Archive of Our Own ^beta

The wind dies three days northeast of Tortuga, stranding them on a stretch of open water that's nearly as smooth as glass.

Izzy glances at the mainmast; most of the sails are reefed. With no serious threats on their stern for once, Edward and Bonnet had set a leisurely course toward their next destination: St. Augustine, to get more bloody oranges. The Swede has been eating two or three at every meal like that will magically bring his fucking teeth back.

The deck creaks and a shadow cuts across Izzy's feet—Oluwande. He says, "Izzy," before pausing to look at the helm, where Buttons is stripping off his clothes and yelling at the cloudless sky. "Uh—"

"What?" Izzy snaps. "Spit it out. I don't have all day."

That's a lie, mostly; he's got fuckall that's urgent to do now that they're marooned in the middle of the ocean. But he's had it with Bonnet's fucking fuckwits, who still haven't learned jackshit about being pirates and can't seem to decide how to act around him. Some days, they hate him because he expects them to actually work once and awhile, and some days, they're scared of him because he's Blackbeard's man, not Bonnet's, and they've finally had a taste of the real Blackbeard, even if Edward is back to being Edward now.

Some days, they remember that he stopped the Kraken from killing them when Bonnet's return sent Edward into a seething, murderous rage.

Idiots. He didn't fucking do it for them.

Oluwande mutters, "Uh, right," which makes Izzy want to smack him, then waves his hands a little and asks, "Full canvas?" like unfurling the sails is a cheap parlor trick that will conjure a good gust of wind from thin air.

"No," Izzy says. Caribbean weather can be a fickle bitch this time of year; they could be moving again in an hour or two, but they could just as easily be stuck out here for days. Some of the rigging on the mizzenmast is frayed, and he's not in a hurry to strain weak ropes until there's some wind to work with. "I'll let you know."

"What about him?" Oluwande asks, nodding at the helm. Buttons is naked now, his arms outstretched and that godforsaken seagull flapping around his head. He's writhing and bellowing with all the delicacy and grace of a stuck pig. "Shall I just… leave him to it?"

"Might as well."

"Will it help, do you think?"

"Fuck no." Izzy's coffee has gone cold; he dumps the dregs on the deck just to give Frenchie something to do. "But I suppose it won't hurt."

+++

Wind or no wind, the Revenge is a ship, and since Izzy is—God help him—first mate, it's his job to keep the impractical piece-of-shit afloat.

After chasing Oluwande away, Izzy pours himself a fresh cup of coffee and starts on the daily rounds: inspecting the hull for barnacle damage and the deck for wood-rot and loose boards, examining the railings and masts for cracks and the rigging for frays and splits, checking the sails for rips and the hatches for rusty hinges and broken slats. It's boatswain's work—work he wouldn't have been caught dead doing on the Queen Anne—but some crucial day-to-day tasks were neglected during the month he was gone sailing with Calico Jack. Besides, there aren't any sailors aboard the Revenge worth a boatswain's rank. Oluwande doesn't have the confidence yet, and Ivan wouldn't want the responsibility. Fang would have done well enough, once upon a time, but he's nearly as useless as Bonnet's lot now that Lucius and Black Pete are taking turns sucking his cock.

Izzy gets back above deck just in time to catch Frenchie sitting on a barrel with his bloody lute in his lap. He's using his bucket as a footrest and has his mop wedged between his shoulder and the foremast. He hops up when he sees Izzy heading his way, tucking the lute behind his back and snatching at the mop with his free hand. He misses it, and it clatters to the deck.

He says, "Hi, Izzy," a little too brightly and crouches to grab the mop. "I swabbed the deck like you wanted. It's… clean now?"

"Are you asking me or telling me?"

"Asking. Definitely asking."

"If you're asking," Izzy snarls, "then it's not fucking clean!"

That outburst startles Black Pete and Wee John, who have rags in their hands but had mostly been leaning on the larboard rail and staring out at the ocean. When Izzy turns to face them, they scuttle apart like frightened crabs, Pete slinking toward the helm and John ducking behind the mizzenmast. Immediately, Izzy hears fingers snapping behind him and to his left—Jim, getting the Swede's attention. Izzy looks over just as he squats beside Jim and reaches for the moldy coil of rope they've been untangling.

Jim's hands are nearly black from touching it; Izzy barks, "Get rid of that. It's no good for anything," then stalks away before he gives in to the mounting temptation to draw his sword and run someone through. "Idiots."

As Izzy nears the aftcastle, Bonnet—who'd apparently been lying in wait—steps out from behind one of the curving ladders and into Izzy's path. He's wearing a mango-colored frock coat with absurdly large buttons and falls of lace at the cuffs. For Edward's sake, Izzy clenches his hands at his sides instead of strangling him with his frilly cravat.

That is, however, the limit of Izzy's benevolence; he can't stop himself from sneering, "What do you want, Bonnet?" right in Bonnet's pasty, aristocratic face.

Bonnet's mouth curdles in anger, but there's something else there—something that comes and goes too quickly for Izzy to read. He says, "This is my ship, Mister Hands," and smooths the front of his coat. "Do I need a reason to walk her decks?"

Edward spares Bonnet the truth—this ship is wasted on you; walking her decks is all you're good for—by opening the door to the captain's cabin before Izzy can get a word out. He leans against the jamb with a yawn, his hair loose and riotous and a dark green banyan slipping off his shoulders.

He asks, "Iz? What's going on?" in a sleepy voice and narrows his eyes. When Izzy doesn't reply, he turns his attention to Bonnet. "Stede?"

"Nothing," Bonnet says, clearing his throat—once, twice. "I was just… wishing Israel a good morning."

Edward makes a soft scoffing noise and shuts the fucking door in their faces.

+++

Sailors of any stripe are superstitious by nature. Even Izzy—who's a good decade past believing in things he can't see—is still careful to board a ship with his right foot first. He has a rooster tattooed on his left foot so he can always find shore. He's never been fussed much about redheads or women aboard, but he doesn't take a salt dish directly from someone's hand, and he doesn't stir his coffee with a knife or fork.

He's lived with a certain level of horseshit rituals for most of his life, so he's more irritated than surprised that being stuck in a doldrum turns the crew into a pack of absolute fucking loons.

"What are you doing?" he demands, when—three hours into this mess—he finds Ivan, Fang, Black Pete, and Wee John huddled at the bow, red-faced and huffing, instead of scraping barnacles and cleaning weapons.

Silence: John looks at Fang who looks at Pete who looks at Ivan who looks at John. After a rushed exchange of glances, head-jerks, quirked eyebrows, and twitchy noses, Pete volunteers for the chopping block by saying, "We're… you know. Whistling."

"Why are you whistling?"

"To bring some wind."

Izzy nearly goes for his sword. "That's for storms, you twat. And it doesn't actually work."

"Are you sure?" Pete asks suspiciously. "I think you're just saying that because you don't like storms."

Izzy seizes him by the collar and gives him a good, hard shake. "I think that the starboard side best be cleared of barnacles by sundown, or you and your big friend here are going into the drink."

Pete opens his mouth around a retort, but another shake from Izzy has him reconsidering. He steps back, elbows John in the side, and grumbles, "Come on, Feeney. Let's get scraping."

As they're walking away, Fang says, "Izzy, mate, Come on. I think it was working. I felt a breeze."

"No. Captain wants those knives sharpened. Axes too. Bonnet's idiots haven't been storing them properly."

Fang bristles—he's shacked up with two of those idiots after all—but Ivan nudges him into silence before telling Izzy, "Hey, I have an idea. What if we cleaned the weapons up here? Then we could whistle while we work."

"Fine," Izzy spits. Ivan's the only crewmember worth anything these days, and if Izzy retreats now, he won't snap and pull the knife on his belt. "Do that. Just make sure those weapons get cleaned."

He looks up at the foremast as he turns to leave; the few unfurled sails are loose and limp. He sighs and starts moving aft. Almost immediately, he trips over something, stumbles into the helm, and rams his elbow into one of the spokes. His head spins for a moment after he gets himself upright, but he still recognizes the culprit—fucking Buttons.

He's sitting on the deck, his legs splayed and his back to a munitions bucket. He says, "Ach, my apologies," without looking up from the symbols he's carving into a scrap of wood. Since God only grants the smallest of favors on this ship, Izzy supposes he should be grateful that the man is dressed again. "I dinae see ye coming."

Izzy's arm aches—a buzzing pain that's crawling between his elbow and wrist. He shakes it out as he asks, "What is that?"

"A talisman, aye. To banish the phantom wot's binding the wind and leaving us to languish. I—ach," Buttons nicks himself and pauses long enough to suck the blood from his thumb. His teeth are smeared red when he continues, "This may do the trick. It may nae. If nae, we'll soon be eating each other."

Izzy doesn't know how to respond to that. Not that it would matter if he did; anything said to Buttons goes in one ear and out that fucking seagull.

"Coffee," Izzy mutters to himself, because that's a better prospect than reasoning with a madman. "I need coffee." He's already had two cups, and he's old enough now that anything past that will have him pissing over the railing every other hour. But drinking it will give him something to do with his mouth besides tearing out someone's throat with his bare teeth.

He heads for the main hatch. At the top of the ladder, he's greeted by Frenchie, who is—for some unfathomable reason—lugging a box of fabric scraps above deck.

He says, "Izzy," and jerks like he's thinking of flinging the box away. "I swabbed the deck again."

Izzy ignores that. If he has to be told, it's still not clean enough. He asks, "What are you doing with that?"

"Oh… this? I'm going to make another cat flag. Cats are evil and have knives in their feet, but John keeps telling me they're good luck on a ship. I thought we could use some luck, maybe get the wind going again." Frenchie digs around in the box as he continues, "There's some good black felt in here, and some yellow buttons I could use for eyes, and I… I really think it might help. The last one I made sure gave Captain Bonnet a hand."

"A cat flag," Izzy growls. He should stab Edward in his sleep for dragging him back to this sideshow of a ship. "And you say it gave Bonnet a hand?"

"Yeah. It gave him the luck he needed to kill that admiral. I mean, he didn't really kill him. He hit him with a paperweight and the guy fell on his sword. But I—"

"Frenchie," Izzy warns.

"Or… I could work on it later. During story-time, maybe."

"You could do that, yeah."

Frenchie says, "Right. I'll just…" and hurries back down the ladder. Izzy waits until he's out of sight before heading down himself.

It's warm below deck without any wind to move the air around, enough that sweat starts prickling the back of Izzy's neck as soon as he's through the hatch. He tugs at his tie as he walks down the passageway, twisting Edward's ring between his forefinger and thumb. The night Edward gave it to him, they'd been sharing a bed in the smallest room above the shittiest tavern in Spanish Town, trying to sober up so they wouldn't get lashed for drunkenness when they returned to Hornigold's ship.

It's you and me, Iz. Just you and me.

A sweet, bready smell is lingering near the door to the galley; Roach must be baking Bonnet another fucking cake. Izzy comes inside to an excited burst of chatter—Jim guiding Lucius through a sketch of Saint Elmo.

"No, no, no," Jim complains. They lean closer to Lucius, jostling the plate of fucking scones at their elbow. "His hat is more pointy."

Lucius huffs. "I thought you said it was round."

"At the bottom, it's round. But at the top it's like this." Jim holds their hands up and shapes out something like flame. "Look. Are you looking?"

"Listen, I really do better with live models."

Jim says, "Never mind. It's fine." They rip the page from Lucius' sketchbook and pin it to the wall with one of their knives. "Now I need a candle."

"Not in here, you don't," Roach says. He scratches his neck with the wooden spoon in his hand. "There's too much grease in here. Grease burns like crazy."

"You smoke in here," Jim points out. "You're smoking right now."

Roach ashes on the floor, unconcerned. "Not an open flame."

"Whatever. I'll put it in my room."

Oluwande says, "No," and bites into a scone. He chews and swallows before continuing, "We just got the room back. We probably shouldn't burn it down."

"Fine." Jim snatches the orange off the Swede's plate and slams it down on the table below the sketch. "This will have to do." They look at the orange, then the Swede, then the orange, then the Swede, then point a knife at him and say, "No la tocas, pendejo. If I find out you ate this one, I'll pull out the rest of your teeth by hand."

