Work Text:
To Ed
Did you have plans tonight?
To Stede
not unless you count vegging on the couch watching reruns of storage wars. why?
To Ed
Is it okay if I come over?
To Stede
didn’t you have a date tonight?
not that i’ll ever complain about getting to see you, man. just thought you were going to that fancy fucking japanese place
To Ed
About that… :(
He broke up with me. Rather unceremoniously at that. In fact, he didn't even tell me until I’d arrived at his flat to pick him up.
To Stede
what the fuck
To Ed
He said it was him rather than me, and that we were going different places in life, but I’m newly out, not stupid. I know when I’m being dumped because someone is tired of me.
To Stede
he didn’t deserve you anyway, fuck him
god stede i’m sorry. fuck anyone who gets ‘tired of you’ cause you’re fuckin amazing
i have a cosy blanket and a new tub of neapolitan ice cream, come on over and we can block him on everything together. i’ll even let you have all the strawberry
To Ed
You’re the best, Edward. I don’t know what I’d do without you. I’ll be there in an hour.
—-
On his couch, phone clutched in his hands and Storage Wars playing forgotten on the TV, Ed’s heart does a funny little twist in his chest.
There’s a small, selfish part of him that’s glad this finally happened. Sam has rubbed Ed the wrong way from the moment they first met, when Stede introduced him as his boyfriend. Immediately Ed knew that Sam would be the type of self-important dickhead that made him grind his teeth. As time wore on, Ed’s instincts proved right.
Throughout their months together, Sam never treated Stede the way he should be treated. Never hugged him the way Stede should be hugged: tightly, and held for long moments, because sometimes Stede needs the contact even if he doesn’t say it. The greeting kisses, when Ed had seen them, were always stiff, nothing like the ones Stede should be getting: Stede deserves kisses full of barely-contained desire, no matter the time of day or present company. Sam also loved correcting Stede on the off chance he was ever wrong about something, and was entirely too gleeful pointing it out and well, actually-ing his way through it.
The sex, Ed also knows, was boring. The way Stede would describe it (usually two bourbons deep and flushed because of it), how it felt more like attending to a biological need rather than getting off with actual lust or passion, has always made that selfish part of Ed want to jump forward and say You deserve so much better! I can give that to you if you’ll let me!
Stede texts him again—Thank you, truly. I couldn’t ask for a better friend—and Ed smiles down at his phone, even as the reminder of the platonic nature of their relationship jabs him sharply just under his ribcage.
A better friend.
That right there is the whole issue, isn’t it? What Ed’s been trying to ignore for months, trying to push down and away because he is a good friend and because, first and foremost, he loves being Stede’s friend. Stede is a great guy, a great fucking dad (and they both know a thing or two about shit dads), and one of the best friends that Ed’s ever had. He makes everything so might brighter, so fucking fun.
So the thing is that despite all of that—or maybe because of it—he’s head over heels, arse over fucking teakettle, in love with Stede, and he all but has been since they met ten months ago.
Stede had been fresh off the divorce then and unsure of anything other than that he was gay and that he needed to find himself, to use his own words. And Ed had been there, a table away at the coffee shop, pretending to read his book while sipping on his caramel latte but in reality eavesdropping on the hot blond man in fitted teal pants talking to Oluwande at the till about coming out and trying to fit into the community.
(Ed was a member of the community. He’d like Stede to fit into him.)
He hadn’t talked to Stede then, but a week later Stede was back, in tight white jeans and a tight mint green polo, looking like a posh suburban DILF, a look that was doing things to Ed he never thought he’d feel. Oluwande was raising his eyebrows at him while the man searched his wallet, seemingly unable to find a card or cash to pay with. In a fit of bravery Ed strode up, slapped his own debit card down on the counter next to the reader, and said, “It’s on me.”
The man already had his own debit card in hand, ready to swipe, as he turned to Ed with creased brows and an adorably perplexed look on his face. Christ, but he was even more handsome up close. All those beautiful creases at his mouth and the corners of his eyes, and the freckles scattered on his face. “I’m sorry?”
“The coffee,” said Ed, undeterred even as he wanted to smack himself on the head for being so presumptuous. “It’s not a come-on,” he added lamely, and across the counter Oluwande sighed and looked skyward, like he too wished he could swiftly exit this interaction.
“Oh,” said the man, still confused, but now with an adorable head tilt to match the adorably perplexed expression as he looked Ed over. It wasn’t a once- over, at least in Ed’s eyes, but the staticky heat it sent through him felt like it could be, anyway. Maybe he was reading too much into it. Sometimes he was good at that. “Thank you?”
Ed was really fucking botching this, like cataclysmically and epically, enough that he wished more than anything to be able to go back in time and stop himself from doing it, but luckily the man seemed more charmed than put off. Armed with that hopeful knowledge, Ed stuck out his hand. “I’m Ed.”
The man looked down, one corner of his mouth ticking upward to carve the most fucking absolute life-ruining dimple into his cheek, and took Ed’s hand with the firm kind of shake that can only come from doing that sort of thing frequently and professionally. “Stede.”
And the rest, as they say, is history. At any other time in his life, Ed never gelled with anyone as quickly as he did with Stede. It was only days before they were attached at the hip, both feeling like they had been friends for years. Conversation was easy, and silences were comfortable. They introduced each other to new things. They just fit, in the way it’s rare to find so easily.
