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“Welcome to queer figure drawing, everyone!” Stede announced with a swish of his embroidered robe.
The noise level briefly dipped approximately two decibels, then resumed. Ed glanced around. Most of the people clustered around on various armchairs, poufs, and cushions were deep in conversation and barely glanced up at Stede’s pronouncement. The lanky bloke in the corner was still lazily strumming his ukulele from where he sat sprawled against the wall.
Stede gave a pointed “ahem”, which was possibly even less effective. Before he could make another attempt, the person sitting beside him stood up, took a deep breath, and bellowed, “HAUD YER WHEESHT, YE PACK O’ DOBBERS!” The last syllable echoed in the suddenly silent room.
“Thank you, Buttons,” Stede said, looking slightly perturbed. The other person nodded solemnly and resumed their seat on the couch.
“Yes. Well. As I was saying, welcome to queer figure drawing!” Stede said, repeating his robe swish. “I see some new faces with us tonight, so I’ll go over some housekeeping. Name tags and pronoun pins are in a basket by the front door, so if you didn’t grab one on your way in, please do. Refreshments are in the dining room, through that doorway. There are vegan, gluten-free, and nut-free options. Frenchie, please avoid the peanuts, they’re very clearly labeled.”
He led them through a round of introductions—“Please give your name, pronouns, and…hm, let’s see, for our icebreaker… Oh! If you were an Animorph, what animal would you acquire first?” There was a brief kerfuffle when Buttons declined to offer any pronouns (“Havenae been invented yet, ae?”), resulting in confusion and a bit of grumbling (“How come Buttons doesn’t have to have pronouns, then?” “If Buttons isn’t using them, can I have Buttons’s pronouns?”), but Stede eventually got them back on track.
“As always, we’ll do a variety of timed poses. For each model, we’ll start with several one-minute gesture drawings to warm up, then five two-minute poses, followed by two five-minute, two ten-minute, and one twenty-minute. Everyone got that? Pete?”
The guy sitting across from Ed opened his mouth and tilted his head, paused, then said, “Uhm—”
“Never mind, Buttons will handle the timer,” Stede plowed on. “Now! As this is a community-based group, we take turns modeling, on an entirely volunteer basis. I’ll be our first model for tonight, but unfortunately our other volunteer couldn’t make it, due to an emergency with her husband.” He tilted his head. “One of her husbands? Not important. Point is, would anyone else be willing to model for the second half of our session?”
Several people shifted slightly, and no one made eye contact.
“No one? Wee John? Lucius?”
“Can’t, m’back can’t take standing like that,” a large white-haired man next to the ukulele player said.
“Literally named the two people in the room with a bad back,” a younger guy seated to Stede’s right said.
Stede sighed. “Alright. Well, if no one else can step in, I can model for both sessions. I may need to take a few more breaks than usual in the second session, but—”
“I can do it,” Ed said.
The whole room turned to look at him. He swallowed.
Stede looked hopeful. “Really?”
“Yeah. Might be fun,” he said. “I mean, you should get a chance to draw, too, mate. I don’t mind.”
“Great!” Stede said, beaming at him. “You’ll be our second model, then. And of course, you can undress as much or as little as you’d like. The comfort of our crew is our highest priority!”
Ed hummed to himself as he pulled out his pencils and charcoals, trying to ignore the nervous buzz under his skin. Coming to the queer figure drawing group he’d seen advertised was one thing. He hadn’t been drawing much of anything lately, and it’d been years since he drew from a live model, but the description drew him in—an entirely queer group, getting to draw a variety of genders and body types—and he figured, fuck, he’d been trying to get out of the house more, why not? But volunteering to get naked in front of a group of strangers was a completely different thing.
“Right! Let’s get started then!” Stede said with a clap. He swished off his luxurious-looking yellow robe and laid it across the back of the couch. He looked perfectly comfortable being nude with a room full of people looking at him, and settled himself against the back of the couch, one leg extended, one knee up, both arms over his head in a stretch. “One minute gestures to start off. Buttons, the timer?”
