Chapter Text
Stede Bonnet is a man with few things he enjoys that don’t fall specifically into the category of ‘guilty pleasures’. Pop music sold to teenagers; books aimed at people who lead adventurous lives; clothes made for men with somewhere interesting to go.
And, shopping for shiny things that catch his eye. Like a magpie, his wife would say, affectionately at the start of their marriage and with greater and greater frustration as time passed and he brought home more things with less reason. Stede found a delightful little shop maybe a year ago, specialising in glass, which was down by the harbour a few streets away from his office. It became a firm favourite.
To begin with, Stede would stop in every now and then for a look around. Gradually, it became a weekly visit.. Then sometimes more often still, especially if he was having a bad week, and bad weeks weren’t a rare occurrence these days. Stede would take an extended break - after all, if his work is never good enough, it really doesn’t matter how much time he spends on it, does it? - and look at the beautiful, elegant creations for sale.
He had found the shop in a search for a birthday gift for his mother; he bought her a set of beautiful, handmade wine glasses from Orange & Teal and it was the most successful gift he had managed to buy for her in years. They were probably some of the dullest items in the shop though, and so he went back to peruse the more interesting and artistic work on display.
The shop is always full of slim, delicate vases and bulbous vessels in fiery colours and deep blacks, textured sculptures of bodies and hands, and violent, roiling seascapes. Stede understood over time that the business mainly ran on purchases like his first one - the bland, but exquisitely made staples of glassware. Still, the shop feels more to him like visiting an art gallery.
Orange & Teal has a gimmick which Stede greatly enjoys; the workshop is entirely on display. Behind a window which runs the length of the shop, the glassblowers - artists - work with molten silicate and furnaces and blowtorches throughout the day, and patrons can watch. Stede took Alma and Louis one Saturday, and they both stared wide-eyed and quiet for a solid 15 minutes, which is about the longest it’s possible for anything to hold their attention. Stede bought them a paperweight each.
All of the artists are fantastic to watch, of course. But one day, about a month ago, Stede had taken a later lunch break than usual, and lingered longer than usual too, and saw an artist he hadn’t seen before. The man was tall, with grey-black hair tied in a sloppy bun, a few strands hanging long and loose. He wore black leather pants and heavy boots, and a rather small black t-shirt. He was incredibly magnetic; Stede felt like he was looking at a movie star or a musician.
The man smiled with easy camaraderie with his coworkers, and quickly, elegantly, spun a lump of glass into a furnace, the thickly corded muscles of his forearms tensing beneath tattoos and fading burns as he twisted the glass on its rod. He worked with such easy confidence.
Stede received a verbal warning for being late in his return to work that afternoon. It turned out, his absence would be noticed if he was gone long enough. He still hasn’t decided if that this pleasing or disappointing.
The man with the hair, as Stede begins to think of him, isn’t there the next two times he stops in at Orange & Teal . He had been looking forward to seeing him work again; he seemed to have such easy mastery over the material. His third visit, a week later, when he has been forced to take another late break by a meeting which could absolutely have been an email - and that email could’ve been deleted unread - he spots the man with the hair again. Stede surmises that perhaps he works a later shift.
Stede starts to take his lunch break at 3pm.
The man with the hair is an incredible artist. Stede watches, little glimpses a few times a week, as his work comes together. Mostly, he’s working on the standard fair, tumblers and wine glasses like the ones Stede gave his mother, and he blows the glass with confidence in his eye and a sheen of sweat across his face and arms. Stede likes the days most when he is working on other projects, rare though they are; it seems this man is responsible for the oceans, the monsters and ships which adorn the store. He takes molten glass and turns it to raging waters and crashing waves. His work somehow looks more dangerous when it has cooled; it feels like a privilege to Stede to watch someone with such talent.
