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Stede knew that getting shit-faced with the crew was a bad idea. He sometimes liked to partake with them, but only in moderation, preferring to watch from a safe distance as the other pirates drunkenly fought and wrestled and whipped each other’s asses…quite literally. But, well, Ed had loosened him up a bit in the weeks he’d been aboard the Revenge . The fearsome Blackbeard may have been seeking a life of luxury and refinement, and maybe one day he’d get there, but for now he was still a Dirty Dog, a Scourge of the Sea, a Fearless Phantom who brought death to all who stood in his way. He was everything Stede longed to be and more, so if Stede was going to get rough, he’d have to take a page or two out of Ed’s book, wouldn’t he? And those pages were soaked with rum.
It had been Black Pete’s and Frenchie’s faults in the end, really. After a heated debate, they had placed a bet; something about who could make the cannonball go farther. Stede had been up on deck, his back to the pair, enquiring about Lucius’ pencil skills and his wooden finger, when the cannons went off. Ed had been standing to his left, Lucius on his right, and later he would feel guilty about it but his drunken brain yelled, save Ed. Save Ed, and he all but forgot Lucius was there. He also, in his very intoxicated state, forgot to turn around to make sure they actually were being attacked. But his drunkenness had turned two cannons into ten as their shots rang, deafening and destructive, in his ears.
With an unnatural amount of adrenaline (at least for the Gentleman Pirate), Stede had grabbed Blackbeard around the waist and hoisted them both overboard. The smack of the water against his body had shocked him, along with the glacial cold of it. The depths they had plunged into engulfed and confused him; there had been no way to know what was up or down, and worst of all, he was no longer holding Ed. When he’d finally broken the surface, the ship’s stern had loomed up at him like some dark, unforgiving idol. There was another set of booms as more cannons went off, their thundering now muted by the waves undulating around him, pulling him under, spitting him back out just as fiercely as Stede spat water. He’d searched frantically for Ed, but the pirate had not yet emerged.
“Shit. Shit ,” Stede had sputtered, eyes darting around in the darkness, looking for a familiar silhouette. He was getting ready to dive back under in what he knew would be a fruitless and potentially fatal search, when two strong arms had grabbed him from behind.
“What the fuck are you doing, mate?” Blackbeard had growled. “You trying to kill me? Is that it?”
Stede had spat water and scrambled to put together his words. “There were… cannons… ambush…” He’d tried to point up at the ship, but without the extra arm treading water his head had dipped back below the waves. Ed had held him tighter, propping him up, saving his lungs from more ice-cold brine.
“You’re a fucking idiot sometimes, you know that?” he’d hissed in Stede’s ear.
They’d tried calling out to the ship, but nobody heard them, caught up in their drunken devilry as they were. Finally, Ed sighed and looked over his shoulder, at the thin line of sand that jutted out from the horizon.
“Gonna have to head to shore to wait until these morons realize we’re gone,” he’d muttered.
It was a lucky thing, really, that they’d been sailing close to a circular bay after a stop at Trinidad for supplies. They’d swam to shore without too much difficulty, though Stede couldn’t help but inquire about what dangerous creatures probably lurked below the surface. He’d been met with silence from Ed, whose mood had rightfully turned from cheerful to sour. Once ashore, all he’d said was, “We can’t stray too far from here, or they’ll never see us,” and then he was silent again.
***
Stede stood on the shore now, shivering as he watched the lights of the ship on the horizon dance and flicker, slowly fading like a dying promise. Behind him, he heard Ed shuffling around in the sand, occasionally grunting with exertion.
“You gonna help or what?” the pirate asked finally. Stede jumped a little, startled by the gruff voice, and spun around to join him at the tree line.
“What are you doing?” he asked. Ed had been gathering sticks and thick branches and piling them on top of one another.
“Gathering stuff for a shelter. Don’t want to catch a cold.”
“What are you talking about? We’re in the Bahamas. The weather’s beautiful!” Stede lifted his arms, grinning like a showman.
Ed glanced up at him, his expression unreadable. Then he went back to working. “It’s nice now, gonna get chilly early in the morning, especially with no clothes on. I’m making a lean-to. Help me get more branches, will you?”
