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Izzy knows he’s doomed the moment Edward comes back on his own. He doesn’t have to look for shapes in the clouds, or the colour of the sea, or indeed anything other than the deadened and muted look in Edward’s eyes. Even when they are brimming with tears, even when his captain is choking his way through godawful poetry, even when the wrath of the Kraken looms over him with a pair of shears in hand, even then, Edward’s eyes say it all. Where before there might have been madness, or sadness, or sparkling joy, there is nothing.
Shuttered windows, dead and cold.
Still. There’s a ship to keep afloat, a crew to take care of (and keep away from Ed, Izzy has no illusions about his own chances of survival if the crew actually got it in their heads to stage a mutiny), and if there is one thing Izzy is good at, it is routine. The rhythm and pace of a well-oiled machine brings him peace of mind, and it keeps the fear of what will happen next at bay. It doesn’t matter much if it’s peeling spuds (grey and slightly mouldy) in the galley or mending a sail, the predictable nature of seamanship puts him at ease.
It’s about duty. Doing what’s right for the ship, her crew, and her captain. Izzy never shirks his duties, not even now, when they do little more than float around in Bonnet’s goddamned gilded bathtub of a ship. But for the first time in his life, he finds himself procrastinating. Finding small things that can almost certainly wait until later or things so simple that even the useless ragtag scraps of Bonnet’s old crew could manage them.
Anything will do, if it means that he can delay having to step into the hollow shell that remains of the captain’s cabin.
Nevertheless, he needs to make his report, desperately trying to prod Edward towards making any kind of effort, to show any kind of interest in whether they live or die. Izzy is doing his best to make sure that they don’t all starve, or sail straight over the edge of the world, but he can only do so much. So every day, he steps into the cabin and delivers his report. Some days, he’s met with Blackbeard, manic and sharp like a straight razor, and other days he has to face down the Kraken, bearing the marks for days afterwards.
After word reached them of Bonnet’s death, he’s mostly met with silence.
(He hates the quiet sobbing most of all.)
Izzy steels himself, takes a deep breath, and opens the door. The cabin is oppressive and gloomy, made even worse by the scraps of fabric nailed carelessly across the windows. The air is thick and cloying, heavy with the sour smell of old tobacco smoke and unwashed sheets. Izzy never lingers in the cabin, always leaves as soon as he has delivered his paltry report to Edward. The room feels like a tomb.
Only now, it's empty. An open grave, devoid of its single inhabitant, and just as eerie. A cold chill sets in, and he takes another couple of steps inside, letting the doors fall shut behind him.
"Boss?" His voice falls flat and dead in the still air. Cursing under his breath and praying for safety in the privacy of his own mind, he continues into the room. "You in here?"
Nothing.
"Edward?" He hates how small his voice is.
Still nothing.
"The fuck has he gotten to?"
The bed is empty; the tattered curtains hang open to show nothing more alarming than greying bedsheets. The only other furniture in the room is the heavy desk. Izzy approaches it apprehensively, one hand on the hilt of his sword, as if the dark wood could spring to life at any moment.
There's a bundle on the desk. In the gloom, it looks like just another pile of discarded trash, one of many littering the room, but when he gets closer, Izzy can see that it is a carefully folded pile of clothes. Stark white and brilliant teal.
Izzy's breath catches in his throat, and no amount of torture could ever make him confess how badly his hands shake when he reaches out to pick it up. Unlike everything in the cabin, the clothes feel crisp and clean, and for a mad moment, Izzy is worried that his dirty and rough hands will ruin them. As if their owner isn't far beyond caring about the state of his clothes. As if Izzy ever paid him any mind.
His hands must move on their own, because suddenly he's not holding the bundle out in front of him, but rather hugging it close to his chest, pressing them against an ache that he refuses to acknowledge.
Izzy has no idea how long he stands there in the dark, holding the bundle of clothes against his chest. Nothing in the vast room signals the passing of time, it might as well have stopped, for all he knows.
