Chapter Text
Hindsight, Stede is finding, is one hell of a rat-bastard of a bloody thing.
Cruel, too, just how sharp and clear everything seems when you're looking at it with the benefit of some distance. How obvious all the red flags are, how rose tinted your gaze so obviously was at the time. Cruel in a way that has you questioning what on earth you were thinking letting things go on for so long, why you allowed people to treat you the way they did, why you spent so many years of your life just rolling over and taking whatever came at you.
Cruel, but diluted somewhat by the knowledge that it is, at least, all solidly in the past now.
Because it is. It’s all solidly in the past. Stede is alone for the first time in decades, and the strangest part of it all is that he couldn’t be happier.
Well, perhaps happy isn’t quite the correct word yet. But it’s closer to the truth than anything else he can conjure up. It’s the right end of the emotional spectrum. It’s a feeling he wants to be able to describe himself as predominantly experiencing.
He’s going to become happy. Happy is something he can be. It’s something he can make for himself.
He taps his fingers against the steering wheel, lets his eyes leave the road in front of him just long enough to clock the estimated time of arrival in the corner of his phone screen, neatly mounted above the centre console. Twenty minutes, apparently, and fifteen before he’s due to turn off the road he feels like he’s already spent half a day driving down, the sun disappearing below the tree line far sooner than he would have liked. Sun sets faster this far north, he supposes, especially with the nights already starting to draw in ahead of winter.
The road he's been following is completely unlit, but it is wide enough to have two specified lanes. The boundary between road and soft, very much not road verge would probably be clearer if not for the wash of leaves caught in the gutters, autumn well and truly taking over. This was a good decision, he thinks. A little spontaneous, and definitely off the back of some incredibly unfavourable emotions, but a good decision.
He needs time away. He needs time, and space. Space from everything his life has been up until this point. Time to regroup, recover, and consider his next steps. And this is where he needs to do it. Far enough from civilisation that he can heal, quiet enough that he can think, and most importantly, so utterly off the grid that even the most determined of gossip seekers won't find him.
The satnav barks at him from the centre console, a warning that he's half a mile from his left hand turn, and Stede leans forward a little in his seat, squinting through his glasses for any sign of the turn itself. The road has had precious little signage or markers for civilisation, every turn or driveway upon him before he's even noticed it existed, and odds are, his planned exit isn't going to be much clearer.
In three hundred yards, exit onto Old Reservoir Road.
Stede flicks his indicator on, a force of habit over any kind of actual road etiquette, and slows to a more reasonable pace than his probably reckless fifty something miles per hour. He wonders, idly, when exactly the road was renamed to Old Reservoir. Presumably, for a significant part of its history, the lake wasn’t an old reservoir. It was a working part of the local community, it wasn’t the old reservoir, it was just the reservoir. Something with purpose. And then it wasn’t. And it’s strange, how humans memorialise transitional phases of inanimate objects like that. The reservoir doesn’t have feelings, it doesn’t have the capacity to care whether people remember the purpose it used to serve, but the people of its community still made sure to commemorate it in some way. Make sure people remember the role it used to play, the purpose it did once serve.
Feels fitting, somehow, that Stede is here, at the old reservoir, as an ex-boyfriend. Ex-fiance, he supposes, if he gets picky about the details. Figuring out yet another transitional phase of his life in a place that knows a whole lot about finding new purpose. A place that has already done the hard work of letting go of what it used to be, and thriving in its new role, its new state of existence.
Perhaps a little dramatic to uproot and drive hundreds of miles to an off-season lake to lick the wounds of what was ultimately a rather uneventful breakup, but as he pulls up in the small, gravel lined parking area, Stede knows it was probably the first good decision he’s made in years. As soon as he kills the engine and his headlights fade, he’s struck by just how wonderfully isolated he is here. A single, just about two storey log cabin with views right out onto the lake. A series of small solar powered lights in the ground illuminating the path to the front door. His nearest neighbours look like they’re at least a five minute walk away through the trees, and from the looks of it, every one of the few cabins dotting this shore of the lake are unoccupied, their windows dark.
And the Stede from a few years ago would have absolutely viewed this entire scenario as a voluntary signal to get murdered by an opportunistic stranger, but this Stede, standing and taking deep, pine scented breaths in the cool October air, is choosing to see everything as a positive. Solitude, privacy to process the last few weeks and start deciding on next steps. Space and nature, to spend time in and remind him of the things that really, truly matter in life. A small town he drove through a little while back, a high street lit with string lights and filled with small shops and places to eat. A trail that his research tells him runs the perimeter of the lake, three miles and change and completely, blissfully flat, a good distance for a morning walk, he thinks.
He pulls up the confirmation email of his booking on his phone, scrolling until he finds the code for the lockbox he’s assured will contain his keys to the property, and grabs his satchel from the passenger seat. The main bulk of his luggage can wait until he’s found the lay of the land, had a cup of long-awaited coffee, indulged himself in the pee he’s needed for the last forty-five minutes of driving. The essentials.
Dry leaves crunch pleasantly under his feet as he walks, despite the damp hanging in the atmosphere, and the air already has the wonderful smoky feel of late autumn, the delicate hint of a bonfire that doesn’t even exist. The cabin has a small fire pit, and a wood fired hot tub if Stede remembers the literature correctly. The hot tub he can’t see himself having any real use for, but the fire pit is definitely something he might consider once he’s settled in a week or so. Nothing quite like an open fire to restore one’s sense of self. Perhaps it’s the primitive technology of it all, but the licking of flame and the crackle of firewood always seems to make Stede feel so very human, in the best of ways.