Right around the time that Ed finally began to realise that the feelings he had for Stede were starting to veer sharply off-course, Stede had begun dating Sam, and of course Ed was going to be there for Stede’s first queer dating experience. He’d promised Stede that. Even if it sometimes made him feel like he had gutrot, and even if it sometimes left him tearing up to sad songs at three in the morning, he would be there, and he’d navigate those waters with Stede, guiding him whenever he needed. Because that’s what friends do.
He could deal. And he has been. He’s fine. He’s—
Shit. He checks his phone, remembers he’s only in his boxer-briefs and a deep purple jumper, remembers that he hasn’t properly cleaned his flat in almost a week. There are dust bunnies gathering in corners, and a few dirty, tea-and-coffee-ringed mugs will just have to deal with being stacked a bit more neatly in the sink to be dealt with tomorrow.
Ed quickly putters about the flat in a whirlwind of cleaning, humming along to an old pop punk song as he reaches up to dust a shelf. He’s forgotten some of the words, but the rhythm is still there.
When he gets done the whole of it is a slipshod job that his mum would be ashamed of: a candle lit here to fill the apartment with the rich, dark scent of wood and tobacco; a few things shoved into the hallway closet and the storage ottoman there; a pair of soft grey fleece pants put on once he gives the rug a quick once-over with the vacuum. He’s a little warm under the jumper by the time the vacuum is put away in the hall closet, but it’s at least presentable enough on a surface level.
Stede’s punctual as usual, pressing the buzzer right on time. Ed opens the door at Stede’s knock after he’s buzzed in and stops, shocked. Fuck, he’s ready to head right out of it to find Sam Fuckhead and remind him that even though he may be out of the business and a tad softer around the middle than he was in his prime, he still keeps his form up with the punching bag at the gym, and he’s always had a quick-flare temper that, though mellowed with age and retirement, doesn’t take much prodding to kick off.
Stede is standing there in the hallway, shoulders slumped like he’s trying to make himself smaller, his eyes red-rimmed in a way the fluorescents only serve to further highlight. Ed’s seen Stede through some rough shit while he was working through the effects of divorce and coming out. Some nights with those jagged edges blurred from dope, where emotions can seesaw and capsize you in the blink of an eye if you’re not careful. Even then, even with tears on his cheeks, Stede had always managed to look put-together. He can compose himself as quickly and as easily as needed—an unfortunate side effect, he’s said, from his emotionless upbringing.
How he looks right now, though? This is something else entirely. Stede isn’t trying to hide it. He’s not trying to downplay it for the benefit of present company. Ed’s never seen Stede look so defeated before. Like someone has cut his strings to leave him collapsed in a heap.
“Do you want me to slash his tires?” asks Ed in greeting once the anger has faded to something he can swallow, desperate to lighten the mood and make Stede smile the smile that shows that dimple in his cheek. He lets Stede in, closing the door and locking it behind him, trailing with useless hands as he tries to steer this moment into something lighter. “Maybe go to his place and keep pressing the buzzer until he gets really fucking pissed off?”
The second one gets a brittle smile from Stede, a cracked laugh that lets on just how upset he is. He looks up at Ed. A quick blink chases away the tears, though the sadness remains in his dark irises. “Do you think keying ‘inconsiderate arsehole’ into the side of his car is too much?”
Ed grins sharply, feeling the bubble of their energy expand around them, the ebb and flow that’s always been a major fixture of their relationship, giving them the ability to play off one another with an ease like breathing. Like two scene partners able to dance effortlessly around each other. There are so many different things he loves about Stede, but the snark and the bitchiness are among his favourites. “Nah, mate. You should go balls to the wall and spray paint ‘lasts two minutes’ on the other side.”
Stede’s smile turns into his own sharp grin, his eyes glittering. The defeat melts away, just briefly, like mist when the light touches it. “Oh, that would just burn him. He swears up and down he lasts longer than that, but I’ve had wanks that have gone on longer. And that were much more satisfying.”
Ed cackles. The reminder of Sam’s lack of stamina stokes that forbidden flame in his chest, right where it merges with longing. “We should get him and Jack hooked up. That’d be the quickest sex known to man.”
“Possibly also the worst.”
“The worst.”
“Never would two men be satisfied with so little.”
Silence drapes over them for a brief moment before Ed reaches out and draws Stede into a hug, his stockinged feet bumping against the toes of Stede’s shoes. Immediately, without missing a beat, Stede’s clinging on tight, breathing deeply, chest expanding in a great swell of ribs against Ed’s while his palms spread across Ed’s back. They stand in the entryway like that for long minutes, breathing together, a cycle of inhale-exhale, bodies warm where they’re pressed, heartbeats and blood rushing through veins, all the unseen synapses, all that endless death and regrowth that keeps humans going.
Ed wonders what Stede’s thinking. Part of him can guess; he remembers his first breakup that mattered, how it cut him deep even though he wasn’t in love with the guy. It still seemed like it could, somehow, go somewhere, in that way that young relationships often do when you’re purposefully looking past the red flags. Stede’s never had that before, never had that baseline to guide him, and even if Sam wasn’t the best—wasn’t good at all, Ed thinks viciously as he tightens his hold—he was still Stede’s first. They don’t go away.
