Preface
when you love it
Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at /works/37890679.
Rating: Explicit Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply Category: M/M Fandom: Our Flag Means Death (TV) Relationship: Blackbeard Edward Teach/Stede Bonnet Additional Tags: written post-ep 8, off-screen rescue, First Time, First Kiss, Resolved Sexual Tension, Idiots in Love Language: English Stats: Published: 2022-03-22 Words: 5,759 Chapters: 1/1 when you love it
by mia_ugly
Summary
Stede's being kissed before the door fully clicks shut behind him.
Notes
This will probably be canon divergent as soon as the last two episodes come out, and I have no excuse for any of it. I just wanted them to kiss and stuff. Thank you to soft_october and pinehutch for the beta read and feedback and kindness and for screaming about pirates with me at all hours.
See the end of the work for more notes
when you love it
"When is a monster not a monster?
Oh, when you love it."
- Caitlyn Siehl, "Start Here"
The shouts of celebration are still ricocheting across the deck, and the rum is just being passed around, and Frenchie's frantically trying to tune a lute with a cracked neck (they'll get him a new one when next they dock at the Republic of Pirates, Wee John is already starting a collection for it) when Stede takes Ed's arm and leads him toward his cabin.
"Bloody finally," he hears someone mutter under their breath, probably certainly Lucius.
Stede's lips are wet from biting them, as well as a small nip of rum. He just had the one, just to steel his nerves, because they're alive and relatively whole and the English are nowhere on the horizon and Ed is smiling at him, even with his blackened eye, he's smiling. They are having this conversation whether or not either of them are ready for it.
"A moment of your time, if I -"
He's being kissed before the door fully clicks shut behind him.
It just happens, like gravity. Like a great wave crashing down upon rocks, and - actually who cares about talking and conversation, this is much much better.
Ed presses him back against the door of the cabin. He kisses Stede open-mouthed and hungry, moaning loudly into it in a way Stede did not expect (if he had expected anything at all. If he had planned even a little. He wanted to know what Ed tasted like, the salt-sting of his lips, he wanted him as close as he could come and then closer than that - so he just leapt. Like the night he started drawing a ship that a family could live on, like the day when he walked through the harbour and ordered it done.)
But he never expected Ed.
And he didn't expect Ed to be this warm against him, for a start, not with the way the man's always drowning in layers. He didn't expect Ed's hands to be urgent and ravenous against Stede's throat, around his waist, as if Stede was precious, something worthy of his touch.
He's never kissed someone with a beard before (it's a fuzzy business) and he's never, never been kissed like this - with this much passion - almost desperation, like Ed is starving for him and has been for years. The thought makes Stede whine, high in his throat, and Ed pulls back immediately.
"Christ." He's breathing heavily, looking at Stede with eyes blown black. "Oh Christ."
Stede is still pressed up against the door of his cabin. He can hear music on the other side of it, drums and a warped-sounding lute, and his heart swells with the melody. All of this was almost taken away from him, from the both of them. This life, these people, almost buried in the ground and left to rot like lost treasure. It's a matter of dumb luck that they survived at all: if Spanish Jackie and Izzy hadn't unexpectedly changed sides and brought Blackbeard's crew to their rescue, if Jim hadn't shown up just in time like a swashbuckling murder-demon from hell, if Buttons' bird hadn't done… something (Buttons has been making vague prophetic statements about it all evening, and truthfully there was a gull on board with a very smug look on its face throughout their rescue and escape so perhaps there's something to it -)
"You're shaking," Ed says, and Stede comes back to himself.
"Oh?" He lifts his hand and watches it vibrate in the air. "Am I?"
A familiar note of recrimination bleeds into Ed's voice as he starts to put some distance between them. "Was that, er - yeah, I probably shouldn't have -"
The hand clenched in the silk of Stede's frockcoat drops, and that won't do at all. Stede grabs it and presses it back to his waist. Holds it there.
"Please," Stede says. "Please. I've -" He swallows. He can be brave, and he has been, but that doesn't mean it's necessarily in his nature. "I've been wanting to do that."
Flattery always smooths Ed's spiny ridges out, and this time it earns Stede a cautiously raised eyebrow.
"… have you?"
