Work Text:
Art by TheQueenHasNoLife
this is your life, and you only get one, and this is it
What is your earliest memory? A mother’s word, perhaps, or the expression on a relative’s face? A negative sensation or emotion, perhaps, or a new and shocking experience? First memories come to us at a time where we are only beginning to convert feelings to language, to make meaning out of endorphins and adrenaline and hunger and thirst. We wave our arms, we laugh, we scream, we throw tantrums as we are carried out of public venues with our backs arched and our faces red. Adults call these the terrible twos, but to whom are the twos the most terrible? The grown-ups who have spent decades sheltered by the delusion of security and understanding, or the children who have burst forth into the world gasping in terror, knowing nothing and feeling everything? Is it any wonder we’re so terrible at that age? Is it any wonder that our first memories are raw flashes of emotion, and our first feelings are those of shame, rage, or joy?
this is how you feel, how you ’ve always felt, how you always will
Stede Bonnet’s first memory was a dream.
It might have manifested from a look on his father’s face at the dinner table: a frown of disapproval (the first of many), a flash of anger (rarer but much more terrifying). A kind of judgment a child could not possibly understand for some act or another for which a child could not possibly be held responsible. A scent picked up by the unduly vicious that Stede was different. Or perhaps, even worse, not special enough. After all, the people he cared about most had already deemed him dreadfully uninteresting.
you will always be a child
It was, perhaps, likewise influenced by a chance encounter afterwards: an evening stroll on the grounds of his father’s estate. Flowers. Barbados was full of flowers, bursts of color swaying in the breeze at the very level of his eye, a source of wonder to a brand new Earthling who discovered life wielding the senses of sight, taste, and touch.
There was a small apiary at the edge of an orchard. A figure was tending to the hives there, their nature entirely obscured by a hooded robe of linen. To Stede’s mind they were nothing short of mystical, surrounded by smoke and bees and sweetness. He watched them for a while with noticeable trepidation, for as much as the figure turned to or fro he could not capture a glimpse of their face.
So focused was he on the task of forcing humanity upon this faceless specter that he wandered, toddling far too close to the menial worker for the nurse’s liking. She swiftly scolded him and carried him away, for now the singular punishment for dallying too long among things far too beautiful for him. He managed a glance back at the apiary just once, to see the flat, empty circle where the beekeeper’s visage should have been.
utterly unlovable, incomprehensible, outcast, unworthy
Stede was governed by a night nurse, just barely less inattentive than his own parents. In the mansion he was sequestered far away from them, day and night, so they wouldn’t have to hear his squabbles or cries or laughter (because there is nothing more inconvenient than a child being childish). And children are of course prone to night terrors, Stede more than most. For his life was full of beautiful things, and yet even more full of terrible feelings.
That night Stede Bonnet was restless, and his night nurse hummed to coax him into sleep. A candle burned low nearby and as he closed his eyes, the light dancing and undulating in the darkness, folding in on itself into different colors, and shapes. He never remembered when the falling became the sleep became the dream.
When his eyes opened once again, he could still hear the humming. He was laying in a soft meadow of flowers. Stede loved flowers. He reached out his chubby pink hands to grasp at them, little dots of color in verdant greens, and he longed to know each of their names, to make them call him friend.
But as his fingers brushed against the flowers, they shrunk. They browned. They fell to dust. They blew away.
you will never call another friend
The humming grew louder, but it was no longer the familiar hum of a restless night nurse. It was a low buzzing sound, one that vibrated all the way through his body and harassed his ears. He reached to cover them with his hands, shutting his eyes tight only to sense something, some strange thing which was nearby, it was near and he opened his eyes and that is when he saw it.
A figure (a man, or a woman?) in a long white robe. Willowy, dominating in height. Too tall, towering. Its arm reached forward, claw-like nails drooping from the ends of its fibrous fingers. As the creature lurched, the meadow the grass shrunk away from it, withering into a sickly brown and spiraling into the distant fog.
you will never look another in the eye
The figure in the robe accelerated towards him, its pendulous arm extended forward and down. Smoke billowed from behind the creature, as if it was a moving bonfire that spat our malice alongside its black fumes. Stede’s eyes trailed up its loping, disgusting form, all of his fears and emotions amplified and made manifest. He couldn’t look up. He knew what he’d see. His eyes were fixed on the defunct and crumbled grass before him.
