Chapter Text
It had been at least a month since they had last seen the so-called “Gentleman Pirate.” Izzy had been glad for it, glad that Blackbeard had returned and there was no more of this soft, emotional nonsense. He had been concerned initially, hearing weeping from the captain’s quarters, finding Edward with kohl-stained streaks down his cheek that he would wipe away angrily before sobering and telling Izzy to fuck off and do his job. Edward hadn’t been quite himself, but at least he had tightened up again, started giving orders rather than politely asking for the crew to do their fucking jobs. And then Bonnet had shown up again, all blonde scruff and sun-goldened skin. Even Izzy had to admit he cut a dapper figure like this, less foppish, but still, Izzy’s stomach had turned at the sight of him and his ragtag crew mates.
Blackbeard and Bonnet had fought and then they had fought and that turned into something Izzy could never unhear through the ship’s walls, loud moans and coos and Christ, even now the thought disgusted him, the idea of someone like Stede Bonnet with someone like Blackbeard.
After a month or so of constant friction between him and Bonnet, Izzy had found himself faced with termination as the now co-captained ship made for Nassau.
“There’s something we need to talk to you about, Izzy,” Bonnet had told him, approaching timidly where Izzy had been staring out over the water at the bow of the ship.
“Talk then,” he had answered, only half paying attention.
“’t’s important,” Edward had mumbled, and that made him turn, noticing their grim faces. Bonnet explained, Edward standing behind him and studying the ropes on the foremast instead of meeting Izzy’s eye. His stomach sank as Bonnet gave a half-hearted explanation.
“Sorry about all this, Izzy. It’s just that you’re making the crew a bit anxious,” Bonnet had told him in a conspiratorial tone, a pitying expression on his face. “It’s regrettable, but you’re just not what we’re looking for in a...first mate. Right, Ed?”
“Yeah, sure, mate. Whatever.” Izzy had tried to meet Edward’s gaze, but he avoided it. Bonnet clapped him on the shoulder and he pulled away with a low snarl. Izzy didn’t know what this was about, but he had a strong feeling it had nothing to do with the crew. The crew had no problem mutinying against him when he had briefly been captain. Now they were entirely comfortable giving him shit, teasing him. He wasn’t making the crew anxious, he knew, meeting Stede’s eyes. This had to do with the three of them. This had to do with the way Izzy showed absolute disdain for Stede’s presence, the way he pined for Edward. He thought he hid it well, but that was foolish.
Any man with eyes could see he was in love with Edward and that he hated Stede for swooping in and stealing him.
“Edward...please,” Izzy had said softly, a last bid for mercy from his captain, but it was Bonnet who had responded.
“It’s not personal, Israel.”
“Yes, it fucking is,” he had snapped. Izzy’s mind had raced at the news that he was being kicked out of the crew. He wondered if he was about to be marooned, or even tied to a cannonball and tossed overboard. Instead a dingy was prepared for him, and a bundle of supplies. A very Stede Bonnet send off, all in all.
“Off you go, then. Good luck,” Bonnet had said cheerily as Izzy stepped into the dingy. The taller man had thrust the bundle toward him and he had yanked it out of his grip, staring over at Edward, who half-turned away from him. Fang and Wee John lowered the dingy down as Bonnet gave a tight smile. Edward just said,
“Bye, mate. See you around,” though Izzy doubted he would. His world turned upside down, Izzy had watched as The Revenge pulled out of the bay, half a dozen absurd flags fluttering along the mainmast. Upon opening the bundle, he found his personal satchel, a jar of marmalade, a small sack of coins and a map of the Caribbean seaway.
Izzy knew that the separation had pained Edward, could see it in the tenseness of his lightly bearded jaw, could read it in the softening of the glint in those brown eyes as the dingy lowered and removed him from Izzy’s sight. But in the end, whatever he might have felt for Izzy, it was not outweighed by his adoration, his very obvious love, Izzy couldn’t deny it anymore, for Bonnet.
