REST WEEK DAY 4 | TWO MEN & A BUBBLE BATH - OLD GYM | RATING PG-13
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KISSING; TALK OF TRAUMA, BAD EATING & SLEEP HABITS; IMPLIED NUDITY.
BOTH CAPTAINS ARE IN NEED OF SOME RELAXATION AND TAKE ADVANTAGE OF BEN'S OFFER OF A BUBBLE BATH. FEELINGS ARE TALKED ABOUT, DISTRACTIONS ARE OFFERED, AND THERE'S SOME KISSING.
Ed was perched on the corner of his mattress, staring at his phone a bit anxiously as he waited for Chris. Half of him thought he might get another message any minute now, saying this was all just a joke and nobody was coming. Until now they hadn't really done anything more than cuddle, and that had felt safe, but this was different.
He'd never been the flirtatious type, at least not intentionally. Sometimes people thought he was flirting with them, but on his end he was only ever engaging in friendly banter. Even his previous relationships (if you could call them that) had just… sort of happened to him. So he hadn't ever really known what it felt like to take a risk – to put himself out there emotionally – until Stede came along.
And that had changed everything for Ed. He couldn't face another loss like that. So he'd made rules for himself. Physical touch was fine, as long as it stayed platonic, and pirates had a pretty wide berth for what was considered platonic touch. But inviting someone to take a bath with you – and not out of necessity to conserve water – that wasn’t just friendliness. Maybe the “benefits” kind of friend, but still. The risk of rejection terrified him.
Plus he'd gone and talked about his feelings, which was probably what had actually scared Stede off, and Ed was starting to regret every decision he'd made today when finally there was a knock on his door. Exhaling deeply, he hopped up from the bed, leaving his phone behind as he moved to open the door.
There was a part of Chris that didn’t know what he was doing. He’d felt unmoored and off kilter since the memory update and had thrown himself into whatever he could - sorting through data for Sharon, sparring, finishing up the set for the play, cooking, writing (and deleting) personal captain’s logs in his PADD, anything he could. He’d gone for runs, wandered into the void for hours and yet no matter what he did, everytime he closed his eyes, more horrors from his past/future flashed before his eyes.
He’d barely slept in the past few days since the updates, plagued by nightmares that were worse than they had been since right after Boreth. Despite being back in the kitchen and cooking for everyone again, he wasn’t eating much - mostly because he couldn’t seem to keep anything down.
Chris knew that Ed was still hurting from his last relationship, but the night they’d spent cuddling on the roof was one of the best night’s sleep he’d had in awhile. (Even if his neck complained the following day.) He wasn’t sure whether the bath invitation from Ed was for just a bath or more, but Ben had been right - he could use something relaxing.
Chris knocked on the door to Ed’s door, smiling when the pirate answered and hoping Ed didn’t notice the shadows forming under his eyes. “Hey…”
Ed absolutely noticed, but knew better than to mention it. Nobody liked being hassled about the lack of sleep they were getting, and it definitely didn't make getting more sleep any easier, so what was the point?
“Come on in,” he said in lieu of a greeting – it didn't really make sense to him to greet someone he'd already been talking to, although his head did a little nod sort of thing out of habit. He wanted to reach a hand out, to pull Chris inside, but his nerves got the better of him and he simply stepped back from the doorway to make room.
Chris stepped inside, giving Ed a smile as he did so, sensing a bit of the other man’s nervousness. He ran a hand over his hair with a chuckle. “You know, you don’t have to do this. I will survive without a bubble bath and you definitely deserve one without me stealing your bubbles.”
“Pretty sure there's enough bubbles to go around, mate.” At least Ed assumed there would be; he still had very little context for the actual experience of a bubble bath, but Ben said there was plenty of the soap and that the tub was big enough for two. For a moment he couldn't help wondering if this was actually playing out exactly as Ben had intended somehow, but that thought seemed ridiculous so he dismissed it. “And you should probably know, I don't just invite anyone to bathe with me,” he added, keeping his tone on the lighter side even though saying it made his stomach drop.
The latter statement relaxed Chris a little and made him smile. “I feel special. And honored.” His cheeks flushed a bit too, wondering if maybe this was something more than just friendship. After all, hadn’t he explained friends with benefits to Ed the other day? But Ed had a bad experience with that in the past, so even though Chris trusted Ed, he didn’t want to press him on that issue. But there was something Ed had said. “Look, I know I said it already, but… it means a lot to have you trust me, I… sorry, I know I’m kind of a mess right now…”
Chris’ tousled his hair which was getting messier and more disheveled every time he touched it. “I.. It’s good to know you’ll call me on my shit when I try to joke my way out of it.”
