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Stede steps out onto the deck of his forest home to greet the morning, breathing in a lungful of the freshest air in the world and letting it back out. It rained last night, a good heavy downpour based on the way it thrummed against the iron roof, and the expanse of the bush canopy below gleams every shade of emerald and jade in the dim light. The clouds are still lingering, pressing stubbornly down, and the ocean’s just a grey strip in the distance.
He sighs, and sinks into his chair with his tea clutched in his hands. These are the loneliest sorts of days, the ones where the weather feels like it’s pressing down on his mood. They remind him all too easily of how quiet this house is since Mary and the kids moved back to the city, and how much space this is for one human to potter around in day in and day out. Too much, probably. He still loves it too much to let it go.
He needs to get back to working in an office, most likely, to actually see people more than a day or two each week. He should see if the crew’s got brewery plans for the weekend. Maybe ask if they’d like to come for a barbeque next week, try not to let it sound too desperate.
Please fill this house with other bodies and other voices. Please give me a reason to laugh again.
He takes his time drinking his tea, doing what his therapist has advised and paying careful attention to every sensation. The warmth of the ceramic between his hands. The equal parts bitter and sweet taste of the milky brew on his tongue. The rippling sound of his own swallow. The smell of the tea, hints of vanilla floating up on the steam. And when he’s done, the sight of the swirl of residual leaves left in the bottom, telling a fortune he can’t read.
There’ll be a tall handsome stranger in your future, he lets his imagined psychic tell him, tilting the cup from side to side. He’s on his way, the universe has it all in motion, never fear.
That feels… about as likely as any other scenario at this point, and he could wallow about it, but that won’t get him anywhere, either. Instead he sets his cup aside and climbs back out of his seat. Looks out over the forest one more time with real gratitude for where he lives and what he has, and heads inside to get ready for the day, leaving behind everything he’s missing.
~
It’s a facet of country life, Stede thinks, as he strolls along the beach an hour later, that your hobbies become your jobs and your jobs become your hobbies, until there’s no distinction between any of it. These days he just exists, and he is who he is: Stede Bonnet, chief financial officer of the regional environmental group, and also, lifelong bird-lover, and therefore, also volunteer animal rescue person, doing the work they don’t get nearly enough funding to manage. He’d been roped into helping out the crew one day and they’d discovered he had an aptitude for it, so here he is, act-belong-committing his way toward better mental health.
Buttons does try to cover all the region’s needs, of course, and so does Auntie. But those actual resident bird experts are occupied battling against extinction threats and escalating environmental challenges, and in fact both of them are in the city this weekend for a conference on seagull evolution, or something.
Stede’s not completely sure, but it has left him to patrol the beach alone in search of any birds that might need his assistance. Not exactly a hardship! There’s no place on earth that takes his breath quite like this, and he’s never stopped appreciating that. The sand is the finest, most crystalline white curving gently around the bay, and the wind is soft, and the waves are rolling in slowly today, and he feels truly at one with the world. All those worries melt away, and here where he’s more alone than anywhere, it feels like… enough, just to be him. He feels adequate.
Which is, of course, when the universe begins to sprinkle her mysteries in his path.
Could he call it a sprinkle? It’s more of a… well. A dollop. A splash. A bucket of mystery, in the form of a very large bird he’s never seen in these parts before.
It’s a penguin, he thinks. It’s got a white belly, a black back, an oblong sort of shape to it, standing at the edge of the waterline and swaying slightly as the waves ripple foamily around its feet. It’s more than half his height, it’s large, it’s unmissable, and even when he blinks several times over and takes a cautious step closer, it doesn’t vanish.
“Hello?” he says, as if he’s expecting it to answer back, sing him a little song. “Are you… are you lost?”
The penguin turns to gaze at him for a moment, and then, startlingly, terrifyingly, it tilts to the side, and it falls. Keels right over and splashes into the shallow surf, and Stede’s running over there before he can think twice about the safety protocols.
He doesn’t know the safety protocols for this because it really is, as he goes down on his knees in the wet sand, an emperor penguin. An honest to god, actual, real Antarctic emperor penguin, face down in the Western Australian surf, and he hovers over it for a moment before urgency overrides sense, and he reaches down and rolls it over.
The feathers are waxy, when he does. The bones are distinctly present beneath, no weight on it at all. The bird doesn’t so much as twitch, and fear leaps in his chest.
“Oh, dear. Oh no, no, look how far you must’ve come. Don’t leave us, please.”
There’s a flutter of a wing, just enough to let him know that it’s not done yet, and he looks desperately up the beach as the surf soaks through his jeans, at his own single line of footprints marking the washed-clean sand. He barely feels the cold, but he feels the expanse of empty space around them. There’s nobody else here. Nobody at all.
He looks back to the penguin. What is it doing here? It must have swum thousands of kilometres, god, it must have taken weeks, and this is very deeply not a healthy environment for a bird like this, and Stede is—panicking a little bit, yes—beyond his volunteer paygrade immediately. Buttons would—no, damn, he’s gone for the weekend, that’s right. Auntie likewise.
A particularly curious wave nudges the penguin further up the sand, threatens to pull it back out when it retreats back into the ocean, and Stede curses under his breath. Right. There’s nothing for it.
Saving the day is up to him and him alone. All he needs then is someone to save him from himself.
~
Art by Hideplueshi
A fully grown, limp emperor penguin is, he rapidly discovers, about the heft of a solid five-year-old. It’s been many years since Stede had to carry Louis everywhere, but it all comes back to him in the eternity it takes to carry his new friend the length of the beach. God, he’d walked a long way, and it feels five times as long back.
Suddenly he’s cursing the fine grain of the sand he was appreciating an hour ago, the way it slips under his hiking boots and makes his leg muscles scream, and the solitude! He loves the solitude, usually! Today, less so. In the entire time it takes him to trudge back toward the path for the carpark, he doesn’t see another soul. It’s as if everyone on the earth has evaporated at once, leaving just him and this very out of place penguin.
He chats to it the whole way, to take his mind off the strain. Sings it little made up ditties, the way he used to do for his children on long car rides. Tells it all about where it’s landed, about the traditional owners of the country and their thousands of years of care for this pristine place, and the way colonisation has messed it all up.
He tells it how he came to be here, too, moving down for work, making a place for himself, meeting the crew, and gradually, gradually coming to understand why his whole family was so miserable, because he was living one internal lie after another.
“It’s a bit odd coming out to a penguin,” he tells it. He’s heard that people can hear their loved ones in a coma, so he’s determined to give this penguin a friendly voice, even though its eyes remain resolutely closed. “Not that you need to know that about me, it’s just… well, it feels like we maybe have that in common.” He’s gasping for every breath as he struggles on through the sand, and it takes him a second to realise what he just said. “Not that I presume anything about your sexuality! Your—your mating habits, or what have you. No, I mean… I’ve felt out of place, with no way to find myself. Just like you now, lost in the world, washing up here…”
Stupid, that’s what it is, saying something like that to a lost bird. He should be lucky it’s both unconscious and unable to deliver a devastating retort.
Pathetic, it might call him if it could. He’s not sure if the voice in his head sounds more like his father or Nigel Badminton or worse, himself.
Fortunately the path appears before him before he can dig much deeper, and he hefts the penguin up a bit more, biceps burning, and doubles his pace.
His car’s the only one there still, matching up to the absence of anyone on the beach, and he reluctantly lays the penguin on the gravel ground as he opens up the back of the 4WD. He’s got spare towels and blankets in there for the express purpose of bird rescue, along with a couple of cat carriers, but there’s not a chance his feathered friend would fit so much as a leg in one of those.
In the end he settles for making it a little blanket nest, and setting it there.
He drives the five minutes back to his house with the utmost caution, and it’s only when he gets there that he has a sudden new wave of panic. He should take it to the vet, probably.
Only this is country Western Australia, isn’t it? And every vet is closed on Sundays. He could call Auntie—Buttons doesn’t have a mobile, believes quite firmly that they steal your essence—but the thought of trying to convince her he’s telling the truth is enough to shake him out of that idea.
There’s nobody he can think of.
Right. Well. What he does have is an outdoor shower that he installed when the kids were in their surfing phase, to try to avert just a little of the sand that would get tracked continuously through the house. It’s a nice enclosed area to the side of the house, high concrete walls on three sides, and he’s got a length of wire fencing that he’s able to pull across the gap on the fourth.
He rearranges the blanket nest in there, and once he’s got the bird all settled and safely enclosed he stands outside it with his hands on his hips, and nods. “Good. Yes. I’ll just—think of something.”
There’s a moment of frozen indecision, and then he turns and bounds up the stairs to the elevated house.
~
“A penguin,” he repeats, to the silence on the other end of the phone. “Hello? Yes, I said an Antarctic emperor penguin.” He frowns as the harried man on the other end starts up again, rasping down the line, and cuts him off before he can repeat himself. “Yes, I said an Antarctic emperor penguin. No, I’m not insane. Yes, I know what one looks like, and I know the difference between them and all the other other far more likely penguin species, and the fact that their distribution by no means extends to Australia. I said what I said! I just don’t know what to do.”
It seems that the genuine emotion in his tone perhaps breaks through the wall on the other end, because the man sighs extensively and tells him to hold.
Which he does, listening to the same spiel on repeat about zoo membership and all the exciting new things you can spend your money on in the gift shop and offers to sponsor the elephants and so on and so forth for so long that he almost gives up.
Almost. He’s inches away from hanging up when the line crackles and a very different voice appears on the other end, dripping down the line like warm honey. “Hey, this is Ed Teach, I’m the penguin guy up here at the zoo. How can I help?”
Stede slumps back in his chair with relief. “You sound like exactly what I need.”
There’s an amused chuckle from the other end. “Hold up, mate, we only just met.”
Stede pinches the bridge of his nose, because fuck. “Sorry. Sorry! No, I just—a penguin guy! Right when I specifically need a penguin guy. You’re a miracle. Thank you. So I found an—”
“An Antarctic emperor penguin,” says Mr. Teach. Ed, he did say his name was Ed. “Iz told me, thinks you’re making it all up.”
“I can send photos,” Stede says immediately, and he gets another warm bubble of laughter in reply.
“That’s about a third date action, man.”
His cheeks are warm enough to glow right now. It doesn’t help that the man’s voice is all smoky heat and soft humour as he tosses innuendos down the line so easily.
