Chapter Text
Ed is on the ground and his shoulder is screaming in agony.
The night sky is clouded and ominous above him, wind howling through the trees and in the corners of his pain-blurred vision he can see the flames of torches dancing. There’s a fucking arrow embedded in his right shoulder and Stede is screaming his name and Ed wants to call to him, to reach out somehow, but he can barely breathe.
There is movement all around him, the sounds of fighting filtering through: scuffling in the dirt, shouts and curses, but above it all there is only Stede.
“Ed! Ed! Please! Let me go to him, please! ”
Someone is keeping Stede from getting to him and Ed is ready to murder them if they so much as touch a hair on his head…
The ambush had come out of nowhere, from all sides, and Ed was down before he could even draw a weapon.
“Line them up! On their knees!” A voice suddenly cuts through the chaos, sounding almost bored. “You know the drill.” A foot makes impact with Ed’s ribs none-too-gently and his shoulder flares up again when he tries to twist away. “Get this one up, too.”
“Don’t touch him, leave him alone!” Stede cries as Ed is hauled up roughly into a sitting position and fails to bite back a whimper. “Oh my God… Chauncy?”
“Mmm, yes. Hello, Stede.”
Ed’s vision is swimming when he opens eyes he didn’t realise he’d closed in an effort to block out the pain. He sways, sitting back on his heels, resting his weight on his only good arm, and blinks a couple more times, trying to take in the scene.
There must be at least thirty people surrounding them that Ed doesn’t recognise, all of them armed and keeping Ed’s people down on their knees in a loose semi circle. Some are standing directly behind them, forcing certain people into submission. Jim struggles in someone’s grasp, blood running sluggishly down the side of their face from a head wound and Ed almost smiles with pride: of course they didn’t surrender quietly. Oluwande’s eyes are wide with panic and concern as he tries to wordlessly implore them to stop fighting. Lucius, Ed notes, looks pale but stony faced; the boy’s been through a lot in the months since he lost his hand. But Ed’s eyes skim past them, seeking out the person who matters most, and finds Stede staring desperately back at him from the other side of the line, imploring, begging for Ed to be alright. There is a man standing beside him holding a gun to his head and Ed’s gut clenches.
“Stede…” He can’t help but whisper, and even if Stede can’t hear him, he can see his name on Ed’s lips.
Ed tries to convey as much reassurance and comfort as he possibly can in his expression alone, wanting with every fibre of his being to touch Stede, to draw him close. Stede’s face gives him nothing but distress and yearning in return as he lingers on Ed’s injuries. Ed can feel blood, warm and wet, soaking through his shirt and running down his arm beneath his leather jacket and he’s really trying very hard not to panic and yank the damn arrow out.
“Well, isn’t this touching?” The man who had known Stede by name is looking between them, watching their silent exchange with a mirthless smirk. “Who’s this, Stede?”
The man is balding and has a noticeable birthmark on his forehead and there’s something cold and manic in his eyes that has Ed instinctively turning his injured shoulder away in an effort to protect himself as the man starts walking towards him.
“Chauncy!” Stede shouts, “Leave him out of this!”
Chauncy (dumb fucking name) doesn’t even glance Stede’s way, “No, I don’t think I will.”
“Wait!” Stede scares the shit out of Ed and actually scrambles to his feet despite the man holding him at gunpoint. “Isn’t this about Nigel?”
Chauncy goes frighteningly still for a moment, looking down at Ed, who watches his face go blank. But it’s clear Stede has successfully gotten his attention when, in one swift movement, he spins on his heel, draws a hunting knife from his belt, and marches back into Stede’s space, pressing it up against his throat.
Everyone currently on their knees visibly flinches and some cry out a plea to stop, Ed included.
“Stede!” Ed has to get to him. He tries to struggle to his feet, but he feels weak as a fucking kitten, his head spinning and body shaking with shock and blood loss. “Hey, man, don’t . Don’t do it.”
He wants to hurl vicious threats at this Chauncy guy. More than that, Ed wants to make him bleed as he watches a drop of Stede’s own blood trickle down his neck. He feels hot and cold all over in equal measure, rage and fear warring within him.
