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my reputation's never been worse

Chapter 8

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(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

“New York,” Ed hollers into the microphone. He glues his eyes to the ceiling where a disco ball is fogged up with the perspiration of the tiny room. It casts faint, fuzzy reflections of the strobe lights in violet against the black shadows. “I bloody love you.”

The floors vibrate with the crowd’s reaction.

Ed waits. Lets the cheers course through his veins. And when it’s been long enough – long enough for it to be plausibly deniable, long enough for it to not mean anything, not really – he lowers his gaze to Stede in the crowd and winks. 

The madman’s actually got a messy portrait of Ed, dramatised like a wanted poster, stretched across his chest deliciously. 

His sweat-glossed face makes everything fade away. Cliché, but it does. 

Stede’s grinning at him like he does when Ed makes a joke at the bar; when he recites Shakespeare; when he chops him up a banana at the side of his pancake (not on it, god forbid); when he plays air guitar to a cheesy soft rock song from the jukebox.

Except he’s watching Blackbeard play to hundreds of adoring fans who camped out on the street to get in the first few rows. 

And yes, Ed loves him – inevitable, that, isn’t it? But he feels…like, maybe the same could be true? They’re taking it day by day, he’s trying so hard to not fuck it up. But right now he wants to scream his love into the microphone until it rings with feedback. 

He grabs the ember red Firebird instead of the Flying V that the next song on the setlist requires. Izzy’s eyes are on him the whole time.

Ed’s got another song in his head. 

A song that they argued over for hours in the studio – a song that Izzy had, predictably, told him to ‘sort out his fucking head and write something less wet’ over. But he hadn’t been able to deny the riff that Ed composed for it – how could he? 

Decades ago, the two of them had nicked albums from the emerging overpriced vinyl stores run by frat dudes renting on daddy’s money, and they’d formed an impressive collection to play in the garage at Iz’s place. His mum had always let them stir up a racket after Izzy’s dad left. Good woman, she had been. 

That was where it all started – two kids and their records against the rest of the bloody world. 

So of course Izzy knew the riff was good. Deep, deep down, their souls feel music in the same way. 

Ed gives him a pleading look. He knows Izzy will give in. He knows Izzy will be so fucking angry at him after the gig that he’ll probably dig something petty up to take to the press – his go to response when Ed pisses him off. 

As long as it’s not anything to do with Stede, Ed finds he doesn’t care all that much.

He leans over the cymbals to make sure the guy drumming for them knows the drill, and then he swaggers back to the mic stand. 

“Got a new one for you guys tonight, actually,” he says, teasingly casual. The fans, of course, go wild. Ed chuckles. “Thought you might like that.”

His fingers find the chord. New calluses are forming over old ones. It’s been a while since he gave his all to a show like this. It’s the sort of pain that he’s missed. The good, hot burn of it all in his muscles. The rawness in his lungs. The impassioned cheers, the way that they demand Ed to face the facts: he’s adored. 

It’s a complicated adoration to untangle, being on stage. The crowd, they love this striking image of Ed – the smudged black makeup, glinting spikes, guitar slung over his shoulder like a shotgun. Love to dance and scream and then go home to their comfortable, private lives whilst Ed slinks back into the shadows and recovers from the red-hot sear of the flashing lights. 

But there’s still a rush to it, isn’t there? There’s still a sense of belonging when Iz’s guitar joins his, when the walls shudder with the bass and a song emerges from their unifying talents. When a whole building of people forget the world outside for one night and it’s all because of something he wrote.

That’s what it’s about, man. That’s always been the dream.

He counts himself in. Breathes in and exhales with each strum of strings. He and the guitar are one.

He shuts his eyes and leans into the microphone. His voice rings clear through his earpiece. 

For a second, for a breath between words, a pin could drop. 

And then he hears this whoop, this ridiculously timed sound in the middle of singing his fucking heart out. He cracks an eye open and finds bright eyes peeking under a cardboard sign covered in glitter. 

People don’t take glitter-covered cardboard signs to fucking Blackbeard shows. It just isn’t done.

Stede isn’t people. Stede is on his own planet, and Ed might just be too. 

This one’s for you, he wants to say, they’re all gonna be for you now. 

I love you, I love you. I love you and I want the whole of New York City to know. Put us on the billboards and fly us in the sky, I want it lit up for everyone to see, I want to sing it through every cab driver’s radio, in every shop, I want this city emblazoned with our names in an arrow heart so that every tourist who ever visits knows how much I love you. 

Ed sings. He stares down the sparkly letters that spell out: I <3 BLACKBEARD. 

There’s more text in marker pen under the declaration that Ed has to squint at to read, and then he has to shut his eyes so he stops fucking grinning like a lovesick loser, because Stede’s written ‘more than anyone here’ in brackets and he’s holding it up in a crowd of people who have Blackbeard lyrics tattooed up their arms and have put an insane amount of time and money into finding the exact designer pieces that he dons on stage just so they can dress up like him. A security guard told him that a group on the front row have flown in from halfway across the globe. 

More than anyone bloody here. Fuck does Stede make it hard to not go making ill-advised, grand confessions in front of five hundred strangers and his mother.  

Yes, Ed’s mum is here too, up on the balcony somewhere. Too far for him to see her, and thank god, too far for her to read the smitten look on his face. 

