Chapter Text
“Stede. I think we should break up.”
It takes a few seconds for Stede to comprehend the words he’s just heard. It’s as if they’re in another, entirely unfamiliar language. He knows they’re words, and so they must mean something, but they make no sense. “Wait, what?”
“I think we should break up,” Mary repeats. She’s sitting beside Stede on her dorm room bed, but she may as well be a thousand kilometers away, given the gulf that has opened up between them.
Normally Stede would be acutely conscious of how uncomfortable the mattress is that they’re sitting on, but for once, his attention is very much elsewhere. “But how can—what do you—” Stede attempts to gather his scattered wits. “Mary, I love you,” he blurts desperately, making a frantic effort to keep his world from splintering around him. What on earth has just happened?
“I know you do, Stede.” Mary’s voice is far gentler than it usually is. “And I love you too. But we both deserve more than this.”
“‘More than this’?” Stede has no idea what Mary can possibly be driving at. “More than being in love with each other?”
“Are we, though, Stede?” Mary gives him a look that makes him feel like a bug under a microscope. “You love me. But I don’t think you’re in love with me.”
“How can you say that?” Stede’s tone could not be more reproachful. “I thought we were going to get married as soon as we graduated.” It’s true; now juniors, they’ve been together since freshman year, when they met on the before-school camping trip: one of the activities the college sponsored for incoming students to get to know each other. It turned out that both hated roughing it, and they bonded over their poor choice of activity.
As they talked that day, they discovered they had even more in common: both were from another hemisphere; both had been deeply lonely before coming to college; both were feeling dislocated and lost in their new home in New York State. So they clung to one another from jump, settling into a long-term relationship with relative ease.
Sure, being intimate with Mary hasn’t been quite the transportive experience Stede was led to believe it would be. But they’re fond of each other, and their not-infrequent fights have merely kept things from being boring. Stede has imagined their future for ages, seeing a comfortable house somewhere, two kids maybe, a girl and a boy. It’s going to be perfect. And living this ideal life will be the first time he won’t be a disappointment to his parents. He certainly didn’t please his father by opting to go to a “girl’s school,” as he insisted it was, despite the college having been co-ed for decades.
Mary breaks into his thoughts: “I know. I thought we’d stay together too. But I think we’ve just gotten comfortable. I—” She pauses, seeming unsure for the first time in their conversation, fidgeting a bit with her hands. “There’s this guy I met in my painting class. Doug. I’m really interested in him.”
“Oh. Really.” That makes some pieces fall into place. Stede’s voice goes ice cold. “Good of you to let me know.”
“Stede, I’m not trying to hurt you. It’s not even so much about Doug. Do you really think what we have is all there is? You don’t need me, do you?”
“Of course I—” Stede begins. “Well…uh…” Stede was ready to fight, mount a vehement protest; but he finds himself trailing off. Does he need Mary the way he should, if they’re going to commit to each other long term? Deep in his secret soul, her words pull on a loose thread. Everything threatens to unravel.
“I care about you, Stede. I do. And…I don’t know how else to say this, but…” Now Mary hesitates again; it seems like she’s screwing her courage to the sticking point. “Have you ever thought…um…that…maybe you’re…gay?”
“What?” Stede’s eyes fly open wide. He stares at her. Of all the absurd excuses for this breakup Mary could’ve come up with, this has to top the list. “How can you possibly think that?”
Mary shrugs and gives him an ingratiating half-smile, half-grimace. “You have that huge Goldeneye poster of Pierce Brosnan on the back of your door.”
“It’s a good movie! And he’s an underrated Bond!”
“You have that folder full of movie jpegs on your computer, too. And there’s only pictures of men in there.”
Stede glares at Mary. “Have you been snooping on my computer?”
“I didn’t mean to! I was just trying to print something, and you had the folder open. And, uh, not to be stereotypical, but. Um. I don’t think straight men listen to as much ABBA as you do.”
Stede stands up. “Okay, Mary. Just stop. This is ridiculous.” He stalks over to the door. “It’s bad enough you’re dumping me out of the blue after all this time. You don’t have to make up reasons to do it! Especially ones that make it my fault somehow.”
“It’s nobody’s fault, Stede! It just is. And I want you to be happy. Really I do.” By now Stede is walking out. “Just think about it!” Mary calls after him, as he pulls her door shut. He isn’t one to slam a door—his manners are far better than that—but he gets about as close as he ever would, shutting the door quite audibly before stalking down the hallway and making the short walk back to his own dorm.
At first Stede is entirely furious. How dare she. How dare Mary be cheating on him emotionally, if not also physically. And not only that, but acting like she knows him better than he knows himself? The presumptuousness of it all.
Stede’s dorm is right next door to Mary’s, so he’s already there by the time he finishes these thoughts. He swipes his card to get in and walks down the hall to his room as quickly as possible, wanting to hide away before anyone sees him. He unlocks the door, kicks off his shoes, climbs up to his loft bed without turning on the light, and throws himself down on it.
Stede presses the heels of his hands to his temples; he’s beginning to feel more defeated than anything else. It’s all so unexpected. One minute, life was proceeding as normal: going to classes, eating meals with his girlfriend at the dining hall, doing homework at the library, hanging out in the lounge (affectionately known as the Passion Pit) with his friends; everything comfortingly predictable. Then in an instant, everything going topsy-turvy, the bottom falling out of his world. What even is all this?
And Mary’s suggestion that maybe he’s gay? What’s that about? Of course Stede is fully supportive of queer people. He’s made numerous gay friends in college; he’s always been a staunch ally, first secretly, now openly. He has the buttons on his backpack to prove it. Even before getting to campus, he was aware this college was known for its vocal queer community, but that didn’t play into his decision to attend. At least, not consciously. He genuinely never considered he might be gay at any point in his life.
Of course, being raised Catholic doesn’t help matters. Though Stede enthusiastically embraced the opportunity to stop going to church as soon as he was done with high school, it’s hard to rid his brain of the messages that were drilled into it throughout his younger years. If it’s wrong even to pleasure himself, being with another man is unthinkable. Growing up, he only knew one family friend who was gay; he was caught in a sting operation in a public bathroom. And once Stede left home and went to boarding school, he was too much of an outcast even to know what people did or didn’t get up to there.
It’s not that Stede hasn’t always felt different, in so many ways. Of course he has. He’s never properly fit in at any age; never was a “boys will be boys” kind of kid. And he does find many male actors…aesthetically pleasing. Maybe he does have a fair number of pictures of Litefoot from The Indian in the Cupboard on his computer. The shoulders on that man! But who couldn’t tell he was attractive? Stede has eyes, doesn't he?
Stede does have to admit that the number of times he’s sung along to “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man after Midnight)” alone in his room, in an extremely enthusiastic falsetto, may be mildly incriminating. He didn’t think anyone ever heard him, though maybe Mary has. But it’s a catchy song. It never occurred to him that maybe he means it, that he might actually want a man after midnight.
But is the problem that he’s never let himself think about it in the first place, even to know if that’s what he wants? He’s been taught it’s taboo and “wrong,” so why would he even think about being with a man? Stede has always figured sex simply wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. Like—it’s fine, and he loves Mary, and it’s made him happy to bring her pleasure when he could. But he’s never felt like he needs much of it, and he hasn’t looked forward to it the way perhaps he should.
Ugh. This is all far too confusing. Stede hates the sinking feeling he has in his gut. Everything is suddenly changing and unstable, as if he’s unwittingly strolled out onto some quicksand. And there are no rescuers in sight.
Enough of this. Stede hops off his bed, turns on his light, and gets out his French homework. Can’t let his grades slip, on top of everything else. That would truly be the end of the world.
Notes:
I’m posting this first chapter on my 20th wedding anniversary (spouse and I have been together 26 years at the time of posting). This fic follows the beats of my own life rather than the show. Fair warning: this is not fully drafted, so I’m not committing to a regular posting schedule, and it’ll probably take a while to complete this. But like I said, it’s based on my life. I know where we’re going! Though if you want to wait until more/all of it is done, I respect that ❤️ In any case, I will not leave them at the enemies stage before I hit pause so I can get to some of my other AUs this summer.
Much of this is dressed-up nonfiction, though a fair amount is dramatized, and I’ve also borrowed stories of other college friends for some of it. And some experiences/aspects of our identity made sense to flip between my spouse and myself and assign to the other character. That said: the dumber Stede acts, the more likely it’s based on your humble host 😂
I’m not naming the college per se, but I decided not to change various details because of reasons, so I’m not hiding it, either.
Chapter Text
The next day begins early, with Stede’s Chaucer class, then Econometrics; Stede dutifully takes notes (and doodles in the margins), trying to ignore the background noise in his mind of knowing there won’t be a message from Mary on his answering machine when he gets back to his room. Said answering machine’s greeting starts with the chorus from No Doubt’s “Spiderwebs”:
Sorry I'm not home right now
I'm walking into spiderwebs
So leave a message and I'll call you back
before Stede’s own words: “Hey. It’s Stede. Please leave a message.” He likes a little whimsy in his life, okay?
Stede eats lunch alone at the dining hall; he could’ve tracked down Oluwande or Frenchie or another of his friends, but even though eating by himself makes him enormously uncomfortable—it brings back every feeling of being ostracized he’s ever had, to the point where he half expects one of the Badminton twins to appear around the corner—he doesn’t feel up to making conversation with anyone. So Stede pulls out his behemoth of a Chaucer anthology and pretends to be doing his reading, acting as if he intends to be there, alone. It’s a wasted performance, as Stede is only letting his eyes skate over the Middle English, and no one is paying attention to him at all.
When Stede gets back to his dorm after lunch, to his surprise, a new person is sitting at the front desk. The usual desk attendants are always middle-aged or older ladies; this person is anything but. He’s lanky, with dark, curly hair; he can’t be too much older than Stede. He has a lounge-y way of sitting as if he already owns the place.
Stede is immediately irritated. After his initial glance, he conspicuously ignores the new attendant and strides down the hall to Lucius’s room, a couple of doors down from his own.
Stede knocks on Lucius’s door, which is slightly ajar. “Come in,” Stede hears Lucius say.
“Where’s Miranda?” Stede asks, as soon as he steps into the room. “She was my favorite.” He helps himself to a seat on Lucius’s bed, while Lucius turns around in his desk chair.
“Hello to you too, Stede,” Lucius replies, rather wryly. “She’s over in Jewett on Tuesday afternoons now.”
Stede screws up his face in annoyance. He hates disruptions to his routines, and he’s been a favorite of all the desk ladies up until this moment. “So we’re stuck with some new guy at the desk?”
“Who, Ed?”
Stede snorts. “Of course you already know his name.”
“I make it my business to know things,” Lucius says airily. “You should talk to him. He’s from New Zealand too.”
That makes Stede snort a second time. “Why do people always think being from the same place means you have something in common?”
“Because sometimes it’s true?” Lucius replies, eyebrow raised. “Like when you come from a tiny country on the other side of the world?”
“Yeah, whatever.” Stede shrugs; he knows better than to argue with Lucius.
He’s about to get up and leave, when Lucius seems to remember something. “Oh, Stede! Meant to ask you. Is it true you and Mary broke up?”
Stede’s momentarily surprised, though on second thought, he knows he shouldn't be. “How’d you know that?” he replies, narrowing his eyes.
“Like I told you.” Lucius gets a feline look on his face. “I make it my business to know things.”
Stede huffs a quick laugh before sighing heavily, shoulders slumping. “Yeah. She dumped me,” he admits, staring at the floor. “I never saw it coming.”
Lucius reaches over and pats Stede’s knee. “Sorry, Stede. That sucks.”
Stede weighs the pros and cons of saying more than that. It’s absurd, obviously, but since Mary’s question has been haunting him, he might as well give Lucius a chance to laugh about it with him and dismiss it. “And…” he begins. “The funny thing is…she asked if I ever thought I was gay.” He adds a quick laugh at the end to emphasize the ridiculousness, though even Stede realizes how forced it sounds once it exits his mouth.
Lucius cocks his head at him, giving him a keen look; Stede feels as if it pierces straight through him. “Well, are you?”
“Et tu, Lucius?” Stede stares back reproachfully. “Of course I’m not.”
“Then why are you telling me about it? What did you think I was going to say?”
“I…don’t know.” I don’t know anything at all anymore, Stede thinks. About anything.
“Look. No offense, but figuring that out is kind of a you thing. If you are, congrats, and welcome to the club.” Lucius winks. “Now if you don’t mind, I am way behind on this Anthro essay.”
“Okay. Have fun.” Stede leaves Lucius’s room, pulling the door to on his way out. He lets out a massive exhale of frustration and confusion as he walks to his own room. He never signed on for being dumped and having an identity crisis, but apparently, that’s what he’s getting. Why is life such a fucking mess, anyway? His life, at least?
Notes:
At some point I will post with shorter gaps between chapters, but let me work out a few more logistics 😅
Chapter Text
When Stede first arrived at college, he was stunned and chagrined to learn that not only was he assigned to the one modern(ish) dorm on campus, but to a “Wellness” floor to boot: one of the smoke-free, drug-free floors, with earlier quiet hours from the rest of the building. He didn’t request it; it just happened. Great, Stede thought. As if I need any help seeming like a giant nerd. Stede has never been within a fifty-kilometer radius of cool; life didn't need to conspire to keep it that way.
But over time, he’s realized the benefits of fresher air to breathe and nerdier floor-mates to hang out with: Frenchie, who spends most of his time in the music building; Frenchie’s roommate John, who is the only guy Stede has ever seen knitting; Buttons, who spends as much time as possible at the Preserve, collecting data for his Environmental Science classes. And the water in the drinking fountains is actually cold, unlike in the older dorms that have more architectural charm.
And it’s nice to have a single now, as an upperclassman. Freshman year was a nightmare: his roommate watched a VHS tape of Legends of the Fall ad nauseam while complaining about every bit of noise Stede made—and Stede tried very hard to be a polite roommate. He figures he could probably recite that goddamn movie by heart. (He really doesn’t get what people see in Brad Pitt, or that in itself might have been a consolation.) Matters escalated over the course of the school year as he and his roommate fought over everything, leaving more and more passive aggressive notes taped to each other’s computer monitors, as though they were living in a cursed version of an epistolary novel. Which should have had at least minor appeal to Stede’s English-and-Econ-double-major heart, but living something like that for real was a whole other story.
But this year, Stede has as much peace and quiet as is possible in a dorm. Yes, the first floor rooms are tiny, but the ceilings are high, and his loft bed helps make the most of the limited space. But living in a single also means Stede is responsible for all his own cleaning. One Saturday afternoon he realizes, with a sigh, that he’d better go sign out a vacuum cleaner before the dust bunnies get any larger and stage some kind of rebellion. That sigh is followed by a deep groan: Saturday afternoons are one of the times the new guy works, so he’ll have no choice but to talk to him. Great.
But there’s no way around it, so Stede sucks it up and makes his way down the hall to the front desk. Ed’s there, wearing jeans and a black t-shirt, not appearing to be tremendously busy. Stede has been ignoring him so steadfastly that he never noticed his tattoos: Ed has a number of them covering every visible bit of skin on his arms, including a snake that weaves around his right arm and extends down to his hand. Some kind of tough guy, then. Stede rolls his eyes internally.
“I’d like to sign out a vacuum cleaner, please,” he says crisply, without preamble.
Ed gives him an easy smile. “Okay, let me write down your name. Hang on.” He shuffles through some binders on the desk. While he waits, Stede reflects—extremely grudgingly—that it is kind of nice to hear an accent like his own, for once. “Found it,” Ed says, after he locates the correct list. He picks up a pen. “What’s your name?”
“It’s Stede.”
“‘Steve,’ got it.” Ed begins to write it down.
Stede groans inwardly. Here we go again. “No, not Steve. Stede. S-T-E-D-E.”
Ed looks up at him. He really does have startlingly large (and unexpectedly pretty) brown eyes. “That’s not a name, bro. You’re just messing with me. It’s Steve. I know it is.”
“No!” Stede is growing more and more tense by the second. “Don’t try to tell me what my own name is!” I knew this guy was a wanker. What the actual fuck?
“Relax, mate.” Ed gives him an ingratiating smile. “Why don’t you just tell me your last name? That’s plenty.”
Stede sighs a grim sigh. He knows, from long experience, that this is unlikely to improve matters. “It’s Bonnet.”
Ed looks up at him again, deeply entertained. “Gonna have to do better than that.”
By this point, Stede’s internal state has escalated from deeply annoyed to beyond furious. He grinds his teeth, feeling his pulse pounding in his ears. He wants to throw something; pitch the most enormous of fits. But he bites it all back. He forces himself to speak coldly, with ostentatious politeness: “You know what? Never mind. I’ll come back when someone else is at the desk.”
Ed raises an eyebrow, drops his pen on the desk, and gives him a shit-eating grin that Stede finds utterly enraging. Then he leans back and knots his hands behind his head. “Fine by me. Less work for me to do.”
Stede glares at him for one long second, wishing looks could, in fact, kill, before stomping back to his room and slamming the door. Fuck manners. Fuck everything.
“I hate him,” Stede grits out aloud, to the universe.
Notes:
So! I’m not going to tell you exhaustively which parts of this story are real and which are fictional (though if you ask about things, I’ll likely spill), but I do need to say that this is, in fact, our real life meet-(un)cute, and it was my husband’s idea to do the Stede/Steve thing as an adaptation of how he insisted I was someone else (if I told you all the details of that, though, you’d hate him as much as I did at the time 😂). I found out much later he was just filibustering and trying to remember my actual name, fyi, though that’s not the case here!
I’ll be posting my Reverse Big Bang story first, but after that, Chapter 4 will have something special that’ll make it worth the wait ❤️
Chapter Text
After that, Stede studiously avoids the front desk any time Ed is working. If Stede can wait to leave the dorm until after Ed’s shift ends, he does. If he can’t, he tries to time his departure so it’s between classes and there are numerous people coming and going, allowing him to pass by unnoticed.
The last thing Stede imagined for his junior year was ending up down one girlfriend and up one nemesis, but somehow, that’s exactly what has happened. The former was probably to be expected, given how everything in his life always seems to fall apart. But the latter? Stede would never have predicted that whatsoever. The nerve of that desk attendant! Arguing with Stede about his own name! But in the grand scheme of things, it’s not like it matters. Yeah, it’s annoying, the effort it takes to avoid the guy. But in a way, Stede feels smug about having his suspicions confirmed. “I knew he was obnoxious, the first time I saw him,” he says at breakfast to Frenchie, who pretends to be listening. But beyond the opportunity to gloat, getting along—or not—with one of his dorm’s desk attendants surely has no bearing on his actual life.
However. That doesn’t prevent Stede from feeling…something, whenever he accidentally makes eye contact and catches Ed looking at him, an amused expression on his face. It’s only every now and then at first, until it starts happening more frequently: when it can’t be helped and he has to walk by the desk, Stede often gives into temptation and sneaks a peek at Ed. Like looking at a car wreck, he tells himself. Sometimes it’s impossible to look away. It’s not like it means anything.
And when he does look at him—there’s something about Ed’s insouciance, the self-assured way he carries himself, that irritates Stede beyond measure. It’s like a mosquito bite every time he sees it; it quite literally makes him itchy. But he’s also inescapably drawn to it; he can’t help darting glances in Ed’s direction, even if he most assuredly doesn’t want to. What a tool. I can’t stand him.
“He sure seems to be taking up a lot of your brain space,” Jim says drily, when Stede complains about Ed yet again at dinner. Why can’t Stede stop talking about him? Thinking about him? Stede would never admit it, but somewhere, way in the back of his mind, he envies Ed’s easy confidence; how comfortable he seems in his own skin. Stede has never once experienced that way of being. What is it like to move through the world that way? It’s hard not to wonder.
But that’s the extent of it, of course. When he steals glances as he scuttles past the desk, Stede certainly isn’t looking at Ed’s curls, his big dark eyes, or the jeans slung low on his hips, if he happens to be standing. The tattoos decorating his skin. No way. Why on earth would he pay attention to any of that?