Before the Swede can respond, Roach notices Izzy standing in the doorway. He throws a towel over his shoulder as he says, "Coffee's all gone, man. But there's hot water if you want tea."

+++

Izzy takes the tea.

He still thinks tea is posh, fancy water for posh, fancy twats like Bonnet, but Roach steeped this cup long enough to give it some flavor and bite. He drinks it leaning against the wall across from the galley, waiting for the crew to clear out so he can have a scone without being stared at. He stretches a sleep-kink out of his neck and rubs at his bad shoulder between sips.

He's near the bottom of the cup when Bonnet materializes out of fucking nowhere and startles him into slopping tea all over his hand. It's the gloved one, so he doesn't feel it, but he still grits his teeth as he shakes it off and wipes it dry on his pants.

"Sorry," Bonnet says. He's wearing his coat and cravat despite the below-deck warmth; sweat is beading on his face. "I didn't mean to… is your shoulder bothering you? I saw you massaging it just now."

Izzy shrugs. "It's fine."

"Old injury?" Bonnet presses.

"I was shot," Izzy says, shrugging again. "Don't worry yourself about it."

"What happened?"

"It was about eight years ago, off the coast of Curaçao." Izzy can still picture it: the humidity, the noise, the smoke clogging his nose and throat. Edward taking a serious injury, one of the few times he ever has. The bullet tearing into the meat of Izzy's shoulder as he dragged Edward to safety. "We were fighting Dutch privateers."

"Oh! That's—"

"Do you need something?" Izzy cuts in. He's not here to quench Bonnet's thirst for adventure stories. "I have work to do."

"I do need something, yes," Bonnet replies. Edward must have asked him to play nice; he offers Izzy a smile so fake it belongs on a marionette before gesturing him down the passageway, away from the galley. "It's the crew, you see. They seem… restless. On edge. I was hoping you might know why."

"We're becalmed."

"Becalmed?" Bonnet repeats. He tips his head to the side like Buttons' stupid bird. Then: "Ah, yes. The wind. Ed mentioned it last night."

Of course Edward mentioned it to Bonnet. And of course he knew last night. The slippery son-of-a-bitch probably divined it from the color of the sunset and the smell in the air and some clouds that looked like crumpets or sea cucumbers or a dish of fucking curry goat.

"I don't understand," Bonnet continues, which is an understatement if Izzy's ever heard one. "I would think a bit of calm would be preferable to a storm."

Izzy scoffs. He hates storms—hates how the heaving of the ship twists his guts into knots—but many, many pirates have died far worse deaths than drowning. "You would think that. You haven't been at sea long enough to know better."

"You're right," Bonnet admits. The marionette-smile is back; between that and the stiff set of Bonnet's shoulders, Izzy nearly expects to find strings tying him to the rafters. "I haven't been at sea very long, and there are many things I still don't know. But I would like to learn."

"And you're asking me? The the most brilliant pirate who's ever lived spends half his nights in your bed."

Bonnet blanches at that—at the crude phrasing, at the reminder that Edward isn't wholly his, or maybe both. There's a tight, awkward silence before he says, "Given the… gaps in my knowledge, I feel that I could benefit from taking my lessons where I can," with an air so entitled it sets Izzy's teeth on edge.

For Edward's sake, he explains, "Without the wind, we can't make port. If we can't make port, we can't replenish our supplies. Pirates have starved to death while becalmed. They've died of thirst."

They've also mutinied, although Izzy doubts it will come to that. Hornigold's crew had already been nursing a very long and brutal list of grievances when a ten-day doldrum tipped tempers past the point of no return.

"We have plenty of rations!" Bonnet yelps, horrified. Heat flushes over his jaw and cheeks. "Enough for a month, at least."

"Three weeks and five days." Izzy counted everything an hour ago: the cartons of eggs, the boxes of potatoes, the barrels of salt pork, and the cannisters of hardtack, plus the sacks of milled flour, the sacks of wheat middlings, the live animals, and the barrels of fresh water and beer. The fresh water has been worrying him a little, given how often Bonnet insists on taking a full bath. "What we have right now doesn't matter. The crew is thinking about what could happen when it's gone."

"Oh," Bonnet says slowly. "I see, yes." He spends a long moment fussing with the lace at his cuffs. Then: "What should we do?"

Jim and Oluwande file out of the galley; Izzy waits until they're gone before saying, "There's nothing we can do, except keep them busy. If they're working, they won't waste their time thinking about it."

"Keep them busy," Bonnet repeats, his voice almost a murmur. "Yes. That makes sense. Although… I don't suppose it must be all work all the time. If one of them, say, wanted to occupy themselves by making a flag—"

Izzy snarls right in Bonnet's stupid face. "So that's what this is about? You don't want to learn anything. You want to give me another lecture about being mean to one of your imbecilic, pretend pirates."

"I just think—"

"You brought me back here, Bonnet. Why did you bother if you don't like the way I do my job?"

Bonnet makes a tight, angry noise in the back of his throat. "I didn't bring you back here, Israel Hands. Ed did."

"No," Izzy insists, furious. "You both did." He should have strangled this fucker this morning and saved them both the trouble. "It might have been Ed's idea, but you were beside him the entire time. You both tracked my course from the Republic of Pirates. You both chased me halfway around Hispaniola. You both stood on the deck of my ship—my ship!—and told me you needed me here."

"Izzy—"

"I nearly died taking that ship, Bonnet." Izzy slams his fist into the wall. "I'm sure you would've preferred it if I had. But I nearly died taking her, and she was mine, and I gave her to Calico fucking Jack because Ed—"

"Yes," Bonnet cuts in, his mouth smug. "You did it for Ed."

Seething, Izzy reaches up and touches Edward's ring. He says, "There isn't much I wouldn't do for Ed," and walks away before he rams his knife into Bonnet's throat.

+++

Bonnet calls for a midday story-time as part of his new campaign to keep the crew occupied without working the lazy fucks to death. Everyone gathers in the shade cast by the mainsails, sitting on boxes or barrels or sprawled out across the deck, cushioned by Bonnet's growing collection of pillows and rugs. Frenchie has several pieces of fabric in his lap. Izzy would rather gut himself with a blunt knife than listen to Bonnet's poncy fucking voice or look at his ridiculous fucking face. He decides to use the crew's distraction to do some sword practice without being interrupted.

The rec room lacks gun ports or portholes, and it lurks directly below Bonnet's absurd cabin, so it's warmer and stuffier than the galley had been earlier. Izzy pulls off his tie, careful to knot Edward's ring inside the cloth, then shrugs off his vest and reties his sleeves above his elbows. Bonnet's incompetence means there aren't any practice blades aboard, and he doesn't want to ruin his sword by banging it against a barrel. He unbuckles his scabbard, sets it down on his vest, and pokes around a pile of clutter in the far corner until he finds a broken broomstick that's a good length.

It's too heavy, and without the curve of a sword's grip, it doesn't sit right in his hand. But it's better than nothing, and he's down here to strengthen his footwork, not his parries or ripostes. His toe has healed cleanly, and packing a bit of rag in the bottom of that boot keeps the nub from rubbing against the leather. He walks well enough now; after a good three or so months of practice, his balance has mostly recovered. But he still struggles with short stops and sudden changes in direction, which could make him an easy target during a fight.

He taps the closest barrel a few times to get a feel for the way the broomstick moves, then sets his feet and starts in: lunge, pivot, crossover, pivot. He staggers slightly coming out of the turn and sets his feet again. Lunge, pivot, back-step, lunge. His maimed foot hits the deck with too much force where the toe should be, and he lurches to the side.

"Fuck."

Lunge, crossover, lunge, lunge. Sweat is beading at his hairline and pooling behind his ears. Crossover, crossover, lunge. He lands better this time; he manages to lean all his weight on his maimed foot without feeling like he's going end up on his knees. Back-step, lunge: better, better. Lunge, crossover—yes.

He's working through a new series of pivots when he hears someone walk in: Edward, by the somewhat uneven gait. He keeps at it—pivot, lunge, pivot—until Edward comes up behind him and says, "You're not at story-time."

Izzy wipes his sweaty face with the tail of his shirt. "Neither are you."

"I've already heard it."

"Is it that fucking wooden boy again?"

"No. A brother and sister who get lost in the forest." After a pause, Edward grabs Izzy by the waist and pulls him back against his chest. He asks, "What are you doing?" with his mouth at Izzy's neck. His mostly-regrown beard tickles Izzy's skin.

"I'm practicing."

"Why?" Edward tucks his hand under Izzy's shirt and thumbs at a bruise he made a few nights ago, just under the curve of Izzy's ribs. "You're one of the best swords on the high seas."

Izzy says, "I might've been," because it's true. He's kept both himself and Edward alive far longer than most pirates even dream of living, and aside from that inane mishap with fucking Bonnet, he's never lost a duel. "My feet don't move like they once did."

He regrets it as soon as it's out of his mouth; he can't see Edward's face, but he hears the soft, wounded breath Edward takes. He feels Edward's hands tighten at his waist.

Edward says, "Iz—" but Izzy cuts him off with a shrug.

"Don't."

"But—"

"Don't." Izzy realizes now that provoking Blackbeard had been a mistake. At the time, it was a risk he'd been willing to take if it meant having his captain back—if it meant not watching Edward cry all day, not scraping him off the deck every night after he drank himself to sleep. But Edward has apologized for his toe three times since he came back to himself; if he keeps doing it, Izzy's going to lose what's left of his fucking mind. "Done is done."

Another pause. Edward relaxes against Izzy for a moment, but Izzy's known Edward too long; he's ready for it when Edward spins him around, wraps a hand around his throat, and shuffles them back against the wall. Edward brings his other hand up to touch the X on Izzy's cheek, then pushes his thumb into Izzy's mouth, pressing hard on Izzy's tongue. He tastes like leather and tobacco smoke and something sour-sweet—Bonnet's fancy perfume, maybe, mixed with the sugar Edward puts in his tea.

Izzy bites down a little, which drags a noise from Edward's throat, and then they're kissing, more teeth than tongue, Edward's wet thumb pressed to the hinge of Izzy's jaw. Izzy snags a hand in Edward's hair and pulls him closer—he always wants Edward closer. Edward shoves his bad leg between Izzy's and leans in; the bolt on his knee brace feels like a knife-point at the inside of Izzy's thigh.

Edward moves his hands down to unbutton Izzy's shirt, exposing the nautical star tattooed above Izzy's navel. He scratches his nails over it, hard, smiling against Izzy's mouth when Izzy hisses and grinds against his thigh. He slides a hand back up to Izzy's throat and says, "I haven't seen much of you today." It's closer to I've missed you than Izzy's comfortable with; Edward would never have even thought such a thing until Bonnet turned him soft.

Izzy says, "You've seen me," and grips Edward's hip, hard. Edward's wearing his own shirt and a pair of Bonnet's fancy breeches; the silk rasps against Izzy's palm. "You might've seen more of me if you hadn't slept so late."

That earns him more pressure at his throat. Edward's nails rake his skin again, this time over the bruise on his ribs. Izzy shivers with it, his chest heaving as his skin stings and he tries to breathe, his cock sticky-wet in his pants. He wants—fuck. He wants. Anything Edward will give him, for as long as Edward is willing to give it. Just as his vision starts to burn black, Edward releases him. He grabs Izzy by the jaw and uses the hold to pin him harder against the wall.

He asks, "Are we going to fuck, or what?"

They are not going to fuck—not in here. Izzy's old enough now that bending over a box or a barrel will ruin his back, and if they do it on the floor, Edward will bugger his knee so badly that he'll be limping for days. Edward tugs on Izzy's belt—sideways, like he's trying to move him—so Izzy distracts him with a kiss, then opens the placket on the fancy breeches and wraps a hand around his cock. Two good strokes and Edward shudders, crowding in close and breathing out a filthy noise with his mouth against Izzy's cheek. Two more strokes and he's reaching down and grabbing for Izzy's other hand.

