Archive of Our Own

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow

“The Hollow Men”, T.S. Eliot (1925)

☸

It’s the end of the world.

Ed’s thought about this a lot: what he’ll do during the fucking apocalypse. It’s just how his brain works. Latches onto an idea and marinates in it, until everything is pruny with scattered thoughts, imagines all the scenarios to completion, picks the logical bits to keep before spinning onto the next one.

So when Ed blithely turns the television on above the bar and realizes the news is showing an emergency broadcast with an out-of-focus Greenland-sized space rock hurtling straight toward Earth, his brain kicks into high gear, checking the rolodex of apocalypse fantasies.

With zombies, the obvious choice was a body of water. Everyone always imagines themselves hunkering down and loading up on weapons, living on cans of beans and rigging up Mad Max-style battle vehicles with miraculously preserved gasoline. But Ed had worked out that all you had to do was wait about a month for all the shambling bodies to decompose in real time, the sinewy, tendony bits all falling apart under the duress of time and bugs, becoming inert. So, the plan was real fuckin’ simple: steal a boat and a fishing rod and spend a month moored just off shore, watching the world fall apart.

Nuclear attack is easy: as soon as the alarms start blaring, Ed knows the only thing he can do is bend over, tuck his head between his knees and kiss his ass goodbye. Nothing else for it, living in a big port city with a military base, and even if Ed did survive the initial blast he’s pretty sure he’d rather off himself than live through the ensuing nuclear winter. He fucking hates winter.

Ed’s not well-versed in technology enough to have thoroughly thought out an AI-based apocalypse, but he’s seen the "Terminator" enough times to mumble some of the one-liners in his sleep, and he’s pretty sure he’d look fucking hot with a metal arm. Come with me if you want to live, and all that.

Aliens are trickier, because it depends heavily on what the aliens were coming for. If it was for a good probing, Ed was down—he’d been single and pining for years now, and there’s only so much a man can do with half a dozen dildos and his imagination. If it was anything else—enslaving humanity as a source of energy or livestock or, fucking hell, some kind of weird intergalactic zoo—then yea, Ed would fight like fucking hell and take a few of the bastards with him.

Pandemics—well, Ed had already lived through that hell once. Pandemics are old news.

But apocalypse-by-giant-meteor was an interesting one. Ed had expected it to be a slow burn, something that showed up as a blip a decade ago that the scientists would agonize over for years, warning the populace that, yea, this was fucking real, the earth was going to end, we’d better fucking do something now instead of later. And Ed would ignore it and go on with his normal life because, fucking hell, what’s an average guy to do about a fucking meteor, anyway?

But it’s not a slow burn, it’s a fast one: showing up suddenly on the wrong side of the moon without warning, like someone just plucked it from one part of the universe and placed it there, a lonesome domino about to wreak untold havoc on an unsuspecting planet.

Three days, the newscaster had said, with a weird, dead look in their eyes and a flat, Hawking-esque tone.

Three days from the moon to the earth, and then it’s over.

Three days is not enough time to get real shit done—fly back to Aotearoa to say goodbye to his whānau; procure some gentler means of going into that good night; maybe climb a fucking mountain or something else that’s been on his bucket list for ages.

But three days is just enough time for Ed to know exactly what he wants to fucking do.

So Ed finds himself sprinting the four blocks from the bar to Stede’s apartment, legs pumping despite the twinge in his knee, hair plastered to his forehead and the back of his neck from the sweat pouring off his brow. Running in leather was not a good idea. Running, in general, was not a good idea. Ed’s more of a sauntering guy, a moseying type of person, someone who slinks and leans and generally finds every reason not to hurry. His brain does all the sprinting for him, anyway.

But Ed’s got three days—two-and-a-half, really, because he slept in and the clock was already ticking when he rubbed the crumbs of sleep from his eyes—and a hell of a lot to get done in that time, and in this apocalypse, every fucking second counts.

He doesn’t think about it. There’s no time.

Just runs, as fast as he can, dodging around the people on the sidewalk—pushing strollers and smelling flowers like they don’t have a fucking care in the world, like it’s not fucking ending—until he rounds the final corner and nearly trips as he comes up to the apartment building.

A split second decision, and he turns away from the front entrance. Stede’s fucking impossible with technology, never did figure out how to put his number in the call system so it actually buzzes the intercom by the door, so Ed always has to text him or call him or harass one of the neighbors to let him inside. Some small, latently annoyed part of Ed’s mind starts in on why Stede hasn’t given Ed a fucking key yet, jesus christ, they spend almost every goddamn weekend together anyway—

Ed shoves his way through a loose hedge of blooming hydrangeas that delineate the back part of the property, spitting leaves and tugging flowers from his hair as he crosses the tiny yard and makes a beeline for Stede’s balcony. And if Ed were a better man, if he had the youth and power of the body that his apocalypse brain imagines, then he’d just fucking jump for it like some kind of superhero, and that would be that.

But instead Ed is pushing fifty, and he’s already limping from the run and his lungs are burning, so he drags a trash bin over and tips it on its side to give himself an extra bit of height. And, christ, part of him wants to die of fucking shame—this is not the Romeo-esque balcony scene his brain had conjured up years ago—but this is fucking it.

The world is ending and this is it.

He only has one chance and this is fucking it.

Ed climbs the trash bin on wobbly feet, makes the most pathetic jump in the world to catch the upper lip of the balcony, and then summons every single fucking ounce of strength left in his body to do the first pull up he’s ever done in his adult life. It burns every muscle in his body and he kicks his legs like a toddler on a swingset and manages—by the grace of fucking god, he fucking does it—to haul himself up and over the iron bars to get to Stede’s balcony.

And he falls, because fucking hell, turns out using every muscle in your body all at once turns them into jelly afterward. He crashes through one of Stede’s little patio chairs—the same one Ed’s spent many Sunday mornings sitting in, nursing a cup of tea while he and Stede play a lazy game of cards—and lands flat on his back, knocking the remaining breath out of his lungs.

Stede opens the balcony door to look down at him in shock a moment later.

“I love you,” Ed wants to say—shout it from the rooftops, head thrown to the sky and arms wide, daring anyone to challenge him.

Because it’s true, and Ed’s known it for a while now—fell in love with him the day they met, over eight years ago, when Stede perched shyly on a barstool and asked Ed if this was the famous gay bar that hosted queer trivia on Thursdays. Ed loved him through those first few awkward meetings, when Stede blushed and stuttered his way through greetings and small talk until he grew more comfortable with the vibe, showing up on Drag Night and Sapphic Sundays and slowly feeling his way as a newly out man.

Ed loved him through the finalization of the divorce—cathartic and weirdly, overwhelmingly joyful—and loved him through the subsequent dark months when Stede went through the phase of second guessing himself, questioning why he blew up his life, whether he’d ever find happiness. Ed loved him quietly, patiently, while Stede invested in therapy and self-help books and tearfully told Ed he had a lot more work to do on himself before he could venture into the dating scene.

Ed loved him through the oversharing phase—when Stede lamented his lack of experience and subsequently took every lurid suggestion that Lucius whispered with a wink and a smirk, regaling Ed with tales of toys and porn kinks and what he did and didn’t like, while Ed chewed the inside of his mouth raw and nearly wept with relief later, driving himself to orgasm with the echo of Stede’s words in his ears.

Ed loved him through every movie night, with Stede passed out on his shoulder drooling into his hair.

Ed loved him through every long-suffering Thursday dinner while Stede learned to cook and burnt half their meals, and Ed learned to love hot sauce on everything.

Ed loved him through a disastrous IKEA trip where Stede managed to muscle an entire fucking couch into a fucking rental car—not a truck, which would have been sensible, because they went for curtains and Stede was whim-prone—with Ed pinned up against the steering wheel and wondering if he’d ever learn to say no to Stede.

He can’t; he fucking knows he can’t.

Ed loves him now, standing bare-footed in the doorway in his briefs, the yellow robe rumpled on his shoulders, hair askew and a haggard look on his face like he’s been up since five in the morning watching the news cycle on repeat.

So, with only three days left in the world and a heart full to bursting with love and desire and every emotion in between, Ed wants to say, “I love you.”

Instead, Ed moves his lips and wheezes poetically, because he knocked the air out of his lungs falling onto the cement and still hasn’t caught his breath. He lifts his brows, gives Stede his patented wounded animal look, and tries to communicate almost a decade of infatuation with his eyes alone.

Stede turns around and wanders back inside, shell-shocked, and Ed drops his head back to the cement, trying to knock some sense into himself.

Right, fucking—world-ending meteor. Shit.

By the time Ed picks himself off the ground and half-limps, half-crawls into the apartment, Stede is back on the couch, sitting directly across from the television. There’s an entire story around him: mounds of tissues scattered haphazardly around the floor, toast with a single bite out of it, and three half-empty mugs of tea; because Stede doesn’t like to drink it when it’s gone cold, and he clearly kept forgetting to drink it this morning. The story of a man who woke up, made himself breakfast, sat down to watch the news and never got up again.

So, yea, maybe Ed needs to ease his way into the love confession. Maybe.

“They said it must have low albedo,” Stede says distantly, voice as soft as the velvet robes that Ed likes to rub against his stubbled cheeks, enveloped in sandalwood and lavender. He’s staring at the television, mind a million miles away. “Must be why we didn’t see it sooner.”

Ed has no idea what the fuck albedo is—doesn’t have the fucking time for a libido joke—or why the fuck it matters, but he recognizes what Stede is feeling. He’s seen it before, after Stede crested the peak of his post-divorce euphoria and fell headlong into the long, dark valley of rebuilding his life. He’s numb with shock right now, brain stuttering fully to a halt, soaking up the images on the flickering screen like an empty vessel. He’d forget to breathe if it wasn’t automatic.

Stede’s not actually going to pay attention to Ed’s heartfelt love confession, so, yea. Change of plans.

“You eat anything yet, mate?” Ed asks, trying to gauge where Stede is on the scale from full panic to merely despondent.

“Don’t remember,” Stede mumbles, eyes fixed unblinking on the screen. That’s not bad then, mostly shock instead of despair—otherwise he’d just resort to monosyllables or humming or, in the worst mood Ed’s ever seen him in, nothing at all.

