Chapter Text
***
Stede's life was always meticulously planned out for him.
He was to become a lawyer or a doctor, like his father and his uncles. He was to marry a beautiful woman-- his childhood friend, and buy a house. He was to have at least two children and one of them must be a son, according to his father. Stede followed nearly every rule that was set. His only failure was that he didn't have the attention or fortitude to pursue law or medicine, but that's the only failure that mattered to his father.
His father hated the way his son couldn't match him in debates, hated the way he shrunk from arguments. He hated the way his son used his soft hands to gently nurture flowers in his yard as he ignored his wife. No matter what Stede could have done, there would be no pleasing the man. So after he died, Stede decided he'd be the one to make the plans. He'd get to make the decisions for his life.
He thinks it's funny that his biggest act of rebellion was to become a gardener.
His gardening skills did not go unnoticed. He submitted pictures of his work and was quickly hired into the town's parks department. He met his friend Lucius there, working in the same office space. He went to work and did what he wanted to do. And at night, he'd come home and still feel like his life was not his own. He spent a lot of time at the beach looking out to the sea and avoided going home.
After his mother died, the inheritance was left to him-- their only son. He was set for life. Mary wasn't interested in the money. She wasn't interested in him, either. Vice versa. When he and Mary decided to end their marriage, it wasn't because of anything sudden or dramatic. It was a slow decay and a steady crumble of them, a bond that never really existed.
He loved her, but not the way that she deserved. He had come to realize something about himself, something that was the core of why they could never work, even if both their parents had insisted on it. Even if they loved each other.
Stede just wasn't attracted to women.
Another rebellion against his parents' master plans, but they weren't alive to know this fact about their son. Lucius knew he was gay. He was the only other person in his life at the time, and he had no one else to tell. He kept it to himself and he never told Mary. He could trust her and she would accept him of course, but Stede feels a crushing guilt. He wasted so much of her time.
He figures the loneliness is what he deserves.
So he's divorced, Mary took the children with her. They live hours and hours away. He's still in his coastal blue suburban home. Stede should be comfortable. He's freed from a failed marriage. The majority of his money comes from inheritance and he works a part time job that he loves. He goes to work, he tends to the gardens, he drafts up plans for new ones across town and sticks to the plan.
He's freer than ever and yet he's still stuck to a plan.
He can't help but feel like he doesn't have a lot of decisions left to make. Everything else in his life was decided for him. And now that he's really, truly on his own... he has no idea what to do. He feels trapped.
But he holds onto hope that he can chase down that certain feeling again. He wants to feel it-- the feeling when he had the guilty thought that his parents couldn't be disappointed if they were gone. The feeling that came after the papers were finalized and Stede realized his life could be his own again.
Freedom.
He wants to feel it again, but he doesn't know how.
It's making him restless.
***