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They’re in bed early. The sun has only just set, but they had an early dinner, and they went for a swim, so they’re both tired. Ed, especially, his eyes fluttering open and closed. He looks, bare against their sheets, like he’s melting straight into them. They’re a little drunk on wine, which is not at all a bad thing to be.
Stede runs a hand over Ed’s warm skin, up and down his arm. His fingers trace the lines of his tattoos. Ed stares up at him, eyes hooded but sweet, dark but lit from the inside. The brown of them is decadent. He’s beautiful. His chest rises and falls with breath, his belly along with them. Stede scratches the hair on his stomach indulgently. He strays too far to one side and Ed jerks and giggles, ticklish.
“You don’t have to just sit there,” Ed says, soft. “You could read. Or something.”
“Would you like if I read to you?” Stede says, fingers gliding up between Ed’s pecs to press at the sails of his ship.
“Not what I meant, but I wouldn’t complain,” Ed smiles up at him softly. He curls up on his side, presses his face into Stede’s thigh. Stede feels his breath against the hair there, and brings his hand down to twine into Ed’s hair, where he scratches his scalp. Ed makes a peaceful, happy noise.
“Maybe I could tell you a story?”
Ed leans back and grins. “Sexy story?”
“Hmm,” Stede hums. “Don’t want to get you all worked up when you’re about to fall asleep.”
Ed rolls his eyes. “You’re talking like I have no control over myself.”
Stede shrugs. He scratches Ed’s head harder and watches his dick twitch against his thigh. He carefully doesn’t say anything.
“Shut up,” Ed says, pressing his face back into Stede’s skin. “Sorry that you’re so fucking hot and I can’t keep from getting off about it.”
Stede’s mouth trembles into a smile, a little self-conscious. “What sort of story do you want?”
“Mmghh,” Ed groans. “I don’t have the energy to come up with anything.”
“Come on, give me a vague theme.”
Ed squirms, presses a kiss to Stede’s leg. He takes a slightly sharp inhale. Stede looks down at him and is surprised to see him blushing.
“You want a love story?”
Ed presses his forehead against Stede’s thigh. It’s warm, a little damp. Stede pushes his fingers into Ed’s hair from his hairline and pries his head back from his leg a bit.
“Hm?”
“You just don’t give up, huh?” Ed says, eyes a little glassy, the way he gets when they’re playing, Stede in charge.
Stede smiles. He loves him.
“Yeah. Love story’s good. Put me down.” Stede places his head back down and Ed gives him another kiss to the thigh.
“Well,” Stede starts. “Once upon a time…” He tilts his head, trying to come up with something. A soft snore comes from below. He looks down at Ed and finds him half asleep. Stede jostles him a little.
“I’m awake,” Ed mumbles. “Sorry. Keep going.”
“Well, there’s this guy,” Stede hums. “Sort of guy. Kind of sort of guy. You know, kind of like you.”
“Kindoflikeme,” Ed mumbles.
“You know, how you are kind of like a guy, but you’re kind of like —”
Ed tilts his head back, eyes squinted and brow furrowed. He looks puzzled. It is maybe important to note that this isn’t something they talk about, unless Ed is very drunk. In essence, when Ed is very drunk he will talk about how maybe he is not completely a guy. Before right now, they have not discussed this when sober (or, maybe explaining why this slipped off Stede’s tongue, a little wine drunk).
“Anyway,” Stede barrels on. “Also kind of like Jim. So, kind of a guy.”
Ed looks a little perturbed. “Stede, what are you —”
“I mean, let’s change the subject. It’s a girl.”
Ed’s eyes dart all over Stede’s face. “You’re confusing me, mate.”
Stede is not really in the state to be explaining Ed’s gender to him, so he does a 180. “She’s a princess.”
Ed’s face goes calm. He likes stories about princesses. It’s very endearing, the way he, fully grown, gets quiet and thoughtful when Stede talks about romantic things like that, when he tells stories that his mother told him when he was a boy.
“What does she look like?” Ed asks, voice soft.
Stede, helpless to his tone, does something stupid. “She’s got long, dark hair. Flecked with silver. And large, dark eyes. And a strong nose. She’s lovely.”
Ed blinks up at him.
“And she’s trapped in a tower.”
“Hm,” Ed says.
“And the tower’s a boat,” Stede says, dumbly.
“Hmmmm,” Ed continues.
“Or, er, I mean, it’s on a boat. A sort of boat with a tower on it. Super. Tall boat.”
“Is it a pirate ship?” Ed asks, curiously.
“It can be. Do you want it to be?”
