Chapter Text

Months From Now

Izzy steps across the main deck, the dust settling around them. The fiddler lays before Bonnet, blood painted across the deck Frenchie swabbed a few hours before.

Izzy doesn't say a word, doesn't breach his space. He slides up next to Bonnet, silent, and in the background he can hear Edward's panicked breathing, labored with pain over the wound Bonnet gave him. A wound Edward had earned for the sin of trying to interfere; trying to save the heart of a man who had died months ago.

Wordlessly, Izzy draws out a cigarette, lighting it and taking a long draw.

He holds it out, feeling Bonnet take the cigarette from his hand. The man takes a draw of his own, and Izzy watches the smoke float around them both.

Wordlessly, Bonnet hands it back.

Izzy takes a solid breath, asking, "You done, Bonnet?"

The man nods, breathing out and letting another plume of smoke rise out into the dusk. Izzy knows it, then: knows that he and Edward took too long; knows that their rescue mission failed. Knows that the man he knew as Stede Bonnet is dead in the ground, and here walks a ghost; a doppelganger.

Or something worse, maybe. They say demons roam the earth, possessing worthy vessels and leaving a path of destruction. Oftentimes, a vessel isn't born, but created—and despite his eternal self-doubt, Ned Low was nothing if not an artist.

Izzy looks over at the man standing with him, smoking his cigarettes, and when Bonnet's head tilts to look at him out of the corner of his eyes, something instinctual recognizes the lie of it; the story humanity tells itself of being the apex predator in the food chain. But before him lies the true king; something not quite human. Something with a void where a soul might go.

Izzy could still remember Stede Bonnet.

Above all else, he was an infuriating ponce of a man; a bloody fool with dreams of adventure and not a single lick of sense in his body. Izzy wasn't a fool—he could see the desire for the forbidden, lurking underneath the surface. But Stede was naive to the horrors of the world—innocent.

Needless to say, Izzy hated him.

He'd never known someone who'd chosen the life of a pirate the way Bonnet had: someone who'd had other options before taking to the high seas. But when Badminton was preparing Stede for the hangman's noose, Izzy had heard a mention of his former life; seen a glimmer of the truth in his face.

For a moment, Izzy had looked—really looked—and rather than the surly ponce he'd expected, he'd seen something he'd recognized in a heartbeat: a man drowning, unable to take a breath.

Izzy had still hated him, then. But he couldn't resist that first twinge of understanding.

He hadn't seen Stede again until after the storm; he'd lied about the love of his Stede's life being marooned, rather than beaten to death, but Stede had discovered the truth regardless.

Then Stede saved the crew that had killed him.

A miracle happened, after, and Stede went back to being a dismissive ponce, too over the moon with Edward to see the crew's fears. But Izzy still couldn't shake the memory of Stede standing in front of their cell, saving the crew when Izzy had finally failed.

Izzy still wanted to hate him, but when the ponce had asked for instruction, Izzy couldn't explain what had made him say yes.

Months, they had trained together, and Stede had been voracious. When they finally raided the cursed ship, Stede had been boisterous—but Izzy could see the frustration underneath: the desire to prove himself, now that he'd realized just how lacking he was.

Izzy could see something else too, when Stede had stared down at that unconscious man from the wardrobe. Normally it was Edward who had the sight, seeing the future in the clouds. But as Stede stared down at his helpless attacker, fingers playing with the hilt of his dagger,

it was like Izzy could see a glimpse of the man that would live on in Stede's skin.

Bonnet had glanced up at Izzy and been startled, as if he'd forgotten the man—as if he'd been caught. But when he saw no judgment in Izzy's eyes, he relaxed and allowed his desires to play out on his face.

Then, Stede let the hilt go. "He'll live or die on his own soon enough," he said with finality, and Izzy couldn't understand the mix of gratitude and grief that he felt; the way he'd come to treasure an optimism that had been stolen from himself much too young.

Izzy remembered deciding, as Stede slipped past him, that he couldn't begrudge the man's innocence any longer. Izzy remembered hating how badly he wanted to protect that innocence, as impossible as that was on the high seas.

Poison, it had been. Not the sort that took your life, but the kind that forced you to slumber.

The revelry had begun, and one by one, the crew of the Revenge had dropped like flies, falling into a deep sleep. Izzy had been one of the last. He'd been late to the revelry preparing for his song, and had gotten halfway through his drink when he'd heard the first quiet breaths from Pete.

Pete snored. Snored like nothing you'd ever heard, every single night, to the point Lucius had tried to lovingly smother him with a fucking pillow, thrice over. But as Pete leaned against the railing, out completely cold, his breaths were nearly silent.

Izzy stared down at his cup, then, cursing, and stomped over to Edward, their eyes locking as Edward slipped backwards, collapsing against a barrel of rum.

"Get up. Fight it, you fucking twat, we're under attack."

"I can see that, fuckass. I'm trying."

Izzy reached down, grabbing Edward by his leathers. "Try fucking harder, you useless twat." He shook Edward violently, but the man simply stared up at him, eyes widening as they trailed to the mark on Izzy's cheek.

"You moved it," Edward said, stupidly, the poison already pulling him under. "You moved it, but you kept it." Edward reached out to touch, but Izzy dropped him, letting him hit the barrel with his side. Edward groaned, but there was no time for sympathy. There was no time at all.

"Enough. Get the fuck up. Please. Jimenez and Fang are out. The rest of these fucks are more likely to cut themselves than anyone else. Please get off your stupid fucking ass and help me."

Edward looked up at him, half in a daze, as if he'd already fled this reality and was in a waking dream. "I missed you. Why are you talking to me again?"

Izzy growled and turned, his hands going into his hair. Maybe if he tugged hard enough, the pain would keep him awake.

He'd barely begun to pull when he felt his leg give out from under him, and when his face met the deck, he barely registered the blow.

In a waking dream, Izzy thought he heard something; the soft sound of a dirge that set him to fright. It sounded terribly familiar, but he was under before he could think a thing of it.

The second visit was a red sky at morning.

Stede had been rearranged; his ankles were chained, both to the floor and to the legs of the chair he'd been placed in. His arms were free, however, and the butcher had dressed him in a truly stunning autumn ensemble, deep purples and golds to match his golden hair, dark eyes and fair toned skin.

The man had taken his time sliding silk over bare skin, letting his fingers linger, but any sort of relief had been absent.

"Thank you so much for coming," the butcher said, as he gently adjusted his napkin.

"Uh, yes, well." Stede wasn't sure quite how to respond to that one, so he let decades of pageantry lead the way. "I was honored to receive the invitation." Judging by the soft smile, it wasn't the worst thing he could have done.

Stede stared down at the spread, and his mouth watered—he hadn't been fed in the days he'd been the butcher's captive. But he'd known of fuckeries like this; poisons hidden in sweets, only for the victim to keel over.

His apprehension must have shown on his face, and he looked up at the chuckle that escaped his captor's lips. "Relax. If I wanted to kill you, there are a thousand more entertaining ways than poison." When Stede still looked unconvinced, the man sighed, reaching for Stede's glass of wine. He took a small sip, before placing it back before Stede. "See? I'll have whatever you distrust."

Stede still didn't trust the food, but at this point, he needed to keep his strength up more than he needed to avoid a trap as painfully obvious as this.

Stede picked up the wine, raising his glass. If he were to keep up this charade, he might as well enjoy it. "To..." He strained for something at least a little honest. "To a good meal, and new friends."

His captor smiled, raising his own glass and clinking it with Stede's.

The meal was splendid.

"Whoever your cook is, he deserves twice whatever he's being paid." The man offered him a soft smile, even as Stede took another sip of his wine.

Stede was still terrified; he wasn't stupid. But among kidnappings, this hadn't been the worst way it could have turned out. Stede leaned back in his chair, the warmth of the wine and the fullness of a good meal leaving him more limber than he'd felt in days. He moved to cross his legs in the chair, only to be reminded of the chains holding him down.

Right.

"Sorry about that, love. Precautions, you see. I wouldn't want you getting the wrong idea."

"And what's that?" Stede asked, offering a sweet smile. If his captor wanted him to play the coquette, well, he'd had more than enough practice in the past few weeks.

Had he? Fuck, the wine really had loosened him up. Surrounded by Edward and Izzy, he hadn't had a moment to really breathe; to consider how what had once been reparte had grown into something more. Something dangerous, if Edward's temper was to be respected. He'd taken a leg from the man for daring to love him; what was he capable of, if Izzy dared to be wanted by someone else?

"Penny for your thoughts," the man in front of him asked, dodging the question with one of his own. His face was illuminated by candlelight, and in that soft light, he really was quite handsome. It was almost a shame he'd be dead soon; a kidnapper with a penchant for reverse stockholm syndrome wasn't long for the pirate life, even if his fuckery had been masterful.

There couldn't be much harm in telling him the broad strokes, given the game Stede had chosen to play—and a touch of sincerity would sell the story.

"You're aware of my budding relationship with Edward." The man's eyes narrowed, but it was a calculated press to a sore spot, creating an ache Stede would later soothe. "I do care for him, but if I can be quite honest, there's another man I've had my eye on. I'd never have expected him to be my type; I'm honestly only realizing what I've been doing, as we sit here and my thoughts drift his way. I didn't even think of the danger I was putting him in; Edward does have quite the temper."

The man smiled, just a little begrudging. "Yes, he's known to fly off at the handle for the littlest things. It's been a persistent trait of his, for the decades we've both been captains. To be quite honest, I don't know what you see in him."

Here. Here was the opening; Stede wasn't the most masterful manipulator in the world, but he'd spent a lifetime among the upper crust. Even he could see such an insecurity when laid out in plain sight.

"Well. I do think I went through a bit of a bad boy phase, for a while there. He was so different from everything I'd ever known. I suppose I'm missing a bit of familiarity." Under the warm candlelight, Stede slowly trailed his eyes up, meeting those of his captor, and he could see it again—pupils dilating, and a soft chuckle, as if the man were laughing at a joke in his own head.

"Forgive me, but Izzy Hands hardly looks like the picture of familiarity."

Stede stopped.

When had he mentioned Izzy by name?

He hadn't, had he?

But he must have, if the man was bringing him up now. Stede breathed in and out; calmed his bouncing nerves; covered the misstep with a contemplative smile. "You'd be surprised. I can be quite a bitch when I like to be."

The butcher's startled laugh filled the air of the cabin, and Stede tried to let himself relax once more.

Despite the ease of the conversation between them, his anxiety had started to rise. The reasons for his fears were often numerous, and yet this seemed different; a strange sort of tension thrumming in his blood. He took another sip of the wine, his glass already refilled twice over. He knew it was dangerous to lose his wits, but he hadn't been lying—he was missing familiarity, and the wine would cool his nerves.

He looked up at the man as the laughter died down, and Stede decided to continue the gambit; decided to push his luck for all it was worth. If his captor wanted him, well. Stede could play into that desire for all he could get; could blame the wine for his inability to get it up. That excuse would wear thin, but he'd cross that bridge when he came to it.

Stede leaned forward, elbow on the table (in clear violation of all propriety), placing his head in his hand. "He can really be quite sweet, when he's not preoccupied with being an arsehole. I suppose we have that in common."

Stede stared into his captor's eyes, heart pounding in his chest.

Wait, why was his heart pounding?

Why was his cock filling out?

Recognition dawned on him, and as the man saw it, a smile that had been soft and sweet twisted; turned into something sinister.

How could he have missed it; have trusted it for a moment? This, this was the man's true face. How could Stede have been so fucking stupid? But then, as Izzy might have said, missing the obvious was the job Stede took most seriously.

Rather than the sharp sting of insecurity, all Stede could feel was revolting, nerve wracking terror.

Stede sat up in his chair, but the chains reasserted themselves as he tried to lift his feet; tried to create distance. The man raised a single finger, shaking it in warning. "Uh uh," he said, standing slowly, gently placing his napkin on the table. "You've been smiling at me all night. I've been wanting to kiss that look off your face from the moment I saw it."

"What did you do?" Stede demanded, suddenly very aware of the beating of his own heart, much too fast. He reached down to the chains, giving them a yank, and the man—the butcher—shook his head.

"I gave you a little something for your fears. You're so tightly wound," the man said as he stood; as he crossed the distance between them. The man laid his hands on Stede's shoulders, leaning in, breath tickling Stede's ear, and it was then that Stede was struck with warring scents—rot, roses, antiseptic. "I wanted you to enjoy this as much as I'm going to."

The butcher tilted his head, before amending, "Well. That'll never happen, but I wanted you to enjoy it at least a little."

He leaned in the rest of the way, pressing a chaste kiss to Stede's lips, and when Stede tried to pull away, he grabbed at his hair, the tug forcing a groan from Stede's mouth. He hated how much that affected him on a normal day, and the poison coursing through his veins made his body sing with delight, cock twitching against his drawers. The butcher licked into his open mouth, and Stede, with a hardening cock and no other recourse, let him.

His captor swung his leg over Stede, pressing into Stede's groin with a smirk. The man pressed himself chest to chest against Stede, and it was then that Stede could feel the man's hardness through his fine clothes, pressed up against Stede's navel with the angle.

"Isn't this a little fast," Stede mumbled out as the man pressed his mouth against Stede's again, but with a smile the man bit down on his lip, drawing blood. The shock of pain and the press of the man's ass against his clothed cock crossed the wires in his brain, and Stede moaned into the butcher's mouth for an instant, before he clamped his mouth shut. He tried to pull away, but the grip on his hair was unyielding.

The man finally pulled away for air, grinning back at Stede with a macabre smile. "Quite fast, if I'm being honest with you. I didn't think you'd lean so easily into the role of an expensive whore, but I think you—your body, your ridiculous cock, that stupid little brain of yours—you were made for it."

That 'ridiculous cock' of his was filling, and Stede couldn't will it away; couldn't get it to calm down, not even as the reality of the situation slammed into him.

Stede played the only card he could think of; he scoffed, leaning back and looking up with all the offense he could muster. "An expensive whore? You must have me mistaken for-"

The sting of a palm resonated on his cheek, and as Stede failed to repress a shudder, the man's clothed cock twitched against Stede's stomach. The two sat there, frozen, the butcher staring at him with open wanting.

"God. He really didn't understand what he had, did he?"

A few lessons in, Izzy Hands stumbled onto a strange discovery about one Stede fucking Bonnet—one that could bring them all to ruin.

Stede had been lying on the deck during Izzy's lessons on grappling. In a series of violent days, it had been a crescendo—far enough along the line of Stede's competence to give him a real challenge, and safe enough without weapons for the both of them to cut loose. Izzy had learned through pain, and so would Stede. Izzy would ride the line of just how much Stede could take, and then push him just a little further, for good measure.

Izzy had commanded him to get up; to find his footing, like he'd need to do in a real fight, and given him another kick to the thigh for good measure. But suddenly, with his back to the ground, the ponce's head had gone elsewhere, curling in on himself like a fool. Izzy would set him to rights; he screamed, "UP, already!" and reached down to scruff Stede,

until his eyes trailed the seat of Stede's desire, seeing it strain against linen.

Izzy stood stock still, hand inches from Stede's golden hair.

Izzy had ridden the line of what Stede could take. He had hurt him, but he'd learned him; understood just how much would tip past the man's limits, and pressed against that edge until it had sung—and it had set Stede's blood to boil.

Just the way Izzy's had, with hands wrapped around his throat; with the taste of his own flesh on his tongue.

The moment had drawn on too long; had become painted in wanting. Izzy's better judgment warned, and yet Izzy's hand moved of its own volition, leather reaching into golden locks and tugging, pulling the man to his feet. Izzy heard the gasp it pulled from Stede's throat, and he tucked the sound away like something stolen.

When he'd seen Bonnet's eyes on his, knowing and yet still playing the fool, Izzy felt torn between triumph and desire,

and all-encompassing, terrified relief. Relief that he'd saved this stupid, ridiculous man from yet another tragic fate.

After all, if Stede fixated on Izzy for this particular pang, he'd never make the mistake of looking to Edward for it.

Practice had changed, since then; their games more violent. If both Stede and Izzy had gone their separate ways with more bruises from then on out, there would be no way for the crew to tell—and Izzy let himself believe that was the end of it.

If Izzy happened to enjoy the attention, that was no one's business but his own.

As Stede writhed on the ground, he clenched his teeth tight, unwilling to give his captor the satisfaction of whatever sound was threatening to leave him.

The chair had been wrenched out from under Stede, and he had been desperately trying to push the butcher away, up until the scalpel traced along skin.

"Play nice, darling," the man had whispered in that low, loving tone, staring down at Stede like he hung the moon. "Wouldn't want to do any permanent damage."

Stede froze at the implicit threat, giving the butcher leave to stand; to bring the heel of his shoe to Stede's groin, slowly pushing down. Stede writhed as the man's heel dug into his crotch, pressing down painfully hard. "Oh god, please, no-" Stede started to babble as the pain increased, but not overwhelmingly so, not enough to stop the ache in his balls from growing. Not like this, fuck, please-

Stede clenched down on the moan—it had been a moan that had threatened to leave him, after all.

Stede desperately tried to pull away, but the threat of the scalpel kept him from making a real effort, even as the man's boot drew away; even as the man straddled him, pressing against Stede's fully hard cock through their clothes. Stede tried to withhold; tried to stay still as the man ground against him, but then a gentle hand touched his face.

"Do you think he'll hate you when I make you cum?"

And no, Stede hadn't been thinking it; but he certainly was now. Edward would be irate; he didn't understand, wouldn't understand what Stede was like, and Stede had taken pains to never let him find out. Stede could try to keep it from him, but he had a feeling this man would ensure the truth saw the light of day.

Izzy would know just by the sight of him. For all he'd kept from Edward, Izzy knew just what he was; would know just what this man had taken from him.

"Please," Stede gritted out, even as his cock twitched under the pressure. "Please, stop."

Above him, the man moaned. "Yes, just like that," he said, smirking down at Stede, openly enjoying his fear. He reached down beneath him, hand toying with Stede's breeches, slipping a hand down into Stede's smalls and pulling out his cock. Stede tried to buck him off, but the man was too heavy, and still had the advantage of the knife and the chain.

The man pressed his clothed erection against Stede's bare cock, grinding against him even as his hand started to slide up and down Stede's cock in earnest, squeezing on and off, tight enough to be painful. Stede stared up at dark eyes, and as the butcher's forehead leaned against his, some of the blood spatter spread onto Stede's skin.

Stede had the fleeting, desperate desire to know who the butcher had carved up before him, and Stede's body spasmed at the thought, a stuttering gasp escaping him.

The butcher held onto the scalpel as he shoved Stede's shirt upward; even as fingers rapidly traced around the head of Stede's cock. The scalpel inched down, tracing a memory; traced around the scar from Stede's duel with Izzy, so many months ago.

"Who gave this to you?" The man asked, tip of the knife pressing dangerously against the scar. "How far inside did he reach you?"

Stede stared up at the man; struggled aimlessly for an answer that wouldn't paint a target on Izzy's back. But when the other hand reached down and painfully gripped his balls, it caught him by surprise, tearing a moan from his mouth. "I asked you a fucking question," the man said, and Stede couldn't hold back anymore.

"Izzy! It was Izzy, we dueled, oh fuck-" Stede writhed, bucking against the man's clothed cock before remembering himself, before shame sank into his gut and threatened to send him over the edge. How long had he been holding back? How long had he wanted to be driven over? The man shuddered as Stede tried not to give in to the pleasure, his cock driving against Stede's, cloth rutting against bare skin.

Stede couldn't let go. He couldn't let this man take this first orgasm from Edward; couldn't let him steal this secret from Izzy. Even as he could no longer stop himself; even as he began to thrust up against the butcher's clothed cock, he tried to tell himself he could hang on; that his balls weren't drawing up; that he could fight the release that was reaching for him-

Then, the scalpel drove inward, splitting him open; splitting the scar Izzy had given him. Stede's body shook and crested and writhed as he fell into the abyss. Spend painted the fine clothes he'd been given, as the butcher dug around in the wound with the scalpel—opening him to the world, blood blooming across his skin and agony driving the confused signals throughout his body as he shook with his orgasm.

Slowly, Stede began to come down; the two of them slowly came to a stop, as the butcher gently withdrew the scalpel. His fingers were coated with Stede's blood, and when he brought them to Stede's mouth, Stede responded in impulse fear as his tongue slipped out, licking them somewhat clean.

He couldn't be blamed for a job poorly done; there was a lot of blood.

"You're incredible," the butcher whispered. He reached down into his own breeches with still bloody fingers, and when his fingers emerged, they were coated with his own spend. He brought the fingers back to Stede's mouth, and this, too, Stede licked away, tasting the man on his tongue.

The man stared down at Stede, with a look that felt too reverent—like Stede were someone worth wanting. When his fingers were free of both spend and blood, he brought them to Stede's face, tracing along the edges of his hairline, brushing golden locks away from his face.

"Don't think it'll save you," he whispered, and Stede took in a sharp breath. Back are the chains around his ankles; back is the creak of his spine against a solid wood floor. Back is the reality of his captivity, and his helplessness in the face of this man's desires.

Chapter Text

Stede scratched at the hidden section of deck, gouging a fresh tally with a jagged piece of his chain.

By his judgment, it had already been a week. The days felt shorter and shorter, the night catching him unawares, leaving him fumbling in the dark. So, too, did the nights; he never felt truly rested when the blinding light of sunrise cracked through the room.

He was already losing his sense of time. But Stede had always been a diligent note taker, and the loss of ink and quill would not stop him.

The sound of footsteps reached Stede's ears, and he jumped up, scrambling away from the corner, reaching the middle of the room just as the door opened. The butcher was back in working clothes, briskly stepping into the room, flanked by a tall man in leathers. Someone new—Stede examined him carefully, and for a moment he looked terribly familiar.

The butcher leaned towards the man, pointing at the metal loop in the ceiling and whispering in his ear. The man—his attendant, perhaps—let a heavy bag drop to the floor, considering.

The attendant walked to Stede, looking him up and down. His eyes lingered on Stede's cock, glancing pointedly back at the butcher, who rolled his eyes. The attendant looked back at Stede, his mouth twitching upwards as he squatted, grabbing Stede around the waist and lifting him from the ground in one clean motion. Stede opened his mouth to protest, but was dropped, tripping over his own feet and landing on his ass.

The attendant smirked openly, before turning sharply away. "It'll hold," he shot at the butcher, before making his way towards the exit.

"Good," the butcher said with a nod, walking towards Stede.

He was clinical, now. Stede's hands were locked into metal cuffs, and the chain was looped through the hard point in the ceiling. The chain was pulled taut, and as Stede's arms were raised above his head, he asked, "What's going to happen to me?" But the butcher ignored the question, locking the chain into place.

He walked over to Stede, reaching up, testing the give of the chain. Stede's shoulders were less than pleased with the situation, his arms held vertical over his head. The butcher attempted to slip two fingers into the cuffs, finding enough space. His nostrils flared, and he looked at Stede. "Do you want to lose your hands?"

"No- What? No, please, I don't, I-"

The butcher grabbed him by the hair, gripping tightly. "Shut up and listen." He waited for Stede to nod the best he could, before continuing. "Your wrists are not capable of supporting your bodyweight. You're relatively healthy, and your legs suggest you've been walking more than is proper of a man of your station for much longer than your piracy career. I'll be very disappointed if I come back and realize I need to perform two amputations before I get to enjoy what I actually had planned. Do you understand?"

"Yes," Stede said, quickly, nodding against the butcher's grip. "How long am I going to... Be here?"

The butcher smiled at him, twisted and malevolent. "Not long. I simply have some things to prepare." He leaned in, tracing his nose against Stede's cheek. "I'll be back for you soon. Try not to think too hard while I'm away."

The man gave him a pat on the cheek that was more akin to a slap, turning and walking out.

Stede couldn't help the relief that washed over him. He was chained and uncomfortable, but he was alone, and the visit had been mostly free of pain.

He waited for the butcher to return, the sun setting as he did.

He waited, his arms growing tense and his shoulders becoming angry.

He waited.

Stede's disappearance had been a masterful fuckery.

Edward had rarely pulled off its like, and never with as few crew as he suspected had boarded. He was pacing in the Captain's quarters, holding the singular rose that had been left behind, and a scrap of paper carrying a children's rhyme.

Edward was still staring at the page when Izzy walked in, looking at Edward like a deer in headlights. But to Izzy's credit, it was barely a moment before he recovered.

For the second time in the span of a day, Izzy bit back a silence that had lasted for months, spitting, "Where is he?" with an edge Edward recognized all too easily. Edward found himself reigning in the angry, possessive thing inside him; a devil that had stirred every time he'd caught Stede and Izzy's strange interactions for the past two fucking months.

These two had thought him fucking stupid.

He had fuckin' eyes, and even if Izzy knew better than to let Edward on if he could help it, Edward had been reading Izzy for my whole fuckin life decades. And Stede? Stede could lie as well as a cake stealing mutt with frosting on his nostrils.

Stede had a tentative relationship with discomfort at the best of times. Edward had known that going in. But Izzy? Izzy had known better, and had snuck around behind his back anyways.

Strangling Izzy, even a little, wouldn't get Stede back; it wouldn't give Stede back to him, where he belonged. Edward had to remember that. He was trying to be better, yeah? Better for Stede, above all else. And if he laid a hand on Izzy now, Stede would catch wind. Jim, Frenchie, Fang, even Archie would make sure of it.

Edward breathed out, and then extended the piece of paper. Izzy took it, read it slow but steady. Then he looked at Edward, put the paper down and promptly walked out, fast, angry, ready to explode.

Edward didn't bother to stop him, didn't feel a lick of offense—if he counted, he might be able to time out exactly when he'd hear the angry scream, and the crash of whatever dared the offense of being in throwing range.

But sure. Edward was supposed to believe Izzy still hated Stede.

Edward turned towards the makeup cabinet Stede had hauled aboard a month ago, drawing out the kohl.

Day had faded into night, and there was no sign of his captor. Soon, he had said. It had to be any minute now; Stede was breathing heavily, and his overtaxed muscles were out of stamina, his hands hanging limply against the cuffs. He tried to stand on his tiptoes to relieve any of the pressure, but the limited height gain did nothing; nothing to stop the groaning in his shoulders, and the aching muscles that were slowly beginning to scream.

He had said. He had promised, hadn't he? No; the butcher didn't promise him things. But he had said, and with everything he'd done to Stede, had he lied yet?

Maybe.

Stede barely held himself upright as he felt his back violently spasm, gripping with the tips of his toes to hold himself balanced.

"Do you want to lose your hands?"

He wouldn't. Stede was many things, but he was useful with his hands; Stede could bring him off or finger him or finger himself, whatever was wanted, whatever he needed to do to keep his hands.

Stede had never been the praying sort, but he found himself wanting to pray to the demon with a crown of snow.

Just as the thought turned into something coherent, turning from a ridiculous idea to a silent plea, the door opened, and Stede could have sobbed with relief, were he not terrified how his god would answer.

"Miss me?" the butcher said, smiling over at Stede. He had changed; he was wearing his silver coat, and with each step Stede knew he was waiting for an answer—god, what answer-

"I did," Stede said, because it was true, and the man paused, looking at Stede—really looking at him—before the smile changed, and became human. Stede wanted to cast aside rose-colored glasses forever, but even he couldn't deny the warmth that had bloomed.

Stede prayed this was a good sign, as the man picked up his pace. The butcher's hands landed on Stede's naked torso, and Stede welcomed any touch that wasn't agony. He held back a whimper as the butcher slid his arms around Stede's waist,

wrenching him backwards, flush to the butcher's chest.

Stede screamed, as the joint was pulled dangerously close to leaving the socket altogether. "No, please, no, no," Stede screamed as he started to babble,

and to his surprise, the tension eased, hands gliding along his chest as the man pressed kisses into his spine with a shudder.

"Magnificent, darling. I'm in the mood for a game. I think you'll like this one, given how you never stop fucking talking."

Stede didn't know how to respond to that one without playing right into it—he huffed and said nothing, even as the sound drew a chuckle from his captor. Tears were streaking down his cheeks, even as he tried to look disaffected—his shoulders burned, and he desperately wanted even a modicum of relief.

"Nothing to say? Looks like you can shut that pretty little mouth, then." The butcher pressed his chest up against Stede's back, hand reaching up to trace his jaw, as if daring him to say a word.

Stede told himself he wasn't going to rise to the bait. He wasn't. But his skin desperately itched with the desire to lean closer crawl away as the butcher traced cool fingers against skin, and the scent of

roses, rot, antiseptic

the butcher's skin was suffocating him, bringing back the memory of fingers gripping skin, the taste of spend on his tongue-

Stede felt his cock twitch in his pants, and he promptly slammed the door on that thought. His mouth ran away from him with a wobble—anything to distract him from the pain. "You didn't seem to mind me running my pretty little mouth earlier. You were a lot kinder; I liked you better then. My shoulders certainly did, too."

Stede hated how desperate he sounded. But then, he was desperate.

The butcher walked, curving around him, hands never leaving Stede as they slid around his torso. Then the man was in front of him, eyes skimming over the joints; he seemed to consider something for a moment, going far away and then returning. "Don't worry, darling. I know just how much I want to hurt you. If it's too much for you, I'll let you know."

Stede snorted despite himself. "How kind." The man smiled back at him, before giving him a firm slap on the thigh. Stede shuddered as he shifted against the chains, but managed to keep himself mostly still.

"Alright, no getting distracted. If you miss the rules of the game, you won't know how to play." He took a step back, his hands finally leaving Stede's body, and Stede couldn't help the sigh of relief that escaped him—but if the man noticed, he said nothing. "Alright. Here's the rules, Gentleman Pirate. I ask you a question. You give me an answer. If you're lying, I hurt you. Then, you tell me the truth."

Stede's face scrunched up, and as afraid as he was, lord help him, he was also terribly annoyed. "That's not a game," Stede spat. "That's just you asking me questions! A game has rules and such, and tests of skill. You know, chances to show courage and daring! That's just an interrogation!"

The man tilted his head, and he looked at Stede with such terrible fondness that Stede was taken off guard for a moment. "Oh, silly, there's so many skills you could be testing with this game, so much courage to find, but." He reached over, ruffling Stede's hair. "That just never occurred to you, did it?"

Stede scowled—he could tell when he was being patronized. "I'm not telling you shit," Stede spat, surprising himself at how quickly he'd reached for Izzy's words, his affect—and surprising himself even more when he believed it.

The butcher rolled his eyes. "Don't take it so personally. This isn't one of those principled stands, is it? I won't ask after Blackbeard. I had him and Israel at my mercy, and I didn't harm a hair on their heads. Shame, too. But they handed me a better way to torment them than I ever could have imagined."

The butcher continued, but a stone had dropped into the pit of Stede's gut, as he realized the entire crew had been at this man's mercy. It felt like his ears were filled with cotton. "Are they. Are my crew alive-"

Fingers slid into Stede's golden curls and wrenched. The butcher smiled down at him as he screamed, and Stede was suddenly staring at a silver-inlaid scalpel, millimeters from Stede's widely opened eye, his throat promptly slamming shut.

"You'll have plenty of ways to fuck up, darling, and you will. Many times. Don't do something as stupid as interrupting me when I'm fucking talking."

Stede stared at the blade in terror, and he swallowed every ounce of his pride as he screamed, "Sorry! I'm sorry, I'm sorry, please don't!"

The butcher closed his eyes, and as he listened to Stede's pleas, he let out an appreciative hum. "Very good." The grip on Stede's hair tightened further despite the praise, and Stede couldn't tell what he'd done right or wrong.

Finally, the butcher lowered the scalpel, and the hand in his hair gentled, fingers sliding down to his face. Their eyes met, and Stede was too terrified to tear his eyes away. He didn't dare blink.

Then the man leaned in and kissed him.

Stede made a surprised gasp, but the man gripped his chin, leaving no room for argument.

Stede didn't know why he did it. But left with no other recourse and the scent of roses heavy in the air, Stede leaned forward and kissed him back. It was closed mouthed and chaste, and when the butcher leaned back, he eyed Stede like an exceptionally interesting puzzle, letting out a surprised little hmm.

"First question," the butcher said, breaking the moment between them. "Why did you become a pirate?"

Stede blinked. He'd been expecting something about the Revenge: their plans, Blackbeard's typical routes, strategic information in order to stay ahead of the impending manhunt. "Are you- Do you really want to know?" Stede blurted out without thinking, then clamping his mouth shut.

The butcher, instead of being angry, let out a chuckle. "That's why I asked, isn't it?" He threaded his fingers back into Stede's hair, and Stede suddenly found himself fighting the urge to lean into the touch. "A wealthy landowner gives it all up to become a pirate. I imagine the reasons had to be compelling."

"Well," Stede said, thinking about it. He couldn't risk this man's attention being brought to Mary and her newfound life without him, much less the children. "I suppose I wanted to live the life of an adventurer. I was always fascinated by the sea, growing up. I heard tales of pirates and I wanted to be just like them."

The man tilted his head at Stede, and slowly, a thrilled smile cracked across his face. He leaned in, nose tracing Stede's temple.

"Very good, Bonnet. A lie." The butcher's head leaned into Stede's chest, and his voice was low when he whispered, "Now I'm going to hurt you."

"That's not a-" Stede was cut off as his head was wrenched backwards, the butcher drawing the scalpel to chest. He slid it down in a perfect vertical line, and as he sliced through the top layer of skin, Stede could feel it resist and then separate. He winced, the knife gouging deeper just above his navel.

"I don't give a shit about the drivel you feed everyone else," Ned spat, looking at the gouge with disdain. He walked over to the wall, and Stede could feel his legs give out from under him when the chain holding his arms above him went slack. He fully collapsed, fresh pain surging into his arms and shoulders as the blood pumped back into his limbs.

The butcher shoved his side roughly with his foot, pushing Stede onto his back as Stede writhed with the growing tingle in his shoulders. The man wrapped the chain loosely around his neck, and Stede could hear the sound of a lock clicking into place.

The give felt dangerously inadequate, and when Stede tested it, he found that the chain had been locked to the floor.

As vulnerable as he'd been with his arms above his head, this was worse, even as his shoulders screamed with the newfound blood flow. Stede writhed on the floor, moaning in pain, tears weeping down the side of his face.

The man reached down, hands tracing Stede's body like a canvas, bare and ready for paint, but Stede was starting to feel far away; distant. He could vaguely feel a hand wrap around his cock, but he was soft.

"Hmm," he heard a voice say. "I'll know to bring you down earlier, next time." The man pushed at Stede's left shoulder, gently, and Stede screamed, bloodcurdling and full throated. His arms were on fire; he was sure they would never work again, and he writhed on the ground as the man continued to press. A game—there was a game, and if he gave the right answer, this would stop, it would stop. Why did he leave? It was something about leaving, right? God, he knew the answer to that one, the real one, please, let it be enough-

"I was drowning!" Stede screamed, another plea to the demon with a crown of white.

The hand pressing into his shoulder lifted. The pain was still agonizing, but it was no longer growing; no longer a burgeoning flame. The butcher stopped tracing his free hand over skin, looking at Stede's face as he breathed heavily, shaking in pain and relief.

"Go on, then. Explain it to me."

"I." Stede cleared his throat. "I was losing myself. I couldn't live that life, not anymore, couldn't lie and pretend I wasn't miserable. I wanted to be free; I wanted to be who I wanted to be, and fuck anyone else who would get in my way. Even my family."

The butcher stared down at him, bringing a hand to Stede's face. "Beautifully done, darling. We're off to a wonderful start."

Stede had the sudden thought that he'd been wrong. This man hadn't had a soul—but there it was, blooming before him, eyes filled with desire and glee and something Stede refused to name—something twisted and sick, but real. Something that didn't belong in this room, filled with screams of pain. But the hand reached into golden locks, gentle as it had been before, and Stede realized this man was unknowable, for now; blue and orange and upside down in a way Stede had no context for understanding.

If Stede was going to survive this, he had to be a quick study.

The butcher leaned down, then; lowered himself down Stede's body, and as the man's tongue painted a stripe up Stede's soft cock, Stede writhed, and then regretted; his shoulders still ached angrily, and would for some time. But the man had an answer for this; he took Stede's hand in his own, and pulled, drawing free another scream as fire shot across his nerves.

"I answered! I answered, fuck, please stop!" Stede screamed, for mercy, for the hopes that some shred of humanity was buried somewhere. The man looked up at Stede, grinning even as he took Stede's cock in his mouth, forcing him to hardness even as he played with Stede's frayed, angry nerves.

The man reached down with his free hand to palm himself, and something vicious caught fire in Stede's mind. Some small, terrible, growing part of him wanted to see it; wanted to see this man fall apart in front of him. Wanted to make it happen

another door, slamming shut. If only his cock would listen.

The man pulled off his cock, crawling back up Stede's body—reaching up, unlocking the chain around his neck. He pulled Stede by the hair until Stede was on his feet, pulling Stede's arms by the chains still attached to his wrists, forcing them around him in a bizarre facsimile of an embrace, as he curled into Stede's chest. Stede's arms were finally starting to relax; the pain was merely excruciating, rather than unbearable.

He felt the butcher's hands let his hands go, and Stede was too terrified to let them drop. He held onto the butcher under his own power, and he felt the man's grip around his waist tighten, burying his face in Stede's chest.

Slowly, the man looked up at him, and when his voice came free it was quiet and intimate: the whisper of forbidden lovers and stolen moments.

"I want everything of you."

Stede blinked at him, and suddenly the terrain had changed again; Stede struggled to orient himself as he stumbled out, "Everything?"

The man nodded, slow and blazingly honest; Stede wondered if it was the first time he'd seen honesty on the man's face. "I want all your secrets," the man whispered to him. "I want to know you inside and out; I want to reshape you to suit me and only me."

Stede saw the man's longing, and he scarcely knew what to do with it.

It was different than Edward's nervous glances; different than the playful smirk that seldom danced on Izzy's face. In a dimly lit room, he saw the desire to know; he saw someone that said they wanted every part of him, and for once meant it.

Stede didn't know what else to do, so he said, "That hardly seems fair. I don't even know your name."

The man stared up at him, and Stede wondered if he'd earned himself another punishment; another torture to endure. But instead, the man smiled, small and nervous, and slowly leaned forward, giving him another gentle kiss—and Stede settled on his course, returning the kiss with abandon.

