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He hates and he hates and he hates and then he stabs Stede in the shoulder and watches the blood bloom, the red of loss against the white of Stede's lacy fucking shirt. The anger drains out of him with each splash of Stede's blood against the deck, as if he's the one who's been stabbed, as if he's the one whose body is giving way.

It hurts.

Stede says something, but the words fall unheard to the deck, sinking easily into the blood underfoot.

It hurts too much.

Blackbeard reaches for his hatred, but it's gone, replaced by a rushing in his ears and a pain in his chest and the sure and certain knowledge that he has once again taken something beautiful and trodden it into the dirt. He never deserved fine things.

He dares to look up from the blood to Stede's beautiful, open face, and sees in it a man who was right to leave him, who will only ever be biding his time before he leaves again.

"Ed," Stede says. "I'm so sorry. I love you."

Three lies in a row. But for Stede, for the sake of a little longer chasing what will never be his, Blackbeard can pretend to believe all three.

Blackbeard swipes at his face, smudging the kohl into something softer, less stark, and tries to remember how to be Ed.

"Dickhead," he says, trusting his muscle memory to make it sound like the forgiveness it is -- his body remembers how to be around Stede, how to smile, how to open up his voice -- and he pulls his sword out of Stede's shoulder. "You came back. That's enough."

#

Stede talks to the crew, so Ed talks to the crew. He'll become whatever Stede wants of him, if it just gets Stede to stay a little longer.

"How's Olivia doing?" Ed asks Buttons, keeping his eyes fixed on the horizon.

Visibility is dropping to the east, the waves a little choppier than he'd prefer. Change in pressure might be messing with his bad shoulder, but could just be that he jarred it again, stabbing Stede like that. Messy strike, not his best work.

"Who's asking?"

Ed gestures out vaguely at the sea. "Me?"

He lets Buttons stare at him, beady eyes up close enough Ed would barely have to move to gut him like a fish. Button's breath smells of gunpowder, which is somehow less surprising than it would be if it smelled of, like, breath.

"She's taking it hard," Buttons says. He shakes his head, slow and sad.

Right. Olivia. Of course she is. Dead husband. Whole thing. Killed Jack, which you'd think would be enough to cheer anyone up, but maybe seagulls are sensitive. What would Stede say next? What would Stede want Ed to say next?

"Yeah," Ed manages. "It's hard. Losing someone like that."

Another long pause. Ed watches the clouds. Can kind of see a duck, if he squints? Or a penny farthing?

"Aye," Buttons says at last, gunpowder breath turned back towards the horizon. "But the community's pulling together. Nigel's set up a rota so she doesn't have to fish, and Young Billy's fixed up her nest something lovely. That was always Karl's job, god rest him."

Ed feels something rise up under his ribs, hot and bitter. He pushes it down. "Good," he says instead. "That's - that's really good."

#

Frenchie. Right. Frenchie is the one who can read but claims he can't. Weird guy, pretty cool.

Frenchie is sitting at the base of the mainmast, strumming away at his lute. It's not entirely clear what he's singing about -- either the inevitability of death, Ed thinks, or cures for foot fungus -- but he seems to be enjoying himself.

"Good song," Ed says after Frenchie's final triumphant refrain of Away, away, the rot will burn away.

"Thanks," Frenchie says easily. A moment later, his full body startle indicates he's noticed who's speaking to him. "I mean--"

"Nah, mate," Ed cuts him off. "'S a good song. Very--" He barely hesitates. "--evocative."

Frenchie's face does something weird, so openly torn between pleased and anxious it feels bad to look at. But Frenchie doesn't seem to care, doesn't act like he's noticed he's become a raw, exposed nerve. He just turns the whole whatever of it into a kind of half smile, then goes back to picking out a tune on his lute.

"I've got one about herpes," he says. "Science doesn't know how the bats make themselves small enough to get into your winkle, but modern medical advances have determined why it's only on the Sabbath. You want to hear?"

"Yeah," Ed says, and he kind of does. Herpes is cool.

The herpes song -- Tiny bats, drawn by your seed / To nestle where they may / Tiny bats, they make you bleed / On holy pustule day -- is followed by the cholera song, but they've barely got through a second chorus before Izzy interrupts, yelling for Frenchie from the stern. Typical Izzy, no respect for science.

Ed saunters off in the opposite direction, humming to himself. Catchy tune, that. He never knew sewer water scared off the cholera wasps. Fascinating. Learn something new every day.

#

Ed can't make himself too compliant, or Stede will get bored. Can't make himself too needy, or Stede will do that face, the one he does when someone belches too loud or a barely noticeable bit of puke gets on his shoes. It's a good face, one of Ed's favourites, but only when it's not directed at Ed. Which it would be, if he got all needy and weird.

He doesn't know what it was that made Stede leave him last time -- was he too Ed or too Blackbeard? too vulnerable or too violent? -- but he's not going to let himself fuck this up. He's got this. He can do anything; he can do this.

He goes to his knees when Stede enters the cabin. His face is washed, his lips are parted, his eyes are losing their bloodshot desperation. He's wearing his cleanest leathers, his sharpest smile. He's even stopped humming that bloody tune (let the sewer water wash away / the waspy winds of choler-ay), catchy as it may be.