Ed’s face goes a little shuttered. He shrugs a shoulder, pressing his face back into Stede’s thigh. “Not really about what I want, mate. It’s your story.”
Stede, all at once, regrets this line of thought, regrets the story. He wonders, as he often does, why he does the things he does. He flounders for a bit.
“Do you want me to stop —”
“No,” Ed says, definitively. “Keep telling me the story.”
“Uh,” Stede starts feeling a strange sort of stage fright. “So, she’s stuck on this pirate ship.”
Ed stiffens. Stede can really only tell from the lines of his back, from the way his gut goes taut. He’s silent, but there’s an edge to it. Stede recognizes this as a ‘very upset Ed’. He goes to tell more of the story but can’t come up with the words.
“Ed,” Stede says.
“Keep talking,” Ed says, voice tight.
“Ed, you seem…”
“Does she get off the pirate ship? Out of the tower?”
Stede nods. “Yes, of course. She does.”
Ed grinds his face forward into Stede’s skin. “But once she gets on land she’s still in a box.”
Stede scrambles to pick up the loose end Ed’s left for him. “Um, but. There’s a man. A, um. A commonman. And he falls in love with the princess. And he gets her out of the box.”
Ed takes a sharp breath. “No, she’s still in the box.”
“Ed,” Stede says, concerned.
“Fuck,” Ed says, pulling back from Stede. “And she doesn’t want to be in the box, you know?” He shakes his head. He rolls onto his back. “She’s fuckin’ sick of being in the box. And why is she even in the box, anyway? She loves Stede, and she wants to be with him in the real fucking world, but she’s trapped in this stupid fucking box.” His voice creaks, slurs. He’s sloppy with his words.
“Sweetheart,” Stede says.
Ed shuts his eyes tight.
Stede swallows. “Princess.”
Ed cracks one eye open.
“You know you can,” Stede says. “Erm. Be whatever you want to be, right?”
Ed closes the eye again. He frowns.
“And I’ll love you regardless,” Stede says, reaching out to rub Ed’s shoulder.
Ed rolls his head to the side and looks at Stede with wet eyes. “Told you before, mate. I just wanna be Ed.”
Stede sits up straighter. “And that’s fine! That’s great! I love Ed!”
Ed rolls his eyes, smiling a little. “I guess. It’s just not so fuckin’ cut and dried, you know? S’fuckin.” He swallows. “I need more wine.”
Stede blinks. “Yes! Of course, I can, um, get that for you.” Stede gets up, rushes into the other room to grab a bottle, the opener, their glasses, left on the dining table. He hurries back into the bedroom, makes quick work of opening the bottle. He glances up and catches Ed looking at him, bemused.
“You look way more excited to be talking about this than me, man,” Ed says, seeming a little tired, but open.
“Well, is it so bad that I want to learn more about the man I, er, person, I love?”
Ed rolls his eyes. “You can call me a man, Stede.” He gets a little shy. “And I love you, too.”
Stede grins. He pours them both a glass. Ed wiggles up against the pillows and sits slightly reclined. He takes a sip.
“Ooh, that’s nice,” he hisses.
“We’ll have to write down the name of that one, hm?” Stede says, glancing at the label.
“Yep,” Ed says. He sits. His toes wiggle. Stede watches them. He takes a gulp of wine. Stede does, as well. “I guess it’s like. Yeah. I guess I’m kind of like,” he shrugs. Stede looks on, watches him hem and haw over the words, watches him decide which ones he wants to use. “I’m, like. A little of everything, you know?”
Stede tilts his head. “Yes, that makes sense.”
Ed looks at him. “It does?” He laughs a short, dry, derisive laugh. “Doesn’t feel like it does.”
“Well, you contain multitudes, my dear.”
Ed takes another gulp of wine to cover the way his face twists up. “Yeah, so. I don’t mind ‘man’. And I, uh. I like…” He wipes a hand over his face. “Fuck, this is so mortifying, man.”
“Can I, um. Help?”
Ed takes his hand away from his face. “How?”
“Hmmm. Well, I can tell you what I’ve noticed you like.”
Ed looks deeply disturbed, as if it had not occurred to him that Stede would notice things about him. “Uh.”
“Like, for example. When we were in town I saw you looking at the dresses.”
Ed’s eye twitches. “You were supposed to be getting milk.”
Stede shrugs. “The transaction was quick.”
Ed takes another long gulp of his wine and then holds the glass out for Stede to refill. Stede does. He fills it up a bit more than is standard.
“Yeah, I mean. It’s the fabrics,” (Stede smiles at that), “but it’s also. I don’t know. Think I like feeling pretty. A little.”
