Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“D’you think stars know violence?” Frenchie asks unprompted, shifting from his seated position to lie on his back. Sleepiness tinges his voice into slow-moving water.

Izzy doesn’t even bother to glance down at Frenchie’s face and knows that Frenchie isn’t looking at him anyway. The stars are a thousand times easier on the eyes. Instead, through the semi-dark, Izzy stares at the notches stabbed into the Revenge’s wooden deck. Feels the deck’s ragged, rough texture beneath his fingertips as he traces nonsensical patterns. His knee aches. The night contains a chill. “What kind of a fucking question is that?”

They’re positioned close enough together to where Izzy can feel Frenchie shrug. His shoulder brushes against Izzy’s leg. “I heard they’re born in a huge explosion.”

“Well there’s your answer then.”

“Yeah, but what do you think?”

Izzy feels his lungs fill and then deflate into a hollowed, sunken valley inside his ribcage. He tears his eyes away from the notches to scan the rest of the deck. The crew are sprawled all over the place. Roach is above ground, swinging in his hammock. Nearby, on Frenchie’s other side, Wee John lies with his back facing them. It’s unclear if he’s awake or not. Fang’s already quietly snoring next to Izzy, the sound of it familiar like the sea. In the middle of the deck, of everything, Jim found a home in both Archie and Oluwande’s arms slung around them. All three of the trio’s chests rise and fall together. 

A year and a leg ago, Izzy would have felt disdain over the sight. Pirates don’t get to enjoy being held at night. He’s gone all his life without being held. And he’s survived because of it, he’s got to be First Mate because of it. Being held will get them killed. Because they’re pirates. And because once pirates have had something enjoyable, they want more of it. Gold, guns, touch — it’s all treasure in their hands. And the greed for it is weakness at its finest.

But that was a year and a leg ago. Now, glancing over the trio and up towards the Lookout, where Lucius and Black Pete keep watch together, Izzy can’t help but feel…fucking restless. Drained. He can’t see the two from where he sits — all he sees is the dark outline of the mast and the ropes and the Lookout — but he can see the stars.

Some are bigger than others. Some are brighter than others. He doesn’t know shit about them other than how to use them as navigation. What more is there to know? What does it matter if stars know violence or not? They still twinkle the same. They still hang in the sky miles and miles above them. The sun disappears, the stars reappear, the moon glows. It’s been that way since before any crew member here was born and it’ll remain that way long after the last person dies. And if there’s a violence in outlasting something, then, well.

What a pointless fucking question. 

“I think,” he starts, finally glancing down at Frenchie. Frenchie, whose eyes are closed and whose breath sounds are even, slow.

Fuck’s sake.

Izzy shakes his head, blinks, looks straight ahead. Stede sits directly across the way with his back against the bulkhead. Edward lays dozing with a head on his lap like a domesticated cat. Stede’s still awake, idly braiding a lock of Edward’s long hair. The blond of his own hair reflects the moonlight, his soft curls like small swells covering his head. Despite the Caribbean winter night, his red shirt, brownish in the dim light, has its strings loose, exposing part of his chest to the breeze.

He’s not down in his captain’s quarters. No, a couple nights a week now he sleeps above deck with the crew. Izzy didn’t buy it fully when Stede told him why. “You said it yourself, Izzy,” Stede said while he tugged his boot on. “Captain’s got to know the conditions aboard the ship.”

“And that includes the sleeping conditions, aye?” Izzy asked. The wood he whittled felt smooth in his hand, the knife handle worn and rough.

“Sure. Why not.”

“Giving up your comfy bed in your private room to sleep above deck —”

“You can sleep in my bed, then, since you’re so concerned.”

Izzy snorted, applied too much pressure on his next push stroke. "Bonnet, I’ve gone years without sleeping on a fucking mattress. If I start now, my body’ll fucking kill me.”

Stede shrugged and got up from the captain’s chair. “Suit yourself.”

And somehow, every night when Stede joins them, the deck feels more crowded than it’s ever been before. Even though the logistics and the numbers are the same, bodies feel pressed closer together. The air gets tight like a collar clasped ‘round a neck. Leather sticks to skin like honey to a bee. 

