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"This is utter bullshit," Oluwande muttered.
From across the deck there came a sound of steel on steel, a scrape of blades against each other — and then, with an almighty shriek of metal, Jim's wrist bowed, and their fingers sprang open, and their sword went flying as they ducked away from Izzy Hands with a muttered curse. The sword flew straight to Oluwande and thudded into the wooden rail at his side, blade quivering.
"You were saying?" asked Izzy, straightening up and fixing his hair.
"I said good form, mate!" Oluwande called. "Superb! Sorry, Jim."
Jim just shook out their smarting hand and stepped aside.
"Who's next?" asked Izzy.
The crew steadfastly avoided his eyes — and Blackbeard's too, since he was standing guard with his thumbs in his belt, watching them all like a hawk. Stede hung over the balcony and glanced from one crewmember to the next.
"Well, come on, men!" he chided. "It's not every day you get a free lesson from a master swordsman! Even if I did show him a thing or two myself—"
"It's not fair, is it, though?" said Frenchie, scrunching his nose. "He's not exactly going easy on us."
Izzy's eyes snapped to Frenchie. His grip on his sword tightened.
"No, you're right, you're right," said Frenchie, backing away. "Totally beginner level."
"No, don't back down, you've got a point," Lucius said. He stepped forward, hands on his hips. "He's clearly not even trying to teach us, Captain, he's just showing off." To Izzy, he raised his eyebrows and said, "That's called bullying and it's against the Pirate Code."
There was a murmur of agreement throughout the crew, with the Swede nursing the fresh cut on his forearm (thanks, Izzy) and Wee John rubbing at the tuft of hair removed from his scalp with a scowl. Izzy curled his lip, saying nothing in his own defense — and Stede shrugged, both facially and with his shoulders, as if to say they had a point — and it was Blackbeard who took one deliberate step forward and silence the crew with a single look.
"You think he isn't going easy on you?" he asked, his voice low.
The murmurs of discontent dried up. Lucius and Black Pete made eye contact and subtly faded into the background, pretending to be busy. Blackbeard studied each of them in turn, his lips slowly curling up in a smile.
"Alright, then," he said, and he unsheathed his sword with a flourish. "Izzy, let's show them a real swordfight."
Izzy straightened, and the change that came over him was instantaneous: a darkening of the eyes, a tightening of the jaw, his stance now subtly different than before: more attentive, more sharp. Earlier, fighting the crew, he'd seemed almost casual, barely glancing at them as he parried their blows and snuck behind their defenses, but now...
Now he looked ready to kill or be killed, and if anyone could accomplish the latter, it was Blackbeard. Stede gripped the edge of the railing tight, his lips pursed as Ed shifted his feet into a fighting stance, his sword at the ready.
"Ready when you are, love," Ed said, and Izzy took a shaky breath and started to answer — and before he could, Blackbeard lunged forward and clashed his blade against Izzy's with a deafening shriek of metal on metal.
Every movement was a blur, Blackbeard attacking and Izzy defending so fast that no one could quite make them out. Their feet twisted on the deck, quicker and more elaborate than a waltz, more graceful too — their elbows barely missing each other, a whisper of skin against skin as they twirled around each other, fought for a better position, a weak spot in the other man's defensives, a way to get through. Ed's sword came down on Izzy's shoulder, and with the grace of a well-seasoned warrior Izzy bowed out of reach, his own sword coming up from below to connect — almost — with Blackbeard's ribs. Another delicate twist of the hips from Blackbeard and he was safe, their swords never touching skin — no sound exact the scrape of their boots on the deck, the creak of leather, the clash of metal, the quiet rasp of cloth as Izzy ducked and lunged and bowed to avoid Ed's sword.
It wasn't a sword fight at all. It was a dance: violent and aggressive and potentially deadly; intimate and beautiful and overflowing with art. Each step took them closer to the mast; each blow brought them closer to each other; and when Blackbeard's back hit the mast, Izzy's stomach touched his, their legs twisted together, their chests heaving as Blackbeard's sword clattered to the floor and the very tip of Izzy's blade touched his throat.
They were close enough to kiss — smiling too hard to manage it, to close their lips over their teeth and lean in for that spark of contact — and for the first time Izzy's face was open, and his shoulders were relaxed, and as he gasped for breath and held his sword to Ed's throat, he looked as close to happy — as close to comfortable — as the crew had ever seen him. And Edward's hand slid down Izzy's forearm, fingers closed around his wrist, skin hot, breathing ragged—
And a round of applause broke the tension.
"Brava!" Stede called, clapping his hands together as loud as possible. "Oh, marvelous show, Iggy! Truly, you must teach us—"
Izzy's smile faded. He pulled away from Blackbeard, aimed his sword tip at the deck. His shoulders were hunched again, his breathing back under control.
When he gestured for Lucius to pick up Blackbeard's sword and face him, he'd gone back to normal: his movements slower, gentler, his expression closed off, his lips curled into a sneer. There was nothing to indicate that anything had changed — nothing except the slightest flush that covered his cheeks and kissed the X beneath his eye.
Nothing but that.