Work Text:
“You could come with us,” Ed says.
Izzy can’t see Edward’s face from where he’s stood. He’s behind Ed, up on his tiptoes so he can thread fucking flowers into his fucking hair—because that’s his job today, along with dressing Edward up in some ridiculous aristocratic nightmare of an outfit: velvet and gold thread and purple so rich Izzy can hardly stand to look at it.
But Izzy doesn’t have to look Ed in the eye to know that he doesn’t want him to come. What Edward wants is more special alone time with his favourite new toy. He doesn’t want to be reminded that he’s the scum of the seven seas; he wants to play pretend at Stede fucking Bonnet’s side, and Izzy’s got no part in any of that. Fuck even knows why Edward’s bothering to make the offer.
“Really,” he grunts, because he’s curious enough to press the issue.
“You probably wouldn’t like it,” Edward says thoughtfully. “Not your scene. And it’ll be good to have someone I can trust in charge while we’re gone.”
“Yeah. ’Course you can trust me, boss,” Izzy says, and thinks that’s the end of it, until—
“Could be fun, though. Pulling one over on those dicks.”
Izzy’s fingers feel clumsy, the flowers too fragile. But Edward asked him to do this, so he pins each stem meticulously into place. Edward’s hair is silken in his hands—must be Bonnet’s influence, making Edward want to smooth away the tangles that made their home there. Izzy liked the fucking tangles.
“Could be,” he says neutrally.
“Been a while since we’ve done a proper fuckery,” Ed says.
Izzy resists pointing out that it’s because they rarely get past the planning stages, these days, with Ed losing interest long before anything can come to fruition. He keeps his mouth shut, concentrating so hard on the fiddly business with the flowers that his shoulders lock with tension.
“You nearly done back there?”
“Almost,” Izzy says.
Edward hums. This patience of his is unusual. Izzy would have expected him to get bored of the whole dressing-up routine within minutes—to tell Izzy that he’s taking too long, which he is. Izzy doesn’t know how any of these clothes are supposed to work: he’s making it up, trying to align Edward’s costuming with the outfits Bonnet prances around in day after day.
And now the flowers: Izzy’s been struggling with them for the last twenty minutes, even with the assistance of the comb and hairpins Ed had managed to dig up from somewhere.
“You wouldn’t want flowers in your hair, would you, Izzy?” Edward asks, voice dropping into the soft, musical cadence that Izzy associates with his calmest moods.
“Not really, no.”
“What if I told you to?” Still low, still gentle.
“Then I’d put fucking flowers in my hair, Edward, what—”
“Will you come to the party if I tell you to?”
Izzy pricks his finger on one of the hairpins. “You don’t want me there,” he says. He pulls his hand back before his blood can stain any of the pure white petals.
“Izzy, Izzy,” Ed says, with that oh-too-familiar lilting mockery. “You’re fucking terrible at figuring out what I want, mate.”
The puncture wound isn’t a deep one. Izzy watches as his blood forms a perfect round bead, then slips down, cutting a crimson path down to the centre of his palm.
“It’s my fucking job to know what you want,” he says through gritted teeth.
“Wonder I haven’t fired you, then,” Edward responds easily. “Hey, come to the party with me.”
Izzy thinks forward to a night of watching Edward and Bonnet do their horrid little dance with one another, batting their eyes and whispering sweet nothings. Revulsion curls down his spine.
“Wouldn’t you rather—”
“Izzy. I’m not asking again.”
“Yeah,” Izzy says, and presses the last flower into place with the hand that isn’t bleeding. “I’ll come with you.”
“Cool,” Edward says. He sounds—happy. Izzy had almost forgotten how painfully lovely his voice can be. “Hey, do you think you could put those teeny tiny little bows in my beard? Stede says they’re meant for hair, but a beard’s just hair on your face, yeah?”
“Bows,” Izzy says dubiously.
He can see them laid out on the table, pre-tied. He’ll have to undo them and wrap them around the wiry strands of Edward’s beard before he ties them again, he supposes. For a moment, he thinks it might be more than he can stand.
“I picked out an outfit for you,” Ed says.
Izzy picks up the first bow and swallows. “Did you.”
“Just in case you said yes. Stede said you’d want something in black, but that’d be boring, so I found something else.”
Izzy won’t be surprised if Ed has picked out some frilly costume in pink, just to humiliate him. It’ll be as much as he deserves for agreeing to this farce.
“Black’s not boring,” he says, untwisting the bow and stepping in close to Edward’s face.
“Yeah, but we always wear black,” Ed replies. Izzy can’t look at the glint of excitement in his eye, and he can’t look at his mouth, so he focuses intently on the exact part of Edward’s beard that he’s tying the ribbon to.
He steps back, studying the effect. The purple stands out prettily in its nest of dark grey.
“One more,” he says.
Edward smiles. “And then I get to stop standing still, yeah?”
“It’s only been ten minutes,” Izzy says. He picks up the second bow and starts the process over again.
“Fuck off, it has not,” Ed says. “You spent ages on my hair. Hours, at least.”
“Half an hour.”
“You can’t pull one over on me, Iz,” Ed says, and his smile pulls his beard upwards. Izzy’s fingers slip uselessly over the hair and he huffs out an annoyed breath, starting over.
“Stop fucking smiling so I can get these even,” he says.
“Yes, sir,” Edward says, flattening his mouth into an obnoxiously straight line.
“You’re not funny,” Izzy says.
“Stede thinks I’m funny.”
“Bonnet thinks you can keep books on shelves in the middle of the ocean,” Izzy retorts.
“Mate, you haven’t even seen all his fucking china plates.” Ed looks delighted. “No idea how they haven’t been smashed to pieces yet. Think he might be magic.”
“He’s something,” Izzy grumbles. He moves his hands safely out of proximity to Ed’s face. “There. You look like one of his lot now.”
