Chapter Text
Ed moved to this small, nowhere bit of beach town with the express intent purpose of getting away from his life, and getting back in touch with himself— whoever the fuck that is, anyways— so the absolute very last thing he ever expects to see in his local-turned-personal-favorite hole in the wall pub is his ex husband.
Like, it’s been over twenty years, Ed’s moved, and moved again, and moved one more time for luck; they haven’t spoken once in all those decades, and Ed is shocked that he even recognizes him actually. Has not even been thinking about him that much lately, which sounds like a lie stacked up against how much of Ed’s life has been wasted thinking about him, but the honest truth is that this move— and retiring, and blocking some choice contacts, and cutting back on drinking, and picking up aquarobics, actually, of all things— has been good for him. He’s in a good place, so he actually has spent a lot less time wallowing on his biggest ever failure as a human being, less time worrying over it like a bad tooth that for some stupid reason he won’t just have pulled.
So no, yeah, it’s a random Thursday night, and Ed was in the mood for a messy plate of nachos and a cosmo after a long taxing day of aquarobics and post aquarobics tea and gossip with his aquarobics friends, so here he is picking at the last shreds of lettuce and jalepeno on his serving pan, wondering if it’s a two cosmos kind of night, when he sees Stede fucking Bonnet sit two seats down from him at the bar, and he wouldn’t have bet on that happening in a billion years with someone else’s money, let alone his.
And it’s weird, it’s incredibly fucking weird, because he looks different, of course he looks different, but also he looks the same. His ruddy ginger hair has lightened out into blonde-with-a-touch-of-grey, there’s crows feet around his eyes and wrinkles in his forehead, and all his gangly edges have softened out, solidified in, yeah. But also, his polite smile as he orders from the bartender is the same, still flashes that one perfect dimple. His nose is still that same enigmatic combination of soft curves and solid strength. His eyes—
Ed turns back to the last drops of his cosmo.
He cannot be staring at his ex husband twenty plus years down the line in some random bar so intently he’s having thoughts about his eyes. Stede probably won’t even recognize him, definitely won’t want to talk with him if he does. He should go. He needs to go. He’s gonna go.
Riiiight. Now.
Now.
Now, even. He’s gonna close his tab and grab his jacket and get the fuck out of here. Any second now. Before something horrible and mortifying that will certainly be his fault happens.
“Ed?”
Fuck.
“Edward Teach?”
He takes a deep breath, braces himself, and turns. His attempt at a smile probably looks sickly, but he doesn’t really care about fixing it. At least it’s mostly honest. “Yeah, hi.”
And that’s unfair.
That’s deeply, cosmically, spiritually unfair.
Because Stede lights up, Ed can practically hear it pinging, the joy sparking around inside of him until it illuminates his face in a patented, blinding, bloody fucking gorgeous Stede Bonnet smile.
“Sorry,” Stede says, though he’s still smiling. “I don’t mean to bother you, I just—”
“Yeah, no, s’fine. Um.” And it is, like, mostly fine? Stede doesn’t seem pissed at him, or repulsed, or any number of horrible things Ed would’ve expected from the guy that asked him for a divorce 22 years ago, and Ed, as mentioned, is in a very fucking zen place right now, and so, like, why shouldn’t they have a little chat? Catch up?
Stede’s smile falters, though it doesn’t fall. “This is weird, isn’t it? I’m being weird right now. I’m sorry, I thought it would be weird if I acted like I didn’t recognize you, and then I thought, oh what if he recognizes me and thinks I’m being weird not saying anything, so I thought I just should say something, right? But I’ve made it weird, I’m being weird—”
And that’s so—
Jesus christ that’s so Stede. It’s like a rush in his chest, bringing him straight back to the early two thousands, he can practically hear the crackle of his walkman, can taste cherry coke lipsmackers in the air. The rambling and the apologizing and the— trying so so fucking hard to do right by Ed. It doesn’t escape his notice, though, that the Stede of 22 years ago would have agonized himself into resigned silence, would’ve let Ed walk out of the bar without a single word. He can’t make it mean anything, not right now, but he definitely fucking notices it.
“Always been a bit weird, mate,” he says, but he says it as fond as he ever has, can’t help it. “S’okay, really.”
“Yeah?” Stede asks.
“Yeah, I’m.” And here’s something Ed wouldn’t have been able to say 22 years ago. “I’m glad you said hi.”
“Oh,” Stede says, and smiles, something a bit quieter, a bit more private, but he doesn’t try to dispute it any further, nah, just takes it in stride with a, “I’m glad, then.”
There’s a pause, nothing awkward, just a bit of breathing room. The bartender delivers Stede’s drink— a mojito, of course— and Stede sips it, does that first happy sigh he always does when he gets a taste of something he likes, and then for a moment, they just sit together. Stede sipping his drink, casting smiley little glances at Ed here and there, Ed pretending that he really really cares about eating every little shred of lettuce off his tray.
At some point, though, Ed figures he might as well just ask. Like, maybe this is weird, but they’ve already established that’s allowed, and like, why did Stede even try to talk to him if he didn’t wanna talk? “What’re you even doing here, mate?”
“Oh!” Stede starts for a minute. “Well, I fancied a drink, mostly?”