He locates the little key box, punches in the code from his phone, and as soon as the front door swings open and he steps across the threshold, Stede’s hit with the overwhelming feeling of home. Ridiculous, perhaps, in a cabin hundreds of miles from the house he currently does call home, but everything about the decision to spend his winter here, in the middle of nowhere, feels justified as the door clicks gently shut behind him.
The cabin has a simple layout once he’s out of the mudroom and through the small internal door to the open plan kitchen-dining-living space. There’s a wood burning stove in one corner that Stede already knows is going to get some very good use, a thankfully closed-off bathroom adjacent to the kitchen, and a small staircase leading to a lofted bedroom that looks out over the lake. The bed looks like a comfortable king, mattress sitting low to the ground and nestled between a pair of handmade looking bedside tables. Now, with the sun fully set, there’s not much of a view out of the large, low window, but Stede can already imagine how peaceful it will be to lay in bed and look out over the water with his morning coffee and a book.
Acquainted with the space, Stede starts the routine he promised himself in the car. He finds a stove top kettle in one of the kitchen cabinets, fills it with water, and lights the stove, placing the kettle on top to boil. He makes use of the surprisingly spacious bathroom, and emerges in time for the kettle to start whistling. In an uncharacteristic fit of forward planning, he’d packed some reasonably good quality sachets of instant coffee in his satchel for easy access, and he tips one into a heavy-bottomed, handmade-looking mug, filling it almost to the top with water and moaning a little under his breath at the way the smell instantly fills the space.
Luggage. He needs to bring his luggage in. Then he can light the wood burner, change out of his driving clothes, and settle in for the night. The coffee needs to cool a little, anyway.
The shock of the cold air as he steps back outside instils a much needed sense of urgency, and Stede hurries to the car, pulling his suitcases from the back and his phone charger from where it's been plugged into the centre console of the car. He’s not expecting amazing levels of phone signal out here, in fact he thinks he’d quite welcome a break from the great connect, but he’d still like to be contactable. Just in case.
Not contactable by everyone, but contactable. To an extent.
For now, he’s incredibly content to be alone for a while. Truly alone, for what feels like the first time in his entire life. For the last few decades definitely. He feels as though he’s always been at the whim of someone else’s decisions, whether family, or spouse, or person intended-to-be spouse. Always bouncing from one people-pleasing decision to the next, doing his best to keep everyone happy, almost always at the expense of his own feelings.
But now, that ends. Now, he’s at the whim of his decisions, his feelings, his wants and needs. And only his. For the first time in a very long time his schedule will have nothing controlling it. He’ll do what he wants, when he wants, how he wants it. He’ll get up whenever he wants, and go to bed whenever he damn well feels like it. He’ll eat what he wants, when he wants. He’ll spend his money exactly how he sees fit, regardless of how frivolous or silly the purchase may be.
He’ll learn who he really is. Who he really wants to be. Who he's capable of being when he's not living in the shadow of somebody else's expectations.
He unpacks to the sound of a few small logs crackling in the wood burner, the open plan of the cabin quickly filling with the warm smell of open flame and immediately draining at least ten percent of the residual driving stress from Stede's body. He finds homes for his clothes, his shoes, his small collection of accessories. The majority of his toiletries get set up in the bathroom, and he dithers unnecessarily for a full five minutes before giving himself a stern and only slightly embarrassing mental talking to regarding the brand new bottle of lube burning a hole in the bottom of his wash bag.
He's a grown adult. An incredibly grown adult. Middle aged, even. A middle-aged adult now comfortably in touch with his sexual orientation and preferences. And he's alone. Emotionally, and physically. For the next few months at least. He's the only person living in this space, there's nobody to make him feel ashamed about how, when, or where his body might crave pleasure. Or how he goes about indulging it in that pleasure. He doesn't have to hide the lube. The lube can live wherever it's going to be most convenient for him.
The lube can go in one of the lovely little bedside tables. The bedside tables next to the bed in which Stede will have the absolute luxury of taking up as much space as he wants. The bed with what he believes will be a beautiful view out over the lake, where he'll sleep in and sprawl out and touch himself as frequently as he damn well pleases.
And if that doesn't feel like progress purely in itself, the owning of that behaviour for himself, the acceptance of that part of his life. Perhaps this is the closing chapter of his midlife crisis. Perhaps this will actually be the tipping point where he's finally able to grow into himself as someone he actually likes. Someone he actually respects. Someone he actually wants to be.
Dinner ends up being something of an affair better suited to a university student: instant noodles and a can of something sweet he'd picked up at one of the service stations on the road. Stede sits out on the small porch overlooking the lake, ignoring the chill and chasing it off with his hands wrapped around the rapidly cooling bowl of noodles. He can hear miscellaneous wildlife scampering around in the woodland behind him, and the occasional gentle splash of something breaching the surface of the water in front. A quiet, slightly disjointed orchestra of nature.
And what's most striking, really, is the complete lack of fear or anxiety he feels here. He's completely alone, in the middle of nowhere, the nearest civilisation a ten to fifteen minute drive away, yet he feels completely at ease. A feeling he's almost certain will increase and improve once he's had an opportunity to shower and sleep the drive off. Sleep without an alarm, without the risk of someone else's morning routine disturbing him. Without someone else's schedule dictating the next day, the next week, the next month.
This cabin is his for the next five months, until the clocks change again and spring kicks in and people start flocking to these kinds of locations for their long Easter weekends and pre-summer trips. Five months of self-improvement and unapologetic selfishness and some well overdue self love. Of all kinds.
