EDWARD TEACH For Stede !

🪐 — EDWARD TEACH​  for  stede !

in another life,   edward laughs softly under his breath as he pulls stede in for a kiss,  then another,  and another still,  while love pours out of him with every breath.  in this life,  his legs give out at some point during stede’s account of that dreadful night.  selfishly,  he pulls the other man down with him,  stifling a hiss of pain against his shoulder when his knees hit the floor a little too hard.  he will regret it,  probably in the morning if not sooner,  but it’s a distant thought,  one he can’t bring himself to heed at the moment,  because suddenly he is frantic,  clawing at his leather jacket.  it’s stifling, too hot and heavy,  a thick layer of protection that keeps anything from getting too close to his skin, and he needs it off of him.  he needs it off of him now.  his fingers are shaking,  however,  the grip on the straps clumsy and edward nearly sobs in frustration before finally managing to throw it across the room.  breathing heavily,  he falls back against stede,  pushing him backwards until he is laying on the floor,  stede’s name rushing out of his mouth in what he is sure sounds like a delirious litany,  until finally he quiets,  head tucked under his chin,  body pressed against his.  he can feel his heartbeat,  the warmth of his skin where edward brings a hand to rest against his chest,  fingers searching for the bare skin along his collarbone,  trying to learn how to touch gently again. 

❛  just—  stay like this for a bit?  ❜   he needs to think,  and to stop crying and he can’t do either if he looks at stede,  who appears to be almost as wrecked as he is,  tears in his eyes and down his face.  something hissing viciously in his mind tells him he should get the fuck up and tell stede bonnet to never show his face again  —  it sounds suspiciously like izzy,  come to think of it.  edward ignores it.  he is treacherously close to dozing off when he disentangles himself from stede,  slipping off to curl up near his side,  close,  but with a few inches between them.  there’s a crease between his brows as he turns stede’s words over in his mind,  as he imagines him facing a gun and horrible lies while he was waiting for him,  unaware,  thoughts too prone to self deprecation to consider that something awful might have happened to stede on his way to the dock,  to him.   ❛  i thought you left because of me.  ❜   it’s not easy for him to try and put words to the storm that has been buried in his chest since stede went out of his life,  taking every bit of color with him too,  but he has to try.   ❛  because you saw me without all this.  ❜   the leather,  the legend attached to the name.  blackbeard,  scourge of the seas.   ❛  and realized it wasn’t worth it.  ❜   because isn’t that what everybody wants him to live up to? even if it’s killing him,  piece by piece,  day by day.   ❛  i should’ve come looking for you,  instead of standing there like an idiot  —  did he hurt you?  you said the gun went off.  ❜ his voice still sounds off kilter, too quiet, as if he doesn’t trust it not to break again. yet worry slips through the cracks, and it makes him want to reach for the small cut he left on stede’s throat earlier. he stays his hand, forces himself to look away and turn his gaze to the ceiling instead. eerily empty without the chandeliers, just as the rest of the room.

      AT SOME POINT they end up on the floor. at some point edward pulls away,  &  stede thinks that this will finally be it: the moment when he’s told to leave  &  not return. but instead he only tugs at his leathers, struggling for a moment before finally casting his jacket aside.  &  then edward crashes back into him like a wave, overtaking him until they are strewn on the floor. ed is murmuring, shaking, breaking apart, but at least stede has him is in his arms again.  &  he embraces him, tucking him close to his heaving chest, one hand stroking a slow rhythm back  &  forth over his back. ❝ of course, ❞  he murmurs through his shuddering breaths, letting edward lie still. &  stede eventually feels his own tears begin to slow, though he knows well that the sniffles will linger for awhile.                                                                       eventually, edward’s breathing steadies,  &  he disentangles himself from stede's arms to lie beside him instead, a few inches apart. to hear exactly what his absence on that dock that day had left his beloved to believe, stede feels his heart breaking anew, finding some fresh reserve of tears to dampen his stinging eyes once more.  &  stede when he speaks, his voice is certain, decisive. leaves no room for confusion. ❝ no. i never wanted to leave you, ed. it was always me. i just — he had me believing that i wasn’t deserving of you. that you would be better off without me. ❞  &  when edward’s wide dark eyes eyes lift to the ceiling, his war paint streaking down his face, stede wants nothing more than to reach out to him once again. but if edward wanted stede’s hands on him, he would still be in his arms.  &  he would never want force himself where he was not wanted. although he remembers a moment that now seemed like a lifetime ago, a moment where he had needed reassurance  &  ed had found a way to tell him all he felt without a single word.  &  so one of stede’s feet extends out, carefully tucking underneath edward’s leather boot with a gentle but insistent nudge. i’m here, it says. i came back, it says. i love you, it says.                ❝ no, he didn’t hurt me. he — he shot himself. on accident. &  i — i don’t know, i suppose i just . . .  ran away. but i’m fine now. ❞  a pause,  &  stede allows himself a sad smile, turning slowly to lie on his side so that he facing edward, all without ever pulling his foot away to break the tether between them. ❝ in fact, i actually feel  much better now i’m here. ❞  it may be hard to believe, sniffling as he is, his eyes red  &  watery,  a fresh trail of blood drying on his collarbone. but at least they were together again. at least he had been given the chance to tell edward the truth.

