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“Poison into positivity,” Ed muses, looking around at all the treasure from his months of brooding havoc.
Stede smiles at him. “How’s tonight?”
“Sorry…tonight? Have you seen how much we have to spend?”
“No time like the present! We’ll just have to really splash out on decorations. What d’you say?”
“Hm... I say you’re on. On one condition.”
“Mhm?”
“You’ll be my date.”
Stede blushes. “Go on, then.” He calls Frenchie and Jim back; the pair come scurrying down the hallway and pop their heads around the door again. “Frenchie, Jim, hi! The bash will be tonight. For, uh…”
“Calypso,” Ed whispers.
“Calypso! Yes, him. Or her. Or them!”
“Get in!” says Frenchie, high-fiving Jim.
“Props,” they say. “We kind of thought Blackbeard would spend all of it on you.”
Stede frowns at them. “Why would he do that?”
“‘Cause you’re, like, his sugar baby?”
Frenchie is elbowing them in the ribs, but they don’t seem fussed. Ed, in the corner of Stede’s eye, is observing them with a dry expression, arms folded across his chest.
If it doesn’t amuse Ed, then it doesn’t amuse him, thank you very much.
He raises very captainly eyebrows at the both of them. “If you’d still like that bash, I suggest you go and make sure we make port. Somewhere we can buy lots and lots of party supplies.”
“‘Course, yeah, we’ll do that, won’t we, Jim?”
“Uh huh,” they say, eyes flicking between Ed and Stede.
“Great,” says Stede. “Off you pop.”
“Good captaining, mate,” Ed says once they’re gone, and something pleased squirms inside Stede’s stomach at the praise.
“Oh! Thank you, Ed. Tell you what, why don’t we have a cheeky little drink in the cabin while we wait to make port?”
Ed grins. “Yeah, I’d like that. Lead the way, Captain.”
—
Stede brings them a bottle of rum over. It’s not quite the brandy from summer nights gone by – when they’d slow their sips just to stretch the hours out, just for an excuse to be closer for longer – but it feels like the perfect drink for now. This forgiving autumn, with its quilt of blue sky and spools of fluffy, white clouds. The sun is warm through the glass, and the cabin creaks pleasantly under the weight of two pairs of feet.
“Ed? Mind if I ask you something?”
“‘Course, mate, anytime.”
Ed flops onto the patched-up sofa, looser now that he’s away from all that gilded guilt.
Stede knows that he means it. Anytime. And he revels in being able to unload his curiosities onto Ed’s wisdom once again.
He sets two glasses down and sits himself on the armchair opposite Ed.
“What exactly…is a sugar baby?”
“Huh?”
“A sugar baby. Whatever Jim was on about, you know, five minutes ago?”
“Aw, dunno, mate. Sorry. No clue.”
“Oh.” Stede frowns. “Okay.”
He pours them their drinks in the silence.
Ed knocks his back in one big gulp. The glass bangs back on the table between them for more.
Stede gives him a look.
He knows Ed knows. Of course Ed knows. Ed’s the fount of all knowledge, yes, but also, if Ed happened to not know, he would already be spitballing stupid ideas for what he thought it might be so that they could enjoy the not knowing together. This sidestep gives him away immediately. He’s not a subtle man, not to Stede.
Still, Stede pours him another finger or two. He slides the glass towards him and waits.
Ed crumbles under the silence. “Yeah, fine, alright, I might know. Maybe. If you really wanna know.”
“I do. Really wanna know.”
“Yeah, so.” Ed fiddles with the tumbler in his hands, tracing the decorative ridges, the curve of the rim, anything to avoid Stede’s gaze. “A sugar baby is, like, someone a sugar daddy buys things for, that’s all.”
Stede picked the wrong time to take his first sip of rum. He very nearly chokes. That word – that one, you know the one – catches him off-guard. He’s not totally oblivious; he knows the sorts of things men call each other in dark corners of Spanish Jackie’z. He heard plenty through thin walls on sleepless nights, before sneaking out to find more parchment and empty bottles. Thank god Ed never seemed to find any of those letters, because some of the things he wrote in those horny dazes…
Anyway, he’s not sure what any of it has to do with sugar.
