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“All right. Now we’re ready. Go ahead and gently find the hole—just tease the tip across the surface until you find the place you want to be. It’ll catch, you just have the decide where to go.”
Ed frowns in concentration. “Like this?”
“Exactly.” Stede has this way of saying things like that and making it sound like the highest honours, like the shiniest golden praise. Warmth spreads through Ed’s chest. “And once you find the right place, go ahead and push through. Gently, now, you don’t want to pull too much at the hole.”
The silence in the captain’s cabin is huge. Ed feels like he’s holding his breath as he does as Stede instructs—dragging the tip across the surface, feeling it catch. His brain wants to race ahead of him, wants to envision every step in glorious detail, wants to envision doing this again and again and again, all the things he can learn, the things he can do, he can master this, he knows he can—
—stop, focus. This, here, now. He needed to get through this push first and only this push.
“Is this—?”
“Almost there now. Remember what you’re looking for.”
Ed lets his breath out in one big rush. Blinks to clear his field of vision, tries again. This time, when the tip finds the hole and stops, Stede makes an approving noise in the back of his throat, and after checking and double-checking that it’s right, that everything is as it should be, Ed pushes in.
“Perfect,” Stede purrs in his ear. “All the way, all the way until you feel it stop. Don’t tug—just a natural stop.” Ed swallows, but he did as Stede said. “Perfect. And now find your next position, and pull it back out.”
It’s easier to find the way, this time. Now that he has a reference point. The drag back out is just as beautiful as the push in. “Again?”
“Again. Three more in a row, just like that.”
In, and out. In, and out. In, and out. One at a time. Ed peers at his work, leaning in close to see what he’s doing. He isn’t trembling—Blackbeard doesn’t fucking tremble, obviously—but his brain has always had the better of him and there’s so much that can go wrong—what if he tugs too hard, what if the angle is off, what if he ruins it? If he warps the hole or pushes in sideways, what if he’s just too rough for the delicacy of it, what if it’s all just too fine a thing for a person like him, what if he’s—
“That’s it, darling,” Stede says, and—stop, focus.
Ed breathes again. Comes back to himself a little. He’s got to think about what he’s actually doing, not about all the what-ifs and whethers.
He’s all right. He’s doing all right.
He takes a moment to study his position, to adjust the grasp of his fingers. He’s doing all right, he thinks, and when he glances back up at Stede, Stede smiles like he agrees.
“Same back again, right?”
Stede beams a little brighter. “Just so.”
In, and out. In, and out. In, and out. Ed feels his mind drift with the movement of the ship beneath them, catches himself wondering if they’re turning toward port—is that wind, or just the twist of the anchors, or is Buttons fooling with the helm?—before he pulls himself back again: stop. Focus.
In, and out.
“Now you just move up a little, there you go, and do it over again, and be careful you don’t get caught on anything—there you go—you want the slide to stay smooth and even, yes? And two more, this time.”
In, and out. In, and out.
Stede straightens from where he’s been bent over Ed’s shoulder; Ed misses the heat of him immediately. Maybe they should break out the extra blankets from the hold; it’ll be cold on deck, maybe they should set the crew to bunk in the jam room? If it gets too chilly Stede will want the fire lit, he hopes they have enough firewood on board, though they could probably spare part of the staircase balustrade if they need—
No. Stay here. Focus.
Ed stops. Breathes in, breathes out. Readjusts his position and starts again, matching the two rhythms together. The inhale, the push in. The exhale, the push out. Again, again.
“You’re doing wonderfully. You can take it from here?”
In, and out. In, and out. In, and out.
He nods, but doesn’t dare look away in case he loses the rhythm again. Already he has to fight the urge to watch Stede move around the cabin, the urge to revisit the inventory counts, the urge to wonder again about firewood.
Stop, focus. In, Ed thinks, like he could force all those other thoughts out by sheer force of will. And out.
Stede lets him work for a while, only looking over here and again to check in. His presence in the room is a comfort, of course it is, it always is, but the longer Ed works, the narrower his focus becomes. He hears Stede settle into one of the armchairs, but doesn’t know what book he’s reading; he hears the crew on deck chattering, laughing, but doesn’t know what game they’re playing.
None of that matters.
There’s only this, only here, and he lets the steady rhythm wash over him, smooth down his edges. Lets the trust in himself build, bit by bit, until he can loosen bits and pieces of his thoughts and just let them go. Lets the spread of colour as he works fascinate, lets it settle into his mind, lets it take over, addictive.
