Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Angels danced the day that you were born

Oh, I'm so sure they celebrated when you arrived

You're so bright, I swear, you swallowed the sun

And I am so in awe, just basking in your light

Stede Bonnet is 15 when he first notices that the corners of Ed’s eyes crinkle when he laughs. 

They’re in the middle of changing for gym class, and out of nowhere the guys have started razzing Jack Rackham about Anne Bonny turning down his invitation to homecoming for the third year in a row. Stede’s of the opinion that she definitely made the right call, but locker room dynamics mandate that everyone has to find a perfectly nice girl setting perfectly nice boundaries to be utterly hilarious. 

As they dress side by side, removed from the conversation but still a part of it, Ed glances at Stede from the corner of his eye, his mouth curling up into the barest trace of a smile. Stede returns it with an almost imperceptible roll of his eyes, which makes Ed bite at his lip, which makes Stede have to swallow down a giggle. He can always count on his best friend to speak to him without words, to silently communicate that yes, everyone around them is absolutely ridiculous. He already can’t wait to laugh about it properly on the drive home from school, as loud and obnoxious in private as the guys around them are in public.

“I know what it is.” 

Stede feels his stomach twist when Jack suddenly peaks his head around the row of the lockers, sauntering up to them with the cocky-ass grin that everyone else seems to find charming. Jack crowds into their space, slinging an arm around Ed’s shoulders and giving Ed a little shake. “I bet Eddie asked her instead,” he ribs, roughly mussing up Ed’s wild mop of jet black hair. “See him getting all cozy with her in study hall, ‘oh Annie I don’t get this trig problem, help me Annie, Annie!'”

“Fuck off, Jack!” Ed is laughing as he whips at the older boy’s legs with a towel, scrambling over the bench to chase him. The sound echoes through the locker room, soaring over the other conversations, bouncing off the titled walls so it sounds like there’s dozens of Eds laughing at all different frequencies. 

Stede’s always loved the sound of Ed’s laugh. It’s a sound that reminds him that no matter how bad things get, there’s always something funny to be found on the other side of the sadness. Hell he must have heard it hundreds of times over the last five years of their friendship. But looking up at him from the bench where he’s frozen in the middle of lacing up his sneakers, he finds himself… seeing Ed’s laugh. He watches the way Ed’s smile seems to take over his whole face, from the edges of his mouth right into bright brown eyes almost squeezed shut in their mirth. In those milliseconds Stede feels like he’s looking at Ed through a telescope, every detail of his face magnified. He notices the little cut on his cheek where Ed must have nicked himself shaving this morning. The way the hair he’s trying to grow out long swoops this way and that with the motion of his head. And the way those little lines at the corners of his eyes crinkle up, pinched in sheer delight…it makes something without a name leap in Stede’s chest.

Because even washed out under the stark fluorescent lights of the locker room, even wearing that horrific gray and red gym uniform, Ed just…glows. The word hits Stede like a punch to the stomach, but yes, it’s the perfect word. Ed glows when he laughs. How has Stede missed it all these years? God, how stupid has he been…he’s been staring straight at the sun all this time and he hasn’t even realized it’s blinding him. He wants to bask in it, live in that little line of skin at the corner of Ed’s eye…make sure it never disappears off his face. 

And then Jack’s laugh – a biting, grating noise – cuts above him and snaps Stede back to reality.

The quiet awe he’d been sitting with is rapidly replaced by a burning jealousy in his gut. Ed’s always been better than Stede at keeping pace with the other guys, knows how to make the right jokes that make him socially acceptable when he needs to be, only to slip back into his own skin when he and Stede are alone together. But shit, Stede is supposed to be the one that makes Ed laugh like that , when they’re on the phone at night or making fun of the football players or splashing each other in the pool on lazy summer afternoons. Ed’s not supposed to laugh with Jack. 

Ed’s not supposed to laugh about girls. 

“Well it’s not like she asked out Bonnet!” Stede flinches as an unfamiliar arm is slung around his shoulder. He remembers the guidance counselor’s dismissive advice – if you laugh with them they'll have nothing to laugh at – and forces a closed-lipped smile. “Or maybe she did!” Jack gives his cheek a pinch, Stede fights every urge to squirm away. “Maybe she wants to give dating a girl a try.”

And before the words he’s heard a hundred times before can bury themselves deep in the corner of his heart he keeps locked to the world, there’s the sharp sound of a locker slamming shut.

“Hey, lay off.” 

When Jack and Stede look up, Ed’s not laughing anymore. His mouth is set in the thin line of a frown, brows knitted together, more serious than Stede’s ever seen him. Jack drops his arm and Stede has to bite back the sigh of relief.

“Jesus Eddie, I’m just fucking around.” He turns to Stede, hands raised in mock innocence. “You know I’m just fucking around right?”