Against his shoulder, Stede sniffles, quiet like he’s trying to hide it, and there’s the nudge of his nose against Ed’s collarbone as he moves. His fingers dig into the soft cotton of Ed’s shirt, their feet bumping together again as he adjusts his weight. Ed wants to tuck him into his chest, open himself up and offer himself as safety. Which is fucking insane, really, but Stede’s never made Ed feel sane, anyway. He’s always lit something in Ed, urging it from a spark to a low roar with his smiles and his sharp tongue and the way that he sometimes lets his hand linger on Ed’s forearms or thighs. Something so hot it’s like it’s branding his handprint there, as if Ed could peel back his clothes and see the puffy scar of it and spend time tracing over the long lines of Stede’s fingers.
As Ed rubs his hand down Stede’s back, over the heavy, expensive material of Stede’s suit jacket, he remembers that there’s an unopened carton of ice cream in the freezer and a paused episode full of mysterious storage containers waiting for them. Though he sometimes wishes he could hold onto Stede forever, both literally and figuratively, there’s a definite reason for them being together tonight. “You okay?” he asks.
Stede sighs. His breath is hot on Ed’s neck as it blows aside the few trailing wisps of hair that didn’t make it into his bun. “I’m as okay as I can be, I suppose. Thank you, Ed.”
Ed pulls back with a final pat to Stede’s shoulder, a gentle squeeze that has Stede making a soft humming noise. “Do you wanna borrow some clothes?”
“Why?” Stede blinks. He sniffles again.
Ed blinks back. “Well, we’re just going to be hanging out on the couch, and the whole”—he gestures to Stede’s burgundy suit and navy floral button-down, the shiny brown wingtips, the cravat tied so carefully around his throat, god, he looks like a wrapped-up piece of penny candy Ed wants to devour on the spot, no waiting—“isn’t exactly optimal for comfort. And I want you to be comfortable. So.”
“Oh!” Did the tips of Stede’s ears just turn red? Interesting. It’s not like that’s anything new to them: the core foundation of their relationship is built on late nights in each other’s apartments learning about their lives, or a few mornings spent stumbling home from Revenge in the grey dawn , dusted with glitter and giddy from booze. They've shared jackets and pants and shirts. Scarves and cravats and fucking robes. Now, Stede is looking at him, head slightly tilted, and it’s a long beat before he says, like he’s shaking himself out of his own reverie, “Oh, yes, that would be…I would like that, Ed, thank you.”
Ed absolutely does not let himself dwell on it as he heads into his room to rifle through his comfy clothes drawer. The first drawer yields an old charcoal-grey Styx shirt that’s a little big in the chest and shoulders from age and wear, and a drawer down gives him the tan-coloured pair of cashmere joggers that Ed recognises as Stede’s to begin with.
When he returns to the living room, clothes in hand, Stede’s sitting on the couch thumbing through Ed’s worn copy of The Martian Chronicles, an old receipt acting as a bookmark between “The Old Ones” and “The Martian.” Hearing Ed enter, Stede looks up, smiling, and nods towards the book before he sets it back down on the coffee table. “Reading it again?”
It’s so simple, a small thing that Stede remembers. It shouldn’t make Ed’s belly flutter like it does. It’s just things that friends do, knowing comfort books and old habits, especially when the cycles of depression are well-known. The implicit are you okay hangs between them. Ed doesn’t know how to honestly answer that particular question, so he doesn’t.
He’s fine, most days. Slogging along some of them. But that’s just life, isn’t it?
“Just felt like revisiting it,” says Ed, handing Stede the bundle of clothes. “If you want to take a shower I just changed the towels this morning, so they’re clean.”
“That’s very kind of you, Ed, but I think I’ll just go ahead and change quickly, if you don’t mind,” Stede replies, standing and holding the clothes to his chest.
While he’s in the bathroom Ed heads into the kitchen and grabs the carton of ice cream from the freezer, pulling open the drawer closest to the stove to grab two spoons before setting it all on the counter.
When he looks up, he catches a glance of himself in the dark window above the sink. His bun is functional but askew, the trailing pieces of hair leaning more towards haphazard rather than anything intentionally good. He goes to take it down and sweep it back up into something better before he stops himself.
They’re just hanging out on the couch. Stede is his friend. Just because Stede is single now doesn’t mean he needs to, what, take his shot? Jesus. He knows better. He is better. He isn’t peacocking for his best friend who just got unceremoniously dumped by his dickhead of a boyfriend.
“Stupid,” he mutters, shaking his head.
“What’s stupid?”
Ed turns quickly, knocking his hip against the counter in the process. With a wince he faces Stede, who now looks soft and cosy, his edges blurred from their earlier sharp relief. He’s run a brush through his hair, breaking down the hairspray keeping it stiff; now it curls, soft and loose, over his ears, cascades in a golden wave down the nape of his neck. The shirt is in bad need of an iron, with heavy creases running up its sides and the left sleeve where it didn't get folded properly and then sat in the drawer for months. Its stretched-out shoulders extend the sleeves further down Stede’s biceps. The joggers fit the way Ed remembers, which is that they fit too well, and in a rather distracting manner. When he looks down, he sees that Stede’s wearing unicorn-print socks as he shuffles his feet where he stands.
