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Stede’s been sick for a few weeks now, and Ed’s starting to get visibly nervous about it.
It’s not like Stede’s not nervous about it. He doesn’t like it. Just— It doesn’t help that Ed’s starting to get anxious, because Ed doesn’t really get anxious over things like this. Usually, anyways; he’s starting to get more sensitive about things like this, especially since— all that business with the flu, which, they’re past.
Anyways. Stede continues to feel awful, and Ed continues to grow concerned, and this can’t keep going the way it is, or someone’s going to snap, and soon.
Another week of lingering illness becomes another, and then a third, and then a month. It’s too much. Stede’s growing exhausted, and he promised Ed he’d talk to him about his— feelings, his body, the sensations of it, all that, so. He does, he makes himself talk; he sits Ed down, and he explains all of it. He—
He talks about feeling worse, and he talks about his anxiety, and Ed— pulls him into his arms.
“It’s gonna be okay,” Ed tells him, burying his face in Stede’s hair, and Stede doesn’t even know what to do. For a long minute, he’s just frozen, because this isn’t how he’s supposed to respond. He’s supposed to be angry, supposed to not understand, supposed to—
Well. Then again, this is the same man who responded to Stede’s sobbing admission that he’d been pregnant the first time by tattooing a snowflake on himself, so. Stede’s given up on predicting his reactions. All he knows is that he’s unpredictable, that he’s always going to help, that Stede can trust him, and that he cares. If nothing else— that’s always true.
“It’s probably nothing,” Stede tells him, tucked into Ed’s chest and his shoulder. “I just can’t—” He huffs a strained kind of laugh. “I can’t shake it, it seems. Maybe it’s just…”
He trails off in the instant that a bolt of lightning strikes him. The scorch is similarly painful, anyways; it feels as though he’s been electrified with realization, and, in the next beat, he wishes he hadn’t had the thought at all.
Unbidden tears rise up instantly, burning behind his eyes; his sinuses prickle, and he exhales a hitching breath.
“Just what?” Ed asks him, when Stede doesn’t offer any further words.
“Maybe I can’t do this anymore,” Stede says, voice quiet, nearly cracking again. He’s only been on the sea for a few years, and it was his dream, and already, he’s—
“Do what?” Ed asks. “Sail? You can do whatever the fuck you want, mate.”
Stede’s still quiet, for a moment, his head rushing, thoughts moving too fast for him to even begin processing. He tries to pick out a few, attempts to figure himself out, but he doesn’t like the conclusions he keeps coming to.
“I feel like I did before,” Stede starts to hesitantly explain. His heart is pounding in his chest, his hands clammy and trembling. It feels like he’s doing something wrong, and he hates himself for it, a little bit.
“Okay,” Ed says easily, ensconced here in the darkness with him.
All the children are fast asleep, in their own rooms. Just the thought of them has Stede’s chest tightening again. At least, he reminds himself, they’re not here for this; they don’t need to see their father fall apart over— over this, over—
“Before what?” Ed asks, waiting for Stede to keep going.
Stede clings tighter to him, twisting in nearer to him, letting him seek the comfort of being close. His insides are prickling; he has to make himself breathe.
“Before,” Stede says again, then clarifies, “With— I meant with the children. This is how I felt when I was pregnant.” His throat is impossibly thick when he has to add, “But…”
He can feel Ed’s muscles tensing up a little bit. It makes Stede’s own heart ram itself against his bones, flying so fast it feels like one single sustained beat.
“B—” Ed starts to ask.
Stede’s unable to keep his mouth shut anymore, thoughts starting to flow out automatically, cutting him off without even meaning to, interrupting with, “I don’t think it’s the same, Ed, I feel— I feel awful and I’ve gotten—” He huffs a hysterical sort of half-laugh and confesses, “I’ve gotten so old, Ed, I just— I think—” He tears up again, confesses, “What if I can’t have children anymore? What if— What if this is it? What if—” The words choke up, cut off; he can’t even keep going, can’t think about it, can’t—
“Hey,” Ed says, voice soft. “Hey, Stede, love—”
He’s cut off inadvertently when Stede hiccups around another sob, and he feels awful. It makes his throbbing head hurt worse, his aching chest tighten further, his twisting stomach convulse inside him.
“Shh,” Ed quiets him, rubbing his back.
“I’m sorry,” Stede apologizes, because he is, he feels— horrible, he feels like a child, he feels insane—
“Don’t be sorry,” Ed promises. “Hey, what the fuck? Don’t be fucking sorry, Stede. It’s okay.” He kisses the side of his head again, tells him, “I don’t care if you’re getting old, mate. I’m getting fucking old, too. You don’t need to have any more kids.”
Hearing those words come out of Ed’s mouth should be comforting, but all they do is make Stede fall apart all over again, burying himself in Ed’s chest when his crying starts up all over again.
“Wh—” Ed starts, then catches himself. “I didn’t— I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”
“No, I know,” Stede says. His words are thick, wet; he clears his throat, tells him through his tears, “I know, I— It’s fine, it’s natural, this is— this is normal, I just—”
His voice catches, and he can’t make himself say it.
