Chapter Text
Everything feels different in the morning.
Yesterday, their double seat had been a safe shared cocoon, but now it’s claustrophobic and uncomfortable. Out of the window, the landscape is looking more and more urbanised, reminding Stede every time he looks out that they’re getting closer and closer to their destination. He keeps hoping for traffic jams, or a breakdown, or maybe an alien abduction. Anything to delay the inevitable. But the road is clear, Karl appears alarmingly well maintained, and the sky doesn’t contain a single flying saucer. They’re moving along at a steady 50mph, with Chicago getting closer and closer by the minute. And then what? Stede has no idea. He hasn’t worked out what happens when they get to Chicago and every time he thinks about the end of the journey, he gets a sick, swoopy sort of feeling in his belly.
It’s not so much that he’s worried about what he’s going to do, where he’s going to live, how he’s going to make money, whether or not his family will talk to him and, in fact, if he wants them to. Well, he is, but it’s a background level of worry. No more than a three out of ten on his internal worry scale, a scale that he’s honed to perfection over decades of generalised anxiety. What he’s really worried about is whether or not Ed will want to stay in touch and what Stede needs to do to maintain a connection with the first person he’s felt really comfortable with in ages. That worry is a solid eight out of ten on the scale.
On one hand, they fell asleep last night holding hands and woke up with their heads resting against each other. Surely Ed wouldn’t do that if he didn’t like Stede, at least a little bit? But what if that was an accident, or Ed was just seeking company, any company, to help pass the boredom of a long bus journey? The experience of a lifetime tells Stede that no one has ever wanted to stay in touch with him unless there’s something in it for them. Not really. And especially not someone as charismatic and successful, and yes, fine, as good looking as Ed.
Beside him, Ed is sullen and fidgety too - a physical manifestation of Stede’s emotions. He can’t seem to settle to anything, getting up to use the bathroom twice and once going to the front of the bus to speak to Buttons. When he’s in his seat, he shifts position frequently, sitting in increasingly contorted positions that remind Stede strongly of a denim clad, bearded pretzel.
Ed’s clearly trying to distract himself, picking up and putting down different things in quick succession. He pulls out last night’s discman, skips through a couple of albums, then shoves it back in his bag. Next, he picks up his dead mobile, spinning it round and round between a finger and thumb until he nearly drops it, then shoving it back in his pocket with a muttered ‘fuck off’. Finally, he picks up Stede’s pen and book of logic puzzles, flicking through to an empty puzzle and staring at it.
Stede’s not sure if Ed’s doing the puzzle in his head again - he certainly isn’t filling any of the boxes in. Instead, he’s doing an excellent impression of a one-man percussion section - the fingers of his left hand tapping against the page whilst his right holds the pen, clicking the button at the top repeatedly but at random in a way that seems to be specifically designed to get on Stede’s last nerve.
Stede is trying to make a mental list of things he needs to do when they get to Chicago, in an attempt to placate the voice in his head (his father’s voice again) that’s telling he needs to drag himself out of the liminal space of the bus and get back to reality and the consequences of his actions. Normally, he’d write the list down in his journal, but someone has stolen his pen.
He’s not making much progress because he keeps getting distracted by the tapping and clicking to his right. Currently, he’s got the following points on his mental list:
Find somewhere to charge mobile phone
Check messages from family and the office
Find somewhere to stay…
Click
Click click
Click
Click click click
Stede sighs audibly, hoping Ed might take the hint. Passive aggressive, for sure, but apparently not obvious enough. Stede starts his list again.
Charge mobile phone
Check messages from family and the office and deal with immediate consequences….
Click click
Stede sighs again, a little louder this time.
Charge mobile phone
Check…
Click click click clickity click click
Stede’s patience, already thin, snaps. He reaches out and covers the hand Ed’s holding the pen in with his own.
“Ed, for the love of god will you please stop that?” he says, then winces at the waspish tone of his voice.
Ed pulls his hand away from Stede sharply and drops the pen on the seat, turning to look out of the window.
