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Chapter Text

Ed blinks awake, only to squeeze his eyes tightly closed again as the daylight threatens to stab right through his eyeballs and into his brain. He groans as the vestiges of unconsciousness recede and a thousand different pains creep into his awareness. Fuck. He hurts everywhere; feels like he’s been run over by a dragon-and-cart. 

Slowly, cautiously, he forces his eyelids open. He doesn’t recognise his surroundings. He’s in a bed with simple, white cotton sheets. The bed is in an austere room. The only other furniture is a wooden chair. His clothes are neatly folded in a pile on the seat. He gingerly makes to sit up, but manages to raise his upper body by only a few inches before he flops back down onto the pillow in defeat. He cranes his neck the little he can to take stock of his body and discovers that he’s wearing a shapeless cotton gown. Ah, okay. So he’s in a House of Healing, then. 

The memory springs upon him, unbidden. 

He’s racing, soaring high above the fields, the wind whipping through his hair as Queen Anne slices through the air. He’s vying for first place against Zheng Yi Sao, the scales of her crimson dragon sparkling in Ed’s peripheral vision. Ed leans forward, shouting encouragement to Queen Anne, squeezing his knees to encourage her to tuck her wings in tighter, streamlining her shape for a burst of speed. And then – 

Well, then it all goes blank. There’s nothing but darkness from that moment until the second that Ed had woken up in this bed. 

The door to the room opens and a healer steps through, her head buried in a pile of notes. She glances up at Ed with a smile. “Ah, Mr. Teach, you’re awake.”

Ed grunts. “How long was I out?”

“You were admitted yesterday. You’ve been unconscious for the better part of twenty-four hours.”

“Twenty-four…? Fuck.” Ed tries to move again, cursing as the pain radiates through him. “How bad is it?” 

The healer glances back down at her notes. “Nothing broken. No internal injuries as far as we can tell. You’re badly bruised, but it’s nothing that a few days of bed rest won’t fix. All in all, you were very lucky, Mr. Teach. It seems your dragon shielded you from the worst of it. I daresay she saved your life.”

“Shit! Queen Anne. Is she – do you know if she made it?” Ed asks, fingers scrabbling at the blankets in an effort to throw them off. 

A shadow passes across the healer’s face, her brow furrowing in sympathy. Ice courses through Ed’s veins as he prepares for the worst. 

“As far as I’m aware, she is alive,” the healer says. “Though by all accounts, the accident was a bad one. I don’t know if…”

Ed doesn’t wait to hear the rest. He throws off the blankets and shoves the pain aside, levering himself up to sitting.

The healer reaches out, clearly trying to still him. “Mr. Teach, you need your rest –”

“No!” Ed growls through gritted teeth, as he bats her hand away. He forces himself to stand on shaky legs, ignoring every protest of his battered body. The cotton gown hangs to his ankles as he shimmies around the bed to where his clothing is piled on the chair, the wooden floorboards cold beneath his bare feet. 

“You can’t keep me here,” Ed mutters, wincing as he raises his arms to pull the gown over his head. 

“No, I can’t,” she agrees. “But I can offer you my medical opinion that your healing will be slower and significantly more difficult if you leave.”

“Got it,” Ed says, cursing and grunting through the agonising process of wrestling on his leather trousers. 

The healer rolls her eyes and crosses the room, where she helps Ed dress with the clinical detachment of someone who has seen it all many, many times before. Ed supposes she probably did see it all – she may well have been the one who stripped him out of his clothes in the first place. No point in coyness now. 

When he is finally dressed, a light sheen of sweat coating his brow from the exertion, the healer reaches into the pouch of her apron. She pulls out a small cloth bag, tied off with a red ribbon, which she places in Ed’s palm. 

“These will help with the pain,” she says. 

Ed nods his head in thanks, tucking the pills into the inner pocket of his trademark Blackbeard jacket. 

“I hope that you get to her in time to say goodbye,” the healer says, her voice tinged with sympathetic grief. 

Ed doesn’t really know what to say to that, so he says nothing at all and strides from the room as fast as his unsteady legs will carry him.

🐉

Ed stumbles onto the street, mind racing to come up with a plan. The most likely place for Queen Anne to be is at their training grounds, assuming that he’s not too late… but that’s a thought he’s not ready to entertain yet. There’s no way he’s gonna be able to make it all the way to the outskirts of town under his own steam, though, not in his weakened state. He’s already breathing hard, and he’s only just made it out of the House of Healing.

He staggers across the street to where some bloke is loading up a cart with sacks of grain, two flightless dragons already hitched and ready to pull. A few silver coins and an autograph later, and Ed is hoisting himself up onto the cart, making himself as comfortable as he can amongst the lumpy grain sacks. 

Every bump in the road is jarring as the cart winds its way through town, each jostle sending shockwaves through Ed’s body. It’s slow going at first, through narrow streets bustling with people going about their daily business. Ed clamps down on a scream of frustration. If only he were in better shape, he’d be able to get there quicker on foot, cutting down alleyways and weaving through the crowds. He feels so fucking useless like this, unable to do anything to hasten their progress. 

Thankfully, once they make it out of the town centre, the crowds grow sparser and the roads widen. The cart picks up the pace, Ed gritting his teeth against the shooting pains in his ribs as the cart bounces along. He does his best to distract himself, counting the windows of the stone and timber buildings they pass by along their route. 

Finally, the cart slows to a stop outside of the training ground that has been Ed’s second home for as long as he can remember. He hops down from the cart with a muttered ‘thanks’ and hobbles his way to the heavy oak doors that serve as the entrance to the compound. 

Ed hammers on the wood with a fist, calling out for Fang, Ivan, Izzy – fucking anyone. A minute or so later, the door opens, and Ed nearly tumbles straight into Ivan. 

“Blackbeard!” Ivan exclaims, instinctively reaching out to catch Ed. “What are you doing here, boss? You’re supposed to be at the House of Healing! That was a hell of an accident.”

Ed waves his questions off. “Is she here? Queen Anne? Did I make it in time?”

Ivan softens, nodding slowly. “Yeah, boss. She’s here. She’s… well, maybe you should come see, yeah?”

That doesn’t sound good. Ed’s heart plummets through his stomach as he follows Ivan along the walkways between the administration buildings and out onto the huge grassy oval that serves as the training ground proper. The stables are on the opposite side. He and Ivan fall into step as they head over. 

“You doing okay there, Blackbeard?” Ivan asks, shooting him a sideways glance.

“I’m fine,” Ed lies, making an effort to hold himself a little straighter and balling his hands into fists at his side so that he doesn’t give in to the temptation to clutch his bruised ribs. 

He hears her before he sees her – the deep, rumbling whine of a dragon in distress. His heart constricts at the pitiful sound, and he lengthens his stride, pushing himself as hard as he can to cross the remaining distance as quickly as possible. 

“Oh, girl,” he sighs, when he finally lays eyes upon Queen Anne. There are bandages wrapped around her foreleg and her wing, stained crimson where her blood has soaked through. Her left wing is in tatters, a hole punched clean through the membrane. She is lying with her head on her forelegs, her flank rising and falling far more rapidly than it should be. She turns her head toward his voice, whining high in her throat as she does so. Her obsidian eyes shine as she looks up at him, the trust in her eyes such a gut punch that Ed has to blink back tears. 

Fang is sat by her side, stroking his hand along the smooth, purple scales that cover her long, graceful neck. He’s murmuring little platitudes at her, keeping her calm. Ed could just about kiss that man right now. 

Ed staggers over, groaning as he carefully lowers himself to his knees in front of his beloved dragon. He places a hand on her muzzle, a watery smile spreading across his face as she nuzzles into his palm. 

He looks up at Fang beseechingly. “How’s she doing, man?”

Fang’s eyes are filled with sorrow as he shakes his head slowly side to side. “I’m sorry, boss. It was a nasty crash. She’s taken damage to her wings, her tail… She won’t be able to race again.”

“I don’t care about the racing, man,” Ed protests. “I just need her to be okay.”

Queen Anne has been by his side for twenty years, throughout most of his career. Maybe it’s a symptom of what a lonely, middle-aged sad sack he’s become, but he really can’t picture life without her anymore. He doesn’t want to. 

Fang’s eyes dart over to the corner of the barn, and right on cue, a rasping voice calls out. 

“Edward,” says Izzy, stepping from the shadows. 

Christ. Ed had been so focused on Queen Anne that he hadn’t seen him lurking there like a little goblin.

“Iz,” Ed acknowledges, voice low and flat. 

“Ed, you know the rules. If she can’t race anymore, it’s the end of the road for her.”

“Fuck the rules,” Ed spits. “The rules are bullshit.”

Izzy takes a few more steps toward Ed, hand on the blade that he always wears strapped to his belt. “Even the legendary Blackbeard won’t get away with openly defying the Association. They’ll strip you of your racing license, Ed. Everything we’ve worked for for all these years, it’ll all be gone, in an instant.”

“And what if I’m done with it?” Ed yells. “What if I’m ready to walk away from it all?”

Izzy stares at him as if he’s just sprouted a second head. 

Ed sighs, hanging his head low. “I’m tired, man. I can’t do this forever. And if Queen Anne can’t race anymore, then now seems like a good time to call it a day.”

Izzy’s lip curls in a sneer of disgust, which he makes a visible effort to suppress. “You’re upset. That’s fair. You and Queen Anne have been racing together for a long time. But if you refuse to do what needs to be done, you won’t be the only one in the firing line.” Izzy looks meaningfully at Ivan, then at Fang, before turning his gaze back at Ed. He spits on the ground before he continues. “I’m not losing everything I’ve worked for. Not for you, and not for that animal.” 

Ed sets his jaw and turns his most intimidating Blackbeard stare on Izzy. “We’re not doing this, Iz.”

Izzy shakes his head as he draws his sword from his belt. “No, you’re not doing it. And that’s why I must. Stand aside, Edward, and let me put a humane end to this.”  

Ed freezes, the panic setting in and clouding his thoughts. He cannot step aside and watch Izzy kill Queen Anne. And yet, ultimately, what Izzy says is true. The Association rules state that a dragon that can no longer race must be terminated, and open defiance would risk bringing the full might of the Association down on his head. And not just his own, either. Ivan, Fang, and Izzy would be caught in the blast radius, too. 

Ed squeezes his eyes shut and presses his forehead to Queen Anne’s muzzle. If this is how it has to end, then it’s going to end with Ed right by her side. He’s not going to let her die alone. 

“Izzy?” Fang squeaks out in a tiny voice. 

Ed hears Izzy’s footsteps halt in their tracks. “What is it, Fang?”

“Maybe we can give the boss some time to say goodbye? Nobody but us would ever have to know, would they?”

“Seems like the decent thing to do,” Ivan pipes up from somewhere behind Ed. 

Izzy huffs out a great, put-upon sigh before sheathing his sword. “Fine,” he snarls. “You have one night. I’ll be back at dawn. Make your peace with the situation before then.”

A wracking sob escapes Ed as a barrage of emotions swirl within him – relief at the temporary reprieve, fury at the unjust system that they are forced to operate within, and the anticipatory grief of what the morning will bring. The occasional muttered “twat” carries on the breeze to where Ed clings to Queen Anne on the stable floor as Izzy’s footsteps recede into the distance.

“He’s gone,” Ivan says, voice clipped and business-like. 

Ed looks up, confused, as Fang suddenly bolts upright, his demeanour shifting instantaneously. “Blackbeard, do you trust us?”

Ed blinks, his eyes darting between Fang and Ivan. “Yeah, man. Of course I trust you guys.”

“Okay,” Fang says. “Here’s the thing. We can get Queen Anne out of here, but you’ll need to do exactly what we say.”

“What? You can? How?”

“There are a lot of us who disagree with the rules that those bastards at the Dragon Racers’ Association came up with,” says Ivan, a level of vehemence in his voice that Ed has never heard before. 

“There’s a place that takes in injured dragons, that cares for them when the rest of the world has turned its back on them,” Fang says. “We can get Queen Anne there, but we have to move quickly.”

“Fuck yes,” Ed hisses, a little flame of optimism flaring in his chest for the first time since he woke up in the House of Healing. “Let’s do it!”

“Boss, there’s just one thing. It’ll be a one-way trip for her. She’ll never be able to come back here again, even if they can nurse her back to health,” Fang cautions.

The cogs turn in Ed’s mind as Fang’s words sink in. “She’ll be considered stolen property by the Association,” he says.

“That’s right,” says Fang, with a sad, slow nod. 

“And those bastards would love to make an example out of both of you,” says Ivan. “The rest of us, too.”

Ed’s heart breaks all over again at the thought of being parted from Queen Anne forever. But at least she’ll be alive and cared for. If the alternative is her death at the end of Izzy’s sword, then the choice is clear. 

“I understand,” Ed says. “Can I go with her? Stay with her for a little while, just until she’s settled?”

“That’s a good idea, boss,” says Fang, softly. “I think that would be good for both of you.”

“And can’t hurt to lay low for a bit,” Ivan chips in. 

Ed nods. “But what about you two? Izzy’ll know you helped me get her out come the morning.”

Ivan and Fang exchange amused glances. “Nah, we’ll rough each other up, claim you overpowered us.”

Ed quirks an eyebrow. He’s not sure he could overpower a pile of wet rags right now, but he trusts them to get themselves out of it. Something tells him that this isn’t their first time pulling off something like this. 

“Okay,” says Ed. “Let’s save Queen Anne.”

🐉

The next few hours are a whirlwind of activity. Ivan sends out two small messenger dragons, a note strapped to each of their legs. The little creatures take to the sky, chittering as they go, the sunlight glinting from their aquamarine scales. One strikes out in search of a smuggling ship which is due to arrive in a nearby cove just after nightfall (how Ivan knows this, Ed has no idea, but he’s beginning to suspect that there’s a lot more going on with his ground crew than he ever could have imagined). The other sets out on a longer journey across the ocean, carrying word to the sanctuary of Queen Anne’s impending arrival. 

Ed has just enough time to fill a duffel bag with a few changes of clothes and a handful of personal effects before he is helping Fang and Ivan to coax a very large, very heavy, and very unco-operative dragon onto the back of a covered wagon. It takes their combined strength and a fair amount of treat-based bribery, but eventually they get her settled on the wagon-bed. Ed drapes several blankets across her in case they need to hide, though they will mostly be travelling across country, which should help them to avoid any close scrutiny. Still, it doesn’t hurt to be careful. 

They hitch up two dragons to the wagon and set off just when the sun is hanging low in the sky, painting the horizon in a palette of oranges and pinks. Ed elects to ride in the back with Queen Anne, the better to keep her calm. He curls up beside her, placing a palm on her flank. The steady rise and fall of her chest beneath his hand and the play of her breath across the top of his head provide a comforting reminder that she is alive, despite the odds. He promises himself that he will do whatever it takes to keep it that way.

The travel is rough, the roads far bumpier out here in the countryside than they had been in the city. Yet with Queen Anne by his side, and with the hope that has taken root inside of him, the constant jostling seems to hurt less than it did before. 

Ed closes his eyes and falls into a fitful doze as the cart hurtles toward the ship that waits to lead them to Queen Anne’s salvation.

Chapter Text

The voyage takes three days and three nights. Thankfully, sailing conditions are smooth for the most part, and the Revenge slices cleanly through the sparkling blue waves under the able command of the captain, who goes by the name of Frenchie, though he doesn’t sound the slightest bit French. Frenchie and his small crew of smugglers treat Ed well, keeping him decently fed and watered and providing him with a small cabin of his own, complete with a passably comfortable bed. 

The risk of Queen Anne being spotted from the air by a rider on dragonback is sufficient to confine the injured dragon belowdecks. Ed elects to spend most of his time with her, even though the captain made it perfectly clear that he is free to move about the ship at his leisure. He can’t really bring himself to leave her side, though; in addition to her pain, she is obviously scared and disoriented. Her distress is clear in the way her muscles quiver beneath Ed’s hand when he strokes her flank, and in how her eyes dart wildly around the hold at the slightest noise.

Though he passes long stretches of the voyage with only Queen Anne for company, various members of the crew pop down from time to time. They’re a good bunch, and their visits help to break up the long days. He passes the time playing cards with a taciturn sailor who goes by Jim, exchanging tales of prior exploits with a considerably more talkative Archie, and generally shooting the shit with an agreeable bloke named Oluwande. The captain even makes the odd appearance, strumming on his lute and singing shanties and ballads that Ed hasn’t heard since he was a boy. 

On the final night aboard the ship, Ed heads up to the deck for some air. Queen Anne is sleeping, so he figures she won’t miss him for a little while, at least. He finds the crew sprawled out on blankets and coils of rope – Oluwande sandwiched between Archie and Jim, Frenchie leaning back on a barrel, idly picking away on his lute. They invite Ed to sit with them, and they pass a bottle of rum back and forth as the conversation flows with the meandering effortlessness of a burbling stream. 

There’s an easy camaraderie to them that tugs on Ed’s heart, just a little. It’s so different to the relationships he has with his ground crew, which have grown increasingly strained and formal as the years have dragged by and the pressures of elite racing have piled up on all of them. He can’t remember the last time he just sat with them, sharing a drink and a smoke and just enjoying their company. Fuck, if he’s really honest with himself, he supposes he’s never really done that.

“So this sanctuary, then?” Ed prompts, when there’s a natural lull in the conversation. 

Oluwande’s face lights up with a broad smile. “You wait ‘til you see it. It’s like nothing you’ve ever seen.”

“How come I’ve never heard of it?” Ed asks. 

“It hasn’t been there all that long,” Frenchie chimes in. “Just a few years. And it’s pretty hush-hush, y’know. If the Association found out about it…” His voice trails away as he pantomimes a dramatic shudder.

“Yeah, and no offence, man, but you’re their poster boy,” Archie says. 

Ed winces at Archie’s words. They sting, but yeah, he gets it. He can see how, from the outside, he must look like the Association’s lapdog. He’s been their golden boy for years, the most celebrated racer in a generation. These guys can’t possibly know about the resentment that has built up inside of Ed as he had slowly come to realise the degree to which the Association put profit ahead of the safety of the riders and dragons they supposedly represent. They can’t know that he’s been looking for a way to free himself of them for as long as he can remember.

“You can trust me,” Ed mutters, though it sounds pretty weak, even to his own ears.

“Yeah, we know,” Jim sighs, with a shrug. “Fang and Ivan vouched for you, and we trust them, so…”

Ed huffs softly at that. He’s still reeling from the knowledge that they were part of something like this without Ed having the faintest fucking clue. When he’s back on the mainland, he’s gonna buy those two a drink and actually take the time to get to know them. He could try learning Fang’s real name, for a start. Shit, he owes the guy so much more. 

“So, where did this sanctuary come from?” Ed asks. “I mean, how does something like that just spring up overnight?”

“It’s run by a guy called Stede Bonnet,” Oluwande says. “None of us really know his full story, ‘cos the guy’s pretty private. But word is, he walked away from everything he had to create the sanctuary.”

“I’ll tell you one thing we do know, though,” Archie chips in. “The guy’s loaded. He’s always dressed in the fanciest clothes I’ve ever seen.”

“Yeah,” Frenchie agrees, fingers still dancing over the strings of his lute. “Y’know, before all of this, I spent some time in service. Bloke like that? He comes from old money, no doubt about it.”

Ed’s lip curls into a sneer of distaste. His career has brought him into contact with far too many posh knobs over the years, and they’re all the fucking same in his experience. Ed learned quickly that people like that will say things to your face that sound polite, but that there’s always a barb buried beneath the surface of their words. He’s been stung too many times, has been shown repeatedly that old money types will never see him as their equal, no matter how high his star rises or how wealthy he, himself, becomes. He’s little more than a circus performer to them – an amusing diversion, valuable only insofar as he can keep them entertained. 