This show is…a lot. In the best kind of way. 

Even the encore of best hits flies by. It used to fucking drag. Ed tried to bump those songs off the setlist once upon a time, but Izzy won that fight. 

Now Ed’s basking in the spotlight through it. Chucking in an improvised little riff, dragging out some notes to get the fans to fawn over him. It’s fun. God knows how long it’s been since he thought of any of this as fun, but it is. It’s so much fun.

When he blows a kiss to the Ballroom and bids them goodnight, he can’t resist one last glance at Stede. 

Stede in the crowd, cheeks flushed with excitement, wearing a tour shirt that’s a size too small like all of Ed’s stupid jokes and absurd fantasies are possible. Like anything Ed wishes for, Stede will make it come true. 

Fuck, he’s in love. 

His ears ring as he leaves the stage. The floor’s still vibrating from the applause just beyond the curtain. Ed’s blood is thrumming and he’s too hot in his leathers and his hair’s all stuck to his neck. 

He feels fucking amazing. 

Stumbles into the dressing room, knocks back an ice cold cup of water and showers. Smiles like a maniac in the smeared fog of the mirror as he applies his moisturiser in record breaking time. It’s like he’s been put on 1.5x speed, trying to get through his post-show routine as fast as he possibly can, because fuck.

The second that he’s wrestled a shredded pair of jeans and a fuzzy purple sweater on, he’s slamming through the corridors of the venue on the hunt for Stede. Gorgeous maniac, needs to kiss him in front of the whole world.

Because he’s been scared, alright? Even since Stede gave him every reason not to be. They’d fallen back into bed, saturated by the crisp sunlight of a winter morning rather than prismatic multicolour, and Ed had come up with a dozen transient lyrics for another love song, and they’d all promptly flown out of his head when Stede had taken his shirt off. 

Lock the venue doors and Ed’ll go back on stage and profess his love for real this time, no song to hide behind. 

He’s not feeling very sensible right now. But fuck it, Stede is the most unsensible fucker ever with his sparkly boyband sign and his coiffed blond curls in a crush of black mesh and leather and god, where the hell is he? 

“Edward.”

His lead guitarist stops him in his tracks. Blocks his path to true love or whatever the fuck. Ed’s so not in the mood to do this now. He knows he’ll have to deal with it at some point, changing the setlist was a dick move, whatever, whatever. Blah fucking blah. But not now. 

“Iz, I swear to god, I don’t have time–”

In a strange turn of events, Ed ends up with arms around him.

He can’t move his own arms in the hug. Can’t quite process what’s happening, and the second his brain catches up, it’s over. Izzy clears his throat and gives him a curt nod. 

“What?” 

“Venue’s cleared out. Bonnet’s by the bar.” 

He leaves Ed standing in the middle of the corridor, more confused than ever. He sort of wants to laugh, but it doesn’t quite make it out of his mouth. 

Right. Well. Ed shakes his head and carries on walking. 

Like Izzy said, security’s kicked everyone out and the big lights are on, shining over the mess of the floor. Plastic cups are getting swept up with old gum and earrings and leather gloves and even a single shoe lost to the pit. The aftermath of a gig is always particularly unglamourous.

And Stede’s there, sure enough. All glamour. He’s in the middle of a conversation, cheeks still pink, the sweat in his curls drying all frizzy. He’s wearing a shiny silk button-up over the too-tight tour t-shirt, hanging loose around his torso in a way that begs Ed’s hands to slip underneath it. 

Then he sees who Stede is talking to, and oh for fucks sake, are you kidding?

Stede’s giggling when Ed reaches him, a charming, lovely sound. It doesn’t make not grabbing him right there and sweeping him into a kiss any easier. But he can’t, not now, because–

“Hi, Mum,” Ed says. 

“Oh, petal, you were incredible.”

Stede nods in agreement, beaming irresistibly. Fuck, god. 

“Thank you,” Ed mumbles. He still feels like the boy in oversized leather, bleeding fingers, trying to make her proud. She’s glowing like she always does after she sees Ed perform. She’s also got a look in her eye as she glances between him and the stupidly good looking lunatic next to him that implies she’s proud of Ed for more than just the show. He clears his throat. “This is Stede.” 

“Oh, we’ve met,” Stede says. Ed’s mum knocks him on the shoulder like they’re old bloody friends. Greatest betrayal of Ed’s life. 

He looks between the two of them, a little bewildered. “Right. Good, yeah. Um. Stede owns a bar, it’s actually–”

“How we met,” Stede finishes for him. “Yes.”

“Yes,” Ed’s mum agrees. “He was just telling me.”

Ed turns a challenging eye on Stede. 

Issue is, he looks so bloody handsome and there’s glitter near his dimple. He’s here being all delightful and making Ed’s mum laugh and Ed needs to just drag him away and kiss him senseless. 

Stede shrugs sheepishly. “I’m going to go get another. Would either of you like one?”

“I’m good, thank you, sweetie.” 

He waits for Ed to reply and Ed gets a little lost in his eyes for a second. All shimmery and bursting with joy, more brown than green in the aurate light of the emptied venue. Ed wants to make a home in the crinkles around them. 

Stede squeezes his elbow, bringing him back to the moment. 