“I’m not,” Ed snaps back before Stede can say a placating word. “It’s not funny.”

An uneasy silence has fallen over the locker room, but Stede can hardly focus on eyes bearing down on them because all he can see is Ed. Standing over them, hand at his side curling into a fist, boring daggers into Jack’s skull. Stede’s holding his breath, readying himself for…he doesn’t what. To run? To fight? To not cry?

But Jack, mercifully, hauls himself off the bench with a scoff. “Sheesh, fine, sorry.” He does not sound sorry in the slightest, and he’s still got a shadow of a smile on his face, but he backs off, slinking back through the rows of lockers. The tension ebbs from the air, and Stede lets out a shaky breath.

Ed flops back down on the bench next to Stede, tugging on his sneakers, brows still furrowed. Stede drops his gaze to the stained tile floor, plucking at a loose thread in the hem of his t-shirt.

It’s not the first time Ed’s stood up for him. And that’s just what friends do for each other, he knows that. It’s always felt nice to know that someone’s got his back the way Ed does. But it’s the first time it’s made him feel…different. It’s a feeling he can’t quite place. A fizzing in his insides like he’s just drunk a soda too fast. Like Ed’s words were the match dropped into his core and now something that’s been ashen and cold is sparking to life.

“Thank you,” Stede whispers, wiping his sweaty palms on his gym shorts.

“He’s a dick,” Ed shrugs, so matter-of-fact, like standing up to a boy a year older and twice as popular on behalf of Stede Bonnet had been the most obvious choice in the world.

Stede’s almost grateful that Coach’s whistle cuts off any further conversation. Slamming their lockers shut, the boys make their way out into the gym and out toward the track. 

Stede hates running, can’t wait for the track and field unit to be over, and lags behind the other boys as a stitch works its way up his side. But then Ed falls back beside him, keeping pace with him even though Stede knows he can go so much faster. 

“I don’t like Anne that way,” Ed pants as they jog side by side.

Stede keeps his eyes fixed on the finish line ahead of them, can’t for the life of him understand why the admission makes him want to collapse with relief. “I know.”  

“Cool,” Ed huffs back.

“Cool.”

For the rest of class, Stede focuses on the slap of his feet on the astroturf, until the fizzing feeling fades away, until the sparks are doused once more, and it’s just him and his friend getting through another bad time together.

The next time Ed laughs, Stede doesn’t look at the corners of his eyes.

Chapter Text

You're the sea of tranquility

You're all of my stars

You're Neptune and Saturn

You're Venus and Mars

Stede’s head falls against the back of the couch with a relieved sigh. The red crawl on the bottom of the TV screen announces the name of their school is among the dozens closed due to the weather. Ed always says school would be so much better if there weren’t so many people there, and Stede agrees wholeheartedly. He’ll read any book he can get his hands on and learn every fact put in front of him with delight, but a day off from that place where bad things always seem to happen makes up for the lack of new reading material.

The first snowball smacks against the living room window less than a minute later, and before Stede can think too much he’s scrambling toward the door, pulling on his boots and coat and pushing his way into the winter wonderland.

Another snowball hits the center of his chest the moment his feet hit the front steps. Ed stands in his front lawn snickering with delight, already forming a third weapon in his gloved hands. 

“You’re gonna break my window, you nut!” Stede yelps, just barely dodging the next attack, which hits the front door with a thick slap. 

“Ooh how tragic,” Ed says with a dramatic hand over his heart. “You’d have to come stay at my place while Ned and Sarah had it replaced.” 

Stede rolls his eyes fondly. His parents always seem less imposing when Ed calls them by their first names. “How’d you get here so fast?! The news just said we’re canceled.”

“You seriously think a school bus is gonna drive through this ?!”

Of course not, but Stede likes to follow the rules, and Ed always says rules are made to be broken. 

Stede kneels down and scoops up a handful of snow. “Gonna have to get you back though.”

“Like to see you try, Bonnet.”

There’s a stalemate, each of them with an arm raised for the launch. Ed fakes him out with a quick jerk of his arm, Stede cocks a daring eyebrow with a cheeky smirk. Then Ed tosses the snowball over his shoulder and starts running, and Stede has no choice but to follow. 

Stede knows right where Ed is leading him. The sidewalks and paths haven’t been plowed yet, they half-run half-stumble their way toward the park. Stede’s ribs are aching with the cold by the time they reach the top of the big hill, looking down over the silent, snow-covered world. 

There’s a thin sheet of ice over the top of the pond, the distant slides and swings nearly submerged beneath the snow. In a few hours this place will be full of screaming kids and snowball fights, and Stede feels like it’s a shame to wreck the smooth fields with footprints.

“It’s so quiet,” Ed breathes beside him. And Stede makes the devastating mistake of turning to look at him. 