“No,” Ed says, and he’s smiling again, totally without his permission. Fucking Stede. “I meant like, this town. Kinda off the beaten path, y’know?”
“Oh!” Stede repeats, brow unfurrowing with the clarification. “Oh, I live here.”
It’s Ed’s turn to start. “You live here?”
“Yes?”
“Sorry, just, I remember you swearing up and down you’d never leave the city, and this place is, like, as far from the city as humanly possible while still having a drycleaners available.”
Stede smiles. He’s fucking smiley tonight, putting all different ones on display: shy, eager, this one that’s just a bit self deprecating, but not genuinely ashamed. Ed is reading into it a zero amount, because anything he could read into it would be insane. “Yeah, I did say that. Took me a while, but eventually I realized that I don’t actually like the city so much as I liked the familiarity, the routine. So I thought I’d try something new.”
Ed blinks.
Kinda gets clocked over the head with it, like, cause.
One of the things he never understood about Stede was that he could be so brave about some things. But then other things, things that would make his life, their life better, he balked at. Rigid and inflexible and just shutting it down. And Ed was never good at pushing him, not back then, always convinced that if he asked for any more than Stede freely gave it would be the thing that pushed him fully away, not that it helped in the end— but, anyways it’s so fucking strange. For Stede to just matter of fact acknowledge that sticking in his ways wasn’t working out anymore, and so he just changed them. Big, crazy, polar opposite, changed them.
“Cool,” he says, which is like, so far from encompassing all of it, but is at least true.
“Yes, I think so,” Stede agrees amiably, like he hasn’t clocked how crazy what he just said is. “What about you? Visiting for the lavender festival perhaps?”
“No, uh, I live here too,” Ed says distractedly, still kinda knocking around that tiny giant revelation.
Stede’s face goes ashen, which, uh, that kinda sucks, actually—
“Oh, Ed, I promise I didn’t know that, I literally— I threw a dart at a map, I swear, I didn’t—”
Ed laughs. A dart at a map. Fucking of course he did. Still so normal and straight laced and completely, certifiably insane. “Nah, s’fine, mate, it’s okay, I didn’t think you did. Just a— just a happy coincidence, right?”
“It— It is?”
“Yeah, right? I mean, that was a long time ago, right? It’s cool to see you. You seem— you seem happy.” Again, he’s saying maybe 25% of how he’s feeling about this situation, keep a tight fucking lid on the holy shit and the oh my god and the he’s so fucking hot now that I think I might die of it all, but it is actually cool to see Stede happy.
Like, 22 years ago, it was the worst fucking thing that could ever happen to him, realizing that he couldn’t make Stede happy anymore, realizing that he was actively making him miserable. But he never stopped hoping that wherever Stede was, whatever he was doing instead, that he was happy. So seeing that eventually he did get there, and that he wears it so well, yeah, Ed is glad for that, he really, actually is.
“Thank you,” Stede says, another private smile. “I really am.”
“Well, cool then,” Ed says, and then takes a risk and claps Stede on his shoulder, friendly, casual, not at all noting how fucking solid it is. “I’m about done for the night, but hey, don’t be a stranger, yeah?”
And then Stede smiles again, the big one, the shiny, sparkling one.
“I won’t.”
And then he actually isn’t.
Ed had felt some insane, conflicting, crazy shit, coming home from the pub that night. He gave Apple her obligatory welcome home scritches, hung up his jacket, kicked off his jeans, and crawled straight into bed, buried his face in his pillow, and screamed.
It wasn’t that he was upset— well, he kinda was, in the most literal sense of the word, right? Like he’s been in this town about six months now, has started to get comfortable, has started to relax, has been doing all that finding himself he set out to do in the first place, and he can see it, right. He can see the gaps, the things he needs to figure out a little better, like the way he can get stuck in bed for weeks, late mornings, early nights, bodily forcing himself to do simple things like leave the house, and then a switch will flip and he’ll go crazy on fifteen new projects, burning the candle at both ends, forgetting to stop even to eat, until he inevitably crashes out again. But still, this, compared to his life before? Miles better, he feels miles better. Now, at least, when he works himself into a frenzy, it’s shit he cares about, and when he gets stuck in bed, he’s got nice fucking sheets.
But then, Stede Bonnet.
His ex husband.
Just pops into his life, and Ed doesn’t even hate the sight of him, and by some fucking miracle Stede doesn’t hate the sight of Ed, and he can already see it, right, the crazy path his brain wants to go down. His brain is jumping at the chance to right all the wrongs 20-something Ed made, is practically salivating at the idea that if Ed played his cards right he could—
What, exactly?
And that’s the thing, he’s not going down that path. He’s done too much growing to cave to that desperate abandoned stray impulse to rub up against Stede, beg any shred of comfort or attention he can get from him. He’s not falling into some fairytale daydream where Stede is on his front porch in the rain confessing that their divorce was the biggest mistake of his life and sweeping Ed into his arms.
