Work Text:
Like with most things, it’s not an issue until it is.
It starts to be that he can’t sleep, so he sits in the kitchen and does a word search or looks through photo albums. And then the liquor cabinet’s right there.
A night cap becomes a few drinks becomes passing out on the couch, and that has to stop. Stede finds him once, and that’s more than enough.
And then it keeps fucking happening.
It’s like because he wants to stop, he starts craving it again all the fucking time.
Of course, he can’t fucking hack it, can’t suddenly gain the self-control he’s never possessed. It’ll be better for him anyway, give his liver a break, stop worrying about timing his meds so he’s not taking them “with alcohol.” But he can’t do it because he’s a screw up and can’t do easy shit like not drinking. Easiest thing to do is to not. And yet.
And he tries to do what Abshir tells him about the other times he says mean shit to himself. Be gentle, redirect, get curious without judgment, but he can’t. Can’t manage gentle when it’s so simple and he’s still fucking failing.
It’s no fucking wonder, right?
He doesn’t remember a time his dad didn’t drink, can’t remember if he ever even saw him sober. The man was a perpetual cycle of drunk and hungover, and if Ed hadn’t taken him out, he’d have died soon enough from cirrhosis or aspirating his own vomit or crashing his car.
And the apple doesn’t fall far from the fucking tree.
Easy enough to follow in his footsteps after Ed got out of Saint Anne’s.
Right back to his old stomping grounds, then sleeping in a cot in the break room at the shop, living on Cup Noodle and microwaved hot dogs. Pawned shit to buy cigarettes, lifted fifths until he got in good enough with the guys to be part of the inner circle.
Duck to water, after that.
Became his natural state.
It was so obviously a fucking chop shop, but it did it’s best to look legit, and he could carry on with blinders to it all as long as he got hot food and a place to fucking sleep that wasn’t outside. Then he stole from the wrong fucking guy and goodbye plausible deniability—hello active member of the mafia.
And he’d thought. Well, it doesn’t fucking matter what he’d thought.
It was different then, even up until a couple years ago when he met Stede.
But he’s not like that anymore, he’s not in that headspace at all.
So, it doesn’t make fucking sense.
He could go smoke, take a walk, take a shower, chew on some ice, eat a fucking bagel just to be able to tear something apart with his teeth.
Anything.
Literally anything else.
But he doesn’t.
He grabs a bottle of vodka they only use for mixing cocktails at parties and camps out on the fucking couch because he’s too embarrassed to slide into bed next to Stede at two in the morning smelling like alcohol.
It’s Lucius who cracks the code.
Because it’s hard to talk about this shit with Stede, hard to see that distant look he gets because Ed knows he’s not the only one with a complicated relationship with alcohol. Pretty common method of escapism for their shared demographic, and he doesn’t want him actively dealing with his own shit to set Stede off.
So he just.
He keeps it to himself and does his best to make sure he’s awake before Stede comes downstairs. It’s not like it happens often.
Ed finds himself rambling because he’s anxious and on edge, and Lucius is a good listener. Asks Ed about his morning, and then the gate lifts and out sprints all…this.
As he listens, Lucius is stretched out in the shade on Stede’s gravity chair, only empty because Stede, Pete, and Roach are in the kitchen getting lunch together while the ribs smoke on the grill for dinner. Fang is coming over later with homemade ice cream, and John and Frenchie will be over after John gets off work. Mary and Doug and the kids will be here for dinner and outdoor movie night, and Jim and Olu will come by before they head to work at the bar—Jim’s bar now since the owner handed it down.
Ed’s not super sure when their house became the officially-unofficial gathering place for their very motley family, but his heart is so fucking full with it, he can’t even think to complain. Plus they all clean up after themselves, never leave jack shit for Stede or him to do before they all file out at the end of the night with hugs and kisses and well wishes.
“I don’t even like vodka,” Ed admits to Lucius, raw and embarrassed from Stede finding him on the couch just that morning with the bottle still in his hand. “And I still sat there and downed it like fucking water.” And of course Stede had handed him a glass of water and helped him upstairs and drew him a bath and brought him cut up fruit and toast with marmalade for breakfast because he’s so fucking lovely.
“You know alcoholism is an addiction, right?” He asks, tips down his sunglasses, and Ed looks up from the dowel he’s carving into a point.