Stede and Mary’s 20th wedding anniversary is four weeks away. Last year, Stede had forgotten, and he was utterly mortified. He had managed to buy something in a rush on the day itself, but he was sure Mary knew and he was determined to do better this year. Mary is always a challenge to buy for, Stede finds, but she is an artist and while Stede may not know anything about art beyond what he personally thinks is interesting or pretty, he is rather pleased with himself for a very clever idea.
Rather than choosing something himself, he will ask an artist to make something. Take himself and his awkward tastes out of the equation, so to speak, and have someone with a better eye take the reins. The artists at Orange & Teal are the obvious choice, given all the time he spends there. He has seen them work and is beyond confident in their abilities.
Stede approaches the man at the counter. He’s been helpful before and always waves when Stede comes in, though he’s never pushy about making sales. “I was wondering, are you the manager here? Or if not, is there a manager I could speak to? I’m hoping I could commission a piece.”
“Cool, man, that would be great. You can talk to me about that; I’m Oluwande, one of the owners. What did you have in mind?” Oluwande pulls a pad and pen out from under the desk.
“A gift for my wife. I don’t - I’m not very artistically minded. I was hoping one of your artists could come up with something special.”
“Alright, sweet. It’s not cheap, just so you know. How we do it is, we set you up with the artist, you agree your design and fee with them for their work, then they estimate the hours and materials, and we bill you on top for their use of the hot-shop to make it. That sound okay?”
“Yes, absolutely. Good workmanship is expensive and I’m sure it's worth every penny!” Stede says brightly. This is possible! He had half-expected to be told point-blank that commissioning wasn’t the done thing and his idea would be shot to hell before it even got started.
“So what kind of thing do you want?” Oluwande asks, tapping his pen on the page.
Stede falters. “Oh, well, like I said, I was hoping one of your artists would come up with something…”
Oluwande smiles kindly and shakes his head a little; Stede feels both a bit more at ease and a bit more out of his depth, at the same time. Like he is incredibly stupid but Oluwande was a nice young man who will not outwardly judge him for it. God, when did he start thinking of people in their 30s as nice young men?
“No, totally, they’ll work with you, but for me to match you to someone I need some idea of the kind of work you like - you’re in here all the time, what stuff d’you like best?”
“Oh, well the seascapes are marvellous, breathtaking really...”
“Well, you’re in luck, ‘cause Ed makes those and he takes commissions. He’s in later, if you wanna swing by and talk to him?”
Is Ed the man with the hair’s name then? It must be. Stede doesn’t think there was any way to ask which doesn’t sound weird, but his breath hitches at the thought of commissioning something specifically from him - of meeting him this evening, and talking about his work. He feels a little giddy, and more than a little intimidated.
“Yes,” Stede says, before he had a chance to say anything else.
“Sweet. We close at 6.30, he’ll be here til then, and usually for about an hour after. You work near here?”
Stede nods.
“Come over when you finish, and I’ll get you hooked up.”
Stede returns after work, just gone 5.30, feeling familiar nerves. He feels he needs to make a good impression; it has gradually dawned on him across his adult life that first impressions are not a strength of his, so normally he likes to make an effort. This meeting was too impromptu to leave him many options for doing so. Still, he’s tidied his hair in the work bathrooms, and he is coincidentally wearing his power-blue suit today, which he thinks is quite a fetching, put-together look. Not everyone can make pastels work.
It’s not that he needs anyone to think he is well-dressed or good-looking, it’s just that clothes have become a little bit of an armour for Stede over the years. At Mary’s art showings he always found he could contribute very little to conversation or networking, and when he tried it seemed to cause more harm than good. But, occasionally, he would be complimented on an outfit, and, well, if looking the part was the best he could offer on those dreadful occasions, then so he would.
That was all when he was younger of course. Mary tends to manage her shows on her own these days, but Stede has stuck with the clothes.
Silly, really, to be so nervous about something where he is the customer, but old habits die hard. Having money to offer doesn’t make you any less of a fool, he is intimately aware. And the glassblower, Ed - if Ed is who Stede thinks he is - is a little intimidating, all that cool, easy charisma he carries with him.
