Chapter Text
VOTE: What is the setting?
Amusement Park (38.9%)
Mansion / Castle (42.2%, Winner)
Factory (5.3%)
Tropical Island (13.5%)
VOTE: What was the crime?
Murder (74.5%, Winner)
Theft (16.2%)
Property Damage (9.3%)
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Texts from Lucius Spriggs to Ed Teach:
Lucius: 👁️👄👁️
Lucius: I see you
Lucius: You're staring
Ed: Am not
Ed: Stop observing me
Lucius: You are going to bore a hole into his skull with your STARE
Ed: Don't you have something to google
Lucius:
Ed: 🙄🙄🙄
"Boss, are you paying attention?"
Edward Teach exhaled an exaggerated breath, and slowly, melodramatically, rolled his head to face Izzy Hands at the front of their briefing room. He raised his eyebrows as if to say "Better?"
Izzy squinted at him. "Anyway." He turned back to the television screen at the front of the room and clicked the button on his remote that progressed the powerpoint presentation. "The Badminton Estate is located in a shore town in Maine called…"
Ed immediately zoned out again. Frankly, he wasn't sure anymore why these briefings were even necessary. The entire team received the same dossier on whatever upcoming case they had approaching, they were all grown men who could (and did) read the documents before tackling said case, and there were much more interesting things to spend an hour doing. It seemed like a no-brainer. He considered replying to the next briefing meeting invitation with "This could be an email" and declining, and the thought of Izzy's potential reaction made him chuckle quietly into his coffee.
"Right through his entire head?!"
Ed's attention was immediately drawn back to the newbie. He had gotten about ten seconds of looking at the powerpoint presentation in, so he considered that a success, and allowed himself to continue staring. If he was honest, Ed really should not have hired this guy. He had absolutely no credentials of any kind, having been living off of inherited wealth for the past decade. Under "Skills" on the job application, he had included "Lepidoptery". Frankly, Ed was a little bit concerned that he wasn't fully of sound mind. In spite of that, the interview that Ed had conducted with him was one of the more fun hours-and-a-half that he had had in maybe years, and on top of that, the guy gave off an intriguing sort of DILF-y vibe that Ed found hard to ignore. Ed owned the damn business, so who was to say he couldn't hire this completely unqualified jester for entertainment purposes? At the end of the day, nobody.
Izzy absolutely hated Stede Bonnet’s guts, of course, which, honestly, added a bit of spice on top of the whole shebang for Ed. Like getting a haircut you knew your dad would hate after a fight.
"No, just through the parts that the sword was touching," Izzy spat back, dripping with disdain. He let his venomous look linger on Stede for a beat too long before continuing. “His twin brother will meet you at the estate to walk you through security footage and introduce you to staff…”
Ed zoned out again because he caught Stede Bonnet’s nervous eyes as they were darting between Everyone That Wasn’t Israel Hands, and Ed was finding it hard to keep a pleased as punch toothy grin off his own face in response.
Lucius Spriggs’ head floated slowly into view between the two of them, and Ed responded to Lucius’ own devious grin by flipping him the bird.
Texts from Lucius Spriggs to Ed Teach:
Lucius: 🍆🍆🍆🍆🍆🍆🍆🍆
Lucius: 🍑🍑🍑🍑🍑🍑🍑🍑🍑🍑
Lucius: 💦💦💦💦💦💦
Lucius: 🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌👅👅👅👅👅
Ed: you're fired
VOTE: How big of a dick is Ed?
He actually fired Lucius (6.3%)
He was just joking about it (93.8%, Winner)
[ Image of Ed's Notes ]
Ed's Notes Transcribed:
Next Case
- Dead Twin
- Stabbed thru head w/ sword??
- Live Twin
- Loaded
- Balding
- Grieving
- Fancy Job
- Accountant???? $$$$
- Motive
- Unknown
- Money? Power? Jealousy?
- Suspects
- Shit ton, everyone hates this fucker
- Location
- Haunted?
[ Marginalia: Doodle of Stede, doodle of a haunted mansion ]
After the meeting wrapped, Ed meandered to the office kitchenette after Stede. He leaned casually on the counter top next to the newbie and watched him as he precisely measured out loose tea leaves from a large tin container that read "Earl Grey" into a teapot sieve. The teapot looked extremely out of place in the tiny room whose most useful appliance was a ten year old, thirty dollar microwave from Target.
Who brings an entire goddamn tea set to the office on their first day?
Ed watched for a few moments longer as Stede searched with his eyes around the kitchenette then, with a beleaguered sigh, filled his teapot with the hot water spout on the water cooler.
"So what do you think of your first case? Excited?" Ed asked finally, finding it hard to hide the amusement in his face.
"I can't believe you don't have a kettle in here," Stede said accusatorially.
"Oh, uh, my bad."
"A man got stabbed through his whole skull, Edward!" Stede said, as if he hadn't just derailed the conversation. "Of course I'm excited!"
Ed snorted.
"What do you think he did to make someone angry enough to stab him through the noggin? I can't think of a single thing that would make me want to jam an entire sword through someone's eye."
"Mm, I could come up with a few reasons myself, probably." Ed mused. "The other day they forgot my fries when I ordered delivery, I was pretty damn peeved."
"Oh, be serious."
"I am serious! Nearly ran down to the burger joint!"
Oluwande squeezed in to the kitchenette and grabbed a protein bar from a basket near the sink. Ed loved Oluwande. He was always an organized, relaxing presence on the team. Even when shit was going down, Ed could always count on Olu to keep him and the rest of the team grounded.
"Morning, fellas," Oluwande said, taking a bite out of his breakfast. "Bad news."
VOTE: What is the bad news?
