Work Text:
Ed is up in the top of the ship at noon, drinking some of Stede’s finest liquor and enjoying the breeze, when he sees it happen—Calico Jack shoots the albatross.
It is—or, now, was—an impressive creature. Over five feet long with a wingspan over 10 feet. Feathers of brilliant white that gleam, blindingly, in the sunlight and turn to black at the ends of its wings. An otherworldly call that ranges from clacking to laughter. It seems—or, now, seemed—to soar not on the wind but on nothing at all.
Haunting, knowing, eyes.
Ed swears the albatross was looking straight at him when the bullet struck it, right in its chest. Ed pauses in bringing his drink to his lips as he watches the bird drop from the sky and land in a broken bloodied heap in the middle of the deck. The crew scatters, darting away from the bird with hushed shocked gasps and whispers.
Calico is the only one laughing.
“I finally shut up that bird!” Calico roars, all slurred drunken bravado. “You’re welcome, everyone.”
Ed sets down his drink and climbs down from the top. Calico is holding his trophy above his head, now. An impressive creature, an impressive kill. The crew watches on in disgusted silence, their horror robbing them of their voices. Ed hears a distant sob but cannot place who it belongs to.
“Oh, come on, guys, are you really going to act so heartbroken over a little fucking seagull?” Calico mocks.
Calico holds the albatross up by its neck, shaking it vigorously, as if he is fresh from his hunt and showing off the prize turkey. The bird is almost half the length of Calico himself. The brilliant-white feathers are soaked with red.
When Ed finally reaches Calico, Calico thrusts the dead bird at Ed. A gift, Ed supposes.
“For you, man!”
The stench of rum rolls off Calico with every breath.
Ed cradles the albatross, resting its neck against the crook of his arm, as one might do for a newborn babe. And it is in holding that broken bloodied albatross that Ed realizes that he has never held a child.
And it is in holding that broken bloodied albatross that Ed realizes that he has held this albatross before. Exactly like this.
The eyes of the albatross continue looking at Ed, even in death. Haunting and knowing. He wonders what the albatross sees. He wonders if the albatross remembers him from last time.
“I figured it was about time someone took care of that thing,” Calico says. “A week of all that flapping and squawking? I was going fucking mad! Weren’t you?”
“I liked it,” Ed murmurs. The crowd around him hum in agreement.
Ed cannot tear his eyes away from the albatross’s.
Stede is at Ed’s side, now. A gentle hand is on Ed’s shoulder.
“Ed,” Stede whispers, “what do you want to do with it?”
“I don’t know,” Ed replies.
“We can… have a vote?” Stede offers. “Let the crew decide?”
Ed nods, suddenly finding himself mute. Some feeling has crawled up his throat and strangled him from the inside.
Finally, he tears his eyes away from the albatross’s. Calico’s laughter falters when he sees Ed’s expression.
“You’ve killed us all, mate,” Ed manages to croak out around the invisible ironclad grip on his throat. “You’ve fucking killed us all.”
All humor falls from Calico’s face.
“I—I what?” Calico stammers. “Wait. What… what do you mean, I—”
“Just like last time,” Ed says.
The crew vote on a burial at sea.
This does not feel familiar to Ed. This must not have happened last time.
At the funeral, Stede monologues in grand flowery flowing words. Ed rests his head on Stede’s shoulder as he speaks, as if it could enable Ed to crawl inside Stede’s voice and take roost there. Stede holds onto Ed with a reassuring grip on his waist. The crew nod along to the eulogy, occasionally adding their own impressions and praises about their dearly departed albatross.
Calico seems to not know what to do with himself and hangs back away from the crowd.
Nathaniel Buttons steps forward and says either a blessing or a curse, Ed is not sure which it is. Then, Buttons directs to Calico,
“He prayeth well, who loveth well,
Both man and bird and beast.
“He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.”
There is silence as all eyes turn to Calico to see if he understands.
Calico does not.
“Am I supposed to know what that—”
Ed spins to face him, pins him with a glare and a finger aimed at his throat. Ed wishes it was a dagger. But Calico is too far away, anyway.