He couldn’t look up. He couldn’t look up. He couldn’t… He did. He gathered the courage and searched with dread where a human face should by all rights be, but wasn’t. Instead it was a blank, flat circle, a malevolent spiral of wicker jutting forward unnaturally from its white hood.
The creature reached down to its sleeve, and Stede caught a glimpse of its arm. Its skin was dappled with holes, lumps, stings. Hundreds of them, crackling and pulsating, splitting and splicing. And he was simply fixated in terror at the mottled, crawling flesh before him, so much that he did not notice the swathe of emerald wrapped around the creature’s wrist. Not until it was upon him.
you will never hold your own heart in your hands
It was a blindfold, a scourge, a noose, and yet for but a moment the softest slip of velvet. He could feel it throughout his whole being, coating his and his skin and most of all closing around his neck as the claws tightened. He gasped and he choked and he gagged and he heaved. Stede found that his eyes were fixed on the clouds, the faded, flowing dream-veil above him as the Beekeeper of the Damned knotted the cravat around his throat, over and over, thoroughly as any gentlemen would expect it done. The pressure climbed and his lungs burned as his airway sealed shut. Darkness invaded his vision at the corners. The sky began to shrink away. A hand grasped the back of his hair and wrenched his head down, down towards the ground as he was made to kneel in subservience.
Stede could not breathe nor look nor speak nor smell nor hear and soon he could not see. But he could feel it, the soft yet unyielding constriction around his throat. It enveloped him until he could feel nothing else. He was at last a doll, the new exemplar of docility.
you will never feel love see love hold love have love deserve love
And Stede Bonnet woke up that night with a start, but instead of crying for the nurse who would not listen or the mother who would not come, he was dead silent, voice lost. Relief did not come with the light of morning as it does for so many children, and Stede forged his path in silence and fear.
When he was old enough to perceive himself in a looking-glass, he would run his hand gently across his neck, at the very spot where the emerald cravat had warred and duly won. He could not see it, but always knew that it was there.
your fear is your failure
There exist a dwindling number of color theorists in the world who, when informed of his unfortunate spiritual burden, might contend that he was not cursed, but blessed. After all, green is a symbol of life. Flourishing, abundance. Luck, and fortune. But for Stede Bonnet, it was a constricting vine that confined him within himself, that directed his eyes to feet rather than faces, that caught words in his throat when he needed most to articulate, while allowing him the liberty of speech when he was liable to make a fool of himself.
it comes easily to everyone else, doesn ’t it
The Emerald Cravat haunted Stede throughout his youth. His peers either taunted or avoided him, while adults would purse their lips when they perceived him while exchanging knowing looks. Stede often found his hand raised to his own throat, sure that everyone else could see it. How else did they know that he was different? By which other barometer could they discern his otherness? It was an invisible standard that waved in the wind generated by his breath. It signaled and beckoned as he endeavored to flee from those who victimized him. It was a flag, and the flag meant Unknown. Unloved. Unacceptable.
cinched, pinched in, worthless, unacceptable
And yet he felt no resentment towards it, not really. It was there for a reason, after all. Because he needed it. Because it was what he deserved. Stede plodded through his pathetic life with his head lowered, giving what he knew to be the right answers to all questions. Yet, they always came out wrong. And after a while he came to accept that it wasn’t the answers themselves that were wrong, but the person giving the answers. His very soul was broken into pieces held together by a ribbon of emerald.