Oluwande seems to clock Ed’s change in demeanour. “Stede’s a good man,” he says. “One of a kind, that one.”

From that point forward, the conversation is dominated by this Bonnet guy. The crew talk about him with a mildly amused fondness. The anecdotes they share paint a picture of an eccentric man who marches to the beat of his own drum, but who cares deeply about the creatures under his care. A man who has used his money to do some good instead of using it to further his own station. A man who, despite his flaws, has a kind and generous heart. Ed has to admit, this Stede character doesn’t sound anything like any of the rich assholes he’s had the misfortune of meeting before. Perhaps he really is cut from a different cloth.  

Ed sits back and takes a puff on his pipe. The conversation washes over him as he allows his mind to wander to the mystery of the fancy man who burned down his entire life to open a dragon sanctuary, right underneath the noses of one of the most powerful organisations in the world. Ed’s gotta admit his curiosity is well and truly piqued. This guy sounds fucking fascinating.

🐉

On the morning of the fourth day, Ed is awoken by Oluwande’s cry of “Land!” 

He slips out of bed, pokes his head into the hold to find Queen Anne still sleeping, and heads up out onto deck, pulling his jacket tighter around himself against the chill dawn air.

The crew are a whirlwind of activity, working together with practiced efficiency to prepare the ship for docking. Ahead of them, stretching out along the horizon, is a verdant island carpeted in a thick, green forest. As the Revenge makes its way ever closer to landfall, Ed makes out the unmistakable shapes of dragons swooping and gliding around two peaks that rise from the Eastern side of the island. He smiles as he watches them, captivated by their grace. 

The crew carefully guide the Revenge toward a wooden dock that extends out from a golden beach. Waiting to greet them is a thin man with an intense, faraway stare and straggly hair that falls down past his shoulders. He is dressed in simple clothes that hang loosely from his slight frame. But the thing that Ed’s eye is immediately drawn to is the white and grey dragon that sits perched on top of the man’s head. 

Ed blinks. This guy is definitely not what he had pictured. He sidles over to Oluwande as they dock. “Is that…?”

“Stede? No,” Oluwande says, with a chuckle. “That’s Buttons. He works for Stede.”

“Buttons. Right,” says Ed. 

Ed follows the crew down the gangplank onto the dock, thankful to be back on dry land after several days at sea. The world feels oddly still underfoot; he supposes he’s grown accustomed to the constant pitching and yawing of the Revenge during the voyage.

Buttons turns his stare in Ed’s general direction, though it feels more like he’s looking through Ed than at him. 

“Ye have arrived a’ the Sanctuary,” Buttons drawls in a thick Scottish brogue. “Karl bids ye welcome.”

Ed flicks his eyes up to the dragon perched on Buttons’s head. “And Karl’s the dragon, yeah?”

“Aye. Karl’s the dragon.”

“Right. Well, thank you, Karl,” Ed replies, with a little nod toward the creature. Karl snorts in reply, twin tendrils of smoke puffing from his nostrils and quickly dissipating on the ocean breeze. 

“The boss awaits ye and yer dragon o’er yonder,” Buttons says, gesturing toward a cluster of buildings set maybe half a mile or so inland, and just visible through the trees. 

“That’s the infirmary,” Oluwande explains. “Stede’ll be ready and waiting for Queen Anne in there.”

Ed’s anxiety must be written plainly across his face, because Oluwande claps him on the shoulder, smiling sympathetically. “If anyone can help her, it’s this lot, yeah? She’ll be in good hands.”

“Yeah, man,” Ed says, with a nod. “Let’s go.”

Queen Anne is too weak to make it to the infirmary on her own four legs, and there’s certainly no way she can fly – not even such a short distance. Buttons pitches in with Ed and the crew of the Revenge to coax her onto yet another cart, which is pulled by a pair of cerise dragons. Ed once again takes his customary place beside Queen Anne in the back, reassuring her all the while with soft words of praise. 

The ride to the infirmary is rough, given the state of the dirt tracks on the island, but it is blessedly short. Ed is grateful that his own injuries have healed somewhat during the sea voyage, though he makes a mental note to swallow a couple of pain pills as soon as he gets the chance. He just knows he’s gonna feel the effects of this ride all through his body later. Worth it, though, if his presence beside Queen Anne can calm her nerves. 

When the cart comes to a stop, Ed hops down from the back. He rounds the cart, making for the infirmary, only to be stopped in his tracks by the most handsome man he has ever seen in his entire fucking life. His thoughts screech to a grinding halt as he takes the man in, with his head of golden curls and his warm, hazel eyes. He looks to be about Ed’s age, the years written in the crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes and in the dusting of silver hair that graces his temples. He’s dressed in a wildly impractical teal suit, frills and ruffles all over the place. It fits him perfectly, tailored to hug a broad, strong frame and long, shapely legs. Fuck, those legs… 

Surely, this can only be Stede Bonnet. And listen, maybe Ed spent a bit of time the previous night conjuring up images of the intriguing fancy man in his mind as he drifted off to sleep – so fucking sue him. Ed has always prided himself on having a vivid imagination, but holy shit did his brain fall short of the mark on this one. Way short. 

Presumably-Stede steps forward, a warm smile lighting up his entire face. He extends a hand toward Ed. “Welcome to the Sanctuary, Mr. Teach. Or do you prefer Blackbeard?”

Ed takes the offered hand, trying his hardest to act like a normal human being as their palms meet. “Just Ed is fine. And you must be Stede Bonnet?”

“You’ve heard of me?” Stede squeaks, eyes widening as his fingers tighten around Ed’s hand. 

Ed smiles. “Oh yeah, I’ve heard of you. I’ve heard all about you.”

A blush rises in Stede’s cheeks at Ed’s words, his striking face erupting into a broad grin. Their hands are still clasped between them, neither seemingly willing to be the first to break the contact.

From somewhere behind them, Oluwande clears his throat. 

“Shall we get Queen Anne inside then?” Oluwande asks. 

“Yes, of course,” Stede replies, releasing Ed’s hand and absently tugging on the hem of his waistcoat. “Perhaps you should introduce me to Queen Anne, then, Ed.”

🐉

They manouevre Queen Anne into the infirmary, supporting her weight between them. Stede is good with her, intuitively picking up on the slightest indication that she may balk, and heading it off with soft, calming words spoken in a voice like honey. Queen Anne takes to Stede immediately, turning her body toward him, seeking out his touch. Ed is surprised to see her bond with someone so quickly. She’s usually pretty aloof with strangers, and though she has strong bonds with Ed and his crew now, those relationships took years to forge. Ed can’t blame her, though. He’s known Stede for five minutes and he’d be nuzzling into the man’s side if that was even remotely an option right now. Alas, while a dragon can get away with that sort of thing, Ed very much doubts that he can. 

When they finally make it into the infirmary, they are greeted by another member of Stede’s team – a tall, slim man with dark curls. 

“Ed, I’d like you to meet Roach,” Stede says.

“It’s an honour to meet you, Blackbeard, sir,” Roach gushes, with a hand over his heart. 

Ed extends his hand. “No need for sir,” he says, as he shakes Roach’s hand. “It’s just Ed.”

“Roach is our doctor,” Stede explains, before he turns to Ed, his expression soft. “Queen Anne will be in good hands, I promise. Roach has nursed dozens of dragons back to health over the past few years. No-one knows more about dragon care than him.”

“Thank you,” Ed responds, gaze locked with Roach’s. “I can’t say what it means to me that you are willing to try to help her. She’s… she’s very special.”

Roach grins. “They all are.”

Over the next couple of hours, Ed paces back and forth, biting his thumbnails down to the quick while Roach examines Queen Anne. Every thoughtful hum and mumbled assessment from Roach causes Ed's stomach to plummet as he awaits the pronouncement that his loyal, loving dragon is beyond their care after all. The wait is absolute fucking torture.

After a while, the sounds of his own footsteps on the wooden floorboards start to drive him insane. He excuses himself and steps outside, blinking against the midday sun. He retrieves the pipe and tobacco pouch from his pocket and allows himself to slip into the ritual of enjoying a good smoke, hoping it will help to slow the maddening pace of his thoughts for a short while, at least. 

He watches the smoke from his pipe curl in the air, practices his favourite party trick of breathing out perfectly formed smoke rings, even if no-one else is around to see them. Anything to take his mind off of the worst-case scenarios that have been ricocheting around his skull with increasing ferocity since Roach began his examination. 

He startles a little at the sound of the infirmary door creaking on its hinges. He turns to find Stede stepping out into the sunlight. Ed scans his face, but his expression is inscrutable. 

“Roach has finished his examination,” says Stede. “Will you come inside?”

“Yeah. Sure, man,” Ed says, knocking the last of the tobacco from his pipe and tucking it back in his pocket. 

He follows Stede back into the infirmary on shaky legs, heart pounding against his ribs as he prepares himself for the worst. It feels like walking to the gallows.

“So, how is she? Is she gonna pull through?” Ed asks, hating the way his voice quivers. 

To Ed’s surprise and immense relief, Roach smiles. “She’s gonna be just fine. As far as I can tell, there are no serious internal injuries. She’s bruised and she’s gonna be very sore for the next few weeks while she heals, but she will heal.”

The relief is almost enough to take Ed’s knees out from under him. He instinctively reaches out to brace himself on the wall for support. “That’s great, man. Fucking great!”

Roach’s brow furrows as he and Stede exchange a meaningful glance. Ed has half a mind to slam his hands over his ears to block out the ‘but’ that is so clearly looming. Shit. Of course it couldn’t be all good news. 

“But she has taken some significant damage to her wings and tail,” Roach explains. “I am sorry, but it’s unlikely that she will ever fly again.”

Ed blinks back the tears that spring to his eyes. The tears aren’t for himself – he had already made his peace with walking away from racing, and has no intention of riding any dragon other than Queen Anne ever again. No, the tears are for Queen Anne, who will forever be denied such a fundamental part of her nature as flight. She’ll never soar again, never touch the clouds with her outstretched wings. Her life will be spent on the ground. 

He nods his understanding, not quite able to find his voice for fear he’ll lose his composure completely. 

“She is welcome to stay here with us for the rest of her life,” Stede says, gently. “However long that may be. We can care for her, ensure that she has the company of other dragons.”

“I think she’d like that,” Ed manages to squeak out. 

Stede smiles. “That’s wonderful. We’ll work on building up her strength again slowly, and on introducing her to the other dragons under our care.”

“I’d like to keep her under close observation for the next few days,” Roach says. “We’ll move her to the stables in the short term, just until she’s strong enough to strike out and choose her own nesting site.”

Ed shoots Stede a quizzical look. 

“We like to encourage natural behaviours wherever possible,” Stede explains. “She may well choose to stay in the stables indefinitely, especially if that’s the sort of environment she is used to. But most of our dragons choose to roost in the forest or up in the hills. They are quite social creatures, you know. They enjoy each other’s company.” 

“Oh,” Ed says. He didn’t really know. He’s only just realising, to his enormous shame, that he knows very little about the behaviours of dragons in the wild, despite having worked with them for his entire life. 

“Now,” says Stede. “While Roach gets Queen Anne settled in, what would you say to a tour?”

🐉

After an hour’s hike along a winding forest trail, Ed finds himself standing by Stede’s side on the edge of a gleaming, blue lake. He’s utterly speechless as he takes in the scene before him. There are at least a dozen dragons just in Ed’s field of view: several circling and swooping in the air above them; a pair nestled up together on the far side of the lake; a gaggle of tiny little ones scampering around in the long grass by the shore. There’s even one swimming, frolicking and splashing around in the crystalline water. 

Ed is used to seeing dragons, of course. He’s seen them every single day of his life. But he’s used to seeing them put to work – pulling carts, ploughing fields, racing. He’s never seen them like this. Free, unfettered, unbeholden to man. 

Ed’s entire fucking being sings with joy. It courses through him, burrows into every single cell of his body. It warms him to his very core.

“Stede,” Ed gasps. “This is incredible!”

Stede beams, a sweet little dimple appearing on his cheek. “It is, isn’t it?”

“How did you do all of this?”

Stede gives a little self-deprecating laugh. “All I did was provide them with the space to be themselves. They did the rest.”

A small golden dragon scurries over, its head no higher than knee-height. It nuzzles its face against Stede’s stockinged calves in an obvious bid for attention. Stede giggles and crouches down to fuss over the little guy. 

“Who’s this then?” Ed asks, chuckling as the creature wiggles with such obvious delight at the head scritches that Stede bestows upon him.

“This is Montague,” Stede replies. “He was formerly a pet. But his owners didn’t know how to handle him, and so they abandoned him.”

As if to demonstrate exactly why he made such a poor pet, Montague coughs out a tiny fireball, lightly scorching the grass between Stede’s feet. 

“See?” Stede giggles, as he quickly stamps out the flames. “It’s an unfortunately common story. They look cute, but they are not for the faint of heart.”

“Are they all former pets?” Ed asks, glancing around at the many and varied dragons around the lakeside. 

“Oh, no. Some are wild dragons who sustained injuries that mean that they can no longer fend for themselves. Many are former working animals, grown too old to be useful anymore. And, well, let’s just say that Queen Anne won’t be the only former racing dragon in our care.” 

Stede looks meaningfully up at a midnight blue dragon hovering way up above them, gliding in a slipstream. He whistles to her, the shrill sound carrying clearly across the still air. Almost instantly, the dragon begins to descend, circling down towards them in a graceful spiral. 

“No way,” Ed breathes, when she is close enough for him to make out the distinctive cluster of silver scales at the base of her neck. “That’s Sapphire. Mary Read used to race her. But she got hurt in an accident – broke her hind legs. I thought…”

Sapphire lands a dozen or so feet in front of them, the backdraft of her powerful wings playing through Ed’s hair. She snorts as if in greeting. 

Close up, it’s impossible to miss the brace that is attached to her hind right leg. It’s a complicated contraption, obviously custom made to her exact needs. She walks over toward them, sending Montague scurrying for the undergrowth. At this distance, Ed is able to detect the subtle unevenness to her gait. She clearly favours her left side, and yet, her supported leg can and does hold her weight.

Ed extends his hand out toward her, palm flat, allowing her to close the remaining distance between them if she chooses. She gives him a good sniff before she seems to decide that he passes muster and presses her neck into his palm. Her scales are soft and smooth, silky to the touch. 

Ed laughs, stroking down the length of her strong neck. “Hey, girl. It’s good to see you again.”

Stede watches them, eyes crinkling around the edges as he grins at their reunion. “Sapphire is one of six former racing dragons that live with us. Well, I guess that’s seven now, with Queen Anne.”

Ed points down at the contraption on Sapphire’s leg. “The brace? You made that?”

“Well, not me personally. I have a wonderful team of talented people here, and among their many skills is designing and crafting aids like this to help our dragons to live more comfortably.”

“There are others like her?” Ed asks. “Others that you’ve helped like this?”

“Yes, a few,” Stede replies, as he pats Sapphire on her flank. 

A question springs to Ed’s lips. He almost doesn’t ask it, afraid of what the answer might be. But he has to know. “Have you ever made anything to help with the kind of injuries that Queen Anne has? Anything that could help her fly again?”

Stede’s brow furrows. “No. I’m sorry, Ed, but we haven’t.”

Ed’s heart sinks, though it is the answer he was expecting. “Yeah. That’s okay, man.”

Stede is silent for a few seconds, drumming his fingertips lightly on Sapphire’s scales. His gaze locks with Ed’s, the frown chased away by a broad smile. “But there’s a first time for everything, isn’t there?”

Chapter Text

That evening, the sanctuary staff and the crew of the Revenge share a meal together in the communal dining hall. The atmosphere is celebratory, and the conversation flows as easily as the wine as old friends catch up with each other, exchanging tales of their exploits since they had last met. 

Ed had been nervous about meeting the rest of Stede’s team. In his experience, most people have a hard time acting normal around superstar racer Blackbeard. They stare, they fawn, they try to get into his pants… The one thing they don’t do is talk to him like he’s a normal person. But Stede had rather pointedly introduced him to his team as Edward, and to Ed’s surprise, they all seemed to get the message, falling in line immediately. And yeah, okay, there’s one guy (Pete, Ed thinks his name is?) who can’t seem to extinguish the stars in his eyes completely, but Ed can tell he’s trying, and he appreciates that. Besides, the younger guy with the killer sideburns – Lucius, that’s it – does a pretty good job of steering Pete’s attention elsewhere whenever his fanboy tendencies start to rear their head. 

Anyway, the point is, even when the conversation naturally strays to people or topics unfamiliar to Ed, he doesn’t feel excluded. That’s in no small part due to the way Stede continually looks over at him, beaming that sunshine smile from his spot across the table and reeling him right back into the festivities whenever he starts to drift. But also, Stede has an expert knack for steering the conversation back to topics that Ed can participate in. He does it subtly, so casually that no-one would likely spot it unless they were looking for it. Ed’s noticed it, though. He’s noticed the fuck out of it, and he’s so grateful for Stede’s efforts. Every time Stede redirects the conversation, making space for Ed to join, Ed’s heart flutters a little bit in his chest. After the third or fourth time Stede does it, Ed slides his foot over toward Stede’s beneath the table, pressing his boot up against Stede’s shoe in a little gesture of thanks. Stede presses back, grinning at Ed so broadly that his eyes crinkle around the edges.  

Over the course of the meal, Ed does his best to put together a mental map of how each of the people around the table fits in around here. He’d already met Roach, of course, as well as Buttons and Karl – though he’s not entirely clear on what Buttons actually does. Lucius seems to be Stede’s personal assistant and Pete a handyman, doing whatever needs doing to keep the place from falling in on itself. There’s a huge bloke who goes by the ironic name of Wee John and a much slighter blonde guy who spends most of the time looking utterly bemused, and who speaks with a lilting, sing-song cadence. No-one ever calls him by name, simply referring to him as the Swede. Wee John and the Swede both seem to be general hired hands, ensuring the dragons on the island are fed and tended to. 

When plates are cleared and wine glasses drained, the party kicks up a notch. Frenchie’s lute makes an appearance, and he’s accompanied by Buttons on flute and Wee John on the drums. The tables are pushed to the side of the hall to create a dancefloor, and before long, everyone is singing and dancing, twirling each other round in a spirited jig. 

Well, not everyone. Ed sits it out. He’s still feeling pretty tender after the crash, like a giant, walking bruise. And besides, he has an old knee injury that he doesn’t want to risk aggravating. It’s fine, though. He’s more than content to sit back and watch.

He makes a conscious effort not to stare at Stede the whole time, but damn, it’s tough not to. Every time he tears his gaze away, it’s pulled right back, drawn in by Stede’s dazzling smile, by his gleaming eyes and bouncing curls, by the flex of his silk-clad calves as he moves. He’s not the most graceful dancer, not by a long mile, but he moves freely. There’s a lightness to his motions, a joyous, buoyant exuberance that lights him up like a beacon. Ed wants to bask in his glow.

Sometimes Stede glances over at Ed, their eyes meeting across the room. Stede’s probably just checking in on him, making sure he doesn't feel left out as he sits on the sidelines. Ed raises his glass to Stede with a smile, trying to communicate that he’s perfectly happy to spectate and let the music wash over him. 

A particularly energetic song finishes. Everyone in the room erupts into applause, hollering their praises to Frenchie, Buttons, and Wee John. When the applause dies down, they begin a new tune. It's slower, wistful, soft. It’s the kind of tune that lovers might dance to, holding each other close as they gaze into one another’s eyes. Sure enough, the dancers begin to partner up, Lucius draping his arms around Pete’s neck; Jim, Archie, and Oluwande shuffling around the dancefloor together in a many-limbed embrace. Roach even sweeps up the Swede, though it’s playful and friendly, the pair of them laughing as they twirl each other around. 

