“Ed, I need your help!”
Alarmed, Ed dropped the book he was holding and rushed into the kitchen. “Stede? Stede, what's wrong? Are you hurt?”
Stede was sitting on the floor in front of a huge box, and looked up in confusion at Ed's panicked questions. “What? No, I'm fine, it's just…”
He frowned at the box, then tilted it slightly so Ed could see its contents. “I think I might have ordered slightly too many pride flags.”
That was the understatement of the year, Ed thought. The box contained what must have been hundreds of pride flags, all in different colors and sizes.
“Fuck,” he said, sitting down on the floor beside Stede. “Babe, that's a lot of flags.”
“I know!” Stede whined, burying his face in Ed's shoulder. “What am I supposed to do with so many pride flags?”
Ed chuckled a little at Stede's dramatics and wrapped an arm around him. “Well, why did you order so many in the first place?”
“I didn't!“ Stede protested. “I just ordered a few for Blackbeard’s! So we can celebrate pride month with the staff!”
Stede had only come out a few years ago, and now he was determined to catch up on everything he had missed when he had still tried to convince himself he was straight. Ed hadn’t even realized that pride parades could be so much fun until he went to one with Stede, their collection of queer books was growing by the day–and then, of course, there was their queer restaurant, Blackbeard’s.
“Stede, babe, I love that you did that, but as queer as our restaurant is, it's also very small, and–”
“I know! That's why I only ordered ten flags. There must have been a mix-up.” Stede looked a little like he was about to start crying, and nope, Ed absolutely couldn't have that, especially not over a bunch of pride flags.
“Hey,” he said softly, “it's okay, we'll figure this out. Why don't we choose a few for the restaurant and donate the rest to some queer charities or something?”
Stede lit up. “Oh! Ed, that's a great idea!”
“All of my ideas are great, babe. Thought you knew that by now.” Ed laughed as Stede swatted at him playfully.
They spent the next hour sorting through all the pride flags Stede had ordered, gushing about how pretty some of the color palettes were. By the end of it, both of them were laughing and wearing rainbow flags as capes.
“Oh, no,” Ed said after a while, frowning at the flag he was holding. “I think they've sewn two ace flags together by accident. Look!”
He handed Stede a flag that looked almost like the asexual flag, but in the middle of it was a triangle with the inverted order of colors. “I don't think we can give that to charity,” he said, looking sadly at the flag. Maybe Lucius, one of the waiters at their restaurant, could use it for his art projects.
“Um, Ed,” Stede said, looking at his hands. “This one isn't for charity. Or for the restaurant.”
“No?” Ed asked softly, and Stede shook his head. “What's it for then?”
Stede took a deep breath, seeming to steel himself. “It's for my coming out. Well, second coming out, I mean,” he added nervously.
“Oh! So you're ace, then?” Ed asked curiously. It would make sense. Stede had told him before that he had never really understood what the big deal about sexual attraction was. They did have sex once, just to try it, but Stede hadn't particularly liked it, and Ed was just as happy without it.
“No! Well, yes, kind of, but not quite,” Stede stammered. “I… I'm aegosexual.”
“Ooh, that sounds really cool!” Ed beamed. ”What does it mean?”
At that, all of Stede's nervousness fell away. Queer labels and identities were one of his special interests, and now that he had found a new label that fit him, he seemed even more enthusiastic about the topic than before.
“Well, aego is Latin: ‘a’ means without–”
“Like in asexual,” Ed blurted out, and Stede smiled. Ed had always felt bad about interrupting people so much, but Stede didn’t mind it at all. Quite the opposite: he liked it. Stede often joked that their neurodivergencies were the reason they fit together so well, and the more Ed thought about it, the more he agreed with him.
“Exactly!” Stede continued. “And ‘ego’ means self, so aegosexual means sex without self.”
Ed tilted his head in confusion. “So, you're not sexually attracted… to yourself?”
“God, no,” Stede chuckled. “I'm definitely not. Even though I do look kind of hot in that shirt, don't you think?” He wiggled his shoulders and laughed.
“Oh, you absolutely do.”
“But aegosexual actually means that there's a disconnect between a person and the, um,” Stede blushed a little, ”the subject of their arousal.”
“Oh, okay, that makes more sense,” Ed said. “So it's like, fantasizing about other people doing sexual stuff instead of yourself?”
“Yes!” Stede nodded enthusiastically. “Personally, I like to imagine fictional characters in certain, um, sexual scenarios, but I don't play a role in those fantasies.”
Ed thought about that for a moment, and then he gasped. “Wait, is that why you always have that look on your face when you read your historical romance novels?”
Stede giggled. “Well, I told you they are very good.”
“Stede Bonnet, you're a fucking menace.”
“I thought we'd established that I'm a non-fucking menace.”
Ed groaned, which only made Stede laugh even harder.
“So, sexual scenarios, you say?” Ed asked after a while, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively. “Wanna tell me about those?”
“Ed!” Stede squeaked, and they both started laughing.
“Is that a no?”
“Hmm,” Stede pretended to think. ”How about I tell you one for every pride flag you help me put up at the restaurant?”
Ed grinned. “Deal.”