“Yeah, babe. Please. I’ll have a beer. Founders.” 

“Okay,” Stede says. He sways like he wants to lean in, gives Ed’s arm one last squeeze and then heads towards the bar. 

Ed watches him go for a moment – he’s only human. When he turns back around, he knows he’s in for it. 

“Well, isn’t he a gem?”

“Here we fuckin’ go,” Ed grumbles. 

He clenches his jaw trying not to smile. Because, okay, it’s kind of astoundingly lovely that Stede’s charmed his mum before Ed even got the chance to introduce them himself. New ground, whatever this is – most of Ed’s exes, she’s heard about from the headlines and Ed’s had to call her and tell her it’s really nothing serious, no he’s not bringing him home for Rosh Hashanah, and they absolutely can’t ‘just meet up for brunch, then’. (The phone calls usually end in Ed getting a little choked up, everything that he’s been repressing just tumbling out, and his mum threatening to hunt the dickfuck down. Bit dramatic, Mum, he tells her – but he always ends whatever it is between him and the guy pretty soon after.)

Stede, though. Yeah. He’s a gem. Whatever. Big, shiny, precious gem that Ed wants to keep safe in his pocket. 

“Oh, Eddie. Look at you! I’ve never seen you like this.”

“I’m just hyped up from the gig. It was a good gig. Very good gig, thank you, whatever, conversation over.”

“You love him,” she says, ignoring Ed’s rambles as she tends to do.

“Keep it down,” he hisses. “Christ.”

“You haven’t told him?” 

Her surprise softens instantly. 

She reaches out to straighten a pin on his leather jacket. It’s the little rainbow one she bought him after he got outed by some press outlet – he can’t even remember which now. 

It’s stayed pinned on there for over twenty years. 

“Oh, of course you haven’t.”

Ed stares down at his boots. “It’s new, okay? We only met a few months ago, I’m not trying to– to rush into anything.”

“Well, for what it’s worth, I think he’s all in.”

There’s no time to form any objection to that. Izzy interrupts, getting pulled into an embrace by Ed’s mum the second she sees him. They kiss each other’s cheeks and probably exchange some kind of pleasantries like “wonderful show, dear,” and, “you look well, Ms Teach,” and, “for the last time Izzy, stop making me sound ancient.”

Ed doesn’t listen, because Stede’s back by his side, handing him a cool bottle of beer. 

“Bonnet,” Izzy greets him. “Didn’t get me one, then?” 

“Izzy.” Stede turns his nose up. It makes Ed chuckle. “You weren’t here five seconds ago.”

“Fine. I’ll go get my own, shall I?”

“I would if I were you.”

Ed shakes his head. “He’s winding you up big time, you know that, yeah?”

“Hm. I think we’re almost friends.”

Ed laughs, slipping a hand into Stede’s back pocket just to be close. His mum watches, too knowing, but she looks happy for him. It’s been a long, long time since he’s seen her look this happy for him. 

They catch up for a bit. 

Ed dreads to think of the twenty hundred questions he’s going to get from his mum next time he calls. There’s things she’s not asking in front of Stede, but he can tell she’s dying to. Especially with Izzy whispering in her ear half the time, the snake.

“I never would’ve pegged you for a gossip, Izzy,” Stede says at one point, and Ed and his mum practically double over. 

“Oh, you should’ve heard him when he was little,” says Ed’s mum. “Always talking about what so-and-so down the road was up to, who’d got a bad haircut, who was flirting with the postman.”

“That was complaining,” Izzy protests through gritted teeth. “Not bloody gossiping.”

“Call it what you want, mate, that lady at the dairy used to rely on you for her weekly local news. I’d go in to buy co– um, a paper to read. And she’d go, have you seen that lovely boy, about yea high, the one who nicked all the pick ‘n mix and puked all over Mr Harris’s flowerbeds, ‘cause she was desperate to know whose car had been parked outside her neighbours’ the other day.”

Stede raises his eyebrows, looking gleeful by the thought. Ed’s given him the perfect ammo to rip the piss out of Iz – he’s got plenty more where that came from, too. 

“I never knew you read the paper, Eddie,” says his mum. 

Now that’s the greatest betrayal of Ed’s life. Izzy cracks up, vindicated. Stede glances across at Ed with his lips twisted, failing at hiding his amusement. Bastard. Gorgeous bastard, but still.

“Oh yeah, laugh it up,” Ed grumbles. “You still ruined that poor bloke’s peonies, Iz.”

It’s snowing outside. Just a flurry on the wet pavement, dusting the city in slushy white. Brisk cold after the sauna of the gig. Ed’s as unprepared as ever in his leather jacket. Shouldn’t it be spring soon? Lately the sun hasn’t been setting until almost five. And yet here he is, staring up at the sky as it chucks glorified ice drizzle at him.

Stede’s bundled up in all the shit he paid a fortune to be kept in the cloakroom. Pair of woollen mittens and everything. He’s probably got a survival kit for the end of the world somewhere in his closet.

“You could’ve put all that in my dressing room, y’know,” Ed told him as he retrieved it with his little scrunched up paper ticket. 

He’d looked furious before he schooled it into something polite and said, “Thank you, love, I’ll have to remember that next time.”

Ed just laughed and kissed his cheek in front of his mum and Izzy, and Stede hasn’t stopped smiling since.