Ed’s heart sinks at the thought that Stede might cozy up to someone else – someone distinctly not-Ed. He has no right to feel that way and he knows it, but the thought of Stede swaying in someone else’s arms, pulling them flush as they turn in slow circles around the dancefloor… well, it sits in Ed’s stomach like a stone.

But then, Stede bows out of the dance. Ed straightens in his chair as Stede makes a beeline right for him. Stede strips off his jacket and drapes it carefully over the back of the empty chair beside Ed before taking a seat. His forehead is coated with a light sheen of perspiration and his cheeks are rosy. He glows with the combination of joy and exertion.

“Hey man,” Ed says. “‘Great party.”

A broad grin spreads across Stede’s face. “We always do like to celebrate when the Revenge crew stop by. They’re very much a part of this family, even when they aren’t with us.”

Ed nods. “Yeah, I got that impression over dinner. Seems like everyone here knows each other so well.”

Stede’s smile falters. “Oh, Edward – I do hope you didn’t feel left out? I am sorry. That was never my intention.”

“Woah, man, hold on there,” Ed says, before Stede can spiral any further. “I didn’t feel left out.” Thanks to you , he wants to say, but he holds those words back. They feel a little too honest right now, too vulnerable. “It was nice, seeing everybody enjoying themselves. You’ve got a special thing going on here.”

“We do,” Stede agrees. He sighs, dropping his gaze to the floor. “The crew of the Revenge will be weighing anchor in the morning. I suppose… you’ll be going with them?”

Ed does not want to go with them. For one thing, he needs to lay low for a while, figure out his next move. He can’t walk back into the hands of the Association right now, not without a plan. But it’s not just that. He wants to see more of this incredible place, wants to learn more about how dragons behave when they have the freedom to be themselves. He wants to watch Queen Anne heal, wants to be by her side as she either learns to fly again or adapts to a new, flightless life. And, yeah, okay, he also wants to spend more time with Stede. He’s not ready to walk away from this beguiling, fascinating mystery of a man yet. Not until he’s solved some of his riddles, and not until he’s had time to find out whether Stede’s skin fizzes at the sight of Ed in the same way that Ed’s does when he looks at Stede.    

“Well, actually, I, um… I’d hoped I might be able to stay a while. Just long enough for Queen Anne to get settled. If that’s… if it’s okay?” Ed asks. 

Stede’s grin borders on blinding as his eyes flick back up to Ed’s face. “Yes, of course! I’d love to have you here for a while longer!” Stede clears his throat, his flush deepening as he course corrects. “That is to say, we all would. We’re all enjoying your company.”

“Okay, great,” Ed replies, unable to prevent his face breaking out into a grin that mirrors Stede’s. 

“There is a small bunk room off of the infirmary; Roach uses it sometimes to take breaks when we have a particularly unwell dragon that requires round-the-clock care. It’s austere, but it’s serviceable.”

Ed pictures the spartan, functional little room. It doesn’t exactly sound appealing, but he’s slept in worse places in his life. “Thanks, man. I’d appreciate that.”

“Or…” Stede says slowly, idly picking at the lace of his cuffs. “... I have a guest room in my home. You would be very welcome to stay with me, if you’d like. It might be more comfortable.”

Ed is momentarily rendered speechless by the generosity of Stede’s offer. It’s one thing to allow Ed to stay on the island – especially considering Ed has spent his entire working life in service to an organisation that is so antithetical to everything Stede has built here – but it’s quite another to invite Ed into his home . 

Apparently, Ed stays quiet a few seconds too long, because Stede starts to walk it back, the panic clear in the timbre of his voice. “I’m sorry, Ed. Forgive me. I overstepped. I’ll have Wee John put on some fresh bed linens in the infirmary bunk for you.”

Stede looks like he’s about to bolt, so Ed reaches out, claps a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “Mate, I’d love to stay with you. Sounds nice.” He punctuates the sentiment with a little squeeze to Stede’s shoulder, before he reluctantly lets his hand fall. 

Stede visibly relaxes. “Oh. Well, that’s…” 

Stede’s voice trails away, leaving Ed to ponder what was going to slot into that space. Wonderful ? A dreadful imposition ? Fuck. Now it’s Ed’s turn to spiral. 

“I mean, I don’t want to impose. It’s your space, so I can take the infirmary bunk if you’d prefer…”

“No!” Stede almost shouts. “No,” he repeats, quieter but firm. “I would love your company, Ed.”

Ed scrutinises Stede’s face, trying to discern whether his offer is motivated by anything more than the desire to be hospitable. But despite his expressive face, Stede remains paradoxically unreadable. 

The music changes, the slow tune giving way to a raucous shanty. Stede is dragged back onto the dancefloor by his crew, once more leaving Ed alone with his thoughts. He sips his wine, taps his feet to the beat, and allows his mind to wander to sparkling hazel eyes and dimpled cheeks.

🐉

It’s close to midnight by the time the party winds down. After a lengthy exchange of hugs and shoulder claps, the group splits off. The Revenge crew head back to their ship, still anchored at the docks, while the sanctuary staff head to their own respective lodgings. The still night air is alive with the sounds of chirping cicadas as Ed follows Stede along the dirt path that leads to his home, their way lit by the lantern that Stede holds aloft. 

Stede’s cottage is little more than a dark shape against the forest at first. As they get closer, coarse details begin to emerge from the gloom. It’s single storied, with a thatched roof. The stonework of the walls is barely visible through the dense vegetation that climbs across the exterior. Sweet, floral scents hang in the air like perfume. 

The golden lantern light illuminates the wooden door as Stede pulls a key from his pocket. It’s funny, but there’s something about this time of night that has them instinctively creeping across the threshold, tiptoeing around, even though Stede has already informed Ed that he lives alone. 

Ed gently closes the door behind him before sliding his duffel bag off of his shoulder and bending down to unlace his boots. He doesn’t want to tread dirt all through Stede’s house. Stede sets the lantern down on a dining table before turning back to Ed.

“Well, here we are,” he says, spreading his arms. “Home sweet home.”

Ed glances around the room, most of which is hidden in the shadows that play across the walls and ceiling as the lantern flame flickers. He can just about get a sense of the layout of the space. There’s a kitchen with a table and chairs. Over to Ed’s right is a living area, with two armchairs and a couch positioned around a low table. The table appears to be piled high with something – books, maybe? A door opens off of the living area, which is ajar to a dark hallway. 

The two men stare at each other for a while, each seemingly at something of a loss for words. As much as Ed would like to prolong his time in Stede’s company, the long day is catching up to him, and what he really wants is to flop down onto the nearest available soft service and slip into oblivion. 

“Well, I guess I’ll turn in then,” Ed says. “It’s that way, yeah?”  

“Hmm? Oh, yes,” says Stede. “Please, let me show you.”

Ed slings his bag back over his shoulder and follows Stede across the small living space and along the hallway that Ed had spotted before. Stede opens the door at the far end of the hall, lifting the lantern so that Ed can peer inside. 

“This is the bathroom,” Stede informs him, quite unnecessarily given that the room is dominated by a fucking huge copper tub. “All very state of the art. You can soak in the tub any time you like. Oh, and I have quite the selection of soaps and oils that you are very welcome to use, if you’d like.” He drops his voice low, as if imparting some special secret. “The lavender is my favourite.”

Ed huffs softly, already imagining how good it would feel to slip his bruised and aching body into warm, floral-scented water. He’s sure as fuck gonna take Stede up on that offer the first chance he gets, when he’s not so bone-tired that a bath would pose a drowning risk. 

Stede gestures at the door behind him, snapping Ed out of his bath-induced reverie. “This is my bedroom. If you need anything from me in the night, that’s where I’ll be. In my… in my bed.”

Ed quirks an eyebrow. “Don’t think I’m gonna need anything so urgently that I’ll come barging into your bedroom in the middle of the night, mate.”

“Right. No, of course not,” Stede says, clearing his throat. He crosses the hallway to open the door directly across from his own room. “Well, anyway, this room is yours.” 

Ed follows Stede through the door, allowing his duffel bag to drop from his shoulders. He takes the space in as Stede lights a candle that sits on the nightstand. The room is a decent size and tastefully furnished. Ed’s eyes are drawn straight to the large, incredibly inviting bed. The sheets look luxurious, and there are a number of soft looking cushions and pillows arranged on it. Ed knows just from looking at it that it’s gonna feel like sinking into a cloud. It takes all of his willpower not to dive right onto that bed there and then.

“I hope this is acceptable,” Stede says, nervously casting his eyes around the room.

“Mate, it’s perfect,” Ed replies. “Thank you for this.”

Stede smiles, visibly relaxing at Ed’s words. “It’s no problem at all, Ed. Really. Now, why don’t you go and wash up and I’ll finish getting the room ready for you.”

Ed looks around, a little puzzled. The room already looks ready, not a single thing out of place. He’s got no fucking clue what Stede could possibly need to do in here, but he could definitely do with washing away some of the day’s grime before turning in. 

He leaves Stede to whatever it is he needs to do and heads to the bathroom. He takes a piss, stretching out the sore, tired muscles of his back and neck as he does so. Then he strips off, pouring some clean water from a pitcher into the enamel basin. He sniffs a few soaps before settling in on a floral-scented one – maybe this is the lavender one that Stede is so fond of? Whatever it is, it smells fucking yummy. Far nicer than the basic, utilitarian soaps he usually uses.

He winces as he scrubs his soapy hands across his body, still tender after the accident. He takes the opportunity to study himself in the bathroom mirror – the first opportunity he's really had since it all went down. There are bruises mottling his skin, particularly on the left side of his body. Still though, he can't quite believe that he walked away from a crash like that. He’ll be grateful to Queen Anne every day for the rest of his life for the way that she protected him – though his heart aches at the thought that she may have sacrificed her own flight for him. 

Feeling cleaner than he has since he fled the mainland, Ed pulls his drawers and trousers back on. He goes to pull on his shirt, but stops himself at the last moment. Seems silly to put his shirt back on when he’ll only take it off again before he flops into bed. And if Stede happens to catch a glimpse of him shirtless, well then that’s just an added bonus. Might help him to suss out whether Stede has any interest in him like that at all.

He pads back down the hallway to the guest room that he guesses will be his home for the next little while, shirt and jacket draped over one arm. He steps into the doorway just in time to see Stede placing a glass of water on the nightstand. 

“In case you get thirsty in the…” Stede turns, his words instantly evaporating as his eyes fall on a shirtless Ed in the doorway. For a second, Ed thinks he might have fucked up, but then he clocks the way that Stede’s gaze flicks down to Ed’s chest. Even in the low light of the candle, Ed’s pretty sure Stede’s cheeks darken. He tries very hard to suppress a smirk. 

“In the…?” Ed prompts. 

“Hmm?” Stede’s eyes dart back up to Ed’s. “Oh. Night. In case you get thirsty in the night.”

Ed smiles. “Thanks, mate. That’s really thoughtful.”

Stede gestures toward the bed, where a white cotton sheet or something has been neatly folded and placed atop the counterpane. “I wasn’t sure if you had any nightclothes with you. From what I can gather, you were forced to travel light.” Stede’s eyes flick down to Ed’s duffel bag. “So I dug out a nightshirt for you. It’s one of my favourites. Egyptian cotton. Very comfortable.”

Ed’s mouth quirks up in a teasing grin. “I usually sleep naked.”

“Oh,” Stede squeaks. Ed curses the candlelight and the way it prevents him from being able to see the precise shade of Stede’s cheeks;  he’s pretty sure they are well on their way to crimson at this point. “Well, that’s… that’s absolutely fine, of course. You can… you can do that here. If you want to.”

Ed chuckles. Stede is really fucking cute when he’s flustered. “Nah, I like the sound of that fancy Egyptian cotton against my skin. Think I’ll give it a whirl tonight.”

“Great! That’s great. Wonderful. Well, I’ll just leave you to it, then. I’ll be just across the hall if you need me.” And with that, Stede backs out of the door, with one last blink-and-you’ll-miss-it glance at Ed’s chest. 

“Night, Stede.”

“Night night, Ed.”

The door clicks closed, and Ed finds himself alone. He shimmies out of his trousers and underwear, folding them and placing them neatly on a chair. He runs his fingers across the cotton of the nightshirt. It’s soft beneath his fingertips, far finer than anything Ed has ever given himself permission to wear – at least, outside of events where he’d been forced to schmooze with Association bigshots. The thought of wearing something this luxurious just to go to bed feels completely and utterly decadent.

He pulls it on over his head. It’s blissful as it whispers against his skin. He catches sight of himself in a mirror and allows himself a moment to turn this way and that, admiring the way the fabric floats around his ankles. There are ruffles around the neckline and cuffs, and he can’t resist fiddling with them. They shouldn’t call them ruffles if you aren’t supposed to ruffle them, he figures. 

Eventually, the novelty of the nightshirt loses out to the pull of the bed. He throws the covers back and allows himself to flop face first onto the mattress. He barely manages to stifle the groan that threatens to tear itself from his body, suddenly very conscious of Stede’s presence just across the hall. He settles instead for a quiet sigh.

Just as he had predicted, the bed is so fucking soft beneath him. The bed linens smell like flowers. He rubs his cheek over the pillow, reminiscent of how that lucky little fucker Montague had rubbed himself all over Stede’s calves. Christ, is Ed really jealous of a dragon? 

He rolls onto his back, pulling the covers up around himself. Within seconds, his mind starts to float, flashes of golden curls and a dimpled smile carrying him off into a deep slumber.

Chapter Text

There is a weight on Ed’s chest, pinning him down. For a second, he panics, his sleep-addled mind unable to figure out what the fuck is going on. He blinks his eyes open, doing his best to drag himself back to wakefulness. Peering down at him are two glistening, black eyes. The little orange dragon they are attached to snorts, tilting its head to one side. Its tail slowly swishes from side to side, scales glistening in the morning sun that creeps in around the edges of the curtains. 

For a moment, Ed has no fucking clue where he is or why the fuck there is a miniature dragon sitting on his chest. He casts his eyes around the room, taking in the unfamiliar space. It comes back to him all at once – the crash, the Revenge , the dragon sanctuary, Stede. He flicks his eyes down to his own body, momentarily surprised by the ruffled nightshirt engulfing him before he remembers that, too. Stede had shared it with him without even being asked. One of his favourites, he’d said. Egyptian cotton. 

He meets the dragon’s gaze again. “Er… hey there?” he says, reaching up to pet it behind the ears. It nuzzles into his palm with a contented chitter, pulling a chuckle from Ed. 

Stede’s voice floats into the room from somewhere without. “Marmalade! Marmalade! Here, boy!”

The little orange guy – Marmalade, Ed presumes – flicks his ears, then turns and hops down off the bed, scampering out of the bedroom door, his claws tippity-tapping against the floorboards as he goes. And then Ed is alone.

He sits up, groaning at the headache that thrums behind his eyes. He should’ve known he’s too fucking old to put away that amount of wine without feeling it the next day. He gulps down the water that Stede had left on the nightstand the previous night, a mix of gratitude and fondness blooming in his chest. 

Now that he’s properly awake, he can hear the sounds of Stede moving about in the kitchen – the distinctive clatter of plates and cutlery, the opening and closing of cupboard doors. It’s strange to wake up to such domestic noises. Ed is so used to living alone, of having to fill his silent spaces with sounds of his own making. 

He forces himself out of bed, stretching out his muscles. He’s eager to greet Stede, so much so that he almost strides straight out of the room, nightclothes be damned. But nah, he feels kinda vulnerable in this floaty garment. There’s something about the way that air circulates so freely around his junk that makes the thought of walking out there like this feel intimate in a way he isn’t ready for. So, instead, he pulls the nightshirt off over his head and rummages around in his bag for a clean set of clothes. 

Clad once more in his trademark leather trousers and black shirt, he feels much better placed for facing Stede. He checks himself out in the mirror, fixing his hair in a half-up, half-down style, artfully arranging a few loose strands to frame his face. 

As anticipated, he finds Stede in the kitchen. His back is to Ed as he bustles about, placing several slices of toast in a rack and setting two teacups on saucers. He’s wearing a long, flowing velvet robe, patterned all over with birds and flowers. The hem almost brushes the floor as he moves, sweeping along behind him gracefully. 

Stede is narrating his every action to Marmalade, who is perched on one shoulder, his tail draped around Stede’s neck like a scarf. And yeah, there’s that fondness again, spreading through Ed from his belly outwards, radiating along every limb to the tips of his fingers and toes. It’s just such an impossibly cute scene, and Ed can’t bear to interrupt it, so he stands mutely in the living area, just drinking it in. 

Eventually, Stede turns to set the toast on the dining table. And fucking hell, Ed gets an eyeful of the loose, billowing shirt under the robe, which falls open in a wide vee. The stark contrast to the way Stede was so buttoned up the day before is definitely doing something for Ed. He wills his dick to behave, silently thankful to the Ed of five minutes ago for pulling on the leathers, which are at least a bit more capable of concealing any of Ed’s sins than the gown. 

Stede startles a little at the sight of Ed when his eyes finally flick up from the table. Marmalade gives an indignant little squawk in response.

“Mornin’,” Ed says, with a fond smile. 

Stede recovers his composure quickly, returning Ed’s smile ten-fold. “Good morning, Edward. I hope I didn’t wake you.”

“ You didn’t,” Ed says, turning a pointed stare upon Marmalade.

“Marmalade, did you wake our guest?” Stede scolds, though his voice is brimming with fondness.

Marmalade snorts and flicks his tail.

“I am sorry about him,” Stede says. “He’s a wonderful companion, but he has no boundaries whatsoever.”

Ed chuckles. “It’s fine, man. I’ll admit it was a surprising way to wake up, but it’s all good.”

“Well, I’ve prepared some breakfast for us. Toast, tea, marmalade… Actual marmalade, that is. I’m not proposing we eat this little character,” Stede says, reaching up to scritch the dragon beneath his chin. 

Ed allows his gaze to roam over the little spread that Stede has set out on the table. There’s the aforementioned tea and toast, but also fruit, pastries, and a bowl of sugar. 

“Thanks, man. You didn’t have to do this.”

“Nonsense!” Stede replies, gesturing toward one of the two place settings. “Please.”

Ed takes a seat and begins loading up his plate. Stede pours him a cup of tea from a pretty china teapot, adorned with a dragon motif. Ed mutters his thanks to Stede, popping in three teaspoons of sugar. He pauses, considers trying to force himself to drink the not-nearly-sweet-enough tea to avoid embarrassing himself, and then thinks fuck it. He’s so fucking tired of hiding himself behind the tough guy Blackbeard persona. He doesn’t wanna do it anymore. Especially not around Stede. 

He adds three more spoonfuls. He flicks his eyes up to Stede, who is watching him like a hawk, one corner of his mouth ticked up. Holding Stede’s gaze, Ed tips in one more spoonful of sugar. 

“I have a sweet tooth,” Ed says, setting the spoon down and leaning back in his chair.

“Yes, I can see that,” Stede replies, wryly, as he spoons a single teaspoon of sugar into his own tea.

As they tuck in to breakfast, Marmalade hops down from Stede’s shoulder, padding over to bask in a patch of sunlight that has fallen across a plush, floral rug. 

“So, are you ever gonna tell me?” Ed asks after swallowing down a mouthful of toast. 

Stede raises his eyebrows, forehead crinkling as he sets down his teacup. “Tell you what?”

“How the hell you got here, man. How you ended up running this incredible dragon sanctuary. There’s gotta be a story there.”

Stede drops his gaze. His fingers fiddle idly with the orange rind that sits on his plate. “It’s rather a dull story, I’m afraid.”

“Fuck off,” Ed says. “No story that ends with setting up a top secret dragon sanctuary can possibly be boring.”

