Chapter Text
Ed fucking hated waiting for paint to dry.
It wasn’t so bad when you were outside working with 10 other people at the height of a hot, dry Summer day, but it was absolute torture when you were alone in the middle of the winter in your cold, drafty paint shop.
He’d cleaned every bucket, conditioned every paint brush, reorganized sprayer storage, and was contemplating re-surfacing all of the work tables when he figured fuck it and grabbed the plans for the next show.
Ed was a scenic artist. He painted scenery for live theatre, mostly, though he’d done a decent amount of film and television work as well. He’d spent most of his 20s rambling around the globe from contract to contract, never laying down roots in any particular place and drinking a lot. In his 30’s he joined the union and destroyed his knee while working countless lucrative but ultimately soul-destroying gigs. When 40 rolled around he let his union membership lapse and followed his old pal Izzy to work at a small theatre in one of his favorite cities.
They’d been there for about 5 years now, and he loved it. Mostly. Everyone at the theatre trusted him, so his schedule was pretty flexible. They did fun, challenging shows, though never anything that gave him too much stress. He lived about 30 minutes outside of the city in a beautiful old house that he’d renovated himself. He had a garden and a fish tank and a nice group of friends, but whenever he was sitting around silently watching paint dry, or sipping tea on a Sunday morning on his porch, or itching to text someone a photo of a weathered old fence, the loneliness would creep in.
Work was always a sufficient distraction to the loneliness though, so onto the next show it was.
He’d already seen the set model, and he wasn’t particularly excited about it, so he’d been putting it off. It was just so simple . Boring. A box set. Three walls, two were wallpapered and was one exposed brick. A door. A window. Crown molding. The wallpaper looked fun, but they’d already sourced it and ordered it without asking Ed if he wanted to paint it, which was fine. Really. It was an intricate design. A deep, dusty magenta background with birds and flowers and swirls on top. It would have taken him days and days to paint it, but an afternoon to get the pre-pasted stuff up. Still, Ed yearned for a challenge. Something old-school, something intricate, something that couldn’t be bought or printed or projected.
The wall of exposed brick could be a challenge though. Maybe. It was white-washed a bit crumbly and dusty and usually Ed would budget himself a day or so to knock it out, but since it seemed that it was the only part of the set that required any sort of technique, he wanted to do it right. He wanted to make it look fantastic up close and from 40 feet away, for no other reason than the preservation of his own sanity.
While flipping through the renderings he did a double take when he saw the set designer’s name.
Stede Bonnet?
What the fuck kind of name was that? Maybe it was a design firm or something? Surely no one decided to name their child that.
He popped the name into Google on his phone, and to his surprise, someone had decided to name their child that. Weird , he thought, as he started digging through his website. Stede had never designed anything in this part of the country before, so Ed didn’t know him, but he had a decent resume and portfolio. It looked like he’d spent a good chunk of his life teaching at a University, so a lot of his work was close to home.
His other set designs were cool though. Really cool. Big and bold and bright and adventurous. Ed was practically drooling over photos from a production of Pirates of Penzance before turning back to the stack of renderings on his desk.
Stede clearly had a thirst for the bold, so why was he doing this?
Money? Those University jobs were usually pretty cushy, plus Ed was certain Stede made more than enough at some of the other places he designed. This play wasn’t particularly groundbreaking, from what Ed could gather. It was a new show with a young director and no big names attached to it. Fairly standard. What was Stede Bonnet’s deal? Why was he designing a tiny little box set thousands of miles from home?
The paint was still drying, so he had time to dig deeper into the website.
Aside from the resume and the portfolio there was was a blog that hadn’t been updated since 2018 and few broken social media links. When Ed navigated to the About Me section though he actually said oh fuck out loud.
Stede Bonnet was kinda hot , and Ed no longer cared why he was designing this show, he was just glad that he was.
There was a cute little slideshow to go with his biography and Ed swiped through every single photo. Stede's wardrobe appeared to be just as bright and bold and colorful as his set designs, which Ed loved. Almost every piece of clothing that he owned had paint on it and he never bought anything super fancy or funky or adventurous. Why bother?
The last photo in the slideshow took his breath away.
Stede was standing on a stage wearing a very tight white t-shirt with the sleeves rolled up, a black bandana around his neck, the tweeist pair of denim overalls that Ed had ever seen, and white Converse. Ed’s feet started to hurt just looking at the choice of footwear, but Stede looked very cute, so whatever. He was also holding a paint bucket and a brush, but there wasn’t a single drop of paint on him. This meant that he was either the neatest painter in existence, or had never painted anything before in his life, but with how amazing his arms looked, Ed couldn’t bring himself to care.
All Ed knew was that it was becoming abundantly clear that the most visually interesting part of the next show was going to be the designer himself.
About a week later Ed anxiously emailed six photos of faux whitewashed bricks to Stede. Six samples was absolutely overkill for this project, and Ed usually didn’t like giving designers that many choices, but he was bored and Stede was hot and interesting and smart, so he decided to put his absolute best foot forward.
