Archive of Our Own ^beta

Ed loves this room.

There isn’t much to the rest of the shop — just a few knick-knacks and a couple pieces of furniture that have seen better days. But the owner was a seamstress when she was younger — “many moons ago,” she’s said — and there's a whole back room filled with old dresses and petticoats and fabric of every texture and color. 

Ed tries to wait until the room is empty before going in to explore. If it’s not, he busies himself with picking up and putting down objects that could be fairly categorized as “thingamajigs,” sometimes weighing them in his palm as if he’s judging a contest. When the coast is clear — like it is now — he slips in quietly, like the fabric might hear him coming and beat a hasty retreat. Time goes a bit fuzzy in the back room. He drifts between shelves of blue and indigo, lilac and lime green. Some of the fabric is frayed at the edges, like stories have unspooled from their seams. He feels like that himself, sometimes. 

They’ve lived here on the island for half a year, and Ed is happy, of course he is. He wakes up in Stede’s arms more often than not, and on the “not” days Stede is usually up making him tea or arranging fresh flowers on the nightstand. Later, Ed lies in the grass with his head pillowed on his hands and his knee propped up on Stede’s thigh, listening as Stede describes the shapes of clouds until they become so ridiculous that Ed has to kiss him about it. He kisses Stede because he can, and because there’s nothing else in the world that is more important than Stede’s lips on his, more beautiful than Stede sighing his name. 

They've stretched into their new space like cats that got the cream. The walls are falling apart, and the roof is a bit… unroof-like, if he’s honest. To them it might as well be a palace. “I’ll meet you in the drawing room, darling,” Stede says, walking five feet to sit in a chair by the window. “Babe, I can’t hear you from that wing of the house!” Ed calls from the kitchen while Stede’s around the corner. Ed leaves his robe (“It’s officially mine now, Stede, because it likes me best!”) hanging on the corner of their bedroom door. There are scuff marks from the day they tried to move the antique armoire in through the back door (“Pivot, Ed, for heaven's sake!”) and a sizable hole from Ed dropping one of the drawers on the rickety steps. There are books half-read left for later and a plate of Roach’s cookies the Revenge dropped off that they chip away at day by day (Ed likes to grab one right before bed, and Stede has one with his morning tea). The inn — or the inn-to-be, at any rate — is more of a home than Ed has ever had.  

But every so often Ed catches himself holding his breath. He’ll be looking at Stede in the candlelight and be struck, as if by lightning, with the hurt of that night on the dock, when he waited for Stede until the sun rose. Ed feels the world go off-kilter in those moments, like he’s looking up at his life from underwater. 

And then there are times when Ed feels like the space he occupies is both too big and too small, feels like his outlines are a bit wobbly. He finds himself missing his leathers, which carved such a predictable path in the world that Edward didn’t have to do much more than slip them on and tune out, let Blackbeard take the reins. Now he looks in the mirror every day and puzzles at the person he sees.

Here, in his favorite room, Ed thinks about rather exquisite cashmere, about you wear fine things well, about the lush teal robe that held him like a cloud the morning he tossed Blackbeard into the sea. The dock is far away, and so is the man who waited there. He’s not the same Edward that Stede left in the middle of the night, not even the same Edward who arrived on this island and became an innkeeper. Ed is just starting to learn who he is in his own skin, in clothes that drape him like parentheses, in the arms of the man he loves. 

He’s found some of those clothes in the shop’s back room — silk pants and beaded belts, dressing gowns trimmed with lace. He takes a satin jacket off of a hanger and holds it to his chest, swaying softly. He dusts off a pair of mustard-colored trousers that are folded in the corner, finds a shirt to match them. Stede used to have so many clothes like this, before the Kraken tossed them overboard. Stede’s assured Ed that he doesn’t miss them, but Ed remembers Stede in resplendent ruffles, remembers his smile when he tied the bows on his shoes, remembers the feel of Stede’s stockings against his own skin when he slipped them on for the party, how Stede said, “Oh, Ed— how lovely.”

This room is the auxiliary wardrobe of Stede’s dreams. Each time Ed visits, there are new racks to explore, new piles of vibrant fabrics. He gets to know the items by touch, imagines the paths that brought them here, the spaces they'd take up in the dwindling closet space at the inn. 

He’d been too embarrassed to buy anything in here at first, which was odd. He bought all kinds of weird shit with his loot over the years — a taxidermied mongoose named Fred, playing cards made of snakeskin, apples dipped in gold that ended up being great projectiles in a pinch. But these clothes seemed off-limits to him, somehow. Undeserved. He felt bold enough pilfering the sea pearl necklace at that poncy wedding, but he’s not sure he would have taken it in his more lucid moments. Wearing it felt like he was getting away with something much more illicit than pirating.

The fine things he’d worn before had been Stede’s, or remnants of a past so distant that it felt like a dream. His mother’s voice was there to remind him, should he doubt. We're just not those kind of people. We never will be. 

And Ed isn’t that kind of person, most of all.

Still, he’d told Stede about the room, demurred when Stede asked to see if Ed had brought any items home. “They don’t… I don’t know if they’re for me, mate,” he’d said. Within minutes they were marching down to the shop together, Stede insistent on seeing all of Ed’s favorite things. And it had gotten a bit easier: first he bought scarves to wear on autumn nights, then socks with shoes to slip them into, ribbons for his hair. But there are some things that he fears might burn his hand if he touches them, things that are so delicate and refined that Ed can hardly look at them. Dresses embroidered with flowers, tulle skirts, a silk chemise. His heart quickens a bit when he sees them, like he’s been caught out. 

Speaking of. There’s a purple dress on a rack to his right, tucked behind a pair of thick drapes with tassels skimming the ground. Ed saw the dress almost as soon as he came into the room and has been purposefully avoiding it until now. Ed can’t say that he’s been in the company of many fancy ladies, but he’s raided enough opulent vessels to have seen his fair share of gowns and dresses. He’s never seen anything like this. The color is muted, almost like Ed’s seeing from behind a veil of mist. It’s overlaid by a layer of soft gossamer — it looks to Ed like it might dissolve at the faintest touch. The neckline is simple, the sleeves short enough that the wearer’s shoulders would be bare. Ed wonders what the fabric would feel like against his collarbones, his hips. He imagines fingers running down his arm from the top of a sleeve. His feet carry him closer. There are little threads of silk stitches along the front and sides to hold its shape, like faded lines of ink. The dress is more draped than hung, its folds tacked down at the waist and along the shoulders. He dares to reach out, inhaling sharply when his hand grazes the skirt. 

It reminds him of the morning he shook Stede’s hand, when he found the big fuck-off scarf — a pashmina, Stede told him — and brushed it against his cheek. It was like taking a much-needed breath — or releasing a long-held one. It also reminds him of the banyan he wore when Stede left, the one he wrapped around himself to keep Stede close until the Kraken shred it to pieces. 

“I’ll be closing shop in just a few minutes, love,” says the owner from the doorway of the back room. Ed jumps at her voice, nearly falls against a mirror that’s leaning behind him. 

“Yeah,” he says, voice shaky. “Yeah, no problem.” 

She joins him at the clothing rack, takes the skirt of the dress in her hand. “I’d forgotten I put this back here,” she says. “Made this ages ago — a costume for a traveling Antigone, as I recall.”

“Right,” Ed says, nonplussed.

“I should take it out for a good thwacking sometime.”

“Definitely,” Ed agrees, with absolutely no idea what she’s on about. He tries to smile, but from the shopkeeper’s reaction it reads more like a wince. “I’ll just…” He turns from the dress with a nod, slightly mortified. He walks back into the main part of the shop, gathers the basket he’d left there with the items he’d found for the inn: candlesticks, a paperweight, a little frame for Stede’s pressed flowers. The shopkeeper returns to the counter after a few minutes, tidying up the shelves on the wall behind her. He attempts the smile again — success! — as he places his basket on the counter by the door, idly scanning the shop as the owner notes the wares in her ledger. He’s been known to spot something he missed on his first go-round to add to the pile, a practice Stede scoffs at with a smile in his eyes. Nothing stands out until he spots a wooden frame peeking from behind a dresser, hints of vibrant color almost visible. 

“Just a sec,” he says to the owner, shuffling over to get a better view. 

What he sees stops him dead in his tracks.

The painting is hanging from a chair leg on a thin piece of twine, the frame marked lightly with tiny scrapes and scuffs. The paint fades a bit at the edges. There are reds and pinks, brown for the hull of a ship, tan for a beach that stretches from sea to cliffs. Ed loses sight of these details almost immediately; he’s captivated by a figure lying in the foreground, collapsed against the sand as if she’s fallen from the darkened sky above her. Strands of her hair reach back and away from her, like they’re crawling toward land. Some of it falls across her face, across her mouth. It almost looks like it hangs from her chin. She is bare-footed and bare-armed. Her dress traces the contours of her calves, her hips, her ribs. The line of her seems painted with a single stroke. 

“Oh, I’m glad somebody noticed that one,” the shopkeeper says, craning her neck over the counter. “It’s one of my favorite stories.”

Ed barely hears her. Something about the woman’s face makes Ed’s heart race, makes him bring his hand up to his own lips in shock. He recognizes her expression instantly, feels it stir something like a half-remembered dream: sorrow, yearning, anger, fear.

Some namby-pamby in a silk gown pining for his boyfriend.  

Ed had never felt more alone than he did in that moment, before he let the Kraken take over for a second, then for weeks, then for months. He’s not sure why this memory — and seeing it reflected here in brushstrokes on canvas — fills him with longing, makes him want to lean into the heartache like pressing on a bruise. Stede wasn’t there, he thinks, that empty, harsh feeling rushing up and settling in his throat. Would he love me if he saw me like that?

Stede said he loved everything about him. It was a nice thing to hear. He’s repeated it since, in quiet moments on the porch, as they cleared their plates after dinner. But how could he, when Stede didn’t see Ed at his worst, only unstuck the knives from chairs they sat in, tables they used? And would Stede still love him if Ed said that this painting made him think of Stede’s absence, that Ed thought it was beautiful? That Ed wanted to be beautiful, and held, and told that everything would be alright? 

“All set, love?” calls the owner, peering at him from the counter. 

Ed jumps a bit, looks up at her apologetically. 

“Sorry,” he says. “Yep, all set.” 

He moves back toward her and pulls his coin purse from his belt, but abruptly turns around and returns to the painting.

“Hey, I’ve really got to close up!”

“Sorry, one second!”

