Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

For over a year, Stede thinks Dust is noise in his data - a persistent cluster of outliers, a misread signal, a malfunction of equipment. He tries to eliminate it statistically, and then through increasingly mechanical interventions - querying remote sensing equipment, rewriting code, replacing hardware.

It doesn’t work. Something is streaming out of - or into - the Earth’s atmosphere, high above the North Pole. 

Stede is a geophysicist with a specialty in atmospheric phenomena relating to climate change. He’d done his PhD research on modelling volcanic ash dispersal that blocked out the sun and made crops fail across the northern hemisphere. His subsequent academic career featured research on other aerosols and annual trips to either the Arctic or the Antarctic, depending on how the winds of funding blew. He thought of himself as a tiny cog on the vast rotating wheel of science, his papers chipping away at a monumental stone face whose true shape he’d never see. His career settled into a comfortable, if not exciting pace, while he married the woman his parents wanted him to marry and subsequently had two children. Sometimes he could see the track of his entire life laid out before him, a long straight rail line to death. 

Finding Dust disrupts that vision. An unexplained phenomenon, a true mystery to investigate? An aerosol that seems beyond the laws of physics, that can move against the wind but doesn’t always, that - Stede comes to believe after a year of investigation - possesses a form of collective consciousness that guides its movement - 

"Stede? Stede!" 

He looks up from his laptop at his wife. The kids are - well - rampaging doesn’t sound like a nice way to describe it, but they’re not exactly being quiet either. Mary raises her eyebrows. "Play with your children," she says to him. "What are you working on that’s so important that you had to bring your laptop to the dinner table on our anniversary?" 

Stede exhales. He hasn’t described Dust to anyone, mainly because he’s worried that the monotony of his life has made him hallucinate the whole thing. He’s imagined calls to therapists - "Yes, hello, I think my dissatisfaction with my marriage is leading me to imagine sentient particles streaming into our atmosphere like Santa’s reindeer out of the North Pole" - or what the editors at Geophysical Letters would say if he tried to publish it. He has not imagined his wife’s reaction, nor does he want to experience it now. 

"Just trying to review something for one of my students," he says instead, closing his laptop and sighing. "They’re always sending me things at the last minute."

He sees her face soften a fraction; he’s guessed the right excuse. Then she says something unexpected: "Stede, I know we both struggle at times but - you know you can talk to me, right?" Her brow creases. "We only have this one life," she adds. "Don’t we have to try?"

"We only have this one life," he repeats to himself, as he leaves the letter on the kitchen table telling her that he’s left everything to her and the children, and she needn’t worry about him. "We only have this one life," as he boards a plane, and then another plane, and then a helicopter, as he steps away from it onto the ice, the straps of his backpack cutting into his shoulders despite his heavy coat. 

"You’ll call when you need to get picked up, yah?" the pilot shouts at him in a heavy Norwegian accent. He gives a thumbs up back, even though his phone is a useless, uncharged brick in his pocket, and he has no intention of turning on the walkie talkie the pilot had pressed into his hand a minute ago. 

"We only have this one life," he repeats, as he walks away, as he finds what he thinks he’s looking for, as he steps out of his world and into another. 

Ed is not yet fourteen when his daemon settles.

The rope around his father's neck is cutting into his hands, and next to him his father's terrier daemon makes an awful high-pitched cry that cuts off as Kahurangi coils tighter to choke the life from it, and they are lost if either of them lets go. It feels as though they've been here all their lives. His palms are nearly too slick with blood and rain to grip the rope by the time the dog daemon finally collapses into Dust.

Kahu's heavy coils drop to the ground but they can't rest. She changes into a bat, makes a cry Ed can't hear, listens. "No one saw us," she says, and flaps over to cling to the front of his shirt. He can’t help pausing a moment to stroke her for comfort before leaning down to lift his father's corpse. "I need help," he says to Kahu. "He's heavy, be something big enough to drag him."

A pause. "I don't think I can," says Kahu, still a bat. "I think this is it, Ed. This is what we are."

He knows at once she’s right. Of course no child could have done this. There's no time to think about what it means now. He pulls the body to the dock's edge and gives it to the sea, then looks back at Kahu, thinking what to do next.

"We can still go home," she says. Kahu thinks Mum would forgive them. She's like that.

Ed knows better. He waits at the dock till dawn and sneaks onto the first ship he sees loading.

He's not the first cabin boy on Hornigold's ship to start as a stowaway. He doesn't have to stay in hiding long. Kahu is trickier.

In his father's house she spent a lot of time as little creatures that could hide with Ed in the corner or under the table, but it had been different, knowing she could become something large and ferocious when they needed to, even if it didn't usually help. Now his soul is something soft and vulnerable and small enough to hold in one hand and that will never change again. 

He thinks at first that he'll get used to it eventually. Lots of men on the ship have small daemons, squirrels and swallows and stoats, and they don't seem to mind having them out where everyone can see. It must be part of being an adult.

Ed believes that until the day Felix is caught stealing rations. He watches Hornigold pick up the boy's hare daemon in his bare hands, tie its legs and hurl it overboard so that Felix drowns on the deck.

Kahu remains hidden in Ed’s hair, and when a sailor finally asks about his daemon, Ed points over the railing at the sea and says, "A shark."

It’s a safe enough lie as long as he doesn’t go back to land, which he never planned on doing anyway. He doesn't bother keeping the story consistent. It's good to be a mystery. An orca, a squid, a whale. Anything that might be conveniently under the water's surface. 

He is just past twenty the first time he hears the rumor that the man who left Hornigold marooned, who can see in the dark and whose beard glows like embers, doesn't have a daemon at all.

He's almost thirty when he starts to hear that now sailors are saying Blackbeard's soul is the kraken itself. Always safe beneath the ship, knowing everything that happens on the sea, massive and mighty and untouchable.

Ed likes that. The kraken.

Stede straightens his white jacket, loosens the knot on his white cravat to a jauntier angle, fluffs his curls. Today is the day: the culmination of all Stede has worked towards here, his chance to introduce himself on his own terms, as the person he wishes to be. 

Today he is going to introduce himself to the wider pirating community. 

And pay his debts, and figure out what the fuck is going on. Probably. Maybe. Hopefully. 

It's been a months-long road littered with lucky breaks and a bit of his own plucky skill to get here. He’d been correct about finding the place where the Dust was pouring into his world, and he’d passed through it. He'd quickly fled a horrible, haunted in-between world, and entered a bustling port town in this world. Where that first world past his own had been unrecognizable, this one is uncannily similar aside from two massive differences. First, Babbage's algorithmic invention to automate work and force workers into factories does not seem to have occurred, so there is no computing (and Stede initially wonders if that’s because of the second difference, and if this world is more compassionate than his own, but he quickly sees that it is just violent in its own way, and governed by a deeply authoritarian religious conclave). As a result, this world seems to be at a mostly pre-Victorian level of technological advancement, with an odd mixture of ancient technology (sailing ships) and steam-powered mechanical devices (flying zeppelins) - but all work done by humans, rather than machines. 

Second, every human born in this world has a constant animal companion known as a daemon. As far as Stede can gather, the daemon is a physical outgrowth of the person’s - well, Stede’s not religious, so it’s tough to come up with a good word but - for lack of a better one - the soul . There’s a complex series of social rules and taboos around these animals; he quickly learns that he should pretend he has one, and that he should never touch another person’s. 

His first few days in the new world are rough. His clothing attracts immediate attention; he winds up copying something he’d read in a book and stealing clothes off a washing line. He immediately becomes enamored with the fashion here - the stylish coats and fine materials, everything hand-sewn and made to last, and covets the clothing of those of higher rank. He sees a "Help Wanted" sign outside a local drinking establishment known as Jackie’z and becomes a waiter, a job he’s never held in his life and isn’t particularly skilled at, although years of teaching undergraduates means he is good at handling the insults thrown his way by some of the bar’s rougher clientele. He learns that Jackie’z, run by a formidable woman with an iron fist, a massive leopard daemon, and the help of an unusual number of husbands, is the center of piracy and smuggling in this town. 

(The husbands thing had him deeply confused for several days about sexual mores in this world; he’d thought it must be normal for women to marry as many men as they want. It had taken an embarrassing conversation with one of the lady clientele at the bar to learn that actually, no, that’s just Jackie’s thing, and also, no, he’s in zero danger of becoming one of those husbands.)

One day Stede is struggling to juggle six orders at the bar - all rum, but it’s tough to hold six pint glasses - when Jackie approaches him and says, "I’ve got a business opportunity for you."

She leads him to a back table, where she often holds court with interesting visitors. There are two men seated there, both dressed in clothing suggesting they are merchants on the edge of the law, or so Stede imagines - he’s been trying to catalogue everyone here by fashion, and seems to have about a sixty percent accuracy rate. 

Stede learns that, through piracy, these men have come into possession of a ship belonging to a scientific expedition. They want to use the ship for piracy but its cabin is full of unknown scientific equipment, and most sailors fear to be on it. 

Stede glances at Jackie; she’s studying her nails, but her leopard, seated like a sphinx at her side, is watching him keenly. He asks, "What’s the opportunity here?" 

"I think you know about science," she says. "I want you to captain this ship. Figure out what to do with the equipment. And pay me seventy five percent of your earnings for the first year."

Stede stares at her in shock, his mind and stomach churning. Her leopard raises one paw to its mouth and, delicately, starts to clean its own enormous claws. Stede gets the point: this is not a request. "You really think I can do this?" he asks. 

Jackie reaches forward and takes one of the scientific books the men have brought from the ship; this one, apparently, has come under heavy scrutiny by the superstitious sailors. "What’s going on here?" she asks him, flipping to a page at random and pointing at a diagram. 

Stede leans forward and looks. It appears to show the Earth’s magnetic field and its relationship to the aurora. He says as much, not sure where this is going or if the term "magnetic field" will be alarming to Jackie and the two men. Indeed, the men look scandalized, one of their little dog daemons growling after Stede is finished speaking, but Jackie just smiles. 

"I knew it, Steve," she says, resolutely having refused to learn his name. She nods at the merchant-pirates. "There’s more to this dude than meets the eye." She taps the book with her wooden hand and says to Stede, "Seventy five percent. We can negotiate in a year. Get going."

Stede learns that his new crew are the only sailors desperate enough to stay aboard a ship full of unknown scientific equipment. A few of them are talented sailors, but most of them are hopeless. Stede himself is even more hopeless, so they’re well suited to each other. He also slowly learns that each member of this crew is well suited to each other by virtue of being outcasts, each the type of person who would have struggled to survive on land. Slowly, together, they learn their way to piracy, using the scientific equipment on board to frighten other crews when they can to avoid combat. 

Stede delights in watching his crew interact with their daemons. There’s Lucius and his rabbit Patrick, who often sits at Lucius’s side, ears aquiver, like he’s taking in everything; the Swede and his surprisingly delicate song thrush Taltrast, who perches on the railing and sings in a sweet, chirpy voice while he works; Olu and his wild goat Ade, who always seem to be on the verge of breaking out into startled laughter; Wee John’s mouse Squeaky who will run along the ropes ahead of him as he moves across the ship. Black Pete’s seal Sealy suns himself on deck while Pete goes about his tasks; sometimes Stede will see Pete stop and rub his belly, and sometimes Sealy will sleep next to Patrick while Pete and Lucius mend rope or do another task side by side. Jim’s daemon, like Jim themselves, is fierce and deadly: a massive komodo dragon named Tizona, apparently after a famous sword. Tizona hunts flies with deadly precision while Jim throws a knife 100 times into the same spot on the railing every morning in a private ritual that none of the crew will dare to interrupt. 

Roach, Frenchie, and Buttons all have flying creatures who match their personalities. Roach’s cockroach, Adras, watches everything from waist height with antennae raised, then flies up to Roach’s shoulder and appears to be whispering secrets to him. Frenchie’s magpie Alaire acts flashy and silly but Stede can see how secretly brilliant she is. And Buttons - well - the inscrutable sailor and his seagull feels a bit cliche, but Stede can’t deny Karl’s usefulness at sussing out enemy ships on the horizon. Frenchie had explained to Stede that Buttons is a witch, meaning his daemon can travel far away from him; Stede had felt that Frenchie was trying to ask if he, Stede, was a witch, but he’d maintained what he always has with the crew: he has no daemon, never has, never will. 

He’s also fascinated hearing tales of people who have unusual daemons. One that captivates him is Blackbeard and his kraken daemon, who Black Pete once sailed with and speaks of often now. 

"His kraken is smoky grey with glowing red eyes," Pete says, leaning forward with his hands out in front of him like he’s sketching the shape of the great beast under the water. "And when Blackbeard chases down his prey, his kraken will rise up out of the depths and wrap her huge tentacles around the ship, and crush it until the wood shatters!"

"So the kraken sinks the ship?" Stede asks, eyes wide. "How do they get the loot?"

"Uhm, well, it takes a while to sink. Because of the buoyancy of wood."

Stede frowns but nods, vague memories of seeing the movie Titanic bolstering his understanding of the physics. "But how can Blackbeard go on land, if his daemon is a kraken?"

"He can’t go on land," Pete says. 

"That’s kind of Blackbeard’s whole thing," Frenchie adds. "He’s cursed to be at sea forever."

Stede frowns. "Dire."

He starts to feel good about being a pirate captain, starts to think that maybe this really is his calling - to find a new family at sea. It’s becoming a wonderful adventure - the sailing ships, the fashion, the challenge of learning about a world not quite like his own. Yes, Stede Bonnet is starting to feel pretty good about this piracy gig! 

And then, one day, his own past rears up, and he finds himself thrust back into a world of uncertainty and unhappiness and fear. 

Stede has been in the daemon world nearly a year, and has come to believe that he is the only person to have ever made the jump between his world and this one - indeed, that maybe the conditions of his jump had been so rare, some kind of astronomical convergence or similar, that it could never be repeated again.

(He is resolutely not thinking about how that means he can never go home again. Nope. Not thinking about that at all. Definitely not in the darker hours of the night, when he can’t sleep, and his daughter’s face swims in front of his eyes, asking, "Where’s Papa?")

They’re sailing west, no destination in mind; his crew seems to have gotten over early ideas of mutiny the more they’ve gotten to know each other; and they’ve recently raided a governor’s ship laden with beautiful suits, so of course things are about to go to hell. They come upon an Imperium ship, large, intimidating, a tremendous amount of flags, and its captain is none other than - 

Stede blinks behind his looking glass and says aloud, "Nigel Badminton?"

Nigel Badminton - school bully of his youth, who’d made him French kiss a horse, and thrown rocks at him, and tormented him in any number of other ways for twelve years of schooling back in, and he cannot stress this enough, a completely different world - Nigel Badminton is the captain of an Imperium ship. 

Nigel sees him, clearly recognizes him, and demands an audience. Once he’s rowed over in a dinghy with several of his men, Stede leads him to his cabin. He’s made some nice upgrades, added some stylish knick-knacks and soft fabrics and a fresh coat of varnish on all the wood surfaces, to really make the place glow. As soon as he shuts the door, Nigel rounds on him. 

"Stede Bonnet," he says, voice quivering with a combination of contempt and disbelief. "What are you doing here?"

"What are you doing here?" Stede hisses back, aware that he needs to tread carefully given Nigel’s apparent power in this world, but furious to see him. This is supposed to be Stede’s undiscovered universe and now he has to share it with one of the worst people he’s ever met? "And why are you captaining a sailing ship for the Imperium?"

Nigel sneers. "I was always a fan of Master and Commander . Do you even have a daemon?" 

Stede’s blood runs cold. How could he have a daemon? He’s not of this world. And yet Nigel is removing a small, gilded box, rather like a glasses case, and peering inside of it, saying to something glittering within that Stede thinks must be a beetle, "Look, Alana, pathetic Baby Bonnet has managed to come through without a daemon."

The creature inside the box makes some kind of chittering noise. Stede’s insides curl; although he’s used his lack of a daemon as part of his pirate captain legend, he’s secretly devastated not to have one. To know that Nigel - Nigel from Stede’s world - has one - that’s - well - he can’t think about that right now or he’s going to start crying. Instead he says, "When did you get yours? How did you come through?"

"As if I’d tell you," Nigel says, starting to move around the room, touching Stede’s things, picking them up and putting them down slightly wrong. "How did you come through?"

"From the Arctic," Stede says. "In my - in our world." 

Nigel glances back at him, frowning. "The Arctic?"

"Yes, there’s a place to move through, or at least there was then," Stede says, seeing no harm in telling him. 

"Fascinating," Nigel says, voice bored. 

"Did you pass through an in-between world?" Stede asks, genuinely curious. "Like a - like an abandoned Italian village?"

Nigel’s frown deepens, and then he steps close to Stede. "You were always very stupid at school," he says plainly. Stede recoils. "How did you find your way here? When we -" He stops, frowns. "This is my world to plunder, not yours."

Stede feels the air shift, feels the threat coming before Nigel moves, and without thinking, he grabs a heavy brass statue off his desk and brings it down on Nigel’s head just as Nigel draws his sword to stab him. Nigel collapses headfirst onto the blade.

There’s a horrific crunch, and suddenly a monkey daemon appears beside Nigel, touches his ruined face, and dissolves into Dust just as quickly as she’d come. It all happens so quickly that Stede barely has a chance to comprehend what he’s seen before the gilded box tumbles out of Nigel’s pocket and lands on the parquet floor with a soft thud. 

Hands shaking, Stede picks it up and looks inside, expecting to see it empty, the daemon having transformed into a monkey at the moment of Nigel’s death. Instead he sees a glittering beetle, clearly a mechanical device, with its legs rotating slowly in place.

He doesn’t know enough about daemons to understand what just happened, but he also knows that he just killed the captain of an Imperium ship. Terrified, unsure what else to do, he orders his crew to send back most of the sailors who’d accompanied Nigel over, and keeps one as a hostage. He’s going to see Jackie, and get to the bottom of this. 

Blackbeard is leaning back in his chair facing away from the door to his cabin, gazing out the window and puffing meditatively on his pipe as Izzy talks behind him. He’s hamming it up a little, as he usually does when he’s receiving reports, acting the part of a captain who’s so confident, so utterly in control that he’s perfectly comfortable turning his back on a subordinate. There’s no crew to impress here, but it always helps keep Izzy happy to give him a bit of a show.

But today Izzy’s not appreciating the effort. Ed could tell right away, from the way Hector shifts irritably on his shoulder, that he’s a little on edge, the way Izzy always gets whenever he thinks Blackbeard’s attention has been wandering too far from the business of piracy. When he’s like this he’ll ramble about the tiniest details forever. "So we don’t expect we’ll see those merchants again for a bit," he’s saying, and Ed prays to whatever god might be listening that Izzy’s ready to move on to something that’s actually news, but no such luck. "Now, the men say the winds are -"

"I know what the winds are doing," Blackbeard finally snaps. "Keeping track of the weather’s not what I need you for. You've been in here going over reports for an hour and you haven't told me one thing I didn't already fucking know, man. You were ashore in the Republic yesterday, I don't go there, you learn anything interesting? What are people talking about on land?" 

Izzy grumbles while Blackbeard waits magnanimously for his answer. "There's talk of a new captain," he says finally. "Stede Bonnet. Calls himself the Gentleman Pirate. Got a fancy ship, dresses like a complete fucking ponce."

"His fashion sense can't be all they're talking about." Blackbeard settles back in his chair, mild again. "What's the angle?"

Izzy sighs. "What they say is, he doesn't have a daemon."

That gets Blackbeard to pause for a moment. "He doesn't have one, or no one's seen it? It's not..." and he gestures ominously downward, toward what swims always beneath the Queen Anne's Revenge.   

"It's not a fucking fish," Izzy insists. "He's been ashore, pretty far inland. And they say he just tells everyone he hasn't got one. Acts like he barely knows what they are, walks around asking rude fucking questions about what it's like to have one."

Blackbeard hums. "So what do you make of that, Izzy?"

"It's a fucking lie, obviously," Izzy snaps. On his shoulder Hector waves his claw in exasperation. "Everyone's got a fucking daemon, he's just keeping it hidden, it's, it's a mouse or a bug or something like that. Can we get back to planning, Edward?"

Blackbeard reaches up to stroke his long beard thoughtfully. "No, I don't think we will," he says. "I told you, we've got as much planned out as we need for tomorrow. Nothing left we need to go over again." Izzy opens his mouth to say something but Blackbeard cuts him off with a wave of his hand. "Dismissed."

The moment Izzy and Hector are gone Kahurangi crawls out of Ed's beard and leaps into the air. She usually loops around the room a few times when she's grown tired of hiding for too long, but Ed can tell she’s more excited than usual. "You've got an idea," he says. "Let's hear it, then."

"We're going to meet this Gentleman Pirate," Kahu announces, diving playfully downward at him before swooping up again. "We've got to, you know you're curious."

Well, she’s right about that, of course, she'd know, but still - "You're always complaining about how you don't get to talk to other daemons," he teases. "What do you want with a daemonless man?"

"He's doing something interesting out here for once," she says. "We've got to find out what he's all about."

"You know Izzy's right, don't you? It's a fuckery," Ed tells her. "It's not even an original fuckery. Bloke’s got, like, a fucking cockroach daemon and he keeps it in a matchbox, some bullshit like that, and he walks around telling everybody ooh look at me, I'm so fucking mysterious, I don't have a soul, it can't possibly be in my fucking pocket ."

"Exactly!" Kahu cries, landing to hang from a bookshelf. "A fuckery, there's someone else out here doing piracy by fuckery instead of the same old, same old. Don't you want to talk to him?"

He sighs. "You know he'll just turn out to be the usual sort of bastard. Probably a waste of time."

"Waste of time?" Kahu scoffs. "Like we’ve got a deadline to make? Ed, listen," and she edges over closer to him, "What was the plan for the next couple weeks if we don't track him down? What were we going to do instead?"

Ed blinks. "What do you mean, what's the plan? Been forever since we needed a new plan. Find a ship, take it, kill them all, take their stuff, do the same thing all over again the next day."

"Well," Kahu says, "This Gentleman Pirate's got a ship, doesn't he? A nice one, Izzy said? So we try my plan, we stick with it for however long we're having fun, and when we get tired of it we can have the crew kill him and take all his fancy things, just like we were going to be doing anyway. There's nothing to lose, and we gain at least a couple days where we're not bored out of our minds."

He can’t argue with that. "Good enough for me," Ed says, casually enough, but he can feel excitement stirring despite himself. Been ages since he's felt like this. "I'll tell Izzy he's got a new task for tomorrow."

Stede had forgotten - or perhaps not fully appreciated - how dark, damp, and, err, blood-smelling Jackie’z is. He’s been out at sea, after all, pursuing his destiny as the Gentleman Pirate, not slinging pints to midshipmen with two coins to rub together who will soon be losing them to pickpockets, rum, or both. 

He’s wearing his finest white suit, and is accompanied by his scribe, Lucius. If he’d woken this morning from a dream of his daughter asking him why he doesn’t have a daemon before she dissolved into Dust, well, that’s between him and his overactive imagination. Because he’s feeling great! A bit unsettled by the circumstances of Nigel Badminton’s death, but who wouldn’t be? 

He’s got a whole speech prepared for announcing himself at Jackie’z, had made Lucius stay up late to practice it and everything, but he’s barely gotten the first sentence out before Jackie herself appears in front of him and says, "Steve. You got my money?"

"I -" He stops, mid-flow, as her leopard daemon slinks up beside her. "Yes," he says. He hadn’t quite been sure what to do with the actual bags of money that he’d been storing, but he does have them. "Aboard my ship - shall I have someone fetch it now?"

"Correct," she says, then she and her daemon turn, as if done with the conversation already. 

"Wait, Jackie," Stede says, ignoring a panicked look from Lucius. "I have a - a question for you."

Jackie waves at him, so he follows her to her back table. She sits, and one of her more annoying husbands scuttles forward to give her a drink before scuttling back behind the bar without asking for Stede’s order. Resolving to act unperturbed, Stede arranges his coat so it won’t wrinkle and sits as well, smiling at her. 

Her leopard perches at her feet and stares out at the rest of the bar; Jackie raises her eyebrows at Stede. "Jackie don’t have all day."

"No, of course not," he says. Now that he’s here, he feels a bit absurd - why would Jackie know this? - but he doesn’t have anyone else to talk to and he’s worried he’s losing his mind. "Did you - do you know of an Imperium captain named Nigel Badminton?"

Jackie cocks her head, frowning. "Blond ponytail? Slimy as fuck?"

Stede nods, relief rushing through him. "That’s the one."

"Yeah," she says. She holds up a cigar and a different husband materializes to light it for her; when he lingers, her leopard growls. Stede watches him disappear behind a curtain and looks back at her as she takes a long drag, then leans forward. "That fucker’s been capturing ships I finance for a couple years."

"Do you know exactly how long?" Stede asks, not sure how to feel about the information that Nigel appears to have beaten him to this world. 

"Two years, like I said."

"Right." Stede frowns, thinking. "And he has a - a monkey daemon?"

She cocks her head at him. "Nah, man, he has a little beetle. Keeps it in a box."

So Nigel had been fooling people with the beetle; that’s good to know. But Stede can’t shake the image of the monkey exploding into Dust as Nigel died. 

"What’s this about?" Jackie asks. He looks up and her eyes are narrowed. "You have a run in with him?"

Nigel’s body falling; the monkey appearing; the Dust explosion; all play through Stede’s head in rapid succession. "I, um," he says, swallowing, trying to decide how much he wants to tell Jackie. "I took one of his men hostage."

Stede thinks he sees grudging respect on her face. "Go on."

Stede makes a decision; Jackie had understood that there was more to him than meets the eye from early on, and he knows she’s not the type to panic. He leans close to her and he says, "I think that Nigel and I came from the same place."

She raises her eyebrows and inclines her head a fraction closer to his. "And where exactly did you come from, Steve?"

Stede looks around quickly. Lucius is hovering by the bar, staring at the door with a look of undisguised longing. The bartender is at the other end, speaking urgently to a short man dressed neatly in black leather. Stede takes a deep breath, leans even closer to Jackie, and says, "I’m from a world without daemons. And Nigel - his beetle - it’s a fake. A mechanical device. I saw it."

Jackie’s face creases in a frown. "A world without daemons?" she repeats as her leopard shifts at her feet as if uncomfortable. She touches his head with her wooden hand and he presses in close to her thigh. 

Stede feels a now-familiar flash of jealousy at this show of solidarity; he’s spent plenty of time wondering what his childhood would have been like with a loyal animal companion present through thick and thin. "Yes," he says. "It’s why I don’t have one. And Nigel didn’t either." He does not mention the monkey; that part feels too jumbled in his mind still. 

Jackie squints at him. "You fucking with me?"

"I am not," Stede says, as sincerely as he can. 

She’s about to say something else when her bartending husband appears, his praying mantis daemon perched on his shoulder. 

"Um, honey?" 

She glares at him. "Do not call me that. What do you want, Geraldo?"

"Izzy Hands is here." He points at Stede. "To see him."

"Who?" Stede asks, mystified. 

"What does Izzy want with him?" Jackie asks. 

"I want," says a raspy voice that makes Stede turn to see a short, bearded man dressed in traditional pirating clothing, "to relay a message from my boss."

"Your boss?" Stede repeats. He doesn’t appreciate the interruption, nor can he imagine that this man’s boss has anything of value to say to him - he’s probably just upset Stede raided his ship or something. He’s got more serious issues to deal with than some pirate’s hurt feelings. "Tell him he can go suck eggs in hell."

There’s several moments of stunned silence. Stede thinks even the band stopped playing for a moment, though surely they’re out of earshot? He has to assume that everyone is so devastated by his insult that they had to take a moment. 

Izzy snarls, "I fucking will tell him that, Bonnet," before storming out of the bar with a lot of, in Stede’s opinion, unnecessary shoving and stomping.

Then Jackie says, clearly finished with the conversation, "Geraldo, help out Captain Bonnet with his hostage. He needs to fence the man."

Her husband swallows while the praying mantis on his shoulder rubs its front legs together in what is unmistakably a nervous gesture. "Yes hon- Jackie."

Izzy clearly thinks this "Blackbeard can suck eggs in hell" business means they’re going to fall back on the "throw them all to the sharks" plan he suggested earlier, which just goes to show the man’s never had any vision. Ed’s gone from mildly intrigued to never having wanted to meet someone so badly in his life. What the fuck is this guy thinking?

"But does he know who I am?" He has to at least ask. Maybe Izzy didn’t make it clear who the invitation was coming from, he’s not above half-assing a job when he really thinks it’s a waste of time, but surely -

"I explicitly told him that Blackbeard desired his company," Izzy affirms, and that settles it, they’re doing this. Ed’s as excited as Kahu is now.

"Only one chance to make a good first impression," she tells him. "We’re going to do this right." He takes his hair down and models for Kahu, lets her advise him on how to arrange it for an artfully careless look, as though he just woke up like this. Together they workshop exactly what he’s going to say. Kahu was right from the start: this is already more fun than Ed’s had in…well, he doesn’t like to think how long.  

That evening she flies out to do reconnaissance (the sailors who whisper tales that Blackbeard can see in the dark aren’t wrong, exactly), so they know exactly when Bonnet and his crew are being brought over to the Imperium ship, and it’s not hard to guess what’s happening. Ed lets his crew lead the first wave of attack - Kahu wants the two of them to hang back for a bit and wait for their moment. The secret to a memorable entrance is always timing.

He doesn’t have to ask which one is Bonnet, doesn’t even have to look for someone with no obvious daemon beside him: nobody but the guy he’s been hearing about would wear a pure white satin suit to Jackie’z. Of course the entire front of the ensemble is stained bright red now, Bonnet having just been gut-stabbed and nearly hanged, and the man himself is pallid and feverish and looks overall a bit like an undercooked turkey breast. And even despite that - 

"I told you, I told you," Kahu crows from her hiding place under Ed’s beard, no need to worry about being heard in all the tumult. "This is already even better than I thought it would be, I didn’t know he’d be hot." 

All right, well, she’s got a point, but no need to rub it in. Ed swaggers forward, strikes a pose, delivers the line they’d planned out ahead of time. Bonnet just stares up at him, eyes bugging out of his pale sweaty head, gasping for breath, bleeding from the belly, and manages to squeak out, "You’ve heard of me?"

Not "Can you please help me I’m dying" or even "Oh shit, Blackbeard?" What a fucking lunatic. Ed feels his beard tremble and realizes Kahu is laughing in sheer delight. 

Once they get Bonnet back into his cabin and about as stable as he’s going to get, Ed orders everyone out of the room and then sets about looking for the clue that’ll solve the mystery of this daemonless pirate. Going through his clothes (really nice fabric!), turning every pocket inside out, hunting for any sign of a small creature, a shrew, a hummingbird, even one of those little tin cases people with insect daemons use sometimes so they won’t get squished.

("You should check out his dick while we’re here," Kahu offers helpfully, which Ed certainly had no intention of forgetting about, but business first.)

