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“I see why you like him so much,” a calm, smooth, terrible voice loomed over him, “he has such pretty screams.”
Stede blinked and the memory vanished. In its place, Ned Lowe lay before him. His eyes were empty, blood oozing around around the poker protruding from his chest, but the ghost of his smile lingered.
Time seemed to slow then, which was strange, since moments before, everything had moved at a break-neck pace. It only took a few moments, and they lingered as Stede starred: his own pathetic scream echoing in his ears as the fire-hot poker flayed another torturous line across his back. The grunts and kicks and struggle of Edward behind him, gagged and forced to watch. The door slamming open and cracking against the wall, the second of surprise that paused Ned’s torture, and Stede using the precious moment to throw himself towards his captor.
The struggle was quick, but brutal. There was someone else besides the two of them, someone who held Ned back and another who freed Stede’s tied wrists, but Stede couldn’t see anything but Ned. Like a man possessed, the moment Stede’s hands were free, he grabbed the poker Ned had used to peel scream after scream out of him all evening, and rammed it straight into the other man’s chest.
Everything felt distant in the silence that followed. Even the stripes of fire Ned had painted on his back didn’t really hurt. He just stared at Ned’s corpse, and strangely, thought about picking flowers.
Something touched his cheek, and the world snapped back into place with all the force of a firing pistol’s hammer slamming. He jolted, and the wounds on his back screamed. He tried to follow suit, but his voice was raw and weak now, and a tiny screech escaped instead.
“It’s okay, it’s okay,” a familiar voice washed over him, sounding cracked and dry, and Stede watched as Edward manifested in front of him, blocking his view of Ned’s body. That wasn’t right, though, because Ed had been tied up — but no, Pete and Lucius — oh God, they had seen—
“Stede, please,” Ed begged, his hands out in front of him placatingly, his eyes red and wet. “Just – just sit down on the couch, okay? Yeah, like that, slowly.”
Stede followed his instructions without a thought, but the movement aggravated his burns, and he flinched as his legs hit the couch. Ed’s eyes flashed with razor-sharpness for a moment, but it disappeared as he kneeled in front of him.
“We’re gonna get the crew, okay?” At the mention of the crew, Stede tried to stand, but Ed put a hand out in front of him to ease him back down, just like when they had first met. The memory settled some of the frenzy running through his veins. “We’ll take care of it. Stay here, we’ll get Roach to patch you up, okay?”
“He’s dead?” Stede asked, his own voice sounding very far away.
“Very fuckin’ dead,” Ed said, his voice as deadly as a storm. Stede simply nodded, then waited to catch up to the world spinning around him. He thought it might be a while yet.
Later, after his burns had been carefully cleaned and the blood where Ned’s body had lain was scrubbed away, Stede sat on his chaise, stared at the spot where Ned Lowe had bled out, and thought about flowers.
The knock at the door broke him out of his trance. Pushing through the sting of his wounds, he got up to open it, and found Ed waiting on the other side.
“Hey,” Ed whispered, and all of the sudden, all of the feelings Stede hadn’t been able to reach since he had killed Ned swept over him like a tidal wave. Weakling. Pathetic. Murderer. Stede was drowning, so he reached out towards the lifeboat right in front of him, and surged forward to meet his savior’s lips with his own.
It was perfect, for a moment. When all he could feel was Ed kissing him back, his rough, wide palm cupping his neck, Stede could fool himself into thinking this was all there was. He had waited so long to be here again, intertwined with the love of his life, and finally, something had gone right in Stede’s life.
But memories began to crowd the tender moment, memories of shame and terror, and Stede could feel his tentative joy slipping away. He pressed into the kiss harder, racing to find it in Ed’s mouth, but he moved too quickly, pulling on his wounds. He broke the kiss with a flinch, but dove back towards Ed immediately, eager to lose himself in his beloved, no matter the cost.
But instead, Ed took a step back. “Stede,” Edward pleaded, sounding small and pained, and Stede tried not to let it land like a blow.
“It’s fine,” Stede insisted weakly, trying to move forward, but Ed put a hand on his chest.
“I want to take care of you, Stede,” Ed said, his eyes shining, and Stede wanted to scream for the hundredth time that day.
“Then take care of me,” Stede insisted roughly, pushing forward so that their bodies were pressed together, and he grabbed Ed’s hand to put it on his waist. He could feel Ed’s hardness from here, could see the shade of lust in his eyes, all they had to do now was fall into it, together—
Arms wrapped around Stede’s shoulders, holding them both in place. A hug, Stede realized. Their first hug. A sob caught in Stede’s throat.
“Not right now,” Ed muttered into his ear. “Not like this.”
“Because I’m broken?”
“Because you’re hurt,” Ed insisted, his fingers clutching Stede’s shoulders. “Because you deserve so much fucking better then what happened to you.”
Stede tried to shake his head, but he was securely in Ed’s hold, and he didn’t want to leave it, not really. With nowhere left for all of these unrelenting feelings to go, Stede clutched onto Ed like a dying man, and finally let it spill out of him.
He sobbed, and he apologized, and he begged, and he raged; Ed held him through it all. And when the sun peeked through their window, and Stede was wrung out dry, Ed was still right there, holding him gently.
“Thank you,” Stede croaked as Ed helped him walk over to the bed. “And I’m… I’m sorry. For all of it.”
“Don’t be sorry,” Ed said softly, easing him onto his stomach to avoid his burns. “Just… get some rest, Stede. It’ll all be okay, yeah?”
It was the furthest Stede had felt from okay for a long time, but he closed his eyes, and trusted Ed.