"No, this one," Edward says, slipping two fingers inside Izzy's glove and sliding them against the patch of rough, uneven skin on the back of his hand. "I want this one."

That hand is ugly, mottled with a pink and white burn scar that snakes up to his wrist. But Edward gets like this sometimes—like he needs to see it and feel it to remember that they escaped that fire together, that the flames caught Izzy's sleeve because he shoved Edward through the door first. It's theirs. Them. Izzy peels off the glove, spits in his palm, and gives Edward what he wants.

Edward hisses, "Fuck, fuck," and shudders again, rolling his hips and biting at Izzy's mouth. Then: "Iz, Iz, what do you need? You want my hand?"

Izzy doesn't, always; sometimes he likes it better when he has to work for it, rutting against Edward's body until he's whining and shaking with the anticipation, the strain, the need. But they're out in the open, not locked away in the privacy of Izzy's bunk, so he uses his free hand to yank at his belt, and he says, "Yes. Edward, please."

Heat starts coiling in Izzy's gut the moment Edward touches him. He jerks into it a few times, artless and desperate, but then—then they find a rhythm, their hips grinding as they fuck into each other's fists, ebbing and flowing like the tide. Edward is breathing hard, his hair sweat-damp at the temples, curtaining his face. He slides his free hand back to Izzy's throat and holds it there—no pressure, just weight. He comes with a low, rough noise and a shiver that chases up the curve of his spine, his eyes wide and dark.

He moves his hand up to Izzy hair, twisting his fingers in it and tugging, hard. He says, "Come on, Izzy, come for me." It's an order, and Izzy follows it—his body shaking, his mouth falling open around a moan.

Once he can breathe again, he cleans them up with a torn piece of sacking he finds draped over one of the barrels. He tosses it away after they're finished with it, hoping that fucking Lucius is the one who has to sweep it up. He buttons his shirt, reties his sleeves, pulls on his vest, and works his glove back onto his burned hand. When he starts on his tie, Edward bats his hands away and fixes it himself. He threads the tails of it through his ring with a smile tugging at his mouth.

He says, "Iz," with a curious curl in his voice and touches the X on Izzy's cheek. "Do you regret coming back?"

"You've been talking to Bonnet," Izzy replies. It isn't a question.

"No. Well… yes. Stede did tell me you two argued." Edward doesn't usually linger after sex—hasn't since they were young men sharing a hammock on Hornigold's ship—but now he's holding Izzy's waist and mouthing at the dip below Izzy's ear. "I've been thinking about it. You had your own ship. Your own crew. And I—"

"Ed," Izzy cuts in. Story-time must be over; the deck is creaking over their heads. "Stop."

"The Adventure, yeah?" Edward asks, because he's never known when to leave something alone. "She was a beautiful ship." She had been: a sleek little sloop with ten guns and a deceptively delicate set to her sails. "You should've just sailed with us. We could've had a fleet, like Hornigold did back when."

It wouldn't have worked, and not just because—from what Izzy's heard—Jack and Bonnet get along about as well as two wet cats stuffed in a sack, or because Edward had been ready to kill Jack when he'd realized Izzy had been bunking with him on the Adventure more nights than not. Their last year or so with Hornigold, he and Edward had been on two different ships, and Izzy had hated it: having Edward around but not there, unable to touch him or talk to him or even see him much. Doing that again, especially now that Bonnet is part of the picture, would've made him crazier than Buttons in a matter of weeks.

"Edward, stop. Done is done."

Edward makes a noise under his breath—something content, not quite a hum. He pauses to mouth at Izzy's skin a little more, working one spot with his teeth like he's trying to leave a mark.

Then: "Don't leave again without talking to me, yeah? We'll work something out. Whatever you want."

The one thing Izzy wants—Bonnet dead or gone—is the one thing Edward won't bargain for, but Izzy says, Yeah," because it's what Edward wants to hear, then nudges him away. "Go bother Bonnet, will you? I need to get your worthless crew back to work."

Edward studies him for a moment, then huffs out a laugh. "I can't believe fucking Calico Jack was your first mate."

"He's a captain again, thanks to you."

"I give it another month." The deck creaks above their heads again as Edward adds, "I'm sorry, Iz," his voice suddenly serious. "You gave up a lot, and I—"

Izzy waves that off. "I didn't strike out on my own because I cared all that much about being a captain. I just… it wouldn't have sat right, sailing for someone else. So, it was that, or staying on land."

"I'm trying to picture it," Edward says, smiling again. "You, loafing around the Republic of Pirates."

"The Republic could be worse. And Spanish Jackie's always looking for a husband."

"She's already asked you twice."

"Three times," Izzy corrects, just to see the possessive glint in Edward's eyes. "I always tell her you made me a better offer."

"Have I?"

Izzy says, "I'm here, aren't I?" which isn't really an answer, but Edward seems happy enough to take it as one.

+++

Buttons is naked again.

Because the sun set about an hour ago, most of his body is hidden by the shadows around the helm, but Izzy can still see more than enough. He tries to stay focused on Jim and Oluwande; they're pounding oakum into a thumb-thick gap on the deck, which Izzy hopes will hold until they can make port and have it repaired with new boards and a fresh coat of pitch. But flashes of movement at the corner of his eye keep drawing his attention back to Buttons—his pasty skin, his scraggly hair, the deranged look on his face, the fucking seagull perched on his head.

Buttons is muttering to himself in a low, menacing rumble and using his hand to mix something in a wooden bowl he has cradled in his arm. Izzy can't see what it is from his position at the capstan, but it sounds grotesquely wet and thick. Buttons continues mixing for a few moments, pausing twice to consult with the seagull. The second time, the seagull must give the all clear; Buttons scoops the stuff into his hands and smears it across his chest.

In the poor light, it looks gray against his skin, but it smells like some kind of herb, earthy and bitter and green. The odor gets stronger as he slathers the stuff under his neck and down his arms, and Izzy recognizes it as alder. Roach had used it in the poultices he made for Izzy's toe.

Sighing, Izzy turns back to Jim and Oluwande. He asks, "What the fuck is that lunatic doing now?"

"Witchcraft?" Jim suggests, twirling the mallet in their hand. "Summoning demons? Communicating with mermaids? How the fuck should I know?"

"You shouldn't talk about mermaids," Oluwande advises. "It'll just get Frenchie started about the crystals in your body."

Jim says, "Fuck that guy," and Oluwande snorts. They reach over and pinch his arm, hard enough that he hisses and squirms away. "And fuck you too for laughing about."

Buttons crouches behind the helm, only to reappear clutching the broom Lucius uses when he can be bothered to sweep below decks. He holds it out flat, arms extended, then flips it up in the air and shouts, "I call ye, winds! I call ye!" He catches it, shakes it at the sky, and flips it up again. The seagull remains on his head, unperturbed. "I call ye, winds! I call ye!"

A murderous urge starts stewing in Izzy's gut. He decisively puts Buttons to his back and glares at Jim and Oluwande. They've just been sitting there, blithely watching him watch this drivel. Jim has commandeered Oluwande's mallet so they can drum them on the deck—tap-taptap-tap-taptaptap. The lantern beside them wobbles to the beat.

Izzy asks, "Are you finished?"

"I think so, yeah," Oluwande replies, raising his voice to compete with Buttons—I call ye, winds! I call ye! "At least, the gap is all filled in now."

Izzy has seen better oakum patches in all his years at sea, but he's also seen worse. He concedes with a sharp, "Fine. Swab some sea water over it so the boards will swell and hold it in place. After that, you're dismissed." He flexes his burned hand, which is stiff now that the air has cooled. Then: "Have you lot had dinner yet?"

Jim nods. "Yeah. Like, two hours ago."

Izzy heads for the main hatch, somewhat cheered by the prospect of having the galley to himself. He dislikes eating with the crew; he doesn't see the point in faking camaraderie with men who hate him because he has to berate them all day to keep them on task. Even on the Queen Anne, where the crew had been less contemptable and less prone to arousing his killing intent, he'd preferred eating alone, except on the rare occasion that Edward invited him to the captain's cabin.

The passageway smells like roast chicken and potatoes, and that cheers him a little more. He'd skipped breakfast, and his lunch—eaten while checking Black Pete and Wee John's progress on the barnacles—had been two pieces of hardtack and a mug of watered beer. Unfortunately, his improving mood only lasts until he steps into the galley's hearth-warmth and spots Lucius lurking near Jim's altar. The orange has gained some company in the last few hours: three sugar cubes, some salt, a thimble, and a reddish-brown rock shaped like a heart.

"Izzy," Lucius singsongs. "I haven't heard you tongue-lashing anyone in hours. I was starting to think something happened to you."

Izzy sneers at him. "You must be disappointed to find me alive and well."

"You're alive, at least. Saying you're well might be overdoing it. Are you here for dinner? Or…" Lucius gives Izzy a long, suggestive look that lingers as Izzy reaches up and runs a hand through his hair, "have you finally decided to let me sketch you?"

"You're not sketching me," Izzy barks. "If you ask again, I'll—"

"Yes, yes. You'll throw me overboard. I've heard it before." Lucius smirks as he continues, "Not to disappoint you, but that doesn't scare me anymore. Fang's been teaching me to swim."

"I bet he has."

"Oh, Izzy," Lucius drawls. "Jealous that I'm not sleeping alone? I wouldn't think so—not with your neck looking like that."

Izzy, like a damn fool, gives himself way. He brings his hand up to the achy spot below his ear instead of pulling his knife and putting it through Lucius' eye. Fucking Edward and his stupid fucking teeth. Lucius throws his head back and laughs.

"Well. Now we know why Blackbeard wasn't at story-time."

This time, Izzy does pull his knife. He levels it at Lucius with a flick of his wrist and comes shave-close to grazing Lucius' chin. Lucius skitters away from him, eyes wide. He yelps a little when he tries to scuttle backward through the door and cracks his shoulder on the jamb.

Izzy growls, "Go on, boy. Say something else," and takes a step closer. Lucius opens his mouth, then closes it, and Izzy clenches his free hand until his nails dig into his palm. If he actually gives in and kills this fucker, he'll never hear the end of it from Bonnet. "What's wrong? Not feeling so glib, now? Not feeling so free to gossip about your captain and your first mate?"

Lucius opens his mouth again, but Roach hustles between them before he can talk himself into an early grave. He says, "No, no, no. No bleeding in here. I cook in here," like the floor isn't awash in potato peels and cigarillo ash. "If you want to stab each other, go up on deck."

"You know," Lucius says, pique edging his voice. Having Roach between Izzy's knife and his throat is cooling his fear. "I think I'll pass on the stabbing."

Izzy hisses, "Get out of here," and points at the door. For once in his life, Lucius does as he's told and hurries away.

Silence. Roach sighs and walks back to his workbench, the floor creaking under his feet. There's some shuffling and wet meat-sounds as he moves bowls around and lays stuff on the cutting board. Izzy just stands there, his blood rushing in his ears and his hand clenching around the grip of his knife. Fucking Lucius. Fucking twat. The methodic thunk of Roach's cleaver hitting the cutting board sounds like the tick of a clock.

Eventually, Roach says, "Hey, man. Put that away and sit down." Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. "I saved you some chicken."

Izzy stows his knife, but he grumbles, "I don't want fucking chicken," and turns toward the shelves that house the canisters of hardtack. He grabs the closest one and shakes it to see if it has whole biscuits in it. Predictably, it's down to crumbs. "Did Bonnet order a bath tonight?"

"Just a wash basin," Roach replies. Thunk. "And he asked me to cut the fresh water with sea water, half and half."

Izzy grunts in acknowledgement, surprised. He knows that Bonnet cares about the crew—not that he'd ever admit that out loud, even with a pistol in his face—but caring is one thing. A spoiled, privileged ass thinking past his usual excesses is something else, especially a spoiled, privileged ass like Bonnet, who has Edward indulging his every whim and knows fuckall about living aboard a ship.

Roach sighs again. "Stop being an asshole, man. Have some chicken.”

Izzy pushes the empty hardtack canister aside and reaches for another one. "Fuck off."

"Why did you ask me to make it if you weren't going to eat it?"