“Ah. Hm. You might need to…explain further. Dumb it down for me a bit.”
Ed sighs heavily. “Sometimes,” he says, words coming slow, as though carefully picked. “When someone has a lot of riches. Like, not me, but. Someone like me, maybe. Then they might enjoy treating someone they like to nice things. With their riches. It makes them…feel good, I guess. Hypothetically.”
“Right,” says Stede. “And…would it make you feel good, treating me to things?”
Ed continues to stare down at his drink, watching the liquid slosh around, dark gold in the sunlight. He shrugs one shoulder. “Yeah,” he says, clipped. “Reckon so.”
Stede’s mouth is dry. He takes another sip, lets the rum burn the back of his throat. “That’s nice,” he says. It’s an understatement, obviously.
“Yep.”
He’s still not meeting Stede’s eye, which won’t do at all.
“I don’t know what you’re so embarrassed about,” Stede says. “I’d like it if you spent your riches on me. If that makes me a sugar baby, I’m alright with that.”
Ed’s lips twitch into a smile. What a joy all those handsome, unhidden expressions his lack of beard brings are.
“Yeah, well, it’s just– it’s usually... It’s not just about the riches, that’s all. A lot of these guys do it in exchange for, uh, favours. Not always, but. I’m sure that’s what Jim meant, so.”
“Favours.”
“Mmhm.”
“What sort of favours?”
“Like...” He sighs again, running a hand through his beard. It bristles audibly against the skin of his palm, and Stede remembers viscerally how it felt against his own skin when they kissed. “Like, intimate favours.”
“Sex, you mean?”
“Mhm,” Ed murmurs, nibbling on his bottom lip.
It’s probably wrong to find him so endearing when he’s this embarrassed, but Stede can’t help it. The man is sex incarnate, with his hair tumbling lustrous around his shoulders and his dark, dark eyes, his sharp, sharp jawline. Even the way he breathes – the way his chest rises and falls, the way the leather rises and falls with it – is sexy. And he’s all shy about the word sex. Mr Take Your Sword, Run Me Through, of all people.
Stede feels giddy to unlock another Ed Teach secret, and such a bashful, blushing one at that.
“Have you ever done that with someone? Bought them things for sex, I mean.”
“What? No, man.”
“Well, I don’t know, you might’ve…”
“I don’t– I haven’t– I’ve been…very, very rich for a very, very long time.”
Stede’s toes curl in his boots. “I know.”
“And…I’ve never wanted to spend it on anyone else.” He takes a deep breath, and then looks up at Stede, big and unblinking, and he says, “Before you.”
“Oh,” Stede says. His face burns. “Well, I– I could use a new shirt, I suppose. For the party.”
“Anything you want, it’s yours.”
Stede blinks. He doesn’t know what to say, what to do with all of Ed’s lovely earnestness. “Wow,” tumbles out of his stupid mouth.
“But,” says Ed, “we’re still taking it slow, yeah?”
“Yeah, of course. Of course, Ed, I know that, I wouldn’t dream of– I know.”
Ed nods. “It’s not about the favours for me, I swear. Don’t need ‘em. I’d be happy just to spoil you. You deserve to be spoiled. By me, specifically.”
“Ed. I’d like that a lot.”
“You would?” Ed asks, still all fidgeting and wide-eyed about it. “It wouldn’t, I don’t know, undermine your captaincy to the crew?”
“I don’t see how it’s any of their business,” Stede says. “This is a me and you thing, isn’t it? Just for us. Our private lives are…our private lives.”
Ed smiles at him gratefully. He’s excited now; it illuminates him. He nods eagerly. “Yeah. Yeah, fuck, great, okay. I’ll go grab some gold, just for us. Be right back.”
He rushes to the door before stopping, like he’s forgotten something. His dagger, maybe, or to put sunblock on the tips of his ears. Stede watches him retread the room, smitten and ever so slightly confused when Ed comes up to the armchair he’s sitting in.
Quickly, he bends down and smacks a kiss on Stede’s cheek.
And then he’s gone again, flying out of the cabin to get gold. To spend. On Stede.
