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Ed would have preferred to wear one of Stede’s outfits again, but in the midst of rifling through the captured ship’s wardrobes Stede shouts in triumph and pulls out several deep purple garments, holding them up to Ed’s shoulder.
“This is your color,” he says, beaming.
Ed looks down. “You think so, mate? I usually wear black.” Black, and occasionally red, when the blood runs. “Frenchie’s wearing black.”
“And it looks stunning on you,” Stede rejoins, pushing the garments into Ed’s arms. “So will this. Trust me.”
The thing is. The thing is that he does, he does trust—
“Do I need to wear one of those?” Ed asks instead of finishing that thought, eyeing the powdered wig as Stede draws it out from a cupboard.
“I shouldn’t think so, unless you want to. Sir Godfrey Thornrose will have to,” Stede says with a sigh, turning the wig this way and that before setting it aside. He turns back to Ed, stepping close and reaching out. Ed stills, soft clothes clutched tightly against his chest as Stede’s hand runs gently over his head.
“You have wonderful hair,” Stede says, stepping back and turning toward the cabinet again. “The envy of any wigmaker on the Continent, I expect. ”
He’s never. Ed’s never thought of any aspect of himself as wonderful, let alone his hair. His hair is just—there, pulled back out of his way and keeping his head warm. Graying, now. Wonderful?
“Aha!” Stede emerges from the cabinet once more, waving a fistful of small bottles and pots and brushes, things Ed barely knows the purpose of. “I think I’m getting the hang of this looting thing.”
“You sure are.” Ed shifts the clothes he’s been handed, folding them carefully over one arm. His fingers skim over the embroidered purple fabric, marveling at the changes in texture. “You’ve got everything you want from here?”
“I think so.” Stede glances around. He presses the pillow on the small bunk, then looks in dismay at the imprint his hand leaves behind. “I’d thought I might replace the linens on the Revenge, but look at this—”
“Leave the fucking pillow,” Ed says. He nods at Fang, who is trying and failing to lurk unobtrusively in the corner. “Tell Izzy to round up the crew, head back to the Revenge. Ready the cannons once we’re all aboard.”
“The cannons?” Stede says, puzzlement clear in his voice as Fang throws a lazy salute and leaves. “We’ve already captured the ship.”
“And now we’re going to sink her,” Ed returns, fingering a lace cuff. It’s soft, like holding a moonbeam.
“Oh. Of course,” Stede says, and when Ed looks up he looks like he’s considering something. “In that case—” he turns back to the cabinet, rifling through the contents once more.
Ed grins. “Now you’re getting it.”
Ed doesn’t stick around on the deck of the Revenge to watch the captured ship go under; you see a few dozen vessels sink, you’ve seen them all, and he has more important things to consider, like what he’s going to wear to this party.
The purple suit fits well enough, especially with Stede’s attentive hands to ensure everything is correctly buttoned and tucked. The cuffs feel comically large over his wrists, moonbeam lace falling softly over his hands, but the velvet is rich underneath his fingers as he smooths his hand down his arms. Ed doesn’t want to stop touching it.
Is this how Stede feels all of the time? There’s something to it, this dressing up.
“Sit, sit,” Stede says, pushing him down into a brocaded chair. Ed lets him; there are few people who have the nerve to manhandle Blackbeard but somehow Ed doesn’t mind it when Stede does it. Stede’s long coat flares out behind him as he circles the chair and then there are hands in Ed’s hair again, slowly combing through it. Having someone at his back makes the nape of Ed’s neck itch, but the steady drag of blunt fingers across his scalp is soothing, and it’s just Stede. Stede is no threat to him.
Ed tips his head back minutely and Stede murmurs a wordless approval as the fine teeth of a comb replace his fingers. Ed’s eyelids drift downward. When was the last time anyone had combed his hair? Had it been his mother? Surely there’d been someone else.
Stede’s voice is warm and bright in the background, telling some sort of story about a party he’d attended back in Bridgetown. “Dreadfully dull,” he says, and Ed grunts in response. He’s not going to be put off just because Stede had a bad time at a stupid party. He winces as his hair is pulled tight for a moment, and Stede apologizes, fingers running soothingly over Ed’s scalp as he combs and twists Ed’s hair into some arcane arrangement.
“Here, what do you think?” Stede says, and Ed blinks his eyes open to see Stede’s arm extended over his shoulder, holding out a little hand mirror. Ed takes it, holding it up.
He hardly recognizes himself. That’s his face, those are his eyes, but his chest has a cascading fall of lace down the center and his hair is smoothed back and pulled into a—
“What do you call this?” Ed asks, reaching back and patting the large bun at the back of his head.
