I was holding off on this because it's #SteddyHands and I didn't want to post it during EdIzzy week out of Deep Respect BUT Reincarnation AU where you only remember your past life when you meet the person you shared it with.
So you go your entire life as yourself but with a new name/family/history. Then you meet the person you loved most from your first life and all the memories come flooding back for both of you. They don't overwrite or anything, just co-exist, and you move forward together.
Stede/Ed find each other first. Stede will later lament that he wishes their reunion was something more romantic. Ed thinks locking eyes over a gas station pump and nearly setting the place on fire with how fast he dropped the nozzle and launched himself over is plenty romantic.
They're both single, thank fuck, and Ed's shit is out of his apartment and into Stede's within 24 hours. They proceed to not leave it for a week, getting to know everything about each other all over again. They have the same bodies but new scars, tattoos, and stories to tell.
They compare notes about what each remembers. The memories of their original childhoods are faint, just enough to remember what events transpired but not enough to visualize them. Both are glad for it.
From their first meeting onward they remember almost everything.
Almost.
From their first meeting onward they remember almost everything.
Almost.
Something is...off. Both of them agree that there are gaps they can't explain. Some memories will be crystal clear, but others feel incomplete, like there's something preventing them from seeing the whole picture, a tape cut off too early. Edward feels it more acutely.
Ed does art as a side hustle and he's decent enough at portraits that he can sketch out the people they actually do recall.
Soon his notebook is full of faces in various stages or detail. Jack with his ridiculous mustache, Lucius with his ridiculous sideburns. God, the hair.
Soon his notebook is full of faces in various stages or detail. Jack with his ridiculous mustache, Lucius with his ridiculous sideburns. God, the hair.
They try to recall anything about the ghost haunting their periphery but it's like grasping at smoke. The roadblock especially frustrates Ed, who eventually growls and slashes an X over the blank face on his page.
/That/ scratches an itch, somehow. They still don't try again.
/That/ scratches an itch, somehow. They still don't try again.
Life is basically a honeymoon. They get married far too fast for their friends' liking but far too slow for their own. They live humbly and save all their spending money for traveling the world. Their home is full of photos and they genuinely just have a nice, happy life.
They pointedly don't talk about how each time they get to a new place, they scan the crowds for a face they don't know. That their penchant for local food and sights maybe extends past knowing that's where the best of everything is.
It's Ed and Stede's fourth New Year's Eve together and they decide to celebrate in London this time around. Ed freelances and Stede's corporate job takes off the week between Christmas and New Years, so they see the fireworks in a different city each year.
They're in a public park a stones throw from where the city's main firework display goes up. It's crowded, which means they're still looking for a space to settle when the fireworks start.
Bright lights bounce off the faces of the crowd, each paid eyes glowing with color.
Bright lights bounce off the faces of the crowd, each paid eyes glowing with color.
Ed will later lament that he wasn't even /looking/ for Izzy when they found each other. For once he actually was just trying to find a place to stand.
The boom of a particularly large firework echoes through the sky, lighting the crowd as bright as daylight.
The boom of a particularly large firework echoes through the sky, lighting the crowd as bright as daylight.
And there, staring upward not twenty feet in front of him, is the missing piece of Edward's heart.
It knocks the breath out of him the same as it did when he found Stede. Stede, who bumped into his back but is now standing stock-still next to him, staring at the same thing.
It knocks the breath out of him the same as it did when he found Stede. Stede, who bumped into his back but is now standing stock-still next to him, staring at the same thing.
Stede whispers "Israel" at the same time Ed yells "IZZY!" and rushes forward.
Every head around turns, but only one matters. Izzy looks over with curiosity before they lock eyes and Ed can see it, the moment the memories come back. The moment he recognizes Ed.
Every head around turns, but only one matters. Izzy looks over with curiosity before they lock eyes and Ed can see it, the moment the memories come back. The moment he recognizes Ed.
Izzy barely has time to open his arms before Ed barrels into him, pulling him to his chest and holding him tight. The people around them go back to looking at the show but Ed can barely hear the fireworks over the hammering of his own heart, his brain a chant of 'Izzy Izzy Izzy'.
He feels Stede join them, feels how Izzy grasps him just as tightly. The three of them stay like that for a long while, just breathing. All of the gaps in Edward's memory close up as Izzy floods through them. He can finally see the whole picture, knows the whole story.
"I told you we'd find each other," Edward whispers. The responding squeeze and hitch of breath he hears is enough to tell him that yeah, they remember too. The booms of fireworks mix with the memory of canonfire in Ed's head.
It's just starting to be too much when Stede speaks.
It's just starting to be too much when Stede speaks.
"Let's go home."
It's all that needs to be said.
So they do.
/fin
It's all that needs to be said.
So they do.
/fin
@threadreaderapp unroll
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