He doesn't realise he's falling asleep until he nods awake, chin jerking up where it was sinking to his chest, bowl almost tipping out of his lap. The dishes can wait until tomorrow, he decides. The shower absolutely can't. And the water pressure the little electric pump manages is surprising, as is the instant heat of the water. Log burner to warm the building, electric to heat the water. An interesting choice, probably aesthetic over anything else, but Stede figures it makes sense for the main use of these buildings. Families in the summer aren't going to need much use of additional heat sources for the building, the climate doing most of that job for them. Showers for multiple adults and lake-grubby children is an entirely different matter, and not something mother nature can really take care of alone.
He showers quickly but efficiently, taking the time to run a little conditioner through his hair and spend more than a few minutes just letting the hot water beat down over his shoulders.
This is going to be good for him. This is going to be the fresh start he thought he was getting half a decade ago. This is going to be his life actually, truly beginning again.
This is it.
This is his chance.
The bed is as comfortable as Stede hoped, and the view across the water even better when he blinks awake mid-morning, the sun still low in the sky and casting warm light through the curtains he completely neglected to close before collapsing, shower-damp and exhausted, into bed.
Stede rolls onto his belly, turns his head to look out over the lake, hisses when his cock catches in the bedding underneath him. Possibly a bold move, sleeping nude in an unfamiliar bed, but this is his journey of rediscovery, his opportunity to try new things. And if total solitude isn't the right time to try sleeping naked for the first time in his life, then he has no idea what the right time actually is.
His sleep quality was through the roof, solid and heavy, and he has no idea whether he managed any dream sleep, what he dreamt about if he did manage any, but his body has clearly already relaxed into some form of recreational mode. He can't remember the last time he woke up with an erection he couldn't quite easily will away, but here he is, with a view almost better than he hoped, more well rested than he's felt in decades, and with a bottle of lubricant easily within reach.
Score one for the brave, optimistic Stede of the night before.
He shoves the duvet down, kicking it to the foot of the bed, and takes a moment to bask in the sun, letting his already bed-warm skin absorb the new source of heat. He runs a hand down his chest, over the soft of his stomach, down between his thighs, spread slightly on the mattress.
It's a new novelty, the opportunity to just explore his own body like this. It's something he thought would be the defining process of coming out and re-learning himself as an adult, but almost as soon as he'd made public his newly discovered orientation and preferences, he was falling into a new relationship. And with that, his entire discovery period instead switched straight into how to have sex and find pleasure with a partner whose body was so familiar to his own, and yet completely alien to work with.
He never really had the opportunity for this, slow movements and exploratory touching. A dry hand at first, brushing over his balls and up over the velvety skin of his cock. Down between his thighs, the crease of his groin, under the swell of his stomach, less pronounced where he's laying flat. His cock jumps impatiently against his belly, and Stede laughs, muttering down at it like it's its own being, entirely capable of following instruction.
"Patience, my little friend."
Stede thumbs over a nipple, makes a mental note of his body's reaction, then reaches down to give himself a couple of slow, dry tugs. He's got months for this kind of exploratory journey, he decides. He may as well give in and provide himself with a little unearned, no frills, standard issue pleasure. He deserves it.
He reaches over for the lube, leaves the drawer of the bedside table open, pops off the cap with his thumb. It's nice stuff, if his memory recalls the one, single practice use before he left. Stays wet for a while, nice smooth texture, doesn't go all tacky and sticky after any kind of friction occurs.
And it's almost involuntary, the way his knees pull up towards his body, the way his hips lift up off the bed to buck into his own hand, the low moan that escapes his chest as he wraps one slick hand around his cock and gets to work. No reason to drag this out, no purpose in denying himself what his body is apparently so desperately craving.
Another benefit of his complete isolation: there's nobody to shame him, nobody around to witness how embarrassingly quickly he manages to bring himself to a devastating climax. Stede hasn't been counting, but he's pretty sure he could count the minutes on one sweaty hand before he's reaching the point of no return, his hand a near blur over his cock, toes curled in the sheets so tightly he's scared they're going to cramp.
"Oh god," he moans, head thrown back against the pillows. "Shit, shit, shit, shit—"
He comes with what feels like both a whimper and a bang, splattering wet over his stomach as he pants into the damp air surrounding him.
"Fuuuck," he breathes, slapping his clean hand over his face and laughing. Laughing, after sex. Solo sex, but sex all the same. Laughing.
He could get used to that, feeling joy and the good kind of relief after an orgasm.
God, if he couldn't get used to that.
From his front door, walking anti-clockwise, the path that runs the perimeter of the reservoir is almost exactly three miles, or just over an hour at what Stede would describe as his leisurely, exploratory pace of walking. Almost perfectly flat, and the path is relatively well maintained, autumn leaves gathering where the path meets the hip-height wall preventing him from slipping and tumbling into the water. He counts eight cabins in total, clustered around one half of the reservoir's edge, each with a small dock-like structure stretching maybe five metres out into the lake itself, gated where they meet the path.
Must be lovely in the summer, he thinks. Your own access to the water, surrounding forest to explore if the heat gets too much, fire pits close to each cabin for nighttime frivolity. The place must get swarmed by families in the warmer months, with their inflatables on the water and marshmallows over the fire.
For now though, it's just him and the wildlife. Just him and the open expanse of the water. Just him, and his cabin, his beautiful view out over the reservoir, and this three mile walk. Might be a good routine to try and get into, to walk the loop every morning. Clear his head, fend off the temptation to just sit inside and rot, or masturbate himself into an early grave. Exercise will be good for him. The fresh air will certainly be good for him, and the immersion in nature will give him the perfect opportunity to try and work through some of his residual emotion in a productive manner.
