Within minutes of Stede being dragged unceremoniously back onboard the Revenge, Ed has a knife pressed to his throat, an ankle hooked around his shin, and a noseful of a scent that even under weeks of dirt and salt is so unmistakably Stede that he has to bite back a sob that claws painfully at his throat.
He shouldn’t be here. He shouldn’t be here, the dregs of his once-crew shouldn’t be here. They have no right to step foot on this ship, this ship that Stede gave up all rights to when he walked away from the one thing Ed had left to offer him. They have no right to be here. Ed doesn’t want them here, Izzy certainly doesn’t want them here, and he’s long past caring about the wants or desires of the skeleton crew he’s managed to keep. He should send them away, throw them all overboard, anything to put as many miles between his ship and Stede fucking Bonnet as he can.
His brain and his heart seem, miraculously, to be on the same page; but his body is rebelling, tension he’d forgotten he was even carrying seeping out of his bones for the first time in weeks at the too-familiar press of Stede’s body against his, the scent of his skin, the grip of his fingers in the sleeve of Ed’s jacket.
There’s dirt under his fingernails, Ed notes.
When he trashed the captain’s quarters, when he stripped the entire ship of Stede’s presence, there were things left untouched, small items and trinkets tucked away in places he knew Izzy wouldn’t think to look. Under the basin in the small captain’s bathroom, in a box Ed manages to ignore the existence of most of the time, is a block of sweet scented soap, a deathly sharp razor with a polished handle, a hair comb, and a small nail brush.
Even on his worst days, Stede always had a smooth face, combed hair, clean hands and nails.
The man gripping on to Ed’s arm like a lifeline has wind matted hair, a rough jaw, and fingernails blackened with dirt. He’s no longer the same person Ed laid on a dock and waited an entire night for.
He doesn’t know whether to laugh, or cry.