Lucky him, Ed gets him no matter what he can or can’t make himself say.
“You want more?” Ed asks. He’s not judging him, just— asking. Stede still feels stung, because it’s foolish. They’ve got five kids for half the year that are their sole responsibility, and three for the whole year, all still so young. He shouldn’t want something like this, he shouldn’t— be this way, shouldn’t act this way, shouldn’t feel this way, shouldn’t, shouldn’t, shouldn’t. “We can always— You know, we can look for other Violas. Help some kids out, grab a bunch. Whoever we find.”
He actually manages to make Stede laugh, hiccuping a huff into Ed’s chest that’s genuinely amused.
Upwards, Stede tells Ed, “I’d fill the ship with children that way if you let me.”
“Then fill the ship with kids,” Ed replies.
Stede’s surprised enough that Ed successfully stops his tears, with that. He sounds like he means it, like it’s that easy, like it’s not a joke and it just— is.
“What?” Stede asks.
Though he can’t see Ed, trapped against his chest and buried in his bare skin, he can feel the way Ed shifts against him. He understands him; he’s comfortable with him; they’re together. He can trust him.
It’s not easy, but Stede remembers that he can be himself with Ed. Whoever that person is, whatever he wants— Ed loves him through it all, the same way he does with Ed. He reminds himself of that, then reminds himself a second time: it’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay.
“Do whatever you want,” Ed states, this time. “Who gives a shit? Have a hundred kids. Adopt a thousand more, put them on a million boats, I don’t care. Or— I do care, ‘cause I wanna be there, too. But, Stede—”
He readjusts them, his hand coming up to glide over Stede’s cheek. His thumb strokes along the edge of his jaw; he tilts his face up, kissing Stede between the eyes in the darkness.
Against his skin, Ed tells him, “I’m here no matter what, mate. I’m here for you. And it’s okay we’re getting older, mate. You’re still hot.”
“Ed,” Stede laughs.
“I’m serious,” Ed insists, and Stede just keeps laughing. “We’re both gonna get fucking old. My cock’ll stop working eventually. You gonna hate me then?”
“No,” Stede promises him through his laughter.
“Would you hate me if I stopped cumming good?” Ed asks him.
“What does that mean?” Stede asks, barely able to get the words out.
“I don’t know,” Ed tells him. “Would you, th—”
“No,” Stede answers, “I wouldn’t, Ed, of course not. I love you.”
“Then obviously I’m not gonna be upset if you’re just—” Ed stops, clearly trying to parse what words he wants to say and how to express what he’s feeling.
Stede melts into him, slipping in closer again, burying his face in his throat. He does feel a lot better here; the smell of Ed settles his stomach, and the feel of him soothes his aches, and the words he says calm his mind. Everything about him just makes him feel— just, so, so much better. Especially when Ed wraps his arms around him and dissolves back into the covers with him.
Above him, Stede hears Ed’s intake of breath before he gets himself coordinated to speak again, telling Stede, “I don’t care what we can or can’t do. I want you to feel good, and be good, and that’s it. We can deal with the rest.” His cheek brushes Stede’s temple when he nuzzles into him. “We can talk about all your feelings and all that shit all you want, babe. I’m sorry you’re feeling sad about it. I’ll give you every baby I can find if it makes you feel better.”
Stede laughs again, feeling so much lighter than he had before.
“I could take that deal,” Stede murmurs into him. “Ed, thank y—”
“Shut it,” Ed says. “You still got a lotta communicating to do, mate. Not letting you off the hook after all the talking you make me do.”
“Fine,” Stede replies. “In the morning.”
Ed settles deeper into their pillows, agreeing, “In the morning,” with a tightening of his grip around Stede, and that’s that.
They do talk about it more in the morning— and the next night, and for a couple of weeks after that, continuously. Stede has a lot of— he calls them complicated feelings, because that’s not untrue, but they’re also a sort of knot inside him. He’s got a lot of chaos on the inside, and some of it is sad, and he has to unravel them before he can work through them.
In his mind, he imagines himself unknotting each thread twisted up inside of him. When he’s untied them all, he pictures them being all laid out, nice and straight and neat, before he weaves them together into a pretty picture.
He imagines that picture could be him. He’s just got to get himself there, and Ed’s happy to help him through it, and the crew is so wonderful, and the children occupy most of his energy, and he’s happy.
Truly, Stede is happy. He’s so happy. And whenever he feels sad, Ed drops one— or more— of their kids into his lap, and he’s happy all over again.
He’s doing great. He just needs to get through this. Every day, he is getting through this.
It doesn’t make him feel any better.
Even as he starts mentally working through everything, the rest of him keeps feeling awful, and he really does start thinking he’s right. He witnessed Mary’s mother experience the same thing. It mildly horrifies him that he’s old enough for this, but he reminds himself he’s okay. He’s happy to be aging, to be getting older, to be doing all this with Ed, who makes everything so wonderful, so much better.
His emotions don’t always line up with the way he’s thinking, though. Half the time, he’s on the verge of falling apart. The other half, he’s trying to keep himself upright, because going through all of this makes him feel like true, actual shit.
