(ts) Stede - Tumblr Posts

Oh, dear. I've failed at this social interaction. I hope she doesn't think I'm a *complete* idiot. She does look really cool, but also like she might be able to kill me with that spoon. I should probably move the spoon. There we go. What were we talking about? Right, right, right. Secretly thinking... Secretly thinking... Isn't all thinking a secret? Unless one's telepathic. Oh no, is she telepathic? No. No, that would be nonsense. Would it? Her hair's nice. A little unkempt. Don't suppose there's much time for the hair and maintenance of longer hair aboard a ship, but some of us choose to put aside the little comforts in the name of adventure! She probably has some really good stories. ..... I should probably actually *say something*. And has this been too much eye contact? ... No. Make more eye contact... Oh, that look on her face. Less eye contact. Definitely less.

Anonymously send me something your muse is secretly thinking about mine.

Stuck a-fucking-gain cleaning up somebody else's mess--swear to God I'll murder Ed next time I see him for this dumbfuckery--what is HE staring at? Nervous little twat. Worse than I am. Fidgeting with a fucking SPOON. En't a thought in well-kempt head a' his, is there?Empty as a fuckin seashell. Why're ye still lookin at me? Fuck's sake. He says anything about my hair and he spends t'night breathin out his mouth from a swollen lip. Not all of us can afford to give a rat's arse what we're wearin, milord.

...why are ye fuckin lookin at me like that? Fuck off! 'S'right. Figure your shite out, Christ.

Anne thinks for a moment about letting the twat's hand go unshook, and ends up spending a moment too long on it: just when it starts to seem she won't, Anne takes Stede's hand--but she takes it in her manner, gripping him by the wrist for a quick pump of the hand. "Anne."

Stupid thing, to stand up to greet a pirate. Anne's face slips for a moment into the comfortable mask of unfeeling blankness as she eyes Stede over. Silly fucker. Tall fucker, too. Maybe something to worry about, some time on. For now, Anne's only concern is making a good enough impression to be brought on the voyage. Her plan is piecemeal at best and she knows it.

...and then he says he's a bit banned from Jackie'z, like one might do complaining of a recent heat wave, and Anne's eyebrows shoot all the way up. Maybe this isn't her best shot, just her first. Maybe if she hunkers down in port, she'll find a better hunter on his tail. Or maybe she'll get caught back up in Jack's shite and never be free of him. Who knows?

Still. Solid woman though she is, Jackie's temper is second only to Anne's. It isn't hard to imagine a banning--just surviving one with your nose intact.

"Right. T'brass tacks, then." Anne hooks a foot around the seat opposite Stede and pulls it up behind her, taking a seat. She's close enough to use the table but not entirely up to it, room left to jump and dash as needed--or, in Anne's case, room to jump and draw. There's a pistol on her left and a sword on her right, and that's without mentioning her porcelain knife, the more practical jack-knife slipped into her pocket, the short dagger in her boot, and a few others besides. Anyone who knows Anne knows she's armed to the teeth, always, even and especially when you can't see it. She's crosses her arms and cocks her head. "Ye're huntin Blackbeard. Is it on a lead or a whim? I won't be hearin anything out on a whim, so ye can save yer breath if that's yer best."

Stede jolted when someone kicked the table. He'd gotten absorbed in his book and hadn't even noticed anyone approaching. He looks up at the woman with a momentary look of confused surprise -- then smiles.

"I am he, and you must be Anne Bonny," he stood up to greet her, offering his hand out in response to her question. "Please, call me Stede."

She cut a striking figure. Even if he hadn't known her name and hadn't just spent the time refreshing his memory on who he was dealing with -- he would have been impressed by her. She was tall, perhaps even having an inch on him if he weren't in heels, and looked like she could potentially have more knives on her than Jim.

"I'm glad that you were able to make it. I know that this isn't precisely a popular venue... the drinks are passable at best... but I'm a bit banned from Jackie'z."

