Chapter Text
Ed seemed to be vibrating. It was quite a distraction for Stede, but a welcome one.
His current situation was… not a pleasant one.
Stede didn’t want to think about who would - or would not - be waiting for him outside the prison. Mary, the kids... what if they didn’t come? What if he was forced to walk home alone... But then, if Mary didn’t show up, did he even have a home to walk to?
He was spiraling. Stede focused on Ed’s nervous movement. Up and down went his knee. He crossed his legs, then uncrossed them. Round and round he twisted his finger, as though twisting an invisible ring. Brushing his hair back behind his ear. Back to the ring.
But Stede couldn’t stop thinking about what may or may not be waiting outside the prison for him in a couple hours.
Stede remembered one of his first conversations with Ed, that first night they had been cellmates, before he knew anything about Blackbeard. Before he loved Ed.
“You have a family?” Ed had grunted late that night. The conversations of the other prisoners a hum in the background, not quite loud enough for Stede to make out any distinct words, just white noise. “Seem like the family type. Married and all that.”
“I do,” Stede answered. “Two kids and a wife. Are you married?”
“Yep.”
“Lovely, what’s her name?” Stede asked, his mind not entirely on the conversation, exhausted and half-asleep already.
Ed laughed, a short bark of a laugh. “Izzy.”
“Lovely.”
“You?”
“Mary is my wife. My son Louis and my daughter, Alma.”
“Lovely,” Ed used his word. A moment of silence - well, the white noise of the other prisoners, really - and then, “’Ve got a daughter too. Anne.”
“Hm,” Stede replied smartly.
“You awake, mate?” Ed asked.
“What’s she like, your Anne?” Stede imagined a tall gangly girl with Ed’s skin color and eyes, and wavy dark hair like his must have been when he was younger. Maybe not all the tattoos his new cellmate had.
“A lot like Izzy,” Ed laughed. “Sometimes a good thing, sometimes... not.”
“Tell me about her?”
Ed shifted in his bunk above. Stede was about to apologize for overstepping, but then: “She’s six - well, seven now, I guess. Smarter than me and Iz combined. She’s funny and fast and has the strongest sense of justice… stands up for all her friends at school. She’d probably take on half the inmates here if she had to… Probably win, too.” He paused for a long moment, and Stede almost thinks that’s where the conversation has ended. But then, quieter: “She likes her hair pulled back - never leaves it down, has to be braided or in a pony, but she won’t let anyone cut it. Likes it long, says it’s gotta be like mine.”
Stede hummed, a little more awake now, imagining Ed’s daughter. She sounded a lot like Alma.
“My girl is seven, too.”
Ed huffed a laugh. “What’re the odds…”
“Think they’d be friends?”
“I hope so,” Ed says, so earnestly.
“She play any sports? Alma’s just getting into a couple, she’s been riding horses for years.”
“Football. She’d like to go for rugby but Iz’d have a stroke…” Ed lapses into silence for a moment, and Stede can imagine him up there in his bunk, smiling at the ceiling, thinking of his family. “She mostly just likes to run around. She’s not much for rules, Anne. Think she got that from me, mostly… She’ll make herself busy for hours outside, sword fighting with sticks and whatnot - fuckin’ loves swords. Well, fake swords. She’s not allowed to have a real one yet.”
Stede snorts.
“Your turn,” Ed says softly.
“Hm?”
“Your kids? Alma and… Louis?”
“Yes, Louis. After Mary’s family. He’s quiet a lot, but can be very… outspoken. Very down to earth, compared to Alma.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” Stede says. “She’s… Well, head in the clouds, big imagination. Very creative, of course, and smart, but… not always very realistic.”
“Like you?”
“Alma’s very much like me, I’m afraid,” Stede sighed. “Not sure if that’s a good thing or not.”
Ed shifted in his bunk to look down at Stede, his long hair swinging down to frame his face. “Decidedly a good thing, I think.”
It was the first time Stede wondered if Ed was flirting with him.
Six months, a handful of ‘I love you’s’, and a promise to see the world together later, Ed had decidedly been flirting with him.
But now it was… now. They were being set free again, back into the real world, out of their cocoon or bubble or whatever you wanted to call it and all that.
“What am I going to tell Mary?” Stede whispered. “About us?”
Ed’s nervous movement paused. “Well... I mean, neither of you were happy, right?” It sounded so... sure. “So it’ll be easier, to part ways.”
Stede twisted toward him. He seemed so calm and steady. “Aren’t you nervous about seeing Izzy? What will you tell her? About us? How will she take everything? You leaving her for a man you met in prison?”
