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No one should have to build a career out of pickles.
Ed knew it wasn’t really pickles, per se—he's an IT guy through and through, but every morning for the past 15 years he’s walked through the doors of the Bonnet’s Original Brine Pickle Company where he spends his days making sure the computer systems keeping track of the pickles, their packers, purveyors and pencil pushers kept functioning. It certainly wouldn’t have been his first choice, but the money’s good and honestly, at his age, he doesn’t want to start over somewhere else where he’d have to report to someone half his age with half his skillset who’d never owned a Geocities website.
It’s a fucking bore, is what it is, but he’s good at it. There’s not a system he doesn’t know inside and out. Computers he’s sometimes called to have a look at seem to miraculously fix themselves whenever he enters the room. Sometimes just the mere mention of his name and a whisper of ‘I’m sure you don’t want me to call Blackbeard, do you?’ will snap misbehaving machines back in line. The nickname was funny, at first, but one look in the mirror now at the silver that remained just reminds him how long he’s been working this god-awful job.
Occasionally, to alleviate the boredom, he’ll root around for mischief, like changing the names of the CFO’s budget reports from ‘Weekly Budgets for Manufacturing Floors 1 & 2’ to ‘Weirdy Budgies for Monsterflattening Floops 1 & 2’. This lead to the CFO, Nigel Badminton, receiving a stern dressing down from CEO Edward Bonnet over professionalism, but fuck that guy—Ed once watched him berate a PA over a flubbed coffee order until the kid cried. There was also the particularly memorable time he’d managed to hack into the print files associated with packaging so that an entire run of ‘Bonnet’s Bread and Butter Pickles’ labels read ‘Bonnet’s Bread and Butt Pickles’ instead. But once it became apparent that the people he’d meant to annoy tended to punch down when riled, he’d put his intranet pirating days behind him and settled in to the mind numbing tedium of system maintenance.
Until the day he discovers he's the manager of a department he didn’t even know existed.
“You’ve got to fire someone.”
Ed turns round from his monitor to see one of the HR managers standing in his doorway. Pompus little shit—Wellington, maybe?
“What?”
“I said, you’ve got to fire someone.”
Ed scrubs a hand over his stubble and pulls his curls atop his head in a messy bun.
“I don’t really do that, mate.”
“You do, actually,” says Wellington snippily, “If it’s your department.”
“I am my fucking department. Is this a shitty way of telling me I’m being made redundant?”
Wellington rolls his eyes.
“Were you not aware that the customer service hotline falls under the purview of IT?”
Ed’s mind boggles a bit.
“We have a customer service hotline?”
“Of course! Number’s on the bloody jar, for goodness sake.”
“And I’m in charge of it?”
“Yes.”
“Fucking…since when?”
Wellington gives a vague wave of his hand.
“Since the last restructuring.”
“You mean when the top brass fired all those people.”
“It was downsizing.”
“You can call it whatever you want, if it helps you sleep at night, mate.”
“Look,” Wellington snaps, now clearly irritated, “I don’t have time for this. Someone needs firing and you’re to do it.”
He slaps a folder unceremoniously on Ed’s desk, turned on his heel and left.
Ed blinks, wondering if the whole conversation was some kind of weird, blue light induced fever dream, but the red folder sitting in front of him is certainly real enough.
The office of the customer service hotline is not an easy one to find.
He asks three separate people—one from HR and two from the custodial staff—where he can find it, and is given wildly varying answers. At one point, he even ends up in the third floor men’s toilets.
Cursing as he exits, he runs straight into the head of building maintenance—a peculiar Scotsman people call Buttons—mopping the floor outside.
“Hey, mate, sorry about that, but for the love of Christ, could you tell me where the customer service hotline’s office is?”
The man hesitates and inclines his head slightly toward the handle of his mop, as if listening to some far off voice. He then narrows his eyes at the red folder under Ed’s arm.
“Karl says ye’ve an unpleasant task tae perform.”
The hair on the back of Ed’s neck prickles.
“Karl’s…the mop?”