Stede considered those words for a moment. It did make sense. The cold might not kill them, but the shift in temperature could very well lead to a sickness that could. He made to follow Ed’s orders, but stopped short, backtracking with an unpleasant little skip of the heart.
“No clothes?” he echoed hesitantly. He could feel his cheeks heating up, absorbing the water on them. The rest of him may have been soaked and freezing, but his head suddenly felt like a beacon of fire. He briefly, inanely, hoped he wasn’t outright glowing in the dark.
Ed walked over, cradling more branches, his brow furrowed upon noticing his co-captain was not helping whatsoever. “You wanna sleep in wet clothes?”
“I suppose not…” Stede mumbled, averting his eyes from that intense face.
Ed gave a nod. “If you’re not gonna help me, at least start a fire and we’ll dry our clothes.”
Stede bit his bottom lip. “Uh…Ed? How does one…get a fire going?”
Ed raised his eyebrows, waiting for the punchline, but Stede simply shrugged at him, a sheepish smile tugging at his lips. Ed made an exasperated growl and dropped his haul. He said nothing, just crooked his fingers in a beckoning gesture as he turned around. Stede stumbled over his own waterlogged shoes in his hurry to follow.
***
“So, we want big logs to fuel the fire, and smaller twigs for the kindling. You getting this?” Ed glanced over his shoulder, one eyebrow raised while he waited for a fumbling Stede to catch up.
“Logs for fuel, twigs for kindling,” Stede repeated. “Got it.”
“And smaller twigs and dry leaves for the tinder.”
“Check, and check,” Stede said chummily. He clutched his haul of branches close to his chest and shivered. He was cold, his clothes still sopping wet. Droplets fell from his fringe into his eyes and he blinked them out, unable to use his hands. He tried to fight down the dread and worry that was building in his throat like bile. If he wanted to become as fearless as Blackbeard one day, he would have to face far worse conditions than this. Better to keep a positive outlook, he decided. Besides, he had by his side the best in the business. Or, at least, the best in the business was walking ahead of him, muttering incoherently to himself.
“Here’s a good one,” said Blackbeard, bending down to heave up a sizable chunk of wood. He looked it over, pleased with his find, then tossed it at Stede. Stede caught it barely, but not without letting out a surprised yelp. He felt truly weighed down now. Sharp sticks poked through his sleeves and grazed his arms, while bits of dirt from dry leaves tickled his nostrils and sent his eyes watering. He was practically blind from tears and salt water when Ed suddenly turned around and approached him, another log in hand.
“This should be enough,” he said, placing it on the pile before brushing past him and heading back to shore. Stede stood for a moment and watched him go. He hadn’t missed the way Ed’s eyes had roamed over his face, which probably looked horrendous by now; nor had he missed the deliberate slowness at which the pirate’s hand had slid away from the log, briefly grazing over Stede’s quivering thumb, their eyes never leaving each other’s. It wasn’t until Ed disappeared into the darkness that Stede realized he’d been holding his breath, and he exhaled shakily, trying to ignore the shudder that coursed through him. He’d better catch up. Blackbeard was his lifeline.
He walked over the uneven sand, silently cursing the way his shoes seemed to absorb more and more of the gritty stuff and turn his feet into concrete. He found Ed where the pirate had dropped his pile of wood, near a dip in the beach where rich soil chased the sand away and gave life to fresh sod among the sharp dried husks of some more ancient species of grass. Trees surrounded them like a thick wall, mostly Caribbean pines and coconut palms, but in that little dip there was space enough for a fire and a small shelter.
“Over there,” Ed instructed. Without even meeting Stede’s eyes, he pointed to the center of the clearing, and then went back to collecting the long branches from his own pile. Stede carried the logs and forest detritus to the middle of the tiny clearing and set them down as carefully as possible. The night was a deep, inky curtain around them, and from out of it came strange malformed shapes that he knew were shrubs, but that resembled creatures from ghost stories and childhood books.
“Hey Ed?”
“What?” Ed said, right in his ear.
