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Izzy wakes up later than he usually would, especially when fully exposed to the changing light as he is. He regrets consciousness a lot quicker than usual, though.
Every single muscle in his body is sore, plus a few he thinks grew overnight for the sole purpose of hurting some more. His cunt is both still wet, chilly in the open air of the main deck, and chafed to hell. He aches there surely much deeper than any cock could have reached him, and his ass fares no better. His shoulder and hip where he's laying on his side, only a thin blanket between him and the planks, feel bruised. His spine is fucked too. And his knee. And he's got a headache.
On the other hand, only Roach among Izzy's cohorts has awakened yet themselves. The cook is no doubt belowdecks in the galley making them breakfast. The rest are still here, cuddled up in twos and threes. Izzy himself is in one of those threes, Jim's face buried in his stomach, their breath collecting in condensation in his belly hair, and what Izzy had at first groggily assumed was one of the ridiculous throw pillows is actually Oluwande's lap. Heaven lingers - here, and in Izzy's head.
It takes Izzy a moment to recognize it's not the light of late dawn or the discomfort of all he put his body through last night that woke him. Ed has to call to him again, for Izzy to hear. "Iz? Are you awake?"
Izzy wheezes out a groan, half voiceless from all the singing and screaming and dick sucking. And probably no small amount the drinking, too. He's lucky he's only hungover enough for his tongue to feel like sandpaper, and not enough to be sick. There's no way he'd make it to the side of the boat in time, not all tangled up and a leg down and fucked - as Jim had warned - to dust. Ed huffs a laugh, politely quiet.
"Are you alive?" he corrects himself. Izzy groans again, with more feeling but not a whole lot more sound. He struggles to lift an arm enough to flip Edward off, which earns him another carefully contained chuckle. His neck is too sore to hurt, weak instead, and he can't lift his head on its own to look over to where Ed's voice is coming from the door across the deck that leads to the Captain's quarters. He breathes through a brief wave of faintness, and then laboriously manages to prop his upper body up one tired, wrung-out piece at a time.
Ed stands, twenty feet or so away, just outside the latched door to Bonnet's expansive rooms. He's wearing one of those fucking dressing gowns, this time a green one that Izzy can't bring himself to hate. It hangs open around his form, otherwise bare. Never been one for body shame, nor prudish decency, Edward. Izzy either. Anyway, it's nothing they both haven't seen already. At Ed's feet is a netted up bundle Izzy presumes by the color, material, and context must be his Blackbeard ensemble.
Izzy's curious, but still words are more effort than he's willing to make. He grunts to show he is indeed alive, and listening. Ed doesn't speak again, though, only standing there waiting for Izzy to heel to him like he always has before. And Izzy is still... mostly willing to. He's used to having Ed around and no longer a threat, and Izzy's love has proven itself just as indestructible as he apparently is. At the same time, Izzy's had some new priorities introduced to him and he's finding he quite likes the order they've put themselves in.
"If you want me over there," he tells Edward mildly, "you're going to have to come get me." Ed casts a nervous-looking glance at the crew all scattered around Izzy as if they were sleeping bears rather than men. And Archie and Jim. He glances at Jim twice. But Izzy hasn't the patience for any self-pity. He adds, a little less mild, "I'm not fucking crawling."
Ed whines, "I mean, you must have crawled to-"
"Edward," Izzy snaps, sharp now.
"Alright, alright," Ed concedes, holding up his hands in surrender. "I'm coming." He picks his way over carefully, stepping delicately over Pete's legs, around the spill of Archie's hair, past the pillows and into the nest of blankets and warm bodies Izzy is centered in. He offers Izzy his hand first, and then with a guilty grimace his whole arm for Izzy to grip with both hands to pull himself up onto his one foot. They walk - sort of - with Ed on Izzy's bad side, serving as support for Izzy to hop forward, all the way back to Bonnet's door for the sake of the false privacy the short distance provides.
"Right," Izzy says when they get there. His breathing is slightly labored, but not too bad; there are some benefits to having worked all his life. "What." Still, Ed hesitates. He stares down at where Izzy's left foot would be. He lets go of Izzy in increments, until Izzy is standing mostly on his own power, with the support of the railing of the stairs up to the quarterdeck instead. When Izzy is as steady as he'll get this way, Ed points his chin at the maze of people he just extracted Izzy from.
