Chapter Text
Pete has been living his life on the seas for as long as he can remember. He started sailing when he was just a boy, short trips with more legitimate crews, before the poverty he was born into began to take its toll, and he discovered that piracy was a much more prosperous option, under the right captain. He got on the first crew he could, and he’s never looked back since.
From his first voyage at sea, he’d always been taken by tales of ruthless pirates, men who took what they wanted and damn the consequences- and Blackbeard was the most ruthless pirate of them all.
Pete thinks they have a lot in common. The stories say that Blackbeard has been sailing since he was even younger than Pete, that the seas are his true home. Pete feels like that too- there was never a place for him on land, after all, he’s been a disappointment to his parents ever since he was born and was never quite accepted in his hometown. They say Blackbeard can sense the changing of the tides and hear the voices of the monsters of the sea. Pete can’t hear monstrous voices, but sometimes he thinks he hears murmurs from the deep, and he teaches himself how to identify the way the waves look when the tide is changing. Blackbeard is ruthless, does whatever it takes, takes whatever he wants. Pete wants desperately to be like that, to have his name garner that respect, that fear.
He isn’t quite there yet, but he hopes he'll get there someday.
The only place Pete ever truly belonged was at sea. At least, that’s what he tells himself. The truth of the matter is, no matter how good he gets, no matter how hard he works, he always feels one step out of rhythm with every crew he joins. They always work well together- Pete is talented, born to a life of piracy, and he makes himself invaluable to whatever crew he happens to join. It’s in the times between raids, when the work is done for the day and the crew huddles on deck, swapping stories and singing songs, that Pete struggles. He just can’t quite… connect with them, no matter how hard he tries. He can hear them snicker when he speaks, draw away when he comes close, awkward pauses filling every conversation.
He doesn’t know what he’s doing wrong.
He’s on his fifth crew when he starts telling the stories. If his own name can’t garner the respect he wants, maybe putting himself in affiliation with Blackbeard could accomplish the same (until he makes a name for himself, of course). And it kind of works. He can tell no one really believes him, but the stories are just interesting enough to keep them guessing until the end.
Still, though, he never quite fits, like a puzzle piece jammed into the wrong place.
Then, in a fit of despondency after being let go by yet another captain, he joins Stede Bonnet’s crew, despite the man’s fancy airs and lack of experience. Pete figures if he really sucks at being captain, maybe there would be an opening for Pete to take over. Captaining his own crew has always been a dream, after all.
But as much as he hates to admit it, Stede is a different kind of captain than he’s used to. From the first, Stede leans heavily on his crew’s expertise, since he clearly has none of his own. He says please and thank you more than Pete has ever heard the phrases used in his life, he pays them a living wage- an absolutely ridiculous notion- makes sure they are fed. For fucks’ sake, the man reads them bedtime stories. It‘s the strangest experience of Pete’s life.
And when Pete breaks out his stories of his made up time on Blackbeard’s crew, Stede listens. Really listens, with sincere eyes, hanging on his every word, asking questions and engaging even when the rest of the crew is rolling their eyes. Pete almost feels guilty about lying. The captain can’t seem to tell truth from untruth- or maybe, like Pete, he doesn’t care if the stories of Blackbeard are slightly fabricated, just desperate for any information on the dread pirate.
None of this will stop him from proposing mutiny when the time is right, though. Stede Bonnet is no pirate, let alone a pirate captain. Pete could do a better job. He would do a better job. But part of him hopes they won’t have to kill Stede in the process.
A life at sea is not an easy life. There is no room for Stede’s softness, Stede’s kindness. Pete knows that much. Pete never gives that kindness to anyone, after all, and he knows that no one will give that kindness to him.
Then he meets Lucius.
***
Lucius is not a pirate. That much is evident from the first moment he steps foot on the ship, wrinkling his nose and stepping around the puddle of seawater that had formed during a recent storm that they hadn’t gotten around to soaking up- it would just dry in the sun, after all, and a pirate can’t shy away from a little seawater. He’s holding a book and a quill in his hand. Stede scurries up the ladder after him, absolutely beaming.
“Gentlemen!” he calls excitedly. “Crew of the Revenge! Gather round, gather round!”
