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"The vastest things are those we may not learn
We are not taught to die, nor to be born,
Nor how to burn
With love."
- Mervyn Peake, The Vastest Things Are Those We May Not Learn
Edward Teach is born on a beach.
He’s drunk again. She would say that he is angry again, but that would suggest a time when he is not in a state of barely concealed rage. Anger at being poor, at being weak, at the world he thinks has cheated him out of some other life he deserved. Anger at her; the food she cooks and the noise of her breathing and the vast, full moon swell of her belly. She knows he sees it as a curse, a trap, another mouth to feed to tie him down. If she hoped fatherhood might wake some softer feeling in him, that hope is long dead. His anger has grown with her girth, if anything, and all she can do is curl her arms around herself when he strikes her, take the blows on her shoulders to defend the little life inside her.
Tonight he is drunk—drunker even than usual—and he is angry at her for something. Some imagined slight, not enough salt in his stew or booze in his mug, only an excuse. Only ever an excuse. But tonight his anger is poisonous, black as bile, and when he grabs her by the throat, snarling accusations, she can see the murder in his eyes.
He doesn’t expect it when she shoves him; he’s drunk enough to stumble back, to lose his balance and fall, and she takes her chance to run. He chases her, the way a dog chases anything that runs. She’s slow, clumsy, her enormous belly swaying in front of her, but he’s drunk, with a drunk’s precarious, wide-legged stagger. She’s gaining ground, but she can’t run forever. She needs to get somewhere safe. Not into town, nobody there would help her. He’d come for her and laugh her off as a hysterical woman, drag her down some alleyway and then drop her body in the harbor. Instead she runs to the beach, feet flying across the sand with a speed born of terror, into the jagged rocks that run up to the base of the cliff. She’s walked these rocks since childhood, barefoot on the slick seaweed, dipping her hands into the tidepools to catch the crabs and tiny fish. She knows this place; knows she can hide here.
He comes looking for her, following her footprints in the sand, but the rocks conceal her presence. She hears him splashing through the pools, kicking at driftwood and stones, shouting her name, telling her to come out, to come home, everything’s fine, a wheedling, sickly tone that she can hear for a lie. She hides in the narrow gap between dark, salt slick rocks, seaweed and barnacle shells under her palms. The smell of brine is sharp in her nose. Crabs scuttle furtively across the rocks. If he finds her, he’ll kill her; he’ll kill the life inside her.
Her heart beats so loud in her chest that she’s afraid he’ll hear it, even over the noise of the waves where they lick the beach. Her breath comes in shallow, terrified gasps. She thinks this is how a rabbit feels, waiting for the dogs to find it and tear it apart. When the warm fluid gushes between her thighs she’s sure for a moment that she’s pissed herself. When she realizes what it is, she thinks: God no, please, not now, little one, wait just a while.
She might as well ask the tide to hold back its swell.
He is still shouting her name as the first wave of contractions sweeps over her, punching the breath from her body. She bites down on her lip until she tastes blood, fingers clenching on jagged stone. No sound escapes her but a whimper. She breathes shallowly, and prays for him to leave, if she can just get into town and get to the midwife—
Another contraction hits and she tightens her grip, feels the saltwater sting where the rocks split her fingers. A crab runs across the back of her hand. She doesn’t make a noise.
Finally, finally, the sounds of his voice grows fainter as he retreats back up the beach, his calling half hearted and then falling into silence. He’ll stumble home and drink more and pass out, and tomorrow the black rage will have passed and it won’t be so bad. It’ll be fine. Now she just needs to get up—
Another contraction, stronger, the pain wrenching from her hips all the way up her spine, and she knows it’s already far too late for that. She sinks back against the rocks, the smell of brine and blood and the taste of tears in her mouth, and when the next contraction comes she lets her raw-bitten tongue loose, and her cries are whipped away by the wind and the waves.
And when at last she takes the little form in her arms, covered in blood and sand, tiny fists clenched in defiance against the world, her child’s first cry is given to the ocean as well. She pulls him to her breast, gazes down at him as he begins to suck, her heart as full as the moon overhead. She hears herself sob with the joy of him, and with sorrow that she’s brought his tenderness into a world as cruel as this.
“My Edward,” she whispers, cradling his fragile skull as if she could protect him from everything life might do to him. “Please, God, let him know better things than this.”
At her feet, the crabs begin to move over the mess of birth, working feverishly; by tomorrow no trace will remain.
