Work Text:
Podfuckery: There's (Not) Always An Escape on SoundCloud
Transcript:
The long nights of winter are some of the crew’s favorites, actually, because there’s fuckall to do. There’s dinner, yeah: usually delicious, always slightly surprising, always served with Roach’s trademark mix of threatening and nonchalant (with a dash of sweetness, these days). There’s the final tasks of the night, making sure everything’s squared away, ship-shape and all that, but this time of the year there’s not as much trade, so they’re a little less likely to need to react on a moment’s notice, so.
It’s not that they let things slide (much): rather, it’s that things get a little looser, as the nights stretch towards the new year.
And then of course, there’s reading time, which. Well.
Sometimes it’s delayed a bit.
#
“Captains?” Frenchie knocks again at the door, three quick raps, and inside, there’s the scuffle of movement, and—is that a bell? Something jingling, anyway, and a giggle, and a thump, and Frenchie glances over his shoulder at Wee John, shrugs, and decides he’ll come back in a few, maybe. Or send Lucius? It’s his turn to want to gouge his eyes out, actually, he figures.
The thing is, though, they’re working their way through the one with the wooden boy, and this time, Stede’s promised they’re going to finish it before the new year, which is, by Frenchie’s calculations—and by the Gregorian calendar, that weasley, slippery thing, all its leap years and sneaky bits, and by the ship’s logbook, too—it’s tomorrow. So. They’ve got pages to go before they sleep, is all he’s saying. And they’ve got plans tonight, too. Plans that are non-negotiable.
He knocks again, and this time—silence.
Hm.
He swings his lute down from his shoulder and strums thoughtfully. He might need some reinforcements for this.
#
Fang’s on watch duty tonight—he likes the first watch of the night, actually, likes the quiet of it, likes the way things don’t tend to go wrong yet and likes the way that he can settle down afterwards and sleep through till the morning, if everything goes all right, curled up beside Roachie or Lucius or tucked tight between Frenchie’s elbows and Wee John’s warmth. It’s a good place, this ship, even if it’s not like any other ship he’s ever been on.
Maybe especially because of that.
So when he hears the crash from below, he has literally no idea what to expect when he rushes down.
He follows the sound of voices to the Captains’ cabin, finds most of the crew gathered around the door, which is not particularly odd—it’s a ship without a strict chain of command, usually, and so they’re always up in each other’s business. He still remembers fondly the way he’d stretched out on Stede’s soft silk sheets for Lucius to sketch him, that first week on the ship.
“I don’t know, babe!” Pete’s saying. “I wasn’t like, watching them!”
“But they were in there,” Lucius says. “I heard them in there!”
“We’re going to miss our reading time?” says Swede. “If we don’t find Captain soon, we’ll never know if the wooden boy gets flesh?”
“They probably fucked off into one of the stupid tunnels,” says Jim. “We can finish the fucking thing tomorrow, whatever!”
“Captain said by New Years?” Swede moans. “It is New Year’s Eve?”
“Guys!” Oluwande raises his voice over the chatter. “I’m sure they’re fine, I’m sure—”
“Is that blood?” Zheng says from inside the cabin, where she’s kneeling by a stain on the floor.
“Nah,” says Roach, pushing his way in beside her. “It’s…transporter fluid?” He kneels and dips two fingers into the little puddle and brings them back up: a thin, viscous gel stretches between his finger and thumb.
Just then, another globule splats down next to the original dribble, and they all pan their eyes up to the piping that runs along the ceiling above them.
“Oh shit, not again.” Jim groans.
#
“I can't believe we got away with it this time!” Stede shouts with glee as he and Ed sprint across a wide grassy, meadow, giggling maniacally.
“Yeah!” Ed whoops, doing a little skip, “They should call us, fuckin’, Captain Secret... Or Captain…Classified—”
“Captain Private!” Stede chimes in, which sends Ed crashing to the ground, dissolving in a fit of giggles.
“I'll show you Captain Private,” he hums when Stede joins him down in the grass, and rolls over top of him for a deep, searching kiss.
