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‘What a beautiful day,’ Stede Bonnet thought as he stepped through the door from the interior and onto the deck of his ship. A quick look around revealed his crew doing exactly what they were supposed to be doing: Lucius was scribbling in his journal, Buttons was mending a sail, Black Pete and Wee John were scrubbing the deck and Izzy Hands was scowling at him from his position behind the ship’s steering wheel.
Yup, everything as it should be.
Wait, maybe not. He glanced back at Hands, and the pirate was positively throwing daggers at him with his eyes. Bonnet was by now used to the other man’s disapproving looks, but they usually weren’t that intense.
Curiosity piqued, Stede ascended the stairs to the helm where Izzy greeted him with, “Sod off, Bonnet, you’re the last person I wanna talk to right now.”
Hunch confirmed. Now to get to the bottom of today’s disfavor. “Did I do something to make you angry at me, Mr. Hands?”
“Did you do something to….” Hands closed his eyes and took a long, calming breath before he continued. “Hell yeah, you did! I mean, I’m always pissed at you for some shit or another, but this time you’ve really done it!”
He stabbed his finger into the air. “This is your doing!” he growled at Stede and the murderous look in his eyes wanted to make the captain take a few steps backwards. He stood his ground, however, and followed the finger’s trajectory until he spotted the distant figure in the crow’s nest high up on the main mast.
“And why exactly is it my fault that Ed is doing lookout duty?”
“He ain’t looking out for shit. He is grooming himself!”
Puzzled at the sheer amount of disdain at that particular word, Stede held up a hand to shield his eyes from the sun’s glare and squinted at the wooden basket far above, but all he could make out was Ed’s dark shape and a vague hand-moving motion to the side of his head. Was Ed combing his hair?
Izzy Hands promptly confirmed this suspicion. “Yesterday in the Pirate’s Republic, on the way back to the ship, he stopped at a vendor stall. Told me to go on ahead, but I hung around long enough to see what he did. He bought a fucking comb, Bonnet!” Hands literally spat the word comb at him. “Ed’s never owned a comb before. Whenever he would remember to comb anything, he would just take mine. But now he has his own. And it’s all your fault, with your fancy fabrics and your perfumed soaps and your books and your words….” Hands rounded on Stede and stabbed a finger into his chest, hard. “Next thing I know he’s gonna dress like you and wants to learn how to read. All because of you, you twat!” With an exclamation of utter disgust, Izzy Hands shoved Stede out of the way, stomped down the stairs towards the deck and disappeared below, effectively leaving Stede in charge of the helm.
As Stede reached for the wooden spokes to keep the steering wheel steady, his gaze fell onto the telescope sitting on top of the Navigator’s chest, yet he resisted the temptation of picking it up and enjoying a magnified view of Blackbeard combing through that glorious mane. He was pretty sure that Edward would not welcome such a voyeuristic invasion of his privacy.
He kept his eyes straight ahead instead, hands on the wheel, feeling the movements of his ship cutting through the water. He couldn’t help feeling a bit guilty about Izzy Hands’ anger. The older pirate had his life upended, after all, when Stede and Ed combined their crews. He knew that Hands didn’t like being here, didn’t like it that his boss was fed up with their old lives and wanted to try something new. Some of Hands’ reproaches reverberated through Stede’s mind. Combs, soaps, books, words…
So what if Ed wanted to learn how to read? Or take a bath and smell different every once in a while? Or wear something else other than black leather? Ed should be allowed to do any and all of these things if they made him happy!
‘Speaking of making one happy…’ Stede’s gaze went back up to the figure in the crow’s nest and his face split into a whimsical smile. ‘Maybe one day Ed would let me comb his hair.’
THE END