Archive of Our Own

Stede talked in his sleep.

Ed had noticed it before, in those first few weeks on the Revenge. He'd spent most nights sleeping on Stede's sofa—it just didn't do for Blackbeard to sleep on deck with the crew, and it was miles better than sharing a room with Izzy.

He'd often woken in the middle of the night to Stede mumbling. It was hard to hear from across the room, but he'd catch phrases, little snippets of Stede's dreams. He'd hear "Alma, be nice to your brother" one night and "bit pricy for such a low grade of cashmere, don't you think?" the next.

With anyone else, he would have thought it was the most irritating thing in the world. But this was Stede. And, despite Ed's best efforts to stamp out the soft spot growing in his heart over Stede Bonnet, he was utterly, stupidly charmed by everything the man did. He wanted to know every part of him, wanted the simple intimacy of understanding Stede's nighttime ramblings.

On one memorable night he'd woken up to the sound of Stede mumbling, and was on the verge of falling back asleep when he heard his own name, clear as crystal.

"Ed," Stede said again. Ed had sat up and peered over the back of the sofa. In the moonlight, Stede lay motionless behind the gauzy curtains that separated his bed from the rest of the room. Stede was asleep, and talking, and dreaming about Ed.

"Do you like that?" Stede said. Ed's stupid brain helpfully provided him with several ideas about the kind of dream Stede might be having, all of them horny.

"S'nice, isn't it." Stede mumbled. And that was it. Ed had watched him for another ten minutes, but all Stede did was turn over onto his side and sigh deeply.

It took a while, after everything happened and Stede came back, for Ed to hear him talking again. The first night they spent together, Ed slept so deeply he wasn't sure Stede could have woken him if he tried. The next few days were haze of grief and shame and guilt, Stede taking care of things while both of them barely slept. It wasn't until a few weeks after they'd settled into what they were still pretending was going to be an inn that it happened again. Ed jolted awake, aware of some noise but not sure what had woken him.

"Ed," Stede said.

"Yeah?" Ed said. He turned to see Stede's face slack with sleep and realized what was happening.

"Ed," Stede said. "Please, Ed, no." He sounded… scared? Ed shifted closer, instinctively reaching to comfort him, then froze. Was Stede having a nightmare about him?

"No, no, no," Stede said. A line of worry appeared between his eyebrows. "Please Ed no you can't—"

"Shh, Stede, it's okay," Ed said, helplessly. "You're safe." He wanted to wake Stede up, didn't want to hear him like this, didn't want to scare him, didn't know what to do.

"I'm sorry," Stede said.

"You don't have to be sorry, Stede, I—"

"Ed, please, don't."

Ed's mind was spinning in a hundred different directions. What was he doing to Stede in this nightmare? Was Stede afraid of him? Had Stede been afraid of him this whole time? "I won't," he said. "Whatever it is, I won't do it."

"Don't be dead," Stede said.

Oh.

Oh fuck.

"Please Ed, come back please, I love you, please," Stede's words tumbled over each other, pleading, praying. Ed remembered it, vaguely. The feeling of being underwater, deep in the belly of the ship, salt-smell and yellow light. Stede's voice, pulling him up out of the depths. How long had Stede been there? How long had Stede thought he was dead?

"Please come back," Stede said.

"Stede!" Ed shook his shoulder, roughly. Stede startled awake, eyes wide and frightened. "Stede, it's okay, I'm right here."

Stede grabbed him, pulled Ed on top of him into a crushing embrace. Patted down his face, his arms, his torso, like he needed to be sure Ed was all there. Ed felt him shaking, felt Stede's heart rabbiting away beneath his rib cage.

"Stede, I'm here, I'm safe, you're safe, we're okay," Ed said. He buried his face in Stede's neck, pressed a kiss against the soft skin there, settled his full weight on top of Stede.

"I'm sorry," Stede mumbled, after a little while. "For waking you up."

