Chapter 1
Summary:
Izzy meets James and their story starts to intertwine.
Notes:
11/17/2022 edit: I have added things to this chapter and almost tripled the original chapter word count.
Chapter Text
Izzy Hands is breathing hard, blood dripping off his sword onto the enemy ship’s deck. With one hand on his sword, the other swipes his dark hair away from his face. One of the men screams out, “Basilica.” And he ducks and turns.
His sword comes up and blocks another pirate. “Not my fucking name,” he screeches at the man from over his shoulder.
The swords clash together, in stalemate, crossed as an X. His eyes shift looking for an opening and then from the left, the man twice his age leaves an opening. He backs up quickly and stabs into that opening, hitting its mark perfectly. The dark blood pours from the wound as he pulls his rapier out of the man. It squelches.
Around him, the enemy pirates lay dead on the deck. Puddles of blood fill the cracks between the boards and metallic is the only thing in his nose. He can’t smell the typical salty sea.
Izzy started on a ship young. No more than 13 or so as a cabin boy for a man in the Navy. He was useful. During meal times, he had one job standing just to the left of the naval captain with a salt shaker. Any other time, his skill in writing was used. He learned the basics from his mother before she died. And he knew enough to get by, and could recognize the shapes of the letters and basic sentences. Then when he was given the position at sea for the first time, his captain assigned someone to teach him more.
It was during those lessons, he learned to read the maps used and the stars above his head. Everything he used now on Grieves ship. As far as captains go, Grieves could be worse. When Izzy came on, he was promoted to taking stock and the financials. It was a step up from deckhand that he had on his previous ship so he doesn’t complain.
Though he still is expected to participate in raids. And, well, it was definitely one way to get his anger out, slashing enemies down. Izzy’s anger was actually one of the first things Izzy’s first captain saw from him.
Izzy was on his first ship still, as the cabin boy. He was told by his captain to stay in the captain’s cabin during an attack while the captain went out to fight. He happened to leave one of his swords out and the back door of the cabin also happened to be unlocked and opened as well.
And, well, if Izzy at the age of 15 or so walked onto the deck and started fighting, the naval captain would be none-the-wiser. But, Izzy didn’t fight the pirates that came aboard, no, he started fighting the naval officers on the ship.
See, they made comments about Izzy’s job on the ship. Yelled out things like him being a bed warmer and only useful for one thing. It didn’t take long for Izzy to grow a thick skin to those comments but he kept them in his head. Filed them away for later and the emotions he felt from those words were stored in his head for later. During that one pirate raid where he was technically on the enemy line, he pulled out those emotions and words and started a blood bath on his fellow naval officers.
With a primal scream, he cut and slashed all nearby ‘comrades’, their blood spraying on his face and clothes when he would hit arteries. He managed to knock down and kill 3 of them. Their bodies lay strewn at his feet when one pirate finally turned from his own battle.
“Fuck, you did this,” the pirate asked, pointing at the bodies with his sword.
Izzy looked him straight in the eye, holding his gaze, and nodded once.
“Let me talk to my captain, we could use this anger,” and the pirate turned and walked off.
Izzy remembers that day almost fondly. That was the day he first tasted freedom because what else did pirates do? They sailed around wreaking havoc to be free and why wouldn’t somebody want that? Especially after the stories of what older men do to cabin boys.
At some point, during his time on his first pirate ship, everyone started to call him Basilica. They said it was because his first name is Israel and it only made sense. It took him months after being called that to finally find out what they meant by it, having special privileges. And, he could see why he was given it along with his actual name. That one he’s known from a young age what it meant ‘Chosen by God’, but he doesn’t like God so once he found the secondary meaning of ‘Wrestles with God’ he wears it like a sleeve.
He takes the name seriously, too. Aiming to make people look God in the face and run. That’s what he did in raids, making even the biggest of men run in terror because they have never seen such a young boy filled with such anger and take out others with such little mercy.
When he finally traded out Captains to serve under Grieves, he brought out the merciless killing during his first raid. At that point, he was just a deckhand but after seeing such anger, Grieves decided to promote him to do the financials and stocks. Make him learn to reel the anger in for only raids. Before this change, Izzy would jab his little dagger out at the senior pirates on Grieves’ ship, and the only reason he was still alive instead of skewered to the mast was Captain Grieves’ order to not engage with Izzy. Izzy has so little care for his life and it appeared he was almost suicidal with the way he tried to start fights but with a little coaxing he mellowed out the tiniest bit.
On this day, though, he would mellow out even more. He stands on the enemy ship, the few dutch men still alive tied up in front of him.
“Hands, stock duty. Everyone else, check the bodies and the upper rooms,” Grieves calls out, a whip in hand.
As Izzy carefully walks around the puddles of blood, whispers fall around him. It's the usual whisperings of special treatment.
“Yea, Bas. Stock duty,” says one of the younger pirates on the ship. He’s roughly the same age as Izzy but much newer. Izzy doesn’t look back as a scream of pain emits from the boy after the sound of a whip. Izzy’s all too aware of such punishments, the scar tissue on his back tightens.
He follows the walls with his hand, the hallways under the ship are dark save for the very few lanterns that hang on the walls. He peers into each room, trying to find where the stock room even is.
There it is, Izzy thinks to himself, opening the door to see the stock. This really should be a two-person job but no one wants to work with Izzy and Izzy feels the same. One too many daggers too close to taking off fingers and too close to necks when Grieves isn’t around.
He peers around the room, a couple of port holes let light in, and in the corner, next to one of the port holes, is the desk that holds everything he needs. He shuffles over to the desk and yanks open the drawer. The stock book slides with momentum and he pulls it out to look at the stock. He reads the familiar words, taking mental note of what they have in their own stock room and what there is an excess of. He keeps one ear out for any of the crew, not scared but acutely aware they would dare to stab him in the back.
It’s then he hears a shuffle from behind him. One of the crates filled with who knows what kind of goods topples over. Izzy’s head snaps upward with the sound.
Izzy, all too aware of his breathing, slowly tables the book. The quiet thump of the final corner hitting the desk, loud in his ears. He barely moves, his hand slowly inching closer to the rapier at his side. He carefully maps out the quickest and quietest way to the fallen crate. It’s toppled on its side and Izzy can see its contents. The strewn fabric falls out of the box.
He creeps closer and unsheathes his sword. The sound almost echoes in the humid air.
The sound forces a voice to pique up. “I-I’m unar-rmed. A-a-a stowaway.”
The voice is small but still fills the room, a hint of something Izzy can’t place other than fear in his voice.
A few seconds pass as Izzy brings up what he’s supposed to do in this situation. With the plan in place, Izzy commands, “Out then, with your hands up.”
A boy with dark, not quite shoulder-length hair and olive skin, shuffles on his hands and knees from the small crawl space he’s put himself in. Once he’s finally free, he gets to his feet next to the crate of strewn fabric. He keeps his head down and his hair falls from behind his ear to in front of his face.
Izzy doesn’t know the boy but he wants to push it out of the way. Something about him makes his heart flutter at the sight. He appears to be the same age and, by god, is he beautiful. Izzy figures he could be the subject of one of those paintings that the older, more posh naval officers talked about from his first ship.
The beauty of the boy completely wipes out everything Izzy planned to deal with him. He stares at the boy, eyes tracing down his body, taking him in. He’s fumbling with his hands, probably from nerves but Izzy zeros in on his hands. They lack any sort of calluses. Deep down Izzy knows this goes one of two ways, either this boy dies or Izzy can protect him. Get him up to par with what Captain Grieves expects from his crew. It’s by some miracle that Izzy’s mouth works properly enough to ask his next question.
“What’s your name, boy?” Izzy has had a rasp in his voice ever since the scream from before. He’s honestly lucky his voice doesn’t give anything away about the shock of beauty standing in front of him. He still peers downward, hands still wringing.
“J-James Lee, sir,” he stutters as his gaze shifts from the floor to Izzy’s eyes. Those eyes will haunt him for the rest of his life.
With less than 10 words out of the boy’s, James, Izzy corrects himself, he knows he’s had a semi-good life. From what Izzy’s seen, there is no way James is a) dutch, b) from the Navy, or c) a pirate. Fear paints his face and Izzy can only guess how he managed to hide out without being caught.
James looks Izzy up and down quickly and the light shifts just right and those eyes light up with the sun coming in. The color becomes so much richer and if Izzy thought before those eyes were going to haunt him, well, now they definitely will.
Those eyes stare straight into his and his mouth opens to ask the right question. “What’s going to happen to me?"
The answer is easy to come up with, Izzy can’t bear to let him die and that feeling scares him. He’s so quickly enraptured with James and would kill Grieves before putting a sword through James as he should. So the answer peels between Izzy’s lips like it is waiting to claw out of his throat.
“You will work for Captain Grieves or be killed,'' he says with the assurance that any sane person would choose life in piracy over death.
James stands by the wall as the pirate does his job. The scratching of the quill fills the room. James looks down at himself, absolutely filthy, and can smell himself. He’s lost weight. When he rubs at his ribs, he can feel them poking through the thin skin.
“Here,” he says, throwing something at James. At the last second, he catches it. It’s bread, by the sound when he thumps it, no more than a couple of days old. If his memories are right, that’s when the ship left the dock. He would have snuck off the ship then but it was docked for only a single day. He did manage to get out of his hiding spot during that time though.
He looks up from the piece of bread and the pirate’s already back to work. “Your stomach was rumbling.”
James stands there staring at the peace offering given to him by the pirate. He’s not going to kill James and he could do it, really quickly even. James doesn’t have much strength.
He starts to pick off tiny bits of the bread, eating slowly. He remembers what his parents used to tell him.
They used to say that if he ever got to the point where food was limited to not gorge on the food given. It would only make him sick.
Thinking of his parents makes him smile sadly. He had been away at school when he got the news.
He had been walking to his class, the sea of uniforms around him. He had been talking to his friend, Theo when the head teacher had walked over to him. He knew something was wrong. His eyebrows scrunched together and a downtrodden look.
“Mr. Lee, follow me please,” Headmaster Green said.
He knew the rules, to follow without talking unless he wanted a ruler to the hand.
Once he entered the Headmaster’s office, his life changed at that moment. He took a seat in front of the desk and watched as Headmaster Lee walked around the desk, his hand trailing the edge.
He sat down in his chair, pulled off his glasses, and sighed. “Mr. Lee, I have some bad news.”
And James learned of his family’s death. A sickness ran through the town he had lived in all his life. Most people survived it but his family was a part of the unlucky few who didn’t get to the other side.
When the Headmaster told him this news, a feeling he can’t explain filled him. He wouldn’t know what it is until later on. But it won’t be the last time he will feel this. No, this feeling follows him through life, a dark cloud over his head.
The Headmaster tells him that he can stay until the end of the school year but unless he gathers money to continue, he would not be able to come back. With that, the headmaster dismissed him.
The last few months of the school year went by in a fog. People came up to him to say their condolences, those he knew and those he didn’t. He knew deep down this was probably the last time he would be able to see any of them.
