#you are the captain of your dumb little dinghy

[withswords]

Firsts - A Blackbonnet Fic

Title: Firsts Wordcount: 927 Ship: Blackbonnet | Stede Bonnet/ Edward Teach

just some silly comedy-fluff

--

“Hey, whoa!” Ed laughed into his mouth as Stede kept pushing in to kiss him. The dinghy rocked uncertainly. Out on the open water, the waves lapping at them were high, even under this afternoon’s clear sky. The threat of tipping more than anything was what made him finally back off, looking a little sulky.

“Don’t squirm, Ed, or you’re going to sink us. I thought you were a professional.”

Easing himself back against the seat, Ed spread out with his elbows wide. Between the two of them, they’d managed to row and drift some pretty good miles, and Ed had guarantees that they wouldn’t be looked for until a few days had passed. Whatever they had on the Revenge was contagious, because Stede had taken the first chance at a break to start making moves on him. Cheeky shit had already undone the top button of Ed’s navy regulation breeches, and for his part he was excited to get out of them and into something more comfortable, but. “Do you think you’re rushing a bit? You can’t wait until we’re on solid ground? Or like, not a fucking rowboat?”

“Not if I can help it.” Stede got a very self-conscious expression on his face, adding, “Unless you... wanted to take it slower?”

He shrugged. “A little?”

“Oh! I’d sort of thought, based on your reputation and all--”

“No, I mean, I was thinking, more... romance.”

Stede’s eyes lit up. Fuck yeah. All according to plan.

Just because he’d resolved to put some of his old ways behind him, that didn’t mean Ed didn’t still have a taste for some virgin poaching. Through the night as he’d been readying the boat and bribing the guards he’d been thinking about exactly how he was going to rock Stede’s fucking world. Slowly. You had to be slow with a rookie; anything else was a waste. Stede was only ever going to get for-the-first-time once.

“Besides,” he continued, putting a hand on the back of Stede’s neck. “It’s your first time. It should be special.”

Stede sat back abruptly. He narrowed his eyes and looked at him sidelong, and Ed resigned himself to the terrible mistake he had made.

“First?”

Ed blinked. “Uhh.”

“I had kids, you know.”

Maybe if he played dumb. “Oh. Right, yeah. I’d always just assumed--”

“Assumed?” Stede made some spectacular noises in his indignation. “I was married for somewhere between, probably eight and eleven years, you just assumed in all that time I never slept with my wife?”

Dumb had been a bad call, but now that he’d committed to it, he couldn’t think of anything to say that wasn’t going to dig the hole deeper.

“Look, some people don’t, you know, that’s your business!”

“Oh my god, you really... I was unhappy, Ed, I wasn’t a fucking priest!”

“Okay, okay! I’m at least your first man though.” Ed pulled his knees in. Was he seriously getting his feelings hurt over this?

“Well, I did go to boarding school. So, no.” Oh god, he was.

“Wow. Seriously? You come off pretty fucking repressed, is all.”

Stede tutted. “Do you think I didn’t know what those gentlemen were doing on my ship? I may be naive in some respects, but I have ears. What’s the matter? Why are you looking at me like that?”

“It’s not that I’m disappointed! I just had kinda gotten myself hyped up for it. I-I should have asked, you know, I should have asked.”

“Did you want me to play along? I can, you know, I can...” Stede clasped his hands to his chest in a way he seemed to think was very virginal. Ed waved him off.

“No, Stede, come on, don’t do that. It’s fine, seriously.”

Stede kept at it, pulling up his shirt collar and swooning back into the billowy white fabric. “I may permit you to ravish me, Captain Blackbeard, though you know I’m so, um, extremely delicate and inexperienced. And small!”

“You don’t have to be a dick.”

“But Edward, I’m so small! I’ve never been touched by another living creature!” A rolling wave hit the dinghy, and he had to grab onto the gunwale, yelping, to keep from falling back and braining himself on the oar. He almost would have deserved it.

“You done? You finished?”

“Don’t sulk.” Stede lowered himself down directly across from Ed on the bottom of the dinghy, so that their knees were inches apart. “I thought that’s what you wanted. Theatrics. Bit of Ophelia and all.”

“Who? Fuck, nevermind.”

“Look, we’ll think of something. I’ve... I’ve never done it in a boat before! That’d be a first,” Stede said, so very earnestly. “With man nor woman!”

Ed whined, “That doesn’t count,” and slumped back.

He blinked and pouted, clearly unable to account for Ed’s mood. He couldn’t be blamed for that. Ed found the feeling too embarrassing to put into words himself. Slowly, he shuffled forwards, in little scoots like he thought Ed might snap at him, tell him to back off, until he was practically in his lap. Stede’s hand rested on the left side of his stomach, over the knot of scar tissue and the scab of the most recent wound he’d left.

“It’ll be the first with someone I really love. I think that must count for a little.”

He tried not to sound winded or choked when he replied, “Yeah. I guess that goes for me too.”

Stede kissed him, and Ed realized that he’d been right from the beginning. Sharing something was better than taking.