Of course, that felt like too much of an admission, especially while sober. “We should probably head to the gym for the bath. Might take a while to fill the tub.”
Ed had a habit of staring at people a little too intensely sometimes, although to be fair he didn't know he had this habit until he realized he was doing it all the time around Stede. Now he was doing it again, with Chris, which might have been a little terrifying, except it probably just meant he'd never really had an honest conversation – a conversation where both parties showed vulnerability – with anyone else but the two of them.
Which was a depressing thought, but also relaxing, because they were both being vulnerable. That made all of this feel a little safer, and before Ed knew it, he was reaching out a hand to squeeze Chris’s arm reassuringly.
“You know I'm starting to get the feeling that everyone here's a mess, in our own ways. No shame in it.” Then he clapped Chris’s arm and darted across the room to grab the bubble bath Ben had left for them. When he returned, he nudged his shoulder against Chris’s. “Shall we?”
The intense gaze didn’t bother Chris, mostly because he had the same tendency - turning his undivided attention on someone when he was listening to them. Which, according to some of his junior officers, could be a bit intense at first. He relaxed at the shoulder bump, smiling and leading the way out of the bedroom and towards the old gym. “I mean, it’s quite possible. There’s folks here who have died in the past, so I suppose I’ve got nothing to bitch about.”
“It’s not shame, exactly, more that I feel so… unhinged and discombobulated right now and.. You ground me. And I don’t want to take advantage of that just because I’m..” Chris gestured with his hand indicating the barely put together hot mess that he felt like.
Ed’s brow furrowed slightly. “Do you feel like you're taking advantage?” That idea hadn't occurred to him until now, and neither had the inverse: that maybe he was taking advantage of Chris somehow. But if he thought about it for more than a few seconds it seemed ludicrous. As scared as he’d been by the possibility of rejection, this genuinely felt like a natural extension of the relationship they already had.
“I think… you ground me too.” He reached for Chris’s hand with his own, giving it a gentle squeeze before letting go, because they were in public and he didn't know how Chris felt about that sort of thing. “So we're both getting something out of this.”
“I don’t think so,” Chris said, brow furrowing. “It’s just… as a captain it’s always on my mind - don’t want to be seen abusing my authority so I usually don’t initiate things. My friends with benefits are almost always people outside my chain of command to minimize risk of that. I know what it’s like to look up to a superior officer and fall for them.. Or think you’re falling for them… and it’s near impossible to actually consent in that sort of situation.”
Chris squeezed Ed’s hand in response and smiled before sighing and messing up his own hair again. “I should tell you… I don’t know what you’re expecting or what you want, but in my memory update, there were… well, the last two people I slept with didn’t end well. One sacrificed a child to supposedly save a planet and the other betrayed me and arrested my number one. So, if things go in that direction - and they definitely don’t have to, I’m fine with just what we did on the rooftop - I.. that might pop up in weird ways.”
“Pretty sure I'm as outside your chain of command as it gets, mate,” Ed pointed out, dryly but gently. “But I'm not really used to initiating either. Wish I could say it was because of ethics or whatever but that sort of thing was just… never a priority for me.” He shrugged, shoving his hands in his pockets as they walked.
“I mean, I told you what happened with the last guy I slept with.” The whole situation with Calico Jack had been a shitshow, and one he didn't mind sharing now that he had some distance from that world, but he'd left out a few important details about Stede's part in it. “But you>/i> should probably know… He wasn't the last person I kissed. That was Stede. We actually – we kind of made plans to run off to China together, start a new life there… And then he disappeared.”
He stared intently down at his belt, trying not to stumble too much over his words. He would've rather swallowed his own sword than talk about any of this, but he was trying to break old patterns here. “So that could pop up too. For the record. We can figure it out together?”
Chris knew people and aliens with all sorts of sexualities and attractions and intimacy habits (and had participated in several unique configurations) so that wasn’t strange to him. “We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to or aren’t interested in. I’m content to be celibate.”
