Chapter Text
Stede Bonnet is not a human.
He is a clown. A cartoon man. A golden retriever destined for doggy heaven. An undercooked chicken cutlet or a lump of spilled mayonnaise. Comic relief. A disappointment. A failure. A sad, neglected pincushion. A coating of waterlogged first-editions spread out on the seafloor.
When Stede Bonnet was carefully carved out of bits of the finest enchanted Brazilian cherry wood, he allowed Geppetto to put on a show with him, dress him up and parade him about a bit, dangling from bits of string and lace, tottering about the world in a perverse imitation of a real boy. And when that stupid fucking cricket that lived in the walls of his Barbados estate whispered to him and told him to behave, to smile through his pathetic (pathetic) puppet life, what did Stede Bonnet do? Why, he took a hammer and smashed the fuck out of that cricket. Cricket annihilated. Bonnet out.
But when he reached the Land of Toys across the sea it wasn’t actually so nice, was it? His wooden arms and wooden hands and wooden fingers still clacked together as he danced about in his gentlemanly manner, making an ass of himself, the fucking donkey, the stupid unloved bastard. He continued to be a bad little puppet man, didn’t he? Stirring up shit wherever his creaky wooden legs would take him. But it was funny, wasn’t it? Oh how the people laughed!
The story hasn’t ended though. Now it’s the denouement. Stede Bonnet the sad-funny-puppet-donkey-dog-thing is in a dinghy on the open ocean. It’s time for him to be swallowed by that great sea-beast, only to be spit out into a new life with the only person who can break the spell. The first problem now is that the only one who can allow him to feel a real human heartbeat thudding in his no-longer wooden chest is more likely to stop that beating forever. The second problem is that for the first time in his life, he knows exactly what he is.
“Non-humans,” Stede says ominously, peeking into the room where livestock are kept.
It is time for the rising of the hands, the lifting of the oars, the small propulsion on the invisible track of this theme park ride. When we think of ruination we think of permanence, a coming to the end of something that was precious to us, but what if it isn’t? What if this is just Death, and not the Tower? Stede Bonnet’s life has become very small. The open ocean that wraps around him on all sides seems to him more like a tunnel, directing him towards the one place where he can live. He wants off the ride. He wants to find the exit. The lowering of hands, the lowering of oars, a glance towards the open sky, midafternoon perhaps. The morning of Stede’s life has been wasted. He needs to think it through, as a-
You are not human.
Isn’t that the way it’s been? The way they have always looked at him. It’s in the eyes, really. You can handle words, you can forgive actions. But the biggest obstacle in Stede Bonnet’s life has been learning to navigate dispositions. At least those who hated him, and they were many, wore their hostility on their sleeves. Small boyish hands grabbing him by the frock coat and lifting him from the ground. The blows. The running. The fear, the anxiety. The resignation. It had to be this way. It was his place on the chessboard. And he can only move one square forward at a time.
Nice, captain! Wiggle your hips!
Stede had certainly for a while enjoyed the company of people who cared about him a little, perhaps. Kept him safe, alive. Smiled at him sometimes, worked harder than they needed to make him smile. There was affection. But it was a condescending sort of affection. The frustration in Oluwande’s voice when Stede wasn’t aggressive enough. The scorn from Black Pete when Stede just couldn’t live up to his fantasies. The look on Lucius’s face when he bought the treasure map.
Well now I just think you’re patronizing me.
I am.
And him too. Just, everything. Just all of it with him.
There are no longer bits and baubles to distract Stede Bonnet from the truth. There exists now only the rising and the setting of the hands and the gentle thwack of the water against the boat and the burning of his eyes locked on the horizon. And perhaps it is a magical moment of clarity gifted by a god of the sea, Tangaroa or (maybe) Agwé. More likely it is the result of the overstimulation of Stede’s parasympathetic nervous system due to the exertion from the rising and falling of the oars, the deep breaths with every turning of them activating the vagus nerve. But either way, may Stede Bonnet’s instructors in ecclesiastical Latin forgive him for doing away with deum scire and shacking up with temet nosce. Know thyself.
He knows himself. He knows himself. For the first time, he can see himself, as if peering inside his own body and soul from the expanse of the atmosphere around him. And he needs more than that.
I am adequate.
Adequate isn’t enough. It’s time to be seen. Not his outfits, not his affable flair, or the way he presents himself. He needs to be seen. Not rescued, not controlled, not pandered to. Not even loved, really. Just… understood. He is going to make it happen. Watch him go.