Chapter Text
Ed can see Izzy stretched out on the unmade bed when he peers through the mud-splattered apartment window. Although Izzy’s face is out of view, near the wall, he’s visible from his waist down to his black booted feet.
Shoes on the bed. Stede would have a fucking fit, and the stab of pain Ed feels at that thought is sudden enough that he doesn’t bother trying to be quiet anymore. He wrenches the window open. The screech and clatter of it drives Izzy to his feet, cursing, and by the time Edward ducks into the apartment there’s a handgun pointed at his head.
“Calm down. It’s just me.”
“Edward.” The gun falls with Izzy’s arm, but his hand is still tight on the grip. He scowls, looking from Ed to the open window at his back. “I didn’t— Your face—” Izzy fumbles for words before landing on, “What the fuck are you doing? We’re too old to be crawling through windows for a fucking laugh.” Tucking the handgun back into his waistband, he stands hipshot and narrows his eyes at Edward. “What,” he asks, venom laced in his tone, “did Bonnet finally get sick of playing Happy Families with you?”
“Go fuck yourself,” Ed mutters. He can’t manage the energy to bite back after the morning he’s had, the trek he’s just made across town. He steps in close enough to shove the treasure against Izzy’s chest, forcing him to grab it, and then lets his legs give out like they want to, hissing as he drops onto the bed’s edge.
He’s vaguely aware as Izzy’s eyes widen that this is the moment when he’d usually feel at least a bit proud, preening when wonder and delight slackens Izzy’s jaw and makes his cheeks flush. “You got it?” Izzy breathes, holding tight to the box with both hands before adding, “Fuck. Of course you did. Never doubted you, boss.”
Izzy’s crooked, twitchy smile is the only warning Edward gets before the man shuffles closer, reaching out to rest a hand on Ed’s shoulder. “Let’s get a drink, then crack this bastard open, yeah? They’ve still got that beer you liked at the pub.”
But Ed shrugs his hand off and draws himself up onto the bed. “You got your fuckin’ prize. Now, leave me alone.”
Izzy backs off, but his hand hangs in the air for a moment, a light frown on his face. “Right. You get some rest, boss. I’ll take care of this for you.”
Ed grunts, unable to manage much more than that. He collapses back onto the bed, curling onto his side to face the wall. Boots on the bed — why not? It’s trashed already; the sheets reek of stale sweat, smoke, and body odor when he presses his face to the mattress. They probably always did, and he just never noticed before he got used to a place where the laundry was done daily.
He claws at his own control even as he can feel his shoulders shaking against the bed, barely managing to hold out long enough to hear the front door click shut before a high, keening sound rips its way out of his throat. Tears run hot down his cheeks, soaking into the bedsheets, and Ed doesn’t try to stop them, giving in as all the jagged pieces of his morning come together into a single leadden lump, pressing down on his chest until he can’t do anything but bury his face in the foul bedding and shake apart. He only stops gasping for air when the world goes dark around him.
Ed wakes, jolting up in bed, to the sound of something smashing into a brick wall.
His face feels like shit, swollen and sore and crusty from weeping, but through his sticky eyelashes he can see Izzy in the living area, whacking the treasure chest against a wall.
“What the fuck?” Edward mutters, and then, scrambling to his feet, shouts it. “What the fuck, Iz? Stop!” His knee is stiff from passing out in one position for god knows how long after all the running and climbing of the morning, and so he doesn’t sprint across the apartment so much as he performs a sort of shuffling hobble.
Still fast enough to catch Izzy’s arm before he can smash the chest into the bricks again, though.
“Have you lost your mind?” Edward demands, one hand forming a manacle on Izzy’s wrist and the other clutching at the treasure — Stede’s treasure. “We don’t even know what’s in there yet! You could shatter the whole fucking thing.”
It would be appropriate, really, if he did. All Ed has of Stede’s now is his shirt and this box. What more fitting end for it than utter, reckless destruction.
“You open it, then,” Izzy snarls, yanking his wrist free to shove the treasure chest into Edward’s arms. “I’ve been trying to pick the fucking thing all afternoon while you were having your little nap. It’s a goddamn fortress.”
“So you think hitting it real hard will work?” Edward’s tone drips with scorn. “Fucking brilliant, mate. Genius shit. What will you think of next?”
Izzy’s face reddens, hands clenching at his sides. “You’ve got better ideas? It’s all yours.” He gestures, sweeping his arm, toward the locked box, and Edward winces before he can stop it. Even Izzy reminds him of Stede now. Perfect.
“Sure.” Ed swallows. “Piece of cake.” He walks into the kitchen and shoves the open chip bags and canisters aside to make room, plunking the chest down on the counter. His fingers brush the smooth panel again, and it moves aside to reveal the combination pad.
“Internet says that thing gives you three tries before it shuts down permanently,” Izzy says. “There’s only one left. After that, only the manufacturer can unlock it.”
“What did you try already?”
“12345678,” Izzy answers, sounding bored, “and 72779673.”
“You thought Stede was so stupid that his password would be password?”
Izzy shrugs. “It’s one of the most common options. You know that. Don’t argue with what works.”
Irritation crawls through Ed’s veins. He knows Stede better than that. The man wouldn’t— But then Izzy only met him for a few hours. “You should have woken me,” Edward bites out. “I just spent two fucking weeks in the guy’s house, and you think I don’t know how he operates?”
“Wasn’t sure you were paying much attention to the man’s intellect, boss,” Izzy drawls.
That’s its own fucking issue. Eventually, Ed knows he’ll have to deal with that, deal with Izzy properly and not just barely tolerate him in the room, but he doesn’t have the capacity for that right now on top of everything else. He ghosts his fingers over the number pad on the chest, taking deep breaths as he stares down at it as if he can see through the reinforced lid to the solution.
Edward breathes, trying to will his impatience and annoyance and fucking hurt away until they’re nothing more than white noise and dust motes in the air. One chance. Worth a shot.
He types the numbers in, fingers flying over the keypad so quickly that he knows not even close, attentive Izzy will be able to pick them up. He counts eight stars on the little display screen above the pad and, with one more breath, hits enter.
The pop of the latch echoes in the quiet flat.
“What was it?” Izzy asks. “How did you know?”
“A date, same as a lot of people,” Ed mutters, shaking his head. “A real important date.” 07282007 — Alma’s birthday.
Ed runs his thumbs along the seams on the sides of the lid, staring down at the thing. Whatever is inside, it’s the last thing he’ll ever have from Stede. He knows it. Any chance of them becoming friends, becoming more, went out the window when Edward did. Two weeks of searching, two weeks of work that became fun and then became everything, and it all comes down to this stupid little box.
“Well, what are you waiting for?” Izzy snaps, nudging Edward with his shoulder. “Open it.”
The hinges are well-oiled, and the heavy lid opens with a flick of his fingers. Inside, the chest is specially fitted to its contents and lined with rich red velvet. It molds to the lines and curves of the item it was built to hold, which is…
A ship. It’s no longer than Edward’s two hands, fingers spread, and topped with a full set of neatly rolled miniature sails rigged to the masts with lines barely wider than a strand of hair. The wood is dark, mottled with age, but gleams in the light where someone took a cloth to it nevertheless, wiping away the imperfections and giving the miniature a strange sheen. It’s beautiful.
At his side, Izzy lets out a hrumph of disgust. “A toy. A fucking toy ship. What a waste of two weeks.” His arm chops through the air, outrage radiating from him as he gestures to the hapless model. “We can’t sell this thing; it’s unfenceable!”
Ed can hear Izzy ranting onwards, shouting shit about kind of fucking moron pays that much for a toy boat, but Edward is still examining his prize. It’s so detailed, the tiny cannons dotting the sides and a web of rigging. The wheel moves when Edward skims it with his finger, and below that intricate carvings surround a doorway into the belly of the ship.
The only imperfection he can see, aside from the wood showing its age, is the figurehead at the front of the ship. There are carved legs, a body, like a horse on its hind legs, but the wood there is splintered and gone, the horse beheaded.
A white slip of paper embedded in the box’s lid catches Edward’s eye, and he reaches for it as Izzy mutters, “Need another fucking drink after this,” and stalks out of the flat.
The paper turns out to be a bill of sale — for a number with a truly outrageous amount of zeroes in it — and an authenticity declaration written and signed by some historian. The certificated declares that the model is a scale replica of the pirate ship Revenge, which was sunk by the British Navy in 1717, off the coast of Barbados. The ship’s wreckage was recently discovered by a dive team, and among the rotting finery found on board was a sealed display containing this remarkably pristine figure.
