Work Text:
I wake and hear you calling
And up those cliffs, I climb
And find you with a thimble, weeping
May I, I ask, may I?
And you gently gift it to me
'Cause you've no clue how to sew
And I know it's the kindest thing
I pray to God it's the kindest thing
I know the kindest thing
Is to never leave you alone
- The Rockrose and the Thistle (The Amazing Devil)
"If you wanted, I could teach you a more advanced trick of the trade," he offered, his back turned away from Stede, not out of coldness, but a casual show of trust, a simple movement in the conversation.
Stede perked up at the offer, looking from his lightly bleeding fingers up to his dark-haired friend. In the low light, he almost blended in with the night sky, despite his beard (and hair) being more grey than black. "Oh yeah?"
He wasn't sure what he was expecting, but it certainly wasn't for Ed to outright drop his sword, tear open his leather chestpiece, and expose the shirt and flesh beneath in a flourish.
"Stab me," he said, and Stede couldn't help but laugh.
"Yeah, right." He tried not to let his mind jump back to the image of Badminton, dead on the floor of his quarters, a sword through his eye.
Ed didn't give him much of a chance, but also wasn't much of a distraction — well, not any more than usual. "What's wrong? You scared?" He smirked, gesturing. "Take your sword, run me through."
Stede scoffed, shaking his head, playing as cool as he could. "I don't think I want to do that."
Ed paused a moment, and then shrugged, dropping his arms. "No worries then."
Just as Stede began to relax, he was met with the clicking of a gun being cocked and froze. "I'll just have to shoot you."
He jumped back, hands raised, one still holding the sword. "Ed, don't shoot me!"
"This is it," Ed said, almost teasing. "I'm gonna shoot you in the face!"
"No!"
"This is the life," his voice dropped to a more serious tone as he readjusted his aim. With his free hand, he gestured again to his torso. "Now, act… or die."
Stede shook his head, already mentally conjuring images of Ed dead on the floor. "No!"
"One!"
Bleeding on the finely-crafted slats of the deck.
"Two!"
Guts spilling out of his stomach.
"Three!"
Alternatively, his own blood and brain matter sprayed across the deck. The death of his dream, just as it was coming to fruition. The end of his time with Ed.
"Come at me, dog!"
Stede couldn't close his eyes, but he did scream as he felt his feet thudding against the floor, as the blade of his sword pierced Ed's flesh and he groaned in pain. He kept him upright with the sword in his stomach and one hand on his shoulder, leaning him forward, as if keeping him standing would keep him alive. He could feel Ed's breath on his face, his neck, but his mind wouldn't linger on it; they were his last breaths, after all, and that was more important.
Despite it all, Ed was laughing, and it sparked Stede back to life. "You happy now, you…!" He couldn't think of what to say. Should he say his goodbyes?
Ed nodded, an easy smile still on his face. "Yeah."
Stede stammered. "I stabbed you, you nut!"
"You managed to avoid all the important bits."
"What?" He took a step back to look at the man he impaled, immediately missing the closeness. Now wasn't the time to think about it.
"You see," Ed looked at the wound as well, still calm and overall amused. "Gettin' run-through's an art. I've had it done to me dozens of times." He looked almost like he was bragging, and Stede was bewildered by it.
"The key," he grunted as he moved to gesture again, as apparently the man could not keep his hands still for more than a minute. Stede channeled his focus on the apparent lesson and not the sound. "The key is to take the blade where it does the least damage."
Stede grumbled, and Ed continued, as if trying to convince him, "Science tells us all the useful organs are on the right part of the body, so I cleverly took the sword on the left!"
"Wh—Is that right?" He asked, and Ed nodded. "What about the liver?"
"The liver?" He laughed, and if it wasn't for the surprisingly little amount of blood leaking from where he was stabbed, Stede would've thought all of this was due to blood loss. "We don't even know what that thing does."
He was unfortunately right on that part.
"Well," he looked between Ed and the sword, "h-how does one… get it out?"
"Let me see." He closed his eyes and took a couple breaths, and Stede prayed to God that Ed wasn't just going to make something up on the fly. "Now, relax a little, and then you just gently tug."