“That albatross was our fucking friend!” Ed shouts, “It was perfectly harmless, and you fucking killed it!”
“Oh, come on, it’s just a—”
Ed aims his finger overboard.
“When that bird goes in the water,” Ed declares, “you better follow it, or I’m throwing you overboard myself.”
There is silence as Calico finishes his drink.
Then, Calico says, “Fine.”
The rest of the funeral passes easily.
When the bird goes in the water, Calico does follow, but in a dinghy. Calico is owed that much, Ed supposes.
But before Calico climbs down, he pulls Ed aside with a hand on his wrist and a whisper soaked with rum.
“Is this really how you want this to end between us, Blackie?” Calico asks. “After everything we’ve been through? After all our history? I saved your fucking life, man. I—”
Ed pulls Calico’s hand off him.
“Just get out of here, Jack,” Ed says with a sigh.
Then, Calico Jack is on his way.
Later, Stede joins Ed where he stands leaning against the stern taffrail. Calico has long disappeared into the horizon. The breeze had long disappeared, too.
Ed is almost finished with his drink.
“You know, it’s strange,” Stede says. And Ed realizes it is the first thing anyone has said to him in hours. He has lost track of time, watching the brilliant emerald greens of the sea.
“What is?”
“There shouldn’t be any albatrosses in the Caribbean,” Stede says. “They’re not even in the North Atlantic. Or they shouldn’t be. Not this time of year.”
“Are we in the Caribbean?” Ed asks.
“I… yes. I believe we are.”
“What part?” Ed asks.
“What do you mean?”
“What specific part of the Caribbean are we in?”
“I…” Stede starts, then hesitates, then stops. Then, “I am not sure.”
“And how did we get here?”
“I… do not know.”
Ed laughs.
“We’re going to fucking die,” Ed says. “We’re all going to fucking die here.”
“Well, yes, eventually, I suppose we are. It’s good to remind ourselves of that, though, isn’t it? Memento mori!”
Stede says it like a cheer.
Ed shakes his head ruefully. He turns to face Stede.
“No, not eventually,” Ed says. “Soon.”
Stede’s smile falters.
“How do you figure?” Stede asks.
Ed wants to say, because I have seen it before, but he stops himself. There is no way to make that make sense. Not even a little.
“The wind has stopped,” Ed says, instead.
“Well, yes, that did happen. But that happens every so often. There is nothing to—”
“And the sun has stopped,” Ed adds.
Stede frowns at him.
Ed points up at the sky.
“The sun is stuck at noon and has been for hours.”
Stede looks up and finds that Ed is correct. Ed watches as Stede’s face contorts every which way as he struggles to find some possible explanation for what is happening. The display would be cute if it weren’t so maddening.
“Well, I, hmmm, I suppose, hmmm, well—” Stede blusters.
And Ed realizes that it might not be possible to make Stede understand. Not completely. Besides, only Ed seems to remember.
“Okay, how about this,” Ed says, “it’s a game. I tell you we’re about to die. And you humor me by playing along.”
Stede turns his attention back to him.
“Play along how?” Stede asks.
“We do whatever we want before it all ends.”
Stede’s eyes widen with surprise.
“And… what is it that you—”
Ed silences him with a kiss.
Ed takes Stede to bed.
Well, Stede’s bed. And all its lovely lavish silks, the softest things Ed has ever felt on his bare skin. Perhaps the closest thing to Heaven Ed will ever feel.
Stede is every part the nervous gentle lover that Ed imagined him to be, all those times that Ed briefly allowed himself to dare to imagine Stede being anything at all to him.
What Stede lacks in experience and confidence, he makes up for in enthusiasm and an eagerness to please. He is guided well and learns quickly. There is some fumbling, some nervous laughter, some apologies, at first. But then Stede finally understands how Ed wants to be held and held down.
It has been a long time for Ed, but he opens well enough, eventually. It is not the slickest, nor the easiest. But it works well enough.
