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Ed wakes up, and the apocalypse is still happening today, tomorrow, maybe even next week. Ed wakes up, and swallows the fear, and keeps his eyes on the stars. Ed wakes up, and he keeps on living.
It’s the one thing he and Jim promised they’d do once they hit the end of that three week mark, no matter what. And he refuses to break that promise.
“Three months of this, and it still doesn’t feel real,” Ed says, and feels a warm hand clasp his, squeezing firmly. “I can’t fucking believe there’s still stars to see and track.”
“Are you still driving out to look?” Stede asks, judgment mostly suppressed in his tone. Ed still can't help but snort a little bit. He knows it’s from a place of concern, but he also just feels a sweeping relief that an apocalypse hasn’t killed Stede’s bitchiness.
“Every other night,” he confesses, and then squeezes Stede’s hand to emphasize, “but if Jim asks I cut down to every three days, got it?”
“Are they supposed to be back tomorrow?” Fang asks, and Ed tips his head enough to see the gentle smile, the concern much more poorly masked than Stede’s.
“Tonight if I’m lucky,” Ed says with a soft laugh, rolling his eyes fondly at the relief on Fang’s face. “Their trip wasn’t…great. We didn’t expect it to be, but still. They took off as soon as they could.”
His phone buzzes in his pocket, and Ed isn’t at all ashamed of how quick he grabs it out to see if it’s a message from Jim. It’s not, but it is from the pharmacy about a medication refill, so Ed figures it’s probably right under as exciting as a text from Jim would have been.
As it turns out, while the lights are still definitely going out above them, and eventually in their world they would extinguish too, money was still just as necessary now as it was before the first star fell. Ed’s psychiatrist was still seeing patients, the pharmacy still carried his favorite brand of knee brace, and a few other doctors in town were still keeping their doors open.
“They make you look distinguished,” Stede had said when Ed had shown up after his optometrist appointment, adjusting new glasses that felt more than a little weird on his face. “And you picked a flattering pair for your face.”
“And you look even hotter, which just isn’t fair,” Lucius had called out behind him at the kitchen table. Jim hadn’t said all that much at the time, but he’d noticed their sly glances while they were arguing with Frenchie and Roach.
Later they’d told him he was beautiful while fucking him into their bed, so Ed really can’t complain that much.
“Everything okay?” Fang asks gently, and Ed zones back in, tipping his head to shoot him a smile and tucking his phone back into his pocket.
“Yeah, just gotta go pick up the ole ball and chain,” Ed tells him, because he thinks it’s the funniest thing to call pills that make him less depressed. And maybe because it also makes Jim roll their eyes at him every time, too.
“You’re so fucking weird,” Stede says fondly as Ed pushes himself up to standing with a groan. “Text me if Jim won’t be back after all and you want to spend the night. We’ve got four or five episodes of Chopped to catch up on.”
“Oh shit, we gotta get on that,” Ed agrees with full sincerity, grabbing Stede’s hands when he sticks them up and bracing him as he pulls himself up to standing so they can hug. “If not tonight, this weekend for sure.”
“Whenever Jim’s okay again,” Stede says kindly, and Ed pushes a kiss to his cheek when they part before reaching out for Fang. “God, it’s really not fair that your hair still looks that nice after you’ve been laying on the ground.”
“Them’s the breaks,” Fang says with a wide grin, arms folding around Ed with a tight squeeze. “Eddie’s hair always looks good no matter what.”
They all know it’s a lie, but Ed still hugs Fang extra hard before letting go anyway. “I missed out on my calling to be a hair model is what I’m hearing, actually.”
This devolves into a pretty fun improv bit that he and Stede are able to get Fang in on too, and by the time Ed actually leaves his sides hurt from laughing, and the slow creeping dread that haunts him more often than not doesn’t show up again until he’s got dinner on the stove and Jim still hasn’t called him.
He stares at his phone and reminds himself they promised no texting on the road, and that Jim would call first. He knows they need to process whatever bullshit their nan tried to tell them, whether it was familial guilt or proselytizing or some sick combination of both, on their own first. He double checks that his volume is on high and shoves his phone back in his pocket and steps over to start washing the dishes he used to prep his ingredients instead of going for his truck keys like he really wants.
“You and Stede are so behind on Chopped,” he says to himself, because it works better if he says the reasons out loud, “and you might miss Jim coming home. Plus you can definitely convince Stede to let you borrow one of his big robes, and he’ll break out a candle if you look pathetic enough. Also it’s a waste of gas.”
He really would feel more pathetic if it didn’t work so well.