Eventually the terrors of childhood flaked away, one at a time, and became but glassy memories. They fell instead to the horrors of adulthood, a time when one is expected to know all, to pacify the fears of children, to stand up for the weak and take one’s place among the strong. But Stede had never been strong. He did not grow out of his childhood awkwardness, and the ugly duckling did not grow into a graceful swan. He was still scared. He was still terrified. And the worst of it was that time passed he felt nothing whatsoever at all. Just… emptiness. He was as an empty purse, tied off at his neck so no fortune could find its way inside.
the only thing that can rise to the top is your dizzying brightness, your goofy, stupid smile they look down at you for it but it ’s the best you have to give them, because what is underneath? so much worse
There were times when he thought Mary could see the cravat, such as when they made love (that was the term, wasn’t it? Then why was it so cold and loveless?). There in the dark, clothes on, eyes closed and begging for it to be over, he imagined her reaching towards his neck and removing his leash. Stede didn’t know what he feared more: the intimacy of her hands around his neck, freeing him from the oppressive noose that bound him in his silence, or the belief that she was not once bothered to try.
they see nothing, because you are nothing
Stede would picture the cravat in Mary’s hands. With it removed, his head would roll straight off his body and land on the floor with a plop. He would imagine Mary’s screams, or maybe her laughter and joy at being rid of him, while his decapitated head looked up at her and frowned in silence, the gaping hole in his neck unleashing the scream he had been holding inside for decades.
they see no one, because you are no one
All of this Stede would imagine while making love to her, and he would inevitably sigh at the futility of it all. And inevitably, Mary would stop and offer to try again another time as Stede removed himself from her like he longed to remove himself from life.
“Stede? I know you’re unhappy.”
Stede stared at the wall and tried to imagine a reality where he could be honest, one where he could tell her the truth. One where the truth would set them free. But this wasn’t that life. There was no freedom for him here. Happiness didn’t matter. It wasn’t for people like him. It never would be.
your words will never be enough
So he did what he always did, because lying to Mary was almost as easy as lying to himself. It was like breathing. Honesty was choking, oppressive, dangerous.
“I’m not unhappy.” And he wrapped himself in the lie like a child hiding behind a curtain… and though his feet were still clearly poking out from underneath, Mary sighed and pretended not to notice.
you will never be enough
That night, after Stede rose from his bed in silence, he stopped at the mirror hanging on the wall. He carefully removed his nightgown, worn over his full set of traveling clothes, and the nightcap that covered his hair. He had made his choice. He had chosen the closest thing to bravery, which was running away, and he could… would do it. The alternative was insupportable.
you are too weak even for privilege
His eyes traced down his face, and stopped on the lines crossing his forehead and the corners of his mouth. Age lines, signs of a life lived, a man’s skin hanging loosely over the small boy that was still trapped and held hostage within him. And then, after a blink of his eye, it was there once again.
The Cravat. Around his neck.
Not darkened or faded with age, but menacingly bright and intact around his throat, as it always had been. Stede reached up to touch it and felt it there. It parted from his skin when he pinched it with his fingers.
He imagined ripping it off of his throat in a fit of anger. He imagined carefully undoing the knot and rolling it into a ball and placing it into his pocket for later. He imagined leaving it on a table or chair for someone to find later.
Maybe then, they would see it and understand. Maybe then they would know why.
they deserved a better father
But as Stede’s grip tightened on the fabric beneath his fingers, his resolve failed him. The unknown paralyzed him. Maybe running away was brave enough. Maybe taking to the sea would break the curse, all by itself.
He gazed at his hands in the mirror, still grasping at his throat, still deciding. And that’s when he heard it.
The buzzing.
He blinked again, and in the mirror’s reflection he was no longer alone.
The damned figure from his nightmares leered in from the dark of the doorway. Stede gasped for air that didn’t come. The creature took a step forward, advancing towards him, and he opened his mouth to scream, to breathe, to suck in life through his mouth and hold it in his body for dear life, because he was a coward who wanted to live.
disgusting, unfaithful, harmful
The skin on his neck and hands burned. And while he could not move, could not take his eyes off of the horror that was behind him, advancing upon him like in the dream so many years ago, he knew as strongly as he knew anything that there were holes forming in his own skin, bumps and marks and stings, his entire being full of holes and insects and wine and blood pouring from each and every one, and there was nothing he could do. Not a thing. Because he was too afraid.
The creature was but a breath away now, and the buzzing grew. Stede could only watch in horror as the haunted spiral of its face split open in the center, revealing a gaping circle of teeth, gnashing and dripping with blood and honey.
run away, gutless worm, run and run and run and run
And as the creature launched itself at Stede’s neck, its sharp and rotating fangs aimed for his jugular vein, Stede opened his mouth to scream… and no sound came out. His eyes snapped shut and all at once, the buzzing stopped.