Nobody else seems to notice this atmospheric shift.

The Revenge rocks back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. Stede runs his knuckles down the side of Edward’s face. Izzy watches, transfixed, aware of the wooden deck grazing his own gloved knuckles. It’s too rough. Too many dents and notches. The grain’s withstood combat, boots, blood. Ocean water and spit and cries. It lays still beneath him. Offers nothing. Because it is a fucking deck , Izzy thinks, and it’s not fucking alive.

Unlike Edward, whose chest rises and falls with ease. Unlike Edward, who he hasn’t spoken to in weeks outside of the bare minimum.

Izzy’s eye twitches, his knee ache flares, he moves his gaze away. Allows it to drift up from Edward’s face to Stede’s knuckles to Stede’s wrist. Up past the implication of Stede’s arm muscles hidden beneath fabric and across his chest, his clavicle, the curve of his neck, his face —

Stede’s eyes are on him.

Izzy coughs, looks back up towards the Lookout. Fuck’s sake. 

A minute passes and he can still feel Stede watching him. The weight of his gaze makes Izzy's body feel magnified, telescopic. Almost like he’s a cosmic body with an existence far out of reach, only observable from a distance. It’s fucking insane of Stede, really, because Edward’s right there. All restful and long-haired and beautiful. Yet for some fucking reason, Stede’s looking at Izzy’s restless self, sat on the other side of the deck. 

And the bulkhead is stiff when Izzy leans his back against it. He catches sight of a falling star, sees how it burns up and dies. He knows sailors who wish upon them. What they wish for, Izzy cannot say. The superstition has been around for ages. 

Izzy used to believe in it, too; used to stargaze with Edward. Back when they were younger. Back when things were good. Lying side by side up high on the Lookout, chatting nonsensical shit, catching the stars in their eyes while they fell. Izzy used to believe in it, too; until it became apparent that the stars don’t fucking listen. A death is unlucky no matter if it’s cosmic or earthly.

Maybe there is a known violence in that. Izzy presses the palm of his hand to his eye. He doesn’t fucking know.

When he reopens his eyes, he makes eye contact with Stede. Stede turns his head away, pretends he wasn’t staring. But he’s a shit liar, shit pretender. Izzy’s too tired to care and too restless to sleep. The air smells like saltwater.

Almost as if testing said waters, Stede glances back at Izzy. He looks just as tired as Izzy feels. Izzy nods once, slow, in an assurance. For what, Izzy doesn’t fucking know. But Stede’s been turning to him for approval more often lately. Not just for training purposes or crew management, but also for ridiculous things like which stolen furniture would look best where.

“Do you think this settee fits the vibe of our ship?” Stede asked him just last week. A French merchant bled out in a corner nearby.

Izzy traced a gloved finger along the golden back frame. “We already have one aboard.”

“Frenchie threw up on it. Food poisoning, remember?”

“Oh, right, right. Remind me, Bonnet, whose fucking idea was it to give the crew shitty, raw fish eggs?”

“ Caviar ,” Stede corrected with a huff. “Anyways, he ruined it. Can’t get the smell out of the fabric at all.”

Izzy dropped his hand and rested it on the hilt of his sword. It didn’t take a trained eye to tell that the settee was expensive. Its cushions were fitted with high-grade pink velvet fabric; its black walnut legs were varnished to shine. The golden frame alone spelled out high society. If anything, they could sell it for at least a couple months' worth of supplies. “Could very well fit, yeah,” he said. “Provided it’s not under a shitty curse.”

Stede shot him an unamused look, but his lips quirked upwards anyway. And it felt like the sun peeking out behind clouds. Steady.

It feels much the same now, holding his even gaze. The muscles in Izzy’s body relax. Tension falls out his shoulders and his chest. They don't break eye contact.

Stede’s hand stills to rest on Edward’s chest. His curls move with the breeze. Izzy watches as Stede’s eyes blink, each one slower on the reopen than the last. And when, after a while, Stede’s eyes remain shut and his chest moves in time with Edward’s, Izzy allows his own eyes to close.

He catches the flash of a falling star in his eye as he does.

