A/N: I was this close on writing a before-Edward-knew-James'-secret fic, but this thing got abandoned for quite some time, then I forgot, then I had to rewrite half of it. Hope you like it, either way! I'd love a review, I'm still learning my way through my writing style. uwu;;

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"No strands on your face yet, lad?"

"Huh?" Mary knew what Edward was asking about: sure enough, the reason why his young Jim has no facial hair yet raised some questions for him. She was not sure if it was worth bothering about; hell, she did say James has just hit puberty and is expecting them soon. But adolescence usually comes late to young men; it was a fact that further solidifies her disguise, and that was always her excuse.

Still, there's nothing wrong with acting the clueless card out sometimes. More or less, he's probably joking; he already knows that Mary Read exists and that James was just a show, and he's most probably asking for the sake of everyone's curiosity.

… If anyone was even listening. Or rather, he's doing his best to blow her cover. Whatever works for him, she thought.

"I reckon you'd look perfect with stubble like mine, Jim." Edward released a hiccup from the rum, and later on laughed as if he has told the best joke ever. Thatch later on followed, but he was as spaced out from the rum as Edward is, so it is most likely that he knew nothing about the discussion.

"I doubt it, Kenway!" she snapped. "I'd look better than perfect with anything that's not your sweaty stubble." Thatch laughed again, louder than the last, and he falls off the log he was sitting on, obviously piss drunk. Mary looks at the fallen pirate's condition, and later on to Edward, with a grin on her face. "He seems to agree." She stood up and dragged the elder pirate away from the fireplace, just against the log he was sitting on earlier.

"Aye, Thatch does know about his facial hair." Edward sat closer to the lad after he'd settled down; distancing himself to Hornigold and the other lot he has brought who were more intoxicated than dead plague rats, paying no mind to the two of them or to anywhere else. "But he is a grown man, Jim. And you are barely even in your twenties. He knows nothing about that."

"Hah! Am I now hearing Edward Kenway, the Scourge of the Land and Seas, argue to a poor, young man about having facial hair?" Mary edged away from him; if he is too close, all he needed to do is peer down her shirt and he'd take sight of the corset and padding on her chest, and she would be helpless as she hears of rumors on seeing breasts on James Kidd – well, not like he already knew. She tried her best to sound as sarcastic as she can, perfectly hiding her attempt to change the subject. The sunset quite helped as well - the shadows were perfect on holding the scowl on her face.

"Yes!" Edward set his own bottle down the sand; still half-full after he disliked the taste of the expensive wine Mary had brought him, just before snatching her bottle and stole a swig from it before placing it down calmly. "Look, we've all had our deal of facial hair by our early adult years." I am merely curious why you do not have yours yet."

"Is delayed puberty not enough answer for you or what?" Gosh, Mary is so lucky right now, that he can't make heads or tails on anything – gosh, his breath smells so bad, she thought, and he looks like he just caught the plague. "My mum might have fed me wrong when I was a babe, or maybe it was some trait from my father, who knows? How will you know?" Mary gestured to him, giving him a moment to evaluate himself – sure enough, he did with little hesitation. "Look at you; you're piss drunk and barely able to stand to even judge anything!"

A drunk fit with hisses later – and maybe some giggling from Mary, he stood up and exclaimed, "Let me judge, then!" Edward ripped off a stick from a nearby branch, and set the tip on fire on the partly-doused flames in the center of their now-broken circle, as Mary looked over with a confused look in her eyes, with the same fear of the prospect of his probably well-hidden pyromania surfacing at last. After a short while, Edward blew the flame away, the smoke along with it. Mary stood up, absolutely prepared to leave their twilight beach party if needed, and just run back to her ship and never return; but Edward pushed her back down her seat on the log with the branch still in his hand.

"What are you doing?" The confusion on her voice sounded like she'd rather be somewhere else, but she still stayed on her seat - she is certain she would be able to push his arm away and just evacuate. After a few tests to see if the ash formed was still hot, Edward later on edges closer to his Jim and scratched the burned end on her face, right above her lip. There was still some heat, and definitely some friction she could feel it scratching her face like a cat's claws would. Mary held back her desire to flinch or wince, and that was just a small line.

When Edward moves on to the other side of her face, she was so close on eliciting a wince and not even caring if it will sound like a James or a Mary, and it was enough for her to reflex-push Edward away. It was too late, though; by the time she had given up that so-called challenge, he had finished the drawing on her face... at least, with the branch. He even made some more ashes and drew on her face with his fingers, for good measure. Like the ash drawing of a mustache by a stick on her face was not enough, it was done by Edward who is not just not-so-artistically-inclined, he was also drunk. Mary was sure she could draw better lines than his sloppy curves of a mustache.

Edward dropped her branch before taking in the full sight of Mary with the badly-drawn mustache, with a mixture of amazement and pride - yeah, like he has some sort of artistic sense like this, she thought. He was silent, strangely so. Strangely for a drunken Edward Kenway: who would usually sing songs louder than great whites. He just peered closer, seemingly trying to see what's wrong, giving Mary a clear view on how red and flushed his face is from the rum.

With lack of words to say, Mary just asked, with genuine curiosity, "Do I look good?" Mary's mind is a labyrinth, and with the little awareness left in her brain, she's probably as drunk as Kenway is. Still, she gets no response, except from Edward's muttering under his breath and the smell of rum and salt and sweat and the partly labored breathing from his throat.

It was good enough an answer.

