Archive of Our Own

There's so much that happens.

In the in-between, that is.

There has to be, of course. Ed doesn't just go from bolting upright, mute and stupefied like a galaxy wiped clean of its planets, to bound to the railing, sweat-slick with seething rage and glowering at anyone who dares even look at him. 

So much else happens. 

Stede, bibliophile that he is, often wonders about little intricacies like that. What goes down between the finale of Act One and the opening dialogue of Act Two? The tale ends with the formulaic marriage between the hero and the princess, okay fine - but what happens at the reception? What comes after that? What about the middle, between the dramatic rescue and the histrionics of the wedding day? Do the lovesick couple do, like, coffee and cake or something? Just to sit and maybe debrief after the whole debacle? 

There's just so many moving parts to a good story, and Stede does not appreciate being left in the dark.

With Ed, he knows.

He knows what happens in the in-between. 

What happens is that Ed doesn’t sleep.

In the gloom of the hold, Stede guides Ed to sitting. He pays little mind to the way his cheekbone throbs from the headbutt, not after his attempted interrogation of Ed about it had yielded abysmal results. Ed had just lain there, head at a slight incline, eyes wet and wide and plump, face expressionless. It strikes Stede that he seems asleep, still. Asleep with his eyes open and his lips parted at the seam. Stede hasn't got a clue how to wake a conscious man.

Ed doesn't speak, as Stede carefully props him upright. So Stede does the talking.

“Okay,” he soothes. He's still got a death-grip on Ed's hand, and Ed is squeezing back just as fiercely. Perhaps more. “Okay, never mind whether or not you meant…let's just–”

He wraps an arm around the back of Ed's shoulders, not really knowing how much support he'll need to sit independently. It's quite a lot, as it turns out; Ed's head lolls unnaturally to the side, then slightly backwards. A memory springs up, unbidden, to greet Stede; holding Alma as a baby, Mary shrieking at him to support her neck before it snapped under the weight of her massive, chunky baby-skull. Stede quickly grasps at the back of Ed's head, catching the stem of his neck and stabilising him before he loses control of his spine completely. As Stede eases Ed towards him, bearing Ed's weight as he collapses lifelessly into Stede, he's aware of something slick and hot against the pads of his fingers, and when he yanks them back they are oily with blood.

Stede’s own blood runs cold.

He curses under his breath, and Ed continues to corpse against him, limp and boneless. The faint wheezing breaths rattling wetly in his chest ought to settle Stede's nerves, but he’s all too cognizant (and feeling a vague, dull sense of panic about it) that said breaths are coming in far too slow and irregular. 

God, this goes far beyond what Stede is capable of. Ed needs a medic. A good one.

They have…a chef.

Still, Roach has to be a better physician than Stede, surely.

“Ed,” he whispers. Ed remains propped up against him like loosely assembled furniture, and he doesn't respond. “Ed, love, you're bleeding.”

Ed, predictably, seems unphased by this.

The dull, weak silence is almost unsettling as the ping of realisation that Stede's just gone and dropped the L word. 

Jesus Christ, it's only been five minutes.

He barely even knows where he is, Stede tells himself, trying to calm the sudden zip of nervous lightning in his chest. He hasn't registered. He'll hardly remember this entire night. 

As if Stede’s besotted, schoolboy jitters are important right now, anyway. Ed needs him. 

“Ed,” he murmurs again, starting to sag against Ed's dead weight. He presses a firm, supportive palm against Ed's back; fights the urge to sink fingers into his hair. Not wise, not until Stede knows the full extent of Ed's head injuries. “Ed, you need seeing to, darling. You're hurt, do you understand?” 

He rubs a few broad circles into Ed's back as he speaks, low and soothing and trying desperately to gulp down the hysteria rising in him. 

Keep him calm. 

“I'm going to go and get Roach. Alright? He'll get you patched up, and then you'll be right as rain, okay? Let's just–”

Ed remains silent, but in the murky quiet disturbed only by the occasional lapping of waves against the hull, Stede hears Ed's breath hitch.

Then hold tight.

And then, with what feels like Herculean effort, Ed slowly heaves one arm up and over Stede’s shoulder. He fists the fabric of Stede’s shirt with surprising force; demanding, aggressive, and Stede can instantly read the gesture for what it is. A silent, fierce plea; don't go.

I won't, Stede tries to channel back to him, through every resolute stroke along his spine. I'm not going anywhere.

He manages, with a bit of non-verbal back-and-forth, gentle tugs and unwilling resistance, to shuffle Ed out of his arms and hold him at arm's length. His gaze is hazy and unfocused and sort of not-there; as though Stede is an optical illusion he’s trying his best to rationalise. He lets Stede manhandle him so he’s facing away, floppy and febrile, and drops his head compliantly when Stede guides it downwards with a quiet “there we go, love, just stay like that for me”. Stede sweeps his hair aside with clumsy fingers, searching for the source of the blood, and they snag and catch in the mess of dark silver more than once. Ed doesn’t even flinch.

Stede locates his target; a gash in the back of Ed’s skull, still bleeding sluggishly. He has Ed lie back down, on his side this time, and leaves him for just long enough to rustle up a thick wad of gauze which he presses firmly against the wound. Compression, that’s the thing for bleeding; he knows that from helping Roach take care of Ed after having run him through. God, but that seems like so long ago now; what if there’s a step Stede’s forgetting? Ed had needed to be stitched up then; Stede certainly doesn’t trust his own first aid knowledge enough to replicate the process himself. His embroidery skills are mediocre at best. Besides, how on earth would he manage such a task with all this hair in the way? He’s got so much of it. Stede’s certainly not about to slice it off; not unless he absolutely has to. Even then it would feel about as dire as having to amputate one of Ed's limbs.

Ed doesn’t move; doesn’t wince, doesn’t complain, as Stede sits right behind him pressing the gauze flush against his skull. He stares, unseeing, at the opposite wall, and breathes his laboured, wilting breaths. The fabric drinks in his blood until it’s soaked right through, and the fear that’s been pounding it’s way up Stede’s chest and into the back of his throat grows heavier, bassier. 

He wants to speak, wants to fill the silence. There is so much he wants to say.

All of it feels trite. Wrong.

Cruel, even.

So he stays quiet.

Eventually, the bleeding eases and slows, and when Stede gently peels back the gauze to examine the wound it wells with a thin cord of blood, which finally, finally stays put without dribbling down Ed’s neck.

And the creeping vines of dread that had been constricting around Stede’s lungs slacken. Just a little. Just enough for him to suck in a few thirsty breaths. 

He leaves Ed lying down, wary of jostling him about too much and hurting him further, and makes his way around the cot so he's level with Ed’s face. His lip is split, blood smudged into his beard and more spattered across his temple. There’s another cut hemmed with dark bruises on his cheekbone, and a half-moon of more bruising smeared beneath his eye. Stede dabs gingerly at each newly discovered injury with cool, damp cloths, rubbing away dry blood as best he can. He’s almost certain he’ll garner some sort of reaction from Ed when he blots at his cuts with the strongest alcohol he can find; a recoil, a cringe, a whimper, even - it has to sting like nobody’s business. 