"You don't have to be sorry for that," Ed said. "Don't apologize for having a nightmare. And I woke you up right back, so we're even, anyways."

"I was talking?"

"Yeah."

"Oh."

They lay there in silence for a while longer, until they both got too warm for Ed to keep acting as a human blanket. He rolled onto his side and Stede turned, facing him.

"What was I saying?" Stede asked.

"You wanted me to not be dead," Ed said. "Figured I ought to wake you up and tell you the good news."

Stede reached for him again, pulling him close against his chest, wordless. Ed felt acutely miserable. There was a sudden flash of terror that he'd nearly thrown all of this away, mixed with guilt from the realization that, even if it wasn't because Stede was afraid of him, he'd still found a way to to feature in Stede's nightmares.

"I'm sorry," Ed said. "Fuck, Stede, I'm so sorry."

"For what?" Stede sounded genuinely confused.

"For dying," Ed said. "Almost dying, I guess. I think I did die for a bit though."

"If I don't need to apologize for having a nightmare then you don't need to apologize for dying," Stede said, with that streak of mulishness that crept into his voice sometimes.

"Yeah but you didn't have a nightmare on purpose" Ed said, without thinking.

The words hung in the silence between them, the implications tangible. He could feel Stede shuffling through responses, heard his mouth open and close before he spoke.

"I wasn't sure— I didn't know how to ask," Stede said, finally. "What the crew told me, what Izzy said— it didn't sound like you. It sounded like you were trying to make them mutiny."

Of course Stede had figured it out immediately. At this point it was frankly a little embarrassing, to be seen through so readily. Ed used to think he was pretty good at hiding his real intentions. Stede had made him wonder if he was only good at it because no one had ever really been looking.

"You still don't need to apologize, though," Stede said.

"Uh, yeah I do," Ed said. "I was a real dick about the whole thing, and if I wasn't supposed to apologize you should have told me before I spent two weeks in a rice sack, Stede." This got him a snort.

"No, you don't need to apologize to me," Stede said. "For wanting to die. For trying to die. It's my fault, I shouldn't have left you like that."

Ed stiffened. He pulled back a bit, to look at Stede properly. "It wasn't because you left," he said.

"Sure," Stede said, in the voice he got when he knew Ed was patronizing him. Ed barely noticed, he was busy slotting everything into place from Stede's perspective, what it would have looked like from the outside. Of course Stede thought that Ed's trip down into the deep end was his fault, it made perfect fucking sense. It just wasn't true. Stede had never gotten the whole story. He hadn't asked, which Ed had chalked up to either tact or just not wanting to know, but now Ed was realizing Stede hadn't asked because he thought he already knew what had happened. And that it was his fault.

"It wasn't because you left," he said again. "I mean, that fucking sucked. Never leave me again. But it was mostly about other stuff."

"What other stuff?" Stede asked. A natural follow-up question that Ed should have seen coming.

"I—" Ed faltered. It was hard to put into words, the way his own life, his own identity, had slowly but surely tightened around his neck like a noose. He couldn't talk about it with Stede looking at him, so he closed his eyes. Stede pulled him closer, so that Ed's forehead was tucked under Stede's chin. "I didn't see any other way out."

"Out of piracy?"

"Maybe," Ed said. "You know, Izzy told me the only retirement pirates get is death."

"What?" Stede said. "That's stupid. I mean, it sounds cool, I guess, but death is not retirement." There was an irritated pause. "Death is the opposite of retirement. You retire instead of dying."

"Well, yeah, babe," Ed said, smiling against Stede's chest. He loved him so much. "Pirates don't retire, they just die. That was his point."

"I suppose he was right about himself," Stede mused. "But not you."

"When I met you, I thought you were the way out," Ed said. "First I wanted to be you, but then I just wanted to be with you, because when I was with you it didn't feel so—so pointless all the time. And that made me feel like maybe I could be someone else. I wanted to be anyone else."

"I get that," Stede said.