Stede was, to his credit, able to choke back a terrified shriek, but he spun around with a strangled gasp. “Did you have to sneak up on me like that? I almost pissed myself!”
“I wasn’t sneaking up on you,” Ed mumbled, amusement wrinkling his eyes. “Was just bringing my logs over here.”
Stede only now realized what he’d exclaimed, and how crude it had sounded, and his cheeks flushed with color. But Ed, for all the teasing in his eyes, seemed almost a little impressed. Stede cleared his throat in an attempt to reclaim himself. He watched his co-captain drop his haul of logs and go to the pile in the middle of the clearing and then squat down to begin arranging them. When Ed motioned for him to join, he obeyed immediately. Here in the balmy stillness of the deserted tree line, where god-knows-what predatory animals or people roamed, he found comfort at Blackbeard’s side.
“So, our campfire is almost ready,” Ed said, in the tone of an instructor. “We’ve got our logs, with our pile of tinder on top—” he paused to point at these, though it was hard to make out much at all in the darkness, “—And I’ve surrounded it with rocks to help contain the fire. And see this?” He perked up a little, and in the pale ambient moonlight, Stede saw a flash of white teeth as Ed grinned, and his mind wandered back over the past few weeks, sorting through every grin he’d seen grace this fearsome pirate’s face, and now Ed’s words were nothing more than meaningless blather; muffled and far away. “I’ve made a little hut out of the kindling, see? You put the twigs on each other in a square like this and build it up and – are you even listening, man?”
The sudden change of direction startled Stede and he struggled to find something to say. Ed’s eyes were on him; he could see their faint glinting. “Of course I am!” Stede finally managed, feigning outrage.
“All right.” Ed slapped both thighs. “So now we have to start the fire. And how do we do that?” He paused. Stede waited for an answer and didn’t get one. He furrowed his brow in thought. Okay, well…
“Don’t you have to, you know, rub two sticks together?” He picked up two spindly twigs and held them out to Ed. Ed looked at them, then at Stede, and exhaled loudly.
“You want to rub sticks, Stede?”
“I—I mean – no !” Stede stuttered, mortified, his face growing hot. “I just heard about it, in pirate tales and—”
“I’m sure you did,” Ed chuckled, eyes crinkling at the sides. He looked again at the twigs in Stede’s frozen hands, then shook his head and picked up two short, thick sticks from the pile. Something sparked in his eyes then and his grin only widened. “Okay, you’re right though. You have to rub the sticks together. Here.” He handed them over to Stede.
Stede hesitated, then plucked them from Ed’s grip. He looked at them as though they were snakes. Right now, with Ed’s intense yet humored gaze on him, being bitten by one probably would’ve been a blessing.
Ed began to instruct him. “Put them on this log here, that’s it. Now you’ll want to grip this stick at the base, with your whole hand.” Stede did as instructed, relieved that the jesting seemed to be over and the real teaching had started. “Now you simply rub this stick against that one…” Stede obliged, and the stick immediately broke. He hissed out a curse and threw the sticks down.
“I can’t do it!”
“Now now,” Ed said gently, “I was just instructing you on what not to do. You hold anything at the base and it’s gonna break.” He chose another thick stick from the pile and handed it to Stede. Stede sighed in worry, his eyebrows slanting up. He should have known that!
“So what do we do now?” Ed prompted.
Stede bit his bottom lip and tentatively began to rub the sticks together with his palms, their bottom tips resting between two pieces of bark. It didn’t result in any sparks, nor any smoke, no matter how quickly he rubbed them. All it resulted in was puffy, chafed hands.
“My hands are too soft,” Stede complained. Ed made a snort that sounded suspiciously like amusement, but when Stede glanced up at him questioningly, the pirate was looking away. “Are you laughing at me?”
“Nah man, look, you’re just not doing it right. The way you’re doing it, it’s just not good for friction. How about we—” he stopped, and in the dark Stede saw his eyes widen slightly in alarm. Stede immediately went into panic mode.
“What?” he hissed, eyes darting around them, taking in the unforgiving darkness, expecting something to pounce any second. “What is it?”
