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Stede jolts awake from a nightmare, gasping. He remembers the lurking sense of dread, the terror. Suddenly the cabin feels too small, too stuffy. He grabs a robe, quickly slipping it on, and stumbles his way to the deck, where the sea air is mercifully fresh. He stands at the rail and breathes.
“You okay?” says Blackbeard behind him.
“Jesus Christ!” Stede says, startled shitless. If he was wearing shoes, he would have jumped right out of them. “Warn a guy next time.”
“Sorry,” he says, coming to stand next to him. “I was just up in the crow’s nest and saw you come out.”
“What on earth were you doing up there? At this hour? …In pajamas?”
“You know, just—couldn’t sleep, thought some air would do me good. Is everything alright, man?”
“Yeah,” Stede lies defensively. “…Well. Not really, as it happens.”
Ed waits a beat. Silence, he’s learned, is one of the best tactics to get people to spill their guts—besides, of course, the much less figurative (but just as effective) stab wound.
“Do you ever get these dreams where you wake up and…and you can’t move? And Something’s There,” Stede says, capital letters clear in his pronunciation. “Something bad.” He pauses, clears his throat. “I used to get them as a child but they stopped decades ago. I guess I just didn’t expect to have one again. I’d nearly forgotten what it’s like. Had to get outside.”
“D’you know why it happened after so long?”
“…perhaps I shouldn’t have been reading a horror novel before bed,” Stede says sheepishly. “Maybe it wasn’t entirely the reason, but it certainly can’t have helped—yes, I know, don’t look at me like that! It was just so intriguing and I couldn’t put it down.”
“Of course it was.”
“Well, if you’re just going to bully me, I’m going back to bed. …Although I’m not sure if that’s entirely a good idea.”
“Why don’t we both go back to your cabin and have some tea?” Ed offers. “That’s supposed to help, right?”
“Oh, splendid idea! I have just the thing.”
Ed opens the door to Stede’s cabin. “After you, captain,” he says, bowing.
“Oh, thank you, dear,” Stede says. Then he notices the shadows lingering in the corners and behind the furniture. “…Er, would you mind terribly if we lit another candle or two? Or ten?”
“Tell you what, we’ll light every fuckin’ one of them,” Ed says, and if he considers cleaning out the next port they visit of all the candles they have, well. He takes the only lit candle and goes around the cabin lighting every candle and lantern possible. When he’s done, the room is filled with the golden glow of twenty-odd flickering lights. Under different circumstances, Stede thinks, it would seem absolutely romantic.
Or perhaps not so different circumstances…
Stede mentally kicks himself. Here Ed is very generously taking time out of his day—er, night—to make sure Stede’s absolutely all right, and here he goes fantasizing about him! How terribly impolite.1
He busies himself with making tea: a mix of German chamomile and lavender. It’s a favorite of his, but since it’s hardly easily found at sea, he restrains himself to only using it when he struggles to fall asleep—which, unfortunately (if you look at it from the Perspective of Tea), doesn’t happen often.
He briefly mourns the loss of the second cup of it, but decides it’s all the better for getting to share it with Ed.
Once it’s finished, he pours it into teacups and brings them over to the couch, motioning for Ed to sit with him. “Come on!” he says. “This’ll help you sleep, too—don’t think I wasn’t listening earlier.”
They drink and talk for what feels like ages but was probably only half an hour, before it becomes a struggle for Stede to keep his eyes open. Ed carefully takes his empty cup from him before he can drop it and sets them both on the side table. Now for the tricky bit.
He half carries, half walks Stede over to his bed. It’s incredibly awkward, and not at all like how he’d imagined he would take him to bed for the first time. It’s a bit of a struggle to get him in on account of the frankly obscene amount of blankets and pillows, and of course Stede himself is no help at all. Finally, he’s gotten him all tucked in, including his ridiculous sleep mask (which Ed actually finds quite endearing, though he would never admit it to anyone).
“Do you want me to stay here?” Ed asks. Partly because he knows what it’s like to be alone trying to fall back asleep after a nightmare, and partly because he secretly just really, really wants to.
“Oh, yes please,” Stede mumbles sleepily.
Ed grabs one of the blankets off the bed (it’s actually quite nice, he might have to steal it for himself once he leaves) and takes it over to the couch.
“What are you doing?”
Ed stares at him. “Sleeping on the couch?”
“Don’t be ridiculous, man,” Stede says with tea- and sleep-induced bravery. “Get in here.” His face reddens slightly, apparently awake enough to feel embarrassed. “I mean, if you want.”
Ed does his best to shrug nonchalantly, but he’s not sure how successful he is. “Sure, alright.” He climbs in next to him and is startled when Stede immediately snuggles into his chest. Ed stops attempting to be gentlemanly and gives in to the urge to hold him, hoping Stede can’t feel his heartbeat racing.
Stede’s hair tickles the underside of his chin a little, but he finds it not an unpleasant feeling. He can’t resist carding his fingers through it. It’s incredibly soft, way softer than anyone who’s spent a month at sea’s hair should be, so he leaves his hand where it is.
Stede’s breathing eventually evens out, and he looks so fucking cute2 asleep next to him that Ed has to press a kiss to the top of his head. Then he does it again for good measure. If Ed had ever owned a cat, he would have noticed the parallel between the intense urge to smack a dozen kisses on top of its head and the intense urge to smack a dozen kisses on top of Stede’s head. Well, anywhere on his head, really. Ideally his face. Not that he’s thought about it before or anything.
It’s got to be the nicest fucking bed he’s ever slept in, so he figures he might as well enjoy it for the night. And of course, there’s also the bonus of it being Stede’s bed, which—whew. That’s a fucking thought.
The sea rocks the ship gently. Before long, Ed, too, slips away into sleep.
Early the next morning, Ed is awoken, as usual, by shouts and general noise on the rest of the ship. He takes a moment to remember where he is, and looks down to see Stede hasn’t moved an inch from where they ended up last night. Except for how he’s staring—no, gazing—up directly at him.
“Good morning,” Stede says, apparently oblivious to Ed’s internal combustion.
“How long have you been awake?” Ed demands.
“Twenty minutes, maybe. You know, I didn’t really want to move. I think that might have been the best I’ve ever slept,” he confides.
“Me too, I think.” Did he say that? He’s pretty sure he didn’t mean to say that.
“Hey,” Stede says in a stage whisper. “You kissed me last night.”
Ed can only stare. “Uh…”
“Twice,” he adds, and if Ed hadn’t been panicking (panicking? That’s a strong word, isn’t it? Blackbeard doesn’t panic) he would have noticed Stede’s mischievous grin.
“Yeah, uh, sorry about that, I—”
“You should do that more often,” says Stede, blushing, who was maybe not so oblivious after all.
“…Is that so?” Ed says, developing a cheeky grin of his own, and leans down to kiss him—properly, this time.
1 This was not, strictly speaking, true; Ed was actually behaving in a bit of a selfish manner. Lots of ulterior motives, etc. [back]
2 This is extremely top-secret, of course. Izzy would kill him if he ever found out Blackbeard used the word “cute” to describe anyone, let alone an idiot like Stede Bonnet. (Izzy’s words, not his.) [back]