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“I suppose if you found the absolutely two perfect people …”
A pleasurable exhaustion from the long, hot day envelopes both men as laughter fizzes and fills their minds with nearest memory of golden haze and greenest green.
Ed feels a closeness and soft flicker of flame around him in the dim cabin now that night has fallen. But there’s sunlight coming from somewhere. Ah, there it is. The warmth of that face that fills his vision is in front of him again. Mmmm. Smile blazing and he can’t look away. Doesn’t care if he goes blind. He’s drunk with it to be honest. The heat from the brandy doesn’t compare. Both men laugh again as their words overlap. Intertwine. Create a language of their own. He finally has to turn from the eyes he knows hold the green and the gold of the day, creases branching out from around them like sunbeams. His head is spinning. It’s floating. It’s not the brandy. His chest fills and sparks like it has been for weeks. It borders on feverish. On frantic. On heavenly.
His face feels too hot as he casually looks down and away from Stede, hoping it just looks like he’s laughing at his glass. Totally normal. He’s trying to keep up with Stede’s joy, but his brain is busy weaving a web of what the fuck is actually happening?
For over a fortnight it’s been this. A glimmering pyre building in his chest, sliding right down to the tips of his fingers. To the tops of his thighs. Scorched. He’s giddy with an ache for it to consume him, though. Has he contracted some kind of exotic illness that feels frenetic and delicious at the same time? He’d considered checking with Roach but decided against it. Man’s always got that meat cleaver. But now, after their little snake meal and that exchange with Lucius today, it seems to be... spreading. Now his head is a whirligig. Now his palms are sweating. Now his throat is tight. Maybe it is the snake repeating on him, but he doesn’t think so. He’s never felt this, and he’s damn sure he’s felt just about everything there is to feel, intestinal revolution included.
He has a theory. He just has to test it. He’s not sure how long he’s been spiraling out just now, but he very slowly turns his eyes from inside his head to look outside himself. To look at Stede. Ed chuckles quietly as he sees Stede’s grabbed a book, unknowingly monologuing about an “unprecedented practice of equal and courteous co-leadership on the Revenge”. His voice reaching that juiced up pitch, hand movements somewhere between contained and wildly demonstrative, and suddenly Ed’s vibrating down to his toes. The words “perfectly matched” tumble from Stede’s lips, find their way past the roaring in Ed’s ears and now his heart has decided to join in on his other symptoms, ready to burst out of his throat.
Stede’s voice continues. Covers him like a blanket as it echoes and echoes and echoes, bouncing off all of Ed’s shattered edges. Connecting dots. Layer upon layer of tone build a mountain of softest silk upon him. A blissful gulp of air finally makes its way to the bottom of his lungs and his heart steadies. He turns to the crown of disheveled curls in front of him, Stede’s eyes bookward, head down, stoking the embers.
Am I dying? Is Blackbeard finally going to be done in by FUCKING NATURE?! Had to have been bitten by something on the treasure hunt. Only explanation.
Ok, Ed, breathe.
He pulls his focus back to a few minutes ago, gathers the little scraps of his thoughts that have spilled out all over the floor.
A plan. Right. Burning chest, now stomach climbing up into his chest? = dying! Stop, stop. Don’t panic, Ed. Plan. Breathe. Plan, plan, plan…
Ed feels adrift in unfamiliar sensation. He just needs to look into Stede’s eyes again. Those eyes that hold the whole world. The whole world.
FOCUS!
Ok, Stede’s your friend. Maybe this is how friendship makes you feel? When you look into each other’s eyes. When your friend doesn’t want to hurt you? When your friend cares what happens to you? Cares...
Ed rotates the last word around several times in his head. Gets a good, long look at it. It looks strange in there. Fishy. Hmm. Maybe it is just the brandy making the snake come back up… or some flying fuck flew in his mouth and is eating his insides and he’s dying. Maybe this is what dying feels like. Full and feverish and frantic and… sublime? Nope. Ed’s seen enough men die, been close to death, knows this isn’t that. Time to stop fucking around, now. Execute the plan. Just look Stede in the eyes.
Easy. Easy peasy, even. Here we go.
“Hey, Stede?” The second the words come out of his mouth, the millisecond Stede’s name slips from between his lips, he feels calmer. Invisible fingers loosen the frayed knots of his overly torqued joints.
“Mmm? Yes, Ed?” Stede’s eyelids are curtains, his lashes are rays of light shooting out from underneath. The curtains lift and his eyes find Ed’s own with true bearing.
“Aaaaaggggnnhhhh.” Ed decides to say. Because, not only is his chest now boiling over into his fingers and toes, but the embers have reached his cock. Well, at least that’s a sensation he’s familiar with.
Stede’s brow furrows and the corners of his lovely smile turn down. Ed barely registers Stede’s concerned “Ed?”, for Ed has taken a little trip; out for lunch, gone fishing. His stomach has plummeted and his brain has decided to see where it’s headed. Just sinking down, down through the bottom of his feet, the ship, the ocean, the earth, and out into space.
