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They're fussing around the flat getting ready for karaoke night at the Sailor's Hornpipe—it's mostly Stede doing the fussing, of course, unable to choose between flouncy blouses in two pale shades of dogwood pink so similar that Ed can't decide whether he's being trolled—when Izzy shows up.
"Hey, Iz," Ed greets him, a bit perturbed both by him being there at all and the fact that he's got Barbarella with him, sitting politely by Izzy's ankles on the end of her lead. He steps out of the way, cocking his head for the two of them to come into the flat from the shop steps, and Daphne joyfully skitters towards them from the living room to give both crotches a good welcoming sniff. "Thought we were meeting there?"
Izzy looks uncomfortable. "Yeah. I actually wanted to talk to you about something, if you don't mind giving it a miss?"
"Miss all the dirty grannies in town singing Lady Marmalade at me like they've got a chance?" Ed says, deadpan. "How am I gonna survive that, man? Be real."
Izzy doesn't even smile, not properly, just a quick little twitch of one that doesn't get nearly as far as reaching his eyes before he stoops to let Barbarella off her lead. She chases Daphne down the long doubled hall and into Stede's dressing room, where Ed hears him yelp suddenly and then say, "Well, I suppose that decides it, then! Hello, darlings! Thank you for the drool. I do believe you're right—maybe just a little bit excessive, isn't it, with the pearl buttons? Simple and classic is sufficient for a Tuesday, I should think."
"Classic," Izzy repeats, raising an eyebrow like he's never heard anything he believes less.
"Bodice-ripper romance covers are classics," Ed argues, trying to make Izzy crack a proper smile. He manages a grimace, and Ed decides that's close enough and all he's going to get. "Go on, go through, I'll get us some drinks."
"Is that Fang, darling?" Stede calls.
"Izzy," Ed calls back. "Change of plan, love, I'm gonna stay in tonight."
He hears Stede quietly grumble, "Are you indeed?" before going back to whatever's taking him so long in there. "No, Barbie, darling, my cashmere socks! Go on, shoo, both of you, go and bother Izzy instead, let me finish making myself pretty for absolutely no reason any more."
He'll be fine. Ed not being there won't have any impact whatsoever on the highlight of Stede's night—the crowd-pleasing duet he always ends up howling alongside Lucius every week with far more enthusiasm than talent—although Ed truly is sorry to miss it. He taps a quick message to Fang asking him to send a video he can keep with all the others he filmed himself, and follows the dogs into the living room with a fridge-cold bottle of cider in each hand and two big packets of sweets clenched between his teeth by the corners.
"There you go," Ed tells Izzy after spitting the packets onto the sofa cushion beside him. "Get those open."
"I don't even fucking like Percy Pigs," Izzy complains, reaching for the packets anyway, and Ed rolls his eyes.
"Then it's a good thing one of those is your fucking fancy expensive gluten-free liquorice, isn't it?" Ed snipes back. He nudges one of Daphne's toys towards Barbarella with his foot, who ignores it and promptly flops down on the carpet to doze instead. "Come on, then. What's up?"
Izzy glances at the open archway, like he thinks Stede might have crept down the hall to stand there listening just out of sight. "Give it a minute," he says vaguely.
He's not actually said anything concerning, but that in itself is pretty fucking concerning, Ed thinks. Izzy has no qualms about speaking his mind usually, no matter who's about to hear it. Even seems to enjoy the awkwardness sometimes, the antagonistic bastard, when other people end up as collateral damage in his temper tantrum about something that doesn't even concern them.
Ed's got a bleak, pessimistic habit of deliberately imagining the worst sometimes so that if the worst actually does follow then at least it's not a full-on smack-in-the-teeth surprise. His brain spins as uselessly as a tyre skidding in mud, spraying muck up the walls of his skull: Maybe he's dying. Maybe Fang is. Maybe he's moving back to London. Maybe—fucking hell—he's not moving back to London, he's staying here, but he doesn't want this job any more. Is that better? Or worse? That would be worse, right? To have him around in the world, still right in the middle of Ed's social circle, but not wanting to work with him any more?
Jaunty footsteps coming down the hall knock Ed out of his brooding, and he smiles, he can't help it, when Stede appears in the archway like—fuck even knows what. There's nothing in the world you can compare this man to, especially when he takes it upon himself to dress to impress: wide-legged, high-waisted, pale grey trousers with razor-sharp tailored pleats around the top, and the dusky pink blouse he was eventually forced to decide on due to unfortunate excited dog slobber on the other. He's tucked it in and tugged it back out so carefully and precisely that he's managed to give himself something of an hourglass waist using only the puffs and folds of the fabric to create the illusion, and the neck is open wide enough to frame his seaglass collar and clavicles and the merest golden glitter of chest hair.