“Ed, this doesn’t concern you.”
If he didn’t know Stede as well as he does, if he couldn’t hear the faintest tremor in his voice, Ed might almost buy the cold dismissal in his tone. He’s trying his damned hardest to distance himself from Ed, to keep Chauncy’s attention very much away from him and out of immediate harm's way.
“Oh, but it does, Stede.” There’s something dangerous in the way Chauncy is speaking now, quiet like the calm before the storm and Ed wishes he could see the man’s face to get a better read on him. Shoulder wound be damned, Ed’s gearing up to throw himself at this fucker, every sense painfully focussed on the point of that blade at Stede’s throat. “It involves all of them, because they have the misfortune of knowing you.”
Ed sees something crumple in Stede’s expression, sees the words digging in, taking hold, and he rails against it.
“Stede, you know that’s bullshit -” He tries, but Chauncy continues as though Ed hadn’t spoken.
“And now you’ve brought them all to ruin, just as you did my brother.”
“It -” Stede’s voice catches, all bravado gone just as quickly as it appeared, and Ed hates how familiar he is by now with that look of guilt and remorse on Stede’s lovely face. “It was an accident, I never meant -”
“Oh, you never meant! ” Chauncy suddenly shouts, and Ed’s entire body tenses, heart pounding in terror, unable to breathe as Chauncy grabs the front of Stede’s shirt and hauls him into the center of the semi circle, close to where the torches have been pitched into the ground, illuminating the scene with a hazy, nightmarish glow. “As if you could’ve meant it! Baby Bonnet, kill my brother? Take him in a fair fight? No, you took the coward's way out, didn’t you? You left him for the dead.”
“He attacked us!” Lucius shouts, and it looks like he shocks himself as much as everyone else present. Pete is wildly shaking his head, but the younger man forges ahead. “We - We didn’t do anything to him. He had walkers on chains. He thought he could control them!”
“Just something new for him to control,” Stede says quietly, and he sounds so small, so, so afraid that Ed’s chest aches at the sound of it.
“Shut the fuck up, you pathetic - You have no idea!” Chauncy shouts, “Nigel knew! He knew the power we could wield, and you killed him!” Then Chauncy has a fistful of Stede’s hair, both yanking his head back and forcing him to the ground and Stede lets out a whimper of pain and Ed… Ed sees red.
The next several moments are a blur: Ed doesn’t even fully get to his feet, he just launches himself, fuelled by pure hatred and instinct, across the short distance separating him from Stede. He makes a satisfying collision with Chauncy, catching him around the middle and tackling him to the ground hard. His shoulder is on fire and his pulse is thundering in his ears but Ed’s hands find Chauncy’s throat for a deliriously gratifying moment. He squeezes as chaos erupts around him, watches the other man’s face turn red and spluttery until Chauncy recovers from the shock and, in Ed’s weakened state, manages to dislodge him.
More hands grab at Ed then, rough and unforgiving, throwing him face first into the dirt, snapping the arrow and embedding the head in deeper. He’s already screaming when his wounded arm is wrenched hard behind his back. The pain is white hot and searing and he wonders if he’s about to pass out, but it turns out he isn’t that lucky. The agonising grip on his arm eases enough for the world to filter back through Ed’s senses and the first thing he is aware of is that Stede is crying next to him.
“ Stop! Please stop hurting him, please!”
Ed manages to turn his head and there Stede is, pushed down onto his belly and restrained beside him, face wet and eyes red rimmed as they drink their fill of Ed’s face so close to his own. Ed thinks then - not for the first time - that he really could never leave him. He would endure this pain a thousand times over and never once pray for oblivion if it would mean leaving Stede Bonnet behind.
God, he’s beautiful, even like this. Even pale and dirty and afraid. Ed thinks if they’re about to die he wants nothing more than to go out looking into Stede’s eyes, tracing well-loved pathways over a face he knows better than his own by now.
“Hey…” Ed’s voice is cracked and hoarse but he has to say something. He musters up a wobbly smile. “Hey, Stede? I’m so glad I met you.” He watches Stede’s face crumple with pain again, the shadow of denial behind his eyes, and knows it’s the ghost of Chauncy’s words. “No, listen to me. I’m so fucking glad, Stede. Best thing that ever happened to me, meeting you.”
