#blackblock

Fandom: Our Flag Means Death Pairing: Blackbonnet Characters: Stede | Ed Rating: G Other tags: nightmare | hurt/comfort | ed has abandonment issues

Wave-tossed

Ed woke in a cold sweat.

With each hammer of his heart the walls of the cabin squeezed in. Darkness pressed down on him like the depths of the ocean and he didn’t know which way was up, couldn’t break the surface, fought against instinct and gripping terror. Rough waves rocked the ship, a first taste of the winter storms that were to come, and the creak of the wood was a familiar echo to the ache of his heart, the only answer he’d ever had in lonely nights.

Fighting to open his mouth and throat and lungs against the watery darkness, he took a gasping breath. It grounded him – just long enough to register the soft, snoring body that lay against his. With a shudder Ed threw himself into Stede’s chest, clutching at him like a drowning man to a raft. Not caring that he would wake the man, only needing him – his touch, his scent, his arms around him –

“Ed?” Came the sleep-blurry voice. “What’s wrong, love?”

Hands on his back, holding him with hesitation. With a gentleness that shattered the last bit of his resolve. He sobbed brokenly into Stede’s shoulder, hot tears wetting the frills on the nightshirt. He didn’t care an ounce for his dignity, not in the suffocating darkness, not in the dead of the night, not between the wooden walls that haunted him with the destructive grief they had witnessed.

“Don’t ever leave me.”

A sharp inhale. “Oh, my darling.” Stede sighed, and Ed lifted his tearstained face to look at him. His features were illuminated by the faintest glow of a crescent moon on tossing waves, and wore a look of deep sadness and remorse and heartbreak, a faint mirror of the pain that ached in Ed’s bones. A warm palm cupped his face, keeping him from burying his face in his chest again. Keeping his eyes on his own. “I swear I won’t leave you ever again."

The words rang true, but they were battered to shreds by the turbulent fears that crashed through Ed’s veins. The phantoms that haunted his dreams seemed more real than the man who held him in his arms. He choked out, “I can’t – if you left me, I can’t – I don’t know how –”

“Hush.” Stede drew Ed even closer, fingers brushing through greying locks, a steady hand on the small of his back. Ed curled up into the safe cocoon of Stede’s body, breathing him in, faint florals and patchouli. The heady scent swam in his head, banishing the inky tendrils back into their shadowy corners. “Not even Mephistopheles and all the demons of hell could drag me away from you.”

Ed needed more of Stede. He splayed his hand against his ribs, feeling under his palm the solid torso that rose and fell in a steady rhythm. Stede took the cue, or maybe he just understood what he needed at the moment, because he said, “Count with me, darling.”

Hamburg