Chapter Text
Ed Teach hunches his shoulders against the wind and regrets not wearing a heavier coat. It’s only October, but there’s a chill in the air, and the gusts are finding their way through the seams of his jacket. It’s fuckin’ windy. Too fuckin’ windy to work, anyway. He’d tried, for half an hour or so, but the wind blew the paint away and then a gaggle of drunk women had peered down the alley, and then he’d stepped in a fucking puddle and gotten his sock wet, and that was that, really. Fuck it. He’s cold and he’s damp and he’s so tired he can’t see straight. It’s not an acute tiredness, not something a good night’s sleep will cure. It’s a deep, heavy, existential ennui that’s like a cartoon ball and chain he drags behind him with every step. He does know that if he goes straight home to bed and sleeps ‘til noon, he’ll wake up feeling the same way. He knows this because he’s tried it, and every day’s the fucking same. He’s exhausted, and he wants to go home, and he thinks that if he goes home right now, he might burn the fucking place to the ground. He readjusts his gear bag over his shoulder and stomps on.
It’s fuckin’ windy. Nearly too fuckin’ windy to light a cigarette. He’d cut through the park and is passing St. James Palace when he finally has to stop, the high, insistent itch for nicotine overwhelming the reluctance to spend another moment out here in the cold. He turns his back to the wind, facing the little corner a sentry box makes against the imposing stone wall. It’s all very film noir, the lighter flickering madly in the wind, shadows dancing on the side of the box. He finally gets his cigarette lighted, and takes a long drag. He’s been meaning to quit for about fifteen years. He’ll quit tomorrow. Or not tomorrow, probably. But at the end of this pack. He’ll quit then. Probably. Maybe.
His lungs burn a little, and he blows the smoke out with a porny sort of moan and of course that’s when he notices that there’s a guard in the box, and that he’s blown smoke right into his face.
“Oh, fuck, sorry, mate,” he says, waving it away. Of course the guard doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t even flinch, just stares straight ahead, like Ed’s not there, waving his hands in the air like a madman. Only not quite like Ed’s not there. There’s an unmistakable twinkle in his eye. Huh.
He’s cute, in an odd-looking kind of way. Kind hazel eyes. Crooked nose. One blond curl escaping from underneath the incredibly stupid hat. Ed doesn’t get the whole stoic sentry thing. Like, obviously you don’t want them getting too friendly and chit-chatty, but looking straight ahead seems kinda maladaptive when you’re supposed to be on guard duty, doesn’t it? They should at least be scanning for threats, right? Ed supposes it’s all ceremonial. But still. Stupid.
“Sorry,” he says again, because he realises he’s just standing there staring. “Sorry, I didn’t mean – I’ll just go.”
The sentry blinks twice. It’s fast enough that it could be spontaneous, and Ed can’t say how he knows it, but he would swear an oath that it was deliberate. He looks at the guy in profile, illuminated strangely by the interior light of the box and the streetlamps beyond. He’s probably around Ed’s age, a little old for this sort of work, surely? Gotta be a cold and lonely gig. Hell on the knees. He takes another drag, blows it out of the side of his mouth, away from the guy’s face.
“Or I could stay for a bit,” he says, and the guy blinks once. Deliberately. And isn’t that fucking fascinating. Ed bites down on his grin, taps his cigarette, watches the ash fly away on the breeze.
“Must be a fucking weird job, this, being ogled like a zoo animal day in and day out. Couldn’t pay me enough to be a Beefeater. Or wait, no, those are the other ones with the stupid hats. Pork pies, not fuckin’ enormous wooly sausages. Sorry. Bet you get that a lot.”
The sentry doesn’t say anything.
“My job’s not that different from yours,” Ed says, and turns so he’s facing in the same direction as the guy, standing next to the sentry box and looking out into the night with him. A second set of eyes, ones that are allowed to scan. There’s not much to look at. The park, and a cab driving past, and the lights of the city beyond. It’s pretty, in the way that hotel art is pretty, and isn’t that exactly the fucking point? Isn’t that the whole problem? He sighs, and his breath fogs out in front of him, even though there hadn’t been smoke in his lungs this time.
“I mean, like, no one knows who I am, but they come and look anyway. Not at me, but kind of? I dunno. Used to be more like they were looking at me. My heart’s not in it these days, I guess. You ever feel like you’re just treading water, waiting to drown?”