“Right,” Stede says, suddenly conscious of just how long he’s been trying to visualise Mr—Ed. He clears his throat. “Right, I’ll put a pin in that, then, shall I?”
“Sounds good to me, uh—”
“Stede!” he says, a fraction too loud. “My name is Stede Bonnet. I’m a wildlife rescue volunteer, working with the local environmental group. I found my friend on the beach this morning, standing at the edge of the Southern Ocean surf, and then he just… keeled over.”
“Shit,” Ed says, sounding instantly serious. “Fuck, you really aren’t kidding, huh?” There’s a rustle at the other end as Ed adjusts, sounds like he scrapes up some paper. “I dunno if this has ever happened before, an emperor making it this far. It’s something really special, but it sounds like he’s maybe not in a good way.”
“No, and not a surprise,” Stede agrees. “I have all my gear here for caring for local birds, but what do I need to do differently? Keep him warm, keep him cold? Feed him? Water? I’m desperately out of my depth and I could really use any advice you can give me.”
“Of course,” Ed says, and for the first time all morning, Stede feels genuine relief creeping through him. “Okay, I’m going to walk you through the basics, and then you go give him some love. But first I want you to write down my personal mobile so you can bypass Iz.”
There’s a distant I heard that at the other end, and Ed’s voice gets more hushed. “He’s just a dick, ignore him.”
He recites the numbers, which Stede dutifully notes on his own notepad. “And you’d like me to call you—?”
“When you’ve finished up the first round of care. I’ll talk you through making some observations, maybe you can put him on video for me? And we can work out how soon I can get there.”
Stede’s brain stutters to a stop. “What?”
“Yeah, I’ll just get Fangy onto the plane schedule, see if there’s anything open, might need to drive down—”
“That’s five hours!” Stede says, immediately beset by the urge not to put anyone out on his behalf. “On a Sunday!”
Ed’s laugh is softer this time. “Real party crasher, me. But, uh. I think you were right. I think you need me there.”
If his audible swallow carries across the line, it probably can’t leave Stede feeling any less mortified than he already is by the response he’s having to this man’s voice. His existence, really. There’s nothing at all to say they’ll get along. They might become instant mortal enemies! Most likely it’ll all be very polite and professional because they are two professionals, or one professional and one expert volunteer, competently doing their jobs! Their focus is the penguin. Ed’s probably got a lovely partner who fills their home with laughter.
He’s spiralling, a little bit. He clears his throat. “I’ll make up the spare bed, then!”
“Oh, mate, no, I can stay at a motel—”
“I insist,” Stede says. “If we’re going to be here for him 24/7 then I want you to have somewhere comfortable to rest.”
This time, there’s an audible catch in Ed’s breath down the line, and oh. Oh. Was that—is Ed feeling this too?
Christ, it’s a situational thing, the drama of the rescue making him feel like there’s some grand romance potential. There’s only one lost penguin and two men willing to help, and that’s what matters.
“Cool,” Ed says, not sounding especially cool. “You just… head down and get started, then call me back when you’re ready.”
~
The penguin is, to Stede’s enormous relief, awake.
The penguin is also, to somewhat less relief, a bit angry.
“Now there, I’m here to help,” Stede tells it, backed against the wall with his bucket of saltwater in his hands. It’s making a sort of… grating, chittering, trumpeting sound at him, wild-eyed and tall as it fluffs those feathers, Christ, what do you even call that sound? A grind, a wheeze. A greeze? “What are we going to call you, though?”
Another greeze, but it doesn’t lunge at him the way the geese on his father’s property used to. No, it’s not really a lunging sort of bird, is it? It’s got those flippers tucked underneath the tuxedo of feathers, and a small beak in the scheme of things, sharp and black with yellow down the centre.
“Just big enough to fit some tasty fish,” he says, letting the thoughts pop out loud as he waggles a sardine, fresh from a tin he dug out of the back of the cupboard.
The penguin stares at him. He stares back at the penguin. Neither of them move.
And then it trumpets loudly enough to startle him, at which he drops the sardine, and it dives in and devours it.
“There we are,” Stede says, and he’s struck with an instant memory of snuggling up with the kids on the couch, watching a stop-motion clay penguin wreak cranky havoc. “Pingu,” he says decisively. “An oldie but a goodie.”
If a penguin could narrow its eyes, he thinks this one might be doing just that, which only intensifies the resemblance. “Right,” he says. “Well, Pingu, the absolutely lovely penguin man says that I need to give you a quick bath in case you’ve swum through any nasties.”
Pingu, it transpires, is not a fan of baths, for a bird who just swam thousands of kilometres of ocean and in fact spends a significant portion of his usual life in said ocean. Stede makes several attempts at pouring his seawater bucket over the thing, until they end up in a somewhat comedic circle in which he’s not sure which of them is actually chasing which. His final gambit is to toss the water over his shoulder as he leaps through the gate and slams it shut behind him.
He’s an utter failure as a penguin keeper. There’s only one thing for it: he’s going to have to call in a higher authority.
Ed’s number takes such a long time to connect that Stede briefly worries he wrote it down incorrectly.
But no, just as he’s about to lose all hope, the dial screen gives way to—oh god, oh no—a very attractive man. “Stede?”
He might not have had the foresight to Google the man and prepare himself first, but he’s confident that’s Ed. Stede’s so sure of this that he almost squeaks it. “Ed, there you are.”
“Here I am,” he agrees. He’s moving, walls and ceiling tipping dizzily behind him as his lovely face holds steady in the centre of the screen. “Just packing my bag, mate- Fang managed to book me on the 1pm flight.”
Stede takes a quick glance at his watch, and—oh. “It’s already twelve.”
“Don’t worry, Archie drives like a fucking maniac, she’ll get me there in time.”
Belatedly Stede starts to juggle all these names in his head. Izzy, Fang, Archie, are they—are they all workmates? Any romantic partners in the mix? Not the bloody time, he reminds himself. “Lovely. Wonderful. Good.” The flight takes about an hour and a half, including disembarkation and the like, and then it’s a half hour drive from the airport to here, speaking of which—“And from the airport—”
“Already got a hire car booked. This team can hustle when they have to.”
He props Ed up on the electricity meter, the better to be able to shake out his nervous energy with a few good hand flaps and wrings out of sight. “And do you… often have to hustle for emperor penguin purposes?”
Ed snorts. “Nah, it’s almost all littles these days. Haven’t actually seen an emperor in person since grad school, last time I went to—” He cuts off with such a sudden gasp that Stede spins back, panicked. But Ed’s just staring out of the phone with wide-eyed wonder. “Is that him?”
Stede swivels, and yes, Pingu is standing just on the other side of the fence, watching Ed quite intensely in return. “Yes, that’s him, would you—would you like to say hello?”
“Yes,” Ed breathes, and it’s so reverent that Stede slightly regrets what he’s about to say.
“I’ve, uh. I’ve named him Pingu, for the time being.”
Thankfully, Ed snorts. “Bet he loves that.” Pingu lets out a greeze that sounds a touch more like a snarl—can penguins snarl?—and Ed beams. “Feisty little fucker, aren’t you?”
Finally Stede’s close enough to hold the phone up to the gate, and look. He’s far from immune to Ed’s charms. In fact he feels like he’s been a dithering mess since the minute the man’s voice slipped into his ears, all warm and caring. But really, the penguin ought to find his own crush. As it is, he shakes himself out a bit and Stede would swear that he somehow manages to make those beady little eyes go all glittery, transforming him like a cartoon character into an entirely different bird.
“Oh, there you are,” Ed purrs, and Stede’s knees absolutely should not be feeling so weak. “Oh, you’re a beautiful boy, aren’t you?”
Christ. Pingu preens, stretches his neck. Possibly even winks, who’s to say? Stede clears his throat. “Clearly I don’t know a lot about penguins, but as solid as he was to carry up the beach—”
“Fuck, you must have incredible biceps, those things are hefty.”
It’s Stede’s turn to preen a bit, but then he meets the penguin’s eye, and good lord. Is he about to get into a jealous battle for a man’s heart with a bird?
“I am naturally gifted in that regard,” Stede says. “So not too hefty for me, no, I managed. But I do think he’s quite underweight. I could feel a lot of easily palpable bones, not a lot of padding.”
“Makes sense, yeah, he’s swum a fucking long way.” On the other end of the line someone says something sharp to Ed, and he looks back at them. “Okay, yeah, I’m coming.” He pivots back. “Right, so. No signs that he’s been through oil?”
“Nothing like that,” Stede says. He’s certainly found a few birds over time that have swum through that kind of pollution, and the smell is unmistakeable where it gilds to their feathers. “I did as instructed, gave him a quick seawater rinse just in case of any other pollutants, which he didn’t appreciate much.”
He can’t help the reprimand in his voice, and Ed giggles again, with the background tune of car doors slamming and an engine starting up. “You guys have got a little strangers to enemies arc going on.”
“I’m not his enemy,” Stede says indignantly. “I’m his hero!” And then directly to the ungrateful bird, “I rescued you!”
Pingu just squawks and—and hisses at him? Well, he’s certainly learning the full breadth of penguin noises here.
“And he’s eating okay, yeah? No obvious injuries.”
“Seems fine, just… testy.”
“Cool. Well, he looks pretty good to me. Can’t wait to meet him soon.” There’s a pause. “And you. Can’t wait to meet you, too.”
Stede swallows, and manages to avoid giving the penguin a triumphant glare. “Likewise, I’m sure. I’ll text you through the address, and then—”
“I’ll be there in a couple of hours,” Ed says warmly. “A rescue for the rescuer. Sit tight, I’m on my way.”
~
Stede doesn’t so much sit tight as he does… panic clean. He’s a fairly fastidious housekeeper as it is, and it’s not that anything’s terribly dusty or out of place, there’s just… a lot of it. He arranges and rearranges all of his knick-knacks and trinkets on the bookshelves that cover most available bits of walls. He dusts once, and then a second time, and then throws in a quick vacuum for good measure. He cleans the mildly rain-streaked glass of the sliding doors, because a new person must be able to appreciate this view fully, it’s just polite.
He has a moment of terror when he opens the fridge to nothing much other than a carton of eggs from Sheila up the road and some fancy spinach that he bought at the farmers’ market last weekend before realising he had no idea what to do with it and letting it wilt to death. But there are bits and pieces in the freezer, and the brewery is open tonight, and even if he can’t take Ed there while they’re on penguin duty—can he? He can’t—he thinks that Roach might be willing to do them a little takeaway.
