how that’s an emergency, man.” The water in the kettle had finally come to a boil, and Ed poured it with a small exhale of relief. Caffeine, blessedly. Ed waved the kettle in Jack’s direction vaguely, not so much as a real offer to share a cuppa, but an acknowledgement that it was rude to not at least pretend to be willing to do so.
“No, nah, you’re not listening to me,” Jack shook his head emphatically. “It was there , then it was gone . Like, ghost ship shit, man. Real fucking ghost ship vibes. I swear, like, bible. So, now I’m wondering, do you think there’re ley lines in the ocean ? D’you think if I took the paddle board out, I could, like, find them?”
Ed blinked at him. Nope. Not today. At one point, Jack’s commitment to his weird little quirks had been interesting, charming, something that made him unique and showed he really thought about the world, or something. That was before Ed had realized that underneath Jack’s slightly self-interested, boisterous, commitment-allergic, ridiculous exterior there wasn’t a secret and sensitive soul– just more Jack. It made it really difficult to take him seriously on the whole ghost ship thing.
“Y’know, Jack, I honestly don’t know. And, don’t get me wrong, I think it’s great that you’re so…passionate. About your hobbies, and, and, your interests, I guess, but this is not a great day. For me. For dealing with this. Okay? Maybe you could just— maybe we could talk about it later, yeah?” Ed said around a long sip of tea, feeling exhausted by the day and this nonsense already. It wasn’t even eight-thirty in the fucking AM yet, and here he was. It had to be some sort of record.
“Aw, come on, man, you have to listen to me, I’m serious about this! I really think there could be, like, a discovery to be made or some shit!”
“I really, really don’t think there’s any kind of science going on here, dude. Come on, I need you out of my kitchen, I cannot be late for another meeting with the trustees.” Ed tried very hard not to heave a sigh and pinch the bridge of his nose as he thought about his appointment book for the day. He really did have an appointment with the board, and he’d only just remembered it, which meant he had approximately three hours to throw together a presentation explaining why he, current Interim Director of the Old Maritime Village Historic District and Museum should be allowed to stay on permanently, and drop the interim in his title. It’ll be fine, he told himself. He was lucky that the board liked him, and even more than that they liked being able to show off their decidedly young and hip figurehead. If the museum world decided to put together a thirty under thirty list in the next month, he’d be a real contender. Not that that would happen, but the trustees had extended his contract twice already; this was in the bag.
Jack finally relented, allowing himself to be ushered out of the house, but Ed knew he hadn’t heard the last of this week’s latest nonsense. He just hoped that the next time Jack banged on his door about something stupid and vaguely annoying, he’d at least have the decency to do it at a more convenient hour.
It was a very misplaced hope, and Ed knew it.
***
“Hullo,” said Stede, blinking. As the world resolved into view around him, he realized he was still lying at an uncomfortable angle on the floor of his skiff; at some point it must have stopped storming. The night was still and clear and warm enough that he wasn’t shivering despite being soaked to the skin with rain and sea water.
“Holy shit,” said the man staring down at him, which even in his present state Stede found a rather rude form of greeting. He had an oar in his hand, and was standing on… something. Stede decided he had to still be foggy from his skull’s contact with the boom, because he’d never seen a raft like that in his life: brightly colored, barely wider than the man’s shoulders, floating just above the water’s surface under his weight. It looked like it’d be absolutely beastly to balance upon.
“I say, are you a fisherman? I seem to have run into a bit of trouble, can you get me back to the Bonnet estate? Quickly?” Stede made his voice slip into what he thought of as The Bonnet Tone: forcibly cheerful, jocular without intimacy, rich in the rounded vowels of the gentry. It wasn’t unkind but it made clear that the speaker was someone who should be obeyed, and fast. Using it always felt a bit like playing dress-up in a bigger man’s jacket.
“Sorry, man, no can do.” The man with the oar shrugged apologetically, and tucked a strand of his loose shoulder-length hair behind an ear. Jewelry glinted on it in the moonlight and Stede was momentarily taken aback. A scoundrel, then. It was too much to hope that he’d been set upon by real, actual pirates, and besides, this lonely man on his strange raft could hardly be a successful privateer. Also, Stede was beginning to suspect that being trapped in a handsome captain’s brig might not be as fun in reality as all the erotic pamphlets he pretended he didn’t read had made it sound.
He tried to harden his expression, and forced his body into what he hoped was a more intimidating posture, sitting nearly upright in the skiff now. “If you’re after a ransom, you’ll be sorely disappointed. My disappearance under mysterious circumstances would only be far too convenient for my father. You won’t get a cent.” Even as his heart ached at how true the statement rang, Stede was pleased by the steel he heard in his own voice.
“Woah, nothing like that. Sucks that your dad’s a dick. You just can’t get back tonight, is all. Storm’s over. The portal is, like, closed, or some shit. Done-zo. It’ll open again I guess, sometime. I wouldn’t worry too much, man, doesn’t sound like you’re missing a ton back home.” He shrugged again, staring off into the distance pensively. “Don’t know what the hell I’m supposed to do with you here, though. I can’t believe I was fucking right , Ed is going to lose his fucking mind , oh, god, Ed. He’s going to kill me for messing with the time space continuum or some shit, fuck!” He looked at Stede again, clearly stricken, as though this line of thinking had only just occurred to him.