It's soft and pretty, feminine in a way that Stede knows suits him better than any boring standard men's tailoring, but eased just a little way back towards masculine by the scruffy stubble he's started favouring lately: long enough to look deliberate rather than like he simply forgot to shave, but not groomed quite enough to be called a serious beard. Whether all of this actually does suit him or it just seems that way because Stede feels so much more himself in clothes like this, Ed has no idea. He does know his face must be doing something soppy and ridiculous, though, because Izzy's starting to look like he wishes he never bothered inviting himself over.
"Oh, you're really not coming?" Stede says when he sees them sitting there with their ciders and open sweet bags. Disappointed, he scrunches his nose up, and Ed wants to kiss it. "I have to say, Pete is a real pain in the behind when you're not there. Spends the whole time asking me leading questions trying to find out if you've got any secret tattoos on your bits and pieces."
Ed snorts—does he think Pete's not brazen enough to ask Ed directly himself? It's like the man keeps expecting the answer to change, or hoping it will. "Has he tried asking Lucius instead? I know the way you pair gossip."
"Well, I shan't dignify that dreadful accusation with a response," Stede says, sounding offended, but his eyes are crinkling at the corners like he just can't help it. He bends down to drop a kiss in his favourite spot to do so, right in the middle of Ed's flyaway curls that could probably do with another trim. "See you later then, darling. Goodnight, Izzy."
"Night," Izzy says curtly, then to Ed once Stede's left the room to find his jacket, "So has he not twigged that's my partner he's slagging off right in front of my face, or does he really just not give a shit?"
Stede's sing-song voice drifts back from the hallway—"A thousand apologies!"—then there's the sound of the door to the stairs closing behind him.
"Yeah, trust me, you'd know about it if he really didn't like someone," Ed says with a little grin. "Pete's great. I mean, he does ask too many questions about my dick, to be fair."
Izzy gives him a bleak sideways look and slips off the sofa to sit cross-legged on the carpet, where the sleeping Barbarella has started making soft distressed huffing noises and twitching her feet. "Shush, you," he says to her softly, rubbing his fingertips over the scruffy fur of her exposed belly until she settles.
Daphne stares at Izzy, wagging her tail hopefully, then turns her big brown eyes on Ed and looks wounded, like she's saying love that for her, but where's mine? Apparently he's just destined to be wrapped around every beautifully manicured finger and every cute little claw in this flat, fearsome reputation or no.
Ed joins Izzy on the floor, letting Daphne excitedly flop down half across his legs with her hind feet poking Barbarella in the side. "We used to fucking hate dogs," he reminds Izzy, scratching her under the turquoise leather collar that Stede insisted she needed to match his own. It always makes her go swoony and sleepy when he does this, eyes half-closed in bliss. Another thing those two have in common. "Remember that one Fang fostered for a while back in the day? What even was that scraggly little thing?"
"Chinese crested," Izzy says, pulling a disgusted face. "He had to rub it with moisturiser every couple of days so it wouldn't start flaking like an old croissant."
"Fuck's sake," Ed mutters. "I mean, same, though. Love being moist."
Izzy's almost laughing now, pretending he's not. "Fuck off!"
"Can't be going round with dandruff caked in my beard." Ed rubs his palm over it a bit ruefully, still not quite used to the fact of it no longer weighing down his chin even though it's been months since his impromptu makeover. "Not that you could tell any more if I did. Gonna be as snow white as Fang's before too long."
"Yeah, well, we're all heading that way," Izzy says, sounding grim. "Even Lucius found a couple of greys the other week. Fucking screamed the house down, I thought he cut a bollock off shaving or something."
"Well that's too much information about your boyfriend's grooming habits," Ed objects. He leans forward to grab his cider bottle off the coffee table, nudging Izzy's closer to him too. "Like, full Brazilian or...? All that chest hair puffing out the top of his cute low t-shirts, didn't take him for a manscaper."
"He's not! Just trims a bit, says it makes his—no, why the fuck am I even telling you this? Christ."
Izzy takes a long swig from his bottle too, pointedly not looking at Ed. Probably a good idea, Ed thinks, because he's feeling a wild urge to giggle and that might just piss him off, or make him freeze up, or any other one of a thousand possible Izzyish reactions to being conned into admitting he feels actual human emotions occasionally beyond just frustration or anger.
That's obviously why he's here. He never confesses a need to talk, ever, unless it's about work. But it's got to be something Izzy gets around to in his own time, carefully, and overthinking every single step. The slightest nudge is going to send him spinning, Ed can see that so clearly just from the uneasy set of his shoulders after this many years spent living in each other's pockets and navigating each other's mood swings and tempers. Best not push him.
But the silence is growing increasingly awkward as Izzy obviously struggles with whatever he's trying to line up in his head, and Ed's never been any good at awkward silences.
"Want me to start guessing?" he asks.
"Shut up," Izzy snaps, then closes his eyes and rubs them with his thumb and forefinger. "Sorry."