Ed maintains his silence, continuing to stare past Stede, through him. As though there is an ever-expanding gulf between what Ed sees and what he understands. 

Stede gives Ed’s shoulder a squeeze when he’s all done. The gesture is probably more for his own comfort than Ed’s, who’s practically on another planet.

“I really do think…” Stede finally broaches softly. His voice is hoarse, fraught with emotion. “I do think I ought to go and get Roach now, Edward. I’ve cleaned you up as much as I can, but you’re…I don’t think you’re quite out of the woods yet, love, and I don’t know how else to–”

Ed’s hand shoots out and grabs Stede’s forearm with bruising force.

It happens so fast that it makes Stede yelp. He hadn’t thought Ed even close to capable of moving so fast. His fingers dig hard into Stede’s wrist, and he gazes vacantly up at him with glassy, fever-blurred eyes. 

And, for the first time in what feels like hours, the gaze catches.

Hooks right into Stede’s face.

Bores right into him. Like he sees him.

“Don’t,” he rasps, in a voice like shredded crepe paper. “Don’t go.”

“Ed,” Stede chokes out, heart pounding frantically, perilously close to weeping in desperate relief. “Ed, can you hear me?”

“Please,” Ed manages. 

Just that. Just please.

Ed is the one pleading. 

Barely hanging on, after all of Stede’s neglect, and he's the one–

Fuck, how is Stede meant to refuse him?

“Okay,” he says faintly, completely against his better judgement. “Okay, Ed, it’s–I’m right here. See, look, I’m–I’ll stay. I’m staying.”

He sinks back down as he speaks, uncoordinated and ungainly in his near frantic need to give Ed anything and everything he asks for. He sits on the floor, facing Ed where he’s still laying on his side, fumbling to grasp both of Ed’s hands in his own. 

He squeezes, and the pressure only alerts him to how badly Ed is shaking. 

Dear god, he's shaking.

Looking at him now, curled up all small on that decrepit old cot – fuck, Stede hates every single decision, every blasted microsecond of his conscious life that's led them here, that's resulted in Ed like this. He's pallid and sickly-looking and still a little wild-eyed, hair dishevelled and matted, looking so paper-thin that the chalkboard-grey of his bruises is enough to weight him down. He looks like all the blood has been drained right out of him (maybe it has; that gauze had gotten awfully drippy by the end of Stede’s appallingly rudimentary first aid), and god, maybe all the life too. All the laughter, all the mischief, all the light; drained right out through the fissure in the back of his skull. 

Stede feels sick. 

He'd been right after all, Chauncy had.

Stede ruins all he comes into contact with; pulverises beauty with absolutely no consideration for the consequences of his actions. 

The words he'd spoken earlier (I'm sorry, Ed, I'm sorry, I messed all of this up), they burble menacingly in the back of his throat, rumbling like a stuck sob trying to erupt. He wants badly to say them again, to say them now that Ed’s awake, sort-of, but what good will it do? What good will sorry do, if Stede’s gone and completely destroyed this man permanently?

God, he’d been so close to being dead. 

He could still be just as close. Stede’s got no idea. He could be a hair’s breadth away, right now, and Stede’s just sitting here doing nothing. Just like that day on the beach, where he’d sat trapped in his own pathetic inertia, watching Ed dart off with plans and dreams and sparkly eyes. He should have said , right then and there; should have voiced his trepidation, the uneasy sense of foreboding he’d felt rising in him. But he’d frozen up, paralysed in the sand, feeling the grit against his fingers like pins and needles and wondering if perhaps the predictability that comes with inaction is preferable to the high-stakes of risk. 

Both then and now, Stede’s lack of action could very well lead to Ed’s undoing.

But to move, right now, is to leave him again.

Which somehow feels equally unforgivable. 

He tries to smother the raging terror of his internal monologue, and focus on Ed.

There is a thin sheen of sweat across his brow, and a few bedraggled clumps of hair have fallen over his cheek. Stede brushes them away. They brush them away together, actually, because there’s no way in hell Stede’s about to let go of Ed’s hands. He strokes the backs of them with his thumbs, and the skin there is clammy and hot despite Ed’s increasingly violent shivering.

And something is wrong with his eyes.

Well. Not really. He has beautiful eyes. They’re more beautiful than Stede remembers them, even glazed over with muggy delirium. 

But he's doing something weird with them.

Every few seconds or so, they roll. The dark of them slips upwards, almost disappearing beneath his eye sockets. The lids flutter nearly-closed, Stede’s lantern weakly illuminating a thin wet sliver left behind.

And then he blinks hard, squeezing his eyes forcibly shut like he’s trying to wring them dry, and they flicker open again, sweeping the room in a disoriented sort of panic until they land again on Stede, who has not budged an inch from his post.

He lets out a shaky, waterlogged sigh.

And then it starts again.

Stede observes, brow furrowed and murmuring “Ed?” in concern, as Ed does this twice, three times, four times in quick succession. His eyes tip and roll and almost slide closed, and then Ed seems to jolt himself back to life again. 

He’s trying to stay awake.

That’s what he’s doing.

Realisation dawns; Stede recognises the routine. His youngest, fighting sleep on Christmas Eve.

“Ed,” he whispers tremulously, releasing one of Ed’s hands so he can run his fingers down Ed’s bare forearm. “Ed, it’s alright now. You need rest. I’ll stay right here, you can–”

“No," Ed rasps vehemently. He does the eye thing again. 

“Edward–”

“I wanna stay,” he slurs, voice just on the cusp of unintelligible. His grip on Stede’s other hand tightens, and his eyes swirl wildly. “I don’t wanna go back, don’t let me go back, Stede–”

“Go back? Ed, what do you mean?”

“Don’t wanna…I wanna stay . Please. Lemme stay. Keep me… here, keep me–jus’ keep me, ‘kay?”

“E-Ed, god, of course, I–”

“Don’t wanna go,” he garbles adamantly, eyes beginning to shutter again. Stede’s own are so foggy with tears he can hardly see straight. “Don’t let me. Don’t.”

“ Okay ,” Stede gasps out, hardly knowing what he’s agreeing to. “Okay, Ed, just–”

And then Stede is so so grateful he’s had Ed lie on his side, because suddenly he’s coughing violently, regurgitating what looks like just straight-up water, gagging and retching, and Stede only just has the presence of mind to grab his hair out of the way and land a few firm smacks into the middle of his back before making a mad scramble to get Roach with one final squeeze of his hand, cringing at the sound of Ed rasping for air as he races off.

