(Part 1) A good Omens/OFMD crossover.

Tags; No Archive Warnings Apply, Stede Bonnet/Edward Teach, Aziraphale/Crowley, Good Omens Pirate AU

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Ed had never hidden his particular distrust of land. 

In particular were lands and ports such as this; on a small hidden island of lush plains and high mountain ranges, bursting of village people who eye the ship warily, ushering children back into their homes. There were no navy men in the Devil’s Dyke; the island seemed to be too small and underdeveloped to be taken notice of on their radar, its spot on the map too far away from anything else to be of tactical advantage in battle. 

This was a peaceful, white canvas of a village, and Ed feels, not for the first time, like a streak of black grease. Or perhaps a smudge of kohl. 

They had found the inhabited island by pure happenstance. The Revenge was short on fruits and freshwater, Roach had complained, and Lucius had added that he was running out of ink. They couldn't land just anywhere, of course, on account of how they were still being hunted by the British Naval Fleet with urgency due to killing a ship of their best men and a Naval Admiral. Their initial destination had been further east, closer to the Indian Ocean. Far enough away out of range for the English to do much damage, but a pit stop was inevitable. 

Besides, Stede had added cheerily. He'd run out of books to read the crew, good ones. And he would need to restock. 

Buttons, from the mast, had spotted the island first, and civilization had been a pleasant surprise. Ed could see from even a distance out to sea the town square, perched uphill. He reckons, once again, that this was the luck of the Gentleman Pirate, with miracles shining out of his ass. 

"Reckon there'll be ink shops and fruit nunneries in a place like that, ey?" Ed chuckles, while Jim rolls their eyes at the memory. Ed pats Izzy, manning the helm, on the back with perhaps too much vigour, and yells for the boys to drop anchor. 

They leave Frenchie, Fang, and Izzy to guard the ship while the rest piles into the generous dinghy, and they reach the port by noon, with the sun burning over their heads with it's familiar fire-y Caribbean enthusiasm. Ed shrugs off his leather number, lest it cook him itself, but Stede hardly breaks a sweat at all, sitting demurely in his sky blue and pink puffy layers. Like a cake. 

They let the rest of the crew off first, already chattering and discussing endlessly on their stocking plans with much distraction. Lucius, in particular, had stepped on port with an impatient sort of relish, with Pete helping him up against the sway of the boat. 

The co-captains climb last, Stede stepping confidently with the help of the rope rails and Ed's steady, outstretched palm, inspired by Black Pete's earlier courtesy. 

.... 

"Right there, Ed! Doesn't that look like a bookshop to you?" 

Ed hums in a vague sort of agreement. He'd never read a book willingly in his life, much less approached a book shop with any other intention but burning it down. It was a small, stout, two-storied piece, sequestered between the edge of town and the forest beyond. There was a sign hanging by its side, and Ed couldn't read most of Stede's favorites, but he could certainly read this. 

'A.Z.Fell and Co, purveyor of books and antiquities' 

"Antiquities, eh?" Stede reads, his voice pitched in endearing glee. His smile mirrors the beam of the north star or perhaps one of those lighthouses he was so fond of. It tugs the smile from Ed, too. "Perhaps we could even find some knick-knacks for you and the crew, even Izzy! D'you think?" 

He did think so. But then again, there wasn't much he liked to disagree on with Stede, and he had a reputation to upkeep. "Not a big fan of antiques, me." Ed sniffles instead. "Just old stuff, things you gave away. Trash, basically, innit?" 

"Oh, sometimes old things are the best things," Stede reminds him, already moving forward to push through the door. "It's treasure to the people who matter most, don't you agree?" 

Ed is glad it was a rhetorical question. The memory of their night, lit by the moon and the screams of damned, has him choking on something thick and inscrutable, has him wiping down his palms into the leather of his trousers. The memory rises, unbidden, of their almost kiss, and the gold of Stede's hair like the kind of things he was never born to possess, and the sparkle of his eyes as gentle as the embrace of sea foam onshore. 

These were damning, haunting thoughts, as haunting and damning of his cowardice soon after. What-if and could-have-been's. 

His shock puts him a beat behind Stede upon entering the shop, but Stede holds the door back just long enough to keep it from swinging into his face. A gentlemanly habit, Ed's sure. 

Ed didn’t realize he even had expectations of what a bookshop looked like until the interior of A.Z.Fell’s fulfilled every single one of them. The air smelled of parchment and dusty oak, and books, piled or filed into chaotic rows of mismatched shelves, towered over their forms like dense forestry. There were nightstands and islands of grouped odds and ends, things with rusted gears and dimmed sparkle, like forgotten gems lost and buried within the sands of time. Ed finds, even, an umbrella stand of sheathed and dulled rapiers, machetes, and swords. They had been well cared for, Ed gawks to discover, and wouldn't take much polishing to be returned to their battle-ready forms.

"My word," Stede is babbling somewhere off east, swallowed between a nook and a wall. He has a few tomes stacked into his arms already, peering at a third one-handed with a bibliophile's expertise. "I think we've found ourselves quite the treasure trove, don't you agree?" 

The comparison sobers him up. Ed looks around; he wasn't a wee babe of the sea after all. The thing about treasures and troves, the way he saw it, was that the shinier the horde, the more ruthless the dragon, and the shop remains as empty and proprietor-less as whence they'd arrived moments ago. 

"Ed?" 

"Keep looking, Stede," Ed smiles, even as he unsheathes his knife. The weight of its well-worn crude wooden handle is reassuring. Stede's eyes dart between it and Ed's face with suspicion. 

"I'm just looking for the owner of the place," he explains. 

"Oh, please don't threaten him, Ed. We're not looking for any trouble." 