The tension eases out of him. The rush in his head slows, and the sharp jumps from here to there to this to that—the star charts he’s been working off and the smell of salt and oranges and the curry they had for dinner, the sound of Izzy half-limping through the hall and Jim and Oluwande speaking softly in Spanish—
—the grandma down the street Ed himself had learned Spanish from, sitting under her watchful eye when there was no one else to look after him, before he looked after himself, before ahhh, cómo has crecido, when he’d helped her bake bread when her knees were too painful to stand—
—there’s pain in his own knee now, and in his neck, could have a sword fitted into a cane as a ruse, that’d be kind of sexy, wouldn’t it, like the way Stede sometimes rubs his knee with those broad hands, those hands, those beautiful hands, the way Stede touches, the way Stede holds—you’re too tense, darling—
—will he keep hanging on, will he stay, will he leave, will Ed ever stop breaking both their hearts on the altar of can I trust this, will he ever stop fucking thinking—
—and it’s been too much, too fast, too endless, too relentless, the whole universe trying to fit into his fucking head and he’d just wanted to breathe, to catch his breath, to stop feeling like he was going to rip himself or maybe the ship apart—but then suddenly Stede had known, Stede always knows, Stede, Stede, who’d sat him down and commandeered his two hands and his whole mind, and now he’s here and all of that just abruptly—
—stops.
The only thing that’s left is this: in, and out. In, and out. In, and out.
The night spins out, slow and treacly. The candles flicker and gutter. Ed works without thinking, without worrying, without spiraling thoughts out into the atmosphere.
Later he’ll think the hours of silence in his own head are the most beautiful gift Stede has ever given him.
In, and out. In, and out. In, and out.
“Darling,” Stede says.
Ed blinks, looks up. Blinks again, and once more; his eyes are dry, he’s been staring. He’s suddenly aware of how dark it’s gotten, how late. There’s a new crick in his neck and his hands are cramping, but the first thought he thinks that isn’t in, and out, is so simple it’s all worth it.
Oh.
Stede smiles knowingly, indulgently. “It’s time for bed, I think. How are you feeling?”
Slow, Ed thinks. He feels slow, and everything in his head is quiet.
He can’t remember the last time he had the luxury of quiet.
“Here,” Stede says, when Ed doesn’t answer. He reaches down and takes the hoop frame out of Ed’s hands, careful to slide the needle with its thread up and down through the fabric, far away from Ed’s work, so it lays flat and won’t be lost. The spread of coloured threads he’d laid out—pink and blue and gold, black and red and an array of greens ranging from bright yellowy tones to deep emeralds—has transformed one corner of the evenweave into something lush and precious.
Little x’s, lined up in rows to create something new.
Ed had done that.
He’d had learned to sew ages ago, of course. Necessary skill for a sailor anyway, but he’d learned from his mum and Abuela as they’d sat together, doing the mending from the Carmody estate. Come, show me your little hands, Abuela would say, laughing. Be careful, now, Mum would say, only slightly more stern, and they’d coo and ahh over his wiggly lines all the same.
He’d gotten better, obviously. Could sew a straight line now, for one, and a sail if the occasion called for it. Flesh, if he had to.
This is different. Same skill set, really, just applied a tiny bit differently—decoratively, deliberately. As though Ed deserves to take the time to do something a little more, a little nicer, a little gentler than just survive. As though Ed deserves fine things, and fine moments; as though Ed deserves comfort, and comforting.
Stede doesn’t coo over his work, but Ed knows the lines are straight and smooth, and Stede smiles that soft, affectionate smile he reserves for their softest, quietest moments. He folds the wooden hoop into a square of fabric, tucking it all in like folding paper into an envelope, to keep Ed’s work safe.
Ed’s so slow right now he can see every lovingly measured fold for what it is: Stede, caring for him. Taking care of him.
Keeping him safe too.
“Stede,” he says.
Stede turns back and smiles that smile at him, so gentle it feels like silk on his skin. He takes Ed’s hand, helps him up out of his seat, and Ed keeps going, can’t help himself, steps right into his arms and folds into him, wraps himself around his frame. Stede’s warm, and solid, and his heart in his chest beats slow and even and steady in Ed’s ears, echoing down behind Ed’s own ribs.
“Thank you,” he mumbles against Stede’s neck.
One of Stede’s hands cradles the back of Ed’s neck, the other firm on his back. He breathes in, hums. Breathes out. “’Course, Ed. Of course.”
They stand there for a long, long time, and Ed thinks, blessedly, about nothing at all.
*
Two months later, Stede comes back from a raid, triumphant, with a large circular frame that may have once held a mirror. Some other sod’s bad luck makes Ed’s great, though, and Stede presents it with a flourish.
Ed whoops and grins, kisses Stede square on the mouth, and says, “It’s fucking perfect, it’ll fit perfect.”
That night, there’s a new sign on the door of the captain’s cabin. It’s got lush foliage, brilliant flowers, and a pink and yellow moth in one corner—all made out of those tiny little x’s, those jewel-toned threads.
In the center it says, in big red stitched letters:
THINK BEFORE YOU KNOCK
I HAD THE PATIENCE TO STAB THIS 10,000 TIMES
But below that, right at the very bottom, there’s a much smaller set of letters on either side of a small red heart. And—if you know where to look—that’s where they still are: stitched together into the very fabric of forever.
ET ❤️ SB
Co-Captains