Later, Stede hears from Roach that it had been an absolute blessing that Ed had not fallen asleep, because he was quite horrendously concussed. “Seen men like that fall asleep and never wake up again,” he’d said. “Or choke on their own vomit. Good thinking, keeping him awake.” And Stede had nodded sagely and tried not to think about how he’d almost encouraged the alternative.

In the morning, they send Ed away.

Although the mermaid thing doesn’t make sense to Stede, at the time, the hate-filled glare absolutely does.

Please. 

Lemme stay. 

Keep me–jus’ keep me, ‘kay?

Stede spends a long time really despising himself about that. Even the very next evening, when they’re walking back together through woods lit by a distant house fire, to a ship that doesn’t really feel like it belongs to either of them anymore. Even after Ed spends two weeks with a bell around his neck, and the prickly amends they’ve made begin to be stripped of their thorns. Even when they start sharing shy smiles again, and even after they kiss in the moonlight. Even when he learns about the gravy basket, and starts to piece together Ed's frightened appeals not to return. Stede hates himself. Not for keeping his crew feeling safe and secure from the man who had terrorised them, just for…the whole way it had all happened, in the end.

He really only starts to let it go, to forgive himself a little, the very next in-between-chapters moment.

When he starts to detect something of a pattern in Ed’s behaviour.

It’s not nearly so bleak as the first time around. Not even close.

They are in Stede’s quarters.

They are enveloped by patched-up organza curtains, and the bursts of light and sound from the fireworks have long since evaporated. The muffled conversations from up on deck are low and hushed, and limited to only two or three nebulous voices; most of the crew have retired for the evening. Morning, more like - between the party and Ned Low and all that came after, it must be close to four o’ clock now, judging by the blue of nautical twilight beginning to seep in through the windows. Through the sheer curtains, Stede can just make out the last few bitter twinkling clusters and whorls of stars.

Stede finds himself kind of wondering when he’ll get his bathtub back.

He knows that Ed’s hair must be in a total state. He’d absolutely love the opportunity to soak the tangles out of it. 

He’d rather die than move, though. Not right now.

Ed is lying naked in his arms.

He's facing Stede, curled up on his side almost the same way he'd been on that cot clinging desperately to consciousness. This time, he's just clinging to Stede. His face is squished against Stede’s chest, his arms loosely draped around Stede’s waist, their legs all knotted up together. He's breathing slow and somnolent, and the skin under Stede's lazy, meandering hands is so much softer than Stede had anticipated. 

The entire night had been that way.

So much softer than Stede had imagined. And he'd imagined it often.

He'd imagined, for instance, that perhaps Ed might hold him, during.

What he hadn't accounted for was Ed asking, voice delicate and almost a bit nervous, if Stede would hold his hand , right before Stede eased inside of him.

He imagined (hoped, with fingers crossed) that Ed might be vocal. That maybe he'd moan a little. Or say things.

He hadn't anticipated the gasps, good god, the whimpers , airy and loose, like they'd been sieved out of him.

Or that the things Ed might say would be desperate, hungry pleas for approval, for Stede’s praise ( “Do I feel good? Tell me I feel good.”).

Of course, it hadn't all been… soft. 

Ed bears the bruises on his hips to prove it.

But on the whole, there had been such a gentleness to it; a feeling of warm, tender completion far surpassing anything Stede could have conceptualised from any of his silly books.

Stede lies awake, though just barely, and tries to commit the feeling of Ed in his arms to memory; sleep-warm skin under his palms, hot breath against his sternum, the absolute peace of being seen and claimed. And loved, maybe. At Ed's insistence they haven't said it, not in so many words, but. Stede’s not so blind as to think this thing between them is completely one-sided.

When he's ready, Stede thinks as he feels sleep begin to drag him back under. One day. Maybe in the morning, even. Maybe he'll let me have a do-over in the morning. We'll play it by ear. 

He's halfway to dreaming when one of his absently roaming hands slides into Ed's hair, his all-time favourite spot, and gets caught in it right away. Stede had been right; total state. Probably he's the one to blame for it, too. Bugger.

“Ow,” mumbles Ed.

“Sorry,” Stede half-slurs.

And then abruptly realises that Ed is, in fact, not asleep.

Sounds very much awake and alert, actually.

Stede peels back, placing a clumsy hand against Ed's cheek and tilting his face up to look at him.

His eyes are bleary and exhausted, red-rimmed as though he hasn't slept in days, and the faintest hint of an ash-coloured shadow is beginning to bloom beneath them.

“You're awake,” Stede says in surprise.

“Mm,” Ed agrees. “So are you.”

“Just woke up a moment ago,” he explains, sort of superfluously. He clears his throat, which is croaky with disuse. Maybe too much use. He seems to recall a whole bunch of shameless noises from the night before that he's pretty sure weren't coming from Ed. “But ‘m going back to sleep. Tired.”

“Mm,” says Ed again, and Stede’s eyes begin to sink.

Ed's don't.

“Y'look sleepy. Still early. Get some more shut-eye,” Stede advises muzzily, as the room falls dark. Then, after another vague mm from Ed: “How long’ve you been awake?”

“The whole time,” Ed confesses softly. “So...I guess four hours, or so.”

Stede’s eyes snap open.

“I mean. Roughly,” Ed adds.

Of course, Stede wouldn't be Stede if he didn't experience a slight blip of anxiety about this.

Ed is lying awake.

Ed's lying awake after their first time together.

Stede had been so exhausted, so utterly overwhelmed with sensation and feeling and heat that he'd dropped right off. Pretty much the moment they'd gotten cleaned up.

Ed hadn't.

That's…not great, surely.

Stede sucks in a breath, opens his mouth, and tries to format his panic into some semblance of a question without making an absolute fool of himself. Maybe something like: so, with regards to last night, would we be using the term life-changing in a negative or positive sense? Because I was absolutely thinking the latter, but if you don’t agree I’m very open to constructive criticism. I could devise a feedback form. You could answer anonymously. 

And, in the brief moment it takes for the words to get in line, Ed's eyes weakly flicker closed.

And a long, tired sigh slips out of him.

And then he jolts back to awareness, eyes wrestled open as though with invisible matchsticks. 

He looks absolutely out of it. Dazed and disoriented; the light in his eyes still there, but kind of dim, as though it’s trying to swim to the surface of a cloudy sea. Stede doesn't think he's ever seen Ed so obviously yearning for sleep in his life.

He wants to sleep.

He just won't.

“Ed,” he implores gently. He strokes at the cheek under his palm. “What’s up? Why won’t you sleep, darling?”

Ed's eyes slide shut again, but Stede isn't sure if it's from his obvious fatigue, or because he's soaking up the accidental endearment.

“‘S Stupid,” he mutters. “You'll think ‘s stupid.”

“When have I ever?” Stede says. “Tell me? Please?”

Ed is visibly fighting his exhaustion now. He can hardly even pry his eyes open again, and he squints at Stede so minutely that he may as well just keep them closed altogether. 