He opened them. He was alone. All alone. Again.
Stede took to the sea, and while his whole world changed, the heaviness around his shoulders did not.
He could see it always now, in the mirror in his cabin. He wore heavy outfits to cover it, a whole collection of cravats and ascots and ties with which to pretend that everything was fine. It wasn’t. But it had to be. This was as good as it was going to get, for Stede. This was as happy as would ever be allowed.
the only thing that can rise to the top is your dizzying brightness, your goofy, stupid smile
“Did you hear that?”
they look down at you for it but it ’s the best you have to give them, because what is underneath? so much worse
Of course Stede had heard it, he wasn’t deaf. The brass paperweight in his hands was heavy, and Stede squeezed on it to distract from the constriction around his neck. He wished he could transfer this pain to the man standing before him, with his stupid receding hairline and jokes about Stede’s weight and everything else Nigel had ever done to him…
lie, you fucking liar
“Uh, no, I didn’t hear anything.” The Necktie squeezed harder on his throat before the lie could even finish tumbling out of his mouth. Not now, not now, back off, please…
“We’re under attack.” Nigel removed his sword from its sheath and walked towards the door, and Stede felt another wave of panic wash over him.
he will kill them all
“Just wait, it might blow over.”
The itching on his skin was there in full force, the holes beginning to crack open all over him, and he knew now from experience that no one else would notice them. They were his burden to bear. He simply had to overcome-
he will leave you alive, he will kill them but leave you alive, and he ’ll send you back
“Still a coward! Pathetic.” Nigel spat in his face, and Stede felt a rush of air flow out of his nostrils and a tinge of anger rising in his chest. As Nigel turned back to the door, Stede stepped forward. He was… breathing, now?
He was breathing. It was fine. Everything was going to be fine.
The soft green velvet soothed his psychosomatic wounds as it wound down his arm, curling around his hand with an unnatural heat. The object in his hand was weightless, now.
Stede and his curse raised the paperweight together as one, and brought his arm down as one at the back of Nigel’s neck with a sickening crack.
“You ever feel trapped?”
there is no escape
Stede could have laughed at that, if he wasn’t so shocked into stillness. He was seated in his cabin, a shirt and trousers thrown on to cover the wound in his gut, a cravat to cover what the rope had left on his neck. It was shocking to see it at first, the circle of the burn around his throat. Of course, Stede was an old hat at suffering through strangulation. He had just never seen it before, not like this.
But Stede’s pain would forever be old news to him. The man before him… this man… was haunted. There was a ghost in him, around him, behind him. Stede could not prevent himself from staring, from smiling, because for the first time in his life, he wasn’t alone.
tightening, velvet clenching, stop the words, stop the feelings, stop the words, keep them down
“Like you’re just treading water? Waiting to drown?”
I already am I ’m the drowned man I’m the hanged man I’m the dead man I’m the man who won’t die
What was a little truth between two dead men?
“Yes, I have… I very much have felt that way… I-“
But then Edward, his new, brilliant, spectral friend Edward (who was also Blackbeard?!) was off, on the first of so many interruptions that would stifle Stede’s fleeting attempts at vulnerability. Stede was prone to babbling, but Edward babbled with his whole being, with every movement and thought and idea.
not any closer, you can ’t bear any closer, you will ruin everything
Edward had a distractibility to him that Stede found incredibly endearing but also quite frustrating. His body would move one way, but his spirit would travel in the opposite direction, and they would both be pulled together in a delightful crash that would send sparks into the air, little sparkling will-o-the-wisps that Stede alone could see.
you are a fuse waiting to be lit
And sometimes, Stede would consider taking the honest path, would want to share things with Edward that he had always kept locked within. And when he tried, he could breathe. His curse would loosen. He felt almost free.
you will destroy it all as soon as his flame touches you
But Edward always interrupted Stede in the middle of his thoughts with a new idea, a new wiggle of energy, and the sparks would fly and Edward’s ghost would spin in circles above them and there was nothing more enrapturing, more bewitching. Edward’s ghost lights were shaped like the flowers Stede could never befriend. He had never smiled so much in his life.