Chapter Text

“I think the land’s devoted to the sea,” Frenchie says, and clasps his hands behind his back. Like he’s got it all fucking figured out. Behind him, the setting sunlight diffuses through wispy clouds; it turns them pink and turns the sky a deeper blue.

Izzy frowns, eyebrows bunching, as he sharpens his cutlass. “That a new line for a song?”

“Nah, not yet anyway. Still doing a bit of workshopping.”

"So this is another of your philosophical musings then."

Frenchie shrugs, jumps up to sit on the railing next to Izzy. There’s a small thumping sound when his worn boots hit the bulkhead. His fingers, skilled in music and sewing, scratch at his beard. It’s getting long again. Izzy watches him shift until he finds his words. “It’s a bit like this, mate. The sea keeps pummeling the land. Just —” Frenchie pantomimes a few haphazard punches — “and the land changes because of it. That’s how we get cliffs. I think.”

“Is that how we get sand, too?” Izzy asks, sarcastic.

“Nah, sand is just what remains of the giants’ bones. They all died out in the Great Giant War.”

“Fascinating.”

Frenchie beams at him and sits up straighter. He’s smart, personable, finds humor in the dried air of Izzy’s words. Chances are good that with proper training, he would’ve made a decent First Mate. A bit soft, true, and can’t lie for shit. But he’s able to lock away violent encounters and he’s able to move on from brutality into mundanity. The crew like him well enough, too.

Izzy turns his attention away, back to his cutlass, and thinks Edward was right to have picked Frenchie.

With a hum, Frenchie continues, “Does the land ever pummel the sea back? No. It’s a doomed sort of devotion. Completely one-sided.”

A spot of dirt or blood or something dirties up the cross-guard. It’s a coin-sized thing. Izzy feels the insides of his stomach churn at the sight of it. He thought he’d cleaned everything like he normally does after a raid: Thrice over, thrice checked. 

No, he knows he did.

When he wipes his gloved thumb across the sullied metal, it smears a thin line. Damn . “You’re forgetting the landslides,” he says to try and stop his heart rate from speeding up.

“Yeah, but they don’t happen very often, do they? Have you seen one, Izzy?”

“Not personally, no.”

Izzy motions for the dirty cleaning rag sat next to Frenchie’s left thigh. Each passing moment, he feels the air grow a bit colder, sees the light dim a bit more. He needs to finish this task before the sun goes down. It’s fucking annoying to fix a weapon by a flame.

Cleaning his sword by candlelight used to not be a big deal during his younger years. After nighttime raids, Edward, Jack, and him used to swap port tales and a rum bottle while they finished wiping guts from their weapons. The shadows made everything seem more permanent than it really was. The rum made everything feel more heightened than normal. Jack would laugh his loud fucking laugh whenever Izzy taunted Edward. And the sound would ring through the room like a cathedral’s bell. But it would stop as soon as Edward pushed a hand on Izzy’s thigh and stole a rough kiss from Izzy’s lips. 

Izzy hasn’t cleaned a cutlass by candlelight in years. 

He nods his thanks when Frenchie hands the torn, square rag to him. “What about how the sea always comes back to the land?” Izzy presses on, and frowns while he starts to clean. “No matter how far the tide goes out, it always comes back in. Isn’t that devotion, too? And where does all the fucking pummeled dirt go anyway? The sea carries the land inside itself. There's your romance.”

“Hmm. Don’t quite know about —”

“ Fine then. What if the sea is the one trying to go somewhere, but the land won’t fucking let it? Does that serve the land right for losing parts of itself? Is the land still devoted if it just stands in the fucking way?”

Frenchie doesn’t answer.

But Izzy knows Frenchie and knows that Frenchie’s eyes are on him. Izzy pushes the rag against the metal too hard. It streaks. He tries again. And again and again and again. Underneath his leathers, his skin prickles as if microscopic amounts of gunpowder have suddenly caught fire. The sun fully sets. This fucking cutlass refuses to become clean. Everything’s fucked fucked fucked. Izzy sucks in a breath.