That had been weeks ago, and he had never stood a chance, Izzy realized, swirling his drink around in his hand, staring at the dull brown liquid that granted some temporary relief from the sharp pain that plagued his chest when he thought about Ed and Bonnet and his unceremonious send off. The other patrons of this filthy dive bar ignored him where he sat alone, wallowing in his feelings.
Bonnet was everything he was not. He was not competent, he was not hardened, he was not stoic. He had not had years among other criminals to stamp out any shred of sensitivity or weakness. He did not understand the importance of being mean, purely and simply, for the sake of protection.
Izzy was quite certain that Bonnet had never, for instance, broken a bottle over another man’s head. He eyed the large man two tables over with a sneer. The man had been singing loudly for half the night and flirting with any and everyone who walked by him, man or woman. He was tall, easily six feet and with his long, dark hair and tangled salt-and-pepper beard, the man’s appearance was reminiscent of Blackbeard. Nothing else about him was though – he was loud, boisterous, and lacked the catlike fluidity of movement that Izzy had long admired in Blackbeard. The man’s friends were drinking too, largely ignoring his behavior and instead watching the other patrons. One of their gazes lingered on Izzy for a moment before looking away.
Izzy knocked back the rough grog that was the only drinkable beverage on offer at this piece of shit dive in Nassau, hissing in a hard breath through his teeth and wiping his mouth with a gloved hand to smear away the sting against his salt-chapped lips. The large, loud man at the table saw him staring, looked him up and down.
“Problem, little man?” he said in a gruff tone. Izzy’s resting expression looked like he had swallowed a bitter lime, all vitriol and snark. It had made him valuable as Blackbeard’s right hand man, but it was downright dangerous when he was on his own, pissing off all the wrong people. Ordinarily if some stranger or other took offense to Izzy’s hawk-like stare, Blackbeard would step in and threaten to skin them, or slit their throat, or burn them alive.
They didn’t have to know that he would never follow through with the threat, that Izzy was the weapon here, Blackbeard was just the sheath and goddammit that thought brought a streak of disgust as he remembered the sound of Blackbeard being buggered by Bonnet. The effect of his thoughts and his mood and the memory and the terrible drinks, all told, soured Izzy’s expression further and gave the big stranger the impression that Izzy was raring for a fight he could not possibly win barehanded.
But a fight was not what he was after.
The abrupt stuttering squeal of the man’s chair jolting backwards cut the relative quiet of the bar and all the patrons quieted, leaning over their drinks with anticipatory looks between the man and Izzy. Izzy stayed seated, looking mildly up at the much larger man, made his decision, then glanced at the bartender, who had busied themselves with wiping mugs.
Izzy kicked out one of the chairs at his table, too drunk and sad to think what he was about to do all the way through.
“Buy you a drink?” he said simply in his hoarse tone, and though it was a question, he worded it as a statement and raised a finger to the bartender, who nodded. The bigger man relaxed slightly, glancing around with a bemused expression as the other patrons relaxed.
“Knows how to butter a fella up,” the man said over his shoulder to his friends. He grabbed the proffered drink from the bar, made his way over to the table and sat at the chair that Izzy kicked out with a foot. “What’s yer name?” Izzy let his gaze slid upwards slowly from his drink to the darkly tanned brown skin of the man’s face. A strong jaw under his beard. Keen brown eyes, bit of a New Spanish accent, a golden ring threaded through his earlobe. Handsome enough at a glance. Izzy gave a facial shrug.
“Didn’t figure we’d need names.” The man sucked in a breath through an intrigued smirk.
“Right to the point then, amigo,” he chuckled, taking a drink.
“Thought you might be the type,” Izzy said, studying him. Men who want other men were easy for him to read, to notice. This one was overcompensating, but he reminded Izzy enough of Edward for him to tolerate his presence.
“Have a room somewhere? A ship?”