Now his mum’s leaving in a taxi and Ed hugs her goodbye and promises to call her soon. The implications in her tone when she asks go unnoticed by fuckin’ no one – Stede catches on and twinkles coyly. He even presses a kiss to her hand like he’s straight out of a storybook or an unrealistic Hallmark romcom, and he tells her he hopes that he’ll see her soon and not to believe any slander she hears.

As if Ed would have any other than ‘he’s too bloody perfect to be true’. 

They stroll to the afterparty a few blocks down. Izzy speedwalks ahead. 

“Here,” Stede says, all smiley still. “Before you freeze.”

“Noble of you to gift me with the scarf my own mother knitted.” He thumbs at the little scorch mark in the red wool. A permanent reminder of just how much of a beautiful lunatic this guy is. 

“She– Oh god, Ed. I’m sorry, you should’ve asked for it back! I didn’t– I thought–”

His nose is icy cold against Ed’s cheek when Ed leans in and presses a kiss to Stede’s lips to shut him up. His hair glistens with hundreds of melting snowflakes.

“Wait a sec,” Ed says, pulling back, eyes narrowed. He finally realises something that’s been badgering him all night. “You’re taller than me.”

Stede beams at him. 

Ed looks down. He’s got the funkiest fuckin’ boots on ever, pointed toe, gold buckled with jewels on, and they’re heeled. 

“You’ve been wearing those all night?”

“Mhm!” 

He stares and stares – dazzled by the gemstones, then dazzled by legs, Jesus, calves. Calves he’s had wrapped around his waist, calves he knows the firmness of. Knows the strawberry blond fuzz, the half faded stick n’ poke on his ankle of a little moth (Ed had kissed it and called it a butterfly, which was the outrage of the century, apparently, and the vehement correction hadn’t killed the mood – in fact it had just intensified it.) 

When Ed looks back up, the smile has dropped. “You don’t like them?”

“I fucking love them, babe. Just surprised you didn’t break your ankle in the pit.”

“Please. You underestimate me. I’ve walked in far higher heels than these.”

Ed laughs, growing rapidly crazed with how bad he wants to drag Stede away before they even get to the club.

They’ve left every party they’ve been to early, but Ed has to stick this one out. He knows that. Bloody difficult, though. 

“You doing alright?”

Stede nods happily. He points to the little round things in his ears, shiny blue like his unbuttoned button-up. He’s coordinated his earplugs to his outfit. God, Ed wants him so badly he’s going to lose the plot. 

“It was such a good show, Ed. You were sensational.”

“Sensational. Fucking hell, I’ll have to add that one to my resume.”

“I liked that song. The one just before the encore.”

Ed feels suddenly flayed. 

“What about the other songs?”

“I liked those too,” Stede says. His eyes are intense. “But that one was my favourite.”

“Cool, well. It’ll have to go on the next album then, won’t it?”

“Oh, there’s going to be another? Ed, it’s been so long!”

For years, he’s been nagged at by hundreds of people. Thousands, millions, maybe, if you count all the comments and tweets that are probably out there. 

Enough for Ed to see the headline ‘Is the legend of Blackbeard over?’ and start to wonder the same. Are his good days behind him? Will even the fans grow to hate him if he releases a bunch of crap? Should he pack it in before he becomes defined by has-been status? 

Or will they hate him more if he gives into all the vitriol and just disappears without a word? 

Is there any peace in cowardice? Maybe. 

But it’s like he’d told Stede, up on a rooftop when the nights were at their longest and New York was littered with tinsel and Ed and Stede were just beginning: too many fuckin’ ideas all the fuckin’ time. 

His brain’s wired to the music. Every thought forms a tune.

There’s a melody taking shape in his head now, thinking about how they still are at the beginning, in a way. It’s still winter. They’re yet to lounge around in t-shirts and boxers with endless sugary ice blocks that turn their tongues red and blue in a heatwave. He bets Stede gets more freckles down his nose and on his shoulders in the hotter months. His shirts are probably always hanging on by one button. His hair’ll get blonder and he’ll always be as pink as the centre of a Twister. 

Ed will have told him he loves him by then. He’ll probably say it all the time – in the creeping heat of summer mornings with the sheets thrown haphazardly to the bottom of the bed, at the end of phone calls that Stede makes from the grocery store asking if Ed wants a treat from the discount shelf, out of nowhere when they’re head-in-lap on Ed’s sofa, both turning pages in comfortable silence. Stede might say it back. 

He’s picturing all these things in his own apartment, he realises. He should maybe see about…getting Stede a key or something. Stede might like that, he reckons. He could feed the bunnies if Ed ends up going on tour again. He could let himself in after a long shift and collapse in front of the telly and Ed could get him a cuppa. Or when the city’s scorching, an iced latte with all the right brands of everything. Right texture of ice cubes – smooth and glassy, not rough and brittle. In Stede’s favourite cup, because he’ll have a favourite cup out of Ed’s kitchen by then.

“It’ll be worth the wait, I’m sure,” Stede says softly, hand to his elbow.

He’s taken Ed’s silence as discomfort. When really Ed was thinking – before he got distracted by his summertime fantasies – about how crazy it is that Stede’s excitement for new music doesn’t twist his stomach with anxiety.

