Chapter Text
Ed looked to him, gaze expectant, and Stede felt the weight of the man standing next to Ed. He was short, with freeing hair and a scar—or was that a tattoo?—on his cheek. He was sneering at him, properly sneering with the pinched expression and everything, and he didn’t have the slightest idea why.
Nevertheless, he continued his train of thought.
“I know what he’s trying to say.”
The detective blinked and waved his hand in a get-on-with-it motion.
“It’s a challenge,” said Stede, and the shorter man scoffed.
“Really?” He asked derisively. He turned to Ed and asked, “And just where did you find this one?”
Stede was no stranger to rudeness. He had grown up with it in his home and in his schooling. There had been moments in his life when he felt as if it was following him, tethered to him, smothering him and making it impossible to feel anything other than less than adequate. But for a complete stranger who didn’t know him from Adam to detest him so? Inexcusable.
“This is Stede, my colleague,” Ed said, ignoring how the man made another tempestuous noise that had the intent to offend his new colleague. He either didn’t notice or didn’t care.
“Yes, hello,” Stede said, holding his hand out for the rude man to shake. If he was going to be an arse, he was going to make him work for it. He would be nothing short of downright pleasant, thank you very much.
“This is Izzy,” Ed supplied as the man grimaced and took Stede’s hand.
“Pleasure to meet you, Iggy.”
Well, he tried.
Izzy narrowed his eyes, practically spitting fire, and hissed with every molecule of his being, “It’s Izzy.”
Ed’s eyes were on Stede, but that didn’t matter. This man had tried to put Stede in a place where he thought he belonged based solely on first assumptions. He had his moments of passive aggression throughout his life, more so in the younger years than anything recent, but it was like slipping into a well-worn pair of boots.
“Whatever,” he told the man, a polite smile on his face. “I don’t care.”
Ed huffed what could have been a laugh before covering it with a very-normal-sounding cough. Izzy didn’t believe it for one moment and exhaled harshly through his nose. He murmured some choice words under his breath as he stalked away from the pair, kicking up sand as he went.
When he was out of earshot, Ed turned to Stede. “He’s in a bit of a mood.”
Stede pursed his lips. “Doesn’t give him the right to be a prick.”
“Oh, no, that’s his personality. Usually, he just tells you to ‘fuck off’ and then focuses on the case.”
The case.
Stede had forgotten about the dead body and the macabre poem that seemed to be written for Ed and Ed alone. A swath of guilt crushed his chest as he refocused on the words of the poem. He had memorized them somewhere between the second and fourth time repeating it to himself.
the lover has drowned
the game moves to gain ground
being so clever is never profound
and yet still so sound
you won’t find them until their burial mound
“It’s a challenge,” Stede repeated, more so for his benefit than the man next to him.
A gust of wind blew over the beach, chilling Stede to the bone. He wrapped his coat more firmly around himself, ignoring the dread that was matriculating in his veins as he tried to understand the inner workings of a serial killer’s mind.
He had wanted something new and by God did he get what he wanted.
“‘The game moves to gain ground,’ that bit is a bit duplicitous,” he continued, furrowing his brows as he thought. “Gaining ground could imply that it’s speeding up, that there is more that is coming and at a faster rate than it has been up until this point.”
Ed grunted in agreement.
“But gaining ground, paired with the line about the burial ground…the next one should be on land, shouldn’t it?” The tail end of his statement morphed into a question, the diction and tone of his voice ending higher than it had started.
“I had the same thought,” he said, nodding along.
Stede kept going, his words flowing more quickly and with less apprehension. “‘And yet still so sound’…that’s referring to the water.”
Ed’s mind supplied the definition with half a thought.
In geography, a sound is a smaller body of water typically connected to a larger sea or ocean…
Lockwood was a coastal town, but there were high cliffs and outcroppings of rocks around the borders of the town. Ed had always been interested in the ocean, not only because there was no shortage of unknown things about it, but because it held his interest in a way that nothing else did.
The water in front of them, by classic definition, was in fact a sound. Ed had never thought of it like that—perhaps because he was busy solving actual fucking murders rather than wondering about basic geography—but a small part of him was avidly grateful that Stede had accompanied him.
He was the one who saw things differently. It was as if his world was tilted on an axis, allowing the blond man the opportunity to make adept examinations that seemed obvious once he was done pointing them out. A puzzle, if Ed had to choose a singular word.
Ed had been bored, desolate, and dismayed.
A serial killer and Stede Bonnet changed that.
“He’s definitely smarter than average,” Stede was saying, unaware of Ed’s thoughts. “More than required education, I’d guess.”
