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dragonmuse · 1 year

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Was rereading the series (again) and got to wondering: did Stede and Eddy ever talk to Pearl the engineering student Stede met at the strip club about a new trap door?

(hello June 2022! I hope you still care at least a little about this answer, if not I hope it still serves for a spot of amusement for everyone else. This takes place roughly a month after Eddy and Stede's wedding.)

“Are you sure you don’t need another flash light?” Stede was asking the hole in the stage.

“No, I’m good!” A voice trailed up. “In fact, I think...”

There was a heavy ‘bang’.

“Are you all right?” Stede wrung his hands.

“Yep! That was just everything falling into place. Hold on, let me tag your mattress here back over...”

“Do we have a ghost?” Eddy laughed, posting up against the stage. She had been reconciling receipts in Stede’s...well their office now. This sounded far more fun.

“I’ll introduce you momentarily, dear girl,” Stede was peering down worriedly despite assurances.

A head popped up out of the hole. She was a striking woman, very pointed chin and high cheekbones. Her hair was cropped short, bleached blond, a pretty contrast to skin the same shade as Eddy’s.

“It’s locked in place. Do you have a sandbag or something we can test it with?”

“We have a bag of rice around somewhere,” Eddy put in. “From Roach’s risotto class. One of those real big ones.”

“That should do it.” A hand with a meticulous manicure and a grease stain reached out to her. “I’m Augusta. You must be Eddy.”

“I am,” she leaned forward to shake her hand. “You’re the performer that Stede connected with at his bachelor party?”

“I’ll say,” she laughed. “I was doing some of my best work and he was all ‘I own a club just like this, do you like working here?’ One of the chattiest clients I’ve ever had. Then he showed me a photo of you like three times.”

“Did he?” Eddy laughed, glancing at Stede, who didn’t look the slightest bit embarrassed.

“You were on my mind,” he just said blandly. “In any case, should we test her work?”

“Sure, I’ll get the rice.”

It was fun to watch the bag disappear into the darkness and the door no longer made a horrible noise when it swung open, so really it was a win all the way around.

“Good workmanship,” Eddy decreed. “What do you know about pulley systems?”

“Enough to get by,” she grinned.

The fix to the stubborn left curtain only took a few minutes and she did it on the spot. Stede went into the back to write a check for her and Eddy got her a glass of water.

“Thanks,” Augusta took it with a sly smile. “So that’s going well? You and him?”

“Has been,” Eddy agreed. “Did you think it wasn’t?”

“He was really cute, that’s all,” she took a sip of water. “But you know, sometimes that kind of thing is kind of one sided. You see all sorts of things sometimes.”

“It’s not,” Eddy shrugged. “I love the hell out of that man. No idea why they even took him to a strip club, not really his scene, but he seemed to have a good time.”

“Well he was until he fell asleep under Zeus. He was pissed,” she giggled.

“...who is Zeus and why have I not heard this before?”

Augusta left a few minutes later, check in hand, business card left behind for potential future work.

Eddy turned on her husband with bright eyes.

“What?” Stede asked warily.

“I heard the funniest thing just now. About a god and a man who does not seem to respect them.”

“Oh no,” Stede groaned. “I thought when you didn’t see the Instagram picture, I’d been spared.”

“There’s a photo?” Eddy lit up even more, delighted by the prospect.

“Oluwande took it. It apparently got a number of likes and comments,” Stede flushed. “I’d had a lot to drink, dear girl, and it had been a long night.”

“Show me,” Eddy demanded. “Right now, I need proof.”

“You’re a monster,” Stede scolded, but he was already taking out his phone.

The photo was priceless, Stede’s head back, totally knocked out while a very annoyed looking stripper stared down at him incredulously.

“You’re amazing,” Eddy wheezed. “Oh fuck, I love you so much. You were almost murdered, weren’t you?”

“I did tip him,” Stede snorted. “Once I roused.”

“I think the problem is that you weren ‘roused, golden boy.”

