Chapter Text
“I want to break out – to leave this cycle of infection and death. I want to be taken in love: so taken that you and I, and death, and life, will be gathered inseparable, into the radiance of what we would become.” ― Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow (1973)
Now
In the harbour, ships come and go, flags and sails and bulbous bodies rising and falling against the waves. Stede can tell which is full of cargo and which is running empty by how they ride and turn and tack. He can even guess, a little, at what kind of cargo some might bear, and what that might be worth to a crew of pirates.
Ed taught him that.
He is back in colonial society and has been so far rigorous in denying himself thoughts of piracy but the view of the harbour from this hill has held his imagination captive since he was a boy. He has to pause here and stare out at the sea.
One thing about Stede is, he’s an optimist. He really, truly believes that his current abject misery shall pass. He’s done the two things he needed to do, the only two things he can do: return to his familial duties and leave Ed to a life of piracy.
He can’t do anything about the Badmintons’ deaths but pray for them, and he does that too.
Stede’s place is here, not there. It must be so for the sake of others. He’d been a fool to think it could ever be otherwise.
He straightens his coat. The day is truly fine, not so sunny that it is blazing and with a sea breeze whose smell lets him drift –
Stop that. Focus, Stede. He straightens his coat again and opens the door into his favourite tailor’s shop.
It has always been his favourite for two reasons: one, the tailor, a Mr Brigham, will send Stede a note at any hour to tell him of some new fabric that has come in via ship; and two, when one steps out the front door, one has a perfect view to the harbour and its forest of masts.
Today, the interior is a tad too warm and smells strongly of cloth. Stede has not been in for months, the longest stretch in his adult life certainly. But all his favourite clothing is aboard the Revenge and all that he’d left at his estate are miserable rags he couldn’t be bothered to pack all those months ago. He hopes Ed is enjoying what he –
Stop. That.
The last time he was here, Mr Brigham had requested that Stede come see an unspeakably gorgeous crimson and fuschia silk just arrived from the Coromandel Coast. Stede had taken it outside into the light and marvelled at its colours and delicacy and feel, then looked up to the harbour. His ship was out there, nearly constructed. He’d convinced Mr Brigham to fashion him a banyan at a much quicker pace than he would normally have done. Luckily the shop already had all of Stede’s measurements and was extremely familiar with making him clothing. Otherwise he might have had to delay the launch of his ship.
Now inside the shop, Stede despairs at the sight of all the fine clothing and materials. He thinks he was born with a lead weight in his stomach whose presence intensifies in certain moments; here it becomes so heavy that he wants to collapse under it. What if Ed was by his side just now, running his long fingers over things he particularly treasured, looking at Stede with his delighted eyes and speaking to Stede quietly as he took in each item. Stede could have commissioned some fine clothing for him, tailored perfectly to fit him – although they fit each others’ clothing remarkably well, he can think of a few small modifications that might have made them even better. Or they could have chosen something they both liked so they could share it between them.
And would Ed have been happy? Or would he have felt he was out of place here, amongst the trivialities that make up Stede’s life?
The lead weight increases further, somehow. Stede forces himself to look around at the wares, to make bright conversation, to play the role that life has cast him.
But nothing Mr Brigham has today holds his interest. He leaves the shop without placing an order and keeps his head down as he walks away until the harbour is out of sight.
***
The problem is that he wants.
He has always wanted, in the sense that he has always found his life to be wanting, and he’d longed for a life that was not the one he’d been given. He’d been completely convinced that there was something more, or at least different, for him. A classic call to adventure, really. But something had happened out on the water. He’d poured so much into the want and somehow instead of being sated, it had slithered into a corner and sat feeding on all he gave it and grown into something much worse. He feels the want slosh inside of him and it is as big and dark as the ocean.
As big and dark as Ed’s eyes.
As big and dark as that lead weight, his body now merely a vessel for carrying it.
***
He walks by the coast, just to hear the sounds of the water lapping on the shore. He does not go near the docks, because to hear the people who get to work on the water would be too much. But the shore calls to him, as does the water beyond teeming with life – fish, sharks, dolphins, whales. Mr Buttons could have said all their names and more besides. Stede remembers –
***
Then
It is a bright, pink dawn. He brings Ed his tea, and the other man turns to him, eyes alight, and puts a finger to his lips – “Shhh.”