Poison into positivity. His cheek tingles with the kiss. He feels as though his insides have decided to Calypso him too.
—
The market is a rainbow paradise, all dust bunnies and sunshine. Classic Caribbean heat, hard to believe any sort of winter is on its way. It sizzles through Stede’s multiple layers of protective creams.
He spots a parasol at a stall of knick-knacks and rushes over to it. It’s not as dainty as his old one was, and the dull metal of the handle leaves a lot to be desired, but he is so hot he might die, and so he picks it up to try out. It casts a glorious patch of cool shade over his head. Sweet relief.
“Two piece o’ silver, love,” a woman in glasses with black lenses tells him.
Blimey. Bit pricey, but the whole point of being here is to get rid of the excessive amounts of treasure, so.
He rummages through heavy pockets for the right shape of coin. A hand at his elbow stops him; its gentleness is instantly recognisable.
“I’ve got this,” Ed’s voice rumbles hot against the shell of Stede’s ear. He drops three pieces of silver into the woman’s palm, the generous sod, and as they walk away from the stall, he holds the parasol above Stede’s head for him.
“Hi, you,” says Stede.
“Hey.”
“Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it, babe,” Ed says, all nonchalant. Babe. Wow. Stede still feels a bit overheated, actually.
He glances sidelong at Ed, his handsome, sweat-shimmering profile in the sun. His eyes are darting around the market. His elbow brushes against Stede’s arm, and his cheeks flush a little more. Oh. It’s not just the sun; he’s still shy about this.
No, that won’t do at all.
“Will you accept a kiss in exchange?”
“Aw, I told you, man, no favours necessary.”
“Well, can I kiss you anyway? Just a little peck, I promise. Just ‘cause.”
A smile starts to tug at Ed’s lips. “Yeah. I’d like that,” he says.
They stop by the water, where a gentleman plucks away at something acoustic, a lute or a banjo or something, who cares when Ed is there for the taking– well, not the taking, per se, but the kissing–
Point is, it makes a lovely flutter of a soundtrack as their lips meet. Kissing Ed is heaven. It makes Stede’s heartstrings flutter too. Kissing Ed makes Stede wonder if pinky toes can blush.
“Thanks,” he says again, feeling the shy one all of a sudden with Ed’s hand at the small of his back, the other still dutifully holding the parasol over his head.
“You’re welcome, baby.”
Not just babe, baby too. Wow. And in that voice. Yeah, he’s starting to see how sex comes into all this. He’d pay Ed back with anything his heart desired right now. Anything at all. He’d drop to his knees here on the dirty wooden slats just to express his gratitude.
All Ed wants from him is patience, though, and so he smiles and says, “That stall over there.” Ed doesn’t follow his gaze, he just keeps staring at him. The attention is dizzying. “Can I get a new shirt from there, do you think?”
“Hmmm.” He moves his hand to fiddle with Stede’s black ruffle collar. “I like this one so much.”
“Please?” Stede tries.
At that, Ed’s lips tilt up. “Since you asked so nicely,” he says. “As long as it’s deeper cut than this one.”
“Yes, you’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
His eyes trail down. “Mhmmm,” he says. “Oh yeah.”
“Come on.” Stede drags him along to the clothes stall before he really does do something whim-prone.
There, they find racks of pirate-y shirts dyed in countless shades of black.
“What about this one?” Ed asks, picking up a hanger. Stede has to give it to him, it’s the most creative of the bunch, complete with flouncy sleeves (and a deep, deep v-line neck). But he’s already pulling off black well enough for the both of them. It’d only wash Stede out.
He scrunches his nose up. “Don’t they have anything a little more inspiring?”
From behind him, a pirate-y voice booms; “Fancy things for fancy little things like you at the back, sweetcheeks.”
Before Stede can reply, can even blink, Ed is at his side, a possessive arm slung around his shoulder. The wares-seller shrinks immediately. Ed might not have his black beard anymore, but he’s still got his Blackbeard swagger, that’s for sure.
“Oh, uh, s–sorry. Colourful shirts at the back, sir. Sirs.”
“Thank youuuu,” Ed sing-songs sweetly.