"For - some time." For weeks now, Stede has been keeping these feelings behind his teeth, safe in the knowledge that a man like Ed - with all his black leather and perfect hair and silver all over - certainly wouldn't look twice at a man like Stede. That they were friends, probably, and sometimes less than that (Ed had made plans to murder him but Stede is fairly certain that's everyday pirate business.)
But then Ed came back ( he never left) and they all almost died, and Stede's insecurities and hesitancy felt like the worst possible crime when a second chance is one so rarely given to anyone, let alone a man who's already had one.
"Is that right?" With a sinful grin, Ed pours himself back against Stede. He drags his lips up Stede's throat to bite at his earlobe, lick at the shell of his ear. It makes Stede's spine feel like water, makes goosebumps break out all over his skin. He is grateful for the door behind him, for Ed's weight against his front, or he isn't sure he'd still be on his feet.
"Your - friend ." He says the word, even though it tastes as bitter as the liquor of Jackie's fermented nose jar. "He asked if -"
"What did he ask you?" Ed fists both hands in the front of Stede's coat. His eyes are outraged, searching Stede's for the source of the offence. "I'll kill that bastard, what did he -"
"He asked if we were buggeringeachother ," Stede says in a rush. He takes a breath.
Then he briefly considers fainting.
Not because he's an innocent, or anything like that. He went to boarding school for goodness sake, and it isn't as if his crew possesses much in the way of modesty.
It's just not a word he's ever said out loud. A gentleman doesn't speak of such things, not publicly. Although the occasion may arise when it is - necessary to expand one's zone of comfort.
Vital, even.
So: buggering.
Frigging.
Dalliance. (" Blackie and I have had our dalliances," that awful man had said before urinating all over Stede's boots. Stede had left the island shortly after, but he had not been able to leave the word behind. Dalliance. Something that means nothing, a bit of fun to be casually discarded. As if anything involving Edward Teach could be a dalliance, as if any contact wouldn't leave you absolutely run through - left side of the abdomen, avoiding the necessary bits if luck was on your side.)
"I'll fucking kill 'im." Ed's voice is hoarse like he's been shouting. "Useless prick, never knows when to shut his mouth. How dare he say something like that to - to someone like you."
Someone like me ! Stede wants to laugh, but if he does he might start crying.
"I'm glad he did," Stede says quickly, taking Ed's hands in his own. He turns them over in his grip so he can study them - rows of silver rings, deep creases in each palms, the rind of black beneath his fingernails. Ordinarily such untidiness might make Stede a bit critical, but right now it doesn't matter a whit.
Ed is a proper pirate, he's allowed his ragged edges. Though… Stede wonders if Ed might like a bit of pampering in that area. If he'd let Stede take care of him - massage his hands with lotion, trim his nails and rub oil into the cuticles.
If Ed would let Stede lift his knuckles to his mouth and kiss - kiss them -
"Stede?" Ed asks when Stede gets too overwhelmed to speak.
"Nothing! What? Nothing."
Edward is looking a bit askance at him, which is unbearable, so Stede kisses him again. It instantly turns the other man to butter; Ed swoons forward, murmuring into the kiss, pinning Stede to the door with his warmth and his weight.
"I'm glad - glad he asked," Stede repeats when he remembers how to put words in a straight line. He isn't finished yet, no matter what Ed's hands and hips are doing against him.
Ed pulls away just minutely, lips still resting damply against Stede's own.
"Yeah?" he says foggily and Stede presses their foreheads together and tries to breathe through this great crest of feeling. He can say it. He's faced down the English navy. He's killed a man - kind of. He was an accomplice in the killing, anyway, along with gravity and misfortune so that counts.
"I wanted that." He swallows, feels himself shivering despite the unholy heat of Ed against him. "When he asked. I wanted - you to want that. With me."
A shocking sound comes out of Ed's throat then (possibly characterizable as a squeak? Not that Stede will ever say as much out loud) and suddenly he is nothing but a weight in Stede's arms, hanging like an anchor. Stede clings to his waist, barely managing to keep them both from toppling over. Ed clears his throat and finds his feet again but -
"Did your knees just - give out?"
"It's these uh, boots. It's what that was. Sometimes they - could we, could we sit down?"