“Ed?!” Stede’s panicked tone wakes him, but he can’t seem to blink the stars from his eyes. “Ed, are you all right? What the hell happened there? Is it the snake? You know, I think I’m having a bit of a digestive issue myself. Kind of a weird feeling in my chest.”
“Wait,” Ed suddenly freezes, “What does your chest feel like?”
“Ummm,” Stede’s reply betrays his emerging nerves. “I don’t know, I’ve never felt anything like it before. Kind of hot? Full? A bit... fluttery? It’s not bad, though. Really I’ve been feeling it for days and days.” Stede’s voice starts to trail off a bit at the end there as Ed leans closer into his space. He hadn’t noticed already moving nearer during his trip to plan-town, or his trip through the bottom of the world. Could’ve been during either one. But he is leaning forward now, like he’s about to share a secret. And maybe he is. As he begins to talk in hushed, moist notes, Stede tilts into him conspiratorially. Easily.
Ed licks his lips and steels himself, even as his nerves have turned to pins and needles, for the question that’s finally formed in his head.
“Stede,” He can feel his voice threatening to go out and his eyes are aching as a reminder to blink. “this feeling in your chest…” Stede’s gone a bit pale, but honestly, Ed’s not exactly on solid ground here, either, so he just tries to speak slowly. But their faces are so close and he knows he’s going to combust, ready to crash through the wall to extinguish himself in the dark sea. “is it kind of a tickling feeling? Like a burn that feels… good?”
Stede tilts his head down, still holding Ed’s gaze, and through teeth biting his upper lip, exhales a slow “Yesss.” He narrows his eyes, focus intensifying. “It’s actually been getting worse just in the… last… few… minutes.” Stede’s words and his movements are in slow motion. The air’s gone thick. Ed thanks the stars and the sea that maybe, just maybe, they’re both treading the same deep waters right now. Their eyes refusing to part, he’s not even sure if there’s blinking going on.
“Are you feeling it anywhere else?” Why the hell he’s whispering, he’s not sure, but it seems to calm the air around them.
“Yesss.” Breathes Stede.
“Where elssse?” Ed breathes back.
“My… head, a bit lightheaded?”
“Mmhmm. Anywhere else?”
Stede’s little eye curtains drift all the way closed as his mouth releases a firm “Yes.”
Ed watches Stede fill his lungs and mirrors him. “Where else do you feel it, Stede?” He says on the exhale.
“Ed... Ed, I don’t know if I can tell you.” Stede’s opened his eyes again and is looking away just as Ed had done before. Another overlay. A hook and its eye.
“We’re friends, right? Of course you can tell me.” Feeling like he’s watching his hand float to Stede’s shoulder from across the cabin, bubbles mix with the heat in his chest as his memory hearkens back to Stede’s gentle touch on his shoulder in the bathtub. The touch that spread a warmth and trust he had never felt before.
“The absolutely two perfect people…” Stede’s eyes have gone out of focus, kind of looking past Ed, through his chest. Or into him.
Maybe Stede’s taking his own little trip to the stars.
Ed gives his shoulder a squeeze, a reminder. A tether. Stede looks up at him and Ed sees his breath catch as their eyes lock again. He can’t hear it because their breathing has aligned again. Stede clocks the brandy he’s still holding and gulps it down.
“I’m feeling it everywhere now, Ed. What is it?”
He looks down to Stede’s breeches and sees what he means by everywhere. He takes a moment to think several steps ahead before he answers.
“Well, we both know what the ‘everywhere’ feeling is.” He raises an eyebrow dramatically and sweeps his head to acknowledge their matching bulges.
“Obviously, Ed!” Stede scoffs with a roll of his eyes, that bitchy tone sneaking in and Ed can’t help but laugh as the flame in his chest flares. “But, our chests? And the dizziness? And honestly, I’m feeling a bit queasy too! Are…” Stede lowers his voice again “are we dying? WAS it ‘fucking nature’? Some kind of pathogen on my orange?!”
“I thought so at first, but I reckon there’s something else going on.” He strokes his beard and feels Stede’s eyes unconsciously follow his hand’s path up and down the length of it.
There’s a beat of silence before Stede slowly, softly, says “Ed?”
“Yeah, mate?”
“You know the book we were reading together the other night? The one with Benedick and Beatrice?”
“Of course, mate, love them. They’re in that church after that fucked wedding and, and…”
He and Stede are so close now they’re not just looking into each other’s eyes. They’re traveling over all the lines, the freckles. Making maps. Taking in the earthy smell of each other after a day spent out in the sun. Together.
“And in the book, when they say,” Stede begins quietly, faltering.
“I do love nothing in the world so well as you.” Their words, their breath, their hearts, in tandem.
“Is that not strange…” Ed continues the bit of prose.
“not strange…” Stede echoes.
“not strange.” The echo pulses through them both.
Ed feels a warm weight on his hand and looks down to see Stede’s own, resting there in his palm. His hand is full of Stede. His heart is full of Stede. He thinks he needs Stede’s fancy shovel so he can fill his entire world with Stede.
He softly places his free hand right in the middle of Stede’s chest. It fits. A key, its lock.
Their nods parallel. Their unspoken yes, I see it now. Yes. The tinder has caught, and fire blazes through their first, tentative kiss.
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