Stede tilts his head. “You’re always pretty.”
Ed’s eyes dart to Stede and away. “M’not. I was a pirate, Stede.”
Stede shrugs. “Lots of pirates are pretty.” This is not necessarily true to Stede’s experience, but he figures it’s the best way to get Ed to accept that he is.
Ed rolls his eyes. “No, they’re not. Though,” he says, looking a little playful. “You were a pretty pirate, babe.”
Stede snorts.
“Nah, nah,” Ed says. “You were. In all your pretty, frilly things.” He gets up on his knees and crawls into Stede’s lap. “Used to think about messing you up, making you like the rest of us.”
Stede feels himself blush. Ed rolls his hips down into Stede’s. His balls are tucked up against Stede’s dick. “Hey, we’re having a conversation,” Stede says.
“We can have a conversation after,” Ed says, cupping his wine glass with one hand and Stede’s face with the other, leaning in to kiss him, sloppy.
“Mm,” Stede hums into the kiss. “I want to talk a little more, before.”
“Baaaby,” Ed whines.
“You’re trying to distract me.”
“From what?” Ed ducks down to kiss Stede’s neck. “A conversation we could have any other time?”
Stede makes a face. “It is not, actually, a conversation we could have at any other time. As is proven by the fact that you need to be drunk to have it.”
Ed rears back, grimaces. “Way to kill the mood, bro.”
“Sorry,” Stede apologizes, not feeling very sorry. “You were saying about the dresses?”
Ed crosses his arms over his chest. He keeps a pout on for about 10 seconds before rolling his eyes and letting his arms fall to his sides. “Fine. Yeah. I like them. Probably be nice to wear one. Like, one day.”
“So, if we went to market tomorrow and we bought one…”
Ed takes a tired breath. He takes a sip of wine. His lips are stained red. He does look very enticing, though Stede is willing to put his baser instincts aside to have this conversation.
“...then you would wear it?” Stede asks.
Ed shrugs. “Yeah, guess so.”
Stede is dunked into a fantasy where Ed is draped in silks, where Stede gets to ruck up his skirts and get beneath them, kiss him all over. He feels himself flush. Mortifyingly, his cock twitches against Ed’s balls.
“Heh,” Ed chuckles. “I like that you like that. What would you, uh. Call me. If I was.”
“You would want me to call you a different name?”
“No,” Ed shakes his head. “I meant, like. I dunno.”
“My sweetheart,” Stede says.
Ed huffs a laugh. “You already call me that.”
“My,” Stede hesitates. “My girl?”
Ed takes a sharp breath, his eyes going wide. “Fuck me,” he breathes.
“Is that, er, a request, or?”
“No, it wasn’t — I mean, no. Nah. Mmmm. Actually, yeah. Yes. Now.” Ed tilts his wine glass back and downs the rest of it, then he takes Stede’s and downs that too. “What color dress am I wearing?”
“Purple,” Stede says.
“Sick,” Ed sways, leaning over to put the glasses on the bedside table. “Let’s go.”
Stede all but slams him back on the bed, hands tight around his wrists. His hair flies out under him, framing his pretty face. “God, I love you,” he says.
Ed blinks up at him for a second, chest rising and falling quick, before smiling. He brings a leg up around Stede’s waist and tugs him in. “Fuck your girl.”
Distantly, Stede feels that this is maybe not the healthiest way to process this conversation, that they should have talked about it non-sexually a little longer, but Ed looks so good spread out under him. And he's still a little drunk. He leans his hips in and grinds his cock against Ed’s, still soft. Stede’s thrusts jostle it around.
“Might need you in me to come,” Ed says, peering down between them. “Had too much wine, I s’pose.”
“Yeah,” Stede says, voice trembling. Instead of moving to fuck him, Stede slides down between his legs and pushes them back before all but sealing his mouth to Ed’s hole.
“Christ!” Ed shouts. “What are you — ohhh, fuck, Stede.”
Stede pets at his dick, feeling the soft, loose skin, and moans into him.
“You’re into such weird shit,” Ed laughs. Stede pushes his tongue inside him. “Fuuuuck.” He hitches his hips against Stede’s face. “Do you know you’re the only person who’s ever done this to me?”
Stede groans, nearly pained. He grinds his cock against the mattress.
“Put your fingers in me, baby, please?” Ed says, voice sweet. As if Stede needs a ‘please’. He pushes a fingertip against Ed’s hole, wet with spit, and slides it in to the first knuckle. “God, yeah. More.”
Stede gives him more, presses a second finger in and in until his palm is up against Ed’s taint. He rubs a thumb against it, still lapping at the skin around his hole.