Christ, he looks so fucking…cuddly. Has he always looked this cuddly when they’ve had lazy evenings in before? Ed may have blacked that out for his own sanity because he can’t recall. But Stede does. And Ed—well, he really fucking likes cuddling. Especially likes it when he can be the one being cuddled, and Stede’s got that broad, strongman chest that seems like it would accommodate Ed nicely.
“Nothing,” Ed says, shaking his head again quickly in emphasis. He grabs the carton of ice cream, its condensation sharply cold against his palm, and the two spoons. Holding both up, he asks, “You ready for some storage containers?”
Once they get settled on the couch, the heavy knit blanket that Ed had made when he’d briefly picked up knitting a few years back draped over both of their laps, Stede grabs for the ice cream carton, scraping his spoon through the pink section of strawberry until there’s a thick half-swirl that only barely stays on as he carefully rights it.
Ed eyes it, impressed. It shakes a bit as Stede brings it to his mouth, but he manages not to drop it. Stede closes his eyes and makes a soft sound that absolutely does not make a flash of warmth run through Ed from crown to sole. “Fuck, that’s good.”
Ed takes the carton back, slicing the side of his spoon through a hiss of ice crystals to reach the thick chocolate and vanilla layers. “Yeah? Well, it’s all yours, mate. Strawberry ice cream is awful.”
“Then why even get this kind of ice cream if you don’t like it?” asks Stede as he goes for another scoop. He looks up at Ed questioningly.
Ed pauses. He doesn’t know if he should say the real reason: that he gets it for Stede, because Stede had mentioned before how much he likes Neapolitan. Maybe he should. That’s perfectly normal, right? They hang out enough. They’re friends, and Stede will appreciate the gesture. Plus, Ed has his own smaller carton of chocolate peanut butter cup ice cream tucked in the freezer. This is…communal. For whoever needs it. And who will mostly be Stede, because it’s not like Ed is sharing ice cream with fucking Izzy.
“You like it,” Ed finally says, shrugging. Stede knows Ed’s own comfort foods, his comfort books and quirks. Their apartments hold bits and pieces of each other, dotted here and there: a specific tea blend in the cabinet; a favourite bag of chips atop the fridge. DVDs and books. Shared streaming services kept logged in. Clothing left behind, carefully folded away. They’ve become more entangled than Ed’s realised, as he catalogues these pieces. It all seems to stand out in stark relief in this new light, and perhaps it goes a little further than most friendships, but Ed likes that about them. He’s never felt so free around anyone else before.
Something indiscernible flashes past Stede’s eyes. “You didn’t have to.”
“You’re here a lot, it’s not a big deal. Besides, the other two-thirds of this”—Ed points at the scooped-out line through the chocolate and vanilla with his spoon—“are mine, so don’t even try.”
Knocking their shoulders together, Stede touches Ed’s wrist, where he lingers for a few long seconds before dropping his hand back to his lap; despite the blanket and the heat from Stede’s thighs so close to his Ed feels a chill. “I would never dream of it, Edward.” Even though he definitely will, and Ed will definitely let him.
They both settle into the rhythm of the show, each trying to guess what could be hidden in the various boxes and corners of the containers. The longer it goes on, the more outlandish their guesses become until they’re talking over each other and falling against shoulders and sides as they laugh. Ed glances over as Stede’s laughing, his face scrunched, looking as if his arsehole of a boyfriend hadn’t just dumped him without warning. That selfish bit of Ed purrs: he makes Stede happy. He makes Stede laugh. How often did Sam manage that? Not enough, Ed is damn sure.
As the episode is winding down Ed puts the lid on the carton and stands, taking the spoons to the sink and the ice cream back to the freezer. He opens the tea cupboard, humming to himself as he studies his collection. Tea has always calmed him right down, once he finally relaxed his pretentiousness and actually tried it, and he knows it calms Stede down as well. Fingers lingering over the canister of Egyptian chamomile, he decides to ask Stede first what he would want. Just in case he sets the kettle and two mugs out.
When he walks back into the living room, however, any thoughts of tea get pushed back: Stede is frowning down at his phone, and Ed knows immediately what he’s doing.
“Hey, no, uh-uh, give me that.” Ed strides across the room and deposits himself on the couch next to Stede, prying his phone from his hands. Sam’s Instagram page is open on the app, and absolutely no fucking way, did he—“Is that Charles?”
Morosely, Stede nods. A slight sniffle betrays the stoic look on his face as he stares at his phone in Ed’s hand. “Seems like the breakup had more motive than Sam let on.”
Never in his life has Ed ever wanted to drop-kick someone more. It’s one thing to be an arsehole and break up with someone just before a date. It’s another thing entirely to then immediately post yourself kissing someone else. What a spineless dickhead. Whatever happened to honesty? And fucking decency, for Christ’s sake.
Stede picks at the blanket on his lap and heaves a sigh, and Ed clenches his jaw, his mind made up with a nod of his head. “All right, yep. He’s blocked. I’m blocking him for you. Is that okay?” At Stede’s nod, Ed adds, “Slashing his tires is still in the cards, if you want it. He put his location in the photo and everything, it’s like he’s asking me to.”
Stede chuckles without any heart. He glances at the television, where Hoarders is now playing. A long, long dejected sigh. “I should have expected this, I suppose. He and I wanted very different things, and I tried to overlook them. Silly of me, really, considering how my last relationship ended.”