“Ah, just a classic chignon,” Stede says happily, resting his hands on Ed’s shoulders. “Really brings out your features, don’t you think?”
“Fucking incredible,” Ed says, angling the mirror to the side to see further behind his head. Stede beams at him in the mirror.
“Just a few hairpins and a moment’s work,” he says, and then snaps his fingers, turning away toward the jumble of things he’d brought back from the fallen ship. “That reminds me—”
Ed continues to inspect himself in the mirror as Stede rummages through his looted bits and bobs. He looks like himself but like—a different version of himself, someone from another life. Someone who attends parties with his hair smoothed back and pulled up. Someone who wears velvet and lace. Someone who—
“Ah, here we are.” Ed looks up as Stede approaches, uncapping a small tube. “I didn’t bring any cosmetics with me—no call for that on the high seas, you know—but since this is going to be that kind of gathering, I thought I’d save them from the drink.”
Ed schools himself to not jerk back as Stede’s fingers come up to cup his jaw. “What’s that, then?” he says, his voice hushing as Stede leans in.
“Just a little bit of lip color. Nothing ostentatious,” Stede says, voice quieting to match Ed’s. Ed doesn’t know if he’s doing it on purpose, if he’s gentling his voice to soothe, or if he feels the same strange tension in the moment, the way the air has suddenly left the captain’s cabin.
“You trust me, right?” The words are heavier than they should be, but Stede’s face is completely free of guile, and Ed knows guile. Stede’s thumb trembles for a moment and then firms, pressing so close to the corner of Ed’s mouth that Ed could turn and bite it if he chose.
Ed does not so choose.
“Yeah,” he says, eyes on Stede’s. “I trust you.”
He doesn’t dare ask the same. He knows what the answer will be.
Instead he holds still, and he lets Stede paint his mouth with delicate, gentle touches, like wavelets on a calm sea in the middle of the night. Ed breathes carefully at the slide of the lip color against his mouth, eyelids drooping again as the pressure of Stede’s fingers against his jaw hold him steady.
“Open up a little further—that’s it.” Stede’s voice is warm with approval as Ed’s lips part and suddenly all of the air is back in the room and it’s on fire, Stede’s fingers nearly burning against Ed’s skin. Ed forces himself to breathe carefully, to not give himself away—he doesn’t know what there is to give away, but he knows it’s something, something delicate blooming in his chest.
The lip color lifts away from his mouth and Stede straightens, inspecting his handiwork critically. Ed finds himself straightening underneath that gaze, and Stede smiles.
“Captain! Cap’n, there's—oh.” Stede’s hand jerks away from Ed’s face as Lucius bursts into the captain’s cabin. “Sorry, I don’t mean to interrupt, but…”
“You’re not interrupting, Lucius,” Stede says, and although Ed would very much disagree with him there he’s not sure what was just interrupted, or why his chest feels suddenly tight. Maybe it’s the waistcoat? “Out with it, what is it?”
Lucius shifts from one foot to the other. “It’s just—the Swede is sulking that he can’t go to the party, and it’s bringing everyone down, so if you could just…?”
Stede huffs. “I don’t know why everyone’s so keen to go to this party, nothing exciting is going to happen. I’ll have a word with him. Apologies,” he says, looking down at Ed. “If you could excuse me for a moment?”
“Sure, sure.” Ed waves him away, pressing his lips together. The waxy slide of the lip color is foreign against his mouth, but Stede’s hand had put it there, and Stede knows what he’s about when it comes to this kind of business.
“Ah, almost forgot,” Stede says, moving over to rummage back through his looted goods again. “These looked like they went with the outfit, so I took them as well. Do you think you can finish up by yourself?”
He turns back around, holding out two slender purple ribbons draped over his hand. They do indeed match Ed’s coat.
“Uh—” Ed starts, just as the sound of loud dramatic sobbing filters in through the open cabin door.
“Oh, for—” Stede says, shoving the ribbons into Ed’s hand. “I’ll be right back, I just have to—deal with this.” He hurries out, tugging Lucius after him, and Ed is left alone with the two ribbons and a hand mirror. Stede trusts too well, to think that Ed knows what to do with these.
Stede trusts too well, and too easily.
Ed holds the ribbons up to the light, then runs them through his fingers. They’re soft, like the lace, like everything he’s wearing. He strokes his beard, thinking—
And then pauses, fingers stilling.
He glances at the mirror, but there’s no way he can hold it up and tie a ribbon at the same time. He needs a second pair of hands, and Stede’s are occupied.
“Izzy,” Ed shouts, abandoning the mirror and heading for the door, ribbons clutched tight in his fist. “Izzy? Where are you, I need you.”