Chapter Text
Steph POV:
The first thing I see as I climb over the side of the ship is a boy jumping past me and into the sea. I tumble over the side and stay on my knees for a moment just surveying where I will be of use. I mean fighting still isn't my strong suit and being menacing is just evading me to this day, even after all the lessons from both Izzy and Ed.
Another man comes running and screaming at me and I don’t have the luxury of invisibility. He quickly comes closer, and I jab my sword up into his chest somehow flipping him over the edge of the ship. He screams, then a splash is heard, hardly over all the screams on the deck and the guns going off.
I get up as Frenchie runs past me, something burning in his hand. He throws it in the general direction of the hull. A couple of men come running out and as they do wee John smashes into them both and they go flying into a mast and fall unconscious.
I realise I'm just stood near the side of the ship like a spare part when a man falls into my back. Fortunately, Jim’s knife is sticking out of their back. Before I can find Jim to send a thank you wave, I'm ambushed by two men on either side. I raise my sword and get to work blocking and slashing at them both, walking backward. I get a few good jabs and slashes on them before I get a gash on my sword arm and drop it. Ed always says to carry a backup, but I always forget. I step back as they advance and as one slashes at me, I duck and kick out my leg, he goes down onto the other man's sword, dead. The other man looks at him for a moment them screams and charges for me, I decide to try to retreat. So, I make a quick sidestep, turn and hightail it towards the wheel. He comes shouting at me “come back here bitch” I scramble up the steps and as he comes for me. I quickly turn and throw the first thing I could get hold of. A bottle of rum. It smashes against his head, and he falls backwards into Ivan.
Ivan pushes him away with a “well done boss” and turns to attack whoever is coming at him. I turn back to make sure that I'm safe and at the top of the ship is Ed.
Fake beard a glow, black smoke bellowing from her. She's pointing two guns in the air and firing at the men in the riggings. They drop like flies into the sea. If I wasn’t in the middle of a fight I'd get on my knees and beg her to take me right then. Her salt and pepper hair flying about the place, the black makeup smudged with sweat and blood.
Well maybe we would need a little clean first...
In my distraction someone comes at me from the stairs, they barrel into me and flatten me to the floor. We struggle, them trying to pin me to the ground and me trying to flip over or get any hits in. I get my arm free and wildly smack at the person behind me. I hear a grunt and my chance to turn my hip, I get my knee into their groin, and they roll away from me with a grunt. Once I was free, I scramble to my feet and grab a discarded sword. I look at my attacker for 3 seconds before I stab him right in the back, sticking him to the ship floor.
“Surrender or die” Ed shouts over the ship. I look around and see that only a couple of this ship's crew are left. We did a good job, I'm defiantly reading a story tonight. They would pitch a fit if I did not. The three men I don’t know drop to their knees and place their hands behind their heads. Slowly I can feel Ed getting closer to me and passing me, on her way to scare the remaining crew.
“couldn’t we just throw them overboard?” I whisper to her. She turns her head slightly to me and I barely see her smile. With heavy feet she stomps down the stairs.
“Over the side lads” she says to Iven, Izzy, Frenchie, Jim and wee John. They all grab at them and with a one, two, three, they throw them over the side of the ship. With the screams and guns silent I hear the splashes clearly this time. I come down the stairs and sit on the last step.
Ed throws the beard down and stamps on it “right let's see what we got” she beams at the others. They all split up and go rummaging for whatever they have we can have. Since I came back and after the first few months of discourse, I realized that with no money I would have to be more pirate like. Stealing and the such. With Ed as captain though we always seemed to win. we still haven't gotten to the place we were before I left, but Ed is still there. I know she is there and when she finally forgives me, I'm sure all the tension between us will melt away. After a few moments to catch my breath, I slap my thighs and get up from the step. Under the stairs are barrels and barrels of something. “Could someone open one of these and see what's in them?”
Izzy comes up to me, he pulls out a small knife and pops open one of the barrels. “Ed, rum” he calls out. Ed comes over to us both, a cheeky grin on her beautiful lips. “sweet, take all em mate” and she slaps Izzy on the back. Izzy looks to me, “she found em” he mutters. Ed looks over to me, a look I can't place and nods at me. She walks away and leaves us there.
“well, better get to it then” I say as I reach for the first barrel. Izzy stops and puts a hand on mine.