“Put them on.”
To Izzy’s credit, he doesn’t shriek, or pull his blade, or do anything more than flinch violently. He doesn’t even drop the clothes.
Edward’s voice is coming from behind Izzy, and coming closer. Paralysing dread washes over him, and hot at its heels, a kind of resigned peacefulness, knowing that this might be the last straw. He can feel the presence of Ed right behind him now, almost touching. He radiates heat, and the same magnetic pull that prevents Izzy from ever leaving for very long.
"Put them on."
"What?"
Edward presses even closer. He doesn't smell of booze, or even sweat. He smells clean. "The clothes, Iz. Fuckin’ gave you an order, Iz. Put them on."
Izzy can't tell if he's trying to sound menacing. He doesn't. Even if the words are right, the voice isn't. There's no threat, no authority in Edward's voice. He's almost begging.
"Why?"
"Are you questioning me?" He sounds tired. He snakes an arm around Izzy, clutching the soft fabric and pressing it even firmer against his chest.
Izzy doesn't reply. He thinks he knows where this is going to end, and he both dreads and yearns for it.
"You're going to put them on because I want him here and you took him away from me." It's too earnest and Izzy swears he can feel tears run down the side of his neck, right where Edward is pressed close to whisper in his ear.
"It's your fault that Stede left. Your fault that he's dead." This time, Izzy can hear a sob, but if it's coming from Ed or from himself, he doesn't know.
***
Putting on the clothes is more difficult than anticipated. At the back of Izzy’s mind, he can almost imagine a different (younger, happier) version of Edward and himself, laughing and joking about the tiny buttons and the fiddly details. Not now. It’s near silent. His own clothes, well-worn and much patched, are piled on the desk next to Bonnet’s.
The stockings feel thin and flimsy around his calves, tied off at the knee with a shiny ribbon. Izzy can see coarse, dark leg hair poking out through the white silk. With stiff movements, he pulls the shirt over his head. His stomach does a funny flip when he sees himself in the mirror (pulled from god knows where and propped up against the cabin wall), drowning in the billowing white fabric. For a split second, Izzy remembers his first meeting with Stede, almost blushes at the memory of the showy way he cut the other man’s shirt open. Never in a million years did Izzy think that he would be the one left feeling exposed and flayed open.
“Get on with it, dog.” It’s not the snarl Edward intended, his voice is much too choked up.
Breeches should not give a man well into his fifties this much trouble, but then again, it is only expected when the breeches in question once belonged to Stede fucking Bonnet. Like the shirt, they fit poorly on Izzy’s frame. Too long, instead of being buttoned in place at the knee, they clinch uncomfortably around his calves. It takes several tries to figure out how to fold and tuck the shirt in so it isn’t bunched up under the shiny fabric of the breeches, and Izzy can’t stop a few muttered curses.
Edward doesn’t comment. He’s looming in the background, barely visible behind Izzy in the mirror. His hair hangs limp and damp, and even without the kohl, he looks emaciated and haunting, dark rings circling his eyes. Izzy can’t help but wonder how long it’s been since he slept. Since he ate something.
He looks hungry.
The waistcoat is simple enough, even though it is a little snug around the chest. The buttons are small, and Izzy’s hands are clumsy and rough, but he makes it. He even feels a little proud of himself when it’s all buttoned up, and, even knowing that Ed will notice, he smooths his hands down the slippery silk.
The clothes feel strange and uncomfortable, loose and bunching up in some places and straining tight in others. Even so, there is something hauntingly familiar about putting on these strange and ill-fitting clothes. The ritual, the attention to detail required to do it right, reminds Izzy of the care he puts into his own appearance. Not, he tells himself, in the vain, frilly way of Bonnet. More serious, more austere. Serviceable black and leather. But no less of a shield, the process akin to the donning of armour. For the first time in his life, Izzy wonders from what Bonnet was shielding himself.