Snowflakes catch on Ed’s eyelashes, dapple across his hair and shoulders as he gazes out over the field. His chest is still heaving from their mad sprint, little clouds of condensation puffing from his mouth, parted in an awestruck smile. And there’s those little crinkles in the corner of Ed’s eyes as he tilts his head toward the sky, sticking out his tongue with a laugh to catch the flurries.

It’s the same feeling Stede had in the locker room. The feeling like he’s been in the presence of someone glowing for years and he’s only just feeling the heat. This time, Stede lets himself look, lets himself memorize every detail he can of this moment: him and his best friend suspended in a blinding white world, freezing but somehow still warm, something sparking to life in the corner of his mind he keeps hidden under lock and key. 

Beautiful. 

The word punches right through Stede’s ribs, nearly knocking the breath from his lungs.

Beautiful. Ed is beautiful. 

Oh god, Ed is so, so beautiful.  

But before that word can wrap its terrifying, burning claws around Stede’s heart, Ed grabs his hand and drags him into the field.

For a blissful, solitary hour, the park is theirs. They dig through the snow to find rocks they can throw out onto the pond to try to break the ice. They build a pathetic snowman, having nothing but pitiful sticks to work with, Ed adamantly refusing that Stede surrender his scarf. They stand on the swing set and jump as far as they can, just to feel weightless for a few seconds before they fall into the pillows of snow. Lying side by side, Stede spreads his arms and legs into a snow angel, and Ed’s foot taps against his, and even through two sets of boots and socks Stede feels sparks shoot all the way up his body.

By the time the snow has stopped falling, kids from all over the neighborhood are scrambling down over the hill. Stede feels his cheeks grow warm under the gaze of others, feels his clothes too tight on his skin. They’re the oldest ones here by far, and Stede’s struck for the first time if there’s an age limit on what one’s supposed to do on a snow day. He’s fairly sure Ed feels it too, because he softly suggests that it’s getting pretty cold anyway. 

Stede’s parents have very clear rules about having people over when they aren’t home, so they wind up at Ed’s place, settling in front of the living room TV with hot chocolate and popcorn and an afternoon of Mario Kart. Stede’s been steadily improving at video games under Ed’s tutorage. He can’t help the yell of delight that bursts out of him when he crosses the finish line first, right at the same time Ed falls back with a defeated groan.

“Don’t be a sore loser, I earned it,” Stede beams, knocking Ed lightly with his controller. 

“No one who plays voluntarily as Toad gets to gloat.” He gives Stede a playful kick, which Stede returns with a shove against his shoulder, which sends them flicking popcorn at each other until they’re laughing breathlessly.

“I had a feeling I’d find Stede Bonnet on my couch when I got home,” Mrs. Teach laughs as she pokes her head into the living room, still in her waitress apron and smelling distinctly of pancake syrup from the diner. “Are you staying for dinner, hun?” 

Stede would like absolutely nothing more, but he can practically hear his father’s lecture on how he ought to have spent the day doing homework. When he declines politely, Ed whines in protest, letting his head drop onto Stede’s shoulder. 

“Can’t we kidnap him, Mom?” Ed mumbles. 

Mrs. Teach just smiles, ruffling both their hair as she passes by. “He knows he’s always welcome.” 

Going home after a day with Ed always leaves a sinking feeling in his stomach, like he’s just woken up from a dream too good to be true. Stede pulls his jacket tight around him as he walks home, the frigid wind stinging his ears. The roads have all been plowed, the sidewalks shoveled, and he cuts through the park with a much easier time than he did this morning. The snow is less soft than it had been, packed down nice and flat by the footsteps of dozens of kids throughout the day, and their snowman has no doubt been knocked down. 

When Stede reaches the top of the hill, he closes his eyes against the setting sun. As best he can he conjures the image of Ed, speckled with snowflakes and laughing into the storm. He flexes his hand, imagines it closing tightly around Ed’s, and just for a moment, lets himself imagine it staying there.

Chapter Text

Because the light from within you suddenly surrounded me too

And I have never felt so bright

 

“Mate- Mateo- Matelo-”

Ed squints at the unfamiliar word, trying to put the syllables together in a way that makes sense, while Stede hovers over his shoulder. They’re in the back corner of the school library, knee deep in their third research rabbit hole of the hour. The original mission had been to find some cheats online to help them make sense of Moby Dick for English class, but when you put the two of them together long enough their minds are bound to wander to bizarre places. Now they’re staring at the laptop screen, perplexed yet intrigued by this stub of a Wikipedia page.

“Matelotage. I think,” Ed finally declares. Stede can hear his lips moving as Ed reads the paragraphs again, catching his breath as he highlights a sentence with his cursor – “Some historians have compared matelotage to same-sex marriage or domestic partnership.”  

