Chapter Text
"Hey," Ed Teach murmured. It was strictly sotto voce, but certainly too loud for Stede to pretend he hadn’t heard. Especially when Ed slid his foot about ten inches to the left and tapped Stede’s. Stede couldn’t help glancing down at where they were connected, his own Ferragamo boots pressing against Ed’s loafers. Just as quickly, Stede snapped his eyes forward again, his unnatural quarter-smile plastered on his face just like he practiced.
"I'm not listening to you," he murmured out of the side of his mouth, despite his best instincts to ignore. "I'm listening to Morgan Freeman talk about legacy."
"Yeah, nah, I get that. I was just wondering, though-" Ed nudged his chin at the oversized Oscar statuettes that flanked the stage- "you think anybody here ever put one of those bad boys up their ass?"
Stede squawked. He clapped his hand over his mouth, but it was too late- he was already being shushed. By Ed.
"Keep ahold of yourself, man," Ed tutted as he shook his head, "don't they give you some sort of brief on how to behave at these things? Staying quiet and all that?"
Righteous indignation bubbled up in Stede's chest. “You know they did.” he hissed.
“Oh, yeah.” Ed smirked. “Sorry.”
For a little while, Stede's quarter-smile felt a bit more natural.
Applying to be a seat filler at the Academy Awards had been a lark. Stede had always known that it was an option, of course. Anybody related to an Academy member could apply, and both of Stede’s parents were- well, they were decidedly members of the Academy.
He had never applied before. Why bother? It would only be yet another thing to owe his parents. But ever since he quit his job and finalized his divorce, Stede was bored. Bored, and maybe a little lonely. Mary and the kids stayed in the big house in Santa Monica, and Stede moved into the little house in Laurel Canyon. He finally had the time and space to “figure himself out”, as Doug put it, which meant equal parts of working out, birdwatching and sex with men. But all he’d figured out was that he hated cardio, loved birdwatching, and was very, very gay.
And the solitude- punctuated by his weekly visit to the kids and the occasional lackluster hookup with a guy from the apps- was getting to Stede. So he applied to be a seat filler for the Academy Awards. What could be less solitary than sitting with three thousand other people in the Dolby Theater?
Being a seat filler had rules, of course, and lots of them, in a booklet that Stede had reviewed with care. No selfies allowed. No networking. No wearing masks (rude). No jewelry, except for rings and earrings. No excessive cleavage. Attire must be dark, solid colors. That last rule chafed, but after reviewing his wardrobe, Stede chose a conservative vest and slacks along with a velvet jacket in a beautiful Naples blue that he could plausibly claim was Navy. Probably.
When he checked in that morning, he was given a badge on a lanyard identifying him as a seat filler.
“Wear this badge around your neck at all times,” the coordinator droned, “except when the cameras are on. Walk in, get seated: badge on. Broadcast starts: badge off. Commercial break: badge on. Moving seats: badge on. Commercial break ends: badge off. Get it?”
“Got it,” Stede said.
“Good.”
Stede's first seat placement was near the front. He sat in Jamie Lee Curtis’s seat while she was waiting in the wings to present Best Supporting Actor. The actors around him largely ignored him, as expected, but he got a kick out of eavesdropping on Dave Bautista excitedly telling Christopher Guest that Best In Show was his all-time favorite movie.
Jamie Lee’s time came and went, and Stede stood up to move to his next assignment, which looked like it was next to Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck. But before he could take his spot, a harried production aide tugged his elbow.
“New plan,” she said as she pivoted on her heel and marched up the aisle. “Move!”
Stede's heart sank as they headed to the middle of the house, where the nominees for minor awards were stowed. “Production doesn't like your suit,” the aide told him as they walked. “You're staying back here.”
Damn, betrayed by Naples blue.
Stede's new seat was with the nominees for Best Live Action Short. Apparently, one of them got a stress-onset bloody nose and fainted, and Stede was stuck in her seat until she came back from the medical tent. If she ever did.
That's how Stede found himself sitting next to first-time nominee Edward Teach, a short film director from Aotearoa. Edward was clearly not beholden to the seat fillers’ dress code. His entire suit was a shocking salmon color that even Stede could never pull off, but on Edward, it looked extraordinary. He sported what the booklet would surely call “excessive cleavage”: his plunging wrap shirt revealed a glimpse of what might be the most gorgeous tattoo Stede had ever seen.
The rules were very clear. No ogling the celebrities. Certainly no speaking to them unprompted. Keep your eyes on the stage. No matter how much you wanted a better look at the hawk that soared under the collarbones of the man sitting next to you.
