Work Text:
Ed took public transport home from work. It involved two changes, and took about 45 minutes, so he counted himself lucky, compared with those who spent over an hour each way on their commutes.
Working from home hadn’t been allowed in years, not since large language models had become ever more adept. The unions were still powerful, but now they pushed the physical presence agenda, because that was one of the ways you could differentiate yourself from the software.
Through the dark and the damp he and Stede went, parting each morning. One of their shorter-term goals was for Stede to find work closer to Ed’s office; Ed was higher up the chain at his own job, so for now it made sense for Stede to consider a change. Ed kept an eye out on possible new positions for himself anyway, just in case.
Job searches were one of the things he idled his time with during his commute. In the mornings, he read, or sketched a bit, or caught up on a podcast. In the evenings, he was usually too tired to focus for long, unless a new creation had caught him in its thrall and he was eager to draw.
More often than not, he simply spent every second or so messaging Stede, or wrote back to far-flung family, or looked up job openings and apartment listings closer to either of their offices.
Sometimes he totted up his time.
Wake at 6. Kiss Stede. Shower, dress, coffee, toast and marmalade.
Walk out the door with Stede, still in the early dark. Wave at each other from across the street as they wait at opposite bus stops.
Stede’s bus came first, at 7.12. Ed’s bus arrived at 7.17, his train at 7.34. Ten minutes to walk from the station to the front door of the office high-rise, another ten minutes to detour past the cafeteria and vending machines, before he headed to the Blackbeard corner of the shared, open plan office area on the top floor. More seconds spent unpacking the weights from his backpack: laptop, keyboard, mouse, water bottle, snacks. Nothing was provided at the office except a monitor and an Internet connection.
Ten minutes to greet Izzy and Archie and Fang. Half an hour for the staff round table (not a damn meeting. They might be forced to work like the rest of the planet, but Ed kept things as different—as Stede-style people positive—as possible), after Frenchie and Jim arrived.
A few hours of work. Lunch, with the crew if they had time; at his desk, if they were close to a deadline. Work, work, work, as the grey sky outside grew darker and the automatic blinds came down. The blinds, the white fluorescent light, the windows themselves, none of them could be opened or controlled. Every aspect was regulated according to the building’s temperature controls and other factors.
Finally, after 5, he got a bit of outside air on his face. Izzy joined him on the walk to the train station. Then they parted, Izzy to the platform across the way where, on odd days, his husband Roach got off early enough from work to meet him. Ed waved at them, like he waved to Stede in the mornings.
If there weren’t any delays, he caught the 5.05 train, and then the 5.34 bus.
Got home in the dark, wet with the perpetual fog and damp, bowed with the weight of his backpack.
In through the apartment lobby, up the 53 floors in the elevator.
Down the hall with the plain white walls and industrial carpeting.
In through his own front door at 5.53.
And then—
He didn’t want to count these seconds. Time with Stede was outside of recorded time. Each moment counted for more, mattered more.
But no matter how he calculated it or didn’t, they tended to fall asleep around midnight.
That gave him six hours out of 24 to devote to Stede. To bask in Stede’s sunshine.
He remembered sunshine from his childhood. The skies had gotten dimmer and dimmer over the years, but when he was a kid, summers at least had been warm and dry.
When he’d met Stede, ten years ago, through Fang’s partners Lucius and Pete, his first thought had been of the sun, his first gesture had been to look up at the sky.
But the clouds, the fog, had lowered upon their heads as usual, and he’d quickly realised that the glow, the warmth, was all Stede.
And Stede, since that day, had turned his warmth, his brightness, all on Ed.
He dumped his backpack and boots in the front closet, washed up, changed from his approved work clothes into pyjama pants and a soft t-shirt; the oldest clothes he owned, handmade from smallholding cotton, bought on the last big trip he and Stede had taken before they embarked on their long-term plan.
Then he entered the kitchen.
***
6.15. Stede comes through the door.
Ed lets him shed his own paraphernalia and wash up. The minute he hears Stede’s steps head down the hall to their bedroom, and follows him, real time begins.
“Hey, love,” he says softly from the doorway.