They’re anchored off the coast of an island with a seaside town. Ecstatic for a scenery change, most of the crew have gone off on a dinghy to have some fun for the night. Per his probabtion, Edward’s tagged along with them. There’s still one dinghy left, rigged ready to go in case the remaining few change their mind. Izzy stares at the other side of the deck, follows the line of rope down, down, down to where it disappears over the side. The phantom feel of coarse fiber concentrates in the creases of his fingers.

No. No, it turns out the phantom feel wasn’t a phantom feel, but rather Frenchie holding Izzy’s free hand. It’s an increasing habit. “You down for a bit of scheming?” he asks, changing topics. His curls bounce when he nods towards the port side. “I bet Wee John, you, and I can make a killing tonight.”

The town slowly begins to illuminate against the dusk. The lights twinkle like stars, far away. Izzy shakes his head, feels his shoulders drop on a forced exhale. “Someone needs to stay aboard the ship. You two go without me.”

Frenchie squeezes his hand, warm, and when Izzy looks at him again, he’s got an easy, accepting smile on his face. Christ, his beard really is getting long. Izzy bites back an urge to hand him a sharpened blade. Whenever Frenchie’s beard gets too long, he tends to pull out individual strands in his sleep. And he never thinks he himself did it — even though Izzy’s seen him do it — but rather some sort of personal beard gnome that’s been following him since the age of fifteen. Apparently everyone fucking has one. A scheming little fucker, Frenchie said that Edward’s gnome had finally caught up to him after twenty-seven years. That's why he’d come back from Barbados clean-shaven.

If only.

Frenchie’s still smiling at Izzy, hand still interlocked, still waiting. Izzy gives a quick squeeze of his own. “Get the hell off the deck before I cut the dinghy loose.”

“Aye aye, Mr. Hands, sir,” Frenchie mocks with a bow, and lets his hand fall away in order to go down below. Probably to retrieve Wee John.

Izzy looks back down at his cutlass, sighs at the steel. The edge isn’t sharpened fully either. Right. By candlelight it must be.

The galley is quiet — the whole ship is quiet — and without Roach. Izzy makes for where the rum and wine bottles lie stashed together. “Goddamn fucking dirt,” he mumbles, and the rum bottle clinks against another when he picks it up.

Something sharp sears inside his chest once it's in hand. Brown glass gazes up at him, dust covering the topside layer. Sheathed on his hip, the weight of the cutlass increases tenfold. Jack’s loud fucking laughter dances at the edges of his hearing. 

Right. Fucking. Wine it is, then.

Stede’s got all the nice candles in his room. Since working by candlelight is unavoidable, it’d be a hell of a perk for the room to smell like lavender. Or bayberries. Or whatever other weird scent Stede puts in the candles. Might as well get comfortable, seeing as Stede’s no doubt out in the town. Where Ed is, Stede follows. And the captain's chambers would be quiet enough to give Izzy's shit brain a break. The captain’s chair's the perfect height to prop his fucked leg up on, too.

Izzy swings the door to Stede’s chambers open with a groan. The window curtains aren't pulled shut, the place predicated empty. There’s a map on the desk held down by books. Izzy places his whetstone next to their spines. Stubbornly, he ignores the various stab dents in the wood as he collects candles from around the room.

Mindful to not disturb the map, he arranges the candles on the table to ensure the best lighting. Someone’s placed misshapen, carved figurines all over the place. Black Pete’s the only other pirate on this crew Izzy’s seen whittle, so those must be from him. Whoever had the good sense to use tactical visuals wasn’t Stede; Izzy knows that much for damn certain. Oluwande, probably. The man once told a story about cleaning up Zheng’s tactical figurines on accident. How her figurines were color-coordinated and moved every day based upon both current and wind speeds.

What, exactly, these figurines here represent remains a mystery.

Lavender drifts up into the air within seconds of lighting the wick. Izzy lowers himself into the captain’s chair, eyes drifting closed for a second. His bones feel weary, his body tense. For a second, he just listens to the moans of the ship. Gets in tune with the gentle rocking of its hull. Decades at sea and he knows a ship like the back of his hand. He knows how to read her body language and knows how to be attentive to her so that she may sing. And through the years, her familiarity became a staple creature comfort. He can’t imagine life without a ship, can’t imagine who he’d be.