In fact he’d better hop on that now, so he pings off a message to Lucius.
S: Are you heading to the brewery tonight?
The answer takes an unprecedented ten seconds to come back; Lucius is usually glued to his phone and he seems to have almost a compulsion to reply instantly. Stede’s never understood that until today, and yet here he is, wandering around his house with his phone in his back pocket or in his hand at all times, jumping at any hint of a message from Ed.
L: Of course, it’s sacred tradition. You’re not piking again, are you?
He purses his lips before typing his answer.
S: Not on purpose! I had a little emergency come up.
L: 👀
L: Stede
L: This sounds like gossip
Stede sighs the heavy sigh of a damned man.
S: It’s not gossip. It’s a penguin I rescued from the beach earlier. Quite an unusual species for this part of the world! So the zoo is sending down an expert to help me out.
Lucius seems to have a sort of… preternatural gift for sussing out situations that have a little more depth than they seem, and he doesn’t miss this one, either.
L: Where are they staying? Motel’s all booked up for the chia seed festival or whatever it is this time.
S: I offered for him to stay here. We’ll likely have to give 24/7 care.
L: WILL you. Anything else you’d like to add about this penguin expert?
Stede is honestly at something of a loss to understand how the boy does it. He sighs, because he can’t say that he didn’t expect this outcome when he sent the first message. He pulls up the headshot of Ed from the zoo’s page and flicks it over with no further comment.
S: [EdTeachZoologist.jpg]
He stares at the phone, waiting for the reply. Ed’s picture is beautiful, shows him staring seriously at the camera with his arms folded over his chest, tattoos etched all over his skin. His greying hair is caught in a loose updo with tendrils trailing behind him, and his eyes are just as warm as his voice, though—and he might be imagining it—maybe a little bit haunted.
Stede’s startled out of his reverie by the phone suddenly ringing in his hand, and he stabs the green button. “Ed?”
“Ed, is it?” Lucius says dramatically. Pete’s talking loudly in the background, too, and Lucius goes muffled for a second. “I know, babe, I’m trying to tell him. Stede, that’s Blackbeard. It even says so on the page.”
He didn’t read that far, because he was busy looking at the photograph. For several consecutive minutes. The name rings a… slight bell. He gets the sense it should ring more of one. “Oh,” he says eloquently. “Who?”
“Blackbeard!” Lucius shrieks. “You know, has his own show on Animal Planet, where he goes and charms all these deadly animals? Voted number two in People’s Sexiest Man Alive last year, which was an actual travesty—”
“Blackbeard?” Stede says, squinting as the pieces fall into place and his mental image shifts. Oh, no, he does know what Lucius means. “The Blackbeard? But he looks at all kinds of animals, not just penguins.”
“Yes, but he started with penguins. You didn’t recognise him? Oh my god, Stede, he’s going to be in your house. In your bed!”
“My spare bed!”
“You don’t have a spare bed!” Lucius squawks.
Stede stops. He stares. That’s not—can that be true? The realisation absolutely skittles him. Oh, god, it is true, of course, Pete just helped him dismantle and remove the kids’ childhood beds last week, for god’s sakes, in preparation for getting in new ones as befits their teen status (and size). Those old beds went to new owners. And the new beds are getting here… next week.
“Lucius,” he says, strangled. “Oh, shit.”
“It’s fine,” Lucius says. “Don’t panic. You can sleep on the couch if you have to, but you might not have to.”
“He’s totally queer,” Pete pipes up in the background. “I, uh, I met him once, and he gave me this… smouldering look that’s never left my soul.”
“Okay,” Stede says. “Good! Right. Well.” What the hell was the purpose of starting this call, because it was not to send everyone into a flurry of gossip? Ah, fuck. “I don’t have any food in the house. I was just calling to see if someone might be able to organise something from the brewery to be dropped off here, while we’re doing important penguin business.”
“Is that what we’re calling it!” Lucius crows in triumph. “Don’t answer that, it is now. I am on it, honey, I’ll be there in an hour with everything you need.”
He’s hung up before Stede can say another word, and he stares at the phone in despair. It’s only an hour and a half until Ed gets here, and he can’t imagine Lucius being willing to leave them in peace.
Blackbeard, god. Alma had one of his books, he realises. She loved that thing, read it cover to cover, used to ask Stede all the time why he couldn’t be more like Blackbeard. And Stede would tell her that he was already busy being Stede, and then he’d try desperately not to feel inadequate about it. He’s perhaps blocked that out a little bit.
The inadequacy is truly roaring through him now. They do say that animals are good judges of character. Maybe he should trust the penguin’s opinion.
~
“Stede,” a voice is saying.
“Ed,” he moans. “Oh, Ed—”
“Jesus Christ, Stede, keep your pants on!”
His eyes snap open, and he finds Lucius standing over him, and he screams. And Lucius screams, and then they’re both screaming, and it takes half a minute for everyone to calm down.
“What!” Stede says. “What the hell!”
Lucius presses an indignant hand to his chest. “You asked me to come to your rescue, and here I am, and I find you napping on the couch, actively having some sort of hingeless dream about your upcoming houseguest and—”
“That’s enough!” Stede says, pushing himself upright. God, he really did just wallow himself to sleep, didn’t he? And with a burst of panic, he realises that means—
“You’ve got at most half an hour to get yourself together, if he’s a slow driver,” Lucius says, hustling him up off the couch. “Frenchie messaged to say the plane’s in, he’s sorted out the rental car, and he’s on his way, so let’s go.”
Stede follows Lucius into the kitchen, marvelling at what the right level of motivation can do for the boy’s productivity.
There’s a paper bag sitting on the counter, and Lucius begins unloading it. “Oluwande’s sent some of his fresh sourdough. Jim threw in a jar of their extra fancy marmalade. The Swede said you’d need plenty of salad to avoid nutritional deficiencies or something, so he cut a bit of greenery, don’t ask. Fresh sausages from Wee John for breakfast.” A toothbrush, a packet of extra large condoms, and a truly excessive bottle of lubricant land next, and Lucius looks up at him from under a cocked brow before he can speak. “Don’t give me that look, did you already have these?”
He shakes his head, lips zipped, heat coursing through him.
“Thought not,” Lucius says, unloading six, seven cans of sardines and a fishy-smelling beeswax package of—“Fresh whiting,” Lucius adds. “Zheng says penguins can’t live on sardines alone, but I did think it was worth having those for backup anyway.” Zheng is a lawyer with no involvement in penguin care that Stede’s aware of, but somehow it’s not surprising to hear that she knows things about… well, everything. Lucius looks past his shoulder. “Where is it, anyway? Is it in here?”
There’s a new blast of panic. “Wasn’t it downstairs when you came past?”
Lucius snorts. “I wasn’t looking. I assumed you had it in the bathtub or something.”
Stede resumes breathing. “No, the outdoor shower. Apparently that’s best for it, in the fresh air.”
“Right. Well.” Lucius digs into the bottom of the bag and extracts three enormous cardboard-lidded foil oven trays. “Roach said not even you can get this wrong. He’s given you a beef casserole, mashed potatoes, and a vegetable bake in case your guest is vegetarian.”
“I think,” Stede says, “that I’ve seen him eat a barely-warmed snake on the television once, but anyway.”
“As needs must,” Lucius says, hustling over to open the fridge, shoving things in. “All you have to do is heat it up and you’ll be good to go.” He stops, hands clasped together. “I beg you, don’t fuck this up.”
Stede’s getting a bit annoyed now. “All he’s here for is penguin care, for god’s sakes.”
“Again, if that’s what we’re calling it, fantastic. I hope your penguin gets all the care it’s been missing out on for the last five to thirty years. I hope it stays entirely wet.” He leans in. “I hope Blackbeard eats it raw—”
“Enough!” Stede’s on the edge of hysterical giggles now. “God, I hate you.” He hustles Lucius toward the door, and by some miracle, the boy actually goes.
He pauses when they get there, and when he turns back, there’s an unusual degree of sincerity in his gaze. “I’m only teasing because I want this for you so desperately.”
“I want it too,” Stede says, and leans in. “I want that penguin safe, and sound, and also back in Antarctica before it shrivels up and dries out.”
He shoves Lucius through the door before he can formulate his reply, and closes it hard behind him. Leans against it, catching his breath. Oh, god, is this really happening? Not the certainty of some kind of connection forming between them, just the chance of it at all, it’s just—
Stede knows everyone in town who identifies as queer. Most of his friends, in fact. There really are no eligible bachelors around, and he’s been too caught up in his work to seek further afield, and too terrified, if he’s honest. Because—what if it actually pans out? What if he does meet someone lovely, and they fall for one another, and then… well. He doesn’t expect anyone would want to move down here to this tiny town for a man who spends his weekends beachcombing for injured birds and his weekdays fighting with numbers and bureaucrats.
But he doesn’t want to leave here for love, either. The first place he’s truly felt like he belongs. The first place he’s really been part of a community, of something bigger than himself. Look at how they’ve all come together to help him today.
What if—what if he didn’t worry about the future? What if he just let himself enjoy another person’s company, let himself feel that attraction flow, let it all take him wherever it might?
The possibility, that’s all he has to embrace. At worst, perhaps he’ll end up with a new friend and a story to tell at the brewery over the years to come, still surrounded by his found family.
There’s the crunch of tires on the gravel outside, and Stede stands bolt upright. Oh, god, that’s—he’s here.
He spins on the spot, once again panicking, and winds up facing the door and his destiny. The universe saw fit to send this penguin his way. The least he can do is meet the consequences with his whole chest.
He flings open the door and makes his way out, and sure enough, yes, there’s a white hire car pulling to a stop down there, a nice sedan. The door opens. Ed climbs out, stretching his arms up over his head, cracking his neck. Stede takes a step forward, Juliet on the balcony, ready to meet her Romeo.
And Ed turns, and he turns, and—
Greeeeze.
“Phwoarrrr,” Ed says gleefully. “There you are.”
Stede slumps as Ed takes off in the direction of the wretched penguin, and lets himself feel the hopelessness, just for a minute. And then he straightens himself back up again and nods. Whispers his old mantra under his breath, I am adequate, and sets off down the stairs to put up just a little bit of fight.