Ed had been doing a lot more research while waiting for paint to dry.
He'd found a few articles Stede had written, a few interviews he’d given, and the other night he finally relented and started an Instagram deep-dive on the personal account he’d found.
It was mostly photos of his designs and food and sunsets and architecture, but there were photos of his kids too. Well, they weren’t exactly kids . They seemed older, maybe even in college. There were no outward signs of a partner though, and there was a rainbow flag emoji in his profile, so Ed was allowing himself to dream about freckled arms and blonde curls and the cute laugh he kept hearing on his Instagram videos.
He was dreaming again, watching paint dry, when his phone rang 15 minutes after sending the email. He didn’t recognize the number, which usually meant sending it straight to voicemail, but he was hoping it was Stede. He’d signed off telling Stede to call him, not e-mail, if he had any questions. A bit deceiving, but whatever.
“Hello?” Ed answered.
“Hi! Is this Edward Teach?” A very excited voice asked on the other end.
“Yes, yes it is. Edward Teach, born on a beach.” His stomach did a little flip, recognizing the voice immediately.
“Wow! This is Stede Bonnet, I just got your email. I’m just - gosh, it’s an honor just to talk to you, let alone work with you! Me and my students are all obsessed with you and your work! And I just love your book! I've read it so many times, I use it in all of my classes. I’m so excited about this.”
Oh, right. Ed was a bit famous in certain circles, and Stede being a fan was...kinda hot? Maybe?
A while back, after being frustrated with every other textbook on the market that taught scenic art, he’d written his own. It very quickly became the book on modern scenic art and it was widely taught in universities and referenced by professionals. Ed also did workshops all over the world, had a relatively popular YouTube channel, and, more recently, had gathered a middling TikTok following.
“I - thank you, I’m glad you enjoy…all of that. I’m looking forward to working with you too!” Ed stopped and took a breath. Hold it together, Teach. “The set is really lovely.” Ed lied.
“Oh please, it’s a boring pink shoebox.” Stede scoffed, which sent both of them into a fit of laughter. “If I’m being completely honest, Mr. Teach, I didn’t really want to do this one, but it’s written and directed by one of my former students and he’s just so nervous so I agreed to do it, if for no other reason than to be there with him during tech. Lucius is a good kid and the play is, well, it’s fine , I just wish I’d realized you’d be painting it before finalizing the design. If I’d put two and two together sooner I’d have given you something a bit jazzier.”
“Oh it’s fine mate, not all sets can have three-story turntables and 12 massive drops.”
“And why not?”
“Ya know what? You’re absolutely right.” Ed laughed. “But hey, even though it’s not the jazziest set we’ve ever done, I promise we’ll make it look good.”
“I have all the confidence in the world. I’ve spoken to Mr. Hands a few times already, and while he seems a bit gruff, he does seem to have a handle on everything.”
“Izzy is an asshole, but he’s the best technical director I’ve ever worked with and he always does great work, don’t you worry. And you can call me Ed, by the way.”
“Thank you, Ed.”
“No problem. What did you think of the samples? Any of them working for ya?”
“Oh! They’re all quite lovely! I’m leaning towards number three, I just think it looks great with the wallpaper.”
Ed smiled. Stede Bonnet had taste . Three was his favorite, too. “Great! We’ll go with that one, then. I don’t think I’ll get started for another week or two, so if you change your mind before then just let me know.”
“I trust you, but thank you. And if you have any questions, well…you have my number now.”
A smile spread across Ed’s face. “Yes, that I do. When, uh, when do you get into town? You’ll be here for all of tech, right?”
“Oh, yes! I get in on the 12th, I believe, and then I’m there through opening.”
“Excellent, looking forward to it. Maybe I can take you out? ”
“P - pardon?”
Shit . “I just…I mean, ya know. Take you to dinner or something, if you want, show you around, talk about…bricks. You’ve not done much in our neck of the woods, right? I figured you might want a tour guide! There’s lots of great restaurants and shops near the theatre and some cool museums if you have the time.”
“I - uh, yes! I’m pretty - well, I think I have a fairly dense schedule, but if we can figure something out I’d love to!”
“Oh yeah, for sure. It’s gonna be a busy week! I just wanted to offer.”
“I…yeah, I appreciate that. I love a good museum, and I’d love to just see your shop , to be honest. I just re-watched that video where you showed off that wall of brushes and I could watch you mix paint for hou - which is all to say, yes! Yes I think I would very much enjoy you. You um, you being my tour guide.”
There was quite a lot Ed wanted to show this very flustered man on the other end of the phone, he just hoped they had time. “We can figure it out when it gets closer, all right?”
“Of course, thank you. Well, Ed, I do have to go. I’ve got class, unfortunately. I’ll see you on the 12th? And feel free to send along process photos too! I love seeing it all come together.”
“Me too.” Ed smiled. “I’ll see you soon, Stede.”