“I don’t…” Stede began, holding his hands up in what he hoped was a placating gesture. He hadn’t understood half of what had just been said, but it sounded a little dangerous and a lot like something he decidedly did not want to be mixed up in. He was starting to think that maybe not leaving a note for Phillips had been a mistake.
“Nah, whatever, I’m sure it’ll be fine. I don’t like to worry about stuff, you know? Harshes the vibe.”
“Hm,” Stede hedged. He generally found that being around people who simply decided not to worry about things increased his own daily, free-floating anxiety by about tenfold.
“You can crash at my place, and if anyone asks we’ll just say you were in my frat or some shit, and next time it storms we’ll pop ya back out here and the portal’ll just take you right back, bingo. Storms all the time, this time of year, it’ll take like a day, max.”
This did not inspire confidence, but Stede wasn’t sure what choice he really had. He needed to get onto dry land, and then he’d be able to sort everything out. He was sure of it.
“Jack, by the way,” he held his hand out, nearly overbalancing on his raft. Stede stretched, shaking it gingerly. This all continued to be very odd.
“Stede Bonnet,” he allowed through pursed lips.
“Weird name. Let’s go, I’m fuckin’ starving.” He started to paddle, surprisingly athletic, moving at speed toward what Stede now registered was the shore. Stede said something very ungentlemanly under his breath, pulled in the sail, and jiggled the tiller until the skiff was out of stays and catching enough wind to follow.
***
Jack was late. Ed had a school bus load of rowdy elementary schoolers expecting a botany lesson and tour of the stables, and Jack was late. Fuck .
Pete, the joiner and carpenter tradesman, was looking at him with raised eyebrows over the historic lathe he’d just finished using in the demonstration, which was supposed to be Jack’s cue to sweep in.
“I know, christ, I know.” Ed pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling a brutal sinus headache coming on. “I’ll go chase him down, can you improvise for, like, 5 minutes?”
Pete shrugged, clearly not pleased to be picking up Jack’s slack yet again , but Ed was already rushing out the door before he could make any more apologies on Jack’s behalf. A distant part of Ed’s brain was saying that, really, he ought to fire the guy, but that seemed messy and didn’t he already have enough on his plate? He just wanted to keep his head down, keep the museum running smoothly, somehow scare up enough funds from their donors to start a proper conservation project in their archives, and celebrate his thirtieth birthday in peace. Yeah, fat chance, he grimaced, feeling his eyebrows knit into a scowl.
Ed was so focused on his mental list of grievances that he was completely surprised when he bodily walked into Jack, paused on the stairs leading to his flat above the tavern, seemingly in the middle of an argument.
Ed stumbled backwards, trying to glare, clear his throat meaningfully, and straighten his waistcoat all at once. Two out of three wasn’t bad, he figured.
“Man, you gotta stay here, I gotta go, just, like watch TV or something. Yeah, the picture box. Uh-huh. I get Bravo channel, knock yourself out. Fucking, relax.” Jack was saying with some ire, trying to force the door shut as Ed righted himself, apparently oblivious. Jack had someone in his flat? While he was supposed to be working? Oh, Ed was going to kill him.
A very handsome face beneath a luxurious swoop of golden hair appeared at the edge of the door. Ed blinked. Jack was punching above his weight, apparently, but that wasn’t new.
“Oh, thank god, you look like a reasonable fellow. Please, you have to make him let me out,” the man was making emphatic eye contact with Ed, still trying to squeeze out of the door while Jack was steadfastly trying to shut it. The image would have been really comical, if not for the implication that Jack had apparently engaged in some light kidnapping. The man’s eyes were a delightful shade of hazel, shifting and swirling in the bright mid-morning light while his hair glowed. This was definitely not on Ed’s list of Things That Are Conducive to Both Museum Functions And Personal Mental Health.
“Jack, what the hell.” Ed planted his hands on his hips, very aware of how much they did not have time for whatever this was. “It’s a school tour day, get out there.”
“Yeah, man, sorry, I know, I just—“ he gestured apologetically at the door, and the relaxed movement gave the stranger a chance to actually slam it all the way open and step into the hall. Great, it’s a party, Ed started to think before his brain stuttered out on how nice the man looked in his shirt, breeches, and tall Hessian boots which skimmed and hugged his body like they’d been made for him. Ed blinked and shook his head.
“Jack, who is this and why is he in garb.” Ed had meant for it to be a question, but his annoyance with the situation and the sinking, clawing feeling in his chest somehow dripped into all the syllables and turned them sour.
“This is Steve, he, uh, we were Siggies together, back in the day?” Jack was doing something with his eyebrows which suggested to Ed that he hadn’t rehearsed the lie enough.
“Stede, actually. But—yes! Right! That great fraternal order Sig…Sigma, yes, well. Practically the Masons, isn’t it?” Stede’s smile wavered, but he screwed it back into place with some effort.
“Oo-kay. Obviously, something is going on here. I’m not a dumb ass. Also, Stede , for your information, the Siggies were a fucking acapella group, so no, not Freemason adjacent at all. Jack, you are going to get out there right now and show some fifth graders what a horse looks like. Stede, you’re not leaving my sight and you’re not going to say a word until the tour is over, and then the three of us are going to have a very serious conversation about professionalism. Sound good? Great.” Ed swept outside, sparing a glance over his shoulder to make sure that Jack and whoever his friend was were indeed following and on their best behavior. God, this fucking week, huh?