Chapter Text
A year later
There's a stranger in the street.
Over the past nine months, Edward has spent so much time staring out his front window, he knows his neighbours as well as he knows his own family. Better, in some cases. He does have a very large family.
John and Jane Franklin live in the big house on the corner, along with their niece Sophia, who was furloughed back in March and never went back to work. Harry, an A and E doctor who has barely been home for months, lives beside them with his partner Silna, a translator who works from home and walks her big white dog at least three times a day. Directly across from Tom and Edward is Tom's perpetually single mate Billy, who leaves a lot of empty cider tins out on recycling day and has taken, Tom tells him, to dating men over Zoom. Edward hasn't been grateful for much lately, but he's bloody grateful he doesn't have to do that.
It's towards Billy's house this strange man is heading. He's relatively short, wearing a denim jacket and dirty grey trainers despite the December rain. His shoulders are hunched, and there's a weaselly look in his eyes. Edward immediately dislikes him. The man slinks up to Billy's door, but before Edward can see what happens next, his laptop buzzes.
The Minecraft-themed icon on his screen tells him it's Avery ringing. Edward puts on his headset and accepts the call.
"Happy Birthday,” Avery says. “Do you know anything about the Northwest Passage?”
"History's your dad's thing, mate." As they discovered earlier in the year. Since Avery's mother is an essential worker, Avery stayed with Edward and Tom for the entirety of the first lockdown, and most of the subsequent one. That means, of course, that Edward and Tom have been largely responsible for helping with Avery's periods of online schooling, a humbling experience to say the least. You don't know just how much you've forgotten in your life, Edward has come to realize, until you find yourself desperately Googling French verb tenses and how to multiply fractions. "Didn't the two of you write that report about Ancient Egypt?" A report which received a far higher mark than Edward and Avery's project on wind power. Tom was insufferable for days about it.
"Dad's on 'Do Not Disturb'."
Edward hesitates. It's only Monday, but a useless morning meeting during which John Irving tried incessantly to poll the staff on what types of games they wanted to see at the upcoming online Christmas party--the consensus, which Irving steadfastly refused to acknowledge, was "none"--means that Edward's already behind for the week. If he takes the time to help Avery now, he should really work later tonight to make up for it, and that's the last thing Edward wants to do on his birthday. He looks through the camera at the boy he considers his son, sitting on a beanbag chair in his room at Elisabeth's house, and can't bring himself to tell him that. "Let's see what we can find," Edward says instead, and pulls up Google.
Half an hour later, Avery has as much information as anyone could ever want about the Northwest Passage. Edward promises to talk Tom into playing Among Us with the two of them sometime on the weekend. He's just hung up when the front doorbell rings. Automatically, Edward reaches for his face mask, but he hears Tom call, "I'll get it!" Followed by the clattering of his feet on the stairs.
Even though they worked together before the pandemic, once they were sent home Edward and Tom lasted a total of three days with the dining room as their mutual office.
"You type too loudly," was Tom's principal complaint, which Edward was unsure how to argue. "And if I have to listen to you clear your throat one more time, we're getting a divorce." So Tom set up a desk in their bedroom instead, a “short-term measure” that has been going on for nine months now.
At least they both kept their jobs. Plenty of people didn't. Tom has been deeply concerned the stress of trying to keep the company afloat will send Frank back to drink. He spends hours on the computer with Frank each day—much longer, Edward thinks, than he probably has to—trying to avoid just that. It's worked so far, but every setback, every new restriction or step closer to another total confinement brings a new wave of worry for everyone, even now that the vaccine is slowly being sent out.
Edward stretches and looks out the window again. The stranger has disappeared, but the Hartnell brothers, John and Tom, are coming down the street from the park, kicking a football back and forth. He watches them, laughing happily together even in this poor weather, until a new alert draws his attention back to the screen.
It a message from Tom. His Tom. "Get dressed and come to the kitchen."
Edward looks down. He is dressed, in the same general hoodie-and-tracksuit-bottoms combination he's been wearing since the world stopped. "What do you mean?" He starts to type, but Tom interrupts before he gets there. "Something nice." A hesitation, then, “Not the bloody hoodie.”
Intrigued, Edward obeys. His "nice" clothes, the button-down shirts and knife-creased trousers and ties he wore every day in a previous life, haven't been touched for months. They fit a little more snugly than the last time he put them on, but he sucks in the gut he acquired when Tom went on a baking spree in the spring and pulls up his zip. It's not exactly comfortable, and the material of his shirt strains dangerously around the buttons. Ignoring it, Edward chooses a red tie Tom gave him for Valentine's Day and which saw exactly one month of wear, and heads for the kitchen.
Warm light flickers in the darkened room. As he steps inside, Edward sees two candles in the middle of the table. Two places have been set, but rather than across from each other, as they normally are, one is at the head of the table and the other is beside it. He looks over to see Tom standing at the kitchen island, serving creamy-looking pasta and delicious-smelling garlic bread from takeaway boxes.