“Fuck that, that’s not on you, he’s a dick. He could have at least had the balls to properly break up with you.”
Ed selects the option to block Sam and any other profiles that he tried to make, just in case. There. Good fucking riddance. He considers asking if he should block Charles as well, even momentarily considers just doing it anyway because he’s petty like that, but this is Stede’s business, not his. Charles isn’t really even a friend of theirs, just someone they know tangentially through Sam, and the odds of them running into him are slim. Bigger odds are that he doesn’t even know what Sam did, anyway. Ed tries not to snarl. Spineless bastard.
“I stocked up on the good brandy,” says Ed after a moment, turning to look at Stede as he hands him back his phone. “Y’know, if you want a drink after all this.”
Stede looks at him, brows slightly downturned, but he smiles and pats Ed’s knee after taking his phone back and setting it down on the arm of the couch. “You’re too good to me, Ed. I think I’ll pass tonight, though.” He draws his lower lip between his teeth, hesitating before saying, “Maybe we could just…talk?” He sounds so insecure about it, and that stabs Ed sharply in the gut. Talking hadn’t been something Stede did until the divorce.
“Of course, mate,” he replies, hoping the sincerity bleeds through. “Whatever you want, I’m here.”
This gets a genuine smile from Stede. Ed shifts and lifts up the blanket, untangling it from his legs to drape it back over their laps. When he turns to face Stede, their knees bump together. He can’t help but notice how the collar of Stede’s borrowed shirt slips slightly over his collarbone, a few wisps of grey chest hair peeking out over its worn stitching.
Stede is still thinking, fingers twisting over each other on top of the blanket. Ed doesn’t say anything, just waits.
“I think…I didn’t love him,” Stede says after a few moments of silence. The television plays on, the candle crackling on the coffee table as he pauses again. “It wasn’t about that. I wasn’t thinking we were ever going to get married or anything. You know it’s all just been fun, trying to know what—what I like and all that. It was just…” He trails off, huffing a frustrated sigh and looking towards the ceiling, as if he could find the words there.
“Mary?” asks Ed. Broaching the divorce first was something Ed could never blame her for. According to Stede, neither of them had been good for each other in a romantic sense; even when they were trying, everything they did brought out the worst in themselves and each other. They both deserved to get out and live their lives the ways that they wanted.
It does something to a person, being forced into a situation like that, especially someone like Stede who’s never had a romantic partner love him wholly and unconditionally. From what Ed knows and has seen from Mary, she’s tough in a way Stede isn’t. Stede feels everything; he’s never been one to shy away from keeping his heart right there on his sleeve, ready to be snatched away in a moment of carelessness. Mary tends to face those things with a set jaw and her emotions kept close to her chest where they’re safe. She’s also moved on quicker than Stede, something that Stede never outright says bothers him but that Ed knows does, in fact, bother him very much.
“Mary,” Stede confirms with a nod. He sighs again and lets his head fall against the back of the couch. “How is it that she found someone else so quickly? Why can’t that happen to me?”
Ed’s stupid, stupid heart twists again.
I’m in love with you. You could have someone, he thinks, but doesn’t say, because even though he may be selfish, he isn’t selfish like that. More than anything, he just wants to kiss Stede’s forehead, the tip of his nose, the slight dimple in his chin. All the stupid, sappy romantic shit that Stede hasn’t experienced yet. Not just the burying-him-between-his ribs desire of protection, but the need to be close, to always have some part of their bodies touching. To be the person who chases the demons away. He wants—fuck, he just wants Stede to know that he does have someone, if he feels the same way. And if he doesn’t, well, Ed can move on. He can. As long as he has Stede in his life, even if it will hurt occasionally, he can move on.
“Sometimes I worry I’m just here. You know?” Stede continues. His mouth twists in that overly expressive way it has while he stares at the ceiling. His hands clench in the blanket. “That I’m—I’m just here, with nothing to offer anyone, and that my father was right about me.”
“Hey, fuck off,” replies Ed without heat. Though he doesn’t know the extent of what Stede went through growing up, he thinks he can hazard a few pretty good guesses. “You have plenty to offer. Don’t sell yourself short, man.”
Stede scoffs. The corners of his eyes are wet, crow’s feet spreading out when he briefly squeezes them shut. “I'm not too sure about that, Edward.”
“Well tough fucking shit, because I’m sure about that. You’re a great dad, for starters. And you always make me laugh, which, as you know, only the funniest fuckin’ people can do. Not a very common thing, me laughing. Very stodgy and stoic at all times, except when I’m around you, ‘course.”
One side of Stede’s mouth twitches up. It’s a signal that zings happily right to Ed’s heart. See, Ed’s thing is simple: he wants to make Stede happy. If he does that, mission accomplished. When Stede smiles, nothing else really matters.
“Plus,” says Ed, barrelling on, “you came out in your fucking forties, mate. That’s the bravest shit ever right there. Not a lot of people can do that. Maybe you just need time to figure out who you are and what you want. You’re already part of the way there, yeah? Dated a prick who didn’t know what a good thing he had. That’s, like, dating one-oh-one.”
Stede chuckles. Something seems to loosen in him, the stiff lines of his shoulders falling. He lifts his head, stares out across the living room. “It really is, isn’t it?”