“You know the bed’s much comfier.”

Izzy doesn’t bother to open his eyes. “Thought you went with the boys to port.”

There’s the soft click of the door closing. Stede’s footsteps creak the floorboard when he walks. “Not really my vibe for the night. Edward needed alone time.”

“Too good for a drunken night out with the other crew mates, Bonnet?”

“I’ll have you know I can drink you under the table.”

“Not fucking likely.”

The scent of lavender’s now intertwined with bayberries. When Izzy opens one eye, he sees the other candles have all been lit. Stede’s by the bookshelf, tracing the emptier shelves with a finger. There comes no dust off them; they’ve been meticulously cleaned. Under his blue shirt, Stede's shoulders sag to compliment the forlorn look in his face. Even his hair opts for a deflated appearance instead of its usual bounce. God, he looks like an abandoned dog moping about waiting for his owner to return. 

A tenseness forms in the pit of Izzy's stomach. Something else happened.

Before he can pry, Stede mutters an unintelligible word.

Izzy sits up straighter. “Pardon?”

Stede turns to face Izzy, hands on his hips. He’s got his chin tilted up in an air of self-righteousness. “I said I can.”

Izzy waves a hand in the air and motions vaguely around. “Sure. Your whole life, you probably drank shitty Sherries with your shitty friends.”

“It was Scotch, actually.”

The wine bottle reflects the candlelight. Izzy watches it for a second. Maybe they both need a good old-fashioned drinking competition. That wouldn't constitute as drinking alone, surely? It shouldn't. Stede's melancholic about Edward, most likely, and that's close enough to share in his own shit temper. A commiseration without words.

Izzy grabs a knife from a pocket, pulls the bottle into his lap, and begins to uncork it. He feels rather than sees Stede edge closer, so he says, voice louder, “Get your own wine bottle, Bonnet. If you want to do this properly, there’s no sharing allowed.”

Stede fucks off, and when he comes back a couple minutes later with three wine bottles, Izzy’s got the cork off of the serrated knife’s edge. There's a thunk when Stede places the others on the table before he takes the knife from Izzy. Izzy shifts in the captain’s chair, waits for Stede to uncork a bottle. The glass feels a bit sticky as he rotates it. Against his thigh, he feels the cutlass burn a hole in its sheath. An unhelpful, nagging reminder that he still has work to do.

“Right!” Stede says, lips quirked up with cockiness. The cork lies on the table, shredded to bits. Izzy’s got no doubt some of it fell into the drink. “Shall we begin?”

“As long as you don’t come crying to me in the morning about your fucked head, I’d say so, yeah.”

“Appreciate the lack of support there, Izzy. Cheers.”

“Cheers.”

Stede lifts the bottle up, eyes closing when his lips enclose around the mouth of it. Izzy takes in his form, captivated with the way his head tilts back. Blond hair moves like a daydream with it. And it’s a movement which highlights the curvature of his sunburnt neck, allowing for his throat to now be on greater display. From where he sits just across the desk, Izzy watches as Stede’s throat constricts when he swallows the wine. Up and back and up and back and up and back again. A deep red stream trickles from Stede’s lips, past his jaw, and down, down, down towards his sturdy chest.

It lasts all of a few seconds before Stede breaks off and sputters. “Agh! It’s port!"

Izzy feels more gunpowder explode on his skin. He tears his eyes away and takes his own swing, holding the bottle firmly by its body. The sweetness on his tongue is unexpected. Normally the wine’s drier. He waits until his mouth adjusts to the feel before he talks shit. "Course it’s fucking port. What did you expect?”

“Not — not — this! Oh, this is awful. Roach must’ve stolen the wrong bottles yesterday.”

“Wine is wine. It’s best to get over it.”

“Easy for you to say. You’ve probably burnt your taste buds off from all the rum you drank.”

The wine is less of a surprise on the second swallow. It gives Izzy an excuse for the heat in his cheeks. Unable to reply, he stands to unsheathe his sword, figuring it best to finish his chore now before he drinks too much. Not like his alarm-bell brain would leave him the fuck alone if he didn’t anyway. 