"Oh. Goodness," Stede says. His face goes a blotchy, unflattering red. Ed wants to press against him, rub his face along Stede's blush-stained cheeks, spread his fingers over Stede's thighs, let his body follow its every animal instinct for closeness. "Ed, are you sure--"

Ed doesn't want to talk about who's sure about what and why. That never leads good places. He's got to stop Stede leaving again, and he trusts his body to do what his words can't.

"Get your dick in my mouth," he says. "Now."

Stede says some things. Ed doesn't listen. Stede is wearing light green like ocean spray, with a frilly shirt that's all ruffles and laces. His shoulder's all patched up, bandages hidden beneath layers of fine clothing like it never happened. He looks majestic, like he should be in a portrait, on a throne, not here in a ruined cabin with a ruined-- Whatever. He's here, and Ed's not going to get mad and he's not going to get weird, he's going to walk whatever line he needs to keep this for as long as he can.

"Now," Ed says again. His own shoulder cramps up, which is fine, he doesn't need it for this. He can stretch it out later, once he's shown Stede what he can do.

Stede fumbles his buttons and laces. Ed itches to cut them off. He knows this. He can do this.

He sucks Stede's cock. Brings him off quick enough. Doesn't let Stede touch him back -- cocky smile, bright eyes, not yet doing what a no wouldn't.

If he was being selfish, he'd lie Stede down and suck him slowly, draw Stede's pleasure out from him in wet gasps, get himself off with his mouth full and his nose buried in Stede's curls. But that's not what Stede wants from him, so.

After, Stede is quiet. Considering in a way Ed doesn't like, makes Ed feel like Frenchie looked up on deck -- guts exposed to sunlight, ugly and vulnerable.

"Why do you wear your knee brace on your left leg?" Stede asks.

It's so fucking unexpected, so fucking Stede, that Ed is tricked into an honest answer: "Reminds me not to jar my right."

He's not expecting a smile, not one of those wide, delighted grins that crack him open, but it still stings not to get one. Instead, Stede continues to consider him. "Because you can't advertise a weakness, I see."

He makes it sound sad, not clever. Something beats against Ed's ribs and then falls silent. Fuck Stede's judgement, anyway. Joints and stuff go all the time, in this life. You can't just paint a giant sign on them, X marks the fucked up knee, all in the name of making life easier. Pain's a pirate's life. Comfort is a trap, makes you soft, makes you an easy target. Makes you lose yourself.

"Have you considered--" Stede pauses. "Not to patronise you. But have you considered wearing them on both knees?"

Huh. Fuck.

#

Stede wants Lucius and Ed to "come to a place of mutual understanding and forgiveness". Ed wants Stede to stay. Lucius, as far as Ed can tell, wants Ed to die slowly and painfully, preferably of something embarrassing. Herpes bats, maybe.

"Sorry about the, er," Ed tries. Blackbeard doesn't apologise, but Blackbeard doesn't get nice things, even on a strictly temporary basis. Blackbeard is too angry, too cruel, too much like his own damned father.

"Okay, so, like, fuck off." Lucius pointedly keeps his back to Ed, the most dangerous pirate of the age. Izzy's set him to swabbing the deck, which Lucius appears to think means pushing his mop lazily around the same square foot of deck while sighing heavily. Izzy's going to be fucking furious.

Blackbeard's fingers twitch and his ribs ache, but it's Ed who replies, keeping to the script he had made Stede give him. "Sometimes I express my emotions in --" Shit. What was it? "-- in unproductive ways. I understand this can be hurtful, and I--" I'm sincerely sorry, was what Stede had suggested. "Yeah," Ed finished instead. "You know."

"Sorry, can't hear you over all the highly traumatic drowning flashbacks," Lucius says. He dunks the mop in his bucket, taking care to splash Ed as he goes. "And me with all this deck to swab, you know how it is."

Something in Ed -- not Blackbeard, not new, compliant-but-not-too-compliant Ed -- thinks that's fair enough. You don't forgive someone for throwing you away like that. Not even Stede can demand that of someone.

He pushes the thought down and away, holds its head under the water of his own endless hurts until it stops struggling. Lucius doesn't need Ed. Ed needs Stede.

He watches Lucius continue to fail to do anything useful with a mop and bucket. It's almost impressive? You'd think he'd manage to get more of the planks wet just by sheer freaking chance. The Swede is sat off lounging against the anchor, doing absolutely nothing of any use.

Ed imagines Izzy's face on seeing this nonsense. Probably do the thing with the vein. Ed loves the thing with the vein. That's five points in Izzy Bingo, the thing with the vein. Ten if you can get him to hiss out of the corner of his mouth.

He should tell Stede about Izzy Bingo; that's the sort of thing he'd like. Probably.

"Is he still there?" Lucius asks the Swede.

The Swede peers at Ed for long enough for Lucius swish his mop back and forth, back and forth.

"Yes."

Lucius sighs, loudly and dramatically. "Fine. My aunt always used to say, 'Anyone can say sorry; the hard part is doing sorry.'"

The hard part is doing literally any manual labour, looks like, from where Ed's standing. But there could be something in that other thing, too. His dad used to say sorry, after. The fucker never did sorry, though -- that was left to Ed's mum.

#

Ed isn't hiding from Izzy in the ball room. He doesn't hide. But he happens to know Izzy'll be on deck until the next watch, and he happens to know the ball room isn't on deck.

The big one, Wee John, shows up just when Ed's thinking of maybe going back to Stede's cabin, maybe checking out the jam room.