Ed barked his dry laugh, just like he did any time Stede mentioned Izzy. Stede was sure it was some sort of nervous tick.
“I’m not leaving Izzy, Stede.” Ed’s leg was back to jumping, he was back to twisting his invisible ring.
“What?” Stede’s voice was hollow, echoed in his own head.
“Izzy’ll be fine with us, mate. We’re not... exclusive.”
The world stopped spinning for a moment. Stede was frozen, staring at Edward - the love of his life, the man he was about to divorce his wife for, the man he’d assumed…
“What?”
Ed chuckled. “You ever heard of an open relationship?”
Stede’s silence said no.
Ed shrugged. “Goes like this: Izzy fucks whomever Izzy would like to fuck, Ed fucks whomever Ed would like to fuck.” He shrugged again. “Sometimes we fuck each other.”
“I feel like you’re oversimplifying things, Ed.” Stede said hoarsely, still not entirely comprehending.
Ed shrugged and his eyes went far away and his brows knitted together. “Yeah, maybe.” He fiddles again with his invisible ring. “We’re neither of us particularly monogamous, Izzy and me. Not for a long time. We see other people sometimes. We’ve been together since we were kids, always come back to each other… but we don’t, y’know, own each other or whatever. The marriage is just, I dunno, a formality. We love each other and didn’t need paperwork to prove it, but eventually it was easier to just do it. For taxes and whatnot. Legal stuff. And Anne, of course.”
“Why… didn’t you say anything earlier? I thought - I thought that…” Stede felt himself flush, his face hot and swollen-feeling, a lump starting to form in the back of his throat, palms starting to sweat.
Ed looked at him, curiously. “What did you think?”
Stede, ashamed, shook his head.
Ed gently grasped his wrist. “Stede, mate –”
“No touching!” A guard shouted down the line, and Ed’s hand dropped away.
“Stede,” he continued. “Talk to me, mate.”
“I thought,” Stede whispered past tears. “I thought we were both going through this together - leaving our wives, getting divorced, getting out of prison - starting new lives together.”
“Oh,” Ed said quietly.
Stede wiped his face.
He sat there and tried to control himself, tried to process what he had just… what Edward had said. Ed was silent for a moment, probably processing through it all himself.
“Stede, I love you, and I want to be with you, mate, but I’m not leaving Izzy and Anne. I… can’t. They’re my family, and this whole -” he gestures around to the prison with his hand, “excursion has been hell enough on them. You and me, we will be together, but I just… I’ll also be married, y’know? We’ll figure out the details once we get over this hump, get back out there. I’ll help you through everything as much as I can, of course. Okay, man?”
Stede nodded, jerkily and not quite understanding. “I just… why didn’t you say?”
Ed shrugged, “I dunno, mate. That’s on me. I just… our situations are so different. You seemed like you needed to talk about it - talk through your plans and griefs and whatnot, and I was happy to listen when you needed me to. You talked so much about Mary, and how you two didn’t get along and didn’t really like each other and were only married because of your parents. How you wanted out of your marriage so badly…”
“And you never talked about your marriage.”
“To be fair, you talk a lot. Don’t leave much room for others to get a word in,” Ed joked. Stede didn’t laugh, though he guessed Ed had a point. Ed looked down at his hands. “Look, man, Iz’s private. Doesn’t like me talking ‘bout us to other people too much. It was much easier to just listen to you, and talk about your stuff.” Stede doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t know what to say. Ed finally looks up at him. “Stede, I’m really sorry I led you the wrong way.” He leans in, as much as he can without touching. “I love you. We will be together… just, it’s gonna be a little different than maybe you thought.”
Stede nodded slowly and silently.
The next two hours passed slowly, but later Stede wouldn’t be able to accurately remember how the release process went. It didn’t matter, not really. He had a lot to process in a very short amount of time. He was getting out of prison. He loved Ed. Ed loved him. Ed said they’d figure out the details later. Everything would work itself out.
And maybe hopefully Mary would be waiting outside with the kids and she’d forgive him eventually and he’d get to introduce Alma and Louis to Ed.
Stede realized he had a stupid little dreamy smile on his face, thinking about Ed meeting Alma and Louis. Despite all of it. All of the misunderstandings and confusion aside, his Edward would get to meet Alma and Louis.
And then they were called up.
One moment he and Ed were standing side by side with six other men about to be released from prison, in the lobby of the prison, in the fluorescent lighting he’d grown too accustomed to for eight months, and then the front doors were flung open and held for them to leave.