“Karl’s the mop, aye.”
Fuck, this morning can’t get any weirder.
“Karl’s very fucking perceptive. It’s why I need to find the customer service hotline office.”
The Scotsman cocks his head again, all ears for the wisdom of the cleaning implement in his hand. It’s starting to make Ed a little uncomfortable.
“Ye’ll find it in the basement, next tae the boiler room.”
Relieved to finally have his answer, Ed lets out the breath he’s been holding.
“Cheers, mate,” he says, clapping the maintenance man on the shoulder. “I owe you one.”
“Karl also wants ye tae know tha’ findin’ yer way in will also be findin’ yer way oot,” Buttons adds with an unsettling wink.
“Right…well, ta, Karl, for that. I’ll see you two around, yeah?”
Buttons grins.
“Karl does nae think so.”
Ed beats a hasty retreat to the stairwell.
If he didn’t know any better, he’d say that anyone working in the office of the customer service hotline was probably being punished for something.
The office is, in fact, located directly next to the boiler room. It’s small, windowless and stuffy with cinderblock walls painted the blandest shade of beige he’s ever seen. To add insult to injury, it positively reeks of brine. Must be directly under one of the production floors. This is the corporate answer to a oubliette—a place where people were banished to be forgotten.
Ed peeks round the corner at the room’s three occupants. One is a young Asian man, asleep at his desk, phone headset on and an accounting textbook open in his lap. At least someone’s trying to get out of here, Ed thought ruefully. The next is an elderly woman, happily ensconced in her chair, finishing off a knitted scarf with what looks to be pickles on it. Company fangirl, there’s a twist.
He can’t see the face of the third hotline rep as it’s currently face down on his desk, but he’s the only source of color in the drab, florescent-lit room. A finely made, deep turquoise jacket stretched over broad shoulders, crowned with a wavy mop of blonde hair. This is probably the guy he’s here to shitcan, right? Neither of the other two seem particularly insecure about their employment.
Ed ducks back round the corner to open the folder—he doesn’t want to presume, after all. Maybe the young bloke who already seems to have one foot out the door is—
Ah, he thinks, reading the name on the sheet inside the folder, probably not the Asian guy unless his name is—
He steps back into the doorway and clears his throat.
“Uh, Stede Bonnet?”
The turquoise shoulders rise as a sigh forces its way out of the man’s chest and he slowly raises his head, turning toward the door.
Holy shit .
Stede Bonnet (It can’t be a coincidence, right? Bonnet like the company, right?) is one of the most beautiful men Ed’s ever laid eyes on, despite the miserable, hang dog expression on his face. He’s all sandy blonde curls and sad, hazel eyes with a plush mouth that looks like—
Ed has to put on the brakes as his mind veers wildly toward the guardrails on the horny highway near the exit to Bonerville. He’s here to fire this guy.
He looks down at the paper again, thinking this can’t possibly be right. How can it come down to him to fire a Bonnet? A Bonnet who, for some fucking reason, has been consigned to answering calls to the customer care line?
But Stede Bonnet’s resigned rise from his desk chair (Fucking hell, chest, legs, thighs—get it together, Teach) lets him know beyond a shadow of a doubt that it’s no mistake.
“I was wondering how long it would take,” he says, gathering a beautifully made leather satchel from the floor, “Let’s just get this over with, shall we?”
“Oh, before you go, dear,” says the woman, securing the last knot of the scarf—a lurid salmon color that contrasts wildly with the green pickles—“Just a little something to keep you warm.”
Stede’s mouth quirks up at the corners, melancholy, but fond, as he bends down to let her loop the fiber monstrosity round his neck.
“You’re too kind, Dillys, really. I’ll wear it with pride,” he says, kissing her on the cheek. “You take care of yourself, now. And those two lovely grandchildren of yours.”
“Oh I will, Mr. Bonnet, don’t you worry about that!”
He gestures toward the sleeping man.
“Tell Dinesh goodbye and good luck at uni next semester, won’t you?”
Dillys nods and pats him on the hand.
