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Izzy fights like a much taller man, making full use of every inch of himself when he extends his arms and lunges. The tip of his sword seems to stretch beyond reality to slice at his opponents before they can ever reach him. Roach, on the other hand, slips easily through the grasp of any attacker in a way someone of his height shouldn’t be able to do. His gangly limbs bend and twist out of harm’s way, and he’s fast - fast enough to slit your throat before you even realise he’s there.
Together they stand on the deck, back to back. Roach holds his cleaver in his left hand now, a strange echo of the parrying dagger Izzy favours. The two of them have been training together, and it’s evident in the way they anticipate each other's moves, in the way that they step around each other, how Izzy ducks on instinct so that Roach can swing his arm over the top of him.
“Two!” shouts Roach, hip checking Izzy into facing the attackers in his blind spot. He’s already kicking out at another Dutchman, cackling loudly when the man shrinks away from the wild pleasure burning in his eyes.
“You are afraid of me, pannenkoek! Tremble before the mighty Roach and little Izzy Hands!”
Perhaps at another time, Izzy would snarl at him for that. But Izzy barely registers the words coming out of Roach’s mouth - he’s in a completely different zone, and he’s listening to Roach’s steps instead, the way he breathes, the whisper of movement that shifts the air against his skin.
Izzy is at his most serene when he fights silently, his footwork precise and his arm steady. There’s nothing sullen about his silence - instead there’s a stillness to him in those moments. And when Roach fights wildly, broadcasting his movements with glee and a loud cackle, anyone facing him should know that they don’t have a chance. It’s already been thoroughly calculated by the cleaver-wielding man in front of them, and they have lost.
Izzy whirls and slices elegantly through the throat of the last man, and together he and Roach watch him crumple. They turn to take in the rest of the carnage, chests heaving, eyes darting. Then, blood splattered and breathless, they kiss.
Sometimes when they fight together, Izzy seems softer around the eyes. Like Roach’s blood-spattered shrieking is somehow a balm to him. The two of them celebrate afterwards by biting and scratching the reminders into each other that there is more to living that simply staying alive.
*
When Izzy fights loudly, it sends a signal to the rest of the crew that something has gone terribly wrong. He grows frantic and feral, splattered with blood that cannot be his because there is so much of it, clinging to his hair and smearing his face and hands. His clothing is black but it has taken on a frightening coppery cast in the evening light, soaked through with blood and sweat.
They’ve been taken by surprise, and in the confusion he and Roach find themeslves fighting their way towards each other from opposite sides of the deck.
Roach fights with a grim set to his mouth, and the crew knows he’ll be a menace to anyone who sets foot in the galley later. He’ll snap and growl at anyone who comes close. Roach’s silence is threaded with unspoken terror, punctuated with wild eyes and hands that will tremble in secret when the action is over.
He hacks his way through bodies mechanically, taking no pleasure in the action. There’s a brutality to it that somehow never registers when he’s having fun. Roach is a butcher now, and these men are only so much meat.
It’s then that Izzy notices Roach favouring his good arm, the other one lagging and then dropping to curl around his side. Izzy bares blood-flecked teeth and growls, meeting the sword of a man whose face he will not remember because all he can think of is those scant few metres of distance between himself and-
“Roach! Right!”
Roach turns and ducks, and the movement is effective but also turns him grey from the sudden agony that seizes him. He gasps and stumbles, and the point of a sword grazes Izzy’s cheek because he has allowed himself to become distracted. The man loses his nose for his troubles, and then Izzy is running to stand over Roach’s kneeling form. Roach is shaking from the pain, sweat trickling down the sides of his face, his cleaver still gripped loosely in one hand.
There’s something near-deranged about the way Izzy fights off anyone who comes near them. He plants his feet and waits for them to come to him. Roach cuts their ankles out from beneath their feet for as long as he can stand to, until he hasn’t got the energy left for even that.
There’s no celebration in the aftermath of this one. Too many are wounded - worst of all Roach, who slumps wearily against the side of the ship and wonders how he will rally the strength to help the others.
Izzy eyes him, exasperated.
“Don’t even think about it,” he mutters.
It’s no use - he knows that Roach will stay alert, a vigilance that his mind will not let go of even hours after the battle is over. It doesn’t matter what he says to him now.
It’s alright, though. Roach isn’t the only one who’s had to sew up a wound, and alcohol stings their wounds no matter whose hand pours the bottle. Roach finds himself fading in and out until finally he comes to in Izzy’s quarters, squashed into the pitiful shelf he calls a bed. Izzy himself is sprawled on the hard wooden floor beside him, tired and stiff and sore, and something in Roach aches. It’s a strangely sweet feeling, a healing one, like a finger pressed firmly into a knotted muscle.
“How have you been?” says Roach, “while I have been asleep.”
“Bored,” says Izzy, “it’s been too fuckin’ quiet around here.”
“You always say I never shut up,” teases Roach, “at least you have had some peace for a while.”
He regrets it when Izzy’s expression tenses and he averts his eyes. Roach flops his hand around a bit. He’s still too weak to reach for Izzy just yet, and his shoulder fucking hurts. To his credit, Izzy scoots closer so that Roach can drop a hand onto his hair.
“Do not worry yourself, Izzy Hands” says Roach, “I plan to annoy you for much, much longer than this.”
Izzy grunts and nods his assent, but he also leans further into Roach’s touch, and that is how he knows that all will be well once more.