"I never asked you to make any fucking chicken."

"Yes, you did," Roach insists, gesturing with the cleaver. "You told me to use the live animals first."

Izzy had told him that; using the live animals first saves the rations that go to feeding them. Field corn or potato peels make for lousy meals, but if boiled long enough and salted well enough, either are better than starving to death.

Roach grabs a cloth-covered plate off the workbench and carries it over to the table. "Just eat, yeah? I won't even talk to you."

Izzy grunts again, then gives in and sits. Pulling the cloth off the plate reveals a bigger portion of food than is probably wise, given the need to conserve, but the delicious smell reminds him that he's barely eaten all day. The potatoes are roughly mashed but well buttered, and the chicken is perfect, crisp skin and juicy meat. It's so good that Izzy takes off his glove so he can tear into it with hands.

He's licking grease off his fingers and debating whether it's worth it to get up for a mug of beer when Roach says, "Nobody cares, you know," more to the air than to Izzy directly.

"Nobody cares about what?"

"You and Captain Ed."

"We're not talking about this," Izzy snaps.

"Fine. Don't talk about it." Roach keeps his eyes trained on whatever he's cutting—probably leftover chicken parts that he plans on using for breakfast. "I'm just telling you. Nobody cares." Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. There's a wet scrape as he uses the cleaver to clear space on the cutting board. "Besides, it's not like we didn't know."

Something hot and unpleasant settles in Izzy's gut. He's not stupid; he knows the crew knows. Ships this size hold very little secrets. But there's a difference between knowing a thing and knowing it. There's also a difference between knowing a thing and having the disrespect to make mocking insinuations straight to his face.

"I mean," Roach continues, in direct violation of his promise not to talk, "I figure most guys in the trade know. Blackbeard's a legend, yeah? And you two have been together a long time."

Izzy—he shouldn't be surprised. They have been together a long time. And back on Hornigold's ship, they hadn't bothered to hide it, as much from youth and stupidity as a desire to protect themselves. Some of the older dogs on Hornigold's crew had been ruthless cunts with ruthless appetites, but there were some customs even bastards of that caliber were unwilling to breach, if only because they feared attracting bad luck.

Roach must peg the silence as uncomfortable; he studies Izzy over his shoulder for a moment or two, then grabs a bottle of rum, pours a healthy tot into a tin mug, and sets it on the table. When Izzy just stares at it, he nudges it against Izzy's wrist until Izzy has to take it or get rum all over his sleeve.

Izzy knocks it back in one swallow, gritting his teeth as it burns between is throat and his gut.

Roach says, "Matelots. That's what it's called here, yeah? We had a different word for it, where I'm from, but it means the same thing."

"Morocco, right?"

"Mauritania." After a pause, Roach sits and pours out another tot of rum. Izzy waves it off—he has several things he needs to check before bed—so Roach shrugs and drinks it himself. "How long?"

Izzy doesn't know what makes him answer—maybe the rum, maybe the exhaustion crawling under his skin, maybe the fact that Roach has seen him at his worst: pale and in pain, shaking with fever, screaming as the infection was drained from his toe.

For whatever reason, he says, "Twenty-six years. Edward was nineteen, and I"—he shrugs; he's never rightly known how old he is—"I might've been twenty-three. Maybe twenty-four. We took up together a year or so before that, but we said the words twenty-six years ago."

"Twenty-six years," Roach repeats. A smile lights up his face, and Izzy, with mounting horror, braces himself for a soppy, congratulatory remark. Instead, Roach slaps his hand on the table and says, "Nice. Feeney owes me five doubloons."

Izzy makes a rough, indignant noise. "You twats bet? On that?"

"Feeney thought twenty years, but I figured at least twenty-five." Roach helps himself to more rum as he asks, "Must've been weird though, yeah? When he"—he makes a vague gesture with the mug—"became Blackbeard?"

"Yeah," Izzy mutters, and reaches for the bottle.

+++

Before bed, Izzy heads topside one last time to check that the deck is secure. It's simple work—reefing the sails and tying off the rigging, latching the hatches, pulling the levers from the capstan, lashing any loose barrels and boxes to the railings and masts. But Bonnet's lot are useless on their best days and outright menaces to ship safety on their worst, and being stuck in a doldrum has driven any dribbles of sense they might've had straight out of their heads. With the air so listless and the sea so calm, a storm rearing up out of nowhere and tossing half their gear overboard is probably the last thing on their minds.

Izzy's looping a forgotten coil of rope over a belaying pin when he hears the bright, familiar ring of a sword glancing off another sword. For a brief, confused moment, he thinks the ship is being boarded, but the noise stops, only to start again after a long pause. It stops. Starts. Stops again. There's another pause, filled by a low murmur and a soft laugh.

Some of the crew must be practicing, although Izzy can't imagine who. Fang and Ivan fight with axes and rapiers, and most of Bonnet's lot don't know one end of a sword from the other. Izzy's offered lessons—and Bonnet has been disgustingly pleased about that, like Izzy's doing out of kindness, not a desire to survive their next raid with his hide intact—but so far, only Black Pete and Frenchie have shown willing, and it can't be either of them. Pete, who has first watch, is lounging on the mizzentop and whittling by the light of the near-full moon, and Izzy saw Frenchie on his way above deck, playing cards in the jam room with Oluwande, Roach, and Wee John.

Another sword-clang; another laugh. Whoever it is, they're at the bow. Curious, Izzy moves fore, pausing once to retie some slipshod knots barely holding the mainmast's lines. Past the helm, he finds Edward and Bonnet standing close in a weak puddle of moonlight, their swords at their sides. Edward's hair is tied back with a length of ribbon that looks gray in the shadows but could be purple or red. Bonnet is dressed down, wearing plain breeches and a shirt with billowy sleeves but no ruffles or lace. His hair is more silver than blond in the moonlight.

They whisper to each other for a few moments, their mouths almost touching, their heads tilted in anticipation of a kiss. Edward slides his free hand down Bonnet's arm, squeezing just below the elbow. Bonnet laughs at something Izzy can't hear, and Edward smiles. A seething knot of jealousy coils behind Izzy's ribs.

Edward squeezes Bonnet's arm again, then steps back and raises his sword. He asks, "Another round? Or are we going to bed?"

"I'd much rather go to bed," Bonnet replies. His flirtatious tone should have Izzy turning on his heel, but his feet seem pinned to the deck.

"This was your idea," Edward points out.

"That was before you started working me like a dog."

"I'm going easy on you, mate." Edward sets his feet and levels his sword at Bonnet's chest. "Begin."

They circle each other—two, three, four times. Edward undercuts like he means to run Bonnet through, and Bonnet whirls away, moving less clumsily than Izzy would've expected, given his impractical shoes. Bonnet readies himself again, and Izzy notes that his posture has improved, although he's standing slightly duck-footed, and his shoulders aren't quite aligned with his hips. They resume circling. Circling. Circling. Edward feints, and Bonnet—shockingly—doesn't fall for it. Bonnet arcs up toward Edward's throat, but he jerks into the movement rather than flowing, which announces his approach like a foghorn. Edward counters before Bonnet's sword even clears his hip.

Smirking, Edward draws his sword down the length of Bonnet's. Once his blade is at the hilt, he flicks his wrist and spins it out of Bonnet's hand. Bonnet startles back with a gasp. Like the showy son-of-a-bitch he is, Edward catches it in the air.

He says, "Better. But you're still tensing before you strike. That just tells your opponent what you're planning."

Bonnet huffs. "I'm trying. I just can't seem to…" he closes his fist around an imaginary sword and makes an awkward stabbing motion. "I doubt I'll ever be as good as you."

"I've had about thirty years of practice, mate. And I'm not the best teacher. If you really want to learn, you should ask Iz."

Izzy almost hopes Bonnet does ask, just so he can tell him to go fuck himself with a cannonball. But the look on Bonnet's face—something frozen between horror and disdain—tells Izzy that Bonnet won't be giving him the opportunity.

Bonnet doesn't voice this, however; for what Izzy assumes is Edward's sake, he says, "I think I'll take my chances with you," and draws Edward into a kiss.

And Izzy—he can't not look. Bonnet tangles his fingers in the front of Edward's shirt, and Edward shifts the swords to one hand so he can pull Bonnet closer with the other. The kiss deepens, and Izzy catches himself watching Bonnet. He's been in Bonnet's very place—Edward's tongue in his mouth, Edward's hand cradling his jaw—and he wonders if when Edward kisses him he looks like Bonnet does now: limbs loose and eyes fluttering, a flush rising in his cheeks.

They pull apart for a breath and come back together, and Izzy finally—finally—turns on his heel and leaves.

+++

God must be granting small favors again by morning, because the galley is empty when Izzy arrives. Even Roach is missing, although breakfast is cooking, so Izzy figures he's just fetching something from one of the storage holds, not lazing in bed like the rest of the crew. A pile of meat is waiting for Roach on the cutting board, and a pot of what smells like wheat porridge is hanging on the hook above the cookfire. A spider pan is heating below it, the measure of grease in it already hissing and spitting. In a cooler patch of embers, the tin kettle he uses for coffee is sitting on a trivet; wisps of steam are curling from its spout.

Izzy wraps a towel around the kettle's handle so it won't singe his glove and pours himself a mug of coffee. He drops one sugar into it, and he dissolves it by swirling the mug around when he can't find anything but a fork to stir it with. He digs around in the cupboards until he turns up another mug—one without dead silverfish in it—and uses it to coax a smoldering chip of wood from the cookfire. He filches one of Roach's cigarillos from the wax-paper sleeve stashed among the hardtack canisters and carries everything above deck.

Dawn isn't quite an hour gone; the sky is still more pink and orange than blue. Theres's still no wind. A square of green and white calico is limp and sagging where it hangs from one of the mainmast yardarms—Frenchie's fucking cat flag, judging by the misshapen black shadow just visible between the folds. Izzy sneers at it as he passes. Fucking Frenchie. Fucking cats. He sees Ivan climbing down from the foretop, but he doesn't stop to talk. Ivan would tell him if something happened during his watch without needing to be asked.

By the time Izzy settles at the larboard railing, the wood-chip is close to winking out. He struggles to get the cigarillo lit. Once it finally sparks, he tosses the wood-chip into the water and inhales until his chest aches. He rarely smokes—he doesn't like the ashy, gritty taste it leaves in his mouth—but he slept poorly and woke up angry enough to chew a hole in the anchor. He needs something to ease the raw, too-tight feeling itching at his skin.

What he doesn't need is fucking Bonnet coming to stand beside him. Bonnet keeps a good foot between them, but it's still too close—close enough that Izzy can't ignore him. He's wearing emerald green today: frock coat and matching breeches. His cravat is somewhat plain compared to the others Izzy has seen, but it's still faintly ridiculous.

Bonnet says, "I had planned on apologizing to you this morning. I shouldn't have taunted you about Ed the way I did. But now I'm not so sure I want to. Not when I hear you threatened Lucius with a knife."

"I didn't touch him," Izzy mutters, his mouth full of smoke.

"That's not the point. The point is, you threatened him." Bonnet turns to face Izzy, leaning his elbow on the railing. Izzy can't look at him. All he'll see if he does is Edward kissing him—Edward touching his face, Edward's thumb tracing the swell of his lower lip. He stares straight ahead as Bonnet presses on, "And for what? Because he teased you about something the whole crew already knows?"

"It's not about what the crew knows," Izzy explains. "Although, before you came along, Ed understood the importance of discretion." Bonnet objects to that with a noise like a stepped-on cat, but Izzy just talks over him. "It's about respect. Lucius doesn't respect me, and he doesn't respect Ed. He barely respects you, but you insist on coddling him. You coddle all of them, but him in particular."

"Lucius had a hard go of it before he signed on with me," Bonnet snips.

Izzy shrugs that off and says, "He's not the only one." Nearly every pirate on these waters has a gruesome story to tell: enslavement, indenture, transportation, impressment, kidnapping, starvation, parents who beat them half to death every night for daring to want food in their bellies and shoes on their feet. "If he expects me to cry about it, he'll be waiting a long time."