When Stede breaches him, Ed is on his back. And Ed gasps and arches. And there is an ache, but that is good too.
And Stede whispers, hushed, rapt, “Edward. Edward, look at me.”
Ed wrenches one eye open to look at him.
And Ed watches as Stede’s face is swallowed up by a wide wild grin. And Ed wonders if that is what Stede wanted him to see.
Ed reaches a hand up and grips a handful of Stede’s hair. He grips it tight, thoroughly ruining its ever-perfect state. Ed yanks him down for a kiss, which makes Stede slide in all the deeper. And it hurts, but that is good too.
Ed whimpers into Stede’s mouth.
“Are, are you alright—” Stede tries to say, but Ed swallows the words with another kiss. Stede’s words get muffled against Ed’s mouth and beard.
Ed locks his legs around Stede’s waist. Rocks up against him. And, oh, isn’t that good.
“Move,” Ed hisses.
Stede is beautiful when he comes.
And, as he watches Stede fall apart above him, Ed, for the life of him, cannot decide if he wants this to be their first time or their millionth.
Right now, it is Stede’s first. And soon it will be their last. At least for now.
But Ed remembers another albatross, another stilled sun, another stolen wind. Another death.
So, perhaps there may have been another first before that other death. And perhaps there will be another.
But, for the life of him, Ed cannot remember any.
Nor can he remember exactly how many albatrosses he remembers.
Ed lies in bed as Stede draws them up a bath. From what he can tell from the window, the sun has still not moved. He knows it will not.
And perhaps it does not matter what Ed can and cannot remember from the other times, other than what is next. And he knows exactly what is next because each time, however many times it has been, it has always been the same.
First the albatross.
Then the wind stops.
And the sun stops.
Then…
Edward Teach is up in the top of the ship at noon (still), drinking some of Hornigold’s worst liquor and longing for the breeze, when Jack Rackham joins him.
“Ah, knew I’d find you up here,” Rackham says, his voice a thin rasp. Then, pointing to the bottle in Teach’s hand, “Whoa, is that Hornigold’s? I thought he was out.”
“It’s the last, I think,” Teach replies in a croak.
The liquor has done little to soothe the dry cracking of his throat. Teach had to fight a number of his shipmates for this last bottle. He had felt it was worth it, at the time. Now, he is not so sure.
He offers the bottle to Rackham. “Take some.”
Rackham takes the bottle and gulps down half what remains. Teach notes, with some dissatisfaction, how Rackham’s lips appear as dry, chapped, and bloodied as the rest of their shipmates’. Teach is sure his own are only slightly better. Utterly parched, baked under the sun.
Rackham collapses against Teach. Rackham’s calico tunic is drenched in sweat. Teach stripped himself of his leather days ago. It was noon, then, too. The sweat is all that Teach can smell.
They stare at the brilliant glistening shimmering of the water for a while and say nothing. There is no way to know for how long, though, because it is still noon. They could be up there for minutes or days. There is no way to know.
“It’s so fucking stupid,” Rackham rasps, some unknown time later, “that we can’t drink the sea.”
Teach laughs, then. Because he might as well laugh. Rackham joins him. And how wonderful that sound is. The laughter hurts Teach’s throat, and it sounds like it hurts Rackham’s as well. And yet, they continue. Because they might as well.
“Water, water, everywhere,” Teach croaks.
“And we can’t fucking drink any of it,” Rackham rasps.
Rackham kisses him.
It would not be a good kiss, any other time. Their lips are much too cracked and bloodied and their mouths much too dry. But it is a comfort now.
Rackham pulls Teach to him with one hand gripped in Teach’s beard and another in his hair. Teach has been growing his hair and beard out, because Rackham said it could be good for—
Rackham pulls Teach on top of him with roaming hands and legs wrapped tight around Teach’s waist. Rackham pulls one of Teach’s hands down until he is cupping Rackham through his trousers.
Teach hesitates. He pulls his hand away. He shakes his head.