“No ship. Room upstairs.” Izzy was studying the door, the few other patrons, the tabletop, anything but the man sitting across the table from him. “I’m not looking for someone to warm the bed. Just fucking.” He met the man’s eyes. “Rough. No kissing.”
The other man leaned forward, eyes intense, his expression a combination of predatory and excited.
“Who’ll be doing the buggering, then?” Izzy’s jaw ticked, one side of his mouth raising in a half-snarl at his own weakness, knowing exactly who and what he would be imagining.
“You.” He glanced at the other man, his stare hard through the glaze of alcohol. The man grinned.
“You won’t be able to walk come the morning, my friend,” he assured Izzy, leaning back in his chair and cupping the heavy bulge between his legs in a motion he seemed to think was appealing but just made it seem like he had an itch. Izzy didn’t respond to the claim, frankly couldn’t give a shit what this man was packing because this man wasn’t Edw-Blackbeard. He wasn’t Blackbeard.
“Finish your drink, I don’t have all day.” The man’s face hardened and he picked up his drink and chugged it, burping and wiping his mouth on the back of his arm.
“Let’s go, then.”
The man followed Izzy up to the sparse room he had rented. There was no need for secrecy or care, no one here gave two shits about what two men got up to in the dark.
Izzy had not frequently indulged himself this act, especially once he worked his way up to first mate in Blackbeard’s crew and, truth be told, once he realized he had feelings for the man, he had no desire to act on it with anyone else. Edward had always toed the line of flirtation with Izzy, acting overtly friendly when he was drunk, allowing Izzy to tease and argue when they discussed plans for the ship, patting Izzy on the shoulder when he had done a good job tracking down a ship or planning a raid, but Edward had never actually stepped across that line to show open affection toward Izzy, or kiss him, or, better yet, pin him down to a desk and fuck the shit out of him. And Izzy had known better than to cross that line himself.
Too bad Bonnet hadn’t, he thought bitterly, but then he didn’t have a chance to think because a huge hand was wrapped around his throat and he was slammed roughly into the wood wall of the room hard enough to make his vision spin.
“What the fuck?” Izzy wheezed out, his hands scrabbling at the man’s arms ineffectually.
“Said you wanted it rough, didn’t you? So let’s go.” Izzy was flung onto the bed on his back, breathless, his heart pounding, his hair falling out of its usual slicked back style and down into his eyes. He brushed it away, staring wide-eyed upwards, wondering if he had gotten himself in too deep.
Before he had any chance to reconsider this arrangement, the man was on him again, covering his body with his own and jutting his erection into Izzy’s inner thigh. The man’s fingers ripped Izzy’s pants down hard enough to burn the soft, pale skin beneath it and he winced, but the pain felt good.
“Come here,” the other man growled, dragging Izzy by the hair to the edge of the bed and Christ, this wasn’t quite what he’d had in mind, but the mistreatment was sending sparks of arousal straight to his cock, which stood at attention, throbbing. The man shed his trousers and guided his own cock toward Izzy’s face, rubbing it along his chin, against his beard. Izzy gave another sneer up at him, meeting his brown eyes.
“Think I’ll just fucking suck you off just like that, then?” he snapped in his reedy voice. A hand clamped around his throat again and he moaned, toes curling in his boots, legs thrashing against the entrapping band of his trousers tangled around his ankles.
“I’ll fuck your throat, or slit it, your choice,” hissed the man and Izzy growled. This was exactly what he had wanted from Blackbeard. Force. Power. Make me, had always been Izzy’s mantra, because he knew Blackbeard could. He thrashed against the grip on his throat, felt it squeeze tighter in return, his vision going blurry and dark as he tried to wheeze in a breath. The pressure held and he panicked, jerking in the bed, struggling to escape the hand around his neck, and the other which had snatched up his wrists, holding them hard against the man’s chest. “Open.” A command. Izzy was good at those, at obeying.