He’s so used to the dull sense of dread. The alarms he’s drowned out for so long that they start to sound like white noise. 

He breathes in Stede’s easy enthusiasm, and it tastes like sunshine around the corner. A light breeze. Freshly cut grass and shedding a jacket in the park. 

Fuck, they can go on Stede’s cute little calming park walks when the weather’s all nice. He’ll look so pretty surrounded by pink blossom and his eyes will be catastrophically green. 

“Hope so,” Ed says. 

“I know so.”

“Aw, you have to say that. You’re my biggest fan.”

“Well, duh,” Stede says, gesturing to his chest. “I’ve got the tour shirt.” 

“Ha, yeah. I should get one with your mug on.”

Stede scrunches his nose up. “Oh! We should start doing merch for the bar.”

We. Like Ed could just take residence in that neon blue paradise and watch Stede mix drinks forever. He practically already has, really, hasn’t he? And– like Stede will come to all his shows. Like their lives are intertwined now, like they’re becoming one. 

“Sell out,” Ed accuses him. 

They glide right on past a queue of people and a velvet rope is lifted for them. Stede squeaks, all high pitched and giddy, at the cartoon-like fame of it all. 

Ed wants to kiss him. Could kiss him. Overthinks kissing him and ends up interrupted before he has the chance. 

His lips miss Stede’s. His palms miss the blush-warmth of his cheeks. 

He nods along to something that somebody’s saying, and tries to only take the occasional glance at Stede. Otherwise he might go insane.

“What do you want?”

It’s a good hour into the afterparty, and Stede misses Ed. Feels cold with it, like he’s braving a storm without a coat or a scarf. 

Also feels a little silly about it – of course Ed’s going to be high in demand. He just gave the most marvellous performance that Stede has ever seen in his entire life– fuck, surely that anyone has ever seen. Of course everybody here wants to talk to him.

He stuck by Stede’s side for as long as he could before he got pulled in twenty different directions, and he gave Stede an apologetic smile and told him to text if he needed him. Stede needs him all the time, so that feels sort of redundant.

“Thought I’d come check on you, since you’re moping,” Izzy says.

Stede scoffs. “Yeah, right.”

They always seem to find themselves in this predicament. The edges of the room, the buzzkills of the party. 

Ed’s surrounded by laughter and light and Stede can’t look away, not really, but every glance makes him pine desperately.

People know now. 

It scared him before, when he thought that Ed didn’t want that. But they’ve talked, and Stede hasn’t been so scared since. People know. It’s good. The world didn’t end with those headlines and Ed didn’t leave. 

Plus the sign that Stede took tonight definitely garnered some attention. 

He’s not at all worried that he may have overstepped now. He’s not! Ed would have said. Probably. At some point. God.

Izzy ignores his tone and nods over at Ed. “He only wants to be with you, you know.”

Stede remembers the last time they were here. He writes you songs. Nice fucking songs. If that soft serenade on stage had anything to do with Stede – and Stede has a feeling it just might’ve – then he may have to accept that Izzy talks a lot of sense. 

“I don’t need your commentary on his emotions,” he says instead of admitting that. 

“He keeps staring at you with the same face he gets when he watches those rescue animal videos.”

Stede knows the face. Stede’s seen the watery shine to those impossibly expressive eyes as Ed watches the fourth reel in a row of an anxious puppy nuzzling into the arms of a vet. 

The memory makes it horribly difficult to be so far away from him right now. The club feels like a vast ocean keeping them apart. Like Stede’s sailing on a rickety boat trying to return to his lover. 

“Fuck me, you’ve got the same fucking look as those dogs, no wonder he’s hopeless around you.”

Stede glares half-heartedly at Izzy. 

“Why do you care all of a sudden?”

“Because I… I care about him.” 

“Please, you wanted me gone the second we met. What is it, jealousy?”

“You’ve got to understand how many dickheads there have been. Excuse me for being cautious.”

“Well. I’m different from the rest, you said so yourself.”

“Yeah,” Izzy says. “More than I thought. Reckon you might actually stick around, Bonnet. You’re…good for him.”

“You’re drunk,” Stede says. “Go home.”

They laugh. It’s weird, mostly for how lacking in awkwardness it is.

“What do you suggest I do then?”

“Don’t fuck it up.”

“Wasn’t planning on.”

“Don’t let him fuck it up.”

Stede considers him out of the corner of his eye. “You know, you’re quite the softie when it comes down to it.”

“Fuck off.”

It plays on his mind all night. For what it’s worth, I think he’s all in. 

Every time Stede’s eyes catch his across the room. Any time his laugh ripples through the afterparty. The brief moments they meet at the bar ordering drinks when Stede’s pinky finger hooks around his and squeezes before he drifts off into the crowd again. All in. 

Ed’s all in too. Ed’s all the fuck in. 

So why he’s stood here talking to people that aren’t Stede is so utterly beyond him.

(It’s not, entirely. Sure, people know now, but Ed’s still… It’s just…)

“Here,” Izzy says, appearing from behind him with another drink the second Ed’s finished his. “From the cute blond in the corner.”

Ed nearly chokes. “Izzy Hands, are you trying to play cupid right now?”

“Oh, fuck off, you twat.”

“Oh good. Man, I was worried about you for a second there.”

