Chapter Text
The divorce had been a good-natured affair.
No one had been particularly surprised, and everything had gone very smoothly once Stede had made it clear that he was happy to leave as much of what had with Mary and the kids as they wanted. They kept the house on the upper end of town, along with the holiday cottage in the countryside where Alma’s ponies were stabled. The children would stay with their mother, though they could visit Stede whenever they liked. He doubted that would be very often, but the offer still stood.
With the savings he had left over after court fees and child support payments, he’d signed a lease to rent a little place by the docks. He’d always loved the water, and built model ships as a child every summer when he was home from boarding school. It had been a lonely time, not having any friends to help him out with it, but generally, the detailed work had kept his attention away from the sounds of the neighbourhood children playing outside without him.
The apartment complex mostly housed dock workers, according to the landlady, which was why they generally kept the leases short – turnover was high and people ended up shipping off somewhere else at a moment’s notice.
That would be fine, Stede had told her. No one ever knew what the future would bring. For all he knew, he could be one of the next people sailing off into the unknown!
Probably not, given his contract as a curator at the maritime museum, but a man could dream.
He met his first neighbour while trying to manoeuvre a delightful Massangeana plant and its terracotta pot that he’d found for sale at the supermarket up the stairwell. There was no elevator in this building, unfortunately, but at least he’d be fitter than ever in no time!
“You alright, mate?”
In truth, he probably wasn’t. Trying to haul a week’s worth of groceries and a medium sized potted plant up three flights of stairs all at once had not been his brightest idea, but he was here now.
“Oh, yes! I’m fine, thank you!”
The man peering from the landing didn’t seem convinced.
“Here, I’m just gonna… yep…”
A couple of bags were taken out of his hands, leaving him clear to pick up the plant that he had been trying to manoeuvre with his feet for the past ten minutes.
“Oh! Thank you so much!”
Huffing out a little chuckle, his assistant smiled.
“No worries, man. Where’re we headed?”
“Three-seventeen.”
The younger man’s eyes widened for a second.
“Oh. Yep, okay.”
Stede made idle chatter as they made their way upstairs, and the young man hummed along good-naturedly, although he seemed a little nervous. Once they reached his front door, it became clear what was so unnerving for the young man – if not why.
“Everything okay?”
“Oh. Yeah,” the man replied, tearing his eyes away from Stede’s neighbour’s door. “Have you met your neighbours yet?”
“No,” Stede sighed. “I’ve only been here a few days. You’re my first one.”
“Right. Well,” the man leaned in closer as his voice dropped to a whisper, “I’d watch out for the guy in three-eighteen, yeah?”
“Oh? Why’s that?”
“He’s just been known for, uh… causing a bit of ruckus around here.”
“Ah. I see. Well,” Stede said, opening up his door, “you don’t have to worry about me.”
“Yeah sure.”
“I’m perfectly capable of writing a very curt letter.”
“A letter, yeah… listen I’ve gotta head off to work, but if you ever need anything, I live just below you, yeah?”
“Oh, that’s so kind! I’m Stede by the way. I’m so sorry, I completely forgot my manners.”
The young man smiled at the hand Stede stretched out in front of him and adjusted his beanie before offering a quick, firm handshake.
“Oluwande.”
“Well, I look forward to seeing you around, Oluwande!”
“Likewise.”
“And thank you so much for the help.”
“Any time,” Oluwande chuckled, and with that, he sent a quick wave Stede’s way and headed back downstairs. Hopefully he wouldn’t be too late for work.
Back in his apartment, feeling very pleased to have made something like a friend in the building, Stede shuffled his new potted plant into position. Originally, he’d imagined it taking pride of place by the window in the living room, but the darn thing was a bit heavier than he’d expected and after a close call that threatened to leave his floor covered in mulch, he decided that the space by the front door was looking a little barren, and so scooted the pot a few inches over and dusted his hands off with a job well done.
Now he could set himself the task of properly thanking the lovely Oluwande.
Perhaps it was sentimentalism, or the desperate desire to be liked that had tugged at his heart since he was a young boy, but Stede couldn’t help but feel that a simple ‘thank you’ wasn’t enough. Oluwande had been so kind, taking time out of his day to help a silly man. He deserved something in return.
…
The smoke alarm went off almost as soon as Stede opened the oven.