"And," Bonnet continues, as if Izzy hadn't said anything, "Ed did throw him overboard."

"He survived."

"There's more to life than surviving, Israel."

Izzy blows out more smoke. Without any wind to move it, it clouds between them as he says, "I wouldn't know. I've lived at sea since I was eleven years old." Before that, he'd lived at a workhouse, where no one had bothered to tell him if his mother died birthing him or if she left him there because she couldn't be fucked to raise him. "I'd bet you haven't given Ed as much grief for nearly drowning him as you're giving me for not stabbing him."

"I most certainly spoke to Ed about it. He regrets doing it, and that's enough for me. And besides"—Bonnet taps his fingers on the railing—"he was out of sorts when it happened, and we both know why."

The cigarillo is down to ash; Izzy flicks it into the water before saying, "You know, Bonnet, you said you didn't want Ed to bring me back here, but I reckon it's working out fairly well for you that he did."

"How so?"

"If he hadn't, you couldn't blame me for the parts of him you don't like."

"That," Bonnet sputters, aghast. "That's—that's absurd. I don't—" He tries again, saying, "Israel," like his mouth is full of glass, but Oluwande is walking past them, so Izzy waves him off, as much to hand out some orders as to stop this capsize of a conversation from becoming the talk of the ship.

He catches Oluwande's sleeve and says, "Get the lower sails at half-canvas. If the wind picks up, I want to be ready for it. Course-sails, topsails, and topgallants. Don't bother with anything else. How well do you climb?"

"Jim's better."

"Ask them to go up the mizzen—carefully—and figure out which lines are frayed. I want to know how much rope to buy when we finally make port."

Oluwande nods. "Got it."

Bonnet stares at Izzy after Oluwande walks away—stares long enough and hard enough that Izzy looks over and snaps, "What?"

"That was… surprisingly civil."

Typical Bonnet: so willing to assume the worst about shit he doesn't understand. He probably thinks Izzy screams himself hoarse every day for sport and not because he's surrounded by a level of incompetence that could easily get them all killed.

He says, "Boodhari doesn't need that rough a hand," and swallows some coffee so he doesn't throttle Bonnet and feed his body to the fish. "He's not nearly as lazy as the rest of these twats, and he knows what to do for the most part, even if he doesn't always know he knows. He'll make a half-decent boatswain if he ever stops doubting himself."

"Oh!" Bonnet says, brightening. "Do you think Ed and I should promote him?"

Izzy shakes his head. "Not yet." His next sip of coffee has grounds in it; he spits them off his tongue and pours the dregs over the railing. "Better to wait until he's done the job for a bit without realizing it."

Bonnet seems to accept this—at least, he doesn't carry on talking about it. An awkward silence follows; Bonnet fusses with his cravat and smooths the front of his coat, and Izzy—who suddenly feels like he needs to be dismissed, even though he barely follows Bonnet's orders on a good day—stares out at the water. He wishes he had another cigarillo; now that his coffee's gone, it would give him something to do with his hands.

Finally, the tension grows so thick he's ready to chop off another toe just to get away. He decides to dismiss himself by saying, "If that's all, Bonnet, I need to start my rounds."

Bonnet blurts, "No, wait," and reaches out, stopping just short of touching Izzy's arm. "I just… I was unfair to you, yesterday. You came back because Ed asked, despite having to endure my presence. And I shouldn't have taunted you for that—not when I'm in the same boat, so to speak. I agreed to you coming back because Ed asked, despite having to endure yours."

Izzy spits, "Fuck you," before mimicking Bonnet's poncy, simpering voice: "Endure my presence. Is that supposed to be an apology?"

"Israel," Bonnet says. This time, he does touch Izzy's arm.

"Get your fucking hand off me, Bonnet, or I'll fucking cut it off, and I won't give a fuck what Ed has to say about it."

Bonnet releases him, only to step in front of him and box him in against the railing. Before Izzy can shove him away, he says, "He was miserable without you," low and rough and urgent. "He cried for days, even though he tried his best not to let me see it."

"How awful for you," Izzy sneers. His hand is on his sword, although he doesn't remember putting it there. "I watched him cry for weeks while you were gone. He hid it better after he became Blackbeard again, but by that point, he was drinking so much he didn't make it to bed at night if I didn't fucking carry him there. Unless he found a ship to raid, and then he charged in like he was fucking hoping he'd be cut down."

Bonnet says, "Israel," again, soft, but Izzy—he just keeps going. Now that the wound is open, he can't seem to staunch the bleeding.

"I've been with him for decades, Bonnet. Decades. Do you have any idea—" Izzy cuts off, chest aching; his throat is closing up. "I planned a mutiny for him. I helped him turn himself into a fucking legend because he wanted to be the greatest pirate in history. I stayed with him, even after he started pulling away from me because he couldn't always square with being my captain and my—my—"

Izzy cuts off again, snarling; he can't find the right word for what he and Edward are. Or were. If they're still really anything at all.

"And then you showed up," he continues, his voice poisonous. Bonnet takes a step back and stares at him with wide eyes and an open mouth. "You showed up, and you twisted him into fucking knots right in front of me. And then you left, and I had to watch him fall to pieces over someone else. And now"— a furious noise catches in his throat—"now you have the gall to stand on a ship I'd just as soon see scuttled—a ship I run for you, so you and the man I've given half my life to can lay in bed until noon—and tell me you're enduring my presence."

"Well," Bonnet says, stunned. His mouth moves like he's choosing his words. Eventually, he decides on, "I probably deserve some of that. When you first boarded my ship, I assumed you and Ed were… intimate. Or that you had been. It was the most logical explanation for your possessiveness toward him. But the exact nature of your relationship was unclear back then, and I… I was so enamored by him that I didn't press too hard for clarification. But"—he draws himself up a little—"I do believe Ed deserves some of that as well. He allowed me to believe things were… open between you. He didn't tell me you two were married. Not until after you left."

Izzy—his hands are shaking. Married? That's—no. He says, "We're not married," in a strangled voice and shifts sideways to put some space between himself and Bonnet. "We… it's—"

"Matelotage," Bonnet supplies. "As I said, Ed finally did explain it to me. And he equated it with marriage."

Izzy can't decide what's better or worse—that Edward has considered them married all this time, or that he considered them married and chased after Bonnet anyway. In the end, denial is easier than trying to grapple with it. Sighing, he insists, "Matelotage isn't marriage."

"I think whether you and Ed are married is a discussion you should have with Ed," Bonnet says, his mouth hinting at a smile. "We need to talk about us."

"Us?"

"Yes. Us." Bonnet moves to stand beside Izzy, his back against the railing. "You love him, correct?" Izzy, mortified for both of them, responds to that with a show of teeth, and Bonnet huffs under his breath. "I'll take that dreadful look on your face as a yes. I love him too. Rather covetously, as it turns out. I won't pretend I wasn't pleased after you left."

Izzy scoffs and picks at a knife-gouge on the railing with this thumbnail.

Bonnet continues, "I didn't realize what you meant to him, not until you were gone and he… well. As I said, he was miserable." Uncertainty creases his face as he admits, "I suggested we find you."

"What?" Izzy asks. His throat feels tight again. "You—"

"Yes. Which is why I shouldn't have taunted you like I did. I was my idea, and like you said, Ed and I did it together." Bonnet pauses to brush a stray hair from his face. It's getting long now, curling a bit behind his ears. "I wanted him to be happy, whatever that meant. Even if—"

"You had to endure my presence?"

"Israel, please."

Izzy says, "Fine," and glances over at Jim and Oluwande. They're working studiously on the mizzenmast rigging—a little too studiously. He lowers his voice as he echoes their first conversation, "What are your demands?"

"I don't have demands. This isn't a hostage negotiation. But to start, I think we should stop quarreling over him like a pair of hungry jackals." That startles a laugh out of Izzy, and hope brightens Bonnet's face as he ventures, "Perhaps we could find a way to get along."

"Just like that?" Izzy asks. He leans his elbows on the railing and frowns down at the water gently lapping at the hull. "After everything?"

Bonnet considers this for a moment before conceding, "It won't be easy," with a sigh. "I haven't quite forgiven you for the duel, or for selling me to the Navy. But now that I understand you and Ed a little better, I also understand why you did those things. You were protecting what you saw as yours, with the tools that seemed most prudent to you at the time." The deck creaks behind them—Frenchie and Wee John coming topside. Bonnet leans closer to Izzy as he suggests, "Perhaps you can accept that I didn't choose for any of this to happen, and that I didn't… twist Ed into knots with any deliberate intent to hurt you."

Izzy—he doesn't know if he can. But he also knows that if Edward is ever forced to make a choice, he'll fucking choose Bonnet. Bonnet, with his soft smiles and his appreciation for fine things, and who's handsome in a way Izzy isn't anymore, not after so many swordfights and whippings and so many years in the sun and wind and sea.

"Yeah," he says quietly, still looking at the water. The barnacles on this side need scraping; he should go find Black Pete and Wee John. "Fine."

Bonnet says, "Wonderful," and extends his hand. "We have an accord, then."

Izzy makes himself nod and shake Bonnet's hand.

+++

"Gretel, however, ran like lightning to Hansel," Bonnet reads, loud enough that Izzy can hear him from the quarterdeck, where he's trying to eat his fucking lunch. "She opened his little stable and cried, 'Hansel we are saved! The old witch is dead!'"

"He would've known that already," Roach complains. "She burned in the oven. No way Hansel didn't smell it."

Oluwande counters that with, "Of course he smelled it, but that doesn't mean he thought it was the witch. It could've been Gretel in the oven."

"Gretel's talking to him! Why would he think it's Gretel?"

"He means before," Jim points out. "Obviously."

"Before? Before what?"

"Before—"

Bonnet pointedly clears his throat. That shuts them up for the most part, which saves Izzy from climbing down there and stabbing them into silence. Bonnet continues, "Then Hansel sprang like a bird from its cage when the door is opened. How they did rejoice and embrace each other, and dance about and kiss each other! And as they had no longer any need to fear her, they went into the witch's house, and in every corner, there stood chests full of pearls and jewels."

"Pearls and jewels?" Frenchie asks, as Izzy gnaws on the toughest piece of dried beef he's ever encountered in all his years at sea. He's surprised he hasn't cracked a tooth. "I bet the old woman was a pirate."

"She can't be a witch and a pirate," the Swede insists.

Jim says, "Buttons is definitely a witch and a pirate."

"Me?" Buttons squawks. The seagull squawks with him. "A filthy sorcerer? Nae. I'll hex ye if ye say such things again."

Izzy hears shuffling—probably Jim pulling a knife and Oluwande taking it away before it ends up in Buttons' neck. Unperturbed, Bonnet recites, "'These are far better than pebbles!' said Hansel,'" in an obnoxiously shrill voice. "He thrust into his pockets whatever could be got in, and Gretel said, 'I, too, will take something home with me,' and filled her pinafore full. 'But now we must be off,' said Hansel, 'that we may get out of the witch's forest.'"

"If the witch has a broom," Frenchie starts thoughtfully, but Wee John cuts him off.

"Babe, only witches can fly brooms. Hansel and Gretel aren't witches."

Ignoring them, Bonnet valiantly presses ahead. "When they had walked for two hours, they came to a great stretch of water. 'We cannot cross,' said Hansel, 'I see no foot-plank, and no bridge.' Gretel answered, 'And there is also no ferry. But a white duck is swimming there: if I ask her, she will help us over.'"

Bonnet is recounting Hansel and Gretel's negotiations with the fucking duck when Izzy stands, wipes his salty fingers on his pants, and walks to the edge of the quarterdeck. The crew is as he expects: lolling about on a heap of pillows and cushions and rugs like they're on a fucking pleasure barge and not a pirate ship. Edward looks up and catches him watching; he smiles, then invites Izzy to join him with a jerk of his chin. Izzy would rather be keelhauled than listen to the rest of this insipid story, but it's Edward, so Izzy heads down the ladder that leads to the main deck.