When Ed told him about Stede, pieces fell into place and wrapped an arm around Ed, squeezing him close. “Oh Ed, I’m so sorry.” Chris had lost out on love, but that was years ago, when he thought he could manage a relationship and the chair. He gave Ed a smile and squeezed his shoulder. “We’ll figure it out together. Take it as it comes.”
They reached the old gym and found the tub in a room off one of the locker rooms. Chris turned the taps on. “How hot do you like your baths?”
If they hadn't been walking, Ed might have melted into Chris’s arms right then and there, but he settled for resting his head on Chris’s shoulder for a moment and snaking an arm around his waist. “Take it as he comes,” he echoed, trying the words on for size and finding them fitting. “Yeah, I like that.” He wasn't actually sure how he felt about sex with someone whose connection to him ran deeper than ‘you saved my life once & also whipped me in the balls a whole bunch of times.’ He'd never had anything like that before.
“Mmm, normally I like it hot enough to boil my fucking skin off, but maybe a step down from that today. I kinda like your skin, wouldn't want you to lose it.”
Chris chuckled and blushed, feeling the flush spread over his cheeks and neck. He wasn’t shy about sex, but direct compliments still sometimes got a reaction from him. “In general, I think skin should stay where it is.” Setting the water so that it would be hot enough to relax muscles but not scalding, he took the bubble bath from Ed and poured in a few capfuls. No such thing as too many bubbles, right?
Chris sat on a bench and started pulling off his boots and socks before stripping off his shirt and folding it next to him. Modesty wasn’t one of his traits - between ranch life and Starfleet, he’d shared too many communal quarters to be shy. Starfleet medicine meant his body wasn’t as scarred as it could have been, but there were still a handful of scars from when he hadn’t had access to it. He nodded towards the tub, filling up with bubbles. “So, what do you think?”
Ed slipped out of his leather jacket, draping it across the bench before pulling his t-shirt over his head to join it. That was as far as he got before the bubbles building up in the tub distracted him, and he crouched down beside it, an expression of wonder on his face. Soap was barely a thing on the average pirate ship, but even when he had access to it – even Stede's yummy lavender kind – it never did this.
“Awesome,” he murmured, scooping up a handful of bubbles, admiring them for a moment before he tried to blow them in Chris's direction. Tried, because most of them only made it a few inches before falling to the floor, but that was okay. He gave Chris a grin anyway, looking the other man over for a moment before remembering what he was supposed to be doing. Turning his attention to his boots, Ed tugged them off and shoved them under the bench along with his socks. “Remind me to thank Ben for this. And you know – you. Just… for everything.”
“You’re welcome, Ed. You deserve nothing but good things in your life. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”
Chris couldn’t help but chuckle when Ed tried to blow bubbles in his direction, the action bringing a levity he desperately needed. Chris moved over to the tub and scooped up a handful of bubbles, applying them on his face to give himself a bubble beard. “This is what I tend to look like when I’m not on duty. Just let it grow out.”
Ed’s face lit up again, both at Chris’s words and the sight of his bubble beard. He scrubbed a hand over his own bare-ish face which carried a little over a week's worth of stubble at this point. He was just starting to feel slightly less naked in the facial area, and it would only last a few more days before half of it disappeared again, replaced by that stupid charcoal makeup. It had only happened once so far but it was already his least favorite way to wake up.
Rising to his feet, he unbuckled his weapon belt and placed it carefully on top of his jacket. “I like it, it suits you. The hair too, or just the beard?”
“A bit of both? Usually don’t shave when I’m on the ranch. And it’s kind of a pain to style or cut it when I’m more interested in riding.” Chris stripped off his pants and boxers and slipped into the tub, sinking into the hot water with a bit of a moan and closing his eyes, giving Ed privacy to finish undressing if he wanted it.
“Go through a lot of product to keep it up and styled.”
“Shame you can't grow it out here. I could tie little bows in it for you, on special occasions. Hair or beard, or both,” Ed added.
He appreciated the privacy, not because of any physical modesty – as a captain he'd had his own quarters, of course, but in his earlier years he'd gotten plenty used to the lack of personal space on a pirate ship. But that was years ago, and despite his jokes, he hadn't actually shared a bath tub with anyone in a long time. It was kind of a lot for him.
Stripping out of his trousers and underwear, he regarded the tub for a moment before deciding to slip in across from Chris, stretching out cautiously next to the other man, allowing their legs to brush just slightly as he relaxed into the water. “Oh fuck, this is amazing,” he groaned, closing his eyes for a moment so he could just enjoy the warmth.