He tried not to think about how painful it would probably be and took position. The sooner it was out, the better.
"You ready?" Ed asked, and for a moment, Stede just looked at him. He should be asking that question, really. But the infamously merciless pirate was often rather patient with him, wasn't he? Stede gave a little nod, and Ed mirrored it, taking another deep breath. "And… go."
It turned out removing a sword impaled through someone was easier said than done. Not to mention the sound. Stede muttered to himself as a distraction, rationalizing that such sounds did also come from pain, and not just pleasure. He opened his eyes when he started picturing things more on the pleasure side. Actually seeing the man did not help, but the blood quieted them enough, for the moment, though it arose other thoughts. He wasn't sure which he preferred.
Eventually, the sword was out, and Stede let it clatter on the deck, not wanting to hold it any more that night, or maybe ever. He needed to learn to fight, what kind of pirate couldn't fight, but he had hurt Ed. Sure, he'd asked him too, threatened him even, but the gun was surely a bluff. This was all completely unnecessary, and he said as much.
"This was all completely unnecessary," he scolded as his hands flitted to Ed's arms, to keep him upright. The contact burned, and it grew hotter when Ed laughed again, one hand on his wound, the other on Stede's shoulder.
"It was the best way of teachin' you. And now you know."
"You could've just explained it to me. You know, with words?"
He shook his head. "Easier to understand if you can see it. Tha's what I think, at least."
"I won't shame you for being a visual learner," he sighed. His eyes lingered over Ed's hand, pressed against his stomach, holding the blood in. "What do you, ah, usually do? After getting… run-through?"
He looked at Stede with something akin to cloudiness until he seemed to process the question and it turned into a sober thoughtfulness. "Ah. Yeah."
"Yeah?"
"Well," he tried to subtly move away from Stede, but he kept a firm grip on his fellow pirate. "Normally I just kinda get some rags and stuff and wrap it up like that. Sometimes Izzy sews me up. Doesn't really matter, it'll heal on its own."
Stede blinked. "You don't know how to sew?"
Ed stared right back at him. "What kind of pirate knows how to sew?"
"This one," he asserted. "And plenty of the crew, actually. It's a valuable skill to have."
Ed huffed. "Well, I never got the hang of it. I've got my own ways." He pulled himself away from Stede, biting back a groan. "All I need's some booze, a rag or two, and a day or so to sleep it off."
"No," Stede was quick to follow him. He linked their arms and guided him towards his quarters. "Come on, I'll sew you up. It's only right of me, after all, I put the holes in you."
"I told you to," he said quietly, without much regret or flourish or anything at all, really. His voice was soft and he leaned against Stede's arm and shoulder, not fighting his lead at all. His eyes had that cloudy look to them again, but Stede couldn't look at them for long. He had to make sure they didn't run into anything, after all.
They sat in Stede's quarters and he told Ed to take off his chestpiece and shirt as he looked for the things he would need. Needle, thread, bandages, rags, medical alcohol (and maybe some regular alcohol for good measure). He turned back and saw Ed sitting in the low light, his hair falling across his exposed back, and began to think, with a tremble in his hands, that maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all. Ed's method hadn't gotten him killed yet, now had it?
He looked a moment longer. Strong shoulders were drooped, and he seemed almost curled in on himself. Vulnerable. Stede saw the base of his neck and thought, for a moment, about Badminton. The whale paperweight that he had thrown overboard out of guilt. He would never do such a thing to Ed. He never wanted to hurt him, ever.
He had, of course, not ten minutes ago, but he was fixing it. And Ed was letting him.
Stede set the supplies on his desk and lit a couple more candles, for efficiency. Didn't want to accidentally stitch up the wrong part. When everything was set, they repositioned themselves on the couch, Stede sitting behind Ed, who leaned forward, his head almost to his chest. Stede moved his hair off his back, splitting the long locks into two sections and guiding them over his shoulders. It was not soft — this was a man who had probably never used shampoo in his life, after all — but his hands lingered nonetheless.
