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“Oranges,” Ed says one evening at sunset, with a thoughtful look on his face. “I think I’d choose oranges.”
They’re on the deck, playing a game of desert island. Wee John has asked Ed what food item he would take with him.
“Of course, I did actually get stranded on a desert island once,” Ed continues, and a gasp ripples through the crew as they huddle closer to him, eager for a story.
“What happened?” the Swede pipes up. Ed leans back and clears his throat.
“It was a dark and stormy night…”
It’s a gruesome tale, full of thrills and near-misses, and the crew are enrapt. The very ocean seems to quiet around them to listen to the great Blackbeard recount his heroics.
Stede finds the plot a little difficult to follow. His gaze wanders along the path of tattoos swirling up Ed’s arm, the muscles moving under inked skin. Ed tells the crew about an encounter with a creature of otherworldly beauty – “now I’m not saying it was a mermaid, but, y’know, I’m not saying it wasn’t” – and Stede notices the little wrinkles in the corners of Ed’s eyes when he grins, the way his hair moves in the light breeze. Ed tells them about a man-o’-war he once captured, the ease with which he bends other men to his will, and when he turns to smile at Stede, a little boastful, Stede feels as defenceless as any man Ed’s ever held hostage.
Later that night, the rosy sunset has given way to a still, starry night. Under golden lamplight, the only thing that disturbs the peace is the clash of two blades and the laughter of the men holding them. Stede is more skilled with a sword now, and he’s never been a more dedicated pupil than under Ed’s patient, good-humoured instruction.
Then their practice takes a turn – I could teach you a more advanced trick of the trade. A dangerous glint in Ed’s eye and a cocked pistol – act, or die. This is followed by a rush of panic that ends with Ed drawing shaky breaths in Stede’s arms, Stede’s own heart nearly tearing itself out of his chest in agony when he tugs at the blade stuck in Ed’s side.
Their bodies press together, their breaths mingle as they gasp at the close contact. Blood soaks through Stede's shirt where they touch. And the whole time, Ed leans on him, hand on his shoulder and gaze fixed on Stede’s face. Trusting, even through the pain.
Stede manages to get the blade out and the sword falls from his nerveless fingers onto the deck, slick and shiny with red. He stands, rooted to the spot, one hand gripping his friend's waist and the other clumsily pressing against the stab wound in his bare stomach. The skin is warm and increasingly wet, and it pulses with Ed’s heartbeat. Stede lets out a whimper.
“Alright.” Ed straightens up with a grunt. “Got any bandages? Don’t wanna get blood all over your fancy ship.”
Stede grimaces at the casual tone. “Yes, of course. Come on.” He keeps his arm around Ed’s waist, and Ed’s arm stays slung around Stede’s shoulders, and together they make their way into Stede’s cabin. Stede helps him shrug off his jacket, pulls the t-shirt over his head and unwraps the soft black necktie. They leave the discarded clothes on the floor as they stumble into the bathroom, where Stede motions at Ed to sit on the edge of the tub while he gets the first aid kit out.
Ed hisses and grips Stede’s shoulder as Stede pours rubbing alcohol into his wounds. The air smells of blood and booze and Stede trembles at the violence of it all. He looks at the rusty red staining his hands and a voice in his head whispers: you’ve done something monstrous. He looks at the scars scattered around Ed’s abdomen and thinks: how many monsters before me?
”You alright, mate?” Ed’s fingers gently tilt his chin up.
”Fuck, Ed.” Stede shakes his head. ”Why’d you do that, you absolute madman?” He grabs a clean roll of bandages and starts wrapping the fabric tightly around Ed’s middle. Blood seeps through the first few layers, red blooming on white.
“That trick might be the difference between life and death, some day.” Ed’s tone is light but when Stede looks up, his eyes are dark and serious. “If you’re really gonna commit to this lifestyle, you need to know how to keep yourself safe.”
Stede swallows and edges closer to adjust the bandage around Ed’s back. His fingers brush lightly against the ridge of Ed’s spine, and the man shivers. “A rather less hands-on approach would have worked just as well,” he mutters against Ed’s shoulder.
The roll of fabric runs out and he tucks the end neatly into the finished bandage. His hands linger, wanting to make sure the bandage is secure, not wanting to stop touching. Ed is warm, now almost feverishly so. He looks a little pale in the flickering candlelight and a smear of blood glistens on his temple.
“You’ve got blood on your…” Stede dips his finger into the bottle of rubbing alcohol and leans in to wipe off the blood. Ed stills, almost like he’s stopped breathing, and his eyes fall closed when Stede’s thumb rubs the stain from his skin. Stede’s fingertips push into his hairline, briefly, accidentally, and Ed lets out a small strangled noise. His hair is surprisingly soft, a little damp with sweat. Stede pulls back.
