Chapter Text
Ed Teach is nothing if not independent. He’s spent a large majority of his life making sure of it. Since he was young and had a shit dad and a sick mom, he knew he’d have to be self-sufficient, take care of himself, make it on his own in the world.
He went through a lot of shit trying to navigate that, sure. A little county jail time, more than a little fist/knife fighting, a fair amount of illegal activity all back in his earlier days. It’s never been easy, really, wandering from town to town, couch surfing, making the shift from illegitimate money to cashing in on odd (legal) jobs.
He and Izzy finally hit a groove in their early thirties, making enough from bartending at night and manual labor during the day to get a place together. Ed got himself a camera for his birthday and found a cheap, used laptop at a resell electronics store, and that was new, having enough time and resources to have an actual hobby.
And then the rest is history, as they say. Turns out Ed was really fucking good at taking pictures, of finding ways to present the world in ways people have never seen. That, and Izzy had enough connections to start actually hustling. Weddings, parties, maternity shoots, engagement photos, senior pictures, and events of the like made them the most money. The rest was for fun, for Ed himself, experimental portraits and nature shoots and urban landscapes. They didn’t make as much money, but they sure did make him happy.
He used to go to schmoozy events to make more clients and network. Izzy ended up taking over ownership of the bar they used to work at and the connections just presented themselves. Lately, though, things have changed.
It wasn’t an overnight thing, more like a slow burn. Ed supposes it started when he finally settled down longer than a couple of years, longer than he’d ever stayed in one place before. The excitement of owning his own business wore off. He became stagnant, each day as mundane as the last, and those thoughts he used to keep at bay by being on the move started to curl up around his brain.
As he got older, the anxiety just got worse. He thought when he finally got top surgery that maybe things would change, he’d be excited again with a new lease on life. It really only made everything worse, now that he thinks about it. The two weeks he spent away from work made it harder to go back, to put himself out there and communicate and market himself. Simple phone calls and networking opportunities felt… detrimental. Like one mistake could take all this away from him and put him back at square one. It just spiraled from there, and now he only does business through e-mails and text messages and the occasional phone call with Izzy.
It’s bled into his personal life now, too. He’ll only go to doctors who book appointments online, he removed his phone number from his business website, and he avoids any incoming calls from anyone other than his mom.
But now he’s fucked because the peak bloom for the cherry blossoms he needs pictures of is forecasted for the same day he scheduled his dentist appointment. They tell you to call if you need to cancel, and he can’t just pay the fee for a no-call no-show because he likes this dentist, and he doesn’t want to inconvenience them and also have to find a new one out of shame and embarrassment.
Then he remembers a Tik Tok Izzy sent him to make fun of him, that he unironically saved because fuck Izzy and his lack of ability to understand that people go through things and change.
He scrolls through his favorites and finds it fairly easily. It’s a pleasant librarian filming themselves making a phone call for a patron. He tells the doctor’s office that their patron has phone anxiety, and wants them to cancel an appointment for her. The librarian looks happy and excited to do it, and to also share with the world that this is a service his library offers.
Ed thinks fuck it , he’s had a library card since he moved to this small town and had only been a handful of times in the last ten years. Might as well go and take advantage of it, right?
But then he’s standing in the doorway of this old, well-kept and well-loved library and thinks what the fuck am I doing????? He’s dressed in his worn leather pants and an ancient death metal tee under his spiked leather jacket. With his big beard and long, unruly hair, he realizes how absolutely ridiculous he must look amongst all the marble busts and plants and the children’s corner with rainbow beanbags.
He almost makes it out unscathed, but as he’s turning around to scurry out of the doors he just walked through, a bright ( is that a kiwi accent??? ) voice stops him dead in his tracks.
“Welcome to Dansville Public Library! How are you today?”
His heart simply forgets how to beat when a well-dressed blond man with a kind smile and warm eyes pops out behind a bookshelf carrying a stack of books.
“Oh, um. Hi. Good. I’m good.”
“Lovely! Can I help you find anything?”
The man, a little gray at the roots upon closer inspection, slides between the gap in the circular desk in the middle of the lobby area. He looks taken aback as Ed doesn’t reply, just walks up to the customer side of the desk. His voice is hushed when he finally does speak.
“Actually, I um… I saw this Tik Tok and– I don’t know if it was real or, maybe you guys don’t even do it and I sound stupid. You know what? Nevermind. I’m sorry.”
“Oh, don’t be sorry. If I can’t help you, I can certainly find someone who can!”
This man’s eyes are gleaming, like he’s happy to have a task, and when Ed looks around he suspects that’s probably the case. There’s not a soul in sight here. Ed takes a deep breath and when he lets it out, the earnest look cast his way makes him feel a lot more at ease.
“I uh… saw this librarian call and cancel an appointment for someone. Um. A patron with– with phone anxiety?”
The man lights up and softens at the same time, lips wavering a little and making those smile lines at the corner of his eyes appear and disappear.
“Oh! Of course I can do that! We do it all the time.”
And Ed knows he’s lying about that part by the tone of his voice and the way he waves his soft-looking hands in a theatrical manner, but he’s also kind of relieved that he would lie about something like that to make him feel better. He seems like a truly kind soul, and Ed feels his insides go a little gooey.
“Oh, cool. Um. Here’s the details.”
Ed has it scrawled out on a folded piece of notebook paper, along with the phone number he double and triple-checked before he left the house:
Edward Teach, canceling an appointment for Wednesday, March 22nd at 1 pm.
“Oh, perfect! You came prepared. I’ll make the call now.”
And he does, and Ed’s chest feels so tight as he watches the man dial the number diligently. His eyes start to prickle when the librarian tells them who he’s calling for and the appointment time he needs to cancel because fuck , it seems so easy, the way the guy just says it like a normal person. It takes less than 60 seconds, and Ed feels so goddamn stupid for taking a 10-minute trip one way to make this angel of a man do this for him.
“There we go, all canceled! Can I help you with anything else?”
And god, he’s smiling and happy and not at all annoyed.
Ed sniffs and clenches his fists, hanging there by his side, to will his voice not to shake.
“No. Thank you. Thanks for that.”
“I don’t want to assume but… Are you Edward?”
“Just um– Just Ed’s fine,” Ed shrugs.
“Lovely to meet you, Ed. I’m Stede. Come back any time, okay?”
Ed nods and reaches to shake the hand Stede is offering. It is soft, and gentle, and warm.
“Stede. Thanks.”
He feels a lot heavier and a lot lighter all at once as he leaves the library.