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Of course Stede had to make an enemy out of the craziest Englishman in the goddamn ocean. Of course chance was not on his side and he’s one his childhood tormentors. Admiral Badminton is the type of person Ed does his best to avoid.
And here they are, provoking him.
It’s two hours into interrogation. Set side by side in the captain’s cabin. Ed has his hands tied together in the front, and ropes bound tight around his upper arms and chest to strap him to the chair. He tried slipping out of the ropes but they just dig into his skin, getting somehow tighter.
Stede, however, is not restrained at all — he must not be thought of as a threat. Which is really fucking hilarious as he’s the one who had three Navy warships sent after him.
“I’ll ask again,” Badminton says, terse, “which of you murdered my dear brother?”
“I did,” Ed says at the same time as Stede.
The same as they’ve said for hours. They refuse to implicate each other.
Stede is grinning when Ed meets his gaze. He’s too pleased. He’s insane. Despite it all, Ed finds himself smiling back. He’s a bit insane, too.
Badminton pinches the bridge of his nose. To Ed, “Are you sure you’re Blackbeard?”
“Pretty sure, yeah,” Ed says. “Have you heard of me?”
Next to him, Stede whispers under his breath, “Careful.” Warning.
“Shut up, Bonnet!”
Ed feels Stede flinch. And. Yeah. He’s gonna kill that man.
“Don’t fuckin’ talk to him that way.” Ed tries to lunge at him but the ropes hold him back. “You’re gonna regret it.”
Badminton laughs, a bit deranged-sounding. “Why are you defending this—” he gestures to Stede “—idiot?”
Ed knows why. He doesn’t have the time to evaluate it.
(It would be very easy — let Stede take the fall for it and he’d be free, but he can’t, that’s an impossible choice, and he realizes he’s never considered persevering another’s life over his own—)
“Chauncey,” Stede says, “he had nothing to do with it. Just let Edward go and you and I can discuss it.”
“Edward,” Badminton says, mocking. “Is he buggering you? Is that why he won’t give you up?” Pauses. “That'd explain why you left your wife. You take it up the ass. You’ve always been a dandy little ponce.”
“Yeah, well you’ve always been a stupid bastard—”
There’s an awful crack when Badminton slaps Stede across the face. His hair has fallen out of its styled coif and curls hang loose on his forehead. His lip is bleeding.
Ed holds his breath — one beat, two — and good yes, Stede looks up and there’s that mania in his eyes. The madness that can set a ship aflame with just his wit.
Stede wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. Tosses his hair back.
“I killed Nigel,” Stede says, his voice lower, not its usual light airy tone, “and I’m not sorry.”
Ed kinda wants to kiss him.
“Enough of this,” and Badminton grabs Stede by the collar, slams him against the table. Stede wheezes, the air knocked out of him, but he raises up on his elbows, looks over his shoulder.
“I don’t believe this is how you’re supposed to treat a prisoner—”
“Shut up,” Badminton yells. On instinct Ed goes to move but he’s restrained too securely, the rope grinding into his arms and across his chest. He tries to move his hands apart but he is trapped, trapped and helpless to watch as Badminton presses at Stede’s shoulders and holds him down, putting heavy pressure at his back, leaning over his body.
And it’s then Ed realizes what Badminton intends to do.
“No!” Ed tries to get out of the chair, but it’s too heavy so it scrapes against the floor only a fraction of an inch. He thrashes against the ropes, “No no no, stop, I’m gonna fuckin’ claw out your eyes and have you choke on them then shove them up your cockhole—”
Badminton grabs Stede by the hair, knocks his head into the surface of the table. Retaliation for Ed’s actions.
Stede groans. Pain. Ed feels it, sick in his stomach.
“Stede! Hey, man, get up, get the fuck up—”
“Yes, go on baby Bonnet. Get up and fight me back,” Badminton says, teasing, and when Stede is unsuccessful at escape, he laughs. “You never fought back. Weak. I’m going to make you take it like the bitch you are.”
And he brings his open palm down hard on Stede’s ass.
“What the hell, Chauncey?” Stede says — he cranes his neck to look behind him, and Ed sees when realization dawns upon him, realizing what is going to happen.
His struggle turns into a panicked fight. He gives a good fight, Ed admits. Stede manages to squirm out of Badminton’s hold and grabs the letter opener on the desk and jabs at Badminton. It slices his shoulder, makes him bleed, but the victory is short lived — Badminton knocks it out of his hand and gets Stede face down again, bent over the edge of the table. He kicks at Stede’s foot to spread his legs apart.
“Ed!” Stede shouts, and it breaks Ed’s heart a little. Breaks it a lot. Ed yells — no words, just noise — as he watches Badminton rip open the laces of Stede’s breeches, yank them down around his thighs. He jerks at the ropes, rocks forward in the chair, anything to free himself, he’s going to rip him limb from limb with his bare hands—
“Your boyfriend isn’t going to save you, Baby Bonnet,” Badminton snarls. “You’ve never been anything but a pathetic rich boy, getting everything you want. It’s about time someone put you in your place.”
“You better hope I never get my hands on you.” Ed says in his best menacing Blackbeard voice, the one that’s made men surrender their ships with nothing more than a suggestion. “I’m going to fuckin’ rip your guts out through your nose, then use them to string you up from the mainmast. Have the gulls eat away at you until you’re nothing but bones.”