On the last day, after all, his things were packed, he came up with a plan. His choice was either to go back to his hometown where he had nothing or start his life somewhere else. Either way, he had to start his life over.
He was 17 when his family died and had no money to his name. So he made his choice and took his belongings to a new town that didn’t know his name.
He managed to start to get money coming in, in that small town in England. He would go into the pub and offer the patron’s his reading and writing skills.
Everything was fine the year and a half he lived there. He lived in a little tiny one-room house but things were good. Until the sickness that took his family found the new town.
He wouldn’t say he was irrational but when the first words of sickness came through, he started panicking. So he fled. He fled the town and made an honest living for himself.
He traveled to a coastal town and snuck aboard a vessel. He had no real plan, just the fear of sickness thrumming inside him. And it leads him here, watching a boy his age do his work.
James looks on as he does his work, finally finished with his bread, and says, “I never got your name.”
The boy looks over, the quill stilling against the paper. James knows without seeing that the dark ink is spreading against the paper.
“Israel Hands.”
“Israel,” James says, trying out the name. It sounds weird in his accent. His parents were from Spain but moved to England before he was born. Until he went to school, his accent mimicked his parents. Then being surrounded by English people, it shifted. Now after 10 years of being near the English accent at school, his accent is mixed. It’s a swirl of sound, some words are clearly accented English, others clearly accented Spanish but others are still a weird mix.
“As long as you don’t call me Bas or Basilica, I don’t care,” Izzy says, staring at James.
“Izzy, then.” James doesn’t question the other names, not when he can see the dried blood on the sword at Izzy’s hip.
Izzy nods and gets back to work. James finally stares unabashedly at Izzy. Traces his body up and down with his eyes, taking him in. There is something about him James wants to know.
Izzy moves toward another crate, light filters inward and crosses his face. The colour of his eyes lights up under the sun. James could stare into them all day. Even from where he stands he can see the anger swimming in his eyes and he wants to know why it’s there.
His stomach flips. He chalks it up to him finally feeling the hunger that eats away inside of him.
Izzy turns suddenly, his ear toward the direction of the door. James strains to listen. The sound of the sea lapping the ship covers whatever Izzy hears.
“My captain’s coming down the hall. I’ll vouch for you but you need to look like you know about pirating,” Izzy says in a rushed whisper. The rasp in his voice becomes even more prominent.
I want to be surrounded by it, James thinks. He mentally shakes off that thought and physically nods at Izzy’s words.
He stays by the wall and Izzy quickly moves to stand in front of him. He still has the book logs and quill in his arms and a tower of crates sits next to him. He makes quick work of pretending to do his job when the door to stores opens.
A large man fills the doorway, with red hair and a beard. He’s at least twice their age and has this vibe that screams listen to me or pay the price. In his hand, a rolled whip sits.
“Captain,” Izzy says, standing at attention.
The captain, Grieves, James thinks, looks around the room at the different crates. His eyes travel over James and looks straight into Izzy's eyes.
“Hands, what are the prosp-,” he cuts himself off, realization falling onto his face. His eyes cut between Izzy and James, “Israel, who’s that?” He points toward James.
Izzy quickly explains the situation and mentions something about James wanting to join the crew.
James thinks, the option was join or death. Not much of a choice.
James keeps his eyes on the large man and watches as he thinks over everything.
“Hands, you vouched for him, you make sure he is up to my standards. If you can’t do that, you will be punished and you will kill him. Do you understand?” For all its worth, Izzy nods and James can see he’s fighting back a grimace.
Best not get on Grieves' bad side, James thinks. Grieves takes the book from Izzy, skimming its contents, and pushes it back into Izzy’s hand. As he leaves the room, Grieves calls from behind him, “You’ll teach anything he doesn’t know and he gets to stay in your room.”
It’s silent after Grieves leaves. The tension is thick and Izzy’s shoulders drop with a sigh. “That could have gone worse. We’ll be spending a lot of time together for the foreseeable future then. Best to get to work.”
Izzy finishes up his work quickly after that, looking down the list. He mentally tallies up how much things could go for and how much Grieves should keep. He puts the quill down on the desk, the feathers bent and ruffled from use.
“James, stay behind me,” Izzy says. He walks out of the door and follows the hallways out above deck. As soon as he’s in the daylight the comments start.
“Oy, Bas. Did you keep the bed warm down there?”
“Bas, you should let me get a good look at you.”
“I’ll pay you Basilica if you’ll meet with me in the stockroom.”
The comments come from a select few and a peer around lets him know that Captain Grieves is not on deck hearing the words from his crew. But the comments shift as soon as James steps out into the light.
“Ohh, bringing us fresh meat, Bas?”
Izzy unsheathes his sword quickly once the words leave their mouths, pointing at each of the men’s throats.
In an almost growl, “Say another word like that and you won’t have vocal cords to speak.” Izzy gives the four men who typically make the comments a murderous look and stomps forward to find Captain Grieves.
He turns toward the main cabin and from the corner of his eye looks to see if James is following. By the door to the cabin, Izzy waits until James is just behind him and raises a fist to knock, the book under his other arm.
“Come in,” a voice muffled through the door.
Izzy enters with James hot on his trail. “Here’s the logbook. We have ample supplies if we combine both stocks. When we sell the excess, we’ll be over in the green.”
“I’ll get the men to start to bring the stock over.” Grieves stands by the desk, searching through the contents. “I never did catch your name, boy.”
James shuffles next to Izzy, and from the corner of his eye sees him messing with the edge of his shirt. That is the only tell of his nerves. “James Lee, sir.”
“Lee, you’ll be taught by Hands. By the looks of it, you are sub-par now. You came from a nice home with schooling, right? That’s better than most of the men here, I expect you to work just as hard as them or you will be at the bottom of the ocean. Do you understand?” Grieves peers over the bottle of rum he’s cracked open and pours himself a drink into a glass. He drinks a sip.
“You’re dismissed. Have Hawthorne come in here.” Grieves says going back to the contents in the desk.
Izzy leads James out of the room and calls toward Hawthorne to tell him what Grieves had asked for him. After, Izzy walks across the boards that connect the two ships together. He stays silent as he shows James to his small cabin.
It has enough room for two beds and a desk on one wall. A porthole sits above the bed across the door. A small wash bucket sits next to the desk. The bed by the door is not lived in, not like the opposite bed. Grieves had put Izzy in a room by himself otherwise Izzy might have murdered some men.
“That’s your bed, there.” Izzy sits down on the desk and grabs the cloth. It sits out on the desk, dried. He unsheathes his sword and wets the cloth to start to remove the dried blood from the blade.
The cloth starts to turn brown and it takes a few swipes in a small section to properly remove the stinky substance. It fills the air with metallicity.
Izzy looks up when he hears a creak, James sits on the bed, staring at the lantern on the wall. Watches the flame dance in its glass cage.
He goes back to cleaning his sword. Mind on how to start pirating lessons and how soon.
It’s hours later and James follows Izzy to the galley. Stands in line waiting for food. It’s some stew with bits of meat and some more fresh bread. James looks at the faces around him. They look hardened by life.
He sits next to Izzy when Izzy speaks up, “We will start tomorrow. Lessons in rigging. Then tomorrow night we’ll practice sword fighting. There are some blunted swords in the stores. Rather than stab yourself on the first lesson.”
Izzy looks down at his food as he speaks. James looks at him and he’s handsome. Dark hair and eyes that have seen some things. He’s lean with a bit of muscle on his arms. And his voice, the raspy nature makes him sweat a bit.
The night goes by quickly and Izzy passes James a pair of clothes, leaving their room. James, alone for the first time since Izzy found him earlier in the day, breathes deeply. He searches the desk finding a cloth in the drawer. The wash bucket has been changed with fresh non-bloody water and he takes his clothes off to clean. The smell on his skin leaves as he wipes himself down. When he redips the cloth into the water, the water turns a murky colour. When he’s finally clean, his skin feels brand new, the sweat and grime are gone from him.
He pulls on the new clothes Izzy gave him, they fit him even when he has a couple of inches on Izzy. He thinks ahead to when they go to the port to get proper clothes of his own. He still has a bit of money on him.
Izzy gets back soon after and pulls all but his small clothes off. James can’t help but watch. The scars on Izzy’s back hit the light and shine. He wants to know the story. He doesn’t however get a good look at Izzy’s front.
“Night, Izzy,” James says, turning onto his back on his bed.
“Night,” Izzy says back. The bed creaks and James looks over, his back toward him. He lays down without a blanket covering him and James gets it. Too humid for a covering in such a small room yet James still pulls his thin blanket over his legs.
As James stares at the ceiling of the ship, it rocks gently. He breathes easily for the first time in months but in the back of his mind, something itches. He forces himself to turn away from the itch in his mind and closes his eyes.
James is standing on the deck by the big wooden thing in the middle. In front of him stands his parents, skin sagging. The wind shifts and the smell of death and illness fill his nose. He swallows hard, the bile creeping up the back of his throat. He backs up as his parents' corpses start to walk forward.
“James, come join us,” what is supposed to be his mother says. Her eyes are glazed over, eyelids are missing, and over what skin he can see pustules sit oozing open.
His father isn’t much better, maggots pop out of one of the sores. He lifts a hand out to James, the skin falling off his hand and onto the deck with a smack.
From just behind coming up the stairs from below deck is himself. His skin is a grayish colour and when he opens his mouth water pours out. This version of himself has wounds open, similar to the sores on his parents but deeper.
It’s when he sees Izzy’s corpse covered in pustules and maggots does he open his mouth to scream.
James sits up quickly, his breath stuck in his chest. He looks around and sees Izzy still asleep. The porthole above Izzy’s bed shows the tiniest bit of the sky. It’s orange and pink colouring the sky. Seeing it settles his panic thrumming in his chest.
He rubs at the thin blanket over his legs, a grounding motion something he’s done since childhood. When he closes his eyes, he still sees the imprint of the four of them, corpses. The smell of death and sickness. The feeling of bile in his throat and spit heavy in his mouth like a rock.
Next to him, Izzy stirs. The light from the sunrise coming in and paints his face in it. He’s bleary from sleep and his hair is a mess. James thinks, He’s kind of cute like this.
He shakes the thought away. Izzy is sitting up and looks at James. Really looks at him. James, feeling conscious, pulls his hair back behind his ears.
“Morning,” Izzy says, sliding his legs off the bed and resting his feet on the floor. There is not enough light to really make him out and he stands rather quickly.
“Morning, Izzy,” James replies back, standing as well.
They don’t speak, and the atmosphere is comfortable as they get dressed for the day. The clothes are soft cotton, a cream-coloured shirt with laces on the front and darker trousers.
“They should be serving breakfast by now.”
And James follows him close, only a step and a half away. One of the men from yesterday calls something out and Izzy pulls a dagger from somewhere and points it at his heart. “Don’t forget what I said yesterday, Smith.” He spits out the name like it's poison and walks away in the direction of the galley.