Soft details had deteriorated, and the sails and lines have been lovingly restored by a team of professionals, the statement explains, but no wood was found that could present a close enough match to repair the destroyed figurehead. Accounts from the time indicate that the original figure may have been a unicorn, but no figurehead was found at the site of the wreckage to verify.
Careful, Ed lifts the model free of its velvet cradle. It comes to his hands easily, cupped in his palms, and he turns it side to side to get a look at the full thing. His thumb rubs absently at the broken figure of the unicorn, a small smile curving his face even as tears swell in his eyes again.
It’s so very, very Stede — to care about something like this, to want something like this even though few private collectors would see the value in it and certainly not the value Stede saw.
And now, it’s in Edward’s hands. It’s his, and Stede is gone, and all that’s left for Edward is this ancient, forgotten vessel.
He leaves the chest on the kitchen counter and brings the ship with him into the sleeping area, settling it between a box of tissues and a desk lamp on the plastic table by the window. The sunlight probably isn’t good for it, he knows, but he wants it close, and it’s better here than in the bed beside him.
Curled on his side to face it, Ed lays his head on the lumpy pillow and admires the prize he gave up everything for, lying awake even as the sunlight coming through the window goes orange and fades, and his eyes burn.
-
He loses track of time faster than he’d ever admit. There’s the bed, the model ship, occasional trips to the bathroom. Izzy comes and goes from the apartment, sometimes bringing food — fries, burgers, pizza, even one of those caramel frozen coffee things he hates that Edward wants to spend their money on. Once, he brings Ivan and Fang by, and the two of them sit on the bed at either side of Edward’s feet. They might as well be talking nonsense for all Edward cares to hear it. He accepts some of the food offerings when they’re pushed on him, but doesn’t get up aside from walking to the fridge for beer.
It gets hard to see the ship through the forest of brown glass bottles, so periodically Edward shoves them onto the floor, listens to Izzy curse at the sound of another shatter.
Ed sleeps when it takes him, wakes when it doesn’t, stays awake for a full day once and then sleeps for twelve hours. There’s no pattern to it; it simply is. Day or night doesn’t matter when the world ends at the edge of his mattress.
It’s daytime now, whenever ‘now’ is, and Edward can tell from the weak light crawling through the dirty bedside window and the sound of Izzy stomping around the apartment, grumbling to himself as he does whatever shit Izzy does when Edward isn’t looking. Ed closes his eyes again, listens to Izzy heave and struggle with something at the door, and when he opens them, Izzy is standing by the bed.
He’s fully dressed, even has his vest on like he’s going out for a meeting, and the look on his face as he glares down at Edward, arms folded, couldn’t be anything but disgust. Ed has gotten used to that look.
“What?” Edward asks, rubbing a hand over the crust on his face and then scratching at the bristles where his facial hair has started to regrow.
“We need to leave. It’s not safe here anymore, Edward. We’ve waited too long.” There’s a note almost like pleading in his voice.
“Yeah, I heard you the first dozen times you said that.” Ed flops over onto his back, and in the roll he almost misses the strange sadness that drips from Izzy’s eyes and droops his mouth.
Quick as it appeared, it vanishes, gone as if it were never there. “Fine. Don’t say I didn’t try.” He stoops down by the foot of the bed and grabs a duffel bag, hoisting it onto his shoulder. “I’m going out, meeting Fang and Ivan to fence a couple more things for some extra cash to get out of this shithole.”
Edward waves at the door. Shoo. But Izzy doesn’t move. “What now?”
“You could come,” Izzy says, shifting uneasily from foot to foot. “See the boys. Help me argue prices. Fang can show you more pictures of that drooling beast he adopted.”
"What, now you can't even do your job without me holding your hand?" Edward grouses. The flimsy mattress has molded to his body, cradling him. The scratchy sheets are wrinkled into the shape of his legs.
Izzy's face goes cold, flat. "I'm not the one who isn't holding up his own weight anymore, boss," he says as he grabs his jacket from the pile on the back of the couch. He pauses, halfway to the door. "Remember that I tried."
"Whatever, mate," Edward mutters, turning his face into the pillow again. The door clicks shut without another word from Iz.
This is one of those moments when sleep eludes him. He's tired enough, can feel the ache of it in his bones, in his face, but he's far from sleepy, and yet even with Izzy leaving him alone Edward has no desire to venture from the bed. He flips onto his side again, gaze falling back to the ship.
Revenge. It's a fitting name. She's beautiful, even if she is useless, and that's fucking fitting too. Ed wonders if Stede ever showed her to anyone after he bought her — to Alma and Louis, to Lucius, to Mary. The kids would have liked her, he thinks, but they'd have been too rough to touch her.
Ed is too rough to touch her. He picked her up once for a closer look, and one of the slim lines that held up her masts had snapped under his thumb. Ed’s resulting tears had driven Izzy from the apartment, mortified. Ed hasn't picked the ship up again.
He watches her, blowing gentle winds from his lips to move her sails, imagining the messy bedside table instead as great glass sea. When his eyes start to swim again, she bobs on the waves.
There’s a knock at the door. Ed blinks, scrubs at his face with the back of his hand and shouts, “Iz! Door!” out of habit before he remembers that Izzy is out.
That means it’s probably Izzy at the door, or Fang, sent over by Iz in another ill-fated attempt to draw Edward out of the apartment. Hell, Ed thinks as he rolls slowly from the mattress, stumbling a bit when his feet hit the floor as his body readjusts to being vertical, maybe it’s the fucking cops and this farce can finally be over.
Yeah, right. It wasn’t a cop knock — Edward would know — and Izzy would be rattling the fucking knob by now, losing his mind as Ed takes his time winding his way around the beat-up sofa and stacks of half-empty cups and bottles to reach the door.
Whoever it is — likely Fang, by process of elimination — knocks again, and Edward grumbles, “Yeah, yeah. Alright. I’m here.” He twists open all three of the bolt latches, then opens the door, squinting through the gap to see who it is over the still-secured chain.
“Stede.” The name drops off Edward’s tongue and rattles to the floor between them like a misspent bullet. Ed’s first instinct is to wonder if he drank enough to hallucinate, but no, he hasn’t been out of bed yet today. He’s as sober as he gets these days.
But that’s insane, because that means that Stede Bonnet is actually standing in Ed’s hallway, right in front of a piece of bright red graffiti that says fuck bitches get money, with his gold hair in neat waves and a crisp white shirt over denim that he must have had fucking tailored. There are creases starched into the thighs, and Ed can’t believe he’s fallen hard enough for this man that he finds that detail attractive, even in the face of Stede’s solemn, serious expression.
At least there aren’t any cops with him. That’s something.
“Hello, Ed,” Stede says calmly, his voice running counterpoint to how stiff and straight he’s holding himself. “I’ve come to get my ship back.”
Edward shuts the door.
When he opens it again a second later, having released the chain latch, Stede is right where Ed left him. Still here. Still not a hallucination. Edward steps back, holding the door wide, but Stede doesn’t move.
“C’mon,” Ed says, nodding to the living room. “Might as well, since you’re already here.”
Stede nods stiffly and steps inside, and holy shit is this ever a trip: Stede Bonnet with his Cartier sunglasses perched atop his head, standing like a pillar at the center of Edward and Izzy’s nasty little rathole of an apartment. Ed feels strangely compelled to tell him it’s not normally this messy, like he’s hosting a dinner party, or to reassure him that they could afford a better place, they just choose not to pay for it.
Instead, what Ed says is, “How’d you find me?”
“Hmm? Oh, you gave me the address.” Stede answers absently, staring at the coffee table.
“I did fucking not.”
Stede pats his chest, then reaches into the pocket of his skinny jeans with two fingers and fishes out a folded piece of yellow legal paper. He passes it over to Edward. Their hands don’t touch.
Stede points to the coffee table. “Is that a Sargent?”
Ed glances over. The painting is half unrolled, one of the edges of the canvas pinned down with a coffee mug. He shrugs and starts to unfold the paper in his hand. “Maybe.”
It’s a full sized sheet of paper, and yet there are only a few lines of writing. Ed immediately recognizes his own chicken scratch, and there it is, laid out for him: Edward Teach, his cell phone number, and the address, this address. He remembers it now, writing everything down for Frenchie to arrange for his pay, back when he didn’t know Stede from Adam and expected he and Izzy would have skipped town long before two weeks hit. Fucking idiot move.
“Huh,” Edward mutters, crumpling the paper into a ball that he tosses at the overflowing trash bin in the kitchen. “Guess I did.”
Stede doesn’t answer, and when Ed looks up he finds the man has wandered on his little impromptu tour of the slums, into the bed area. Edward quickly follows him — quick enough, he hopes, that he gets Stede’s old shirt stuffed up under the pillow it was laid out on, hidden from Stede’s curious and frowning gaze.