He doesn’t think. He plucks the painting from its hanging place, holds it to his chest as he jogs up to the counter. The owner raises an eyebrow but doesn’t comment on the addition, just notes it next to the other items and reads him his total. Ed doesn’t hear her. He drops a handful of coins in her upturned palm, mumbling his thanks. When he’s out on the stoop, he tucks the painting under his arm as if he’d stolen it and is trying to make his escape. A million questions buzz in his head as he turns toward home: Why did I do that? What will I do with this? What will Stede say? They get louder and more frantic the closer he gets to the inn, rising to a fever pitch when he can see the smoke from their chimney. 

Stede is washing carrots when Ed rushes through the door. He looks up at Ed with a smile that makes Ed want to run and hide. What will he say?

“Hi, love,” Stede calls, drying his hands on a towel. “How was the market?” 

Ed shoves the painting behind the desk in their living room as Stede’s turning to hang up the towel. He prays Stede doesn’t notice. 

“It was great. Perfect,” Ed says. 

Stede comes to kiss him, taking Ed’s face in his hands. Ed lets his eyes drift closed. When the dark greets him he sees an unmoving ocean and delicate hands pressed against the sand.

Whenever Ed walks past the desk he quickens his pace, like the painting might jump out and nip at his heels. He thinks about moving it — because obviously Stede will find it, it’s his desk — but Ed knows that as soon as he grabs it to put it somewhere else, Stede will walk in, and smile, and ask: “What do you have there, darling?” He’s not sure why the idea of Stede seeing it makes him want to crawl under the bed. It’s probably not great, is it? Talk it through, Stede always said. They’d brought that philosophy here to the inn, a vestige from the Revenge. They’re great at it — of course they are. They talk for hours, for days, can't shut up, really. And Ed listens to Stede like he's starving for it, sitting on the edge of his seat as Stede tells him about his favorite flowers, about birds he remembers, about the horrible bullies from his horrible town, about his time on the Revenge before Ed joined them: fern raids, and flag making, and near-mutinies. Ed is transfixed, like he always is when Stede talks. He folds his heart around each new piece of information about this man, wraps them in silk. And Ed goes on and on when Stede asks him to tell a yarn about his days at sea, less interested in the details and more in how Ed felt then, how he feels now. It’s like they’re back where they started, teaching each other things. 

But they don’t talk about the night Stede left. They talk around it, up to and including Stede’s time as the maitre de at Spanish Jackie’z, Ed’s record-breaking tear across the Caribbean and the more bizarre entries on his wanted poster — Stede only took offense to “imprisoning a cat,” but Ed maintains that the cat had it coming (“You should have seen his poster, mate.”). 

Stede always has a little furrow in his brow when they swap stories about their time apart, like he’s about to ask a question but decides against it at the last minute. Ed can sense when they’re approaching treacherous waters, same as he always could. He steers them clear of it by making Stede groan at a bad joke, by giving him a deep kiss, a pointed look. Or he says, “We’ve been over that, Stede,” when they get perilously close. And technically that’s true, though Ed had been fresh out of the gravy basket at the time, fresher still from a one-sided fight with a dining room chair. Stede doesn’t press it, doesn’t push. Calm seas ahead. Ed is a master tactician.

And he doesn’t talk about the painting.

He tries not to think about it, either, which is to say that he thinks very hard about not thinking about it. The out of sight out of mind thing is a crock of shit. Ed has a habit of getting stuck on a thought — an anchor snagged on flotsam beneath the surface — so the space behind the desk might as well have a sign hanging over it that says Special Delivery for Edward Teach’s Sticky Brain. He wants to tell Stede about it, which is worse. It feels wrong to keep things from him — not because Stede demands that Ed share his every thought, but because talking about things with Stede clears the debris, raises the anchor, makes the sailing a bit easier. And Stede listens to him — he really listens, not impatiently, not because he wants something from Ed or he feels like he should. He listens because he cares about what Ed has to say. He cares, full stop. 

Ed comes close to mentioning it a few times, when Stede is looking at him over their little kitchen table, when he brushes a strand of hair behind Ed’s ear. 

“Hey,” Stede says one night, catching his eyes. “Something on your mind?”

The space behind the desk yawns wide. 

“No, mate,” Ed says, taking the candle from Stede’s hand to place it on the bedside table. Stede turns to fetch two nightgowns from the dresser — “his and his,” he says — but when he returns to the bed he regards Ed with a crease between his eyebrows, the inquisitive, thoughtful one that makes Ed’s stomach flip. Ed has to look away, has to laugh it off. “Well, I guess something is on my mind, now that you mention it,” he says, biting his lip and lying back against the sheets. He manages a wink. 

Stede rolls his eyes, but the concern has ebbed a bit. “Oh, I assume that’s your mental baseline. Am I wrong?”

“No,” says Ed, taking the nightgowns from Stede’s arms and tossing them to the foot of the bed. “No, I don’t think you are, mate.” 

From there it’s easy to kiss him, for Stede to curl down into him like a breaking wave. Stede shucks off his trousers, joins Ed by slotting their legs together, by taking Ed’s face in his hands. Ed’s breathless within minutes. He tips his head back and closes his eyes, feels Stede’s fingers trail down his neck to his chest. This is one of the few times when Ed is fully present in his own skin, even if it’s fleeting: when Stede’s lips brush his collarbone, when Stede takes his cock in his hand. He collects these moments like precious stones, bright and shining. This time Ed notices how his own hair falls across the pillow, spreading out and back. He notices the sheets shifting under his calves, the softness that holds his skin. As Stede presses him down he imagines sand dragging across his back, his neck, pictures the patches of red as grains of it scratch over tendrils of ink. 

He shakes his head, tries to refocus. 

“Darling,” Stede says, placing a hand over Ed’s heart. “Is everything all right?”

It’s one of Ed’s least favorite questions, but it’s asked by his most favorite person. He surges up to kiss Stede again, buying a few extra seconds. Stede allows it, but Ed knows he’ll wait for an answer before they go any further. “Sorry. I’m okay. I’m distracted, I think. It’s been a lot lately.”

It's not why he's distracted, but it's true. They’re in the final push to get the inn ready for its first guest, though who their first guest could possibly be is an open question. Ed can feel the frantic pace of the last few weeks settling into his bones, into his knee especially, the fucker. There are tins of paint along the wall and an old sail where a window should be, and the yard out back is still overgrown and seems to be advancing on the house at speed. Ed is used to working hard — he did little else for forty-odd years. But this feels different, somehow. He’s putting his whole heart into this, Ed’s heart, and he’s sharing it with a person he’s fought tooth and nail to have by his side. Beneath it all is an undercurrent in the shape of the space behind the desk, like dust that won’t budge at the sweep of a broom. 

Stede looks at him, and all the currents — under, over, between, through — smooth at the warmth in his eyes. 

“You’re right,” Stede says, tucking in against Ed’s chest. His fingers dance down Ed’s arm, tracing snake scales. “I feel it too. We’ve been going full tilt, haven’t we?” 

Ed nods, his chin ruffling Stede’s hair. 

“We’ll get there,” Stede tells him, sure as anything. That’s one of Stede’s Things, this certainty he has that things will be okay, in the end. They might not be — or, at the very least, “okay” may look completely different than what either of them expected. But one way or another, the two of them always resurface, kick to the shore. 

Things go slowly after that, just Stede running his hand across Ed’s skin, Ed exhaling when Stede slides a palm over his cock and strokes him gently, Stede lightly nipping at his ear, whispering “there you go” when Ed spills over his fist with a cry. And then Ed takes Stede in his mouth, tries to concentrate on the weight of him on his tongue. Stede moans his name, slips fingers into Ed’s hair. 

“You’re lovely like this,” Stede says, and oh that strikes something inside him, might make him hard again if he had a few more minutes. There’s a flash of the purple dress, the one hanging in the shop. Ed pictures the fabric falling over Stede’s legs as Ed leans over him, pictures a strap inching down his own shoulder, barely hanging on. He groans around Stede’s cock and he’s here, every part of him bent to the task of bringing this man pleasure, of giving him what he wants. “Lovely,” Stede says again. 

But this time it’s followed by the thought that maybe Stede is wrong. Maybe Ed’s been tricking him all this time, and Stede hasn’t seen the ugly truth of him, hasn’t checked the nooks and crannies where Ed’s hiding the real shit. I love everything about you, Stede had said. It's hard to believe that, when everything is what scares Ed the most.

Ed shoves the feeling down — another cranny filled — and swallows around Stede’s cock, looks up at him from beneath his lashes. Stede tugs on his hair and comes with a gasp, his head thrown back. Ed keeps him in his mouth until he softens, until the grip on Ed’s hair becomes a gentle pull to release him. Ed lays his cheek on Stede’s thigh and reaches a hand up, knowing Stede will take it in his. 

The thought’s still there, waiting in the wings for things to settle down, for Stede’s breathing to even out, for one of them to grab the towel and do a cursory cleanup that they’ll wish had been more thorough come morning. It recedes as Stede kisses Ed’s hairline, murmuring something Ed can’t quite hear. He moves down to Ed’s lips, sighing against them. 

“I love you, Ed,” says Stede. 

Ed wonders how it’s possible that it sounds like the first time, every time. 

“Love you, too,” he says. Stede’s eyes are drooping, so Ed reaches for the towel and runs it over Stede’s belly, his hand. “Let me toss this and blow out the candle.”

“Okay,” Stede mumbles, barely awake. 

Ed slips from the bed, waits a beat until he hears Stede’s soft snores, sees his chest rise and fall in sleep. Ed scoops up one of the forgotten nightgowns and slips it over his head. When he blows out the candle the moonlight gets brighter, like the flame kept it at bay. The room is cast in soft, blue light. It reminds Ed of nights on the deck of the Revenge, Stede looking into his eyes. Ed pads over to the mirror that leans against the wall by the dresser, sees himself as a shadow in white cloth. His eyes are bright. He sways his hips, watches as the fabric of the nightgown swings like a bell against his calves. He hears Stede’s voice in his head — lovely — just as the thought creeps in, climbs up his spine. Only like this, it says. Only when he can’t see all of you. He tries to tuck it away, next to the wooden frame behind the desk. 

Ed wonders what colors and setting a painter would choose for his portrait. Would Stede come across it in a shop, finally see what Ed’s kept hidden behind leather and kohl and the edge of a blade? He might glimpse the fragile thing underneath that yearns with claws and teeth — a wolf in rabbit skin, a tentacled creature costumed in fine fabric. 

“Oh, that’s a nasty piece of work,” Stede might say, and opt for a still life of flowers instead. 