“Ed…” His name is a sob on Stede’s lips, “I’m so sorry. This is all because of me, I’m so -”
Ed shushes him, blindly reaches out with his foot, despite the person still holding him down, and taps what he hopes is Stede’s own. “It’s okay. We’re okay.”
“We’re not fucking okay!” Comes a retort from somewhere to Ed’s right and, fuck, he’s never heard Izzy quite so shaken before. He feels the hysterical urge to laugh.
“He’s right.” Chauncy’s speaking again above their heads and Ed can at least take pleasure in the strain in his voice, the damage he’s done to the man’s throat. “You’re about to be really not fucking okay.”
Something hits the ground with a sharp crack inches from Ed’s head making his whole body flinch and he and Stede tear their eyes away from each other briefly to see a vicious looking baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire embedded in the ground. Next to him, Stede sucks in a shocked breath and Ed feels ice flood his veins and settle in the pit of his stomach, knowing with a certainty that the next swing will not miss him.
“Normally I’d choose someone at random here,” Chauncy is still speaking but Ed barely hears him, looking at Stede once more and seeing the same horrified realisation, the grief already falling from his eyes. “Put the fear of, well, me into the rest of you. But I want you to watch everyone get their turn, Stede. And I think you know who’s going first.”
Ed’s fear is unexpected. Sure, he figures it’s natural to be afraid of a messy, violent death, but that’s almost been a given for well over a year now. A peaceful death is a luxury very few get in this world anymore. Ed looks at Stede, who is breathing so hard as he gazes back that he looks on the verge of hyperventilating, and he is afraid because he’d started to believe in more than a short, desperate life and a painful death. He’d allowed himself to want more, to have more, in Stede and the others. It had felt like belonging. It had felt like actually living . And now it’s all about to get torn away.
“Close your eyes, love,” Ed murmurs, allowing the endearment to slip free. It’s too little too late, and the pain of that knowledge, of not letting himself properly love Stede all this time, hurts more than his shoulder… God, more than anything. “Don’t look.”
Distantly Ed can hear cries from the others, threats and pleas, but they’re all just so far away from the devastation in Stede’s eyes, his choked whisper of Ed’s name.
Ed smiles for him once more, grief swelling in his chest. “Don’t look, Stede,” and only once Stede screws his eyes shut, more tears falling in their wake, does he allow himself to say it, “I love -”
Above Ed’s head, the blow falls.
First it’s a single gunshot, ringing out like an explosion, before Chauncy’s screams fill the clearing and he drops writhing to the ground, the bat rolling out of his grasp.
Then the air is full of flying bullets and the rattle of gunfire.
The pressure on Ed’s back disappears as Chauncy’s man either moves to return fire on the unknown assailants or runs for cover, and Ed only has enough time to painfully flip himself over in an an effort to see what the fuck is going on before Stede is curling his body protectively over Ed’s. He’s managed to shuffle over the short distance between them and pull Ed into his lap, bowing low over him and cradling his face between trembling hands. His golden curls shine like a halo in the firelight and his eyes are huge and shining with tears, fear and love in equal measure. And it doesn’t matter that they still could be moments away from death and Ed’s in more pain than he’s ever been in his life because right here, lying in Stede’s arms, so close that they’re sharing breath, is exactly where he wants to be.
“Hey, you.” Ed smiles and Stede huffs a watery laugh, warm on Ed’s face. His thumbs are sweeping over his cheeks, fingers soft in Ed’s beard.
Ed’s gaze catches on the trail of red running down Stede’s neck; there’s a shallow cut from Chauncy’s knife just above his Adam’s apple and for a second Ed can’t breathe for thinking of what could’ve happened.
“You’re bleeding.”
Stede frowns, and Ed reaches up to trace the hollow of his throat, fingers coming away bloody. Stede shakes his head then.
“It’s nothing, it doesn’t matter. Hey…” Hands still on Ed’s face, those gentle fingers direct Ed’s focus up to meet his eyes again, “I’m here. I’ve got you,” Stede whispers, and somehow, impossibly, Ed feels safe.