Ed watches as Stede notices the ship, nestled amid her water glass and beer bottle buddies. “The chest’s over here,” Edward says, grabbing it from where it was half hidden under the side of the bed. He plops it down on the mattress, lid flapping open, and then steps back. “Won’t want to take her through the streets ‘round here without her house.”
Curiously, Stede ghosts his fingers over the rim of the box, the lid, the passcode panel. “You didn’t break it,” he says, and Ed shakes his head even though he knows Stede isn’t looking.
“Didn’t need to. Figured out the code.” Stede’s eyes are sharp when he raises his head, and Edward has to look away before he risks another stad. “C’mon, mate. Kids’ birthdays are like, top ten most common passcodes out there.”
To his shock, Stede chuckles. “I suppose it is a bit predictable.”
He picks the Revenge up gently, cradling her from the bottom with both hands, and seems to hold his breath as he nestles her safely back in her case. Then, he picks the case up, snug in his arms, and Edward waits for the next bit he knows is coming — goodbye in a best case scenario, or more likely I’ve called the police or You’ll be hearing from my attorney.
But Stede says nothing, just stares down at the little boat in his arms, as if he’s meant to be right where he is, as if Ed isn’t there at all. His breathing is shallow, and he’s completely intent on the ship, fingertips gone white where he grips the sides of the box.
Ed can’t fucking take it. “Well? What are you waiting for?” Edward gestures toward the door. “You got your damned boat back; what else is there?”
“I’ll be gone soon,” Stede says, and his voice is quiet, but there’s something unyielding lying in wait beneath the words. “I’m merely trying to see what is so compelling about this item that you’d abandon the children for it.”
Low blow. Low fucking blow, and Edward’s chest aches, but he pushes past it, exhales in a snort as if anything here could be funny. “‘s not why I fucking left,” he bites out. “Don’t toy with me. I know you’re not as stupid as you look.”
There’s a flash of real hurt in Stede’s big hazel eyes, and it’s almost enough to have Ed saying sorry before he remembers where they are and why. He folds his arms over his chest instead.
“Why, then?”
Ed shakes his head.
“Why?” Stede steps closer, close enough that Edward could reach him if he wanted to punch him, slap him, grab him by his stupid fluffy hair and yank him in for— No. “You owe me at least this,” Stede says, “for the trouble.”
“I don’t owe you shit.”
Still, Stede doesn’t leave. He stands there, surrounded by Edward’s mess and Edward’s smells, and he’s the eye of the storm. Ed realizes that now. Stede is a hurricane that swept through Edward’s life. He ripped everything to pieces, and here yet he is — calm. Untouched.
“Saw Mary came back,” Ed mutters, and at least he gets the satisfaction of seeing Stede’s eyes widen in surprise and understanding. “Saw you down in the living room that morning, like you were setting up for a new family portrait with your pretty little wife and the kids off their tits on joy.” He pauses to lick his lips, tongue feeling thick in his mouth, but he doesn’t scrape all the disgust off before adding, “Congrats, mate. Looks like waiting her out worked after all.”
“Mary?” Stede sputters. “Mary? You really think I’d— God, Ed, you can’t believe— Fuck.” Edward nods, satisfied. Guy can’t even manage a proper lie. That fits.
Stede sighs, closes his eyes and shakes his head, and he hugs the treasure chest more tightly to his body. When he speaks again, his voice is more even, his words careful. “Ed. Mary didn’t come to the house to reconcile. Our relationship was dead on arrival; it’s been on life support for ten years, and Mary and I were both relieved when we finally pulled the plug.
“She came by to finalize our custody agreement,” Stede says, and the heart Ed has been trying to will to stone cracks right now the middle. “She brought champagne. She was also very eager to introduce the children and myself to her boyfriend, Doug.” His lip quirks upwards. “Lovely fellow. Turns out she has rather good taste when she’s allowed to choose.”
Ed barely hears that last bit. He sinks down, dropping onto the edge of the bed and staring, unseeing, toward the front door. He’s barely even had a second to start processing the whole laundry list of how badly he fucked that one up when Stede sets the treasure chest aside and sits down gingerly on the bed beside him.
Ed’s first instinct is to tell him to stand back up. The bed is gross — Stede shouldn’t be touching it. Then, Stede says, “I’ll admit, when Mary told me she’d be introducing me to her boyfriend, I’d rather hoped to do the same.”
Seeing as he’s still not over the first revelation of the day, it takes Ed a minute to assemble the pieces. When he does, his mind blanks of all but one word. “Boyfriend?” His voice cracks.
“I mean, if that’s alright,” Stede says. “If you didn’t like that particular word, there are several other options. I’d hoped we could discuss — well, but it’s all semantics, really. It’s just that some people find boyfriend quite juvenile at our age, but Mary is barely younger than I am, and she said it first, so I thought…”
Ed can only stare as Stede babbles on, pink-faced and lovely in the dingy afternoon light, rubbing his palms on his own thighs and producing an awful lot of words that Ed has long since stopped hearing.
Suddenly, Stede stops. He takes a deep breath, looking down at the patch of floor between his feet. “The children miss you terribly,” he says.
And that’s it, that’s the last fucking raindrop that overwhelms the dam Edward has been trying to build in himself. The thing is, he can picture it, the way the children had mellowed and sulked when Izzy left after only a day. He knows that Alma must have gotten snippy, disobedient, started fights with her brother she knew he couldn’t win. He knows that Louis must have cried, shouted, thrown fits over insignificant shit like whether his sandwich was cut horizontal or diagonal and how many chocolate chips were in his cookie.
He knows, because he’s seen what it looks like when the Bonnet kids are feeling abandoned, and he’s tried not to think about it since he left, but now it all comes flooding through, and Ed cracks on a sob. He buries his face in his hands, curling on himself, and the first gentle, warm touch of Stede’s hand between his shoulder blades only makes it that much worse.
Ed doesn’t deserve comfort, and Stede is the last person who should be comforting him. Edward ripped through his family, stole his shit, lied to his face. The man shouldn’t even be here unless it’s to burn the apartment down with Ed inside, and here he is trying to pat Ed’s fucking back.
He tries to articulate as much, but it’s hard to get real words out through the blubbering. His lips feel thick, his throat tight as tear stream down his face. He tries to shrug Stede’s hand off, twisting and flexing his shoulders, but that only makes the man pull him closer, into his side, skimming his hand down Ed’s arm from shoulder to elbow and making nonsense little shushing noises like he’s soothing a toddler. He even tucks Ed’s head under his chin, and Ed’s next stuttering inhale comes with the flavor of Stede’s rich, sweet aftershave.
Fuck. Ed lets himself press into it for just a second, nose to the notch at the base of Stede’s throat, and then he wrenches himself back, puts both hands on Stede’s chest and pushes, breaking free of his deceptively strong embrace.
“What are you doing?” Ed gasps, finally finding his tongue again.
“Holding you,” Stede answers, as if it were simple, obvious. “Or, at least, I was.”
“No, you fucking lunatic. What are you doing here?” An edge of laughter creeps into Ed’s voice, but it’s not amusement. He’s verging on hysteria and knows it, tries to take deep breaths to creep back from the line, but he only ends up gulping at the air. “You don’t owe me anything but a fucking fist to the face for what I did. You don’t even know me, Stede.”
“I do.”
“You fucking don’t!” Ed shouts, and there’s a banging sound — one of the neighbors, protesting the noise through their stupid thin walls. Ed grabs a boot from the floor and chucks it at the wall. He turns back to find Stede watching him, frowning as if he’s confused, and fuck it. Might as well rip off the last of the bandages. “Whoever you think I am, I’m not that fucking guy, Stede. I’m a—” his voice cracks. “I’m a bad person. I’ve done horrible things, not just to you, but to—”
Ed stops talking at the sudden look of understanding that flashes through Stede’s eyes and drifts down his face to form a slight smile. “Ah. I see. You mean your… criminal past.”
“My— My what?” Ed stares, stunned. Of all the wild ass things Stede has said to him these past few weeks, that might be the most unexpected yet, even more that boyfriend.
Well, maybe not more than that. It’s a close race.
“I may be a bit of a buffoon sometimes,” Stede says, “but I do take my children’s safety seriously.” He looks at Ed, as if expecting some response or understanding, but Ed can barely even manage to blink. Stede’s expression gentles, and he tightens his hold on Ed’s shoulder. “Background checks are de rigueur for childcare workers, dear. Once we had your full name, Oluwande and Frenchie did—” he waves his hand, wrinkling his nose slightly “— whatever it is they do with the computer, and I had your record in my email within a couple of hours.”
