Chapter Text
On the extremely rare occasion that religion happened to be a subject of conversation on the Revenge, Wee John-–always with a nod of mute approval from Jim–-would spit out a particular phrase in reference to Stede, Lucius, and select crewmen's upbringing. Without fail. Even if they weren't a direct subject of the conversation.
A week after Bonnet's return and the reinstatement of Storytime, Edward had attempted to explain his own particular brand of maltheism featuring at least two gods to the crew, and Feeney had interrupted him to bark:
"It's no good explaining it, Cap'n, you're wasting your breath on a buncha fucken Prods!"
Stede thought this characterization of his spiritual life a bit unfair. He no more attended the Church of England than John did the Church of Rome. Out of his many fears regarding his sexuality, God and his immortal soul's state had not featured. He no more believed in angels, saints, or a triune deity than he did in ghosts, mermaids, or crystals in women's bodies. He wouldn't have called himself a skeptic if he'd known of that term, and he believed in many Romantic and therefore spiritual ideals. But the specifics of any one religion? No. Stede had many problems, but that wasn't one.
Or he thought it wasn't. Some aspects of his childhood that he'd jokingly referred to as religious, like the Protestant work ethic, he'd abandoned without shame the moment he first climbed aboard the Revenge. Others he'd kept without thinking about them. Only when he tripped over hard proof did he acknowledge that some of his habits weren't his own delightful personality, but had been beaten into him via religious education.
His mental shutdown when Edward had casually called a cumstain on the mattress a map of England, for example, only made sense if he regarded England–-a place he'd visited all of once–-as something Special. What made that little speck of land Special was, arguably, the King on whom the Empire's strength relied. And the King's importance depended upon the favor of God and (more likely, Stede thought later) the weight of tradition. His shock had been one of scandalized blasphemy; his laugh afterwards, a dispelling of superstitious horror, throwing salt over his shoulder.
Little things caught him up sometimes. He dealt with them, he thought, with the humbleness and good humor that had endeared him to his beloved crew. Still, it was stressful to know that his whole life might be strung with tripwires ready to drop baskets of ignorance and embarrassment over his unsuspecting frame.
One thing which he thought of as a matter of etiquette and personal preference was the rhythm of his and Edward's sex life. It seemed quite natural to Stede Bonnet that they fucked in their bed at prescribed hours. He never erred in being present and available at those hours. Anytime after their nightcap was fair game, for instance-–immediately afterward, although once he'd fallen asleep too drunk to fuck, woken up at four in the morning, and, on seeing Edward relaxed in the starlight, had shaken him awake to beg the use of his thighs. (He'd felt terrible afterwards. Edward had not.)
If they waked with enough space between themselves and the moment their breakfast would be delivered, then that, too, was fair game. That was more Edward's purview than Stede's. More often than not, he'd rouse when Teach straddled him and slid his beauty-mask off his face. His eyes would open the same moment that Ed's long thoughtful fingers would find his dick beneath the sheets and his night-shirt, and away they went.
However, the moment they got out of bed in the morning, Stede would brook neither hanky nor panky. Between breakfast and nightcaps they could kiss, touch, hold one another, but-–to contradict Izzy Hands's revolted suspicions, there was no fucking during naptime, or any other time.
He was, at first, at peace with this limitation. He used to only have sex, at most, once a month–-and he and Mary hadn't touched each other intimately in the final two years of their marriage. Getting it once or twice a day seemed like a gluttonous overindulgence more in line with adolescent fantasy than adult reality, and he felt a wordless gratitude when he thought of being wanted and wanting melding, lining up, harmonizing. Needing much more would… well! it would feel sinful.
That should have told him the source of his prudishness, but one cannot know what one does not know. So when he kissed along the side of Edward's neck as they laid down mid-day, and he yearned to keep moving down… he resisted, as though God were judging him positively for his restraint. He took pride in his self-control generally, but particularly with Ed, who was possessed of more arousing beauty than any six men Stede had ever seen combined. Ed could turn statues to flesh and bring life to the dead solely for the chance to know him, that's what Bonnet thought. Spending any time at all away from their shared bed showed his personal dedication to piracy and to his crew.