Alright, here we go. You remember how to do this, just basic shapes, lines of movement. He scrambled to sketch in the shape of Stede’s chest, his thighs, his arms. He squinted at him, trying to judge if he’d gotten the length of the legs right. Fuck, feet were hard to draw, is that what a foot was shaped like? He’d just started to fill in a head-ish shape when the timer went off. He shook his hand out, shaking his head. Fuck, sixty seconds went by faster than he thought.
He was more prepared for the second pose, and dove in feeling determined. He focused on breaking the figure down to its simplest shapes: the limbs long angular lines, the torso a trapezoid. Or maybe a rectangle, fuck, this guy was fucking broad. Ed adjusted the lines he’d drawn for his sides. They barely dipped in at his waist at all, just a straight line from his armpits to his hips. The voice of an old drawing instructor floated up from the back of his mind: Draw what you see, not what you think you see. Right, so he thought he was seeing a man, but what he actually was seeing was a fucking tree. Got it.
Gradually, over the next couple gesture poses, he felt himself settling into the motions. Looking at something with an eye for light and shadow was like carrying on a conversation in a language he’d not spoken in years. It was coming back to him, though. The vocabulary was all still there, he just had to remember how to access it.
As they moved into the two-minute poses, he switched out his pencils for charcoal sticks. That helped—charcoal was looser, softer, lent itself more to gestures and shading rather than outline. Nice long strokes, filling up the page, focusing on the trick of flipping his vision back and forth between three-dimensional shape and two-dimensional patches of light and dark. Hard, but fun. He’d forgotten how much fun, actually.
It helped that Stede was a bit of a maniac with his poses. Ed had never seen anyone model like this before, not even back in his university art classes. For one pose, he perched in a crouch on the edge of the sofa, arms spread, looking like a menacing bird about to take flight. For another, he balanced on one foot, opposite arm partially raised, like a cartoon character mid– ridiculous walk cycle. He encouraged the group to request poses, and gradually people began throwing out more and more suggestions, which he executed without exception.
He settled down a bit as they got into the five- and ten-minute poses, which, yeah, couldn’t blame him, bit hard to balance on one foot for five minutes straight. But his poses were still full of drama: stretched across the couch, head thrown to the side, jaw limned by the light of the carefully positioned floor lamp nearby.
It was strange, seeing somebody like this. It was like they flickered back and forth in his mind between a person and an object. He traced over a line, correcting the curve of Stede’s stomach, his hip, and was suddenly aware that he was looking at a very naked person, lying sprawled the way they might after a fuck, or in the golden morning-after light. He could see how Stede would look to a lover on a lazy morning: reclining on one elbow, tangled in pillows and sheets, hands wrapped around a steaming mug of coffee. He wondered how many people got to see him that way. Then the shading he’d done on Stede’s thigh caught his eye and he frowned, looking back and forth and squinting to get it right, and he was back to being a collection of shadows and highlights, a puzzle to figure out.
For his last pose, Stede laid himself out fully on his back. He tipped his head back over the armrest, throwing his jaw and neck into sharp light and shadow. One leg was bent, knee resting against the back of the couch, and he let the other hang off the side of the couch, spreading wide. His soft cock rested against his thigh. Ed switched him back into an abstract assortment of shapes, emphatically.
So far, he’d found himself leaving Stede’s face for last, usually just filling it in with a few gestural shapes, a bit intimidated by how out of practice he was. But the lighting on this pose was so perfect, so dramatic, that he couldn’t resist zeroing in on it. The shadow that was the underside of Stede’s jaw, jutting upward. The gilded edge of his cheek. The cords of his neck, stretched taut under the skin.
When the timer went off, Stede’s eyes fluttered open, and for a brief moment he looked soft, vulnerable, as he blinked his way back to alertness. Then he grinned and swept himself up off the couch. “Wonderful! Great work, everyone. We’ll take a quick break, and then Ed will be up next.” He strode off toward the door he’d indicated as the dining room earlier, then halfway there seemed to realize he was still naked and doubled back to retrieve his robe.
Ed fiddled with his drawing, adding a few finishing details. The nervous hum was back. He took his time finishing up and packing away his pencils, but eventually there was nothing for it, and he went and sat on the couch where Stede had been. It was kind of nice, actually, now he thought about it. He hadn’t been nervous in a long time.