*
Blackbeard is born on the deck of an English merchant ship.
It should have been Edward’s raid to lead, he was the one who brought it to Hornigold, the one with a plan to capture the prize. Besides, the crew like him best, follow him easily as if he was their captain. But on some whim Hornigold decided to give the raid to Jack, and Edward tries not to feel resentful as Jack struts around the deck, giving orders as if he owns the fucking place and grinning every time he catches Edward’s eye, wolfish and self-satisfied.
(He wore the same grin in Hornigold’s cabin when their captain gave them the order of command. “Aww, tough break, Eddie,” he sympathized, his voice mocking; he knows that Edward hates being called Eddie, and persists in it not in spite but because of that fact.)
And all right, maybe Edward is sulking just a little bit when they board the merchant ship, hanging back while Jack leads the charge, because fuck him, if he thinks he’s so fucking great then he doesn’t need Edward to watch his backside for him, does he? Someone swings a sword clumsily at Edward’s face as he steps over the side; he ducks it, and the man swings again with a shout that sounds more like fear than anger. That becomes a grunt of pain as Edward’s knife finds his belly, slashing through fabric and flesh and sending him to a heap on the deck, fingers grasping at the wound as gore oozes out between them. Edward flicks the blood off his knife and steps over the man, taking in the scene.
The English crew are putting up a dutiful resistance, but already faltering in the face of more violence than most of them have ever seen in their lives. There is screaming and the sounds of metal on metal, metal on flesh and the dull thuds of bodies hitting the floor. The deck is slick with blood and worse; Edward’s boots almost slip in a puddle of viscera and when he glances down he recognizes the man it belongs to. Belonged to, he supposes now, past tense. Something is on fire in the stern of the ship, the smoke acrid and thick and Edward wonders what the fuck they’ve stored back there.
Somewhere, Jack is laughing, because Jack is always laughing; the thing with Jack is you can never tell if he’s laughing with you or at you. Edward follows the sound of that laugh, shouldering men aside or letting his knife flash out when he needs to, parting muscle from bone quick and sweet as a kiss. There is a low, dark thrill thrumming through his blood, right down to his core, but it never shows at the surface, never makes his knife hand shake. It’s why he’s good at this; it’s why the men trust him, because he never loses his nerve or his grip, does what’s needed without a moment’s hesitation.
(There’s a small, vicious part of him thinks that’s why Hornigold gave the raid to Jack, because the men like Edward, follow Edward eagerly; because Hornigold is old and afraid of someone taking his place. There’s an even smaller part whispers that he could, if he wanted to. He wouldn’t, though. Hornigold is like a—well, he wouldn’t say a father, but the man is something to him, arsehole that he is, and Edward hasn’t had many people who are something to him, not enough that he could betray one of them.)
He finds Jack on the fo’c’sle, in the middle of the fiercest pocket of resistance, and isn’t that just fucking like him? Such a fucking dick that he inspires the enemy to fight back harder. Jack is laughing still, baying like a wild thing while he faces down three men with a heavy knife in his hand, and Edward could leave him there but he won’t, his gut clenching at the thought; he hates Jack sometimes, but that doesn’t mean they’re not friends. He dives into the fray, drags one of Jack’s opponents back and drives the knife into his shoulder, severing tendons and scraping against bone. The man howls, and one of his fellows looks up, sees Edward standing there and suddenly all the color drains from his face, his eyes going wide.
“It’s him,” he whispers, pointing at Edward like he’s seen a fucking apparition or something. “It’s the Black Beard!”
He drops to his knees, hands up in surrender, and then a murmur is going around the fo’c’sle and then the whole fucking ship—
it’s him, it’s him, the Black Beard, the monster who murders ships, there’s no hope against him, no escape, nothing to do but pray for mercy
—and within minutes all the English sailors are surrendered, docile as dogs. Jack struts around the deck, acting every inch the conquering fucking hero, but nobody is looking at him. Their eyes are on Edward, who walks behind Jack, definitely not swaggering at the fearful whispers (Black Beard, Black Beard) as he passes. He knew he was getting a reputation, or hoped it at least, but apparently he’s earned a fucking nickname without even knowing about it, a name that sends men cowering—men who've never even met him; a name that won them a whole fucking ship today.
Well, maybe he’s swaggering just a little bit.