“Just…’s this real?”

And just like that, just when Stede had assumed he'd managed even the most tenuous grasp of his feelings for Ed, just two-and-a-half sleepy slurred words is enough to have him practically ricocheting into the stratosphere.

The apprehension dissolves in a heartbeat, his heart swells to bursting in another, and he slides his fingers back into Ed's excruciatingly beautiful hair, and–

“Ow,” says Ed.

“Sorry,” Stede chokes out. Again.

Ed shifts impossibly closer. He keeps his eyes closed, which is just as well, because Stede’s maybe about to start blubbering.

“Just wanted to be sure,” Ed mumbles. “That this is real. Scared maybe I'd wake up ‘n…I dunno. You'd be gone. I'd be Blackbeard again.”

Stede presses his face into the crown of Ed’s head, kisses him there, firmly, and takes a deep, grounding inhale. He smells like petrichor. Why the fuck does he smell like petrichor? They’re nowhere near land. It hasn’t rained in days.

Maybe he doesn’t.

Maybe petrichor smells like Ed.

“I jus’...” Ed breathes, voice getting swallowed up by sleep and tentative feelings and Stede’s chest. “Jus’ got scared. Don't wanna be alone. Don't wanna go back. To without.”

Ed doesn’t articulate what he means by ‘without’. He doesn’t need to.

“It's real,” Stede promises fervidly, with as much gravitas as he possibly can, right into his irrationally petrichor-scented hair. “It's real, Edward.”

And Ed finally sleeps.

It's funny, really that the last thought Stede has before drifting off himself is: He'll be so tired tomorrow. We'll have to be sure to get him an early night.

And it's not funny. Not really. Not at all.

Because by the time tomorrow evening rolls around, Stede’s alone. 

Ed’s gone.

It had been a mistake.

Stupidly, it also ends up being the last thought he has as Zheng is about to dole out the killing blow.

I hope he sleeps well tonight, Stede thinks. Without fear.

I hope he sleeps.

The next time he sees Ed, he doesn’t have the chance to ask him. If he’s slept.

Stede assumes he has. He looks a lot better. Brighter, sharper. His eyes are keen and determined, and he holds himself with resolute purpose, sword in hand as he slashes his way towards Stede on the dunes. 

And then he’s kissing him, and telling Stede he loves him, he loves him, and Stede thinks maybe the fervour he sees in Ed has nothing to do with a good night’s rest.

It happens all over again, though. Of course it does. 

It happens far sooner than any of them could have possibly anticipated it.

Because things carry on, time marches forward, the way that it does.

Mistakes are made.

There is a stand-off, a chase, the smell of saltpeter, astringent and biting. There is a bang, a stumble, a horrifying lapse in judgement. There is a plan gone awry in the worst possible way.

There is one less crew member on board the Revenge. 

Are they on the Revenge?

It doesn’t really feel like it anymore.

Whatever devastation that’s metastasising in Stede’s chest, spreading through his veins like a cancer with every passing second as the reality sinks in (They’ve lost Izzy. They’ve lost Israel Hands. Israel Hands is gone), he knows it’s got nothing on Ed’s.

It takes days for them to reach the scrub of land with the old house. The place they choose to dock and lay Izzy to rest. 

And there's another in-between in there too, isn't there? Another deleted scene, a portion of life that Stede thinks, were somebody to relate their story to a captive audience, the storyteller would likely skip over.

Nobody needs to hear about that part. People like to hear the exciting bits. Ban the boring, that's the advice Stede was told as a lad when analysing literature in school. Good authors ban the boring. 

People don't want to hear about the excruciating hour that Ed sits with Izzy, still wracked with agonising sobs long after Stede is convinced there can't possibly be any more tears left in his body to cry out. Long after the rest of the crew quietly dissipates to grieve in private, after murmuring a few choked, tender words to Ed as they leave. A soft “comparto tu dolor,” from Jim, a “we're all here whenever you need us,” from Olu. A vague snivelling sound from Fang. Ed gives no indication that he hears any of them.

And people don’t care to hear about the way Izzy's hand snags and pulls in Ed's hair as Stede tries to ease them apart; a limp weight, ensnared. Trapped in Ed, even now. Stede struggles to untangle them and Ed, for a moment equally heart-wrenching and incomprehensible, demands with wild, strange eyes that Stede cut it off. The hair that binds them together. 

“He can keep it," he gasps out insistently, looking up at Stede with unbridled urgency. His eyes are drowning, his whole face swollen and smeared and reddened with hot, raw tear-salt. He’s almost unrecognisable. “If he wants it. He can take it with him.”

(Stede does not cut off Ed's hair, not a single strand. He disentangles the two of them slowly, diligently, showing each man the respect and care they deserve. Stede will be damned if either one of them has to suffer any more damage at the hands of the other. Not now. It's over now. It's done with.)

And people don't want to know about how many times Ed washes his hands afterwards. How Stede draws him a bath and he scrubs Izzy's blood away until his own begins to surface on his skin, and Stede almost has to physically restrain him to make him stop. 

Stede knows about it. Whether he cares to or not.

He also knows, intrinsically, that Ed will not sleep that night.

Also, he does care to, is the thing. He cares to know. He wants to.

Because the thing about watching Ed in those first fraught hours after Izzy's death, is that it feels almost as though Stede is dying himself. It feels like being gut-stabbed, like being hung, like being run through. Ed crumbles, and Stede doesn't want to bear witness to it, because it's simply too much. It's too much to bear. 

But it's a privilege, too.

It's a privilege being a home for Ed when his anguish robs him of all that feels familiar and safe. To press a cool compress to the ravaged skin under his eyes, to steady him when he trembles, to listen and acquiesce when he resists being pulled from Izzy (no, no–) , to give him the five more minutes he begs for, then another and another.

There is nothing else Stede would rather be doing. Even though it hurts, in so many more ways Stede knew something could hurt. A sting and a burn and an ache and a prickle and a deep, immovable stab, all at once. He is lucky to feel it.

They take to Stede’s quarters that night. Ed's completely depleted of tears by midnight, maybe of fluid altogether. Stede tries to make him drink, knowing he must be terribly dehydrated and likely to have a spectacular headache in the morning, but Ed can only manage a few small sips before he gives up. It’s better than nothing. Lots of things are.

He bundles Ed up in warm clothing, lays him down and pulls him close. Wraps him up in a tight hug, crushing him against Stede’s own body.

Ed's breath flutters dangerously, and for a brief moment Stede thinks it's perhaps caught on a crisp new sob.

But Ed's too wrung out for it, numb and drained and empty. He doesn't cry.

He doesn't squeeze Stede back, either. Stede doubts he has the energy to even blink, let alone coordinate his limbs into returning Stede’s fierce embrace. He does nuzzle his face into Stede neck, though; the tiniest, most subtle brush of nose and eyelashes. Just enough. A thank you, don't stop.