Ed’s sitting in the cab of his truck an hour later, going over his list of reasons to go to Stede’s instead of heading out to his usual lookout spot, when headlights suddenly slide over him as a car turns onto their street. Ed feels every muscle in his body release, and barely remembers to send a quick text of “Jim’s home” to Stede before he’s throwing the car door open and sliding out. He’s got the door shut and truck locked as Jim pulls into their parking spot, and then they’ve got an armful of him the second he sees both feet on the asphalt.
“I was barely gone a week,” Jim complains, and Ed can’t exactly blame them with the way he’s pushed them into the car, but he can feel just how tight they’re gripping him back. “Did you already eat?”
“Yeah, but I made plenty of leftovers. I’ll reheat it for you,” Ed says into their hair, pushing a firm kiss to Jim’s head and forcing himself to start loosening his arms. Jim doesn’t let go, and so Ed doesn’t either. “It’s good, you’ll like it. And I picked up sour gummies at the pharmacy earlier.”
“I missed you too,” Jim mumbles into his collarbone, and Ed just pushes his mouth to their head again. “Don’t snot in my hair, I don’t want to wash it right now.”
“I’m not the gross one who gets snotty,” Ed tells them, smiling at the halfhearted grumble Jim lets out as they knock their head against the side of his neck. “Come inside? I’ll even carry your bag.”
“My big strong hero,” Jim deadpans, but they slowly let go of him anyway. Ed’s so fucking relieved to not see any obvious signs of anger or sadness; there’s always the chance that Jim has just been burying it, but he hopes it’s because they’ve actually been able to process some of it on their own or in the calls with him. “I need a shower, too.”
“Go shower then,” Ed shrugs, unable to resist the urge to duck down and kiss them softly before he steps away to grab their bag out of the backseat. “I’ll still heat up your food, and maybe even make you a drink if you want.”
“Ugh, of course you already showered,” Jim groans playfully, and Ed grins broadly when they let him take their hand and start tugging them towards the door after they lock the car. “I can’t have anything nice in this world. Fuck, my ass hurts after driving all day.”
Ed turns on the news when Jim goes to shower, both because he actually doesn’t know how long they’ll shower and doesn’t want to reheat their food until they’re out, and because the anxiety at not going out to look for falling stars (he hasn’t thought of them as shooting stars in weeks now) is getting great enough that he’s willing to listen just for a couple minutes.
“There are no intact constellations left from any known culture,” the news anchor is saying, and Ed immediately hits the power button on the remote and chucks it onto the couch. He doesn’t think that can be true, is sure that it’s just white scientists not caring enough to reach out further, to look towards enough places, but – but Ed’s known for months that his constellations are missing pieces. Knows that Fang’s are. Knows that the countless ones Stede knows are all fragmented, some to the point of being unable to even find one star that’s recognizable.
It just somehow feels devastatingly real, actually hearing it on the news.
The world’s still turning, and the moon is a sliver high in the sky right now, and the neighbor’s dog is barking at a fucking raccoon probably, and the stars are disappearing so rapidly that the stories their ancestors created are literally illegible if he looks at the sky.
He’s not full-on hyperventilating by the time Jim walks into the kitchen, but it’s a close enough thing that they manhandle him into a chair and hug him tight, taking slow, exaggerated breaths as his hands shake and clutch at their back.
“You promised me you wouldn’t go crazy without me here for the ride,” they say, a half-hearted tease that Ed can hear the worry through. It’s still enough to knock a wheezing laugh out of him, to make him able to start matching his breathing to Jim’s as he presses his forehead to their sternum. They smooth one hand over his hair and hum something off tune. Ed wants them to braid his hair just because. Wants to lie in the back of his truck with Jim to watch a movie at the drive-in. Wants to go for a drive out of town for a vacation. Wants to stop dreaming about horrors walking up the streets. “With me again, handsome?”
“I should change your name in my phone to ‘Shirt Thief’,” Ed tells them in response, because he’s always with Jim but that’s not the answer that will make him sound the most present right now. He forces himself to loosen his grip on them so he can tip his head up and offer a smile. “You really did miss me.”
“No fucking shit I missed you. I hate driving alone,” Jim tells him, but when Ed tips his chin up a little more they still bridge the gap and kiss him immediately, slow and sweet as both their hands cradle his jaw. “Also you’re literally stretching my shirt out right now. Pot, kettle.”
They’ve told him exactly how much they like to see him in their shirts, and Ed raises an eyebrow, about to open his mouth and remind him before they kiss him again, and Ed’s more than happy to sink into that. Jim stays crowded close between his legs, hands slipping around into his hair, and Ed can easily see what kind of night this could turn into.