“I’m not an alcoholic,” Ed denies, then blinks and looks away again. Anymore. “I don’t do sloppy shit and puke everywhere. And I don’t drink and drive or put people in danger, it’s just. You know, I can’t sleep, and so it’s. Just a. Just…Oh, my God, I’m an alcoholic,” he mutters, closes his eyes against the wave of fucking fuck Christ shit crashing around his brain.
“I hate that I had to be the one to tell you that,” Lucius sighs, and Ed looks at him. He sits upright and leans over the table between the chairs. “It’s not about liking or wanting or will power or fortitude, and it never will be.”
“So, what the fuck is it,” Ed says, can’t help how his voice flattens. This is a lot to process.
“An illness,” Lucius says, pouts in sympathy. “And when you’re sick, you don’t beat yourself up, you manage the symptoms and rest.”
“This isn’t a cold,” Ed refutes, but it’s a token objection; he’s heard the argument about depression and anxiety and PTSD and shit, but. Being hard on himself isn’t going to make him not drink: it makes him drink more. And he’s been nothing but hard on himself these past couple weeks, been saying mean shit to himself because he doesn’t know how else to respond. Because it’s. Y’know what else does Edward Teach end up as but an alcoholic? Fucking pathetic.
“Talk to your therapist,” Lucius says gently, after they sit in silence for a few long moments. “Seriously, Ed, especially if you haven’t talked about the alcohol thing. Because there’s no way Abshir wouldn’t call you on that.”
It’s not that he hasn’t talked about it…
Well, no, it specifically is. He avoids it like the plague because down that road lies. Lots of fucking pain. He doesn’t want to do the whole religious twelve step bullshit, just wants to process his shit and be done with hurting himself. He’s been looking at it all the wrong way—maybe not wrong because it’s not a matter of right and wrong, but it hasn’t been helpful. He’s got a great big battlement constructed around this part of his head, of course it’s harder to heal.
Fuck, it might just be time to start taking down the wall, to start figuring which bricks are loose and take them first, start seeing the light peeking through. He doesn’t have to confront the big shit yet, not before he’s ready. He knows that.
He returns his focus to the dowel he’s whittling, carving chunks until he’s satisfied with the length of the pointy part.
“You okay over there?” Lucius asks.
“Thinking,” Ed says.
“What about?”
“Thinkin’ Pete’ll probably be amazed by how shitty I am at carving wood,” Ed admits, and Lucius stares at him and blinks.
“I can’t believe I adopted two absolute muppets,” Lucius sighs as he reclines again, and Ed snorts a laugh and shakes his head.
“Big talk, mutton chops,” he says.
Lucius flips him the bird, and Ed drops the dowel into the little pile of stakes he’s already carved. Easier to put into the ground this way, and he wants to do a little rope fence around the mosquito dunks he’s setting up so nobody trips over them: Stede.
It’s the fuckin’ bugs he can’t stand about this gardening thing. Funny enough, the dirt’s nice, getting his fingers in it, checking on his plants and getting little green matter under his thumbnail when he takes the suckers off his tomato plants. But he smacked himself silly executing a mosquito that had gone after his forehead and that was enough. Plenty. Went inside the rest of the fucking day, even, tasks all left undone.
Fuck if he’s gonna let those little bloodsuckers ruin his peace. So: kill ‘em where they start.
Stede told him about it, said they used them at the estate in Barbados. Figures if this method can handle beefy ass tropical mosquitos, it can handle the fuckers in his backyard.
“I don’t know what I was expecting when you asked me to bring hay,” Lucius comments. “But it definitely wasn’t water-based mass extinction.”
“I did say just like a handful,” Ed argues, glancing over the the half bale Lucius had made Pete lug in from the back of his Pontiac.
“Sure, let me just go to my mother’s ranch and grab a fistful of hay for your mosquito buckets—Which are gross, by the way. This is gross,” Lucius says, gestures at the assorted supplies on the patio table.
“Thank me when you can sit out here without getting eaten alive,” Ed says, feeling vindicated when Lucius squawks and slaps his neck.
“We’re going on vacation next month, and the only thing I can think about is what I want to drink and won’t get to, and it pisses me off,” he says, crosses his arms over his cramping guts.
“And anger is?” Abshir prompts.
“A signal,” Ed says, nodding. “It’s.” He stops, eyes unfocusing to the left of the tapestry on the wall. “Right now I think it’s. Shame,” he says, shrugs and shakes his head a bit. “I feel like a fucking failure just thinking about this shit.”
“Some harsh judgment,” Abshir points out. “Calling yourself a failure for having a thought.”