His eyes are shining when he drops his arm from around Edward’s back, reaching for his hand instead. Ed lets him take it. “It was a fascinating read. Did you really break into the Boston Museum of Fine Arts in broad daylight?”
“Which time?” Ed asks, not thinking, and doesn’t know what to make of it when Stede grins in response, like that’s what he wanted to hear. He opens his mouth, undoubtedly about to ask a fuckton more questions, and Ed just squeezes the shit out of his hand and goes, “Wait. Fucking… give me a minute here, man.”
Stede snaps his lips shut, and Ed takes the chance to breathe. Too fucking much, with the news about Mary and then boyfriend and dear and Stede touching him, and now it turns out the whole time Ed was worrying about Stede learning who he was, learning Ed was lying, that entire two weeks, Stede knew. He fucking knew.
“Why’d you let me work for you, then?” Ed asks, because he’s not ready to touch the other stuff. “If you read my whole rap sheet, and you—” he guesses the next part, knowing what Oluwande and Frenchie are like “— you probably talked to someone about the stuff they couldn’t prove, right?” Stede nods. “Then why?”
“In my home, we believe in second chances,” Stede says, smiling. “You haven’t been charged with anything violent in years, and you have no history of hurting children.” He pats Ed’s knee. “You weren’t the only ex-convict working for me, you know, even if your resume was a bit thicker than most.”
Ed chokes on a laugh. “Resume? You fucking madman.” Stede grins, squeezing his leg, and Ed has to look away. “I did figure out about Pete and Wee John,” he admits.
“But not Jim and Lucius?”
Ed’s eyes widen. Jim, okay, he could see that one — that fucker was mysterious as hell— but, “Lucius?”
Stede hums assent. “A Black Friday sale gone awry, apparently. He punched an elderly woman over the last cashmere sweater in his size. I’m told it was eighty-five percent off, and that she was a bitch who deserved it.”
The image of it just gets to Ed, and the next thing he knows, he’s laughing, full throated and shoulders shaking, ignoring the prickle of tears in his eyes that aren’t just mirth, aren’t just leftover from before. He leans into Stede’s side and paws at his own wet face, giggling helplessly, and the laughter only worsens when Stede reaches into his shirt pocket and pulls out a cloth hankie to wipe Ed’s face.
“You fucking nerd,” Ed gasps out, but even he can hear the warm fondness in the words.
“Doesn’t seem like you mind,” Stede counters as he dabs the last drops of moisture from Ed’s eyes. Smiling, he leans back, one hand still cupping Ed’s cheek as the other tucks the handkerchief away. “There. Much better.” He brushes his thumb over the corner of Ed’s mouth, and Ed sucks in a sharp breath.
He can see the way Stede’s gaze drops to linger over his own thumb, the dark curve of Ed’s lips beside it. His smile fades, and his lips part. Someone out on the street is playing music, the bass in their car stereo vibrating through the apartment walls. Still, over that, Ed thinks he can hear Stede’s breath.
Stede wants to kiss him. Stede wants to kiss him, and Ed would like to let him, would love nothing more than to fall back in together and lose track of time — water under the bridge, easy as that — but he hasn’t forgotten. There’s more they haven’t talked about.
“Lucius,” he whispers, licking his lips, forcing the word out through the creeping dread in his guts, “Is he…?”
Stede’s hand falls from his cheek and cups his shoulder instead. “A bit scratched up and not your biggest fan,” he admits. “I would have come to talk to you sooner, but he was rather put-out with you the first few days. Aside from that, he’s none the worse for wear, but you’ll have to be terribly nice to him and Wee John both when — if — you see them again.”
“John?” Ed repeats, baffled. “Not Pete?”
“It’s not that Pete wasn’t upset,” Stede says quickly. “It’s just, well, it seems that Wee John’s very favorite azalea bushes caught the brunt of Lucius’ fall, and he’s quite insistent the branches were permanently traumatized by the experience.” He wrinkles his nose. “To be honest, they look the same to me, but don’t tell him that; Frenchie tried to tell him he thought the dent and missing leaves at the top gave them character, and John didn’t speak to him for a full day. It was very upsetting, I suppose.”
Ed’s giggles are back, not quite so hysterical this time, but he grabs a corner of the bed sheet and wipes away the last old tear tracks from his face as he chuckles. The fucking bushes. Christ.
As he’s drying his cheeks, Stede’s hand slides down from his shoulder to shoulder to rub Ed’s back, a touch that begins as comforting before his hot palm drifts far too low for comfort, resting in the dip of Ed’s spine where his shirt has ridden up to bare a strip of skin. Ed shivers at the brush of fingertips there, too sensitive after days alone.
“I’m not saying it will be easy, coming back,” Stede murmurs, and Ed turns closer, drawn almost into his arms. “But, if you could at least visit, say a proper goodbye to the children if you must…”
Stede’s words are soft, conciliatory, as if he’s ready at Ed’s whispered command to let go and allow this to be the end, but his body says otherwise. The soft touch of his hand on Ed’s back turns firm and curling, and his head tilts, dipping closer. His eyes are on Ed’s lips again, and Ed feels his own breathing go shallow in turn, waiting, wanting.
Bam. Bam. Bam.
It could be the sound of Ed’s heart, pounding in his ears, but no. He knows that knock.
“Fuck,” he mutters, staggering to his feet even before the words This is the police! Open up! echo through the door. Ed’s head is spinning as he looks around at the apartment, knowing the latches on the flimsy apartment door won’t hold them back long.
“Fuck!” He shouts this time, as he really looks at the apartment around him and the pieces fall into place — the painting unrolled on the table, though they never leave those out like that, and the others still wrapped up in the living room corner. He sees the pile of jewelry spilling over the kitchen counter, all pieces they’d picked up in the past two weeks, and the stack of large bills bursting from an envelope on the TV stand — probably fucking sequential, too.
It all paints quite the picture, and the picture in this case says, “minimum fifteen year sentence.”
Izzy is gone, and he left behind everything too hot to fence, and now the fucking cops are setting up their battering ram to take down the door, and Edward can’t miss the chains tied around his neck in a tidy little bow.
“Son of a bitch set me up,” Edward growls, and he spins back top the bed to find Stede sitting, wide-eyed and pale, his hands flapping in the air like a pair of useless birds.
“What—” Stede gasps, half standing, then sinking back into the bed again. “Oh my god, what do I do? I’ve never been arrested.” His voice climbs an octave in panic. “I’ve never even gotten a speeding ticket!”
“Of course you haven’t; you don’t drive.” Ed shrugs into his jacket and then grabs the treasure chest off the bed. Snapping the top closed, he thrusts the box back into Stede’s arms, then grabs him by the elbow and yanks him to his feet. “Gotta go. C’mon, move.”
It doesn’t take much nudging to get Stede stumbling to the window, though his face is frozen somewhere between frightened and confused. Edward pulls the window open wide as he hears the first crack of metal hitting the door and steadies Stede with one hand as the man swings a denim-clad leg over the sill and ducks to climb onto the fire escape. Ed joins him, taking the extra second to close the window behind them in the hope it buys them a minute or two.
“Go on,” Ed prompts, nudging Stede again on the edge of the rusty fire escape. It clangs under his boots. “We’re sitting ducks out here, mate. You gotta climb down.”
“How do I—?” Stede holds out the chest with both hands, running through an equation in his mind and not solving for X when he has to add box and ladder.
“Tuck it under your arm,” Ed huffs, chuckling despite the situation because he can’t help the glorious, swelling fondness in his chest at the confusion on Stede’s face. “How’d you think I got it out of the house?”
The way Stede’s brow furrows tells Ed that he never even thought about it, which, bless him, but he also does as Ed suggested and puts the chest securely under his arm before taking his first step down the ladder.
Either this fire escape has gotten a lot noisier in the past few days while Edward was laid up in bed, or Stede is careening his body from side to side and jumping on the rungs, because it’s a constant stream of clang and ping and clatter as the man descends, and Ed doesn’t wait for him to get far before he’s climbing down himself. He’s only halfway down the first stretch of ladder before he hears the crash of his door giving way, the shouts and pounding feet of police entering his apartment. He pauses on the next landing to wave at a little boy who’s folded up on the floor in the next apartment down, watching reruns of Tom and Jerry with the window propped open.
“He’s never gonna catch that mouse,” Ed tells the wide-eyed kid before swinging down the next ladder.
It’s slow going compared to Ed’s usual descent. He gets the feeling Stede would be unsteady on the ladder even with both hands, and with just one, he’s, well… Ed spends a few long seconds being still and breathing shallow, waiting for Stede to get down each level far enough Ed won’t kick him in the head by mistake. He thinks he can hear the cops rattling around the apartment above them, but he also knows his hearing is shot, and he’s just as likely to be overhearing some neighbor’s Law and Order marathon.