Nothing about Ed was soft. His skin was worn and leathery, hands calloused, hair often tangled. His reputation, of course, would lead anyone to expect as much. A hardened body for a hardened criminal only made sense.
But, as Stede's hands trailed down Ed's spine to where the exit wound was, he shivered. There was more to the man than just Blackbeard. There was Edward, Ed — his friend. He had seen a kindness in him. It was in his eyes. They seemed to be the one part of him that was never rough, always soft and inviting. Even in times where he was angry or threatening or otherwise closer to Blackbeard than Ed, his eyes betrayed him.
Stede could not see his eyes now, but he felt his breath hitch as he brushed against the arch of his back. He wondered if they still had that cloudy look to them.
"This'll probably hurt a little," he warned, voice quiet. There was a moment between them, he could tell, a bubble that he didn't want to break with a wrong move, or a voice too loud. Ed's only response was a minute nod.
He gently cleaned the blood away, not looking at it too long but finding that it didn't make him quite as sick as it had in his imagination, and he heard Ed bite back a hiss when he pressed the alcohol-soaked rag to the wound. His other hand came up then and settled about his ribs, for no reason in particular other than it seemed like it would be assuring. Ed froze at the touch, but didn't say or do anything to dissuade it. Stede let it linger there until he had to sew.
It took a couple tries to thread the needle, as even with the candles it was still low light and also very late and he was starting to get tired, but he got it through and with one hand, he kept the sides of the wound together. The other stabbed the needle through the skin, and Ed jolted slightly. He apologized, and Ed waved him off with one hand. He didn't flinch again for the rest of the procedure. Stede did his best to be both thorough and quick. For whose sake, he couldn't say.
With a sigh, he tied off the stitch and broke the end of the thread. "Halfway done," he gave a half-hearted laugh and stood from the couch. "Just lay down, I'll be quick."
With a grumble and a groan, Ed flipped onto his back and stretched his legs out across the rest of the couch. He winced slightly, and Stede pretended he didn't see. He got a stool to sit beside the couch on and Ed removed the rag he'd been holding to the entrance wound.
Stede took it from him, but realized he hadn't even noticed he'd been doing such a thing. If all went well, there might not be any blood on the couch at all.
He cleared his throat, soaking a clean rag in the alcohol again. He looked at Ed's face, and had a nagging feeling that the front would be a different experience than the back. "Ready?"
Ed hummed. A smile twitched at his lips as he saw he was right; that cloudy look was back again. Part of him worried it might be because he was hurt, but he wrote it off. He'd seen it before, when he was uninjured. There was something behind it. Something he wasn't sure he was ready to face, but something nonetheless.
He pressed the rag to the wound and felt Ed's stomach become tense and taut as he held his breath. He found himself apologizing again, and moved quickly. He fumbled with the needle and thread again and again, growing frustrated as the little thing refused to go through. He even tried the trick of licking the end of the thread to get it straight, to no avail.
After the umpteenth attempt, calloused hands enveloped his own, and he froze, looking up. Ed didn't say a word, but he took the needle and thread from him, inspected them for a moment, and then placed the thread in his own mouth. For a moment, those dark eyes looked up at him, not so cloudy now but still intense and deep, before flicking back to the needle. He pulled the thread from his mouth and slipped it through the eye of the needle, and handed it back to Stede without a word. He took it, whispering a thanks.
The sewing process was much the same as it was on the back, but now he felt Ed's eyes on him the whole time. He tried to fight the instinct to look back, but gave in a couple times. He was always met with the same thing. That cloudy look for a second before he seemed to realize he'd been caught, and then a slight turn of the head, looking away. Stede wrote off the slight coloring on his face to the low lighting and the blood loss. Even though it was still clear enough to see his face, and he hadn't lost all that much blood.
His hands still burned at the contact with Ed's skin. The metaphor that came to mind was of demons and holy things, but it didn't fit. Ed was no demon, but he was far from holy.
As he finished off the stitches and looked back to his face with a smile, seeing the lighting reflecting off his face, the softness in his eyes, his own easy smile half-hidden by his beard, he had to question if that was true.
