Moonlight
Title: Moonlight
Author: gwyllion
Genre: Canon era
Pairing: Blackbeard | Edward Teach/Stede Bonnet
Rating: R
Words: 2202
Warnings: None
Summary: The moon resets, waxing and waning every month, just like Stede and Ed reset the course of their lives.
A/N: I tried, unsuccessfully, to avoid piracy, and yet here I am. Thanks to my wonderful beta, Gillian, the best cheer-reader ever! This is for my ofmd enabling friend Ramsay Baggins, who (second only to Mrs. Darby) is apparently Rhys Darby’s most ardent fan.
Disclaimer: I did not create these characters. No disrespect intended. No profit desired, only muses.
Comments: Comments are welcome anytime, thanks so much for reading!
A creak of straining wood pierced the quiet of the ship. The offending sound rose over the pattering licks of waves against the bow and stirred Stede from his dozy bliss. It took only a moment for his eyes to close again, for him to file the sound away, attributing it to the Revenge settling in its joints.
A water-swollen plank had challenged its pinning. Nothing unusual for a ship still new to the ways of the wind and the sea. Life aboard a ship at sea brought as many challenges as it did gifts to those who embraced it.
Stede settled when a warm hand pressed against his belly, reminding him that the Revenge sailed again under his command. The crew was safe and well. Even Lucius had managed to make amends with Ed since they fished the scribe from the surf of a nearby island. And Ed…
Ed’s lips moved against the back of Stede’s neck, “No need to be so jumpy, mate.”
A delighted grin broke across Stede’s face. He hummed an audible acknowledgement to his bedmate, but he kept a private glee locked inside his own heart. With the soft wisps of Ed’s hair spread across their shared pillow and Ed still buried deep within him, Stede couldn’t imagine a better ending in any of his adventure books that were lost to the sea.
Stede patted Ed’s arm as they slipped free of each other, an undignified sheen of cooling sweat bringing a chill to bare skin. Stede rose and went to the basin, gathering a few articles of clothing for his return. A soft butter-coloured dressing gown for himself and Ed’s favourite red silk. After managing some long strokes of a washrag, Stede knelt on the bed and draped the silk over Ed’s shoulders to ward off the cool night air. He wrapped Ed in his arms, pulling his silk-cloaked back against Stede’s chest.
Ed covered Stede’s hands with his own and tucked him closer, like a warm blanket on a shit day.
Stede had never imagined anyone wanting him the way that Ed did. He murmured his appreciation, scattering kisses on the top of Ed’s head.
Outside, a full moon rose over the waves. Shimmers of light tipped each crest of the undulating sea, glittering against the dark ocean of the sky like the sugary glaze from one of Roach’s cakes. Like all things in nature, the moon moved through its cycles each month. Reliable. Steady. From nothingness to fullness and back to nothing again. Reborn, over the course of weeks.
Through the window of their berth, the moon cast its light over Stede’s face, bathing him in a golden glow. With Ed wrapped in his arms, his heart beat out a rhythm of gratitude for a reunion with his beloved who he had almost lost forever. The love between he and Ed had grown like the moon, from emptiness to bursting, and back again, in as little time as it took for that shining commander of the tides to wax and wane.
The gentle sea outside his window lulled Stede into a peaceful rest, the first he could remember in weeks. As a youth, Stede once witnessed a crewman who became trapped between a pier and a ship that had escaped its mooring. Chest crushed, a soundless scream on the crewman’s lips as the sea and the ship worked together to purge the last vestiges of life from the unfortunate soul.
Stede could certainly empathise.
After a few weeks when it seemed like he himself had suffered a similar fate, crushed by his own version of such an immense weight, his life, like the moon, had become reset yet again.
That’s what Ed had called it… a reset.
Just as this night’s full moon glowed brighter than any sputtering candle at their bedside, Stede’s heart had filled again to its greatest capacity, broad and shining, ready to start over again.
