#ofmdfanfic | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

downstarr · 2 years

Text

Stroke of Midnight - An OFMD New Year's Eve AU

Stede Bonnet usually goes home to New Zealand for the Christmas season. But this year, he's decided to stay in Victoria, BC where he's been living since he came to Canada for school. At a house party thrown by expats, Stede unexpectedly runs into his teenaged crush, Edward Teach.

Stede's been struggling with loneliness and a lack of belonging, and Ed re-entering his life hits him like a ton of bricks. 10k words, complete. CW: references to child abuse and homophobia. Referred to, but not seen.

Stede Bonnet never sought out his fellow New Zealanders on purpose. Usually, his trips home to Wellington from Victoria, BC where he’d been living for the past few decades would fill his Kiwi quotient quite satisfactorily. But life circumstances and various logistics meant he hadn’t been home in several years.

Which lead him to an Anzac Day gathering at a local pub that past April, and to an invite to a New Year’s Eve house party some months later.

The house, a grand affair in Brentwood Bay just outside of the city, had a wonderful view of the inlet and the twinkling lights across the water where snow drifted in the air instead of a haze of rain. It was an unusually cold late December by Vancouver Island standards. They’d had a few inches of snow that made the steep, winding roads up to the house that weren’t designed for snow quite treacherous. It also meant that Stede dug out his winter jacket usually reserved for ski trips up-island or to the mainland.

“Just toss it in the spare bedroom,” said Arnie, one of the two hosts for the evening as he pointed the way down a long hallway.

“This way?”

“Yep, first door on the right,” said Arnie.

Stede nodded and held his blue puffer jacket aloft. “Cheers.”

On his way back from the spare room where his jacket joined a growing pile on the bed, Stede slipped into the nearest bathroom and slid the barn door style door closed. It took him a few times to clasp it correctly. For a moment, he was worried he was going to throw the heavy piece of stained wood off its pretty wrought iron hinges.

It was then that he realized that his hosts must be new money. Stede hated that snobbish part of himself, but he’d grown up with and around a lot of money. That meant he’d been to many parties at the houses of people whose wealth was gained in their own lifetime rather than inherited.

Those people really liked barn doors. And marble countertops. And grand staircases. All of which were on display at the home of Arnie and Marlo.

Door finally latched, Stede turned to survey his appearance. He slid a comb from his pocket and carefully rearranged his blond curls that had gotten tousled by the wind and wetted by snowflakes. He slid a hand down the fine fabric of his deep blue button-up to make sure there were no creases in the fabric. He was pleased to see that the impeccably tailored shirt highlighted the effort he’d been making at the gym the last few months.

“Now don’t look desperate,” Stede mumbled to himself. “And don’t be a peacock,” he paused, “...or too much of one.”

The pep talk Stede was giving himself was necessary because he’d heard through rumblings that there were queer people at the party. He’d been having absolutely no luck on the dating or social scene. For a long time, he convinced himself he was bisexual, until his now-ex fiancee Mary finally helped him realize that any attraction to women was deeply forced and based on a foundation of self-delusion.

Satisfied that he hadn’t gotten too rumpled from the trip over, Stede awkwardly pulled the impractical barn door back and stepped out into the house proper.

Stede was no stranger to grand houses. But something about this one felt a bit much. After years away from home and the socialite scene in New Zealand, he’d forgotten how to move in posh circles. He didn’t know Arnie and Marlo very well at all. They’d only spoken a handful of times at the Fernwood Inn’s now-monthly informal expat meetups. But he had become friends with Declan Finch, who was an old friend of Arnie’s.

It was him that Stede sought out after tidying up his appearance. The house was the epitome of West Coast elegance - massive and A-frame with a staircase leading to the upper level, but with the kitchen, dining, and living areas offering views of the ink-black inlet below. Like the bathroom door, Stede found himself picking out various nouveau-riche touches that took the shine of the classiness.

“It’s a lot more impressive in the daytime. Well, I mean, it’s impressive anytime. But less so in the dark,” said Declan as he appeared beside Stede with a beer.

“Ah, cheers! I was just coming to find you. This place is…” Stede paused as he tried to articulate his admiration at the style and grandeur of the place with the details his upper-crust self found tacky, “...quite something.” said Stede as he took the beer.

Declan grinned, “Mhmm,” Then he leaned in, “...I find it a bit magazine-y, m’self. But I don’t want to be a dick, so I hold my tongue. “ The other Kiwi was tall, with a mop of dark hair, strong features, black glasses, and a gap between his front teeth. He suspected the man might have a crush on him, which he didn’t reciprocate. He liked Declan well enough, but not as more than a friend. But they’d never had a conversation about the limits of their relationship. Stede felt it coming, and he feared the awkwardness and the potentially broken friendship that would follow.

For the moment though, the two men were still friends.

