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The raid part is pretty routine by now, and honestly if Oluwande thinks about it too hard, he might cry with gratitude because it feels so nice to just have something uncomplicated: to have Jim and Archie on either side of him, having his back both literally and metaphorically; to have Stede captaining like a proper fucking captain, calling out sensible orders and actually occasionally managing to intimidate a civilian or two; to have Izzy exhibiting calm competence and the rest of the crew being a bit more extravagant but still competent is the main thing; and to have Blackbeard back on the Revenge where he still isn't allowed sharp or combustible objects but that's a bit complicated, isn't it, so Oluwande's just going to focus on the here and now.
And here and now, they're tying up the last of the civilians, who have delightfully and uncomplicatedly surrendered upon seeing the vengeful pirate horde, and Oluwande is just taking note of the fact that Archie isn't tying her knots too tight in deference to said surrender when the poor sap she's tying catches a glimpse of the captain and says, sounding shocked:
"Stede?"
He's possibly the most normal-looking person Oluwande's ever seen, but in, like, a nice and comforting way: unpretentious clothes, none of the wigs or powder of the aggravatingly elite, and a kind face that shows traces of smile lines even though he's slack-jawed staring at Stede right now.
And when Oluwande follows his gaze, he finds his captain staring back. "Oh my God – "
"Oh, wow!" the captive says, and Oluwande looks immediately back at him because he's not a particularly good actor and right now he's faking something, and faking it badly. "Wow, you just look so much like Stede Bonnet, the Gentleman Pirate, whom I used to know and who very definitely and comprehensively died in Bridgetown, Barbados, several months ago!"
Stede's expression melts from confusion to what Oluwande has come to think of as his Fuckery Face, an expression halfway between sly and gleeful that fools absolutely no one. "Ah, yes! You caught me – I, someone who is definitely not Stede Bonnet, have taken the identity of the famed Gentleman Pirate in order to coopt the respect and gravitas that he commanded throughout the pirating community!"
"Wait, what?" Archie mutters, sitting back on her heels where she's kneeling next to the captive.
"Fuck if I know," Jim murmurs back.
"And if you knew him," Stede continues in tones of decidedly conspicuous dignity, "then I shall definitely take advantage of that fact and – and interrogate you about him so that I can better impersonate Stede Bonnet, the Gentleman Pirate, who is dead and also not me."
Oluwande looks across the deck at Lucius. He is actively wincing.
But Stede keeps going. "This fearsome interrogation should clearly occur in private! Maybe over, say, a late lunch? What time is it – you hungry yet?"
The captive shrugs. "I could eat." Then he clears his throat. "And I certainly fear you, imposter! I find myself with no choice but to capitulate to your demands and bargain for my own life. Perhaps by alerting you that there's some serrano ham and Manchego cheese down in the hold, along with a lovely selection of Spanish wines."
Stede breaks into a luminous smile. "Ooh, that sounds absolutely lovely!" He glances at the rest of the captives and forces his expression back into something stern. "An absolutely lovely way to avoid dying at my vicious, vicious hands. Ah..."
There's obvious reluctance in Stede's eyes as he takes stock of his own crew, which makes Oluwande frown a bit. They're all exhibiting pretty normal behavior, for them – Frenchie has a knife to the enemy captain's throat, Wee John is holding the first mate about a foot off the deck by the scruff of his shirt, Roach is holding both his cleavers with the barely-contained energy of someone who wants to see a toe flying through the air in the next ten seconds and if it doesn't happen on its own he'll damn well make it happen –
"Oluwande, Lucius, I don't suppose you can give our captive a hand while I finish things up here?" Stede says eventually, and Oluwande immediately understands: Stede doesn't just want this guy to live, he wants him to have an actually decent experience and not fear for his life.
Which is a weird thing to want for some rando they just came across in the course of piracy, but, well, Stede clearly knows this guy and this isn't a situation like their disastrous run-in with Stede's old school chum turned English Navy Captain, so Oluwande decides to indulge in a little optimism.
"Yes, sir, Captain, sir," Oluwande says, just in case it'll help impress this guy.
"Yeah, all right," Lucius says, although he looks much more skeptical about the whole thing.
They leave the captive's hands bound as they take him down below, although as soon as they're out of eyeshot of everyone else the captive begins speaking with a low, conspiratorial tone.
"This is kind of exciting, isn't it?" he says. "I'm Doug, by the way. I don't know if Stede's told you about me."
"Uh," Oluwande says, trading a glance with Lucius, who pulls a baffled face. "Not really, no. Sorry. Are you from Bridgeport?"
"Captain can be, um, a bit tight-lipped about personal stuff," Lucius adds, despite the fact that Oluwande has never known Stede to be tight-lipped about anything.
"That's fair, entirely fair," Doug says, leading them around a stack of crates in the hold. "All right, so I think the ham and cheese should be over there, but if you're also looking for loot there are some valuables over in this direction, including," he adds with a knowing look at Oluwande and Lucius, "some pieces by the Widow Bonnet."
"The Widow – Stede's wife paints?" Lucius says, eyebrows raised.
"Oh, yes," Doug says. "I was actually her painting instructor, although I'm delighted to say she's developed a truly unique style."
Well, that explains how Stede and Doug knew each other.
"Ohhhh," Oluwande says, putting things together as Lucius begins sifting through canvases. "She goes by the Widow Bonnet because Stede faked his death, then?"
"No, she started calling herself that because when Stede first left to go to sea, everyone just kind of assumed he died." Doug shrugs. "Sorry. I don't mean to cast aspersions – "
Oluwande returns the shrug companionably. "Nah, no worries. I think we're all still a little surprised that he's made it as long as he has."
"Holy shit," Lucius says, sounding more appreciative than shocked, angry, or traumatized, which Oluwande thinks is a welcome change.
Oluwande glances over to see what Lucius is looking at, and frowns. "Is that one of the paintings?"
"It's a goddamn masterpiece," Lucius breathes, holding the canvas up. It shows the entryway to a house, brightly colored sunlight spilling through stained-glass windows. The wood flooring of the entryway, though, is speckled with red ovals that Oluwande realizes after a second are bloody footprints; the paint runs down in grotesque but unmistakable drips from them. "Look at this brushwork, even the strokes for the sunlight are at a different angle than everything else, and that shading, and, oh my god, look – the footprints are raised, how do you even do that?"
"Mary applied the paint directly with a palette knife to create a sense of depth," Doug says, looking over Lucius's shoulder. "I have to admit, it isn't my favorite that she's done, but it's always gratifying to see her stretch her use of materials and techniques. And besides, she clearly had some things she needed to get out."
Lucius's fingers run over one of the background walls – which, Oluwande realizes on a closer glance, is also spattered with a fine mist of red. "Is this supposed to be blood?"
"It is," Doug agrees. "The piece is titled Morning Widow, see?" and he taps a squiggle on the frame that Oluwande assumes corresponds to the title. "Since Stede's return interrupted a support group brunch for widows, and also because we then faked his death."
Lucius nods slowly. "So the bloody footprints represent the dead husband?"
"I think more representing Stede as the intrusion of patriarchal masculine violence into a countercultural safe space." Doug shrugs. "Or maybe it's just because his feet were all bloody."
"Did you just say Stede represented violence?" Lucius demands.
"And his feet were bloody?" Oluwande adds.
"He was barefoot when he arrived," Doug tells Oluwande, and then addresses Lucius. "Mary had a lot to work through, even after Stede faked his death and left. The parting was on good terms, of course, but I think the incident at her showing when he tried to kill me really stuck with her."
Lucius blinks repeatedly, jerking his head back, and - bless him - says exactly what Oluwande is thinking. "Tried to kill you?"
"I'm not sure he was trying to kill me, necessarily," Doug concedes. "He was pretty drunk – it even took him a second to recognize me when he had the knife at my throat."
"Did you say knife at your throat?" Oluwande presses.
"Well, he sort of took it from the hors d'oeuvres table and kind of..." Doug gestures the flat of his hand across his neck. "Told me if I didn't let go of him he'd make me bleed?"
Oluwande and Lucius digest this in silence.
"And we're talking about Stede Bonnet here," Lucius ventures after a moment.
"Took me by surprise, too," Doug agrees cheerfully. "I mean, I did grab him without permission or warning. And he apologized afterwards! Clearly it wasn't a great night for him – he was very drunk, and apparently had spent most of the evening in the pub, where everyone kept asking him about Blackbeard. I take it something happened there?"
That's a whole lot of things that Oluwande doesn't know how to even start processing. He's not sure he's ever seen Stede drunk – even when he downed half a bottle of rum for anesthetic before getting unpinned from the mast, he basically slurred a few giggles and immediately fell asleep. Although that could have been the blood loss.
"Ohhhhhh yeah," Lucius says, his lips pursing with perfect bitchiness. "He's not the only one Blackbeard is a sore subject for."
"It's a long story, don't ask," Oluwande agrees.
"Hey, how does this usually work, by the way?" Doug asks, lifting his bound hands. "Can the rope come off, or...? I guess it probably makes more sense to keep it like this until we're out of sight of the others?"