Stede wrestles his way out of his work outfit. The moment his head pops up out of the synthetics, he’s beaming. “Ed! It’s so good to be home! I swear, every season feels darker than the last.” He’s babbling away as he hangs up his bits and bobs, then finds his own old pyjamas, the last sustainable silk pair he’s got, and draws them on. “I know we can’t open the windows or control the temperature here, either, but it just feels warmer at home.”
“That’s all you,” Ed says, and he means it that way, but he also means Stede’s brilliant idea to fashion them new lampshades in every room, in soft colours that dim the glow of the new digital lights, back to the warm yellows they remember from childhood.
Stede tugs on a pair from their shared drawer of cryptid patterned socks (a gift from Frenchie and John), and then he’s cosying in against Ed’s side, clinging to Ed with his arms about his waist. Ed holds him tight, rubs his cheek to Stede’s like a cat, short beard to smooth skin.
Stede nuzzles back, and kisses him. “Missed you.”
“Me too, babe. Long day?”
“Mmhm. Worse than usual,” Stede mumbles, still angling for kisses.
Ed eases him back, though. “Maybe we could take it slow?”
They’ve done that before, fallen into bed together the moment they’ve reunited, but it always leaves them groggy and disoriented after.
Stede pouts. He knows their precious time together feels more fulfilling if they don’t rush the comedown from the day apart. He's mentioned before that he begrudges every hour, every minute they’re apart. But he gives a determined nod. “You’re right. Anyway, Ed,” he goes on, as they head to the kitchen, hand in hand. “To cheer myself up, I looked at our Hope Account.”
Last time they checked was together, on the first day of the new year. “It can’t have changed much?”
“I think it has,” Stede says guardedly, even as his face lights up at the sight of the preparations Ed began on the counter. “Ever since Jeffrey retired and Zheng and Olu have become our advisers...”
“They definitely know what they’re doing.” He holds up the new block of cheese they just got from Auntie.
“Zheng’s super tough,” Stede says, nodding eagerly at the cheese. “And Olu’s wise. Every investment change they’ve made for us seems to be... Look.” He pulls out his phone and shows Ed a screenshot.
“Wow, that’s a lot.”
“I know! As long as we keep putting as much as we can in there, and let them keep choosing where the funds go—”
“And take on more overtime—”
“—And more extra projects, then maybe...” He slides his phone onto the counter and snuggles back in against Ed’s side. “Maybe we can get away sooner.”
Retirement is the dream.
Auntie lives in a village house that she inherited; there’s a barn on the property, and she keeps a few cows, sheep, pigs, and chickens, all rare breeds. The extra income from the wool and cheese and eggs, plus her extensive fruit and vegetable gardens, goes towards taxes, fees, and endless other duties.
Ed and Stede and their friends help out when they can, but none of them is close to being able to retire there yet. Auntie’s home is one of the few freestanding private structures near the city. A place with nature for Stede to explore, and space for Ed to spread out with all the crafts he wants to try, beyond the drawing and painting he currently snatches time for. The village is too far for them to commute from there right now but, once they’ve retired, they’ll be distant from the worst of the smog and the lack of space and views. From the attic bedroom, already assigned to Ed and Stede, they can even catch a glimpse of the sea.
But to get there, they need to cross the hurdles of modern life. They need to save enough funds to be able to pay rent to Auntie instead of the faceless corporation that owns their current high-rise apartment. If they can cover all their basic expenses after retirement, plus health care, and maybe have a little extra with which to travel, that’s all they figure they need.
But it means scrimping now. Not travelling now. Working long hours. Not going out often. Jim and Archie have argued against this before; they, too, want to retire, but they don’t want to stop living while they wait.
Ed never knows how to explain to them that he doesn’t mind breakfast for dinner a few nights a week because it’s cheaper than trying a new restaurant. He doesn’t mind visiting Auntie in the village rather than booking a trip to a far-flung destination.
And he certainly doesn’t tell them that, not minding aside, he loves holing up with Stede at home and dreaming of the future together.