“Shut up. Why’d you invite him if you’re just gonna leave him to sulk? He’s bringing the mood down.”

“He’s not sulking. Look, see, he’s chatting to… Who the fuck’s that?”

“Jealous?”

“No.” Ed frowns at his beer. “Just never seen that guy before.”

“Maybe you should go over. Introduce yourself.”

“Since when were you so invested anyway?”

Izzy grits his teeth and sighs. “I get the song now, Ed.”

“Fuck’s that supposed to mean? You get the song now?”

“It was…sweet. The shit with the sign.”

“Oh my god, there is something wrong–”

“Edward. If he pulls that again he’s barred from all gigs, but. I can see…how a ponce like that…might be good for you.”

Ed laughs. 

“I’m serious.”

“I know you are, that’s what’s so fuckin’ hilarious, man.”

“Yeah, alright. Knob.”

“It was sweet, wasn’t it?” 

Izzy refuses to admit it a second time. He does, however, say, “None of your other fellas would’ve.”

“Yeah,” Ed agrees quietly. 

Sad, the amount of truth in that. Even the guys he went on fucking tour with wouldn’t so much as watch his set sometimes. 

He used to stand side stage and dance a little, clap, whoop, tug Jack into a frenzied, sweaty kiss after he’d played. And then when Ed got on stage, Jack’d be gone. Disappeared. Tongue down the throat of the first person who bought him a shot, probably. 

There were only one or two guys who saw it all as a novelty. Mostly because Ed got good at sniffing that shit out, and it was worse than getting ditched for an uncomplicated fuck. It was worse when all they wanted was the congratulations, their name in the ever-cited list of failed romances. When they’d only hold his hand if cameras were flashing. When they’d do anything for a song written about them. A medal. A brag. 

They either wanted Blackbeard and Blackbeard only, or they didn’t want him at all. 

Because other guys just haven’t wanted to get involved. Easier to pretend that it wasn’t Blackbeard they were dating, easier to keep it in the backroom and maybe, if Ed was lucky, share a blunt on the street outside the stage door. About as much PDA as he ever got. 

Stede, with a glittery sign professing his true affection for everyone to see, is a revelation. And it scares Ed to death. He doesn’t know what to do with it. How to hold onto it. How to say what he needs to say without obscuring it behind his guitar. 

The song was a start, but it wasn’t– What he feels for Stede is so much more. It’s almost too much for one person to feel. 

Still. “Thanks for letting me play it, Iz.”

Izzy shrugs one shoulder. “Thanks for playing the show.”

And because he’s still feeling a bit petty about the whole thing; “Thanks for threatening the privacy of my newfound love to guilt me into playing the show.”

“Edward.”

“C’mon, that is what happened.”

“I was pissed off. You disappeared from your own birthday party that I spent hours fucking organising so you could get fucked until two in the morning.”

Not exactly what happened, but… sure. Fair enough, he did disappear. Returned to the real world through a portal in a bookshelf and found Izzy, seething and alone. Either Iz was going to sell him out with another petty rumour like the last time they’d argued, or, he suggested, Ed could get over himself and play a gig for the first time in over a year because that’s his fucking job. 

He’d been fuming at the time, but. Well. He doesn’t need to go as far as admitting Izzy was right. Iz went about it in a dickish way. He knows exactly how to wind Ed up. He just wasn’t completely, misguidedly incorrect about needing to get back on stage.

“Have you been talking to Lucius?”

“Who the fuck’s Lucius?”

“At that party, with Fang? One of his plus ones?”

“Oh, that twat.”

“Sure, whatever. Man, I should so get Stede to introduce you properly. I think you two would get along very well.”

“It’s bad enough I’m entertaining his bullshit, don’t drag me into whatever weird fucking company he keeps.”

“I’m weird company too then, am I?”

“You really want me to answer that?”

Ed grins. “You like him.”

“Jesus.”

“Aw, Izzy, you approve. That’s so cute.”

“I will tell the whole world about the time you screamed like a little girl on the Nemo ride at Disneyland, don't test me.”

“Yeah, fine, let ‘em know that thing is a fuckin’ deathtrap. You’re gonna be my best man, y’know.”

“Don’t fucking invite me to your wedding.”

“Who’s gonna keep the ring safe for me? You know how easy I lose shit.”

“I’m busy.”

“Spoilsport.”

“Maybe…don’t propose until you’re sure he’s sticking around. He’s only had his face in the paper one time.”

Ed chews on the inside of his cheek, all his humour snuffed out. 

Izzy’s only voicing what Ed has been thinking this whole time. Stede’s hardly had a taste of what life would really be like if they made a real go for it. 

“Yeah,” he mutters. “I’ll try not to.”

“Not that I think he’s going anywhere,” Izzy says. He shrugs and takes a sip of his beer. “God, this shit’s awful. You’d think we’d go to better bars after eleven Grammys.”

Ed huffs out a chuckle. “Yeah.”

He feels his phone buzz against his thigh three times in a row and pulls it out of his pocket. Stede’s name is lit up over the dark tentacled art of his lockscreen. 

“That him?”

“Fuck off,” Ed mumbles half-heartedly. Izzy’s already fading into background noise. The party’s melting away around him.