"The good little duck did so," Bonnet reads, and Izzy moves to stand beside Edward, who's sitting on a barrel with his left foot propped on a box, rubbing at his bad knee. "And once they were safely across and had walked for a short time, the forest seemed to be more and more familiar to them, and at length, they saw from afar their father's house."

"Wait," Pete interrupts. "Gretel isn't a witch, but she can talk to a duck?"

This sparks a moronic squabble about talking animals—and talking to animals—and whether that's more or less ludicrous than that fucking wooden boy coming to life because it wished on a fucking star. Izzy opens his mouth to tell them they're idiots, but Edward leans against his hip and the words curl up and die while still in his throat. He tenses slightly, uncertain, but Edward just tips his head into Izzy's side. He tucks his arm around Izzy's body and hooks his fingers in Izzy's belt, right at the small of his back.

Lucius, who must have eyes in the back of his head—the better to ferret out gossip with, the twat—notices immediately and coos, "Ooh, Dizzy Izzy finally decided to join us for story-time. I wonder why? He—"

Edward shoots him a look; Izzy can't see it, but it must be unpleasant because he closes his mouth with a snap and scoots closer to Pete.

Bonnet says, "Lucius, enough," and offers them a smile that, while mostly for Edward, extends to Izzy as well. "Now, if you'll all settle down, we just have a bit left." He draws his finger down the page, muttering, "Where was I… ah, yes! Then they began to run, rushed into the parlor, and threw themselves round their father's neck. The man had not known one happy hour since he had left the children in the forest; the stepmother, however, was dead."

"How did she die?" Fang asks.

"Who cares," Roach says, shrugging. The cigarillo behind his ear is flaking tobacco down the side of his face. "I mean, this shit was all her fault."

Frenchie suggests, "She could've been the witch," and Jim lets out a snort.

"You think every woman is a witch."

"Or a mermaid," Oluwande murmurs.

"That's impossible," Pete argues, shifting as Oluwande dodges the elbow Jim aims at his side and jostles his legs. "The witch obviously had been out there for years. I think the woodcutter would've noticed if his wife kept disappearing."

Bonnet clears his throat again. "If you please: Gretel emptied her pinafore until pearls and precious stones ran about the room, and Hansel threw one handful after another out of his pocket to add to them. Then all anxiety was at an end, and they lived together in perfect happiness. The end. After a dramatic pause, Bonnet closes the book and asks, "Now, wasn't that lovely?"

An agreeable murmur runs through the crew. Wee John and the Swede are suspiciously red-nosed and wet around the eyes. So is Ivan, who Izzy has seen gut men without stopping to blink. Buffoons. Figuring playtime is over, Izzy makes himself pull away from Edward. He straightens his sleeves and his vest. Before he can bark the crew back to work, however, Bonnet starts talking again and hurls his plans for a productive afternoon right through a porthole.

He declares, "You've all been working so hard; I think we can spare another hour of free time. What shall we do with it? Another story? I don't believe we've read Donkeyskin yet."

Fang—of all the fucking fools on this ship—suggests, "We could try whistling again. Maybe get some wind going."

Scowling, Izzy says, "I already told you: whistling is for storms. And it doesn't fucking work." Edward gives his belt a tug, which nearly blows him off course, but he holds steady, "You lot whistled until my ears were bleeding yesterday, and nothing happened."

"I felt a breeze," Fang insists.

Pete rouses from where he's been lazing against Lucius' shoulder and says, "I think we were doing it wrong."

"Wrong?" Jim asks dubiously. "Whistling is whistling, cabron. You can't really do it wrong."

"Not wrong," Pete replies, even though that's exactly what he'd said. "I mean, maybe we should try whistling the same song. Together. We might build up some"—he makes a circle with his hand—"energy."

Buttons nods. "Aye. Like a wee spell."

"Oh, teamwork!" Bonnet enthuses. He's smiling like a loon and his ridiculous cravat is crooked. "What a wonderful idea. Do we all know 'What Shall We Do with a Drunken Sailor'? Or 'Blow the Man Down'?"

"One of us should probably sing it," Oluwande says. "Everyone else can whistle along."

The crew erupts with chatter and movement, elbowing each other and waving their arms as they scramble to shout out what song should be sung and who should sing it. The usual titles are thrown around: 'Spanish Ladies', 'Haul Away Joe', 'Coast of High Barbary', 'Roll the Chariot Along'. Izzy isn't going to participate in this nonsense—he'd clean the bilges with his bare hands first—but he wouldn't mind seeing the look on Bonnet's face when he hears the words to 'Good Ship Venus' or 'Nine Times a Night'.

Edward, as usual, has a better idea. He stands, then puts his mouth to Izzy's ear and murmurs, "Let's get out of here, yeah?"

+++

There are fifty things Izzy should be doing right now instead of letting Edward fuck him in the middle of the day, like they're still young men sneaking into storage holds when Hornigold's wretch of a quartermaster was looking the other way. But Edward is beautiful like this: sprawled out underneath Izzy, his head tipped back, his hair wild against the pillow, his throat working around low, dark sounds as he fills Izzy perfectly. They rarely do it like this—Izzy likes being held down too much, likes Edward shoving into him and wringing his hands at his hips hard enough to bruise—but it's worth it now to see the pleasure on Edward's face: the sweat at the base of his throat and the slow, feverish flush on his skin.

"Fuck," Edward hisses, as Izzy grinds down, pulls up, grinds down again. He digs his nails into Izzy's skin, right at the dip of his spine. "Never known you to—fuck—torture a man like this."

"You wanted me here. Said you couldn't do the hard work because your knee is fucked."

"You said you'd do it for me." Edward slips a hand down to Izzy's ass and slaps it—once, twice—then smooths his hand over the red-hot sting. "Get to it."

Izzy's bunk isn't quite big enough for this. He has one leg folded up between Edward's body and the wall; his only real leverage is his maimed foot, balanced on the floor. He pulls up, grinds down harder, and pulls up again. Edward chases after him with a jerk of his hips. He slides his hands up to Izzy's chest and thumbs at the rings in his nipples in a way that Izzy can feel in his cock. Izzy's whole body jolts with it—enough that he nearly topples them out of the bunk—and Edward huffs out a noise between a moan and a laugh.

"Is that it?" Edward asks. He tugs the rings a little, laughing again when Izzy shivers and tightens around him. "I have to lead you around like a bull to get you to move?"

"Fuck off."

Edward thrusts as best he can with Izzy's weight pinning him to the bunk—up, up, up—then wraps his arms around Izzy's shoulders and pulls, saying, "Get down here. I want your mouth."

Izzy pitches forward, bracing his elbows on either side of Edward's head. Edward's cock shifts inside him, and the sudden wash of pleasure hooks a noise out of his throat. He's close—so fucking close. Edward snags a hand in his hair and yanks his head down, and then they're kissing, messy and wet, Edward nipping at Izzy's lower lip before sucking Izzy's tongue into his mouth. Izzy moans into it, rolling his hips down as Edward fucks up into him—again and again and again. Edward drags his teeth down the line of Izzy's jaw and bites at a spot near the wing of his swallow, hard enough to leave a mark. He has a mark of his own—a gift from fucking Bonnet, right where his neck curves into his shoulder—and Izzy puts his mouth there, running his tongue over it, then his teeth, unsure if he's chasing Bonnet's touch or trying to wipe it away.

The mark must be new; it's sensitive enough that Edward hisses and arches up and tightens his grip on Izzy's hair. He says, "Iz, fuck," and toys with one of the nipple rings, rolling it between two fingers. "Fuck, you feel good." He gives Izzy's hair another sharp tug, then slides his hand down to Izzy's ass and teases his fingers around Izzy's rim, where Izzy is stretched and open and taking him in.

Izzy shudders all over, toes curling, overwhelmed. The noise he chokes out is garbled—something between Edward's name and please. Edward moves his hand from Izzy's nipple to his cock but doesn't stroke, just palms over the head. He teases Izzy's rim a little more, then rubs one finger there like he's thinking of pushing it in.

"You want more, Iz?" he asks, hot breath at Izzy's temple. "Of course you do. You always want more."

Izzy's mouth won't work, so he just nods against Edward's neck. He's fucked open enough that it doesn't quite go in easy, but it doesn't go in rough, either. Edward stops at the second knuckle and just holds there. All Izzy can do is shake; he's so close to coming he can feel it at the back of his neck, in the soles of his feet. Edward teases another finger there—a threat, a promise, Izzy doesn't know. He hasn't taken two cocks since he was in his thirties, but fuck if he doesn't want as much as Edward will give him right now.

Edward must be thinking of that night too; he asks, "Remember when we were in Port Royal, with Jack?" like Izzy could fucking forget. He came so hard that night he thought he was going to die from it; if he forgets everything else in his life, he'll go to his grave remembering that. "You were—fuck, Iz. Seeing you like that was something else."

Izzy comes, just like that—fuller than he's been in years, Edward barely touching his cock—and it seems to go on forever, until his arms give out and he ends up folded up on Edward's chest. Edward eases the finger out but doesn't stop; he bends his good knee and plants his foot on the bunk. He fucks in and in and in and in, and Izzy just takes it, still shaking as he pants against Edward's collarbone and claws at his shoulders.

The next noise he makes is slurred, almost wounded. Edward slows a little and asks, "Is it too much?"

"Yes," Izzy admits, squeezing his eyes shut. "Don't you dare fucking stop."

In and in and in and in. Izzy can't come again so soon, but his body doesn't know it; his cock is aching as it tries to fill again. Every part of him feels like it's on fire. He puts his mouth to Bonnet's mark and bites, hard. Edward slams into him one more time and finally—finally—comes.

It's a long time before Izzy can move again. Even after Edward's cock slips out of him, he stays heaped on Edward's chest, breathing Edward in while he waits for his legs to stop trembling and his heart to stop beating in his throat. He feels boneless, wrung out; he won't be worth much when he gets back above deck. It isn't until Edward starts shifting like his knee is hurting that he makes himself sit up.

He should: Get up. Find a towel or a rag to clean up the mess. Wipe himself down with the sea water in his washbasin. Get dressed.

He doesn't. Instead—because being on this disaster of a ship has apparently rotted his brain from the inside out—he waits for Edward to open his eyes and asks, "Did you tell Bonnet we're married?" like he isn't sitting there with his ass fucked open and Edward's come dripping out of him.

There's a long, horrible pause. Then: "What?"

"Bonnet," Izzy presses. The mark Edward kissed into his skin is starting to ache. "He said you told him we're married."

Something flashes across Edward's face—hurt, anger, something else Izzy can't read. He palms Izzy's hip, squeezing just this side of too hard, and asks, "Are you saying we're not?"

A lie is waiting on the tip of Izzy's tongue. It would be easier—It's my job to make sure Edward is content—but he forces himself swallow it and tell the truth: "I think we might've been, yeah. But not these last few years. Not since—"

"Not since Blackbeard."

"Yeah."

Edward squeezes Izzy's hip again—gentler this time. He says, "I fucked us all up," in a tone Izzy hasn't heard in at least a decade: quiet, almost contrite. "I realize that now."

"You didn't realize it then?"

"No," Edward admits, shaking his head. His mouth twists in a way that scrunches his beard. "I got too caught up. Things got too confused." He sighs before continuing, "When we first took the La Concorde, having you as first mate felt like a dream. But I—" he looks at Izzy, sighs again, and looks away.

"What?" Izzy demands, rough. "What is it? Just tell me what I fucking did."

"Fuck, Iz. It wasn't you." Edward shifts under Izzy, wincing as his knee makes a popping sound, but Izzy doesn't move. He figures Edward can hurt for another few minutes; he's been hurting for the last ten fucking years. Edward says, "That first crew we had, on the La Concorde—a lot of those dogs were Hornigold's leftovers. They knew what we were to each other. If I hadn't put some distance between us, there might've been trouble."

Izzy snarls, "Fuck you," and bats Edward's hand away from his hip. He doesn't want Edward touching him now. "I planned one mutiny for you, you twat. You didn't think I'd put one down for you too?"