Food similar to the day before is served, bread on the priority to be eaten before it molds. The bit of bread he eats sits like a stone in his stomach, something about his nightmare and the feeling he couldn’t shake. It was like it was watching him from above. He shakes the thought away mentally and finishes his food.
Once they leave the galley, Izzy takes him on a short tour of the underdecks of the ship and grabs blunted swords from the stores. It’s then he notices that Izzy is missing his sword.
“Where’s your sword?” From behind, James watches Izzy slow down and turn towards him slowly.
“It would get in the way of your lessons,” Izzy tells him. And James should have gotten that even without knowing much about sword fighting.
He’s tried fencing in the past but didn’t last longer than a month. The footwork was absolutely confusing.
They get to the deck and Izzy starts pointing out bits on the ship and tells him the names.
James points to the middle bit, this one slightly different from his dream, and asks, “What’s that?”
The few pirates on deck snicker and James looks to the floor, his hands finding the edge of his shirt to keep them busy.
Izzy responds by saying it's the capstan and moves on to explain the ropes above their heads. He doesn’t explain what it does and that is really the only nitpick James has about the lesson so far.
He tries to make a mental workings of the rope with the names attached but it comes in so fast that James stares blankly ahead.
“Let’s try some sword fighting instead. See where you are and what you can improve on?” Izzy says, staring at James' face, studying him, and almost reading his mind.
Izzy passes the blunted rapier to James, the blade not really wobbling under the movement. The blade was long and heavy in his hand. James turns looking at it and the way the sun that’s slowly moved across the sky reflects off the silver.
“Get into position,” Izzy says, his own blunted rapier in his right hand.
James' eyes widen when Izzy raises his sword up and falls into what he thinks is the proper position. He shifts his feet, right leg in front and left leg behind. He raises his sword in a similar position to Izzy’s.
Izzy slashes his sword down and James’ rapier clatters down onto the deck. A few pirates around snicker at it.
“Look at me. Stance is fine, could be better. Fix your grip,” Izzy says, passing the fallen sword back over.
James gets back into his stance, bends his knees more, and grips the rapier. He moves his fingers around the hilt, mainly between his thumb and first finger.
Once the sword is raised, Izzy slashes at it again and it stays in James' hand. The pressure of the two swords coming together reverberates up his arm.
“Loosen your grip and the tension in your body. You’ll overtire and we are just getting started,” Izzy tells him. It’s really the first bit of information Izzy’s given with an explanation of why he should do the thing he says.
Each time James gets into stance, Izzy slashes at the sword and tells him to fix something about it. They are at for a while, the sun now sitting just a little before the midway point. James feels the sweat running down the sides of his face, feeling drips at the back of his neck. Izzy has barely broken into a sweat.
There is something about his eyes though. A glint of something, excitement, and something else James can’t place.
“We’ll practice some defensive moves first.” Izzy gets back into his own stance. “You need to watch your opponent and expect the attack. You either move back or block with the blade. I’m going to do simple attacks and you’ll try to block them. Questions?”
“Just one. Don’t I need to know the attacks to properly defend against them?”
“The majority of the time you’re using the blade, it will be on instinct rather than knowledge. You will learn attacks later but being on the defensive can wear out your opponent so you can win,” Izzy says, stepping closer to James, low into the small space between them, “This will keep you alive.”
James nods and swallows hard, he looks downward at his sword, missing the way Izzy’s eyes travel over his throat.
Izzy backs out of James’ space suddenly and gets back into his stance. James follows suit and they start.
James watches the blade cut through the air from above, similar to the slashes from before, and meets halfway to stop it in its tracks. He takes a step back when Izzy removes the sword and thrusts it, he misses touching James with the blade.
James holds his own for a couple of strikes until Izzy wrenches the sword from James' grip clattering it to the deck with his own blade. James is fully sweating from the physical and mental excursion.
“That was pretty fucking good for your first time,” a voice from behind him says. James turns to see a man a couple of years older at most. He’s got light hair and eyes, the upper part of his face a slight pink colour. He stands at about the same height as himself. “I’m Matthew. You did well against Hands here and a little secret,” Matthew comes in close, “Israel is the best on the ship.”
James shifts his eyes to look at Izzy and says, “Just means I have the best teacher then. I’m James.”
“Yea I know. Some of the other guys mentioned you.” Matthew shifts the conversation to Izzy, “Not any of the disgusting ones, though.”
James looks at the way Izzy’s jaw clenches and his knuckles go white.
“Maybe I’ll get good enough to scare them a bit,” James says, trying to placate Izzy’s anger toward the men with the comment.
“Yea, maybe,” Matthew starts to walk away as he says, “I’ll let you two get back to your lesson.”
Before more than 30 seconds pass, Izzy’s calling out, “Again.”
They continue for a little longer, James being able to defend against more strikes each time when Izzy finally calls out, “That’ll be it for today.”
The sun moved from its middle position and closer to the horizon. The wind has picked up a little bit and chills the sweat on his skin. James' stomach growls lowly.
“Let’s get dinner, then I’ll show you the stockroom.”
And they do just that. By the end of the night, James barely hits the pillow before he’s asleep. The nightmare doesn't appear in his head.
Their days follow a similar pattern. Izzy gives him a little lesson on part of the ship, they get out the blunted swords and have at it for hours, and Izzy goes to do his job as James watches on.
They don’t reveal much most of the day, mainly working on getting James up to Captain Grieves’ standards. He even comes to watch out on deck sometimes and sees the slow progress James makes, nodding with his arms crossed before leaving.
They talk through as Izzy goes through the stockroom. It’s little stories that don’t reveal much other than there is a history spanning from before they meet.
James finds them charming and in turn, Izzy charming. It’s during one of these conversations, James reveals he knows a bit of Spanish.
His family did use it with him but once he started going to school it was expected of him to speak in English and when the time came to learn a language, either Latin or Italian. He knows more Spanish than Italian but rarely uses them.
“I could teach you some Spanish if you want. Since you're teaching me how a ship works and all this,” James says to Izzy.
He’s standing over by a crate with the medical supplies, rummaging through it keeping a mental tally of what is needed in the restock. The laudanum is on the lower end.
“If that is something you want,” Izzy says, biting back a smile to learn more about James. He’s failing to stop the growing crush he has on him and now hearing him speak in his native language, might make him explode.
“Hago,” James replies, noticing how Izzy responds.
So that gets added to their daily activities. James gives Izzy some words in both languages and fixes his pronunciation by slowing down. Izzy picks it up quickly, not quite able to hold a conversation but understands most words that James uses.
Months pass like this. Captain Grieves, a few months in, pulls Izzy to the side to let him know that he’s done well. And Izzy bristles under the praise. Izzy watches as James puts on some weight and muscles from the intense lessons. In that first lesson right after James joined the ship, Izzy could tell he was soft but he flourished under Izzy’s teachings.
Izzy didn’t ask but the accent on James’ lips, which Izzy definitely doesn’t stare at, was different. Yet, it still surprised him to hear James speak and teach him some Spanish.
During the sword fighting lessons, Izzy has the go-ahead to stare as much as he wants at James’ hands. The new calluses harden his hands as he learns with hands-on experience the rigging of the ship. With everything, James doesn’t say Izzy figures he’s led an okay life until he wound up on the Dutch vessel.
The training Izzy puts James through works well but slowly. He could defend really well but his attacks after a few weeks were a slow-moving process. Izzy, the entire time, was actually teaching him because the other choice was to kill him. And even though it’s part of life as a pirate, Izzy wouldn’t be able to do it. James overall is competent once he gets the basics down and that’s for everything.
He even helped Izzy with the stores and finances. A job that was originally meant for two but Izzy’s temper made it a one-person job until James came along. This also pushed Izzy to think James has to have some schooling, his handwriting was more than just readable but beautiful. Izzy’s only ever seen handwriting like that from more posh people.
The teasing and comments lessened once James started to play with the little dagger he got himself at one port. He would twirl it around in the galley and once even threw it into the wall. That only made Izzy crush even harder on him.
Izzy did the same, coming to James and himself’s defense. Captain Grieves gave one of the men with the worst comments punishment for something else. But Izzy would imagine it was for the comments instead. That wasn’t pretty, the crack of the whip hitting the mangled back. The laudanum needed replenishing after that.
Now, Izzy still doesn’t understand why he’s crushing so hard on James. He looks more like a pirate more than ever and though he understands how to run a ship, he is still squishy in the middle. Despite and maybe in spite of how people and the world treats him, sees the good in most things around him.
They are sailing toward port one night and Captain Grieves assigned the two of them to the overnight lookout. During these shifts, which have become more and more common once Grieves realizes James’ presence mellows out Izzy, they would pull out the blunted rapiers to have a fun little go at it. Not to learn more moves but to keep what James already knows sharp and in the front of his mind.
Izzy pulls out the blunted rapiers that have really become theirs from the barrel close to the staircase going up to the helm. He stashed them there after their lesson earlier.
Above their heads, the full moon shines brightly against the ship, covering it in a bluish hue. Izzy turns his head slightly to peer at James. He’s leaning on his arms against the railing looking out at the horizon to stare at the stars. Izzy walks across the deck, both rapiers in one hand, and gently touches James’ arm to bring him out of his thoughts.
“Ready?” He grabs one rapier by the blunted blade, and raises it out, with a questioning tone between them. James grabs the handle and nods with a small smile adorning his lips.
Izzy watches as James gets into his stance. It’s not quite right so a small grimace and a scrunched nose get James to look down at his feet. Even only seeing a small portion of his face, Izzy can tell he’s figuring out what is wrong and fixing it. It really is a minor issue, feet are not quite close enough to keep James from over-exerting his energy. “Better,” is the only call-out Izzy gives him before he takes the offensive.
He slashes and stabs at James, and each counter given puts more power behind the strikes. James has progressed a lot over the months in his sword work. Pride sits deep in Izzy’s gut. The first lessons on instinct show through James’ sword, the ability to guess and counter the moves even without knowing how to perform them efficiently. That’s the thing, he doesn’t need to be the best, he just needs to be able to survive.
The clashing of metal fills the air and James manages to beat Izzy for the first time during these overnight watch exercises. Izzy watches too late as James’ sword comes down. He feels it more than sees it, the flat of the sword thwacking the back of his thigh. Izzy hadn’t taught him that in their lessons. Izzy can barely keep his mouth shut and freezes in mid-stab when James pokes him gently with the end of his sword. The area James hits are the right side of his stomach. If James actually meant it with a sharpened sword he would have pierced Izzy where all the important bits are.
“Yo gano,” James says with a shit-eating grin, using Izzy’s weakness to his advantage.
Izzy isn’t subtle with his crush on James. He treats James differently, protective of him. It wasn’t that hard to figure out the growing crush, especially after finding out how situations, where James was found, are supposed to go way differently. He figures if he beat Izzy during one of their sessions, maybe Izzy’s brain would restart and he would realize the mutual crush.
Izzy, still entirely dumbfounded at how James beat him, the best fighter on the ship, is at a standstill with his brain and heart. His heart wants him to take James by the waist and kiss him just as senselessly as he feels at this moment. But his brain says nothing good comes from laying his heart out on the line or any more than he has already done. He’s seen the pain of losing someone from some of the other pirates with partners, through death or otherwise.