When the man finally pulled them apart—"Ned. My name is Ned."

"It's good to meet you, Ned," Stede whispered, the name becoming etched into the fabric of his reality—the winds in a sail, or the storms over warm waters.

Ned stared up at him, starting, "Don't call me th-," but before he could finish the sentence, Stede leaned forward, stealing a kiss of his own.

Agony still rippled through his shoulders. But when he felt Ned's mouth curve into a smile against his own, he knew the taste of victory for the first time in days.

Chapter Text

Stede stared at the wall, entirely unable to keep the sobs from escaping his body. His shoulders still twitched with residual pain, and he'd been chained to a pole, but none of that held a candle to the blinding relief of a closed door and an empty room, save himself.

It was over. He wouldn't come back for hours; the butcher would take his fill and be sated, sometimes for the day. Not that the passage of time had remained firmly seated, in Stede's psyche; at times, he felt like he would blink, and the sun had risen, shining through the slats once more.

The door creaked back open, and the breath fled from Stede's lungs.

"Just me," an unfamiliar voice called. Stede shuddered with relief, but the sobs vanished back within him. The man came into view, his dark brown hair and light skin damp with sweat, presumably from working under the Caribbean sun.

It was the butcher's attendant, Stede realized, a dismissive look on his face and a cigarette between his fingers, smoke rising up towards the deck.

"Well. You're his new project, aren't you? Gone and got yourself captured. Really putting your whole back into surviving long enough for Blackbeard to find you?" The man had a particular lilt to his voice; a proclivity unhidden.

The man leaned forward, and Stede thought that if he squinted, he could recognize those eyes. But from where?

"It's quite annoying, honestly," the attendant said with a wave of his hand. "We'll fall behind schedule if you keep distracting him." The gentle sway to his voice sounded almost soothing, but it entirely failed to hide his contempt. He reached out, giving Stede a gentle pat on the face. "Hurry up and die, thanks."

The attendant took a long drag of his cigarette, blowing the smoke into Stede's face. Stede coughed, and when he finally cleared his lungs, the attendant was gone.

Without a shred of hesitation, the crew threw over whatever wasn't bolted down—plunder and rum and whatever they could go without. The guilt room was cut cleanly in half, saved for the knowledge that coin could loosen lips and grease palms. In the blink of an eye, the Revenge docked at the Republic of Pirates, less than a week after the party.

Blackbeard stepped out onto the docks, dressed in the regalia he had worn when terrorizing everyone on the high seas—his crew most of all. He could see the nervous looks from the crew that had survived him, but they'd readily thrown away a year's worth of wages. They would get the fuck over a change of attire.

Someone had stolen his mate. Blackbeard's mate. There would be hell to pay, for them and for anyone who stood in his way. This threat wasn't for the crew; it was to protect them. They needed to catch on, and play their own part.

Izzy certainly hadn't.

His first mate had skipped the kohl this time around, and Edward could see the nervous looks darting in his direction, when Izzy thought he wasn't looking.

"Fuckin' stop that. Weirding me out, mate," Edward snapped, refusing to listen to the pit threatening to open in his gut.

"Not doing nothing," Izzy spat back, and Edward didn't catch his eyes on him for the rest of the day.

Letters were sent out, and letters came back, one by one. Written carefully to his potential enemies, of which he had many.

Instead of a letter, Zheng Yi Sao approached him in person.

"So, you're back to the wanted poster vibe, huh?" She had a sword at her hip, but her stance was open, even lazy. She was holding the letter, curiosity in her eyes. "Did something happen between you and Bonnet?"

"Nothing you need to concern yourself about, mate," he said. "Turns out legumes make some people sick. Weird fuckin thing, but he'll be over it soon."

Edward remembered this; remembered lying like breathing, like he could get away with anything. It was intoxicating, right up until he realized he had gotten away with something, but Stede had been the price.

He turned away, but it wasn't quick enough; Zheng Yi Sao had the grace to say nothing. Edward took a step away, blurting, "Sorry, lots to do," but Zheng Yi Sao caught his arm.

"Look. I'm not going to lie and say this is anything except enlightened self-interest, but if something's going on, there's a number of folks with a vested interest in you not going through another one of your phases. Myself included."

Edward spun on his heel, tilting his head at her. "What?" he said, staring for a moment, before it dawned on him—and in spite of everything, he gave into the urge to smile. "Right. I'll tell Olu you say hi."

Zheng Yi Sao chuckled. "I appreciate it, but I'll tell him myself. Let me know if there's something I can do to quicken the whole goth phase."

Edward looked down at himself, and for a moment he felt terribly exposed. "Ain't a. Fuck you. Fuck off." He turned away, heading down the road towards Rafael's, but as he heard a chuckle behind him, he let it drift off into the night.

He and Izzy had split off; by now, Izzy was probably threatening one of the poor fops who had drank with Calico Jack last night. Edward could only hope it was Jack, but he'd have never risked Ed's crew for a laugh.

Jack had betrayed Edward in a heartbeat, once.

Affection made Izzy the perfect choice for chasing Jack down; affection had forced Blackbeard to come here alone.

Blackbeard slipped into the tavern, and the sound of the violin danced around his ears. Around him, hushed whispers followed as people parted from his path.

Up on stage, Ned Low was deep in a set, playing his fiddle like the master that he was. As the young waifs that flocked to this particular bar sang along, some small part of Edward begrudgingly admitted that Ned was exceptional, today—vibrant.

Blackbeard saw the moment that Ned's eyes fell on his; saw his hackles rise. But then the moment was gone, Ned slipping back into his stage persona with a dismissive shake of his head.

Blackbeard took a seat at the bar, the two spots next to him rapidly clearing out. When the set ended, Ned took one of the empty seats, setting his drink down next to Blackbeard's.

The man looked angry, christ.

"Here to steal anything else from me? My violin isn't typical, but I'm sure you could figure it out. Or maybe you want my first mate, since you shot yours-"

A hand was around Ned's throat before Edward could blink, slamming him into the bar.

Edward didn't have time to process the impulse as Ned stared up at him, not a lick of fear in his eyes—the bastard was almost grinning. "Sore subject? How is Izzy these days? Still pining after you? It's a damn shame; a little birdie told me all about-"

The knife slammed into the countertop, inches from Ned's mouth.

Ned had the good sense to stop talking, but then his tongue darted out, licking up the knife in a single stripe. Blood slipped from his tongue, but he only seemed pleased.

As much as Edward wanted to carve out an eye to soothe that angry, possessive thing inside him, the fact of the matter was he didn't have bandwidth to start a war with Ned Low, not right now. And if Ned was still fixated on Izzy, he would have just taken him.

Blackbeard roughly let Ned go, and Ned sat up, shaking himself out, frowning at his now spilled rum. The man took one look, before reaching over and stealing Edward's, taking a long swig.

"It's only fair," Ned said after he swallowed it down, and Blackbeard was so shocked by the audacity that he let him.

"Fuck off," Blackbeard spat, leaving Ned the drink. He turned, leaving the bar and the madman behind.

If Edward made a beeline for where he'd sent Izzy, that was no one's business but his own.

Stede couldn't recall falling asleep. But he awoke with a start, glancing around in confusion.

Now there was a single long chain, attached to a manacle on his ankle. His shoulders were still angry, but they were no longer screaming.

This was the most mobility he'd had in weeks.

The sunshine glared down through the slats in the deck; from the changing of the days, he reckoned it'd been two or three weeks since he'd been captured. The butcher—Ned, he'd learned—visited him almost every day, and some nights. At times, it felt like Stede had barely shut his eyes before the light of the day was waking him once more, and he couldn't be sure he hadn't slept through a day in his exhaustion.

Stede looked around. He couldn't focus on that, right now—he needed something sturdy, or perhaps a bit of unattended metal, so he might pick his binds or fashion a shiv.

Stede tried to listen as he searched, but the entire ship was eerily quiet; the sounds of a working crew were missing.

If any of the crew had been taken prisoner, Stede would have heard something by now. No matter how big a ship was, even someone as mad as the Gentleman Pirate wouldn't have two separate brigs; there just wasn't the space.

Hmm. That was him, right? The Gentleman Pirate. He'd chosen it for himself, early on his time on the Revenge. But something in the way it had rolled off the butcher's tongue had warped the name in his mind; it felt more like a shared joke between the two of them, rather than a point of pride.

Well. Regardless, he had a duty to his crew. If they were still alive.

Stede stood, and as he did, his salvation caught his eye.

It would take time. But here? Stede had nothing but time.

Blackbeard was furious.

Stede had been kidnapped barely a week ago, and when Edward had gone to check on Izzy at Jack's favorite haunt, the innkeeper said they'd vanished together after an exceedingly long conversation.

Edward had kicked in the doors of half the inns in the area; hadn't bothered sleeping, and now the cresting dawn would wake his wayward mate and allow him to abscond from the evidence of his dalliance.

Not if Blackbeard could help it. No; he'd narrowed it down to a handful of inns left willing to lie to Blackbeard's face, and he was at the last one.

He threw yet another door open, and Izzy was already on his feet, sword in hand.

Blackbeard could see the moment Izzy recognized him; the moment Izzy hesitated to put his sword down. Why the fuck hadn't he put his sword down?

"You going to run me through with that, dog?" Edward spat, looking over Izzy and Jack. Of the two, Izzy looked spectacularly well fucked, and Jack... Well, Jack always looked a fuckin' mess. Jack was already half awake, and if Edward didn't know better, he'd say Jack's awkward angle meant he'd palmed a knife. But it was just the three of them; Jack had no reason for that.

Izzy lowered the sword after too long a moment, sitting back down on the bed, and irritation twitched up Edward's spine. He took an angry step forward, and Jack was on his feet in an instant.

"Heeeeey, Blackie, how ya been?" Jack waved his hands modestly—fuck, that was a knife in his palm. What the fuck?

"I'm fuckin' fine, mate, you don't need the fuckin' weapons. I'm just here to fetch Iz."

Jack—fucking Jack, of all people—looked unconvinced. "Alright. Well. Play nice, okay? I'm gonna go get a drink," and it was something in Jack's laugh; something fake, faker than usual, that had Blackbeard reaching out, grabbing him.

"The fuck's your problem, mate?"

Jack slowly looked up at Edward, and Edward was startled by the threat he saw there. "Nothin', dude," Jack said, playing apathetic, but his voice was laced with anger. "Couldn't give a shit what you two do. Now get your fuckin' hand off me."

Edward, stunned, let Jack go, watching the man slip outside. Edward sighed, turning towards Izzy. Right. A spectacularly well-fucked Izzy, who had decided to sleep around when Stede was already missing. "Fuckin' really, man? Jack? Now?"

"You fucked him plenty of times," Izzy spat, as he brought a bottle of rum to his lips. He paused just before drinking it, adding, "Thought I'd give him another spin."

Edward rolled his eyes—there was more to it, but he didn't have time for this. "Fuckin' Ned Low is in town. What if he'd got you? The fuck would I do then? You should have fucking been where you said you were gonna be."

"Never seemed to give a fuck before. Are you really gonna stand there and tell me you wouldn't go after Bonnet and leave me to him? Go on then, Eddie; would you even fuckin' hesitate?"

Blackbeard's nose flared, and that angry thing—that desire to reach out, to control—surged within him. He took another step forward, staring down at Izzy, still on the bed, unicorn leg off to the side, defenseless. He reached out, putting a hand on Izzy's shoulder, the command leaving his mouth before he could think about it. "Don't fuck Jack again."

Izzy stared up at him, the scowl spreading across his face, and he slapped Edward's hand from his shoulder. "You lost the right to tell me who I can fuck."

How dare you.

Edward grabbed Izzy by the throat, shoving him back down into the bed. A distant part of his mind, in Stede's voice, no less, said he was relapsing—said this was exactly who he didn't want to be anymore. Edward knew he needed to stop, but the feel of Izzy's pulse under his palms made him feel like he could do anything, be anyone; find Stede and torture his kidnapper until he was unrecognizable; maybe smack Jack around a bit for good measure. His palms pressed against the pulsing blood vessels,

but he froze when he felt a knife tracing his gut.

"Let me fucking go," Izzy strained out, and Edward's eyes snapped away from his throat, up to his eyes.

He hadn't seen Izzy terrified in a long time.

Not since his youth, and Izzy's young adulthood; not since a risky mutiny and the certainty of a noose, had they failed. He'd hidden it well then, and he was hiding it well now—but Edward had never forgotten the language of him, one that had been hard won over a lifetime together.

Edward flinched backwards as if burned, and Izzy collapsed against the bed. He reached up a hand to cover his mouth, and if Edward hadn't been certain of its impossibly, he would have sworn Izzy was sobbing.

But Izzy didn't sob. Another one of those lifetime lessons.

It took a few minutes of awkward silence for Izzy to calm himself down, wiping at his eyes furiously, and when he did, he said into the dim room,

"I can't fucking do this again,"

Edward can scarcely understand it.

He's Izzy, right? Of course he can. He's unkillable; indestructible.

But then, Edward took plenty from him, hadn't he?

"Okay," Edward finally snapped. "Okay, I'm sorry. I'm fucking sorry, can we go?" Edward wanted to crawl out of his skin; he wanted to puke up bile and sail until there was nothing but him and becalmed ocean to finally take him.

Izzy slowly nodded, keeping an unnecessary berth as he slipped around Edward and out the door.

Night had fallen, yet again; not only had Stede slept through the afternoon and the night, but he'd apparently gone straight through most of the next day, as well. He internally cursed when the rusted link refused to give any faster than "Fuckin' forever," as Izzy might have said.

Despite it all, Stede smiled just a little bit at the thought.

Footsteps came; Stede let go of the chain as quietly as he could, moving back to his usual spot. He sat on the floor, Caribbean heat in the wood warming his bare skin, and waited as Ned walked in the door.

"Darling," he said when he saw Stede sitting there, arms around his knees. He was carrying a beautiful warm autumn ensemble, shades of red interlaced with gold and green—but he himself was dressed down, wearing what looked to be working clothes, and his bloodstained apron. He carried the ensemble over to Stede, holding it up near him as if to check the color, as Ned's attendant slipped in behind him.

Ned leaned down, giving Stede a gentle kiss on the crown of his head. "Whew, you stink, love," Ned said teasingly. As he did, Stede glanced at two more crew members filing in, carrying what looked to be a washbasin and a bucket. Ned gently laid the outfit out on a table, taking a seat next to Stede.

As the washbasin and the bucket were placed next to the two of them, the attendant's bag swung, striking Stede in the shoulder. Stede startled at the impact, looking up at him with a frown.

"Oh," the attendant said, waving a hand playfully. "Sorry about that, this thing is just so heavy sometimes." He put a hand over his mouth. "Didn't hurt you, did I?"

"Frank," Ned growled angrily, a warning if Stede had ever heard one in his life. But to his own shock, the attendant—Frank, apparently—simply rolled his eyes, turning with a raised and dismissive hand.

"Fine, fine, I'll play nice with your new boytoy," Frank muttered, stalking off above deck. Ned watched him go, letting out a long-suffering sigh. Stede watched him raise his fingers to his forehead in annoyance, and he couldn't help but feel wrong-footed. For a fleeting moment, the butcher seemed painfully human.

Stede let himself breathe in the moment, before he set to work. He had to keep himself on Ned's good side; limit the damage. He reached out, gently touching Ned's shoulder. When Ned startled, looking up at him, Stede smiled, though he knew it probably looked wobbly and terribly nervous.

"I. It's okay," Stede stammered out, suddenly unsure of which direction to go. Was this god a man? Was he company to a demon, or something human? All of these needed very careful, very different handling.

But he watched as Ned's pupils dilated, and when he saw a flash of what looked like hope, Stede wanted to reach out; wanted to turn over the rock that was Ned's soul and see a person staring back at him.

"I think he's probably jealous or something," Stede mused at last, a corner of his mouth turning upward. He shrugged his shoulders, a little touch of, "What can ya do?"

Ned tilted his head, and when he led out an amused huff and smiled back at Stede, Stede tasted it again—victory.

As Ned slid wet cloth along skin, Stede closed his eyes, letting himself sink into the sensation—all without the overanalysis that was normally a cornerstone of his thinking process. What purpose was it, to fight every single battle? As Ned's hands gently scrubbed the days away from him, Stede hummed, a real smile drifting up to his face.

Ned came to a stop, unexpected, and Stede cracked an eye open, only to find him sitting there, lost in some sort of reverie.

"Penny for your thoughts?" Stede asked, remembering the question Ned had asked on their date (if it could be called such a thing).

Ned hummed to himself, glancing over at Stede. He seemed to be coming to a decision, finally saying, "It's not just jealousy," Ned said. "I guess you remind him of home."

Stede tilted his head. "Home?"

"Yeah," Ned added. "He grew up rich. Not play rich, either; not Barbados gentry rich. His family was aristocracy in London; he had everything ahead of him."

Stede blinked. "Wait. What? Are you serious? Wouldn't I have heard of him; something?"

Ned shook his head. "Nah. Family had him pronounced dead. Couldn't have that sort of stain on their legacy."

It took Stede a moment, but he cottoned on to it well enough. "Oh. Fuck."

"Yeah," Ned said, absently stirring the rag in the washbasin. He glanced up at Stede, and there it was again—that internal debate that Stede wanted to be a party to. "Made it easy for me to pick up all the trappings of wealth; take their secrets for myself. Was the retirement plan, for a while."

Stede's eyebrows practically raised into his skull. "Wait. You're common?" Stede asked, then slapped a hand over his mouth. "Fuck, I- I didn't mean-" he mumbled, somehow not thinking to take his hand away.

"Mother was a whore," Ned said, staring down at the basin. A tense moment held, and Ned refused to meet Stede's eyes, even as he squeezed the rag; reached out to Stede; gently wiped at the skin once more.

Stede put his hand on Ned's, stilling him.

"I don't care about any of that, Ned," Stede said, gently squeezing his hand.

Stede had felt a tremble, then; a long-taught flinch at the touch of another, repressed but not well enough to evade notice. But Ned looked up at him and smiled, and Stede knew that whatever fear Ned had held for a lifetime, Stede's touch was still welcome; wanted.

Stede was still wanted, and his soul thrummed at that, heart beating softly in his chest.

Somewhere else, a deep, instinctual part of Stede saw a weak link,

tucking away that knowledge like a knife.

Izzy and Edward had walked back to the docks in silence, and embarked the morning before. Now, at the edge of the quarterdeck, Edward was brooding like Edward was apt to do. Izzy had nothing for it; had nothing left in his reserves to calm yet another of his fraying captain's moods.

He'd fucking apologized, and Izzy knew what to do with that least of all. He took a page out of Frenchie's book, throwing that in a box never to be opened again.

But regardless of what he wanted, he'd need to get their next heading, so he marched up to the quarterdeck, doing his best to not look quite like a man walking to the gallows.

"What'll it be, Blackbeard?"

Edward twitched at the formality, but Izzy watched it slide off him, floating out into the inky dark below. "Guanaja, where we docked before the party."

"It'd be stupid of them to go back there."

"Yeah, it would," Edward said, staring out into the sky. "But we're missing something. We need to figure out what the hell it is."

Izzy had what he needed; he could slink back to his cabin, and start mulling over their trajectory. But a lifetime of managing a man's erratic moods had left him painfully ill-equipped for leaving that man to figure his fucking shit out on his own.

Izzy let out the air from his lungs, leaning against the railing with Edward. He could feel Edward's eyes on him, even though he refused to look in his direction.

Funny, that. Izzy wondered how it made Edward feel, for once.

Izzy found himself speaking, all at once, unbidden. "I don't know what the fuck to do right now, Edward. Crew's fucking terrified of you, you're threatening people again, and you're over here staring down the last bottle of rum like it's going to save you. You're in what you wore, when. Well. You know what you're fuckin' wearing."

Edward's nose flared. "Funny how you can say the words 'crew' and 'people' like they don't mean," and Edward tried; when he started the sentence, the joke sounded terribly funny in his head. The indestructible Izzy Hands, terrified of admitting he's terrified, that he's in danger. But Edward can't get his voice around the ending; his mouth refuses to cooperate.

Edward uncorked the bottle, taking a long swig from the rum instead. Izzy sighed beside him, but it was hardly the first time Ed had disappointed him.

A hand reached out; took the bottle from him, and Edward expected Izzy to confiscate it. But when Izzy took a deep pull of his own, before handing it back, Edward couldn't keep himself from staring; from quickly taking a sip, before he lost the place where Izzy's lips met the bottle. Izzy's eyes were finally upon him, and he dared not look away.

Izzy let out one last, long-suffering sigh. "Just don't drink it all in one go," he said, pushing off from the railing. He turned on his good leg, taking off.

Stede takes a sip of the wine. If Ned's laced it again, there's nothing for it; he has to keep up his strength if he's going to pull off an escape.

Stede finally feels as if he's turned over a new leaf with Ned, but regardless of the budding affections of his captor,

He has to fucking get out of here.

It's the days; they're all wrong. Shorter than a blink, and longer than a lifetime. Stede tries to follow the shadows; tries to understand the rolling of the sun across the sky, but there seems to be no logic to it, not anymore.

Stede can feel time slipping faster and faster around him with each day, and if Blackbeard has abandoned him

he can't hold out hope forever. Not with Ned's hands becoming too familiar; not with dreams every night of the demon that seeks his soul.

The demon in question, meanwhile, keeps smiling over at him from across the table.

Stede smiles back, nervously, gently. "You look happy, darling," Stede says. "Anything on your mind?"

Ned chuckles, carefully picking up his glass; he takes a sip, allowing himself to think. Now that Stede is aware of his origins, the pageantry isn't just perfect—it's perfect, and profoundly, irritatingly impressive.

Ned is still holding the glass when his eyes slowly trail back to Stede, and he whispers, "You, love."

Stede can feel heat blooming across his face, unbidden, as his body remembers what his mind can't forget. He can feel the tension in the room, and he finds himself unable to pull his eyes away, Ned locked onto him, dark eyes filled with desire.

"Oh yeah? What about me?" Stede asks, entirely unsure how to de-escalate. It's a terrible question, but it was better than saying nothing and staring into the man's eyes.

Ned leans forward. "There are some firsts I've taken. But I think," he glances away, and if Stede were a fool (which he is) he'd almost believe Ned was nervous (which he does).

"What is it?" Stede asks, and he prides himself on how well he comes across as comforting, rather than on edge.

"I think," Ned whispers, and then looks up at Stede. "I want you to fuck me."

It takes Stede a moment to register the comment,

a pit opening up in his stomach,

as his mind helplessly provides a hundred questions.

I knew you were a whore, mate.

Underneath the creeping crawl of Stede's skin; underneath the realization that there is absolutely no way he can refuse, the biggest question falls tumbling out of his mouth.

"You want. Me, to fuck you? Forgive me for being presumptuous, but I thought, well."

"You thought it'd be the other way around?" Ned asked, eyes examining.

"Well, quite frankly, yes," Stede said. Ned chuckles—the bastard really chuckles—while Stede quietly tries to calm the growing panic, even as

Come on, Bonnet, you're terrified of getting your cock wet? Not what you led me to believe.

he can hear them; Izzy would forgive him, but Edward never would. Edward was possessive about his things—funny, he was a lot like Ned in that way—Stede wonders if they'd ever met; perhaps shared notes on how to ruin the lives of people that love them-

"Stede? Stede?"

Stede glances up to a look of concern, of all fucking things. He snaps, "Yes?" without thinking of it, then leans back, grimacing at the tone.

Ned seems to let the anger wash over him. "You drifted off, there. That's how I've always had it; never wanted to try it any other way." He pops a grape into his mouth as he does, watching for Stede's reaction.

"Really? Not once?" Ned shakes his head, insistent, and Stede has this sudden spark; this realization that something here is terribly important, but there's too few pieces to understand it. "Why?"

"Not my thing," Ned says,

and the words feel like a threat.

Stede quietly nods, watching as Ned stands; as he steps behind Stede's chair; as his arms go around Stede, mouth leaning into Stede's neck, peppering him with kisses.

"Shouldn't we," Stede starts, grasping at straws; at anything. "Shouldn't we maybe. I don't know. Isn't this fast?"

"I can be asking you, Stede," Ned whispers, "Or I can be telling you."

Even as static fills Stede's mind, Ned's teeth worry the skin of Stede's shoulder, tongue darting out and licking a trail to his neck. "It's entirely up to you," Ned whispers, even as his hands reach to the clasps of Stede's waistcoat.

"Ned. Please." Not this; not this one, last thing. Ned can take anything else, but Stede wants this one thing to still belong to them; to be something between he and Edward can keep for themselves.

Ned unlatches the last button, prying the waistcoat and the outer coat away from Stede's chest. It slips down his arms and off his shoulders, and Stede can feel himself frozen. Unable to move, unable to do anything. All he can do is sway; sway gently forward, away from Ned at his back and press himself against the table. Stede's hands scrabble onto it, as if it can help him. Ned slips his fingers into Stede's waistband, pulling the tucked shirt free, and as Stede's hands slide forward,

one of them finds purchase on the knife.

"Well, then, roll on over, Stede Bonnet," the voice of his father spat.

Stede swings, wildly, blindly, but slow—slow enough that he only catches Ned on the side of the mouth. Had he Izzy's speed, he would have won his freedom—or his death at the hands of the rest of the crew.

Ned stumbles backwards, hand going to his mouth, and when he pulls it away and sees blood, his mouth stretches; it was the fascimile of a smile. It has all the prerequisite parts of a smile, after all: the upward curve of the mouth, the bright eyes, the wrinkle lines.

Stede has never seen anything like it in his life.

Whether he's looking into the face of a demon or a god, something changes in him permanently by the knowledge.

Stede's hands find purchase around the chain that he'd weakened, and he prays to every god he's ever known as he wrenches,

and the rusty link snaps,

and he's free.

It'as over; Stede knows it's over. He'll never make it to a dinghy. But he can make it across the deck; can throw himself into the sea, and keep the last shred of himself alive in death.

He spins on his heels, bolting. One thing about Stede Bonnet—he had learned how to fight from Izzy; learned how to fawn from his mother. But flight? That's all his; beaten into him by a childhood of torment.

He takes off up the stairs, finding himself

below deck?

That can't be right; that can't be fucking right! The sunlight had shone in; had he been moved? Could be so; but then how are the tallies still there? How was he never woken when he'd been shifted further below, where the sun couldn't find him?

Stede takes off frantically through the halls. There are no secret passageways; no hidden rooms with clothes and quiet, happy conversations. Stede can see the ladder to the deck—it's daylight? It can't be—it can't be—it can't be-

Stede finds himself on the floor, thrown to the ground. Ned stands over him, blood staining his silver coat as it drips from his mouth.

Ned sinks down over his waist, hands grasping Stede's wrists as Stede frantically flails without a lick of sense left in his mind. He can't look at the butcher—he can't look—he has to look-

Stede locks eyes with a demon, and time stops for eternity.

Shadows dance across the butcher's face, as he whispers, "You were trying to fucking leave."

When the butcher reached down, hand tracing gently along Stede's face, Stede let him.

When the butcher gripped Stede by the hair, dragging him back to the room where he belonged, Stede knew the fight was over.

Stede let himself be laid face down upon the floor, and the butcher traced an immortal hand over the wings of his back.

When Stede felt the nub of a quill, sketching lines across skin, his head slowly turned, looking for an answer. The hand of a demon gently threaded through his hair, grounding and terrifyingly sweet.

"Save your strength," commanded the god, and thus he did so.

Chapter Text

"There are a lot of interesting and complex things your body is doing right now to encourage you to find a way out of this situation."

Stede—was that the name? What a stupid fucking name for a stupid fucking man.

Stede screams against the intrusion as the hooks dig into the broken flesh of his back, but he knows fighting will only make it worse; will only bring down the wrath of the god of this tiny room that encompasses the entirety of his existence.

"There is nothing you will ever be able to do to escape. Do you understand, in that pea-sized little brain of yours? I want you to nod for me; think you can manage that?" Stede nods fervently, even as the hooks snap painfully into place against him. "Good! You are never going to leave again. Say that for me; show me you understand at least that."

"I am never going to leave again," Stede repeats. "Never, never, I won't even try," he says again, muttering it as Ned attaches the ropes to the hooks; as he tosses the rope over the pulley; as he pulls, and Stede slowly rises from the table, pain turning into agony as his mantra turns into broken sobs.

Ned steps over to him, jabbing him with his bow, and as Stede spins on the hooks he shrieks, loud and shrill and agonized. Ned shudders with it, grin cracking across his broken face as blood slips down his jaw.

"Louder!" he yells, waving his hands.

"I'm never leaving!" Stede screams, as if obedience will somehow ease the pain.

"Good! Seems like you can learn. You want to learn, right?"

"Yes!" Stede cries. Ned smacks him across the face with the bow, impersonal.

"Calm down. Breathe in and out. Respond like a fucking human being, not an animal, even if that's what you are. You want to learn? You want to be good?"

Stede breathes, wheezes, tries to clamp down under the pain, and he struggles out, "I w-want to learn, I want to be good."

"For me. You want to be good for me." Ned drifts around behind him, bringing the bow to one of the hook wounds and threatening to press inward.

"F-for you. I want to be good for you. Oh god, oh please," Stede starts to beg. "I want to be so good for you, please, I'll be so good, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!"

"You can do better than that," Ned threatens, the tip of the bow digging into the broken flesh.

"I'm sorry. My captain. My god. I'm so sorry. I'll never try again. I'm so stupid, I'm so fucking stupid. I should have known you'd only catch me, bring me back here. Where I belong. Please. Please! It hurts, please!" Stede breaks down sobbing, and Ned smacks him across the face—this time, open palmed and angry.

"Why would I ever give a fuck about what you want? Stop fucking crying." When another sob breaks its way out of Stede's throat, Ned growls, reaching for the scalpel. "Stop crying or I'll start taking skin."

It takes an inch of skin from the surface of his left forearm for Stede to fully get the message.

After that, he screams, openly, but he doesn't let a sob escape, no matter what Ned does to him, even as blade trims through flesh, losing another inch of skin for good measure. Stede sings for his god, and as the last bit of skin is lifted from his body, the butcher smiles.

Stede freezes as he feels a hand, gentle, going through his hair. He looks at Ned, who is looking at him with curiosity.

"Beautiful," Ned says. "So fucking beautiful. See? You can do better," and as Ned speaks it, it becomes truth; a law handed down from the only god Stede will ever know. Stede will do better, and he says as much. Ned laughs at the determination he sees in Stede's face, but it sounds gentle; perhaps even fond.

"You will," Ned says, and when one hand drifts lower, feeling through Stede's pants only to find him growing against the touch of his god, the terribly wanting look in Ned's eyes tells Stede he's done well. The demon of the dark room is pleased with him, and he feels himself swell to full hardness under the demon's gaze; under his touch.

"Give yourself to me," Ned commands. "All of yourself."

Stede watches his god lower before him, drawing him free from his trousers, from his smalls; inching his clothes down; pulling Stede's cock into his mouth. Stede moans, but then clamps it down—is he allowed—?

Ned draws off him, a gentle hand touching his bare thigh, soft enough not to jostle the ropes that still hold him. "I want to hear you, love," Ned whispers sweetly, and as his captain looks up at him with adoration, Stede can barely keep himself from spilling over right then and there.

He doesn't last long; he can't get the word out before he's giving of himself down the throat of his god, but Ned merely smiles around him, swallowing down, taking Stede's cock down his throat until Stede tingles with overstimulation and writhes against him, sending shocks of agony through his back.

Then, and only then, does Ned finally pull off. He gives Stede one last long lick up the shaft of his cock, and Stede stutters, ropes jostling, and the half moan, half scream he lets out has Ned on his feet, hand grasping at Stede's hair, tight and on the right side of painful. He leans in, wrapping an arm around his charge, tracing the line of Stede's jaw with a kiss.

Ned stops there; stares back at Stede for a long moment. His hand slips down from Stede's hair, fingers tracing the skin of his face slow, as if mapping it; memorizing it.

"I think," Ned starts, and then stops himself. He leans up, giving Stede a reverent kiss over the forehead, before leaning forward, letting their foreheads meet. "Fuck," Ned whispers.

He stands there for another moment, before pulling himself from Stede as if it were a feat of strength. He turns, grabbing a bucket to fill, leaving Stede to mourn himself in the dimly lit room.

Outside the sight of one Stede Bonnet, Ned leans back against the door of the contemplation cell (as Francis Spriggs had affectionately dubbed it, back when they were still young men).

Ned's hands are firmly fisted in his snow white hair, threatening to tear some of it loose.

Stede had risen into the air by rope and blood, and for a moment, with golden curls framing a weeping face, he had looked so terribly like an angel that Ned had hurt him for it.

Ned composed himself, stepping back into the room with water and cloth, and as he lowered Stede down; as he pulled the hooks from skin; as he wiped away blood that refused to stop flowing, he could swear he saw gaping wounds where wings had once been.

If Ned had torn those wings loose,

did that mean Stede couldn't leave him?

Izzy can feel the hairs on the back of his neck rise as he enters the captain's cabin, and sees the familiar sight of a blanket fort. Izzy had conquered his roiling stomach when it had been the crew on the line; and yet, his stomach threatened to turn all over again.

"Edward?" he said nervously, stepping closer to the structure of pillows and cloth. "We arrive in Guanaja tomorrow morning. Did we have anything left to do before our arrival?" Izzy hoped the implicit question, is there anything else or can I fucking leave, was as apparent as it needed to be.

"Come in, Iz," came the weak, shaky reply, and Izzy couldn't decide whether it was a good or a bad sign. "It's the big red one, that's the door."

Izzy sighed, carefully laying himself down, pulling the red pillow aside. The Robe was long gone, but Edward had found himself something similar in purple and gold—colors Stede had said something ridiculous about "matching his deep autumn vibes."

Izzy tried not to resist the warm pang of fondness that crawled into his chest, only to find he hadn't the strength to resent the thought in the first place. A troubling sign, if it were to be considered.

Izzy struggled along the awkward opening, and as he pulled himself in, Edward rolled over, reaching out, lifting the blanket out of the way. "Here," Edward said quietly, hand going to Izzy's thigh without a thought, helping lift him through, pulling him in.

Izzy laid on his side with the brief exertion, facing an Edward staring back at him. They both realized at once that Edward's hand had slipped, now lying on the wooden leg.

Edward didn't move; perhaps it was the alcohol on his breath or the warmth of the fort giving him the courage, but Edward held there, and Izzy found himself within one of those precarious moments where he had no earthly idea what Edward was about to do; what was about to happen to him.

"It's solid. Carries you well?" Edward asked, quietly running his fingers along the paint.

"Well enough," Izzy responded, unsure of which name he'd speak, were he to use one. Edward didn't respond. The man's head leaned forward, and before Izzy could realize what was happening, Edward's forehead was pressed against his chest, heat burning into his leathers.

Izzy hadn't figured out what to say when the first sob broke against his chest.

"Izzy, I'm sorry," came the shaking words, muffled by leather. "I'm sorry and I don't know what the fuck to do about it. I can't fix this, can't fuckin give you your leg back, can't even fuckin' talk to you without being afraid I'm gonna fuckin' hurt you again. I don't want to be like this anymore. Stede didn't want me to be like this, but I—.

"He couldn't have taken it like you could, and in the worst fucking way, scaring him made me realize what I'd been doing to you. He didn't hide how fucking scared he was of me. But you did, didn't you? You did until you couldn't anymore. It got to the point where you shot me, and all I could think was, yeah, I probably deserved that. That, and how fucking glad I was I hadn't managed to kill you."

Edward looked up at the strange, impossible sound from Izzy, and there it was again, an impossible thing—Izzy had tears dripping down his cheeks, stunned entirely into silence.

Edward didn't know what to do with that, until his body moved on its own, hand reaching up, thumb gently wiping the tears away. Izzy leaned into the touch in spite of himself, and then tried to correct, tried to pull away. Edward said a sharp, "No," his hand following Izzy's cheek, before he corrected too, softening his voice. "No, Iz. I. Let me."

Edward leaned in, then, kissing away the tears that were left.

When he leaned back, Izzy whispered a quiet, confused, hopeful, "What the fuck, Eddie."

Edward looked back at him, and when he leaned back in to kiss Izzy properly, feeling Izzy surge against him, some part of Edward mourned; realized they could have had this a lifetime ago, had he seen past himself for an instant. But as he fisted his hands into Izzy's vest, pulling them chest to chest against each other, he swore to all the gods he didn't believe in that he was going to make up for lost time; he was going to find Stede, set everything to rights, and do right by them both.

Izzy's hands finally tried to push him off, and he let out a broken, "Please," staring back at Izzy. "I can't feel this way anymore. Please." He heard himself begging, but it didn't set his spine alight; didn't bruise his pride the way he'd think. This is Izzy, after all—if anyone got to see him this way, it was him.

"This is a bad idea, Eddie," Izzy whispered, but it's the name that answered the question; the resigned, yet fond lilt of his voice. The way his hands eased off, and slipped up to Edward's shoulders; the way that Izzy leaned in, and stole a tear-soaked kiss of his own.

The ship's doctor carefully examined the holes where the hooks had been, and his stab wound, reopened in the scuffle. Stede, who had tried asking the man a hundred unanswered questions prior, was silent, and it was almost as if Stede could sense a curiosity on the man's lips.

The content of the curiosity was irrelevant; Stede knew roughly what the man wondered. He'd answer it with his own question—"Does he look at all the boys that way?"

The doctor looked down at him, like he were still a human being; like he mattered. But he shouldn't, Stede thought. Neither of those things were true.

"I think he likes you very much," the doctor finally said, glancing back to ensure they were truly alone. Stede tried to pretend there was no straightening of his spine; no hint of warmth surging at the acknowledgement. But then, he'd given up on denying it, hadn't he?

"I think so, too," Stede finally said, as the doctor shook his head at the missing skin. Right—he'd forgotten about that. The man finished wrapping his arm, looking back up at him.

"Rest. I'm serious. You're ripe for corruption, with your outer skin missing. I've told him a hundred times-" the man cut himself off, shaking his head. "Well. You'll either die or you won't."

