#[david jenkins voice curling his hair around a finger: so there's this thing called matelotage

[forpiratereasons]

good morning i'm thinking about ed waking up early and watching stede sleep next to him and thinking, i'm allowed to kiss him. thinking, i'm allowed to want him. thinking, i don't have to fight to have him.

there's a simplicity to that, i think, that ed would appreciate. it's not about permission, just--understanding. ed doesn't have to pirate stede - to loot or threaten or steal what isn't his in order to pretend that it is. all ed has ever had has been things he's taken for himself, all his wealth and power are things he's fought for and grabbed with two hands when they didn't belong to him. even the scrap of silk from his mum, who probably snuck it away from the estate she worked on just to show him what existed in the world but couldn't ever really be his.

and after all that, all that fighting and stealing and taking, walking the line of blackbeard and pirating, negotiating what he's allowed to want with his social standing, with his abusive father, with pirate captains, with izzy--

stede just gives.

he gives ed his name. his secret wardrobe. something weird. marmalade. he gives ed protection, when no one in their right mind would think ed, blackbeard, needed them to do it. he gives ed forgiveness. he gives ed a friend.

maybe ed didn't need these things, maybe he did. i don't think that's the point. the point is that stede gave them because he looked at ed and saw someone worth giving them to. and while that worthiness also impaired stede's judgment in leaving ed or letting him go, depending on your angle, clearly stede is on his way back to ed again. to give himself.

his newfound love.

so yes. there'll be a time, a morning, when ed wakes up and stede is next to him. and ed will think about how easy it is with stede. to want him. to have him. to lean in and kiss him, and to know that it isn't a prize won or a battle fought. it's just a gift.

and he'll lean in, press his lips to the corner of stede's mouth, and give it back.