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“I do,” said Pete and Lucius at some point during the ceremony, which was very nice. Not something that Stede had really expected to happen at sea, although wasn’t it supposed to be the captain who married people on board his own ship? Stede would have to look into it for next time. This wedding was certainly livelier and lovelier than his own had been to Mary. It would have been nice to have a role in it.
Next time. Weddings begat weddings, after all. Maybe Jim and—
Ed’s hand brushed against his, and Stede stopped thinking about other people. He held his breath as their hands brushed again and then as Ed finally took Stede’s hand in his, fingers interlaced.
Stede made a happy noise and looked at him, drinking his fill of the worn, lovely face, the late afternoon sun catching in Ed’s silver hair. Music and laughter drifting between and around them and away until it might have been just the two of them on deck. Stede let himself look.
From the dancefloor Pete was attempting with medium success to dip Lucius all the way to the scorch marks. A mostly futile endeavour except for how he ended up straddling Lucius and kissing the living daylights out of him to raucous applause and eventual complaints that they were taking up too much floor.
Stede thought of doing the same to Ed, one day.
;
;
Later, much later, and drunk, Ed was leaning heavy against Stede and murmuring something into his neck, or maybe singing? Stede wasn’t sure what he was saying—or singing—but it was nice. Soothing. Sweet, actually, something that made Stede’s lungs constrict when he thought about how Ed had been a scary pirate for so long and now he was lulling himself to sleep under the stars while Stede protected him. Singing and tilting against Stede’s shoulder, his collarbone, sitting in a dark, comfortable corner out on deck and letting his forehead rest against whatever part of Stede he found, currently the crook of his neck, and trusting that Stede would keep him safe. Because Stede would.
It was so wonderful to be trusted, and wanted, and held.
Stede thought and thought about what it was Ed wanted from him and what he wanted from Ed. Perhaps some of it was the same, and they could give it to each other, the way they had once before.
Ed was still singing. Or mumbling. The point was he was upright despite quite a number of rounds of drinking games with the crew, and by now that surely made him a fall risk. Mostly because so was Stede. The ground was moving in ways it didn’t normally.
“Edward,” Stede whispered, want rising in him like the tide. He put his own cup of wine down to wrap another arm around him. Just in case he needed holding up. Ed leaned in some more and oh, that was handy, they could hold each other. “Ed. Edward. Ed, darling. What do you say we—”
They stumbled below to the captain’s quarters, where the bed was made smoothly and the window glass polished to gleaming and every dagger nick had been buffed back to nothing and most importantly where the door swung closed without complaint, and Ed dropped himself down in the bedsheets and stretched across the whole of it, limbs long, eyes darkening as he held Stede’s gaze.
It was like finding himself at the very height of piratical success, just Stede and his lover making the night their own while their crew drank and danced and vomited over the side until dawn. If Stede pretended, he could make it even better: loot spilling out of chests piled high against the walls, too much to take the count in a night, by far too great a quantity to do anything other than approximate the spoils and give the lion’s share to Ed; an enemy crew left on a desert island, scowling in humiliated defeat as they sailed away; the crew swinging about the rigging and out on deck with set teeth and a collective maniacal gaze that would in all likelihood put the fear of god in anyone whose spyglass caught on the pretty ship Revenge.
Not now: for now, Stede took a big breath to ready himself and did what Ed seemed to be inviting, crawling unsteadily into bed after him, stretching up the length of Ed to kiss his mouth before returning lower to suck at whatever parts of him he found waiting. His wrists, his hipbones. The leather jacket had been lost many hours before and Ed’s little shirt underneath was rucking up, displaying Ed’s stomach, his collarbones, the thick of his arm, trembling with want and anticipation. Stede mouthed up his body, licking and biting where he found the loudest moans, catching the sound between his teeth and pulling it deep into his chest to take out again later, when they might be elsewhere, apart, and who knew how long before they were reunited. Ed had left twice now, for whatever reason. Both times were a blur: who knew when it might happen again, and if the third time might be the last, and what Stede might remember of the moments before?
He couldn’t take the risk. Stede moved back up Ed’s body in a slow, careful push of fingers and teeth and thighs and cock.
“Stop,” Ed begged eventually—it couldn’t have been that long, the sky was still lit up from the fireworks, the crew still thumping a dance up on deck. Stede took his mouth away from Ed’s throat, lifting himself up to sit astride Ed’s hips and enjoy the flush working up his cheekbones. At some point he had got Ed’s wrists in hand and was holding them tight to the mattress over his head, when did that happen? Stede looked along Ed’s body, at the nervous flex of his arms, and congratulated himself on his own choices.
