[ It takes a lot of doing, catching up with Ed to start with. Blackbeard. The Kraken. All of the above. A lot of apologizing to the crew, a lot of explanations both ways, just to sort of get started.
Stede left another family, when he went home. One that actually-- well, one where he actually fit. That grew on each other. And everything apparently went pretty fucking poorly at some point after that. It wouldn't be fair not to apologize, take ownership.
It's his fault, really. Things won't be the same between him and anyone involved again, probably.
And maybe he does ruin things, and maybe he knows that, and maybe it's not fair to swan back in and pick up what's left of his crew and go trying to track Ed down to make things right. Maybe he's selfish for it. But he can't really bear the thought of not trying. Whatever happens, if absolutely nothing else, he wants Ed to know.
They're still a lot of mediocre pirates. Slightly moreso than usual, really, with their numbers cut. It's a big part of why it takes so much time to get anything lined up. At least half of their schedule is trying not to screw something up so badly that they die. At least one nice thing about Blackbeard being such a big name is that keeping track isn't hard.
So some shoddy piracy, some shoddy Fuckeries, some unconventional methods. Stealing ships. Using fake names, because it defeats the whole point if he goes about advertising himself. Stede Bonnet is dead. He got mauled and/or run over and/or crushed by a piano and/or was actually quite ill and/or probably a few other things that trickled into the hearsay. And that's fine. Stede hears the funeral was nice enough.
The biggest miracle of all is wrangling a time to get at Ed alone for a start. People give him a berth most of the time, but it always seems like Izzy is playing the hanger-on. But they manage, even if the window is likely to be far too brief. The universe does do that for Stede an awful lot. Bend some rules.
It's a quiet night. Some port back-alley, a couple of frankly embarrassing close misses already out the window. He makes his intersection, though. He manages. Probably mostly because Ed stopped to have a swig of something that Stede can smell from here.
(One part painful to look at, see the fallout for himself, one part remembering Ed is beautiful.)
Now, of course, it's only juuust occurring to Stede that he never once thought ahead to exactly what he'd say first. ]
no waiting for s2 we write it ourselves
Stede left another family, when he went home. One that actually-- well, one where he actually fit. That grew on each other. And everything apparently went pretty fucking poorly at some point after that. It wouldn't be fair not to apologize, take ownership.
It's his fault, really. Things won't be the same between him and anyone involved again, probably.
And maybe he does ruin things, and maybe he knows that, and maybe it's not fair to swan back in and pick up what's left of his crew and go trying to track Ed down to make things right. Maybe he's selfish for it. But he can't really bear the thought of not trying. Whatever happens, if absolutely nothing else, he wants Ed to know.
They're still a lot of mediocre pirates. Slightly moreso than usual, really, with their numbers cut. It's a big part of why it takes so much time to get anything lined up. At least half of their schedule is trying not to screw something up so badly that they die. At least one nice thing about Blackbeard being such a big name is that keeping track isn't hard.
So some shoddy piracy, some shoddy Fuckeries, some unconventional methods. Stealing ships. Using fake names, because it defeats the whole point if he goes about advertising himself. Stede Bonnet is dead. He got mauled and/or run over and/or crushed by a piano and/or was actually quite ill and/or probably a few other things that trickled into the hearsay. And that's fine. Stede hears the funeral was nice enough.
The biggest miracle of all is wrangling a time to get at Ed alone for a start. People give him a berth most of the time, but it always seems like Izzy is playing the hanger-on. But they manage, even if the window is likely to be far too brief. The universe does do that for Stede an awful lot. Bend some rules.
It's a quiet night. Some port back-alley, a couple of frankly embarrassing close misses already out the window. He makes his intersection, though. He manages. Probably mostly because Ed stopped to have a swig of something that Stede can smell from here.
(One part painful to look at, see the fallout for himself, one part remembering Ed is beautiful.)
Now, of course, it's only juuust occurring to Stede that he never once thought ahead to exactly what he'd say first. ]
You changed your look. It's very avant-garde.
[ Fuckin nailed it. ]