“Well, I. It sounds kinda stupid when you put it like that,” he says, looks down at his hands.
“It’s not stupid,” Abshir says. “Maybe it sounds a little simple, sure. Having a thought doesn’t necessarily have to mean anything about you.”
“What does that mean?” Ed asks.
“Thinking ‘fuck, I could really use a drink’ doesn’t mean you’re a bad person. It also doesn’t necessarily mean you willhave a drink.”
“But that’s how it starts,” Ed says. “It starts with the thinking, and then it becomes. Like, fucking how pathetic am I that I can’t just not drink? That I just. Doesn’t matter how the day’s been, I always wanna end it with a drink, and I get. I get mad. For choosing not to, now. And what happens when I. When I choose to drink instead of not?”
“What does happen?” Abshir asks.
“That’s what I’m asking,” Ed says.
“I know,” Abshir says. “You’re the one who decides what happens.”
“But,” he starts, but doesn’t have anything to follow.
“I want to go back for a second, you said you’re pathetic,” Abshir says, and Ed winces.
“I’m. Well, fuckin’ yeah, I guess, I mean. Not doing something is literally the easiest thing in the world,” he says, shrugs.
“Is it?” Abshir asks.
“Yeah. Inaction takes zero effort,” he says.
“Would you say you’re putting in zero effort right now?” Abshir asks.
Ed pauses, stalls flat out and blinks.
“Nah, man, I’m putting in a shit ton of effort,” he says.
“So, what you’re doing isn’t nothing. You’re working really hard. You’re fighting,” Abshir says. Ed nods and takes a few slow breaths, lets his world recalibrate, and Abshir gives him some space before continuing. “What are some things that give you strength, especially in times where you’re fighting those impulses?” He asks.
“Uh,” he says, then blows out a sigh. “I guess doin’ something else? Like spending time with Stede, have him tell me a story or read out loud or just talk about random shit. Gettin’ outside, moving around, singing. Maybe a bath or a long shower. Like if I follow the little things my body wants to do, my brain gets quieter about the big scary shit.”
“Hell yeah, those are awesome, right, you have a distraction if you need it, and you have a way to actively process and listen to what your body is telling you. You’ve got a care task as an option, literally saying you deserve care even if you have upsetting thoughts,” Abshir says, and Ed smiles a little. “I would argue, especially if.”
“I can’t always do those things, though,” he says. “Some days I’m lucky to get out of bed, y’know? And I don’t know what I’m gonna do when I get worn out and stop fighting.”
“Treat yourself with compassion,” Abshir says. “You deserve care, you deserve safety, you deserve help. No choice you make is going to change that.”
He slips up, ‘cause that’s a normal thing to happen with addiction. And it does help, a little, to remember that alcoholism, having issues that make him want to hurt himself, none of that’s a personal failing. Just. Well, it’s always taken him a couple tries to learn most things in life.
He’s expecting it, too, which is kind of weird. There’s a bit where he’s like. If he knows what’s coming, can’t he avoid it? Can’t he choose not to?
But when it comes down to it, it doesn’t end up feeling like a choice at all.
There’s a series of missteps that he watches and doesn’t correct:
Doesn’t tell Stede about the nightmare-turned-flashback he’d had. Doesn’t want to dump such heavy shit on him first thing in the morning.
Stays inside all day, doesn’t shower, goes back to bed while Stede does his thing in the library after breakfast. Doesn’t seek him out, doesn’t listen to the little voice that says: hey, you don’t have to be alone right now.
Skips lunch, too, ‘cause the thought of eating is unfathomable.
And when Stede leaves in the evening to go out somewhere downtown with Lucius and the boys, Ed doesn’t go for obvious fucking reasons, and he’s bitter and lonely and angry and sad, and he’s already convinced himself not to bother anybody with his shit.
So, he kisses Stede goodbye with a smile he’s scarily good at faking and tells him to have fun, and the front door closes, and his chest becomes a cavern, suddenly, filled by nothing and every possible thing living in the shadows of his ribcage.
Pathetic. Standing by the front door like a dog waiting for his owner to get home.
Shame beats him docile, and the last little vestige of keeping it together is gone.
Something about captains and ships.
He knocks back a shot as his eyes sting, then swipes the bottle of rum off the counter and tucks himself into the corner of the little sofa in the library.
It smells like Stede in here, like paper and ink and lemongrass and tea. And if he lets himself imagine, the couch is still warm from where Stede was reading all day.