“We…” Teach croaks, “we shouldn’t. We need to save our energy. We shouldn’t sweat even more. We shouldn’t lose anymore—”
Rackham raises an eyebrow at him in a silent question.
Teach sighs. He hangs his head.
“We’re going to die, aren’t we?” Rackham asks. His rasp is filled with deep broken cracks, now.
Everything has been following the same order as all the other times, however many times there have been. First the albatross, then the wind stops, then the sun stops, then…
“Yeah. Yeah, we are.”
“Might as well have some fun, then, yeah? Humor me.”
Teach considers it.
Then, “Yeah. Yeah, okay.”
Rackham pulls Teach’s hand back to him.
Rackham is always loud when he comes. All gasps and shouts and broken moans and laughter.
Rackham is the same, this time. But by the end, his voice is well and truly gone. And there is no more drink in the bottle to wet his throat. He opens his mouth to say something, maybe a joke, maybe a thanks, but no words leave him—only a voiceless crackling from deep in his throat.
They collapse against one another and watch the sea for some time. The sun beats down on them. Ever, ever, noon.
Teach does not test if he can still speak. He figures it does not matter, anyway, now that the only person he would care to talk to cannot say anything back to him if he did.
Eventually Teach’s tongue goes thick, dry, and heavy in his mouth. He might as well have swallowed sand.
Rackham falls asleep against him, somehow. Teach gently peels himself away and rests Rackham against the railing of the top.
Teach takes a moment to peer down at the ship below.
Teach’s shipmates lie about on the deck, exactly where Teach had left them, either minutes or days before. And there, at the bow of the ship, is Hornigold.
The albatross is hung about Hornigold’s neck like a cross should be—his burden and his penance, for it was he who shot the albatross.
Hornigold stands at the bow, staring at the sea. A hideous cry erupts from Hornigold, deep in his throat.
Teach turns his gaze to the water, then, wondering what Hornigold might be looking at.
And it is then he sees that the sea has turned to monsters.
Slimy things with legs, crawling upon the sea.
Blackbeard is up in the top of the ship at noon (finally), drinking some of the recently looted liquor and enjoying the breeze, when he hears his first mate call to him.
“Edward!”
Blackbeard sighs and sets down his drink. He stands up to lean over the railing. He finds Izzy Hands on the deck below, hands on his waist, fuming. Typical.
“Yes?” Blackbeard shouts back.
“Has a decision been made about the albatross?”
Blackbeard groans. He turns his gaze to the bird in question. The bird floats next to the ship, keeping steady pace with it in the wind. As Blackbeard watches, the albatross lets out a cry much like laughter.
Blackbeard finds himself smiling at it.
He turns his attention back to Izzy below.
“Yes, I have reached a decision, actually,” Blackbeard answers. “I’m naming him Frederick.”
Blackbeard delights in how Izzy’s expression turns to fury.
“That was not the decision I was talking about, and you fucking know it—”
Blackbeard groans again. Then he climbs down from the top.
When he finally reaches Izzy on the deck, Izzy looks no less furious than before.
“The Blackbeard I know,” Izzy hisses when Blackbeard is close enough, “would not have hesitated for a single second to shoot that bird out of the fucking sky.”
“I am Blackbeard.”
“No, you’re an out-of-touch middle-aged-man cavorting about in Blackbeard’s dress-up. The real Blackbeard set the rule for this ship: no pets. I work for Blackbeard, and I enforce his rules when he’s not here. And I don’t see Blackbeard right now, do you?”
At that, Izzy points up at the albatross.
“You just named a fucking bird,” Izzy continues. “You don’t get to have a pet no more than anyone else. You earn that right when you’re Blackbeard, which you clearly fucking aren’t. Now shoot that fucking albatross before I do, you goddamn weak piece of—”
Blackbeard silences Izzy with a firm grip on his throat. He charges forward until Izzy’s back is pressed flat against the door to the cabin.
Izzy’s face breaks out into a wide grin. His eyes dance with delight.
“Shoot the fucking bird,” Izzy hisses out.