An I love you, I love you.

They stay like that for a long time; a matching set of weights wrapped in thick eiderdown. Cocooned away from the bleak reality of a crew in mourning and blood stains on the deck so fresh they’re still steaming.

“Get some sleep, love,” Stede tells him gently, although he already knows it's futile.

True to form, Ed gives his head a slow, almost drunken shake where it's pillowed against Stede’s chest.

“Can't,” he rasps, voice pained. “Can't.”

Stede isn’t going to ask why; doesn’t want to subject Ed to having to articulate it. He just continues to clutch Ed to him, firm and grounding. He feels the tickle of Ed’s eyelashes against his skin every so often; a little footnote that Ed’s still awake.

He doesn’t expect Ed to elaborate.

He certainly doesn’t expect him to lift his head and fix Stede with a look so haunted that Stede almost breaks character and weeps.

Don’t, Stede tells himself. Don’t you dare. This isn’t about you. He’s hurting. Keep fucking playacting. He needs an anchor, and an anchor is what you’ll be.

“I’m scared,” Ed confesses, in a voice that barely exists. “I’m fucking scared, Stede.”

“Why? What are you afraid of, love?”

“What if…” he says, a false start, and Stede tightens his grip.

“What if they catch up to us? There’s so many of them, and if I sleep maybe…fuck, Stede, I couldn’t protect you against that many, and–”

It takes Stede a dizzying moment of whiplash to piece together what Ed’s talking about.

The British. Banes, and his people. God, Stede hadn’t even thought of it.

“If–if I’m asleep, I can’t–I won’t know if–and maybe it’ll be too late then–” And Ed’s babbling now, almost senselessly, running in quick terrified loops like a gyroscope. Stede keeps squeezing. “And then–then–”

And then he breaks. His face crumples.

“Can’t fucking lose you, Stede. F-fucking can’t–”

He doesn’t say too. 

He doesn’t say again.

But both words are still there, twin knives. They’re carved into his tongue. They cut into Stede’s ears. 

Stede doesn’t know when he begins rocking Ed. But he is now, he realises, swivelling him back and forth in his arms as he convulses with dry sobs. Quite literally dry; Stede had been right, Ed’s eyes can’t muster up a single tear more. He’s merely shuddering and heaving uselessly against Stede’s throat, and Stede doesn’t know what to say, what to do.

“Is that fucked of me?” Ed chokes out feebly, through vocal chords that are burned and exposed like the frame of a gutted building. “Izzy’s fucking dead and I’m–I should be thinking about him. I shouldn’t be thinking that.”

“Think about whatever you want,” Stede urges vehemently, because that’s the one thing he’s certain about. 

Just be Ed.

“Think about whatever you want to think about,” Stede repeats. “There’s no wrong way.”

They keep rocking, and Ed’s desiccated sobs are eventually lulled into breath that Stede could almost mistake for stable, if he weren’t so familiar with the cadence of Ed’s breathing.

“Don’t wanna think of anything,” Ed whispers brokenly. “Wanna sleep.”

“Then sleep, my darling.”

“You won't be here when I wake up,” he says, with such conviction and defeated exhaustion, but also like he so badly wants Stede to contradict him.

“I will,” Stede tells him.

A long, heavy silence.

“Izzy won’t be.”

“No,” Stede says. “He won’t.”

And who’s fault is it? Who had looked Ed right in the eye with theatrical bravado and claimed it’s only suicide if we die? 

Well, one of them had died, hadn’t they?

And who’s idea had it all been?

Stede lies awake, distraught. His stomach is roiling, and he’s rubbing Ed’s back like it’s all he was made to do, to give Ed the comfort he’s been stripped of for so many years. He lies there for hours, until Ed goes still and quiet against him, and he finally unlocks his muscles and stops trying to polish the pain out from under Ed’s skin.

It’s not about Stede.

It’s not about him.

It’s not–

A soft, gasping cry whistles out from between Stede’s clenched teeth. Stede tries to suck it back in, but it just creates an equal, opposite sound; a sharp, airy in-out.

Stede is a fucking liability. How many lives will he go about just nonchalantly destroying? Who might be caught in the crossfire the next time he makes a series of frivolous, idiotic, utterly egregious decisions? 

“Hey.”

Stede doesn’t realise the way his eyes have flooded with horrified tears until Ed’s lifted his head to look at him, and when Stede tries to look back Ed’s gone all wobbly and distorted.

Fuck, not now, he’d thought Ed had finally drifted off, he’d thought–

“Hey,” Ed croaks again, imploring and concerned through a voice razed to nothing. “Hey, shh, Stede, you’re okay–”

And Ed should not be the one telling Stede that he’s okay. 

Stede is responsible for this, for this mindless destruction, for so much , he’s–he’s not worthy of Ed’s loving consolation, for the way he’s trying to soothe him when he himself could not be soothed, for the fucking fingers brushing his tears away. Like he's something precious.

“It’s my fault,” Stede cries. “I’m so sorry, Ed, this is my fault.”

“It isn’t,” Ed says. “Stede, it isn’t. I love you. It isn’t.”

Ed grabs both of Stede’s hands and kisses them, again and again, like maybe they don’t have blood on them. Over his knuckles, along the lengths of his fingers, his palms and his wrists. 

It feels like salvation. 

It feels so lovely that Stede lets him do it.

They don't sleep, either one of them. By the time dawn breaks Stede isn’t sure who stayed awake for whom.

Days later, they make landfall. They get in dinghies and row to the shore. 

Ed says several long goodbyes.

The first is to Izzy. It feels different, now; now that the grief has had time to ferment and bubble and settle again. Ed will carry it a long time, they all will, but after days of tears and long cathartic conversations and fitful sleep, it’s now just manageable enough that Stede thinks Ed won’t buckle under its weight. 

Not heavy. Just awkward. Cumbersome. 

(It will get lighter every day, because Ed will get stronger every day.)

(Stede will too.)

The next is to the crew. That one’s hard. There are more than a few tears shed. They promise to come back to visit the very next time they need provisions. “Even if we have to do a full loop around. Even if we have to chart a whole new course,” promises Frenchie. He extends his pinky finger, and Ed loops his around Frenchie’s and gives it a little tug. Stede isn’t sure when Ed managed to mend things with Frenchie. It's another lost moment that’s gone unwritten. It makes him smile. 

The last is to Blackbeard.

He’s already done that, Stede knows. But then in times of crisis, he’d needed to get him back. Once right after Stede left, and once again after Ed left. Stede thinks they’ve finally broken that dreadful habit. Leaving. They’re slow learners, you see. 

Ed says third time’s the charm , and he goes through all the motions again. He doesn’t drown the leathers this time; just stashes them away on a built-in shelf decaying with dry rot.

“When you finish reading a book,” he reasons, “You don’t toss it out. You just…put it away. Just to have. It doesn't mean you have to read it again. If you don’t want to.”

