The sea was calm as a lake, the ideal weather to escape on the boat Ed stole. His heart was beating faster than before a fight. It was time for a new beginning. Ed had waited his all life for that moment, even if he didn't know before he met Stede, because he never believed he deserved it.
Stede had shown him that everyone had the right to be happy, even a monster like him. It took Ed a long time to be convinced. It was hard to believe he could be when everyone had spit in his face again and again, but Stede's gentle voice had made all his doubts disappear. Stede had that effect on him. Watching him made his heart beat so fast, Ed's head was getting dizzy. Small things that would have annoyed him in another person gave birth to something new in his stomach, something that had nothing to do with the darkness that usually lurked there. Ed loved everything about Stede, his gentleness, his daydreams, his silky dressing gown, the way he kept his head in the clouds, and how he thought with his heart. And that kiss, what day and nights it promised! Ed didn't have Stede's way with words, but if he could compare him to anything, it would be to a calm night like this one, with the promise of a wonderful day on the morrow.
Ed wished all night to be like this.
Except...
Except Stede wasn't there. He should have been. Where was he?
Dark thoughts crept into his head. They were loud, ready to attack any rational thought. They were telling him he knew why Stede wasn't there, even if he should have arrived only minutes after Ed.
Ed bit his lip. He shouldn't assume the worst. Stede's tardiness must have a reason. He was a dreamer. He probably came across an extremely rare species of moth and followed it into the heart of the forest. Or maybe he tripped over a branch and was limping to their meeting point. Must be something like that. Yes. His delay must have a logical explanation. There had to be one, or else...
Something stirred inside Ed, something he knew all too well.
The Kraken was waking up.
Ed sent it back to where it came from. It was so easy to do now, thanks to Stede. Now, Ed knew he could master the Kraken instead of letting it dominate him until Ed was nothing more than a ball of murderous, uncontrollable instincts. He hated the Kraken as much as he feared it, but now he no longer needed it to survive.
As long as he had Stede, the Kraken whispered. If he betrayed him...
No. Stede wouldn't betray him. Only God and the Devil knew why, but Stede loved him. In return, Ed had to believe in him. Stede's delay must have had an explanation. He would come and everything would be fine. Ed had just had to wait for a little longer.
Or, well, a much longer. Ed waited and waited, and waited, long enough to calm his worries enough to think, but now he got it. Stede got lost in the woods. The man had a terrible sense of direction both on land and at sea. Poor Stede must be going in circles. Fortunately, it wasn't a big forest. He would find his way to Ed soon. Ed would take him in his arms, roll his eyes, and laugh at his clumsy explanation. Then, they would go wherever Stede wanted, but far away from the English and Blackbeard's shadow.
Ed should plan rather than worry. Stede would be there in half an hour, an hour max. Maybe three hours, because it was Stede they were talking about. Yes, in three hours max they would leave the coast behind and no one would ever find them. Ed just had to sit and dream of happy tomorrows until Stede's arrival.
It was going to be so wonderful. No more responsibilities, no more murders, no more crews to terrorize. There would be only Ed and Stede, two men who loved each other. Maybe a house by the beach, because Ed couldn't imagine leaving far from the sea. Ad day, they would walk on the shore. At night, they would read poetry. Ed would learn to cook, and he and Stede would wear matching silk dressing gowns to watch the ships pass in the distance and imagine their stories. They would make love, not every night because they weren't getting any younger, but often. Maybe they would adopt a dog. Normal people did that, right? Ed should ask Stede.
Of course, the Revenge crew would come to visit them from time to time. They would miss their days as co-captains here and there, so they would all sit around a fire to tell stories and eat roasted chestnuts. Most of the time, though, it would be just Ed and Stede, and that would be good.
Before he met Stede, when he heard people say they would live on "love and freshwater", Blackbeard always sneered. He may even have forced people to prove this theory. They died trying, of course, but now Ed knew better and he would prove it was possible.
When Stede arrived, at least. He just needed to wait a little longer.
He waited more than that.
An hour passed, then two, then three. Stede still wasn't here. Ed listened, looking for signs of human presence. Nothing happened.
Even Stede couldn't get lost for that long, and he knew they had to leave soon before the army reacted to their absence. He wouldn't follow an insect now. A sprained ankle could slow him down, but not for three hours, closer to four now. Even if Stede was too clumsy to make a crutch, he could lean on trees to move or crawl. You could do anything when you tried, and it wasn't that hard to crawl. A baby could do it.
A bad encounter in the woods, maybe? Stede could bleed out a hundred paces away without Ed realizing if he no longer had the strength to scream. But no, Ed had done his research before choosing Stede's escape road. There was no wild animal in this wood. The English crown had cleaned it up a few years before.
Why keep him waiting, then?
Ed refused to think about it, but Blackbeard and the Kraken knew. They were laughing at him from the other side of the bars Ed had locked them behind.
Stede had abandoned him.
Stede was laughing at him somewhere.
Stede didn't like him and never had. Ed was alone in this world like he was before, like he deserved to be.
What an idiot he had been! Of course, Sted didn't want him! There were signs, obvious ones now that he thought about it! There was that time Stede pulled back as Ed went to kiss him, the time he took away the hand Ed had taken in his. And again this afternoon, Stede had frowned when he saw him without his beard.