“Hm,” Edward says. There’s no mirror in the room, because a mirror’s another one of those things that only Bonnet’s stupid enough to keep around, so he turns to Izzy. “Do I look nice, Iz?”
Izzy wants to bite off his own tongue.
“You look ridiculous,” he says.
Edward grins, wild and bright. “Come on,” he says. “Your turn.”
They have to go up to Bonnet’s cabin, and then Bonnet has to sigh and fret and say things like, ‘You will behave yourself, won’t you, Izzy?’, and only after he’s resisted the urge to punch Bonnet in his pompous fucking face does Izzy get to see the outfit Edward’s picked out for him.
Izzy stares at the coat for a long time. He doesn’t trust himself to touch it.
It’s Bonnet who breaks the silence. “I will say,” he says, “Ed’s instincts are impeccable. I wouldn’t have thought—pine green—but he picked it out right away. And with the silver—I’m sure you’ll look very distinguished.”
Izzy snorts.
“He’s not making fun of you, Iz,” Edward says quietly.
“I know,” Izzy says. “If he was making fun of me, he’d be dead by now. I just think he’s a posh twat.”
Stede makes an offended little gasping noise, and Izzy leaves Ed to comfort him through the shock of being mildly threatened. He studies the rest of the outfit: dark breeches and grey stockings, along with a white, frilly shirt. It could be worse, he supposes.
“Is there a waistcoat?” he wonders aloud.
“Oh, um—” Stede says. “Well, not one that goes with this particular ensemble, but we managed to pick up quite a few odds and ends. I’ll just go and ask Frenchie, shall I?”
He putters out of the room, humming some asinine tune to himself as he goes.
“Right,” Ed says. “Kit off.”
“What,” Izzy responds.
“Can’t exactly put all that shit on top of your usual—” Ed gestures up and down Izzy’s body. “Hurry up. Party’s starting soon.”
Izzy feels frozen. He’d helped Edward dress, earlier, but that had been—Edward is his captain, and Izzy serves him any way he requires. For the roles to be reversed is ludicrous. Offensive, even.
Ed makes an impatient sound and steps right into Izzy’s space, starting in on the fastenings of his waistcoat. Izzy stands still, a guilty man on a pyre.
The order Ed takes his clothes off in is insensible, hands flitting from the waistcoat to the bands around Izzy’s arms to the tie at his neck. Ed spins the ring down onto his own finger. It fits perfectly, the same way it had twenty-five years ago.
“I’ll look after it for you,” he says with mock solemnity.
Izzy doesn’t even have a chance to respond to that before Ed’s untucking his shirt from his trousers, hands drawing warm trails up from his hips to his waist. With his heart pulsing in his temples, Izzy tries to remember the last time Edward touched him like this. The last time anyone touched him like this. There’s a throb between his legs, one he steadfastly ignores.
“I can do this myself,” Izzy says. His voice is hoarse, strangled.
Edward’s lips quirk. “Yeah, Iz, bet you’re great at taking your clothes off.”
“Fuck off.” Izzy can feel the tell-tale rush of blood under his skin; he’s blushing. Ed’s gaze skates over his cheeks, amusement writ large.
“We’ll have to cover your tattoo,” Edward murmurs, thumbing the faded lines of his X. “You look like bad news.”
“How are we supposed to do that?” Izzy asks. He starts unlacing his own trousers, since there’s no use in prolonging the indignity.
“Stede’s got all sorts of stuff,” Ed says. “Creams and powders and shit. Bet he’s got something that’ll do you right up. Make you look pretty.”
Bile coats Izzy’s throat. “Edward—”
“Nothing wrong with it, Iz.” Ed looks over Izzy’s body, almost naked now, his eyes skating along every inch of exposed skin before jumping back up to meet Izzy’s eyes. “Hey, what was it first? Stockings or breeches?”
“How the fuck should I know, Edward.”
Ed makes a tutting sound. “How’d you do it on me?” he asks, as though he hadn’t been there.
“Stockings first,” Izzy says.
“Yeah, seems right,” Ed says. “Sit down, then.”
Izzy heaves a sigh and goes to sit on one of Bonnet’s dining chairs, only for Ed to grab him by the arm and lead him to the couch, pushing him down onto it. Edward lowers himself to his knees, the bad one letting out a crack of protest, and slips the first stocking onto Izzy’s bare foot.
The resulting gasp is loud in the still air of Bonnet’s cabin, and Ed, the bastard, laughs.
“Alright up there?” he asks.
“Fuck you.”
“Thought Stede told you to behave,” Ed says, pinching behind Izzy’s knee. Izzy kicks out, involuntary, and Ed catches his ankle with a sparkling grin. “C’mon, Iz. Nice and still for me, yeah?”
Izzy thinks of calling him a twat again, then thinks better of it. Whatever this good mood of Edward’s is, there’s no guaranteeing it will last. A certain amount of insubordination is permitted when Edward is feeling playful, but it’s never forgotten when his mood turns again. Izzy forces himself to fall still, hardly daring to breathe. Down on the floor, under him, Ed rolls the first stocking over Izzy’s knee. He smooths the fabric once he’s done, two passes of his hands up Izzy’s calf, a glint in his eye like he knows exactly what he’s doing.
He doesn’t, though. Izzy has been too careful for it to be otherwise.
Edward is just as thorough with the second stocking, dragging it over Izzy’s knee and running his thumbs over the band of it when it settles into place. Izzy hooks his teeth into his tongue and rides it out.
Next comes the shirt, huge and billowing over Izzy’s torso. He doesn’t know whether it’s supposed to be like this, or whether the garment was simply designed for a taller man. Regardless, the fabric falls almost to his knees, effectively covering him once more. Relief pounds through him.
“Breeches next,” Ed says.
“Don’t you dare.”