“I thought you weren’t much into books.”

“No,” Ed admits ruefully. “But you are. Tried to imagine you ever chucking a book overboard. Even one you hated. I reckon you’d have a breakdown about it.”

This makes Stede laugh.

“Some things aren’t for the sea,” Ed adds quietly. He’s looking out the broken window at Izzy’s grave. “Even the things that are. Some things are too big for her to devour.”

He changes clothes; soft, light linens, and takes a long bath (how the crew managed to get the tub off the ship and into their new home Stede’s got no idea, but stranger things have happened). He trims his beard a little, too; not much, just enough to even it up.

By the time he leaves the “bathroom” (it hardly qualifies as one) and joins Stede in the “sitting room” (which hardly even qualifies as a room ), he appears warm and flushed and pliant, so very Ed that Stede almost can’t imagine him as Blackbeard at all. He’s washed him all away, sloughed him off, and the longer Stede watches him, captivated, the more of a caricature Blackbeard seems.

He’s giving his hair a brisk dry-off with one of the two towels the crew have donated to their worthy cause, and when he catches Stede’s eye he pauses in his movements to give him a wry, lopsided smile. 

“You’re staring.”

Stede releases a flustered, giddy breath.

Yes. He is.

“You make it easy,” Stede admits, feeling his cheeks heat. 

Incomprehensibly, Ed’s gaze sparks and fogs at the same time, something in his face akin to absolute delight. He approaches Stede then, a slow saunter with slinky hips and a sly expression. Stede wants to eat him.

“Do I?” Ed asks in a flirtatious whisper. He catches Stede’s hips in warm, strong hands and pulls him in. “Say more about that.”

And oh , Stede has more than enough to say, truly. He wants to write sonnets about it, tragic plays and songs and fucking limericks, even. There’s no medium that could possibly restrict him in waxing poetic about Ed’s beauty. Stede can go on a bit, he knows, but given the subject of Edward Teach and his hair and his eyes and his smile and his tattoos and his fucking insane body? Stede reckons he could go on for days.

But Ed’s face is now inches from his own, his gaze dark and sweet like molasses, and Stede finds himself rather robbed of thought.

“You are…beyond compare, Edward,” he breathes, and he could have done better, he wants a redo, he didn’t even include any figurative language in that one, how sad . But he finds himself otherwise occupied, because Ed is kissing him.

It starts gentle, almost chaste; just an innocent brush of lips on his. Ed’s hands wander from Stede’s hips to his waist, and one begins to creep shyly up his back to grip his shirt. Stede tilts his head, sinking into the kiss, and just like that it’s not so innocent anymore. Stede’s tongue is in Ed’s mouth, laving against Ed's own, his own hands snapping forward to grasp Ed's shoulders. The fabric of his shirt is cool and damp from his hair, and Stede doesn't understand why he finds such a small, inconsequential thing so endearing. Ed startles slightly at the sudden brusque pressure against his shoulders, then groans into the kiss, pulling Stede’s bottom lip into his mouth and suckling until Stede’s skin fizzles hotly and a deep, tectonic shudder ripples through him. 

He quite literally whines when Ed pulls away.

“ God,” Ed rasps, his gaze sweeping through Stede like a forest fire. Not just his face, either; he actually takes a moment to hold Stede at bay and look him completely up and down with utterly unabashed want. “ Fuck , Stede, you're so–Jesus Christ…”

Stede's face grows hot, and he finds himself almost wanting to hide demurely in Ed's embrace. But Ed won't let it happen; he's still holding Stede off where he can get a full panoramic view of him, and Stede is caught between preening and squirming at the attention. 

Stede loves compliments. He fishes for them, he knows. He's just as hopeless at fishing as Ed is, but it doesn’t stop him from trying. He likes to reason that he is at least self-aware about this rather unflattering character trait. That makes it a bit more excusable, he thinks.

But it’s different getting attention when he's got the fancy clothes to hide behind. Or an elaborate, piratical skill-set. Something measured, specific. Something repeatable. If someone says yes, Stede, I very much admired all your spinning around and stuff during that skirmish, or yes, Stede, I agree that periwinkle is a rather fetching colour on you, then okay, great; Stede can make that happen a second time.

It’s not the same having Ed speechless, agog, gazing at him like he wants to unhinge his jaw and swallow him whole, just for existing . It weakens Stede’s knees, makes him feel vulnerable and small and achey in the best way, makes him need.

Ed vaults into another kiss that almost knocks Stede off balance, throwing his whole weight into Stede like he trusts that he’ll be caught. He is caught, naturally, but not without a slight tumble and a readjustment of limbs. While Stede is trying not to tip them both, Ed starts marching Stede backwards until he reaches the blankets piled on the floor, only breaking the kiss to yank Stede’s shirt over his head. It’s nothing short of miraculous that they don’t fall over.

“I thought,” Stede gasps, through more frantic kisses, “you said…was a mistake.”

It’s the first time they’ve properly broached that…unpleasantness. Stede’s not sure what’s possessed him to bring it up now. He’s awfully good at cockblocking himself, he realises; though perhaps it’s best to just…rip this particular bandage off, as it were.

They’ve still only slept together that one time. It hasn’t happened after Izzy. Ed had tried, just once, in an truncated, ugly little moment that Stede would prefer not to examine too closely, thank you very much.

(He knows he’ll have to. Eventually. They’ll have to have a proper chat about it. The fact that Ed, with tears still in his eyes and not even 24 hours after the death of his oldest companion, had hollowly muttered something about being sorry for being such a sad sack , for doing nothing but crying non-stop , and, most alarmingly, for having not been much use to Stede lately , before trying to put his hands on Stede’s dick. Stede had held him at bay, aghast, and told Ed quite firmly and through tears of his own that Ed was in no state for sex right now, and that ‘being of use’ was something Stede never wanted to hear come out of his mouth ever again. Ed had cried about it, and then Stede had cried about it, and they’d talked it through with painstaking gentleness. The part Stede knows he’ll have to investigate further is where such a statement would have originated from. What’s potentially gone on in Ed’s past that would make him think that way, to consider intimacy of a sexual nature to be so tied to his sense of worth).

But the dust has more or less settled on that one. They're not in the frame of mind to unpack it all again right now.

Because Ed is spinning them round and flopping backwards into the floor blankets and pulling Stede on top of him, licking enthusiastically into his mouth and running his hands down Stede’s bare chest like it’s his job. He goes, “No, not a mistake–f-fuck, not a mistake, you know it wasn’t, you know that–”

Stede does. He knows that. It’s still a weight off his shoulders to hear it.

“Just…bad timing, maybe?” he suggests, voice muffled against Ed’s lips, and then his cheek and his neck and the supple dip of his clavicle.