Ed’s rational brain doesn’t even want that, not actually. Because their divorce wasn’t a mistake, was the thing. Oh, it fucking hurt, and it took Ed a solid ten years to “get over” it, and another ten to actually get over it. But with all the joy of hindsight, he knows. They got married too young. Ed was volatile, Stede had a bad habit of collapsing in on himself. Neither one of them understood the happy medium between— well, the way their fathers did marriage, trying to rule it with an iron fist— and not fucking communicating at all. And the world asked so much of them, first the demands of school, and then jobs, and then parents, and then figuring out how to be actual human people in a world that changed every single day, not always for the better.
By the time Stede had turned to him, after that last shitty not-fight, that last conversation where they danced around each other, one completely out of step with the other, and asked if they should get divorced, they didn’t have anything left for each other.
Ed didn’t want to see it, of course. A divorce was a failure, was proof that Ed wasn’t the kind of man that could be a husband, or make someone else happy, or hell, even himself, meant that he didn’t deserve a happily ever after. But at the time, the fact that Stede was even asking, the fact that he even said the word, that was proof in of itself that Ed already had failed, had probably been failing from the very beginning. So Ed had said yeah, yeah, I think we should. He’d given up. What good would it’ve been to hold onto someone who wanted to go?
In the later years, Ed tortured himself with that, with the thought that maybe he just should have fought harder. Maybe he should’ve promised that he’d fix it, whatever it was, if Stede would just stay.
Ed knows better now, knows that it wasn’t that. They’d both tried so hard, but it just wasn’t right. It was the wrong time. Both of them were so wrapped up in each other that they never figured out how to be themselves. The gravity between them was so strong that they couldn’t maintain orbit, just collapsed inwards in a sad little fizzle.
So yeah, the part of Ed that knows how to be healthy and rational and fair to his younger self knows that he actually doesn’t have anything to apologize for, that he’s not some irredeemable monster for failing to save a marriage that started when he was 20 years old (an age famous for its stability and good judgment) and was dead by 25. He knows that him and Stede are such completely different people from who they were when they got divorced that they’re probably not even romantically compatible anymore. He knows that he’s over Stede, and Stede is definitely over him.
He’s just also insane and romantic and gets obsessed with stories. His heart latches on to big sweeping emotions, starts directing the music video of the moment before the moment is even real. He gets things in his head before he even really feels the want in his gut, crazy, rambling oh what ifs? If he’s honest with himself, that’s part of why he married Stede so fast. He told himself a story where this funny, clever, crazy guy married him, and then they lived happily ever after, and proved that if you had the two perfect people, you could marry your college sweetheart and actually make it work. Ed wanted to be, him and Stede, those two perfect people. So he told himself stories that proved that they’d already gotten it right, and edited out the parts that didn’t and then they were married and it was great and beautiful and wild until it fucking wasn’t.
But Ed knows better now. Hasn’t stopped telling the stories, maybe even has started telling them more, but he doesn’t try to live them. He actually— he just writes them now. He did retire, so he’s not, like, trying to get them published or anything, but he writes. Romance, mostly, gives his characters happily ever afters that he knows take way more work in the real world, but he won’t give up the fantasy entirely. He’s just stopped trying to live it.
And he’s not gonna try to live it with Stede.
He isn’t, it’s the kind of shit his heart and his nerves and his tummy do not fucking need. He’s got stability now, he’s not losing his footing to the imaginary fantasy of Stede coming back 22 years later to sweep him off his feet.
He does think they can be friends, though.
They had a lot of shared life. 20 somethings kinda speedrun life, and so him and Stede, they had so much together, even though it was just about 6 years versus Ed’s entire 47 lived, and Ed does kinda want to talk to someone about that, someone who was there, who gets it. Only other person in Ed’s life that was around back then was his mum, and he can’t really talk to her about sneaking into a club on the back of Stede’s slightly older ID and then getting kicked out because it was Stede’s baby face the bouncer didn’t buy.
So yeah, when Stede keeps to Ed’s word, runs into him at the grocery story, bumps up against Ed in line at the coffee shop, and always gives him a friendly hello and a bit of small town small talk, Ed’s actually fucking happy about it.
Like, it’s weird, and complicated, but it’s kind of a massive tiny flex that when Ed said he was over it, he actually pretty much is. There was the initial weirdness, and then every once in a while, they’ll glance up against some additional weirdness that neither one of them forces the other to confront head on, but mostly it’s been pretty cool and fun and fine. Ed sees Stede around town, at the gym and the farmer’s market and the movie theatre, and more often than not, they’ll just join each other, and talk, and it’s fine.
Good, actually.
Like, he’s being careful, not falling headfirst into any big insane feelings, still tentatively holding Stede outside of the category of friend, but.
There are some things about Ed that Stede always got better than anyone else that no one else ever fully clicked to the way Stede did.
Like today, right, today they’re the only two people at the park walking their cats, which is its own Thing, and they’re just walking together, Apple pretending not to be interested in Stede’s orange tabby, Clementine, and then Stede leans in and he nudges Ed, and says, in a whisper that fully fails to be quiet, “What’s that dog’s name?”
“Ivan the Terrible the 4th,” he says, pretty much immediately.
“The 4th?” Stede asks, less questioning, more an invitation.
“Yeah, right, look at his mum. She’s gotta be at least 90 billion years old, and she’s just had evil little dogs like that her entire life, and every time one of them dies, she goes out and buys another mini schnauzer and names it Ivan and lets it piss on everything and chew up the guests’ slippers.”