“Guessing is diminutive.” It was an automatic response, one that Ed had used for years.
Instead of being offended or thinking Ed to be rude or blunt or any of the other adjectives he had been called as long as he could remember, Stede simply nodded and conceded, saying, “You’re right. I’d wager that he was highly educated. And…”
Ed viewed sentences that trailed off as lazy, as an excuse to cover someone starting a sentence they never intended to finish. It peeved him to no end. He turned fully to Stede, prepared to tell him exactly what he thought of those who didn’t finish their sentences, when he caught sight of the man’s expression.
He was fouled, his retinas moving back and forth and he thought long and hard about something. Once again, Ed was struck with the urge to know what he was thinking, to hear how he was sounding out the problem. How could a man so surprising cause him such annoyance within the same breath?
Spit it out, he mentally urged. He knew more than most how annoying it was to have someone say something, disrupting the train of thought before it reached its destination. And judging by the look on Stede’s face, it was going somewhere important.
“That doesn’t make sense,” he breathed, looking back at the body before quickly turning his head.
“What doesn’t?”
“‘Being so clever is never profound,’” he said as if that answered Ed’s question.
“Yeah, alright, mate, it’s not profound,” Ed said, “what’s your point?”
Stede didn’t seem to hear him. “And all of that about the water; I don't get it.”
“We can google poems about water.”
That broke him out of his reverie, turning to Ed with a raised brow. Somehow, he knew that he was joking with his expression, and Ed said primly, “It worked before.”
“‘No sail, no isle, no cloud invests the bound, nor billowy surge disturbs the vast profound,’” quoted Stede. “It’s Joel Barlow. The Columbiad.”
Ed found himself wondering just how much poetry Stede Bonnet had read in his life for his prolific ability to quote different lines at any given instant.
“Being so clever is never profound,” he said again.
“What’s the connection?”
“I've read about this!”
Ed blinked at him. Who spent time not only reading poems, but then reading about the poems? Ed had his various pursuits when he was going down different rabbit holes in search of additional knowledge, but it had never veered down that path.
“Don’t give me that look,” said Stede with an air of familiarity that was as unsurprising as it was unexpected. “There’s two different popular interpretations to that line. One is that it’s about the ocean, which fits, because of the whole dead-body-found-in-the-water.”
Was this what it was like for others to hear him make his deductions? Did they not know where he was going until he made the final statement, declaring his findings and waiting for their reactions?
“And then there’s the other interpretation,” he continued. “That the ‘billowing surge’ is symbolic of something else, such as large historic events, or disturbing things, or love, or knowledge. ‘Nor billowing surge disturbs the vast profound.’”
And just like that, the pieces aligned in his mind. He saw what Stede saw, if not a moment later.
“Being clever is never so profound,” he said, repeating Stede’s words. His hands twitched with the energy that flooded his senses when logic prevailed. “It is a challenge.”
The killer was taunting Ed, using both obvious and vague ways of communication. There was the line about never finding the victims until their burial grounds, which had now happened twice, and then the line about how Ed’s knowledge and intelligence were nothing in the grand scheme of things. He was important now, at this moment, but who was to say that that would always be the case?
“He thinks we’re equals,” Ed muttered, both to himself and to Stede.
“You could never be like him,” Stede said immediately. His tone told Ed that it wasn’t placating or trying to be kind—it was sincere down to the last syllable.
Without his permission, memories of a dark and rainy night flitted through Ed’s head. He was on a dock, not unlike the one to his left, and his hands stung with the salt from the sea and the rain, etching into the wounds cut into his extremities by the rope that he was gripping with all of his might. His heart pounded in his chest, echoing how hard it had beat that night when everything changed.
If only you knew, he silently replied.
Izzy came back to them, refusing to even look in Stede’s direction. Ed had found it humorous that Stede had reacted to the man in the way that he did. Izzy was a handful at the best of times and he had reciprocated in kind to Izzy’s dismay. Ed thought he was asking for it.
“Cause of death might be poison,” Izzy said to Ed.
Ed looked over his shoulder to see the medical examiner hunched over the body, taking notes. It was too soon for the ME to do anything other than saying what was likely, but Ed felt inclined to agree with the cause of death. There had been no marks on the woman’s throat.
“Let me know when you find out what type of poison,” Ed said, and he began walking back towards the main part of town. A moment later, Stede was following behind him.
“Is that it?” Stede asked as he sidestepped dried kelp that had washed up on their path. His nose wrinkled.
“Nothing more to detect,” Ed replied.
He didn’t miss the look Stede shot him. “I would argue that there is always something more to detect?”
“And you would be right. Just nothing more to detect right here.”
