Lucius knew something was off when he found Ed alone on deck, watching the sunrise and looking like he was contemplating changing back into his floral robes and singing sad songs for the crew again.
Lucius shuddered. Nope, he couldn't let that happen. Once was more than enough, thank you very much.
He steeled himself and walked up to Ed, clearing his throat to get his attention, but Ed didn't react, still staring bleakly at the sun rising over the sea.
“Morning, captain,” Lucius said with as much cheer as he could muster.
Ed didn't even look at him. “No, it isn't,” he muttered absentmindedly, and Lucius tried not to groan in frustration. Oh, these two deserved each other.
He sighed and sat down next to Ed, forcing himself to keep smiling. “Well,” he began, tapping his knee with his wooden finger, “you're up early.”
Ed grunted in response.
“Earlier than usual.”
Another vague noise of agreement.
“So, I was just wondering if there's any particular reason–”
“What do you want, Lucius?” Ed snapped, and that should have scared him, it really should have, after everything that had happened, but somehow, the only thing Lucius could focus on was how shaky Ed's voice sounded. Now that he finally got a closer look at him, he noticed the dark circles under Ed's eyes, and how he was biting his lip in an attempt to hide that it was starting to wobble.
Lucius sighed, sending a silent prayer to whatever god was listening that Ed wouldn't throw him overboard for this, and put a hand on Ed's shoulder. “Captain, what's wrong?”
“Nothing’s–”
“Nope,” Lucius interrupted. “Nope, we're not doing this. I'm not going to sit here and let you pretend that nothing is wrong when we both would rather be sleeping and you're obviously trying not to cry.” Ed just looked at him with wide eyes. “Did something happen with Stede?” Lucius asked, more softly.
Ed winced and closed his eyes. “That obvious, huh?”
Lucius huffed. “I think this is the first time I've seen you without him in, like, two weeks? So, yeah, it's pretty obvious.”
Ed sighed, visibly steeling himself before he opened his eyes and looked at Lucius. “Go on, then.”
Lucius furrowed his eyes in confusion. “Huh?” What was that supposed to mean?
“You came here to tell me off for fucking things up with Stede, didn't you? And for ruining the mood, too, I guess. I swear I'm not gonna go into Kraken-mode again, but…”
“What?” Lucius interrupted, finally finding his voice again. “Why would I do that? I don't even know what happened!”
Ed just closed his eyes again, but didn't say anything else, and Lucius sighed. He shouldn't. He really shouldn’t. He should just walk away and let his captains deal with their problems themselves.
But Ed looked so sad. Technically, this was another reason to get as far away from him as possible, considering what had happened last time Ed had been really sad. And yet…
“Do you want to talk about it?” Lucius asked, bracing himself. He couldn't decide which would be the worse reaction: Ed throwing him overboard again or Ed making him write down more of his horrible song lyrics.
To Lucius’ surprise, Ed did neither of those things. “Can I?”, he asked quietly, not meeting Lucius’ eye.
Lucius stared at Ed, not sure he heard him right. “Can–Of course you can, that's why I asked! Besides, I've kinda become the ship’s therapist, haven't I? You're probably overdue for a session.”
Ed smiled a little at that, and Lucius relaxed. “Guess you're right.”
“Obviously,” Lucius answered with a grin.
After a few minutes of silence, Ed muttered something unintelligible. “What was that?” Lucius asked. “Couldn't quite hear you over the sound of that fly buzzing over there.”
“I said, nothing really happened,” Ed muttered, staring at his hands.
“But?” Lucius prompted gently when Ed didn't continue.
“But… I learned something. About myself. And I'm worried Stede is going to leave me when he finds out.”
“Okay.” That was… not completely unreasonable, seeing how Stede had already left Ed once for seemingly no reason. And who knew what Ed had learned about himself. Maybe he had realized he actually did enjoy killing people after all. Or maybe he wanted to wear corduroy instead of leather now. Ugh.
Ed was starting to look a little insecure, though, so Lucius asked: “Do you want to tell me? As, I don't know, practice, I guess?”
Ed thought about that for a moment. “Promise you won't tell anyone?”
“Sure,” Lucius shrugged. If it really was as bad as he thought, he might have to tell someone, but he could at least try. “Whenever you're ready.”