"I, um," he mumbles. "Thought I heard them laughing?" Izzy can read Ed well enough to hear the question, but not quite well enough to know what it's asking without rereading over the lines of Edward's face a few times. Awkwardness is easy enough to parse, and guilt. Edward's always had those in spades, though they both would have denied he was capable of either to anyone else, before. There's a third thing there, beyond definition and usually hidden on him even from Izzy. It's easier to get when Ed finally lets their eyes catch. Concern. Care.
"It was friendly," Izzy assures, his own complicated tangle of emotions taking up enough room in his chest to make his ribs feel tight. Ed reads over Izzy's face just as meticulously as Izzy had his. Eventually he nods, chewing slightly at his lip.
"Good," he says. "Good, that's good. So, you- you feel... good?" Izzy can't help a crooked smile, as charmed now at Edward being sweet as ever, not to mention the persistent glow of warmth at the base of his skull from the rest of them.
"I feel like I had the fucking ship dropped on me. Twice," Izzy answers truthfully. "But yeah. I feel good."
"Yeah, mate," Edward snorts, shoving at Izzy's shoulder and just barely pulling it in time not to actually push him. "You fucked ten guys." Izzy bites his crooked smile so it doesn't turn into a grin too fast and ruin his punchline.
"Of course I didn't fuck ten guys, Edward," he says, condescending tone and click of his tongue like the idea is simply ludicrous. He waits for Ed's brow to crease with confusion before letting the grin loose and finishing, "Two of them aren't guys." Ed rolls his eyes theatrically, but he laughs, finally audible, and pokes at Izzy's shoulder again. Izzy lets himself be moved by it, secure in his handhold.
Then Izzy waits with the patience that, until recently, he'd always thought he only had for Edward, young children, and grandmothers. Turns out it's more of a situational thing, like - it seems - all kinds of other virtues. He watches in tempered quiet as the mirth melts off of Ed's shoulders, as he begins to subtly fidget, as whatever he'd woken Izzy for comes creeping back up on him.
Avoiding eye contact again, Ed confesses lowly, "I maybe don't feel so good."
Izzy breathes carefully deep of the bracing sea air, focuses on and borrows from his good mood in its impressive endurance, to keep from getting angry. His grip is tight on the quarterdeck stair railing, and his jaw much tighter, but he's sure to blunt any harshness in his voice when he bites out, "Did he do something you didn't want?" He doesn't want to scare Ed off, nor rile him. And anyway, Izzy's temper doesn't serve him here. Among... friends.
"No," Ed says, shaking his head. He flushes lightly, barely visible but rare enough to notice. "He- It was good. It was really, really good. I don't know what my problem is." He looks farther away, laughing again but bitterly this time. Under his breath, he adds, "Never know what my fucking problem is." Izzy hums in acknowledgement of this. He'd known that about Ed, sometimes, and other times he'd been blind to it. And other times still, it hadn't quite been true. All the knowing something in the world can't tell you what to do about it, but Izzy thinks he has some idea now. Loath as he is to suggest it out loud. Again.
Let it never be said Israel Hands is a coward. There are myriad ways he could stall, but he doesn't. He catches Ed's eye, difficult as Ed makes it, and offers up a wilted smile he hopes will placate them both.
"Only one thing to be done," he points out, soft and hopefully not too overly cautious. He waits again, this time for - he hopes - Ed to guess what he's going to say, to accept it. "Talk it through..."
"Just me and you," Ed finishes, switching up the rhyme. Izzy can't deny that's to his own relief. He lets his smile sit easier, not missing the way Edward's eyes pass over it with something like wonder. Something like the way he used to look at Izzy, back before Izzy taught him all his tricks only to soon be surpassed. Izzy tilts his head up toward the quarterdeck, toward further privacy. Toward real privacy. There's no doubt in Izzy's mind that Jim at least has been awake for as long as he has.
"The stairs," Ed protests uncertainly. Izzy gives him a soft-lipped sneer and hops around to face them.
"I can do it," he insists. "Fucking watch me."
"Yeah, Iz," Ed breathes. He keeps his hands to himself as he follows Izzy up to the quarterdeck at a respectful distance, the bundle of his old clothes tucked under his arm. "I'm watching you."