To Live on the Land We Must Learn from the Sea

Chapter 11

Word Count: 4,920

Stede woke up the next morning with sheer determination (but most likely anxiety) coursing through his body.

This is the day, he thought as he walked down to breakfast, that I will seduce Blackbeard-no, Ed. Tonight, I will bed him and keep my legs forever!

All he had now was about twelve hours to figure out how to seduce someone. Which of course he was going to use efficiently and take full advantage of. He certainly was not going to avoid the captain for those next twelve hours and instead help with dishes and every other doable chore on the ship. Who would do such a thing?

Stede emerged from belowdecks after lunch. He had helped with both rounds of dishes-which absolutely thrilled Roach, swept out the kitchen and all of the rooms on that floor as well (the Swede helped him by bending over to scoop up the dust piles), and wiped down the table and food preparation areas.

The blond supposed he could observe some of the other couples on the ship to get a good idea of how to seduce Ed. He sat on a crate off to one side, a journal and quill in hand. His first pair of victims were Oluwande and Jim. The latter was showing the former how to twirl a knife. While Jim was using a real knife, Oluwande had been given a butter knife from downstairs-which was a good idea in Stede's opinion since he kept dropping it on his feet. Jim would just laugh every time it happened and touch their boyfriend's hands, readjusting his finger placement.

Stede observed how Jim positioned themself behind Oluwande as he once again attempted to twirl the knife, one arm wrapped around his waist and their chin resting on his shoulder. They held out their hand and demonstrated with their own knife, explaining the difference in hand positioning between the two of them. Jim then turned their head to peck Oluwande's cheek, appearing to murmur encouragement to him.

Oluwande dropped his knife once again. "I can't do it!" He stepped away from his partner.

"Sure you can," Jim encouraged.

The first mate stomped his foot. "Not with you that close, I can't! You're distracting me!"

Jim stepped a little closer, running a hand along Olu's collar. "Am I, now?"

"Yes!" he exclaimed in exasperation. "I'll practice later by myself!"

Jim pouted. "Fine then. We'll see how far that gets you."

Oluwande rolled his eyes. "C'mere."

The two of them shared a kiss, Jim's arms resting on Oluwande's hips. Stede blushed and looked down, feeling like he was intruding. Wasn't observing affection the whole point, though?

He decided to busy himself with the open journal on his lap. "Physical closeness," Stede wrote, beginning a bulleted list on a new page. He didn't bother writing down anything to do with speaking, since it was of no use to him.

He glanced back up right as the couple noticed they had an audience. "Oh hey Stede," Jim greeted. "Are you wanting to learn some knife twirling?"

Stede shook his head, but held up one finger, slowly rising to his feet with a grimace of pain.

" Do you know how to sign the whole alphabet?" He wrote, holding the journal out to Jim.

"Pretty much, except for some of the weird letters like X and Q. Are there some you want to learn?"

Stede nodded. " D and E."

Jim signed D first as Stede studied their hand, drawing a rough sketch of all of Jim's fingers being parallel to the deck expect for their pointer, which was angled skyward. Their middle finger touched their thumb, and their remaining three fingers fell in line beside it.