Ed made a desperate noise and tried to buck up against Stede.
Stede tightened his thighs around him to keep him there. And then he rocked a bit, pressing back against the feeling of the erection against his ass, enjoying the feeling and the wild look on Ed’s face that hadn’t been there a minute ago. Ed moved again, only this time it was to pull Stede down into another kiss—Stede was ready for this one, finally. He had the time to take a breath first, and it meant they could press into each other and gasp a bit into each other’s mouths about what they wanted to do to each other and how. Or Stede could murmur things like let me and you’re a vision, my love and I could only ever leave you again for the relief of coming back and things like that that got in the way of Ed kissing him, so maybe they won’t so important after all.
Ed’s dick was hard. So was Stede’s—obviously!—but Ed’s was heavy against Stede, the bulge of it dreadfully distracting as Stede bent over Ed and enjoyed the arch of his body pressing up against his own. So much to feel. So many new sensations to notice and enjoy. Well, new enough. Still-new. And all worth the journey.
He shifted over Ed’s cock, feeling it thicken under him. There was something powerful in that, wasn’t there? Knowing that you were the one narrowing someone’s focus to this one moment, this one, singular want. Stede could have stayed right there and rocked where he sat and slid his hands under the little t-shirt and raced Ed to the finish without a single bit more clothing ending up on the floor. But that wasn’t what Stede wanted this time.
He gathered his courage. “I know it was bad timing, before.”
Ed’s mouth moved noiselessly for a moment before getting him to saying: “Fuck off, no it wasn’t.”
“You said you wanted to take things slow.”
“Wanted lots of things in my life, didn’t get ‘em.”
Stede made himself meet Ed’s wry tone. “For some reason that doesn’t help.”
Ed shrugged. Stede felt it through his whole body. “Wanted lots of things I did get, too. Turns out wanting doesn’t always mean liking.”
Stede let his eyes close. “God. That doesn’t help either.”
“Doesn’t it?” Ed’s voice was warming as he caught up to Stede’s thinking, his words running together with the drink and the hour and the being in bed together. He ran his hands up Stede’s thighs and left them there, solid and sure. Stede felt the dynamic change before they really reached it and opened his eyes: Ed in control, leading the way while Stede reeled himself back from uncertainty. It wouldn’t take that much doing, even with the question marks now jostling over it. And especially not with Ed smiling at him like he had followed all those thoughts on Stede’s face, and found them charming. “I liked it with you before. Didn’t you, with me?”
Of course Stede had liked it with Ed. Stede had treasured it with Ed. He liked it more than he liked it with his wife, more than he liked it after his wife, and more than she liked it with him, more than he’d ever thought he might like it with anyone, and he wanted it again. One night under fireworks had, more than any night before it, been enough to prove him right about running away to sea. Twice.
He shifted his weight to sit right over Ed’s erection. “You said it was a mistake.”
Ed’s hands clutched at Stede’s hips. “Wasn’t.”
“Yeah, but. You said it was, though.”
“Fuck off.” Ed’s grip tightened, but his voice softened too, so it was more like he was saying it to himself, really. That wasn’t much better. “It wasn’t.”
“It’s okay if it was,” Stede said, meaning it, he thought. “As long as this isn’t.”
Ed’s hands fell away. “Stede, man. Come on.”
It was true, even if it was also devastating and potentially rather difficult to come back from. Of course they would eventually come back from it no matter how hard but Stede would need to put some thought into how—some more thought into everything. He had already put so much thought into everything, played it over and over in his head like a song that wouldn’t go away, and always ending up at how much he liked it, and wanted it again, and wouldn’t change a thing.
It would help if Ed told him more about it being a mistake. If he could clarify, perhaps. What part was the mistake? How it happened, or that it happened at all? Perhaps it was something Stede did, during: he thought back again to Ed spectacular on his back, long legs wrapped around Stede’s waist while Stede pushed in slow, his face turned into the soft pillows, eyes tight shut until Stede got a hand on his cock and whispered for him to come back and look at me, darling, won’t you?
“I’m here,” Ed managed in the long-distant past that Stede hadn’t really left since it happened, fumbling to take his own cock in hand with Stede and guiding his pull. “Didn’t go anywhere.”