🪐 — EDWARD TEACH​.

the huff of breath he lets out is rough and unsteady.   it was meant to be a laugh,  but it got swallowed somewhere down the road,  replaced by a wave of relief so strong edward fears he might be sick from it,  nausea rolling in the pit of his stomach like it’s trying to tear it to shreds.  his own injuries never leave him so stretched thin,  he never lets himself wonder what could happen if his so called luck runs out,  but in the past few minutes his thoughts have been drowned by an endless stream of what ifs.  one more gut wrenching than the last,  of course.  but he is not allowed to spiral further,  thankfully,  anchored to the present as he is by that hand wrapped around his arm  —  yes,  he’s alright.  they both are.  edward holds on that certainty,  closing his eyes for a second or two.  when he tries again his breath comes out much less tortured and if he drops his head to rest it against the other man’s forehead..  well,  it’s been one hell of a day,  alright?  he lets go of him soon enough,  though,  mind finally brought back to the matter at hand:  a bleeding wound and a first aid kit that hasn’t been opened yet. 

❛  you’re not going to die on my account,  you hear me?  won’t let you.  i’ll piss you off back to life or somethin’.  ❜   he goes through the motions in silence,  then.  the steps familiar as well as the sight and smell of blood.  there’s no salvaging the already half perished couch,  but at least the wound is now clean and tightly wrapped up in gauze and bandages,  so edward rises to his feet only to drop on the couch next to izzy,  on his good side.  he winces a bit,  his shoulder dimly protesting against the rough movement,  but that’s not what makes heat creep into his voice.   ❛  where’s jack?  he was supposed to be here.  ❜   a thought,  lightning quick,  lances through his brain and he slants a furrowed glance izzy’s way.   ❛  d'you think he could’ve had something to do with this?  he’s been so fucking grouchy lately.  ❜   and as much as a part of him wants to say nahh,  because they’re friends,  part of him knows exactly why he has never been stupid enough to fully trust jack.  not like he trusts izzy.  not by a long shot. 

        A MERE MOMENT IN HEAVEN will always be worth every long day that izzy spends clawing through hell to get there.  &  as edward touches his forehead to his own, eyes pressed together as his breath steadies, izzy goes lightheaded at his sudden proximity to the divine. where before, everything had been sharp  &  clear  &  crystalline, now his vision goes fuzzy at the edges, his own breath coming in deep desperate gasps. the injury at his arm is entirely forgotten, all the pain overtaken by the heat that ripples out from every tiny point of contact where his skin touches edward’s. izzy can feel his breath on his face, &  his eyes are blown wide as his gaze traces the shape of his lips.  &  then it’s over, far too soon. his breath stutters unevenly when edward pulls away to tend his open wound. ❝ oh shut up, i’m not going to fuckin’ die, ❞ he attempts to cover his unsteadiness with a scoff, though he winces when the gauze tightens over the open wound. yet the pain clears his head, pulls the world back into focus despite edward’s fingers pressing the bandage down until it sticks.                                                 &  then everything is normal again, just as it was before. his arm still hurts, but it’s an absent ache. the kind he can easily ignore. edward sprawls down on the stained couch beside him.  &  at his words, izzy thinks for the first time not about the knife but about who had been wielding it  —  &  who had sent them. clearly, izzy had not been their intended target. the thought makes his eyes tighten at the corners, his gaze sweeping the small room to be certain that they’re alone, that no further threats linger waiting in the shadows to take edward by surprise. ❝ i don’t know, ❞  he admits, calling to mind the face of the man who had lunged at him. it wasn’t familiar,  &  izzy had no way of knowing if he was somehow significant, or just some hired knife off the street. ❝ i don’t think he would do that  — not to you, at least. ❞  how anyone could betray a man like edward was entirely beyond izzy’s reasoning, but clearly someone had it in their mind to harm him. ❝ but you know him better than i do. ❞ frankly, the reasoning wasn’t all that important; if someone wanted to get to edward, they would have to get through izzy, first. ❝ you think we should pay him a visit ? go ask him about it in person ? ❞ 

Clarice Lispector, from “The Egg And The Chicken”, Selected Cronicas (tr. by Giovanni Pontiero)

Katherine Arden, The Bear and the Nightingale

1.01 | 1.10

🪐 — STEVE HARRINGTON​  for  tommy !

fear clogs in his throat, heavy, leaving him breathless as the situation unfolds. there’s a certain unluckiness to the way they end up in these situations, a worry that has set up inside of his stomach and remains there in residency, never fading even when the world is meant to fall to safety. there’s something strange about @musecraft, something off that he cannot quite explain, except that it lingers, heavy in his stomach.        ❛   you doing okay, tommy?   ❜

      THERE’S SOMETHING ELSE IN HIS BRAIN,  but he can’t figure out what. all tommy knows is that he feels wrong, everything off, the world a little bit slanted. his head hurts,  &  there’s a ticking in his ears that he can’t figure out where it’s coming from, an unfamiliar chime played on a loop. &  then, all at once, steve’s voice cuts clean through everything else, tommy’s eyes going clear as they land on the familiar face. ❝ steve ? ❞  awareness of where he is returns slowly, tommy rubbing at his eyes with the back of his hand as he tries to clear his thoughts. ❝ uh, honestly man, i don’t really know. ❞  he feels better now, but the strange sensation lingers, his breath still coming a little shallow into his lungs.  ❝ please tell me you have some kinda idea of what’s going on ? ❞