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Published:
2024-05-23
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1/1
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Sorry

Summary:

Stede doesn't have a thing for Ed's feet.

Ed doesn't have a thing for Stede touching his feet.

Wait, didn't, those should read didn't.

Notes:

title from beyonce's Sorry cause I AIN'T SORRY

love and kisses to marianne for yes and'ing me on this one we're both right and will not be taking criticism

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Work Text:

It’s date night.

And because they’ve been together long enough and because it’s Stede, date night isn’t just putting on their shiniest duds and having a night on the town, or even their coziest sweats and having takeout curled up on the couch, nah, of course not.

Because Stede does everything differently, including the period after you’ve been dating for awhile, and you’ve gotten to know each other, and the honeymoon phase is over (well, not really, not for them, but hypothetically), but the serious business, opening joint bank accounts and planning proposals stage hasn’t quite begun (again, hypothetically, since Ed’s been planning his proposal for Stede since, oh, ya know, somewhere between the first time he saw him and the first time they spoke, but anyways.)

Anyways, Stede does things differently, which means that he regularly plans Activities for their dates. And not like, theater tickets, or an exclusive restaurant, or whatever Ed guesses the sad sacks that aren’t dating Stede get up to. 

Nah, one time for their date they wrote madlibs for each other and spent the entire rest of their night filling them out with increasingly more ridiculous parts of speech until they were collapsing in bed, too fuckin giggly to even fuck about it. Another time Stede took Ed to a thrift store and gave him free reign to pick out any outfit for him, anything at all, and Stede would go and do the same (they did fuck about that one. In the changing rooms. Stede’s fault, he flew too close to the sun, picking out a skirt that short for Ed to wear.) Another time, Stede came over with paints and canvases and said they were doing portraits of one another, except with the caveat that Stede couldn’t paint for shit so he said that they could be as abstract and representational as they wanted, and then he fucking painted a moon eclipsing the sun and Ed cried and fucked him about that one.

So yeah, Stede liked to plan their dates, and there was pretty often a crafting element to them, and just as often an inspiration from the kids’ projects at school, if Ed was completely honest.

Like this one, Stede had sent him pictures of Louis’ latest art project, a butterfly made of paint impressions of the kid’s feet, captioned “idea for date night?”, and Ed figured, why not.

Stede loved Ed, bugs, and arts and crafts, usually in that order, and Ed had shut down Stede’s last date idea to go on a “nature walk” to capture and preserve specimens of their “favorite insects”, as though Ed had one beyond “the dead kind”, so he figured he kinda owed him one. 

(That was another thing about the dates, it was never just Shit to Do With Your Friday Night, it was always something about connecting with each other or collaborating or getting to know each other better. Stede was so fucking romantic it made Ed sick to his stomach in the best possible way.)

So date night had Ed on his way to Stede’s place, regular uniform of purple tee, black jeans, curbstompers, and butterflies in his stomach set and ready to go, grin already tugging at the corners of his lips in anticipation of a night of what would most certainly be some combination of fun, messy, sweet, and sexy, which was really just a perfect summary of Stede actually. 

And the second the door to Stede’s apartment opens the grin spreads into a full smile because it’s all so good to see you darling and how was the train in and I’m so excited for date night and fuck, he always does this, makes Ed feel immediately at home, immediately comfortable, immediately ready to melt into his arms and the rest of the night. 

Stede brings him straight to the living room, where the coffee table is shoved to the side, and an old sheet is spread across the carpet, topped with bottles of paints and paint brushes and a packet of construction paper.

“So, first thing’s first, shoes off,” Stede says as he tucks himself down to the floor.

Ed settles into the couch and begins reaching for the laces on his boots, but a twinge in his back and a tightness at his waistband draw out a grunt in place of forward movement. Ed is fuckin sick of getting older, remembers when he could bend into configurations that made men that weren’t Ed weep, and he’s about to give it up for a bad job and just kick his boots off, despite how it pulls at his ankles, when Stede turns and places a gentle hand on his shin and says “I’ve got it.” 