"Probably for the best," Oluwande says, pretending he didn't completely forget that Doug was tied up.
"We really appreciate the quick surrender, though," Lucius adds, patting Doug on the shoulder. "Seriously, it makes our lives so much easier."
Doug just grins back. "This is a little fun," he says. "I can see why Stede enjoys it so much!"
"Uhhh, yeah, this is definitely what it's always like," Oluwande says.
"For sure for sure," Lucius agrees, and physically turns away from Doug to hide his grimace. But he schools his expression and turns back. "Anyway, where's that ham?"
Once Roach gets over his fit of pique at being given insufficient prep time to pull together an entire spread of tapas, the light lunch is served in the galley to Doug, the whole crew of the Revenge, and also Blackbeard.
"You're Ed?" Doug says, eyebrows sky-high as he takes in the sight of Ed Teach, from the sackcloth clothing to the cat bell still around his neck to the absolutely excruciating atmosphere that follows him around the ship.
"Uh," Ed says, blinking in surprise, and for a second he looks more like he did pre-murder: vulnerable, unguarded. "Yeah, hey, hi, and you are...?"
"This is Doug!" Stede jumps in, placing himself not-quite-between the two of them and putting a hand on each of their shoulders with the somewhat blitzed expression of someone suddenly blindsided by the completely predictable consequences of their own actions. "Doug is – I know Doug from Bridgetown and we, ah, ran into each other in the last raid. And since I'm now back at sea, I thought we could, you know, relax a little and make sure that all of our, um, stories are straight, and whatnot."
"Sorry about that, Stede," Doug says, though he keeps glancing at Ed out of the corner of his eye. "I didn't mean to say your name – I was just so surprised that it kind of came out!"
"Why wouldn't you say his name?" Ed says blankly.
Archie leans over towards Oluwande and whispers to him, "Do you think they fucked?"
"What – Stede and Doug?" Oluwande whispers back furiously. "No fucking way."
"Why are they being so weird, then?"
Oluwande doesn't have an answer to that, tragically.
"Well, because he's meant to be dead," Doug says to Ed. "All that effort that we all put into faking his death, and doing all the paperwork so that – "
"And here's lunch!" Stede says loudly, practically pushing Ed towards the galley table.
"Yeah, must've been weird," Ed grumbles, though he goes to the bench easily enough. "Seeing as he'd been reported dead and he suddenly turns up again."
Stede clears his throat, sitting down next to Ed with all the subtlety of a bird shit splattering down from the heavens. "So Doug!" he says, quite loud. "What brought you to sea, anyway?"
"Yeah, and why'd you bring all those paintings with you?" Lucius adds, giving a vaguely inquisitive gesture with a floppy circle of ham.
"Oh, I'm originally from up north," Doug explains. "And then since I was going to visit some family anyway, I went ahead and collected some paintings to take with me for some of the galleries over there. I know they're a bit ahead of the current moment, but I really think that Mary's paintings have the potential to – "
The shattering of glass makes everyone jump. It doesn't escape Oluwande's notice that Jim's hand disappears below the table – presumably to one of their daggers – while a tiny pistol has suddenly appeared in Archie's hand, and Frenchie's table knife has swiveled in his grip in preparation for some spirited stabbing.
Which isn't really surprising, because Ed's hand, hovering over the table, used to be holding a wine glass and now it's dripping with splinters of glass.
His expression is blank, too, which is...concerning. It's just as likely to be a prelude to violence as a moment to collect himself –
"I...apologize," Ed says after a moment, his voice too controlled. He flexes his hand, and it sheds the glittering remains of his cup, and also a little blood. "If you'll excuse me for a moment," he continues slowly, but Oluwande relaxes a little – he's getting vibes of the latter and not the former – "I think I could do with some fresh air."
"Ed," Stede begins, his face twisted with concern, but Ed continues over him.
"I'm just taking a beat," he says in that same slow voice, pushing his chair back from the table. "That way, I can deal with these feelings, rather than doing something...unconstructive."
Frenchie outright winces at that.
Ed doesn't slam the door behind himself, which Oluwande thinks is probably better than the alternative, although two seconds after the latch clicks a loud but muffled crash fills the room.
Stede clears his throat. "Let's just focus on the positives, here, and note the progress this represents."
"Yeah," Jim mutters, "this is some real self-actualizing shit by Blackbeard's standards."
Doug blanches. "Blackbeard? I thought that was Ed?"
"Ah," Stede says, looking distinctly caught-out. "Yes, that's Ed...ward Teach. Did I not, um, mention that before?"
Based on the flair of panic in Doug’s eyes, and also everything Oluwande knows about Stede, he absolutely had not mentioned that before.
"I should also say," Stede continues, although now he at least has the decency to look a little guilty, "that Mary is, ah, perhaps not the best topic of conversation with Ed?"
Doug looks slowly in Lucius and Oluwande's direction for confirmation. Lucius winces hugely, the whole bottom half of his face scrunching up, and Oluwande settles for a grimace and a small shake of his head.
"Right," Doug says faintly. "I'll...remember that."
"Not that there's any need to tell Mary that," Stede rushes to add. "Or the children. Maybe it's for the best if this little encounter stays between us, now that I think of it?"
Doug frowns thoughtfully, looking Stede closely in the face. "Are you okay?" he asks after a second.
"I really am," Stede says, and doesn't even seem to be lying. "I, honestly, I was just so excited to see you on that ship I forgot to take into account all of the..." He wrinkles his nose. "Circumstances."
So Doug dabs at his lips with a napkin. "So maybe I should just get back...?"
"That's probably for the best, yeah."
"We'll take him," Lucius says quickly.
Oluwande whips his head around to stare at Lucius. "We?" he repeats.
"Thank you, you two," Stede says. "I'll, ah – go check on Ed."
So Oluwande and Lucius take Doug back to the other ship, and Oluwande spends the whole time helping Doug down to the tender trying not to be irritated by Lucius volunteering him for the job.
"Hey, um, quick question," Lucius says to Doug as Oluwande begins to row (because he knows that Lucius won't do it, which is part of the reason he's annoyed). "So Stede just kind of showed up again in Bridgeport, right? With no warning or anything?"
"It's Bridgetown, but - yes, that's right."
"Barefoot?"
Doug sighs. "Yep."
"Did he ever say, I don't know, why? Did he just show up barefoot and bloody with no explanation?"
Oluwande frowns, blatantly listening, because – yeah, that's weird.
"No," Doug admits. "And I don't think Mary was in much of a mood to ask, you know? I mean, for one thing, we weren't sure how Stede would take our relationship – "
That's startling enough to jolt Oluwande into the conversation. "Relationship?"
"Oh, yes," Doug says. "We got married about a month and a half ago, once all of Stede's death paperwork was completed."
"And – " Lucius breaks in – "sorry, just to clarify – were you two together before Stede's faked death?"
Doug takes a deep breath. "I know how that sounds, but – Mary and Stede's marriage was never particularly happy. On either side, as I understand it. And nobody expected Stede to come back when he left the first time. Just a bit of a splashy departure, you know?"
"Oh yeah," Lucius says easily. "And, y'know, it's a miracle he still isn't dead, so."
"So it took all of us by surprise when he returned," Doug continues. "Mary most of all. Stede leaving was probably one of the best things that ever happened to her – well, second-best, now that his death is official and she inherited everything from him."
"Okay, no, hold on, we need to start back from the beginning," Lucius says. "Stede showed up, didn't say anything about where he'd been, tried to kill you, and then faked his death? Any details you can add in there? Because right now it's just, frankly, a little bit mind-boggling."
Oluwande puts some effort into rowing more quietly, to better hear whatever explanation Doug has.
"Well, he was really only home for under a week," Doug says, which tracks with how long it took for things to go bad with Ed back on the ship. "I don't think he did a lot, honestly. Everything sort of came to a head the evening of Mary's showing, when Mary tried to kill him."
"When what?" Oluwande demands.
"They talked it all out," Doug says quickly. "And apparently that's when he realized he's in love with Ed and resolved to fake his death to set things right. We spent most of that night talking," he adds. "Stede and I, I should say. Mary got to sleep through it. That's when we planned faking his death."
"And how did that happen, exactly?" Lucius ventures.
"Well, when Stede and I started blocking it out, we were just going to have him be hit by a carriage," Doug explains. "But we were a little worried by the precision it would take to render a body unrecognizable – and by 'we' I mean 'him,' if I'm being honest – so he added a piano falling on his head."
Oluwande cranes his neck around to make eye contact with Lucius and mouth, piano?
"Of course, when he and Mary went to Evelyn – she's the undertaker's mother – to get a body, they ran into her jungle cat Ned and he decided to involve him as well. Honestly, that part was kind of fun – that planning and preparation was when I started to feeling like I was meeting the real Stede, you know? Sometimes you don't see how sad someone is until you see what they look like happy."
They're approaching the other ship now, and their time is running out. So Oluwande says, "Just to circle back real quick – do you know what happened to Stede's shoes? Like, why he showed up barefoot?"
"No," Doug says. "No idea."
And Oluwande decides to put it out of his mind and not think about it anymore.