Stede had spent a lifetime carefully hiding his own feelings and thoughts that no one else wanted to hear. But he felt that maybe… with time… if there was anyone who was worthy of learning Stede’s darkest secrets, it might be Edward.
he won ’t understand, no one ever will
If only Edward would ever let him share them, of course. But Stede felt happy as he sat with his friend for breakfast or their post-storytime brandy. And over time, in this happiness, he felt the Emerald Cravat begin to loosen, to take up less space in his life.
Stede had read about curses that could be broken by encountering one’s true love. Perhaps that was why it responded so well to this newfound friendship? Friendship was a form of love, after all.
he will leave you like you left your family
Stede didn’t expect to find true love on the seas, of course. There was no one here who would have him. But with his good friend Edward Teach at his side, Stede could breathe easier than he had ever before. And that was enough. For now.
you will never hold another ’s heart in your hands, either
“May I?”
Stede waited not even two seconds to slowly pull the crimson velvet from Ed’s hands. He felt an abundance of affectionate heat rising in his chest as he gently folded it between his fingers, a smile pushing up at the corners of his mouth.
His own Cravat was there too, slithering out of the sleeve of Stede’s shirt and caressing the hand that held Ed’s pocket square. The fabrics were so similar. It was as if they were made for each other.
Edward’s ghost leaned out of his body and caressed the green cravat. He could see it. He wasn’t afraid.
this isn ’t meant for you
“There…”
Stede’s eyes softened as he tucked the square into Ed’s coat pocket, his own Cravat lingering there with a sort of longing. And Stede wished Ed himself would notice, would perceive this curse around Stede’s throat, would gently and lovingly remove it, would carefully fold it and place it in a drawer somewhere safe. Maybe it deserved that, too? To feel safe…
“You wear fine things well.”
Stede smiled at him, and for a moment he felt light as a feather, utterly free and happy, as the cravat tugged them gentle towards one another, a playful buzzing sound in his ears.
A bee crawled out of Edward’s mouth and into his nose.
you can only take what you want by force
Stede gasped and blinked, and in an instant his cursed cravat was around Ed’s neck, it was winding around Edward too, the horrible fucking Cravat was pulling, directing, consuming, strangling-
take what is yours, coward, he will never give it freely
Stede gasped as he watched Ed’s face turn blue, his eyes bulging and glassy. Edward opened his mouth and more insects began to depart from it, crawling to and fro up his face, and to his horror Stede felt them clattering across his own tongue before taking flight.
His skin itched, it burned, and he could see pustules on Edward’s own opening up and bursting open with a thousand different little holes and stings and pain and they were suffocating, both of them together, suffering and dying and dead, and there was nothing whatsoever Stede could do but-
bring him to us, keep him with us, forever
He jerked back, a desperate attempt to gain control, and the green cravat uncoiled itself and returned to his side.
Edward stepped back at the same time, looking healthy, nervous and otherwise oblivious.
you will never earn another ’s love, you must take what you do not deserve
Stede staggered back to his cabin with a quick look back as they parted for the night. How selfish had he been to think that the curse would be satisfied with him alone? No, of course Stede Bonnet wasn’t good enough even for a cursed noose, a disgusting, evil fabric nightmare. It wanted more. It wanted Edward, his spirit, his sparkles, his stars.
Stede felt envious tentacle squeeze around his chest as he closed his cabin door and sunk to the ground.
by force, by suffocate, by strangulation, by your love
He was a danger to everyone around him. He couldn’t get close, he couldn’t reveal the truth. He had to lie, had to fear, had to keep it held tightly to himself.
He could not give in to the temptation of intimacy. It wasn’t for people like him.
“…happy, is… you.”
The sparks, the stars, rained happily down onto his shoulders, his torso, his everything, like tiny heartbeats.
The beauty of it was, Stede didn’t need to breathe in order to kiss.