Ed retreats from the mirror, but doesn’t join Stede in bed. He steps quietly through the front door and sits on the top porch step, leans into the wind that sweeps his hair from his shoulders. The moon slips behind a wall of cloud.  

Ed spends more time in the garden than he thought he would. Because nature, for starters. And until they settled here Ed had no idea what to do with green things — his world had been shades of blue. 

They have two gardens, one for each of them — they didn’t plan it that way, but they’ve each naturally gravitated to one or the other. Ed spends his time in the front yard with the flowers, and Stede tends neat little lines of vegetables at the side of the house that demand fastidious, doting care. Sometimes if they’re outside together Ed can hear Stede talking to them in low tones, coaxing them from the vine. Ed conjures hibiscus and lilies, butterfly jasmine. He didn't know the names of flowers, before Stede. He marvels at their vibrance, at the softness of their petals. Stede asks to take a “tour” of the garden every so often, his arm looped with Ed’s as they stroll a well-worn path around the flower beds. “They’re beautiful, Ed,” he always says. And me? Ed wants to ask. Am I?

Today Ed’s elbow-deep in dirt, weeding an overgrown patch near the steps where he’s planning on planting an allamanda bush. Sweat trickles down his brow into the collar of his shirt, and he can feel the sun beating down into the skin at the back of his neck. It’s a good heat, the kind that leaves him tired and pleasantly sore, turns his brain off for a bit. He’s been at it for about an hour when Stede calls to him from the front room. 

“Ed! What’s this?” 

Ed loves when Stede asks these types of questions, the ones that Ed can’t possibly answer without getting closer to him, without seeing what he sees. Ed leans back, wipes the dirt off on his trousers. He kicks his shoes against the steps and slips them off by the door before he walks inside. 

Fuck.

Stede’s standing there with a brilliant, mind-melting smile on his face, the one he usually reserves for breakfast in bed or the really good brandy they save for special occasions. He’s smiling, and he’s holding the fucking painting in his hands, staring at it in wonder. Ed feels his heart sink into his heels, feels his mouth go dry. 

“When did we get this? I don’t remember buying it at the market.”

“Dunno, mate,” Ed says, surprised that he can answer at all. 

Stede tilts the painting back, seeking a different view. His smile widens impossibly, and he holds the frame up against the nearest wall, stepping back as much as he can to assess the fit. “Oh, how lovely! What a mystery though — maybe the crew brought it last time they were here? But why wouldn’t they tell us about it?”

“Yeah,” Ed says, moving into the kitchen to get some space. He needs something to do with his hands. He starts pouring himself a glass of water, but he’s shaking too much to manage it. He ends up grabbing a towel from the counter and squeezing it in his fist. 

“Ed, come look! It’s such a fine rendering. I’ve only seen one other in oil paint — I think it was French?”

“Sure,” Ed says, folding the towel into a tiny square in his hands. He ends up dropping it on the floor. Twice. 

“Ed,” says Stede, and shit, he’s walking into the kitchen (without the painting, thank fuck) and is looking at Ed with The Eyes, which are just Stede’s eyes but shinier, somehow, like convex glass. “Did you hear what I said?”

“Yeah, it’s a pretty painting.” Shit. “Nice painting.” 

Stede frowns slightly, bends down to pick the towel up off the floor without breaking his gaze. “Did you…know it was here?”

And here it is again, the choice to keep things from him. It feels as bad as it ever did. Ed is reminded of the old sack that itched where it brushed his skin, the bell that jingled lightly around his neck. He fights the urge to duck his head. It’s ridiculous, he thinks, that he feels more fear now than he ever did with the barrel of a gun to his head, with a knife to his throat. But he holds Stede’s eyes, even as his heart beats rabbit-fast. “Yeah I…well, I saw it a couple weeks ago. At the shop, the one with the odds and ends. Shopkeeper said she liked it, so.” 

Stede is quiet, which Ed decides is much, much worse than any other reaction he could have had. He looks like maybe he didn’t hear Ed correctly, like the words are still trickling through and arranging themselves in the correct order. After a moment he just blinks, once, and says, “Oh.” 

“I don’t know why I…I’m sorry I didn’t say, right away. I don’t know why I didn’t.” 

That’s true, for what it’s worth. He still doesn’t understand why he bought the painting in the first place, understands even less why he’s kept it hidden for so long. He desperately wishes to rewind the story here, walk backwards with the painting under his arm until he places it back on the chair leg it hung from, keep going so that he could leave the shop without seeing it this time around. He isn’t sure what to do with his hands now that the towel’s gone, so he flexes his fingers at his sides hard enough to feel the tendons stretch. 

Stede’s still standing there, and Ed absolutely hates waiting for what’s next, biting down on his tongue to keep from rambling just to fill the silence. But then Stede steps forward, gently tilts his head to the side. “Do you want to talk about it?”

And that’s this man, isn’t it? No “How dare you,” no “How could you keep this from me? What is wrong with you?” It’s a lean forward, a soft question that opens a door for Ed to step through. Stede means what he says — he always does. It took a long time for Ed to realize that, to trust that. It still takes practice, most days. 

He doesn’t want to talk about it, is the thing, which means they probably should. The first thing that comes to mind is: “I bought this painting because it reminded me of when you left but not in a bad way and I’m still hurt and I want to be comforted and I’m terrified that you’ll learn to hate me just as easily as you learned to love me.” 

What he says instead is, “I don’t know.”

Stede reaches out but doesn’t touch him — he raises an eyebrow, asking for permission. Ed nods, and Stede carefully takes his hand and unfurls his fist, peels his fingers free until they extend out and slot into Stede’s. They walk wordlessly into the front room, and Stede steers them toward the bed to sit on the edge, their knees brushing together. Ed slides his foot so that his bare skin touches Stede’s sock. Stede smiles so softly that Ed would miss it if he didn’t know his face by heart. 

The painting is propped up against the wall, and from this angle Ed feels like the woman on the sand is within reach, like he could walk up and offer her a hand. The ship in the background seems even further away. 

“I can’t quite make out the artist’s name,” Stede says, staring ahead at the painting. “There might be a ‘J’ in there somewhere. Or a ‘U’ with a small left arm.”

“Hmm,” says Ed helpfully.

“It’s the part of the story that isn’t painted as much. Or at least not that I’ve seen.”

Oh.

It’s taken this long for the shopkeeper’s words to click into place: one of my favorite stories. Ed looks at the painting as if for the first time. Truthfully, he hasn’t looked at it since he brought it home. Ed knows stories. His world is full of them, brimming with them. He lived by them, and knew people who died for them. And he was a story too, in the end, one that constricted him with each retelling.

But it seems that the woman lying in the center of the painting has a name that Ed doesn’t know, and so does the ship that’s retreating behind her. There are people who are familiar with her, who know why she’s trapped here with cliffs looming near, with the sea fencing her in. Ed’s almost afraid to hear how she got there. He asks anyway.

“Who is she?”

“Ariadne, I think,” Stede says. “I could be wrong, but I don’t think I am,” he adds, with just enough delightful snobbishness that Ed has to stifle a giggle.  

“Ariadne, then,” says Ed, and the shape of it feels like a memory. “So what brings her to that beach?”

“Well,” Stede begins, just like he begins every story, “she fell in love with a man named Theseus, the hero who slayed the minotaur in the labyrinth.” 

“Minotaur. Is that the guy with horns on his head? Always thought he came on a bit strong.”

“Came on a bit strong?” Stede says, laughing. “Ed, he’s a mythological monster.”

“Sure, but don’t be so obvious about it, mate. Where’s the element of surprise?” 

“Oh, Ed, I don’t know. He doesn’t strike me as the subtle type.” 

“Don’t need to tell me.”

“So,” Stede continues. “Theseus. Ariadne fell in love with him, and after she helped him defeat the minotaur they eloped and ran away to the isle of Naxos.”

And suddenly Ed is back on the Ranger, the wind whipping the sails as he listens to the boatswain — talkative fucker — weave tales of sirens, mountains tall as clouds, the sea churned by winds unleashed from a sack of gold. Ed remembers Odysseus, who he always thought couldn’t sail his way through a puddle with a map. Ariadne is an echo of a song he heard once, a lost harmony. He’s not sure who he thought the woman was when he saw the painting. And maybe that’s not great, in retrospect. It’s one of the things he came to hate about Blackbeard — that when people looked at him they saw what they wanted to see, like he’d been made purely for their gaze. He’s sure most of them forgot his name, forgot Edward, just as Ed had forgotten hers. 

It’s coming back in slow drips, like rain collected and spilling from furled sails. Naxos. Horny gods. Quests continued. The show always seemed to go on in those tales, whether the humans liked it or not. He remembers Ariadne’s role in the story as negative space, a ripped page. 

“She stayed there, right?” Ed asks. “Married a god instead?”

Stede tilts his head, and Ed always forgets how much he loves to watch Stede think, likes to wonder at the way his thoughts spark like lines of gunpowder, fired and bright. 

“Yes, I think she did end up married to Dionysus. He found her on the beach — maybe the one in that painting — after Theseus abandoned her."

Without a note or anything.

And Ed does everything he can to keep his breathing steady, to keep his muscles relaxed, but Stede must sense something. He always does. 

“Ed,” Stede says, turning to him. 

Ed stares ahead, the painting blurring into a vague splotch of pink. “Yeah, mate. Dionysus was the culty guy, right? Round-the-clock wine service, can’t beat that.”

“Ed,” Stede says again. Ed looks at him, because looking at Stede is one of the things that helps him feel moored, helps the world right itself. But it hurts, in this case, because Ed knows how clever Stede is, and how well Stede can read him, and they are so, so good at talking it through when the talking is easy. Ed wants to be better at the thorny bits — his fingers are newly-callused from pointy stems in his garden. He’s learned to navigate so much, here in this space. But he can’t talk about this with Stede, because he doesn’t know where to begin. 

Even if he didn’t know her name, he knew how Ariadne felt from the moment he saw her. Why would he bring that here? And why throw it back at Stede after the months of careful tending they’ve both done, after planting and growing this new thing that’s started reaching for the light? 

Stede extends a hand toward him, but Ed looks at him and hopes it’s enough to say I can’t right now. I want to. I will. But not right now. Stede’s fingers pause in mid-air, float back down to his own thigh. 

“Would you like to hang the painting, Ed?” Stede asks. It’s a fair question, since Ed went to all the trouble to stash it at the inn for weeks. 

“No, I don’t think so,” Ed says. “Can we…can we leave it where it was? For now.”