The doctor stood, leaving him to lie on the hard floor, but by this point he was well used to it.

When Stede was finally, truly alone, he tried to break down—but the sobs wouldn't come loose. He looked inside himself, and saw nothing.

Chapter Text

Izzy woke with a start, looking up at the ceiling of the blanket fort. There was a hand loosely around his neck, and when Edward stirred, the hand curled around him, a gentle press sparking heat down his spine.

"Fuck," Izzy muttered, as the events of the previous night flooded back into his memory. He sat up, letting Edward's hand fall. The hand slid down his bare chest, and when it landed on his thigh, Edward cracked an eye open.

They stared at one another for a long moment, before Izzy reached for his clothes.

"Izzy. Stay," Edward said, and he hated the vulnerability that slipped out against his will. But his first mate didn't listen; started pulling on leather and cloth, putting the armor back on.

"This was a bad fucking idea," Izzy said, and Edward froze as if slapped.

"If it was a bad idea. No, mate, fuck you, it wasn't a bad idea. It was, in fact, a really good fuckin' idea, if you could get the stick out of your ass for two fuckin' seconds."

Izzy snorted, and gods did Edward want to strangle him, then. "Right. Because Bonnet certainly will be pleased to share you when his captor is at the bottom of the sea."

"Not like you two haven't been sneaking around behind my back already."

Izzy froze, the latches on his leg half done, face turning slow to look at Edward.

There it was, again. Fear. It felt good on Izzy's face—but no, fuck, no, that's not what Edward wanted anymore, not if last night—whatever else he wanted, Edward wanted that more.

"I. Please don't be afraid of me," Edward said without thinking, and all the air left the room, as Izzy stared back at him, completely bewildered.

"Don't. Don't be afraid of you? Eddie, you-" and Izzy shook his head, laughing, and Edward hated that laugh; a laugh that belonged on amputation beds and not in blanket forts. Edward watched as Izzy reached up, tugging at his own hair, and Edward reached out, grasping Izzy's wrists.

"Stop, stop that," Edward said, suddenly so painfully overcome with the need to stop Izzy from hurting himself; at least, anymore than the lifetime of hurts he'd given himself for Edward's sake.

Izzy stared back at him, and this, at least, was familiar—Izzy didn't know what the hell to make of him. Edward wanted to kiss him; wanted to make him stay, but some part of him thought that would be the worst thing he'd ever done.

Of course, that part of him was terribly forgetful, but still.

Izzy finally pulled away; turned towards his straps and finished cinching them into place with a groan. He turned towards the exit to the blanket fort, and when he wriggled his way out, Edward let him go.

The sunbeams are gone, and Stede floated in his own body, staring at the ceiling. He could have sworn the sun came up only a few hours ago, warm on his face, but the sun had set out of nowhere. Unless it was a storm? But no; the sea was too calm for that. If they were at sea at all.

Words had spilled from his mouth; words of devotion that had felt normal on his tongue, even as they drew the air out of his lungs.

It had to have been more than a month, at this point—perhaps multiple, judging by the days that had passed like a blink. Stede had been caught scratching the tallies into anything he could reach, many times—but Ned didn't bother taking them away, or punishing him for it, laughing to himself as the numbers grew.

Why hadn't Blackbeard come for him?

Had Ned lied? Had he killed Ed? Izzy?

Maybe not Izzy. The few times his name had come up, Ned had gone strange about him; talked about him the way he talked about Stede at the crescendo of their songs, but all the time—no lapses where he called Izzy stupid or useless.

Stede desperately wanted to ask, but he remembered having a reason not to. Someone he was protecting. He was fucking useless if he couldn't even remember that.

Maybe that's what had done it; had pushed Blackbeard away from his attempts to rescue him. If Stede had been the only one kidnapped, perhaps there was a reason.

Stede rolled onto his side, curling in on himself.

He's not going to survive this.

"Yeah, Bonnet? Just fucking giving up then, that's it?"

"I'm not like you," Stede said to an empty room. "I'm weak; a waste of space, save for my cock."

"C'mon mate, you know that's not true. I wasn't ready to say it yet, but I care about you. I lo-"

"You don't get to say that to me," he spat. "Isn't that what you told me? Well, you can take your late affections and shove them up your arse."

Both voices went quiet; it was a miracle they'd bothered to listen at all.

He was alone again; he pulled the chain against his ankle, but it was a fresh chain, without a sign of wear on it.

He's not going to survive, no one is coming, and there's no way out.

Stede laid back against the floor, staring up at the ceiling again, when the sunbeams flickered back into view, as if the sun had woken up with a start. He'd been laying there all fucking night, thinking apparently, instead of conserving his strength.

But he'd survived this far, hadn't he?

Life was agony, but he'd suffered in silence for much of his life. If he could swallow his tongue for so long, surely he could do it again.

It wasn't even that bad, most of the time; much of the time it was even good. It wasn't like his god the butcher wanted to throw him over the edge and leave him there; in some regards, they both wanted the same thing, even if it'd taken him too long to admit it.

He could do better. Had been promised as much by his god.

His god, who had hurt him, but who had cared for him after. Who had looked at him like something special; something worth keeping. "I want everything of you," he'd said, and for all the demons in hell, had meant it.

If his god, who had cherished him? If his god, who had cared for him and wanted him, meant to remake Stede in his image? Well,

Stede knew it was the wrong choice,

and he was inclined to let him anyway.

Stede wanted to look in a mirror, after, and see what was on the other side. Bear witness to another masterpiece his god had created; become one himself.

"Took you long enough, Bonnet."

Stede thought of another masterpiece, thrown away like refuse by a suicidal god, and he only hoped he could serve his own god half as well.

It took the Revenge 6 days to make the trip back to Guanaja, where they'd supplied for the crashed party in the first place. Edward joined Izzy on deck for the entire approach; the last thing Stede needed was for them to run aground on the reefs, and Guanaja was tricky even on the best of days. The Revenge had the advantage, though, smaller and more agile than the Queen Anne, and the weather gave them her blessing. Within a few short hours, they were dropping anchor.

It felt right, working so closely with Izzy after years months of hardly speaking. But the entire dinghy ride was silent, and when they took their first steps onto shore, Izzy darted ahead, muttering, "I'll hit the vendors on the west."

Edward caught him by the arm, barely—when had he gotten so quick, again? "Hold on, mate, we don't have to split off again. That was just for, you know, that fuckin' guy," Edward said, not even wanting to mention Ned's name for Izzy's sake. Izzy was no stranger to the strange attentions of terrible men, and Ned was one of the few that could still reach him, if Blackbeard's name ever drifted downward.

Izzy had been cruel; unnecessarily so. But he'd also been right, in a way; no one would have dared touch his mate, had there not been murmurs of him losing his touch. Then again, Blackbeard had been dying for years. If Stede hadn't shown up when he did, they would both be at the bottom of the sea by now.

Izzy shrugged. "Yeah. Thanks," he muttered, pulling his arm out of Edward's grip. He started down the path, slower, allowing Edward to keep up with him.

"Of course, Iz," Edward said, desperate for Izzy to believe him.

They approached the little market where they'd bought the rum and the party supplies, and Izzy glanced around. "That's odd," he finally said, as they approached the stalls. "I was hoping there'd be the busker again. Must have moved on."

Edward hummed in agreement, though he didn't care too much personally. Izzy had always been keen on music. Edward had his own love of the harpsichord, but he might never have played a note, had Izzy not looked at it longingly one day.

Edward had taken to the harpsichord like a man dying of thirst. In a way, he had been.

"I didn't even notice him," Edward finally thought to say. "Was he good?"

"Seemed to be," Izzy said. "Played a song I liked. But maybe the heat got to him."

"Maybe," Edward said absently, walking up to the first vendor.

The angel was burning.

Ned couldn't decide whether or not he'd broken him for good; anything Ned threw at him, he took with abandon and thirsted for more, to the point that Ned had needed to reign them both in before Stede got himself killed.

Ned had drawn a knife when Stede had refused to back down, forcing him back against the table and tracing the line from his throat to his navel, reopening the wound. Stede moaned, whispering, "Please," leaning up into the blade.

"For fuck's sake," Ned spat. His hand wrapped around Stede's throat, holding him still. "This isn't about you. The body can only withstand so much blood loss, and you were already hovering on that edge before we started today. Be good."

To Ned's relief, Stede let his head rest against the table, face carefully blank. Too blank; like he was holding himself back. Ned snapped, "What is it?"

Their eyes met, and Stede's didn't pull away; didn't lower. "I wanted something from you."

Ned raised an eyebrow. "What is it?"

"I want you to name me."

It had been years—a decade, in fact—since he'd felt this wrong-footedness; this slip in the reparte where his dance partner had stolen the spotlight.

But with every single push, this one had sparked into something more. Something incredible; someone who could keep him guessing.

Someone who could take their place at his side.

The man that had once been Stede Bonnet would be his masterpiece; his mark on the world.

Ned's fingers traced the throat, down, reverently wandering through the soft golden hair of his chest, resting his hand over his heart. "I can do that. Let me think about it?"

His masterpiece looked up at him, nodding. "Thank you, Captain."

"Ned."

Eyebrows raised; he was smart enough to see an obvious trap. But there was no trap; Ned leaned down, planting a kiss directly over where the heart muscle would lay, were his lover flayed open upon the table. "When it's just us, you can call me Ned."

When he reached his quarters, Ned drank a glass to new beginnings—to a lover that was his, to have and to hold. But when the glass was empty, Ned's mind couldn't help but drift to the young man who had run and saved himself, leaving Ned alone.

Some part of Ned had believed they would always have more time; that they would find each other again. But then one Edward Teach had snuffed out his life like a candle in a storm.

Ned raised the violin to his shoulder, pouring his grief into the world.

As they roamed the market stalls, asking casually (and not so casually) about anyone strange, they fell into a rhythm. The magnanimous, terrifying Blackbeard visited each stall, wondering loudly if any of the other big names had been around. Meanwhile, Izzy stood behind him, saying little and glowering like they owed him money.

The third merchant sent them on their way with a bag of grapes and a stammered comment about Cofresi ("He was here a month ago, drumming up support for independence. You know him."). Izzy looked outwardly angry, but Edward could tell he was enjoying himself.

"What?" Izzy muttered when he noticed Edward's smirk, but there was almost something playful to the snap; an upward twitch of the mouth Izzy was trying to restrain.

"We gotta give you more chances to scare people, Iz. You were made for it."

"Oh?" Izzy said, making a piss poor attempt to sound casual. "Could do, yeah. Guess it's like a hobby."

"Next time we do a fuckery, we could. Well. Fuck," Edward kicked himself, caught between the pit in his stomach as he thought of Stede, and the crestfallen look that wiped the joy right off Izzy's face. Replaced, of course, by something placid; unreadable.

Izzy was terrified for Stede, but worse? He was too terrified of Edward to show it. Edward thought of a hand on Izzy's shoulder and an insane demand for fidelity he'd never earned, and his stomach threatened to turn over.

Edward didn't know how to fix things. He didn't know how to make Izzy feel safe around him. But he did know he had to give that back; had to stop threatening anyone Izzy ever dared to want, and hurting Izzy for the crime of being wanted.

"You know," Edward started, mumbling the words out. Great start, idiot. "I uh. If you did want that with Stede. I'm not. He seemed to like you too, is all."

Edward kicked himself mentally, but the damage was done. Izzy stared back at him like he'd grown another head, opening his mouth; closing it. Finally, he shot back, "What are you playing at, Edward?"

"I ain't playin' at nothing, Iz, you just clearly fuckin'. You two had something going on, and I just wanted you to know that if you wanted to pursue that, I wouldn't be fuckin' angry at you." Edward felt his voice rise, and he chastised himself, but it was too late, Izzy scoffing and turning away, stomping down the road.

"Izzy? Iz!" Edward called, chasing after him, walking beside Izzy even as Izzy's walk turned into a power walk, eyes twitching with each step on his unicorn leg. Edward caught Izzy's shoulder, and Izzy stopped, turning towards him, angry.

"Edward, I don't know what fucking game you're playing but nothing happened between me and Bonnet."

"Come on, Iz. I saw you two, sometimes, when you thought I wasn't around. Snuck up to the crow's nest once, Olu glaring at me when I'd take the spyglass to look at you." Edward lowered his voice, and he hoped to high heaven that it didn't come across like an accusation, as he whispered, "I know what you... I know what you like, Iz. I didn't think Stede was like that, too, but I saw what was going on."

Of all the ways he thought Izzy would react, seeing his pupils contract and his face pale was the last thing Edward thought he'd do. "Bonnet's. He's not like that. You don't know what you saw," Izzy stumbled out, and of all the rare times Izzy had lied to him about anything that mattered, Edward didn't understand it now.

"I think he is, Iz," Edward said with finality, Izzy refusing to meet his eyes.

Silence passed between them for a moment, before Izzy finally said, "Bonnet might be like me, but he's not." Izzy's nostrils flared, and his eyes remained firmly fixed on the ground. "Edward, you can't with him. Not like with me. Please."

It fell into place all at once, the roiling in his gut becoming a storm—Izzy had been protecting Stede.

From him.

Edward turned sharply away, and his hand came up to cover his mouth, shock and despair and disgust blooming in his heart like wildfire. "Okay," he stammered out, voice breaking high. "Never, you're right, I'm. I'm sorry, Iz."

He heard Izzy sigh next to him; he dared a glance, but through blurry eyes he could see the resignation, there; a trace of bewilderment and now's when you fucking understand and a well of hurt, bottomless and eternal—deep enough to drown them both.

Izzy took a breath, and mused, "You sure fuckin' give a shit about Stede." He finally turned towards Edward, a mirthless smile on his face. "It suits you."

The unspoken truth of it hit Edward in the face; the you could change for him, but not for me; the I guess I never was good enough; and as it did, Edward finally felt angry again. As Izzy turned and started to walk away, Edward was left standing there, the weight of it all crushing him into stillness.

Izzy had been good enough.

But worse than that: If Edward had met Stede first, Stede would be the one down a leg.

"Perdóname, por favor?"

Edward realized Izzy had started walking back to the ship alone; realized he'd been lost in thought for a long minute, and that Izzy was barely in view anymore. He looked down and to his right at the elderly woman who had been tugging on his arm. "Por favor. Por favor, senor, el pirata en el cartel buscado. Los guantes," the woman said, at this point grabbing Edward on the shoulder and shaking him.

Edward turned towards her, confused, but when he saw the panic in her eyes, none of it for him, he blinked. "Fuck, hold on- IZ!" he bellowed. Izzy had actually bothered to learn Spanish—but Izzy was already well out of range, determined to do the rest of the journey alone. "Fuckin' hell."

"Por favor," she said again, pulling Edward's attention fully back to her. "Barbanegra?"

That one, at least, Edward knew. He sighed, nodding. "Sorry, love. Hablas ingles?" She shook her head. "Alright, fuck. Habla... No rapido, por favor."

"Lento, si," she said, and Edward knew this was going to be a pain in the dick conversation. "El pirata, del cartel de buscados. La imagen no se parece a él. Tiene una cabeza de nieve. Mi hijo, por favor, mi hijo lo reconocio, los guantes." It came out slow, and yet Edward only picked up about every other word. But she reached down, touching her hands.

"Gloves, your son?" Edward pointed at his own leather gloves, grasping the fabric and wiggling it.

"Si, si! Lo reconocio por los guantes. Pero la imagen, en el cartel, no se parece. Tiene una cabeza de nieve. Es un demonio." She grew more agitated by the minute.

"Hold on, slow down. Reconocio, like he recognized him? Which one? Which poster?"

"No hay nombre, pero no puede esconderse, no con ese pelo."

Edward's forehead twitched. "Pelo?"

"La cabeza. De nieve."

Edward slowly pieced it together. "His hair... Is fog?"

She looked at him, uncertain, but she gave a tentative nod. "Por favor, evita que haga mas. Es un demonio. Tiene que pagar por todo lo que ha hecho."

Someone from the wanted posters had been here, and given her cause to want him dead. Edward hadn't recognized all the words, but he understood that much.

A pirate with hair of fog was a closer description to himself, if the wanted posters could be believed. But maybe it had been a fuckery? "Los guantes. Como se ves?"

"Como se ven los guantes...? Negro, sin yemas de los dedos."

"Black, without... Thumbs?"

"Si, dedos. Todo los dedos."

"Fingers. So fingerless black gloves. Head of fog. Got it."

She looked at him, nervous. But Edward knew the logic; if you hated someone, telling someone that terrifies you about them at least has a shot of doing something. He nodded at her. "I'll see what I can do," he said, patting her on the shoulder. She didn't seem terribly convinced, but she nodded back, leaving in a mild hurry.

Edward reached up to his temples; his head had been pounding before the conversation, and an impromptu translation without Izzy's Spanish hadn't helped. He turned towards the docks, intent on chasing down the words Izzy had refused to speak.

"You sure do give a shit about Stede."

But not him.

A lifetime together, and Izzy still believed he hadn't meant a thing.

Edward couldn't name the despair that landed on him; that knowledge that he had thoroughly and utterly fucked the one thing that had ever mattered.

He stared at the puzzle that was their entire lives together, pieces mangled beyond recognition, and he didn't know where to begin.

Chapter Text

"I think I understand you a bit better," Ned mused, threading his fingers through his lover's hair.

They were curled up in a mattress that had been brought only a few hours before. Stede had watched them pull it into the dimly lit room, placing it according to specific instructions, creating a new hard point where they could attach Stede's chain. He had been moved to the mattress at the end of a sword, the crewmen snapping the metal cuff over his ankle before leaving him there to enjoy the newfound comfort.

Ned had found him there, curled up like a warm cat, and smiled at him. Ned had slipped into bed behind Stede, pulling his back flush against Ned's chest.

"I don't even think I understand myself," Stede answered with a nervous edge, leaning into the featherlight touches of Ned's fingers.

"Mmhmm. You're hardly the one that should be doing all the thinking, love," Ned whispered into his ear. "But here, let me take a guess. You've realized that you're never getting out of here. You've realized that Blackbeard isn't coming for you, because I killed him and Israel and put the entire Revenge to the sword before sending it to the bottom of the sea."

Ned could feel the heartbeat rising, but his lover's face remained placid—unaffected. After a moment that was a touch too long, he whispered, "I suspected as much."

Ned nodded against golden hair. "Sorry, love. I didn't want anyone around who might steal you away from me." Ned waved a hand in a slashing motion. "You know how it is. But!" Ned grinned. "You've realized I'm your only option. But I think you know as well as I do that there's much more I could do to you. I could make your existence a living hell. Or," Ned reached up, cradling his lover's face with his hand. "We could be incredibly happy together, if you can just manage to please me. See, you think." Ned chuckled. "You think that if you hurt yourself first, I'll have no need to go the extra mile; you can have a degree of control over your own suffering."

Ned could hear it, now; the pitter patter as his lover's heart threatened to beat out of his chest. "I wanted everything of you. But you're trying to take something that belongs to me, aren't you?"

"I'm." He false started; he tried again. "I'm sorry, I didn't even realize. I'm so sorry, I didn't intend-"

"Shut up."

They sat in silence for a moment.

"What am I supposed to do with you?" Ned gripped golden locks harshly; sighed with relief at the terror thrumming through his lover's veins. "You're going to kneel on the floor. I'm going to decide what I want from you, and if I want it all—if I want you to slit your throat for my pleasure, you will take the knife and you will do so without hesitation."

"I will. I'm so sorry. I will."

"Then-" Ned said it loudly, cutting off his lover's apologies. "Then, when I've decided you have given me all of yourself, then I'll name you."

Ned yanked angrily, throwing him harshly from the bed. His lover didn't falter, getting to his knees, even as his body shook with fear.

Ned stares into his eyes, and sees acceptance.

Ned watches as he sinks down onto his heels, even as the rope cuts off his airway; even as his lips turn blue and he twitches with restrained instinct.

Ned sees the moment the light fades from his lover's eyes, and he stares up at the corpse for a moment, an angel made flesh, born to serve him—born to die for him.

Ned cuts the rope, and as the body lands on the floor, Ned lays him out, letting muscle memory take over as his hands land over his lover's chest, pressing in and out.

Ned leans down, breathing into him, feeling his lover gasp against him. Wide brown eyes, irises nearly consumed by black, stare up at him, reverent.

The demon stares down at him, and as it whispers, it steals his name, giving him another.

His lover tries the name out, tests the shape of it in his mouth.

Stede smiles up at Ned, reaching up and pulling him back down, pressing their mouths back together.

An entire set of furniture was moved into Stede's world that evening, raising him from his slumber to see a room half-built. Soft curtains dressed the walls; a desk, fine and well-worn, sits in the middle, flanked by two chairs. Two crew members looked at him, shooing him from the mattress, and he watched as they built a frame for it.

Ned joined him that night, wrapping his arms around Stede and watching him. That first night felt terribly long, and even when he was told to close his eyes, sleep evaded him.

The manacles and their toys were carried in the next morning by the attendant, who looked all manner of furious.

Stede wanted to ask him; wanted to understand. But he knew if he simply waited—

"You really think you've gotten yourself something, have you?"

—the opportunity would come.

Stede drew up a lifetime of passive aggression, plastering on an offensively polite smile. "I very well think I have, yeah. I'm sleeping in a warm bed; the meal we had for dinner was the nicest I've had in ages. Almost as good as the meal that came after," Stede finished, throwing salt in the wound with a smirk. "But see, I think you." He played the imbecile; a role that came so easily to him, from his time as Stede. "I think you have the same cook, and there's nothing wrong with your quarters, is there? So what do you seem to be missing, Frank?"

This man, this pirate, stepped forward, stepping into Stede's space, all the intimidation of a lifetime and nothing to do with it all, because Stede knew just how off limits he was. Save for Ned's affections, he was untouchable.

"Oooooo. What's got you so worked up? You know what they say about insinuations, after all. If there's no truth to them, well. You've got nothing to fear... Or do you?"

The attendant stared back at Stede, fury hidden poorly under a face wiped clean. A smile crept slowly onto Frank's face, not a shred of joy to be spared. "Well, you certainly learned to play the role of a captain's bedwarmer quickly. Does it make you feel good, riding his cock and telling yourself he can keep you safe?"

Stede saw it—an open wound, weeping blood and sorrow, perhaps for a lifetime. He saw it as an act of worship, then, when he plunged his fingers in. He leaned in, close, and he laid a hand on the attendant's shoulder; slowly, longingly bringing it down.

"You and I both know that's not what he likes," Stede whispered, voice dropping an octave. "No; soon enough I'm going to take the man that you love. I'm going to carve out a little place for myself, right inside him, and maybe, just maybe, you can hear him when he moans my name."

Stede realized he'd perhaps pushed a bit too far when the hand landed around his throat.

It wasn't the careful caress of a cruel god, but the envious destruction of a lover spurned. He reached up, trying to pull the attendant off of him, his already bruised throat screaming.

The attendant was violently thrown to the ground, Ned standing over him, face the picture of fury.

Stede didn't see Frank for some time after that.

He heard him once or twice, clear across the ship.

"I think I know how I want you for our first time," Ned whispered, while Stede laid in his arms. They were naked and spent, and the scar that belonged to Izzy Ned had reopened under Ned's thumb. "It'll take some time to plan," Ned mused. "Will you wait for me?"

"Always," Stede answered.

In spite of all his careful planning, it happened the morning after a storm.

As the waves crashed against the sides of the ship, Stede had paced back and forth, at times holding onto the bed frame as the storm threatened to topple the entire ship.

As the storm clouds broke, and sunbeams filtered into their shared room, Ned had opened the door, soaked to the bone and shaking. He quietly closed the door behind him, looking over at Stede with harrowed relief.

Waterlogged hands had reached up, fumbling with the buttons on his waistcoat. But then warm hands laid over Ned's, startling him, and when he looked up, his lover was staring back at him, heat emanating from him like the sun.

"Let me," Stede whispered, gently pulling Ned's hands away.

Deft fingers made quick work of the waistcoat; Stede slowly pulled both it and the overcoat free, letting it fall to the floor with a thud.

He let his hands slide over the undershirt; up until they met the cravat. Stede untied it, letting it slowly slide from Ned's throat and placing it on the table next to their bed.

The shirt was to go, next. If Stede slid his hands down below Ned's waist just a little lower than he needed, Ned let the transgression go with a soft smile. Stede leaned in close, and when he pulled the ruffled shirt over Ned's head, he let the wet fabric drop to the floor next to them, leaning in to press the warm fabric of his shirt against wet skin.

"You'll dampen your clothes," Ned murmured, eyes slipping to the floor, but Stede shook his head.

"Let them. I want to hold you."

Ned's eyes snapped up to his, and Ned didn't know what to do with what he saw there. Something in Ned made him take a step back, but Stede followed him, arms going around him greedily and pulling him into a hug.

"I," Ned started, and then said nothing.

Stede pressed his lips to the juncture between throat and collarbone, before trailing down, dropping to his knees as he undid the belt. Again, Ned tried to take a step back, almost without thinking, but Stede wrapped an arm around his thighs, holding him there as he pulled down both breeches and smalls at once.

Stede leaned in, his nose brushing against the snow white pubic hair above Ned's cock, and he felt Ned tense above him. "Stede- don't-" Ned gasped, and for a moment, he sounded terribly small.

"That isn't my name," Stede said, swallowing him down.

Ned's hand flew to his hair, but it was soft; featherlight. Ned tried to step back, but Stede's arm gripped him tight, holding him in place, and Ned's other hand went to his mouth as he restrained a soft, shaking gasp.

Stede had never tasted his god like this, but he knew there were no gods in the room tonight; no demons. As he bobbed his head, bringing Ned to full hardness, he savored the taste of him; charted every flavor and every note on a memory.

When Ned's cock began to weep and his legs began to shake, Stede pulled off, looking up at him with the reverence of a lover, rather than an acolyte.

"I want you," Stede whispered, and Ned's breath grew heavy. Stede stood, and as he did, Ned looked down and away, even as he started to pull the hem of Stede's shirt from his pants, desperately, wantonly, until they were both as bare as the day they were born.

Stede leaned down, and before Ned could get out a word of protest, his lover was lifting him in a bridal carry, dropping him into the bed. He climbed in after him, one hand fumbling on the table for the oil he'd left there.

"You don't need that-" Ned stammered, but Stede shook his head.

"I want this to be good for you."

A bewildered look spread across Ned's face, and something in Stede knew that look would haunt him; drive him mad until the time when he was laid to rest for good.

Stede was dead; and yet, all of him wanted to know why.

"Fine," Ned whispered, as if he were granting a mortal's foolish request. Stede reached down, pushing Ned's legs apart, gently slipping one oiled finger in. Ned gasped, and as Stede trailed the pad of his finger over Ned's inner walls, gently brushing over his pearl, Ned's hands clenched the bed around him. "Oh god— oh, fuck—"

"Does that feel good?"

When Ned met his eyes, there was mirth there. Ned smacked him on the shoulder, and it was gentle; playful. "Smart ass," he started to say, but then Stede ran over the nub once more and every single fucking thought left his head, save for how utterly fucking good it felt. "Leander, what," Ned tried again, tears welling up in his eyes, and he lost the ability to speak entirely when Stede added a second finger.

Ned never wanted to leave this room; he wanted to run until no one could ever find him.

By the time Stede reached three, Ned was nearly tearing the sheets; he was flushed and upset and his cock was harder than Stede had ever seen it. Stede slowly withdrew his fingers with one last press against Ned's prostate, wiping them on the sheet, and he leaned in close, his cock pressing against Ned's hole. As he lined up, the quiet, "Please," Ned whispered sounded like a plea for mercy.

Slowly, gently, Stede sunk into Ned, walls spreading apart as he did, Ned gasping and writhing and moaning. Ned spasmed against the sheets, and Stede stilled, asking, "Did I hurt you?"

Ned's eyes snapped to Stede's, and there it was again—bewilderment. "Don't stop, please don't stop."

If Ned's voice broke, Stede had the grace to say nothing.

Stede reached down, hand gently taking Ned's chin. As he slowly pressed into Ned, merged with him, he leaned down for a kiss. When he leaned back, tears were slipping down the side of Ned's face, and he was staring up at Stede like something holy.

Stede drew back, slow, gentle, and as he pressed back in, Ned moaned; he slid against Ned's prostate with each slow thrust, and Ned began to sing his pleasure in gasps and moans and sobs.

Ned's legs drew up, wrapping around Stede's waist, and Stede's arms went under him, pulling their chests tight together as Stede leaned his face against Ned's; lips kissing the skin of his neck and throat in blooming spots of pleasure. Ned went quiet, and when Stede lifted his head, he found Ned's hand over his mouth; Stede pulled it away, kissing him, gently opening his mouth with his tongue.

Stede let his fingers interlace with Ned's and he lifted back, just enough to look him in the eyes. "I want you to sing for me, love," Stede whispered, and when he punctuated the sentence with a thrust right against Ned's pearl, Ned threw his head back, his moan filling the room.

It was like a door had been unlocked, and Ned came alive beneath him. Ned caught Stede's mouth with his own, moaning as Stede sped up, pounding him into the mattress. Ned pushed up against Stede in time with his thrusts, clenching Stede's cock and drawing a moan from his lover.

Stede reached down, lifting Ned's legs, and as Stede thrust aggressively in, Ned felt the air punched out of him. He was full; he was splitting apart; every thrust felt like the most Ned had ever taken, and with each thrust Stede offered him more; carved a space within him and erased all who had come before.

Ned's entire body felt out of his control, pleasure lighting his nerves on fire; he was twitching and on the edge and he could feel himself calling names: new and old and from demons long remembered. Ned's hole clenched around Stede , and Stede moaned out something Ned couldn't understand. Stede slammed against his pearl, giving a few last brutal thrusts as he spilled, marking Ned from within, dragging Ned over the edge with him. Ned spasmed and came harder than he ever had in his life, his spend marking his own chest.

Stede let Ned's legs go, slowly, and embraced him, Ned's spend now marking them both. Stede slowly leaned back, smiling down at him.

Ned looked up at Stede, who was staring down at him with what could only be called love, and he began to sob, as hard as Stede had seen in any of his lives.

Stede did the only thing he knew to do. He reached out and wrapped his arms around Ned, holding him as he grieved.

Edward and Izzy had focused on putting the clues together. Edward had told him everything he'd been told: about the gloves and the fog, and that it was someone terrible enough to ask Blackbeard—Blackbeard—to deliver justice.

They had a shortlist of suspects at this point; the Kraken had made more than a few enemies, but very few pirates could justify the danger of walking up to Blackbeard for help. Of them, Zheng Yi Sao had let the escape go like it was nothing; Sam's kid had sent him an angry fucking letter, of all things. Vane vaguely fit the bill, and Edward the Kraken had raided one of the ships in his fleet.

"How is Izzy these days? Still pining after you?"

A head of fog. It didn't fit, but Edward kept drifting back to that angry conversation in Rafael's.

They had scratched Ned Low off the list anyways, and set a course for Saint Thomas, where Edward knew Vane would be a dead end.

Izzy and Edward had debated the course every morning for days. What they hadn't done was talk about Izzy's unspoken words—or anything else between them. It was as though a ceasefire had been called; a desire to lay their weapons down, until Stede was safely returned to them.

Edward found himself restless that afternoon. He entered Izzy's quarters with a bottle of rum, and too scared to talk about themselves, they talked about Bonnet instead.

At some point, Edward learned that niebla was the Spanish word for fog, and nieve, as it turned out, was the Spanish word for snow.

Ten minutes later, the Revenge was setting a panicked course, racing against lost time.

Chapter Text

Edward and Izzy stared out into the open ocean, willing the Revenge to go just a little bit faster. The entire crew had set themselves to the task of catching every scrap of wind they could out of the sails. Hope had been painted by fear, as they all realized what they were racing against.

Edward tilted his head to look at Izzy, and though Izzy's head didn't move, his eyes flickered over to Edward, then back to the ocean. Izzy let out a breath, and even that sounded somber.

If Izzy had been there, he never would have mistaken the woman's plea. They might even be catching up to Ned around now; Ned often took a careful route to Nantucket, and this time of year the northern waters raged with lightning.

It would have been easy to simply blame Izzy; blame him, and demand he stayed at Edward's side. Tell him that he should have been there, and that his absence was unacceptable.

"It wasn't your fault, mate," Edward said. He'd hoped his tone was certain enough as to brook no argument, but he heard Izzy's nostrils flare.

"I fuckin' left. She talked to you instead of me. Your Spanish is utter shit. Seems like a pretty easy line to draw."

"Yeah, but you left because of me."

Izzy's head finally turned, slightly; he tilted a little, glancing at Edward, before looking forward again, back at the sea. "I shouldn't have. Walked off like a right twat, over you and—" Izzy stopped, and then shrugged rather than finish the sentence.

"I gave you plenty of reasons to leave, Iz."

Izzy's face turned sharply towards him; he looked angry and hurt all at once. But there was no accusation in Edward's face, and Izzy didn't know what to do with the rage that had drawn up in self-defense.

"God dammit, Edward," he spat, but didn't bother to elaborate. He'd never needed to; Edward knew why he'd never gone.

Edward watched as Izzy walked off and considered that loyalty; considered how he had ensured Izzy's heart would be filled with want, and left it with no place to go. Maybe he hadn't intended most of the lies, but he'd strung Izzy along for decades.

What fucking right did he have to Izzy, after all that he'd taken? After he'd been strange on him; not loved him the way he needed, no, but not let anyone else covet what was his—what belonged to him.

For fuck's sake, the entire beef with Ned Low had started over Izzy; had started because Ned was a suitor Edward couldn't get rid of. He'd intimidated Jack and outlived Sam, but Ned? The demon he shared a name with had coveted Izzy even more than Edward ever had; more than any sane person should.

That demon had played the part of a man, decades ago; had seen all that wanting in Izzy, and craved it for himself. The worst crime of all, though, was how Izzy had craved him back; had seen the danger, yes, but had seen wanting along with it. That was something Edward had never had on offer.

Edward had punished Izzy for that sin sevenfold, even after the danger had become clear—and Ned had never taken kindly to those who mistreated his things.

When Stede wakes, he realizes Ned isn't next to him.

Stede looks up, and Ned is standing at the foot of the bed, naked as the day he was born, eyes the abyss into which Stede had fallen and from which Stede had crawled.

"Love?" he says, terrified confused. "Did I do something wrong?"

"No," Ned whispers, and he sounds broken and faraway. "You did nothing wrong. I have to do this, and I'm not sorry about it."

Ned stalks over to the wall, where their toys are, but he catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror, and Ned growls; walks over to it, violently throwing it down and shattering it. "Shut up!" Ned screams, and he sounds like nothing he's ever sounded like, petulant and sullen,

Ned reaches down, picking up one of the broken shards, and as it cuts into his hand, Stede can't help but worry Ned is going to damage himself.

Ned stalks over to the bed, yanking Stede by the ankle, and he digs the mirror into Stede's leg, carving into it; carving a place for it. Stede screams, and he grips onto the sheets in an effort to focus on anything but the pain. Ned rips the chunk of mirror out in response, and Stede's entire body spasms as he writhes and moans in pain. Blood spurts out of the wound, and Ned gasps, muttering, "No, no no no, no, no," one hand clenching around it, even as he reaches out to the nightstand, digging desperately for the needle and thread.

Ned sits on Stede's leg to keep it still as he stitches the wound shut. He wraps it quickly, his breathing still ragged. "Stupid, stupid, stupid," Ned mutters over and over, and Stede isn't sure he's still there, until Ned stands, grasping Stede's legs and flipping him onto his stomach. "Thought you were going to leave, did you?" Ned mutters under his breath, as he runs his hands over Stede's back.

"No! I wouldn't, Ned! Why the hell would I leave?" Stede watches Ned draw the rope from the nightstand, starting on Stede's hands, tying him down to the bedframe.

He has the wild thought that Ned is vulnerable; that as volatile as he is, he wouldn't dream that Stede would strike at him, now. But then Stede realizes he's right; that Stede has stopped thinking of Ned as his captor and torturer, and started thinking of the look in his eyes when he looks at Stede. Stede looks at Ned and sees pain, yes, but since Ned decided he was worth a damn, Stede has never once questioned that Ned wanted him there, right by his side.

Stede thinks Ned would forgive him anything, and for a moment, he remembers distant dreams, the incubus writhing and sobbing beneath him.

Ned pulls the final knot tight, and Stede is spread eagle on the bed, his back to the sky. Ned kneels between his legs, and when Stede feels Ned's forehead press to his back in reverence, Stede can feel him shaking.

Stede feels hands slip over the planes of his back, mostly unmarred by Ned's attentions, and as the scent of roses fills Stede's existence, Ned whispers, "I have to cut you out, before the rot spreads."

What?

Stede feels the first cut against his back; feels the hot scalpel split the first line of a masterpiece. Stede screams, shaking violently in his bindings, but Ned runs his hand gently into Stede's hair, shushing him gently. "It's alright, love. It'll be over soon."

Stede tugs violently at the bindings, as he feels the scalpel carve slowly across skin. He feels the skin resist, agonizingly, before separating all the same. Every cut is agony, and the butcher has a masterpiece to carve.

Stede screams his voice hoarse, eventually going slack against the bed, unable to fight any longer. Every nerve fiber in his body is screaming move, stop, do something but he's running on fumes; he has nothing left.

"Richie screamed like that," Ned whispers. "They all did, at first." He takes a moment to wipe the blood away, considering his canvas.

"Ned- Darling- Please- Whatever I did-" Stede stammers out, but Ned leans forward, elbow leaning down onto Stede's back to support himself, setting fresh wounds alight as his other hand reaches around, covering Stede's mouth as he finds the strength to scream.

"You're going to leave," Ned whispers into Stede's ear. "You love me, and you think you're going to fucking leave like the rest of them. Jokes on you! You are going to leave; I'll fucking make you."

No.

Fucking never, what?

Ned lifts his elbow, now covered in blood, and his hand drifts; hovers over a particular spot in the upper back. "Right here. Richie bled out on the table underneath me. They all bleed out when I make the final cut, right here." He slides a finger across, as if cutting, and Stede's eyes go wide.

"Ned. I can't come back from that, Ned," Stede whispers, panic stricken. "Everything that we are—everything that we've found together, it'll end. It'll end, and I won't be able to reach you anymore. Won't be able to love you, the way you deserve to be loved."