His mouth gaped open and he sucked in a desperate breath as the pressure released, but a cock was rammed abruptly past his lips and he gurgled around it, looking up at the man with hatred in his gaze. He was not Blackbeard. Izzy swallowed around the length of the cock, which was clean, thank Christ and didn’t taste like anything other than sweat and salt. The man began a slow pump into his mouth, down his throat, still holding his wrists in place.
“Just like that, fuck, open that pretty mouth wider, you little fuck.” Fury flooded him at that insult and he clamped down on tender flesh with his teeth, not hard enough to injure, but a threat nonetheless and a big hand grabbed his face, squeezed hard enough that Izzy felt his jaw pop, felt his teeth aching against the grip and he relaxed his bite, watched with pleasure as the big man above him smirked in response. “Use your fucking teeth again and I’ll knock them out. Now suck.” Izzy obliged, running his tongue up and down the hard line of the underside of the man’s cock, swallowing salty, bitter precum as it spurted into his mouth. The man began fucking his mouth again, a hand still on his jaw, but its grip loose, a reminder of consequences. Izzy moaned around the mouthful and let his imagination wander, let his eyes slip shut as he imagined that this was Blackbeard, imagined the size of him, the taste, imagined being forced to give him pleasure, though nothing could have stopped him if he had ever been asked.
Izzy gagged as the cock forced its way intrusively further down his throat, felt the mattress beneath his back sag as the man joined him on the bed, thighs on either side of his head, hips pumping his cock hard into his mouth, barely giving him a chance to breathe. He felt hands at his feet, felt his boots tugged off. He felt a finger curiously flit across where his toe was missing before his pants were stripped the rest of the way off as well. Izzy’s hips arched upwards as his own cock was enveloped by wet heat and hard suction and he whimpered as it became too much, the rough tongue against the head of his cock over-stimulating, but it didn’t stop and he had to focus on not cumming, forced himself instead to give the same treatment to the cock he was sucking until the man removed his mouth and flipped him over, dragging his hips upward.
“Don’t fucking bugger me dry or I’ll -” Izzy’s threat was cut off, replaced by a huff and moan as a soft, wet tongue lapped across his opening, fingers forcing his cheeks apart and he felt his cock jolt a string of precum onto the mattress beneath him, felt his breath shake. In his mind, studiously keeping his gaze from the man who was making him whimper and moan, he imagined Edward’s tongue. His hole was engulfed by a hot mouth, the rough tongue lapping against it, then forcing its way partly in and the noise that was drawn from Izzy’s throat was humiliating, but the man did know what he was doing, he’d give him that. Did Blackbeard? Izzy knew Edward had dalliances before Bonnet, had heard mild moans and curses whenever the crew went out drinking and found companionship in whatever form.
Would Blackbeard ever deign to do this to his partner? Would his tongue lap against his partner’s most intimate parts, lapping and teasing until -
With a crack, the man’s wide-open palm slapped Izzy’s ass and he crumpled, the pain a shock, but still arousing.
“Again,” he managed, sucking in a hard breath, his fingers twisting into the bedsheets. The man grabbed his hair, tangling his fingers in it and yanking Izzy’s head roughly backwards.
“I’m the one givin’ orders here, mate,” he hissed, and in that moment, he was so like Edward, so like Blackbeard that Izzy’s eyes stung, unfocused and he nodded.
“Yes, Captain,” he breathed, “yes, sir.”
“I like that. ‘Captain.’ Say it again.”
“Captain,” Izzy answered, and was met with a hard slap against his ass that made his cock leap with arousal, “yes, sir,” he moaned, met with another slap, again and again until his ass was burning, tingling with too much sensation.
“You’re a willing little cunt, aren’t you?” the man breathed.
“Just fucking fuck me and shut the fuck up,” Izzy snapped. Blackbeard would never have talked to him like that, would never have belittled him. The hand was around his throat again, his body yanked upwards, head slammed against the wall and then the man’s other hand backhanded him hard across the face. Izzy tasted blood, knew one of his teeth had split his lip. He spat red-stained saliva into the man’s face, his eyes burning. That earned him a solid punch to the nose, leaving him dazed, the room spinning, but it felt good, that pain somewhere other than his chest.