He makes a quick final adjustment to his hair, using his reflection in the door as he walks in.
“Hey, man,” Oluwande greets him. “Give me a sec and I’ll take you through to the back.”
Stede hovers for a minute, eyes caught on the tiny decorative thimbles set out in display trays on the desk. They’re delicate little pieces of glass with wonderfully bright colours woven through. Totally useless and absolutely lovely; Stede’s favourite kind of thing.
Oluwande ushers Stede into what looks to be some kind of staff room. “Ed’ll be with you in a min, have a seat.”
Stede settles himself down in a worn, beaten and extremely comfortable sofa. The room is littered with pens, pencils and bits of paper on every available surface. He’s idly looking at some of the scattered drawings on the coffee table in front of him, when a voice startles him.
“Hey, it’s blond guy!”
“Uh,” Stede looks up to see leather and purple and strikingly tumbling hair. “Hi. Stede Bonnet. Blond guy?”
“Yeah man, I’ve seen you in the shop, I call you Blond Guy in my head. Good to have a proper name for you, Stede. I’m Ed.”
“Lovely to meet you, Ed.” Stede reaches out to shake Ed’s hand as the other man bounces up to sit on the small kitchen counter-top, long legs swinging. Stede can feel the contrast of two plasticky band-aids on Ed’s otherwise smooth hand.
“So, Wande said you wanted to talk about a commission, yeah?” Ed digs around in the pile of drawings and papers until he finds a pencil and a nearly blank sheet. “What sort of thing are you thinking?”
“Well, it’s an anniversary gift for my wife. I’d quite like to just give you free rein to make anything you want, to be honest. I don’t have much of an artistic eye and…well, I’m sure you will come up with far better than I will.”
Ed seems to regard him carefully, and Stede feels a little like a bug under a microscope. “Hmm. Okay, I’ll level with you, nothing makes me happier than being told I can do whatever I want, but if this is gonna be a gift for someone I’ve gotta have at least try to make something they’d like. Can you tell me a bit about her?”
Stede shifts in his seat. “Yes, let’s see, well, her name’s Mary, we’ll be married 20 years next month. She’s an artist - a painter, mostly cubist.” Stede pauses and searches his memory for the last flyer of hers that he has seen. “Um, cubist with a naturalistic atmosphere, re-imagined scenes of nature, that sort of thing.”
“What does she like to do?”
“Art. Painting. Um, she enjoys wine. She loves our children. Sometimes she reads. Watches movies.”
Ed is giving him a look that Stede can’t quite parse, but he feels like he’s getting this wrong somehow. “It’s, um, it’s hard, when you know someone so well, sometimes, to pick things out about them. Sorry.”
Ed smiles; his beard is so thick Stede could barely tell from looking at his mouth, but the crinkle around his eyes is unmistakable. “S’alright. What kind of books and movies?”
“Um…all kinds.”
“If you both had the day off, what would you do?”
“Oh, well she’d probably be painting, she’d perhaps spend some time with her art mentor, and I might go for a walk along the harbour. I think - I’m sorry - I feel like this isn’t helping you.” Stede tapers off, looking at the still blank piece of paper, the pencil poised in Ed’s hand.
“Let’s try a different approach, alright? You’ve been married 20 years so I’m gonna go ahead and assume one of the things she likes is you . So, tell me about yourself.”
Stede is not so sure about that logic himself, but he can’t bear to spend any more excruciating minutes failing to come up with facts about his own wife.
“Um,” Stede says.
Ed laughs, a lovely, warm sound. “I’m sorry mate - it kinda looks like this is stressing you out. A lot.”
“Sorry. It’s just - I - honestly, I don’t know the last time anyone just asked me to describe myself,” Stede says. “There’s not much that’s interesting to say about me.” This is rapidly becoming dreadfully embarrassing. Something about being in a small room with Ed, this man who is clearly cool and interesting and confident, makes Stede’s brain slow down to near uselessness.