“There. It’s gone.”
Ed blinks and breathes in. “Thank you.”
Stede pats his shoulder, not sure what else to do with his hands. “Now, I think you’d better lie down. You can have the bed.”
Ed’s eyes go wide. “What, your bed?”
“Yes. I’ll sleep on the sofa tonight.”
Ed stands up with a hand on his stomach and winces. “No, no. I’ll sleep on the deck. Or the sofa.”
“Nonsense, man. You need to be comfortable.”
“I’m comfortable anywhere.” Ed sways a little where he stands. Stede rushes to grab his elbow.
“Oh, hush. You nursed me back to health when I was stabbed. Let me do the same for you.”
“Yeah, ‘cept this isn’t as serious because I actually know how to take the blade where it doesn’t do any damage.” But his hand has returned to grip Stede’s shoulder in a way that suggests otherwise.
“Okay,” Stede says. “Lesson duly noted. Now, off to bed with you.”
xxx
Stede sleeps less than soundly that night. It’s incredible really, how a sofa that’s always been perfectly comfortable can transform into something completely useless as soon as you try to kip on it. The gentle rocking of the sea keeps almost tilting him off the seat, and he jolts awake, time and time again, from dreams where he’s falling. Once or twice he gets up to check on Ed and finds him fast asleep with his arm over his bandaged stomach and long hair spilling over Stede’s pillows. The moonlight paints his skin silver, and Stede has to stay a while to make sure he’s breathing still.
He wonders about the time he himself spent unconscious, when Blackbeard was a new arrival on this ship and, by the crew’s account, spent quite a bit of time by his bedside. What did Ed see then? Did he watch over Stede hoping that he’d keep breathing, or that he’d stop? All Stede remembers are feverish nightmares and a cool, calloused hand that pulled him out of them. Warm eyes that looked into his and told him everything was fine. And just like that, it was.
As sunrise sneaks its way into the captain’s quarters, Stede finally falls into an exhausted slumber on the uncomfortable sofa. When he wakes up, his bed is neatly made and Ed is gone from it.
xxx
Izzy is particularly nasty to Stede following the stabbing incident, and Stede can’t blame him. The bandage is visible where Ed’s shirt rides up, and while Ed shrugs the whole thing off – ”some late-night fencing, no biggie” – it pains Stede to be reminded of the injury he caused. Ed deserves nice things, gentle things, and Stede suddenly thinks of the barrel full of oranges in the galley. So, he grabs a pastry cookbook from his shelf and pays a visit to Roach.
xxx
Roach takes his time with the cake (and grumbles something about Stede’s recipe using up too many oranges) so it’s after dinner when Stede is finally able to invite Ed into the captain’s quarters where he has set the table with tall candles and his nicest cake stand.
Ed stalks in, only a slight change in his posture betraying the fact he’s hurt. He takes in the scene and raises an eyebrow.
”What’s this then?”
“I had Roach make you a cake,” Stede announces. “To say I’m sorry for stabbing you.”
Ed frowns. “I pointed a gun at you and told you to do it. I’m pretty sure you were crying a little the whole time.”
“Maybe I was, maybe I wasn’t. But I am sorry for hurting you. Anyway, it’s an orange cake, since you like oranges.”
“I do?”
It’s Stede’s turn to frown. Ed hurries to continue, “I mean I do, but how d'you know that?”
“You said so the other night. When we were on the deck. You said you’d pick them as your desert island food.”
Ed’s eyes crinkle with a fond smile. “Guess I did, yeah.”
“Well, sit down. Have some tea, and cake.”
“You do realise this is overkill, right?” Ed looks pleased, despite himself. “You’ve nothing to apologise for.”
“Consider this a celebration, then. My first time stabbing someone.”
Ed chuckles. “Jesus Christ. Alright.”
Stede watches Ed prepare his tea, makes a mental note of the frankly alarming amount of sugar Ed spoons into his cup. It’s surreal to think that he now knows how the great pirate Blackbeard takes his tea.
The cake is nice, although not as orangey as Stede had hoped based on the recipe. The 40-orange glaze glimmers in the candlelight and silver spoons clink against fine china.
”What would your desert island food be?” Ed asks him.
Stede pauses to think. ”Am I allowed to say sandwiches? With salmon or cucumber filling. They’d go nicely with the beach vibes.”
”They’d go bad pretty quickly. You’re stranded and it’s a hot, sunny day.”
”No, you’re right. Let's hope it never comes to that.”
Conversation drifts away from desert islands and then back, like the ocean waves moving lazily outside. Ed rolls his eyes a little every time he looks at the cake, but at Stede’s insistence he takes a second slice and then a third. Stede watches for signs that he’s still in pain, but Ed slumps comfortably in his chair, loose-limbed and sprawling.