Stede cocks his head as Ed takes both teacups out of his hands and sets them lightly on a barrel. They immediately list to one side, but then Ed’s arm is around his shoulders, warm and heavy, and Ed is drawing him to the railing and pointing down into the water, and Stede completely forgets the state of his china.
It takes Stede a moment to understand what he is seeing. There is a vast dark shape under the ship, and for a second he thinks they are in such shallow waters that a wreck sleeps like a ghost on the seabed. Then he realises that the shape is alive.
‘A whale,’ Stede whispers, just loud enough for Ed to hear, because he feels that to speak louder would startle the creature. ‘Le baleine de la Nouvelle Angleterre I believe.’
‘The fuck did you call it?’ Ed whispers back.
‘Le baleine de la Nouvelle Angleterre,’ Stede repeats. ‘First named in Brisson’s Regnum Animale. Damn. I think I left that book on land.’
Ed murmurs the name of the whale under his breath and Stede adores the way it sounds in Ed’s mouth, like a string of pearls being rolled inside a velvet cloth. They watch its body shadow them through the water together, Ed’s arm around Stede’s shoulders and his breath warm on Stede’s ear, for what feels like hours but is surely only a few moments before Izzy Hands appears to say something unpleasant and Ed lifts his arm and turns away.
***
Now
When he’s back in his – really, Mary’s – house, in her very much landlocked bed, he has to create a nightly routine to fall asleep, or else he’ll lie awake while visions of the sea dance behind his eyelids. So, this is what he does:
He rolls onto his side and faces the window, gauging the moonlight for the tides (he knows he won’t need it, not in this place, but it is also something Ed taught him), shuts his eyes, and immediately returns to the beach.
Ed sits beside him: solid, warm, magnetic. They press their legs together where they sit. The sound of the water is a quiet murmur in the background. Stede will often take a few moments just to remember those things: the pull of Ed’s presence, the ebb and flow of waves, breathe in, breathe out. He remembers – always as carefully as he can, so he’s not influencing the memory but instead preserving it – how he’d noticed Ed breathing faster than it seems he should be, and how his own heart had accelerated in time with Ed’s breaths, anticipating something his mind couldn’t imagine.
Then there’s Ed saying it – ‘What makes me happy is...’ A little pause before the ‘you’ and then Ed looking into the distance as if he’s scared to meet Stede’s eyes. Stede saying something tiny and nonsensical because this is the most wonderful news he has ever heard.
This is the part where it’s best to fall asleep – with Ed’s lips just about to press into his own. He’s a little scared of thinking too much about the kiss itself. He tells himself that it is the only one forever, and that he’s got to make this memory last all the rest of his life, and something superstitious inside of him believes that if he focuses on it too much he’ll distort it into something it was not. So he tries to think about it obliquely, as if he’s watching from the corner of his eye. He has certain details he lets himself go over: Ed’s lips, the softness thereof; the moment where it felt like Ed might pull away and he, Stede, God forgive him, had panicked at the thought and pressed forward; the part where Ed put one warm hand on Stede’s face and the other on his back; and the part at the end, when he’d made that little noise he couldn’t help as they’d parted. If he’s somehow not asleep after going over all of this, then he lets himself remember sitting pressed close, talking for only each other to hear, with their hands twisted together, pressed into Stede’s lap.
If he’s not asleep by then… well… it’s going to be a long night.
***
Then
Stede feels like a complete idiot later, since the man does have a very prominent black (grey) beard, but during the earliest beginnings of their acquaintance he manages to note only that the face before him has the kindest eyes he’s ever seen.
His first thought upon waking, fever broken but gut screaming in pain, is of his crew: did they survive the Spanish? And then he meets this man, Ed, who is not only kind enough to tell him that they are all well (thank God) but also quickly reveals himself to be a fancier of fine fabrics. And from there, Stede sets aside all physical pain – though it is certainly still present – to oblige this man and allow him access to the contents of his auxiliary closet, his cabinets of curiosities, and of course, his library.
Stede is accustomed to apologizing for his interests. He is also accustomed to being surrounded by people whose social status requires a certain level of insincerity in almost every interaction. So when he touches the little handle that opens the hidden closet door and Ed, wide eyed and completely sincere, says, ‘Fuck off,’ Stede suddenly feels dangerously close to intoxication. Even after the shock of realising that Ed is the most famous and fearsome pirate in the world, Stede is giddy watching Ed’s eyes take in everything he most treasures.