Ed hops off the counter-top and sits himself on the sofa next to Stede instead. He knocks their shoulders together as he sits, Stede not sure if it is to be friendly or just accidental in the small space. “I really doubt that’s true, mate. I already think you’re interesting and you’ve told me exactly nothing about yourself.”
“You’re very kind, Ed.”
“Nah, I’m serious - look at you. Who the fuck wears pastels anymore? Looks great, by the way. Is that a fucking ascot? And you just rock up ready to drop serious money on a commissioned gift with no idea what you want, just telling some random glassblower “here’s some money, have fun?” There’s clearly something interesting going on with you.”
Stede can’t help but laugh a little at the onslaught of gentle, if colourfully worded, compliments. Ed is good at putting people at ease; he has a nice manner, Stede thinks. “Well, I’m glad you think so, though really, I would genuinely be happy to trust your creativity.”
“‘Kay, then we’ve got two options. You give me a blank cheque to make whatever the fuck I fancy, which you and your wife may well hate and I can ruin your anniversary for you, or you let me ask you just a few more questions.”
“Fine, fine, go on. Ask away, I will be an open book to you.”
Ed pauses, tapping his chin in a show of deep thought. “Okay. Got it. When I asked you about yourself, what’s the first thing you thought of that you decided not to say?”
“What? Nothing, I just - “
“Everyone does. Literally everyone. Ask someone a question about themselves, and there’s something that pops into their head that they don’t say out loud because they think it's boring, or weird, or too much effort to explain. Go.”
“Fine. Don’t laugh.” Stede smiles. He really does feel comfortable here, all of a sudden, losing his wariness of awkward silences that he usually fills with nonsense chatter, feeling more that he’s slipping into an easy back and forth rhythm of chatting with Ed. “I have a sort of special interest in arctic explorers. Northwest passage. Failed expeditions only.”
“What the fuck man, that is miles away from anything I woulda guessed you’d say. Okay, why? Tell me why you like that?”
“I don’t know - I - do you know what ‘overwintering’ means?” Ed shakes his head. “Right, well, a lot of arctic explorers in the 1800s, they’d get to the arctic, then get stuck in the ice - planned, they knew they would - and be stuck there all winter before the ice melted enough to keep going. There’s something about being on something designed for movement and travel, and being stuck nonetheless? It’s like the ice turns them into a real-life ship in a bottle.”
Ed stares at him. Stede fidgets in his seat. He doesn’t usually speak quite so many sentences without someone jumping in to cut him off, or sighing loudly to let him know he is being irritating; it’s weird to hear so much of his own voice all at once. “I know it’s weird-”
“Mate, that is cool as fuck.”
Stede feels a little bit of proud lightness in his chest. “The third Franklin expedition, both ships were icebound for more than a year. Eventually the crews abandoned the ship, to try to walk to safety.”
“I’m guessing that did not go well?”
“Oh, it went very poorly indeed.”
“Real-life ship in a bottle,” Ed muses. “Love that. Know that feeling.”
“Yes?”
“Mm. Being stuck, y’know? Treading water.” Ed is starting to scribble incomprehensible short-hand notes on his scrap of paper now.
“I think I do know.”
Watching Ed work is quite something. Something they had been talking about seems to have sparked creativity, and Stede watches his hands fly quick and sure across the paper, jotting a few shorthand letters here and there, some sort of symbolic drawings, pure confidence in his motions.
“Tell me something else, keep talking,” Ed instructs without looking up, pencil still scribbling.
“Um. About arctic explorers or-?” Ed nods, not looking up from his page. “I think I like arctic stories because there’s something about the isolation there? It feels…harsh, but could have also been freeing, to be somewhere so entirely other, cut off from the world. And there is something entertaining about stories of the British elite repeatedly dying somewhere indigenous people have successfully survived for generations.”
Ed stops drawing and snorts a laugh at that. “Fuckin’ right there is,” he says. “I think I’ve got something. D’you want me to talk you through it, or surprise you?”