It’s James who moves forward, in the end, and breaks Izzy out of his internal battle.
A simple touch against Izzy’s cheek, underneath his eye, pulls him out of his head. Izzy doesn’t remember when James moved but he’s there right in front of him with a look on his face that tells him everything. A look of fondness, of infatuation, of lust. Then Izzy’s surging forward, and James’ lips are upon his own, the rapiers hanging limply at their sides. Their other arms wrap around their waists. It’s not a long kiss by any means, but it is assured and soft. Izzy pulls back from James, the moon reflected in James’ eyes. Finally, their swords clatter onto the deck.
From somewhere else, something watches. It’s been watching for a while now, peeking in at different times. Meddling when it needs to. The history of James and Izzy is but a stepping stone for another story. A love story, similar yet different in their endings. This thing makes sure of it, sowing the seeds to get there. It doesn’t care how it has to do it. But it waits until with bated breath to start to get the story truly going for this is just the beginning.
Chapter 2
Summary:
Izzy and James date night.
Notes:
The spice was originally meant to be fade to black moment but Izzy wanted it to happen. I am very, very, very ace so everything that happens after "One second leads to another and they're on the bed" is based on what I have read before.
11/17/2022 edit: Added some more to this chapter as well.
Chapter Text
Izzy sees how James starts to thrive on the ship after months on board. He gains weight and looks healthy. He becomes even more beautiful in Izzy’s eyes.
Their relationship changes as well. Sneaking into shadowy corners of the ship when they can and in the privacy of their cabin. It’s not that Izzy cares if their relationship is public on the ship but he’s almost scared of what the others might do.
That conversation was one of the first talks they had.
In their room, shortly after their first kiss as the sun disappears from the sky, James brings it up.
“Izzy, what are we? I really like you.” James sits on his own bed turned towards Izzy where he sits conditioning his leather. The smell is strong in Izzy’s nose, a comfort and reminder that he’s built something different, something better.
“What do you mean?” Izzy looks up from his boots, the rag stops against the shiny leather.
“Are we together or are we just having a bit of fun?” James says sitting up, their knees almost knocking together from the cramped space.
“I thought we were together,” Izzy says, looking down at his lap. He doesn’t want to see the inevitable look of rejection on James’ face. He should have known this wouldn’t have worked out because why would it work out for Izzy.
“Oh, phew. We are on the same page then,” James says, pushing his hair out of his face except for the single strand by his ear that never wants to stay put.
Izzy stares at it and tries to ignore the feeling he has. He fails and his fingers touch the skin. Gently caress the skin as he pushes the lock of hair back. Tucks it behind James’ ear.
“Ok,” Izzy whispers, and his supplies and boots fall to the floor with a thump. His hands fall onto James’ face, holding it delicately. “Can I? Kiss you that is?”
This is another lesson James has been teaching Izzy to ask permission. It’s not something he’s ever had to do or give. That brings in thoughts that Izzy doesn’t want to think about from when he was younger.
James nods and gives an explicit yes and Izzy pulls him close. Their lips collide in heat and soon they can taste each other. It doesn't get heavier than that though, them pulling away with swollen and red mouths.
Soon after, they get word from Grieves that they are among the group to have shore leave the next time they dock. They have had it separately or they were on the lookout for restocks but this is the first time they don’t have work to do.
A full moon sits over their heads as they walk down the creaky docks in port. Izzy can feel the way it moves underfoot. Their footfalls change in tone as they step onto the well-worn brick path. Years of wear can be seen, a history they don’t know.
“Wanna go get a drink with me, Iz?” The nickname is newer. It falls, though, under Izzy’s one rule he gave James the day they met so it’s fine. It falls off James’ kissable lips so easily. It is reserved for James because he couldn’t bear to hear someone else call him that. And even though he hates his Bas nickname, if they use that instead of Iz it means they don’t know.
What else is there to do,” Izzy says playfully, his eyes rolling. This side of Izzy is also reserved for James. He won’t let himself be seen like this by anyone else, his life relies on being an attack dog. So to have someone see him, the real him was new.
“We could always get a room instead?”
The thought of what they could be doing tempts him. His reddening cheeks give away his thoughts to James. And James completely opens up with a contagious laugh.
It’s not like Izzy hasn’t laid with men before. He has, but not all were kind like James. No, a kindness like James’ comes by few and far in between. It’s the feeling he possesses that tells him what he feels for James is different than the other men.
Izzy thinks back to their nights shared in their room, it is used mainly for sleeping and a bit of kissing. Otherwise, not much happens.
Before Izzy can say anything though, James continues in an almost ramble that keeps Izzy on the tips of his toes. “I’m just messing,” James quickly shifts the conversation, “Matthew said one of the better taverns is hidden closer to the edge of the town.”
“Let’s go there.”
Izzy speeds up to take his spot next to James’ side. Silence stretches between the two men, only the moon and a few sparse lanterns show the path.
“Why were you a stowaway? I never thought to ask and you’ve been on the ship for months now?” Izzy asks, questioning intent in his tone.
James turns towards Izzy and shivers in the warm, humid air. “My family moved from Spain to England before I was born to start a family. They wanted their children to get the best schooling possible. I was away at school when I got word the illness going around had caught up to them. That was about two years ago. I didn’t have enough money to continue to be at that school but I was able to finish up the year. I had to make a choice, my home or my life and I chose to make a new life for myself. I had found a town and used my writing skills to my advantage until the sickness started in that town. I made it out before it could take me too. Found myself on a vessel and hid out for a month before it was raided."
Izzy knows the feeling of losing family so he simply says, “I’m sorry you lost your family.”
Izzy’s family was just his mom. His dad was nowhere to be found and she tried her best in raising him with what they had. The English winters in the north took Izzy’s mom away from him.
She had tried her best that winter, doing almost everything she could to keep him fed and warm. In the end, she put all her energy into him so that when she got ill, she didn’t have enough strength to fight it off. Izzy was alone after that and went to work at the docks.
Izzy grabs James’ hand in his and squeezes it gently and drops it before anyone around them can see. Things would not go well if the wrong person saw them.
“They were good to me but it’s in the past, now,” James says, shrugging it away. “How did you end up a pirate?” James sends a glance over to Izzy, checking his facial expressions to make sure it was alright to ask in public. He can get cagey when personal questions are asked.
“I never knew my father and my mum died when I was younger. She taught me to read and write when she could. After she died, I worked at the docks until the Navy took me in at 13. I was a cabin boy and pirates boarded the ship after I was on that ship for two years, I think. The fucking Naval men on that fucking ship treated us badly. I managed to get out and fought the navy men. I don’t remember much but three bodies were around me and one of the pirates saw what I did and vouched for me. I moved ships to Grieves at some point. Now I’m here… with you.”
A small smile cracks through both their faces at Izzy’s infrequent sentiment.
“There’s the tavern Matthew told me about,” James says, changing the subject as he pushes through the crowd, leading Izzy and getting to the front of the establishment. James holds the door open for Izzy. The ceiling is low and filled with lanternlights and candles. A few tables are open and with the number of people, loud.
They get to the bar, having to cross between tables. Once at the bar, Izzy orders them ale with doubloons they were given from the last few raids. They shuffle across the bar to one of the last tables shrouded in shadows in the far corner.
When Izzy sits, his eyes adjust to the darkness in the air. His eyes follow the etchings in the table, making out different little doodles and tally marks. There is a single unlit candle on the table in between them. Izzy looks up from the table to James.
“We had no choice then,” James comments, resuming the conversation from before under the shadow of sound from around them. James, not often but enough for Izzy to notice especially when he’s nervous, flits through conversation, sewing different subjects together no matter how long silence stretches between them.
“I guess so.” Izzy raises his tankard of ale and clinks it against James’ raised one.
Conversations about their childhoods come out as their tongues get looser with each round of drinks. A small buzz and warmth are felt in the air around them. At some point, Izzy decides to share his bed with James.
He grabs the third round of drinks at the bar. While waiting for the barkeep to fill the tankards with his back turned, Izzy looks at the bar top. It’s a bit grimy and different bottles of different sizes sit on the ends. He spots one familiar enough to him from the stock room and pockets the tiny bottle.
“Your drinks,” the man says, going to move away when Izzy speaks up.
“How much for a room upstairs?” He keeps his face neutral even with feeling his heart beating faster at the thought of the potential later.
“15 doubloons for a single bed or 25 for a double bed.”
Izzy unties his little cloth purse from his side. The cord slips out of the bit of leather on his trousers where it resides when he’s on shore. He counts out the amount quickly and slides over the right amount. “Double bed.”
The man grabs the money and passes over the key. Izzy stuffs it into his front pocket with the bottle, the weight of both heavy in his pocket and mind. The clink he knows that it makes is muffled by the leather. He takes the two tankards back over to James.
They drink quickly, Izzy telling James about their room upstairs. Once empty of every last drop, James leads through the shadows in the stairwell next to their table. They link hands, carefully moving up the steep steps, each footfall echoing against the walls. The lanterns Izzy feels aren’t lit but once at the top, the hallway is lit. The flames flicker shadows against the walls as they walk to the end of the hall.
Izzy, slightly tipsy, unlocks the wooden door and heaves under the weight of pushing it open. Inside is dark and his eyes start to adjust. He can make out the double bed in the center of the room, two small tables on each side of the bed with lanterns on each. They are unlit but Izzy can make out matching match boxes sitting next to the lanterns.
They close and lock the door behind them. As if in one mind, they separate at the end of the bed to go to the side tables. The only sound in the room is the rustling of the matchbox and the light of the matches.
There is a simultaneous crack and they light the small area. It’s a new beginning for both of them. A lighting of a new life together through anything.
Once the light dances in the room, the palatable tension between them grows and grows and grows like the shadows on the walls.
Izzy catches James’ eyes and recognizes the look of lust on his face. Something else is swirled there too, something Izzy can’t recognize but it’s there.
They’re standing by the bed one second and the next they are connected by a hungry kiss. James is pulling at his cravat and Izzy’s eyes close. He tries to pull him closer and closer until James pulls back, the lustful look not leaving his eye.
“Do you want to do this? I was just joking earlier, you know?” That question has never been asked with such tenderness to Izzy before. It’s making something shift in his gut, something good but alien to him. A simple question of consent is making him feel… safe and secure. That’s what’s in his gut, this feeling. Safety. He pokes at it and has a realization he’s never before felt truly safe with all his walls down since before his mum died.
“Fucking yes to both questions. Now get over here, I wanna make you feel good.” His feelings push him to pull James close.
He has his hands on the back of James' neck, falling until his back is against the bed. Izzy touches James, feeling him over his clothes. He finds James' lips again as his hand trails downward to under the hemline of James' shirt. He plays with the soft hair leading downward.
Izzy feels more than hears the lewd noise from James' mouth when James’ hand comes up to pinch Izzy’s nipple. Izzy pulls off James’ lips and starts to place soft kisses down his neck. He gets to work nipping and sucking at the area.