“You can still put bows in it if you want,” Chris said, opening his eyes once Ed was fully in the water. “At least in the hair. Can only get seven days of stubble here before it gets as smooth as a baby’s bottom again.”
Chris slid down further into the water until his head was the only thing not submerged and sighed heavily. He had been joking about drowning himself, but in the moment of stillness and relaxation, the weight of the memories he’d been given hit him and he submerged himself completely in the water for a long minute before coming back up, eyes wet from more than the bath water. He tilted his head back, staring up at the ceiling as he started to get lost in his thoughts.
“Can't believe that hasn't driven everyone here crazy,” Ed remarked, smoothing his long hair – at least he still had that – back behind his shoulders as he reclined a bit. It was a silly thing to be annoyed about, and maybe he should've even been glad the beard was gone, since it kept him one step further away from the pirate he used to be. But he missed it the same way he missed that old scrap of red silk he'd carried for most of his life; he felt bereft without them.
Still, there were clearly worse fates, he thought, knitting his brow as he watched Chris submerse himself. He didn't realize he was holding his own breath until the other man’s head emerged from the water. Ed watched him silently for a moment, then moved a foot over to nudge Chris gently. Through the bubbles he couldn't really tell what body part he was touching, just that he'd made contact with smooth flesh. “Hey. Where'd you go?” he asked quietly. Not that he didn't have a pretty good guess, but getting Chris talking seemed like a better idea than leaving him alone with the thoughts in his head.
“It’s definitely getting there,” Chris chuckled. “Wouldn’t mind growing my beard out again.”
He shifted to look at Ed when he felt Ed’s foot on his hip. “Hmmm? Still here. Just…” he trailed off, not sure how to talk about all the memories and visions that filled his mind whenever he stopped focusing on something else or distracting himself.
Once it became clear he wasn't going to finish that sentence, Ed nodded and placed what he hoped was a comforting hand on Chris’s nearest leg. “You want to talk about it? Or is this a good time for a distraction?” He really didn't have a preference or an ulterior motive; he just wanted to do whatever was best for his friend.
And now was not the right time to start wondering if “friend” was the most accurate word anymore.
Chris relaxed slightly into the touch, sighing heavily. “I don’t know. I mean, it’s not going to change anything. Lost at least ten crewmembers, maybe more? I still haven’t made sense of it. One of them was horrific, couldn’t look away though, not when he sacrificed himself for us like that. I have to let kids die to save the universe. Do you know how fucking messed up that is? Sure, I’m not thrilled I only have ten more years, but I could deal with that - to save Spock’s life, to save the universe. But I have to live the next ten years knowing I can’t save those cadets’ lives. That I have to go and do the training exercise and let them die. And then I survive… on life support, but still… it fucking sucks… And Una, fuck, I will tear Starfleet apart to get her back, I don’t care if it costs my career….”
But he did care if it cost Spock his life again. Chris sighed heavily. “We should have brought booze.”
Ed had heard the basics of Chris’s new memories and future, but he definitely hadn't gotten the emotional version, not like this. It made his heart hurt. All he wanted was to take away the pain, to make it better somehow, but he couldn't do that. He couldn't actually do anything to help the situation, and even if he could – even if they could come up with an ingenious solution together – Chris wouldn't be able to remember it once he got sent home.
“Can't believe we forgot the alcohol. Terrible planning on our part.” It was a half-hearted attempt at a joke, and he didn't even wait for it to land before he was leaning forward, folding his legs up against his chest so he could get close enough to run a hand through Chris’s wet hair, letting his fingers rest against the back of the captain's neck. “You don't deserve any of that, you know. If there was any justice in the universe…” Ed trailed off helplessly.
“Lesson for next time,” Chris joked weakly. The tenderness was almost too much for Chris to bear and he trembled, leaning forward to rest his forehead against Ed’s and closed his eyes. Batel would run her hands like that through his hair. But Ed wasn’t Batel. Ed was sweet and honest and good. “Gods, Ed… I… everytime I close my eyes, I see things…”
Ed would have crawled right into Chris’s lap if he could have, but there wasn't really room for that in the tub. So instead he moved onto his knees, slipping both his arms around Chris in a tight embrace. “It'll get easier,” he promised, although it was really more of a very strong hope. “Maybe not easy, but easier.”
