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The past two days had been fraught ones, and Stede was at the end of this tether.
Stede had anticipated the chance they might entertain guests from their former lives, but he hadn't expected to be so effected by it. These particular guests were from Stede's life in Bridgetown, though they seemed blissfully unaware their jovial host might be anyone other than the simple innkeeper he claimed to be.
Outside of his performative hospitality, Stede shut down. He threw himself into maintaining the inn and its handful of guests, fussing with the decor, cleaning obsessively, and spending hours in the kitchen before falling into bed. And all the while, Ed watched him with concern in his lovely dark eyes while still giving him the space he needed to process the turbulent emotions their guests had brought.
Said guests had left that afternoon, and rather than relax, Stede was still trapped inside his mind. He was tense and tight-lipped, stiffly moving about the inn until they retired for the evening and shutting himself in the washroom. Stede scrubbed at himself with cold water, his hands shaking as he tried to get the suffocating, sweltering feeling that came when he felt stuck behind a wall of his own creation.
He emerged from the washroom in his nightshirt and robe to find Ed sitting on the edge of their bed. His handsome face was etched in worry and guilt gnawed at Stede’s stomach. He hated shutting down. He hated that it meant shutting Ed out, even when he didn’t mean or want to. Before their guests, Stede thought he was making progress on processing his thoughts and emotions in a healthy way, but this unexpected hiccup felt like a dozen steps backward.
He tried to breeze by Edward and toss his laundry into the basket only for Ed to snag Stede’s wrist and tug him close. He took the clothes from Stede’s hands and wrapped his arms around his hips, burying his face in Stede’s belly. Standing between Ed’s knees, Stede stiffly wrapped his arms around his love's shoulders.
Ed looked up at him with beseeching eyes, cheek still pillowed on Stede’s stomach. “Let me help,” he begged. “Tell me how to help you.”
Stede exhaled quietly. “I don’t know. I just… I feel like I’m stuck. I want to cry, but I can’t. It just won’t happen.”
Edward carefully gathered Stede’s nightshirt up until he could press his face into the softness of his skin. “I love you.”
“I love you too,” Stede croaked, leaning into the soothing caresses of Ed’s hands over his skin.
Ed closed his eyes and let his hands roam, breathing slow and even as he tried to coax Stede to relax into his touch. Stede struggled to match his breath to Edward’s, trying to will his muscles to relax and for the tension to release, but to no avail.
A hand grazed over Stede’s backside without purpose and an idea sparked in Stede’s mind. He stilled as the idea took shape, causing Ed to pull away from his stomach and look up at him in question. Stede held his eyes and gauged Edward’s own mood before concluding his idea might be good for the both of them.
Stede let his robe slip off his shoulders and onto the floor. Ed responded with an arched eyebrow and sat up straighter. Stede hooked a finger into his smallclothes and slowly slipped them off his hips as Ed looked more intrigued by the moment. Stede took over holding his nightgown up and very deliberately laid himself over one of Edward’s spread legs.
Ed’s face went lax in understanding. “Are you sure?”
“Yes. I can’t—I need help,” Stede admitted.
“How do you want it, love?” Ed asked, fitting a hand to the small of his back.
Stede bit his lip and considered for all of a handful of seconds. “Don’t stop until I use my word. Or if you need to use yours,” he amended.
“Okay. Okay,” Ed replied. He rubbed a fond hand over Stede’s naked ass and gave each cheek a little squeeze. “I’m still gonna check in, though.”
“Of course.”
Stede tried to keep the impatience from his voice, eager for the dam holding back all the emotions he’d been struggling with for the past few days to finally break. He pillowed his head on his arms with his face turned toward Edward, his pulse quickening as his heart started to race in anticipation.
He didn’t have to wait long. Ed’s hand came down on his ass with a smack! The sound was more startling than the mild blow, but Stede still jumped. The first few strikes always took him by surprise, even when Ed started as gently as he had now, but Stede quickly sunk into it. His racing mind started to slow, his limbs loosened, even as each impact made the skin of his backside sting.
Stede dug his fingers into the bedding as he whimpered, going up on his toes to better angle his ass for Ed’s hand, and his efforts didn’t go unrewarded. He gasped at the strength behind Ed’s hands, resisting the urge to rub himself against Ed’s legs as his cheeks bounced from each powerful slap.
His breath started coming faster and Stede found himself panting as he rubbed his sweaty cheek into the sheets, desperate for emotional release. His breath began hitching tearfully at the sting of each measured blow.
Ed paused to rub a soft hand over the throbbing skin of his backside. “Still good?”
“Yes,” Stede gasped out, pressing his face into the feather bed. “Still good. Don’t stop.”
He could see Ed nod from the corner of his eye. Concern was still written all over his face, as it had been every time Stede caught Ed looking at him for the past two days, but now it was tinged with relief.