But there’s nothing. Not one sign of a daemon. Which means - he can’t really be - fuck, maybe it escaped? But it can’t go far, unless Bonnet’s separated like a fucking witch or something. Maybe it’s hiding somewhere in the room? 

With nothing else to do for a bit Ed searches the room, then takes a break to watch Bonnet sleep, then searches the whole place over again, then takes another break, and then - Bonnet’s breathing has been growing more labored for the last hour or so but he gasps suddenly, a sound awfully like a death rattle, and…something happens.

Ed’s seen far more than his share of death. He knows just what it looks like when a daemon shudders for the last time and disintegrates into a cloud of shimmering Dust. (He doesn’t even always think about the first time he saw it, on that dock long ago, anymore.) So when he sees that same shimmer out of the corner of his eye, that’s his first thought: Bonnet had some sort of bug daemon after all, one Ed missed in all his searches, and he’s finally dying, maybe he even rolled over and crushed it somehow.

Sorrow stabs Ed through the gut and takes him utterly by surprise. (Later he’ll think to himself that the sadness was almost nice, in a way; it seemed like years since he’d felt anything at all so unexpectedly.) He doesn’t want this bizarre little adventure to end so abruptly, before he could even figure out what was going on with this guy. He wants anything else but to turn around and leave here and go back to treading water, back to the slow relentless grind of raids and raids and raids and nothing else forever. 

"Ed, do something," urges Kahu, which is ridiculous because there’s really nothing he can do that will help, but for lack of anything else he can come up with he reaches for Bonnet’s hand and grips it: Come back, mate, we weren’t done - 

And before the thought can finish he realizes he was wrong. The Dust isn’t dissipating. It’s coming together, like watching the process in reverse, rapidly forming into the shape of an animal much too large to have been anywhere in hiding all this time. A bird, a pretty big one, with a long wickedly hooked beak: some kind of falcon, or… 

No. Green feathers. A parrot. A fucking parrot, of all the cliches -

The newly formed daemon is rearing back and flapping its wings, apparently startled by having been suddenly called into existence out of raw ambient Dust or whatever the fuck just happened, which Ed supposes is understandable, he’s pretty freaked out himself. Calming a stranger’s daemon while the man himself lies unconscious is no easy trick, especially since you can’t touch it. Ed’s unsure what to do, just for a moment, which is a real novelty.

But he doesn’t have to decide, because before he can do anything Kahu crawls right out and gives herself a shake and flies over to the new bird. 

"Easy, easy, you’re all right," she soothes, low and gentle, the first time she’s spoken to any other daemon in more than thirty years. "I’m Kahurangi. This is Ed."

Chapter Text

Stede’s dreaming of a man dressed in black, face obscured by a massive tentacle rising over the railing of a ship - of his ship - the tentacle reaching for him, and when he screams for help he sees his wife, he sees his father, he sees every failure of his life, and no help to be found - the tentacle writhes, muscular and studded with suckers - 

Stede wakes with a start. There’s a warm pressure on his hand and a warm pressure on his chest. The former disappears; the latter tickles and he sneezes - ohfuckohfuckthatwasamistake - and gasps at the stabbing pain in his gut. 

"Sssh," says a soft, low voice. "That’s Charis. They’re worried about you."

Stede’s vision focuses on a ball of dull green feathers curled into the hollow under his clavicle; the little creature is shaking. Instinctually, he reaches up to touch them, to comfort them, but then he jerks his hand back - ow fuck stop the sudden movements! - and says, voice hoarse, "Is that your daemon?"

The man frowns. Stede can’t help but like him; his face is one of those faces you have to like. 

"Think they’re your daemon, mate."

Stede’s heart nearly stops. The ball of feathers squawks - stands - stretches out their wings - and they’re actually quite large, aren’t they, and the features iridescent in the light - and then turns their head to regard him with dark, yellow-ringed eyes and a wickedly sharp beak. 

"My daemon?" Stede whispers, voice trembling. 

"Charis," the bird says, in an Auckland accent, neither feminine nor masculine, and Stede remembers something about gender and daemons but he’s too overjoyed to see Charis to recall it. 

He has a daemon - and he experiences a moment of profound love for them - for Charis - before he remembers that a daemon represents his own soul - and yet - they’re gorgeous - a kea, a large parrot native to the South Island of Aotearoa New Zealand. 

"I think you almost dying summoned them," says the man with the likable face. 

Stede manages to look away from Charis to him, and hm, maybe Stede’s just falling in love with everyone he sees right now, something about his life having flashed before his eyes, because he’s filled with an overwhelming desire to know this man, whose warm brown eyes are kind above a tentative smile nearly hidden in a full, curling beard. 

"Summoned him?" Stede asks. "What did it look like?"

The man furrows his brow like he’s thinking; Stede likes that expression on his face too. "You know how when someone dies, their daemon explodes into Dust?"

Nigel flashes through Stede’s mind again; he nods, and the man laughs, a little huff of air, and says, "So it was like that, but in reverse. Like the Dust coalesced into Charis here."

"And Charis is new," says a tiny brown bat, emerging from underneath the man’s hair at his neck. 

The man says, quietly, "Kahu."

"Yes," Charis says, preening. "I am new here."

Stede gently strokes the feathers atop Charis’s head. They’re softer than he could have ever imagined. He’s enamored, floating in a haze of happiness despite the pain in his gut. "So pleased to make your acquaintance," he says softly. Then he looks back at the man, and the bat - Kahu? - perched on his shoulder. "I’m Stede, by the way." He holds out his hand and the man hesitates before shaking it. 

"Ed," he says, a note in his voice that Stede can’t interpret. 

"And who are you?" Stede asks Ed’s daemon. 

Ed is wearing a leather jacket with one sleeve cut off, exposing a muscular arm ringed in black tattoos of animals and sea creatures. The bat hops down from Ed’s shoulder to rest atop his wrist and looks up at Stede with wide, black eyes. "I’m Kahurangi." 

"Kahurangi, so nice to meet you," Stede says, smiling at her. 

He starts to sit up and Charis takes off, flapping their wings and squawking. "Stede, be careful!"

"Listen to your daemon," Ed says gently, his hand hovering near Stede’s arm. "Don’t want your guts popping out all over the place."

"No," Stede agrees, feeling his wound as gingerly as he can. Charis settles on his sheet-covered thigh, claws remarkably gentle, and cocks their head to stare at him; he can’t resist reaching for them again, stroking their feathers again.

Ed stands abruptly and turns away, Kahu flapping after him as Charis hops onto Stede’s shoulder and nuzzles into his cheek, the smooth keratin of his beak sliding against Stede’s stubble. Stede watches Ed absently; Kahu is fluttering around him in a way that makes Stede wonder if she’s anxious about something, but Ed turns away from her to pick up a cashmere throw lying across a chair.

"Is this silk?" he asks.

Despite the stab wound and all that led up to it, Stede can’t resist pulling on a robe and breeches with Ed’s help and leading him on a tour of the captain’s space. At one point, someone calls for Ed from outside the cabin; Stede sees Kahu disappear into Ed’s magnificent beard in a flash, but Ed raises a finger to his lips and they watch each other’s eyes until there’s silence again. Then Kahu peeks out around the edge of Ed’s beard and Stede can’t help but break the silence with a laugh; Kahu is downright cute, and she and Charis take off and fly in a circle around each other as Stede limps to his library to show Ed the books he’s acquired during this fascinating year.

"You’re a scientist?" Ed says, eyes wide as Kahu and Charis perch on opposite sides of a chandelier, rattling the decorative dangling glass and making the light in the cabin dance. 

"Yes," Stede says, deciding to own the title that seems to hold such cachet in this world. He does have a PhD after all.

"Fascinating," Ed says. 

"You’re a pirate?" Stede asks. 

Ed blinks. "You really don’t know who I am?"

"Um," Stede says, suddenly embarrassed. "Sorry."

Ed narrows his eyes. "I’m Blackbeard."

Stede laughs. It hurts. "Yeah, right."

Ed frowns, and indicates his (mostly grey!) beard. "Are you fucking serious? You really don’t believe me?"

"I heard Blackbeard has a kraken daemon," Stede says. "And you certainly don’t."

Ed’s eyes focus on Kahu, who is sitting on a bookshelf next to Charis, speaking to them in a low voice. "Yeah," he says after a moment. "But I heard you didn’t have a daemon, mate." 

"I didn’t," Stede says. He knows instinctively that he can trust this man, Blackbeard or not. "Until today." 

"Well," Ed says. His frown deepens. "Maybe neither of us is quite what we seem." He hesitates, then says, "Don’t go telling people about Kahu, all right? She’s - she’s shy."

Stede looks at her again; she’s watching him with her big, black eyes, but still murmuring something to Charis. Maybe instructions about being a daemon or something. "Your secret is safe with me," he assures Ed, who visibly relaxes. Hoping to soothe him further, Stede says, "You know, I have a book with you in it." He’d found it in port a few months ago and been captivated by it. Now he reaches for it on the shelf - ouch - and pulls it down, flipping it open to the page he knows shows a fearsome woodcut of the Dread Pyrate Blackbeard.

To his surprise, Ed’s face transforms into unhappiness. "Look at this fucking vampire viking clown," he snaps. 

Kahu takes off from the chandelier and settles on Ed’s bare arm, stroking one wing along the crease of his elbow. She looks up at Stede and says, "Ed, he doesn’t know."

"I’m sorry, Ed," Stede says, as Charis flies down with a grace he hadn’t seen from them yet to land silently on the arm of the couch where Ed is sitting. "I - do you not - want to be Blackbeard anymore?"

Ed sighs and sinks back into his chair. "Do you ever feel trapped? Treading water, waiting to drown?"

Stede blinks. "Yes," he says as Charis gives him a keen look. "Yes, I very much have."

Many things happen after that; clothing swapped, the reappearance of the Imperium naval ship who’d tried to kill Stede in the first place; a plan hatched between Ed and Stede together; saving the Revenge; and finally, this: sunrise from the crow’s nest with Charis curled into his side, Stede sending a note down to Roach requesting some of those scrummy scones he makes with marmalade, and getting to gently nudge Ed to wake him and share breakfast. 

Ed’s sleeping in Stede’s clothes, slumped to one side, Kahu snug in his collarbone, one tiny hand and wing edge just peeping out from behind the white fabric at the collar in a way that Stede finds incredibly endearing. When Stede wakes Ed, Kahu barely stirs, just turning her head so her big black eyes can stare at him; Ed himself jumps a little, but settles almost immediately against the mast and accepts a buttered and marmaladed scone from Stede. 

"Oh that’s good," he moans, so Stede talks about how they’d looted the marmalade, waxing on a bit about the fuckery they’d done to make the crew they stole it from believe they were demons using a Van de Graff Generator he’d rigged up from the scientific equipment aboard the Revenge. 

"You’ve really got it all figured out, don’t you?" Ed asks. He squints at Stede, like he’s trying to figure something out. "But you’re not a witch, are you? You’re something else. You didn’t have a daemon before yesterday."

Instinctually, Stede reaches for Charis just as they settle on his lap. "No," he says, because he doesn’t want to lie to Ed, "I didn’t. I came from a, um, a world where people don’t have daemons. I think almost dying - well, I think that brought Charis to me."

Ed raises his eyebrows. “A world without daemons?” he repeats. 

“I know it’s hard to believe,” Stede says. 

“Honestly…” Ed looks down at the ship, then back at Stede. “I saw your daemon appear. It makes more sense than anything else I can imagine.” He frowns. “But how did you wind up out here, as a pirate?”

“It’s a long story,” Stede says, feeling that need to apologize that he always does when he has a lot to say. “In the world I came from, I’m a scientist. When I arrived here, about a year ago, I discovered that those skills were even more valuable in this world.” 

Ed nods, once, decisive, taking all this in with his eyes narrowed; Stede is struck by how keenly Ed listens to him. Ed gestures around the cabin. "And that’s how you do piracy."

"Well, sort of. Yes." Stede glances down at Charis’s head and grins sheepishly. "I almost died because I’m not very good at it."

"Hmm," Ed says. "Well. We could team up. You could teach me about your world, and maybe even how to be a respectable scientist.’ He raises his eyebrows. ‘And I could teach you how to be a more successful pirate."

Stede can’t believe he’s hearing this. Ed - Blackbeard - the most famous pirate in the Caribbean - Ed wants to teach Stede? And learn from Stede? He glances at Kahu, trying to gauge if Ed’s lying, but she nods and he trusts her instantly. He holds out his hand. "Ok."

Ed’s face breaks into a wide grin and Stede thinks again about how much he likes Ed’s face. It’s just so expressive, despite the massive beard. Ed shakes his hand, warm, then starts to say something when they hear someone slamming things around down below. 

Ed’s face shutters immediately; Kahu disappears into his beard. Ed sighs and says, "Guess I’d better go deal with that," before shoving himself to his feet and leaving Stede alone in the crow’s nest. 

Not alone, Stede realizes. Never alone again. He strokes Charis’s back feathers, smiling down at the beautiful bird. 

Charis, his daemon. Charis, proof that he has a beautiful soul. 

Izzy is making a racket stomping around packing up every last one of his things and flinging them into the dinghy with all the drama he can muster, the way he always does when he’s threatened to quit and now needs to stall until Ed calls his bluff. 

"You think that’s even his stuff?" Kahu whispers, peering down at him from her perch in Ed’s beard as they climb down. "I never saw him bring all those bags onboard in the first place."  

All of them know how the dance goes from here. At the last moment Izzy will offer a tentative apology for his earlier outburst, and in return Ed will counteroffer with some sort of great big diabolical plan that he can’t possibly pull off without Izzy’s help, and then ask him to stay. Izzy always loves hearing Blackbeard scheme like a villain out of a penny dreadful, and he loves hearing about how much Blackbeard needs him even more, and if you can tie those two things together into an excuse that gives him room to back down while saving face, everything’s back to normal before you know it.

This time the plan’s going to be a hard sell, though, for more reasons than one. To start with, Izzy has to know Ed sincerely believes the insane story he’s about to share, or it won’t work. Fortunately he does truly believe it, as mad as it sounds.

"I said some things I regret last night," Izzy says finally, glancing sidelong at Ed as he throws another bag down. "I don’t think you’re a shell of a man, or a twat."

Ed knows his cue when he hears it. "Nah, you were right, man, about all of it," he says. "But here. Look at this." And he pulls out a device Stede showed him earlier. ("It’s called a phone," Stede said, and then added helpfully "from the Greek!" as if that explained anything. Kind of adorable honestly.)

Izzy frowns, turning the hard black rectangle in his hands, peeling back the flexible case that covers one side. Hector, perched on the rail beside him, taps it cautiously with his foreclaw. "The fuck’s it made out of?"

"It’s not from this world," Ed tells him. "What you heard him telling Jackie, about coming from a world without daemons - it’s true. I know, it sounds fucking crazy. But his daemon came together out of Dust right in front of me when he almost died, he didn’t have one before, or at least it was just…inside him. Look at that big fucking bird, man, you know he wasn’t hiding it anywhere. And look at that," he points at the device in Izzy’s hands. "This is the real thing."

"Another bloody world," Izzy says slowly. It’s a lot to take in, but Ed can tell he’s buying it. "I’ll be damned." 

Ed makes a show of stretching catlike, leans against the rail, gazes out at the sky. "Think about it, Izz, a world where your daemon lives inside you. Maybe not such a big deal for you," - Ed nods toward Hector, who’s scuttling along the rail - "but for me?" And this time he looks down at the ocean, at what Izzy and everyone else think swims beneath the surface.

"Here I’m chained to the sea," Ed says, letting a touch of wistfulness into his voice. "And Blackbeard already owns this little lake. But if I could go there - let’s say I could get someone to teach me how he traveled between, then kill him and take his place - well." He gestures expansively at the horizon. "Could go anywhere from there. No end of worlds to plunder." 

Ed feels something rustle under his beard: Kahu is stirring. Odd. She doesn’t usually do this when anyone else is around, and especially not Izzy. Maybe talking to Stede and Charis has her keyed up.

No time to worry about that now, he needs to bait the hook. "Of course," he adds, very casual, watching Izzy from the corner of his eye, "can’t just leave a mess behind me here. The crew would need a new captain. Someone who really knows the ropes." 

"You mean me." Izzy’s still processing it all but he always responds to flattery. "Suppose it could be me, yeah."

Time to seal the deal. "I need you here," Ed tells Izzy firmly.

"Edward!" Izzy calls after him as he turns away, just as Ed knew he would. "You still got it."

It’s funny. Izzy always says something like that at the end of this dance, once Ed’s talked him down out of a rage and laid out a bold new plan, and usually at this point Ed feels a warm glow of satisfaction, the sense of having found an elegant solution to a puzzle. And he ought to feel even more like that now, because he has solved one, he’s solved the puzzle that’s dogged him for more than a decade: a way to finally leave Blackbeard behind, decisively, for good, with no fear of pursuit. No one left behind who could even conceive of where he’s gone.

But he can’t find that satisfaction in him now, and when he looks where it ought to be there’s just emptiness.

Ed and Stede embark on the Great Experiment - Ed will teach Stede how to be a (better) pirate, and Stede will teach Ed how to fit into the world of science. 

Science in the daemon-world fascinates Stede; he’s used to people’s eyes glazing over at parties when he brings up his career, but here, it’s a highly prestigious career. Members of the Scientific Academy are celebrities, their expeditions breathlessly discussed in the newspapers. It’s - well, if he’s being honest, it’s a bit of a dream come true. 

And to have Ed be so interested in it? Ed, the kindest, smartest, most wonderful man Stede’s ever met - 

"Blackbeard," Charis says in a bitchy tone one day when Stede’s thinking about Ed alone in his cabin. "He’s the dread pirate Blackbeard." 

"I know," Stede says back, equally bitchy. "But that doesn’t change his personality!"

Keas can’t technically roll their eyes, but Charis’s expression tells Stede they would if they could. "You forgot to add gorgeous," they point out, and now it’s Stede’s turn to roll his eyes, because yes of course Ed is a very handsome man - he’s just - he’s -

"Gorgeous," Charis repeats. "Most beautiful man we’ve ever seen."

"He’s very charismatic," Stede says, which is true . There’s no need for Charis to lose their head just because Ed, yes, could easily have been a movie star in Stede’s world. With eyes like that -  

Anyway. Ed’s amazing qualities actually make him a natural at science. He quickly grasps Stede’s demonstrations of nearly every device in his cabin, aside from one Stede doesn’t understand himself - after all, much of this world’s science is rudimentary to Stede, but things pertaining to daemons and some aspects of Dust are opaque no matter how much he reads on the topic.

"I don’t like that one," Kahu says instantly when Stede brings it out of its cupboard in the captain’s cabin aboard the Revenge. It has a large, wicked-looking blade that reminds Stede a bit of a guillotine.

"No," Charis says forcefully. "Let’s not look at that one." 

Ed and Stede glance at each other. Ed calls to Kahu, "Why don’t you like it?"

Kahu flutters around nervously, further from Ed than she usually is. "I can’t explain it, exactly," she says. 

"It makes me feel cold," Charis puts in from their perch atop the harpsichord. 

"Yes!" Kahu says, suddenly landing on the harpsichord very close to Charis, as if wanting to huddle for warmth. "Exactly. It makes me feel cold. And, and, alone." 

"Come here then," Ed says to Kahu. "You aren’t alone. We’re all together." 

Stede likes that - likes the way Ed says it. The four of them, together. They work so well like this. 

But he can feel Charis’s unease too. 

"Stop being superstitious," Ed says to Kahu in a low tone. "We’re scientists now, remember?"

"It’s all right," Stede says. "I don’t know what this one does. I think it’s got to do with Dust, which isn’t something I ever learned about where I’m from." He puts the cloth back over it and pushes it back into the cupboard. "Maybe someday we can figure it out together," he adds, and gets rewarded with a sweet smile from Ed and the return of both of their daemons to their shoulders as soon as the cupboard is locked. 

As for the piracy - Stede thinks he does pretty well with the looting and maiming for someone who was essentially just a middle aged Guardian reader a year ago. Of course he’d sparred a bit in faculty meetings - he’d sabotaged the chair nomination for that horrible woman on the governance committee - but nothing quite so visceral as, well, actual viscera. And other body parts. Because he’s a pirate now, and a pirate’s life requires some violence. 

Charis is downright gleeful about it. They’ll put their beak and claws into it. Ed had explained all about his story with the kraken daemon, and Stede had sworn himself to secrecy before Ed even asked, but he knows what to look for now and can sometimes catch a glimpse of Kahu in Ed’s beard, always peeking out at Charis. Stede’s kea is remarkable to watch - one second appearing cute and docile on Stede’s shoulder, the next wings spread, claws out, as they tackle someone else’s daemon to the floor and go for the neck with their beak. 

"Charis is kind of intense," Ed remarks after one particularly thrilling raid. Stede catches a little smile through his beard; catches a flash of Kahu’s big dark eyes, shining. 

"You’d never guess it to know me, would you?" he asks, trying to twirl his dagger and mostly succeeding. 

Ed blinks at him. "Mate."

"Hm?" Stede thrills to the - nickname? Term of friendship? Whatever it is, he loves that Ed calls him it. "Yes?"

Ed just shakes his head and holds out a slightly blood-stained envelope. "Frenchie found an invitation in the captain’s cabin," he says. "An academic conference." He bites his lip. "We could go."

Stede takes the envelope and examines the invitation. The wording is formal, a call for attendees to hear a series of lectures on the topic of Dust and daemons. The name on the invite is Sir Godfrey Thornrose - ewgh - apparently a famous phrenologist - double ewgh - and he’s been invited to give a short presentation. 

"Phrenology?" he asks, incredulous. "That’s a real topic people believe here?"

Ed shrugs. "I think it’s like - somebody can look at your skull shape and your daemon species and it tells them about you?"

Stede crosses to the Revenge’s library and starts searching for a book on the topic. He can hear Ed moving around; he’s rarely still, and never when he’s nervous. Stede glances back and sees him frowning at Kahu, who is holding onto his sleeve with her little feet, shuffling from one to the other as Ed taps his hand on the windowsill. 

"Ed? Are you all right?"

Ed jerks his head up in Stede’s direction. "Yeah," he says, quick and, to Stede’s ear, entirely unconvincing. Stede raises his eyebrows, and Ed says, just as quick, "So in your world, how do you know what a person is going to be like? If you can’t see their daemon, I mean?"

Stede doesn’t say, How can someone know what you’re going to be like, since you’re faking who your daemon is? He thinks it, though, apparently loudly enough that Ed pats his shoulder and says, "Yeah, yeah, some people lie about their daemons but it’s fucking rare, and, I’ll tell you, it’s fucking hard work."

Stede glances fondly at Kahu. "I’m touched that you don’t lie about it to me."

Ed turns away and looks out the window. "Wasn’t my choice, mate," he says. "Talk to her."

"We knew we could trust you," Kahu says. 

"See?" Stede says. "Kahu knew what I was like without knowing my daemon."

Ed shakes his head like he’s been defeated, but Stede knows that he’s spinning it all around in his mind and will come out with someone brilliant later. 

"You really want to go?" he asks. "It’ll probably be a bunch of horrible academics all congratulating themselves on how smart they are - making comments instead of questions - dressed to impress -"

"We’re going," Ed announces, and that’s that. 

"I told you this is a waste of fucking time, Edward," Izzy growls.

Weird feeling to have someone else's hands in his beard. Usually that's where Kahu hides while Ed’s around people, so of course he always keeps everyone well clear of it. But he hasn't got the trick of tying the little bows in his own beard, and Kahu insisted they go all out for this: how often does Ed get a chance to take off the leather and dress up in all this fancy stuff? So the bows are non-negotiable, and Kahu's tucked back under the collar of the rich purple academic robe Ed has already decided is Jeff's favorite outfit. (They picked out the name Jeff together this morning. They're both really excited about being Jeff.)

And there's no one but Izzy to do the styling: Stede's busy with his own preparations, something about a wig. Kahu suggested having Ivan do it, but Izzy guards his privileges as first mate jealously, and granting anyone else the honor of personally assisting Blackbeard is always sure to set him off, no matter how much the job is something he doesn't want to do in the first place. So here he is now, tying ribbons into Blackbeard's - Edward's - Jeff's beard while Hector paces uncomfortably back and forth on the shelf next to them. Izzy always gets grumpy when he thinks a fuckery is becoming too elaborate, too frivolous - that just makes it extra satisfying for Ed when he pulls it off anyway - but he’s really been in a hell of a mood ever since he saw Ed in Jeff’s clothes.

"Put a little more effort into it, man, they’ve got to be symmetrical," Ed urges, only partly to wind Izzy up. He really does want to make an impression.

Izzy gives him a glare. "Doesn't matter how fucking symmetrical they are, it’s a bloody disgrace, dressing Blackbeard up like this," he says. "This is beneath you, Edward, this isn’t what you’re meant for. You’re not some poncy scholar, your soul's the fucking kraken."

Ed can feel Kahu shifting under his collar, but history’s greatest tactician knows when not to rise to the bait. "Well, Jeff’s a scholar. Jeff's their respected colleague, and they'll all want to show off for him like they do, and Bonnet's going to present his research while Jeff’s in the back taking notes, and that's how I'm going to find out how to travel back to his world after we take care of him," he informs Izzy. 

"Listen, man," and he drops his voice to let Izzy know he means it, "this is the last step. Remember what we're here for. I go handle this, and before you know it I'll be leaving the Queen Anne in your capable hands." 

That's enough to settle him down a bit, but Izzy still clearly doesn't like it. "Doesn't mean you need all these bloody frills," he mutters, knotting another ribbon. "Looks fucking ridiculous." Well, Izzy's idea of high fashion is probably that puffy thing he always does with his sleeves, so who cares what he thinks? Not Jeff. Jeff's got bigger ambitions. Jeff's going to have panache.

Stede had skimmed the lone book he’d found about phrenology - he thinks he can probably pull off a talk on the matter - but he had gotten a bit distracted dressing for the conference and his hand-labeled, lantern-light slides are a bit sparse. 

"Not my fault," Lucius had said. "I was trying to draw diagrams for you and you kept interrupting me to make sure your outfit looked good and ask how Ed was doing his hair."

Now that they’re here, in the ornate hall aboard a very large sailing vessel belonging to the Imperium Society, Stede is feeling a bit nervous about his lack of preparation. If only he’d been asked to give a talk on, well, nearly anything else. He’s seated beside Ed (Jeff) who looks absolutely stunning . Charis had nearly nipped Stede’s finger off when Ed had appeared on deck, ready for Frenchie and Olu to row them to the conference vessel. Stede had murmured, "The man should be in a shampoo commercial" and then had to explain the concepts of both commercials and shampoo to Charis.

Stede misses Kahu; he knows she’s in Ed’s collar because she’d peeped out at him when no one else could see, but that’s different than having her for Charis and himself to chatter with. Jeff is telling everyone his daemon is a nurse shark; swimming underneath the vessel. 

"We simply cannot explain it in our calculations," says the current speaker, breaking into Stede’s thoughts. "Dust seems to be leaving the atmosphere somewhere."

Stede’s taken aback. He leans close to Ed-as-Jeff, and whispers, "That's what was happening in my world." 

Ed turns to look at him, his brown eyes open wide. "Yeah?" he whispers back. 

Stede nods. "I didn’t know why but I knew it was going somewhere . So I followed it. In my world, it was exiting near the poles. I found the source in northern Norway and that’s how I found this world." 

Ed frowns. "You just found - a hole? In the world?"

"It was like a slit," Stede says. "Like - I could feel it. A slit in the air. I could just slide right through it." He winces. "Of course, I went into a horrible haunted world first. And then I found another slit and came into this one."

Ed’s eyes are enormous. "Fascinating," he breathes.

Stede wishes Sir Godfrey Thornrose had been an expert on atmospheric conditions; then he could have given the lecture with his eyes closed. He’d just have run through what he gives the first years in the physics department. Well, what he’d given them. Very unlikely that he’ll ever be giving them anything again. 

He wonders, mind wandering as the next speaker stands, if any of his students miss him. If his children - 

Nope. That page is turned, that door is closed, that world is gone for Stede forever. After all, he’s got Charis now. He couldn’t possibly go back and leave Charis. 

Perhaps sensing his thoughts (Stede’s still not a hundred percent sure how Charis does that), they crane their neck up at him, beady eyes fixed on his own. He strokes their head and sees Ed (Jeff) watching him out of the corner of his eye. 

The next speaker describes new research to get daemons to settle into a desired animal. "Daemons indicate so much about us - a sea creature means a life spent as a sailor, a flying creature means one is flighty, whim-prone -"

Stede looks down at Charis, startled. He doesn’t think of himself as either of those things. Nearly everything he does is considered, planned, thought out down to the details of his wardrobe. Of course he’d fled his own world to an unknown one based on a theory, but he’d thought about it for ages before he did. 

"Now imagine," the speaker continues, in a high, nasal voice, "that you have a son, but his daemon settles on being something small and weak, like a mouse. Imagine that you’re a leader, but your child’s daemon is a dog. It happens! I’m sure we all know someone." 

Stede leans over to Ed, who is staring down at his hands, and whispers, "Do people really believe this? 

Ed looks up at him, frowning deeply. "Yeah," he whispers back. "Your daemon’s final form shows who you are."

Stede looks back to the front - he’s up next - but he can’t stop thinking about how Ed presents his distant kraken daemon versus sweet, clever Kahu. He takes the stage and gives an extremely mediocre presentation; when he’s done, most of the audience has wandered out to a dining room. He finds Ed holding court as Jeff, confident and charismatic. 

Well, he doesn’t want to spoil Ed’s big night, even though he’s a bit nervous. He knows how catty scholars can be, especially if they sense an imposter. He leaves Ed to it; runs into Frenchie, Alaire perched on his shoulder, convincing an open-mouthed group of people that he’s got the key to getting past reviewer two, and then wanders out onto the deck of the ship and sits, looking out at the water, feeling more alone than he ever has. 

Ed thinks academia just might be his true calling. He’s having a blast.

Everyone here is clamoring to hear more about Jeff’s accounting research, which has taken him all over the world. "So there I was, living as a sort of god-king among the cannibals, and they insisted I indulge, if you get my drift," Ed tells the rapt crowd. White blokes always love stories about cannibals.

He’s not sure where Stede’s wandered off to. Guy seemed like he couldn’t take a joke earlier, but Ed’s sure he’s someplace lecturing about skulls or what have you. (Stede mentioned science in his world was more advanced when it came to just about everything except Dust and souls, so it stands to reason they must know loads of stuff about skulls there that no one here has figured out yet. Especially when they don’t have daemons, studying skulls must be extra important in a world like that. Stede’s probably blowing everyone’s minds with cutting edge skull information.)

Ed’s not jealous. He’s not jealous at all.

Well, he’s got what he needed from Bonnet, hasn’t he? He knows just how the man came to this world, and just how to do it in reverse. If Stede would rather muck about on his own that’s his business. There’s plenty of other fancypants scientists prancing about this place in fine damask scholar’s robes, and they’ve fully accepted Jeff as one of their own, so what does he need Bonnet for, anyway? Ed was starting to think he’d miss Stede once he traveled to his new world, but really, there’s plenty more like him.