“Bit of a self fulfilling prophecy, that, naming a dog Ivan the Terrible. What a legacy to live up to.”
“Oh no, it’s the family curse. She doesn’t want to have shitty little dogs named Ivan, but one time she got a perfectly respectable corgi and named it Priscilla, and the very next day she woke up with her carpets shredded and another evil mini schnauzer named Ivan in her house.”
“Oh no!” Stede gasps. “How does she break the curse?”
“Get a cat like a normal person,” Ed says, has to hold back a laugh.
“Of course,” Stede agrees, and then nudges Ed’s shoulder again, just to do it. “Should’ve guessed.”
And then they walk, and it’s a little bit more of that silence, that silence that’s comfortable, way more worn in than it deserves to be for all the quick little snippets they’ve been banking since they first spoke that handful of weeks back, until they pass another woman walking a very sleek looking black lab.
“Don’t look now, you’ll blow his cover,” Stede says, more conspiratorial not-whispers. “But that was agent D.”
“D as in dog?”
“No,” Stede says, performatively offended. Got it in one. “Agent D for… Diabolical. Whatever, it’s not important.”
“Right, the important part is the mission.”
“Exactly. Which mission?”
“Well, there’s an evil scientist who’s made a machine that translates English to whale, cause, of course, his girlfriend left him for a whale, and he’s gonna—”
“Wait, Ed, no! That’s just a Phineas and Ferb episode, c’mon, really?”
“You’re sounding pretty lofty right now considering you recognized it, like, right away.”
Stede laughs, a warm little hah. “Yes, friends of mine, their kids were the right age for it, and I babysat, so, you know. What’s your excuse?”
“I have taste,” Ed says, and he’s smiling, has been smiling this whole time, really, is usually smiling when he sees Stede, because it’s this stuff, Stede meeting him where he’s at, not pushing for anything, but just playing with him, telling stories, letting it be easy, that Ed kinda thinks—
He’s been letting this happen on accident, just letting himself feel this out, seeing where it goes, but he feels like it’s been going all the right places, and there’s no reason he can’t have it happen on purpose from now on, not if Stede wants it too.
It’s about time he gets Apple back home for dinner, but before he goes—
“Hey Stede, let me give you my number, so we can— you know— do this again.”
And Ed’s instincts were dead on, because there Stede is, giving him one of those smiles, one of those beautiful fucking smiles, and then giving him his number.
And so they go on, doing Not Strangers but Definitely Just Friends things— walks in the park, movie nights, lunches at the cafe— and Ed gets comfortable. Gets so comfortable he sorta forgets that Stede is his ex husband.
Not entirely. There’s still moments where Ed of now gets inadvertently knocked back to Ed of 22 years ago— silly little things, but they get him. Stede brushing one stubbornly errant curl back off his forehead. Stede talking with his hands when he gets excited. Ed showing him some favorite spot in town and anxiously worrying the whole time— is he having fun, does he think this is cool, does he still think I’m cool— until he remembers that it’s not a big deal and he’s 47 and they’re friends.
But by and large, he sorta forgets, like it’s really not that big of a deal. Like Stede is just a friend he lost touch with when life happened, and now they get to reconnect. Casual and easy and he’s doing a great job of keeping a lid on his insane, dramatic fantasies, and just hanging out with him.
Until he sees the ring.
It’s another pub night, dinner eaten down to crumbs, drinks sipped down to dregs, the flow of conversation, the reticence to break the moment by standing up to go the only thing keeping them in place. But then it’s August, and it’s a bit hot, and Stede never goes anywhere underdressed, never had done even when they were broke 20-somethings, and tonight’s no exception. So Stede must be sweating under the bar lights in his three piece suit, because he loosens his silky little scarf and unbuttons the top few buttons of his shirt, and Ed sees the ring.
It’s a simple gold band, worn on a simple gold chain, tucked against the gold hair sprinkled across Stede’s chest, and Ed’s careful, practiced grip on normal, regular, not fucking crazy stutters and slips.
Cause.
Cause they haven’t talked about it. Haven’t been avoiding acknowledging that they have a history, it comes up here and there, but they haven’t sat and unpacked it. And Ed’s just sorta been assuming things were probably similar for Stede to what they were for him.
Like, now that his self esteem is somewhere above sea level these days, he can recognize that even if Stede didn’t love him by the time their marriage was over, he had loved him. Was his first love, even, Ed knew that much for a fact. And having a tumultuous marriage with your first love when you’re in your twenties, just to fall out of love and have the whole thing dissolve into divorce is gonna have a massive impact on anyone, not just Ed, not just crazy, uniquely insane Ed. And so Ed had just been assuming, right, assuming that the same way that Ed never really found someone he clicked with the way he did with Stede, Stede must’ve been about the same.
Not that Ed never dated again, not that Ed never had another serious relationship, because he did. But nothing ever lined up quite right, both of them in the right place, the right amount of compatible, the right amount of committed, for Ed to ever successfully marry anyone else. And, for fucks sake, he got lost in the fairytale again, didn’t even realize he had, because here he was assuming Stede was the same. Assuming that just because they were together then and somehow ended up together— not together, obviously, but, ya know— again their whole lives between now and then must’ve run in parallel too.