After a few minutes of him just analyzing her face, he nodded before returning to the wine bottle he had set aside earlier, and forced down a pint or two from it. "Thought you didn't like the taste?" Mary grabbed the bottle from him and finished it, sucking out the dregs from the thing.

"Don't want to waste anything you give me, to be honest." Edward groaned over the finished bottle in her hands, seemingly regretting that he drank so little. He grabbed the bottle and threw it on the fire, throwing flames everywhere and watched as the cracks on the bottle grew larger. "That thing's expensive. I don't even know where you bought it. It's… still too sweet, though."

Mary reached to the markings he had made over her face, trying not to smear it all over. She can't even tell if he did a good job – she was quite sure he's a worse artist when drunk, but still. Mary was too lazy and inebriate to walk to a nearby mirror or body of water. Maybe she should try replicating his lines on Edward's face. That sounded like a good idea, and with that Mary scooted farther from him, grabbed the same branch he had used, and set it over the fire in the similar manner he did earlier. He was confused as she did this, then his eyes widened as he realized what she was up to, and was just about to stand up when she reached out and grabbed him by the collar.

"Unfair!" Mary cried out, almost like a child who did not get her daily sweets, a childish frown written on her face as she shoved the stick further in the flames, urging it to burn faster. "You get to draw on my face and I don't get to draw on yours? What in the God-damned world is that sort of justice supposed to be?" She didn't even wait if the ashes were still hot, and proceeds to crush the burnt wood in her fingers, and edged closer to Edward with ashes all over her fingers.

"H-hey!" Edward resisted and grabbed her wrist, trying his best to keep her ash-covered fingers off his face, but it seemed that if there was anything that her Assassin training gave her, one of them was still being able to resist and fight while terribly sauced out of rum and wine.

There was the first spot, right on his cheek and right above his ever-proud stubble, and Mary laughed at the sight of it, even though it was obviously a miss. And really, Mary just kept on laughing. Edward gave up on resisting, and let her draw on his face. And from the amount of time he had spent waiting for her to finish, it was most likely that he's getting more than an ash mustache. He had to pat the sand off his hands and fingers as he tries to grab hold of Mary's arm, as another desperate attempt to—

Wait. Sand. There's sand on his fingers. It wasn't there before. It wasn't until he realized that he was looking up to Mary that he realized that he had found himself on the sand, off his seat on the log. He might have found and wrestled his way there while he was struggling to stop Mary from drawing on his face, or was it? Or maybe she had been a wee too forceful? Or maybe just a part of him did not seem to care. He laughed out, mostly on his own predicament, drunk and groggy, with Mary leaning on him with her arm, stopping him from even trying – like he can even stand up, he can't even make heads or tails of his own feet.

"Are you done, Mary?" Edward mumbled to her, after noticing that Mary was still working. "At least evaluate your work, little lass." Mary was still laughing from the sight of her handiwork. It was a nice sound, hearing her laugh. He could have sworn that her being an Assassin would have given her the same mindset as Ah Tabai – grumpy, untrusting, and pretty much every negative trait in the world packed in one brain. He could have sworn that he had seen her flash a toothy grin to him, but it always looked like she was so impressed on how idiotic he was.

He could have sworn he had believed that the grumpy James Kidd he knew was real.

It might be the case now, but it doesn't matter. She sounded so genuinely happy, he could not care. At the very least, she's having the time of her life. He doesn't even seem to feel the fingers on his face, or the annoyance from her revenge, or anything at all; it might have been the liquor, but a part of him, a piece of his consciousness was just watching her laugh as she smears more ash on his face.

She paused for a while, gazing at him, before exclaiming, "Ah, Kenway. You're wonderful. You've got a better flag under your chin now than Thatch has." He couldn't help but laugh once again. After a few more lines, she was finished. Or rather, she had grown way too tired to finish whatever she had started, and just laid down right beside Edward, too tired and sauced to even do something about the headband that is failing on keeping much of her hair up. Still, she was laughing as much as her fatigue can allow her, and boy, was that still sweet to hear.

"You better stand up and go to the inn, lass," he mumbled, trying to reach out and fix her hair, but all he does is tie the sloppiest sailor knot he can manage on her headband. "T'is not safe to sleep here."

"I think its fine." Mary whispered, barely audible, staring at him as he tediously worked with her hair. "The stars are wonderful tonight, don't you think?"

"Ain't that just an excuse?" he laughed out, lying back down. Mary seemed to have heard that wrong, or she thought he was joking, for there was that drunken fit of laughter again. "Excuse? Why would I be makin' excuses? I never slept under the stars before. In the lower deck of my ship, maybe. But not under the stars. Can't see them from my cabin."

He paused, trying to think up of a reply, realizing later on that he has no control of his mouth, and spat out whatever came to mind first. "You sound like a little girl, Mary."

There was laughter for a short while, until Mary sighed out, and said, "Aren't I still a little girl to you?"

"Wish you were." There was a pause, as Mary just looked at the stars, her fingers absently fingering the knot Edward did on her headband. Edward continued, "I wish I was just a boy, too."

"So we'd just frolic around meadows and put flower crowns on each other's heads with no mind to the world? Is that what you want?"

Edward remained silent. In all honesty, he did not know what to say, and his answer was lost in the sea of thoughts and storms inside his head that he cannot swim through. When Edward had thought of what to say, Mary had already fallen asleep. He wondered if she had heard what he had said, or if what she said was actually her or just a figment of his imagination.

"Yeah." Edward murmured, pulling her a little closer; it was getting quite cold and he'd hate for her to get sick. Later on, his eyes felt rather droopy, and he didn't struggle to stay awake.

"I'd love that."