He could. He could call Stede. He’d come home right away, and he wouldn’t be cross, he’d be so sweet and kind, just like he always is.
And he doesn’t deserve sweet and kind.
He deserves this burning, this aching emptiness, he’s earned it.
It’s venomous, like fangs sunk into his skull and oozing: spiced and sweet and scorching.
He wakes to the sound of the garage door opening, his head throbbing as his eyes slide in and out of focus on all the spinning books and shelves.
“Shit,” he whispers, and he makes it to the trash can in enough time.
Shit, this hurts, fuck. Been a good couple weeks since he’s done something like this. And he’s dehydrated, hasn’t eaten, fuck.
He balls up his fist and raises it—Stops before he slams it down into the hardwood and unclenches and lets it shake.
Breathe.
Breathe.
He loses to another wave of nausea.
“Ed?” Stede calls from down the hallway, then the door’s opening. “Oh, shit,” he curses, and Ed would laugh, but he’s puking. Stede kneels next to him and gathers his hair back, and Ed keeps his focus on aiming, head still spinning.
And it’s finally out. Guts all empty and gasping for breath.
“There you are, love,” Stede comforts, rubs his back in firm circles. Ed glances over and sees the half empty bottle of Kraken Dark Label tipped over on its side next to the couch, thankfully with the cap on. He’d cracked the seal for that first shot, though, so:
“Shit,” he mutters. “Shitting fuck.”
“Let’s get you cleaned up,” Stede says, gently, offers a handful of tissues as they stand. Ed wipes his mouth and spits again.
“Yeah, I gotta,” he waves his hand at his face and stumbles as he staggers upright. Shit, he’s still drunk.
“I’ll grab you some clothes, dear, go hop in the shower,” Stede says, and they part at the bedroom door once Ed can stand on his own.
Fucking embarrassing. Not the first time it’s happened, but he really wants it to be the last. He really wants this to stop—
He strips and grabs his toothbrush and gets in the shower.
Fuck.
He can’t even muster tears as he rinses his mouth and beard and brushes his teeth, just burns and spins and wishes he could collapse into stardust and blow away.
“Here you are, darling,” Stede says, gestures with a pile of fabric he sets on the counter. “Do you want to talk or go to bed?”
“I wanna sleep,” Ed says, winces at how thick his voice sounds, the slur he fights on every syllable. Only thing he can do to keep from losing it is sleep. When he sobers up, he’ll be able to talk. As it stands, it’s only gonna make him feel worse the more he lets his mind go.
“I’ve got some water and toast for you in the bedroom,” Stede says, and he pulls the little stool from his vanity over to sit beside the open shower glass.
“All I’m thinkin’ is how pathetic I am, and how you’re too fuckin’ good to me. For me,” he admits to the tile.
“You’re not pathetic. And I am good to you, and for you,” Stede says, and Ed’s lip trembles, and he takes a breath to still it. “You deserve that.”
“No, I don’t,” he says, bursts out of him. “Here I am trying to—“ He stops himself, takes another purposeful breath. “Tell me about your night. Please.”
“Of course,” Stede says. “John lit his hand on fire, nearly got us thrown out.”
“Knew I liked that guy,” Ed mumbles.
“It was a trick, you see,” Stede begins, and Ed doesn’t really hear the words so much as he focuses on the cadence, lets Stede’s adventurous heart carry Ed through the until-now insurmountable task of cleaning himself up.
He shuts off the water when Stede’s done talking and realizes he didn’t turn the fan on when the silence rings.
“I feel like a fuckin’ loser,” he tells his feet. Could’ve repainted his chipped toenails instead of drinking, could’ve gone out into the garden or taken a walk or smoked a blunt or called Stede.
Jesus.
“You’re not a loser,” Stede says, and when Ed turns around he has a towel held up for him to step into. “Come now, have a snack, and we’ll chat in the morning, hm?” He suggests, smiling.
“Yeah,” he says, wrapping the towel around his waist. “I’m sorry.”
“Nothing to apologize for,” Stede says, and Ed nods.
“Right,” he says. “I’m not a failure, it’s not linear. Shit happens.”
“That’s right,” Stede says, and then he tucks a robe over Ed’s shoulders, not the fuchsia one, but a plush blue terry cloth that wicks the damp from Ed’s skin on contact.
“Shit happens,” he repeats. “You said toast?”
“I put marmalade on one piece and cinnamon sugar on the other,” Stede says, smiles up through his lashes.