“You shivering there, mate?”
“Yes! My clothes are soaked. Aren’t you cold?” Stede was secretly relieved by Ed’s realization, because he felt very, very uncomfortable in these clothes, but he also didn’t want to be the one to initiate the…undressing.
“Uh, yeah, yeah sure,” Ed mumbled. “Look, how about I—” he tossed the sticks and stood, fingers at his belt, unclipping a small leather pouch. He knelt back down, and to Stede’s distress, they were much closer now. But his curiosity was piqued when Ed produced a curved piece of metal and a stone. Flint and steel.
“Oh, no,” Stede said with a chuckle. “We don’t need that, I’m sure I can get a fire started—”
“I was having you on,” Ed said, a little sheepishly.
Stede blinked at him. “You were what?”
“You’ll never start a fucking fire rubbing two sticks like that. It doesn’t work that way. Now I could spend half the night teaching you how to build a hand drill or we can get a fire started within the minute with this .” He offered the flint and steel with his arm outstretched, palm open, like a peace offering. Stede was glad for the darkness because he felt positively red now. He glared at the materials like they were cursed totems.
“Come on,” Ed needled. “Even you could start a fire with these.” He fished around in the pouch again and pulled out a tiny piece of cloth. “Here. This is where the spark will catch.”
Stede took the cloth and held it in two fingers. “It’s wet, it won’t catch,” he noted, proud of himself.
“Good eye,” Ed said, with a fair bit of sarcasm. “It’ll dry nice and quick once the steel heats up. Come on now, you try to start the fire, and I’ll start building the lean-to.” He gave Stede an encouraging (and rather patronizing) clap on the shoulder and then went to work building their shelter. Stede pressed his lips together in determination. He could do this. He would impress Blackbeard with a fire. He worked diligently at first, but his focus soon began to slip. Ed was distracting him.
The pirate was unbuckling things from his belt and now, oh no, he was taking it off. And now he had a knife, and he was…why was he cutting his sleeve? Stede watched the way the soft moonlight sloped over Ed’s bare arm; the way his bicep flexed beneath the skin as he worked to – oh, oh that’s what he was doing, he was using his belt and strips of sleeve to tie the branches together and – that arm tattoo looked new. Had Stede ever seen that tattoo? That smooth bronze skin, though—
“You’re supposed to blow,” Ed said.
“W-what?” Stede yelped. Ed sighed and turned his attention away from the shelter long enough to give Stede an exasperated roll of his eyes.
“Once you’ve got a spark going on the tinder, blow it gently, and it should catch.”
“Oh.”
“You don’t have a spark yet, do you?”
Stede scrambled for an excuse, but nothing came to mind. He bowed his head and mumbled, “No.”
He got there in the end. It may have taken him as long as it took Ed to build a lean-to but he got there! When the flames caught he jumped to his feet and beamed, spreading his arms wide in delight. “A-ha!”
“Ah! There you go!” said Ed, pointing at the fire. “Now let’s get these fucking clothes off.”
***
Ed crafted a series of small drying racks out of more branches, using the butt of his knife to drive forked sticks into the ground, before laying sticks between the V’s. While he did this, Stede took a moment to appraise their shelter for the night. The lean-to was surprisingly well-built. Then again, it shouldn’t have been surprising; this was Blackbeard after all. He had years of survival experience under his belt. When he was done building the racks, Ed turned away from Stede, whistling a tune as he removed his torn jacket and lifted his shirt over his head. He was being unnervingly casual about the whole thing, but this was survival, right? There was no room out here for modesty. So Stede, eager as he was to make an impression, took initiative and rushed to undress faster. He kept his eyes off of Ed as he peeled off layer after layer, and although the balmy air was slowly warming each bit of skin he bared, a chill swept over him. It wasn’t from the cold.
Still he persisted, until each piece of wet clothing hung heavy and limp over the makeshift racks surrounding the fire. He stood back, almost covered himself with his hands, and then thought better of it. No room for modesty , he told himself, putting his hands on his hips and nodding to himself.
“Hey, mate,” Ed said from the other side of the fire. “You could’ve left your undies on.”
