[ 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. ]
You changed your look. It's very avant-garde.
[ Fuckin nailed it. ]
Edited 2022-04-12 14:52 (UTC)
the temptation to just make this that one Korg line
[There's a bottomless hole in Edward's chest, and it eats everything.
It razes through ships and ports, meat and moonshine, swallows pleading and devours every inch of ocean until there's nothing left. Until the fire starts to feel cold and the meat is tasteless and the violence makes him sick to his stomach. Even the grog, he thinks, taking another swig, is harder pressed to do it's job.
Even Izzy, by some miracle, avoided him for a week after he received the news. The crew all watched him with wary eyes when he finally emerged from the captain's quarters, hair tangled around his face like briar, black mask streaked, and held their breath waiting for him to explode. Blackbeard, on a timer. He can still feel it ticking down inside. He's more reckless, knowing it's there.
He's halfway gone when Stede steps out in front of him, and he has to assume it's his sick, substance riddled brain playing tricks. That doesn't make it any less of a gut punch. The gasp he emits into the cold night air would be embarrassing, but there's no one to hear it, because he can't be here there's no fucking way, and Blackbeard shutters his eyes and draws himself up as much as he can when his insides are sloshing about like heavy finery in ocean water.]
I'm not afraid of a ghost. Get fucked.
[Blackbeard is a coat that gets heavier to wear every day, but it's better than the chill that seeps down his back the longer he takes in the details he had forgotten, each styled curl of hair and soft line on Stede's face. All the parts that make a sum of a man who didn't want him, and didn't say goodbye. It hurts. He takes another drink.]
[ It's not... the absolute worst case scenario. Stede doesn't know what worst case would look like, hadn't gotten around to that one yet. He also hadn't let himself get carried away by coming up with a best case scenario, either, a decision which looks more and more like a good call here in the moment.
He sees the familiar in one moment and feels like one of those moths that get pinned to boards for studying in the next. Maybe he should be more put off by it, but he can't pretend he isn't studying Ed right back. Fair's fair.
Ed probably isn't in a condition for the bulk of the multiple conversations that need having. That seems clear enough. Not the one where they might catch up on exactly what happened, all the in-betweens. Not the one about punishing the crew for Stede's personal mistakes, which is the most important thing objectively.
If a few of those things are off the table until later, then this has to be about getting a good enough foot in the door to get to later. ]
Well, I wouldn't want to scare you if I was one. [ Not that ghosts in most stories ever sound like they're trying to scare people. If they sound like anything, it's stuck.
Only one of two of them seems especially stuck. ]
I just need a minute to talk to you. That's the whole reason I'm here, Ed.
[Ed says it more like he's trying to convince himself, because he is. He wrenches a laugh from somewhere black and accusing, pure Blackbeard.]
Now you want to talk! Now you...
[Ed staggers a single step forward. He pants and feels himself rocked with fresh outrage. New anger. It feels so fucking real; nothing like the arguments he constructs in his head, where they tread the same ground every time.
(Where Ed gets to say everything he wanted to say. Where he doesn't shake or embarrass himself. Where he wins the interaction.
He imagines a miracle resurrection from death where they kiss as often as he imagines telling Stede he never cared for him at all. Deep down, he knows which one he wanted more.)
Reality is him gaping at Stede, mouth dry and eyes wet, sobriety creeping nastily in at the edges of his brain. Nothing like realizing the love of your life and source of your worst grief isn't actually dead to kill your buzz.]
They said you were dead. [God, but he's glad he's not-] You should have fucking stayed that way. [-because he missed him. Because now he can-]
[ I don't feel shit, he says. Definitely not true. Ed's an easy read when he's upset. Always was. Curse of a very large, tender heart.
There was, between leaving home and finding what was left of his crew, a stretch of time where Stede entertained the idea of a simple reunion. Not easy, per se, and his mind had had plenty of time to circle the prospect that maybe Ed was happier without him as much as Mary and the children had been. Or maybe the opposite, maybe too much damage done to that tender heart to do anything but send Stede right back off, but-- straightforward, at least.