"Captain wanted me to give you this," Wee John says, holding out the leather and buckles of what looks like a new knee brace. "Says it's a workplace health and safety issue. All workers are entitled to an environment where risks to their person are properly controlled."

Right. Stede probably believes that, too.

"Thanks." Ed takes it, has a look. Gives it a pull here and a twist there, seeing how it'll hold up. "This is good," he says, because it is. "You do this?"

Wee John's shoulders hunch, but he looks pleased. "I like a bit of leatherwork."

"You're good at it." Ed sits to try it on. "You do a lot of it?"

Wee John gives a one-shouldered shrug. "A bit. Mostly sex stuff, but I made Captain's brace for his shoulder, when you-- when he got stabbed. And I made Roach's wrist supports. See, Frenchie says there are little tunnels in your wrists for all the carp to swim down. They should lay eggs in your fingers, but if you block the tunnels they lay eggs in your wrists instead."

"Right," Ed says. He didn't know Stede was using a shoulder brace. "Happened to my mate Bret. Eggs all over the place. Got one in his eye."

"That happens," Wee John says wisely. "Very dangerous."

The knee brace fits perfectly. Ed tries it out -- cautiously at first, then properly, putting his weight on it and bouncing on his toes.

"Fuck me, mate," he says. "This is brilliant. You made this today?" Stede had only said the thing about using two braces last night, and had gone to sleep soon after. Ed had watched him, so he knows Stede didn't get up again.

"Oh no," Wee John says, looking worried. "Captain started me on it soon as we got the ship back."

Huh. Presumptuous fucker, thinks a part of Ed that won't just shut up and take what it's given, but even that part of him kind of doesn't mind it.

#

"No," Stede says as Ed slips to his (braced) knees. "I don't think we'll be doing that again just yet." His voice is kind but firm.

Fuck. Fuck. Ed fucked that up and he doesn't even know why -- he got Stede off, he didn't ask for anything back, he got on his fucking knees for Stede, and it still wasn't enough.

Stede says some more things, but they slip past before Ed can grab hold of them. Then Stede has him on his feet, and back in a chair, and sipping some brandy that cost more than Ed's entire childhood.

This evening, Stede is wearing light blues and golds. It looks natural on him, like he wasn't born naked and bloody like the rest of them, but like he came out all clean and fancy in a tiny blue and gold suit. Dapper as fuck, probably. Maybe a little blue and gold cane, too.

"How about I read for you?" Stede says. He likes doing that. His voice is still so kind, so hopeful. It makes Ed ache to know the kindness isn't really for him, isn't really directed -- it's just what Stede does, scattering kindness around him like dandruff.

For a moment, Ed thinks about his mum and doesn't know why. She was deliberate with her kindness, not like Stede at all. Deliberate with her compliance, too -- but Ed steers away from that thought, nope, nothing to see here, wait, didn't Stede ask him a question?

"Yeah," Ed says, after too long a pause. "I'd like that." He would. He would.

He doesn't listen to the words. He can't. Stede could be saying anything, telling him anything. He listens to the rhythm of Stede's voice, the satisfaction and the ease, and he lets that drape over him, a thick, soft blanket of fancy words. He doesn't get to keep this, so he might as well enjoy it. Kindness dandruff is still better than nothing.

Stede finishes one story, starts another.

Ed, who fears nothing, gets up from his chair and comes to sit next to Stede on the sofa. His heart is thudding for no reason at all.

Stede looks at him, eyes so fucking kind, and shifts so if Ed wanted to, he could lie his head down on Stede's thigh, let Stede read to him while stroking his hair, maybe, or just resting his hand on Ed's arm.

Feels like if Stede won't let Ed blow him, chances are Stede's not going to let Ed do this, either. Or he will but it'll be too much, too whatever it was that made Stede leave last time, whatever lack it is in Ed that means he doesn't get to be okay.

"You mustn't let me pressure you," Stede says carefully, as if he's the bloodthirsty pirate and Ed is the posh dickhead. "But perhaps you would be more comfortable lying down?"

Ed scrutinises Stede's face. Stede's a wily fucker, unpredictable, but he doesn't lay traps like this, doesn't -- didn't -- string Ed along just to see him fail. Not until he did, at least.

"Yeah?" Ed says at last.

"I would like it very much," Stede says, eyes darting away now, as if this is some kind of admission. "But only if you would."

Well, if Stede wants it, that's different. That's Ed trapping Stede, basically.

Turns out Stede's thigh is just as comfortable as it looks. And Stede's hand on Ed's arm is steady and sure, an anchoring point in the dark and clouded night.

#

There was a guy on Hornigold's crew called Oluwande. Skinny fucker, tall. Very popular with the ladies. Ed can't remember how he died -- must have been sometime before they started trading with Spanish Jackie, or that Oluwande -- tall, dead Oluwande - would have been husband number whatever.

This Oluwande -- hot, alive Oluwande -- has Jim's loyalty, which makes him interesting.

And Stede likes him. Stede likes everyone, obviously, but even if he didn't, Ed thinks Stede would probably still like hot, alive Oluwande.

"You prefer Olu or Wande?" Ed asks. Tall, dead Oluwande fucking hated Olu as a nickname, but Ed's heard the crew call hot, alive Oluwande that, and Wande, and Oluwande. No one else calls him hot, alive Oluwande, though, because Ed is an innovator.

"He prefers not to be left to die," Jim says, appearing out of nowhere to stand between the two of them.

Ed holds his hands up. "Hey. Not a threat. Just asking."