Pete rolls his eyes, crossing his arms and staying put. He can hear perfectly fine from right here, thank you very much.
“I would like to introduce the newest member of our little family, Lucius Spriggs!” Stede gestures to the man standing next to him, who raises his hand in an awkward wave.
“Hullo, all,” he says, eyes darting around the crew. They rest briefly on Pete, a flicker of intrigue appearing, before darting away again.
“Lucius is my scribe,” Stede explains. “He’s going to be recording our adventures here on the Revenge. So if you see him scribbling away, don’t bother him, he’s doing his job. Please, make him feel welcome.”
“A scribe?” Roach asks in a hushed voice from next to Pete. Pete shrugs.
“Guess so.”
“One more mouth to feed,” the eccentric cook mutters.
Lucius follows Stede around the ship for the rest of the day, scribbling away at that book. It isn’t until close to supper that Lucius speaks to Pete for the first time. Stede brings Lucius over to where Pete is working, explaining something about the rigging- horribly, Pete has to add- and then rushes off to break up a fight between Buttons and Roach.
Lucius sighs, leaning against the railing dramatically.
“Is it always like this?” he asks. It takes Pete a moment to realize that he’s talking to him.
“More or less,” he says shortly. Lucius scans him up and down, then holds out his hand.
“I’m Lucius,” he says. Pete stares at his hand warily. He takes too long in deciding whether or not to shake it, and Lucius lowers his hand.
“All right, none of that, I see,” Lucius says. “You’re Pete, yeah?”
Pete nods.
“Captain's given me a very thorough rundown of everyone on the crew,” Lucius says. “You used to work for Blackbeard, he said?”
“I did,” Pete says. He hadn’t, but he has to stick to his story now, doesn’t he?
“That’s cool,” Lucius says. He’s still staring at Pete. He's starting to feel uncomfortably warm. Usually, when someone stares at him like that, they're about to make fun of him.
“How’d you end up here, then?” Lucius asks.
“Why do you care?” Pete asks.
“Dunno. Getting the lay of the land, I suppose.”
Pete frowns, staring down at the deck. “You shouldn’t be here.”
The sea’s no place for someone like you.
To his surprise, Lucius just laughs. “Probably not. But a job’s a job, isn’t it?”
Just then, Stede calls for Lucius. The man rolls his neck, shooting Pete a wink.
“Well, duty calls,” he says. “See you around, Pete.”
He saunters away, Pete’s eyes following him across the deck.
***
Pete doesn’t speak to Lucius for a few days after that. He’s always with the Captain, or with the rest of the crew, and even though this is the most accepted Pete has felt on a crew in a long time, he's still out of step in a lot of ways. He doesn’t think he’s purposely distancing himself, it's just… easier to stay on the outskirts. Less of a chance that he’ll overhear something cruel, something that causes him to retreat even more. He has a thick skin, Pete does, but words still affect him more than he likes to let on.
He’s working one day, fixing part of the railing on the ship that Wee John had broken accidentally, when he sees movement from the corner of his eye. Lucius is perched on a barrel about a yard away, hunched over his book, quill moving- but it doesn’t look like the same motions he uses to write. Those are usually shorter and more stunted, and right now he’s using longer strokes. He keeps glancing up at Pete, and then back down.
“... what are you doing?” Pete asks finally. Lucius looks up, a cheeky smile on his face.
“Sketching you.”
“Why?”
“I need a break from the captain, and I need to look like I’m working,” Lucius says. “Pretend like you’re talking to me so it looks like I’m getting some of your valuable insight.”
“I am talking to you.”
“Tell me what you’re doing, then.”
“What does it look like I’m doing?”
Lucius shrugs. “Dunno. Fixing the railing? How does that work?”
Pete fixes him with an incredulous stare. “You don’t know how to fix a railing?”
“Not my job, remember?” Lucius says, looking back down at his book and moving his quill furiously. “Tell me one of your Blackbeard stories, or something. Just make it look like I’m working with you.”
“What you do is not work.”
“Getting a halfway decent sentence out of you is terribly hard work, actually,” Lucius says.
“Whatever.”
“See?” Lucius says, pointing the end of his quill at him.
At this point, Pete just wants him to shut up, so he starts narrating what he’s doing, even though it’s an incredibly simple task. When he finally looks up, there’s a small smile playing on Lucius’s lips as he sketches.