Edward laughs and hands them over, allowing Izzy to struggle into them by himself. He fumbles briefly over the various buttons at the waist, but soon enough everything is tucked into place, buttoned up.
Ed makes an approving sound. “There are those annoying little ones at the bottom, too, you want—?”
“Fine,” Izzy says.
He almost chokes when Edward goes to his knees again. Perhaps because Izzy is standing up, this time, and the view is so different. Ed bends his head and twists each of the buttons at Izzy’s knee into place, fingers working with effortless dexterity. He’s taken off his gloves for this; his hands are bare but for the usual assortment of rings. Edward buttons first one side, then the other, until finally he seems satisfied enough to pull himself to his feet. Izzy’s heart continues to pound unabated.
“You look pretty fucking fancy, Iz.”
Izzy scowls. The collar of the shirt is high enough that the only real cracks in the façade are the tattoos on his cheek and hand, but he still feels like Edward must be mocking him. Men like him don’t look fancy.
“I’m not wearing a fucking wig,” he says.
“Me neither,” Edward responds.
“And you can’t make me be nice to them.”
Ed’s mouth twitches. “You don’t have to. Stede taught me something earlier.”
Izzy scoffs.
“No, you’ll like it. Something called passive-aggression. Apparently all these rich guys are going around trying to do battle with words. And they cover it up by sounding all posh and polite about it, making you think they’re being nice for a second until you realise. Fucking diabolical.”
“Think I’ll stick with actual weapons,” Izzy says.
“Your imagination, man,” Ed says with a sigh. “Gonna be the death of me.”
Izzy knows he’s disappointed him, but the truth is he can’t think of anything worse than trying to cloak insults in flowery language, wrestling his tone into that simpering register Bonnet’s so fond of.
“Why can’t they just kill each other like normal people,” he mutters.
Ed claps him on the back. “Not sure you’re what counts for normal, mate.”
Izzy acknowledges this with a tilt of his head, but before he can respond Bonnet’s charging back into the room, a waistcoat held aloft like an offering.
“We found one,” he says, breathless. “Oh, don’t you clean up nicely.”
Izzy frowns, starting to take a step forward, but Edward’s hand tightens on his shoulder before he can get up in Bonnet’s face.
“Nah, that wasn’t it,” Ed says.
“Wasn’t what?” Bonnet asks.
“Been teaching Iz about passive-aggression,” Ed says. “Don’t think it’s his thing.”
“No-o,” Stede says slowly. “I expect not. But that’s quite alright, Izzy, I’m sure there’ll be plenty of other things to do at the party.”
Izzy grabs the waistcoat out of his hands and pulls it on before Bonnet can start making suggestions about what Izzy should do when they get there. He’s trying very hard not to think about it.
He’s about to start fastening the waistcoat when Bonnet bats his hands away, taking over.
“What is it with you two thinking I can’t fucking dress myself?” Izzy wonders aloud.
“What?” Bonnet says sharply, his eyes cutting to Edward. “No, sorry, never mind. I just need to check the fit, so we can adjust it if need be. I’ll be out of your way shortly.”
“You’d better be,” Izzy mutters.
He watches Bonnet gulp with satisfaction.
The waistcoat isn’t a bad choice, he can admit. It’s not so different from the one he wears on a daily basis, though the buttons are an ostentatious silver and he can tell the fabric is of a far finer quality than anything he’s worn before.
Bonnet inspects him, then grasps his shoulders and turns Izzy around, like Izzy’s no more than a rag doll. Pliable.
“Just needs a bit of tightening, I reckon,” Bonnet’s saying while Izzy wars between anger and resigned acceptance. His fingers press the small of Izzy’s back, and Izzy feels the waistcoat tightening around him. His breath goes shallow.
“Mm,” Ed says, looking at Izzy head-on. “You should keep this one, Iz. Suits you.”
Izzy sets his jaw. “It’s impractical—”
“Oh, and your other one’s the height of practicality, is it?” Bonnet says from behind him. “Leather in these temperatures, honestly. You can admit it, Mr. Hands, you like dressing well just as much as the next man. More, quite frankly, if the rest of the crew’s anything to go by. Why, Lucius turns his nose up every time I give him something fine to wear, and—”
Izzy lets him prattle on. It’s the path of least resistance—and besides, Edward is still in front of him, his gaze flitting between Stede and Izzy, not quite losing its fond indulgence in the space between.
Izzy’s always been happy to accept scraps.
Bonnet forces him to look in a mirror once he deems the outfit complete. Though Izzy’s loath to give Stede Bonnet the goddamn satisfaction, he can’t help but boggle at what he sees. He looks like a different person, for all that the reflection shows him the same weather-beaten skin, calloused hands, and iron-grey hair that he knows to be his. And yet he can’t attribute the change solely to the outfit; even his expression seems softer.
“Christ,” he says.
“I know, it’s weird, right,” Ed agrees, twisting this way and that to better examine himself. “Have you thought of a secret identity yet, Iz? I think I look like a Jeff.”
“You could just say your name is Edward,” Izzy says. “Not like anyone’s going to think you’re Blackbeard in this get-up.”
“That’s not really getting into the spirit of things,” Bonnet chides from the other side of the room, where he’s supposedly searching for supplies to cover Izzy’s tattoos: makeup for his face and gloves for the one on his hand.
“Yeah, are you gonna tell everyone your name’s Israel?” Edward asks.
Izzy rolls his eyes. “Obviously not.”
“Is that your full name?” Stede says, looking up curiously.
It’s no secret, but Izzy feels the childish urge to keep it from Bonnet all the same.
“Yeah,” Ed says for him, “but it’s a bit of a mouthful, so I started calling him Izzy instead.”
Stede mutters something in response, something ending in the word syllables, but Izzy ignores him in favour of thinking up a new identity for himself. It’s difficult—he can’t really imagine being anything other than a pirate, or at the very least a sailor. His life is at sea. There’s no other version of him.