Hot, alive Oluwande shrugs from behind his one-person honour guard. "Yeah, reckon you can stick with Oluwande, mate."

Fair enough. "Right you are," Ed says, keeping his hands where Jim can see them.

Jim is hot and alive too. Should he be thinking of them as hot, alive Jim? Be a bit weird, and kind of awkward to apply to the whole crew, but it'd be pretty fucking whimsical, which Stede -- very hot, very alive Stede -- seems to like.

He could make a thing of it. Hot, alive Frenchie. Sassy, alive Lucius. Eldritch, alive Buttons. Alive, alive Ed.

"You need anything else?" hot, alive, highly dangerous Jim asks, in a tone that implies he'd better fucking not.

Hot, alive, reasonably dangerous on his own terms but extremely dangerous given the strategic givens Oluwande smiles at their back, then says, "He's fine, Jim. It's fine. Lucius says Captain says we're to be nice to him while he's reconciling his disparate senses of self with his current emotional and environmental demands."

"Lucius says that?" Jim asks, a suggestion of a smile in their voice, and shit, Ed was so busy wondering what the hell a diss-pirate sense is he forgot to whimsy Jim's name.

"Well, Lucius says Captain says that. Lucius says if you decide to take a more proactive, people-centred approach, he'll help you hide the body."

Be that as it may, the sounds of angry, alive Izzy loudly climbing up to deck are all the warning Ed needs to go consider his diss-pirate senses else-pirate-where.

#

Ed's chat with Oluwande doesn't count for Jim as well. Not that anyone's keeping score but Ed, and maybe Izzy.

"Nice knife," Ed says, which is true.

Jim glares at him from under the brim of their hat. They've got a set of knives out, all cleaned up and ready to sharpen.

"I'm not going to kill your boyfriend," Ed says, which is also true. He's failed to kill pretty much every member of Stede's crew at this point, and he didn't stay Blackbeard this long without recognising a tide you can't sail against.

Jim gives him a so what? shrug. "Fine. I'm not going to kill yours."

He's not my-- Ed nearly says, but cuts himself off before it reaches his stupid fucking mouth. Taking what he can get means not denying what he's given, even if it's not real. That was where his mum went wrong, not accepting the scraps.

"You're so fucked up, man," Jim says. It sounds almost appreciative -- not like you'd appreciate a person, but like you might appreciate just how intricately, creatively tangled and crusted together some rigging was, so long as you weren't the poor dickhead who had to unfuck it.

"'Oh look at me,'" Ed snaps, putting a whine in his voice that sounds nothing like Jim. "'I'm Jim, I'm all dangerous and mysterious and I've got a hot boyfriend who wants to fuck me, I'm so great, look at my cool hat.'"

Jim tips the brim of their hat. "'I'm Ed,'" they say, and Ed does not sound like that, what the fuck, this is basically mutiny. "'Shit.'"

That appears to be the full performance, which is somehow even worse than whatever else they could have said. I'm Ed, they could have gone for, maybe. I trusted someone and he left me and now everything inside me is splinters and broken glass, and I don't know who to be to make it stop. Or how about, I'm Ed. I'm not enough for anyone, but sometimes people let me pretend for a while.

"Shit," Jim says again, in their own voice. "You want me to get Lucius? He still hates you, but I don't know. He's all--" They make a gesture that Ed recognises as Lucius's emotional competence. Everyone on the crew has made it at once time or another, save Stede, who seems to see Lucius as a flighty, wayward child, not one of the very few members of the crew who has their life together, occasional attempted drownings not withstanding.

"Nah," Ed manages. "I'm not-- S'fine."

Jim shrugs and starts sharpening a knife.

#

Ed lies with his head on Stede's lap. He can have this, so long as he doesn't try to turn it into sex. Sometimes Stede pets his hair.

Stede's wearing some kind of pinkish white outfit today. This evening, anyway. This morning Ed thinks it was all light greys and blues. But yeah, the pinkish white one is good. The trousers are soft under Ed's cheek. Everything smells of flowers, and Ed's shoulder's stopped hurting, and his knee's as good as it's been for months. Even the scar on his palm that never healed right feels less angry today.

He hopes Stede's shoulder's not too painful. He'll ask, maybe, once Stede's done talking.

Stede is telling Ed the story of how he, Stede, realised he was in love with him, Ed. It has the rhythm of a story he's told before, like he's expecting Ed to know all the twists and turns already. Ed can't hold on to it properly -- he tries, he's trying, but it's like trying to cling to sunlight, like trying to catch the moon in your hands.

Ed likes that Stede thinks he, Stede, is in love with him, Ed. He's not going to argue. He's not going to ask why exactly he, Stede, left him, Ed, and then fucked off back to his, Stede's, wife. He's going to let Stede tell the story as many times as he, Stede, wants, as many ways as he, Stede, wants.

"And then I thought, I do know, I do know what that is," Stede says. He says it like a discovery he's inviting Ed to share. Ed pushes down everything trying to rise up, holds it back before it can reach his throat, and makes himself share in the moment, makes himself smile back at Stede and agree, yeah, Stede does know what that is.

Ed flexes his fingers, reminds himself of all the little aches and pains that never go away, just fade into the background most of the time.

Stede darts him little worried glances sometimes, when he thinks Ed isn't looking. Ed pretends not to notice. He thinks once or twice he's seen Stede pretending not to notice Ed pretending not to notice, which makes him feel weird, but kind of good-weird? It can be their thing. Pretending might be okay, as long as they're doing it together.