"When you left I still thought I could do it," Ed said. "Be someone else. Be Ed and not Blackbeard. I came back to the Revenge and I tried." He felt tears burn in the corners of his eyes. "I really did. But it didn't, uh, it didn't stick."

"I should have been there with you," Stede said, voice rough. "If I hadn't left—"

"Stede," Ed said, frustrated. He wiggled backwards out of Stede's arms and held his face in his hands, so that Stede couldn't look away. "It wasn't you leaving that did it. Stop thinking it was your fault."

"Okay," Stede said, clearly agreeing because he felt like he had to, and not because he actually agreed.

"Actually," Ed said, shaking Stede's head slightly for emphasis. "I was getting over you. I did some really excellent wallowing. I ate all of your marmalade, and I drank almost all of your brandy."

That got him a laugh.

"That's so much marmalade," Stede said.

"Wrote some song lyrics," Ed said. "They were awful."

"Can I hear them?" Stede asked.

"Absolutely not," Ed said. "I forgot them, anyways. They were awful, Stede."

"Aw," Stede said. He sounded genuinely put out. "I would have liked to hear a song you wrote."

"Not this one," Ed said. "But I was getting over you, babe. I loved you, but I was handling it."

"So what changed?" Stede asked.

Ed realized he didn't want to talk about the next part. Not even if it made Stede feel better. And it wouldn't make Stede feel better, would it? It was better not to talk about it, better to keep the gory details to himself, now that the only other person who knew about them was dead. He dropped his hands away from Stede's face and rolled over on his back, staring up at the ceiling.

"I changed my mind," he said, painfully aware that this was not going to dissuade Stede at all, unable to come up with anything else convincing. "But it wasn't your fault, that's what matters. It was my fault, everything. I chose it."

"But, why change your mind?" Stede asked. "What happened?"

"I don't— I can't tell you," Ed said. He suppressed the urge to cover his face with the blanket.

"Why not?"

"Because I don't want to talk about it!" The words came out angrier than he expected, and he flinched at the sound of his own voice.

"Okay," Stede said, placating. "You don't have to."

They laid there, in silence. Ed stared up at the ceiling, trying to ignore the weight of the conversation they weren't having. He could tell Stede was still looking at him, thoughtful and quiet. It felt like being pinned beneath a bright light. He braced himself against more questions.

"Hey," Stede said, leaning forward to kiss Ed's cheek. "I love you."

The tension broke inside of Ed like a wave crashing onto shore. He turned back towards Stede and kissed him back. He didn't deserve Stede, never had, and yet here they were.

"I love you too," he said.

A few weeks later Ed was the one who woke from a nightmare, quietly and covered in cold sweat. When he tried to remember the details it slipped out of focus, but he knew that it had been dark, and he had been underwater. He shivered, trying to forget the feeling of cold water pressing down on him.

Stede mumbled something next to him. Ed turned to look at him and felt better. Stede's face was slack with sleep, his hair was sticking up at odd angles, and he looked entirely at peace in their bed. Ed watched him, pacing his own breath by the rise and fall of Stede's chest, until he no longer felt like he was on the edge of panic. He got out of bed, careful and quiet, and pulled on a robe before heading out to the porch to smoke. The warm night air was a balm against his skin.

When he came back inside, Stede had shifted in his sleep, rolling onto his back. One bare foot had slipped out from beneath the covers. Ed saw it and stopped short in the doorway. His stomach flipped. He felt the oily sting of greasepaint on his skin, tasted the stale air of the lower decks of a ship. His palms were damp with sweat under his gloves.

He fled back out to the porch. He almost went further, but the idea of Stede waking up and not knowing where he was was painful enough to stop him. Instead he sat out there, wrapped in his robe and smoking more than was healthy, until the sun rose up over the horizon and quiet movements inside told him Stede was awake.

"Oh, there you are," Stede said, from the doorway behind him. He sounded half-asleep still. "How long have you been up?"