They catch glimpses of it, twice a year when they travel to see Auntie. Stede goes out into the woods and comes back, pink-cheeked, going, “Ed, look! I collected mushrooms!” then gets all pouty-faced when Auntie tells him they’re all poisonous. Ed tootles about in Auntie’s pottery shed, and everyone laughs at his wonky mugs, but Stede takes the brightest one into the office with him every day for a week, until the handle falls off. After that, it sits in the kitchen, holding their recycled-material spoons.
Now Ed grabs one and stirs up the eggs he’s cracked into a pan. Stede’s toasting bread and slicing up Auntie’s cheese. There’s no butter, only cooking oil, and they use as little of that as they can because the bitter taste makes them long too much for the butter they remember from childhood. There’s no maple syrup. The only reason they have marmalade is because Auntie taught Stede how to make some, last visit, and she only happened to have oranges because she traded with Jim’s Nana on a rare day when they both were free to travel, the roads were open, and they had the funds.
But he bumps hips with Stede as he cooks. Stede burns a fingertip on a piece of toast and Ed helps him run it under the cold tap and kisses it better. Stede tells him all about his excruciating day, how he and Lucius traded passive aggressive insults with the nasty Badminton twins until finally their bosses, Jackie and Swede, intervened and approved Stede and Lucius’ project design.
He gives Stede an extra squeeze for all that and, in a few minutes, they’re plating up and settling in at the corner table. They sit together on a bench under the window. With the curtains drawn and their backs to the window, they don’t need to look out at the pale glow of the city, the long drop to the concrete road far below, the tinted windows of the offices and apartments all up and down their street.
Instead, they’ve got Ed’s art lining the generic white-paint walls they’re not allowed to change, and Stede’s oversized corkboard full to bursting with his lists and calendars and specimens. Feathers, shells in wee envelopes, those poisonous mushrooms dried and preserved in a frame. Small signs of hope.
For a few minutes, they eat in silence. Then Stede asks about his day, and work was fine, smooth, for once. Instead, Ed’s excited to tell Stede all about the conversation he had with Fang at lunch; Fang’s adopted a goat, apparently, and he’s keeping it at Auntie’s. He and Lucius and Pete have asked for two days off, and are travelling down to the village for a long weekend.
“Do you think we’re wrong about this?” Stede asks, dipping the last of his toast in his tea. “We haven’t gone out on a weekend in months.”
“We picnic at the greenhouse,” Ed points out, adding sweetener to his tea. He misses honey. “We go down to the thrift shops.”
There’s a dedicated neighbourhood for those, and their one extravagance is stopping for lunch at the café on the corner. Even at Buttons’ café, they save, because Buttons is Auntie’s cousin, and he always gives them a free cake to take home.
“Is that enough for you, Ed?”
“Are you asking because it’s not enough for you?”
They look at each other, both of them wide-eyed, obviously trying to suss the other’s thought before answering.
“I just... Lucius makes fun of us,” Stede says. “I know he means well. But—”
“Yeah, Fang was asking why we didn’t adopt a pet. We’re allowed cats, at least.”
“I think I would like a kitty, sometimes. But, oh, Ed, the expense! I like having our carefully curated budget. I like working towards our plan. I’m sorry— If you—”
He shoves aside plates and mugs, takes Stede’s hand between both of his. “So do I, babe. I might want a cat, but later. If there’s no other way, in this world—”
“I mean, the only other option seems to be... Mary and Doug.” Stede’s childhood friend, who lives in one of the family-friendly high-rises on the other side of town. “They live for their children. They’ll end up staying in the city all their lives, never live somewhere with more freedom.”
“That suits them,” he agrees, “because it’s the only way they also get to devote time and money to their art.”
“Would you prefer that, Ed? If we stayed in the city, you might have more contact with galleries and so on. I’m the one that wants to be closer to the last of real nature—”
“I want to be where you are,” Ed tells him. He gets up to clear the table; the quicker they whiz through their chores, the sooner he can move into Stede’s lap for the night. “I want that future, where we live away from the noise and the ugliness. Where our friends are there, too, and we all have adventures together. Where you and I aren’t apart, ever.”
Stede brings their mugs to the sink and wraps his arms about Ed from behind. He sweeps aside Ed’s hair, over one shoulder. “That’s all I want, too,” he says, breath warm on the back of Ed’s neck. “I miss you every minute of every day.”