“See? Not so hard, was it?” Lucius asks, rising from the barrel and brushing off his pants. He rips off the page of the book he’d been working on and hands it to Pete. Pete takes it reluctantly, Lucius’s fingers just barely ghosting over his as he does. Lucius has soft hands, not calloused and cracked like Pete’s, though there was a callus forming on his pinkie finger from the writing.
“You’re a good model,” Lucius says. “Let me know if you’re ever interested in a different kind of sketching, yeah?”
Different kind of-
Pete’s face nearly bursts into flames at the look on Lucius’s face. A lazy grin stretches Lucius’s cheeks. With a fluid wave, he’s off.
Pete just stands there for a moment before finally looking down at the slip of paper. His eyes widen.
Pete never thought he was a particularly good looking man. He isn’t tall like Frenchie, not pretty like the captain, doesn’t have Lucius’s smile or Jim’s hair or Oluwande’s nice skin. He doesn’t need to have any of those things. A pirate doesn’t need to be pretty. It's probably a hindrance, actually. That’s what he always tells himself. Pretty men didn’t inspire fear.
But the way Lucius has drawn him- Pete doesn’t know what to do with it. His nose doesn’t look as disproportionate as he’d always seen it in the mirror, and the angle at which Lucius had drawn him makes him look strong. Confident. His mouth is open mid-speech, his face animated even though his eyebrows are drawn together.
Is this how Lucius sees him? Or is he just being nice?
Either way… he likes it. Carefully, he folds the paper in half, trying not to crease the drawing too badly, and tucks it into his shirt pocket.
From across the deck, he just misses Lucius’s lingering look, the satisfied smile on his face when he sees Pete keep the drawing.
***
Pete sort of thinks that will be the end of their interactions. After all, he’d been prickly and unpleasant the whole time, why would Lucius want to interact with him again?
But by some stroke of luck, he does. Lucius finds him on deck whenever the captain lets him go for a time, complaining of hand cramps and eye strain, things Pete would never complain about in a million years, but still finds himself suggesting remedies for. Lucius squeezes in next to Pete during meals, shoulders pressed together and thighs touching. He reaches for Pete whenever he needs help boarding the dinghy and Pete is in range, expecting him to drop everything and help lower him down- and Pete always does, in spite of himself.
Lucius listens attentively to his stories about his time with Blackbeard, not with the same steadfast belief of the captain, but Pete is just so relieved that Lucius isn’t laughing at him with the rest of the crew that he can very easily forgive the barely concealed smile when the stories take a ridiculous turn. Eventually, he starts adding more ridiculous elements just to see Lucius duck his head, his hand flying to his mouth as he tries to disguise a laugh as a cough. It’s nice, making someone laugh on purpose. It’s nice making Lucius laugh on purpose.
Soon, Pete can barely go a few hours without seeing Lucius at least once, whether it’s exchanging a roll of the eyes when the captain is off on one of his tangents, or Lucius brushing his fingers against Pete’s shoulder as he passes him, or whether it’s Lucius following him around the ship while he does his work, chin perched on his hand while Pete explains what he’s doing. Lucius never does any of the work himself, and Pete isn’t sure why Lucius is so interested in what Pete does, but he’s more than happy to indulge him.
He still isn’t sure why Lucius wants to spend time with him at all, but he sure as hell isn’t going to complain or ask about it, risk breaking this strange connection. To have someone like Lucius showing any type of interest in him, even friendly interest, is mind blowing.
And it was friendly. Because he realizes very quickly that Lucius is a massive flirt. He flirts with everyone on the ship, even Buttons, which had really been a sight to see. It came as naturally to him as breathing. So when he flirts with Pete, he knows it doesn't mean anything.
Or at least, he assumes.
***
“All right, here’s a question for you,” Lucius says, legs swinging from the top of the deck. The rest of the crew is sleeping below, Wee John’s snores echoing in the dark, but Lucius had gotten up to join Pete on watch, claiming that Frenchie’s sleep talking was keeping him awake anyway.
“Yeah?” Pete answers.
“Are you, like, not into me?”
Pete blinks. “What?”