Ed’s leaning over the gate as Stede reaches the ground, really leaning. “Oh, Ed,” he says, “that’s not—”
Too late. Several things happen at once. First, Ed twists to look at him, and an even bigger smile breaks across his face. Second, the gate—a hasty construction, he has to admit—slides under Ed’s leaning weight, and falls into the enclosure, taking Ed with it with a clatter and a startled huff, landing him flat on his back onto the floor.
And third, the penguin charges him, and Stede yelps, grabbing for the nearest implement—a garden rake—before he runs to his rescuer’s rescue.
He’s nearly on them when he realises that Ed’s not crying out—he’s laughing. And the penguin isn’t pecking him to death, it’s—well. It’s rubbing all over him, absolutely diving in to nuzzle under his bearded chin as he ruffles the feathers and snuggles it.
Stede tosses the rake aside before Ed notices, not that he’s paying much attention to anything but the bird.
“Aw, you are a good boy, yes you are. You must be Pingu,” Ed says, and that voice is even richer in person, deep and rumbling. The penguin’s squawk sounds almost happy this time, and Ed all but tucks it under his arm and looks up. “And you must be Stede.”
“You’ve heard of me?” Stede gasps out stupidly.
But Ed just chuckles, his eyes frank and warm. “Oh, I’ve heard of you. I’ve heard all about you.”
Stede huffs out a laugh. “All good things, I hope.”
“All good things, right, Pingu?”
Pingu’s doing that shiny-eyed thing again, and Stede might actually hate this bird. He narrows his eyes at it and says, “Ed, do you need a hand there?”
“Could do,” Ed says cheerfully. “Let me just—”
Stede steps forward, hand outstretched. Pingu snaps to look at him, and for a moment they stare each other down, and Stede dares him to put his worst flipper forward. But then the penguin, in a fit of either sensibility or sociopathy, takes a step back and lets Stede pull Ed up.
He’s fast enough to rise that they wind up nearly chest to chest, hands still clasped between them. Ed’s just a bit taller than Stede, and up close those eyes are deep brown and mesmerising, crinkled at the sides.
“Thanks,” Ed says, and then he tugs Stede forward into a back-slapping hug, that voice a purr in his ear. “So fucking good to meet you, man. You’re a lunatic, and I like it.”
“Well, thank you,” Stede says breathlessly, as Ed lets him go. He’s very aware of the penguin circling around them, butting into their legs. “He’s certainly a fan of you.”
“Seems to like you, too,” Ed says, as Pingu rubs his cheek against Stede’s hip, glaring at him.
“Mmhmm,” Stede says, as sceptical as he’s ever been of anyone. “Sure.”
He reluctantly lets go of Ed, who seems equally reluctant to step back, but he does eventually. He’s dressed casually in black jeans and a black t-shirt that hugs the curves of his torso and his arms, and he turns to the penguin. “Hey, you had a long swim, huh? Tell me all about it.”
~
It takes a couple of hours for Ed to make his full assessment, and Stede leans in the corner, watching. He’s so gentle with the penguin, and he can’t really begrudge it the instant trust, because he feels that, too. Ed just radiates competence and brilliance and kindness. Every version of the man Stede might have imagined in the past from books or the television fades away, replaced with just… this Ed, the one he first heard on the phone, no idea who he was, but his first impression feels so much more right than the rest.
By the time the sun is starting to set, they’ve got a little nest situation set up in the corner that’s under cover, and Pingu is quite happily wolfing down fresh whiting, and Stede’s got his gate secured a lot better with lots of cable ties.
“There,” he says, standing back, hands on his hips. “Nothing can get to him, and he can’t get to anything either.”
Lest he suddenly decide to pursue Stede up the stairs, giving up the pretence of good behaviour.
“Perfect,” Ed says. “You got anywhere I can wash up?”
“Yes! Yes, upstairs, let’s go.”
Ed retrieves his suitcase from the car and declines Stede’s offer to carry it up. Stede leads the way, and guides Ed inside his house, and into the main bedroom, just off the front hall. “Here we are,” he says gesturing Ed inside. “Home sweet home.”
“Incredible,” Ed says, casting his eyes up to the cathedral ceiling, all the natural wood beams and the big windows on all sides. “Holy shit, all this is yours?”
“It is,” Stede says, pleased at the reaction. He gestures as they walk. “We’ve got the living room through here, the bedroom through there, and here the kitchen—”
He breaks off, because the kitchen includes (oh god) the condoms and the enormous pump-action bottle of lubricant that Lucius helpfully brought around, and less helpfully, left sitting there in the middle of the counter.
“Ah,” Stede says, being incredibly subtle as he edges toward it. But Ed’s already got an amused eyebrow raised, and he’s been rustled. “I’ll just—wow, a bit of the shopping didn’t get put away.”
He grabs the supplies, fumbling the packet of condoms—does it truly have to declare XTRA LARGE in such enormously visible letters across the front?—until he manages to shove both items into the nearest cupboard, slamming it shut with a nervous laugh.
“Hey,” Ed says. “Hey, I’m the one imposing. Your personal life is your business, man, no need to worry about me.”
“Of course,” Stede squeaks. He thinks he’s ready for the penguin to kill him, actually. “No, of course, bodies are just bodies, urges are just urges…”
“Love a good urge,” Ed says, scratching the back of his neck. “Fuck, I didn’t even ask—is there a, a Mrs. Bonnet? A Mr. Bonnet I’m going to be disrupting?”
“No!” Stede yells, then clears his throat and gets an ounce of decorum. “No, quite single, incredibly single, completely free for any and all disruption you’d like to get up to.”
Ed stares at him. Stede feels his cheeks beginning to burn. And then Ed’s smile quirks sideways. “‘Kay. I’ll keep that in mind.”
That was flirting, wasn’t it? He remembers what Pete said about Ed’s smouldering stare, because if he were a house in Ed’s sunshine beam, all his paint would be blistering now. “Let me just—let me show you the bedroom.” Hastily, he adds, “In which you’ll be sleeping.”
There. Saved it. He hurries over and Ed follows, blowing out a whistle when they walk in. Stede loves everything about this house, but this room is probably his favourite. An entire wall of the main bedroom is glass, opening up that view over the forest. The bed has a beautiful carved headboard made from salvaged marri and it’s made up with the finest linens, currently gorgeous deep greens to match the world outside.
“Here’s the bed,” Stede says, “for sleeping.” Saving it, he’s saving it. He walks on through the closet that divides the bedroom from the bathroom. “And through here you’ll find the en-suite, fully stocked with a range of body and haircare products. Fresh towels on the heated rack, please do feel free to use anything you like.”
He turns back to find Ed running a hand over his summer linens, transfixed by the rainbow of colours, and his heart tumbles in his chest.
“Do you fancy a fine fabric?”
Ed looks up through his lashes. “Think maybe I do.”
Stede swallows again. He’s never been so aware of his own swallowing. “I’m a bit of a clothes-horse.”
“I love it,” Ed says sincerely, pulling out the sleeve of a deep red silk shirt that Stede happens to adore. “I don’t get to dress up much. Everyone kind of expects me to look the same all the time.”
“I think that’d look lovely on you,” Stede says heatedly. “Please, while you’re here, feel free to borrow anything you like. My house is your house.”
Ed grins at him in a way that makes his eyes crinkle. “Appreciate it, thanks.” He nods back at the bedroom. “But, uh. This is your room, right? No need to give up your space for me, I can bunk anywhere.”
“No, no, I insist,” Stede says. “I’m actually a little bit… between changes here, and this is the only bed going, but I have a very comfortable couch that I already fall asleep on quite regularly, so I’m more than glad to take that.”
Ed’s brows scrunch together. “Mate, no, I’m not going to kick you onto your couch. I’ll take that, sounds good for me. I’ve slept on fucking rocks before, I’m not fussy.”
And Stede had also not missed the way Ed had limped a little bit up the stairs, the way he’s favouring his left knee a bit. “I insist.”
Ed steps closer to him, and Stede’s heart flutters. “What is that, a king size?”
Another swallow. “A super king.”
“Super king,” Ed says admiringly. And then, “Sounds like there’s plenty of space for two. Also not the first time I’ve bunked down with a mate.”
A mate. That’s what they are, what they could be, in the human sense of the word, right? Or… in the bird sense? Stede hums, then realises he’s hummed out loud and attempts to convert it directly into speech. “Hmmmyep we could, I suppose, if that works for you.”
“It works for me,” Ed says, with that million watt smile. “It really fucking does.”
~
Ed takes quite a while in the shower, and Stede fusses around in the kitchen like a man on a first date, putting the food in the oven—damn, he forgot to ask Ed’s dietary preferences, so he puts all of it in, figures they’ll have choices. He hastily throws a red linen tablecloth over the dining table and sets out plates and cutlery, and then in a fit of hospitable zeal, he places a lovely candelabra in the middle and lights the tapers one by one. And then he revises his thought about the seating arrangement—he and Mary used to sit at opposite ends, but he wants to be near Ed—and he’s in the middle of moving one place perpendicular, adjacent to the other, sharing a corner, when Ed wanders out and every thought he’s ever had promptly exits his mind.
All he’s got left is, Ed. Everything is Ed now.
Ed’s wearing a pair of soft grey sweatpants, barefoot, his hair flowing in loosely blow-dried silver waves over his shoulders. He’s also wearing Stede’s favourite silk robe, the fuchsia one with the beautiful tropical birds and plants all over it, and it appears he’s wearing nothing else underneath. He’s got a fully-rigged sailing ship tattooed across his chest and a hawk floating above it on the updraft of his collarbones, and he’s just… beautiful.
Stede’s mouth has gone fully dry. His heart has stalled right where it sits. His mind is emitting nothing but a high-pitched whining noise, which is when Ed says, “Ooh, bro, I think your smoke detector’s going off.”
That’s not—is it? Oh, shit, it is. Stede pivots to the kitchen and discovers that there’s a steady stream of smoke pouring out of the grill press, where he’d placed a few slices of Oluwande’s sourdough earlier before he completely lost track of time. Ed’s already moving, sliding into the kitchen like he belongs there, switching the appliance off at the wall, scooping up the composting scrap bin from beside the sink first, flinging open the grill lid and expertly flicking the offending slices into the scraps, and he then hustles the bin over to the sliding door and places it outside on the deck.
Stede gets busy flapping his dishtowel at the smoke detector to clear the false alarm, and when it finally goes silent, he releases a breath of relief, ears still ringing.