“Fuck, that’s so good,” Ed moans. “Fuck me.”
Stede thrusts faster, curls his fingers and rubs up against Ed’s prostate. He lifts his head from between his legs and finds him flushed hot and still mostly soft between his legs, but leaking against his belly.
“My pretty girl,” Stede says, voice low.
“Yes, fuck —” Ed grunts, grabbing his dick and rubbing at it. “I need your cock so bad. I need you inside me.”
Stede gets up on his knees, spits in his palm a few times and slicks his cock with it. He pulls his fingers free and presses the head of his cock against Ed’s hole.
“Fuck yes, fuck yes, fuck yes,” Ed groans as Stede starts to push inside. “Wait, wait, I want to —” Stede pulls free and watches as Ed turns onto his belly. “Like this.”
Stede moans at the sight of his hole, pink and slightly open. He spits on it, watches it flutter, and presses back inside. Ed whines as Stede slides in deep, their balls pressed together.
“I want you to fuck me ‘til I cry,” Ed says, pushing his hips back against Stede’s.
Stede sheepishly thinks that he’s not going to last long enough for that, but starts fucking in earnest.
“Goooooood, that feels so fucking good,” Ed moans. He reaches back to grab Stede’s asscheek. “You’re in me so deep.”
Stede’s eyes flutter shut. He lets his body take over, fucks Ed as hard as he can while simultaneously staving off his orgasm.
“I’m your good girl, yeah?” Ed says. Stede can hear the smile in his voice, and that’s what makes him come.
“Shit, shit,” Stede curses, hips juddering into Ed’s ass.
“Heheh,” Ed chuckles.
Stede’s hand creeps around Ed’s side to touch his dick. It’s soft; wet, but not with come. “You didn’t —”
Ed shrugs. “I was never gonna. Drank too much.”
Stede pulls out slowly. Ed rolls over to look at him, smiles shyly.
“We can talk about it more tomorrow,” Ed says, voice soft. “And I’ll be sober.” Ed pokes him in the side. “Since that’s such a big deal, apparently.”
Stede leans down to kiss him.
Ed cringes away from him. “You taste like my ass.”
“Sorry,” Stede says, deeply unsorry.
Ed reaches out for him and Stede situates himself along his front, face tucked into his neck. He inhales his hair.
“I don’t want anything to change,” Ed says, gentle. “I want you to think of me the way you always do. Doesn’t fuckin’ matter if I’m a guy, or kind of a guy, or not a guy, or whatever.”
“I agree,” Stede nods against him. “I love you, darling.”
“And you can call me whatever. Your girl, or not. I mean. I know you’re with me ‘cuz I’m a man, you know?”
Stede tilts his head. He pulls back, looks at Ed, who looks away from him. “Edward, I’m with you because you’re you.”
“Yeah, but if I was a girl —”
Stede shrugs. “It’s all the same to me. I just don’t want you to feel like you’re trapped, Ed. Or stuck. Or in a metaphorical box.”
Ed’s brow furrows. He looks like he doubts it, but he nods, slowly. “Okay.”
“I’d love you no matter what you were.”
“Even if I was a worm?”
Stede squints. Ed frowns. Stede smiles. “Yes, of course.”
“Hm,” Ed hums doubtfully.
“Would you wear a little worm dress?”
Ed snorts. “Little worm leathers. Little, fuckin’, worm boots.”
“Where do worms wear boots?”
“I dunno. On their tails?”
“Heh,” Stede chuckles. “What about a worm hat?”
“Never been a hat guy,” Ed says. “Doubt I’d be a hat worm.”
“Would your worm have hair?”
“Not my worm, mate. Me. I’m the worm.”
“Right,” Stede nods. “Can I be a worm, too?”
Ed chokes back a laugh. “Yeah, man. We’d be two worms. Fuckin’ in the dirt.”
“Do worms kiss?”
“We would.”
Stede leans in to kiss him.
Ed cringes as soon as their lips touch. “Fuck, I forgot you taste like ass. Go brush your teeth, mate.”
“Anything for you, milady,” Stede says, getting up.
Ed rolls his eyes. “Milady is a little much.”
“I love you,” Stede grins.
Ed waves a hand dismissively, blushing and smiling. “Yeah, yeah. I love you too."
Stede walks into the other room and brushes his teeth quickly. By the time he comes back Ed is out, fast asleep in the middle of their bed, head at the foot. He lifts one of Ed’s legs and wipes at his hole with a wet rag. Ed sniffs, rolls onto his back, scratches his belly in his sleep. Stede smiles, his heart aching. His silly man, his lovely girl, his Ed.