“It's cool if you’re not, I mean, my ego will definitely be a bit bruised,” Lucius says, raising a hand to his forehead, imitating a swoon, “but I’ll recover.”
“I- what?” Pete asks again.
“I mean, I’ve been dropping hint after hint after hint,” Lucius says, turning to face Pete, his playful tone hiding a very real note of vulnerability. “And I can’t tell if you’re just humoring me, or what the deal is-”
“Hints?” Pete interrupts. He’s pretty sure his brain had stopped working.
“Pete, darling,” Lucius says, fixing him with a stare. “Do I look like the kind of person who’s really, really interested in the type of oil you use on the sails?”
Lucius had been following him around a few days prior, when Pete had been complaining about how he needed a very specific type of oil to waterproof the sails, but the captain wouldn't stop to get it.
“I mean, no that you didn't make it sound interesting,” Lucius says, and maybe Pete is a bit dense, but it finally clicks in his head, and then he’s moving without realizing it, hauling Lucius in and pressing his lips to his. Lucius makes a small, surprised “mph” sound, and then he’s smiling into the kiss, hands coming to rest on Pete’s chest.
“So you are into me, then?” Lucius asks when they break apart.
“Very,” Pete confirms.
“Good, cool,” Lucius says, grinning. Pete had never had anyone smile at him so goddamn much before. “Very cool.”
***
Pete still can’t wrap his head around it. Lucius likes him. Lucius wants him. He is allowed to touch Lucius, kiss Lucius, and Lucius wants him to do that. Initiates it, even. And it isn’t a secret, and it isn’t a one time thing, like most of Pete’s former dalliances have been, stealing touches in the dark and acting like it never happened the next day. No, Lucius kisses Pete in public, rests his head on his shoulder during the captain’s storytimes, winds an arm around him at meals, using his free hand to eat and gesticulate wildly while he talks.
And no one acts like it’s strange that Lucius wants Pete. He even hears a few whispers of “god, finally,” from Frenchie and Wee John. Roach starts serving Pete and Lucius’s portions at the same time, next to each other, because he knows they'll come in together most days. Buttons tells him they have Karl’s blessing, whatever that means, and Oluwande asks him in hushed whispers how he’d gotten up the courage to do it, casting longing glances at Jim the whole time.
Pete's careful, at first, to act correctly. He really doesn’t want to ruin this. He doesn’t talk much in the first few days, not wanting to say something distasteful, not wanting the sound of his voice or his speech patterns to turn Lucius off of him- but Lucius doesn't seem to want that. Lucius can talk a mile a minute, and he often does, but he wants Pete to talk too, wants to hear his opinions and learn about his past, asking him questions and listening attentively to the answers.
And eventually, Pete starts opening up. He tells Lucius about how he became a pirate, about the first crew that he’d ever sailed with, about his childhood and his parents and how he didn’t speak until he was five years old. In return, he learns that Lucius comes from a well off family, not as well off as the captain, but enough so that he could have lived a comfortable life, but that he always felt trapped there, like he was just waiting for something to go wrong, how his parents disowned him when he got arrested for pickpocketing and how he feels most at home here, even though he isn’t really a pirate.
Maybe it’s Lucius’s presence, maybe it’s Pete’s changed demeanor as their relationship progresses, but Pete doesn’t feel so out of step anymore, so out of place.
He’s starting to feel like he belongs somewhere.
***
Then Blackbeard boards the ship- and so, too, does their doom.
***
Blackbeard boards their ship, and he doesn’t recognize Pete. Of course he doesn’t, because Pete has never actually served under Blackbeard, but Pete recognizes him. He is everything a pirate is supposed to be, with wild hair surrounding him like smoke, a smell of tobacco and leather and blood, a presence that makes even the strongest man shake in his boots. He storms the Spanish with his ferocious crew at his back, and Pete feels that familiar yearning that has tugged at his chest since he was a child.
“Is he how you remember him, Pete?” Frenchie asks him, when it’s all over and they are repairing the ship’s damage. Blackbeard has disappeared below deck with Stede and shows no signs of reappearing.
Pete just shrugs. “More or less.”