Safe enough and brave enough to curl his hand around the nape of Stede’s neck, thread his own fingers into the overgrown curls at the back of his head, and pull him the barest of inches closer into a sweet and gentle kiss. He feels Stede sink down into him, warm and willing, and Ed can taste salt on his lips. The world narrows down to Stede’s mouth, slow and tentative and perfect, and if they died right now? Ed’s pretty sure he wouldn’t even notice.
He doesn’t want to stop - he never wants to stop kissing Stede - but God, Ed is so tired and weak and he can feel himself fading. His hand feels too heavy as it falls away from Stede’s face and Ed mourns the loss of contact even as he has to break the kiss in order to breathe.
Stede keeps his eyes closed for a moment, a blissful smile gracing his lips that Ed wants to taste all over again. His eyelashes are the most delicate thing in the world when they flutter open and for the briefest moment, before the concern sets in, Stede looks happier than Ed has ever seen him.
Then he frowns as reality comes flooding back in and his eyes dart to Ed’s wounded shoulder. Stede opens his mouth to speak but whatever he was going to say is cut off by an unfamiliar voice ringing out in the sudden silence:
“Oh my god, Stede?! ”
Stede’s head snaps up so fast Ed wonders if he’s given himself whiplash; he looks as though he’s seen a ghost.
“ Mary?”
Wait, Ed knows the name Mary… His sluggish brain is trying to connect the dots when someone comes crashing to their knees beside the two of them and then Stede’s arms are around a small, brown haired woman and they’re both talking over each other in rushed, relieved tones that Ed can only catch snippets of.
“ - can’t believe you’re here -”
“ - thought you were dead -”
“ - what happened -?”
“ - children okay -?”
Children , Ed thinks, as his vision gets fuzzy at the edges.
Mary. Wife. Oh.
Then there is nothing.
Ed floats to the surface of consciousness. His body feels heavy and weightless at the same time, comfortable warmth suffusing his limbs. For several blissful moments Ed’s head is empty of all thoughts but for those of Stede. Surely, if Ed feels this relaxed and peaceful, he must be near? He remembers their kiss and wonders if Stede’s taste still lingers on his mouth. He runs his tongue over his bottom lip but only becomes aware of how desperately thirsty he is.
The rest of Ed’s memories and senses come flooding back abruptly then and his eyes fly open only to close against the garishly bright lights overhead. He realises the liquid warmth in his veins is because he is heavily drugged and Ed is panicking again, his last recollections of the moments before he passed out blurry and pain filled.
“Stede?” His voice comes out croaky and small, almost a whimper, and Ed squints carefully against the light this time, seeking out the one person who could make everything alright.
“He’s not here.”
It’s Izzy instead, perching on a windowsill to Ed’s left in the whitest, cleanest room he’s seen in a very, very long time. It’s almost unnatural and it does nothing to set Ed at ease; it reminds him of sterile hospital rooms and psych wards. Izzy is like a black void in contrast to his surroundings, positioned so that he can see the door and out the window, Ed notes: on guard.
“Where…” Ed coughs, wincing at the telltale twinge of pain in his shoulder. He tries to look down, to gauge the damage, but all he can see is padded layers of pristine, white gauze wrapped over the right half of his bare chest. “Iz… water?”
With a wary glance outside, Izzy finally moves to grab a pitcher of water that’s resting on a small bedside table. He fills a plastic cup and Ed manages to take it from him with his good hand, shaking though it may be.
The water is cool and soothes Ed’s parched throat and mouth.
“Sip, don’t down it,” Izzy warns, like he knows Ed is contemplating just that, “You know better.”
Ed would ignore him, but he’s more than a little nervous about whatever the hell he’s been dosed with; he already feels nauseous. “Where are we? Where’s Stede?” He can’t quite keep the worry and disappointment out of his tone and Izzy rolls his eyes.
“Your boyfriend is with his wife.”
Well fuck, doesn’t that make Ed feel a whole lot of uncomfortable emotions that he doesn’t know where to begin with. “Ex-wife,” He mumbles.