"No worries, man," Ed says, soft and, he hopes, encouraging. Open. Whatever a friend is supposed to be. He's never had much cause to be this kind of friend before, even to Izzy. Ed's just not the type of person that others seem eager to confide in, despite being able to easily control and charm a whole auditorium of rapt fans with little more than a quirked eyebrow and a dark look.
But again the silence stretches out, unpleasantly strained like a balloon holding one too many breaths.
"Spit it out, Iz!" Ed finally says, too impatient to bear it any more.
He's confused when Izzy sets his bottle back on the table with a determined clink and lifts the hem of his t-shirt.
"What—"
"Just fucking look, will you?" Izzy says.
It's hard to tell his tone. Unhappy, but not exactly sad. Afraid, maybe, but defiant too, like he's expecting an argument or some vicious taunting to follow whatever point he's trying to make. He reaches back behind his neck, gathering a fistful of cotton and hauling the t-shirt right off over his head, leaving his hair in disarray.
When he twists away from Ed, the bare skin sliding over the muscles and bones in his back catches the lamplight in countless stripes and divots. Some are old, turned white and ghostly and a little bit wrinkled with the years. Some are pink and shiny, the regrown skin smooth amid the sparse patches of soft dark hair. And some are new—not brand new, not from the last couple of days, but new enough still to be swollen and bruised and covered over with long lines of dry maroon scabs, or irregular little circle ones where small chunks of skin have been gouged away more than split open.
Ed recognises the brutal, beautiful marks on Izzy's skin as surely as an artist might recognise the path of their own pencil in a forgotten old sketchbook. He's not done anything this hard to anybody for the best part of a year now, not since before leaving London, but he'll never not know the scattered impact pattern of the metal-tipped cat he made and sold and used on the people who wanted it, if he agreed they could take so much and come out still safe and sane on the other side. Like a firework mid-explosion, he thinks, staring at Izzy's scabbed wounds and mottled bruises. Like a blown dandelion clock, if dandelions bit like knives.
"Fuck," he whispers, suddenly dry in the mouth enough to sound pinched and hoarse. Is he turned on? He doesn't think so. Those snap reactions are there sometimes no matter how bad the injuries are and on whose skin, and it's Ed's problem to justify that to himself, or not. "Mate, that's too much."
And Izzy actually laughs? At this? Fucking madman.
"Yeah," he agrees simply. He twists back round a little way to glance at Ed, and Ed feels a lurch of fear that he'll crack some of those dry little scabs with the stretch of his skin and start welling up with beads of fresh blood again through the broken bits of protection and healing. "I want it to be too much." For a second then Izzy hesitates, shifting onto his knees on the thick carpet to lean his elbows and forearms against the seat cushion of the sofa. "Not want," he amends quietly. "Fucking hate it. Just need it, always have. Can't really explain."
"You don't have to explain shit, you think I've not heard every kind of story there is?"
Carefully, Ed eases Daphne off his lap and she settles fully onto the floor with a displeased sort of grumble so he can shuffle a bit closer to Izzy, studying the old scars layered under the new little wounds, and it seems like Izzy's holding his breath now. He's as still as stone, without being told as obedient as anyone Ed ever gave an order to, until at last he needs to let out his breath in a long, trembling sigh.
"You looking for something in particular?" Izzy asks, sounding his usual irritable, impatient self. "The scars go right down near the back of my knees, if you were wondering."
He wasn't, but he's not surprised. Stede's got a few gentle little scars down the tender backs of his thighs now, too. Nothing a tenth as vicious as this, and what caused them was a force he begged for and Ed made him work for slowly over several weeks. They talked about it for a long time after and eventually decided, together, that instruments causing blood weren't the kind of things they wanted to keep playing about with. But Ed absolutely understands the draw of those twin smooth white empty canvases, and even now he sometimes ends up lying with his head pillowed on one of Stede's thighs, stroking and kissing those three healed hair-thin whip marks while Stede sighs his name and grinds his cock hard against the bed pleading to be bitten there right on the memory of the pain.
"It's too fucking much," Ed tells him again, because it fucking is. This is insane brutality. For years he's worked people over himself to a level he never, ever thought he would when all of this started, and sometimes it's been too much for him and he's not allowed himself the time and space to study how he felt about it. It was always so much easier to brick it up and cram the Blackbeard mask back on, just make sure the people he played so hard with were doing okay afterwards, which they always were—relaxed and content, or euphoric, or devastated in a way both they and Ed recognised as a relief so deep that it couldn't be expressed honestly in any way but tears and incoherent thanks. He imagines being the one to carve flecks of flesh out of his friend's back like this, like he's done to countless other people before, and the revulsion he feels like a wave through his core is enough to make him momentarily dizzy.
Izzy turns to sit cross-legged again and finds his t-shirt, pulling it back on and settling the cotton over his soft belly where Ed glimpses some more scars—some very obviously from blades, some that might be cigarette burns. Izzy leans back against the cushions again, and he doesn't wince at the pressure on his healing back.
