The Accidental Seduction of Edward Teach by Stede Bonnet, Gentleman Pirate

Chapter 33 - Things Fall Apart

"Right, let's turn around and fuck off back to the ship. Good plan?" Ed clapped his hands and looked at the other three.

Buttons, Frenchie and Stede all nodded.

Stede went to turn and then stopped. "Ed, darling..."

"Yeah, what? Come on? Let's get back up the...oh." Ed froze, his eyes going wide.

"Yeah. So remember when we ordered Izzy to come around into the cove with the Revenge?"

"They're about to be massively outgunned, is what they are," declared Buttons.

"Ed," Stede whispered as he leaned close to the other man. "What do we do?"

Ed was known for his elaborate plans, his theatre of intimidation, his boldness in battle. But when his plans fell apart, he had a tendency to...short-circuit. His confidence was, in fact, a house of cards, much like his self-esteem. Thinking on his feet was not his strong suit. He was a planner, not a pantser.

"Ed..." whispered Stede.

"Captain..."

"Look, we really should at least get off the trail."

Ed could feel himself slipping backwards. He felt disconnected from his body and felt like he was tumbling down a deep, dark well and away from his crewmates.

"Ed!"

He felt a sharp tug on his arm. Ed snapped back to himself long enough to look Stede in the eye. "I don't...I don't know. I..."

"Halt!"

Ed heard the sound of jangling swords before he saw the cluster of five soldiers, and then another five approaching from down the hill. In seconds, the four of them were surrounded, with cutlasses and blunderbusses pointed at them.

—-

Ed's old friend despair settled around his heart as the four of them were slapped in irons and led down into the bay. In the shallow cove with the ship sitting high in the water, the Spanish galleon was even more intimidating. There were two makeshift prisons set up on the beach, built out of bamboo. They were human cargo waiting to be loaded onto the ship just as much as the barrels of supplies that must have been deposited there by a trading vessel were.

Privateers and pirates had a lot in common, at least at first blush. But the privateers were under the boot of the crown that gave them their letter of marque. Where a pirate worked to evade the eyes of imperial power, a privateer was their attack dog and mercenary who did their dirty work.

That sort of 'dirty military' was evidenced by the quasi-uniform of the privateers that made them stand out from the corralled pirates. Where the pirates had looks that reflected their personalities (or lack thereof) the privateers had vestiges of military in their near-identical breeches and frock coats in neutral colours with military cuts.

And there were a lot of them.

This time, Ed couldn't just drop his bonds and take out the privateers. When they slapped them in irons, the men had made sure his were especially tight.

"There's been a misunderstanding! Me and the gents here just stopped at this island for fruit and fresh water when we happened upon your very impressive ship." Stede was trying his best to talk his way out of it, but the men had been ignoring them so far.

"That's not what the men we found up the trail said. They said Blackbeard and the Gentleman Pirate attacked them."

"Well, that's not us, I assure you!" said Stede

Across the beach, there was a bloodied and beaten privateer who was pointing very definitively at them.

"Don't think you're convincing them, Captain," murmured Frenchie.

Stede just kept smiling.

Then Ed felt a shove on his back. "Move."

Ed reluctantly started moving towards the cages. Then, one of the privateers pulled his chains off to the left, while the other three were being taken to the cage on the right.

They were splitting them up.

Ed suddenly planted himself. The man holding his chains gave them another yank, but he stood firm, shoulders squared, that dark and murderous look slipping back into his eyes. "I go with him," he said, nodding towards Stede.

"You don't get to make demands, Blackbeard," sneered the privateer. "Now, come on..." he gave the chain another hard yank.

Ed used that momentum to surge forward and loop the chain around the man's neck. He heard the sound of a half dozen blades being drawn. He ignored them and pressed the chain tight up against the man's jugular. "If you put me in a cage without him, I swear to you I'll kill every man in there with me."

The privateer gurgled and pawed at his neck. "How would you do that?" he rasped, "...without a weapon?"

"If you think I need a weapon, mate," Ed rumbled into the man's ear, "...then you haven't been paying attention to the stories about me."

The man trembled under his grasp. He only had to look into Ed's eyes to know the man wasn't bluffing. "All right, all right..." he gasped.

Ed released the man with a swing of the chains and rocked backwards.

"Put them in together," said the privateer hoarsely as he rubbed his bruised neck.

—-

Before long, it was dark. While their captors enjoyed a fire down the beach, the caged pirates were left at the mercy of a cool sea breeze entering the bay from the open ocean. Ed leaned against a palm tree that made up part of the cage's structure, his head slumped against Stede's shoulder. The other men had their bonds removed, but Ed was still clasped tightly in irons - tight enough that his wrists were raw from small movements. His hands were draped over Stede's. He held the other man's hand tight, thumb running over his palm. The signature the other man had written along his hand was starting to smear and run.

"They seem to be waiting for something or someone. Otherwise they would have loaded us onto the ship already," said Frenchie from where he was squatting nearby.

"Aye, they aren't in a hurry to load us up," said Buttons.

"I think they're waiting for another ship. Some of us are going one place, and the others...somewhere else," said one of the captured pirates, a lanky bald man with dark eyes and warm skin. He had identified himself as Herschel, one of Greaves' captured men. "I don't think either is good."

"No, likely not," said Stede quietly. "I'm sorry, gents. This wasn't supposed to go down this way. We did have a solid plan, but we weren't prepared for that monstrosity of a ship."

There was a rumble around the dozen or so men in the cage.

"We appreciate you coming," said a lad who couldn't have been much older than eighteen.

Ed was only vaguely listening to the conversation. His mind had already taken him to the worst-case scenario, which was the pair of them hung from the gallows as an example, likely in the middle of a colonial square. Even the best-case scenario would see them shackled for the rest of their lives. If they could stay together, Ed could probably even bear it - but the likelihood that they would be separated was high.

At that point, Ed would prefer the gallows.

Just the thought of it made Ed grip Stede's hands with ferocity.

He felt a nuzzle at his ear, and Stede pressed a gentle kiss to Ed's forehead. He smiled at him.

"Why are you smiling?" Ed croaked, his voice raw and lost.

"Because I have faith in the cleverness of our friends, dear. They'll find a way to get us out of this. I just know it."

Ed wasn't so sure. It wasn't in his nature to be an optimist. But Stede's light had a way of rubbing off on him. He leaned in to kiss the other man, without caring there were a dozen sets of eyes on them.