“Of course, dear.”
Ed’s mouth is hanging open, he knows, but he can’t help it. Has there ever been a more charming sight than this mournful, bright man in his beautiful suit jacket wearing a ferociously clashing scarf covered in pickles? Ed’s already halfway in love by the time by the time Bonnet’s standing in front of him in the doorway studying him closely. The golden man gives him a soft smile.
“Perhaps this won’t be as bad as I imagined. You have kind eyes.”
“So…Bonnet, huh?”
Their footsteps are loud in the stairwell leading up to Ed’s office on the second floor.
Stede gives a mirthless chuckle.
“Yes, I imagine you must have some questions, Mr. Teach.”
Ed waves away the formality. He doesn’t want any more barriers between him and Stede than there absolutely have to be. You have kind eyes. Who says things like that? Stede fucking Bonnet, heir presumptive of Bonnet’s Original Brine Pickle Company, that’s who—and there is literally nothing that Ed doesn’t want to know about him. Would it be too fucking gauche to ask out someone he’s about to fire? He thinks it probably would, but he really, really wants to. Stede Bonnet is the most interesting thing he’s seen in this lifeless fucking pickle palace in the whole of the time he’s worked here.
“Ed, please, or Edward. I don’t do Mr.”
“Pleased to meet you, Ed,” Stede says, grasping his hand to shake it, even as they’re walking. A pleasant frisson passes between them at the contact and the touch lingers just slightly longer than would be considered polite in a business setting. When they part, both feel the loss of it and Stede’s shoulders slump considerably.
“I wish it were under different circumstances,” he says softly.
“Me too, mate,” Ed replies, really meaning it. Damn, what is it about this bloke? He’s pushing all of Ed’s buttons at once, without doing a fucking thing. He’s like a shiny toy filled with bells and catnip (Ednip?) that he wants to pounce on, bite, bicycle kick and rub himself all over until he collapses in a sated heap, only to start the whole cycle over again the next time he catches a whiff.
He shakes his head a little to clear it as they walk into his office—he honestly doesn’t know what’s gotten into him today. He likes to think it’s just because he’s not been on a proper date in nearly six months and this pretty man is precisely his type—the type he’d enjoy making a bit of a mess off, rubbing off the perfect shine to find out what’s underneath. It seems a cruel, cosmic joke that his one interaction with him is fated to be this.
“Have a seat,” he says, gesturing to the chair across from his desk, only belatedly realizing it’s covered in circuit boards.
“Oh, hold on, let me just—“ he begins, ears reddening as he realizes the full extent of the mess that happens to be his workspace. There’s hardly a surface that’s not covered in something; paper, wires, work orders or empty paper coffee cups from the canteen.
“I should have thought to, um, tidy up a bit before…um—“
Before bringing you up here to fire you, he doesn’t want to say, but becomes even more distracted when he notices Stede’s eyes on the tee shirt under his open, black button-down. He follows the gaze and immediately wants to sink through the floor.
Of course. Of course I fucking wore t he purple one with the flash drive that says ‘I Pull Out’ today.
“Oh, shit, I-I’m sorry about this, I never would have—“
Ed’s hands fly to the buttons of his shirt, trying to do them up with one hand while simultaneously balancing a pile of papers in the other. He doesn’t want to meet Stede’s eye, but suddenly the man’s in front of him, with a warm hand over top of his and an amused smile tugging at his lips. Fuck, he was close enough for Ed to be enveloped in the scent of his cologne—warm and earthy with a hint of juniper.
“Here, let me. If you’d be more comfortable?”
He could have just relieved Ed of the papers, but instead, he shakes out the ends of Ed’s shirt and gently buttons it until the off-color phrase is covered.
“There,” Stede says, patting him on the chest. “Really, don’t concern yourself. You’re doing very well, Edward.”
Ed has to cough to disguise the whimper that forces its way out of his throat. He can almost imagine hearing the words coming out of the man’s mouth as he stretches over Ed’s back, pressing him into a mattress, half-mad with desire.
Oh, god, he needs to sit down behind his desk now.