He looks over. The guard doesn’t say anything, doesn’t look at him, but there’s a softness in his eyes that wasn’t there before. Ed doesn’t know what he’s doing, doesn’t know why he’s unloading on this guy, apart from the fact that he’d asked him to stay, sort of. Maybe. Possibly not. Either way, it’s objectively weird. He’s fucking freezing. He keeps talking.
“Just – when I started out painting, it meant something, you know? Little pieces of art hidden around the city. Love letters. Protests. Felt like I was saying something. But then it blew up and people started expecting it. Started trying to commodify it. Fuckin’ – the whole point of street art is that it’s free, man. But now if I pick the wrong building, the owner will put a curtain up and fuckin’ charge people to look at it. And there’s nothing I can do about it, except try to find places where people aren’t giant dicks, but how do you even do that? Izzy keeps telling me to just come out and go mainstream, but I don't want that. Like, the solution to people trying to sell my shit out from under me isn’t necessarily to sell my shit first, you know? ‘S’not why I do it.”
The sentry doesn’t say anything, but Ed swears his right eyebrow moves up a tiny smidge.
“I dunno, man. I guess I started it because I felt like I had something to say.”
The eyebrow moves another micron.
“Yeah, okay. I guess I still have something to say,” Ed acknowledges, and pinches off the end of his cigarette, sticks the butt in his jacket pocket. “Just need to figure out how to fuckin’ say it.”
The sentry doesn’t say anything.
“Thanks, man.”
The sentry doesn’t say anything.
“I’m gonna go. Have a good night.”
The sentry doesn’t say anything. He does blink, just once.
Ed turns and walks on. Piccadilly Circus, then home. Home, then tea. Tea, then bed. Bed, and the image of hazel eyes and a gingerish eyebrow.
Ed sleeps.
***
It’s even colder the next morning, and Ed wraps himself in a blanket and sits on the kitchen table with his coffee and his newspaper. He likes the view from atop the table, likes how he can lean against the exposed brick wall and look out the window. Likes the solidity of the table underneath him, sturdier than the assorted chairs he’d dumpster-dived for over the years. Not that he couldn’t go out and buy himself a set of chairs, but people in this city throw out all sorts of wild shit, and he likes the collection. A spindly little Victorian number that barely seems up to the task, like some sort of early 20th century waif going down the mines. A scuffed-up midcentury piece that looks like a fancy lightbulb with legs. A sturdy, unadorned wooden chair that has the perfect heft and curve to support his lumbar spine after a long night of painting. One of those weird cushioned yoga chairs for queers who can’t sit in chairs like normal people, which, okay, yeah, pot/kettle as he’s currently sitting cross-legged on top of his own dining table.
The headlines are bleak, and he chucks the paper in the direction of the bin, pulls out his book instead. He’s been wading through his nieces’ latest obsession, some fantasy shit with too many adverbs. He loves them, so he’ll finish it, and pray to any god that might be listening that it doesn’t turn into a fucking series. He loves the girls, but there are limits. Theoretically.
He thinks about last night, how weird he was with that soldier, but also the precise arc of the guy’s eyebrow and the fucking curl on his forehead, a perfect Fibbonaci spiral. His fingers twitch, and he slides off the table and grabs a piece of scrap paper from the pile on the counter, chooses a pencil from the coffee mug (glass, Garfield scowling on a seesaw, with the words I’M NOT ONE WHO RISES TO THE OCCASION). His hand starts moving before his brain catches up, and when he comes back to himself, there’s a face looking up at him. It’s not the first time Ed’s wanted to draw someone, but usually it’s in the moment. He’ll be on the Tube with his sketchbook, and a child across the way will pout so perfectly that he has to sketch it, or he’ll be at the pub with Iz and Fang and there’ll be an old fuck grousing in the corner with his mates and he has to capture his chin on the back of a napkin or something. It’s a fleeting compulsion driven by the immediacy of the image. He doesn’t usually carry it home with him. Doesn’t usually sleep on it. Doesn’t usually sketch out the whole face from memory, and then spend several moments tracing the wonky lines of the nose with one fond finger.
