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Ed has found that in most areas of their life together, Stede likes to stay clean. He washes his hands methodically and perfectly according to medical standards, keeps their room in perfect condition despite all of Ed’s unintentional efforts, and tucks an embroidered cloth napkin into his shirt at every meal (something Ed has long since had to accept gets him a little hot and bothered). Even when they reduce each other to a sweaty, panting mess in bed or on the couch or, on one memorable occasion, clinging to the railing halfway up the stairs, the sweat has rarely cooled before Stede has a wet cloth or baby wipe in hand. Doesn’t matter where they are or what they’re doing, Stede loves to feel clean.
Except in the garden.
In the garden, Stede wears overalls with more dirt stains than denim and permanent grass stains at the knees. In the garden, Stede rarely wears gloves, digging into the earth with his bare hands and a smile so bright Ed swears the flowers have been using it to photosynthesize. In the garden, Stede is messy, and Ed loves it.
Ed fell in love with him in the garden, in fact. Well—not only in the garden. He also fell in love with him in the dingy fucking bar where they met, both newly single but only one of them (Stede) drunk off their ass, and on Ed’s beat-up motorcycle when Stede needed a ride home. Fell in love with him at the park where they had their first date-that-Stede-didn’t-realize-was-a-date, and at Stede’s front door where they almost kissed but Ed got chickenshit and gave him a shoulder pat instead, and half-buried in Stede’s luscious couch cushions the first night Ed fell asleep on his shoulder. Fell in love with him in every corner of their home, on every patch of ground they’ve walked on, in every fucking bit of air they’ve shared or longed to share.
But the garden is where Ed first looked at Stede and felt his whole body say with utter clarity: I love him. Stede was telling him about the new flowers he’d gotten, how they were incredibly finicky but it would be well worth it when they blossomed in a few months, and oh, Ed, the bees just go nuts for these things, we’ll be like our own little pollinating sanctuary, and all the while he had a little bit of soil smeared across the tip of his nose, and Ed was in love. Fully, disgustingly, Norah-Jones-song-in-a-2000’s-romance-movie in love.
The garden is also where they had their first kiss, Stede’s hands hovering awkwardly over Ed’s shoulders while his mouth moved with increasing confidence, nearly kissing Ed right into the begonias. Soon after the first kiss had been their second, and their third, and...well. Needless to say they were lucky Stede lives in the middle of fucking nowhere with ghosts for neighbors.
Today, Ed watches from the safety of a lounge chair as Stede works to unravel a rash of morning glory trying to choke the life out of their tomatoes. He’s scolding the weeds without a trace of irony, tsk-ing like a disapproving grandmother while Ed sips at a glass of extra-sweetened iced tea and thinks about marrying him.
They’ve talked about it before, of course, and both are in agreement that this is a forever kind of thing. But Stede wants the wedding to be the perfect timing, and for Mary and the kids to be able to make it over from Aotearoa—an increasingly difficult task now that Alma’s old enough to be involved in extracurriculars—and anyway, Ed’s not in a rush.
(Doesn't mean he's not extremely fucking excited to be Stede's husband, though. He already has this fantasy that they’ll be one of those old married couples who gets on the local news for finding their long-lost ring wrapped around a carrot in the garden. He'll probably get blacklisted for saying fuck on live TV.)
Ed’s considering whether it's possible to preserve a whole carrot for posterity when Stede gets to his feet, knees audibly popping even from twenty feet away, and walks over. “Hey you,” he says, wiping his hands unselfconsciously on his thighs as he presses a kiss to Ed’s temple. He’s wearing his floppy gardening hat with the dorky chin strap, which makes Ed feel measurably less patient about marrying him.
“Hey yourself,” Ed replies, sitting the lounge chair back upright and patting his lap in invitation, and Stede rolls his eyes.
“Ed, I’m filthy,” he says, but it’s just a formality; he hasn’t even finished speaking before he's climbing into Ed’s lap, sitting sideways with his legs dangling off to the side and arms looped around Ed’s neck.
“I like when you’re filthy,” Ed says, burying his nose in Stede’s neck for good measure. He smells the most quintessentially Stede here, like fresh dirt and soap and just a hint of the cologne he’d put on this morning.
“Not something I usually am outside of the bedroom,” Stede remarks with a chuckle, but Ed can hear the faintest trace of self-consciousness in there and nope, absolutely not, we’re gonna nip that right in the bud.