The ancient chair squeals in protest as he drops his weight into it all at once, desperately trying to hide what’s currently going on in his trousers. He’s hit with a sharp stab of guilt at doing such a poor job disguising the fact that he’s letching on this man when he’s literally about to terminate his employment. He takes a grounding breath through his nose and opens the red folder again.
“I—uh—guess you know why you’re here?”
Stede crosses his legs and tugs at the ends of the luridly be-pickled scarf still around his neck.
“Unfortunately, yes. It was only a matter of time before I was shown the door. There’s only so much one can get away with, especially if one is the black sheep of the family.”
This bloke? With the warm smile and soft hands who was kind to his co-workers? The black sheep?
He’s got to know more.
“To be honestly, mate…I have no idea why I’m the one doing this. I mean, you’re, you know, a Bonnet and I’m just…well, the fucking computer gremlin.”
“Oh, you mustn’t sell yourself short, Ed,” Stede says earnestly, “You do rather keep things running around here.”
“You’ve heard of me?” Ed asks, reeling in surprise.
Stede laughs.
“Of course I have—I’ve heard all about you! You’re the one who everyone goes to when Excel doesn’t work or laptops die in the middle of a presentation. You’ve even had to show Nigel Badminton how to open his email on seven different occasions. You’re indispensable.”
The light in his eyes dims.
“When it comes to me, however…I’m afraid I’ve always been a bit useless— a real disappointment to the family—no head for numbers, no interest in courting investors, no talent for golf and most embarrassingly, I suppose, no taste for pickles.”
He shudders, momentarily sticking out the tip of his pink tongue in distaste. Ed has an insane vision of sucking on it to hear the noise the other man would make. A surprised squeak? A sweet sigh? A moan that would reverberate in his chest?
“And then, of course, there was my divorce.”
It’s like a bucket of cold water on Ed’s growing ardor. Of course he was married—albeit not anymore. As if someone as fucking perfect and put together like the man sitting across from him wouldn’t have been locked down immediately by the first woman who was deeply tired of sifting through dick pics on Tinder.
“Sorry to hear about that, mate,” Ed says, perhaps more gruffly than he intended.
Stede waves an unconcerned hand.
“Oh, it’s for the best, really. Truly a business alliance more than anything else. You’ve heard of Alamby International Food Services?”
“Yeah, I think so,” Ed replies, fairly certain he’s seen the company name pop up on invoices.
“Mary—my ex-wife—lovely woman, truly—it’s her family. My father wanted to be able to grow our market, so we were both informed that marriage was part of our duty to the companies.”
Ed’s eye brows crease so hard it makes the middle of his forehead hurt.
“The fuck—your dad…made you get married…to create an international condiment distribution network?”
“Precisely. Bit of a raw dill for both of us.”
Ed blinks.
“Did you…did you just make a pickle joke in the middle of getting fired?”
Stede’s grin is blinding.
“I’ve got loads of them, though no one in the C Suite ever seemed very interested in hearing any.”
Ed can’t help grinning back. The way Stede’s eyes crinkle at the corners when he smiles is almost physically painful and Ed’s a bit of a masochist at heart.
“Well, that’s their loss, isn’t it, mate? Go on, hit me with one of your best.”
The other man doesn’t hesitate.
“How does a cucumber become a pickle?”
“No idea. How?”
“It goes through a jarring experience.”
Ed groans, still smiling.
“That was fucking awful. Another.”
“Why are pickles in sandwiches always so polite?”
“Not a clue.”
“Because they’re so well bread.”
Ed waves his hands in surrender, failing to push down the incredible feeling of fondness swelling under his rib cage.
“Okay, okay, white flag. I guess those weren’t a hit upstairs—no one up there hasn’t got an entire jar of pickles shoved all the way up their arse—no offense to your family or anything.”
“Oh, full offense to my family—and well deserved too. My father, Mr. Edward “Stick the Mortifying Gay Son In the Basement Just So He Stays on the Payroll and Investors Don’t Get Wary” Bonnet, especially.”