But unlike the A-listers up front, Edward Teach was not politely ignoring Stede. Quite the opposite. As soon as Stede sat down, Edward introduced himself, chatting a mile a minute.
“I’m a little punchy,” Ed apologized. “Just flew in from Aotearoa this morning. Actually, I have no fucking clue what time it even is, so.”
“It’s quite alright,” Stede said, and it was. Usually he was the one apologizing for talking too much. He returned his eyes to the stage, as he was instructed to do, but a stray thought made him turn back to the man sitting next to him. “Wow, you flew in today? How long is that flight?”
Ed shrugged. “Dunno. Long. My manager gave me these pills, knocked me right out for most of it.”
“And did your manager come with you?”
“Izzy? Nah, he gets sick on planes. Nothing for it. They let me out unsupervised.” He wagged his eyebrows.
Stede didn’t have a lot of experience being flirted with. Any. Stede didn’t have any experience being flirted with. The girls he took out when he was younger certainly weren’t pursuing him for his charm, and Mary- well, they get along now, but it was a long, hard road to get there. The men he’s met while “figuring himself out” have been fun, but not terribly fun, if that made any sense.
But even Stede could tell that Ed was flirting with him. He wasn’t exactly subtle about it. It felt a little absurd, really. Stede knew his own strengths: he had a remarkably full head of hair, nice broad shoulders, and he’d recently been complimented more than once on his flexibility. But Ed was gorgeous. Silver curls and a movie-star jawline framed huge, expressive eyes, and even sitting down, he moved with a casual confidence that Stede had never possessed in all his years.
All of that confidence aimed right at Stede was a little overwhelming, but miraculously, not at all intimidating. No, there was something about Ed that put Stede at ease. A little too at ease, really. Even sitting in the back with the minor nominees, Stede still had to follow the rules. Eyes forward. Quarter-smile. Badge on, badge off.
The more Stede tried to keep a professional distance, though, the harder Ed tried to get him to break. Maybe Ed was just bored, Stede told himself. Maybe it was just his way of distracting himself from nerves. But the longer the ceremony went on, the more Stede found himself pulled into Ed’s rhythm of give-and-take. It was easy. It was fun.
"So what are you, some sort of professional seat-filler? Popping around the world from one glitzy event to another, making sure the rich showbiz dickheads never get lonely?"
Stede chuckled. "Hardly. Believe it or not, this is my first time."
"Oh! In that case," Ed leaned in closer, so that his breath was warm against the shell of Stede's ear, "I'll try to make it good for you."
In a particularly successful maneuver, Stede managed to convert the shiver at Ed's words into a casual, silent laugh. "I walked right into that one, didn't I?"
"You did," Ed agreed. "Real amateur hour flirting over here."
If this man was trying to get a rise out of Stede- well, he was succeeding. "This isn't flirting. We are not flirting," he lied weakly. “I’m not allowed to flirt with the nominees.”
"Mm. My mistake. Could have sworn we were flirting." Ed angled his body away ever so slightly, pulled out his phone and swiped away a notification. The sudden loss of his attention left Stede bereft, like having a nice warm blanket yanked away right as he was getting cozy.
The commercial break ended, and Stede took his badge off. A pop star that Stede didn't recognize sang a song that Steve vaguely remembered, surrounded by fog and crackling lights.
A new commercial break began, and Stede put his badge back on. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Edward watching him.
"So."
"So?" It was mortifying how quickly Stede responded. How excited he was to have Ed's attention returned to him.
"What brought you here tonight? Not, like, right here, I remember the bloody nose bit. Just… Why seat filling? Why the Oscars?"
Stede had to hide his surprise. People didn't usually ask him why he did the things he did. Unless they were exasperated with him, or angry, but even then, Stede learned long ago that 'what the hell were you thinking, Stede?' was strictly a rhetorical device.
Of course, he didn't have a straight answer. ‘I'm divorced and lonely’ didn't really have the right ring to it.
“Oh, you know,” he began. “Thought it would be fun. Rubbing shoulders with the beautiful people, all of that.”
"Awwh," Ed's voice was a purr of smug satisfaction as he leaned over close enough that their shoulders touched, "he thinks I'm beautiful."
"Oh, hush." Stede shrugged him off. "You obviously know you're very good-looking. I imagine you get loads of groupies in Aotearoa.”
"Yep," Ed agreed easily. The way he popped the p at the end put a chill down Stedes back. "Probably even hotter than the ones you're imagining, though."