There’s just one item left on the desk. Even as Izzy picks up the coat, he can feel his heart sinking. It feels heavy in his hands in a way that he doesn’t think silk should. Full of apprehension, he starts to shrug it on, noticing at once that the sleeves are much too long and too tight around his arms.
“Leave the fuckin’ coat, looks stupid on you.” Edward pushes off the wall where he’s been lurking and steps closer into the dusty light filtering in through a partially uncovered window. Izzy folds up the coat and places it back on the desk, and holds his breath.
For a time, it’s dead silent in the empty cabin but for the approaching footsteps, bare feet on the filthy floorboards. They stop once Edward is standing right behind Izzy, who for his part is staring down at the floor, not daring to look at himself in the mirror, or, worse, catch Ed’s eye. Izzy feels wrong, so clearly not Stede, screamingly obvious to himself, and certainly to Edward as well.
Ed places his hands on Izzy’s shoulders, and it’s all Izzy can do to stop himself from sobbing from the warmth, from the grounding pressure, as if it's the only thing keeping him from floating away.
“You look beautiful,” Ed whispers, so close to Izzy’s ear that he can feel the damp breath warm, and then cool, as he breaks out in gooseflesh all over.
***
The sheets are filthy, but Izzy hardly notices, because laying in the midst of the mess is Edward, brilliant and stunning, like a pearl nestled in seawrack and rot. The robe is only barely covering up his modesty, but there is nothing modest about the way his dark eyes roam over Izzy’s body.
For years, Izzy has longed for his captain to look upon him with that kind of fervour, that kind of hunger. It feels so good to finally get what he wants that he can almost ignore the reason for it.
Almost.
“Get over here,” Edward husks, his voice already thick and rough with desire. Izzy can’t look at where the robe is tented over his erection, for fear of losing his mind. Can’t move either, he feels rooted to the spot.
Edward must have noticed the way Izzy hesitates, the way he’s not looking him in the eye, because his voice softens, almost breaks, when he speaks again. “Iz--“ He takes a shuddering breath. “Izzy, do you want to?”
That loosens something in Izzy, and he looks up at his captain again. “Now you fucking ask?” Ed actually flinches at the brusque tone in Izzy’s voice, but he can’t help it. He feels bare, for all that he’s dolled up in expensive silks. Bare and raw, in ways that makes his insides crawl and his skin squirm. Edward is still looking at him, and it takes several seconds for Izzy to muster up the courage to nod. “Yes.”
With an answering nod of his own, Ed relaxes into the sheets again, looking up at Izzy with heavy-lidded eyes. “You’re going to fuck me.” Izzy can barely parse the words over the sudden roar of blood in his ears. That’s not how he and Ed used to go about things, far from it, but Izzy reminds himself that he’s not Izzy now. He’s not Izzy and Ed’s not the Ed that used to take him apart, tear him apart. “I’ll show you how.” Izzy isn’t sure if he’s talking to Izzy, or to the imagined Stede in his mind.
Despite Edward’s potential misconception of his experience, Izzy does, in fact, know how to prep and fuck a man; never you mind how long ago it was he last actually did it. Nevertheless, when Edward presses a bottle of oil into his hand and pulls the robe out of the way, Izzy finds himself shivering, almost shaking with the intensity of it all. Maybe, he thinks, this is how Bonnet would feel? He can’t imagine anyone not being affected by the sight Edward makes when he lays back down again and spreads his legs, one hand loosely fisted around his hardening cock.
“Slick up a couple of fingers--“ Ed bites his lip and shivers when Izzy does as he’s told. The oil is thick and silky smooth, much more decadent than anything he’s ever used before. Probably another remnant of Stede, something that escaped Edward’s purge of the place. “Gonna, gonna need you to prep me if I, if I--“ Without the beard, Edward’s face is an open book, and to Izzy’s surprise, he can see the other man blush. His eyes flicker away from Izzy’s hand, fingers glistening with oil. “Gonna need it,” he mutters, almost demure.