On the final ladder before the alley, Stede stops.
“Almost there,” Ed tells him and maybe nudges his hand with one booted toe. He’s trying to remain calm, because if Stede starts to lose it with the cops so hot on their tail, they’re screwed.
But it’s not really a surprise when Stede calls back, “I can’t.”
The last stretch of ladder is streaking Stede’s white shirt orange with rust where his chest is pressed to the rungs. It groans under his swaying weight, dangling the end a couple feet above the alley pavement. A couple feet is nothing. The kids could do it. But Stede clings to the last rung with the toes of his shiny dress shoes and presses his cheek to the metal beside his hand.
“Just jump, Stede.”
The ladder creaks again, and somewhere nearby, Ed hears a window glide open. “Fuck,” he mutters, and hops down onto the ladder. “I’m coming down past you. Don’t fucking move.”
“Past me?”
And yeah, maybe Ed shouldn’t have warned him, but he thought it would be worse to surprise him with it. It could certainly be much worse than it is. At least we made up, Ed thinks, hysterically, as he lets his feet dangle down to brush Stede’s back and guides himself down, arms straining, fingers clutched on the outside of the ladder to either side of Stede’s head. Sorta.
Probably nothing would have made it easy, per say, for Ed to scramble down the length of Stede’s body, chest pressed into his broad back, hips hugging tight to curve of his—
Well.
It’s better if Ed doesn’t let himself think about it too much. He wishes they could have done this some other time, any other time, when it could be something he stopped to have a bit of fun with. Instead, he’s very conscious of the sound of boots hitting the metal above them, the way the steps reverberate through the whole fire escape until the vibrations make Ed’s fingers numb.
Finally, with his arms braced around Stede’s waist, he decides, Close enough. He can’t say they’ll make it down safely if he lets his face go any lower than it is. “I’m dropping,” he warns.
He hears Stede’s sharp, “What?” as he lets go.
Ed bites his tongue on the landing. Both knees are bitching at him this time, and oh boy, that’s fun and new. Perfect fucking timing, but there’s nothing he can do about it now. Probably shouldn’t have bounced his ass off so many balconies on his way out of Stede’s place. Probably shouldn’t have climbed this fire escape right after.
“Okay,” Ed says, arms out. “Now jump.”
“I will not,” Stede hisses, neck craned to glare back over his shoulder. His arm is shaking with the strain of holding himself on the ladder on its own. “I already told you—”
“But now I’m down here to catch you.” Ed spreads his arms wider, gesturing insistently. “C’mon. It’s this, or the pigs will stomp your fingers with combat boots till you drop anyway. Now, drop.”
He’s expecting Stede to crouch, hop down, turn and catch himself the way Izzy or Jack would in the same position. What he’s neglected to calculate for is that Stede doesn’t know what the fuck he’s doing.
Stede may as well be a brick for how well he controls the fall, flopping backwards like this is a corporate retreat trust exercise with a trampoline beneath his back instead of hard, filthy pavement. Ed staggers forward, but he wasn’t prepared to literally catch the man, and the best he can do is sort of muffle his fall, grabbing at Stede’s arms and wedging his own body between Stede and the ground.
They collide and bounce off each other, careening intertwined in the direction of the nearest wall. Ed’s back slams into the side of a dumpster, knocking the lid askew, and the acrid-sweet smell of summer garbage floods the air in the alley, mixing with the thick musk of exhaust and motor oil from the road. The treasure chest crashes into the pavement, and Stede clutches the front of Edward’s jacket with both hands.
Ed’s hands settle on Stede’s waist. Defying expectations, Stede’s shirt is stained from the ladders and his hair is mussed. There’s a streak of brown mystery material on the tip of his nose, but he’s still here, whole, pressed against Ed in the alley.
“See?” Ed says, grinning. “Didn’t I promise I’d teach you how to climb out a window?”
“Au contraire; I believe you promised to show me how to climb up, not fall down.”
Ed shrugs. “Same thing, just in reverse.”
Stede is shaking his head, but he’s smiling too, joy bubbling up in those hazel eyes that are just right there, so close even though Edward thought he’d never look in them again at all, much less see the man smiling, feel him touching Ed’s cheek so fondly, his soft lips brushing the scratchy curve of Ed’s face.
And then they’re kissing. Kissing again, improbably propped up in a fucking alley that reeks like a couple hundred people’s trash, but Stede’s mouth is so warm, insistent, pressing Edward back and pinning him against the hot metal he can still feel radiating through his thick leather jacket.
Ed pushes Stede away and watches the man’s face collapse like a kid who just popped a balloon. “Shit,” Ed laughs, darting in to peck the corner of Stede’s mouth before shoving him again, making him stumble back. “C’mon, you lunatic; did you forget the fucking cops are after us?”
“Ahh,” Stede stutters, and Ed laughs again because yeah, he did, and Stede looks so pink and stupid all mussed up and distracted in this damn alley, but Ed can hear the boots clanging off the fire escape, and even if they didn’t have police on their tail there wouldn’t be enough time in the day for Ed to say everything he wants to right now.
Instead, he says, “Let’s go,” and then, “Don’t forget the damn box.”
Stede grabs the treasure chest, and Ed grabs his free hand, and then Stede asks, “What now?”
And Ed answers, “Run..”
-
They make it about three blocks, dodging tourists on the sidewalks and cutting through alleys, under cut chain link fences and up a couple more ladders, before Stede’s hand on his wrist becomes less of a comfort and more of an anchor. He pulls, tiring, and Edward lets him, tugging them both around a corner they can set their backs to, a cinderblock wall between themselves and the street.
Stede is panting for breath, perspiration beading on his hairline and dampening his shirt, turning the white translucent. Edward can’t judge — his breathing may be better, but his legs are aching from the sprint, and beneath his leather jacket his undershirt is soaked, sticking to his skin. He should have left the jacket behind. He couldn’t.
“Have we run — far enough — yet?” Stede gasps, palms pressed to his knees as he gathers himself.
Ed runs a comforting hand along his spine where his shirt is visibly damp. “Nearly there.” Stede sighs, and Ed gives him a pat. “Promise. Just ‘round the next corner and then it’s home free. We can slow down a bit, though.”
“Do you think they’re still after us?”
Edward shrugs. “No way of checking.” He got no lookout this time, no way of knowing if the cops are still at his building or mere feet away, no way of knowing if they even saw Stede or the treasure chest at all.
God knows what Izzy told them. God knows where the little ratfucker even is right now.
“We can walk if we have to, as long as we get off the street,” Edward says, even though he hates it. His fingers are twitching against Stede’s back, his own thigh. They’ve only stopped long enough for a few breaths but already the instinct to go is scrambling up Edward’s spine.
Stede takes a deep breath and stands upright. His eyes are calm despite his flushed face, and his mouth sets in a determined line. “If we need to run, we can run,” he says. “You go; I’ll keep up.”
Ed reaches for his hand again anyway.
Sprinting flat for the last few turns, they pull up quickly at a building set well back from the main roads. It’s a home, or it was once — whitewashed wood overgrown with moss and vines that crawl up the dormer and dip through a prominent hole in the roof. The first floor windows are shattered in front, and a graffitied plywood panel blocks the front door. Ed takes Stede by the elbow and leads him around the rotting, kicked out wooden fence to another entrance at the back.
“Iz and I set this place up when we got into town,” Ed explains. “Couple others, too. Friend of ours used to live in this one when he was a kid, so it’s safer than most.” He kicks a rusted dog bowl away from the back door and grabs the lockbox hanging off the knob, swiping through the code in a few practiced movements before the box pops open to reveal a single silver key. “Haven’t had to use one of these in years,” he admits, “but it’s good to have somewhere to hunker down until things cool off.”
The door opens easily once it’s unlocked, the hinges kept oiled and shiny despite outward appearances of the building, and Ed steps inside, feeling the heat of Stede right along his back, so close he could probably feel the man’s breath if his hair wasn’t down and in the way. They pass through the dark kitchen, the air heavy and stale and laced with scents of old cigarettes and forgotten lives. Ed hears the click behind him when Stede tries to turn on the lights, but the power hasn’t been paid in this house in years.
Ed turns down a dark hallway and hears Stede’s footsteps behind him, a couple fingers catching and tangling in the back of Ed’s shirt as if he thinks they could lose each other in the blackness of a ten foot long stretch of creaking floors. Ed doesn’t say anything, just pushes open the next door on the left and lets the warm afternoon light flood out of the room and illuminate the dirty shag carpet and dark wood paneling in the hall.