The ship rose and dipped on the vast sea. Beneath Stede’s fingertips, Ed’s chest matched the rise and fall of the waves that followed the path of the moonlight across the water. Although Stede couldn’t see Ed’s face from this angle, he knew his eyes were peacefully closed. A peace, hardfought with tears and anger, apologies and sorrow. A peace won by sheer perseverance. And now a new beginning.
“I can hear you thinking,” Ed said, turning and bumping his head against Stede’s chin.
The red silk of Ed’s dressing gown, stolen from Stede and rumpled with the tears shed during their separation, shifted beneath Stede’s fingers momentarily. But he searched again and found the pulse of Ed’s heartbeat beneath the silk and tattooed flesh.
Warm brown eyes found Stede’s.
Stede slid his hand beneath the silk, caressing Ed’s shoulder, offering a modicum of warmth. His thumb traced a ragged scar for which he hadn’t yet learned the story of its origin. There would be time for that on another night. For now, Stede only wanted to enjoy the peace and feel the pleasant weight of Ed in his embrace again.
“Hmm?” Ed grunted.
“The moonlight,” Stede said, nodding toward the window. “I was thinking about the moon, how it all but disappears and then returns to fullness again.”
Ed squeezed Stede’s hand where it rested. “It’s full as ever tonight.”
Stede agreed. A pleasant memory nudged its way into the corner of his mind. He sighed and said, “I was remembering that time when we stood on the deck together after the soiree.” He tilted his head to raise an eyebrow at Ed.
“Hmmm, when we watched the French ship burn,” Ed recalled in his low rumble that never failed to make Stede’s heart race.
“We stood on the deck, dressed in our finery,” Stede said with an exhale, remembering the well-coiffed pirate with flowers in his hair, in his beard. “You were so handsome that night,” he added in a whisper.
“Thought I was handsome every night?” Ed asked with a laugh.
“You are, my darling,” Stede said, assuring him with a stroke of his hand through Ed’s hair.
“Just checking,” Ed said, pushing himself onto his knees and turning so he could face Stede fully.
Stede clasped his hands to Ed’s shoulders and tugged him closer. He never wanted to see a look of doubt on Ed’s beautiful face. Kissing Ed as he pulled him into his arms, Stede vowed to make up for abandoning Ed on the lonely dock. With their reset, their new opportunity to start over again, Stede promised to spend the rest of his life filling Ed’s days with happiness. He had so many regrets and still so much to apologize for, mostly his own stupidity at not recognising what he and Ed had, until Mary described to him what real love felt like. Although he didn’t speak his thoughts aloud, he sent every word, every promise, into Ed’s mouth with a slide of his tongue and a nip of his teeth.
And Ed seemed to understand, matching him touch for touch, not with the frantic kisses that sometimes preceded their coupling, but with the reverent kisses of a love that had been lost and won.
When Stede pulled away to breathe, he left his fingertips on Ed’s cheek and spoke, “But on that night, beneath the full moon that I remember… that was when you gave me your heart, but I was too stupid to notice.”
“You’re not stupid,” Ed protested with a shake of his head.
Stede huffed in disagreement, content to leave it at that.
“I nearly kissed you then, you know,” Ed said, lowering his eyes in a manner that made him appear almost shy, if Stede hadn’t known better.
Still, Stede let out a little gasp at the confession.
“But I was a coward,” Ed admitted. “Didn’t know if you would have liked it or not.”
Of course Stede would have liked it. If Ed had kissed him that night, it might not have taken so long for him to recognize that he loved Ed. And after a lifetime of thinking himself entirely unlovable, Stede would have been rendered speechless by the thought of Ed wanting to kiss him, Ed wanting to love him.
“I would have liked it a lot, I think,” Stede admitted. “A gentleman as fine as yourself, bedecked in velvet and brocade, your gorgeous hair pulled back in a cascade of ringlets. The soft glow of the flames on your face as we stood together watching the ship burn….”