"How's your shoulder?" Ed asks. He's got his eyes closed, Stede's hand scritching gently against his scalp.

"My shoulder?" Stede repeats. "Oh, you know, it's not bad at all? Funny that, how sometimes a stabbing can knock you down for days, and other times it's just a bit of fun between friends. Frenchie told us it's all to do with which humours are aligned when the blade goes in. Then Lucius laughed, which I think is quite unkind when someone is sharing a scholarly interest."

"Yeah," Ed says absently. That's good, that Stede's shoulder isn't too bad. With a brace from Wee John, maybe it'll heal right, not like Ed's shoulder, and he won't even feel it when the air pressure changes.

#

Pete won't talk to Ed -- actually won't talk to him, not like Jim or Lucius, but properly won't, in a way that kind of makes Ed like him, and kind of makes Ed jealous, though he's not sure of what.

Roach catches him squinting at Pete from across the deck and sidles up to him with the confidence of a man carrying three -- four? -- cleavers.

"Thing is, some people get like that, their first marooning," Roach says. "And we didn't even try to eat him."

"No?" Ed had thought about keeping Roach. Good cooks are hard to come by, especially when the alternative is Ivan's weevil stew. But Jim had been enough of a liability to be getting on with, and it turned out weevil stew wasn't too bad with a couple of spoons of marmalade heaped in. "There's good meat on him."

Roach made a seesawing gesture with one of his cleavers. "Too gristly. Need to stew him a while."

"Huh. Suppose you're the expert."

"Suppose I am." Roach made a show of getting out his cleavers. Four of them, right. "The Swede, now there's someone to get your teeth in. Or Lucius. Captain, too, though less now than he was."

"Fuck you, he's perfect." Wait. No. "Not to eat. But he would be perfect to eat, if he wanted to be. Which he doesn't. And you won't. Or I'll fuck you up."

Roach isn't laughing-laughing, but he's not as not-laughing as Ed would like.

"Don't maroon me again, Blackbeard, and I won't need to eat anyone."

Ed's heard worse deals.

#

It's just the Swede left, of Stede's original crew, though Ed supposes to do it properly he's going to have to talk to his own men, too. He doesn't want to. He wants to go back to Stede's cabin and curl up in Stede's lap and let everything drift away for a while, let himself be Stede's Ed, or Stede's tamed Blackbeard, or Stede's whatever. As long as he's Stede's.

But it gets harder to push down all the other things, and now and again it also gets harder to want to. Roach got to threaten him. Pete got to snub him. And what he did to them wasn't personal.

Olivia gets a fucking seagull committee making sure she's eating okay, and Stede gets a crew who welcome him back with open arms and bring out the special china they'd hidden from Ed's purge, and Oluwande and Jim get each other, and so do Lucius and Pete, and Wee John gets to watch Lucius and Pete, and what does Ed get?

"Er, hello," says the Swede.

Ed gets the Swede, apparently. "Hey."

"I don't want to have an awkward conversation with you," says the Swede.

"Fair enough, mate." Ed doesn't want to have an awkward conversation with the Swede.

"I am asserting my boundaries respectfully." The Swede sounds like he's quoting someone.

"Right, right. Boundaries. Great."

"I am leaving now. Thank you for respecting my wishes."

That was weird. Was that weird? Not really, for this ship. Asserting your boundaries respectfully to the dread pirate Blackbeard, it's new, but it's no getting stabbed through the gut to win a duel, is it?

#

Back on The Queen Anne's Revenge, Ed once avoided Izzy for eight days. Iz had thrown a snit over something petty -- some limb Ed had or hadn't cut off someone -- and Ed had said some shit, and Izzy had said some shit, and there'd been some brief but necessary violence, and then some longer and probably, in retrospect, unnecessary violence. Then Ed had just been done with the whole thing. So had Izzy, until eight days later Ed had clapped Izzy on the back and said, "You reckon we could take that frigate?" and Iz had said, "Piece of piss," and they had, and that had been that.

But for the eight blissful days of avoidance, Izzy had developed a heavy tread Ed could hear a mile off, and Ed had pitched his voice to carry, and the crew had all just been that little louder greeting either of them.

Izzy's doing a bit of that stomp now. Ed's kind of doing the same, but it's not what it was, and maybe that's better? Harder, though. Bit more scurrying than Ed would like, and a bit less help from the crew.

Which is why when Izzy makes his way on deck for a mid-morning yell, Ed goes from lounging coolly in by the mainmast to lounging coolly in the crow's nest in a way that might, to an uninformed observer, look like hiding.

"What the pissing hell are you chucklefucks doing?" Izzy shouts at some hapless portion of the crew, not looking up.

"Chucklefucks," says Lucius, who is also in the crow's nest. "Not his best."

"Yeah, gone downhill since Captain banned all the good ones," Oluwande agrees.Three's a lot for a crow's nest, but they're making it work. "Nice rhythm to it, though."

He takes a swig of something in a flask, offers it to Lucius, who takes his own swig, grimacing. They have a brief, silent conversation that Ed ignores, and then Lucius offers the flask to Ed.

"Crow's nest special," Lucius says. "Almost guaranteed not to make you go blind."

Ed takes the flask, tipping it to them in acknowledgement before putting it to his mouth. He's expecting a burn, maybe something with fumes, but instead-- "This is Stede's brandy."