They’ve only tried this one other time—to re-route the transporter fluid to the makeshift transporter in their cabin. What the Galactic Federation didn't know wouldn't hurt them, right? The problem was, there were strict limits on how and where cargo ships could use transporters, but if you studied the law exactly, like Ed did, it was riddled with loopholes.
The law says cargo ship’s main transporters can only be used for trips lasting a certain number of minutes, and only on planets a certain distance away from the ship. Something to do with conserving resources, or whatever, but Ed knows for a fact that there’s no shortage of the fluid–it's easily made in a lab with the right ingredients! So, the Federation is just trying to make it look like a shortage, for reasons Ed can't quite fathom, and which are honestly too far above his pay grade.
Anyway, that's what the law says. But what it doesn't say, is anything about creating your own transporter (one Ed's extremely proud of designing with his partner-in-crime Stede), re-routing the fluid energy tubes that feed it, and then using said makeshift transporter to travel to a distant planet for a devastatingly romantic dinner date with his husband and Co-Captain.
Mighty unfortunate for the federation, Ed thinks smugly.
The first time they'd tried this, all had gone swimmingly—right up until it hadn't. Ed had built the transporter pad fairly easily with spare parts Stede had expertly negotiated for at last port, hooked it all up to their communicator wristwatches, and rerouted the piping to power the device. When it came time to test it though, neither would let the other do it all alone. So, clasping hands, they’d done the test together. One minute they were on the GF Spaceship Revenge, and the next, they were standing on the surface of Alpha Nine—but, critically, missing their wristwatches.
It'd taken hours for the others to realize they were missing, and still more to figure out exactly where they were and beam them back aboard. Something about residual chronitons, or something, Ed kinda zoned out when Helmsman Buttons gave them the briefing afterwards.
Anyway, the important bit was that there was some kind of sonic field preventing electronic devices from transporting along with them like normal. Quite a bit inconvenient when the watches were the only thing that would get them back to their ship!
So that was their romantic date…well, not ruined, but certainly delayed. Ed did some more tinkering, found a faulty Malloric Resistor, and then after double, triple, and quadruple checking every single wire, connector, and plasma-weld, he'd declared it finally problem-free.
And yeah, sure, the risk on today’s trip was that something similar would happen (or, worse, something that he couldn't predict), but that was just it, right? Ed couldn’t always predict the danger, so why worry?
Turns out that mindset was a good decision, because here they were now, on BetaZed Prime, watches still firmly affixed to their wrists, kissing like they hadn't seen each other for months. All plunging tongues and rolling hips, creating a little bowl in the berry grass (so named for its color, a deep rich magenta), under a pair of setting suns.
The sunset may have been spectacular, but Ed only had eyes for his co-captain.
God, they'd needed this break. Sure, the cargo trade was slow this time of year, but their crew certainly weren't lacking for things to do. Namely, knocking down Ed and Stede’s door at any hour of the day or night with some request or report or inane question. The two captains just couldn't escape it!
Hence, this transporter idea. It'll be a bit of adventure without really traveling too far from home, and a well-deserved break from interruptions like “Where are we going next?”, “How long will it take to get there?”, “What kind of cargo are we transporting?”, “Ship’s stores are getting low, I recommend we stop at St. Augustina to restock”, and “If Jim's not going to use their room anymore, can I have it?”
Things are getting a bit steamy in the meadow, but Ed's got plans, so he gently pulls himself away, just enough to speak, lips brushing against Stede's.
“What do you say we fuel up for the main event first?” He pulls out a bottle of Velvet Suit Cabernet from his satchel, along with a small container of charcuterie: full of meats, cheeses, chutneys, pickled vegetables, and crackers.
“Oooh, Ed!” Stede chirps, “Yes, this looks delicious! Can't let such a beautiful feast go to waste. Did you arrange this yourself?” He looks down admirably at the spread between them, fingers hovering above, as if unsure which to try first.