Stede’s eyes moved down of their own accord, and although the campfire and the surrounding darkness blocked much of Ed’s bottom half, it was clear he wasn’t completely naked. He wore what looked to be thigh-length black drawers. Stede felt his stomach plummet with dread, and one look at the twinkling amusement in Ed’s eyes told him that the horror must have been written all over his face.
He could salvage this. He would salvage it.
He stood up straighter, keeping his hands on his hips, though he wanted nothing more than to scurry under a rock and nurse his hurt pride. His heart wasn’t the only thing that felt achingly shriveled right now. “Well I…I thought perhaps wearing wet pants might lead to some kind of…I don’t know…infection?”
Ed hummed, considering this for a moment before giving a little shrug. “You’ve got a point there,” he said, and for one heart-stopping, dreadful moment, Stede thought he was going to take his underpants off too. But then he said, “Still, you don’t want to wake up to a snake bite on your dick. Or ants on your balls…” Ed shuddered at the thought.
“Okay, okay !” Stede huffed out a sigh and snatched up his wet drawers. Ed chuckled and pretended to examine their shelter while he waited for the other man to dress. The fabric of Stede’s drawers would dry quickly, but didn’t really leave much to the imagination (as if that were a problem now). Still, it might protect him from ants . He pulled the strings taut above his knees and knelt in front of his pathetic fire in an attempt to both warm up and hide.
“So,” Ed said, grabbing one of the larger logs he’d collected to use as a seat. He sat across from Stede and stared into the fire. “You heard some cannons and immediately thought we were under attack?” He cocked his head to the side, eyes darting up to Stede’s briefly.
“Well…well yes . Usually that’s what cannon fire means, doesn’t it?”
“Not with your bloody crew,” Ed muttered. “You should know that by now.”
Stede had nothing to say to that. He sighed and rubbed his hands in front of the fire. He was warm now, and yet he couldn’t keep that chill at bay; it undulated over him like waves, lighting little fires in his belly. Nerves. That frustrating, fluttery feeling that he was starting to become more and more familiar with every time Ed so much as glanced his way.
Ed could sense it, or see the gooseflesh on the other man’s bare arms, because he said, “You’re still cold? It’s warm out.”
“I suppose I am,” Stede said softly, because he wasn’t about to admit he was feeling nervous and that those nerves had very little to do now with the unfamiliar darkness surrounding them.
“Come here,” Ed said, standing. Stede followed him to the shelter, where Ed bowed his head and swept his arms out in a mocking, gentlemanly flourish. “Your sleeping quarters, sir.”
“Alright,” Stede grumbled miserably. He wasn’t in the mood for japes, especially ones made at his expense.
The lean-to was built against a line of trees, and had been carpeted with grass and fallen leaves. It was surprisingly cozy, and as Stede crawled inside, he was reminded of his days as a youth; fashioning crude, snug cubbies and hiding inside, sometimes for hours, while the other children shouted and laughed and hunted him with sticks raised like swords. After a while, the forest was dotted with these little sanctuaries. They were warm, safe, and allowed him to pursue his favorite hobbies like pressing flowers and reading and daydreaming. But woven within these bittersweet memories was the same thread of emotion: loneliness. He’d never had a friend to share his little retreats with.
“Well,” Stede said with a forced smile, straightening himself out and leaning up on an elbow. “This is comfy.” His feet stuck out of the entrance, their outline lit by the fire beyond. Ed followed him in and collapsed beside him with a grunt.
“Roll over,” he said.
Stede hesitated. “Excuse me?” He could only just make out Ed’s features, and the other man looked a little unimpressed.
“I said roll over,” Ed repeated flatly. “Another survival trick. You wanted to learn, didn’t you?”
“Oh! Yes.” Stede shuffled onto his other side, which was quite the feat in such a limited space. But, in many ways, he was used to having limited space. He rested his head on the ground and immediately longed for a cushion. But he was a pirate now, and sometimes pirates had to deal with ground-sleeping and not having pillows.
