Chapter Text
Ed blinked a few times as sunlight hit his face, waking him up with a start.
“Motherfucker,” he grumbled to himself, turning over to avoid the bright flash of sunlight burning his retinas. He’d been exhausted when he got back last night. The British rail system has a lot to answer for some days. One cancellation and two delayed trains later meant he’d got home around 1am instead of 10pm. He’d collapsed into his sheets and apparently been so focussed on getting into bed, it had not occurred to him to shut the curtains.
He fumbled around aimlessly on his bedside table until he found his phone, lifting his head blearily to look at it. 6:47am.
“Yuck,” he said, flopping his head back down into the pillow. As he’d aged, he developed an affliction of once he was awake, he was awake and he wouldn’t get back to sleep even if he tried.
“Mrrwww,” a chirpy noise came from the cat as she jumped up next to him, having sensed The Breakfast Giver was awake.
“Hello girl,” Ed mumbled sleepily as she hopped up onto him, turning round a couple of times and making biscuits directly onto the hawk on his chest until she laid down facing him, her pale golden eyes staring. He reached a hand up to pet her, scratching lightly down her back. “Y’know Squid, if this is your way of telling me you want breakfast, you’re kind of pinning me down here.”
She yawned, so Ed took that as a sign he could linger in bed for a little while longer. He stared up at the ceiling, one hand idly petting the cat, the other resting on top of the covers.
It had been a tough day yesterday. He'd been putting off the meeting for months already and even on the train at the crack of dawn with his sweetened tea in his travel mug, he’d been wondering what excuse he could come up with to duck out of it.
Edward, you’ve had years at this point! You’ll become old news, even if you bring out something new, the people are still going to be asking where the hell is the sequel to Whim-Proned People.
You can’t make me write a book I never planned to. I have other ideas-
Edward, you are under contract for one more book. You could get another film deal out of this!
Absolutely not. I would never ever agree to sign over rights to them. Leave it Iz. People wouldn’t even know that book was me if it weren’t for some stupid internet detectives.
Those stupid internet detectives are your fans. You realise how successful this would be? It’d break records, social media, everything, if you give them their happy ending.
Izzy had been his editor and long-term support at the publishers his entire career. One could even say - Izzy certainly does - he’d given Ed his big break, taking a chance on a single limited run manuscript. Whim-Proned People written under the pseudonym Jeff A. Count.
Taking Izzy’s advice to pivot darker, Ed had gone on to write an acclaimed series ‘A Pirate’s Life’, which had rather taken on a life of its own. Far bigger than Ed had ever anticipated, spawning a huge TV series, spin-offs and a (sometimes scarily) enthusiastic fandom online.
He’d stayed anonymous; that series was written by ‘Blackbeard’ as far as the world knew. Of course there was speculation about his identity - mostly online around how fucked up this guy must be to write such twisted, gruesome, adventure stories, but nobody had ever worked out it was just little old Ed who mostly just sat at home alone with his cat.
Which is why last year, it had been rather a surprise when Ed woke up to a flurry of texts from Izzy that the connection between A Pirate’s Life and Whim-Proned People had been sussed out. There were videos online from fans - one had randomly picked up Whim-Proned in a charity shop and after they’d noticed the similarities, the whole thing had spiralled online.
Both books featured pirates, complete with a sarcastic protagonist, complex relationships, an urge to be by the sea, and along with Ed’s unique narrative cadence, all of this was used as evidence, thrown to the forefront in video essays online.
Even though Ed, or rather Blackbeard, never confirmed or denied the connection it was enough for Whim-Proned to have a resurgence. Now, there was significant pressure to write the sequel twenty years later.
People were desperate to know what happened next. Where their happy ending was.
Problem was, Ed didn’t know either.
Eventually as the sun rose higher in the sky, Ed’s bladder got the better of him. He nudged the cat off him so he could pee, ignoring the bookshelf he walked past with all of the international covers of his books - his own stupid fault for using them as decor when all he kind of wanted at the moment was a break. He grabbed his fluffy dressing gown off the back of the door. Having been introduced to the little luxury of dressing gowns, it’s hard to kick the habit and now he likes the feeling of getting to stay in one all day.