Ed turns to the painting again because he can’t really handle the way Stede’s face sort of folds, the way his throat constricts around what he clearly wants to say but won’t. “Of course. We can hang it somewhere when you want. If you want.”

Ed pats Stede’s hand — I’m okay, we’re okay — and stands to make his way back to the front door with his heart in his stomach. 

“I’m just gonna finish up out here,” Ed calls. He steps out onto the porch, slides his feet back into his shoes. “Dinner soon?”

“Sure. Yes, that sounds good, darling,” says Stede, and the strain that Ed hears there makes him want to turn around and fling himself into Stede’s arms, just breathe him in and let himself feel the worst of it again. 

“Great,” Ed says instead, and lightly shuts the door behind him.

Ed is starting to think that he and Stede might be idiots of the highest order. He knows Stede wants to talk about it. And Stede knows that Ed knows he wants to talk about it. And Ed knows that Stede knows that Ed can’t talk about it, for some reason, and they’re both circling each other in a wary orbit that makes Ed want to tear out his hair strand by strand, but Stede loves his hair, so the whole thing is fucked. 

The worst part, maybe, is that Ed can feel Stede’s love for him in every awkward silence, every sideways glance. Stede has always burst at the seams a bit, spilling out of the shapes the world made for him and drawing new ones. Stede can hardly contain himself, and Ed doesn’t want him to. Never has. But Stede’s clamping down on all the questions, the reassurances, the doubts. For him. Ed’s not sure if that makes it better or worse. So he wants to just plop down on the bed and hurl all the words that are stuck in his throat against the wall, just open the floodgates and let them both breathe. And if he did, Stede would listen, like always. 

The trouble is that the words that Ed’s holding back are in a language he can barely understand. What he does manage to decipher is a jumbled mess, all at odds. I hate the painting. I love the painting. I’m angry at you. Don’t be angry with me. (Please, love.) I don’t want to be alone. Loneliness is comfortable. I’m afraid of being weak. I want to be fragile, with you. 

These days, Ed spends most of his time swatting at these thoughts with the mental equivalent of a battle ax. Working helps. He works on mending the porch railing, the back steps. He climbs up onto the roof with a hammer because that one fucking spot in the corner keeps leaking no matter how many times they patch it. He collects shells on the beach to line the front path, little dotted lines pointing home. And for a few minutes of the day he can sneak a moment of laughter, can kiss Stede when they’re both half-awake and feel it fully, drink it in. But he always sails back into the storm, weathers it while Stede watches helplessly. 

“Darling,” Stede says sometimes, his hand in Ed’s hair. “How can I help?”

“Hold me,” Ed tells him. “Touch me.” Because even if talking it through is a mountain neither of them can climb at the moment, they have this — Ed open and panting under Stede’s fingers, Stede hard inside him, Stede trailing kisses down the back of his neck. Ed arches his back, points his toes. Let me be soft for you, he thinks. Wrap me up in you. Then Ed shouts his release, gasps as Stede comes inside him, and as he settles into the sheets he can feel the storm hovering there, waiting to drift back and sweep him up again. 

The painting’s been tucked back behind the desk — its unofficial home — and now Ed notices Stede doing the weird desk dance that Ed had been doing for weeks, the quick shuffle away, the side-eye that has the unintended side effect of being stupid adorable.

“It won’t bite,” Ed says offhandedly, holding back a laugh as Stede turns on his heel, caught out. “If it did, it definitely would have bitten me first.”

Stede chuckles, shaking his head. “You are rather biteable, darling,” he says, sidling up in the way that makes Ed’s stomach flip. “Here” — a nip below Ed’s ear — “and here” — another at the crux of his shoulder, soothed with a kiss. 

“Where else?” asks Ed, breathlessly. From there he can tip his head back and let Stede guide them, can reach for him and ask for what he needs with the press of his hips, his hands. In those moments he can forget about the yawning space inside him named Ariadne, about the thoughts suspended there, drawing him in. 

Some days Ed still goes down to the beach — ostensibly to fish — but mostly to stretch his limbs outside their four walls, take a moment to touch the sea again. Stede’s busy in his garden today, and Ed treated himself to watching him fret over the carrots before heading to the shore with his rod and bucket. 

“Happy hunting!” Stede shouted after him, waving a little garden shovel in farewell. He didn’t say anything when Ed emerged from the inn wearing the teal robe, didn’t mention it even as it dragged in the dirt. 

Ed’s glad he didn’t ask — he wouldn’t have known how to answer. 

Ed’s really not a fisherman, he can finally admit, but even he knows that fluffy robes and fish guts don’t mix. There was a time when Blackbeard and fine things didn’t mix either — if anything, they seemed to repel one another. Ed’s found that there is room for gray where there hadn’t been before. No, not gray — сolors more numerous than he could have imagined. Maybe that’s why he's wearing it now, if for no other reason than to blur the lines a bit more, to lean into it. 

Trouble is, the robe is warming him up on an already hot day. Ed is sweating by the time he gets to the edge of the sand, his face flushed. He leaves his fishing supplies on the grass and kicks off his sandals. He lets the waves crash over his bare feet when he reaches the water.

The robe gets soaked, of course, but Ed knows it’ll dry after a few hours in the sun. Ed knows because they’ve had to wash this robe before. Many, many times. Ed slips off his light cotton trousers after a cursory glance around the beach, because while Ed doesn’t necessarily mind scandalizing the townsfolk, Stede’s insisted on “minimal traumatization, if possible.” Spoilsport. But, as usual, Ed is alone. 

He shucks the pants toward his supplies and immediately feels the relief of the sea air on his legs. The robe swishes as he walks along the shoreline, and Ed’s hair sweeps back over his shoulder when a gust of wind rolls on the crests of breaking waves. 

Wearing the robe out here feels luxurious — it smooths the salt sting, somehow dampens the roar of the water as it spills onto the sand. He looks to the horizon — no dinghies, no ships, no Navy bearing down on them, no pirates looking for Blackbeard to rejoin the account. It’s clear, and blue, and it reminds Ed of a horizon he looked upon many months ago, when he felt the absence of Stede like a heavy chain. The view couldn’t be more different. His life couldn’t be more different. But the desolation of that moment echoes back to him, like water rippling at the drop of an anchor. 

Stede is right up the hill, fondling carrots and crooning at rutabagas. Ed could walk up there right now and pull him into his arms, bury his face in Stede’s shoulder and breathe him in. Instead, he curls his toes in the wet sand, braces himself as water splashes over his calves. Maybe the sea holds what he once lost, even now that he has it again. And maybe the robe he’s wearing recalls a morning when they slipped apart — not bloody likely, in our line of work — and the next time he heard Stede’s voice it was pitched on a scream for help.  

It’s all so fragile. 

His instinct, as ever, is to fight the thought with everything he has, and the feelings that accompany it. But Ed knows better. He’s spent his life at sea. The last thing to do when you’re drowning is use up energy flailing and thrashing in the water. You have to float. It’s fucking awful, and it’s the opposite of what your brain tells you to do, but you have to let the waves carry you. Breathe deep and settle in. 

He breathes now, clutches the robe tighter around himself. He reaches down and lets sand drip through his fingers, grounding him. He sits back on his heels. The robe pools heavily at his feet. Did Ariadne do this, too? Did she crouch in the surf and dig her hands into the earth, her dress soaked with brine?

He didn’t know her story, when he saw the painting in the shop. But it was immediate, wasn’t it? The kinship with her, the feeling that he didn’t have to explain anything — his past, his present, the fear that gripped his future despite his best efforts. She fucking got it. 

Maybe Stede doesn’t.

Stede loves him with such brightness that sometimes it’s blinding, like staring directly at the sun. It overwhelms him, sometimes, with warmth and wonder and laughter that ebb when Stede’s not there, that falter when worry slinks back — what if he hates you, what if you’re not enough, what if he leaves. He worries that it blinds Stede, too, makes it hard for him to see the scars Ed carries. Stede knows him better than anyone else ever has — it makes Ed feel safe, wanted. But how can he know all of me, Ed thinks, if I can’t say the same?

Ed exhales shakily and tries to stand, but his legs barely hold him. “Yeah, fuck this,” he says to no one. He scoops up the bottom of the robe, carrying it with both arms back up the hill. It weighs at least ten times more than it did when he put it on and drips a trail of seawater along the path. He leaves the fishing equipment by the dune — it’s about as useful sitting there as it would be if Ed tried to fish with it — with his pants to keep it company. His sandals plop wetly on the dirt until he eventually kicks them off to fend for themselves in the grass. 

He sees Stede’s hair before anything else, a golden guidepost on the crest of the hill. Stede turns to look at him when Ed reaches the top of the path, his expression comically flummoxed. Ed wants to laugh, but he finds himself holding back tears instead. 

“Ed?” Stede says, rising to his feet. “You’re all wet.”

“Yep.”

“Are you alright?”

“Nope.”

“Can I help?”

Ed wonders if a combination of “yep” and “nope” (nep? yope?) would work, but ends up shrugging by way of reply. He doesn’t stop walking — he climbs the front stairs and only just manages to wipe his sandy feet on the mat outside before walking straight over to the bed. He shrugs the robe off of his shoulders, and it plops to the ground with a mighty squelch. Stede calls to him from outside, but Ed’s already crawling under the covers and flattening himself against the mattress, willing it to absorb him. He listens to Stede’s approaching footsteps with a curious mix of yearning and dread. 

He feels Stede’s weight on the bed, hears him exhale softly. 

“That’s odd,” Stede says. “I could have sworn Ed came in here, but all I see is this Ed-shaped lump.”

“I’m not a lump,” Ed mumbles. 

“It speaks! What say you, lump?” 

Ed pokes his head up from under the blanket, eyes Stede ruefully. 

“Ah,” Stede says, and his face is unbearably kind. “There you are.”

Ed scooches up until his back is against the bed frame. Stede lays a hand on top of the bed, palm up. It’s an invitation, not a demand. Ed reaches out and links their fingers. They sit in silence for a few moments; a gentle breeze drifts in from the open front door, stirs the flowers arranged in a vase by the entryway. Ed matches the cadence of Stede’s breath — in, out — and Stede must notice because he smiles softly, squeezing their hands together. 

After a long stretch Stede asks, “Do you want to tell me about it?”

“I don’t even know what ‘it’ is, Stede.”

“That’s okay,” Stede says. “You can talk about whatever’s on your mind.”