Ed gets to work, because they only have three fucking days and he needs Stede to come back to earth for a bit, so he can say what he’s been holding inside for years. He kicks off his shoes and sheds his jacket and gets to work cleaning up the tissues and the mugs, ignoring the twinge in his knee as he bends to retrieve them; if the world is ending in three days, his leg can fucking wait. He digs around in Stede’s cabinets until he finds the last of the marmalade they’d canned together last autumn—with Ed shirtless one unseasonably warm October day, shamelessly sneaking orange slices while Stede wiped sweat from his brow and stood over the stove, biceps flexing as he stirred the congealing syrup, as he stirred Ed’s stomach into a nervous tizzy, as he stirred Ed’s heart into an fast but firm beat of want, want, want—and scoops huge spoonfuls into the delicate porcelain bowl with its vining flower motif, something he bought Stede as an apartment-warming present a few weeks into knowing one another.

He doesn’t bother cooking much, doesn’t want to waste the time on it—doesn’t have the fucking time to woo Stede with a proper breakfast feast, stupid fucking meteor—just tosses a few English muffins into the toaster and rummages around in Stede’s refrigerator for the butter. When the muffins pop up, he arranges everything on a tray—muffins, marmalade, softened butter, and two tumblers—and carries the tray to the coffee table while cradling a bottle of Stede’s finest brandy in the crook of his elbow.

The apocalypse is not a tea kind of day.

Stede shoves the remote out of the way to make room for the tray, and shifts on the couch to make room for Ed, and isn’t that something? The way they fit together, moving around one another and making room for one another automatically, subconsciously adjusting to one another’s presence. Two moons dancing in tidally-locked orbit—or something, Ed doesn’t really know shit about moons.

“They keep talking about gravitational slingshots,” Stede says, as Ed fills each glass halfway with brandy and hands one to Stede. He drinks the entire thing in one go, tipping his head back like it’s nothing, and holds his glass out for a refill that Ed obliges. Stede’s not usually this keen to imbibe but, yea—end of the fucking world, and all that. “Trying to explain how it came so fast.”

Ed manages not to choke on his own drink as he bites back a double entendre; he’s pretty proud of his gag reflex. Instead he digs his phone out of his pocket and tosses it on the couch before pouring himself another drink and leaning back, cradling the glass in his hand as he sinks down onto the couch, tucking up against Stede, shoulder to shoulder. Stede leans away for a moment to pull a blanket from the back of the couch, draping it over Ed’s lap like he’s done so many times before, because otherwise Ed will inevitably wriggle his cold toes under Stede’s thighs in search of warmth.

“They expect it to enter the atmosphere on Tuesday,” Stede mumbles, shaking his head at the television like he’s a disappointed parent. “It’ll break up a bit, I think, but—I mean. Tuesday.”

“Tuesdays are always a bit shit, mate,” Ed responds, because he’s progressed quickly into the acceptance stage of the grieving process. Didn’t seem like it made a lot of sense to waste time at the other stages.

Stede makes a noise in his throat, like he’s choking on a laugh. His lips curve up just a tiny bit, and Ed’s heart flutters, because this is what makes him happy: making Stede laugh, or smile, or light up like the brightly burning sun. But the moment passes, too soon, too swift.

“What am I going to do?” Stede asks, misery etched upon his brow as he turns to meet Ed’s gaze. His eyes are moist and pleading, like somehow Ed has all the answers. “What am I going to do with the rest of my life?”

It’s a question he’s asked Ed before, years ago.

Back then, Ed held him and made him tea and talked with him until the wee hours of the morning—tucking his own aching heart aside for later—until they were both mumbling answers and half-asleep on the couch, leaning on one another like drunkards.

Back then, Ed had listened patiently and let Stede use him like a sounding board as he ranted and raved about everything he ever wanted out of life, but was too afraid to pursue; and Ed never interjected once, not once, to suggest they could figure it out together.

Back then, Ed had asked questions and made noises of encouragement as Stede bushwhacked the trail of his new life, forging forward and back-tracking, picking up the pieces of his life. Ed was there through all of it, remembers how every conversation went, remembers every tear shed and every peal of laughter. Loved him through it all, near to bursting, like an overblown balloon.

“What would you regret missing out on, Stede?” Ed asks softly, voice low and careful, because this was exactly what they’d settled on years ago.

Coming back to it again and again, as Stede worked through his baggage—whenever he got stuck in a rut, spinning the wheels of his brain over and over again, paralyzed by overanalysis, Ed brought him back with that simple question. That had been the start, at least. And if Stede had ever thought to turn the question back on Ed, the answer was always you, you, you.

“I don’t know, there’s so much,” Stede runs a hand through his hair, and Ed can see he’s been doing that all morning, sending his curls askew with every pass. His movements are slightly looser now, brandy working its magic, the flailing of his hands emphatic instead of frantic. “I mean, I haven’t even gotten halfway through the New York Times one hundred best novels of all time and, oh god—we never did that Lord of the Rings director’s cut marathon, did we?”

He looks stricken, and Ed can’t help but laugh because, fuck, the world is fucking ending and Stede’s a fucking lunatic. He says, with gentle devastation, “I don’t think we have time for that, mate.”

“I want so much,” Stede continues, voice pitching up as the words tumble from his lips, all his secret wants and wishes, “I want to open my own bookstore and run a half-marathon and I haven’t climbed any mountains or learned how to play the harmonica, and—”

“Stede, mate,” Ed rests a hand on Stede’s knee, bringing his focus back to the present. “Breathe.”

Stede takes a breath, in through his nose—holds it for longer than Ed would, his lungs expanding in that broad chest hidden beneath the yellow robe, his body made for slow and steady endurance in a way that Ed’s never was—and he lets it out like a deflating bounce house: a long, slow hiss of defeat.

“How are you handling this so well?” Stede says it accusingly, like Ed’s not teetering on the brink of losing it, like his heart’s not hammering in his chest and his hand isn’t burning where it rests against Stede’s leg.

“Dunno,” Ed replies with a shrug, because his brain hasn’t paused long enough to really ponder it. He just saw the banner on the television and made it halfway down the block before his brain caught up with his legs. “Guess it’s a bit of a relief, to be honest. Just, y’know—it made everything simple. Brought everything into focus. Made it easy to see what I really wanted.”

Stede tilts his head, brows arching as he studies Ed. He takes a thoughtful sip of his drink, lips curling slightly, the faintest light in the darkness. The wink of a firefly, caught in the periphery of Ed’s vision, something for him to chase and catch and cradle in his palms.

“So, how will the illustrious Ed Teach spend his final days before the entire planet goes to shit?” Stede jostles Ed’s arm, leaning more heavily against Ed’s shoulder. Relaxing, sort of.

And this could be it: the moment where Ed says I love you, and it all comes together like he’s imagined.

Gazing deeply into one another’s eyes, holding hands and caressing cheeks and tenderly kissing one another, and they would exchange breath and touch and words—I love you, I love you, I love you—until Ed can’t tell where his body ends and Stede’s begins. And it would be enough, at the end of the world, to have known: the best three days of Edward Teach’s life.

But when Ed glances over, Stede is looking at him with that bright curiosity that he always has, cheeks faintly pink from brandy, and Ed’s heart stutters: because for all his bravado and bulldozing through feelings and throwing caution to the fucking wind, this is Stede.

Stede, who sobs so hard over Disney movies that it takes a week to watch them. Stede, who once showed up at Ed’s with an entire fucking gallon of the worst soup Ed’s ever eaten every bite of, a few winters ago when Ed wrenched his knee clearing the ice from his stoop. Stede, who spent the early weeks of the pandemic hand-delivering care packages of toilet paper, hand sanitizer and hand-sewn masks to every friend and neighbor, organizing Zoom games and collaborative story time and everything else that kept people sane.

Stede, who cares so fucking much that Ed’s heart almost bursts with his fondness for it.

And suddenly, the words are not enough.

I love you is, somehow, insufficient. It’s too meager a phrase for the depth of Ed’s feelings, lacking in poetic metaphor, unsatisfactory in its terseness. It doesn’t capture the breadth of what Ed imagines when he thinks about loving Stede: the twisting ache in his chest at every frown; the effervescence in his veins at every smile; the marrow-deep satisfaction, cracking his bones, every time he makes Stede laugh so hard he cries. Fuck, Ed loves him, Ed loves him, and he can’t say the fucking words.

Which fucking sucks, because Ed doesn’t have a back-up plan.

“Ed?” Stede asks, tilting his head, a furrow of concern starting to crease his brows.

“Wrapped up in nice and warm,” Ed blurts, because it’s not I love you, but it’s getting there. He’s gonna work his way up to it, with metaphors and poetry and shit, something Stede would be proud to be on the receiving end of.

“Got that taken care of,” Stede murmurs softly, smoothing out the folds of the throw in Ed’s lap. A proud little smile blooms on his face, and Ed’s heart flutters.

It’s Ed’s blanket, unofficially; Stede bought it one night after they’d worked their way through two bottles of wine and the first Star Wars trilogy, and by the end of the evening Ed had nearly wormed his way into Stede’s lap like a heat-seeking missile. It’s one of those sherpa ones, heavenly soft and toasty warm, and it finds its way onto Ed’s body within minutes of his arrival, draped over his lap or his legs, or wrapped around his shoulders like a cape.

Stede’s smile grows fond as he tucks the blanket tighter around Ed’s hips, fingertips ghosting over the back of Ed’s hands as he lingers close. The faint blush on his cheeks has grown stronger, but that could just be a byproduct of the brandy.

“What else?”

Ed catches Stede’s hand, snakehead coiling like he’s devouring Stede’s fingers. “Eat a good meal, I think.”

Stede’s brows lift and his eyes glitter with delight, and he intertwines their fingers easily. “Oh? Do you have a last meal in mind?”

Ed thinks about it for a moment, really thinks about it. His gut instinct is to be dismissive or crude or joking, but Stede deserves more care. They don’t have much time left, but Ed’s still going to choose his words wisely, to take his time and be deadly serious. He doesn’t want Stede to have any doubts.

“A slice of rēwena,” Ed replies finally, tilting his head back toward the ceiling and closing his eyes to make it easier to bring the taste to the forefront of his mind: the mild sweetness and heavy tang of a good loaf, thick enough that chewing it makes his jaw ache, complemented by thick smears of creamy butter and zesty marmalade. “With some of your marmalade.”