“I think I’m dying,” he declares to Ed one morning, hiding in their bed with his head buried beneath their pillows.
“You can’t die,” Ed insists. “I’m not raising your kids alone, man.”
“Lucius will help,” Stede replies.
“Lucius most certainly will not,” Lucius chimes in, far too close. His voice makes Stede’s head throb; he burrows a little deeper into their pillows. “Are you going to get up today or not?”
“Not, man,” Ed answers for him. “Look at him.”
Stede’s not sure precisely what he looks like, but it must not be particularly pretty if they’re openly commenting on it over him. It means they’re confident in his lack of ability to respond, which—
—is perfectly reasonable, actually, because all he can answer with is a tired groan, muffled by the bed.
“Oh, perfect, another day of Blackbeard captaining solo,” Lucius says, “I’m sure this will go flawlessly,” with such a false brightness that Stede swiftly hears the thump of Ed swatting him somewhere on his body, followed by a low, “Fuck off.”
“Boy, I’m the nice one here,” Ed reminds them.
“Oh, stuff it,” Lucius disagrees, but Stede waves absently from the mess of the covers.
“He’s right,” Stede says, before he sighs, feeling the weight of it in his chest. “I’m such a bitch.”
Ed snorts a laugh; Lucius is much louder about his, and Stede digs himself a little deeper into their pillows and covers.
“Aren’t you supposed to tell him he’s not?” Lucius asks.
“He knows who he is,” Ed replies.
“Pete tells me I’m not a bitch,” Lucius says, and he sounds so prim and self-satisfied that Stede’s the one who snorts, this time.
“He’s a liar,” Stede mumbles in response.
There’s a beat of silence.
Then, Lucius bites out, “You are a bitch,” and Ed thumps him again.
“Fuck off, Spriggs,” Ed instructs him. There’s just— There is so much talking going on. Stede’s exhausted, and his head hurts, and his stomach hurts, and he’s sad, and—
“Yeesh,” Lucius comments when Stede blearily lifts his head, squinting against the sunlight in the room even through their closed curtains. “Shit, you do look awful. You know, maybe Jim had a point about—”
“No, they fucking didn’t,” Ed cuts him off. “Shut the fuck up. Go up on deck, fuck off.”
“About what?” Stede asks.
Lucius looks between the two of them, as far as Stede can tell through his eyelashes, and ends up clapping his hands together.
“You know what?” he says. “I’d rather not get involved in all of—” He motions with a wide circle between the three of them. “—this, so I’ll just—”
He jerks for the door, then, and he’s off before Ed can grab him. Swift on his course, he ducks into the children’s room, grabbing for Alma and Louis on the way out. Stede doesn’t understand they’ve even gone properly until he hears the click of the door to their quarters behind them.
It’s only then that he turns on Ed instead, squinting up at him, and—
Just— Fuck, he’s in love with him. Ed’s perfect.
“You’re perfect,” Stede tells him, groggy.
“Shut up,” Ed replies. “Stop covering me in kids.”
He really is covered in them. Hector and Juno are both swaddled against him, skin-to-skin, Unu in front and Hako in back, both of them wound in the wraps twisted across Ed’s torso, criss-crossing all over. On his hip, he’s holding Ariel, shifted towards his side to keep him out of the way of kicking his siblings— though, in Stede’s experience, it’s only a matter of time. Ari’s got his hands wound up in Ed’s beard, his head dropped on his shoulder, absently twisting strands together, dark eyes focused down.
“Unfortunately,” Stede replies, watching Ari’s hands moving, “I think I will.”
Ed drops his good knee on the edge of the bed, leaning down to kiss Stede. It’s an ordeal; one arm holds Ari to his side, and the other cradles Juno’s back. Stede smiles into the kiss without even thinking about it.
When Ed lifts his head again, a couple loose tendrils of his hair drift against Stede’s cheek.
“I’ll find you one,” Ed promises. “Just you wait.”
“Mm,” Stede hums, then furrows his brow. “What was Lucius talking about, before?”
“Hm?” Ed asks, a near-echo. He shakes his head, lifts himself up and away, the children all going up with him. “None of them know what the fuck they’re talking about. I told them not to fucking talk about it, actually. Maybe I can be the bitch captain today.”
“Do they know what’s happening?” Stede asks. Before Ed can answer him, he’s already continuing. “They do, don’t they? I knew it. I thought I would be well again before they’d get the chance to figure it out, but—” He sighs, heavily, then tells Ed, “It’s not supposed to be like this, you know. It’s— I mean, it isn’t meant to be easy, but this— Ed, I feel awful.”
Ed shifts Ariel around, shuffling them until he can set him on the bed. Ari pushes away from him, crawling right up the bed to tuck himself into Stede’s side. It settles something in Stede’s chest, and he lets him burrow in, wrapping an arm around him.
Arms free, hands open, Ed sits at Stede’s side. He takes the edge of the bed, reaching out to stroke Stede’s hair back from his face.
There’s something Ed’s not saying. Stede can tell. It’s written in every line of him, present on his face; Stede can read it written across every bit. The air’s thick with it.