Ed looks amused as he wanders back in and leans against the bench. “Well, shit.”
“Shit,” Stede agrees. “I’ll slice up some more and give it another go.”
Ed shakes his head, nodding to the neatly dressed salad, the wine glasses sitting beside a perfectly decanted red. “You’ve already done heaps, and that smells amazing.” He means the deliciousness that’s wafting from the oven, not the charcoal that used to be bread. “Let me take care of the rest, okay? You pour us both a glass and relax.”
“All right,” Stede says weakly. He knows when he’s being demoted, and he deserves it. “Yes, I’ll just—”
There’s a slightly awkward dance as they move in the same direction at the same time, and then Ed steps the same way, both of them apologising at once, nearly bumping into each other again. Finally Ed slides past, smelling of sandalwood and just a touch of bread smoke, and heads for the chopping board.
Stede watches him go, the confident set of his shoulders, the just-so fall of those rolling waves of hair, and he’s not sure if the wave of longing he feels is for Ed, or for being Ed, the way Alma wished he was.
Well, he’s stuck with being Stede, so. For Ed about covers it. He pours his own glass of red carefully, generously, and follows Ed’s request for his own glass with equal generosity. Ed hums a little as he slices the bread and plops the pieces onto the grill, and he looks back at Stede smiling. “This is amazing, shit, I don’t know when I last had a home-cooked meal that smelled this good.”
Stede’s seized with the sudden irrational urge to lie about everything, but he manages to dredge up honesty instead. “Almost all of it comes from friends, actually. Roach is the head chef at the brewery down the road, wonderful restaurant, and he made the mains.” Ah, the question. “He wasn’t sure if you might be vegetarian, so he’s given options.” Options, Stede realises in quick succession, that couldn’t have taken into account all the other potential dietary needs. Veganism! Allergies! Preferences!
He’s about to have a thorough panic about it when Ed says, “I’ll eat anything. Everything.”
More swallowing, how was Stede never previously aware of just how much he swallowed in the course of a day? “Right, well. That’ll be finished any moment now, so let’s just…”
They bustle around each other again as Stede pulls on his oven mitts, takes out the food and transfers it to serving dishes, and Ed fiddles with his music system until the last thing Stede was listening to pours out (and Ed says, “Aw, Satie, my favourite,” and Stede feels like he’s losing the fight here not to fall in love with a stranger). He pulls the definitely-not-burned-this-time bread onto a plate and brings it across to the table, and Stede sets out the dishes, and they settle into their seats.
There’s a sudden moment of silence before Stede lets a nervous laugh escape, because here they are, two absolute strangers settling in for a decidedly romantic dinner, mere hours after they first learned of one another’s existence. “This all happened very quickly, didn’t it?”
Ed lifts his wine glass and leans over, inviting Stede to clink it, which he does. “Most exciting thing that’s happened to me in ages. Maybe ever.”
Stede blinks. “Ed, I have it on good authority you’ve done a lot of exciting things.”
Ed sighs and reaches for the nearest dish, scooping out some mashed potato, offering to scoop for Stede, too, and he nods. Accepts the care as Ed seems to summon up his thoughts from deep down. “You ever feel like you’re just treading water, waiting to drown? Yeah, everything’s exciting, but after a while it’s the same exciting shit, different day, and it all gets so fucking boring. I don’t even have to be on the screen, just a voice pasted over some pretty location shots. I’m a ghost.”
Stede winces in sympathy. “I very much have felt like that, yes. Well, not the voiceover bit, but the rest… yes.”
Ed spoons stew onto both of their plates, and cheesy vegetables after, and Stede offers salad, butters two slices of the bread and passes one over. Ed takes his first spoonful of stew and groans at a pitch that seems to vibrate through Stede’s bones. “Fuck, that’s incredible. Is Roach single?”
Stede tries very hard not to make a face, with middling success. “Oh. No, he’s got a boyfriend in the city he’s always telling us about, swears we’ll meet him one of these days.”
Ed raises a brow as he downs more food, dabbing his lips with a napkin in between. “And do we believe in the boyfriend?”
Stede grins. “I think we do, but you never know with this crew.”
At Ed’s encouragement, as they eat, he launches into a rundown of all the lovely people who make up his found family here, regaling him with all sorts of tales from the last few years, and it feels… easy. Just like breathing. In turn, Ed tells Stede all about his own crew, hope soaring as Stede very casually asks if Archie is his partner and Ed laughs, says he’s very fucking single, too, actually.
“It really does sound like they’d all get along, your crew and mine,” Stede says. “Perhaps when we’ve sorted all this out we can find a way to get them together.”
“The dream,” Ed says, leaning back in his seat, looking up to the distant ceiling. “Fuck, man, I love what you’ve got here. The crew, the family, the work.”
“It’s lonely,” Stede says, without quite intending to, and then he bites his lip. Ed’s so easy to talk to, and he doesn’t feel like he’s an imposition. “I thought that moving down here might be the key to fixing my marriage. Former,” he adds, for immediate clarity.
Ed snorts. “Guess that, uh. Didn’t work.”
“Turns out location wasn’t the problem,” Stede says wryly. “It was a good life. The kids were happy here, until they hit their teens, and then it’s very limited, you know?” It’s a tourist town, people swinging through for the wine and the chocolate and the forest getaway in winter, arriving in droves for the beaches in summer. In between, their options are mostly farming or timber, and as the environment changes, even more people are leaving to greyer city pastures. Alma and Louis weren’t immune. “Small town everything here, opportunities out of their reach, all the usual struggles magnified. They wanted to move back to the city.”
“And you didn’t,” Ed says.
“No,” Stede says. “No, but I talked to the crew and it made me see that it wasn’t just that I was in love with this place, it was… well. I wasn’t me anywhere else. And it made me understand that being me… mattered.”
“Fuckin’ love that,” Ed says fiercely. “It does matter. Matters a whole fucking lot. And I like who you are.”
“Oh, Ed.” Stede blinks away sudden tears. “Thank you, I’m not especially used to people feeling that about me.”
“They’re missing out,” Ed says, leaning in to drag his bread through the last of the sauce on his plate. “How’d you get into the bird gig, anyway?”
“Ah,” Stede says, the warmth of the evening suddenly washed away by a bit of a chill. “It’s not a happy story.”
Ed swallows, reads him. “Sorry, man. Got a little bit of that in my history, too.”
“Around your work with animals?”
Ed’s laugh is slightly strained. “Nah, I mean… I got into it because of the other stuff, but working with animals has been good, mostly. Might tell you about it later.”
They change the subject and talk on through another glass of wine, through taking the dishes into the kitchen and loading the dishwasher. Stede apologises for not thinking about dessert, but he does find some frost-burned Rainbow Paddlepops in the back of the freezer from the last time the kids visited, and Ed reacts like they’re a Michelin-starred delicacy, declaring he wouldn’t choose anything else before those.
They take them out onto the deck and sit side by side on the bench seat there, staring up at the vast expanse of stars that twinkles over the now-darkened reaches of the forest. And just as Stede licks the last of his ice-cream from the wooden stick, he’s viscerally aware of Ed’s arm sliding across behind him on the seat, while the man himself stares studiously up at the night sky. Stede finds a startled laugh bubbling up.
“Edward, are you—are you putting a move on me?”
He should have been prepared for the smoulder. He really should have, but when Ed turns to look at him, it freezes his breath in his throat. Ed even flutters his lashes a bit, rubs his thumb over Stede’s shoulder. “Dunno. Might be a bit weird when we only just met, and you called me down here to look at your penguin.”
Oh, no, that’s it, the laugh is out, tipped through his lips as a sort of greeze that would put Pingu to shame. “God,” he says breathlessly. “Lucius had all sorts of euphemisms to apply to that particular turn of phrase.”
“Yeah?” Ed’s brow quirks, and his grin quirks, and he slides himself close enough to press their hips together, enough that Stede’s gasp catches a sweet lungful of his breath as Ed’s arm tightens around his shoulders. “What if I had an ulterior motive? What if I did want to take a look at your penguin?”
“He’s right downstairs—” Stede starts to say, but he’s cut off by Ed leaning in and kissing him.
Ed is. Ed is kissing him. It takes his brain more than a few seconds to catch up to this fact, sunk as it is in the sensation of Ed’s mouth moving warmly against his, and the corresponding way his emotions flutter through him like a bursting cloud of starlings. He only properly comes to his senses when he finds himself threading a hand up into Ed’s hair and lunging in with such enthusiasm that he almost ends up on Ed’s lap, moaning about it.
Ed breaks away then, laughing, but he doesn’t let Stede go. He slides a hand softly up to cup Stede’s cheek, keeps their foreheads pressed together. “Fuck, I was starting to worry it was only me feeling this.”
Stede whimpers. Can’t help it. “I’ve been losing my mind for eight or ten hours now, ever since I first heard your voice.”
“Good,” Ed says, and punctuates that with a soft peck of a kiss. “Very fucking good.” It’s his turn to swallow. “If, uh. If this makes sharing the bed awkward—”
It’s Stede’s turn to cut him off with a kiss, only this time he really does break. Actually lets himself swing a leg boldly over Ed’s lap, presses himself against the man and revels at the sound that it draws out of him, a deep rumble, a groan, as Stede keeps kissing him. When he finally needs more oxygen, he pushes back. Ed’s dark-eyed and pink-lipped and breathing just as hard as he is. “I want you in my bed. With me. Not to sleep.”
Ed nods a little frantically. “Yep. Sounds good.”
He lets himself run a hand down Ed’s bare chest, feeling insane. “Lucius brought me the extra large bottle of lube, just in case.”
“Lucius needs a raise,” Ed says, rocking his hips up against Stede’s, and oh, he’s hard there, right where Stede is. “Have you, uh. Have you been tested lately?”
Christ, this is getting so real, so fast. “Six months ago,” Stede says, “but I haven’t had any partners.”
Ed’s hands have settled on his hips, and he’s pulling Stede down against him as he rocks up. “Okay. Okay, yeah, I only got tested last month, no partners since. All clear.”
“Oh, me too, yes.”
“Mmhmm,” Ed says, dragging his eyes down to Stede’s chest. “I think I’m ready for bed now.”
From down below, there’s a sudden long, mournful greeze that douses Stede like cold water. “Oh, the fucking penguin.”