He hadn't actually tried to go back in, but he had a suspicion that Jackie had a very good memory. His brief meeting with the woman had been one of the most terrifying, and exhilarating, in his life. He'd been at a complete disadvantage. She absolutely could have killed him and not even given it a second thought. It wasn't until he was reflecting on the whole incident later that he realized that he'd never felt more alive than in that moment, with the knife in his nose. Ha! But that was the pirate's life. Probably not specifically that. But the thrill of narrowly escaping death?

It isn't murder but safety on her mind; Stede's weapons are his men, though some would no doubt cringe at the thought. She glances at the man behind Stede and burns a stare into his eyes that he won't forget any time soon. He looks away and coughs, embarrassed-like, and Anne does him the mercy of looking away, back to Stede and his stupid book. She sees the smile with her wide-catching attention and notes it, but only seems to notice when it falters, zeroing in on the man. What in the blubbering fuck is actually going on?

Anne doesn't buy the story for a minute, but makes no sign that would tell Stede so. Parts of it sound right--Blackbeard taking his ship, his men, sailing near St. Augustine--but a lot of it sounds like shite. Make amends. Listen to what I have to say. Dross. Anne's dirty fingers drum an anxious tempo on the sleeve her weatherworn coat.

Not very well likely she can sail towards St. Augustine by herself, anyway.

"Aye, then. How many crew d'ye have, and how many d'ye need?" If they seem close enough to sailing-worthy, Anne decides, she'll sign on board with this idiot man and his dubious crew--and maybe teach the poor fucker how to survive on open waters while she's at it.

Stede takes his seat. It is immediately clear that the man is wholly unarmed, with the exception of the book -- which might serve as a piss poor projectile. He knows that his crew is present, though they're not actively engaged with him at the moment, sitting at their own tables or at the bar itself. The only one really keeping an eye out for Stede's safety is Oluwande, sitting directly behind him at the adjacent table. It would be painfully easy to kill Stede, regardless. And yet... the man doesn't seem to be aware of or concerned of any danger.

"Well, it is a bit more than a whim, I can assure you," Stede flashes a smile at her and rests his hand on the book. His smile falters a little, and he looks down at the table.

"It's... a personal matter, really. I'm still not used to voicing it. But... he was sailing with me, some months ago. We got close. Very close. Then I made a terrible mistake," Stede explains, not looking up at Anne. "He has my ship. He has some members of my crew. And I... I need to try and... make amends with him. I can only hope that he will listen to what I have to say, and understand why I did what I did."

He clears his throat and looks at her again, "As far as we have been able to discover, he was last sighted -- with my ship still intact, thankfully -- near St. Augustine. I feel as if he's going to continue Northward."

Jesus fuck. The madman planned to set to sail with six crew to his name in a ship he had the money to buy outright but not the brains to get outfitted with the necessary manpower first. She almost thinks she's in a bad fever dream until he says something that pulls things hard to port.

Safe guard.

That makes sense. All due respect to Stede's band of misfit toys, not a one of them looks like they can stomach a punch, and she knows from Jack and from stories that Blackbeard's made of worser stuff than that. If he really and truly plans just to talk to Blackbeard, he'll need someone capable of keeping him alive long enough to do that talking--and maybe learn a bit of sword besides, just to be safe.

He's lucky to have had Anne fucking Bonny reach out to him, though he won't be able to truly appreciate that for a while to come yet, she suspects. His lucky streak begins right then.

Coincidentally, so does Anne's headache.

"A'right, then. Produce yer Articles* and let's you and I make a deal."

*Articles of Agreement lol

It isn't murder but safety on her mind; Stede's weapons are his men, though some would no doubt cringe at the thought. She glances at the man behind Stede and burns a stare into his eyes that he won't forget any time soon. He looks away and coughs, embarrassed-like, and Anne does him the mercy of looking away, back to Stede and his stupid book. She sees the smile with her wide-catching attention and notes it, but only seems to notice when it falters, zeroing in on the man. What in the blubbering fuck is actually going on?