“Fuck yeah,” Ed sighs. He slips his arms around Stede’s middle and pushes his face into his shoulder.
“There he is,” Stede murmurs, rubs his back and hugs him tight.
He wakes up to the sound of the shower turning off, the pipes shifting as the water flow is cut. Peels his eyes open to see a glass of water and two red and blue extra strength Tylenols on a little saucer.
Last night comes back to him, memories sluggish with shame and alcohol.
Fucking shame.
What’s he got to be ashamed of? That he’s struggling? No shame in struggling.
He knows that.
He knows that, today.
Lot of shit piled up yesterday.
Makes sense he fell back into old habits, old crutches, instead of opening himself up to the pain of human connection.
Because it always hurts, letting Stede in, letting him see all the dark shit.
The old stuff’s easier to talk about, funny enough, like it happened to somebody else, almost. He’s told Stede about Saint Anne’s, about his father, about his mom. Fuck, he’s told Stede about the first contract he took and working at the shop.
But telling him about this…
Well, it’s shame again, isn’t it? Because he’s still convinced everything that happened with Jack was his own fucking fault and his own terrible judgment. He could’ve ended shit any time, could’ve walked away, and he didn’t—
But.
Is it so shameful that he wanted to have fun with somebody he clicked with? And he was a dick back then, and maybe he stuck around longer than he should have, maybe he let Jack get away with treating him a certain way because he thought he deserved it. But they had fun together, did wild shit and had what at the time amounted to good sex most of the time, so he stayed through all of it, part self-punishment, part delusional optimism. And didn’t that mean it was his fault for staying, for choosing?
No.
No, he knows that.
Jack was just so different from Izzy, it took him a while to figure out they both wanted the same thing: him under their thumbs, him taking them up the ranks by association; Jack just had the benefit of being funny and charismatic. And maybe Izzy brought him in, but Ed was good at the shit he did, built for hard work and shaped by violence, determined and desperate to belong somewhere, to be needed, to be useful, to be loved.
Is it so shameful to want to be loved? It is so shameful that he clung to what he thought that meant, to the best he thought he’d ever get?
“Good morning, darling,” Stede greets as he enters from the en suite. He’s in just a towel tucked around his waist, hair slicked back and dark with water. He’s bright and smiling, sunlight.
“Morning,” Ed grounds out, sits up and tosses the pills back before he downs the glass.
“I thought we could order breakfast,” Stede says. “Not have to bother with cooking or dishes today.”
“Yeah,” Ed agrees. “Yeah, we could have a little picnic out back.”
“That’s a lovely plan,” Stede says, and he sits on the edge of the mattress, tucks his arm around Ed’s waist and hugs him, and Ed’s only briefly annoyed by the dampness before his skin settles back on his bones and he tugs Stede against him fully.
“Thanks for helping me last night,” he mumbles.
“Of course,” Stede replies, because of course. “Did you still want to talk?”
“Yeah,” Ed says, nods and kisses Stede’s bare shoulder. “I had a nightmare, which lead into a kinda. Waking nightmare about Jack…” He loses his voice and clears his throat. “Fuck.”
“Take your time,” Stede murmurs, and Ed sits back as he nods.
“It’s bad shit, Stede,” he warns. “Potentially day-ruining.”
“Whatever I need to feel, I’ll feel and process, and it’ll take however long it takes,” Stede says. He smiles, encouraging, and Ed takes a breath.
”So, like, brief backstory. When we’d go out, I’d get really drunk, obviously, whatever. He’d help, right, just keep handing me shit, and it’s not like I didn’t know my limits. More like, I knew ‘em and sprinted happily past with a glass in each hand, didn’t matter how I got it,” he says, shakes his head. “We’d get fucking trashed and fuck in the bathroom or the alley, and then I. I’d go home with him even when I didn’t want to, and when I woke up. I’d be in his bed. And it’d. Most of the time, it came back to me, and it was fine, ‘cause y’know we were just picking up where we left off at the bar, but there was always this moment when I first woke up that. That just felt so heavy and dark, like a pit in my stomach swallowing me from the inside out.”
“Fuck,” Stede whispers. Ed feels sick to his stomach, remembering it, both yesterday and all the echoes of it, and he grabs for Stede’s hand. It settles him a bit, that sure, warm grip, keeps him anchored right where he is, not sliding sideways into his memories.
“So,” he says, clears his throat again. “Nightmare, I don’t even remember about what, and I woke up with that specific fucking feeling, and I just,” he shrugs, shaking his head. “I just, like, remembered all this shit with Jack and.”