For his part, Izzy isn’t sure if he should be speaking or not. He’s never been much of a sweet-talker, in bed or out of it, and he’s also scared of breaking the illusion of being someone he isn’t. For a brief, mad moment, he tries to imagine what Bonnet would sound like in bed. But instead of the ludicrous, oblivious cheerfulness the man used to carry himself with, Izzy can only think of smooth, soothing words, spoken gently and carefully.
A warm wave of arousal washes over him, imagining those words whispered in his ear as he reaches out to brush his slick fingers over the heavy swell of Ed’s balls, the firm mound just behind, and finally the tight furl of his hole. “Relax,” he whispers, as softly as he can.
Ed whimpers and spreads his legs further, already pressing into Izzy’s feather-light touches. “Please.” It seems to Izzy that Edward is also struggling with keeping their roles straight, seeing how he’s already abandoned the pretence of talking Izzy through it.
As carefully as he can manage (trying not to think of how his hands are rough and dirty, nails chewed and dark-rimmed, so far from the manicured elegance of Bonnet’s hands), Izzy presses a finger up against his hole, teasing it in slowly. Easing it back out, tugging gently at the rim with the pad of his finger.
Taking his time, in a way they never have before. Exploring.
It feels right.
“Haaah, fuck--“ Edward gasps, his voice a tight whine. “Feels so good.” The praise washes over Izzy, warms him to his core. Serving (and servicing) his captain has always made him feel good, and seeing the way Ed is squirming underneath him fills him with equal parts pride and desperation. It’s true that he’s not often on this end of the transaction, but he’s gripped with the sudden urge to bury himself to the hilt in the fever-hot hole currently clenching greedily around his finger.
“Gonna need more,” Edward almost sobs the words. Izzy isn’t sure he does need more, actually, the way he relaxes into every push of his finger, he could probably take Izzy just fine. But maybe Ed knows something about Stede that Izzy doesn’t. Never thought he wanted to know. But now he can’t help but wonder.
Instead of arguing, or, indeed, further pondering the size of Stede Bonnet’s cock, Izzy pushes a second finger in alongside with the other. Edward hisses at the stretch, relaxing even further, even as his cock jumps, head connecting with his belly with a sticky ‘splat’.
Izzy feels well on his way to madness, but does his best to stretch Ed, scissoring his fingers and massaging the tight ring of muscles from the inside.
“Deeper,” Ed moans. “Want, fuck, deeper, press up when you, when you pull out.” Izzy wonders if he prepped a script to teach the Stede in his mind how to fuck him, as if this was just another fuckery, and if he suddenly remembered and is trying to get back on track. Izzy does as he’s told, prodding around for a bit before he strikes gold, and presses two fingers firmly against Ed’s prostate.
“Fuck!” Ed arches up, pressing down hard on the fingers in his ass, and for a second, Izzy is struck blind by the beauty of him. His hair is wild, half-dried curls like smoke or seaweed spread over the pillows, his face lax, but for the furrowing of his brows and the clench of his eyes.
He keeps his fingers where they are, rubbing, teasing, watching the sticky, clear precum drip from the dark head of Edwards flushed cock.
“Jesus, fuck, gotta--“ Edward reaches down and unceremoniously yanks Izzy’s fingers out of him, before flopping down on the bed like a puppet with his strings cut.
“Did I hurt you?” Izzy can’t muster up the acting skills to deliver the line with any kind of conviction. He knows full well why Ed stopped him, but he imagines that Stede wouldn’t.
Edward actually chuckles, and it warms Izzy to the core. “Nah, no, didn’t hurt. Jus’ didn’t want to come yet.” He opens his eyes slowly, and Izzy feels his heart lurch when they make eye contact for a split second before Ed’s eyes roam greedily down to where Izzy’s cock has been straining against the silk of both shirt and breeches for a while now.