“Sure fuckin’ is,” says Ed with a smile. “And once you get rid of that prick, you can make way for someone who really matters.”
Stede turns. This time, when their knees bump, they stay there. This is far from their first heart-to-heart on this couch, but something about tonight feels different, as if there’s something charged in the air crackling invisibly around them. Ed isn’t sure if he’s imagining it, if it’s just him. Or if Stede feels it, too. He swallows hard.
“I just feel terribly selfish being jealous of Doug,” Stede admits. “He’s an absolutely lovely man, and the children adore him. Mary does, too, and she deserves someone who can care for her in all the ways I couldn’t.”
Doug really is lovely; Ed has to agree on that. It’s rare to find someone like him, even rarer to get the kind of family dynamic they’ve got now. All that modernness, that even split between parents, a step-dad that actually cares. Ed would’ve fucking killed for that. At least Stede’s kids get it. “I think you’re owed that, at least a little bit. He’s too perfect. It would almost be concerning if he didn’t have a single bad bone in his body.”
“Indeed,” sighs Stede, though a touch of fondness colours his tone. “But why does it feel like I’m doing this all wrong, somehow? Mary moved on so quickly, Sam…well. I’m not surprised, but that doesn’t mean I’m okay.” He sighs again, and it turns into a groan. “Is it me, Ed? Am I the problem in all of this?”
“Definitely not,” Ed says. He’s so angry, at everyone and everything, but he also aches, because Stede doesn’t deserve this. He’s been trying so hard since coming out. Sure, he can be a bit fussy, and sure, he tends to swing towards bitchy more often than not, but Ed has dated far worse. Stede is so funny and optimistic and exuberant, and he fucking deserves something nice, okay? Ed doesn’t understand how others don’t understand that.
“It feels like it is,” replies Stede morosely.
It makes Ed seethe a little: at the world, at anyone who had ever beaten Stede down in his past to make him so certain that he’s the root of all of his problems. “The situation with you and Mary was fucked, sure, but that doesn’t mean you were the problem. That’s on your shitty fuckin’ families.”
“I know you’re right, and I should believe you,” says Stede. “It’s just…difficult, after all this.”
Ed knows. He knows. Being the person in a one-sided relationship who wants more stings in a way not much else does. Jack’s a right prick, but that doesn’t mean that young, desperate-for-love Ed didn’t nearly fall in love with him anyway. “I’m not going to force you. Because you do deserve better, Stede. You always have. I just want you to know how I feel.”
The words hover in the air between them. Their double meaning seems so obvious that Ed flushes with it, heat curls from the back of his neck to his cheeks and spreads down his limbs. Stede’s lips have parted, soft and pink and slightly slick from the swipe of his tongue. Surely he can’t…? He can’t. Can he?
“Hey,” says Ed softly, gathering the little bits of his courage before they can scarper off again to parts unknown. “If Sam thinks it’s okay to kiss someone right after a breakup, what about you?”
It’s a Herculean effort, and as soon as they’re out he wants to shove them right back in, but there’s no going back now. He’s all turned about, insides on the outside, vulnerable meat on display for the whole room. Stede is either going to do something about it, or he’s going to laugh it off. If he does the second option…Ed will deal. He will. Can’t think about the alternative, not when his heart more or less feels like a car whose engine is struggling to catch.
Stede’s pale lashes flutter. In the dim light of the room they seem to shine gold. He tilts his head. “What about me?”
Stede’s tongue darts out to wet his lips again unconsciously. Ed’s eyes flicker down, then back up. He digs his teeth into his own lower lip. Steels himself the best he can. If he takes this leap, there's no going back. It could ruin everything. But Ed doesn’t think he could forgive himself for not trying. One hand on the wheel, foot heavy on the gas. “I think it’s only fair that you get to kiss someone too, yeah? Can’t let fucking Sam and Charles have all the fun.”
Stede’s eyes flicker down as well; when he exhales, his lip trembles. “Are you asking—?”
“Stede, I—”
They both speak at the same time. They stop, eyes wide. Time itself seems to have skidded to its own stop, tires smoking, a screech echoing.
“You first,” Ed says, feeling like a million butterflies are crowding his stomach. His heart feels like it could pound right out of his ribcage if he isn’t careful about it. Which is—it’s insane, this feeling. He’s never had to put himself on the line like this.
Wetting his lips, Stede puts an inch of space between them, looking from Ed’s eyes down to his lips, back up again, perplexed. “Are you—um, that is to say, did you want to…”
Ed is the one to finish the question. “Kiss you?”
Stede swallows hard. His eyes grow rounder, and he nods, meeting Ed’s again.
“Fuck yeah I do,” Ed gets out in a rush, words spilling from him in relief. “Have for fuckin’ ages, mate.”
“Oh,” Stede replies, quietly astonished. A flush slowly begins to colour his cheeks a pretty pink. It always does wonderful things for his hazel eyes, that flush. Makes them gold, makes them sparkle a bit, and god, Ed really is fucking in love with him, isn’t he? “Well that’s. Hm.”
“Good, I hope?” It upticks into a question in Ed’s thrashing uncertainty. Stede just continues to stare at him with those wide eyes. Grey static sets Ed’s body cold. Fuck, has he cocked this all up? Read the signs wrong? The butterflies suddenly turn into an angry frenzy of bees, buzzing against his insides, crawling their way up his throat to crowd against the beat of his heart. “Shit, Stede, is it not—?”