Stede lets out a thoughtful hum. “Well, I suppose. Okay, then. Before all of this, I led a very different life. I was born into wealth. I did nothing to earn it, nothing to deserve it. I merely… lucked into it.” 

Stede’s speech pattern shifts subtly on those last few words, almost as if he’s repeating someone else’s words verbatim, borrowing their cadence. Ed doesn’t care for the disdain that drips from those words, doesn’t like the way it sounds in Stede’s voice. 

“For most of my life, I did what I was expected to do. I went where I was expected to go.” Stede catches Ed’s gaze briefly before his eyes dart away. “I married who I was expected to marry, and I produced the children I was expected to produce.”

Ed lets out a held breath on a long exhale, unsure of what to say to all of that. He eventually manages a quiet “Fuck, man.”

Stede’s mouth quirks up in a sad little smile. “Fuck, indeed. I felt trapped, Ed. Trapped in a rudderless, monotonous life. Continuing to exist in that way simply wasn’t an option.”

Ed thinks back on his own life, how maintaining the Blackbeard persona all the fucking time had begun to feel like treading water, waiting to drown. A different trap, for sure, but a trap all the same. “Yeah, man. I get that.”

Stede meets his gaze then, an incredulous expression on his face. But he must see the truth of Ed’s words in his eyes, and the incredulity slips away, replaced by a sympathetic smile. He picks up his story once more. “So, I began to look for a way to do something good with my wealth. It took years to build this place, especially as I needed it to remain a secret. I couldn’t risk the wrong people getting wind of it. I didn’t even tell my own wife – well, not until we were nearly operational.”

“Oh? And where is she?” Ed asks, totally and completely casually. “Your wife?”

“She elected to stay on the mainland, with the children. It turns out she is not overly fond of dragons.” Stede lets out a dry, humourless chuckle. “You would think I would know something like that about my own wife after twenty years of marriage. I’m afraid I was a rather poor excuse for a husband, Ed.”

Ed can’t help but reach across the table, laying his hand on top of Stede’s. “Hey, man. I’m not an expert or anything, but from what I understand, it takes two people to make a relationship work.”

“Thank you, Ed,” Stede murmurs, eyes fixed upon the hand that rests atop his own. “We weren’t well suited to each other, Mary and I. We didn’t choose each other. We never would have.”

Ed pulls his hand away, figuring he’s already left it there for too long. He wraps his hand around his teacup instead, the heat of Stede replaced by the tea-warmed china. 

“So, you and Mary… What’s the situation there now?”

Now Stede’s face breaks out in a genuine grin, his eyes twinkling mischievously. “Well, in order for us both to be free, we decided that I had to die.”

Ed’s eyebrows shoot up into his hairline. “You faked your own death? How’d you do it?”

“It’s a long story, which I promise I’ll tell you in full one day, but let’s just say I was mauled by a dragon, run over by a carriage, and then, to ensure that my ‘corpse’ would be disfigured beyond recognition, I was crushed by a piano.”

A full-bodied laugh grips Ed, doubling him over at the images that Stede’s words have conjured up. “Now that’s a fuckery,” he manages to say when his laughter has abated enough for him to breathe again.

Stede beams at him, his own shoulders shaking with laughter. “I’m not one to do things by halves, Edward.”

“Yeah, I’m beginning to see that,” Ed replies. “You’re a fucking lunatic, man!”

Stede’s eyes drop to his own teacup, and he shrinks in on himself. Ed gets the distinct impression that Stede has spent most of his life making himself small.  

“Stede? I like it.”

Stede’s eyes dart back up to Ed’s own again, the smile returning to his face as the compliment settles in. “Yes, well, Mary writes to me every now and again. She has a new partner now, and she seems happy with him.”

“And you’re good with that?” Ed asks, still trying to piece together the puzzle pieces, feel out the lay of the land. 

“Yes,” Stede replies, without hesitation. “I would never begrudge her happiness. We may not have been well-suited, but she’s actually a wonderful person.”

“And your kids?” Ed asks. 

Stede’s brow furrows, sadness creeping into his eyes. “I do miss them, quite terribly. My daughter, Alma, is headstrong and whip smart. She could see that her mother and I would both be happier apart. She helped us plan the – what was that word you used? Ah yes, the fuckery. My son, Louis, was so young when I left that I’m not sure he even remembers who I am.”

“Shit man, I’m sorry. Any chance of them coming for a visit?” 

“Maybe one day,” says Stede, somewhat wistfully. He straightens himself up in his chair, pours himself a second cup of tea. “Anyway, that’s enough about me. I’d love to hear more about you.”

Ed scoffs. “Not much to tell, really.”

“Oh come on, now. I find that hard to believe! You’ve had an incredible career, Ed. I’ve followed you for years.”

Something inside of Ed’s chest deflates at that. Stede knows who he is, of course. It was never a secret. Hell, the first time they had met, Stede had asked him if he would prefer to go by Blackbeard. But Ed had almost let himself forget. He’d allowed himself to believe that his friendship with Stede could be untouched by Blackbeard – that he could just be Ed here. But fuck, maybe that had been naive. Maybe Stede would never be able to look at him without seeing Blackbeard. 

“Edward?” Stede prompts. “Are you alright?”

Ed blinks off his reverie, shifting in his seat. “Yeah. ‘Course, man. It’s just… I spent a long time being Blackbeard. It was a fuckin’ blast at first. The racing was thrilling, and the fame was somethin’ else.”

Stede hums in acknowledgement, but gives Ed the space to tell his story. 

“I created the Blackbeard persona when I was young and arrogant, when I didn’t care about anything much beyond being the best racer of all time. But after a while, Blackbeard started to feel like a prison, y’know? I had to be tough, aloof, untouchable all the fucking time. I was so tired of it by the time of the crash. Truth be told, I was already thinking of packing it all in.”

Ed flicks his gaze up to Stede, expecting to see disappointment painted across his features, or maybe the derision that he is so used to seeing on Izzy’s face whenever Ed talks this way. But Stede doesn’t look disappointed or disdainful at all. He looks thoughtful. 

“What would you do, if you retired?” Stede asks. And that? That is not the question that Ed expected. It’s not a question anyone has ever asked him before. He’s not even sure it’s a question he’s ever asked himself .

“Fuck, man, I have no idea,” Ed sighs. “Don’t really know that I’m good for anything else.”

“I don’t believe that,” Stede says, and Christ, the firmness in Stede’s tone catches Ed off guard. “I may have only known you for a day, but I think you could do anything you wanted to do.” A pink blush rises up Stede’s neck, into his cheeks, and yet he holds Ed’s gaze, almost defiantly, as if daring Ed to challenge him.

And, fuck. Ed has no idea what to do with that. He can feel the blush rising up his own cheeks, a mirror of Stede’s. He leans forward, just fractionally, pulled to Stede as if by magnetism. His eyes flick briefly down to Stede’s lips before they dart back up to meet his gaze once more. Stede’s lips part slightly, and Ed thinks he sees desire in those gorgeous, gold-flecked eyes. He feels as if they are suspended on the cusp of something momentous, something earth-shattering, and then –

FFFNARFFF

– Marmalade lets out an almighty sneeze. Stede is out of his seat in an instant, grabbing a tea towel from the kitchen counter and rocketing toward the living area. He beats at the small flames licking around the edges of the rug until he’s satisfied that any fire risk is well and truly past. 

Ed scrubs a hand over his face, heart thumping in his chest as he comes down from the emotional whiplash of the past thirty seconds. Fucking hell. Had he really almost just kissed Stede? Had he really seen what he had thought he’d seen in Stede’s eyes? Well, whatever had just passed between them, the moment was well and truly over, shattered to pieces by Marmalade, the adorable little dickfuck.

“Sorry,” Stede says, shuffling back over to the kitchen when the crisis is averted.

“Jesus, Stede! Aren’t you terrified that your house is gonna burn down?” Ed asks. 

“Truthfully, it’s been a while since we’ve had an incident like that. Must be the excitement of a new face in the house.” Stede shoots a sidelong glance at Marmalade, who is swiping at a dust mote suspended in a beam of sunlight as if nothing noteworthy had just happened. “I think I might have to keep him with me today, though. I’m not sure I can trust him at home alone right now.”

Marmalade chunters. It’s an almost affronted sound, as if the little fucker had understood Stede’s words and is balking at the mere suggestion that he can’t be trusted. Ed can’t hold back the laugh at the dragon’s antics. He might be a fire risk, but Ed has to admit, he’s pretty fucking endearing.

“So, what’s on the agenda for today, then?” Ed asks, as he slathers a piece of toast in marmalade – the jammy kind, that is. 

“Well, I thought we could check in on Queen Anne, see if Roach has any updates on her condition. I’m sure she’d love to see you,” Stede says.

“Yeah,” Ed replies. “I’d love to see her, too.”

“We have an all-staff meeting every morning at nine thirty. I’d like to put everybody’s brains together, see if we can start puzzling out how we might design something to help Queen Anne regain her flight.”

“You really think you can do it?” Ed asks.

Stede sighs, running his fingers through his golden curls. “I’ll be honest, Ed. I truly have no idea. Limbs are one thing, but wings, tail fins… they are considerably more complex.”

Ed’s heart sinks. He knows this, of course – knows that what Stede is planning to attempt has never been tried before. It won’t be easy, and there’s no guarantee of success. Still, he had hoped for a more optimistic assessment from Stede. He appreciates Stede’s frankness – really, he does – but he’s gotta admit that it stings. 

Stede leans across the table, laying his hand on top of Ed’s wrist. The warmth of his palm seeps into Ed’s skin, radiating along his arm. 

“But I promise you, Ed, that we will do everything we can for her. Nothing would bring us more joy than seeing her fly again.” 

Ed pats Stede’s hand. “Thank you.”

🐉

Roach is already by Queen Anne’s side when they arrive at the stables, a cigarette dangling from his lips. He presses his palm to her flank, muttering under his breath as he observes her reaction to his touch. 

“Good morning, Roach,” Stede calls, announcing their presence. Marmalade weaves in and out of Stede’s legs, which are clad once again in silk stockings and breeches.

Queen Anne’s head swings toward the stable door, ears perking up as soon as she sets eyes on Ed. Her tail begins swishing behind her, sweeping an arc in the hay as it drags along the floor. 

“Hey girl,” Ed says, crossing the stable in three long strides. In her excitement, Queen Anne nudges her head into his belly a little too forcefully, almost knocking him onto his ass. He regains his balance, chuckling as he pets her between her antlers. “Yeah, I’ve missed you, too.”

“How’s she doing?” Stede asks, looking over at Roach. 

Roach takes a long drag of his cigarette before responding. “She’s still in some pain, and she hasn’t regained her strength yet. But she’s calm. She seems to have adjusted well, overall.”

“That’s my girl,” Ed coos, as he scratches behind her ears. 

“Edward,” Stede calls from the doorway. “Would you like to join us in the dining hall? Our staff meeting will be starting shortly.”

Ed can’t quite bear to part with Queen Anne, not yet. “You go ahead,” he says. “I’ll catch up in a few, yeah?” 

Stede, Roach, and Marmalade head out, leaving Ed and Queen Anne alone. He settles himself beside her for a bit, feeling the solid weight of her next to him, contenting himself with her presence. He can’t help but think back to a few days prior, when he had first seen her lying in the stables back at the training ground. He pushes down the thought of how weak she had seemed then, trying instead to be present in the moment and to take heart from the way the light has begun to return to her eyes. Her path to recovery might be long, but she has already begun walking it, and he knows there’s no better place for her to do that than here.

He packs his pipe with tobacco, murmuring nonsense to Queen Anne as his fingers work. As he draws the smoke into his lungs, he’s hit by a sudden wave of bitter fury. If the Association had had their way, Queen Anne would be dead by now, discarded as if she were nothing more than a broken tool. The vision of Izzy’s gleaming sword as he advanced upon Queen Anne springs to his mind unbidden, his heart jackrabbiting in response. He’d come so close to losing her, and he realises that he hasn’t really let himself sit with that yet. 

He leans back against Queen Anne’s flank, feeling her ribcage expanding and contracting with every breath she takes. He smokes, and he allows himself to feel all of it – the rage and the terror and the seething resentment toward the Association that has been slowly building within him for years. He wants to do something with those feelings, wants to use them to bring about change, but who the fuck is he kidding? He’s just one guy, and the Association are powerful. They wouldn’t hesitate to throw everything they had at him if he dared to confront them. They’d crush him beneath their bootheels in an instant. 

He sighs heavily as he tucks his now empty pipe away. He picks himself up off the hard stable floor, rubbing his ass cheeks to encourage the blood flow back into them. He’s spent longer with Queen Anne than intended, lost to his own thoughts. Fuck, he hopes he hasn’t missed the meeting completely. 

He gives Queen Anne a firm pat on the flank and sets off across the compound toward the dining room. As he gets close, he hears raised voices. He presses his ear to the door in an effort to make out some of the words.

“– never tried anything like this before –”

“– just not possible –”

“– wouldn’t even know where to start –”

“Do you have any idea how insane this is?”

Ed tears open the door. The voices all fall silent. 

Ed scans the room. Stede’s staff are seated around one of the low tables. None of them meet his eyes. 

Stede himself stands at the head of the table. He’s hunched forward, his weight resting on his fists, head bowed. He turns his gaze on Ed, frustration written plainly across his features. 

He watches as Stede draws in a deep breath before straightening himself up. “I know that what I’m asking you to do won’t be easy. I’m very well aware that we have never tried to do anything this complex before.”

Lucius opens his mouth to speak, but Stede cuts him off. “And yes, I do know that we may fail. But we have to try, don’t we?”

Ed steps into the room, his booted footsteps a loud counterpoint to the silence left in the wake of Stede’s impassioned plea. He can feel the weight of seven pairs of eyeballs upon him. 

“Queen Anne has been by my side for more than twenty years. She has seen me through some of the best days of my life and some of the worst. She means the world to me. Shit, by all accounts, I should be dead right now. From what I hear, that crash should have been it for me. But she saved me.”

He hears Stede inhale sharply. From the corner of his eye, he sees Stede raise a hand to his chest, pressing it against his heart.

“You all have given her a second life, and I will forever be grateful to all of you for that. But the thought of her never touching the clouds again… it fucking hurts, guys.” Ed blinks back the tears that have begun to prick at his eyes. He takes a deep breath, willing his voice to remain steady. “She belongs in the air. And if there’s any chance – any chance at all that we can give that to her, then I am fucking begging you. Please. Please , try.”

For a few awful, interminably long seconds, no-one says anything. Ed’s ready to turn tail, ready to storm out of the room and go scream at the ocean or some shit. Anything to get rid of some of the grief and desperation he feels welling up inside of him. 

But then Stede’s voice rings out. “Roach. Tell us one more time what the issue is.”

“Okay,” Roach says. He sighs in a way that makes it clear that they have already been through this, perhaps more than once. “She’s sustained some damage to her wings, but nothing that shouldn’t heal over time. The real issue is her tail fin. It’s badly injured, and it has completely lost function. In my professional opinion, she is very unlikely to regain that function. The damage is too severe.”

“Right, okay. And the tail is important because…” Stede prompts. 

Ed steps in at this point. He might not know much about the natural behaviours of dragons in the wild, but he sure as shit knows his stuff when it comes to the anatomy of dragon flight. 

“The tail fins provide stability and balance,” Ed says. “But they also control direction, like a ship’s rudder. When a dragon wants to turn, she changes the shape of her tail fins, pulling them in closer to the tail or fanning them out.” Ed demonstrates with his hands. “Without functional tail fins, you’re fucked. No control, no stability.”

“Thank you, Ed,” Stede says, with a soft smile. He turns back to his team, clapping his hands together to gain their attention. “Now team, hypothetically speaking, if one were to design a prosthetic tail fin, how might one go about it?”

The big guy, Wee John, is first to chime in. “You could use fabric in place of the fin membrane. You could pleat it, allowing it to fold in on itself like an accordion.”

“Great!” Stede says, with a snap of his fingers.

“Yeah, but it would need to be able to open and close on demand,” Ed says. “It’s no good if it just flaps about in the breeze.”

The fanboy, Pete, raises his hand, a little uncertain. Ed nods at him. 

“I think I could make a mechanism that controlled the tail fin. It could be attached to a stirrup, so that a rider could control it with their feet.”

Ed quirks an eyebrow. “So, she’d be able to fly, but only with a rider?”

Pete deflates, rubbing a hand across his bald scalp. “It’s dumb, I know. Sorry, Blackbeard. Forget I mentioned it.”

“No, man!” Ed says. “That’s not what I meant. I mean, obviously, it would be incredible if she could fly by herself. But if this is the way that she can fly again, then that’s fucking excellent, man! You really think you can make something like that?”

Pete blushes, while Lucius beams at him with pride. “I mean, I think so…” he says, slowly. “With some help.”

Lucius opens up a large sketchbook on the table in front of him. Within minutes, the whole team is crowded around him, throwing their ideas into the mix as Lucius’s charcoal moves over the page, sketching and annotating their evolving design. 

Stede turns and beams at Ed, his face shining with glee. Ed nods at him, one hand pressed to his heart. He mouths a silent “thank you”, though the two words feel utterly inadequate to express the depth of the gratitude that courses through his veins. 

There’s no guarantee that the prosthetic limb will function as intended, of course, and Ed knows this. But for a moment, he allows himself to believe that Stede’s crew will pull it off, and that he will see Queen Anne take to the skies again. 

Chapter Text

Over the next few days, Ed spends a good chunk of his time with Queen Anne. Under Roach’s instruction, he leads her on walks along the various island trails, coaxing her a little further each time so that she can build up her stamina. He can see the change in her day by day. Her gait becomes more even as the strength returns to her muscles, and her breathing becomes less laboured.

Still, despite the improvement in her physical stamina, her spirit remains low.  There’s an indefinable spark that has been missing from her eyes ever since the accident. Ed catches her looking wistfully up at the sky now and again, her wings twitching. He does his best to soothe her, murmuring to her under his breath, singing her the songs of his people passed down to him by his Ma. She doesn’t understand, of course, but the cadence of Ed’s voice seems to settle her, at least a little.  

The walks take it out of her, and so she tends to sleep a lot after, her tail curled around herself as she beds down in the stables. Not one to sit around idle, Ed fills this time by throwing himself into helping out around the sanctuary in any way he can. He tags along with the Swede on his rounds, soaking up all the information he can about different dragon species and their habits, diets, and traits. He sits in with Pete as he works on the mechanism for Queen Anne’s prosthetic, helping to test things out and spitball ideas for refinements. He works with Wee John to trial different fabrics for the tail fin, as they search for one that will as closely as possible mimic the membranous skin of Queen Anne’s fins in strength and flexibility.

But as much as Ed enjoys making himself useful, he’s never happier than when he’s by Stede’s side. Ed’s never been one for spending time out in nature. He’s a city boy at heart, much more comfortable surrounded by buildings and cobbled roads than by vegetation and bugs (so many fucking bugs). But when he’s with Stede, it doesn’t seem so bad. He could listen to the man wax lyrical about the ‘insane foliage’ on the island for hours on end. He especially loves it when Stede uses the scientific names for the ferns and flowers that excite him so much; it makes Stede sound so fucking smart. Ed didn’t really know he was into that – Christ knows most of his former dalliances weren’t exactly big in the brains department – but it seems he’s uncovering a lot of new information about himself these days.

The best thing about taking walks with Stede, though, is watching the way he treats the dragons. He connects to every single one on an individual level, as if they are all members of his very unconventional family. There must be hundreds of dragons on this island, and yet Stede knows every one of them by name. He points out each new dragon they come across, throwing in some tidbit about the critter’s quirks and mannerisms.

“That’s Maggie – you have to watch out for her, she’s a bit of a hellcat…”

“Oh look, here comes Olivia. She’s bonded to Karl, and the both of them seem to have some kind of special connection to Mr Buttons…”

“This is Vincent. Looks a bit ferocious, but he’s quite the sweetheart once you get to know him.”