Stede heaved a sigh and closed his eyes, then opened them again when Ed draped an arm across his waist. The pirate pulled him close, curving his body around Stede’s until they fit like jigsaw pieces. Stede swallowed hard, eyes wide as his brain searched for an appropriate course of action. Should he place his hand over Ed’s? Lean his head back and reap the warmth of the pirate’s neck and beard? Sigh dreamily?
“Body warmth,” Ed explained, and Stede felt the tickle of his breath on his shoulder, “will help protect you from the cold. Not that it is cold.” He tacked on the last part like an accusation. Look at this rich kid flouncing about pretending to be a pirate, and he can’t even handle the Bahamas in winter.
“ Ah .” Stede racked his brain for something to say; some witty remark. “Would be much nicer if we had pillows, wouldn’t it?” He immediately scolded himself. That was the worst remark he could have made. He braced himself for mocking laughter, or some kind of reprimand, but instead Ed sighed and removed his arm.
“Come on,” he said. Stede rolled onto his other side, trying in vain to ignore their proximity, and gave Ed a questioning look. The pirate was on his back, arms out either side of him, languidly pointing at his own chest. Stede knew what the gesture meant but he couldn’t …could he? Ed lolled his head to the side and gave him an expectant look, and that was all it took. Stede nestled down into the crook of his arm, laying his cheek on Ed’s shoulder. Ed’s arms came down around him, enveloping him like a warm, damp blanket. It wasn’t comfortable to say the least, but Stede was sure he’d never felt more at home.
They lay in silence for a long time, both lost in their own drowsy thoughts. Stede was just beginning to suspect Ed was asleep when the pirate spoke.
“You’re still shivering. You can’t still be cold.”
Stede let out an embarrassed little laugh, his cheeks growing hot. “Guess it’s not the cold after all.”
***
The crew found their co-captains in the lean-to the next morning. Stede was awoken by a harsh prod from a blunt stick. He gasped, eyes darting open.
“Aye, they’re alive,” Buttons said. “Looks like we no have to be eatin’ them after all.”
Stede watched blearily as Buttons’ face disappeared from view. Something tickled his chest and for one nightmarish second he thought he was covered in a heavy pile of insects, but when he looked down, all he saw was a head of black-grey hair resting on his chest, and a heavy brown arm draped over his belly. Ed snored lightly against him, unperturbed by the sudden intrusion. The peace didn’t last long. A second later their clothes were flung at them and half the lean-to came tumbling down, letting in blinding white sunlight. Ed groaned and mumbled something and rolled away.
“Spent a nice night together, then?” Lucius asked venomously, peeking his head through the collapsed sticks. “We were worried sick about you two! We searched the ship in and out and—”
“Thought ye were dead,” Buttons said, in a more even tone. “Told the crew yer bodies could pro’ly feed us fer a few days, if we ever found ye.”
“How’d you find us?” Stede asked. With some struggling, he managed to disentangle himself from the shelter, and went to work hurriedly dressing himself.
“Thankfully that miserable little fire there told us where you were,” Lucius said. “I had to ride in a dinghy with this man—” he pointed at Buttons, “—because the rest of the crew were too drunk. We had to row against the wind and hope that it was you washed ashore and that we weren’t being lured to our deaths and then we find you both here cuddling and snoring and having a nice little time—”
“Stede threw us overboard,” Ed muttered.
That shut Lucius up. He frowned in confusion, eyes darting from Ed to Stede.
“This is all just a big misunderstanding,” Stede added amicably. His clothes were dry now, and he buttoned his vest with enthusiasm. The sun was shining, the breeze was blissful, and he’d survived a night in the great unknown, protecting and being protected by the greatest pirate who ever lived. What an adventure!
“Also, you do realise,” Lucius said, finding his voice again, “there’s a fishing hut like, literally a hundred feet up the shore from here?" Stede did not turn to follow his gesture. "You could’ve gotten yourself a proper bed.” He grinned and turned on his heel to head back to the dinghy.
“Well it was fucking dark!” Ed called after him. He glared at Stede, then at Buttons, before pushing past them both. “He needed a fucking lesson in survival anyway,” he muttered.