They head towards the back, where there are so many piles of dusty clothes that it creates a nice little pocket of shade. Ed walks close behind him, his hand hovering at the small of Stede’s back again, brushing against him every step or two.
He likes this. Is it wrong that he likes this? He could’ve easily confronted the lecherous tone on that guy all by himself, and Ed knows that, but he didn’t have to. Which is nice.
Plus, that guy knew they were…together. Partners. Boyfriends? And he knew Ed was Blackbeard, or at least a big bad pirate like Blackbeard, so technically he knows Stede is basically Blackbeard’s Boyfriend. Isn’t that nice too?
Stede runs his hand through the shirts; dark reds and purples and greens, still the same pirate-y hessian, not a silk or cashmere, or even a softly threaded cotton in sight, but an improvement, to be sure. “Oh, this is much better,” he sighs happily.
Ed smiles at him, warm and indulgent, all of his attention Stede’s. Lately, he smiles this way often.
“Thoughts?” Stede asks, holding a shirt up over his chest.
“I love it,” Ed says. “That’s a great colour for you.”
“It is, isn’t it?” Pleased, Stede thrusts the shirt into his hands for him to go buy it with all his gold.
Ed clears his throat. “Woah, hey, hang on. How much is it?”
Stede scrunches his nose up. As if that matters! Ed’s endlessly rich! And this is hardly the most upmarket of boutiques!
But, oh, he looks into Ed’s eyes, and understands: Ed is playing. This is part of the game.
Stede assumes his role. He finds the sign above the racks that prices all shirts the same, he tells Ed, and Ed has the nerve to look contemplative about the purchase.
“Why don’t you try it on first?”
Stede raises an eyebrow at him and all his unmistakable ulterior motives. “Okay.”
He slips behind the curtain of a shoddy, makeshift dressing room and swaps out the burgundy for dark teal.
It’s plain to see, even in a dusty old mirror, that Ed won’t be able to resist buying it for him. How could he? That’s one deep neckline.
He pushes the curtain back and does a little twirl for a slack-jawed Ed.
“Stede,” he says, dripping in approval. His eyes are the pulsing sun over the deep sea green of the shirt, the sultry heat of a man whose ‘nice to be patient and wait’ is wearing thin. This look, so different from his bashfulness in the cabin earlier. Stede longs to find the place they somehow meet in the middle, and explore the dichotomy of him until he knows the exact precipice. Until he can, with precision, make Ed blush or bring out this hunger in an instant rather than stumbling onto it.
He ends up picking out some trousers to try on too, sandy brown leather to complement the shirt. He tugs them on behind the curtain and admires his reflection, the way the laces at the back pull tight and make…well, it’s not something he’s ever admired about himself before, but it makes his butt look really good. Huh. Go figure.
He decides, at once, that Ed can’t see him in these now. They’ll never make it through the rest of the day!
Trouble is, though, it’s extremely, swelteringly hot, hotter still behind a heavy curtain, strenuously trying to tug one’s limbs out of sinfully tight leather. He’s stuck. He’s stuck in the bloody trousers that he wanted to surprise his date – his date! Stede Bonnet has a date! With the most beautiful man on the high seas! – at the party tonight with. Fuck!
“Ed,” he chirps.
“Yup?”
“Um…can you help me, please?”
Ed’s boots falter and scuff outside the curtain. “Help you?” he says. His voice is thready.
Oh dear, Stede didn’t mean for it to sound like a come on.
“Yes, I’m a little bit stuck.”
“Okay, uh. Can I– can I come in?”
“Please.”
Ed, very kindly, does not laugh at the tangle he’s in. “Okay,” he says. “Okay, am I helping you in or out?”
“Out.”
“Right.” He drops to his knees – god – and starts working the tight, sweaty leather down Stede’s sticky calf. “Lucky for you, I have plenty of practice getting leather trousers off.”
“Off yourself, or?”
“Shush, you. Lift your leg up a sec.”
Teamwork makes the dream work, and together they manage to get Stede out of the bloody things. He only accidentally kicks Ed in the shoulder twice.
And now he stands in just the shirt, the hem of it hanging thankfully low around his thighs.