Chris shifted, moving his legs to the side so he could get closer to Ed and lean into his embrace. “Part of me just wishes I didn’t know any of this… but I’m glad to actually remember Christine and to have memories of newer crew members, but my mind can’t cling to the good. I just keep seeing every horrific moment over and over again. I can’t sleep, I can’t eat… “
“Alright, well first off, you're sleeping in my bed from now on. And I'm making sure you get something other than alcohol in your stomach, even if it's just a biscuit.” Ed may not have been the most natural nurturer, but he knew a thing or two about staying alive in the midst of grief, and he could do that much for Chris. “And then – we’ll figure out the rest. Okay? Let's start there.” He brought one hand up to Chris’s cheek, stroking it gently with his thumb.
“I’m not sure I can keep anything down.” Chris had tried to eat, but his stomach didn’t seem interested. At least he’d managed to cook for others, which kept his mind busy. “I’ll just disturb you and Ben. You don’t need to put yourself out on my behalf.”
Chris hadn’t expected this level of care and concern from someone he’d only known a few weeks, but he found himself leaning into Ed’s touch. Perhaps it was that he didn’t expect the same self-sacrificing behavior from others. Chris sighed heavily. “I’ll be all right eventually, you don’t need to do this.”
“They've got to have medicine for that, right? Or maybe someone can… magic your stomach for you. Eating’s kind of important.” If they could heal Chris's broken arm last week – not to mention the people with life-threatening injuries every reset – surely they could do something to help with this sort of thing.
Ed closed his eyes for a moment, Chris’s voice echoing in his mind and blending together with Stede’s: you don't need to do this. That sent a pang of terror through his chest, but he was done letting it control him. Chris wasn't Stede. This was going to be different.
“I know I don't. I'm doing this because I want to.” Then, before he could talk himself out of it, he brought his head forward, bridging the gap between them and pressing his lips to Chris's.
“I don’t want to bother Dax or Chapel with this. Dax gave me something yesterday,” Chris protested. He’d gotten something for the nausea from Dax the day he’d woken up with the memories, but he didn’t want to worry Dax with this. Or Chapel, who would probably see through any lies or half-truths he tried to pull. As it was, he felt bad dumping all this on Ed.
Chris wasn’t sure how to respond to Ed’s statement about wanting to do this. He was going to protest again, give Ed another excuse. Chris was a seasoned captain. He should be able to deal with this on his own. Not burden Spock or Una or Ed with it.
And then Ed’s lips were brushing his. Surprise faded and Chris returned the kiss, soft and gentle before pulling apart and gazing at Ed. Reaching up, he ran his fingers through Ed’s hair, not sure what to say, or what he wanted to say. Maybe for once he didn’t need to say anything. Chris leaned forward, brushing his lips against Ed’s.
A small part of Ed’s brain – okay, maybe a bigger part than he would have liked – was telling him to get out of the tub and run the fuck away before Chris could do it first. But then Chris was kissing him, and the rest of his brain remembered that he was safe here, and before he knew it he was melting into Chris’s arms, his fingers grazing down the other man's back as he deepened the kiss. Then he pulled away a bit and opened his eyes, almost as if he'd just realized what he was doing.
“This is okay?” he asked, which felt kind of silly considering a) he should've asked before the kiss, not after, and b) Chris probably wouldn't have kissed back if it wasn't, but he wanted to be sure. He didn't know exactly what this was between them, but it felt bigger than just a distraction.
“Yeah,” Chris breathed out slowly, resting his head against Ed’s. “Very okay..”
Chris shifted to get a bit more comfortable, fingers trailing over Ed’s arm. He didn’t know what this was either. It wasn’t the rough distraction sex that part of him had been thinking about seeking out. It was soft and tender and felt like a natural extension of their friendship. But this seemed like more than just friends with benefits. Chris rubbed his thumb in circles on Ed’s arm. “You okay? This isn’t too much?”
Ed nodded, then shook his head, then gave up on trying to answer both questions nonverbally at once, since all he was actually accomplishing was bumping their foreheads against each other. “I'm good,” he confirmed. That wasn't quite true though – his bad leg was starting to tense up from kneeling on it for too long.
Moving a hand to Chris's chest to stabilize himself, he wriggled around a bit until his weight was on his good leg, draping the other one over Chris’s legs. “Now I'm good.” He punctuated the sentence with another kiss.