"A bit," Ed said. He was going for nonchalant but missed by a mile. Stede stepped onto the porch with him, peering down at Ed's face with bleary concern. His hair was still sticking up in all directions. Stede deserved to know, didn't he? He'd chosen to live here with Ed, he deserved to know what Ed was capable of.

"Couldn't sleep?" Stede asked.

"There's something I need to tell you," Ed said.

"Alright," Stede said.

"About after you left," Ed said. "About what happened."

"Okay," Stede said, entirely unfazed. "Right now? On the steps?"

"I think I'll chicken out if I wait," Ed said.

Stede sat down next to him, gathering his robe around him. He waited expectantly.

"This might be hard to hear," Ed said. "It's okay if you need to step away for a bit, or something like that."

"Okay?" A little line appeared between Stede's eyebrows.

Ed spoke quickly, trying to get it over with. "So one of the things I did when I was, you know, not doing great," That was an understatement, but it hard to say it without resorting to euphemism, hard to look at it directly. Stede would know what he was talking about. "Uh, well I guess it was Izzy and I both doing it, kinda. But whenever he didn't do his job right, or failed at something, I would—" Ed winced, staring down at his hands. "I would cut off one of his toes. And make him eat it."

Stede was silent. Ed braved a glance up at him and saw Stede still looking at him expectantly.

"Oh," Stede said, once he realized Ed was done talking. "That's it? Ed, darling, I knew about that already."

"Uh," Ed said. He held on to the wooden boards of the steps to stop them from falling out from underneath him. "What?"

"Jim told me," Stede said. "Or was it Frenchie? Honestly I don't remember."

"You knew?" Ed asked. "This whole time?"

"Yes," Stede said.

"And you didn't—" Ed flailed slightly. "You didn't have questions about that? About me feeding Izzy his own toes?"

"Well, no," Stede said. He gave Ed a look that was both confused and patient, like Ed was missing something, like Ed was being silly about this. "Ed, we were pirates."

Ed stood up.

"I have to go for a walk," he said.

"In a robe? Without shoes?" Stede said, sounding exponentially more alarmed about that than he had about Izzy eating his own toes. "Ed, no, please just come inside, we can make breakfast."

"I'll just go down to the road," Ed said. "I have to think."

He strode off down the path, barefoot, feeling Stede's gaze on his back. The road wasn't far, maybe a few hundred yards at best. When he got halfway there he turned to look at the cottage, only to see Stede still watching him. A breeze kicked up, and Ed felt stupid, standing barefoot on the path in his robe. He turned and marched on down to the road anyways.

"We were pirates," he muttered. "What the fuck, Stede? I guess that makes everything okay then, does it? Guess I should have fed the whole crew their own toes, because I'm fucking Blackbeard and I just do evil shit for fun, why would I ever do anything different? I'm just a pirate, like Hornigold, or Jack, or Iz—" He wasn't watching where he put his feet and his heel slammed down on a sharp rock. "Fuck!" He hopped around on his other foot.

"Ed, are you okay?" Stede called, voice floating on the wind.

"I'm fine! I'm walking!"

"Okay," Stede yelled back. "When you're back we can have toast!" Ed heard the door close as he went back inside.

Ed lowered his throbbing foot back onto the ground and sighed, rubbing his hands down his face. "Stede doesn't think you're like Hornigold," he told himself. "He's just got a fucked up sense of morals, because he decided to be a pirate in his forties, who fucking does that? Stede Bonnet, the love of my life, that's who, why-am-I-still-talking-to-myself—"

He groaned. It sort of helped, letting out the frustration with a long, formless, "uuurgghh" noise. His foot really fucking hurt. He should have put on shoes, Stede was right, and at this particular moment that was the most irritating thing in the world. He groaned again.

Ed kept walking down to the road, because he had said that he would, and turned around. On the way back up he stopped at Izzy's grave to pay his respects.

He'd thought about putting flowers on it, in the first week. That's what you were supposed to do, right? But he hadn't, because Izzy fucking hated flowers.