Stede reflects, with an internal groan, that none of this would be an issue if he had any love life whatsoever. Someone else to occupy his brain and his time. But he’s been unceremoniously dumped, and every single day, he curses his many insecurities. If Stede had any faith in his own instincts—any aspect of himself, really—maybe he wouldn't be having such a tough time figuring out his own sexuality. Maybe he’d be brave enough to attend meetings of the Queer Coalition (he isn’t). Maybe he could go to The Mug and flirt with boys. See if he could bring one back to his room and let things happen as they may. Try to find out what it feels like to kiss a boy and touch a boy and be touched by him.
Stede exhales quickly, jolted back to reality, knowing these are absurd fantasies. He’ll never be brave enough. Other people can do these things—find them perfectly normal things to do, in fact—but the idea that he might is preposterous. Stede was trying to do homework when he drifted off into daydreams, staring at the gorgeous stained glass window in the library without seeing it. But it’s time to refocus. Schoolwork he can do. Or, more accurately: it’s a struggle, but with enough time pressure, he can handle it. The rest of life, not so much.
Stede turns back to his Econometrics textbook with a sigh. May as well disappoint only himself and not everyone else.
***
As the fall semester winds down and the unpleasant novelty of Ed invading his dorm and his routines wears off, Stede thinks he might be able to turn his mind to other matters. But instead, his preoccupation with his nemesis seems to be getting worse instead of better. Stede finds himself thinking of Ed in season and out of season: while trying to write his Chaucer papers, while running laps at the athletic building, even in class.
During Modern Poetry on a random Thursday, Stede sits at the big seminar table, his mind drifting toward Ed yet again. Of late, Stede has given up trying not to look at him as he walks by the desk. In fact, he’s begun doing something that may well qualify as staring, whenever Ed is engaged in conversation with another student. The weather has grown cool, so Ed is typically in long sleeves, his tattoos mostly covered. But nothing could conceal his personality. Stede thinks about how infuriating he is; how all of his cockiness still rubs him the wrong way, every single time he sees him. Stede still refuses to speak to him.
So why does Stede keep thinking about him? It’s time to figure that out. Okay, maybe Ed is objectively attractive. Maybe his thick, dark curls need fingers combing through them. And those lips, which often have just the slightest bit of a sneer to them…maybe Stede wants to kiss that look off his face. See what he looks like without posturing or pretense, just full of want. Maybe—
“Stede, what are those lines an allusion to?”
“Um…what?” is Stede’s groundbreaking contribution to discussion. He blushes deeply; he has no idea what he’s being asked, let alone what the answer is. Most of his professors don’t cold call on students, but this one does, and Stede isn’t the only one who lives in a constant state of trepidation.
Mr. Brennan sighs. “The beginning of the poem, Stede. What’s it alluding to?” Seeing Stede’s blank look, he reads the opening of The Waste Land out loud for the class in his musical Irish accent:
“April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Anyone?” Everyone looks down, avoiding his eyes. “Come on! The opening of The Canterbury Tales. I know you’ve all read it! Aren’t some of you in the Chaucer class this very semester?” They all studiously avoid his gaze.
Mr. Brennan goes on to recite those lines from memory:
“Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote,
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licóur
Of which vertú engendred is the flour;
And so on. Did none of you see the connection? Or are you just not wanting to speak up?” Still no one does, and Mr. Brennan sighs heavily again. “All of you need to read more carefully, pay attention, and take some risks.”
You have no idea, Stede thinks. Being put on the spot in class is the least of his problems. It’s bad enough that he can’t keep his mind on his schoolwork, and he isn’t brave enough to ask anyone out or even try randomly hooking up with anyone of any gender. He has to be sitting here thinking about Ed, doesn't he? Of all the people to be fantasizing about. What the actual fuck is wrong with me? Stede does need to learn how to take some risks. He feels like life is entirely passing him by. Isn’t this supposed to be the most exciting part of it? Stede’s quite sure he’s doing his twenties wrong.
***
When Stede gets back to his room after class, he paces up and down for a few minutes, restless and unsettled. He needs something cathartic to clear his mind. After pondering for a bit about what might help, he pops his cassingle of 4 Non Blondes’ “What’s Up?” into his stereo and pumps up the volume, beginning to sing along as soon as the vocals start:
25 years and my life is still
Trying to get up that great big hill of hope
For a destination
Okay, maybe not quite twenty-five years, but close enough. Stede feels like he should’ve figured something out by now.
He grabs a highlighter to use as a pretend microphone and starts really getting into it when the pre-chorus comes around:
And so I cry sometimes
When I′m lying in bed just to get it all out
What's in my head
And I, I am feeling a little peculiar
And so I wake in the morning
And I step outside
And I take a deep breath and I get real high
And I scream from the top of my lungs
What′s going on?
Stede keeps singing along enthusiastically to the chorus:
And I say, hey yeah yeah-eh-eh, hey yeah yeah
I said hey, what's going on?
And I say, hey yeah yeah-eh-eh, hey yeah yeah
I said hey, what's going on?
He sways with his eyes closed during the quieter hook, momentarily soothed, but then it’s back to belting when the next verse starts, as Stede pours all his pent-up frustration into it:
And I try, oh my god do I try!
I try all the time, in this institution
And I pray, oh my god do I pray!
I pray every single day
For revolution
Pre-chorus again, hitting all the high notes with his falsetto, screaming along with Linda Perry when she really gets into it:
And so I cry sometimes
When I′m lying in bed just to get it all out
What′s in my head
And I, I am feeling a little peculiar
And so I wake in the morning
And I step outside
And I take a deep breath and I get real high
And I scream from the top of my lungs
What's going on?
“4 Non Blondes, eh? But you are blond,” a voice says from the doorway.
Stede nearly jumps entirely out of his skin at the sudden interruption. He whips around. “Jesus, Lucius!” he scolds, horrified that his friend witnessed his performance. “How long have you been standing there?”
Lucius smirks. “Long enough. Are you”—he waves his hand around to indicate Stede and his general vicinity—“working through something here?”
Stede sighs heavily, the song winding down in the background. “I’m trying. Not sure it’s working.”
“Well, come on,” Lucius says, gesturing for Stede to come along. “You still have to eat. Can’t face an existential crisis on an empty stomach.”
This is true, so Stede grabs his jacket and keys and follows Lucius out. But Stede needs way more than a square meal. He’s honestly at his wit’s end, and something’s got to give. Thank god he’s doing Junior Year Abroad in Paris next semester. He can put Mary, Ed, and his whole life behind him; break the monotony and have a fresh start. Going to the city of romance—far away from home, from college, from everything else—will surely turn his entire life around.
Stede can’t wait.
Notes:
Sooo many thanks to my dear Sailor’s Ruin for the delightful art, and to the fabulous Scotgal for the needle drop and idea for that scene! It was the perfect addition to this chapter ❤️
I have drafts of up through chapter 22 now, believe it or not, so we should be able to move the story along for a bit! Can’t thank you all enough for your patience 🫶 chapters on Sundays and Wednesdays, perhaps, unless I need to delay for some reason?
Oh! And I think I forgot to point out here that I upped the rating from M to E. The smut is a ways down the road, and I’ll point it out in the notes in case you prefer to skip the explicit stuff ❤️
Chapter Text
Stede hoped, extremely fervently, for a life-changing experience in France: a whirlwind romance, finally figuring out his sexuality, perfectly fluent French—you know, modest goals. He’s gotten a bit closer to the last, but as for the first two…well, the less said, the better. Wherever you go, there you are: a change of scenery doesn’t stop him from being Stede. From being riddled with the paralyzing self-doubt that keeps him from truly living.
Sure, he got his picturesque strolls along the Seine, lingering on the Pont des Arts, his favorite bridge; his many crêpes oeuf fromage eaten outside at various parks, large and small; his hours of sitting at cafés and wandering museums, attempting to look wistfully available; but aside from the exceedingly rare approach by a drageur who didn’t exactly ring his bell, Stede managed to come up empty in the romance department.
Not only that: even his plans for senior year have gone sideways. He intended to spend it living in an on-campus apartment—one of the Terrace Apartments, affectionately known as TAs—with Oluwande and Jim and Frenchie, but there’s a limited number, and their group was drawn second-to-last in the lottery. Which means they didn’t get one. And that means spending his senior year in the dorm again.
When he first arrived at college, Stede was glad the school required students to live on campus; he has a hard enough time making friends as it is, so being thrown together with other people was a feature, not a bug. But now? A senior, having to live among freshmen? What a wretched outcome.
So it is with many grumbles and much surliness that Stede gets his things back out of storage and goes to move back into his dorm. His parents footed the bill for a moving service, so Stede merely has to drive his car back to campus and unpack. But he’s feeling unbelievably grumpy about the whole thing.
Stede parks his car in the lot behind his dorm, swipes his card at the back door, then goes inside. As he heads up the stairs and into view of the desk, he groans mentally. Of fucking course.
Ed is at the desk.
That’s the part Stede didn’t even let himself think about. Being back in the dorm meant that, if Ed were still working there, he wouldn’t be able to avoid running into him, the way he could if he were living in one of the campus apartments. He could’ve managed never to see him again. But of course Ed is not only still working in his dorm, he’s working on move-in day. Sitting behind the desk, slightly longer curls than Stede remembers falling into his eyes, cocky as ever.
“Hey, Stede Bonnet,” Ed says, with a wide, welcoming grin.
Stede freezes in his tracks. Out of the hundreds of students in the several dorms he works in, Ed remembers Stede eight months later. Not only that, but he remembers Stede’s full, actual name. Even after Stede studiously avoided him for so long, full of seething resentment.
Stede’s having a lot of complicated feelings right now. “Hey, Ed,” he says, trying to sound nonchalant, but pretty certain he isn’t succeeding.
“Got your room key.” Ed hands him a small envelope, still smiling. “Room 201. All the way on the end. Normally a double, but you get it all to yourself.”
Stede takes the little envelope. “Thanks. Some consolation after not getting a TA, I guess.”
“I hear you.” Stede didn’t expect Ed to sound sympathetic, but he does. “I know Frenchie was super disappointed.”
Stede nods. “Yeah. We all were. That wasn’t a fun email to get at the cybercafé. After waiting forever for the one computer with a QWERTY keyboard.”
“I bet.” They both pause, looking at each other for a second or two. “Good luck with move-in,” Ed says, finally.
“Thanks.” Stede finds himself smiling—smiling?—at Ed before going upstairs to look at his new room. What is happening? Did they just have a…civil conversation?
Well, at least “confused” is a pretty normal state of being for Stede. Nothing weird or unusual about that.
***
Stede unpacks, settles in, and gets acclimated to being on campus again, only sometimes wanting to murder the raucous freshmen living in his dorm. And it’s the oddest thing, but: after that surprisingly friendly interaction with Ed on move-in day, everything shifts. Stede would never have predicted it in a million years.
He can’t help a wide smile the first time Ed greets him with a friendly “Kia ora”; it’s such a simple and lovely acknowledgement of the connection they share with no one else on campus. Just the two of them, so far from home. There’s no way Ed doesn’t miss it too, Stede thinks. It quickly becomes their customary greeting, every time Ed’s working in Stede’s dorm and Stede passes by.
They soon tack on a “how are you?” as Stede comes and goes, answered more and more honestly as the days go on. Ed begins to ask about Stede’s classes, and Stede pauses to chat if he’s not running late, talking about his French translation homework or his mind-numbing International Trade Theory and Policy papers or how annoying this or that classmate is. Ed seems genuinely interested in his life, which, frankly, catches Stede off guard. But he opens up more and more, talking about the shin splints he’s getting from running at Walker to keep in shape for Spring track, or who is fighting with (or hooking up with) whom among his friends.
“You don’t seem to hate Ed quite so violently anymore,” Lucius says slyly one day, after he catches Stede in an animated conversation at the desk about how much he despises his eighteenth-century British literature professor (“I can’t believe he thinks my arguments lack nuance,” Stede sniffed to Ed, after getting his first paper back).
“Yeah, okay, maybe he’s not quite as bad as I thought,” Stede admits, quite grudgingly. He still doesn’t want to acknowledge—to himself or anyone else—that he might have gone overboard with his first negative impression.
Which is perhaps the reason Stede doesn’t consciously notice how he’s lingering at the desk for longer and longer stretches at a time. But it’s not lost on him that Ed mainly asks him questions when they talk. Stede still knows very little about the guy at the desk. And he’s curious.
“So you know where I live,” he says humorously one evening, when Ed is working late in his dorm. “Do you have a long drive to get here?”
“Nah,” Ed says. “Not too bad. About fifteen minutes.” He pauses; Stede notes the way he drums his fingers on the desk. And the one errant curl falling over his forehead that needs pushing back. For tidiness, Stede assures himself. No other reason. “Live with my mum,” Ed adds, after a couple of seconds.
“Really?” Stede’s surprised, though he tries not to show it. “I didn’t know that.”
“Why would you?” Ed shrugs; his manner is markedly casual. Perhaps too much so. “Not like I’m advertising being thirty and back to living with my mum.”
“Wait.” Now Stede is even more surprised. “You’re thirty?” Stede doesn’t mean to sound gobsmacked, but he can’t help it. He thought Ed was only a few years older than he is. Thirty is way more than a few. And he looks so much younger than that.
“Yeah. Just act immature enough, and people’ll never guess.” Ed grins broadly. “She works here, too. My mum, I mean. In the Bursar’s Office. And a second job at J.C. Penney’s.”
“I see.” But Stede’s not particularly interested in Ed’s mum’s life story at the moment. He’s much more fascinated by getting this unexpected window into Ed’s life. “What did you do before you started working here?”
“Mmm,” Ed says, noncommittally. “Did a lot of moving around before. Had basically every shitty job that exists.”
“Like what?”
“Let me think.” Ed looks off into the corner of the room, evidently assembling the list in his mind. “Worked at a deli. At a fast food joint. At a kennel.” Ed keeps dredging through his memory, counting off on his fingers. “Was a pizza delivery guy. Worked at a car rental place at the airport. Had to clean and prep and do detailing on the cars before they got rented out again.” Ed pauses. “Probably more I’m forgetting.”
“And now you’re a White Angel,” Stede muses.
Ed stares at him incredulously. “A what?”
Stede grins. “That’s what your job used to be called. The ladies—they were all ladies then—would sit at the desk in, like, a nurse’s uniform–type thing. They’d call up to the rooms if students had male visitors, and lock down the dorms at curfew. And they’d wash bedding. And serve students at mealtimes.” He finds the history of the school fascinating, never missing an opportunity to bust out a tidbit.
“Eugh.” Ed makes a disgusted face. “Thank fuck I don’t have to do any of that.”
“Yeah, I know.” Stede winces a bit; he knows he’s still living a pampered existence as a student here, though so much has changed. He thinks guiltily of Sunday brunch in the dining hall, with its live piano music and copies of the New York Times free for the taking. And given the nature of her job, Ed’s mum would know that Stede’s parents write a check for his entire tuition every semester. His work has only ever been to be a successful student; he’s never had to have a crappy job to make ends meet, the way Ed has, constantly. “It was a lot,” he acknowledges.
“Plus, I’m not white,” Ed replies. “Or an angel.” He leans forward, looking at Stede with a diabolical gleam in his eyes. Stede couldn’t have told you why, but it’s doing something to him. He’s feeling many, many things, none of which he can identify or name.
But before he can remotely try, Frenchie, Olu, and Jim stroll up. “Ready?” they ask.
“Oh!” Stede looks at his watch, startled. “I didn’t realize it was already dinnertime.”
“Enjoy,” Ed says, leaning back in his chair, an inscrutable look on his face.
Notes:
So I already used my most entertaining Paris story in the Festive Fuckery series (The Best Revenge, specifically), but other anecdotes may pop up here and there; who knows?? Anyway, I chose not to linger on that part of Stede’s life, as this is ultimately the story of him and Ed ❤️
I do feel compelled to note that, although Stede is very obviously my stand-in here, I was on financial aid. My total loans were $225 under the maximum you could borrow, in fact.
Extra reader kudos to folks commenting along the way 🫶
Chapter Text
Stede finds himself with barely any time to catch his breath these days. His life is quite full: challenging classes; the occasional party where he may or may not drink too many vodka cranberries and admire boys from a distance; working on his graduate school applications.
“I know my parents want me to go to business school,” he says to Ed one day, perched on the corner of the desk, in what is now his accustomed spot. “But it’s not what I want to do with my life.”
“So don’t,” is Ed’s laconic advice.
Stede sighs. It’s not that simple; never has been. He’s never genuinely rebelled in his life. He doesn’t even know how. “I just can’t disappoint them.”
“What do you want to do, mate?” Ed asks, looking at him intently. “If what your parents want wasn’t an issue?”
This question, Stede knows the answer to: “I want to go to grad school for English,” he replies immediately. “I’m only a double major with Econ to keep my parents happy.”
Ed taps the pen he’s holding against the desk. “Any reason not to apply for both? For the hell of it?”
“Oh!” Stede hadn’t actually considered that option. “I mean, each application is like sixty bucks, and I’d have to write more personal statements. Probably take another GRE.”
“Can you afford it?”
Stede blushes a bit. “Yeah, that part’s not a problem.”
“So it’s some extra work, and maybe you end up happier at the end of it?” Ed makes it sound so simple. Maybe it is. “At least then you’d have options.”
“Yeah.” The gears are turning now in Stede’s mind. “Plus, my grades are even better in English. Who knows where I’d get accepted for an MBA.”
“Gotta try, no?” Ed’s smiling at him now, and it’s so warm and comforting. Stede has talked with his friends about his post-graduation dilemmas, but they all have their own lives to deal with and their own futures to stress about; it’s not the same as having Ed’s sole attention the way he does right now. I’m sure it’s incredibly boring at the desk, Stede reflects. It must be nice to have a distraction.
But talking about himself this much also makes Stede self-conscious. “That’s enough of me freaking out about what to do with the rest of my life,” he says playfully. “What would you do if you weren’t a desk attendant?”
“Started out studying Marine Biology,” Ed says. Stede’s eyebrows shoot up; that’s not what he would've guessed. Not that he’s even sure what he was expecting, to be fair. “If I could, I’d be out on the water, researching.”
“Ooh!” Stede responds excitedly. “What would you be studying?”
“Marine mammals.” Ed reaches inside his collar. It hasn’t escaped Stede’s notice that Ed’s unbuttoned polo shirt exposes another tattoo: a hawk on his upper chest. But apparently said shirt has been hiding a different secret: Ed pulls a gold chain from where it’s tucked in, holding it out so Stede can see the dolphin pendant hanging from it.
A vision suddenly flies into Stede’s mind of himself on his back with Ed above him, shirtless, that chain dangling from his neck; Ed leaning down until the dolphin brushes Stede’s naked chest, and—
“That’s so cute!” Stede squeaks, trying to clear his mind of this extremely compelling but completely un-asked-for image. Where the hell did that come from? He searches frantically in the rubble of his mental processes for something else to say. “Bet you’d be the first to decipher all of dolphin language,” he adds in a fit of inspiration, thanking his lucky stars that he took an improv class on a whim several summers ago.
“Yeah, I would.” Ed lets go of the necklace, letting it rest outside his shirt. He gives Stede a cocky half-smile. “I could do anything.”
“But you said you ‘started’ with Marine Biology?” Stede’s interest is more than slightly piqued. “You didn’t finish with that?”
Ed shakes his head. “Nope,” is all he says. He seems disinclined to say more. “What about you?” Ed asks, changing the subject. “If you could have any job after graduation, what would it be?”
“Food critic,” Stede responds instantly. “If you could just up and decide to have a career like that, and if I didn’t have as many food allergies as I do.”
“Ooh, I can see it,” Ed replies, eyes twinkling. “You’d walk into a restaurant, and everyone would roll out the red carpet for you.”
“But none of it would get me to write anything positive if the food is shit.” Stede grins a sly grin.
“Everyone would watch you, trying to suss out if you liked what you were having.”
“Terrified I’d give them a scathing write-up.”
Ed taps his chin thoughtfully, pondering. “But you’d keep a poker face. No one would know until it appeared in a magazine.”
“Exactly.” They grin at each other. “And I’d only go to seafood restaurants serving dolphin-safe tuna,” Stede adds.