Anne doesn't buy the story for a minute, but makes no sign that would tell Stede so. Parts of it sound right--Blackbeard taking his ship, his men, sailing near St. Augustine--but a lot of it sounds like shite. Make amends. Listen to what I have to say. Dross. Anne's dirty fingers drum an anxious tempo on the sleeve her weatherworn coat.

Not very well likely she can sail towards St. Augustine by herself, anyway.

"Aye, then. How many crew d'ye have, and how many d'ye need?" If they seem close enough to sailing-worthy, Anne decides, she'll sign on board with this idiot man and his dubious crew--and maybe teach the poor fucker how to survive on open waters while she's at it.

If Anne's scared of being convicted of piracy, she's in the wrong damn line of work. She isn't fighting for herself these days. She's fighting for a damned ideal. Those are supposed to be worth dying for, right? Then they're worth being convicted of piracy for.

Besides, it's hardly a wrongful conviction.

Anne's headache becomes a migraine almost immediately; she presses thumb and forefinger together over the bridge of her nose. No Articles, fine. Maybe you're a fuckwit. Weekly salaries? Singular...takes? Two weeks notice? What kind of a fucking fantasy is this man living in?

And he's hunting fucking Blackbeard.

"If ye've got nothin else, ye've got audacity," Anne says in a voice like she's congratulating him on an unexpected victory. She shouldn't like that. Damn, she shouldn't like that! The man's a fuckwit with six men and sloop who wants Blackbeard to LISTEN to some goddamned bellyaching in silken breeches and all--but he's an audacious fuckwit. Anne's favorite kind.

"I en't shakin 'til ye've heard my terms out, though." Anne hauls herself forward to lean both elbows on the table, still holding her arms, searching Stede's face as she made her terms clear. "I get a room. Not a fucking partition 'tween hammocks, a room with a goddamned door and walls. Anywhere ye can hang hammock's fine. No one in there but me, though. I pick who I share watch with and who I damned well don't, and I decide how and where my off-hours're spent." Anything else? "And I don't cook," she adds, deadpan. If nothing else, after learning why, Anne expects she'll have won herself at least that last concession.

Stede had always been a lucky man, though it was not something he was entirely conscious of. Things just kind of...happened. Around him. The idea of being fortunate had been smothered out of him at a young age, which made it difficult to have any real trust in luck.

But he had been lucky. He'd survived this far, despite being... well. Himself. He had come away from an encounter with Spanish Jackie with his nose intact. He'd been gut stabbed and hanged and survived it, largely due to Blackbeard having taken an interest in him. That was its own kind of luck. He'd managed to survive another stab to the gut that had left him pinned to the mast of his own ship until there was a realization that maybe someone should help him out of that position. He'd gotten out of his own execution, and had escaped the privateering school he'd been pressed into.

It was easier to acknowledge how unlucky he was. He hadn't meant to kill Nigel, not truly. And Chauncey's death... it was something he still saw and heard when he closed his eyes. It had shaken him more than Nigel's, as unexpected and brutal as it was. And Stede had agreed with everything the man had said. He ruined things. Everything he touched, everything he loved, he ruined it. He'd ruined history's greatest pirate.

His expression falters for a moment as his mind brings up the things Chauncey had said. Edward's bare face... watching his calloused hands fold a sock. His seeming resignation to that life, all so that he could be with Stede. There was something awful about the fact that Edward had been so willing to give up being Blackbeard to be with him, anonymous sailors on a sea far away from everything that they had known. He didn't want Edward to change for him. He loved the man exactly as he was, exactly as he had come to know him. He couldn't care less than the man was Blackbeard, not after he had gotten to know Edward. It was important to acknowledge Blackbeard in it all, but that wasn't all there was to the man. That wasn't who he loved.

Anne pulls him out of his thoughts and his expression shifts closer to neutral. He shakes his head.