They parted ways for the night with Stede telling him to take time and rest, not do anything extreme. Typical stabbing protocol.
"And have a good night," he added at the door.
Ed looked back at him, and his hand reached out for a second before falling back to his side. He was quiet for a moment. "Sweet dreams," was what he finally said before walking off.
Stede laid in bed, letting the sweet embrace of darkness overtake his mind, and had very sweet dreams indeed.
Ed couldn't look. He hadn't looked for most of the duel. He thought he'd ended it, Stede said they could put it all behind them and everything would be fine, continue as they had been, and now he felt like he was about to cry again because Stede was going to die and he couldn't will himself to do anything about it other than look out at the open ocean. The waves that his corpse would soon be thrown into.
He heard the clatter of a sword and a nervous laugh. Time's up.
"So, it looks like we've arrived, Bonnet," Izzy voiced his thoughts for him. They were often on the same wavelength with these matters, weren't they? That probably said something about him. "The end of the road."
"Alright," Stede stammered. "Let's call it a draw."
"Nah, I'm good." I want you dead went unsaid, but Ed heard it anyway.
There was a squish of flesh meeting blade, a scream, a grunt of effort, and all went quiet. He couldn't look. He couldn't look.
"Did I do it right?" Asked Stede, breathless.
Ed looked. Stede was pressed against the mast, Izzy's sword through his stomach. He looked in pain, but alive and well, and in that moment Ed didn't care about anything else.
He caught Ed's eye and gave a weak smile. "He missed all the important bits." He seemed almost proud, and Ed was torn between wanting to slap him and wanting to kiss him.
Izzy was, understandably, frustrated. He tried to pry his sword free, to have another go at the Gentleman Pirate, but it was stuck good. Stede grinned at him, half nervous, half maniacal.
"This mast, it's actually made from the finest cherry wood in Brazil," he laughed. "It's rather strong, actually—"
"Shut up!" Izzy yelled, what little patience he had long gone. He pulled harder on the handle of his sword. "Don't you ever shut up, you rancid rat?!"
With a crack, Izzy stumbled backwards. It took a second for Ed to see what had happened, he had been so focused on Stede. The handle of the sword had broken off, and Izzy stared at it in his hand, bewildered.
The crew cheered as Izzy was informed that, as his sword was rendered inoperable, technically by Stede, he had lost the duel. And so, he would be leaving the ship.
Ed helped Izzy pack his things and by dawn he was off, cursing them all and whatnot, he didn't care. He was exhausted from his… trip down memory road the night before, and then the duel, and he really wanted a nap. He was about to do just that when he overheard a couple of the crew members talking.
"I don't wanna cut my fingers," Wee John said, looking at his hands as if for emphasis. "Swords are pretty sharp, you know."
"Yeah, I know," Frenchie sighed. "But I'm not strong enough, and I don't wanna try and lose a finger or go insane like Lucius."
"Maybe Pete will whittle you a finger, too!"
"No, I think that's a Lucius-only thing."
"Well somebody's gotta get Captain un-stuck."
Ed whipped around, and was upon them before he even really processed he was walking. "Stede is still stuck to the mast?"
The two jumped at his sudden appearance. "Uh, yeah?" Frenchie stammered.
"It's been hours and no one's let him loose?"
The two shrugged. "The sword is, uh. Pretty stuck in there."
He shoved past them and headed for the damned cherry wood mast. The crew parted like the ocean for Moses. He gave them not even half a thought, other than to curse them for being incompetant and leaving Stede injured and bleeding and stuck to a mast for hours .
When he rounded the corner, breathless not from exertion but from anxiety, Stede had his head leaned back against the mast and his eyes closed. Ed smacked him on the cheek a couple times, anxiety rising to his throat and making his hands tremble. "Hey, hey, c'mon, don't fall asleep—"
He was cut off with a yelp of surprise from Stede, whose eyes burst open and whose head jerked away from his touch like it burned him. He pulled his hand back and tried to pretend he hadn't touched him in the first place.