“Well it’s not my fault he wasn’t very good at his job!”

Eddy’s laughter rang out to the rooftop and eventually Stede even joined her. Later, at home, she found the post again and left a like and a comment.

‘Great wedding gift. 10/10.’

#leda house and the kraken verse #ficlet #stede teach bonnet #eddy teach bonnet

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dragonmuse · 1 year

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i'm turning 41 this sunday, and it's not gonna be much of a thing due to life circumstances and well-practiced not-caring, but it'd tickle me if you had a fun idea how... really, anyone in the main verse might celebrate their 41st.

(happy early birthday! This one caught me right in the brain pan, so have several birthdays actually. These range from angsty to fluffy pretty much in that order because they're in age order. CW: parent death, shitty parent, but it counts)

Eddy

The world was very quiet, in the wake of so much noise. Eddy’s ears stopped ringing quickly enough. They had secured the package, a blubbering girl, clinging to Eddy’s right arm. Vaguely, Eddy considered scrapping her off onto Fang, who could be counted on administering pats and sweet words to the distressed.

“S’okay,” Izzy said roughly to her. “We gotta go though. Boss?”

“Right,” Eddy shook her head, coming back to clarity. They gave the girl a smile, “You’re safe now. We’re going to bring you home.”

“Thank you,” she wept harder, clinging tighter. Eddy pulled her into a hug, so she could look over her head at Izzy. She gave him three hand signs. He signed back acknowledgement and took off.

Her will be done.

Within an hour, they were all on a plane out. They returned the girl to the grave gratitude of her elderly parents. Eddy gave them the bank information. Suddenly they were all substantially richer. Magic.

They walked out of the house. Eddy wanted to sleep. She wanted to never sleep again.

“Drink?” Izzy asked.

“Yeah.”

They found a bar close by, too posh for their usual, but liquor was liquor. They both got whiskey and took it to a back table away from the daylight glare. They drank in silence, Eddy staring into space above Izzy’s head while Izzy fixed his attention to the door.

It was only once she drained the glass and set it down, that his attention went to them again. He reached into his pocket, seemingly in slow motion then eventually set down something in front of them. Bemused, she picked it up. It was a coin, heavy and old. She turned it over and over.

“What’s this?”

“Found it while we were waiting for the raid. Caught my eye in the dirt,” he shrugged. “Looked old as fuck.”

“Huh.” There was a face imprinted unevenly on it, words in a language she didn’t recognize. Interesting. She slipped it into her pocket.

“Another?”

“Not today,” she got up, dug for her wallet, but he was already laying out the tip.

“Headed home?”

“Maybe.”

He nodded as if he expected nothing else. Got to his feet. They’d ridden their bikes here, and they were waiting just down the road. Izzy saddled up, then hesitated a moment.

“What?” She asked warily. His last minute pronouncements were rarely good, his deep desire to get in the last word often skewering the air.

“Just...happy birthday,” he started his bike and before she could respond, he was gone.

Asshole.

It wasn't even their birthday. Was it? Frowning, she got out her phone and turned it back on. They rarely left it on when they left the country.

It was their birthday.

41 and still kicking. She shoved the phone back in her pocket where it clinked against the coin.

Hoo-fucking-ray.

Stede

“Happy birthday, Daddy!” Alma said carefully. Her hair was up in two pigtails, looking like sparklers. She smiled at him through the two candles, one a ‘4’, the other a ‘1’. The cake was small, perfunctory. Alma and Mary had sang, one with far more spirit than the other. Charlie had watched silently, with big eyes. The boy didn’t talk much yet, let alone sing.

“Thank you, sweetheart,” he managed a smile for her. He caught Mary’s eye. They regarded each other over the flickering lights. As distant as the ocean.

“Wish,” Charlie said suddenly.

“Right, of course,” Stede kept the smile glued to his face. “A wish.”

“Don’t tell us what it is!” Alma scolded him as if he’d been just about to. “You have to keep a secret.”

“I will,” he promised.