He says it so easily, like Ed could just harness all the confounding, shadowy things that lurk in his brain and lay them out onto the bed for Stede to see, and poke, and prod. He says it like there’s nothing Ed could tell him that would make Stede love him less. It’s wonderful. It’s terrifying. 

Ed closes his eyes, thinks back to water rushing past his ankles. “I feel like…god, this is stupid. Seeing that painting reminded me of that night. The night you left.”

“Oh,” says Stede. 

Ed can tell it’s the last thing he expected to hear. He’s got to keep going now, or it will never come. “And I feel like we still haven’t talked about that, really talked about it, and part of me…I don’t know, Stede, I want to remember it.”

He’s gripping Stede’s hand, and Stede’s gripping back so tightly that it skirts the edge of pain. Ed doesn’t open his eyes — he’s not sure if he can look at Stede without falling into his arms, and he wants to get all of this out before he loses his nerve.

“Because I’m still — and this isn’t you, you haven’t said this, I know that. But I’m still so fucking scared that you’ll leave again.”

“Ed—”

“Please, just,” Ed starts, but he can feel things start to unravel as Stede shifts closer. He can feel how badly Stede wants to reach out to him with his free hand, and it’s all he can do to keep from begging for his touch. Ed opens his eyes, looks at their joined hands. In, out. “Please,” he repeats, and Stede exhales, stays silent. Ed loves him so much for that. For everything. “I’m afraid that you’ll leave because you’ll finally figure it out. That you’ll find out that I’m this gnarled, ugly thing that doesn’t fit here, with you. Because you’re so, so smart, Stede, you’re brilliant, but this thing is tricky. It’s spent its whole life slithering around in the dark with a knife behind its back. And I just…you have no idea how badly I just want to be soft, and how badly I want you to hold me and really see me and tell me it’s okay. That I’m okay.” His voice is trembling, but he’s focusing on a spot on the blanket where the fibers are fraying, dissecting each thread so that he can hold on a bit longer. “I’m just really scared.”

“Oh, Ed,” Stede says, pulling Ed to him by their clasped hands. Ed lets him, because he knows that neither of them can stand the distance for another moment. Ed buries his head against Stede’s neck and holds him with all the terror that’s been crawling up his spine since they landed here, that’s been snaking in right alongside the joy. He holds him like he might not get another chance. “Oh, love,” Stede whispers. His arms circle Ed’s waist, and one of his hands trails up to the space between Ed’s shoulder blades, presses there gently. The feel of it says I’ve got you, lean into me. It’s easy to follow Stede’s breath when they’re chest-to-chest, when Ed can feel their heartbeats like oars striking water. He digs his fingers into the back of Stede’s shirt — he feels like he could rend it in two. But Stede just keeps him close. He brings the hand on Ed’s back up to card through his hair — he loves my hair, Ed thinks abruptly, ridiculously — and turns his head slightly to graze his lips over Ed’s temple. 

“Do you want to know what I think?” he asks.

“Yes,” Ed says. Always. 

“I think this thing, this sneaky fellow you call ugly and gnarled, has kept you safe for a long time, when no one else could. I think there are parts of ourselves that do everything they can to protect us, sometimes in ways that we later regret.”

That sounds like a perfectly logical, reasonable thing to say, and Ed wants to believe it so badly that he finds himself nodding wishfully, even as he thinks: Not me. It’s worse for me. I’m not like everyone else.

Suddenly Stede stops running his hand through Ed’s hair, inhales sharply. “When…” he begins, then clears his throat and tries again. “That night, when I came back to the Revenge and found you, I told you I was sorry. And I realize now that I haven’t repeated it, after all this time.” Stede takes a deep breath — Ed feels it in his bones. “Ed, I’m—”

“I know,” Ed says quickly. “I know you’re sorry. You don’t have to say it.”

“I want to. I think I need to. Will you let me?” 

“Don’t,” Ed says, leaning back until Stede’s arms fall down to his sides. For some reason this feels like “I love you” at Anne and Mary’s, like it might burn if he gets too close. Now that he’s pulled back he can see the worry etched in Stede’s face. He hates that he put it there, and that he seems to be its cause more often than not. And its cure, he hears in Stede’s voice. Funny, how the man can still speak to him without making a sound. “Not right now, if that’s okay,” Ed clarifies, taking Stede’s hand again. It’s clear that Stede wants to say more — Ed can see him holding the words back by sheer force of will. But, unlike nearly everyone else that Ed has ever met, Stede doesn’t push past what Ed’s asked. He sees the boundary Ed drew and not only respects it but circles it in flowing ink and draws little hearts around it. It’s how Ed knew that this whole fucked up conversation was okay to have. That maybe it can all be okay, if Stede is there to listen.

The silence that follows feels like a journey, like the press of Stede’s fingers traces a charted course. The sun slants through the windows, bisects the crumpled robe on the floor. Every once in a while Stede smiles slightly, one or both dimples springing up to curve into his cheeks. Ed tilts his head and revels in the delicious anticipation of learning what this improbable, enchanting man is thinking about. He raises an eyebrow which, predictably, gets him what he wants. 

“It occurred to me that you were wearing pants when you went down to fish,” Stede says, “and the most reasonable explanation for you missing them now is that you forgot your rod and just went with the built-in option.” 

“The built—you’re fucking mental.” 

“You’re always trying to improve your technique!”

“First of all, the built-in option would only work if I was aroused, Stede, and this might come as a shock to you but fish really don’t do it for me.”

“What did you say I looked like in your dream? A merperson? I’m sure it would work then, right?”

“Oh my god.”

It devolves from there, until Ed’s demonstrating the ineffectiveness of flaccid fishing equipment in vivid pantomime while Stede laughs so hard that he can barely breathe. Eventually Ed slips into fresh cotton trousers with a literal song and dance to belabor the point. Stede calls him a menace like it’s a term of endearment.

Ed scoops up the robe on his way out the door and hangs it over the porch railing to catch the last of the day’s sun. Its outstretched arms look empty. As he walks back down the path toward the beach he collects his abandoned possessions like he’s combing through a shipwreck. By the time he’s heading back up to the inn the sun is dipping behind the trees, and the evening chill is urging him home. 

He’s surprised by the quiet hum in his brain — after spilling his guts all over their bedsheets he expected panic, and what if’s, and second guesses. He shouldn’t have. He builds up conversations with Stede before they happen with something like dread, when every time they leave him more centered, more connected. The worst never materializes, even when they talk about things that scare them both. He’s still getting used to it, to awaiting disaster and finding Stede’s smile instead, his waiting, upturned hand. Part of him hopes that the novelty sticks. 

But he can’t help feeling that he’s held something back. It’s the weird cloying sensation he gets when he keeps something from Stede, even inadvertently. It’s scar tissue from truths told and pierced through the gut more times than he can count. Two things are true: he wants Stede to know everything about him, and he’s terrified of what will happen if he does. 

For all that he said about the painting, Ed left out the way his fingers itched at the drape of fabric against Ariadne's skin, the way his breath caught at the muted sorrow of her brow, the gentle curve of her hip. And he remembers the purple dress, the one that caught his eye in the shop and seemed to hold it. He can see it hanging long and loose, the skirt swaying in a slight breeze. Ariadne could have worn it, he thinks. He’s not sure why that strikes him as important, or why the idea of Stede knowing about it makes him grit his teeth with worry. 

He leaves the bucket and rod on the porch when he reaches the inn. He lingers in the doorway to listen as Stede gathers the fixings for dinner, humming softly under his breath. 

Scary things hide. They build strength in the darkness, rear up from the deep to choke the world with rage. Ed’s been dragging himself into the light day by day, it seems, stunned by the brightness and warmth. Stede was right — he’s right about a lot of things. There are parts of ourselves that do everything they can to protect us. He hates what he became when Stede left. He hates Blackbeard. But hating hasn’t done jack or shit for him — not for long, anyway. He wonders what would happen if he pitied the shadows he’s carried, turned to look at them while they’re caught in the sun. He wonders if he could forgive them, maybe forgive himself along the way. 

Scary things hide, but so do scared things. So he’s dusting cobwebs (gross) and opening windows and doors to let in fresh air. He’s untangling thoughts that snare him with deft fingers, calluses healed by learning the work. He takes out the painting from behind the desk and sits it on one of the chairs in the bedroom, letting himself get used to its presence there, the shock of color on canvas that brightens the room. Stede sees it — Ed knows he does — but he doesn’t mention it. He trusts me, Ed thinks. He trusts me to talk about it when I’m ready. The realization makes him want to climb the walls and cry on the ceiling for a few days. 

Ed wakes before Stede without fail. He usually curls up in the blankets and waits for Stede to stir next to him; sometimes he loses patience and kisses Stede awake, laughs when Stede wrinkles his nose as Ed’s lips graze a ticklish spot beneath his chin. Today he rests his head on Stede’s chest and watches the painting transform in the sunrise, dark shapes lightening into clouds, a ship, strands of hair. Ed’s lying on his side, like she is. He carefully positions his legs, his arms, adjusts the angle of his neck, mirroring the way she folds into the sand. Stede’s chest rises and falls under Ed’s ear, his breath a faint breeze in Ed’s hair. 

This is what he wanted more than anything while he waited for Stede on the dock. He wanted Stede’s heartbeat loud and close, wanted to feel him against every inch of his skin. He never expected that having both — and more than that — would make the fear of losing them so much worse. 

Stede’s breath changes, deepening a bit as he starts to wake up. He sighs on an exhale, and his arms shift to circle Ed’s shoulders unconsciously. Ed loves him so much in this moment that he feels tears spring to his eyes. 

“Good morning,” he whispers, turning his head to kiss Stede’s chest. 

“Mmm,” Stede replies. 

“Couldn’t agree more,” Ed says. He looks back to the painting, which the morning sun has cast in full relief. He’s transfixed by small cut-outs in Ariadne’s dress, shapes that reveal glimpses of her bare lower back, her ribs. He wonders if it was made that way, or if she tore the fabric herself while watching the ship depart. He wonders if she screamed.  

“How long have you been awake?” Stede asks, running a hand down Ed’s arm.

“Since I met you,” Ed says. “Was dead asleep, before then.”

Stede makes a surprised sound in the back of his throat, clutches Ed tighter. 