“Don’t get me wrong, I fucking love it when you’re clean, too,” he says, lifting his head to really emphasize his point. “Like, when we get in bed after you’ve just showered? Oh my god, it's like magic. Soft as a baby’s fucking bottom, but like, in a sexy way.”
“Mm, yes,” Stede says, “because being compared to infants always makes me feel very sexy.”
“Well, I can’t say soft as an adult’s bottom, we’ve got hair and pimples and shit.”
“Have you considered comparing me to something other than an ass?”
Fair. "Then—soft as your robe. The pinkish one with all the birds and flowers that feels like a cloud.”
Stede raises an eyebrow. “Bold of you to still call that mine when you’re the only one who’s worn it for months.”
“It’s no fun if it’s just mine, though,” Ed pouts, and Stede laughs at him, which somehow reminds Ed of what he originally meant to say. “I just mean that I love all of you,” he says. “When you’re dirty and when you’re clean and when you’re—whatever else. I love that I get to see all the different parts of you.” He traces the backs of his fingers down Stede’s sweaty cheek, his clean-shaven jaw. “The more of you there is to love, the happier I am.”
“Well,” Stede breathes, because even years after Ed first confessed that Stede made him happier than anybody ever had, the man still has exactly one response to a compliment that floors him.
It’s easier than breathing to pull Stede in for a kiss then, soft and slow, trading sweat and sweet tea between their lips. Stede keeps his hands on Ed’s shoulders, which is probably for the best no matter how much Ed would rather have them tangled in his hair, but Ed’s hands are clean, and once he manages to set the iced tea safely on the ground, free to roam. He follows well-worn trails over Stede’s back, his sides, the swell of his ass, caressing and grasping in turn.
It’s when Ed slides his hand from Stede’s knee to his upper thigh that he feels it: a small, circular object in Stede’s pocket, unobtrusive enough Ed wouldn’t have noticed if not for how hyper-aware he is of every inch of Stede’s body.
He traces the outline of it, heart abruptly in his throat despite all his talk of not being in a rush, and as Stede’s lips find the corner of his mouth, absent and familiar, Ed murmurs, “Is there a ring in your pocket, or are you just mildly happy to see me?”
Stede freezes. “Fuck.”
Ed can’t help but laugh as Stede pulls away, face already scrunched into an impressive pout. “It wasn’t even in the box,” he whines, as if this will convince Ed to forget the whole thing. “I hardly even remembered it was there, how did you—oh, fuck me.”
“Maybe later,” Ed says, ignoring Stede’s scowl. “And why would you take it out of the box anyway?”
“I like to keep it on me!” Stede protests, managing to shift huffily even though he’s still sprawled across Ed’s lap like a romcom character. “And I knew you would notice a giant bulge in my pants—” Ed raises his eyebrows, but decides to keep his mouth shut— “so I had to take it out. Besides, you’re always finding my hiding spots, and I was worried if I hid it too well I’d forget where it was myself and not be able to find it tomorrow—”
“Tomorrow?”
"Fuck,” Stede says again. He’s quickly approaching a record of non-sexual fuck’s said in a single minute. “You didn’t hear that.”
“Mmm, think I might’ve,” Ed teases, but Stede’s looking genuinely upset about this, so he changes tactics, tucking a finger under his chin so he’ll meet Ed’s gaze. “Hey. You know I don’t care if it’s a surprise or not, right? I’ll cry like a baby either way.”
“Yes, but I care,” Stede says. “And I kept the damn thing secret for months only to spill the beans at the last second like an idiot—”
“Hey,” Ed warns, bonking his head lightly against Stede’s. “Don’t talk about my boyfriend that way.” Stede gives a long-suffering sigh, mouth twitching involuntarily upwards, and Ed continues, “And besides, you didn’t spoil the whole thing. I still don’t know what time it’ll be at, or how you’re gonna do it, or what sappy shit you’re gonna say. Hell, I haven’t even technically seen the ring.”
Stede shifts to snuggle into Ed’s neck, forcing Ed to stop tracing the outline of said ring to better support him. “I know, I know. I just wanted it to be special, you know? And I’m sure you have something absolutely lovely planned that will be a total surprise to me, and I just—” He huffs. “Is it stupid to feel like I’m losing?”
