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The darkness was different on land. Or maybe it was specifically the darkness of the forest that seemed thicker, heavier, warmer to Ed. It was the fact that the air didn’t move as much, maybe — the trees blocked the breezes that would have thrummed the ratlines on the sea.
The point was, it was very dark and he wasn’t lost.
What he was doing was having a fucking brilliant and romantic idea, which was to pick some flowers before meeting Stede at the dock. Then he could turn up with them, like, “Oh, these? Just came across ‘em in the woods. Thought you might like them.” Very casual. Suave. Ed’s experience with romance was pretty thin, but he did know that flowers were a Thing.
Only finding flowers to pick was harder than he expected. It involved going off the path, and in the dark that turned out to be a bit of a problem, since he couldn’t tell what fucking direction he was headed in. He did find some flowers, at least, white ones that smelled pretty nice — there might have been other ones he’d stumbled past, but he’d seen these because they were practically glowing against the darkness. Which was cool and special and kind of reminded him of Stede. Not that Stede glowed, but the metaphor, the way he sort of stood out from the dark, shitty world of piracy. He didn’t know. Maybe he wouldn’t say that part out loud.
He did have a fantastic sense of timing, though, so he knew it was getting to the point when he should be at the dock. Half an hour behind Stede, that’s what he’d said, and it was probably getting on, mmmm, ten ‘til that point. So he had to get back to a path to get his bearings, figure out if he was walking toward the sea or away from it.
Noises were starting to filter through the darkness to him, though, so he paused. Other people out in the forest probably meant he was close to a path, but of course they were also a danger. Couldn’t get captured right now — not when Stede was counting on him, and when they were fucking minutes away from spending the rest of their lives doing fuck-all in China. No lantern light, though, so he could probably creep around them if he could manage to be reasonably quiet himself.
But the voices were coming nearer. Ed took a half step back, trying to gauge how quickly he could move without breaking a twig or something, not paying any attention to the actual words growled out by whoever it was bashing through the trees, until one sentence captured his attention.
“Stede Bonnet … is not a human.”
It was amazing how those six words suddenly sharpened his mind, honed it down to a needle-like point.
Two people talking about Stede in the woods by themselves? Discarded the idea. Someone with Stede — the voice was familiar — that fuckwit admiral Stede had taunted into losing his temper and being clobbered by marines. There was also Stede’s much more familiar tone, but wobbly and soft and indistinct.
“You’re a monster,” the fuckwit went on, like he wasn’t talking about himself, or even Ed, rather than Stede. “A plague.”
Creeping closer. Ed did step on a twig, but nobody seemed to notice. His eyes were adjusted enough to the darkness to catch the glint of moonlight on metal. Couldn’t rush him, he could shoot in the confusion and hit Stede, who was presumably already in front of the barrel. Take it nice and slow.
“You defile beautiful things.” The loathing in the man’s voice made Ed sick. He’d known men like that, too many men like that, nearly all the men he’d known were like that when you got down to it — men who thought the ugly in life was beautiful and that actual beautiful things like peace and comfort and warmth were worthless or disgusting. “My dear brother.” Oh, who gave a shit about his fucking brother. “Your own family.” Not like Stede had done anything to them, as far as Ed was aware, and he couldn’t imagine Stede was hiding that he’d murdered them too.
“You’ve even managed to bring history’s greatest pirate to ruin.”
If the fucker hadn’t signed his own death warrant already by walking Stede out into the dark with a gun, he sure had now. He said something else, but Ed couldn’t hear it over the blood pounding in his ears, something else demeaning about Stede.
How dare he. How dare he. How fucking dare he act like Stede hadn’t — hadn’t pulled Ed up out of the waves, hadn’t saved him, hadn’t made his life a million times better than it had ever been, hadn’t given him friendship and trust and all the things he hadn’t even realized he’d never had?
He was close enough now to hear Stede take a ragged breath, and the sob in his voice when he replied, “I think you’re right — in fact, I completely agree.”