"But at least you won't leave me."

Stede's eyes widen, and he realizes it, then; the math no longer adds up, and it never had—how could it? His god has no rules; only whims.

Ned places a gentle kiss over the vertebral artery, and then lifts himself from Stede's back, raising his scalpel to begin again,

and in desperation, Stede shoots back, "Of course you're sending me away," wounded and angry.

The hand hesitates in the air, as Ned's eyes twitch. "I would never do that to you," Ned says, and it's angry—it's something aside from Ned's all-consuming despair,

and it only infuriates Stede more.

"Oh yes, you'd never," Stede says, and if his voice raises, he lets it; lets the betrayal soak into his throat. "But if you make the incision and the blood loss kills me, well, you can hardly be blamed! Just another heartless wretch that certainly didn't love you with all his fucking heart." Stede's voice breaks, and he realizes, distantly, that tears are slipping down his face.

"You're fucking lying," Ned growls, and the scalpel comes down onto Stede's shoulder, cutting wanton and imprecise as Stede screams, his entire existence narrowed down to the singular point of the knife, white hot as the flesh resists. The scouring knife presses agony into stubborn layers of skin before ultimately slicing through.

The blade lifts from skin, and Stede openly sobs, flayed open, shaking beneath Ned. Ned runs his fingers into Stede's hair, gentle, until Stede's breathing slows; he knows he has to kill Stede, but he wants it to be kind. The roses are in bloom, and—

"Go on, then," Stede sobs out. "I was a fool; a few kind words and I was convinced you loved me back."

The hand in Stede's hair tenses, just a little bit, and Ned whispers back, "What did you just say?"

Stede breathes in, wheezing and distraught, and he speaks like his words were a given; a reality of the world.

"I've never been good enough, Ned. You were so kind, sometimes; you looked at me like I meant something." Stede breathes in, sharp, trying to hold it together to get out his last words to the man he loves. "But I was a fool; I've never been worthy of anyone, much less you, no matter how gentle you were with me. It was stupid to think I mattered at all."

Stede breaks, then; lets out a sob for a lifetime of disappointments, and all at once Ned recognizes it as the heartbreak it is; sees a dead marriage and I was drowning and men who weren't quite demons, but wounded Stede's soul all the same,

and Ned sees the wounds he put there himself. Not the ones that reshaped Stede, of course—he'd intended those. But his mind supplies him readily with memories; memories of every time he'd reached for useless or worthless or stupid, as if the most important thing wasn't knowing his fucking canvas in the first place?

64 fucking years alive, 45 of them knowing the language of demons, and he hadn't understood that the wound in Stede's soul was one that would never heal, yes; but it was one that would let Stede be his.

After all, if you never knew of the sun, for what would you begrudge the clouds?

He leans close to Stede, nerves painting his voice as he stammers out, "Never fucking say that again. Ever." It comes out terrified; vulnerable. But for all the demons in Hell, Ned realizes that's okay, as long as it were this angel before him, wings ripped out by his own hands. His very own angel of mercy, forever grounded by his side.

Those shaking hands reach out, cutting away the rope, and then Stede is being pulled into a sitting position, Ned staring at him like a mirage in the desert. Stede stares back at Ned for a solid moment, before leaning into Ned's chest, sobbing all the more for it.

Ned pulls Stede tight against his chest, and when he realizes the scalpel is still in his hand, he flings it clear across the room in fear.

He frantically kisses the crown of Stede's head, panic settling deep in his chest at what he'd nearly done; what he'd surely try to do again.

No, never again.

This one was his; would be his long after they both were gone.

Edward reached for the ladder to the crow's nest for the third time that day, and Izzy finally snapped, "For fuck's sake, Edward, your knee." Edward's hand stopped on the ladder, but he leaned towards it, tilting his head against the wood.

"Need somethin' to do, mate. There's nothing else," Edward muttered, even as Izzy walked over, shooing him bodily away from the ladder.

"We reach Nantucket in two days, Edward. Find something that won't fuck your knee two days before a fuckin' raid against... That fuckin' twat."

Edward finally looked back at Izzy, turning towards him to glower. "You really think he's got the edge?"

"I think we have worse fighters overall than him, and I can't fucking pick up the slack the way I used to. We need you on your fuckin' shit."

"Just fuckin' admit you're scared, fuck." It didn't come out quite the way Edward intended, and Izzy's scowl confirmed just how poorly it had landed.

"This is a fuckin' trap, Edward. He knows it, you know it. We spring this wrong, and Bonnet never goes free, and we're all dead."

Edward didn't hear the "or worse" at the end, but he didn't need to. He'd seen the burns on Jack's arm. He'd wanted to ask, but the look Izzy had given him had been enough.

The washbasin was back, and Ned ran the cloth over Stede's backside, the rough cotton having long turned pink as blood and water dripped down Stede's back in rivulets.

Stede's tears ran dry eventually, and then he had fallen silent. Ned hadn't pushed him; for all his flights of fancy, Ned hadn't lost control like that in months. Not since—

—not since he'd heard the news; not since the violent raids in the days after, and the calculated decision to repay Blackbeard in kind.

He knew he'd gone perhaps just a little bit crazy, and almost thrown Stede away. His Stede; he wrapped his mind around the words again, smiling to himself as he cleaned the blood and sweat from his lover.

Soap and water rinsed away; before long, Ned had Stede's wounds wrapped neatly in bandages, and Stede was sitting before him, motionless obedience warping into the slight tremble of not knowing.

Ned reached out, pulling Stede against him, Stede's back against his chest. Ned leaned into Stede's neck, pressing a gentle kiss to the clean skin.

Stede was his.

He could say it, couldn't he? He could have this; they could have it together.

Ned ran his hands along the plane of Stede's chest, and he pulled back just a little bit, so that there was no chance for Stede to see his face as he whispered, barely audible,

"I love you."

Stede froze; he turned, slowly, looking at Ned, who turned his head away, suddenly unable to pull his gaze away from the spots on the deck closest to them. "You're lying," Stede said, but Ned could swear he sounded a little hopeful, and by that sound Ned knew he could keep him—

—he just had to be brave.

Ned tore his eyes from the floor, looking up and seeing brown eyes staring back at him. He opened his mouth to say it again, and suddenly clamped it shut, eyes going blurry. "I-" Ned tried again, but the words refused to come out, his throat refusing to cooperate for the first time in—

—four fucking decades.

Stede stared back at him, and though he still couldn't fucking speak, there was something else he could do. He reached up, slow, letting his hands land on Stede's cheeks; he pressed their foreheads together, closing his eyes—it was all too much.

He felt Stede lean in, slow, breath intermingling with his, before Stede gently brushed his lips against Ned's.

It was chaste; almost as though Stede were tracing his lips against Ned's, mapping the way they fit together. Then all at once Stede turned, a hand going into Ned's hair as his tongue slid against Ned's mouth, slipping inside as Ned parted his lips to let him.

Ned grabbed onto Stede's arms, pulling him closer; holding on for dear life.

And then, like thunder rolling into the distance, Stede pulled away, coming up for air. The two of them breathed heavy into each other's space, holding on tight.

"You're- you're never leaving," Ned stammered, words spilling out all at once. "I'm never leaving you," he added, almost frantic to balance the scale; to make Stede's place—not below or above, but by his side—abundantly clear.

Stede stared back at him, wings thrown into the sea and a smile crackling across his face, as he whispered back, "I love you too, Ned," a strange laugh escaping him as he wrapped his arms around Ned.

Ned flushed as Stede pulled Ned bodily into his lap. Ned could feel the erection straining up against him, Ned's chest tightening the way it always did. When Stede slipped a hand into Ned's pants, Ned felt himself tremble, and knew Stede could feel it, too—and still, he let him.

After all, that was love; taking of their soul and letting them take of yours, until both of you were almost whole again. As Ned felt the first finger breach him, he realized he would let Stede take him a thousand times if it would keep him there. Would carve Stede into a masterpiece, if it would soothe the aching of his own soul.

Stede slid inside him—slid home—and as the tears slipped down the side of Ned's face, Stede leaned in and took them away with a kiss.

Flying false colors and dressed up like a merchant ship, the Revenge was skirting the coast of Nantucket, its crew holding their breath for a sign of their lost captain.

Ned Low had been at the Republic a few weeks ago—less, by Izzy's estimation. The crew of the Revenge scanned the inlets for a ship, and something tense and violent settled underneath Edward's skin. Nantucket could be a dead end—but Edward knew in his bones that they'd find him here.

Edward's earlier ignorance had given them a boon—Ned wouldn't be expecting them; wouldn't have reason to alter his course. Guanaja should have been a dead end, and it was only through a stroke of luck that it hadn't been.

For all the years that Blackbeard and Ned Low had been at each other's throats, Edward had made certain he knew Ned's patterns, minimal as they were.

Whenever he wanted a new victim (or had one tucked away), he stopped by the Republic, stocking up for a long trip away. Then, he set sail, planting himself in the inlets and coves of Nantucket. In the relative safety of the coast, he'd take his sweet time, performing another symphony.

For all their luck, Stede would be with Ned for days longer than he needed to be, advantage squandered because Izzy couldn't fucking stand him.

Edward quietly, coldly closed the door to that memory; he had to believe that Stede was still alive. Everything else would have to come later.

"Captain!" Oluwande called, pointing out into the horizon.

The word jostled around in Edward's ears, and he shot back, "Acting Captain, Olu! We'll have Stede back soon!"

Some of the crew—those that didn't know better—murmured in surprised but grateful assent. Most of them said nothing, and Edward left it at that.

Edward walked over to Oluwande, taking the spyglass, and regardless of the false colors, Edward knew the sight of Ned's ship like his own.

The Revenge had looped past; had skimmed the very edge of vision, and played like a merchant vessel. Odds were, the Fancy wouldn't ruin a frequent hiding spot simply to chase them down, and when hours passed with no sign of being made, Edward made the call to loop all the way around the island, and take them by surprise after nightfall.

The Revenge picked up speed as it made its approach, sails straining in the wind as the entire crew pushed her to her limits. From how the vessel had been docked, they could cut into a neighboring inlet and board from land, swimming the short distance to the Fancy. A quiet boarding in the dead of night, watchmen's throats slit with impunity.

It reminded Edward too much of the old days, but there was no room for games against Ned.

Jim threw the grappling hook and was first up the rope, landing on the quarterdeck silent as a cat. From this angle, the lookout in the crow's nest couldn't see them through the wooden floor, and Jim made quick work of the stern lookout, slitting the man's throat and lowering him to the floor. They threw a dagger into the carotid of the officer on duty, hopping down to the quarterdeck and grabbing the officer's mouth just as they were about to yell. Jim held their hand over the officer's mouth tight, until they stopped moving beneath them.

Behind Jim followed Edward and Izzy, then most of the crew. Most, except for three.

"You're going to try to kill Ned Low? Yeah, I'll just get in everyone's way."

Lucius had hung back. He'd taken Pete and Fang with him, despite Izzy's protests that Fang was one of their best fighters. But there was something more to it; something beyond the usual aversion to violence that Lucius had done his best to hide, and shown anyways. Edward had opened his mouth to ask, but screams for help rang in his ears, and his mouth clamped shut of its own volition.

If Lucius wanted to keep secrets from him, Edward had no recourse but to let him.

The crew filed onto the Fancy, hiding on the quarterdeck, when the sound of a violin filtered up from below. The mournful dirge filled their ears, and Izzy shot Edward a terrified look as the crew of the Fancy spilled out onto the deck, swords and guns at the ready.

"Edward Teach," Ned's voice filtered up from somewhere. "I assume you're here to find your paramour. I assume you're here with most of your crew; otherwise you'd be sending them to the slaughter."

"Where the fuck is Stede?" Edward shot back at the open air, the voice coming from multiple directions at once.

"You stole someone from me, Blackbeard."

Edward's eyebrows shot into his head. He looked over at Izzy, but Izzy shot back a confused look—this couldn't possibly be about him, not after this long.

"You stole someone I loved. Someone I'd wanted to keep. I did the hardest thing I'd ever done in my life—I did what was best for him. I let him go. I let him leave me, and go on to live his own life.

"And then, in all your infinite fucking wisdom, you cut that life short."

A thin, reedy, terrified sensation crawled up Edward's spine. "I don't even know what you're talking about!" But then, how could he? Hadn't he gone on a killing spree after Stede had left him? Hadn't he hurt everyone in the fucking Caribbean? How the hell was he to tell corpse from corpse; understand which of his sins were responsible? "Tell me who it was," Edward asked, not knowing where his eyes should lay.

Ringing out from across the ship, a man with dark hair and a queer lilt shot back, "My nephew."

Edward stared back at Francis Spriggs, but for a moment, he could only see Lucius; could only hear screams from the side of the ship, as he waited for telltale silence.

From below, the door to the captain's cabin opened, and Ned walked out, hand firmly woven with that of one Stede Bonnet. Ned looked up at Edward, absolutely furious.

Whatever anger he'd shown at Rafael's had been a ruse; a fuckery. Ned stared up at him, and the hairs on the back of Edward's neck rose, as he stared down something not quite human.

A demon, like him. An equal.

"I thought about taking Israel, you know," Ned said to him. "I certainly thought I would like him better. But that hardly would have hurt you enough, would it?"

"It suits you."

No, this was all wrong; the pieces were snapping into place, one by one, and all of it was based on a lie. If Edward could just explain; if he could just open his mouth, he could tell them.

He could tell Ned that Lucius was alive; he could tell Izzy he fucking mattered. Stede had been there to bring him back, but Izzy had made sure his body was kept aboard in the first place. Edward would have crumpled a long time ago without Izzy by his side.

But none of the other crew had put two and two together yet, and Edward's throat was closing around the words. He looked around frantically, but he could no more get out a word than he could keep the sun from rising. After all, he hadn't killed Lucius—but he had tried, hadn't he?

"So, no. I couldn't take Izzy. In the name of my lost love, I had to hurt you the way you hurt me. So I took him, instead." Ned brought his free hand to Stede's chest, trailing slowly along, and some of Ned's anger dripped away, trading itself for something strange; something unidentified. "I took this golden-haired angel; stole him for myself. I ripped out his wings and changed him; made him so he suits me, and me alone."

Ned leaned his head against Stede, and even as the bile crawled up Edward's throat, horrific and possessive, he suddenly recognized the emotion on Ned's face.

It was terrific and grotesque, and the only word for it was love.

Stede had laid his eyes on Edward, then Izzy, darting between them like the world had gone wrong. But by now his eyes had lowered, and his free hand had reached over to Ned, clutching onto him like a lifeline.

"Bonnet," Izzy said, strained and devastated and terrified like Edward had only heard him a few times before. "Bonnet, it's us. Stede."

Ned smiled sweetly at Izzy, before turning; locking eyes with Edward. Ned stared him down from the quarterdeck, and Edward watched as he leaned in close to Stede, grasping Stede by the hair. He pulled Stede close, wrenching tight, and Stede made a cut off moan, caught somewhere between pain and pleasure.

Ned's eyes never left Edward's, as he leaned in, licking a slow stripe across the side of Stede's face.

Edward reached for his gun, but before he could fire, Ned had darted back; had pulled himself and Stede into the crowd, letting one of his crew take the shot for him. Edward shoved the gun angrily back into the holster, and it was pandemonium, the crews of the Revenge and the Fancy both drawing their weapons.

The stairs down to the main deck were a choke point, and the crew of the Revenge was holding the line—mostly. Izzy thrice over pulled a wayward crewmate from breaking ranks in their haste, not letting tunnel vision overtake them. On the other side, Wee John and Edward had planted at the top of the other set of stairs. They threatened the enemy line back through sheer force of intimidation, allowing Jim behind them to throw with impunity.

It felt like the line was holding; but then they heard laughter from the forecastle, and a command, thrown out by a voice that fashioned itself a god:

"The last one to charge Edward Teach becomes entertainment for the entire crew at sunrise."

Edward saw it; saw a dozen faces become unified in purpose; saw their leader yell, "STEP!" and saw five men charge up the steps; saw bloodlust and terror spurring something far beyond what hope and justice could avail them of.

They were hopelessly, utterly outmatched.

Edward caught Izzy's eyes, and Izzy nodded, furiously, Edward finding his voice as he screamed, "LIGHT IT!"

"Let me know if there's something I can do to quicken the whole goth phase."

Wee John laughed behind him, and as he saw it flying through the air, Edward and the rest of the Revenge threw themselves to the ground, right before night became day once more.

Edward slowly looked up when his ears stopped ringing; Izzy was already on his feet, turning half-dead men into corpses before their crewmates could stop him. One such man stumbled on a bleeding leg, holding his rapier angrily out, cursing at Izzy.

There were still enough of them standing to give them a good fight, but they were dazed. Ned had collapsed against the mast, blood dripping from a head wound, and Stede was fussing over him, desperately trying to stop the bleeding.

"Stede!" Edward called over the moans of the dead and dying. "Stede, look!"

Stede's hand twitched, a scrap of his own shirt filling with blood against Ned's white hair, but he didn't turn; didn't listen. "Stede! Please—come on, Stede, we can get the fuck out of here! Jump! We'll get away together!"

Slowly, Stede turned, looking at Edward, but something about his eyes was wrong; it was as if he wasn't actually seeing Edward in front of him. "Ed... ward?" He said, eyes slowly focusing; pupils dilating as recognition dawned. "You're dead."

The light of the sun began to trickle across the sky, and Stede looked out into the water; saw a pair of dinghies there. But if Edward and Izzy and the whole crew were dead, who were these people? Why had they come for him?

A hand reached up, gently tangling in golden hair. Stede stared out across the deck at Edward, and beside him slowly stood the man with a crown of snow, painted in red; a demon made flesh.

The demon's other hand reached up, painting Stede's face with blood, as the demon's lips gently pressed into Stede's cheek.

"You don't want to go with them, do you darling?" the demon whispered, Stede slowly turning to look at him. But behind him had been such a wonderful dream; Stede looked back at Edward wistfully.

What if it didn't have to be a dream?

Stede took a single step forward,

and the sound of a grate slamming shut startled him out of his reverie. He turned to look, and he saw it, then;

sees the drifting slats, left open, light leaking in.

Ned steps towards him, blood covered (whose?), and he stares back at Stede with a smile as he shifts the slats closed.

It had been months.

It had been months.

it had been months

Stede feels more than sees himself drop; feels his knees hit the deck, angry, and feels calloused fingertips reach into his hair, gentle. Feels himself pulled to his feet, and drawn around, back pressed to the demon's chest.

From here he can see Edward, screaming at him to jump; to fall; to drown. What would resurface wouldn't be him; but then, he has no use for that person anymore.

Ned presses a kiss to the fabric above his spine, and Stede lets him, staring back at Edward as he does.

This might be the last time he ever sees him. This might be a lie; an illusion cast by a trickster god. Stede smiles back at Edward, doing his best to show how happy he is; how he'll never want for anything.

Stede hears Ned whisper behind him; feels him slip the gun into his hand. Stede gives Edward one last look, before he raises the gun and fires.

Dreams are for the living, after all.

Edward can't remember a summer this cold.

Chapter Text

Stede woke with a start in their shared room, the morning sunbeams shining through in spite of all reason.

The Revenge was gone.

Even if she managed to get away, she was likely drifting across the ocean, aimless.

The Revenge was gone, and Edward and Izzy and the entire crew—

Stede turned and looked at Ned, sleeping peacefully next to him, and was too terrified to sob.

He shook, violently throwing the blanket at the slats which let the sunlight shine in, but the blanket fell uselessly short, and the light remained blinding; inescapable.

Ned's eyes drifted open, and he watched Stede. A gentle hand drifted to his back, fingertips running across scarring skin with reverence, and Stede forced thoughts of Edward and Izzy and the pull of a trigger and screams and silence firmly out of mind.

His place was here, now.

Ned traced along the healing wounds, beautiful scars weaving closer together with each day, and his demon whispered, "I want to give you more. Would you like that?"

Something in the way the demon asked it made it feel like a real question; like it was an offering, rather than a command.

Stede turned over, and as Ned's hand slid along his body, Stede brought it to the tender skin just below his neck.

"Can it be here?" Stede asked, and Ned's eyebrows raised. He smiled at Stede, and something warm and twisted bloomed in Stede's chest.

Edward woke up to seagulls flying overhead, and the sound of rowing in front of him. Across from him sat Lucius of all people, struggling with the oars, sopping from head to toe. He could feel warmth to his right—he tilted his head to look, he saw Frenchie splayed out next to him, ribs busted and arms haphazardly patched up.

Lucius noticed Edward stir, and he stopped, an uncomfortable look crossing his face.

"Where are we?" Edward asked, and when neither Lucius nor Frenchie seemed especially forthcoming, he tried to sit up, only for Frenchie to shout a warning, grabbing his shoulder.

That shouldn't hurt that much, Edward thought.

Edward also rethought trying to sit up, leaving his happy ass laid the fuck out, thank you very much.

Lucius let out a breath, scanning the horizon. "You've been out for a few days. They were still engaged with Ned's ship, last I saw. If they're able to swing back, they will, but otherwise we're heading to the rendezvous point."

"Was... everyone okay?" Edward asked, but Lucius' nervous silence was the only answer he got.

"And then, in all your infinite fucking wisdom, you cut that life short."

Lucius continued to row, taking breaks periodically. On one such break, he drew out a small bag, fishing through it. As he did, Edward finally worked up the appropriate amount of pride-swallowing he needed to ask the question.

"Could you write a letter to Ned Low?"

Lucius blinked, head slowly and dramatically rising up as he stared. "You want me. To write a letter. To Ned Low?"

"I think he was talking about you, mate."

The confused, sarcastic look on Lucius' face held steady, but Edward had been manipulating reading people for much of his life, and there was a flicker of something that most would have passed over. Lucius opened and then closed his mouth a few times, before finally saying, "You could say that, yeah."

"Okay then," Edward said. "I want to fuckin' kill the bastard. My rep needs me to kill the bastard after he's taken Stede. But if we can just, I dunno mate. If we can fuckin' just send him a letter, 'Yo dude, Lucius is alive, give me my fuckin boyfriend back,' maybe. Fuck if I know."

Lucius seemed to legitimately consider it for a moment, before starting, "Yeah, I don't think that's going to work, not if I'm not there to talk to him in person. Something's gone awry; he doesn't keep people alive."

Edward could feel his stomach drop, but then Stede had been alive. Alive, and well enough to understand their words. Cognizant enough to choose to stay.

Aware enough to fire the gun.

Details.

"Stede's fuckin' alive, mate. We saw him."

"Yes, but that's just it, like. Stede should have been dead a day after he was kidnapped."

Edward stopped for just a moment, looking back at Lucius. "How do you know all that?" Edward sat up, and then lurched; he felt barely stitched wounds threaten to reopen, and as he looked down, he saw the gunshot-shaped hole in his leathers that Stede had put there. He laid back the fuck down, breathing hard.

When the world stopped spinning, Edward glanced up and saw Lucius leaning back, eye twitching with anger, of all fucking things.

"I didn't want to know it, thanks. I was on his ship for a bit; spent a few years there with him and my uncle. He would bring people on. Men, usually smaller than Stede. Izzy would have fit right in, but you knew about that already.

"He'd take them below, and then they'd leave over the side of the ship, or hand delivered if it was a message he was sending. None of them lasted more than a few days, and someone as bitchy as Stede? Forget it."

Lucius reached back into his sack, fumbling for something else. Edward watched as he drew out a cigarette case, but then they both realized he had no way to light it on the dinghy. Lucius let out a frustrated sigh, shoving it back in as Edward tried not to groan, slowly settling with fresh wounds which were aggressively reminding him of their existence.

"I only saw him get like this a few times, Edward. He doesn't play gentle with his marks; he might think they're intimate as can be, but he doesn't touch their hair or hold them or call them things like 'angel'. But he acted that way whenever he brought up Izzy; would talk about 'his' Israel and how they belonged together and how... badly you treated him. I'm a little surprised he didn't take Izzy when he had the chance.

"Anyways. You saw how he acted towards Stede. He's gone strange on him. Whatever it is that Ned has for people—it is love and it isn't. But either way, he has it for Stede."

Lucius hesitated for a bit, and then, as if it were an afterthought, he added, "Towards the end he got strange towards me, too."

Lucius raised his shoulders as if it didn't matter—as if nothing mattered—and as Edward stared at Lucius, he had this sudden, terrible feeling that he needed to tread carefully. Just like Lucius had grown anxious around the edge of ships—this, too, was a soft spot.

Izzy had told Edward outright about "rat boy," and the threat Izzy had spat afterwards had been entirely unnecessary.

"Did he," Edward started, and then stopped. "To you. You don't have to tell me, but. If there's."

"It was consensual, at first," Lucius answered cleanly. "Then it wasn't."

"Fuck," Edward said. "I'm sorry."

Lucius shrugged. "It was different because I'd been off limits from the start, and then we took up together in secret. We got to know each other as people before anything else. So if you're looking to know what he's done to Stede... Can't really help you there. He drew a knife on me, once, and I got the fuck out of there the next time we hit port."

Lucius sighed. "I should have been there. I just thought it was too late; and if I'd boarded his ship, there's no telling if I'd ever be able to leave again."

"What could you have even done, mate?"

Lucius looked back at Edward, and under layers of apathy, Edward could see guilt; but dwarfing it was something else—disgust. Edward watched the way Lucius drew an arm up around himself, and wondered.

Signs of weakness had transformed over the past month or two. He'd found himself more and more curious about these catalogues of harm; who had done them? What kind of strangeness had they left behind?

He'd watched Izzy from the quarterdeck for ages, one day, and when Izzy had gone to turn in, he'd turned and stared back at Edward, before wordlessly heading below.

Wait—

"Oh god. Izzy. Izzy was with us out there—"

"He's on the Revenge, leading the escape," Frenchie cut in. Frenchie wasn't so much a catalogue, Edward had quickly noted. Frenchie was instead one huge warning sign: Not for public consumption; do not open.

"Iz was bleeding like you couldn't believe from his shoulder, but otherwise looked okay. I couldn't tell ya for sure, though."

Some part of Edward bristled at his name for Izzy from Frenchie's mouth—but Edward turned within himself, staring at that part of himself with disgust.

He'd had enough.

In his mind, he saw himself reach for a pillow, smothering the bastard in its crib.

It had been three arduous days, but the Revenge had finally lost the Fancy, limping steadily towards the rendezvous point. Izzy was in command, and he wore it like an itching rash. Oluwande had stepped into the Captain's cabin, and Izzy had nearly offered his hands up for the binds all over again.

"Two barrels of fresh water were cracked and leaked all over the floor, and part of a third was used during triage," Oluwande reported. "We'll be fine for making the rendezvous, but beyond that we'll need to make port before heading anywhere else."

Izzy nodded along, tracing his eyes along the maps, doing careful math. "The plan is to head to the Republic. Maybe I'll call in a favor or two, see what that gets us. But first: Do we have enough to swing back around and do another sweep?"

Oluwande seemed to consider it. "We do, but given how far we had to double back, we'd be risking the dinghy arriving before us. I don't know about you, but I'd rather be ready for them when they do arrive."

Izzy restrained the desperate part of him that wanted to find Edward, nodding.

"You okay, Izzy?"

Izzy glanced up at Oluwande, brushing him off. "I'm fine. Go worry about the crew."

"You're part of the crew. And we all know how close you are to... the three of them."

Izzy looked up at Oluwande, his mouth opening slightly. He leaned on the unicorn leg they had made him, snapping his mouth shut before he said something stupid.

Izzy waited until he was able to strangle that soft strange urge to expose his belly, shrugging. "Nothing for it. All we can do is hope they made it."

Oluwande nodded. He turned, making to leave, but when he got his hand on the door handle, words tumbled from Izzy's mouth anyways, completely unbidden. "Thanks. You're a good quartermaster."

Oluwande glanced back at him, surprised, but he slowly smiled. "Thanks, captain," he shot back, and as the door closed behind him, Izzy didn't know what to do with the strange feeling behind his ribs.

It didn't last for long; Edward and Stede were never far from his mind.

Stede had shot Edward. Had shot him; had intended to kill him, and very well might have.

Blows to the ship had knocked Edward and Frenchie overboard, and there had been no time to pick them back up.

It hit Izzy all at once that he had saved himself.

But not Bonnet.

Izzy remembered the faraway look in Stede's eyes as he had pulled the trigger, and wondered why it looked so familiar.

Clothes and blankets alike had been thrown atop Edward in the dinghy, and yet he still shivered with fever. Frenchie carefully poured fresh water in his mouth, Edward swallowing desperately.

They were a day out from shore, and it was unclear whether or not they'd be arriving with a corpse.

"Do you think he'll make it?" Frenchie asked, gently wiping the sweat from Edward's face. The wound didn't look infected, and Roach had dug the bullet out before the Fancy had caught up with them, but they were on the last of their bandages and Edward had started muttering in his sleep.

"Don't know. Don't particularly care," Lucius said, focusing on rowing. Frenchie had barely been able to row for a few minutes before his ribs solidly assured him he could not; Lucius' shoulders were ribbons, and every motion was agony. But it wasn't just Edward Teach's life on the line; it was Frenchie's (not to mention his own).

"Iz'll be devastated," Frenchie mused, tone neutral.

"If he survives the psycho this psycho brought down on all our heads. Izzy could be at the bottom of the sea, or. Well. Bottom of the sea is actually the better of the two."

The two of them sat there for a moment, and Lucius looked up at Frenchie; examined him. Lucius fell very, very quiet for a moment, before whispering, "You know, he'd die without water."

Frenchie looked up from Edward; glanced over at Lucius, disbelieving until all at once he realized it was no joke, no trick; Lucius was putting the offering on the table. No one would ever know.

Frenchie recognized it too well: the look of someone who had parlayed with demons, and come away with lessons of their own; ways to ensure the hurt landed anywhere but themselves.

But he'd looked at plenty of demons himself, and decided long ago that he wanted nothing in common.

"That's a real shame, love," Frenchie answered, firmly, clearly. "Good thing we're here to keep him hydrated."

Lucius nodded, too fervently, and looked away, breathing suddenly tense. "I'm sorry, I. Ned's after him and I thought. You know! Word gets back that Blackbeard is dead and... Just... Oh god."

Lucius took a few minutes to bury his head in his arms, and Frenchie refilled the cup for Edward.

"Iz?" Edward mumbled, delirious, as Frenchie gave him water.

"Nah, cap'n. Go back to sleep."

Stede's hands fisted into the bedsheets, desperately trying to hold still as blade broke skin, the incubus clenching tightly around him.

Ned carved the first marks into his chest, and blood bloomed as Stede's heart beat violently beneath him. Ned took a calming breath, and he shifted, feeling the slide of Stede's cock inside him, breathing out his pleasure. Underneath him, Stede knew better than to be withholding, and a deep, rumbling moan escaped him as his cock twitched helplessly, pressing against Ned's walls.

Ned's breath stuttered, just a little, but his face showed no signs of his broken concentration, and his motions were precise; masterful. He painted a line down the middle of Stede's chest with the knife, dividing two perfect semi-circles that wrapped around his heart. They lined Stede's chest in a perfect arc, tracing the outer edges of his nipples.

Ned's hands were decisive, crafting a pattern of circles across Stede's chest. Ned rolled his hips, shuddering, and as the canvas took shape, Ned found himself restraining the urge to lean down; to lick a stripe through the blood that had pooled.

Ned lifted himself, slow, taking in a sharp breath as he wiped the blood away from his canvas. The white rag stained red, and as Ned sank back down, Stede moaned wantonly beneath him, struggling to remain still. A god started to ride his angel, slow and torturous, as blood wept from holy wounds. The rag tugged on vulnerable skin, and the angel twitched, bucking underneath him.

The knife was at the edge of Stede's fingernail in a flash. "Be good," Ned whispered, tender and loving, his other hand running through the golden crown he so adored. Stede nodded, shaking with desire, trying to press himself back into the bed despite already being flat. "Relax, darling," Ned said, pulling the knife higher; it was time for the collarbone.

Ned arced in a rounded line beneath Stede's throat, then traced underneath with curved lines that would serve as the sun's rays. Stede gripped the bed as he struggled desperately not to move; not to abandon all patience and rut into the god above him. Stede's cock twitched violently, but he stayed as still as he could, aside from the shallow, needy rise and fall of his chest.

"Perfect," Ned whispered as he wiped the blood away, looking down upon his work. It was an appetizer; a teaser before the main course, but regardless, seeing the geometric shapes in blood—bringing a finger down, dipping through the blood that had pooled—lifting that finger to his mouth, and tasting the lifeblood of his love, his soulmate—

Ned shuddered, rising and lowering himself down, letting himself feel the stretch of his lover within him. He planted his hands on the bloody chest, and Stede gasped as fresh wounds were pressed. Ned looked down at him, eyes lidded, and as his lover stared up at him, despairing, the god took mercy on him with a nod.

In an instant, Stede's hands were on his sides, wrenching him down with strength unbecoming a gentleman. "Fuck-" Ned shuddered, as Stede lifted him—lifted him clean off his cock—only to drag him back down, impaling him.

Ned gasped as he could feel something tear; he knew his hole was weeping with more than oil. He held on for dear life as Stede gripped him by the waist, lifting him like nothing and then pulling him violently downward, each time pulling him down harder and harder onto Stede's cock. Ned's walls wrapped around Stede like he was made for it, and when on a vicious thrust Stede slammed into Ned's pearl, every thought was wiped from his mind.

Ned reached up, painting his hair, his face with Stede's blood, and as Stede fucked up into him, moaning from pain and pleasure, Ned fell over the edge, his entire body twitching violently as he spilled, painting the wounds on his lover's chest with his spend. Ned trembled as he felt Stede shake beneath him; he felt his insides painted by fire, and he screamed as Stede forced him all the way down, Ned's abused hole stretching painfully as Stede shuddered and moaned with his own end. Ned felt the aftershocks of his own orgasm spike, and his cock twitched with another spurt of cum, slipping down the side of his cock, as his hole wept red and white.

Slowly, the two of them came back to themselves. Ned slowly realized he was laying on Stede's chest, a puddle of blood and spend between them. Stede was stroking Ned's back with one hand,

and the other holding the scalpel.

Stede traced it gently along Ned's arm, like a feather.

Ned smiled at Stede, who hummed back at him, content, placing the scalpel on the table next to them.

"I hope I scar well for you, love."

Ned leaned up, planting a kiss on Stede's mouth—one that was hungrily returned.

Ned slowly grinned, leaning back against Stede's thighs but keeping that softening cock nestled inside him as long as he could. Stede moaned as Ned clenched around his overstimulated cock, suffering a few more strokes before his god showed him mercy.

The demon grinned, reaching a bloody hand down to Stede's face. "Come on. I have a surprise for you."

Stede stepped out onto the main deck, eyes struggling to adapt to the light of the sun. He'd been here a few days prior, but being here without the distraction of his past gave him a chance to enjoy the sun on his face.

The rest of the crew eyed him warily. Frank looked down at Stede from the quarterdeck, and Stede saw it for the first time—what looked like burn scars, fresh and violent, peeking out from the edge of his sleeve. Stede couldn't find it in himself to care; the man had tried to take him away from Ned, after all.

"Come on, darling," Ned whispered to him, taking his hand gently. There it was, again: that soft grin, too honest on his god's face. Ned pulled him along, opening the door to the captain's cabin.

Stede looked around, and all at once his stomach leapt into his throat, as his eyes fell upon so many things he knew he couldn't covet.

The walls were marked with music notes, stopping at the edge of where Ned could reach. They weren't uniform; it looked as though the entire wall had become a sounding board for Ned's ideas. Stede suddenly wished terribly that he had learned the language of music; but maybe Ned could teach him? Even without understanding, the wall itself was a masterpiece; a lifetime of growth charted in ink.

If some of the handwriting was that of another, aging and faded, Stede let that fact remain unspoken.

The notes were where it began; Ned had bookshelves! Bookshelves, built into the walls, repaired and worn as though they had been there a long time. Most of the books looked related to music, but some were of other interests; some were even fiction! Stede took a tentative step towards them, before remembering himself. But Ned laughed behind him, giving him a gentle push forward. "Go on, love; I know you want to."

Stede spent a few minutes simply looking over the titles. "Can I... Can I borrow one? For the room?"

Stede looked so painfully earnest, eyes lit up with hope, that Ned couldn't hold back any longer.

Ned stepped over to him, wrapping his arms around Stede, pressing his chest into Stede's back just as he liked to do. Ned planted a kiss over the fabric covering his spine, whispering, "You won't need to, dear. I'm bringing you up here."

Stede stopped, turning to look at Ned. "I. What?"

Ned leaned over, kissing him on the chin. "You're my angel; the love of my life. My masterpiece. You belong by my side."

Warmth bloomed in Stede's chest; he still struggled to believe how deeply Ned wanted him. But in that moment, he let himself believe; let himself smile and lean down to kiss Ned on the lips.

When he pulled away, Ned was blushing and glowing, and he pushed Stede slightly back, suddenly shy. "I've one more. One more gift for you, love."

Ned waved towards the desk, and that's when Stede saw it. Everything else had been cleared but a pair of weapons: A rapier and a dagger, gold-inlaid and with the mark of a master swordsmith.

Stede slowly stepped towards the weapons, looking back, seeing the nod when he silently asked for permission to touch. He reached out, taking both in hand, and realized all at once that these were the weapons of a killer; a demon. The sword was hyper efficient; a tightly packaged machine of death. The dagger was something else entirely; it had a weight that contradicted its size. Sturdy, and deadlier still.

Ned stepped next to him, watching Stede raise the rapier; watching him test its balance. Ned paid a careful eye when Stede dropped into his stance, but Izzy had taught him true; if nothing else, Stede's footwork was up to par. The rest would fall into place; Ned would make sure of it.

"After the battle..." Ned paused, starting over. "You would have been defenseless, had the fighting reached us." It wasn't a threat, or an admonishment, but a simple statement of fact, delivered with a shaking voice and an undercurrent of fear.

It sounded painfully human on his god, but Stede let it slip by him; let the strange resentment wash over him, and fade.