So that’s why he was in the call center.
Oh.
Oh.
The feeling’s not unlike like being hit with the broadside of a cricket bat—his disappointment at the thought of a straight, formerly married Stede Bonnet disappearing in a puff of smoke and being rapidly replaced with something hot, eager and toothy.
Fucking game on .
“So, Stede, as much as I’ve relished our conversation, we should probably get down to the matter at hand.”
The other man sits forward in his seat. Is it Ed’s imagination, or had Stede’s pupils actually dilated a bit when he’d dropped the pun?
“Oh, Ed,” he said breathlessly, “that was a good one.”
A dad humor kink was a new one on Ed, but he was determined to roll with it if it would get him a night (Or ten? Twenty? Forever?) with this golden lunatic sitting across from him.
But first—shit—first, he actually had to do his fucking job. Glancing down at the termination papers, he tries to marshal some semblance of professionalism.
“It—um—says here that, for legal reasons, I have to go over “the incident that lead to the subject’s termination.”
“Yes, I imagine our lawyers would be most put out if you didn’t. This is my father’s opportunity to be rid of me—he wouldn’t leave anything to chance.”
Ed’s heart clenches. Shit dads—that’s something he can definitely relate to. Bit of an equalizer, really, no matter where you grew up or what your bank account looked like.
“I really am sorry,” he says, meeting Stede’s eye. “For what it’s worth, you seem like a really nice bloke. You don’t deserve this.”
For a moment, he thinks the man is going to fully burst into tears. That plush lower lip wobbles dangerously and his eyes shine brighter.
“You haven’t actually heard what I’ve done yet,” Stede says, voice wavering, “But I’m starting to think these last few years here would have been a good deal more tolerable for me if I’d known that you were so much more than just the fellow who knew how to input spreadsheet formulas.”
Ed’s heart kicks into high gear and he’s using his last shred of willpower not to leap over the desk and jam his tongue down Stede’s throat until he doesn’t feel sad anymore.
“Ditto,” he replies, throwing any semblance of professionalism out the small corner window of his office that looks out over the dumpsters. “I think the last few years would have been a lot better for me if I’d known you were more than just a guy with his name on the jar.”
The air between them is charged—like nothing Ed’s ever experienced before. The pretty pink flush climbing up Stede’s neck has him nearly certain he’s not alone in this weird, magnetic attraction. If this were one of the nightclubs he occasionally frequents, the two of them would probably already be smoking afterglow cigarettes in the alley behind the fire exit by now. But instead, they’re in Ed’s office, eye-fucking each other across a desk covered in broken lightning cables, a mass of repair orders and something that might have been a sandwich a few days earlier.
Ed swallows hard, deeply wishing they were in one of those nightclubs instead.
“Uh, yeah…so…this…thing—I have to—“
“Please don’t give it a second thought, Edward,” Stede says a little roughly. “Let’s just rip off the bandage, shall we?”
Ed notices an email with the subject, Stede Bonnet termination protocol has appeared in his inbox. In addition to some legal jargon, there’s an audio file attached with instructions to ‘play in the presence of the subject and explain in detail why this customer interaction is grounds for termination.’
Ed raises an eyebrow, wildly curious.
“This…this is all over a customer service call? How bad can a customer service call go?”
“Bad enough,” Stede grimaces, “I’m sure you’ll see in a moment.”
Ed clicks the sound file and an automated voice bursts through his speakers—This call may be monitored for quality control purposes— before Stede’s more dulcet tones emerge.
SB: Thank you for calling the Bonnet’s Original Brine Pickle Company customer care line. My name is Stede. How can I be of assistance?
“It started alright, then,” Ed notes, pausing the playback.
Stede nods morosely.
“Yes, but I’m afraid it went rapidly downhill from there.”
Caller: Hello, Steve—my name is Vivianne Hatfield and I’ve been a loyal customer for over twenty years.
The voice on the other end of the line is astringent—like what Ed imagines a lemon-scented floor cleaner would sound like if it could speak.
