REC: And the Tide will Turn

[silverusagi]

And the Tide will Turn (11585 words) by Acephalous
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Blackbeard | Edward Teach/Stede Bonnet
Additional Tags: Temporary Character Death, Canon-Typical Violence, Kidnapping, Getting Back Together, Pining, Light Angst, Happy Ending

Summary: Edward creates an intricate plan to keep Stede both safe and at a safe distance. It goes about as well as can be expected.

This is excellent. Ed is gut punched when he hears Stede is dead. When he sees him again, Ed is gut punched in a different way, and Just Can't With It anymore, and tells Stede to leave and stay away. Except, Ed can't stop thinking about him and worrying about him, so he tries to smooth Stede's way back into piracy from a distance, with hilarious results.

When Stede steps aboard the other vessel, the first thing he notices is the extraordinary tension in the men on the ship. Most of them aren’t looking at Stede, but rather back at the islands they had emerged from, as if they expect the devil himself to make an appearance.

“You are the Gentleman pirate?” the Captain asks, urgently. He looks nervous, pale and sweating.

When Stede nods, he hands Stede his sword with such frantic haste that Jim almost stabs him, before they realize it’s a surrender, not an attack.

“We are surrendering our goods. And the ship. You should definitely take our ship,” the Captain says, while Stede is still fumbling with the sword.

“You’re surrendering,” Stede says, uncertainly, “to us?”

The Captain and his men all nod frantically.

“But we haven’t done anything to you.”

“Well, we…daren’t cross you. When we saw your formidable vessel…” The man pauses again, glancing at the small fishing sloop. From the vantage of the deck it looks very small, and very harmless. “Well, the kind of vessel doesn’t matter, what convinced us was your…reputation. Please just accept our surrender.”

“You’re what, our hostages?” Jim asks the Captain, knife in hand. They’re impatient and twitchy.

“Yes…yes! Absolutely.” The man’s eyes keep drifting back towards the little cluster of islands they had come flying away from.

“Is there something over there?” Stede asks, gesturing to the island with the sword.

“No. No, and we definitely weren’t told we had to surrender to you. By anyone. No one sent us. Oh God, please just take the ship.” Behind the Captain one of the lieutenants is crying, silently.

“Wow. This is. Something,” Lucius says.