The buttons on the fall front are tricky to undo one-handed, and Izzy can’t help but grouse over the fact that he went through so much trouble getting dressed in the first place. Edward is watching him struggle with an air of faint amusement and desperate hunger.
Finally, the trousers are undone and Izzy kicks them off. A vicious shudder runs through him when his overheated and oversensitive cock brushes against the fluttering silk of the long shirt, every touch of the fabric sending shocks thrumming through him. He glances up at Edward. “How–?”
To Izzy’s surprise, he only squirms a bit further down the bed and spreads his thighs wider. “Yeah, is this good?” Edward sounds almost uncertain, once again picking up on Izzy’s confusion and hesitation.
“It’s good,” Izzy mumbles, shuffling into position between Ed’s legs. Ever mindful of his captain’s needs, Izzy carefully lifts his bum knee and cradles it in the crook of his elbow. With his other hand, still slick from the oil, he bunches the shirt up and grabs his cock, spreading the oil over it in quick, light strokes.
As if reading his mind, Ed huffs out a “’m not gonna last long” with a wry smile. Izzy doesn’t quite know what to say to that, so instead he starts to press in, slowly. He almost misses the way Ed’s smile falters and his face goes slack with a soft moan, because of the clenching, almost unbearable heat of Edward’s body giving way to his cock. He’s so relaxed, so slick, that there’s hardly any resistance, only the firm grasp of his rim and the sweet, easy give of his body around him.
It takes Izzy a second to realise that the high whining sound he’s hearing is coming from him, and that Edward is holding him up with a shaking hand on his shoulder. “Fuck,” Izzy croaks out, feeling all at once hollowed out and full to bursting.
“Take, take your time, fuck, it’s so good,” Ed groans breathlessly, his own body belaying his words, as he rocks against Izzy with desperate pumps of his hips.
Izzy would dearly love to take his time, to collect himself before he fucks this up even more spectacularly than he already has, but as always, he’s helpless to the whims of his captain, and he starts to thrust almost at once.
“Oh, oh fuck,” Edward shouts, the hand braced on Izzy’s shoulder slipping and then grabbing, clawing, to pull Izzy closer to him.
Izzy buries his face in the crook of Edward’s neck, heedless of the way his grip on the other man’s leg stretches him, opens him up for Izzy to pound even deeper. There’s no skill to the way he buries himself in Ed’s body, over and over again, only sheer desperation and a need to be inside, as deep as possible.
“Pull my hair, pull my hair–“ It’s no more than a whimper, barely audible over the wet slap of flesh on flesh, but Izzy hears him and wrenches his free hand into the curls of Edward’s hair and tugs, hard. The wordless wail it nets him spurs him on even more, his pace even more brutal than before.
“Oh shit, oh shit, shitshitshit!” Ed’s voice is high and pitchy in Izzy’s ear. “Fuck, I’m gonna, gonna come.” He drags a hand down from where it’s been clawing at Izzy’s back, down to where his cock is rubbing up against the bunched up silk of the shirt, now soaked and patchy with sweat, oil and precum. Izzy feels him tug once, twice and–
“Stede–”
***
“I can–Do you want?” Edward gestures, uncertain, movements small and stiff. With a grunt of effort, Izzy sits back up and glares at Ed. He’s sure he looks a mess, still so turned on that words come slow and sluggish, but also angry. Furious. Livid, in fact.
“Fuck off, Edward. Got what you wanted, didn’t you? ‘S not about me, so don’t fucking pretend.”
“Iz–” There’s something like fear in Edward’s voice, small and scared, and Izzy hates it all the more now that he’s the cause of it. He shouldn’t have folded, shouldn’t have put on the fucking clothes, shouldn’t have let Ed get what he wanted.