He keeps Lucius close to him while they work. He may not have served with Blackbeard, but he knows the stories of the dread pirate, knows what he does with rival crews. Either they’ll all be dead in a matter of hours, days, or minutes, depending on the mood of the unpredictable first mate, or there will be a place for them on the crew. Pete much prefers the latter option, so he keeps Lucius close and does what he always does- makes himself invaluable, and, by extension, tries to make Lucius the same.
Lucius isn’t really helping the image, though. He can barely hold a hammer.
“I bet he’s saying something genius. He’s history’s most brilliant tactician,” Pete says, watching Blackbeard discuss something with his first mate.
“You know, I thought he’d be taller,” Lucius says.
Pete feels a sudden pain on the back of his head, crumpling him. Two of Blackbeard’s crew stand over them.
“Back to work,” one of them snarls.
“Gentlemen, gentlemen,” Blackbeard’s voice calls. “Let’s not brutalize our guests like that.”
The second the crew walks away, Lucius is on his knees next to Pete, helping him up.
“You never served under Blackbeard, did you?” he asks Pete in a hushed voice, that familiar twinkle in his eye that makes Pete’s heart pound in his chest. He caves, finally, shaking his head, though the motion makes his vision swim.
“So that story about you and Blackbeard taking on the English, aided by the Kraken, which Blackbeard can summon with a whistle- you’re telling me that never happened?” Lucius says, feigning disbelief.
Pete smiles in spite of himself. “Made you laugh, didn’t it?”
Lucius blinks, a smile settling on his face. Lucius has a number of different smiles, and Pete loves all of them, but this is one of his favorites. It’s the one he makes when Pete surprises him, all soft and disbelieving, trying to obscure how Pete’s words affect him. It’s the smile that makes Lucius look at him like he can’t quite believe he's real.
“You’re a right little storyteller, aren’t you? We should write a book” Lucius says. “I can illustrate.”
“Whatever you want to do, babe,” Pete says. He pauses.
“You’re not mad that I didn’t… work for Blackbeard?”
Lucius snorts. “On the contrary. I think I like you better for it. Blackbeard’s crew is dreadfully… well, dreadful.”
And something in Pete heals just a little more.
***
After the first impression, Blackbeard is really not what Pete expected him to be. During the Spanish raid, he’d lived up to expectations and more, but the second time Pete sees him, he’s dressed in Stede’s clothes, playacting in some sort of strange role reversal where he was Stede and Stede was Blackbeard. It’s one of the most bizarre things Pete has ever seen. Izzy Hands seems to agree.
Izzy Hands, Blackbeard’s notorious first mate, with a reputation nearly as long and as bloody as Blackbeard himself, is certainly a man to be feared.
But he’s getting on Pete’s nerves.
Now that Pete is relatively certain that Blackbeard isn’t going to snap and kill them all (he seems too enthralled with Stede for that to be an option at the moment, and Pete knows all too well what it’s like to be pulled under by someone unexpected- another thing he and Blackbeard have in common), he’s somewhat less focused on his work. And when Lucius starts getting handsy and suggests a bit of a romp, well, Pete is not a strong man when it comes to Lucius. He caves instantly.
It’s Izzy who interrupts them, Izzy who steals Lucius away to clean barnacles off the side of the boat (which makes Pete fume, Lucius’s hands aren’t meant for tasks like that), Izzy who seems to be singling Lucius out at every opportunity, Izzy who keeps staring at Lucius’s lips and not-so-subtely watching the swing of his hips when he walks away.
Pete isn’t a jealous man, not really. He and Lucius don’t own each other. It doesn’t bother him when Lucius flirts with other people (like he said, flirting is as easy as breathing to the man), it doesn't bother him when other people look at Lucius (Lucius is gorgeous, Pete thinks, who wouldn’t stare?), but the way Izzy Hands is doing it-
It boils his blood.
“Is he bothering you, babe?” he asks after the barnacle incident, which Lucius had managed to escape with a little well placed flirting and his considerable artistic talents.
“Mm? Who, babe?”
Pete nods towards Izzy, who is standing off to the side of the deck, pretending like he isn’t watching them. Lucius snorts, bumping Pete’s hip with his own.
“Are you kidding? I’ve been handling men like that for years.”
“Men like what?”
“Oh, the repressed, the uptight, the self-hating,” Lucius lists, waving a hand carelessly. “They love me, they can’t get enough of me. I know what I’m doing.”