"You know Iz, it's really hard to be nice to you when you hate everything," Ed said, now. "We could have been friends, maybe, instead of whatever the fuck we were. But every time I tried to get you to loosen up a little you looked like you were going to puke."

He looked down at the bare mound of earth and the driftwood grave marker. Maybe Stede would help him plant something there. A rose bush, maybe, the kind with long sharp thorns. Or a thistle. Maybe Izzy would enjoy something poisonous.

"I think the happiest I ever saw you was when I cut off your toe," Ed said. There was something trapped in his throat, unidentifiable except that it was hard, and painful, and heavy. It felt like it was never going to come loose, that it was going to live with him for the rest of his life. "Or when— or when I choked you. What the fuck, man? What was that about?" He could still remember the look in Izzy's eyes, the possessive gleam as he'd brushed a hand against Ed's bare cheek. He'd wanted to scrub himself clean afterwards and Izzy had been… happy. Gleeful, even.

"Why did you tell me to 'be Ed?' I don't know how, and you never even—" Ed cut himself off. Bit the inside of his cheek, exhaled slowly though his nose, focused on the pain to calm himself down.

"I'm sorry," he said, at last. "I'm sorry that you're dead. You don't owe me anything."

He crept away from the grave, quietly, seized by the sudden, horrible idea that Izzy might wake up to answer his questions.

Stede was making toast, as promised. He beamed at Ed with the sort of irritating cheerfulness he was so good at. Ed loved him for it.

"Feeling any better?" Stede asked. "My toast skills are improving, I only burned one!"

Ed came up behind him and hugged him, pressing his nose against the back of Stede's neck, breathing him in. He was so solid. So real. Ed loved that, too.

"Sorry I freaked out," Ed said.

"That's okay," Stede said, still watching the last piece of toast. "I know it's hard to talk about. Thanks for only going to the road."

"Wouldn't have gotten much further without shoes," Ed said. "I'm glad you bought these robes in town, otherwise I would have just been running away stark naked."

"What would the neighbors think?" Stede said, in mock horror. The closest people to them lived in town, four miles away. "Although you know, I was thinking, if we start a garden there's really nothing stopping us from doing it without clothes. And if our clothes aren't all sweaty and dirty then laundry day would be much easier."

"Okay, first, you turn into a lobster in the sun," Ed said. "You're like a were-lobster, man. Except with the sun instead of the moon." Stede opened his mouth and Ed knew he was about to say something incredibly distracting about the concept of were-lobsters, so he forged ahead, cutting Stede off. "Second, we would not get any gardening done, Stede. You remember what happened last week?"

Ed had been fixing the back door, and it had been really fucking hot, so he'd taken off his shirt. Stede had been inside making a drink out of lemons and sugar and water. He'd invited Ed back in to cool down, watched him drink the lemonade, and then fucked him about it for two hours. This had been, of course, fantastic, but the back door was still broken.

"It was good lemonade," Stede said, unrepentant. "We should get more sugar while the lemon tree is still going."

"Fuck, I love you," Ed said. It was nice that he could say it out loud now, when he felt it very strongly.

"I love you, too," Stede said. He took the toast out from the fire and turned to kiss Ed. They ate their toast, smeared with butter and jam that they had bought in town.

"So," Ed said, when they were done eating. It didn't feel like a conversation to have over food. He felt worn out, stretched thin by his night smoking on the porch instead of sleeping, but they were going to have to keep talking about it, and they might as well get through it while it was still fresh. "You knew this whole time?"

"Pretty much," Stede said. "It came up when they were voting to keep you on the ship or not."

"Did Izzy say anything about it?" Ed asked.

"Oh no," Stede said. "No, he wasn't part of that discussion, he was busy drinking himself to death and mutilating my unicorn. To be quite honest, they told me that you cut off Izzy's toes and I thought 'Serves him right for selling us out to the Badmintons' and then I didn't really think about it anymore. It just didn't seem relevant with his whole leg gone as well." Stede looked at him, carefully. "I didn't realize it was a secret."