Ed was quiet for a while, and Lucius almost thought that he had changed his mind, before he heard him say, in a very small voice: “I think I… I’m not interested in sex.”
“Wait, what?” Lucius asked, incredulously. Where the fuck was that coming from?
“I don't want sex,” Ed repeated.
“Well, fuck you, too.” Lucius rolled his eyes. Unbelievable, that man.
Ed stared at him with an open mouth. “What?”
“I don't want sex with you, either, captain, what the hell?”
“Wh—I didn't mean with you, Lucius, I meant I'm not interested in sex in general!”
“Ohh,” Lucius slumped back in relief. ”Thank god, that would have been awkward.” He couldn't wait to tell Pete about this. Even if, now that he thought about it, Pete probably wouldn't say no sex with the infamous Blackbeard. Moot point, though, since apparently Ed didn't want to have sex with anyone. Speaking of…
“Wait. That's it? That's the big thing you learned about yourself?” Maybe he didn't have to worry about the corduroy thing after all.
Ed's eyes widened, and he gave Lucius an almost hurt look. “What do you mean, ‘that's it’?”
Lucius winced. “Sorry, that came out wrong. I mean, congrats on the whole self-realization thing and everything, I know that's not easy. But do you seriously think Stede is going to leave you because you're not interested in sex?”
“Well… yeah? He might.” Ed shrugged.
“Stede might leave you? Stede? You mean the man who searched the entire Caribbean to find you? Who wrote you super cheesy–sorry, I mean poetic love letters every day even though he knew you would probably never find them? That Stede?”
“Well, he… Hang on, how do you even know about that?”
“I have my sources,” Lucius answered with a wink. His ‘source’, obviously, was Stede himself. He wouldn't shut up about all the poems and love confessions he had written for Ed, and Lucius wished he could forget some of the more… detailed ones. After Ed told him about the letter he had found before their reunion at the Republic of Pirates, he even threw new letters into the sea now and again in hopes of Ed finding them.
“My point is, Stede loves you. You should have seen the look on his face when he finally found you again and you were dead. He is so, so happy with you, Ed. He won't care whether you want to have sex with him or not as long as he gets to spend the rest of his life with you.”
“Oh,” Ed whispered.
Lucius fought the urge to roll his eyes. “Yeah, oh.” There were tears glistening in Ed's eyes, and Lucius tentatively put his hand on Ed's shoulder. “Didn't even realize how much he adores you, huh?”
Ed smiled a little and shook his head. But just a few moments later, he looked up at Lucius with wide, worried eyes.
“What if he changes his mind? What if he doesn't like me anymore when he realizes how weird and, and… broken I am.” Ed's voice broke on the last words, and he started crying in earnest, curling in on himself with a quiet sob.
Lucius remembered the last time he had seen Ed cry. His heart had hurt looking at him then, and it hurt even worse now. He also remembered what had happened shortly after the last time he had seen Ed cry. He remembered it very, very well, and yet, he couldn't help but wrap an arm around Ed and try to comfort him through the tears.
“Come on, captain, please don't say that,” Lucius murmured quietly. “You might be a little weird, yeah, but so is Stede, and that's why he loves you.”
Ed laughed a little at that, and Lucius tried not to think about why that filled him with so much relief. He took a deep breath and added, “And you're not broken, Ed.” Not because he didn't want sex, and not for any other reason, no matter how convinced Lucius had been of it just a few weeks ago. “I know lots of people who aren't attracted to anyone in that way, you're not the only one. Not even the only one on this ship.” He winked.
Ed's head whipped around to look at Lucius. “Really? Who—”
“Nuh-uh,” Lucius wagged his finger. “I'm not going to tell you that. It's part of the oath of silence I swore as a professional ship therapist.” Ed scoffed. ”Guess you have to spend more time with your crew sometime.”
“Yeah, maybe I do,” Ed muttered. Then he stood up, patted Lucius on the shoulder a little awkwardly and gave him a shaky smile. “But I think there's something else I need to do first.”
Lucius grinned. “Tell Stede I said hi.”
“Will do,” Ed called back to him before heading into the captain's cabin, and Lucius laughed. He couldn't wait to tell Ed ‘I told you so’.