Squid chirped happily as she trotted down the stairs in front of him, knowing she was about to get fed. He rolled his eyes at her as she impatiently stalked around his ankles, mewing happily to herself.
He was squeezing her food out of one of the pouches - she had access to dry food all day but her preference was an expensive wet food which she only ever gets in the morning and glanced up across the way when he saw the blind open next door.
Oh right, he’d seen lights on in the house last night when he got back late. The new owner must have finally moved in. He’d do the neighbourly thing and pop over to introduce himself later, once he’d showered and got breakfast for himself. Might even whip up some baking for them.
The way the houses were positioned, with their large open plan kitchens at the back with a window above the sink that essentially gives the perfect view straight into the neighbouring property. If you really look up and out of the window, you can see the street out front. They were old Victorian seaside villas - Beautiful but just a little too close to one another. It was one of the reasons why he bought the one at the end. He gets a bigger share of garden and he only overlooks one other house.
Mrs Walker had lived next door for the five years Ed had been there. She was a sweet elderly lady that Ed used to help with odd jobs or he’d sit and play cards with while she brewed them both hot toddies using the apples from the trees in her garden.
She’d done that less the last year or so, her mobility slowing down and her hands shaking with effort. She made the decision to sell and move in with her daughter while she still had the mental agility to do so. Ed had her email, the only form of modern technology she had got to grips with, and they were in touch. She’d moved about six months prior, settling into her daughter’s nicely, but the property had sat vacant for months while it sold.
He hoped the new neighbour didn’t mind the occasional intrusion into each other’s kitchens. It would be a bugger to put up fencing between the houses and Ed rather liked his habit of having a nosy out the window now.
He placed Squid’s breakfast down and grinned at her as she tucked in. You’d think she hadn’t been fed for days the way she pounced on her morning meal!
He flicked on the kettle, debating whether he wanted to stick with his usual sweet builder’s tea or have a coffee, given his sleepy start. Wasn’t like he was doing much else for the day. He was meant to be writing but there was nothing coming to him about this story. Nothing he had a desire to explore.
He stretched, cricking his neck from side to side as he eased his body into waking up properly. He grabbed a mug from the mug tree by the sink, a green one dotted with little blue octopuses, some tacky Christmas present from his Mum. He glanced up and out of the window, across the way, like he did every morning when he waited for the kettle to boil.
The mug fell from his hands with a resounding smash, causing Squid to scarper, abandoning her breakfast in her haste to run to the safety of the living room.
“Holy fucking shit,” Ed exclaimed, unable to tear his eyes away from the window.
Now when Mrs Walker had lived next door, the worst Ed had ever seen was her in a nightdress and her rollers occasionally.
The new neighbour, a man, was wearing nightclothes of some sort.
He was adorned in a pink fuchsia robe, with birds of paradise emblazoned on it. It was loosely tied around his waist but it wasn’t exactly leaving much to the imagination as he wasn’t wearing anything underneath it either. He was wandering around his kitchen, seemingly searching for something in the various boxes Ed could see scattered across countertops and on the floor behind him.
He’s been there with a house move himself, that annoying moment when you can’t find the one thing you really bloody need.
In truth, Ed’s exclamation hadn't been at the sight of a (extremely) well-sculpted chest dusted with light golden hair or a similar coloured happy trail leading to…. ANYWAY. It hadn’t been that. Not really.
It was more that… he recognised it. The well-sculpted body that is. In fact, it was even more well-sculpted than when he had last clapped eyes on it. He recognised the colour of the golden chest hair, the similarly coloured happy trail leading to those grabbable hips. He even recognised the pink fuchsia robe.
Stede Bonnet.
The man who broke Ed’s heart twenty years ago.
And before the universe could grant Ed the favour of unfreezing, of being able to grab the metal chain of his blind to yank it down to put a barrier between them, Stede looked up and across as he picked up a box to carry it across the room.
His eyes widened. Ed watched as his mouth moved, forming a single word.
Ed still knew what his name looked like on his lips.