The other Badminton just fell deathly ill (9.8%)
The back seats of the van were stolen (16.4%)
We could only get two hotel rooms in Maine (73.8%, winner)
Oluwande scrunched up his nose in anticipation of the reaction to the awful news he was about to impart, pausing dramatically. "The Badminton estate reached out today to tell us that they will only be providing us with two rooms for the duration of the investigation, so everyone will need to bunk up."
Ed's eyebrows disappeared in his curls and he bit his lips to unsuccessfully hide his cheeky grin.
"Oh, well! That's quite rude," Stede said, looking mildly outraged. "We are helping him solve his own brother's literal murder and they can't lend us five of the TWENTY bedrooms in the estate? Pardon my language, but what an inconsiderate, bad guy."
Ed's face took a journey around several emotions as he tried to process Stede asking them to pardon his calling someone a "bad guy", but he shook it off quickly. He hummed, shaking his head, and folded his arms in a way that he hoped made it look like he was even an iota upset by this news.
"Well, darn, that's a shame." He said, then mentally kicked himself because that performance probably undid all of his hard acting work. He knew that Olu knew he would never say the word "darn". But he had trained his whole life for this, dammit. He quickly kept talking in hopes that would distract everyone from how much he didn't think this news was a shame. "That's alright, though, isn't it Stede? Maybe, I don't know, you and I can take one room for us and all the equipment? And the rest of you can have the other. I don't mind dealing with all the…equipment being in the way and stuff. Taking up space. Save some room for the rest of you, so you're more comfortable, and all."
"Yes, I suppose," Stede said offhandedly, as if someone just asked him if they could borrow a pencil. He poured his steeped tea into a too-fancy teacup and saucer set and sipped from it casually.
Oluwande maintained silent eye contact with Ed for a moment, who tried to look as innocent and helpful as possible.
"Right," Olu said after a moment. "Anyway, Frenchie and Lucius are almost done loading up the van we'll be heading out in thirty minutes so, you know, chop chop!"
Olu walked out of the kitchenette on that note, rolling his eyes at the thumbs up that Ed threw his way.
"Shit, now I have to rush my tea," Stede grumbled. Then, cheerily, he turned to Ed and said, "See you in the van!" as he followed Olu out.
Ed nodded at him in acknowledgement and watched Stede walk out of view. He was starting to think this may be turning out to be one of the more fun murders he's had to solve.
Tweet from some other guy @PrivEdEye, Ed's private twitter account:
Heh heh heh heh heh heh 😈
VOTE: Did Stede know the Badmintons back in boarding school?
Yes, the bitches (85.4%, winner)
No, they're strangers
The blue-green van sat double parked in front of headquarters. A big colorful logo on the side read "Mystery Flowers & Fishing Equipment," a compromise reached at the end of a particularly bitchy fight on the parts of Edward and Izzy. The idea was to have a low key business name on the side of their group transport vehicle, so as not to tip off any potential suspects when they arrived on scene. However, with the garish color scheme and the ridiculous business name, Ed doubted anyone could possibly forget that they had seen his team drive by. Luckily, Ed was a skilled enough detective that this one little obstacle barely made a blip in impeding his investigations.
By the time that Ed made it out to the vehicle, the boys had it basically all packed up. The back row of seats and the trunk of the van were piled to the brim with crates and equipment, and everyone was milling around waiting for Frenchie to finish checking their supplies against a clipboard. Ed hopped over to Frenchie and put on his best boss voice.
"'Lo, mate. I'll do a once over." He held his hand out for the clipboard.
"Oh, heya Eddie, I'm basically all do—"
Ed took the clipboard from Frenchie's hands. "Thanks for doing the first pass!"
"Okay, I'll just fuck off then," Frenchie mumbled with a shrug and wandered over to join Oluwande and Lucius in their conversation.
Ed ignored him and climbed into the van.
"Has he been a little…manic recently? Or is it just me?" Frenchie asked Olu and Lucius, crossing his arms and watching the green van rocking as Ed dug through the equipment inside.
"It is not just you," Olu sighed, shaking his head.
Inside the van, something banged against the side paneling. A few minutes later, Ed clambered back out the door.
"Let's hit the road, boys!" He said. His head swiveled back and forth until he spotted Stede standing near the back of the van flipping through a pamphlet titled "The Historical Badminton Estate." He grabbed Stede by the elbow and all but bodily manhandled him into the van. "Go on now, back seat. Yeah, all the way in the back." He gave Stede a very heterosexual and sportsmanlike pat on the behind as he climbed into the van.
Lucius groaned extremely loudly and climbed into the passenger seat, Olu grabbing the keys from Ed and circling round to the driver's side of the van. Frenchie scrunched up his face and put his hand in his hair, trying to absorb the fact that Ed had completely rearranged most of his carefully packed equipment across the middle seats so that there was a narrow space on the back bench seat into which Stede and Ed were now squeezed.
"Ah, thanks for leaving some room for me there, mate," Frenchie grumbled, and moved a box from one of the middle seats into the aisle so that he could have a seat.
"Call me when you've gotten settled, I—" Izzy leaned in to the sliding side door. His eyes fell on Ed and Stede sitting shoulder to shoulder, thigh to thigh in the back seat.
Stede pointed into the pamphlet still open in his hands, seemingly unaware of Izzy speaking.
"Wow, did you know they keep horses?" He said. "How lovely."
Izzy sighed the most Human Resources sigh imaginable and developed an expression as though he were smelling something sour.
"I don't even— whatever, check in with me when you get there." He slid the door closed with a slam and patted the side of the van twice as a send-off.
"Bye, Iz!" Ed's voice floated through the open front two windows as Oluwande drove off, throwing Izzy a sympathetic grimace.