He looks around Bonnet’s opulent quarters, casting around for inspiration.
His eyes land on the bookshelves.
“I’ll be a writer,” he says. “A famous one.”
“Oh,” says Bonnet, clearly shocked. “That’s a rather good one, Izzy.”
“Yeah, well,” Ed says, sounding—of all things—jealous that Bonnet is paying attention to someone other than him for five seconds, “my guy’s an accountant.”
Izzy wanders to the shelves while Bonnet fawns over that, running his finger over the spines. He thinks about stealing a name from one of them whole cloth, but there’s always the risk that someone at the party will be as well-read as Bonnet.
He opens up one of the books. It’s bound in leather the same colour as Izzy’s fancy jacket, with silver lettering on the spine. As he flicks through the pages, his eyes keep catching on a specific word.
Which way I fly is Hell; myself am Hell;
And in the lowest deep a lower deep
Still threat’ning to devour me opens wide,
To which the Hell I suffer seems a Heav’n.
He feels a prickle on the back of his neck: he’s being watched.
“What?” he demands, spinning around.
“I just—” Bonnet says. “I didn’t know you read.”
“I don’t,” Izzy says, pushing the book back into its place.
“Not unless he has to,” Ed adds.
“Oh,” Bonnet says. “That’s a shame. The library’s really only been to my benefit thus far, but it’s open to everyone.”
“Not a lot of time to sit around reading stories on a fucking pirate ship,” Izzy mutters.
“Well, Paradise Lost isn’t really a story so much as it’s an epic poem—rather wonderful, actually, and very controversial. Quite a lot of it is told from the perspective of Satan himself, and—oh, do stop me if I’m boring you.” This last is said to Edward, not Izzy.
“Nah, mate,” Edward’s saying with a smile, as if he’s shown even the slightest bit of interest in poetry in the decades Izzy’s known him. “It’s not boring at all.”
Bonnet sits Izzy down and attends to the tattoo on his face, pasting something cool and liquid over it before he pats powder over the top, a little furrow in his brow all the while. Izzy lets it happen, obediently still. He can understand the necessity.
“I suppose it’s too late to do anything about your hair…”
“What’s wrong with my hair?” Izzy says. Something horribly close to shame is sitting low in his gut; he’d known he could never play the part of a gentleman, but to have it confirmed is—
“No, no, nothing wrong,” Stede says. “It’s only that Ed’s hair looks so lovely, and yours—”
“I’m not Edward,” Izzy says roughly. He thinks about insisting that Bonnet use the correct nomenclature when referring to the captain who’s boarded his ship, but there’s little use in it with Edward dressed as he is, looking about as far from Captain Blackbeard as it’s possible to get.
“No, of course not,” Bonnet says. Then, because the man simply cannot leave well enough alone: “Some other time, perhaps.”
Izzy narrows his eyes. Bonnet, who, after all, had bested Izzy when first they met, only smiles back at him, perfectly serene.
They make for a motley bunch when they arrive at the party: Stede claiming to be a phrenologist—whatever the fuck that is—named Godfrey; Edward as Jeff the accountant; the two deckhands pretending to be a king and his viceroy—and Izzy.
“Basilica,” he says when asked for his name. He can’t be arsed to spiff up his accent for the role, so he resolves to speak as little as possible. Edward, on the other hand, is speaking in a way Izzy’s never heard him before, an odd affectation wrapping itself around his words.
Nevertheless, they make it inside without incident, their outlandish covers all believed.
At once, Izzy wishes he hadn’t come. The rooms are filled with the sorts of people Izzy only feels comfortable robbing, people whose very voices grate against him. He hesitates at the top of the stairs, nose twitching in resistance to the overpowering floral scent.
“C’mon then, Baz,” Edward says—having already, naturally, seized upon a way of shortening Izzy’s assumed identity.
“Yes,” Bonnet says. “There’s no getting out of it now.”
He sounds as if he’s talking to himself as much as Izzy. It causes Izzy to look—really look—at him, for maybe the first time all day. He’d assumed Bonnet would feel right at home with these people—they are his lot, after all—but the expression marring his face is telling a different story.
Izzy begins walking, haltingly, down the stairs.
“Fuck,” Edward breathes, looking out at the set-up before them. To Izzy, it seems a lot of useless pomp and fire hazards, accompanied by a soundtrack of grating laughter and inane conversation.
“If you’re feeling overwhelmed, either of you, we can always go back to the ship,” Bonnet says, sounding a little hopeful about the prospect.
“Nah,” Ed says. “We’re going to show this swanky party who’s boss. Right, Baz?”
Izzy makes an indistinct noise of agreement. His actual plan is to find the nearest dark corner and hide in it, but Edward’s sure to latch onto that as an admission of weakness in the face of his insane quest to blend in with the nobility. The French nobility, too—as if any of them have stepped foot in France in their fucking lives.
Well. Maybe Bonnet has.
“So—” Edward turns back to Stede. “How does one win this interaction?”
Izzy skulks through the rabbit warren of passageways on the French ship. He’d lasted as long as he could, which had amounted to not very long at all, and now he’s looking for a nice, quiet place to hide.
It’s not as though Edward will even notice his absence—not with how well he’s ingratiated himself with the upper crust. It’s like there’s a whole different Edward that’s been lurking underneath the one Izzy knows the entire time, an Edward who plays the harpsichord and dances with abandon, who speaks like he’s got a stick of gold up his arse and chuckles charmingly at all the right moments.
Fuck that.
Izzy hadn’t realised how tightly he’d been clinging to the prospect of himself and Edward being outsiders together, but there’s no denying it. Some idiotic part of his mind had thought that he and Edward would be united in this—that perhaps it would even expose this dalliance with Bonnet for what it is: a passing whimsy, as fake as the wigs slipping off everyone’s heads.