No amount of suffocation could stop their lips from touching, their hands from holding, their hearts from beating. Even as the moment ended, as they pulled away from each other, he felt Edward’s spirit caress his cheek, leaving a lingering warmth in that one lovely spot.
yours yours yours ours ours ours
This was something earned. Wasn’t it?
Stede smiled lazily, in a haze of a feeling he was unfamiliar with. He even smiled at the sight of his cursed necktie snaking around the back of Edward’s neck.
It was quite romantic, after all.
“Maybe we can just... get away? Start over. Reset.”
leaving, running, the tightness is already back, the fear is ever present
Stede watched dreamily as it coiled, as it grasped, and began to rationalize his yearning and desire. He’d run away once, hadn’t he? He could keep going, surely.
He could run forever, if he wasn’t running alone.
There was no need to face anything at all, not a single thing, and anyway he had never been brave before, why start now? Why not run together?
Why not drag Ed down to his level?
“There's always an escape. We could be gone tonight.”
That is where Edward was wrong. There was no escape, not from themselves.
The buzzing rose in Stede’s ears once again, and with the blink of an eye he was again surrounded by smoke and swarms. There was no more beach, no more jungle, no more anything but Stede Bonnet and Edward Teach, trapped together in this nightmare of Stede’s making. Of Stede’s living.
“We'd get a new boat. New names... new backstories, everything.”
new home, new name, new life … same curse, same pain, same choking feeling, same fear
Stede could imagine himself in front of a mirror, burying this cursed cravat below another, or burying it under Ed’s embrace, just… burying. For eternity. Stede could hide his entire being under the weight of a story, a legend, and no one would ever find him. No one would ever see him.
“We'll go somewhere they'll never find us. We'll go to China.”
What Stede was fleeing would always find him. It was a part of him. He was broken, he was terrified, he was so unfortunately himself. There was no escape. And yet…
“Our old lives will be gone, dead. Never were. “
The creeping tendril around his neck extended once again as if to caress Edward on the cheek, as if to welcome him into the fold, as if to make the two of them one.
Stede was so tired of being so lonely.
“Yes?”
He should, they should, they should do it … together… the fabric should envelop them, suffocate them in tandem, wrap them in green and red velvet and the bees can sting and suck out their innards until all that is left is their dried, mummified, soft remains on the sea floor. Yes.
“Yes!”
Yes, absolutely. Yes.
“Yes?!”
Forever.
Alone, loveless, shoeless, feet bleeding on the jungle floor. They had been so close. So close to imprisonment, to an eternity of pain together, suffocation infinite and vast. As a duo. As a swarm. As a crew.
And a strapping hero had come to Edward’s rescue. Because Stede was too weak. Too fucking afraid. Too powerless.
“And here you are... unscathed, God's perfect little rich boy.”
Thank God for Chauncey Badminton.
Stede Bonnet’s skin was bubbling, the holes rippling down his arms and his chest and legs and lungs. He had never been unscathed, not ever. And he had lost control. He was losing control. The cravat slithered out of each of Stede’s sleeves towards the leaf-covered earth, and he felt hot tears slide down his face.
“I think you're right. In fact, I... I completely agree.”
Kill me. Kill me. Put me out of my misery. Save Edward from this, from this future, from the choking, from the suffocating. Kill me. Kill me!
Kill me!
“You don't fool me.”
Stede sobbed helplessly, rooted to the spot as the cravat wound itself around Chauncey’s ankles.
Kill me …
“The Stede Bonnet reign of terror ends tonig...”
He screamed. He screamed in terror as he watched the cravat unravel itself from Chauncey’s corpse to retreat back to its rightful place around Stede’s throat.
your unhappiness is your greatest sin
Mary’s joy and fulfillment were shattered by a pustule-covered, suffocating, disgusting man walking barefoot through the entryway.
It was for the best. It was for the best. It was right, it was the only time he had been right. A completely unselfish decision, completely correct. Dead eyes, sad eyes, disappointment, no point in complaining, no point in trying. Breathing is for mortals, for humans, for hearts that beat, for hearts worth breaking, for souls worth saving.
It slithered around him at the dining table, pinning him to his chair as he stared stiffly forward into the unloving eyes of his children, his wife, his failures.
