Work Text:
Retirement suits Edward Teach very nicely indeed.
Maybe that’s because of the remarkable man who introduced the concept of a life of leisure to him in the first place, but tonight, as he lounges in Stede’s silk dressing gown, gazing contentedly at the pinks and oranges of the sunset, tea in hand, he’s sure he’s never been happier.
And he’s gaining weight, he thinks with some satisfaction, looking down at the soft swell of his belly where the robe falls open. Stede’s appreciation for fine foods has treated them both well.
He drains his cup and yawns, stretching indulgently.
“Tired, love?” Stede’s grown adorably fond of pet names. It makes Ed’s heart warm and his cheeks go pink. He’s never had anyone call him something so tender before.
“Just happy,” he replies, not turning to look at his partner. He hears Stede move, though, all six feet of him. He’d recognize the sound and rhythm of his step anywhere. The hand that alights on his shoulder is gentle, warm through the dressing gown’s fine, delicate fabric. He tilts his head to the side so it’s leaning against Stede’s arm and makes a happy little hum. “Pretty, that,” he murmurs, meaning the sky.
“Yes, it is.” He can feel Stede’s gaze on him and he blushes.
“Oh, don’t, man.” Soft fingers tangle in his hair, not tugging, just petting him. Taking pleasure in it.
“I’m just telling you what I think, Edward,” he says. His voice is soft enough that Ed’s scared to breathe too deeply, in case he drowns it out. “You look lovely in my things.”
At that, Ed looks up, catching a glimpse of Stede standing behind him on the balcony. His hair is a little longer, a little messier; his beard’s growing out; his skin is more weather-worn, less perfect, creamy-white. He’s beautiful in a shocking, arresting sort of way that makes Ed’s stomach lurch, even still. “It’s because you own such lovely things,” he retorts, half-joking. He can see the sunset’s soft colours reflected in the blue of Stede’s eyes.
“Maybe.” The other man quirks an eyebrow. “It’s getting cold. Do you want more tea?”
“Nah. Be up all night, all that sugar.”
Stede’s smile is dazzling, teasing out two asymmetrical dimples on either side of his wide mouth. “You don’t have to drink it that way, you know.”
“’Course I do.”
They fall into their usual, easy banter as the sun slips below the horizon, casting a last pattern of glimmering light over the ocean before it’s gone and the stars emerge one by one above them.
Ed’s touched Stede what feels like countless times, as long as they’ve been sharing a bed. He relishes the taste of him, the feel of him, hard and hot in Ed’s hand or between his thighs or grinding against Ed’s hip. Ed can come, more often than not, with Stede’s cock in his mouth and his own hand between his legs.
Of course, that’s where things usually end.
Inside the small, tree-top home they’ve made theirs, Stede lights candles until there’s enough light to see by. The flame flickers, casting golden light that catches in his light hair and makes Ed feel a little dizzy. He can’t do anything but saunter up behind Stede, spin him around, and kiss him.
“Hello,” Stede tries to say, his voice muffled by Ed’s mouth.
Ed pulls back enough to grin. “Hi, mate.” His partner’s still fully dressed, in something particularly gorgeous, all hues of gentle pink that make it hard to look at anything but the velvet curve of Stede’s lips. So Ed kisses him again, for good measure. He catches Stede’s bottom lip between his teeth, lightly, and pulls, and feels Stede lean into him, stumbling a little against him, the force making Ed wrap an arm around his waist to keep them both balanced. In only the dressing gown, more naked than not, it’s hard not to think of pulling him into their bed.
“ I was going to have more tea,” Stede says, a little helplessly. His eyes are bright, pupils blown out wide as he takes in Ed’s form, the mess of his long hair, the scruff of his half-regrown beard, his bare chest, the new flesh on his belly, his thighs, his hips. He’d have hated it, once. Would have complained to Izzy that he’s going soft. But the way Stede looks at him makes him puff up with pride, makes him feel like a beautiful thing.
“Were you?” Stede’s taller than him, so it’s easy to shift and press his mouth to his lover’s throat, making him shiver.
“Mm-hmm.” His voice is high and delicious.
“D’you want me to get that for you?”
Stede sighs and tugs the dressing gown down. “No, no, I’m quite all right, I think.”
“Mm. Good.” Ed grabs at Stede’s hip and pulls him in, but they can’t get any closer to one another, pressed together as they are. He chuckles, and steps back, and whispers, “Bed?”
“Yes, that sounds lovely.”
He tugs Stede through the half-open door to the bedroom by the frills on the front of his jacket, and he feels a little absurd about the whole thing, about being naked while Stede’s still shrouded in layers of opulent fabric, but then Stede’s undoing a series of complicated ribbons and he’s too enraptured by the working of his soft hands to feel self-conscious.
“Need any help with that?”
Stede’s managed to free himself, though, and he hangs the jacket carefully before lowering himself down beside Ed. “You can help with the rest of it,” he says cheekily, and kisses him again, deeper now, and hungrier. He tastes of oranges.
