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Israel Hands is a very capable man.
He plans his days, from start to end, and knows that each second flows unto the next in the order he has memorised, just as it has everyday of his life before this.
He understands, naturally, that there are unpredictable events that will spring up, even when the day has been planned long before, and will bring along intense change to his day until it has long passed, and has planned for each accordingly. He knows where he will stand and what he will say when a vicious storm hits, he knows where to aim the first cannonball in a raid, and where to aim the next three depending on if he wants to board the vessel or simply let it sink.
When Israel wakes up in the Captain’s quarters, he is mildly distressed.
It’s not because he’s in an unfamiliar bed (he’s been in plenty of those), or because he’s tucked snugly between his beloved Captain and the outrageously pompous ‘Gentleman Pirate’ (and if you were to imply such a thing, you would be met swiftly with an embossed dagger to the side of your stomach, I warn you).
Izzy has spent many nights, mainly in his youth, tucked beside his captain, and the idea of doing so the night before brings little stress to him. Being in the general vicinity of Stede Bonnet brings, not stress, but often a strong distaste, half-present now as the man’s soft hands sit perched on his shoulders.
A mixture of agility and skill, picked up from being a stowaway for much of his youth, and detailed knowledge of what will and will not rouse his captain allows him to wriggle his way out of his compromised position with little more than a discontent grumble from Ed as the space between his arms grows colder without his presence.
He watches them, bathed in the minute light cast by a sky without the sun or moon, silhouetted by the lightening sky filling in the stain-glass window behind them.
He finds his trousers and vest folded neatly and primly placed on the far end of Stede’s ridiculous little couch, and shakes them out of their folded forms with the morbid thought that Stede had even bothered to fold his clothes, as if he were also some pompous little wretch with enough wealth to not even need to be out on the sea like himself.
He tugs them on despite this, and sits himself on the very edge of the floral patterned lounge as he pulls his boots onto his feet and ties the laces, up through the very top lace loop and knotted twice, legs humming with energy as he does so.
He finds his cravat, sat delicately on the arm of the lounge, and ties it, the rhythm of the knot sitting so deep in his bones that he doesn’t even need to think about it. He finds Stede’s stupid hand-held mirror, wrapped in fine vines of silver-plated copper, and inspects himself, turning the ring that sits so quietly on his cravat around so that the solemnly plain jewel sits front and centre at the nape of his neck, just as it had everyday pior and as it will for every day to come.
He puts the mirror down, his ritual complete as he stands fully dressed, but the feeling does not leave.
He wonders, as his chest concaves under the weight of his thoughts, if he can simply just wander down to his own quarters and start the day, pretend that everything is as it should be and that he wasn’t left reeling from something as simple as waking up in a different bed.
Another part of him, something more pathetic and weak than he’d ever admit to being, craves to hide away, to tuck himself in the lowest segment of the ship, to squeeze himself between the stores of gunpowder and marmalade until the day starts again, where he can wake up in his own bed and do things in their correct order, in their correct places.
Izzy knows that if he were sitting that his leg would be bouncing rapidfire, and almost considers doing so just so that he can feel that anxious static energy roll out of him and into the floor instead of pooling in the ends of his hands and feet like angry seawater.
“Izzy?”
The warm voice of Stede Bonnet breaks out into the open silence, made bleary by sleep, successfully (and not purposefully) scaring the actual daylight out of Izzy.
“Fuck!” Izzy stumbles back as he startles, losing his footing and falling back against the far wall of the captain’s quarters, head and shoulders landing hard against the wood laden walls.
The commotion succeeds in snapping Stede out of his sleep induced bleariness, and simultaneously wakes Ed, who snaps upright beside Stede as if the boat were on fire, loose strands of hair sticking to his face as his eyes blinked away sleep.
“Israel?” Stede asks, pulling himself out of the tangle of blankets on his bed, Ed doing the same. “Are you quite alright?”
His head is spinning as he struggles to pull himself up, hands braced against the wall as he tries to push past the sharp ache at the back of his skull. “Fuck off.” He grunts, staggering his way toward the door on unsteady feet.
“Iz?” Ed calls after him, pushing the words out past a wide-mouthed yawn as he joins Stede in getting up out of the bunk.