Ed shifted his gaze from Stede to the window and the waves beneath the glimmering moonlight. “The pocket square that you folded for me that night,” he whispered. “I lost it. If anything, that makes me the stupid one of this lot.”
Stede slipped his fingers beneath Ed’s chin. He scratched at his new beard, the scruffy hair growing softer by the day. Ed had made the concession to regrow his beard when they came to an accordance after Stede’s return and their apologies to each other. It was the easiest way for Ed to convince Stede that he hadn’t defiled the greatest pirate of all time, reducing him to a hapless mercenary instead. In truth, Stede found the beard exceedingly dashing. Although Ed’s beard had lost the dark colour that gave him his fearsome moniker, the salt and pepper strands that would soon enough grow into roiling curls made Ed look every inch a pirate.
“I’m sorry you lost it,” Stede said. “I know it meant a lot to you.”
Ed tipped his head, leaning into Stede’s touch, letting him guide his gaze back to him. “It lost me. That’s a more fitting way to describe it. In my despair, I gave up. I let the wind take it away, just like your life in Barbados took you from me,” he clarified in a low voice. “But you blew back to me again.”
Stede grinned fondly. “Whoever said that Blackbeard couldn’t wax poetic was a fool,” he whispered in mock outrage.
Ed smiled and pressed his lips to Stede’s palm. He whispered against the skin, “Call me Ed.”
Stede nodded. “My Ed,” he said, confirming, before he shifted forward to capture Ed’s lips again.
Ed shuffled forward on his knees and pulled back the covers. He clumsily slid under them, taking Stede with him, falling into a tangle of limbs and bedding.
Stede’s feet got caught in the dressing gowns, but he kicked himself free to lie in Ed’s arms beneath the exquisite sheets and cashmere throws.
They settled together, adjusting an arm here, a leg there. Stede took care to avoid jostling Ed’s bad knee, and Ed made sure Stede’s arm wouldn’t fall asleep beneath his neck. It was as Mary had said… as easy as breathing, as comforting as the scent of lavender soap in Ed’s hair and the whisper of marmalade on his lips.
“I think we can find you another,” Stede said, tapping his fingers on Ed’s bare chest.
“What’s that, love?” Ed rumbled.
Ever wanting to rebuild what he and Ed shared, wanting to set things right again… their grand reset, Stede said, “The red pocket square. I mean, I know it won’t be exactly the same, but I’m sure we can find something in what’s left of my wardrobe to serve as a symbolic reminder of that night. Or perhaps when we’re next in port, we can shop for something to replace it.”
“I think I’d like that,” Ed said with a yawn. “Besides, I have a lot of shopping to do… shopping for books….”
Stede hummed in agreement. The disappointment of losing his books stabbed at his heart from time to time, but he understood Ed’s devastation when he failed to join him on the dock that fateful night. Books could be replaced, Stede reminded himself. He would have happily traded his entire library for a reunion with Ed, if need be. He looked forward to shopping for the replacements with Ed. Perhaps he could even teach Ed to read. Wouldn’t that be something! The next full moon would bring new adventures, a perennial reset for two men in love.
“You may have lost your pocket square, but you can wear my silk dressing gown for as long as you like,” Stede whispered, but Ed had already drifted off to sleep.
Rocking lazily on the tide, the Revenge creaked and crackled. The joinery that had swelled and contracted with nature’s whims settled into a comfort as similar as Stede’s. A quiet peace after a raging storm.
From the Captains’ berth, Stede allowed his own breath, his own countenance, to match the flow of nature’s forces around the ship. Finally, after weeks of fretting and anguish, his own personal creaking and crackling, he could breathe again. He relaxed into the welcome relief of Ed’s arms just like his ship had risen and fallen on the whims of the sea when it weathered a storm for the first time.
Outside, the moonlight marked a new page in the true journal of the life and happenings of Stede Bonnet. Beside him, Ed snored softly, wrapped in the red silk like a gift from the sea.
