Chapter Text
“Iz. Izzy. Izzyizzyizzy.” Something jabs at Izzy’s ribs, sharp and insistent even through the blanket.
“The fuck?” he groans. He already knows what sight will greet him, even before he opens his eyes. It’s Ed, looming over his rudely awakened husband, his hair half-undone in the same updo he went to bed in, and his eyes bright with entirely too much excitement for… “What time’s it anyway?”
“Almost ten,” says Ed, still relentless in his poking. Far past the time he usually gets up, Izzy registers distantly. But he tugs the thick duvet up to his ears and turns around, barely awake and yet already out of fucks to give. In his daze, he expects Bonnet’s solid back to obstruct his view of the yard-side window. But there’s only the other half of the mattress, looking endlessly wide and wasteful in its empty state.
It’s odd, being the last one left asleep. Izzy is almost sure it’s never happened before, not when he was physically healthy, anyway. But all week, the winter chill has been creeping into his bones. He’d gone to work in the dark and come back home in the dark and the simple tasks of getting dressed, brushing his teeth, making coffee after coffee after coffee… it’s all been feeling like walking through wet sand. He’s fucking tired. And the bed is warm.
“Iz, come on.” Ed, in his unfathomable cruelty, pulls the duvet down to Izzy’s hips, letting the chilly air in. Izzy pulls his legs up to his chest and doesn’t move but Ed keeps rambling on, unprompted. “What’s the most special thing about winter, d’you think?”
“Lemme guess,” Izzy grumbles into his pillow, “Wet socks? Recurring head colds? Public transportation breaking down?” Truth is, Ed has always hated the season and Izzy has spent decades listening to his husband’s incessant whining about all these things and more. But something sounds different about Ed today.
“Nah, mate. I mean, yeah… but also: seasonal drinks!” At that, Ed fully removes Izzy’s blanket with a triumphant flourish. And it makes Izzy just mad enough to turn his head, glaring at his husband - there’s an unsettling grin on Ed’s face and Izzy’s insides instantly turn to sharp shards of crystal at the sight.
“Eddie, are you off your meds?” He tries to keep the accusation and worry out of his tone, even though his acting skills haven’t quite woken up yet. But Ed just wrangles his expression into something slightly more sane and shakes his head, smiling.
“Nope, pinky promise. But you might be, huh?”
There’s a pointed look at the bedside table. At the small, brown bottle of vitamin D supplements that’s just standing there, gathering dust. Izzy’s supposed to be taking them twice a week, per his therapist’s instructions. Admittedly, he hasn’t had the energy to bother lately, which is possibly a fucking clue in and of itself.
“Might be,” Izzy echos with a sigh, then extends a hand and allows Ed to drag him into a sitting position. Luckily, Ed doesn’t push the issue further. He just waits for Izzy to blink away the beginnings of an oversleeping-induced headache and pull on one of Stede’s knitted sweaters at a painfully slow pace. They’ve both been here more often than Izzy cares to remember. And then along came Bonnet and brought his own eclectic collection of issues into the mix. But with all three of them together, there’s usually at least one who has his head on straight at any given time. Today it just won’t be Izzy, that much he knows.
“So, seasonal drinks, yeah?” Izzy circles back around to the topic as they’re ambling towards the kitchen, Ed’s arm supportively wrapped around his waist. The sweater reaches halfway down his thighs and Bonnet keeps the heater running like he literally has money to burn, so pants feel like an unnecessary hassle. So many things tend to feel like that these days.
“Oh, you just wait and see what Stede’s been making…” Ed lets that hang in the air, though it’s not quite as ominous as it would have been a year ago. Bonnet’s been learning. He hasn’t set a milk frother on fire in a good few months. Besides, they’re staying over at his place this week, so at least it’s not Izzy’s countertop descending into inevitable chaos.
But the kitchen is surprisingly free of craters and burn marks when they enter, Bonnet leaning against the fridge door, looking mighty pleased with himself. Pride is a good look on him, Izzy has to admit. And with a small, encouraging nudge from his husband, he finds himself stepping forward, slipping out of Edward’s arms directly into Stede’s. His hair is damp and smells like peppermint - apparently, no family fortune is vast enough to keep the man from stealing Izzy’s shampoo. Izzy inhales the cool, familiar scent, lets it tickle his groggy mind awake while his body sinks into an embrace that doesn’t feel foreign anymore - but still just new enough not to take it for granted.
“You need to control your boyfriend, Bonnet,” Izzy finally complains into the silky fabric of Stede’s bathrobe. He can feel the resulting chuckle as a huff against his own hair.
“Actually, I sent him in there to wake you. Here, try this.”
A second later, Stede’s comfortable chest is removed from Izzy’s cheek and one of their matching teal coffee cups placed between his palms instead. There’s an oversized dollop of whipped cream on top, decorated with a dusting of brown spices, and perched right in the middle of that foam-heaped monstrosity-
“Is that a tiny fucking gingerbread man?”
Stede, in his utter lack of self-preservation, actually tuts at Izzy. “Gingerbread person, please. Inclusivity is a core element of our brand, after all.”