When Ed cracks his eyes open Stede is staring at him, eyes drifting over the lines of Ed’s neck, the curve of his jaw, the bow of his mouth. Ed licks his lips, watches Stede’s eyes widen minutely before his gaze snaps back up, cheeks pinking with the embarrassment of being caught. Not the brandy, then.

“Ah, too bad,” Stede’s eyes slide away, and he hides his expression in his glass, taking another long sip. “I don’t think we have enough time to make rēwena.”

“Bit fussy to make, anyway,” Ed shrugs in agreement.

“Sounds like a pretty good night, though, all things considered.”

“There’s more I want,” Ed continues. He can feel it bubbling in his veins, the words—I love you, I love you—heavy on his tongue. Like if he opens his mouth too wide they’ll just come tumbling out.

Ed’s warm—blanket and brandy and buzzing with nerves—and he can feel the flush dusting his cheeks, the desire coiling in his gut. Ed’s hands are sure and yet trembling, his gaze intense and yet slipping away, tilting back and forth between fear and confidence like a weeble-wobble toy that refuses to fall.

“Oh?” Stede says, brow arching in curiosity, his cheeks dimpling as the hint of a smile ghosts his lips.

Lips Ed wants to kiss, wants to whisper against—soft, sweet promises of years to come; filthy secrets of dark fantasies and hidden desires—lips Ed wants to see smile shyly, coyly, decadently, splitting in a laugh or a huff or a gasp of surprise; lips Ed wants to delve with his tongue or his fingers or his cock, to find the heat hidden underneath, and—

“Ed?”

“Yea, right, fuckin’—” Ed clears his throat and throws the rest of the brandy back, tongue darting out to lick the last drop from the glass. The brandy is good, and his glass is empty, and his mind is pleasantly fuzzed, confidently lubed by alcohol, and Ed’s feeling braver than he’s ever felt before.

This is it.

When Ed finally sets his glass down and turns to look at Stede, the other man is staring at him with wide, hazel eyes and a blush dusting all the way down his bare chest, partially exposed under the languidly draped robe, nearly sliding off one freckled shoulder. Ed’s mouth is dry with want, and the words are choking him.

This is fucking it.

Ed opens his mouth and his voice is straining in his throat as he starts, “Stede, I lo—”

And then suddenly his mouth is silenced with moist heat, lips pressed against Stede’s, and his voice is choked and gone. The breath in his lungs escapes in a surprised huff of exertion as Stede hauls him forward by the collar of his shirt, crashing their lips together in an impatient, impassioned gesture that has Ed’s teeth rattling in his skull. It’s over as fast as it begins, Ed wide-eyed and flabbergasted, and then Stede is jerking back as if physically burned, shocked by his own actions.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry—” Stede lets go of Ed’s shirt, hands snapping back to tangle together in his own lap, wringing with worry. He’s crimson with embarrassment, gaze darting frantically over Ed’s face to gauge his reaction. “I—I don’t know what came over me—”

And Ed is just shocked—stomach-plummeting, jaw-dropping, speechlessly shocked—because Ed had this all planned out—kind of, maybe, by a generous definition of plan—and Stede just took Ed’s plan, ripped it to shreds and scattered it in the fucking breeze.

“I know—it’s—it’s stupid, I didn’t mean to take advantage of you, I—” Stede is still babbling nervously, eyelashes fluttering against those ruddy cheeks, matching Ed’s staccato heartbeat. “I think I just thought, you know, I’ve never, uh—I never really got that far with a man and I didn’t want to—to die without—I thought you’d, maybe, I don’t know, want to—”

“Yes,” Ed whispers, cutting Stede off before his explanation can carry farther, before his excuses somehow twist their situation into something unsalvageable.

It’s Stede’s turn to freeze mid-sentence and blink, owl-like, as his brain slowly processes the noise that Ed made and parses it into human speech. Ed can see the exact moment it clicks, the way his eyes widen minutely and the crease between his brows shifts from concern to surprise.

“What?”

“Yea, yes,” Ed repeats, voice gaining strength from his conviction. “Fuck yes—”

And then—straight out of one of the fantasies that Ed has cultivated over the years, pondering and refining and polishing after every meaningful encounter—Ed reaches out and trails one hand over Stede’s cheek, slow and careful, giving him plenty of time to pull away or retract his offer, and when he finally can’t wait a second longer, Ed leans forward and kisses Stede.

It’s soft, the briefest press of lips, and Ed savors every moment of it: the warmth in Stede’s mouth, the sweet tang of brandy between them, the little squeak of shock as Stede sucks in a breath halfway through.

And then—fuck, thank christ—Stede sinks into it, and suddenly there’s the incessant press of his mouth, the weight of his shoulders behind it, forcing Ed to lean back a little. And Stede pushes forward still, hands coming to rest at Ed’s shoulder and neck, tucking into his hair and gripping, hanging on for dear life, and it’s fucking amazing, better than Ed ever imagined; the heat of Stede’s mouth and the drag of his tongue and the soft, eager sounds caught between them—

Stede jerks back abruptly, and Ed has to drop his hand to plant firmly in the center of Stede’s chest to keep from toppling forward.

“Oh—” Stede gasps, all disheveled and pink-cheeked, lips glistening. “I—is—was that alright?”

His heart is hammering under Ed’s palm, so hard and fast that Ed’s afraid he’s about to have a cardiac event. Can’t have that, fucking dying during their last two days on earth, before they’ve even gotten to the good stuff.

Ed stares at him, incredulous. “Fuck, Stede, it’s more than alright.”

“Oh,” Stede replies, his wide eyes conveying equal parts bewilderment and arousal. Typical Stede: confused but determined, so enthusiastic that Ed can’t help but be absolutely enamored. “That’s good.”

“Did you, uh, want more?” Ed asks, because they’ve been staring at each other awkwardly for what feels like an eternity, and they don’t have that kind of fucking time.

“More?” Stede asks, quizzical, and then the flush on his face darkens and he goes wide-eyed. “More, uh—yes! Alright!”

It’s overly loud, an exclamation of confidence Stede clearly doesn’t feel, and as Stede sits bolt upright as the reality of the situation hits him, Ed grabs his hand.

“Only if you want to, mate, it’s just—it’s an offer, I don’t want to make you uncomfortable,” Ed loosens his grip a bit, his booze-addled brain trying to tamp down his eagerness, tutting about consent and boundaries, “You shouldn’t do anything that makes you uncomfortable.”

Stede takes a breath, in through his nose, whistling out of his mouth in a huff of impatience. “Thank you, Ed, I appreciate that. But… what exactly are you offering?”

Ed shrugs, an easy roll of his shoulders that belies the frantic desire churning in his gut. “Just—whatever, I guess. Whatever you want.” He forces a laugh, a sharp exhale that he tries to turn into an easy chuckle, disguising the strain in his voice. “I’m up for anything.”

It’s not a lie—not entirely. Ed is up for anything, physical or otherwise, but mostly he just wants to tell Stede how he feels, with the little time they have left. To have the chance to unburden his heart, to find out, once and for all, whether Stede feels the same. He just has to find the right time, the right words. No fucking pressure, or anything.

Stede is studying him silently, still blushing and fidgeting and glancing around the room as if he doesn’t know how to handle this information, as if he’s parsing Ed’s offer and his brain is shorting out every time he realizes the meaning.

Ed gathers his courage, throws caution entirely to the wind, and with Stede’s wrist grasped delicately in his hand, he pulls forward and down, slowly, carefully—watching Stede’s face for any hint of discomfort, for any sign that he wants to pull away—and drags Stede’s curled fingers against the groin of his leather pants. The ghostly friction sends a jolt of electricity down his spine and Ed resists the urge to roll his hips upward.

“Anything, Stede,” He murmurs, watching as the other man’s gaze snaps from Ed’s groin back up to his face. “Whatever you’re comfortable with.”

Stede’s eyes grow dark and his features shift, determined, and Ed learns what it feels like when smoldering embers burst into flame.

“Alright,” Stede replies, flexing his fingers and gripping, and Ed sucks in a breath with the sudden increase of friction, unable to stop his hips from shifting. “Bedroom, now.”

In Ed’s numerous fantasies—ones where Stede is domineering and confident, and Ed is pliant in his his firm grasp—he obeys immediately, jumping to attention and following Stede’s every command, does his best to be good and keen and reverent, and Stede rewards him with sweet praise and the weight of his cock on Ed’s tongue and the hot, thick pulse of his release down Ed’s throat, and—

In reality, Ed jerks himself upright in his haste to obey, and an icepick of fucking lightening drives up his leg from his knee to his groin. He makes a strangled sound, biting back a grunt of pain, and shifts his weight to his other leg to compensate, but it’s too late.

“Oh, god, Ed—” Stede’s on his feet in an instant, words full of worry and the moment ruined. He tucks an arm under Ed’s shoulder and leverages him upright to take some of his weight. “Are you alright? Shit, I’m sorry—”

“No,” Ed snaps, more terse than he means to be. “Don’t be—fuck—don’t be sorry, not your fault.”

They stand there for a moment in silence, with Stede supporting his weight while Ed breathes in through his nose and out through clenched teeth, waiting for the pain in his leg to fade to a dull ache. Although the initial shock of pain is always the sharpest, Ed knows the ensuing tightness will do more to cripple him in the next few days. Not that it fucking matters; he was planning on spending them in bed anyway.

“I’m fine, it’s fine,” Ed says, as soon as he can put a reasonable amount of weight on the leg. Stede doesn’t let his shoulder go though, clings even tighter despite Ed’s assurances.

Fuck Ed’s luck, this is exactly the type of self-cock-blocking he’s perfected over eight years of quiet pining for Stede Bonnet. Telling him to make sure he was certain about the divorce, encouraging him to try Grindr—which, thank fuck, didn’t ever pass any major bases—telling Stede to take it slow with defining who he was and what he wanted. In retrospect, maybe Ed’s a bit of a coward.

But now Ed is brave, and now Ed wants, more than anything—with the taste of Stede lingering on his tongue, the pressure of his grip bruising Ed’s muscles—and his fucking body is giving out on him.

