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“Love, I’ve got a very important question for you.”
Stede set down his tea. Ed didn’t typically bring up important topics over breakfast, but there’s a first time for everything.
“What is it, darling?”
Ed wrapped Stede’s pink floral robe tighter around him, his eyebrows knotted in thought. “Would you still love me if I had a tentacle?”
The look on Stede’s face was indecipherable. “Well, the answer is yes, first of all. I would still love you. Don’t have to think about that. Concerning logistics, though, I do have a few questions. I’m curious where said tentacle would be?”
“I don’t know, like, in place of my left arm or something.” Ed spooned some egg into his mouth. “Might be quite useful to have a tentacle arm. Could climb up riggings without any sort of ladder.”
Stede nodded, thoughtfully. “If you had a longer tentacle, I’m sure you could use it to grab things across the room. Would it be retractable?”
He hadn’t expected Stede to go this long without bringing up the obvious, more intimate uses for a tentacle, but he was willing to wait. “I’m not sure if there’s such a thing as a retractable tentacle, love.”
“Well since we’re dealing in hypotheticals, I’d love to have a boyfriend who can get me any book I choose with only the flick of a tentacle. The library is within tentacle distance of this table, I’d say.”
“Imagine how fucking freaked out all of our enemies would be.” There was a glint in Ed’s eyes. Mischief. “They’d be like ‘Oh no, it’s Blackbeard the tentacle man, we’d better fuck off before he takes his tentacle and… tentacles us… to death.’ Fucking terrifying.”
Stede smiled. “Where’d you get this idea anyway?”
“I overheard Black Pete and Lucius talking about whether Lucius would still love Pete if he was a worm, and I thought about the Kraken and how fun it’d be to have my own tentacle.”
Stede nodded. “An equally plausible hypothetical.” He paused, a small smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “You know, there’s another body part that could be replace with a tentacle, if we’re considering all options.”
Ah, there it was. Ed knew that Stede would bring it up eventually. He leaned forward, interested. “We absolutely are considering all options.”
“Might be interesting to have tentacle fingers, too. Although I’d imagine the slime would hinder their effectiveness. Don’t want you getting slime on everything you touch.”
Ed nodded, still wondering why Stede was dancing around it rather than just saying it. “Would you like it if I touched you with tentacle fingers?”
“Touched me how?” Stede was focused, this impossible hypothetical quickly becoming more of a good idea.
Ed grinned cheekily, his voice softening. “However you want to be touched, my dear.”
Stede shuddered, a chill running down his spine. “If you had a non-slimy tentacle, I’d be interested. Maybe if your tentacle was your… your penis.”
Now he’s said it. Fucking finally.
Ed made a noise of approval. “Slime would help in that case.”
Stede’s heart skipped a beat. He was right.
“If it was my penis I could move it side to side, Ed continued. “I could… sort of… change the angles. That could be quite interesting.”
Stede’s eyes widened. It’d definitely be interesting having something with that range of motion inside him.
They sat with that idea for a bit, Ed’s eyes locked on Stede’s face. His boyfriend was so incredibly expressive all the time, and he could read what was going through his mind without him saying a thing. It was entrancing, watching this man work out ideas of pleasure and coming to terms with something pleasurable that he didn’t know existed. Well, it was all hypothetical. Ed wasn’t going to actually grow a tentacle. Yet, Stede shifted in his chair, staring intently into his tea, his face moving ever so slightly as he thought.
“You ok, love?” Ed smirked.
“Yeah.” Stede snapped out of his reverie, eagerly turning his attention to his half-eaten breakfast. “Yes, dear, I’m fine.” He looked up at Ed and smiled. A light blush had spread across his cheeks and he looked so radiant and sexy like this. Ed almost suggested they ditch breakfast and move to the bed across the room.
“Too bad I’m not actually going to grow a tentacle. That would have been fun,” Ed teased.
“Yes. Fun.” Stede nodded curtly. “Indeed.”
They smiled knowingly at each other for a bit before Stede spoke again. “I know I’ve already answered your question, but I’d like to re-iterate that I’d absolutely still love you if you had a tentacle.”
“Yeah, but,” Ed’s mouth was half full. “Would you still love me if I was a worm?”
Stede chuckled. “Yes, dear, of course. Of course.”