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“What are you doing?”
Ed’s sitting curled up on the settee, bundled in a sweater and topped with blankets. His toes poke out before going back under, the living room air too cold for him to bear. “Nothing,” he answers.
Stede tilts his head like a dog hearing its dinner bell. “You know, Ed, it’s kind of impossible for you to be doing nothing.”
Ed groans. He just wants to chill. Stede gets in these moods sometimes, where he wants to talk and he doesn’t care what the topic is, so long as they’re yapping. Sometimes it makes Ed feel so swimmingly sweet that he’s blessed with this. Sometimes, depending on the wind or the weather or the amount of time Stede's already done it in the morning, Stede gets on his nerves. Every time, begrudgingly or not, Ed goes with it.
“Hmm, whaddya mean?”
“You’re not doing nothing. You’re breathing. You’re under blankets." Stede motions to where Ed lies down, motionless and grumpy. "You’re warming! That’s something.”
“Got me there.”
Stede smiles. He takes the win in everything. “So…” He prods.
“So…?”
“So, ask me what I’m doing.” Stede prods.
Ed sighs, but he can’t help but grin. “What are you doing, Stede?”
“I’m plotting.”
“Just tell me—”
“No, you have to guess! I’m planning something in my head. You have to guess what it is.”
“Holy fuck. Is everything a game all the time with you?”
“I suppose so, yes.” Stede answers. He gets up from where he’s sitting across Ed, to plop himself right Ed’s feet. He shimmies until Ed moves his legs, and Stede lays in the middle of them, hands propping his own head up in Ed’s lap. Ed smiles, and leans down to kiss his cheek.
“Fine, okay, trickster. Are you… writing something?”
“No.”
“Cooking something?”
“No.”
“Are you making something?”
Stede toggles with the question for a moment before tentatively admitting, “Yes.”
“Why the hesitancy?”
“Because— well it's not like I’m making it right now. I’m not in the active process of making it. I’m thinking about the possibilities of making it.”
“Hmm.” Ed thinks hard about what it might be. Stede goes through these phases— baking, scrapbooking, shoplifting— and comes out the other side with a new half-baked skill, and the urge to start something again. Stede loves beginnings. Baking got old, and they had too much bread on their hands, scrapbooking got boring (there are only so many books I can cut up, Ed,) and shoplifting— well. Ed had to put a pin in that one himself. (Stede got carried away). But, a new hobby is fun. Ed loves a hobby. He’s picked up reading all the books Stede didn’t cut up for his scrapbooks, and guessing the middles of the ones he did use. A new hobby interjecting in the middle of all their routines; This is kinda exciting.
“This is kinda exciting,” he tells Stede as such.
“I know!” Stede says. “It’s something I will make.”
“A plan.”
“Exactly. A plan of something.”
“I like that. Love a good plan.”
“I know you do.”
Ed likes that. The whole being known thing. His irritation with this game is flowing right out the window. He wants to know what Stede’s thinking. He puts a hand in Stede’s hair, like he can absorb his thoughts from the proximity to his brain. Oxytocin. Vasopressin. Osmosis, or something.
“Is it… something with paper?”
“No.”
“Something wiiiith…. Clay?”
“No.”
“Something with fabric?”
“Yes.”
“Ooh, okay, um…”
Ed gets a grip around the little hairs behind Stede’s neck. He’s as soft as a lamb. Huh. “Is it with wool?”
“Yes!” Stede says, excited. “Good job.”
“Thanks.”
“But now—”
“Now I gotta guess what it is?”
“Exactly.”
“Are you crocheting?”
“No.”
“Knitting?”
“Yes.”
Ed really puts his thinking cap on for this one. Stede, knitting, in the middle of the winter…
“Are you making us a blanket?”
“Yes!” Stede says, joyous. He tilts up to kiss the soft skin of Ed’s wrist. “You really are so smart. You read my mind.”
“Pshh, well, no, I’m not really. I'm of normal intelligence. I asked, like, so many questions. You practically told me.”
“Shh.” Stede insists. “You’re the greatest plan decoder ever. You won!”
“Mmmmkay. I’ll take it.”
Stede sighs, comfying himself deeper in Ed’s lap. It occurs to Ed, suddenly, that there’s something else that always comes with these hobbies of Stede’s. He bites down a laugh.
“Hey, baby?”
“Mhm?”
“Is there something else that you wanted to ask me?”
“No!” Stede quickly affirms. “No, no, not at all. Just wanted to share my fun news.”
Ed smiles. He strokes Stede’s hair again. He waits, and he waits…
“You know what though, Ed?” Stede pipes up.
“Mhm?”
“You know, yarn is so expensive. Like, enough for a blanket… just, wow, it’s so much!”
“Yuh-huh.”
“You know. What if I were to knit it? Put in all that time. And you were to buy it. Then it would be, like, our blanket.”
Ed grins. “You’ve always got some fuckin’ plan, haven’t you.”
“Absolutely not.” Stede says. “I just think, you know, if you have the funds—”
“I’ve told you a million times, babe, what’s mine is yours.”
“I know, I know! I just think it’s important for us to have some separation sometimes. And since you made me stop, er, borrowing—”
“Yeah how terrible of me, wanting you to not get arrested—”
“Well, I would have just taken the yarn. The least you can do is help me out. It’s only to keep you warm.”
“Oh, so this is a me problem now?”
“Yes, precisely. Look at you, four blankets on. You need a proper, solid one. Made with love.”
“You’ll love me if I buy you a fuckload of yarn?”
“Mhm, yeah.”
“Fine, whatever. Let’s go to town tonight.”
“Well, if you insist.”
Ed thinks of falling asleep tonight with a cozy new blanket, a satiated Stede, and—
“Stede?”
“Mhm, yeah, darling?”
“Do you even know how to knit?”
Stede tilts his head. “It’ll come to me.”
Ed groans again. “You’re awful.”
Stede grins, and tucks back to his place laying on top of Ed’s legs, yawning. “Love you. Let’s nap. We’ll go,” yawn, “after.”
“Love you, too.” Ed mumbles. He’s trying to put on his I’m mad that you’re bankrupting us voice, but sometimes he forgets that he’d do anything for Stede, so the grumbly voices don’t stick.
Ed settles, then. The plan for the night is decided. Always a plan, they have, no matter the day or the seeming lack of anything to do, cooped up in this dusty old inn. They always have something.
Ed contemplates Stede getting heavier and heavier on his legs the deeper he falls into sleep. He makes Ed warm; a perfect blanket. Ed contemplates this. How even in the moments of boringness, and nothingness, they can do nothing together.
He’d pay all his money for that.