"It's not too much," he says simply. "It's just what I do. Looks worse than it is, with all the bruising still swelling everything up. I'll show you in a couple of weeks if you want. I bruise badly, but anything that splits the skin a bit usually heals well."
For a long few seconds Ed searches for something to say. Eventually he settles on a soft, helpless, "Fucking hell, mate," and for some reason that is the thing to prod a real grin out of Izzy.
For the briefest moment he looks like the quiet, intense young man Ed befriended in Manchester a million years ago, who gave him cigarettes and condoms when he needed them and rarely asked for anything back, and shared his room in Fang's overcrowded house full of strays, and politely pretended he was asleep or needed to go and do something important elsewhere if Ed ever brought some bloke back there, and lent Ed his first leather jacket and cap then told him to keep them because they suited him.
"Should've told you years ago," Izzy says. He takes another drink from his bottle, resting the cool glass against his cheek when he's done like he's trying to soothe the flush of embarrassment at finally saying all of this, even though none of it is even showing on his face.
Ed probably doesn't need to ask, but does anyway just to keep the conversation moving now it's started. It would be so easy for Izzy to stumble and freeze up again like he always does. It would be easy for Ed to. "Why didn't you?"
"No point," Izzy says. He seems to be thinking for a while, an odd hazy sort of distance in his eyes before he blinks and it's gone. "Reputation and rules and expectations and all that. It matters. Probably shouldn't, but it does. Thought you'd gone and fucked it at LeatherCon, you know? When you and Bonnet did your little switch-up and you went out there, I mean fucking Blackbeard went out there and knelt for a fucking baron's son and you let him whip you in front of all those people with a handful of your own cut hair."
"I mean it does sound fucking nuts when you put it in those words," Ed admits grudgingly. He finds himself mirroring Izzy's posture, leaning against the seat cushions, and it somehow feels easier to talk side by side like this, where they don't need to make a point of avoiding eye contact. "Turned out alright, though, didn't it?"
Now it's Izzy's turn to sound reluctant. "Suppose so, yeah."
"Was it or was it not the best event sales we've ever had?"
"Coincidence," Izzy says, surly, but Ed's pretty sure he's kidding. "I just—I have a fucking hard time with you sometimes, you know? You just wander along making your little craft projects—which are genuinely brilliant, by the way, don't ever think I'm shitting on your genius. But you're so fucking impulsive and easily distracted and still you always seem to fall on your feet. Don't think you realise the rest of us aren't that blessed. You drag me and Fang and Ivan with you when you get your mad fucking ideas and this cursed need to drop everything and just do them right now, and yeah they've always worked out so far, but I don't think you know it's because the rest of us are bailing water like crazy while you just steer through the storm cos to you it looks like sunshine."
Ed can't even be impressed at the deftness of the metaphor—something he thinks Stede would appreciate and probably steal to use himself, at least if he didn't know it was Izzy's first—because he's too offended at the implication he's some kind of fucking brainless clown without a real care in the world. "You do remember that whole ongoing clinical depression thing, right?"
Izzy doesn't look sorry in the slightest, just turns and gives him a calm, level stare. "Yeah. I remember doing my job and yours and making sure one of us was round to feed you once a day and dump you in the bath once a week when you couldn't do it yourself. Not your fault. Not saying it is. I'd do the same tomorrow if you needed it and Bonnet wasn't here to kiss your boo-boos."
"Fuck off," Ed tells him, swinging his knee over sharply to bump off Izzy's. He's not cross. Just tired, now. Unsure where all of this is going and how much good it's even doing. He feels raw, kind of scraped out, like the vanilla pods he learned to open this past Sunday when he decided to painstakingly try and teach himself how to make Stede's favourite pretty little pastel macarons from a YouTube video. Scary sadistic Blackbeard, carefully swirling baby pink and soft green meringue onto baking paper in a kitchen full of beautiful Victorian tiles, while his beautiful blond boyfriend sat at the table with a crochet hook and turned a ball of fine white cotton into a fancy lace doily to put beneath their spoiled dog's water bowl. "What's your point?"
Izzy actually thinks about it for a bit, like he's truly considering how to say it best. "We've all got our own ways to cope with our own shit," he manages eventually. "But me and you aren't that different. We push through til we have a fucking breakdown, then recover just enough to do it all again. Only real difference is your breakdowns are mostly crying in bed and not washing your hair for a month and wishing you were fucking dead. Mine are fucking off back to Manchester and getting someone to beat the shit out of me and piss in my face til I wish I was fucking dead." He's picking at a frayed little hole in the knee of his jeans, pensive. "You ever get to a point where you think, but I'm not dead? And nothing's changed, just suddenly you feel powerful, not miserable?"
Ed nods slowly. "You get like, well, fuck, there it is, rock bottom. Unbelievable. I've fucking done it, and somehow I'm still breathing? Nice job, you scrappy little bastard. And that's the day you get out your festering bed and turn the shower on for the first time in weeks." Something else catches up with him, and he asks, "It's not Fang doing it, then?"