Shit.
He does this every time. When something’s annoying him, he can’t just say something, calmly and rationally, like a normal person. Instead, he bottles it up, tries not to say anything so he doesn’t upset anyone, and then he ends up snapping and hurting them even more. And now he’s done it to Ed. This is why no one ever sticks around. One of the reasons.
“Ed,” he tries. “Ed, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…”
“Doesn’t matter,” Ed mumbles, but his voice is thick.
“It does Ed,” Stede says, putting a hand on Ed’s shoulder. “I shouldn’t have snapped. I’m just worried about what I’m going to do when we get to Chicago, that’s all.”
Ed keeps his body turned away from Stede, but he glances back at him, his brow contracted and his eyes full of unshed tears. And not just tears. Stede looks more closely and he can see his own worries reflected back at him. Ed isn’t upset about being snapped at, or at least, it’s not just that. And he’s not just bored, he’s close to panic.
“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” Stede says, wishing he could say something more meaningful, calm Ed down like Ed had done for him at the start of the journey.
“S’fine,” Ed says, taking a deep breath. “Just the idea of going back to it all that fucking sucks. Once I’m there and doing it, s’not so bad, I just get on with it.”
“You deserve more, Ed,” Stede says.
“Yeah, well.”
“Can I… would a hug help?” Stede asks.
Ed shrugs, but the line between his eyebrows softens, just a little. “Maybe,” he mutters.
Stede twists in his seat, opens his arms and pulls Ed towards him, wrapping him tightly in his arms and squeezing just a little, trying to create the perfect amount of pressure - the kind of hug that he finds calming. He feels Ed’s arms come up around his back and squeeze just a little in return. It occurs to Stede just how touch starved he’s been, how good it feels to connect with another person like this, the warmth of Ed’s chest against his own, the firm pressure of his arms around his back, the faintly coconutty smell of his hair which tickles his cheek. The angle’s a little awkward but Stede would take a twinge in his lower back a thousand times over if it means he gets to hug Ed.
They stay like that, swaying slightly whilst Stede rubs Ed’s back. He can feel Ed taking deep breaths, his ribs expanding and contracting beneath Stede’s arms. Gradually, the tension in his body seems to melt away, and with a stab of regret, Stede loosens his arms, not wanting to carry on too long and make things weird.
Ed moves back to sit in his seat, but stays closer to Stede than he had been before, their bodies connected from shoulder to hip. Ed rests his head briefly on Stede’s shoulder before he sits up fully.
“Thanks,” he says.
“Anytime,” Stede replies. “I mean it.”
Ed gives him a wan smile. “Might take you up on that,” he says. “You give good hugs.”
Stede smiles back. “You’re not so bad yourself,” he says.
Ed glances out of the window. “‘Bout 45 minutes left, I reckon,” he says with a sigh.
Stede wishes he could do something to cheer Ed up - he’d do anything to take some of his worries away. But the only idea that occurs to him is sabotaging the bus somehow, buying them a few more hours stranded by the roadside. But Stede can see a few problems with this plan. Firstly, he knows absolutely nothing about bus mechanics, so he wouldn’t know where to start. Pulling up random floor panels and tugging at exposed cables might be an option, but he probably shouldn’t use the movie Speed as a playbook for real life. Secondly, Karl has the appearance of an impeccably maintained antique from a period when American engineering meant something, so it might be harder to sabotage than Stede thinks. Finally, and this should probably be the first reason on the list, Karl is clearly Button’s pride and joy. When they got back onto Karl after the last rest stop, Stede could have sworn he heard Buttons hexing a passenger who’d tracked dirt onto the bus.
So, Stede puts the sabotage idea on the back burner, at least for now. His only other option is distraction.
He reaches for his own bag and digs around until he sees a bit of yellow fabric that he’d noticed the night before, pulling it out with a flourish.
Ed looks over. “Is that… fucking Bananagrams?” he asks.
Stede nods.