Stupid.
Of course Stede got married again.
Probably had people dying to marry him the second Ed’s stink cleared from his life after Ed ran away.
Though— and this twists a bit of sick satisfaction in him— it clearly didn’t last since Stede is wearing their ring around his neck instead of his finger. And then he feels like the world’s biggest fucking asshole, because like, what if they died. Fuck.
And anyways, Stede clearly didn’t mean for Ed to see it, cause it’s been hidden this whole time. Only came out tonight cause it’s hot and Stede’s 2.5 mojitos deep and a bit past tipsy. So Ed doesn’t say anything, and resolves not to say anything.
Except that really doesn’t work, because the thing is, now that they’re friends, properly, since Ed is retired and Stede has some bullshit rom-com heroine job working from home cataloguing runway photos, they spend a decent amount of time together. And Stede is a lot more confident in himself, yeah, in a way that Ed is not Noticing, just simply, regular style, noticing, but he’s still Stede and he still gets anxious, and he still fidgets with his hands when he does. And now that Ed knows to look for it, Stede’s number one fidget is to reach for his neck where the ring is, realize he’s doing it, abort the motion, and then find something else to fidget with.
And Ed feels like an extra big dick, because yeah, if Stede’s got a dead spouse (let’s be real, it’s like 99% in favor of being a dead husband), or even another ex husband, Ed doesn’t want him to feel self conscious acknowledging it just because Ed’s also his ex. So Ed sits, and marinates on it, and wonders how to bring it up so that Stede feels the least put on the spot, the least like shit.
No surprise that Ed doesn’t ever come up with a good way to do it, just gets buzzy and impatient with the need to comfort Stede the next time his anxious hands start reaching for the ring. That’s the Ed special, feelings and thoughts too fast to rein in his hands, his hands that end up reaching for Stede’s, grasping them close, worrying thumbs in Stede’s palms to loosen the tension. Maybe it’s dumb, doing this based on an instinct from decades ago that he never let go of, but maybe it’s not, because the set of Stede’s shoulders starts to ease, the furrow in his brow goes lax.
Ed keeps his words as gentle as his hands, puts the same amount of practice in it, when he says, as even and honest as he can, “You can tell me about them, you know, if you want.”
“Oh, thank you,” Stede murmurs, sort of absently, those brilliant hazels trained on where their hands are joined. It’s then that Ed realizes that this is the most intimately they’ve touched each other in 22 fucking years. Like, there’s been casual claps on the shoulder and nudges and shit, but they haven’t so much as hugged, and here Ed is, like, massaging his hands. He flushes, but Stede hasn’t asked him to stop, so he doesn’t.
“Wait,” Stede starts. “Tell you about who?”
“Y’know, whoever you were married to.”
Stede’s brow furrows back up, though this time in confusion. “I was married to you.”
Ed laughs, rolls his eyes, which is kinda crazy, that they’re at the level where they can laugh about this together. “Yeah, duh, I was there. I meant after that.”
Stede just looks even more lost. “What are you talking about?”
Ed falters, feels dumb, wrongfooted. His hands still on Stede’s. “The— y’know— I wasn’t prying, it’s just you unbuttoned your shirt at the pub, and, like, I saw the wedding band you wear. S’okay. Like, we can talk about it, I won’t be weird about it.”
Stede’s hands shudder in his, and then they pull away.
“Oh my god,” he says. “Oh my god,” like the world is fucking ending. “I didn’t mean for you to— I’m so sorry— God, Ed—”
Ed doesn’t chase Stede’s touch, doesn’t want to spook him, send him spiraling in a coffee shop, especially since Ed’s the one that drove them, but he still tries to reassure him, to reach out with words at least.
“Nah, mate, like I said, it’s not a big deal, like, of course you got remarried, it’s normal, we’re friends now, it’s really okay.”
But Stede is just shaking his head no, muttering no, no, no, and Ed doesn’t know what to say, doesn’t know how to smooth over whatever upset he inadvertently stumbled into.
“Okay,” he tries. “Okay, we don’t have to talk about it, forget I said anything, right? I’m sorry.” And that, that gets Stede to look at him again, though he just blinks. Ed tries again. “I’m sorry. It’s forgotten. Yeah?”
The tension in Stede breaks, and he heaves a gusty sigh, collapses back into his seat— and it’s built for it, cushiony and deep, which is something Ed loves about this town, that it’s small enough that the cafe got all its furniture off craigslist, didn’t give over to the urge to maximize seating with fifty identical, uncomfortable, straight backed dining chairs. Stede runs his hand through his hair, mussing up his curls, before shaking his head, shimmying them back into place.
“No, Ed, I’m sorry,” Stede starts. “This is weird, and I know it’s weird, so I’m sorry about that, but I also. I think it would be best if I just tell you. One can only hope I’ve learned that lesson by now.” Stede’s not looking at him, but he’s also not shaking apart, he’s holding his ground when he says, “It’s not someone else’s wedding ring that I wear, it’s yours.”
Ed blinks. Shakes his head. Blinks again.
“It’s my what?”