SB: Erm, it’s Stede , madam—We very much value your brand loyalty and thank you for choosing Bonnet’s Original Brine Pickles for your—
Caller: Stuart, I have been a loyal customer, but my loyalty is very much in question right now due to my dreadful experience with my latest purchase!
SB: Once again, madam, my name is Stede , but I will certainly try to find some remedy to your unpleasant experience with Bonnet’s Original Bri—
Caller: Now listen here, you stop interrupting me, Stark! The thing I’m calling about today is that the labels on your different flavors are far too similar. I was in my local Waitrose the other day and mistakenly picked up your so-called “Delhi” flavor dills instead of your original brand and it was utterly humiliating when I ended up serving that foreign muck along with finger sandwiches at my knitting circle!
The amused smile falls from Ed’s face.
“Oh. It was one of those kind of calls, is it?”
Stede’s face darkens too.
“It was precisely one of those kind of calls. Honestly, I’m really rather glad I took it rather than Dinesh.”
SB: Madam, there are one point eight million people of Indian descent in England and Wales. In 2019, Chicken Tikka Masala was named Britain’s national dish. You can’t throw a stone in even the smallest village without hitting a curry house. Despite what seems to be some unpleasant, personal sentiments on your part, there is nothing foreign about Indian seasonings.
Caller: How dare you, Steele?? Are you implying that I’m racist?
SB: Implying? Good heavens no, madam. There must be some other perfectly reasonable explanation as to why you’ve called the customer hotline of a pickle company to complain about ‘foreign muck’.
Stede seems to curl into himself.
“This is when the wheels really came off the wagon, I’m afraid.”
Caller: I’m afraid I’m going to need to speak to your manager, Steffen!
SB: My manager was fired in a company reshuffle three months ago, so unless you’d like to contact him at his new position as lead buyer at a shop in Soho called ‘Spank Me Twice’ that caters to a cross-section of the BDSM community, I’m afraid you’re out of luck!
Caller: I—I have never been spoken to so rudely in my life!
SB: Well, if it’s any consolation, I’m certain it won’t be the last time.
Caller: Why, you insolent—!
SB: My dear lady, in case you haven’t noticed, global warming is killing the planet. The seas are rising, fascism is fashionable again and worldwide infrastructures are crumbling at an alarming rate. And yet, somehow, you find the time to make a bigoted complaint to a multinational food corporation that clearly couldn’t care less that your pickles tasted of curry! I’ve never in my life touched a leather flogger or a paddle, but people like you make me wish I’d followed my manager to Soho!
Caller: I DEMAND to know your surname, Stone! I WILL be complaining of my unacceptable treatment on this call!
SB: Gladly, madam—you’ll find it on the outside of the jar to which you took such exception! And if you need it spelled out for you, it’s e-a-t-m-y-e-n-t-i-r-e-a-r-s-e. Good day to you!
The playback ends.
Ed is flat out howling. Tears in his eyes, crossing his legs for fear of pissing his pants howling.
“Oh, Ed, it’s not funny!” wails Stede, though Ed doesn’t miss the glint of mischief in his eyes.
“Oh my god, mate, it is the fucking dictionary definition of funny!” he cackles. “Christ, Bonnet, that might have been the most perfect, bitchiest thing I’ve ever heard in my life!”
Stede’s stricken expression softens.
“It was rather satisfying,” he admits.
“Mate,” Ed chuckles, wiping his face on his sleeve, “If you had to go down for something, you couldn’t have asked for anything better than handing a racist their arse on company time. Give you a fucking medal if I could.”
A shy smile spreads across Stede’s face as his eyes flick up to Ed’s in a silent plea. Ed fervently hopes he hasn’t misread the connection between them, because he’s reached the end of his tether and is going to have to kiss him about it.
He vaults up out of his chair and is round the desk in a few steps before falling to his knees between Stede’s legs, sliding shaking palms round his jaw.
“This is…” Ed stammers, “This is—?”
“God,” Stede whispers, looking completely wrecked already, “I thought you’d never ask!”