He still feels seriously exposed, though. All that leg on display. He hasn’t worn thigh-high stockings in god knows how long, and he’s never missed them as much as he does now.
Ed’s a stronger willed man than him, of course. He clears his throat and clambers back up on his feet, leather and joints creaking endearingly.
“Shall I find you another size?”
“No! No, that’s alright. Thank you, but they fit fabulously.”
Ed grins. “If you say so, babe.”
Once Stede’s dressed again, he finds Ed milling about by the counter. He’s carefree as anything, quizzing the shopkeeper on different belts and scarves that are displayed there to tempt last minute coins out of weak-willed men.
“You wanna buy it or no?”
“Nah, man, I just wondered how it was made,” Ed’s saying, the chatterbox he is.
He lights up when he sees Stede, turning his back to the shopkeeper at once.
“Hey, you okay?”
“Perfect,” says Stede. “Here.”
He drops the shirt and the leather trousers into Ed’s arms.
“You want these, yeah?”
“Yes.” Duh, he thinks, but he smiles sweetly with it.
“And…what d’you say when you want something, baby?”
Stede blinks. Oh, they’re really leaning into this, huh? He is well and truly being Ed’s sugar baby. Which would make Ed his sugar daddy.
Well, then. No time like the present, he supposes. He gathers a great deal of nerve and goes for it.
“Please, daddy?”
Ed lets out a rough breath through his teeth. He blinks rapidly at Stede, expression unreadable. Distantly, Stede thinks there’s a chance he’s screwed up – that they should’ve discussed this more, lay down some boundaries, some rules – but he’s far too delirious for the fear to do anything more than brush past him.
The truth is, he wants to say it again. There’s a lingering silence, even from the man behind the counter, and all Stede can think to fill it with is that: daddy, daddy, daddy. It feels so right in his mouth, the shape of it, the taste. It suits Ed so dizzyingly well.
He bites his tongue.
Ed’s hand at his waist startles him. He cups the soft flesh between ribcage and hipbone and squeezes. Stede’s head spins.
“Anything you want,” Ed says once again. Voice deep, rumbling from his chest, the sturdy timber-creak of a well-built ship, the lurch of the ocean in Stede’s stomach to accompany it.
Abruptly, Ed turns around to the counter and slams an obscene amount of coins down.
“Keep the change,” he says gruffly and drags Stede away from the judgy shopkeeper.
When they get outside, Stede barely has a chance to feel the beating sun on his skin before Ed’s pushing him into the shade, up against the cool bricks of an alleyway wall.
He’s blazing eyes and heavy breaths, a precipice of a man, and for just a moment, Stede thinks this is it. The cliff’s edge of patience. The fish’s mouth around the hook. He certainly feels caught.
But then Ed presses the gentlest of kisses to his cheek, a single raindrop in a desert, and Stede has never felt so dazed in his life.
“That was…” Ed sighs, fists loosening at Stede’s shirt. He strokes a thumb over his bare collarbone, gentle and maddening.
“It was okay?”
His eyes widen. He nods vehemently.
Stede huffs out a small laugh. “You liked it? Treating me, I mean. With your money.”
Ed falls into him again, his forehead against Stede’s. Close, and impossibly warm. Stede’s eyes flutter helplessly shut for just a moment. A brief, brief moment, because far be it from him to waste this opportunity to count the freckles around Ed’s eyes. One in the corner there, another along the line of the bag under his eye, the twin ones right under his bottom lashes. Stede wants to kiss them all. He holds back and awaits Ed’s answer.
“More than liked it, mate.”
“Yeah?”
“Mm,” Ed says. That’s all he says for a little while, before he stutters out: “You? Did you…?”
“Ed. I loved it.”
Ed relaxes against him with a smile. He nuzzles his nose against Stede’s. It feels so nice. Safe. He feels protected, like nothing bad could happen to him while Ed’s around.
Foolish, maybe – they’re pirates, after all – but for the time being, he enjoys the feeling.
“Can I tell you a secret?”
Ed pulls back a little, smiling. “Yeah,” he says eagerly. “Go on.”
It’s a very vulnerable secret, though, and Stede needs the safety, so he pulls Ed back in, forehead to forehead, and speaks softly into the small space between them.