They both freeze when Jim’s stomach audibly growls as they throw a leg over one of his. Ed pulls back enough to glare at them suspiciously. “When did you last eat an actual meal, and not gas station snacks?”
“I plead the fifth,” Jim tells him, neatly slipping out of his hands before Ed can start to lecture them about it. “Food in the fridge or the microwave?”
“Microwave, needs two minutes. Did you watch Law & Order without me?” Ed rolls his neck out carefully before looking at Jim again, taking in the slight dark circles under their eyes, the surprisingly relaxed slope of their shoulders as they start heating up their food. “And, just one check in. Do you need or want to talk about any part of it tonight?”
If they say no again, he’s going to respect it. He’ll put on some mindless tv that they’ll end up ignoring in favor of Ed catching Jim up on anything they missed with their friends while they were driving and ignoring the group chat in favor of whatever arguments they had to have with a nun instead.
“No to both,” Jim says slowly, raking a hand through their hair as the microwave hums behind them. Ed catches them glancing at him out of the corner of their eye and braces himself for them asking him the same. “Stupid motel didn’t have any good TV channels. Just-fuck, I don’t know. We should have left when you wanted to.”
Ed never in a million years expected that.
“I never said I wanted to leave,” he manages to get out, because that’s true, he never breathed a word of that to anyone, especially Jim, but fuck, yeah of course he wanted to, especially at the beginning. The urge is still there every time he grabs the car keys.
“You didn’t have to. You still don’t,” Jim says, snorting at whatever expression must be on his face. “You’re all soft around the edges now, amor. Like yeah, I’m sure you’re still great at hiding stuff, but especially when you’re, you know, experiencing the fucking apocalypse, you have tells around your friends.”
“You’re not just my friend,” he says, and it’s such a weak deflection that he can’t even bring himself to mind when Jim rolls their eyes and turns to get their food out of the microwave. “You’re my best friend, like Stede and Fang.”
They’re his partner. They’re the love of his life. But they’re also so goddamn good at reading him that it’s fucking scary, sometimes.
“I know you like me most, but regardless of that,” Jim starts to say, a little agitated before they take a deep breath and turn back around, coming over to set their bowl on the table and staring down at Ed’s face, “I could tell you wanted to bolt, okay? I could tell. I’m sure quite a few of us could. And after Nana told me that shit the first time, I should have fucking just told you we should go.”
“Hey,” Ed says softly, because this feels almost too vulnerable, but he can tell they both need to talk it through, “whatever the fuck she said to you this time, she was wrong. And you’re not stupid for trying to talk to her again.”
He’d do the same thing if he only had one family member left, no matter how emotionally shitty they treated him.
“Fuck you.” Jim turns again but Ed’s not worried. He waits until they grab a fork and come back to drop into a chair at the table before immediately sliding a foot over to press their ankles together. “I’m trying to apologize, asshole. I knew you wouldn’t go without me. Thank you for staying.”
Ed has to tip his head back and just breathe for a moment, tentatively reaching a hand out until Jim’s hand covers his on the table. He listens to their fork touch the side of the bowl and nods, hopes they eat while he composes himself into something a little more human, a little less flight risk. Maybe he should reach out to his old therapist and see if they’re still in town, still seeing patients, or at least have a referral.
If he has to ask his psychiatrist and let her know she was right, he’ll never live it down.
“The news stations are finally starting to report that there aren’t any intact constellations left,” Ed starts to tell Jim, unable to keep the smile off his face when they snort, “yeah, I know, like that hasn’t been news in months, but-but I’ve got so much data from reaching out to other anxious bastards like me, right? And I mean, I can keep up with scientific journals and articles with the best of them, I’m a fucking genius, obviously. But it’s not like I’d have more than this if we’d left, you know? Might even have less, if I was just sleeping off the depression and anxiety all the time.”
“Maybe,” Jim squeezes his hand, knocking their ankles together gently. He doesn’t have to look back down yet. “Maybe, but maybe it’d be easier for you to be chasing it, it whatever it is. To track it yourself, not just through photos and videos online.”
“Maybe,” he’ll admit that much to them, won’t lie now, “but maybe I’d be worse, not having all our friends so close. Maybe we’d be worse, too, internalizing it all until I just shook apart and you exploded.”
“You’re too pretty for me to let you shake apart. I think you’d implode first, all supernova.” Jim’s grinning at him when he looks down, and Ed can’t help but grin too, feeling some of the tension slipping down his spine. “I’m sorry we didn’t talk about it sooner. If you felt like you couldn’t ask. That I just didn’t bring it up at all.”