Stede’s favourite dragon on the island – aside from Marmalade, of course – is named Arthur. He’s about the same size as Queen Anne, but with shimmering orange scales and a pink underbelly. Stede shyly confesses that the reason he prefers Arthur is that “he has kind eyes,” and fucking hell, if Ed wasn’t already completely gone on Stede, then he thinks that might have done it. Because the thing is, Stede is so fucking earnest, so utterly unable to be anyone other than himself. He doesn’t try to hide his softer side underneath layers of machismo – not like Ed has spent most of his life doing. And being around Stede makes Ed want to be braver, too. With each passing day, he finds himself shrugging off another piece of the Blackbeard armour, letting a little more of Ed peek through. 

Case in point – the way Ed is dressing these days. Stede had given Ed free reign over his wardrobes – the regular one and the auxiliary one, the fucking lunatic – as Ed had had to travel so light when he and Queen Anne had fled the mainland. Stede had helped him pick out shirts in ‘jewel tones’, waxing lyrical about how the colours work perfectly with Ed’s skin tone, as he had pulled out one beautiful garment after another. Ed had eschewed the breeches and stockings that Stede had offered him – they’d felt wrong on his body, like he was wearing yet another costume – instead pairing a billowy shirt with leather trousers and boots. It felt good, felt right. And when Ed looks in the mirror now, it isn’t Blackbeard he sees staring back, but Edward. 

So anyway, the point is, he and Stede have been spending a lot of time together since Ed arrived on the island. Even on days when they split off and do their own things, they always start the day with a shared breakfast and end it with a long, meandering conversation over a nightcap as twilight descends. They never seem to run out of things to talk about, riffing off of one another with the ease of two people who have known each other for years rather than days. It’s fun and it’s easy being around Stede, and Ed doesn’t think he could ever grow bored of it. 

And yet. 

Yet, there has been no repeat of the almost-kiss from their first shared breakfast. There’s been nothing aside from friendly arm pats and shoulder bumps, and almost all of those have been initiated by Ed.  

Ed’s been twisting himself in knots trying to decipher Stede’s body language, his words, his facial expressions. He feels like a little kid, pulling petals off of a daisy as he recites he likes me, he likes me not, he likes me…  

In other circumstances, Ed might be willing to take the risk – to look into Stede’s pretty hazel eyes and tell him plainly that he would very much like to kiss his face off, and let the chips fall where they may. Sure, he’d be fucking devastated if Stede turned him down, but he’d get over it with a bit of time and distance. Probably. Maybe. 

But therein lies the rub. Ed is a guest in Stede’s home. At least until the Revenge swings back around, they are stuck together. And that changes the balance of the equation. If Ed makes a move and Stede rebuffs him, then Ed will have nowhere to go lick his wounds, and Stede will be left sharing his home with the man he turned down. Doesn’t exactly sound like an ideal living situation, for either of them.

So no, Ed has decided that he cannot be the one to make the next move. Ed’s pretty sure he’s made his interest plain. He’s batted his lashes at Stede, walked around shirtless… fuck, he’d even leaned in to kiss him that first morning. It’s over to Stede, now.   

Such are the thoughts that swirl around Ed’s mind as he slouches on Stede’s sofa, the light of the fireplace catching on the amber brandy in his crystal tumbler. He glances across at Stede, who is reclined on the other end of the sofa, stockinged feet resting on a footstool. Marmalade is curled up between them, and Stede idly pets him with one hand, his own glass of brandy held in the other. 

Stede looks over at Ed, his brow furrowing a little. “Ed? Is everything alright over there?”

Fuck. Ed’s spiralling thoughts must be showing on his face. He makes a visible effort to relax, exhaling the tension from his muscles. “Yeah, mate. Everything’s fine,” he says. And, well, fuck. That didn’t sound convincing, even to his own ears.  

Stede pauses, his hand hovering a couple of inches above Marmalade’s head. The little fucker snorts indignantly, nudging his head into Stede’s side to encourage him to get back to business. A wave of utterly irrational jealousy sweeps through Ed. If only it could be that easy for Ed to nuzzle into Stede until he starts running his fingers through Ed’s hair. 

“You’re sure?” Stede asks, as he resumes petting Marmalade. “You’ve been awfully quiet this evening.”

“I was just thinking that maybe I’ve overstayed my welcome,” Ed says slowly, eyes intently fixed on the nautical star inked onto his own hand. “Maybe I should go stay with Lucius and Pete for a few days, or perhaps I should crash in the infirmary bunk after all.”

Ed glances at Stede and immediately wishes he hadn’t. He looks like a wounded dragon pup, eyes shining and impossibly large in the firelight.

“Oh,” Stede says, voice quiet. “Edward, have I… have I done something to make you feel uncomfortable?”

“Fuck man, no. That’s not it,” Ed says. Stede has done nothing wrong. He’s been an incredibly generous host, sharing not just his home with Ed but his clothes, his food, his bathtub and fancy soaps... It’s not Stede’s fault that Ed wants more. 

“Then… do you not enjoy my company?” Stede asks, eyes downcast.

Ed turns his body to face Stede more fully, bringing one knee up onto the sofa and slinging his arm onto the backrest. Marmalade shuffles about with an affronted little chunter, turning in a slow circle until he settles back down again. 

“Stede, will you please look at me?” Ed says. He pauses, waiting for Stede to drag his gaze up to meet Ed’s. Ed winces a little at the pain he sees in Stede’s eyes – the pain that he knows he has put there. He takes a deep breath, hoping he can find the right words to put Stede’s mind at rest without spilling his guts everywhere. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, mate, but I like hanging out with you. It’s fun, man. You’re fun.”

Stede scoffs at that. “You don’t have to pretend, Edward. I know I can be… a lot. It’s fine if you need a bit of space from me. I understand completely.”

Ed pinches the bridge of his nose in frustration. “I’m not pretending, Stede. You could never be too much for me.”

“Oh,” says Stede. The light of the fireplace dances across Stede’s features as Ed’s words settle in, the sorrow retreating from his eyes.  

“Look, man. I don’t know how to do any of this,” Ed says, gesturing between them. “I don’t really have any friends.”

“Hey,” Stede says, in a tone that brooks absolutely no dissent. He leans forward, eyes boring into Ed’s. “ I’m your friend.”

Ed swallows against a sudden lump that has formed in his throat. “Yeah?” he manages to ask, shocked at how close to a squeak his voice sounds. 

“Yes, you nut!” Stede says, with a chuckle. “So… why don’t we pretend the whole leaving idea never happened?”

“We could?” Ed asks, hardly able to believe that he hasn’t irrevocably fucked this whole situation up.

“I mean, I could if you could,” Stede says.

“I think I might like that,” Ed agrees.

“I would love that,” Stede says, beaming at him from across the sofa. 

“Okay then,” Ed murmurs. “Thank you.”

Stede reaches out, placing his hand on top of Ed’s where it rests on the back of the sofa. He gives Ed’s hand a reassuring squeeze before pulling back, once more attending to Marmalade. Ed can feel the echoes of his touch long after his hand is removed and they slip back into their friendly banter. 

Friends, then. Ed can do friends. If that’s all he and Stede will ever be, then Ed can live with that. A little heartache is a small price to pay for the friendship of someone as incredible as Stede, after all.

🐉

Morning light filters down into the clearing by the lakeshore. Ed slings the bag from his shoulders and crouches down to rummage through it, pulling out a cloth-covered bundle. He carefully unwraps it and lays it out flat, thoroughly inspecting it for any damage it might have sustained during the walk. He breathes a sigh of relief when he determines that everything is exactly as it should be. 

Stede is looking down at him expectantly. “Are you ready to give this a try, Ed?”

Ed grins up at him. “Fuck yeah, man. Let’s do this.”

Queen Anne eyes the contraption warily as Ed approaches. Whether she can sense the nervous energy radiating from him and Stede, or whether she somehow knows that the pile of wood, metal and cloth in Ed’s arms is intended for her, Ed isn’t sure. But she’s skittish, backing away from Ed with each step he takes toward her. 

“It’s okay, girl. You’re okay,” Ed coos, keeping his voice soft and soothing. She might not be able to understand his words, but she can understand the tone, so Ed just keeps talking as he approaches. “Roach says your wings have healed up nicely, and you’ve regained enough strength for us to give this a go. So let’s try this, yeah? Let’s see if we can get you back in the air…”

Ed’s voice calms her a bit, but it’s not enough. Every time he gets anywhere near her tail, she swishes it away. 

Stede steps forward, murmuring sweet nonsense to Queen Anne. She turns her head toward the sound of his voice, huffing softly at him. Ed watches as Stede slowly advances on her, palms outstretched. She allows him to get close, though she tenses and flinches when he brings his hands up to her neck. Stede pauses, waiting for her to relax. When she does, he lays his hands on her scales, showering her with praise as he strokes the long length of her neck. 

Ed watches them, spellbound. Right from the get-go, Queen Anne had warmed to Stede in a way that she rarely did with anyone. She clearly sees something special in him – something kind and gentle and trustworthy. His heart swells with fondness at the sight before him, and Ed has to firmly remind himself that he and Stede are friends , and nothing more. At least, not until Stede makes it clear that he wants more – if that day ever comes.

“Edward,” Stede says in the exact same sing-song tone he has been using to keep Queen Anne calm. “Now might be a good time to do what you need to do…”

“Fuck. Right. Yeah.”

Ed reluctantly tears his eyes away from Stede to get back to the task at hand. He creeps up on Queen Anne’s tail, moving as stealthily as a hunter stalking its prey. Stede is doing an excellent job of holding her attention, allowing Ed to get much closer than he’d been able to on his own. 

Her tail twitches and Ed freezes, not even daring to breathe. He can hear Stede pulling her focus back onto him, though he can no longer see him around the bulk of the dragon between them. When Queen Anne relaxes once more, Ed lets out the breath he’s been holding and gets into position – one foot planted either side of her tail and his back toward her body. He slowly lower himself down until he’s straddling her tail, pinning it with his full body weight. She tries to resist, her powerful muscles straining as she attempts to thrash her tail. Ed clamps his thighs tighter around her in response. All the while, Stede shushes her, hums to her, does whatever he can to calm her. 

Thankfully, Stede’s efforts pay off. After a few seconds, Queen Anne gives up her protest, relaxing beneath Ed’s weight. Ed pats her tail and praises her for her behaviour but he doesn’t dare let up the pressure where he’s clamping onto her. His thighs are gonna feel like fire tomorrow; they’re already trembling with the effort.

He draws in a deep breath, readying himself for the fiddly part. Pete had talked him through how to attach this thing, and he’d practised multiple times using a thick coil of rope in place of Queen Anne’s sinewy tail. But it feels very different doing it for real, where the risks of fucking up are so much greater.

He manages to get the prosthetic tail fin in position, fastening the buckle that will hold it securely in place. He inspects it thoroughly, making sure it’s not digging into her flesh, but that it’s on tight enough that the fins won’t slip around when she takes flight.

With a grunt, he raises himself back to his feet. He gathers the leather straps that trail from the tail fins in his hands, then makes his way to her right flank. He hooks up one of the straps to a mechanism on the stirrup that hangs from a custom-built saddle, giving it a few tugs to make sure it’s secure, before repeating the process on the other side.

Finally, it’s done. Ed steps back, slowly circling her to inspect the prosthetic from all angles. The fins themselves sit just above Queen Anne’s own, irreparably damaged fins. The lines that connect the tail fin to the stirrups have enough give in them to allow her freedom of movement. Hopefully, they will also be taut enough so that when Ed presses down on the stirrup mechanisms, they will pull on the prosthetic fins, fanning them out to control Queen Anne’s speed and direction. 

Now that the whole thing has been fitted, Queen Anne is calm. She’s used to being saddled up, of course, so Ed supposes the tail fin mustn’t feel too unusual to her. It’s a good sign, one that ignites a little spark of hope in Ed’s chest.

There’s only one thing for it now. Ed nods to himself and looks across at Stede. “Guess there’s nothing left to do but hop on and see what happens, huh?”

“Good luck,” Stede says. The nervous excitement is radiating from him in waves, and his eyes twinkle as he grins from ear to ear. He steps back toward the treeline, giving Ed and Queen Anne the space they need to get off the ground. 

“Here we go, then,” Ed mutters to himself, before planting his left foot into the stirrup. He grabs the reins, levering himself up as he swings his right leg up and over Queen Anne’s body. He’s super fucking grateful that this is a manoeuvre he’s pulled off hundreds of times, because he can feel Stede’s eyes boring into him and he really doesn’t want to make a tit out of himself.  

He situates himself properly in the saddle, making sure he’s well-balanced and his feet are secure in the stirrups. He takes a moment to enjoy the feeling of Queen Anne’s solid form beneath him. The raw power contained within a racing dragon’s muscles is phenomenal, and it’s always such a fucking rush to have that power at his fingertips. 

He glances over at Stede, whose gaze is fixed upon Ed. Stede doesn’t even try to hide his adoration. His eyes are wide, lips slightly parted, cheeks dusted pink. And, well, Ed can’t resist putting on a bit of a show. He knows he looks fucking hot on the back of a dragon, and what’s more, he knows how to play it up. He straightens himself up, puffing out his chest and stretching out the muscles of his lower back. He flicks his hair over his shoulder, fixing Stede with a sultry stare. Stede’s throat bobs in response – Ed swears he can practically hear the gulp, even from ten strides away.

With a cheeky wink at Stede, Ed gives a gentle tug on the reins. He squeezes his knees a little tighter as she spreads her wings wide, ready to – hopefully – take flight. 

Ed holds his breath in anticipation as Queen Anne gives a mighty flap. He feels the telltale sensation of her pushing off of the ground, that distinctive first spring that always causes his tummy to lurch a little. They gain a few feet of air and Ed remembers to breathe again. But before he knows it, the ground is coming back up to meet them. 

Queen Anne touches down, her four clawed feet digging into the soft, earthy soil. Okay, so that might have been little more than a glorified jump, but it wasn’t nothing. Ed glances back at the tail fin, tries to think through how she would naturally use her fins during take off, and how he can replicate that movement via the mechanisms that his feet are hooked into. He pictures the sequence in his mind, turning it over and over until he feels ready to try it.

“Again,” Ed says, tugging on Queen Anne’s reins. She pushes off again, and this time, Ed flexes his feet in the stirrups, causing the tail fin to pull in close to her tail. She gains a few extra feet of height this time, and Ed rotates his ankles, allowing the fin to fan out a little more. They cover fifty feet or so in distance, keeping low to the ground, before Queen Anne descends again. It’s not graceful, and they don’t manage a straight line, but it’s an improvement, no question about it. 

Ed can’t help looking over at Stede, who is watching them intently, a broad smile across his face. He shoots Ed a double thumbs up and yells out to him in encouragement. Ed nods and steels himself to try again. 

Over the next couple of hours, Ed and Queen Anne try and they try and they try again while Stede provides moral support from the sidelines. It’s difficult and it’s frustrating and Ed can feel the failures piling up on top of him. The thing is, it’s like learning to fly all over again. He’s having to master a completely new skill, and there’s no-one to teach him, because no-one else has ever done anything quite like this before. Consequently, there’s a lot of trial and error as Ed tries to figure out exactly when and how the fins need to move, and how to use his own feet to make the tail fins do precisely what he needs them to do. 

Their progress is slow, but it is steady. By the time the sun is high in the sky, they are able to fly the length of the lake, and they can fly in a straight line – more or less, anyway. Ed doesn’t risk any real height, not yet, instead staying no more than twenty feet above the water at all times. 

Eventually, Queen Anne begins to show obvious signs of fatigue. Her movements grow more sluggish, and she requires a little more encouragement to take flight each time. Their progress starts to backslide a little, too, their coordination becoming shakier as the dragon tires. Ed leads them on one more pass over the lake, back toward an enraptured Stede who is looking on from the shore.

They pull off a respectable landing and Ed dismounts, his heart buoyed with optimism. They may have a hell of a way to go yet, but the progress they have made today is beyond Ed’s wildest expectations. There is no doubt in his mind that with time, Queen Anne is gonna be able to touch the clouds with her wingtips again, cutting graceful arcs through the air just as she ever did. 

Stede seems to know it, too. He’s grinning from ear to ear, bouncing on the balls of his feet as if he just can’t keep the excitement inside. Ed strides over to him, allowing himself no time to overthink his actions. He sweeps Stede into a bear hug, almost lifting the man off of the ground with the force of it. 

The air leaves Stede’s lungs in an audible whoosh, but then he’s wrapping his own arms around Ed, squeezing him back tightly. They hold each other that way for several seconds, both overcome by a wave of elation. Eventually, Ed pulls back, though he doesn’t let go completely, instead holding Stede at arm's length, one hand clamped around each of the man’s surprisingly solid biceps. 

“We did it, man!” Ed exclaims, as he grins at the lunatic who made all of this possible. “We fucking did it!”

Chapter Text

Over the next couple of weeks, Ed throws himself headlong into training with Queen Anne. Every morning, hot on the heels of an indulgent breakfast with Stede, he leads Queen Anne to the lakeside clearing that he’s come to think of as their training ground. At first, the concentration required to work the tail fin is considerable. More than ever before, Ed and Queen Anne must work together as a single unit; Ed has to learn to anticipate Queen Anne’s intentions from the way her muscles roll and flex beneath him, then he has to map those intentions to the required movements of the tail fins, and to the corresponding positioning of his own feet. There is so damned much to keep straight that his head thrums with it, a pulsing pressure behind his eyes that refuses to abate.

Each day, they train for as long as they can, stopping only when Queen Anne’s stamina wanes to the point where continuing would become dangerous. Within each session, Ed focuses on one particular skill that they need to hone before he can allow her to soar freely – balance, direction, control of altitude, acceleration and deceleration.

When Queen Anne is resting, Ed usually heads to the workshop. He pores over his notes –  detailed records of his observations about the prosthetic and the way it responds to his movements – with anyone who will listen. He works with Pete and Wee John on adjustments to the contraption, tiny tweaks that increase the tail fin’s sensitivity or help it better withstand the force of the wind at higher speeds, each improvement pushing them fractionally closer to their goal of allowing Queen Anne to fly as gracefully as she did before.

The accident begins to return to Ed in flashes, still too fragmented to piece together into a coherent narrative. It’s as if his time in the saddle is shaking something loose in his brain, something that had been trapped behind a wall of fog. His sleep grows fitful as he finds himself jolting awake several times a night, glimpses of dragon scales and the faces of his rival racers darting away from his awareness as his heart pounds and his limbs tremble.

Between his broken sleep and the relentless schedule he has set for himself, he knows he’s looking worse for wear. He sees the dark circles under his eyes whenever he looks in Stede’s fancy bathroom mirror, and he notices the way that Stede’s brow furrows in concern as they shoot the shit each evening over dinner and brandy. Stede suggests he might be pushing himself too hard, that he maybe ought to slow things down a little bit. And Ed knows Stede is probably right, that he’s being a bit too intense about this whole thing, but… but he can’t bring himself to ease up. He feels driven to get Queen Anne back in the air properly, to give back what was taken from her the day she saved his life. So, he keeps on pushing. 

His efforts pay off. Little by little, it gets easier. Every day, he finds that he needs to concentrate less. Processes that were previously effortful become automatic, until riding her almost feels like it did before the accident. That pounding pressure behind his eyes begins to abate, and it seems that it takes the dreams with it, his sleep becoming peaceful once more. 

It’s on a clear and still Wednesday morning that Ed decides that they are ready to really see what they are capable of. He’s been keeping tight control over Queen Anne up to this point, reining her in when she tries to climb too high, pulling her back when she tries to fly too fast. But their connection is stronger than it has ever been, even in all their years of racing. Ed can read her better now than he ever could, allowing him to function nearly seamlessly as the broken part of her body. 