“Mm-hm,” Ed manages, voice thready. His fingers fist into Stede’s hair, the tight pull sending little stabs of pleasure down the back of Stede’s neck and along his spine. “Just–maybe–fuck it, not even bad timing. Good timing. It was good. Good everything. A bit too good, like eleven-out-of-ten good. So I…I got freaked out, s’all. Was fast. We were changing. Freaked me the fuck out, and I just–Stede, fuckin’ shit–”

Stede is listening. Intently.

But he’s capable of multitasking. He can slide his hands along Ed’s thighs and wrap Ed’s legs around him and sink his teeth into Ed’s neck at the same time.

Ed is…maybe less capable of multitasking. Very one-track mind, Edward Teach.

Stede pulls back to examine the sizeable bruise he’s left on Ed’s neck. He presses the indents of his teeth with his index finger, and Ed tries unsuccessfully to bite back a shaky moan.

“Thank you,” Stede breathes, gaze flicking between Ed’s enormous bush-baby eyes and his quivering bottom lip, “for communicating that with me.”

“Jsh–ff– nghhh–” says Ed.

“Good talk,” Stede teases archly, his earlier bashfulness almost forgotten. He slips his fingers into Ed’s hair, weaving in and out close to his scalp, and then gives a light tug. And then a not-so-light one.

Ed whimpers, one of those high, delicate whimpers that Stede hasn’t heard since the fireworks. It’s even prettier when there’s nothing to drown it out.

Stede’s becoming increasingly aware of Ed’s erection digging almost painfully into his own, paired with the fact that there’s still stubborn layers of fabric making strangers of their skin. “Take your clothes off,” he murmurs, and Ed obediently hurries to comply, even though he's only just put them on. He struggles with the pants, only due to his own obstinance, because his ankles are hooked together around Stede’s arse and he seems hell-bent on leaving them there.

“What?” he pants, apparently finding his words as he shimmies linen down his hips. “You don't like ‘em?”

“They suit you very well, my darling,” Stede assures him, making short work of the shirt so he can get his hands on Ed’s absolutely delicious belly. “Where'd these threads come from, anyway?”

Ed heaves himself up, abdominal muscles trembling while Stede gets his top off. The minute he's bare beneath him Stede's grabbing just about everywhere he can reach, kissing and caressing his way down Ed's frankly unfair body, and it takes Ed a long shivery, gaspy moment to process Stede's question.

“S-some guy died and left them at Jackie's. There was barely any blood on ‘em. G-gave ‘em a scrub and they came up real nice.”

“Fascinating,” says Stede, and then he's licking a thick streak up the length of Ed’s cock. 

Whatever smartarse retort Ed had been ready to spit dies in his throat. His whole voicebox and brain and whatever cords that connect them seem to be Under New Management; Ed is immediately reduced to a quivering puddle of cries; of strangled whines and plaintive moans that only escalate as Stede wraps his lips around the crown and applies just a little suction, dipping the tip of his tongue against the slit and tasting the evidence of Ed’s want. Ed’s hands make a beeline for Stede’s head, but just like the first time it’s so much more gentle than Stede anticipates. Ed doesn’t yank at him, doesn’t mishandle him in any way; barely even twitches his hips, though Stede can tell he’s fighting every impulse to bottle-rocket halfway down Stede’s throat. He just rests his hands against Stede’s scalp and begins lightly running his fingers through his hair. The touch does something ridiculous to the very specific nerve endings in Stede’s neck and ears; frisson flutters diaphanously across his skin, the precise sound and feeling of a knife cutting through crumbling sand, and he finds himself moaning helplessly around Ed’s cock.

He also finds himself absently thinking that, at some point, he might rather like Ed to bottle-rocket halfway down his throat. The concept is more than a little intriguing. But he’ll save that for another time. Ed’s gentleness is equally evocative; equally capable of completely taking Stede apart. God, just the feeling of Ed in his mouth is enough for that; hot and clean and salt-swollen, that particular ribbon-like vein palpably throbbing against Stede’s tongue like a heartbeat. He’d been so overwhelmed the first time, when he’d done this for Ed in the captain’s quarters right before the Main Event; so concerned with memorising every minute detail. So much pressure, with it being their First. Now, with Ed fucking shaking with pleasure beneath him; knowing this is one in a string of many, Stede can be present. Because he’ll forget this. He'll forget all about it. This will happen so many more times; god, every single day for the rest of his life, if Ed will let him. They’ll all blend into one. 

There is a sudden, almost frantic little tap-tap-tap at the top of Stede’s head, and he lifts his eyes, letting Ed’s cock slip free from his lips. Ed looks completely debauched, hair and eyes everywhere all at once, pretty as a picture. His chest is heaving, his voice husky and corroded when he speaks.

“Want you to fuck me again. Like the first time. Please, Stede–”

Stede drops his head against Ed’s hipbone, and takes a few bracing inhales, because oh god, oh god , Ed can’t just go saying things like that, fucking warn a man first. This measure is completely counterproductive, as it were, because the smell of Ed’s stupid petrichor skin only throws fuel on the fire running rampant in Stede’s gut, and Ed seems to take Stede’s wordless response as an invitation to keep carding his fingers through his hair, and god, fuck–

Oil makes a miraculous appearance. It’s hiding underneath their blanket nest, and it turns out Ed has popped it there in hopes they’ll use it, which is equal parts adorable and blindingly hot. Stede slicks up his fingers, barely even looking at what he’s doing. He’s completely transfixed, staring at Ed with single-minded focus; the fine bones of his throat, the dusky flush creeping across his nose and up to his ears, the autumn skin stretched tight over his shoulders, his stomach and his nipples and his fucking fabulous legs, which he’s hitched right up so he can get Stede right where he wants him. Stede’s fingers brush light, fleeting circles there, and Ed whimpers pleadingly, and for one touch-starved, desire-soaked second he almost thinks Ed is about to burst into tears. His whole body is clenched whipcord-tight, a gorgeous tension building between them, and the noise Ed makes when Stede’s index finger finally slides inside is nothing short of relieved.

Stede touches him, and it’s both muscle-memory and a learning curve all at once. He recalls, with a heady thrill, what Ed likes and how he likes it, but this time Stede’s looking to find things that Ed doesn’t even know he likes; wants to be the one to light up new parts of him, the same way he’s done for Stede since he first appeared on his ship in smoke and firelight. He thinks perhaps he’s doing alright, if he were to hazard a guess, because Ed looks like the absolute epitome of sheer, desperate bliss. He’s gasping and sweating and keening beneath him, managing frail interjections of Stede or god, fuck, or a particularly memorable Jesus fucking christ, Stede, you’re gonna give me a fucking stroke. Stede does do that, actually, but perhaps not in the way Ed means; he coils his fingers around the straining length of him, his thumb rubbing at the slit in firm, tight little circles, and Ed’s whole body judders, arching off the bed in a sudden jolt like a human apostrophe. 