Ed laughs. “I mean, you get to marry me either way, so yeah, a little. But if it really matters to you,” he adds when Stede grumbles, “we can always just make it even.”
There are a few moments of silence, Stede tapping against Ed’s back the way he's taps against the kitchen table when he’s really thinking through something, and then he says, “All right.”
“All right," Ed echoes. He leans in against Stede’s ear like they’re sharing a proper secret. “My ring for you is inside one of my old pairs of socks in the top drawer. I knew you’d never check because it’s too obvious.”
“Damn,” says Stede, who Ed has definitely caught snooping in every corner of the house except the sock drawer in recent weeks.
“I didn’t have a date planned to ask you, though,” Ed goes on, “since we’re still in such a waiting period for the wedding. I know you don’t want a purgatorial engagement length.”
“Oh! Well, that was part of what I was going to tell you tomorrow. Mary and the kids are—” Stede audibly shuts his mouth. “Well, I guess you’ll find out tomorrow.”
Ed can’t fucking wait. Or—he can, because every moment waiting will be spent with the love of his life—but still. Stede is gonna propose to him tomorrow.
“How much more gardening do you need to do?” he asks, nosing at Stede’s temple, and Stede makes a hum like he knows exactly what Ed’s doing.
“Nothing that can’t be done in an hour or two.”
Ed grins even as he shivers at the sensation of Stede’s lips against his neck. “Wanna do me instead, then?”
“Mm, very much,” Stede says, giggling, then pulls back. “Can I get cleaned up first, though?”
“Always,” Ed promises, kissing the tip of his nose. “And anyway, I’m not sure I’m adventurous enough to want your dirt-covered fingers up my ass.”
Stede wrinkles his nose, which of course means Ed has to kiss it again. “I wouldn’t call ‘risking some nasty infection’ adventurous.”
“Kink-shamer,” Ed teases, then grins. “Hey. Guess what.”
“What,” Stede says, with the distinct air of someone who already knows what Ed’s going to say and is humoring him anyway.
Ed leans in close enough for their lips to nearly brush, noses tucked side by side. “You’re gonna propose to me tomorrow.”
Mouth twitching upward, Stede says, “I suppose I am.”
“And I’m gonna say yes.”
“Don’t spoil it,” Stede admonishes, but he’s smiling properly now. “Too much has been spoiled already.”
“Who cares?” Ed declares, kissing Stede’s mouth, then his cheek, then the crinkles at the corner of his eye. “You’re gonna propose to me, and I’m gonna say yes, because I’m in love with you. I don’t fucking care about anything else.”
“Oh, I’m sure you’ll care about a lot more when I start vetoing all your decisions for the wedding,” Stede points out, and Ed nips his ear in retribution. “I’m in love with you too, by the way. Thus the whole proposing thing.”
“Fuck yeah you are,” Ed says, and kisses him, soft and sweet like the honeysuckle that overtakes their fence every summer, tracing the outline of a ring that tomorrow will rest proudly on his finger for the rest of his life (carrot-related hijinks notwithstanding). They kiss for so long the sun slips behind the horizon, bringing a chill that only pulls them closer, the same way Stede’s flowers reach for the light, until they’re finally forced inside by a wind that nearly blows Stede's hat right off his head.
They stumble into the warmth of the shower together, shivering and giggling, and Ed kisses the pads of Stede’s fingers and the soft curve of his shoulder until the water, too, grows cold, and then they throw aside their mountain of blankets in search of a deeper, closer warmth.
“I think,” Ed says later, when they’re falling asleep with legs tangled and Stede’s face pressed against his shoulder, “something started growing in me when we met.”
“Oh?” Stede asks. “Nothing bad, I hope.”
Ed laughs softly. “Nah, nothing bad,” he says, and draws their intertwined hands to his heart, letting Stede feel its slow, steady rhythm. It still feels new sometimes, to settle naturally rather than by force of will. Before Stede, every new romance was a burning spark bound to go out, and even halfway to sleep, Ed was always ready to leave or be left behind.
But now, there’s no spark to fruitlessly chase towards the end of its fuse. There’s just something growing, something Stede planted with warm, calloused hands and sweat beaded across his brow and more love than Ed ever knew existed. With Stede, his heart beats slowly.
“Something good,” Ed whispers, and lets the gentle rhythm of both of their hearts lull him into sleep.