Izzy scoffs like the distinction doesn’t matter. “His family.”
The kids too, then. That’s good. That’s wonderful for Stede. Ed knows the soul-crushing guilt and grief that Stede has been carrying around for all the time that he’s known him. He’s known for the better part of a year how badly Stede has wanted this, to find his family, and here they are - wherever here is - alive and well and no doubt overjoyed to have their father back.
Stede has the chance to make up for everything he believes he’s done wrong by them, and Ed… Ed thought he knew where they stood, finally. When he pulled Stede into that kiss it had felt like asking a question, and Stede had answered with a soft but heartfelt yes. Or at least Ed had thought so. He wonders now if it had simply been a kiss goodbye in the face of the death all around them.
“There’s a whole community here,” Izzy is saying, unaware of Ed’s unravelling emotions. “A town with concrete walls and gates… not unlike that place we took Spriggs after the bite. Except this one was never abandoned. This place, Ed…” Izzy shakes his head in some mixture of disbelief and disdain. “They’ve got doctors and farms and a school. They’ve got a council, for fuck’s sake. They’ve got no idea what it’s really like out there.”
It does seem impossible that such a place could really exist in this world. The kind of place that they used to talk about finding but quickly lost hope in the longer they roamed the Midwest, sweeping through one small town after the next, finding only devastation and the dead. And that’s if they were lucky. People, as their encounter with the Chauncy dickhead had reminded Ed, could be so much worse than walkers.
This is a place that has thrived against all odds. A place still not hardened, not corrupted by the rest of the world.
An increasingly loud voice in the back of Ed’s mind is telling him it’s exactly the kind of place that Stede belongs. And the kind of place where Ed could never.
Izzy’s looking at Ed expectantly. He probably wants Ed to agree, to say it’s all ridiculous, an entire town of walker bait, utterly beneath them. But Ed can only think of the dream of living somewhere like this with Stede being out of his reach. He’s too fucked up, and even if he weren’t, he still doesn’t fit in.
Stede fits here. Stede deserves to be safe with his family.
There’s a knock at the door, jarring Ed out of his spiralling thoughts, and Izzy immediately tenses. For the first time Ed notices he doesn’t have a weapon; Izzy always has a weapon.
“What?” Izzy barks.
“It’s just me,” Comes Lucius’ muffled reply and Ed sees Izzy’s shoulders relax incrementally.
The door cracks open and Lucius pokes his head through. His face lights up in a genuine smile of relief when he notices Ed’s awake, which is… nice.
“Oh thank Christ, you scared the shit out of us! Stede’s been beside himself; it’s a lot. You know what he’s like. His ex is a total badass, by the way, I have no idea how that was a thing.” Lucius chatters, walking past Izzy and throwing him a wink which makes the other man bristle like an angry cat. Ed would laugh if he weren’t fixating on what Lucius has just said nor confronted with him sitting carefully on the side of the bed, putting a hand on Ed’s unwounded shoulder and sincerely asking, “How’re you feeling?”
Like shit, Ed wants to say. Like my brain’s full of bees. He wishes that Stede were here instead of Lucius, but is also in no way ready to face the look of apologetic pity he’s convinced himself will be on Stede’s face when he sees Ed again. He couldn’t stand it.
“Been better,” He grunts instead, trying to avoid looking Lucius in the eye; the boy is far too perceptive sometimes. He changes the subject, “What’s it like? Out there?”
“Oh my God, Ed, it’s incredible!” Lucius gushes, “It’s like a dream. Everyone’s lovely . Absolutely saved our useless arses from that fucked up situation. Wait till you see, you’re gonna love it!”
Izzy snorts, “We can’t trust it.”
Lucius rolls his eyes at him, “You would say that, you don’t trust anyone.”
“Because it’s stupid to do otherwise.”
Lucius sighs, “You’re right,” and both Ed and Izzy blink in surprise. “I’m not saying I trust them, Iz,” - and Ed blinks again at the nickname - “But I’m not gonna turn down a hot shower and food over it.”
Ed notices now that whilst Izzy is still covered in the grime of the road, Lucius is scrubbed clean and wearing clothes that look practically brand new. “Yeah, Iz, ” Ed smirks, glad for the distraction of ruffling Izzy’s feathers, “Reckon that’s pretty stupid.”