"Iz—"

"No." Izzy climbs off the bunk so he doesn't do something he'll end up regretting, like punching Edward in his fucking face. "I'm not fucking Bonnet. I didn't need you to hold my hand on deck. I needed—" He leans against the washstand so his wobbly, sex-drunk legs don't dump him on the floor. "You'd ignore me for weeks, then order me into your cabin and fuck me a little so I wouldn't… what? Mutiny? Leave? Take up with someone else?"

He'd given Izzy just enough—enough for Izzy to hold on to what was left of them by his fingernails, enough for everything to fester into a sick, maniacal devotion to Blackbeard, the only part of Edward he ever got.

Edward says, "I fucked you because I wanted you." The bunk creaks as he sits up and swings his legs over the side, and Izzy wonders if he'll have to climb back on top of him to keep him from running away from this. "I've always wanted you. I wasn't—I never meant to make you think I didn't. I just—" He sighs again and rubs a hand over his face. "I didn't know how to be your captain and your lover."

"Yeah," Izzy mutters. The sweat drying on his skin is starting to itch; he tosses the towel on the washstand to Edward so he can wipe the come off his stomach and grabs another from his stowage chest. "And you do now?"

"I'm trying to figure it out."

Of course. Because Bonnet—with his marmalade and teacups and poncy wines and silk banyans—expects Edward to make a fucking effort. He wouldn't accept the dregs Izzy's been desperate enough and foolish enough to subsist on for the last decade.

Izzy folds the towel around his hand and dips it in the washbasin. It's sea water, and a hair warmer than cold, but the salt-scratch and the chill are exactly what Izzy needs. He says, "You know," and mops the towel across his face and down his neck. "Bellamy asked me to take up with him a few weeks before you did."

"You'd be dead now if you had," Edward says, an edge to his voice.

"Probably." Most of Bellamy's crew went into the drink when the Whydah sank, his first mate included, and the handful of men who made it to shore ended up on a gibbet. Izzy wets the towel again and starts on his arms. He says, "After the mutiny, there were four ships to be had. I could've taken the Ranger for myself instead of letting Vane have it."

"What are you getting at, mate?"

"I chose you. Both times. And I chose you instead of staying on my ship with Jack."

Edward pauses for a long, excruciating moment—long enough that Izzy turns to look at him. He's sitting on the edge of the bunk, his shoulders slouched and his bad leg stretched out. He's holding his pants in his lap and staring at a point over Izzy's shoulder.

Finally, he says, "I should've let you go."

"Why didn't you?"

"Because I'm selfish," Edward replies. He drops his pants and moves to the washbasin, then tugs the towel from Izzy's hands. He skims two fingers down Izzy's arm, stopping where the burn scar curls around his wrist. "I didn't take it well when you left. I'm sure Stede told you. When we decided to go after you, he made me promise I wouldn't push if you said no. But you didn't, so I took what's mine."

The raw possessiveness in Edward's voice makes a dark heat curl in Izzy's gut. Still, he shrugs off Edward's hand and insists, "You don't need me. You have Bonnet."

"I love Stede," Edward says—easily, almost callously. "That doesn't mean I don't love you."

Izzy grits out a low, indignant noise. "You've never said it before. I don't need you to fucking start saying it now."

"Maybe I should've said it before."

"Ed, don't. Just… tell me what you want."

After a pause, Edward says, "I want you, and I want Stede," like that doesn't make him the most shameless son-of-a-bitch on these waters. "I know that isn't fair. It isn't fair to either of you. But that's what I want."

Izzy should be furious. He is furious. But it's Edward, and being on this disaster of a ship really has rotted his brain from the inside out.

He asks, "So… what? I'm supposed to sit down with Bonnet and work out a fucking rota? We get you three days a week each, and on Sundays you rest like the Lord?"

The gobsmacked look on Edward's face is worth a hold full of plunder.

With a growl, he grabs Izzy's arm and pulls him away from the washstand. "Get the fuck on the bed, Hands. I've got ten years to make up for."

+++

Bonnet approaches Izzy at the taffrail as he's is watching the sun inch toward the horizon. The sky is blurring purple and orange and pink, and there's still no wind to speak of. Now that the doldrum is into its second day, Izzy can feel the unnatural stillness—an itch behind his teeth, a pull underneath his skin. Bonnet stands close to him; they're not touching, but Izzy can smell the flowery hint of Bonnet's powders and perfumes. Under normal circumstances, he wouldn't bet on the two of them having a second civil conversation in one day, but he's well-fucked and has the neck of a rum bottle in his gut.

Instead of moving away, he says, "Bonnet," in greeting and mostly manages not to sound like he's chewing nails.

"Israel." Bonnet nods at the bottle in Izzy's hand. "Is that rum?"

"This is a pirate ship," Izzy replies, because he's feeling generous. "Of course it's rum."

Bonnet makes a pish sound and produces from somewhere two poncy glass snifters and a small bottle that could be cut crystal. The liquid inside is lighter than rum, more gold than brown. He pours heathy tots in both snifters and hands one to Izzy.

He says, "If you're going to drink this early in the evening, at least make it brandy." He brings the snifter to his mouth as he adds, "It's for sipping, mind. Not guzzling."

Izzy scoffs. "I haven't been guzzling." He hasn't had brandy before; it's smoother than he expects, sweet and fruity. It has the same bite as rum but burns less going down. "I needed to clear my head a bit. What are you doing on deck? Isn't it time for one of your posh dinners?"

"We're rationing, remember?" Bonnet taps his fingers on his snifter. "Ed is napping. I came out here looking for company."

"And you picked me?"

"Most of the lads are playing cards, which doesn't interest me, and Jim and Oluwande are… otherwise occupied." Bonnet pauses to cut Izzy a sly, sideways look. "Besides, I suspect it's your fault Ed is so worn out."

Izzy doesn't deny it. Edward had been ruthless with him: he'd thrown Izzy face down on the bunk, licked him clean, and fucked him again. Then he'd gotten hard again, somehow, at which point he'd decided Izzy's ass had had enough, so he'd flipped Izzy onto his back and fucked his thighs instead. Honestly, Izzy's lucky he's even upright. He would've stayed below deck to drink if his bunk didn't stink like sex so badly he could practically taste it.

"Does it bother you?" he asks.

"Yes," Bonnet admits. "And no, and yes. And probably not for the reasons you think." Before Izzy can press him on what the fuck that means, he leans his elbow on the rail and asks, "Israel, how old are you?"

"Fuck if I know," Izzy replies, shrugging. It's not like the workhouse had bothered with shit like birthdays. "Might be fifty, give or take." Probably give, considering how tired he is some mornings, and how often his neck and back and shoulders ache. "Why?"

Instead of answering, Bonnet hums under his breath and tips a little more brandy into Izzy's snifter. "You told me earlier that you've been at sea since you were eleven."

Izzy shrugs again. "I might've been twelve." He might've been ten; no one had given a shit, on land or at sea. "I stowed away on a merchant brig. It took them four days to find me."

"And?"

It feels prying; Izzy blames the rum and the brandy as the answer comes tumbling out. "The ship was in open water by then, so the captain put me to work as his boy instead of tossing me overboard. I kept his cabin clean and fetched his meals and carried his messages. I ran powder between decks if the men were on the guns."

"And you enjoyed it? Being at sea?"

Izzy—he's never really thought about it. His first captain, Reynolds, had been a sour old cuss, but he'd cuffed Izzy less than the matrons at the workhouse, and he'd given him more to eat. That first year, his bed had been a pallet on the captain's floor, but he hadn't had to share it with other children or rats. That had been enough to keep him from jumping ship.

He says, "I guess. I stayed on five years. Maybe six. I made coxswain before I ended up in the fucking Navy."

"The Navy?" Bonnet repeats, surprised. "I wouldn't have expected that, although it does explain your swordsmanship. I can't imagine you volunteered."

Izzy grumbles, "Fuck no," and sips at his brandy. "We made port in Liverpool, and I was stupid enough to go ashore alone during a war. I got knocked in the head coming out of a brothel and woke up on a frigate, two days out." He huffs out a bitter laugh as he continues, "Most expensive lay of my life. Cost me three or four years."

Bonnet studies him for a moment, mouth moving like he's deciding what to say. He finally settles on, "Will it offend you if I say I'm surprised you didn't desert?"

"No. I thought about deserting every bloody day. But—" Izzy shrugs. "I never got the chance, not with a war going. They were so afraid of losing hands that we rarely got leave."

"How did you end up a pirate?"

More prying, but Izzy's gut is warm and his mind feels slower than his mouth. He explains, "My frigate got boarded by privateers. Some Spanish fucker named Enriquez. He killed all the officers, but he gave the limeys the option of going overboard or signing on with him. Most of those twats went for a swim, but me and another pressed kid named Bellamy decided we wanted to live."

"Bellamy?" Bonnet asks. A seagull—not Buttons', and Izzy should stab himself for knowing the difference—wheels over their heads. "Sam Bellamy?"

"Yeah." Bellamy was dead now, just like Morgan and Avery and Roberts and Tew: men Izzy never sailed with but knew well enough because pirates always wash up in the same four or five pisspot ports. "Enriquez wasn't the worst cunt I ever worked for. He didn't lash the hands for no reason, and he was generous with the shares. But his crew were mostly Spaniards. They hated me and Sam for being English. We jumped ship about two years in."

"Is that when you started sailing for Hornigold?"

Izzy bristles a little, suddenly aware of how loose his tongue has been. He asks, "Why?" and sets the snifter on the railing, even though it's holding another two or three sips.

Bonnet hesitates. There's something cautious about his tone when he says, "You know quite a bit about me: my wife and children, my life in Barbados, my troubles growing up. You even know why I didn't meet Ed at the dock that night, and all the reasons I thought he'd be better off without me." The seagull wheels over their heads again as he continues, "You heard it when I explained it to Ed, because you insisted on guarding him like I had a knife in my boot."

"I wasn't protecting him from you," Izzy sneers.

"Well, you certainly weren't there to protect me."

Izzy, despite himself, picks up the snifter again and takes another sip. The brandy has a slight tang to it now—now that it's been exposed to the salt air. He admits, "I was protecting him from himself. He was angry enough to kill you that night. And I—" Izzy sighs and looks out at the water, which is nearly indigo now. "I couldn't let him. He never would've forgiven himself."

Bonnet ducks his head a little. "I'm grateful for it, even if you didn't do it for me. As for your question: I realized earlier that I don't know much about you."

"You," Izzy starts, caught somewhere between angry and uncertain. His past isn't Bonnet's business—only Edward knows any of it, and he learned it in drips and dribbles over the course of nearly three decades—but for some reason, Izzy's mouth opens and "What do you want to know?" comes out. Maybe because Bonnet's the first person besides Edward who's ever asked.

"Hornigold's ship… that's where you met Ed, right?"

Izzy nods. "Yeah. He signed on a few months after me and Sam. Jack signed on with him. The ship was full, so the four of us bunked together. We took turns every other night—two in the hammock and two on the floor. About a year after that, one of the older dogs got skewered on a raid." A Scottish fuck named Red Tom; Izzy had hated him less than most of Hornigold's crew. "Sam and Jack took over his berth, and then it was just me and Ed."

"What was he like?"

Izzy says, "Beautiful," before he can think better of it, and heat prickles over his cheeks and under his jaw. That doesn't stop his mouth from adding, "Brilliant. The day I met him, I knew I'd follow him anywhere." He catches Bonnet looking at him, doe-eyed, and he grunts, "Fuck off," through his teeth.

"Israel, I'm not—" Bonnet huffs under his breath. "If anything, I envy how long you've known him. He said you were young when you entered matelotage, but I assumed he meant closer to thirty than twenty. I married when I was thirty-four."

They had been young—maybe too young—but when Edward asked, Izzy hadn't hesitated before saying yes. Edward had been a force all his own, even back then, and being the center of his attention, the focus of his possessiveness, had been like sailing a dinghy into a maelstrom. All he could do was hold on as best he could and hope be didn't drown.

Bonnet continues, "When Jack was here, he implied that he and Ed had… spent time together. I just…" He trails off, face sheepish, aware that he's veering toward rank gossip. "How on earth did that happen?"

"I'm not sure that's your business, Bonnet."