There were more pressing issues at hand. Ed was going to have to think long and hard about the killer in a different light. The challenge and the threat made it personal, more heavy-handed than cruel.
When they reached the sidewalk, Ed began to walk to the left. Stede slowed, filled with hesitation, and Ed turned to him when he no longer heard his feet against the pavement.
“I—the office,” he said, twisting his wrist so that he could examine his timepiece. The face of the watch caught the sunlight and Ed felt the bitter taste of disappointment.
“Right,” he said. He had forgotten about Stede’s job. He was always a one-track mind when it came to murders.
“Why don’t I give you my number? So that you can let me know if you think of anything else.”
Ed nodded, and listened as he rattled off the digits. He committed them to memory and said, “I’ll let you know when I find another clue.”
Stede nodded back and they parted. Stede, back to his office and his job and his assistant who seemed to be afraid of Ed, and Ed, back to his apartment filled with half-completed experiments and messy notes and a skull on his mantle. They were so different, especially when that comparison was drawn.
Ed didn’t feel like looking too closely at how he felt about Stede—sentiment was so often useless and cumbersome—but knew one thing for sure. He was glad that he had sat beside him in the cafe and read his newspaper over his shoulder.
But that was enough thought about the blond for now. He had a murderer to focus on.
*****
The office didn’t feel quite real to Stede when he crossed the threshold. It looked the exact same, the law books lining the shelves, the fluorescent lighting changing the hues of the carpet and the chairs, and Lucius reading a magazine at his desk. It was as it had been before he had gone with Ed. He was the one who had changed, then, and not the scenery.
He hadn’t seen a dead body before. He had read about them before, of course, but seeing it in front of him, knowing that it was real, was a completely different experience. The woman didn’t look as if she had suffered, but he knew that meant little. Poison, Izzy had said. She had still lost her life.
And the killer was taunting Ed and the police about it, bragging about how clever he was and how he was two steps in front of them.
He had been surprised the make the connection between the poem and the Columbiad written by Joel Barlow. It had felt like a stab in the dark, a hopeful connection made with the thinnest possible evidence, but after careful consideration, Stede knew that he had been on to something.
Ed had been right. The murderer thought that he and Ed were equals and that he wouldn’t be able to figure it out before the next body appeared.
Stede sat at his desk, ignoring the inquisitive look that Lucius directed his way. He didn’t want to answer any questions, not when his head was filled with so many questions of his own.
But he didn’t have time for that. The stack of files on his desk look like they had doubled in his absence. Upon closer inspection, he found that he was right. Lucius had written on a Post-It note that was on top of the papers.
Nigel requested that these be added to your workload :(
He took a deep breath. He was grateful for his job, it was well-paying and allowed Stede to support himself fully while still sending money back to Mary and the children. He didn’t want to completely abandon them. He wanted to support them, but from a distance. He didn’t like thinking about it because it made his stomach twist and his palms sweat and his heart clench painfully in his chest.
Stede had made his choice. He and Mary did what was best for them. It had been hard, but it had needed to be done.
And now, sitting at his desk with a tall stack of files, he felt the consequences of his decision more astutely than he had before.
He forced thoughts of his ex-wife and the murders out of his mind as he pulled the nearest file in front of him and dove in.
Hours later, Lucius knocked on his door. He looked up, blinking harshly as his eyes adjusted. He had been staring at the same page for quite some time, trying to work, before he had been interrupted.
“I’m heading out,” Lucius said quietly. “It’s past six.”
Was it really?
Stede looked to the clock and saw that it was indeed past six. He had made it through four of the files that had been added to his workload, but it was less than half of the new ones. He would be extremely busy for the next few weeks.
“Thank you, Lucius,” he said, leaning back in his chair and stretching.
His assistant hovered in the doorway, pinching his lips together, as if he was waiting for something.
“Yes, Lucius?”
He took it as an invitation and came into the office, depositing himself in the office chair across from his desk. His striped sweater had a small stain on the cuff, probably from one of the four coffees Lucius insisted on drinking throughout the day.
“How do you know the Kraken?” Despite them being the only two in the office, his tone was hushed and flushed with conspiracy. He leaned towards Stede, his eyes wide with intrigue.
“Why is Ed called that?” For the life of him, Stede was unsure as to why people seemed wary of Ed. Sure, he was a bit intense, but he was helping the police. He was brilliant, why couldn’t others see that?
Lucius tilted his head. “How do you know Ed, then?”
“We met at the cafe in the main square.”
“Really?” His tone was more scandalous, more salacious. He could see what he was thinking in the arch of his brow, the curve of his lips.