Blackbeard tightens his grip on Izzy’s throat. Under his fingertips, Blackbeard can feel Izzy’s blood rushing, straining. Izzy’s face is turning red.
“Shoot the fucking bird,” Izzy repeats.
Blackbeard grits his teeth, grinding his back molars against each other.
Izzy’s eyes are wild, now. Madness.
And Blackbeard knows that Izzy isn’t going to give up. He never does, never have, never will.
“Shoot the—”
“Fine,” Blackbeard spits.
Then, with his free hand, Blackbeard withdraws his pistol, turns his head to the bird, aims, and fires.
The albatross drops from the sky and lands on the deck in a broken bloodied heap.
“Yes, yes, yes!” Izzy chants. His voice is strained now. He’s losing his air.
Blackbeard turns back to face Izzy. He loosens his grip on Izzy’s throat.
“That’s my captain,” Izzy says reverently.
Blackbeard glances down, and to his complete lack of surprise, he finds Izzy hard. He moves his hand from Izzy’s throat and instead fists it in Izzy’s hair. Izzy is laughing at him, thanking him, praising him.
Blackbeard slots a knee between Izzy’s legs.
The sun has set, now replaced by the moon and a star.
His crew is dead. For sweet lady Death, in her grace, had visited and granted peace to all but he.
The sea is monsters.
And the world is swirling chaos.
The albatross is heavy around his neck, but he continues to bear it. That is his duty, now. To bear his penance. Perhaps absolution will come to him, eventually.
But for now, he waits and watches the sea, with only the weight of the albatross and the lifeless eyes of his crew for company.
And he knows, distantly, that he has done this before and will do it again. Somehow.
“So, what happens next?” Stede asks.
They are in the bath, now. They are much too large and the tub much too small for them to sit comfortably. So, they sit with their knees drawn up close to them so that they both may fit. They have displaced so much water that it spills out over the sides of the tub when they so much as move an inch.
“Hm?”
Ed is having a difficult time following what Stede means.
Stede’s hair is still a mess, he has made no effort to tame it since Ed had ruined it so thoroughly, before. Ed likes it like this.
Ed likes Stede like this, too: naked and wet and gleaming and lit by candles they don’t even need. (It’s still light enough outside the window. It’s still noon).
“In the game,” Stede clarifies. “What happens next in the game. The we’re-dying-let’s-do-what-we-want game?”
“Oh,” Ed says with a nervous chuckle. “Oh, yes, that.”
Ed forces himself to bring his gaze up to meet Stede’s.
“Well, what would you want to do before you die?” Ed asks. “If you knew that you were dying?”
“Oh, I would want death to be the furthest thing from my mind!” Stede says with a laugh, shaking his head.
“But how will you know to make sure the moment’s special, then?” Ed asks. “If you aren’t thinking about death?”
“Oh, it’s that darn memento mori thing again, isn’t it?” Stede says. He frowns, slightly, when he continues, “I suppose it makes sense, in a way. By remembering that one day you will die, you can make sure that you’re living the best life you can. But death is such an awful thing. The most awful thing, really. I hate thinking about it at all.”
“I think most people hate thinking about death,” Ed offers. “And I think that’s the point of remembering that you will die. It’s the stick.”
“The stick?”
“And life is the carrot.”
“Ah,” Stede says. “And we are simply being guided along, seeking life and fearing death.”
“Yep,” Ed agrees.
Stede is silent for a while. He appears to be thinking, so Ed leaves him to it. Ed busies himself with fiddling with the yummy lavender soaps.
“I…” Stede says eventually, breaking the shared silence. “I think I still wouldn’t like to know that I’m dying. It’s so much pressure to put on the moment, isn’t it, don’t you think? How much better would it be if you could just live a perfectly normal day, and everything be perfectly pleasant. And at the end you—” Stede snaps his fingers “—just drop dead instantly, not feeling a thing. No agony, no turmoil, just, poof, a permanent end of the day.”
“But then you could die doing something lame like filing taxes.”