It is not a gentle coming together—it’s a devastating crash of lips, tongues and teeth. The noise Stede makes when Ed claims his mouth is better than just about anything he’s ever heard in his life—a high moan, desperate and hungry that shoots straight to Ed’s cock.
One of his booted feet shoots out behind him to kick the door of the office closed so he doesn’t have to sacrifice any point of contact with Stede, whose hands have made their way up into Ed’s hair, gently tugging at the black scrunchie keeping his silver curls contained.
“May I?” he gasps, his eyes dark, just inches away from Ed’s own.
“Knock yourself out.”
He feels the mane of his hair spill over his shoulders as it cascades from its elastic prison and Stede’s eager fingers are already buried in it, gripping gently in time with the sweep of his tongue against Ed’s, but it’s not rough or demanding. Ed’s been with people before who’ve taken the length of his tresses as permission to immediately pull or yank—and don’t get him wrong, sometimes he’s super into that, but this feels…different. The tender clench of Stede’s fists in his curls makes him feel strangely cherished.
They break apart for a moment, chests heaving.
“Is this how it usually goes when you have to fire someone?” Stede asked in a teasing tone. “Your way of softening the blow?”
Ed groans, leaning his forehead against Stede’s.
“Those are the words you’re going with right now?”
“Just testing the brine, as it were.”
“The brine,” Ed grits out, gripping Stede’s thighs hard enough to leave bruises, “Is fine.”
A positively wicked smile splits Stede’s face, followed by just a hint of confusion.
“I know we’ve got this whole pickle metaphor thing going, but we are talking about you putting my cock in your mouth, yes?”
“We absolutely fucking are,” growls Ed as his hands slide higher, brushing his thumbs up the hard outline of the aforementioned cock.
Stede’s head tips back, his eyes fluttering and Ed takes the opportunity to press a feverish line of kisses up the pale, freckled expanse of his throat, sucking hard at the soft pulse point under his ear. Stede gives soft cry, hardly noticing Ed working open the buttons of his dove grey, wool trousers until the heat of his palm over his boxers nearly makes him arch out of the ugly, cracked leather chair.
“Ah! God, Ed, please. More.”
Ed’s voice is just a rumble in his throat as he sinks back onto his heels and rubs a cheek against Stede’s hot, straining length.
“You like it when I touch you?”
Stede looks down at him, shining, bitten lips parted.
“Christ, how could I not?”
Ed hooks his thumbs over the satiny waistband of Stede’s boxers and pulls them down just enough to get at his cock, which springs free looking just as delicious as the rest of him—pink and already slick. The man hisses at the cooler air of room, but Ed’s warm breath ghosts over him.
“Let’s give you something to really get fired over, yeah?”
Stede doesn’t even have time to formulate a reply before he’s enveloped in the wet heat of Ed’s mouth. Ed groans at the heavy weight of the cock on his tongue, knowing the other man will be able to feel it in his bones.
“Jesus!” gasps Stede, his hand flying once more into Ed’s hair as he works him. “Oh, Ed, that’s—oh, god, it feels—“
With a decadent slide of his lips up Stede’s length, Ed pops off and grins, wrapping his fist round the slick shaft.
“Got any more pickle jokes?”
Stede’s breath stutters.
“W—what?”
“Pickle jokes,” Ed purrs, giving him a firm stroke. “You said you had loads of them.”
He nearly giggles at the look of disbelief the crosses Stede’s blissed-out face.
“Y-you want to hear them now?”
The tip of Ed’s tongue swirls round the crown of Stede’s cock, his eyes not leaving the blonde man’s face as he bites his bottom lip, trying to stifle a moan of pleasure.
“Sure,” Ed grins. “Seems like if you’re going to stick it to your dickhead dad, you might as well take it as far as you can go. And speaking of taking things as far as they can go…”
He has the foresight to quickly clap a hand over the other man’s mouth as he swallows him down as far as he can, bracing himself for the inevitable buck of Stede’s hips, driving him deeper still.