“Babe, he’s Izzy Hands. He’s Blackbeard’s first mate,” Pete says, trying to hint to Lucius that maybe this isn’t a man to be trifled with, even with how considerably skilled in trifling Lucius is.
“You’re sweet. Don’t worry. I gathered a little information on our resident Mr. Hands today,” Lucius says, glancing over at Izzy with a smile playing on his lips. “I’ve got an idea.”
Pete won’t find out Lucius’s plan until later that night, when Izzy orders him to go back to the barnacles- in the dead of night, as if the seas aren’t rougher in the dark, as if one of them couldn’t leap up and snatch Lucius away if he goes down there now. Lucius can’t swim, he’d drown in minutes.
“No. You’re not my captain,” Lucius says with a shrug.
Izzy pauses, an eyebrow raising, and stalks back towards Lucius. “I could spill all your beans. You’ve been a proper little seductress, haven’t you? Black Pete, Fang. Who else is there?”
Lucius tilts his head. “Hey, Pete?”
“Yeah, love,” Pete answers automatically.
“I drew Fang naked.”
Pete laughs. Is this supposed to be some kind of revelation? Fang’s a good looking dude. Nice cheekbones. He isn’t surprised Lucius wanted to sketch him, part of getting out of work or not.
“Nice,” he says finally, when it was clear they’re waiting for a response. Then he understands. That was supposed to be a trump card from Izzy, something to blackmail Lucius with- and Lucius has outwitted him. “He’s drawn most of us.”
“See?” Lucius says. “We don’t own each other. Dizzy Izzy.”
Izzy recoils.
“Or is it Izzy the Spewer?” Lucius says, leaning in. “Be a shame if the entire crew learned about that, wouldn't it.”
Izzy whispers something that Pete can’t hear. Lucius doesn’t move.
“You ever been sketched?”
Pete has to hide a laugh.
“Fuck off,” Izzy says, and then, shock of shocks, Izzy is the one to retreat.
Lucius lets out a laugh, high fiving Wee John as he saunters back over to Pete. Pete is in absolute awe. That was Izzy fucking Hands, the man famous for skinning Blackbeard’s enemies alive- and Lucius made him retreat. Stared him down like it was nothing.
Maybe Lucius has more pirate in him than he lets on.
“That was hot.”
***
“He’s a visual artist!” Fang cries. “You can’t cut off the boy's little fingies!”
Pete wants to agree, but staring down at Lucius’s finger, swollen and stinking from the infection given to him by Buttons’ summer teeth, he can see that Roach is right. It doesn’t stop him from aching for Lucius. He’d give up his own finger if he could, he’d give up a whole hand if he had to (hell, he’s always kind of wanted a hook-hand, it wouldn't be a huge loss), but if the other option is losing Lucius, a finger is a small sacrifice.
So he holds on to Lucius’s arm, praying that he doesn't wake up before it's over.
They are not so lucky.
“What’s happening, am I dead?” Lucius asks, eyes blinking open, his uninfected hand grasping at Pete’s arm.
“No, no, no, baby,” Pete says, quick to reassure him, and when Lucius looks up at him, sweat beading his forehead from the fever and eyes wide and bewildered, Pete realizes that if Lucius ever did die he would be following him into the grave. He can’t go back to a life without Lucius.
His reverie is cut short when Lucius lets out the most bloodcurdling scream he’s ever heard at the sight of Roach’s cleaver, and he flees the scene, leaving Pete and Fang to give chase.
***
Lucius is good at everything. Well, actually, Pete takes that back- Lucius can’t hold a hammer to save his life, though sometimes it seems like a ploy, he can’t swim, doesn’t know to oil a sail or catch a fish or swing a sword or do anything pirates typically do, but he’s so good at everything else that it feels all-encompassing. He’s good at things Pete can barely understand, and he’s smart, though he hides it under a flighty, flirty air. But when something needs to get done, Lucius knows instinctively how to do it. Whether it was planning some kind of expedition with the captain (all of Pete’s expeditions seemed to go to shit, just look at his orange quest) or talking someone through a breakup, Lucius always just knows. Pete has learned to rely on him in the past months.
So when Pete finds himself stranded on an island with the rest of the crew, no boat and no Lucius, he is lost in more ways than one.