On the Queen Anne’s Revenge the little nook Ed slept in was just for that. He didn’t linger there in the mornings and practically fell into it at the end of long days and longer nights. On the Revenge he slept on a cot, then on Stede’s couch, then in stretches of barely-remembered time in the auxiliary closet or in front of the fireplace, wood burnt or turned to ash. He’s never had this — the slow unfurling from sleep, soft sheets above and beneath him, someone leaning down to place a kiss in his hair. It’s a slowness that he thought might bore him over time, might make him restless. If anything it’s done the opposite. He’s exhilarated by the stillness, discovers something new with each moment spent here. Now it’s the warmth of Stede’s hand on his elbow, the unexpected shiver that accompanies it. Their ankles touch under the sheets — somehow it’s just as thrilling as a kiss in the moonlight. 

But his mind hovers over the painting, even as he lies contentedly in bed — their bed. Did Ariadne have this once? Is that what she watched sailing away from her, trapped on an empty beach? 

“Everything alright?” Stede asks. Sometimes it’s hard to be so known by someone, when even a slight pause or a hitched breath tells them something you’re just figuring out yourself. It’s a new experience for Ed, one that he mostly loves except when he feels the familiar impulse to hide, distract, bluster. Not much point, when Stede will just patiently wait for him to pull back the curtain and let him in. 

“I’ve been thinking more about the painting,” Ed says. Dusting cobwebs. Opening windows and doors. Right. 

“Oh?” Stede asks. Only Stede Bonnet can pack a soliloquy of meaning into a single syllable. 

“Yeah,” Ed says, chuckling softly. He sits up, settles shoulder to shoulder with Stede. “The day we met you asked me if I fancied a fine fabric. Remember?”

“Rather a core memory, that.”

“Mmhmm.” Ed takes a deep breath, lets it sink in. “I think that’s what struck me. Well, one of the things that struck me. About the painting.” He looks over, expecting Stede to urge him on. But he’s just watching Ed with his full attention, leaning forward so as not to miss a word. Fuck it. “I wondered what it would be like to wear something like that. A dress like that.”

Ed braces for confusion, for a flurry of questions he can’t begin to answer, for Stede to get up and leave. But Stede — the lunatic — fucking smiles. “Yeah?” he says, and Ed feels something deep and true click into place, a shock to the system that feels like calm, open seas after a ship-killing storm. I love everything about you. 

“Mmhmm,” Ed repeats, absolutely unable to speak human words at the moment. 

Stede takes his hand. “I think that would be lovely. That style especially — I love the drape of it. And the color is, well…” He looks over at the painting, tilts his head a bit. “It’s not quite mauve. Maybe a dusty rose? I’m sure it would just be a matter of finding the right dye.” 

Ed nods, like this is a conversation he and Stede might have on a perfectly ordinary Tuesday. He clears his throat, rubs his thumb over Stede’s knuckles. “Doesn’t have to match, exactly.”

“Oh, of course not,” Stede says quickly. “You’d want to put your own spin on it.” Put his own spin on it. Ed laughs, because otherwise he’d dissolve into a puddle and spill all over the floor. Last thing they need, when they’ve just fixed the leaking roof. 

Ed’s laughter seems to drain the last of the tension in the room, gets them falling into each other like they do most mornings: Stede’s lips on Ed’s neck, Ed’s fingers around Stede’s cock. He feels dizzy with want, like he hasn’t felt Stede’s body against his almost every day for months, hasn’t kissed every inch of his skin. It helps that Stede seems just as desperate for him, pants into his mouth and holds Ed’s face in his hands like he’ll never let him go. When Ed shakes apart Stede is right there with him, gasping Ed’s name like it’s a revelation. 

Stede performs a perfunctory, hurried cleanup and slides back under the covers as quickly as possible, pulls Ed into his chest. “Do you think that you would ever want to be drawn that way?”

“Hmm?” Ed cranes his neck to look at Stede. He’s staring ahead at Ariadne, unmoved from her strip of sand. 

“Do you think you would ever want to have a portrait done?” Stede asks. 

“What, of me sprawled out on the beach with my hair all sandy?”

Stede laughs, hugs Ed close. “Maybe not sprawled on a beach. Oh! Edward Teach, sprawled on a beach.”

“Lunatic.” 

“You know,” Stede starts, and his voice has changed enough that Ed stills, waits for him to continue. “I used to draw you, sometimes. When I was looking for you.”

“Did you?” Ed says. He sits up to look at Stede, whose cheeks are tinged with a delicious blush that Ed feels a little feral about. 

“I did. I would just sketch your face sometimes, on the edges of maps or bits of scrap paper. I didn’t have a likeness of you to keep with me.”

That’s a gut punch that Ed absorbs as best he can. He rushes to reply so that he doesn’t have time to dwell on it. “You saw the wanted posters, you said. Could have kept one of those.”

“I saw them,” Stede says. “They looked nothing like you.” Ed’s shocked to see tears in Stede’s eyes, even more shocked to feel them mirrored in his. “They were nothing like you.”

“They don’t exactly have the world’s best artists on that job, mate,” Ed says quickly. “Bit of a slapdash operation, as far as I can tell.”

Stede chuckles, hastily wiping tears away with the back of his hand. He looks over at the painting, and Ed follows his gaze. “I think it would be nice,” he says. “To have a portrait of you.”

“Yeah? You up to the task?”

“Oh, I’d never do you justice. Maybe Lucius would oblige us.” Stede says it as he’s still looking at the painting, but now Ed’s looking back at Stede — his mouth flushed with kisses, his hair sticking up in a thousand directions, his eyes wide and kind. This man sees me, Ed thinks. He sees me like no one else does. Suddenly what started as a silly question and an equally silly suggestion is the most important thing in the world.

“I want you to do it,” Ed says, his voice rough. 

“What?”

“I want you to draw me.”

Stede turns to him, surprised. But he must see how serious Ed is, because he nods and places a hand on Ed’s cheek. “Okay.”

“And pick out something for me to wear.” Ed had no idea he was going to suggest that until the words came out of his mouth. It shocks him, makes his heart beat faster. Stede raises an eyebrow, so Ed hastens to add, “If you want.”

“Ooh, decisions decisions,” Stede says with a smirk.

“Please don’t tell me you still have that cat costume from the fuckery.” 

“You’ll find out soon enough,” Stede replies. Ed reaches back to grab a pillow and wack him in the side with it. 

Soon enough is…not soon enough. Ed waits for days, tiptoeing around the inn like he might discover that fucking cat costume around every corner. He actually doesn’t know what he might find, and it twists his stomach into knots. Good knots. Juicy knots. Knots that make him burst out giggling when he’s pouring tea, or weeding the garden, or getting ready for bed. And after weeks of skirting around the desk this new anticipation feels like freedom. The painting is still sitting on the chair — no avoiding it now. He doesn’t have to hide — he doesn’t want to.

Stede goes into town once a week to post letters and “exchange thoughts” with the lone bookseller, who Ed suspects was never prepared for the unbridled spring of enthusiasm that is Stede Bonnet around the written word. Or just Stede Bonnet anywhere, really. Ed tidies around the house while Stede’s gone. He looks forward to it, weirdly, making things nice for when Stede returns, hearing Stede say, “Wow, Ed, the place is sparkling!” at a fluffed pillow, a folded towel. 

Ed’s scrubbing the soup pot when he hears Stede’s footsteps on the front stairs. The door creaks open — Ed’s been meaning to oil the hinges — and Ed can hear Stede setting things down on the table by the door. Stede, who is nothing if not a creature of delightful habits, doesn’t call to him with his usual greeting. After the silence goes on for more than a minute Ed puts the scrub brush down to see what the lack of fuss is about.

“Babe?” Ed says from the kitchen doorway. 

Stede practically jumps from where he’s crouched down in front of the closet. “Oh, Edward. You’re here!”

“I live here, mate.”

“How fortunate,” says Stede, rising and making his way to where Ed’s standing. He slides his arms around Ed’s waist. “So do I.” He leans in for a kiss, and Ed obliges him — he’s hard pressed to deny Stede much of anything since the day they met. But he rears back after a moment, glances over to the closet.

“So what’s in there then?”

Stede looks like he might try to brush it off, but they both know that sooner or later Ed will get to the bottom of it. “It’s what I picked out for you to wear. For the portrait.” A zip of excitement races from Ed’s belly all the way down to his toes. He takes a quick breath, swaying in Stede’s arms. “Maybe it’s silly,” Stede mumbles. “You don’t have to wear it, of course. I just saw it and…I don’t know, I thought it would fit the bill. It reminded me of you.”

Stede has told Ed he loves him countless times. He called Ed his boyfriend in a bar full of pirates. But somehow Stede being reminded of Ed by a piece of clothing — by anything, for that matter — is nearly enough to take his breath away. 

“It’s not silly, whatever it is,” Ed says. “I know it.”

“I’d reserve your judgment until you see it.”

“Were you planning on showing me later?”

“Yes,” says Stede, smiling. “I was hoping to show it to you after dinner. But now that I think of it, it might be better to sketch you while the sun’s still up. I doubt candlelight will improve my skills.” 

“I’ve seen plenty of your skills by candlelight. I’ve got no complaints,” Ed says, leaning in to brush his lips against Stede’s ear.

“Different sort of fine motor dexterity needed for this, I’m afraid.”

“I’ll give you fine motor.”

“Edward,” Stede says, squeezing his arms tighter. He’s still smiling, but Ed can tell that he’s nervous. Stede turns and kisses Ed’s cheek, then steps away toward the closet. Ed hasn’t seen this particular expression on his face since that night at Anne and Mary’s — uncertain, earnestly hopeful. “I mean it, you don’t have to wear it if you don’t want to. We don’t have to do a portrait at all.”

“Stede,” Ed says, looking at him with what he hopes is encouragement and not the jumbled restlessness that’s settled in his chest. “I’m sure I’ll love it.” 

Ed moves over to the bed, sitting on the edge of it while Stede makes up his mind. Stede has done so much to gain and keep Ed’s trust since they found each other again, has strengthened it more than Ed thought was possible since they arrived at the inn, even in the span of the last few days. He’s a safe space ship. (Can a person be a ship ? Probably. Stede could do anything.) Ed hopes Stede feels that, too. He hopes Stede knows that Ed would never laugh at him, would never look at something important to Stede and grind it into the dirt beneath his heel. 

Stede nods once, then bends down to reach into the closet for a parcel wrapped in tissue paper. “I’m not sure how well it will fit,” he says. Always protecting himself. Always hedging his bets. 

“There’s nothing here that doesn’t fit,” says Ed. 

