HE SAID IT!!!! - Tumblr Posts

🪐 — edward teach​ ;

he waits for hatred or disgust to crawl into stede’s words.   waits and waits for it to hit him straight to the chest,  like a fatal wound delivered with inescapable good aim.  it’s no less than what he deserves.  but nothing of it comes, not in the slightest  —  the only thing he hears is wretched sadness.  and regret,  too.  so much of it edward nearly chokes,  chest tightening painfully at each intake of breath.  he can’t breathe right,  like something is pulling him underwater and he can never gulp down enough air before he goes down again.  right hand curls,  desperate to hold onto something,  anything,  and it doesn’t stop when it only finds the flesh of his palm,  it doesn’t stop when skin tears and he starts to bleed  (   better his blood than the sight of stede’s own   ).  it grounds him,  at least a little.  not nearly enough.  what he needs is what he can never have:  stede.  stede touching him,  his arms keeping him afloat like he did in his dreams. 

❛  i killed the writer boy.  toss’d him overboard.  ❜   and that can’t possibly be stede’s fault now,  can it?  no,  that is on his hands alone.    ❛  so why shouldn’t you—  what else can you be here for?  ❜   now that anger doesn’t fuel him anymore his voice sounds weak,  on the verge of breaking.  he is so tired of pretending to be dealing with this any better than he is.  it doesn’t take long now  —  a sob wrenches itself free from his throat,  and it’s like a dam finally bursting open.  edward doesn’t have the strength to hold back tears any longer,  so he lets them fall down his cheeks in messy rivulets,  streaked with black,  his head still hung low. 

         IT’S THE MENTION OF LUCIUS that makes stede feel suddenly ill, his stomach rolling unpleasantly like a ship in a storm. the scribe hadn’t been left on that god-forsaken spit of sand with the rest of the crew, but nor had jim or frenchie,  &  yet only the later two had been waiting safely aboard the revenge upon his return.  & stede flinches at the thought that the boy had died all thanks to him,  all because he hadn’t been there to keep him safe. the regret overwhelms him for a moment, makes him nauseous. perhaps lucius’s ghost would appear to haunt him now, waterlogged  &  deathly pale with seaweed in his hair. but the broken sob that escapes from ed’s lips returns stede’s attentions to the present — he will have to assuage his guilt about the boy later, somehow.                                                                      edward’s face is downturned, its expression hidden by his long loose hair. but the flickering candlelight glistens against wet tear-lines that track through the black paint ringing his eyes  &  trail down his cheeks.  &  stede can’t stop himself any longer, the instinct to comfort his beloved when he is in pain far stronger than the need for self-preservation. he takes half a step closer, a hand gradually extending until his fingertips make contact with edward’s leather-clad shoulder.  ❝ oh, ed. i do wish you hadn’t done that — after all, it was me you should’ve been angry with, not him. ❞ when he doesn’t instantly lose his hand for its impudence, stede allows it to slide slowly up the shoulder. it moves only a meager degree at a time until the fingertips catch on ed’s long hair, gently brushing a few fallen strands back so that he can see more of his face. it is contorted in pain, streaked with tears  &  black paint, but he’s still beautiful. ❝ but that’s not why i . . .  i came back for you. because — ❞  his voice is breathy  &  breaking as he chokes back the heavy lump in his throat, still fighting to keep his own tears from falling.  ❝ because i love you, ed. ❞

He can do anything

good bye you tiny little man 

YOU ALL ARE

Three Words of Consequence

I’m stroking his sleeping form, my hand tracing the idlest of circles with the deepest concentration. This is the one I have chosen, he who is mine. I sit now, watching the soft rise and fall of his shoulder blades under his slowing breathing. The slumber is deepening under my coaxing, and I feel content. My fingers are widespread, and gently skip across the thick waves of his back, exploring each crest and trough. It responds, resilient in some places, pliant and soft in others. I brush close to the edge of the quilt, under which his lower half is covered, and feel goose pimples rise. Are they from cold, or tremors of the sensation? His face is turned away from me. How does he always, even after the fall into unconsciousness, know where the glints of my eyes will be? I brush my hand through his hair, thick and coarse; always in need of a brush. He can’t hide it anymore. He said it, he said it tonight. I think back, to blissful foray past, when moon put her ear to the gap in the curtains to listen to the night time radio, turned up just a little too loud for furtiveness, while we moved in the dark. I could not see him then either, the ghost light cast his features in shadow, but as I lay back, feeling, I heard it on the rim of his lips. I saw the syllables, darker than the gloom, work their way through his gaping breath and around his ragged tongue. They emerged, and they were quiet. It was almost as if he was ignorant of their import, or unaware of what it was that, as if it had slipped out and escaped. A whisper and we were bound. Inextricable. The moments of our passion passed, and yet he remained. It was I who slipped out from under, not quite knowing why, many minutes after and though, heavy with echo. “I love you.”