Chris couldn’t help but chuckle a little at both of them readjusted themselves to get more comfortable. “Not the best space for two old men to cuddle, apparently.”
Chris ran his fingers over Ed’s shoulder, tracing idle patterns on it, trying to keep his thoughts focused on Ed and not on the memories that plagued him. Experience told him they should probably talk about this, to make sure they were clear on things and to prevent hurt feelings. The last thing he wanted to do was hurt Ed. “This feels different than just a distraction… not in a bad way.”
Despite the fact that they were currently sharing a tub, Ed hadn't actually felt naked until that moment. He managed to keep the panic from flashing across his face – at least he thought he did – but the urge to run away prickled at the back of his brain again. Not because he thought Chris might do it first, but because, after years as a pirate, his nervous system still registered vulnerability as potentially deadly.
He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly before responding. “Yeah. I – might’ve felt that too. I just… don't know what that means.”
Chris saw something flash across Ed’s face. “Hey, it’s okay. It doesn’t have to mean anything. This can just be a ‘friends who cuddle and kiss’ thing and that’s okay. I don’t need it to be more and I don’t need to put labels on anything.”
Chris stroked his thumb over Ed’s skin. “What’s important to me is making sure I don’t hurt you. Which means checking in about expectations and wants and desires. Making sure we don’t accidentally hurt each other. I.. I haven’t been in a real relationship in ages, Ed. Most of the time it's a night here or there while I’m in town and then I’m gone for months or years at a time. Bit like sailors with a lover in every port.”
That last part was the first thing Chris had said that didn't sound completely foreign to Ed. Communication was, frankly, a brand new concept for him and he was still trying to convince himself that it was a safe thing to do here, because it sure as fuck wasn't back home. The closest he ever came there was actually with Lucius, of all people, and now that he thought about it that was probably the real reason Ed had pushed him overboard. Burying all evidence that Blackbeard might have had a heart.
“Honestly… I don't think I've ever been in a real relationship. Closest I ever came was with Stede, and he disappeared before we ever–” His voice caught in his throat, and he swallowed hard, resting his chin on Chris's shoulder so he could talk without any kind of eye contact. It would've been too much. “I've done the friends with benefits thing, or at least I thought that's what I was doing at the time. In hindsight I think the ‘friend’ part was only on my end… It was just benefits for them.”
He was still trying to process that too, that everyone he'd ever cared about was so willing to betray him the moment he made a decision they didn't like. “So I don't know what the fuck I'm doing here, Chris. This is all new to me.” Finally he looked up, searching Chris’s face for what some part of his brain still assumed he'd see there: judgment, disgust, pity.
Chris’ face had no judgment, no disgust, no pity. Only a gentle empathy and a fondness that scared him because it might be something more. He brought his hand up to caress Ed’s cheek, smiling as his fingers brushed over the stubble. “Nothing wrong with that. I’m okay with us figuring things out as we go.”
“We’re friends first, and I don’t want that to change. And if we do something and it doesn’t work, we go back to being friends.” Chris knew he needed friends more than fuckbuddies. He raised an eyebrow curiously at Ed. “How about some hypotheticals - do we only have benefits with each other or can we have benefits with other people?”
Ed nodded a bit, his facial muscles relaxing into Chris’s touch as his brain registered the message that he was still safe here. “Friends first,” he echoed, in confirmation. That was the most important thing to him; he had so few of those, even now. He couldn't afford to lose one. Especially not this one.
He wasn't sure what to expect when Chris mentioned hypotheticals, but the first one turned out to be easy enough to answer. “It's your body, not mine. You can do what you want with it.” Maybe he would've felt differently if this became a Relationship with a capital R, but that was hard to imagine. Ownership was for things, not people, and besides, he'd spent his whole life envying what others had. He was frankly kind of sick of it.
It wasn’t exactly the response Chris had been expecting. It was a good thing, not to be tied down or restricted, to have the freedom he was used to. Why did it feel like a bit of a disappointment then? He didn’t want to think too hard about it at the moment because thinking would probably lead to brooding about Batel or Alora or other past entanglements. Maybe celibacy was the better option. Pulling himself out of his thoughts, Chris glanced at Ed and raised an eyebrow. “Anything you want to ask? Hypothetical or not?”
