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“What the fuck are you doing?”
Stede looked like a castaway. His forehead was streaked with grime, his cheeks sunburnt, boots soggy and down on one knee, looking up at him like someone knelt at a bedside, as though it was just the two of them. Blood dripped down the sword at his throat but he didn’t seem to notice the peril, gazing at him and unable to see any threat, any darkness.
“Well, I was wondering if you’d, if you’d like to get married I suppose.” His voice wavered, soft and plain. He didn’t plead, didn’t beg, not like someone with a sword to his throat should have. He proposed it as though it was some simple thing, just a small thing one man might do for another.
“Jesus Christ.”
Ed felt his eyes flicker with panic, the shine of the sword, the shine of his hair, the velvet box half stained with sea water and a little bit of blood, the ring, gold band, emerald stone, too small for him, teeth gritted in his mouth. Every part of him was tense, holding himself together with old rigging and force of will, forcing his mouth into a snarl because what else was there? What was a pirate to do but snarl? But to kill the defenceless man, to make a point and let the finality hang in the air like a hanged man? Madness before defeat.
Around him, the fighting had gone quiet, the world had stilled to watch, to gaze and no one breathed. Swords were frozen in the air, friends were fighting with friends but no hearts were in it. Everything was broken, everything was poised to snap right back into place. The moment was a stage play in slow motion, Stede on his knees with an offer outstretched, bleeding, and him standing there in his leather and his sword at his throat, ready to let it all come crashing down.
No one faltered but him. And Stede just gazed at him, as though he saw none of it, as though he didn’t realise. It was as if he didn’t understand that the sword would cut him down to the bone, that the tendons would snap and the veins would sever, and that he’d bleed out on the deck of his own ship, choking on the blood while his men were slaughtered around him. And he could do it all right there. A few seconds, a single movement, it would be so easy.
Below him, Stede giggled.
“A girl once told me I wasn’t interesting enough to die young.”
Ed stared at him, and there was something horrifying about it, realising that Stede knew as well as he did how quick it would be, that there would be no escape, that it could all be over just then, it wouldn't even take thinking. And yet he stayed, with his offer outstretched, making his little joke as though to ease him into it, as though even if he died right there he wouldn’t die cursing any names.
He snapped.
He snapped and everything restarted like a flash, sword falling to his side, grabbing Stede by the scruff of his collar and dragging him to his feet.
“Everyone shut the fuck up.” The words burst out of him to the dead silent crowd all frozen in place. “Open water,” he barked, “we’re throwing the fuckers overboard.”
And then he dragged Stede back to his quarters and sent him sliding across the floor until he slammed into the starboard wall and the ring spilled from his hands.
…
Ed gazed at the revolver in his hands.
He could hear shuffling from the deck outside, muffled voices, Izzy and then Buttons, then Oluwande. He couldn’t make out the words, but none of it seemed important right now. Right now, this room was the extent of the world, this room that had been Stede’s, and then had been theirs, and then just his. Just the two of them in the gutted relic of what had been. He’d thrown the lounge he’d so often slept on into the brig, had torn the bed linens to threads, had left the bookshelves empty, filled the corners with barrels of rum and gunpowder to remind himself of who he was. But he hadn’t ever thought that Stede would come back to see it, to see what he had become.
He sat against the door, and Stede sat where he’d landed, and neither of them had the energy to look miserable.
“You could have just said no-”
“Shut up,” he hissed, “I’m thinking.”
He was remembering the feeling of hauling Stede into bed, back when the stab was still in his gut and the noose’s bruise was still around his neck, listening to him mumble about Mary and all his regrets. He could remember thinking that cowardice wasn’t as bad as he was making it out to be. Cowards made good runners. Cowards were good coal mine canaries, and canaries knew what was worth coming back for. And here he was, this canary, having come back for him, all dopey and exhausted and a bit heat sick.
And what the fuck was he supposed to do now? Who the fuck was he supposed to be?