“Maybe we should sit back down,” Stede offers, starting to tug Ed toward the couch.

“No,” he side-steps, trying to shake Stede off, valiantly demonstrating his convalescence.

“Edward—” Stede’s tone is scolding and assertive, and normally that strikes heat in Ed’s veins, but he has three fucking days, and refuses to entertain the idea of wasting any remaining time on coddling his uncooperative limbs.

Stede is still trying to muscle him back down onto the couch, but Ed is more flexible and manages to twist from his grip, turning the tables to grab at Stede’s hands to draw him close. “Stede, stop.”

“Your knee is—”

“—fucking fine,” Ed cuts in, half-growled, as wraps a hand around Stede’s waist and tugs him in to prove his point. Stede is caught off guard, falling into Ed’s grasp easily—and, admittedly, his knee does feel laced with battery acid—but Ed works his frustration out with another kiss, this one messy and desperate, a plea to pick up where they left off.

Stede holds off for a solitary breath, brave in the face of Ed’s wandering hands, the determined way he edges his thigh forward between Stede’s legs with a promise of friction; and then his resolve breaks in a sudden gasp as he melts into Ed’s touch, fingers winding into Ed’s hair and roughly tugging his head into a better position. And oh, fuck, Ed’s knees are threatening to buckle just from that, but Stede presses forward: his tongue is hot and insistent against the seam of Ed’s lips, and it’s so easy to just open for him, to let him delve deeper, to let him take what he wants, until they’re half-leaning, half-shoving against one another in a bid to stay upright.

When Stede tips his head back to gasp for air, Ed is relentless: one palm splayed firmly against his back, holding him close, while the other hand cradles the back of Stede’s head and tilts his head further back, exposing the long, sinewy muscles of his neck.

“Ed,” Stede moans, eyelashes fluttering against the first ticklish whisper of Ed’s beard against his collarbone, as Ed worries a bruise at the juncture of his shoulder, tasting each freckle.

“You wanna stop?” Ed mouths against his skin, teeth scraping pointedly and drawing a sharp gasp from Stede’s lips. So many miles of skin to map, to taste, to touch—and so little precious time for it—and he has to pick and choose, what to savor and what to neglect, and it’s so fucking unfair, an absolute travesty that Ed doesn’t have the fucking time. “You wanna quit here?”

“N—no,” Stede manages, putty in Ed’s arms as he leans into it, fingertips unconsciously massaging Ed’s scalp, pushing him gently closer. “I want—”

Ed slides both hands down, to gather at the crest of Stede’s hips, and with his good leg planted firmly between Stede’s he drags their hips together, smoothly building friction with each gentle rolling motion. It’s fucking exquisite, the pressure, the way Stede immediately meets his every movement, grinding against the thickness of Ed’s thigh with choked noises of pleasure caught so high in his throat that Ed can feel the moans jumping under Stede’s skin.

Ed drops his forehead to Stede’s shoulder, panting for breath as he increases the pressure, fingers digging into soft flesh, trying not to use his fingernails to grip and urge Stede forward. But it’s not enough, it’s not fucking enough, this slow build of heat between them with no outlet—no slick heat, no flexing tightness, no variable pressure from lips or tongue or fingers—just the uncomfortably tight press of restrictive clothing.

“Bedroom?” Ed begs.

Stede disentangles himself, reducing their frantic rutting into a meager hint of friction. “Are you sure? I don’t want you to hurt yourself, and your knee…”

“We can figure it out, Stede,” Ed pleads, determined not to waste precious time. He’s been deliberately shifting his weight onto his good leg, held upright partially by how closely he’s been clinging to Stede, but the ache is settling in his bones, now, and it won’t be long until his leg stiffens up so much that he can’t bend the knee to get in and out of bed without significant pain. So he wants to get in the fucking bed, now, while he has the chance.

Stede catches his hands, holds them steady long enough to look into Ed’s eyes. “If you’re sure…”

“Never been more sure of anything in my life, Stede.” Ed puts his whole heart behind it, and Stede must understand, he must see the words still rattling around in Ed’s brain, because he finally nods.

The route to Stede’s bedroom is a lazy, meandering ramble across the apartment: stopping to lean against the back of the couch, with Stede’s fingers tickling up under the hem of Ed’s shirt, dragging fingers up his back; pausing in the hallway so that Ed can press him up against the wall and slide the robe off his body one freckled shoulder at a time, feeling Stede’s full-body shiver as the cooler air hits his skin; bumping into the dresser inelegantly as Stede tries to steady them, struggling ineffectually with the buckles of Ed’s pants.

All the while, Ed is tasting him. The softness of his lips and the heat of his tongue, faint with sweet brandy. The curve of his jawline, the light scrap of his stubble against Ed’s lips as he finds his way from one side to the other. The freckles that dust the high slopes of his shoulders, leading Ed down, down, down—winding along his arms like a slithering snake—to the supple skin of his wrist, pulse beating hard under Ed’s mouth. The soft flesh of his palm, the meat below his thumb, the knobs of his knuckles, one by one.

Ed wants to worship him, wants to taste every inch of skin until he has it memorized, until there’s nothing else left in his mind except Stede.

“Honestly, Ed, what the fuck?” Stede asks, still struggling with the pants. He’s managed to get the zipper undone but the buttons are small and slippery, and Ed keeps distracting him.

“They look cool,” Ed replies, answering the unasked question of why anyone would wear leather in this day and age. He stops Stede’s fumbling hands, swatting them away as he makes quick work of the buttons and remaining buckles, and starts to shove the pants down his hips.

They do look cool—extremely fucking cool—but they are neither easy to put on nor take off, and it’s not long before Ed is struggling to push the leather down sticky skin of his thighs. Stede tries to help, tugging further down near Ed’s ankles to force the fabric to give a bit, and Ed nearly knees him in the face in the process.

“Ok, look, Ed, if you just—sit, alright?” Stede snaps, the bitchiness in his tone almost enough to make Ed’s toes curl.

Ed obeys, shuffling over to the bed and sitting down on the edge, so that Stede can kneel between his legs—and fuck, god, that’s the best thing Ed’s seen in ages—and slowly work the leather pants off his legs, one by one. Before long Ed’s sitting shirtless and pantless on the bed, the loose fabric of his boxers already tenting, leaning back on his arms as he watches Stede fling the offending pants aside as if exorcizing a demon.

Golden curls mussed, cheeks pink with exertion and brandy and arousal, Stede’s lips are shining as his tongue darts out to moisten them, eyes roving up Ed’s mostly-naked body as if he’s looking at a buffet bar. It sends a shiver down Ed’s spine, to be looked like that: like Stede wants to devour him.

When Stede finally meets his eyes, there’s a heat in them unlike anything Ed’s ever seen before. “You’re gorgeous.”

Ed finds he has no retort, no clever deflection to keep the blush from rising to his cheeks. He’s speechless, heart beating against the cage of his ribs, fingers trembling where they’re fisted in the sheets to keep himself tethered to the earth. Stede’s praise is so sweet and earnest and honest, it makes Ed’s bones turn to jelly.

“Stede…” Ed huffs, diverting his gaze for a moment to try and gather his racing thoughts, throat tight with the desire to say something back, something half as devastating as what Stede just said to him. Something he’s been dying to say since the moment he turned on the television this morning.

Ed doesn’t get the chance. Stede rises up, crawling onto the bed between Ed’s legs, slowly forcing him backwards into the center of the mattress to make room.

And then after that it turns out Ed doesn’t really need words, after all.

Stede is somehow everywhere: his strong forearms bracketing Ed’s head, one thigh pressing between Ed’s legs, lips mapping invisible paths along Ed’s collarbone and neck and shoulder. Ed’s lost in the sea of it all, the swell of desire that starts in his toes and ripples up his body, cresting in the juncture of his hips. His entire body is thrumming with want, a growing tension that shortens his breath and curls his toes, and Stede is there with him, stoking the flames.

“Fuck, god,” Ed gasps, as Stede drags the flat of his tongue over a nipple, hot and heavy, and Ed can’t resist holding his head in place and arching into it. “Feels so fuckin’ good—”

Stede just hums in agreement—or perhaps in pride—and rolls his hips again, the hard line in his briefs grinding down into the soft flesh of Ed’s inner thigh. He moans against Ed’s skin, fingertips suddenly digging into Ed’s sides as if he’s trying to ground himself, to keep himself from going overboard.

“I need more,” Stede pants.

He levers himself up, arms straight as if to keep the mattress at bay, raising his hips to create a gulf between their bodies. Ed is bereft, trying not to writhe below him, resisting the urge to arch upward like a seedling seeking light.

Stede’s hair is mussed and his lips are swollen and kiss-bruised. “Ed, fuck, I need—”

“Anything,” Ed cuts him off, resting impatient hands against his thighs. “Fuck, mate, whatever you want.”

Stede is flushed, eyes blown dark and chest heaving, as he hovers over Ed and studies him for a long moment, as if trying to measure how much to ask for. Ed’s heart aches a bit, in a different way—the realization that there must be something Stede’s afraid to tell him, even after all these years.

“Stede, just say it,” Ed continues, nearly pleading. He fucking hates reminding himself of the circumstances of their situation, but it’s the only ace he has up his sleeve. “We don’t have all day.”

It could backfire, technically: under pressure, Stede’s just as likely to crumple into a heap and have a panic attack as he is to dig his heels in and bulldoze onward; but Ed’s known him for almost a decade now, and he knows that when push comes to shove, Stede is a man of action.

“I—” Stede swallows, the flush darkening on his cheeks as he stares Ed down. “I want you to fuck me.”

Fuck. Man of fucking action, indeed.

“That’s—yea,” Ed blinks up at him in surprise, a little rattled by Stede’s conviction. “I’d fucking—yea. That sounds great.”

Stede deflates a little, and Ed can feel the chuckle of relief reverberating in his body. “Oh, thank goodness. I wasn’t sure you’d want to.”

“Stede,” Ed bites his lip, tries not to blurt out every raunchy fantasy he’s ever entertained in the last several years. Instead he raises his hips a little, dragging Stede’s hips down at the same time, bringing their bodies back into brief, exquisite contact. He drops his voice, lets the heat creep into his tone. “D’you see what you do to me?”