Stede surges forward and kisses him. Ed blacks out. He’s pretty sure he blacks out, and when he comes to, he’s pressed against the back of the couch and Stede is pressed against him, tasting like creamy artificial strawberry and smelling like Tom Ford cologne. His lips move against Ed’s, just slightly, testing, and that’s what gets Ed moving, what sets him to letting out a small, broken sound in response. Stede’s hair is soft, still stiff in places from his hairspray, and Ed buries his fingers in it over and over, mussing it to feel the thick, silky strands run through his fingers. He cups Stede’s face with a hand and tilts his head to change the angle of the kiss, their lips parting with a hungry sound that zings through him.
He’s kissing Stede. Holy shit, he’s kissing Stede.
Ed’s mind is a little fuzzy, everything around them faded except for these bright, hot points of contact: the hesitant, velvet slip of Stede’s tongue across Ed’s lower lip; the twin warm presses of his hands curling around the nape of Ed’s neck and the curve of the base of his skull. Heat is quick to travel down the length of Ed’s body, to start to pool in his belly, and he moans without thinking, something quiet that seems to shock a mirroring noise from deep in Stede’s throat as he gets closer, hand slipping down Ed’s chest and over the worn fabric of his shirt.
Kissing Stede is as easy as if they’ve been doing it for years. There’s a bit of hesitation, yes, as there are with all first kisses, but it’s gone as quick as it came. Ed gets closer, and Stede gets closer, and the television plays on, voyeur to the slick noises of their lips and their exhales of breath, the small, unconscious noises of pleasure.
As much as Ed wants this to go on, his hip can’t take this position for much longer, and his knee has begun to protest with a dull ache from being folded up for so long. He pulls back with a soft moan, eyes fluttering open to see a string of saliva that connects their lips before it breaks in a glint of light.
He doesn’t think he’s ever been this breathless from a simple kiss before. Fuck, he doesn’t think he’s ever simply been this turned on from a simple kiss before. It encompasses more than just his body: it crowds every available space in his mind. He feels it, conscious in every way he moves.
Across from him, Stede looks almost as dazed as Ed does, mouth slack and soft and utterly inviting, eyes heavy-lidded, the collar of his borrowed shirt a little more than askew. Ed doesn’t know if he did that, or if it was simply a consequence of them moving against the couch.
“It’s okay,” says Stede, just a hint of a rasp to his voice. It takes Ed a very long moment to realise that Stede is continuing their conversation, because he’s too busy focusing on how Stede’s jaw and cheeks are red from the bristle of Ed’s beard. They only kissed for maybe five minutes and already he looks wrecked. Fuck, what is he going to look like after a makeout session? Ed’s going to lose his fucking mind.
(Okay, that’s a little presumptuous, but Ed can dream, can’t he?)
“Fuck, man,” Ed replies. He licks his lips and it shoots another burst of fire through him. He can still taste Stede. Artificially sweet and that something unique under it all that every person has that’s just Stede.
“Indeed,” Stede says, a little broken. “My, it’s warm in here, isn’t it?” He pushes the blanket off his lap to puddle on the floor, where it falls with a muted thump. Distantly, Ed is glad that he managed to muster up enough self-control to not pop a stiffy. He’s like, maybe one-third of the way hard, and thinks that most of that must be from surprise.
He’s searching desperately for something to say, but he keeps coming up empty no matter how hard he tries. Whatever he’d expected from kissing Stede, it hadn’t been that. It hadn’t been fireworks and the slow suffusing of pleasurable warmth that deftly trod the line between arousal and simple enjoyment. And Stede—he’s a bloody good kisser. Knows how to sip at Ed’s lips, knows just when to nip and when to slip his tongue in. Real fucking top notch, and Ed is absolutely fucked.
Stede looks at him. A bit of a daze lingers still in the way his pupils are blown. His tongue darts out to wet his lower lip before he asks, “Have you always wanted to do that? Kiss me, I mean.”
Leave it to Stede to cut right to the chase and through Ed’s internal crisis.
“Honestly?” asks Ed, feeling shaky with it, and Stede nods. In for a penny, in for a pound, Ed supposes. Not much left on the line after a kiss like that. “I’ve liked you since we first met, but I didn’t want to push you into anything since you were still figuring yourself out.”
For long, heart-pounding moments the only noise in the room is the television. Ed feels something crawl up into his throat again, though less like bees this time. Colder, a bit slimier. Self-doubt and oh god I really did blow this all to hell.
“Oh,” says Stede eventually, surprised again. His cheeks turn pinker. “This whole time?”
The cold, slimy feeling dissipates, leaving Ed somewhat shaky in its wake. Ed nods. His heart jackrabbits again. He hasn’t felt like this in years, if ever. Come to think of it, he’s never wanted a declaration of any sorts before. Stede’s the first one to ever leave Ed feeling like he’ll tip upside down into the stratosphere if Stede lets him go.
A quiet, almost-pained nose catches in Stede’s throat. “Oh, darling. Why didn’t you say anything?”
Darling. Ed suppresses a squeak at the endearment, hardly daring to believe it. Darling. That’s what Stede calls his partners. The people he loves. Is that Ed, now? Or is it what he could—will—be? Either way, Ed tucks it up, packaged neat and tight, and stores it in his heart, right where he thought it would remain hollow for the rest of his life.
