Chapter Text
On the deck of the Revenge, the crew moves at a uniform, if a bit harried, pace. There are new sails to be raised, ropes to be tied, new flags to be flown. New courses to be chartered, and new plans to be made. Stede closes his eyes and soaks it all in: Pete, always the loudest, shouting above everybody else, and Lucius right behind; Roach and Frenchie, arguing over the best way to tie a knot that may or may not be strictly about sailing at the moment. The din of other voices, all melded together in indiscernible background noise.
Not too long ago, it feels like, everybody on this ship would have mutinied Stede without a second thought. Not too long, Stede wouldn’t have blamed them. How far they’ve come. How far we’ve come, thinks Stede. They’ve won and lost and won again. There’s a chance, just in reach, to start over. Cultivate something new, bring it from the ground up with their own hands. Make it theirs.
“Who do you want to be now?” Stede finally asks, hands on the railing, the salt wind rustling his hair. Next to him, standing just close enough that their shoulders brush, is Ed. He’s quiet, a stoic, solid presence. A side-glance over shows him pensive, eyes squinted against the sun off the water, his mouth a thin line. His hair, loose from its topknot, whips around him.
It’s a question Stede’s been asking himself since the burial. It doesn’t feel right to head back to sea, but he would, if that’s what Ed wants. A pirate, a fisherman—Stede will do it all, as long as it means Ed is by his side. He’s understanding now what it means to be in love. Not just being near, or breathing the same air, or simply touching. Those are elements of it, yes, but it goes deeper than that. There’s a maturity to it, a selflessness. Being in love is like being home, and right now, they can make a home anywhere they want.
Ed doesn’t respond for a long handful of minutes. Then, he covers Stede’s hand with his, turns his head; Stede follows. He’ll always follow. To the ends of the earth in a dingy, to a little cabin on the shoreline, to wherever they decide to plant their roots.
When Ed smiles at him, eyes gone soft and crinkled at the corners, Stede falls in love all over again.
“We could be anything.”
——
Anything.
The sun sets over the ocean, scattering gold across the waves. Stede stands on the porch of the little cabin, leaning against the post. He’s seen this sunset countless times on Barbados, watched the same descent into the ocean from land, but before, it had always left him hollowed out with a ceaseless, edgeless sense of yearning.
“You okay, babe?”
Now, Stede only feels a sense of contentment, a sweet-sticky pull that drags away the dark storm clouds threatening on the horizon of his mind. He knows what the sun looks like when the open ocean swallows it whole. He knows what it looks like when she spits it back out. He knows every gradient of the sun’s pass through the sky, and he knows who he wants to keep beside him until he sees the sun rise or set for the last time.
When Ed steps up behind him, wrapping his arms around Stede’s waist, Stede leans back immediately, melting into Ed’s body, his touch. His security: in his heartbeat, slow and steady against Stede’s back; in his breathing, the rise and fall of his chest that Stede unconsciously begins to match.
“Just thinking,” Stede says after a moment. Mulls over their conversation from the deck of the Revenge, lets it play out in echoes.
“Hopefully not too hard.”
Stede breathes out a laugh, squeezing Ed’s hands. It’s quiet here, something Stede needs to grow used to again. No more close quarters, no more shouting and yelling and laughing at all hours of the day. Nobody to intrude, nobody to knock at the wrong time. No more reading stories by candlelight and no more crew-bonding exercises.
The loss is real, and it’s tangible. It aches, someplace deep that can’t be touched, or maybe that he shouldn’t touch, because a little ache is a reminder of life. Stede feels as if he can taste it on the back of his tongue, and he avoids it and seeks it out in equal measures, like a sore on the inside of his mouth. But he also knows: it isn’t goodbye. The Revenge will be back, and so will their former crew, and he and Ed can open their doors for them. Let them rest, keep them fed, make new memories. There will always be room in their hearts and in their home for the people they’ve long since called family.
“I’m thinking about what we’re going to do here,” replies Stede, “and what it’ll be like when the crew visits.”