When they’d met he was already so far from himself, so strung out on the life he’d made, softened by how easy it had become, full of hunger for something new, something fresh, something with colours and textures and ease. But when push came to shove, the darkness curled back around him and dragged him back to that day on the dock with a shipping rope around his father’s throat, feeling the life drain out of him. He was the kraken, his was the screaming death on the burning boat, he was the skeleton with the spear, the scorpion on the back of the frog, giving in to his nature.
He stroked his hand down the wooden handle.
And if he killed Stede now, that was all he would ever have to be. No one would ever have to know. No one would ever have to know about the silk, the exquisite cashmere, the act of grace, the treasure hunt, the dingy, the night spent on the jetty, waiting as the darkness coiled back around him and he hardened. If he killed Stede now, there would be nothing to soften him again, he could live this life all impenetrable and still. He’d die alone on a beach like he’d been born. He’d die with a bullet in his belly and nothing to renounce, having known all along that it would come back to this. And no one on earth would worry, no one would arrange his funeral, would hold him as the blood met with sea water and he died.
If he killed Stede now.
He looked up and he was gone.
The place where he’d been sitting was empty, and he was gone. Ed’s gaze swept across the room, and maybe if it had been anyone else, an ambush would have occurred to him. But it was Stede. He was light on his feet, but it seemed unlikely he'd have the stomach for it. And he was easy to find, standing by the empty bookshelves in his torn shirt and frayed britches.
“My books,” he whispered, his gaze hollow. The shelf was empty. The whole room was empty. His chest was empty. Everything was empty now. “Where did they go?”
“I threw them overboard.”
Stede looked back at him with his eyes mournful and his hand still resting on the empty shelf, as though he could still feel them there, ghosts. Ed watched him like a shark, hand on his revolver.
Stede looked nothing like himself. He looked like a man who had already been hung from gallows, whoes ropes had snapped during the terrible drop, who now had to keep on living, his books thrown overboard, his silks all muddy, his hair in a mess, still going. Ed watched his eyes drift back to the floor as though he was too exhausted to keep them up right, too exhausted to hold a thought in his head, even in a room with a man whose hand was on his revolver.
I could shoot you where you stand, he thought. He could toss him from the window, throttle him with his necktie, a pillow, a knife, a sword, whatever. But he didn’t. Just gazed at him, his canary. He looked so harmless there, all gentle and sweet, no violence left in him if there had been any to begin with.
“Hey.”
Stede looked up at him.
“Come over, sit down with me.”
For a second Stede hesitated, eyes flickering. He was so beautiful. But beautiful like the clouds in a good trade wind, beautiful like a sundog on the horizon, the glimmer of moonlight on the water. He was a kind of beautiful that felt as though it was just for him. It was wonderful, in an awful sort of way.
A moment later Stede was sliding to the floor beside him, keeping just a sliver of space between them, just enough that they weren’t touching, just enough that they could stare at the same patch floor together in the midst of this mess they’d made. And Stede didn’t touch him, didn’t treat him as though they were friends, just sat there like he’d been told to do and tried not to make a sound. Stede offered him gifts and held him at arm's length all at the one time, made him stand in the doorway, neither in nor out. He was given the opportunity to be gentle even as he was known to be violent and the two true things hung between them. And it felt honest to sit there, not looking at each other, trying to figure out what had been true, what he could live with.
“Do you love me?” He whispered, because he needed to know. He needed to know.
And the answer came without delay, just a shifting of Stede’s hands in his lap.
“I suppose so, I suppose I do love you.”
“Ah.”
And what a funny thing that that was. The canary loved him. Loved him even with his scribe thrown into the sea with the books and his crew abandoned on an island and the dingy having left without him and his linens blackened with muck. Loved him even with blood on his collar and sand under his nails and dressed in cottons instead of silks and in this room that had been theirs and had been stripped of every memory of him.