Ed pressed his leg up into Stede’s hardening dick. “Do you want to get off?”
Stede shook his head. “No. No, please, I just need to cry. I need you to help me cry,” he begged.
Ed nodded and resituated Stede over his knee, hauling him further onto the bed so that only his toes grazed the floor. He rubbed his hand across the red, heated skin of Stede’s ass in the way he always did and picked up where he left off.
He started off stronger, the first blow making Stede cry out, but he didn’t stop. The intensity built faster than before as Ed held Stede in place with a firm hand to the small of his back. Each slap to his sore cheeks had Stede gripping the bedding even tighter as he ground his teeth together to keep himself from crying out despite how desperately he craved it.
It was so hard for Stede to relinquish the iron control he had over his emotions, and stumbling over this particular method of release had been a rather happy accident. Edward’s initial reluctance to push him so much harder than their usual play had melted Stede's heart like butterscotch. Eventually, he was able to communicate his need for something that wasn’t playing at all, but a firm push outside his careful control in a way he couldn’t reason himself out of—and after that, Ed was more than happy to turn Stede’s ass red to facilitate ‘talking it through’.
Stede felt the knot of emotions he’d been shoving down swell and get stuck in his throat as he whimpered from each punishing impact of Ed’s hand. Distantly, Stede knew he was going to be so sore and aching after such a prolonged session over Edward’s knee, but he welcomed it. He looked forward to the tenderness to follow in the coming days as a reminder that he didn’t have to grin and bear it any longer.
“C’mon, love,” Ed rumbled, voice low and coaxing. “You’re so close.”
Stede sniffled. He stubbornly pressed his lips together and pressed his forehead into the soft sheets while arching his back and presenting Edward with an easier target. Every crack of Edward’s palm against the swell of his ass made Stede squeak with the effort of holding back tears, and Stede worried that he’d pushed himself too far.
He’d spent long, enjoyable evenings over Ed’s lap, but the times Stede needed to be pushed over his limit had never lasted so long. He’d never needed to be spanked so hard, and Stede could feel the tension and energy Edward was expending to deliver the thrashing Stede was literally begging for.
It was that thought that set him off. Stede finally unclenched his jaw with a desperate sob as the first tear fell from his eye.
“Don’t stop!” Stede forced out. He’d felt Ed’s muscles go lax with relief at his first cry and panic gripped him at the thought of Edward stopping. “Not yet, not yet, please!”
“I won’t,” Ed assured him between harsh strokes of his hand. “Not until I hear your word.”
Stede went limp over Ed’s lap as he wept into the blankets. Each blow of Edward’s hand drove a burst of sound from Stede’s raw throat as the tension of the last few days slowly eeked out of him.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Stede chanted, each word gasped out in time to Edward’s devoted hand.
“That’s it, babe. There you go,” Ed breathed. “Let it out, love. It’s okay to let go here.”
The soft, crooning words made Stede’s heart skip in his chest and his breath catch in his throat. His cries quieted but didn’t stop as Stede embraced the cathartic respite such a purge of emotions brought. His body rocked forward with each measured strike of Ed’s hand against his ass until the poisonous, pent-up emotions finally bled out of him and left bliss in their wake.
“O-orange,” Stede stuttered weakly. “Orange.”
Edward's hand immediately stilled before he hauled them onto the bed until Stede could stretch his now-limp limbs out. He plastered himself against Stede’s shuddering form, curling around him until Stede’s senses were filled with nothing but him and their comfortable bed. Ed pressed his forehead to Stede’s sweaty temple and nuzzled in close, murmuring soothing nonsense that Stde was too far gone to hear but still appreciated.
“Thank you,” Stede whispered, breath still hitching as he came down from such a dizzying height. “Thank you.”
“You never have to say ‘thank you’,” Ed protested. “Not for that. If anything, I should be thanking you.”
Stede’s brow furrowed, his thoughts muddled through the fog of his swimming endorphins. “You helped me,” Stede insisted.
“And you trust me,” Ed replied firmly.
“Of course I trust you.” Stede lazily lifted his neck to press their foreheads together and stare into Edward’s eyes. “Of all the people in the world, you’re the only one I trust not to hurt me.”
Ed huffed out a tired chuckle in disbelief. “You sure about that?” he asked, his hand tracing feather-light touches over his throbbing backside.
“You’re the only person in the world I can trust to hurt me,” Stede amended. He smiled fondly at Edward’s furrowed brow and smoothed the wrinkles out with clumsy fingers. "Are you okay? That was..."
"A lot," Ed finished. He leaned heavily against Stede's side, carefully avoiding the reddened skin of his backside. "It was a lot. I've never—we've never gone that hard before. It's..."
Stede rubbed languid circles over Ed's tattooed skin, tracing over the ink on his back by memory alone. "I was worried it was too much," he admitted.