Anyway, it turns out academic conferences are way more fun than any pirate festivity Ed’s ever been to. The snacks are better, the booze is better, the fashion is unbelievably better, and the audience hangs on his every word without even threatening them into paying attention. He’ll do this all the time once he’s in Stede’s world.

"Excuse me, Professor Geoffreys, was it?" An older man in a tufted four-peaked hat leans over, smiling gently, pheasant daemon roosting at his side. The hat looks indescribably goofy. Ed wants one very badly. "It’s just Jeff," Ed says firmly, then thinks better of it and adds, "Professor Jeff."

"Professor Jeff, of course," the man continues smoothly. "I was just wondering if you’d had the chance to review Dr. Fontenot’s recent monograph on the primitive economic system of the Javan islanders?"

"Just between you and me, I don’t think Fontenot’s ever been to the islands at all," Ed says, and launches into another wild anecdote. 

"Well, you would know, of course, I’m sure," the man says as Ed comes to the end of it, nodding, that same smile frozen on his face. The pheasant bobs her head. "I defer to superior expertise." 

Ed is suddenly not sure he likes that expression as much as he thought he did.

Well - best thing is to change the subject. “It’s basic stuff, really,” he assures his audience. “It’s like my friend Professor Ardoin here was just saying-” and Ed cuts off at the sound of polite nervous laughter ripping through the crowd.

“You do me too much honor,” Ardoin says after a moment, bowing stiffly. “I’m merely a lecturer, of course, not a professor.” He gestures impatiently at his sash. Was the sash supposed to tell Ed what his title was? Stede said something about fashion as communication. Shit. Ardoin’s glaring at Ed now, like Ed shouldn’t have forced him to clarify this. 

However Ed was supposed to know this, the looks on everyone’s faces make it clear it was fucking obvious. He’s still not sure what the difference even is. Professing is better than lecturing, it sounds like? What the fuck.

And apparently Ed’s confusion is clear on his face, because the man with the pheasant daemon leans down. “Of course you know how hard one works toward the title of professor,” he says. “Professor Jeff.” More titters in the crowd.

"Hang on," Ed says sharply. "That’s not - stop that. I know what you’re doing." They’re still laughing, they’re laughing at him, and Ed knows what he’d do if someone laughed at him on his ship, but they’re not on his ship, are they? He doesn’t know the ground here, he wasn’t meant for this, Izzy was right.

Something brushes against Ed’s beard, a pale hand. In a burst of outraged panic Ed jumps away and shoves the scholar who was reaching toward him to the ground before he remembers Kahu isn’t in there. 

The laughter is turning to sounds of shock as the scholars rush to help the man Ed knocked down back to his feet. He isn’t hurt but everyone’s glaring at Ed and muttering now - fuck, fuck, he shouldn’t have done this, he shouldn’t have come here, why didn’t he listen to Izzy-

Ed feels a scratch at the back of his neck and nearly jumps out of his skin but it’s Kahu, daring to creep up out of his collar, trying to get his attention. "Stede," she hisses in his ear, "go find Stede," and Ed has no idea what else to do, so he obeys.

"Edward! Having a good time?" Stede calls as Ed approaches, but Ed sees Alaire look sharply at him and then lean down to whisper something to Frenchie, who frowns.

"You all right, mate?" Frenchie asks. "What’d they do to you, man?"

The story comes pouring out of him. “Nobody fucking laughs at me,” Ed concludes, and as soon as he says it he knows he’s right, he’s fucking Blackbeard, just like Izzy said, isn’t he? They can laugh at Jeff the Professor all they like but nobody laughs at Blackbeard. He reaches for his gun- 

“Edward, put that away,” says Charis - Charis? - sharply from their perch on the railing beside Stede. “Stand down.” Ed pauses for a moment at the sheer shock of being directly addressed by someone else’s daemon for no good reason right here in public. 

“Charis is right,” says Stede, apparently oblivious to how strange that was. “They’re my people, I’ll deal with them.” He turns to whisper a bit with Frenchie, then looks back to Ed with a fierce smile. “Wait here,” he says. “I’m going to ask them to play a game.”

Ed waits while Stede heads back into the conference room. It’s about five minutes before the screaming starts.

When Ed gets back inside an all-out brawl has broken out. If it’s any less bloody than any raid he’s ever been in, it’s not for lack of trying on the scholars’ parts. The Dean of Experimental Theology who complimented Jeff’s research earlier is brandishing a broken bottle and screaming at a professor emeritus, who screams in his face right back. Another of the scholars who listened to Jeff is on his knees vomiting into a graduate student’s lap. A long-haired cat daemon who was sitting at her human’s feet demurely grooming her silver-white tail only moments ago is now yowling like an alley tom as she kicks and claws at another professor’s kestrel. Ed watches the two of them roll sideways into a cart loaded with a snifter of brandy and a candelabra, which bumps into the wall, splashing booze everywhere and knocking the candles over so that they set the brandy-soaked curtains ablaze. The flames catch the sleeve of the man with the goofy hat and he leaps out the window into the sea in his panic, sending shattered glass all over the floor as his pheasant runs in circles.

Ed turns slowly to Stede, who is – grinning. Just watching this roomful of people who were laughing at Ed, who Ed thought of as Stede’s peers, who Stede has apparently ruined and set aflame with - his words? That’s all it was, right? And Stede stands there gazing upon his works radiating satisfaction, like this is exactly what he intended when he walked into this room, like he’s not even surprised it worked. On his shoulder Charis mantles their wings, throws back their head and lets out a high warble that sounds alarmingly like a laugh.

The light of the flames flickers across Stede’s face. Ed watches it reflected in his gleeful eyes. He thinks, not for the first time, that the man has a blindingly bright smile. Like watching a sunrise.

"Fuck," Kahu mutters, not even bothering to keep it quiet, but no one hears her over the chaos.

The night is warm and moon bright. As he walks across the deck of the Revenge, having shed his long, formal coat back in his cabin, Stede remembers streetlights, the glow of a city in the distance, the way car headlights could illuminate even the darkest places in the world he left behind. He doesn’t miss any of it. 

(He does miss the way his son’s face lit up with a warm glow from fairy lights, the way the Christmas tree filled the front room with an ethereal radiance.) 

And here, in this world? He misses Ed, even though they just parted ways to change out of their finery. 

"I worry about him," Charis, perched on Stede’s shoulder, chirrups softly in his ear. "He’s easily bruised, I think." 

"It’s funny," Stede murmurs back. "All those scary stories about him - he’s nothing like that, is he?"

"Well, he also tells people his daemon is a kraken," Charis titters. "When instead he’s got sweet little Kahu."

Stede glances at the kea; the moonlight is reflecting off their eyes so they look like they’re little stars against a shiny black sky. "I’m glad you have such a good friend," he says, sincere. "We’re so lucky we met them."

"There they are," Charis chirps. 

Ed is standing on deck by the railing, staring out over the waves; Stede can’t see Kahu, assumes she’s in his beard. Ed looks miserable; Stede wants nothing more than to comfort him. He steps close and says, "I’m sorry the conference was a bit of a bust."

Ed glances at him; Charis flutters off Stede’s shoulder and settles on the railing, wings falling softly into place against his body. Ed shrugs. "I wasn’t ready."

"Ed," Stede says, feeling urgently that he needs Ed to know this, "I think you’re very sophisticated." 

Ed blinks, looks off to the side, murmurs, "Thank you."

Stede sees a tiny flutter at the corner of his eye, and then a dark shape settles on the railing beside Charis. Kahu’s emergence feels positive, so he continues: "For what it’s worth, I’m glad I got to attend the conference with Jeff."

Ed huffs a little laugh, smiles down at the deck, but shakes his head. "Jeff. Stupid idea on our part." He gestures at himself. "Thinking that putting on these fancy clothes was going to make me something I’ll never be."

"Oh, Ed," Stede says, and he can’t resist reaching out to Ed’s shoulder to touch the soft velvet of his waistcoat, taking care to watch Ed’s face to make sure he’s comfortable with his touch. "You wear fine things well." 

Whatever Ed’s reaction to the compliment, Stede misses it, because he suddenly shivers with his entire body. Instinctually, he looks down at Charis and in the moonlight he can see them crouching low, their beak pressed into the fur between Kahu’s ears; Kahu, meanwhile, is tipping her head back, her eyes closed, as if all she wants is for Charis to be closer. 

Ed says something very sharp - Kahu’s name, or a rebuke, Stede can’t tell - and then he’s stepping back, saying, "Well, goodnight," slapping Stede on the arm, Kahu disappearing into his beard - it all happens so fast that it takes Stede a moment to even understand what did happen, and then he realizes that his own body reacted to Charis touching Kahu - and the kea is unsettled now, wings partly extended, and staring at Ed’s retreating back like they’re ready to fly after him. 

Mortification hits Stede, hot and nausea-inducing. "Charis," he snaps. "Cabin. Now." He turns on his heel, walks towards it, but feels a miserable tug in his stomach - looks back - Charis is still on the railing, and he catches a flash of what must be Kahu’s eyes peeking over Ed’s shoulder as Ed turns back too, sees Stede, says something to her that looks furious, before he turns and disappears belowdecks. 

Only once the door has shut behind Ed does Charis take flight, soaring ahead of Stede all the way into his cabin and into his auxiliary wardrobe. 

"What was that about?" Stede demands, fighting his shaking fingers to get his cravat untied. 

"I could say the same to you," Charis replies, fluffing their feathers and settling on the back of an armchair. 

"On our first day together, Ed and Kahu told us that daemons don’t touch each other, that we don’t touch each others’ daemons -" Stede finally gets the knot undone. He yanks the grey silk loose and folds it haphazardly, starting to shove it into his drawer when Charis alights atop the wardrobe and plucks it out of his hands with their beak. 

"You know you’ll be sad if this is wrinkled," they chide. 

"Don’t change the subject," Stede says, trying to stay peeved but unable to resist reaching out and stroking the soft plumage at Charis’s neck before taking the cravat back and folding it neatly. "We don’t want to cause some kind of incident with Ed."

Charis preens. "There are some instances where a daemon might touch another."

Stede raises his eyebrows and resumes undressing. Anxiety is leaving his body, replaced by exhaustion. It’s been a long night of mayhem and unfamiliar manners. "Go on?"

Charis cocks their head. "Daemons fight, sometimes. Not, just in something like a raid. Like we just saw at the conference. Interpersonal anger." Stede starts to respond, to ask a clarifying question, but then Charis tips their head down, as if bashful, and continues, "And daemons can be attracted to one another. Daemons can touch out of lust."

Stede shuts his mouth so hard it snaps. 

Charis looks up at him and cocks their head again. "Lust," they say, "or love."

Stede can’t - that’s not - he’s really not - the implications - "Ed didn’t say that," he says. "You didn’t learn that from Ed."

"No," Charis replies neatly, like they know they’ve won the argument before Stede even understood why they were fighting. "I learned it from Kahu."

"Ed," Kahu keeps saying. They're standing out on the deck on watch, away from the sleeping crew and from Buttons, who's busy doing something he calls moonbathing. None of Ed's business. "Ed, listen to me, we have to talk about this."

She's wrong. They absolutely do not have to talk about this. Maybe there are times it's important to listen to your daemon but this simply isn't one of them. There's nothing Kahu can tell him that he doesn't already know. He understands exactly what's going on with his stupid little crush on Stede Bonnet, and he knows exactly what to do about it, so there's nothing to talk about.

"No we fucking do not," he informs her. "I've got it under control, all right? I've got a plan."

"I know! That's the problem," Kahu snaps. "The plan is what we have to talk about. Ed–"

"Not that plan," Ed says. "Not the one about going to Stede's world. We're still going to get to that. But I know what we need to do first," he explains. It's so simple. "First I'm going to get laid."

"We can't-" Kahu stops and blinks at him. "Wait, what?"

It all makes perfect sense. Getting a crush once in a while is something that happens to everybody - well, all right, usually it happens when you're a fifteen year old cabin boy, getting obsessed with some handsome older sailor. Maybe a little bit embarrassing for a captain pushing fifty. But it still happens, it’s really perfectly normal, and the remedy’s the same, you fuck it out of your system. All Ed needs to do is convince Stede Bonnet to have sex with him, just once, and then he’ll get over this silly infatuation and be able to get on with the plan.

The plan where he has Stede…no, he doesn’t need to think about that now. That’s for later, once he’s back to normal. Focus on the next step. That’s how Ed got to where he is.

He explains all this earnestly to Kahu. She stares back at him wordlessly, ears flattened sideways, the way she always looks when she thinks he’s said something truly stupid. Ed thinks this is unfair of her. If he needed someone to fail to understand all his most genius ideas he’d go talk to Izzy.

Well, never mind her, there’s no time to worry about that. Clock’s ticking. Time to get started. 

Over the next two weeks Ed tries every trick in his repertoire. And his repertoire’s pretty fucking impressive, by the way, he’s fucking Blackbeard. He knows how to do this. 

He finds excuses to take off his shirt whenever he and Stede are training out on the deck. Pours him brandy and strikes up conversations about past lovers. (Stede’s awfully coy about that. You’d almost think he never had any, aside from the wife he seems reluctant to talk about.) Begins to touch him as they talk, on the shoulder, on the thigh, with gradually increasing boldness.

After a fortnight Ed has learned that Stede Bonnet is more fun to talk to than anyone else he’s ever met in his entire life. What he hasn’t done is have any sex at all, not even a little bit. He’s honestly not sure Stede has even noticed what he’s doing. He’d almost wonder if Stede wasn’t into men, maybe even was still hung up on that wife, except - come on. Pull the other one, mate.

No, this is going to work. Ed just needs to pull out the big guns.

(art by Deanbird)

Charis and Kahu haven’t touched since the first time, that night under the moonlight, and Charis feels the desire to press against Kahu’s soft, furred body like a perpetual ache. Tonight they’re sitting on the railing, Kahu a mere hair’s breadth away, murmuring to each other while their humans spar with long-bladed foils. 

"This is an elaborate courtship ritual, isn’t it?" Charis titters as Stede pauses to loosen his black cravat, exposing his neck. He’s already shed his jacket and waistcoat and his white linen shirt is near-translucent in the low light. 

"They’re both idiots," Kahu huffs. 

Ed’s got his leather jacket hanging open and his black cravat - the one he’d stolen from Stede on day one and seems to have never taken off again - is hanging down long from his neck. Ed is openly watching Stede as the latter fusses with his sleeves before he resets into a dramatic dueling pose, flourishing his blade and calling, "En garde!"

Ed strikes his own equally dramatic pose. They dance back and forth, darting and parrying, then Stede takes the initiative and rushes forward, locking their blades. Stede declares something theatrical; Ed replies in the same tone before disengaging and slapping Stede’s silk-clad butt with the flat of his blade. 

"Just kiss already," Kahu moans. She flutters her wings and resettles, then gives Charis a side-eyed look. "You think they should kiss, right?"

Charis cocks their head, considers the little bat. Remembers the brief touch of their beak to Kahu’s velvety head. "I want them to kiss," they say in a soft undertone. "But Stede… well… I don’t know how he would handle it." They haven’t been a daemon long, but they know Stede’s heart. They know he thinks what he was looking for when he left his other world is a place in this one; that he won’t admit to himself yet - maybe ever - how deeply he wants not only to be loved but to get to give his love to another.

Kahu sighs. "Ed too."

Stede and Ed are doing something deeply ridiculous now, yelling at each other like bad actors on a stage. Charis wishes his human wasn’t so used to lying to himself, but they have to admit that this fight-flirting is pretty entertaining. 

Suddenly Kahu gasps and shoots up off the railing, flapping towards the mast. Charis, startled, takes flight too, chasing after Kahu before panic spilling from Stede spikes through them. They barely have a moment to adjust - pulling back their wings, about to wheel around and fly back to Stede - when Kahu collapses to the deck near the mast. 

Charis forgets everything but the little bat and dives straight for her. Her crumpled form is lying atop some rope and she’s whining, a shockingly high-pitched sound of pain that makes Charis more frightened than they think they’ve ever been. They land beside her, tucking in their toe claws, and bend to examine her with their beak. 

"They. Are. Awful," Kahu grits out through her sharp little teeth. "I’m going to murder them both." 

"Oh, Kahu, what happened?" Charis moans, hopping anxiously from one foot to the other. "Are you all right?"

"What happened," Kahu snaps, "is that my idiot human just got your idiot human to stab him." She breathes in deeply enough that Charis sees her chest rise and fall. "Because he’s flirting."

"And my idiot human did it?" Charis asks. "Shit, that must have hurt." 

"Mmhmm," Kahu says, panting.

Charis frets, pulling out a few of their feathers with their beak. "I wish I could do something for you."

Kahu rocks forward onto her stomach, curling her wings around her little body, and shudders. "Ed’s gotten stabbed there loads of times. We’ll get over it." She pushes herself up and flaps away in an uneven flight, heading for the cabin, where Stede is fully supporting a limping Ed through the door. 

Charis feels the tug to follow but hears a sound behind them; they rotate their head and see Hector, Izzy Hands’ annoying crab, standing with claws outstretched beside Izzy Hands himself, who is staring down at where Kahu had been, mouth open, tears in his eyes.

Chapter Text

All right, so they do have to talk about it. 

“We can’t,” Kahu pleads. “Ed, we can’t.”

“What the fuck do you want me to do?” Ed hisses at her. They’re out on deck during night watch again, Kahu clinging to the mast; the crew are asleep some distance away. 

Stede doesn’t want to fuck Ed. You say “take your sword and run me through” to a bloke and it doesn’t lead to sex, that’s a pretty unambiguous rejection. Stede’s been polite about it just like you’d think he would but Ed’s heard him loud and clear. Stede doesn’t want to fuck Ed, and he also doesn’t want…whatever else it is that Ed wants from him, which doesn’t actually matter because Stede doesn’t want it so Ed can’t have it so this is pointless to even think about any longer. 

He’s got a plan, and whatever else you can say about it the plan at least ends with Ed finally getting away from piracy, so there’s no reason not to do it. It’s not like there’s an alternative. It’s not like he can just…what, keep hanging around Stede until Stede notices how pathetic he’s being and ditches him? And then go back to being Blackbeard and keep on till it kills him?

No. Better to keep moving. Don’t look back. 

“We don’t have to, we can still go to Stede’s world,” Kahu insists. “We can just leave them behind here. If I ask Charis to make sure Stede never tells anyone how we did it, he won’t. We’re already trusting them with me, Ed, they can keep this other secret. They’re our friends. Charis is my friend.”

“You know we don’t have friends,” Ed reminds her. “And that won’t work.” Izzy can be a handful at the best of times but ever since the day of the conference he’s been out for blood in a way that’s honestly disquieting. He doesn’t usually like anyone, but Ed’s never seen Izzy hate anybody before the way he hates Stede. If Blackbeard fucks off to another world with Stede Bonnet still alive Captain Hands’ first act will probably be to murder Stede anyway just for the personal satisfaction.

Kahu looks miserable. “At least - if you’re really -” she hesitates. “At least don’t have Izzy do it.”

Ed stares at her for a moment, and all at once he gets what she means. It’s not just that the moment he gave the order Izzy would drop everything else to go do this. Izzy can be efficient when it comes to killing but he’s never especially gentle about it. And he certainly won’t be gentle in this case, not the way he’s been acting the past couple days. He’ll make it slow if he can.

Fang can be gentle, Fang’s the one Ed orders to kill for him most of the time anyway. But he can’t do that this time. Izzy never likes it when a job he thinks is important enough to belong to him as first mate gets assigned to someone else, and at this point he thinks this job is very, very important. As fixated as Izzy is on seeing Bonnet dead, there’s no way Ed can get away with just giving the job to Fang.

He tells Kahu that. She looks unhappily at him and says, “I didn’t mean Fang.”

Fuck. 

She’s right though. Izzy would protest the job going to Fang, but he’d never complain about Blackbeard saying ominously, “I’ll handle this myself.” Izzy loves that kind of shit.

And Ed could make it gentle. Maybe he could cradle Stede’s head in his lap as he died. Maybe he could hold Stede’s hand so he wouldn’t be scared.

Ed shakes his head. This is stupid and he’s pathetic. He’ll just make it quick. One blow from behind. Stede will never know what happened, he’ll never know anything happened at all, the lights will just go out and it’ll all be over.

It’s not like Ed hasn’t killed before. Loads of people really, even if only the one with his own hands. He’ll just do what he has to do and move on, like he did the first time.

It’s the only thing that makes sense. “All right,” he murmurs, scooping Kahu up and stroking her. It’s cold comfort. “Not Izzy, then.”

Stede is fluttering around the auxiliary wardrobe - he’d shoved a lot of the scientific equipment he doesn’t recognize into one corner so he could fit in more of the wonderful clothing they have in this world - looking for the perfect thing to wear for breakfast with Ed when he notices that Charis, perched atop the dresser, is plucking at their feathers again. 

Charis has been doing this for several days - whenever they’re alone, and once in the middle of the night, rustling around so much that Stede had awoken, looked across the room to Ed and Kahu sleeping peacefully on the couch, then patted Charis until they calmed down and fell asleep. 

Now he reaches for his daemon. It’s strange, after a lifetime of knowing his touch was unwanted, that it feels so natural to touch Charis. The kea always lets him, always wants to be close to him. He strokes the soft feathers under their beak as they turn their head and butt their cheek against his palm. 

“Tell me what’s wrong,” he says softly. “You’ve been anxious for days.” Charis tucks their head inside the sleeve of his sunflower yellow robe. He can feel a little tremor in their body. “Is this about not touching Kahu?” he asks, wracking his brain for what could be upsetting his daemon. “Maybe we can talk to Ed about it. Both of us have such unusual daemons, maybe he’d be open to it. Maybe you want to do it so much because Kahu is the first daemon you met.” 

Charis jerks their head out of the sleeve and peers at Stede with one beady eye. “Stede. You understand what a daemon is, right?”

“Ye-ees,” Stede says, a bit unsure if he’s being honest. “You’re like, a part of my, well, I suppose for lack of a better word, my soul? Or my heart? Or something?”

“Right,” Charis says. “So it would be weird for me to have a desire you didn’t have.” 

“I’m certainly very fond of Kahu,” Stede says quickly. “But I don’t think I should touch her. I mean, if she was hurt or something, I wouldn’t hesitate to scoop her up and carry her to safety, but -”

Charis flops over on their side on the dresser in clear exasperation, their scraggly little feet sticking up like they’re dead. Stede doesn’t hesitate to grab them around the middle - they squawk but a second later nuzzle into his chest, into the V of his shirt so they’re pressed feathers to skin. 

“You’re so silly, Charis,” Stede murmurs, gently stroking the kea’s feathers again, because they’re back to shaking with anxiety. Carefully, still holding Charis close with one hand, he slides down the wall to sit with his legs drawn up so his daemon can feel as safe and protected as possible. 

“What do you think of Izzy Hands?” Charis asks suddenly. 

Stede blinks. “Izzy?” he asks, confused.

“Do you think he’s dangerous?”

Stede considers that. “I… guess I don’t know. He likes to act like he is. But mostly he seems like he’s all talk. Plus, Ed would protect us from him.”

“It’s not us I’m worried about,” Charis replies. 

“Charis, whatever happened, you can trust me,” Stede says, starting to feel disquiet himself. 

“Izzy saw Kahu,” Charis blurts, before immediately drawing their neck down into their plumage. 

Stede feels cold. Kahu - Ed’s best guarded secret - Ed’s deepest secret - and Stede’s never asked why she’s a secret, though the academic conference where that lecturer called people with small daemons weak certainly had given him an idea - but as little as he respects Izzy, he knows this is a disaster. 

“Stede,” Charis squeaks, “we have to do something.”

“Yes,” Stede agrees, just as the door to the auxiliary wardrobe flies open and Kahu enters like a little dive bomber, chittering happily before skidding to a landing in front of Stede and Charis. Stede opens his arms and lets Charis hop down before he pushes himself to his feet. He’s still wearing just his robe and nightshirt, and he knows Ed won’t be far behind Kahu.

“Hi,” he hears Kahu say. 

“Hi,” Charis replies. 

The door swings open again and Ed enters, a grin on his face as he says, “Kahu, did you even knock?” 

“Did you?” she shoots back. 

Stede laughs to cover his worry as their two daemons fly up to the dresser and sit close together, immediately communicating too fast for him to understand in chirps and squeaks. “Good morning, Ed, sorry that I’m not quite dressed yet -” 

Ed waves a hand. “Mate, I don’t mind.’ He pauses, then says, quickly, “I mean, if you don’t.”

“No, no,” Stede says. He gestures at the rack of his autumn linens. “Anything you think I should wear?”

Ed steps close, clearly taking the question seriously. “There's a ship belonging to the Hanseatic Academy approaching, so…let's see…” 

Stede watches him move around the wardrobe; he seems a little off, a little on edge, and Stede wonders if there’s more to this Hanseatic ship than he’s letting on - maybe an old grudge, or a captain he doesn’t want to tangle with. As part of their piracy lessons, Ed had introduced Stede to his concept of a fuckery, or, as Stede had termed it, the “theatre of fear” - making one’s self and crew seem so frightening that one may win a battle without drawing any blood. Stede thinks, now, that he could come up with a fuckery, maybe one involving a simulated kraken - just a tentacle would do, probably, especially in the dark - that could both solve the problem of this ship and convince Izzy that Ed does have a terrifying daemon. 

Stede has only known Ed a few weeks, but he understands Charis completely - knowing that Ed and Kahu’s secret is out is making him feel sick with worry. As Ed selects a lovely teal brocade suit and holds it out to Stede with a hopeful look, Stede vows to do whatever it takes to protect his dearest friends. 

Ed’s going to ruin everything.

Stede and Charis have taken the concept of fuckery and run with it, they’re putting together some kind of full-blown theatrical performance involving nearly everyone on the ship, it’s adorable like everything they do, and it doesn’t matter because Ed’s a fucking moron and he’s about to destroy the one good thing they’ve had in their life in decades with his own hands. When Kahu asked Ed to handle the murder himself, she’d been hoping that would buy them at least another couple weeks of dithering and procrastinating, but then Izzy rallied Fang and Ivan to his side and the whole dog conversation happened and now Ed’s got it in his dumb idiot brain that he actually needs to do this tonight.

They’re behind the curtains where Frenchie led them to their seat earlier, Stede apparently having insisted Ed could appreciate the show best from here. That’s very sweet of him and it’s also completely wasted, because Kahu has been trying to talk Ed out of this stupid plan nonstop for the last hour and Ed has been ignoring her while he sharpens a knife and mutters nonsense like “you’re a killer, bro.”   

He’s trying to psych himself up. Ed doesn’t like to admit, even to her, when he’s scared of something. But Kahu’s always thought his problem is really that he’s afraid of all the wrong things. Afraid of letting anyone see her when he ought to be more afraid no one will ever see her again. So afraid to dare to hope that what’s growing between him and Stede might be real that he’d rather throw away the chance before it can break his heart.

There’s a trill from outside the curtain. A hand draws it back and Charis comes soaring through, followed by Stede. They’re both beaming with pride at their work. Kahu’s never seen anyone so lovely. She has to get rid of them right now, before Ed can do the stupidest thing he’s ever done in their life.

“The opening went gr-” Stede begins, but before he can finish the sentence Kahu turns to Charis. “Hey, Ade was saying they’ve got a problem out on the aft deck,” she tells them. “With um. Costumes. A costume malfunction. Probably needs the captain’s attention. Really urgent. You two should be out there right now, or the costumes will, uh. Unravel.”

“Oh, Wee John and Squeaky are covering emergency costume repairs,” Charis assures her. “The man’s a wizard with thread, really, you should have seen him! And we couldn’t miss watching this with you.” They bob their head downward at Kahu affectionately, almost as though they’d like to groom her but think better of it. They’re wonderful. They’re going to be reduced to a pile of Dust by Ed’s own hand if Kahu can’t stop him.

Neither Ed nor Kahu have friends, not really, but at least Ed gets to talk to people. Even if it’s more and more just Izzy these last several years and the man’s hardly a conversationalist. At least it’s something. Kahu hadn’t spoken to anyone but Ed in thirty years, and for two weeks now she’s had Charis, and it can’t be only two weeks, it can’t, she won’t go back.

“Terrifying, isn’t it?” Stede’s saying to Ed.

Kahu swoops over into Stede’s field of vision, flapping suddenly so close to his face that he leans back, startled. “You really ought to go outside and check on the crew, Stede,” she tells him, settling to hang from the curtain. 

Ed’s glaring at her in affront, like she needs his permission to talk to another human. Well, maybe he shouldn’t ignore his own soul if he doesn’t want to get ignored himself. Anyway, Stede doesn’t even know how weird it is that she’s talking to him for no good reason.

“Sealy and Tiz said they were really nervous about remembering their lines and they wished the captain was out there to help them. All the best captains stay with the crew during fuckeries. It’s, what did you call it? Moral support.” 

Stede stares at her and Kahu stares back with enormous eyes, the most earnest look she can summon. He’s going to buy it. He has to. “Well, I -” 

He’s cut off by the sound of angelic singing.

“Ah! That’s our cue,” says Charis, tugging at Stede’s sleeve with their beak.

“Yes, the crew will just have to wait a moment, the show must go on,” Stede says brightly. “Keep watching! Big finale coming up.” Stede takes a step forward through the curtains and clears his throat. “It would appear the siren’s song has awakened a beast!” he intones. Kahu clings to the curtain as Ed pushes it aside so they can both peer out. “Not mere whale, nor shark. ‘Tis the greatest terror of the sea! The kraken!”

Something massive slaps against the side of the ship with a thud that shakes the windows. It looks very like a tentacle. 

It’s not hard, after the initial shock, to guess what’s happening. But Ed looks wildly back at Kahu, a wide-eyed childlike expression, and she knows he’s reassuring himself that his true daemon’s still right here, small and safe, it’s not that thing out there.

That’s right, she thinks in relief, you’re not the monster, that’s not real, you don’t have to do this. Kahu gets ready to leap over to him.

And then he looks back at Stede and sweet Charis, still standing with their backs turned to them. This is the best chance Ed’s going to get.

He steps forward and raises the knife.

Kahu doesn’t join raids the way Charis does, or any of the other daemons. She’s never fought beside Ed in battle, except once.

But if she learned anything on that night it’s that she and Ed are capable of anything if it’s the only way to protect someone they love.

Kahurangi steels herself as she lands silently on Ed’s knife hand, and before he can react to the weight she bites down so hard her mouth fills with blood and her teeth strike bone.

“Ed? Ed!” 

Stede is frantic and Charis even more so. Moments after the massive stuffed-cloth tentacle they’d rigged with a mechanical pump to slap the cabin window had begun its barrage, Ed had disappeared into the bathroom. Stede had caught a glimpse of Ed’s face a moment before he fled and he knows in his bones that he has to get to him right now.  