People slowly filtered back in, settling onto their armchairs and poufs. Stede, still in his robe, took Ed’s vacated seat to his right and smiled at him.
Ed smiled back. “Feel free to give me some pointers on the poses,” he said. “Never done this before, so. Open to suggestions. And yours were pretty cool, mate.”
“Thank you!” Stede said, beaming at him. “I try to be as imaginative as possible. Really, anything you do will be beautiful, though. Any pose, I mean. Will be—fine.” He took a breath. “I do recommend starting with your more active poses. Anything standing, squatting, twisting, you’ll want to do those for the one- or two-minute poses, and sit or lie down for the longer ones.”
“Thanks, mate. That’s helpful.”
“Anytime,” Stede said.
They smiled at each other for a moment.
“So, do I just—” Ed mimed pulling his shirt off.
“Oh! Yes! If you’re comfortable, of course,” Stede said. “You can be clothed, nude, or somewhere in between. It’s entirely your preference.” He looked around. “Buttons, you have the timer?”
While Stede made sure the group was ready, Ed pulled off his t-shirt and jeans, rolled up his socks and tucked them between the folded layers. He hesitated at his boxer briefs, but it felt like half-assing it. And there was something freeing about the idea of being entirely nude and looked at so matter-of-factly, about his body flickering in and out of objecthood. “Fuck it,” he muttered, and dropped his briefs to the floor and kicked them aside.
He started with a standing pose. Easy peasy. He fixed his eyes on the far wall of the room. There was some music coming out of a speaker to his left, had been playing the whole time but it was right in his ear now. It had a good beat, which was nice, and made him want to dance, which was less nice, since it made holding one position torturous.
Still. We’re staying still. Look at you, staying so still. He was pretty sure sixty seconds had gone by a lot faster when he was drawing.
Finally, the timer went off, and he shifted to a new position, weight more on his left foot, arms over his head. The rug was ornate and patterned, and he fixed his eyes on one colorful bird of paradise.
For the third pose, he settled back in the corner of the couch, one arm over the back, one leg bent and the other falling wide. It felt powerful, this one. Stede was right in his line of vision, and he watched his pencil move across the page, then flicked his eyes left to the rest of the group. All looking at him, but not meeting his eye, like he was up for inspection.
Fuck. Maybe redirect that line of thought. He was suddenly very aware of his cock, of the spread of his legs.
For the next pose he crouched, tucked his head down. Breathed deeply, tried not to think about the faint heat between his legs. Then one sitting on the couch, leaning forward, head in his hands. He was already running out of ideas to keep himself hidden when someone asked, “Can you try a more open pose for the next one?”
He took a deep breath, stood, and settled into the next pose, feeling exposed. He risked a glance down, and he was half-hard, starting to lift off his thigh. “Fuck,” he muttered under his breath. He glanced back up, and saw Stede’s eyes flicking up to meet his. Ed panicked. “I swear I’m not, like, getting off on this or something,” he said, trying to keep his voice low enough that only Stede would hear. He felt his face burning.
“Oh!” Stede said, a little pink. “No, no, it’s a perfectly normal reaction. Happened to me the first few times I modeled, as well. I promise, no one here will think any less of you.”
“I definitely don’t think any less of you,” the young guy with the bad back said from Stede’s right, giving Ed an exaggerated up-and-down.
“Yes, thank you, Lucius,” Stede hissed at him.
Ed flushed, but felt a little more at ease. It was fine, just physiology, just nervousness sending blood rushing throughout his body. For the next pose, he took a deep breath and placed one foot up on the couch, fixing his eyes on the bookshelf above Stede’s head.
If he’d thought this through a bit more fully before he volunteered, he’d probably have remembered that not moving wasn’t exactly his strongest skill set. But now that he was here, it was kind of fucking nice. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d just sat still and let his mind loosen, go a bit hazy. At some point he had stopped constantly waiting for the timer to go off, and now instead the gentle chime came as a slight surprise every time, pulling him up from wherever he’d sunk to in his mind.