Stede, once he noticed it was Ed before him, gave a little laugh that made his chest warm. "Sorry there. I wasn't asleep, don't worry. Just resting my eyes a little. But," he tried to stifle a yawn. "I am definitely getting tired. I think being stuck to a mast'll do that to you, right?"
"Right," he nodded, very much concerned. "I'll get you unstuck. Just don't fall asleep."
"Yes, sir," he laughed, and Ed tried to ignore it. He assured himself the comment came from blood loss, and put his energy into freeing his friend and not how his heart was pounding in his ears from the title, from the position they were in (his gloved hand on the blade, at the base, and the bare one on Stede's shoulder, his head close enough to Stede's that if he dared look up they'd be a breath away), from the pained noises Stede made as the blade was slowly removed from the mast and his body that sounded all too like sounds of pleasure.
When it was finally, finally out, he threw it aside and it slid across the deck, and Stede fell against him. He caught him on instinct, holding his arms tightly, shaking him slightly. Look at me was on his tongue, but he couldn't make himself say it. He didn't know what he'd do if he didn't get a response.
Stede's hands came up and settled on his chest, pushing back slightly so he was standing a bit straighter, and he shook his head with a giggle, eyes closed. "Guess we should call you Arthur, hm?"
He furrowed his brow. "My name is Edward, not Arthur," he reminded him. Was he really so far gone?
Stede shook his head again and looked to where the sword was thrown. "King Arthur, sword in the stone, all that. Not what I imagined Excalibur looking like, heh."
Ed didn't care enough to think about the myths Stede was referencing. He didn't want to let go of Stede, but he stepped back to look at the wound. The bloodstain on his shirt seemed to be getting slowly, slowly bigger, as it had probably been agitated by the sword being removed. Regardless, Stede had a big hole through his torso now. His hands twitched as he remembered only a few nights prior.
It didn't take much thought before he adjusted their position and linked their arms, walking Stede back to his quarters. The wounded man looked at their position, seeming confused, color coming to his face. A shade of pink Ed found he quite liked.
"Where are we going?" Stede asked, leaning against Ed's arm. For support or for something else, he couldn't say.
"Your room," he answered plainly, heart beating and mouth dry. "You've got a couple holes in you, you know. Better fix 'em up."
"Oh, yeah," he looked down at his shirt and looked up almost as quickly. "Yeah, I better sew myself up. Maybe get Roach to help with the back, he's a good sewer…"
"I'm going to do it."
Stede looked up at him, wide-eyed. "You don't know how to sew."
"I figured it out watching you. Not much to it."
"I can at least do the front myself."
Ed glared at him and not a moment later, Stede stumbled over nothing. "You will not be able to do it yourself." Stede sighed, and he felt himself soften. "I can do it. Just trust me. I mean… it's only right of me. It's my fault you've got holes in you."
Stede fell quiet at that, but in an attempt to subtly look at him, Ed found a soft smile on his face, a faraway look in his bright eyes. Ed got lost in it for a moment before Stede tripped again and it snapped him back into reality.
It was better lit this time than last, and so no candles were lit. Ed sat Stede on the couch and hesitated to let him go. He cleared his throat when he finally stepped back and told him to take off his shirt and jacket. He dug through his drawers and shelves manically, but did his best to keep the organization how he found it. He was in a hurry, but he didn't want to ruin Stede's things. After a bit of futile searching, Stede directed him to a cabinet where he had stored all the materials from last time. The rags weren't clean, but they'd be fine. Right? Yeah.
He came back and almost dropped the bottle of booze. Stede was slumped forward, head in his hands, trying not to bleed on his couch. His shirt and jacket were folded beside him. There was nothing special about his shirtless torso (besides the stab wound, and the single other scar that marred his skin, from their first meeting), but it felt like there should be. This wasn't even the first time he had seen Stede shirtless. What was different now?
He knew exactly what was different.
He gave Stede one of the cleaner rags to hold against his stomach before sitting behind him and trying to remember how any of this was done, or to think about anything other than the inevitable contact with the man in front of him. He could feel his heartbeat in his hands, and when he finally put his hands to Stede's back, he could feel his heartbeat, too.