“you go and help with the gun powder, these are way too heavy for you” I look up at him and give him a small smile. He nods back to me. Izzy has been a lot nicer since we all got back to the ship. Luci says that they talked, and he is sorry, but he hasn’t actually said so yet. He thinks that Izzy actually respects me in some ways, how I came back and changed, how I prove myself in some way.
A few hours later when everyone is back on the revenge and settled in, the Swede comes over to me with two jugs.
“we open the rum, you did good today boss”
“you do know I'm not your boss anymore” I giggle as he hands me a jug too.
“sorry boss” he mutters and wonders off again, I shake my head and take a sip. The first taste of rum is hot and makes me cough, but after the third id got used to the burn. I know that drinking your sorrows can be good for some people. Tonight, I am some people. I down the jug and cough, then get up on already shaky legs to go and get another.
At this point two barrels had been drunk and the crew was already merry. Frenchie singing and others joining in. Buttons was up at the helm swaying a little. Jim and Oul were in a corner sitting so close they could be one person. The others were either playing card games or dancing. Izzy and Ed were sat with jugs in front of them, Ed was trying to stack the jugs into some sort of tower.
Luci is stood at the barrel, so I pass him the jug I was holding. “drunk it already? Off to bed then?” he asks me. “no I just wanted another" I state, he looks at me shocked and shrugs. He fills the jug and passes it back to me. I down it again and pass it back to him.
“wow, Steph, take it slow" I give him a – just give me another – look, he shrugs again and fills the jug.
Ed POV:
I look up from my tower of empty jugs and see Steph. When she told us what had happened, how she was coming to me, but got lost, then when I wasn’t there, she went back home. Then the fake death. I’d forgiven her, but we couldn't be what we were before. I tried to stay away from her as much as I could. Everytime I looked at her my heart both broke and grew ten times as big. All I wanted to do was pull her into the cabin and fuck her senseless. I couldn’t let that happen, I couldn’t stand her rejecting me again, her leaving me again. So, I ignored she was there, asked Izzy to teach her to fight and left her be. Izzy and I had talks, most talking we ever did. He changed. We all changed. He got to know Steph and I think he now knows why I love her. God fuck it all. I adore her.
Right now, though. She’s glowing. Her face is blushed as she skips around with the Swede dancing and singing to whatever song Frenchie is playing. Izzy coughs and I turn to him. He gives me a – you’re an idiot – look so I shake my head and get up to get another drink. I know we shouldn’t get too drunk, but damn it, we deserved this. I dodge and weave to the barrel and scoop up rum into the jug, I turn to go back to my seat and Steph is there. Right in front of me. Smiling and laughing. She turns towards me and her face drops.
Yeah, of course she doesn’t want me back after what I did to the crew and all, but when her smiles just wipe off her face when she looks at me, it hurts. After two seconds, the smile comes back she hurries over to me. My heart jumps out of my chest as she gets closer. Like a fish on land, I stand there mouth open.
“ex-cuuu-se me, captin’ me wants a drunk” she slurs at me. I nudge a little out of the way but stay close, she’s sloshed. 5 sails to the wind. She dunks the jug into the barrel and scoops up the rum, sloshing it as she raises it to her mouth. She takes a gulp them wipes her lips with the back of her hand. I’m in shock.
Steph bonnet, drunk. Steph bonnet, not acting like a lady. Steph bonnet, grabbing my hand and dragging me further onto the deck. Wait.
Steph had grabbed a hold of my hand and was pulling me into a sort of swaying dance to the song being played. I was not drunk enough for this, so I down the jug I had in my hand and take hers downing that too. She giggles at me. Giggles and grabs my other hand. She starts to swing them and then twirl under my arms to the music. This is the closest I've been to Steph in a long time, and with the rum finally kicking in, I allow myself Steph. Shes drunk and I'd rather she not fall overboard dancing, without me there to pull her back.
After a while we are dancing and singing, I've had more drink and now I'm well on my way to smashed. I’ve span her and lifted her into my arms so many times, I’ve lost count and honestly don’t care. She leans into me and places her head on my shoulder, I couldn’t help myself from relaxing into her body, putting my hands wherever I wanted to. We stayed like that for a while, just holding each other, she would nuzzle into me from time to time.
Then without warning she jerks away from me as if burned, there we go, that was nice while it lasted. But instead of running away from me, she unbuttons the waist coat she's wearing. My eyes bulge as she starts to strip herself bare.