Another roll of their hips together, just enough so that Stede can feel how fucking hard Ed is, how there’s already wetness gathering at the front of his boxers, the way his cock jumps as their hips nudge together. Stede tilts his head back, enjoying the friction, and when he finally looks back down at Ed his eyes are dark and deep.

“Alright,” Stede murmurs, nodding absently as he grinds down, sending another spark of heat down Ed’s spine. “I see your point.”

Ed snorts, bemused, and levers himself up on an elbow. “How do you wanna do this?”

“I was thinking, um, because of your knee—I don’t want you to get hurt. So, maybe,” Stede tips his head down coyly, and glances up at Ed through his lashes. “I could ride you.”

“Yea—fuck—yep.”

This time Ed can’t resist, he has to make sure Stede knows; he cups a hand around the back of Stede’s neck and draws him in for a kiss. Hours pass, or maybe seconds, but Ed is lost in the slick heat of it, the drag of their tongues, the way Stede’s small noises of pleasure are caught between their lips. And then Stede lowers the rest of his body, flush against Ed’s, getting just enough leverage from his elbows to grind down against Ed’s hips, and Ed suddenly realizes how little time they have left.

“Mate, I can’t—” Ed breaks the kiss regretfully. “We won’t get to the main event if you keep doing that.”

“Fair,” Stede laughs, tipping his head back, teeth glinting in the afternoon light that filters through the curtains. “Just give me a moment.”

He climbs off the bed and starts digging around in the nightstand, grumbling to himself. It gives Ed room to maneuver into a better position, lying back in the center of the mattress with his head propped up on the pillows. He takes the opportunity to shed his boxers, giving his cock a few quick strokes to ease the tension that’s been building.

“Oh—” Stede squeaks when he turns around, gripping a small, capped bottle of lube.

Ed grins, basking in the moment, as Stede stares at him, wide-eyed and flushed with want, his gaze zeroed in on where Ed’s cock lies, heavy and full, against his abdomen. “Like what you see?”

“Yes,” Stede whispers, gaze still wandering, drinking in the sight before him. He climbs slowly back on the bed, reaching one hand out to trail his fingertips down the sinuous, hatched ink trailing from Ed’s hip to the top of his knee—tā moko puhoro like cresting waves, curling tempestuously across his skin—a metaphor for all the too-quick, never-ending churn in Ed’s brain.

Stede’s only seen glimpses of the bottom of the tattoo, near Ed’s knee, peeking out from under boxers or swim trunks or board shorts, when the weather was finally too muggy for leather. His fingertips are ghostly, reverent, tracing the lines upward, from the knob of Ed’s knee to the crest of his hip. As Stede follows the trail along Ed’s inner thigh, it sends a shiver up his spine, reigniting the fire in his veins.

“You are beautiful, Edward.” Stede finally looks up at him again, face serious.

And fuck, Ed can’t have that—all these feelings bubbling in his chest like a cauldron, threatening to spill over at those words—kind words. Not when his own words are so clumsy and inadequate.

Ed huffs again, overwhelmed and bare and more than a little vulnerable under Stede’s fond scrutiny, and waves a hand to beckon him closer. “Alright, alright, c’mon, mate—get your knickers off.”

Stede turns around, sending the mattress bouncing as he shimmies out of his briefs and tosses them on the floor, looking a bit embarrassed as he looks over his shoulder. He holds up his other hand, still gripping the small bottle of lube.

“This is all I have,” He says, eyes searching Ed’s face nervously. “No condoms.”

“Do we need them? It’s been a few years and my last test was clean.” Ed shrugs. He doesn’t bring up the fact that they have less than a week before the world ends, and catching something is the least of Ed’s worries right now.

Stede scoots closer shyly. “Me too, I guess. No one since Mary.”

“Fuck,” Ed says, because, christ, that’s such a long time, and he doesn’t understand how Stede hasn’t exploded from unresolved sexual tension by now.

“I mean, I’ve—you know,” A blush brightens on Stede’s cheeks, and he scans the room as if he’s searching for somewhere to hide. “I’ve used toys. And my fingers.”

“Fuck,” Ed repeats, counting his lucky stars that Stede wasn’t actually grinding down against him while saying those words, otherwise that would’ve been it. “You can’t just say shit like that, mate. That’s so fucking hot.”

Stede blinks in surprise. “Really?”

“Absofuckinglutely.” Ed levers himself more upright, draws Stede close to kiss him, hard and deep; he can’t have Stede questioning this, wondering if Ed wants something else—someone else—when all Ed wants is this.

Ed can feel the tension slip from Stede’s shoulders, the smile that curves his lips even as Ed is busy licking into his mouth, trying to kiss the grin right off his face. Stede gives in easily, fingers threading into Ed’s hair and pulling even closer, and soon he’s panting against Ed’s mouth and shuffling around on the bed blindly, until he’s straddling Ed’s hips.

The heat of his body is pinning Ed against the mattress, heavy and solid, like a stone that Ed would give anything to be crushed under. The blush is still vibrant on the apple of Stede’s cheeks and he leans forward self-consciously, hunching over to kiss Ed again. The motion brings his cock to slide against Ed’s, an exquisite, velvet-soft friction that sends every nerve tingling.

“Fuckyes,” Ed manages, moaning the words directly into Stede’s mouth as his hands fly to grip at the other man’s waist, providing leverage to roll their hips together again.

“Ed—” Stede gives a choked little cry, resting his forehead against Ed’s shoulder as he pants, letting Ed’s hands rock him back and forth. He starts to move more urgently, hips rolling of their own accord, and soon Ed is just digging his fingernails into Stede’s flesh and hanging on for dear life.

“Let me, please, fuck, Stede—” Ed holds him down, tries to still his movements lest they drive Ed prematurely over the edge. “Let me touch you.”

Stede nods absently, leaning back a little bit to create space between their bodies, fumbling around on the covers for the dropped lube. He presses it back into Ed’s hands and then goes to lean back down, stopping when Ed places a hand on his chest.

“C’mere,” Ed gestures toward the head of the bed. “Closer, Stede—closer.”

Stede’s nearly sitting on his chest now, brows furrowed skeptically as he lets Ed’s hands guide him, and after a moment he finally catches on and the flush dusting his chest amplifies. “Ed, you—are you sure?”

“Yes, fuck, I’ve been wanting to get my mouth on you for—” Ed’s breath hitches, and he swallows, trying not to give too much away. “Just let me suck your cock, christ.”

Stede lets out a nervous, breathy laugh, then finally shifts closer, so that his cock hangs heavy and stiff right near Ed’s mouth when he kneels. “Like this?”

“Just like that, fuck,” Ed can hardly get the words out with his mouth watering as it is, eager to taste Stede on his tongue. “Spread your legs a bit.”

Stede follows his guidance, knees pushed wider, and he grips the headboard and leans forward, resting his forehead on his arms, his eyes bright with eagerness despite the lingering furrow of skepticism on his brows. That won’t do; Ed’s determined to make him feel so good he never doubts Ed’s intentions again.

“This ok?” Ed asks, drawing a hand slowly up the back of Stede’s thigh, ghosting it over the curve of his ass. “Feel good so far?”

Stede nods and hums breathily in agreement, angling himself slightly to give Ed better access. Ed takes a moment to fiddle with the lube, squeezing a generous amount to smear against his fingers. He reaches back up, fingers meandering back to slide against the cleft of Stede’s ass, the lightest touch against the warm muscle that he’s been dreaming about for years.

Stede jumps at the sensation, his hips jerking involuntarily, bringing his cock closer to Ed’s face. “Oh.”

Eyes pinned to Stede’s face, looking up at him coyly from under dark lashes, Ed wraps his other hand around the base of Stede’s cock and guides him even closer, until all he has to do is tilt his chin and part his lips, and Stede’s cock is there—right there, precum beading at the tip and smearing across Ed’s lower lip—and Ed flicks his tongue out against the head of Stede’s cock, teasing.

“Oh, Ed, yes—” Stede groans, the headboard creaking as he shifts against it, leaning forward more.

After that it’s fucking easy—Ed just has to give into it, let himself get lost in the hot, heavy weight of Stede on his tongue, the symphony of gasps and groans and fuck, oh, fuck that echoes around the room as Ed laves his tongue up and down the length of Stede’s cock before parting his lips and swallowing him down, down, down into the wet heat of his mouth.

Stede’s voice catches in his throat, a breathy whine, and it turns into a gasp of shocked pleasure as Ed’s fingertip delves in, slick with lube and probing, in and in and in.

“Oh my god—” Stede’s hips buck forward involuntarily, reacting to Ed’s touch, and it forces his cock further past Ed’s lips, and it’s so fucking good, the stretch in the muscle of his jaw—just the right side of pain, just enough to make Ed blink hard—and then his cock bumps the back of Ed’s throat.

“Ed, shit, sorry—” He makes to pull back, but Ed catches his hip and holds him firm. He glances up at Stede through his lashes, blinking back the tears, and Stede watches him with a half-wrecked look on his face, hair mussed and chest splotched red with desire, as Ed does something swirly with his tongue and then hollows his cheeks, sucking.

“Oh, fuck!” Stede gasps, every limb tense and trembling as he holds himself suspended between Ed’s hand and mouth, afraid to move in either direction.

Ed moans again, low and needy, and he can tell Stede can feel it in his bones by the way he shudders and shifts back again. Ed raises his head to take more of his cock, and it’s a clear enough signal for Stede to understand; he eases his hips forward again, leans back over the headboard with a wrecked noise, like a sob is caught somewhere in his chest.

“That feels so good, ah—ah, you’re so good, so good,” Stede chants, rocking hips back and forth in a tiny rhythm, and each movement slides his cock further into Ed’s mouth, or Ed’s finger further into Stede’s body—back and forth, tiny little rolls of his hips, until Ed’s finger is buried to the last knuckle and he can feel Stede clench around him every time his cock hits the back of Ed’s throat.

“More, please, more—Ed, please,” Stede whines, the movement of his hips getting reckless now. Ed obliges him, and curls his finger, stroking firmly against that spot inside Stede, drawing a shocked moan from his lips. “Fuck, oh my god—”

Stede drives his hips back, almost violent as he grinds down against Ed’s hand, against the finger curling inside him, and the motion finally draws his cock free from Ed’s mouth with a slick pop. Stede’s hazel eyes are wide and surprised as he stares down at Ed, and for a moment Ed is equally uncertain.