He stared at the two flames. The plain white cake. Vanilla icing. Vanilla cake beneath. He much preferred lemon, but he wasn’t sure he’d ever told Mary that. Should he? What was one fact in a sea of the unspoken?

I wish I had a place where I fit. Even if I had to build it around myself.

Stede didn’t put much faith in wishes. If anyone had been listening, he had made far more desperate ones and a far more tender age and they certainly hadn’t been granted then. But it did feel oddly auspicious that the phone rang in the wee hours of the morning. Mary groaned, curling tighter in on herself under the covers as he picked it up.

“Hello?”

“Stede,” that was his father’s wife’s voice. He barely knew the woman, but was unmistakably soft-spoken. So thready that it was often lost during their rare visits entirely. “I’m so sorry. It’s your father.”

“What’s he done?” Stede sat up, imagining any number of horrors.

“Died!” She wailed.

“I see,” he said faintly.

And as she told him the whole horrible tale, Stede tried very hard not to smile.

It wound up being a very happy birthday after all.

Izzy

He got stabbed. There had been worse birthdays. At least this one came with painkillers.

Pete

“And the piece of resistance!” Frenchie plonked a box down in front of him.

“I thought you knew French,” Pete laughed.

“I do,” Frenchie sniffed. “When I feel like it. And I don’t right now. Take your present, asshole.”

“Thanks,” Pete lifted it up.

“We went in together on it,” John told him.

John and Frenchie were both on the sagging couch that had taken all three of them to get into the apartment. It was high on Pete’s mental list of ‘to replace’ as the money came in. He was on the lone other seat in the apartment, a precarious folding chair.

“I figured,” he assured John. He hadn’t really been expecting much at all, so it was cool to get a gift.

He tore through the newspaper and found a repurposed delivery box inside. Opening that and he pulled out a white rectangle. As he held it, it fluffed up freed of it’s confines.

“A new pillow!”

“A good one,” John nodded. “We know you’ve been getting a sore neck.”

“Because you told us. Repeatedly,” Frenchie sniffed. “So. Pillow. It’s supposed to be good for side sleepers.”

“Aw, man, thank you!” He squished it to his chest. “That’s great!”

“I know it’s not very big, but we’ve got a cake,” John offered.

“It is big,” Pete told him seriously.

Last year, everything had been in flux and Pete hadn’t really wanted to acknowledge his birthday anyway. There were things he’d expected to be when he was forty, and broke, parked in Buttons’ house with two ex-co-workers were not any of them.

But the past year had been one of the happiest of his adult life as it turned out. Who cared if it wasn’t flashy? He had friends, who cared about his neck even if he did complain about it too much, and a job that was kind of okay. No one bothered him much at least.

“You want the cake then?” Frenchie asked. “We got candles.”

“Yes, let’s do that.”

They had cake for dinner. It was a supermarket special, vanilla with a thick chocolate filling. It left him heavy and sluggish, perfect for watching a movie, crowded on the couch with both of them.

Oluwande

“I love you so much!” Oluwande told Jim.

“I know,” they were laughing at him, but that was okay. Jim had a great laugh.

And Oluwande was maybe a little drunk.

“You’re the best partner,” he gushed.

“Oh, I know,” they nodded.

“I am very drunk.”

“Ooooh yeah.”

“Are you drunk?”

“Nope.”

“That seems unfair,” he decided. “Why aren’t you drunk?”

“Because this is way more fun,” they leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.

“Why am I drunk?” he asked, which seemed more pertinent.

“Cause you’re a lightweight,” Roach sat down on his other side, holding out a glass of water. “And you insisted you could keep up with me. Spoiler alert: you cannot.”

“I could,” Oluwande said firmly, taking the water when it was pushed into his hand.

“You can’t,” Jim told him like they were informing him of a grave injury.

“No?”

“No.”

“Damn. Are we done drinking?”

“You are.”

“Okay,” that seemed wise, actually. Things were a little blurry. “Can I have another piece of pie?”