Stede’s whole body goes cold, then hot, then cold again. 

“Pirates…married each other?” he asks, startled to find his throat growing tight. 

“I guess so. Maybe. They don’t know.” Ed highlights another sentence, a dismissive claim that "the evidence for piratical sodomy is so sparse as to be almost nonexistent." “Guess nobody was writing it down to prove it.”

“Do you think anyone’s written any books about it?”

Ed’s fingers are already flying over the keyboard, punching in “books about matelotage” into the search engine. The results page shows a few scattered academic tets that seem way over their heads, certainly nothing that would be available in their high school library. Stede nudges Ed out of the way and tries “fiction books about matelotage,” then “fiction books about pirate weddings,” then somewhat boldly “fiction books about gay pirates” but the results are…sparse, to say the least.

“Why would no one write a story about it?” Stede frowns. 

“I dunno, seems stupid not to.”

“It’s not just stupid, it doesn’t make any sense! All the stuff for a story is right here! Just cuz we don’t know about it, it's not worth thinking about?” Stede swings an arm toward the books of romances on the shelves behind them. “People write books about all that stuff! Why don’t they write about pirates getting married?!” Stede shocks himself with the way his voice is rising, and the librarian shoots them a threatening glare. He shrinks back into his seat, cheeks warming, and tugs anxiously at the fabric on his shirt. He feels…angry, he realizes. Like somewhere in these few paragraphs there’s something for him to find, waiting for him to claim, but just out of reach. It’s infuriating, and for the first time in his life he wants to hit something. He's outright shaking with the sheer unfairness of the fact that history can’t admit that sometimes people fall in love. 

“What if we wrote it?” 

Stede snaps his gaze up to meet Ed’s. He’s looking at him with wide, sparkling eyes, the look Stede knows means he’s got a mad idea brewing. Something weird that's gonna maybe get them in trouble but will undeniably be worth it. It sends red-hot sparks fizzing through Stede’s stomach. They wrote stories together all the time when they were kids, but lately it’s started to feel like one of those things they weren’t supposed to be doing anymore, like playing in the snow. But now Ed’s looking at him like none of that matters now, like anything is possible so long as the two of them are together.  

It hits him again. Ed is beautiful like this. 

His bravery is beautiful.

“Yeah?” Stede swallows the lump in his throat. 

“Yeah, why not? We could make up our own pirates. Write it the way we want it. Who cares what a bunch of stupid historians say? Here.” Ed closes out of their Moby Dick assignment (face it, they were never going to get any homework done today) and opens a blank document. 

“We just need some characters. Let’s see, who could these guys be?”

They could be anyone. And isn't that just marvelous.

Before Stede knows it, he’s sinking into the fantasy world. The library fades away, and all the anger that had flared within him is forming into a little ball of fire. As he writes by Ed’s side, he feels like he can finally hold it without getting burned.

Chapter Text

And I see the whole galaxy in your eyes

Stede: This is so fun :D 

Ed: It really is. 

Ed: I’m sooo tired though.

Stede: Then sleep!! :P 

Ed: Nooooo i want to writeeee

Stede: You could dream more ideas?

Ed: Mmmmmaybe.

Stede: I promise I wont write more until youre awake.

Ed: Fineeeee. Gnight Stede.

Stede: Night!! :) 

Stede clicks his phone off, depositing it on the bedside table with a dreamy sigh. It’s the seventh night in a row they’ve written together for hours, texting each other updates as their pirate romance adventure story takes the shape of something real. They haven’t gone to bed before 2am all week, and it’s made school even more hellish than usual, but it’s more than worth it to get to spend their evenings building a whole new world together. Stede feels a bit weightless with it, his brain hovering somewhere between the real world and their fantasy world. 

And okay, maybe there’s also the fact that he gets Ed all to himself when they do this. They don’t have to think about grades, or who's going to prom with who, or teachers or parents or the future that’s rushing up to meet them. It’s just them and their pirates, and Stede gets to keep making Ed smile.

Stede’s eyes are drifting closed when his phone lights up on the nightstand.

Ed: Ok I KNOW I SAID ID GO TO BED BUT

Stede’s already preparing to type back a clever retort when a link pops up on his screen.

Ed: This just came on shuffle while i was brushing my teeth

Ed: ITS SO THEM STEDE

Suneater by Leanna Firestone.

Stede perks up with interest at once. For all their similarities, the two of them have distinctly different tastes in music. Ed knows Stede likes newer songs with lots of words and Stede knows Ed likes songs with catchy beats that aren’t from this century, so Ed must be pretty confident that Stede will like this if he’s sending it in the first place. Pulling the blankets up tight around him, he slips his headphones back on and hits play. 