Three days after Izzy manipulated Edward into a raiding frenzy, however, Stede didn't feel much by way of pride or personal dedication. He was, were he honest, just plain fucking horny.
They had fucked first thing in the morning, at Stede's behest this time, and gotten cleaned up in time for breakfast and tea. Then they'd had the officers' meeting, and during that Edward had flopped back in his chair and rocked it back on its hind legs while listening to Oluwande, and doing that made his bare toes point against the floor, and that had made Stede think of how Ed had strained those beautiful legs when he'd–-
And that was it. Stede spent the rest of the day with his thoughts tripping over his own dick. He had done what he could to control his unseemly thoughts. Fortunately, they remained thoughts; his body took much longer to catch up with his overexcited brain in terms of its arousal. But nothing had stopped it.
He'd begged off a siesta because lying next to Teach and smelling his hair would be too much of a temptation. He'd sat on the sofa instead, a book half-opened on his lap, listening to his beloved breathe in sleep and thinking of Edward's lips against his ear as he stammered out Stede's name.
He didn't pull away from Ed-–he was a very touchy man, and Stede hated the idea that he might make his poor co-captain feel rejected–-but when those hands flitted over the small of his back, traced the line of his shoulder, or ran down the inside of his forearm, he shut his eyes and pursed his lips. It had felt like his own desire would flame out of his skull if he didn't scrunch up his face and keep it all in.
It grew unbearable after supper, at which point Stede stopped glancing at the clock in his quarters and commenced a mental countdown, or else he'd get whiplash. Three hours. The crew traditionally took an hour to goof around and perform last-minute checks after supper; that took an hour. Storytime took up to two hours, if they were invested in the book or in Edward's tales. Currently they were all dying to know how Black Beauty's third owner would treat him, so he rounded up. Then he could make it to their quarters.
Two hours and fifty-six minutes and he'd be on the sofa with Edward. He could make it through a single shot of brandy by then. And then he'd drag Ed back to their bed. Hell, he might start out on the sofa–-shocking and distracting as the very image was to Stede.
Two hours and fifty-two minutes.
Stede checked half the rigging himself to have something to do, ignoring how Fang and Frenchie regarded his unusual presence on deck with suspicious curiosity.
Two hours and forty-nine minutes.
Stede went down to the galley and made sure the fire in the stove was out, since Roach wasn't around. He checked on the livestock to see they had fresh water. He checked the ball room, nodded at the Swede.
Two hours and forty-one minutes.
Stede was running out of things to do, so he drifted through the halls, stepping to the side whenever he passed another member of his crew. He found relief when Lucius stopped him to talk about how they needed more blank books when they went to port next. Apparently, Edward had stolen several of Lucius's back-ups and filled them with his own art. Stede authorized the purchase while thinking of Ed drawing him in the state Lucius had drawn most of the crew.
Two hours and thirty-eight minutes and how the hell was he supposed to do this?
Bonnet paused at a turn near the port bow, staring numbly out of the nearest porthole. He might have to embarrass himself by slipping off to their quarters and jerking off. Everything, everywhere reminded him of Edward, and all those reminders led to the blunt-as-a-hammer thought of He was so tight this morning, and now his cock felt like he'd changed into trousers too small for his body.
There was no way he could talk about the beauty of horses, discourse on the importance of animal welfare, or argue with Frenchie about equine anatomy signifying their allegiance to Satan, not while he was like this.
He leaned against the wall near the porthole, forearm against the smooth wood, forehead against his arm, eyes shut. He forced himself to take slow, even breaths. He was a whole, entire adult man. He would be thirty soonish. He had to have some kind of restraint. Fuck, Edward had been the very picture of self-control compared with him, hadn't he?
"There you are," said the man in question.
Stede eep'ed, jolted a bit, spun around to smile at Edward as though he'd been caught touching himself instead of thinking about it in some detail. "Hello, love!" he said, sounding strained. "I'm late for Storytime, aren't I?"
"N–no, you've still got twenty-nine minutes." He tilted his head as he regarded Stede from toe to tip. There was one lamp, turned low, in this narrow and otherwise-empty passage. He looked more like a great distorted shadow than a real man in the dim yellowlight. "What's wrong, Stede?"
"Wrong? Nothing could be wrong. I'm living the dream," Stede said, still smiling. "What'd you need, dear?"