“I said fuck off! ” Izzy shouts, tearing open the door and letting it slam shut behind him, no regard for the coloured glass rattling in the centre of the door.
He storms down the hallway, boots thundering against the wooden walls and floors and no doubt rousing the rest of the crew, and a small itch at the back of his mind reminds him,’ You’ve done it now, you could have pretended before.’
He doesn’t bother heading back to his room, despite the immense urge to hide underneath the shabby bunk in his little corner and wait out the hours until everything is right again the next morning, because he knows that even then it will take days for things to feel normal again. He curses himself, why couldn’t he control himself for one fucking night so he didn’t have to deal with this?
Izzy does end up heading towards the ships stores anyway, thunking footsteps against the floor the entire journey, less for any semblance of privacy or camouflage (especially seeing as most of the ship heard him stomping towards his current spot), and more for the pure comfort of being away from the planned day ahead of himself.
To take himself, to remove himself completely from the plan is far less distressing, he finds than sitting in the heart of the day and watching as everything slowly diverts from what he considers his normal. It was originally part of the reason why joining The Revenge was so tough for him, until the marmalade and the arts and crafts had suddenly clicked into a perfectly regimented schedule (one thing he could actually thank Stede for) that suited him far more than Queen Anne, driven solely by Edward’s erratic decision making that made it so hard to anticipate what might happen next.
The ship at this level was never free of that damp and musty smell that brought Izzy so much comfort, permeating the thick wood as it cut through the dark ocean water.
Originally, when Izzy was sneaking onto ships and burrowing himself amongst the stores, the idea of being below the water terrified him. It felt almost inhuman to sit dry and steady below the surface of the ocean, as if he were committing some act of fraud against the universe by simply breathing in the moist base of the ship.
By now, after having spent over half his life on the sea, the feeling was of comfort to him, like a voice that tickled his ears and sung to him like a mother to a child, like he held a bond with the depths of salty water that permeated the very fibres of his being.
Izzy sits wedged between crates of marmalade, something he no longer has the zeal to be bothered by to any important degree, the scent of waterlogged wood and dried salt filling his lungs as he breathes in and out, as steadily as he can manage whilst hiding from the world. He rests his head against the soft wood of the ship’s walls, eyes fluttering shut as he feels the boat rock left, and then right, left, and right, over and over like mother and babe.
Despite more than a full night of sleep, Izzy is unable to keep his eyes open, the openings of bare skin between his darkened attire resting against the cool glass of tangerine spread. A soft feeling is itching at the back of his mind, similar to the night before, where he was pulled back down into that softer place he goes sometimes, when he leans into touches and giggles at things he stopped caring about early in childhood. He wills it to go away, for it to leave him be, but the sensation spreads across him, settles behind his eyes and in his chest with a gentle weight that makes him want to curl up, curl into someone’s side and stay there until it passes.
This feeling, this softness, it aggravates him, makes him want to climb up to the crows nest and slash all the sails so that this anxious energy is pushed out through the conduit of his blade instead of sitting stationary and static in the ends of his extremities, the tips of his fingers and toes. He hates that it brings a pout to his face, something so childish and beneath him that it shouldn’t even exist in the same realm as the name ‘Izzy Hands’.
Izzy feels himself come closer to sleep, the distaste he feels at the idea that the rocking motion of the ship is lulling him to sleep, like some infant , but pushes the thought aside in favour of the rest he wants so dearly, tucked up snug in the ship’s old stores like a little mouse, the kind that Stede tells him about when he tucks Izzy into his side and drapes them in soft fabrics, when the softness encompasses Izzy fully - like it’s trying to do now.
He sits, teetering between waking and sleeping, between hard and soft, for longer than he cares to know. The scent of dampness is comforting to him, the silence of the hollowed ship calming him beyond measure. It’s almost enough to lure him to sleep until the silence is disturbed.
“Izzy?” Ed’s voice carries through the stores, wood and nails creaking as he climbs out the ladder, weight placed unevenly for his bad knee.
Izzy sighs, the exhaled breath stuffed into the sleeve of his shirt as he’s pulled away from the sleep he’d been chasing for long enough now.