And then Stede shuffles on his knees, fully faces Ed, and carefully stretches out one leg, lets Ed’s big, stompy, beat to shit leather boot rest on the pristine cotton of his thigh, sets it down as softly as, like, a fuckin bumblebee landing on a flower petal. Takes his delicate, deft fingers, his bejeweled fingers, his fuckin fingers that have twisted up inside of Ed and made him reconsider his whole stance on god, uses those very same fingers to carefully untangle the mangled double knot of his laces, to loosen them one loop at a time, all down the tongue of his boot to the very last set of eyelets just before the scuffed toe. Cups one hand around the ankle of his boot, one against his calf, and slowly shimmies it free, until Ed’s socked foot is back in its resting place on the solid pillow of Stede’s thigh.

(If Stede was a pillow, he’d be one of those expensive shits, the memory foam core with the gel cooled exterior and the antimicrobial casing, the fuckin take out a second mortgage but it’s worth it cause you’ve never slept like this before in your life pillow.) 

Course, cause it’s Stede, he doesn’t stop there, doesn’t really give a single shit that Ed’s heart is thumping its way up his throat and maybe a little bit his eyes are doing that big, wobbly thing they do (all the time) when Stede does something incredibly tender and sweet and gentle. Nah, he doesn’t care, doesn’t even give Ed a moment to breathe before he’s slowly rolling up the cuff of his jeans, pressing his fingers into the tight muscles of his calf, just once, just briefly, before he carefully pulls at the top of his sock, drags it slow and steady down his calf, over the knobby bump of his ankle, across the arch of his foot, past the pad of his foot and the bumps of his toes. 

And then, torture monger that he is, he just hops right into the same treatment for Ed’s other foot, gives him exactly zero moments to breathe, exactly zero moments to reconcile the fact that Ed’s heart is pounding like he ran a marathon over Stede taking off his shoe , exactly zero moments to recover before he’s done with his insane, methodical, loving treatment of his other foot, before he’s carefulling folding Ed’s socks into a neat little pair, before he’s giving Ed that megawatt smile, shucking off his own shoes and socks, saying let’s get to it. 

And then Stede’s passing him paints, handing him a sheet of construction paper and a brush, smiling dopily as he twists his ankle towards himself and starts brushing on a bright purple, stamping it down into the construction paper, adding details with the brush, a big smiling face and some truly wacky angled antennae for his butterfly.

And Ed—

Ed is just staring at him.

Can’t do any other god damn thing. 

The shit this man does to his heart, it should be a controlled substance, like, there’s no reason Ed should have to go to an actual physical office every single month just so his doctor can write a prescription for the stimulants he’s been taking regularly for years when Stede is out there making him feel shit like this, free and completely unregulated. 

Eventually Stede breaks from his painting reverie and sees that Ed is just sitting there, looking slightly dumb and probably more than slightly besotted.

“Do you need help with the painting? I could do it for you, if you can’t twist your legs like that—”

And Ed probably could, he probably actually could, it’s a bit easier on him flat on the floor like this, but the way Stede handled him, handled his feet , like they were delicate, like they were precious, like they weren’t knobbly and tattooed and hairy and calloused—

“Yeah. Yes. Can’t reach, need your help. If you wanted to?” 

Stede beams.

“It would be my pleasure.”

And Ed fuckin believes that it would be, coming from Stede. 

Stede reaches for the baby wipes, scrubs away stray paint from his feet and his hands, and then catches up Ed’s foot and settles it carefully back in his lap. Stede strokes an idle thumb across the arch of his foot as he hums in consideration, and Ed holds back a shiver. 

“What design, do you think, for yours?”

Ed doesn’t really have a favorite butterfly, favorite bug, favorite anything that can fly and land in his hair and get its insectiness all over him, but Stede does.

“Could do the rosy maple moth.” 

Stede’s face softens.

“Uh, if you wanted, y’know, could do one wing with my foot print, and the other with yours, no big deal either way.”

His expression melts.

“I would love that.” 

Ed fuckin loves him. 

So much that he doesn’t know what to do with it sometimes, the way it simmers inside of him until it evaporates into a cloud of steam, warm and thick and pushing at his chest and his lungs and his gut, until he can’t think around it, can’t breathe around it, just feels one big pile of I love him rolling around inside of him and making a home. 