Maybe that’s the other shock talking. Like, the one relating to the rope burns on his neck and the stab wound in his side.
‘You want to try something weird?’
Stede, compelled by some powerful force between himself and Ed that he can neither describe nor disobey, immediately agrees.
Ed grins. ‘You don’t even want to know what it is first? Fucking incredible.’
They switch their trousers with their backs turned, so that Stede does not see the mechanism by which Ed manages to peel the leather off of his legs. Ed flops them over Stede’s shoulder and then it’s time to struggle into them. He cannot get the top on at all though – there’s buckles and straps and just a lot of non-button apparatus. Also it hurts. Everything really hurts.
‘Um, Ed? Could you give me a hand with this?’
Blackbeard himself is struggling with the sleeves on Stede’s linen shirt. ‘How the fuck,’ he mutters, and Stede steps close and – though raising his arms is really very horrible from a pain perspective – helps him pull them down properly. For just a second he feels like a gentleman’s servant, and he thinks that that would suit him just fine if the gentleman in question is the new Gentleman Pirate, Ed-in-Stede’s-clothes. He opens his mouth to make the joke but Ed, staring down at, Stede presumes, the unbuckled state of the leather vest over his chest, says, ‘Um, what, um, fuck.’
‘The buckles, sorry,’ Stede says, assuming that the problem is that he’s done something very wrong. ‘I can’t quite – ‘
Ed’s hands brush against his chest as he fastens the buckles and his knuckles are hot where they touch him. Stede winces as the leather tightens around his bandages.
‘You sure about this?’ Ed asks, raising those eyes to meet Stede’s.
‘I certainly am if you are,’ Stede replies, and he can’t stop himself from smiling. Ed looks a natural in his linen. ‘Though I worry I’m ruining your fine leather vest!’
Ed blinks. ‘How’s that?’
‘I think my bandages are a bit sticky.’
‘I caught your cook pouring rum on them. To make sure things were nice and clean.’
Well, that explains the smell. ‘If you don’t mind that…’
‘Not at all.’
Stede starts to remove the rings from his fingers.
‘Those too?’ Ed asks, sounding a bit awed.
‘Accessories make the man,’ Stede replies, holding out his hand with a pile of rings on it. Ed grins wildly and puts all of them on at once, then bends down and picks up his leather belt complete with single gun and single knife.
‘Accessories make the man,’ he echoes, buckling it around Stede’s waist.
Stede reaches up and drapes his black cravat over Ed’s shoulders. ‘Finishing touch.’
Ed frowns down at it. ‘How do I make it look like you had it?’
‘Turn around.’ Stede ties it around his neck fairly well for someone who’s been gut stabbed and is struggling to stand upright.
When he’s done, Ed turns back around to face him, running his fingers down the black silk. ‘This is nice.’
‘The gloves as well?’ Stede asks pointing towards Ed’s hands, so Ed peels them off his own hands, takes Stede’s, and fits the black leather gloves around them. As soon as they are on, Stede holds them out in front of himself, admiring the look of them. Ed is watching him very closely and Stede feels that he ought to make a compliment. ‘Oh, these are just lovely.’
‘They suit you,’ Ed says, straight faced.
Stede feels hot and hopes his fever isn’t returning. Might be all the leather though. ‘Please, introduce me to the crew.’
Ed’s cheeks crease as he grins. ‘Of course… Captain.’
***
Now
The thing about returning to Mary’s house is that he’d kind of thought there might be a Stede-shaped hole here and there simply… is not. Whatever impression he’d left in the sand of their lives has been completely washed away in the past few months and now he’s just an inconvenience to everyone around him.
Stede knows he has not been a good father – though in his experience fathers would actually be a lot better if they were absent – but Alma and Louis’s disdain and forgetfulness wound him to his core. He never meant to be cruel; he wishes he could explain to them that he is trapped in this place and can only feel at home elsewhere and it isn’t their fault at all.
And Mary… of course she has every right to be furious with him. He should probably feel… what? Anger? Jealousy? Grief? about the whole she’s having sex with Doug thing (and the fact that she seems to be really enjoying it, like much, much more than she ever did with him), but all that he feels is a deep, raw sadness somehow connected to the wanting beast in his gut.