Stede watches him closely, his eyes narrowing in confusion. “Challenging me again, are you?”

Izzy snorts. “Do you want me to? I should warn you: I won't let you win on a fucking technicality again."

An undecipherable emotion flashes across Stede's face, but he relaxes, eyeline drifting to the table. The whetstone draws on his attention, which he then wordlessly passes to Izzy. Izzy grunts out a thanks, ignores the lingering brush of their hands. Stede's running hot.

The next ten minutes are spent with Stede sitting on the edge of the table diagonal from Izzy. He chats away like it’s his duty to. It should drive Izzy up the fucking wall, really, it ought to. A year ago, it would have. But Izzy finds himself encouraging it, adding in his own stupid opinion on, say, whether forty oranges is overkill for a cake. 

“Christ, you’re at sea. What happens when one of the crew gets scurvy?”

Stede waves a flippant hand. “That’s already happened. Buttons came down with it. Or was it the Swede? Can’t remember. Either way, they’re both not here so it doesn’t matter.”

Something hot tumbles inside Izzy’s stomach. He puts the whetstone down in favor of reaching for his bottle and says, “Doesn’t matter? Scurvy will kill the entire ship.”

“Oh, cheer up. The crew found more oranges in the end. Crisis avoided! And the cake was delicious, Roach outdid himself. I wonder if he — My god, Izzy, what’s that on your sword there? Is that shit?”

Izzy follows Stede’s pointing finger to look at the streaked-out cross-guard. A rebuttal sits on his tongue ready to go, but before he can open his mouth, Stede’s up and headed over to his closet. He comes back with a clean handkerchief-esque thing in his hand, which he holds out to Izzy. With a scrunched nose, he orders, “Use this.”

“I have a cleaning rag already.”

“Doesn’t look like it’s working.”

Izzy shoots him a scowled look, grabs the thing. “It’s not shit, by the way.”

Stede takes a massive swing from his half-drunk bottle. A mistake, judging by how his face contorts into a grimace when he swallows. “How do you know?” he asks, and the words sound tight, like the drink’s gone down too fast.

A sigh comes out of Izzy's lungs before he can bite it back. “Because it fucking isn’t. But it is kind of you to notice so late into the night."

"Well, I like to think perception is one of my better skills."

"When everything is lacking, even mediocrity shines."

“ Izzy .”

It doesn’t take more than two wipe downs to get the dirt or blood or whatever off the metal. Figures the dirty rag from before only had made things worse. Izzy neatly folds the handkerchief into a square, offensive shit turned inward. He hands it back to Stede, who stares at his outstretched hand with interest instead of disgust. A glance down reveals the fact that his spade tattoo pokes out from underneath his glove. Before Stede takes the square, his finger traces the shape of the spade above Izzy's skin. Not a single press of contact, yet static runs through Izzy all the same.

The room feels floaty when Izzy stands up to sheathe the cutlass. “You’re on a pirate ship, you know that, yeah? You know that being Captain requires better attentiveness.”

Stede’s eyes are on him, but they roam slowly from the tattoo down to the direction of his sword hilt, then back up across his covered chest, before blinking and making eye contact. There's that bizarre, unreadable expression again. It's there for only a second before he makes that  bitchy expression that he does whenever someone says something he doesn’t particularly enjoy. But his lips quirk up to the side. Just barely. And that’s enough. Steady. 

Jack's loud fucking laughter appears like a storm on the horizon. Izzy sets his jaw, takes Stede’s bottle from him. He lifts it to his lips, ignores Stede’s gasps of indignation, and with his eyes closed he chugs it down to less than a quarter. Never one to complain, he does his best to ignore the small cork pieces in his mouth. The wine feels lukewarm on his chin, in his beard, on the back of his hand when he wipes the spill away. Upon opening his eyes, he sees Stede flushed — whether from booze or something else entirely, he cannot say — and so he puts the bottle back down on the desk between them. 

“Keep up, Bonnet.”

Time slips like water through fingers, the night sky outside allowing for little gauge on how late it’s become. They kill Izzy’s bottle next, then struggle to open the third. There’s a quick bicker over the merits of slashing the bottle’s neck open. But it’s quickly quelled by the pop! of a cork exiting. 