"I'm afraid that all of my documents are aboard the Revenge and I do not have anything to offer you, right now. I compensate my crew with a weekly salary, regardless of raids. Loot is split evenly amongst all of us, unless there's a singular item. Then it is mine, as is my right as captain. Um..." he looks down at the book his hand is resting on. "Keep your equipment clean, make sure the ship is in peak condition. Give me notice, if you intend to depart from the crew. Two weeks would be nice, but I'll accept shorter if its necessary. Ah... I don't have the amenities aboard this ship that I do on the Revenge so I'm afraid those rules won't apply here. Hm. I can put something in writing, if you like. Add it in with the rest of them, once we recover my ship. That is, if you intend to stay on past this little venture of ours."

She couldn't be convicted of piracy, if they got captured while on this fool's errand. Not if he didn't have anything for her to sign.

"We could shake on it?"

Slowly, Anne retracts from the table, clearly considering things. She looks him over much more carefully, toe to head, as she leans back (well, slumps down into) her seat. He’d agreed too fast: that was suspicious as all hell. He didn’t rake her over the coals to get her fistful of demands, and while thank Christ he wasn’t leering…well. He wasn’t leering. And it’s only just occurred to Anne, with Roach’s official introduction, that half of the dozen other people here are Stede’s suicidal brigade of idiots. And he seems to find no issue in that.

She’d ask if he’s having a laugh, but it’s unfortunately clear he’s serious, or putting on a damned good show of being so.

She doesn’t know the cost of all this. Wouldn’t if she were aware of Stede’s financial dilemma, or his plans. She fully expects to be shoved in a storage closet and that suits her just fine. But she notices the way he toys with his ring, a strange echo of what she does with her own, and even without knowing its exact cause she knows its cause: stress. Anxiety. Maybe a touch of doubt, somewhere.

Anne’s eyes cut back quick as a knife to the man behind Stede, the big one with the expression like he hears this insanity but still doesn’t understand it either. Six men. Him and five others—a bald idiot that squawks indignantly over trifling shite, the eponymous Roach, and a few shady-looking arses besides, including a small giant of a man, an idiot-looking man with a face the shape of an oar, and…no, Anne knows a sea witch when she sees one and looks immediately away from the last man, albatross that he is.

They’re going to fucking die on this venture. No wonder the man’s nerved up so.

“Make sure ye find swords afore the next time we meet,” she tells Stede instead, resigning herself to the fate of having only one last adventure on the horizon—a fool’s errand. “Wouldn’ trust anyone but the big fucker in a fight, and I en’t about t’take a suicide mission just t’die afore looking the devil of the deep in his goddamned face.”

Stede smiles when she says he has audacity, taking it as a compliment. That was what that tone meant, wasn't it? And audacity was a good thing in this line of work. He was about to say something about once being told he had "balls for days", something quite different from the taunts he had listened to when he was a boy, when she leaned forward and stated her terms.

They were perfectly reasonable as far as he was concerned. He started to nod as soon as she said "I get a room".

"Oh. Oh, no. I wouldn't ask you to cook. We have a cook," he says and twists in his seat to look for Roach. "There he is. He's also our doctor. Quite the talented man. Cakes could use some work."

Roach raises his hand to his chest and scoffs from where he is sitting. Stede turns back to her, "I can have a room arranged. The ship is currently with the shipwright as is. Should be simple enough. As for the rest... of course. I think they all do the same."

He makes a gesture behind him at his crew. Unbeknownst to him, Oluwande nods behind him and gives Anne a rather helpless shrug. As baffling as Stede is, at least life has been relatively easy under his command. Ridiculous at times, but easy. Olu didn't want to give much thought to the fact that chasing down Edward now was likely going to be actually like, really, really, dangerous. But he had his own stakes in this fool's errand. Whatever else might happen, he had to get to Jim.

Stede turned one of the rings on his hand absently with his thumb. He'd have to sell it to afford the construction of the room, and some of the additional salary that he intended to pay Anne. They'd also likely have to actually raid a ship or two, without Edward and his crew to help the process along. That was a daunting prospect. He'd have to hope that he'd remember everything that he'd learned without the help of the notes Lucius had been taking.

