Chapter Text
***
Every autumn is usually the same.
Typically, that meant watching the leaves gradually morph into their warm-toned rainbow, bear against the nipping cold with heavier clothes, and fill the shorter days with longer novels. Stede would follow the winter in nearly the same fashion: admire the gentle snowfall, raise even more houseplants, and light dark days with the warm glow of a crackling fireplace.
And then time marches onward into Stede’s favorite season, but somehow even the springtime falls into the same predictable routine: raise little sprouts, plant then into extraordinary gardens, watch them bloom as days grow longer and the sun warmer, and feel every bit as lonely as he did the year before, even surrounded by all the carefully cultivated colors of life.
But things have changed.
The end of their first summer came and it’s anything but the same old monotony. Any other year, Stede would walk into autumn braced to abandon his beloved gardens and wait out the cold seasons alone. But life has not quite been the same since meeting one Edward Teach. He doesn’t walk alone anymore.
So Stede’s excited— thrilled, really—to see where the seasons will take them.
It would be a long while until their second summer together, but a future Stede Bonnet would look back on all the events of the colder months and wonder how any of it happened. The year passed so quickly, a whirlwind of events that tossed them skipping straight through time. When he lands into the next summer, a familiar lesson would ring in his head: Expect the unexpected.
A future Stede Bonnet would laugh, fondly reminiscing on those chaotic few months.
Although the current Stede Bonnet has no idea what he’s in for.
***