"You could be long gone before he wakes up." The Kraken's voice echoed across Ed's mind. "Go back to sailing the seas. That's where you belong."
"Leave me alone," Ed replied as he sat up and watched Stede sleep, watched his chest rise and fall.
"How can I do that? I'm a part of you. I have been since we killed your father all those years ago."
Ed could picture that night—the lightning, the torrents of rain, how his arms ached from pulling the rope around his father's throat, how the Kraken egged him on until the drunk bastard fell dead on the dock. He swallowed a lump of guilt. The Kraken noticed, of course, and chuckled darkly.
"Go away." Ed winced as the Kraken's tentacles slithered around his tattooed arms.
"I'll always be a part of you, Blackbeard." The Kraken shifted his tentacles to caress Ed's face, which were quickly shoved away in disgust.
"Don't call me Blackbeard."
Stede's head listed to the side, towards his lover's pillow. Ed reached out and ghosted his fingers over shaggy golden hair.
The Kraken cackled and said, "Why are you letting him ruin you, Blackbeard? You learned nothing from the night he left your pathetic ass sitting all alone on that dock."
"He spent three months looking for me afterwards." Stede sighed softly in his sleep and Ed's heart lost its rhythm for a moment. "He chased me halfway across the world. I learned that he thought I was worth chasing. That counts for a lot in my book."
"Your book is missing some pages," Tentacles wrapped around Ed's chest, the eagle tattoo covered as they slowly crawled up to his collar bones, his neck. Ed wanted to throw up. "You were broken, Blackbeard. A shell of yourself in that hideous robe, pining away for your little boyfriend. I'm the one who put you back together."
A cool breeze ruffled the curtains, bringing a chill to the room. Ed tugged the blanket up over sleeping man's shoulders. "I was a shell because I missed Stede. Or did you not notice how I cried myself to sleep every night for three months because I missed him so much. Nevermind, you noticed, you just didn't care. My feelings have never counted with you. Not once."
"You're weak, Blackbeard."
"Stop calling me Blackbeard!"
"Weak and useless, Blackbeard," the Kraken went on as if Ed had never spoken. "Go hide under another blanket fort, you fucking coward. Look at you, sleeping with your little boyfriend in your frilly little bed and tucking him in just like the good little doggy you are. He's turned you into such a buffoon. Cut off his toe and make him eat it. Won't that be fun? Just like the good old days, hmmm? It was good enough for Izzy, it's good enough for him."
"I will do no such thing."
"But we did it to Izzy. We were more than happy to make him choke on his own fucking toe."
Running a hand over his scratchy beard, Ed replied, "Izzy had it coming."
"Yes, Izzy was always a miserable little bitch. But Stede, he broke your heart, Blackbeard. Shattered it into a million pieces. It's about time he pays for that."
"Stede did break my heart." Ed admitted, feeling the monster's hot, rank breath crawl along the back of his neck. "But he put it back together, piece by piece. He put me back together. You had nothing to do with that. You have given me nothing but grief from day one. Just shut up and go away."
"I should have crammed that wine glass into his throat when I had the chance."
"You will not touch a hair on his head ever again. Don't you dare."
"Leave his dead weight behind and I won't be able to." Slimy tentacles coiled under Ed's chin and turned his face until he and the Kraken were eye to eye. Ed stared as monster's red eyes glowed on a face that looked just like his own. "Find another ship, Blackbeard. You know that's what you want, what you were born to do. Find another ship to sail away and I won't have any reason to touch a single hair on your boyfriend's pretty little head ever again."
"I'm not leaving Stede! I am not leaving this place! I'm not Blackbeard anymore!" Ed declared, shoving the tentacles out of his face and throwing off the covers.
"You don't deserve him. You said so yourself."
"Shut up!"
"Admit it, you will always be Blackbeard."
Reaching for his clothes, Ed said, "No, I'm not Blackbeard. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever again!"
The slam of the front door closing woke Stede up from his slumber. Ed's half of the bed was a pile of rumpled blankets. Stede stumbled to the living room in time to see the other man's tall frame stride past the window, heading in the direction of the ocean, a siren call that never failed to pull him in.
Stede turned around to pull on some clothes and follow Ed, then stopped abruptly, noticing the clumps of silvery hair scattered across the floor, a bowl of soapy water on the table, the scent of lavender wafting around it. The razor that he hadn't laid eyes since they settled in was coated with more silver hair.
Stede quickly threw on some clothes, rushed out the door, stopping quickly to relieve the tree of two more oranges, then hurried to the beach.
He came across Ed sitting at the edge of the water, knees hugged to his chest, his hair threatening to escape from the string holding it in place, the loose ends of the cravat twisted in the wind as he watched a ghostly white waterspout dance across the horizon.
"I'd see those from time to time while on the water," Ed spoke up as Stede sat down and leaned into his shoulder.
"I've seen few of them well," Stede said, placing one orange in Ed's hand and sinking his nails into the one he kept, stripping it of its peel. Two small red nicks stood out on Ed's cheek, otherwise his face was clean and smooth.
"I once saw five of them lined up in a row."
"That must have been a sight," Stede remarked.
"It was, mate. A few years ago when I was still sailing with Jack we had stopped at an island to offload some of our loot and stock up on food. We were on the beach when one of those things fell out of the sky just off shore and came barreling onto land. It was small but destructive all the same. The bloody thing moved so fast no one had time to get out of the way. It got so close Jack and I were blown off our feet, then it tore the roof off a tavern with at least a dozen people inside. A bunch of merchants were at their stalls selling clothing and fruit and those were ripped to shreds too. It's amazing that no one was killed."