“That’s the fun bit anyway.”
“Can’t kiss you if you keep talking, Edward.”
The sweet admonishment in Stede’s voice make’s Ed’s stomach flutter, and he quiets, letting Stede kiss him. There’s a hand on Ed’s outer thigh, another in his hair, pulling him in and closer until he’s breathless with the force of it and reaching forward to fumble with Stede’s shirt-buttons. He’s grown used to the intricacies of Stede’s clothing, and the pretty thing falls open without much fanfare, leaving Stede’s chest bare. Ed runs his hand over it, feeling the heat of his lover’s skin and the frantic hammering of that hummingbird heart.
He whines when Stede stops touching him to shrug the thing off, but then he’s back, more intently than before, his hand on Ed’s waist, grabbing the flesh there hard enough that it’s just on the right side of pain. Reaching down, he means to undo the laces on his trousers, but almost immediately he’s distracted by what he finds there, and palms at the bulge growing beneath the fabric happily.
“ Hello .”
“Mmm.” Stede’s mouth is busy doing something glorious at the crook between Ed’s shoulder and his neck. “Ed.”
“Yeah, mate?”
“ Mmm . Can I…”
But he trails off. Ed doesn’t think anything of it: Stede’s distractible, adorably so. But then he pushes Ed’s hand away and shifts so they’re face-to-face.
“You all right?”
“Yes! Spectacular.”
“Right, cause you…” Ed can feel himself flushing. “Stopped, is all.”
Reassuringly, Stede trails a finger up the soft curve of Ed’s belly, tickling enough to make him giggle. (Stede has made him into a man who giggles. Wonders never cease.) “I did, yeah.” He pauses, then surges on, still touching Ed lightly, tenderly. “Thought it might be nice, um, to… well… I’ve never done any buggering before.”
Oh . Ed laughs, and Stede looks crestfallen.
“No! No, mate, that’s fine, I’d like that, yeah.”
There’s a quiet moment that feels like relief. Stede smiles at him, and Ed can’t say nothing, so he says, “I mean, you were married. It’s not all that different.”
“I hope it’s different,” Stede says, so earnestly that Ed has to kiss him again. It’s quick. Frantic. Stede’s thigh slips between his legs and he rocks against it, into the dizzying pressure between his thighs, relieving the ache in his cock. Stede’s tongue is in his mouth, and then Stede’s teeth are catching his lip, and then the skin of his throat, and then the tender flesh of his chest, his belly, his lips pressing into the hair that curls around the base of his cock, his balls, and Ed sighs, letting it happen, falling into it happily.
Ed’s about to tell Stede that as much as he’s enjoying himself, it’ll be difficult to get any buggering done at this angle, but then Stede pauses, and looks up at him with a sly look in his eye that suggests he’s about to get up to some proper fuckery.
“Roll over for me.”
It’s not a question, and Ed freezes. “Oh,” he says, stupidly.
Stede kisses the dip of his hipbone. “Sorry, I—did you not—you don’t have to! We can do this.” He ghosts his hand over Ed’s cock as if for emphasis, and Ed whines.
“No, I… that’s all right, it’s just. I’ve never. Er.” He wiggles, not wanting to say it. “Always been the other one.”
“Oh.” Stede’s voice is soft. “Well, you can be the other one, if you’d like.”
Indecisive, self-conscious, he sits up. “Think I might like this, actually.” He bites his lip. “You’ll need, uh—”
Stede raises a finger, shushing him. “I know.” Rummaging in the drawer beside their bed, he produces a little jar of opaque, coppery glass that looks positively tiny in his big hand. Ed grins.
“Who ever said Stede Bonnet isn’t a proper pirate, eh?”
“So this is a key tenet of proper piracy, is it?” Ed rolls onto his stomach, sighing a little when his cock, unflagging, presses into the hard mattress. He can hear Stede moving, and the rustling of fabric, and heat sparks behind his navel, though he’s suddenly nervous, too, and his breathing shallow.
“Pretty key, yeah,” he says, trying to sound casual.
Stede’s hand is on the small of his back, and slides down to ease Ed’s legs apart, bending his knees, giving him access. “That wasn’t in any of your lessons.”
What starts as a laugh turns to a gasp as Stede traces one finger, slick, now, with oil, around the tight furl of Ed’s entrance. “I wouldn’t… consider it entry level, ah , material,” he manages.
“You’re lovely,” Stede says, his free hand pressing into the back of Ed’s thigh. “Just look at you.”
He doesn’t have time to respond: Stede eases his finger in and the ground drops out from under him as he opens to take it, stomach swooping, muscles tightening at the almost-pain of the pressure, pushing, pushing, until he breathes and everything relaxes.
“Fucking hell,” he says.
“That’s all right?”