Ed studied Chris’s face for a long moment, trying to decipher the man's expression. He almost seemed… disappointed? But that didn't make sense, based on everything he knew about both Chris specifically and also the entirety of the male sex (Ed, of course, excluded). He'd never met another man whose reaction to being told ‘you can fuck whoever you want’ was anything other than sheer relief. But maybe that was just a pirate thing?
“Do you… want benefits with other people?” he asked, his voice hesitant. “Because I… don't, really. But that doesn't mean you can't.”
“I… don’t know?” Chris answered, rubbing a hand over his face. “There’s a few folks here with whom I thought things might be headed in that direction or with whom I wouldn’t mind… But things have just been… confusing the last few weeks. Not sure if there’s anything there and I’m a little out of practice initiating things.”
He probably sounded like a fool. Or a cadet who didn’t know what he wanted. Chris shrugged. “I’ve been getting a lot of mixed signals. Either that or my game is just really off.”
“Mm, I don't think it's you.” Not that Ed had much to go on, having absolutely zero game of his own. His version of flirting was mostly just making dumb jokes about opening restaurants, and generally he didn't realize someone else was interested in him until their tongue was down his throat. But he'd gotten some weird vibes from people here too. The combination of relative isolation & forced proximity did strange shit to people stuck on ships together for too long, so he figured being trapped here in Derleth was probably similar.
But more importantly, he'd met Chris, and spent time with him, and who wouldn't be into him?
Chris chuckled and raised an eyebrow at Ed. “You already have me naked in a tub, there’s no need to flatter me.”
He leaned his head back against the edge of the tub and sighed. “Seems like a lot of people wanting a lot of things here. That and I think I’m old enough to be a father or a grandfather to most of them.”
“Wrong again, you deserve all the flattery,” Ed asserted airily, the corners of his lips curling a bit as he brushed them against Chris's jawline in a light kiss.
“Well that just means you've got experience.” Chris wasn't wrong though. “This place does skew young, doesn't it? There's, what, one other person with any grey in their hair at all?” That wasn't so different from home for him, to be fair. Piracy didn't tend to have a terribly high life expectancy.
“I think Strange is the only other one with grey hair. Technically some of the vampires and gods are older, but they definitely don’t look it.” Chris smiled at the kiss, making a soft content noise as he closed his eyes. “You’re going to take great pleasure in telling me I’m wrong all the time, aren’t you?”
Chris ran his fingers over Ed’s back. “So, what do you think of your first bubble bath?”
It hadn’t actually occurred to Ed that some of the supernatural types might be older than they appeared, but he tried not to think about that sort of thing for too long. If he did, it might break his brain. “Oh yeah. All the time. Gotta even out the flattery somehow, right?”
The contented sigh that escaped his lips at Chris's touch pretty much answered that second question for him. “A+, would recommend. Almost as good as the company,” he added, slipping his arms around Chris’s waist to pull him just a little closer.
Chris laughed. “Got to keep me humble somehow.”
As he was pulled closer, Chris brushed his lips against Ed’s and then peppered kisses along his jawline. Whatever this was, he was going to enjoy it. Or try to, at least. In some ways, it didn’t really matter what they called it. “The company is very good indeed.”
“Exactly,” Ed teased, a placid smile spreading across his face as their lips met again. Closing his eyes, he dragged a hand up Chris’s back to rake his fingers through the other man's hair. Mentally he added another item to the list of brain-breaking topics he probably shouldn't think too hard about: the fact that any of this was happening to him at all. It felt almost surreal, and he was still relatively certain he didn't deserve it, but that wasn't going to stop him from enjoying it.
Chris purred softly, leaning into Ed’s touch and letting his head fall against Ed’s shoulder. “Planning out how you’re going to braid it?”
Ed chuckled and pressed a kiss to Chris's forehead. “Just got to find some nice, sparkly ribbons to weave in there. You think the theater might have some?”
“I wouldn’t be surprised. There’s all sorts of things in the costume department there. Varying levels of quality though, but I’m sure you could find some,” he said with a grin, his own hand coming to play with Ed’s hair. “Have you always had it long?”
“Pretty much. Maybe not quite this long, but–” Ed shrugged. “Long enough.” It hadn't been much shorter since he was a kid, but that was another item on the ‘absolutely don't think about it’ list. So he brought a hand around to Chris’s chin to pull the other man in for a kiss, to keep their mouths busy doing something other than reminiscing about his childhood.
Chris was more than happy to let Ed distract him with kisses, to keep his thoughts focused on Ed rather than the mess of memories in his head.