“What is it?” Stede asks him. “They don’t think I’m dying, do they?”
“Stede,” Ed says, which isn’t ‘No,’ and Stede’s heart instantly starts pounding.
“They do,” Stede insists, his blood rushing in his ears. “Oh, God, Ed. I knew something was wrong, see— I knew it, I knew it wasn’t right, something isn’t right with this. I probably contracted some atrocious—”
“Stede,” Ed cuts him off, setting his fingertips over Stede’s lips. “You’re not fucking dying, love. I’ll tell you that much right now, you’re not going anywhere.”
Stede just looks up at him, for a moment. He doesn’t speak again until Ed removes his hand; when his fingers lift again, his mouth’s moving again.
“What are you thinking?” Stede asks, cautious, hesitant. He’s not sure he wants to hear this; he—
Well, he has suspected he might not have been entirely right, but he doesn’t know what else this could be. He couldn’t possibly be pregnant again, and he may not be going through menopause, so maybe he’s just sick. It’s not exactly a win, but at least there’s a chance of curing a sickness instead of just— indefinite suffering and wild guessing as to its source.
Though, he has been putting in a lot of emotional legwork towards accepting himself and everything he’s going through and he really thinks he’s done quite well. Right now, it’d probably be easiest if it were menopause. If he hadn’t been feeling quite so sick still, he imagines he’d be doing loads better than this, even.
“Stede,” Ed says, “hey,” and draws him back into the room with him. His heart’s still pounding, blood still coursing through his ears, but he manages to look at Ed through it. “Fucking shit, love. You look so fucking scared, don’t— It’s not that bad, it’s just stupid. I told them not to bring it up because it’s fucking stupid.”
Fighting the urge to speak again, Stede just waits, listening to Ed and anticipating the rest of it. Stupid or not, he wants to know. Maybe it’ll help explain the strangeness.
Ed blows out a breath, looking back towards the room at large. Tilting his own eyes downwards, Stede runs his hand through Ari’s hair, letting his fingertips stroke softly along his scalp. Ari’s pulling at the cords of Stede’s blouse, tugging and twisting them together over, and over, and over again.
“It’s Jim that said it,” Ed reminds him. “Not me.”
“I know,” Stede assures him. “It’s all Jim’s fault. It’s them I’ll be mad at, how’s that?”
Ed does smile a bit at Stede’s attempt at humor. It’s obvious he’s still stressed out, though, and it makes Stede feel a little strained, tight in the chest.
“They’re thinking that you’re…” Ed starts, then stops. He blows out a breath before he’s looking away; the lack of eye contact makes goosebump bump up all over Stede, up his arms and down his legs. “Fucking shit, Stede. It’s just— You know how you were when you were pregnant before.”
Stede doesn’t really need him to say any more than that. His chest crinkles in on itself, his hands starting to tremble. It all just makes him feel so much worse than he already does.
“I didn’t mean to—”
“I know,” Stede says, burying in Ariel’s hair, hiding his face. “I’m not pregnant, Ed.”
“I—”
“I’m finally,” Stede tells him, voice frayed to the verge of snapping apart, “coming to terms with what is happening. It’s not possible anymore, Ed. I’m done with— with that—”
“They have a point,” Ed pushes. “It’s not all that different fr—”
“Ed,” Stede cuts him off, finally breaking partway through the single syllable of his name. It’s mortifying, and upsetting, but— all of this is upsetting. He’s finally feeling better— mentally, if not physically— and he can’t afford to undo that work. There’s no space to backtrack. “I would love to have another child. I would. And we will. But we have five wonderful children, and I don’t think I can have any more myself, so we can just— focus on them right now.” His words are half-muffled by his son’s hair, but he tries to brighten anyways, insisting, “We’ll find all those children you want to find, and we’ll bring them all on the ship. But I can’t give you any more babies, Ed. We have to accept it.”
I have to accept it, echoes beneath what he’s said. His stomach hurts, his brain throbs, and he can’t go backwards on this.
Ed doesn’t speak, for a moment. It’s a long moment. Stede wraps his arms tighter around Ariel, holding him close; Ari winds his hands up in Stede’s hair, twining his own arms around his neck, fingers tangling up in the curls at his nape and holding on tight.
After a minute, the bed shifts, Ed shifting to sit just beside Stede on the edge of their bed.
A beat later, Ed’s fingertips drift through Stede’s hair, scratching the back of his head lightly.
“Sorry, love,” Ed says from above him. “I didn’t mean to make you sad. Just— Y’know. I thought…” He stops himself, this time. “I’m sorry.”
“There’s nothing to be sorry for,” Stede tells him, because there’s not. Stede gets it. Genuinely, he understands; he’s thought the same thing himself, more than once. But he’s felt sick for a while, and he’s older now, and he can’t imagine he’s pregnant again, no matter how badly he might want something like that, no matter how foolish that desire may be, no matter— no matter the logic of it, anyways. He can’t bring himself to care for the want. In a perfect world, he’d keep having children until the moment he died, he thinks. He’d—
He’d have Ed’s children, and sail around the seas with him, and then— then they’d retire with— with their dozen children and their white hair and their endless love and Stede’s not ready for that yet. He still wants to be in the middle part, not the end part.