“Of course.” Ed’s smile widens further, and Stede’s heart does an odd flutter in his chest. What is even happening? But this is fun. Ed is fun. This kind of conversational back-and-forth doesn’t normally come easily to Stede, but with Ed, it’s effortless. Like gears that slot together perfectly as they turn.
“I’d better get back to work,” Stede says regretfully, after a brief pause.
Ed gives him a single nod. “Me too.” They hold eye contact for perhaps a hair longer than feels normal; Stede tries to guess what Ed might be thinking, but he can’t remotely imagine.
Stede finally tears his eyes away and hops off the desk, thinking and thinking as he climbs the stairs to the second floor.
“Stede. Stede!” he hears eventually, finally realizing someone has been trying to get his attention. He looks around in confusion. It’s Frenchie. “Hey, man,” he says, clapping Stede on the shoulder. “What’s up? You looked like you were in another dimension.”
Stede gives him a crooked smile. Frenchie, you have no idea. I have no idea. “Something like that.”
Notes:
I stole the Econ and English double major from my friend who was my study buddy for the Modern Poetry class a couple of chapters ago ❤️ he’s now a published poet!
Chapter Text
As the weeks go on, Stede’s schoolwork picks up more and more. It’s Wednesday afternoon, and he’s got an analytical essay due in his English class tomorrow, which he’s been putting off and putting off, as he always does. He frets and sighs all through dinner and even after, knocking on everyone’s doors to find out what they’re doing. But they all have their own papers to write, and Ed’s not presently at the desk, so Stede finally retreats to his own room.
Time to get down to business, then. He knows it’s silly, but the only way he can get his writing done is by setting the mood for himself. He lights some candles here and there around his desk, which he knows he’s not supposed to have in his dorm room. But he loves their magical, flickering light; it calms him. He turns off the overhead lights and starts up the CD of Enya’s Watermark in his stereo. His friends would rib him mercilessly if they heard him listening to this album, but it’s so soothing. Ever since his improv teacher played “On Your Shore” while they did a mindfulness exercise, Stede has been in love with Enya’s delicate, dreamy tones; now all of her discography is his go-to paper-writing music.
The first sweet, yearning piano notes of the title track begin rippling through the room. Stede exhales some of his tension; he knows he’ll feel even better once he’s started. He pulls out his chair, sits down at his Mac to write, and—immediately hears a knock on the door. With the heaviest of sighs, he stands up from his computer and goes to answer it. “Yeah?” he says, jerking the door open, not attempting in the least to hide his irritation. Then he can’t help but blush. (He hates how his body always betrays him; it never lets him fully hide how he’s feeling.) It’s Ed, making the rounds of the dorm, checking to make sure nothing’s amiss.
“Hey.” Ed looks mildly startled; evidently he wasn’t expecting to be met with that level of grouchiness. “Just saw your keys and wallet in the doorknob, and thought…” Then he looks over Stede’s shoulder and takes in the mood lighting, the music, the distinctly romantic atmosphere behind him. He takes a quick step back, looking apologetic. “Oh! Sorry. I’m interrupting something.”
Now Stede flushes even more deeply. (Goddammit.) Ed’s eyes drift downward accordingly, to the V of Stede’s shirt. Stede couldn’t possibly feel more exposed, in every possible way. “You’re not,” he replies quickly. “This is just what I do. Uh, when I write papers.” He wishes he could get his traitorous heart to stop pounding; wishes his palms weren’t clammy as fuck. “It’s stupid, I know.”
“Not stupid.” Ed meets Stede’s eyes again; it seems that he means it, though it also feels like there’s more there that Stede can’t read. “Just, y’know, get rid of the candles. Not supposed to have those. Fire hazard and all that.” He winks; they both know Stede isn’t going to do anything of the sort, but that Ed’s in charge of their safety and obligated to say it. “I’d better not see them, next time I come around,” he adds, with meaningful emphasis.
“Got it.” Stede makes a mental note to tuck the candles away in the cabinet when he’s done writing.
“And. In my expert opinion. Seems risky to leave your wallet stuck in the door.”
But that comment makes Stede bristle. “Never had a problem with it, the whole time I’ve been here,” he retorts. He can't help growing defensive about what he knows is a questionable choice. But he doesn't feel like explaining that if he doesn’t leave it there, he’ll be late to every single class, searching for his stuff; that he can't possibly keep track of it otherwise. It was a lifesaver when he found the wallets with attached key rings at the college store; now, as long as he leaves the key stuck in the doorknob, he knows he’ll always have both his key and ID when he leaves.
But he can’t say any of this to Ed. Stede already seems incompetent enough, incapable enough; a spoiled little rich boy who has no idea how to take care of himself, who didn’t know how to use the coin-operated laundry in the basement when he arrived, who is secretly grateful he still has a meal plan since he has no idea how to cook a thing. The list of things Stede can’t do is seemingly endless. Even if Ed isn’t actually aware of Stede’s deficiencies, being around him makes Stede unbearably self-conscious about them. Ed’s a full grownup; though Stede’s graduating in the spring, he still feels like a kid.
But Ed simply shrugs, unfazed. “S’your money, mate. Lose it if you want.” A beat, then: “Good luck with your paper.”
“Thanks.” Ed takes off down the hall, and Stede shuts the door and leans against it (and Pierce Brosnan’s face; he still has his Goldeneye poster on the back of the door).
If only he could manage not to care what Ed thinks. But Stede simply can’t. He’s having way too many feelings about all of this.
Writing his paper now is a tall ask, but he has no choice; such is the fate of the procrastinator who doesn’t start his papers until the night before.
It’s gonna be a long night.
Notes:
Well now we know it’s undiagnosed adhd, but I—I mean Stede—didn’t know that 😅
Chapter 8
Notes:
CW: Emetophobia (skip down to the asterisks if needed)
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
“How’d your paper go?” Ed asks a couple of days later, when he’s back at the desk in Stede’s dorm.
“Hmm?” Stede has to think about it. Once he turns a paper in, it’s not his problem anymore, so he tends to forget about it altogether until he gets it back (with comments, not a grade; he won’t actually know what his grade is until the class is over). But then he remembers how Ed caught him in the midst of his writing ritual, and he feels the color rise to his cheeks. “Oh. Right. Well, I got it in. But I slept, like, two hours that night.”
“Oof,” Ed replies, with sympathy.
“It’s my own fault. I can’t make myself start until there’s no time left.” Stede sighs. “I just sit there and play Snood for hours when the deadline isn’t close enough.” It’s true; that video game has been sweeping campus, and he and Roach have gotten especially addicted to it. It’s a problem. “And if I don’t give myself enough time, I feel like it’s not my fault if it’s not my best work, you know what I mean?”
“S’pose so. Never really bothered to turn in my best work,” Ed says cheerfully.
“Guess I’m scared to fail, when you come down to it.” Stede doesn’t know why he always ends up spilling his guts to Ed, but he can never seem to stop himself from doing so. And once again, they’re talking too much about him and not enough about Ed. “Now you know what I’m scared of. What’s the scariest thing you’ve ever done?” he asks, shifting the conversation.
“Hmm.” Ed taps the desk with the back end of his pen. Stede can’t help but stare at his tattoos while he’s thinking, following the snake up his arm to his (very nicely shaped) bicep. “Probably the time I threw up, like, thirty meters underwater.”
“You what?” Ed always seems to have some kind of new and astonishing information to impart.
“Mmhmm.” Ed gets a tiny smirk on his face. “Used to scuba dive a lot back in Aotearoa. Was out one day with my buddy Fang. It was so choppy. Shoulda postponed. But we were daredevils then. Feel like you’re immortal when you’re in your teens, yeah?”
“Yeah,” Stede agrees, though he has never once felt that way. Too much anxiety for that.
“Thought I could handle the bumpy ride, but once we went down, I felt so sick. Obviously couldn’t go right back up to the surface, or I’d get the bends.”
Stede nods. “Obviously.”
“So I took my regulator out, puked, stuck it back in my mouth, and went on with the dive. Fishes got a hot meal that day.” He grins at the memory. “They were happy.”
“Jesus.” Stede stares at him, eyes bugging out, unable to play it cool. “Ed, that’s amazing. How’d you manage to do that and not…y’know…die?”
Ed shrugs a shoulder. “Didn’t have much choice, did I?”
Stede huffs an incredulous laugh. “I reckon not.” Even Stede has to acknowledge that this is impressive. What a difference getting to know someone makes: where he used to be irritated by Ed’s confidence, now he’s in awe of Ed’s sang-froid and ability to stay calm under pressure. No one has ever accused Stede of being able to do that. So there’s one constant, anyway, in his relationship with Ed: wondering what it’s like to move through the world as he does, with self-assurance and calm.
And, okay. Throwing up isn’t sexy, sure, but Ed in a wetsuit? The neoprene hugging every curve and line of his slim body, leaving nothing to the imagination? The way he’d look after the slow rise to the surface, taking off his mask and catching his breath, wet hair slicked back from his lovely face?
Um. This is a dangerous road to go down. Enough has flashed into Stede’s mind that his pulse is spiking dangerously and his breathing is speeding up.
Holy fuck. He has to get out of there. “I’d better get going on my reading for French class!” Stede yelps, hopping off the desk and taking off.
***
Once he’s safely ensconced back in his room, it’s not much better. As luck would have it, his French homework is several racy chapters of Les Liaisons dangereuses. His French is good enough now that he doesn’t have to translate it into English in his mind; he can just read it and understand (well, mostly).
On the one hand, it’s kind of fab that he’s supposed to sit around reading about fictional characters having sex. On the other hand, here he is, twenty-one years old, very much not having sex in real life. Not only that, but it’s becoming increasingly difficult to ignore that all his fantasies are coalescing around one particular person.
One former-nemesis-turned-unlikely-friend.
Stede can’t concentrate enough to read, so fuck it, he thinks. Maybe he can after he blows off some steam. Spanks the monkey. Chokes the chicken. Whatever. He has fewer hangups about this than he used to, so why not? Stede still has his loft bed, even though it isn’t entirely necessary in his larger room, so he checks that the door is locked, grabs a bottle of lotion and a couple of tissues, turns out the overhead light, and climbs up onto the raised bed. He shoves down his jeans and underwear unceremoniously, pumps out a palmful of lotion, takes himself in hand, and just lets his mind do what it wants as he strokes.
The scene comes to life in his mind so easily. Taking Ed by the hand and pulling him into the office next to the front desk; hauling him against the cabinet where all the spare keys live and hearing them jangle; looking into Ed’s gorgeous brown eyes and seeing his wordless assent: yes, yes, I want you too, so much. Crushing their mouths together at last: god, what bliss. What an incredible feeling, Ed kissing him back like he’s starving, desperate, overtaken by want. Like he’s been imagining giving in to lust, too. Stede sneaking a hand up under Ed’s t-shirt and another into his hair; Ed swiping his tongue against his mouth, and Stede parting his lips and meeting Ed’s tongue with his own and learning what he tastes like; Ed pulling their hips flush so Stede can feel how much he wants him—
That’s all it takes: Stede spills over his fist with a gasp and a shudder.
Stede’s first emotion, once his body settles, is relief. Okay. Yeah. Good to confirm some things. Mary seems to have been right. There’s no doubt about it; he’s terribly attracted to Ed.
Then Stede slaps his forehead with his clean hand. Now he’s going to have to try to act so very normal around this friend he has a monster crush on.
Yeah. This isn’t complicated at all.
Notes:
Many (consensual) kisses to commenters! 😘 I appreciate you so much!
Chapter Text
That enlightening experience alone in his room serves as a weird reset: after that, Stede can’t look Ed in the eye anymore. At all. Stede’s certain that if he tries to talk to him, Ed will be able to sense everything. He’ll read all of Stede’s desires in his eyes, written there in boldface type, and be horrified or amused or disturbed. Stede will turn red as a tomato, get tongue-tied or spout some complete nonsense, and it’ll be a disaster. Better to be thought a fool than to open one’s mouth and remove all doubt, right?
So Stede can’t possibly risk it. He quickly resorts to avoiding Ed again; something he has plenty of practice doing from last year. It hurts—he misses their talks more than he expected—but he can’t face Ed. Stede’s bad at acting normal at the best of times; these are definitely not the best of times.
He needs a distraction. There’s Halloween coming up, then the HomoHop. He’s never really gone all out at the latter: a night of debauchery ostensibly in the name of celebrating all sexualities and orientations. Maybe he can get over his thing for Ed if he lives a little and puts himself out there. Going to the Queer Coalition’s biggest event of the year just makes sense.
And so, one evening at dinner, “I need a HomoHop outfit,” he says to Jim and Olu.
“Ooh. Something slutty?” Jim asks, waggling eyebrows at him.
Stede blushes, but “Yeah,” he says, projecting more confidence than he has. “But I don’t think I have anything that’ll work.”
Olu grins broadly. “Then we’re going shopping this weekend.”
Stede’s distinctly relieved that when Saturday afternoon rolls around, Ed is working at a different dorm, so he doesn’t need to sneak around to try and avoid being seen. Stede’s the one with the car, so the three of them pile into his vehicle, and Stede drives them to the thrift shop. They all poke through the racks; Olu and Jim have Stede try on any number of lacy and (faux) leathery things, but “Enh,” he says, every time. He’s not feeling any of them.
Then Jim spots a black mesh sleeveless top, grabbing it from the rack and holding it out to Stede. “Try this.”
So Stede takes it into the fitting room, removes his t-shirt yet again, and pulls the mesh top on over his head. Then he looks in the mirror, and—whoa. He wishes he were less skinny, sure, but it looks kind of…good? He turns this way and that. This might work.
“Show us!” Jim demands from the other side of the curtain.
“Okay.” Stede pulls back the curtain and strikes an exaggerated sexy pose, popping his hip and resting a hand on it, smoldering as best he can.
Olu wolf-whistles. “I think we have a winner. But what are you gonna wear with it?”
Stede ponders for a minute. None of the stuff he’s tried on so far has felt like him. But he does have one thing already in his wardrobe that he snuck into his suitcase the last time he went home. Just in case, he thought, not even sure why he was thinking that at the time. But maybe his instincts were right. “I do have a kilt?” he replies, tentatively.
Jim’s eyes light up. “Yes. Yes,” Jim says decisively. “That’s what you’re wearing.”
Olu nods his agreement. “I can’t believe you have a kilt, and we’ve never seen it!”
“Well, it’d be kind of weird to wear it to class, just randomly,” Stede replies, with a laugh. “But I am ‘a wee bit Scottish,’ as they say. Not like Buttons, though.” They all giggle.
And Stede can’t lie: he’s starting to get excited about his outfit. Even if he’s not as confident as…other people, he can fake it till he makes it and have some fun. Try to make this senior year everything it should be, despite himself.
***
Later that evening, Stede’s avoiding his homework again, so he heads downstairs to see what Lucius is up to. For a wonder, Lucius is in his room and listening to music, not hanging out with Pete as he normally is. Lucius’s door is partially open; as Stede knocks, some familiar lyrics and the sounds of a slow jam come through into the hallway:
Free your mind of doubt and danger
Be for real, don't be a stranger
We can achieve it, we can achieve it
Stede pushes open the door the rest of the way so he can sing along and perform Baby Spice’s gesture from the video, holding up two fingers, then one:
Come a little bit closer baby
Get it on, get it on
'Cause tonight is the night when two become one
Lucius grins, and they trade off lines from the chorus, singing to each other in an exaggeratedly sultry manner:
Stede: I need some love like I've never needed love before
Lucius: Wanna make love to ya, baby
Stede: I had a little love, now I'm back for more
Lucius: Wanna make love to ya, baby
But that’s as much as they can manage before both of them explode into giggles. “I never thought I’d catch you listening to the Spice Girls,” Stede teases, his manner affectionate.
“I enjoy them ironically,” Lucius replies with a shrug. “Plus, I just downloaded the mp3 from someone’s server. Not like I spent money on it.”
“Well, I enjoy them unironically.” Stede leans against the door jamb. “What’re you up to? Besides listening to girl groups in your room?”
Lucius shrugs. “Not writing my Philosophy paper. You?”
“Same. But Econ.”
Stede’s about to ask what Lucius is planning to wear to the HomoHop, when Lucius interrupts his train of thought: “What’d you do to Ed, by the way?”
“Me?” Stede’s both startled and befuddled by the question. “What did I do?”
“It has to be you,” Lucius responds decisively. “You’ve been stuck to that desk like glue for weeks, and then all of a sudden I never see you there anymore and he’s gloomy as hell. Ergo, you did something.”
“Oh. Huh.” Stede is rather stymied about what to say to this. He was so wrapped up in his own self-consciousness over his crush that he never considered that Ed might actually miss him. “I guess I’ll…try to talk to him next time he’s here.”
“Good,” Lucius replies. “Fix this. Because it’s bad for the general vibe around here.”
Stede rolls his eyes, playing it off, but in reality, he’s…well, he doesn’t even know what to think about this development. He stays and makes small talk with Lucius, but he couldn’t have told you any of what either of them said for the rest of the conversation.
It’s only when he gets back upstairs to his room and has time to think that he’s able to start making sense of it all. If Lucius is correct and Stede’s absence is what’s making Ed moody, that makes Stede feel all sorts of things. Guilty, and sorry, and, perversely…a bit glad? Not to have caused Ed unhappiness, of course. But Stede must matter to him at least slightly, for Ed to feel any kind of way about his absence.
Stede finds it even more difficult than usual to begin working on his paper, when his brain is full of so many thoughts. Now that he’s looking at things from Ed’s point of view, Stede realizes with a wince that it must seem to Ed like he’s been discarded. That Stede sees him as disposable, rather than as an actual friend. Nothing could be further from the truth: Stede was feeling too much for Ed, not too little. But that’s not what it would seem like, is it?
God, he sure messed this up, didn’t he? He’s got to try and fix this.
Notes:
The HomoHop was ultimately the deciding factor for me not changing place/event names for this fic. What else could I have called it that would have had the same je ne sais quoi?? 😂
My dear Scotgal suggested the Spice Girls mostly as a joke, but it amused me for this scene, so I went with it 😁
Chapter 10
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
The next time Ed’s working at his dorm, he’s there when Stede gets back from class. “Hey,” Stede says, trying to act as if nothing has happened, even though it’s the first time he’s stopped by the desk in ages. “How’s it going?”
“Fine.” Ed’s expression is guarded now, and his manner unusually formal. “How are you?” All the walls have come back up, Stede realizes with chagrin. All the progress he’d made in getting Ed to open up is for naught.
“I’m…okay,” Stede says, in response to Ed’s question. “A little stressed out lately, I guess.” That’s not untrue, but it’s so far from the whole truth; he feels his guilt as a tangible thing, a leaden weight in the pit of his stomach.
Despite his guilty conscience and his fears that Ed will read his mind and know his lustful thoughts, Stede forces himself to make eye contact. Ed’s looking at him, and his expression looks…hurt? “You used to tell me about that kind of thing,” he says, rather gruffly. “But whatever. Do what you need to do.”
Stede’s mind races, trying to figure out what he can say to make things right, but also not reveal too much. He can never let Ed know how he feels about him; that’s non-negotiable. There’s no way Ed would or could reciprocate. But Stede absolutely does not want to hurt Ed or lose him as a friend. Stede knows this now for certain. “Look,” he blurts out, quite desperately. “I’ve been in a weird mental place lately. I’ve been avoiding a lot of people.” This isn’t particularly true, but it’s the only way he can think of to soften things. “But I’m not going to anymore, okay? I miss talking to you. A lot. I’m really sorry I didn’t come by.”
Stede ventures another look at Ed. He still looks skeptical, but he seems to have thawed just slightly. “Yeah. I’ve missed it too,” he replies, slowly. “These are long shifts if no one talks to me, y’know.”
Oof. The last thing Stede wants is for Ed to feel like Stede’s been putting him in his place, that he’s just the guy at the desk, there to be ignored if Stede doesn’t need a spare key or a vacuum cleaner. “In that case, you’re not gonna be able to get rid of me,” he declares. “Remember, you asked for this. I’m going to bother you constantly with my problems.”