“Brand, my ass.” Izzy rolls his eyes, torn between annoyance and affection over Stede’s newfound activist streak. Must be all those pamphlets Ed keeps leaving in their office, or the queer group meetups, or that documentary they watched the other night…
Behind him, Ed audibly snorts into his own coffee. So, if only to further amuse his husband, Izzy pointedly meets Stede’s eye, dunks the vaguely human-shaped cookie into the white foam, and bites off its head.
It’s pretty fucking amazing.
The dough is still warm, sweet and spicy, and the cinnamon-clove-nutmeg flavor isn’t just in the headless little fucker. It’s in the dairy-free topping too, and - confirmed by a tentative sip - even infused into the actual coffee itself.
“Hm. That might sell for a pretty penny,” Izzy says, as noncommittal as he can with his mouth full of gingerbread torso.
“See? Told you he’d love it!” Ed breezes past Izzy to smack a proud kiss against Stede’s temple. Stede himself somehow looks even more self-satisfied now, like he just passed some sort of exam. Then he tenses up again, hands fidgeting inside deep silk pockets.
“We’ve also been meaning to tell you, we um… rearranged the roster? Just a bit?” The way his voice pitches up at the end makes it sound like he’s confessing some terrible crime. Which is fair. Nobody but Izzy messes with the shop schedule and lives to tell the tale. Ed steps between them before Izzy can throw a severed cookie leg at Stede.
“Hear us out, Iz. It was my idea. You’ve been running yourself ragged, and with the extra stress of holidays coming up, I figured, uh…”
“We figured,” Stede valiantly inserts himself again when Edward falters. And fuck, the two of them ganging up on him like that should be nowhere near this attractive. “Between both of us, as well as Frenchie and Roach, we could cover half your shifts for a month. That way, you can get more rest-”
Izzy opens his mouth to protest. It’s a cute gesture, sure, but having permission to rot in bed indefinitely has a history of making things worse whenever he’s feeling like this. But Stede just shakes his head and raises a finger to Izzy’s lips, which does shut him up, if only because it’s so fucking infuriating.
“-get more rest while still getting out of the house at least once per day. See, we’ve planned around all your therapy and gym appointments.”
Izzy blinks. His chest is too full and his eyes are too wet and he’s suddenly painfully aware of his bare, chilly legs on full display. For the past few days, there’s been nothing except the dull weight of winter settling over him. Now he’s feeling everything too sharply all at once. Sadness, fatigue, overwhelming gratitude. He clears his throat of lingering cookie crumbs and sappy sentiment.
“The shared calendar was a terrible fucking idea.”
“He means thank you,” Ed tells Stede with a soft smile, reaching out to pull Izzy sideways into a hug. But Izzy ducks below his husband’s arm, dodging it.
“I mean… just give me a goddamn minute.” He stalks out of the kitchen and into the bedroom faster than he’s moved in a while. He can’t be held right now, can’t be kissed or comforted. With the way his emotions have rushed up and settled just underneath his skin, any gentle touch would have him bawling in his partners’ arms like a toddler. And he won’t demand their support right now, on top of everything. Not when he hasn’t even been doing the bare minimum to help himself.
He picks up the little glass bottle and wipes off the dust.
It’s not a miracle cure, he knows that. And maybe all the good it does is just in his head. Maybe, like a mother’s kiss on a bruised knee, what truly helps is the mere act of doing something to pull himself out of the trenches. At least he’ll have more to offer than an apologetic shrug when his therapist inevitably starts pestering him next week… “Have you been getting enough sleep? Sunlight? Exercise?” If he’s lucky, it’ll even keep her from making that face again. The one that clearly means “well, there’s your problem” - like a mechanic popping open a car’s hood to find a squirrel has chewed through all the wiring.
Izzy screws open the plastic cap.
The vitamin drops are fucking disgusting, if he’s being honest. Izzy fills the thin glass dropper anyway and counts to three as the oil coats his tongue, leaving a slightly acrid aftertaste.
When he returns to the kitchen - eyes wiped dry and finally wearing his own sweatpants - Ed and Stede are still standing there, still eyeing him like he’s something fragile about to crack. And Izzy can’t have that right now.
So he ignores their looks of concern and just tops off his abandoned mug with what’s left in the coffee pot. Leave it to Bonnet to stumble his way into somehow making filter coffee taste like Christmas fucking Morning. There’s just one last thing missing, though.
“Don’t happen to have any more of those miniature people anywhere, then?” Izzy scans the counter for a plate, or a cookie jar, or-
Predictably, Edward wraps his arms around him from the back and plants his chin on top of Izzy’s head, snickering.
“Got one right here!”
And Izzy can’t even tell him to fuck off, because Stede chooses that exact moment to stick a fresh piece of gingerbread between his teeth and kiss him on the forehead. And it doesn’t make Izzy cry again, it doesn’t. It does make him close his eyes and chew very slowly, letting himself be warmed by the spices and by his husband’s body still plastered to his back. And, once he is ready, he’ll gather all his resolve and actually tell them thank you to their faces. Tell them they really don’t have to do all that. Tell them he appreciates it nonetheless.
He’ll be ready in a second.
“You’ll be alright, Iz,” Ed says softly, just above his ear. Bonnet wipes something wet from Izzy’s cheek. And maybe he can’t open his eyes just yet.
But he will be alright, he knows he will be. In a little while.