Except it doesn't super work, does it, because Oluwande's never been a fan of secrets or mysteries or other things that make no fucking sense.
And obviously Oluwande doesn't enjoy spending his free time trying to figure out his captain's bizarre brain, but he finds himself doing it anyway, his thoughts drifting back to that week that he can't quite fit into how he sees Stede. Stede himself seems to have moved past Doug's brief visit with aplomb, and he and Ed are once again doting on each other to an extent that borders on disgusting.
Ed, who still hasn't apologized, as Lucius never hesitates to point out. But whatever. That's another complicated thing, so Oluwande isn't going to worry about it.
It's working for now, is the point, and that's better than when it's not working, so Oluwande lets things just keep going. He takes his captain's orders as much as he ever does, tries to pretend Blackbeard isn't walking around as if he never tried to murder anyone, and he and Jim and Archie keep doing their thing, which is being there for each other and hanging out with one another and never, ever questioning it any deeper than that.
So it takes Oluwande by surprise a little bit when he's lying on his bed after a long day, trying not to think too deeply about why Stede took it so well when his ex-wife tried to murder him, and a knock on his door interrupts him.
When Oluwande answers it, he's a little surprised to see Lucius leaning against the frame.
"Hey, have you got a sec?" Lucius asks, and brushes past Oluwande into the empty room without waiting for an answer. "Huh. Jim and Archie not here?"
"Nah, they're off – uh," Oluwande says.
"Fucking?" Lucius suggests.
Oluwande sighs. "Yeah."
"Mmm," Lucius says, narrowing his eyes cannily at Oluwande. "And how's that going for you, specifically?"
"It's fine," Oluwande says quickly. "Great, even. I just want them to be happy, you know, and Archie's – she's great, too, so."
"Are the three of you doing a whole...you know." Lucius makes a gesture like he's wiping down a table with a rag.
"What are you talking about?" Oluwande asks, because he has genuinely no idea what that's supposed to mean.
"Is it all three of you?" Lucius clarifies.
Oluwande groans. "Did you seriously come down here just to ask me that?"
Lucius, to Oluwande's surprise, shakes his head, just a little, more like he's clearing it than in response to Oluwande's question. "No, you're right. Down to business." Lucius peaks his fingers together. "You know when Stede's friend Doug was around?"
Oluwande rolls his eyes. "You mean Stede's ex-wife's new husband who helped him fake his death Doug?"
"Yep, exactly. Do you happen to know what the fuck all of...that was?"
"I've been trying not to think about it," Oluwande admits, flopping himself down to sit on the bed. "Cause it doesn't matter, does it?"
"Yeah, no, it definitely doesn't," Lucius agrees, crossing to the center of the room and prodding his toe against the floorboards – there's probably still some salt left over from when Oluwande, Jim, and Archie were protecting themselves from the captain's curse, now that Oluwande thinks of it. Then Lucius tuts a little bit and slumps his shoulders. "Okay but the thing that I can't wrap my head around is – "
"The shoes?" Oluwande interrupts, because that's what's been bothering him.
Lucius clasps his hands together in front of him. "The fucking shoes, exactly."
"He even wears slippers on deck!" Oluwande continues. "And then he supposedly walks across Barbados barefoot? He stepped on a pea in the galley once, with his shoes on, and complained about feeling it through the sole the whole day!"
"And then he goes around, getting drunk and attempting murder and faking his death?" Lucius agrees. "It's fucking bizarre, is what it is."
"And he hasn't said anything about it!" Oluwande sighs. "And, like, he never really talked about his wife or kids before, right? So I guess it's not weird that he's not talking about it now, but..."
Lucius points at him in agreement. "But his whole thing is talking it through as a crew! It'd hardly be the first hypocritical thing he's done, obviously, but it's still so fucking weird."
"I mean, maybe the Privateering Academy wasn't that far away after all?" Oluwande suggests. "Barbados isn't that big an island, right?"
Lucius wrinkles his nose halfheartedly. "I don't have much of a basis for comparison, really."
"So maybe he got the idea to leave and just...did it without thinking? All up in a rush, before he had a chance to change his mind or, like, grab stuff? That sounds more like him."
"But without shoes, though." Lucius shakes his head. "That doesn't seem like him."
It doesn't. It really doesn't. "The only other thing I can think of is that maybe the Privateering Academy didn't let them have shoes," Oluwande says.
But Lucius frowns. "Was Ed barefoot when he came back to the ship? I can't remember."
"We could – " Oluwande cuts himself off.
"Yyyyyeah, I know," Lucius says ruefully, and kicks at the floor again. "He'd have at least some of the answers, wouldn't he."
"But do you even want to talk to him, though?" Oluwande looks Lucius right in the eye. "We've all got issues with him, obviously, but seems like yours were...a lot."
"Yeah," Lucius repeats, and tilts his head from side to side in consideration. "I mean, he did let me throw him off the ship that one time, and he says he's trying to move the culture forward, whatever the fuck that means, and Pete's doing most of the wedding planning so..."
"Is that a reason to yes talk to him?" Oluwande asks, frowning.
"I mean." Lucius's head rolls on his shoulders in a flop of indecision. "You know how there's just so much stuff that went down that we're just not really talking about and sometimes it feels like any second now it's going to boil over and someone's gonna scream or shoot someone else even though the rest of the time everything feels fine, or even better than fine?"
Oluwande, sitting in the room that he shares with Jim, who he slept with one time, and Archie, who is currently sleeping with Jim, sighs. "I absolutely know that, yeah."
Lucius shrugs. "Well, it just seems like it's a hell of a lot easier to deal with all this completely pointless stuff than all of that."
"Yeah, yep, that sounds amazing, actually, let's do that."
It's surprisingly difficult to get Ed alone, it turns out, mainly because Ed seems to be clinging to Stede's side. Which is understandable, given that four of the remaining crew basically did murder him one time and most of the rest would be pretty on board with another attempt, even if Lucius seems a bit more on the fence about it these days.
He doesn't actually end up having to corner Ed, as it turns out, since Ed finds him alone at the head that evening.
"Oluwande."
Oluwande isn't expecting it, because why the fuck would be he, so full-body jolts, flinching away from Ed so hard that he nearly throws himself off the ship by accident. "Jesus Christ! Where's your stupid bell?"
"My – " Ed frowns, and flicks at his bell. It chimes, ethereal and carefree. "It's right here, man, I'm wearing it."
"We gotta get you a new one, then," Oluwande says, his heartbeat slowly but surely returning to normal. Thank god he'd already finished up and put everything away before Ed interrupted. "That one ain't working."
Silence stretches between them.
Oluwande breaks first, asking, "So...did you need something?"
Ed rolls his neck – no, Oluwande realizes, he's just tilting his head, like he's thinking. "You were with Doug on that other ship."
"...yeah?"
"Did he, you know." Now Ed affects an overly casual shrug. "Did he say anything about Stede? When Stede was back?"
"A ha ha," Oluwande says with all the enthusiasm he can muster, which is very little. "Funny you should say that, actually, 'cause Lucius and I have been a little unclear about a couple things? About how things went down?"
Ed shrugs one shoulder. "I mean, not that I care – fuck would I care, y'know, but – he also didn't...tell you? Like you all?"
Oluwande shakes his head. "No, he just showed up with a tender to rescue us and said he'd given up all his money."
"Right. Right, yeah, sure." Ed nods, rocking back on his heels a bit. This time Oluwande does hear the bell tinkling. "And that doesn't seem...weird to you?"
Oluwande opens his mouth to defend Stede out of the combination of two habits: defending his captain and disagreeing with Blackbeard. But – "Honestly, it's so fucking weird."
"Right?"
"Who does that? He had so much money – that was like the one thing he had going for him."
"Well." Ed scrunches up his face. "Not the only thing he had going for him."
"Uh," Oluwande says, fervently hoping that Ed isn't referring to Stede's dick. "Yeah, totally. So Lucius and I, we've, uh, got some questions still?"
Ed nods fervently. "Sure thing, man, yeah. I'd love to help you investigate."
"Investi – oh."
"Absolutely," Ed says, letting his hands hang open by his sides. "Ask away. We'll all put our heads together and get this sorted in no time, yeah?"
It occurs to Oluwande that maybe he and Lucius aren't the only ones looking for a distraction.
"Yeah, okay, then," he says, and leads Ed back to the room, pausing just long enough to catch Lucius's eye and beckon him to come with.
"First of all," Ed says when they pack into the room, "I just want to say how grateful I am that you're letting me join you on this voyage of discovery."
Lucius just blinks at him, wide-eyed and incredulous.
But Ed just keeps going. "So, y'know, what questions have you got? What are you trying to find out, like, specifically?"
"First of all," Oluwande says, positioning himself at least a tiny bit between Ed and Lucius, "did the Privateering Academy give you all shoes?"
Ed stares at him for a moment. "That's it? Yeah, man, they gave us shoes. We'd be pretty fucking useless privateers if we were running around in our bare feet."
"See, that's exactly why we still have questions," Oluwande says. "Look, how about you take us through what happened from your side of things?"