The corner of Stede’s mouth ticks upward — one of Ed’s favorite expressions — and he holds out the parcel like he’s still not entirely convinced Ed won’t hate it. Ed takes it in his hands, immediately noticing how soft it is, how easily it folds in his palms. Stede hovers over him nervously. Ed pats the space beside him on the bed, and Stede tentatively joins him. It’s funny. Ed was worried about the painting for so long, it seems, worried about what it meant, about what Stede would discover, about how Stede would react. Now he’s reminded that he’s not alone — he never is, here — that Stede fixates and frets just like he does. Acceptance, given freely without strings to trip and bind you, is still new to both of them. 

Ed unties the ribbon around the parcel, and as he lifts one edge of the paper his mind is already spinning, reeling, because he would know this fabric anywhere, remembers the brief touch in the back room that shocked him like lightning. The rest of the paper falls open on his lap.

“Oh,” Ed says. 

“It’s silly,” Stede says again, reaching for the dress. “I shouldn’t have assumed—”

“No. No, it’s…” Ed shakes his head, trailing off as he runs his fingers over the neckline. His hand is shaking.

“Ed?”

“I saw this, in the store. The day I bought the painting.” 

“Oh,” Stede says. They’re going in circles. 

Ed looks away from the dress, looks up at Stede with wide eyes. “This made you think of me?”

“Yes,” Stede says, without hesitation. 

“Oh.” A closed loop circling the destination on a map: home. 

“Is that alright?” 

Ed can only nod, mesmerized by the soft silk, the fine translucent layer of fabric that envelops it. Eventually he lifts it up by the sleeves, lets the skirt spill down to the ground. It thuds like a heartbeat. Ed rises from the bed and makes his way to the mirror without thinking. He holds the dress to his body, notes the way the color brings out the streaks of grey in his hair, the way the skirt falls around his feet in a delicate brush. He can’t stop looking. 

“Did you…did you want to wear it?” Stede asks from the bed. He’s still unsure, still anxious. Ed wishes he could reassure him, but he’s too overwhelmed to do much more than hum his shaky assent. “Okay,” Stede says. “Why don’t you try it on? I’ll grab the paper and charcoal.” 

Ed watches in the mirror as Stede walks to the entryway table. He bought supplies, Ed thinks. He was thinking of me. Ed feels like he’s floating, like there’s a puppeteer guiding his hands as they drape the dress over a chair, as they lift his shirt over his head and unfasten his trousers until he’s staring at his naked reflection. 

Ed has worn costumes and disguises and outlandish outfits hundreds, thousands of times. He’s worn skirts before as a laugh, he’s worn fabric that would make the King of England blush. But this is completely new, for reasons he can’t even begin to name. This is his. Stede bought this for him. He’s not sure where to begin. 

“Here, darling,” Stede says from behind him. “I’ll help you.” Stede places the paper and charcoal next to the painting, plucks the dress from the neighboring chair. He bunches up the dress so that it can slip easily over Ed’s head, gestures for Ed to lift his arms. The slide of the silk over his ears feels decadent. The lightly beaded skirt caresses his shoulders, his ribs. Stede provides running commentary as he adjusts the drapery, fans out the skirt. “I’ve seen dresses in this style on stage before, but I don’t think I’ve ever had the pleasure of fitting one on a non-thespian,” he says. “Or anyone, to be clear.” When Stede fixes the short sleeves into place Ed shivers, cooled by the fabric that stretches across his chest, skims his thighs. The masts of his inked ship peek from the neckline, and the wings of the bird at his collarbone reach for the strips of silk that hug his shoulders. “It’s in the Grecian style — well, in the Grecian-cum-Italian style, at any rate. Quite lovely.” Stede untucks Ed’s hair from the dress, arranges it over Ed’s back. “That alright?” Stede asks. 

Ed has no idea if it’s alright or not. He’s afraid to move, to break the spell that seems to be holding this moment together. Stede steps closer and places his hands on Ed’s biceps. “It fits you perfectly,” Stede says, wonder in his voice. 

“What should I do?” Ed asks. He’s not sure what he’s asking, really. Maybe what should I do now that I have everything I’ve ever wanted?

“Would you like to lie down on the bed? Get comfortable?”

Ed nods, grateful for a suggestion. The dress is snug enough that his gait is shortened a bit, that sitting on the bed is more of a maneuver than usual. He loves it. When he lies back he hears the dress crinkle under his shoulder blades, his hips. The tiny beads on the skirt dig into the sheets. Ed settles onto his side, head cradled on his elbow. His legs are slightly bent, and the dress keeps them zipped together in a curved line. 

“Why don’t —” Stede starts. He sounds as overcome as Ed feels. “Why don’t you move your hair so that it falls over your shoulder? Yes, just like that.” If Ed looks down he can see strands of his hair draped over pale lilac, dark brushstrokes on elegant canvas. 

Stede is still standing in the middle of the room. He looks like he’s fixed to the spot, unable to take his eyes off of Ed. “You okay?” It’s the first time Ed’s spoken in what feels like an age. His voice is rough, shaking. 

“Yeah,” Stede says. Liar, Ed thinks fondly. “Let me…” But Stede clearly doesn't remember where he put his supplies. He casts around the room like a frantic, flightless bird for a few moments, Ed trying desperately not to laugh. “Oh, they’re right behind me!” he exclaims after simply turning around. “I’m a bit discombobulated.” 

“I don’t think either of us was ever combobulated in the first place, mate.”

“Too right,” Stede says, scooping up the paper and charcoal and sitting on the empty chair. He crosses his legs, uncrosses them, crosses them again. Then he places the paper on his knee, frowns, scrambles out of the chair to grab a book from across the room, decides against that book, picks another book, smiles at the title before shaking his head and returning to the chair. An absolute loon. 

When Stede sits back down Ed feels the mood change, switching from giddy nervousness to charged expectancy. Stede casts his eyes down and over, looks briefly at the painting. “We could wait, you know. I was thinking of finding dye for it, to make it more like hers.”

“It doesn’t have to match,” Ed says, an echo from their conversation days ago. “I’m actually glad it doesn’t. This isn’t her dress — it’s mine.”

“Ed,” Stede chokes. For a moment it looks like he might launch out of the chair to take Ed in his arms. 

“Better start,” Ed says shortly. 

Stede does as he’s told, glancing up at Ed before he brings the charcoal down to draw one line, then another. He goes slowly at first, puzzling out his approach with a tilt of his head. His tongue sneaks out between his lips as he concentrates. Ed thinks the chances of losing his mind during this process are pretty high. 

Lying down in the dress is much like standing up in it — he feels radiant, light haloing him in exquisite heat. The silk is an embrace, a voice whispering yes against his skin. He feels like he could sail from one end of the earth to the next, slip across the horizon and walk barefoot across the sea while his dress trails behind him, ankles wave-kissed. He feels soft, and warm. Treasured. 

The room is quiet except for their breaths, for the light shift of the fabric when Ed moves slightly, for the scrape of charcoal. Ed’s skin is flushed, his cheeks hot under Stede’s gaze. Stede is taking him in — all of him. His eyes trace Ed’s body like he’s committing him to memory. Ed’s breath quickens, skates over his lips. It occurs to Ed that this is how Stede always looks at him. Like he can’t get enough. 

He almost says Stede’s name, but in that instant Stede stands and places the paper on the chair, walks over to the bed. He looks like he’s in a trance, his eyes glassy and wide. His teeth bite gently on his lower lip. “I just need…” he says. He reaches out to move Ed’s hair so that some of it sweeps down his back, but after he’s done his hand lingers above Ed’s arm, magnetized. “I just…”

“Stede,” Ed says, and that’s it. 

Stede falls into him, runs his hands down Ed’s sides, squeezes his ass. “God,” he says, sucking a bruise onto Ed’s neck. 

“Fuck,” Ed gasps, rolling onto his back and pulling Stede down on top of him. His entire body is singing, surging up against Stede’s hips, into his hands. I wanted this on the beach, he thinks. Both times. The dress slides up his calves, letting his legs open wider. “Fuck, baby,” he says, tipping his head back as Stede brings a hand behind his neck, holding him still.

“I love you,” says Stede. “I love you, and you are so fucking beautiful.” 

Ed wouldn’t stop the tears if he could. He cries like he wanted to in the dinghy he rowed alone back to the Revenge. He cries like he did surrounded by Stede’s things in the bowels of the ship, candle burning low. He cries like he couldn’t for years, trapped in a tentacled grasp, suffocated by stories others told in his wake. He cries because he’s angry, and grateful, and devastated, and so in love that he feels like he might not be able to hold himself together. 

“You’re so beautiful,” Stede says again, kissing Ed’s chin, his cheek, his eyebrow, the dip of his nose. Ed catches his lips, tastes salt and sun, oranges from town, Stede’s words whispered and held. When Stede slips his tongue into Ed’s mouth Ed circles his arms around Stede’s neck, thrusts up into the hard line of him, knits his brow when Stede reaches down under the dress and runs his hand up Ed’s thigh, outer to in. 

“Please don’t leave me,” Ed says, tearing his lips away. He looks into Stede’s eyes, blurry through tears. “Please don’t leave.”

“Never,” Stede says, so sure that Ed feels it in his bones. “Never. I’m so sorry I ever left you. I’m so sorry, Ed.” 

He didn’t know how he’d feel when he heard those words. He feared them, longed for them. Now Stede says “I’m sorry,” and there are no other harms to litigate, no crises to weather. It’s just this — an apology with nothing expected in return, an apology because when Ed hurts, Stede hurts, and he’d do anything in the world to make Ed safe. Ed trusts that with his whole heart. He’s not afraid to trust it. 

Stede kisses him again; Ed moans into it, scratching his nails lightly down Stede’s back, catching on his shirt. “Take this off,” he huffs desperately. “Take it off.” 

“Alright, love,” Stede says, tipping their foreheads together. “It’s alright.” Stede pulls back to shuck off his shirt, unbutton his fall front. Ed’s skin is tingling with want — his fingers grip the sheets beneath him for something to hold onto. He arches his back and the dress molds to him, contours to his belly, tents over his cock. Stede undresses as quickly as he can. It’s not fast enough. 

“Please,” Ed says, grabbing for the front of Stede’s pants. Stede lightly bats his hands away and scrambles from the bed, tears at his clothes like they’ve personally offended him. Ed is reaching for him when he climbs back onto the mattress, yanking him down into a kiss that feels like breathing. Silk skims the head of Ed’s cock as he thrusts up, and he whimpers into Stede’s mouth.

“Look at you,” Stede says, kissing down Ed’s chest just above the neckline of the dress. “Look how pretty you are.”   

“Tell me, please.”

“You’re breathtaking, Ed. I can’t believe I get to have you like this.”