“Shut the fuck up, Ed!” Even in his rage, Izzy takes care when he unbuttons the waistcoat. He knows he should want to tear it off, let the buttons scatter and the fabric rip. He should, but he doesn’t. With a lurch of nausea he knows it’s not even due to any kind of residual fear of his captain (after all, what more could Edward do to hurt him?), but rather a sickening fondness for a dead man who wouldn’t want to see his clothes mistreated.
He stands up and his legs only wobble a little. His cock hasn’t quite gotten the message, and has only flagged a little, but he steels himself as he tosses the waistcoat at Edward. “If there’s nothing else, captain?” Simple words, a simple question, spoken so many times in so many different ways. But never quite like this. Never before with barely withheld tears brimming in the eyes of both men.
Edward looks at him, eyes huge and vulnerable, and Izzy can’t stand how beautiful he is, even now, fucked out and on the brink of tears, so he looks away. Locates the bundle of his own ragged clothes and stalks over to the desk to snatch them up. Furious tears are running hot from his stinging eyes, but he ignores them just as he ignores the man huddled in on himself in the bed. Izzy needs to leave, and fast, so he doesn’t stop to dress, figures that the shirt is long enough to cover the most important bits as he flees the captain’s cabin.
He shuts the door to his own small room behind him, and, through force of habit more than any actual fear of the man he left lurking in the gloom, wrenches a chair under the handle.
Gripped with a sudden urge to be free of the memory of the past few hours, Izzy tears the shirt off his back and throws it on the floor, the slip of silk like burning coals in his hands.
An indeterminable amount of time passes, wherein Izzy sits dejected and empty on the edge of his cot, staring at the damp, but still brilliantly white, fabric on the floor. With leaden hands, he reaches down and picks it up, and for reasons unknown even to himself, stuffs it under his pillow.
***
Izzy is back on deck the next day as if nothing happened. He wonders what the night watchman heard. What the crew knows, and what they’re guessing. For the most part, they carry out his orders, such as they are, to the best of their abilities (such as they are).
Only Fang, alone at the helm, looks at him with something like pity, something like understanding in his eyes, and Izzy has no idea what to do with that, so instead he cusses him out. The only thing that nets him is a sad smile and a “Sure thing, boss”.
At the end of the day, the dreaded ordeal of the report looms closer once again, and Izzy feels a wave of nausea well up inside him at the prospect of setting foot in the cabin so soon after it all fell apart. He doesn’t notice the way he’s frozen stock still on deck, the way the other members of the crew move around him, not until he feels a hand on his shoulder.
Fang, again.
“Figured maybe I could give the captain his report today, boss, if that’s alright with you?” Izzy is once again faced with that same soft, sad smile, and once again he isn’t quite sure what to make of it, but instead of the snarl that Fang no doubt expects, Izzy just nods.
As Fang nods in reply and turns to leave, Izzy manages to rasp out a choked “Thanks.”
“You got it, boss.”
***
It’s days later. Fang has all but taken over the reports, and if Edward has a problem with that, no one has let Izzy know. If he’s being completely honest with himself, he’s not even sure that Fang has as much as stepped foot inside the cabin, let alone actually delivered a single report, but he keeps telling himself that he hasn’t shirked his duties. To the ship. To her crew. To her captain.
He runs his thumb over the smooth fabric, over and over again, the easy glide soothing and calming, as he tries to force his brain into the kind of empty stillness that almost resembles sleep. The only kind of rest he’s gotten in months.
There’s a knock on the door. So soft that it’s barely audible over the constant rush of waves against the hull, the straining of wind in the sails. Izzy’s heart almost stops.
He waits.
After a minute, there’s another knock. Something tells Izzy that if he ignores it again, the man on the other side of the door will leave, will slink off to his gloomy cabin once again. On stiff limbs, Izzy gets up and moves the chair out of the way. He takes a deep breath before he actually moves to open the door, steeling himself as best as he can.
Is this it?
He pushes the door open, just a fraction, before stepping back. He doesn’t reach for his sword, or his gun.