Lucius crosses his arms, leaning against the wall, but it's a surprisingly non-confrontational arm-cross and wall-lean, all things considered, and he watches Ed placidly.
"Uh...yeah." Ed clears his throat. "Well, we got to the Privateering Academy. They checked us in. Stede was already presumed dead, if that helps," he adds. "He spent some time thinking about whether or not people actually thought he was dead or just, y'know, kind of were trying to wish it into existence, sort of thing."
"How do you know he was thinking about that?" Lucius interrupts, but gently – no edge to his tone, just curiosity.
"'Cause he was thinking out loud," Ed says. "We were talking about it, sort of thing. Then he saw I'd shaved and got weirded out and left – "
"Because you shaved?" Oluwande asks, eyebrows raising.
Ed gestures at Oluwande with both hands. "Right? Thank you! It's just a shave, who gives a shit!" He sighs, shaking his head. "But yeah, he scarpered, and I followed him to this, like, dock-type-thingy, and that's where we – uh – " Ed shifts a little, and Oluwande makes a mental note to himself to come back to this moment because he's definitely leaving something out. "That's where we made our plan to escape."
"What was the plan?" Oluwande presses.
"Eh, fairly straightforward. I took care of most of the details - Stede had top bunk, so figured he was more likely to be missed if someone looked in. I went to get a dinghy, threatened one of the guards into waking Stede up at the right time, and then Stede was – " Ed's voice falters, and he looks conspicuously away at the wall with a sniff. "Stede was supposed to meet me at the dock."
"All right," Lucius says slowly. "So if that's what was supposed to happen, what actually happened?"
Ed shrugs one shoulder with forced nonchalance. "Well, by the time the Sun started coming up I figured he wasn't coming, so I got in the dinghy myself and rowed out to the Revenge."
Frowning, Oluwande looks over at Lucius, who meets his gaze with equal confusion in his eyes. "So," Oluwande says, "he just...didn't show up? And you didn't go looking for him?"
Ed scoffs. "He clearly thought better of the whole thing and decided to go off on his own. Which we know he did," he adds, and, yep, now there's defensiveness seeping into his tone. "So it's not like I'm pulling it out of nowhere. He went back to his wife and his kids and his money."
"Which he then gave away," Oluwande points out.
"No, nope, not there yet," Lucius says, and holds a hand up and out towards Oluwande to slow him down. "We're not skipping ahead. This guard you threatened, do you know if he actually woke Stede up?"
"Well – if he didn't, it must've been because Stede wasn't there." Ed frowns. "Why?"
"I mean," Lucius tries again, "are you sure that maybe this whole thing wasn't just a misunderstanding and the guard chickened out and didn't wake Stede up?"
"Because Stede told me," Ed says, and now his voice is dropping into the low, threatening register that Oluwande associates with Blackbeard rather than Ed, "that he panicked, and left, and went home to Mary. He left of his own accord."
"Seems like that, yeah," Oluwande agrees, and then shakes his head. "But the shoes, though."
"The fucking shoes," Lucius agrees ruefully.
Ed looks between them, his face crinkled in bafflement. "Why the fuck are you so obsessed with the shoes?"
"Because," Lucius says with an air of triumph, "he wasn't wearing any."
"He was barefoot?" Ed says blankly. "He asked for a less-scratchy blanket at the Privateering Academy and he showed up back at home in his bare goddamn feet?"
"Oh, God, of course he did," Lucius moans quietly, resting the ball of one hand against his forehead.
"This is why we're so confused!" Oluwande says, gratified.
"Hang on," Ed says, and frowns again. (There's a lot of frowning going on, Oluwande notes; he wonders if it's something to do with the whole investigation thing, or if they're all just taking advantage of the opportunity to make faces that aren't either 1. angry or 2. faking not being angry.) "The Privateering Academy was out at Cove Bay – that's just about as far from Bridgetown as you can get without jumping in the fucking ocean. Did he buy a horse, or – no, he didn't have any money, did he, so how did he get to Bridgetown?"
"Oh," Oluwande says, realizing an important detail that they had, perhaps, forgotten to mention. "We actually think he...walked?"
Ed looks blankly at him. "It's the other side of the island."
"One of the things that Doug said," Lucius jumps in, "and one of the reasons we're trying to figure out what happened, actually, is that Stede's feet were kind of...cut up and bloody by the time he got back?"
Slowly shaking his head, Ed says, "No, that – that doesn't make any sense. That's a whole day of walking, at least – "
"Night," Lucius corrects absently, then catches how Ed and Oluwande are looking at him. "Stede came back in the middle of brunch, and the title of that painting was Morning Widow, remember? 'Morning' as in 'early in the day,' not as in 'grieving,' which was probably a pun now that I think of it."
"Painting?" Ed repeats.
Oh, shit. Oluwande catches a glimpse of Lucius's panicked expression and can immediately tell that he hadn't meant to bring up Mary.
"Okay, look, Ed," Oluwande says slowly, "if you need to, uh – what'd you say before? Take a beat after you hear this, just say the word, okay? But Doug was traveling with Mary's paintings because he was her painting instructor before they got married."
Ed closes his eyes and pulls his head back as if someone just spritzed him with water. "Did you say married?"
Lucius gives Oluwande a frazzled and exaggerated shrug that somehow uses more elbow than Oluwande is used to a shrug using.
"Yeah, married," Oluwande says. "It sounds like maybe he and Mary were already a thing, and then when Stede faked his death – which they helped with, for what it's worth – they went ahead and made it official."
Now Ed jerks back entirely – less like encountering a spritz of water and more like running headfirst into a flung bucket of it. "Stede faked his fucking death?"
"...oh did you not hear that part?" Lucius says, and one of Ed's eyes twitches.
"He's been introducing himself!"
"Yeah, 's a bit weird," Oluwande agrees.
"By his name!" Ed continues.
Lucius nods. "Sure is."
"That makes no fucking sense!" Ed's emphasis is growing almost feverish now. "Say what you will about his fuckery skills, but he's devoted to the craft, so why the fuck is he going around casually breaking character?"
Lucius and Oluwande glance at each other. "Mm-hmm, yep, that too," Lucius says after a second. "That's definitely as important as all the other bits of this, for sure."
Ed lets out a breath, grabbing his face with his hands. "Fuck, I can't even keep track of all this shit. So this death-faking thing was after the Privateering Academy?"
"Yeah, sounds like Mary helped out with it," Oluwande says, and is gratified when the name doesn't so much as make Ed flinch.
"Stede never said." Ed shakes his head, his gaze taking on something of a lost look. "He never even said anything..."
"Maybe he thought it'd be too much to explain?" Lucius suggests. "Or got embarrassed by how, like, intricate it was? It sounds like it involved a carriage, a piano, and a jungle cat."
"That sounds fucking awesome, I dunno what you're talking about," Ed says.
The door to the room opens, making Lucius jump a little, but in the doorway stand Jim and Archie – both of whom go still as soon as they see Ed in the room.
"Oh," Oluwande says, suddenly aware of the fact that he's alone in a room with the notoriously-unstable Lucius and the recent tormenter of...well, all of them, basically. "Hey...guys."
One of Jim's hands disappears behind their back in a motion that Oluwande just knows means they're grabbing a dagger. "Are you all...plotting?" they ask, their eyes narrowing.
"Uh," Ed says, glancing between everyone else currently in the room. "Do you want me to leave? Is that what's happening?"
"We're not plotting," Oluwande says quickly.
"We're solving a mystery!" Lucius adds, and Oluwande politely ignores that he can see Lucius's hands shaking from leftover startlement.
"A fucking mystery?" Archie says, and cranes her neck to look over Jim's shoulder. "Did someone die?"
"No!" Oluwande says, holding his hands up appeasingly. "We just – when that Doug guy came over, it raised a few questions about what happened when the captain went back to his family, so we're just trying to, you know, get it straight."
Jim makes a face like they just smelled something bad. "For fuck's sake, why?"
"Feet!" Lucius says, which, shockingly, doesn't seem to clarify anything for Jim.
"Seriously though," Ed says, and gives a small point in the direction of the door, keeping his hand unobtrusive and close to his chest so that it doesn't look too threatening. "Do you want me to go? I know I might be, y'know, contributing to an atmosphere that's not conducive to – "
"For fuck's sake, just go!" Jim snaps.
"Might help if we, you know," Archie says, and takes Jim by the shoulders to back them gently just out of the doorway.
"Yep, sorry, going now," Ed says, and slips past them.
"You might as well come in," Lucius says, beckoning at them.
Jim and Archie do, with a caution that suggests they expect a rabid weasel to jump out at them from behind any corner. But the important part is that they settle on the bed, using it as a sofa with their backs against the wall.
"Okay, so, picture this," Lucius says, holding his hands up as if gesturing at an invisible screen. "Bridgetown, Barbados. A quiet morning. Birds chirping in the quiet residential area. The only other sounds are the rustling of palms and the quiet chatter of conversation. A group of widows have come together in the parlor of the Widow Bonnet's home for a supportive brunch – I'm thinking tea, I'm thinking snacks, I'm thinking maybe little pastries – "
"Is this really necessary?" Oluwande asks, frowning.
