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Ed smiles softly to himself as he straightens the crisp, white table linen. It needs to be perfect, not a single seam misaligned. He smooths his hand along the pristine fabric, crouching down to bring himself to eye level with it, just to make sure he has truly chased away any lingering wrinkles.
He's not worried about some uptight dick of a guest leaving a bad review; not today, not with the "No Vacancies" sign propped up against the front window and the inn blessedly empty of guests for a change. No, today, there is only one person whose opinion Ed cares about.
He grunts as he hauls himself upright. It's been five winters since they settled here — well, what passes for winters in this part of the world, anyway; wet and furious, with howling winds that periodically threaten to rip their home from its foundations — and Ed's knee feels every single one of them. Still, though, it's better than it has any right to be. Might be something to do with the firm yet careful hands that have spent countless hours massaging Ed's creaky joints over the past five years. Might be the brace that Stede had had fashioned for him to replace the one that was lost back in those days that Ed still doesn't like to think about too much.
He sighs and gathers up two sets of their best silverware. They don't break the good shit out too often. Strictly for special occasions. But Ed's worked hard to bring it to a high polish over the last couple of days — secretly, when Stede's been tending to the chickens, or off on a supply run, or working through their accounts. He catches a glimpse of himself in the bowl of a spoon and he's momentarily taken aback. Five years might not sound like much in the grand scheme of things, but its passage is marked by the deepening of the lines around Ed's eyes. And, well, let's just say he's not so much salt-and-pepper-beard these days. More just salt beard.
Even Stede's hair is silvering, now, too. Around the temples, mostly. But every once in a while, Stede will grow out his facial hair, and Ed sees them there, those little white hairs, dotted in amongst the gold ones. Ed loves it. Thinks it's sexy as fuck. Has railed Stede about it on more than one occasion, actually. Will likely do so again.
As Ed pours them each a glass of wine, he allows himself a moment to indulge in the sense memory of Stede's body in, around, against his. The first few months here had been a blur. When they weren't trying to stop the building from falling down on their heads, they had been busy consuming each other in every way possible. It had been as if they just couldn't keep their hands off each other, as if they couldn't bear to pass a single moment without touching and kissing, rutting up against each other like teenagers, licking and sucking and fucking as if they were put on the Earth to do it.
Ed pats the dining table with a chuckle. It's not the one they started with. Nah, that one had been a victim of their tendency, back in those early days, to fuck each other over every available flat surface — vertical or horizontal — as often as they possibly could. They'd been… a little overenthusiastic one day, and the poor old table had given out on them, cracked right down the centre like it just couldn't put up with them for a second longer. Which, Ed supposes, was probably pretty fair. They were pretty insufferable back then.
He puts the stopper back in the wine bottle and sets it on the table. Things between him and Stede have settled down a bit now. It's less of a raging inferno, and more of a slow-burning ember. They're so busy with running the inn, and so exhausted at the end of every long day, that more often than not, they content themselves with a few chaste kisses before sleep claims them. But even now, it doesn't take much to stoke the flames. And when they do get the time to take their pleasure in each other these days, they really make it fucking count.
Ed drums his fingers on the side of the wine bottle. He hopes Stede is on the same page as him, because tonight, he wants to make it count. Wants to peel off Stede's clothes slowly, making a real show of it; wants to run his nails across the wide expanse of his perfect, freckled skin; wants to lick and suck and just fucking eat the man.
Speaking of eating, Ed heads back into the kitchen to check on the stew as it bubbles in the hearth. On his way, he can't resist swiping an orange segment from the fruit platter he's put together. He licks its sweet juice from his lip, a bit of pride welling up inside him. He'd planted the tree that this orange came from not long after they moved in. He'd planted it out near Izzy's grave, and it had been little more than a twig, just about knee high. But now it stands as tall as Ed, and this year, it produced its first harvest. A modest bounty — just half a dozen or so fruits — but they had been delicious. They had tasted like the promise of all of the years to come.
He stirs the stew, bringing the spoon up to his mouth to take a tiny taste. It's just right, seasoned to perfection. It's a recipe that Roach had shared with them when the crew had come to visit one time. Ed grins at the memory. The inn is always so full of love and laughter whenever the Revenge stops by, its sails billowing in the bay far below. And every time their family leaves again, the melancholy floats around Stede like a cloud. For a while, at least. Ed wonders when they'll be back next. He hopes it'll be soon.
He ladles out the stew into two bowls, the steam curling as it rises from the piping hot food. He carries the bowls to the dining table, setting them down in their designated place settings, right around the corner from each other so that his and Stede's knees will knock together beneath the table. It's a ritual that they established before they even came here, dating all the way back to their shared breakfasts aboard the Revenge. Propriety might have insisted that they sit opposite one another, at either end of the table. But fuck it, they'd been outlaws, hadn't they? Following no-one's rules but their own.
Ed straightens himself up and looks over the table appraisingly. The candles are lit, their flames gently flickering with each minute shift in the airflow. Their places are set, drinks poured. But it still looks… fucking empty, somehow. Like something's missing.
Flowers. Shit. Ed should have got Stede some flowers, arranged them in a vase as a centrepiece. Maybe he could dart outside, go pick some wildflowers and artfully arrange them dead quick? Fuck. Who's he kidding? There's no time.
Ed's mind catches on a piece of twine from a breakfast five years ago. A flourish, grabbed in a panic by a man who had never before made someone else breakfast and didn't have the faintest fucking clue what he was doing. He smiles, and suddenly he knows exactly what to do. He rummages around in a kitchen drawer, shoving utensils and bits of random shit aside. But he can't find what he's looking for. Can't find the ball of twine that he knows damn well was in there just this morning. Shit.
He turns, raking his hands through his hair, to survey the room, trying to think where the fuck it might have got to.
But then he freezes, one hand still buried in his hair, at the vision before him. Stede, resplendent in a shiny amber suit, all frills and floofs everywhere. And in his hands, held out before him, a bouquet of flowers, handpicked from their own garden and tied off with… twine. The very same twine that Ed had just been looking for.
"Happy anniversary, darling," Stede says, his face erupting in a smile that borders on blinding.
Ed is powerless but to mirror Stede's grin with his own. He has given five years of his life to the man standing before him. It hasn't always been easy between them. They've bickered and sniped; they've both stormed out on more than one occasion, the inn reverberating with the force of a slammed door. But those moments never last. At the end of every day, they hold each other tight as they fall into sleep. And every morning, they awaken, legs entwined, to greet the day together.
1,825 sunsets and 1,825 sunrises, by Ed's reckoning. Or wait, maybe it's 1,826. There must have been at least one leap year in there somewhere…
Fuck, his thoughts are getting away from him, as they so often do. He crosses the room, gently takes the flowers from Stede's hands, trails his finger across their soft petals.
He places a tender kiss to Stede's lips. A surprised little meep escapes Stede, as if this is the first kiss, and not just one kiss of thousands they have shared.
Ed smiles against Stede's lips. Stede. His rock. His confidant. His partner in all things. "Happy anniversary, love."