More blood pounding, teeth gritting, bile rising. Was he close enough to do it — jump out, wrestle away the gun, shoot to kill? It would be the first time since … the first time, but he was ready. He had to be.
It all happened quickly, so quickly Ed couldn’t process it all. “You don’t fool me,” said the admiral, and Ed knew that tone, knew it meant that he was going to end it now, and so he started forward without giving a shit about being heard anymore, and the fucker started forward too, and then there was a gunshot and Stede was screaming, a sound of despair ripping out of his throat and into Ed’s chest. But there was no horribly spreading red stain on his shirt, he was fine and whole and not dying, and Ed wrapped him in his arms and turned him away from the body.
There was nothing he could say, Ed knew, so he just held Stede through the tears. Stede’s hands seized the back of his shirt in rough fistfuls, pulling at it so hard it probably would have torn if it wasn’t such coarse material — but he wasn’t pulling away, that was the main thing.
“It’s okay,” he tried, and then made the soft shushing noises his mum used to make to him once upon a time whenever his dad had torn through the house. “You’re good. We’re both good.”
In the sobs, there were words that Ed couldn’t make out until Stede’s breathing slowed slightly. “I’m sorry, Ed, I’m so sorry, I didn’t — I shouldn’t —”
“Hey. Hey, man, come on.” He pushed Stede away, just a little bit, just enough so that they could make eye contact. Stede’s eyes were still absolutely wild. “Nothing to apologize for. You didn’t fucking do it.”
“No, I — not that — but —”
“Take a breath. Come on, all the way in, all the way out.”
Stede was fighting against his own lungs, but he did manage to cool the hyperventilating. “Ed, he’s right — he was right.”
“What? No, man —”
“No, he is, he was, he —” Another choked sob, but this one a little more controlled. “Ed, I do — what he said, I ruin things, all the time — look what I’ve done to you —”
It was profoundly fucking weird to see Stede falling apart like this. Ed was doing all he could to keep his balance because one of them needed to, but there was a lot to process. Stede was bright and bubbly and enthusiastic about piracy and all the plans he made. He had that rich-white-man confidence that in anyone else made Ed want to get out a knife and start stabbing. He was so fucking sure of himself that he wore soft, pretty fabrics and curled his hair and dared anybody to say shit.
Or not. Because the Stede Bonnet Ed knew, or thought he knew, wouldn’t react like this to some asshole admiral. Hell, Ed had seen Stede react to the asshole admiral on board the ship, just after his failed execution! He’d called him Mister Fucking Wavy Blade!
But then … Stede had seen Ed order a man skinned with a snail fork, and had also seen him go to pieces in a bathtub.
So he cupped Stede’s face in his hands, and said firmly, “Hey. I’m your friend, remember? You haven’t done anything to me.”
Blinking through miserable tears, Stede insisted, “You signed your life away because of me, Ed.”
“Wasn’t much of a life until I met you.” Which felt good to say. Really, really good. “Like I told you on the beach — the last few weeks have been way better than the rest of it. And that’s because of you, Stede.” He licked his lips and went out on a limb. “Love.”
Frustratingly, Stede didn’t seem to notice the word at all. “And — and Mary, and the children. Oh god, Ed, I just left them! They could — anything could have happened to them.”
Oh, Ed did not want to think about that. Had been guiltily avoiding the thought of Stede’s family ever since he caught sight of the little portraits on the mantel. Tried to tell himself that Stede’s kids and his wife — his wife — weren’t crying themselves to sleep every night, waiting for him to come home, while Ed had been making eyes at him in the moonlight.
The body was still there, quiet and cooling in the moonlight, too. Its blood was gently pooling in the dust. The scene was half soothing, half unsettling.
“Come on,” said Ed, giving Stede’s hands a little tug in the opposite direction. “Let’s go.”
Not to the dinghy, though. Together they stumbled through the underbrush to get to the shore by the most direct route, and when they made it to the beach they kept stumbling until they were nearly in the surf. Stede stared up at the stars, the thin light reflecting off the tear tracks on his cheeks that were only just beginning to dry; Ed stared at Stede. Out in the open, he seemed to be able to breathe better, his chest rising and falling more like it was supposed to, while clearly something went on behind his eyes.