“Oh, definitely surprise me!” Stede says. It crosses Stede’s mind to remind Ed that this is a gift for Mary, but, well, anything Ed makes will be lovely, even if it is prompted by Stede’s interests. He seems so inspired, graphite slipping across the paper like water, eyes focused, brow furrowed. Stede very much wants to see what he will make, what he’s taken from their conversation that could be turned into something beautiful.
“I’ll need to cost it up with Oluwande and Jim - can you pop in again tomorrow, we’ll do the awful money talk?”
“I’ll pay whatever,” Stede says quickly.
Ed gives him a look and shakes his head. “You really shouldn’t say things like that in advance of me giving you a price, man. I could fuckin’ gouge you, knowing that.”
“Well. Please don’t?”
Ed laughs, and gosh, making him laugh feels nice, Stede realises. When was the last time he made anyone laugh? Apart from his children, of course, but they are both just about still young enough to be an easy audience. When Ed laughs, he tosses his head, even more strands of hair working themselves free of the messy knot at the back of his head, eyes lighting up like he genuinely enjoys speaking with Stede.
Yes, maybe it is foolish not to set expectations about price, but he very much wants to know exactly what Ed will create. There is very little he wouldn’t be willing to pay to see it.
Stede goes back the next evening after work, as asked. Oluwande isn’t there; the person behind the desk with choppy brown hair and sharp eyes introduces themselves as Jim, and slides a hefty invoice to him.
“Ed!” they shout, opening the door to the back. “Your guy’s here!”
“Send ‘im back. Hey Stede!”
Jim shrugs, and returns to the pile of receipts on the desk without a word, leaving the door hanging open. Stede hesitates for a moment, feeling a bit awkward about just wandering around unchaperoned behind the scenes of the shop, until Jim shoots him a withering look and tips their head sharply at the door. Best to go through then, he supposes.
Stede looks into the staff room and finds it empty, so pushes on through the next door. A wave of heat slams into him, making his shirt stick to his skin, perspiration immediately springing to his forehead.
Ed is standing in front of one of the immense furnaces, next to a workbench full of shards of glass and coloured canes, holding a thick metal pole in the fire. Muscle stands taut on his forearms, and Stede can see his skin is sheened with sweat.
“Wow!” Stede says. “It’s quite toasty in here, isn’t it?”
Ed’s shoulders bob with a soft laugh, his back still to Stede. “Kinda the idea, yeah.”
“What are you making, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“Oh, wine glasses. Fucking dull, mate. Can you - I need a hand here,” Ed says.
“A hand?” Stede squeaks, feeling a little zip of anxiety. “I don’t know what I could -”
“Nah, don’t panic. Can’t see a fucking thing, my hair’s fallen down. There should be a spare tie on the side, can you grab it? Got my hands full. Mind your step.”
“Oh! That I can do!” Stede says, relieved. He picks his way past some broken shards on the floor, and gingerly around tools radiating heat on Ed’s workbench, to find a thin, black hair elastic. It’s even hotter nearer to the furnace; Stede feels a bead of sweat dripping down his spine, wondering how Ed tolerates this all day. He must be drenched in sweat for hours.
“Can you - uh - tie it back for me?”
Ed sounds embarrassed. No need - quite sensible really, Stede thinks, rather than trying to work blind. Stede steps in to him and chuckles; a whole swathe of long, sweat-damp wavy hair is plastered across his face, completely obscuring his eyes.
“Oh you really can’t see anything like that, can you? I’m going to do it now,” Stede warns, not wanting to startle the man holding onto a stick of molten glass.
He reaches out slowly and brushes the curtain of hair across Ed’s forehead, feeling the soft waves of the strands at his fingertips. Their eyes meet as Ed’s are cleared, and Stede feels caught for a moment by the sudden eye contact. This close, Ed’s eyes are startlingly deep, and seem to lock onto his own the moment they can. A full, round drop of sweat is slipping down Ed’s temple.