It helped that there was plenty of interesting shit to look at in Stede’s house. The guy was fucking fascinating. Ed spent one five-minute pose looking at a detailed painting of the exact room they were sitting in. He spent another trying to figure out the ordering system of Stede’s bookshelf. The horizontal axis was definitely by color, but the vertical axis was harder to figure out. His first thought was genre, but by the time the pose ended, he was pretty sure it was by some specific scale of overall optimism.
At some point, a break was requested. Someone named the Swede had broken every single one of his charcoal pencils, and the people seated to his left and right were getting exasperated with his constant, plaintive requests for loans. Ed hugged one knee to his chest as he watched the group pool and compare drawing implements, suddenly feeling awkward. He was wondering if he should put his kit back on, or if by the time he did it’d be time to take it all off again, when Stede suddenly appeared with a sumptuous-looking robe.
“There you go, Ed,” he said as he handed it over. “I always find a robe to be the most convenient and comfortable covering in this setting.” The robe was velvety, rich and plush but still light enough to feel like it was running through his hands. He wrapped it around himself, feeling like a starlet in a mink coat, and also a little like a rodent burrowed into a warm nest.
“Fuck, mate, you’ve got it all sussed out, huh?” he said with a small laugh. “Fuck me, that’s soft.” Stede’s eyes went all crinkly as he smiled at him.
For the last pose, he went for his comfortable sitting position from earlier, knowing he’d have to hold it for a while. He settled back into the corner of the couch, let his legs hang open a bit, tilted his head just slightly to rest against the back of the couch. He was still hard, but there was something kind of nice about ignoring it, treating it as just another part of his body.
He started out with his eyes fixed just over Stede’s shoulder, but he kept finding his gaze slipping over to the other man’s face. It was fascinating, seeing himself be looked at. He wished he could see the drawings. He was so curious it almost hurt. What did the shapes of his body look like, assembled by someone else’s brain?
It was about two minutes in when he realized his mistake. The way his arm lay, the armrest was digging into his forearm in a hard line just below his elbow. Just a little discomfort, nothing he couldn’t handle. Another minute or two later, his fingers started feeling a little off. He wiggled them a bit, then tried to subtly readjust. The big fucker, Wee John, frowned at Ed’s hand and scribbled at his paper, and Ed stilled again, feeling chastened.
Another minute later, a definite tingling in his fingertips forced him to admit defeat. He cleared his throat. “Hey, could someone maybe throw me a pillow or a cushion or something? Gotta put something under my arm, here.”
Stede was on his feet in a moment, producing a squashy-looking pillow out of nowhere. He hovered at Ed’s side with it, and Ed lifted his elbow. “Right here, mate, thanks.”
“All right? Need a break?” Stede asked as he fussed with the pillow.
“Yeah, nah, I’m good. Just going a little numb there, maybe. Definitely a little tingly, in the finger department.”
“Numb!” Stede glared at the armrest as though it had personally insulted him, and fiddled the pillow a bit more. “There. Better?”
Ed could still feel the edge of the armrest, but it was definitely dulled. Not digging in quite so much. “Yeah, should be fine.”
Stede frowned at the pillow, announced, “Nope,” and briefly disappeared, then returned with a much firmer-looking cushion, which he tucked underneath the first pillow. “There. How about now?”
“That’s much better,” Ed told him, and meant it this time. He glanced around. “Sorry. Hopefully it doesn’t change the angle of it too much.”
“Kinda does, yeah—” someone started.
“Not a bit!” Stede said over them loudly.
When Stede sat back down this time, Ed didn’t even try not to look at him. He watched Stede’s eyes flick over him, his pencil move across the paper. Every so often, he would make this squinty little pouting face at whatever part of Ed’s body that was giving him trouble. It made his nose go all scrunchy. Maybe it was just Ed, but it seemed like Stede’s eyes were on his face a lot more than anyone’s had been so far. Ed stayed very still and kept his eyes on Stede’s face, and let Stede’s gaze skitter across him. It was like butterfly kisses of eye contact.
When the timer went off this time, it felt like coming out of a dream, blinking his way out of its treacle-sweet tendrils. He stretched, feeling catlike, then went about unbending his knee.