"Course not," Izzy scoffs, looking almost offended. "I mean, he did offer. He's always known. He knew before you even showed up and did something weird to my brain. Wouldn't work, especially now we're, you know."
"Boooyfriends," Ed teases, and yelps a pained laugh when Izzy flings a fist out to punch him hard in the arm, deadening the muscle. "Fuck off, that really hurt!" He rubs the sore spot slowly, flexing his fingers trying to bring some life back to his bicep. "Fang could mess you up good, if that's really what you need. I've seen what he can do. Taught me how to be Blackbeard, didn't he?"
Izzy shrugs. "Wouldn't work. I have to believe it's real or it just does fuck all for me. I mean I always know it's not real, but I wouldn't be able to pretend enough with him. He—well, none of your fucking business, actually, but he's kind of taken over some stuff since he moved in. But next time I need torturing, I mean seriously ripped apart and not just, you know, the uzhe, it won't be him doing it."
"Suppose that makes sense," Ed says softly. He's thinking about all the times over the years when he's needed someone to show him the strength of a new paddle or whip or whatever before he felt comfortable letting himself loose with it on anyone else's skin. Fang swung them like they were extensions of his body, flawless aim and beautiful control, easily changing pattern and force when Ed asked him to show him a different angle or the effect the instrument had on another part of him. It hurt, and he didn't know yet that it was even possible to enjoy being dominated the way he so often does now with Stede. It was clear in an objective sort of way how skilled Fang was with this kind of activity, and Ed adores him more than almost anybody in the world, but when the spark's not there it's just not there.
Maybe Izzy reads his mind a little bit. People always said it was like they could do that.
"Wanted to tell you so many times," Izzy says, keeping his eyes on Barbarella's sleepy little body curled into a cosy ball beside him instead of looking at Ed. "Just couldn't. Feels fucking stupid now. So..." His voice fades off, and he looks frustrated as he searches for the right word. "Repressed, maybe. I was scared of fucking everything back then, doing what we did for a living, in the shitty time we did it. Like we fell into it so easily, none of it happened on purpose. It was all just luck and your bastard charm."
"And your admin skills," Ed says helpfully, and Izzy throws a liquorice twist at him.
"Shut up, I'm serious. For years it just felt like the whole thing might collapse as quick as it grew up. Never wanted to cause any cracks and risk it. And then me and you had known each other ten years and twenty years and now almost fucking thirty years and how are you meant to just bring a thing like this up out of nowhere after so long?"
"It's not going that bad, actually," Ed says with a mock-comforting pat on Izzy's knee. He pops the liquorice in his mouth and chews, grimaces when he remembers he doesn't actually like it all that much, and chases it with two Percy Pigs. "Why now, though? I mean, I'm glad you wanna talk about it, if it's weighing you down. I'm here for you, man, seriously, any time, any reason. But what's brought it on?"
It's hard to tell sometimes what's Izzy's weird dark sense of humour and what's just because he laughs without wanting to when he's anxious or feeling awkward. His eyes are sparkling now, enjoying that he's about to make Ed very uncomfortable about something, and he's very clearly trying not to grin.
"The bloke who did my back. You invited him up for a visit last week."
"Oh fuck," Ed whispers, squeezing his eyes shut and banging his forehead a few times off his drawn up knees while Izzy chuckles like a panto villain beside him. "Fuck's sake! You should have said, dickfuck! No wonder you've been acting like a prick this whole time. I thought you just didn't like him."
"No, I like him fine," Izzy says, although not entirely convincingly. "And obviously he's a fucking virtuoso at what he does. I knew he wouldn't tell you. Just also knew you'd see me acting weird around him and know right away something was up. Couldn't face you sniffing around trying to figure it out. And don't try and pretend you wouldn't," he adds, interrupting Ed who's just about to protest. "Nosy twat, you'd have been right in there interrogating me. Then Bonnet would've got involved, and it all would've just got out of hand."
"Fine," Ed concedes, determined not to be graceful about it. "What changed, then? He only went home yesterday. That's a pretty fucking quick change of mind."
"I dunno," Izzy says, and he sounds like he genuinely means it, too. His brows crinkle faintly, something like confusion creeping into his expression, and it makes sense with what he says next. "Lucius was gonna fuck him. I don't care, none of us own each other, he can do whatever he wants with anyone. The thing is, he didn't. Came over to my place instead and—well, never mind that bit."
"Was it filthy?" Ed asks immediately, more to be annoying on purpose than because he actually wants details. "Was it really fucking sick?"
And Izzy, the bastard, goes and ruins the banter by being genuine. "No," he says. He sounds vaguely baffled, like he's still trying to process this unexpected, enormous thing that happened several days ago, and for some reason finding it far more difficult than the tales of being flayed into and out of a breakdown at regular intervals for most of his life. "Just came over to mine and got in my bed and, you know. Just. He—fucking hugged me. For ages. And said Smollet was 'fit as fuck'"—Izzy makes air quotes with his fingers, a very Lucius sort of gesture in itself—"but he'd rather be home with me than anywhere with him."