Ed is probably right. Nice as their cosy spot against the door is, it's time to move things along.
Stede nods and follows Ed over to the fainting couch where they've spent many a fine hour together, drinking brandy and talking literature and linen: various piratical things. He expects Ed to ravish him as soon as they've sat down (he's been reading too many of a certain type of book), but instead the infamous pirate sits rather primly apart from him - hands folded between his knees, and eyes looking down at the floor. Stede feels anxiety like a peach pit in his stomach, hard and heavy.
He sits quietly down on the other side of the couch, and his heartbeat rattles in his chest.
"I was jealous of him," he says impulsively, before he can think better of it.
Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Edward holding himself extremely still.
"You never were."
"I was." He can say it. He should say it. "I went back to the ship and I thought - I imagined - what it must have been like. The two of you - I couldn't stop. I thought I might lose my mind imagining it."
"I didn't even think you'd want this. I didn't think you'd want -"
Stede flinches, hoping he isn't going to say it.
" Me ." But he does. Of course he does. "I mean - look at me. Who'm I, right? To touch you, when you could have-"
"Ed." This simply will not stand, not in Stede's cabin, not on Stede's ship. He turns toward the other man, taking his face in his hands. His beloved beard, his whiskers, his sun-roughened skin. "Edward. Look at yourself."
Ed closes his eyes at Stede's touch, but Stede will give him all the time he needs. He waits until Ed's eyes flicker open, irises like warm, clear tea reflecting Stede's own.
"No one alive wouldn't want you."
Ed looks shyly pleased. Stede leans in for the decisive final blow.
"Also you're fucking Blackbeard."
This earns him a devastating grin. He plans to kiss it off Ed's face immediately.
"I fucking well am," Ed says. Then he pins Stede to the couch for the ravishing he properly deserves.
Removing clothing turns out to be a more difficult business than expected.
"You wear too many - buckles." Stede grumbles. He thought they were dashing in theory, but every time he gets one open there's another one waiting for him under that.
"Says the man with two hundred fucking buttons." Edward's on top of him, mouth on Stede's jaw and hands useless on his waistcoat.
"Yes, and you'll do well not to damage any. If I lose one it will be impossible to -" He stops talking as Ed gets his cravat free, tossing it to the ground and immediately sucking at the hollow of Stede's throat.
"Oh my God," Stede murmurs. The adrenaline rush of that first kiss is wearing off, and in its place Stede is realizing just how starved his body is for any sort of contact whatsoever. He hasn't been touched in months, possibly over a year, and he's never been touched like this. There's an ache at the core of him, and his trousers are much too tight, the fine weave of his self control quickly unraveling. He gives up on the buckles, it's impossible, but Ed takes pity on him. He raises himself up on his knees just enough to get his leather coat off, shimmying out of it before crowding back against Stede. The weight of him is too intoxicating, and - coupled with the reveal of Ed's soft, worn cotton undershirt - it's enough to drive Stede completely to distraction. He presses his face to Ed's shoulder, breathes in the perfect sea and leather scent of his skin.
"You smell wonderful," Stede tells him, only to feel Ed go unexpectedly tense in his arms. "Ed?"
"That's probably not exactly - the leather doesn't really breathe, right? Maybe I should - if you'd rather I go - wash up a bit or - I wouldn't want you to -"
"Don't you dare," Stede protests, tilting Ed's face so they can look at each other.
"Damn it, my fucking eye -"
"Sorry! So sorry." Stede snatches back his hands, away from the inklike bruise spreading down Ed's cheekbone.
"It's fine." Ed pulls a face which suggests otherwise.
"I - uh - like way you smell. Like a pirate, very - masculine and - and attractive."
"Attractive, eh?"
"It's very you ." Stede hopes that sounds as complimentary as it did in his head. "Though in future I would be curious as to whether my bathtub could accommodate two. I expect there's room - might be a tight squeeze."
Ed is staring at him. His eyes have gone even darker than before, all pupil. "But I don't want to trouble the lads just now. Another time."
"Yeah," Ed nods, mouth open, "Sure, yeah. That."