Author: gwyllion
Genre: Canon era
Pairing: Blackbeard | Edward Teach/Stede Bonnet
Rating: R
Words: 2202
Warnings: None
Summary: The moon resets, waxing and waning every month, just like Stede and Ed reset the course of their lives.
A/N: I tried, unsuccessfully, to avoid piracy, and yet here I am. Thanks to my wonderful beta, Gillian, the best cheer-reader ever! This is for my ofmd enabling friend Ramsay Baggins, who (second only to Mrs. Darby) is apparently Rhys Darby’s most ardent fan.
Disclaimer: I did not create these characters. No disrespect intended. No profit desired, only muses.
Comments: Comments are welcome anytime, thanks so much for reading!
A creak of straining wood pierced the quiet of the ship. The offending sound rose over the pattering licks of waves against the bow and stirred Stede from his dozy bliss. It took only a moment for his eyes to close again, for him to file the sound away, attributing it to the Revenge settling in its joints.
A water-swollen plank had challenged its pinning. Nothing unusual for a ship still new to the ways of the wind and the sea. Life aboard a ship at sea brought as many challenges as it did gifts to those who embraced it.
Stede settled when a warm hand pressed against his belly, reminding him that the Revenge sailed again under his command. The crew was safe and well. Even Lucius had managed to make amends with Ed since they fished the scribe from the surf of a nearby island. And Ed…
Ed’s lips moved against the back of Stede’s neck, “No need to be so jumpy, mate.”
A delighted grin broke across Stede’s face. He hummed an audible acknowledgement to his bedmate, but he kept a private glee locked inside his own heart. With the soft wisps of Ed’s hair spread across their shared pillow and Ed still buried deep within him, Stede couldn’t imagine a better ending in any of his adventure books that were lost to the sea.
Stede patted Ed’s arm as they slipped free of each other, an undignified sheen of cooling sweat bringing a chill to bare skin. Stede rose and went to the basin, gathering a few articles of clothing for his return. A soft butter-coloured dressing gown for himself and Ed’s favourite red silk. After managing some long strokes of a washrag, Stede knelt on the bed and draped the silk over Ed’s shoulders to ward off the cool night air. He wrapped Ed in his arms, pulling his silk-cloaked back against Stede’s chest.
Ed covered Stede’s hands with his own and tucked him closer, like a warm blanket on a shit day.
Stede had never imagined anyone wanting him the way that Ed did. He murmured his appreciation, scattering kisses on the top of Ed’s head.
Outside, a full moon rose over the waves. Shimmers of light tipped each crest of the undulating sea, glittering against the dark ocean of the sky like the sugary glaze from one of Roach’s cakes. Like all things in nature, the moon moved through its cycles each month. Reliable. Steady. From nothingness to fullness and back to nothing again. Reborn, over the course of weeks.
Through the window of their berth, the moon cast its light over Stede’s face, bathing him in a golden glow. With Ed wrapped in his arms, his heart beat out a rhythm of gratitude for a reunion with his beloved who he had almost lost forever. The love between he and Ed had grown like the moon, from emptiness to bursting, and back again, in as little time as it took for that shining commander of the tides to wax and wane.
The gentle sea outside his window lulled Stede into a peaceful rest, the first he could remember in weeks. As a youth, Stede once witnessed a crewman who became trapped between a pier and a ship that had escaped its mooring. Chest crushed, a soundless scream on the crewman’s lips as the sea and the ship worked together to purge the last vestiges of life from the unfortunate soul.
Stede could certainly empathise.
After a few weeks when it seemed like he himself had suffered a similar fate, crushed by his own version of such an immense weight, his life, like the moon, had become reset yet again.
That’s what Ed had called it… a reset.
Just as this night’s full moon glowed brighter than any sputtering candle at their bedside, Stede’s heart had filled again to its greatest capacity, broad and shining, ready to start over again.