"But the quiet of the morning is pierced," Lucius continues, ignoring Oluwande, "when suddenly the door to the estate slams open and in rushes the supposedly-dead Stede Bonnet himself!"
Jim sighs, rolling their eyes.
But Lucius keeps going. "He stumbles in, covered in blood – "
"We don't know if he was covered in it," Oluwande interrupts.
" – bearing on his person at least a small quantity of blood," Lucius corrects himself, glaring at Oluwande, "and leaving bloody bare footprints in the entryway as he falls to his knees, gasping through tears."
Oluwande pinches the bridge of his nose. "You're embellishing, bruh, come on."
"Yeah, the bloody footprints really took it over the edge," Archie agrees, crossing her arms.
"Oh, no, that part's real," Oluwande tells her.
Jim frowns, and even Archie's mouth twists with disbelief.
"And we're talking about Stede?" Jim says.
"Yep," Lucius confirms.
"Stede Bonnet," Jim repeats. "Our captain Stede Bonnet, who – "
"Whatever you're about to say, the answer is yes," Lucius says. "See? This is why we're so fucking confused!"
"And this was before we were living at Spanish Jackie's and his standards plummeted down into Hell," Oluwande adds.
"I mean," Archie says, "I know I haven't known him as long as the rest of you, but barefoot and bloodied up doesn't really sound like him."
"And," Oluwande says, pointing triumphantly at Archie, "he hasn't even complained about it. He hasn't turned it into a story about how badass he thinks he is, or mentioned it really loud to get out of doing something he didn't want to do – we didn't even know this bit until Doug said it, because Mary painted it."
"Also, Doug and Mary got married, apparently." Lucius shrugs. "I don't think it impacts Stede's feet, I just think it's fascinating context given how nice Stede was to Doug."
"Married," says Ed thoughtfully from the door, and the suddenness of it makes even Oluwande jolt a little bit – though that could just be the actual, literal shrieks that come from everyone else in the room.
Probably because Ed is holding knives: just so many fucking knives, so many that he's carrying them bundled up in his arms and held against his chest so none of them drop out.
Also, fuck, that cat bell is not working.
"You don't think Stede came back just because...you know," Ed says, and it's like he's suddenly turned into a goddamn puppy dog with big, wide eyes. "Because he couldn't make it work with Mary?"
"That's not how it sounded at all," Lucius says, even though he's pressing a hand to his chest like he's trying to manually slow down his heartbeat. "Doug said he was, like, super sad the whole time he was home?"
"Knives!" Jim says, their voice strangled, and points – with, Oluwande can't help but notice, a dagger, which is maybe a little hypocritical – at Ed.
"What?" Ed says, and suddenly remembers his arms are full of knives. "Oh, right, yeah. Oh shit – I just realized what this looks like. Uh, here, can someone grab...?" He turns around, so his back is facing the room, and for some reason he's got, like, a peacock's tail of paper shoved into the back of the belt keeping his sack closed.
(The belt is, admittedly, new. Oluwande wasn't present for any of this, thank god, but apparently there were a few incidences with some unfortunate gapping.)
"I figured since things were getting so complicated," Ed says, craning his neck over his shoulder, "we could maybe write down some of the important bits and then stick them to the wall with the knives?"
"That's not a terrible idea, actually," Lucius says, and darts forward to grab the paper.
"This," Jim says through gritted teeth, "is a lot of fucking effort to put into something that's ultimately pointless."
"Well, okay, then, Jim, since you know everything about everything," Lucius says, turning towards them and fanning himself a little with the sheaf of paper, "why do you think Stede's feet got all cut up?"
"Maybe he lost his shoes!" Jim says, throwing their arms up. "Who cares!"
"I care," Ed says.
"I kind of care, too," Oluwande admits.
"Shockingly, I seem to also care," Lucius says.
"And I mean," Ed adds, crossing his arms across his stomach. "I know this maybe isn't my place to say so, but it could be nice? Having something to talk about that's, in the grand scheme of things, kind of unimportant? 'Cause I mean, I know we've got real problems, here – "
"Fucking understatement," Archie mutters, trimming a cuticle with a dagger Oluwande hadn't realized she had.
"Yep, true," Ed agrees easily, "but we've all still got to deal with each other in the day-to-day, so maybe something low-stakes and nonviolent could be...constructive?"
"Maybe at least put the knives down, Ed?" Lucius suggests, and Ed looks down, surprised, at the knives in his arms.
"Oh, shit, yeah, right," he says, and carefully crosses to one of the side tables and lets them rain from his arms. "Sorry," he adds.
"Okay, but if you want to know what happened so bad, why don't you just ask him?" Jim demands.
Oluwande, Lucius, and Ed all trade glances for a long moment, but it's Oluwande who eventually admits it.
"This is kind of more fun?" he says.
"Takes all the mystery out of it," Lucius agrees.
"You," and here Jim points savagely at Ed, "and Stede never fucking stop talking! Every time I see one of you, the other is right there, and you're catching each other up on your days, or chatting about the weather, or playing with your stupid little cat bell, and you expect us to believe that in all the endless hours of you talking, this has never come up?"
Ed presses his lips together and nods. "Yep. Which is why it's weird."
Oluwande watches Jim's expression closely, and also knows them really well, so he can tell the moment they click over from irritation and disbelief into reluctant curiosity.
"He got a splinter on our first raid and called it his 'first of many grievous battle-wounds' for a week," they say.
"Exactly," Lucius says.
"And when Izzy pinned him to the mast in that duel, he made everyone sign his bandages," Oluwande chimes in. "Even though almost none of us can read or write."
"Also, the fact that I've heard both of those stories probably means something," Archie adds. "'Cause I wasn't here for any of them but he made me look at the spot where that splinter was even though there wasn't a scar like he said there was."
"When shit happens to him," Oluwande says, "he talks about it, you know?"
"Well, not always," Ed says with a shrug, and everyone turns to look at him. "All I've ever heard him say about how we met was that he was gut-stabbed and I saved his life. There was a lot more to it than that, is all."
"Sorry, he got fucking gut-stabbed?" Archie demands, leaning forward on the bed. "I've never heard this one."
"I think he sort of felt bad about that one," Lucius muses. "Since it represented his utter failure as a captain, sort of thing."
"Okay, so, he must feel bad about whatever made him leave the Privateering Academy without his shoes," Oluwande says, and shrugs. "Which is probably just leaving Ed, right?"
"Nah, we talked about the leaving bit," Ed says. "I mean, not a lot a lot, but some."
"His whole night is unaccounted for," Lucius says, shaking his head. "The last time Ed saw him was at the Privateering Academy, and next thing anyone knows he's showing up in a state at his old house."
"How far is the house from the Academy?" Archie asks, which draws everyone's attention back to her. "Well, if they're just, like, three feet from each other, it means something different that he went from one to the other without shoes, right?"
"Other side of Barbados," Ed says. "Cove Bay to Bridgetown."
Archie whistles appreciation. "That's not a short walk."
"And he's not a fast walker," Ed agrees. "So he must've been walking most of the night."
"Okay, okay, hold up." Jim pushes themself out of the bed and starts pacing. "We need to do this right. If we're trying to figure out what happened, we need to get everything we already know straight. Lucius, do you have something to write with?"
"Yep, always," Lucius says, and pulls a pencil out of his pocket. "Why?"
"Because if we're going to crack this..." Jim grabs a piece of paper, throws it into the air, grabs a knife, and before, Oluwande has even finished processing anything else, has thrown the knife to pin the paper against their empty wall. "We're going to have to recreate the timeline."
An hour later, Oluwande can definitively say that the best thing about the timeline is that it gets all the fucking revelations out of the way at once.
They start it with Ed and Stede's last interaction at the Privateering Academy, which leads Jim to wondering how they got to the Privateering Academy in the first place, which gets Lucius telling the story of the English raid and how Izzy sold them out, which is apparently news to Jim, though how the fuck it never came up in all the time sailing under Blackbeard, Oluwande has no clue.
"Well, put it up there, then!" Jim says, snatching another piece of paper off the side table and scribbling on it. Oluwande assumes it says something like "Izzy colludes with Spanish Jackie and the English."
"Why were the English so focused on Stede?" Archie asks. "Seems like they, y'know, had Blackbeard right there."
"Stede killed a captain in the English Navy a while back," Oluwande says, and a frown creeps across Ed's face.
"Wait, he did? I thought that guy was just being weird."
So they add another timeline above the first timeline to cover all the shit that happened before any of the stuff that they actually care about.
"Okay so this Captain Badminton guy shows up," Lucius says, hovering a finger over the first bit of paper (they've started tearing the sheets into smaller pieces so that they can get everything up there). "He pressures Stede into letting him on the ship, makes him super uncomfortable, brags about all the awful shit he did to Stede while they were at boarding school together – "
"Wait, what?" says Ed.
"He was a bully, let's just keep going," Oluwande says, waving a hand towards Lucius.
"Threw rocks at him and made him French-kiss a horse, it was bad," Lucius agrees, but moves on to the next event in the timeline. "Stede tries to stun the captain, captain falls on his sword eyeball-first, we take hostages, et cetera – "
"Stede has a minor breakdown after we run aground," Oluwande adds, trying not to roll his eyes.