Edward looks terrible. His hair is lank and listless once more, his posture hunched and tense. But he still doesn’t look or smell of drink. “Can--” he starts, voice rough with disuse. “Can I come in?”
Izzy only steps back from the door, doesn’t beckon, doesn’t speak.
A complicated expression passes over Edward’s face when he takes in the cabin. His eyes flutter over the unmade bed, the startling white of the shirt, down to Izzy’s foot and the cane leaning against the wall, and finally up to Izzy’s face for a second before his gaze is pulled once more to the crumpled up shirt on the bed.
Edward steps inside, closes the door behind him, and Izzy has to take a deep breath to push down the flare of fear that tears through him. But this feels different. Doesn’t feel dangerous. Or at the very least, not the kind of dangerous that will cost him another toe.
Still addressing the shirt, Edward chokes out an “I’m sorry, Iz”. His voice is damp with tears, nose stuffy, and he sniffs wetly. “Shouldn’t have done what I did. Said…Shouldn’t have said that, like that–“
Any pretence or platitude (“You’re my captain”, or “You gave me an order”, or even “I wanted to give back what I took away from you”) is wiped clean from Izzy’s brain at the sight of his captain, this man he has served (and serviced) diligently and dutifully for decades. He can’t find the words, any words, to bridge the gap that has formed as the two of them have grown apart over the course of many, many years.
Still.
Izzy sees himself as if from the outside, sees himself reach out, first a hand on Edward’s shoulder, then an arm around his back. Then an embrace, both of them clutching at the other as great sobs wrack their bodies. Edward feels light, almost weightless, in his arms, and when Izzy gently steers him towards the cot, Edward only makes a wretched sound into the crook of his neck.
With as gentle a hand as he can, Izzy arranges them on his narrow bed. Edward curls in on himself, smaller than he’s ever seen him, until Izzy lays down behind him, holding him close, pressing warm against the width of his back. His hand is pressed tight over Edward’s chest, and in it, he holds Stede’s shirt.
***
Consciousness trickles back slowly, a drip-feed of sensation slowly coalescing into wakefulness. The sound of deep breaths. The swaying of the ship. The heavy warmth of another body beside him. The clutch of the arm wrapped around his back. The rise and fall of Edward’s chest underneath his head. Shards of memories fall into place, and Izzy recalls the tears and the pleas for forgiveness. He remembers telling Edward “it’s alright, you’re alright” over and over again until the sobs subsided as his captain fell asleep in his arms.
He’s still asleep. Taking care not to wake him up, Izzy disentangles himself from Edward’s embrace, just so he can look at him. He looks younger, in sleep. Some of the shadows and lines have faded away, but not all. His cheeks look sunken in, his skin drawn in a way it hasn’t been since they were kids. But he looks peaceful, too, his breaths even and deep. In the hand not currently pressed against Izzy’s side, he clutches Stede’s shirt to his chest.
Somehow, the sight doesn’t fill you with grief.
Something feels mended.
Like it’s healing.
As gracefully as he can manage, Izzy climbs over Edward and stretches. Taking stock of himself, he realises that he hasn’t slept this soundly in months. Years, maybe. He turns to look at Edward again, and cannot find it in him to wake him up. Instead, he pulls up the tattered blanket and presses a gentle kiss on his forehead before heading up on deck.
The morning is brisk and blustery, the sails creaking as they fill to carry them into the new day. It’s still quiet on deck, with the sun just starting her climb across the sky.
Izzy’s gait is still unsteady, even with the cane, but he feels invigorated in a way he hasn’t in years, so he climbs the rigging (much to the surprised look of the helmsman on duty) and settles into the crow’s nest. The wind whips his hair into a tangled mess almost immediately, and his eyes sting, but the air never tasted as sweet as when he draws a deep breath and scans the horizon.
He spots a ship.
A ship with many, many flags.