“No fucking wonder, love, shit,” Stede laments.
“Yeah, so. Yesterday sucked,” he says, scrubs the back of his hand over his nose and blinks against the sting in his eyes.
“Thank you for telling me,” Stede says, rests his other palm on Ed’s leg, grounding.
“I still feel like a fool,” he admits. “I know there’s no shame in struggling, in my past still affecting me. But I. I feel a lot of fucking shame.”
“Not necessarily a bad thing to feel shame, love. You have to feel it to process it,” Stede says, then he bites his lip, a little furrow pinching his brow. “I feel like a dick for going out when you’re struggling. And I didn’t even fucking notice.”
“Because I didn’t want you to,” Ed says, then sighs. “I just. Didn’t want to bother you. It’s. It feels fuckin’ big, y’know, I didn’t want to ruin your day.”
“That’s shit,” Stede says, and it startles a laugh from both of them. “Sorry, just. In what world is sharing your feelings bothering me?”
“This one,” Ed says, pouting. Yeah, he’s fucking pouting, feels his lip push out and doesn’t do jack shit about it when it trembles.
“Oh, love,” Stede coos. “It’s upsetting, of course it is. I hate. I hate what people have done to you. It hurts my heart. And yes, that’s a big feeling to sit with, but it’s so much easier to hold together.”
“Yeah,” Ed says, already feels a little lighter for getting it all off his chest. “Look at us, well-adjusted as fuck.”
“Aren’t we, though?” Stede says, a proud little smile on his sweet face.
“What’s the opposite of isolating?” Abshir prompts.
“Surrounding myself with people,” Ed says.
“Kind of,” he replies. “If what you’re trying to avoid is connection...”
“Then, I can seek it out instead,” Ed says, gears turning.
“Be vulnerable with your shit,” Abshir says. “Opposite of isolating.”
“Lucius and Pete are coming over for dinner,” he says. “Maybe. I could start with them.”
“I think that’s a great place to start,” Abshir says.
“‘Cause I miss 80’s night, man. I’ve been so paranoid about giving in, I’ve just been avoiding it, but if I had. Y’know, if it was more than just me lookin’ out,” he trails off. He could tell Oluwande and Jim, too. Maybe he could get Mary and Doug fully in the loop. And there’s. There’s a flare of fear that they won’t let him hang out with Louis. But he soothes it with a deep breath.
“What are you thinking?” Abshir asks, curious and undemanding.
“I’m scared if Mary knows the full extent of my shit, she won’t let Louis around me,” he says. “But I don’t think I have to worry about that, actually. She knows I’ve had some issues in the past, we’ve talked about depression and PTSD and that stuff, so it’s not. I don’t think it’ll come out of left field, and Stede trusts me with his kids, so I think. I think it’ll be good, actually, for me, if she knows.”
“Yeah, absolutely. Do you want to game plan next session?” Abshir asks, and Ed glances at the clock. Five ‘til. Damn this one went fast.
“Yeah, that sounds good,” Ed says. “I’ll let you know how talking to Lucius and Pete goes.”
“You’ve got this. Same time next week, and if you need anything in between, send me an email,” Abshir says.
“Alright,” Ed replies.
“Take care of yourself,” Abshir says, and waves, and the call ends.
Ed stares at his computer screen and heaves a sigh.
Fucking Christ, he’s tired.
At least they’ve narrowed down some shit to keep an eye on: level of pain and convenience.
That’ll be good to share with the boys, with Stede, with his family. Though he’s sure there’s a bunch of shit Stede observes about him that he keeps to himself because he’s a sharp little man, always making connections, illuminating patterns.
He can hear Stede and Lucius chatting on the deck through the open back door.
“Truly, thank you,” Stede says.
“Of course. I’ll have something together for you when you get back from vacation,” Lucius says.
He shuffles out to the living room for some space and looks at the little table in front of the window.
Edna has a bigger jar and a wife: Stella wears a little crown that Pete 3D-printed for her. Captain’s tin, scuffed and dented, sits between a picture of him that Stede took in college and a vase full of flowers that Stede picks from the garden. There’s a little glass box in the library where he keeps a few petals from each one before they head back outside to the compost.
Fucking beautiful to look at it all: things cherished in life and death, these silly moss balls with human names meant only to bring happiness.
He was wrong all those years ago, and he knows that, just. It’s so obvious now:
There is utility in joy.
Most people just call it hope.