It’s just as he and Izzy left it when they set up the space with Fang a few weeks ago — a floral printed mattress on the floor in one corner, bare except for a few fleece blankets dumped on the end, and nothing else in the room but thin, grey carpet. The windows are intact, though, and the ceiling, and light from outside streams through the wavy glass to brighten the space that had once been Fang’s childhood bedroom.
“Take a load off,” Ed tells Stede as he goes to inspect the closet, “or at least put that box down.” There’s a creak from behind him when Stede sinks onto the mattress, and Ed hums in approval, pulling a cardboard box down from the upper shelf in the closet. It’s packed with supplies — a few bottles of water, a lighter, pen and paper, first aid stuff, and some packages of trail mix and granola bars. He drops the box onto the floor and grabs one of the bottles, twisting the cap off as he walks over to the bed, dropping to sit beside Stede on the edge.
The old mattress caves in, slumping them together from hip to shoulder.
Ed offers Stede the water first, and he murmurs his thanks before gulping down half the bottle in a couple seconds. Ed smirks, amused by what he’d think of as bad form if anyone else did it. Of course, Stede has never had to ration anything in his life. What a fucking concept.
Sighing, Stede scrubs the damp from his lips with the back of his hand before passing the water to Ed, watching closely as he takes a few small, slow sips. “So,” Stede says, “now what happens? I’ve never been on the run from the law before.”
The law. Ed grins. “Well, not much, honestly. After the actual running it gets a bit boring. Basically we just wait around here and keep our heads down until the cops run out of patience or energy and stop looking.”
“And how long does that normally take?”
Ed shrugs, twisting the cap back onto the bottle before dropping it on the floor beside the discarded treasure chest. “Couple hours, maybe? Even the real motivated bastards won’t stick around long after shift change.” Ed pulls his phone from his pocket and glances at the time. It’s 3:30 already. In a couple hours, Roach will be starting to prep dinner.
“Shit,” he mutters. “Is that going to be alright? Are the kids okay for an hour or two? I didn’t even think— But the cops might not have seen you, so if you need to get back, we could try. You didn’t leave them with Lucius or something, right? Because you know he hates—”
The rest of Ed’s words are lost to the press of Stede’s lips against his. God. It’s every bit as warm, as fucking welcoming as Ed remembers, and they’re alone, off the street, and so this time it’s safe to tangle his fingers in Stede’s shirt and pull him closer, to muffle that little mmph of pleasure into Stede’s open mouth when Stede’s nails scratch over his scalp, delving into his tangled hair. There’s a pleasant pull to it that makes Ed’s back want to arch already, and he crowds closer to Stede, running his hands along broad shoulders, his leg hitching up and over Stede’s thighs.
When Ed bites down on his plush lower lip, Stede lets out a gasp and pulls back only to mouth at Ed’s neck, moving his hair back to trail wet kisses up to the hinge of his jaw, his ear. Ed whines, clutching at Stede’s arms as the feeling of teeth on those sensitive, hidden places, lights up his nerves.
“Seriously, though,” he gasps, his mouth incapable of not making stupid words when it doesn’t have something better to do, “the kids— Will they be okay if you—”
Stede kisses him again, firmly, blocking the questions up with his own tongue. When he pulls back, his cheeks are flushed and hazel eyes gone dark, more green than gold in the afternoon light. “I would really rather not talk about my children right now,” he says, hitching Ed’s leg up so his knee presses between Stede’s legs. His breath catches, sharp. “But if you must know, they’re with their mother.” His fingers pluck at the V of Ed’s shirt collar, thumb skating over one wing of the eagle inked there. Dipping his chin, he drops a kiss on the bird, then looks up at Ed through golden lashes. “And they’ll be there all weekend.”
“It’s the weekend?” Ed asks, and Stede laughs softly.
“Saturday,” Stede confirms.
“All weekend?” Ed repeats, and Stede smiles before lowering his head again, humming his answer into Ed’s collarbone.
Even on the run from the cops — maybe especially on the run from the cops — it’s too fucking easy to get caught up in Stede. It’s fitting, really, that Ed would escape the law again only to get tackled and pinned by his own damn feelings. He was bound to get captured someday.
The thought makes him laugh, though not much sound escapes with their mouths so joined. Somehow, they’ve fallen back, and Ed is draped half over Stede, sideways on the bed. Stede’s fingers, tugging impatiently at the hem of Ed’s shirt, pause their frantic motion, and his blunt nails scratch lightly at the coarse hair escaping Ed’s jeans.
“Ticklish?” Stede asks.
“No. ‘m not ticklish at all, actually,” Ed lies, suppressing another shiver when Stede’s fingers spread, warm palm pressed flat and firm against his belly.
“You laughed.”
“Not at you,” Ed breathes. “Just— Not important, actually,” and he claims Stede’s lips again to prove it. He kisses Stede because he doesn’t know what else to say, doesn’t know what else to do with himself now, in this house that smells of mold and dust with the distant sound of sirens drifting through the broken windows in the next room.
He has Stede splayed out beneath him, and there’s an hour to kill, maybe more, and those sirens aren’t getting any closer, and Stede squirms, adjusting so Ed’s thigh slots into place firmly between his own, and Stede sucks in a wavering breath like even that contact has shocked him.
Ed asks, dropping half-formed words between desperate kisses, “Is this— Do you want— What do you want?”
“Everything,” Stede breathes back, easy, and the word curls like a fist in Ed’s gut.
He pulls back, ignoring the little whimper Stede lets out at even that inch of space between their bodies. Ed props himself up on his elbows and looks.
Stede’s lovely waves are in disarray, pushed back from his forehead. He’s flushed, his wet mouth worn dark from Ed’s lips and teeth, and there’s a bare hint of light-colored stubble on his cheeks. One of them — and Ed can’t remember who — managed to loose a few buttons, and his once-crisp, once-white shirt gapes open to reveal a thick slice of pale, lightly-furred chest. Ed’s fingers are tracing the lower curve of one pec before he can stop them, and Stede arches into the contact, practically purring under Ed’s touch.
His head dips, and Ed can see the dark, splattered edges of a water stain on the floral mattress beneath him. The fabric is frayed at the edges, threads pulled loose from the quilting. Stede turns his head, and there are flecks of glitter stuck to his cheek, left by some unknown source.
Ed’s hand curls around the rust-tainted fabric of Stede’s shirt. “Not here,” he says, tugging at the cloth. “We can’t— This isn’t right.”
He can feel Stede’s body tense beneath him. “What’s not right?” When he doesn’t get an answer, Stede reaches up and turns Ed’s face towards him with a strong yet gentle hand. He prompts, “Edward?”
“You’re not meant for places like this,” Ed answers, quiet at first, and then his grip on Stede’s shirt tightens and his words firm with it. “Look at you, Stede. You’re a fucking wreck, but you’re supposed to be—” Ed knows he’d be ruining Stede’s clothes now, his fingers tearing at them, is they weren’t already stained beyond repair. “You’re for silk sheets, mate. You’re for fucking fancy booze in little glasses with special names and jobs, and designer clothes, and music playing in the background with fucking— fucking violins or something! Sweet stuff. What we’ve got here — what I’ve got to give right now — it’s not—”
“Not what?” Stede asks, sharp-edged. His hand stays soft on Ed’s cheek, but the other reaches for Ed’s hand and grips him tight in return. “Not good enough? Not something I can have?” Unsure of what to say to the sudden steel in Stede’s voice, Ed shakes his head.
“All my life, other people have been telling me what I’m allowed to have or supposed want, what’s appropriate for me to enjoy or become,” Stede says. Taking his hand from Ed’s face, he drops it to grip his hip rightly instead, thumb pressing hard into the soft flesh beside the bone. “They’ve been telling me what I’m good for, and then answer has been, on average—” he wrinkles his nose and puts on a rolling tone, quoting some figure from his past as he finishes, “not much.”
He pulls. The movement is sharp, surging, and Ed unbalances, falls into it so they collide, held together by Stede’s firm grip from chest to hip. Stede smiles again, small and wry, and his eyes are still bright and determined when he says, “I’d like the chance to decide for myself now.”
If he meant to pull Ed into a kiss then, he misses his chance, because Ed is already devouring him whole. A man can only be expected to put up so much of a fight against someone who wants to be destroyed.
It’s fumbling, a filthy sort of tangle of legs and lips, hands frantically grabbing at one another’s clothes with no logical order or agenda, like a pair of teenagers desperate to get the deed done before a chaperone walks in. Ed ends up with his shirt off, flung over to drip from the windowsill, and Stede’s jeans are tangled around his knees. Stede gets distracted, then, trying to trace the lines of Ed’s tattoos and digging curious fingertips into his scars.
“What’s this one?” Stede asks, pressing his thumb into a deep indent in Ed’s bicep where Izzy had stabbed him once in his sleep, back when they could still share a single bed.
