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Stede registers his fever before anything else comes into view. The next thing he registers is pain, all over the damn place really, but it’s the worst at his shoulder. He glances over to see his shoulder packed with bandages and bleeding slowly. The sight threatens to turn his stomach if he focuses on it, so he doesn’t.
He puts his concentration into why, grasping for a reason for all this, and–
They were boarded, he remembers with sudden sharpness. Remembers the adrenaline rush and remembers the snarl of the man he dueled, remembers losing track of Ed in the mess and finding him again, remembers a bang and then pain and–
Oh, he’s been shot, hasn’t he?
“Stedey?” a soft voice calls to him, and he opens his eyes again. When had he closed them?
It’s Ed, looking like an angel, tears on his pretty face, and Stede wants to wipe them away.
“Ed, darling,” he says.
“You’re going to be okay, we’re safe,” Ed promises. Funny enough, Stede had just assumed that that was true. Ed looks like he maybe needs those words, so Stede echos them.
“I’m going to be okay. We’re safe.” He tries a smile.
Ed sniffs. “Right, you are. This is going to suck though.”
“I have to dig it out of you,” comes another voice. That’s Roach, looking sympathetic. “I’m fast,” he promises.
“Take this,” says Frenchie, and Stede does without question. It’s sweet, goes down easily–dilauded.
“I’ll give you a few minutes to feel it. Then it’s showtime,” Roach says.
Stede sighs. He'd rather get it over with.
“We’ll leave you be until then,” Frenchie says, then he and Roach are gone.
Ed takes Stede’s hand. “Stede Bonnet, I require you to do everything in your power to never get shot again.”
It sounds a fuck of a lot like I love you. “Agreed,” Stede says easily.