Between finding his crew and getting here was even a short-lived dream of simply making it to the Revenge quickly at all. Beating out the rumor mill, at least.
Fast and straightforward have been off the table for a grip, now.
All that's really left is messy. ]
Drawing my weapon is the exact opposite of what I just said.
[ Does Stede expect that to turn the angry tides? No. He expects he'll need to take the rest of his deserved lumps before he can get through properly. But he wouldn't have a notorious issue with wishful thinking if he didn't give it a shot. ]
[If he runs Stede through, maybe he'll begin to understand how it felt. How Ed feels. Like he's gasping for air every time he so much as moves, and every inhalation is just another reminder of where he is, a trigger for that hot pain to flash through him, an ache that makes him unable to sit still, and it loops like that, an ouroboros of hurting and remembering and hurting again.
He rests a hand on his sword, but doesn't actually draw it. Hard to be steady, when you're in four fingers and some change. Easier to nick something important. Something that can't be healed.
It feels like they're standing on a chunk of earth out in some void. The bottle in Ed's hand has an odd gravity, too heavy and wet with condensation. He drops it, because it doesn't matter. The wind whips past the end of the alley, a sound like distant howling. Ed wavers; Blackbeard, Edward. The bruise blue bags under his eyes are almost as big as the pleading look he levels at Stede. His fingers flex around the hilt of his sword.]
[ Being told to show some self preservation by the person who is probably angrier at you than anybody else in the world (the person whose heart you've utterly broken, most accurately, but if he's good at anything it's failing to conceptualize that much) is something that can be so personal.
Stede feels hopeful in light of it, despite everything. Grateful. He holds his hands up, fingers spread, the definition of "I will personally be having nothing to do with my sword."
It's Ed. Ultimately. Ed won't kill him. Or if it's that bad somehow, if it turns out he would, well. Self preservation is for men who have something on the horizon that they need to reach at all costs, and here he's already gone and reached it.
It's hard to spit out a lengthy list of things that are important to say. The I missed you, the what you did to my crew was unjustified and you know it, the I can explain, please I can try to explain, the I am shatteringly head over heels in love with you and I'll spend the rest of my life trying to prove it if there's even half a chance you'd let me-- ]
I'm sorry I left you. For starters.
[ Fairness has to win out over importance, sometimes. He owed this much to Ed before he owed anything to anyone else in the fallout. ]
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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. ]
the temptation to just make this that one Korg line
It razes through ships and ports, meat and moonshine, swallows pleading and devours every inch of ocean until there's nothing left. Until the fire starts to feel cold and the meat is tasteless and the violence makes him sick to his stomach. Even the grog, he thinks, taking another swig, is harder pressed to do it's job.
Even Izzy, by some miracle, avoided him for a week after he received the news. The crew all watched him with wary eyes when he finally emerged from the captain's quarters, hair tangled around his face like briar, black mask streaked, and held their breath waiting for him to explode. Blackbeard, on a timer. He can still feel it ticking down inside. He's more reckless, knowing it's there.
He's halfway gone when Stede steps out in front of him, and he has to assume it's his sick, substance riddled brain playing tricks. That doesn't make it any less of a gut punch. The gasp he emits into the cold night air would be embarrassing, but there's no one to hear it, because he can't be here there's no fucking way, and Blackbeard shutters his eyes and draws himself up as much as he can when his insides are sloshing about like heavy finery in ocean water.]
I'm not afraid of a ghost. Get fucked.
[Blackbeard is a coat that gets heavier to wear every day, but it's better than the chill that seeps down his back the longer he takes in the details he had forgotten, each styled curl of hair and soft line on Stede's face. All the parts that make a sum of a man who didn't want him, and didn't say goodbye. It hurts. He takes another drink.]
ofmd season 2: piss off, ghost
He sees the familiar in one moment and feels like one of those moths that get pinned to boards for studying in the next. Maybe he should be more put off by it, but he can't pretend he isn't studying Ed right back. Fair's fair.