“Okay?” Ed asks, throat rough from use, and he knows his beard is a fucking mess of spit and precum but he doesn’t care. Ed stops moving, finger stilling inside Stede’s body. “Stede, you okay?”

Stede takes a shuddering breath, squeezing his eyes shut as he nods. “Y—yes, just—just need a moment, sorry.”

“Stede—” Ed manages to find more of his voice, tries to capture the soft, vulnerable emotions roiling in his mind even though his tone is hoarse. “Talk to me, please.”

His voice is a little tight, a little hysterical when Stede finally blurts out, “Ed, I don’t want to come like this.”

“Oh.”

Ed’s heart drops like a stone in still water, sinking down so quickly that his head swims with the realization. Fuck. This was too fast, it was too much for Stede, Ed pushed him too far. He was mistaken, this was not what Stede wanted, Ed’s ruined everything and there’s not enough time to patch it all back together before—

“I want to come on your cock,” Stede pleads, and he looks so wrecked that for a moment Ed mistakes his desperate, needy tone for despair, instead of arousal so searing that he’s barely hanging on. “I want to come while you’re in me.”

Oh. Oh, fuck.

And, yea, alright—Ed knows what it’s like to be hanging on by a thread, he’s been hanging on by a fucking thread for years now—and as Ed’s heartbeat slows its panic, all he manages is to nod in agreement because all the words have leaked straight out of his fucking brain.

“That’s alright?” Stede asks, voice tremulous, and Ed realizes that he’s worried about ruining everything, too.

What a perfect fucking idiot, an absolutely gorgeous lunatic.

Pot, kettle, whatever.

“Stede, of course, shit,” Ed mutters, stroking his free hand down the thick of Stede’s thigh in what he hopes is a calming gesture. “Just—I—just a bit more, please, Stede, trust me.”

Ed flexes his finger lightly, the slightest curl that causes Stede’s eyelashes to flutter against his cheeks, and when he opens his wide, dark, hazel eyes again, he nods firmly.

“Alright,” Stede agrees, with all the charming resolve of someone who’s determined to try their fucking heart out. “Whatever you think is best.”

Ed logs that one away for later, because fuck—his imagination has a whole fucking catalog of what Ed thinks is best: never getting out of this fucking bed again; letting Stede fuck into his mouth until he’s shattering apart and coming hard down Ed’s throat; letting Stede fuck him, slow and sweet and gentle, bringing him to the edge over and over again until they finally tumble over together, sweaty limbs and aching muscles and memories that Ed will cherish for the rest of their terribly, terribly short lives.

But now’s not the fucking time to dwell on that.

Now’s the time to get Stede good and ready, to coax him just a bit further, until he’s just a bit more relaxed, until he’s ready to sink down onto Ed’s waiting cock, the velvet heat of his body everywhere, everywhere, until there’s nothing left but for them to move, together, until they fall apart.

“Nice and slow,” Ed murmurs, using his free hand to guide Stede back into position, half-bent over with both hands gripping the headboard, white-knuckled.

Ed, valiantly, ignores the fact that Stede’s cock is mere inches from his face and still swollen and slick with Ed’s spit, and that his mouth and tongue are still aching from the stretch of it—no, fuck.

If Stede can try, so can Ed; he can set aside his selfish need to choke on Stede’s cock, to feel the pulse of him, salt-musk and sweat, to swallow down every last drop until Stede is over-sensitive and soft again.

Fuck, focus.

Ed’s mouth waters from the thought of it, but he stares up into Stede’s wide, incredulous eyes, and purposely keeps the fingers on his free hand clenched against Stede’s hip. Ed can try. Ed can fucking do it.

“Nice and slow,” Stede echoes softly, his demeanor calmer, blissfully unaware of the turmoil unfolding in Ed’s skull. He flexes a little, clenching down on the finger still inside his body, and Ed takes it as the cue that Stede’s ready to continue.

“That’s it,” Ed murmurs, finger moving slowly, sliding out and then in again in slow pulses, until Stede is rocking his hips again in tandem. He doesn’t twist his wrist or curl his finger—even though the look on Stede’s face was fucking exquisite, the long lines of his neck taut with pleasure as he threw his head back and gasped—he just lets Stede fuck himself with Ed’s hand, until he feels slick and relaxed.

“Ah, that feels good, just like that,” Stede hums, head tipped back again as he lets himself get lost in the pleasure of it, making soft little sounds of appreciation as Ed keeps moving, slow and steady.

“Ready for a bit more?” Ed murmurs, pulling back slowly, adding a second finger to prod at the tense muscle.

When Stede meets his eyes—with those golden curls askew on his forehead, plastered down by sweat, the sheen spreading down his chest and arms—he looks drunk with pleasure, gaze hazy and half-lidded. He nods, tipping his head down again to rest against his forearms, arching his back a little as he spreads his legs, eager and wanton.

“Tell me, Stede,” Ed murmurs, because he wants to hear those words fall from Stede’s pretty, flushed lips, to hear his voice scraped raw with need, to hear the desperation in his tone.

Stede rewards him easily, panting as he finds the words. “Ed, more, please—”

“That’s it,” Ed purrs, fingers working slowly, so fucking slowly, pressing and stretching and sliding, so easily, so fucking easily, into Stede’s body. He works them in, agonizingly careful, knuckle after knuckle, until his fingers are flush and all Ed can feel is the tight, slick heat of him.

“Ed—ah, ’s—feels incredible—” Stede’s words are tumbling from him now, a mix of syllables and guttural sounds, slurred together into nonsense praise that strokes Ed’s ego and sends licks of fire down his spine. He can feel Stede moving around his fingers, alternately clenching and relaxing, rocking his hips back to meet Ed’s knuckles, the tremor of his strong thighs as he holds himself tense like a mooring line in a storm, holding the pleasure firmly at bay.

“Just a bit longer,” Ed praises softly, his free hand stroking along Stede’s thigh encouragingly. “Just a bit more.”

“Ed, god, please—” Stede chokes, eyes screwed shut tight.

But Ed wants to be sure, wants this to be good—so fucking mindblowing that Stede will see stars and it won’t just be from a comet falling from the fucking sky—and fuck, yea, he wants to see Stede writhe a little, wants to feel Stede falling apart on just his fingers alone.

“That’s it, Stede, you’re doing so well,” Ed murmurs, fingers moving deliberately, the sound of Stede’s moaning like music to his ears.

And Stede has been so good, he’s tried so hard, and Ed can see every cord of muscle on his neck from how he’s straining so hard to keep himself together, to resist giving into the pleasure that Ed knows is sparking along his spine, that Ed himself is slowly stroking to a blazing inferno.

When Stede bites his lip and whimpers, Ed stills his fingers. “Breathe, Stede. Breathe for me.”

Stede breathes out, shuddering, and sucks another deep lungful like he’s breaking through the surface of choppy water. Ed doesn’t move, manages to resist—fucking miraculous self-control, Ed has—stroking his fingers again, seeking out that bundle of nerves that he knows will send Stede over the edge in an instant. Stede sucks in another breath, a little more controlled this time; then another, and another.

When Stede is merely panting, Ed slides his fingers out, nice and slow, the simmer in his hips curling into hot satisfaction as Stede lets out a weak moan and shifts his hips back, chasing Ed’s fingers. He waits for Stede to catch his breath again, for his face to grow slack, for his eyes to open.

“Edward,” Stede whispers, looking down at him like a debauched angel, ready to fall.

“Yea?” Ed purrs, and he can’t help it, he’s fucking grinning. Because Stede looks wrecked, looks like he’s stretched so thin that a slight breeze might send him spinning out of control—and Ed did that to him. And Ed knows what good sex looks like—and what bad sex looks like, and what sex you wish you’d never had looks like—and he knows, in his bones, this is fucking good.

Stede licks his lips and asks, “Will you please fuck me now?”

And honestly, how can Ed say no?

He barely has time to nod before Stede is shimmying back down the bed, dropping one elbow to bracket Ed’s head—his other hand fumbling to find the lube tangled in the sheets—and then he leans down for another heated kiss.

It’s languid, a momentary lapse of urgency as Stede slides a hand along Ed’s shoulder, cradling him, keeping him close—held. Ed’s head swims with the gentleness of it, with the half-formed words that Stede is moaning against his lips, you’re perfect and so beautiful, soft whispers of truth that Stede is trying to hide in Ed’s mouth for safekeeping. They sound like promises, like hopes, like words Stede has been holding back for some time.

“Stede—” Ed pauses, coming up for air, cradling his jaw and stroking a thumb along the rough gold-red stubble of his perfect, naked chin.

“Mm?” Stede levers himself upright, looking at Ed expectantly.

And this could be another chance, for Ed to say the words—this isn’t just sex, it’s feelings, it’s more, has always been more; a chance for Stede to reciprocate or maybe deflect, because who wants to unpack nearly a decade of emotional baggage in the middle of fucking? The words catch in Ed’s throat, spiny and brittle.

When Ed doesn’t respond immediately Stede shifts, sitting back on his haunches, and the movement brings the muscular swell of his ass to press against Ed’s cock. “Alright?”

“Y—yea,” Ed nods, thoughts scattering to the wind as Stede shifts again, unconsciously seeking friction; the warm caress of bare skin against the thousand pinprick nerves that jump to attention with the slightest pressure—and Ed forgets about all the cracked and flayed emotions that are ballooning in his chest, his ribs aching with it. “All good.”

Stede studies him for a moment, eyes dark and discerning as they pore over Ed’s face in silence: his eyebrows arch, just minutely enough to indicate skepticism, but then his lips curve in a smile, coy and confident, and he wraps a firm grip around Ed’s cock.

“Fff—ah—” The curse hangs in Ed’s throat as he tosses his head back in surprise, hair spilling over the pillows as Stede’s grip loosens and he moves his hand, slow and steady, root to tip.

And if Ed had been asked, last night or the previous Wednesday or the Saturday before—when he was sweat-streaked and tangled in his own sheets, stripping his cock with this very image in his mind, of Stede’s soft palm stroking him with purpose, coming to the thought of his touch and his lips and his body—Ed would’ve said this was a dream. A favorite escape from reality, an illusion that Ed was happy to be bewitched by: but never something he expected to become true, not yet.