Stede, 12:03 a.m.: It’s no secret that I’m a fool for you, but I keep in my heart of hearts what the moonlight tastes like when it washes over you like the tide, how you laugh when it’s just us, the bright pink fluffy socks you wear under big black boots. I want them to see you with your hand in mine and never know that this is where you first touched me. I want to kiss you on a busy street with my head full of the way you think about the world and fish with no eyes and hairless cats. I want to tell you something right now – I don’t care who hears, but they’ll never know the all of it. 

Stede, 12:09 a.m.: Ed, would you mind if I go home soon?

Stede, 12:10 a.m.: I’m tiredddd 🫤

Stede, 12:10 a.m.: [GIF of a yawning dog]

Every message gets a little emoticon reaction. Heart for the poem. Exclamation marks for the second text. Heart. ‘Ha ha’. Then he types…

Ed, 12:12 a.m.: Screw poetry, it’s you I want, your taste, rain on you, mouth on your skin

He watches Stede’s face in the glow of his phone screen. Like fireflies and stars. His lip quirks up to one side. 

Question mark reaction. Little dots going.

Stede, 12:12 a.m.: I wrote that myself and you’re going to quote somebody else at me? 

Thumbs down.

Ed, 12:12 a.m.: I know u wrote it yourself shut the fuck up about my cute cat eared socks u love them

‘Ha ha’. More dots.

Stede, 12:13 a.m.: Stop texting me and come over here? Xx

Heart.

Ed, 12:13 a.m.: No you x

Stede, 12:14 a.m.: No. You ☺️

Stede’s eyes don’t leave him as he crosses the room. 

His boots are heavy and stick to the ground a little with every step. Lights pulse over the dancefloor in slow motion, some pop song reverberating through it. Glass clinks and rattles from the bar. People are talking everywhere. 

Ed reaches him and forgets all that.

He pauses there for a moment, stomach twisting. Stede still makes him all kinds of nervous, especially when he’s got those firecracker eyes, barium green, set on Ed. Sparking and cartwheeling like New Year’s Eve. 

“What did you wanna tell me?”

“I love you,” says Stede. 

Fuck. Just like that. Just…so easy and free, like there aren’t bloodthirsty paparazzi lurking in the corners with their cameras hidden in their jackets, ready to draw. Like it’s true, what he wrote, everything he’s been saying this whole time. Like all of Ed’s doubts and fears are no match for him. 

“You don’t have to say it back. Or…or at all!”

God. Oh god, he’s even got Izzy on one shoulder with wings and a little black halo telling him not to be a fucking idiot right now, which is so wrong. The world feels like it’s tipped on its axis and spun Ed round and round and round and now he can’t find his footing or any bloody words. There’s also a more familiar Izzy on the other shoulder, sticking his trident into Ed’s neck and telling him not to get on one knee and propose right now, but for fuck’s sake, Izzy’s the one who got that idea stuck in his head in the first place and now it won’t leave and he’s never been in this situation before, never believed those words out of anyone’s mouth, never wanted to say them back. He feels like his tongue doesn’t even know their shape. 

“Stede, I… Shit. Can I ask you one thing?”

“You can ask me as many things as you like,” he says, which is such a classically Stede thing to say. 

Ed’s got to be sure, is the thing. He’s got to be sure that Stede’s sure. He’s already pretty sure that Stede’s sure, but he’s been sure before. Kind of. Maybe? Not like this, actually, probably, but– Look! He’s got to be super sure.

“You wake up tomorrow in your little apartment.”

“Less of the little.”

“And there’s fifty paps outside your door. You wanna go get your morning latte and chocolate glazed doughnuts and you get a phone shoved in your face asking how good of a shag I am. Are you still going to love me then?”

Stede’s not going to say no, Ed knows this. Ed thinks he knows this. 

But that frown, right there, on Stede’s face is evidence that the ugly realities are only just occurring to him. It’s all fine and fairytale when there’s a camera flash in the distance, a far away thing, a fuzzy photo of a kiss that he can blush over. The worst hasn’t happened yet. The wolves have snarled but they haven’t bitten. 

Stede, for all his routine and punctuality, how upset he got when his favourite café started using a different brand of almond milk, is a real spontaneous bastard. He hasn’t planned ahead for what loving Ed could possibly mean. 

“You do know none of that has anything to do with you?”

Ed blinks. “Of course it does, it’s–”

“No. None of that is who you are. You love none of those people and none of them truly love you to disrupt your peace like that. My loving you has nothing to do with any of that.”

“But it will happen, Stede, and it’s fucking miserable.”

“Then why should you be miserable alone? I want you, Ed. Always.  Through everything. Didn’t you read the stupid poem I sent you?”

“Not stupid,” Ed grumbles. 

“Darling. I don’t know how many times I need to tell you I don’t care, but if it’s a thousand more, then fine. I will. I don’t care, I don’t care, I don’t care, I don’t–”

“Stede.” Ed laughs. “You’re mad, you know that?”

“Yes. And I love you.”

He grins. Stede’s so fearless and Ed’s been so scared. He doesn’t want to be scared anymore. 

“You kiss me right now and everything changes. That’s life as you know it over, you know that, right?”

Because it’s a conscious decision, now. Not a half-purposeful slip-up. It’s declaring it loud and clear in the least romantic ways. Not all of Ed’s billboard daydreams. Real and gritty–

“Of course. And the start of something wonderful.”