And for a moment, all possibilities felt possible. They stretched out in front of him like the sweet and endless sea. He could kill him, marry him, send him on his way, comb the grime out his hair. He could hand him a glass of water, slip the ring onto a chain and wear it around his neck, he could try with his clumsy hands to pick up the shattered glass and place it back into the frame. He could rebuild what he’d shattered. He could unfuck this, he could destroy this, he could do it all. There were no limitations. It wasn’t one or the other. It had always been him.
He watched his own hand leave the gun, watched it reach over and touch him, folding his hand over his clasped fingers. And it was the simplest of things, just two men, sitting against a closed door, holding hands in a dark room while men wrestled outside. He felt Stede’s head rest against his shoulder and for a while they just stayed there, exhausted.
…
He’d slept heavily.
It was a tight fit in the window bed between the two of them but it was comfortable. It was more comfortable than he’d been in weeks.
He’d woken up early, before the sun had even risen, before the candle on the bedside had burned down to the wick. He woke up with Stede asleep next to him, an arm slung over his chest, drooling on his shoulder. And for a long while he didn’t move. He just lay awake thinking that all of this should have felt alien. It should have felt so strange to lie in bed with someone who loved him, unarmed and undressed, stripped of his darkness like paint stripped from wooden walls, curtains flung open, like some regular man.
Falling in love, it had always been difficult to imagine this part. It was one thing to fuck, it was another to lie still as the sun rose, another thing to listen to someone’s breathing, to trail fingers down arms and wait paitently for something to happen. And now that it was here, it was beyond him to describe it. He couldn’t have imagined a stillness like this if he’d tried. He lay in bed, and all he felt was warmth, like a campfire had taken on in his belly, as though he’d exhale and breathe out smoke and warm embers. And it was so comfortable. He was like someone who had been sleeping in the gutter finally having made it to a bed, like warm water, like an old friend.
The darkness was a kind of panic, the infatuation was a kind of panic, but now, here, there was no panic left in him, all wrung out and weightless. When it had come to him that this was how it was going to end up it had come to him all at once, and a moment later he was waking up in bed, and Stede had come back to him. It felt as though he was finally again able to feel the sheets against his skin and relish in the quality of good linen, able again to see it all clearly, this beautiful ship with the arching timbers and solid doors. When he’d been dark so had everything else, and now he could see it all plainly. The nice things were nice again and he revelled in them.
Last night, they’d sat on the floor together and shared a supper of bread and marmalade, breaking the rolls open in their hands and passing a butter knife between them. And none of it had tasted as sweet since he’d left. Even the liquor had taken on a kind of reverie now that he could taste it. They’d lit candles and the light had taken his breath away, Stede with his greasy blond hair and tired eyes, sucking the dropped marmalade from his thumb. He’d just gazed, like someone looking at a painting in a museum, overwhelmed by the beauty of it, like a completely dark room with a stained glass window, transfixed by the glow.
“Hey, what happened?” He’d asked. His voice had hardly raised, had hardly sounded like himself, “That night?”
Stede had looked back at him for a moment, blinking as though he hadn’t thought he’d ask, so wonderful and clueless and terrible. And then his gaze had slid away, almost sheepish.
“Now, I don’t think it's important.”
His hand had tightened around the bread and his teeth had grit and a little ugliness had slipped out.
“Just fucking tell me.”
Stede’s eyes had met his in an instant, surprised by the force in his voice. Before he shrugged.
“Well, I, I went back to Mary, our house,” he’d said, pasting the butter onto the bread as though all of this was easy and no big deal and there was nothing to see here.
“Your wife?”
“Well, my ex-wife now. She’s a widow,” Stede had looked up at him, with a nervous little smile, “Stede Bonnet is dead, you know.”
He’d listened to the whole story. Stede was quiet at first, as though he was ashamed, as though it was a confessional. But it became clear, about Mary, about the life she was living, about the jungle cat and the grand piano and the stagecoach. And the journey across the seas in a dingy, it was just like he had done, albeit slower, rockier. And it became clear that he liked this woman, respected her, but that he didn’t love her, didn’t love her like a man might meet a thousand reputable people and not loved nine hundred and ninety nine of them.