So, he cedes control to her. When she tries to climb, he lets her. When she brings her wings in close, streamlining herself to cut through the air like a knife, he flattens himself against her and lets her go. For the first time since the accident, she really flies , unfettered and free. Ed whoops and hollers with glee as she swoops and glides high above the verdant island far below. Queen Anne joins in, bellowing out an unrestrained roar that can no doubt be heard for miles around. It is, without a doubt, the best sound that Ed has ever heard. 

🐉

When Ed steps through the front door of Stede’s cottage later that day, he is greeted with a warm, wide smile. Stede is dressed down for the evening, jacket and waistcoat traded for a golden robe that hangs open over a billowing shirt and silken lavender breeches. There’s something so fucking domestic about seeing Stede casually unbuttoned like this that Ed almost forgets himself and strides across the room to peck him on the cheek. He blinks it off, reminding himself that that is not a thing that they do. As much as Ed would like to be more, he and Stede are friends. Not lovers, not partners. Friends . 

“Hey, Stede,” Ed says, as he drinks him in. 

“Hello, Edward,” Stede replies, already pouring Ed a cup of tea from his ornate teapot while Ed unlaces and toes off his boots.

By the time Ed’s feet are bare, Stede is standing before him, a cup of tea perched on a saucer held in each hand. Ed accepts the proffered one with a mutter of thanks and blows across the surface before taking a sip. He hums with pleasure as the sweet, hot tea hits his tongue. 

“Mmm, ‘s perfect, man. You got it just right,” Ed says.

“I know,” Stede replies, a smug twinkle in his eyes. “A dollop of milk and seven sugars.”

“Wouldn’t be the same with six,” Ed says, with a fond smile. 

Warmth spreads through Ed’s chest. No-one has ever cared about him enough before to memorise how he takes his tea or to anticipate what he might need at the end of a long day. And yet Stede does it so effortlessly, almost unconsciously. It’s difficult sometimes not to take Stede’s graciousness as a sign that he feels something deeper than friendship for Ed. Ed has to remind himself that Stede was raised by rich folks, which means that he was no doubt schooled endlessly in the etiquette of hosting. Ergo, Stede would do all of this for any house guest. It doesn’t mean anything, as much as Ed would like it to. 

Stede pads over to the sitting room, his golden robe swishing behind him as he goes. Ed follows, helplessly pulled into Stede’s orbit. Marmalade is curled up on the rug, his soft snores filling the companionable silence that settles between Ed and Stede as they make themselves comfortable.

“So, how did it go today?” Stede asks. 

“It went great!” Ed gushes “I let Queen Anne lead – just let her just do whatever she wanted to do. No limits, no constraints.” Ed closes his eyes for just a moment, allowing the sense memory of the wind against his face to wash over him.

“That’s wonderful, Ed!” Stede exclaims. “I don’t think any of us dreamed that she would regain as much function as this – and certainly not this quickly!”

Ed places his teacup down on the coffee table so he doesn’t spill any of his tea in his enthusiasm – he’s always been one to speak with his hands when he gets a bit excited. “It was just like old times! She was pulling off moves I didn’t think she’d ever be able to do again. She was fuckin’ spectacular! God, Stede, it was incredible. I felt so fucking alive .”

A faraway expression creeps across Stede’s face. He runs his finger around the rim of his teacup, an unconscious gesture that Ed has learned means that Stede is turning something over in his mind. Ed falls quiet, letting him think. 

Stede’s hand stills. “How does it feel?” he asks, voice small.

For a moment, Ed is thrown, unsure what Stede is asking. He rewinds their conversation in his mind before he makes the connection. 

“Stede… don’t tell me you run a dragon sanctuary and yet you’ve never ridden a dragon?”

Stede flushes and shrinks into himself. His gaze remains fixed on his teacup. “It was something I always wanted to try, but my father forbade me to learn when I was young. And then Mary… well, she insisted that it would be reckless. So it just never happened.”

A shadow flits across Stede’s face. He doesn’t talk much about his past, steering the conversation away any time the subject of his life before the sanctuary comes up. Ed has pieced some stuff together – partly through tiny nuggets of information from Stede himself, and partly through information gleaned from Lucius and other staff members. It’s enough for Ed to know that Stede’s life before wasn’t a happy one. 

“You’ve not been tempted to try since you got here?” Ed asks, in an attempt to guide them to slightly safer waters. 

Stede laughs, the sorrow retreating from his features. “Oh, no. I wouldn’t have the first clue how to begin!”

“I could teach you,” Ed says. 

“Wouldn’t that be something?” Stede’s gaze slips back down to his teacup, a breathy little laugh escaping his lips as if Ed had just suggested something completely absurd. Ed supposes he’s not wrong. It’s not like Blackbeard goes around teaching dragon-riding lessons to complete beginners. But maybe Ed does.  

Ed says nothing. He just stares at Stede. 

When Stede glances back up, Ed raises his eyebrows and gives the man a little nod. 

Stede straightens up in his armchair. “You’re serious?”

“Of course, man. Seems like it’s the least I can do to repay you for everything you’ve done for me and Queen Anne.”

Stede shoots him a reproving look. “Edward, you do not owe me a thing.”

Ed knows there’s little point in arguing over that with Stede, even though any impartial observer would definitely agree that Ed has had the better deal out of this whole situation. Still, here is a real, tangible thing he can do for Stede, and he’ll be damned if he’s gonna pass up the chance.

“Alright, then. What if I want to teach you because I think you deserve the chance to fly? And because helping you would make me happy.”

Stede appears to turn it over in his mind for a moment before he places his teacup down, extending his hand out to Ed. “Okay. Agreed.”

Ed leans forward, clasping Stede’s extended hand in his own. “Tomorrow. Yeah?”

Ed claps Stede on the shoulder. Stede sinks back into his armchair, muttering a surprised ‘woah’ under his breath. As Ed once more lifts his teacups to his own lips, his blood fizzes with the anticipation of gliding through the air on dragonback with Stede at his side.

🐉

Ed stands in the middle of the guest room, a black shirt in one hand and a royal purple one in the other. He intends to wear his full leathers today for the first time since he arrived on the island – give Stede a bit of the Blackbeard experience for his first time on dragonback – but he’s torn about which shirt to wear beneath his jacket. 

“What d’ya think, boy?” Ed asks, turning to where Marmalade is curled up on the bed. “The black’s more in keeping with the Blackbeard vibe, but your dad likes the purple. He told me so, once.”

Marmalade stares at him in that watchful way that he used to find so off-putting, but which he’s gotten used to over the past few weeks. The little guy snorts once before laying his head down on his front feet. 

“Yeah, the purple,” Ed agrees. “Let’s do the purple.” He tosses the black shirt onto the bed before pulling the purple shirt on. 

The jacket goes on next, with all of its fiddly fucking buckles and fastenings. Ed turns this way and that, examining his reflection in the full-length mirror. He knows he looks good in head-to-toe leather – there’s a reason why it was his signature look for twenty years – and he can’t help but hope that Stede will appreciate it, too. 

He pulls half of his hair into a bun, leaving the other half down. He glances back at Marmalade in the mirror, but he seems to have given up on watching Ed in favour of grooming himself, nibbling at the scales on his flank. 

Ed’s curious about what Stede will choose to wear today. He’s never seen him leave the cottage in anything but a full suit, complete with frilly bits and heeled shoes. Ed had suggested that he might want to dress a little more practically for their lesson, and Stede had merely grinned, assuring Ed that he had just the thing. Ed can only imagine what that might be.

With one last appraising look at his own reflection – and after pulling a couple more strands from his updo – Ed heads out to the living area. He stops in his tracks when his gaze falls on Stede, who is already there waiting for him dressed in one of the most extravagant outfits that Ed’s seen him in yet. It’s a vibrant red suit, trimmed in gold. The jacket has insane epaulettes on the shoulders, along with sweeping tails that extend down to Stede’s mid-calves. Beneath the jacket is a crimson shirt with a deep maroon ruffle that frames a plunging neckline. It’s all Ed can do to hold himself back from crossing the room and licking a broad stripe up the vee of chest on full display.

Stede seems to take Ed’s stunned silence as an indictment of his sartorial choices. His confidence deflates before Ed’s eyes, and he begins shrinking in on himself.  “Edward? Is this… should I change?”

“No!” Ed practically shouts. “No,” he repeats, more softly. 

Still, Stede hesitates. “You’re sure? It’s not too much?”

“Stede, if you change out of that outfit, the lesson is off,” Ed says. He doesn’t mean it, of course – he’d teach Stede in a rice sack if that’s what he chose to wear – but he can’t stand the sight of Stede doubting himself. “It’s awesome, man. It looks…” (don’t say sexy don’t say sexy don’t say sexy) “...It looks really good on you.” Ed’s eyes flick down to Stede’s chest of their own accord. “I like that shirt.”

“Oh,” Stede says, his cheeks turning a colour not dissimilar to the suit he’s wearing. “Why that’s… thank you.”

“I mean, I like all of it. The whole thing. It’s completely brilliant, Stede,” Ed gushes. 

“You think so?” Stede asks. 

Ed nods. On anyone else, the suit would probably look completely ridiculous, but on Stede, it looks fucking great. 

“I had it made when I set this place up,” Stede says. “It’s an homage to some of the great racing legends from when I was a boy. I used to love watching them, and not just for the athleticism of it. What I loved most of all was the pageantry – the colours and the costumes and the showmanship.”

Ed smiles, thinking back to his own childhood racing heroes. He, too, had loved their colourful outfits, and when he imagined being up there with them, competing alongside them, he had envisioned himself clad in something like what Stede was wearing now – something colourful and flamboyant and exciting. He glances down at his own outfit of head to toe black leather, wondering how he ended up straying quite so far from the vision of himself that young Ed had dreamed up. He wonders whether he would have been happier had he made some different choices earlier on – choices that might have prevented him from suffocating inside the caricature of Blackbeard. 

“I didn’t think I would actually get to wear it,” Stede continues, oblivious to Ed's train of thought. “But I just knew that I had to, today. Who knows if I’ll ever get another chance?”

Something hangs between them, then. They haven’t really talked much – at all, to be honest – about what comes next. They haven’t been consciously avoiding the topic, not really. It’s just that Ed’s been so focused on his goal of getting Queen Anne airborne that it’s left little time for thinking about much else. But, shit. Now that Queen Anne is able to fly again… well, Ed’s not quite sure where that leaves him. Queen Anne can’t fly without him, but he can’t stay here forever, crashing at Stede’s place and taking advantage of his hospitality indefinitely. Perhaps Ed and Queen Anne will both have to leave – either go back and face the wrath of the Association, or flee further East, to somewhere far beyond the Association’s reach.

Nope. Ed shuts down that line of thought before he starts to descend into a panic. He is not gonna fuck this day up by spiralling about what happens next. He’s gonna live in this moment, and he is gonna teach Stede Bonnet to fly. 

“Stede,” Ed says, dropping his voice low. He schools his face into a cocky grin, allowing more of Blackbeard to slip through. “You are about to have a lesson in dragon riding from Edward “Blackbeard” Teach. It is going to change your life forever. Once you have touched the sky on the back of a dragon, there is no way you won’t ride again.”

Ed steps forward, allowing his hips to sway a little more than usual as he closes the gap between them. He clocks the way Stede’s gaze flicks down the length of his body, and the flush that rises in that sinful vee of chest as Ed moves into his space. Stede’s wide, hazel eyes bore into his own when they come back up to meet him. They are so close now that it would be easy to lean in and kiss him. He doesn’t, of course, as much as he wants to.

Ed claps a hand on Stede’s shoulder. “Now, let’s go ride some dragons, yeah?”

🐉

Ed adjusts the straps on Arthur’s saddle, pulling them tight and checking each fastening in turn. When Ed had asked Stede to suggest some dragons that might be suitable, he hadn’t hesitated before naming Arthur. Not only does the large, orange dragon have a calm temperament, but he used to belong to a training school. Dozens of aspiring young racers have learned to ride upon his back, and it shows in the way he stands patiently as Ed readies him for Stede. 

When Ed is finally satisfied that the saddle is secure, he turns to Stede. “Ready?”

Stede looks… distinctly not ready. He’s shifting his weight nervously between one foot and the other. His fingers fiddle with the buttons and trims of his elaborate red cuffs as his teeth worry his bottom lip and his eyes dart between Arthur and Ed.

“I think so?” Stede squeaks. It sounds more like a question than a statement.

“I’ll be right beside you the whole time on Queen Anne, yeah? I won’t let anything bad happen. Besides, Arthur knows what he’s doing, don’t you, boy?” Ed says, giving Arthur a pat on the flank. 

Stede steels himself, standing up straighter and nodding once, decisively. “Okay. I trust you, Ed. Arthur, too. I want to do this.”

“That’s the spirit, man!” Ed says, with a grin. 

Ed talks him through the process of mounting Arthur. He tries very hard not to stare at Stede’s ass as he supports him from behind, his hands on Stede’s hips as he swings his right leg up and over the dragon’s body. He talks Stede through how to hold the reins properly, how to position his feet in the stirrups, and how to adopt the correct riding posture. 

Ed hops up onto Queen Anne and guides her so that she comes to stand alongside Arthur. “Looking good, man,” Ed says, beaming at Stede. The apprehension hasn’t drained from his face entirely, but he does look a little more comfortable than he did with his own two feet on the ground. He’s holding himself well in the saddle, too. If Ed didn’t know better, he never would have guessed that this is Stede’s first time on dragonback. 

Ed figures Stede should walk before he flies, and so they spend the first hour or so guiding the two dragons up and down the trail that leads from the stables to the lakeside clearing. The walk allows Stede to get used to the sensation of Arthur’s body rolling and swaying beneath him, and gives him the opportunity to learn how to direct Arthur by applying gentle pressure with his knees and by tugging gently on the reins in his hands. 

After their fourth or fifth journey along the trail, Ed can tell that Stede is growing impatient. Queen Anne is growing antsy, too, flexing her wings and craning her neck skyward. So, when they next arrive at the clearing, Ed talks Stede through the process of getting Arthur airborne and how to control his speed and altitude once they leave the ground. Then he makes Stede repeat the instructions back to him. Stede looks as if his nerves have all but melted away, but Ed feels as if he’s absorbed them into his own body. The weight of the responsibility for Stede’s safety presses on him. He’ll never forgive himself if Stede gets hurt because Ed failed to teach him well enough to keep him safe. 

Finally, Ed deems Stede ready, and together, they take off. They start slow, with a low pass over the lake – low enough that if Stede were to fall, only his dignity would be injured. Ed looks over at Stede, at the determined set of his jaw. Stede’s knuckles are white where he is gripping the reins, and Ed can’t help but notice that his posture has slipped. He’s locked up tight, carrying far too much tension in his upper back and shoulders. 

“Stede!” he calls. “You need to relax a bit, mate.”

Stede shoots him a somewhat bitchy look. “It’s a bit difficult to relax right now, Edward.”

Ed chuckles, distantly remembering the heady mixture of exhilaration and terror that had swirled within him when he first took to the sky on the back of a dragon. “I know, man. But you’ve gotta try, or Arthur’s gonna sense your tension and you’re gonna freak him out. So, come on, take a deep breath in. Then, when you let it out, I want you to think about getting rid of all of the tension in your body. Okay?”

Ed takes an exaggerated breath in. Stede nods to himself then copies Ed, breathing deep and holding it. When Stede exhales, Ed sees the tension ebbing away from his body, his shoulders dropping and the whiteness of his knuckles receding. 

“That’s it! That’s great, Stede!” Ed calls. He watches Stede carefully as they circle the lake a few times, occasionally throwing out pointers. Stede responds well to Ed’s directions, quickly correcting his technique every time. It soon becomes clear that Stede is something of a natural, and after a couple of low laps of the lake, their dragons’ claws virtually skimming the surface of the water, Stede has relaxed into it fully. 

“Shall we go higher?” Ed shouts.

Stede beams at him, eyes crinkling at the edges. “I’d be disappointed if we didn’t!”

Ed talks him through how to encourage Arthur to ascend, and then they are climbing higher and higher above the islands. He can hear Stede whooping beside him as the island falls further and further away. Ed can’t stop himself – the laughter is torn from his lungs by the sheer force of Stede’s enthusiasm until tears of joy are gathering in the corners of his eyes. 

They reach a good altitude for cruising, around fifty metres above the forest canopy. Ed signals to Stede to level off and they fall into pace together, Queen Anne and Arthur practically wingtip to wingtip. 

They are joined, briefly, by a pair of inquisitive, much smaller dragons. Stede grins at the little duo’s antics as they weave and dodge around them, chittering playfully.  

“Ed, this is incredible!” Stede calls across to him. “I’ve never felt so free!”

Ed realises, as he watches Stede’s awed face, that he had grown so accustomed to flying that he had long ago started to take it for granted. It didn’t help matters that he only ever flew with the express purpose to train, to race, to win . But up here, gliding aimlessly with Stede by his side, it feels new again. The exhilaration begins to blossom in his core, petals slowly unfurling as the light of Stede’s excitement hits them, coaxing them open.   

Ed can’t resist showing off, just a little. He instructs Stede to keep Arthur steady, holding his course. Then he leans forward, murmuring to Queen Anne and nudging her with his knees. “Go on, girl, let’s have some fun.”

He lets Queen Anne follow her own instincts to whirl, dive, spin, and soar. The world falls away as Ed focuses on reading her body language so that he can operate the tail fin, the two of them working together seamlessly as a single unit. This is what freedom feels like, he thinks. Flying for the sake of flying. Flying for no other reason than it feels good. 

Eventually, Ed guides Queen Anne back toward Arthur and Stede. They fall back into formation, effortlessly matching Arthur’s direction and bearing. 

“You’ll have to teach me to ride like that one day,” Stede says, grinning widely. 

And there it is again, that pull on Ed’s guts as he wonders what happens next. Does Stede want him to stick around? Surely he can see that Ed can’t just hang around here forever, even though there is nowhere else in the world that Ed wants to be. The questions bubble up inside him, but he shoves them back down, unwilling to jeopardise the sanctity of this moment. 

The sun is just beginning to set, painting orange and pink streaks across the sky. Ed looks across at Stede. He glows with joy, lit up from the inside with an intensity that puts the setting sun to shame. He’s so beautiful like this, bathed in the warm, golden light of the late afternoon, that it steals the air from Ed’s lungs. 

Increasingly over the past few weeks, Ed has found himself turning over a word in his mind; a word so terrifying in its enormity that he hasn’t even been able to bring himself to whisper into the dark. It’s a word that he has never said to anyone, aside from his mother. Truthfully, he didn’t think he ever would. But his heart hammers that word against his ribs now, almost as if it is trying to force its way out through his chest: Love, love, love.

As he and Stede soar together, the last of Ed’s doubts disperse, carried away like dandelion seeds on the breeze that caresses their faces as they fly. Ed loves Stede. He loves him. And maybe it’s just the overwhelming romanticism of the moment, but when Stede turns his head toward him and their gazes meet, Ed allows himself to believe that he sees something akin to love in Stede’s shining, hazel eyes, too. 

Ed smiles, heart brimming over with joy, as he and Stede guide their dragons side by side through the painted sky.

Chapter Text

The last rays of evening sunshine bathe the entire island in a syrupy, amber light. From this vantage point, perched upon a grassy plateau high up in the Western peaks, Ed can see everything: the cluster of buildings that make up the sanctuary compound; the sparkling, crystal lake nestled inside a carpet of lush, green vegetation; the white ribbon of sand that circles the entire island. Way off in the distance, the silhouette of a dragon moves against the sky, looping and whirling in its own private dance. Altogether, it’s a breathtakingly beautiful sight. 