Izzy shoots him a glare, looking almost self conscious for a moment before turning back to Lucius. “So you’re all buying into this?” He waves a hand in the direction of the window.
“Well, I can’t speak for everyone, but I know that Pete and Fang have definitely showered.” This time Ed does laugh and Lucius grins, offering an unapologetic shrug. “Conserve water, right? Only makes sense.”
For a brief moment Ed feels lighter, unburdened, and grateful for Lucius, touched that he actually cared enough to check in on him. Unless of course he came purely to torture Izzy, but Ed can appreciate that too.
At the moment the man looks equal parts frustrated and flustered and mutters, “We just can’t let our guard down,” whilst turning back to look out the window once more.
Lucius pats Ed’s hand where it rests on his stomach, “ I’m going to tell everyone you’re awake! I know they’re all worried, Stede most of all.” He gives Ed a knowing smile and a wink that Ed wishes didn’t have his stomach twisting itself into knots again.
Lucius blows Izzy a kiss on his way out the door and Izzy responds with the expected “fuck off” that doesn’t really have much heat behind it anymore.
Once they’re alone again, Izzy turns back to Ed.
“You know we can’t stay here.”
Ed tries to argue as though Izzy isn’t confirming what’s already crossed his mind. “I haven’t even been outside this room, man! Maybe I should judge for myself.”
“I know you, Edward. You and me? We don’t belong in a place like this. They took our weapons because they don’t trust us. Do you think they’d ever give them back? No, they’d leave us defenceless for the moment this place inevitably falls.”
“You don’t know that,” Ed tries, but it sounds weak to his own ears. He doesn’t have the mental or physical strength right now to try and hope for anything better. Izzy, for better or worse, has always been there, from the beginning of the end, and his pragmatism has saved Ed’s life more than a few times.
“I know that people like Bonnet and Spriggs will be taken in by this place. They’re soft.” Ed doesn’t think that’s fair; Stede and Lucius are strong in their own ways and have only gotten stronger since Ed first met them. “A lot of the others, too,” Izzy is saying. “For all that we’ve been through, they never got used to life out there.”
“Maybe they shouldn’t have to.”
“But they do!” Izzy runs a hand through his hair in frustration. “If you want to live, you have to. It’s reality, Ed, you know that. We both do. All the shit we’ve done? We’re the same.”
Ed wants to deny it, wants to believe he’s his own person and someone who is capable of being better. That he’s capable of being the man Stede insists he sees in him. Someone kind and intelligent and interesting. But all he can see is the face of his father when Ed was forced to kill him, not just once but twice when he rose again. The faces of the living people he has killed, or simply had to leave behind, in the name of survival.
“Stede will want to stay…” Ed doesn’t mean to say it aloud, voice trembling.
“Mm, no doubt a lot of them will. It was always going to end one way or another.” Ed knows what Izzy really means is that he’s surprised they aren’t all dead already. “Best place for them, really. Safer.”
“Either it’s safe or it’s a disaster waiting to happen, Iz, can’t be both.”
Izzy shrugs, “They've made it this far with strong defences. Some of them can handle themselves at least, judging by what happened back in the woods. And don’t get me fucking started on that… ”
Ed feels lost and overwhelmed and the more the fog of the drugs fades the quicker the pain is returning with a vengeance. More than anything he just wants to see and talk to Stede. He tells Izzy as much and watches him try and fail not to sneer.
“You do that and then let me know when you’re ready to leave. It’s about knowing where you don’t belong as much as where you do, Ed. I know my place in the world by now. Do you?”
As if on cue there comes another quick knock at the door and Stede’s voice rings out, high and urgent:
“Ed? Can I come in?”
Just the familiarity of his voice sends warmth rushing through Ed, even as he braces himself in anticipation of a difficult conversation. Everything is different now.
Izzy regards him steadily once more, “I won’t be far,” and it is actually comforting, that steadfast loyalty. Ed wonders if Izzy would stay here with him if he chose to.
Izzy opens the door and Ed takes a deep breath.