“Charis, out of the way!” he snaps at his daemon, who is blocking the door with their entire body. They ignore him, flapping furiously enough that he’s getting feathers in his mouth, until there’s a click, and the lock mechanism pops completely free, destroyed by the sharp tip of Charis’s beak. Stede shoves the door open and steps inside, slamming it shut behind himself and kicking a stool into place to block it shut. 

He’s vaguely aware that Charis is squeezing themselves under the claw-footed porcelain tub, but he has eyes only for Ed. Ed, who is curled up in the tub, Stede’s yellow robe clutched to his chest with one hand, his other hand flung out over the side, liquid dripping from it, black in the low light of the single anbaric bulb. 

Ed, who is clearly, horribly, in the midst of a panic attack. 

“Ed,” Stede says, crossing the room and sinking to kneel on the floor beside the tub. “Ed, breathe!”

Ed jerks his head around and stares at Stede, eyes impossibly wide and wet. He’s breathing in short, sharp gasps. He seems to take a moment to understand that Stede is there. Then he yanks his hand close to his chest, cradling it against his sternum. Stede realizes that it’s bleeding. 

“Ed,” he says, trying to keep his voice as calm as possible. “Ed, let’s just breathe together, ok?”

Ed’s mouth trembles, but Stede can see him start to try. He counts them off gently - “In, one two three , out, one two three ,” - and within a dozen breaths Ed seems if not more composed, then at least more present. 

“Why’d you do that?” Ed demands, voice a weak rasp. “Thought I wasn’t scary enough, eh? Had to make your own kraken?”

Stede stares, baffled, at the man trembling before him. “Scary - Ed - no.” He shakes his head; he doesn’t understand what’s happening here, but Ed’s distress is an ache in his own chest. He glances down at the floor and sees Charis peeking out from under the tub, looking up at him. Their eyes meet and he feels the decision to be candid pass through them.

“Izzy saw Kahu,” he says. “Charis told me, and we decided that we would make a fake kraken tentacle to, well, to put him off Kahu’s trail. Make him think he’d just seen an ordinary bat, not your daemon.” Ed’s blinking rapidly at him now, those huge eyes filling with tears, and Stede babbles, “It’s just that we know you want to keep Kahu a secret -”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Ed says. He swipes furiously at his eyes with the hand that isn’t bleeding and the yellow robe slips down to his stomach. Stede watches him reach for it again, then yank his hand back like it’s been burned. “You did that for me? Why?”

Charis flies up and perches on the edge of the tub. They cock their head to the side and shake out their wings; their rainbow coloration briefly flashes in the low light before they settle and say, “Because we love you, Ed.”

“Yes,” Stede agrees. “You’re our dear friend.” 

Ed flinches like he’s been hit. “No,” he says, sounding furious and miserable. “I fucking - I - Stede - if you knew the things I’ve done - the things I’m supposed to do -”

“Ed,” Stede says, sensing he’s about to tip back over into panic, “let me get something to bandage your hand, all right?”

Ed looks down at his bleeding hand like he’s never seen it before. Stede wonders where Kahu is - it’s so clear to him that Ed needs comfort, but he doesn’t have anything in here to bandage him up with - so he pushes himself to his feet and scoops up Charis with one arm. “Here,” he says, and deposits his daemon in Ed’s lap. Stede knows Charis is good at soothing and Ed clearly needs it, so, yes, yes, rules about daemons and touching and taboos, but what if it wasn’t like that? It seems absurd, when Stede knows Charis will be kind to Ed, to leave Ed shivering in the tub instead. 

Stede steps into the main cabin and suddenly shivers; it’s like when Charis and Kahu touched on deck, but magnified, a feeling of such intensity that he leans back against the wall involuntarily. Is that Ed’s touch on Charis? His legs feel liquid, his head light, but he forces himself to stand, take a deep breath, and do what he promised. 

When he returns a minute later with bandages and alcohol, Ed’s curled over Charis, stroking the feathers atop their head with shaking fingers, while Charis gently grooms a long strand of Ed’s hair. Stede also sees Kahu, a dark shadow on the side of the tub, huddled and clearly miserable, but at least out of hiding. 

Ed looks up when Stede reenters, a wild look on his face, and shoves Charis off his lap. Charis flails, wings and feathers everywhere, squawking, as Ed gasps, “Sorry -”

“Charis!” Stede snaps; now isn’t the time for their antics. They quiet instantly, settling on the edge of the tub with a sulky head tilt.

‘Sorry,’ Ed repeats, plaintive. 

Stede glares at his daemon, then pulls the stool over by the tub. “May I?” he asks, holding his hand out towards Ed’s. 

Ed hesitates. “Stede, really,” he says, voice shaky. “If you knew…” 

“No matter what you did, I want to patch your hand up,” Stede says gently. “C’mere, let me see it.” 

Ed holds out his hand. There’s two deep punctures on the back of it, one just under the knuckle of the middle finger, the other in the meat between thumb and index finger. Stede carefully swabs them with the alcohol - the medical treatment in this world is its worst quality, he thinks - and wraps a clean white bandage around the width of Ed’s trembling palm. He ties it off and stretches to set the remaining materials atop the cabinet. He keeps his head turned away in case Ed’s embarrassed as he asks, “How did you do it?”

For what feels like an eternity, he can just hear Ed breathing, harsh and fast. He starts to think Ed won’t answer, but then - 

“Kahu saved your life.” 

Stede looks back, confused, but manages to stop himself from blurting out a question. It’s clear that Ed needs him to be patient. 

“I,” Ed says, eyes focused on the end of the tub, “was going to kill you.” 

Stede feels - well - he’s not sure what he feels. Disbelief, if he’s honest. At a complete loss for how to respond. 

Ed flicks his eyes toward Stede, as if searching for a reaction. Whatever he sees, he blurts, “Kahu bit me. To stop me from killing you.” 

Stede looks down at the little dark shape on the side of the tub. She’s completely tucked into herself and he can barely make out her features, much less read her face. 

He looks back up at Ed. “Do you think you’ll, er, complete the job later?” he asks. Just in case. 

Ed slowly shakes his head. 

“Thank god for that,” Stede says, meeting Charis’s eyes. 

“I’m the reason Kahu is like this, you know,” Ed says suddenly.

“Like what?” Stede asks. 

Ed swallows audibly. “Small. Soft. Weak.”

Stede can’t help it; he glances down at her again, then at Ed’s hand. “She doesn’t seem too weak,” he says, indicating the bandage. 

“When I was young, right before she settled, she helped me,” Ed whispers. “I was scared of my dad. Fucking terrified. All the time. That he would keep hurting my mum and me forever. So I went down to the dock when I knew he was stumbling drunk and Kahu helped me and -” He looks up at Stede, holds up trembling hands, makes a squeezing motion. 

“Oh, Ed,” Stede says, heart breaking for the boy he’s picturing. Ed was surely older than Louis, but still looks like him in his head.

“And once it was done,” Ed says, “Kahu settled like - like she is. Like this. And it’s because of who I really am, underneath,” he indicates his leather clothing, “all of this.” 

Stede leans forward and puts a hand on Ed’s shoulder. “Ed,” he says quietly, “you just told me Kahu saved my life.”

“Twice,” Charis chirps.

“Kahu is so brave,” Stede adds firmly. 

Ed stares at Stede, brow furrowed, eyes wide and wet, for a very long moment. Stede looks back at him, tries to show his sincerity in his face. Stede wonders if Ed’s ever told anyone any of this, wonders how much of it was inspired by all the academic posturing during that stupid conference on the French ship, wonders if Ed has been carrying all of this around for decades. 

Finally, Ed dips his head down to rest his cheek on Stede’s hand. “Thank you,” he whispers. He draws in a shivery breath. “I guess we should go out on deck.”

Stede strokes Ed’s cheek with his thumb. “I bet they’re still looting those Hanseatics. Let’s give the crew a few minutes to have fun.” He does not add, and give you a few minutes to calm down too . 

Ed sighs deeply and lets the full weight of his head rest against Stede’s hand. His beard is surprisingly soft in Stede’s palm. 

A moment later, Kahu creeps over the edge of the tub. As she crawls into Ed’s beard, she pauses a moment to let one tiny hand brush against Stede’s palm. 

Ed’s a lot better already though he still feels floaty, weightless, his boots aren’t quite as connected to the deck as they ought to be. But Kahu’s back in his beard where she belongs and Stede and Charis are at their side, and that’s enough to let him walk out on deck and put on Blackbeard for the crew, congratulating them all on a successful fuckery. He doesn’t think anyone can tell.

He can still feel Charis’ velvety feathers under his fingertips. It was maybe ten minutes ago and that already feels like it can’t possibly be something that really happened. Nothing feels quite entirely real right now but that’s surely the most unreal thing. Charis talking to him for no reason was fucking weird but this - Stede dropping his daemon right into Ed’s lap, that’s far beyond the realm of just weird, that’s lunacy, even by Stede Bonnet standards. Ed half wonders if he could have been far enough gone to hallucinate. 

But he also remembers the shivery feeling of Kahu’s wing brushing over Stede’s hand, and he’s pretty sure he wouldn’t imagine that.

There’s nothing to do but try to ignore it all, focus on what’s here now, the wind in his hair and the deck rocking beneath him and Stede’s crew all around. Ed moves through the crowd following after Stede, stopping to praise each crew member. 

“Stede Bonnet,” a familiar voice rasps, and Ed finds himself freezing in place, his stomach clenching, before his mind even puts together what’s happening. He should have noticed who was missing. “Draw your weapon.”

Izzy - Stede said Izzy saw - he said the kraken was for - what does Izzy know?  

Ed can’t read him now. He tries to make eye contact but Izzy’s gaze is fixed on Stede, who starts to say something and is cut off by a loud screech from Charis as he bends over wincing in pain. Over on the rail Charis is flapping wildly; Hector, in front of him, waves a clawful of green flight feathers. 

Ed’s mother’s daemon was a cricket. His father’s terrier used to bully it, barking and snapping, would herd it around the one room they all lived in, drive it back into a corner or under the furniture, keep it pinned there for hours at a time. Ed hasn’t thought of that in years. He doesn’t know why he’d remember it now. 

He needs to stop this before it goes any further. “No, Izzy, we’re not doing this,” Ed says sharply, all his effort going into keeping his voice steady. He’s not sure it’s his best work, and he doesn’t have time to wonder about it, because Izzy doesn’t miss a beat replying. 

“No, you’re not doing this,” he says, still not looking at Ed. “So I must. Stede fucking Bonnet, I challenge you to a fucking duel.”

Instead of dropping the sword Izzy’s tossed over and telling him to fuck off, Stede looks down at it and examines the hilt coolly, as though he knows any fucking thing about swords. Ed has to be having a nightmare. “Well,” Stede says almost casually, “I accept your challenge.” 

Izzy’s going on about the terms of the duel. Loser leaves the ship, he says, but Ed knows at once that Izzy does not mean to let Stede leave. Izzy already wanted Stede dead before - whatever happened with Kahu - and Ed isn’t sure how Izzy himself might react to whatever he saw, but the part of him that sometimes stares into a clear sky and knows a storm is coming, knows Izzy won’t allow anyone else to know Blackbeard’s daemon isn’t the kraken. If Izzy knows about Kahu and he thinks Stede knows too, nothing will stop him from killing Stede before the secret can spread.

“Stede, be careful, he does know his shit,” Ed warns him, and Stede replies with the most Stede fucking Bonnet thing he could possibly say, which is “As do I, you’ve taught me well.”

Stede is going to fucking die because Ed was flirting so hard he forgot this man is a complete maniac.

Izzy’s a hell of a swordsman - maybe the best Ed’s ever seen if he’s being honest, that’s why he hired him in the first place - but for two weaknesses: he knows just how good he is, and he’s got a vicious temper. It doesn’t take much to send him into the sort of rage that makes him careless in his overconfidence. Here he’s already tilted before the fight even starts: Ed can see it in his stance as he lunges for Stede in the first advance, his weight too far forward, his left hand already dropping out of guard. It’s all incredibly sloppy by Izzy’s standards, he’s leaving a dozen openings a serious rival could exploit, and it’s not going to be enough, because Izzy on his worst day is still ten times the opponent Stede’s ready to handle.

There’s no one but Ed who can stop this. He can’t even look to Kahu for an idea; she’s gone utterly quiet, his beard so still he can’t even feel her breathing in there anymore, and he knows she won’t be coming out till this is over. Ed has to stop this. But he gave the order and Izzy’s not listening, so what can he - there has to be something - Ed always has a plan, always, what’s even the point of being Blackbeard if he doesn’t know what to do - his brain feels so slow right now, like his thoughts are swimming against a choppy sea, the way he always used to feel when - and it’s too late because this is already happening. The duel has already begun and Izzy is already on the attack and that means Stede Bonnet is already dead.

Ed can’t watch. He never could. He turns away and runs his hands over the rigging and tries not to think of another rope biting into his palms.

He knew when he woke up today that Stede wouldn’t be surviving the night. Stupid of him to think there could be a reprieve. Of course this whole…whatever it was, whatever’s been happening between him and Stede, it doesn’t matter what it was because it’s over now, and of course it never could have lasted. You have to go back to your real life eventually. He won’t be any worse off than he was a few weeks ago, not really.

Ed can hear Izzy screaming fury as a weight settles on the rigging. He looks up in surprise at the bird that’s landed there. It’s not a gull.

“Did we do it right?” asks Charis, anxious. “I think we must have, because I’m still here, but -”

There’s a flurry of activity behind them, Buttons and Frenchie crowing delight, the crew erupting into boisterous cheers. Ed turns slowly, afraid of what he’ll see, and looks at Stede Bonnet, pinned to the mast, proud and pained and alive alive alive.

Ed’s beard rustles, and as the crew rushes past him to stare at Stede a small dark shape crawls out of it and up the railing. Ed can’t hear what Kahu says to Charis before she returns to her hiding place.

An hour or two later, as Ed’s sipping one of the celebratory cocktails Roach invented to commemorate the night, Izzy stomps loudly past him, Hector perched on one shoulder, a bulging sack of belongings thrown over the other. Izzy looks stunned, angry, miserable, but not quite exactly defeated, and all at once Ed knows what’s coming.

Whatever he saw, whatever he believes about the kraken, Izzy still thinks this is the same dance as before. He thinks he knows how it’s going to go. Making ready to leave, then the grudging apology, then Ed will spin some wild new scheme and ask him to stay like he always does, everything Izzy said earlier about the loser leaving the ship forgotten. And then he’ll bide his time until he sees his chance to do this all over again, because he still wants Stede dead, and even Stede Bonnet’s luck will run out eventually.

Izzy tosses the bag into the dinghy with a thud, then turns and looks over to Ed. “I -” he begins. 

As though from a long distance away Ed hears his own voice cut him off. “You shouldn’t have dueled him, Izz.” Izzy’s eyes widen in real shock.

Well. That’s that.

Something had cracked open between Stede and Ed that night in the bath. Although he’d pushed through it at the time (and the whole Getting Stabbed By Izzy had helped take his mind off it for a bit), Stede can’t stop thinking about how he’d felt Ed cradling Charis and how soft Kahu’s little hand had been against his own. 

Stede’s always been one to barrel onward: into marriage; into parenthood, into career. He can acknowledge to himself that this isn’t perfectly healthy, that never stopping to feel his feelings probably leads to things like abandoning his family and fleeing to another universe. He is also, at this point in his life, loathe to contemplate what it would feel like to do anything else. 

So. This fixation on Ed cradling Charis - it’s strange. Out of character. Almost an intrusive thought. This is why it’s a taboo to touch someone else’s daemon, he tells himself, and tries to force it out of his mind, but it doesn’t feel bad to think about it. It just - feels . 

What if it had been Mary, he wonders, crying in that tub? No. He never would have handed her Charis. Just this extremely hypothetical thought is making him recoil. Alma or Louis? Yes, he thinks so. It’s a very different feeling there, harder to tell how he would feel about it. He thinks it would feel parental - that instinctual desire to protect his children. With Ed it had felt - something else. 

Truthfully, it had felt like he could trust Ed in a way he’s never trusted another person. It felt like he could trust Ed with his soul. 

“Charis,” he murmurs. They’re in the galley, preparing tea just the way Ed likes it. His daemon is flapping around, delicately scooping up a porcelain cup by the handle in their beak. “We should talk about - about Ed.”

Charis flicks their eyes at him, makes a noncommittal noise, then places the cup on the countertop so Stede can pour boiling water into it. “I’ll get the sugar, shall I?”

“Yes,” Stede says, “and make sure you get -” 

“Seven cubes, yes, I know, I know.”

Roach enters the galley holding a stack of empty bowls from the crew’s morning porridge. His cockroach Adras is perched on his shoulder, antennae waving. “ Seven ? Is that where all our sugar is going?”

“It’s just a few times a day!” Stede protests.

“What’s that, twenty-one cubes? Twenty- eight ?”

“Captain Blackbeard deserves them,” Stede says before sweeping out of the galley with the two cups of tea, Charis pushing open doors for him with their feet as they ascend through the ship. 

Every morning when Stede and Charis wake, they find Ed and Kahu’s couch neatly arranged, pillows fluffed, soft blanket folded, as if no one has ever slept there. Ed and Kahu spend the early morning at the prow, where Stede knows Ed observes the sky in preparation for the day’s sailing. Ed’s a marvel with interpreting the weather, which makes Stede wonder what Ed would make of a weather app; of satellite observations; of watching a TV weather report. 

Charis flies ahead of him as they reach the prow and lands on the railing beside Ed’s gloved hand. Ed turns and smiles at Stede, face soft in the morning light, as Stede carefully balances the full teacups on his way to Ed’s side. 

“Good morning,” he says, passing Ed his cup. 

“Good morning,” Ed replies, and taps the edge of his cup lightly to Stede’s. “Cheers.” 

Stede feels a flash of Ed’s gentle touch on Charis again. He wants to lean into Ed’s space, feel Ed’s hand on his own shoulder. It’s dangerous, but he can’t seem to help himself - he sways a bit closer as the ship cuts through a wave.

Charis flicks their deep brown eyes at him in a clear See? I told you so!  

“What’s the plan for today?” Stede asks. He can feel how much Charis wants Kahu to hop out and join them on the railing, but of course she won’t emerge when the crew might see her. She’s also been clinging close to Ed’s beard even when it’s just the four of them in the cabin after the - well - Stede’s thinking of it as The Biting Incident. 

Not the, Ed Was Going To Kill Me But Kahu Stopped Him Incident. 

Anyway. 

“I was thinking about sharpening the old sword,” Ed says, not looking at Stede. “Preparing for the next adventure.”

“The next adventure?” Stede asks, feeling suddenly cold.

“Yeah, mate, I can’t stay around here forever,” Ed says. 

Stede doesn’t - he’d thought - but - well, what had he thought, exactly?

Charis gives him a wide-eyed look. 

“Captain? Captains?”

They both turn. Roach and Adras are there, and they’ve got some complaint about scurvy.  Stede’s barely able to hear it over the panic he can feel from Charis at the thought of Ed and Kahu leaving. Stede puts on his brave captain face and goes to deal with the fact that his cook slash surgeon can’t seem to meal plan effectively, and by the time that’s over with, the crew has delegated the acquisition of oranges to Jim, luckily, because Stede’s busy trying to hatch a plan to keep Ed here, with Stede, aboard the Revenge. 

“Stede,” Charis says, flapping around the cabin’s main wardrobe, where Stede is absolutely not having a meltdown. “Stede, we need to talk.”

“I said that earlier,” Stede snaps. He’d pulled out a book from the Revenge’s science library that describes a buried scientific object - maybe he can convince Ed to go on a treasure hunt. In the interest of dressing for that, he’s gone through four different outfits (five if you think a change of trousers and stockings counts) and he’s no closer to feeling calm. 

“We can’t let Ed and Kahu leave,” Charis says. 

“I know that!”

Charis puts one clawed foot atop Stede’s jewelry box, preventing him from selecting rings to match his (sixth) jacket choice, a coppery brocade silk. “Do you know why?”

Stede frowns, tries to move Charis’s foot. Charis digs it into the plush box lining and Stede tsks, annoyed. “What do you mean?”

“Why don’t we want them to leave?”

“Because they’re - they’re our dearest friends.” Stede had never known birds could have so many facial expressions. Charis is radiating annoyance and something else, something Stede really does not appreciate. “Don’t you judge me.”

“You get that I’m technically you and any judgment is coming from you right?”

“I don’t think I do get that, no!” 

Charis rolls their beady little eyes. “Stede, we love them.” 

Stede knows! Stede knows that. Charis had said it the other night! “Of course we do!” he agrees as vehemently as he can. “They’re wonderful - probably the best friend I’ve - we’ve - ever had -”

“Ok, but, Stede, do you actually understand how much we love them?”

Stede stops trying to pry up Charis’s foot. “How much?” he repeats, feeling a bit stupid. “What do you mean?”

“Stede -”

“Captain?”

Stede reels away from the jewelry box as Charis takes flight, squawking. Oluwande is standing in the cabin doorway, his goat Ade peeking around his legs. 

“Yes? I’m just - just getting prepped for the day,” Stede says, trying to recover. “Big day we’re all having, isn’t it? Jim’s going to lead an expedition for oranges?”

“Yeah,” Olu says. “Um, can we talk about that?”

Stede gives Charis a look - this conversation isn’t over - and sweeps out of the wardrobe. He sits down on the couch - the thought this is where Ed and Kahu sleep passes through his head like a very bright parade float - and pats the pillow to indicate Olu should sit. “Of course. Let’s talk.” 

Olu shuts the door behind Ade and sits on the far end of the couch. Ade hangs back, nosing around the floor. 

“What is it?” Stede asks, trying to sound like the good, caring captain he tries very hard to be. 

“I’m worried about Jim,” Olu says. “I’m not, uh, sure they should lead this expedition.”

Stede considers this. He thinks of his crew as a combination of his children and his grad students, so he instantly wonders if there’s some rivalry here - though Olu’s never struck him as the jealous type. “Would you rather lead it?” he probes.

“What? Me? Fuck no.” Olu shakes his head and says, “You know why Jim’s a pirate, right?”

Stede wracks his brain for any memory of that. “Umm…”

Olu groans and rubs a hand across his face. “Ok, Captain, you know, most of us don’t do this for fun.”

“Of course not,” Stede says. He thinks of his past. “We’ve all got a reason to be out here.” 

Olu reaches for Ade and puts a hand on her head. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, I reckon we all do. But Jim’s neither a man nor a woman, you know?”

Oh, yes, Stede does know that. Jim had told them all not long ago. Stede’s always been a big ally of the LGBTQ+ community, including official work on committees at the university, and he’s well versed in the terminology. “Yes, they’re nonbinary,” he says. 

“Uh, hm, yes, I guess that’s a way of putting it,” Olu says. “To me, they’re just Jim. And I know you know that, and everyone on the ship knows that, but… you know…” Both he and Ade are giving Stede a look that Stede knows well, a look that says Stede should be filling in a gap that he absolutely cannot. 

“Olu,” he says, “I’m sorry, but I do not know. You know I’m, ah, not really from around here. Can you explain?”

Olu squints at Stede. “You really don’t know?”

Stede raises his eyebrows and snaps, “You saw that I didn’t have a daemon until a few weeks ago, right?”

“Fair,” Olu says. The reveal of Charis to the crew when Ed and Stede had emerged from Stede’s cabin that first day together seems to have erased a lot of the doubts many of them had about Stede’s story. “So - you know the Imperium?”

Stede nods. They’re equivalent to his world’s British Empire, though they’ve managed to last quite a bit longer, Stede surmises because of the continuation of the era of sailing ships. They rule most of the seas here and across the globe. Nigel Badminton had been one of their captains, and they pursue pirates ruthlessly. 

“They hate people like Jim,” Olu says, then hesitates. “And people like me, who, ah, are attracted to people like, uh,” he’s looking down at his lap, but Ade is looking up at Stede with her wide, yellow eyes, as if willing him to understand without Olu having to say it even as he mumbles, “like Jim, anyway, so, that’s not, that’s not a big deal, but, for Jim - you know - it’s obvious that they are who they are. And the Imperium has a blanket policy to hunt down people who don’t fit into the, um, the categories they think should exist.” 

“People who don’t do masculinity or femininity the way they want,” Stede says, getting it suddenly, getting his entire crew suddenly, because there’s Lucius and Pete, and whatever Buttons has going on, and - 

And Charis. Stede reaches for them unconsciously, rests his hand on their feathery back. Whatever Charis’s gender is, Stede doesn’t know; it’s never occurred to him that Charis should have a gender. Charis just - is. Charis is their own gender. 

Hm. And Charis is part of Stede. Which is certainly an interesting revelation in light of the information Olu has just given him about this world. 

“Exactly,” Olu says, sounding incredibly relieved that he doesn’t have to explain this anymore as Ade returns to grazing at Stede’s carpet. “So when Jim was a kid, their family got hunted by these Imperium mercenaries called the Siete Gallos. Jim escaped, managed to grow up safe, but once they were an adult they had to run away to sea.” 

“And you’re worried they could be hunted again?” Stede asks, mind racing as he tries to keep up with the conversation and quiet his own clamoring thoughts. 

“Honestly, yeah,” Olu says. “The Imperium has only gotten more fanatical about this stuff in the last few years. If Jim sets foot on land, they could try to grab them.”

“What would happen to Jim if they were caught?” Stede asks, a pit in his stomach that isn’t just for Jim. 

Olu shrugs. “No one knows,” he says. “Sometimes people disappear and come back different. Come back the way the Imperium wants them to be. And sometimes they just disappear.” He gives Stede a pleading look. “Can you send anyone else?” 

“I don’t know how Jim will feel about that,” Stede says. 

“But you’re the Captain,” Olu points out. “You can tell them what to do.”

“Right,” Stede says. He desperately wants to talk to Ed. “I’ll - right. Ok.” 

Ask and ye shall receive, because Ed himself opens the door then, and stops dead when Ade and Olu look up at him, his hand flying to his beard. “Oh, um, I can come back later -”

Olu jumps up. “Nope, I’m done,” he says. 

Stede’s heart starts thudding as Olu shuts the door behind himself and Ade, leaving him alone with Ed. He wishes he had one of those wheels they hand out in couples’ therapy (and maybe regular therapy too, who knows) that name emotions; maybe then he could classify what he’s feeling and understand how to respond to it. He stands - has the sudden irrational desire to go to Ed and grab onto his arms - Charis is off the couch and almost halfway to Ed - but Stede manages to wheel around and walk to the window, clenching his hands together in front of him. 

“Stede?” Ed asks, sounding apprehensive. “You ok?”

“Yes,” Stede lies because he wants Ed to stay and he thinks that whatever he’s feeling, sharing this jumble of emotions, will only push him away. Charis settles on the windowsill beside him as he says, voice sounding distant to his own ears, “What do you think about having a little adventure today?”

Stede’s got a whole plan. His book talks about a location near St. Augustine that’s shunned by all the locals, said to be cursed, but Stede’s pretty sure from the description that the artifact hidden there is some kind of science device like the ones on his ship. “We’ll go and dig up some buried treasure,” he says brightly. “Doesn’t get more piratical than that, does it? A real adventure.”

Ed winces. “Mate, nobody digs for buried treasure, it’s not done,” he says bluntly. “And Blackbeard definitely doesn’t. Gotta be on land for that.” 

He’s in a bad mood. He’d just gotten himself worked up to start getting ready to leave, and it wasn’t fucking easy. But as glad as he is that he didn’t go through with the plan, at the end of the day what he told Kahu hasn’t changed. Stede doesn’t want what Ed wants from him and that’s fine, they’re - friends, Ed supposes. Maybe even something a bit like real friends, like other people have, like he used to wish Jack or Mary could be, back when he was young enough to wish for impossible things. 

They're friends, and Ed wants it to stay that way, which means leaving now like a cool normal guy who’s got his own very busy and totally worthwhile life to get back to, instead of pathetically hanging around here until Stede finally decides he’s overstayed his welcome. It’s not like he’s going back to piracy now, to the Queen Anne’s Revenge and probably Izzy; he’s headed for something better.

He’s finally ready to do it, for both their sakes, and now Stede’s here trying to talk him out of it. Really unappreciative in Ed’s opinion.

But Stede won’t be stopped. “Look at the chart here, though, the cave’s right on the beach,” he insists, tapping a page in the book. “We can go the long way around and skirt the coast, take the scenic route. I know Blackbeard’s supposed to be - cursed to sail forever, and all that - but it won’t break the illusion for you to step onto a sandbar for a bit. The sea’s right there.” 

Stede pauses a moment, looking at him with an odd expression. “Ed. I know sailors with aquatic daemons will make port and just stay near the water - Jackie told me that’s why she builds brothels next to the docks. You - you can’t really never have shore leave?”

Ed shrugs. “Fish or a dolphin’s one thing, but the kraken needs her space. Stays out in the deep.” In his younger days, back before the kraken story took off, Ed used to make port and just hang around the docks like the other guys whose daemons stayed in the water. But then he started getting famous, and he started hearing whispers, and it was simple enough to encourage the rumor just by making a big point of remaining at sea and sending a representative in his place whenever Blackbeard needed to conduct business on land. His first fuckery, really. 

The more it worked the more people would take notice if he ever made an exception. And then eventually he’d hired Izzy, who started out a bit weird about the whole kraken thing and only got weirder over time. Always threatening enemies with its wrath, always asking nosy questions about where it was if Ed suggested doing anything out of the ordinary, always so eager to be sent into the Republic as Blackbeard’s personal envoy. The last time Ed was on land must have been around the time he hired Izzy, come to think of it, all those years ago. He’s not sure he has land legs anymore.

Stede seems to have focused in on that. “Well, that settles it,” he says. “Recreation is fundamental for mental health. That’s our firm policy onboard the Revenge, no burnout on this ship.” He shuts the book with an authoritative snap. “You’re going on shore leave, and that’s an order from the captain of this vessel.”

“Mate, I don’t -” Ed begins, but Stede’s on a roll. “You know what? I think the kraken needs a break too.” He winks at Kahu, who’s poking her face out of Ed’s beard. “Can’t be very comfortable at the bottom of the deepest sea, being mighty and unknowable all the time. That’s a lot of pressure! And I’ll bet it gets awfully cold.”

“Kraken likes the cold just fine,” Ed mutters sulkily. He knows he’s being kind of a bitch here but, fuck, why can’t Stede read the room for once? “She loves it down there. Empress of the fucking seas. Got a really cool castle on the ocean floor made of, like, coral and driftwood and shit like that. Nobody’s invited.”

“Sounds even worse to me,” Stede goes on, undeterred. “What’s the point of living in a castle if you never have any friends over? She’s got to be lonely.” He pauses, then gives Ed a sly look. “I’d go for a swim with her.” 

“She’d eat you alive before you knew what happened,” Ed says, and he does mean to still sound grumpy but he can feel the corners of his mouth turning up despite himself. The mental image of Stede swimming unconcerned among great menacing tentacles like some sort of mermaid is too charming. He hopes the beard is hiding his smile. 