And although now is not the time for a significant amount of deep reflection—not with Stede’s fingers now slick with lube and gliding up and down Ed’s cock in a steady, twisting rhythm—Ed manages to rub two brain cells together long enough to realize that maybe pining for Stede felt safer than actually putting himself out there, that the risk felt too great.

But not now: not with his hips arcing with the movement of Stede’s hand, not with the fire pooling down his spine and settling dangerously in his hips, not with the shocking, full-body electric jolt as Stede rubs his thumb against the slit of Ed’s cockhead, smearing the precum that’s been gathering.

Ed pants, eye snapping open and both hands flying to grip Stede’s wrist, stilling his movement. “Fuck, Stede, wait—”

His cock is so hard it’s aching, and it doesn’t help that Stede is looking down at him with a mildly smug expression, as if he’s thoroughly enjoying the fact that Ed is teetering on the edge for the umpteenth time this evening. If Ed weren’t so fucking in love with the man, he’d be annoyed.

“Thought you wanted to come on my cock, yea?” Ed manages, voice gravely with need, and that wipes the smirk right off Stede’s face.

“Yes,” Stede agrees, suddenly repentant as he raises his hips and shimmies forward on his knees.

And then he’s hovering over Ed, bracing himself with one hand fisted in the sheets and the other gripping Ed’s cock gently, and Stede repositions and arches and lowers himself, slow and steady—sinking down, down, down, a stone in still water tumbling into the abyss, just as Ed’s head is tumbling with sensation—searing heat and the tight clench of muscle, just one languid motion until Ed’s fully seated.

Ed blinks away the shock, sucks in a gasped breath as Stede starts to move.

“Oh, fuck—” Ed’s hands fly up to grip at Stede’s hips as he shifts, rocking back and forth, the slide so exquisite that it knocks the breath from Ed’s lungs. “That’s it, yes, that’s fucking it—”

Stede levers himself more upright, lower back arching as he finds a better angle, leans into it, legs working. He’s shorter than Ed but broader, built wider, and his massive thighs are pinning Ed to the mattress easily, giving Stede all the control as he grinds down and rolls his hips back up.

“Ed, ah—you’re incredible,” Stede tilts his head back as he moans the words, as if he’s singing Ed’s praises to the heavens. “You feel so good—”

Stede moves like he was made for this: his broad chest glistening with sweat and glinting with a dusting of rust-gold hair; his head tossed back and back arched so that Ed can see the strain of his muscles with every lift of his hips, flexing and trembling with the effort of keeping the rhythm slow and controlled; one of his hands gripping tightly at the muscle of Ed’s thigh, fingertips clinging to the tā moko puhoro like a ship rolling on an uncontrollable wave, tossed on a roiling ocean of pleasure that threatens to spill over with every crest and trough of his movements.

Ed feels it rising in him like a tsunami: the pleasure, the tightness in his chest filling to bursting, the words caught in his throat. Stede is like a breathtaking work of art, every rough sketched fantasy that Ed’s entertained for years a pale imitation of this living, breathing, moving—oh, fuck, the way he moves—sculpture of exquisite beauty.

“Stede, I—” Ed feels that the swell of desire, the crest that is building in the marrow of his bones. The words are right there, choking him, driving out of him. “I love—”

Stede tips his head down so quickly it sends an errant curl tumbling against the sweat of his forehead, and he pins Ed with a dark gaze, his pace quickening. “Yea?”

Ed’s caught under his stare, pinned under his weight, lost in the movement of his body. The air is punched from his lungs, the breath wordless on his lips.

Stede shifts again, leaning forward, and that changes everything—makes his body flex around Ed’s aching cock, tight and hot, makes it easier for Stede to pick up the pace. He braces himself with one hand digging into the pillow at Ed’s head, and wriggles his free hand between their bodies. He strokes himself, slow and purposeful, staring into Ed’s eyes before he lowers his head.

“Tell me what you love,” Stede huffs against the shell of Ed’s ear.

“I love—love the way you move,” Ed mumbles, his tongue thick in his mouth, trying out the words.

Stede moans against his neck in encouragement, mouthing a line along another tattoo winding down Ed’s shoulder. He pants, the hand on his cock working quickly now, chasing his orgasm with rough, erratic motions.

“Love your body, love—ah, fuck—” Ed digs his heels in, chases the heat of Stede’s body, up and up and up, driving up the cresting wave. “Love how you feel, how fuckin’—how tight you are, fuck—”

“More,” Stede gasps, dropping to an elbow. He clenches his thighs, heels digging into Ed’s body as if to urge him on, “Ed, please—I need more—”

The wave ahead is peaking, drawing all sensation in Ed’s body to a point, pushing all thought from his brain. He lets it pull him upward, lets the pleasure mount and build and crest, lets himself teeter on the edge—

“I love your laugh,” Ed is staring down at the long fall, and the words start tumbling from lips, easier than before. “Love your hair, your fucking—love—love your terrible fucking soup—ah, god—love kissing you, love touching you, love—”

Ed digs his heels into the mattress, ignores the twinge in his knee, and grips Stede’s waist firmly as he fucks up into his body, driving his hips down hard and fast, to meet each upward movement—

“Love your—your jokes, love the way you—” Ed tips his head back, screwing his eyes shut. “You hum when you clean—”

“Ed—”

Stede’s pleasure rings around the room as he spills over his fist, streaking Ed’s abdomen and chest pearly white, his body clenching and quivering and pulsing around Ed’s cock, and it’s too much—too much sensation, too tight and slick and hot—and Ed is in freefall, tumbling down into the abyss, thighs burning with exertion as he lifts himself, burying himself to the hilt, spilling inside Stede’s body with a shout that rattles his own ears.

Ed lets himself tumble down the wave uncontrolled, his body jerking involuntarily as Stede continues to move, riding it out, chasing every last drop of pleasure as he slows and steadies his movements.

Stede rests his forehead against Ed’s shoulder, nose smushed into the curve of Ed’s neck, breath hot and tickling the sweat on tattooed skin.

“That was… something,” Stede murmurs, pleased, when Ed raises a hand to rest it against his lower back, stroking gently, trying to reassure himself that the crushing weight of Stede’s body against his own is real.

Ed hums in agreement; his brain is still scrambled, and trying to put words in a certain order seems beyond him at the moment.

Stede levers himself upright, arms trembling slightly as he does so, and Ed takes him in: utterly debauched, chest ruddy with arousal, hair plastered flat against his forehead. His gaze, previously unfocused with the lingering haze of pleasure, suddenly sharpens when he lifts his hips and takes in the mess sandwiched between their bodies.

Ed loves the way Stede wrinkles his nose when he finds something distasteful.

“Stay,” Ed cajoles, exerting as much pressure as his tired limbs will allow, trying to pull Stede back down to cuddle against him.

“I’ll just be a moment,” Stede returns, shimmying himself off the bed carefully, mindful of Ed’s knee. “Just clean us up a bit, that’s all.”

That turns out to be a lie—and Ed should’ve seen that coming, really, because he knows Stede’s fashionably late to everything—as Stede disappears to the bathroom for entirely too long, and when he returns with a washcloth for Ed he’s already wrapped in a clean robe, and his hair has been roughly combed mostly back into place.

“Want a glass of water?” Stede asks, cheeks pink with newfound shyness as he pointedly glances away while Ed cleans himself up.

“Would love that,” Ed says, and that does something to Stede: his eyes widen, expression shifting, but before Ed can say another word he scurries away to the kitchen.

And yea—in retrospect, Ed’s thrown that word around a lot today, especially in the last half hour. His tongue is getting used to it, the weight of it, the shape of the vowels in his mouth. It’s easy—easier than before, easier now that he’s said it a dozen times and hasn’t combusted—not the way he thought he would, at least. And Stede is still here, he hasn’t run away, he hasn’t balked at Ed’s words.

It feels comfortable now, the right size in his mind, in his chest: his tongue doesn’t get stuck behind his teeth as he forms the word—love—and the air doesn’t catch in his throat as he sounds it out, listening to his own voice. He practices it in a near-whisper, testing it, feeling the emotion held within it.

Ed could get used to this; to telling Stede, I love you.

In the kitchen there’s a gasp, and then the sound of shattering glass.

“Stede?”

Ed’s on his feet in an instant, and he makes it to the doorway before his leg seizes up entirely, punishing him for all of the evening’s activities now that the endorphins have worn off. He leverages himself up against the doorframe and leans against the wall as he limps the last few feet to the living room, buck naked and gritting his teeth against the pain.

Stede is standing in the open space between the living room and kitchen, water puddled at his feet amidst shards of broken glass, the remote hanging limply in his other hand.

“Stede?” Ed tries again, giving him and the apartment a quick once-over: no intruders or other source of external danger, no cuts on Stede’s feet or obvious injuries that Ed can suss out from across the room. “What happened?”

Stede doesn’t respond, just stands frozen and unmoving, mouth agape and eyes wide and unblinking. Ed takes a moment to steel himself against the pain and then shifts his weight, crossing the room to get closer, reaching out to gently tug Stede out of the mess on the floor, steering him around the pieces of glass.

“Stede, talk to me,” Ed urges, unable to keep the concern from his voice. He runs his hands over Stede’s body in a cursory analysis, checking him over: his face is pale, like he’s had a huge shock to his system, and his pulse is hammering under Ed’s searching fingertips, but nothing that Ed hadn’t just encountered half an hour earlier.

Ed resists the urge to shake him by the shoulders. “Mate, what happened? Stede?”

Stede blinks eventually, and waves a hand vaguely.

Ed glances over, taking in the living room, trying to search for whatever it is that could be causing Stede so much distress. He finds nothing, just the glass of water shattered on the floor, the drone of the nightly news, the leftover muffins and jam and brandy—and yea, alright, Ed forgot coasters, shit—but still, it’s not the end of the—

Ed’s brain stutters to a halt, and he rewinds, refocuses, reevaluates.

“It’s not real,” Stede murmurs beside him, staring at the television. The television with an usually cheerful weatherman talking about the upcoming late spring showers that are forecast next week—next fucking week—and how it means summer is right around the corner.