“Are ya down here, mate?”
Izzy grumbles into the wooden planks he’s resting against, a scowl set deep into his features.
Ed knew everything about him, too much, it seemed, he couldn’t even get a moment's peace now that the man knew his places of shelter. Of course, he’d rather it be Ed than anyone else he’d come across in his seafaring life, but it was still annoying nonetheless to be known like this.
“I can see your boots.” Edward calls out to him, laughing as his footsteps grow nearer.
Izzy swallows another sigh, tugging his legs up from where they’re sprawled out across the empty crates and into the walkway to up into his chest, held in place by his tightly bound arms. The footsteps grow nearer, and he tucks the bottom half of his face into his knees, gaze trained on the dark patterns ingrained in the wood.
Edward appears before him, dressed in his leather attire and leaning languidly against the crates of jam spread, stacked high above both their statures.
Izzy pointedly doesn’t look at him, curled up and tucked in the corner of the empty crates with a scowl on his face and a pout poorly hidden behind the knees brought up to his chest.
“What are ya doin’ down here?” Ed asks, gaze trained on the labels pasted neatly on each of the jars, even though Izzy knows that he’d only learnt to read what he thought necessary, that being maps, time, his own name and wanted posters. A sick feeling in Izzy’s stomach tells him that it’s only because to look at himself is something that Edward would rather not do, that he is too pathetic and ridiculous to warrant even a look from the esteemed pirate before him.
Izzy shrugs, eyes unmoving from where he’s studying a particular curvilinear pattern in the surface of the weary wood beside him.
“Come on,” Edward murmurs, squatting down in front of the empty pallets despite both his leather attire and his bad knee, and resting his forearms on his bent knees. “What’s wrong, Iz?”
Izzy rolls his eyes, sighing heavily into the dark fabric of his pants. “Nothing’s wrong.” He murmurs.
Without even looking, Izzy can tell Ed has rolled his eyes. “‘Nothing’s wrong’ my arse, Iz.” Ed scoffs, reaching out to grab one of Izzy’s boot clad feet and shake it. “You only come down here to mope, you muppet, I’ve known you for most of your life.”
Izzy, involuntarily, whines in the back of his throat, bringing a hand up to wipe down the surface of his face.
“What’s up, Izzy?” Edward asks, squeezing the end of his boot with a gentle grip. “You can talk to me, yeah?”
Izzy sighs wetly, folding his arms above his knees so that he can tuck his face into the crook of his elbow, curling tighter around himself.
Though he cannot see, Izzy hears Edward sigh, and can guess from the squeak of rubbing leather and creaking wood that he has moved to sit in front of him on the bare storage pallet.
“You woke up frightened, didn’t you?” Edward whispers, phrased like a question, though he is not asking.
“Different.” Izzy speaks simply and curtly, words pressed into the cloth that covers his arms and muffled doing so.
“You woke up different?” Ed asks, the wood beneath him creaking as he leans closer to Israel, who shakes his head solemnly, looking off into the distance as if it were not blocked by the solid wooden wall in front of him. “What was different?”
“Changed.” Izzy breathes, inhaling shakily as he presses himself further into his own embrace. “The day starts different.”
Ed nods, acknowledging his understanding silently, as if he is pondering over the answer.
“You don’t like when things are different, do you, Izzy?” Ed whispers, staying quiet while Izzy nods his answer.
“What about last night?” Edward says, toying with the worn laces on Izzy’s boot awkwardly as he speaks. “Did you enjoy last night? How we treated you?”
Izzy growls, deep in his throat, but begrudgingly nods anyway. He does, despite himself, enjoy being small.
“Was it waking up in a different place that freaked you out?” Ed reaches his hand up to pat Izzy’s knee, gently patting him as if he’s some frightened animal instead of his own first mate.
Izzy snatces himself away, pulling himself out of Ed’s current reach and cramming his back up against the unpacked crates behind him. “Fuck off.” He whispers, spitting out the words like tar.