Intimidation doesn’t stop Badminton — either he is clinically insane, or Ed is losing his touch. He keeps Stede forced down and rucks Stede’s shirt up with his free hand, revealing his ass.
“Chauncey,” Stede says, “please don’t do this. I’ll give you anything.”
“That’s your problem, Bonnet. You think you can just pay your way out of anything. Like a whore.” The man is enraged — he fumbles with his pants one-handed and he’s hard, aroused from the torture of it, fucking sicko. He touches Stede’s hip, the lovely intimate place where it curves and that Ed has imagined on lonely nights before sleeping. Revulsion creeps up Ed’s back, makes him want to vomit.
Someone is yelling, Ed doesn’t know if it’s himself or Stede or both of them and he knows he should look away but he can’t — watches Badminton press up against Stede and—
Of all the terrible things Ed has done, he’s never done this. That. The most degrading thing one can do to another. He’s punished his men who do this. He heard his father force himself on his mother enough. Take whatever spoils and riches you find but you don’t take a person—
Stede is crying. Body shaking with violent sobs, and a pained whimper is forced from him every time Badminton thrusts in him. Ed knows how badly it can hurt you aren’t ready or slick enough, and Stede wasn’t at all.
“Crying,” Badminton is saying. “You’re always crying. You are a horrible person. You ruin everything. Look — you’ve made history’s greatest pirate beg for your honor.”
“Don’t listen to him, Stede.” None of it is true. Ed isn’t sure how much Stede is hearing. He focuses on Stede’s face — he’s closed his eyes and his expression is wrinkled in pain. His cries quietening to sniffles. He’s given up trying to fight and is just. Taking it.
Ed’s given up too — having to sit and watch the man who he loves get raped.
Loves. Yeah.
“Stede.” Ed’s voice is raw, catches in his throat — since when has he been crying? but now that’s all he can feel, how his eyes sting and his vision is blurry and his face is wet, tears running into his beard. “Stede, look at me.”
Stede opens his eyes, looks at him, sees him.
Ed, he mouths.
And Ed swears he will find a way, for both of them.
Badminton finishes unceremoniously, goes still within him, groans, then pulls out. Stede slumps against the table, his knees going out from under him.
“Pull your trousers up, you look silly,” Badminton tells him as fixes his own clothes.
He calls in four other men and Ed’s hope of killing him where he stands are out. They’re escorted through the halls. Stede is trying his best to put on a brave face, Ed knows, but he’s got a limp to his step.
They’re put in the brig together, which is a small cell hardly big enough to turn around in. Ed supposes Stede didn’t expect to ever take many prisoners.
Badminton reaches through the bars. Stede recoils, bumping into Ed.
“Your trial’s in an hour,” Badminton says, then walks out of the room, the door clicking locked behind him.
Alone.
“Are you okay?” they ask each other at the same time, and fuck, if Ed’s chest doesn’t ache with fondness.
“I’m fine,” Ed says. “Stupid question of me to ask you, though.”
—because Stede is very much not okay. His clothes disheveled, lip and chin crusted with dried blood where was hit, bruise already formed on his neck. Blood and come on his trousers.
“I’m sorry,” Ed says. “I should have saved you—”
“Don’t.”
Stede puts his hands on Ed’s — still bound by rope — makes a click of displeasure with his tongue. Only then Ed notices his wrists have been rubbed raw from it.
Carefully, Stede begins to untie the ropes binding Ed’s hands together.
“Stede.” It’s no more than a whisper. “Hey, man, talk to me—”
“When we get out of here I have a salve you can use.” Stede holds Ed’s wrists like they are the finest thing he’s ever touched. “You’ll feel better in no time.”
“But what about you?”
Stede smiles at him. It’s forced, and doesn’t reach his eyes.
He looks back down at Ed’s wrists.
“And…done.” Stede pats his hand. “See, I was listening to your lesson on tying knots.”
“You know I don’t feel that way,” Ed says. “You haven’t ruined me. You’ve made me better, Stede.”
“Oh.” Stede says it almost bashful. “Edward.”
What Ed would give to be anywhere else.
He sits on the bench in the cell. He pats the space next to him.
Stede grimaces. “No thanks.”
“Oh, right, fuck. I’ll just… I’ll give you space—”
“It’s not that, Ed. I would…rather avoid sitting at the moment.”
“Ah, well…”
“I want be to next to you.”
And Stede lies down on the bench, rests his head in Ed’s lap. Golden blonde curls spread out like a halo.
Ed doesn’t know what to do with his hands. He holds them in the air, no contact, but Stede looks up at him, says, “it’s okay, Ed,” and takes his hands in his, brings them so they lay on his chest.
“What’s going to happen to us, Ed?”
“I’m gonna figure a way out of this.”
Ed knows what’ll probably happen. Both sentenced with crimes against the crown, and put to death. But he won’t let that happen.
Ed runs a hand through Stede’s curls, tucks them behind his ear. “We’re going to walk free. Then I’m going to kill that bastard Badminton. Make him suffer.”
“I won’t stop you.”
“Then I’m going to hunt down every single one of your schoolmates and kill them, too. Anyone who’s ever hurt you.”
Stede’s brows raise and there’s the slightest hint of a smile. “That’s rather romantic.”
“I mean it.”
“Then what would we do after that?”
“We’ll go anywhere you wish,” Ed says. “Just you and me and the sea, love.”
“Love,” Stede repeats. Confirming.
Yes.