"I had these made years ago," Ned continued. "But the moment I picked them up, I knew they weren't meant for me." He ran a hand along Stede's arm, drifting down to where hand met leather hilt. "So I kept them, and had something made closer to my liking. But now..." Ned leaned in, planting a kiss to the juncture between neck and shoulder. "Now, I think the swords know who they've been waiting for."

Stede stared at the weapons. The dust told the story true, and yet if he'd been told they'd been made with him in mind, he would have had no choice to believe it. The blades themselves were efficient; perfect killing implements. But everything about the artistry screamed Stede, with every fiber of their existence.

Ned had designed every aspect of these weapons, chosen every detail—and then he had kept them, saving them for his soulmate.

The demon had waited a lifetime; waiting for the empty space by his side to be filled, growing more bitter with each passing year. He had put the swords to the back of his mind, and then his angel of mercy had walked into his life—the one who could return the intensity of his affections.

Stede had known, as he was picking them up;

had known he was trading away his soul.

Ned reached for his face, and Stede didn't understand what he was doing until his thumb gently brushed under his eye, wiping the tears from his face. Ned brought his thumb to his lips, licking the tears away, and Stede realized he'd never been wanted more in his life, than he was by the man before him.

"I don't know what to say," Stede finally whispered. "This is all so much. I feel... I've never felt like this, Ned. Thank you."

Ned smiled at him, and there it is again; honesty on the face of a god, as Ned whispered,

"You have no idea what you're in for."

Stede felt that familiar wrong-footed feeling; the only stability in his life was instability. But as he looked at Ned, he wondered just what it would take to eschew his soul for good; to become the masterpiece Ned wished him to be.

"I've seen the way you hesitate, love." Ned's hand reached down; grasped Stede's hand in his own, and brought up the dagger, until it lay over the thin fabric separating blade from skin from heart. "Even now, even after everything I've shown you. It won't be easy to cut that out of you. You'll feel as though you're breaking, and that's because you will be."

Ned pulled Stede's hand further up, dagger tracing along the skin of Ned's neck, dancing over his pulse. "You break a bone to set it how you like. You'll wish you were dead—but if you can survive it, everything will be in the palm of your hand."

Ned guided Stede to lean the dagger against his face; Ned's tongue slipped out, tracing the blade, christening the dagger with blood.

The angel and the demon stared at one another, before the demon's hands slid down, gently landing on the angel's waist. "You're my masterpiece. You'll survive it."

Stede nodded, knowing better than to argue with his god.

Ned stepped back just a little and put a hand on his chin, as if considering to himself. He smiled, commanding, "When you're ready, you can thank me by bringing me Blackbeard's head."

Stede stood there for a long moment, before whispering, "Consider it yours."

Edward barely remembered landing at the rendezvous spot; barely remembered the pain of being carried, wound threatening to tear and spill his guts out into the world.

He awakened three days later, still feverish but more coherent than he'd been in days, staring up at the ceiling of the captain's cabin from the bed.

It was dark outside, and Izzy was swaying in a hammock nearby, snoozing quietly. It had been years since Izzy slept a hammock; not since their days on the Ranger.

Edward tested the gentle tug of the faintest, barest idea of sitting up; his body revolted, and he let out a groan, louder than he'd hoped. Izzy was awake instantly; their eyes locked in the dark, and Izzy huffed out a breath.

"Don't fuckin' get up, you twat."

"I wasn't trying to get up, I was just tryin—"

"To try to see if you could maybe, just maybe, get the fuck up."

"Look I was just testing the—"

"Edward."

"Yeah, Iz?"

"Shut up and let me sleep."

Izzy curled away from him, readjusting in the hammock with an annoyed huff.

Edward glowered at Izzy's back, a lifetime of don't tell me what to fuckin' do rising up within him. But distantly, Edward realized it was the first time Izzy had turned his back on him in months, and had done so without hidden knives and jammed doors.

Despite himself, Edward laid back down without a word of protest, and when he closed his eyes, sleep found him easily.

Chapter Text

Stede watches as day becomes night, and what passed in the blink of an eye has become an eternity, all of it spent with his god.

Now that he's been brought into the demon's bed, he's had the sun on his face once more—but his life no longer has long spans of time within which to dream. He wakes, he trains, he eats, he serves, he sleeps.

Ned has taken to waking him with a mouth around his cock and a knife to the canvas, whether it's retracing old wounds or slicing through virgin skin. Stede has become a tapestry, roses carved across skin interwoven with geometric symbols and lines of music; the art that summons the demon to create, over

and over

and over........

....................................

................................................................

When the cutting is done, the two of them train. Ned's style of Florentine^† The term "Florentine" as used to describe sword and dagger fencing is ahistorical, but Oluwande wears crocs and I do what I want. is frenetic and unique, and he suffers mistakes in fencing the same way he suffers mistakes elsewhere—with brutal corrections until the lesson fully sets in.

The rest of the day is an exercise in endurance—between meals, Stede trains with the best swordsmen on the ship, breaking only enough to keep the heat from killing him.

Throughout, Ned will come for him. Pull him away to experience the rack, or force Stede to indulge with Ned when they get a new prisoner. Ned teaches him the ways of the human body, all in service to Stede's growing capacity for violence.

Stede listens to the screams of a prisoner as the rope he curled between their fingers is set alight. When he returns to Perez to continue his lesson on sparking^† Sparking is a term used in some swordsmanship circles to describe explosive movement when attacking, in order to minimize your opponent's ability to defend themselves. , it takes a particularly vicious right hook to get the smell of burning flesh fully out of his mind.

Stede stares up at Perez from the ground, and then suddenly realizes he's on him, the man's nose dripping blood and eyes shut with sudden sleep. Arms grasp Stede from behind, wrenching him away.

Stede lands on the deck, coming back to himself as the doctor checks over Perez, trying to bring the man to consciousness. Stede realizes there's blood on his knuckles—the bastard didn't have the courtesy not to bleed on him.

As Stede stares into the water, reflection warping under the ocean current, that's the first day he considers a swan dive and a deep inhale—until he starts to hear Izzy in his mind.

"Go on then, give up, Bonnet."

Stede and Ned end the day together in their cabin, and with each day, Ned grows from god into man; from demon into boy, laughing and open. With each day, Ned's love for Stede grows, and as it does, Stede sees the soul that had gone missing; watches it nestle back into an empty shell that had once been a god.

One morning, Stede wakes to no knife at all, and when he's brought off, his lover watches him with so much adoration Stede wants to hurt him for it.

Stede bends to the will of this fading demon king, and as the threads within his soul fray and snap, he finds himself longing to devour the vulnerable one reforming before his eyes.

"For fuck's sake, mate, my guts are still liable to spill out."

Still sitting on the edge of the bed after having to feed Edward his fucking food, Izzy looked down at Edward's wrapped gut wound as if it had personally offended him. Scowling at Edward, Izzy ran his gloved hand along his face, dragging it down in frustration. "Edward- Captain-"

"Not my title, Izzy! First off, Stede is the actual captain, and second off, I am in no fuckin' state to be acting captain anymore." Edward stared up at Izzy from the bed in the captain's cabin, where Izzy had been keeping watch on him since the rendezvous. They were a few days yet from the Republic, and Edward had watched the itch under Izzy's skin grow to a full blown rash, waiting for the little man to explode.

"You can't expect me to continue to be captain. They mutinied on me in a week. They'll do it again. You have to do it, Edward, please."

Please was a rare word in Izzy's vocabulary. Edward could count on both hands how often he'd heard it, and each time, Edward had laid in the strange feeling it gave him to grant Izzy's request—or deny it.

That one word made it abundantly clear just how serious Izzy was, but for once, Edward wasn't budging—couldn't budge, even if he wanted to. "Izzy. Listen to me. How long have you been in command of the ship?"

"Five days."

"Okay. And in those five days, how many mutinies have happened?"

"It took a week last time, Edward."

"It's you, man. They fuckin' respect you; the moment I woke up, everyone got tense as shit until I went out of my way to call you captain. Then everyone chilled the fuck out."

Izzy grumbled something that could have been an 'I guess' but sounded suspiciously closer to a 'fuck you'. Either way, Edward pressed forward. "Has Olu had a problem with you?"

"No. He uh. He called me captain. Was weird, I guess."

"Well, he was the one they were gonna put in charge, right?"

"Fuck if I know, Edward! I was a little busy worrying about drowning!" Izzy huffed out, but it was more bluster than bark; Edward knew the signs of Izzy coming over to his side.

Edward let it lie for a moment, before asking, "We good then, captain?"

Through gritted fucking teeth, Izzy shot back, "Fine. Fuckin' hell."

Edward gave him a ridiculous salute, and if Izzy ruffled his hair for it, no one could prove it but the two of them. He opened his mouth to call Edward a twat, but then snapped it shut, all at once remembering himself.

"I certainly thought I would like him better. But that hardly would have hurt you enough, would it?"

Right.

As much as Izzy wanted to play pretend, this wasn't something he could have; not really.

He stood, abruptly. "Well. Yell if you need me, okay? Shit to do and all."

Edward blinked at him. "We good, Iz?"

Izzy looked back at him, nodding, and Edward wanted to believe it. But he knew Izzy far too well for that.

Stede leaned back against the barrel, breathing heavily and desperate to catch his breath. He had been training with someone in the time before, but that had been with one sword, and in his dominant hand, thank you very much. He stared at the offhand dagger like it had personally offended him.

"It's been weeks of this, and I feel like I'm no better than I was at the start." Stede tried not to let the frustration bleed into his voice, but he wasn't entirely successful.

Ned looked at him fondly, and Stede had to look away; had to hide the resentment on his face as Ned encouraged him. "That's not true, love. You're subtly improving, it's just difficult to tell from your perspective. It takes time for muscle memory to set in."

Ned walked over to where Stede sat, leaning down and tracing his fingers along the small inner arm muscle that was the seat of a swordsman's power. "You'll get the flow soon enough. You have the wits to be a good florentine, you just need practice. Perhaps a lot of practice."

"I'm rotten at it," Stede spat churlishly.

Ned let out a little sigh, and there it was again—that fond look, out of place on the face of a god. "Everyone has their strengths. Where you lack knowledge, you have instinct; viciousness. That mixed with your natural patience is critical for being a truly good florentine."

"And who taught me that?" Stede looked over at Ned with a smirk, and there was something proud in it, a desire to be like his cruel god, in any way he could. "If you had spent all that time teaching me instead of changing the days on me, maybe I'd be that much better."

"What?" Ned asked.

"You know," Stede responded, but it was just a touch nervous; uncertain. "The grate."

"I never did that," Ned said with certainty. "There's a grate above your old room, but we kept it open the entire time. What do you mean, playing with the days?"

Stede stared back at him, and suddenly the world felt dimmer; rain clouds were rolling in from afar. But it made no sense. It hadn't changed, the seasons hadn't changed. It didn't make sense.

Ned gently sat down next to Stede, running a gentle finger across his forehead, moving golden locks out of his eyes. "I wouldn't do that to you, Stede. I love you too much for that."

Stede looked over at the grate, and absent any words to say, he nodded.

It took an entire afternoon of Izzy avoiding him for Edward to confront the problem head on. He waddled over to Izzy with a hand on his guts, pulling him aside on deck. "Okay, Iz. We've got to fucking talk about this."

"Don't know what you're talking about," Izzy shot back, keeping his eyes on the crew. "There's nothing to fuckin' talk about."

"You're literally fucking avoiding me, Iz," Edward said. "And fuck, I get it, I'm not exactly your favorite person right now." Izzy gave an annoyed huff, but Edward cut him off before he could start. "We lost Stede, Iz."

Izzy looked at him, suddenly struck—and angry, very much that one—but Edward pushed forward. "He was broken. But he... We almost reached him, he was just barely too far gone. That's our fucking doing, Iz. Or. Fuck. Well. It's my doing, because you were just. I was the one who-"

"Am I supposed to believe you're fucking sorry?"

Edward stopped; opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again. He could feel the eyes of the crew, turning, watching, but he had to put it out of mind. "I don't. I don't know Iz. I am, but I don't know if that's enough? I don't know what the fuck to do to make it up to you."

"Make. Make it up to me?"

Izzy threw down the log; threw it angrily, loudly, and heads snapped away as the entire crew were adamantly pretending not to watch while intently doing so.

"Here's what you can fucking do, you self-centered twat: You can give me another fucking leg, Edward! Or maybe the toes before that, or maybe my ability to fight off Ned Low and all the other madmen like him in the fucking first place! You've made me completely fucking dependent on you, on Bonnet, and I have nowhere fucking else to go! I was the best swordsman in the Caribbean; who the fuck wants an aging cripple on their crew?"

Edward had glanced down a couple times, as Izzy had screamed loud enough for the entire crew to hear, but every single time Edward had brought his eyes back up, forcing himself to look—to see. But when Izzy mentioned a different crew, Edward couldn't do it anymore; couldn't bring himself to meet Izzy's eyes. He finally stammered out, "Do you. Do you want to leave, Iz?"

Izzy scoffed, angrily marching towards the captain's cabin. He opened the door, but then stopped.

"All I've ever wanted—all I've ever fucking wanted was to be by your side. And then you hurt me, over and over and over.

"I don't want anything anymore, Eddie. I don't want you, I don't want you and Bonnet's fucking pity, and I sure as fuck don't want your fucking sorry."

Izzy stepped into the cabin, slamming the door behind him. Edward blinked at the closed door, eyes already blurring.

Even a few weeks ago, it would have been so easy to press on. A swift kick to the latch and a brutal correction; a reminder of Izzy's place—

Abrupt and certain, Edward turned, putting as much distance between himself and Izzy as he could. He stood at the bow of the ship, looking out towards the sea, and the decision not to throw himself overboard came slower than he hoped.

That evening, Edward struggled to get comfortable; the berth's hammocks weren't suited for his healing wounds, but he desperately needed to sleep.

He heard Izzy's gait before he saw him; Edward did his level best to pretend he was asleep, praying to a god he didn't believe in that he could pull it off, just this once.

"Edward. What the fuck are you doing?"

Damn you too, then.

"I was tryin' to sleep, mate."

Izzy let out a long suffering sigh. "Come back to the cabin. You're the proper captain anyways, and you can't sleep with a gut wound in a hammock."

Edward shifted, gritting his teeth rather than letting the pain escape him. He breathed, slowly, and then whispered, "I don't want to force you to be around me."

"Oh for fuck's sake, Edward, that ship has fucking sailed. It's been a long fucking day and I have stood in the sun for too long unfucking the rigging with the damn crew. Please just go to bed."

Even as melancholy weighed down his movements, Edward slowly committed himself to getting back up. If it took Izzy's touch to stabilize the hammock long enough for him to get free, he didn't complain about it.

Izzy took his hand, pulling Edward's arm over strong shoulders, and Edward let him, the two of them sharing warmth as they slowly trekked back to the cabin.

Izzy closed the door behind him, letting his head fall back against it with exertion. "Hell," Izzy sputtered, hand still holding onto Edward's tight. Edward tilted towards Izzy, breathing the same air, catching their breath together.

Edward let his eyes trace over Izzy's face: the angry scar from his attempt; the swallow along his neck. Polaris on the corner of his cheek, the double meaning saved for them alone (and half the fucking Caribbean). It was a brand; a warning; a promise, broken a thousand times over.

Edward realized Izzy's eyes were on his, and that the two of them had leaned forward; had drawn close enough Edward could feel the warmth from Izzy's leathers.

"Iz," Edward said, and then nothing. He realized he'd simply wanted to feel the shape of the word against his mouth.

Izzy stared up at Edward, before he mouthed back, "Eddie," as though he were tasting it on his lips.

They were standing close; so close.

Close enough that if he tilted just a little bit further,

their lips might meet,

Izzy crowding him against the door with want.

Edward let out a little oof, but he grabbed onto Izzy's shoulders, kissing him like he might never get another chance.

Izzy suddenly shot back, staggering away, and he realized how right that might have been.

"I can't. I fucking can't. Fuck. Fuck!" Izzy did it again; reached up into his own hair, but Edward's hands shot out, grabbing his wrists again, stilling him.

"Stop, please Iz," Edward said, trying desperately not to sound too admonishing. Izzy let his hands relax, breathing heavy, staring up at Edward as if examining him.

Finally, Izzy sighed, gently pulling his hands away. He turned away from Edward, stepping towards the hammock. Edward watched him go, silence weighing heavy in the cabin as Edward crossed over to the bed, carefully easing himself in.

Edward watched as Izzy carefully unbuckled the leg. Setting it within reach, Izzy curled into the hammock, getting himself comfortable.

It was a few minutes before Izzy whispered, "We'll find him. You're alone and I'm familiar, and I've always been easy. But we'll find him, and he'll be hurt but we'll put him back together. Then you'll love him, easy as breathing, and I'll be."

Izzy breathed slow, in and out, with a bit more of a wheeze than Edward was used to. "This was always temporary. Just as serious as it ever was between us, which is to say not the fuck at all. And forgive me, but I don't fucking want it anymore. I can't fucking do it again, Edward. So I'd rather not have you at all, if it's all the same to you."

Edward stared up at the ceiling, a thousand protests dying on his lips. Most of them were lies, anyways; because that's how he'd handled Izzy for a lifetime, hadn't he?

"I don't want that either, Izzy," Edward said up into the open air; let the words float free from behind his ribs, and found them to be true. "I don't know what I want, but I don't ever want to hurt you again."

"Yeah, okay," Izzy spat, shaking his head in the hammock. "Now he doesn't want to fucking hurt me. It's a little late for that, Edward. I'll always be hurt. I'll never be the same. I'm a different person than I'm supposed to be, and that's your fucking doing."

"I don't want you to forgive me, Iz."

The words cut a knife through Izzy's strings; the full on rant he was working himself up to had been cut at the knee, much like Izzy himself. He sighed, angry, frustrated, and spitefully set himself to the task of falling asleep, curling himself as far from Edward as he could without falling from the hammock.

When Izzy didn't bother to tell him to fuck off, Edward mourned it like a missing limb.

On a morning like any other, Stede collapses to the deck, and Ned stands over him as the doctor checks him.

Stede feels like he's dying; like his heart will give out. But when the doctor huffs out, "It's panic, not anything real," the judgment is passed regardless, damning him all the same.

Ned sits next to him on the deck, taking his hand. He starts to peel away layers of skin connecting fingernail to flesh, Stede's screams filling the open air.

When the fingernail is finally pulled free, Stede is shaking and moaning, only half hard due to the pain being too much, please stop—and as Stede writhes, Ned pulls his smalls down, right there in front of the crew. Stede reaches down to pull them back up, and Ned presses into the exposed nailbed, Stede screaming and letting go. Even as the crew diligently pay strict attention to their work, Stede knows they can hear it as Ned works him with his hand; forces him to moan and spill on his own chest and thighs, and then pulls his clothes on over it.

"Now, what did you learn?" Ned asks Stede, who is panting against him.

"Don't fake being sick," Stede responds, shaking. Ned slips a hand into his hair, and the violent tug is grounding.

"Good."

If Ned strikes the tender spot the next day, during their spar, and then rides Stede to completion under the sunrise while pressing into the broken skin, that's for no one to know but the two of them—and all the crew that hear his screams.

As Ned smirks down at him, that violent and angry thing that wanted to see his god undone only grew.

Ned stands from him, pulling his clothes back on. Stede stares at the turned back of his god, his own spend dripping from within him, and he clenches his fists so tightly that they bleed.

If Stede were more vicious to the rest of the crew after that, none of them said a word.

If Stede stared at Ned with that growing hunger, he kept that to himself, too.

When Stede snapped Frank's arm during one such duel, ignoring the man's pleas for mercy, Ned laughed and decided he was ready.

Edward and Izzy woke up around the same time for once, Izzy's hair wild and his eyes bleary with lack of sleep. Edward was much the same; the two of them would deny it, but they'd spent much the night tossing and turning, and as Edward had finally drifted to sleep, no sooner than his eyelids had closed, he saw Stede's face staring back at him, hand holding the gun.

"I serve Blackbeard," had come Izzy's words in Stede's voice, before he'd pulled the trigger, Edward waking up with a shout.

The two of them trudged their way to the galley, settling in some chairs as Roach prepared breakfast.

"You two look like warmed over shit," Roach said cheerfully, as he checked on a set of toast. Izzy offered him a middle finger, and Roach chuckled, getting out a pair of plates.

The two took their breakfast up to the quarterdeck, settling in for an impromptu picnic as the sun rose from its slumber.

Izzy watched the sunlight careen over the water's edge, remembering years of sunrises; all those stolen glances at Edward's face, illuminated by the dawn. He'd seen it hundreds of times, and every single time it took his breath away.

In spite of himself, he tilted his head. He was unable to have Edward, true; but these stolen glances were for him, and him alone.

His eyes landed on Edward, and Izzy realized he'd been seen; realized that, perhaps, Edward had been staring long before him.

Izzy watched brown eyes go black, and he couldn't tear his gaze away, never having seen an Edward illuminated by the sun with his attention focused on him. Damn him for the knowledge, but he would tuck this sight against his breast; keep it on him like a shield, and remember it when Edward and Stede had found each other again.

Edward finally tore his eyes away; glanced down; looked back up at Izzy. Realized Izzy was still looking at him, and looked back out into the sea, blush climbing up his cheeks.

Izzy finally tore his eyes away, forcing himself to focus on his food before he did something terribly fucking stupid.

If Edward quietly pushed his grapes onto Izzy's plate, Izzy let him, savoring them like a gift.

The first raid is like a rebirth.

Bloodshed has become a song, and Stede has learned the steps to this dance. He slips in and out of the field like a lover, disappearing from the path of blade and axe and knife, artful parries before sinking into waiting flesh.

Beside him, Ned is laughing his wild laugh, truly more at home in a fight than anywhere else. Here, Stede gets glimpses of the boy Ned used to be: feral, untamed, unbroken.

Stede stares down at a young lad who had practically run onto his rapier, bleeding out onto the deck, and as a brisk wind sweeps past, Stede realizes he feels empty; lost.

The battle rages around him, and yet he only has eyes for Ned. Stede's blood pounds in his ears as he wants to break the healing bone; wants to shatter the growing soul that has latched onto his demon like a weed. Wants to ruin his demon's wings, so that he might be trapped with Stede in a hell of their own making.

Back to back and side to side, the lovers weave a pathway of blood, and when the last man falls, Stede grabs Ned by the coat, pulling him in for a kiss.

Stede pulls Ned along to the cabin of the dead captain, and when Ned offers a word of protest ("The loot, Stede"), Stede acts as though he doesn't hear, slamming and locking the door behind them.

The incubus huffs out, still battle risen, his blood up, and he tries to push past Stede—angrily, violently, honest. Stede looks in his eyes and sees something terribly, utterly human—

and it drives Stede insane.

Stede grabs him by the hair, and Ned shoves at him, cursing at him, but Stede drags him to the bed, throwing him down.

"Stede- stop, you fucking asshole," Ned spits at him, like nothing Stede has ever heard from him before. The roses have overtaken the rot, and human eyes glower back at Stede with unbridled aggression. Even his accent has grown a heartbeat (a child on the streets of London).

Stede serves a god; a demon king. Not a man; not a boy with delusions about keeping every piece of himself intact.

If his god needs a reminder of that fact, so be it.

Stede doesn't bother with the coat, wrenching down Ned's trousers and smalls alike. Ned tries to shove him off, but when Stede bars his arm across Ned's chest, wrenching Ned's legs up, Ned goes stock still beneath him.

Good. Let it be a reminder.

When Stede pulls his own trousers down, lining up without preparation or foreplay, he can feel the shake of Ned's body against him, and thinks he sees a tear slip down the side of his face.

That must be a trick of the light; gods have no use for tears.

"Stede," the incubus pleads, but as he presses violently inward, the cry falls on deaf ears.

The incubus sobs against him, and Stede lets him, taking him all the same.

Stede gently places Ned into their bed, and wonders if Blackbeard ever forced his own masterpiece. Wonders what, exactly, drove Israel to mutiny.

Sometimes, Stede wonders if he died in that noose.

Most of the time, he knows it's true.

Chapter Text

The morning sun shone its first rays into the captain's cabin on the Fancy, and as Stede's eyes opened, the raid came back to him in bits and pieces.

Stede tilted his head, glancing at Ned, who had his back turned towards him and was curled in on himself under the blanket. Stede might have assumed he was sleeping, but Ned's nostrils flared when he slept, and his breathing was silent as stone. "Ned," Stede called, but there was no answer.

Stede reached out, and when his hand landed on Ned's shoulder, the flinch wasn't suppressed quickly enough as Ned's entire body shifted.

Stede pulled his hand back as if burned, and as he stared at his lover, weeping silently next to him, a hand went to his mouth as the world blurred.

He forced Ned.

He saw a healing boy, rather than a merciless god, and was furious that his god would dare heal; dare defy the brokenness that defined them; defined their love.

Stede stumbled out of the bed; left his clothes and his swords and everything behind, bursting out onto the deck as naked as the day he was born. Some of the crew turned to look, but they ignored him as he slunk by them, staggering up the quarterdeck.

He wanted to do it here. The figurehead of the Fancy had seen many horrors, and if the death of a demon could bring it any small solace, Stede wanted to give it that. He stared down at the spirit that guided their travels, hoping it were never once a man.

He reached out to the railing of the ship, starting to lift his foot when he heard someone call from behind him. "Bonnet?"

He looked back, Francis Spriggs standing a few feet behind him, wary, arm still in a sling. Frank took another careful step towards him, even as Stede could see the way nervousness painted the man's face.

"Don't come any closer," Stede warned, getting a firm grip on the railing in case he needed to jump.

"Bonnet, why don't you." Frank glanced back, but the rest of the crew were solidly uninterested in getting involved in any sense of the word. "Why don't you come down from there, and why don't we go and get something to eat? Food is nice, right?"

"You're a lot like him, you know," Stede said. The hair had grayed, and wrinkles lined his face, but thirty years ago he could see the man looking terribly like Lucius.

Frank nodded, slow. "He was a good kid, before Blackbeard killed him."

Stede blinked. Was that right? "No...? He died in the battle. When the Revenge sank."

"Sure thing, Bonnet. Yeah. You're right, my mistake." Frank nodded back at him, and Stede realized he'd inched that much closer.

"Stay the fuck back!" Stede yelled, voice angry and laden with potential violence. He might not have his swords, but he didn't need them to break Frank's arm in the first place. Frank staggered backwards, but doesn't let himself retreat too far.

"Please," Frank said. "Please. He'll fucking kill me."

Stede blinked at Frank. "What...? He loves you, Frank. He wouldn't throw you away so easily."

Frank shookhis head. "Oh, fucking god, Bonnet. Fucking hell. Please. He will, he'll kill me. That's how much you matter to him. I've never mattered to him that much. Not once."

Stede considered it; considered candlelit dinners and worship and the reverence of a lover whose entire life was him. The headiness of that attention; the weight of being loved entirely and unendingly.

He considered brutalizing the man he loved; throwing him onto the bed and taking of him, and watching as that man let him. Wondered if Ned would have let Stede take one of his toes; wondered if Stede would have reached into Ned's smalls, after, and had his fingers come away wet.

Stede tilted over the railing, and Frank shouted and grabbed his shoulder with one arm, but Stede only vomited, emptying the contents of his stomach into the sea.

The Revenge docked at the Republic of Pirates, and Edward looked in the mirror one last time, watching himself walk. He took slow, leisurely, measured steps, and he could see Izzy's eyebrow twitch in the mirror. "Edward. Can we-"

"I'm coming, mate, chill the fuck out," Edward shot back, but it came off nervous rather than placating.

"You look good, Edward. Can we go?"

Izzy had said it quiet and gentle, but the compliment was practically a gushing review from his stoic mate captain's mouth.

It hit Edward all at once: There had been a thousand small moments like this. Bows and butterflies tucked into a beard; Izzy nodding along as Edward explained something Iz didn't much care for, but was willing to listen to, regardless. He had hurt Izzy a thousand times, and not once had it felt like these moments; these times where Izzy quietly reassured him; reminded him that at least one person would always be waiting for him.

"Yeah. Yeah okay, Iz, let's go."

If Izzy wanted for anything, Edward meant to give it to him—and right now, Izzy wanted to get a move on. Edward followed Izzy out the door, resisting the hopeless urge to take his hand.

Zheng Yi Sao caught sight of Edward, and made a beeline for him. She stopped some distance away, head tilting in confusion, before continuing. "You look like shit."

Edward and Izzy shared a glance, Izzy's eyebrow twitching as Edward frowned. "Uh, it was bad-"

"Legumes, I take it?" Zheng Yi Sao asked, cutting him off. Edward bit his bottom lip, but when he looked at Izzy, Izzy's hand was firmly planted on his face, head shaking.

Izzy slowly let the hand down, breathing in and out, before asking, "Alright. The fuck do you want, Pirate Queen?" Auntie glowered behind Zheng Yi Sao, but coming from Izzy's mouth, the words sounded damn near respectful.

"Well, I did seem to hear the other day a crazy tale. See, Ned Low's ship, the Fancy, got attacked by another pirate. It seems like the infamous Blackbeard and the terrifying Ned Low—" Zheng Yi Sao waved her hands, dripping with false enthusiasm. "Well, the two of them got into a battle. Strangely enough, Blackbeard had some sort of explosive that he used to level the playing field!"

"You did offer," Edward shot back, mumbling just a smidge. "Not my fault ya didn't ask too many questions."

Zheng Yi Sao let out a huff. "Ned Low can't really threaten me. Neither can you, for that matter. But I don't like being ill-informed."

Edward distantly wondered who it was—the last man like him who had crossed Zheng Yi Sao; who had attempted to bring her to heel. Wondered where Zheng Yi himself took his final rest, though he knew he'd never find out.

After a lifetime taking the respect he'd never be afforded otherwise, he couldn't help but feel a begrudging admiration. Zheng Yi Sao was a pirate like the rest of them, yet her wits alone had afforded her a fleet of women who were safe under her banners—and devoted to her leadership.

Edward gave a slight nod to the Pirate Queen, capitulatory. "Shouldn't have left it out. But I thought there might not be another way. Next time I won't give ya the fuckin' run around."

Zheng Yi Sao examined him, but ultimately let it roll off her with a shrug. "Did you at least get him back?"

A fleet devoted to her, and apparently very fucking good at their jobs.

Edward couldn't resist a glance at Izzy, who shrugged, before Edward looked back at her, shaking his head.

Zheng Yi Sao hummed to herself; she considered them carefully before asking, "Dead?"

"Not yet."

Zheng Yi Sao grimaced before she could catch herself, but schooled her expression carefully. She started to speak, but whatever she had to say, she thought better of it. She looked between the two of them, ripping the bandaid off.

"I'm sorry. I really am."

Edward didn't know what to say to that.

Izzy picked up the slack. "Appreciated, Pirate Queen, but we'll get the fucker back."

He even sounded like he believed it.

She glanced between the two of them. Her head tilted, an eyebrow furled as she grew that considering expression once more. "I hope you do," she said, before turning away. She walked off with a nod, leaving them to their thoughts.

Edward and Izzy slipped into Spanish Jackie's, heading to the bar. Edward took a seat as Izzy flagged down the Swede, but as he did, one of Jackie's husbands slunk into the seat to Edward's left.

"Don't look at me, don't talk."

The husband put a newspaper down between the two of them, making like he was trying to get a drink. "He's going for the record. The two of them are."

Next to Edward, Izzy tensed, but said nothing. Edward let his eyes trail along bottles of rum, whispering back, "Why are you telling us this?"

"Husband number three."

If there were ever a time where curiosity might have won out, it would have been then, tempted with a rare glimpse of a well-guarded catalogue. Edward resisted the morbid urge to look, but barely.

He'd heard rumors, ridiculous as they were—that Spanish Jackie had angered Ned Low, and that Ned had taken his pound of flesh. Most considered them just that: Rumors. But there had been a death in the family, back when it was more polycule than harem.

Since then, the husbands had been more number than person.

Edward watched the Swede place a drink in front of him unbidden, giving Edward a soft smile before pivoting to the other patrons.

The man leaned just a little closer, whispering, "There are people in the Republic who hope for your success."

The man was gone before Edward finished sliding the newspaper into his jacket. He took a sip of the drink, eyebrows raising at the smoothness. He offered some to Izzy, and if he paid attention to the working of Izzy's throat around it, that was for him alone to know.

He took a few minutes to finish the drink before leaning towards Izzy, their shoulders brushing. "Let's bounce," he whispered, and Izzy nodded, standing.

They filed out together, Izzy's left hand casually laid on the scabbard to his sword.

They found an alleyway, Edward recounting the man's words as he flipped the newspaper open.

"He's alive," Izzy said, when he had nothing else to offer. The two were leaned over the page together, and when Edward tilted his head to look at Izzy's face, he realized just how fast the man was breathing.

"Hey. Iz." Iz glanced up at him, putting on that strong face Edward could recognize better than his mother's. "If you. If you're scared. I just mean, if shit goes sideways. I don't want him to. You've fuckin' been through enough. Even if I'm dead, I couldn't bear it if—"

"Let's go get our rich boy back."

Edward stared back at Izzy, who under it all was terrified. Edward could still see it clearly—that young man, holding a knife and praying for safety while demons roamed.

But in spite of it all, Izzy was ready to face monsters that had been under his bed for longer than Edward had known him. Izzy's tone brooked no argument, and he turned, stomping down the path with purpose.

As Edward followed him, he couldn't help but feel just a little less scared himself.

The pair slid into the dank hole in the wall bar, one of the few places Calico Jack could still get a drink without fighting a bouncer. Izzy had huffed out in frustration, spitting something about distractions and brothels, stalking off to search.

When Jack wrapped an arm around Edward's shoulders a minute later, Edward was less than surprised. Regardless, Edward played along, and as the two sat at the table, Edward watched him dance around whatever it was he wanted.

Jack had learned about Edward and Izzy's budding 'reconciliation', and when Edward asked him how, he'd rolled his eyes, spitting, "I have my sources, Teach."

Someone had gone out of their way to tell him, and if Jack knew, he could influence Izzy; convince him to shut Edward out for good. The dark thing in his soul wanted—no, demanded—to know who had told, but Edward knew it wasn't malicious. After all, Jack was an incredible liar, save for one particular subject—one that was currently looking for him in the nearby brothels in vain.

As if the burns weren't proof enough.

(Later, with a clear head, Edward realized it had been Jim.

The rest were angry, but Jim was angry and determined. They had missed a chance to kill Edward in his sleep before Izzy lost his leg, and Edward knew they still hadn't forgiven themselves for it—much less Edward himself.

If they couldn't be everywhere to watch Edward around Izzy, Jack would occasionally have to do.

There were nights where he would stand on the deck of the Revenge, and though he could never find them, he could feel their eyes on him; he wondered, those nights, if he'd live to see the morning.)

Eventually, Jack ran out of casual questions; ran out of ways to come at the thing sideways. Edward waited for Jack to get the real question out, staring down at his drink, wondering if Izzy was still searching the brothels in vain.

"So you really think you've changed, huh?"

Edward looked up, and Jack wasn't casual anymore. No; Jack was staring at him with open contempt, fingers clenched firmly on his drink.

"Nah. Not really, mate."

Edward ran his finger along the lip of his mug. He was so tired; tired of hiding behind a mask, pretending he was something he wasn't until he couldn't take it anymore. He tore his eyes away from Jack; he couldn't look at him if he was going to say a word.

"All that awful shit inside me, it's still right there. It's like my first fuckin' instinct. Hurt, before they can hurt you back. Whether that's them fighting you or trying to save you or leaving, or... Well. That last one, especially."

Edward huffed out, as if it were some great cosmic joke. He'd held onto Izzy so viciously, Izzy had given his own leg to escape.

"I still think about it all the time; about hurting people. About hurting him. I want it to stop, but I don't know if it ever will."

Edward looked up at Jack, who was staring back at him with that unaffected smile; that casual glance that was screaming, "I'll fucking kill you," if only anyone could read Jack's language. Anyone besides Edward, and all the other descendents of the Ranger.

"For fuck's sake," Jack spat out. "How long is this gonna last, Blackie?" Jack tore his eyes away, rolling them high into his skull, before they snapped back to Edward, green vibrant against angry pupils. "How long until Hands is approaching me again, telling me that once again we've gotta fuckin' bail you out, and 'it's Edward, Jack', and him telling me it's the last time?"

Edward remembered the knife in Jack's hand; remembered a line too far and seeing the man that had saved his life staring at him like a curse. Wishing, perhaps, that he'd never saved Edward at all.

"I'm done, Jack. I'll throw myself off the side of the ship before I hurt him again."

Jack stared at Edward for a moment, rolling his eyes again. "Sure." Jack lifted the drink to his mouth, and Edward watched as Jack's arm flexed; as burned skin shifted around his folding arm, bringing the drink to his lips. Remembered the reason he came; the reason he sought Jack out in the first place.

"You're welcome to..." Edward paused for a moment, glancing at the burns on Jack's arm. "If. If helping kill him would help you. Just say the fuckin' word, mate, and you can come with. Iz will talk to the crew. They won't like it, but Jim will get it, and the rest will follow. Especially if it's Izzy asking."

Jack's head snapped up, and he looked at Edward, eying him like he'd grown a second head. He stared at Edward,

and then he was somewhere else; somewhere far away. He reached down to his drink as if on autopilot, taking a long swig, and when he spoke his voice came from somewhere far away.

"I don't ever want to see him again. Ever."

Edward nodded. "Okay. Sorry I asked."

"Don't be. If I could, I." Jack looked back at him, and there's a moment where Edward thought he might break; thought the catalogue of hurts was about to breach containment, and come spilling from his tongue. But then Jack settled; leaned back in the chair, the moment gone.

"I hope you get your idiot back."

Edward looked down at his own drink, just as Izzy finally came back, frazzled and looking ready to spit a storm. "Me too," Edward said under his breath, moving to intercept Izzy before he throttled them both.

"You could have just told me to wait the fuck outside," Izzy spat, but the venom was minimal, and he did get chased out of a room by an axe that nearly caught his ear. Edward didn't particularly begrudge him his anger.

They made their way back to the Revenge, striding into the captain's cabin. Edward glanced around as Izzy's personal effects had slowly made their way into the room, settling there with belonging, and for some reason, Edward suddenly felt like crying.