Ed shakes himself out if it. He’d been fucking weird last night, and he’s being fucking weird today, weird enough that he feels oddly guilty, like he’s trespassing on this stranger’s privacy, even though the stranger has an incredibly public-facing job and it’s not like Ed’s ever going to see him again. He almost balls up the paper and chucks it into the bin, but changes his mind at the last minute, shoves the paper in between two pages of the book he’s probably never going to finish, and drags himself into his bedroom to get dressed. He needs to get out of this fucking apartment.
He goes for a walk, gives the shop around the corner a wide berth, because he’s nearly out of cigarettes and maybe this time he won’t buy more. He takes a detour down an alley, past one of his earlier pieces. It’s faded, and other artists have added their tags here and there, but you can still make it out. It’s a little heavy-handed, both technically (his linework has gotten much sharper over the years) and in message, but it’s nearby, and it has lasted, and it’s never been commodified, so Ed loves it. He thinks about the guard again, and walks on toward the canal. Thinks about hopping on the Tube, but doesn’t. He pops into a shop and doesn’t buy cigarettes. He does buy a bag of crisps and a packet of gum, to give him something besides his fingernails to put in his mouth. He inhales the crisps, chews the gum, walks on.
Regents Park. He throws crisps crumbs to the ducks, who mostly ignore them, the ungrateful little fucks. It’s nice to be in the sun, though it’s still a bit brisk, and Ed’s resigning himself to having to dig out his winter jacket when he gets home when he realizes Jesus fucking Christ, he’s the most boring person alive. He’s bored listening to his own fucking thoughts. He looks at the ducks and tries to remember the last time he did something for fun. He can’t remember. He thinks about last night. One slow blink. The arc of that eyebrow.
Crisp bag in a bin. The long walk home. A hot shower, a sad lunch of turkey slices and cheese. The bread had gone mouldy the day before. A few sketches, most of which end up in the bin next to the mouldy bread and one aspirational/now rotten banana, and one of which takes the shape of the sentry’s fucking face again. Only one is usable (not that one). He folds it up and shoves it in his gear bag. Paces. Bites his nails. Climbs out the kitchen window and has a cigarette, then another. Chainsmokes the remainder of the pack. Fuck.
He tries to nap, gives up after seventy minutes of thrashing around in his sheets. Not in a fun way. Well, in a fun way for approximately four of those minutes. The other sixty-six, though…
Up. Clothes. He phones up Fang and makes a plan for tomorrow night. Could use a bit of a booze-up. More sketching. More pacing.
As soon as it’s dark he’s shouldering his bag and heading out. He swings by the corner shop, buys two packs of cigarettes. One in the pocket, the other in the gear bag. Maybe if he squirrels it away he’ll forget about it. He’s going to quit. Soon. Maybe.
Tube to last night’s alley, but it’s not right anymore. He walks around a bit until he finds a better spot. The brick’s more weathered. Texture is pleasing. He gets his sketch from earlier out, but balls it up and tosses it in the direction of a skip. Pulls his paints out. Gets to work. No sketch. He’s going by instinct. Heart.
A couple hours later, he throws the last paint can in his bag and wipes his hands on his trousers. The painting isn’t what he’d set out to do, but it’s good, he thinks. It’s weird. It’s definitely weird. But good, also, maybe.
He walks to the mouth of the alley, turns back around for a last look. One hazel eye, one ginger eyebrow, one perfect curl. A soldier looking coquettishly over his shoulder. The uniform is a glittery drag version of the real thing. The boots are six inch heels. The face isn’t entirely his, just bits and pieces borrowed. It’s not enough to get him in trouble – there’s a case working its way through the Court of Appeals about gays in the military, and Ed’s been alive and queer for a long time. He’s not going to be a dick. It’s not the sentry’s face, but it’s his eye. His eyebrow. His curl.
And maybe Ed had indulged in a bit of wishful thinking, because it’s his legs, too, the line of them impossibly lengthened by the heels. The whole thing is all in black and white except for the red coat, tails swishing around in a theatrical spin, and the red mouth, lipstick making his lips exaggeratedly plump and luscious. One white tooth catches on the lip, vampy, teasing.
It’s weird. Ed likes it. When’s the last time he liked a fucking painting?
He turns his back, hunches in against the cold and walks on.
At the last minute, he turns, detours through the park, past the palace. Wouldn’t hurt – just to check –
He’s there.