When he’d finished, he looked over at his pile of clothes, considered for a moment, and then swept the emerald green robe back over his shoulders.
At Stede’s urging, they went around the room and shared one of their drawings and why they liked it. Ed flipped to his last drawing, tried not to overthink it. “I usually leave the face for last but—” He turned it around. Stede looked delighted, and Ed suddenly had to remember what the fuck he was saying. “I dunno, the lighting was just so nice here, I had to focus on it. Kinda nice to remember that, yeah, I can draw faces, maybe.”
“Oh, Ed, that’s wonderful,” Stede said, eyes never leaving the drawing.
Someone cleared their throat, and Stede started. “Right. Yes. My favorite—” He fumbled for his sketchbook, and Ed felt a tiny lurch of excitement he hadn’t for anyone else’s drawings so far. Probably just because he knew this one would be of him, he reasoned.
Stede flipped his sketchbook around, and fuck, yeah, there Ed was, on the page. Stede’s style was neat and precise, all contour lines and even shading and little pencil details. That was Ed’s face, tipped against the couch cushion, looking relaxed and dreamy. That was his stomach with its little soft outward curve, that was his dimple on the back of his knee.
“I just really liked this pose,” Stede was saying, “it felt very feminine and very strong at the same time, and I felt like I was able to capture that a bit.” His eyes cut over to Ed, then quickly back down to his sketchbook.
Ed suddenly felt a bit like he wasn’t really in the room at all, or maybe that the room didn’t exist outside of the little bit of couch in Stede’s drawing. It was silly, really. It wasn’t like he’d never been called feminine before. He’d had people stop him on the street and ask to photograph his outfits when he really glammed up. He’d had people call him pretty, gorgeous, glamorous, all kinds of things.
Never just him, though. Never just his bare form, no pretty things, no adornments besides the collection of questionable decisions inked into his skin.
Ed hung back after the group wrapped up and offered to help Stede move his furniture back, which served the dual purpose of letting him stay in his velvety green robe a little longer and also getting to see Stede’s face light up in that delighted grin again. Once the armchairs were back to their usual configuration, he helped wrap up the leftover snacks. He was trying to figure out what else he could help with (about two breaths from asking where Stede’s broom was and starting fucking sweeping, Jesus), when he realized Stede had drifted closer, looking bashful.
“I. Um,” he said. “I really liked your drawing of me.”
Ed couldn’t stop his grin. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” Stede breathed.
“You want to see the rest?”
He retrieved his sketchbook, and came back to find Stede had done the same. Ed almost handed it to him to swap, but instead something made him hold it up, so that they stood shoulder to shoulder and looked together. They were quiet as they flicked through. Just the sound of turning pages, loud and rasping in the silence, sweeping across the room like the flare of a searchlight.
“Wow,” Stede whispered. “Ed, I’ve never—I’ve modeled before, but not like—I’ve never had someone—”
“Yeah,” Ed said softly, “me neither.”
Stede turned toward Ed, and they were close, so close. His hand brushed Ed’s wrist, and Ed wondered if he could feel his pulse there. “You make a gorgeous model,” he said quietly, and Ed swallowed hard.
“Thank you,” he said.
“You’re. Um.” Stede’s eyes darted down between them, then back up. “You’re still hard.” Ed didn’t look down, or anywhere other than Stede’s face. Stede took a deep breath. “Is that still from people looking at you?”
Ed should have felt nervous. Some part of him did feel nervous, some distant corner of his brain quietly spinning out. But the rest of him was still half in that calm, floaty place his mind had gone while posing, and Stede was doing the brave thing, reaching out. All Ed had to do to meet him there was let himself be honest. “It’s from you looking at me,” he said.
There was a brief, weighty moment where the words hung between them, waiting for whatever Stede would do with them. Ed expected him to haul him in for a kiss, or maybe haul him to his bedroom. Or maybe (less likely, but still a possibility) he’d pull back, and Ed would apologize for misreading the whole situation and hightail it out of there and never show up to figure drawing again.
Instead, Stede licked his lips and said, “Would you like me to look at you some more?”