“Your wedding ring. You gave it back to me, you know? And I just. I kept it.”
Except Stede didn’t just keep it. He kept it and he wore it and he habitually fidgeted with it until he wandered back into Ed’s life 22 years later, at which point he kept it hidden. And Ed doesn’t know what any of it means.
But, like. The cool thing about being 47 and having his own (paid off, little brag) house and money and coping skills and aquarobics friends is that, like, if he asks, and Stede thinks he’s being too pushy just for asking a question and decides to walk away, Ed’s entire life doesn’t go up in a puff of smoke. So he does. He just asks.
“What does that mean? To you? Why did you— y’know, why did you keep wearing it?”
Stede looks up at him, sorta big eyed and vulnerable, sorta like he expected some much harsher questions from Ed. And yeah, maybe ten years ago, maybe Ed would’ve been too raw and angry to let Stede Bonnet waltz back into his life wearing the wedding ring he gave back 22 years ago without tearing him a new one. But he isn’t that person anymore. So he just waits.
“Um. I— Well—” and then Stede glances around the coffee shop, like Lucius at the bar is gonna swoop in and start listening. Which, actually, Ed’s seen the way he gossips, so that’s fair. “I’m sorry, I really— We can talk about this, I’m not trying to avoid you, I promise, but could we maybe talk somewhere more private?”
“Okay, yeah. Yeah. You wanna do this now, or save it for later?”
Again, Stede just stares at him, vulnerable puppy eyes. “Could we?”
“Yeah,” Ed says, shrugs, but he’s being honest when he adds, “We got time, right?”
“Okay, yes, please, I’d like that.”
“Cool,” Ed says, and then gives him a smile, a real one, and lets the conversation go, just for now. “Don’t forget to take your tea bag out, it’s gonna get bitter,” he reminds him.
“Thanks,” Stede says, and Ed doesn’t think he’s reading too much into it when it feels like Stede might be grateful for more than one thing.
Ed gets home to 13 texts from Stede.
Sorry for being weird earlier.
I know you’ve said I’m always weird, but I do think that was extra weird.
So again, sorry.
And also, sorry for not talking about it right away.
You surprised me.
Which I think is sort of my own fault, but still.
I meant it, we absolutely can talk about it.
I think I just needed some time to think.
I promise I really didn’t know you lived here when I moved here, this isn’t some crazy plot and I am no more insane than the expected level of insane I was when we got divorced
Which I am realizing is not at all reassuring
Sorry, again.
We can talk though, if you still want to. Tomorrow, maybe?
No worries if not.
Ed laughs, genuinely fucking laughs out loud. For all that Stede has changed, he’s also so much the same. He texts back a quick youre fine tomorrow works i’ll pick you up i know a spot and then tucks his phone into his pocket and then it fuckin hits him.
It hits him, the holy fucking shit of it all that he’d just sorta absorbed, just sorta zenned his way through in the face of Stede’s burgeoning panic.
The ex husband, that’s one thing, and the casual acquaintance-ship, that’s been another thing, little bite sized pieces he could deal with when their past was firmly sequestered in the past, because he could just be over it and live content with the knowledge that Stede was too.
Except people who are over their divorce don’t wear their ex husband’s ring around their neck for 22 human years.
His brain rabbits off in a billion directions, and none of them actually feel good. Ed’s life worked when his divorce was just some thing he fucked up by being young and dumb that’s not a problem anymore because Ed is no longer young and dumb. This, he doesn’t know what this is, what it means, and he’s apparently still a little dumb, because he went and did the patient, forgiving, compassionate thing, and told Stede they could wait to talk about it, when he’s actually about to crawl out of his skin with the begging, keening what the fuck does it mean.
Stede asked him for the divorce. Stede thought they weren’t worth saving. Stede didn’t love Ed anymore.
And somehow, Stede has Ed’s wedding band.
Ed remembers a story, or a poem, or something, something that lived in Stede’s fanciful head, where a sailor is punished with the corpse of an albatross hung around his neck, and the Stede Ed remembers, he’d been punished by the world so much, so early, he’d gotten really good at punishing himself all on his own. Ed knows their divorce hangs on him like a failure, he wonders if their marriage weighs the same for Stede, if he’s been wearing that wedding ring as a symbol of what he got wrong, an albatross squawking a reminder not to go down that path, not ever again.
He feels sick at the thought.
He’s made his mistakes, and he’s made plenty of them, and in the worst post divorce years, he did wish they’d never met, never married, but this far down the road, he’s glad he had it, even when he lost it. It scrapes all those wounds raw again, thinking Stede might regret them from the very beginning, regret it so much that he carried it with him for decades.
But—
But he’s borrowing agony here, he’s telling himself stories.
That’s something he’s had to keep an eye out for, too, now that he knows himself better. He tells stories, right, but not all of them are good ones, and the stories being sadder, shittier, it doesn’t make them any truer than the fantasies.
He takes a deep breath.
Lets it out.
Says to himself, out loud, “You don’t know. You’re gonna talk about it and figure it out like a stupid fucking grown up. But until then, you don’t know.”
Takes another big breath.
It’s weird, talking to himself, coaching his brain off the ledge, but it’s weird enough that it works, snaps him out of the spiraling thoughts that just wanna ask what if what if what if until they’ve worn ruts in the carpet of his mind.