He looks up at Edward. “Happy Birthday, love.”
He's shaved, thank God. Although Edward wouldn't admit it with a gun to his head, he's not a fan of the beard Tom grew during the first lockdown, and which has made periodic recurrences since. Not that Edward's in a position to complain. He himself has gone without a haircut for far longer than is wise several times this year. Smiling, Edward goes over to put his arms around his husband, nuzzling at the smooth cheek.
“No!” Tom laughs as he pulls away, but he turns to give Edward a lingering kiss on the lips. “Not yet.”
“The food looks delicious,” Edward says. “And you look amazing.” He's dressed nicely, as well. Although Tom never quite sunk to Edward's slovenly wardrobe depths, this is the first time Edward has seen him in a jacket and tie since March.
Tom pulls the cork from a bottle of wine and fills two glasses. “Take these to the table,” he instructs, in the competent, no-room-for-argument tone Edward has overheard him using on countless calls with everyone from their suppliers to Frank to his own mother, when she started telling him about some Youtube video she saw about how masks don't really work.
The meal is heavenly. Edward spares a brief thought for his shirt buttons, then decides he can do whatever he likes on his birthday, particularly this year. He digs in enthusiastically. Tom does the same, twirling pasta around his fork like a professional and sucking it off in a way that, even after all the time they've spent together this year, makes Edward's trousers squeeze just a little bit tighter.
“Your mum rang me up,” Tom says, and Edward's excitement dulls a little.
“Did she?”
“She really wants us to go to theirs for Christmas. She says all of your brothers and sisters are bringing their families.”
Edward sighs. It's not that his mother doesn't believe in the current situation, she just doesn't think it should affect her in any way. “And you told her she's fucking mental to have twenty-seven people over for turkey and Christmas pudding in the middle of a global pandemic?”
“Not in so many words.”
“I'll speak to her.” Again. “What about yours?”
“My mother? She's all right. Still not drinking. I'm really proud of her.”
“If you want her to come live here...” Edward has suggested it at intervals, but Tom's answer is always the same.
“We'd drive her as mad as she'd drive us.”
Edward can't deny that. He takes a long drink of perfectly dry white wine and bites into a slice of crisp garlic bread. “This is really good. Is it from Donatello's?”
Tom shakes his head. “La Cucina Italiana, near the Tesco. Donatello's closed for good a few months ago.”
“Oh.” Edward didn't know that. “Well, I like it.”
They eat in companionable silence. Edward, remembering the stranger he saw in the street, is about to ask Tom if Billy has a new friend, when Tom says, “I'm sorry.” It's such an unexpected statement, Edward has to pause mid-chew to let his mind catch up.
“Sorry?” He swallows his mouthful. “For what?”
“This isn't the birthday you had last year.”
“Nothing's the way it was last year, Tommy.” And there's an understatement if ever there was one. A year ago, it had never crossed Edward's mind that his job might become entirely virtual, that they might become largely responsible for Avery's education, that such unremarkable tasks as shopping for food might become both unimaginably stressful and the highlight of their week. That the cruise holiday Tom and Avery were had been so excited to give him for his last birthday would be postponed until 2022. That the world as they knew it would crumble, and they would be left to pick up the pieces. “But it's not been all bad.”
“Oh no?”
Edward shrugs. “I've loved being with you and Avery.” It hasn't always been a picnic, but they've played more board games and video games, had more talks, and read more books together than ever before. He and Avery have graduated from Harry Potter and moved onto The Lord of the Rings, and even he and Tom have taken to lying in bed together, reading classics aloud to each other. Jonathan Swift is a favourite, they've found, although they can both do without Dickens. “And I really love you. Both of you.” Any embarrassment he might feel at such melodrama disappears when Edward sees the look on Tom's face. It inspires him to continue, “It's been a really shitty year, but I'm still happy I got to spend it with you.”
Tom reaches out and grabs Edward by the tie so suddenly, Edward drops his fork onto the table. Yanking him forward, Tom pulls him into a kiss so long and so heartfelt, it takes all of Edward's willpower not to haul him onto his lap and have his way with him right there, as if they were a pair of horny teenagers rather than a long-married couple.
Just as he's wondering why he doesn't do that anyway, Tom releases him and says, “Eat up. I got you a tiramisu as a birthday cake. And after that,” he adds, a look that could only be described as sultry in his eyes, “we can go upstairs for dessert.”
In an instant, all remaining thoughts of neighbourhood strangers and work and lockdown and bloody viruses fly out of Edward's mind so completely, it's as if they were never there. He eats the rest of his birthday meal as fast as humanly possible, with one hand on Tom's thigh and the top button of his trousers preemptively unfastened, to give him a little extra breathing room and to save precious time later on.