"If I had a nickel for every time Stede had a minor breakdown, I swear to God," Lucius says, but Ed is frowning.
"What kind of breakdown? Because he knew the guy?"
"I think it was the first time he killed someone," Oluwande says, shrugging. "So he was trying to, you know. Adjust to it."
Ed opens his mouth to say something else, but Lucius closes his hand like a mouth at him.
"No, we are getting through this timeline if it fucking kills us, okay? Minor breakdown, hostages, selling hostages to the Spanish, we meet Blackbeard, skip a-fucking-head to - " And now Lucius drops to the second line, which had previously been the main line. "Izzy gets kicked off the ship and goes to the English, where he trades Stede for getting Blackbeard the hell out of dodge."
Archie makes an uncertain humming noise. "Blackbeard must've killed loads of English captains before, right? So why'd the English agree to let you go?"
"The Admiral was the Captain's brother," Lucius says with a wince. "So it got a little personal."
"Hang on, how do you know that?" Ed asks, crossing his arms.
"Well, they've got the same name," Oluwande points out.
"And they were absolutely twins," Lucius adds. "Like, identical, except for the hair and the rank. And the vibes, I guess, which were both bad but different kinds of bad."
"So this guy," Jim says slowly, tapping the pencil against the relevant square on the wall, "seeks out Stede specifically and, after working with a notorious pirate to get him, is completely okay with Stede taking the Act of Grace, becoming a privateer, and getting out of facing any consequences for killing his fucking brother?"
"Oh, he wasn't okay with it," Ed says, making a face. "He fully lost it."
"It was almost hard to watch," Oluwande agrees.
Lucius smirks. "Emphasis on almost."
"Threw a hissy fit and had to be restrained by his own officers," Ed adds, and chuckles.
"And then Stede goes back to his life, where he's immediately identifiable and traceable," Jim continues relentlessly, "after having done a high-profile escape from the Privateering Academy – "
"Well, hang on," Oluwande says. "We don't know if it was high-profile."
"Blackbeard signed up to be a privateer and ran away?" Archie says, raising her eyebrows. "You better believe that word fucking got around, mate. 'S why I joined his crew in the first place – sounded pretty badass."
"I admit," Lucius says slowly, looking thoughtfully at the timeline, "that if Admiral Badminton heard that Stede was back home, I can't imagine he wouldn't, you know, do something about it."
"Is that why Stede faked his death, then?" Archie says. "To throw that Admiral guy off his trail?"
"Would explain why he kept introducing himself by name at Spanish Jackie's," Oluwande says with a shrug. "It's not exactly a place that funnels intelligence back to the English navy."
"I never saw any wanted posters for Stede," Lucius says. "I mean, Blackbeard, yeah, everywhere, but – "
"Did the posters say we escaped together?" Ed asks suddenly, and when Oluwande looks at him, his shoulders are tight and hunched. "I mean, we both disappeared at the same time, and the only ones who knew we weren't together when we were supposed to be were, y'know, me and him."
"Would they assume that, though?" Archie says.
"The ones who were in the room when we actually signed the thing probably would've, yeah," Ed mumbles, and he's not meeting any of their eyes now. "I could see how they could've, y'know, gotten the impression that I wasn't about to leave without – without at least giving him the chance to come with."
That's an excruciatingly personal thing to know about Blackbeard, so Oluwande decides to just, well, ignore it.
"It wasn't on the poster that Stede had," Lucius says. "It listed a whole bunch of other things, but I think it was going sort of category-by-category. But I don't remember seeing an escape on there."
"Stede has a poster?" Jim asks, frowning.
"He was using it to try to track down where Blackbeard was," Oluwande says. "By following the crimes, sort of thing."
Ed looks oddly touched at that.
"Maybe another wanted poster did, though," Archie says. "I swear I saw one with it at one point."
"Aww, Archie," Lucius says with a warm smile, "I never realized you could read."
"Oh, I can't," Archie says. "I made someone read me the juicy bits."
"Izzy was collecting them," Ed offers. "The posters, I mean. Keeping track of who said what."
Silence creeps into the room like fog.
"I, uh," Ed says after a minute. "I probably shouldn't be the one to...talk to him. If we decide to go down that path."
Lucius says, very quietly under his breath, "Hoooooooo boy."
"Fuck it, I'll go," Jim says, tossing the pencil to Lucius, who squeaks but catches it. "Anyone want to come with?"
"Honestly, I still hear the way he screamed when we cut his leg off every time he talks," Archie says with a careless shrug, "so I think I'll give it a pass."
"I can go," Oluwande says jerkily. "If – if you want."
"I've definitely seen you talking to him," Lucius says to Archie.
"Oh, for sure," Archie agrees. "But that doesn't mean I won't avoid him if I can. Besides, I wanna see if we can figure out what happened before they get back."
"Right, then," Jim says, and gives Oluwande a gentle tap on the shoulder with the back of their fingers. "Guess it's just you and me."
It's not. It used to be, though, but that's another complicated thing so Oluwande files it away and follows Jim.
They find Izzy in the hold, where Wee John is teaching him to knit. Based on the tangled mass of red yarn in Izzy's hands, which honestly looks more like a bunch of intestines wrapped around two knitting needles, it's not going well.
"Wow, that looks...great," Oluwande says, but even as the words pass his lips he can tell how fucking fake they sound. Mainly because he's lying.
"Oh, fuck off," Izzy says, but in weirdly friendly kind of way.
"You have to keep the yarn looped around the needle," Wee John tells Izzy, and demonstrates with his own project.
"Dunno why you said this was relaxing," Izzy says, shaking his head at his mess.
"You seem pretty relaxed," Jim tells him. "Hey, we wanted to ask you something."
"Sure, why not," Izzy says, attention still on his knitting needles.
"Have you still got all those wanted posters of Blackbeard, outlining his terrible crimes?"
Izzy's hands go still, and Oluwande suddenly realizes that this was a completely terrible idea. This isn't a new-Izzy stillness, but a vestige of the old Izzy; the one who didn't just stand with Blackbeard in the midst of atrocities, but encouraged them.
Then Izzy's breath escapes in a sigh, and his shoulders slump. "Yeah, probably somewhere," he says, and his scrutiny on his knitting increases in a way that is, frankly, suspicious. "Did he, uh. Did he ask for me? For them," he corrects quickly, but the damage is done.
"He thinks you don't want to talk to him," Oluwande jumps in. "Because of the whole leg thing, I'd imagine."
"Oh, I don't want to talk to him," Izzy says, rolling his eyes. "Sure, yeah, I bet that's what he said, the fucking coward."
"But maybe," Oluwande continues doggedly, "if you help us, we can all work on this thing together?"
"Work on?" Wee John says, looking up at Oluwande. "What're you working on?"
Jim sighs. "We've all lost our minds and are meticulously investigating what Stede did for, like, eight hours one night in Barbados."
That gets Izzy to fully put down his knitting. "For fuck's sake, why?"
"I don't know," Jim says, shrugging. "Foot stuff?"
And that gets Wee John's attention. "Sorry, what?"
"He didn't have shoes," Oluwande says before Jim can dig themself deeper. "When he showed up at home again after leaving Ed. Even though it's a really long way to walk."
"Also, he faked his death," Jim adds. "Which I think we're not really talking enough about, because that's super weird too."
Now both Izzy and Wee John are staring.
"What?" Izzy demands.
"Look, do you have the wanted posters or not?" Jim asks. "We're trying to figure out if an English Admiral would know that Stede escaped from the Privateering Academy."
Izzy sighs and pulls himself to his feet – foot? foot-and-wooden-foot? – with a groan. "Fine, whatever," he mutters, and crosses to one of the shelves in the hold. "Here. I don't need them anymore anyway. And Blackbeard definitely doesn't," he adds bitterly, "if he ever even did."
"...right," Oluwande says as Jim takes the papers Izzy offers and begins to look them over. "How are you doing, Izzy? I just realized I haven't really asked."
"Fine," Izzy says in a tone that brooks no arguing, but Oluwande looks past him and sees Wee John shaking his head and mouthing, not great!
But next to him, Jim pauses. Frowns. Their finger stills near one of the items. "Izzy," they say, their voice a bit strangled. "How many escapes would you say Blackbeard's done over the years?"
Izzy glances over at the list. "That the English would consider a crime? Just the one. All the other escapes have been in combat."
"So – just from the Privateering Academy?"
"Yeah, that one."
"Fucking fucking fuck," Jim says, and crumples the sheet of paper in their hand. "He's been fucking lying to us this whole fucking time – "
Oluwande follows them as they storm back to the room. "Wait, what are you – "
"What's even happening?" Wee John asks, following, and, yep, Izzy's right behind him, too.
Jim slams the door of the room open and brandishes the now-wrinkled paper.
"Holy shit, stop that!" Lucius says, leaning on the wall for stability.
"Well, Blackbeard," Jim says, crossing the room to get into Ed's personal space. "When exactly were you going to tell us that you were lying about the timeline, hmm?"