“I’ll tell you later,” Ed mumbles, not wanting to traipse down that particular path. Instead, he pulls Stede’s hips into place and grinds against him, relishing the gasping moan he gets in return, the way Stede bites, sharp, at his shoulder and sends ricochets of sensation through his skin. “We’ve got time. We’ve got time, right? I want to— What do you want?”
Ed groans, sliding his thigh against the bulge of Stede’s hard-on, unmissable in the clinging, crimson briefs he’s wearing. Stede mouths at his neck in response, works his way up to an ear where he tucks Ed’s hair back and whispers, hot and throaty, “I told you. Everything.”
“We can’t—” Ed’s laugh catches in his throat when Stede flicks one of his nipples. “We can’t do everything here, mate. We can’t even do much, so—”
“This is good,” Stede answers, arching his hips up to rut against Ed’s thigh. “Or this.” He reaches down between them, cups Ed’s erection through the jeans he’s somehow still wearing and makes him curse. “Or… anything, Edward. Anything. I just want you. I’ve wanted you for so long, forever—”
“It’s been eighteen days, love,” Ed says, laughing again, but he pushes Stede’s hair back from his face, kisses him and traces his thumb over the little lines at the corners of his sweet, pouting mouth. “Yeah,” he admits on a sigh. “I know what you mean. Alright. Alright, just… Don’t move.”
“Ed?”
But Ed presses down on Stede’s hips, holding him firm to the old mattress for a second before withdrawing, crawling down Stede’s body for a better look at those fancy-ass underpants. He presses his cheek to the obscene bulge there, noses the damp spot on the soft cotton, and barely hears Stede’s shaky inhale over his own.
“These are hot,” Ed declares, plucking at the waistband and then releasing, showing teeth when Stede whimpers and jerks at the slap of elastic against his belly.
“Really?” Stede sounds out of breath already. His hands sink into the mattress at either side of his hips. “I think they’d look much better on the floor.”
Ed shakes his head, but he’s smiling, dipping his fingers under the stretchy fabric to pull it away, down. “Seems like we’ve got a lot in common after all.” The briefs tangle with Stede’s jeans just south of his knees, and Ed pulls at the mess, considers whether to fight fabric and shoes and decides it’s not worth the time. He’s got better things to do.
Much better.
Admittedly, when Ed had thought about this before — and he’d thought of it more than he’d like to admit, in the big bed in Stede’s house, or over breakfast in the morning, or while he bummed cigarettes off Jim, watching the kids playing in the distance through unfocused eyes — he hadn’t expected anything like this. How could he?
He’d imagined Stede gasping and entirely bare, skin still pink and damp from the heat of his bath and golden hair dark and curling against the silk sheets. He’d imagined nuzzling against Stede’s inner thigh, feeling the easy give of plump flesh between his teeth, and smelling lavender, mint, maybe honey, any one of those delicious soaps that Stede squirreled away in his room, the scents that Ed had become too used to finding hints of buried in the rows of clothes he pawed through in the secret closet.
Now, he presses his lips to the generous curve of Stede’s thigh and tastes salt. The scent here, nosing into the coarse curls at the base of Stede’s cock, is sharp and musky. His skin is tacky from dried sweat when Ed’s hand glides up from his knee to grip his hipbone and hold him still, and when he licks Stede’s cock for the first time, flat tongue from root to tip, Stede tastes only human.
It is, Ed decides, a good fucking flavor.
Stede is thick enough that Ed’s jaw clicks when he adjusts to take him in, lips pressed thin and straining. It’s a satisfying sort of feeling, and Ed hums contentedly as he wraps his free hand around the base of Stede’s prick to keep it from twitching, jerking against his teeth.
Somehow, Ed’s fantasies had never been detailed enough to include sound, so the way Stede’s muscles lock up as he exclaims, “Oh, fuck!” at that first touch shoots right to Ed’s cock.
Ed laughs, muffled for obvious reasons, and almost chokes himself when he lets go of Stede’s hip to cup his balls as he slides his lips down until he’s drooling over his own hand. The wetter, the better has always been his motto, and it seems like Stede is in agreement judging from the stream of oh my god, oh Ed, you’re amazing, you feel so good, holy shit, Edward erupting from Stede’s lips at full fucking volume.
No wonder the guy didn’t want to fuck around with his kids sleeping a few doors away. Ed gets it now.
Over the sound of Stede’s babbling, Ed catches the squeal and hiss of shock brakes outside, thumping bass from passing cars, laughter and voices wandering down the sidewalk. He pulls off, grinning smugly at Stede’s disappointed whimper, and looks around for a solution to what could easily become a big problem.
“Shhh,” he tells Stede, who groans again, loud and unashamed, and Ed laughs against his own shoulder as he rummages through the supply box by the bed. “You realize we’re supposed to be fucking hiding, right? Kids in this neighborhood are going to think this house is haunted by a horny ghost. And that’s assuming they don’t call the cops on us. Aha!”
Triumphant, he pulls out a roll of clean white gauze and holds it aloft before tapping it against Stede’s swollen bottom lip. “Open, and bite down.” Stede complies, then lets out a much more muffled squeak when Ed takes him by both hips and yanks him lower on the mattress, arranging him so Ed has a better angle to stretch out his bad leg when he dips back in.
He drops a kiss on Stede’s stomach, quick, and then takes him by the wrist, resting Stede’s hand on his own shoulder. “Just fucking punch me if you need me to stop, okay?” Stede nods, letting out a mumbled gauzy noise that might otherwise have been a yes, and Ed adds, “And pull my hair if you like it.”
He winks, and he’s looking up long enough to notice the way Stede simultaneously flushes and rolls his eyes at the cheesy gesture before Ed curls back in on himself and sets about sucking the memory right back out Stede’s brain through his cock.
Stede’s hand resettles on the back of his head and tangles in his hair immediately.
Even with his mouth well-occupied, Stede is one of the nosiest, most responsive lovers Ed has ever experienced. It’s like every ounce of self-consciousness in the man left the room the moment Ed’s tongue touched his slit, and what’s left instead is this rocking, panting, moaning, glorious creature, flushed from his hairline to his waist that tugs at Ed’s curls like he’s trying to slow a horse. The noises spilling from behind his teeth are low and garbled, and Ed has the sneaking suspension that the words would be downright filthy if the man was given full rein — something Ed will need to experience for himself very soon, yes, thank you. Just the thought of what Stede’s tongue might be doing under that roll of fabric has Ed groaning, pressing the heel of his hand hard against his own erection and rocking into it for a spark of relief.
A gasp, loud in the empty echoes of the house, has Ed opening his eyes, raising them from Stede’s pale, soft belly to his face just in time to watch the sodden gauze fall from loose lips. “Ed,” Stede gasps again, fingernails scratching harsh against Ed’s scalp, and that’s all the warning Ed gets before Stede’s cock twitches against his tongue, flooding his mouth.
He tastes like anyone else. Somehow, the thought is a comfort, and it settles securely in Ed’s chest.
Ed rips at the button on his jeans, desperate for contact now with Stede’s release sharp in the back of his throat. Stede has his head bent back, chest heaving below the pale line of his throat, but his fingers are already creeping up Ed’s thighs, tugging at his belt loops even before he raises his head to look Ed in the eye. His gaze drifts lower, and he licks his lips as Ed yanks his jeans open, cock twitching at the sudden rush of air.
“Did you go commando when you borrowed my jeans, too?” Stede asks. His voice is deeper than Ed can remember hearing it, and rough from shouting around the impromptu gag before. He ghosts his fingertips over the sticky head of Ed’s cock, and Ed shudders.
“Nah,” Ed breathes. “Didn’t seem right.”
Stede taps Ed’s slit, and Ed isn’t ashamed to admit he whimpers. “Too bad,” Stede says, sounding like he means it. “Perhaps next time…”
Next time. Ed is still processing that, cupping his prick, stroking his thumb along the underside to make himself shudder, when Stede gently tugs on his hip, pulling Ed up and directing him with firm gestures until Ed is straddling his thighs, his cock dark with blood poised over Stede’s softened, drooling prick.
“On me,” Stede says, fingers digging into the meat of Ed’s ass, urging him to rock into his own grip.
With a huff, Ed falls forward, catching himself with his other arm planted by Stede’s head, and Stede turns to mouth kisses on Ed’s wrist, his arm, as if he can’t keep away from him. He even licks the inside of Ed’s fucking elbow, which makes him jolt, laughing again at the sudden wet tickle.
“You’re going to make me fall on you, ya nut,” Ed pants, hand frantic on his cock. He rocks back into Stede’s thighs, loving the feeling of his hands on ass, pulling at his cheeks, and the bristle of hair against the backs of his thighs.