“Thanks,” Ed says, softly.
Stede moves around behind him and gathers the rest of his hair in his hands. He feels a need to make a joke; Ed is really too charismatic, making Stede feel like he’s being pulled into his gravity. “So, ponytail? Plait? Maybe a French twist?”
“Just the ponytail for now, mate. Maybe you can braid it later.”
Stede fixes the tie into Ed’s hair. He wants to be gentle, and ends up making a hash of it, Ed’s lovely hair sitting in a loose mess in half-twisted elastic.
“Sorry, it’s been a few years since I did anyone’s hair,” Stede says.
“Nah, that’s grand. At least I can see what I’m doing now.”
Stede steps back to give Ed room to work, and watches him do something he has by now seen many times, though only from the other side of the glass partition until today. Ed turns the clear, soft curve of the wine glass and shapes it on his bench. He works quickly and with intent focus; Stede can tell he is making minute adjustments from the shift of his arms, his shoulders, the careful flex of his hand on his tools. A master-craftsman, Stede thinks, getting warmer by the second.
Ed taps the wine glass free with a sharp clink and carries it across the room in thick gloves.
“Right, sorry about that,” Ed says as he walks back towards Stede. He drops his gloves, then lifts his arms as he speaks, to pull the tie out of his hair and refix it; Stede notes his black t-shirt rides up as he does, showing a slice of his tummy, glistening with sweat like his neck, like the dark hair in his armpits, revealed as he reaches over his shoulder.
“That’s fine. A treat to watch you work!” Stede’s mouth feels a little dry.
“Eh, it’s just the boring shit. I’ll get you back to watch something cool sometime if you want. Anyway, Jim give you the invoice? I know it’s a lot but I did have a cool idea, and I promise I’m not taking the piss-”
“It’s fine,” Stede smiles. “Really, whatever it’s going to be, I’m sure it will be worth every penny.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Fuckin’ great, man, this is gonna be so good. You’re gonna love it. And hopefully your wife will as well, but I fuckin’ know you will. Time to break out the post-it notes!”
His energy is infectious. “Post-it notes?” Stede asks.
“Oh, it’s how I work, I do this whole board thing with post-its for each step and, well, it’s a thing, for a good, interesting project, you need a lot. Like a good third of that bill is how many post-its I’m gonna go through.”
Stede laughs, fairly certain that the amount of post-it notes a third of his bill would cover could bury someone alive. “I am a bit partial to nice stationary myself,” he says. “Have you been to Wordsmiths , near the aquarium? They have some lovely sticky notes in there, all different colours. And their pens , my god.”
“I tend to stick with the standard yellow, to be honest.”
“And you call yourself an artist? You’re missing out.”
Ed gives him that free, easy laugh again and Stede feels a little buzz at the gift of it. Ed’s walking, and Stede felt himself swept along with him without thinking, following him out of the hot-shop, through the staff room and to the till. Stede sorts out paying, swiping his card without a glance at the numbers, as Ed casually talks him through all the reasons making wine glasses is the least inspiring thing in the world.
“It’ll be ready in two weeks,” Ed tells him. “Um, it’s probably weird, but I might be working on it sometimes during the day and I kinda want it to be a proper surprise, so if you could maybe not come in...”
“No, Ed, that’s lovely. I love surprises. It’s the theatrics of it, isn’t it?” It makes sense, though Stede feels a little bereft at the idea of two weeks without popping in. “I will let you get on with it in peace, of course.”
“Don’t tell Jim I asked a customer not to come in, yeah? They’d have my balls.”
“Of course.”
Stede keeps his word, mostly. With Orange & Teal off limits for his lunch breaks, he does pop into Wordsmiths, and finds a set of cute sticky notes in pastel colours; lilac, soft pink, baby blue. He drops them off without lingering to watch Ed work, as much as he wants to, passing them to Oluwande with “ For Ed ” written on the top of the lilac pad.