"I- what? I'm not- imagining-" He hadn't been imagining, but he sure was now. It was easy to picture Ed surrounded by adoring fans. Women, men, it didn't really matter- they were just set dressing for Ed's performance. Ed, gripping hips and cording his tattooed fingers through hair, directing bodies just where he wanted them-
Stede was saved from his own imagination when the orchestra started up the fanfare that meant that a commercial break was coming to an end. He quickly pulled his badge over his head and brought his eyes back to the stage, where a large replica of Auntie Em's cabin from The Wizard of Oz had just been expertly assembled.
Through Stede's peripheral vision, he noticed Ed sitting up a little straighter. His category was coming up, Stede realized. "Are you nervous?" he asked.
"Nervous? Me? Nah." he made a pssshh sound that could not have been less convincing. "Awards shows are just a parlor game. They don't mean shit.”
"Mmm.” Stede pretended to believe him.
The lights dimmed entirely as another montage started playing on the curved screens. Ed took advantage of the darkness to lean into Stede’s space and whisper. "Hey, if I win I'm gonna kiss you, okay?"
"What!?" Stede was lucky to catch himself and whisper back.
"I'm gonna need something to do, mate, like- with my hands? Don't most people kiss their-"
"Ed, I'm not allowed to kiss the-"
"You're telling me there's a rule in that booklet about kissing? If- if Pedro Pascal wanted to kiss you, would you tell him no?"
Before Stede could think of a rejoinder, Reese Witherspoon was monologuing about good things coming in small packages, and a camera was rolling up the aisle to where they were sitting.
Even gazing forward, it wasn’t hard to miss the way Ed was white-knuckling his own knee. It would be so easy, wouldn’t it, to take his hand? The man was obviously a nervous wreck, now matter how hard he tried to cloak it in nonchalance. It would be a mercy, really, to slip his soft hand under Ed’s palm and give him some reassurance.
But, the rules.
But, the cameras.
So Stede kept his hands clasped in his own lap, but, desperate for some way to be something other than completely useless, he inched his foot closer to Ed’s. The cameras couldn’t see their feet, after all. When the sides of their shoes met, Stede could almost believe that Ed let out a little relieved sigh.
When Ed’s nomination was read, he leered at the camera and wagged his eyebrows, irreverent as can be, but his foot stayed right there, a steady pressure pushing against Stede’s.
“And the Academy Award goes to… John Feeney and Francis Francois for Calypso's Birthday!
Across the aisle, an incredibly tall silver-haired man lept out of his seat with surprising grace, and dragged his co-winner up into a quick kiss before they both hurtled toward the stage. Ed laughed and clapped with his hands up high, no doubt hyper-aware of the camera capturing his reaction.
“You see that?” he turned his head toward Stede and smirked. “They kissed.”
Stede rolled his eyes. "Well. Maybe next time."
There were only four awards left. The biggies.
“Hey, you wanna get out of here? Beat the crowds?”
Stede felt a flutter of excitement, just from being asked. Still: “You know I can't. The rules. Besides, don't you want to see who wins?”
“Eh.” Ed gave a theatrical shrug. “Haven’t seen most of these movies.”
“Well, you’ll need to know who to congratulate at the afterparty, at least.”
"Doubt it. I hate parties."
Stede eyed Ed critically. "I find that very hard to believe."
Ed rolled his eyes. "Fine, yeah, I'm the life of the party, but not shit like this. Posh knobs hobnobbing with other posh knobs? Sounds fucking boring. I bet it’ll be nothing but products of nepotism talking about how hard it is to live off of daddy’s money, y’know?”
A light cough into his fist was enough to cover the mortified croak of a laugh that Stede made. "Right. But you should be out there- networking. This is a real opportunity for you, you don't want to squander-"
"Mmm, tell me more about squandering my great big opportunity," Ed leaned in close enough to purr in his ear. "Reminds me of school. Are you concerned that I'm not living up to my full potential? Am I a pleasure to have in class?"
Stede's cheeks were heating up, and he knew he must be blushing horribly. He knew he should object, should keep his professional decorum, but he couldn't. Not when Ed's lips were brushing the shell of his ear, and his fingers were ghosting the back of his neck, dipping under his collar and-
“Take this off, why don't you?” Ed breathed, hot and slow- and then Stede felt the gentle tug of the lanyard around his neck. “You know the rules.”
“I- what?” Half in a daze, Stede turned to look at Ed.
“The commercial break is ending,” Ed said simply. It was like a switch had flipped, and all traces of heat were gone from his voice. “You have to take that badge thing off, remember? Honestly, Stede, get your head straight.”
Stede gaped. “You're a lunatic.”
“You like it.”
Stede didn’t argue. He pulled the lanyard over his head, smoothed his hair, and counted down the seconds until the next commercial break would start.