In fact, establishing some kind of routine is exactly what he needs to do.
Figure out how he's going to sustain himself when his initial stash of easily thrown together meals runs out, make a habit of going for a daily walk, at least while the weather permits. Investigate the nearby town, perhaps meet some new people, immerse himself in the community, if only temporarily. Read some of the books he's been neglecting for years.
Start figuring out what the rest of his life is going to look like. What he wants it to look like.
There's a freedom, he's already realising, to bachelorhood. And perhaps loneliness is something that will kick in later, when the initial novelty of being at his own whims and decisions starts to wear off, but for now he wants to relish it, embrace it. No more shared calendars, no more surprise entries in his schedule, nobody dictating where he goes or what he wears or what he says.
No photographers. No intrusive reporters. No dinners or appearances or long, drawn out meetings about absolutely nothing at all.
Just Stede, and this space, and enough time to rebuild himself.
Perhaps, after all this, it will be just as easy as that.
As it turns out, man can only live off instant noodles, coffee, and cereal for so many days before his body starts to rebel something terrible, and it also turns out that Stede's personal limit is four days of such circumstances. Four days before his morning walk ends with a shower, and an incredibly pathetic realisation, towel clad in the kitchen, staring at his embarrassingly empty cabinets, that he really needs to learn how to cook. Sooner rather than later, before he ends up with scurvy, or something equally eighteenth century.
He needs to learn how to cook, and he needs to put together some kind of pantry that will see him through the next few months, and he needs to do all of that within the next six hours, before he starts to wither away from lack of any kind of nutrition. Against all his Great Disconnect promises to himself, he attempts approximately fifteen minutes of googling before accepting that he just does not know how to start, or where to start. He knows what he likes to eat, knows what he's spent the last two decades ordering from menus, but he has absolutely no idea of the skill level required for any of those dishes.
And it's embarrassing, to admit that, even to himself. Embarrassing to accept just how easily he's coasted through the first four decades of his life, waited on hand and foot, never wanting for a thing. Embarrassing to accept how many basic life skills he's neglected to nurture in himself.
Never too late to try. That's the message he's trying to live by. It's never too late. He can learn to live alone, he can learn what he likes in bed, he can learn how to cook.
At least he knows how to use a washing machine. One thing to have to learn how to feed yourself as a fully grown adult, another to have to google the basic function of a washer-dryer.
He vaguely remembers seeing a small bookshop when he passed through the nearest town, and if there's one thing he knows he can count on, wherever he is in the world, it's the existence of a cookbook section. And four days is more than long enough to be cooped up without any human contact, even if that was the desired initial outcome of the trip And so Stede realises, with only a hint of reluctance, that he has no choice but to rejoin local civilisation for the morning. Into the afternoon, perhaps, depending on how well everything goes.
He dresses, packs his satchel with all the essentials for a small shopping trip: his wallet, sunglasses, phone. The little pack down shopping bag he bought on a whim a few years back, instantly enamoured with the print featuring a variety of different moth species. There'd usually be some form of snack squirrelled away in a side pocket, but his initial stash has dwindled far quicker than he expected it to, and the remaining granola-style bars sitting sadly in one of the kitchen cabinets are starting to feel more like bird feed than anything particularly nutritious or appealing.
The car is covered in leaves when Stede steps up and unlocks the door, and he takes a moment to brush them all from where they've gathered under the windscreen wipers. Autumn well and truly on her way out, winter nipping at her heels. The mornings are pleasantly crisp, but Stede can only imagine how bitter they're due to become. The weather forecast on his phone only stretches two weeks into the future, and he knows weather forecasting is more of an art than a science, but the predicted temperatures are already dipping into the kind of numbers that make him glad he packed thermals.
And the drive is different in the daylight, sun dappling through the remainder of the leaf cover as he drives out up Old Reservoir Road and back onto the main route into town. Almost storybook-like in its beauty, the leaf piles building at the side of the road, swirling around in circles as he drives past them. The town itself is just as quaint as Stede remembers it, perhaps even more so in broad daylight. He parks his car, collects his bag, and ties his scarf around his neck. The air is slightly different, away from the water, filled with the smell of fresh baking and brewing coffee. The small benefits of all your establishments being on one single stretch of road, he supposes. And for midweek, there's a surprising buzz of activity, the levels of which he'd usually only expect on a Saturday afternoon. There's a small line out of the door of the bakery, people in and out of what looks like a small grocers, and a handful of people sipping hot drinks on the patio furniture of the coffee shop. It's tempting, to dismiss his planned order of operations in lieu of sitting and drinking something sweet for the next hour and a half, but Stede is on a mission, and refreshments are a few steps down his list of priorities.
The bookshop is quiet, as they tend to be, and the young man at the counter nods in hello as Stede opens the door and rings the little bell above the frame. The space is well lit and equally well laid out, neat hand painted signs denoting the fiction, non-fiction, biographies, and children's books. He weaves his way around tables stacked tall with paperbacks and recommendation cards until he finds himself at the very back of the shop, staring down a set of corner shelves crammed with secondhand books. He's always believed in the recommendation power of a well-loved book, and in his humble, and honestly, inexperienced opinion, if any book is going to have its worth proven by the physical state of it, it's a cookbook.