That makes Ed crack a grin, almost despite himself, it seems. “Bring it,” he says. “Do your worst, Bonnet.”
“Oh, I plan to.” They’re both smiling now, as if neither of them can help it. As if, no matter what, they’re meant to connect.
***
It’s a delicate dance after that, making sure he’s spending enough time at the desk for it to seem normal, while also stuffing all his feelings down so he can act normal. (Or at least as normal as Stede ever gets.) Every time he makes friendly conversation at the desk, Ed loosens back up a bit more; it’s such a relief that Stede almost doesn’t care that it’s impossible to hold eye contact sometimes, since if he does, he’ll get lost in those gorgeous brown eyes. Or fixate on how pretty the eyelashes fringing them are, even if he doesn’t disappear into their warm depths.
But if he doesn’t look at Ed’s eyes, he might end up looking at Ed’s lips…or his perfect jawline, usually flecked with stubble…or the hawk just below his long, tempting throat. All the parts that badly need kissing. But Stede shoves those thoughts away as best he can. That way lies madness, and he doesn’t want to end up embarrassing himself or making a run for it again so he can avoid embarrassing himself. Neither option is acceptable, so he does his best to chart a course between his own personal Scylla and Charybdis. It’s rough sailing.
And Ed must have someone in his life to kiss all those kissable spots, anyway. They’ve never discussed it, but how could someone that attractive be as lonely as Stede is? He has to get a grip. Being friends is good. Just fine. Perfectly fine.
***
During the day on Halloween, Stede casually suggests to his friends that they meet downstairs in his dorm before heading over to Main Building for the party. If he has an unspoken ulterior motive of wanting Ed to see all their costumes, that’s his business, isn’t it?
In the evening, he puts on the costume that has taken numerous hours and several trips to the craft store to put together. He draws on a mustache and goatee with some eyeliner he bought for that purpose, then grins at himself in the mirror: yes, that completes the look.
When Stede starts walking around the hallways in his get-up, seeing all the scantily clad women wearing what barely qualify as costumes in his book, he has sudden misgivings; apparently he and his friends are doing Halloween all wrong. Then he shakes it off. He doesn’t care; he wants to have fun and wear a proper costume, and if that makes him a nerd, so be it.
He goes downstairs a few minutes early to wait by the front desk. When he gets within sight of it, Ed does an exaggerated double take. “I didn’t expect a kind of Spanish Inquisition!” he exclaims.
Stede could not be more thrilled that Ed recognizes his bright red Cardinal Ximénez costume, complete with hat and large cross dangling around his neck. “Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!” he says, going straight into the monologue. “Our chief weapon is surprise! Surprise and fear. Fear, and surprise—our two weapons are fear and surprise, and ruthless efficiency—”
“And an almost fanatical devotion to the pope?” Ed supplies, with a wide grin.
“Yes!” Stede beams and does a little shimmy; he’s too delighted to play it cool. “I’m so happy you got the reference!”
“You kidding?” Ed looks appalled that Stede might think otherwise. “Love Monty Python. Oh! Check this out!” Ed spies Frenchie coming down the stairs. “It’s Dennis Moore!”
Frenchie is looking dapper in his highwayman outfit of a long jacket with a short cape, tricorn hat, and mask, holding a bunch of long, skinny flower spikes in various colors. “Stand and deliver! Your lupines, please.”
“You look awesome, Frenchie,” Ed says. ”Oh, who’s this?” Roach and John are just walking into the dorm. John’s looking dapper in a suit, tie and hat, deliberately posing with an exaggerated overbite. “The Upper Class Twit of the Year?”
John makes some unintelligible noises; “It is indeed Oliver St. John Mollusc,” Stede replies on his behalf, grinning.
“And of course,” Ed says, gesturing toward Roach. “Spam lady!”
Indeed, Roach has on a woman’s wig, a pink shirt, and an old-fashioned-looking apron. “Can I get you some spam, spam, spam, eggs, and spam?” he asks, in a crackly falsetto.
Everyone giggles. “These are all so great,” Ed says, grinning. “So glad I got to see you all.”
“Wouldn’t let you miss ‘em,” Stede says, with a twinkle in his eye.
“D’you need me to take your picture?” Ed asks.
“Oh!” Stede can’t believe this slipped his mind. “Yeah!” Stede dashes upstairs as fast as his homemade cardinal robes will let him. He grabs the SLR that traveled with him around Europe, then hustles back downstairs and hands it to Ed. He and his friends huddle together in the high-ceilinged hallway, jostling each other and laughing as Ed directs them. And then it’s easy to smile a genuine smile, with Ed behind the lens. Stede can’t wait to develop this roll and see how it turned out. He just knows it’ll be something he’ll treasure.
As he runs his camera back upstairs, Stede reflects that it doesn’t matter now what anyone else thinks of their costumes; his Halloween is already a success.
Notes:
Isn’t Sailor’s Ruin’s art for this chapter absolutely adorable?? I love it so much ❤️ so grateful!!
Extra (consensual) kisses for commenters!! You get me through the day!!
Chapter Text
Hot on the heels of Halloween is, of course, the long-awaited HomoHop. Stede has his outfit at the ready, and he and his friends have their tickets; the only fly in Stede’s ointment is that Ed will be working in a different dorm where none of his friends live, so there’s no way to show off his outfit casually without it being obvious he’s going there on purpose. He stifles a tiny sigh whenever he thinks about it. He knows they’ll take pictures of each other; those’ll have to do.
But he can still have a good time. In fact, maybe even more so, if he’s not so very distracted, the way he would be if Ed were around. It’s his senior year, and he wants to go all out this time: so much so that he stocked up on body glitter, and he’s going to wear the eyeliner he bought for his Halloween costume as intended this time. Stede wishes he were bold enough to try wearing more makeup than that, but at least some heavy black eyeliner will match his rather garish yellow-and-black MacLeod tartan, which he’s wearing with the mesh top he bought at the thrift store.
It’s harder to apply than he expected—his eyelids vibrate like crazy whenever he brings the eyeliner near them—but eventually he manages to get a respectable line rimming his eyes. He and his friends start the night at John and the Swede’s TA; the HomoHop itself is ostensibly alcohol-free, so they pre-game a little, though nothing like Stede suspects the rest of their classmates are. After a few drinks, they head over to the College Center and down to the Mug, the on-campus bar, to people-watch and dance.
And dance they do, first to Will Smith’s “Gettin’ Jiggy wit It”; then they shout-sing along with Chumbawumba’s “Tubthumping”:
He drinks a whiskey drink
He drinks a vodka drink
He drinks a lager drink
He drinks a cider drink
He sings the songs that remind him of the good times
He sings the songs that remind him of the better times
Looking around at Jim and Oluwande, John and Frenchie, Buttons and Roach and the Swede, Stede knows this is exactly what he’s going to remember any time he hears this song. He’s constantly being hit by a kind of nostalgia-in-advance this year, any time he realizes an event is the last of its kind he’ll experience.
As he’s mulling over these bittersweet thoughts, Stede sees him. Through the crowd, as if a spotlight is falling on his head of dark curls. It’s Ed. For whatever reason, he’s come to the Mug at the end of his shift.
Well, now. This is his chance to be seen, isn’t it? “I’ll be right back,” he shouts to Oluwande, then begins fighting his way through the crowd of nearly-naked students, as George Michael’s “Outside” starts to play. “Ed!” he shouts, grabbing his elbow. Ed turns and does a subtle double-take, checking out what Stede’s wearing. “Damn,” he says, looking Stede up and down. “Love your outfit.”
Stede can’t help but preen. “Thank you,” he replies, striking a pose, hand on his hip. There’s something so satisfying about Ed getting to see another side of him. And, frankly, more of him. Stede feels exposed, but in a good way, for once. A sexy way. (Stede never gets to feel this way.)
In the background, George Michael is singing:
Let's go outside (let's go outside)
In the sunshine
I know you want to, but you can't say yes
“I wasn’t expecting to see you here,” Stede adds, leaning close and speaking loudly so Ed can hear him over the crowd and the music.
Ed grins a crooked grin. “You all are persistent,” he says. “Talked me into checking it out.”
“And? What do you think?” Stede asks, archly.
Ed exhales a laugh. “Definitely a sight to see.” He looks around the room briefly, but his eyes snap back to Stede, letting his eyes drift over his body again. Stede feels Ed’s gaze like a touch; it sends a frisson up and down his spine.
And after his vodka tonic and the headiness of getting dressed up in revealing clothes and wearing makeup—not to mention Ed looking at him in a way he can feel—Stede grows sassy and bold. “Dance with me?” he asks. No one else has to know his heart is pounding so hard it’s rivaling the bass from the speakers.
“Sure,” Ed says, with a small half-smile. Stede beams widely, then beckons him onto the dance floor. They both begin moving to the beat:
You say you want it, you got it
I never really said it before
There's nothing here but flesh and bone
There's nothing more, nothing more
There's nothing more
Stede feels like he’s having an out-of-body experience. The dance floor is packed, so they have no choice but to dance close to one another. They aren’t touching, but Stede almost feels as though they are, the way they’re moving perfectly in sync. Ed’s movements are so rhythmic and fluid, and his eye contact is so intense that Stede’s having heart palpitations. It’s beyond intoxicating.
“Here you are, Ed!” a man says, interrupting their moment, throwing an arm around Ed’s shoulders in true bro fashion. “Was looking all over for ya. Who’s the twink?” He tips his head toward Stede. The guy is sandy-haired with a handlebar mustache, and he’s wearing a Coed Naked Euchre t-shirt: “If you don’t have a good partner, you’d better have a good hand,” it reads.
Stede hates him on sight.
Ed elbows the newcomer in the ribs, laughing. “Would you fuckin’ stop? He’s not a twink.” He gestures between them: “Jack, this is Stede. Stede, Jack. Jack and I go way back,” he says to Stede.
Maybe I am a twink, Stede thinks. But fuck this guy anyway. “Hello,” he says aloud, in his most aggressively polite manner, sticking out his hand. “Good to meet you.”
“Oh. Lovely,” Jack responds, sarcastically, half-heartedly shaking his hand. “C’mon,” he says to Ed. “This party sucks. Let’s get out of here.”
“All right.” Ed turns to Stede. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do, okay?” he says with a wink, as he heads out of the Mug with Jack.
Stede’s never felt as deflated as he does in that moment, watching Ed leave with that arsehole. Just those few seconds with Jack made it clear to Stede what kind of person he is. Why is Ed friends with him, anyway? Is that his…boyfriend? That thought makes Stede incredibly queasy.
Let it go, he tells himself. This is the last time you get to do this. He rejoins his friends, only half paying attention to anything around him.
“Saw you dancing with Ed,” Jim says, with a sly smile.
“Yeah. For, like, two seconds,” Stede responds glumly.
Now the music has switched to Janet Jackson’s “Together Again.” Stede dances, pastes on a smile, makes the best of it; but, as always, all he can think about is Ed.
Dream about us together again
What I want: us together again, baby
I know we'll be together again
But they were never together together, and this upbeat dance song is really about loss. Still, he can’t help these lyrics hitting him as he keeps moving his body to the beat.
Just be here. Be present. Remember this, Stede tells himself, trying to keep his heart from sinking right through the floor. This is all you’ve got.
Notes:
They say comments speed the healing process when you just got a wisdom tooth removed 🤔😂 in all seriousness, I really and truly appreciate your comments so much 🫶🫶
Chapter 12
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
It’s a few days after the HomoHop before Ed has another shift in Stede’s dorm, but when he does, Stede stops by, of course. “So,” Ed says. “Were you one of the ones who ended up in the ER after the HomoHop?”
Stede grimaces. “Of course not! You know my friends and I aren’t like that.”
“Still. Twenty-seven students, was it?” Ed raises an eyebrow. “You all make…interesting choices.”
“Not all of us,” Stede protests. He hates to have Ed lumping him in with his more reckless classmates, especially when he’s been mocked all his life for being a goody-two-shoes. “You know me! We didn’t even stay out that late. Too crowded, and too many people who were drunk or high. We went back to a TA and watched The Princess Bride instead.”
“Inconceivable!” Ed says, with a smirk.
“You keep using that word,” Stede replies, mimicking Mandy Patinkin’s somewhat bizarre Spanish accent. “I do not think it means what you think it means.”
Ed grins. “Such a classic.”
“Only my favorite movie of all time,” Stede agrees, with enthusiasm. It tickles him to no end that they apparently have the same taste in comedies.
“Well, anyway.” Ed taps his fingers on the desk, then looks at Stede through his lashes. “Glad you’re okay.”
“I’m just fine,” Stede says with a smile, ordering his heart not to skip a beat from that look. Did Ed actually worry about him, once he heard about the aftermath of the party? If so, that’s awfully sweet. If Stede’s in an unusually good mood the rest of the day, well. It’s nice to have someone care about your well-being, isn’t it?
After the HomoHop, it’s a quick downhill slide toward winter break. Stede spends the Thanksgiving long weekend with Frenchie’s family in New England; by the time everyone gets back to campus, there’s barely any classes left before finals. Many of his professors bring treats to class during the last week; when there’s an extra powdered sugar doughnut left at the end of his Trade Policy class, Stede snags it, wraps it up in a napkin, and brings it back to the dorm for Ed.
“Brought you something,” he says, handing the napkin-swaddled treat to Ed, a tad shyly. “Sorry about the inelegant presentation.”
“Hey, thanks.” Ed seems genuinely pleased that Stede brought him something, smiling like a little kid as he unwraps the bundle. “I do have a bad sweet tooth,” he confesses, before digging in.
“Me too,” Stede replies, as Ed begins munching the doughnut. Stede tries not to stare; watching Ed take enthusiastic bites of his treat is unnervingly mesmerizing. “My yearbook quote in high school was ‘Life is uncertain. Eat dessert first.’”
Ed swallows the bite he’s chewing. (Stede’s not watching his Adam’s apple bob in his throat as he swallows, or anything along those lines.) “That’s a great philosophy.”
Ed finishes the doughnut while the two of them make small talk about Stede’s exams and final papers and impending trip home. When he’s done, Ed wipes his mouth with one of the napkins, but there’s still some powdered sugar stuck in his stubble.
“Err,” Stede says, with just the tiniest bit of hesitation. “You have a bit more right there.” He points to the problem area on his own face.
“Here?” Ed gives the vicinity a swipe, but misses.
“No, come to the—down a bit.” Now Ed wipes too far down. “Just up, up a little bit.” Nope, he’s still not getting the spot. “To the—to the left.” Now this is just getting comical. “Here, I’ll get it,” he says quietly, gently taking the napkin from Ed’s hand and brushing the sugar off his face.
They both pause, locked in suspended animation; it was such an oddly intimate moment, and as their eyes meet and hold, Stede’s having the hardest of times keeping his feelings on the “friends” side of the line.
He’s got to change the subject. He breaks eye contact to toss the napkin in the trash ever-so-casually, and he perches on one of the far corners of the desk. “There’s a blood drive happening on campus soon,” he says. “I’ve been trying to psych myself up to donate.”
“Oh. Well.” Ed pauses for a beat. “Not an option for me. Not allowed to give blood.”
“Why not?” Stede scours his brain for potential reasons. “Your tattoos?”
“Nah, mate.” Ed shakes his head. “Had these tattoos for years. They only care about recent ones.” Ed stops there; he seems unwilling to explain further.
But now Stede is endlessly curious. “Then what is it?”
Ed looks at him keenly for what seems like an eternity; it feels like Ed’s taking his measure, weighing pros and cons, deciding if he’s worthy. Then he appears to make up his mind, answering the question directly: “MSM, Stede. Man who has sex with men.” He pauses again. “I’m tainted. They don’t want me.”
Stede’s eyes grow wide. “Ever?”
Ed gives him one single, affirmative nod. “Ever. Doesn’t matter how monogamous you are. You have sex with a man, that’s it.”
Stede’s pulse is racing. “Wow. Um. I didn’t realize that.” A million thoughts run through his mind. He’d heard vague noises around campus about the blood drive being controversial, but he didn’t know why; if he’d actually had the balls to go to Queer Coalition meetings, he’d surely have known. But instead, here he is again, being terribly naïve.
But. But! He’s unexpectedly gathered some…rather intriguing information about Ed. His heart speeds up even more, as he continues to think about it.
And not only that. This is an opening, isn’t it? Just say it, he says to himself. Say it out loud. Make it real. “Um.” Stede’s heart is now thumping so hard he thinks he may have a cardiac episode. “Then I hope I get turned away sometime.”
Ed smiles kindly. “Thinking about getting a tattoo?”
“Oh, no way. I hate needles.” Stede forces himself to meet Ed’s eyes. It’s well worthwhile, as he gets to see Ed’s journey of expressions as he realizes the implications of what Stede just said. Surprise, then—if Stede isn’t imagining it—a flicker of interest; ultimately, he lands on something like regret, though it’s not exactly that. Stede can’t quite place what it is.
“Signing yourself up for a lifetime of discrimination, huh?” Ed says lightly, now looking away. That’s unusual, Stede thinks. Normally, nothing seems to faze Ed.
Stede shrugs. “Better than not being myself.” He’s spent his whole life doing this, in countless ways; he’s not willing to keep backing away from this part of who he is forever, even if he hasn’t done anything concrete about it yet.
Ed looks back at him, studying his face carefully. Stede wonders very much what Ed is perceiving there. He can’t remotely imagine what Ed’s thinking. “Well, good on ya, mate.” He gives Stede a sober nod. “Hope you get banned sometime, if that’s what you want.”
Oh, Ed. You have no idea how much I want. Who I want. Or do you? Can’t you tell? Stede’s done his best to hide it, yes, but he’s no actor. He might stuff down his feelings for Ed on the daily, but they’re always present, regardless of whether they’re simmering closer to or farther from the surface at any given second. All the slumbering desire Ed awakened within him weeks ago; all the combined affection and attraction that makes it even harder to hide and ignore what he feels.
It’s all so much. He’s just got to keep trying to survive it.
Notes:
So yes, 27 students did indeed end up at the ER after that HomoHop, but that pales in comparison to the following year: over 50 students required medical attention, and local hospitals asked that the party be shut down, since their emergency rooms got overwhelmed. The event was discontinued after that.
As for the blood donation conversation: it was important to me not to gloss over the complexities of this time period and all the reasons why many folks (like several of my friends) didn’t come out until after graduation. And as it happens, the Red Cross did ask my husband to stop donating blood—but because he would pass out every time, and it was a pain in the ass for them 😅
Chapter Text
Between final papers and exams and packing up to go home for a month, Stede doesn’t have an opportunity for another heart-to-heart with Ed before he leaves. Which is perhaps just as well; their mutual coming-out-to-each-other moment was…well…intense. There isn’t time for anything beyond a few friendly greetings and rushed chats before he’s heading home for the holidays.
But, woof—once Stede gets back in January, is there ever a lot to catch up on. “Kia ora,” Ed says, with a wide, happy smile, the first time they see one another after Stede returns to campus. “Glad you’re back.”
“Kia ora,” Stede replies, with a grin of his own. “I’m so glad to be back. You have no idea.”
“Oh?” Ed says, leaning back in his chair, as Stede makes himself comfortable on the corner of the desk. “Tell me.”
“Yeah, okay.” Stede takes a deep breath. “The short version is, I got myself disowned.”
Ed’s always-large eyes grow even larger; he’s understandably surprised. “You who what in the what now?”
“Ever since my ex-girlfriend Mary dumped me—do you know her? Mary Allamby?” Ed shakes his head. He doesn’t work in her dorm, so it’s not a surprise that he doesn’t. “Anyway, she dumped me last year. And my parents have been asking and asking if I’ve been dating anyone ever since, and how are they ever going to be grandparents if I don’t find a suitable spouse in college, et cetera et cetera, and I finally lost it and said, ‘I’m gay, okay? Leave me alone!’ It…did not go over well.”
“Ugh. Sorry to hear that,” Ed says, sympathetically.