And then Ed’s begging for Stede, pulling at his wrists to push him away while simultaneously drawing him close, yanking down his pants, lining him up, and heat roars through Stede in a deafening rush as he presses inside.

They hover on the edge of…of something together, just for a moment, something amalgamous and undefined. They tremble, and the warm, shared air between them tastes familiar. Tastes like trust.

“Stede,” Ed murmurs. “Stede.”

It’s not a question, or a request. 

It’s just a Stede; just for the sake of saying it.

Stede kisses him softly, and Ed smiles into it. 

When Stede pulls away, Ed looks happy. He looks so, so happy.

“Stede. Hold my hand?”

And how, how is it so flayingly intimate, to intertwine his fingers with Ed’s, to grip his hand where it lies open and empty on the pillow beside his face, when Stede’s already slid inside him? The callback to their first time nearly rips Stede apart, and suddenly there’s tears in his eyes, and maybe there’s tears in Ed’s, too. Because his voice teeters unsteadily as he urges Stede to move, digging his heels into the small of Stede’s back. As Stede draws away and then pushes back in, he squeezes his eyes shut in awe, and it pushes a tear loose, and it falls, and manages to hit Ed square in his own eyeball, and Ed flinches and then giggles wetly about it, and Stede does too, and then they’re both laughing and crying and fucking and it shouldn’t be like this, how can it be like this? It shouldn’t be that Stede and Ed are the only two people in the world who have this, but they are, they do, they must, because Stede simply can’t fathom anyone else understanding the depth of this, the intensity of it, the euphoria.

Their giggles peter out, and when Stede adjusts the angle they’re forgotten altogether. Ed lets out a cry, and Stede’s clearly aligned perfectly with that explosive spot inside of him. He keeps pushing against it, doing his best to focus on Ed and every pleasure-thick second he can give him. But Ed feels absolutely phenomenal, and Stede is just about delirious with pleasure himself. He staves himself off; avoids looking at all the hair-trigger parts of Ed. But it’s simply an impossible task, Ed’s got far too much bloody harvest-moon skin and ocean-ripple hair, and Stede has to shove his face into Ed’s neck to hide from it all. He bites him while he’s there, just for being so fucking lovely. That’ll show him.

“Fuck,” Ed groans. “Fuck, Stede, fuckin’ touch me–”

Stede does, and Ed practically levitates.

“I love you,” Ed gasps, eyes rolling shut and back arching. “I love you, Stede.” And it strikes Stede that oh, yes, that's a thing they can say now. That's a thing Stede’s mouth can do while he's giving Ed his pleasure, and it's suddenly somehow more preferable than all the other things his mouth can do.

“I love you,” he moans in breathless reply. “I love you too, Edward.” Ed shudders violently beneath him, and Stede chokes out, “Hey, look at me, keep your eyes on me,” and when Ed forces his eyes open Stede says it again, says I love you, and this time Ed lets out a fierce, desperate groan. A tremor races through his body, barrelling through him, and Stede can feel that he’s close before Ed has the chance to voice it. 

He doesn’t know why he says it. He just says it because it's true.

Ed’s nails dig into Stede’s back, his thighs contracting around Stede’s waist, and he’s right the fuck there.

And Stede’s right there with him, right about to drop off the edge, stroking Ed’s cock and sliding between Ed’s thighs, all raw sensation and taut, straining rapture, and it just comes tumbling out.

“I’m–I’m right here, Ed. I’m here, you’re safe–”

Ed comes. He comes with a searing cry, convulsing and writhing in Stede’s arms, spilling molten strands through Stede’s fingers and across his stomach. And he’s tight and shivering and perfect and then Stede’s there, too, firing through an explosive climax, clinging uselessly to Ed’s thigh with one slick, sticky hand as he rides it out, fucking through the mess he’s flooded inside of Ed, and it’s transcendent, it’s unfathomable, it’s too right to be real.

It takes Stede a long while of sucking back air, his forehead propped against Ed’s, to realise that his other hand has gone numb. 

Ed’s knuckles are white from squeezing. So are Stede’s. They’ve not let go, not the entire time.

They clean up. Ed makes mumbly noises through it; gets a little cheeky and intentionally tries to impede Stede’s progress, flinging legs this way and that, wriggling away from Stede’s damp washcloth, whining that it’s cold when it very well isn’t. He can’t wriggle too far; he’s too fucked-out to manage it. But the charade is still a bit of fun; still makes Stede’s cheeks feel all warm and tingly.

Stede ends up on his back, with Ed against his chest. He strokes lightly up and down Ed’s arm, tracing tattoos and scars and the occasional freckle; little gifts from the sea and the sun. 

And his eyes are growing heavy, and he whispers an “I love you” to Ed’s sleeping form.

“Love you, too,” Ed whispers back.

And, okay. Not sleeping.

Stede lifts his head, probably giving himself a hideous double-chin in the process. Ed’s eyes are weary, strained. Forced open.

“Ed? Ed, what's wrong?” 

“What?” 

He sounds confused by the question. 

But something is wrong. It always is, when he’s like this. 

And Stede is intimately familiar with the something , he knows its name. He knows its history of bullying Ed, of tormenting him ruthlessly, of kicking him while he’s down. 

“What's troubling you, my darling? Talk to me.”

Ed shuffles slightly, pushing up onto his forearm to rest his chin in his hand and look Stede in the face. 

He’s smiling . 

Behind the sleepy film over his eyes, there’s a peace that Stede’s never, ever seen there before.

“No, I…nothing's wrong, I'm just…”

He swallows roughly, lips trembling. His eyes shine. He shines. 

“I’m just…trying to take it all in. This. Make it last. Wanna remember this exact moment forever and ever.”

Stede wants to cry. Wants to mouth a silent thank you to whatever deity let them get here, let Edward Teach find solace in a world that’s treated him so poorly.

That his solace is Stede .

Stede wants to cry, and so he does. Just a little. 

He kisses Ed, and he has a tiny little cry, as a treat, and Ed keeps on smiling that soft, crooked smile, and they trade a few more love you’s . Ed flops back down against Stede’s chest, and they enjoy the silence together in wakeful, easy contentment.

“I am… so fuckin’ tired, though,” Ed admits after a while.

Stede chuckles.

“Sleep, love,” he tells him. “You're safe. You can sleep now.”

“Yeah,” Ed murmurs drowsily. “I can, can't I?" Like he's just settled in with the truth of it.

"Think I'm going to," he says. "Bye.”

Ed's eyes shut easily, with no resistance at all. They're already closed by the time he's finished speaking. He slides into sleep, easy as breathing.

The dreamy half-smile doesn't go anywhere.

Stede gathers him closer, and brushes a single kiss to each closed eyelid.

“Love you,” Stede whispers. “See you soon.”

Stede isn't sure if Ed's still awake enough to hear it.

But it doesn't matter.

He knows.

He’ll see him soon.