Which was how Ed ended up naked on Stede Bonnet’s couch for the second time that night. Stede settled into an armchair across from him in his golden-sunlight robe, gaze heavy and slow as it traveled across Ed’s body. The same heat from earlier pooled in the space between them, but the difference—that it was on purpose this time—gave every feeling a sharper edge, a lightheaded kind of thrill. No timer this time, just Stede sketching for as long as he wanted, and Ed posing like a doll until Stede was ready to move him. He lost track of the minutes between shifts in position. Some shorter, some longer. It wasn’t his job to keep track. His job was to be an object. His mind felt blank and smooth and bright like new-fallen snow.
Stede reached the end of a drawing and turned a page.
“Shift,” he said in a low voice, and Ed shifted.
Sometimes Stede would direct him as he settled into a pose. “Chin to the side.” “Left knee a little higher, please.” Once, when Ed couldn’t quite make sense of what he was asking for, Stede came over and moved Ed himself, placing his limbs gently with both hands. Ed watched Stede’s face the whole time, let himself be positioned. He thought he could feel his pupils dilate. Stede sat back down and palmed himself through his robe before picking up his sketchbook again.
Object was a funny word, Ed thought as he watched Stede draw him. Object of desire. Object of observation. Object of a sentence, something acted upon. [object Object], annoying dickfuck of an error, the properties there but obscured until you asked the right question.
Stede’s eyes were darker now, his gaze slower. His pencil strokes were getting shorter, and the moments where his eyes flicked across Ed’s body were stretching out longer. Ed imagined his image in Stede’s mind, vacillating between a person and a series of shapes, and thought he could see it getting harder and harder to switch off his personhood.
He had the thought, distantly, that he could touch himself. That he would, if it were anyone else. That it would be weird not to, if it were anyone else. He didn’t move his hand.
Instead, he let Stede’s gaze hold him in place and felt like a pinned insect, motionless and delicate. He breathed in, out. Let his chest rise and fall, let his body relax further into the pose. Stede’s sketching paused for a long, breathless moment. He shook his head as if to clear it. Frowned slightly, put his pencil to paper again.
Ed licked his lips, and watched Stede’s pencil stutter again.
Finally, after what could have been minutes or hours, Stede sat back. He flicked his eyes between Ed and his paper a few times, made a few more small marks, then carefully closed the sketchbook and set it aside. Ed watched him come closer and settle at the other end of the couch, one leg folded under him so he could turn to face Ed, his robe pooling around him. Ed stayed where he was, half-reclining. Watching. Stede watched him back, his pupils blown wide.
“Put your hand on your chest,” he said in that same low tone.
Ed moved his hand toward one nipple, and Stede shook his head. “No. Over your heart. Like this.” He placed one palm flat on his own chest, fingertips sliding under the fabric of his robe, over his chest hair. Golden hair, golden fabric, everything gilded. Ed mimicked him, palm flat against his bare chest.
“Good,” Stede said softly. His eyes moved over Ed’s torso like he was trying to memorize every inch. Like if he mapped it carefully enough he could know the feel of Ed without ever touching him. “Now up to your neck. Slowly.”
Ed slid his hand up. He heard Stede’s breath catch when he wrapped his fingers firmly around his own throat.
“Now your jaw,” he said, voice rough. Ed traced his thumb along the underside of his jaw, tilting his chin up to allow it. Stede was breathing heavily, now, mouth hung slightly open.
“Your mouth,” he said, barely over a whisper. Ed slid his thumb further forward until it reached his mouth, his other fingers still resting against his throat, and dragged it slowly downward, letting it catch and pull at his lower lip. Stede made a noise like a low whine at the back of his throat when Ed’s lip slid free.
He traced his thumb back upwards and paused on his lip. “Your tongue,” Stede demanded, and Ed pressed the tip of his tongue to the pad of his thumb, flicked it against it. Stede whimpered. His hips bucked, and his hand went to the front of his robe. He pressed the heel of his hand to the bulge there. “Press down,” he said. “Let me see.” Ed flattened his tongue and pressed his thumb down in the center of it. Held it there, stared at Stede. Felt saliva start to pool in the space behind his lower lip.