“Yeah, that's me. Grabbed some stuff from Roach's pantry, he won't miss it, and a couple things from our last port.”
“And what’s this—twine? Oh I love it. Really brings the whole plate together.”
Ed feels his cheeks burn. “S’nothin’, Babe. S’all for you.” he clears his throat. “Anyway, uh, dig in!”
#
“Ah fuck, they tried it again.” Zheng huffs. “Alright, Olu, Archie, Jim—you're with me. Let's go scan nearby planets for life signs. Frenchie and Wee John, report to the Transporter Bay 1 and standby for incoming travelers. Lucius—you and Pete stick around here in case they manage to find their way back somehow—Pete: get started on routing that tubing back to the main line. Everyone else, report to your regular stations, and keep an eye out for our Co-Captains. With any luck, we'll have this sorted with plenty of time before midnight.”
The Swede looks particularly relieved. They all scatter to their positions, and Zheng breathes out an exasperated sigh, thinking of the two captains she traveled with. Sometimes, those two are just such….men!
#
“Mmm, these chocolate meringues are divine, Ed.” Stede gushes, popping another airy biscuit in his mouth, delighting in how it dissolves on his tongue.
“They're not the only divine thing here,” Ed purrs, tone shifting as he angles himself towards Stede, snaking a hand high over his thigh. Ed delights in the blush that blooms over Stede’s cheeks and spreads down his chest, which Ed can see blatantly on display via his deep cut tunic.
“Oh Ed—surely you're referring to your lovely self: you’re the handsomest man I've ever known, darling.” He shifts the tin of meringues to the side and cups Ed’s face, kissing from his ear down his jaw to his warm, plush lips, delighting in the soft brush of stubble against his own.
Ed’s breath catches and his hand involuntarily tightens on Stede. He brings his other hand around to dance along Stede's arm, feeling the strong muscles cording beneath the soft linen of his shirt.
Heat zings through his limbs at the firmness there, pooling in his gut. They haven’t had a spare, private moment to themselves for over a week, and this is really, embarrassingly, doing it for him. The restlessness of their crew lately had interrupted them far too often to take the chance for anything more than a handy, and Ed is pent up.
He swings one leg over Stede's hip and straddles his waist, running both hands through gold-spun hair and affixing his mouth firmly to Stede’s.
“Oh yes, Ed,” Stede gasps between indulgent, sloppy kisses. He's got his hands firmly on Ed's hips now, like an anchor holding them steady, lest they float off into oblivion. The kissing delves deeper, searching tongues and roaming hands and rocking hips, body tingling all over, and—
“Welcome back cap—OH EUGH”
“UGH, we should have known.”
“FUCK, SEND THEM BACK!”
“No, don't send them back, they have to finish the story, remember?!”
Ed and Stede each let out exasperated sighs, resting their foreheads against each other. They give themselves a minute to let things…settle, before unfolding back to standing. They're back on the transporter pads in Bay 1—Ed knows because this one has the cool purple triangle decorations on the wall instead of plain bulkheads—surrounded by their crew, once again.
Ed and Stede share a look—we’ll just have to try again later—and wordlessly wade through a chattering crowd, beckoning everyone back out to the common area. The crew’s grumbling seems to have shifted back into general conversation as they slip back into their routine of digging out comfy pillows, blankets, and cushions and arranging them in a half-circle around their Co-Captains.
Ed's a little exasperated by the crew, yes, but at the end of the day, they're still his family. He knows it's just the boredom of this low period that's making them so antsy (and that he and Stede have plenty of time to tweak their next escape plan before things get busy again!). And after all, they do still get to share a bed at night. Ed follows Stede over to the capstan and hops up to sit next to him, curling into his side.
“All right, all right, settle down, crew,” Stede says, rearranging the blanket so it drapes over both of them. “We’re all anxious to see how it ends…”
An expectant calm spreads over the crew, eyes closed or on Stede, hands still or busy with repetitive tasks, bodies curled together or splayed out.
Stede takes a deep breath, settles his glasses on his nose, and begins.