He almost dropped the tray, as startled as he was by the noise, but he didn’t. Although, as some of the smoke cleared and he saw what had become of the cookies he’d baked with such good intensions, it wouldn’t have mattered either way.
He can’t give Oluwande a pile of ash!
Someone pounded on the door.
“Oi! You alright in there?”
Stede swore quietly at the incessant beeping above him and began waving his tea towel around frantically.
“Yes!” He called out to whoever was in the hallway. “Sorry about the noise!”
“Man, c’mon, I’ve got night shift tonight!”
He gave up waving the towel around. It wasn’t doing any good and his arm was getting tired.
“I’m sorry! I’m - ” He looked around helplessly. “It won’t stop!”
“Turn it off!”
“What?”
“Turn it off!”
“I don’t know how!” He tried to inspect the alarm from his position underneath it, but couldn’t see any buttons – definitely no off switches.
"Alright, man, lemme in. I’ll take care of it.”
“It’s open!”
He heard a soft “What?” come from behind the door just as it clicked open, and was greeted by a bewildered looking man in black sweatpants.
“Mate, you gotta lock your door.”
“I do at night.”
The man’s eyebrows bunched together as he walked the short distance from the entrance to the kitchen cabinets. He looked almost wild, hair long and flowing over his shoulders, tangled from sleep, mouth hanging open in a silent question behind the curly beard that curtained half of his face and most of his neck. His eyes, though, were soft and concerned. And sleepy. Stede felt awful about waking this poor man up.
Before he could say anything to that affect, though, the man had jumped up onto Stede’s kitchen counter – bare feet and all – and was pulling the smoke alarm off its ceiling mount and fiddling around with the back of it.
He pressed his thumb down on something and begun counting quietly.
“One, two, three - ”
“I’m - ”
The man cut Stede off with a finger asking for one moment more. Sealing his mouth shut like a child shushed at the cinema, Stede did as he was asked.
The beeping stopped, and the room felt louder. Silence echoed in the place the shrill sound had once occupied.
Clicking the offending machinery back into place, the mysterious man mumbled, “Piece of shit,” and hopped down onto the dated linoleum of Stede’s kitchenette.
“I really am so sorry,” Stede said.
“Don’t worry about it,” the man said. “Happens to the best of us.”
Stede wasn’t quite sure that was true, but he appreciated the sentiment.
“Just, uh, lay off the baking, maybe.”
Stede flushed red.
“Ah. Yes. I may have gotten a little wrapped up in my book.”
The unknown man standing in the middle of Stede’s kitchen - slightly awkwardly now that there wasn’t an immediate crisis - twitched his eyebrows up ever so slightly as he turned away from the smouldering mess on the baking tray and back to Stede.
“What are you reading?”
Stede perked up at that, as eager as he was to discuss literature with anyone who would listen.
“War and Peace,” he told the man watching him with such intensity as he skipped over to retrieve his copy from the coffee table that he could feel the hair on the back of his neck stand to attention. “Awfully long, but you can’t really say anything against Tolstoy without feeling a little sacrilegious, can you?”
The man paused for a second and then huffed out half a laugh. “Yeah. Totally.”
“Oh, you’ve read him?”
“Um, n-not in a while.”
“I can hardly blame you.”
Seemingly as if he’d only just noticed the book in Stede’s hands, the man’s eyes popped out of his head.
“How many pages is that?”
“A bit over a thousand, I think.”
“Fuck off.”
“I know,” Stede laughed. “I can hardly imagine a modern publisher allowing something like that. Fascinating how trends change, isn’t it?”
Deep brown eyes flicking back up to meet Stede’s, the man was unreadable.
“Fascinating.”
“I mustn’t keep you, though,” Stede said, remembering the beginning of their predicament only moments ago.
He led the other man back to the front door, a little concerned about how dazed he appeared. The poor thing must be asleep on his feet. His shoulder was firm and warm under Stede’s hand as he gently guided the man around the furniture that was admittedly slightly too large for the space, no matter how open plan it was. He felt the muscle flinch and then relax.
“Thank you so much for your help.”
“S’no problem.”
“I’m Stede, by the way.”
The man stared at the hand extended towards him for a moment before grasping it gently – far more gently than Stede had expected – and offering a firm shake.
“Ed.”
“Ed! Lovely to meet you, Ed!”
“You too.”
Ed dropped his hand. His fingers flexed by his side.
“Take care, Ed.”
“Yeah… You too.”