The song opens with the gentle strumming of a guitar, a sweet harmony of hums, before a folksy voice paints the picture. She sings of being in the presence of a boy made of light, compared to every celestial body she can think of, before she realizes she’s the moon to his sun. 

You’ve got the heart of a Leo

But you’re sweet like a Pisces

And the only thing I know is 

I think I might be falling for 

The boy who swallowed the sun

Stede can’t move. He feels frozen in his bed, phone grasped in his rigid hand. The lyrics bowl him over, taking him through a journey of emotions that stretches into the heavens, lighting him up from the inside out. Ed’s right, it’s perfect for their characters, but it’s so, so much more than that. 

Just like Hades and Persephone 

The boy who ate the sun and me

You have brought sunshine to the darkside of the moon

She’s shy. She’s frightened. She feels too small. Too dark for a feeling so bright. But she loves him anyway. She loves him. She loves him.

Loves him. 

Yes, Stede thinks. Yes. This is the feeling, that Something that’s been tugging at him for all these months – in the locker room, in the snow, in the library, when he catches himself being pulled into Ed in a way that doesn’t feel like friends should feel. The sparks in his fingertips, the ball of fire in his belly, the warmth in his limbs that comes when he’s in Ed’s presence…this is what it means. Love. Right in front of him all along. It’s love. He nearly laughs with the relief of it.

And then he thinks, no. 

No no no no no. 

It can’t be true. It can’t be. He can’t be different in yet another way, give Jack and all those stupid guys yet another reason to knock him down. And Ed’s his friend. The only one he’s got, the one person who is making his mess of a life bearable, and he’s going to shatter that over a song that Ed thinks relates to some fictional characters that didn’t exist a week ago. 

But Stede doesn’t turn the song off. He plays it again. Looks up the lyrics, plays it again while he follows along, willing them to stick in his brain. Listens a third time, the phone face down on his chest, staring into the grainy darkness as it all washes over him again. And again. And again. 

He doesn’t know how long he lays there before a text vibrates on his chest. He squints against the piercing blue light, and there’s Ed on his screen. Ed, his best friend. Ed, who fights for him, protects him from the people who could hurt them both. Ed, the rule breaker with the heart of gold who pulls Stede out of the darkness with both hands. Ed, who says yes without hesitation to Stede like there is nowhere else on earth he’d rather be than right here. Ed, whose eyes crinkle at the corners when he laughs. 

Ed: Do you like it?

Stede throws his phone across the bed, buries his face in the pillow, and cries. 

Chapter Text

And I long to tell you

But I'm just too shy

“Ed?

“Hm?”

Stede draws a steadying breath, but the words falter on his tongue immediately. It’s been two weeks since Ed had sent him the song that threw his world off its axis. They haven’t talked about it, nor about the text Ed sent after that Stede simply couldn’t bring himself to answer. They’d merely slotted back into their usual routine, following the same script of friendship they’ve been performing for years, while Stede’s realizations hummed beneath his skin, never fully surfacing.

But in the background, Stede has been practicing. He says the words with his face muffled in the pillow. He mouths them to his reflection in the bathroom mirror, feeling the way the syllables fill his mouth without sound. He writes them on sticky notes before he tears them into a million tiny pieces and buries them at the bottom of the garbage can. 

And then this morning, with the bathroom door closed and his parents still asleep, he’d said the words out loud, and an unbearable weight was lifted off his chest. 

Now they’re laying on their stomachs on the floor of Ed’s room, surrounded by history books and looseleaf paper and colored pencils. Their pirate adventure/romance had taken on a life of its own, and outside of school it’s all they’ve been able to think about. Stede’s taking the lead on filling in the gaps in the narrative with as much history as they can, while Ed has been flexing his artistic talents drawing the characters in increasingly elaborate outfits. Stede really had meant for this all to come up naturally, but now Ed’s looking up at him from his sketchbook with furrowed brows and Stede’s pretty sure if he doesn’t say this right fucking now he’ll never have the courage to say it again.

“I don’t think I like girls.”

And there they are. Words he can’t unsay. Words he never, ever wants to unsay, because as terrifying as they are they feel so right .

And Ed just blinks twice and says, “Okay.”

Stede swallows, sweat prickling on his palms. His heart is rattling in his chest and he’s searching for anything recognizable in Ed’s expression, but he’s met with nothing but blankness. So he does what he always does when can’t stand silence: keeps talking. “Actually I’m sure I don’t. I’m really sure I don’t. I never have, and I don’t think I put it together until-“ Until you laughed in the locker room and stood up for me. Until your foot touched mine in the snow. Until you helped me build a world where this is all okay. Until you sent me a song that made it all make sense. “-until recently. It’s a lot right now and I don’t really know much more than that but you’re the one I tell stuff like this to so I just wanted you to know. So. Yeah. That's. A thing."