Ed’s face sours slightly as the words pass Izzy’s mouth, and Izzy can see him gnawing on the inside of his cheek as he breathes in and out and opens his mouth to speak again. “You need to just- tell me so that-”
“Fuck off !” Izzy cuts him off with a shout, untucking his knee from his chest and thrusting it in Edward’s direction, hitting his chest and shoving him away off of the raised pallet.
“Oi!” Ed yells as he catches himself on the stacked pallets beside him, pulling himself back up to standing. His fist slams against one of the crates, slamming against the wood and making the jars rattle against each other in a choir of noise that is far too loud for his ears right now. “Don’t you fucking dare-” His voice fills the room with force, in a way that he hasn’t since the Kraken had final departed, and it sends Izzy reeling, pushing himself into the corner farthest from Ed.
The man pauses, closing his mouth tightly and letting his eyes fall shut, breathing deeply as he tightens and loosens the grip of his closed fist. It makes Izzy almost sick to see him do so, to see him attempt to control his anger like some refined dignitary type from a way up manor in England, and a distasteful feeling at the back of his tongue reminds him that it probably was such a dignitary that had told him to do so, fucking Stede Bonnet. Even though the shouting stirs far too much fear in him to be respectable, he sometimes prefers it to the soft bellied man that Ed had grown into, a solemn reminder of everything Izzy hadn’t been able to do for him whilst in his command.
Ed licks his lips, bends down again, a hand braced on the wall beside him, and opens his mouth again. “Don’t you ever, ever, talk to me that way, do you understand?” Ed speaks softly and calmly, but Izzy is experienced enough to tell that the words he speaks are serious, and something he should be careful to consider.
There is still that weak, soft itch in the back of his mind that craves for approval and gratification, especially from Ed, and it compels him to nod rapidly and silently from his position huddled in the corner. “Understood.” He mumbles.
“I came down here to help you, alright?” Ed murmurs, reaching a hand out towards Izzy, holding his palm up in the air between them, an invitation that Izzy has the option to accept or refuse. “So, you can come up with me, and we can sit in my quarters and talk it out, or you can sit down here for a little while longer and come up later, okay?” He’s pushing the words out of his mouth like they’re lodged in his throat, keeping his eyes trained on the floor away from Izzy, as if he’s almost embarrassed to be communicating like a normal person for once.
Izzy hums in the back of his throat, letting it be known that he’s listening, even if he refuses to determine his stance on what Edward is saying.
“But,” Edward says, the words strained like he’s struggling to stay composed, in a way that makes a small part of Izzy want to curl up into the wall and disappear, “I can’t help you if you’re going to act like - this!” Ed gestures toward Izzy, stowed away underneath the deck, out of view from anyone onboard.
“So,” Edward sighs, his hand still held between himself and Izzy, “You can come out of your hiding spot, and we can go upstairs and I can help you sort this out, or you can stay down here and fix nothing.”
Ed’s eyes finally move up from the floor to meet Izzy’s, who glances away the second their eyes make contact. Ed moves around, turning his head until he catches Izzy's gaze again, the man shrinking under Ed’s vision.
Izzy sighs, taking a deep breath of that sweet damp smell that he has grown to love so dearly, and sheepishly puts in hand in Edward’s.
Ed smiles, bringing his other hand to rest on top of Izzy’s, sandwiching his leather gloved hand between his own bare ones.
He stands, stepping back off of the pallets and standing up on his good knee, and waits for Izzy to pull himself out of the corner. Edward would normally not be adverse to helping Izzy up himself, but Ed knows that when Izzy is upset like this it’s best to avoid any act that might hint to his smaller side, something that upsets him greatly when he’s reminded of it.
Izzy does manage to pull himself up off the floor, staggering slightly, and tails Edward like a lost duck. He pretends not to notice when Edward smiles, relieved, and walks slowly up toward the ladder out of the stores, waiting for Izzy to stay close behind him.
They walk up the way Izzy had originally gotten down here, and though distress has firmly wound itself in Izzy’s stomach again, no one really seems to present enough to notice him pass, trailing behind Edward as if he were his shadow.
Izzy is constantly on edge, even as Ed leads him into his shared room and shuts the door behind him, the feeling follows him, the itch that something is not right.