Everyone else, well, he understands. He hadn’t thought of them either.
Mealtimes are the worst. He takes his breakfast alone here, and so he carries the petrified orange they’d found together in St Augustine – the only personal thing he’d managed to retain at the barracks, that he’d had tucked into a pocket for safekeeping before Chauncey had awoken him – and sets it in the place where Ed would normally have sat and tries to imagine that Ed is there.
He and Ed had very quickly taken to dining together for almost every meal aboard the Revenge, and so no matter what the day held – and sometimes their days could be quite busy and they would not have much time to spend together – Stede had known that they would catch up over breakfast or supper. And then drinks after. And at some point, they’d begun to share his cabin completely. They were, after all, co-captains. Nothing had felt more simple and right than to share everything he had with Ed.
Unfortunately petrified oranges aren’t exactly talkative.
***
Stede didn’t really want to attend Mary’s art show before, but after his encounter with the other men in the pub he really does not want to go. He feels like everyone is putting dirty fingers into his rawest wounds, trying to find whatever is stuck in there, but not for the purposes of extracting it. No, they’re just digging around for the sheer delight of causing him pain.
And then Doug is there, and Stede’s too drunk, and he makes a scene, and the look on Mary’s face is the worst, it’s the absolute worst, and no one is there to look out for him, and he slinks home, miserable.
***
Then
Stede really, very truly, does not want to attend this party, but as soon as he’d seen Ed’s face on the matter, anxiously watching Stede as he read the invitation, he knows in his heart that he is going to take him there.
He’s certainly not about to let Ed walk into the viper’s nest alone. Whoever these high society people are, he’s convinced that they will eat poor, sweet Ed alive. Of course he knows Ed is Blackbeard, fiercest pirate of all time or whatever, but he remembers how the French captain had gotten under Ed’s skin with a single comment and he feels like committing murder. A party full of people similar to that is going to be a nightmare.
Stede at least tries to set Ed up for success.
‘Come with me,’ he says, reaching for Ed’s arm and drawing him through the doorway into the auxiliary wardrobe. They’ve left Frenchie and Oluwande to raid his primary wardrobe so they can spruce up their stolen French attire, but Stede has just the thing for Ed to wear, and it isn’t something he himself wears often. In fact, he thinks he’s only worn the jacket once since he had it made. Mary had not been a fan.
Ed’s already wearing the thin white shirt and lacy cravat that he’d chosen a few moments ago with his leather trousers below. It’s quite a look and Stede has to grin at him before he tugs him closer to his autumn vibe section and pulls out the purple brocade jacket with the gold trim.
‘What do you think?’ Stede whispers, not wanting to attract attention to the wardrobe.
Ed puts his fingers on it – he always does that first, no matter what fabric Stede is showing him – and says, voice low, ‘For you?’
‘No no,’ Stede says. ‘For you.’ He pulls it free and holds it open for Ed. ‘Try it on.’
Ed hesitates a fraction of a second before pushing one arm through the sleeve Stede holds outstretched. Stede immediately slips the other over Ed’s other arm, his mind registering the tight muscle of it even as the fine fabric encloses it. He gently turns Ed to face him so he can do up the gold wire buttons. He can feel Ed’s eyes on him and he thrills to it, fusses a little over each remaining button to prolong the attention. ‘Now I hope I’ve gotten these buttons right. I’ve had to learn to be my own valet out here at sea.’
Ed raises his eyebrows. ‘Valet?’
‘I used to have a man to dress me for certain occasions,’ Stede says, now brushing the shoulders of the coat for any invisible specks of dust. ‘It can be quite complicated to get into all this without help you know.’
‘I didn’t know,’ Ed says softly. ‘You seem to do all right on your own.’
Stede smiles. ‘Well thank you. That means a lot.’ He steps back and admires his work. ‘Oh yes, this was certainly the right choice.’
‘Can I see?’ Ed asks. He’s been fascinated by Stede’s hand mirror.
Out in the bedroom, Stede holds the mirror while Ed ties his hair into a bun at the back of his head. Stede reaches over to a vase of flowers on his desk and plucks a few from their stems by squeezing them between his fingernails. ‘May I?’
Ed shrugs but he’s watching Stede intently. ‘Sure, whatever the fuck you want, fine.’