Stupid, he’s so stupid, he never should have taken Izzy’s word that Lucius was with the captain, he should have gone and searched for him himself, breaking down doors if that’s what it took, and he should have seen this coming and gotten them both off the ship the second that Blackbeard came back alone, came back without Stede. But no, stupid, stupid Pete was so caught up in the glamour of being a part of Blackbeard’s crew at last, finally letting all those stupid stories gain some semblance of truth, and he put Lucius in harm’s way because of it.
Because he forgot, for a moment, exactly what Blackbeard is.
Blackbeard is a pirate. And there is no room for kindness on the sea.
***
It‘s Stede who comes for them, eventually, after days of beating sun and hunger and thirst. The top of Pete’s head is sunburnt, his lips are cracked and the sand has chafed his skin beyond recognition. He’s almost glad Lucius isn’t around to see him like this, isn’t around to experience this for himself.
Pete never thought he’d be happy to see Stede, but in a wild moment when Stede’s feet touch ground and he passes around water, Pete thinks that Stede is a better captain than Blackbeard ever could be.
It takes some time, but eventually they form a plan to track down the Revenge. Stede has unfinished business with Blackbeard, it seems, as they all do, but there is something weighing Stede down besides the anger the rest of the crew feels, like he blames himself for everything that Blackbeard has done in his absence. Pete knows something happened between them- Lucius had pointed it out to him so many times that he’d started to be able to see it himself- but he doesn’t really care. He just wants to find Lucius.
So when the Revenge finally comes into view of their new, tiny ship after months of searching, Pete nearly breaks the railing in his haste to get on the dinghy ferrying them to the Revenge. Izzy Hands is waiting for them, with Fang and Ivan, Jim and Frenchie bound in chains, with Blackbeard’s pistol pointing straight at Frenchie’s head.
There’s no sign of Lucius. Pete’s heart sinks to the bottom of the sea.
It's Fang who tells him in the end, when the captains are done shouting at one another and Blackbeard calls a ceasefire, much to the chagrin of Izzy. Fang, who holds Lucius in just as high esteem as Pete, approaches him with grief written over every inch of his face, and Pete wants to run, doesn't want to hear what Fang is going to tell him, but he can’t move a muscle.
“He’s gone,” Fang says, pulling Pete to the side, and for a moment hope enters Pete’s chest, because gone doesn’t mean dead-
“Captain pushed him overboard,” Fang says. “The night before we stranded the rest of you.”
And the world goes quiet. Pete is frozen to the deck, staring down at the waves off the side of the boat, harsh and strong even on such a sunny, beautiful day.
“He can’t swim,” Pete says, slowly, blankly, like he doesn’t fully understand the words himself. “Lucius can’t swim.”
Dead? No, Lucius can’t be dead. Because if Lucius was dead, the sun wouldn't be shining now, it couldn't be. Lucius has been dead since-
He can’t think it. He was on the ship. Pete was on the ship when it happened, he was slumbering below deck like nothing was wrong, like Lucius wasn’t plummeting towards the waves and how could he not know?
Had Lucius called for him? Had he thought of Pete as he fell?
Pete stares down at the waves that swallowed up the only true happiness that he’d ever felt, and he takes a step towards them, and then another, and then he’s hoisting himself up on the railing and Wee John and Fang are grabbing him, pulling him back-
They have to chain Pete to a mast for three days to keep him from following Lucius into the sea.
***
Pete has a lot of time to think while he’s chained to the mast. Mostly, he thinks about Lucius, about the last time he saw him, winking Pete’s way as he headed to the captain's quarters.
He’s writing a song, babe, Lucius had said, apprehension written across his face. It’s really bad.
Worse than Lucius had thought, apparently, turning from songwriting to murder as a coping mechanism.
He can't look at Blackbeard when he’s finally unchained. Blackbeard is walking free around the ship, and Pete can’t understand it, because he killed Lucius, and how is he the only one who seems to care about this?
And he should speak up, he should say something, because who is left to defend Lucius if not him, but he can’t, because every time he sees Blackbeard the betrayal hits him like a knife. It shouldn’t feel like a betrayal. Blackbeard barely knows him, so focused on Stede the whole time they’d been on the same ship, despite Pete’s attempts to impress him.