“Open your eyes,” Stede coaxed, then, pushing inside Ed so very very slowly. He was close but he wanted them to share it. He wanted them to be there together, enjoying each other, choosing each other, knowing what they had both sacrificed to be here. That was how much they loved each other, Stede thought, holding his breath to pull out, very nearly but not quite separating before pushing back in. They could both have made other choices—could have found a thrill in life at the edge of the ocean and never any closer, if they had each looked hard enough—and instead found their way back to each other here where the sunset glanced and glinted off the waves and into the cabin. Choosing each other every time they could.
Stede had enjoyed himself and Ed came moaning Stede’s name. It didn’t feel like a mistake.
“Hey,” said Ed from the feather bed that wasn’t dressed in anything other than moonlight any longer, squeezing Stede’s thigh gently with his fingers. “Stede, c’mon. I’m here. You’re here. We’re together, no point living in the past. Never did either of us any good before.”
Stede stared at him. He didn’t want to talk about mistakes. Stede’s mistakes usually resulted in people dying gruesomely and family breakups. What he wanted to be talking about was how they were going to do it this time and if Ed was ready to take Stede again. Or if—
He shut his eyes and took some big deep breaths, then opened them again and found Ed’s big dark eyes looking back. Not so dark right now, actually they were quite bright, like he was feeling sure of himself and wanted Stede to see it. It was nice, Stede thought, a bit of a lump in his throat. Ed all bright-eyed, even in the nighttime. Maybe they could talk about mistakes tomorrow.
Ed raised his eyebrows, stopped his hands from running up and down the length of Stede’s thighs and just held on somewhere in the middle. “You didn’t answer me.”
“Uh—”
“Did you like it or not?”
“Oh—oh? Yes, of course. I liked it with you very much,” Stede said, and in one swift, bold move, took Ed’s hand and pressed it to the bulge of his own cock in his pants, thrusting slowly into Ed’s palm, to prove it. It was as good as it ever had been in Stede’s head, weeks before, when Ed had slept on deck with the crew and his own crew and Stede slept in his own bed away from anyone else and it had felt so very impossible. “Very, very much.”
Ed smiled more and shaped his hand to massage Stede’s cock as he rocked in place. “Course you did. I’m a great lay.”
Stede nodded. Obviously. Blackbeard!
And perhaps this was nothing more than a lay for Blackbeard. A lay with someone that he loved, though. He had said that. Twice, in fact, on the beach where even the least important people could hear it. And where Stede had heard it too.
Maybe not just a lay. But maybe the question wasn’t worth the risk.
“Surprised the rest of ‘em didn’t break the door down, the racket you were making.” Stede’s face heated, but Ed did something exciting with his fingers that mostly meant finding his way into Stede’s pants that distracted him and he made a sound that must have resembled the racket from before. “Worrying, bunch of professional pirates. Or maybe they’re just a bunch of layabouts. You should give ‘em a talking to in the morning.”
Stede didn’t care about the crew right now. Stede didn’t care about anything except Ed’s hand massaging his cock. He counted himself back from ten. It didn’t help very much. “Did you—want them coming in here?”
“And find me fully dressed in bed with you?” Ed snorted. “No, I don’t.”
“It’s just,” Stede said, more of a pant really, the flipside of a moan, the drag of Ed’s hand on its upward drift chasing the words out of Stede’s mouth. “If you keep doing that I’m going to come on you again—and you’re talking—again—about—”
Ed made his way all the way inside Stede’s trousers and took hold of his cock, tugging and feeling his way around him while Stede fucked back into it and tried not to let it end too soon.
The first time—the last time—he came as Ed was arching into it, begging him not to stop: Stede stopped anyway, pulling out like it might slow anything down when he had that view in the bed underneath him, and he spilled across Ed’s stomach while the pinks and purple from the fireworks and the white of the moon made Ed even prettier than he already was.
The mess on his skin had been nice. Strangely. Stede had never thought of coming as something worth celebrating before—not even with his wife, when it was the only thing worth celebrating about any of it—fuck, Stede didn’t want to think of Ed as just there to improve on Stede’s experiences in bed, even if he’d coincidentally already managed it. He wanted to think of him as the best and only he would ever have again, because they had both chosen each other again and they would only ever chose each other again.
Stede made himself come back to the here and now, music making its way down through the door and the floorboards and the window too, probably. It felt familiar. Like the last time. It was soothing and dear and lovely. And he wanted Ed to fuck him.