"For now, perhaps we should g-go," A stutter! Brilliant and very dashing, he's sure. "To bed. To my bed. If you'd -"
Ed is surging forward before Stede can even finish, one hand in his hair and one hand on his hip, slotting their thighs together on the couch. He's hard, Stede can feel him even through his ridiculous leather pants. He's hard and Stede is too, and it isn't frightening or shocking or anything like that. It's easy to be like this with him, and Stede wants to shout about how long he lived without knowing how good he could feel, and how close he came to never knowing it at all.
It's easy to be kissed like this, looking up at Ed while feeling the slow shift of their bodies together. It's easy to be held so tightly, and to hear such keening, desperate sounds from the man on top of him, the most fearsome pirate in the world (though that means less than nothing anymore. It's Ed. That's all that matters. That's everything.)
"We can just do this," Ed tells him, directing Stede's hips exactly as he wants them, "if you like. We don't need to do anything you don't -"
"I want to," Stede says, mouth damp against Ed's neck. "Please."
Ed kisses him again and again, and then he nods. "Aye aye captain."
They shed clothing as they go - Stede gets his waistcoat off and starts on the buttons of his blouse, while Ed unbuckles his ridiculously tall boots, kicking them off to reveal two slender bare feet (one is bandaged almost entirely. One is missing a little toe.)
There's quite a lot of shoving up against doors and shelves and walls on their journey. When they finally reach Stede's bedchamber, Stede's shirt is mostly undone anyway, so he shrugs it off and lets it fall to the floor (then he picks it up and drapes it carefully over the dresser.) Ed is still at work on his third or fourth belt, but the sound of Stede's fussing catches his attention.
"Good Christ."
Ed's staring at him. Stede flushes, frets a bit about the shape of his stomach. He's nothing like Ed, all muscle and gorgeous skin - he's freckled and a bit soft and -
"Your fucking tits, mate."
Oh - okay. Does Ed mean his chest? Nipples? Stede forces himself not to lift his hands and cover said 'tits' self-consciously.
"Do you mean - is that what you call them?" Stede glances down at himself, not seeing anything that warrants a reaction like that.
"Is that okay?" Ed comes toward him, and Stede nods because he's fine with it, really, was just a bit surprised. And he's more than fine with anything that makes Ed look at him like that. "I - can I?"
Stede nods again, and then the man is burying his face in the sparse hair of Stede's breast bone, inhaling deeply. It's very sweet, quite nice, but nothing to make a fuss about (though Ed seems to enjoy it rather a lot.)
Then Ed turns his head and gets one of Stede's nipples in his mouth.
Stede makes a horribly embarrassing noise, like the noise an animal might make as it died. Both of his hands are somehow in Ed's hair, holding his head in place, and he has no memory of how they got there. He feels Ed chuckle against him before he bites down gently, which makes Stede produce that hideous sound again.
"The other one now, please," Stede directs, trying for some semblance of dignity, and for once Ed doesn't put up an argument. "Oh, Ed. Oh, Ed - yes."
"Like that, do you?" Ed asks, pulling his mouth away but replacing it with his thumb. "Hoped you would." Stede can't answer, can only arch his back and keen. "Been wanting to get my mouth on you since that first day."
" No ." Stede is scandalised, but not so scandalised that he'll let Ed stop touching him. He can well imagine what he looked like on that first day - pale and shining with fever, barely able to stand upright unassisted. A wretched sight, completely pathetic.
"I did. You don't know how delicious you looked, all tucked in and pink." Ed returns his mouth to its rightful place, and Stede just flutters his hands uselessly as Ed tongues at him. He had no idea he would like this, no idea it was even a thing that men did to each other. How has he gone so many years without knowing this about his own body?
"Of course," Ed pulls off of him, briefly, "we weren't sure you were going to last through the night so that kind of cooled things off some."
Stede tugs his head back to his chest, and Ed keeps sucking at him, occasionally giving him a hint of teeth that drives Stede unexpectedly wild. Ed's moaning too, as if Stede's reactions are feeding his own, and he gets a hand around Stede's waist, insinuating his leather clad thigh between Stede's. They grind hard against each other for a moment, and Stede can't stop making sounds he's never heard before. Everything feels so immediate, like lightning striking water, until Ed hisses through his teeth, "Bugger this," and drops his hands to the buttons of Stede's trousers.