“Why do you have… Fuck man, never mind, I love Bananagrams!” he says, and it’s like the sun appearing after a rainstorm. Ed’s face is bright and shining again.
“I thought you might! My kids used to love playing it on journeys - I must have packed it on auto pilot,” Stede explains. “Might be a distraction for us both?”
“Come on then, let’s play,” Ed says, and Stede hands him the banana-shaped pouch, pulling down his tray table whilst Ed sorts the tiles into piles on his own table, before giving a handful of them to Stede.
Stede sifts through his 21 tiles, frowning, wondering how he’s going to use a Q, Z, F, B and an X. He doesn’t want to appear unimaginative, but he’s not quite sure how he’s going to make a word out of those.
There’s an elbow in his ribs. “Come on man, no looking before the timer starts, that’s cheating,” Ed says, and Stede spots a problem.
“Ed, we don’t have a timer.”
“Shit, yeah,” Ed says. “Okay, there’s a McDonalds about three minutes up the road. We play until then, or until we use up all the tiles, okay?”
“Alright. You ready?”
Ed nods. “Three, two, one, go!”
Stede shakes the tiles in his hands, trying to figure out a word, any word that will use his frankly weak set of letters, but he’s drawing a blank. By the time he looks up, Ed already has three words down - ‘desert’, ‘relief’ and ‘heavy’, connected through the Es.
“What the?” Stede says. Ed just grins broadly at him, picks up some more tiles and plays ‘vehicle’.
“Oh, for god’s sake”, Stede says, and quickly plays an E and a D, using the R from Ed’s ‘relief’ to make ‘red’. He picks up two more tiles. Another B and a Z.
“Oh, fuck off consonants,” Stede mutters, and Ed giggles.
By the time they reach the McDonalds a couple of minutes later, Ed is the resounding winner. Like, there’s no point even totting up the scores, although Ed takes great pleasure in doing so anyway.
“You know,” Ed says, “there are words available with more than three letters,” and he winks at Stede.
“Oh, it is so on,” Stede says. “Best of three?”
The next game is slightly better. Stede manages ‘tumble’, celebrating with a triumphant “ha, six letters, suck on that!”
“Well what do you know, that’s how many points you got in the last game,” Ed says and Stede elbows him in the ribs. Ed cackles, then uses Stede’s L to play ‘fossil’.
When he used to play this game with his kids, Stede had always gone deliberately slow, giving them a chance to win. Now, though, he’s starting to wonder if slow is the only bananagram speed he’s got. Ed is wiping the (tray) table with him. They’re pressed closely together, poring over Stede’s tray table, batting each other’s hands away to get to the spare tile pile as they race to complete as many words as possible. The proximity isn’t helping Stede’s concentration - each time Ed’s hand brushes his he feels a little spark of electricity, distracting him just long enough to lose his train of thought or to allow Ed to steal the spot he was planning to play.
The second round closes with Stede managing to double his score from the last game, but that’s not saying much. It’s another rounding defeat, met with a loud whoop and a bear hug from Ed.
“Best of five?” Stede offers.
Half way through the third round, Stede spots Ed digging around in the spare letter pile, clearly looking for a specific tile.
“Hey!”, he says, nudging Ed. “No cheating.”
Ed gives him a look, but seems to have found what he wanted, carrying on playing as before.
Stede’s finally hitting his stride, playing ‘gloom’, ‘crack’ and ‘wrong’. He thinks he might just have this one in the bag.
When they reach the Staples (their marker for the end of this round), Ed sits back quietly, allowing Stede to tot up the scores this time. Ed seems to have gone for a theme in this round - perhaps to make the game more challenging. His words include ‘adore’, ‘rose’, ‘heart’ and ‘passion’.
Stede’s almost finished adding them up - they’re neck and neck this time - when he spots one of Ed’s words.
KISSME
Stede sighs dramatically, ready to make a joke at Ed’s latest ruse to win the round. Clearly he’d realised that Stede was on a roll, and was ready to do anything to maintain his winning streak.