Lucius just grins. "We won't tell if you don't."

Down on the deck, Izzy steps right up to Pete's face and yells, "I want this deck clean enough to fuck your mother on."

"I'm no expert," Lucius says, "but is that a thing?"

Oluwande pulls a face. "A thing people say? Or a thing mums like?"

"And is Pete meant to be the one fucking his mum?" Lucius continues. "Or Izzy?"

They both look down at Izzy and Pete with matching expressions of deep, unhappy contemplation.

Neither of them have asked what he's doing up here. Neither of them are going to ask. They've all slipped straight into this bizarre command structure where Stede does the captaining, and Izzy and Buttons split the first mate role into the jobs that involve shouting and the ones that involve an uncanny, erotic symbiosis with the sea, and Ed just fucks around all day, not one thing or another.

"Reckon Iz'd treat Pete's mum right," Ed says eventually. "Wine her, dine her, get her some fuck-off big bunch of flowers."

If Stede were here, he'd pull a face of utter disgust then go with it -- I'm sure he'd be the perfect gentleman or no doubt he'd serenade her beautifully -- but Oluwande and Lucius don't even do the faces.

"Yeah, okay," Oluwande says.

He offers Ed the brandy again. Ed takes it, swigs, passes it on to Lucius.

"It's nice," Lucius says into the air, "when people treat us right. Feels better, doesn't it?"

Oluwande nods quickly. "Yeah. Yeah. Bet Pete's mum would appreciate it, being treated right. Um. By Izzy."

They go on like that for few more rounds, something about Pete's mum's taste in men, something about how she might be angry if Izzy doesn't treat her right, and that's okay, it's good to communicate, something something blah blah. Ed ignores them. On the deck below, Pete is swabbing like his mum's virtue depends on it.

Izzy's all right with women. Doesn't fuck them, but he's not a dick about it. Doesn't make promises he won't keep, either. Pete's mum could do worse.

#

Stede is on the sofa, wearing light blues with little purple fussy bits and a white cravatte. Ed could have sat next to him, even not doing the lap thing, but tonight he'd felt itchy, uncomfortable, so he's on an armchair across the table.

Tonight's story is about some useless English fucker who's trying to help some posh Romanian fucker buy a house. Stede does great voices.

But. Yeah. Ed's not feeling it, not tonight.

"You left me." He's interrupting Stede mid-sentence, but Stede merely stops reading, closes his book, and watches Ed with careful, kind eyes.

"I did," Stede says when Ed doesn't say anything else.

"You left me."

Stede left him. Ed can't-- He's not going to fix anything, pretending that didn't happen. And he wants to, he thinks? Yeah, no, yeah, he wants to, he does. Doesn't want to accept what he's given, doesn't want to let Stede fuck back into his life and then fuck off out of it again, doesn't want to sit around all day avoiding Izzy and play acting a version of himself that's no more him than Blackbeard is.

He wants Stede. And he wants to be angry at Stede. And he wants it to matter, that Ed said what he said, and then Stede did what he did.

So:

"You fucking left me," Ed shouts. It's the first time he's raised his voice since Stede got back, the first time he's let any part of him remember what it felt like to want to hurt Stede, to want to do back to him what he'd done to Ed. He feels his father in him, he feels Blackbeard, he feels alive.

He stands, kicks the table aside.

"I did." Stede doesn't even bat an eyelid.

"You." Ed looms over Stede. "Fucking. Left. Me."

Stede is calm. He could get himself out of Ed's range if he wanted, Ed's taught him that much at least. But he stays there, still and quiet, only answering once more, "I did."

The tide is rising in Ed. Does he know how to sail this, how to ride the currents without being ruled by them? It feels dangerous. It feels right. Did his father think he knew how to sail them? Did his mother?

He brings his voice down, keeps the menace but loses the volume. It's the voice he uses to make an admiral shit their pants, to make Izzy shut up and obey. "I offered you everything," he says, "and you left me. Why?"

"I was very foolish, and very wrong." Stede has said this before, Ed thinks, but the words had slipped away. This time, Ed makes himself catch them, makes himself take each one in and inspect it, not for Stede's sake but for his own. "I thought I had ruined you, and I thought you deserved better. It was selfish and shameful for me to leave you as I did, and I am so very, very sorry."

"I hated you," Ed says. He stays standing, not wanting to concede the advantage, but it doesn't feel right anymore, it doesn't feel good.

"Oh. I, I certainly deserved it. Still do, I fear." Stede is watching him carefully. Ed thinks he may see something like relief in Stede's eyes, which makes no sense. What is there to be relieved about now? Ed's not being who Stede wants, forgiveness and adventure and cosy drinks late at night. Ed's shouting, and Ed's hand is on his gun, and Ed remembers exactly what it's like to love a good maim.

"I didn't deserve to be left." Ed's voice doesn't crack. "Not by you. I've done a lot of unforgivable things in my life, I'm fucking Blackbeard, but I deserved better from you."

"You did," Stede agrees. "You do. Oh, Ed. I was terribly wrong, and I've missed you so terribly, terribly much."

Ed isn't crying, so he doesn't wipe his eyes with his sleeve. The anger has crested, but not abated. "You're going to leave me again."

Stede's face crumples at that. He becomes smaller, sadder, older. And then, then, in front of Ed's eyes, he reforms, expression smoothing out into that very Stede mix of determination, recklessness, and sheer fucking lunacy.