Stede saw his tone for what it was and shook his head, stopping that train of thought from going any further. “No, no, it’s nothing like that.”
He had been divorced for less than a year. He wouldn’t look at anyone in the way that Lucius described for a long time, if ever. He hadn’t married Mary because he loved her. Sometimes, late at night and alone in his room, he wondered if he would ever know love. Perhaps it would be life-changing. Or, perhaps, it would be out of Stede’s reach.
“It’s just…he doesn’t have friends,” Lucius supplied. “Sorry.”
Stede waved him off. Lucius was many things, but he wasn’t needlessly rude. He knew that it hadn’t been his intention.
“I was reading the paper about that poor woman who had been found off Main St,” he explained. “I made a note in the article and Ed saw it. He commented on it and we began exchanging theories.”
The brunet blinked at him. “You had a theory about the murder.”
Stede nodded.
“And the Kraken—sorry, Ed—agreed with you.”
He didn’t appreciate his tone. “Yes, Lucius, that’s why I said what I did.”
“Sorry, boss, it’s just that…you don’t seem the type to have thoughts about murders,” he said a bit hesitantly. “You’re not like he is.”
“You’re absolutely right,” Stede said, ignoring Lucius’s surprised expression. “That is precisely why we work together so well. We think differently.”
Lucius nodded and made to move out of the chair.
“Wh-why do you call him the Kraken?”
He took his time to think about the answer. “I didn’t personally come up with it,” he said, “but it’s what everyone in town calls him. He’s just…different. He’s blunt and rude and sometimes downright awful. If he makes a deduction, he’ll share it, even at the expense of others. Sometimes especially so.”
Stede frowned. He had feared that the name had come along for a bad reason, but it made it so much worse as Lucius explained it.
“They say he doesn’t have a heart.”
“Well,” said Stede, standing from behind his desk. Lucius stood as well, and they left the office altogether. “They’re wrong.”
It wasn’t until Stede was back in his apartment that he checked his phone. He had two texts from an unknown number. The first one was from an hour ago and the second was from fifteen minutes ago. As he scrolled through the messages, another one comes in, flashing at him from the top of the screen.
Baker St. Come at once if convenient. E
If inconvenient, come anyway. E
Could be dangerous. E
Ed must have found something. His heart sped at the idea of danger, but he still found himself grabbing his keys and driving over to Baker St, the thought of Ed solving it without him worse than the risks. He was there within minutes.
I’m here
Door’s open. E
“That’s a bit impractical,” Stede said as he opened the door, finding a cluttered space filled with notes and what could only be Ed’s experiments. He hadn’t even wondered which space had been Ed’s—it had been obvious by the decor on the door. It was a note that read, Go away.
Ed looked up from what he had been working on at the table in the middle of the apartment. “No one’s tried anything yet.”
“You do have a killer writing you poems,” Stede pointed out, moving to stand across the table from the bearded man.
“Doubt he’ll come knocking,” Ed said distractedly, his eyes already back on the paper in front of him. “If he does, I have a knife and a pistol. I like my odds.”
Maybe it was the flippancy of his statement or his delivery—whichever it was, Stede found himself chuckling. Ed cracked a grin as well.
“What’d you find?”
Ed tapped the table with his index finger, pointing to the paper. It was a map of Lockwood with small notes scribbled in the margins. Stede was reminded of how they met as he leaned over the table to take in the words. He was closer to Ed this way, close enough to smell the faint scent of salt and something that reminded him of the ocean in a pleasant way.
There was a large circle over a plot of land a few miles outside of town.
“The game moves to gain ground,” breathed Stede.
“And you won’t find them until their burial mound,” finished Ed.
“And you think this is where the next one will be?”
Ed tilted his head, considering. Stede wondered why he found himself looking at the long curve of his neck.
“It’s the most likely,” said Ed. “And it’s where I would do it.”
Stede somehow knew exactly what he was thinking. “You’re not like him.”
“We’ve just met,” Ed countered.
“Occam’s razor.” At Stede’s words, Ed’s eyes softened imperceptibly. The simplest answer is usually the right one.
Ed exhaled in a way that might have been a laugh and moved on, sharing his ideas of where else the killer could be planning his next move. Stede sat down, talking through each option with Ed, and they bounced ideas back and forth long into the night. They were either able to back up their ideas or they accepted criticisms, changing their hypothesis as needed. Neither of them realized how much time had passed, how easy it had been between them.
As they parted ways, promising that they would let the other know if they thought of anything else, both wondered to themselves.
Stede wondered if this was what it was like to have a friend.
And Ed wondered if this was what it was like to be truly seen.