Ed glances over at Stede, who is lost to his own thoughts, eyes roving over the island sprawled out beneath them. Stede’s lips are turned up in a faint smile. Ed would love to know what he’s thinking, but he contents himself with drinking in the sight of him, admiring the way that the sun, now half-lost to the horizon, is reflected in Stede’s eyes, two golden crescents shimmering in his pupils. 

The temperature starts to plummet when the sun dips fully beneath the horizon. Stede pulls his fancy red coat tighter around himself, and Ed can’t help but notice that he’s starting to shiver. They could head back to Stede’s place, get a fire going in the hearth… but Ed’s not ready to head back yet, and he gets the sense that Stede isn’t either. So Ed stands with a grunt and heads over to the copse of trees clustered on the plateau, and he sets about collecting some sticks. Stede joins him, and between the two of them, they make short work of building a passable campfire. 

Ed calls Queen Anne over and encourages her to breathe out a stream of bright, orange flame. She preens a little at Ed’s praise before sauntering away to where Arthur is resting. She tucks herself into his side, nuzzling into him a little. Arthur snorts softly, before resting his head on her neck, his eyes fluttering closed. Ed smiles. Good for them. 

Ed pokes at the fledgeling fire for a bit, blowing on the flames that lick around the edges of the kindling until they catch fully. Stede has settled back on the ledge, surveying his home in the twilight. 

When Ed is satisfied that the fire has well and truly caught, he makes his way back over to Stede’s side. They sit in a comfortable silence for a while, punctuated only by the crackling of the fire behind them and songs of the frogs and cicadas awakening from their slumber. 

It’s Stede who breaks the silence. “Thank you for today, Ed.” 

Ed picks up a twig and begins fiddling with it mindlessly, drawing aimless patterns in the dirt. “It’s nothing, mate, really. Especially after everything you’ve done for me.” He glances over at Queen Anne. “For us.”

Stede turns to him, catching his gaze. “It was not nothing, Edward,” he says, a hint of steel to his voice. “I can’t even begin to tell you what it meant to me. I’ve dreamed of flying my whole life, but I’d long since given up hope that it was something I would ever experience.”

Ed can feel the blush creeping up his cheeks as Stede’s eyes bore into his own. He feels pinned by Stede’s gaze, held in place by the sheer force of the emotion written across Stede’s face. His own eyes dart away, sweeping across the abstract lines he has scratched into the dirt with his twig. “Well, I’m glad that I could do that for you.”

“You were phenomenal up there, Ed! The way you and Queen Anne move together… it was magnificent!” Stede gushes. 

Ed smiles as Stede’s praise settles over him like a warm blanket. “Well, we’ve had a lot of practice. I must have spent hundreds of thousands of hours on her back over the years. You get to know each other really well in all that time. Learn each other’s quirks, how to anticipate each other. I couldn’t fly any other dragon like I can fly her.”

“I love that,” Stede says, voice soft and tinged with awe. “Maybe one day, Arthur and I can develop such a rapport.”

Silence settles between them again, but this time it feels charged. Tense, even. Ed has the sense that Stede is holding something back. Sure enough, from his peripheral vision, Ed catches Stede open his mouth to speak before clamping it shut again without a word. 

“Stede? You okay, man?”

Stede looks across at him, teeth worrying his bottom lip. “Ed, please tell me if I’m overstepping, but do you remember much about your accident?”

Ed’s brow furrows. “I… I remember bits and pieces. It’s started coming back to me more and more lately.”

Stede hums softly. “Do you want to tell me what happened?”

Ed says nothing for a while. He feels like all of the parts are there, scattered like jigsaw puzzle pieces spread across a table. Maybe putting words to them will help him to put it all back together into a coherent whole. 

“I’m sorry,” Stede says, turning away to face out over the lookout. “I shouldn’t have asked. It’s none of my business.”

“Hey, Stede, it’s fine,” says Ed. “It’s still a little jumbled up in my mind, but I think it might help to talk about it.”

“Okay,” Stede breathes, before falling silent, patiently waiting for Ed to begin. 

Ed closes his eyes, breathes deep, and lets the memories come.

🐉

Ed’s heart pounds in his chest, the adrenaline surging through his veins as he spurs Queen Anne on. They are virtually neck and neck with Zheng Yi Sao and her crimson steed, the leader changing hands from one second to the next. 

“Is that all you’ve got, Blackbeard?” Zheng shouts across the divide, a teasing smile on her face. 

“Never!” Ed grins as he leans forward, flattening himself down against Queen Anne so they can better slice through the air. 

The finish line is roughly two miles ahead, too far to make out from here. Yet Ed knows the course intimately. He knows every tree, every building, every lake that they fly over, and so he knows that to have any chance of taking home the top prize, he and Queen Anne need to push as hard as they can from this point forward. 

He gives Queen Anne a squeeze with his knees, the signal that tells her that it’s time to give it absolutely everything she has. He risks a look across at Zheng, sees her adopting a similar stance atop her own dragon. Her pigtails trail behind her like two jet black streamers as her mount picks up speed. 

They have a respectful rivalry, Ed and Zheng. Zheng burst onto the local scene a couple of years ago, having spent the earlier part of her career in China. She’d quickly become one to watch, winning a number of titles with her flawless technique. Ed had found her to be a formidable opponent, and had welcomed having someone around who could genuinely hold her own against him on the racetrack. It had staved off the monotony, for a while at least, until even the buzz of genuine competition had grown stale.

Ed’s entire world narrows down to the physical sensations of the race: the cold wind against his face, the flexing and rippling of Queen Anne’s muscles beneath him, the rhythmic whooshing of Queen Anne’s wings as she propels them through the air. 

Ed is scanning the horizon, eyes peeled for the finish line, when a silver flash catches his attention from the periphery of his vision. He whips his head around just in time to see Ned Low coming in fast. Low isn’t flying parallel to Ed, which he would be if he was following the course. No, he’s barreling toward Ed, and the cold, calculated grin on that shiny fucker’s face tells Ed that his heading is intentional. He’s planning to broadside Queen Anne.

Ed tugs on Queen Anne’s reins and shifts his body weight in the saddle, encouraging her to bank sharply to the right. He’s unable to keep his eyes on Ned as Queen Anne rolls, so all he can do is hold on for dear life and hope that he has reacted in time to take them out of Ned’s path. 

He knows he was too slow when he hears the unmistakable smack of two large bodies colliding. The impact sends shockwaves through his body. Queen Anne lets out an agonised bellow at the same moment that Ed is thrown from the saddle. He instinctively grasps the reins tighter to prevent himself from plummeting to the ground. His arm is almost wrenched from its socket as the reins pull taut, sending a bolt of pain all through him. He grits his teeth against it, trying his hardest to hold on. 

He dangles from Queen Anne’s side, legs kicking uselessly against thin air. Zheng is shouting something to him, but he can’t make out the words over the frantic roaring of his pulse in his ears. 

Queen Anne begins to tumble, pinwheeling through the air in an uncontrolled spin. Ed’s not sure if he pulled her off balance when he slipped from the saddle, or if she sustained a serious injury in the collision. Fuck, both of those things could be true. Either way, if he can’t get himself back in the saddle and bring her back under control, they are well and truly fucked. 

He tries to pull himself up onto her back, but between the incessant, violent spinning and the screaming pain in his shoulder, he simply cannot get the purchase he needs. As Queen Anne’s tumble grows increasingly intense, it’s all Ed can do to keep his grip on the reins. 

It feels inevitable when the reins slip through his fingers. Almost as if he’s watching it happen in slow motion, the leather straps slide through his palm. His fatigued muscles tremble as he tries to close his fist tighter. But it’s not enough. Not enough to keep himself tethered to Queen Anne.

He watches the reins leave his hand, and then, that’s it. Ed is falling. 

It’s surprisingly peaceful, just Ed and the open air. It’s not a bad way to spend his last few seconds on Earth, feeling weightless and free. Ed closes his eyes. He doesn’t want to see the end coming. He thinks of his Ma, thinks of how he’ll soon be joining her and their ancestors in the spirit world. 

Suddenly, he feels strong limbs enveloping him. He opens his eyes to see the shimmering purple scales of Queen Anne’s forelimbs grasping his chest. Her wings wrap around him, sealing him away in a giant, membranous cocoon. 

He barely has any time to register what is happening before they smash into the ground. They pinwheel together, Queen Anne clutching him close to her belly. He’s effectively blind and unable to process anything beyond the pain that crashes through him with every fresh bump. 

Finally, Queen Anne’s momentum runs out and she falls motionless. Ed fights to remain conscious, desperate to tend to his faithful dragon, but as he tries to lift his head, his vision tunnels, darkness creeping in around the edges of his sight. He thinks he manages to mutter a thank you before he is lost to the inky blackness of unconsciousness. 

🐉

Silence settles over Ed and Stede as the final words of Ed’s story are carried away on the breeze. The realisation of just how close he had come to death that day hits Ed afresh. It’s something he had known on some level, but he’s never really let himself think about it before now. He takes stock of his body, realising that his hands are shaking and his breaths are coming shallow and fast.

“Ed…” Stede exhales, from beside him. Ed watches Stede’s hand as it crosses the space between them. His fingers are cold where they wrap around the back of Ed’s hand, squeezing him reassuringly. “I am so sorry that happened to you. It must have been terrifying.”

Stede’s hand retreats again, five little cold patches lingering on Ed’s skin where Stede’s fingertips had just been. Ed sniffs and tucks his legs in closer to himself, trying to shake off the delayed terror of the memory. There will be time to dwell on it, time to process it fully. But he doesn’t want to risk falling apart right now, not at the end of such an incredible day with Stede.

“Yeah, well, occupational hazard, isn’t it?” he says, covering his vulnerability beneath a layer of bravado. 

Stede’s brows draw together, his forehead creasing into a deep frown. “Why did Low target you like that, do you think?”

Ed scoffs at the mention of that dickhead’s name. “About ten years ago, he set the record for most consecutive wins. He’s made that record his entire fucking personality – tells anyone who will listen about it. Well, anyway, a couple of months back, I broke that record. Not intentionally – it’s not my fault that I’m better than him. And, well, he’s been gunning for me ever since. I’m surprised it took him this long to make his move, actually.”

“But, Ed, he tried to kill you! Over a sporting rivalry! That’s… that’s insane!” 

“Yeah, well, the guy’s unhinged. You should hear some of the rumours about him. If even half of them are true…” Ed trails off, with a shudder.

“Isn’t there anything we can do?” Stede asks. Ed’s heart skips a beat over the ‘we’ in that sentence, spoken as if there is simply no question that Stede would fight Ed’s battles alongside him. 

Ed shakes his head. “The Association has turned a blind eye to his behaviour for years – both on and off the racetrack. I can’t see why this would be any different. And besides, I can’t prove anything. It’s my word against his.”

“That’s not true though, is it?” Stede says. “Zheng Yi Sao saw it, too. Would she back you up?”

Ed turns the question over in his mind. Standing up to someone like Low would be risky, and there’s a good chance that the Association would ultimately refuse to act on it anyway. Low was clearly counting on that, or he never would have been so brazen as to ram into him right in front of Zheng.

But when he closes his eyes, he can still see the playful smile on her face as they traded shit-talk with each other. And he can still hear the sound of her horrified yell as he fell, ringing in his ears. 

“I think she might be persuadable,” Ed says. “Others, too, maybe. No-one likes Low – he’s a dirty racer, and I’m pretty fucking sure he never came by his record fairly in the first place. But the thing is, Low’s not the real problem. He’s just a symptom. The rot within the Association goes so much deeper.”

Stede raises his brows in a silent question. 

“They present themselves to the world as the good guys, right? Looking after the welfare of the dragons who race for them, ensuring that races are as safe as they can possibly be… Well, that couldn’t be further from the truth.” Ed’s face forms itself into a bitter scowl. “They are only interested in one thing: Money. They don’t give a shit about the safety of their racers. I’ve seen countless friends and colleagues badly hurt. Seen a few killed, too. But the occasional spectacular crash is good for business, isn’t it? It drums up interest, brings all the fucking ghouls out of the woodwork. And so nothing changes.”

Ed turns to look back at Queen Anne, who is now dozing in the firelight alongside Arthur. “And as for the dragons? They’re nothing but property to them. All they see is lines on a ledger – money in, money out. And the second a dragon is no longer profitable? Well, you know what happens then.”

“Yes. I do,” Stede says, voice low and full of anger. And yeah, of course he knows all too well the fate of injured racing dragons. He’s dedicated his entire life to saving as many as he can, after all.

They lapse into silence once more, the heat from the campfire spreading across Ed’s back. Stede draws his knees up toward his chest, his thumbs stroking back and forth over his shins.

“You lost so much in that crash, Ed,” Stede says, after a long pause. “How have you handled it all so well?”

“I dunno,” Ed says, truthfully. 

He takes a moment to think. He thinks about how Blackbeard had long felt like an anchor, pulling him down under the waves. He thinks about how isolated he was in the years leading up to the accident, how he kept a distance even from his own ground crew, unwilling to risk anyone seeing the man beneath the legend. He thinks about how some days, the weight of it all pressed him down into his mattress, made him so heavy that he couldn’t get out of bed. He knows that, to an outside observer, it must look like he’s lost a lot, but right here, right now, it doesn’t feel like he’s lost anything at all. 

“It’s kinda nice just to take a load off. Just to be… Edward.” He feels lighter even as he says it, as if by giving a voice to these thoughts and feelings, he is able to slough off the last remnants of Blackbeard. “I don’t want to go back to racing, Stede. Even before the accident, it was getting harder and harder to keep going. There was no joy in it for me, not anymore. There hadn’t been for a long time.”

Stede hums quietly beside him, that small noise full to the brim with understanding. Sometimes Ed forgets that Stede had an entire life before he came out here. A life that tried to squeeze the joy out of him until he fought back. Well, Ed wants to fight back. He wants to pursue his own happiness, just like Stede did. 

“I suppose what I’m saying is, right now, I just wanna do what makes Ed happy.”

Stede watches him, a thoughtful look in his eyes. He inclines his head as he asks, “And what makes Ed happy?”

And that? That is the ten thousand doubloon question, isn’t it? Ed doesn’t know yet all of the things that make him happy. But he knows that he’s happier here than he’s ever been before, and that the golden-haired lunatic beside him is a huge part of that. And he knows that he wants to keep finding out. He wants to learn more ways to be happy. And he wants to do it by Stede’s side. 

It’s been building in him for weeks, this urge to lay it all on the table, to tell Stede just how deeply he cares for him. It’s been getting harder and harder to bite the words back. And as they sit side by side, high on this rocky ledge, Ed realises that he doesn’t want to hold it back anymore. It’s time. 

Still, though, he can’t bring himself to look at Stede, instead keeping his gaze fixed at a point off in the middle distance. He begins slowly, haltingly, each forceful beat of his heart sending tremors along his limbs, to the very tips of his fingers and toes. 

“These past few weeks have been… the most fun I’ve had in ages. Years. Maybe ever.” 

Ed draws in a deep breath. Now comes the really fucking scary part, the part where he lays himself bare, heart in his hands. If he’s lucky, Stede will accept what he’s offering, all of the bruised and broken parts of him. If he’s lucky, Stede will keep them safe. God, Ed hopes he’s lucky.

“So, I reckon… what makes Ed happy is… you.”

Slowly, so fucking slowly, Ed turns to look at Stede. He can’t quite meet his eyes right away for fear of what he might see there. His gaze pauses somewhere around Stede’s ridiculous shoulder epaulette, before finally dragging itself up to his face. Relief floods through him when he sees Stede’s soft smile, his forehead creased in surprised delight. 

Stede’s smile grows wider as they hold each other’s gaze, but then Stede draws in a deep breath to speak, his eyes darting away, and Ed cannot hold himself back any longer. So that there can be no doubt about the meaning of Ed’s words, he finally does what he has wanted to do for weeks – what he almost did in Stede’s kitchen during their very first breakfast together. He throws an arm around Stede’s shoulders, and before he can second-guess himself, he leans across and kisses him. 

Stede meets him without hesitation, turning and melting into the kiss. Stede’s lips are just as soft as Ed had imagined them to be. They are fine as silk and sweet as honey.

Ed shuffles closer, lips never leaving Stede’s, compelled to seek out closeness. He brings up his free hand to cradle Stede’s face, tilting his own head in search of a better angle. The kiss is chaste and closed mouthed, and yet it is the single greatest kiss that Ed has ever shared with anyone, and by a wide fucking margin.

When their lips part, an endearing little sound escapes Stede’s throat. Ed pulls back just enough to look at him and is bowled over by his beauty. Stede’s eyes are still closed, eyelashes fluttering as he comes back to reality. And when those remarkable hazel eyes finally open and fix themselves on Ed, Stede’s affection for Ed is unmistakable. 

“You make Stede happy,” Stede whispers. Ed is still cradling Stede’s face. He can feel Stede’s cheeks shift beneath his palms as he beams at Ed. Ed grins back, no doubt looking completely and utterly lovestruck.

Ed lets his hand fall from Stede’s face, instead taking one of Stede’s hands between his own. Still cold, Ed realises, and something about that tiny detail hits him right in the chest. 

Ed still doesn’t really know what will happen next, but Stede has made him want to be brave. He wants to find a purpose that he can be proud of, so that when he eventually does join his Ma in the spirit world, he can tell her that he did something good with his life. 

“I want to make things better, Stede. I don't know how yet, but I want to fight for dragons like Queen Anne. I want to make racing safer, more humane. I want to make it so that an incredible place like this doesn't have to exist in secret anymore,” Ed says, voice hushed to preserve the fragile moment that just passed between them. 

“Ed, that's wonderful,” Stede says. A hint of sadness creeps across his face, the luminance of his smile dipping until the light no longer reaches his eyes. His gaze drops to the floor. “I suppose that means that you’ll be leaving, then?”

Ed doesn’t want to. He wants to stay here with Stede, inside their own magical bubble. But there’s a limit to what he can accomplish here, and he knows it.

“I may need to go back for a while, to set some wheels in motion. But then, I want to come back here. I want to come back to you , for as long as you’ll have me.”

Stede looks back up at him, his eyes shining with hope. “And if I say I’ll have you forever?”

“Then I'll stay with you forever.”

This time, Stede is the one who leans in. His hands fly up to Ed’s hair, fingers winding their way through his locks. Ed clutches Stede’s bicep as he meets him halfway. They kiss until the need to breathe eventually forces them apart, though they don't go far, gasping into each other’s mouths as they press their foreheads together. 

From behind them, Arthur lets out a disapproving huff, as if reproaching them for the public display of affection. 

Stede shoots a bitchy look at the dragon in question, who is presently nuzzling his cheek into the crook of Queen Anne’s neck. “Oh, that’s rich coming from you!” he exclaims. “Look at the absolute state of you two.”

And that's it for Ed. His love for the miraculous lunatic of a man beside him overflows, escaping him as a fit of giggles. Stede joins in, and before long, they are both breathless with laughter, carried along by waves of euphoria.

Their laughter eventually subsides and Ed slides his hand into Stede’s, interlacing their fingers. Stede’s thumb strokes the back of Ed’s hand, and it feels like a promise. A promise of a future that Ed could not have imagined only a few short weeks ago. 

When all that is left of the fire is a few smouldering embers, Stede turns to face him. “Come on, love. Let’s go home.”

Ed grins, placing a quick peck on Stede's lips. Home. He likes the sound of that. 

Chapter Text

One year later

Ed blinks blearily awake, pulled up from the depths of slumber by the sensation of a small, scaly body shuffling its way up the bed. The owner of said body is apparently dead set on wedging himself in between his two sleeping dads – no mean feat, given how Ed’s head is pillowed on Stede’s chest, his arms and legs wrapped around him like an octopus. 

