His laughs disguise his cries. His smiles display his teeth, lips stretched wide across his face. His eyes are deeper and darker than any ocean, and Stede sometimes finds himself drowning in his pain.
His pulse beats to a rythme only he knows, stuttering like the dying breaths of a wounded animal. He carries a pain burdened to him by the world. He leaves destruction where he's been, the cries of the damned following in his wake.
He is a plague.
Stede knows this, and he loves him. Because he knows he is not just a plague. He is the sun that comes after the night; the stars that shine in the dusk; the soothing rain after the drought.
He is the summer after winter.
His body is twisted and broken from the nightmares he lived through, but still he stands. He fights to live, to find meaning in a world that says he is nothing. He fights for warmth and food and the love of someone he doesn't think he is worthy of; for a purpose to keep on living.
He knows the smell of burning flesh, and hears the screams of the damned like a siren's song in his head. He has seen death of all kinds claim people, but still he finds a reason to smile.
He loves the smell of salt in the air, and the taste of tea with cream and seven sugars. He loves the morning sky before the world around them is awake, and the color purple. He loves to sing and dance and read love stories. He loves the feel of cashmere and silk beneath his fingers, and the way he looks in fine things.
Most of all, he loves the sea, just as Stede does.
Stede knows he loves him.
He just hopes Ed loves him too.