“I appreciate the invite, by the way,” said Stede, finally.

“You look a little shell-shocked,” said Declan with a teasing lilt as he leaned in towards Stede. “I thought you came from richie riches. So this would be normal for you.”

“Came from, yes,” said Stede, eyebrows arching as he gestured with his beer. “But things have been strained with my family for years. I was supposed to go home after school, you see. But instead I stuck around. It was expected that I go home and do the whole Wellington society thing, but it wasn’t for me. So it’s been a long time since I’ve made a habit of being in houses like this,” he said as he gestured around.

“Well, they come by it honestly. Marlo’s an architect who made her own way. And Arnie’s…”

“...a marketing or social media guy?”

Declan grinned, putting the tooth gap on display, “Marketing manager for a bunch of restaurants.”

“I recognize a few people from the meet-ups. Are they mostly expats?” asked Stede as he gestured around the room. He exchanged a few nods or smiles with the people he knew. As he did, he caught sight of someone with long gray hair who turned away just as he was about to get a good look at him.

“Not all of them. Some are work friends and stuff. To tell you the truth,” Declan leaned in towards Stede, “I don’t recognize a bunch of them. I think some of them are other parents at their daughter’s school, or work people. But Marlo likes to collect people from home. Says it helps keep her grounded.” He swatted at Stede’s shoulder and motioned towards the kitchen where most of the people were retrieving drinks or snacking from the impressive spread laid out on the kitchen island, “C’mon, I’ll introduce you to some people.”

Stede took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. “All right.”

Then Stede did what he’d been doing all his life. He slipped on a mask of cheery confidence. As Declan introduced him around, he made friendly conversation and learned how each of the people he was introduced to knew their hosts.

They were all nice enough, but from what Stede could tell, they all were straight, or at least in straight-passing relationships. As he met more and more people, he began to feel the heteronormativity of the room wash over him. That sensation, along with the conspicuous touches of magazine-glossy wealth began to wear him down and churn more of his loneliness to the surface. He began to think he was the only queer person in the room aside from Declan, and he wasn’t even sure about him.

No one Stede spoke to would have any hint of his growing discomfort or disappointment. He was an expert at deceiving others about his own happiness, and continued to chirp friendly conversation and tell bad but charming jokes.

He’d always made acquaintances easily, but friendship, let alone something greater, had been evading him since his split from Mary. He hadn’t figured how to transition into queer social circles from the primarily straight ones he’d moved in before now. Drag shows and gay bars only introduced him to people he had little in common with aside from queerness, and many were often younger than him.

Stede was hungry to meet people his age, who preferred pub trivia or a wine tasting over club nights and casual sex. He knew those people existed, but he had no idea how to go about finding them. He’d hoped the party would be a way to find those people, but so far he was just feeling how he always felt - like an imposter wearing a veil of straightness that he had to fight to keep from slipping clean off.

After a while, the effort to keep it up began to exhaust Stede, and he politely excused himself from a conversation with Naomi and Brett, a perfectly nice, but painfully straight couple who had spent the past thirty minutes talking about the psychological effect of paint colours in nurseries while both kept touching Naomi’s pregnant belly.

For Stede, who’d spent almost every Christmas season of his life mired in the default straightness of the Wellington social scene, it was a special kind of torture.

He needed another drink.

Stede made his way to a giant, trendy cooler laden with craft beer and cider. He pawed through until he found a cider he’d had before. For that moment, he let the mask slip and he stared for a moment off into the middle distance, gaze fixing for a moment at another one of those impractical barn doors next to a wall that looked like it was set up specifically for Instagram selfies.

He looked at his watch.

It was only ten. At least two hours before Stede could excuse himself. After all, why would he leave a New Year’s Eve party before midnight?

He took a couple of hungry gulps of the cider, then took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, closed his eyes, and willed the mask of chirpy conformity to slip back over his face.

“Stede?” came a voice mid-way through this meditative exercise.

Stede turned, confused by his name in an unfamiliar voice.

The man he saw caused Stede’s throat to clench and a shudder to slip down his spine. He was grateful for long sleeves, because they hid the cascade of goosebumps that raised every hair on his arms and his chest. He felt a flush of warmth dappling his cheeks, and he hoped that this man would just think it was the alcohol.

“Ah, yes?” Stede croaked.

The stranger was tall, warm-skinned, with a cascade of gray hair with streaks of black. He had a short gray beard and the sides of his hair were pulled back in a haphazard fashion. He’d either not expected the buttoned-up and date-night-dressy vibe of the party or he’d chosen to ignore it, because he wore low-slung moto jeans and a loose black t-shirt with a ragged hem. The shirt displayed arms covered in black tattoos. He wore a diamond stud in one ear with hoops higher up, and a necklace with a chunk of polished hematite. His eyes were deep and dark - chocolate brown and full of winking warmth.