" Oh ," Stede exclaims, hands still tangled in Ed's hair.
"You're wearing too much clothing." Ed shoves Stede's trousers open and then his hand is pushing inside, rough palm around Stede's prick which surges into his hand. "There we are. Oh, you sweetheart."
Ed pulls his hand back suddenly to spit in his palm, an action that Stede finds himself unexpectedly flustered by. Then Ed's hand is back, sticky with his own saliva, gentle around Stede's cock as he strokes him. It's unbearably good, it's too much, and he's never been touched by any hand other than his own. He's going to humiliate himself in a matter of seconds if Ed keeps - if Ed doesn't -
"Stop - Ed, stop."
Ed stops immediately. He lifts both hands in the air to prove that they're empty and they look at each other, panting and open-mouthed.
"I should've asked," Ed says, "Christ, I'm sorry - just barged in there like a fucking maniac -"
"It's all right. It was - too all right, you see." Stede feels raw and tense in the absolute best way. All he wants in the world is to take Ed's hand and put it back where it was, to give in to this, to stop thinking -
But no. Tonight is not about Stede acting like some sort of wild animal, frenzied with lust. They're going to do this properly.
And more than that - he wants to know.
Maybe he should be more anxious than he is, more uncomfortable with the shift in what he thought about himself and his desires. Or maybe this part of him was always there, waiting in every shadow that he cast. It's rather like the stars that were always there above him; they didn't mean much until Stede learned to read them, and then they were a map.
They weren't unexpected. They weren't a surprise. He just spent so many years ignoring them, not understanding what they meant.
His trousers are already undone, hanging low on his hips, so he lets them fall to the ground (then he picks them up because they'll crease otherwise and he's not going to captain a crew of fugitives from justice while looking shabby .)
He's naked and Ed is staring at him. Stede takes a deep breath, and lets himself be stared at.
"Fuck me ," Ed mutters. Stede wets his lips unconsciously.
"I'd rather it be - otherwise? If that's okay with you? Another time we could - switch things up for variety, if you wanted, I'm very willing but -"
"You're serious." Ed hasn't stopped looking at him, not even to blink. And Stede is naked and aroused and completely ridiculous but - yes, he's also serious. He nods, and Ed nods, and then Ed's fingers are flying over buckles, a shower of belts hitting the floor. Then he's pulling his undershirt over his head and wiggling those leather pants off his hips and then -
Stede has seen naked men before.
He's seen almost too many recently. He expected this would feel the same.
But it doesn't. Ed without clothing is exactly as intimidating and fascinating as Ed in layers of leather. He is criss-crossed with scars, so many that it makes Stede's teeth hurt a bit and he remembers what Oluwande said to him ("We don't do this because we like it. We do this because we don't have any other choice.") He's got muscular arms and a narrow chest and more tattoos spiralling down his ribs and over his left hip. He is much hairier than Stede is - wiry black and grey hair spills across his chest and stomach, down his legs, and there's a thick, lush thatch of it between his thighs.
And that is his penis, Stede thinks.
Penis probably isn't the most erotic word. Stede tries to remember the terms in the racier books he brought onboard, the ones he keeps on the highest shelves. Member ? He can't say there's much erotic about that word either. Whatever you call it, it is a beautiful penis, curving upward, flushed and purple at the head. And it's part of such a striking package that Stede feels a bit unsteady on his feet. He sits down on the edge of the bed, and just - looks.
There's nothing frightening about Ed's body. It's Ed's.
And oh hell - Stede adores him.
"Can I touch you?" he asks, and Ed takes a moment before he nods. He approaches Stede very slowly, more unsure than Stede's ever seen him. Even when they were bound and belly down on deck, wholly at the mercy of the English, Ed still had the audacity to wink. Now he's deadly serious, and when he stands in front of Stede, just within arm's reach, Stede can see the flutter of his pulse in his throat.
Slowly, he reaches out, petting the hair on Ed's stomach like he would pet a lovely cat. Ed shivers, which Stede likes very much, so he traces his hands down Ed's thighs, and then up his ribs. Scar after scar after shimmering scar, the history of which Stede does and doesn't want to know.