He pushed that down, peeling open the newspaper, laying it next to the map.

Within an hour, they charted a course, a plan already forming in Edward's mind.

Frank had run to the galley, bringing back some hardtack in soup, insisting that Stede eat at least a little of it.

Stede finds himself curious about their life before he'd gotten there; before he'd upset the careful balance they'd struck. But then, it wasn't the first time he'd destroyed beautiful things, and it wouldn't be the last. He didn't ask, and Frank didn't offer, the two of them sitting in silence.

Stede stares out at the open sea, but it feels wasteful to jump on a full stomach. He looks back at the cabin, where he'd left Ned to himself.

Stede quietly enters the room, finding Ned sitting up in bed, back to the door and still unclothed. It was well past the hour Ned normally woke, and a fraying, mangled part of Stede wonders if he's hungry.

"Ned?" Stede says to the room, slowly crossing the distance to the bed. He reaches down to pick up his smalls, but as he looks back up at Ned, he finds the incubus staring back at him, pupils pinpricks against the dark color of his eyes.

"There you are," Ned whispers, tone dangerous; unpredictable. "Come to bed, darling."

Stede lets his smalls drop from his fingertips, lifting the blanket and slipping under the covers, desperate for even a small barrier from what is about to happen. Ned laughs, gentle, malevolent, and he rips the blanket away in a violent pull, the smile of a god never leaving his face.

Ned lays back down next to him, even as Stede stays stock still, staring up at him. Ned traces a hand over the scars he's laid on Stede's chest, and Stede's heartbeat rams against his ribcage, inches from the threatening touch of divinity.

Stede slowly leans towards Ned, telegraphing his movements, reaching out to gently take Ned's hand in his own.

Ned is on him in an instant; he violently shoves Stede flat on his back, a dagger at Stede's throat and Ned's eyes wild, unpredictable and entirely human.

"I'll fucking kill you," Ned spits at him, with all the venom of a street bandit in a London alley. "I'll fucking slit your throat and leave you here to die."

Stede stares up at him, and resists the urge to lean into the dagger; to bleed the well of himself dry, and die looking upon Ned's face—another accident borne of rage, just like his brother. Only this time, it'd be worse. Ned would know Stede had left him on purpose.

Ned reaches down, leaning back just enough to let Stede's cock spring up into the air, and his hand grasps Stede's cock, letting his nails dig into the skin angrily. Stede yelps, suddenly very actively trying to push Ned away, but the dagger goes to the root of his cock, and Stede screams as Ned traces a delicate line along his shaft, breaking the first layer of skin. Stede's hands drop to the sheets, terrified into stillness.

Ned laughs down at him, desperate and broken, and Stede watches as he rises up, sinking down in one motion. Distantly, Stede realizes Ned must have prepared himself; feels the oil slip around his cock like slick, and sees the incubus from his dreams nightmares.

"You didn't do shit," Ned spits, and it's violent; he's shaking with what Stede thinks is rage, plunging the dagger into the bed in lieu of pushing it into Stede's waiting skin. "I wanted it; I always want it. I'm a fucking whore," Ned says, hands going to Stede's throat and cutting away his air. "You're not hard enough, Leander. Or is it Stede?"

Stede blinks, and he is staring into a mirror.

Stede desperately struggles for air, but doesn't dare lift a finger; doesn't dare fight.

This is what you wanted, isn't it?

Your god, returned to you?

Stede stares into a mirror, and watches himself bring the knife to his own throat.

Don't be pathetic, Bonnet.

Stede tries, desperately, to end it; to break out of the cycle, once and for all.

After all, what do you think Eddie will do to me if you die?

Stede stares back at Israel, blood dripping from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

I don't know how to save you.

There's no saving any of us.

So why should he get to live?

Stede's hands shoot up to Ned's waist, and as Ned slides back down Stede wrenches, forcing Ned all the way down. Ned screams as he feels himself tear, and he collapses onto Stede's chest, hands losing their grip. Stede sharply inhales, and he doesn't give Ned a chance to recover, planting his feet and fucking up into him.

Stede can feel warmth trailing down his cock, and he can't help himself; he drags the demon off of him, throwing him onto the bed. Stede shoves him facedown, and when Stede's eyes match the blood trailing from his god to the blood anointing his cock, he shudders, nearly spilling over his god right then and there.

The door to the cabin bursts open, and Francis Spriggs is in the doorway, holding a sword in his left hand.

Stede watches as Frank takes in the scene, eyes darting between Ned and Stede, mouth parting when he sees the blood on Stede's cock. Stede looks down at himself, seeing the evidence of his sin, and his hands slip from Ned's body.

"I think. I think you two should stop."

Frank's voice trembles, and all at once Stede realizes he should have died earlier; shouldn't have let Frank save him. Wonders if he can die this way, instead; stares Frank in the eyes and wills him to do it.

Frank meets his glance, and Stede thinks he's seen those eyes before; seen clever jade eyes dawning with comprehension. Comprehension and compassion, as though Stede weren't a monster but a man.

Frank stares at Stede for a long moment, and Stede thinks he sees something long dead flicker in the attendant's eyes. Watches as the man shakes his head, and resolves himself.

"Yeah. That's it. That's enough. This has to fucking stop."

Frank's fists clench by his sides, and Stede sees it—the wind at Frank's back, moving a becalmed ship for the first time in decades. "Christ. Look at you two! I can't fucking do this anymore, Ned! It's never been this bad; not with Izzy, not with Lucius, not with anyone." Frank reaches up to his own hair, but he restrains himself; stops himself before it's too late.

Ned slowly leans up on one arm, looking up at Frank. Ned's shaking, and as he wraps his arms around himself, Stede desperately wants to read the catalogue of Ned's hurts. After all, Frank had fallen in love with someone; had known Ned when his brother was still alive.

"I won't sit here and watch you two kill each other. You can't ask me to fuckin' do it. I won't. Please, Ned. Please."

The tension in the room is a live wire, filled with electricity, and all at once Stede realizes there's a chance, here. A chance for something to change; a chance for a different path for the three of them to take. A hand extended, in the hopes that the three of them can still be saved.

It's Frank, for heaven's sake. Frank has known Ned for a lifetime; If anyone can save Ned from himself, it's him. If anyone had earned the right to try—Frank gave his entire life to Ned. That has to mean

"Get out."

Stede turns; looks at Ned;

sees kohl and rage and thrown chairs and fights to the death;

looks across the room and sees a missing leg and 'polaris' and a lifetime spent holding things together until it all fell apart anyways.

Stede looks at two men staring at each other, and for a moment the fog dissipates; for a moment he sees everything so fucking clearly, and how could he have been so stupid?

But then Frank says something that doesn't reach Stede's ears, and he's crying as he's walking away; why is he walking away? Ned needs him, and to be quite fucking honest, Frank needs Ned, too.

Stede gets up, and when he looks out the door, he sees crewmates preparing a dinghy,

but then the hand of his god curls into his golden crown,

pulling him back to bed.

Chapter Text

Stede had questioned the godhood of the demon king, and Ned suffered blasphemers poorly on the best of days.

Ned had shoved Stede into the bed, sinking down onto Stede's cock, chasing his own pleasure with a knife to Stede's throat.

He lifted from Stede as he began to twitch, painting Stede's face with his spend.

Ned slid the knife down, opening the place where Ned had pinned Stede to the mast—they had dueled long ago, hadn't they? The blade entered skin, and as Ned dug around in his insides, Stede could feel his heart begin to race.

Ned pressed the blade in hard as he brought Stede off, but as Stede started to crest, he pulled both hand and blade away, Stede spilling without relief.

Ned brought his mouth to Stede's spend, taking one clean lick before leaving the rest.

Ned dragged Stede out into the daylight, then down; down into the depths of the ship. A creeping dread crawled along Stede's spine, and then the doorway came into view, "CONTEMPLATION CELL" in big bold letters. Words and pleas started to spill from Stede's lips, and he curled in on himself, terrified.

Ned yanked him back up, slapping him across the face so hard he hit the wall. Stede's ear was still ringing when Ned dragged him forward once more, pulling him towards that familiar, waking nightmare.

Ned threw Stede bodily into the room, slamming and locking the door, and Stede scrambled to the door. He screamed and pleaded, promising he would be better; promising he would be good if only Ned would give him another chance.

Stede could hear Ned's footsteps trailing away, and after a minute,

the room went completely, entirely dark.

Stede held onto the door, banging on it with his fists, sobbing and pleading for mercy.

Izzy skimmed through the articles of clothing, neatly arranged on hangers. Edward chewed on his bottom lip, watching as Izzy explored the auxiliary wardrobe for the first time.

"So. This is where you disappear to, then?" Izzy asked, but Edward didn't bother answering; they both knew it was true.

"Well. I figured since you're staying here and all, you should, y'know. Know all the ins and outs."

Izzy glanced at him, but it was a quick thing, as though he couldn't bear to look for too long. If a hint of blush climbed Izzy's cheeks, Edward didn't mention it, edges of his mouth twitching upward.

Izzy looked through Stede's personal effects; as his bare hand felt at the different fabrics, he hummed. "Did he have a favorite... robe, or anything?"

Edward tilted his head a bit, stepping over to where Izzy was. "Yeah actually, I think so. Lemme see if I can find it." Edward reached past Izzy, pushing articles aside. As Edward concentrated on finding Stede's favorites, the two of them pointedly avoided each other's eyes, even as Edward's shoulder brushed against Izzy's.

"Ah hah." Edward said, triumphant, pulling out a bright yellow monstrosity.

"... Dear fucking god," Izzy whispered, a real touch of horror to his voice.

"I know... He's the one who'd know all the fashion shit the best, but holy fuck, he's just about the only person that can pull this shit off."

"Can he?" Izzy asked, not hiding the grimace from his face. But then his face softened; turned contemplative. His nose wrinkled in offense, but he reached out, taking it from Edward regardless. He turned towards the open bookshelf, slipping out into the main cabin space.

"Whatcha doin' with that, Iz?" Edward asked, just a touch worried given Izzy's utter lack of interest in finery.

"Well. I figure the twat will want something familiar when he gets back. So I thought. We could set it aside, and. Well."

Izzy stopped short, laying it over a chair, and Edward realized the words were jammed in Izzy's head.

"That's a good idea, Iz," Edward breathes, his own voice catching in his throat. "We could, y'know, have Roach make some of his favorites. He might. Fuck." Izzy glanced up at him, watching as Edward ran his hands into his hair, pretending that he still had a hold of his composure. Edward spun, pacing across the cabin, and Izzy followed him, catching him on the arm.

"Panicking's no use, Edward," Izzy said, almost as if he believed it himself.

"I know..." Edward let out a shaking breath, letting himself slump into the bed. "I know. Preparations all done?"

"You know they are," Izzy said, as calm as he ever got, solid and stable even as Edward's voice wavered. Izzy glanced at Edward, barely hesitating before taking a seat next to him.

Edward offered Izzy a wobbly smile, before covering his face with his hand. Izzy brought his bare hand to Edward's back, moving in slow circles.

"Ned's had him for too long," Edward finally said, letting his hand drop. "Jack, he never stopped drinking, and Ned had him for a day; he was never the same, Iz. And what if we fuck up, and Ned gets." Edward's throat threatened to close on itself, but he sucked in a breath, eyes watery and threatening to spill over. "You have to promise me, Iz. I don't have any fuckin' right, but you have to promise. If shit goes south, you run, you take Lucius and the two of you get the fuck out of there. He'll kill us; we'll die but we'll die ourselves. But I can't—oh god, Izzy, Izzy."

Edward leaned over, hands reaching up to Izzy's vest, and Izzy, in spite of himself and all the gods he didn't believe in, let him.

Well. All the gods, except for the dark haired trickster who stole his heart a lifetime ago.

At first, it was a relief.

Stede had sunk to the cold floor, leaning against the wooden door, and even though he was back in this room, the danger had passed. Rather than a symphony of torments, Ned has left him alone, thinking of what he's done like an unruly child.

But in the void a room where nothing exists, time stands still, and Stede begins to itch; begins to look around, desperately, for anything.

He feels the spend of a demon, drying on his face, and he wipes at it viciously until his skin burns with the effort. Wipes it until it spreads, and licks it from his hands when he has no other recourse.

He feels his way back to the door, banging on it. "Ned! Ned, I'm sorry!" For what, Stede no longer knows; for an array of hurts that they've committed to each other, and for breaking in the first place; for falling apart into the facsimile of a man (which Ned had wanted for Stede in the first place).

He leans back against the door, and his heart pounds, threatening to tear through the walls of his chest. Ned can't have forgotten him, right? Wouldn't have left him? But maybe the fickle god had decided to sever all his human connections at once. Maybe Stede would be floating in this room for eternity the rest of his life, short as he expected that to be.

Stede would be good. Ned probably hated when he banged on the door. He would be good. He would wait patiently, and his lover would show him mercy. He had to believe that.

Stede pounds on the door, frantic. "Ned! Ned, please! I'll be good, I'll be so good, Ned! Please! Ned!"

Stede floats within himself, nothing around him save a wooden door and cold floor. He can't even tell how far the ceiling might be; it had been tall enough for when Ned had ripped out his wings, right?

Stede presses a finger against the exposed nail bed on his left hand, and the intense agony is a flare in the dark; a lighthouse in the fog.

He is still here; he still exists.

He twists when it isn't enough; pulls the stab wound open with every shift of his abdomen. Every twitch of his cock tweaks the thin cut in the skin, intensely and uniquely painful.

Already, Stede can tell it will heal without scarring, and that brings him a slim comfort; his god had seen fit to keep his best feature intact. Stede is still useful. He can still be useful. He can still be good.

He had ruined Frank.

"Who are you?" he remembers Louis asking him, once. As it turned out, he had never changed; never escaped what he'd been running from. He is still a destroyer; a man who ruins beautiful things with his presence, and then moves on to the next.

Jim had yelled at him in a tavern, describing the tapestry of Blackbeard's violence. As the words had washed over Stede, he had been unable to hear them. They weren't ruined; Stede had saved half of them. Then he had saved the rest.

He had saved them.

That night, with a drink in hand and a tune in his throat, Izzy had approached him. Had approached him with a flush to his cheeks, and bruises all over his body, in places only Stede was privy to.

Their games had taken a turn, and that very morning, Izzy had grappled Stede to the ground, wrapped around him like a lover. The morning sun had laid over Israel, framing him in light and painting him with divinity. Stede had stared up at him, shared breaths painted with want, and he had no name for the destruction he wanted to lay upon the man.

Izzy had approached him, and Stede had walked past him without a word.

Stede had seen an angel in the morning light, but the greatest swordsman in the Caribbean was dead, and whatever Israel had meant to say, Stede wasn't of the mind to listen.

Stede had saved him.

Stede had ruined him.

Stede wants to ruin him more; wants to save his soul, and can't tell if there's a difference.

Stede thinks of eternal sleep; the sort that tempted him long before he set foot on the Revenge. He wonders if he could bite through his own tongue; wonders if he would die, only to awake in darkness much the same as this.

He has to get out.

He has to get out.

He reaches for the door again, panic thrumming in his veins, and he beats his hands bloody against it, screaming until his voice gives out. Screams the name of his god, of his mother, of Blackbeard and Israel Hands and of anyone else who might be able to save him.

Stede collapses against the door, sobbing until sleep takes him.

Stede wakes up, and thinks he hears voices. He reaches out into the darkness, but finds nothing.

The demon king had bled, Stede thinks unbidden. Had bled, and if Stede knew better, perhaps he could have taken the knife and become a godslayer. He may have died for the attempt, but at least he would be dead, rather than trapped here in this in between.

Israel had shot his god in the storm; had killed him, only to watch his rebirth, three days later.

Perhaps this was Stede's penance. He had restored a malevolent god to his throne, and thus the demon king had taken him; shown him what he had wrought. In ignorance, he had exposed his crew to the cruel whims of a demon, and when that vengeful god had turned back into a man, Stede Bonnet had demanded their capitulation.

He wasn't ignorant any longer.

He thinks of a gold dagger; thinks of carving out the heart of a god.

What a fucking fool he is.

Gods cannot be killed.

He died; Ned stole his breath, and never bothered to return it. He died, and now he rests here, eternal patron of the dark room. Wanderer of the void, forever doomed to oblivion.

Rather than eternal sleep, Stede awakes to nothingness once more.

He looks around desperately, for Izzy, for Edward, for Ned, and sees nothing.

He scrambles around, hopelessly looking for Izzy's body, but as he moves he finds nothing but emptiness; emptiness and walls all around him.

Stede curls into himself, and desperately tries to remember what it felt like; Izzy wrapped around him, closer than they'd ever been. Stede reaches down to his sleep-spent cock, fighting through overstimulation to force it back to life.

He floats in the void, detached from his body, formless and eternal.

He thinks of his wayward god, and of how he stole from that god; how he took from him. How he forced—

He had a name, once.

A name, and a purpose, and lines in the sand he swore he'd never cross, no matter how bad it got.

He thinks not of a god, but of a man; a man with a crown of snow, who filled a poor sod with so much love, and then sent him away for daring to act on it.

The formless soul wonders if Frank made it out; wonders if Ned had him shot for the sin of daring to love him.

Light trickles into his eyes; he winces at it, initially angry at the distraction.

His god stands in the doorway, and with light flooding into the contemplation cell, the world exists again, his demon king staring down at him.

The formless soul blinks,

with his eyes,

and a sea of reality falls upon him again.

He sees the incubus stepping towards him, laying a hand on his chest and whispering to him softly. Watches the incubus wait, patiently, for his ears to work again.

He thinks he hears a name. "Stede," the incubus croons, breathing him in.

"Stede," he repeats, and the shape of it feels familiar.

"Yeah. That's you," the god decrees, and Stede accepts it. "You in there?"

"Izzy is dead," Stede muses. "Can I die, too?"

The incubus stops, staring at him, and Stede thinks he's seen grief like that before. The incubus runs a hand along his face, and if Stede didn't know better, he'd say the hand was shaking. But gods didn't shake—they didn't know fear.

"Maybe I was too angry. Maybe I should have come sooner."

Stede stares up at him, unsure why he looks like he wants to cry. "It isn't new. I don't remember not wanting to die."

The incubus leans down, pressing his forehead to Stede's, and Stede can feel raindrops fall upon his face. "Okay," the incubus whispers, voice shaking, and all at once, he sounds younger; his voice lacks the age-rough distinction that Stede has come to know from his god.

"I know how," the incubus starts, hand reaching down towards his own breeches. "How to make you feel better." Stede realizes distantly that the wrinkles on his god's face are gone, and most of the scars of time have vanished.

The incubus loosens the laces, slipping his breeches down. He takes them all the way off, pulling his shoes with them, and he shifts his face towards Stede's crotch, warm breath tickling Stede's cock.

"You don't like this very much, do you?"

The incubus stops, tilting his head towards Stede. "Of course I." He frowns, shaking his head. "That doesn't matter." He looks back down, painting a stripe up Stede's cock, hand reaching up to lightly twist one of Stede's nipples. A warm, sick feeling ripples through Stede's body, and he pushes the incubus off him, backing up a few feet for good measure.

The two of them stare at each other in silence, until Stede asks,

"Did you ever want it?"

The incubus freezes, eyes going wide with fear, and Stede thinks he looks terribly like a young man, right then; a boy with all the bravery in the world. Thinks it until he sees it; a young god cowering before him, 19 years old and terrified.

Stede watches as Ned opens his mouth on a lie; watches as the truth comes spilling out instead. "I. I did. The first couple times. But it doesn't matter. Please. It doesn't matter. I want this with you. Even if it hurts. Even if it breaks me. I don't."

The boy wraps his arms around himself, unable to wrap his words around the truth. Stede sits up, slowly. "What is it... Ned?" That had been his name; the name for a brave young man with a crown of snow. His name had been Ned, long before his demons had found him.

The boy with a crown of snow looks at him, whispering, "He can't have taken this too. I won't let him."

For the first time,

Izzy watches Edward watching him all day, and thinks of the promises he couldn't make.

"You know I can't, Eddie."

"Why, Iz?" Edward pleaded, though he knew the answer. Knew that Izzy would run; would save himself if Edward were dead. But if there was even the slightest chance, Izzy would do anything; suffer anything to save him. The proof was painted on his body; written across his face.

He thinks of laying against the windowsill, pillow not entirely enough against the hardwood. Thinks of how Edward held his hand, as though if he held him tight enough, he could save Izzy from the world.

He remembers a truly repugnant yellow robe, lying on the chair, a reminder of how this all has an end date; how tomorrow, or the next day, or perhaps the next week (did he have that long?), they'll cross paths with Ned, and for better or worse they'll settle the score, once and for all. How Stede will return to his ship, and see Izzy returned to his rightful place—alone.

Izzy finds, for once, that he doesn't mind it.

Knows he'll be a pile of grief and rage when he does go, but he's too damn tired to fight anymore. If these are the last moments he's allowed with Edward, then let him steal these last hours for himself—he's one of the greatest pirates alive, after all.

He stands, not willing to let cooler heads prevail.

He goes to the guilt room, which has been emptied, and now serves as Edward's hiding place; a contemplation room where he thinks of his sins, and hates himself.

Edward thought of Izzy as simple, in his angriest moments, but he'd been learning his god—no, his love—for a lifetime.

Izzy strolls in, silent, leaning against the doorframe and watching Edward as he stares at the wall, seated uncomfortably on the floor.

"Always know, don't you," Edward says without looking, unmistakably fond. Edward is always fond lately, when he beats back the guilt for a day.

"Eddie," Izzy says, and he doesn't intend it to come out so vulnerable; so painted in wanting. Zero to sixty, without any in between—but if tonight is his only chance, he absolutely refuses to waste it.

Edward does turn to look at him, then; stares back at him, shocked—and reverent, too reverent. "Iz?" Edward asks, and it's both a question and a prayer. Izzy sees his wanting mirrored there; watches brown eyes go black with desire.

Edward stands, slowly, and when his hand reaches out, Izzy takes it, letting their fingers slide together like they were created to fit. Two parts of one whole; do not separate.

But they would be, soon enough, and it drives Izzy forward; gives him the courage to close the distance, pressing into Edward's lips with his own.

Stede awoke to darkness.

He looked around, but the void offered nothing; no bodies, no demons, no young men with gentle kisses and shy eyes; who asked if they were hurting him, and cared about the answer.

"Ned?" Stede called, the void answering with silence.

No.

Stede scrambled to his feet, but he realized without sight he couldn't tell where to go. He took tentative steps forward, hands reaching out for purchase into the black, but there was nothing.

His god had forsaken him; of course his god had forsaken him. He'd seen it in the abyss he had stared into, the morning after the storm.

He had touched a god, and no godhood could be maintained without punishing such mortal hubris.

It had been his god that had placed him here;

"I have to cut you out, before the rot spreads."

it had been his god that had filled him with want, and then hurt him for it;

"He can't have taken this too. I won't let him."

it had been his god that had shaped his love into a weapon;

"Some people are just broken, no matter what you do."

and yet his god had approached him as a mortal, desperate for the same thing Stede had wanted for a lifetime.

He's not a man, Bonnet, he's a monster.

Israel was right. Ned was not a man; he had spent a lifetime committing cruelty after cruelty and leaving a trail of broken people behind him.

But Stede had never been one to see things solely as they were. Even now, even after everything, he wasn't ready to believe that: the idea that change was impossible. The truth was, change was inevitable. It was forward momentum that kept you on a broken path, but eventually, something upsets the balance, and sends you careening into the unknown.

Ned was not a man. But he could be.

Stede could help him find his way.

"I'm not ready to believe that," Stede echoed into the void, refusing to condemn the demon king. He repeated it, and then repeated it again, a quiet mantra against the encroaching despair.

Stede reached up to golden locks, giving them a sharp tug.

Chapter Text

Dying light shines in, haloing the demon king from afar.

Stede stares up at him in disbelief, no longer willing to trust the input of his senses; if there was an existence outside of this tiny room, it had been a lie. There would only be a brief respite before his return here. He knows this to be true, even if he doesn't know why.

"Get up," his god commands, and Stede stares; no longer wonders why his god seeks to return to mortality, over and over again. Stede had despaired for the soul of the demon king—but now that he's eaten the cursed apple of understanding, he sees it in everything of his god. Every command, every punishment, every benediction.

His was a god of love, terrifying and magnificent.

Still, devoted as he is, he's still trapped in this timeless place, forever unable to reach him. Stede watches this new delusion of his god grow frustrated; watches him finally draw a knife.

The god moves it slow and threatening, but even as blade cuts through flesh and the signals reach his brain, they're still muddy; a dull, distant ache meant for those on a lower plane.

He feels hands on his shoulders, lifting him, shaking him; sees the fury of his god give way to fear, but even that feels distant.

There are words, at least. He can still understand those; a name that no longer belongs to him, and jumbled instructions.

"- you can see, come on. Stede. What do you see?"

What does he see?

He sees a crown of snow, drifting down over his god's forehead, framing panicked black... No, Ned's eyes are brown, aren't they? Stede noticed that, once; saw it, but wrote it off as an artifact of Ned's human form. But no; they're a deep brown, this close.

Stede leans in, Ned's pupils contracted in panic, and wants to study them. Laments never learning how to paint; wonders if he could bring Mary a gift, in exchange for her capturing their beauty.

"Your eyes are brown," Stede whispers. His throat feels raw and dry, and the words barely escape him. His god's pupils grow, just a little, and Stede remembers once being the favored of his god; being graced with the touch of divinity.

Stede can feel something; wetness along his own face in streaks, pouring like rain for his dead lover.

"I met you, you know," Stede whispers, still relearning how to wrap his mouth around the words. "As a boy. 19, maybe."

Stede watches the twitch under the demon king's eye; watches a hand come up, and brush the tears away. Watches his king wrap his mouth around the words, "Too long," and, "I was angry." Stede shakes his head.

"He knew how to love," Stede continues. "He was so afraid. But he loved me. I think he still does, somewhere. But you tried to throw that away, didn't you?"

The sting across his face is harsh, harsh enough that his head whips to the side.

He can suddenly feel where he's bleeding: a short gash across the meat of his arm, but shallow and far away from anything vulnerable. It hurts, and it hurts worse having been reminded of it; having been pulled back into his body.

His god is being cruel, and he turns to offer a prayer for less rudeness, thanks, when he sees his god's hand over his own mouth; sees brown eyes mirroring his own as they cast rain onto the floor beneath them.

Sees a boy in the seat of a god.

Looks around; sees the thin light of the hallway illuminating half the room, seeing bloodstains and spend and sick; seeing hard points and chains that are imperfect but get the job done; seeing the world around him, changed and different and real.

Feels the rumble of his stomach; feels the blood dripping down his arm; feels the beating in his chest.

Sees a boy in the seat of a god, but also sees his god, the god of the waking world, desperate for mortality, convinced it's out of reach.

Stede reaches out to Ned's shoulders, pulling him into his chest; rethinks it almost instantly as his blood and spend seep into the fine regalia, but Ned sobs—his god sobs—before wrenching them back together, burying his face in Stede's chest.

"You're wrong," Ned whispers, reaching for his own clothes.

Stede watches Ned's trembling hands stumble around closures; watches finery fall away to leave Ned as bare as himself. He watches Ned reach down to himself, shaking, and Stede reaches out, catching Ned's hands.

Ned looks up at him with tear-tinged eyes, spilling over anew, and Stede sees the despair of loss in his eyes. Ned stumbles around his words, saying, "No, you're wrong, you're wrong, I can do this—" but Stede can't unsee fear in dark eyes. He can't unhear silent please for mercy, left unspoken a dozen times as Ned hurt himself, over and over, in search of what he refused to surrender.

But Stede doesn't know that fear. Ned had given him many, but had spared him his own.

"Ned," Stede says, with all the tension of a storm; all the promised destruction. "I can do it instead. I want to."

Silence falls like a gunshot.

"You," Ned says, looking up at Stede. "No, I." Ned shakes his head. "I won't. I don't do that to. To anyone, never. I won't." He reaches for his godhood, tenuous as his grasp on it is. A smile goes to his lips, but it's painfully human—and entirely unconvincing. "I want it this way," Ned says, and doesn't even convince himself.

Ned sees understanding in Stede's eyes, and it might as well be damnation.

Ned opens his mouth to further protest, and Stede leans in, quieting Ned with a kiss. Ned makes an aborted sound of surprise, but before he can think to kiss back, Stede pulls back, looking at him seriously.

"Did you bring any more oil?"

Ned worries his lip with his teeth, but the question seems to give him direction; he reaches down to his discarded clothes, pulling out the vial. Stede takes it, pouring enough on his fingers to get started, and then carefully sets it down, reaching down to himself.

It dawns on Stede that he's never done this; never even tried before. With Ned's eyes upon him, he gently presses a finger in, the angle awkward on his wrist. He breathes out, and then looks up at Ned with a reassuring smile.

He swirls his finger around his hole, lifting his legs to get a better angle. From here, he can press in all the way; it's not perfect, but it'll be enough.

Stede leans back against the floor, and when he glances up Ned's pupils are blown, staring with devastated hunger. Heat curls through Stede's body, and as he slips a second finger in, his eyes go lidded, even as he struggles to drive all the way in.

He strains with the effort, when a hand gently lays on his arm, stilling him. Stede looks up, and dark brown eyes stare back at him. Terrified eyes, yes, but overwhelming that terror is an overflow of wanting; of hope.

"I... Let me?" Ned asks, voice high and shaky. Stede smiles back at him, nodding and withdrawing his fingers, using both hands to pull his legs back. Ned's mouth opens at the sight, bringing a blush to Stede's cheeks.

Ned takes some of the oil, and when he tries to put the cap back on, he nearly spills it, barely catching it in time. He slowly reaches down, letting hand trail from thigh to groin, eyes flickering rapidly between Stede's face and his entrance. Ned brings a single finger to Stede's hole, teasing at him gently.

"Are you..." Ned's voice breaks just a little, and all at once words come spilling from his mouth. "You have to tell me. Pl—please."

Ned's throat tries to clamp shut, but panic overrides it; of all the things in his life, he has to get this one thing right.

"If it hurts, if you don't. If you don't want it. If I'm hurting you. Please. You have to tell me, Stede. You have to promise. Promise me. Please. Oh god. I'm going to hurt you, oh god—"

"Ned. Ned," Stede says, starting to cut him off. "Ned," he finally says with enough sternness to break through, putting a hand on Ned's shoulder. Ned stares back at him, and Stede nods. "I promise. I'll tell you if I want anything to change, or if you're hurting me or anything. I promise."

A thousand protests come to Ned's mind unbidden, but he looks into Stede's eyes, and for whatever he sees there, he clamps his mouth shut on them all.

Stede lies back down, lifting his legs, and Ned gently, carefully eases his finger into Stede. Stede inhales sharply, willing himself to relax, and Ned pushes it in further, feeling around until the pad of his finger touches Stede's pearl. Stede's hand reaches up and grabs Ned's arm by the bicep, and he lets out a ragged moan.

Ned freezes, but Stede looks up at him and breathes out, "Feels good," a smile spreading across his face.

Just a little emboldened, Ned slowly starts to slip the finger in and out, brushing it against Stede's pearl as he does so. Stede's cock starts to fill out, and Ned's eyes watch it with what Stede thinks is wonder. Ned's eyes snap up to him, and as both their breaths go ragged, Ned gently slips in another finger, testing out a small stretch.

Slowly, Stede starts to moan, as Ned opens him up. "God," Stede whispers, and Ned's mouth curves upwards; he smirks down at Stede, asking, "You rang?" Stede's face rumples in a bemused frown, before a grin cracks across his face, the two laughing at a shared joke; a fiction.

Stede opens his mouth to retort, but when Ned pushes vigorously against Stede's pearl, all that comes out is another moan.

When Stede is easily taking a third finger, Ned slowly withdraws. He reaches down to his own cock, finding it hard; a once-again shaking hand reaches for the oil, but Stede's hand gets there first.

"May I?" Stede asks, gesturing towards Ned's cock. Ned slowly nods, and Stede pours the oil into his hand, gently wrapping it around Ned. Stede lets his hand slip over the head languidly, moving with the foreskin as he gives Ned slow strokes along the shaft. Stede squeezes where the head and the shaft meet, and Ned's body stutters; he leans his head against Stede's chest, whispering his name. His true name; not gift of a god to an angel of mercy, but the name of a man, destroyer and savior both.

Stede takes Ned's chin, tilting his head up, and they meet in a kiss. Gentle, at first—and then Stede leans in, voracious, hands wrapping around Ned's waist and pulling him flush with Stede's body. Ned moans, rutting against Stede, and his breath goes jagged as they slowly pull back, staring into each other's eyes.

"You're. You're sure?" Ned asks again; he stares into Stede as Stede stares into him, and Stede can see it—panic, starting to rise.

"Do you want this, Ned?" Stede asks; asks it with a voice deep and promising; asks it because has to know, and can't trust any of the answers he's been given. Ned looks down at where the two of them would join, and then up at Stede, nodding slowly, devastated by his own answer.

"I do, oh god, please, I'm sorry, I'm sorry—" Ned bites his lip, and tears run over on one side.

Stede reaches up, gently wiping the tears away. "I want this too, Ned," he says, certain. "I want you."

Ned slowly nods at Stede, and there it is again—trust. "Okay. Oh god, okay. Yeah. I really... Okay."

Ned takes a deep breath, whispering, "Oh, god," to himself, panic finally settling as his hands give Stede's thighs a gentle squeeze. He leans forward, slowly, gently, and enters, feeling Stede's hole clenched tightly around his cock.

Stede moans out, "Oh, Ned," and Ned distantly realizes how much he likes hearing Stede moan his name like that. Stede looks up at him, tears in his eyes, and Ned thinks he looks stunning; angelic.

"More, please, more," Stede whispers, and Ned slowly presses in, inch by inch, and before long his thighs press against Stede, completely surrounded by him.

Ned stares down at where he and Stede are joined, and realizes he's never done this, not once in his life. He looks down at Stede, and Stede must understand the panic that he sees there, because he reaches up to Ned, joining their hands.

Ned can't help but pause as his heart etches a new feeling into memory, and with Stede's hand in his own, he thinks he's found something. He's struck with the overwhelming desire to break down in tears, and for the life of him he can't understand why.

When Ned realizes he's been lost in thought, he finds Stede beaming at him, smile twitching into the edges of a smirk. Ned tilts his head in that curious way, and Stede teases, not unkindly, "Did I lose you in there?"

Ned's nose wrinkles as he glowers at Stede, just a little, the ponce actually grinning at his own banter. Ned leans forward, playfully licking up Stede's cheek. Stede sputters in offense—but when Ned starts to withdraw, Stede forgets his delicate sensibilities, breathing in quickly at the sensation of Ned moving within him.

Ned pushes back in, gentle and attentive. He aims for Stede's pearl, not quite getting the angle. Stede moans regardless—his head leans back against the floor with a thud, and his free hand grips the floor, Ned's hand still firmly clenched in the other.

Ned watches his lover bloom with pleasure, and something long dead within him blooms with it; he's played hundreds of symphonies, and yet they all pale in comparison to the way Stede's body reacts to his.

It's the rush of exhilaration when he lands the notes to a difficult piece; it's running through the streets with a stolen loaf of bread. It's a thousand small gestures (and a few grand ones), it's

love.

Stede's eyes are never far from his, and as he stares back at Ned, something dangerous flirts with them both; something beyond the desires of their bodies. Something that knows, yes; but worse yet, understands. Stede stares into Ned's eyes, and Ned feels exposed; flayed open for all the world to see.

For Stede to see, that being the extent of his world.

Ned leans just a little bit differently, and when he thrusts Stede gasps under him, shock fading into a strangled moan as Stede's cock twitches against air.

Ned blinks down at him, slowly pulling back out, and tries to do it again, drawing from Stede a sharp inhale.

"That... Oh fuck. That feels—"

Ned punctuates Stede's garbled sentence with another thrust, and Stede moans helplessly, grabbing onto Ned. "Oh please, oh please," Stede prays, and Ned doesn't need to be told twice, setting a fast rhythm, staring down at Stede and hitting that spot over and over again, watching as his lover comes undone. "Oh, god, yes," Stede cries, breathing sharp and fast, and when Ned reaches down to Stede's cock, Stede catches his hand, stuttering out, "I don't need—Please just keep—"

Stede can't even finish the sentence; Ned nods down at him, taking the hand away, bringing it to Stede's face instead.

Words come unbidden, but they come all the same, as Ned stares into Stede's eyes in confession. "I love you. I fucking love you, I'll always love you." Stede stares back into his eyes, hands scrabbling to Ned's chest, holding onto him tight.

"I love you," Stede says back, nearly a sob. "I love you so fucking much, Ned—Oh god—I think I—I don't know what's—Oh god—"

Ned thrusts against Stede's pearl with abandon, stealing a kiss from his lover, and as Ned opens him over and over, Stede's entire body starts to shake. Ned leans back, and when brown eyes lock together, it strikes them both that they're making love; that whatever it is they've been looking for, they've found it.

One of Ned's hands reaches out in hope, and Stede takes it, intertwining it with his own. When Ned's hips starts to stutter, mouth wrapping around Stede's name like a sacrament, Stede presses his head back against the floor, cock twitching violently as he and Ned fall into the abyss together. Stede tightens around Ned, and Ned gives of himself into his lover; his soulmate.

The two of them slowly come to a stop, Ned leaning over Stede, holding himself up with his arms and unsure what to do.

Stede looks up at him with a tearful smile, holding his arms out for an embrace. Ned leans down, wrapping his arms high around Stede's shoulders, and Stede wraps his own arms tight around Ned's waist, planting kisses over Ned's heart.

Slowly, gently, Ned pulls out, and he looks at Stede, panic rising within him anew.

"It was. Was it. Did I—?" All at once, Ned's throat starts to close up again, and he can't even bring himself to ask; to find the kind of damnation he'd never risked in the past.

Stede smiles up at him, says, "It was wonderful," and laughs, gentle and happy. "You were wonderful, Ned." Stede brings his hand to locks of snow, universe reorganizing itself around what he's found.

