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Technically it’s Stede’s fault.
Like, Ed only called him babe, and it was once, and besides which, Frenchie calls people babe all the time and he’s literally aro, so it doesn’t have to mean anything. Is the argument he would make if Stede had bothered to ask.
But he didn’t, and he doesn’t, and instead tries to instigate— psychological warfare, is what Ed would call it, again, if anyone asks. Because they get fully settled in their table gearing up for pub trivia night, and then Stede leans over and says, with a wink “Sweetheart, I’m going to hit the bar, would you like anything?”
Sweetheart.
It sets Ed’s heart fluttering, it makes him blush, he’s half liable to swoon, because Ed would love to be Stede’s sweetheart, or really his anything beyond his super casual best buddy Ed, but Ed’s been dropping hints like stitches when he tries to knit hungover for years, and no one can be that oblivious unless they’re just not interested. And the wink. It has the flavor of a bit. Like a game, like “sure, call me babe, I’ll one up you with ‘sweetheart’.”
And Ed doesn’t lose games with Stede, doesn’t ever step on his bits, so instinct takes over and he immediately responds back “Why thank you, love, could you grab me that mocktail they make, the Havana?”
And then Stede fires back “Anything you like, angel cakes,” and disappears to the bar, and “angel cakes” is definitely disgusting and it’s definitely a game and Ed is definitely going to win. Lucius is looking at him like he’s trying to solve a puzzle, but that’s something for later Ed to deal with, when Lucius is three drinks in and sloppy enough to cause problems on purpose, instead of just on accident like he normally does.
Ed starts strategizing. What’s the metric here? Most saccharine? Most romantic? Flowery, poetic? Knowing Stede, the answer is all of the above, applied as creatively as possible, which means Ed has his work cut out for him, and when Stede makes his way back from the bar and sets their drinks down, Ed is ready to do his country proud and take home gold in— whatever it is they’re doing tonight.
“Thank you, my succulent gum drop.”
“Hm,” Stede says.
“Hm, what hm?” For a moment Ed panics, did he misread this? Did Stede even notice what he was doing? But no, no, Stede just scrunches up his nose (negative).
“Well, seems a bit gauche, since I’ve been on a sweets theme for my pet names. Bit copy cat if you ask me.”
“Hmmf, I’ll show you copy cat,” Ed mutters into his drink and takes a sip.
“I’m sure you will, precious little kitten that you are,” Stede says, and then sips his drink, looking innocently over the rim of his glass.
“Gross,” says Lucius, to which Ed can only bite back—
“Unfair, you and Pete are way worse.”
Wrong thing to say, because Lucius just arches his brow like he’s won something. “Sooo true, Edward, me and my boyfriend are much worse than that.”
Ed does not like his tone, and elects to ignore it.
Besides, he’s behind, “precious little kitten” was good, and definitely did not stir something in Ed that he will be unpacking somewhere between several hours later in his own dark bedroom and never at all actually and thanks for asking. Certainly not now, especially since the MC is announcing ten minutes to the start of trivia, and that’s another game Ed refuses to lose, even though the group keeps threatening to bar him and Stede from ever captaining trivia again because they’re “way too intense” about it. Their friends just have no spirit of competition.
“Loveykins,” Stede says in Ed’s ear, and it’s actually fucked up that a horrible pet name like that still has the power to make Ed shiver, just a little, but Ed’s no slouch.
“Yes, honey-bunches-of-oats?”
Stede wrinkles his nose again but doesn’t take the bait. “Could you grab the trivia sheets from the MC for us?”
“Oh, yeah, sure thing, my artichoke center.”
Stede looks at him in confusion— What?— as he stands to go grab the papers, but Ed says nothing. Let Stede figure that one out himself. Ed’ll wait.
(My heart, Ed thinks loudly in his direction.)
He collects the sheets with a nod to the MC, and swings back around to the table, just catching the end of Lucius saying—
“— is, it’s disgusting and it needs to stop.”