There aren't many to choose from, but of the small selection, Stede is instantly drawn to a dog eared paperback, all yellow and orange tones. The Hungry Student Cookbook, the cover reads, and hell, Stede's multiple decades out of university at this point, but his cooking skills are still firmly (embarrassingly, perhaps) in that life stage. Still sitting at pre-university levels, if he's completely honest with himself. He thumbs through the book, opening it at randomly chosen intervals to scan over the recipes inside.
Spaghetti bolognese he can definitely manage, stir fry and basic curry recipes seem doable. Pizza from scratch isn't something he's ever considered, but it's not like he's lacking the time or space to try it. He tucks the book under his arm and continues browsing, picking up a few novels from the small but well stocked LGBTQIA+ section, and approaching the counter by the door to finish his purchases.
There's a selection of trinkets sat next to the cash register, bookmarks and page holders and little enamel pins, and Stede rummages through them before plucking out a little pride flag patterned ladybird pin, dropping it on top of his small stack of books and offering the cashier a small smile.
"Nice," the young man says softly, tapping Stede's purchases into the register. "Thirty-two even, please."
Stede hands over a small bundle of notes, shaking out his tote bag and carefully placing his purchases inside. He collects his change, drops the coins into the small charity tin on the counter, and pockets the notes, giving his thanks and stepping back out into the cool, coffee scented air outside.
He deserves a treat, he thinks. He's survived the first week of being (devastatingly? heartbreakingly?) wonderfully single and independent. He's bought himself a cookbook. He's committed to teaching himself a twenty-year overdue skill. He's established himself something resembling a new routine. He's doing well, against all his own odds. He absolutely deserves a treat.
The Pourover feels a little hipstery of a name for a cafe, but the second Stede steps inside the door, he decides he'll give the name a pass. The space is narrow, but it seems to stretch back even further than the bookshop did, filled with mismatched furniture, art covering the walls, potted plants in every available space. There's a small menu board above the coffee bar, and a case half-filled with almost unreasonably delicious looking pastries to choose from. Stede takes a moment to read over the options, but before he can open his mouth to order, he's being interrupted by a barista with a cigarette behind one ear, pencil behind the other, one hand on his hip.
"You're new."
Stede raises an eyebrow, fights down the instinct to snap in defence of himself.
"I—yes?"
"Not really a question, is it. You're definitely new. We like new."
The barista pulls at his colleague, an androgynous looking person with some kind of mullety-mohawk haircut. The kind of hair Stede wished he could have pulled off in the nineties, but never had the courage to attempt.
Barista number two raises their own eyebrow, gives Stede the kind of up and down that has him wanting to shrink into nothingness. Which is ridiculous, he's a paying customer! Or he will be, if the tag team of staff actually let him place an order.
"This time of year?" they say. "New's always interesting."
"What's your story?" Ear Cigarette asks, leaning on the bar, chin resting on his hand. "Don't get many strangers here in October. You passing through? Staying a while? Running from a lover? Running towards one?"
Stede feels his mouth drop open, stumbles over at least three possible attempts at a reply before managing to get a word out.
"I'm renting a cabin, at the reservoir—"
"On the off season?" Mullet-Mohawk asks, turning back from where they're fussing with the espresso machine.
"Ed's going to love that," Cigarette says.
Mullet-Mohawk snorts, covers it with a cough that Stede is pleased to note they catch with their elbow.
"Ed?" he asks, latching onto the most curious bit of information. He's definitely alone out there. His is the only car parked in any of the parking areas, his is the only cabin with lights on at night. Not a single piece of his correspondence while booking was signed by anyone named Ed. Or Edward. Or anything that might shorten down like that.
"Mmm," Cigarette hums. "Don't worry, he's not important at the moment."
"Important enough to bring up," Stede mutters.
Cigarette straightens up, bites his lip.
"I like you," he says, side stepping to the register. "This whole thing you've got going on, whatever it is. I like it. What can I get you?"
The apparent end of the interrogation is like whiplash, and Stede stands like a moron for a good thirty seconds, processing the prior five minutes and trying to get his brain back in gear.
"Do you know how to do a flat white?" he asks, immediately regretting the question when Cigarette Ear's eyebrows raise so high they disappear into his hairline.
"Jim?" he says, tone dripping with what Stede assumes is sarcasm.
"Latte in a baby cup," Mullet-Mohawk—Jim, apparently—says, without turning around.
"That's not quite—"
"Espresso, steamed milk, minimal foam," they say again, still not awarding Stede the honour of their face.
"Okay, yes—"
"And anything to eat?" Cigarette Ear asks, with a smile Stede would absolutely go as far as to describe as verging on maniacal.
Stede scans the pastry case again, zeroes in on some kind of danish scattered with almonds. Points at it gingerly.
"One of those?"
"Apricot danish. You allergic to nuts? Pitted fruits? Can't be too careful these days."
"Neither," Stede says, pulling out his card.
"Wonderful. Total on the screen when you're ready, and we'll bring everything over to you."
Stede blinks up at him, taps his card, and returns it to his wallet. That's it? An entire unsolicited interrogation and they're done?
"I'll be—" he starts, waving vaguely towards the back of the seating area.
"We'll find you babe, don't worry," Cigarette says with a wink, and apparently that is, indeed, that.
Stede settles into a comfortable armchair at the back of the cafe, pulling out his new-to-him cookbook and leafing through it properly. The foreword has a helpful list of pantry staples worth keeping in stock, which seems like a good start. Basic herbs and spices, salt, pepper, garlic, ginger. Tomato puree, tinned tomatoes, rice and dried pasta. All seemingly doable, if the grocers a few doors down is as well stocked as Stede hopes it is. He's sure he spotted a butchers on his drive through earlier in the week, which might be a better option for meat. It's not like he can't afford the luxury. He pats himself mentally on the back for remembering to check through the assorted kitchen equipment before he left, mismatched but entirely usable, one less thing to worry about.