Ed didn't know what was worse, that the frowning meant that Stede had finally realized what an ugly man he was or that he was attracted not to Ed, but to Blackbeard. No, he was sure. The second was much, much worse. Meeting Stede, Ed had believed someone would finally acknowledge and love him for who he truly was, not for the awful alter-ego he had fabricated. He didn't need nor want Stede to desire Blackbeard. Izzy was already here for that. Ed wanted to be loved for himself. No one ever had offered him love, not even his mother, and especially not his father.
No. It was the Kraken that forced him to think that. Stede had not betrayed him. Ed would realize that if he could only think. Everything could be fine. He just had to wait for Stede and they would leave together, as they planned. That was the plan, that always had been the plan.
Also, Stede was too honest to deceive him. Ed would have seen through his game. In his ears, a voice that belonged to Blackbeard and the Kraken whispered to him he had seen Stede easily deceive people from good society and even pirates. Stede couldn't lie, but when he wanted, he could dance around the truth like he'd been doing it his whole life.
Ed let go of this dangerous idea and latched on to another. Stede would never make it off the island without him, so he was coming here. The only other way to leave would be to take a ship from under the Royal Navy's nose. Stede could never... Ed let out a sound between a snort and a sob. Of course, Stede could do it. He was the one who came up with the lighthouse plan. He could be far by now, and on his own.
And if he wasn't, if Stede was still on the island, if a wild beast hadn't killed him or slowed him down or if he wasn't lost in a wood a child could cross in twenty minutes... then the Navy had captured him. Stede had been executed as a deserter or would be at dawn after a quick trial.
But if it was, the Navy would have noticed he was gone too. The woods and beach should be crowded with all the soldiers looking for him, knowing they came together. They weren't. Everything was still sleeping in the fort and the forest, so Stede wasn't a prisoner.
It was true then. The one explanation left was the one Ed feared more than anything. Stede had left him behind. He had gone alone or was laughing in the fort with the other future corsairs, laughing at Blackbeard, the pirate stupid enough to have believed in love...
Ed was alone. Always had been. His chest hurt. It would do until his death.
Stede had abandoned him, and it was his own fault. Ed should have listened to Izzy. Not when the man was telling him to cut Stede's throat, no certainly not. Ed wouldn't be able to do that even now, but when Izzy was telling him not to get attached. To love someone was to agree to tear out your heart with your bare hands. Now Ed held his heart in his hands and only had his eyes to cry. He had made himself vulnerable because he could no longer bear the torpor and the pain he was in. He was the one to blame, so he had no right to cry for himself or the love Stede had murdered tonight. Ed deserved to be made fun of, the murderous pirate who had played the love game and lost.
He should have remained Blackbeard. He should have...
No. Ed didn't want to be Blackbeard again. He was Edward Teach once again, thanks to Stede, but he didn't do it for Stede, or not just for him. Ed never wanted to be Blackbeard again. It would do him no good. Better to be half a man than a monster. Stede had shown him that. Ed should thank him for that instead of fighting against the tears in his eyes.
He wanted to hate Stede. He couldn't. Stede had brought him back from a terrible place where he was slowly dying, and he still was right to refuse to love a man like Ed. He just wished he'd been given the chance, for once. Just one chance in a lifetime wasn't a big thing to ask, was it?
Maybe it was.
Dawn was coming. Ed didn't know how long he had been lying there. The only thing he was sure of was that it had been too long. He had made a fool of himself, waiting for a man who had rejected him. It was time to take some of his dignity back.
So what now?
Ed's first instinct was to jump into the sea and wait for the darkness to pull him under, but he was too good a swimmer to sink. Or he could turn back and burn the fort, killing everyone who ever thought they could chain Blackbeard. It would be easy. He had done far worse crimes and it would be so easy to go back to that. With a snap of his fingers, Ed would be that man again.
No. Not that, please. He didn't have the strength to be a monster today. He never wanted to be one again, even with what Stede had done to him. All he wanted was to never feel anything anymore — rage, sorrow, love, nothing. He wanted to be dead.
But Ed was a coward. He had never been capable of killing himself. All he could do was play with the idea. If he wanted to die, he had to let someone kill him, but no one had ever got close enough to Blackbeard to kill him. Only someone who knew him could do it. Someone like Izzy. Maybe if he saw him so weak, Izzy would do him the favor of killing him, right? He wouldn't be crazy enough to wake the Kraken again with Ed in this state. In his gut, Ed felt it twisting and turning, ready to burst at the slightest opportunity, but he could contain it long enough for Izzy to snap and kill him.
Unfortunately, that meant returning to the Revenge and risking unleashing the Kraken on Stede's beloved crew. Ed loved them almost as much as Stede himself. He didn't want to hurt them.
Or maybe that was exactly what he wanted to do. The Kraken wanted to take as many people with it as it could, especially everything Stede had ever loved. It wanted to paint the world in blood and darkness.
With a heavy heart and heavier arms, Ed began sailing toward the Revenge, praying to all the forces of the sea and Hell that could hear him to let Izzy kill him before he did something he could never repair.
Deep down, he knew it was stupid to hope. The Kraken was already awake and only blood could satisfy it.