“You gonna sit down, mate?” Ed asks, looking up at Izzy as he takes a seat on one end of the sofa, sat in the centre of the room. Izzy, being ever faithful to Edward, would sit down beside him even if he didn’t want to, but he does - so he sits down across from him, tucked up on the other end of the large seat.
Ed sighs, letting the room fall quiet as Izzy stays still beside him. The man is stiff, hunched over himself with his arms wrapped protectively around his middle.
“If you didn’t already notice,” Ed starts, voice gruff, “Stede isn’t here.”
Izzy sheepishly raises his head to look around the room, and finds the bunk empty, the desk barren, the curtained shelves opened and empty of Gentleman Pirates.
“I know that it’s hard for you to get along with Stede, he can be a bit-” Edward pauses, as if looking for the right word, “-overzealous, so he’s up with the crew doing some drawing, I think.” Ed scooches closer to him on the pristine cushion, edging closer as he speaks. “So you and me can figure this out, and if you want I can talk to Stede for you, or he can come in and we can talk with him together, okay?”
Izzy nods hesitantly, once he’s sure Edward isn’t joking. He glances across the room, to the door, to the desk, even the auxiliary closet, just to be sure that Stede won’t pop out at any second, that this isn’t some test for their attention that he’s going to fail. He looks back to Edward, and he must look absolutely distraught because Ed’s face dips into a soft kind of smile, and he sighs as he reaches out to take Izzy’s hand.
“If you want him here then that’s okay, I can go get him-” Even at the thought of Ed leaving, even momentarily, Izzy’s hand squeezes tightly around Ed’s, “-and we can all talk together, but- I just thought you’d be more comfortable if it was just us.” Ed smiles at him, rubbing the side of Izzy’s hand with his thumb. He seems genuine, just as Izzy is woefully unused to.
Ed looks into Izzy’s eyes with his own wide brown ones, and that soft itch at the back of his mind suddenly surges, lurches forward and occupies the forefront of his mind. He can feel his lip quiver, and he can tell that Ed sees it too, his eyes widening as he leans forward toward Izzy.
“Oh, oh, Izzy.” Ed takes Izzy into his arms, catching him as he falls forward, wrapping the smaller man up in a tight embrace.
Izzy feels himself shake into Ed’s shoulder, letting out a sound he didn’t know he was capable of making, wailing into the worn leather.
He cries into Ed’s shoulder until the tears choke off, gasps turning to shallow coughs as he begins to compose himself.
Ed’s hand is steadily rubbing against his back, and has been doing so for most of the time he’d been crying. “I’m sorry, buddy.” He says into Izzy’s hair. “It’s been hard, hasn’t it?”
Izzy nods pitifully, his face shamefully tucked away into the crook of Edward’s neck. He always feels so sheepish after crying.
“Can’t fix it.” He whispers, the words pressed into Edward’s skin and subsequently muffled.
Edwards sighs sadly, pulling his fingers through the tangled strands of Izzy’s hair as he tips them side to side, rocking back and forth. “What makes you say that?”
“It’s not right.” Izzy shudders, the discomfort from before still radiating in his bones. “It’s off.”
Ed pouts, Izzy knows this, because Ed always hums in such a particular way each time he does so, and Izzy would be a terrible first mate if he didn't pay attention to things like that.
“I’m sorry.” Ed says, rocking them both side to side still. “I should have remembered. It’s alright.” He leans back, pulling Izzy on top of him so that they’re both laying against the arm of the seat, Izzy tucked into his chest.
Izzy lets himself breathe rather than responding. He’s tired, from crying only moments before, from his freakout this morning, from the small fog gripping his mind, and it’s already getting hard to keep his eyes open, especially when tucked into Ed like this.
“Would you like to stop doing this?” Edward whispers hesitantly. “If it’s making you feel so yuck.”
Izzy grips on to Ed’s shirt digging his nails into the fabric. He shakes his head in a gentle ‘no’.
“Okay.” Edwards breathes, still patting Izzy’s back. “That’s okay. That’s good.” He presses his lips to the crown of Izzy’s head, in a lazy kiss that doesn’t leave for a good while. “Do you want to stop staying the night up here with us, then?”
