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Slow. Well, Stede thought, blinking dazedly through the morning sun at the spider tattoo that was all he could see of Ed on the sofa. Slow could mean a lot of things, couldn’t it?
Separate sleeping arrangements. Stede in his nook, Ed hidden under a mountain of blankets on the sofa or in a lonely corner on deck, where everyone would be able to hear if he tried to make a break for it or kill someone.
Standing together before a stabbed-up wall that needed a new coat of paint, pondering the merits of ivory or sandstone or cream or maybe the crew could collaborate on a mural? while the inch of space between Ed’s shoulder and Stede’s shoulder stretched and pulled.
Someone placed between them at dinner, shrinking into the bench as if Edward might take a stab at them with his butter knife between courses. No funny business allowed.
Quick breath when Ed laughed. Taking the laugh and holding it in his lungs like oxygen.
Half a kiss in the moonlight, and nothing since.
Stede thought about whispering Ed’s name to see if he was awake. They could talk a bit before the day began. He had so missed talking to Ed.
He decided against and let himself look at the spider. It was quite the specimen, very mean-looking. But it lived on Edward’s hand. It couldn’t be so bad, surely. A little misunderstood perhaps.
Ed’s arm had fallen down the sofa in the night. His long, curling fingers were just brushing the floor, the ring somehow twisted in the wrong way so only the band was visible from Stede’s position in bed. The gem must have been pressing into Ed’s palm on the inside. Maybe he fell asleep twisting it on his finger.
Really Stede could only see the spider and two of Ed’s fingers and his thumb, but the other fingers were presumably there too. The shadows against the foot of the sofa were too bumpy for Ed to have suffered some sort of horrible silent injury in the night.
If Stede shuffled a little way down the bed he might be able to check for injuries and also see most or even all of Ed’s forearm. A little further and he would see everything from Ed’s shoulder and all the way down to the tips of his fingers. A feast for the eyes. Ed’s arm just resting there for Stede to look at, and only the early morning sun glancing through the window to know he had done it. Not the crew. Not even Ed.
A whole arm for Stede to trace his gaze along. Inch by glacial inch, imagining what it might feel like. To take his hand and hold. To press his fingers to the inside of his elbow or to take his upper arm and nudge him ever so slightly sideways to look in a different direction. Or to pull him in. Hold him tight. Smile at each other so close that only the two of them would know.
Stede looked and looked and held his breath and when he couldn’t possibly go another moment without moving, or breathing, he rolled onto his other side to stare out at the brilliant sky instead. Heart so very quick in his chest.