Fundamentally, he’s always thought of them as the same sort of man. Raised in hell, only to grow up and unleash that hell. That Edward stops before the killing blow means little when Izzy’s seen him bring countless men to the very brink of death, then leave them, wounds festering, to the hands of fate. Some of them survived, as far as Izzy knows. Many didn’t.
In the end, Edward’s hands are just as bloody as Izzy’s own. He shouldn’t be able to wash them clean so fucking easily.
He finds Boodhari and Frenchie in a room of their own, merrily conducting a scam. Izzy finds himself, grudgingly, impressed.
“Yeah, but you’re lowering the vibe a little,” Frenchie says. “Could you maybe stop glaring?”
“This is just my face,” Izzy says, glaring.
Frenchie winces theatrically. “What if you tried smiling?”
It’s only because Frenchie clearly shares Izzy’s disdain for these people that he deigns to comply with the request.
“Okay, no, that’s actually scarier,” Frenchie says.
And then Bonnet’s there, his pink face poking through the door, struggling to be granted entry.
Izzy hadn’t precisely been unaware of Bonnet’s discomfort, but it had been so incongruous with everything Izzy knows of the man that he’d pushed it to the back of his mind, more concerned with the change that had come over Edward.
But then he starts begging Frenchie and Boodhari—and even Izzy, once he notices him lounging in the corner—to accompany him outside to get some fresh air, and Izzy finds himself reluctantly intrigued. Bonnet hadn’t seemed at all fazed by his ship being boarded and his crew taken captive by Blackbeard, but he’s sweating through his fine clothes after only a few hours of interacting with his own people.
It's almost sad. Bonnet’s an even worse gentleman than he is a pirate, it seems.
And perhaps that’s why Izzy indulges him. “I’ll come,” he says.
“I was never very good at these things,” says Stede fucking Bonnet, sounding rueful and diminished. The silver wig gives him a worn sort of appearance; Izzy can’t understand what would possess him to wear it, when he goes around every day with hair so aggravatingly perfect it looks ornamental, glinting barley-gold.
“Yeah,” Frenchie says, “from my experience these things are meant to make you feel like a bit of a jackass. I was in service for a minute so I know the lay of the land, and trust me—servants, they see everything. This lot? They’re not so fancy.”
“Bunch of vile hypocrites is what they are,” Izzy says.
“Oh,” Bonnet says, looking at Izzy—for once—like he’s not the dirt on the bottom of his shoe. “I just now realise—I really know nothing about you, Israel.”
Izzy thinks about protesting the name, but anything’s better than Iggy.
He finds himself saying, “And I know fuck-all about you, Bonnet.”
Bonnet makes a curious clucking sound, but before he can start asking Izzy whatever invasive nonsense he’s got swirling around in that head of his, Edward comes storming out of the party like a storm personified, like thunder shaped into a person.
“Edward,” Izzy says instantly, standing to attention. Edward barely looks at him. He barely looks at anyone, his eyes darting around with barely suppressed violence. Izzy knows this mood; he knows his hands are about to be bloodied once more.
“Are you alright?” Stede asks urgently, because he hasn’t seen this mood. Edward’s been all sunshine around Bonnet, bright and warm and just as difficult to reach.
“I think I wanna go now,” Edward says, looking first at Stede, then Izzy. He’s bad at controlling his expression at the best of times—when he’s got something to hide, he turns away entirely—but now it’s like he’s been flung open, like everything’s pouring out. Izzy realises all at once that Edward hadn’t been comfortable here; he hadn’t fit in with these people. He’d been his usual magnetic self, and that had worked, for a while. But Izzy knows what he’s going to say before he says it. “They laughed at me. Iz. Nobody laughs at me.”
He’s reaching for his gun, and Izzy’s reaching for his knife, in sync for the first time in months—in years, really, if Izzy’s being honest.
“Edward!” Bonnet cries out, like Edward’s doing something shocking. Like he hadn’t just said they laughed at him. Izzy’s gutted men for less. “Put that away! You too, Israel.”
Edward pauses, and Izzy’s stomach sinks. This is the extent of Bonnet’s sorcery. Izzy should have expected nothing less.
“I’m serious!” Bonnet goes on, like Edward isn’t already in the palm of his hand. “Stand down, now.”
Izzy watches as Edward obeys. He follows suit—what else can he do, as Edward’s shadow?
“You’re in over your head,” Bonnet says, and Izzy wants to throttle him, the condescending piece of shit. “These are my people. I’ll deal with it.”
“You’ll deal with it?” Izzy snarls. If there weren’t more pressing people to kill, he’d slit Bonnet’s throat here and now.
“Oh,” Bonnet says, like he’s only just realising how he sounds. “I didn’t mean—it’s not that I don’t think the two of you could, um, handle things. You just shouldn’t have to. It’s like you said, Israel: they’re vile hypocrites. And they don’t deserve to breathe the same air as Ed.”
He sounds very earnest about it. Then again, Stede Bonnet sounds fucking earnest about everything. It’s more than enough to win Ed over, though. There’s something familiar in the way he’s looking at Bonnet, now, like he trusts Bonnet to take care of things. Izzy thinks it’s an expression that may have been directed at him, once upon a time. Back when killing someone at Edward’s behest was enough to win his favour. A long time ago.
Still—
“They don’t,” Izzy agrees fiercely. If there’s someone who does deserve to breathe the same air as Edward, Izzy hasn’t met them yet.
Stede’s mouth quirks into something that’s almost a smile. “Then we’re finally in agreement on something, Mr. Hands. Will you allow me to take the lead?”
Izzy looks at him, more out of a desire to avoid looking at Edward than anything; he studies his soft skin and softer hands, and then the odd, determined glint in his eye. Bonnet’s a toff, through and through—but Izzy keeps forgetting that he’s also a little bit mad.