Izzy shakes his head again. The issue isn’t spending time with his captains, neither is it falling asleep with them. It’s just that- when he wakes up, he has no idea how to transition from waking up in a new place to falling into his regular routine; it puts everything off kilt until he can fall back into a rhythm, which usually tends to be when he first wakes up in his normal cot. He wants to say it, to finally let the words pour out of him, but that stupid fucking fog that makes him feel so soft and small always makes the words stick and clog up in his throat until it’s passed.
“I want,” Izzy begins to say, speaking slowly so that each word is clearly enunciated, so that no extra thought has to be spent repeating what he’s already said, which always makes him ridiculously upset. “To wake up. Feel normal.”
Ed looks down at him with a puzzled face. “Huh, bae?” He asks, playing with the hair at the nape of the smaller’s neck. “What’s not normal when you wake up?”
Izzy scrunches his face up as he tries to calm himself. It is incredibly angering to not be able to articulate your thoughts. “‘S different.” He mumbles. “Can’t feel normal.”
“Ah.” Ed says, nodding to himself as if he understands Izzy’s predicament from such a basic explanation. ‘ He probably does’ Izzy thinks. Ed always surprises him with how much he can gather from his ‘small’ induced ramblings.
“I have an idea.” Ed says, cheek pressed up against Izzy’s forehead. “What if we make a schedule for you to stay up here?” He stays quiet, as does Izzy until he realises that Ed is waiting for him to respond. He nods into Ed’s chest, waiting for the (currently) elder to continue. “That way,” He says, speaking through a smile, as if he’s proud of the solution he’d come up with, “You’ll always know where you are. It won’t be different anymore, because it’ll just be normal, right?”
Izzy thinks to himself and realises; that actually sounds like it might work. To modify his schedule would mean that it would just be normal to stay with Ed and Stede, leaving him free of any transitional periods after being cared after for a night.
He hums his response, a warm and high thing that fills the space around them.
“Do you like that idea?”Ed speaks through a grin again, and Izzy comfortably smiles into Ed’s chest, knowing that even though he’d phrasedit as a question, Ed knew the answer already. Izzy giggles, nuzzling his face into the taught leather wrapped around Ed’s torso.
“What are you giggling about, you little goose?” Ed laughs, hands braced on Izzy’s head below him.
Izzy pulls himself up and out of Ed’s chest, giggling out freely into the air. “Baba.”
Ed’s grin melts into a dopey smile as he looks down at Izzy, raking his fingers through the pepper coloured hair. “Hi Israel.”
Izzy laughs again, tucking his chin into Edward’s leather jacket. “Sleep.” He says, reaching up to tug on his Baba’s sleeve.
Ed groans, tipping his head back in an exaggerated way that he knows will bring another fit of giggles to Izzy. “Again? You want to have a nap again , Iz?” He asks, reaching down to play with Izzy’s cheeks, who squeals.
Ed sighs loudly, pulling himself back up to a sitting position, Izzy rolling onto his lap. “Come on, bugface, I’ll have a sleep with you.”
It’s the next week, and Izzy is standing outside of his Captain’s quarters.
Stede has been debriefed by now, and a plan had been devised by two co-captains for when he would be arranged to stay the night. It had also been made explicitly clear that there was no limit on nights that he could choose to stay.
“Honestly, I’d be happy for you to stay every night.” Stede had said, and paired with a stupid little grin, it had made a fully adult Izzy almost sick.
But now, when he’s floating between the big and the small and standing rigidly outside the bedroom door, he’s desperate to spend every moment wrapped up in their arms (a thought that almost distresses him when he isn’t small).
He can hear them talking through the door, talking about him , talking about putting him down to sleep and who has to get up with him in the morning to take care of whatever needs may present themselves in the early hours of the morning, as if he really was some child that needed to be coddled and cared for.
He plans to come back the next week, if all goes well this time. Stede had offered to help him find a new plan for whatever days he woke up in their bed, and he’d accepted- but only with the knowledge that he spends much of the day after their sleepovers drifting between his big and small spaces and that Mama is the best at taking care of him when he gets all soft and small.
He knocks on the door, and lets the softness overtake the front of his mind, leaning into the touch as his Mama gives him a big hug hello.
And already he can tell that he feels
good
.