"Oh, no. Oh, fuck, that's cute," Ed says dreamily, clutching his chest over his heart with only a little bit of taunting exaggeration. "Your boyfriend's really cute, man. Who'd have expected that?"
"They're all cute," Izzy points out, just a little bit smugly. Something seems to have shifted between them at last and Ed grins at him, easier than it's felt in ages.
"All three boyfriends of the fearsome Izzy Hands are cute."
"Too bad the great and mighty Blackbeard's screwing a—"
"Fuck you!"
Ed throws a Percy Pig at him with sniper-level accuracy to shut him up, bouncing it right off his head, and Izzy snatches it quickly off the carpet before Barbarella can wake up and snaffle it. He grimaces as he chews and swallows, then casually remarks, "You know I was in love with you for years, don't you?"
"Oh. I mean, yeah, mate, I kind of got the feeling you were," Ed tells him gently. Things are shifting again—not awkward, but to a strange, nebulous place of cautious peace between them, where things unsaid for so, so many years can be talked about just as long as they don't have to look at each other. "Sorry I couldn't, you know. Give you much of that back."
Izzy shrugs. "Didn't need it. Wouldn't have known what to do with it, anyway. You gave me enough."
"Come on, man, I never gave you shit." Ed's curling bits of Daphne's shaggy hair around his fingers now, something to keep his eyes trained on so he doesn't have to look at Izzy and probably just nope out of the conversation like the useless fucking selfish coward he knows he is right when it seems to be getting to a new and vital point. "I'm a selfish prick always making my lame crises everyone else's problem too and sucking all the air out the room. Pretty sure you saved my life, though. Hope you know that. Lots of tempting high bridges over the Thames and it was always you talking me down."
They're both silent for a while, and Ed can feel Izzy watching him but can't bear to see what kind of expression is on his face.
"That's kinda why I don't really like going on the pier now," Ed admits. "I mean the arcades, great. The rides, love them. There's just something about seeing a big stretch of water the other side of an easily climbable barrier." It makes him shiver, rolling his shoulders trying to get the uneasy tingling to fuck off. "Always kinda sends me back to all the times I got pissed and just hung out somewhere on the river wondering if the fall's high enough to kill you quickly or you'd just bob about in pain with a broken back for a while then get decapitated by a boat."
Izzy snorts a soft little unamused laugh. "Not the kind of end I'd have pictured for the legendary Blackbeard."
"Yeah." He's not wrong. Blackbeard would better suit some melodramatic Bat Out of Hell-style motorbike crash, or a horrifyingly bloody freak accident involving a table saw and a small earthquake, or a collapsing shelf in a storage room that leaves him crushed to death under a mountain of massive dongs. "Felt about all Ed was worth, though."
"You still want Disco Inferno playing at your funeral?" Izzy asks.
That startles a laugh out of Ed, an unexpectedly genuine one right from his gut. "Fuck, I forgot I even said that! Yours was—"
"Highway to Hell," Izzy says with him. There's a grin in his voice, Ed can hear it so clearly. It pangs a bit somewhere deep, tugging at rusty old memories that creak when they're jostled.
They were closer, weren't they, when they were younger? There's something odd and distorted about Ed's memories sometimes, at least the ones from the early days of meeting Fang and Izzy and the rest of the Flintlock Club guys when he was still reeling from all that came before. The newer ones are clearer, but by then they'd started settling more deeply into their tragically ill-fitting personas, and whatever ease he feels sure they once had, a really long time ago and for such a short little section of their entwined lives, was already hardening like the blood on the rope he tried to strangle his father with when his trembling fifteen-year-old fists weren't enough to do the job alone.
Ed scoots closer across the carpet and Izzy watches his approach warily as if he's got absolutely no idea what's going on until Ed's arms are awkwardly around him. Apparently he really didn't know. He goes rigid, not fighting the embrace but not even slightly returning it. He's barely even breathing.
"Dickfuck, don't do this to me now," Ed mutters right in his ear, sort of joking, sort of not. "We had a moment. It was nice. Your boyfriends are cute. Love that for you. I know you know how to hug a bloke."
"Not one I don't want to shag," Izzy says bluntly, but his hands still creep around Ed's back and he squeezes a little bit, tentative, awkward, like he's worried Ed might shatter. "I don't think we're the kind of mates who hug, Edward."
"Once in a blue moon yes we fucking are," Ed insists.
Maybe it's the accidental Blackbeard voice that does it. Oops.
Izzy sags against him, some desperate kind of relief finally relaxing the stiff hunch of his shoulders and making him, letting him, cling on so fiercely to Ed that for the moment before they resettle more comfortably it's difficult to expand his chest enough to take a full breath. "I'm glad you made me move here," Izzy admits, low and secret against Ed's ear even though there's nobody else around to overhear except the two sleeping dogs.