Marmalade’s head insistently nudges Ed’s thigh until he relents, prying himself off of Stede and making enough space for Marmalade to commando crawl the rest of the way up the bed, where he plonks himself in between them with a self-satisfied chuff. 

“Jealous little fucker,” Ed chastises, though there’s no heat in it. The truth is, he’s come to really love the little dickfuck over the past year, no matter how many times he tries to force himself in between him and Stede. 

Stede stirs with a dramatic stretch, his hazel eyes fluttering open. They peer at Ed over the top of Marmalade’s head, crinkling around the edges as Stede beams at him. 

“Good morning, sweetheart,” Stede says in a voice still rough from sleep. 

“Morning, babe,” Ed replies, raising himself on one elbow so that he can lean over Marmalade to plant a soft kiss on Stede’s lips. 

Stede begins idly petting Marmalade’s head as he slowly comes around. Abruptly, his eyes widen. “ Oh . It’s today, isn’t it?”

“Sure is,” Ed says with a fond smile. “Are you ready for this?”

Anxiety bordering on panic briefly flits across Stede’s face, his hand stilling atop Marmalade’s head. But then he relaxes, drawing in a deep breath. “Yes,” he sighs. “I think so.”

“It’s gonna be great, love,” Ed says. “ You’re gonna be great. Now, come on. We’d best get up. They’ll be here at high tide.”

🐉

Ed slips his hand into Stede’s as they stand side by side watching the Revenge dock. He rubs a thumb over the back of Stede’s hand, squeezing gently in reassurance. Stede shoots him a grateful smile, though Ed can see the nervousness in his eyes plainly. Marmalade scampers around, claws clacking against the wood, occasionally trying to swipe an insect out of the air. Stede’s crew hover expectantly, eager to reunite with old friends.

Buttons secures the mooring ropes, Karl in his customary position on top of the man’s balding pate. Stede bounces on the balls of his feet as Captain Frenchie lowers the gangplank, a visible release valve for his nervous energy.  

The face of a young girl appears over the railing of the Revenge . She peers down at them, an inscrutable look plastered across her features. A smaller boy pops up beside her. He’s not tall enough to lean over the railing, so instead he crouches down to peer between the gaps. Ed is momentarily taken aback. It’s like looking at two mini-Stedes, the resemblance absolutely undeniable. 

Abruptly, a whole fucking swarm of butterflies erupt in Ed’s belly as he faces the imminent reality of meeting Stede’s children. Stede must feel him tense up. He leans across, places a soft kiss to Ed’s cheeks, and murmurs low into his ear. “They’re going to love you.”

A petite brunette ushers the two children down the gangplank, holding onto the young boy with one hand and her skirts with the other. Louis stares wide-eyed at Karl perched on top of Buttons’s head, while Alma’s unwavering gaze never leaves her father. 

Stede disentangles his hand from Ed’s and steps forward to greet his family. 

“Father,” Alma, says stiffly. Stede’s brow furrows, sorrow flickering behind his eyes at the formality of his daughter’s greeting. 

“Oh, Firecracker,” Stede says, voice almost breaking as he falls to one knee and opens his arms wide. The ice visibly melts away from Alma, who flings herself into Stede’s waiting arms, almost bowling him over with the force of it. 

Little Louis tiptoes closer to Stede, who pulls him in, wrapping an arm around the boy’s waist. “And my darling boy,” Stede says, placing a firm kiss to the crown of his head. 

And of course, because the little guy can never stand to be left out and he has precisely zero boundaries, Marmalade bounds over, insinuating himself in the group hug, much to the delight of the children. 

Mary watches on, a warm smile on her face. A tall man with brown hair and a kind, guileless sort of face appears by her side. Doug, Ed presumes – Mary’s new partner. 

The children squirm free of Stede’s embrace. Alma’s gaze locks onto Ed, her eyes widening in amazement. “Blackbeard!” 

Ed tries not to wince, though he feels the name like a slap across the cheek. “I go by Ed these days,” Ed says. 

Alma holds his gaze for a moment as if weighing his words. She shrugs and steps toward him, one hand extended out before her. “It’s nice to meet you, Ed.”

Ed chuckles, accepting the proffered hand. Her hand feels so small in his as they shake. 

Louis sidles over to his mother, half-hiding himself behind her. “Are you dad’s Doug?” he pipes up, peeking around Mary’s skirts. 

“He is,” Stede says, beaming from ear to ear as he catches Ed’s gaze. 

The two children pepper Ed with questions about his hair, his tattoos, and his racing career. Ed chuckles, answering as many questions as he can, even when they overlap, spilling from the children' s mouths with barely a breath in between. Marmalade saves him eventually, butting Alma’s calves until she bends down to fuss over him, diverting the children’s attention. 

Mary steps forward, fixing Ed with a warm smile and extending her hand in much the same way Alma did. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ed.”

“Likewise,” Ed says. “Your crossing was okay, I hope?”

Mary laughs, her eyes twinkling mischievously. “It was awful. I fucking hate the ocean!” She pulls Ed in closer, dropping her voice conspiratorially. “You’re going to tell me everything later. I want to hear all the gossip about my ex-husband.”

Ed barks out a surprised laugh, the heat creeping up his cheeks as Mary shoots him a cheeky wink. He has a feeling he’s going to like her very much. 

Ed is so distracted by Stede’s family that he doesn’t even notice the next group of people disembarking from the Revenge until they’re practically on top of him. Mary steps aside to make way for Fang, who sweeps Ed up into a bear hug. 

“It’s good to see you, Boss,” Fang says, when he releases him from the fierce embrace. 

“I keep telling you, bro, I’m not your boss anymore,” Ed says, with a chuckle. 

He fist bumps Ivan next, greeting him warmly. It feels great to be on such good terms with him and Fang now. Over the past year, Ed’s been back and forth to the mainland several times. He’s worked hard to build relationships with his old crew, dismantling the walls that he had spent years building. Ivan and Fang let him in so willingly; he's learned more about them in the past year than in the entire time he’d known them prior to his accident. Like, he’s known Fang for twenty years, but only in the last few weeks did he learn that the man’s real name is Kevin. Kevin ! 

“Is that your man?” Fang asks, casting a pointed glance in Stede’s direction.

Ed grins from ear to ear. “Yeah, that’s Stede.”

Fang grins. “He’s cute. You did good, Ed.”

Ed chuckles. “Yeah, man. I really did.”

Ed calls Stede over, and he introduces him to Fang and Ivan. He tries to focus on their conversation, chipping in occasionally, but he's distracted. He can’t seem to help but glance nervously at the Revenge every few seconds. 

“Did Izzy come with you?” Ed asks, when there’s a natural pause in the conversation. Honestly, Ed doesn’t know what he wants the answer to that question to be. He hasn’t spoken to Izzy for months, not since his first trip back to the mainland. Izzy’s reaction to Ed’s returning only to announce that he was retiring from racing was… well, not bloody optimal. Years of tension had come to a head and they’d had a huge fight. Izzy had said some things that had stung at the time, and that Ed hasn’t really been able to let go of, the harsh words buzzing around Ed’s skull on nights when he struggles to sleep. But Ed doesn’t want to hold onto the anger anymore. He wants to forgive and… not forget – he doesn’t think that will really be possible – but move forward. 

“Yeah, he’s on the boat,” says Fang. “Reckon he’ll be along in a moment.”

As if summoned by Fang’s words, Izzy steps out on the gangplank. Fang and Ivan clear out, giving him some privacy as Izzy makes his way over.

“Edward,” Izzy says, stiff and terse as ever. But then, he softens. “I’m sorry.”

Ed quirks an eyebrow. “What exactly is it you’re sorry for, Iz?”

Izzy breathes out a hefty sigh. “All of it. I knew you were miserable, Ed. I knew you’d been looking for a way out for a long time, and I pushed you to keep going because I didn’t know who I was without Blackbeard.” He spits on the ground. “That was selfish of me, and I’m sorry.”

Ed’s a little taken aback by Izzy's words. The best he’d expected was a half-assed apology for the things Izzy had said during that final argument. But to hear him acknowledge that he had been knowingly driving Ed into the ground for years? Well, that was certainly something. 

Ed claps Izzy on the shoulder. “Thank you, man. I appreciate that.”

“So we’re good?” Izzy asks, a hopeful look in his eyes. 

“Yeah, man,” Ed sighs, and it feels like letting go of a huge weight. He feels lighter, freer. “We’re sweet.” 

“Teach!” Calls out the familiar voice of Zheng Yi Sao. She comes striding along the dock looking cool and confident, her trademark pigtails swinging with each step. 

Ed grins at the sight of her. She had been instrumental in taking down Low. Not only had she been willing to testify against that shiny silver fuckhead, but she had helped to persuade others who had been threatened or harmed by him to speak out, too. It had taken a few months of careful evidence-gathering, but by the time they had gone public, the evidence had been damning, the public outcry too loud for the Association to ignore. Low had been stripped of his former titles and forced out of the sport in disgrace. It had been fucking beautiful to see.  

“Zheng, glad you could make it!” Ed leads Zheng over to Stede. “I’d like you to meet my partner, Stede Bonnet. Stede, this is Zheng.”

“It’s an honour!” gushes Stede, as he shakes her outstretched hand. “Ed speaks so highly of you.”

Zheng eyes Stede appraisingly. “So you’re the guy who Blackbeard quit racing for, huh?”

Stede winces at Zheng’s use of Ed’s racing name. “No,” he corrects her. “Ed’s decision to retire was his own.”

“I know,” she says. “I’m just fucking with you.”

She turns to Ed, looking him up and down. “Retirement looks good on you, Ed.”

Ed smiles. “Yeah. Feels pretty good, too.” 

The Revenge crew are last to disembark, a flurry of hugs and handshakes offered and accepted all around. They’ve brought some supplies with them - enough food and essentials to see the sanctuary through for the next couple of months. They’ve brought a few luxuries, too, because Stede will always be Stede (not that Ed’s complaining, especially now that he gets to share in it all). Everyone pitches in to transfer the cargo from the Revenge to the waiting carts, many hands making light work, and then they set off toward the cluster of buildings that make up the sanctuary compound together, spirits high.

🐉

“He nipped me!” Alma squeals, with a high-pitched giggle. 

“Yeah, he’ll do that,” Ed chuckles, lifting the tiny purple dragon from Alma’s lap. “But he’s just a baby. He doesn’t mean any harm. Do you, little one?”

As if he is specifically trying to disprove Ed’s point, the dragon bites down on Ed’s thumb. “Dickfu – udge…” Ed says. “Not cool, Jeff.”

“Jeff?” Louis pipes up. “That's a silly name for a dragon.”

“Oh, is that right?” Ed asks, eyebrow quirked in amusement. “And what would you have called him?”

Louis screws his little face up in concentration, weighing Ed’s question as if it is the single most important question that anyone has ever asked in the history of the universe. The expression is so Stede-like it’s unreal. 

“Hmmm. I’d have called him Amethyst. Because of the colour of his scales.”

Ed chuckles. “Yeah, that's pretty good actually. Tell you what, next time we get some new hatchlings, you and your sister can name them.”

Alma’s face lights up. “Oh, can we, Ed?”

“Course you can, kiddo,” Ed says, putting Jeff down, who scurries over to his sister, Ginger. Within moments, the two of them are playfighting, orange and purple scales flashing as they roll around among the wildflowers.

“Dad is much happier, you know,” Alma says, as she plucks a daisy from the ground and starts pulling off its petals, one by one. 

Ed plucks a daisy of his own, just to give his hands something to do while he fumbles his way through a conversation he’s not sure he’s entirely ready for. “Yeah?”

“Mmm,” Alma hums. “Dad was sad a lot of the time before. He’d pretend not to be, but I could tell.”

“Oh? How?” Ed asks, twirling the stem of the daisy between his thumb and forefinger.

“He didn't smile very much. And when he did, his eyes wouldn't go all crinkly.” Alma looks pointedly at Ed. “You make his eyes go all crinkly.”

Ed huffs softly, running the pad of his thumb across the petals of the daisy. “Well, your Dad makes my eyes go all crinkly, too.”

They fall quiet for a moment. Ed watches as Jeff and Ginger climb onto Louis’s lap, seeking out head scritches and belly rubs.

“Your Dad loves you two, you know. And he’s missed you.” 

Alma sighs, a sound so much older than her years. “I know,” she says. “And I think things are better this way. For everyone. Mum is much happier now, too.”

“I miss playing Dragon Racers with him, though,” Louis says. “Doug doesn't play it right.”

“Dragon Racers, hey?” Ed asks, smiling at the mental image of Stede and his kids messing about together. 

“Dad would always play as Blackbeard,” Alma says. Her face goes on quite the journey as the implications of that catch up to her. “Well, as you , I guess. Is that weird?”

Ed chuckles. “A little bit, I guess. But hey, how would you like to play Dragon Racers with the real life Blackbeard?”

“Yes!!” the kids shout in unison. 

Ed heaves himself upright from the grass, groaning as his muscles protest and the blood flow returns to his numb ass. He scoops up the hatchlings from Louis’s lap and carries them over to Queen Anne and Arthur, who are curled up together, dozing in the late afternoon sunlight that blankets the meadow. Queen Anne cracks open one eye as her babies nuzzle into her side, snorting softly as she covers them with a wing. 

“Alright then, kids!” Ed says, grinning from ear to ear. “Let’s see if you have what it takes to defeat Blackbeard.”

Some twenty minutes or so later, just as Anne Bonny (played by one Alma Bonnet) overtakes him using her newly minted “super triple barrel roll boost manoeuvre,” Ed glances toward the tree line. He startles a little to see Stede leaning against the trunk of a sturdy, old tree, arms folded across his chest, expression soft and impossibly fond.

“Dad! We’re playing Dragon Racers!” Louis yells. 

“I can see that,” Stede says, beaming. “I hate to ruin the fun, but I came to let you all know that it’s almost time for dinner.”

“Five more minutes Dad, pleeeeeease ?” Alma wheedles. 

“Yeah, Dad. Please?” Louis echoes. “You can join in! Oh, but you can’t be Blackbeard. Ed’s being Blackbeard. You can be… oh, I know! You can be “Calico” Jack Rackham!”

“Surely there are better options than that?” Stede says, his entire face scrunching in distaste. 

Ed swallows down a laugh. “How about you can be Stede Bonnet, champion Dragon Racer, master of the skies?” he asks.

Stede grins, whipping off his jacket and hanging it on a low branch. “Alright, then. Five minutes.”

🐉

“Everyone, your attention please!” Stede announces, his chair scraping on the floor as he stands, wine glass held aloft. 

The chatter around the long table dies down, and nineteen pairs of eyes fix on Stede. 

“As you all know, we are here to celebrate the outlawing of the inhumane and unjustifiable practice of euthanising injured racing dragons simply because they are no longer able to race,” Stede says. 

The whole group erupts in cheers and hollers, fists banging on the table and feet stamping on the floor. Stede waits patiently for the noise to die down, a broad grin lighting up his face. 

“The Association of Dragon Racers will now legally be required to provide care for injured dragons, or to ensure that they are transferred to a facility like this one, where they can be rehabilitated.” Stede pauses to wait out a second round of cheers and applause. “Of course, none of this would have happened without the tireless campaigning of Edward Teach.” 

Stede reaches down to place a hand on Ed’s shoulder, giving him a squeeze as he beams down at him. 

Ed waves a hand in protest, cutting short yet more gleeful hooting. “This victory doesn’t belong to me,” he says. “It belongs to Queen Anne, whose unbreakable spirit helped the world to see that the value of a dragon's life is not diminished when she can no longer race.”

He thinks back to their first return to the mainland, and how it had felt like waltzing right into the lion’s den. The possibility that Ed would be thrown into jail and that Queen Anne would be seized and executed had been all too real. But Ed had pinned his hopes on his loyal dragon capturing the hearts and minds of the public. He had sincerely believed that the sight of her soaring freely, against all odds, would stir something within the people that he would be able to use to his advantage. And thankfully, the gamble had paid off. The people had loved Queen Anne, and they had done so fiercely and loudly. The Association had found themselves at the centre of a public storm, and though they had fought hard, thrashing and bucking and clinging to the old ways by their fingernails for as long as they possibly could, they had eventually had little choice but to relent. And now here they were, celebrating the passing of a law that would allow other dragons like Queen Anne to live.

“It belongs to everyone who gave Queen Anne a second chance at life,” Ed continues. He looks around the table, his gaze lingering on Fang and Ivan. “It belongs to those of you who gave her a way out.” He turns next to the crew of the Revenge , making eye contact with each and every one of them. “It belongs to those of you who smuggled her across the ocean.” He twists to look up at his partner. “It belongs to you, Stede, who took Queen Anne in and gave her a home.” Lastly, he allows his gaze to rest on each member of Stede’s team. “And it belongs to those of you who were willing to do something that had never been tried before, no matter how impossible it seemed.”

A babble of appreciative chatter breaks out around the table. Ed waits for it to quiet before he continues. 

“It's the start of a new era, and it was only possible because of you .”

Ed raises his glass to the ceiling. “To all of you!”

“To all of us! ” Stede corrects.

“To us!” the whole group echoes, drinking vessels raised high. 

Ed stands, throwing an arm around his lover's shoulders. “Now let’s party!”

🐉

The night is wild. It’s joyous and raucous. It’s loud and it’s brash. It is, quite simply, euphoric. 

Ed is reminded of his first night on the island, when they had gathered in this very same space to celebrate the return of the Revenge crew to the island. He had felt like an outsider then. He’d clung to the edges, not wanting to insinuate himself into a place he didn’t belong. 

Tonight could not feel more different. Every single person in the room is on their feet, dancing and singing and hanging off of the person or people that they love. And this time, Ed is no exception.

The music builds in a thrilling crescendo and Alma squeals in delight as Ed spins her around in a circle, her skirts billowing out around her. As soon as he sets her down, Louis runs over, demanding that he has a turn next. Ed obliges, sweeping him up and swinging him around and around until the little boy shrieks for mercy. 

Stede sidles over as the music slows. “Alma, Louis… May I steal Ed from you for this dance?”

Alma’s nose wrinkles in disgust. “Are you two going to smooch?”

Ed winks at her. “Dunno, kid. We just might.”

The girl pantomimes an exaggerated retch before scurrying away, dragging Louis in her wake. Ed turns back to Stede to find him holding out a hand in supplication. 

“May I have this dance?” Stede asks.

“You may,” Ed replies, placing his hand on top of Stede’s and allowing Stede to pull him in close. 

“You’re a natural with them,” Stede murmurs, as they sway together, shuffling around the dancefloor in a slow turn. “They already love you.”

A smile creeps across Ed’s face. “I don’t know about that. But I hope that one day, they might. They’re good kids, Stede.”

“The best, actually,” Stede says, with a soft smile. 

Ed huffs a quiet laugh and rests his forehead against Stede’s as the music carries them along. The rest of the room falls away, and for a moment, it’s just Ed and Stede. 

“Thank you for giving me the courage to invite them,” Stede murmurs. “I can’t even begin to put into words how it feels to have them here.”

Ed thinks he might have some idea as he glances around the room. He is surrounded by people he loves, and others that he hopes he will one day come to love. A ragtag family of sorts, all sharing in the joy of making the world that little bit kinder. 

The job’s not done, and Ed knows it. They have achieved something wonderful, yes – something that had seemed impossible just twelve short months ago. And yet, there is so much more to be done. There are still myriad ways in which the Association mistreats the riders and dragons who race for them; so many ways in which the system is crying out to be fixed. 

But he doesn’t want to think about any of that tonight. 

Tonight, Ed will dance until his knee screams at him. Tonight, Ed will sing until his throat is hoarse. Tonight, Ed will kiss the love of his life until they are both breathless. 

Tonight, Ed will celebrate so that tomorrow, he can take up the fight once more.