He'd done his best to maintain the illusion of wealth, but the reality of it was that the majority of his wealth was (hopefully) still aboard the Revenge. He hadn't taken much with him, when he'd left his family for the second time. This time, he hadn't sold off any of the land to provide for himself. The vast wealth associated with the land and his family's name was Mary's and the children's. They deserved that much from him.

He had taken some of the clothes that he had left behind the first time. He had also taken some items with the intention to sell them to provide for himself until he could get back to his ship and Edward --some valuable pieces of jewelry that had been in his family for generations, a couple of candlesticks and some silverware that Mary apparently hated.

Assuming Edward hadn't disposed of everything, he'd be able to return to his expected standard of learning as soon as they were back aboard his ship. The floating books that they'd come across didn't instill him with much faith that Edward hadn't thrown other valuables overboard but that was a matter for another time.

He'd sell the rings and raid a dozen ships if it meant he had a chance to reunite with Edward. That... that was priceless.

"Do we have an agreement?"

One time with Stede Bonnet (I can’t stop thinking about it) 💀

Anne: Anne Bonny is a fuckin psychopath with a sword and the only reason Jack Rackham’s lived as long as he has, the fuck.

Stede: I couldn’t help but notice… that you don’t currently have a sword on you. And Jack, so far as we know... isn't exactly alive anymore. That leaves us with.... psychopath […] But there must be something to know and remark upon about you that doesn't have some kind of association with a man or a weapon. I, for one, would love to hear it.

Anne: [-cue an existential crisis-]

Anne rolls her eyes, looking away from the twat captain (the title grates the nerves in moments like this) for a moment. Her arms cross over her chest without her meaning to, building a wall back up between them. Every two steps forward with this man is somehow also one step back. Shore's only been at their backs a few hours, the wind is good, the sun falling--and he wants to read his crew a fucking BEDTIME STORY.

Are ye going to tuck them in arter? that mean voice in the back of her head asks, laughing hoarsely at the suggestion.

"I didn't sign on for a fucking moppet show," she replies, aware (once again!) that she's in the presence of the madness that comes alongside genius. Not to say that genius was necessarily Bonnet's. "If we're huntin Blackbeard, we're hunting Blackbeard--end of the fucking story. En't time for sitting about doin fuck-all for the hunt."

Listen t’me very, very carefully, ‘cause I’m only saying this the once: I’m. Not. _Doing._ That.

Stede stood in the doorway of the cabin, a book held in his hand. He could hear the crew gathering on the deck and talking to each other, familiar murmurings from their time aboard The Revenge. They knew the routine and it seemed like they had come to anticipate and enjoy it as much as Stede did.

He had politely invited Anne to join them in listening to him read a bed time story and had gotten her hissed rejection of the idea.

"Why not?" he asked, clearly genuinely puzzled by the fact that she didn't want to join in. "Is it the book? This one is about a young woman sent to live in a castle with a terrible beast -- oh, I don't want to give the whole thing away. But I can get another, if you'd prefer?"

Anne's right eye is all but swollen shut from an earlier hit to the face. She's sweating and breathing hard, on the prow of Stede's stupid fucking ship with Teach intent on boarding and a clear fucking shot at the bastard who's lain waste to all this, and it's now she sees what a fruitless fucking endeavor it all was. People were lost. People are hurt. This voyage stopped being a hunting party weeks ago and became almost a normal crew, but here they are, under fire, facing death--not even a surrender's gonna stop Teach if he's made his mind up--and Stede's lowering her pistol.

Not Stede. Bonnet. Anne goes cold at it. She looks Bonnet dead in the face a moment, but this is no clever ruse, no last-minute fuckery, no daring escape to leave this all alive.

This is Bonnet being a selfish twat.

Anne uncocks the hammer and turns to look Bonnet full in the face before spitting on him and going to make whatever peace was left to be made with her Maker.

[ gun ] in the midst of a stand-off, sender reaches over and gently guides receiver’s gun down, making them lower it

prompts for comfortable intimacy || [accepting]

Stede's fingers were light on the pistol, an ever so gentle touch as he pressed the barrel downward.... ensuring that she'd miss her target if she decided to squeeze the trigger after all.