But it’s clearly not, because Stede’s squinting at his chin. “You’ve got something - Ed, I told you, you’ve got to stir it longer if you’re going to take your tea that sweet, there’s a lump of sugar - here, let me get that.” Kahu obligingly moves out of the way, crawling down to Ed’s shoulder, and Stede reaches over to Ed’s beard. Ed holds still for him. It’s - kind of nice, having someone who’ll do this.

Abruptly Ed hears Lucius Spriggs’ voice as the door swings open: “Hey, Stede, I hope you’ve got a plan for this orange situation because the Swede’s got a real - oh my god. ”

Ed and Stede jumped about a foot away from each other as soon as they heard the door, but Ed’s pretty sure Lucius saw him standing there like an idiot with Stede’s hands rifling through his beard. And then he realizes that’s not the problem, because there’s something else Lucius definitely saw.

Lucius is staring at Kahu.

Ed has a moment to feel horribly exposed before he takes a step toward Lucius - and then realizes someone’s beaten him to it: Charis is suddenly on the floor in front of Patrick, their feathers fluffed up in outrage, mantling their wings and waving their open beak at the cowering rabbit.

Lucius is cowering too, eyes scrunched shut. Ed steps around him to block the door as he babbles. “Didn’t mean to interrupt you Captain Blackbeard sir I didn’t see a ba - I didn’t see anything, I’ll just be on my way I’ve got a really important deck to swab please don’t stab me in the face - ”

“Guys! There’s no need for this. No one’s stabbing any faces,” Stede says firmly, shooing Charis away and stepping over to place a hand on Lucius’ shoulder. “Lucius understands that a person’s daemon is a private matter. And he understands that on this ship we all have a responsibility to our crewmates, and that means keeping private matters private. Isn’t that right, Lucius?”

Lucius is nodding frantically. “Absolutely. I’m incredible at keeping secrets. Just ask Jim.”

Stede beams. “I don’t doubt your crewmates would vouch for you. Now, Lucius, I’m sure you can appreciate that in Blackbeard’s position it would be important to keep up one’s professional reputation, can’t you? So you’ll help us maintain the legend of the kraken, and keep Ed’s real daemon in the strictest confidence.”

Lucius turns his gaze down to Charis, who’s only reluctantly preening their feathers back into place, and then looks thoughtfully at Ed and Kahu for a long moment, and then back to Stede. “I get it,” he says finally, more subdued and earnest than Ed expected. “I know what it’s like to hide part of yourself.” 

“Ed,” Kahu says, quietly but still just loud enough for the rest of the room to hear. “I think - I think maybe we could try this.” 

“There! It’s settled then, we’re all in accord,” Stede announces before anyone can say anything more. “And not a moment too soon! Lucius, you’re just the man I wanted to consult on this mission.” Stede disappears into the auxiliary wardrobe while he continues to talk, throwing a baffling series of questions at Lucius about the appropriate fashion choices for this sort of excursion. Lucius doesn’t seem to know a lot more than Ed does about the array of fabrics Stede keeps around, but he’s clearly used to nodding along when Stede needs a sounding board.

Ed’s not sure what the fuck that meant about hiding part of yourself, but he thinks he’s slightly offended at the notion that Lucius would compare whatever he’s got going on in his life with Ed’s objectively much cooler kraken situation. Sure, the whole mess is kind of a nightmare at this point, but whatever else you can say about it you should at least have to admit it’s a really badass sort of problem to have. That aside, though, Ed’s surprised to find he thinks he might believe Lucius.

Which is fucking crazy. Ed’s spent his whole adult life fearing this moment, making plans for what he’d do if it ever came, how if anyone ever saw Kahu he’d have to cut their tongue out before they could spread the secret, maybe even break his rule about killing and shove them overboard if it came to that. But - Stede’s crew aren’t like any pirates he’s ever known before, are they? Lucius isn’t going to react to this like Izzy would, or like Jack, or Anne or Mary or fucking Hornigold or any of that lot. This feels - well, not really all right, but - maybe just a bit like it would be overkill to do anything about Lucius. 

Still - Lucius on his own is one thing. Walking around on land, though? To dig up buried treasure? A treasure hunt would be bad enough even without the kraken factor. This is a bridge too fucking far. Anyone could see Ed out there, not just Stede’s crew but any regular pirates, they could tell the whole fucking Republic. It’s a ridiculous idea. Ed’s been cultivating the legend of Blackbeard’s kraken daemon and its terrible curse for decades. He’s not about to throw it away in an instant just because Stede Bonnet asked him to, friendship or no. He’ll tell Stede as soon as he comes out that it’s just not happening.

Stede steps out of the auxiliary wardrobe and Ed immediately forgets what he was going to say. Stede’s holding out an outfit he’s picked out to keep Ed incognito (it’s casual and low-key by Stede Bonnet standards, which means it’s a sedate shade of lavender-gray and the shoes have buckles instead of ribbons), but more importantly he’s changed his own clothes into what Ed can only assume is his dedicated treasure hunting outfit. It’s some kind of fucking, what the fuck do you call it, some little khaki explorer getup with short sleeves and a double row of buttons down the front and the breeches tucked into the boots and a fucking matching hat. 

It looks like an illustration from one of those storybooks for rich children. It might be the cutest thing Ed’s ever seen in his entire life. He has a sudden impossible urge to pick Stede up and carry him around in his pocket. What the fuck. Blackbeard doesn’t have thoughts like that.

Stede picks up the book from where he left it and replaces it on the shelf, his exposed bicep flexing. Ed’s mouth feels dry. “Um,” he says. “When, uh, when do we leave?”

“Right away,” Stede beams. “Get changed, I’ll have the crew do something distracting.” As Stede steps out of the room Ed looks over at Lucius, who looks…a lot less cowed than he did a few minutes ago. Patrick sits boldly up on his haunches at Lucius’ side, nose twitching.

“That was very sweet,” Lucius smirks.

“Don’t,” Ed warns him, “or I will stab you in your fucking face.”

“Yeah, absolutely, of course, one hundred percent,” Lucius agrees immediately, and, well, if nothing else at least they’re clear on that.

Seven hours later Ed’s got to grudgingly admit he’s glad he came. As much as he never liked getting all grubby on land, he’s had an awfully nice day with Stede, and Lucius too. And they found what they came for - Stede calls the device a “computer,” and spent a good while explaining it. Ed’s followed along well enough to gather it’s a really complicated sort of abacus, powered by lightning, that does sums all by itself. 

Ed thinks he gets why that’s exciting, you could do all sorts of great shit with a machine like that. He’s not sure why Stede seems so disquieted by it.

Leroy, Jackie’s leopard daemon, catches the scent of freshly polished leather and wet wool on the wind and pads over to Jackie’s side. She’s at the bar, bickering with Geraldo to pass the time, ignoring Izzy Hands. 

“Jackie,” Leroy murmurs, nudging her wooden hand. “Soldiers.”

Leroy feels Jackie shift into alertness even as she continues lightly bullying Geraldo. Leroy nods at Maria, communicating - be ready - and the praying mantis presses herself up, showing her thorax in a threat display. 

At the end of the bar, Izzy and the crab sit, somehow both watching the door while facing opposite directions. Leroy wonders if either is aware of how melodramatic they are. They think at Jackie, Something real fucked up going on over there . 

Jackie’s fingers rest lightly on Leroy’s head. Not our problem. Thank fuck.

Might wind up being our problem , Leroy points out, since we’re about to get into a fucking threeway with them and the devil. 

Leroy timed that one perfectly: a heavy jackboot kicks open the door and in walks the fucking Imperium Navy. 

Jackie and Leroy both sigh; they fucking hate these guys. Izzy called them here because he wants Bonnet dead, which they don’t particularly care about either way. Bonnet’s not exactly a top earner on their mental balance sheet of Pirates Who Work For Them. But Izzy’s an ex-Siete Gallo and he told them that Bonnet’s got someone on his crew that they want dead: specifically, one Bonifacia Jimenez, the bitch who stole their life, the bitch who stole their - 

C’mon, Jackie , Leroy thinks. Alfeo was great, but no man is worth getting all torn up over for this long. 

You’re right, you’re right , she thinks back. Also - you see what fucker’s in charge?

Leroy had been preoccupied with Jackie’s grief over her favorite dead husband; now he zeroes in on - Is that a bald Nigel Badminton?

The bald man leading the Imperium troops is in fact Chauncey Badminton, Nigel’s previously-unknown-to-them twin. Leroy suddenly remembers Stede Bonnet, sitting in the bar and saying that Nigel came from his world - a world without daemons - and that his beetle daemon had been mechanical. Stede’s lack of daemon had always felt strange, but Stede himself was so strange - and clearly full of life - that Leroy had been able to overlook it. The thought that Badminton might be the same, and that Stede isn’t a bizarre one-off, is deeply fucked up, and not just in the usual fucked up way that many things Leroy and Jackie have seen is. 

Now Leroy watches Chauncey speak to his own beetle daemon in its metal case. Whatever is in that case doesn’t quite act like a daemon, Leroy thinks, starting to feel cold. He growls low in his throat. Izzy Hands is complaining about Stede, he’s got a real fucking vendetta against that guy, and Leroy can feel Jackie’s distracted, almost smiling at the memory of Stede telling Izzy to fuck off, but Leroy’s trying to catch Hector’s eye instead. He’s so profoundly unsettled by the notion that Stede might have been right that he needs to speak with someone, anyone who would understand. Finally, after creeping around on the floor under the table, he manages to get the crab’s attention. He nods towards Chauncey, murmurs, “Think there’s something up with his daemon?”

Hector, for want of a better term to describe the annoyed movement of an animal without shoulders, shrugs. “Doesn’t fucking matter, does it? Not if he’ll take care of our enemies.”

Leroy slinks back to Jackie’s feet and presses himself close. He thinks it actually does fucking matter. Quite a lot. 

A man without a daemon is a man without a soul, and they’re about to enter into a pact with one anyway. 

Chapter Text

Tizona misses Ade fiercely, which isn’t a surprise. What’s more surprising is how much else they miss: sunning themself on the capstan, feeling the sea breeze on their scales, Patrick and Adras and Squeaky and even Charis.

It wasn’t what Tiz had wanted, coming back here. But Jim wants their revenge, they say, wants the Siete Gallos to feel the same pain and emptiness they felt. Tiz isn’t so sure about that. But they know Jim does want to make Nana happy, in spite of everything, so here they are.

It’s not like it was before. Jim thinks it is; Jim thinks they’re just returning to the mission, the way it always was before they met Olu and Ade. But Tiz knows it’s not that simple. Jim knows their name now, for one thing - Tiz always knew it wasn’t Bonifacia - and that means like it or not they aren’t the same person they were the first time they came to this place. Wherever you go, there you are, thinks Tizona.

Jackie knows, it sounds like. “You can’t live like that,” she’s telling Jim. “You got to get over it! You can’t end up like me.” Tiz ambles over from where they were inspecting Geraldo’s corpse to settle beneath Jim’s chair, sparing a moment to nod respectfully at Leroy. They always got on with Leroy. Apex predators understand one another.

Leroy doesn’t nod back. Combat ended a while ago, but the leopard still looks tense, sitting ramrod-stiff at Jackie’s feet, tail twitching against the floor. It’s not like him; usually Leroy’s all lazy feline grace, making a show of sprawling out comfortably so there’s no mistaking who’s in charge of this place. He doesn’t look in charge right now; he looks troubled, and Tiz doesn’t like that, because there’s not a lot that troubles a daemon like Leroy.

“All the revenge and rage and anger, it ages you. Makes you boring,” Jackie’s saying. Leroy looks up at her.

“Not all it does,” he growls. “Tell them about the company you end up keeping, Jackie. Tell them about those Imperium fucks.”

That’s even less like him, Tizona thinks with a chill. Leroy and Jackie nearly always communicate silently, with a glance or a thought. If Leroy’s speaking aloud to her it means this is important enough he wants the whole room to hear.

Jackie sighs. “He’s not wrong,” she tells Jim. “You know the fucking Imperium’s after your ass, right? Always have been. And they want Steve now too, so it’s about to get a lot worse.”

“They’re into some fucked up shit lately. Worse than usual,” Leroy adds, and he’s talking to all of them now. “Motherfucker they sent doesn’t have a daemon.”

Jim blinks. “The fuck do you mean, they didn’t have a daemon? Like how Stede used to -”

“Yeah, Steve told me he came from another world. A place without any daemons.” Jackie sighs and tips back another drink. “Thought he was full of shit to tell you the truth. But there’s more like him, and the rest aren’t as friendly as your captain.”

Jim glares. “You’re fucking with me.”

“That’s what I said to Steve, but it’s the truth,” Jackie says. “Listen, those Siete Gallos - you know they worked for the Imperium, right? Looking for kids like you, ones they can’t sort into boys and girls like they always want. The ones who complicate their fucking paperwork.”

“Figured they didn’t name themselves Seven Cocks for nothing,” Jim sighs. “But I’m trying to put it all behind me. So it’d really help me out if you’d tell me where to find those pendejos.”

“Well, that’s one right there.” Jackie gestures at Geraldo, and Jim heads over there to inspect his tattoo as they continue to talk.

If the Imperium’s after Stede, then all their friends are in danger - but that means Jim will have to agree to go back and warn them. They can do it, thinks Tizona, they can make it back in time. And Jackie’s giving Jim the same advice Tiz always does, to put revenge behind them. Maybe this is it; Jim will finally agree to let it all go, to figure out what makes them happy, to set the mission aside and go back to Oluwande and Ade -

And then they hear Jackie continuing. “You already got this other one over here. Past that, the other five of those bastards are probably dead,” she says.

“Four maybe,” Leroy corrects her. “We know Izzy Hands is still breathing.”

Jim’s head jerks up. “Izzy Hands?” they ask sharply. “Blackbeard’s first mate? Fiddler crab daemon? That Izzy Hands?”

“Sure as fuck hope there’s not two of them,” Jackie grumbles. “One of that guy’s plenty. You know what he did last time he was here?”

Jim’s not listening anymore. They leap to their feet. “We’re going back,” Jim says to Tizona with a fierce smile.

Finally. “That’s what I’ve been saying,” Tiz tells them, relieved. “Ade’s waiting for us, and all the others -”

“Including one of the dogs we’re after,” Jim says. Their eyes are blazing. “We’re going back to kill that treacherous motherfucker Izzy Hands.”

Tizona can’t argue with the going back, at least. But they feel uneasily like something’s gone terribly wrong.

***

The laptop should not be here.

Stede had carried it back to the cabin after their treasure hunt. Now, he can’t stop staring at it, can’t stop touching it, the feel of the plastic case under his hands a sense memory to quite literally a different world.

The cabin door opens and Ed enters, holding two glasses and a pitcher of water; Roach is behind him with a tray of late dinner, some kind of cold chicken and rice that Stede’s sure is delicious but that he can barely taste once he’s sat beside Ed to eat it. He forces himself to do so anyway while Ed chatters about the day, forces himself to listen and does his best to sound normal about it all.

They finish the meal and Ed stands, gathering up the dishes and piling them on the tray.

“And, fuck, I forgot how many insects are on land,” he’s saying. “I mean, Kahu was happy. Lots of food. Remember when her and Charis went after that same big flying beetle? I thought they were going to rip it in half like a wishbone.” He laughs, sounds fond, and adds, “I’ll take these back to the galley, all right? You need anything?”

Belatedly, Stede realizes that Ed’s expecting a response. He waves a hand and says, “No, no, I’m fine.”

“Nightcap when I get back?”

Stede looks at Ed; sees his handsome face open and happy. “Of course,” he manages. “I’ll dig out that brandy you like.”

Ed beams; Kahu settles in his beard as he scoops up the tray, and a moment later, Stede and Charis are alone in the cabin.

“This means there must be more people like us,” Charis says instantly. “People from our world.”

Stede reaches for his daemon, who is already flying to settle against Stede’s chest. He holds them close, stroking their feathers. “You know about Nigel,” he says, because he understands now that Charis knows everything he knows.

“We should tell Kahu and Ed about him,” Charis says, twisting their head sideways to rub it against Stede’s knuckles.

Stede hesitates, thoughts of his earlier conversation with Oluwande flooding back. Another thing to be anxious about - he’s been remembering it in flashes all day and every time he’s become more and more certain that he feels something for Ed beyond just friendship, something vast and inevitable, something he should have seen coming, if he’d been a more self aware man.

Something that could upend him even more than running to another world had.

“Stede,” Charis says, soft. “Don’t run from this.”

“Oluwande said it’s punishable by some horrible torture to even have these feelings,” Stede says. He’s clinging onto Charis, who is suddenly clinging back, their little claws dug into the front of his stiff poplin shirt.

“Stede,” Charis repeats. “I know we’re braver than that.”

Stede looks down his nose at Charis and makes sure they see how skeptical he is. “And who knows what Ed and Kahu would think,” he adds when Charis doesn’t relent. He reaches out again to touch the laptop, then returns his hand to Charis’s head. “I don’t want to put them in danger -”

“They’re pirates,” Charis points out. “They’re already in danger.”

“And our friendship with them, Charis, I don’t want to lose our friendship -”

“But what if the opposite happened? What if we found something more?”

Stede shakes his head. “Ed’s - he’s - you know how he is, Charis.’

‘Hot?’ Charis trills.

“Shush,” Stede snaps, feeling his cheeks flush and furious with himself for it. “There’s no way -”

The door opens again and Ed enters. Charis chirps, clearly thrown off guard despite their sassy talk; meanwhile, Stede’s hand flies to the laptop again. He feels trapped between worlds, between possibilities, with no clear way to escape.

“Hey,” Ed says, shutting the door softly and crossing to stand beside Stede. “You ok?”

Stede pushes himself to his feet, ready to lie, but Charis suddenly launches out of his arms and lands on the edge of the table just as Kahu does too. The two daemons perch less than an inch apart and look up at Stede together.

Well. Stede can’t really deny the evidence of his own soul, can he? “I’m worried,” he admits. “Why is this thing from my world here? How did it get here?”

Ed reaches out and lays his hand on Stede’s shoulder. “We’ll figure it out,” he says. “I mean, do you think you’re the only person who found a way through?”

“I know I’m not, actually,” Stede admits. “I met someone else from my world a week before I met you. He’d been here for a few years and was serving as an Imperium officer.”

Ed raises an eyebrow. “Did he have a daemon?”

Stede remembers Nigel falling, and the crunch, and the monkey daemon, and winces. “He did - one appeared right as he died.” He glances quickly at Ed, trying to gauge his reaction. “He tried to kill me and I killed him instead.”

Kahu makes a soft, startled noise, as Ed says, “Fuck, Stede, that’s - he tried to kill you?”

Stede nods and takes a deep breath to steady himself. “He said this was his world to plunder.”

Charis mimes retching. “He was horrible. We don’t feel bad about him dying.”

“But,” Stede says, running his hand over the laptop lid again, “if this is here - I mean, I suppose Nigel might have brought it, but he seemed like he was pretending to be from this world, had a fake daemon and everything…” He picks up the laptop and opens it for at least the tenth time since they found it. Its screen is resolutely dark, and grains of sand trickle out of the keyboard as he turns it on its side to examine the power port. “I wish we could see what’s on it.”

Ed squeezes Stede’s arm lightly. “You said it’s like - like a combination of an abacus and a tiny book, on the inside? Like there’s something that’s got a lot of information written on it?”

“Mmhmm,” Stede says, still squinting at the power port because it’s easier than looking at Ed’s (yes, all right, fine, Charis, he is hot!) face. “But to access it, we’d have to get power into it, and I don’t know how to do that.”

“How would you do it in your world?”

“There’s a cable that plugs into the wall, and our walls typically have electric current running through them.” He glances up at the lighting sconces in the cabin. “A bit like the anbaric power here, I suppose. Except we don’t all have a coal engine in our houses or offices to run it. There’s big centralized ones, and,” he starts spiraling, feeling very far out of his depth in every regard, “oh, it’s all very complicated…”

“What’s the cable made of?” Ed asks, voice patient. “Could we make one and run it off anbaric power?”

Ed’s problem solving calms Stede, and he considers the idea. “I suppose it’s just some kind of metal heating coil…”

“So we could take it to a blacksmith.”

Stede is hit with a wave of such affection for Ed that Charis flaps their wings and when they resettle, they’re nearly touching Kahu. He finally looks fully at Ed, sees his kind, thoughtful face, and reaches to pat his hand where it rests on his arm. “Thank you, Ed. I know this is probably a lot to take in. You’re a good man.”

Ed huffs and turns away, crossing from the table to sit on the couch. Kahu chirps and Ed waves at her, saying, “C’mere, it’s more comfortable over here.” Kahu chirps again, so Ed pats the couch. “Of course I’m inviting Stede and Charis too. Let’s have some brandy and relax. It’s been a long fucking day.”

Stede loves to play host to Ed, especially when he can share special treats that Ed loves, so he starts to feel better as he goes to his liquor cabinet, Charis flying ahead to unlatch it with their beak. He selects the perfect glasses, and pours the perfect amount of brandy, and presents Ed his with a little flourish. Ed’s fingers graze his own as he accepts his glass. Stede remembers them on his shoulder, and wishes they were there again.

“Seriously, sit down,” Ed says, as Stede moves to put away the bottle. “I know you’re worried, but maybe we can take your mind off it. There’s nothing we can do about it tonight.”

Ed’s right; of course Ed’s right; he’s brilliant. Stede sits beside him, making sure to leave a good few inches of distance between their legs, but then Charis hops rights onto the leg closest to Ed and Kahu settles down on Ed’s leg closest to Stede and suddenly all Stede can think of is Ed saying he was planning to leave.

Whatever these feelings are inside of him -

Charis rotates their head and makes eye contact with him before scooting somehow even closer to Kahu.

- whatever they are, Stede thinks again, and if there was a way to mentally grit his teeth, he’d be doing it. Whatever they are, he emphatically does not want Ed to leave, and he thinks he has an idea of how to stop him.

“You know, Ed,” he says, as Charis rotates their head again, eyes wider, “I was thinking. Captaining a pirate ship like this is hard work, isn’t it?”

Ed is slightly turned toward him on the couch, so Stede has a clear view of his startled look. “Yeah, it sure fucking is, mate.”

“Well,” Stede says, and here goes nothing. Charis is cocking their head while also keeping it rotated, and it’s honestly a little unnerving how far around they can turn it, but that’s not really relevant right now - “what if a ship had, ah, two captains?”

Ed shifts in his seat, turns a bit more. His knee grazes Stede’s, comes to rest against it. “Two captains?”

Stede is now having to keep part of his attention on Charis, who is practically vibrating with the desire to climb into Ed’s lap, which isn’t helpful at all, because Stede’s trying to have a bit of a delicate conversation here, so he puts his hand firmly onto Charis’s back. “Yes,” he says, casting about for a good explanation when Ed says -

“Well,” and looks down to where Kahu is, putting a hand on her and stroking between her ears, “I suppose, if you had the absolutely two perfect people -” He pauses, then says quickly, as if the thought is just occurring to him, “then they could potentially -” and here he looks up, just as Stede looks up from Charis to meet his eyes - “co-captain?”

“- co-captain?” Stede suggests simultaneously.

Ed laughs, looks back down at Kahu, then raises his glass and taps it to Stede’s.

Stede laughs too, delighted. “We said the same thing.”

“Cheers,” Ed says, smiling back before returning his attention to Kahu.

They pass the rest of the night in light conversation. When Stede and Charis go to their bed, and Ed and Kahu get ready to sleep on their couch, Stede listens to the sounds of them settling down and curls up with Charis nestled in the crook of his arm atop a roost of soft cashmere blanket he keeps just for them.

“We can be happy like this,” he murmurs to Charis, stroking their feathers, voice soft enough that it can’t be heard by Ed and Kahu. “Maybe Nigel left the computer. Maybe we won’t find anything else.”

Charis nips at his finger. “We’d be happier if they were in bed with us.”

“Hush,” Stede hisses. “I liked my soul better when it wasn’t always squawking at me.”

“No, you didn’t,” Charis says, nestling in closer.

“No, I didn’t,” Stede admits, but it’s hard to be worried, not when Ed’s agreed to stay and Nigel is dead and gone. He falls into a contented, dreamless sleep that is shattered several hours later by cannon fire, and the arrival of one “Calico” Jack Rackham and his snake daemon, Beatrix.

***

“Just for the two of you, huh?” Jack chuckles. “Hornigold’d shit himself.”

Fucking Hornigold, there’s a blast from the past, been years since Ed spared a thought for old Hornigold. Can’t kill a bastard like that, he’s probably still on that island where Ed and Jack and the rest of the mutineers left him, wearing sailcloth and cooking up clams and arguing with his mean old sow daemon Ruthie. Fuckers deserve each other.

Weird to be thinking about the old days with Stede and Charis here. All of that feels so far away now. But it’s so good to have Jack here again, and Trixie slithering across the breakfast table ringed in crimson and yellow and black, her forked tongue flickering out to taste all the scents. Those two were always the best part of those times. And Jack and Stede are going to get along great, the three of them a trio, Ed just knows it.

“That’s where me and Jack first met, on Hornigold’s ship,” Ed explains to Stede.

Stede brightens at that. “Blackbeard and I met on a ship,” he says. “It was a Spanish vessel. Funny story, really, I’d been gut-stabbed -”

“Yeah? We always had fun with stabbies on Hornigold’s ship,” Jack says, “Shank ‘em in the gut and then Trix would finish them off with her poisonous fangs, remember?” and that just sets Jack off talking about all the stabbings on the Ranger. Hornigold did always love a good stab.

“Sounds like you two had quite a wild time,” Stede says pleasantly. Charis is gnawing on the chair behind him.

“Oh, I was tame compared to him,” Jack assures Stede, nodding at Ed. “This maniac once torched a ship with the entire crew still trapped inside.”

Kahu stirs in his beard and Ed feels cold suddenly.

“That’s - Stede doesn’t want to hear about that,” Ed says quickly.

“Could hear the screams for miles, couldn’t we, Jack?” Trixie adds, chuckling. She slithers up Jack’s arm, coiling over the old burn scar in a lazy helix, and glances back at Ed. “Like you’d expect from the kraken.”

Ed forces himself to look back at Stede. He’s clearly thrown off, blinking, trying to play it cool. Charis has left off chewing on the chair and sat straight up to look at Ed. He wants to shrink away from the parrot’s gaze, wishes he could hide with Kahu.

“I thought you’d, ah, mellowed a bit since the old days,” Stede says carefully, and Ed knows he’s watching his phrasing, because Stede isn’t sure what Jack might know, and he won’t break Ed’s confidence; he’s a far better friend than Ed could ever deserve, even right now with Jack right here explaining exactly why Ed doesn’t deserve it.

There’s not - he can’t - there’s no way to begin to explain it. He told Stede about his dad and Stede took it so well and of course, of course it was because he didn’t get it. Stede doesn’t understand how easy it was, how once Ed had done it he’d known there was nothing he wasn’t capable of if it came to it, how he’d told himself he’d never do it again because you had to have some kind of line but that’s all it ever was, a line in the sand that he drew himself, but he’s not like most people, not like good people, he could step over that line any time if he chose, and it doesn’t stop him doing things like setting ships aflame, of course it doesn’t, what else is Blackbeard -

He can’t explain any of that. So he says, “Technically the fire killed those guys,” which is true.

“That’s pirating,” says Trixie, and Jack agrees, stroking her head, his eyes on Stede. “Ugly profession. But you’d know that.”

Ed tries to explain then that he’s mellowed, but Jack looks him in the eye and says, “Hope you haven’t mellowed too much for whippies,” and, well, nothing turns the mood around like whippies.

The next day is a whirlwind. Ed feels like he’s twenty again, young and cocky, back in the days when piracy seemed fresh, when they’d just taken care of Hornigold and the sea wind tasted like freedom, like anything was possible. Hadn’t quite worked out that way in the long run. But as much as the last couple weeks with Stede were the first time Ed can remember actually enjoying himself in years, Jack reminds him there was a time piracy was fun too. He’d nearly forgotten it.

If he could just bring these two halves of his life together - but it’s not working the way Ed thought. Or Jack and Stede aren’t.

“He might not seem like the kind of pirate we’re used to, but this guy’s a motherfucking lunatic, Jack,” Ed tries to tell Jack when Stede steps outside to answer a question from the crew. “He burned down a whole ship full of posh bastards and he didn’t lift a fucking finger, Jack, he did it with words, if you’d been there you’d have shit yourself -”

“You old bastard, you know I haven’t shit myself since the last time Annie broke into Hornigold’s liquor stash and we all blacked out,” Jack says. “Remember that, Eddie?” It’s like that every time, Jack just wants to talk about the old days, and Ed can’t help reminiscing with him.

Talking to Stede about Jack goes no better. “Trixie’s not even venomous, you know,” Stede says suddenly when they get a moment together alone. “She’s a scarlet kingsnake, genus Lampropeltis; they superficially resemble coral snakes but they really aren’t even very closely related, the stripe pattern is completely different. There’s a rhyme -”

Ed blinks. Bit rude to gossip about a man’s daemon like that but he supposes Stede never seems to really get etiquette around daemons, like that time - he shakes his head, trying to forget the feeling of Charis’ velvet-soft feathers. “Yeah, Jack’s always talking it up, but I’ve never seen anyone die of poison after a raid’s over, now that you mention it. Stands to reason.”

Stede looks at him oddly, like that wasn’t where he expected this to go. “But - you said the two of you grew up together,” he says, confused. “I know your daemon’s a special case -” Stede nods at Kahu, poking her face out of the beard “- but surely the two of you, ah, talk about these things? You’re friends, aren’t you?”

Ed has no idea how to answer that question in a way that Stede will understand. “I don’t really - I mean - I guess so, yeah,” he says finally. “I’m - we’re pirates.”

“So are we,” Charis points out from Stede’s shoulder in a bitchy tone. They don’t get it.

Or maybe Ed’s the one who doesn’t. Maybe - well, he never thought he could show Kahu to anyone, but then there was Stede, and now Lucius knows too, and the world hasn’t ended. And now Jack’s here and - well, of course he and Jack have never been like that, but - if Ed’s the kind of person who has friends, then surely if anyone Jack -

Kahu’s no help with any of this, not even when he manages to get a minute alone to talk with her. “Well, I wouldn’t know,” she sniffs. “It’s not like I know Jack, or Trixie either. I’ve never even met them, when you think about it, have I? You’re the one who talks to them.” She’s been a little touchy with Ed ever since the whole…biting thing.

Ed can’t quite fit the pieces together, but there’s barely time to think about it, Stede and Jack making nice for once, sailing off to Blind Man’s Cove, Jack shoving bottles of rum into Ed’s hands every time he sees them empty, playing at Coconut War and Turtle Versus Crab and whippies again, and Ed should have known what was coming, but he’s not ready when it all goes wrong.

“Can ye no have a bit of respect?” Buttons bellows, cutting through the party chatter. “Some of us are trying to bask in moonglow!”