“Jesus, Ed,” Stede panted. His hips were moving more rhythmically now, grinding up into his hand. “Touch your nipple with it. Make sure it’s wet.” Ed swiped his thumb through the gathering pool of saliva as he popped it free, then thumbed across his nipple. The shock of sensation was so overwhelming he convulsed with it, his whole body curling in suddenly and jerkily. He pinched it, rolled it between his fingers, pressure tight just how he liked it, just this side of painful. His mouth fell open, and he couldn’t help the groan it released from his throat. He rolled his hips. Felt good. Kept doing it.
“Fuck,” Stede hissed, “fuck, fuck,” and his hand pushed at the folds of his robe until they parted and his cock appeared between them, flushed pink and sticking up from the layers of fabric. He wrapped a hand around himself and let out a sudden, shaky exhale.
Ed could just barely see his own cock in the lower periphery of his vision, could feel how hard he was, but he didn’t look at it. Wasn’t going to touch it until Stede told him to. Wasn’t going to look anywhere but Stede. Stede’s mouth falling open on a gasp, Stede’s gold-trimmed chest heaving, Stede’s hand jacking his cock slowly and purposefully. Ed watched the head pop through Stede’s fist over and over, watched him squeeze on the downstroke. He tightened his fingers on his own nipple, pulled a little harder, and his back arched. He watched Stede’s eyes move down the curve of his ribcage, over his bucking hips, and land between his legs. He felt himself clench down around nothing.
“Fuck,” Stede said, the word sounding punched out of him. “Jesus fucking Christ, Ed, do you have any idea how gorgeous you are?”
Ed whimpered, and Stede’s eyes immediately shot up to his face. He sounded like a small, dying animal, and he would have blushed if all the blood in his body hadn’t already been in his dick. Instead all he could do was let his eyes go as wide open as they wanted to go, let all the want show on his face. Please. Fucking please.
Stede gasped. It was nearly a physical thing, the eye contact, the way Stede’s eyes pulled Ed’s like a magnet.
“Ed, can I—fuck—I want to be inside you, do you want—”
“Anything,” Ed rasped.
“Fuck. Okay. Fuck.” Stede glanced around. “Stay right there. Keep doing that,” he ordered, before getting up and taking the steps two at a time. Ed felt bereft suddenly, adrift without the tether of Stede’s gaze, and he stared resolutely at the staircase he’d disappeared up until he skidded back down, lube bottle in hand. Ed couldn’t help his breathy laugh, and Stede made a face like he was trying to be offended, but he couldn’t hold it and snorted instead. Which was so ridiculous Ed would have kept laughing and they’d have been stuck in a loop forever, except suddenly Stede was between his legs on the couch and the magnet of his gaze was back, so intense that Ed almost gasped with it.
“Good boy,” Stede murmured. Ed whimpered again. He felt Stede’s finger press against his hole, and he almost told him that he didn’t need to, because he was so relaxed right now he was pretty sure Stede could slide right in with a little lube and a prayer. But then Stede’s finger slipped inside him, and it felt so good that any thoughts of telling him to stop fucked right off.
“Oh, god,” Stede said, staring down between them. “Look at that. You’re taking me so easily. Just pulling me in.” Ed watched Stede’s face, felt as Stede gently rubbed against his wall, saw the rush of heat in Stede’s eyes when he clenched involuntarily around it. “Look at your hole, fuck, Ed. You’re so beautiful.”
He slipped a second finger in with barely any more resistance. When he went for a third, Ed whined in protest, and Stede chuckled. “You want it that badly, do you? Can’t wait any longer?” Ed nodded, frantic, begging with his eyes. “All right, all right. You’ve waited so patiently, you’ve been so good, come here—”
He wrapped his arms around Ed’s thighs and tugged him down the couch. Ed whined again, louder. Stede lined himself up, his cock a blunt pressure at Ed’s hole, then leaned forward and braced his palms on either side of Ed. His face hovered above Ed’s, so close Ed could see every expression flickering across his eyes.