“Ah, you see,” Stede replies with a grin, “that’s why I became a pirate!”
“No taxes?”
“No, no,” Stede laughs, “no, I mean… Any given day is a dream, now. If I were to drop dead now, after any typical day, I’d probably like the day on which I went out.”
Ed frowns to himself and considers that. He swirls his fingers around in the tub, creating little ripples and waves.
“So, there’s nothing special you’d want?” Ed asks.
Ed knows he should be relieved by this, honestly, because there is only so much time they have left and only so much Ed could do, anyway. But somehow the idea that there is nothing that Ed could offer Stede in the little time that is left…
It leaves a sour taste in Ed’s mouth.
“Well, I mean,” Stede says. He reaches forward and clasps both of Ed’s hands in his own. “You can’t beat having decent company, I suppose.”
Stede offers him a warm open smile.
“There’s nowhere else I’d rather be right now,” Stede says, “than right here with you.”
When Ed and Stede return to the deck, it is to find that the sun has still not moved, and the wind has still not returned.
The ship cannot move, like this. There is no escape.
Stede clenches Ed’s hand tightly in his.
Perhaps he is starting to understand, a little.
Or remember.
But Ed suspects that only he will remember, because so far only he ever has.
They’re lying on the deck, watching the stars overhead. No moon tonight, so the Milky Way lights up the entire night like God dragged his knife along the sky and out of the gash gushed out a billion-billion stars.
“Do you fear death?” Rackham asks in a whisper.
And honestly Teach should have expected this kind of question. Rackham always gets philosophical this late in the evening, long after they have sobered up and long after everyone else is asleep.
“The fuck kind of question is that?” Teach responds with a chuckle. “If we feared death, we wouldn’t be pirates, would we? Can’t be a pirate without a death wish.”
Rackham hums, as if considering Teach’s answer.
“Or, maybe,” Rackham suggests after a moment, “the death wish is just how we fucking try to deal with it all. Maybe it doesn’t actually make any of it less scary.”
Teach shrugs.
“Maybe.”
They are quiet for a long time. Teach sees a couple shooting stars. He doesn’t make a wish because he doesn’t even know what he would wish for.
“Do you fear Hell?” Rackham asks.
Teach chuckles again.
“Fuck, no,” Teach says.
“Why not? Hell seems like a scary place.”
“Yeah, and when you and I go there, we’ll have each other for company. Can’t be all that bad, then, right?”
Rackham laughs, then.
“Yeah, yeah I guess you have a point.”
Teach wonders, then, if he has had this conversation before.
Perhaps somewhere else, with someone else.
Or perhaps he is dreaming.
They’re standing at the bow of the ship, watching the sea.
And watching the slimy things with legs crawling upon it.
“You did this,” Blackbeard says. “You did this to us.”
Izzy laughs, then.
“No, I fucking didn’t. You did.”
Blackbeard spins on him. And Blackbeard would place a dagger to Izzy’s throat, but he knows that Izzy would like it.
“You made me do it.”
Izzy just laughs again. Cackles, really.
“No, I just made you do what the real Blackbeard would have immediately. You were always going to do it. This is always what was going to happen. You were always going to send us all to Hell. You just needed a gentle push.”
Blackbeard hesitates for a moment.
“Is… is this…” Blackbeard starts, then stops.
He turns to face the sea that has turned to monsters.
“Are we…”
“Well,” Stede says, surveying the sea turned monsters, “it appears we are indeed in Hell.”
Ed laughs, because he might as well.
“Can’t be too bad, though,” Stede says, turning to face Ed.
“How do you figure?” Ed asks.
“Because you’re here with me,” Stede says with a grin.
Absolution comes, eventually. Salvation.
Then, so too, returns, the albatross.
And as he sits up in the top of the ship at noon, drinking, he looks into the albatross’s eyes.
Haunting. Knowing.
And he wonders if he has seen the albatross before.
And he wonders if the albatross knows him somehow, from somewhere, from somewhen.
And then, distantly, he hears a pistol shot.
And the albatross drops from the sky.