“Fuck, Iz. Yo-,” James starts but is cut off by Izzy’s mouth once more. He unties the cravat around Izzy’s neck as he opens his mouth to take in Izzy’s tongue.
James pulls back from Izzy, looking down at Izzy as if he is the most handsome man in the world. He’s underneath James and watches the way James’ eyes travel over his body. The silence is cut through by their heavy breathing, their chests moving in unison, in and out.
“Hi?” The simple question falls off Izzy’s swollen and red mouth, a confused look on his face.
“You look very handsome today, that’s all,” James says, staring at Izzy straight in the eye until Izzy’s cheeks feel warm. He shifts his head to the side to not look at James, staring at the lights on the wall.
He breathes deeply, turns back, and says, “Just kiss me, you fool.” And James is happy to comply. He kisses Izzy as if his life depends on it.
His hands trail to Izzy’s shirt and start to pop open the buttons on his black vest. Once all the buttons are undone, Izzy sits up enough to help take it off. They take turns until they are both naked from the waist up. Their piles of clothes are in a heap on the floor. Izzy drinks James’ figure up, eyes tracing the expanse of skin unmarked by scars and ink, unlike his own skin. James does the same, searching for the stories of the scar tissue and minimal black ink through the hair on his chest. He places a pin in his mind to ask about the tattoo later when he isn’t too busy.
With a little help from each other, they take turns removing their shoes, and afterward, James’ hands are on the laces of Izzy’s leather trousers. “Can I take this off, Iz?”
Izzy nods his head and helps to undo the knot in the lace string. James trails down Izzy’s chest to underneath the trousers pushing them off his warm skin. His trousers sit at mid-thigh and his extraordinarily hard dick points upward once free from its confines. The bottle falls out of the pocket at that angle and rolls next to Izzy’s side. The cool air hits the warm skin and Izzy hisses out.
“Touch me,” Izzy whispers into the room. And James follows the direction, wrapping his hand around the base. The curls nestle around his pinky finger while the other hand next to Izzy’s head holds himself.
Izzy can feel his patient running thing and runs his hand over James’ clothed dick, cupping it and gripping it.
“It’s not fair that you still have your trousers on. D'ya want some help getting those off,” Izzy asks, lowering his voice to a gentle whisper, the rasp getting heavier.
He watches James’ throat as he gulps and nods quickly. His shoes come off and Izzy makes quick work of the laces. He pushes the trousers down off his legs. James’ dick stands straight up, blanketed at the base by dark curls. Izzy pulls James down by his neck to kiss him senseless and in the process, their dicks are pushed together between their bodies. They groan out.
“Do ya happen to have any-,” Izzy cuts off James by showing him the bottle he’s picked up by his side. The glass is warm from the heat of his skin and the contents slosh inside the bottle with the movement.
“Nicked it earlier from underneath the barkeep’s nose.”
“You are a sneaky, sneaky man, Izzy.”
Izzy doesn’t respond with words, instead uncorking the bottle to pour some of the oil onto his hand and grasp their cocks together. The bottle is placed, corked back on the bed as James makes the most shameless moan as Izzy’s calloused hands move around their cocks. He gets a good rhythm going around them, and James pulls away from Izzy’s touch when he starts to feel the start of a knot in his stomach. He won’t last long if Izzy continues.
James, instead, puts his mouth on Izzy’s neck, planning on giving him a matching hickey that shines on his own neck. He sucks and nips at the skin and can almost feel Izzy’s heartbeat.
“Will you please fuck me, Jamie?” This isn’t the first time the nickname falls from Izzy’s lips but it’s covered by ease and impatience.
With a small smirk, James moves to take in Izzy’s nipple and rolls the nub between his teeth causing Izzy to moan loudly.
“Fuck, Jamie,” Izzy says, shifting underneath James, his legs opening up wider.
James grabs the bottle again and checks in with Izzy, seeing if there is any hesitancy on his face. All he sees though is lust and something else. With that, he grabs at one of the pillows by the headboard and silently places it underneath Izzy’s hips. James’ fingers covered in oil, find their way to the rippled flesh of Izzy’s hole.
He pushes through slowly and lets Izzy get used to the small stretch. Izzy, whines with impatience and with that sound in his ears, starts to fuck Izzy with the single digit. He adds a second and Izzy moans out at the feeling.
It’s like music to James' ears that he gets carried away slightly, continuing to make his partner feel good.
Izzy feels the edge coming closer and closer and pushes his hand away. He doesn’t want to come without feeling James inside him.
“What do you want Izzy?” James asks, pulling away to look at his face.
“You in me, now,” Izzy says with impatience. He pinches and rolls his own nipples, while James oils up his dick.
He lines up with Izzy and stops before pushing in, moving onto his forearm and getting even closer to Izzy. They share the oxygen between them and James asks, “Are you sure, Iz?”
“Yes, just get on with it,” Izzy replies to what he thinks is a stupid question. James slowly sinks into Izzy, tries, and fails at holding back a groan.
The sounds that come out of Izzy’s mouth are just babbles and a string of curse words. It doesn’t make sense but James gets the sentiment, doing everything in him to not do the same thing. After a minute of just sitting, completely sheathed in Izzy, he pulls back and experiments with speed and intensity, his arms bracketing his head. He leans down into the minimal space to kiss Izzy. During this kiss, Izzy flips the two of them. Izzy, riding James, picks up the pace and absolutely fucks himself senseless on James’ dick. The sound of skin smacking mixes with the moans of James and the strings of curse words.
All too soon, Izzy’s hips are stuttering as he gets closer to his orgasm, chasing it when James wraps his hand around Izzy’s cock. He strokes in time with Izzy’s thrusts, squeezing the tip slightly. Izzy comes vigorously across James’ stomach and chest, slowing down slightly. His mind blanks and he feels James orgasm in him.
Izzy stops soon after and as he leans down to kiss James, removing himself from James' dick. He feels empty without it and fucked out. They are breathless as Izzy falls next to James. His arm comes around Izzy’s middle pulling him close. Neither gets up from the bed to clean the mess they made of each other, the cum starting to dry on their warm and sweaty skin.
Izzy’s blinks become slower and the realization hits him.
Oh.
Oh.
He’s falling in love with James.
Chapter 3
Summary:
James gets hurt.
CW: blood and wound.
Chapter Text
Izzy sits in their shared cabin one morning looking down at James’ sleeping form. James the night before was on lookout duty with Matthew, he came in late, just before the sun started its ascend into the sky.
His eyes trail to James’ neck, and the dark spots have bloomed into the skin. His eyes follow down to his chest and the light hair on the skin. His skin is unblemished, with not the slightest recent scar in sight. He’s been lucky in raids, and Izzy made sure to keep one eye on James. He’s gotten better at fighting in the moments they get to practice so he can hold off his own. The post-kiss practice time sometimes especially in the beginning delved into kissing when they could. Once they got past the honeymoon stage though, things leveled out.
Izzy doesn’t normally track the dates but he does for those special moments he’s had with James. He stands from the edge of their bed and moves toward the desk. In the drawer is Izzy’s personal journal. Not much is on its pages, mainly a track of his personal finances. Every time he goes to shore, he finds a newspaper, and the first thing he does back on the ship is put the date and how much he has left in his pockets. But in the end pages, he’s put down the dates of their moments in ink. In a simple cross of his financials that keep a rough track of the date and the date when they first kissed and discussed in the low light of their room what they were tells Izzy it’s been almost 2 years. With the added months of pining, Izzy realizes James has been on the ship for just over two years now.
He smiles to himself thinking how much different his life is now that James occupies it. With a small smile still on his face, he opens up the journal right before his anniversary dates and picks up the little bit of charcoal stick left in the drawer. And he sketches for the first time in years.
He was taught after his mum passed by one of the men at the docks he worked at. He also told him stories of the sea and gave little assignments to keep his skill in reading and writing stagnant. Every day, the man he came to as an almost fatherly figure would give him a word he needed to draw, it was usually simple like apple or cart but soon he started to give him words like fire or focus and let him interpret it into a drawing. Once he was a part of the navy, Izzy put that skill away. They didn’t see it as useful and it didn’t help with the name-calling.
It’s with the old man’s instructions in mind that he draws. With that single word in mind, it takes a bit of time, James snores covering up the charcoal scratching the paper of his journal. The skill comes back all too easily but with only one image about the word in mind, he doesn’t think he will continue after this one picture.
The dark lines fill the page, Izzy stopping to look at the page and smudging some of the harsh lines. Then it’s done and he looks at his work and nods. He’s captured the word perfectly and on the opposite page he scrawls the word down. He won’t forget it but it’s nice to see the word and his picture together. He closes the journal carefully, mindful of the black charcoal on his fingers, and puts it away. He washes the dark from his fingers and leaves the room with one final look at James, sleeping still.
He gets to work, going through his daily chores. It’s when he’s up by the helm that the fog sets in quickly, the humidity thick in the air. The sun makes the white fog shine so brightly it hurts to look at. He’s swabbing the deck as fast as he can while doing the appropriate job so he can get underneath the deck to rest his eyes. He’s almost finished when he takes a break, leaning agilest the railing with his eyes closed. The relief is almost immediate and he sighs. He opens them after a few seconds and with newfound relief takes a good look out into the sea fog. The mix of salty air, sun, and mist is what gives the incoming ship the coverage it needs.
Izzy’s on the port side by the helm when a cannon whizzes above the ship. It misses, aimed too high but he ducks anyway. He immediately grabs the handle of his rapier by his side, listening out. He ignores the sounds of yells from his fellow crew mates and settles in on the scrapping of boards. That sound echoes in his mind and unsheathing his sword, the sound joins. He tightens his grip on the handle the slightest bit.
He stands, his free hand on the railing, and hears the footfall before he sees the man. He raises his sword to block the attack from his right. More clangs fill the air and the occasional bang from a gun. Izzy defends while the pirate in front of him is on the offensive. He leads him back, watching for an opening, and his feet do not trip on anything in the fog that settles around them.
In the back of his mind, through the sounds around he thinks of James. He had a lie-in after his watch but is supposed to be working below decks. Izzy hopes that the sounds of fighting doesn’t pull James out on deck. He knows it's unfounded but the fear that Izzy can’t protect him still sits in his mind. If James gets hurt, Grieves may decide Izzy didn’t do a good enough job teaching him and might order Izzy to kill James. He can’t bear to imagine a world without James, let alone one where he takes James’ final breath. So he hopes he stays where he is.
Izzy manages to find an opening and stabs the man through his chest. Blood follows the blade out of the wound, thick and red. The man is dead before his body hits the wood under his feet. Adrenaline flows through Izzy’s veins, much like the blood flowing to cover the seams in the wood. Izzy watches it and the body for a few seconds and turns his head upward, squinting through the fog. He can see the shapes of people on one of the lower decks and rushes down the stairs. He jumps off the last two steps and parries an attack on his left when a familiar body sidles up behind him, protecting his back and in his own battle.
“There you are. Was wondering if you were missing out on the fun,” James says. Izzy can hear the smile on his lips and out of breathiness in the words.