Stede looks serenely at Lucius, and then up at Ed, same serene look and a bigger smile. “I haven’t the foggiest notion what you’re talking about Lucius, I’m just trying to enjoy pub trivia night with my friends and the shining beacon of light to my heart awash in a sea of darkness.”
Lucius groans, Frenchie asks him why you even bother?, Roach and Pete wisely keep to themselves, and Ed ups the ante.
“Don’t have to try too hard, sugar britches, every day with you is a joy.”
“Awww, snookums, that’s so sweet. Now focus up, that group from the retirement home is here again and we are not repeating the St. Patrick’s day massacre.”
“You got it pookums.”
“Wookums, have you seen my pen? I swear I left it on the table.”
“Yeah, nookums, it started to roll away, so I put it in my pocket, here—”
“Why thank you, tookums.”
“Of course—”
Ed is mercifully cut off by the MC starting her trivia intro, because he honestly doesn’t know how he was going to come up with another rhyme without it getting inexcusably weird, and then they’re caught up in the fierce competition that is trivia night when Stede hasn’t yet had enough of his wine to be fun bitchy, and is mostly just mean bitchy, and Ed can’t spare the brain cells for anything more creative or disgusting than “shmoopsy-poo” and “sweet cheeks”, not that he’s dropping the bit, he’s just easing up, and to be fair, Stede is matching him, absently dropping “sugar bear” and “lovebug” as they work their way through the trivia prompts.
And then trivia is over, Ed is sipping the dregs of his third havana, and Stede is triumphantly striding up to the MC to drop off their trivia sheet, and then flouncing back to their table, and depositing himself into the chair right next to Ed.
“Well, my sparkling moon and stars, I firmly believe we have that one in the bag, if I do say so myself,” Stede says, that smug Stede smirk that gives Ed a complicated rage response where it’s like— he’s so cute and handsome, but he’s so so smug, and Ed can’t even kiss him about it so his knee jerk reaction is to smack him.
(He never has. One time when he was drunk he almost did, but he was drunk, so he missed, and Stede was drunk, so he thought Ed was going for a bug. It’s best forgotten entirely, to be honest.)
“Well, sugar tits—” Lucius audibly gags. Again. “— you know what they say about counting your chickens before they hatch.”
Stede goes pink around the cheeks at that one— Ed swears he does, it’s not even the heat of the bar or the alcohol, it’s pink-er, and Ed might actually win this one, he might actually get Stede to tap out, because blushing is Stede’s first precursor to stumbling over his words, and if Ed can get Stede to stumble over his words, then that’s the night in the bag—
“You are, of course, correct, lover,” Stede says into his drink, and—
And—
And Ed doesn’t know why, they’ve been ribbing each other all night, it’s silly, it’s just a game, Ed knows it’s a game, Stede knows it’s a game, the whole damn bar knows it’s a game, so why, why is that the one that hits him right in the gut? Why is that the one that has Ed curling in himself, hunching up his shoulders like it’ll protect him from the shame, the embarrassment, because of course Ed would never be Stede’s lover, would never be anything but his good friend, Stede would never want him like that, and, haha, it’s so fucking funny to everyone else in the whole fucking world.
But not to Ed.
No. Not fucking funny anymore.
Ed shoves back his chair and moves to stand, bites out a strangled you won.
“Ed?”
“Don’t wanna play anymore.”
“Wait, Ed—”
But Ed’s already on his way to the bathroom, racing the tears prickling at the corners of his eyes, because he is so fucking stupid and he is not gonna let anyone see him cry, not when the only person he can blame is his own damn self.
He shoves his way into the bathroom and finds the very last stall in the row to lock himself into, and the second the door latches, the tears come, hot and fat and wet.
And it’s dumb, he’s never fucking cried about Stede before, even at his most pathetic. Him and Stede, their relationship is good, Ed’s literally never had a friend like Stede. And Ed had resigned himself to that relationship staying firmly in the friendship arena a long time ago— there’s only so hard you can throw yourself at a guy before you just have to accept that it’s not gonna happen, but that was fine, because they could still do a lot of the things Ed wanted from a life partner— someone to run errands with, someone to cook for, someone to see new movies with, someone to accompany him to all the dumb events being an adult seemed to require of him. Stede was always down for all of it.