Ed loads the dishwasher; Stede wipes the table and counters. They have one slice of cake left from their last visit to Buttons’ and they bring it across on a tray to their sitting area.
Then Ed gets his wish. He clambers onto Stede’s lap, his legs on either side of Stede’s, chest to chest. He twines his hair up into a loose bun and, for a moment, nestles in.
Stede holds him with a hand at his elbow. On the other side, the tray sits on the cushion beside them. Stede takes a few bites, and leaves the rest of the cake to Ed as he turns on the television and flicks through the guide.
“Anything look good?” Ed asks. He sucks the last of the chocolate cream off his fork and sets it down.
“Not really. Been a few weeks since we rewatched the pirates.”
“Ooh, could save that for the weekend. Get some extra snacks, build a blanket fort—”
“I love you.”
He wriggles on Stede’s lap. “I love you, too.”
Ed has resolutely not glanced at a clock since Stede came home. Time moves slowly with Stede around; seconds, minutes, hours, slip by like syrup, full of natural goodness.
Stede lands on a music channel. “Hey, look— They’re playing our song. Shall we dance?”
This song was playing at the restaurant where they met. By chance, it played the next night as they arrived at Lucius and Pete’s apartment. They heard it over the radio as they agreed to move in together. Over the years, it’s come up now and then, in public, outside the times they’ve played it themselves.
Each time it comes on, Stede asks him to dance, no matter where they are.
He sets the tray on the coffee table as they rise and Stede draws him close with an arm about Ed’s waist. They slot together, cheek to cheek, and interlace their fingers, posed as if for a waltz, but don’t move at all from their spot.
They sway, and Ed slowly spins them now and again. When they’re not at home, he likes to look out from Stede’s hold, at the crowds all around, at the lights and noise, and feel safe, safe, safe.
At home, his gaze scans their familiar treasures; crumbling old books on their shelves, more of his art in frames on the wall—sketches of Stede—along with a couple of photos of them in their favourite pirate costumes, and another corkboard of Stede’s collections. The whiteboard they update with their short-term and long-term dreams, and stickers to show how much closer they’ve gotten.
They’ve forgotten to draw the curtains, and he doesn’t blink in time to avoid looking out the window.
Darkness, shot through with pinpricks of light from late-night workers, other homes in other skyscrapers, some higher than theirs.
The outside world. Tomorrow. All the long days.
He nudges Stede, leg between Stede’s, and they turn again. This is their time; Ed’s not going to waste an hour, a minute, a second thinking of the world beyond their crow’s nest.
The song fades out. An advert blares at them. Stede bends over, not letting go of Ed’s waist, and switches the TV off.
Ed feels a momentary twist in his gut. It’s getting late. Stede time is winding down. If he could get by on even less sleep, they could stay up later...
“It’s still early,” Stede tells him, easily reading the expressions that must be flitting over Ed’s face. “But I felt...”
He kisses Stede’s cheek in encouragement. Stede skips across and gives the curtains a firm yank, shutting out the world. They enter the bedroom, turning off all the lights as they go, and Stede attacks the curtains here, too, leaving only the mellow comfort of their bedside lamps.
“I want to be cosy,” Stede says, with an apologetic shrug, as if Ed could ever not want that. “And I don’t want to get up again after. Is that all right?” He slips his hand into Ed’s.
“This?” He indicates their comfy bed—piled high with cushions and a thick duvet, plus a wool blanket his mum knit in the year before she passed away—with their linked hands. “Perfect.”
They take turns in the shower, collect all they need, and slip under the covers in their robes. Stede’s rereading The Lord of the Rings and Ed has his sketchbook. Stede slips on his reading glasses and Ed knocks them askew when he rains kisses on Stede’s face.
Laughing, he pulls back, lets Stede get resettled.
“What’re you focused on this time?” he asks, before Stede can get lost in his book. Each reread, Stede pays attention to different aspects.
“Nature,” Stede says with a bit of a sigh.
They both glance towards the thick curtains covering every inch of their windows.