“That’s it,” he cooed as he pushed, and there was pressure and stretch and then the head popped past his rim, and Stede’s body jerked but his eyes stayed fixed on Ed’s.
He held himself above Ed and fucked into him with hard, sharp thrusts. Ed still had one hand on his chest, switching between his nipples, and one digging into the soft velvet of the couch so hard he thought he might leave marks. He thought about asking to touch himself, asking Stede to touch him. But it just felt so good like this. The feeling bloomed from somewhere deep inside him, building up deliciously slowly with every thrust.
He felt half in a trance, like he might come or he might fall asleep or he might rock his hips down onto Stede’s cock forever, and whichever happened would be fucking perfect.
It built slowly, so slowly, until he could feel himself brimming with it, like water held in place by nothing but surface tension. His mouth fell open, chin tilting up slightly. Stede saw it, of course he did. His eyes went bright with the heat of it, and he snapped his hips harder. “That’s it,” he breathed, “you going to let me see you come?” Ed felt his eyes go wide as he nodded.
When he came, it was like a groundswell, gentle, overflowing from somewhere deep inside him. He felt himself go motionless, held in place as warmth spilled through his veins, diffusing through his whole body. His eyes stayed pinned to Stede’s, helpless to do anything but let it move through him. Finally his body jerked once, twice, and then went boneless, sinking down into the soft bliss of the couch, his hand flopping to the side.
Stede made as if to pull out, and Ed gave another protesting whine, and focused as hard as he could on moving his hand the two inches to Stede’s leg. He tightened his fingers weakly, and Stede groaned and sank back fully into him. Ed whined and nodded. He felt like he was floating, like the hard line of Stede’s cock inside him was his only tether to reality.
Stede thrust into him faster and faster. He pulled out, the suddenness making Ed gasp, and positioned himself over Ed, hand stripping his cock. He cried out, brow furrowing, and Ed felt the spurts of come land across his stomach and chest.
“Wait,” Stede panted, “don’t move,” and suddenly he was sliding off the couch and crossing the room. Ed barely had time to process his absence before he was settling back between Ed’s legs, sketchbook in hand. He sketched quickly, glancing between Ed and his paper, and Ed watched him fill in the shape of his hipbones, his stomach, his chest, and finally the ropes of come spattered across them.
“Beautiful,” Stede murmured when he’d finished, eyes still moving over Ed’s chest. He closed the sketchbook, set it aside, then turned back to Ed and placed both hands flat on his shins. The sudden contact was grounding, startling him back to the surface. “What do you need right now?” Stede asked him softly.
Just asked him. Easy as anything.
Ed took a moment, his brain moving slowly like he was just waking up. He was sore, but not overly so. He could use a glass of water in a minute or two. He was tired, but content, warmth laying soft on his body like a cat curled up on his chest. But mostly, he needed—
He opened his arms. “C’mere.”
For a brief moment he felt the teetering knife’s edge of a possible rejection—and then Stede was there, tucking himself alongside him, wriggling to make room for his broad shoulders. There was barely room for both of them, and they ended up on their sides, pressed front to front, Stede’s arms wrapped around Ed. Ed buried his face in Stede’s neck, and breathed.
Slowly, gradually, he felt himself coming back into his body. He still felt smooth, like all his edges had been gently sanded down. But underneath it, he could feel the core of himself lighting back up, coming back online. He wiggled his fingers and toes a bit, like he had to remember how to do it. He tightened his arms slightly around Stede, and it felt like something he was doing instead of something happening to him.
Stede must have felt the shift, and pulled back slightly to look at Ed’s face. “You here with me?” he asked quietly. This close, Ed could see the light dusting of freckles across his nose and forehead, little flecks of green in his eyes. All the details too faint to make out when he’d been drawing him from across the room. Ed reached up with one hand, pulled him in, and kissed him.
Stede kissed him back, hard. Ed’s hand tangled in the hair at the nape of Stede’s neck, damp with sweat, and Stede’s arm tightened around his waist. It felt good, simple as that. Felt like something he wanted to keep doing. He pulled back just enough to rest his forehead against Stede’s, and felt Stede’s chest rise and fall against his. “Yeah,” he breathed. “Yeah, I am.”