Stede keens under his fingers, his chest heaving as Ed shows him some mercy, pulling off to lavish his shaft with long, slow swipes of his tongue.
“Go on then.”
The man above him gives an amused, flustered huff.
“A-alright…um…what do you call a lullaby sung t-to a pickle?”
Ed hums questioningly as he mouthes along the soft skin beneath his lips.
“A c-cucumber slumber number.”
He doesn’t think he’s ever laughed with anyone's dick in his mouth before, but nothing about this is like anything he’s ever done before.
“I like that one,” he mutters.
Stede’s already breathing hard, the flush from his neck covering his cheeks and scalp as he looks down in what Ed could only call tenderness.
“Christ, Ed, you’re so lovely. I like you so much,” he babbles.
Ed’s not expecting such a gentle sentiment while giving one of the most ill-advised blow jobs of his entire life. He looks up in surprise, frozen with Stede’s cock halfway in his mouth.
Stede smiles at him, eyes twinkling and framed by the ridiculous scarf, which Ed has to admit, rather suits him, despite the color. The hand on the back of his head presses gently, urging him downward.
“Why couldn’t the pickle leave the factory?”
Ed glances up, giving a pointed suck.
“Ah! Because the d-door was ajar.”
Sweat's beginning to glisten on the man’s forehead and the muscles of his thighs are strung tight with the effort of not bucking wildly into Ed’s mouth. Ed would like to draw it out a bit, but his wild hope is that there’ll be a next time. And hopefully many times after that. He begins to bob his head, taking more of Stede with every stroke. The other man can barely string words together.
“Wh—oh god!—what’s the difference b-between a pickle and a therapist?”
Ed’s head bobs faster as hollows his cheeks and draws a long, loud moan out of the man above him, but manages to meet his eyes and raise his brows to communicate his desire to know the answer.
“If you d—don’t know, you—ah! Yes, like that!—you should probably—Ed, oh Ed, I’m going to—“
Ed greedily takes him down to the root, swallowing around him as he feels the first pulse of Stede’s release hit the back of his throat.
“—you should probably stop talking to that pickle!” he squeaks, before a full bodied cry rips from his chest and his fingers close into a stinging grip against Ed’s scalp as he pulses on his tongue—Ed swallowing him down to the last drop.
Holy shit, he’s gorgeous, Ed thinks, looking at the taut neck thrown back and the eyes closed in the exquisite agony of climax. Christ, he could hardly wait to see the look on the delectable madman’s face again— preferably in his bed, or even on the living room sofa at a pinch.
As he comes slowly back to himself, Stede’s fingers grasp the collar of Ed’s shirt, pulling him up to lick into his mouth, chasing his own taste off his tongue with an indulgent groan.
“You beautiful, wicked man,” Stede whispers against his lips. “I hope you don’t mind my saying that you’ve made the experience of being let go an absolute pleasure.”
“I hope there’s another chance to let you go in the near future,” Ed replies hotly, scraping his teeth along the other man’s jaw.
“After lunch, possibly? I only live two Tube stops away,” Stede purrs in return.
An idea—one so ridiculous and impulsive that it nearly knocks him over—suddenly bursts into vivid existence in his imagination. We’ve only got this one life, right?
“Hey,” he says, planting another kiss on Stede’s cheek, “Do you wanna do something weird?”
Later that afternoon, someone from the accounting department encounters a glitch that keeps resetting all the columns of their spreadsheet to zero. They call down to IT, but no one picks up. Around three, Nigel Badminton’s secretary goes down to the IT office, as her calls too have gone unanswered—her boss has acquired a computer virus that he needs getting rid of. She runs into the peculiar building maintenance man in the hallway outside.
“Do you know if Mr. Teach has stepped out for lunch?”
“Aye, Mr. Teach has most definitely stepped out,” he intones, slowly dragging the mop across the floor.
“Do you know when he might be back?”
The man puts his ear to the handle of his mop before giving a slow smile and a shrug.
It’s not until the next morning when the technicians in charge of the latest label print run have to break it to HR that they’re going to need to start the search for a new IT professional.