“Y-yeah, mate.” Ed rocks his hips, not sure if he’s trying to beckon Stede further in or writhe away from the too much of it all. Stede curls his finger and brushes past a spot that makes sparks explode in the back of Ed’s throat, and he groans.
“Like music,” Stede murmurs, his voice quiet with soft, awed affection. “Better, even.”
“Please,” Ed gasps.
Stede quickens his hand slightly, but not enough: Ed whimpers. “Good things come to those who wait,” his lover says, and presses a kiss to the back of his shoulder. Ed would give anything to see him, but he can’t make himself move, knows he’s entirely at Stede’s mercy. “You’re beautiful, love.”
“ Stede .”
The second finger takes some time, tight and tense as he is, and Stede’s gentle with him as always, easing it in without hurry. Ed can’t manage to keep his eyes open or stop the noises bubbling up from his throat: he just feels his body move with the rhythm of Stede’s hand, feels himself unfurling for him like a goddamned flower, until he can’t remember his name or how he got here or anything but the feeling of Stede’s hands on him, in him.
“Nearly there, I think.”
“How are you so—good at this?”
“I’m not completely naive,” Stede protests. Ed can imagine him winking. “And I know what you look like when you’re enjoying yourself, Ed.” And there it is again, that curling of Stede’s fingers over the spot that makes Ed writhe . He hates to think of what he must look like, so undone, but the thought of Stede staring down at him, admiring him, calling him beautiful makes heat coil in his chest, his gut, his throat. A tender, intoxicating feeling. “One more?”
“Y-yeah. Please.”
It almost burns, the stretch. The push against every edge of him. Stede is still for a moment, humming a little, stroking the small of Ed’s back with his other hand. “There we go. Very good.” Ed whines and Stede chuckles. “You’ve never done this before?”
“No.”
“Funny. You look like you were made for it.” Ed rocks against the mattress again at that, hungry, wanting, desperate. He whimpers.
“Move, damn it.”
“What’s your hurry?”
He can’t explain that he’s going mad at the teasing, so he just grunts, “ Mm —want—”
Stede spreads his fingers a little, easing him open, and then he’s moving in and out with such gentleness that Ed feels like he’s floating. “Lovely,” he murmurs.
He lets his lover ruin him tenderly without begging now. Lets Stede push into him: more and more and more. He can feel the wet spot forming on the sheets where he’s leaking onto them, can feel sweat beading on his back with the sweet exertion, can feel the heat of Stede’s touch, everywhere and everywhere. Maybe he whimpers the man’s name: he’s lost track.
Then emptiness, suddenly, all at once as Stede slips out of him.
“Hey,” he protests weakly.
“Not to worry,” Stede says quietly, pressing a kiss to the small of Ed’s back. “Are you ready, darling?”
He twists his hands in the sheets. “Yeah.”
“Relax, then, all right? That’s it.” He feels the bed shifting as Stede moves, and the heat of his partner’s body above his, and then Stede’s hands on the backs of his thighs, adjusting them. Ed lets him, weak and desperate as he is already, and then—
Stede isn’t fucking him yet. He just presses against Ed’s entrance, open and ready and waiting, and sighs. Ed can feel the slick and the oil coating his cock, and the gentle curve of it, and he thinks he might scream if he has to wait, but Stede breaches him, then. Just slightly, to start, a barely-there press of him in . Ed bites their pillow.
The bigger man leans forward and places his hands over Ed’s, entwining their fingers. “How is that?” he whispers, almost shyly.
“Good, it’s— good , Stede, fuck.”
“Mmm—good.”
Deeper, then, and it’s sweet, it’s lovely, his head is spinning. Stede is whispering something Ed can barely understand. He feels far-off, out of his body, all pleasure, ache, and want. Stede’s half-buried in him, and Ed can feel every inch of him, the heat of it, the heady smell of sex and Stede’s body and his own. His cock twitches, pinned between his belly and the bed, and Stede’s hips press forward until he’s completely sheathed in Ed’s body, and Ed curses, loudly enough that if they were still on The Revenge they’d have been the subject of weeks of gossip.
“Fuck me,” he begs, “Stede, fuck me, fuck.”
The rhythm he finds is slow and insatiable, unbreaking, Stede’s hips driving Ed into the bed over and over until his whines fall from his lips in time with Stede’s motions. Stede’s grip on Ed’s hands tightens, and Ed wants to unravel completely. It’s not long at all, this quiet first time, once they’re about it, really, but it feels an eternity that Stede works him over, makes him a beautiful, desperate creature. Then there’s heat and wet and Stede’s voice breaking high and pretty in the quiet, and Ed comes with him, cock finally relenting and pulsing his seed onto the sheets as Stede fills him.
“Beautiful,” Stede whispers. When Ed finds the strength to roll over, he sees how Stede’s eyes rake down his body, taking in the mess between his thighs, the tangles of his hair, the sweat-sheen coating his skin. He grins.
“Stede.” He can’t say anything else. How could he?
His lover bends to kiss him clean, and Ed falls into rapture.