Stede steps behind him and gently weaves the flowers into Ed’s thick curls. He holds up the mirror again. ‘What do you think?’
Ed smiles hugely. ‘Fucking brilliant, mate.’
So Stede takes Ed to the posh party, and everything goes exactly as horribly as he’d predicted. Everyone is a superficial asshole high on snuff and bored out of their phrenologically interrogated skulls and they turn on Ed for crimes against cutlery. The sight of Ed’s miserable face afterward ignites something in Stede that kindles so brightly he’s temporarily blinded by it and by the time he can think straight again he’s listening intently to Abshir and scribbling names on his hand with his fingertip dipped in an inkwell. The feeling is intoxicating; he’s not one of these miserable posh people, he’s a pirate; he’s allied with people seen as the help or worse, and he’s never wanted to be anything more.
Plus, he gets to burn down a ship for the crime of being mean to Ed.
***
Now
‘Did you meet Ed out there?’ Mary asks tentatively. They’ve broken their hug and are seated on the bed facing each other. She’s told him a bit about Doug and he has to admit that he sounds like a very nice chap. He wonders if he ought to feel jealous, but he simply cannot be bothered. Mary seems truly happy for the first time since he met her.
‘At sea you mean?’
Mary nods.
Stede inhales and nods. ‘We met because he, um, he saved my life.’ Mary’s eyebrows raise. ‘And then he did it again. Many times actually.’ They raise even further. ‘And he taught me a lot.’ He smiles at her, because what else can he do when he’s thinking about Ed? Smile or cry, those are the options, and he’s just realized he’s in love with the man so crying hardly seems appropriate.
‘What do you love about him?’ she asks gently.
‘Everything,’ he says without a thought, just not a single thought in his head that isn’t Ed’s eyes and Ed’s hands and Ed’s mouth and Ed’s kind soul and Ed’s dashing appearance and Ed’s magnetic personality and Ed’s genius mind. And Ed – Ed had said that Stede is what – who – makes him happy. He, Stede, the most lucky and blessed of men. ‘Everything,’ he repeats, looking down at his hands because he suddenly is going to cry.
Sweet Mary takes his hands in hers and holds them tightly while he does.
Not too long after, they agree that they had better get some sleep. After a few minutes, he hears Mary’s breaths even out, and he tries to fall asleep too. His mind races through his memory of the kiss, his heart and stomach fluttering with violent nerves. And then he’s left with the knowledge that the man he loves kissed him and asked him to run away to China with him, and he, Stede, complete fucking idiot, didn’t show up at the fucking dock because he was too in his own fucking head about his own fucking problems.
Also genuinely terrified of Chauncey’s corpse somehow resurrecting itself and haunting him further of course.
Fuck!
I will set this right, he thinks, eyelids pressed down tightly because otherwise he’s going to cry again. Ed, I will set this right, I promise you.
This doesn’t resolve the matter of not being able to sleep though. And so, for the first time, knowing that he is treading into extremely dangerous wanting territory, he allows himself to imagine what it would have been like if he hadn’t encountered Chauncey.
If he had made it to the dock.
***
He bursts through the trees and there is Ed, sitting cross-legged on the rough wood but leaping to his feet as soon as he sees Stede. His smile is beatific and Stede beams back at him, just as he had when Ed had returned to get arrested alongside him.
They get into the dinghy, somehow, with their hands clutched together. Stede almost topples into the water but refuses to let Ed go. There’s a moment where they can’t decide how they should sit and then Ed gets himself situated to row with Stede facing him but they realise they will have to let go of each other’s hands. Ed looks mournfully at Stede and begins to row. Stede watches him in the dawn light as he draws the oars back and forth, his movements so sure and athletic, his face utterly beautiful. They pull even with the Revenge in not too long and Ed’s arm is immediately around Stede, helping him to the ladder even though Stede is an old hand with boarding ships now. He leans back into Ed and lets his solid body hold him up for a brief moment.
Up the ladder they go. The crew is there and all in good spirits. Together they prepare the ship to sail for China – Stede is not fully clear on how they’ll do this but assumes that they’ll need to put in for quite a lot of supplies somewhere – he glosses over this part in his imagination, though it is so good to be able to think of the ship and the crew – and they work until night falls. Roach brings them a meal in their quarters and they sit together in the way they like to, knees and calves casually touching as they always are when they are at the table –
Outside the fantasy, Stede winces. Oh, God, I am a fool.