“Don’t do that again.” The growled order brought a smile to Izzy’s face, despite the pain.
“Yes, Captain.” The man looked taken aback, blinked, then smirked.
“You’ve got problems, my friend. At least they’re the fun kind,” and he flipped Izzy again, trying to manhandle him onto all fours. Izzy fought back, because of course he did, he hadn’t been given an order. They fumbled with one another, Izzy nearly getting the upper hand as he jabbed a fist into the man’s side, but he was smaller, lighter, despite his muscular form and found himself pinned, spluttering into the sheets as his head was pushed into them, a cock pressing at his hole insistently and he panicked, terrified of the pain of being fucked dry and raw.
There was the sound of spit and wet, slick sounds before he felt a gob of spit drip into him, let himself moan as the large head was pressed in, bit down hard on the pillow as, with no further preparation, no gentleness, no slowness, the man sheathed himself entirely inside of Izzy. He howled into the pillow, his eyes watering, his limbs thrashing, but he was held in place, whimpering quietly as his body adjusted to the stretch. More spitting and the sting where he had been split calmed. Izzy gasped in a breath.
“Oil, table,” he managed to bark out, hissing as his face was more insistently pressed into the sheets. He was utterly powerless, his arms folded up awkwardly beneath his chest, his legs trembling with the effort of holding part of the man’s weight up his knees spread and sliding wider apart as the sheets shifted beneath him, making the inner tendons of his pelvis burn as he was stretched to accommodate a man easily as large as Blackbeard, but even wider, more heavily built. Izzy prayed to a god he didn’t really believe in that the man would grab the oil, and he huffed out a breath of relief as the weight on top of him shifted, he heard a cork pop and felt cool oil against his skin. It smelled of lavender and Izzy screwed his eyes shut. He had stolen it from The Revenge for lonely nights when he wanted something more than spit to ease his own urges into his hand. It reminded him uncomfortably of what he had lost and who he had lost it to.
Izzy felt the weight shift again and the man pulled partially out and then slammed back home, letting Izzy raise his head to cry out in mingled pain and pleasure. What if this were Blackbeard? He wondered again. How would he have his way with him?
“Harder,” he begged, and this time his order was obeyed, the cock slamming into him again and again, forcing his hips down and into the bed. His cock was only partially erect now, but it hardly mattered, all that mattered was the dull pain as he was filled, the hot friction, the feeling of a hard man above him, grasping at his shoulders, his waist, digging fingernails into his flesh as he made low growling noises.
“Fuck, you’re tight, mate, Christ, oh fuck, yes, oh, take it,” he kept up a litany, hips slapping against him and now a hand reached around his waist, grabbing his cock in a tight fist until he gasped. “Call me ‘Captain’ again.”
“Captain,” Izzy moaned, “Captain, oh shit,” he cried as the hand adjusted, grabbing him by the balls and squeezing so hard he collapsed under the man’s weight, feeling himself rutted into the mattress as the painful grip subsided and then grabbed again, alternating relief and agony. The man pulled out suddenly, replacing his cock with his fingers, stroking inside of Izzy and pressing against a point that made him see stars. “Captain, captain, captain,” he was whispering, moaning, a quiet prayer, a gentle keening for someone else to be against him, inside of him. A tongue again lapped at his opening and he barked a sharp grunt as teeth sank into his ass hard enough to leave a mark. “Yes, yes, Blackbeard, I’m yours, fuck me, I’m yours,” Izzy blurted, his mind half gone with lust, fully inside his fantasy.
The man stopped.
“Blackbeard?” There was a bark of laughter and the fantasy was shattered. Izzy’s eyes flashed open. “You want to get fucked by Blackbeard?” Izzy swallowed hard.
“Shut the fuck up and get the job done.”
“Blackbeard and I share a name, you know? I’m Edward too.” Izzy, who had been avoiding his gaze, met his eyes.