Ed winces; he feels abruptly that he’s being a bad co-captain here, upsetting Stede’s crew. He should really go find where Stede’s gotten off to, anyway. “Sorry, Buttons,” he calls. “Maybe he’s right, guys, should we pack it in?”

Jack looks a little alarmed at that, just a little too sharp for how drunk he’s been acting, and Ed will think much later that if he’d been on top of his game, if he’d been the pirate he was before he met Stede, he would have known right there.

But he doesn’t. “No,” Jack howls, brandishing his whip. “King Coconut says we go another ten rounds,” and he’s cracking the whip, and Ed has a sick moment of suddenly knowing it was always going to end this way just before Buttons’ daemon falls dead onto the deck.

***

“It’s ok to be upset, you know.”

Stede looks up from his book. Charis, who is in the little nest in the sheets between him and the window, is looking at him with their head cocked.

Stede’s really not in the mood. “I am upset,” he snaps. “That asshole pissed on my boots!”

“Oh, fuck that guy,” Charis says. “Total dickhead.”

“Exactly,” Stede says, and tries to return to his book, though, if he’s being honest, he’s barely read a word.

“But I mean,” Charis chirps, making Stede flop the book on his lap in annoyance, “about the other thing.”

Stede winces and looks out at the dark cabin. It must be well after midnight, but he can still hear bottles rolling around and raucous shouting from the deck. He wonders what Ed’s doing. Having fun, he assumes. Loads more fun than he’d be having down here in this quiet, candlelit cabin with Stede.

“You know I know how you feel,” Charis says quietly. “And I’m telling you, it’s ok to be upset.”

“It’s just a stupid crush,” Stede says bitterly. “Stupid of me to even have a crush. I feel like a stupid teenager.”

Charis scoots in closer, nestles up against Stede’s hip. “Yeah, but. We heard what Jack said.”

Stede can’t help stroking Charis’s neck feathers, even as he chides, “Did you hear? You were hiding up in a tree while I was stuck in that awful conversation.”

“Beatrix looks like she has mites. Can you blame me?”

Stede smiles, very much against his mood. “No.”

They sit in silence for a few moments, the sounds of the party upstairs intruding upon Stede’s thoughts. Would it really be so awful for Ed to be down here, in the cabin, enjoying their usual nighttime routine, instead of up there, with Jack, awful, horrible Jack, who’d said -

“Stede.”

“I know, Charis.”

“I can’t stop thinking about it either.”

Stede looks at the kea, cheeks hot. “Do daemons - would you - and Kahu, would you - well.”

“I don’t exactly have experience,” Charis says primly.

Stede keeps stroking his thumb over the soft feathers. “But, if Ed did do, er, that - with Jack -”

“Beatrix doesn’t know Kahu.”

Stede bites his lip. He’s been telling himself that he’s being a fool, having some kind of ridiculous midlife sexuality crisis brought on by the most beautiful man to exist in any universe, and that it doesn’t matter anyway because Ed is just a friend. Jack implying that Stede and Ed might be, well, having gay sex based on the fact that Jack and Ed had - multiple times, it sounds like - had gay sex - it’s like Jack set off a bomb inside of Stede’s head, and revelation is sprouting in the ruins.

“Ed and Kahu trust us with their deepest secrets,” Charis says, nipping Stede’s finger. “And Izzy said -”

Stede remembers Izzy, face curled with disgust as he said: He adores you. Why, I have no idea, but he does.

“I don’t think Izzy’s exactly a reliable narrator,” Stede mutters, but yes, Izzy had said that, and Stede doesn’t know why he would have lied. Ed genuinely does seem to have a - well, a lot of affection for Stede.

There’s sudden crash, followed by ominous silence from above. Stede and Charis give each other a horrified look - something bad must have happened - and then Stede’s out of bed, throwing on his red velvet robe and sliding his feet into his slippers, and Charis is knocking open the cabin door with their feet, Stede following them onto the deck.

Ed is the closest person to them, standing in darkness near the railing a little behind Jack. He reaches for Stede’s arm as Stede draws even with him and his sudden, light touch stops Stede moving forward. Kahu makes eye contact with him as she peeps through the long grey hair hanging over the back of Ed’s jacket.

Jack is standing facing the crew; they’re in a semicircle around the capstan, and Buttons is right in front of Jack, holding something that Stede can’t quite make out -

Charis suddenly flies forward; Kahu leaps out of Ed’s jacket and circles close to them in the semidarkness, must say something important, because Charis abruptly settles on the railing, feathers ruffled, as Kahu darts back into the collar of Ed’s jacket.

“Buttons?” Roach asks, voice uncharacteristically emotional. “Is Karl - is he stunned?”

“No,” Buttons says. He looks up from the thing in his arms. “He’s dead.”

“Fuck,” Ed whispers just as Stede realizes what he’s holding: Karl, the seagull’s crumpled body clearly injured beyond repair. The crew murmurs while Jack quickly coils up his whip and Trixie slithers up inside of Jack’s boot with remarkable speed.

“You killed him,” Buttons continues, cradling Karl’s body close to his bare chest.

Stede glances at Charis and sees his confusion mirrored in their face; Karl is Buttons’ daemon, so surely if he’s dead then Buttons should also be - but -

“It was an accident,’ Jack says, starting to back across the deck as Buttons advances. “He flew right into my whip.”

Charis alights on Stede’s shoulder and murmurs, “Kahu, how?”

“Must not be his daemon,” Kahu murmurs back. “No one could survive the death of their daemon.”

Buttons hands Roach Karl’s body and begins stalking towards Jack, intoning words Stede can’t understand; they sound like a magic spell, but also like desperate heartbreak, and Stede suddenly can’t abide Jack aboard his ship for one second more.

He lets Buttons finish with a last, miserable, “I hex ye!” before he steps forward and speaks, loud and clear:

“Get off my ship.”

Jack spins around. Stede loathes his stupid drunken face, doesn’t care how good of a friend Ed thinks he is, and feels nothing but anger as he adds, “Now.”

Charis and Kahu whisper in unison, “Oh thank god.” Charis is the louder of the two and Stede’s certain no one would have noticed Kahu without knowing to listen for her, but he sees, out of the corner of his eye, Ed shift and rub his neck like he’s anxious. Well. Ed’s bound to be a bit anxious; he brought this horrible man aboard and now he’s gone and killed Karl, who may not have been Buttons’s daemon but was a treasured member of his and Ed’s crew.

Jack stares at Stede for a long moment, like he thinks Stede might be a pushover, like he thinks he can intimidate him, but the Stede who used to let his parents - not to mention faculty members - walk all over him is dead, Ed’s regard for him the final nail in that coffin. Charis starts sharpening their beak against one of their claws.

Jack blusters, “Fine. I don’t give a shit. Party sucked anyway.”

He turns and walks towards the ladder, near where Ed is standing, and announces, “I’m out. Who’s with me?”

The crew is silent. Stede keeps his eyes fixed on Jack, wills him to just fucking leave, so things can go back to how they were, please.

Jack passes Ed, puts a hand on the ladder, and says, “Aw, c’mon guys, you don’t wanna stick around with this fop, do ya?”

Still silence. Stede’s about to step forward - can feel Charis readying to launch - and then Jack leans close to Ed and says, “Eddie? I saved your life, man.”

Ed is staring down at the deck, Kahu tucked so far into his coat that Stede can’t even see a bulge. “Yeah,” he says, still looking down. “Let’s go.”

Charis stumbles on Stede’s shoulder; Stede reaches up, catches them, and they turn and curl inside of his robe, their claws sinking into his nightshirt. “Wait,” he manages to say. Somehow this outcome hadn’t even occurred to him. “You’re leaving? With him?”

“Later, losers!” Jack calls cheerfully, swinging his leg over the railing.

Ed steps close to Stede, bending his head to Stede’s ear, and Stede catches the tiniest glimpse of Kahu now, soft ears and little fingers at the edge of Ed’s collar. “This is who I am, Stede,” Ed says quietly. He raises his voice and adds, without meeting Stede’s eyes, “The Kraken.”

“Ed,” Stede breathes, one hand pressed to the front of his robe, holding Charis there; his daemon is shaking against his chest. “Don’t do this. You don’t have to - to keep this up.”

Ed does look at him now, wide-eyed and vulnerable, but then he looks away again quickly. “I do, actually. Because you were always gonna realize what I am.” He reaches out like he’s going to pat Stede’s arm, but doesn’t, just turns and goes to the railing, steps over it, and says, “Take care, mate.”

His hair falls like a curtain over his back, concealing Kahu completely. Charis is making sad little peeping noises underneath Stede’s robe; Stede himself can feel his eyes filling with tears, his chin trembling, stupid, he’s been so incredibly stupid about all of this, about everything.

“Captain?”

Stede blinks hard and turns to Roach, who is still, somehow, holding Karl’s broken little body. Beside him, Buttons is, inexplicably, nude. The bird should be dust, ground to nothing - just like how Stede’s heart feels right now.

“Buttons,” he says, because he’s got to take charge, he’s got to be their captain, after all, what else is he in this world if not the man who just threw Blackbeard off his ship? He certainly can’t be the man who fell in love with Ed. “Buttons, would you like us to hold a memorial service for Karl?”

“But where’s your daemon, man?” Pete calls. He steps in front of Lucius, hand going to the knife on his belt. “You really are a witch?”

“Of course he is,” Frenchie says.

Stede can hear the oars slapping the water down below; Ed’s leaving, but he’s somehow got to care about witches?

“Aye, Captain,” Buttons says. “Tomorrow morning at daybreak. He was my daemon’s mate, you see.”

Stede doesn’t know what that means; his own daemon is still huddled against his breast, miserable and very much mateless. “I’m so sorry to hear that,” he says. “Daybreak tomorrow it is, then. I’m going to bed.”

He doesn’t register the journey back to his cabin. One minute he’s on deck, the next he’s at the great sweeping windows that look out the back of the ship, sitting on the sill and curling his knees up to make himself small. He can see the dinghy bobbing in the moonlight, Ed and Jack’s shapes sitting facing each other. Stede thinks with a combination of misery and triumph that of course they won’t go ashore, since Ed wants everyone to believe that his daemon is the kraken.

His spyglass is on the window ledge. He can’t resist opening it and looking out at them, just in time to see Jack pass Ed a bottle of rum.

“Stede, this is awful,” Charis moans, shoving their head up out of the neck of Stede’s robe. “Awful.”

Stede watches Ed take a drink, head tipped back in the moonlight, his neck moving as he swallows, then hand the bottle back to Jack. Ed’s mouth - on the bottle - and now Jack’s -

“Charis,” Stede says, needing to tell someone this, and it’s mortally embarrassing, so it might as well be his own soul. “You know my, ah, my wife? Mary?”

“I know how you feel about her,” Charis says.

“That’s nice,” Stede mutters. “I don’t.”

Charis butts Stede’s chin with the top of their head. “Guilty,” they say. “You feel guilty.”

Stede raises the spyglass again, looks out at the dinghy again. Ed’s back is to him now. He wishes he could see Ed’s face. Jack’s stupid mustache is blowing in the breeze.

“Tell me,” Charis says quietly. “The thing about Mary.”

“We had a massive fight many years ago,” Stede says, remembering it perfectly: how she’d been sitting on the couch and him in his armchair, her phone displaying Louis on his baby monitor propped open on the coffee table, how she’d crossed her arms over her chest like she wanted to shut him out in every way she could. “We were watching a movie, I don’t even remember what, a silly comedy, I think, but someone got their heart broken. And their response was ridiculous, I said. Completely over the top. Crying and lying in bed all day. Well, I criticized the writing. And Mary looked right at me and said, ‘Wouldn’t you feel like this if I left you?’”

Charis clicks their beak. “Stede, please tell me you lied.”

Stede watches Ed turn back, his hair glinting silver-white under the moon, his beautiful features in sharp relief in the cold light. “I didn’t know it could feel like this,” he says quietly, and presses the spyglass eyepiece harder against his face to stop himself from crying.

“Me either,” Charis says, nuzzling into Stede’s neck. “Can you see Kahu?”

Stede scans around Ed’s beard and neck. “No.”

“Let me look.”

He moves the spyglass down so Charis can press one beady eye against it. “Does that work?” he asks.

“If I close the other.” There’s a little pause, and then Charis says, “Ugh, Beatrix is slithering everywhere over there.”

“Not touching Ed?” Stede demands, going to grab the spyglass back, but Charis hooks a claw around it and holds on.

“No, no, of course not.”

“Well, you touched Ed -”

“Someone raised in this world would never break that taboo,” Charis says. “And, by the way, I touched Ed because you threw me at Ed!”

“Yes, well,” Stede says, now trying to pry up Charis’s (ridiculously strong!) claw, “you liked it.”

“You liked it too.”

Stede remembers the feel of realizing Ed was holding Charis and full body shivers. Charis chirps and nudges him and he takes the opportunity to get the spyglass back. Ed and Jack seem to be bedding down in the dinghy for the night, having anchored it in the shallow bay some way Stede can’t see. He watches Ed shift around, curled up on the bench. Jack is on the bench opposite but the perspective is weird and Stede can’t tell if they’re touching or not.

He hears the cabin door open. Charis cranes their neck around his shoulder and reports, “Olu and Ade.”

“Cap, do you mind if we sleep in here? There’s nowhere good on deck.”

Stede waves a hand in the direction of Olu’s voice and squints as hard as he can. What if - shit - what if Ed and Jack were to - well, of course he’d put the spyglass down. He feels sick at the thought and preemptively puts the spyglass down anyway, because he respects Ed, he respects him too much to spy on him if he and Jack were -

But it would be best just to know, right? Just to be aware?

“Yes,” Charis says, “yes it would. Because then we’d know.”

Stede raises the spyglass again, thinking firmly that if he sees them start to do anything at all that is more than friendly, he won’t look again. At least not until morning.

But Ed and Jack are not doing anything of the sort. Ed is staring right at the Revenge, eyes up as if looking at the cabin window. Jack appears to be sound asleep already, flat on his back with his legs hanging over the edge either side of the oarlock. Stede imagines he can hear him snoring.

Time passes; the dinghy doesn’t seem particularly comfortable, because Ed keeps shifting around, but he does eventually fall asleep. Charis will periodically try to look out the spyglass and Stede will let them, but even though they claim they can see Kahu, Stede can’t. The sky lightening at dawn makes things easier to see, and then Ed and Jack wake, Jack first, then Ed, because Jack is whipping at the surface of the water, spraying it everywhere.

“That salt water can’t be good for his beard,” Stede tsks.

“Captain,” Olu says, and what a good, loyal crewmember he is, patiently responding to Stede’s running commentary, “you’ve gotta let this go.”

“I’m not holding onto anything but the spyglass,” Stede points out. “And I’m even letting Charis hold it sometimes, you know.”

Ade makes one of her strange goat noises, a bit like a moan.

“Do you think Jack’s good looking?” Stede asks Olu. “He’s got that awful mustache. And that silly snake - trying to be threatening. He’s just a clown.”

“Cap, seriously -”

Stede hears the door open, and some other voices, but now Ed and Jack are once again sharing a bottle of rum, and the intimacy of passing it between their mouths is making Stede feel ill.

“I haven’t seen Kahu since Jack’s been awake,” Charis murmurs.

“You wouldn’t, would you?” Stede replies, but it does bolster him to know that Jack doesn’t know everything about Ed.

(Though, his mind traitorously supplies, he does know certain things about Ed that Stede doesn’t, and that it seems impossible Stede ever will at this rate.)

Lucius arrives at his side, and manages to get the spyglass away from him, despite Charis baring their beak at Patrick. Lucius and Patrick are remarkably brave this morning, Stede thinks. They’re also, he has to admit, remarkably kind. He knows he’s being ridiculous, but it turns out that heartbreak hurts so very much.

That’s what this is, of course. He’s heartbroken. For the first time in his life, he’s heartbroken, and it’s over a man, who is an infamous pirate to everyone else, but to Stede is the dearest companion of his heart.

Ed. Ed, who’s out there with Jack ,and what is he doing -

“Nope nope nope,” Lucius says, folding up the spyglass and passing it to Olu. “Do we think this is more of a break, or a rupture with Blackbeard?”

Stede, hollow with exhaustion and despair, drops his head back against the wall. “I think it’s done.”

***

We had to. You know we had to, Ed thinks at Kahu. They were always going to see us. We’re lucky it lasted this long.

He hears nothing back, at least not in words; Kahu’s refused to speak to him since the moment he dropped into the dinghy. But he can feel a layer of simmering resentment at the back of his mind. She’s furious with him, and under the fury he can feel her desperate ache for Charis.

Fine, sulk if you want, he thinks in frustration. He wonders if she’ll attack him again. Next time we do things my way, I said we should have left days ago, but you said we should stay and now here we are and Stede knows we almost got one of his crew fucking killed, he’ll never -

Cold seawater splashing over the back of Ed’s head shocks him out of the thought. He turns back to glare at Jack, who’s grinning, his hand in the water. “What’s wrong, Eddie, you still thinking about your prissy girlfriend? You haven’t quit staring at that boat since we left.”

“Fuck off, man,” Ed grumbles. Jack’s always a prick, of course, but sometimes he’s really a prick.

“Jack,” Trixie hisses softly from where she’s looped lazily through the oarlock, and maybe that’s the two of them finally reading the fucking room for once, because Jack switches tactics and says, “Don’t be a downer, Eddie. Dinghy’s not going to take us far, but Blackbeard and Calico Jack don’t need any fucking cannons to take a ship. Soon as somebody sails by, I’ll sneak Trixie onboard and they’ll all drop dead of poison before they know what hit them.”

After the last few weeks with Stede, Ed had almost forgotten how exhausting it was to pretend all the time. He doesn’t have the energy to act like he totally believes Trixie is some sort of assassin dripping deadly poison from her fangs when he’s never seen her assassinate so much as a cabin boy in all the raids they’ve been on together. “Sure they will,” Ed mutters.

For some reason that’s what finally gets a response out of Kahu. Maybe if you ever let me meet Trixie, she’d have told us the truth too, says her sullen voice in Ed’s mind. Maybe we’d have had real friends twenty years ago. Maybe we’d still have real friends right now.

If I let you? Ed thinks. I’m not stopping you. Couldn’t stop you with Charis, could I? Didn’t ask me for fucking permission. If you’re so fucking sure it’s a good idea, come on out. Say hi. Tell Jack your name. See if I care.

It’s a low blow, because Ed knows perfectly well Kahu’s not about to call his bluff, and she doesn’t. The presence in the back of his mind sinks back into resentful silence.

Jack’s looking sharply at him. Ed is really not in the fucking mood to play along with this bullshit. “Come on, man,” he says. “How long we been sailing together? We both know that’s not how it fucking works. Nobody ever gets fucking poisoned.”

Jack freezes suddenly, and Trixie has pulled herself up suddenly into a tight coil, tail pointed straight up and trembling. “The fuck are you talking about, Eddie,” Jack says slowly.

“Listen, man, it’s fine,” Ed sighs. “Not every snake’s a fucking cobra. Doesn’t make any fucking difference to me, bro.”

A long pause, and then Jack chuckles, slowly, not his normal easy laugh but the one he always does when he’s nervous. “Aww, Eddie, I get it,” he says. “Worried about the kraken down there, right? Gotta be rough, stuck in a dinghy when you can’t leave the sea. Don’t worry, man, I’m not going to leave you out here if we see land. All for one, huh?”

His voice is light, almost gentle by Jack’s standards, but his eyes are sharp and alert and never leave Ed’s. “Unless your little daemon’s not worried about staying in the water. Maybe she’ll fly away instead.”

He says it like it’s a joke, like he always says everything. But of course Jack knows perfectly well there’s no fucking kraken. Ed had honestly kind of forgotten, it’s not like they ever talk about it. But Jack was there long before the kraken story. Ed can’t even remember now what he told Jack his daemon was when they first met as boys, but it sure wasn’t any fucking mythical creature. They used to hang out by the docks together on shore leave, Jack knows Ed can walk on land whenever he pleases, near the water if nothing else. And he clearly suspects more than that.

Little. He might not know just what she is, but Jack’s a lot smarter than he looks, and he’s been around long enough to guess where Kahu must be hiding. Jack knows, and he’s reminding Ed that if Ed spills his secret - even here, alone - Jack can spill Ed’s.

Ed ought to be angry, or scared. But all he can summon is a sort of disgusted pity. Aren’t you tired? he wants to say. We’ve been doing this for so long, man. You’ve got to be tired like I am.

Maybe Jack is tired, maybe he’s just not ready to admit it, like Ed wasn’t, before - before Stede and Charis. If Ed were as brave as Stede, and if Jack weren’t Jack, maybe Ed would be able to say something that would make him feel ready, let him know it was all right. They could be real friends, like Kahu said. If they could just fucking talk to each other.

But he looks Jack in the eyes and knows that’s not happening today.

“We’re in this together, man, just like always,” Jack goes on. “When I heard you’d shacked up with some fop walking around with a parrot daemon, pretending like he’s a pirate -”

Ed goes cold suddenly. “Nobody fucking knew about Charis,” he interrupts. “They were saying the Gentleman Pirate didn’t have any daemon. Where the fuck did you hear that? Who told you?” But Ed already knows as the question leaves his mouth.

Jack grins a snakey grin. He looks just like Trixie sometimes. “Took you long enough. The old Blackbeard would’ve seen me coming a mile away,” he chuckles slowly. “Izzy Hands sent me. Couldn’t shut up about that annoying-ass parrot, going on about how he’d stuff a pillow with the feathers. But he wanted me to get you out of here before the Imperium showed up.”

Ed’s head snaps up and of course, of course the Imperium ships are there on the horizon, closing in on the Revenge, which sits helpless in Blind Man’s Cove.

There’s the anger, hot and sudden behind Ed’s eyes.

He snaps the oar over his knee in one swift motion, sees Jack actually flinch away as Trixie dives into his shirt. “Real mature,” Jack snorts, laughing nervously again, trying to play it cool. “That was our only - hey, what the fuck?”

Jack’s eyes aren’t on Ed’s anymore, they’re focused a little below, and it takes Ed a moment to realize what he’s looking at.

“Fuck this and fuck him,” says Kahu, shaking herself off as she climbs over to Ed’s shoulder. She doesn’t look at Jack. “Our friends need us, Ed. I’m going to be there. Come with me or don’t.” Ed opens his mouth to say something and before he can manage a thing she’s in the air, out of his reach, flying for the Revenge.

Jack is frozen in place but Trixie sticks her head out of his collar to stare at them. “The fuck’s she even talking about?” Ed hears her hiss into Jack’s ear. “What kind of pirates have -”

The blinding pain of Kahu reaching the edge of their bond drowns out the rest of it, a feeling like she’s yanking a leash anchored in his chest. Ed half-dives-half-topples into the sea after her and then he’s swimming for his life, toward Kahu, toward Charis, toward Stede.

Chapter Text

“The teal, I think,” Charis suggests. 

“Yes,” Stede agrees. He carefully removes his favorite suit from its hangers and dresses, taking comfort in the ornate ritual of putting on the (to him) antique clothing, its many layers and buttons and bows, ending with Charis gently holding the jacket up with their beak so he can slide his arms through it. 

“Do you want something?” he asks when he’s done. 

Charis looks suddenly shy, but Stede can feel their desire to be included. He offers them a black ribbon and suggests, “Around your neck?” 

“Like Ed’s,” Charis says, which hurts but also, yes, like Ed’s. Stede carefully loops it around the kea’s densely feathered shoulders and ties it in a neat bow, not too tight. Charis takes experimental flight with it, then flutters down to the wardrobe, where they use their beak and claws to arrange the ribbon neatly on their plumed chest. “Yes, I like this very much.” 

Stede’s struck by how easy it is to feel sympathy for himself when personified (kea-sonified? avianified?) as Charis. It’s ok to feel miserable right now, isn’t it? But he did what he had to do - he’s the captain, and he couldn’t let Jack get away with hurting his crew. 

He goes to find Buttons. The man is still nude, seated with legs dangling over the prow of the ship by the carved unicorn that Stede has always thought of as their figurehead but that his crew refers to as the Revenge’s daemon. Beside him is a seagull - not Karl, Stede guesses, though he privately thinks he can’t tell one from another. 

(Seagulls are much less individually distinctive than keas!)

“Buttons, would you like us to hold a memorial for Karl?” he asks. 

Buttons draws in a mucusy breath. “Aye, Captain, that would be nice.” He glances back at Stede - his eyes are red-rimmed, his hair wilder than normal - and nods to the seagull.  “This is Olivia. My daemon.” 

“Olivia,” Stede says. “I’m terribly sorry for your loss.” 

Charis flies to the railing and settles beside her, a show of solidarity. She shifts on her feet and says in a soft, lilting voice, “We’ve put a hex on the bastard that did it.” 

Stede sees Charis rotate their head in the direction of the dinghy; it’s still visible on the horizon, the two shapes in it clearly having a conversation. Ed is facing away from them, his figure in silhouette from the rising sun; Jack is facing them, rowing. “He deserves it,” Stede says. “I’ll leave you to it, but we’ll do the memorial after breakfast.” 

Buttons nods as he and Olivia return to glaring at the dinghy. Charis alights on Stede’s shoulder, a comforting weight as they walk to the main deck. 

The rest of the crew is there, of course. He consciously turns his back on the view of Ed and Kahu receding into the distance with Jack and Beatrix. Then he starts trying to impose some order on them, until Alaire suddenly shoots off of Frenchie’s shoulder. Her white, black, and blue wings catch a thermal, and she rockets up above the ship, then just as fast dives back down to him. 

“Imperium ships!” she cries. “Big ones!” 

Stede spins and stares out over the water. The Revenge, Ed’s dinghy, and three enormous Imperium ships form a triangle in the brilliant teal water around Dead Man’s Cove. 

“Oh, fuck!” Charis hisses. 

He can hear his crew panicking around him, but Stede, somehow, always manages to stay calm and focused in a crisis. He’s still got the telescope - just in case they needed to look for Ed and Kahu, of course - and now he pulls it out of his pocket. He scans the largest Imperium ship as Charis settles on his shoulder. 

He spots a bald headed man, clearly in charge based on how the rest of the people on deck are looking towards him - and then the man turns and Stede’s blood runs cold. 

Standing on the Imperium ship, dressed in a naval officer’s uniform, is Nigel’s identical twin brother, Chauncey Badminton. They’d been inseparable at school, dual bullying voices that play instantly in Stede’s head on a loop of “Baby Bonnets.” 

“Chauncey’s there,” he mutters, terse, as a series of thoughts run through his head: Ed. The computer from his - and Chauncey’s world. Ed. Chauncey. Ed. And - 

He looks behind himself, sees Olu staring open-mouthed close by, and demands, “Where’s Jim?” 

Olu blinks at him. “Are you serious right now?” 

“Are they below deck?” Stede asks, thinking they can get into one of the secret passages and wait this out. “The Imperium -” 

“Jim’s been gone for over a week!” Olu snaps, Ade stamping her front hooves on the deck with an audible clack clack.  

“Huh,” Stede says. Well. At least Jim’s safe. He returns to scanning the big ship just in time to watch a line of people dressed in long, shapeless robes step to the railing, raise their hands, and begin incanting something. Stede can’t make it out, just see them moving their mouths in unison. 

“Olu?” he asks.

“Captain, we’ve got to -”

Stede holds out his telescope. “Look at the deck of the biggest ship. There’s these people lining the railing -”

“What, are they readying the cannons?” Olu mutters, but he accepts the telescope, looks across the water through it, then passes it back to Stede. “Sea witches. Doing some kind of spell.” 

“Sea witches? Like Buttons?”

“Yeah, but like, evil. Buttons is kind of… beyond conventional morality. Not all sea witches are.” 

Stede keeps watching them do their curious chant as the water below their ship begins churning ominously. Without looking away from the telescope, he asks, “What the devil are they doing?” 

Charis makes a strangled noise, then lifts off Stede’s shoulder with rather more claw than he thinks is necessary - he feels a sudden wild joy in his heart just as he hears a clattering like someone’s coming up the ladder - so he turns, lowering the telescope, just as Ed hauls himself over the the railing. 

He’s drenched and panting hard, his long hair hanging around his face and his leathers sodden, but he makes full eye contact with Stede as he says, “They’re using their shark daemons to hunt for my kraken.” 

***

Ed feels like he’s buzzing, a kind of anxiety that’s looped all the way around to feeling nearly exultant, like the opposite of how he felt when Stede dueled Izzy. The pull of Kahu moving away from him has eased; she’s settled on the rigging next to Charis, relief and a fierce joy running down her bond with Ed, and with everything going on, nobody’s noticed that she’s even there. 

With that settled, all Ed can see is the terrible bright clarity of the situation they’re in. He considers and discards a dozen plans in an instant. The Imperium’s serious about this, they’ve sent fully-armed frigates, and the sea witch squad means these are professional Blackbeard hunters, not whoever happened to be on patrol. There’s no sailing out of Blind Man’s Cove under these conditions once you’re spotted, and they have been. If you can’t run you fight, if you can’t fight you surrender, and that turns one problem into a new problem, but that’s all right, a new problem means new opportunities. Bide your time, watch the pieces shift around, wait for an opening. This isn’t good, but Ed’s in his element, and Stede, Stede is here beside him.

Beside him as they run up the white flag, beside him as they’re thrown onto the deck with their hands bound behind their backs, beside him as Ed reaches out one boot and taps it against Stede’s shoe. None of it can be that bad, really, as long as he’s with Stede.

The leader of the Imperium goons is balding, which is the only way Ed can tell him apart from the rest of them. He’s accompanied, of course, by Izzy, who has the grace to look ashamed when he meets Ed’s eyes. Hector is barely visible on his shoulder, withdrawn as far into his shell as he can get.

As Ed’s pulled up to his feet, watching a pair of raccoon daemons shove poor Charis’ head into a falconer’s hood, he can hear the guy in a fearsome row with the head witch. “It’s retreated into the deep, where our daemons can’t follow. The pressure’s too great,” she’s insisting. “We’ll see it if it comes up, but the kraken moves swiftly. There will be only a moment’s warning. We cannot act until we’ve located it.”

“Ooh, the kraken," the bald dickhead sneers, and then, inexplicably, turns to address Stede. “These yokels and their superstitions. Can’t imagine how they ever accomplished anything if they’re this afraid of a large squid.” 

He looks back over at the witch. “The ship’s not in any danger,” he tells her condescendingly, as though he’s speaking to an unusually stupid child. “If you can’t see it, we must have frightened it away. Once we execute them -”

“We will not execute them,” she insists, and now the witch is pitching her voice up for the rest of the soldiers to hear. “If Blackbeard’s life is in immediate danger, the kraken will have nothing to lose, and it will capsize this vessel. I do not authorize it.” 