"I love you, Ned. I always will. I never thought I'd... I never thought I'd have this with someone. We..." Stede's mouth wobbles, and his eyes shine in the growing moonlight.

Ned leans down to a crown of gold, planting a layer of kisses on Stede's forehead. In the aftermath of their first time, Ned finds himself honest; forthcoming. "I'll always love you, Stede. Always. You're my soulmate; I'll die with your name on my lips."

Stede stares up at Ned, and for a moment, he believes he can save this man; he can dig through the rubble that has collapsed over Ned's soul, and rescue him before it's too late. He laughs his joy into the air, pulling Ned close.

Ned holds onto Stede like salvation, and thinks that this is perhaps the worst thing he's ever done.

He'd tormented Stede for weeks, broken his mind, changed him—none of that bothered Ned, even now; even staring down at a man who loved him honestly and would burn for it. But this? Of all the torments he's known in his life, knowing love and losing it was the greatest among them.

And now he's done that to Stede.

Because for all he had tried not to, he loves this man in his own way—and in his selfishness, has just shown it to him. When he should have damn well known better, for fuck's sake.

The shape of his love is harm. It's all he has to offer. Tonight was a beautiful reverie, but it was just that—an illusion.

There had been a time when he'd believed differently, but the last man he loved thoroughly disabused him of that delusion.

You've damaged him. You ruined me; you'll have ruined him by doing this.

You're right.

But I'm still glad I had this with him, just this once.

Ned lets out a shaking sigh, and lets himself lean into Stede's embrace. Stede presses a gentle kiss to his crown of snow, and a tear slips down Ned's face.

He can fix this tomorrow.

For one night, he wants to dream like mortals do.

Stede wakes up, the light flowing into the room from a door left open, and Ned lays next to him, awake.

He was wrong. He was wrong, and despite hurting Ned before, Ned could still love him; they could still reach each other, after all.

Stede reaches out, tracing his hands on the soft white hair on Ned's chest, and Ned whispers, "We can't do this again."

Stede blinks, and looks up at Ned, a pit opening up within him. Stede lifts himself on one arm, asking, "What?"

Ned tilts his head away, shutting Stede out. "Didn't like it. Don't want to do it again. That's it."

"That's... That's it?" Stede asks, and for the first time in months, he's angry. Truly, honest to god angry. "That's it. You didn't 'like' it. This wasn't. This wasn't just some fuck! I made love to you, I've never done that with anyone, and I." Stede considers him, carefully. "I'd venture a guess that you never have, either."

"You don't know what the fuck you're talking about," Ned says, and it's far colder than last night's whispered confessions in the dark.

"You can be cruel but don't lie to me, not about this," Stede spits out. "God, you're not even meaning to, are you? You're lying to yourself more than anything. You're scared, and you're running away."

He watches Ned sit up, nostrils flaring angrily, and Stede reaches out, taking his wrist.

"Ned. Stay. Please. Let's talk about this. You love me, and I love you. We can—"

"I can't!" Ned snaps. He's already reaching to his clothing, picking up the soiled vestments of a would-be god.

"Yes you can, you coward!" Stede yells back, and Ned's face turns towards him, sharp. "What the hell do you want, Ned? Do you want to be alone your whole life? Do you really want to keep drowning?"

Ned turns away, angry. "I'm not—Shut up, you have no fucking clue—" he spits, but it's present; Ned is still here, and Stede can save him, he has to save him. There's a line between their souls; Ned might have forced it on Stede, but it's there regardless, and Stede isn't going to let him hurt anymore.

"Some people are just broken, no matter what you do."

All this time, and Stede still can't believe that; won't believe that.

"Right, Ned. I don't know. Only you've shown me, Ned. You spent all these moments with me, crafting me into your masterpiece. Who am I, if not you? Who am I, if not the carrier of everything that you are? How could I not see you, Ned? How could I not see the thorn, and want to tear it free?"

Ned stands, starting to pull on his breeches, refusing to look at Stede. Stede reaches out, trying to pull his hands away, and Ned slaps him.

The two of them stare at each other, and Ned all at once sees it; sees the tenuously crafted happiness of the night shatter and fall from Stede's face. For the thousandth time, he sees what Lucius saw in him, as Stede stares back at him, heartbroken.

Ned's mouth wobbles, and he turns sharply away as Stede starts to cry to himself, quiet restrained sobs escaping from a covered mouth. For a few minutes, the only sound is the rustle of clothing against Stede's grief.

Ned stands up straight, his back towards Stede. He looks back at the love of his life, and the words, "I'm sorry," escape before he can stop them.

Stede's head whips up, and they stare at each other for a long moment before Ned leaves, the door to the cell remaining open.

Stede stares at the rubble of Ned's soul.

Stede refuses to believe it.

Stede resigns himself to removing the rubble, piece by piece, until the man he loves can return to him.

Stede watches from the dark, knowing what comes to those who dream.

Izzy stares up at the ceiling of the captain's cabin. Edward gently snoozes against his chest, hand wrapped around Izzy's neck, but the weight is a comfort, rather than a curse.

No; the curse is that he did this to himself in the fucking first place. Gave himself a glimpse of what their life could have been like, if things had been just a little bit different.

"You think so fuckin' loud," Edward groans next to him, head leaning up to look at Izzy with a smirk. Izzy shoots Edward a glare, planting his hand on Edward's face and shoving him over.

A spirited bout of grappling turns into a spirited bout of something else entirely, and halfway through Izzy distantly remembers straddling Stede up on deck, a lot like this—only with a lot more clothes on.

Izzy firmly shoves that thought out of mind, etching the feeling of Edward's hands on his hips into memory.

After, the two of them pull their clothes on too slowly, both sitting in bed with words unspoken.

Right. Might as well rip the bandaid off.

Izzy sips quietly at the water left by the bed, clearing his throat and saying, "I'll have my things out before the raid."

Edward blinks, looking up from his shirt, looking back at Izzy as his stomach drops. "What... No, Iz, you don't have to do that." He turns, staring at Izzy like he's lost his mind. Izzy laughs, but there isn't much joy in it.

"I do, Edward. What am I supposed to do, shack up with you and Bonnet?" When Edward opens his mouth, Izzy puts a hand up and lets out a sharp, "No, Edward. No."

Izzy lets out a sigh. "This was. Nice. Better than, if I'm being fuckin' honest. It's going to hurt like fuckin' hell, but I think. I think I wanted to have this. At least once."

Izzy realizes he'd taken Edward's hand, as he said it. He gently lets go. "But when we get our ponce back, he's going to want familiarity. He's going to want his room, his things. He's going to want his man back, and he's not going to want to share."

"We'll talk to him," Edward responds, quick as a lick. "We'll ask him. He had the hots for you before, right? I'll talk to him. I don't—He'll understand, I know he will."

"Right after he gets back from fuckin' torture camp, Edward?"

Edward inhales sharply, and Izzy sort of regrets the way he phrased it. But Edward needs a clear picture of reality; a way to snap him out of his daydream.

The two of them sit in silence, and Izzy waits for it; waits for Edward to do the math, and understand that it's Izzy or Stede. Izzy already knows Edward's choice; Edward made it the moment he saw Stede.

The fact that Edward's stalling just pisses him off more, but Izzy braces himself for the rejection regardless. If this is the last piece of his time with Edward, he wants to do right by it all—even the bitter end.

"You're right," Edward starts, and Izzy braces for the tears he already knows will come. He hates showing this side of himself to anyone—but despite everything else he'd done, Edward had never spilled Izzy's secrets.

"Stede is gonna need fuckin' space, and help, and all sorts of shit when he gets back, mate," Edward started in. "So yeah, I guess you're fuckin' right; we don't know what he'll want, and just saying..." Edward grimaces. "Just saying you can stay when it's not even my... I can't do that to Stede, either."

Izzy nods. It's settled, then; he moves to stand, but Edward catches him by the shoulder, keeping him seated. "So what I'm saying is, we should ask him when he gets back. We shouldn't just make the decision for him; he's gonna need to feel like he has control over what fuckin'... what h—."

Izzy watches the moment the thought derails; watches the moment Edward's box opens unbidden, and imagined torments flood behind his eyes. Izzy's response—his perfectly fuckin' 'articulate' response, thank you very much—flies out the window, as he watches Edward, reaching a hand out.

Edward takes it, and Izzy watches him slam the box shut, gripping Izzy's hand tight.

Edward's voice is quiet, when he says, "We can't keep making decisions for each other. I sure as hell have no room to say fuckin' anything, but we've both done this shit. We have to fuckin' talk it through."

"As—" Izzy starts, voice lit with the cadence of mirth until his throat slams shut entirely. "As—" he tries again, and Edward watches the rise and fall of Izzy's chest; feels Izzy wrench his hand away, setting it on his leg defensively.

"Iz?" Edward says quietly, hoping this is just a bad memory, but when Izzy stands, stumbling out of bed, Edward stands too, hands out just enough to be ready. Edward huffs out quietly; he fuckin' did this. Izzy paces, trying to get ahold of himself, and not knowing what else to say, Edward says, "I'm sorry, Izzy."

For what it's worth, Izzy stops; he turns towards Edward, staring at him.

"You're sorry," Izzy says flatly.

"I am."

Izzy stares at him, and Edward watches Izzy's panic vanish; judging by the language of his mate, Edward has just pissed him off so badly that all the panic buttons can't get a signal through; can't signal a shutdown any longer.

"You're fucking sorry," Izzy scoffs. "You keep saying that. That's your new fuckin' thing; you apologize to people, you've turned over a new fuckin' leaf, thirty fucking years late!"

Izzy stomps around the cabin angrily, and Edward watches him. Edward sees the hurt for what it is—but he refuses to let the shame derail him any longer. "I can't keep fuckin' living this way, Iz. Am I supposed to stay miserable all my life? Or keep making everyone around me miserable?"

"Of course not," Izzy snaps. "But that never fuckin' mattered to you before."

As soon as the words are out of Izzy's mouth, he sees them land—but even as Edward's head tilts towards the ground, Izzy can't find it in himself to regret them.

Silence falls over the cabin, and Izzy stares at Edward; he's known the man for a lifetime but he doesn't recognize the look on his face.

In a certain light, it looks so painfully like guilt; that, and a strange, unrelenting determination.

Izzy scoffs. In for a penny, in for a pound, he supposes.

"Why now, Edward? What the fuck should make me believe this time is gonna be any fuckin' different?" Izzy stares back at Edward, and as soon as the first words are out, it's like a gasket blown; a lifetime of hurt pours itself from Izzy's lips, painting the cabin bleak. "I spent a lifetime hoping you would actually get better. That you would stop fucking hurting me. I used to think about us growing old together; never imagined I'd actually make it. I was convinced you'd kill me by mistake; mean to hurt me, and send me to an early grave instead."

Izzy laughs, and it's thin; fragile. "The thing I fuckin' worried about most was how you'd get on without me covering for you. I was so... fucking gone on you. I loved you, loved you for my entire fuckin' life—"

Izzy reaches up to his hair, but he doesn't let himself pull; lets the hand drop without the grounding hurt.

"I thought you were going to kill me, and I still didn't fucking leave. Because I thought. I thought I could be... When you marked me. When I killed Hornigold after everything he'd done, and you made me first mate. I thought: someday, it'll be enough. But it never was, and I woke up one day and realized we were getting old; maybe too old for this shit. We had grown old, and you hadn't killed me, yeah. But nothing I did ever changed anything. Because I was never—I was never fucking—"

"You were."

Izzy looks up at Edward, who finishes, "Enough, I mean."

Izzy stares at him, and Edward lets out a deep breath. "You were never the problem, Iz. It was me; I was too wrapped up in my own shit and if I just. God, if I just. If I never let myself love you, I couldn't be like my... I couldn't be—I couldn't."

Izzy meets his eyes and takes a small mercy on him, not making him say what they both know.

Distantly, Izzy wonders if Edward still hears plates, shattered against a wall. Edward stares down at the floor from across the room, shame pulling his gaze downward, and the silence beats on like a knife.

Edward whispers, "Hornigold had warned you. During the mutiny. Said that I'd kill you if you didn't get away."

"He did," Izzy admits.

"And you stayed," Edward added.

"Yeah, and I fuckin' stayed."

Another beat passes; Izzy stares at Edward with a lifetime of experience contradicting the sight before him. He lets out a frustrated sigh, and spits, "Go on, then. Explain it to me. Tell me what the fuck changed."

Edward does something funny at that; he grimaces. It's out of place; it's not angry or sad or guilty, or even the brand of charming he puts on when he needs Izzy to fall into line without a fight. Izzy almost wanted to call it embarrassment; some curious, itching part of him wants to know whatever for.

Finally, after what looks like a significant psyching up on Edward's part, he mumbles, "Buttons." Mumbles it so aggressively that Izzy has him say it again, not having caught it the first time.

"Buttons," Izzy finally repeats.

"Yeah, he. He turned into a bird."

Izzy blinks at Edward; blinks like he'd just walked up with a treasure map and asked Izzy to help him find it.

"No the fuck he did not."

"Fuckass, yes he did! I saw it!"

And Izzy is taken aback, because yeah, he didn't believe in magic, but he didn't not believe in it, either.

"You're telling me that the moonbathing bird twat turned into an actual fucking bird." It isn’t a question, but Edward seems exceptionally convinced, and it isn’t not a question, either.

"Yes," Edward says, exasperated. "I saw it."

Izzy stares at Edward; stares, and his eyes widen when he realizes Edward actually believes it. "Edward—the fuck do you mean—how??"

"I mean he went around a fucking tree while chanting about nonsense. He had me fuckin' hold some burning papers and there was a fuckin' bowl, a people sized bowl—anyways he fuckin' said some magic shit, and I got fuckin' annoyed cuz who the fuck... He disappeared into the fuckin' trees, and I went after him and was going to yell at him for fucking around, and. Bird. On the fuckin' ground. With a bird sized bowl."

Izzy stares, and he doesn't want to believe it. It's the principle of the damn thing; he kept his head on straight, no matter how weird or wrong shit got. It counterbalanced the rest of the crew.

He abjectly refuses to think of a man, days long dead, returning to life. But then, Izzy had checked himself; had sobbed over Edward's body, and kept it aboard, against all reason and sense.

"I don't really get it," Izzy finally admits, quiet and far away until he zeroes back in on Edward. "So Buttons turned into a bird. The fuck does that have to do with it?"

Edward stares at Izzy; Izzy watches him consider a precipice in the way that Edward does; watches Edward steel himself, and plunge.

"It's... He was crazy, you know? Called the sea his love; wanted to be with her like she was a fuckin' person." Edward shrugged his shoulders. "Anyways, he sneaks up on me that night, before all the weird shit, and loudly announces that there's limits, being a human dude and wanting to love the sea. I tried to tell him off, and then he just—stares at me and says..."

Edward takes in a calming breath, and his voice is just a little quieter, a little reverent, as he says, "To love the sea as she must be loved requires change."

Edward looks at Izzy,

and Izzy sees the red sky at morning; sees Edward stare at him with a kaleidoscope of meanings they've shared a thousand times, but not quite like this; never like this.

"And then," Edward abruptly continues. "And then he walked behind a tree, and against all fucking sense and sanity, he turned into a fucking bird. He had to change to... to do right by her, Izzy, and he fucking well did it."

Edward rubbed a hand into his face. "God." He looked up at the ceiling, as if remembering the trajectory of a bird taking flight. "I think about him all the time, Iz. I had been. I had been saying all this stupid shit about how people don't change, and then I watched him fly away on the wings he had gotten for himself.

"He turned into a fuckin' bird for her, Iz. And if Buttons could find a way to turn into a bird, I can. I can—"

Edward finally pulls his eyes away from the memory, and he looks at Izzy; looks at him with all the gravity of a storm. Sees him, and the things he's needed and the things he'd lost; the things Edward had taken from him and the things he'd given up without ever being asked. The things he'd wanted: for himself and for Edward; for the both of them.

"You," Edward starts, and he takes that first damning step forward, as if the wire connecting their souls has pulled itself taut, drawing him inexorably towards Izzy.

"You deserve better than me, Iz. But fuck, I'm... I'm still a selfish fuck, Izzy. And I want the chance to fix what I've done."

Feet cross over wood, and Edward is standing close; too close.

"I want to be better for you, Izzy. I want you to be happy; I want you to get the things that you want."

The distance between them is gone; warm hands reach cloth-covered shoulders, and Izzy can feel the heat where their bodies touch. Edward Teach breathes in, and he finds his courage, brown eyes staring into hazel with reverence.

"I want to love you the way you deserve to be loved, Iz."

Izzy stares up at Edward, and for once, Edward looks down at Izzy and has no idea what he's thinking.

"I want to believe you," Izzy finally says, unable to tear his eyes away. "I do. I—"

"Don't."

Izzy is drawn aback by the interruption, but Edward's hands hold firm onto his shoulders, not letting him go.

"Don't fuckin' believe me. Watch me. I want to do fuckin right by you—I feel so—So—"

Edward's mind catches up with him, and his throat finally wins the battle; he struggles to get the words out, his fears doing battle with his determination. It's too much, too soon. But he reaches one hand down, laying it gently over Izzy's heart, and there's one thing carved into his existence; one word written deeper into his soul than his mother tongue.

"Izzy. Iz."

Izzy stares up at him, and scoffs;

after all, what choice does he have but to believe?

He's followed Edward their entire lives; watched Edward defeat the English and the Spanish; watched the two of them birth a legend together and forge a path that defied their 'place'. He was a force of nature; what Edward willed became reality, regardless of the laws of gods or men.

So if Edward willed himself to change, what the fuck can Izzy do but watch him do it?

They're already close; so close, and yet Izzy can't stop himself from crossing that final step. He leans into Edward's chest, and struck with the sudden realization that he can have this, that he's not alone anymore, his hands move of their own volition, wrapping around, holding onto the Edward like a lifeline. He whispers, "Eddie... Oh god, Eddie," and trembles with hope.

Edward thinks of how easy it would have been, a few months ago. Even the most indestructible had their breaking points, and Izzy had reached his; had found the limits of his resolve after a lifetime of hurts and rejection and carrying it all on his shoulders.

Edward gently wraps his arms around Izzy, holding him like a fragile thing; it occurs to him that he doesn't know the steps—yet. For an insane moment, he thinks of calling Roach—but then, the thorns he wants to pull free aren't material; he can't simply open Izzy up and find them.

No; he has to do this the hard way. He has to get it right, and keep on getting it right. He has to lay a foundation that is stable enough for Izzy to walk on; sturdy enough for them to reach each other once more.

"What do you need, Iz?" Edward whispers into Izzy's hair; does his best to pull away all his own desire. He's only human, but he thinks he manages it well enough. He has a lifetime of hurts to make up for, and he intends to make the most of every chance he's given.

"I don't know, Eddie," Izzy mutters back, muffled against his chest.

In a flash of insight, Edward remembers Izzy being keen on music. "Did you... Well. Did you want to hear me play?" When Izzy looks up at him, Edward feels himself suddenly grow nervous, and his voice falls into a mumble. "The harpsichord, I mean. You know. I could. I learned all that time ago. I could play, and you could listen, or maybe if you wanted, you could sing along."

Izzy stares at him, and his eyes have changed; grown suspicious. Izzy's analyzing him, and Edward feels exposed underneath his gaze.

"Edward Teach," Izzy whispers, and he sounds shocked, and furious, and just a little bit reverent. "What I—Did you fucking learn to play the harpsichord because of what I said?"

Edward could have grumbled. He could have pulled away, and created distance; not let Izzy see. But he found himself wanting to let Izzy see; let Izzy finally know the shape of his affection, and pray Izzy wouldn't be hurt for the knowledge.

He met Izzy's stare, saying, "Yeah, Iz. Took to it like I was drowning. But then we never..." Edward's eyes flickered away, but he pulled them back. "I'd have liked to have played for you sooner than this. But I fucked that all right up well on my own."

Izzy stares up at him,

and then reaches up, slow,

putting his hand on Edward's face.

Edward doesn't push him away. Not now, of course; neither of them know it yet, but not ever again, either.

Edward lets the touch exist between them, and when Izzy's thumb traces under his eyes, it comes away wet.

Izzy brushes his tears away, gently, and is startled when Edward's hand lifts to his own face; when Edward does the same for him.

The two of them wrap around each other, sinking into each other like they were made for it.

Izzy, always the shorter, leans his face into Edward's chest, and Edward leans down, pressing his lips to the crown of Izzy's head in a gentle kiss.

"Alright, Eddie," Izzy mumbles into Edward's chest, arms wrapped around his waist like he might disappear. Edward hummed, and Izzy let out a little fond huff.

"Play for me."

The sun sets as two halves of the same whole play together, Izzy's high voice rising out onto the sea as Edward coaxes out a sentimental tune.

Jim still thinks of killing Edward, one day. Lucius still waits for the day when he'll return to the man he fled a decade ago.

But under the soft sounds of the melody, the crew of the Revenge glance around with nervous energy—and just a little bit of hope.

Stede sat in the cell for a few minutes, his thoughts dominated by every puzzle piece sitting before him; every spare comment and moment of vulnerability.

There was a man within his god, and Stede would cut him free.

Stede's reverie was interrupted by a few crewmates walking through the door, carrying a washbasin and rags. Stede barely had time to realize what's happening before gray water was poured over his head, and he lifted his arms in shock. "What—" He sputters, as hands were upon him, rags with soap attacking his sun-kissed skin roughly. "Stop! Get off—" Stede shoved at them, and they all took a good few steps backwards, none having forgotten Stede's cruelty before the raid.

"Just what do you think you're doing?" Stede asked, as the crewmates glanced at each other.

Perez stood a few feet back, watching. "We were ordered to wash you, so that's what we're doing." He threw a rag at Stede, who caught it with a glare. "Do us a favor and wash your own cock. I'm not getting my hands cut off today, no matter what captain said."

Stede blinked. "And what did he say?" he asked, even as he did what he was bid, but Perez ignored him. The others approached him again, and despite the bile in the back of Stede's throat, he let them.

Eventually, Perez snapped his fingers, deciding Stede was clean enough. Two of the crew hoisted him up by his arms, marching him out of the cell. As Stede passed over the threshold, his feet buckled, but the crew hardly seemed to notice, dragging him along until he could get back on his feet.

Stede was brought to the door of the captain's cabin, and as Perez opened it, Stede looked in to see Ned, naked as the day he was born, spattered with blood and sitting like a king upon a throne. Stede was dragged into the room, tossed to the floor before Ned like a prisoner.

But he's never been a prisoner here; he's Ned's soulmate.

The crew members filed out of the room, shutting the door behind them, and Ned stared down at him with black eyes that Stede hardly remembered—at first. But a slow creeping dread trickled its way up Stede's spine as recognition sparked: He was back in the presence of the demon king, and the demon king alone.

Stede stared up at soulless eyes, not a trace of humanity left.

No. Stede won't accept that.

"You have forgotten yourself," Ned said, dreadfully cold. "That's my doing as much as yours. But don't worry, my love. We'll right the ship."

Ned raised a hand, palm tilting towards the ceiling as a finger curved; beckoned Stede closer. As if pulled by a rope, Stede stood, approaching until Ned spreads his legs and Stede nestled between them.

Ned reached out with that same hand, slickening Stede's cock with oil. Stede could feel as blood rushed downward, and his gut roiled with disgust and concern. "Ned, are you sure-"

Ned pressed a finger to Stede's lips, and whispered, "Did I ask you to speak, darling?"

Stede shook his head, trying to ignore as terror crawled up his spine.

Ned loved him. Ned loved him, and Stede could teach him how to show that love. Stede held onto that like flotsam, even as fear threatened to pull him under.

Ned drew him in; Stede felt the slide of his cock as it pressed inward, and he did his best to angle true. His god rumbled with the pleasure of his mortal shell, and Stede hoped he had done well.

"Good," the demon king rumbled, and frisson rolls like a shock up Stede's spine.

Ned pulled him flush, holding him there, reaching back and finding Stede's entrance with a practiced hand. Stede let out a small, startled gasp as Ned's finger breeched his entrance, but Ned gently shushed him. "Relax," he commanded, and Stede did his best to oblige.

One finger became two; became three, before Ned was withdrawing his fingers, reaching to the table next to him. Stede realized there was an implement he'd never seen before—a hollow perforated ball with a handle, made entirely out of silver.

Ned picked it up, gently pressing the ball to Stede's entrance, and when it slipped inside, Stede moaned into Ned's shoulder, cock twitching within him. "Ned—what—" Stede dared to ask, and his god seemed merciful, this time.

The demon king ran his fingers into Stede's hair, whispering, "I'm going to take care of you." He looked into Stede's eyes, and at the first flicker of fear, Ned leaned his head back, eyes shutting as he breathed in the familiar feeling.

Stede heard and felt the click of something opening on the device as it shifted within him; saw Ned reach for a bottle on the table next to him. Stede watched it open, and could vaguely smell the scent of mint.

"Ned...? What are you going to do?" Stede asked, using his name—hoping that name could draw out the man that loved him, rather than the god that wanted to consume him.

"I told you, Stede," the god whispered against him. "Hold still, now," he commanded, as Stede felt glass tap against metal.

Stede felt the first drops of liquid escape their metal cage just as Ned placed the bottle back on the table, and Stede let out a strangled cry as he was blessed by fire.

His walls were burning; Stede thrashed, but Ned's arms wrapped around his waist, holding him tight as he screamed, cursed oil bleeding into him. He completely lost all sense, trying to reach back to take it out himself, but Ned grasped his hands, pulling them away. "Take it out, TAKE IT OUT—" Stede cried, pushing away hard enough to stumble out of Ned's grasp, but Ned was on him in an instant, throwing him to the ground and climbing onto his back, blocking Stede's access to the device with his body.

"Calm down," Ned said, wrenching the drawer open and pulling out a length of rope. Stede tried to keep his hands away, but Ned had the advantage, twisting one of Stede's arms threateningly. Stede barely kept himself from dislocating his own shoulder, as Ned threw the rope around the wrist once, twice, and started to tie the knot.

"No—Ned, NO—" Stede screamed, but as he tried to wrench his hand away the knot was done; with only one hand left to fight, Ned made quick work of the other. Stede writhed and screamed underneath him as his arms were secured, and Ned shuddered;

what need did he have for love?

There was never a time when he was closer to Stede than in these moments; Stede might love him, but only now did Stede see him as he was, rather than how he might be.

Ned reached back, bringing Stede's ankles towards his tied wrists, and before long Stede was helpless, sobbing against the floor. Ned reached down to his own cock, giving it a sharp squeeze at the sight.

Ned stood. He leaned down carefully, lifting Stede from the floor and carrying him to the bed, careful not to jostle the aspergillum within him. Ned left it there to fully drain, turning Stede onto his side and leaning down to breathe over his cock. Ned mouthed over Stede, thinking a silent prayer to the demon Edward Teach for delivering this angel to him. Stede had been screaming, and yet Ned's mouth wrapped around a cock that was still half hard, swallowing Stede down, his own cock twitching violently against the bed.

"Please—Stop, please." Stede begged beside him, twitching with the stimulation on his cock and letting out pained gasps as the aspergillum moved within him, leaking more of the oil. "I don't—It hurts, Ned, please, I promised, it hurts!"

Ned stopped, letting Stede's cock slip from his mouth, and their eyes met. Stede's eyes were red with tears, and something weak and frail and vulnerable within Ned wanted to stop; wanted to give in.

But Ned had learned better; knew he wasn't capable of love. Not really. He shut that gentle part of himself away; this was for Stede's own good.

"The rot will spread," Ned whispered, as damning an admission as any, and Stede's eyes widened.

"Oh, Ned. Please, Ned. Please. There's no rot. Please, I wanted it, oh god," Stede desperately tried to stay stock still, even as Ned swallowed him down again; Stede thought of gentle fingers opening him up and his hole fluttered in spite of himself. But he bore down; he gritted his teeth, trying to speak through the pain. "It didn't hurt. You didn't hurt me. You're not. You're not rot, Ned. You're not—please—you don't have to do this, please!"

Ned lifted from Stede's cock with a pop; he closed his mouth, then opened it, closing it again.

"I don't want to change, Stede," Ned finally whispered, as if saying a thing could make it true.

He reached down, turning the aspergillum within Stede as he swallowed him down, and as Stede screamed in agony, Ned shuddered, staining the bed with his spend.

He let Stede's cock slip from his mouth, laughing as he reached for more oil.

Stede was certain his heart would break free of his chest. A few drops of the cursed oil and a simmering flame returned to a blazing inferno, and the bottle was still nearly full.

Stede had always been good at math; if the demon king willed it, Stede would spend a lifetime burning for his sins. A lifetime tied down, unable to move, feeling nothing but the agony of the fire and the bliss of his god for eternity. Perhaps with time, the god would take his arms and legs altogether; would blind him and deafen him, leaving him with nothing but endless condemnation.

This was a reassertion of godhood; Stede had thought to change the shape of a god, and his arrogance had earned him divine retribution.

Stede could feel his god above him; he'd been rearranged, tied to the bed on his back with the handle of the aspergillum jutting out below him. The demon king had chosen to forego anything so mortal as preparation, and Stede could feel the blood of his god upon him once more.

"You belong to me," the god commanded, and Stede knew it to be true.

The demon king could feel the angel's spend slipping down his thighs, and as he did, he reached for the cleansing oil once more. He opened the lid on the aspergillum, still pressed within his angel.

"Please. No more, please," the angel prayed. "It's enough. Whatever it is, whatever I've done, it's enough."

The demon king shook his head. "I'll tell you when you've had enough."

The demon king poured more of the cleansing fire into his angel, and the angel's screams began anew.

Somewhere far away in his mind, Stede cursed himself for his hubris.

Stede looked upon the demon king and regretted forgetting himself; regretted forgetting the godhood of the man he wanted to save.

Stede's body sung in agony like nothing he'd ever felt, and yet somehow he still preferred it to the nothing of oblivion.

The angel had fallen silent.

Ned slowly pulled the aspergillum free, watching as the cleansing oil leaked from his angel, who lay there purified and quiet as the grave.

Ned undid the binds, the angel motionless on the bed as Ned untied him.

"Kneel," the demon king commanded, and the angel's eyes flickered to him; Ned watched as he crawled out of the bed, knees going to the floor. The angel bowed his head in deference, hands clasped before him in prayer.

"Please," the angel begged, not daring to look up from the floor.

A hand, gentle, reached for his chin, tilting his face upwards. He looked upon Ned, smiling down with love, and saw an angel of mercy; a god granting him absolution for his sins.

Ned waved towards a far table, and a golden ensemble sat there, swords laid atop. Ned placed his hand on the angel's crown, commanding, "Go prove your devotion to me. Kill in my name, and return to me covered in the blood of our enemies."

Stede bowed his head once more, thanking his god for the privilege.

The number of raids had jumped in Stede's absence, but when his feet landed upon the enemy deck, he longed to prove himself; to make up for lost time serving his god.

They raided in rapid succession, sometimes twice in one day; each time, Stede returned to his god bathed in blood, and his god added to it, blessing Stede with the tears of the demon king.

Stede brought himself to the cabin after one such raid, a handprint of blood painting his face and cock already threatening the seams of his trousers.

It had been a routine raid; board the vessel, murder half the people on board, steal the loot, murder the rest.

Then the letter of marque had been found.

Stede had thrown it at Ned's feet, head bowed in respect. He had done good. Though the symphony did little to soothe the fire in his soul, it did well to remind him he wasn't alone.

And here he was, standing before the desk, reading over the ledger of the ship they were ransacking, every man put to the sword.

"Hey, there was something funny that came over the waves. Do you remember Blackbeard?"

Stede's eyes froze on the page. He looked up, and he was unsure what Ned wanted from him. After a moment, he slowly nodded, a mechanical up and down that felt against his will.

"I thought you might; him and his first mate, Izzy Hands. I heard a funny story about them, the other day. Did you realize that before Blackbeard shot him in the leg, he took his toes, one by one by one?"

Stede had heard from Jim at one point. Had heard angrily, viciously, over drinks, long after Edward had apologized for it all, stumblingly, poorly. Had let it flow into one ear and out the other—that wasn't his Edward, he had thought. That was some other man; a demon who had worn the skin of his lover, but had been exorcised. Exorcised by allowing it to remain; giving it a warm bed and ready access to a dozen victims and multiple men devoted enough to ensure the demon's survival.

Apparently a half-baked apology hadn't been enough. Who could have guessed?

Not Stede. He was too busy in the honeymoon phase.

He realized Ned was waiting from the impatient look on his god's face. "I had heard about that, yes."

"Did you know some people think Izzy did it himself?" Ned's eyes raked over him, then. "Took the shears and gave it to Blackbeard as an offering."

It was then Stede saw the shears on the desk.

"Ned—Captain—Have I done something wrong?"

Ned smiled back at him. "Not a thing, darling. You have been perfect. Loyal. Devoted, even. Willing to give all of yourself to me."

Finally, Stede understood. Let no one call him completely dumb; he could not be outdone by anyone in his loyalty to his captain. He stepped forward, kneeling on the floor to remove his left boot.

After metal cut through bone, Stede raised a trembling hand, head bowed in offering.

Ned looked upon him and smiled, satisfied. He reached into the desk, withdrawing a tiny scrap bag of sailcloth with a small lead weight. "When you leave, have this piece of you committed to the sea. But first—come here." He handed Stede the bag, and after Stede pocketed the offering, he had Stede kneel before him, between his legs.

Stede leaned forward, unsure what else was being asked of him, but Ned pulled him into his chest, embracing him, placing a gentle kiss on the crown of Stede's head.

Stede leaned into the warmth, hands gently gripping onto Ned's legs.

"Look at me, Stede," Ned whispered, and Stede did as he was bid. Ned ran a hand through Stede's hair just the way he liked, stating, "You are perfect."

Stede looked up at him with the eyes of a true believer as Ned leaned down, pressing a kiss to his forehead—a blessing from the dark god. "Morning and night, we'll set aside time until the offering has completely healed. I won't see you crippled just yet."

"Yes, Ned," Stede whispered into Ned's chest, still trembling.

"Now. Lie on the bed so I can take a look at you."

Ned brought him off, grip sharp and painful, fingers pressing into the raw nub where Stede's toe had been. Stede thought, blindly, that there was a time when release wasn't agony, but he couldn't quite be sure.

Chapter Text

The crew of the Revenge was fast at work, making their final preparations for the raid.

"Heeeeeey, not like that, babe," Frenchie said as Edward struggled with the fabric. "It'll be a lot harder to patch after." Frenchie showed him the grain of the sail, the flax slipping less under Frenchie's practiced fingers.

It was all hands on deck, as the Revenge was made to look much like it did several months ago; storm-tossed and helpless. Edward couldn't help but keep glancing at the crew from back then; wondering how good of an idea it was for them to help.

Jim caught his eye for the third time, and stomped over. "¿Que tu quieres, pendejo?" They crossed deep into Edward's personal space, and from this close, Edward could see the tiny pinprick pupils in their dark eyes, meshing well with the crease to their forehead in a painting of anger.

"Sorry," Edward mumbled out, and that only seemed to antagonize Jim further. "Just thought. I dunno, should y'all be doing this? But, well, we need the help. But I dunno mate, after the whole crazy uh. Crazy asshole driving you through a storm. I dunno. Seems too soon."

Jim glowered at Edward. "Yeah, it's too fucking soon, asshole. Of course it's too fucking soon." They roll their eyes and turn away with a huff. They shot an accusatory look at Izzy, who grimaced and shrugged as Jim shook their head, cursing under their breath.

Izzy trudged over, a bead of sweat trailing down the side of his face. He'd been painting; his letters were some of the clearest, and what could Edward say—they've always had a flair for the dramatic, especially when working together. "Maybe, uh. Maybe don't—"

"Yeah, I got it," Edward shot back, hands up in capitulation. "How's it all looking, captain?"

By the flush on Izzy's face, Edward knew how distracting it was, but he suddenly couldn't help himself; when there was a chance to put that look on Izzy's face, Edward was going to take it.

"F-fine," Izzy stammered out, suddenly flustered. "You don't have to call me that," he whisper-shouted, glaring a little bit.

"But captain, what else will I call you, captain?"

Izzy planted his hand on Edward's face, pushing lightly before walking away with a grumble.

Edward finally caught wind of a storm brewing east of Delaware, and watched as the final pieces of the puzzle fell into place.

The day before the fuckery, Edward leaned against Izzy; pressed their shoulders together and reveled in the contact. They stayed there for a few minutes, Izzy's arm eventually slipping around Edward's waist, before Edward sighed. He leaned over, bumping his forehead against Izzy's gently, before slowly turning away.

"Boss?" Izzy said, and Ed spun on his heels, facing Izzy again, a confused look on his face. Boss...? Edward watched Izzy stare out at the sky, his mouth warbling just a little bit as he asked, "The clouds. Do they look like frankfurters to you?"

Edward glanced out at the sky, before his head whipped back towards Izzy, watching as the corners of Izzy's mouth curved upwards.

Lucius stared out at the sunset, watching as the fog settled over the sea.

He wandered down below deck, to where he and Pete had first made fumbling attempts. Their love had grown from that first meeting, and shifted something within him.

Edward had offered a dinghy for the three of them that morning; him, Pete and Fang. But Fang had looked at Lucius with pleading eyes, and in spite of a lifetime of running, he hadn't had the heart to force Fang to choose. Not when Fang had courage where Lucius had cowardice; Lucius had looked at the man, and had been unable to choose himself.

He threaded a hand into his pocket; felt the knife there. It was sharp, and when Lucius had rejected the dinghy, Edward had waited for Pete and Fang to file out, and then handed it to him in silence. "Just don't... Don't get hasty about it, mate. Battles can fuckin' turn on the dime."

Lucius had asked him why; still hated him, but couldn't resist the asking. "Jack was never the same," Edward had said, and that explained enough.

If the rest of the crew could pull it off, Lucius would talk down the demon king. But he wouldn't risk becoming another masterpiece. If the Revenge failed, Ned would never find him in time. Lucius wondered what face he would see, if Ned found him before his life had run dry.

Lucius traced the edge of the knife with his thumb; felt it cut, and draw blood.

The storm had sent the Fancy veering westward, closer to port than he liked, and as the ocean cooled, a thick fog began to settle around them.