He takes Ed's hands and presses a kiss to first the knuckles and then the palm of each one.
"You're beautiful."
"Ah, fuck off." Despite his words, Ed sounds a bit breathless. Which brings Stede back to the matter almost at hand.
"Will we need - oil? Or something of that nature?" He's got no practical knowledge of this next bit, though he's learned all sorts from the crew and his reading. "I have a lavender lotion and um, this lovely rosewood oil for my hair, perhaps -"
Ed looks down at him and his gaze shifts, searching Stede's face like he's suddenly unfamiliar.
"I'm not a good person," he says quietly.
That was unexpected. "You are ," Stede says, and means it.
"I've done things - you know the things I've done." Ed shakes his head. "I don't want to hurt you."
Stede barely knows a handful of the things that Ed's done. Or Blackbeard, in that case. And neither of them are innocent men - there's a long list of souls stacked like bricks on Ed's back, and there are two letters in Stede's desk drawer, waiting to be mailed at the next port like all the letters before them ( Dear Alma, Dear Louis, I miss you very very much and I hope that some day -)
"I've done things too," Stede says quickly. "And we can't undo them, can we? The past is the past, however we might wish it otherwise. But we can try to do better. To live better."
This is quite a speech for a naked man to make, especially that has a shockingly attractive penis right in front of him.
"And you won't hurt me," Stede know this much at least. "I trust you."
"You shouldn't -"
"But I do. Plus I've already run you through once, I think a little discomfort in the, uh, boudoir , could hardly compare."
Again that eyebrow raise, that oddly appraising look in Ed's eyes. "Say boudoir again."
Ohoho. Stede grins. "Why? Do you like that?"
Ed clears his throat, and shifts his gaze away. "Might do."
"Come to bed then. Let's see what else you might like."
After everything else - sex is easy.
Whoever would have thought? Certainly not Stede. As soon as they're in bed, the build up and vulnerability and nerves disappear. It's just Stede's body, and Ed's body - a body that he loves. A man that watched him while he slept, feverish, a man who dressed his wounds and called himself a monster while weeping in Stede's tub.
He's on his hands and knees (easier to not put pressure on Stede's still healing stomach wound) and Ed's chest is strong and slick against his back, and Ed's cock is huge and perfect inside him, and Stede never knew it could be like this. Didn't know it was possible, that he was capable of feeling this good and surviving.
"Do you like this?" Ed asks, pressing the words between Stede's shoulder blades as he thrusts slowly in, pulls slowly out, a fluid motion of his hips that reminds Stede of the sea. "Do you like it? Is this good?"
Every time Ed moves, he touches something that shocks Stede speechless, and the pleasure doesn't stop building, edging closer and closer to a precipice that Stede will not survive the fall from.
"Y-yes," he manages through an impossibly tight throat. "God, yes."
"Is that good? Like - that? I want you to like it, I want you to -"
"Yes," Stede groans, squeezing his eyes closed as if that will make this easier. Both of his hands are clenched in the blankets, holding on for dear life. "I didn't know -"
He'd only ever been with Mary, and they carried out their marital duties, but he always felt so bad about it, so guilty for taking up her time. She didn't like to look at him much during the act and she never liked to kiss him.
Ed, though, is laying great, biting kisses everywhere his mouth can reach. Ed is choking out endearments against the back of his neck ("oh you lovely fucking man, you absolute perfect - perfect fuck - ")
"It's so good," Stede says, because every compliment makes Ed absolutely writhe against him (clearly he hasn't been praised enough, and Stede is going to set that right from now on.)
" Christ -"
"You're so good to me."
"Stede, I fucking swear -" Ed's thrusts speed up a bit, smacking the bed frame against the wall. Stede doesn't care - this will be a scar he cherishes (and he can alway re-paper the room.) "Touch yourself. Tug your prick for me, please, do - do whatever you need -"
Ed's hands are on either side of Stede's own, white-knuckled in the bedclothes. Stede takes one of them, lifts it to his mouth. He kisses it gently, then presses their laced fingers over his chest, over his heart. It makes Ed gasp, hips stuttering briefly.
"Here," he growls, "Up."