With a jolt, he realises he wants to see how this is going to go.
“Fine,” he says, managing to look over at Edward, who gives him a nod, the curiosity in his expression mirroring Izzy’s. “Don’t fuck this up, Bonnet.”
Bonnet, against all odds, doesn’t fuck it up.
Izzy looks back over his shoulder, at the ship engulfed in flames, and then at the back of Bonnet’s head. His tongue feels too big for his mouth. He can’t stop thinking about the effortless way Stede had commanded that room, revealing all the hypocrisies of the gentry with surgical precision. He’d thought Bonnet lacked the brutality necessary for piracy, but now he sees that brutality comes in different cloths. Bonnet’s might be a garish and expensive cloth, but—
But Edward’s looking at Bonnet, too, like he placed every star in the sky just for him.
He’s not going to kill him. The thought settles into place in Izzy’s mind, oddly benign. Edward isn’t going to kill Bonnet. Izzy isn’t, either. They’re going to stay on the ponce’s ship, and tomorrow Bonnet’s going to do something that reminds Izzy how utterly useless he is—but Izzy will remember this, how the flames looked reflected in the water, how Stede Bonnet’s mouth had curved into a malicious little smirk when he’d incited the fire.
Izzy will remember this, and he’ll stay.
Edward comes to find Izzy the next morning on the quarterdeck, where Izzy’s trying to deal with the mess they’d come back to. Apparently, in their absence, the useless bloody crew of the Revenge had thrown a party of their own.
Edward’s hair is hanging loose, today, but he’s got another one of Bonnet’s confections on: a satiny shirt the colour of burnt caramel undone to his navel, Bonnet’s cravat hanging in the empty space. He reaches out and tugs at Izzy’s cravat, pulling it out and twisting it around his finger. It’s the finger that’s still wearing his—Izzy’s—his ring.
“Edward—” Izzy wheezes. It’s too early for this—whatever this is.
“Thank you,” Edward says. The bows are gone from his beard: he looks, very nearly, like himself again.
Izzy can feel his face scrunching in confusion. Edward doesn’t thank him, much less for sweeping up bits of broken glass. It’s the sort of menial task that’s barely worth mentioning, and it’s beneath Izzy’s station besides. On any other day, Izzy would have ordered somebody else to do it. But this morning he needed something to keep his mind from wandering; he needed something to do with his hands.
“I know you didn’t want to come with us last night,” Edward continues. “But I’m glad you were there.”
“Why?” Izzy asks.
He thinks it’s a fair enough question, when all he’d done was fuck off at the first opportunity and watch while Bonnet leapt to Edward’s defence.
Edward smiles at him. Izzy feels it like a punch to the gut.
“Saw how you were looking at Stede, after it all went down,” Edward says. “You don’t want him dead anymore, do you?”
Izzy looks down at the little pile of broken glass, sparkling under the relentless beating of the sun. “I wouldn’t go that far,” he says, but Edward just laughs and pulls him closer by the cravat.
“Iz-zy,” he says, sing-song. Izzy loves him so much it aches.
“Fine,” he says. “Fine. I won’t fucking kill him. I won’t ask you to kill him. If he gets himself killed, that’s his business.”
“Nah,” Edward says, “you’re gonna look after him. Same way you look after me. Yeah?”
Izzy has to tilt his head back to meet Edward’s eye. “Not the same way,” he says.
“Iz,” Edward says. He tugs the cravat again, sharp enough that Izzy stumbles forward, and before he can get his balance Edward’s kissing him, one hand still firm on the cravat and the other, impossibly, on Izzy’s face. Izzy can feel the scratch of Edward’s beard. He can feel the unexpected softness of his lips.
He kisses back, helpless to do otherwise, the entire world shrinking down until it’s like everything’s burned down and there’s only Edward, holding him in the rubble.
And then he hears Stede fucking Bonnet’s voice.
“Oh, Ed, there you are.”
Edward pulls away from Izzy, looking over his shoulder. He doesn’t let go of the fucking cravat, so Izzy can’t even run away with dignity.
“Yeah, love, I’m here,” he says.
Love. Izzy squirms a little, trying to break free of Edward’s grip. Edward turns back to look at him warningly.
“And Israel!” Stede says brightly, like there’s nothing unusual about how close Ed and Izzy are standing. “I’m glad to see you’ve kept the waistcoat. It’s very fetching on you.”
Izzy gasps in a breath. Edward laughs at him.
Bonnet steps up beside Edward, smiling brightly, and then Edward turns and kisses him, still not relenting his grip on Izzy. Izzy wonders whether it’s possible to die from a combination of confusion, humiliation, and arousal. He wonders if he’s already dead, and God has more of a sense of humour than it’d ever seemed like at Sunday services.
Stede lets out a pleased little hum into Edward’s mouth, and then he neatly takes a step back. Edward allows it of him.
“I take it you didn’t actually tell Israel about your idea,” Stede says. He looks smug in a way that, twenty-four hours ago, would have made Izzy want to kill him. It’s progress that now all he wants to do is knee Bonnet in the balls.
“Didn’t have time,” Edward says, still looking at Bonnet, all gooey-eyed. Izzy makes a noise in the back of his throat. It sounds like a whine, and he flushes with shame.
Bonnet smiles indulgently, first at Ed and then at Izzy. “Ed and I ended up…talking, last night.” His cheeks go the bright pink of a whore’s rouge; it’s not very difficult to figure out where ‘talking’ had led to. “I must say—you’ll think me a fool—but I hadn’t even realised, until we were out in the moonlight, and it was all very romantic, and—”
“Get to the fucking point, Bonnet,” Izzy grits out. His lips are buzzing, irritated by Edward’s beard.