“Slightly busy making my way down here, is all,” Izzy banters back toward James. The man he’s fighting drops in front of him and another takes his place. He must be fresh at sea if the way he holds his sword has anything to say about it.
He can almost taste the pity when it’s barely seconds before the pirate is knocked down. He had to be new with how quick it was. Even James in his first week of lessons could have taken him down. It’s a pirate’s life, however, and Izzy cannot have pity on one he doesn’t know when he knew what he was signing up for.
The other ship that boarded them wasn’t ready for the challenge The Mary brought. Every pirate on Captain Grieves’ crew takes out at least one pirate who’s boarded. The enemies lay fallen on the deck. Cuts and stab wounds litter their bodies, their dark, sticky blood covering their skin and the wood under them.
The pirate laying on the deck in front of Izzy blubbers for his god and without a flinch from James, Izzy slices his neck open. The fog has lifted considerably throughout the fight. Its white blanket uncovering the enemy ship sitting next to The Mary. The fog is the only reason the ship got close enough to board them.
With most of the enemies down, Captain Grieves starts shouting. “Tie the alive ones up. Loot the dead ones.” He’s got his whip in hand and uses it against one of the men with a stab wound.
From across the ship, James can see some of his crew mates on the enemy ship, tying up the remaining pirates. He starts to loot the bodies in his immediate vicinity.
He starts on the pirate nearest to him, a wound on his arm deep. He can smell the metallic of his blood thick in his nose. He’s focused on his pockets when he feels the skin of his stomach open. The pain doesn’t come and looks between the handle sticking out of him and the face of the pirate. He’s the one that Izzy took down easily, too easily. A cruel smile dies on his face when James brings his own dagger through his heart, notching it between two ribs. He pulls the dagger out and the blood rushes up to the pirate's open wound, spilling out of it.
He turns, blood rushing through his ears, his heartbeat loud. He can’t hear anything else and his hand falls to the dagger still in his stomach and can feel the slight trickle of his own blood over his fingers. All the adrenaline that had been in his veins from the fight leaves his body and he’s suddenly very, very tired, very very quickly.
Izzy is kneeling over one body, one that James took out. E feels a warm hand on his back. He knows that hand and smiles at James’ touch. He stands quickly, the hand leaving his back when he turns. He goes from smiling to his eyebrows scrunched together when he takes in James’ slow blinking and unfocused eyes. He looks down his body to the hand resting on his stomach, between his fingers the handle of the dagger sticks out.
“Jamie,” the name falls out of Izzy’s mouth as James staggers into his arms. “Come on, stay awake for me.”
Panic rises in Izzy’s throat, but he keeps his face neutral, swallowing it down hard. He can feel the shakiness in his hands and curls them tight and takes a deep breath. Panic will not help James.
Izzy staggers under James' weight to the deck. A few feet away are the fallen pirates. In his lap, James’ head sits and he pushes his hair back from his face. A spray of blood is on his face as he stares upward. Izzy calls out, “Matthew, stab wound. Grab the bandages and needle.”
He watches as Matthew all but runs down the stairs to the stockroom. He peers back down at James, one hand on his chest and the other on his cheek. Time speeds up as Izzy keeps James awake and alert, telling him stories of his childhood he’s heard before.
“My mum’s a fiery ball of charm. She did her best with me but we didn’t always have money but she would always turn men down who tried to call on her. Was just a child and didn’t understand at the time what they wanted. But with words alone she put them down. I wonder if she would be happy with what I’m doing now, you know.”
“She used to read to me when I was small. We had very few books but this one was my favorite, it was a tattered thing by constantly fumbling through pages that she memorized the story to recite it to me.”
Finally, Matthew comes up the stairs with the surgeon following behind with the kit James needs. He’s new, he was just picked up at the last port for a job and James is the first one he’s worked on on the ship. He is quick with pulling the dagger out, grabbing the handle of the dagger. He pushes James’ shirt up and out of the way and shoves Izzy’s hand from his chest to the open wound while he readies the first stitch.
He watches as the blood paints his hand, the warm blood pulsing between his fingers. He shifts from the wound to James’ face when a hiss of pain escapes his lips. That’s good, Izzy thinks. He keeps his eyes on James, and watches as his face contorts with pain and discomfort at the way the thread pulls his skin together after prodding from the surgeon's hands on his insides.
“You are very lucky, boy. It’s a small but deep wound but it somehow managed to miss all the important stuff in you,” the surgeon says, tying off the stitch.
Izzy doesn’t speak but has one hand on James’ chest feeling the rise and fall of his breath. He flicks his eyes over to the wound. The skin is slowly coming together with each stitch. He has to pull his eyes away and focus on James’ face. He sees the grimace in pain and all he wants to do is take it away. James didn’t deserve to be stabbed. After all, Izzy fought the pirate, he should have killed him. He should have made sure he was dead before he walked away. The guilt of the situation starts to eat at his thoughts and it takes everything to not let it devour him whole while James lies in his lap. It’s simple. He’s the one who’s caused James pain, he thinks.
The surgeon works quickly and James no longer has a bleeding hole in his stomach. A neat row of 7 stitches pulls and keeps his skin together. Izzy helps the surgeon with the bandages. It’s a bit of effort but James sits up enough for the roll of bandages to wrap around his middle. It’s passed from one hand to the next, covering the wound and stitches.
With James no longer on his lap, Izzy realizes his legs are asleep. Without the pressure on his legs, they start to wake up with an almost painful tingling sensation. Luckily, by the time James is completely wrapped, his legs have regained feeling in them. With that, he stands from his position. As he gazes downward he catches the sight of his hands. The drying blood cakes his fingers and palm where he covered the gaping hole in James. He can feel it more than see it under his nails and the way it cracks as he pulls his hands into fists and releases them. The wind blows just right and the smell is in his nose. While not different from any other smell of blood covering the ship, the fact that it’s James' blood makes him gulp. There is a ball sitting in his throat that he has to swallow down so he doesn’t hurl at the smell.
He tries to ignore it and helps James up. Pulling him up by his hands and at the stretch of his skin, James groans. Once he’s up, the bloodied shirt he’s wearing falls to cover the bandage. The hole in the fabric is surrounded by dark blood and it’s different from light-coloured bandages.
James stumbles into Izzy’s right side, his arm wrapping around his shoulders. Izzy can’t help but think that being shorter than James is a blessing at the moment. James leans into Izzy and sighs in relief as he’s no longer stretching out.
Izzy notices Captain Grieves watching the two of them from the railing of the ship. He’s got a look that Izzy can’t place and his hand is on his whip.
They start their way across the ship and when they are close enough, Izzy calls out, “Stab wound,” to Captain Grieves even though he probably already knows. Grieves nods to Izzy.
“I want to talk to you later, Hands,” Grieves tells him.
Izzy doesn’t want to think why, not yet at least. His main priority is James. So, he slowly helps James across the rest of the deck and down the stairs. With each step, James makes a noise and all Izzy can do is grimace at the sound. Once they are at the bottom of the stairs, James removes his arm from Izzy’s shoulder to rest against the wall. His hand comes up to touch the bandage.
“Are you ok,” Izzy asks quickly, checking James’ face for any pain, and goes in to search the bandage for any discoloration.
“Yea, I’m fine. I just need a breather,” James says and he breathes deeply through his nose and out of his mouth, once, twice. He looks up, “Ok, I’m good.”
Izzy leans into James, waiting to feel the familiar weight on his shoulders. Once James settles, he puts his hand on James' side closer to his hip and they start off again to their room.
Once they are outside the door, James pushes the wooden door open. They get through the door with a little maneuvering and Izzy helps James over to the bed by the door.
Every night they sleep in the bed across from the door. The bed James sits on has gone unused since they began their relationship besides using it for the occasional sitting on like James does now.
Izzy kneels in front of James watching as James struggles to remove his shirt. Izzy grabs the hem of the sleeve and pulls it larger. James slowly removes his arm and with a little help, James is able to remove the rest of the shirt.
James looks at Izzy, sitting shirtless beside the bandage, and sees something on his face. “I’m fine, Iz. Like the surgeon said it’s a small stab wound,” James says, a tired look on his face. His hand rests on top of the bandage that is stained a pinkish-red colour.
“You’re still bleeding a bit, Jamie. It was deep,” Izzy says, a look of concern washing over his face as he checks the bandage. It’s not too bad, the red discoloration of the bandage, nothing to be too concerned about.
“Are you worried about me, Iz?” A playful smile adorns James’ face, his nose wrinkling.
Izzy stays fiddling with the bandage and doesn’t remove his eyes as he whispers, “I should have made sure he was dead.” It’s said with such finality like that one thing would make sure James wouldn’t have been hurt.
What Izzy doesn’t think about is, anything else could have happened or worse James may not be alive now.
“Iz,” And when Izzy doesn’t look, “Izzy. Look at me.” James says it softly, gently caressing his face, thumb resting by his eye, like that bit of skin is meant for James. He pulls Izzy’s face upward to lock eyes. “I am alright. What happened is not your fault. Shit, I could have made sure he was dead myself before I went rummaging through his pockets.” He cracks a smile, “And if we really want to push blame, we can blame the fog if you want.”
The statement pulls a small smile on Izzy’s lips and an eye roll. Ever since hearing some of the superstitions that other sailors held, James started asking about them. Fog overall was an iffy superstitions. Ships can be caught unawares by creatures in the water, as some would believe. Or that in the fog, Death can snatch people up under the hidden blanket. Some say they have seen it, that after the fog of death, people who were fine don’t make it out once it lifts. But they are just superstitions.
Izzy has told James some of his own superstitions, like leading into a raid with his right foot, or cleaning his sword every week even if it has not been used. But maybe he’s playing with fire, not believing, clearly, James had gotten hurt when the fog was out.
Instead, Izzy just says, “Rest you need it.”
Izzy leaves James after he falls asleep. Knowing he’s left the matter long enough with Captain Grieves. He jogs up to the deck and gets to Grieves’ door so quickly. He doesn’t want to leave James longer than absolutely necessary.
He gets permission to enter after knocking. “You wanted to talk to me, Captain?”
“Yes. What happened out there, Hands?” Grieves is sitting by his desk, his feet over the top of another on the desk. He’s messing with something in his lap, looking down at it.
“I don’t quite understand, sir. What exactly do you mean?” Izzy stands at attention just feet away from the desk. He remembers the lessons from the Navy, how to appear in front of the captain. It’s those lessons he’s never forgotten.
“With Lee, Hands.” Grieves spits out those words with such venom.
“I took down a pirate and I thought he was dead. J-Lee started looting his body and he was still alive and stabbed him.” Izzy says, pulling his face into a neutral expression. He already knows what Grieves is going to say before he says it.
“You failed to kill him the first time and another one of your comrades paid the price. His blood is on your hands. If someone else gets hurt from your mistakes again, you will be the one to pull the trigger on your pet, Hands.” Grieves says with an air of finality.
“Yes, captain.”