After dinner, they drink brandy together on the couch, Ed leaning his head against Stede’s shoulder and Stede holding Ed’s hand in his lap. It is the most content he has ever felt in his life.
But what if… some hidden part of his mind that he normally keeps very tightly locked away asks. What if…
Stede practically runs from the barracks, doing his best not to trip as he crashes through thick, beautiful foliage. He emerges onto the wooden dock and doesn’t stop until he’s right in front of Ed, and then he pauses, flustered somehow even in his fantasy, and says, ‘Oh, I,’ before throwing his arms around Ed’s neck and kissing him frantically. Ed’s arms go around him too and squeeze him hard enough to nearly lift him off the ground. His mouth is soft and full and perfect.
They get in the dinghy, somehow, because they keep pausing to kiss each other. Stede almost topples into the water but Ed’s hands tight and low on his waist hold him in place. There’s a moment where they can’t decide who should row or how they should sit and then Ed gets himself situated with the oars in his lap but looks so thoroughly sad to not be touching that Stede falls to his knees in the boat, crawls forward, and kisses him, slowly, lingeringly, before whispering, ‘We’ve got to go.’
Ed starts to row and Stede watches him in the dawn light as his body draws the oars back and forth, his strong thighs bracing himself and his movements so sure and athletic. He’s so fucking beautiful, Stede can’t look away from him. They pull even with the Revenge in not too long and Ed’s arms are immediately around Stede. He buries his face into Stede’s neck and inhales so deeply that Stede feels it in his soul, in his belly, in his…
‘Captain!’ Oluwande is reaching down for him. Stede runs through this part even faster, just a few quick thoughts about the ship and supplies and whatever, maybe that lovely copy of The Travels of Marco Polo that he’d acquired in Venice –
‘Are you really thinking about a book?’ Ed asks. ‘Right now, be real with me, are you thinking about a book?’
‘Just trying to get ready for the journey,’ Stede says primly, wiping his sweating palms on his legs and reaching for Ed’s hand. ‘Come with me, it’s dinner time.’
Into the cabin. The bed draws his eye but the dinner table is set for two. Wouldn’t do to do anything on an empty stomach. They sit and lean into each other as if they’ve been drinking for hours. Ed twines his leg around Stede’s and Stede pets Ed’s closest hand and arm as they eat. The food is whatever. Great. Fine. Pour the brandy. Ed’s leg, warm and muscular and his thigh pressed to Stede’s, now they are seated on the couch, but instead of a gentle head lean and hand hold they are kissing hungrily, Stede pressing Ed back into the cushions and Ed laughing in delight against his mouth. Ed looks gorgeous and flushed with the kissing, his eyes brilliant and sparkling. Stede feels like his face might crack from smiling and his heart is beating wildly in his chest. He manages to stand – he really does feel drunk – and takes Ed’s hand, bends down and kisses each of his knuckles, then turns his hand over and kisses his palm. He is reverent – for this is the hand of his beloved, the one person in the whole of the heavens and earth meant for him – and Ed’s eyes are enormous, staring up at him in the flickering lantern light.
‘I love you,’ Stede says, and he thinks he could say just this forever. ‘I love you, I love you, I love you.’
Ed’s smile lights up the dark.
‘Will you –‘ Stede swallows. ‘Will you come to bed with me?’
‘I thought you’d never fucking ask,’ Ed says.
Stede pulls him to his feet and takes both his hands, then walks backward to the bed. Ed kisses him down into the soft sheets and crawls over Stede’s body and Stede pulls him down and rolls on top of him, their legs tangled around each other, and now they are kissing with abandon, and Ed slides his hands up under Stede’s shirt and Stede, oh, god, he wants to – and he will, this is his goddamn fantasy – he slides one of his hands into one of Ed’s back pockets and squeezes and of course it’s rock hard with muscle and he’s rock hard with –
Mary rolls over and grazes Stede’s back with her arm. He shoots out of bed like he’s been stabbed and is out the door and into the hallway a second later. He’s got a hell of a hard on and is shaking with nerves. He walks outside into the private garden at the back of the house and stands in the humid night air, taking big gulps of it into his lungs.
‘Fuck fuck fuck,’ he mutters. There’s no way he’s going to sleep tonight. He’s got to get back to Ed.