"It wasn't too much," Ed assured him. "I would have used our word if it was, but it was getting close. I was... I've never hurt you like that before. I could tell you needed it, and that you wanted it, but I knew that it was hurting you. I could see that it was hurting you."
"I needed it. I wanted it," Stede swore. "I promise."
Edward nodded. His eyes fluttered shut as Stede ran his fingers across his scalp. "I know. I just...I think that I scared myself."
"How?" Stede asked. He wrinkled his nose in discomfort as he shifted to the side enough to tangle their legs together and tuck Ed's head under his chin. "What scared you?"
"That I still liked it," Ed confessed, his words barely a whisper. "I like to have you over my knee when we're playing, but I like this too. I like watching my handprints bloom all over your pale skin and the way you squirm over my knee. I like the little noises you make and watching the skin of your ass bounce enough that I get a glimpse of your hole—but I liked how hard you needed it. I... I think I didn't realize I was stuck in my head too, and that I needed..."
Stede nodded slowly, the pieces slowly coming together in his mind as he continued scratching idle patterns over Edward's scalp. "Did you want to punish me? For being so distant?"
"No," Ed denied quickly. "That's not it. I was proud of you for trusting me, and for asking me for what you need. But I was also proud at how much you could take. I was proud that you needed it as rough and as hard as I needed to give it to you, even though it was going to leave you bruised and tender. I didn't mind that I was hurting you, and that feels... wrong."
Stede hummed in consideration and rested his weight against Ed. "Have you ever thought about wanting to hurt me before?"
"No!" Ed exclaimed vehemently. He pulled away enough to be able to look Stede in the eye and wrinkled his nose in dismay. "Well, not since I woke up after the Gravy Basket. I just... I'm worried that the next time this happens and you ask for my help, it won't be enough. Not for me. I worry that you'll feel better but I'll still have pent up... whatever. Energy or emotions or what have you."
"Hmm. Well, there's more than one way to skin a cat," Stede mused softly.
Ed grimaced at him. "Ew."
"Oh, excuse me, Mr. Made Somebody Eat His Toe for a Laugh—"
"That's different."
Stede rolled his eyes. "It's not," he drawled, tucking Ed back under his chin. "But I understand what you mean. And I think...I'd be okay with that."
"I wouldn't," Ed refused. "Not after you use—"
"No, not that. If one of us has to use our word, then that bit is over," Stede agreed. "I mean, I think I would be okay with... something else. I think I'd like that."
He could feel Ed's lashes flutter against his throat as he blinked and took in Stede's words. "What do you mean?"
"Well. Spanking might be off the table, but there's other things we can do if one of us has to tap out," Stede said. "We'll have to talk about it more when my head isn't filled with fluff, but I think I might have an idea or two."
Ed leaned back to trace his fingers around the outline of Stede's mouth, his eyes intent as Stede nodded. "Yeah, that's one of them."
"And the other?"
Stede bit his lip, closing his eyes as Ed ran callused fingertips over his lids. "You mentioned earlier." Ed's fingers paused before slowly making their way down his side and back to slip between his sore cheeks and circle the rim of his hole. "Mmhm. That's the other."
"You'd want me to fuck you after a walloping like that?"
"You could start with your fingers," Stede rasped, trying his hardest not to clench the muscles of his sore backside as Ed teased at his hole. "M-maybe..."
Ed pressed against his hole a bit more insistently. "Maybe what?" he begged.
"Maybe—maybe even," Stede said, faltering. "Maybe even have me hold myself open and spank my hole a bit."
"Fuck," Ed sighed. "We gotta try that out before, first."
Stede's breath caught in his chest. "Now?" he asked hopefully (desperately, foolishly).
"Not a chance, love. Even if I wasn't dead tired, I have a lot more questions before I'm willing to keep going after a scene like this, you little siren," Ed denied firmly. "Masochist or not, you're already gonna have a hell of a sore ass in the morning."
“You're the one that has to deal with my whinging about it, so who's really suffering, hmm?” Stede teased.
“Wouldn’t trade it for the world,” Edward said. “You're a lunatic, but you're my lunatic. Now, let me get the aloe."
"Yes, please," Stede giggled.
He was sleepy and giddy so very boneless despite the heat radiating from his blistered cheeks as he reluctantly let Ed slip from his arms. Edward stood at the side of the bed and stretched with a groan, his trousers hanging low on his hips. He gave Stede a fond look and shook his head as his eyes settled on Stede's poor ass.
"You're red as a cherry," Ed mumbled, yanking his pants higher onto his waist.
A memory pinged in Stede's mind as he thought back to the stilted meal they'd shared earlier. "Were there any cherry tarts left?"
Ed paused, looking over his shoulder with mirth dancing in his eyes. "Yeah," he said, chuckling as he redirected his path to grab a robe to pull over his shoulders. "Yeah, there were."