“Now, as punishment, you’ll pick up Lee’s work until he is fit for work again. Be grateful that he’s not dead or your punishment would be worse,” Grieves says, looking up from his lap finally. “You are dismissed.”
Izzy doesn’t remember the walk back to their shared room. Doesn’t remember sitting on the bed across from James. All he can hear in his head is you failed. Because he did, didn’t he? And now Grieves knows his reaction, knows something is going on between them.
It’s hours later and Izzy still sits across from James. He stares at James’ sleeping form so intently that it's a surprise James hasn’t woken from the feeling of being stared at. Izzy curls his hands and feels a pull. He looks down and sees the dried blood. It’s thick in his nail beds and under his nails. It’s cracked at the creases of his hands. Even dried, there is still a slight stickiness to it.
The tingling feeling from before is back from the way he sat on the bed. The painful feeling of regaining sensation in his feet is what keeps his mind from spiraling. He manages to get up without his legs buckling and shuffles to the wash bucket.
The water is room temperature from sitting out all day. As he washes the blood, the water turns a reddish-brown colour. He scrubs and scrubs, his hands turning red. Blood is stuck under his fingernails and after trying to pick it out, finally gives up and dries his hands.
The blood is a metaphor, he feels. Because no matter what James has said before, Izzy is at fault. Even his captain thinks so. The man that he decidedly didn’t kill, because he was a scallywag, flew under Izzy’s radar for trouble and could have killed James. He felt pity for him and it was a mistake. Izzy vows at that moment that no one will touch James, not as long as he is alive.
He still very much in his feelings, sits by James’ side. The bed moves under his weight but James doesn’t wake. At some point, after Izzy came back from Grieves' cabin, Matthew came in to check on James. He doesn’t remember exactly what he said but just knows that he made sure no one would disturb them. He thinks he may have said their blood would mix with the wood of the deck and their corpse floating in the wake of the ship if anyone disturbed them.
He sits vigil next to James, watching his chest for its constant movement, and notices the slight shine on James’ forehead. He gets closer and places a hand on his forehead much like his mum would do for him when he was small. James’ head is slightly warm but it’s not burning. It’s not James’ usual temperature though, he knows what the normal is from sleeping tangled together most nights and that is definitely warmer.
Izzy swallows the panic in his chest and throat and takes a deep breath in. Izzy can still see James’ chest moving and with one hand feels the thumping of his heart. He checks the bandage as well, while he’s at it and tries to will himself not to worry.
It doesn’t help quell those feelings of helplessness he feels so he does something he’s never done purposefully. He sits next to James, holding his hand, and closes his eyes to pray.
This is the one thing his mum tried to get him to do as a young boy that he did unwillingly. Once she passed, he stopped, not feeling any pull towards a divine entity.
He prays to a god that has never listened before but hopes they do now. His mouth moves in prayer, he’s almost halfway forgotten and the almost whispers fill the otherwise quiet room.
It’s a simple request asked for. To let James not get ill with an infection. He wants to tell James those three words that have been eating at him for a while. The three words he hasn’t said out loud yet but hopes to permeate in every action he does.
Izzy’s request is heard and he should be wary. It is not a god that hears him, no it’s something else. This entity hears Izzy and knows what has been set in stone. Has known since before they were born what needs to happen. Izzy won’t be able to escape and neither can James for it was foretold from before they were born. And it’s not a question of if, but when.
Chapter 4
Summary:
Izzy and James have a bit of fun now that James is healed.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Izzy’s taking stock of the medical supplies and loot from the failed raid on The Mary when James finally has his stitches removed. With instruction from Captain Grieves, James has not worked really since he had been wounded the week before. Even with Grieves’ punishment for Izzy, well, he had his reservations about James getting back to work so soon.
Izzy can be very protective and it shows. After the stabbing, he waited on James, making sure he didn’t get out of bed unless absolutely necessary. The days after, if anyone asked, Izzy would deny taking extra work because Grieves had specified for no one to know.
James and the surgeon walk into the storage room and Izzy looks up from the paper he had been scrawling on. The box next to him is filled with brown rum bottles.
“What’s going on, James?” Izzy’s holding the journal and quill in one hand and the other rubs the back of his neck. He looks at the two men with narrowed eyes but quickly schools his face and posture with the doctor in the room.
“Doc, here, is going to check my injury,” James replies with a charming smile on show and waving his hand around his stomach. “You know to see if he can remove the stitches.”
“But why here?”
“I wanted to see you, you’re working in here, and there’s more room,” he says, counting each reason off on his fingers. He goes to where Izzy is working, next to the desk in the room. “So it all works out.”
Izzy hums in agreement and takes the quill in his right hand to continue to count the rum bottles in the box. The other crew members are bad at letting him know when they use up the rum, probably from his temper. He pulls another full box from the stack, not even a huff of breath. Izzy can feel James' eyes on his back. Knows he’s watching the strain of his shoulders all the way down to his hands. It’s one of the things James is obsessed with, Izzy’s been told. Obsessed with the way he wields his sword and the way Izzy’s calluses feel against his skin.
James sits on the edge of the desk and gets pulled from watching Izzy’s hands move across the paper when he hears the chair next to the desk drag against the floor. It covers the scratching of the quill against the paper. The surgeon, who has only been referenced by Doc by everyone, takes a seat in front of James.
James decides quickly to pull off his off-white shirt completely, partially to make it easier for Doc to look at the wound and stitches and partially because Izzy is in the room. Doc isn’t much of a talker and starts to examine the wound he stitched together a week prior.
Izzy looks up from his work to see James, shirtless sitting on the desk. Nothing about James getting checked by the Doc is supposed to be sexual in nature but he still can’t help the blood rushing away from his brain. His hand stutters and his eyes leave James long enough to see a black splotch of ink staining the paper.
He looks back at James, with very little care for the ink splotch. Instead, Izzy’s brain supplies a thought he can’t shake. James looks like a masterpiece.
The way the light from the portholes bathes him is a golden hue. It catches his dark hair just right and reminds Izzy of their first meeting. It’s a different ship but in the same area, he was found. But Izzy can see the changes in James’ physique. When before, he was lean and not a single muscle or callous on his body. Now he has a bit of muscle, especially under where the Doc was working on. He also has a bit on his arms and thick calluses on his hands from working with the rigging of the ship. He even had the beginnings of a beard. All these things have just amplified what Izzy already likes about James because James deep down is the same nice and friendly man underneath the new muscles and calluses.
The two of them were by no means the younger on the ship, a couple of boys barely 15 were also on the crew, and James, sweet James, made sure when they came onto the ship that they could come to him. James is a reader and a bit of a fanatic for poetry. And on stormy nights would sit in the very storage room they are in now and tell them a story either by book or by memory. They would try to play it off, pretending they didn’t jump at the sound of thunder.
It brings up a memory for Izzy. The thunder was loud and the waves were rocking the ship. Izzy is laying with James on their bed when a knock on the door happens. Izzy watches as James gets up, leaving Izzy’s warm embrace to open the door.
Izzy can’t see around James but hears small voices.
“You said we could come to you for anything, right?” the youngest boy says.
“Yea, what do you need, Charlie?” James leans against the door. He’s shirtless and his elbow sits against the doorway.
“We just wanted to show you something.” Charlie looks around James and sees Izzy on the bed. “But it’s fine, we’ll show you tomorrow.”
Izzy was told by James before that was the little group's code word so the other older crew mate didn’t know what they were truly asking.
“No, no. It’s fine, you can show me. Let me just grab a shirt first, okay boys?” James turns around and mouths to Izzy, “I’m going to read them a story.”
Izzy nods a smile at the kindness. He watches James pull a shirt on and grabs the book on the desk.
“I’ll be back, Iz.”
Izzy thinks, This kindness must be from his schooling. The way he is able to care for others in a way I don’t understand.
Izzy is pulled from his inner thoughts when he hears the very man he is thinking about hiss through his teeth. It’s not from pain, Izzy knows what that sounds like. The moment with James’ head in his lap when the Doc started to work on him. That sound would live in his mind until the day he dies. No, this hiss is the uncomfortable kind.
He watches as the Doc pulls at the stitch he’s working on, and sees how it comes out of the skin it was holding together.
All my fault. All my fault. All my fault. Those three words pulse in his mind. Doesn’t matter what James told him before, he should have made sure the pirate was dead before he hit the ground.
Doc pats James’ knee after pulling the last stitch out, “It’s mostly healed nao, so you can go back to your normal work.” He nods to both men as a dismissal and takes his leave from the stock room.
“See, I’m all good. I’ll just have a fucking wicked scar and story now. It’s no different than your scars and tattoos,” James says, not moving from his spot on the desk.
Izzy gets a whiplash of thoughts. Two sides of his mind are fighting, guilt and horniness battle. He decides to ignore his feelings to take in how James looks.
He’s carefree about the pink scar on his stomach with a grin on his face and eyes twinkling.
Silence fills the air as Izzy walks over to the desk, placing the quill and book down as soon as he’s close enough. Their breaths mingle in the nearly silent room, only the sound of the water lapping the sides of the ship and the creaking of the wood surrounding them and their breathing.
Izzy’s eyes trace his face, flicking down toward the healing scar. He raises his hand to touch the pink skin. Before he places a hand over him, he meets James’ eyes for confirmation and with a slight nod, softly touches the flesh. He traces over it with gentle fingers.
James bites his lip to stop the laughter that threatens to spill out of him. Izzy feels his stomach contort with James’ stifled laughter. He feels James’ hitched breath and his eyes jump up quickly to James’ face and his fingers stop their dance over the healing skin. He takes in James’ face, his lip bite, and shivers.
“Tickles, that’s all,” James reassures him, the blacks of his eyes blown wide for Izzy. He leans forward into the space, moistening his lips with his tongue. James shifts his knees wider and Izzy steps up in between his opened knees.
“I’ll save that information for later, then,” Izzy says before pulling James forward into a searing kiss. They barely break for air while they shift closer together in sync.
James pulls Izzy closer by his shirt and wraps one arm around his shoulders to keep him in place.
Izzy pulls away to whisper, “You looked like a painting sitting here, before when Doc was examining you. Reminds me of two years ago when you were on the desk on the ship you were hiding out in.”
Izzy pulls away from James, hearing a creak from down the hall. His arms fall away from the embrace. He steps back, in case anyone comes into the room giving James a full view of his tented trousers. Izzy turns to face James and sees James’ downward look, his tongue between his teeth and a smirk on his lips. Izzy watches James’ eyes lift upward, a slow crawl before he looks him straight in the eye. Izzy turns red under the intense gaze and adjusts himself.
“We’ll continue this later,” James says, reaching down to grab his shirt from the floor, and shrugging it on. “That’s a promise.
James feels Izzy’s eyes on his back as he saunters out of the room, his smile never falling off his face.
The rest of the workday trickles on. Barely keeping his mind off of James, Izzy tries to make sure his work and writing are coherent for the stores. But his mind keeps imagining different scenarios he and James could get into once they are alone in their room.
It takes a while but he manages to finish counting, rearranging, and logging the supplies they have. The light filtering into the room tells him it’s nearing dinner time.