“It’d be nice to get a bit of a breeze at night,” Ed says, remembering, long ago, how his mum used to crack his window open, how the crickets and frogs in the stream beyond their house lulled him to sleep.
“You mean, it will be,” Stede says decisively. “After retirement.”
“Definitely.” He’s closed his eyes and picked out five coloured pencils at random. “Gimme a prompt?” he asks.
“Ithilien,” Stede says absently, already lost in his book.
“I’ll add an oliphaunt,” he says, making Stede chuckle. “And a house for us.”
***
Stede closes his book the instant he feels sleep creeping up on him. He doesn’t want his evening with Ed to end, he doesn’t want to fall asleep and wake up and slog through another long day without Ed.
He’s hopeful, more than ever, since he saw the total in their Hope Account, but there are still a few years to go, at least, before they can achieve freedom. He won’t get too excited yet.
And he will not think of the long day ahead. Right now, he’s by Ed’s side, and he wants to savour every second, every minute, every hour they share together.
“Nearly done,” Ed tells him, evidently having caught Stede shifting about, setting his book aside, removing his glasses.
“Can I look now?” he asks. Sometimes Ed doesn’t want him to see his drawings until he’s done. This time, he hums affirmatively, so Stede peers over his shoulder, Ed’s velvet robe soft beneath his chin. “Oh, Ed, that’s beautiful.”
Ed’s drawn the ferns and pretty flowers of Ithilien in the foreground, with a hint of the White Mountains in the distance. All the rest of the page is given over to a sketch of Auntie’s home and grounds. There’s the crew, laughing, seated around a picnic table on the lawn, Ed on Stede’s lap. There’re the animals, peering out from barn and farmyard. There are even horses in a paddock—one of Stede’s dreams for the future—and beside them, the oliphaunt that Ed’s adding the final shading to.
“Such kind eyes,” Stede says, grazing a finger to the side of the oliphaunt.
“Oops, forgot Fang’s goat.” Ed adds a cheeky face topped by horns, peeking over the barn’s half-door. Then he adds a few musical notes, wafting out from one of the upstairs windows. “They’re playing our song,” he says softly. “We’re about to get up and dance.”
Stede kisses his beautiful face. “You’re so talented, my sweetness.”
“Maybe I’ll hang this one off the whiteboard.”
“Oh, yes. I’ll do it. You stay comfortable.”
He plucks the drawing from Ed’s unresisting hand, and bounds away in the darkness out to the main room, moving by feel. There are a few stray magnets on the border, and he pins the sheet in place over their latest calendar, with a magnet at each corner.
Then he hurries back to Ed, robe flapping about his legs, because he always hurries back to Ed. Some days the need to be enveloped by Ed is a flood inside him, like a tide pulled by a full moon, the way tides used to be, at any rate, back when it was easier to visit the shore.
Maybe his whole self is a tide, pulled by Ed’s moon. He shakes off his robe and Ed throws back the covers and his own robe, and Stede climbs onto his lap and hides his face in Ed’s chest.
Their shower has wiped the worst of the day off both of them, the grime of travel, the sterile smell of offices and board rooms, all pared away with their scentless, clean soap.
All Stede scents now, kissing past Ed’s hawk, up the column of his throat, is Ed himself. Slightly sweet at his jawline and, when Stede takes Ed’s hand and brushes a kiss over his knuckles, he catches a whiff of his coloured pencils. Even, if he kids himself, the scent of the paper itself, as of smells from long ago, when all paper was made from trees.
Ed’s sketchbook still is, because Stede scours thrift shops for old notebooks and art pads, to gift to Ed.
He grazes kisses along Ed’s sweet skin, palm to wrist, lingering. Ed’s face is tucked into his neck, and he’s whimpering a little, for Stede. Their lone lamp casts a golden glow over Ed’s body, making him shine like the brightest of full moons.
Stede trails his fingertips along Ed’s tattoos, cups his cheek, murmurs soft words back to him. Ed tells him he’s good, and Stede tells Ed he’s pretty. Ed tells him he wants him and Stede pleads his own needs back.
“Anything you want tonight, lovely,” Ed says, pushing eager kisses into the dip behind his ear, the crook of his neck. “We’ve got time. Hours.”