Trouble tends to find us instead, is what Ed neglects to say. He agrees with the other man nonetheless, and leaves him there so he might continue with his jolly perusing while he appeases his instincts to skulk around. 

There was no largely visible set of stairs to the floor above where Ed would wager the proprietor to be, and by sticking close to the walls to find it, he finds an empty lounge/study behind an old curtain, next to a door that must lead outside. Pressing his ears against the grain, he hears the shuffle of movement and quiet humming. One set of feet. His arm bent and hovered over his holsters as he swung it open gently. It squeaks once, and doesn't complain again. 

 The whole area is fenced off as a garden, between civilization and the wilds; meticulous and bountiful. Rows of herbs, fruits and trellis flowers, and a man hunched over a bed of lily pink roses. Ed sees loose white linen drenched in sweat, and a wide-brimmed straw hat in an attempt to stave off the heat, breeches perhaps a tad more tight than necessary, boots dusty and brown with muck. 

Ed had not made a particular effort to hide his presence, but the man had stopped humming. His gut twists in displeasure, demands him to stop, shut up, and look a little closer. 

The Gardener straightens, and his back is straight, shoulders loose enough for an attempt of nonchalance, but battle-ready. The air had become charged and tense, as if waiting for an opponent to make the first move. The Gardener turns, just enough for Ed to see sunglasses perched on a handsome, crooked nose. Aquiline, as he'd heard Stede call it once. 

Ed leans against the doorframe, a pretense of loose guard from a stalking panther. His arms crossed, hands twitching for a gun, he speaks. 

"Easy there, mate. Just looking for the owner of this establishment." 

"Might as well be lookin' at im," the Gardener drawls in response, and Ed's brain itches in recognition of its slur and lisp. 

"Mr. A.Z.Fell himself?" 

"More of the Co, if I'm being quite honest," The Gardener wears gloves, Ed notices now that the man begins to pull them off. Scarred hands and well-kept nails. "But that’s quite enough about me, eh?" 

The man twists now, fully, and Ed takes in the slender, sharp features, and the dust of freckles upon the bridge of his sunburnt nose. Paired with the sunglasses, and the braided locks of ginger hair in the shade of a setting sun, the pieces click together like the pull of an aimed pistol. 

"Fucking Viper?" Ed restrains a shout, only barely. "What the fuck, I thought you were-," 

“Dead,” the ginger growls, and while Ed was the armed one between them, there is that familiar fear of seeing the striking cobra, spitting venom and baring fangs. A fellow predator. “Aye, if you knew what’s best for you, the rumors would stay that way.”

Ed knows, at this point, that he must be staring. The last time they had seen each other had been a generous 8 years ago, on two sides of a burning, sinking ship. There was, of course, the fangs and the glasses, but the Viper-The Devil’s Tongue, the Sea Serpent, the 9th Terror of the 7 seas-had been drenched in blood, stinking of burning flesh and scorched wood. He’d come to loot (and scout the newcomer, Blackbeard would come to learn later. Viper had been in the business longer than he has) Queen Anne’s, and his men had massacred a great deal of his. They’d both barely escaped with their lives and, with what Ed had hoped, a modicum of respect for one another. 

Word on the mill had painted him to have died a lunatic’s death, sinking with an English Navy ship 5 years ago, as if he had left something behind. His screech of agony haunts the sea for months as Davy Jones dragged him down to answer his final master. A fittingly morbid death for a fittingly morbid legend.

And yet here he stands, in breeches and linen and dirt smudged into well-braided hair, a red duller than it had been when they were both a great deal younger. A phantom? A fuckery? For what?

“Was just lookin’ for something to buy and bring back into the ship,” Ed says instead, trying to give nothing away. There is a story here, a puzzle of which he had not all the pieces. “And if you own the place…,”

There is a deep line of confusion between the other man’s brows, and his scowl of rage had melted into one of bafflement. “Never knew the great Blackbeard to be visiting bookshops in his ballads,” he points out. “And never one to not simply take what he wanted. Pirates be doin’ a lot of reading these days?”

“I read,” Ed growls. 

“Bet you you do,” the ginger agrees easily. Ed doesn’t like it, the relaxation of his guard, the way it seems the dead pirate is taking him into a new light. The Viper crosses his arms, flicking up the brim of his hat. “And if it’s not my bounty you’re after-a bounty laid moot, if I could remind you, what brings you to the humble town of Devil’s Dyke, eh?”

Ed takes a bit to think about answering that one. He has half a mind to shoot the man (never mind the Viper could take a bullet about as well as Ed could take the sword through his left side), but Stede’s posh, clear voice rings through the shop, loud and undeniable. 

“Ed! I’ve found the owner! He’s invited us in for tea!”

Viper’s brows, just as Ed watches, shoots upwards as if he had been delightfully surprised. His mouth, which had just been twisted in a scowl, upticks instead into a grin. The result of such a combination is pleasant, softening sharp features and retracting his fangs. It makes Ed uncomfortable. 

“And that must be,” The Viper cocks his head. “The Gentleman Pirate?”

Ed squints in suspicion. “You knew?”

“Rumors carry. The Navy are obnoxious fucks. Old habits, you know,” The Viper sighs, beginning to walk towards him, out of the sun. Ed clutches his knife, instinctive, and the other man doesn’t even flinch. “And he must’ve found my husband.”

Ed releases his knife, his own brow shooting up in surprise. The Viper grimaces. 

“And if he asks, call me Crowley. I’ve left the names as well as I’ve left the sea.”

Ed hesitates, and sheaths the knife to shake the outstretched hand. It feels like an end to a rivalry. Neutral ground. A compromise.

“Edward. Teach.”

The Viper-Crowley, smiles.