He pulls Stede back into his lap, so they're upright in the bed with Stede's thighs spread widely over Ed's knees. It changes the angle, and whatever the bleating, pleading cry is that suddenly fills the room, Stede will never admit to it coming from him.
Their laced hands against Stede's chest keep him pressed against Ed, and he loves the feeling of body hair against his back, imagines he'll be pink all over for the next few days. Ed uses his other hand to grab Stede's hair, turn his face to the side so his mouth can be captured in a deep, searing kiss. Stede is already a shipwreck for Ed's lips and tongue, the way he kisses like he's drowning and might never get a chance at air ever again. Then Ed pulls back, hand still fisted in Stede's hair, staring at him with foggy eyes and a panting open mouth as he jostles him on the bed, in and in and in -
"I see you," Stede says, the words breaking out of him. "I see you now, Ed."
Ed's face creases with what looks like pain. "Do you like this?" he asks and Stede hears the real question behind it and nods, helplessly.
"I love it." And he does. There's a pressure in his chest and behind his eyes and everything feels good and hurts just a little. "I love it."
"I see you," Ed says, voice cracking. "I see - fuck, oh fuck - oh -" He presses their mouths together one more time, and Stede swallows his moans as his body is pulled taught and then flooded, spend pulsing out of his prick just as Ed gets his hand on it, pulling him off the rest of the way. All the gracefulness is gone, and Ed is pure instinct and movement, hips jerking frantically until he makes a sound like he's been stabbed, holding so tightly to Stede he's going to leave bruises on his hip. Stede gasps at the feeling of being filled, gasps again when Ed topples them both over onto the mattress, pressing his face into the back of Stede's neck. They lie there, catching their breath.
Stede trembles, aftershocks still running through him. The back of his neck feels suddenly damp.
"Ed, are you -"
"It's just the dust in here," Ed says, leaning back and wiping at his eyes. "All those books, I expect."
He slowly pulls out of him, a sensation that makes Stede moan and wince just a little. He rolls over onto his back as Ed kisses his chest and his stomach, his hips and his soft prick, before insinuating himself between Stede's thighs with a sigh.
"What -" Stede would really like a cuddle now, though he does enjoy the whiskery feeling of Ed's beard on his skin.
"Clean you up," Ed says huskily, and then he's licking a place Stede has never considered an erotic part of his body until very, very recently. Ed moans happily as he does, and Stede lets his legs fall open, too wrung out to be embarrassed. He'll thank Ed properly once he's finished, because Stede is - of course - a gentleman.
"You know, I realize that - I still have an opening for a co-captain."
Ed's head is pillowed on Stede's chest and Stede's fingers are playing idly in his hair. Outside the cabin, the Revenge is still a riot of noise - cheering and laughing along with Jim's exhausted threats and Black Pete's stories and Wee John's low voice singing along to music that isn't there.
"S'that right?"
"If you're interested." Stede's fingers catch on a knot and he gently untangles it, feeling a shiver run through Ed's body as he does. He'll go fetch them some of that good brandy in a bit. Something to eat maybe - the English certainly didn't provide meals.
But not just now. Not just yet.
"Suppose I'll have to think about it."
Stede's hand stops moving. "You'll - have to think about it?"
"What sort of benefits does it have? That kind of thing."
"What sort - you know very well the benefits, it's exactly what it's always been -"
"I'll have to get back to you, then. Got to consider all my options."
"Well!" Stede sniffs. "I just hope the position is still open by the time you make your decision."
Ed cracks open one eye. "You think it won't be?"
"There could be several applicants. It's a desirable position."
"Hmm." Ed presses his face into Stede's chest. "You know, it really is." He breathes out heavily, and it might be Stede's imagination but his skin feels a bit wet -
"That dust again," Ed says quickly, lips moving against him. "Hurts my eyes."
Stede pets his hair, and thinks of where they'll stop next, who they'll meet, how long they can possibly keep running. He should unlatch one of the windows, let a bit of sea air in (the dust is bothering his eyes and all.) He should gather up their clothes and dress and go out to congratulate the crew on some first rate pirating. And he will.
But not just now.
Not just yet.
Afterword
End Notes
I'm Mia-ugly on Tumblr and @many_birds on twitter if you want to say hi and talk about pirates. Thanks for reading.
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