This time, he really doesn’t know what to do with it, so he just leans back against the couch, loosens his spine, lets it fuckin happen. 

Lets Stede fuss through all the paints until he finds the perfect shade of yellow, and when there is no perfect shade of pink, turn a spare piece of construction paper into a palette as he mixes pink and red and white until he’s completely satisfied. 

Lets Stede take a brush, daub it in paint, and press it to the tender arch of his foot, lets the shudder that’s been building in him every time Stede’s perfect, stupid soft hands have touched him tonight stutter all the way through his body. 

“Sorry darling, is that spot ticklish?”

“No, it’s all good,” Ed says, except that he’s not? Totally sure? That he did? There’s a small possibility what happened instead is that Ed let out a groan pitched with so much bass it rattled the walls. Thank god it’s only Stede here and he’s not one to judge, at least when it’s Ed. 

“Let me try another brush.” 

The soft but solid press of the brush turns into a teasing trickle, trails down the arch of his foot and tugs sensation against his heel, and the jury comes back with a verdict: that is definitely a groan, tumbling out of his chest, deep and resonant and completely without his permission. 

Stede trails the brush back up along the curve of his foot, traces where the vulnerable arch turns into the hardy pad, and Ed thinks for a few insane moments that Stede maybe isn’t doing this on purpose, this teasing touch that glides featherlight over a part of him that no one, not one single person living or dead has treated this tenderly. Then Stede goes back for more paint, the cool glob of it pressing right into that most vulnerable spot in the arch of his foot, the one that instantly makes him shiver, and looks up at him, flush across his cheeks but brow set in determination.

“Like that, darling?” 

Ed groans. 

Doesn’t have words.

Gives him what he does have instead, straining sounds of pure need simmering in his gut and pulling their way straight out of his throat.

Groan isn’t the right word, this is a fuckin moan.

Stede is painting his foot, and he’s fucking moaning for it, and then thing is, he can’t be fucked to care.

It’s Stede, the only time Stede would ever judge him for his preferences in bed is if he said he preferred microfiber sheets over pure cotton, and that’s never gonna happen, so there’s just no world where Stede looks at what he wants and sneers. 

Hasn’t happened yet, and Ed just instinctively, bone deep trusts that it never fuckin will. 

So he fuckin leans into it. Claws after the barely there touches to his heel and the pad of his foot where the skin is thickest, the fleeting feel of it. Melts into the gliding caress across his arch where every little bristle and bit of paint lights him up in tingling sensation. Whimpers for it when Stede works the brush against one specific spot, circling it over and over again until Ed is just on the cusp of something, and whines when the brush retreats. 

And Stede, Stede is not unaffected, fuck no he isn’t, that flush in his cheeks has ripened into strawberry red, and his hands have remained steady but his breathing sure hasn’t, and Ed fuckin loves that.

They’ve had— not like an insane amount of sex, but like a decent amount. Stede’s touched every part of his body he’s ever wanted to touch, and a few more besides that, and Ed’s touched him right on back.

Except, apparently not every single one, because here’s them, sat on the living room floor, breathing heavy, half hard in their pants, because Stede touched his feet. 

Just when Ed gets comfortable, thinks yeah, this is it, we’ve got each other figured out, Stede goes and surprises him one more time. 

Ed fuckin loves him, fuckin loves being with him. 

“Ed.”

“Yeah, babe?” he says, and he can hear it himself, how breathless he sounds.

“Gotta— um— make the footprint.”

Oh, yeah. Craft night. Right. Right, right, right.

Ed twitches his eyebrows, a go on.

Stede swallows, lifts Ed’s foot with one firm hand on his calf, bends it until his foot hovers right over the waiting sheet of construction paper, and then guides it down, a solid press, the weight of it, the weight of Stede pressing him exactly where he needs to go pressing another moan out his throat. 