–and Stede’s spine of steel.

He’s mad, maybe, but he’s Ed’s. 

“You can take me home and kiss me there,” says Stede, “I don’t mind. But I rather like diving in the deep end.”

“Yeah,” Ed says. He drapes his arms around Stede’s shoulders. “You do, don’t you?”

Pure force of habit when he glances around them for a second. Stede’s fingers lift to his chin, drawing his attention back. Locking him in. Safe place to land. Respite from the world. 

When you are close I thumb my nose at her and laugh. 

“Alright. Let them talk,” he whispers and kisses him. 

Kisses him, not to be reckless, but to kiss him right there in the middle of the room, because he can. Because Stede’s bonkers enough and lovely enough to want to. Because somehow this is his life now when he was cowering in the dark only a few months ago. 

Now it’s knockout daylight. Now it’s sugary pink, sparkling. Sweet and heated, tongue against his, closer and closer and not close enough.

“Let’s not get too hot and heavy or they’ll make a porno of us,” Ed says, breathless and laughing against Stede’s lips. 

“We’re worthy, are we?”

“Reckon so.”

Stede smiles, angelic. Devastating. Ruinous. Kissed just enough to look a little hungry with it. 

“C’mon,” Ed says, voice hoarse, before he really does forget where they are and what’s acceptable in a public space. “My driver’s outside.”

The white flashes capture the joy on his face and his hand at the small of Stede’s back as they cross the space between the bar’s exit and the car door. 

“Yours?”

He slips his earplugs out and clicks them into their case. “I was thinking yours, since mine is too little.”

“I never fucking said that.”

Stede purses his lips. There’s a smile at the edge of it. 

Ed loves him like this. Playful. Handsome. His. 

“I love your teeny tiny apartment.”

He loves how the carpet feels under his feet. The miniscule, hip-bruising, toe-stubbing space between kitchen counters. The telly that’s far too big for how close the sofa is. All the washes and scrubs and masks and serums and bloody essences taking up the majority of his teal-tiled bathroom. The way Stede’s crammed everything – his books and his model ships and his wonky ceramic mugs – into it despite the lack of room. It’s homely in ways that Ed’s never managed to make his own clutter of stuff feel. 

“Regardless,” Stede says, giving into his grin. “Your bed is much bigger than mine.”

“Oh, it’s like that, is it?”

“And you do have all the channels compared to my measly Netflix subscription. And I don’t know where you get them from, but the most delicious blueberries I’ve ever tasted. And that fancy fridge with the ice cubes.”

“Yeah, yeah, I get the message. You only want me for the money and my special delivery fruit.”

“Well, no. You’re not so bad on the eyes, either.”

Laughing, Ed takes his hand across the seats and presses a kiss to it. “I’ll take it.”

He gazes out the window past Stede’s reddening face. They’re in motion. His driver’s already set off whilst they were bickering and Ed didn’t even notice. 

“Mine it is, I guess,” Ed whispers. 

Stede looks out at the slow traffic around them and hums happily. It’s quiet, comfortable. Ed sinks right into it after the hectic night they’ve both had. 

Then Stede says, “I am, you know.”

Ed blinks his eyes open. Looks at him curiously in the silvered flicker of the city rolling by. “What’s that?”

“Yours, Ed.” It’s the hopeful little smile that comes after that does him in. 

“Yeah, you are,” he says quietly. He watches Stede’s thumb trace maddening circles over his knuckles, down to the back of his wrist and then slipping under. A skimming shiver of a touch to his pulse. “Me too. Yours.”

“Yes,” Stede says. “I know.” His eyes could burn the whole city down. 

Ed shuffles in his seat, swallows under that fiery gaze. He looks out through the window on his side. The roads are just sludge, but there’s still something romantic about New York in the snow. The way people step out of their apartments in wonder anyway. The way the neon catches the flakes as they swirl through the air. 

Not nearly as romantic as it would be somewhere quieter, out in the countryside – frozen lakes and a blanket of white on the rooftops. Snowball fights and cocoa by the fire. Maybe…the soft strum of a guitar, scribbling in a notebook, Stede at the piano – because Ed knows he plays, but he’s yet to hear it. Yet to see those beautifully jewelled fingers coax music from the depths of wood. Knows the second he does, that whole not getting down on one knee thing (or two, if he’s honest) is going to be impossible. A song just for them. A place in the world, a peaceful sanctuary of untouched snow, just for them. 

Would be nice. 

“Oh, I just thought, it’s a good job we are going back to yours, Ed. Your poor bunnies have been alone all evening!”

Ed looks across at him, overwhelmed with fondness. Drowning in it. Just fucking hopelessly fond. “That’s me out of the picture for the night then,” he jokes.

“Well, they deserve some love!”

“Stay for a couple of days,” Ed says. Stay forever, he thinks. “I don’t have anywhere to be.”

“Okay,” Stede whispers. He interlocks his fingers with Ed’s and squeezes. “Good luck getting rid of me.”

Ed squeezes back and smiles a secret smile to himself, because if he’s really lucky, he never will.

Notes:

poems referenced:

once again, the frank o'hara poem

& 'screw poetry, it's you i want' from late night by margaret atwood