“Love you,” Ed tells him. “No matter what.”
“Love you,” Stede murmurs back. He lifts his head, the beginnings of a migraine throbbing behind his eyes. “I don’t want to get my hopes up. You understand. Don’t you, Ed?”
Ed just nods, hair trailing down between them when he leans in and bends over to press a kiss to Stede’s forehead. Juno reaches from her place in the front of the sling, trying to grab at Stede’s chin; from Ed’s back, Hector exclaims when he sees Stede over his father’s shoulder, grinning wide at him for the moment they can see each other.
“You can work on knocking me up instead,” Ed tells him, drawing Stede’s attention back to him, making him snort a laugh. Ari pulls on his hair, lifting his head up just enough to examine them both.
Every now and then, an expression crosses his face that makes him look so much like Ed; he’s got one of them now, his dark eyes just as expressive as his father’s, looking at them with the warm, curious amusement that Ed gets when he’s puzzling something out.
“I love you,” is what Ari ends up saying, and Stede can’t help the grin that comes up in the next instant.
“I love you,” Stede tells him, kissing him on his round cheek. “You’re just like your father, you know. You always know just what to say.”
“Must be inherited,” Ed agrees. “Mini fucking geniuses, all of them. Right, kiddos?” Hector exclaims again, smacking his hands down on Ed’s back. “Fucking right.”
And, just like that, everything is okay again.
Stede tries not to think about Ed’s suggestion, but it’s clear that it’s not just Ed’s thought, or Lucius’s, or Jim’s, but rather a prevailing opinion amongst the crew overall. If he hadn’t put in so much work towards accepting all of this, he might feel worse about their obvious glances and repeated not-vague suggestions.
As it is, though, Stede’s handling himself. It’s not going to be long before the twins have their first birthday, and it’s the perfect goal for him to focus on. The thought really keeps him moving forward.
That doesn’t mean he doesn’t notice the way the crew watches him. He sees all of it. He sees how Ed watches him. He overhears the whispered conversations. He catches the motions in his direction. He’s not an idiot; they’ve got to be talking about him, and there’s little else to discuss regarding him. His piracy’s gotten loads better, by his own standards, so they likely aren’t thinking about mutiny again, and he can’t imagine they find him otherwise all that interesting. They’ve made that quite clear before, especially when they first became his crew.
His crew, he can handle. When Ari lifts his arms to him, though, the morning of the twins’ first birthday, and asks, “Is there another baby?” while Stede’s taking him up onto his hip, he thinks his head might explode.
“What makes you say that?” Stede asks, trying not to let himself sound as anxious as feels.
Ari shrugs. He’s as sensitive as Ed is, reads emotions like Stede does, and he shrugs again rather than answering verbally, burying his face in Stede’s shoulder.
“You’ve got two wonderful older siblings, and two lovely little siblings,” Stede reminds him— redirects him— and kisses the top of Ari’s head, his braids bumping up beneath his mouth. He laughs around a mouthful of frizz. “And they’re having their birthday today, remember? And you’ve made them such beautiful gifts. Do you remember where you hid them?”
Ari lifts his head, nodding vigorously. Wriggling, he drops himself down, sprinting back off towards his rooms as fast as his little legs will take him, small boots thudding into the wood beneath him the whole way.
In his absence, Stede’s mind is racing. Ariel is just a child. He’s hardly even three years old; he repeats lots of things that the crew says around him, but this— this wasn’t that. This is just his natural child’s curiosity, and his inherited perception, and— him. He’s just as observant as Ed, and just as direct as him, it seems.
He’s put in so much work into understanding himself, and aging, and he’s doing great. Phenomenal, even.
It’s not enough to stop his suspicion, anymore.
His stomach rolls; his throat tightens; one hand hesitantly lifts, then falls, over the space that a baby would be, if he were to have another baby.
He’s not going to have another baby, though. Isn’t—
“Here!” Ariel exclaims, sprinting back into the room again, arms full of his wrapped gifts. He put in a great deal of time with Stede, Ed, and Pete, carving wooden hearts with Juno scratched into one and Hector into the other. They’re not amazingly done, but they did let Ari take the lead; Stede loves them the more for it, his heart busting each time he sees them.
“Oh, perfect, darling,” Stede says, holding his hands out for him and his paper-wrapped packages. “Let’s bring them up on deck and find your father and your siblings, then. I’ll bet the party’s ready to start.”
Ariel’s all smiles, then, too excited to be held and carried, bounding out ahead of Stede, out from their quarters, into the hall, up towards the deck. Though Stede follows him every step of the way, he walks upwards just fine, keeps his balance— for the most part. He’s getting older; Stede almost can’t believe how he’s becoming such a little child. It doesn’t feel like he’s a baby anymore.
It’s been so long since Louis was a baby, and even longer since Alma was. And now, today, Juno and Hector are turning one. They’re not little little anymore, not newborns, not infants, they’re— proper babies.