"Please..." his voice sounded hoarse. He'd been yelling and occasionally shrieking for the last hour, at least. Nothing had gone the way he had anticipated. He hadn't been prepared to be the subject of Edward's wrath. No, not Edward. Blackbeard.

"I'm fine," he assured in the same hoarse tone. "I'll be fine. Please, don't shoot him."

To hear tell of if, they'd actually ended up doing quite poorly against the English in the long run, but Anne doesn't mention it. She's heard of the naval attack that had launched Stede into infamy in their circle. There aren't many who can brag of that. Anne also doesn't mention that she WANTS to look him in his goddamned face. That the devil of the deep would always be one of two men to her and she'd take the chance to meet either face to face. It somehow doesn't seem relevant to Stede's current train of thought.

Anne raises a brow at Stede's suggestion; given her stipulations, she'd thought he'd need a week at least. Audacious and ambitious. A deadly combination. Anne's equal parts surprised and excited to see Stede shares these traits, though none of it shows on her face. She sits a bit straighter, perhaps, and seems a bit more settled.

"If that's yer preference, Cap'n, then it's mine. Mornin' after next."

A single day to get her affairs in order. Thank God she travels light. Anne nods to Stede and leaves this godforsaken tavern for a quick nip into Jackie'z before she starts sorting the rest.

"They do pretty well in a fight, don't you guys?" Stede twists to glance back at them again. "We did alright against the British that one time. Or, at least, it looked like you were all doing alright, when I peeked in."

He turns back to her, "With any luck, no one will be looking any devil of the deep in his goddamn face or anywhere else for that matter."

Stede trusted his men, whether or not he was foolish to do so. They were missing their most skilled fighter: Jim. But they'd get on. Wee John certainly had the brute force. But Mr. Buttons had been at sea a long time. The others could use guns and knives... did any of them actually use swords? He couldn't picture any of them holding a sword...

Regardless, he'd see to it that they were armed. Somehow.

What he didn't trust amidst the whole thing was his luck. He didn't consider himself to be particularly lucky, even though others might disagree. He was somehow still alive, despite everything. Not everyone survived being gut stabbed and hanged. Or run-through.

He puffs a breath and looks back at Anne, "We'll meet you on the docks the morning after next?"

Anne startles at the compliment, the spoon in her hand grabbed up and poised to be thrown like a knife in the direction of her assailant--but it's only Stede. Slowly, somewhat awkwardly, Anne lets down her arms, stowing the spoons in her pocket.

"Ah...'preciate it. Mam always said I a had a bullfrog's voice: not pretty, but loud. Pa would say like a roster's crow. Not sure 'pretty's' the word for it, all in all."

❝ well, this seems as good a time as any for me to stop babbling on. ❞ [Stede]

baldur's gate 3 starters (part 2)

It’s been awkward in the room since he’s said the name “Jack,” which feels like fifteen minutes ago. It can’t really have been more than five, and even she realizes this despite the time-slowing effect of the punch to the gut that name produced. She can only stare with a slack jaw and a knitted brow as the long-winded “short summary” of how he’d met Jack continues to process, never mind the stumbling block that was the abrupt jump to his death and the confessional nature of the whole speech all this time into knowing each other. It sends Anne reeling into the seat she’d refused upon entry, missing for the first time in weeks her impracticality hot coat, the armor it had represented. She genuinely does not know how to respond to…any of…this. Whatever “this” is.

Anne starts to open her mouth but then snaps it shut, reconsidering. What is the proper reaction to learning from your new acquaintance friend Captain that your ex-husband is dead, that he’s known this the entire time he’s known you, that he’d simply never put two and two together before because Anne, even though she was “Anne Bonny,” had slowly become simply Anne to him and how Jack was Jack (spat out, with the “-ass” implied) and so much, well, older than Anne and—honestly, that’s about where she loses the plot of his diatribe.