“I thought that was you,” rumbled the stranger.

Stede took a closer look, head canting, brow furrowing. Surely if he knew this man, he’d remember. He made every queer little synapse in his brain fire off happy chemicals.

Bit by bit, Stede started to piece it together. He mentally replaced gray hair with black, and removed the beard from his face. Then he peeled back the years and spun his memory back to Wellington. “Ed?” he breathed after an incredulous moment. “Edward Teach?”

Ed smiled and then chuckled. “Ah, yeah, it’s me. Fuck. What a coincidence.”

Aside from breathing Ed’s name, Stede was at a loss for words. Here, thousands of kilometers away and decades later, he found himself staring into the eyes of his teenage crush.

Continue reading on AO3

#ofmdfanfic #ofmd #ofmd fanfiction #ofmd fanfic #completed fic #blackbonnet #blackbeard x stede #stede x blackbeard #stede x ed #ed x stede #ofmd modern au #modern au #new years eve #first kiss

2 notes · View notes

downstarr · 2 years

Text

Welcome to Dos Corazones - Chapter 2, Day Drinking

Summary: Stede stops by Blackbeard's Bar and Grill to thank Ed for rescuing him from embarrassment the night before.

---

Stede hadn’t planned on taking up Ed on his invitation to visit the bar quite so soon. He just happened to find himself walking in front of Blackbeard’s Bar and Grill around mid-afternoon the next day, on his way back from talking to his realtor. He glanced down at his phone to check the time.

There was another missed call from Mary. She’d given up on text messages, but she had started sending emails. Aside from a quick note a few weeks back to let her know he was alive, he hadn’t responded to any of them and marked each message read without reading their contents.

His jaw clenched in guilt as he hovered over his wife’s New Zealand number, and went into the settings to make future calls go directly to voicemail.

Stede looked from his phone and up to the rustic roadhouse-style bar, festooned with pirate flags and, he noted, a Pride flag as well. The flag’s rainbow with triangular insert was the only splash of colour on the black facade. He pushed open on the door which had a poster tacked to it advertising a monthly drag night. The show was actually in a few days, with drag kings as the headliners.

The gray colour scheme continued inside the roadhouse. Stede was immediately the brightest thing in the room in his coral Bermuda shorts and blue floral patterned button-up. He pushed his aviator glasses up onto the top of his head.

“We’re closed,” rasped a voice whose source Stede couldn’t see, as his eyes fought to adjust to the dim light inside the roadhouse.

Stede stepped further in. “Apologies. I was just walking by and came to say hello to Ed?”

As his eyes adjusted, a slightly rough, but rather charming in its own way interior came into focus. There was a large bar along the far wall, stacked high with exotic cans, photographs, license plates and other memorabilia. There were t-shirst with the bar’s logo for sale. To the left was a small, low stage capable of holding a five-piece band at most. Staff was currently moving chairs over an area that was likely a dance floor when live music was playing.

There was a short man with graying hair and a goatee wearing a black v-neck t-shirt that threatened to drop off one shoulder behind the bar. He was the source of the voice that had spoken to him. “Come back at three. He might see you then.”

“Izzy, don’t be a dick. You don’t want our town to get a reputation for being unfriendly to newcomers, do you?”

“Ah, hello Ed.”

“Hi, Stede. Didn’t expect you to take me up on my invitation so soon. Drink?”

Stede found himself smiling a little dopily at Ed. The man had his hair pulled up into a bun. He was wearing a black t-shirt with the bar’s logo on it in white with the sleeves cut off, and black moto jeans with a wallet chain and motorcycle boots.

“Ah, well, if it’s no trouble? Your friend said you aren’t open yet? I’m sorry, I should have known…”

“We’re usually open for lunch, but Sunday mornings are pretty quiet and we have a show on Saturday nights that can go pretty late. What can I get you to drink?” Ed stood in front of Stede, weight on one foot. He swept his eyes down and back up again, taking in Stede’s outfit and lingering on his calves for a moment.

“Ah, gin and tonic?”

Ed looked back and nodded to Izzy, who acknowledged the order with a sour look.

Stede suddenly wondered if he should have ordered something that the surly bartender couldn’t as easily spit in.

Ed motioned to a table by the window. “Don’t mind him. The band kind of fucked up last night and he had to spend half the night talking down pissed off, drunk customers.” He sank into a seat and sat with his legs kicked out.

Stede noticed that the posture allowed for a slice of stomach to be visible between shirt and pants.

“Oh? What happened?” Stede asked as he sat down himself.

“Apparently their gear had gotten caught in the rain the night before. Two of the three monitors blew midway through their first set. By the time Izzy dug our backups out of storage, we’d already had to comp half the cover charges from people pissed the show had stopped. Then a bunch of people fucked off to the disco down the street.”