“They’re still paying my tuition for this semester, since it would look worse if I had to drop out, but they’ve made it clear that that’s it. I’m on my own after that.” Stede lifts his chin defiantly to cover how anxious he actually is. He still doesn’t really know how to be an adult; all his needs have been taken care of here, so he’s never truly had to figure that out. “I have to hope I get offered funding by a grad program or that one of the scholarships I’ve applied for pans out.”
“Damn. That’s a lot.”
“Yeah, it is.” Stede sighs. “My mum cried and acted like I was the hugest disappointment, but the things my dad said to me?” Stede shudders. “I don’t even want to repeat them. I finally told him, ‘Just call me the F-word and be done with it. You’ll feel better.’ And that’s when he told me my tuition this semester was the last thing he was ever paying for, and that as far as he’s concerned, he has no children.”
“Fuck, Stede.” Ed’s face is all concern and empathy. “I’m sorry. For what happened, and that your dad is as shitty as mine. In a different way.”
“Yeah? He is?” Stede’s had the impression that Ed doesn’t have a good relationship with his father; they’ve talked about his mum, but never his dad, and Stede has assumed that’s for a reason. But without discussing any specifics, there was no way to know for sure.
“Yeah.” Ed’s expression darkens slightly. “My dad’s a drunk. A violent one. He’s the reason me and Mum came to America.” He looks away and fiddles with some papers on the desk. “He’d go into the worst rages and take it out on both of us. Until I was old enough to fight back.”
“Oh my god, Ed,” Stede whispers. His heart is breaking for Ed’s younger self.
Ed shrugs, though Stede can easily see his casualness is merely a long-practiced act. “Wasn’t great.” Quite the understatement, in Stede’s opinion. “Mum got us out of that house, and things were okay for a while. But then my dad started stalking us. Mum was determined to get us farther away before somebody ended up dead.”
“Jesus.” Stede’s certain he must look rather shocked.
But Ed is unfazed. He makes a “meh” face, then continues his story: “Have some relatives in New York City, so we crashed with them for a while, once she’d saved enough for our plane tickets. Too far and too pricey for him to come after us, or he would’ve. But you know how expensive it is in the City. We for sure couldn’t afford our own place there. Couldn’t even afford one here, really.” He’s looking off into the distance, the shadows of the past visible on his face; it obviously isn’t easy for him to talk about any of this.
“So how’d you and your mum manage it?” Stede asks, curiously. He doesn’t want to pry, but he does want to know as much as Ed’s willing to share.
“Remember Fang? My dive buddy I told you about?” Stede nods; he for sure hasn’t forgotten that story. “He’d moved to the States himself a couple of years before and found a good job. I told him how Mum was two thousand short of what she needed for a down payment. He came down from Connecticut a few days later, with two thousand in cash, and he counted it out in front of her without saying a single word. She started crying and hugged him so hard.” Ed looks like he’s getting a bit misty with the memory, too. “She’s paid him back now. Took years. But we could never have gotten a place without him.”
“He’s family,” Stede says, quietly.
“Mmhmm. Just like all of your crew here is family to you.” Ed looks at him; his expression is now quite soft. “I know what happened with your parents sucks. But you’ve found your people here.”
And it’s true. But Stede’s parental rejection is still new and raw; he hasn’t had time to process it enough yet. “I know you’re right,” he says. “But it still gnaws at me that my parents call themselves religious, and they’re the least loving and accepting people I know. Their friends too; the whole lot of ‘em. They think going to church makes them good people. The way they all preach ‘loving thy neighbor’”—Stede makes air quotes as he speaks—“and then turn around and do anything but. Bunch of hypocrites,” he concludes, bitterly.
Ed nods his agreement. “Typical colonizer bullshit.”
Suddenly Stede realizes that, yet again, he must be coming off as the most naïve person on the planet. “I’m sorry. I'm not telling you anything you don’t already know.” He grimaces slightly. “You must think I’m an idiot.”
“Nah, mate. I don’t.” From the look in Ed’s eyes, Stede can tell he means it. “Some people never figure it out. You’re doing that.”
Stede gives him a grateful look; they hold each other’s gazes for a moment, and more than ever, Stede’s struggling to maintain his composure while he does. Then he starts and looks at his watch. “Crap, I gotta meet Frenchie. But thank you, Ed. For listening and for telling me about what you’ve been through, too.”
“Any time,” Ed says with a smile. “You need to vent, you know where to find me.”
Stede grins. “I sure do.”
Notes:
I needed a way to get Stede as poor as I was, for reasons that will become clear eventually!
Thank you for keeping me afloat, dear commenters 🫶
Chapter Text
Given the fracture with his parents, Stede has no choice but to throw himself into his schoolwork. He has a senior thesis to finish for his English major and no safety net; if he’s going to pursue his academic dreams, he’ll have to get by strictly on his own merits. In some ways it’s good to have a goal, since it makes focusing on his work that much easier.
But sometimes, Stede has to get out of his own head. As a break from wracking his brain for words, Stede heads over to the track for as many practices as he can. While he’s putting more emphasis this year on the “student” part of student-athlete, it still feels good to run some of the stress out of his body, especially when he can’t stand sitting at his desk for one more minute. He can wrestle with some of his ideas while running laps; If those ideas often get eclipsed by thoughts of a tall, dark-haired, handsome man, well. He’s only human.
Stede’s other break, of course, is stopping by the front desk during Ed’s shifts to chat with said handsome man. It’s impossible to resist spending much of his free time there, especially when he’s managing to learn more and more about Ed with each passing week. One day, when Stede’s stressing about waiting to hear from graduate programs, he says, “What about you, Ed? Did you ever think about going to grad school?”
Ed shakes his head. “Nope. Don’t have my Bachelor’s, even.”
Stede gawps at him. “Really? I know you didn’t finish your Marine Biology degree, but…”
“I got…derailed.” Ed fidgets a bit and looks ill at ease. “Don’t judge me. All my aunties back in Aotearoa do enough of that, whenever Mum makes me call them.”
“I would never.” But that doesn’t mean Stede doesn’t want to know more. “How’d you get derailed, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“Well.” Ed takes a deep breath and lets it out with a sigh. “Went to community college around here when Mum first got her place. Was easy enough. Did well; got my Associate’s degree. Then I transferred to a SUNY school upstate.” He pauses. “Wasn’t a real serious student, gotta say. My first time away from Mum. Partied a lot. Had my fun. Then I met someone.” Stede can see the cloud descending; he’s familiar with that look, now. “Followed her to another school. Biggest mistake of my life. Thought I was gonna marry her, but she ended up cheating on me.”
“Oh, Ed!” Stede exclaims. “How awful!”
“Yeah, it was.” Ed’s looking away now, flicking his thumbnail and fingernails together; it makes a quiet, repetitive clicking noise. “Never been so angry in my life. I’d bought her all these commemorative plates because she collected ‘em. Smashed all of the ones I bought when I found out.”
Stede’s eyes go round. “Ohh.” He can see it. Despite the easygoing way Ed generally presents himself to the world, over these past months of talking, Stede has begun to suspect that Ed harbors some stormy internal seas. There’s a lot of passion being held at bay, beneath the outward calm.
Now Ed looks up, meeting Stede’s eyes with the most serious look Stede’s ever seen from him. “I’d never—never—have laid a finger on her, no matter what she did. Wasn’t gonna turn into my dad all like that. But why should she get to keep those? When I paid for them?” Ed stares at Stede defiantly. Stede puts his hands up; he’s never been in a situation like this one, so he’s not about to pass judgement. “Anyway. Wasn’t gonna stay there to finish school, obviously. Came back here to live with Mum. Been supposedly finishing my degree by correspondence ever since. Someday I’ll get it done.” He finishes his story with a shrug.
“I’m sure you will,” Stede hastens to reply. It’s obvious from their many conversations how smart Ed is; a piece of paper isn’t necessary to let Stede know that. “That’s terrible, Ed. I can’t believe anyone would do that to you.”
“Yeah, well.” Ed exhales an ironic laugh. “Believe it. Fucked up my whole life over that relationship. Haven’t been in a serious one since.”
Before either of them can say any more, the phone at the desk rings, and another student comes up to get a spare key; Stede has to leave it there and let Ed do his actual job. As he departs with a quick wave goodbye and heads upstairs, he has a ton to think about. What a complicated, intriguing person Ed is. So many reasons for him not to trust anyone; so many reasons why he’s been far lonelier than Stede imagined. No wonder they’ve bonded the way they have. As different as their lives have been, at the end of the day, they’re two unmoored souls, both badly in need of a safe harbor.
***
A few weeks later, Stede gets a letter in his campus mailbox; knowing Ed is at the front desk, he dashes back to his dorm in excitement. “Ed! Ed!” Stede exclaims excitedly, as soon as he gets inside the door. “I got an interview for a scholarship! A big one!” This particular one is prestigious, with tens of thousands of dollars at stake.
“Awesome!” Ed exclaims; he looks so happy for Stede. “Congrats!”
“Thank you!” Stede beams at him. “I’ll need to go down to the City and do an interview.” The reality of this dawns on him as he says the words, and his face falls. His brief period of celebration is already over; time for the massive self-doubt to kick in. “Oh my god, I’m so nervous already.”
“You’ll crush it,” Ed says, with easy confidence.
“I don’t know,” Stede replies ruefully. “I’ll probably psych myself out of it.”
But Ed, as always, is reassuring: “Just do your best. S’all you can do, anyway.”
“You’re right. Thanks, Ed. I’ll try.” As Stede heads up to his room, he rereads the letter, trying to focus on the positive; a scholarship this substantial would go a long way toward alleviating his worries about the future. He’s already made the first cut. Why not the next?
Stede’s so busy this semester with his thesis and coursework that the time between getting the letter and his scheduled interview time doesn’t feel like long at all. When the big day arrives, Stede dons his suit and tie, does his hair carefully, then hops on a Metro North train early in the morning to head to his interview, trying to convince himself he’s confident and capable. I can do this, he tells himself. I am adequate.
But by the time he makes it back to campus in the evening and finds Ed at the desk, he’s slumping with exhaustion, simply glad the ordeal is over.
“Hey,” Ed says, his face one big question mark. “How’d the interview go?”
Stede laughs a hollow laugh, as he unbuttons his suit jacket and perches on the desk per usual. “Ed. I’m not exaggerating when I say it was a complete disaster.”
“Nah.” Ed folds his arms and leans back in his chair. “Don’t believe it.”
“Oh, believe it,” Stede responds, ruefully. “Trust me, I’m not just being negative. I didn’t know how to answer half their questions. I needed to have, like, my whole graduate career thought through already. Who knows what they want to do before they get there? But apparently I was supposed to.” Stede plays with his tie for a minute. “I know this one’s a lost cause.”
“But you can still get funding in other ways, right?” Ed’s tone is encouraging and hopeful. “Like directly through the school?”
“Yeah. I just had the fun of wandering around the Javits Center and feeling totally unqualified.” Stede laughs ironically. “The most interesting part was on the way down to the City. I ran into a postdoc from English on the train.”
“Oh?” Ed raises an eyebrow.
“Yeah. He recognized me, even though I’ve only met him, like, once before.” This guy is one of very few postdocs at Stede’s school; he’s noteworthy to Stede only for that reason.
“Mmm. Not surprised,” Ed replies, with a knowing look.
Stede isn’t sure what Ed means by that, but whatever. “He asked if he could sit in the seat next to me, and then he offered to buy me coffee when we got there. So I said yes.”
“You did, did you?” There’s a subtle change in Ed’s voice, though Stede would be hard pressed to describe what it is.
“Yeah?” Stede shrugs. “It was just coffee.”
“Mm…hmm.” Stede’s not sure how Ed makes two little syllables sound so skeptical, but he does. “Are you sure he thought so?”
“Huh?” Stede’s mystified. “What else would it be?” He pauses and thinks back to it, going over what happened in his mind; he was too nervous about his impending interview to pay much attention to anything else at the time. “I guess there was one kinda weird thing that happened,” he acknowledges. “We were going to different parts of the city afterward, and as we were leaving the coffee shop and saying bye, he talked about how the sunlight was shining through my hair and making it glow. Or something like that.”
“Fuckin’ hell, Stede!” Ed can’t seem to contain himself any longer. He rubs the back of his neck, the agitation coming off of him in waves. “You know it’s not just women who have to watch out for predators, right?”
“What?” Stede’s completely surprised. “No! It was nothing like that.”
“Oh, really?” Ed narrows his eyes. “This guy is older, isn’t he, if he’s a postdoc?”
Stede nods. “Yeah. Probably in his thirties or something.”
Ed mutters something under his breath, just as Oluwande comes inside the building. “Oluwande!” Ed waves him over. “You need to keep an eye on your friend here,” Ed says to Olu, indicating Stede with his thumb. “He has no survival instincts whatsoever.”
“I know, Ed. I know,” Oluwande replies, with an exaggerated sigh.
Stede’s starting to get a bit huffy. “I’m right here, you guys.”
“Just—ugh!” Ed groans and throws up his hands; despite his joking tone with Oluwande, he seems genuinely frustrated. “Stede,” he says, his voice now serious. “Promise me you’ll be more careful?” Ed sounds legitimately concerned for him. Stede looks into his eyes; Ed is silently pleading through them. It makes Stede go a bit woozy, actually.
“All right, Ed,” he says, in a mollifying way. “I’ll be more careful. Promise.”
Ed exhales, though he still has worry written in the pucker between his eyebrows. “Please do.”
Notes:
I’ve already dipped into the fencing well in two AUs, so here’s another case where I’ve flipped it and given Stede my husband’s sport. It’s actually pretty hilarious that of the two of us, I was the NCAA student-athlete (just Division III, but still).
I don’t name the scholarship because a) the specifics don’t really matter, and b) while that’s all a real thing that happened, you apply for this one as a junior and not a senior. So in my own life, this took place the year before. And yes, I truly bombed that interview 😅
Xoxo, dear commenters!
Chapter 15
Notes:
This chapter picks up right where the previous one left off.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
“Ed sure seemed worried about you,” Oluwande says significantly, once they’ve all made it through the food line in the dining hall and have sat down with their trays of food. Frenchie is presently digging his chicken breast out from under his salad; they cost a lot of points, so he’s found a workaround so he doesn’t have to pay full price. (“Gotta stick it to the man,” he says, whenever Stede raises an eyebrow about his unconventional methods. Stede can’t judge; he’s still on the largest meal plan, since his parents didn’t think to change it; he’s not in danger of running out of points, as the students on financial aid generally are.)
“Yeah, well. He’ll go prematurely grey, worrying so much,” Stede replies, rather breezily, cutting into the chicken he’s paid for above board.
“He really likes you, Stede,” Jim says, giving him a meaningful look.
But Stede knows better than to believe that. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. If anything, he’s always flirting with Anne. Haven’t you seen them?” Stede’s not merely deflecting; every time he’s seen them together at the desk—which is often—Stede has secretly wanted to claw his own face off. He could swear Anne comes by with crumbs on her low-cut shirts just so she can brush them off conspicuously when she’s in Ed’s eyeline.
“I think that’s just how he is,” Frenchie says. “Plus, she’s the one who’s always flirting with him, just to drive Mary crazy.”
Stede shrugs. “Still think you all are nuts.” Sure, he and Ed are close friends by now. But he’s only going to make himself insane if he starts thinking any of his feelings might be reciprocated.
The conversation moves on to Founder’s Day and who among them is planning to try shrooms; Stede doesn’t intend to—he has a ton of work to do, and he doesn’t want to go overboard at that big campus party. So his mind wanders instead. Not being interested in the topic under discussion makes it difficult to avoid getting trapped in the never-ending cycle of thinking about Ed, then trying not to, then inevitably thinking about him again. Whenever Stede closes his eyes, he can picture those brief but magical moments of dancing with him at the Mug. How magnetic Ed was. How much Stede wanted to reach out and touch him…to dance with their arms around each other, feeling the heat building between them…
“Well, Stede? What about you?” Oluwande is asking.
“Hmm? What?” Stede has no idea what they’ve been talking about.
“Shrooms. You in?”
Oh, they’re still talking about that? “Nah, mate. Gotta work on my thesis.” He has, of course, been procrastinating finishing said thesis, just like everything else in his four years here. But in truth, it’s not just that: Stede’s always had so little control of anything in his life that the thought of hallucinating and losing control of his mind is honestly terrifying.
“Bo-ring,” Jim says, with an emphatic eye-roll.
“That’s me.” Stede’s not going to try to deny it. He remains as deeply uncool as he ever was; might as well embrace it. “C’est la vie.”
***
As time passes, nothing about Spring semester is making it easier for Stede to keep thoughts of Ed from taking over his brain. On his twenty-second birthday, his friends surprise him at the front desk with a small chocolate cake from a local bakery. Stede didn’t expect anyone to make a fuss; he’s quite touched. While they’re all milling about, eating slices of cake, Oluwande pulls him aside. “Guess whose idea this was? And who went out and got the cake for you?” he says, pointedly looking over at Ed, just to make sure Stede understands what he’s saying.
Stede feels his cheeks growing warm; he can’t help it. “Really? He did?”
“Yes, really.”
“Oh. Uh.” Stede pauses. “Guess I’d better thank him, then.” Olu nods encouragingly, and Stede starts making his way over to Ed. “Hey,” he says, once Ed’s done chatting with Roach. “I hear this was your idea.”
“Yeah, well.” Ed’s manner turns aggressively nonchalant. “‘Eat dessert first,’ right? Somebody smart once told me that.”
“They are words to live by.” Stede grins. “Seriously, though,” he says, growing more earnest. “Thank you. This means a lot to me.” Their eyes meet and hold for a delicious few seconds; don’t swoon don’t swoon he tells himself.
“Don’t mention it, mate,” Ed says. His smile is so kind and affectionate—reaching all the way to his lovely eyes—that Stede can’t stand it anymore.
“Hey. So,” Stede begins. “Um. Can I give you a hug?” His voice is coming out rather higher pitched than he’d like. Surely a thank-you-slash-birthday hug isn’t a weird thing to ask for, right? He needs to settle the fuck down about it. It’s just a quick friendly embrace.
Ed smiles even more broadly. “Of course.” So Stede sets down his plate, and Ed rises; Stede steps around the desk to meet him, and they wrap their arms around each other. Stede exhales, relaxing into it. It feels so safe and so comforting, and Ed smells so nice—sort of woodsy and citrusy—and what happens if Stede just never lets go, ever? What then?
“Happy to help you celebrate,” Ed is saying into his hair, while Stede’s brain is going a mile a minute, processing every sensation, trying to memorize how Ed’s body feels against his; the shape of him through his clothes. Stede squeezes him hard because he can.
In the end, it’s all too brief; they have to let go of each other and step back. But the expression in Ed’s eyes is so warm that it takes Stede’s breath away. He’s going to be holding that look in his heart forever.
***
Given how close they’re been growing, it’s a thrill when Stede can hustle through the hallway and down the stairs and let Ed know he’s had a grad school acceptance. “I got into the PhD program in English in Madison! They’re even offering me a fellowship!” he says excitedly, as soon as he’s within shouting distance, before he even says hello. “They called me on the phone and everything! The fellowship would cover my first year, and I would start teaching my second year, and tuition would be waived. I can actually afford to go without my parents’ help!”
“That’s amazing!” Ed exclaims. “Congratulations! Aren’t you glad you applied?” He strokes his chin ostentatiously. “Seem to remember someone giving you some pretty good advice.”
Stede’s feeling so exuberant that he doesn’t hesitate to reach over and give Ed a playful shove. “Fine, yes, you were totally right. But it’s not like we knew I was gonna get disowned and it wouldn’t matter what my parents wanted anyway.”
“But it’s good you followed your heart, yeah?” Ed asks, with a gentle smile.
Oh, Ed, Stede thinks. He gazes at Ed’s sweet, earnest face, with his expressive eyes and those beautifully messy curls toppling over his forehead. What a way to put it. If only you knew what that would really mean. He’d give anything to comb Ed’s curls back with his fingers right now and press a soft kiss to his lips. It would feel so…correct.
“Yeah,” Stede says aloud, smiling a crooked smile. “Yeah, it sure was.”