In the end she can only lean back in the seat, holding her mouth and chin in one hand and riding the very brink of hysterical laughter or hysterical tears, her expression wavering somewhere between the two.

“So…Jack’s…dead?” She almost has to cough the word out. Her eyes finally dart back to Stede’s face as she searches for guidance there before continuing. “And…you were…present. And, despite disliking him, had no hand in his death?”It’s clear what she’s looking for as she stares at him: the truth.

“Ye can understand where, amongst our like, those would be considered suspicious circumstances, can’t ye? Unless I’ve misunderstood….”

Stede and his stupid fucking brilliant little shitting secret passageways--she's almost in disbelief that they actually came in useful. She'd seen the would-be assassins skulking through the fog and clearly not bound for the cabin they'd been so charitably offered by the Captain. (She'd tried warning Stede, she had, of the feckless nature of their kinds of rogues--but he wouldn't listen! Stede and his stupid fucking idealist attitudes and unrealistic thinking when his better nature was appealed to--!) Anne hadn't been in a mind to save Stede's life when she'd ducked quietly into the Captain's quarters, but after a short, circular argument she'd heard a creak of wood that had come to a sudden stop and--she shushed Stede, counted to five, very nearly said to him sorry, say again, thought I heard something--start again, this time followed by more squeaks and a shuffling noises, as if someone heavy were trying to step lightly.

Fuck.

She'd all but thrown Stede out of his chair in her haste, moving much more quickly and quietly across the sturdy planks and plush rugs that alike made up the cabin. She'd been ready to hold the corner and murder the would-be assassins coming for her Captain when Stede, seeming somehow to understand, protested about the secret passage in the bookcase; there was barely time enough to slip through when the shuffling stopped to fiddle at the door. She'd done what she'd needed to do to get in behind him.

Anne doesn't bother shushing Stede; he of all people should know what the fuck's at stake if they get caught. These are pirates, and not friendly ones like Ed or Stede or even fucking Jack, but real nasty sons of bitches who like to stab first and ask questions later. If Jackie's the nastiest pirate Stede knows, he'd find her a saint next to these flea-riddled bilge rats. Anne clamps a steady hand over Stede's mouth and gives him a meaningful look before turning her head, hoping to make listening from over her shoulder a mite easier. Her hand loosens and slips down, sitting on Stede's shoulder as two pairs of heavy boots ransack the captain's quarters behind them. Stede and his stupid fucking brilliant little shitting secret passageways! As long as they kept still, the idiots on the other side of the secret door will stay none the wiser and Anne and Stede can break apart and breathe again.

Or, at least, that was the plan before the impossible happened.

"You sure 'e's not shagging 'er?"

The responding laugh is bitten out, too harsh, startlingly familiar. Anne freezes up the instant she hears it; she doesn't start shaking until it's own starts speaking. "She's too much the harlot not t'share quarters with the rest. If they're fuckin, they're fuckin with an audience."

The other man whistles low and laughs. Anne's eyes flood with tears as she goes blind to the present, reliving a life she'd left behind so long ago she'd assumed it all dead. She shakes and sheds silent tears and for a moment, it seems her knees will go out from under her.

@neverhangd out here making me not be as lazy as usual for 5 seconds

Stede made an undignified sound when Anne pushed him back against the wall, his hands going up reflexively to hover somewhere in the vicinity of her waist. The impulse was to raise them to his chest, but there wasn't enough space between then and...

He was breathing a little too hard.

"Anne!" he hissed in a stage whisper, well aware of the fact that it was in their best interest not to get caught.

Send me a meme.

Anne takes a deep breath in, bracing against her immediate reaction—to snap back that it was none of his fucking business—to fight through it. Stede is…not the enemy. Took her long e-fucking-nough to figure that out for herself, but internalizing it was taking…longer. Unfortunately.

She’s happy to leave Stede to his rum-and-tea, the smell of it unfortunately easy to pick up. Everyone has their own way of dealing with it. Anne’s had been violence and death for a very long time. Alcohol seems less destructive, frankly. Anne stares into her own cup, long since cold, as she gathers the thoughts. How to express any of it to someone who…wasn’t there, didn’t know, couldn’t in the end understand because he didn’t have to live the same way she did. Had. Might again, soon.

