Pirates oh no

The serpent coils around Ed’s breast so close to his nipple that it makes Stede lightheaded to think how the tattoo needle might’ve felt in the skin there.  The surface is raised, both from green-black ink having flooded the pore, and the cool breeze on his naked chest.  From his position now, curled so close against Ed’s ribcage that with one eye open all he can see is tattoo ink, Stede can feel the chill in Ed’s skin more than see the goosebumps.

“Let’s go to bed,” Stede offers, reaching with his feet for the quilt they’d kicked off after getting too warm together.

Ed’s chest vibrates just slightly with an exhale of tobacco and smarminess.  “We’ve been /in bed/ for a good while now.”  Always contrarian, he sits himself more upright and packs his pipe afresh, sending it smoking by holding it above their near-melted bedside candle.

“We have a big day tomorrow,” Stede counters, although he finds himself sitting up in tow.  Ed’s terrible posture is framed by the moon, waxing gibbous, through the window;  his lovely breasts just visible enough at this angle to make Stede’s conviction to sleep falter.

Silver moon-shine gives over to orange candlelight as Ed turns towards him to pinch his jaw between his thumb and pointer finger.  Stede tracks the sea serpent tattoo from Ed’s nipple, up to his clavicle, past his shoulder, and down his arm to where they touch.  It looks alive.

“Stay awake with me a bit?”

Ed’s voice affects a certain tone when he wants sex — Stede has come to know it in all its variations — and this isn’t among them.  Despite having just gotten done, Stede would happily /go again/ if asked, but he’s just as eager to be called upon for any more platonic amusement of Ed’s.  Sleep doesn’t always come easy to Blackbeard, Stede knows.  (And, despite the late hour o’clock, sometimes Stede can be convinced to push back his bedtime in favour of the company.)

Stede leans close to kiss him chastely, then brings their foreheads to touching for a quiet moment.  Mimicking, he pinches Ed’s chin feather-lightly in his hand, where stubble is verging into unkempt mess atop his ta moko.  It’s a recent addition to Ed’s patterned skin, but quickly becoming another of Stede’s favourites.  When Ed breathes, he watches the serpent on his chest breathe too;  now, when Ed speaks, the green-black shapes under his lip make Stede’s mouth water with want of kissing him.

“Careful,” Ed whispers, “it’s still a little tender, to be honest.”

Stede winces in sympathy again.  “You always pick the most painful-seeming spots, too… does it hurt much?”

Ed shrugs;  the serpent writhes.  “Hurts less than getting pricked by a sewing needle.  The sunburn feeling after is what gets you, really.”

“Oh, I’ve felt enough sunburn for ten lifetimes, with my complexion,” Stede mutters.  “Plus you know how I am with pain.  I’d probably faint if someone took a tattoo nib to me.”

“I could do it for you.”  Ed always speaks with confidence, but now it’s more gentle, a maternal sort of coaxing as if to show one’s child they have no reason to be scared.  /Look, I’m right here/.

The proposition makes Stede’s heart flutter a little.  Nervous vexation and giddy affection.  “Well, I’m not very good at committing to an artistic vision.  What if I got some portrait and then hated it the next week?”

Ed shrugs again.  “Could always start with something small.  I bet I could draw you something you’d like.  A cute animal maybe.”

“Maybe.”  Stede looks down at his bare skin, clean and bright even without the moon-shine.  “I suppose it would add a little intrigue.”

“You’re plenty intriguing,” he says, “but a little more never hurts, hey?”

–

Stede learned when he first began pirating that he really didn’t care much for the actual act of standing and steering at the helm of the ship:  it’s practically /automatic/, a whole lot of mentally checking out and letting the boat cut through the sea without a great deal of input from Stede.  Loving Ed is a lot like that.  With him, Stede kind of just /ends up places/.  The difference, he supposes, is that Stede is hopelessly enamoured by the act of letting Ed take him.

It surprises him – although maybe it shouldn’t – how quickly Ed finds a suitable pin in his leathers for the job.  He makes short work of disassembling a lapel pin and holding the thin end over the candle until it glows orange, and /oh, there’s the good ink around here somewhere/, and all of a sudden they’re sitting facing each other on the self-same mattress they’d just rendezvoused upon, Stede with his wrist on Ed’s knee, soft-side-up.

Stede flinches horribly when the ink-tipped needle first approaches his skin.  Ed gives him a warm but exasperated look and brings his lips to Stede’s wrist instead, kissing the spot feather-softly.  Stede’s eyes follow his mouth to that tattooed chin, throat, bare chest.

“Be brave.  I’ll try to make it quick.”  Ed’s voice is a soothing whisper.  “Ready?”

Stede nods and pulls his head away, distancing himself as far as possible from his own arm.  He focuses on Ed’s lips again.  The cresting wave of his ta moko when he bites his lip in concentration.  “Do it.”

It fucking hurts like the dickens.  He yelps and yanks his wrist from Ed’s grasp.  A little blue-black dot sits on – and in – his skin, welled up with the tiniest prick of blood he’s ever seen.  It’s still somehow enough to make him feel a little unwell.

“Right,” Stede manages after a moment, “well, let’s do the rest some other time, shall we?”

Ed only laughs at him a tiny bit, which Stede quite appreciates.  Careful not to touch it directly, Ed rubs warm, soothing circles with his fingertips around the sore little dot.

“If it helps,” Ed offers, “I think it’s quite reflective of you, just like this.  A teeny tiny speck, y’know, but actually, secretly, it’s quite powerful.”  He nods in affirmation of his own prose.  Stede can tell he’s full of shit, but it makes his cheeks hot anyway.

“You’re very sweet to me.”  Stede leans forward until his forehead is on Ed’s shoulder, pulse on his throat loud and warm.

Stede can feel the muscles in Ed’s face grow into a smile.  “You make it easy.”  And then:  “Let’s go to sleep, cleanskin.”

Stede’s tender wrist sits above the blanket, pleasantly exposed to the cool air.  The rest of him is wrapped close against the length of Ed’s body, head on breast, legs tangled up.  Stede and the serpent are carried across the sea on Ed’s breath.