Izzy walked over and sat a high ball in front of Stede, and a pint of dark beer in front of Ed.

“Ah, thank you. Izzy, is it?” Stede smiled at the bartender.

Izzy just grunted and sauntered off.

“Honestly, I’d be in a bad mood after that as well, so understood!” said Stede as he watched the man return to the bar. Then he returned his attention to Ed. “I em, I wanted to thank you for last night. A lesser man would have left me to my own foolishness. And a cruel man would’ve made things worse. Honestly, I probably would have deserved it. I’ve been told I can be quite naive.”

“Come on, now. You’re new in town and an old school chum invited you to a party. How were you supposed to know it was a sex party?”

Stede’s eyebrows went up. “Well, for starters, I should have known better than to trust Nigel Badminton.”

Ed snorted and lifted his glass in a salute. “Damned right.” He shifted forward and looked Stede in the eye, pondering something.

Stede shifted under the attention. “What?” he asked with a little half-grin.

“Nothing. Just wondering what made Nigel put your keys in the blue bowl.”

Stede blushed. “Do I want to know?”

Ed’s eyes twinkled. “I kind of do,” he husked.

It was at that moment that Stede realized he was being flirted with. He swallowed a mouthful of his drink, which turned out to be very strong. He nearly choked on it. “Good lord! I think half the glass is gin.” He laughed and wiped a little bit from his chin. “Gin with a suggestion of tonic, more like.”

Ed laughed and glanced towards the bar, but Izzy had disappeared into the back. “Yeah, sorry about that. He’s like an irritable house cat. He’ll come around.”

“Is this…your place, then?” asked Stede as he glanced around.

“Yeah, it’s mine,” said Ed. He looked around the bar and sighed.

“Is business not good?” asked Stede as he gave another very small sip of his big glass of gin.

“Oh, it’s not that,” said Ed. “It’s fine. It’s just always the same Same festivals. Same batches of tourists. Same regulars. Been the same old thing for the last couple of years. Just starting to get a bit bored of it all.”

“Ah, I can understand that. I mean, I did just pick up and move my entire life because things weren't feeling right,” said Stede.

“Good for you, man,” said Ed as he reached across the table to tap his glass against Stede’s.

“Boss, hey boss…” a man emerged from the back room. He had a full white beard and a studded headband.

“Fang, this is Stede. New in town,” Ed motioned to Stede.

Fang lifted a hand in hello and awkwardly looked away. “Sorry, boss. The delivery guy is here and he’s still arguing that he dropped off half the boxes of burgers last week when it wasn’t on the packing slip.”

Ed sighed dramatically and melted in his chair. His ass almost ended up on the floor before he got his lanky limbs under him. There was a twinge in his movements as he twigged his knee a little. He shook it out. “Right, I’m coming. Sorry, mate. Come back early evening sometime, yeah? That’s usually the best time. I’m done doing manager stuff at that point and the evening won’t be busy.”

“Ah, will do!” said Stede cheerfully. “Thanks for the drink.”

—

A few hours later, Ed was sitting in his office, which was a cramped, windowless affair just behind the bar.

Izzy rapped on the open door frame, then let himself in. He closed the door behind him to block them off from the handful of patrons that had begun to filter in. “Ivan’s finished his research,” he rumbled. “I’m afraid we won’t be able to get rid of this one with the same strategy as the others. This one has deep pockets. Real deep.” He tossed a folder in front of Ed.

Ed hesitated, then flipped it open. Inside were pages printed off from New Zealand news sites and blogs, social media screenshots and paperwork that contained business information. The first article was a scan of a newspaper in Auckland that showed Stede dedicating a new museum collection.

“How much are we talking?” asked Ed as he pawed through the papers.

“His family owns Bonnet’s Fancy Fine Fabrics. It’s a two-hundred-year-old import business with clients all over the world. I’m talking about the kind of fabrics high-end fashion houses and rich twats buy. He could lose money running your ship for decades and barely even feel it.” Izzy pointed to the file.

Ed studied the next picture, which showed Stede with his arm around a dark-haired woman, both in formal attire. It was another piece about his philanthropic efforts, and the caption noted him as the Chair of the Bonnet Trust, which seemed to be the closest thing the man had to an actual occupation.

“Well,” said Ed. “I suppose we have to think up a new strategy to get him out of the picture.”

“My thoughts exactly,” Izzy rasped. “I’ll make some calls.” Then the man excused himself.

Ed spent a moment studying a photo. “Sorry Stede,” he mumbled to the image. “It’s nothing personal.”

----

Continue reading here.

#EdXStede #blackbeard x stede #Stede Bonnet #blackstede #gentlebeard #ao3 writer #fanfic #ofmd #ofmdfanfic #ofmd fanfic #edwardteach #edward teach #our flag means death

0 notes