Chapter Text
“Redbeard? Who the fuck is he?”
Stede furrowed his eyebrows as he swirled the last of his brandy around his mouth. The thunk of his glass on the table barely registered in the din of Jackie’s busy bar. “What was that, dear?”
“There’s some bloke they’re talking about called Redbeard.” Ed crowded toward Stede in an effort to speak discreetly. The high ponytail he’d gotten used to wearing recently swished as he moved his head. “Who the fuck is that?”
A quick listen around the room told Stede where the noise about Redbeard was coming from. At the adjacent table sat a group of three people chatting pleasantly. One of the men had a patch over one eye, a short white beard, and a bristlingly obvious Scottish highland accent. The woman had shoulder length strawberry blonde hair and a thin line of a mouth. She was older, dressed in leather and rope, and seemed— by far— the toughest of the group.
The last man had almost angelically blonde hair, styled so each wavy short strand seemed lifted, pointed toward the sky. He appeared to be the most docile, the most friendly. He wore a smart brown leather vest over an oversized linen shirt unbuttoned to the center of his chest. A singular silver cross hung on a thin chain around his neck. He sat himself unusually vertically, eyes wide and smiling. Stede immediately liked him.
Leaning in to whisper, Stede put his hand on the small of Ed’s back. “Were those people over there talking about him?”
A nod told Stede he was right. Ed’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. He peered at the table as if the three of them were about to unsheath knives and cutlasses inside the bar and lunge at him at the slightest provocation. Stede knew that look and smiled faintly. As if Jackie would ever let that happen in her bar.
“You’re being too suspicious, dear.”
“Suspicious?” Ed said, a little too loudly. Out of the corner of his eye, Stede could see a man at the bar look up from the beer he’d been nursing. Stede shushed Ed with a gentle hand on his arm. Ed grimaced in apology. “Look,” he whispered, “It can’t be a huge coincidence that this guy names himself after the color of his beard. It’s not an incredibly original concept and I was the first one to have done it. He’s a damn copycat is what he is.” His eyebrows worried themselves into a small peak. “He must be new here. Can’t believe I’d forget a name like tha-“
Ed’s eyes grew wide as he stared at the door just beyond the table of strangers. Stede quickly turned his head to see what the fuss was and-
Oh. That’s Redbeard.
In swaggered a lanky man with a beard so red he’d put terracotta to shame. His thumbs lazily looped into his thick leather belt, the buckle in the shape of an ornate gold flame. He was wearing a black linen shirt as well as a black overcoat trimmed in frankly exquisite gold thread detailing. The theme of fire and flame was present here too. He had a black eyepatch over one eye and the other was— Stede had to blink a few times to make sure he saw it right— yellow. His eye was yellow.
Stede shot a wide eyed glance at Ed, whose eyebrows had shot up close to his hairline. He squeezed his husband’s arm, a silent ‘don’t be so obvious’, and Ed’s features relaxed.
“So!” Redbeard announced loudly. “What’s the Sea Guardian come to concede this time?”
The softness of the blonde man’s face disappeared. His eyes steeled. “You’ve not come to gloat again, have you, Red?”
Upon seeing him, the man and woman seated with the blonde man — ‘Sea Guardian’, apparantly— wisely fucked off to somewhere else in the bar.
“Gloat?” The man boldly made his way over to the table and thrust himself down opposite the man. “What’s there to gloat about?”
“You know bloody well what there is to gloat about, you foul Demon.” There was a flush rising slowly in the Guardian’s cheeks. Stede couldn’t quite tell from what. “When we got to that ship it was ransacked! Looted! Totally obliterated!”
“I don’t need a thesaurus for the word, thanks.” He shifted his hips toward the front of the seat and spread his legs comfortably, leaning back as if this was the easiest, most comfortable discussion he’d ever had. “We got the word that a merchant ship was crossing our path and we simply pirated. Nothing more to it than a bit of pirating.” He cocked his head. “You’re just mad that we got there first.”
Redbeard’s calmness regarding the whole situation was a strong juxtaposition against the fire slowly building in The Guardian. He took a shallow breath, his baby blue eyes not leaving the yellow one. “Did you know what the ship was carrying, Red?” He spat.