The ship is as rich a prize as they had hoped, her hold filled with sugar and Madeira wine, and back on Hornigold’s ship they all slap each other on the back, laughing and swigging rum from the bottle, and Edward laughs more and drinks more than anyone else, and doesn’t even object when some of the lads start yelling about the Black Beard being the terror of the seas, grabbing at his beard and slapping his cheeks with savage affection.
“I’m fucking Blackbeard!” he bellows at the sky and the sea, and the men raise a cheer, and Edward drinks some more, trying not to notice that Jack isn’t laughing, that Jack isn’t there at all in fact.
Later, much later, he stumbles drunkenly to his bunk and there Jack is, still grinning his wolf’s grin but there’s a twist to it now that Edward doesn’t like. “Well if it isn’t the infamous Blackbeard,” Jack drawls, and then his hands are clenching in the front of Edward’s shirt and pushing him down to the bunk; Edward goes easily, because he’s too drunk to object and anyway it often turns out pretty fucking good when Jack gets in his bunk with him, even if Jack doesn’t quite seem in the mood for a friendly fuck right now.
“All right, Jack?” he says, hearing the words slur, and when Jack laughs Edward can’t tell if it’s with him or at him.
“Oh I’m fucking awesome,” Jack says, his hands going from Edward’s shirt to his wrists. “Lucky for me I had the legendary Blackbeard there to save me on my own fucking raid. What would I do without you, eh Blackie?”
He leans in close, stinking of rum and blood, and his fingers squeeze too hard around Edward’s wrists and his teeth on Edward’s throat are too sharp, but he’s pressed against Edward, warm and alive and Jack, and Edward hasn’t had many people in his life who were something to him. Not enough that he could say no to one of them.
The next morning after Edward finishes throwing up over the side of the ship, he’s summoned to Hornigold’s cabin. Everything still smells of blood and he knows it’s him, blood gritting under his nails and matted in his beard and tacky on his skin. Hornigold tells him he’s to be given his own command—his own fucking ship—and Edward knows it’s because of Blackbeard.
“Congratulations, Captain Teach,” Hornigold says, and Edward almost feels ashamed of those vicious little thoughts from yesterday. He says thank you, and swears he’ll do his captain proud, and then he goes back up on deck and throws up over the side again, fingers clenching on the wooden rail hard enough to hurt. At least up here the salt breeze carries away the cloying smell of blood, though Edward can still taste it in the back of his throat, sharp metallic tang of it; he’ll take a swim later, let the ocean wash it all away.
Captain Blackbeard, he thinks to himself. He doesn’t say it aloud, because he doesn’t want to bloody jinx it, does he? Still he likes the way it’s going to sound.
*
(There was no blood when the Kraken was born, only the waves licking the dock and the raw stretch of rope between his fingers, the harsh rattle of lungs desperately gasping for breath that wasn’t coming. When the noise stopped he let the body fall with a thump and looked down at it, at the thing that used to be his father, livid red marks blossoming across its throat from where the rope pulled tight, eyes wide and glassy, popping out of its skull.
He didn’t feel anything. He felt like a dead thing, like there was no heart beating in his chest. He pushed the body into the water, and the Kraken with it, back down to the dark, drowned place that it came from.)
*
Ed is born in the stateroom of a fancy-arse ship, on the fancy-arse bed of its fancy-arse captain. This place is mental, full of chandeliers and elaborate rugs and stupidly impractical furniture that isn’t even secured to anything; Edward wouldn’t want to see the state of the place after a proper storm, especially with that open fire burning in an actual fucking fireplace. The only thing like a pirate ship here is the smell of blood, and the raw, flayed open look of the man in the bed, the eyes of a man who’s come close to death.
He doesn’t know exactly why he does it, except that someone not knowing who he is might be the single best thing that’s happened to him in years. Everyone fucking knows Blackbeard. Everyone fucking calls him Blackbeard, all the fucking time; he hasn’t heard his given name from anyone but Izzy in years, and even then he always hears the implied “Blackbeard” on the back of the man’s tongue, like “Edward” is just a lie, a concession to his captain’s eccentricities. But this guy, Stede, doesn’t have a fucking clue who he is, and sticking out his hand and saying “Ed” is somehow the simplest thing in the world.
(Stede’s hand trembles very delicately as he takes Edward’s. There are livid red marks blossoming across his throat from where the rope pulled tight, but Edward doesn’t look at those.)