He bites down on his tongue to cut himself off, face flushing furiously– of course he couldn’t get through this without dissolving into rambling. But then Ed’s hand lands on his shoulder, his fingers curling into Stede’s arm, and all at once he feels steady again. When Stede meets Ed’s gaze, his brown eyes are soft, there's the ghost of a gentle smile on his lips, and it makes Stede’s stomach flutter. He’s been on the receiving end of that smile so many times over the years, and every time it makes him feel like the only person in the universe. 

“It’s cool Stede,” Ed says, so achingly sincere it makes something squeeze tight in Stede’s chest. “Really. I’m glad you told me.”

“So we’re still friends?” Stede asks softly, though he knows the answer, has always known the answer, but for his own sanity knows he just needs to hear the words outloud.

“‘Course we are. It’s all good. You’d still be my friend if I didn’t like girls right?”

“Yes. Of course.”

“Right. Then yeah. We’re cool.”

“Cool.”

Ed doesn’t take his hand away, Stede lets himself stay here for a moment. He didn’t think he could feel any more bowled over with affection but he can feel the air humming with an electricity he thought was only reserved for stories. For a split second Stede’s eyes flicker to Ed’s lips, inches from his own, and wonders, just for a moment, what it would feel like to close the space between them. Just once, so he could stop losing sleep over it, so he can stop being afraid, so he could know what it was like to be utterly, completely enveloped by Ed’s light that he never feels the darkness again. But when he meets Ed’s eyes again, Stede’s stomach drops  right through the floor. 

There’s no crinkles around the corners of his eyes to get lost in, because Ed has stopped smiling. His lips are parted like he’s about to speak, but no sound comes out. His body has gone stiff, riddled with a tension that Stede is used to carrying but never seeing on others. 

Ed looks…scared. 

Stede’s never seen Ed scared in his life. 

Before Stede can say a word, Ed’s hand falls from his shoulder and he’s turning back to his sketchbook, coughing somewhat loudly into his fist. Stede forces himself to turn back to his pages, to blink away the stinging feeling from his eyes. In the last few months he’s assumed these revelations have been unique to his heart, but that flash of fear has him thinking, against all odds, against all logic, he might not be alone in this after all. Ed was going to say something, something that was terrifying to him, and Stede wants to turn back every clock so he can beg Ed to let it out.

Because what if it’s the same thing Stede is dying to say? What if Stede isn’t alone in these all-consuming, baffling new feelings? What if…?

“What color should I do this coat? Red or blue?”

Ed inches in close to pass Stede his sketchbook, until their shoulders are pressed together. Stede looks down at the drawing, the character they’ve spent weeks imagining coming to life on the page under Ed’s touch. He’s everything Stede’s ever wanted to be – brave and self-assured and unwavering in his choices. 

He’s all the things Stede feels whenever he’s with Ed.

“Red,” Stede says confidently. “With gold accents on the shoulders and the buttons.”

“Perfect,” Ed smiles, and the tension finally ebbs from his body.

For the first time since he said the words out loud Stede feels certain things will be okay. He can be brave, and it will pay off. Whatever happens next, Ed will still be his best friend. Stede will bask in his light so long as he’s welcome, and if it burns, it will still be beautiful. 

They turn back to their work, and their shoulders stay pressed together.

Chapter Text

And the only thing I know is

I wanna know what it’s like to be with the boy who swallowed the sun.

 

Stede barrels down the front down the front steps the moment he hears tires on the gravel driveway. Not that he’s been lingering by the door, mind you, but no one could blame him if he was. Ed is picking him up . They’re going for a drive. In Ed’s truck.

Okay, so it’s Ed’s mom’s truck, technically speaking. The truck she put Ed and half her life into when she left his dad in the middle of the night six years ago.  A battered old Chevy rusting around the wheels affectionately named Queen Anne that should not still be running but bravely soldiers on. Miss Teach has been notoriously wary of Ed driving it on his own after dark, despite relentless pleas from both boys that everyone else at school drives after 9 p.m. But it’s almost summer now, and the sun sets later and later every day, and with a solemn, raise-your-right-hand vow from them both that they’ll be back in their own beds by 11 p.m., Queen Anne is theirs for the night. 

And it’s not a date, Stede tells himself resolutely as he hoists himself into the passenger seat. It is no different from every other time they’ve hung out. They’re just going for a drive. There’s no need for the little shake in his fingers when he buckles his seatbelt. 

“Where to?” Ed asks, shifting gears to pull out of the driveway. 

“Anywhere you like.” 

The devious smile Ed gives him should make Stede nervous. Instead it lights an intoxicating fire in his belly.