“Ed, come on, you know you can’t use proper nouns,” Stede says, rolling his eyes in what he hopes is a playful manner. “And it’s not even spelt right.”
Ed just looks confused.
“You mean Kissimmee, right, in Florida? We took the kids there once, it wasn’t the best and…” Stede trails off. Ed is looking nervous - his cheeks are flushed and his lips are parted. Stede looks down again. It’s not KISSIMMEE the place, it’s two words. KISSME. Kiss me. Wait, what? Is that an instruction?
Stede looks back up at Ed. He’s chewing his lip, and his eyes are wide, he’s looking up at Stede through his eyelashes.
In his entire life, Stede has kissed three people. The most recent person was his wife, and their last kiss had been at least five years ago. He’d thought his kissing days were over. He’d accepted that. Some people’s lives are filled with passion, but that wasn’t his destiny. Nobody felt passionate about Stede Bonnet.
He’d never expected to kiss anyone else again. Especially not a man. But it’s not a man, or at least, not just a man. It’s Ed.
As Stede stares at the six tiles Ed carefully laid down, he realises that there’s nothing he wants to do more than kiss Ed. He just hadn’t realised it was an option available to him.
His heart is pounding as he gives a small nod.
“I, umm…” he starts.
Ed shifts forward, his hand reaching for the back of Stede’s neck, and before another word can cross Stede’s lips, Ed’s kissing him.
Ed’s kissing him.
Stede freezes for a moment, just the time it takes for the sensation to work its way from his lips, through his synapses to his brain where it sets off a series of sparks and fireworks that spur his body into action. He shifts to improve the angle, and kisses Ed back, revelling in the soft press of his lips,the gentle cup of his hand against Stede’s jaw, the huff of his breath, warm against Stede’s cheek.
Stede feels the tickle of Ed’s beard, softer than he would have expected, but still a counterpoint to the tenderness of the kiss, like a pinch of salt that brings out the flavour of a cake. He’s suddenly aware his hands have made their way into Ed’s hair, weaving their way between the strands like that’s where they belong. He thinks it might just be true.
But before he can get more comfortable, he feels the bus slow and come to a stop. Ed pulls back, just slightly, with a muttered “fuck”. When Stede opens his eyes, he sees they’ve reached a bus depot. Their final destination. Fuck indeed.
He doesn’t know what to say to Ed, and before he can figure it out, they’re swept up in a wave of activity, as all the passengers stand up, grabbing bags, locating misplaced belongings and stretching out cramped limbs. Stede gives Ed a sheepish smile, and Ed returns it, before they both get up and start to make their way down the aisle and off the bus.
Stede waits while Buttons pulls his cases from the luggage space under the bus. Ed apparently doesn’t have any luggage beyond his leather holdall, but he waits with Stede anyway as Buttons pulls not one, not two, but three large teal suitcases out. How on earth had Stede got those to the Kraken station in LA?
Stede’s words have deserted him. Normally, it’s hard to shut him up, but he’s got absolutely no idea what you’re supposed to say to a man that just kissed you.
Thanks?
Did you mean to do that?
Please run away with me so we can kiss each other every day till we’re old and grey?
Nothing seems quite right, and beside him, Ed’s head is down, his hands in his pockets as he scuffs at the gravel with the toe of his boot, not exactly inviting conversation.
Finally, all the luggage is out, and there are no more excuses to hang around.
“I, uh…” Stede starts, and then trails off.
Ed looks up quickly, but doesn’t say anything, ducking his head back down as Stede stutters into silence.
Stede steels himself to try again. Why is this so bloody hard? He just needs to say something, anything that will make Ed stay, buy him a little more time, even just get his phone number. But his voice seems buried deep down inside his chest. He opens his mouth and nothing comes out. He tries again. The same.
Ed looks up again and sighs. “Well…” he says.
“Yeah,” Stede returns.
“I guess I’ll see around. Good luck, mate” He gives Stede a sad little smile, then turns on his heel and starts trudging down the street.