Stede's browsing the recipe for an easy vegetable curry when his drink and pastry are placed down in front of him. Mullet-Mohawk, now wearing a handwritten name tag labelling them as Jim (they/them) hovers for a moment before speaking.
"Sorry about Luce. He's a little…intense."
Stede goes to wave them off. It's fine. He's used to his fair share of intense people. Figures he probably is the intense one, in a lot of situations.
"We really don't get a lot of new people, this time of year. It's all regulars. You're new."
"I am," Stede says, reaching for his drink. It looks pretty decent, for a latte in a baby cup.
"Just, don't get put off by him. New's nice. Y'know?"
Stede looks up at them, gives his best genuine smile, takes a sip of his coffee.
"I do," he says softly. "This is lovely, thank you."
"Tip jar at the front," Jim says, awkwardly pointing over at the counter. "Enjoy?"
Stede watches them go, then returns to his book, scribbling down a week's worth of recipes to try out, and a shopping list to attempt to achieve. Might need to pick up a few emergency oven-ready meals, just in case, but he feels optimistic. He's going to try his best, and that's all he can really do, he supposes. New starts, new skills, new opportunities. Nobody ever died wishing they'd tried less, he thinks. Better to try and maybe fail, than never try at all.
He takes a generous bite of his danish, chews slowly, washes down his mouthful with another sip of coffee. Customers around him come and go, and it's almost soothing, the whistle and hiss of the espresso machine, of milk being steamed, cups and mugs and glasses clinking as they're taken down from shelves and placed on trays. The scrape of chairs as they're moved from table to table, the ding of the bell above the door as people come and go.
And it strikes Stede, just how full of life the place feels. His life has always been busy, there's always been someone he had to meet, or a place he needed to be, or an event he needed to show up for, but it has never felt full. He feels richer, already, in a way money would never be able to buy. Sitting here, in a coffee shop, writing a shopping list, eating a pastry. Living his life like it has some kind of purpose, for once.
Pathetic, maybe.
Fulfilling all the same.
Worth embracing? Absolutely.
The grocers, like every other store Stede’s stepped into so far, is deceptively large, and surprisingly well-stocked. Feels like perhaps it’s a running theme he should be leaning into over the next few months: expect the unexpected, embrace being pleasantly surprised by the people and things he encounters, be open to any and all new experiences.
He opts for a small shopping trolley over a basket, trying to avoid the inevitable embarrassment of having to return to the front of the store, overladen with goods and attempting an awkward transfer into the shopping vessel he should have started with in the first place. Better to end up with something half empty than overfilled, he thinks. He’s always been a terrible shopping equivalent of a grazer, picking up whatever catches his eye, regardless of whether it’s on his list or not. He’ll pick up everything he can from his list, then he can graze for treats. That’s the deal he’s making with himself. It worked re: the bookshop and the subsequent coffee treat, it can work here too.
The fruit and vegetables are easy, if a little confusing in their wide variety of quantities. He browses the meat, realising belatedly he probably should have tried the butchers first. Next time, perhaps. Probably best to start his cooking journey with ingredients he’ll be less upset about wasting when he inevitably ruins one or more of his proposed meals. The basic staple carbohydrates get thrown in: rice, pasta in three different shapes, noodles for stir frying, a bag of all purpose flour. Plus a couple of jars of pre-made sauces for the pasta. Just in case.
He buys jars of a few basic spices from the list at the front of his book, canned tomatoes, tinned tuna, kidney beans and sweetcorn. A small bottle of olive oil, soy sauce, vinegar. He double and triple checks his list before indulging himself in the treats he’s been dutifully ignoring every time he walked past them: crisps in a variety of flavours, a bag of mixed fruit and nuts, some delicious looking mini chocolate bars, a sleeve of cookies. Some breakfast cereal, a bag of oats, a jar of very expensive honey. A loaf of pre-sliced bread, and a small loaf of sourdough still warm from the oven. A few tins of tomato soup have never been a bad idea, and on a whim he picks up some cheese. One of the few comfort meals he remembers from his childhood: cheese on toast and a bowl of warm tomato soup.
By the time he reaches the checkout, he’s glad he opted for the trolley, and he ends up buying a few reusable shopping bags, his single moth tote nowhere near up to the job of getting his entire shop back to where he left the car.
He feels accomplished, in a strange way, loading his bags into the car and climbing back into the driver’s seat. He set out today with a plan, and he achieved everything he wanted to. He’s found his footing in town, survived a strange but ultimately pleasant interaction in the coffee shop, and set himself on at least one small path to self improvement. And there’s still time left in the day. He’s got time to get back to his cabin before the sun sets, time to unpack his shopping and find homes for it all, time to browse his cookbook a little more, put together a plan of attack for his cooking journey.
It’s purpose. It’s small but real purpose.
And it feels bloody wonderful.
Quick chickpea curry turns out to be a roaring success, matched by chilli con carne, not quite achieved by chicken and pesto pasta. Stede eats two full portions of the sweet chilli chicken stir fry the first time he makes it, and finds a new love in the tiny spears of baby corn he picked up in the grocers on a whim. They weren't included in any of the recipes, but he figured he'd try them anyway. A whim he congratulates himself on the first time he bites down on one, sweet and slightly earthy and perfectly cooked, even if he says so himself.
