Chapter Text
It’s been weeks since Stede came back, and Ed still hasn’t let him in.
Into the cabin, that is, let alone anything else. Stede is prancing around the rest of the Revenge, chipper as a fucking songbird in his attempts to make up for what went wrong between them, the hole he left in his absence. He hasn’t been subtle about his intentions to win Ed back, or whatever the fuck. Ed hasn’t been subtle about slamming the door in his face, for all the good it’s done to dampen Stede’s efforts.
Though Ed… has tried too, he supposes, to make up for things—even things Stede doesn’t know about yet. He still can’t quite stomach the thought of Stede stepping into the cabin and seeing everything that isn’t there, everything Ed hadn’t been able to look at after returning to the ship.
Clearly, there’s already been plenty about Ed that hasn’t been enough for Stede in the past. No reason to add to the list.
But at the very least, he’s taken a few more of his meals outside his own room as of late, silently loomed nearby while Stede talks and laughs with the crew, stealing glances at Ed like he can’t ignore his presence. Once or twice, he’s even dared to be alone with Stede, early in the mornings when he’s gauging the weather or late at night with a bottle in hand.
He doesn’t go through bottles as quickly these days. This one, Stede offers to share with him.
“There’s nothing like being back here,” Stede sighs. “There’s so much I love about the sea. The rush of the wind, the sound of the waves—”
“That stupid little plant of yours,” Ed grumbles without thinking, lifting the bottle to his lips for another drink.
Stede pauses in surprise, turning away from the darkening horizon to meet Ed’s gaze. A wistful little smile gentles his expression.
“I did love that plant,” he admits. “It meant a lot to me. Probably dead and gone now, wherever it’s ended up.”
Ed’s chest hurts. He blinks, almost opens his mouth to say something, but—what? Fuck, what the hell is he supposed to say? I kept it alive for you, since you cared about it more than me?
“But the plant isn’t what brought me back here,” Stede adds quietly.
Before Ed falls asleep that night, he moves the plant to the window ledge in the bed nook. This time, when he cries, he isn’t certain why.
***
He lets Stede in.
Ed holds his breath while Stede takes in the empty cabin, face neutral but for the gentle crease in his brow.
“Haven’t you been cold?” is the first thing Stede says, and it sort of makes Ed want to rip open the floorboards and disappear into the depths below. Instead, he shrugs.
Stede suddenly freezes, eyes going wide as his eyes lock on something across the room. Ed realizes with a twist in his gut what he’s seen, taking in a sharp, quiet breath. Fuck, he should have hidden it or something, shouldn’t have left it out in the open where Stede could—
“You took care of the plant,” Stede breathes in shock.
Ed glances anxiously between his face and the growing little thing by the window. “Yeah. I guess,” he says quietly, trying his best to sound dismissive. “Whatever.”
Stede isn’t fooled. His eyes come back to Ed and they’re full of fucking tears, and they’re full of something else, too, and Ed forgets to breathe.
“You took care of it,” Stede repeats, like he’s slowly wrapping his mind around everything it means, everything he’s saying. “You kept it safe, you—you kept it alive.”
Ed swallows. He means to say it was nothing, it was something to do, it was fucking boring around here and the stupid plant just happened to be something nice to look at.
“It meant a lot to you,” he says instead, voice too small and very nearly wavering.
The words have hardly left his mouth before Stede’s lips are crashing to his, stealing the breath from his lungs. Ed stumbles with it, but Stede holds him steady with hands curled into his clothes, and suddenly Ed’s own two feet feel sufficient in a way they haven’t in months, even years.
Suddenly he’s balanced, strong enough to hold himself up on his own if he cared to—and suddenly, he’s relieved he doesn’t need to. Not with Stede here against him, warm and solid and steadfast, as reliable as the rocking of the waves or the rising of the sun in the sky.
Stede breaks away as abruptly as he’d stepped in, brows knitting together in an instant apology. “I’m sorry,” he whispers, quickly releasing Ed’s clothes to merely rest his hands on Ed’s chest instead, right over his racing heart. “I’m sorry—god, I shouldn’t have just—”
Ed drags him back in without another word, kissing the apologies off his tongue. Stede melts into it this time, slips his arms around Ed’s neck and holds him like he’s the world, and Ed could swear he feels the sun’s rays stretching across the room from the window, bathing them both in light.
***
Months later, the plant still thrives.
“Mm, don’t—come on, don’t go anywhere,” Stede insists between breathless kisses one evening, determined to keep Ed from leaving their warm tangle of limbs.
It’s fucking ridiculous, considering he hasn’t let Ed go for a second since he’d pushed him down into the sheets earlier, hands sliding beneath Ed’s clothes as he’d pressed a filthy slew of promises into his ear. He’s held onto Ed every second since then—held his face while kissing him tenderly, held his wrists while teasing him into oblivion, held his hips while shaking apart above him. And then he’d held Ed’s heart in his hands while kissing the sweat off his skin and the tremors out of his muscles in the aftermath, threading I love yous into every breath.
“Mate, I’ll be back in a second,” Ed chuckles, valiantly pulling himself from Stede’s arms as Stede gives a dramatic, forlorn groan. It’s short-lived, and Ed can feel fond eyes following him as he pads across the room naked to water the plant before they can fall asleep.
“You’ve got quite the green thumb,” Stede observes from the bed. Ed glances back to him, heart melting at the way Stede is looking at him, like he’s basking in the glow of an angel before his very eyes. With some difficulty, Ed tears his gaze away from him and back to the plant.
“It means a lot to you,” Ed remarks innocently, taking a moment to inspect the leaves before returning, satisfied, to the bed. Stede drags him in selfishly, wrapping Ed in his arms where he can’t get away so easily again.
“You mean a lot to me,” Stede whispers in his ear. “You mean the most.”
Ed’s heart swells as he settles back into Stede’s arms and laces their fingers together. He spares one last smile for the verdant, flourishing plant across the room before letting his eyes slip shut.
It deserves to be alive in this cabin, where love grows abundant and life is rich and full.