***
Not only have all of these academic matters been keeping Stede busy, but it’s track meet season. Stede’s been competing in a few of them, albeit not nearly as many as he did during his previous years; he hasn’t been able to participate in away meets that are any significant distance from campus, as that would take far too much time and energy. He’s already been on the team long enough to get a varsity letter in track. This year, his thesis writing had to take priority. But the Spring Invite at home is a no-brainer, since there’s no travel involved. One last hurrah.
Stede’s not in the best shape of his life, alas, so he doesn’t do as well as he’d like, finishing a disappointing ninth in his signature event, the 400 meters. He’s always had his strongest showing in that mid-length race; he knows how not to leave it all on the track in the first hundred, pacing himself until that last burst at the end, pushing hard while competitors who burned themselves out too quickly end up fading around him. But today, he just didn’t have it. It’s also his final event of the day, so Stede finds himself overcome by exhaustion and nostalgia and mild disappointment in himself when it’s done. As he’s wiping away the sweat and getting ready to pack it in for the day, he looks around, trying to take it all in one last time and record it in his memory: the competitive vibe in the air; the feeling of accomplishment, even if he didn’t do as well as he’d like; being part of something larger, making this effort as a team. As his gaze roams, he’s surprised to see a familiar face in the mostly empty stands. Can it be?
Yes, it is. It’s Ed. His more-than-a-crush came to watch him compete. I’ll be damned.
Stede waves so Ed knows he sees him; Ed waves back, adding an enthusiastic thumbs up.
Stede towels off as best he can and makes his way out to the stands to say hello. “Hey,” Stede greets him, once he’s in earshot. “You came to the meet? No one comes to these things.”
“Yeah, not a lot of people here,” Ed acknowledges, glancing around. It’s not a particularly sports-oriented school, so that in and of itself is not a huge surprise. “But that’s what friends do, isn’t it?”
Stede finds himself rather stymied by this. His friends almost never attend any of his meets; he gave up trying to persuade them long ago. When he mentioned this one to Ed in passing, it wasn’t with the thought that he’d attend; it was just a random topic of conversation. So the more Stede thinks about Ed being here, the more his heart swells. “I suppose so,” he says, finally. “Still. I really appreciate you coming.”
“Happy to, mate.” Ed smiles all the way up to his eyes. “Looked good out there.”
Stede makes a face; he knows that can’t be true. “No, I didn’t. This is the worst shape I’ve been in since I’ve been here.”
“Aw, c’mon,” Ed says, obviously trying to get him to be less hard on himself. “You’ve had a lot on your plate.” That’s not untrue, of course. Stede nods, and they stand and smile at each other for a few seconds until Ed looks at his watch. “I’d better get going,” he says. “But I’m really glad I got to see you compete before you graduate.”
Ed is smiling so fondly now that Stede feels as though he might die from how very much it’s making him feel. “Me too, Ed,” he replies, with a broad smile, wishing he could say out loud just how special this is for him. How deeply meaningful his presence is. “Thanks again for coming. It means a lot.”
Notes:
All the comments about oblivious Stede in the last chapter tickled me greatly since that was one of the incidents drawn fully from life (except the postdoc was complimenting the coppery highlights I had at the time, as I am not blond 😂). Every time I write Stede being oblivious in other fics and I stop to wonder, have I made him too oblivious? I just look in the mirror and realize that’s not possible 😅 neurodivergence and lack of self-confidence are a hell of a combo, y’all.
Posting this a bit early since I have to get myself to campus early tomorrow 😱 I treasure you, lovely commenters!!
Chapter 16
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Stede’s Founder’s Day ends up being pretty uneventful; most of his friends are tripping while he merely drinks some hard cider, plays a few carnival games, goes on a ride or two, and ends up back in the dorm to avoid the heat. It lacks the novelty of his first year, when Frenchie and Oluwande managed to scam their way into free beer while they were all still underage, to the envy of the rest of the group. Now, the festive atmosphere and live music are fun for a while, but Stede’s too focused on his future to care much about partying. And, well. Ed’s in his dorm most of the afternoon and evening that day. Perched on the desk whenever he needs a thinking break is where Stede would rather be.
Over the next several days, he finally grinds out the rest of his senior thesis; once that pile of blood, sweat, and tears is turned in, it’s time to figure out his near future. He accepted Madison’s offer, so he knows where he’ll be in the fall, but what to do over the summer? Most rentals in Madison don’t begin until mid-August, and the last thing he wants to do is go crawling back to his parents’ house—if they’d even take him in. Could he stay here, in the area, instead? If he did, he wouldn’t have to say goodbye to Ed just yet. And then maybe, just maybe, as a far distant possibility…something might happen between them?
So Stede starts paying attention to job postings and putting in applications, though he keeps that to himself. But a couple of weeks later, Stede pops down to the front desk and hops up on it. It’s been warm, so he’s been leaving his polo shirts completely unbuttoned, mimicking Ed’s style, and he’s been wearing shorts most days. Not being one for skater culture, Stede doesn’t wear long, baggy shorts; he knows his legs are one of his best assets, so he generally wears shorts that let him show a little thigh. If he’s not mistaken, Ed’s eyes linger on said thigh for longer than they need to when he sits down.
“Guess what?” Stede asks.
Ed’s eyes snap to his. “What?”
“I’ve got a summer job!” he announces. “In the Slide Library here on campus. So I’ll be sticking around for a couple of months before I move to Madison.”
Stede watches Ed’s expression carefully to observe how he receives this information; he’s not disappointed. Ed’s face brightens, and an unfamiliar light comes into his eyes. But, “Very cool,” is all he says aloud.
Stede smiles cheerily. “I think so. I just need to find somewhere to live. I know you don’t live in town here, right?” he adds, as if he doesn’t remember every single conversation they’ve had, practically verbatim.
“Nope.” Ed shakes his head. “It’s a ways away. You’d never find it, in fact.” Ed gives him an enigmatic smile.
Stede’s eyebrows elevate. “Now that just sounds like a challenge.”
“Hmm.” The gears are visibly turning in Ed’s mind. He leans forward in his chair. “What if we make it one?”
“What do you mean?”
Ed gets a sly look on his face. “Bet you can’t find your way to my mum’s house and back in an hour.”
“You kidding me?” Stede sniffs scornfully. “I know you don’t live that far away. Sounds easy.”
Ed looks extraordinarily smug. “Then it’s a bet, yeah?”
“Wait,” Stede says; Ed’s moving this process along so quickly that it does seem a bit suspicious. “What do I get if I win?”
Ed leans back in his chair. “You tell me. Another cake?”
“Hmm.” Stede takes a minute to think. He wants something more substantial than a treat that’s quickly consumed and done with. “How about this? If I make it back in under an hour, you have to come have a drink with us at Alumnae House.” Stede’s not the only one who has tried to get Ed to hang out with them outside of work: Ed’s bonded with all of Stede’s friends, and they’ve often attempted to get Ed to join them on various outings. But any time they’ve tried to cajole him, he’s always demurred. So this seems like the perfect opportunity to lure him away from the desk.
“Deal,” Ed replies, with a single, serious nod.
“And what do you get if you win?” Stede inquires. He’s quite curious what Ed would choose as his prize.
“Hmmm.” Ed taps his chin. “Not sure. Lemme think about it.”
Normally Stede wouldn’t go into a bet not knowing what he might be losing, but he’s feeling supremely confident about this one, and he’s eager to get going. It’s Saturday afternoon, the perfect time to give this a go. “You know what?” he declares. “It doesn’t even matter. You can think about it while I win. Let’s do this.” He sticks out his hand, and Ed shakes it, still with a mischievous look on his face. “All right. What’s your address?”
“89 Jackson Lane,” Ed says. “But you have to prove you were actually there. Come back and tell me what’s in my mum’s backyard.” Okay; this is a tad mystifying, but Stede’s game. Then Ed looks at his watch. “It’s 2:47. Better get cracking.”
Stede leaps off the desk and tears upstairs, running to his computer and quickly navigating to Mapquest. He types in Ed’s address, then prints out the turn-by-turn directions and map and snatches the paper from his printer. Fortunately his car keys are attached to his wallet just as his room key is, so he has everything ready to go.
He runs down the hall and bangs on Frenchie’s door. “Frenchie!” he shouts, not waiting for him to open it. “Come on, I have a bet to win!”
Frenchie opens the door, looking confused. “What’d you say, mate?”
“Hurry up,” Stede says impatiently. “I need your help! I made a bet with Ed, and you can help me win it.”
Frenchie, still puzzled but always game for a wager, grabs his keys and follows Stede downstairs and out to the parking lot behind their dorm; out of the corner of his eye, Stede catches Ed smirking as they dash outside. Stede thrusts the sheaf of papers into Frenchie’s hands, unlocks the car doors, and begins driving before they’ve even fastened their seatbelts.
“Where are we going?” Frenchie asks, peering at the papers.
“To Ed’s mum’s house. He bet me that I couldn’t make it to her house, find out what’s in her backyard, and get back in an hour. So we have to.”
Frenchie’s now fully on board, and he’s a competent co-pilot; they make good time heading down 376. But nothing makes sense once they get to the neighborhood where Ed and his mum ostensibly live: the turn onto Jackson Lane is nowhere near where it’s supposed to be. “Let me see!” Stede cries, pulling over and grabbing the map and directions from Frenchie’s hands. But it’s true; they’ve followed the directions exactly, and the street’s just not there.
“Shit tits.” Frenchie scratches his head.
They’re both utterly stymied by this turn of events. “Ed knew this,” Stede mutters. “He knew he was sending me on a wild goose chase!” In desperation, he begins driving up and down every street in the neighborhood; they both scour the signs for one that says Jackson Lane.
Just when Stede’s about to give up and admit defeat, feeling a little sick about it, “There it is!” Frenchie shouts, pointing.
“Woohoo!” Stede yells, gunning the engine and screeching around the turn. There’s a sign that says “15 miles per hour or GET OUT,” but Stede ignores it. His poor car bottoms out as he rockets over the speed bumps. “Ahhh!” he and Frenchie both shriek. But Stede doesn’t care what damage he’s causing his vehicle. Goddamnit, he is winning this bet.
And now that they’ve found the street, it’s easy: all the way down, one house before the dead end, is number 89. Stede leaves his car running as they both jump out and run to the backyard, past various rose bushes and garden gnomes and the side door of the house. Stede’s wondering how on earth they’ll figure out what they’re looking for, when “Look!” Frenchie shouts, pointing to the ground in front of him.
Stede dashes over to see what it is. When he gets there, he knows they’re golden: it’s two flat gravestones, too weathered by…well…the weather to read the names. But what they are is unmistakable. “Yes!” he exclaims, raising a hand for a high five. Frenchie smacks his hand. “We did it!”
They scramble back to the front of the house, where Stede’s car is still running; they leap inside as quickly as they can. There’s only about twenty minutes left now in their hour: just about the exact amount of time they need to get back. Fortunately Frenchie is able to suss out how to get back out of the neighborhood—Stede slows down slightly over the speed bumps, though he’s still well over the 15-mile-per-hour limit—then he races back toward campus, driving rather faster than he would on a normal day.
He’s fully focused on navigating traffic as efficiently as he can and watching out for police cars in his mirrors while the time ticks down alarmingly quickly. “Are we gonna make it?” Frenchie asks anxiously, now almost as invested in the outcome as Stede is.
“We’re gonna make it,” Stede grits out between clenched teeth. He’s never felt this determined in his life. He drives with laser focus, speeding as much as he dares until at last, they make it to the back gate of campus, which is right near their dorm. He zooms into the lot, steers haphazardly into a space, slams the car into park, and turns it off. They jump out and dash to the door, swipe Stede’s card, and run inside. Stede checks his watch.
3:46 pm.
“We made it!” Stede crows to Ed. “Gravestones! It’s gravestones!”
Ed looks at Stede and Frenchie—mostly Stede—with pronounced amusement. “Well played,” he says smoothly. “Guess you’ll get me to come out with you guys after all.”
“But you knew, didn’t you?” Stede adds, pointing an accusatory finger at Ed. “That the online maps are all wrong?”
“Maaaybe,” Ed says, a devilish twinkle in his eye. “But hey. You still won, didn’t you?”
“Oh, I did,” Stede replies meaningfully. “I really did.” He’s giddy with the thrill of victory and the anticipation of his reward. It was well worth the stress and the risk he ran of getting a speeding ticket along the way. He and Frenchie run upstairs, giggling, patting each other on the back, delighted by their success.
It’s only after Stede’s settled into his room and his heart has slowed back down to a normal rate that he begins to wonder why Ed made this particular bet in the first place. As he and Frenchie made their hasty journey, Stede noticed the homes getting smaller and smaller, less and less upscale; as it happens, Ed’s mum’s place is in a mobile home park. Was that Ed’s ulterior motive? Stede wonders. Finding out if he and his mum living that modestly is a dealbreaker for Stede?
There’s no way to be sure without asking, and Stede certainly isn’t planning to inquire. But his brain keeps chewing on it all the same, wondering if there’s more to this bet than meets the eye.
I wonder, Stede says to himself. I wonder.
Notes:
Posting a little early again because why not!! I had way too much fun telling this part of our story ❤️
The husband has always been cagey about why he made this bet with me, so I suspect my/Stede’s interpretation was correct!
Chapter Text
Next Friday, much to Stede’s delight, it’s time for Ed to pay up on the bet. He’s working in another dorm beforehand, but the plan is for him to meet Stede and his crew at the pub when his shift ends. Stede, Oluwande, Jim, and Frenchie get to Alumnae House early that evening to snag a booth; Stede’s beyond antsy, eating the brownie sundae (a house specialty) in front of him without tasting it, keeping his eyes on the door.
Fortunately, Ed arrives when he said he would; he spots Stede waving him over and begins heading their way. But since he works in several dorms, Ed knows tons of people on campus, so he’s waylaid one table over. Stede feels slightly petulant over the delay—Ed’s here because Stede won their bet, after all—but the one benefit is that he can observe Ed covertly as he chats with the other students.
Ed’s facing Stede, though he isn’t looking in his direction. The weather has turned cooler for a few days, so Ed’s wearing jeans and a casual blazer over a dark button-down. But his shirt isn’t buttoned all the way down; when Ed shoves his hands in his pockets, it spreads it apart just enough to make a little peek of belly visible above his studded belt. A patch of lovely brown skin furred with dark hair—oh, my god. Stede is mesmerized. That triangle of skin is where his tongue should be. And then it should be lower, too, once he unbuckles Ed’s belt and undoes the zipper of his jeans and drops to his knees—
“Earth to Stede, come in Stede,” Jim says humorously.
“Oh!” Stede grabs his water and gulps it; his mouth has gone completely dry. “What are we talking about?”
“Nothing, nothing,” Jim replies, with a smirk. Apparently Stede wasn’t subtle with his staring at all. “Here’s Ed, finally.”
“Hey,” Ed says to everyone as he approaches the table, having finished his conversation and strolled over. He looks around the half circle of the booth until his eyes come to rest on Stede.
“Hey!” Stede squeaks, scooting over so Ed can sit next to him, patting the seat cushion beside him. “Glad you made it.”
“Had to, didn’t I?” Ed says, with a smile, as he sits down. “You won the bet fair and square.”
“This is true.” Stede grins. “Are you going to get something to drink?”
“Yeah, think I will. Save my seat for me,” Ed says, getting back up to go to the bar, giving Stede a wink as he does so. That’s not making Stede’s stomach do somersaults or anything.
Stede curses the way he’s sitting facing away from the bar; Ed’s jeans are perfectly fitted to his body, and this would be the perfect opportunity for Stede to check him out without him noticing. But well Stede knows his friends will give him hell if he keeps turning around to gawk at him.
Fortunately, there isn’t a long line, and it’s just a couple of minutes before Ed returns with his drink and sits back down beside Stede. “What’d you get?” Stede asks.
“A White Russian.”
“Ooh, those are good,” Stede replies, with a small lift of the eyebrow. What an intriguing choice of drink. Ed returns an enigmatic smile.
They chat briefly about their evenings; when Stede asks if anything interesting happened in Raymond, “Nah,” Ed replies. “Just had to bust a student for having an electric kettle without auto shut-off.”
Stede stifles a tiny smirk. “Not surprised.” Indeed, everyone on Stede’s floor has borrowed the box from his electric kettle to show Ed when he asks, since it does have the automatic shut-off feature; if Ed ever thought it was suspicious that they all have the exact same model, he’s never mentioned it.
That’s all the conversation they have before John, Buttons, and Roach arrive to join them. It’s not the largest booth; though they add a chair on the outer edge of the table in order to fit the newcomers, they all have to sit close. Very close. So much so that, in sliding over to make room, Stede’s leg ends up touching Ed’s from hip to knee. He freezes for a moment, unsure what to do, wondering if he should try to give Ed more space. But Ed doesn’t move away or try to avoid it, so Stede doesn’t either. If fate is handing him this opportunity to be in direct contact with the man he’s had a desperate crush on for months, he's not going to be the one to turn it down.
But dear god, is it ever distracting. All Stede can think about is how warm everything is. The place where their thighs are pressed together under the table. The soft brown of Ed’s eyes, and the laughter in them when their gazes meet after Oluwande makes a hilarious joke. Stede remembers learning in Psych about how people seek out the eyes of whomever they feel most comfortable with in a group, at moments like that. When Stede chances another glance at Ed a bit after, there’s so much warmth in the gentle curve of his smile, too.
Stede feels his body temperature skyrocketing; being in this close proximity to Ed is sending him into overdrive. They're so near each other that Stede can tell how good Ed smells; if it’s cologne or shampoo or hair product, Stede can’t be certain. All he knows is how he wants to get so much closer and take a deep, ecstatic whiff. Feel their whole bodies pressed together, nuzzle into Ed’s neck, rub up against him everywhere, until he can smell Ed on his own body—
Suddenly he realizes Ed is speaking to him. “Oh! Sorry! What was that?” Stede asks.
“I was asking if you found a place to live over the summer.”
“Oh yeah!” Stede scrambles to refocus his mind. “Frenchie is going to work on campus too. He found an apartment a few blocks away, so we’re going to room together there. It’s a house that’s been turned into flats. There’s only two problems. One is that it doesn’t have central air, so it’ll be hot as hell over the summer.” Stede screws up his face at the thought. “I super hate being hot, but it is what it is. Neither of us can afford a fancier place.”
“I hear you,” Ed replies. “What’s the other problem?”
“The other is that we can’t move in until I’ve left for the trip I’m taking to Madison to look for a place to live there. And Frenchie’s going home for a bit after he moves in and won’t be in town when I get back. So, I don’t know how he’ll get me my key.”
“He can leave it with me,” Ed offers. “I’ll meet up with you whenever you get back to town.”
“Oh, Ed! That’d be perfect!” Stede exclaims. “I really appreciate it.”
Ed shrugs. “Easy-peasy. What’s the good of having a local friend if he can’t help you out?”
What, indeed. Their eyes meet again, and Stede can’t shake the feeling that there’s so much more going on than either of them is putting into words. And that makes Stede audacious. He’s finally succeeded in getting Ed away from his post. They aren’t “desk attendant” and “student” here; they’re just two people who like each other and enjoy one another’s company. So Stede picks up Ed’s drink from in front of him and brings it toward his own face, capturing the skinny cocktail straw in his mouth. Does he play it up a bit, letting the straw rest on his tongue and closing his lips around it slowly, holding eye contact all the while? Perhaps. He takes a sip, enjoying not only the sweetness and burn of the Kahlúa, but the knowledge that his lips are where Ed’s have been. Not to mention the utterly fascinating look in Ed’s eyes…even though Stede can’t be one hundred percent sure what it means.
“Mmm,” Stede purrs, still gazing at Ed. “That’s delish.” And it’s Ed who looks away first, a small smile quirking up his lips.
Does Stede feel victorious? Hell yeah, he does.
And as they continue to spend this time together, squeezed against one another in that booth, talking and joking with each other and the group, Stede keeps stealing Ed’s drink, just to see if he can. Just to let his eyes sparkle into Ed’s with a more and more wicked gleam each time. And Ed lets him. Ed lets him. Ed takes a drink himself now and again, but although his expression gets a bit more wry with each theft, he doesn’t once mount a protest.