By the time Stede makes his way up to the top of the stairs, Ari’s already running off to find Lucius and Pete, showing them the packages Stede had helped wrap the night before. So much older than he once was. Still so much younger than he’ll be. Stede feels young and old and both and neither. He’s himself.
Oh.
He’s just himself. It finally hits him.
He’s him. He’s getting older, and that’s who he is. There’s a chance he could be pregnant, and that’s who he is. There’s a chance he could never have another baby again, and that’s who he is. He’s himself. It’s all himself, and it’s all okay.
All this time, he’s been working so hard, and it all, just— clicked right into place. Just now.
Stede stands at the top of the stairs up on deck, hand on the top rail, and looks out over the crew, his family. The party has only just started. Jim has Viola on their shoulders, her hands wrapped up tight in fistfuls of their hair, talking excited strings of half-nonsense, half-coherence down at Oluwande and John beside them. Roach and Louis are busy stacking food on lines of tablecloth-covered barrels, the Swede dragging seats into place around them.
For the occasion, Roach made a great big strawberry cake— with Louis’ assistance, and Stede smiles watching his son continuously examine the cake, surveilling the crew, making sure nothing happens to the dessert now that it’s up and out in the air, exposed to the party as a whole.
He’s right to keep an eye on it, because Alma and Izzy are clearly conniving to take some of it, talking to each other in hushed tones near the wheel. They keep stealing glances towards the table; now and then, Alma will laugh, then cover her mouth while Izzy scolds her, gruff, playful.
Even now, while he watches them, Alma leans up with her hand cupped over her mouth to say something right into Izzy’s ear. His attention shifts, and Stede looks where he’s looking to see Ed already sneaking up on the table.
Ed.
He’s been trying to get Stede to figure this out the whole time. Doesn’t matter what he’s going through; just matters who he is.
Ed has Juno on one hip and Hector on the other, arms around both of them. His hair is still mostly wound up in the half-bun Stede had twisted for him earlier, though it’s clear the twins have yanked a couple of locks free, hanging near his face, at the sides of his head, twisting to curl near his neck, down his back. He’s dressed as softly as the children, today, loose lilac blouse and darker eggplant trousers. A banyan stolen from Stede’s side of their wardrobe keeps him protected from the setting sun, golden above them, shimmering him all over in floral-patterned tones of mint and rose.
It’s astounding how much the children look like him, especially when their colors are dressed to match. If Stede were a fussier man, he’d be more frustrated with the fact that he is the one who grew them, just for them to look like Ed at the end, but the truth of it is, he loves that they look like him. Just seeing them together always makes his heart clench, a little bit. Especially now, remembering how they were born a year ago, how Ed had been the one to pull them out of his body, how happy they had both been.
Every day since has been even better, Stede thinks. Each and every one. He’s happy no matter what; he’s happy.
Even from this distance, Stede can hear Ed’s rumbling voice, and it pulls him from the tumbling of his own thoughts, even if he can’t make out the exact words. He watches as Ed says something to Juno, Hector, and Ariel, joined at their side, clinging to Ed’s robe, peering up at him with those matching eyes, listening to whatever it is he’s telling them.
Having both arms occupied by the children doesn’t leave any hands free for whatever it is Ed’s clearly planning. It’s obvious in the next moment that he’s adapted to just that problem, though, when Ari reaches up for him and wriggles the cake plate closer to the edge, stretching to reach.
“Hey!” Alma calls from across the deck, and Ariel freezes, head snapping towards her.
“Just do it, mate!” Ed calls over her, encouraging Ari. “Go, go, go—”
“That’s mine,” Alma shouts. She shoves the sword in her hands towards Izzy before she’s gripping the rail in front of her and vaulting it, landing on both feet on the lower deck with a heavy thud that makes Stede’s heart leap into his throat.
“No!” Louis screams over all of them. “It’s not time yet!”
“It’s nobody’s cake but those kids,” Roach tries to say, but Louis is already chasing after Alma, and the crew are cheering on one child or the other, and Frenchie is playing a dramatic riff in accompaniment, and Ariel is sprinting to hide behind Izzy, out of the way of all the chaos, and Ed—
Ed is in the middle of it all, laughing. Laughing, with such obvious, open delight on his face. Stede doesn’t think he’s ever seen him happier, and his heart clenches.
Stede can feel someone looking at him, then, and drops down to meet them, realizes that Juno is staring right at him. When their eyes meet, she breaks open into a grin, both hands flying up into the air. Even from this distance, Stede can hear her shriek of, “Da!”
At her call, Ed turns, eyes finding her before they’re lifting up to see where she’s looking. When he sees Stede, he grins, too, blossoming with such warmth that Stede can feel a corresponding heat bloom inside of him, too.
As he watches, Ed shifts both twins up, taking their wrists in the edges of his fingertips, trying to wave their hands for them without letting either of them slip from his grip. Both of them get the hint quick enough, waving excitedly towards Stede, and Stede waves right back, finally pushing himself up the last bit to join the party.