Ed stared at him, then through him. He twisted a curl of his beard around one finger, then seemed to come to an internal decision. "Isn't there a hidden passageway around here?"
Stede lit up. His own cleverness and fondness of secrets was about the only thing that could tear his thoughts away from how Edward looked in leather trousers. "Oh! Indeed there is! To be sure, they're all over the ship, but the one here is-–hang on, it's around here someplace-–"
He stroked beneath one of the bars of wood running along the wall as though it were the undercurve of Edward's calf, found the little button that could have been an overextended peg to untrained fingers, and pressed it inward. At the same moment he pushed the paneling inward and to the right. It appeared to sink into the wall, looking like the ship was collapsing in on itself; then it found the wheeled track it ran on and smoothly rolled behind the identical-looking panel beside it.
He glanced back at Teach, as proud of this passage as he'd been of his auxiliary closet-–proud, but confused. "How'd you know about this one, then?"
"'Cause everybody's fucked down here 'cept for you and me," Edward grumbled.
"That's impossible," Stede said, piqued at the very idea. "It's a secret!"
"You gonna show me the inside or not?"
"I–I–I don't understand how a secret passage could be so well-trafficked," he said, throwing up his hands as he turned back to the far-more-solid darkness within the passage. "In the first place, this one connects to our quarters, so the thought of anyone doing That in here is-–"
"Oh, really? Which direction?"
Stede stepped inside, blessedly distracted from his sexual plight by the skin-crawling horror of who had done what in his precious hidden hallways. He pointed off into the void that was now ahead of him. "There. It cuts down the middle of the ship between a few different rooms. Gets a bit narrow. Honestly, I don't see the appeal of this as a romantic spot-–"
The door clicked shut behind Edward.
"Ed, I can't see!" he snapped, still not getting it.
Warm and gentle hands slid unerring around Stede's waist, down the plush of his waistcoated front, over the smooth of his trousers, to come to a possessive rest around the bulge of his cock. Next came the almost-feverish body heat radiating from Edward as he pressed against Stede's back. The soft spill of his hair over Stede's quaking shoulder, lips along the curve of his ear.
"That's part of the romantic appeal, love," he whispered.
"You're making it so difficult for me to wait," Stede said, hating the whine in his voice.
"Then don't. We're here. We have a little time and you've been eye-fucking me all day."
"Wh–-you knew."
"You aren't subtle." An adoring squeeze, and once again, Stede's trousers felt like they were tailored for a man half his size. "Dunno why you've been fighting the urge, to be honest. You could've had me six times today if you'd asked. You didn't. So I am."
Stede almost answered him in truth, which would have sounded like It wasn't the appointed hour yet, and if we start fucking around whenever the urge takes us, we'll never get anything goddamned done ever again! And he might have had a half-point, but being confronted with Edward's hands urging his trousers down and then seizing his agonized dick as though it were diamonds… well! it made any protestations about The Right Time sound stupid before they were said. His arousal didn't give a toss about what the clock said.
As long as they weren't late for Storytime, then, what did it matter?
"If you're asking," Stede said, "then I've got to give."
"Good," Ed said, the word hardly more than a puff of air tickling along Stede's ear. "Then hold still."
Being a good service top thanks to a combination of personality and ever-diminishing inexperience, Stede did as he was bid. Mostly. He wasn't entirely still–-who could be when embraced by Edward Teach? He leaned back a skosh, turned his face to nestle in thick well-kempt curls (perfumed with sandalwood, a scent that he thought suited Edward far more than himself), his hips easily rising up and away, his cock relieved by all this sudden attention.
He thought he'd spill enough precum to do the job, but of course that was a fantasy, and also of course his beloved had arrived at his side well-prepared. One hand eased back his foreskin and brushed loving fingertips over the bare head. The other let go of Stede, and though he was sorely distracted by those teeth against his ear, Stede still heard the telltale scrape of a lid unscrewing, the metallic clatter of it being thoughtlessly dropped, followed by the deeper thump of the tub bouncing off the top of his kid-leather boot, the wheeling of it rolling away. He had to bite back his fastidious desire to shriek about how all that oil would surely damage the wood, or endanger their lives if either of them stepped in it–-then slicked fingers embraced his dick and he forgot about biting back anything but a too-loud moan.