“None of it was real,” Stede repeats, dreamlike, swaying slightly in Ed’s grasp. “It was all—all—fake? A joke? A hoax?”

“What the fuck,” Ed whispers, because his brain is still spinning on these facts.

He takes the remote from Stede’s unresisting grip and tries a few more channels—all normal. No hint of a world-ending meteor or any other kind of apocalypse. Not even the slightest hint of a catastrophe around the corner.

Stede makes his way to the sofa and gently collapses in it, like a human soufflé. “None of it was real.”

He keeps repeating that, murmuring it softly like some kind of prayer, as Ed tries every channel on the television, cycling through twice before he’s satisfied. His whole body aches now, all the adrenaline seeping out to leave sore muscles and ice-pick tension in his knee, and it suddenly leaves Ed feeling completely exhausted.

“What the fuck,” Ed repeats, limping around to sink down onto the couch next to Stede, heedless of his nudity. Fuck it, he’ll buy Stede a new couch if he has to. “This makes no fucking sense, I saw it with my own two fucking eyes.”

“Mm,” Stede agrees limply.

“I saw it in the bar, Stede—” Ed pauses, thoughts spinning. He digs his phone out from the couch cushions where he had abandoned it earlier, swipes angrily until he finds the contact he’s looking for, the one logged under a rude emoji.

It rings once, then cuts to voicemail, and Ed huffs and pulls the phone away from his ear with a glare. It pings a moment later as Izzy texts him back with the worst apology in history: it was L’s idea.

Ed waits a long moment, focusing on his breathing, trying to expand his lungs and slow his heart rate, so that he can call Izzy back and leave him several voicemails outlining the many, many way that Ed was going to separate his soul from his body—not to mention Lucius, and probably Pete, and who knows who else—who is Ed kidding, it’s the whole fucking crew, he knows it—

Ed’s phone pings again, and this time it’s from Jim: sry, but you needed an intervention.

Ed grits his teeth and turns the phone off, putting it on the coffee table before he does something stupid, like hurl it across the room. Next to him, Stede makes a soft, questioning noise, as if he’s curious about what Ed’s discovered but still too shell-shocked to really care.

Ed glances over at him, takes in the deep lines of confusion and worry on his face. He looks pinker than before, but still as dazed, and he’s still staring at the television with the same wide-eyed look as he was sporting this morning, when Ed vaulted over his patio to declare his undying love in the face of an apocalypse.

Right. Fuck. Ed maybe remembers mumbling something like that to Izzy over a miserable line of shots last month—maybe if the world is ending, I’ll finally tell him—shortly after Stede had packed up a picnic that would’ve put Martha Stewart to shame and taken them on a lovely stroll through the public garden, marveling at the newly blossoming flowers and baby ducklings—the most romantic date Ed’s been on in years—and Ed didn’t kiss the fuck out of him. Ed maybe remembers Izzy grumbling about how he was surrounded by muppets, all of them, and Ed hadn't thought much of it at the time. In retrospect, the pieces start to paint a specific kind of picture.

Fucking nosy motherfuckers.

“Stede,” Ed finally says, breaking the deathly silence that has fallen between them.

“Ed,” Stede whispers miserably, his voice thick with emotions that Ed can’t even begin to unravel.

And here Ed is, sitting in the fucking nude on Stede’s expensive couch, his heart on his sleeve and his dick in the wind, and he regrets not taking every other fucking chance this evening because this moment was definitely not what Ed had in mind.

But fuck it, it can’t get any worse.

“Stede,” Ed tries again, shifting a little to take the other man’s hands in his own, threading their fingers together. He looks up into Stede’s hazel eyes, finds himself smiling fondly as he reaches out to straighten a still-mussed lock of his hair, running his knuckles gently against Stede’s cheek.

“Stede, I love you.”

In all of Ed’s fantasies where he confessed his feelings to Stede—all the scenarios that he had pondered and prepared a thousand different outcomes for in the middle of the night—he’d deliberately imagined it ending well; couldn’t bear entertaining the alternative.

He’d imagined that Stede would melt into his arms, starstruck and overwhelmed, and Ed would kiss him tenderly and hold him and hug him until their bones melded together. Or Stede would get all pushy and demanding the way Ed likes, when they’re curled up on the couch watching HGTV reruns and Stede is bitching about the clashing décor; and he’d dress Ed down in that fond-but-annoyed way, why didn’t you tell me sooner, you nut. Or Stede would smolder at Ed for a long moment, letting the heat and tension build between them, until Ed has no choice but to kiss him senseless about it.

In reality, Stede bursts into tears.

And this isn’t Ed’s first rodeo with Stede crying, and he’s well-aware of the fact that Stede is not a beautiful crier. He hiccups and snorts and the tears stream down his face, catching in the wrinkles that fan from his slackened jaw, open in a mixture of horror and anguish. The sound that comes out of his mouth is a mixture of truncated little sobs, the strained huh huh huh of someone wanting to wail their head off but acting rather polite about it.

This was not one of the scenarios that Ed’s brain had pondered over the years, and he has no fucking clue what to do next.

“Ed,” Stede manages, pulling his hands away to bury his face in them, shoulders trembling with the force of his sobbing. “You don’t—you’re just—you’re don’t mean that, it’s alright, I’m sorry—”

“What? No, fuck, Stede—” Ed backpedals frantically, trying to grab at his hands. “What the fuck are you on about?”

Stede wipes his nose on his sleeve, waving a hand. “This whole—whole thing, it was just a mistake, it shouldn’t have happened—you were under duress, and I—I took advantage of you—” He breaks down again, hands clasped over his mouth in horror.

“You didn’t—fuck, Stede—” Ed manages to wind fingers around each wrist, gathering Stede’s hands in his own, trying to center him. He takes a breath and corrals his temper before continuing. “Our friends played a very, very cruel joke on us, and that is not in any way your fault. I wanted—this, I wanted you. I didn’t do anything I didn’t want to, I promise.”

Stede sniffles noisily. “Why would they do that?”

“Because they’re dicks, and because—because of me, because—” Ed swallows, nervous again. “Because I love you, I’ve been in love with you for years and I—I just—I couldn’t tell you. I was afraid.”

Stede stares at him, blinking owl-like as the tears roll down his cheeks. Ed reaches up with one hand to cradle his face, thumb wiping away a few stray tears.

“I love you, Stede, I really do.”

Stede bursts into tears again.

His expression is slightly less anguished than before, and Ed can recognize that he’s just overwhelmed this time, joy warring with confusion on his face as he dabs at his eyes with the sleeves of his robe. As he gets his sniffles under control Stede manages, with the tiniest hint of a smile, to utter, “Really?”

Ed nods, pulling him in closer, wrapping Stede up in his arms. It’s not perfect: he’s starting to get cold and Stede is sitting at a weird angle and his knee fucking aches—Ed’s going to give everyone hell for that, not that they could’ve predicted the amount of stress he’d put his body under for a love confession—but it’s still fucking perfect. The way they slot together, the way Stede’s forehead tucks against Ed’s and their noses nudge and bump one another, the way they breathe the same air.

“I fucking love you,” Ed whispers, pulse jumping at the ease of the words, the way Stede laughs wetly when he hears them.

“You nut,” Stede replies, and that makes Ed’s heart swell in an entirely different way. “I love you, too.”

“I should’ve told you earlier.”

“No—I should’ve,” Stede starts, pressing his lips against the corner of Ed’s mouth in apology. “I could’ve been braver.”

Ed nods in agreement, tilting his head, sipping another gentle kiss from Stede’s lips. “We both could’ve.”

“We both could’ve,” Stede echoes.

Ed shifts on the couch, drawing Stede along with him as he stretches out. Stede goes along easily, minding Ed’s knee and slotting their bodies together just right, the robe settling down on their entangled bodies like a blanket as they nestle in amongst the cushions. Ed finds himself fighting off sleep in mere moments, his arms heavy with exhaustion and Stede’s firm weight, losing himself in the gentle, soothing tug at his scalp as Stede winds his fingers into Ed’s hair and combs through the strands rhythmically.

“Should we let them know, do you think?” Stede asks, pulling Ed from the edge of sleep. “They might think we’re plotting to murder them.”

Ed snorts, tilting his head to bury his nose in Stede’s golden curls, breathing in his scent and letting it lull him back to sleep. “We have all the time in the world, love.”

Lucius squints, taking in Roach’s handiwork with a scrutinizing eye, finger pressed against his chin. It’s a three-tiered cake, embellished with beautiful whorls of orange creme icing and slices of dried oranges, the same one Stede requests for Ed’s birthday every year.

“I still think it should say ‘congrats on the sex’,” Pete chimes in, looking offended when half the crew roll their eyes. “What? It’s funny.”

“I don’t think they’re in a laughing mood,” Oluwande murmurs, glancing over at Jim for confirmation.

Jim checks their phone, shaking their head. “Still no reply. You?”

Izzy scowls as he works on uncorking a bottle of rum, passing shot glasses down the bartop. “Nothing.”

“You really think they’re going to kill us?” the Swede asks nervously, dry-washing his hands as he perches on a stool at the end of the bar.

Wee John snorts, passing him a glass of rum. “I would. Told you we shouldn’t fuck around in their business.”

“‘S bad luck,” Frenchie agrees, staring down at his glass solemnly.

“It’ll be fine, they’ll be fine,” Lucius hushes, trying to talk everyone down off a ledge. When he’s met with judgmental silence, Lucius huffs and rolls his eyes. “They needed this, you saw them, it was going to take them years to figure it out. Stede can’t flirt his way into a pair of soaking wet leather pants that scream ‘please fuck me’ if he tried, which we all know he doesn’t.”

“And Ed’s not great at picking up signals either,” Frenchie glances over at Izzy for confirmation, but the older man is just staring at the bar top with a grim look on his face, as if he’s reliving several traumatizing memories all at once.

“Right, it’s settled, then,” Lucius claps his hands. “This was a good idea, and they’ll be grateful for it. Eventually.”

“Dunno ‘bout that, they can both hold grudges pretty well,” Buttons says, leaning over the bartop to stick his finger in the cake, swiping a huge swath of cream onto his finger as Oluwande lunges to stop him, and Lucius lets out a shriek. He withdraws his finger from his mouth with a satisfied pop, brows raising. “Oh, that’s good cake.”