Ed breaks into a round of snorting giggles. “Thought you and he were friends.”
Stede’s already climbing off his lap, adjusting himself as he stands. “You and he are friends. He’s besotted with you. He hates me.”
“Diabolical,” Ed says, clearly thinking about the way the thing had behaved earlier. “Think I like him even more now.”
“Of course you do!” Stede says. “I’m sure he’d like you to share his bed, too.”
Ed slaps his knees and pushes himself up, and pulls Stede in, swaying his shoulders from side to side as he does. He brushes their noses together and says, “Yeah, sorry, mate, it’s not every day I get an offer from an emperor penguin—”
“Stop,” Stede huffs, amused, as he swats Ed’s shoulder. Ed yanks him in the rest of the way and kisses him again.
“Let’s go sort him out for the night and then we’ll come back up and get into some human mischief.”
~
Stede’s still trying to hold onto thoughts of human mischief half an hour later while Ed—hastily redressed in what he calls his field clothes, kneels over Pingu with a stethoscope and a concerned expression on his face. The penguin was lying in the corner shivering when they arrived, and Stede watched Ed transform on the spot from the flirty, lovely date he’d been upstairs, to a professional with real priorities.
Stede, on the other hand, feels utterly useless, not to mention guilty for being snarky about the poor bird in the first place. He’s made himself as useful as he can passing thermometers and test kits and all sorts of other equipment back and forth, and now he’s pacing much the way he used to whenever the kids were sick.
“What do you think?” he asks. “Is he going to be all right?”
Ed just shakes his head. “Yeah, you know… probably should’ve checked this first, but… he’s a she.” He looks up at Stede. “She’s going to lay an egg, sometime in the next couple of days.”
“Oh,” Stede says, instantly overwhelmed with the need to reinterpret every idea he’s had about this bird. “Oh, well, that’s… lovely?”
Ed nods, stroking the penguin’s head. “Fucking huge effort swimming here alone, but doing it with an egg on board? No wonder she’s having a hard time.”
“But she’s otherwise fine generally?” He really, really does not want any harm to befall this bird, but even less so an innocent chick. He’d gladly let her peck him all she likes. “This has been a bit of an alarming turn.”
“That’s why I’m here,” Ed says. “Good thing I came, right?”
“It really is,” Stede says, for so, so many reasons.
“Think she’s fine, everything’s just catching up with her a little bit. So maybe we just… sit down here for a while, make sure she stays fine. And when she’s resting we can go back up.”
The unspoken bit: because there’s so much else they want to finish tonight, and they’re not here for that, but damned if Stede doesn’t want to push for it anyway. It’s just not the first priority on the list, by any means. They’ve got a shared purpose here, and this is it.
“I’ll pop up and get us something warm to drink,” he says. “Preferences?”
“Whatever you’ve got,” Ed says. “Just make it sweet?”
It’s a cold night out there, though by Antarctic standards, nothing to write home about. Nonetheless, neither he or Ed are from the Antarctic, so in addition to two flasks of tea—a very generous amount of sugar in one, considerably less in the other—Stede grabs a couple of pairs of gloves, two of Louis’ regulation standard outfit beanies, and a good thick wool blanket. He hustles back downstairs and lets himself into the enclosure, where he finds Ed sitting propped against the wall, the penguin lying in his lap, gazing up at him adoringly as he sings her a slightly off-key little song and strokes her chin.
He can’t compete with that. He’s not even going to try. He shuffles over and sinks down onto the floor beside Ed, wincing at the coldness of the concrete even through the fleece-lined sweatpants he’d changed into. He shakes out the blanket, and Ed shifts the penguin enough to get the fabric over his legs and under her, leaving her lying on top. Ed keeps one arm looped casually around her as he accepts the flask of tea with the other hand. He takes a long sip from it and groans almost as deeply as he did up on the deck.
“Oh, that’s perfect.”
“Seven sugars and a dollop of milk,” Stede says. It had felt excessive scooping it in there in the kitchen, but there’s no amount of sweetness he wouldn’t give Ed.
“Wouldn’t be the same with six,” Ed says, sounding satisfied.
There’s a little bit more fussing around as Stede offers the beanie, then puts it on Ed’s head for him, before he slides the other one over his own head (he’s not going to be vain about his hair, he’s not). Ed manages his own gloves, and Stede pulls his on, and trying it out a little bit, he nuzzles up against Ed’s shoulder. Finally, he feels properly warm. The stars are still visible overhead through the gap in the trees, and this is… nice.
They sit there for a bit in silence, not needing anything more than the quiet, the rustle of the trees around them, and the occasional hoot of a nightbird. Eventually Ed clears his throat. “You ready to tell me how you got into bird rescue?”
Stede sighs. This does feel like a decent time for it, yes, since they have no idea how long they’ll be out here. He might as well lay it all out. “I grew up on a winery in the Valley. It’s been in the family for generations, and my father had some very strong opinions about… legacy and all that. It’s why he wanted me to go into finance, so that I’d be ready to keep growing the business.”
Ed gives a non-committal kind of hum. “Making his kid reach for his own dreams.”
“Exactly.” He wraps his hands tighter around the tea flask. “We had a lot of birds on the property. Ducks, geese especially, entirely domesticated. And he seemed to see it as some sort of… sport, killing them. Claimed it was just a natural process, where d’you think our food actually comes from, son, all that sort of stuff.” He looks up at Ed almost pleading for him to understand, and the look in Ed’s eyes is nothing but sympathetic. “He used to make me watch, every time he—” He leans across as an afterthought and slides a hand over Pingu’s ear, or the spot where he presumes it must be, dropping his voice to a whisper anyway. “Every time he lopped off another head.”
He lets the penguin go, and she doesn’t bite him, and Ed gives a soft huff. “Fucking awful. ‘M sorry that happened to you.”
“Thank you,” Stede says. “I really did love those birds. I’d try to smuggle them off the farm, toss them over the neighbour’s fences. Put a couple in the river and shooed them away, but they always came back, because it was home, wasn’t it? The only home they’d known, raised from chicks.” The emotion sits thick in his throat. “Much like me, I suppose, stuck there. I might’ve overidentified with them a bit.”
Trapped with a cruel man without his best interests at heart, head on the chopping block if he didn’t comply with living a life that was decided for him from miserable beginning to miserable end.
Ed drains the last gulps of his tea and leans over Pingu to set the flask down on the other side, then lifts his arm. Stede understands that he’s being invited in, and so he goes, and Ed really wraps him up with a strong one-armed hug and a lingering kiss to the side of his head. “Fucked up,” he says, sounding as emotional about it as Stede feels. “But you got away.”
Art by Hideplueshi
“I did. I married Mary, as arranged by our parents. We had the children. And then I took the Chief Financial Officer title from twenty years of winery work and applied to do the same job as far from him as I could possibly get, down here. We’ve got a couple of bird people on the crew, and everyone helps out on volunteer days. The first time I did it, it felt… right. Felt like the least I could do to help these birds, when I couldn’t help the rest.”
And it hadn’t fixed everything about the family situation, as he’s told Ed, but god. “Being disinherited was actually the most relief I can remember in a long time. He doesn’t own me anymore. Any of us.”
Ed squeezes him tighter. “Know that feeling.”
He knows there’s something lingering behind Ed’s comment from earlier, about how this work has been happy for him, but the reason he got into it wasn’t. “You can tell me, if you want to.”
Ed’s head is resting against his, and his arm’s tight around Stede’s shoulders, and his heartbeat is thudding away between them, the echo of it a drum rhythm against Stede’s arm, where it leans against Ed’s ribs. Ed nods. “Yeah, uh. My dad was. Like yours, but maybe a little more about the fists. Used to hit mum and me all the time.” He glances at Stede, who does his best to return the reassuring nod. “Got into the Gould League as a way to escape, used to spend all my weekends out there watching birds. Volunteered at the zoo. Started giving my own tours, and people loved it. Studied it, got the qualifications, slid into a job where I could pull all those interests together, and then the whole TV thing came around, and everything got less fun, you know? But then there was funding, and a bit of a profile, and it helped.”
He takes a shaky breath, and Stede feels the weight of a confession lingering over them, which lands a moment later. “I didn’t kill my dad. Wanted to a lot of times over the years. But I kinda felt responsible when he died anyway. We had an argument, and he went to the pub. Got into a fight there, hit his head, didn’t wake up.”
“Ed,” Stede says helplessly. “Oh, that’s terrible.”
“I mean like, good riddance, yeah? But it fucked us up for years.” He strokes the penguin again. “Applied to do a field school in Antarctica for my PhD, lied on all the application papers, charmed my way through the psych tests. And then I got down there, and fuck, they weren’t wrong. It’s cold, and it’s dark, and it’s isolated, and I started to crack up a little.”
Stede can imagine, viscerally so as they’re sitting here in the dark, the increasing wind whistling around them. It feels different, having another person in it with you. Alone, it’s frightening, especially if there’s no escape.
“Honestly it was the penguins that got me out of it alive,” Ed says. “Found one just like this, only the dad. You know after the mother lays the egg, the dad incubates it? He was all alone, got himself separated from the colony. And I had a bad night, went for a walk on my own, ready to maybe just—keep walking, not go back.” Beyond the limits of survivability, he means. “And then there he was, just standing there in the cold, like me. Only living creatures for miles, both of us lost and suffering.”
Stede aches for him, because all the pain is reverberating through his words. He sets his own flask aside and slides both arms around Ed’s waist, pulling him close.
Ed ducks his head to squeeze him back. “Anyway, reckon I needed a purpose right about then. Got him back to his family. Saw him a lot when summer swung around, with his little chick on his feet.” He smiles weakly. “Didn’t think he was going to make it at first, the way he was all alone, but it only took a minute of fate to change that for both of us, and I’ve never forgotten it, even though I couldn't bring myself to work with them for a long time after. Even when things look worst, you never know what’s right around the corner.”
“I’m so glad you did make it,” Stede says. “So very very glad, and I’m glad you’re here with me tonight.”
Glad that the universe has once again planted a penguin in Ed’s path, and this time in Stede’s, too. Shown them both that they don’t have to be alone anymore, that there are better things around the corner. They’ve turned the corner together. They’re here.
He meets Ed’s warm gaze, which reflects all the same things, and tilts his chin up for a kiss.