He places the log book and quill in their respective spots and walks out of the storeroom. He moves his way through the dark halls using the lanterns on the walls to light the way. Even if the lanterns were out, he would know the way by memory alone. His hand trails on the side of the wall, feeling the grain of the wood under his fingertips. Just outside the galley, conversations filter out of the room.
“Hey, Iz,” calls out James, sitting next to Matthew. He’s a tall man — well taller than Izzy anyway — with blond hair and light eyes. He’s only a few years older than the couple. He was not kind like James but was friendly enough to the two of them.
“Israel,” acknowledges Matthew before turning back to his food.
Izzy walks over to the food dished out and goes over to sit in the space left by James. In the bowl is a stew with some sort of meat and hard tack on the side.
This is the kind of food Izzy’s used to and preferable. At least on a ship, he gets warm food every day with some semblance of flavour unlike the years between his mum’s death and his first ship. Those years were hard on him with a few light parts.
He tunes back into the conversation James is having with Matthew and almost immediately regrets it.
“-it finish healing,” James says. “I’ll have a wicked scar.”
There’s pride in his voice as he says it. Izzy internally grumbles at his tone, and thinks you shouldn’t be happy about it, I’d rather you be mark free.
“So, I’ll see you tomorrow to help with the rigging then?”
“We have to change out some of the fraying bits, right?” James continues with sarcasm dripping from his voice, “You, me, meters of rope to check and fix. So much fun.”
Matthew hums a laugh at the sentiment.
All the while, Izzy makes the mistake of taking a sip of his rum as James says his piece. Coughs rack in his chest, the liquid burning his lungs. He feels James pat his back, trying to help him.
“I know I’m funny, but not that funny. Don’t want to kill you,” James says with a smile on his lips. He leans into his ear, voice low and dripping in desire, “I wanna make you see stars from cumming so hard and I can’t do that if you die from choking.”
Izzy feels the heat on his face and swallows hard, mouth thick with spit suddenly. The idea of James choking him fills his head and it doesn’t help the blush on his face. He swallows again and sees how James watches his Adam's apple bob. Izzy feels his blood start to pool into his dick and watches the way James shifts in his seat.
Izzy swallows the last couple of bites of his food but James still finishes first. He gives goodbye to Matthew and Izzy’s arm is hit as he gets up. From the doorway, after taking care of his bowl, James gives a wink to Izzy.
Izzy watches him leave and waits a few moments, sipping his rum slowly. He tries to hide their intentions from the rest of the crew and quickly takes his own leave from the room once he cares for his dish. Once out of the galley, he all but jogs down the hallway.
He gets extremely lucky to not run into anyone on his way to their room. Once he gets to the other side of the door he closes and locks it. James is in the middle of the room, his back to the door. Izzy walks over and with a gentle pull, turns him to face Izzy.
Izzy leans up on his toes, closing the space between them, and takes James’ lips onto his own. Even though Izzy slowly leans, he swallows the sound of surprise that falls out of James’ throat.
He pulls and pulls James closer by his shirt until they are touching at every spot. Arms wrap around Izzy and James’ hand works its way into his hair, pulling it ever so softly.
A moan falls out of Izzy’s mouth and when James finally pulls off of Izzy’s reddening lips, Izzy can see the smirk.
“You like me pulling your hair, Iz.” It’s not a question, but it still makes Izzy nod his head. Another moan fills the room when James pulls his hair harder.
Izzy trails his hand down James’ front and starts to pull up his shirt. James laughs at the quickness and helps pull it off. He stands shirtless in front of Izzy. His eyes follow down his front to the healing, pink scar. It’s angled down toward the trail of hair leading toward James’ dick. Izzy touches the pink skin before playing with the hair.
He looks up and meets James’ eye, muttering, “I’m sorry.” The guilt of what happened is still in his mind, threatening to take hold of it.
“No apologizing,” James says in a tone that Izzy’s never heard before from him. It makes his dick strain harder in his trousers. “Your turn. I shouldn’t be the only one topless, here.”
The tone in James’ voice causes Izzy to scramble to remove his shirt. It falls to the heap next to them.
A breathy moan escapes him when James touches the black ink on his chest. “I wanna know what this means to you, Iz.”
“You already know.” Izzy rolls his eyes, almost every time they have more than a few minutes James asks for the story. But Izzy doesn’t mind retelling it.
He looks down at the taps on his chest. James’ fingers trace along the black lines of the rope tattoo. It sits on the right side of his chest, halfway between his collarbone and nipple. The gentle touch follows the figure eight pattern living under the smattering of hair on his chest.
“It doesn’t mean much. Just that I worked as a deckhand for a bit. I got it done at like 16 on shore leave,” Izzy explains, each time the story gets shorter and shorter.
Izzy watches as James comes in close and places his lips over the tattoo. A puff of air escapes his nose at the gentle touch.
“So, it goes with the calluses on your hands, then?” He mumbles the words against the tattoo, looking up with half-closed eyes.
“I guess, yea,” Izzy shutters at the kisses that travel downward.
James continues until he is on his knees in front of Izzy. Izzy looks down his nose as James plays with the laces of his trousers. He raises his eyebrows, silently questioning if he can continue. Even with the silent question living in the air between them, James clears his throat and in a low voice asks, “Can I?”
Izzy nods and James moves further downward. He ignores the indigent sound from Izzy and unties his bootlaces. With quick work gets them off of Izzy’s feet and travels back upward. The leather is cold under his touch and once he’s back at the laces, unties them in a hurry.
He pulls Izzy’s leathers down and his hard cock bounces from its confines, finally free. Looking at it, James knows it aches in the air. A small bead of pre-come is already on the tip.
A shuttered breath escapes Izzy as James grabs the base of his dick. The callouses give the extra texture as his hand works its way up and down in a slow rhythm. James swipes the precome down Izzy’s shaft.
“I fuckin’ love the noises you make when you’re like this,” James says and starts to kiss the skin of Izzy’s thigh. He licks at the area and sucks a bit of skin into his mouth, his hand in a steady rhythm. The bit of scruff on James’ face pushes Izzy over onto the ledge more. James feels Izzy’s hands in his hair, holding him still in the spot when James moves to take Izzy’s dick into his mouth.
“Fuck, Jamie. Just like that,” are really the only coherent words that fall out of Izzy’s mouth. The rest is just noise.
Izzy opens his eyes enough to peer down at James. He watches in fascination as James slowly takes his dick into his mouth. He provides suction to the head, James’ cheeks hollowing out. A moan falls out of his mouth once James starts moving, the warmth engulfing him. Izzy has to pull on James' hair after a minute when it starts to get too much. With help, James climbs to his feet.
“Bed,” Izzy croaks out and he pulls James forward until his own back hits the bed. He removes the rest of his trousers quickly with James bracketing Izzy.
Izzy touches his way down James' stomach, skipping over the scar, to rest on the top of his trousers. Heavy breaths escape into the air around them and cool air hits the heated skin of James’ dick. At some point, James' shoes came off, and with that, his trousers and small clothes come off as one.
Izzy stares at the masterpiece of a man on top of him, wondering how he got so lucky.
Izzy pulls James down into a searing kiss and whispers against his lips, “Take me.”
“Was planning on it.”
He grabs the bottle of oil that lives between the wall and the bed. James fumbles trying to uncork it with one hand while the other keeps him upright and from crushing Izzy. Though if he thinks about it, Izzy may actually like that and stores that away for later. He covers his fingers in oil and falls forward to kiss Izzy’s lips.
Izzy opens his legs wide, waiting for James’ fingers. He feels fingers circling the puckered skin, liberally covering it in oil. A finger pushes inward to the first knuckle and he gasps at the intrusion. He closes his eyes as pleasure fills him. The finger starts to thrust into him and then James' mouth is on his, kissing and licking.
James adds a second finger to the first and pushes inward, hooking his fingers slightly to find the spot he’s looking for. A guttural moan falls out of Izzy as James rubs at the spot repeatedly.
“Another, Jamie. I can fucking take another,” Izzy manages to say, feeling the starting of warmth in his abdomen.
A third finger is added to the mix, stretching his hole. James continues his thrusts and soon warm cum shoots out of Izzy, hitting James in the chest. Only then does James stop and kisses Izzy hard.
“Let me take care of you.” The whispers mix with the sound of heavy breathing and Izzy flips them. He’s on top, sitting on James’ thighs.
Izzy shuffles and kisses all the way down, licking at the come on James’ chest. His taste is filled in his mouth, a salty flavor, and relishes the way James groans under him. He gets to eye level with James’ dick and looks up through half-lidded eyes. He takes James into his mouth and doesn’t look away as he guides as much as he can into his mouth. Whatever he can’t fit without choking himself, he grabs.
“Fuck, Iz, You feel so good on me. Won’t last long like this.”
Izzy takes that with little warning and starts to move his hand and mouth in sync. With his free hand, he blindly goes for James’ hand and places it in his hair.
He pulls off James’ cock long enough to say two things, “Can I use my fingers on you?” and “You can guide me.”
“Fuuuccckk, yea, Iz, you can. I want you to touch me there,” James says, moaning throughout the sentence.
He opens the bottle of oil that sits next to James’ thigh and slicks up James’ hole.
He pushes a finger in while sucking James off simultaneously. He adds a second finger when James pulls his hair. He moans at the feeling, the slight pain. Izzy rubs upward and adds even more suction to the dick in his mouth.
“Fuc- I can’t.” James’ words turn into an elongated moan. The spurt of salty cum fills Izzy’s mouth and he swallows and swallows and swallows every last drop of James. Izzy moves off James, and a pop sound is heard.
“We have to do that more often. You’ve got a fucking magic mouth, Iz.” The two shift until they are side by side, bits of cum drying on James’ chest.
A few moments pass where they just hold each other. Izzy gets up to grab a cloth to clean themselves up. The only sounds in the room are their breathing and the soft sounds of cloth washing skin. It gets thrown into the corner of the room and small clothes are pulled on.
James pulls Izzy back into his embrace and Izzy whispers against his chest, “I love you.” He doesn’t expect a response from James but feels him shift under him.
“I love you too, Iz,” James says, kissing his mouth. Between each kiss, James says those three words. All too soon, though they fall asleep in each other’s arms, limbs so tangled, it’s hard to tell where one man ends and the other begins.
From above, the entity that has been popping in over their lives watches to confession. The very sweet confession and it waits and waits and waits for the reciprocation. Time moves differently where it resides, it moves too fast and too slow all at once. Carefully, the ticking time bomb continues to count down. It will wait until it hits zero, then tragedy will strike.
But, first, the entity thinks, some more players need to be added to our cast of characters.
Notes:
I've written up to chapter 7 so far. After this chapter, I'm going to finish the story and post as I edit. I believe it will be roughly 15 chapters in total, give or take a chapter. I am a full-time college student so I can typically write a chapter a week but I have major projects due soon so it may be slower.
11/17/2022 edit: I am almost finished with this and have edited and added to this chapter. I will update as soon as I am done writing but I figured to go ahead and fix what was already published.