Ed tucks his cheek against Izzy's shoulder, trying to get comfortable with this entirely unfamiliar body. How the fuck can his best friend feel this much of a stranger? He remembers the easy, constant intimacy of Stede and Lucius bending their heads together over wedding magazines to whisper giddily about stupid shit like chair covers and napkin thread counts, or the screaming laughter when they're playing some bastardisation of water polo in the sea with Jim and Olu, chucking an old football back and forth while the ones playing the horses splutter in the waves and try, usually unsuccessfully, to stop the others from toppling off their shoulders. With him and Izzy, it's more often late nights in the workshop with some old Pearl Jam playlist humming from the speakers, sketching ideas and discussing boring budgets and squabbling about how many shows or interviews or Instagram sponsors Ed's allowed to say fuck no to before he has to grudgingly accept one. Or it's quiet nights in the pub, switching off, sitting together in silence in a dark, cramped booth while everyone chatters around them or somehow gets rowdy over a game of fucking dominoes. Sometimes they spend an evening at the other's place watching films or playing video games and talking about nothing much, or take the dogs out for a run on the beach if Stede and Fang are busy. Is that friendship? Yes. But could it, and should it, be better than that, like he's certain it once was? Yes.
"Didn't make you do anything," Ed tells him, and Izzy snorts something like a laugh and thumps him lightly between the shoulderblades.
"I'd follow you fucking anywhere and you know it. Course you made me move. Wouldn't even know who I am any more without you and all the stupid shit you make me deal with."
"Ask your boyfriends," Ed tells him, giving him a last little squeeze and a quick, fond kiss on the cheek near the cross tattoo that all of Fang's rescued Lost Boys decided to get one day. "You've got enough of them. One's got to know."
Finally Izzy shoves Ed away back towards his own spot on the carpet. This time he actually is flushed a little bit in the cheeks, although there's no telling whether it's embarrassment or pleasure or just the sweaty summer warmth of being grabbed and breathed on.
"Lucky for you I'm a fucking enormous masochist," he says, and his gaze flutters downwards as though the words and the eye contact happening at the same time are just a little bit too much to handle. Ed wonders if Izzy's ever said that out loud before. Thinks no, he probably hasn't. Thinks he might just treasure this extraordinary little gift until the day he dies in Stede's arms at a hundred and five like they promised. "No other twat's tough enough to put up with your constant bollocks."
They're dozing in front of the television at opposite ends of the sofa with the dogs curled up between them when the front door clatters open, and Daphne and Barbarella jolt awake, tripping over each other and barking with delight trying to be the first one to reach Stede and Lucius in the hall.
"Shhh!" Stede hisses, far more noisily than a shhh has any need to be. "Oh, bloody hell. Get off, you little hellion, that's daddy's kebab!"
"That better fucking not have been a euphemism," Izzy mutters, scratchy and grumpy from his interrupted nap, and Ed's full enough of cider that he can't stop giggling as Stede and Lucius make their way into the living room holding greasy chip shop parcels out of the way of the leaping dogs.
"Izzabella," Stede says grandly, presenting him with a cone of chips. Of all things he's found a hot pink cocktail umbrella from fuck knows where and jabbed it into the lip of the polystyrene. "Gluten-free for madame!"
Lucius almost drops the tray of mushy peas and scraps he's trying to hand to Ed, drunkenly stumbling on a squeaky dog toy and making it wail a long, painful huff of air when he shifts his foot. "Snot and bits for Dadbeard!"
"Looks like you pair had a good night," Ed manages to say around a wide yawn. He flaps Lucius away and grabs Stede's wrist, tugging him down to sit beside him so they can mix their kebab meat and peas and scraps into an unholy, disgusting-looking, absolutely delicious heap of slop to share.
"Yeah—you missed us smashing It's Raining Men, hope your sad little DVD night was worth it," Lucius says back, pulling a face after kissing Izzy hello. "Eat your chips, liquorice breath, I'm not putting my tongue in that mouth again til you wash it out."
Ed pats all around him, finally finding his phone where it's slipped down the side of the cushion, and discovers a message from Fang with the video as requested. He watches it while Stede feeds him the chippy sludge with a wooden fork, not bothering to ask if Izzy wants to see it too because Lucius has apparently taken only two seconds to forget his anti-liquorice stance and is sprawled half across his lap with his hands wound through Izzy's hair, kissing him furiously like the survival of the entire world depends on it. The cone of chips is miraculously still upright, tucked between the thighs of his jeans. That's the move of a man who's done this before, Ed thinks, and the grin cracking his face now is probably quite Zippy from Rainbow-ish.
"It's not that good," Stede says, a tad suspiciously. He rests his head on Ed's shoulder, watching the last few seconds of the video until the music gets replaced by whoops and applause and then cuts off.