“It’s a common enough name. But you aren’t him.” Edward, as apparently the man was named, smirked.
“No, no I’m not. But I could go for more of that ‘Captain’ shit. Come here,” he ordered, and Izzy was well and truly pissed now. The whole thing was ruined, the fantasy interrupted, and fuck, of course he’d picked a man named Edward to bugger him.
“Fucking fuck off, you fucking prick.” He turned away dismissively, done.
“Now look here, I’m not done with you yet, little man,” Edward snarled. Izzy’s eyes met his levelly.
“You want me to let you finish? Then fucking make me!” And yes, Christ God, yes, this was what he wanted, Edward leaping toward him, pinning him down again, this time with a knife to his throat that he had pulled from somewhere among his abandoned clothing, the point pricking Izzy’s neck next to his tattoo, a trickle of blood running down to his collarbone.
“You want me to act like fucking Blackbeard, then I’ll act like him, amigo.”
“Prove it,” Izzy choked out with barred teeth, both loving and hating this, his heart racing in his chest, because best case scenario, this man would slit his throat and he could stop thinking about Edward, stop thinking about that softness he had seen in him, stop thinking about the way he opened up and gave himself to Bonnet, stop thinking about how everything had gone wrong and what he could have done differently, and maybe if he was different person entirely, Edward would have loved him…
Izzy realized that an angry tear had fallen unbidden from his eye, sliding across the X on his cheek and soaking into the bedsheets. He smeared it away angrily and the Edward he was with ignored it, or didn’t notice. He turned him over, having his way with him, and that was fine, Izzy didn’t care anymore, didn’t care about being used, didn’t care about being alone, didn’t care at all, about anything. He lay there limply, the heavy weight of the wrong Edward forcing him down, fucking him hard and fast, moaning and grunting. A hand wrapped around his neck again.
“Beg me not to end you,” Edward purred, that knife coming from somewhere again, point first into his cheek and why did that comfort him?
“Captain,” was all he breathed, “sir, Edward...please.”
“Oh fuck, yes, call me Blackbeard.”
“Blackbeard,” Izzy said dully.
“Yeah, I’m Blackbeard,” the man hissed out and he again did Izzy the courtesy of a reach-around, but he was utterly uninterested, his cock now soft in Edward’s grip.
“Just do what you need to,” Izzy said, “Captain,” he added as an afterthought.
Edward finished unspectacularly inside of him and rolled away, lighting a pipe and looking over at Izzy where he lay, his cheek against the single limp pillow provided with the bed. He was staring at the wall, at nothing in particular, wondering where it all went wrong.
“Want me to finish you off?” Christ, how Izzy wished he meant that in the permanent sort of way. He shrugged.
“Doesn’t matter.”
“Hmm. So why Blackbeard?” Izzy rolled his eyes, but then looked over at Edward where he leaned against the cheap headboard, puffing at the small pipe.
“None of your fucking business.”
“Hmm. No, I think it’s plenty of my business, amigo, because I think I know you. I know that tattoo,” he touched Izzy’s neck and he jerked away, frowning. “And that one,” pointing to his cheek this time. “Thought you looked familiar. You’re Israel Hands, aren’t you?”
“Izzy,” he allowed in a gruff tone.
“Blackbeard’s right hand man,” the wrong Edward said with a look of satisfaction.
“Former,” Izzy ground out, his teeth clenching hard enough to squeak. He stood and shucked his pants back up his legs, adjusting the ties and tucking his shirt back in. He re-tightened his neck tie where it had been yanked from its usual orderly knot before bending down to pull his boots back on. “You don’t have to leave yet, I’m going,” he said, needing another drink almost desperately.
“Oh no you’re not, mate.” He heard the swing of something heavy and then felt the ear-splitting crack against the back of his head.
Izzy crumpled, gasping in a hard breath, his vision going dark. The last thing he thought of before he thought no more was Edward...the right Edward.