And it's fun, to cook for himself. There's nobody to impress, nobody to worry about disappointing. He knows his own limits, knows his food preferences, his likes and absolute dislikes. There's nobody here to judge him when he accidentally burns rice to the bottom of a saucepan, or overcooks slivers of chicken to the texture of tyre rubber. He's trying things out, he's learning new things—skills, as well as a developed understanding of what he actually enjoys eating.
He’s starting to learn what actually makes him happy.
And happy, it turns out, isn’t vast sums of money, or incredibly niche-grade celebrity status. It’s not necessarily a big house, or an excessive wardrobe. It’s not even the company of another person.
For Stede, it’s learning to sit with himself for the first time in his life. It’s the peace of being alone, and enjoying it.
It’s meals he’s cooked himself, from scratch. It’s a reasonably passable flat white, a danish, and thirty or so pages of a new book in a small town coffee shop. It’s daily walks around the reservoir, registering birds on his identification app, and taking great delight in tracking his increasing speed, the ease of the three miles with every passing day.
It’s gradually building short bursts of jogging into his walks, buying a pair of honest to god running shoes, and shorts, and finding genuine joy and pleasure in arriving back at his cabin sweaty and slightly wheezy, his muscles burning.
It’s the crackle of the log burner at night, and the view out over the reservoir every morning, the ability to sprawl out every night, taking up as much space on the mattress as he damn well pleases, and long, drawn out sessions of becoming incredibly well acquainted with the workings and nuances of his own body.
It’s a journey of discovery, in so many ways, and Stede’s finally starting to feel like the intrepid explorer he always wished he could be.
October slides gradually into November, and the days shorten, minute by incremental minute. The clocks change, and the daylight hours shift, and with the shorter, darker days come the lower temperatures. Chilly, then cold, then downright freezing. The kind that has Stede heaving great sighs of relief that he packed multiple sets of thermals, the kind that has him pacing around the bathroom in the middle of the night while he wills himself to undress enough to take the pee he so desperately needs. The temperature drops, and the remaining leaves freeze to the ground, and snow begins to fall. Just a little, but enough to have each morning feeling like a true winter wonderland in its bright crisp beauty, and wonderful isolation.
Stede walks, and he jogs, and in short bursts he runs, just a few hundred metres at a time, but every day it’s a little easier, every day his chest burns a little less, and his legs don’t give out on him anywhere near as often as the first time he tried it.
The days shorten, and the temperature drops, and the reservoir freezes over a little better with each passing day. And Stede runs, and he reads, and with every new dawn, every new sunrise, he feels a little better about being alone. He feels more comfortable in himself, he feels a little better about existing in the world as just himself. Just Stede. Alone.
The days are short, and they’re cold, and Stede’s alone, but he’s finally feeling like he’s found peace. With himself, and the situation he found himself in, and the space he’s going to allow himself to take up in the world.
Stede’s alone, and he’s really, surprisingly okay with it. He really is. He’s six weeks into his journey of finding out Who Stede Bonnet Is, five of which he’s spent at the reservoir, and he’s got his routine down. He gets up around seven, when the sun begins to first make its break through the dark of night, he makes tea, sometimes coffee, he gets dressed, he eats a small breakfast, and he steels himself for a walk, or a jog, or a flat-out run.
He limits his Pourover visits to once a week, letting them coincide with his grocery shops, gets his fill of social interaction, and returns to blissful solitude for the following six days.
And it’s not to say he doesn’t still feel entirely disjointed about his life turning entirely on its head, the end of his first legitimate relationship and the decisions he made in the throes of what he thought was heartbreak. He still has so much to work on there, so much to unpack and unpick and process. But it feels like the foundational work is coming together. He’s working from the roots of himself up, the rest can come later.
And so Stede walks. And he runs. And he cooks.
And he is wonderfully, blissfully alone.
Until he’s not.
The ground is just a little too icy for Stede to consider running, the cloud cover just a little too thick for the sun to penetrate, so Stede is walking. Gingerly. Slowly.
Which is the only reason he’s still out past ten in the morning, with the delay to his start, and the significantly slower pace than usual. He’d usually be home by now, showering, or enjoying a late breakfast to refuel from his morning excursion. But he’s not home. He’s still sitting in mile two of three, placing one careful foot in front of the next, listening for bird calls. But it’s not a bird that catches his attention, an hour and twenty minutes into what could have been a forty five minute run. It’s a car, a big, Land Rover looking thing, pulling up at the cabin adjacent to Stede’s.
Alone, not for much longer, perhaps.
And it’s not that Stede is watching, actively. More that his general direction of travel has this new stranger in his field of view for the next forty or so minutes. Enough to see him bring a few bags back and forth from the car to the cabin, see the lights go on inside, see the telltale signs of the log burner being lit, smoke drifting up and out of the vent at the side of the building. The stranger disappears from view by the time Stede is walking past the cabin, but he spots movement inside. And he assumed he’d be the only person here, the only person crazy enough to want a summer cabin through the depths of winter.
Perhaps this new person is in a similar situation to Stede. Perhaps they, too, are running away in part. Looking for solitude, looking for somewhere to start afresh, even if only temporarily.
Perhaps they just prefer the cold. That’s always an option.
He considers various scenarios for the rest of his walk, most of the way through breakfast, and briefly during his post-walk shower. He has no real plans for the day, the weather showing no signs of brightening up, and he resigns himself to a day of reading and lounging around, listening to the crackle of wood in the burner, and daydreaming about the evening meal he has planned for himself.