But Pete has spent years and years and years looking up to Blackbeard, revering him, treating him almost like a god, and to find out that your god sacrificed your lover in the name of his own heartbreak-
Thousands of occasions of Blackbeard’s name being spoken reverently hang on his tongue, forcing their way up his throat until Pete is choked with it, until he has to lean over the side of the ship and vomit into the very waves Lucius was swallowed by all those months ago.
***
Stede calls a meeting after a week of being on the ship. He lingers towards the front of the deck, Blackbeard- or is it Ed, now?- hovering by his side.
“I know this has been a very confusing time for us all,” Stede says. “And I want you all to know that Ed and I have come to a resolution.”
A resolution?
“I will be taking over as Captain of the Revenge,” Stede continues. From across the deck, Pete hears Izzy hiss through his teeth.
“And Ed will remain on board. His sailing expertise and years of experience will be invaluable-”
“He killed Lucius.”
It's the first time Pete has spoken his lover’s name in days, staring up at the captain with bloodshot eyes. Stede is struck dumb.
“He killed Lucius,” Pete repeats, taking a few slow steps forward. “And he gets off scot-free?”
“Pete-” Stede says, and Pete glares at him.
“I’m not talking to you,” he spits out. He points to Ed, who looks like he wants to run, and isn’t that pathetic? He can push Lucius over the side of the ship without a second thought, but this, Pete’s anger, he can’t handle?
Pete thinks they've never been less alike.
“He was helping you,” Pete says, and he hates the way his voice breaks. “He wanted to help you. And you killed him.”
Blackbeard’s eyes drop to the ground. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t tell me you’re fucking sorry!” Pete yells, and Blackbeard jumps with the force of it, Stede stepping in front of him protectively. Pete shakes his head, stepping back, tears pricking at his eyes.
“Either he goes, or I walk,” Pete says, because he can’t stay here in a place where Lucius’s murderer is walking free.
And he knows it's not a choice for Stede, knows that no matter what, between Pete and Blackbeard it’ll be Blackbeard every time, but he has to say it.
Stede’s eyes are sad when he nods. “I wish it could be different.”
***
Pete packs his things, what few things he has left, searching the ship for anything that Lucius might have held, might have touched. In the end, he takes Stede’s journal, pages filled with Lucius’s handwriting, and even though Pete can’t read a word of it he dares Stede to say a thing about it.
He leaves as quickly as he can, and when he steps on deck, he is surprised to see that he isn’t alone. Frenchie stands near the dinghy, guitar slung across his shoulder, leaning against the railing. Oluwande and Jim stand nearby, hand clasped together, bags on the ground next to them.
“What are you guys doing?” Pete asks, advancing towards the small group.
“You want some company, mate?” Frenchie asks.
“We want to come with you,” Jim adds.
It makes sense, Pete thinks. He’s seen the way that Frenchie skitters around deck these last few days, the way he leaves a room when Blackbeard enters. He’s seen the sallowness of Jim’s skin, the way they squint at the sun, knows that they’ve been locked in the brig for months, and he knows that wherever Jim goes, Oluwande goes.
He’s not the only one who can’t forgive Blackbeard.
His throat feels tight. He always thought that if he left, he’d be leaving alone, the way he always left crews. This is better.
They’re all piled into the dingy when there’s the sound of a throat clearing behind them. Pete turns, only to see Izzy Hands, a rucksack in his arms and a shockingly hesitant look on his face.
“No.” Pete says without explanation, turning to lower the boat to the water- but Izzy grabs his wrist.
“Please,” Blackbeard’s first mate says. “I just need to get to port.”
Izzy glances behind him, sees Ed standing near the mast, hand in hand with Stede. “My captain is dead.”
Pete studies him, studies this man who made him so enraged only months ago for the way he looked at Lucius, remembers the way Lucius made him back down, and wonders what Lucius would do.
In the end, he decides, Izzy isn’t the one who killed Lucius. If he needs to get away from Blackbeard, too, who is Pete to deny him?
It isn’t until he receives a nod from Jim and Frenchie that he allows Izzy to clamber on to the dinghy as well.
The last thing they see as they row away is Stede standing at the railing, watching them with a morose expression.