"I won't. Not ever again. I swear it. On my life. On my immortal soul, small and grubby as it may be. On anything you want. Ed, I promise, I may be a very foolish man, but some mistakes even I make only once."

"Yeah?" Ed says. "Swear it on--" Your children's lives, he nearly says, but he's not that kind of monster. Your wife's life. My life. The lives of all your crew.

"Anything," Stede says.

Ed hears him, believes that in this moment he means it, but he believed him last time, too, and look where that got them.

His anger offers him solutions: he can force Stede to stay with him, threaten his family, threaten his crew; he can he threaten his own life, make Stede a murderer if he leaves; he can find ways to bind Stede to him so tight and so unbreakable that Stede won't be able to betray him again.

This is why he pushed it down. Inside him is an aching, clawing, grasping monster who'll destroy Stede as long as he gets to keep him. He learned that from his father, may he rot in hell. And then there's new Ed, hollow and desperate, cast off driftwood just grateful to be floating on the tide. His mother was the best of them all, but maybe, maybe he learned that from her.

And then, in between the monster and the jetsam, is just a man who once waited for a man who didn't show.

"Nah. Don't swear it." Anyone can say sorry, Lucius's whatever, grandma, aunt, second-cousin-twice removed, liked to say. The hard part is doing sorry. Olivia gets fish, Lucius gets exhibitionist sex, Frenchie's herpes bats get dicks to nestle in, and fuck whether he deserves it, fuck whether he can play the right part, fuck everything else but this: Ed gets Stede. "Fucking prove it, mate."

Stede's smile all but splits his face in two. "Ed, I promise, I promise, I will, I will."

"Still mad at you."

"Good, oh, that's wonderful, that's a very healthy emotion, anger tells us--"

"Shut up."

"Yes, shutting up, but I'm so pleased you're--"

Ed kisses Stede. Stede kisses him back.

Wait. Shit. Stede said they weren't going to fuck, didn't he? But he's kissing Ed now, making soft little noises against Ed's lips, hands at Ed's waist like Ed's something precious, something worth holding.

Stede stops after a moment, keeps ahold of Ed's waist but pulls back enough to look him in the eye.

"Don't have to stop," Ed says.

Stede tilts his head. "You stopped first."

What? "No, I didn't."

"Yes, you did." Stede's face gets all stubborn and shit, but his hands are still on Ed, still gentle around his waist.

"No, I didn't."

Stede does his full electrocuted parrot face. "Yes, you did. We were kissing and then your mouth went all slack and you stopped making those lovely noises."

Ed ignores the bit about the lovely noises. He's silent and deadly, like a shark with a machete. "Oh. Suppose I did. But only because you said we weren't going to fuck."

"No, I didn-- Oh. You're quite right. I did say that. The other night, I think?"

Stede starts to rub gentle circles against Ed's sides.

"You see," Stede continues. "I thought you wanted to, that first time. And then when it became clear that you, well, that you hadn't enjoyed yourself the way I hoped you would, I realised that perhaps. Um." He frowns. "I just want you to be happy, Ed. That's all I want from you."

"Maybe don't fuck off back to your family at the first sign of trouble?" Ed says before he can stop himself. "That'd be a start."

Fuck. Shit.

But Stede smiles. Real, full, wide, delighted, sunshine glow, bright shining fucking rainbows and sparkles and unicorns smiles. The force of it cracks Ed's ribs until all that's holding him up are Stede's two hands and the careful, patient circles he's still rubbing against Ed's sides.

"There you are," he says, nonsensically. "If you want to have congress with me, I most certainly want to have congress with you. Or frottage, of course, or any of the other delights of the flesh. But I had too many joyless, dutiful episodes with Mary to ever want one with you."

"Congress," Ed repeats, half his attention still on Stede's hands, which have dropped back to hold him gently at the waist. "Frottage. Sure. Those things. Yeah. Can we fuck, too? Is that on the table?"

Stede smiles some more. "Yes, my love. Fucking -" He says the word with relish. "- is very much on the table. Or the bed. Or both, though perhaps not at once, unless you have a particular whim."

Ed's fucking full of particular whims when it comes to Stede. Full of particular fucking whims, come to that. "And if I'm still angry?" he tests out. "Because you left me?"

Stede doesn't let go. Stede isn't letting go. Stede keeps on not letting go, not stepping back. Stede is just looking at him hungrily, hopefully. Like Ed is caviar and champagne and a forty orange glaze all baked together in a pie.

"It hurt," Ed says. He brings his own hands up, at last, to Stede's waist. They can hold each other through this. Loose enough to break free if they need to, close enough to hold on through the storm. "And then you came back. And it still hurt."

"I'm so sorry," Stede says. "I'm so sorry for all the ways it hurt. For all the ways I hurt you, and for all the other hurts you've suffered, too."

Ed's no stranger to other people's apologies. You don't pillage and plunder and all that good shit without receiving your fair share of groveling apologies, normally right before you have one of your crew spill someone's guts out over the deck.

But no one has ever been sorry before for something they didn't do.

He's not stopped being angry, but the fires are banked, the tide has ebbed: there's nothing rising up that he may or may not shove down.

"You want me to say sorry?" he tries. There's plenty of things he could apologise for. Stede's stuff. All the marooning and the kidnapping and the throwing people overboard. Stabbing Stede in the shoulder.

Stede doesn't answer at once, takes a moment to think about it. That's one of the best things about him, better even than the kindness or the fancy shit or the wildly unpredictable recklessness. He listens to Ed. He cares about what Ed has to say.