The alcohol did not smell good. The sharpness almost made him flinch with the memory of his own patching-up. He certainly did not want to drink it, but he poured some of it onto one of the rags and pressed it to Stede's back. He did flinch, jumping away from the rag and Ed.
"Sorry, sorry," he murmured. "Just… give me some warning next time."
"Right," he took a breath. "Uh. Here we go."
He pressed again, lighter this time, and Stede still flinched, but not nearly as badly. He wiped up the blood and the hole. It wasn't as clean as his own. Stede had run him through pretty damn well, considering it was his first time. Izzy wanted to kill him, and he wanted it to hurt. Plus, with all the fidgeting with the sword, it only further opened the wound, making it bigger and more jagged. Certainly more painful. Ed's heart ached at the thought of it. He should've done something. Anything. Then they wouldn't be here.
"Do you need help?" Stede's voice snapped him out of his spiral of increasingly loathing thoughts. "With the needle, I mean."
He hadn't even attempted to thread it yet. He'd just been holding the little thing and the life-saving like that went through it. "No, uh. Just got distracted." He thought, belatedly, that might not be the best way to put it, but Stede only nodded. It took a couple tries, but he got it through and put a hand on Stede's back in an attempt to smush the sides of the hole together.
"Alright," he warned, "gonna stab you again."
He felt Stede chuckle. "Can't be any worse than the last time."
He pierced the needle into his skin in what he thought was the right way, and was met with a shout. "I didn't think you meant literally!"
"I didn't! I'm doing my best here!"
"Just," he sighed, "you go sideways, back and forth, not. In."
"I know," he gritted his teeth. He wasn't mad at Stede. He was mad at himself, specifically his hands. He had watched when he was getting sewn up, but he was admittedly… distracted. So he may not have been paying the best attention. And now it was coming back to bite him.
The second attempt, however, was more successful. Stede still made noises of pain and displeasure, but about halfway down the wound, Ed figured it was more him having a low pain tolerance than doing anything wrong, and he got more confident, moving quicker. He did the last half in double the time, and tied it off, which was more difficult than it seemed and Stede had to talk him through it. It still took three tries.
Finally, he sighed. "Alright, great. Flip over."
Stede began to turn, and then stopped, looking at him. "Ah… Aren't you going to get off the couch?"
He stood, forgetting about that. The situation in his mind was, bizarrely, that Stede would just have his legs on Ed's lap while he stitched him. But that was impractical.
He found the stool from last time and Stede laid on the couch, resting his arms on his chest, eyes closed. Ed tapped him on the forehead as he returned. "No sleeping yet."
Stede grumbled. "I've been awake all night."
"Would you rather be dead?"
He fell quiet, but kept his eyes open, head to the ceiling.
The front was just about the same as the back, only this time, Ed was confident enough to tell Stede to man up a couple times when he flinched too much. He muttered an apology and Ed wanted to kiss his head and tell him it was alright. He wasn't made for this life.
But that wasn't true, was it? If anything, this was proof that Stede was capable of being a pirate. No damned English dandy would take a sword through the middle and live to tell the tale.
Ed could live with a little squirming. If anything, it just proved he was alive.
He tied it off, broke the string, and his hand lingered on his stomach, on the raised skin tied with dark thread. His fingers felt electric, and he finally had to step away. Stede was red in the face again, and pulled on his bloodied shirt.
Ed started to leave. He'd gone too far. Not just here, but in general.
"Thank you," Stede called after him. "You did a really good job. Great work, really."
Ed looked back over his shoulder at the Gentleman, and was met with a smile. "I wouldn't be here without you," he said, and it was true. He'd have been hung to death on that Spaniard's ship. It still made him warm.
"Glad to help," was what he managed to say in response. "Get some rest."
"You too."
He left the cabin and stared up at the early morning sky. It was pink and yellow, still too early for a true blue. He thought of the pink on Stede's face, and liked it better than the sunrise.
He dreamt of golden hair made of sunlight and eyes as deep and blue and commanding as the ocean.