When he settles in for the evening, sat in his favourite chair overlooking the reservoir, there’s a new, strange comfort in the sight of his new neighbour’s lights, limited only to the bedroom it seems, casting a small glow out onto the water. Maybe they’ll only be here a short time. Perhaps a week, no longer. Stede figures he’ll keep to himself for a few days, only introduce himself if it seems necessary, if his neighbour looks to be staying longer than a week or so. They may not even want a neighbour, may have no interest at all in any company.
On the other hand, he might do well to reassure them he’s no threat. Just someone looking for some time alone. He’s really not sure of the protocol here. Definitely something Lucius would be happy to provide his only lightly sarcastic input for, Stede’s sure.
He’ll leave it a few days, at least until he’s due to head back into town. Could be a good ice breaker, offer to pick anything they need up for them. introduce himself, let them know how long he’s staying, the basics. A few days for them to settle in. That seems reasonable. Neighbourly, even.
His neighbour, apparently, has other plans.
Stede’s considering an early night when his peace is interrupted by three insistent knocks on his door. There’s only one person it could conceivably be, but Stede has no idea why his new, mystery neighbour would be hammering on his door at nearly ten at night. An emergency of some description, surely.
He pulls his robe around him, tucks a bookmark into his book, and carefully approaches the door. Whoever’s out there knows he’s in, knows he’s still awake, so there’s no point dithering around opening the door, but still, he hesitates. Could be anyone. Likely his neighbour, but they could be anyone. Could be the end of Stede Bonnet as the world knows him. The knock comes again, really, truly a hammering this time, and Stede unlatches the lock, lets the door swing open.
Revealing the most beautiful man Stede has ever laid eyes on.
Tall, tawny skinned, tattooed. A ring through his nose and grey-black hair tied into a scraggly little ponytail. Dark pyjama bottoms and a pair of absolutely weather inappropriate slippers. A grey t-shirt that looks like it’s smeared with blood.
A grey t-shirt definitely smeared with blood, and a left hand wrapped in a tea towel.
“I’m not good with blood,” the handsome stranger says, words a little shaky. “I’m really sorry, I know it’s late, I know you don’t know me, but I’m really not good with blood.”
Stede blinks, then it’s like his whole body kicks into action.
“I’m Stede,” he says, pushing the door wide open and guiding the handsome stranger in by the elbow. “And lucky for you, I’m excellent with blood. In a non-creepy way, I promise.”
“Be as creepy as you want, mate,” Handsome Stranger says. “I’m Ed.”
“Nice to meet you,” Stede says. “Terrible circumstances though, aren’t they?”
“Little bit,” Ed mumbles.
And Stede realises it’s happening before Ed seems to, the sway in his steps, the completely glazed over look that washes over his face, the way he keeps looking back and forth between his towel-wrapped hand and Stede’s face. He manages to get the door closed before Ed’s making his best attempt at hitting the deck, knees completely out from under him, his entire body slumping dramatically against Stede.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, okay,” Stede babbles, sinking to the floor with him and propping him up as best he can against the wall. Ed blinks back into consciousness almost as quickly as he’d lost it.
He smiles weakly up at Stede. “Hi.”
“Hey,” Stede says gently.
“I passed out?”
“Little bit,” Stede says sympathetically.
“I’m not good with blood.”
“Evidently. Think you can make it to a chair?”
“Might need a hand,” Ed says.
Stede squats down next to him, allows Ed to hook his right arm over his shoulder, and lifts him to his feet, stopping for a moment to make sure he’s not going to go straight back down again. He parks him in a soft chair in the living space, then kneels down next to him.
“Look away,” Stede says. “I’m going to have a look at your hand.”
“Aw fuck,” Ed mumbles, but closes his eyes, turns his head away.
Stede unwraps the tea towel, inspects Ed’s bloody hand. He’s managed a neat little slice on the side of his forefinger, shallow enough that Stede thinks he can patch it up himself, but clearly enough to cause Ed some alarm.
“I think you’ll survive,” Stede says, covering it back over. “I’ll make some tea. Nice and sweet, sort your blood sugar out first.”
“Okay,” Ed says softly. “Thank you.”
Stede pats his knee, then heads into the kitchen, glad of the distraction afforded by the kettle, the gathering of mugs, the distribution of teabags and sugar.
He looks over at Ed, receives another sweet, sheepish smile.
And fuck, if this doesn't spell trouble.
Ed is handsome, and he’s staying right next door, and they’ve met in incredibly vulnerable, almost ridiculous circumstances.
And Stede is off relationships. He’s on his journey of independence, of learning who he is outside of any kind of relationship.
Ed is handsome, and he’s looking at Stede like he’s an entire snack and a half, which may or may not be a byproduct of his fainting spell, or the cut on his hand, but it definitely spells trouble.
Stede assembles two steaming cups of tea, collects his small first aid kit from the bathroom, and doubles back to the kitchen to pick up some of the biscuits he’d bought earlier in the week.
He cleans up Ed’s hand as best he can, applies some antiseptic cream, bandages him up nice and tight.
“God, you’re a fucking angel,” Ed mumbles, crunching through a biscuit and taking a sip of what is definitely still-too-hot tea. “Where did you even come from?”
And Stede knows better than to count his chickens. He knows better than to assume there’s even any eggs here waiting to hatch. But this is a ridiculous circumstance. Happenstance, even. And Stede’s seen enough romcoms, he’s read enough romance novels to know how this kind of thing ends. Even if one party has sworn off relationships for now.
Usually in spite of such a declaration.
He knows better than to assume anything. To hope for anything.
He also knows that Ed, his arrival, his timing, his everything, feels like a sign.
A sign that Stede is absolutely, definitely in trouble.
And there’s only one word appropriate for that turn of events.
Fuck.