"You never said anything about that before."
"You hounded me to death for stories about being a pirate, mate, not about the weather." Ed tossed chunks of peel into the water, then bit into a piece of the fruit, appreciating the sweet flavor.
"Fair enough," Stede conceded.
The two men were content with silence for a few minutes as the waterspout skimmed along the water, a misty spray at its base.
Stede spoke up first. "Why did you shave off your beard?"
"My pirating days are behind me." Ed brought his hands to his face, as if he didn't realize he hadn't left his beard behind at home until then. "Can't be Blackbeard without the black beard, right? No reason to have that blasted beard now or ever again."
"Is Blackbeard finally dead?"
"He might as well be. Whoever wants to be the bloody king of pirates now is more than welcome to claim that crown."
As they watched the waterspout dissipated, leaving only the storm clouds to push beyond the sea.
"Someone else could claim to be Blackbeard, you know," Stede pointed out. "They might ruin your reputation."
"Can't ruin a reputation that's already been ruined to hell and back, mate. If there is another Blackbeard there's not going to be an Act of Grace for him."
"Probably not, " Stede agreed. After a few beats of silence he went on. "You put in a good effort with that explanation, Ed. Now tell me why you really shaved your beard."
The former Blackbeard stared at the sand like he wished it would swallow him up. "To spite him."
"Blackbeard or the Kraken?"
"Both, now that you mention it. But mostly the Kraken."
"Spite him how?"
"Because he didn't want me to. He seems to think I'm just going to wake up and be Blackbeard again, finding another ship to terrorize the ocean with and leave you behind. I'm not. You're not going anywhere, he's realized that. You're not leaving me so he's trying to get me to leave you." He kept his eyes locked on to the glimmering sand as if hoping all the answers would be uncovered by the next wave. "I told you stories of being a pirate and raiding ships and stealing everything in sight. How thrilling it was to give a hearty fuck you to authority. How everyone knew who Blackbeard was and feared me and respected me just because of the name, and it was fun for a while. But I never told you what I really liked most about being on the water and sailing all over the world."
"What's that?"
With a faint smile, Ed said, "Laying there and feeling the ship gently rocking from side to side. Listening to the rain. Watching the waterspouts spin around in the distance. Seeing the dolphins racing alongside us as we sailed. Seeing whales the size of my ship leap out of the water. Sitting on the deck and watching the sun set into the ocean, then watching the moon rise in its place. I could never tell anyone about how much I loved those things."
"Why not?"
Ed's breath hitched as he explained, "Because Blackbeard the fucking pirate is all about blood and guts and stealing your family's gold and jewels while holding a knife to your throat. Because Blackbeard the fucking pirate didn't have time to worry about silly, trivial shit like that because he was too busy striking fear into the hearts of everyone else just trying to make it across the ocean in one piece. Bloody Blackbeard the fucking pirate, who was run through with swords for sport. Bloody Blackbeard the fucking pirate, who would cut off a someone's toe and force them eat it because he was bored…and I really fucking did that!"
In one fluid movement Ed rose to his feet and began pacing around circles as if he were a caged tiger, words spilling from his mouth like coins tumbling from a split bag. "I was so ready to leave all that shit behind and run away with you. I was so ready to go to China, to go anywhere, just as long as I was there with you. Then you didn't show up at the dock and I went back to being that bloody fucking pirate, because what else could I do? Once again I had to live up to a reputation that was all an act of fuckery. I couldn't be Edward Teach for one bloody second because Izzy would have had the crew throw me to the sharks. Izzy and the rest of them couldn't accept me as Edward so the Kraken made damn sure to give them that fucking pirate they all wanted. Oh, and did he ever. The only time they liked me was when I pretended to be someone I wasn't."
Their eyes met again as the former pirate's words stopped as if they were cut off with an axe, Ed's breath and heart galloping. "Even now I'll catch sight of my reflection and don't know who is looking back. I'm sick of seeing that fucking pirate or that fucking Kraken looking back at me. My reflection should be me. Me. Edward Teach. ME! Those fucking pirates and that fucking Kraken have stolen enough of my life. I shouldn't have to steal back my own fucking life!"
Stede flinched inwardly, trying to process everything as Ed vented his long repressed emotions that had been threatening to boil over ages, now bursting forth like a river swollen with rainfall. When he finished speaking his piece, his energy crashed like a dead tree plummeting onto a house, hands on knees, gulping his breath like he'd just ran for his life.
"But you introduced yourself to me as Ed, not Blackbeard. Why?" Stede inquired quietly, wary of intruding on Ed's space too soon, steeling himself in case there was another torrent of exasperation and resentment.
No need to worry. Ed remained on his feet and shuffled closer as a nervous chuckle escaped from his throat. "Just another act of fuckery, mate. You and your books and fireplace and cashmere blankets on a bloody pirate ship. A gentleman deliberately placing himself among a bunch of cutthroats was too absurd to be real. Being told to go suck eggs in hell was beyond insane to hear. But then I saw you with my own eyes and I'll be damned if it wasn't all true. Blackbeard was intrigued, Edward Teach even more so. Then the most insane thing of all happened."
"What?"
"Edward Teach went and fell in love with that fucking gentleman." He held out his hand. Stede clamped onto it like he was trying to keep the other man from one too many steps backward and falling off a cliff. "It's funny how these things work out, mate."
"I'm glad they worked out the way they did," The blond man said.