Once Ed seemed satisfied with the state of his arousal, he let Stede go entirely. He heard the creak of leather as Edward turned on his heels, belt buckles clinking as he worked himself free of that idiot-tight prison he wore day in and out. Stede took a few deep, quiet gulps of air, as though preparing for a deep dive into calm waters, and turned as he heard the delightful sound of flesh on wood-–he pictured Ed's forearms bracing along the hidden inner wall, feet braced apart, back beautifully curved, ass popped up.
"Where'd the fucking oil go?" Stede said, his hands finding the small of Ed's back, confirming that his imagination was dead on and that Ed had adopted the precise pose he'd pictured.
"Who cares?"
"I do, love, I need to get you ready!"
"No, you don't. You're plenty wet, and you've fucked me so much lately that I've taken your shape."
Stede did not think that was how it worked. His knowledge of anatomy suggested that Edward's musculature had adapted to this style of lovemaking so well that he'd know how to relax and welcome Stede without much fanfare. His rock-hard and -stupid carnality said it didn't fucking matter one way or another, it was ready for Edward now and would hear no more arguments.
Even then, he tried so hard to be gentle-–hands on Ed's hips, less pressure on his left side to give his poor knee a break, his hips jerking forward in little stuttery quarter-thrusts, working into him by degrees. So naturally Edward had to moan when his cockhead entered him fully and Stede could imagine those dark eyes rolling back in his head like he always did when he hit that specific note, and all of Stede's determined repression turned to smoke.
Protestant he may be, but fucking Edward brought out the pagan in Stede.
It passed far too quickly for both of them, but that was, he realized later, the cost of waiting and longing for too many hours. He had Edward pinned bodily against the hidden wall in a matter of minutes, his arms tight around that waist crossing over his gorgeous soft stomach hands cupping his chest, fingertips tugging at the little golden barbell Ed had gotten pierced through his left nipple three weeks prior. He slammed into Edward as ruthless as the most blue-blooded gentleman proving himself to his peers; at turns, he bit along Ed's neck like he wanted to make him bleed and drink him in.
He wanted to cry out from the soles of his feet of how only Ed could do this to him, how Stede had been dead until he'd wakened up beneath his beloved's yearning touch, but he daren't. Everyone would hear them in this spot. Part of the heady risk of fucking here, he thought. Even Teach, who turned songbird more often than not when they fucked, was keeping it down somewhat; he grunted and choked on his breath, sounding like he'd sank his teeth into his own forearm.
Stede was comparatively silent, barely breathing much less groaning. He let his dick and his hands speak for him, had them instruct every part of Ed's body they caressed and adored how much Teach meant to him, and it sounded like the message was well received.
Then he felt the incomparable tightness round his dick flex, shiver, clamp down onto him, and he bit the thickest part of Ed's shoulder in retaliation. Ed was good, too good, he had learned more than how to properly relax his hole–-he could work himself into an insane tightness, it felt like he was trying to milk an orgasm out of Stede and if he didn't stop he'd get exactly that.
Stede could not fight back against Ed's current, not after the day he'd had. He tried for maybe half a minute, then gave in to what it felt like Teach demanded-–his hot face pressed helpless along the side of his beloved's neck, his hands trembling against the curve of Ed's stomach, his hips utterly still as his dick thrilled, his body melted down every wanton desire he'd struggled against all day and pumped them drop by drop into oh please Edward–-!
It took Stede a few deep, shuddering breaths to recombobulate himself, and to realize that, to his dismay, he hadn't yet driven Edward to the same end he'd reached.
His hands slipped down his (delightful shivering!) chest and stomach and almost made it to Ed's dick when they both heard it: Wee John on one side of the ship up on deck, Buttons belowdeck and much closer than either of them would prefer at the moment, both of them calling for their Captains to commence with Storytime.
"That's not fair," Stede said, the whine right back where he didn't want it.
"You'll take care of me later, love," said Edward, and as that was true enough Stede forgave himself his selfishness.
By the time he sat on his usual barrel with Black Beauty spread out over his lap, he was the very picture, once more, of Protestant restraint.
No one, he was sure, suspected a thing.
-tbc-