“Yes, yes,” Bonnet says. “Well, afterwards, Ed happened to mention that we should probably keep it—us—a secret from you, and my thought was, why.”
“He thought I’d murder you in your bed,” Izzy says flatly.
Stede flits backwards. Edward steps on Izzy’s foot.
“Something like that, I suppose,” Stede says. “But I didn’t understand, so Ed was kind enough to tell me how you feel about him—”
At this, Izzy somehow summons the strength to wrench himself out of Edward’s grip, nearly strangling himself in the process. Stede makes a noise of dismay, and Edward says, “fucking hell, Izzy,” like a reproach.
“You knew?” Izzy shouts, his voice going screechy and high. The few deckhands who have managed to rouse themselves from their hangovers go silent, watching.
Edward keeps his hand outstretched, looking not unlike a man trying to soothe a spooked horse.
“Uh,” he says, “yeah. Was I not supposed to?”
Izzy’s entire body prickles with mortification. All these years—and now here he is—and both Ed and Bonnet are looking at him like he’s something fragile, like there was never any use in trying to cover it up at all.
“Edward—” he says, and once he hears the wetness in his voice he clamps down on his tongue, letting blood fill his mouth.
“Whoa, hey, Iz,” Edward says, starting forward. But it’s Bonnet who gets to Izzy first, getting hold of his shoulders and standing close enough that Izzy can’t avoid looking at him unless he shuts his eyes. He shuts his eyes.
“Israel,” Bonnet says, “I apologise. If I’d known how you felt about Ed, I—well, I wouldn’t have done anything differently, but I might have tried to be a little more understanding of your predicament. Now you, Ed.”
“What?” Edward says. “Oh. Uh. Sorry for not telling you I knew, Iz. But, I figured if I did, it’d just be shit, wouldn’t it? And you’re kind of proving my point, to be honest.”
“I think what Ed’s trying to say,” Stede says, as though Izzy needs a fucking translation, “is that he was worried about affecting your—um, friendship? Working relationship?”
“Yeah!” Ed says, and Izzy opens his eyes just so he can give him a withering look. “Don’t look at me like that, Iz, you know you would’ve made it weird.”
“And this isn’t weird?” Izzy says, turning his glare onto Bonnet. “Kissing me out of nowhere after fucking your new boytoy, that’s not weird?”
“Oh, we didn’t sleep together,” Bonnet says cheerily. “There was too much to discuss. We stayed up all night talking, and—and a bit of kissing.”
Izzy tries to wrench himself out of his grip, but Bonnet is surprisingly strong for someone who’s never done a proper day’s work in his godforsaken life. It’s just Izzy’s luck, really.
“He’s also not my boytoy,” Edward says.
“Boyfriend, then,” Izzy says.
“Hm,” Edward says, smiling, “maybe. You wanna be my boyfriend, too, Izzy?”
It feels like Izzy’s standing there, in flames, and Edward just keeps tossing more kindling.
“Oh, Ed, take pity on the poor thing,” Stede says. If Izzy were capable of movement, he’d be stabbing Bonnet right now. Nowhere that’d kill him. Just a nice stab through the shoulder, or something. “Just tell him, won’t you?”
Now Edward steps in closer, his face appearing over Bonnet’s shoulder—surprisingly serious, for all that Izzy had assumed he was being mocked.
“I love you, Iz,” he says. Then he wrinkles his nose. “Ugh. Can we just go back to kissing? Liked it better that way.”
Izzy tries to breathe. It’s more of a struggle than he can ever remember it being.
He can’t quite see over the combined wall of Edward and Bonnet, but he’s sure the deckhands are listening in. That aggravating idler of a boy is always hungry for gossip, and whatever’s happening here is sure to be a feast.
“You love me?” he whispers. “Edward, what the fuck.”
Bonnet lets go of him and steps pointedly aside, doing a pantomime of turning his back on them and looking out over the ocean.
Edward, meanwhile, rolls his eyes theatrically. “How many captains you know keep their first mates around for as long as I’ve kept you, mm?”
Izzy hadn’t realised how useful it was, having Bonnet there to block the full force of Edward from view, but now he’s gone and Izzy’s just going to have to try and live through this, through the shocking intensity of Edward’s regard.
“It’s—I’m—useful,” Izzy gasps out.
“Nah,” Ed says. “I mean, you are. No complaints about your job performance, mate. But mostly it’s—the other thing.”
Izzy sends a fervent thanks to a God he no longer believes in that Edward doesn’t seem to have any intention of saying the other thing again.
“Don’t fucking lie to me, Edward,” he says, because—because it can’t be the truth. Edward has a cruel sense of humour, at times, and Izzy knows better than to take him at his word.
Edward widens his eyes, his eyelashes fluttering. Izzy used to watch him pull this exact move when they were younger, going up to the lads on the ship who had the most to offer: the cooks or kitchen boys who could sneak him extra food; the navigators who shared their knowledge more freely with beautiful boys. Edward has huge eyes, impossible to look away from when they’re trained on you, and Izzy’s never known this technique not to get Edward exactly what he wants.
“Stop that,” Izzy snaps.
“Sorry,” Edward says. “I didn’t mean—”
“You’ve got Bonnet now,” Izzy says helplessly. “You don’t need—I’m not—fuck, Edward. Why bring this up at all?”
Edward’s mask of confidence slips away. He looks younger without it; not quite the boy Izzy first met, but close enough.
“I don’t know, Iz. Does it have to be one reason? You came with me to the party. You put flowers in my hair, and you got all dressed up like a toff, and you looked—” Edward swallows. “You looked good, Iz. But I still missed your tattoos, and your boring old clothes, and my ring—” He hooks his finger around Izzy’s cravat once more, the emerald stone glinting where it sits against Edward’s skin.