“…it wasn’t how people thought it was. Mark…never wanted me like that. He.” She pauses, winces, wondering if Mark is even still a present-tense beast before settling on the past anyway. “He weren’t like that. And for a week…we lived like there weren’t nothin queer to us at all. I fished. Mark got a job with a butcher. We kept t’ourselves. An’ we were….” Happy. By the fifth day, all of Mark’s talk of the quietude of seaside life had started to make sense, and she’d thought…with no Jack to menace them…with no one making snide remarks about prostitution behind her back, no one looking twice at Mark or demanding proof of what he said…and the empty cottage…it had all started to seem possible.

And then Jack came back, the very next day. She’d returned with a net full of fish to find Mark sullen at the kitchen table and Jack with a mouth full of hard-bought bread and jam, yammering on about what a pain in the arse they’d been to find. As if they hadn’t been trying to get out from under him in the first place. One shared look and Anne knew it was all over, they were done playing homestead, they’d be at sea with the tide tomorrow. That had been that.

Anne hangs her head and pushes the tea a little too far; it teeters on the edge of the nearby table, one halfway decent swell away from shattering on the floor. The story’s soured everything, from the tea to Anne’s mood.

“Almost lived happy for a full fuckin week. Normal-like. And then it got fuckin upended and there’s no gettin it back.”

“And for one week, one week in my sad little blip of an existence, it made me happy.“

"I think we have to make our own happiness," Stede said, looking over at her. They were settled on one of the plush settees in his cabin. He had his legs folded up under him beneath his robe and a little teacup perched in his hands. Whether or not it had more alcohol than tea in it was his business.

"If we depend on other people for it... all we have is those fleeting moments, right?"

He was a hypocrite and he knew it. All of his happiness hinged on the man that they were trying to chase around the entirety of the Caribbean. He'd thrown everything he had into the venture.

Stede set the cup down, "....Why don't you tell me about that week?"

Send me a meme.

Stede and his smiles and his clucking about like the mother hen he was always born to be—this is clearly him in his element, fussing at staff and trinkets and guests who arrive too early hoping to kiss cheeks and escape before more cheeks show up. He’s already steering her away from the tree but, damn her luck!, in the opposite direction of the door. Anne tries to smile and it comes out as a grimace even as she lets him lead her on.

“I, ah. Wasn’t plannin on stayin,” Anne admits reluctantly. Truth be told, she sort of likes the way Stede clucks over her—when it’s just them, and maybe Ed or one or two of the others. Add too many more to the mix and there’s…something else there, too. Not quite pride or dignity, but ego nevertheless, and a deep dig into the soft underbelly of her if left too exposed in front of too many eyes. “Was just gonna drop the prezzies off and be done with it.”

The shoddily wrapped gifts in question had already been taken and shoved under the tree, where their crinkled paper makes the other neatly wrapped gifts sitting nearby look shabby by proximity as well. That puts a certain amount of embarrassed heat into Anne’s cheeks as well.

Anne grimaced, short black nails digging into the flesh of her arm as she fought against grimacing. It was all very…homey, wasn’t it? Glowing and warm and bright and…sweet. Too sweet, at least for Anne’s taste. She doesn’t want to insult Stede—nice of him to invite her to Christmas, really—but Jesus, she doesn’t exactly want to be here either.

“It’s, ah. Very. Festive.”

(modern xmas nonsense, deal with it)

"Isn't it?" Stede flashes her a grin, gesturing towards the (overdecorated) tree. "I decided that we should go all out, give everyone something to remember."

Some of Stede's staff were already there, dressed in ugly sweaters and putting up some last minute garlands. Jim stood on a step stool to be the same height as Wee John.

"Why don't you get settled by the fire? Have some eggnog with a splash of brandy," Stede suggested, putting a hand on her back to steer her.