And Pingu sits up at that, shakes herself out. Gives them both a baleful glare for a second, which makes Ed laugh. “You know what, maybe you were right, she’s a bit of a bitch.”
“But she’s our bitch,” Stede says fondly. “Temporarily.”
Pingu looks between them, and then she starts shaking, making them both scramble up. Big heaving shudders, making Stede panic again, making Ed look around wildly for his medical kit, and then—
And then she vomits up a slurry of whiting all over Stede’s lovely wool blanket. Gives him one last self-satisfied look, and toddles herself over to her nest, and curls up in it, and goes to sleep.
Ed waits a respectable ten more seconds before he starts wheezing with laughter. “Oh, shit, she’s got your number.”
“I hate her,” Stede informs him.
“Bullshit," Ed says. "And she loves you, too.” He’s probably right. She might, in her weird penguin way, but gosh, she’s got a funny way of showing it. Stede maybe, possibly, a little bit feels the same in return.
“I think I’ll just… leave the blanket here,” Stede says. “It’s going to need a hosing anyway, and then a very thorough dry-cleaning.”
“Good plan,” Ed says, scooping up both of their flasks. “Diagnosis of overdid the dinner, relatable. I think she’ll be all right til morning.”
Ah, now there are those flurries of warmth trickling back through him, coming in from the cold. He nods. “Upstairs, then. Let’s get warmed up.”
~
The shower was already a favourite part of Stede’s house, with the big rainfall head that hangs down from the ceiling, and the cool greens of the tiles, and the skylight that lets in lovely natural light during the day, moonlight at night.
It’s risen several steps in popularity now that Ed’s got him backed against the wall of it, kissing him lazily as the steam swirls around them. They’d disrobed without another word, after Stede had led Ed into the bathroom, not at all subtle about the fact that they each continued to watch the other strip down until the last vestiges of clothing were tossed on the floor.
And then they’d crashed together in a kiss, bare bodies sliding, and Ed had tugged him back into the water like this, and here they are.
Stede is achingly hard, feeling a touch mad with desire, and he’s confident Ed feels the same way by the impressive length that’s sliding against his own every time Ed rocks his hips. Stede keeps breaking the kiss to look down between them, mesmerised by the way their bodies press together.
“Is this really happening?” he gasps, as Ed’s hand slides smoothly over his cock and gives it a squeeze.
Ed chuckles from where he’s mouthing at Stede’s neck. “Feels like it to me. Getting that penguin nice and wet.”
“Ed,” Stede gasps, helpless with laughter. “Is that—is it appropriate, when she’s just down there?”
“She can't hear us. Besides, she's having an egg, she knows all about the birds and the bees,” Ed says, and it takes Stede a second to realise that Ed’s sliding lower, dropping to his knees on the shower floor, and his pulse is absolutely skittering as Ed looks up at him, eyelashes misted with tiny droplets of water, lips so close to his cock that he can feel every warm breath ghosting over his tip. “What d’you say, want to rehome this one in a new environment?”
Stede nods solemnly, committing at last to the bit. “I’m sure it’d be much more comfortable—oh shit—”
Ed’s wrapped a steady hand around him and slipped his lips over the head of Stede’s cock, and the instantly enveloping warmth and suction sends lightning arcing through him. He instinctively grabs for a handhold and gets his fingers knotted into Ed’s hair, and Ed lets out a deep moan that makes Stede shudder.
“Good?” Ed says, barely taking his mouth off Stede’s length, licking across the slit as he waits for an answer.
Stede nods shakily. “Incredible.”
“Good,” Ed says, grinning, and then he closes his eyes and sinks down onto Stede’s cock fully, and Stede thunks his head back against the tiles with a moan.
He can’t believe how instantly his life has pivoted, how quickly he’s ended up with everything he could have dreamed of wanting. He’d woken up this morning just as lonely as ever, rapidly losing hope. He’s here tonight with what feels like a whole new future opening up ahead of him.
Right now the most beautiful man he’s ever seen is on his knees for him, swallowing his cock with determination, fisting his own cock as he takes Stede deeper and deeper down his throat, and the sight of that is so unbelievably hedonistic that he barely has a moment to warn Ed before the waves overtake him, wash him ashore, drag him back out to sea and he’s coming, his release pulsing through him so hard and fast that it leaves his legs shaking as Ed swallows it all down.
Stede’s still catching his breath when Ed pulls off, and his smile is so heated and sure that it makes Stede shiver.
He strokes his still-hard cock where he’s kneeling under the pattering water. “Got one more penguin to relocate.”
Stede feels his whole face scrunching. “Oh god. No. I mean yes, but—do you want—what do you want?”
He wants to give Ed back everything he just gave Stede. He wants to learn new things, try new things. He wants to make Ed feel just that good, too. But Ed pulls himself up off the shower floor and leans with his hand beside Stede’s head, bending in to kiss his cheek, brushing his ear with his lips and leaving the innuendos firmly to the side.
“I want to take care of you. I want to make you feel good.” His teeth close gently around Stede’s earlobe, nibbling for a second. “I want to fuck you, if you want that.”
“Yes,” Stede whispers. “Please.”
He thanks a nebulous god he’s never really believed in, a random penguin, and Lucius in that order as Ed pulls him out of the shower and slings one of the fluffy towels around him, scrunching his own hair for a bit before he nods to the door. “C’mon.”
He takes Stede’s hand, and Stede lets himself be pulled, playfully, laughing, to a bed where he can’t ever recall having had a satisfying sexual experience before. But now Ed drops his towel and catches the edge of Stede’s, too, stripping it away as he flops back into the centre of the bed, landing in the feather-soft quilt with an awwwghhhh that’s so endearing, Stede has to flop down and join him.
They lie side by side, staring at each other in the moonlight that’s pouring in through the glass wall, down through the skylights, and Stede finds that he’s smiling so much his cheeks hurt. “I like you very much, Ed.”
“You make me happy, too,” Ed says, and rolls in toward him.
It’s easy like this, the way their mouths meet and their legs tangle together. Stede’s always been hyperconscious of himself, of where he needs to put his limbs and how he needs to arrange his expression to meet the parameters for normal, but with Ed he can just… move the way his body wants to, and it’s right. It’s drawing all sorts of beautiful noises from Ed’s throat, wrecked little cries and bitten off moans, and he feels so much more than adequate.
They kiss lazily for a bit until Ed nudges his knee and pushes it up, opening the space between his legs.
Quite suddenly this all feels very fast, and Stede feels very out of his depth.
And Ed must see it on his face, because he pauses. He’s got one arm hooked under Stede’s thigh, palm warm on his backside. The other’s around Stede’s neck, holding him close. “Hey, hey. There’s no rush. We don’t have to do anything you’re not ready for.”
Stede ducks up and kisses him fiercely, pulling back with Ed’s lip caught between his teeth. “I’m ready,” he says, no hesitation. “I just don’t know what I’m doing, but—”
“That’s why you called up the expert for advice,” Ed says smugly, and he leans back to snag the lube off the bedside table, which now that Stede thinks about it… wasn’t there before. Ed’s truly prepared for this, as ready for it as he is.
Ed makes a show of pumping the lube until the liquid squirts out, coating two fingers with it until they’re shining, and then he pauses. Stede looks him in the eye and says, “If this is about to be another penguin joke I may have to kick you out.”
Ed pouts, wiggles his fingers. “Then I’d be stuck with all this lube and nobody to use it on.”
Stede bites his lip. “I’m sure you could find a worthy cause to donate it to.”
Ed’s brow flickers up, down as he tries not to laugh. “A penguin sanctuary?”
Stede throws an arm across his eyes. “I did like you, I really did.”
“You still do,” Ed says warmly, and now his fingers are sliding over Stede’s thigh, trailing down over his balls and between his cheeks, and Stede wriggles himself wider, giving better access as Ed ducks down and licks his nipple. Says, “Promise you’ll like me even more after this.”
And who is Stede to doubt an expert? He’s just a very, very willing volunteer, and he folds his arms up behind his head and lets himself watch as Ed mouths over his soft cock, shifts his thighs wider, and then so, so slowly circles his hole with one slicked finger, sending warmth fluttering all through him. He concentrates, and he concentrates, and he concentrates so hard on not letting his eyes roll back into his head that Ed lets out a chuckle against his thigh, teeth scraping softly over the skin there.
“Need you to relax a little.”
“Shit.” Stede remembers to take a breath. “Right. I’m very relaxed. Relaxing right now.”
He wills himself to puddle. Thinks about jelly, becoming it. A river flowing gently around any obstacle. Melting ice-cream. And then there’s the unfamiliar slide of Ed’s finger pressing inside him, and he’s tense everywhere again in a second.
Ed stops moving, wiggles a little. Kisses his thigh for a bit, and then the other one. “You’re doing great, babe, just breathe.”
He can breathe. He can do that. He can be called babe by this lovely person and he can save a penguin and he is more than adequate enough to get himself fucked for the first time.
He stubbornly eases everything, until Ed can push deeper into him. And then it does get easier. There’s more lubricant squeezed out, Ed murmuring soft praise for how well he’s doing. A second finger pushing into him, a moment where Ed grazes his prostate and makes him howl a bit, greeze, really. Gradually, gradually, he stops having to think about being loose and easy for Ed, and he just… is.
He writhes on those fingers, chasing his pleasure, letting himself cry out. He watches Ed pull out and kneel up and grab for a condom, movements uncoordinated, fingers shaking as he rolls it down his cock. He knows that Lucius was playing on the crew joke about his own anatomy, after a beach party last year that featured unintentionally skimpy last-minute swimwear on his part, but it turns out it wasn’t the wrong choice for Ed, either, who’s got a beautiful cock. Very erect. Very long, a little curved, about to be pushed inside Stede, who’s suddenly breathing rapidly again.
“You good?” Ed says, soft and slightly amused.
Stede nods. He’s good. He’s never been better, never more filled with anticipation, never so alive in his entire life. He’s never felt so much like he’s doing something for himself and someone else at the same time, and he wants this, and he’s letting himself want it, and it’s so very, very good.
“I’m great,” Stede says earnestly, and opens his legs wider, reaching for Ed. “Please.”
Ed obliges, kneeling in closer, pressing the head of his cock against Stede’s hole, softly at first and then with more pressure, until it slips inside and Stede gasps.
Ed pauses. Stede tries to drag him further in, hooking an ankle around his backside, reaching for him. “Ed!”