“I’ll always make time for you,” he promises, and grazes his hand down Ed’s chest, thumbs at a nipple.
Ed ducks, and captures his mouth, and his kiss is the sweetest of all.
Their kisses are treacle-slow, yielding, one to the other, neither of them frantic yet for more. Soft lips, and soft breaths, shared, now and again calling each other’s name.
Ed splays his hands on his back, now rubbing at Stede’s shoulders, now tracking downward, kneading at his backside. Stede rocks into the sensation. Rises up on his knees and lines them up where they’ve begun to fill out, sinks back down.
Every room has a chill these days, to ward off the perpetual damp outside; only when he and Ed burrow under the covers together, and when they come together like this, does Stede feel truly warm, inside and out.
“Touch me,” he begs, lowering his hand between them, reaching for Ed. “At the same time.”
“Yes,” Ed says into his mouth, still kissing. “Good. I want that, too.” He cranes towards the night table, comes back with the lube. Doles it out to Stede, then himself. They both grasp each other, and kiss at the same time. Ed’s other hand is low at his hip, and Stede’s cradling Ed’s nape, and they’re so closely bound that they hardly have space to move their hands.
Their strokes are slow, at first, as their kisses were, palms gliding, hands loose. Stede rolls his hips now and again, as if he’s a wave washing to shore, or as if they’re up in the crow’s nest of a long-ago ship, and he feels each swell of the sea at his core.
“I love being near you,” he whispers in Ed’s ear. “It’s nice. It feels good. Breathing the same air.”
“Love your touch,” Ed whispers back. “Love your heat, your skin, the way you come to me.”
“Always.” His stroke falters, undone by Ed’s kisses, more frenzied now, tongue aflame, and then he picks up his pace. “Always for you, Ed, I—”
“Mine?”
“Yes, yes, yours, I am.”
“All mine, gorgeous creature.” Ed grips him harder, twists his wrist at every upstroke to catch his thumb below Stede’s head. “All for you.”
“Yes, Ed.” He answers Ed’s unspoken question. “You’re mine, my pretty one, my only one.”
Their hands brush as they work each other faster and faster. Ed tilts his head, seeking Stede’s fingers, sucks two into his mouth. The sight of it, the drag of it, the flutter of Ed’s eyes as he comes undone, tips Stede into bliss. He stiffens, and spills, then shakes with the aftershocks as Ed follows him into ecstasy, legs trembling beneath Stede.
He wants to collapse against Ed’s chest right away, but waits. Ed rises and washes up, returns with a dampened towel for him, and Stede wipes himself off, pretending not to notice as Ed sets their alarm for the morning. Tomorrow is not yet here, tomorrow cannot touch their private hours in their apartment, in their bedroom, under their covers.
Ed gathers him into his arms and Stede adjusts the blankets over them, loose-limbed and weary. He still doesn’t want to fall asleep, but his body has other ideas. Even as he’s kissing Ed, slurring words of love at him, his eyes are falling shut.
The last thing he hears is the low rumble of Ed’s voice, declaring his love, for all time.
***
Ed wakes in the middle of the night out of a dream of Stede’s face. He wonders what woke him; he hardly ever wakes once he’s fallen asleep on Stede’s chest.
Then he realises that they forgot to switch off the lamp. The golden light seems extra bright at this quiet hour.
He moves to turn it off, but looks at Stede again first.
A curl’s dropped over Stede’s forehead, and the covers have fallen away from his shoulders. He’s all pale skin and freckles, blond swoops of hair at his ears. A tender peacefulness in his expression.
Sunshine, pure and simple.
Ed, staring at Stede’s beloved face, warmed by his glow, turns off the light and snuggles back against Stede’s body. In that one glance, he’s caught a glimpse of their future, their time.
Far from the long hours apart, far from the endless minutes of commuting and fulfilling demands on their time, they’ll be free.
All the time in the world will be theirs, once they retire.
Stede will shine under true daylight, and Ed will be there each day to see him, bright and adored. He’ll gladly tot up the time, then, counting and not begrudging every precious moment, when he and Stede have every second that they want, for each other, forever.