God, but Stede is beautiful. He looks at Ed like—like he’s everything. Like he’s all that matters. This moment, this evening, the topsy-turvy of their life as it shakes itself up from a kiss that, Ed thought, would just be a way to make Stede smile again and nothing more, his own feelings notwithstanding. A veil has been lifted, the truth revealed underneath. It’s tender when pressed upon, but in the way new, healed skin is. Give it time, and it will toughen, smooth out, become just like the rest of it.
“I didn’t want to ruin our friendship,” Ed replies. He looks down at his lap. On the couch, Stede scoots his ankle closer to Ed’s. They brush, delicate bone to delicate bone. Unicorn sock to simple black.
Stede reaches across, cupping Ed’s face in his hand. The circles his thumb begins drawing through Ed’s beard makes him shiver and lean into the touch. Stede’s eyes are soft, candlelight flickering in the whites as he says, “You couldn’t ever ruin anything, Ed. It took me a bit, I’ll admit, but I’ve liked you for a while, too. I just figured…well, I figured that if you didn’t make a move when we met that you didn’t want it.”
It’s such a classically Stede move, this black-and-white view on things, that Ed could kiss him again for it.
“How could anyone not want you?” Ed asks heatedly. “Stede, you’re—you’re fucking incandescent, mate. You’d have to be mad not to want you.”
Smiling, Stede slips his thumb down over Ed’s chin, then over the corner of his mouth, where his beard bristles a bit more, too short to match the silkier hairs on his cheeks and chin. “I could say the same for you, Edward. Which is precisely why I never expected you to feel that way. You’ve made these past few months some of the best I’ve had in my life, and I’m not sure I’d be so confident in myself without your help. Of course I want you. I want you in any way you’ll have me.”
Ed swallows hard. Leans into Stede’s hand. Hope blooms in the form of a warm sort of excitement in his chest, taking root to make his next words feel invincible. “In the mornings?”
“Absolutely.”
“Even after work when I’m grumpy?”
“I’ll make you tea, my dear. I’ll even rub your feet if you ask.”
Ed smothers a smile that threatens to pull the tops of his cheeks up dangerously close to his eyes. This golden-haired, eager angel of a man. Tilting his head, Ed catches the pad of Stede’s thumb on the next pass, pressing a soft kiss to it and meeting his eyes. He knows he must look a besotted mess, but the way Stede is looking at him isn’t much better. “Seems we’re both idiots with our heads in our arses, huh?”
Stede laughs, and Ed cherishes the sound of it more, now. It’s bathed in a different light, filled in with a different colour. Stede laughing as his possibly-something-more-than-a-crush has a different ring than Stede laughing as his friend. He can hear a different kind of future there, one similar to what they already live but with intimacy and—again, Ed is being presumptuous—proper coexisting. He’s never wanted to live with anyone before, but a life with Stede in his best every morning sounds more perfect than he’d ever dare to let himself believe.
“Can I kiss you again?” Stede asks, and of course Ed’s answer is a breathed-out rush of “God yes please.”
Gone is the earlier gentle hesitation: Stede kisses Ed furiously, wet, open mouths and little whines when Ed’s fingers slip just below the thick waistband of Stede’s joggers to that warm, soft skin underneath. Ed positively shimmers with it all. God, to imagine evenings full of this, necking on the couch like teens, ramping up their pleasure until they can’t stand it anymore. Stede likes him. Him! Irritable, quick-to-temper Ed Teach.
“Can you stay tonight?” asks Ed, pulling away to kiss across Stede’s smooth jaw, nose down under the curve of it to breathe in the spice of his aftershave and the woodsy-floral of his cologne. “Not like that, ‘course. Just…” He pauses, pressing a kiss to the column of Stede’s throat, the faint lines in the skin there; under his lips Stede’s pulse jumps. “Wanna be close to you,” he admits, then promptly buries his face in the curve of Stede’s neck, edging himself closer.
“You’ll have a hard time getting rid of me now, I’m afraid,” replies Stede, his tenor a rumble through Ed’s body. A handle gentles itself down the slope of Ed’s back.
“Good,” Ed mumbles. Then he lifts his head and kisses Stede again until his lips are sore and his back twinges. Until Stede is pressed lengthwise into the couch, hands fisted into Ed’s jumper, his laugh lost to Ed’s mouth. So that’s what his joy feels like, pressed right against Ed’s, smile to smile. It tastes like ice cream. It feels like coming to the realisation that all you’ve ever needed was right in front of you, if only you’d stopped being so fucking dense.
Ed doesn’t remember what direction his life was heading in before Stede. It was something bored and complacent, something aimless gone faded like it was left in the sun. Stede is the one who fixed it up, breathed new life into it, reminding Ed of the little things, of how to be happy in the day-to-day rather than racing towards the end.
It doesn’t matter, now. They’ve veered off course, or perhaps veered back on course, since this feels like where Ed was meant to be from that very first day in the coffee shop. Ed can lean forward on his couch and he can kiss Stede, and it feels right, how it all slides into place. It feels like a destination he’s been heading towards his entire life, and it should scare him, but it doesn’t. Stede has felt like home for months now—it’s only right to finally begin unpacking those last few boxes.