Stede is left standing by the bus, surrounded by his suitcases as he watches Ed walk away, hands still in his pockets, head down. He doesn’t look back. It feels like a part of Stede is walking away with him.
Behind Stede there’s a loud, very fake, throat clearing noise. Stede tears his eyes away from Ed’s retreating form to see Sideburns standing, hands on hips, glaring at him.
“Can I help you, um…?”
“Lucius, and yes you can. What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
“Excuse me?” Stede asks.
“I said, what the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
“Well, I…” Stede blusters. “What do you mean?”
“Have I, or have I not, just spent the last 60 hours listening to you and that man flirt with each other? And did I, or did I not, just witness you finally kiss him?”
“We weren’t flirting…” Stede begins, before he’s cut off by an exasperated sigh.
“Yes. You were. It was sickening. So why is he walking away whilst you’re standing here like the world’s saddest boy?”
“I’m sorry?”
“Don’t be sorry, go after him, for fuck’s sake. I’ll watch your bags for…” he glances at his watch. “Ten minutes. Then I’m putting them on eBay.”
Stede doesn’t need telling twice. He takes off at a run after Ed, quickly realising that (1) he’s woefully unfit, and (2) his loafers are absolutely not meant for running. Fortunately, Ed’s not walking that fast, so it’s not long before Stede’s in shouting distance.
“Ed!” he yells. Ed either doesn’t hear him over the traffic, or is ignoring him. Stede hopes it's the traffic.
“Ed!” he tries again, “wait!”
This time, Ed stops and turns. He looks around, before he spots Stede.
“Stede?” he shouts.
“Ed!”
“Stede!”
It’s not quite the stuff of Stede’s favourite romcoms - they’re on the side of a busy road in urban Chicago rather than a flower-strewn meadow, and both of them are close to fifty, so they jog rather than sprint towards each other, but it’s still hands down the most romantic moment of Stede’s life.
Ed barrels into him and immediately wraps him up in a hug so tight that Stede’s feet leave the ground, just for a moment. When Stede’s back on solid ground, Ed takes his face in both of his hands, and looks into Stede’s eyes, searching for something.
“I’m sorry,” Stede says, “I should have asked you to stay.”
“I thought you weren’t interested,” Ed says. “I just, fucking kissed you, I didn’t even ask properly, I thought you couldn’t wait to get away from me. I’m sorry.”
“Ed, no. I don’t… I just, please don’t say this has to end?”
Ed sighs, resting his forehead against Stede’s, and then he’s kissing Stede fiercely, pulling him even tighter against him.
“No. It doesn’t have to,” Ed says when they break apart, arms still wrapped around each other’s shoulders. “I don’t want it to.”
“I’m a mess, Ed,” Stede says. “I’ve got no job, nowhere to live, a pissed off ex wife and two messed up kids. All I’ve got is whatever’s in those three suitcases, and Lucius might have sold those by now.”
Ed raises an eyebrow questioningly.
“Never mind,” Stede says. “I just… I’m not much of a catch, Ed. I don’t own a massive company like you, I’m an anxious mess half the time and I’ve got no idea what I’m going to do next.”
“Stede, the last three days have been the most fun I’ve had in ages. Years. Maybe ever,” Ed says. “I don’t want that to stop.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. And I can recommend a decent hotel, but I’ve got a fuck off massive apartment five minutes from here. I fucking hate it. It’s all glass and steel and fucking cold and boring, but it might be nicer with you in it. Y’know, if you want?”
“Yes!” says Stede, wincing at how loudly and quickly he answered, but Ed just grins and takes his hand. “Does it have a shower?” Stede asks. “I hate to think what I smell like after three days on a bus.”
“Yup,” Ed says. “It’s even got power sockets so you can finally charge that phone.”
“Could we maybe leave the phones off for another day?” Stede ventures, and Ed laughs.
“I’d be disappointed if we didn’t. C’mon,” he says, as they start walking back to the bus depot. “Let’s see if your bags are still there.”