A scoff. “Of course we did; we raided it. Fabrics. Clothing. Boring stuff good for nothing but bartering at the nearest port.”
Stede felt the indignation on the blonde man’s face deep within his soul. ‘Boring stuff’? ‘Good for nothing but bartering’? How ignorant, how clueless this Redbeard man is! He felt a thumb pressing calming circles into his forearm and immediately he felt his sympathetic anger subside.
The blonde man, however, was still simmering. “You knew because you raided it, but I knew because I had a man on the ship. It was cashmere, you foul thing!” He gave a small exhale of disbelief. “Crafted into garments it is worth ten times what it is on the bolt! And the clothing-“ He huffed. “We had reliable information that the clothing was winter wear from the northern kingdoms. Worn by the nobles. It’ll be regarded as rubbish here around the Equator!”
“That’s why there was so much fur!” Redbeard clicked his tongue and looked, almost affectionately, at The Guardian. “Boy, it’s lovely to see you beaten.”
The blonde man’s face changed into something more resolute. “Not beaten.” He tipped his chin upward, confidently. “Never beaten. Good always wins.”
“And I suppose that protecting the integrity of clothing found on the Caribbean Sea is the sort of ‘good’ you think is worth your time and trouble”, he jeered.
Before The Guardian could speak, Stede let out a soft ‘Yes’. Ed pressed a soft kiss to his cheek about it.
“Yes!” The Guardian tightened his fingers into fists on the table. “The preservation of physical finery is a reminder to the world that there are beautiful things on the planet worth appreciating and enjoying!”
Redbeard rolled his eye and stood up. “No, the preservation of physical finery, accessible only to the elite, is a reminder to the rest of the world that there are beautiful things on this planet that they will never have nor deserve,” he spat. “Fine things have no use in a pirates life. Fine things have no use in the lives of ordinary people.”
A tense silence hung like a thread between them, snappable if only one would apply the right amount of pressure. They looked at each other in a unique way that only they seemed to understand; a knowing silence and old as time itself. A fragile thing, this exchange more complicated than a simple spat, heavier than just a rivalry amongst men.
“I didn’t come here to argue.” Redbeard’s words came out small.
“You never do,” whispered The Guardian. “Though it seems, due to the nature of what we do in this world, like an inevitability.”
Redbeard sighed, sprawling back into the chair. “It doesn’t have to be like this, you know. You could join me. We could take over the seas together.”
Stede turned to face his husband. All of a sudden it seemed like this part of the conversation was far too intimate to intrude upon. It felt more authentic, more vulnerable. Maybe these men knew eachother better than he’d thought. Ed looked rapt, his mouth crooked in a small smile.
“I don’t know if we’re supposed to be listening to this part,” Stede whispered, turning away from the men. “Although it’s quite fascinating to observe, I feel it’s a bit invasive-“
“Oh, shush,” Ed waved him off, swatting his shoulder affectionately “It’s just getting good.”
Stede turned to look again and to his surprise, it looked as if the Guardian was holding back tears. “You know I can never travel with you,” he whispered. “We’re just too different, you and me.”
A pause. If it weren’t for the general noise of Jackie’s, the silence between them would have been deafening.
“Alright.” Redbeard smacked his hands on the table as he stood up again. “That’s all I came here for. Just thought I’d update you as to who ruined your preservation efforts regarding the kings noble finery.”
The fiesty side of The Guardian was back, this time almost as if he was resuming a role for the stage. “Oh, please. You came to gloat.”
Redbeard stopped for a second and smirked at the man. “I came to gloat.”
The air was definitely calmer now, albeit a tad more laden with sorrow.
The red haired man sauntered toward the exit, not bothering to look back. “See ya round, Angel. Don’t get up to too much good, alright?”
The soft flame burning in the blonde man’s face flickered in intensity. “Fuck off.” Then, to Ed and Stede’s great amusement, the fire in his eyes changed from something meant to intimidate and damage to something meant to warm and comfort. The lines in his face changed ever so slightly, softened as he whispered the words “I’ll see you here next week.”
The man turned at the threshold and — no, he couldn’t have possibly heard The Sea Guardian from that distance— unmistakably winked.