Ed’s kind of fuzzy on how the chain of command works here, but he knows there’s always tension between witches and soldiers; Baldy’s commander of this mission, but the witches can overrule him on their area of expertise and it sounds like the kraken is in that area. That’s great, that’ll buy them some time, enough for Ed to figure out a way to get them all -

And then the bald commander says, “I don’t have time for this. We’ll deal with Blackbeard later.” He gestures to the two guards holding Stede, and looks him right in the eyes, grinning very unpleasantly. “Bonnet first.”

That’s - wait - they can’t - what - why - Ed feels like he just took a step forward and found the deck giving way beneath him. 

Everything feels horribly distant for a moment. He sees a blur of motion around him as the soldiers step forward, tie a blindfold over Stede’s eyes, stand him in front of the railing, ready their guns. Charis is screaming and thrashing as the raccoons hold them down. 

Ed can’t seem to move. Somewhere in the far distance he can hear Izzy’s voice, something about loyalty. It doesn’t matter. They’re going to kill Stede. They’re going to kill Stede in front of him.

He finds himself looking involuntarily up at Kahu, huddled inconspicuously on the rigging above him. He spent so long hiding her, so much effort over all those long years, keeping the most vulnerable part of him secret and safe, and now here he is feeling like his heart’s outside his body with a row of bayonets pointed at it anyway. What was the point of any of it, if this can still happen?

They want Blackbeard, everybody wants Blackbeard, the Gentleman Pirate shouldn’t be - Ed can feel there’s an answer to a riddle here, something Stede said earlier, something about a run-in with the Imperium, but thinking about the whys at a time like this is a trap, Ed knows that, wondering about why this is happening is just a distraction from the important thing, which is what to do about it. 

As soon as he puts it like that, the fog clears and he sees his route already charted. The tactician in him knows a puzzle with only one solution when it sees one. 

Ed steps in front of the bayonets and says, “I’ll call off the kraken for Bonnet’s life.”

***

A sudden kind touch - a grazing cup of his cheek before gentle fingers slide under his blindfold and lift it away - and then Ed’s there, right in front of him, eyes wide, dark, frightened - and brimming with something else, something deep and full of meaning that cuts through Stede’s overwhelming fear. 

“I’ve got you,” Ed says, voice low, clearly speaking just for Stede to hear, as he reaches around Stede’s back and undoes the rope binding his wrists. 

“Ed.” Stede’s light-headed with Charis’s desire to escape their sack, but he manages to whisper, following Ed’s lead, keeping his voice low too. “What are you doing?” 

“Making sure we live to the next step,” Ed whispers back, fierce. 

Stede shakes out his tingling hands and feels sick. Ed’s saving his life at the expense of his own. “Ed -” 

Chauncey’s cold voice cuts him off. “And why exactly would you do this?” 

Stede’s attention snaps to Chauncey, standing several feet in front of him, furious, red-faced, practically spitting, with a hand on the hilt of his sword. Ed turns away, towards Chauncey, but his hand stays, sliding up Stede’s arm before landing on his shoulder. 

For a horrible second, Stede thinks Chauncey might attack Ed, but then he shakes his head as if mastering his emotions. “Why,” he asks again, “would you spare Bonnet’s life?” 

Why, indeed? Stede wonders, a cold, miserable nausea fluttering in his stomach. 

“Why do you care?” Ed spits back, fingers tightening where he’s holding the space between Stede’s shoulder and neck. 

Stede has a sudden, wild vision of reaching up, clasping Ed’s hand, just as he hears a tremendous squawking and screeching. By the capstan, Charis breaks free of the raccoons and the sack, flinging the latter to the deck as they slash at the former with their claws - wings spread wide, rainbow glinting in the sun - Stede’s heart leaps with the same deep feeling as when he’d met Ed’s eyes a moment ago - then he sees Kahu creep up Ed’s back and duck under his long hair into the hidden space of his collar, and realizes that she must have bitten through the string holding the sack in place. 

Charis settles on Stede’s other shoulder and immediately begins preening their ruffled feathers. Stede tries to help, because the feeling of Charis’s feathers being disordered is contributing to that sick feeling in his own stomach. Ed squeezes his shoulder again and Stede wishes wildly that he could lay a hand on Kahu, cup her protectively in his palms, spirit them all away from here before Ed has to answer the question Chauncey is currently gnawing on like a dog with a bone. 

“I care,” Chauncey says, waving a hand to halt the soldiers’ raccoon daemons who are warily advancing despite blood flowing freely from fresh claw gouges on one of them, “because Bonnet is nothing. A nobody.” 

“He’s our captain, actually,” Lucius calls from where they’ve gathered the crew by the main cabin entrance. Stede, Ed, and Chauncey all look at him and Patrick scurries behind Sealy’s silvery bulk. “I mean, if that’s important,” Lucius adds, voice faltering. 

“Thank you, Lucius,” Stede says, and that sick feeling that had faded with Charis’ return recedes completely. “Very kind.” 

Chauncey advances a step closer; Stede can feel the tension in Ed’s body through his hand, can feel how Charis is a coiled ball of energy too, and he forces himself to hold very, very still, to be strong for them both. He thinks he can feel Kahu’s eyes on him through Ed’s hair. 

“Bonnet is playing at being captain,” Chauncey says, voice quiet and measured, as still as the air before a thunderstorm. “What he is, is a coward and a fool who has no right to this ship.” 

“He’s my co-captain,” Ed replies, voice just as quiet and measured. “Equal to me.” 

Stede feels as incredulous as Chauncey sounds when his lip curls and he scoffs, “You can’t be serious.” 

One of the witches - Stede thinks she’s the one in charge - steps close to Chauncey, but she keeps her eyes on Ed. “Admiral,” she says, “it doesn’t matter. We’ve got Blackbeard.” She gestures at Stede. “You’re right - who cares if we spare his life too?”

Stede cares, actually, but he suspects it’s best not to say so. He looks to Ed instead, to see how he’s taking this - Blackbeard, the great pirate, brought low by his association with Stede. Ed is watching the conversation with those eyes of his, brow slightly pinched, like he’s still worried; his thumb is pressed insistently into Stede’s collarbone. Stede makes the decision - Ed touched him first - and reaches up to briefly press the palm of his hand into the back of Ed’s. Ed glances at him, and Stede feels that look again, the depth of it. He does his best to return it. 

“I don’t care about your stupid superstitions,” Chauncey is snarling at the witch. “You think he controls some kind of mythical sea monster? You truly think that?” 

“Stede,” Charis murmurs in his ear. “Izzy.” 

Stede sees Ed’s former first mate - the man who sold them out - is watching them from across the deck with narrowed eyes. Izzy could tell them all about Kahu, so Stede glares back at him, daring Izzy to call him out as he says to Chauncey, “Blackbeard’s daemon is real. I’ve seen her. The kraken, I mean.”  

Izzy looks away, Hector silent as always at his feet. 

“I think that settles it,” the witch says. “We’ll be taking you both.” 

“That does not settle it!” Chauncey snaps. 

“What do you want us to do?” the witch demands. 

“Isn’t there the device?”

“It’s a physical object!” the witch says, throwing her hands up. “I couldn’t fit a single tentacle of his kraken into it, let alone bring down the blade!” 

“But that horrible parrot -” 

Stede glances at Ed, trying to see if he knows what this discussion means, but he looks just as confused as Stede feels. Either way, the witch is shaking her head. “We’re taking them both. We’ll deal with them in our own way. Not the Imperium’s insistence upon severing.” 

“Bonnet’s from my world, not yours!” Chauncey shouts. “I deserve the right to decide -”

“Actually, Admiral, you don’t,” says another officer, a little man with a rat daemon perched on his shoulder. “The witches have domain over, er, difficult daemon situations. Which this is, given Blackbeard’s kraken.” 

Chauncey looks on the verge of a volcanic explosion, but the witch ignores him completely, beckoning Stede and Ed to come with her. 

Stede doesn’t know where they’re going, and they don’t give him a chance to get any of his things out of the cabin, so he hopes that Lucius had the sense to cover up that computer even though he won’t know what it is. The witches take Stede and Ed  to their own ship, a sleek, long sailboat that resembles a racing greyhound beside the lumbering mastiffs of the Imperium fleet, and leave them inside a small but well-appointed room. 

“What’ll they do with us?” Stede asks Ed, who’s been silent since they left the Revenge. 

“They’ve got a floating city not too far from where we are,” Ed says. “Probably take us there, at least while they decide what to do with us. They respect the threat of the kraken.” He crosses the room in three steps and sinks down onto its sole couch. Kahu emerges immediately, crawling out of his collar and onto his bare arm, curling into the crook of his elbow. Charis flies off Stede’s shoulder and lands on the couch beside them, head twisted towards the door. 

“I’ll tell you if I hear them coming,” they say to Kahu. 

Stede sits on the couch too. Ed’s close enough that he could put out his hand and rest it on his thigh, a thought that preoccupies him even as he says, “Thank you, Ed.” 

Ed’s staring down at Kahu, brow furrowed. “For what?”

Stede does reach for Ed’s thigh then, and, feeling bold, gives it a quick pat. “You saved my life.” 

“I almost got you killed,” Ed replies. He slumps back against the couch and puts his hand flat on the cushion between them. “Trusting Jack was fucking stupid.” 

Stede meets Charis’s eyes; well, yes, it was, wasn’t it? Horrible man. But - “He used to be your friend, Ed. You’re very trusting.” 

Ed sits up so fast he makes Kahu flap her wings and let out a little peep . “I’m trusting?" he repeats, staring at Stede. 

“I mean, you’ve always trusted me,” Stede points out. With a pang, he thinks of all the things he hasn’t told Ed - about Mary and the children, about who he was in the world he came from, about how small his life had been before he came to this world. He thinks that maybe he should. 

Ed blinks several times, then shakes his head like he can’t quite believe what Stede’s saying. His hand, Stede is very aware, is still resting between them, almost an invitation for Stede to take it. 

Charis hops over and settles between them; Stede sees Ed’s fingers flex like he wants to pet Charis and he thinks, oh Ed please, I wish you would, before they hear footsteps in the hall. Kahu withdraws into Ed’s sleeve and Ed stands, so Stede stands too, heart pounding. 

Charis settles on his shoulder as one of the witches pushes the door open and says, “We’re not moving too fast for your kraken, I trust?”

Ed raises an eyebrow. “She can keep up, don’t worry."

The witch nods, then squints at him. She’s young and has a curious, open expression on her face. “You don’t look nearly as scary as I thought you would. Mr. Blackbeard, sir.” 

“I don’t need to look scary, do I?” Ed asks. “Not when she," and here he points down, “is always with me.” 

In the shadow of Ed’s neck, Stede sees Kahu’s soft ears and the flash of her eyes, and for the first time he fully appreciates the toll that slipping in and out of the Blackbeard persona takes on Ed - always having to wrap himself in armor, to hide away his true self.   

Rather like Stede himself had done before he came to this world. 

“Could we have some tea?” he asks the witch, trying to take her focus off Ed. “With milk and sugar, please.” He smiles at her. “I don’t mean to order you around, so if it’s easier I could fetch it myself?” 

She looks between them, a bemused look on her face. “What a strange set of companions you are,” she says. “I’ll bring it. You are meant to stay locked in here.” 

She brings them tea service shortly. Once she’s gone, Stede insists on serving Ed - “It’s the least I can do for you, really” - and then they sit, side by side again, close enough that their knees press together with the movement of the ship. 

Ed is quiet, but seems to be in a good mood; Kahu keeps swooping over his tea and taking little sips, so Stede keeps it topped up to a good level for her. Charis makes an attempt to do the same, but the relatively small teacup circumference proves a challenge and they smack Ed in the face with their wings instead. Ed laughs, lifting his cup and saucer out of the way, turning his face into Stede’s shoulder for protection as Kahu takes flight to meet Charis and the two of them swoop and fly around the small room, darting playfully at each other. 

“I think you can sit up,” Stede says, laughing. 

Ed laughs too and doesn’t move. “Dunno, mate, they might come back.” 

“Good point,” Stede says as Kahu dive bombs his tea, Charis close behind. “You’re not worried?” he asks after a moment. 

Ed’s voice is muffled against Stede’s sleeve. “Worried?” 

“About where the witches are taking us?” 

“Nah,” Ed says. He pushes himself upright and Kahu alights on his saucer again. “Better alive than dead, right? We’ll figure it out.” 

They arrive at the witches’ floating city - a motley collection of reed-roofed buildings that resembles a marsh floating in the middle of the sea - and find themselves immediately being processed at the dock by a witch seated with a stack of thick, leather-bound books. 

“You’ve given up piracy, right?” he asks, peering up at them from his desk. 

“Yep,” Ed says easily. 

“Sure,” Stede agrees. He glances at Charis on his shoulder and thinks, Why not? This all seems rather lax. 

“If you have not,” the witch says, “then you -” he points at Stede, “will be subject to Imperium severing.” He glances at Ed. “Um.” 

“No, he won’t,” Ed says smoothly, “because he’s under my protection.” He pauses. “But just in case, what do you mean, ‘severing’?”

“Mechanically severing the bond between you and your daemon,” the witch says, and he says it so casually, so calmly, that Stede thinks - that can’t really mean like what it sounds like it means, even as Charis shifts uneasily on his shoulder.

If Stede didn’t know Ed so well, he doesn’t think he’d have noticed the pause before he says to the witch, voice just as casual and calm, “Sounds like a pretty horrible thing to do to someone. Just what I’d expect from the Imperium. But we’re done with piracy anyway.” 

Stede thinks Ed must have a plan; Ed’s always so good with plans. They’ll be out of here and back on the Revenge in no time. 

“Good,” the witch says. He takes one of the volumes and flips through it. “Teach, Edward, that’s right?”

“That’s me.” 

“And of course we’ll be recording your crimes in the Imperium’s ledger here.” 

Ed waves his hand graciously. “Of course.” 

The witch then turns to Stede. “Stede… Bonnet?” 

“That’s right,” Stede says, then realizes that he’s being looked up in the books - the Imperium ledgers? - as well. “Oh, I don’t think you’ll find a record of me in there.” 

“No record?” the witch repeats, eyebrows raised. “This is a record of everyone born in the Imperium.” 

“He was born somewhere really remote,” Ed says, stepping closer, and Stede had the impression that he’s trying to pull the witch’s attention to himself and take the pressure off of Stede. “In the far north. Probably didn’t get recorded.” 

“And family?” the witch asks, frowning, still flipping through the books. “No family?”

The words hit Stede like a hammer to the stomach. “No,” he interjects, Alma and Louis’s faces immediately in his mind. “I - I have a family.”

“They’re in the far north too,” Ed says quickly. 

The man winces. “Well, I’m making a new entry for you,” he says, but Stede barely hears him. 

Chauncey was right. He doesn’t belong in this world. 

***

Ed used to have this stupid little fantasy about running an inn, back when he was young enough to still waste time imagining how his life might have ended up if he hadn’t gone outlaw. 

He’s never stayed at an inn - not much call for Blackbeard to pay for overnight lodging even back when he went on land once in a while - but he used to run odd jobs around the one in town now and then as a kid, and he’s pretty sure he gets the concept. Innkeeper always seemed like a sweet gig: you get to walk around looking important with a big jangly set of keys hanging at your belt, and you spend your day doing little domestic tasks like folding up tablecloths all fancy, and the travelers coming in from a long day on the road are always glad to see you. 

The last part’s what always really got Ed when he was a kid, watching that innkeeper greet his guests at the door with a smile. None of them ever spit on him or shoved him around or treated him like a smear of dogshit on their shoe, but they weren’t afraid of him, either; they didn’t cower or posture to impress him. They were just happy that he was there, grateful for the service he offered. Imagine.

Anyway, it’s turned out that jail’s a bit like an inn, when you think about it. At least witch jail is. 

Granted the guests at an inn can leave whenever they want, and not being able to do that is kind of the whole thing about jail. Ed’s aware of that. But it doesn’t apply to history’s greatest tactician, does it? There’s always an escape, and it’ll be simple enough to figure it out just as soon as Ed sits down and decides to plan it out.

He’s just finding he’s not really in a hurry to do that.

It’s not that this is a great place. That whole thing about severing people from their daemons - that’s fucked. Ed’s heard the rumors before, people getting nabbed by the Imperium and turning up later placidly obedient with the light in their eyes snuffed out, daemon gone entirely in some stories, or trotting silent at their heels like a perfectly trained lapdog in the ones that are even worse. The blank look on the faces of some of the servants here now makes an awful sense. It’s not that he thought the Imperium wouldn’t do it, but he didn’t know for sure they could, and the way that one witch talked about it like it was nothing, like something they do every day - well. Ed knows a thing or two about finding there’s no line you can’t cross at the end of the day, but he doesn’t like knowing they even have the power to cross that one. 

But he and Stede are well safe from all that, or any other really fucked up shit their captors might like to pull; the kraken makes sure of that, just like she always has, and she’ll keep on keeping them safe until the time’s right to break out of here. And until then… 

He’s been so bored with piracy for so long, and it never once occurred to him that maybe the way out would be to just…turn himself in. But now here he is, not a pirate, and he spends his first morning as not-a-pirate waking up late, then drinking some strong tea with extra sugar as he strolls around the docks and makes small talk with witches, all of whom are - well, all right, they’re definitely a little afraid of him. But they’re all far less cowed by the idea of Blackbeard than any sailor he’s spoken to in years. 

Well, except for Stede. The guy’s not any old sailor.

Anyway, the rest of the day’s stretched out before him, no tasks on the docket, no raids to plan, no Izzy banging on the door. He can do whatever he likes and he has no idea what that would be. Sailing always involves long stretches of nothing to do and that used to be something Ed hated about it, used to bore him out of his skull, but this is different, exciting. He could do anything. He could do land stuff; mind, he’s not quite on land right now but a floating city is the next closest thing. He hasn’t done any land stuff in a dog’s age. What do landlubbers do, anyway? Fold things?

Well, Ed’s got an unmade bed from this morning, that’s a start. An appropriate first challenge. He’s been at it for a while and he thinks he’s almost got the tricky bit with the corners figured out when he feels eyes on the back of his head. 

He turns. It’s just Stede and Charis. Bit funny now to have someone in his life who can just walk  up behind him like this and Ed doesn’t have to worry about a knife in his back. Now he’s a guy who drinks tea and folds things and makes beds and he’s got a friend, a real one, not just someone like Jack or Mary or Annie you always have to keep one eye on - hell, even Kahu has a friend now. He remembers her fluttering around the witch ship with Charis, diving for sips of tea, and tries to imagine her playing like that with Trixie. Ridiculous. But here they are.

Charis plucks fretfully at their feathers on Stede’s shoulder. Stede is watching Ed fold neat corners, an odd look on his face. 

“So what’s the plan?” Stede asks in an eager stage whisper. Ed frowns. “For escape, I mean,” Stede adds, like it needed clarifying. “Are we going to make fake heads? Or -”

“Right, the plan,” Ed says, slowly, looking back down to the sheets. “Plan’s just to go with the flow. See what happens.” 

Stede looks - disappointed? Ed finds himself a bit uneasy, and not quite sure why; of course they’ll need to escape, eventually, but they’re here now together - can’t Stede see that’s worth taking a moment to be glad of? “Just enjoy it for a bit,” he advises. “Look at me, I’m making a bed. Who would’ve thought? Do you need anything folded?”

“Um,” Stede says after a moment, staring. Charis flaps their wings. “I don’t think so, I just - I have to go,” and nearly runs out the door. 

“You’re going to need to talk to him,” says a voice from Ed’s beard. He glances downward as Kahu crawls out and flaps onto the pillow.

“So we’re on speaking terms again now, that it?” Ed can’t help being a little bitchy. “It’s been days, man.”

“I don’t know why I need to talk if you won’t ever listen,” Kahu snaps. “If you would -”

“You bit me,” Ed blurts out. “What the fuck, man, who does that? Daemons don’t fucking do that. You’re my soul, you’re - you’re supposed to be on my fucking side. The fuck is wrong with you lately?”

“It’s what’s wrong with us, Ed, and it’s not lately, it’s been fucking years! It’s been forever!” Kahu hisses. “You’ve been hiding me for years and years, that’s not bloody normal either, is it? I don’t get to talk to anyone, or do anything, or even - even come out and let anyone see me, nobody ever sees me, nobody knows what I even am, and you never listen to me, and - I bit you to stop you from ruining the best thing that’s ever happened to us, for no fucking reason, and I shouldn’t have fucking had to!”

“That’s - fucking -” he sputters, looking down at his own soul and feeling an emotion he’s not sure how to name as she glares defiantly back up at him. She’s so small, and she’s hurt and she’s angry, nearly trembling with it, and she’s felt that way all this time, and he did that to her. Did that to himself.

And of course, of course she’s right, of course killing Stede would have been the biggest mistake of Ed’s long life of mistakes and he’s nearly breaking out in a cold sweat now thinking how close he was. He really almost did it. Fuck.

Kahu presses the advantage. “You’re right. I’m your soul, I’m on your side, even when you’re not, and I’m telling you what you need to hear.” She crawls forward. “You were going to kill him, and I stopped you, and then you were going to leave with Jack, and I stopped you, and now we’re here, with Stede and Charis, and do you wish I’d just let you do something stupid instead? Do you wish we were sitting all alone in the cabin on the Queen Anne like we used to do every single day? You think it was all better back when I let you ignore me?”

“I -” Ed’s throat is tight. “No, I don’t, you were fucking right.” He looks back involuntarily at the door Stede and Charis just disappeared through. “You’re right, they’re the best fucking thing that’s ever happened to us, I just - I didn’t want to -”

“You didn’t want to hope,” Kahu finishes bluntly. “It’s easier not to hope, it’s safer. But we’ve played it safe for so long and where’s that gotten us? We haven’t had anything worth taking this kind of risk for in a long time, Ed, maybe ever. But this, this is worth it. They’re worth it.”

“I just, I don’t know how - why Stede would - I mean, we’re us, you know?” Ed’s voice is very quiet. “I don’t know how he feels.”

“That’s because you haven’t talked to him. Not really talked,” she says. “But, Ed, I talk to Charis. I think I know how they feel.”

Ed looks at his brave little daemon, hope shining in her small black eyes. 

“All right,” he says softly. “All right, I should have listened to you. So I’m listening now, mate. What do you think I should do?”

She tells him.

***

Stede feels like he’s waking from a dream - the kind of wonderful, soft dream that you fight to get back to even as it becomes wisps of memory in the full color of reality - but the reality he’s waking into doesn’t feel like reality either. 

He’d left his family, his wife and his children, and come to another universe - and he’d become a pirate - he used to be an academic, he used to write grant proposals and attend faculty meetings - and he’d somehow thought he could succeed at piracy ? He’s not a pirate, he’s an idiot! 

“Stede - what are we doing?” Charis hisses. 

Stede’s not sure what he’s - what they’re, because, shit, he’s got a daemon, a three-dimensional physical representation of his soul, right, because he’s in a parallel universe - 

“Stede!” Charis nips his ear. “Let’s stop and take some calming breaths.”

Stede does. Several deep, deep breaths, and they really do calm him, as does stroking the feathers between Charis’s wings. Because he does have a daemon, and it means he’s not alone. 

“Charis, where are we?” he asks quietly, looking around at this edge of the witch’s floating island city thing where he’d run in his panic. “And how can we find Ed and Kahu again?”

“Don’t worry,” Charis says softly. “We’ll always be able to find them.” 

Stede looks at Charis and sees the certainty in their eyes. “You’re sure?” 

Charis ruffles their feathers and plucks at a few stray ones on their wing. “What we have with them is special, Stede. No matter what.” 

Stede exhales. He doesn’t know what to do with that massive emotion, or how to even begin to talk to Ed about it, and he wishes Ed and Kahu were by their sides right now but also - “Charis, do you think we ruined their lives? Their life?” 

Charis cocks their head. “You mean because of Chauncey being after us?” 

Stede nods. “Ed was Blackbeard. And now he’s just - he’s - I think he’s trying to make me feel better -” 

Charis clicks their beak. “Which is just making us feel worse.” 

Stede takes a few more steadying breaths. “Maybe I’m the problem.” He thinks of Ed bravely speaking to Chauncey, of Ed immediately putting himself between Stede and that witch on the docks. “He said I’m his co-captain, he said we’re equals - I should do something brave for once. I should figure out how we escape from here.” 

“Good idea,” Charis says. “Want me to fly up, see what I can see?”

“Yes, please.” 

Charis takes flight, and Stede feels them go, and he thinks how very strange it is that all his life Charis was buried somewhere inside of him, intangible, but there nevertheless, and how he’d never realized it until the day he met Ed. How he’d never truly known his own soul, and how Ed’s soul had immediately appeared to keep his company. 

He’d do anything for Ed and Kahu, he thinks, as he looks around at the dock and tries to think of how to get them away from here. Anything in this world or any other, he isn’t particular, as long as they’ve got Ed and Kahu with them. 

“They won’t leave without us,” Charis says quietly, as they land on Stede’s shoulder. 

“I know,” Stede says, but that worries him too. “What did you see?” 

“We’re on the north end of the island - looks like the fishing docks. I can see what looks like a fishing fleet moving not too far away. And -” 

Stede feels Charis hesitate. “What?” he demands, instantly concerned. 

“I couldn’t see the whole island,” Charis says, “but they’ve got sharks ringed around it as far as I can see.” 

“The witch’s daemons, right?” Stede asks, frowning, until he realizes - “They think they’re keeping the kraken in.” 

“Yeah,” Charis says. “I think so too.” 

“But the kraken doesn’t exist,” Stede says, as quietly as he can. “So… they could be made to believe that she gave them the slip. If we escape I mean.” 

“Yeah,” Charis says. “That’s a good idea.” 

“Maybe create a big disturbance in the water,” Stede murmurs, turning and walking inland, hoping to see some inspiration. “A diversion.” 

“Hey! Are you one of the prisoners?” 

Stede freezes. A bored-looking witch sitting at a cafe table in front of a food stall is staring at them. 

“Um,” Stede says, mind completely blank. 

“You came with Blackbeard,” the witch adds. “Come on, let me buy you a drink.” 

“Maybe we can learn something useful?” Charis hisses, but they sound as doubtful as Stede feels. 

Ten minutes later, Stede is struggling through some truly atrocious herbal liqueur and trying to get information out of the witch, an older man who seems equally as interested in getting information out of Stede - but much more enthusiastic about the liqueur. 

“And his kraken.” the man asks, leaning close and breathing something like licorice left out in the sun too long onto Stede’s face, “she really won’t attack us?” 

“Not as long as Blackbeard’s wishes are respected,” Stede says. “He’s a very reasonable man, you know.” 

“Ha!” the man laughs. “Right. Blackbeard. Sure. I heard his kraken sank half the Hapsburg fleet in a storm.” He shakes his head as Stede fights down the desire to defend Ed. “It’s crazy of them to have brought him into our realm. But, our ruling council is trying to prove our usefulness to the Imperium and holding history’s greatest pirate is certainly one way to do it.” He gives Stede a keen look. “How do you know him, anyway?”

“We’re shipmates,” Stede says firmly. “And doesn’t the Imperium already know the witches are useful?” He’s at a bit of a loss about the politics of this world. He’d just seen a witch override Chauncey this morning! 

“The Imperium used to listen to us without question, but they’ve become more and more enamored with science the last few years,” the witch says. “And not good, traditional sciences, like phrenology or daemon studies.” 

Charis’s claws tighten on Stede’s shoulder. “Oh?” Stede asks, doing his best to keep his voice level even as his heart starts pounding. “What other kinds of science are there?” 

The witch points across the street, to where a woman in a long, plain grey dress is taking white sheets down from a line and carefully folding them, a blank expression on her face. “Surely you know,” the witch says, as if the woman is proof of something Stede should understand. 

Stede puts his glass to his mouth and pretends to take a drink, trying to study her. She looks like she’s a million miles away, mentally, but otherwise - 

Charis’s claws nearly puncture his skin. 

“No daemon,” Charis hisses in his ear. “And not like a witch, where the daemon could be far away. She doesn’t have one!” 

Stede thinks - is she from his world? - but he’s barely formulated that guess before the witch, seeming keen to tell him something scandalous, leans even closer and whispers, “She’s severed.” 

“Severed?” Stede repeats. Just like the witch had said this morning - mechanically separating a person and their daemon.  

“You must have heard the rumors, at least.” The witch raises his eyebrows. “Some scientists invented a device - I have no idea how, I’ve heard it requires immense power to operate - but it severs the bond between a person and their daemon. The daemon becomes just like a tame little pet, and the person isn’t troubled by rebellious thoughts anymore.” 

Charis’s claws are so sharp in his shoulder that they’re painful, but Stede finds he’s involuntarily reaching up to touch them anyway. “That’s barbaric,” he says, even as he remembers, aboard the Revenge, the strange bladed device that Ed didn’t recognize, but that had made Charis and Kahu so uneasy. 

The witch leans back in his seat. “They’re only doing it to undesirables,” he says, waving a dismissive hand. “Like former criminals.” He points. “That woman came to this island just like you did, a prisoner from the Imperium. She’d murdered her husband, said she didn’t want to be married to any man. And look at her - now she’s docile. She’s a servant. Probably folds laundry all day without a thought for anything else.” 

Stede’s mind immediately reminds him of Ed: Ed folding laundry. Of course Ed’s fine now, but if they ever find out about Kahu - she’s so tiny, someone could grab her (the thought of another’s hands on her gives him a wave of nausea), but she could easily be stuffed into a box somewhere, the soul bond between her and Ed severed, which means only the legend of the kraken is keeping Ed safe… 

No. Stede can keep Ed safe. Stede can - Stede can figure out what’s going on here. He’s uniquely equipped to do so, in fact! He’s certain the Badmintons are involved somehow - after all, their mutual world has much greater sources of power than this one, nuclear and better refining of fossil fuels and such, and he’s wondering if the laptop they found on the beach connects up to it somehow as well. They need to get off this island, and back to the Revenge, and maybe there he can figure out how to power up the laptop - Ed had had some ideas about that - and then he can better understand what’s happening. 

Stede has no idea what he says to the witch to get away from him, but a few minutes later he’s back on the docks and Charis is plucking themselves nearly bald with anxiety. He ducks behind an empty fisherman’s shack so he’s facing the sea and slumps against it, drawing his knees up to his chest and rubbing at them with his thumbs, trying to calm himself as Charis settles into the space between his stomach and thighs. 

“They’re ok,” he says to Charis. “They’re ok, and we’re going to get out of here -” 

“But this is our fault,” Charis says. “Stede, this is our fault. We put them in danger.” 

“I know that, Charis, let’s just - let’s not spiral.” Stede takes a deep, shaky breath. “I should never have come to this world.”

“Now who’s spiralling,” Charis mutters. 

“Stede?” 

Ed’s voice is such a comfort he could cry, despite the fact that he’s no closer to getting them off this island safely. He looks up as Ed plunks down beside him, crosses his legs, and lets his knee rest against Stede’s thigh. 

Charis peeps their head over Stede’s arm and gazes plaintively at Ed. 

“Kahu?” they chirp. 

The little bat appears instantly at the edge of Ed’s beard. “What’s wrong?” she asks. 