And Stede had smiled at him, smiled at him all delicate and sheepish. He didn’t smile at anyone else like that.
“That's a pretty extraordinary story,” was all he’d ended up saying, no more or less himself than he had been before he heard it. It should have been a relief to hear the truth, to know that it wasn’t that Stede hadn’t come, but that he’d been intercepted, interrupted. Instead it was just another truth, one of the many, and he still felt the coil of the darkness around his heart and the desire to reach out to him and touch his cheek and the two lived in harmony inside of his ribs.
“Well, I am a pirate,” Stede had said, almost smiling, as though it was a joke.
And between them the opportunity had come for him to explain himself as well, to explain the empty bookshelves, the blackened walls, the missing finery and furniture. But he didn’t take it, and Stede didn’t ask, just gave him that sad little half smile, and stood, brushing the crumbs from his lap, talking about needing to wash up.
After dinner they had sat together on stools in the washroom with a basin between them, full of warm water and lavender soap. Stede had combed it through his hair, and Ed had scrubbed the soot from his jaw and they took their bodies back. They stripped thoughtlessly down to their britches, and wrung the water from sponges, and it was nice, it felt like starting again.
He’d been doing this for so long, since he was a kid, since the very first boat, the first wash room. It was familiar and warm, just the two of them, this easy tedium of removing the debt of the months between baths, a month's worth of salt spray and muck and sand and gunpowder.
And at some point he did it for Stede as well, because it had felt so right to do so. It felt right to do it for him, to wash the muck from his skin with careful hands, to give service like a gift, an offering, an apology, whatever it needed to be, whatever he didn’t have in him to say aloud.
It had felt right to take his hands in his own, and take the gentlest sponge and work from the shoulder, to the elbow, and down to the palms, dirty nails and rope burns. He took off the mud marks and the sand. He washed water over his skin and kissed each knuckle on his left hand before he moved on to the right. And all the while Stede gazed at him, the canary that loved him, that meant to marry him, that saw him and saw something good, something worth loving. He had looked up at some point, to see him there, looking back.
“What?” He’d grunted.
“I just think you’re very handsome, that's all.”
He had laughed. The sound had bubbled out of him out of nowhere and he’d almost choked. He hadn’t laughed in a while now. He hadn’t found anything funny.
“I think you look like a filthy bastard.”
When he looked up again Stede had kissed him like someone who had finally mustered the nerve, like someone jumping off a cliff, hands leaving the water and clutching his cheeks, fingers tangling into his hair. And had been so easy to kiss him back, to pull at him until the basin was kicked aside and it was just them in their underclothes, only half bathed, still tasting of salt water and lavender, pressed against one another as though they were going to run out of time. And before he knew it they were in bed, and his mouth was at Stede’s throat, and he was gentler than he ever had been in his whole life.
I want you to feel good , he had thought over and over, I want you to feel good, and I don’t want you to go. And like the light, like the marmalade, the linens, the ship around him, everything felt beautiful again.
Instead he’d whispered, “I love you,” and Stede had laughed, all breathless and hot. “Hey, I’m not fucking kidding, I love you.”
Stede had gazed at him, hand on his cheek in the candle light.
“That’s what I’d hoped.”
That’s what he’d hoped.
It replayed over and over in his mind as he lay on his back in the bed, stroking his finger up and down Stede’s forearm, warm skin against his own, one of his legs draped over Stede’s thigh, tangled up with him. He wanted to know how long he’d hoped, how quickly he’d recognised the sensation as hope, how long this thing between them had been brewing. But he was sleeping and Ed didn’t want to wake him.
He’d been a violent man for so long and now he was lying in bed with a man he loved, trying not to wake him. And he’d never understand what he’d done to deserve this, why someone might choose to love him, might have a little faith in his capacity for gentleness, but he wanted to be good. The desire overflowed out of him all hot and hungry, he wanted to be good. He felt it all the way down to his fingertips and his toes, he felt it in his throat, felt it in his heart, he wanted to be good, he wanted to be good. He wanted to be good down to his bones, in every part of him, he wanted to be good like Stede was good, good without even needing to think about it, good like the tides, like the seasons.