“If I had to pick a person for a desert island,” Ed says, and licks his spoon with a contented look on his face. His eyes flick up to Stede. “It’d be you.”
Stede waves his hand and tries to dismiss the warmth spreading in his chest. “You’d be better off with Roach. He’s the one who can actually bake.”
“Yeah, but is there an oven on the desert island? Do we have flour and… other cake things and shit? I don’t think so.”
“You have oranges.”
“And do you not like them?”
“What, oranges?”
“Yeah.”
“No, I do.”
“Then I’d choose you and we can eat our oranges and maybe the mermaids will rescue us at some point.”
“Have you really seen mermaids? I thought they… I mean, there’s no way, surely.”
”I dunno,” Ed shrugs. ”I was a bit worse for wear at the time, having been stranded on a desert island and all. They were very pretty and they sang.”
”Pretty… girls?” For some reason, this feels like an important question. There’s a tight knot in Stede’s stomach as he watches Ed shrug again.
”I guess. That doesn’t really matter though. To me.” For some reason, Ed is looking at him intently, like it’s important to him that Stede understands.
”Oh. Huh.”
”Anyway, it makes for a good story, I think.” Ed tucks back into the cake.
”Oh, rather. Captain Blackbeard and mermaids. It’s like something out of a storybook.” Stede glances at his bookshelves, full of silly stories and romantic notions of what life could be, and his heart sinks. ”And now here you are. Not one of your most exciting adventures I daresay.”
”Nah, mate. I think this is nice.”
”Even though I’m not a mermaid?”
Ed smiles behind his beard. ”Especially cos you’re not a mermaid. They’re fickle as fuck.”
Stede leans back with a chuckle and crosses his legs under the table. His foot brushes against a sturdy leather boot, and stays resting against it. “Tell me another story. From your travels.”
”Hm.”
A silence stretches out. Stede sips tea, Ed dissects an orange slice with a pastry fork and impressive precision. Slowly, he speaks.
“Once upon a time, there was a pirate captain who’d grown pretty fucking bored of his life. He was a living legend, but he didn’t feel… alive, anymore. People called him Blackbeard and made ridiculous illustrations of him in books. But that wasn’t really him. People were just seeing what they wanted to see.”
“Sounds sad,” Stede says.
“No. See, once upon a time also, there was this very fancy man, with a fancy ship, who wanted to be a pirate and was being very fucking stubborn about it. He wasn’t as famous as the great Blackbeard, but it sounded like he was having fun with his dumb little crew.”
“Ah. I think I know this one.”
“Hmm. Anyway, one day the fancy man had voluntarily climbed onboard a Spanish Navy vessel and gotten himself stabbed and hanged. An astonishingly stupid move, one that absolutely compelled the pirate captain to go and meet this fucking guy. Because he’d seen some absurd shit in his life but this… This was something else. And so he rescued him from that Spanish ship.”
“I’m sure the man was very grateful.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes. Grateful for saving his life, and for the chance to meet the legendary pirate captain.”
Ed smiles at him. “That puts quite a lot of pressure on the pirate captain to live up to the legend.”
“But he does! He’s a brilliant sailor, and a fearless pirate, and an absolute joy to be around.”
“You’re hijacking my story.”
“Sorry.”
“No worries. Anyway, the fancy man turns out to be very fancy indeed, but also kind, and fun. They have fun together, the pirate captain and the fancy man. There’s no desert islands and no mermaids but they go to parties and raid little merchant ships and it’s… enough.”
”It is?”
”Yeah. It’s nice.”
”That’s… That’s not a bad story, actually. Blackbeard and the Gentleman Pirate.”
”Mmh.”
Stede looks at his friend and feels a stupid smile spread over his face. Ed shifts closer.
“You’ve got a bit of frosting…” Ed gestures at Stede’s face, but before Stede can react, Ed has leaned in and his thumb is brushing against Stede’s chin, palm against the curve of his jaw. His thumb moves, it runs ever so lightly along the edge of Stede’s lower lip, and Stede stops breathing.
Ed’s head is tilted and he’s looking at Stede like there’s nothing else in the world worth looking at. His skin is rough with wind and sand and saltwater and his fingers smell of tobacco and orange peel, and his hands have held knives and guns but his touch is so gentle against Stede’s face. His eyes glow, golden in the candlelight. Then he pulls away and his hand falls to pat Stede on the shoulder. “There, all gone.”
Stede remembers to breathe again. “Thank you,” he whispers.
Ed looks away.
“And for the record,” Stede says. “For a desert island, I’d choose you. I think we make a good team.”
”Blackbeard and the Gentleman Pirate.”
”Yeah. Or Ed and Stede.”
Ed smiles. ”I like that.”