Ed dutifully follows the speed limit through the suburbs but the minute he turns off the main road, they’re gone . The speedometer climbs to 50, 60, 70, Ed’s grin growing broader right along with it. Houses give way into sprawling farmland, and Ed rolls down the windows and cranks the radio as loud as it can go, letting the music pour out into the air. Stede reaches his hand out and feels the air rush around his arm, opening his palm like he can catch the wind and the melody. He can hear his father’s voice in the back of his head, telling him to stay inside, telling him to stay small. He ignores it. It feels way too good to ignore it. 

Life lately has felt a lot like this. Going so fast it feels like flying. The monotony of the end of school is broken up by time with Ed. Writing their stories and drawing their pictures and reading their books and laughing until their stomachs hurt. Spring is nearly over, and they’re about to tip headfirst into summer, and as he hangs his head out the window, scream-singing along with Ed, Stede feels like this is the beginning of something huge.

Because Stede’s been watching. He sees the miniscule movements of Ed’s eyes, stealing second, third, and fourth glances at him when he thinks Stede’s distracted. He sees the way Ed’s cheeks color when Stede’s gaze meets his own, how his cocky, confident smile morphs into something sheepish and, dare he say it, shy. It’s been giving Stede wild ideas that make his stomach go all fizzy and the blood sing in his veins, and if he squeals into his pillow over it a few times in the darkness of his room late at night…well, no one’s around to judge him for it, are they. 

They’re far beyond the edge of town when Ed pulls off onto a dirt path at the top of the steepest hill. Within a few weeks, the fields below them will be waves of corn and clover, but now it’s nothing but overturned soil for miles, bathed in the golden light of the sunset. Ready to be tilled into a place things can grow.

Ed wiggles his way out the back window into the truck bed, then yanks Stede along after him, snickering when Stede whacks his head on the ceiling.

“You’re laughing,” Stede spits as he falls awkwardly into the blankets Ed’s laid out. “I’m concussed in your vehicle and you’re laughing.”

“I take you to the best stargazing spot and you’re complaining!”

“I’ll tell your mom.”

“Like hell you will.”

“I will, I’ll tell her you were speeding and that you caused her favorite house guest a debilitating injury.”

“Fuck off!” 

Ed all but tackles him down onto the blanket, and Stede can’t keep up his act anymore. All at once he feels that all consuming light, and he lets himself laugh freely into the evening air as Ed wrestles him down. When they fall back onto the blankets, their shoulders are just barely touching, Stede lets the sounds of nature surround him. There’s a little breeze rustling the leaves above them, the soft hum of insects remembering how to sing the songs of summer. To the west the sunset scatters gold and pink across the shimmering fields. To the east the sky is a deep, vibrant blue, the light dimming moment by moment, until the sun is sinking below the horizon and the crystal white full moon is climbing higher above them. 

And beside him is Ed. Breathing it in with him. 

“How does that happen?” Ed wonders aloud, gesturing vaguely toward the horizon. “Sometimes you can almost see the moon and the sun in the sky at the same time. Seems like it shouldn’t be allowed.”

“I think it’s to do with the angle of the sunlight,” Stede supplies, head lulling to one side to look at him.

Ed huffs a little, folding his arms behind his head. “‘Course you know that,” he quips without a trace of malice. Stede cracks a smile, and maybe it’s the open air and the novelty of all this, but he feels a little brave tonight. A little foolish. A little daring. “It’s like the song.”

“What song?”

“The song about the boy who ate the sun. The one you sent me. The only light that I have’s just a reflection of you.”

They’re so close Stede can hear the way Ed swallows thickly before he softly says, “You listened to it?”

“Of course.” Stede draws a steadying breath. “I listen to it every day. It’s my favorite.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“You never said anything.”

“I know. But I love it.”

The energy is pulsing through him now, and as they’ve talked Stede’s been inching his pinky finger perilously closer to Ed’s. Little zaps of lightning fly between them, and he’s so close, so dangerously close to touching, to telling him…

But then Ed sits bolt upright, inches himself down the truck bed so that he can tuck his knees up to his chest, back turned resolutely to Stede. It makes Stede want to scream and cry and apologize and turn back time, until he clocks that Ed’s breathing has suddenly grown labored.

“I think she’s got it wrong. In the song I mean,” Ed says to the floor, his voice so soft it threatens to be drowned out by the crickets.

Stede swallows the lump in his throat. “What?”

“It’s not that she’s shy,” Ed resolves. “It’s not that she can’t tell him because she’s shy. It’s that she and him have been friends for a long time. And being…bright with him…it’s like, the best thing. Maybe the best thing ever. And if she tells him that he’s gonna realize that she’s just the moon who doesn’t have any light of her own…”

“Ed?”

“...and he’s gonna realize that after all this time everything is gonna change and if he doesn’t like her back then the best thing she’s ever had is gonna go away…”

“Ed!”

“...and she’s gonna be alone again and she’s just scared.” His voice cracks on the word, and he pulls his knees even closer to his body. “She’s just really, really scared.”