"I suppose it wasn't," Ed said. "Why aren't you bothered by it? By all the fucked up stuff I did?"

"You were in a bad place," Stede said. "You told me yourself, you felt trapped. You weren't just doing it for fun."

"I tried to kill Lucius," Ed said.

"Yes, and he's still alive," Stede said, as though that settled it.

"Yes, but I tried to kill him," Ed said.

"Jim tried to kill Lucius once, too. Locked him in a box for days, none of us knew where he was, I thought I was going to have to find a new scribe. And now they're good friends." Stede shrugged. "That's what I meant earlier, when I said that we were pirates. The rules are a little different, aren't they? If your first mate sells you out to the Navy I think it's reasonable to chop off a few toes."

"It wasn't because he sold us out," Ed said. That would have made some sort of sense, but Stede was being too charitable to him.

"Really?"

"No."

"Did you do anything to him for selling us out?"

"No," Ed said.

"Oh," Stede looked thoughtful. "I suppose I could have done something, but it would have felt a bit like kicking a lame horse. An intoxicated, lame horse. Kind of mean, at that point."

"I cut off Izzy's toe because I needed to prove to him I was Blackbeard again," Ed said.

Stede gave him a startled look. Ed felt a faint sense of vindication, that finally he'd said something fucked up enough for Stede to act appropriately disturbed about it.

"Proof? Why would Izzy need proof of that?"

"Well Izzy worked for Blackbeard," Ed said. "That's what he told me, that he worked for Blackbeard and not some—" He caught himself. "Not me."

"Not some what?"

"Well, you know, I was wallowing," Ed said. He swallowed. Stede had gotten very still, and his brow had furrowed. There was something calculating in his expression, and Ed wasn't sure he liked this level of scrutiny. "Eating marmalade and writing bad song lyrics and walking around in your robe."

"So?"

"Well Izzy didn't like it, I guess," Ed said. He got up, clearing away plates, trying to avoid Stede's gaze. "Didn't think it fit the brand."

"And what, he told you to cut off his toes about it?"

"No, he told me to watch my fuckin' step. So I made him watch his step? I guess? It made sense at the time." Ed ran a hand down his face, felt the bristles of his beard. It was getting long enough now that he needed to make a decision about trimming it or letting it grow.

"That's what happened," Stede said, like he was having some kind of epiphany. "Oh, Ed."

"What?" Ed turned to look at him. Stede looked slightly adrift.

"That's the other stuff you didn't want to talk about," Stede said. His eyes narrowed. "Izzy threatened you. That's why you went back to being Blackbeard, that's why you thought the only retirement—" Stede stressed the word sarcastically, clearly still annoyed at Izzy's framing of it."— you'd get was death."

Stede was still sitting, but Ed could see he was furious from the tension in his shoulders and the way his hands flexed against the table. And it was Stede, Stede was safe, but Ed still felt a curl of fear deep in his belly. He took a step back, felt the small of his back hit the counter. Inhale. There was a knife on the counter, the one Stede had used to slice up the bread for toast. Exhale. Ed wasn't going to need it. This was Stede, Stede was safe, he wasn't going to attack Ed, he wasn't even mad at Ed, it was fine. If he hadn't spent most of the night awake and anxiously smoking on the porch he might even feel fine, this didn't usually happen with Stede. Ed knew this and yet he was still cataloguing every sharp object in the room, because old habits go down kicking, apparently. Hard to teach an old dog new tricks, particularly when the only thing the dog had ever learned was how to bite someone before they had a chance to hurt it. Inhale.

"You know they all told me you'd retired?" Stede said, fuming. "Before we found your body. None of them would tell me where you were, or what had happened, except Izzy who told me he could never have killed you and that they'd deserted you on a beach somewhere."

That was… an audacious claim on Izzy's part. Ed's memories of that night were hazy, but he had a pretty clear memory of Izzy firing the first shot. He didn't say this to Stede, who looked mad enough already.