Stede pulls his foot back, just as careful, just a slow, sets it right back where it belongs in his lap. He pulls for the baby wipes, sets to cleaning Ed’s foot, firm pressure working circles into his flesh, deeper than they need to go to wipe away the paint, but just deep enough the Ed really fucking feels it. He’s meticulous, worming into the creases of his toes, tracing along the edges of his sole, leaving no inch untouched, the cool damp of it prickling along every nerve in his foot until half-hard becomes fully-fucking-urgent.

Then Stede takes his foot out of his lap, sets it back down to earth, and Ed panics. It was like being under a spell, the magic Stede was working, melting him down to nothing with no more than a few tender touches to just his fucking foot, and Ed doesn’t wanna come back to the real world. He doesn’t wanna put his sock back on. He doesn’t wanna lace his boot back up. He doesn’t wanna finish that painting pretending it didn’t flay him alive just to make it. 

Stede—

Stede doesn’t make him.

Sets his foot back down, yeah, and then sets his palm on Ed’s shoulder, raises up on his knees, cups his other hand on the back of Ed’s head. Slowly, gently tilts Ed back, back, back until he’s resting against the floor, until Stede is hovering over him, eyes wide and searching, wide and hungry. 

Ed swallows. Nods. 

Stede leans in.

Ed expects a bite, a gasp, for Stede to take the need simmering in his gut and— just to take it.

The kiss is—

Soft. A sigh. Gentle want passed from lips to lips, all tender devotion, not a demand levied but a gift offered. Stede framing Ed from above, one hand still tucked under his head, cushioning against the carpet, the other cupping at his shoulder, holding him in the protection of Stede’s body. 

Stede’s a solid guy, but he’s still two inches shorter than Ed, and the leather adds a hefty fifteen pounds. It’s very rarely in his life that Ed feels small, and even rarer than that where it feels like a good thing. 

But under Stede, under his kisses, his caresses, under his gentle fuckin handling, Ed feels like he could curl up and every angry, rough, tired part of him would just melt away. 

And then Stede pulls back, a question in his eyes as his hand trails down to Ed’s fly. Ed answers, yes, absolutely fuckin yes, and Stede works kisses down his body, pants down his legs, Ed’s cock down his throat, and the last parts of Ed still clinging to the planet melt away. 

When Ed gets his breathing back, starts scraping around for his scattered brain cells, he’s tucked against Stede’s chest, Stede’s fingers twined up in his hair, and Stede is letting out contented hums, the way he sometimes does after they have an especially good fuck and he can’t help but wiggle it of his body in a low, pulsing vibration. 

“That really fuckin worked for you, babe,” Ed says, colored with surprise, because, yeah it’s Stede, but still. Ed’s feet. He’d never’ve fuckin guessed. 

“Worked for you too, darling,” and there’s an edge of defensiveness in it.

“Nah, I don’t mean like, why, cause it’s weird, but why cause. Cause it’s date night. Getting to know each other. It’s not weird.”

“Oh.”

Stede hums some more, less of a stim and more of a thinking noise. 

“You know, you always wear boots, even in the house. Always so steady on your feet. I think—”

He hums again.

“There’s something very precious about it. For you to be barefoot. For me to touch somewhere that’s so often protected. So rarely attended to. It’s vulnerable.”

Ed huffs.

“Fuckin felt vulnerable.”

“Mmhm. And still you trusted me with it. It’s that, I think.”

“That I trusted you?”

“Well, yes—”

“Cause I trust you a lot, I think you know I trust you, with my life —”

“But to see it, darling, something so specific, something— I doubt, and Ed, don’t correct me if I’m wrong, I’ll just keep pretending, but I don’t think anyone has ever touched you like that.”

Ed tucks deeper into Stede’s chest, hides the stinging in the corner of his eyes against the soft cotton of Stede’s undershirt.

“Nah, yeah, I mean, no— no one ever has.”

Stede hums his happy hum, pulls Ed in even closer.

“Thank you,” he says, perfect sincerity.

“You’re welcome,” Ed says, matching and earnest, because the truth is—

Anything Stede wants, anything Ed can give him?

Stede is welcome.

Notes:

if you read this you legally have to tell me because i was very brave and hit post. or u know you don't have to but it would be niceys if you did.

catch me under oatmilktruther on letterboxd/discogs/chess.com