The ship rose and dipped on the vast sea. Beneath Stede’s fingertips, Ed’s chest matched the rise and fall of the waves that followed the path of the moonlight across the water. Although Stede couldn’t see Ed’s face from this angle, he knew his eyes were peacefully closed. A peace, hardfought with tears and anger, apologies and sorrow. A peace won by sheer perseverance. And now a new beginning.
“I can hear you thinking,” Ed said, turning and bumping his head against Stede’s chin.
The red silk of Ed’s dressing gown, stolen from Stede and rumpled with the tears shed during their separation, shifted beneath Stede’s fingers momentarily. But he searched again and found the pulse of Ed’s heartbeat beneath the silk and tattooed flesh.
Warm brown eyes found Stede’s.
Stede slid his hand beneath the silk, caressing Ed’s shoulder, offering a modicum of warmth. His thumb traced a ragged scar for which he hadn’t yet learned the story of its origin. There would be time for that on another night. For now, Stede only wanted to enjoy the peace and feel the pleasant weight of Ed in his embrace again.
“Hmm?” Ed grunted.
“The moonlight,” Stede said, nodding toward the window. “I was thinking about the moon, how it all but disappears and then returns to fullness again.”
Ed squeezed Stede’s hand where it rested. “It’s full as ever tonight.”
Stede agreed. A pleasant memory nudged its way into the corner of his mind. He sighed and said, “I was remembering that time when we stood on the deck together after the soiree.” He tilted his head to raise an eyebrow at Ed.
“Hmmm, when we watched the French ship burn,” Ed recalled in his low rumble that never failed to make Stede’s heart race.
“We stood on the deck, dressed in our finery,” Stede said with an exhale, remembering the well-coiffed pirate with flowers in his hair, in his beard. “You were so handsome that night,” he added in a whisper.
“Thought I was handsome every night?” Ed asked with a laugh.
“You are, my darling,” Stede said, assuring him with a stroke of his hand through Ed’s hair.
“Just checking,” Ed said, pushing himself onto his knees and turning so he could face Stede fully.
Stede clasped his hands to Ed’s shoulders and tugged him closer. He never wanted to see a look of doubt on Ed’s beautiful face. Kissing Ed as he pulled him into his arms, Stede vowed to make up for abandoning Ed on the lonely dock. With their reset, their new opportunity to start over again, Stede promised to spend the rest of his life filling Ed’s days with happiness. He had so many regrets and still so much to apologize for, mostly his own stupidity at not recognising what he and Ed had, until Mary described to him what real love felt like. Although he didn’t speak his thoughts aloud, he sent every word, every promise, into Ed’s mouth with a slide of his tongue and a nip of his teeth.
And Ed seemed to understand, matching him touch for touch, not with the frantic kisses that sometimes preceded their coupling, but with the reverent kisses of a love that had been lost and won.
When Stede pulled away to breathe, he left his fingertips on Ed’s cheek and spoke, “But on that night, beneath the full moon that I remember… that was when you gave me your heart, but I was too stupid to notice.”
“You’re not stupid,” Ed protested with a shake of his head.
Stede huffed in disagreement, content to leave it at that.
“I nearly kissed you then, you know,” Ed said, lowering his eyes in a manner that made him appear almost shy, if Stede hadn’t known better.
Still, Stede let out a little gasp at the confession.
“But I was a coward,” Ed admitted. “Didn’t know if you would have liked it or not.”
Of course Stede would have liked it. If Ed had kissed him that night, it might not have taken so long for him to recognize that he loved Ed. And after a lifetime of thinking himself entirely unlovable, Stede would have been rendered speechless by the thought of Ed wanting to kiss him, Ed wanting to love him.
“I would have liked it a lot, I think,” Stede admitted. “A gentleman as fine as yourself, bedecked in velvet and brocade, your gorgeous hair pulled back in a cascade of ringlets. The soft glow of the flames on your face as we stood together watching the ship burn….”
