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Ed notices the shift in the mood, and the worried looks. It’s weird, because he’s never bothered before. That was for other people (Izzy or someone else) to worry about. Sure, he’d known his crew, but he’d never known them, nor had they known him.
It’s different aboard the Revenge, and when he sees the lines around Olu’s face, or the way Pete’s weight rocks from side to side… he can pick up on it.
Alright, he’d have picked up on it before, but now he feels it and doesn’t want it to be there, where once upon a time it would have just been information.
Something is not-right, and when it’s not-right, it goes through the whole ship. No one’s more sensitive to that than Stede, and Ed doesn’t like it when Stede isn’t happy.
So he’ll need to work out what it is, and then find out who he makes fix it.
As he gets closer to the cabin they all share, Ed hears a familiar - if long-missed - noise. It’s reedy, breathy, and occasionally downright shrill. There’s even a snort or two mingled in, which means it’s really unusual.
It’s Izzy.
And Izzy is… laughing.
No wonder the crew are unsettled, most of them will never have heard it, and it’s not the kind of laughter you usually hear. Izzy’s always been self-conscious about the way he sounds, and that’s magnified a hundredfold when it comes to being amused. If he’s snorting, then he’s forgotten his qualms or has been pushed beyond it.
It does slightly resemble an asthmatic goat being inflated by bellows. With intermittent squeaking.
God, when was the last time he heard him like that? It isn’t that Izzy doesn’t find things amusing, it’s just…
It really has been a while. How much of that was Ed’s fault? He’d been… struggling. Things hadn’t been interesting like they used to be. There’d been no challenge, no… joie de vivre. He’d been utterly disinterested and the whole crew had--
Oh.
Right.
The whole crew had suffered because of his… melancholy.
Of course it’s the opposite for Stede, with him picking up on his crew’s mood. The man tries so desperately to broadcast cheer and positivity, even around the cracks in his own mask, where Ed…
Blackbeard. Blackbeard had made everyone else suffer.
It’s almost a gut-punch to realise that it must be Stede who’s making Izzy laugh like a demented, boiling kettle. Ed hasn’t been able to in the longest time, but Stede… that man wouldn’t give up trying even if you had his guts in your goddamn hands.
Fuck.
He shouldn’t feel jealous. He should feel grateful, because Stede is giving Izzy some of that joy he’s brought back into Ed’s life, too. It doesn’t detract from his own happiness, and it doesn’t do anything but make the world better, it’s just…
It’s hard. Hard, because it had always just been them. Ed - Blackbeard - and Izzy. Not always in lockstep, and not always seeing eye-to-eye, but they’d had one another’s backs through it all. He’d thought he was the only one who could make Izzy relax and let go like that, but he was clearly wrong.
He should be grateful that Izzy is happy.
He shouldn’t feel like an anchor sits on his chest, because it isn’t him. Shouldn’t wonder if maybe they will realise they’re better off without him, that he’s the only one truly making anyone miserable. Shouldn’t wonder if he should just… let them… let them be happy, because he’s not--
Ed must have rustled, or something, because as he’s peeking inside to see what’s going on, Stede turns his head from the book he’s reading - apparently to Izzy - and beams excessively in his direction, nodding in a ‘come hither’ way to summon him inside.
Izzy - who had been all teeth and creased eyes for a moment - follows his gaze with a sudden wariness and tension until he also meets Ed’s eyes. Then he settles down, a little mellow, less giggly than he was, but still relaxed.
Fuck. Fuck, but it hurts so fucking much. He’s happy. They’re happy. His Co-Captain and their First Mate, relaxing and sharing some private joke scrawled through the pages of one of Stede’s many, many books. It feels like being speared and flayed open and why does it hurt when they’re happy? Why does being happy hurt?
It does. So much. In that way that only love does, and only love can. Possibly the awareness of how easily it can go makes it that much sharper: no matter how hard he and Izzy tried, there’d been… it had… been…
Hard.
Long, hard months. Months he barely remembers, or remembers a day like it was a year in all its excruciating agonies. He knows he loves Izzy, but it - life - hadn’t been enough. He worries that this won’t, before long: that the clouds that chase him, that eat the wind from his sails and the fire from his heart will spoil this, too.
Knows how easy it would be to lose either, or both of them. He’d nearly lost Izzy forever because he couldn’t adapt to Stede to begin with, and then he’d nearly lost Stede forever when the man’s infernal need to try for his old life had thrown them all to the seven seas.
He knows what life is like without either of them, but he’s never lost both of them at once. One drunken night with Jack aside, he’s always had one of them, and even if it’s greedy, he knows he needs them both.
Stede nods again, trying to summon him inside, and Ed is powerless to resist. He wants to hear whatever it is that tickled Izzy’s ivories so much, and he wants to hear more of that laughter. Wants to just… close his eyes and bask in their contentment, or feel their giggles wash him clean of worry.
Wants to know how you do this, and don’t feel fear, or guilt, or jealousy. How you just… be happy.
He feels it more now than he has in years, but the edges of darkness still pull at the corners of his mind.
Ed just… wants Izzy to never stop laughing, and Stede to never stop proclaiming everything to be amazing, and due to come out fine. He wants Izzy to relax again, and he wants the lingering, slithering monster in his chest to exit and leave him for good.
He opens the door and steps into their warmth, and hopes his own mood won’t bring theirs down, but they lift him to meet them, instead.
They’re trying, for him. They didn’t click - except in the gunpowder sense - to begin with, but they’re finding their ways to work together because they both love him. They love him enough to fight for him, and alongside him. They trust him enough to let Blackbeard - and the Kraken - into their lives, hearts, beds.
He’s just going to have to try to fight as hard as them. They deserve happiness, and if he can’t feel his own, he can try to ensure they feel it instead.