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1.
Little Edward Teach spends his days making himself as small as possible. Sometimes, it works.
2.
Bad boy Ed Teach saves the twinks from the cocky club owner by swinging into action and fucking the lot of them.
He glows, glowers and smoulders in leather, chains and ink. He's sex on legs, the best in the biz. He's won awards for this shit. And, on the rare occasions he watches his own stuff back, he almost believes it, right down to having a secret twin.
It's a hell of a performance.
3.
Blackbeard does club appearances because it's easy money compared to making movies. There's drink and drugs when he's in the mood, criminally bad music he secretly loves, and all he has to do is pose for a few pictures while daydreaming about his new shop.
Jack's no genius but he also knows a good deal when he sees one, so Ed bumps into him sometimes on the circuit. They catch up just like they used to, by fighting or fucking or some combination of the two.
He's worked with plenty of people down the years, but Jack's the one who really stands out. The handlebar moustache and the Easy Rider gear are part but not all of it. Off-screen, Jack's the only guy who's ever come close to figuring out what Ed really wants, the only one who dares to take control when they fuck.
He's the only guy mad or smart enough to say Ed’s pretty like a girl and Ed knows it's just a power play, but there's something in Jack's eyes when he says it and there's something in the way Ed’s breath catches when he hears it, but neither of them dares to say anything more.
4.
At some point, the shop feels less like a savvy business venture and more like a prison. The cages in the dungeon downstairs probably don't help with that.
In the morning, Ed pulls on his uniform and makes his increasingly fleeting appearances on the shopfloor before sitting at a computer he regularly forgets to turn on. Has a nap. Signs things. Eats lunch. Drinks. Waits until the shop closes and the clubbers finally fuck off somewhere else before slipping out into Soho’s light-polluted twilight to wander aimlessly around his purported kingdom.
He steps over the sick and the broken bottles to find himself, more often than not, standing beside the piss-soaked phone booths on Wardour Street.
Either he does it too often or word spreads but rarely do the call girls he rings fail to recognise his voice. They chat for a while about their work before moving onto other things. Fleeting thoughts, wishes and dreams.
Mostly, Ed listens. He tells himself the connection he feels is because of their similar careers. It's as near as he can get to the truth.
5.
Ed feels the closest he's ever felt to right in Stede Bonnet’s arms. They hold him tight and he puts his hands on top of them to anchor himself to the moment and wrap himself in Stede’s love.
It's a hell of a performance. He's ready to keep it up for the next five years, ten years, the rest of his life, as long as Stede will put up with him.
Except, Stede never makes things easy, does he?
“I used to do that,” the man murmurs behind him one night. Not judgemental, just a gentle observation.
Ed stays still but knows it won't work.
“I used to cry at night. I'm not sure if I hoped Mary would realise and ask me why, or if I just had to let it all out, everything I was feeling.”
Stede’s hand rests over his heart and Ed wants to say it, wants it even more when Stede’s thumb tenderly strokes him. Ed can't stop the tears, because there's so many of them and because, while Ed knows that nothing will scare the man away, maybe this might.
“I can't do this,” is what eventually chokes out of him, he's not sure how many minutes later.
It's not anything he'd ever planned to say. What does it mean? What can't he do? Finish his sentence? Have this conversation - now, or ever?
“I highly doubt it,” Stede says, full of kindness. “From what I've seen, you can do absolutely anything.”
So Ed seizes on that. It's not the point but it's an opening. It's better than the silence that's been killing him, day by day by day.
“I can't do this to you.”
Stede gently paws at his shoulder until Ed turns to face him. He still stares at some point over Stede’s shoulder rather than meet his eyes.
“Do what to me?”
“You just came out.” The words are coming out. They're all wrong but they're coming out anyway thanks to Stede’s strong hands, cradling his back.
“I did.” Stede smiles, rightly proud of himself. But he doesn't push, since he already knows where Ed is going with this.
“It's not fair,” Ed says. “You came out, you did all that, and then your fucking boyfriend turns out to be your girlfriend.”
And that's that. All pretence, gone. No clever speech, just choking on snot and tears while Stede smiles like the sun shining through the clouds.
“Are you my girlfriend?” he whispers. He hasn't let go. Ed knows he never will and that's terrifying in its own way.
She nods. “It's okay if you don't want to…”
“Is it okay if I do?”
She nods. Stede’s eyes are teary too as he takes her in.
He carries on smiling brightly. “What should I call you?”
She's never given it any thought. Never let herself conceptualise it that way, never dared. She tries to remember women's names and immediately draws a blank on any that don't belong to old friends.
Then, she stops. She takes a step back from working through the alphabet and celebrity names and family names and says:
“I'm Ed.” Because she is. That's all she’s ever been, even when she got so lost along the way. She holds her hand out to make it official.
Naturally, Stede cups it so he can brush a kiss over the spider tattooed there.
“Hello Ed,” Stede says. “It's so good to meet properly.”
6.
The only thing they fight about is Ed going away so she can do it all alone. Stede’s the first to back down, seeing as it's her choice and besides, there's no talking her out of anything once she's set her mind on something.
Stede’s already seen enough of her falling to pieces and in between places for her liking. She needed the space and control and, thank fuck, she had more than enough money to buy both. When the time’s right, the money will also afford her a soapbox, which is lucky because she's sure The Standard will have plenty to say about her.
But that all comes later. Right now, she's climbing out of her taxi and heading home, feeling healed and whole. She asks the taxi driver to drop her off on Shaftesbury Avenue so she can make her way up Old Compton Street under her own steam.
The croissant place has closed and a new shop full of photo booths has opened. The choux bun joint has gone and a space age ice cream parlour has arrived. Memories from another life cling to the bars, takeaways and EC. Then and now dance around one another and threaten to make her dizzy.
People stop in their tracks at the sight of her. Stands to reason, she's six foot tall and fucking gorgeous, people are always going to stare. That and, to commemorate her debut and triumphant return, she's wearing a tiara, like she's been threatening to for years.
The dress is way too on the nose as well. It's light and gauzy and when she strides supermodel-style down the pavement like she does now, it floats and flutters like wings. Thankfully, she's never been a fan of subtlety.
She almost doesn't want to head up to her flat because the sun feels good on her shoulders and she's missed the terrible air quality and the noise but she misses Stede more. Not for the first time, she feels stupid for having spent so long apart when neither of them is getting any younger. Then again, Stede looks younger than he did when they first met and now she does too. It doesn't take a genius to figure out why.
As it turns out, she doesn't need to go inside, because her fiancé is waiting for her on the doorstep. Or perhaps it's more accurate to say he's propped against the doorframe, bowled over by her presence.
She considers teasing him for ruining her big entrance or telling him to go back upstairs so she can do things just as she'd planned. But none of this is anything like she'd imagined, anyway: it's better.
So Ed lets Stede drink her in. She helps by spreading her arms as wide as she can, taking up even more space, and Stede takes that as his cue to gather her close.
She feels the force of his breath on her collarbone as he sighs with relief against her “Oh, there you are.”