There’s still lingering, itching, angry anxiety churning in his gut, but it’s not so bad.
“You’re fine, mate, you’re so fucking fine,” he reminds himself one last time, and then heads off to feed Apple, because for whatever disaster his life might be, Miss Golden Delicious waits for no one.
Ed picks Stede up the next afternoon and drives them out to the point, figures it’s quiet enough there not to feel the pressure, public enough neither one of them feel put on the spot on their own turf, though Ed, bit selfish maybe, did want the home field advantage of it being his car. Stede says hi, smiles at him like he normally does, like it’s the best part of his day just to be seeing Ed, but they don’t talk on the little leg of a drive out to the point. It’s not uncomfortable, but it’s not the relaxed silences they’ve been sitting in on and off since that first night in the pub. For the first time since then, there’s a weight of expectation, but for the first time in Ed’s life, he doesn’t feel like it’ll crush him.
They get to the point, Ed parks, sets the handbrake, kills the engine since he parked in first to combat the rolling slope of the parking lot, and he tries to figure out where to start.
Ends up he doesn’t have to, Stede just picks up right where they left off.
“To answer your questions,” Stede starts, and Ed turns a little in his seat, wriggles around until he’s (as) comfortable (as possible). “Your wedding ring, what it means to me. At first it was a guilt thing. And an I missed you thing. And the guilt softened. Eventually. And the missing you, I don’t think I can really say that I ever stopped, but I adjusted to it at least. Made peace with it. But then I kept wearing it, habit, partially, but then, once, you know, once I grew up and got my life together, mostly it just felt good to. To remember you. To remember us.”
That doesn’t make any sense.
“That doesn’t make any sense,” he tells him. “You asked me for the divorce.”
“I know,” Stede says, and oh. That’s regret, painted across his face in big bold letters, dark stamp of all black impact font. “I shouldn’t have. I was a coward.”
“No,” Ed says, baffled. “No, you should have, because, because I made you miserable, and you didn’t love me anymore, and we were never gonna be able to fix our marriage, and that fucking sucked but at least you were the one who was brave enough to say it.”
It’s Stede’s turn for bafflement, confusion twisting the wrinkles in his face that much deeper. “Where on earth did you get the impression that I didn’t love you anymore?”
Ed stops. Because it’s not that Stede had ever said, it was just a given, because—
“You couldn’t’ve. You didn’t. If you did, you— you— why else would you leave?”
It comes out raw, trembling, more vulnerable than it’s felt in years, and it’s crazy, the way this man can just summon those feelings, call them up from the depths they’ve slept in, contentedly, Ed had thought, and string them out across Ed’s center console like nothing at all and everything at once.
“Oh, Ed.”
He can’t do this, can’t watch his face anymore, turns head on to watch the waves through the dash.
“I’m an idiot,” Stede tells the side of his head. Ed doesn’t ask him to elaborate; he’s getting his breathing back in check, battening down the hatches that are threatening to leak tears. There’s a pause, more heavy silence, before Stede continues. “I didn’t ask for the divorce because I wanted to be away from you. It’s just— all I could see, every day, a million things I couldn’t get right, a million tiny ways I was hurting you by— by not being the husband you deserved, and I didn’t think I would ever figure out how to do better. I didn’t stop loving you, but I couldn’t stomach the thought that— that all my failures, all the things I couldn’t get right, would make you stop loving me. I couldn’t bear to see it. So I gave up. Gave you an out.”
Ed knocks his head back against the headrest. Closes his eyes. Absorbs it. Weighs what he’s saying against the Stede he remembers, the anxieties and the insecurities.
“What the fuck,” he lands on. “That’s so fucked up.”
“It is, yeah,” Stede agrees.
“You were an idiot.”
“Inarguably.”
“Right.”
And then, silence, mostly. The wind of the point buffeting against his little car, strong and insistent, but still not enough to sway it where it stands. Stede’s breathing. Ed’s, a touch threadier.
And then, Stede, “Can I ask you something?”
Ed sighs, but not annoyed, just. Needs the breath. “Yeah, yeah, go ahead.”
“I asked if we should get divorced, I started it, but you said yes. Did you really think you made me miserable? Did— did I make you miserable?”
“No,” he says quickly, automatically, and then, with more thought— “Don’t get me wrong. Definitely were some times— a fair— decent amount of time that I was miserable, there at the end. I just didn’t know how to— you wouldn’t talk to me. I didn’t know how to talk to you.”
Stede hums, and Ed remembers him doing that, remembers thinking it was just a placeholder, just filling the air. Now it feels more like— like he’s listening. Like he’s holding the space, keeping it open for Ed to gather his thoughts. Like an invitation for Ed to actually fuckin say what’s on his mind. So he does, keeps going.
“You know I never thought I could ever be someone’s husband. Had the world’s shittest example to go off of with my dad, and then I had to go and be gay to boot, and I never thought I’d ever be someone anybody’d ever wanna promise anything to, let alone forever.”