"And he told me 'you and me did this to him,' and that we needed to protect the crew," Stede said. "As though Izzy ever cared about protecting my crew." He stared down at his hands, curled them up into fists. Ed watched him, carefully. "I thought he was just trying to feel important, but he knew, didn't he? He knew what it meant for you to keep being Blackbeard and he forced you back into it anyways." His hands slapped onto the table as he stood up, abruptly, and his chair screeched across the floorboards. Ed flinched—rookie mistake, he really was getting soft, what would Izzy say—and Stede saw. And Stede melted, the anger draining out of him like a wave receding from a beach.

"Oh fuck, Ed!" Stede said. He moved towards Ed, and Ed let himself be pulled into a hug. "Sorry Ed, I was yelling, wasn't I?"

"It's okay," Ed said. His voice broke a little. Fuck, that was embarassing. "I was being stupid."

"You are never stupid," Stede said. "I shouldn't have let it get to me. This was all much harder on you than it was on me."

He pulled Ed close, rubbing his back, but Ed frowned. He didn't like how Stede had said that.

"Was it?" Ed asked. "Harder on me?"

"Ed," Stede said, "You died."

"Yeah but," Ed struggled for words. Stede never seemed to take his own shit seriously. "If I found out you were dead, if I saw what I thought was your body, I would have lost my fucking mind." Stede still had nightmares about it every few nights. Ed could tell, even when he didn't talk in his sleep.

"I think I did. A little bit," Stede said. "But then you were back, and that was all that mattered."

"But it still happened to you," Ed said.

Stede made a noncommital noise. Ed took that as a small victory. They stood there, embracing in their tiny kitchen, Ed's face buried in the side of Stede's neck. Knowing that Stede couldn't see his face made it easier to talk about.

"It was more complicated than you think," Ed said. "With Izzy."

"How so?"

"I threatened him, too. Hurt him, hurt the crew. I could have done something different, I can see all the things I could have done differently now, in retrospect, it's just that then I felt—"

"Trapped?" Stede asked. "Like you were treading water? Waiting to drown?"

"Yeah," Ed said.

"He shouldn't have threatened you," Stede said.

"I think he was trying to protect me? In his own fucked up way," Ed said. "Safer to be Blackbeard than to be a sadsack wandering around in a dressing gown and eating marmalade."

"Hey," Stede said, pretending to be offended. "I did okay for a little while." Ed chuckled. "But, Ed, it's not like you were safe as Blackbeard, either."

Ed blinked. He hadn't thought about it like that.

"How is threatening you protecting you? Even if the concept of Blackbeard kept you safe from other people, Izzy protecting you from that by making you prove yourself to him only works if he's the person planning to hurt you."

Ed didn't know how to feel about that. It made sense, but it couldn't make sense, because then lots of other things would stop making sense. He tried to figure out how he felt about it, tried to focus in on what was going on in his throat and chest, what the cold, prickly feeling running up and down his spine was about, but all he got back was exhaustion. Like he'd already exceeded the amount of things he could feel today, and he'd have to try again tomorrow. When he didn't respond, Stede gave him a little squeeze.

"If you have to choose between a safe life that is slowly killing you, or jumping into something new and dangerous because it's the only way to keep living…" Stede said.

Ed smiled against Stede's cheek. "Do you maybe, possibly have some experience with that?"

"It worked, didn't it?"

Ed wondered, often, whether Stede was going to get bored here. Stede, who had jumped into piracy feet first in his fancy shoes and elegant stockings, because he needed a break in the monotony of his regular life. And now he was here, on land, with Ed. Planning a garden and learning how to not burn toast.

"Do you miss it?" Ed asked. "Piracy?"

Stede pulled back and looked him in the eyes. "No," he said. "Not when I get to be here with you."

"Okay," Ed said, searching Stede's face for any sign that he didn't mean it.

He found nothing. Just Stede, earnest and loving and so much more than Ed deserved.

He decided to believe him.