Stumbling, with Izzy leaning against Stede, they go to sit together on the pink, velvet settee they pillaged two months or so ago. At this point, Izzy can’t fucking remember when. Stede’s really close. Nothing fucking new. Stede’s been physically close in proximity before. But he remains close now. Close enough to where his. His fucking thigh presses against Izzy’s own. And Izzy can feel the firmness of his muscles there. Can feel when they. When they shift and move as Stede does. Or when they vibrate with his stupid dumb quiet laugh. Do thighs vibrate? Tremble, no shit. He’s felt Eddie’s — Edward’s — thighs tremble a shitton of times. But vibrate ? 

Izzy reaches, clumsy, for the bottle body held in Stede’s hand. They’ve killed most of it already. How long have they been here sitting? Sitting and bickering? Well. Not really bickering. More of. More of teasing . Lightly goading . Flirti — No. Fuck. Well, maybe — 

Izzy reaches, clumsy, for the bottle body held in Stede’s hand and feels warm fingers take hold of his chin instead. Turn his face gently up. Stede’s brown eyes reflect the dancing candlelight. Jesus fucking Christ , Izzy thinks through the wine haze. Stede’s really close.

"Say please," Stede teases. His lips are stained red.

...Well, maybe. Eddie isn't. Isn't here —

Izzy knocks Stede's hand away, feels his own lips contort into a sneer. "You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

He's slurring. Stede's slurring. They're both slurring words into each other.

"I would, actually."

"Fuck off."

There's a shout from somewhere up above. On deck. Followed by a clamor and several of the crew's laughter. Izzy's vision swims as he tilts his head all the way back. The wooden ceiling doesn't offer any. Any sort of window. He can't tell what's going on. Shit.

Stede, observant as ever, says, "Crew's back."

"Amazing perception, Bonnet."

"Guess we should go say hello."

Izzy waves a hand, grunts in negative. "Enjoy chatting to those twats."

"You're not coming with?"

Pink velvet might just. Just be his new favorite fabric. But it's too. Too soft to rest his head against for long. And the room is fucking spinning when he stands. No fucking way he'll make it on his own back to his hole of a room. Alone. Room alone. Izzy sets his jaw, shakes his head. Fucked mistake, that was. He nearly kips over. Shitty, shitty port wine. "I'm headed back to my own room."

Was Stede always standing? Was Stede's hands always on him? One on his elbow, the other on his shoulder? Since when? Feels like...cannon fire. Stede's voice sounds like a vibration when he says, "I'll help you get there."

"Hoping to get bonus points with the crew for helping the crippled, are you?"

"No, I wouldn't dream. But the elderly? Now there's a —"

"Oh fuck off!"

They're both absolute shite at staying upright, it turns out. Stede's leaning too heavily left, Izzy's coordination is out the window. Izzy finds himself sandwiched between the ship's wall and Stede as they hobble over to Izzy's room. Stede is warm, warm, warm and he smells like wine and lavender and seawater and prohibited flights of fancy. Izzy's got a hand fisted on his blue shirt. Feels the sturdiness of Stede's chest graze his knuckles. He could . He could duck his head into the crook of Stede's neck if he really wanted to. Really wanted to. He could.

Stede kicks open Izzy's room door.

Izzy detaches himself. His heartbeat is all he can hear.

Izzy gets rid of his swords and guns and knives without thought. Sheds his unicorn leg, sheds his leathers. Finally, some cold fucking air graces his bare skin. He landslides immediately down into his bed. The pillow isn't as soft as pink velvet. Izzy's eyelids feel like stones rest precariously on top of them. He chances a look over at the door. Stede's sat in the edge of the small doorway, face flushed. From the booze. He's looking at Izzy. An increasing habit.

Izzy makes direct eye contact. "Close the door on your way out, Bonnet."

"As you wish," Stede responds, but he stays seated.

And Stede's voice shakes the stones on Izzy's eyelids, and the stones come tumbling down. Down...down...

Izzy closes his eyes, and only then does the room stop fucking spinning.