Just like every event on the Mercy— and every event on the Revenge before her— this is pure madness. Stede can barely take a step without someone nearly crashing into him. In the end, though, he’s spent a hell of a lot of time and effort putting this party together, and he’d like to enjoy it.
He takes Hector from Ed, for a while, before they’re swapped again and he has Juno, and then Alma takes Juno and he’s allowed to just watch, for a bit. Even if his hands itch a little bit for not having one of his children with him.
Sitting at the end of their long makeshift table of barrels and cloths, Stede just— watches it all unfold. He is a bit relieved, though— to have a break, he means. He’s still not feeling quite well, though he’s hoping his stomach might settle long enough for the strawberry cake, because it does look good. His headache has subsided for the moment, anyways, and he’s hoping that it won’t come back before the end of the party. While he doesn’t feel great, he’s— manageable, at the moment. As long as he doesn’t move too much, he thinks.
When a familiar hand touches the back of his neck, he can’t help smiling, tilting back into it, lifting his head to meet Ed’s eyes above him.
“Hey,” Ed says. “Happy birthday.”
Stede smiles, and Ed ducks down, giving him a kiss. He’s expecting it to be quick, but Ed takes his chin in his hand and holds him in place, keeping him still so he can tilt his head and deepen their kiss, lips parting, tongue gliding briefly along Stede’s before he’s inhaling and withdrawing. Stede hadn’t even realized he closed his eyes; he opens them, now, and sees Ed smiling all the wider above him.
“It’s not my birthday,” Stede reminds him, breathless.
“You are the one who birthed them, yeah?” Ed asks. He pinches his chin, then kisses his nose. “Thanks for that. Happy birthday, all that.”
His hand runs through Stede’s hair, and his eyes drift back up to the party, floating from one person to the next. Stede follows his line of sight, watching the crew and the children egging on Viola as Jim helps her hold a small knife. As they watch, Lucius pins up a target he’s hastily drawn on a scrap of paper.
Jim assists Viola in flinging her tiny blade, and it hits the outer rim of the charcoal target. A massive roar goes around, cheers and whistles; at Alma’s feet, Stede watches Ari cover his ears, scowling up at the noise. His distress evaporates almost instantly when he sees Jim hoist Viola up above their head, victorious, Viola laughing with obvious delight the whole way up.
Instantly, Ariel’s tugging on Alma’s sleeve, pointing over at Jim and Viola. He says something upwards to his sister; she rolls her eyes, but she ducks down, hoisting him up and setting him on her own shoulders.
Ari throws his hands into the air, cheering for Viola with everybody else, and Stede can’t help smiling.
“Where’d you leave the twins?” Stede asks Ed sideways, unable to take his eyes off the scene unfolding before them.
“Aw, shit,” Ed replies. “Was I supposed to have them?”
Stede’s heart leaps into his throat, and he looks up sharply at Ed just to find him grinning. In the next instant, Stede deflates, scowling.
“You’re awful,” he insists, though Ed just laughs.
“They’re fine, love,” Ed tells him. He takes the crown of Stede’s head more firmly in his hands, turning it for him. “Iz and the kid have ‘em, see?”
Izzy and Lucius do, indeed, have the children, trying valiantly to stop them from continuing on Ed’s cake-stealing quest. Every time they stop one of them from trying to wriggle free and escape, determined to head for the cake in the center of the tables, the other one starts trying to break from their grip, and the process starts all over again.
Watching Juno spill out of Izzy’s hands right into Lucius’s makes Stede’s heart jump, but he can’t help smiling when he watches Izzy drop down, immediately trying to catch her even though she’s already been caught.
In the next beat, Izzy’s frowning down at her. Even from this far away, Stede can easily read his expressions, his lips: “Don’t do that, you shit,” which has Stede glancing up to Ed with a sigh.
“Ah, they’re fine,” Ed comments. He lets his arm drift across Stede’s shoulders, leaning more fully into him. Stede tilts into him in return, head resting against Ed’s side, just enjoying the comforting presence of him. It’s enjoyable even when Ed raises his voice to shout, “You better not drop my fucking kid, Iz!”
“She dropped her-fucking-self!” Izzy calls back, trying to get the writhing mass of limbs that Juno has become back into a normal grip. “Fucking shit, girl, get the fuck back over here—”
“Your daughter,” Stede comments upwards.
“Fuck, no,” Ed replies. “That’s all you.”
He tucks his hand down into Stede’s side, tickling him until Stede’s laughing and writhing right into him, making a liar out of himself and an honest man out of Ed in the process. Ed, for his part, just wraps his arms around Stede and bends to kiss the shell of his ear.
“Thank you,” Stede says to him.
“For what?” Ed asks. “I didn’t shit ‘em out. That was all you, babe. Like I said, happy birthday—”
“No, not that,” Stede says. He finds he’s not quite sure what he means, and then his eyes are prickling with tears. “Oh, g—”
“Aw.” Ed takes his chin in his hand again, tilting him up. “Feeling emotional, babe? Want me to do something fucked up to take your mind off it?”
“I love you,” Stede says, reaching up to wrap his fingers around Ed’s wrist, squeezing.