For the time being he got up. He eased himself out from under Stede’s arm, out from under the blankets, and for a moment he just stood there, gazing at him, his canary. And what a funny gift it was, to love and be loved by just the one person, and for that just one person to have courage and to find you and tell you and sleep in your bed.
How neat that was.
He roamed around the room, pulling his trousers back on, his tunic. And all this time he’d been putting on his clothes like someone getting ready to go into battle. Suddenly, it was so easy to put himself back together, dressing himself without every limb weighty and a pit in his stomach. He felt for the first time in weeks like he wasn’t made of lead.
Around him, the room was still dark, still dark like he’d designed it to be. It smelt damp and salty, and for the first time in months he let himself into Stede’s hidden closet. He walked from one end to the other with a candle lit in one hand, letting his fingers brush against the sleeves of elaborate garments, the fine fabrics all dusty to the touch. Crumpled in the corner he found Stede’s golden silk robe, and he pulled it around his shoulders because it felt right. All of this felt more right than it had in weeks, it felt easier and the world felt kinder and he moved more easily, like driftwood on a good swell.
By the time he got back to their room, Stede had rolled over in his sleep and the first gasp of the morning light had caught something on the floor. He stood over it, good band, emerald stone. Knowing Stede’s lineage it was probably an heirloom. He picked it up. It was nice and heavy in his hand, a bit gaudy, a wonderful shine to it, and it too felt right.
He’d need to get a ring too, for Stede. He didn’t have any heirlooms but he could just go to a jeweller, like a regular man does when he falls in love.
I think I’ll be a married man , he thought.
Purpose filled him, it stretched out from his chest down his arms to the tips of his fingers, he was going to make this work, he was going to be good. He was going to put it back together again, he was going to fix it and maintain it and he was going to be good.
…
“Good morning.”
Stede blinked at him through the mid morning light, all dainty and tousled. He looked like a wonderful little renaissance painting, except disgruntled.
“Uh, good morning, Ed.”
He hardly got to the end of his sentence before Ed kissed him, sitting on the side of the bed and kissing him like someone locking and unlocking a door just to make sure their key still worked. Stede’s hand found his collar, knuckles grazing against his skin, and it was wonderful, and easy, and his belly still fluttered like he was a school boy and this was a sweet gripped in a tight fist.
They parted, and he kissed Stede’s face all over while he laughed, each eye and each cheek, the corners of his mouth, like they’d been parted for days now, not the mere hours since Ed had gotten up.
“Darling, the crew?”
Ed leaned back, Stede’s hand on his knee and what a delight it was to be looked at and to feel seen clearly. Stede looked at him, and loved him, and still somehow managed to see him clearly.
“They're fine. We didn’t even pull up anchor.”
“Oh that's good.”
Ed watched him relax, leaning back in bed, stroking his knee as though it hardly occurred to him.
And there was so much to do, there was so much he wanted to say. He wanted to rebuild, he wanted to reconfirm every truth over and over, he wanted it carved into the deck with a knife, he wanted to tattoo it onto his chest that he was loved and he was going to be good, he was going to get better. He wanted to lie down next to him and listen to his heart beat. He wanted to row ashore in a dinghy and get a ring, any ring, just so that they could be married by the next evening. He wanted to go fast, but something in him had gone slow. Something in him had recognised that what Stede had offered when he’d returned was time, was an eternity from this moment, it was the promise that he would never have to rush the words, that he’d have years and years to whisper them in his ear.
So instead he reached out and held his cheek in his calloused hand, and gazed at him.
“I think we’ll be married,” he said, “if you’ll have me.”
Stede smiled at him.
“It’d be my pleasure, darling,” he answered.
And how wonderful that was.