By the time they all get up to head back to the dorms and TAs (or home, in Ed’s case), Stede’s feeling flushed and giddy, and definitely not merely from his stolen sips of that cold, sweet drink.
Oh, was he ever the winner of that bet. By far.
Notes:
I did have a very particular image in mind for Ed 😏:
Commenters, I truly can’t express how much you’re keeping me afloat 🫶
Chapter 18
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
While Stede prepares for his big move, his brain keeps going over and over that night at Alumnae House. “You two need to make out already,” Jim said teasingly, as they walked back to the dorm. Stede played it off at the time, but secretly, he loved the confirmation that there were indeed sparks there; that there’s a good chance not everything is a figment of his own imagination.
But the next few weeks are also a blur: he has to move out of the dorm and get ready to move into the apartment he’s sharing with Frenchie for two months, and he also has to be prepared for the larger move to Madison. He has no choice but to put his things in storage; he doesn’t love the expenditure, now that it’s all coming out of his own pocket, but there’s nowhere else to put most of his stuff. So he ferries boxes bit by bit to the storage unit, keeping only the bare necessities on hand.
He doesn’t have as much time, now, to linger at the desk, though of course he stops by any time Ed is working in his dorm. “Got something for you, when you move into your place with Frenchie,” Ed says one evening.
“Really?” Stede’s curiosity is certainly piqued. “What is it?”
Ed grins like the cat who got the cream. “A window air conditioner. Found a broken one at a garage sale. Managed to fix it up and get it working for you.”
“Are you serious?” Stede’s voice begins ascending into the stratosphere, but he can’t help it. He’s genuinely astonished. “You did that? For me?”
“Can’t have you getting heatstroke and wilting away,” Ed says, with a cheeky wink.
While Stede may no longer need to overheat come summer, his heart is certainly melting right now. “Ed,” he says, quite verklempt. “That is so incredibly thoughtful of you. Thank you.”
“Well, let’s find out if it’s still working by the time we install it.” Ed replies, with a laugh. “Then you can thank me.”
Stede beams at him. “Deal.”
***
For Stede, the conclusion of his senior year is bittersweet, to put it mildly. He’s going to miss his friends, who are all scattering to different parts of the country and world, later if not sooner. Every walk around campus, with its gorgeous, tree-lined paths and picturesque buildings, has been making him melancholy about saying goodbye to its beauty. And Commencement itself is strange at best, mildly torturous at worst: not only is it raining cats and dogs—more like something larger; tigers and wolves, maybe—but unlike most of his classmates, he doesn’t have any family here to celebrate his accomplishments. When his name is called, there’s some isolated whooping here and there from his friends, but it turns to ashes in his mouth when he thinks about how hard he worked not to disappoint his parents, all four years, and then they couldn’t even be bothered to show up. All because he wasn’t able to live up to their image of the perfect son. He’s always been different, never quite fit in, but somehow openly declaring his queerness put him beyond the pale. He swept up almost all the honors he could in college; now, there’s nobody to celebrate it. And, yes, all of his hard work got him into graduate school. But it hurts that nearly all the other seniors around him are surrounded by people who are proud of them, praising them, excited for them and their futures. And he has no one.
But he tosses his mortarboard up toward the rainy sky with everyone else, pretending he feels the excitement he should, then settles it back on his head. He knows he looks like a drowned rat right now, and his mortarboard is so soaked it’s bent into an arc over his head, but he’s determined to find Ed as soon as he can. He knows seeing him is the one thing that’ll ease his bruised heart.
Ed’s in Jewett today, so Stede trudges over to the quad, his socks squishing damply and disgustingly in his dress shoes. It’s one of his least favorite sensory experiences in the world, but he’ll be damned if he lets that keep him from someone he knows is always in his corner. When Stede gets inside the dorm, finally out of the rain, Ed looks delighted to see him, bedraggled as he is. “There’s the graduate!” he exclaims. Then he picks up on Stede’s general vibe. “Oof. Not feeling it?” he asks, kindly. “Too soaked?”
“It’s just…” Stede shuffles in his wet shoes for a moment. “It’s not so much the weather, although yeah, it sucks outside. But…” Stede pauses; he hates to make how he’s feeling even more real by saying it aloud. But he needs to get it off his chest: “It bothered me more than I expected, that I didn’t have family there, I guess.”
Ed’s expression turns genuinely sorrowful. “Aww. I feel ya, mate. Wish I hadn’t had to work. Woulda come to see you get your diploma.”
“You would’ve just gotten drenched for your troubles,” Stede laughs. “But that’s really sweet of you. Actually, I didn’t even get my diploma today, since they have to add things to it.”
“Oh yeah?” Ed cocks his head. “Whaddya mean?”
Stede shifts his weight from foot to foot, a little self-consciously. “If you graduate with honors, it takes them longer to get it ready, so you don’t get it right away.”
“Ohoho, I see,” Ed says with a grin. “Fancy. Do you have a program, at least?”
Stede nods. “Mmhmm.”
“Can I see it?”
“Sure.” Stede’s got it in his empty diploma holder, trying to keep it relatively dry. He pulls it out and hands it to Ed, who opens it up and scans for Stede’s name in the list of graduates. “Stede Pomeroy Bonnet,’ eh?” Ed says, with a sideways glance and mild chuckle.
“Yeah.” Stede grimaces. “There’s no end to the number of ways my parents set me up to have a bad time.”
“Dickheads.” Ed flips the page; here, there’s honors listed by department. “Honors in Economics, I see. Honors in English, too.” The next section is for General Honors; Stede’s college doesn’t use the cum laude rankings, so you either graduate with honors or you don’t. “I see Stede Pomeroy Bonnet graduated with General Honors, too.” Ed looks up with another smile.
“Uh, you can skip the section about prizes,” Stede says, a tad self-consciously. “Didn’t get one.”
Ed glances up briefly as Stede makes this comment, before returning his eyes to the program. “Hmm. But I see you in the list here for Phi Beta Kappa. And your Madison fellowship, too. Damn. Look at you, Mr. Brainiac.”
Stede shrugs. “Not really. Wish I were. Just busted my arse.” He pauses for a second, then adds, “But I got a Distinction on my thesis, too.” Maybe it sounds braggy, but he worked so hard, and Ed’s the one person who’s nothing but happy to celebrate with him.
“That’s awesome, Stede. Genuinely impressed.” Ed sets the program down on the desk and rises. “C’mon. Let me give you a hug.”
“I’ll get you all wet,” Stede protests, though he begins to step around the side of the desk.
“Don’t care. C’mere.” He beckons Stede in, then wraps his arms around him, wet gown and all. It feels so good, so warm and supportive, that Stede could almost cry. “Proud of you, Stede. Seriously.” Ed’s voice is so quiet and sincere that tears begin to prickle Stede’s eyes for real.
“Thank you, Ed,” he whispers. “That means the world to me.”
When he steps back, he can see that he has indeed gotten Ed rather soggy. “Oh Ed!” he exclaims. “I did get you soaked.”
Ed grins and flaps his shirt around a bit. “Just a little water, mate. I’ll survive. Glad I could be a small part of your big day.”
“The best part,” Stede says, earnestly. It’s the simple truth; not one particle of exaggeration necessary. They gaze at each other for a long few seconds; Ed looks so touched by Stede’s words that it’s giving him too many feelings again. “I’d better go dry off,” he adds, eventually.
“Okay. I’ll see you later. Congrats again.” Ed gives him the sweetest smile, turning all of Stede’s insides to mush.
As he squelches back to his own dorm, Stede carries the warmth of Ed’s embrace with him. I can’t wait for summer, he thinks. I’m so glad I don’t have to say goodbye just yet.
Notes:
So, funny story: this is actually quite a bit fictionalized, since my future husband was at my graduation ceremony, since his little sister was graduating. But he didn’t actually hear my name called since he was in charge of the camcorder and was trying to make it work 😂 all of that said: the rain is extremely nonfictional!!
My thanks to Tinkaknit for Stede’s pretentious middle name 😁
Posting 12-ish hours early since I have something else fun to post tomorrow 😏
Chapter 19
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Shortly after Commencement, Stede moves out of the dorm and gets ready to go looking for housing in Madison. His Old English professor connected him with an alum in the PhD program Stede is joining, so Stede takes a couple of days to drive to Wisconsin and get shown around. The graduate students he meets are friendly, and he gets his first experience drinking beer from an enormous glass boot: a tale to regale Ed with when he returns.
Before his trip, Stede heard about a house on the Isthmus that’s usually rented by English graduate students, so he goes to take a look. It seems acceptable: an old Victorian home with hardwood floors, a big kitchen, two bedrooms upstairs, and two downstairs. And—most importantly—it’s in his meager price range, so he signs the lease and prepares to make his journey back.
Meanwhile, “Let me know when you get there,” Ed said, a bit anxiously, before he left. So Stede sends an email Ed’s way as soon as he can. In it, he suggests they try the chat feature in the college’s email system—since Stede is working over the summer, he still has access—and they arrange a time to talk electronically when Stede can visit the computer lab in his new school’s library. When he logs on at their scheduled time, Ed’s online as planned:
Stede: Hey, Ed!
Ed: Hey. How’s Madison?
Stede: Good so far. Looking forward to getting back, though. But not the drive. It’s soooo long
Ed: I bet. U find a place to live?
Stede: I did. I’ll have 3 roommates in a big house. Hope I get one of the upstairs rooms
Ed: Yeah that sounds way better
Stede: How’s everything there?
Ed: Same old same old. Boring when u aren’t here
Ed’s response makes Stede’s cheeks grow a bit warm. Good thing it’s just a text chat, and Ed never has to know.
Stede: Aw :)
Ed: Wanted to ask u something
Stede: Yeah? What’s up?
Stede: Ed? Are you there?
Ed: Yeah sorry. Just slow
Stede: You don’t know how to touch type?
Ed: Nope
Stede giggles, picturing Ed hunting and pecking for each letter he’s typing. It’s so endearing, the image of him hunched over the keyboard, eking out every word he’s trying to say.
Stede: You’re so funny. Guess that explains the Prince impression.
What did you want to ask me? I’ll be patient ;)
Easier said than done, since it takes an actual eon before he gets his response:
Ed: I’ll meet u at Alumnae House like we planned to give u the key on Thurs. Then I can bring the a/c over on Fri and help u install it. Do u want to come over on Sat for dinner? I know u know where I live :)
Oh my god. Is this a date? Or just dinner with a good friend? Doesn’t matter. The answer is obvious. Stede types his answer with an aggressively thumping heart:
Stede: I’d love to!
Ed: Great. I’ll plan on it. See u in a couple days
Stede: Yes! See you soon :D
He’s probably going overboard with all the emoticons, especially the last one, but who cares? He wants to jump up and down and dance and shout. He likely would, if he were one hundred percent certain this was a date. But, the more Stede thinks about it, the more he realizes there’s a decent chance it isn’t. Ed’s asking him over to his house, not to a restaurant. Perhaps Ed’s mum will be there, and this is only a friendly “Hey, you just got back into town and probably don't want to cook anything” situation. Stede wishes he dared ask one of his friends what they think, but if it’s not, in fact, a date, he’ll feel so dumb. Better to just ride out the mystery and see what happens.
Stede knows what he’s going to be thinking about on his drive back to the Hudson Valley. Probably all fifteen hours of it.
***
By the time Stede pulls into the parking lot of Alumnae House after his epic solo road trip, he’s beyond exhausted. Fortunately, the previous tenants of the apartment he’s moving into left behind a mattress, so Stede will have something to sleep on—albeit on the floor, since he doesn’t have a bed frame. Before his trip to Wisconsin, Stede left some cash with Frenchie and begged him to get some bedding for him. Thankfully he did, so Stede can crash tonight and start getting his stuff out of storage tomorrow.
He left earlier than he needed to for that day’s driving, not knowing how traffic would be, and it’s a good thing he did: as it is, he should arrive only a few minutes before when he’s supposed to meet Ed. He’s basically right on time when he pulls into the lot at Alumnae House; Ed said he’d be there in a teal Hyundai, and indeed, a vehicle matching that description is in the parking lot.
Stede gets out of his car, looking and feeling considerably worse for wear, and Ed gets out of his. He’s smiling so widely that it can only be accurately described as beaming; Stede doesn’t think he’s ever seen a human being look that happy to see him. “Stede!” Ed nearly shouts. “So glad you’re back.” He opens his arms, and as soon as Stede steps close enough, Ed wraps him up in a snug bear hug. Ah, that’s the stuff. It feels like it might cure everything that’s wrong with him.
“Really glad to see you too,” Stede says into his shoulder.
After a few seconds, Ed lets go and steps back, still smiling. He rummages in his pocket, pulling out a key. “Here ya go,” he says. “This’ll get you into your and Frenchie’s place.”
“Thanks so much, Ed. I really appreciate it.” Stede’s genuinely grateful; he’s trying very hard to keep his heart in check, but Ed isn’t making it easy.
“Don’t mention it.” Ed smiles broadly at him some more, to the point where Stede wonders if he’s feeling all right. Did he get a concussion while Stede was away? “Gotta get to my shift, but I’ll see you tomorrow with the a/c, okay?” Ed opens his arms again, with a hopeful smile; Stede’s a tad bewildered, but sure, he’ll take another hug. He steps in and squeezes Ed, as Ed squeezes back.
Eventually Ed lets go, still grinning from ear to ear, and gets into his vehicle. Stede stands and waves as he drives off, before sticking the key in his pocket and getting into his own car. It seems undeniable that Ed is super happy to see him; that bodes well for Saturday. Still, Stede’s wary of making assumptions. Countless times over the years, he’s misread social situations; the last thing he wants to do is think this means more than it does.
We’re good friends, Stede says to himself. He’s doing what a good friend does. That’s all it is.
***
Stede sleeps restlessly that night on his mattress on the floor, which isn’t even in a proper bedroom: Frenchie, having gotten there first, claimed the room inside a set of pocket doors, so Stede’s basically sleeping out in the living room. It’s hot, and stuffy, and the first night in a new place; he’s also alone, which is not something he’s used to. He thinks wryly about how this is somehow even less luxurious than living in a dorm, but at least he isn’t beholden to anybody. It’s an adventure, he tells himself.
He goes and gets some of his things out of storage the next day: mostly clothes, but also some small side tables, plastic drawers, and his inflatable couch, since he and Frenchie are hurting on furniture. Being stuck with the living room as a bedroom also means he has no closet, so he goes to the store and buys racks to hang his clothes on, along with a few groceries. He fleetingly wonders if he shouldn’t have kept his mouth shut and invented a fake girlfriend to tell his parents about so he and Frenchie could’ve afforded a nicer place. But making a clean break and sleeping in a living room with his clothes all out in the open honestly feels better than living that lie. He considers, with amusement, what Ed is going to think, when he sees these unimpressive living arrangements.
After Stede gets done with his shopping, he doesn’t have long to wonder: barely an hour later, it’s time for Ed’s planned visit, before he has his shift in the dorms. “Living the high life, I see,” he says jocularly when he arrives, looking around at all of Stede’s many, many clothes hanging up around the room.
“Yeah, my whole room is basically my closet.” Stede pauses. “Guess I’m back to living in the closet,” he jokes.
They both giggle. “No reason your closeted life can’t be more comfortable,” Ed says, with a lopsided grin. “I’ll get the a/c out of the car, if you hold the door for me.” Stede follows him out of the apartment, standing in the doorway and observing Ed as he extracts the a/c from his vehicle. No harm in checking Ed out a bit as he wrangles the unit.
Ed carries the a/c inside, and together, they get it situated in the window closest to a power outlet. Ed plugs it in, and Stede turns it on to test it out; after a few minutes, it does indeed start blowing cool air into the room. “Oh my god, Ed,” Stede says, crouching in front of the unit so it blows directly into his face. “That feels so good. This is awesome. I can’t thank you enough.”
“Glad it works,” Ed says. “Can’t let you rough it too much.” Stede scrunches up his face at him, though he’s feeling too good to be bothered by the mild teasing. Ed responds with an exaggeratedly innocent smile. A moment later, his expression grows serious. “You know this isn’t the safest neighborhood, right? You gotta be careful around here.”
“You always worry too much, Ed,” Stede says lightly. He hasn’t seen anything that makes him suspicious.
“I’m telling you. There’s a lot of crime in this area. You didn’t go off campus all that much, did you, while you were in school?”
“Er.” Stede hates to admit it, but he was a pretty stereotypical student in that regard. “Not much. Just to the shops and things that were right outside campus.”
“Figured.” Ed starts walking around the apartment, checking every single window and tsking about how many of them are unlocked. “Fuckin’ hell,” Stede hears him mutter under his breath. “Okay,” Ed says aloud, after he’s finished his tour. “I think I’ve got everything locked down tight.”
“Such a worrywart,” Stede says, with an indulgent smile.
“Better safe than sorry.” Ed looks at him like he’s the unhinged one for being insufficiently paranoid. “All right. Gotta get to work. But we’re on for tomorrow, yeah? Around six?”
Stede nods, with a much more genuine smile this time. “Yes! Wouldn’t miss it. Can I bring anything?”
But Ed brushes off the offer. “Mate, you’ve just moved in. Don’t worry about it. Got it all covered.” He smiles affectionately. “See you then.” Ed moves toward the door, seeing himself out. “Make sure to keep this locked, okay?” he adds, as he goes to shut it.
“Okay, okay!” Stede says. “Jeez!” He locks it behind Ed.
“Be safe!” Ed calls from outside the door.
He sure has issues, Stede thinks. But it’s sweet that he’s that concerned. Stede can put up with a bit of nagging, if it means Ed cares.
Notes:
My sincere apologies to Ed for giving him my husband’s messaging style 😂
This whole fic is on a sliding scale from nearly 0% fiction to 100% fiction, and it’s really fun to share these parts that are close to zero 😁
Living for all your comments along the way!! 🫶🫶
Chapter Text
When Stede wakes up the next morning, his first thought is about how comfortable he is: sleeping in the cooler air felt a million times better than the night before. And that thought leads him to Ed, and how thoughtful it was for him not only to hunt down this a/c for him, but to fix it and make sure he could use it right away. And that in turn reminds him that today is dinner-at-Ed’s day at last. Finally, Stede will get to clear up the mystery of whether this is an actual date or merely a friendly hangout.
During the day, he continues to work on getting his place livable, making trips to the store as needed and doing a load of laundry using the machines in the basement. At some point he needs to start trying to cook for himself, but although he bought a few cookbooks supposedly full of simple recipes, he’s incredibly intimidated by the prospect. So for now, he’s surviving on grocery store muffins and sandwiches from the deli.
Before heading over for dinner, Stede showers, then racks his brain about what to wear. He figures he’s better off keeping it casual, wearing shorts and a polo shirt that’s slim-cut enough to be quite flattering. A tiny bit of cologne won’t hurt; not so much that it seems like he’s assuming it’s a date, but nice enough to smell good if Ed happens to get close. He’s buzzing with anticipation, his heart racing like a bunny’s, thinking about spending this time with Ed. Or is it Ed and his mum? He never asked, so he still doesn’t know.
Regardless, he’ll be seeing Ed shortly, with or without his mum, which makes Stede wriggle with excitement; he does a little dance with his reflection in the mirror as he puts the finishing touches on his hair, even blowing himself a saucy kiss as he leaves the bathroom.
When it’s time to head over, Stede grabs his car keys. He hears Ed’s voice in his head as he’s going out the door; with a wry smile, he makes sure the door is locked before he steps into the hallway and pulls it shut.
As the lock clicks audibly into place, a thought flies into Stede’s brain.
“Where is my apartment key?”
He pats his right-hand pocket. It isn't there. He checks his left-hand pocket. Not there either. What about his back pockets? Nope.
He has his car key and his wallet, but he realizes, with the most sinking of feelings, that his apartment key is somewhere on the other side of the door he just locked so assiduously. He knew he should attach that key to his wallet right away, but he didn’t get around to it just yet; he’s been carrying it separately.
Fuck.
His mind races. What can he do? Frenchie is still out of town. He doesn’t know the landlord’s number; even if he did, the phone is inside the apartment, and he’s stuck on the outside.