“get a room" black Pete shouts over.
“I go swim" she shouts back, swaying as she says it, full of sass. At those words everyone jumps up, they barge over and we all start to try and stop her from jumping over the side of the ship. The whole time she’s shouting "mm fine" "me hot" and “wanna swam” with different slurring and volumes. We finally get her to the table and sit her down. She sways on the chair and slumps over onto the table.
A few moments pass where we all think she's gone to sleep, then she throws her head up and screams. A loud, wild scream. Like she was letting all her emotions out. It's good to scream. But we are still on the run from the British and pirate catchers. So, we all throw shhh’s at her.
“fuckin hate myselfs" she slurs out. I turn to look at the crew and they are all looking around or at Steph. “I'm such a fucking failure" she says slamming her hand onto the table. Oh, Steph is an emotional drunk. Never would have guessed, I laugh to myself.
Steph points at me and says “you attractive!" I laugh again. She is gone. I mean I know I'm attractive, and I knew she thought I was. Just wish she was sober.
“and I wanna to kiss you" she Trys to stand at this, so I rush over and sit her back down sitting around her on the chair. I grab her around the middle and hold her up right.
“you just wanna stay upright love" I whisper to her. At this point everyone has gone back to whatever they were doing, Izzy, Luci and Jim keeping an eye out over our way.
She leans back into me and sighs “nope" she pops the P "I wanna kiss you, but I fuck up" she murmurs. Oh god.
“no, no" she shakes her head "I think you need to go to sleep" she shakes her head again.
“I fucked up, cos I'm a fuck up, I take beautiful things” she reaches up and tugs at some of my hair softly "I fuck them up too." fuck. I cant think straight. I'm defiantly thinking gay, But with the rum, I'm a bit slower than normal. Is she saying that, she's fucked me up? I was already fucked up, before she came along. She fixed me. Broke my heart, but damn I'll let her fix it again. Fuck. She smells nice. Like lavender and rum.
“nah mate, I was already fucked up” I lean into her some and say this in her ear.
“no, I hurt you, when all I wanted was you. I spent years, years, being bullied by my dad, my peers, myself, my husband, my kids. Who may I add, fucked up my body. I have a fucked-up body" she has slumped down into me at this point, flapping her hands as she listed the people that fucked her up to me.
“you got stabbed too" I add with a slight grin.
“hurt less than kids"
“I haven't had a kid, but I can guess it hurts"
“It's like popping a watermelon out of yourself" she cringes and so do I. “And sex is shit, and it hurts and its boring!!!!"
“only with a man" she giggles at that and I can feel it rumble through me. Fuck it.
I lean down over her shoulder and before I can think of anything else or stop myself, I kiss her. Soft barely kissing her. Then I jerk away, God what am I doing? She fucked me up, and she hurt me and she's just going to leave me again.
She sways up out of my arms and I'm bracing myself for her to run away again when she straddles me. In my shock I don’t realize she's kissing me, soft little pecks. She's kissing me. She's grinding on me. She's with me. She hasn’t left. Her hands are twisting into my hair as I deepen the kiss. I can faintly hear the crew muttering and whooping. But I don’t care, I have the woman I love in my arms, kissing me.
Steph moans and grinds on my lap as I reach into her buttoned up again, vest. I need her skin in my hands as fast as I could. I just get a hold of her nipple and she jumps up, shit. She rushes off me and the crew has gone quiet. They are all thinking the same as I am. She’s leaving again.
Nope, she bends over and throw up on the deck, nearly falling back with the force. At first, I think I made her sick, then I realize she's been drinking. So, I jump up and some of the crew come over to help. She just keeps throwing up...
When she finally stops, she's white as a sheet and shaking. “I'm sorry" she mutters.
“my kissing that bad?" I had to ask. She shakes her head and looks up at me doe eyed.
“no, no oh god no, I loved that, but I think I had too much to drink" I sigh at her and take her arm over my shoulder, guiding her to my cabin.
By the time we get into the cabin she's half asleep already, so I just tuck her into the bed and leave her there. She gets up in the middle of the night to throw up again, so I help her get undressed and lay down with her when she's shaking. Holding her close to me, skin to skin, is hell but we can talk tomorrow.
Steph POV:
What. The. Hell. Happened?
I wake up naked in bed with Ed naked at my back, not to say that it doesn’t feels divine.
But what the fuck happened?