Ed's eyes nearly cross as he tries to look at the paper Jim is shoving in his face. "Wait, what?"
Jim steps back away, pointing at the timeline on the wall. "You said," they say, their voice shaking, "that you left Stede at the Academy, got a dinghy, and were at the dock the whole night."
"Yeah," Ed says. "'Cause I was?"
"Right," Jim says, and lightning-quick grabs a knife to pin the wanted poster in the long gap representing that evening. "And when in there did you murder the fucking Admiral?"
"Oh, shit," Archie says quietly.
"Which Admiral are we talking about?" Wee John asks, poking his head through the threshold of the room.
"Admiral Chauncey Badminton," Jim declares, pounding their finger against the wanted poster. "Whose murder by Blackbeard was, quote, in the Commission of Escape from Custodie of ye English."
"The fuck?" Ed says, and leans in to take a look at the poster. "Isn't that the same Admiral that – "
"That wanted Bonnet," Izzy says from the doorway, and Ed's head snaps around to look at him. Izzy crosses his arms, looking anywhere but at Ed. "He would've given anything to get his hands on Bonnet. That's why he worked with me and Jackie to get him."
"Spanish Jackie was involved?" Oluwande demands, flabbergasted. "She fucking put us up for like two months and never said anything!"
"Probably because she was involved," Archie mutters.
"Bonnet killed his brother," Izzy continues. "He was told by one of the survivors, and the account was consistent with what we were told by our hostage officer." Izzy shrugs one shoulder. "If Admiral Badminton died that night and it wasn't Blackbeard who did it...maybe Bonnet decided to finish what he started. Get both twins out of the way."
"Well," Lucius says thoughtfully, "that might make more sense if, one, any of us thought Stede was capable of cold-blooded murder – "
"You never know what someone might do when they're pushed to the edge," Izzy says, voice low. He's still not looking at Ed.
"And, two," Lucius continues over Izzy, "he didn't murder that first Badminton guy. It was an accident."
Izzy rolls his eyes. "His sword was completely through his fucking skull."
"Yeah," Oluwande says, wincing. "I know, I saw. But it was 'cause he fell on it. Trust me, Lucius and I had to convince him to say he did it on purpose to stave off the mutiny."
"Oh, yeah, we definitely would've mutinied if we'd known it was an accident," Wee John agrees easily.
"He was having a full-on panic attack," Lucius adds. "Like, I could see his soul leaving his body, it was rough."
Ed frowns, turning his head towards Lucius like a snake who's just sensed movement. "What did you say?"
Lucius waves the question away. "Oh, it's just an expression."
"No, you – " Ed blinks a few times in thought, even though his gaze is steady on the wall just to the side of Lucius's head. "He...panicked." He steps closer to the timeline, not even paying attention to anyone else, and Jim steps away quickly without complaint. Ed puts his pointer finger against one of the squares. "This Chauncey guy wanted him dead," he says thoughtfully, and moves his finger to a square on the top line. "Because he thought Stede murdered his brother. Then the night that Stede escapes – the first night he's been transferred to the Privateering Academy, somewhere where he's not under guard, where Chauncey knows where to find him..." Ed's finger hovers over the wanted poster. "I think it was an accident."
"He accidentally murdered an Admiral?" Jim asks, eyebrows raised with skepticism.
"Could be he did it on purpose," Izzy says. "Or defending himself. He told me that he blacks out in the field and his body takes over." He shakes his head. "Thought it was bullshit, but...he's still here, so something must be happening."
"No," Ed says, shaking his head at the timeline. "'Cause after, he's – sad. Jumpy. Attacks Doug, gets drunk. He fakes his death not to hide, but because he needs, what, closure? Reinvention?"
"Rebirth," Izzy suggests quietly. "Sometimes, that's – that's what you need. A fresh start."
Ed's hand curls into a fist, and he lets his middle knuckle land against the wanted poster with a heavy knock. "No such thing as a fresh start, though, is there. There's always someone waiting to rear their fucking head."
"Well," Izzy says, swallowing hard. "Well maybe sometimes someone needs some time to adjust, too. Maybe someone doesn't always know how to move forward and take the things that matter with them while leaving the other shit behind."
"Maybe someone else," Ed says, staring daggers at the wanted poster now as Oluwande meets Lucius's eye over his shoulder and finds with relief that Lucius is just as goddamn baffled as he is, "just wants some fucking benefit of the doubt, man. Maybe someone else takes it kind of fucking personally that the first time they really make themselves vulnerable to someone they thought they could trust, someone stabs them in the fucking metaphorical back – "
"Maybe someone," Izzy says loudly, "didn't appreciate being thrown away like fucking trash the second someone new and more exciting came along, did someone else think of that? Maybe someone was trying to be helpful and didn't deserve to have their fucking leg shot off!"
"Yeah, well, yeah, okay, maybe someone else regrets the whole leg-thing," Ed admits, getting flustered, "but that doesn't change the fact that someone threatened to fucking murder someone else for being, and I quote, a namby-pamby in a silk robe pining for his boyfriend, so maybe someone can think a little bit harder about the role they played in setting up the shitty situation in the first place!"
"A fucking leg!" Izzy repeats. He's starting to go a little red in the face.
"Fuck, man! Someone else already said they're sorry about it, there's no need to keep throwing it in their face – "
"Uh, no," Lucius interrupts, raising a hand to intervene. "Someone else has not, in fact, said the words I'm sorry at any point, to anyone, and, in fact, the use of the word 'regret' earlier was the closest that someone else has come to even acknowledging that things happened."
"Oh, fuck," Archie says, her eyes widening in realization. "They're talking about themselves."
"Oh, please," Ed says to Lucius, "like someone else is the only one who learned pretty fucking early on that apologies are weakness and weakness gets you killed! And you know who taught that to someone else? Someone did!"
"Someone can still apologize!" Lucius snaps back.
"Well, fine, someone else is sorry, okay!" Ed says, pretty loudly, all things considered. "Someone else is really fucking sorry for shooting off your leg, and all the toes before that, and the psychological torture and whatnot, but, y'know, maybe someone else also wants a little acknowledgement that someone was pretty shitty to them at a vulnerable time and there was no fucking call for it!"
Izzy lets out an angry exhale, leaning on the doorframe for support.
After a second, Ed finally, for the first time, looks up to meet Izzy's gaze. "I'm sorry, man," he tells Izzy. "You didn't deserve it." He clears his throat and turns to Archie and Jim, too. "None of you did, and I'm sorry to you, too." Now he looks at Wee John and Oluwande in turn. "Sorry about the marooning."
"And canceling the talent show?" Oluwande says, unsure if he'll get away with it.
"And canceling the talent show," Ed agrees. He glances at Lucius, and shrugs. "But you and me, we're good, right? 'Cause you threw me off the ship?"
"Absolutely the fuck not, say it," Lucius says through gritted teeth.
"Okay, fine, yeah. I'm..." Ed takes a breath. "I'm sorry." Then he looks down. "I know things were bad and I made them worse."
"On purpose," Jim says, not kindly.
"Yeah, it absolutely was on purpose, for sure," Ed agrees. "I guess I just thought that maybe, if things got bad enough, it'd hit bottom and then at least there wouldn't be any worse it could get, right? Like when you fall into the ocean and think to yourself, hey, at least if I hit the seafloor, I don't have to wear myself out hoping, 'cause at the end I'll get to die and it'll all be over."
"Fuck, that's dark," says Archie, staring.
"Yeah, I know," Ed says, fiddling with his sack-belt. "And it doesn't really feel fair to put this all on you, since it's my problem to – "
"Is everything okay down here?" Stede's head pokes into the room between Izzy and Wee John. "I heard shouting – oh, are you having a party?" He catches sight of the wall and blinks. "A...knife party?"
"Hey, quick question, Captain," Archie says, leaning forward to get a good angle on Stede. "You ever murder an English Admiral?"
All expression slides off Stede's face in an instant, and any flush to his skin drains away right after. "You – what?" he says, choked.
"Yeah, Doug said some stuff to these two – " Archie points at Oluwande and Lucius, "that got us all trying to figure out how the fuck you got from the Privateering Academy back to your house with no shoes."
"Narc," Lucius hisses at Archie.
"And why you faked your death but never talk about it," Jim adds, "and also keep introducing yourself using your name when you're supposed to be dead."
"I," Stede says, and his voice fails him. He looks around the room again. "You're...all trying to figure this out?" He glances at the wall. "By meticulously creating a timeline of my actions and movements for the past – gosh, is that a year? Instead of asking me?"
"Didn't want to bring up a sore subject," Ed says, looking down at the floor.
Stede, stricken, stares at him. "With me, you mean," he says eventually. "Because clearly you brought it up amongst yourselves."
"Can't help but notice he still hasn't answered," Wee John says, and Stede gives him an utterly betrayed look.
"Like I suggested," Izzy interjects loudly. "Could be that he blacked out. Combat skills took over – "
"No," Stede says, and all the heads in the room swivel to him like magnets. There's something hollow in his expression now, like his face is going to cave in like a sinkhole made of tears. But he takes a deep breath and steps all the way into the room, going to the timeline. "Chauncey – he came in the middle of the night. With a gun. Walked me out into the middle of the forest, and..." He lets out a breath that could almost be a laugh, if it weren't so pained. "He tripped."