Against Stede’s ear Ed hums, presses a soft kiss to the shell of it that zips a shiver straight down Stede’s spine. Together they watch the shimmer of the ocean, the swoop of seagulls through the sky, the quick black-and-white flashes of terns. They exist in the silence, cocooning themselves in the late-summer humidity. Different on land, always has been, and already Stede misses the sea-spray coolness of the waves against the hull, the flecks of saltwater and foam that never ceased to make him smile.
“Figured I could keep trying to get better at fishing,” Ed eventually says quietly. He hooks his chin on Stede’s shoulder, gently butts his head to Stede’s like a cat. Stede breathes in the scent of sun and sweat, clean soap and Ed. No sea-spray here, but Ed is just as good as. “Could grow a garden. Maybe get some goats, or some chickens. Got lots of treasure left, but it wouldn't hurt to sell some milk or cheese in town. Vegetables, too. Get in good with the locals.”
Stede makes a noise in agreement, turning his head to seek out Ed’s lips. Familiar, dry and faintly chapped, their shape and curve fitting perfectly against Stede’s own. A true marvel, that he can take this whenever, have Ed whenever. Already he’s wondering about their new community, and who they will befriend and who they will avoid. If they’ll need to come up with fake names, or if people will turn a blind eye with a few well-placed bribes and promises of assistance from two middle-aged men used to the demand of a sailor’s life.
“Maybe I could knit,” Stede says, gently swaying them both as the sun’s half-circle morphs into a crescent and the light around them slowly turns purple with twilight. Around them, nighttime bugs begin their symphonies, and Ed’s breathing is steady at his back. In, out. In, out. A cycle of life. Sunrise, sunset. “Wee John showed me some, and I did like how soothing it is once you catch on.”
Ed chuckles, then presses a kiss to the curve of Stede’s neck. Stede tilts his head to give Ed more room, swallowing back a moan when Ed presses another kiss before pulling back. “Imagine that. Two old pirates taking up knitting and gardening. Sounds silly, doesn’t it?”
Once, Stede had told Ed about retirement. It had seemed silly then, when they hardly knew each other. Back then, retirement had meant death. It hadn’t meant a long-abandoned cottage filled with what the crew could spare from the captain’s quarters: the mattress; the desk; boxes and boxes of Ed’s treasure, some to keep and some to sell. Clothes and the odd few trinkets they wanted to take with them. For the first time in his life, Stede hasn’t wanted or needed for much. He had Ed. He had this cabin. He had a future that stretched as endless in front of him as the sea used to.
The Golden Age of piracy is dead. Blackbeard and the Gentlemen Pirate died along with it. In its ashes, Ed Teach and Stede Bonnet are reborn.
“I think it sounds like heaven,” says Stede. Then he turns fully in Ed’s arms, wraps his arms around Ed’s waist, and kisses him. The last of the evening light catches off Izzy’s headstone. The reminder of his sacrifice will always be stark, and will always be within reach. Ed tugs Stede in close, and Stede lets himself be led, lets his orbit fall into Ed’s as natural as anything.
It isn’t an ending. It isn’t a beginning. It’s simply a new section, a new chapter, a continuation of their lives together. They don’t need to run from anything anymore. All they need exists right in front of them.
“I love you,” Stede says in between kisses. His hands slide up the broad, bold lines of Ed’s torso, over the gentle slope of his shoulders, to anchor on his biceps. Stede thinks of the maps left in the captain’s quarters, all neatly rolled up and stored away; he doesn’t need them anymore, not when the only map he wants to study the rest of his life is Ed’s body.
Ed smiles; fond, in love. Flashes of a sunrise on the main top, marmalade on fresh bread, the beginning flutter of something new in Stede’s chest; flashes of the pain of coming back together, to right wrongs and remind him that love isn’t easy, but it’s worth fighting for. Ed reaches up a hand to brush bejewelled fingers through Stede’s hair and says, “I know.”
——
Innkeepers, Ed says later against Stede’s lips. The shapes of the words form there, brand there. Let’s be innkeepers.