Ed probably isn't in a condition for the bulk of the multiple conversations that need having. That seems clear enough. Not the one where they might catch up on exactly what happened, all the in-betweens. Not the one about punishing the crew for Stede's personal mistakes, which is the most important thing objectively.
If a few of those things are off the table until later, then this has to be about getting a good enough foot in the door to get to later. ]
Well, I wouldn't want to scare you if I was one. [ Not that ghosts in most stories ever sound like they're trying to scare people. If they sound like anything, it's stuck.
Only one of two of them seems especially stuck. ]
I just need a minute to talk to you. That's the whole reason I'm here, Ed.
no subject
[Ed says it more like he's trying to convince himself, because he is. He wrenches a laugh from somewhere black and accusing, pure Blackbeard.]
Now you want to talk! Now you...
[Ed staggers a single step forward. He pants and feels himself rocked with fresh outrage. New anger. It feels so fucking real; nothing like the arguments he constructs in his head, where they tread the same ground every time.
(Where Ed gets to say everything he wanted to say. Where he doesn't shake or embarrass himself. Where he wins the interaction.
He imagines a miracle resurrection from death where they kiss as often as he imagines telling Stede he never cared for him at all. Deep down, he knows which one he wanted more.)
Reality is him gaping at Stede, mouth dry and eyes wet, sobriety creeping nastily in at the edges of his brain. Nothing like realizing the love of your life and source of your worst grief isn't actually dead to kill your buzz.]
They said you were dead. [God, but he's glad he's not-] You should have fucking stayed that way. [-because he missed him. Because now he can-]
Draw your weapon.
no subject
There was, between leaving home and finding what was left of his crew, a stretch of time where Stede entertained the idea of a simple reunion. Not easy, per se, and his mind had had plenty of time to circle the prospect that maybe Ed was happier without him as much as Mary and the children had been. Or maybe the opposite, maybe too much damage done to that tender heart to do anything but send Stede right back off, but-- straightforward, at least.
Between finding his crew and getting here was even a short-lived dream of simply making it to the Revenge quickly at all. Beating out the rumor mill, at least.
Fast and straightforward have been off the table for a grip, now.
All that's really left is messy. ]
Drawing my weapon is the exact opposite of what I just said.
[ Does Stede expect that to turn the angry tides? No. He expects he'll need to take the rest of his deserved lumps before he can get through properly. But he wouldn't have a notorious issue with wishful thinking if he didn't give it a shot. ]
no subject
[If he runs Stede through, maybe he'll begin to understand how it felt. How Ed feels. Like he's gasping for air every time he so much as moves, and every inhalation is just another reminder of where he is, a trigger for that hot pain to flash through him, an ache that makes him unable to sit still, and it loops like that, an ouroboros of hurting and remembering and hurting again.
He rests a hand on his sword, but doesn't actually draw it. Hard to be steady, when you're in four fingers and some change. Easier to nick something important. Something that can't be healed.
It feels like they're standing on a chunk of earth out in some void. The bottle in Ed's hand has an odd gravity, too heavy and wet with condensation. He drops it, because it doesn't matter. The wind whips past the end of the alley, a sound like distant howling. Ed wavers; Blackbeard, Edward. The bruise blue bags under his eyes are almost as big as the pleading look he levels at Stede. His fingers flex around the hilt of his sword.]
Spit it out, then.
no subject
Stede feels hopeful in light of it, despite everything. Grateful. He holds his hands up, fingers spread, the definition of "I will personally be having nothing to do with my sword."
It's Ed. Ultimately. Ed won't kill him. Or if it's that bad somehow, if it turns out he would, well. Self preservation is for men who have something on the horizon that they need to reach at all costs, and here he's already gone and reached it.
It's hard to spit out a lengthy list of things that are important to say. The I missed you, the what you did to my crew was unjustified and you know it, the I can explain, please I can try to explain, the I am shatteringly head over heels in love with you and I'll spend the rest of my life trying to prove it if there's even half a chance you'd let me-- ]
I'm sorry I left you. For starters.
[ Fairness has to win out over importance, sometimes. He owed this much to Ed before he owed anything to anyone else in the fallout. ]