“Your funeral,” Roach decreed and then there was pie. It smelled amazing. Fuck cake, truly.

“Please don’t fuck a cake,” Frenchie cackled. When had he gotten here?

“I wouldn’t. Because it sucks,” he decreed and ate a piece of pie.

“I like cake,” Stede was saying a little wistfully. Was everyone here? Oh. Right. They were. Party. Oluwande gave himself points for recalling his general location.

“I’ll get you cake,” Eddy assured him.

“I mean not right now, I’m very full. Excellent spread, Roach, once again.”

“Yeah, well, Oluwande is more interesting to cook for. He has taste.”

“Right now, he has pie,” Frenchie was laughing again. “You good, man?”

“Yes,” Oluwande said earnestly, taking a sip of his water. “Never been better.”

“I think you’re aging backwards,” Roach gave him a speculative look. “Damn baby face.”

“I’m a distinguished man of my years,” Oluwande shrugged. “And I’m cute.”

“He is,” Frenchie agreed. “We all think you’re cute. Like very. Especially right now. You’re selling it. The tiara especially.”

The tiara and sash that said ‘Birthday Girl’ had been presented to him while he was still dressed as Teal for the night. He had put them back on after he’d de-dragged because fuck it. He was the Birthday Girl.

“Happy birthday, Olu,” Jim rested their chin on his shoulder. It was kind of pointy, but he liked that. He pressed his cheek to theirs.

“Thanks. For everything.”

“Always,” they slid and arm around him.

Lucius

“You want a cake?” Pete asked. “Nontraditional. No candles. Just sweet goodness.”

“Not really,” Lucius set down his stylus with a sigh. “I’d really prefer just to pretend it’s not happening at all. Per usual. Please.”

“Okay,” Pete slid his arm around him, pressed a kiss to his temple. “Would you like, entirely unrelated to any particular day, to go see that immersive Van Gogh thing you keep calling ‘horribly tacky and overpriced’, if I happened to buy some tacky, overpriced tickets?”

Lucius repressed a smile, “Why would you do such a thing if you knew I thought it was tacky and overpriced?”

“Because you sometimes love tacky and overpriced and I want to see the pretty pictures. And make you explain them to me.”

“Fine,” Lucius pretended to be aggrieved. “For your sake. When?”

“Got ‘em for Wednesday. Okay?”

“Yeah, okay,” he brought Pete’s hand to his lips and kissed it. “Thanks.”

Later that afternoon, Frenchie brought in the mail. There was a small package for Lucius which he presented him without fanfare. It was from some bland company, return address vague.

“I didn’t order anything,” he frowned, but opened it. Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought him back, after all.

There was a small, but lush box inside, matte black. He drew that out. It felt familiar somehow though he couldn’t pin it down. It had a hinge, so he opened it and was rewarded. A bracelet sat inside, a very thin leather one in his favorite shade of red. Embossed in the center was the image of a key, filled with black resin so it caught the light.

“Oh you asshole,” Lucius laughed and drew it out.

Lucius: I said no presents.

Izzy: coincidence. Ordered it weeks ago, no idea when it would ship.

Lucius: Liar. I love it. What’s the key for?

Izzy: cuff isn’t actually locked, doesn’t need a real key.

Lucius stared at the message, then at the bracelet. He picked it up and put it on, a difficult business one handed. It was unobtrusive, less eye-catching than the thick leather black cuff on Izzy’s wrist. Unlikely someone would even draw a line between one to the other even if they saw them together.

No one else had to know. Lucius would. Izzy would.

Lucius: No one would ever believe me if I told them what you were actually like.

Izzy: good.

“Happy birthday to me,” Lucius said smugly.

He’d let their shenanigans pass again this year. They kept managing to get away with it. Probably wasn’t really teaching the right lesson. Maybe next year he’d be firmer.

Maybe.

#leda house and the kraken verse #ficlet #eddy teach bonnet #stede teach bonnet #izzy hands #oluwande boodhari #lucius black

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