Ed tangles his fingers in Stede’s hair, gasps when Stede’s lips find his nipple, cries out when he gently takes it between his teeth over the fabric. Stede’s hand snakes down and brushes over his cock, so lightly that all Ed can feel is the tease of fabric against the length of him. He wants to give all of himself, more than he already has. To Stede, always, but also to this feeling that courses through him in ecstatic waves: I’m beautiful, I’m beautiful. Ed pulls up on Stede’s hair until their eyes meet. “Need you to fuck me,” he says. “Need you to take me apart.”

Stede groans as he palms Ed’s cock through the dress, as he kisses his way up Ed’s neck. “Is that right?” he says into Ed’s ear. 

“Want you so bad, want you deep.” 

“You’ve got me,” Stede says, reaching for the oil on the bedside table. It feels, impossibly, like the first time they’ve ever done this. Ed is trembling, panting against the pillow as Stede murmurs for him to plant his feet on the sheets, lift his hips. The dress obscures his view as Stede slips a hand under the skirt, as he strokes Ed’s cock in his palm. Something about still wearing the dress with Stede naked beside him makes Ed arch his hips off the bed, so close that he feels a scream building in his throat. “Oh, Ed. Lovely. Will you come over my fingers before I fuck you?”

“No,” Ed says, shaking his head. “Want to come on your cock.” 

Stede dips his hand lower until his fingers find Ed’s entrance, but he doesn’t push further. He leans in and kisses Ed so soundly that Ed almost starts crying again. He takes Stede’s bottom lip between his teeth, reeling him in. Can’t ever get you close enough, he thinks. He says it with his tongue in Stede’s mouth, with his hand gripping the nape of Stede’s neck, his breath coming fast. It’s exactly and nothing like Calypso’s birthday, when Stede bore him down into the mattress and Ed gasped his name. That night there were fireworks that ripped across the night sky, there were fresh wounds that needed time and tenderness to heal, so many things on the tip of Ed’s tongue stayed by the panicked look in Stede’s eyes, the urgency of his mouth on Ed’s neck, his voice saying please. 

There was a current of fear underneath each touch, at the brush of their lips. How do I know this will last? 

Ed knows now. He knows because Stede has watched Ed weed his garden and marveled at it afterwards. He’s listened, even in silences when Ed was afraid to speak. He bought Ed a beautiful dress. Ed knows, so he smiles against Stede’s mouth and cants his hips. His skirt falls back over his knees, bunches around his thighs. Please, love, he thinks. Stede’s hand returns to Ed’s cock, then slides down to stroke behind his balls, down further until the tip of his index finger slips inside him. 

“Do you know what I thought, when I saw that dress in the shop?”

“Please,” Ed says. Stede’s finger presses in up to the first knuckle, curls in a beckoning gesture. 

“I thought, ‘this is a fine piece of silk. What a nice color. But nothing deserves him. Nothing on earth.’” Stede sinks his finger deeper, finds the place that sends sparks up Ed’s spine and into his throat. “They could spin a tapestry of diamonds, weave a gown of gold so splendid that the stars would hide in shame. They could write a thousand songs struck on silver harps. They could drench the beaches of Nassau in pearls. Nothing, Ed.”

Ed’s mouth drops open on a wordless cry when Stede adds a second finger. He pushes his free hand up under Ed’s dress and places it on one of Ed’s hips, runs his thumb over the bone. Ed will wear a skirt every day if it means Stede will have him like this, if Stede can reach up and in and take what he wants, over the porch railing, in the grass by the sea, behind the stone wall in town. Let them hear me, he thinks as he thrusts down onto Stede’s fingers, moans from deep in his chest. I want him in me, always. 

Stede always takes his time, spends minutes letting Ed adjust as he opens him up. But they’re both desperate — Ed sees the furrow in Stede’s brow, hears his tremulous breath. “Need you,” Ed says, and so Stede grabs the oil and lets it drip over his fingers until he can slide three in easily. Ed feels wet, open, mindlessly chasing the angle that makes him hiss through his teeth, makes him grind down for more. “I’m ready, I’m ready,” he says on an exhale.

“God, Ed,” Stede says, and Ed doesn’t have to hear the rest to know that Stede is losing it just a little bit, that he wants this just as much as Ed does. It thrills him to hear it in Stede’s voice, thrills him to know it. 

It’s unspoken, but Ed can tell that they both want him to keep the dress on. One of the sleeves has slipped down his shoulder, baring the curve of his neck. The neckline is askew, the skirt pushed up almost to his hips. This is what this dress was meant to do. It was meant for Ed to wear it, for Stede to fuck him in it.

Stede dips his fingers into the oil, presumably strokes his own cock — Ed’s dress obscuring the view makes his mouth run dry. Ed loves watching Stede’s face when he does this, the way his tongue darts out over his bottom lip, the little glances from his own cock to Ed’s ass, like he can’t quite believe it. He scoots forward on his knees, gently lifts one of Ed’s legs to hook around his waist. “So beautiful,” Stede murmurs. Ed’s lost count of the number of times he’s said it. Stede’s cock presses against him, and Ed has to resist the urge to take him all in one go. He doesn’t know how much longer he can wait — he feels wild with it, like having Stede inside him is the answer to a question he asked years ago. 

He gasps when the head of Stede’s cock sinks past the tight ring of muscle. He’s floored by it, every time. “Fuck,” he groans as Stede slips deeper. Ed can feel every inch of him, the stretch sensuous and slow. Stede drops his forehead to Ed’s when he’s fully seated — it pushes him impossibly deeper. He cages Ed’s head with his arms and lightly catches Ed’s lips in his. 

Ed is more open to him than he’s ever been, more held by him than he can remember. When Stede thrusts forward Ed bares his throat, feels the last vestiges of doubt drop away. It’s like he can finally take the deep breath that everyone else takes when they’re born. Stede shifts slightly, and pleasure rips through him so sharply that Ed’s toes curl. His hands clutch Stede’s shoulders, holding on as Stede drives into him. 

I’m his, he thinks. Stede has to know. So Ed says, “I’m yours,” digs his heels into Stede’s lower back, arches his hips. The dress moves over him with each thrust, silk dragging across his nipples, beads kissing his skin. 

“All mine,” Stede says, taking Ed’s earlobe between his teeth. He’s never said anything like it — Ed wouldn’t forget that — and the roughness of his voice makes things go fuzzy for a minute, makes Ed’s cock leak against his stomach. 

Ed hasn’t touched himself, and Stede barely has, but he’s so close that his hands dent Stede’s skin, the muscles of his calves tense. “I…” he says, but anything else is lost on a whine when Stede’s cock hits that spot inside him again and again. Silk slides against his back, his ass, as Stede rolls his hips and captures Ed’s lips with his, runs a hand down his chest. He loves feeling Stede’s strength here, the way his arms hold him, the muscles of his thighs clenching. From the first moment Ed saw him — hands tied helplessly and his fine shirt stained with blood — he knew how strong he was. It’s only grown from there. 

“I want to see you come,” Stede says, picking up the pace until Ed’s whimpering into his mouth. “Can you do that?”

He hasn’t before, not untouched like this, but Ed can do anything Stede asks. Wants nothing more. “Yeah, yes,” he breathes, and he feels it like flame, fingertips of heat pressing against the tender parts of him. He gives himself over to it, and it feels like surrendering to himself, to what he always wanted but never thought he deserved. 

Ariadne never had this. She did all the right things — Ed certainly can’t say the same — and she still ended up on that beach, alone. Theseus left and never came back. But Stede is here, and he loves him, and he’s perfectly imperfect, and he’s fucking him like there’s nothing more he wants than to be as close as he possibly can — he’s looking at him like Ed is a wonder that Stede can reach out and touch, like Ed’s the most cherished person in the world. Stede knows him. He knows him, and he still wants him. Ariadne never had this, and Ed gets to have it for the rest of his life. 

Ed’s orgasm blindsides him, wrecks him. It’s shocking, even though he knew it was coming. He shakes apart around Stede’s cock, shouts as he digs his fingers into Stede’s shoulders. 

“Breathe,” Stede says, fucking him through it. 

Ed’s turned inside out, the soft dress flipped so that his bones are silk, his muscles, his heart. He can see it as if for the first time — the beauty Stede has always recognized, that he’s showing Ed now. His lips graze Ed’s temple as he says, “I love you.” 

When Stede comes inside him Ed hooks his ankles together, keeps him deep. Stede pants into Ed’s neck as Ed kisses his forehead, dips down to the side of his mouth and kisses him there too. 

The dress is in shambles, and now that Ed’s slowly coming back to himself he can see streaks of black where the charcoal from Stede’s fingers has painted him. He wants each mark inked on his skin: Stede touched me here. He wants Stede to look at him and see how badly Ed aches for him in patches of ink, permanent lines. Maybe he already does. 

Ed grunts softly when Stede lifts off of him, when he whispers, “I’ll be right back” and gets up to grab a towel from the closet. He drifts as Stede cleans him gently, as Stede follows the path of the towel with his lips, smiling against Ed’s skin as he lifts the dress up and over Ed’s head, gently tossing it to the side. 

The dress doesn’t matter. Stede will buy him another one. Stede will learn to sew and work into the wee hours of the night to make him one. He’ll take the clothes off his back and rip them apart, drape them carefully until they’re a gown of teal and leather. He’ll tie up Ed’s hair and kiss the back of his neck — “You’re so beautiful, darling.” — and he’ll take Ed’s hand in his because he’s so proud of him. Ed can feel that now. 

After minutes of silence that feel full, buzzing, Stede leans over and cups Ed’s cheek in his hand. “I’m sorry to say that I didn’t finish the drawing,” he says.

Ed chuckles, nuzzles into his hand. “I’d be willing to give it another go.”

“Really now?” Stede asks. His eyes are bright, his lips flushed pink.  

“If only to help you practice.”

“Ed,” Stede laughs, kissing him soundly. 

Later they pick a spot for the painting — over Stede’s desk in the front room. With Ed’s permission Stede takes the charcoal to it, sweeps black over auburn hair, dots Ariadne’s chin with a short beard, swirls of ink across her skin. He uses their good knife to carve out the ship on the sea, melts wax to affix it so that it heads toward the beach. There’s a tiny figure at the bow, its arm outstretched. Ed can hear it calling, he thinks, the wind carrying words that Ed only knows are true after time, and heartache, and the steady changing of tides. 

“You came back,” he says to Stede, as they sit huddled together on the porch that evening to watch the sunset.

Stede takes his hand — Ed can feel his smile without seeing it. “Always.”