The first raid they’d been on together, Ed had stolen it. It had been tucked away in the pocket of the captain’s jacket, hung over the chair in his cabin, probably something he’d picked out for his wife or his mistress. Edward had grabbed it, audacious as anything, right from under the nose of Captain Watts and all the men. It wasn’t such a valuable thing, on a richly stocked merchant ship like that, but a cabin boy nicking himself any piece of jewellery was putting himself far above his station. And Edward knew it, too, wouldn’t stop smirking on their way back to the Freedom.
Watts had gotten suspicious before long, ordering a couple searches of Edward’s person. Ed always managed to hide the ring, but after a week of the game he foisted it onto Izzy, saying look after it for me. Every time Izzy had tried to give it back over the years, Edward said the same thing. Look after it for me.
Edward heaves a deep breath. “I thought maybe I wanted that life,” he says. “With the five-hundred types of knives and bloody forks and the fancy clothes and all the shit that I—that we—never had. But they’re just bastards, aren’t they? Bastards of a different sort.”
Unsure of what this has to do with him, Izzy stays quiet.
“Point is,” Edward says, tugging on Izzy’s cravat, “I’m not like them. I don’t want to be like them. But I don’t want to keep doing what we’ve been doing, either, Iz. I’m sick of it. Pretending I don’t have feelings, that I don’t get scared just like the next bloke. That I don’t fall in love the same as everyone else. I’m allowed those things, Iz. You are, too.”
Some of that sounds like it may have originated with Bonnet, before being adapted into Edward’s words. It’s strange how little Izzy minds.
“You’re going to stay with him,” he says, with dawning understanding. Edward’s not going back to the Queen Anne. This is it.
“We’re staying, Izzy,” Edward says. “If—if you want to.” He steps back a pace. “Otherwise—I’ll give you the Anne. You can go back, if that’s—more your style. Try on being a captain for size.”
“But you don’t want me to,” Izzy says. He feels a smile spreading over his face. “You want me here. With you.”
“I told you,” Edward says. “I need you here. I want you here. Which one makes you stay?”
“Either,” Izzy replies honestly. “Anything.”
Bonnet squeaks out a happy little noise, then tries to cover it with a cough. Izzy rolls his eyes, and Edward rolls his back.
“Kiss me again,” Izzy says, daring. “Like you mean it.”
Edward grins, the same way he had when he’d stolen that ring. Like he’s won something. Like he can’t believe his luck.
“When did you—?” Izzy says, and then stops, because saying fall in love with me is too—it’s preposterous, still, even if he’s lying on Bonnet’s couch with Edward on top of him, with Bonnet—“don’t mind me, it’ll be like I’m not even here”—sat on the armchair diagonal to them, loudly chewing on a crumpet.
Edward props his chin on Izzy’s chest and hums in thought. “Probably about when I got you that ring,” he says.
“You didn’t get me the ring,” Izzy protests.
“No, I definitely did, mate,” Edward says. He dips his mouth to Izzy’s jaw. Izzy can’t figure out where to touch him; it’s like being given a map of the whole world, and having to choose where to go.
“You’re unbelievable,” he manages to say.
Edward licks him, quick and chiding, right at the hinge of his jaw. “You’re the one who started wearing it on your tie all the time, Iz,” he murmurs. “What was that s’posed to mean?”
“It meant—” Izzy stops. He makes a decision and spreads his hand out over the base of Edward’s spine. He gets a hum of approval in response, gets Edward’s lips on his. “It meant I’m yours,” he says, half muffled by Edward’s mouth.
“Yeah,” Edward says. “That’s it. Mine.”
Izzy leaves after Edward’s had his fill: there’s work to do, not least of which is getting rid of the pile of glass from the middle of the quarterdeck. It’s not a dignified exit, with how Edward first refuses to get off him and then says I’ll miss you, Iz, like a joke except he kisses him after he says it, his mouth like a brand. And then, as if that isn’t enough for one day, Bonnet follows him out of the door and into the passageway, halting Izzy with a hand on his shoulder.
“I hope—” Stede says. “I’d like it if we could be friends, Israel. It would all be rather trite, wouldn’t it, if we played it out as rivals for Ed’s affection?”
Izzy hesitates. He could probably just leave; there’s nothing Stede can do to keep him here, really.
Instead, he says, “You could have him all to yourself.” He knows it’s true: he’s not as pretty as Bonnet, not as new or as interesting. “Why—?”
“I want him to be happy,” Stede says. “Don’t you think you could make him happy?”
Izzy’s throat tightens. He’s tried—god, has he tried—to do exactly that. His best efforts have, at one time or another, succeeded in summoning brief bursts of firecracker happiness. Edward likes the thrill of a chase; he likes unexpected treasures, things that are beautiful in unconventional ways. But Izzy has never figured out how to provide what it is he really wants to give to Edward: true and lasting contentment.
“I don’t know,” he says. “Do you think you can?”
“I don’t know, either,” Stede admits. “Would it, perhaps, be something we could work out—together?”
He holds out a hand, as if for Izzy to shake.
“I still think you’re a pompous twat,” Izzy says, not taking it. “But—if you’re what he wants—”
He has to get up on tiptoe to kiss Stede, which is galling, but it feels like the sort of covenant that should be bound by a kiss. Stede lets out an unattractive squawk at the press of Izzy’s lips to his. Once he relaxes a little, Izzy licks into his mouth vindictively, hoping to offend those lingering nobleman sensibilities. Sure enough: when he draws back, Stede is pink all over, from his forehead down to the collar of his shirt. Izzy wonders how far down the blush goes, and then he wonders whether he’d been like this when Edward had kissed him, too.
“Are we agreed?” he asks.
“I—yes,” Stede says. “I’ll just—let Ed know, shall I?”
He backs away, into the captain’s cabin, managing to trip over the doorframe as he goes. Izzy snorts in amusement, starting towards the deck, where there’s still a hell of a mess to clean up.
He’ll get it done.