Stede had grown restless with the encroaching fog, and the two of them stared out into the endless abyss; Stede had taken hold of Ned's coat, not letting go for anything.

"What's gotten into you?" Ned asked him, as Stede leaned into him, shivering.

"We could crack up on the rocks. Or another ship could hit us." Stede's eyes flickered up to the crow's nest, as if expecting to see something there.

"That won't happen," Ned said. "We were too far from shore before the fog set in. Even if we pivoted directly towards land, we wouldn't get there before sunrise—and the odds of a ship hitting us are next to nothing, even in waters as populated as this."

Stede hummed to himself, seeming unconvinced.

Something had shifted; been knocked loose in Stede's psyche, since his last time in the contemplation cell. His final time, Ned hoped, but Stede was nothing if not eternally stubborn. He was clingier, and somehow Ned knew it wasn't just a product of the isolation.

For a moment, he remembered slipping slick fingers into waiting warmth; remembered the feel of Stede wrapped around him. He wanted to be sick; he wanted to reach out and grasp Stede and pull away his clothes. He wanted to check every inch of his love, looking for marks and scars and "You hurt me, and I'll never be the same."

He had. But not that way; never that way. Ned had to believe that.

Even if it had took, he'd taken measures—it had to be enough.

"Are you okay?" Ned asked, surprising himself with the words. Stede blinked at him even as he blinked at himself, and that soft smile made a reappearance.

"I am now," Stede reassured him. Stede's hand slipped around his upper back, and Ned looked at him, breathing easier when there was no sign of Ned infecting him—no sign that the rot had spread.

With nothing to be done about the fog, they drew into the captain's cabin. Stede took a seat in an armchair as Ned went about pouring them both a drink. Stede glanced up at Ned—though it wasn't wine, their history with alcohol generally ended up with Stede on the sharp end of a knife.

"Relax, darling," Ned whispered, placing the bottle down and letting his hands reach over stressed shoulders. Stede's shoulders were in permanent knots these days; even as Ned tried to ease some of the tension, the knots only seemed to grow.

"I don't, uh," Stede stammered out. "Could we perhaps not, tonight?"

Ned's hands stopped, and behind him, Stede could hear Ned's breathing pick up just a tad. "We're surrounded by fog with nothing better to do, and you don't want to fuck me?"

Stede grimaced. "It's not like that, Ned. I just don't like the fog, that's all."

Ned leaned in; let his breath tickle Stede's ear. "And you don't want to take your mind off it?" Ned's voice dropped low, but Stede could feel his hands tremble; could never miss it again, now that he knew why.

But then, he'd known before. He'd known, and continued on anyway.

Stede tensed under him, and Ned found himself searching again; looking over Stede for the creeping contamination of him, spreading to his angel.

"Never fucking mind," Ned said, pulling his hands away. He crossed the cabin to their bed, his drink completely forgotten.

"Ned, come on," Stede said, standing from the chair. He followed Ned to the bed, watching as Ned pulled off his working clothes. Ned pointedly ignored him, until Stede reached out, taking his hands, earning himself a violent shove backwards and landing on the floor.

"I never forced you," Ned spat. "Not once; I could have fucked you a dozen times over, but I never once. You promised. If it hurt, you promised. But you're weird today. Why the fuck are you being weird?"

Stede blinked up at Ned; remembered the feel of rough hands around his cock, and the feel of his bare feet pounding against wood in a desperate sprint as he tried to save something, for someone?

"You never... what, Ned?" Stede asked, staring up at him. He couldn't be misremembering that, of all things; misremembering wanting, yes, but also terror, and violation. Ned had forced him, even if he hadn't fucked him.

Ned stared down at him, breathing heavy. "You wanted it. Every time, you told me. Maybe you didn't say it. But you came; you just needed convincing, and then you fucked me the way I needed to be fucked, after your first kill."

Stede's eyes went wide. "No. Ned, what I did... That wasn't okay, Ned." Stede scrambled to his feet, hunching over just a little bit so as to not hover over the man. But Ned was smiling, now, even as a hand was reaching into his hair; even as there was an angry tug.

"You needed that from me, Stede, and I was willing to give it. Just like I needed a lot from you. That's not... That's love, Stede. That's my love for you."

Stede stared at Ned, and he started to drift; everything before the contemplation cell was a bit hazy to begin with. Perhaps it was a lie he'd told himself; he'd always thought Ned was handsome.

Ned looked so fucking upset. He looked upset, and a hair trigger from violence, and Stede had this sudden, horrific feeling that pulling hair and grabbing broken mirrors was the least of what Ned could do to himself.

Stede shook his head. Of course it hadn't happened that way. The wine must have gotten to him early on; must have driven him into Ned's bed.

Metaphorically, at least. Why hadn't there been a bed, at first?

"You're right, I think," Stede admitted. "It's so hard to remember, sometimes."

Ned nodded up at him, shaky, and reached forward, wrapping his arms around Stede's waist.

Stede let his nose trail along Ned's temple, and when Ned's hands reached towards the fine silk adorning him, Stede let him.

When the morning bloomed and the fog dissipated, First Mate Perez knocked on the door of the captain's cabin, claiming a sighted ship. Ned barely lifted the spyglass to his eye before he knew it to be the Revenge, looking the worst he'd ever seen her.

It was hard to tell at distance, but judging from the sails alone, the Revenge had sailed through the storm that the Fancy had narrowly missed, and come out barely limping along, waiting to be put out of its misery.

Ned handed Stede the spyglass, and when he did, Stede froze in place, as Ned watched him reorganize his reality around another false truth.

When Stede pulled the spyglass away from his face, he was grinning. "I made you a promise," he said. "Looks like I'll keep it today."

Ned pulled Stede in, grinning back at him. He stared into his eyes, before letting him go, taking another look at the soon-to-be wreck.

Ned's heart nearly stopped as Israel dragged himself across the deck, unicorn leg missing. Ned watched Izzy sink out of view for a minute, then saw a leather gloved hand reach up,

hoisting a yellow flag.

Ned cursed under his breath, handing the spyglass to Stede. Perez stood a few feet from the two, rolling his eyes.

"Disease," Stede said under his breath, passing the spyglass back to Ned. "Probably winter sickness from the storm."

"Yeah. Fuck." Ned watched, catching Izzy losing what looked like the majority of his lunch onto the deck, which was splattered with what looked like blood and waste. "Israel's sick."

Something about that felt off to Stede.

Didn't someone he used to know get sick a lot? Easily, and often?

That person died, though.

Stede took another look through the spyglass. The incubus from oblivion sat on the deck, looking all manner of miserable. A few other crew members dotted the deck, all feverish and weak.

Ned hummed to himself. "We could follow them; wait for some of them to die."

"Izzy might die," Stede said. "If we wait."

Ned glanced at Stede, considering it.

"Alright. We'll take a small force, sneak around the edge of their sight. Best fighters. They won't be able to defend themselves well if they're sick. We'll go, kill the lot save for Izzy, and wait out any sickness. Stede, you'll show us where any hiding places are. Perez, pull Spriggs and—"

The three of them fell quiet; it wasn't the first time Ned had made the mistake, and wouldn't be the last.

"I feel obligated to say Spriggs would have thought this a bad idea," Perez quietly said.

"Say that again."

Perez shrugged. "Not worth it to me. It was to him." He spun on his heels, leaving Ned and Stede in tense silence.

"What if they're not sick?" Stede finally asked.

"Even if they're not, the crew of the Revenge are a bunch of pushovers. Isn't that right, Stede?"

The demon king stared at Stede, as if daring him to protest. Stede lowered his eyes to the deck, nodding.

Izzy Hands would be on the Fancy within a fortnight. A lifetime, he'd waited; the artist had slipped through his fingers once, due to overconfidence. He wouldn't slip through Ned's fingers again.

Izzy would watch the final flagship of Blackbeard sink into the ocean, and then Ned would remake him.

A sick, twisted feeling slunk through Ned's skin, and he was eager to begin. He turned towards the cabin, starting to walk away.

"Ned."

Stede had caught him by the wrist; was staring at him with a question burning in his eyes. Ned paused, listening. "When we capture Israel. Can I..."

Ned's head tilted. "What?"

"I want him."

Ned's eyebrows raised, and various emotions warred within him before a smirk stretched across his face, smile half stretched by the scar his angel had given him.

Sure, he'd let Stede have Izzy for a time. He'd let Stede think he was protecting Izzy; saving him from Ned.

Ned was happy to use his angel as an instrument; see what masterpiece Stede would create with Ned's guiding hand. Then he would have them both anyways.

Starved and decaying, a young man hoped this small part of Stede's old life would make him just a little bit happier.

"Whatever you desire, my love," Ned whispered, leaning up to kiss Stede on the forehead. Ned expected to see relief on Stede's face, but instead saw careful apathy.

His masterpiece had learned well. Ned couldn't wait to see his symphony.

All in all, eight of the crew of the fancy pile into the dinghy, Ned sitting on Stede's lap. Stede wraps his arms around Ned's waist with a grin, a bag of medical supplies tucked under the seat for Izzy.

As they approach, the dinghy falls silent. The grappling hooks go up almost soundlessly, and the crew make their way up the ropes in unison, leaping onto the rails and padding down, swords drawn.

The deck is empty, and signs of people crawling through blood can be seen. Ned leans towards Perez, whispering, "Saw us. Hiding." He shoots a look towards Stede, but Stede has frozen, staring at one of the sails that has just unfurled.

Against white, bright red... blood? Paint? Stede can't tell; all he can see are the words, emblazoned across in wide font:

GIVE US BACK HUMPTY DUMPTY

Ned's eyes go wide, and as he turns towards Stede, the gunshot rings out, bullet flitting past his face.

Ned retreats as the deck of the Revenge erupts in chaos, the entire crew flooding out all around them.

Perez, to his credit, tries to call for the crew of the Fancy to form up, but he watches in real time as a dance that Frank and Ned had danced a hundred times fails to happen,

Ned stepping out of line without that well-trained quarterstaff nearby. Perez darts to the left to back him up in Spriggs' place, and silently thanks all the gods for the fact that the Revenge still couldn't hold a proper line if their lives depended on it.

The Fancy crew are outnumbered, but the crew of the Revenge couldn't seem to care less, even as Izzy calls crewmates by name to snap them out of their tunnel vision. Perez does the math on whether or not dying by a psycho with a meat cleaver is worse than dying by the psycho he works for if he shoots Izzy, and quickly decides later is always better than now when a mountain of a man barely misses crushing him with a chair.

Perez draws his gun, but a dagger slices through the meat of his arm, and the shot goes wide, sniping harmlessly through a sail.

"Stede!"

Heads turn as Blackbeard—mother fucking Blackbeard—calls out for the blonde psycho from across the deck. Idiot.

Edward can see Stede; he's on the deck of the Revenge, knocking Jim's daggers out of the air like they're toys. Edward didn't have time to consider when Stede could have possibly learned that—he needed to see if Stede would snap out of it, and adapt accordingly.

"Stede!"

Heads turn, and Edward dips out of the way of a few wayward gunshots. By his count, there's only a few left, and none have hit their marks. On either side, he begrudgingly admits.

Izzy still has his shot. He'll make it count. Edward knows he will; knows it like the sun rising in the east.

Edward looks back at Stede's face, as Stede effortlessly parries his former crew. He knocks Pete's sword violently away, and Edward watches Pete scramble backwards, barely missing the swing of an axe from the man on Stede's right.

Stede slinks back from the battle line,

and turns,

his eyes meeting Edward's across the deck.

The hairs on the back of Ed's neck rise, as the man he once thought to call lover stalks towards him, weaving around sword and swing without once tearing his eyes away.

The crew of the Revenge shout for their wayward captain, but he threatens them with his swords, clearing a path.

"Come here, darling. I've missed you for too long."

Blackbeard sees the Gentleman Pirate walking towards him, and something in the terror of the high seas snaps;

godhood fallen to the floor and forgotten as he turns tail and runs, sword limp and useless in his hand. He runs towards Izzy; runs away from a demon much like the one he'd once been.

They aren't equals anymore. Edward can't kill Stede; he knows that, now. He doesn't think he ever wants to kill again.

Stede fully intends to kill him.

Stede, Stede was stalking towards him, swords drawn.

Wait.

There were only a few left-

Something in Edward makes him throw himself to the deck, and he hears the bullet whizz past where his face had just been, turning back to see the smoke rising from Stede's drawn gun.

"Pity," Stede says. "You liked shooting them, didn't you? So impersonal; you could even say the bullet killed them!"

"I'm sorry—I'm so sorry," Edward says, still scrambling through the fight, trying to put bodies between himself and Stede. "I was wrong. Please. I want to be better."

"Do you? Or are you just saying that? I was with you when we worked on that speech, darling. I remember how much you complained about the sack, while Izzy fell into a bottle for the mangled leg you gave to him." Stede drew his sword. "And now he's dead. You're all dead, all for your sins. And I'm trapped here, paying penance for ghosts until the end of time."

Edward sees the swing, and he lifts his sword to block it, but when steel meets steel, he watches Stede do something he's never seen before—the parrying dagger comes up, maintaining the bind, and then Stede rears back and kicks him.

Edward skids across the deck,

his sword landing uselessly behind Stede.

Stede takes a step forward. "Edward Teach. For the sins you have committed against those you had a duty to as their captain—"

"Stede," Edward begs, crawling backwards. "Please, I'll never do it again—"

"—for those unable to extract their own justice, and for those too blind to do right by themselves, and take a knife to your throat—" Stede stares down at Edward, and Edward sees something he'd recognize more than the dawning sun—the eyes of a demon; a glimpse into the void.

His protests die on his lips. He deserves this, doesn't he?

"For the greatest swordsman in the Caribbean, and for a scribe who was nothing but a friend to you, I've come to put you to rest."

Stede raises the sword, ready to make the lethal strike—

"Bonnet!"

Izzy yells, standing high on the quarterdeck; he stands exposed, knowing that even now, any of Ned's crew who dared fire a shot at him would meet the worst possible end. Stede's eyebrows raise, and the psycho nods of all fucking things, nods and looks back at Edward a moment too late as Edward's leg sweeps his own, and Stede goes toppling to the deck.

He almost screwed it all up, Edward realizes. But his sins—he can't die for them, because he can't do that to Izzy. Scrambling away as Stede stands back up, furious, he realizes he has to learn to live with it.

Izzy watches Bonnet angrily continue his chase, unrecognizable as the man Izzy knew months ago. "What the fuck—Bonnet, stop!"

Izzy leaps, landing heavy on his good leg but paying no mind to the shock of pain up his bad; he darts through the battle, sliding his sword into some fucker's larynx before pulling it free as he goes. They have the advantage and it's only growing, but none of that will fucking matter to him if he loses Eddie right after having found him again.

Izzy skids to a stop as he reaches Edward, who has lost all battle sense and is pressed up against the railing, looking like he's considering leaping clear over to escape. "Eddie. Eddie!" Izzy calls, and Edward's eyes snap up to him.

"Oh, fuck, Izzy, fuck, where-"

"MOVE!" Izzy bellows, taking Edward's hand and pulling him along.

Edward watches as Izzy pulls him along; a haphazard battle line has finally formed, but Stede is entirely outside of it, both him and Izzy immune to the fight around them. Izzy body blocks for Edward, almost daring any of the Fancy crew to take too dangerous a swing, and risk the wrath of their captain.

"Bonnet!" Izzy yells back at him, blonde hair framing eyes that don't seem normal; don't seem human. "Bonnet, whatever the fuck you think you're playing at, that's enough!" Izzy knocks away a sword that comes within inches of Roach's head, Roach swinging the cleaver out, threatening but holding the line, just as Izzy had drilled a few days earlier. Izzy breathes one small sigh of relief, marching up the stairs to the quarterdeck awkwardly on his hoof, hopping the last two steps and shoving Edward behind him.

A bloodcurdling scream erupts from the main deck, as Fang takes a knife to the leg from Ned Low, two steps out of position to defend a scrambling Frenchie. Fang stumbles on his feet, and Izzy screams, "ARCHIE!" He watches her sprint clear across six feet to swing the machete, knocking away a lethal thrust at the last possible second.

Ned laughs, staring at Archie like a fox watches a hare. Izzy takes in the angle of his swords, and when Archie shifts her feet, Ned's swords shift subtly with her, his waist pivoting ever so slightly with the motion.

Izzy realizes he's seen swordwork like that a handful of times in his life; realizes that every single fighter they have is profoundly outclassed by Ned, save maybe for himself.

It's a load-bearing maybe in the plan, but it'll have to do, loaded gun burning a hole in his holster.

Izzy has no time to issue commands, seeing the sword in his peripherals and taking a step back. He feels the wind in his hair from the narrowly dodged cut, Bonnet standing before him.

"That was your warning," he says to Izzy, but there's an underlying mirth to it, as if they're playing a twisted game together. Izzy's eyes glance from sword to Stede's face, and he sees the upturned side of his mouth in a smirk; sees eyes painted with focus and fondness and what Izzy realizes is lust, visceral and unashamed. Izzy doesn't dare look down at straining silk; doesn't want to take away all doubt.

"Now. If you'd be so kind, dear, get the fuck out of my way."

Izzy and Edward take a huge step back, and Izzy calls past Stede, "Form up on Ned Low! He's the only fucking one that matters, he'll pick you off one by one!" Stede stares at Izzy as he does, seeming entirely, utterly unconcerned. "Shouldn't you be defending your captain?" Izzy spits, desperate to conserve his strength; to get Stede the hell away from Edward.

"Ned could kill every one of your pitiful ghost crew, Captain Izzy. Oh, thought I hadn't heard that? That didn't take long, did it?"

"Bonnet, it's not like—"

"I'm not angry with you," Stede cuts him off. "Really. I'm happy. Happy that you got a degree of the respect you deserve. Happy that the monster behind you was put in his place by somebody, even if it wasn't me."

Izzy hears the sharp inhale behind him; even as the mental catalogue in the back of his mind of What's Edward Thinking? writes a front page header reading, "We're a monster again!" But Izzy doesn't have the time to let himself be goaded.

"If it's Eddie or you, I'll fucking kill you." Izzy spits, hardening his heart. There's no room for games this time; if he can take Bonnet without killing him, that's ideal, but the odds feel lower with each passing moment.

Stede laughs at the threat, sounding nothing like the man he had once been.

"That's always been your way, hasn't it?" His eyes trail over Izzy, and something fond seeps into his gaze.

"You know, I always wanted to duel you. At least once, you know?" Stede admits. "I admired you so much. Wanted you. That morning on the deck... I thought about that a lot. It kept me sane, thinking of you; wanting to save you. But I don't know if we can be saved. Sometimes, I don't think I want to save you. I want to ruin you."

Stede lifts his eyes to the sky, as though he still doesn't believe it were true, and says, "Maybe that's the truth of it; none of us want to be saved." Stede meets Izzy's eyes again, and though he smiles, Izzy wonders what grave he's thinking of.

"I don't know what my god intends to do to you, but I'll pray for his mercy."

Izzy's mind stutters with confusion, running over it all. They had dueled, they were all still alive, and Ned Low was a man, not a god. But before he can ask a single question, the golden sword is swinging out at him, and Izzy barely parries a much quicker blow than anticipated when the main gauche darts out at his good leg.

Izzy darts back in his best impression of a scottish retreat, letting his good leg snap down, sending a swing at Stede, across the body where the stab has left him exposed. Stede takes a sharp step backwards; Izzy didn't particularly expect it to connect, but for it to not even phase Stede is worrying.

Behind him, he hears the sound of a fight break out; Perez has marched up the other set of steps, running for Edward.

The man swings his sabre at Edward, and Edward skids out of the way, drawing the dagger he has left. Edward tries to get close enough for a grapple, but Perez lets him in, only to punish with a powerful haymaker from the left. Edward's head jerks to the right, and Perez presses his advantage, punching him again and Edward hits the rail, stunned from the proper crack to his brain.

Izzy hears the thud against the railing and makes a decision; he throws a kick into Stede's chest, praying the man won't break his neck, and the golden-crowned psycho loses his footing over the steps, stumbling down to the main deck. Izzy watches as Stede hits the ground hard, and hopes it'll keep him for long enough.

It takes Wee John, Roach and Archie all working in tandem to keep Ned at bay, but as Oluwande pulls his own machete out of the fallen crew member, Izzy realizes the battle might just be turning.

Izzy pulls his eyes from Stede a moment too late,

seeing Perez barreling towards him in a lunge,

and realizes all at once that it wasn't Edward that Perez was after.

Izzy takes a huge step back, but even then, realizes he's not going to get his sword up in time. Perez has him dead to rights, and Izzy suddenly realizes he's going to die. When he hears Stede cry out for Perez to stop, he can't believe his last thought is going to be about how fucking stupid Stede Bonnet is.

Perez does stop, all at once, and Izzy realizes distantly that there's a dagger sticking through him, jutting out the front.

The man turns, looking at Edward, gurgling and collapsing to the ground.

"Oh—oh fuck," Edward says, scrambling away from the body. "Oh shit, oh fuck, oh—"

"Edward!" Izzy calls, because there's no time for a crisis; Izzy spins towards Stede, but Stede has already vanished, golden swords scattered on the ground.

Izzy spots Stede, racing across the deck, and realizes he intends to jump; knows that if Bonnet makes it off the Revenge, that's it—he'll be lost to them forever.

Izzy draws his gun, and with a shaking hand, he raises it and fires.

Ned holds his swords out, threatening the crew of the Revenge like a cat toying with a mouse. Three of them have engaged him, and he spins rapidly on his feet, never letting them lock him down.

He hears the sound of a dying gurgle, and his eyes snap up to where Stede and Izzy are dueling.

Ned watches Stede tumble down the stairs; watches Perez crumple to the ground, and his eyes widen. All of a sudden, the math no longer works out—he'd expected Perez to at least wound Edward Teach.

Ned can take on most of the Revenge on his own, if push came to shove—but with both Edward and Izzy still alive, they'd stop him from being able to pick off the crew, and stall him to exhaustion. Besides, leg or no leg, Ned wasn't sure about his chances against Izzy.

Ned looks over at Stede from across the deck, and when Stede's eyes meet his, an entire conversation passes between glances. Stede understands, taking off towards Ned while Izzy is still distracted by Edward's sudden panic.

They'll swim for it. They'll have to.

Ned reaches to the side, throwing a bucket of gray water at the three in front of him. The largest one is unphased, but the other two sputter and step backwards, giving Ned the chance to run.

Stede is scrambling, darting past the crew of the Revenge before they can reach out to stop him. They're both almost at the railing; the Fancy isn't a far swim, and they can make it. Ned lifts his hand, reaching out for Stede,

and the bullet tears through his leg, throwing him to the deck.

Ned collapses, skidding across the deck as blood sprays out around him. His swords slide out of reach, and the knife thrower steps over them. Stede screams his name, running towards him, and Ned yells no; yells for Stede to run. But Stede had promised Ned he would never leave, and to the end, he's keeping his promise.

Stede spins, facing the crew of the Revenge as they surround Ned and Stede, fists extended in an explicit threat.

The crew of the Fancy who are still alive are throwing down their swords; the Revenge disarms the lot of them, holding knives and swords and cleavers to their throats.

Edward steps through the lot of them, standing across the deck from Stede, who still looks terrifyingly dangerous, even disarmed of every weapon on his body. His fists are raised, and he's screaming threats like a cornered animal.

"Stede," Edward says, still unnerved from the battle. "It's over. You're surrounded. Put your hands down. I promise you and the rest of the crew won't be harmed. Even him."

"Your word is worth less than nothing, thank you," Stede spits back, as Ned ties off the bleeding wound with a hiss.

"Bonnet."

Izzy steps up from behind Edward, and Stede's eyes twitched as they landed, once more, on the incubus from the contemplation cell. Izzy's uneven steps echoed across the deck, and he stopped, putting his sword down, slowly. "It doesn't have to hurt anymore, Bonnet," Izzy promised, like it was the key to everything.

The laughter he was met with sounded painfully familiar.

"Kind words from a ghost," Stede spat, as though it explained a thing at all.

Tension pulled on the deck of the Revenge, threading a line through each of them. Ned and Stede were cornered, but if his wild eyes were anything to go by, Stede would die—or kill, readily—before he let anyone get a hand on his jailer.

Fluid, easy steps climbed up the ladder, and as the one who got away climbed out onto the deck, the tension snapped, as the demon king whispered a name in shock:

"Lucius?"

"Hey, Ned."

The demon's wide eyes examine him, mind not yet accepting the sight of the young man he had grieved for months.

Lucius gives him a sinister smile, and for a moment something about him looks not quite human. "So, all this was for me then? This whole thing?"

Ned seems ill-footed; wrong. "It was," he says, eyes wide in shock. "You're alive. You're fucking—alive—" Ned's voice breaks on the last word, and he forces himself to his feet; nearly collapses as he takes a step forward, Stede throwing an arm out to stop him; to protect him from a trap. Ned stops, but Lucius is undeterred, taking step after step until he's in front of Ned, Stede posturing defensively between them.

Ned puts a hand on Stede's shoulder. "It's okay, darling. He'll never hurt me."

"Wish I could say the same about you," Lucius whispers, but it's without an ounce of anger. Ned grimaces, but Lucius' smile doesn't fade. "You bloody idiot," Lucius says with fondness, but something about it sounds wrong. Sounds, in a different light, terrified.

"Here's what's going to happen, Ned. You're going to let Stede go."

The air leaves the space between the three of them. Stede tilts his head ever so slightly, terrified of how his god will react to the ridiculous request,

and does he see terror on the face of a god?

"Out of the fucking question. He's mine, I made him mine. He promised he would stay with me."

"I'm not arguing, Ned. He's staying here. You don't have much choice."

"No," Ned shoots back. "No! You don't have any fucking right! I love him, and he loves me, and you're not—you can't take this away from me." He grabs Lucius by the shoulders, begging with a look, but Lucius stares back at him, closed off and certain.

Lucius leans down towards Ned, close enough to whisper. In a voice low enough for just the two of them, he remembers the language of demons, twisting the knife he left buried in Ned's back.

"You don't get to have this, remember? Not after what you've done."

Ned stares up at him; stares up at condemning green eyes as Lucius pressures, "You have to let him go; you have to leave him with us."

Ned collapses to his knees, hands angrily reaching into his own white hair, tugging violently. He screams in frustration, and Lucius runs his fingers into Ned's hair.

"I know, I know. Did this to yourself, you know." Lucius hums, as Ned buries his face in Lucius' thigh, sobbing.

"You already took enough," Ned begs between sobs. "You left. I can't be alone again."

Stede stares at Lucius for a long moment, before whispering, "Frank."

"Not quite, Stede."

Recognition, then; Stede looks around, as if opening his eyes for the first time. "You're all dead," he whispers, seemingly to himself. "You can't be real."

Lucius looks back at Izzy, sharing a look of concern that makes Edward's nerves flutter.

Edward starts to step forward, but Izzy puts a hand out, stilling him. Edward glances at Izzy, and Izzy shoots him a certain look, whispering, "Trust me," with his eyes.

Edward looks back at the man he had failed to love for a lifetime, and did as he was bid.

Izzy clears his throat. "Stede. It's over. We're all here; you're back on the Revenge, and he's never going to hurt you again. You're safe, now."

Stede looks around; he didn't believe it. These were ghosts; figments of his imagination. Ned had sworn to him that they were dead, and his delusion of the great Edward Teach had been unable to rescue him. But Edward's alive, and standing right there, and he'd known that—Stede had sworn to bring his head to the demon king.

The wind breezes by,

and a grate on the Revenge shimmies open and then closed again.

Stede can see the inside of a dark room, and the cycle between day and night, everchanging, never fixed.

months.

months of his life.

months had been a lie.

The seasons, after all, hadn't turned.

Stede looks down at Ned, really looks, and sees a demon that threatens to destroy them all.

He turns to look at Edward, and sees much of the same.

But he also sees an opening.

Stede, for the first time, looks up at Edward's outstretched hand.

He takes a step, then another and another until he's in a dead sprint across the deck, collapsing into Edward's arms.

Edward's arms wrap around him, and Edward lets out a sob, saying a name that no one answers to.

Stede's hands roam Edward's body, which Edward only thinks is a little peculiar until the knife is drawn from his scabbard.

Edward lets out a shocked, "The fuck," but Stede is already turning, facing Ned.

Stalking towards him.

Edward sees it then; sees the danger he had missed. If he doesn’t do something, Stede is going to throw away whatever shreds of innocence he has left. Edward chases after him; reaches out and lays a gentle hand on Stede's wrist.

The pain comes in an instant; a clean slash across the forearm, driving Edward instinctually backwards.

When he sees the look on Stede's face, he takes an extra step, the hairs on the back of his neck rising as he realizes the danger hasn't passed; the danger was standing right there, staring at Edward with violent longing and luring him in with an embrace. Taking away his defenses, leaving him vulnerable—mortal.

Stede sees what he needs to see; sees enough fear that Edward isn't a threat—for now; for long enough. He turns away; turns towards Ned, whose head has finally hung low.

"A cut to the forearm. Quite the message," he says, loud enough for the interlopers to hear but meant for the two of them.

"You taught me not to hesitate," Bonnet shoots back, knife steady in his hands. Ned's eyes flicker up to the blade, blood dripping onto the deck in a slow trickle. He takes a stumbling step forward, and his lover stays, as Ned closes the distance.

Ned stares at Bonnet, who is staring back at him, and when Ned raises his hand to close the space between them, a twitch from Bonnet's sword hand arrests his movement.

"I really thought you were going to stay," Ned whispers, tearing his eyes down to the deck. "You promised."

Stede laughs, a broken, soulless laugh, and Edward can hear a reflection of some of his worst memories nightmares in the sound.

"I meant it," Bonnet says. "You're not going anywhere, Ned. I'll carry you with me for the rest of my life."

Ned's eyes shoot back up to Stede's, and for a moment, he can swear he sees a young man with hair the color of snow. But it's only an illusion; a trick of the light. Ned's lover steps towards him, and Ned reaches out—why wouldn't he?

He feels the dagger sink into his gut, and he knows this is love.

Ned wraps his arms around his angel, and he can feel the marks where wings had once been. He can hear screaming—feels the dagger withdraw, and enter him again, and he wonders if he can keep count; how many more times would Stede take him?

Ned hopes it leaves Stede whole, but he knows it won't.

His knees hit the deck, unbidden, and his silver coat is stained with blood. But it's his devotion, spilling out into the universe for his lover, and perhaps that's a stain worth wearing. He looks up, seeing the golden crown haloed by sunlight, and he's struck by how beautiful he looks; an angel bathed in the blood of his god.

The sun is setting midday; the world is darkening around the edges, and he feels lips brush against his own; feels his angel's tongue invade his mouth, even as his consciousness starts to slip away. He finds the strength to kiss back; to give Stede one more showing of his love.

His hands clench against strong arms as they wrap around him, and as the long sleep claims him, he doesn't feel anything anymore—the revenge unwarranted, the future stolen, the legacy destroyed, none of it existed. None but warmth, and the embrace of... someone. Someone terribly important to him.

He says their name like a benediction; like a curse. The sun gives way to night, and Ned dies with his soulmate's name on his lips.

Stede stares down at the body of his soulmate, while next to him the boy grieves.

Stede had heard screaming; had heard the words, "Stop him, someone stop him," and he could remember the grip of soft hands, unable to pull him free.

Ned had taught him that much. Don't hesitate. If you've got the kill in front of you, take it.

It had been difficult, though. He hadn't been willing to hurt Lucius. For all his flaws, Lucius hadn't earned that.

The demon had smiled up at him, as he'd done it. He could still feel the demon's hands, settling around him in an embrace as he'd dug further into the demon's insides. In a sense, that was the closest they had ever been; the closest they ever would be. It had felt right; it had felt like love.

Stede had leaned in, kissing his soulmate goodbye.

Ned had reached one trembling hand up to Stede's face, whispering his name, and his blood painted Stede in one last work of art; Angel Silences the Demon King, 1717, blood on skin. Ned would have liked that; they would have laughed together.

But his lover has fallen silent, and Stede will never hear another laugh; endure another torment.

Stede stares down at the body of his soulmate, knowing finally that this is reality; the dream has ended.

Lucius sobs next to him, and he says nothing as the boy grieves.

Izzy steps across the deck as the dust settles, offering a demon one of his cigarettes.

The smoke floats around them, and Izzy watches him kneel; reach down to the corpse that he'd once called lover, and peel leather from skin, taking them for himself. Watches the gloves of the demon king find a new home, settling on sun-kissed skin.

Izzy watches Bonnet consider the man, reaching down to the sword belt; watches him pull it free, going to where Jim stands over the swords. Izzy watches Stede reverently sheath both sword and dagger, before turning towards him. The hairs on the back of Izzy's neck rise, and he doesn't understand, until the distance has been crossed, and blunt metal is pressed to his chest with an oof, Stede pushing the swords into his hands.

"What—Stede—"

Bonnet's eyes meet his, and Izzy's protests die on his lips.

"Put them all to the sword," the demon commands, and the crew of the Revenge exchange concerned glances, whispering. Half the crew are bewildered; Roach and Pete and Wee John and the rest that had traveled with Stede, uncertain what's come over the captain they knew.

The other half know better.

Izzy's voice catches in his throat, and he's completely wrong-footed, his position as acting captain suddenly a minefield under his feet. He can't mutiny. But he sure as hell can't let Bonnet do this, no matter how bad the crew of the Fancy were. He struggles to wrap his mouth around the words—any words—

"We don't do that shit anymore, Stede."

The entire crew of the Revenge and the assorted, defeated crew of the Fancy all look to Edward Teach, who stands a few feet from the Gentleman Pirate, who had just eviscerated a man he'd been defending moments earlier.

"Go on, though," Edward chastises. "If you're so fuckin' ready to take my place, go on. Do what I'd have done."

Edward reaches down to the belt that had held the stolen knife, unlatching it and throwing it to Stede's feet.

Izzy senses the tension rise; senses the temperamental whims of a madman shifting beneath his feet, and a lifetime of balancing acts drive his feet forward, as he catches Stede on the shoulder, trusting the gut instinct telling him that Stede would hurt him, yes; but not kill him.

Bonnet looks at Izzy, but Izzy doesn't see the rage he expected. Whatever he expected, it wasn't this strange stare, transcendent; eternal. Concerned with the purview of gods, rather than men.

"C-come on. Bonnet. Let's get you cleaned up, okay?"

Bonnet's eyes trace his face; whatever he's looking for, he finds it, quietly nodding.

Izzy tilts him towards the captain's cabin, and as Stede goes in, Izzy shoots a look at Edward, who blessedly takes the fucking hint.

As soon as the doors are shut, Edward spins on his heels. He grabs the first of the crew of the Fancy in his sights, shoving them towards the dinghy.

"If you fuckheads want to live, go and go fucking quietly."

The half-dead crew of the Fancy hurry overboard, not willing to risk a reemergence of the demon that captained the Revenge.

Lucius stares down at the corpse of Ned Low, hyperventilating. Pete stands not too far away, though now that the danger has passed, Fang has been carried off to the side, Roach examining him.

Lucius reaches trembling hands down, and pulls Ned into his arms.

Edward sees how the blood has soaked into Lucius' clothes; thinks that it's too late to avoid ruin. He looks over at Frenchie, who looks away and then back, as if hoping Edward hadn't been looking at him at all.

Edward grimaces—that's fucking fair—before walking over anyways. Frenchie looks up at him, nervous, and Edward quietly asks, "Can you do me a favor and find Lucius a new set of clothes?"

Frenchie blinks. "Oh. Yeah, absolutely," he responds, his voice softer with understanding. He puts on a small, sad expression that isn't quite a frown, before darting to the ladder below deck.

Edward looks down at the body; before he can do anything, he has to ask the man who loved him.

"Toss him overboard," Bonnet says without looking back at Edward.

"Toss... Sailcloth, weights, all that?" Edward asks, the wording just a bit too detached.

"If you think it'll help," Bonnet shoots back. "He was a monster; those hardly deserve the scrap it'd waste."

Bonnet does something, then; his head turns, and he looks at Edward out of the corner of his eye,

something predatory watching from within him.

Edward slips out without another word, as Stede turns back towards Izzy, who stands there nervously (but apparently unharmed). As Edward shuts the door behind him, he realizes Stede hadn't redressed; the gold ensemble spattered with blood still rests on his body, the yellow robe sitting on the chair unnoticed.

Edward walks to Lucius, approaching slowly and visibly. He knows how badly Lucius hates him on most days, but Fang is too hurt to help, and Edward has a sneaking suspicion Pete doesn't handle this sort of thing well.

"Lucius," Edward says, staying out of his personal space.

"What?"

"Do you. Do you need help making him ready?"

Lucius keeps a tight hold on Ned, going still. Edward waits for a moment, and the nod comes, as weeping that had calmed begins again. "Please. I can't. I can't do this. I can't—"

Lucius sobs into the dusk, weeping for the demon king, and as he does, Edward wraps a god in sailcloth, looking for enough weight to send him for to the depths for good.

Jim stares at Edward, before spitting on the deck in frustration. They move to one of the other bodies, the rest of the crew following suit.

One by one, the bodies are sent over, until only Ned was left. Lucius leans down, pressing a kiss to his forehead, hands trailing down to his neck. Practiced fingers undo the cravat like they had a hundred times before; he slips it into a pocket, uncertain.

Lucius looks up at Edward, nodding, and Edward gently pushes the corpse overboard, committing the demon king to the sea.

Lucius turns to Pete, sobbing, and as the night sky loses the last tinges of day, Edward's eyes meet Jim's. Jim stares back at him, unreadable, turning and heading below deck with a curse.

Stede looks around the captain's cabin, hearing the sounds as the crew commits the bodies to the sea.

His god is dead, and he is free, forever damned and outside the reach of salvation. Just like Edward; just like Izzy.

He glances around, seeing Izzy's personal effects neatly organized around the cabin, intermingling with Edward's strewn about dross, and the things they've inherited from a dead man; finery and books and fucking marmalade.

His eyes trail over the windowsill, not missing the oil.

Stede turns towards the incubus, standing before him, nervous and obedient. Stede watches him shift his weight onto his good leg, and something predatory within him stirs.