"I don't think so?" Stede says at last. "I don't need you to be sorry, I just need you to be you."

Ed isn't crying. He's not a crier. Doesn't cry. But he can't wipe his eyes without taking his hands off Stede's waist, and he doesn't want to be the one to break first, not when they've got this whole thing going, all symbolic and shit.

And Stede doesn't make him decide. He smiles at Ed, watery but true, and pulls him forward into a hug. It's warm and tight and safe and oh hey, yep, that's Stede's dick all right, because apparently Ed is going to fuck a man who gets turned on by awkward emotional intimacy.

Ed's still hard too, of course, but who wouldn't be, with Stede's hands on him and Stede's full attention blazing into his chest? Only a freaking loser, that's who.

"Um," Stede says, after they've held each other for, Ed doesn't know, probably basically no time at all, and Ed's wiped his tears and his snot all over Stede's cravatte and Stede's pretended not to care. They are both still very, very hard. "I don't suppose you might be interested in a spot of physical intimacy?"

"With our dicks?" Ed checks.

"With our dicks," Stede confirms.

Ed can't see, face still buried in Stede's shoulder, but he bets Stede is blushing. That good blush, the mottled, blotchy one that isn't hot but at the same time is so fucking hot.

He has to check, and then yep, there it is, so he has to kiss Stede, and then he has to kiss Stede some more, and then he has to have Stede's clothes off right now because what if it's blush all the way down?

#

"This is quite lovely," Stede says sometime later, balls deep in Ed.

"Yeah?" Ed manages. Took a while to go from the kissing to the fucking -- lots of "are you sure?" and "are you sure you're sure?" and "yes I'm sure I'm sure are you sure you're sure?" and maybe someone cried but it was probably Stede, he's more of the crying type, Ed's basically never cried in his life -- but now they're at the fucking, and it's like nothing else.

"I would gut --" Stede thrusts. "-- a man --" Stede thrusts again. "-- to have -- this with you -- just once."

Ed comes.

#

It's a beautiful day on a beautiful boat, and Frenchie has a song about a two-headed lizard called Dread Amphisbaena (who causes more-a pain-a / than a-a-all of Spain-a) that he's teaching to Lucius and Fang.

"Good song," Ed says. Good song, good day, good boat, good everything.

"Yes," Stede agrees readily, squeezing Ed's hand. Today he's wearing soft greens. Ed stole one of the ribbons from the cuffs and tied it into his own hair. "Love the rhyme scheme. And such a thematically pertinent use of chiasmus -- poison from the head / tail spits poison too. Tumty-tum, tumty-tum."

Frenchie looks to Lucius, who shrugs. They both look to Ed.

"Means he likes it," Ed translates.

Frenchie smiles. "Thanks, Captain. Captains. You want a go at the chorus? It's really easy, just need to remember not to blink when you say her name."

Stede makes a quizzical noise.

"Or she'll eat your nostrils while you sleep," Frenchie explains.

"Ah," Stede says. "Bit risky, but I suppose that's what makes it art."

Lucius puts his hand over his nose.

"I'll protect you," Ed says to Stede. He'll protect Stede from anything. "If the Dread Ambidickhead comes for your nostrils."

Stede beams at him. "And I'll protect you if she comes for yours." He lifts Ed's hand to kiss the back of it. "Right, that's sorted then. Frenchie, if you will begin our lesson?"

Ed doesn't let go of Stede's hand, and Stede doesn't go of his, and Frenchie begins to sing.

#

Epilogue

"Izzy. Fang. Ivan." Ed nods at each of them in turn.

He gets two counts of "Boss" from Fang and Ivan, and one grudging nod from Izzy.

"I'm sorry about your dog," Ed says to Fang. "Shitty of me. Shouldn't have done that. And I'm sorry about your brother," he says to Ivan. "Shouldn't have done that either. We can go back, if you like, maybe give him some gold for, you know, the whole arm thing."

Fang shuffles and looks at his feet. "I still miss him."

"Yeah," Ed says. "Sorry won't bring him back. But I am."

"Konstantin would like that," Ivan says. "The gold."

"Yeah," Ed says. "Let's do it."

Ed looks at Izzy. Izzy looks at Ed.

"What about me?" Izzy says, voice dripping with contempt. "You sorry for my toe, now? Or for everything else?"

"I don't know, Iz," Ed says. He doesn't. "S’all pretty fucked up, isn't it?"

"Yeah," Fang says, then claps a hand over his mouth.

Ed continues to look at Izzy. Izzy continues to look at Ed. It's hard to avoid a man on a ship for a week; have to know them pretty well to do that dance and do it right.

"Yeah," Izzy says at last, tone back down to regular levels of fuck this shit. "Don't know what's more embarrassing, being a fucking sadsack piece of shit or being the fucking sadsack piece of shit who follows him round."

"Does he mean him and Boss, or Boss and Captain?" Ivan whispers to Fang.

"Him and Boss," Fang whispers back. "You can tell because his eye's not twitching."

Izzy's eye begins to twitch. Four points in Izzy Bingo.

"Be pretty embarrassing to stop now," Ed offers. "Sadsack pieces of shit got to stick together, I've heard."

"Fucking sadsack pieces of shit," Izzy corrects him.

"Fucking sadsack pieces of shit," Ed agrees. "Them especially."

Izzy glares at him. Ed grins back. It's a start.

##