“Ed—”
“No, whatever, like, it’s not whatever, but I know better now, the point, Stede, the point was, you proposed to me and all of a sudden I was that person. Or I had done a really good job of pretending to be that person. And— and when we were married, I never really stopped feeling like I was pretending. Never stopped being afraid you were gonna see the real me. I guess, when you asked for the divorce, I figured you had. Figured you didn’t like him so much. Figured you needed out. Figured it would be really fucked up for me to stand in your way.”
“Oh, Ed.”
“It’s— Y’know, I know who I am now. I know I’m just some guy. Some guy with flawless music taste and an ass that won’t quit even at 47, and, like, a fair amount of baggage, mostly sorted, but yeah. I know I’m just some guy.”
“Yes,” Stede says, and Ed finally looks back at him. He looks drawn up inside of himself, like he’s thinking, like he’s not just hearing Ed’s words, but turning them over and over, absorbing them.
“Do you still think—” Stede starts, then stops himself, looks out the window, and nah, Ed’s not doing this, not at his big age.
“Do I still think what?” and then when Stede doesn’t say anything, prods a bit more, a bit of humor. “C’mon, mate, it’s not like we can get any more divorced, just ask me.”
That gets a smile out of Stede, and then he takes a breath, turns to face Ed head on. Brave. Ed’s always known that he was. “Do you still think it’s for the best we got divorced? Even with the— the—” Stede gestures with his hands, tries to encompass it all. “You know, of it all?”
Ed breathes. Thinks about it. Breathes. Eventually says, “Yeah.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, you know, it fucking sucked, but I think the fact that we got to that point without realizing, without fuckin’ talking about it. If it wasn’t that fight— god, do you remember what it was about? I don’t— it would have been something else, right? We needed— I know I needed to go figure out who I was when I wasn’t just trying to be someone that could get you to stay.”
“That is… Very wise.”
“Don’t sound so fuckin’ surprised.”
“I’m not, I just—!”
“And yeah,” Ed says, breezing past the tease with a smirk. Stede’ll catch it, he’s gotten a lot more coordinated in his old age. “Took me a while to figure it out, which I think just sorta proves the point, but I did.”
“I think—” and then Stede is smiling one of his private smiles, one of the soft ones. “I think I’m figuring it out too.”
“Good,” Ed says, puts some feeling into it. “That’s fuckin good, Stede.”
“It is, isn’t it?”
Ed smiles back at him, just as soft, just as quiet.
It really fucking is.
They sit, another silence, but this one’s had all the weight lifted, all the oxygen pumped back in, and then Stede points out a bird, and Ed knows something about their migration, and then Stede knows a lot of somethings about a bird that doesn’t even live around here, but now that Ed’s reminded him—
And it’s easy.
It’s so fucking easy to talk to him, to follow that tangent down the path until it connects up with another that connects with another until they’ve woven a web of conversation more tangled and spidery than Ed’s abandoned yarn collection after Apple’d gotten into it, and Ed has no idea where the fuck it’s gonna lead.
Doesn’t need to know, in the literal sense, but in the more abstract, he sorta really does.
So again, he just fucking asks.
“What’re we doing here, Stede?”
Stede furrows his brow in confusion. “Well you asked me to talk, and then you said you knew a place, and you didn’t specify, but I assume this was the place? Unless we arrived here by accident? In which case, I’m impressed, being that it’s such a lovely spot.”
It’s the sincerity that fucking gets him, when it comes to Stede. He’s not being a dick, and he’s definitely not stupid, he just answered the question he thought Ed was asking.
“Nah, mate, I mean. Us. Our—” and then he says it, because he’s adult enough to just call it what it is and let the other person go from there. “Relationship. Where’s it going? I dunno— I get it, y’know, I get it, but I don’t really know what to do with the. The wedding ring. Being there. You still wearing it.”
“I can stop, if it makes you uncomfortable—”
“No, that’s not what I said, right? I just wanna know what— jesus, bear with me, there’s literally no better way to say this— what your intentions are. What you want from this.”
“I… I don’t know.”
“C’mon, Stede, don’t give me that—”
“No, honestly, Ed, I really haven’t thought about it. I never thought I’d see you again, I didn’t exactly have a plan for accidentally moving to your hometown and running into you at a pub, and I’ve really just been taking it one day at a time. I was so surprised you even wanted to talk to me, and everything since then, it’s just been— happy surprises.”
“Okay, but—”
“We’re friends now, aren’t we?”
“Yeah.”
“We never really did that, we— we fell so fast. But this, getting to know you again, being friends, taking it easy, I’ve liked that. I’ve liked it so much, Ed.”
“Yeah,” he agrees. “Me too.”
“So I intended to just— keep doing that. Try being your friend. A good one, this time.”
“Yeah,” Ed says, and fuck that this is the thing that gets him close to tearing up again. “I think we can do that. I think I might like that.”
“I would love that.”
Stede’s looking at him, and it’s all soft, so fucking soft, and Ed needs a fucking break from the feelings— they’re good, they’re important, etc and whatever— but there’s only so much he can fucking take in a day, so he breaks it. Turns to the wheel, gets the engine going, and then the quip about the hot chocolate he would love dies on his tongue.
The sincerity is heavy, but it still tastes sweet.
He decides not to wash it away.
To let it fade out all on its own.
There’s no rush.