Ed is not Blackbeard, Ed can shake a man’s hand and smile and compliment him on not being dead; Ed can carefully press a scarf of rather exquisite cashmere to his skin, the sensation of it soft as sleep, soft as no touch he’s ever felt. Ed can keep a secret, can step inside an auxiliary wardrobe and run his fingers over the rails of fine clothing, not even able to imagine what a person could need all this for, all these fine and delicate things. Nothing that a person like Blackbeard could ever need, could ever want.
There’s a wobbly moment when the truth comes out, because it has to, and Stede’s eyes go wide in his pale, drawn face. But it’s all right, it’s fine, because Stede seems willing to believe in Ed; he seems the kind of man who’s willing to believe in anything, as long as it’s beautiful.
He is the strangest person Edward’s ever met, and it puts a feeling in his belly that is like and not like the low, dark thrill of blood; like he’s walking into a fight where he doesn’t know the rules, and he fucking loves it.
Edward says: “Do you want to do something weird?” and it seems he was right about Stede, because he absolutely fucking does.
Edward strips efficiently, there’s no room for being coy on a ship full of other people’s bodies; Stede follows suit slowly, and Edward doesn’t think it’s only care for his wound. If he hadn’t spoken of a woman—Mary —in his fevered ramblings, Edward might think he’d never had his clothes off in front of someone else. Edward doesn’t look, particularly, except in the way he always has a bit of a look; there’s nothing extraordinary to see, though there’s a charm to the fuzz of gingerish hair on Stede’s chest, the stocky softness of his body, the almost shy way he turns to offer Edward his clothes.
Stede’s clothing is still body warm when Edward puts it on; the fabric is very soft against his skin.
Stede struggles his way into Blackbeard’s tight leather, with the expression of a man who’s deeply offended that clothing could be this uncomfortable. As he’s straining to yank the trousers all the way up he gives a sudden, sharp hiss of pain; Edward turns, and sees a fresh red stain blooming across the front of the bandages that are holding the man’s guts together.
“Aw, man,” he says. “I told you to take it easy.”
“I’m perfectly fine,” Stede says shakily, and takes a step forward that turns into a stumble, that would end on the floor if Edward didn’t catch him under the arms. He drags the man to one of the ridiculous little couches and sets him down, watches him pant shallowly against the pain, his arm held carefully across his belly.
“You need to lie down again, mate,” Edward tells him, and Stede shakes his head stubbornly.
“I’m quite all right,” he insists. “Just need a moment.” True to his word, minutes later he’s pulling the rest of Blackbeard’s clothes on, his face blanched but his jaw set with determination, and Edward sees something in this man that will never give up. And maybe that’s why he can be out here in this ridiculous ship with its ridiculous crew (they have a fucking bird guy) when he clearly knows fuck all about sailing or piracy or even the basic rule that everyone out here wants to fuck you over.
And if he can do all that and look at Edward with something more like fascination than fear, and call him “Ed” without a hint of anything else on the back of his tongue, well, maybe Edward can be Ed for a while. He knows it can’t last; people like him don’t get to change. But just for a while, maybe he can pretend.
*
On that bluff by the shoreline, there was a moment where he thought he could be born again.
Fuck Edward and Blackbeard and all the rest of it, fuck his reputation and fuck what any of the rest of them want from him. New name, new backstory, new everything. A feeling in his chest like sailing off the map, frightening and heady all at once.
Stede’s mouth against his was soft and hesitant, and then Stede’s eyes meeting his were soft and hesitant, and maybe that should have been a warning. A lighthouse. But Edward saw that fucking light and dashed himself eagerly on the rocks, and really there’s nobody but himself to blame that he ran aground.
He should have listened to his mum; he was never meant to have fine things, never meant for anything better than what he is.
So now there’s no one left to believe in Ed, and Edward feels a world class fucking fool, and how can he even be Blackbeard with his face exposed and unguarded, every line of grief and bitterness laid bare for all to see? He let Stede strip too many things from him, too many layers of hard-won armor; a crab cracked open on the rocks, still alive and twitching helplessly, seagulls picking at its raw flesh.
There is only one thing left for him to be.
(He tried to put the Kraken down once, tried to drown it in the deep sea trenches of his soul, but he should have known better. Can’t drown a thing that’s already dead.)
That low, dark thrill of blood thrums through him, right at his core, but it doesn’t show at the surface, doesn’t make his hands shake as he sends Lucius over the railing. He doesn’t feel anything, no heart beating in his chest, and he thinks that this is how it was always meant to turn out. No hell, no doggy heaven, no hope of being born anew; only the ship solid beneath his feet and an ocean to wash the blood away.