Everyone Stede knew stared right through him, frowned, and wandered away.
How was your day, Edward? Was it free? Were you free? Was it full of red things, happy things, sweet things, sparkling things? Did you breathe today, Edward? Did you close your eyes and inhale the sea air and then exhale and sail on towards a life of adventure?
The creature lurked outside the windows of Stede’s mansion every night, and it fed its tiny malevolent drones through the holes in the wall, through open windows, through the fireplaces. They swarmed around him, they stung him, they bit him, they hated him. They hated him almost as much as he hated himself.
Love, love, they ’re in love, that is love, that is love and it’s there, it’s just meters away, it’s there and it isn’t his, it’s theirs, it’s their love, their love that they deserve, their love that they have, their love that they hold, their love that they cherish, it isn’t tainted and dilapidated and disgusting and wrong and horrible and hurt.
It enveloped the hand that gripped the knife held to the neck of her paramour, and Stede hissed at him, because he tried to touch the cravat and no one could touch it, no one else was allowed.
No one could touch him. He deserve to be touched. Love was not for him. Love was for the free.
you lost as you always knew you would lose, you ran but could not outrun, you tried and your failure is all the sweeter for it
It jolted him awake to warn him of the danger, to remind him that the death and sweet release he longed for would never come for him, that Mary could not free him from his bonds before and certainly wasn’t strong enough to do so now, not with such a pathetic weapon as that.
And he was angry, and sad, and disgusted, and hurt, and he was always hurt. He was always fucking hurt. His entire fucking life he’s hurt, and he couldn’t breathe, and nobody held out so much as a hand to him. Nobody wanted to touch him. Nobody wanted to see the fucking cravat choking the fucking life out of him.
Until she did, until she loved, until he asked. He asked the question he had never thought to ask. He had to know.
And as she told him, the cravat gently loosened from his throat, and caressed his cheek, and comforted him like a mother would, and finally he could breathe. He could breathe and he could speak.
“I think I have.”
It began to wither and it began to unravel and later when he checked his reflection in the mirror, it looked shriveled and raggedy and so wonderfully unbecoming of a gentleman, so amazing and completely and utterly foreign in fashion to a man of Stede’s stature. It hung limply from his shoulders, so limply he could almost shrug it off.
But he had to shrug the rest of it off first. So Stede Bonnet removed every outfit his life had given him and walked naked into the ocean, swarms of bees so vast they appeared as clouds in his wake.
The skies darkened ahead of him, accompanied by fits of rolling, rainless thunder.
The clouds descended all at once as he approached, his crew rowing in silent apprehension, stealing glances at each other and their captain. The thunder rolled on and on and on, until it wasn’t thunder at all, but the loud cacophony of the swarms that surrounded Stede Bonnet, that crawled on Stede Bonnet’s skin, that nested in his hair. Behind the dinghy trailed a long line of white smoke, parting insects in its wake.
Some might have noted, if they were looking, a green ribbon dangling from the sleeve of his loose-fitting shirt. But nobody was looking down at Stede Bonnet now. Their eyes were fixed in terror on the skies.
One by one his crew mounted the ladder on the side of the ship and boarded, screaming as they reclaimed their home. But home was more than a ship for Stede.
He sidestepped a mass of people on the ground, yelling and gnashing and subduing any who resisted. All other sounds died, faded, drowned out in the presence of the hum that pumped sticky blood through his veins. He reached out to the door, and it opened for him without so much as a touch.
There in the doorway, it stood. A man, clothed fully in familiar leather, red eyes glowing like cinders in a cloud of black.
Stede held out his rotting, undead hand.
The ghost drew his sword.
Stede stepped forward towards his destiny, and the spirit did not hesitate. He brought the sword up with both hands, and with a flourish, Stede’s head was parted from its body.
It hit the deck with a whump.
And Stede Bonnet’s body kept walking. He was the keeper of bees now, and he controlled the smoke. Hand still extended, his decapitated body walked straight through the apparition before him, who vanished in a flurry of inky smog.
Left on the deck where his head had landed lay instead a hood and a mask, round and faceless, empty and spiraling.