Ed smiles down at him. “I love you, too. What a—”
“I just realized I’m happy,” Stede tells him, and Ed’s smile gets all the happier, and Stede can feel himself smiling in return. “I’m just— I’m very, very happy, Ed. Thank you.”
Ed jostles his face a bit, leaning down to press a kiss between his eyes.
“Thank you,” he says simply, and straightens back up, letting Stede lean into him. “We probably should do something about that cake soon, mate. It’s gonna end up in the fucking sea before anyone’ll get to eat it.”
“Ah,” Stede replies. “Yes, we probably should, just let m—”
He doesn’t mean to cut himself off, but he’s stopped in an instant by a feeling he hasn’t felt in—
Well, a feeling he hasn’t felt in about a year, and one he thought he’d never feel again.
His hand instinctively goes to his side, feeling the place he just felt that small movement, and he’s already laughing.
“You alright?” Ed asks him, looking down at him with direct bewilderment. Probably wondering if Stede’s gone mad, by the looks of it. His eyes follow Stede’s hand to his stomach, and he asks, “Your tummy hurting, babe? Want—”
Stede shakes his head, grabbing for Ed’s hand, twisting their fingers together.
“You were right,” Stede tells him, heart racing in his chest. His mind is already thinking of a thousand things at once— mentally recalculating his relationship to his own body, jumping ahead into plans for the future, trying to figure out where he might be in this process, emotions slamming him from every angle, thinking, thinking, thinking— but he tries to fight through it.
“Well, yeah,” Ed agrees. A beat later, he asks, “About what, though?”
Pulling Ed’s hand up, Stede sets it in the same place he just felt the kick inside him. He knows what quickening feels like; he’s been through it four times before.
Five, now, he amends, even if only to himself.
There’s not another movement— at least, not one that Ed can feel, still small and inside him, drifting away again until they’re nothing. Stede knows what he felt, though, and he goes back over his own sickness so quickly he thinks he’s going to be sick, for a moment.
Ed may not feel anything, but he’s familiar enough with the motion Stede’s made that he laughs.
“No fucking way,” he says. “I fucking told you.”
“Oh, and very gracious you are about it, aren’t you?” Stede says. He means to snap it playfully, but he can’t keep the grin off his face long enough.
Ed’s hand leaves his side to come up instead, both palms cradling Stede’s face. Downwards, he says, “You’re a fucking maniac, and I love you.”
“I told you,” Stede says, upwards, “I’d have a dozen of your children, if you let me.”
Ed breaks into a grin of explicit joy, written across every bit of him.
“Getting close,” Ed warns him. “Don’t tempt me.”
“What if I want to?” Stede asks.
“Pervert,” Ed accuses, smiling, and Stede laughs. “We’re at our kids’ birthday party, lunatic. You can reward me for knocking you up again later.” He kisses Stede on the forehead, then lets their noses drift together, eyes meeting from impossibly close-up, the angle making Stede smile again. “I’m still gonna adopt every orphan we find. You promised.”
“I wouldn’t expect anything less,” Stede assures him.
He has visions of a ship full of their children, both from birth and from adoption, a family made up of his crew and his children and his love, as mad as it may seem from the outside.
Stede dreams, too, of the end of all this, for a moment. He dreams of being old, one day— truly old, ancient old, imagining himself with papery skin and failing vision and a heart that could give out any day— and he dreams of what his life might be like, when that happens. He imagines Ed beside him, and a seaside cottage of their own, and his family around him, and he’s so blissfully overjoyed that he thinks he can taste it in the back of his mouth, sweet as sugar.
Ed ducks in for another kiss, fingertips sifting lightly through the curls at Stede’s hairline, stroking them back with such a soft touch that Stede’s heart aches.
“Should we tell ‘em?” Ed asks, so close and so quiet that his lips move against Stede’s, a breath that only he can hear.
Stede considers it, then shakes his head against Ed’s, moving his just a bit in the process.
“It’s the twins’ birthday,” Stede tells him. “It’s their day. We’ll tell everyone soon. Yeah?”
Ed kisses his temple, agrees, “Yeah.”
They stand there, for another moment, before Louis shrieks, “Stop!”
Stede sighs. Above him, Ed says, “Probably time for the cake.”
“Yes, please.” Stede pushes himself to his feet, making to head down the table to lead the singing of the birthday song and cut the cake with Louis’ careful supervision and distribute the sweets after, but Ed—
Ed stops him, before he can get too far, winding an arm around Stede’s waist, pulling him in for another long kiss. He takes Stede’s breath away; he feels better than he has in weeks, or possibly even months, and can’t help but melt right into him, dissolving until he’s even being held by Ed, supporting him upright.
“Love you,” Ed insists. He wraps his arms even tighter around him, ducking kisses into his throat, repeating his warm claims of, “I love you, I love you, I love you,” into Stede’s neck, stopping now and then to smile. “Too fucking good to be true, Stede. And I found you in the middle of the fucking ocean. Lucky fucking me.”
“Ah,” Stede corrects him. “We found each other.”
“Mm,” Ed hedges, almost disagreeing, head tilting to the side. Stede tugs him into another kiss before he can argue.