Outside was bright - too bright. Stede had to shield his eyes, and it took longer than it ever had for them to readjust.
As soon as he could see anything, he saw Mary and the kids, waiting for him. The kids were smiling, at least.
Stede threw up a hand to wave and Alma danced up on her toes to wave back, frantic and excited and happy. Stede could have cried on the spot.
He turned to point them out to Ed, only to watch as Ed dashed off toward the other end of the line for waiting families.
Stede watched as Ed sprinted into the arms of a tiny girl with red hair - Anne, Stede thought - and a shorter man with dark hair. Stede walked automatically forward, toward Mary and the kids, all the while watching Ed. Ed clung to both of them, laughing and crying, ruffling the girl’s hair, pulling her up into his arms.
And then he leaned over and kissed the man and the air in Stede’s lungs properly disappeared.
Before he could find it again, Louis and Alma were in his arms, crying and laughing and Stede was crying and laughing with them. They’d grown so much in eight months!
“What are you feeding them?!” He heard himself ask Mary. “They’re so big!” Like he’d just come back from a holiday.
She stared at him with wide eyes for a moment before cracking a faint, cold smile and reaching out to take him into a hug.
“We’ll talk,” Mary whispered in his ear and he nodded. This was already more than he deserved. She didn’t owe him warmth or love.
“Stede!” Ed called, closer than Stede realized. He turned, Louis and Alma still in his arms, to find that Ed had his daughter and the shorter man tucked close to him and was headed straight for Stede.
“Stede, mate, this is Anne,” he proudly presented the young girl. She had fair skin and green eyes and didn’t look like Ed at all, other than sporting his usual hairstyle - half-up, half-down. “And this is Izzy,” he gave the man a squeeze.
Izzy.
Izzy.
Izzy.
Izzy is a woman’s name, Stede thought dumbly, taking in the dark-haired man Ed had his arm around.
Short, just coming up to Ed’s chin, with salt and pepper hair and a short beard. And tattoos. One on his neck - some sort of bird - and an X under his eye. He was dressed all in black, his jacket not quite concealing the t-shirt pulled tight across his chest and biceps. His pants were well-tailored, his shoes old and worn, but Stede could tell they were expensive. He had on a wedding ring and a simple chain around his neck that probably had six or seven other rings on it, which Stede supposed were Ed’s.
All in all, he was a good-looking man, even with a scowl on his face and deep circles under his eyes.
Stede’s gaze caught on Ed’s grip on Izzy, warm and sure and steady at his waist. And possessive.
Stede swallowed. “Hello!” He tried for cheerful and a smile.
Izzy rolled his eyes and Stede felt a blush creep up his neck to his face.
Ed grinned at him, feral and bright.
“Stede here was my roommate!” Ed chirped happily, still with his arm around Izzy and Anne clinging to his hip. “My best mate!”
“Pleasure,” Izzy said sounding like it was anything but a pleasure to be making Stede’s acquaintance.
Anne just observed Stede with wide eyes and then buried her face in Ed’s neck.
Suddenly a hulking figure walked up to Ed’s little trio, making Louis quiver in Stede’s arms. Indeed the man was rather frightening - he had to be well over six feet tall, closer to seven even, and had tattoos up his neck and covering his face.
“Boss,” he murmured.
“What?” Izzy growled.
The man looked from Izzy to Ed. Ed shook his head at the guy, “Not me, mate,” he said to him.
“We gotta go,” the man said to Izzy. “Jackie’s waiting.”
“Wait wait wait!” Ed grabbed Izzy and reached into his back pocket. He came up empty so he searched Izzy’s front pants pockets - Izzy just took this, looking a little embarrassed but like it had happened often.
Ed came up with a phone. “Need your number, mate!” He unlocked the phone and presented it to Stede. The background photo was Izzy and Anne at some formal function.
Stede’s finger hovered over the contacts button, gazing at the photo.
“Ha! Only time I’ve ever been able to get ‘im into a tux,” Ed chuckled. “I have six hundred photos of that night. Father-Daughter dance at school - unbelievably cute.”
“Edward,” Izzy said.
“C’mon, mate!” Ed encouraged Stede. Stede quickly input his phone numbers - home and cell, just in case. He handed the phone back to Ed, who pulled him into a hug.
“Be good, talk to you soon,” Ed breathed into his ear.
Ed rejoined Izzy, taking Izzy’s hand and threading their fingers together. Stede tried not to stare.
Mary caught his eyes, raising a brow.
“Ready?” He asked her, trying for a genuine smile.