"No, it's fucking awful," Ed agrees happily. He scoops up some more meat and peas, making an aeroplane noise and—whoops—crashes accidentally into Stede's cheek, leaving a lumpy smear of green there.
Stede giggles and swipes it away, standing up briefly on wobbly legs to put the remains of the food on the shelf above the sofa where the dogs can't get it before settling back down across Ed's lap this time, face to face. "You're drunk, Tedward," he accuses, rapping his knuckles lightly on Ed's forehead like he's knocking on a door. "No brains left in there. Only cider and sweeties."
"You're drunk, Stedie Nicks," Ed argues, and steals a wet, inelegant kiss to explore for clues under the greasy remnants of the kebab meat. "You taste like cherry bakewells."
"Cherry amaretto sours on special tonight," Stede informs him in another loud stage whisper. Who he's trying to keep this a secret from, Ed doesn't know. He's sure Lucius is already aware, and Izzy is very unlikely to give a shit, going by the amount of rummaging that seems to be happening under his t-shirt where Lucius has snaked his hand. "We got a sharing jug each and twirly straws. The Swede's idea to avoid the bar queues. That man's a genius."
"Mmm, he is," Ed purrs, already forgetting who they're talking about and going in for another sweet sample of the drink lingering faintly in Stede's mouth. There's a warm, pleasant tingle low in his stomach, beginning to spread through him, and he thinks maybe Stede can feel it too because he's getting very wiggly astride him. "You found something down there you like, baby?" Ed asks, kissing messily over Stede's stubbled chin and down to nuzzle at his neck until Stede is laughing, tipsy and delighted at being manhandled so brazenly.
"You know I love a long, sweet, fruity cocktail," he announces with an attempt at a sultry sort of look that doesn't quite reach the Hedy Lamarr level he's probably aiming for but just about scrapes a lewd Terry-Thomas leer.
"Fruity," Ed chokes, pushing his mouth against the open collar of Stede's pink blouse and hooting laughter against his skin until the helpless gasping makes a huge ridiculous raspberry sound and sets Stede off as well.
"Pardon you," Lucius says, glaring at them. Izzy seems far too dazed from the ferocious kiss attack to look anywhere but at him, a little bit soft and sleepy with his hair sticking up in all directions from the hungry slide of clutching fingers, even when Stede yelps in surprise and claps his hand hard over his mouth.
"Pardon you!" he retorts through his fingers. "I forgot you two were still here. Take your chips and bugger off, I can't do what I'm about to do with an audience."
"Well, not with that attitude you can't," Lucius tells him, all raised eyebrows and curling smirk until Stede hides his face in Ed's neck again, quietly giggling to himself. "Come on, babe," he adds to Izzy, and offers a hand to help him up off the couch, the other one still clutching the miraculously unspilled cone of chips which are probably stone cold and disgusting by now. "Apparently it's not raining men after all."
There's a second where Ed thinks he and Izzy might hug again at the door. They've worked through enough of the booze in the fridge to blame their loosened inhibitions on that more than whatever tentative, tender sort of understanding has passed between them tonight—but maybe the moment is over, at least for now, and really that feels okay. They say goodnight like they always do, casual and no fuss, and Ed heads back inside to the cosy solitude of his home—to Daphne snuffling hopefully around the carpet for lost chips, and to Stede passed out and snoring with his mouth wide open on the sofa.
Ed should wake him and hustle him into bed. He could even risk doing himself an injury and carry Stede to bed. That would be quite romantic, wouldn't it? Maybe not though, not if he accidentally drops Stede on his face or slips a disc in his own back trying to haul the dead weight of this drunken, snoring, impossibly lovely man into his arms.
He sits on the floor again instead, right where he sat earlier listening to Izzy talk and talk more honestly than the two of them have talked in years.
"Been a hell of a night," Ed says to Stede, gently brushing the sweaty hair back off his forehead. "Glad you had a good one. Sorry I missed your big performance. Sorry you went and fucking passed out on me before I could feed you this long fruity cocktail."
He snort-laughs into his hand, trying and failing to keep quiet, but Stede never stirs so Ed just lets the drunken chuckles come and go at will until they're all worked out of him and he's quiet again, stroking a fingertip gently up and down Stede's bristly jaw.
"You're pretty," he murmurs. Stede just snores on.
It feels strange, and strangely magical. An odd, rare occasion when Stede is here but not here, present to be whispered to but in no state to remember anything. Ed could tell him anything he wants right now, share anybody's secrets when he doesn't have permission to share, and do it with a clear conscience. Maybe talking it over will settle the whirring, whirling motion in his head that he knows is going to keep him from sleep for a long time tonight, no matter how tired he is.
"I love you," he whispers instead. It feels nice to say, even if Stede's not listening. He probably should have said it more often over the years than he has, and that's not a regret he intends to carry any further than right here and right now.
Ed tucks himself close behind Stede on the wide sofa cushions and pulls the throw blanket over them, and he manages to say I love you three hundred and fourteen times before sleep gently finds him.