Ed flips his hand over to squeeze Jim’s back and leans in to kiss their forehead over the corner of the table before slumping back into his seat. “I should have brought it up. I just…spiraled when I thought about it. Came up with too many bad outcomes that I couldn’t even consider a single good one.”
It feels better, airing it out now even without talking about whatever Jim’s nana might have said to them on their trip, without reaching a conclusion to the back and forth apologies. Ed’s content to let it rest for now, to try and check in again tomorrow when Jim’s gotten a full night of sleep and they’re both a little less tender.
“So, you steal any flaming swords while I was gone?” Jim asks after a few more minutes, their bowl nearly scraped clean. Ed can only shake his head and laugh as they wipe their mouth on the back of their hand.
“Nah, saw a couple angels, but they hid their swords so there wasn’t a point in a fight. What about you, huh? You pick up any hitchhiking angels without me?” Ed let’s go of their hand to grab a loose paper towel he left out for exactly this, tossing it at them so they don’t then wipe their hand on their sweats. “Hiding any swords in your car to surprise me?”
“You know where all my swords are,” Jim winks at him as Ed bursts into laughter, so delighted and relieved to have them home again. He watches their face soften even as the same sly smile plays around their mouth. “And you’re the only angel I’ve seen.”
Ed can feel the way his cheeks flush, knows that rolling his eyes would not at all distract Jim from the way he’s sure his face changes at the pet name. “You’re terrible and I can’t believe I missed you that fucking much.”
“We can go watch the stars fall tomorrow and the next night,” Jim says with an easy shrug, an easy compromise and like they don’t believe him at all. He’s so fucking glad they don’t. “C’mon, let me put your hair in a braid and then we can go to bed.”
The second Jim’s fingers sink into his hair Ed decides he can’t do this separation again, not at the end of the world. He can’t be physically apart from them for more than 24 hours again. It’s clingy and codependent and he truly cannot bring himself to care, not when all his muscles unwind and Jim’s breathing goes briefly shaky behind him, like they’ve needed this as much as he has. They make it through the first braid in an easy silence, and Jim’s steady fingers are halfway through the second when Ed slides one hand up their calf and carefully presses his temple to their knee.
“Maybe we can do a short road trip in a week or so? Four days max,” he says, reaching his other hand down for his own knee, slipping his fingers under the soft brace to push against a tightening muscle. “Trade off driving, go slow. I’d map it out for us.”
“If we see an angel I get first dibs on their sword,” Jim tells him, and he can feel his chest lighting up. “And we’re switching playlists evenly, asshole, don’t even try to say you should get more music time since we’re taking your truck.”
“The sword’s all yours,” Ed promises Jim, grinning as he feels them start to tie off his braid. “I’ll make sure to pack the first aid kit for when you inevitably burn yourself.”
“I’m making you pack everything, I trust you to be way more prepared than me,” Jim says with a snort, easy and matter of fact before he feels their hands sliding forward to his jaw, gently pressing until he tips his head back enough that they can curl over him and kiss him slowly. Ed smiles until they can’t kiss him anymore, and even then he can’t stop smiling at the roll of their eyes, the amusement spread across their face.
It’s more than enough. It’s everything.
They’re quiet as they get ready for bed, but it’s comfortable. Ed only looks out of the window once before he closes the blinds, and he genuinely doesn’t feel panic when he turns away from the stars. Jim already looks half asleep they crawl into bed, and Ed changes quickly, flicking off the lamp next to the bed before he slides under the covers, hiding a pleased smile into Jim’s collarbone as they reach for him. He’d missed overlapping with them, missed being held and getting to count their breaths as their ribs move against his.
“We can always drive,” Jim murmurs sleepily, one warm hand stroking over his shoulders. Ed makes himself keep breathing steadily. “I just need…I just need to come back home at the end. As long as we have home.”
The world’s ending, and there’s no telling how long they have left. Ed’s terrified of the day the last lights go out in the sky, and what it’ll mean for the people still alive when it comes, and if he’s still going to be around to see it. But right now there’s still home, and his family, and a person who loves who will hold him together when he threatens to shake apart.
“We’ll always come home,” Ed promises, resting his palm over their heart. “I promise, no matter how often I need to drive, we’ll always come home.”
They’re his home. But he knows they both need their family, no matter how bad his instincts scream at him to just run forever. And he truly wouldn’t give any of them up to just go, and wouldn’t have the need to come back to them any other way.
“Then let’s drive,” Jim mumbles, and he can hear how hard they’re struggling to stay awake for him. It means more to him than he can ever say. “You and me, anywhere. Let’s chase your stars.”