“Yeah,” Ed says, nudging Stede’s leg with his knee. “What’s wrong?” 

Stede considers telling Ed about what the witch said - about the severed woman - about the ring of sharks - about how Stede doesn’t belong in this world at all - but Ed is looking at him so sweetly that he can’t bear to share his fears. Maybe he’ll tell Ed everything later - maybe he’ll confide his fears to Ed, the way Ed confided his own to Stede in the bathtub what feels like a lifetime ago - but right now, sitting beside him, he can’t. 

“Just feeling a bit stupid,” he says, trying to downplay his panic. “It’s my fault Chauncey was after us.” 

“My first mate’s the one who sold us out,” Ed points out, which - yes, he was, wasn’t he? That makes Stede feel a bit better. 

“We’re in it together, aren’t we?” he asks, and Ed smiles at him and nods. 

Charis hops up onto his knee as Kahu settles onto Ed’s and together the four of them watch the waves. For the first time since he’d learned about the ledger, Stede feels some modicum of peace - but then he remembers the severed woman, and the panic surges back, just as Ed says, “Yeah, I reckon being here’s good for me.” 

Stede blinks, thrown. “What? Why?”

Ed shrugs. He’s still looking at the waves. “I feel like I can just be myself, for once,” he says. “Not the devil pirate Blackbeard and his evil daemon Kraken.”

Stede winces. “Don’t let any witches hear you say that.” 

Ed grins down at the dock and shakes his head. “Yeah, no shit, man. But I mean…” He trails off and Stede takes the opportunity to study his handsome profile - until he notices that Kahu is watching him, her eyes wide and sparkling. 

“What do you mean?” he prompts gently. He suddenly feels like something is in the air between them, some potential magic that he can’t define but that Ed is going to conjure any moment now. 

“I feel like I can just be Ed and his daemon Kahu, here,” Ed says, and then he pauses, long enough that Stede opens his mouth to speak, before Ed swallows and adds, “Here with you.” 

Stede’s deeply touched. “Oh, Ed, that’s so kind of you to -”

Ed moves suddenly, turns toward him and reaches for him. Stede feels Charis feel it first: Kahu launching herself at them, fur buried in feathers a moment before Ed’s mouth presses into his. 

For a long beat, none of them move, but then Charis wraps their wings around Kahu and it’s like Stede wakes from another dream, and this time reality is all he ever wanted, because the man he loves is kissing him, so Stede kisses him back. 

It’s a soft, almost-chaste kiss; Ed’s movement tentative, as if he’s asking do you want me? So Stede affirms him, tries to show that yes, I do, with my whole heart.  

When they finally separate, he takes Ed’s hand and holds it tightly in his lap. Ed is beaming at him, his happy expression evident even with his beard. 

Charis and Kahu do not separate at all, but stay snuggled close together, sitting on the dock at their feet. 

Stede hopes it can’t be a mistake that he’s in this world, because Ed’s here; meanwhile, Ed’s looking at him with his beautiful eyes like he can’t quite believe his luck. Stede sees how Charis’s wing is cupped around Kahu and raises his own arm, curving it around Ed’s shoulders, making sure to keep his eyes on Ed’s face to see if he wants this or not - and Ed grins and scoots into him, turning his head and resting it in the dip where Stede’s shoulder meets his neck, so Stede pulls him in and holds him close. 

He knows that he’s going to have to reckon with all of his fears before long, but for right now, he kisses Ed’s temple and rests his chin against Ed’s forehead and the two men and their entwined souls watch the sun fall down into the waves. 

***

Jail is fucking great, actually. Jail is so much better than the best inn Ed’s ever imagined. Why didn’t he ever go to jail before? 

All right, all right, he’s got to focus. Before they parted after the kiss he told Stede he’d figure out an escape plan. He knows it’ll be easy enough, the security at this place is really pretty shit in some ways, no discipline in the patrols at all, he’ll figure something out as soon as he can go thirty seconds without thinking of what Stede’s lips felt like. 

A witch in a broad-brimmed hat is glaring at him as he walks past them on the dock, looking irritated with him, as though they can hear his thoughts and those thoughts are really fucking annoying, annoying enough to make the witch finger a knife at their side. Ed wonders if he’s been - giggling, or skipping, or something. He’s got to get it together.

Getting hold of a boat is the first thing. A dinghy should be enough. Get out to sea, they could go anywhere - well, does it really even matter where? There’s nowhere that wouldn’t be lovely with Stede at his side, is there? The Imperium might give chase, but they’re slow and stupid and Ed’s quick and clever, just like always, with a head start they can make it someplace they’ll never be found. Cathay, maybe, that’s very far away, and it’s always sounded like a marvelous place, it’s where silk comes from, Ed raided a ship packed to the gills with bolts of Cathayan silk one time, wanted to keep some but Izzy looked at him a bit funny and it didn’t seem worth the trouble of having a row over it so Ed ended up giving orders to fence it all. Stede loves fine fabrics, in Cathay Ed could give him so many silks -

“Hey. Hey,” hisses a low scratchy voice behind him. “Tonto del culo.” 

Ed turns; it’s the witch from a minute ago, following close behind, the witch’s lizard daemon ambling after them. Ed must have - gotten in their way, or something, he doesn’t have time to deal with this, he’s got a plan to make and then Stede Bonnet to kiss a lot more times. So many more. Maybe the rest of their lives? Getting ahead of himself. 

“Sorry, mate,” he mutters, gives the witch a winning smile, and turns on his heel down an alley, not sure where he’s going - he can barely hold a map of the city in his head right now, to tell the truth, it’s all swamped by memories of Stede’s smiling eyes.

Stede kissed him back. Stede kissed him back. Stede - loves him? Ed thinks you’re not supposed to say that right away, it’s not like he’s got any experience with the kind of relationship where you ever even think about saying it at all, but he thinks you’re supposed to - wait, or something, give it some time.   

But what’s there to wait for? Ed’s gotten this far in life by always knowing when’s the moment to strike, you can’t wait forever, you move when the time’s right. This was the time. He loves Stede. If this isn’t love, then what is? And he thinks Stede loves him. If nothing else Stede must think he could love Ed, or he wouldn’t have kissed back, not like that, wouldn’t have looked at him like that. There’s been something growing between them all this time, and Ed knows it’s real now, and he knows in his gut that Stede feels it too. Stede thinks he’s lovable, and that’s - that’s impossible, but Stede wouldn’t be wrong about that. If Stede thinks it then it must be true. Ed must be someone who’s possible to love. Even for someone like Stede. Stede could love him. 

He does, Kahu thinks in the back of his mind. Charis does. Ed, thank you, thank you for listening, we finally did it, finally.

When they make it to Cathay they can build a house and live there together, a little cottage, thatched roof, flowers out front like people grow on land. Maybe they’ll even get land jobs, or something. They can grow food in a garden, or fish, or - run an inn, even, they can build the house big with extra rooms and invite guests and be innkeepers together, Stede will greet the guests at the door, Charis perched there upon the front desk, and Ed will fold linen tablecloths and regale the guests with stories and they’ll listen with no fear and at the end of the night they’ll all retire to their rooms and Ed and Stede will retire to their own big soft bed and there he’ll kiss his husband silly, and fall asleep in his arms, all night, every night, and then wake up to do it all again the next day, and it’ll never get old, not in ten thousand thousand days and nights like that, not with Stede and Charis there.

A hand grabs him roughly by the shoulder and spins him around.

“Blackbeard!” whisper-shouts the same witch from before. “Fucking pay attention! It’s me!”

Ed looks them in the eye, really looks at something besides Stede’s face in his mind’s eye for the first time since the kiss on the dock.

It takes him a moment. Stede’s crew, the one they all thought -

“Jim?”

***

Jim and Tizona took the hard way here: Jim rowed the dinghy all the way from the Republic of Pirates while Tizona sat in the prow, tongue flicking and head swinging from side to side to scent the way to the witches’ city. 

The smell of this place makes Tizona feel sick. 

They can fuck with some witches - Jim’s nana used to host Las Brujas de Los Cuchillos every other year at the convent for a retreat - but these witches give them the ick. Fucking Imperium collaborators instead of being wild and free with their daemons - yeah, fuck them. This is definitely a last resort situation, spurred on by the drunken sailor who came into Jackie’s bar the last night they were there and spilled to everyone that Izzy Hands had just sold out Blackbeard (and some other guy, blond guy, Steve something, they had learned after pressing him) (Jim pressing him literally, in the alley, with a knife, while Tizona kept watch). 

So that means Olu and Ade are stuck aboard the Revenge with, presumably, now-Captain Izzy Hands, ex-Siete Gallo, and Tizona can feel Jim’s heart start racing every time they imagine that furious little man giving their beloved Olu orders. Tizona can admit what Jim still won’t: Olu is their anchor, the person they’ll keep coming back to no matter what, because they’re adrift without him and Ade. 

So. Tizona talked Jim down from blind rage. Leroy and Tizona had shared a lot of meaningful looks when Jackie counseled Jim that giving in to that kind of emotion would kill them. Together they decided that they need to spring their actual captains out of witch prison so they can take back the Revenge. 

Now they’ve managed to sneak onto the floating island city - under cover of darkness, and it hadn’t been fucking easy, luckily Tizona’s got a killer sense of smell - and they’ve managed to find one of their captains, and the more useful one at that, except he’s actually being completely fucking useless right now. 

“Hey, Jim,” Blackbeard says, and smiles all big. Not even in a scary way. In like a… happy way? ( The fuck? Tizona thinks.) “It’s so good to see you, mate.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Jim hisses while Tizona stares at him. This man always makes them feel off-kilter - there’s something about never having seen his daemon that feels wrong - but Jim is too focused on Olu to do anything more than gesture with one hand and say, “C’mere. Talk to me in this alley.” 

“Yeah, sure, great idea,” Blackbeard says, ambling towards them. “Love that.” 

Tizona wonders about his kraken and what she’s doing right now. Blackbeard still has this dopey smile on his face. Is he drunk? What the fuck? They try to imagine a drunken kraken, nestled on the ocean floor, tentacles waving. 

Jim has picked up on the same thing. “What’s wrong with you?” they hiss once they’re both hidden from the street. 

“Nothing,” Blackbeard says, seemingly very sincere. “Nothing’s wrong.” He clasps his hands together in front of his chest and beams at them. “I’m actually great.”  

Tizona and Jim are both deeply, deeply unnerved. “Ok, but you’re in witch prison?”

Blackbeard shrugs. “The true prison is the prison of the fucking mind, you know?” 

“Not true,” Jim says flatly. “We gotta get the fuck out of here. You’re fucking losing it.” 

“Wait,” he says. “We gotta get Stede.” 

“Yeah, obviously,” Jim says. “We need to get back to the Revenge, and it would be good to have both captains to deal with Izzy.” 

Blackbeard hesitates. “Do we?”

Jim loses patience. “Your fucking first mate,” they say, “is probably Captain now, did you think about that? He’s probably being a total fucking dick to everybody.” 

“Well, yeah,” Blackbeard says. “That’s kind of Izzy’s thing.” 

“Ed?” 

Blackbeard looks up and his whole face transforms as Stede walks into the alley, Charis gliding at his side. And ok. Tizona and Jim are very used to the Blackbeard’s-sickeningly-in-love-with-Stede face but they realize in an instant that Jim owes Lucius a lot of money in the betting pool because these pendejos have 100%, completely, for sure, absolutely, finally figured it out. They are looking at each other like there’s no one else on earth, no one else in the entire universe, like they’re the stars of the show and there’s a fucking orchestra playing their love theme because they’ve finally arrived at their own wedding after two hours of comedic mishaps. 

“Jim, what are you doing here?” Stede asks, right before he puts his hand on Blackbeard’s arm, at which point Blackbeard reaches up and puts his hand over Stede’s hand. 

Jim glances at Tizona, their prayer clear: Dios mio, sálvame. “I’m breaking you assholes out of here,” they say. “And then we’re gonna go back to the Revenge -” they glare at Blackbeard - “and rescue the crew.” 

“Rescue the crew?” Stede repeats. He looks at Blackbeard like he’s the guy who’s going to have answers, not Jim, the person who is literally here to break him out of prison. 

Tizona hisses in frustration as Jim grits their teeth. “Yes, rescue the fucking crew, because Izzy Hands is currently their captain. You know, the guy who sold you the fuck out?” 

Stede wrinkles his nose. “Ugh. He’d better not be using our cabin.” 

Jim is not a person known for restraint around knives, and they are currently armed with seven of them, so only Tizona suddenly spotting a strange little moving shape on Blackbeard’s chest, under his beard, and whispering, “Who’s that?” prevents them from straight up stabbing Stede in the face. 

“Who?” Jim asks, looking towards the alley entrance - but Tizona swings their tail to point, because they are staring at Blackbeard and what looks an awful lot like a tiny little bat daemon.

“Oh,” Blackbeard says. He pauses, looks at Stede, seems to come to a decision. “That’s Kahu.” 

“Who?” Jim asks, totally baffled. 

The bat emerges from under Blackbeard’s grey beard and perches on his shoulder. Her eyes gleam with such ferocity that Tizona knows, despite her size, she is not to be fucked with. They nod at her and she nods back. 

“Ed’s daemon,” Stede says to Jim, in a voice that radiates bitchy try to keep up energy. “Kahu.” 

Tizona looks at the four of them - Stede and Charis, then Blackbeard - Ed - and Kahu, who appears to be roughly 50% glistening eye by volume - then up at Jim and feels the silent agreement from them. 

Jim says, “Ok, sure, Kahu, fine, that’s none of my fucking business. We need to get out of here, and fast, lo entienden?”  

Tizona knows they’re thinking the same thing: if Kahu is Blackbeard’s daemon, then there isn’t a kraken. And if there isn’t a kraken, well - Jim and Tizona know all about acting like something you’re not to protect yourself, and how dangerous it can get when the disguise gets yanked off. 

“Yes,” Stede agrees. He looks at Blackbeard again. “Jim’s right. We need to get out of here.” 

Huh. Absolutely not the co-captain they would have expected to be reasonable, but then, Stede’s crafty sometimes. Occasionally. Usually where Blackbeard’s concerned. Tizona bets Stede’s done the math on this one too. They give Jim another look - this is just like how Jim wants to protect Olu - and Jim wrinkles their nose back at the idea that they’ve got soft, mushy feelings like these two. 

That’s ok. Tizona will be the one of them who holds the soft, mushy feelings. Jim needs to keep them separate to stay sharp as a knife. 

Jim, Stede, and Blackbeard make a quick plan. Stede will be a decoy back at the dormitory, convincing the witches to think everything’s fine and normal; Blackbeard will be mugging a guy for a larger dinghy; and Jim will be making sure there’s a diversion to get past the shark daemons.

One problem comes up: when the time comes to meet back at the dock Jim and Stede can probably get past any patrols with Stede looking nondescript in the clothes the witches issued him, but Blackbeard’s pretty fucking noticeable.

“He doesn’t have to be,” chirps a small voice, and it takes Jim and Tizona both a moment to realize it’s the bat. Kahu.

They all turn to her. “They’ll be watching for a man with a big grey beard and no daemon to be seen,” Kahu explains, matter-of-fact, like she’s suggesting a change of clothes. “They won’t look twice at a cleanshaven man with a bat daemon.”

Stede looks stricken for a moment, Tizona notices - well, who can blame him, the beard’s magnificent - and they also notice Blackbeard doesn’t see it at all; he’s looking down at his daemon.

“You sure we’re ready for that?” he asks her, an oddly wistful note in his voice, and she replies, “Yeah. We’re ready.”

“You don’t have to do this,” says Charis, and Tizona can’t tell if they’re talking to Kahu or Blackbeard himself.

“We know we don’t,” says Blackbeard.

That settles it, then. They all say they’re going to split off, and then Jim and Tizona walk a block away and make sure that Stede and Blackbeard actually do split off. Those two have some kind of extended goodbye in the alley that Jim wants nothing to do with (although Tizona gently prods them to acknowledge that it makes them think of Olu), but Jim needs to know that they’re actually doing the thing , so they wait it out until they see Stede heading one way and Blackbeard watching him go with a little smile before he goes the other way. Tizona scents again with flicks of their tongue, makes sure the coast is clear, and then Tizona and their person go to create their diversion. 

***

“I’m so happy,” Stede says aloud to Charis. 

“Mmhmm,” Charis replies. 

“Just, really, so happy,” Stede repeats. Ed had kissed him. He’d kissed Ed! They’d watched the sunset together! And he’d started with one arm around Ed and Ed nuzzled into his neck and then he’d thought to put his other arm around Ed too, just kind of hug him into his body, and Ed had nuzzled even closer in, and put his arms around Stede’s waist, then put one leg in between Stede’s. And after the sun was down, Ed had said maybe they ought to get out of here, and Stede had agreed, and before they’d separated Ed had kissed him again . And then they’d run into Jim, who wanted to make an escape plan! Incredible luck. 

Stede is so jittery he feels sick. 

He’s going to the barracks. Yes. Right. Back to the barracks. Even though he’d nearly crawled out of his skin with guilt the last time he’d been in there - 

“It’s fine,” he says to Charis. “It’s all fine, actually. I was feeling guilty but Ed - gosh, Charis, I’m just so happy.” 

“Are you?” Charis asks. 

Stede thinks about kissing Ed. God, all he wants to think about is kissing Ed. Not… everything else, like his extremely poor life choices. 

“I am,” he asserts. 

“Ok,” Charis says. 

“Stop saying it like that!” 

“I was agreeing with you.” 

“You were being passive aggressive.” 

Charis ruffles their wing feathers and looks to the side. “I just think someone truly happy wouldn’t have to keep announcing that he was happy.” 

“Well, maybe you don’t know many happy people,” Stede says. 

Charis nails him with one beady eye. “Just you,” they trill. 

As much as Stede adores Charis, sometimes he could do without the constant soul-searing honesty. “I’m worried, all right,” he snaps. “This is all my fault. I’ve put Ed in terrible danger.” 

“Ed and Kahu chose to come with us,” Charis says. “They could have let Chauncey have us and gone with Izzy.” 

“I wish they had,” Stede admits. “I mean, I don’t really. I hate the thought of them being far away. But I wish -” 

He stops in sight of the entrance to the barracks and presses the palms of his hands into his eyes. Suddenly, he’s practically crying with frustration. “Oh Charis, this is all my fault,” he whispers. 

“ Our fault,” Charis says, suddenly sweet. “We both fell in love.” 

Stede looks at his daemon. He feels like every human emotion is currently fighting to exit his chest cavity. “We really did, didn’t we?” he asks quietly. And despite all the guilt he’s feeling about bringing Ed here, he knows he could never regret loving him. 

They go into the barracks and Stede climbs into the top bunk - he’d wanted to give Ed the lower, because he’s got a stiff knee in the mornings - and he lies on his back and he strokes Charis’s chest feathers and, somehow, drifts to sleep. 

Some amount of time must pass, because when Stede wakes, the quality of light looks different. It’s very dark, like the moon has set. He doesn’t understand why he’s awake until something cold and metal connects hard with his cheek. 

Someone is poking him in the face with a musket. His mind returns inanely to a documentary about warfare in the 18th century that he’d watched ages ago, and a smug historian saying that muskets had terrible accuracy - but Ed’s got incredible aim with one - 

- Ed had kissed him! - 

“Get up,” hisses a very familiar voice, accompanied by the strong smell of alcohol on breath.

Prod, prod. Well. Stede supposes that muskets are probably quite accurate at point blank range. He sits up, slowly, carefully, Charis curled inside of his shirt and shivering. 

Chauncey Badminton gestures towards the door with the gun. Stede goes. He’s shivering too, he realizes as he steps outside; odd, because the night feels warm. Must be nerves. His mind is detaching itself from his body the way it always does in a crisis, but he can’t seem to stop shivering. 

Chauncey leads him into a dark alley - lots of that going on for him today, Stede thinks, feeling hysterical - and hisses, “Keep walking to the end, then turn left. If you try to make a run for it, I’ll kill you, Blackbeard be damned.” 

Stede nods to show he understands. The way Chauncey said that, he thinks that Ed must be safe. Ed, please go , he thinks silently. Go with Jim. 

Chauncey walks him down several more dark streets. Stede is supposed to go to the docks to meet Ed and Jim an hour before dawn, but he doesn’t think they’re near that yet. He’s struck, in a way he hasn’t been since those first few weeks in this world, by just how many stars are visible without industrial light pollution. 

They come abruptly to the edge of the island. A large ship moored with its gangplank lowered looms over them in the dark. There’s absolutely no light anywhere aside from the stars, but Stede’s eyes have adjusted enough that he can make out that the ship has a metal hull. 

He’s never seen a ship with a metal hull in this world. He glances back at Chauncey and gets a musket in the face. 

“Go inside,” Chauncey snarls. 

Stede nods. Charis is still shaking against his chest, but Stede himself feels like he’s in a trance. Chauncey gives him a shove halfway up and he nearly falls into the dark water, but recovers and passes through the doorway, into a cavernous hold illuminated by several strangely yellow lanterns. 

Stede can’t help but notice the scent in the air, something he’s never smelled in this world. He glances back at Chauncey, who is a hideous sight, sweating and grimacing, and asks, “Are those burning kerosene?” 

“Tell me how you got your daemon,” Chauncey says. 

Stede involuntarily wraps his arms around his midsection, pressing Charis close to his skin. “What?” 

“You heard me,” Chauncey says. He waves the gun. He’s monstrously drunk, Stede realizes, swaying on his feet as he advances into Stede’s space. “How. Did you. You . Get a daemon.” 

“I - I don’t know,” Stede says. “Chauncey, can you put the gun down? Can we talk about this?” 

“What’s there to talk about?” Chauncey demands. “You’re some kind of monster. You came to this world just like I did - just like my brother did - but you have a daemon.” 

“I’m so sorry,” Stede whispers. Charis is trembling so hard that his own arms are shaking as he holds them. 

“You don’t deserve a daemon,” Chauncey adds, grabbing Stede by the arm, swinging him around, and Stede can see he’s working himself up to something, convincing himself of something, but another part of Stede also thinks, No, I don’t deserve a daemon. 

He thinks of Alma and Louis, of their precious faces, how he’d left them sound asleep in the middle of the night. He thinks of Mary, who deserves to be loved by her husband. 

He thinks of Ed and Kahu. Trapped here on this island in mortal danger because of Stede Bonnet. An idiot who is messing with things he doesn’t understand, blundering around so badly that he’d stumbled into an entirely new world and made a mess here too. 

Chauncey is dragging him towards something deeper in the hold. Stede stumbles over his own feet, but the gun is sharp in his side and he can tell that Chauncey won’t hesitate to use it. The yellow lamp light throws long shadows, makes things appear out of the darkness suddenly, so that they’re very close when Stede finally sees a glittering silver-colored blade between two cages. 

The device. From the Revenge’s cabin. The one that had upset Charis and Kahu. This is like it but so much larger, and with man-sized cages. 

Charis suddenly starts struggling against his hold. Stede lets go and they climb out of his shirt, claws ripping through the fabric. They’re still trembling, but Stede feels their resolve as they twist their head around to look at Chauncey. 

“You want to sever us,” they say. 

“Stede Bonnet doesn’t deserve a daemon,” Chauncey repeats doggedly, the gun digging into Stede’s side as he starts forcing him into one of the cages.

“But you want your own,” Charis says. 

Chauncey stops shoving Stede and instead points the musket right at Charis’s head. The mouth of the gun is wider than Charis’s skull. 

“Chauncey -” Stede starts, desperate to say or do anything to defuse this situation, but Chauncey cuts him off by speaking directly to Charis. 

“How did he get you?” 

“Chauncey, I told you, I don’t know -”

“He died,” Charis says. 

Stede looks down at his daemon, thinks, What are you doing?

Charis doesn’t look at Stede, but they think, Saving us. 

“He died?” Chauncey repeats, lurching closer, as if he means to grab Charis. 

Stede jerks back, feels that jittery terror again, even as he tries to convince them both - Let him, Charis. I deserve this. Then Ed can escape.

“Stede got stabbed,” Charis says. Their claws are digging into Stede’s skin. “He died for a second. And when he started his journey to the land of the dead, I became my own being.” 

Chauncey looks at the blade, then back at Charis. “Are you lying to me?” 

“I don’t know why it happened,” Charis says, and Stede has a sudden horrible, inexorable sense of what is about to come as Charis continues, “It happened with your brother too. When he was dying, a monkey daemon appeared beside him.” Charis shrugs their wings. “Something about that journey to the land of the dead and the soul needing to be there, I guess.” 

“Charis,” Stede says, but his voice comes out weak, like he’s trapped in a nightmare. “Charis, stop.” 

“You don’t want me to know, do you?” Chauncey demands, suddenly looking at Stede. “You’re trying to stop that horrible bird from telling me.” 

“That’s not how daemons work!” Stede protests.

We don’t deserve to die, Charis thinks at Stede. Especially not now, especially not when we just started to live.  

Chauncey turns away and looks again at the blade, then steps to the side of the cage and does something to suddenly give the machine power. There’s the loud cough of a generator starting - the sharp smell of ozone as some hidden fuel catches fire - and then electricity arcs down the blade’s edge, blinding and white. 

“Chauncey,” Stede says, appealing directly to him now. “Just - just put the gun down. Let’s talk. We can talk about all of this. Isn’t it strange, to be in this world? It doesn’t even feel real sometimes, does it?” 

Chauncey ignores him completely. He’s running his hand just above the broad surface of the blade where it crackles with electricity. In the flickering light, he looks suddenly like a boy telling a scary story, a boy who - Stede remembers with a pang - he’d known when he was just a boy too. Then Chauncey looks back at Charis, and there’s nothing of the boy about him anymore, just naked greed at the sight of Stede’s daemon. 

“Chauncey,” Stede says, as Chauncey reaches for the cage door, fumbles the latch while trying to still hold onto the gun, and then steps inside. 

“It’s not at full power,” Chauncey mutters, clearly to himself. “Just for a second - I’ll just turn it on for a second -” 

“Chauncey -” 

Charis suddenly shoves off Stede’s chest - for a moment Stede thinks they’re rushing at the blade and he panics - but then Charis swings wide and starts flying towards the exit of the hold. The tight, sharp pain of separation hits Stede’s chest, and he staggers backwards, turning to reach instinctually for his daemon when he hears a metal clatter - the musket must have hit the ground - then a shot - and a hitch in the generator as the blinding light from the blade flickers, followed by an awful squelching sound. 

He can’t help himself; he screams in horror as he realizes Chauncey must have accidentally shot himself and fallen into the blade. And then Charis is at his side again, all but shoving him through the hold, out the door, onto the gangplank, saying over and over, “We have to leave, Stede. We have to get out of here.” 

“Yes,” Stede agrees, when they’re several streets away from the metal ship. It’s the first coherent thought he feels like he’s managed in hours, certainly the first since he saw Charis - his own soul, his innermost self - murder a man in cold blood. 

“It wasn’t cold blood,” Charis says, plaintive. “ He was going to kill us, Stede. Just like with Nigel. It was him or us.” 

Stede can’t - he can’t. He can’t do any of this. He remembers the sky in the Arctic, when he’d found the way through. He’d followed the Dust into this world. But this world is full of Dust - it’s everywhere, not just concentrated above the poles. He can find his way through again. So he looks up at the night sky, and he finds what he’s looking for - that edge between worlds, and it’s much easier to find now that it’s his second time doing it - and he thinks that if he does this, if he goes back physically, then he can go back in all other ways too, back into the life he’s supposed to be living, the life where he’s not happy but where he’s not hurting anyone either, and isn’t that better? Isn’t that for the best? 

“Stede?” 

He doesn’t look back at his daemon. He assumes Charis will disappear as soon as he’s back in his world. They’ll just… go back inside of himself. Or something. He steps through, into that haunted-feeling middle world, and Charis flies after him, pleading with him to stop; and then he finds the edge again, and he steps through that into the grass in the middle of a roundabout in the middle of the night and Charis is still there, and he doesn’t know what to make of that, can’t think or feel much more than he already has today, so he sits down in the grass and puts his head in his hands and he sobs.  

Grief. What he’d been feeling earlier - that jittery feeling that he’d tried to pretend was happiness - it had been grief.

His heart had known the dream was ending, even if his mind hadn’t.

***

The sky is bleeding violet.

“You’re wrong,” Kahu insists, huddled on the wooden dock beside Ed. The east wind feels cold against his bare face. “They’ll come, they have to, if they don’t then something must have happened, we could go look for them. Ed, let’s go and find them -”

“This was your idea,” says Ed, very quietly, without turning from the horizon.

***

Tizona and Jim’s part, at least, goes according to plan. Jim and Tizona arrive at the dock and find Blackbeard there, seated with his legs dangling in the water, a very nice looking dinghy tied up at his side. Ok, so that’s all to plan. Good.   

Except - wow. Ok. Tiz and Jim had both forgotten he was shaving off his very famous beard. 

His head whips around when they approach, but then he looks away again very quickly, his shoulders curling in on themselves, the fierce little bat perched on one knee shrinking down into a ball. 

Oh. Oh no. Tizona already knows the answer as Jim hisses, “Where’s Stede?”  

“Dunno,” Blackbeard says in a weird voice. 

“Fuck,” Jim says, and Tizona considers giving them a nip for being so obtuse as they say, “He’s supposed to be here now.” 

Blackbeard doesn’t say anything. Tizona feels Jim’s hesitation as they give him a closer look, then feels their wave of unease because he’s clearly been fucking crying . 

Olu and Ade, Tizona thinks. We’re doing this to get back to Olu and Ade.  

“Hey,” Jim says, and Tizona feels them trying to keep their voice calm, even as they’re looking around desperately for Stede. They don’t want to leave their captain with these creepy ass witches, but they don’t have time… they have to get back to Olu… “Should we try to find him?” 

Blackbeard doesn’t say anything. 

Tizona feels the panic rising, the scent of witches looking for whoever scattered the sharks, as Jim makes their decision: They step forward and put a hand very, very lightly, just for a second, on Blackbeard’s shoulder. “If we don’t go now, we’re going to get caught.” 

Tizona crawls into the dinghy and points themselves towards the horizon, tongue out, scenting the air, measuring the proximity of their enemies. 

Blackbeard continues to sit, head down. 

Jim is desperate. “Stede can take care of himself. Seriously, he can. He’s smarter than he - he’s smart. You know he is. But I made them think the kraken was escaping and it’s not going to last long if you’re still here. So we really need to -”

“Fine,” Blackbeard says suddenly. He stands. Tizona looks for Kahu, but she’s out of sight as he steps into the dinghy and sits, hands gripping the oars so hard his knuckles whiten. 

Jim gets in too, and undoes the rope. They think at Tizona, We should say something, but I have no idea what.  

Tizona thinks back, Olu would know what to say, if he was here. Jim sits, and Tizona moves quickly to sit beside them, their cool skin pressed to Jim’s thigh in a way that they haven’t done much since they settled in this form.

Silently, Blackbeard starts to row, pulling them away from the witches’ island, into a brilliant lavender dawn.