Ed shifted his gaze from Stede to the window and the waves beneath the glimmering moonlight. “The pocket square that you folded for me that night,” he whispered. “I lost it. If anything, that makes me the stupid one of this lot.”
Stede slipped his fingers beneath Ed’s chin. He scratched at his new beard, the scruffy hair growing softer by the day. Ed had made the concession to regrow his beard when they came to an accordance after Stede’s return and their apologies to each other. It was the easiest way for Ed to convince Stede that he hadn’t defiled the greatest pirate of all time, reducing him to a hapless mercenary instead. In truth, Stede found the beard exceedingly dashing. Although Ed’s beard had lost the dark colour that gave him his fearsome moniker, the salt and pepper strands that would soon enough grow into roiling curls made Ed look every inch a pirate.
“I’m sorry you lost it,” Stede said. “I know it meant a lot to you.”
Ed tipped his head, leaning into Stede’s touch, letting him guide his gaze back to him. “It lost me. That’s a more fitting way to describe it. In my despair, I gave up. I let the wind take it away, just like your life in Barbados took you from me,” he clarified in a low voice. “But you blew back to me again.”
Stede grinned fondly. “Whoever said that Blackbeard couldn’t wax poetic was a fool,” he whispered in mock outrage.
Ed smiled and pressed his lips to Stede’s palm. He whispered against the skin, “Call me Ed.”
Stede nodded. “My Ed,” he said, confirming, before he shifted forward to capture Ed’s lips again.
Ed shuffled forward on his knees and pulled back the covers. He clumsily slid under them, taking Stede with him, falling into a tangle of limbs and bedding.
Stede’s feet got caught in the dressing gowns, but he kicked himself free to lie in Ed’s arms beneath the exquisite sheets and cashmere throws.
They settled together, adjusting an arm here, a leg there. Stede took care to avoid jostling Ed’s bad knee, and Ed made sure Stede’s arm wouldn’t fall asleep beneath his neck. It was as Mary had said… as easy as breathing, as comforting as the scent of lavender soap in Ed’s hair and the whisper of marmalade on his lips.
“I think we can find you another,” Stede said, tapping his fingers on Ed’s bare chest.
“What’s that, love?” Ed rumbled.
Ever wanting to rebuild what he and Ed shared, wanting to set things right again… their grand reset, Stede said, “The red pocket square. I mean, I know it won’t be exactly the same, but I’m sure we can find something in what’s left of my wardrobe to serve as a symbolic reminder of that night. Or perhaps when we’re next in port, we can shop for something to replace it.”
“I think I’d like that,” Ed said with a yawn. “Besides, I have a lot of shopping to do… shopping for books….”
Stede hummed in agreement. The disappointment of losing his books stabbed at his heart from time to time, but he understood Ed’s devastation when he failed to join him on the dock that fateful night. Books could be replaced, Stede reminded himself. He would have happily traded his entire library for a reunion with Ed, if need be. He looked forward to shopping for the replacements with Ed. Perhaps he could even teach Ed to read. Wouldn’t that be something! The next full moon would bring new adventures, a perennial reset for two men in love.
“You may have lost your pocket square, but you can wear my silk dressing gown for as long as you like,” Stede whispered, but Ed had already drifted off to sleep.
Rocking lazily on the tide, the Revenge creaked and crackled. The joinery that had swelled and contracted with nature’s whims settled into a comfort as similar as Stede’s. A quiet peace after a raging storm.
From the Captains’ berth, Stede allowed his own breath, his own countenance, to match the flow of nature’s forces around the ship. Finally, after weeks of fretting and anguish, his own personal creaking and crackling, he could breathe again. He relaxed into the welcome relief of Ed’s arms just like his ship had risen and fallen on the whims of the sea when it weathered a storm for the first time.
Outside, the moonlight marked a new page in the true journal of the life and happenings of Stede Bonnet. Beside him, Ed snored softly, wrapped in the red silk like a gift from the sea.