“So needy,” Ed says, but it doesn’t sound like an insult. It sounds like a wish he wants to fulfil, and he does that millimetre by millimetre, rocking into Stede until he’s full. Ed’s leaning over him, brow creased in concentration, and every nerve in his body is alive, and all he can do about it is make incoherent noises every time Ed thrusts gently into him.
He might be crying a little bit, he’s not sure, but at last Ed seems to feel comfortable enough to start moving more earnestly, drawing back smoothly and thrusting in hard, punching a cry out of Stede that echoes up into the rafters.
“Yes,” he says. “God, yes, Ed, just like that.”
Ed obliges, fucking him with increasing intensity. Stede’s only vaguely aware of how hard he’s managed to get again when Ed reaches down between them and starts to pump his cock in time with his thrusts, sending Stede to a whole new plane of existence.
Ed’s the whole world right now, with his hair slipping down over his shoulders and his own little whimpers slipping out. He manages to drag his eyes open to watch Stede’s face as he pushes inside him, and Stede touches his face, his lips, lets his hands roam down Ed’s sweat-slicked chest and over the hard nub of a nipple. Suddenly it’s Ed who seems out of control, rhythm stuttering as he breathes harshly into Stede’s mouth, trading slashing kisses, gripping him tighter, whining higher, until he goes still, the cords of his neck standing out as he pulses inside Stede.
All it takes is Stede rocking up into Ed’s clutched-tight fist a couple of times before he’s spilling again too, their bodies united in this bright firework glow of pleasure, until it fades into a pleasant afterglow.
Ed collapses down onto him heavily, winding him a bit, but he wraps an arm around the man and kisses his cheek as Ed assumes an entirely liquid state, every bit of him melted and draped across Stede.
“Holy shit,” Ed whispers.
“Yes,” Stede says. “Yes, that.”
He doesn’t feel any urgency to get up, to clean up. He’s just… content to be squashed into the mattress, twisting a strand of Ed’s lovely hair around his finger and letting it spring free, idly imagining that this is his actual life. If it was, they’d have spent the evening at the brewery with the crew, everyone laughing together under the gleaming strings of outdoor lights, passing dishes of Roach’s finest food up and down the long table. He’d kiss Ed in front of everyone, and he’d do it again, and again, until Lucius crowed at them to get a room.
They’d do as they were told. They’d come home, and make love, and snuggle up together, and wake up in the morning no longer impossible, lonely birds, but nestled in one nest, mated for life.
And maybe they’d walk on the beach together hand in hand, two sets of footprints, and Ed would always, always know what to do if they found a bird in need.
He wants it so badly that it feels like it could very well burn a hole through him if he doesn’t get it, and the odds are, he won’t. They’ve known one another no more than half a day, only a few hours in person, and he’s let himself get attached.
Stupid, stupid, even more stupid sniffling about it, making Ed pop his head up and look at him. “You okay?”
He nods, not very convincingly. Ed pulls out of him and rolls onto his side, tilting Stede’s chin. “You sure?”
Stede blinks away tears. “What happens next?”
He hasn’t even asked before. Whether Pingu has a future in a zoo, or a way home. How long she’ll need to stay, how long Ed will need to stay. When, not if, Ed will go back to the city and stay there, and at best they’ll be able to talk on the phone, visit occasionally—honestly, Stede’s run the entire span of hope and despair in a matter of hours, and he’s already exhausted from the swing between the soaring hope and the crashing grief.
“Hey,” Ed says softly, cupping his cheek. “We don’t have to have all the answers yet.”
Stede wants the answers. Hates uncertainty. Feels unmoored by it, and it’s got him on edge. If it’s going to feel worse than this, he needs that to happen now. “I like you,” he tells Ed. “Very, very much. More than I’ve liked anyone… well, ever, I think, and that’s far too much to put on someone who might not feel the same way—”
“I do,” Ed says, like a promise. “Feel exactly the same way, don’t know what the fuck is happening, but it’s not just you.”
“Good,” Stede breathes. “Good, I just—we live in different places.”
“Currently,” Ed says, very practical.
Stede raises a brow. “But your work is at the zoo. And my work is here.”
Ed shrugs a bit. “Getting kinda bored of that work, remember?”
Stede does remember the way his heart squeezed hearing Ed say it earlier, aching with familiarity. “Right. Yes. So—”
“Been building up my team to take it over,” Ed says. “Izzy already thinks he runs the show anyway. Fang and Archie, they’re ready to step up. And I don’t have to make a choice right now, but, uh. I’ve got a few months of leave stored up that I can take, right now, from tonight. And Pingu down there has a tag, so. We can find out where she’s from, coordinate getting her back there.”
Stede hadn’t even noticed the tag, that’s how well he’s doing. “Back to… Antarctica?” Ed’s story is still caught in his chest from earlier. “Will you be all right to do that?”
Ed’s smile is soft, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Was kinda hoping I wouldn’t have to do it alone this time.”
Oh. Oh. Oh, he means—“You want me to come to Antarctica with you?”
Ed lifts his hand, brushes his lips over Stede’s knuckles. “Sounds kinda whim-prone when you put it like that.”
Stede laughs softly. “Always did love a good whim. But Antarctica’s… quite far.”
“Not when you’re with someone you care about.”
Stede sighs, returns the favour of looking up through his lashes. “It’s Pingu, isn’t it?”
Ed just snorts out a laugh. “Yeah, mate. You got me there.”
He’s stopping just short of the things Stede’s also not going to say at this point, and they both know it. It’s necessary, for now. This is feeling better. Less terrifying. One step at a time.
“I do also have some leave saved up,” Stede says, because he’s really dedicated himself to this job, and Lucius has been telling him forever to take some time off, and he’s had no reason to do that before. “And I suppose it is my solemn pledge as a wildlife rescue volunteer to leave no bird behind.”
“There you go,” Ed says. “Mandatory migration, birds of a feather. No choice in the matter.”
No, Stede’s… not sure he ever has had a choice here at all. Fate’s swept them all up in her arms and thrown them together. “I get the sense Iggy—Izzy might not be too pleased if you tell him you’re not coming back for two months.”
Ed looks gleeful about that. “You’re not wrong. Can’t wait.”
“So that’s—you’ll stay? Until we get her home, and then—”
“And then we’ll figure out the rest from there,” Ed says, as if they’re going to fall any less for each other in the next two months. “Yeah, I think it’s going to work out just fine.”
Stede can hardly dare to believe it. It’s almost as if he wished hard enough on this morning’s tea leaves to summon Ed here, a dream come true. But he has the sense, too, that it wasn’t only him wishing. Somehow, they’ve both landed just where they wanted to be.
There’s a long greeze from downstairs that brings Ed sitting up. “Damn, she’s not going to let us get any rest at all, is she?”
“Oh, we were doing a very good job of that ourselves,” says Stede, rolling back into his pillows, a certified mess.
Ed’s already up, peeling off the condom and hopping into his clothes. “You stay here if you want, I’ll go see what Her Majesty needs.”
“No, no, she’s our responsibility now,” Stede says, as if they’ve become the erstwhile parents to an adopted penguin, and he really ought to examine the way that feels so right to him. He levers himself out of the bed and grabs for his own trousers. “We’ll have our chance to rest soon enough.”
That turns out not to be a particularly accurate assessment, because when they stagger back downstairs, all rugged up again, Pingu’s standing there with—
“Oh, god,” Stede says. “Is that her egg?”
“It’s her egg,” Ed confirms. “Hey, congratulations on that, mate.”
He takes a step forward, and she gives him such an eye that Stede grabs his arm. “I think she’s maybe a bit protective there. Might want to see your midwifery license first.”
“I’m an unlicensed midwife,” Ed says. “I make up for it with enthusiasm, though.” He glances at Stede. “You know normally the mother lays the egg, and then she passes it off to the dad, and he incubates it while she goes off to find food, all of them helping each other out as a crew. And then she comes back and they share the job.”
Stede’s silent for a bit, rolling that over in his head. All the complicated emotions around the terrible fathers who raised them both, all his own inadequacies as a father, being so far away from his children. The way he actually matters in his own found family, and maybe he still does in his own, too, in ways he’s hardly dared to hope for. “She’s waiting for him,” he says. “She knows that he’s important in this.”
“Yeah,” Ed says. “Yeah, he still matters, even when they’re far apart.”
She shuffles back a step, and then settles down with a ruffling of her feathers, protecting her little one.
Ed tugs him back against the wall and they slide down together, taking the blanket with them, this time curling into each other without hesitation. Snuggled up on the cold floor, all of them watching each other.
“We don’t want to take his place,” Ed tells the penguin. “We’ll get you back there soon enough, don’t you worry. It’ll all work out.”
Stede thinks about the spare room, currently empty of beds, and the school holidays, when the kids will come down to surf and loaf around and chat, and the way Ed might… be here then, Alma’s childhood hero. Just the thought of Ed in the picture changes how it feels in his head, from brittle loneliness, persistent failure, to… family.
Sometimes finding yourself far from home is exactly where you’re meant to be, in the company of exactly who you’re meant to find. If he hadn’t been in this exact place at this exact time, then this fated meeting would never have happened.
“Thank you,” he tells the penguin, who gives him the sparkly-eyed look at last. “I think you’ve changed everything.”
~
They stay like that for the rest of the night, watching over her, curled up together as they take turns to doze.
On Monday, Buttons and Auntie return, and they take her down to their place, where they’re much better equipped to care for a bird and her chick. Stede and Ed visit multiple times a day, and they're both there when the egg finally hatches and the tiny ball of fluff that's all of their baby now emerges.
The transfer is organised with surprising efficiency, with Ed’s name to open doors, and it’s only a month later that Stede finds himself standing aboard a research vessel, staring in awe as they close in on the great white expanse of a continent he never expected to visit. They'd asked Ed if he'd take a camera crew along, but in the end he'd told them no. This trip is just for them.
Up on the icy bluff, there’s a colony of black and white penguins watching their approach, and between them, Pingu greezes, and her little chick--which Ed has inexplicably named Walrus—peeps in reply from his spot on her flippers. From above, there's an answering chorus of greezing, a whole choral symphony of joyful sound.
Stede reached out and slides his heavily gloved hand into Ed’s, here at the bottom of the world. On the other side of this icy sojourn lies a new future for all of them, exactly where they’re meant to be.
He can’t wait to flock back home and start again.