"He fucking what?" Izzy says.
"I know," Stede says ruefully. "After all that, he just tripped. The gun was in his hand and his finger was on the trigger, I suppose, so even though he managed to catch himself on one elbow, that just...made it go off."
"Oh, gross," Lucius murmurs, wrinkling his nose.
"You never said," Ed says quietly.
"Well, you've got your own problems!" Stede says. "And besides, isn't it sort of nice to just be who we are now? Meeting each other where we are instead of looking backwards all the time?"
But Ed's shaking his head. "You're carrying it with you, man. You want to meet me where I am? Fine. But don't pretend you've been there at that middle spot the whole fucking time. You've got somewhere to get met, too."
"You've been through so much," Stede says, half-desperate. "You gave up piracy, your life, your beard – "
Ed rolls his eyes. "God, not the fucking beard again, seriously – "
But Stede draws himself up. "Yeah! Yes, the fucking beard again, Edward, because you loved that beard! You named yourself after that beard, that beard meant something to you and you had to throw it away for me! For me, some random fuck-o who barely stayed alive long enough to meet you in the first place, with a long line of corpses behind me of smarter, stronger, and all-around better people who died from the sheer misfortune of being near me!"
With a sigh, Ed shoves his face in his hands. "It's just a beard, mate – "
"Oh, for fuck's sake, it's synecdoche!" Lucius snaps, and Ed and Stede both turn to stare at him like they've only now remembered that they're in a room that is completely full of people. "What?" Lucius says. "It is! Stede is using the beard to represent the whole of Ed's identity, so Stede is upset that he feels like Ed gave up his entire identity for Stede. And also," Lucius adds, this time specifically to Stede, "you don't magically make people dead by being around them. That's ridiculous. You weren't even on the ship when Ed did most of his murders."
"Um," Stede says, blinking at Lucius, and then their wider audience. "Ed, perhaps we should...go talk somewhere else?"
"Yeah," Ed says, rubbing the back of his neck. "Yeah, that probably – yeah. Private, preferably."
Stede takes a deep breath, and looks again at the timeline. "Yeah," he says. "Yeah, definitely – private. Ah." He turns towards everyone else, a bit at a loss. "Well, I guess we'll – see you later."
Stede and Ed slip out past Wee John and Izzy, and Izzy sighs and lets his head plonk against the doorframe.
"I don't understand anything that just happened," Wee John says with a frown. "Why were you all obsessed with this, again?"
"Okay, let me take it from the top," Lucius says, and takes up a position in front of the timeline. "Picture this: Bridgetown, Barbados. A quiet residential community doesn't know that it's about to be rocked by bloody violence. Stede Bonnet, recently returned from his time at sea, walks down the street, barely recognizable to those who once knew him. Just last night, he interrupted his wife's art showing, but today, he's just walking. Until, out of nowhere, a carriage barrels into him – "
"Captain got hit by a carriage?" Wee John says, surprised.
"And then, from above, a piano drops onto him!"
"How is he still walking around?" Wee John demands.
"Then, finally, a jungle cat eats his corpse!"
Wee John crosses his arms. "Now you're just fucking with me."
"Ah, but – " Lucius points at Wee John, "all of those things happened. Or at least, everyone who was there thought they happened. The truth is more complicated, more dangerous, and more dark than anyone could have ever imagined."
"This is great stuff, man," Archie says, crossing her legs on the bed. "You should write this shit down."
"Ooh, I like that," Lucius says consideringly. "Could illustrate it and everything."
"Cover the investigation as it unfolds," Archie agrees. "Bit by bit."
"Serialized, I like it," Lucius says, tapping his fingers against his lips. "We could call it...um..."
"Bits?" suggests Archie.
"Yeah, why not, we can call it that for now," Lucius says, and points to the very first bit of paper. "To understand how we got to this scene of Stede Bonnet faking his death, we'll have to go back to the beginning of it all..."
"I can't believe I have nothing better to do than listen to this," Izzy sighs.
"Oh, shut up, you love it," Wee John says, and plants himself on the floor next to the bed. "Come on, you can knit while you listen, it'll be good for building up the muscle memory."
Oluwande catches Jim's eye, and they jerk their chin towards the door. Oluwande nods, and follows Jim out.
"I feel like we got enough of that already, how about you?" Jim says.
"Oh, for sure," Oluwande says, tamping down his beanie. "I mean, sort of feels like we still don't have answers for some stuff."
"Do we need them, though?" Jim says, and Oluwande follows them up the steps to the deck. "I think what Stede said made some sense, you know? Sometimes it's about looking at where you are and going from there."
"What if that means dumping everything that came before?" Oluwande says, but he can't bring himself to look at them as he says it; instead he goes to the rail and leans on it, peering out at the sea.
Jim comes up next to him and leans, too, bumping their shoulder sideways against Oluwande's. "What if it doesn't?"
Oluwande flicks a bit of sawdust off the rail. "I guess I kind of see why Stede never talked about it," he says. "It's hard, when it's that complicated, you know?"
"Yeah, I know," Jim says, and sighs. "Olu, look, I know we haven't really talked about some stuff – "
"Yeah," Oluwande agrees slowly. "Yeah, things've been a bit – "
"Do you want to kiss?" Jim says. "Should we be kissing?"
Oluwande just stares for a second. "That's...a wild way to phrase it, Jim."
Jim winces, scrunching up their whole face. "No, I know, I just – I've been kissing Archie. More than kissing. And I don't want you to feel like – "
"I don't feel like," Oluwande objects. "Everything's fine!"
"How I feel about you hasn't changed," Jim continues. "Everything else has changed – like, fuck, everything else's changed so much, but – I also want to keep kissing Archie and if you don't want that, then I don't know...where to go from there."
"It's not exactly conventional," Oluwande agrees.
Jim gives him a fleeting smile. "Uncharted waters, you could say."
Oluwande winces preemptively. "I kissed someone else, too."
"Oh shit," Jim says, impressed. "En serio?"
"Well, she kissed me," Oluwande corrects himself.
"She's got good taste, then," Jim says with a grin, and bumps Oluwande's shoulder again. "And it's okay if that means you don't want to kiss me, you know."
"I don't know what I want," Oluwande says, and groans, letting his head fall forward onto his hands on the rail. "Well, I guess I do, I just want more than one thing, and that's...weird."
"Who says it's weird?" Jim shrugs. "I want more than one thing, too. Does that bug you?"
"No," Oluwande says, "but you're you."
Jim scoffs. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"It means, Jim, that you've got maybe the biggest heart of anyone I've ever met."
"You do remember," Jim says slowly, "that when I met you, I was planning a murder, right? Which I then carried out?"
"Yeah, but you murdered because you loved," Oluwande says. "It takes a big fucking heart to hold on to that hurt for that long, let alone coming out on the other side the way you are."
"Not sure I agree," Jim murmurs, looking down. "But, uh...what about you, though?" Jim worries their lip between their teeth. "Does your heart have room for another heart? Maybe one that also has another heart inside it? Like those dolls that have the dolls?"
Oluwande frowns. "Isn't that just two dolls?"
"No, they, like, stack inside each other – "
"Inside each other? That sounds nasty."
"Because they're hollow – look, what I'm saying is..." Jim sighs. "No matter what, Oluwande Boodhari, you're my fucking family. And anytime you need me, I'll be yours. No matter how much kissing that does, or doesn't, involve."
"Yeah, well..." Oluwande lifts one hand from the railing and slowly moves it towards Jim's. They lift their closer hand, too, and let Oluwande intertwine their fingers together. "You're my family, too. Regardless of kissing amount. And maybe we can just...see where that leads."
"That sounds nice," Jim says, and smiles at Oluwande. He smiles back, and for a moment they both just stay there, inhabiting the smile. Then Jim's smile turns a little wicked. "Okay, so who's this other person you kissed?"
Oluwande winces. "Oh. Well. You know Zheng Yi Sao, that pirate queen that was going to execute you?"
Jim's eyebrows shoot up. "Holy shit, are you serious?"
Oluwande would be offended if Jim weren't so obviously gleeful. "Okay, come on – "
"She's cute for sure," Jim continues. "Was it before or after she decided to execute us, though? 'Cause that'd be a little messed up."
"I was trying to convince her not to do it," Oluwande admits, and Jim's mouth drops open.
"Were you trading your body for our freedom?" they say, fake-scandalized. "I mean, I can't say I blame her, it absolutely would've worked on me, I just never pictured you as a honey trap – "
"No!" Oluwande objects. "We were just talking, and then things got complicated, and then they got...kissy!"
Jim pulls away from Oluwande to look him over, and Oluwande really doesn't like the sly look in their eye. "I'm not convinced your telling me everything," they say. "Maybe I should do some investigating - put together a timeline of the supposed crime, and – "
Oluwande leans forward and presses his mouth against theirs, and Jim, gratifyingly, stops talking.
The investigation later is thorough, and involves no timelines, although they do bring Archie onto the case. As backup.