But something about—
Lover.
All of that, plus. All of that, and more. All of that, and all of the things, the closeness, the touch, the tenderness, the intimacy, all of that syrupy sweet shit Ed hadn’t had since long before Stede came into his life, actually never really had except in tiny little chopped up pieces scattered throughout his life.
It just fucking stung.
Ed was never gonna get over Stede, and Stede was never gonna be into him like that, and Ed was actually, really, truly gonna go the entire rest of his life as no one’s lover, as no one’s darling, as no one’s sticky sweet kitten mitten, which was kinda gross, but for Stede, Ed would probably be it, not that he was ever gonna find out, because Stede didn’t want him—
“Ed?”
There’s a tentative knock on the door.
“Ed’s not here,” Ed says through his sniffles. Who knows, maybe the sobs will disguise his voice. “This is Jeff’s stall. And Jeff is busy. Pooping.”
“Ed, come on, if you give the same fake name every time, eventually I’m going to catch on, you know that.”
“S’not Ed, and even if it was, he’s pooping.”
“I can wait.”
“C’mon mate, it’s weird to just stand around listening to a guy poop, some things are meant to be between man and god.”
“Poop quietly then.”
Ed sighs, collapses against the side of the stall, his head making a hollow thunk.
“C’mon Stede, just leave it.” It’s pointless, he knows that, the only person more stubborn than Ed is Stede, and the margin is actually pretty wide, but he’s all snotty and his eyeliner is definitely smudged and if Stede isn’t permanently disgusted with him now, he sure will be, and Ed is just feeling so very fucking fragile—
“I won’t leave it, clearly you’re upset, and honestly, darling, I’m not sure why, but—”
“Stop that, we’re not playing anymore, I don’t wanna play anymore—”
“Oh, Ed, is that why you’re upset?”
Ed shrugs, even though he knows Stede can’t see it, mumbles into the wall of the stall a dejected maybe.
“I’m sorry, Ed. I didn’t mean to upset you, I thought we were having fun.”
“Kinda a mean joke though.”
“I mean, I’m used to it.”
Ed blinks, feels his lashes sticky with tears, blinks some more.
“Waddaya mean, you’re used to it?”
“Oh, you know, ha ha, who would want to date Stede Bonnet, right? It’s fine, no need to get upset on my account.”
“I would.”
Oh shit. Ed didn’t exactly mean to say that, but he’s about 70% snot by volume and his shields are down. Oh well, in for a penny.
“I would wanna date you.”
“Now Ed, that’s not funny.”
Ed takes a deep breath, pries himself up off the toilet seat and slowly, slowly, slowly slides the latch open, lets the door swing wide.
“Ed?”
“Not—” Ed sniffs, wipes at his eyes. “Not joking. Wasn’t joking. All night.”
“Oh.” Stede says, except more like, the sound escapes him in a gust, a rush of air, knocked loose with surprise, and something like hope starts building in Ed’s chest.
“If you weren’t joking… And I wasn’t joking… Then…” Stede blinks, looks like he’s trying to differentiate equations in his head, trying to piece it all together. “Well, what then?”
“Um,” Ed hedges. “I think you kiss me?”
Stede smiles, it lights up his whole face, the only word Ed can think is brilliant. And then Stede leans in, carefully cups Ed’s jaw even though it’s damp with tears, and kisses him and Ed feels brilliant, brilliant in every sense of the word, lit up from the inside, sparkling and refracting light into rainbows that arc from his chest right into Stede’s. Brilliant.
Seconds later, hours later, forever and no time at all, Stede pulls back, slow blinks his eyes back open, looks at Ed, all tender, all tender hand still cupping his jaw, and says “Hello, darling.”
And it doesn’t sting, it warms Ed all the way through to his core, because this time?
This time Ed knows he means it.