Ed had that same soft, open look on his face as he did then. The look that said he was ready, that he wanted it too, and he would show Stede what to do, and everything was going to be okay.
Stede swallowed and straightened his back some more. He thought about a bit more about what he wanted and he counted back up from ten because that had always worked with Mary, at least. And he took Ed’s hand off his cock and said, very seriously, and very soberly, actually, because he was more than capable of handling his liquor: “I want you to fuck me.”
Ed’s bright dark eyes went bright dark and wide for a moment and then slammed shut. If his face was any less handsome it would have been a shame. But Ed was gorgeous even without the eyes. Especially in Stede’s bed, especially trusting that Stede would look after him. Was that what other people felt when they looked at Ed, Stede wondered? He wanted to know but he couldn’t imagine wanting to ask, not without—knocking them overboard. Again. Something they couldn’t come back from. Something they wouldn’t. Tipping them over into the water and leaving them there.
Was that a thought Stede should be worried about? It felt like something he might have objected to, once upon a time, something he might have put it on his mental carousel of anxieties and spun. And yet strangely he wasn’t worried about much of anything. All it took was a different approach, and often all that took was a change of scenery.
Stede put it on his list for later. His list of—not worries, anymore. Queries. Notables. Considerations? For now he stayed where he was and let himself lift back onto Ed’s cock and shut his eyes and rocked. He wanted to—"I want to come on your cock.”
“Stede,” said Stede’s lovely man in a breathy sort of way. "You can’t just say things like that.”
Couldn’t he? Stede rather thought he could. And he would say it again. And after all the questions, now he was more or less done with talking. Talking was the least important thing, now. Talking had done nothing of any use before but fucking had. Fucking had sent Ed away, and brought him back. “But I want you to. I want to come while you fuck me.”
He rocked on Ed’s cock again, to make the point. Because he wanted to, and no one was saying no, or stop, or slow down, not any more. And because if they didn’t do it now then who knew when they would. Stede had done many things wrong in his life and he didn’t really care about most of them anymore, now he was here in another life. A life after the mistakes. So that meant this one might be about to be the first, and therefore the worst, if he couldn’t get Ed on board. Stede wasn’t sure he could trust whatever came next but he was fairly confident that he could make Ed’s erection the most important part of whatever Ed was thinking about. He ground down.
Ed’s hand found his and gripped. “I’m drunk.”
“I know. So am I.”
“Nah mate. You’re drinking. I’m drunk. Drunk as shit, christ.” Ed groaned. “Fuckin—love you. Keep doing that.”
Stede kept doing that.
“Keeping up with Frenchie was a mistake. Y’know how much he can put away in a sitting?”
“I do. I told you he could. He’s very skilled at—” well, probably lots of things, right? Stede waved a hand. “Lots of things. Including putting a lot away in a sitting.”
“Too fuckin right. Shoulda stuck him on one of my ships just to show the rest of ‘em up.”
Stede laughed. “Oh yeah?”
“Man like that, multi-talented, hot—why not?”
Why not. Stede’s eyebrows crept into his hair. “I mean, he’s part of my crew, for starters. Just because we’re—”
Ed’s eyes went all crinkly but he didn’t say anything. He shifted in place, his prick still present against Stede’s ass while he waited. “Hmm?”
“Just because we’re something,” Stede said, firmly, ish, because it didn’t make sense to just leave the question hanging in space even when the answer to what they were was more interesting than defending what Frenchie was and wasn’t. “It doesn’t mean you get to poach my staff.”
“Not poaching,” Ed murmured. “Borrowing. Just for a little bit.”
Borrowing. Well. If Ed thought it was a good idea, Stede wasn’t going to be the one to argue. Certainly not right now, with Ed’s cock urgent against him, Ed’s fingers nimble in his trousers despite all the drink that should by all rights be making it a challenge, finding their way inside Stede. They might talk about it later, they might even fight about the tactics of it all. But, Stede thought in the part of his mind that wasn’t distracted with begging, as long as they were together, where the night might last forever if they sailed fast enough and so they might never have to leave the room, or the bed, it was probably okay. There were so many ways to make a notion make sense later. And right now he found he didn't care.
He gave himself over to Ed underneath and nearly inside of him and put everything else to the side for now. For now there was this, and their bed, and their ship, and music, and dancing, and a wedding.