“When I was a boy,” he starts, and already Ed is there with a tender hand combing through his hair. Stede might not have divulged that much of his past yet, but Ed knows him well enough to know the hurt that lies in that sentence. “The other boys, they weren’t…the nicest to me. Well, you already know, from Nigel and Chauncey, but.”
“Those are the worst fucking names I’ve ever heard, what the fuck.”
“Wish you’d got to say that to them,” Stede chuckles.
“Where can I find these fuckers? I’ll say it to ‘em now, I don’t care.”
Stede blinks. “Well, they’re– they’re dead, Ed.”
“Oh,” says Ed. “Shit, awesome. How did they die?”
“Nigel got stun-moved by yours truly, if you remember. And Chauncey, well. That doesn’t matter right now, but he’s definitely very, very dead. I think.”
“Stun-moved?” Ed frowns.
“Yes, with the– you know, the whole sword through the eye business.”
“That was that guy? Fuck, what a knob.”
“Mm,” Stede agrees. “Anyway, that’s not what matters.”
“Does.”
“Yes, well,” Stede allows him. “At school, when we were boys, I– I liked to pick flowers and read my books and talk to animals.”
“Yeah,” Ed says warmly, hanging on every word. Stede feels so lucky, it overwhelms him. He has to close his eyes.
“I didn’t really fit in because of that. I was…too sensitive for them, so they’d call me names.” He steels himself, swallows thickly.
Somewhere on a distant shore, he’s sure Nigel has something to say about the fear that shudders through him. Distant being the operative word. Whatever he would’ve shouted is muffled now in Stede’s mind. There’s just Ed there to catch him, patience of a saint, holding him close.
“They’d call me Baby Bonnet.”
“Motherfuckers,” Ed spits after a moment of stunned silence.
Stede dares to peek at him, and is met with the devastating sight of tears in Ed’s eyes.
“Aw, Stede, I’m sorry,” he says. “Fuck, I didn’t know. I had no idea, I wouldn’t have called you that if I knew.”
“Ed, shhh. It’s okay.” If Ed cries, he’ll cry. He doesn’t much fancy ruining the day for the both of them like that.
“I’m so sorry.”
“No.” Stede brings a hand up to hold his. “Listen, yeah? This is what I’m trying to get at, I– I think I like it when you say it. You don’t mean it in the same way they did.”
“Fuck, of course not.”
“I know. I know, darling.”
“Darling.” Ed smiles. “That’s a first.”
Stede smiles back at him, shy. “It’s okay?”
“Yeah. Yes. Would you prefer if I called you that instead?”
“Honestly, no. I mean. I wouldn’t object. At all. But. I think, maybe, it’s nice to sort of, I don’t know, reclaim it? Forget that it was ever used to hurt me. Have it be something that, yeah, I don’t know...feels nice.”
“Poison into positivity,” Ed says.
“Yeah! Oh. That’s lovely, Ed.”
Ed beams. He presses a sweet kiss to Stede’s forehead. “My baby,” he murmurs.
Stede giggles, giddy. “Yours, you say?”
Ed shrugs one shoulder at him. He does not say anything in response. Stede feels himself, suddenly, flirting with the edges of Ed’s boundaries, too much too fast. He accepts the silence and bites back the urge to dress their partnership up in cutesy labels.
Out of everyone in the world, it is him that Ed has in his arms right now. Him that Ed wants to spend his riches on. Him that Ed will, hopefully, dance with tonight. It’s enough for now.
“I liked when you called me that other thing, too,” Ed says, eyes sparkling with mirth more than lust. He’s changing the topic, lightening the mood.
Still, it tangles something sordid in Stede’s gut.
He rolls his eyes jokingly. “Let’s not get into that right now,” he says, for his own sanity.
Ed chuckles and concedes. “Alright, alright. What say we go make some more positivity out of poison, eh?”
He shakes the bag of coins. If Stede isnʼt careful, he’s going to develop some kind of pavlovian response to that metal jingling.
“Sounds perfect,” he tells Ed. “Though we should probably spend some of it on the party.”
“Ugh, yeah. If we must.”
Stede grins. “Lead the way, darling.”