Maybe, a treacherous voice in the back of his head growled, Stede was changing his mind. Maybe underneath all of his enthusiasm, he really just wanted to go back home. Be embraced by his wife, have his kids jump up on him for a piggyback ride or whatever. Maybe it was all a game to him and he was done with it. With Ed.
Ed swallowed, and it took what seemed like all his guts to choke out, “So — what do you want to do?”
Stede kept looking up, then suddenly came back to himself like he’d broken a spell. Gazing around like he wasn’t entirely sure how he’d gotten there, he clenched his hands up into little fists and knocked them against his thighs. “I don’t —” He cut himself off and looked down at his feet. Hey, where were his fucking shoes? Shit, his feet were probably all cut up on the bottom from walking around the woods. (Cute feet, though. That was an insane thing to think, but he couldn’t help but notice.) “Ed, I think I need to go back. To my family, I mean.”
“Yeah. Yep,” Ed managed to get out, even though his lungs felt like they’d had all the air sucked out of them. He shouldn’t be surprised, he knew Stede had people somewhere, of course Stede would want — well, wouldn’t want him, it was just a fleeting —
“I need to end things properly,” Stede went on. “The way I should have done it the first time.”
The noise that came out of Ed’s throat defied description, a combination of a groan and a question and an assortment of consonants. “You, um,” he said when he could finally control his tongue again. “End things?”
“Well, yes, of course.” He gave Ed that adorable confused look, like he didn’t understand how Ed could possibly misunderstand. “Before we go to China. I think Mary’s probably angry. The whole declaring-me-dead thing, remember?”
“Uh. Uh-huh.” His mouth was suddenly dry, and he swallowed a bunch of times to try to fix it.
Stede’s eyes softened. “You’ll come with me, won’t you?”
“With you?” It ought to be illegal to be as confusing as Stede Bonnet managed to be every damn day, but then, Ed reflected, he was a pirate, so illegal didn’t seem like it would matter much either way. But still, he felt like he was about to start gasping for breath every bit as badly as Stede had been when they were standing over the body. “Well, I mean — might be kind of awkward with me there …”
He didn’t know what he should be saying. Maybe, he thought wildly, he should just kiss Stede again? Then he wouldn’t have to figure out the whole complicated situation Stede was laying in front of him at all, or not until they stopped kissing, anyway, but that was something for future Ed to worry about.
But Stede was right there, waiting patiently with his eyebrows a little raised, like he was hopeful about what Ed’s answer might be.
“I’d really like it,” he said. “I mean, I understand if you wanted to go back to the ship, but … I’m better when you’re with me. I think.”
And Ed wasn’t sure he believed that, how could Stede be better when he was already the best? Stede leaned in toward him, though, just a bit, and the knuckles of one hand brushed against the back of one of Ed’s. It felt like … well, not a sign, but it settled things. All it took was a slight pressure back and Stede’s fist slowly, softly unfurled, so Ed could press his palm to Stede’s and their fingers could interlace.
Both of them exhaled at the same time, glanced down at their hands, and then exchanged wry smiles.
“Yes,” said Ed. “Yeah. Fuck it. Yeah, let’s go see your family.”
“Yeah?”
“Abso-fucking-lutely.” Now that he’d made the decision, Ed felt so good he could hardly believe it, but that was always the way, wasn’t it?
“Well, then … I guess we should start moving, it’s going to take us a while to get there.” Stede looked off to the woods, then up the coast. “That’s north, isn’t it? We’ll need to go north.”
“Hey.” Ed gave a little tug on the hand in his grasp to make Stede look at him again. “You’ve got no shoes on, man. Come on, dock’s this way. We’ll take the dinghy.”
He loved that smile of Stede’s, practically vibrated with how much he loved it. “Oh, Ed. You think of everything, don’t you?”
“I think …” Ed paused, then pushed on. “I think I’m better when you’re with me, too.”