it's so significant that they meet when one of them is slowly dying

Stede uses his ostentatious wardrobe as a defense mechanism, he buries himself under layers of lace and bright colours, uses it to dazzle and distract, to appear confident and invulnerable. If you are hurt, over and over, there are two ways to deal with it: become invisible, try to blend in to make them forget you're even there. Or do the exact opposite, become extremely visible, become so flashy it's off-putting. Don't eat me I'm poisonous, the language of bullied kids everywhere. Confidence is practice, so practice.

It's a shield for him to hide behind. He is clamped up and closed-off, he is very guarded around others, around himself. He doesn't share his feelings and he keeps his physical body wrapped up and out of view - even in his nightclothes he's dressed in layers. He never willingly shows more than his face and hands (except once, right at the end). Hide yourself for long enough, and you believe it is imperative. There's something rotten at his core that he must take great care to conceal from the world; there is something wrong about his body that no one may ever see.

Ed though. Ed sees him like no one else has before. Sees him bared and more vulnerable than he has ever been, physically, emotionally. Sees him delirious with fever, speaking without any control over what he says, sees him unclothed and unguarded.

Nobody was ever suppose to see Stede like that. And had he had any say in that, this isn't how he would have met Ed the Pirate, and certainly not how he would have presented himself to Blackbeard.

He doesn't get any say in it this time, though. He's forced to let his guard down, something he can only do when he's unconscious; he's too terrified of the horrible, repulsive truth that will surely jump out at the first opportunity.

And then - nothing happens. Because here's the truth: There's nothing wrong with him. There's no great, terrible secret for Ed to uncover.

He's just a guy.