Fuckfuckfuck.
Stede’s heart sinks further, and further, and further as he stands outside his locked door, realizing there’s nothing he can do besides drive to Ed’s house and see if he can help him figure out a solution. What an idiot Ed will think he is. Stede’s been feeling so giddy, and now he had no choice but to go and expose his idiocy to the person he most wants to impress. Goddammit.
Well, he might as well not add being late to the mix. With the heaviest possible sigh, Stede gets into his car and makes the drive, continuing to wrack his brain for any way to avoid having to look completely stupid in front of Ed. But he‘s got nothing.
Too soon, Stede is pulling up in front of Ed’s house. He takes a few deep breaths; they don’t help. Time to suck it up and take his lumps. He walks up the steps to the side door and knocks, his heart pounding in his throat. Ed opens the door, grinning from ear to ear as he beckons Stede in, looking ridiculously happy to see him. Until he catches a look at Stede’s face, that is. “Stede?” he asks, with concern. “What’s the matter?”
For a split second, Stede thinks about making something up—some kind of wild, madcap story—or simply denying that anything’s wrong. But what good would either of those do, in the long run? They would only delay, not solve the problem. “I locked myself out of the apartment,” he blurts out desperately, unable to think of a way to soften it. He wishes he could’ve led into it with some kind of joke, something at least slightly more suave, but there’s no way to make this gaffe seem like anything but what it is: massive carelessness and foolishness.
Ed freezes where he stands. But he doesn’t otherwise react, visibly or audibly, at all. Out of all the outcomes Stede was imagining, this is, truly, the last thing Stede was expecting. Oh god, Stede thinks anxiously. He’s so mad at me. He thinks I’m an idiot. Finally, “Ed?” he ventures, tentatively.
“Hmm?” Ed quickly looks over at Stede as if he forgot he was there. “Oh, I was just thinking about how we’re going to deal with this. I, uh, locked everything up pretty tight.” Stede exhales, deeply thankful Ed seems neither angry nor disappointed; meanwhile, Ed goes back to strategizing in his mind. “We’ll have to break in through the window with the air conditioner,” he says at last. “That’s the only way. I’ll bring a ladder. But we might as well eat first.” Ed pauses and grins. “Was gonna suggest we go out your way to watch the fireworks for reunion after dinner. Guess this gets us both back there for sure.”
Stede gives him a relieved smile. “I’m so glad you have a plan, because I had absolutely no idea what to do.” It seems that they might be able to salvage this evening after all. “What are we having?” he asks, looking around for the answer to his other, unspoken question. He’s not seeing any signs of Ed’s mum anywhere. Maybe this is a date?
“Got some chicken marinating,” Ed replies, “so I’ll throw that on the grill. And there’s scalloped potatoes in the oven.”
“Sounds delicious.” Then Stede remembers his manners: “Can I help with anything?”
“Just keep me company,” Ed says, with a smile. “That’s plenty. Can I get you something to drink?”
Stede runs his hand through his hair, forgetting he spent a considerable amount of time making sure it was arranged just so. “Yeah, I could sure use one.”
“Would you like a beer? Or we could bust out Mum’s chardonnay.”
“The wine sounds good, if that’s okay with her,” Stede replies. “I know I need to get used to beer if I’m going to grad school in Wisconsin, but I’ve never liked it.”
“Nah? Too bitter?” Ed says with a twinkle, as he grabs a couple of wine glasses and the bottle of wine from the fridge. “Maybe you just need to find the right kind.”
Stede tries not to look as skeptical as he feels. “Maybe.”
“We’ll have to go to a brewery where they have flights, so you can sample different things,” Ed says, as he fills and hands Stede’s glass to him. He’s speaking as if it’s obvious they’ll do this together; that’s interesting.
“That’ll be good, especially if I’m gonna have to keep drinking vast quantities of beer out of boots,” Stede says, with a crooked smile.
“Boots?” Ed’s eyebrow elevates. “Gonna have to explain that.” He fills his own glass, then raises it for a toast. “But first. To your safe return to my part of the country?”
Stede smiles widely. “I’ll drink to that.”
***
As always, it’s so easy to talk to Ed. Stede was so worried his nerves would get in the way, but everything flows as smoothly as it always has between them. While Ed grills, they chatter about what all of Stede’s friends are doing now, post-graduation; the inspections Ed has had to do in the dorms (“I have to say whether the walls are ‘functional’ or not. If they weren’t, I think we’d know”); about the job Stede is starting on Monday (“honestly, I have no idea what I’m going to be doing,” he confesses). Once they’re sitting down with their grilled chicken and potatoes, it’s just as easy to keep talking about boots of beer and everything else. With other people, Stede often feels as though he’s supposed to be saying something different or perhaps nothing at all, but with Ed, it’s never that way. He laughs at Ed’s jokes and makes his own bad ones; they riff back and forth seamlessly. When they fall silent, it’s not uncomfortable. Despite his lingering feelings of stupidity, their conversation flows as easily as it always has.
And he certainly doesn’t mind the opportunity to gaze at Ed as they eat and chat; he’s wearing a purple t-shirt that’s a perfect complement to the warm tones of his skin. Stede could look at his biceps and forearms and tattoos decorating them all day. Ed’s curls are perfect, as if he too spent a fair amount of time arranging them. Oh, how Stede wants to run his fingers through them and mess them up a bit. And the amount of stubble he has right now? It’s perfect. Stede badly wants to find out how it would feel against his face…his neck…his inner thighs…but he can’t let himself spend too much time imagining that, or he’ll never be able to look Ed in the eye. As it is, Stede has to wrangle his brain quite a bit just to follow the thread of their conversation.
Once they’re done eating and tidying up after the meal, “Guess we should get going, hey?” Ed says. “So we can break into your apartment before it gets dark. That’ll give us time to get over to Sunset Lake for the fireworks, and it’ll be less likely someone will call the cops on us. Two birds, one stone.”
“Good call,” Stede says, a tad ruefully. “I’d like to avoid having to explain why we’re breaking in, if I can.”
So Stede helps Ed load his ladder into his car—fortunately the seats fold down, so there’s enough room—and they head off to Stede’s locked-tight apartment, each in his own vehicle. After they both arrive and park, Ed unloads the ladder from his little Hyundai and gets it set up underneath Stede’s window with the air conditioner. Stede takes the opportunity to examine Ed’s legs while he does so; they’ve usually been hidden behind the desk whenever they’ve spent time together. Ed’s wearing jean shorts, and Stede can see the intricate tattoo on his lower leg. Yeah, Stede needs those long, elegant legs wrapped around his body; no question.
“You go up first,” Ed says, jolting Stede out of his horny reverie, “and push up the window while I hold the a/c. Then you can help me move it out as much as we can, and I’ll hold it while you climb in through the window.”
“Won’t that be risky, holding it while you’re on the ladder?” Stede asks anxiously.
“It’ll be awkward, but I’ll be fine,” Ed assures him. “You can help me balance it on the top.” It doesn’t seem as if there’s any great alternatives, so Stede accepts the situation and starts climbing up the ladder. As he does so, he realizes, with an internal grimace, that his arse is going to be directly over Ed’s head once he gets to the top. Not exactly how he’d envisioned giving him an up-close-and-personal view.
But there’s nothing Stede can do about that now. Stede gamely keeps climbing; Ed follows so he can reach up and support the air conditioner. “Okay, got it,” he says, bracing it with the heels of his hands. “Go ahead and open the window.” Stede pushes up the sash with some difficulty; it’s not easy to get any kind of grip on it from the outside, but he eventually gets it to budge. The a/c wobbles slightly before they manage to steady it. “Now see if you can push in the side bits,” Ed directs. Stede wiggles in the plastic side pieces with their accordion folds. “Good. Now help me move it so you can get in the window.”
“All right.” They manage to maneuver the equipment away from the window and to the side, so it’s balanced on top of the ladder, with Ed supporting it. It’s still plugged in, so they can’t move it any further.
“Is that enough room for you?” Ed asks.
Stede looks at the opening dubiously. It’s not large, but what choice does he have? “It’s gonna have to be,” he replies, preparing himself mentally for this ridiculous thing he’s about to do. There’s no elegant way to do it, so he goes ahead and sticks his arms and head in. He worms his upper body sideways through the opening and wriggles through as best he can, until he’s far enough in to touch the floor and start walking himself forward with his hands. He tries to use his legs to shift his weight forward, but he has to be careful not to hit Ed while flailing them, so it’s anything but easy or graceful.
At last enough of his body is inside the apartment, so he can use gravity to get himself the rest of the way inside. “I’m in!” he shouts as he drops to the floor, pulling his legs through the opening. He hops up and helps Ed maneuver the a/c back into position, then lowers the window sash to hold the a/c unit in place. “Woohoo! We did it!” he exclaims. “Come around and I’ll let you in the door!”
“As soon as I put the ladder away,” Ed says. Stede pushes the side pieces back out to cover the openings, then goes to unlock and open the door. His apartment key is sitting on one of the rolling plastic shelves he’s been using for his towels; he grabs it and attaches it to his car keys so at least he won’t leave with one and not the other.
Ed strolls in a few minutes later; Stede hustles over, grabs him, and squeezes him in a huge hug without even thinking. “You’re the best, Ed,” he says. “You totally saved the day.”
“Kinda did, didn’t I?” Stede chuckles; if Ed wants to get cocky about it, he deserves to. Ed gives him a few firm back pats as they hug. But they can’t stand there hugging forever, alas; eventually they both let go. “It’s only just starting to get dark,” Ed adds. “Plenty of time to walk over and see the fireworks, if you want.”
“I do want,” Stede replies, with an enthusiastic nod. “And, new rule: I am only going to lock the door with the key. No more locking it and pulling it shut. And I’ve attached it to my car keys.” He holds it up so Ed can see.
“Sounds good. Unless that means you lose all of ‘em somewhere.” Ed gives him a wicked grin. He can’t seem to resist ribbing him gently about it, but Stede doesn’t mind. He loves when Ed’s feeling playful, even at his own expense, and Stede’s certainly earned himself whatever Ed chooses to dish out.
“Come on,” Stede says, returning a crooked smile. “Let’s head over. And you can watch me put them in my pocket as we go.”
Notes:
Remember when I said that the stupider Stede is, the more likely it’s ripped from real life? Yeah 😅
This is actually one of the first chapters I drafted over a year ago, since it’s so central to our story ❤️
Chapter 21
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Stede loves being out at sunset on a warm night like this. The air feels pleasant, not hot, against his skin; he loves the hush and shadows at this time of day. And to be walking around at this hour with someone he adores is a delight indeed. As he and Ed stroll together toward campus, they chat lightly about how nice the weather is and about how busy campus has been for reunion, though both are somewhat quieter than usual.
For Stede, everything feels heightened: if only he knew for sure if this was a date or not. He wants so badly to reach over and take Ed’s hand. It would feel so natural, so seamless, to him at least; would it for Ed? They’re walking so close to one another that every now and again, their knuckles brush; it’d be so easy to turn this into a hand-hold, if Stede were certain it would be welcome.
Stede can’t help but dart an occasional sideways glance over at Ed. Does he have to be so attractive? So appealing, inside and out? He’s so used to looking down at Ed while he sits behind the desk; it gives him a quick frisson whenever he gets a reminder of how tall Ed is. Their height difference is enough that when they’re standing, Stede has to look up slightly to meet his eyes. It gives him a quick internal flutter every time.
Stede thinks back to walking around campus with Mary, which didn’t make him feel anything noteworthy; a casual fondness at most. He never once felt as he does right now: every sense on high alert, in the best possible way; a deep longing to be nearer, to have as much contact as possible. Stede was so out of touch with who he was that he didn’t think he was missing out on anything. His expectations were so low. But now, everything is different: it’s both lovely and torturous, Ed being so close. Everything about Ed calls to him. And, weirdly, it feels good to want Ed the way he does, even if he’s not acting on it. It feels…right.
Plus, there’s time. They have the summer. Maybe sometime in the coming days, he can gather up his meager courage and let Ed know how he feels.
***
It’s growing darker once they make it onto campus, but it’s a quick walk from the main gate to Sunset Lake. They find a comfy spot to sit on the outskirts of the crowd spread out on the grassy hill; no need to insert themselves amongst all the middle-aged folks there to celebrate.
Their timing is perfect; it’s only a few minutes before the fireworks begin. Stede was well aware that his college doesn’t spare any expense at times like these; still, he’s never experienced anything like this particular display. Stede couldn’t picture a more enchanting scene if he tried: the fireworks so close they’re practically bursting directly overhead; the booms so loud he can feel them in his chest; the sparkling, glittering flashes spreading across the sky, reflecting in the mirror of the lake and in Ed’s beautiful eyes, any time he glances over. Everyone is ooh-ing and ahh-ing; it’s impossible not to be impressed.
”This is unbelievable,” Stede says excitedly, projecting his voice and leaning close so Ed can hear him. It’s so thrilling, the whole sky above them lighting up with these dramatic, ephemeral flashes.
“It is,” Ed replies. He’s not looking at the fireworks. And when Stede glances over, he has a strange expression on his face. Ed beckons him closer so he can speak into his ear. “Stede,” he says. “I have to ask you something.”
“Sure,” Stede replies, keeping half an eye on the sparks blooming over and over in the night sky.
Ed pauses for a few seconds. “Would I—could I ever lose you as a friend?”
”What?” Stede turns to stare at him, startled by Ed’s words. That was about the last question he expected. “What makes you ask that?”
”It’s just that…” Ed trails off; they both watch the next few explosions, letting the colorful shimmers and chest-thumping booms fill their eyes and ears.
After a moment or two, Ed leans in again. “Stede,” he begins. His voice is low and intense. “Your friendship means everything to me. I tried really, really hard not to be attracted to you. To not have feelings for you. It wasn’t appropriate. You were a student...my job was to keep you safe, and that’s it. Looked for reasons not to like you, actually. But the more time I spent with you, and the more I got to know you, the more I liked you, and—”
Oh my god. Oh my god. This is happening.
Now, as his heart rate skyrockets, Stede’s chest is being pounded as much from the inside as the outside. This is a date. A for-real date. Ed cooked him dinner, and now they’re watching the most gorgeous, epic fireworks display together, sitting beside one another in the dark; it’s everything his romantic heart could have asked for.
And Ed has feelings for him. Ed wants him too. Stede could sprout wings and fly.
“Ed,” Stede interrupts. There’s no need for Ed to be concerned, or for them to wait one more second. He gestures for Ed to come close, then speaks slowly and deliberately so Ed won’t miss what he’s saying: “You could never lose me as a friend. And…I’m not a student anymore.” He follows this with a meaningful look; he lays his hand over Ed’s where he’s leaning on it in the grass. At last, at long last, he no longer has to hold back from the contact he’s been craving.
And in the light of the next explosion overhead, Stede can see the comprehension dawning on Ed’s face; it shines far brighter than the fireworks illuminating the sky. Then his face eases into a smile different from any Stede’s yet seen. It’s unbelievably tender. Breathtakingly so.
Ed turns his hand over and squeezes Stede’s. Then he lets go so he can reach over and stroke Stede’s hair away from his face, looking deep into his eyes as the booms continue above them. Stede feels as if he might actually pass out, this moment is so intense.
After a few seconds, Ed tilts his head, cups Stede’s face ever so gently, and begins to lean in. Stede lets his eyes drift to Ed’s lips; the ones he’s been yearning to feel against his own for months and months. My god—the delicious, breathless anticipation. There are no words for it. Stede parts his lips slightly, leaning in to help close the distance. It’s happening. Everything he’s ever wanted is now happening.
Their lips meet and press, and oh. It’s divine. Actual heaven. The most perfect feeling; so worth the many, many days and nights of pining and longing and delay. The fireworks shaking his body are nothing to the explosion of feeling within him as he marvels at this kiss. Ed’s gentleness, though Stede can feel the passion waiting in the wings; the bit of roughness from Ed’s stubble against his bottom lip; the way Ed shifts his body, as if all he wants to do is climb into Stede’s lap. As if it’s taking everything he has not to do so immediately.
They’re missing the grand finale of the fireworks display, but Stede can’t possibly care. Kissing Ed is far more glorious than the awe-inspiring spectacle above and around them. They break apart, both somewhat breathless, but Stede chases Ed’s lips; one kiss was nowhere near enough. That first kiss turns into two, then three. Tender-hot, hungry, sensuous. Stede clutches Ed’s shoulder; he needs him close, close, closer.
And now that he knows Ed wants him too, Stede feels like a new man: one who’s brave and confident and able to make a move of his own. He’s been waiting what feels like an eternity for this; he’ll be damned if he lets this moment go by without testing the waters. So he very gently swipes at the seam of Ed’s lips with the tip of his tongue. Ed parts his lips immediately, and Stede seeks Ed’s tongue with his own. And if he felt like his mind was blown by kissing Ed in the first place, that’s nothing to the sensation of tasting him, finding a rhythm with him, tongues rolling against each other sensuously. Stede can’t help whimpering, it feels so good; Ed answers with a groan that speaks to his own desire. The kiss grows deeper and deeper and deeper, and Stede’s about three seconds from pulling Ed down on top of him right there in front of everyone. His craving for this man is immense.
But he breaks the kiss instead. “Ed,” he says, seeking his eyes, gasping for breath. “Come back to my place?”
“Yeah? You sure?” Ed replies, in the huskiest of voices. “Not tryna rush you into anything.”
The expression in Ed’s big brown eyes is so sincere, but his willingness to be patient only makes Stede want him more. “Ed,” Stede says desperately. “I have been dreaming of this for months. You’re not rushing me. Not one bit.”
Although the fireworks have ceased and all they have is starlight and moonlight, Stede doesn’t need more than that to see Ed’s dazzling, delighted smile gradually spread across his face. “Then what are we waiting for?”
Notes:
Finally, right?? So very many thanks to my dear Sailor’s Ruin for the completely magical art!! Isn’t it beautiful??
With luck this also gives you some insight into what Ed’s been thinking this whole time ❤️
Okayyy so here’s the thing. You may or may not recall me saying awhile back that I had drafted up to Chapter 22. That’s, uh, still true 😅 so I’ll post one more chapter, but then I’ll be hitting pause for a bit. I don’t want to rush through their summer, and the smutty bits are actual fiction, so they take me longer. And I haven’t fully settled on what stories to tell overall. (I have, of course, drafted the epilogue, as is my usual m.o.) So please consider subscribing, if you haven’t already, and I will come back to this, I promise.
I hope you enjoyed this chapter, dear readers! ❤️
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PolitestMenace (GayPirateAficionado) on Chapter 1 Sat 31 May 2025 01:52AM UTC
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IveGotADragon on Chapter 1 Sat 31 May 2025 02:11AM UTC
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PolitestMenace (GayPirateAficionado) on Chapter 1 Sat 31 May 2025 11:18AM UTC
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blandbeard on Chapter 1 Sat 31 May 2025 04:54AM UTC
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PolitestMenace (GayPirateAficionado) on Chapter 1 Sat 31 May 2025 11:19AM UTC
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mlabbe87 on Chapter 1 Sat 31 May 2025 06:52AM UTC
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PolitestMenace (GayPirateAficionado) on Chapter 1 Sat 31 May 2025 11:22AM UTC
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RoxyQueen on Chapter 1 Sat 31 May 2025 07:41AM UTC
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PolitestMenace (GayPirateAficionado) on Chapter 1 Sat 31 May 2025 11:23AM UTC
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pattiann006 on Chapter 1 Mon 02 Jun 2025 09:16PM UTC
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PolitestMenace (GayPirateAficionado) on Chapter 1 Tue 03 Jun 2025 03:13AM UTC
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dimsimkitty on Chapter 1 Tue 17 Jun 2025 11:26AM UTC
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PolitestMenace (GayPirateAficionado) on Chapter 1 Tue 17 Jun 2025 12:32PM UTC
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obsessedandthirsty (getsherlockinmybed) on Chapter 1 Sat 05 Jul 2025 06:48PM UTC
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PolitestMenace (GayPirateAficionado) on Chapter 1 Sat 05 Jul 2025 08:22PM UTC
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