“ Edward .” Stede can count on one hand the number of times he’s called Ed by his full name, and it makes Ed’s head snap up. Stede’s heart is in his throat when he sees the dampness gathering at the corners of those beautiful brown eyes, the realization settling over him like the warmest, safest blanket. “It’s not about the song, is it?”

Ed shakes his head slowly. Ducks his head down. Digs his fingernails into the fabric of his jeans. Terrified.

Stede isn’t going to let him be scared for one more moment.

He edges his way down the truck bed until they’re side by side again, shoulders just barely brushing in that way they’d adopted so long ago. Stede tries to keep his breathing even for Ed’s sake, tries to be the calm in the storm, but he can feel his heart beating in every pulse point in his body. Not once did he ever consider that Ed had as much chaos inside him as Stede did, begging to be heard so perfectly. Not once could he have predicted that he is the fire and light and warmth in Ed’s life.

Terror be damned, he reaches out, pries Ed’s hand off his knee, and laces their fingers together. 

“Is this alright?” he asks softly, and his heart leaps at the way Ed’s breath stutters. 

“Yeah,” Ed whispers. “It’s…it’s perfect.”

Ed’s got a hitchhiker’s thumb, and Stede traces his own over the delicate arch, over the nail, then back down until he’s stroking it gently. He can feel his pulse thrumming in his own thumb as it traces Ed’s skin, picking up the tempo as Ed’s fingers slide over his. They tangle and untangle from each other, learning the map of every crease and scar. The world around them starts to narrow, the sky and the truck and even the rest of their bodies fade away, until the universe consists of only their hands, getting to know each other, like they never have before.

Beautiful. Beautiful. So goddamn beautiful. 

In the years that follow, there will be many arguments over who leaned in first. It will make their friends roll their eyes at them fondly, bring dinner party conversations screeching to a halt, but it will always make Stede’s heart sing to know that even as two scared kids they were drawn to each other so stunningly. 

Right now all Stede knows is that one moment he is sitting in the back of a pickup truck beneath a darkening sky, and the next moment he is kissing Edward Teach, and all the messy pieces of him are finally sliding into the right places. 

There’s the brief pause, a millisecond of parting, where Stede’s mind sneaks in a quick oh shit, oh no, oh fuck, but then some magnetic force is drawing them back into each other’s orbits, and all his whirling brain can process is Yes. Yes. Yes. He slides his hands up to cup Ed’s face, and Ed’s hands come to rest loosely around his shoulders. His lips are warm and soft, parted but just barely, and Stede soaks it all in. He understands now why people close their eyes when they kiss; it would be far too much to look at Ed right now, when he’s touching Ed and smelling Ed and hearing Ed and tasting Ed.

This is bigger than the sun and the moon and all the constellations in the sky. Bigger than poems. Bigger than stories. Bigger than music. This is Ed and Stede. This is everything.

Eventually, despite his best efforts, Stede can’t breathe through his nose anymore, and he ruefully pulls away from Ed’s lips. Ed draws a startled breath, and when Stede opens his eyes, he wonders if it’s possible for a human heart to burst. Ed’s eyes are still closed, head still angled to where he’d met Stede halfway, and he’s smiling. Brighter than any sun, any moon, any star. Then he’s clapping his hands over his mouth, like he can barely contain the giddy laugh that’s bubbling out of his throat, falling back onto the truck bed. The laughter is contagious, and Stede falls back beside him, letting the giggles overtake him too.

“Oh my god I’ve wanted to do that for so long,” Ed bursts out at last. Stede rolls on his side, reaches for Ed’s hand, laces their fingers up tight again. 

“I should have done it before,” Stede apologizes. “I was just…” 

“…scared?” 

Stede just nods, can’t even bring himself to be embarrassed. and Ed’s smile eases into something warmer. 

“I get it.” 

Stede has no doubt now that he does. Of course he does. Ed has understood everything about him from the first day they met. 

“Are you still scared?” Stede asks. Ed leans in again, steals the question right off Stede’s lips with a kiss. 

“A little,” he admits when they part. “But I feel braver when I’m with you.”

There’s so much more he has to tell Ed. So many revelations to unpack together. So many adventures to have and new things to learn. This moment feels infinite already, and the thought of his love for Ed stretching into the future too is the brightest, hottest fire Stede’s ever felt in his life. Life with Ed. Love with Ed. It’s his to hold in his hands. 

Stede laughs again with the thought of it.

“What?” Ed asks. The smile Stede first noticed for that day in the locker room blooms on his face in the evening light. Stede reaches out and cups his cheek, lets one finger tease over the elusive lines he’s been chasing all this time, and lets his heart shine out.

“The corners of your eyes crinkle when you laugh.”