“Mm. Sounds like a good problem to have,” Stede says, smirking. He props himself up and grabs the back of Ed’s head again, pulling him down into a kiss that’s messy, more tongue than lips, and Ed’s next thrust into his own fist slips across Stede’s stomach and into the slick pool of cum and spit beside Stede’s soft cock.
Maybe he should have taken the gauze roll when Stede was done with it. Luckily, Stede’s mouth is there to muffle most of Ed’s shouting when he cums, spilling over his fingers and onto Stede’s skin with a jolt that curls from his toes to his tingling, abused scalp.
He thinks, vaguely, that he hears violins.
The moment Stede lets go of his hair, Ed tips sideways. He falls into the mattress at Stede’s side with an oof that more than a little pained — the fall, the sharp-tipped springs in the old mattress digging into his skin, and of course adding insult to injury his fucking knee. He stretches his leg out, flexing and rolling his foot as he does to relieve the tension and wincing at the spark of complaint from his muscles.
When he turns to look at Stede, Ed finds him staring down at his own stomach, wrinkling his nose at the mess. “Hmm,” he says. “This was not a practical decision.” Ed giggles, and Stede huffs at him, but his lips are twitching upwards, eyes crinkling at the corners. “I’m dead serious. If we froze this, you could ice skate on it.”
“Please. That’s a puddle, not a pond.” Ed fumbles around beside the mattress for something to clean up anyway, finds the roll of gauze and tosses it to Stede. “Besides, I swallowed half of it.”
Stede’s face burns bright — whether at the comment or the sight of the spit-soaked gauze, Ed can’t tell — and clears his throat as if he was the one choking on cock a few minutes earlier. Too fucking cute, still.
This time, Ed is allowed to say it. “You’re too cute, mate.” Stede looks almost startled at the statement, pausing mis-swipe through the mess on his belly, and Ed smiles as he falls back against the mattress again. “Don’t worry. We won’t have to wait it out here much longer, and then I’ll get you back to that big old house and you can have one of those long, hot showers you like so much.”
“That does sound delightful,” Stede sighs. He hesitates for a second with the gauze hanging from his hand, looking around the room as if expecting to find a trash can. Then, with a shrug, he lets the tangle of cloth drop to the floor.
Ed loves him.
Probably a bit early to say that, though. Lots to do before that. Lots of other stuff to say first.
Stede rolls onto his side then, reaches out and strokes his fingers through the ends of Ed’s hair where it spills over the mattress between them. “I’m feeling quite eager to get home. This has been good; don’t get me wrong, because I’ve got no regrets, but—” he smiles and smooths Ed’s hair out with his palm, then strokes the pad of his thumb along Ed’s bottom lip “— I think something was said about silk sheets, and the gold ones in my room will look exquisite against your skin.”
“That’s got to be the fanciest way anyone’s ever told me to get naked on their bed,” Ed says wriggling closer as he turns on his side as well. They’re knee to knee, nose to nose, and the messy room is nothing but a blur in the background, somewhere beyond the golden flecks in Stede’s eyes.
Stede drapes his arm over Ed’s waist, pulling him impossibly closer. “May it be the first of many propositions to come.”
“We can’t fall asleep here,” Ed warns him, and Stede hums in response, eyes already half shut. “I’m serious, love. We need to be ready to move any minute.”
“It’s fine, dear,” Stede mumbles in response, breaking off to muffle a yawn even as Ed’s heart races at the casual pet name. Dear. He’s never been anyone’s dear anything. “I won’t fall asleep.”
He fucking does, though. The words are barely off his lips before his breathing slows, face going slack and lips parted, and Ed doesn’t try to wake him. It’s fine. He can stay up, keep watch for both of him. He winds his arm tight around Stede’s back, as if a firm grip will be enough to keep him safe, keep him here forever.
The sunlight from the window turns gold, then grey, and it fades as the summer humidity ebbs, a slight breeze from the broken glass out front stirring the stale and dusty air of the safehouse. Ed watches all of these changes flit through the room reflected in the cracked ceiling and peeling wallpaper of the little room. Sounds of laughter and music on the street become the chirp of crickets, and the sirens never stop, but they never get any closer.
Going back with Stede will mean explaining. It will mean apologizing — something Ed has little experience with before now — and then proving he means it. That could take a long time, like forever long, and he's not sure if he's really up to it. Easier to leave. Easier and maybe better for the Bonnet house if Ed slipped away now, left Stede sleeping, and moved on. There's cash in Stede's pocket, credit cards with limits Ed can hardly imagine, and that would get him to the closest hideaway where he knows Iz stashed some of their nest egg. He could be there in hours. Tomorrow, he could be on that beach he always imagined, watching the fishermen raise their sails against the sunrise.
He looks at Stede, sweetly asleep and nestled in his arms, and thinks, Nah. Better not.
It's not easy, but fuck it. Life has never been easy on Edward Teach, and it hasn't managed to stop him yet.
When the lights turn white, street corner spotlights and car headlights dancing on the patchy floor, Ed can finally exhale again.
"Hey." He shakes Stede's shoulder, gentle, his voice quiet. "Hey, wake up."
Stede hums. He blinks awake slowly, then all at once, hand catching Ed's wrist and squeezing tight. "Do we need to move?"
"Nah," Ed murmurs. "'s safe now, actually. Good to go. I'll take you home."
"Home. You'll come too?" Stede doesn't relinquish his death grip on Ed's arm, as if he plans to frog march him out anyway if Ed declines.
"Yeah. I'll come home too."
It's the right thing to say, judging by the way Stede's smile lights up the near-dark room. He leans in, and Ed tilts his head up, breath gone shallow as he waits, but Stede only pecks the tip of his nose before drawing back, squirming out of Ed’s arms and levering himself up from the mattress with a groan.
He stretches, arms up overhead, open shirt falling around him like one of his robes, and then begins setting himself to rights. There’s not much he can do with the grime on his jeans, the wrinkled shirt, but Ed can see the sort of ritual to it — dusting his hands on his thighs, pulling at the hem of his shirt and brushing off the shoulders and chest before tucking it in, doing the buttons from the bottom up. He’s missing one, right at the middle of his chest, and his fingers skip over it smoothly to the next one up.
When he’s all done with wardrobe, he runs swift fingers through his hair, then extends his hands down to Ed. The quirk of Stede’s blonde eyebrow at the offer is barely visible in the dark. Ed takes his hands, and he lets Stede help him to his feet.
“Shall we go? Oh!” Stede laughs and stoops, snatching up the treasure box from where it had fallen, forgotten, to the floor when they arrived. “Can’t leave this behind. I came out to find you, of course, but I did spend quite a hefty chunk of change on this girl.”
“So I heard.” Ed’s eyes drift from Stede’s smiling face to the box — and if they linger at the spot where his shirt is gaping open, there’s no one here to judge him — and he caves, asking, “Why?”
“Why?”
“Yeah, why so much money on, you know, that. What was it that made you want this thing so badly?” He taps his fingers on the lid of the chest. “‘s nice and all, but you could buy a real boat for the cash you spent here.”
“Yes. I suppose you’re right.” Stede ducks his head and tucks the box more tightly to his chest. “Well, it was a bit of a… cheer up gift, if I’m honest. I got the sale announcement perhaps an hour after Mary served me with the divorce papers, so it could be argued that I wasn’t in the best headspace for making large purchases.”
He runs a fond hand over the curving lid. “It spoke to me, I suppose. You know, the man who captained the real thing was a wealthy landowner, and he became a pirate late in life. He abandoned a life of comfort and riches that stifled him nonetheless, and he took to the sea in search of…” Stede’s mouth lifts on one side, and he thumbs the box’s latch. “Well, I suppose we can’t really say what he was searching for. He didn’t live long after that, but for me…”
Stede takes a deep breath and meet Ed’s eyes again. “When I look at the ship, I think it’s about joy, and love, and above all it’s about freedom. And I wanted a little bit of that for myself.”
Ed reaches out, and Stede tucks the box under his arm again to join his free hand with Ed’s. Ed raises their intertwined fingers to his lips and brushes a kiss across Stede’s knuckles. “Have you found it, then?”
“Mm.” Stede squeezes his hand. “I think maybe I have.” He loops his arm through Ed’s, pulling him into his side, hip to hip, and smiles like an early sunrise. “You know, in the future, if you’re curious about my things, you should just ask. I’d be delighted to show you every treasure in the house.”
“I’ll remember that,” Ed says softly, and he lists into Stede’s side as they walk arm in arm to the door. He doesn’t have the heart to tell Stede he’s already found what he was looking for, too.
At least, not just yet.