"You're right, it isn't. It's just… Jack is so… Jack." Bonnet looks away and fusses with the cream-colored cloak he's wearing over his frock coat. He sighs before saying, "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked."

Izzy hates Bonnet's brittle, embarrassed tone. He hates that he hates it. He hates that he hates that he hates it. He mutters, "That last year or so under Hornigold, Ed and I were on different ships," because it's better than examining any of that too closely.

"Really?" Bonnet asks, frowning. "He never mentioned that."

"He wouldn't," Izzy replies. That hadn't been a good time for any of them. "We took a Dutch sloop off Grenada, the Marianne. She was well-fitted and probably hadn't been on the water more than six months. Hornigold decided to keep her and sail her with the Ranger as a fleet."

"He did say Hornigold had more than one ship. He didn't tell me you two were ever separated."

Izzy's burned hand is starting to ache from the chill; he flexes it a few times as he explains, "He had four ships by the time the mutiny happened, but we got separated because of the Marianne. After we took her, we towed her to Nevis and signed on more hands. Ed was first mate by then; Hornigold gave him command of her and made fucking Jack his second. That's when…" He trails off with a shrug.

"Hornigold made Jack Ed's second instead of you? That seems—oh." Bonnet gives him a narrow, calculating look. "He did it on purpose."

"He thought I was plotting against him."

"You were though, weren't you? You told me you planned a mutiny for Ed."

Izzy says, "Yes and no," and leans his elbows on the railing. "Hornigold was a nasty, vindictive bastard. He worked us too hard, fed us too little, and whipped us on a whim. And he wouldn't attack English ships, which the crew saw as wasted spoils. Nearly everyone fucking hated him by the end."

The deck creaks below them—Buttons coming topside to bask in the fucking moonlight. He natters to the seagull as he toes off his shoes and shrugs out of his shirt. Izzy scoffs and turns back to Bonnet.

"Mutiny was already brewing," he continues. "I just moved it along. And I kept control of it, so things would work out best for Ed. For me too, but mostly for Ed."

"You," Bonnet starts, something inscrutable on his face. "You just wanted Ed back. You were punishing Hornigold for separating you."

"I already told you, there isn't much I wouldn't do for him." Buttons is chanting now, head back, arms outstretched, which means it's time for Izzy to head below deck. He says, "Night, Bonnet. Thanks for the drink," and walks away.

+++

Izzy startles awake to the maintop bell ringing—the quick but steady pulls of a general alarm. They can't have wrecked or run aground, not when they're at anchor and becalmed besides, which means the fucking ship is being boarded. That should be impossible; nobody is stupid enough or suicidal enough to attack a ship flying Blackbeard's flag. But Fang is on watch, not some excitable twat like Frenchie or the Swede. He's not the type to sound the alarm just because he thinks he's seen a fucking mermaid.

Bong. Bong. Bong. Bong. Izzy scrambles out of his bunk and grabs his sword, knife, and boots: the only things he really needs. That leaves him in his sleep pants, but he doesn't have time for anything else. He struggles into his boots as he's hurrying through the door, his heart hammering in his chest. He storms his way out of the forecastle barking, "Get up! Get up! Get up for your lives!"

The deck is chaos. Izzy counts two, three, five, eight, ten guys. Fang manages to knife one while still climbing down the mainmast's rigging and brings the number to nine. A glance starboard reveals a periagua moored to the railing with a pair of hooks, her single sail reefed. Over the din, Izzy can hear locked oars bumping against its gunwale. It's an attempt at one of Hornigold's favorite tricks—the same trick he'd used to capture the Adventure—eight or ten cutthroats rowing out to a marooned ship and murdering the crew in their beds.

A guy rears up in front of Izzy: bald head, squat face, a scar across his hooked nose. He's fighting with axes, more brawn than skill. He lurches in, swinging both at once. Izzy catches them with a sharp up-sweep of his sword and plants his knife between the bastard's ribs. As the body falls, the door to the captain's cabin bursts open and Edward and Bonnet come striding out—Edward in his leather pants and knee brace and nothing else, Bonnet still dressed for sleep.

Izzy turns as another guy approaches him. He's tall and thin and wielding his sword like a club. Izzy lunges, strikes, lands a down-cut to the guy's shoulder that makes him stagger back with a hiss. He straightens and takes a step forward, sizing Izzy up. Izzy circles, lunges again, and opens him diagonally across the gut. It's not deep enough to kill, but the guy collapses to the deck, screaming. Izzy kicks his sword away and turns aft and follows his instinct to fight his way toward Edward.

Jim darts past him, knives spinning as they advance on a short guy armed with a mallet. Beyond them, Roach is hacking at a guy with his cleaver. Beyond him, Edward is fighting two guys at once, his sword a blur. One is already bleeding from the stump where his hand should be. Bonnet is beside him, sword to sword with a guy wearing an eyepatch and holding his ground fairly well. His shoulders still aren't aligned with his hips. He blocks a slash meant for his neck, presses in, undercuts toward the gut, and only misses by a hair.

Ivan staggers past Izzy, still fighting but bleeding from gashes on his forehead and thigh. Ed shouts and spins and runs his second guy through the shoulder. Izzy keeps pushing toward him, past Jim, who now has a knife under Mallet-guy's chin, and Black Pete and Frenchie, who are fighting the same slim, red-haired guy at once. Frenchie nearly gets skewered, but Izzy brings his sword down on Slim's knife arm as he's striding past and shortens it just below the elbow.

A body thuds to the deck—the guy Fang just gutted. Izzy gets within feet of Edward and Bonnet as Edward's second guy falls to his knees, bleeding freely from his shoulder and clutching a new wound on his side. Bonnet pivots, lunges in, and gets blocked. Eyepatch feints, and Bonnet—Bonnet fucking falls for it. He's open. Open. Too open. He'll get speared sideways through ribs. He won't survive it.

Neither will Ed.

It's three steps. Izzy takes one, two. On the third, his maimed foot lands badly; he forgot to put the rag in the toe of his boot. Overbalanced, he lurches forward, reels like a drunk, and slams hip-first into a barrel. The barrel skids larboard and Izzy skids with it; Bonnet is right in front of him. He grabs Bonnet's arm and yanks him to the side, but Eyepatch follows. Somehow, Izzy gets his sword up while staggering to his feet and puts it straight through Eyepatch's back. It bursts out his chest with a thick, wet noise. Blood splatters on Bonnet's face and neck and down the front of his nightshirt.

"Iz," Edward shouts, limping toward them. He sees Bonnet then—sees the blood. His eyes widen, and he grabs Bonnet's sleeve with a shaking hand. "Stede? Fuck. Fuck—"

"It's fine," Izzy tells him. His throat feels tight. "Ed. Ed, look at me." He catches Ed by the elbow and squeezes. His other hand is still holding Bonnet's wrist. "Ed."

Edward shudders out a breath. "Iz?"

"It's fine," Izzy says again. "It's not his."

+++

"We didn't know!" one survivor gibbers.

There are four of them, although the one missing a hand looks piss-poor, pale and wax-skinned and slumped. Izzy wouldn't bet on him living to see morning. They're a little too old to be pirates just starting out; if Izzy had to guess, they're a crew who lost their ship and boarded the Revenge hoping to claim another.

"We didn't," a different guy insists—the one who'd been fighting with a mallet. A cut from Jim's knife is bleeding sluggishly under his chin. "We didn't know this was Blackbeard's ship."

Izzy glances at the jackstaff above the crow's nest, where Blackbeard's flag is just a darker smudge against the nearly-black sky. Without any wind to unfurl it, it's limper than a habitual drunk's cock.

Mallet-guy is still blubbering, "We heard he got captured. That he turned privateer."

Izzy doesn't even want to think about that. He presses his knife to the bastard's throat and growls, "It seems you heard wrong. Blackbeard is right"—he jerks his head toward Edward—"over there. Shall I call him over? You can tell him you think he's licking some king's warty, inbred ass to his fucking face."

"I yielded," Mallet-guy whines, like pirates are know for their trustworthiness and sense of fair play. "You can't kill me. I yielded."

Izzy spits, "Are you sure about that, dog?" and leans a bit harder on the knife. Mallet-guy shakes his head as best he can in his position; his eyes are rolling white and sweat is dripping down his face. Izzy asks him, "Your captain, is he dead?"

"Yes."

It was probably Eyepatch, since he'd been the best of this lousy bunch of fighters. Izzy bites back a curse. If this is something bigger than a shabby crew needing a ship—a Navy plot, a privateering gambit, a plundered captain hiring out his grudge—he'll never find out now. He doubts these louts know anything about it. They don't look like they know much of anything at all.

He turns to Fang and orders, "Take these cunts below." This ship's brig isn't big enough for four prisoners, but it's the only brig they've got. "Find them some rags so they stop bleeding on our decks. I want a guard on them at all times." Four men in the same cell could spark trouble—a brawl, an escape attempt, a dead-men-tell-no-tales murder—not that any of them are in the condition for it. "I'll question them in the morning."

As Fang hustles them away, Izzy looks over at Edward, who's watching as the crew loots the bodies. He's standing on one leg like a flamingo, his bad knee bent to keep any weight off it. He has one hand braced on the capstan.

Izzy calls out, "Ed," as he approaches, and Edward turns, wobbling a little. "Go rest your fucking knee. We can take care of this."

"Where's Stede?"

"He's below, helping Roach." More likely, Roach is working and Bonnet is being a well-meaning nuisance, but Izzy isn't going to fucking say it. Not after seeing the look on Edward's face when he'd thought Bonnet had been stabbed. "Ed, come on. Your knee."

Edward just looks at him. He says, "You," and catches Izzy's arm. "You saved him."

"Yeah."

Edward yanks him closer, hard enough that he overbalances and nearly pitches them both into the capstan. Izzy hisses as one of the levers digs into his hip. Edward wraps his arms around Izzy's shoulders and back, hugging him, and breathes out a noise into Izzy's hair. He's sweaty and cold-skinned at once, and Izzy just stands there, uncertain, his arms at his sides. He doesn't—they don't.

"You saved him," Ed says again.

Izzy says, "Yeah," and pulls back a little. Wee John and Oluwande are fucking staring at them, and if Edward doesn't stop touching the back of Izzy's neck, this is going to get more embarrassing than it already is. "Go sit down, yeah? I'll get you something for your knee."

"Fine," Edward concedes. "No laudanum. It does my fucking head in."

"I know that."

Edward looks at him again. "Yeah. I guess you do."

Izzy doesn't watch him limp away. Instead, he faces Oluwande, who's still fucking staring. There are a hundred things that need doing—things Izzy should be doing—but he just wants to take care of Edward. That's all he's ever wanted to do.

He tells Oluwande, "Boodhari, the deck is yours."

"You—uh. Mine?"

Izzy, his patience down to the absolute nub, snaps, "Are you my second, or not?"

"I... am I?" Izzy shows some teeth; Oluwande straightens and nods his head. "Right. I am."

Izzy glances at the captain's cabin. The door is closed, and Edward isn't on deck; he must have done what he's told for once in his life. Izzy turns back to Oluwande and orders, "Get the bodies thrown overboard, and have someone swab the boards. We're not sleeping with their filth on our decks. If anyone is injured," he adds, jerking his head toward Ivan, "send them to Roach. Send them. Don't let them think it's a request."

"Got it."

Izzy stops by the captain's cabin on his way to the main hatch, just to make sure Edward isn't below deck bothering Bonnet or halfway up the mainmast or anywhere besides Bonnet's bed or that stupid fainting couch. As he reaches for the latch, the door opens of its own accord—fucking Edward. Of course. He's wearing sleep pants now and still standing on one leg.

"Why are you up?"

Edward says, "To give you this," and passes Izzy a wad of white fabric. It's a shirt: one of Bonnet's by the soft feel and flowery smell. "It's cold, and"—he gives Izzy a lingering look that neither of them has time for—"there's more of you on show than I want other people seeing."

That has heat curling in Izzy's gut like a snake. It's good to know Edward didn't actually wring his cock dry earlier. "You're an asshole," he informs Edward. "You know that, right?"

Edward just shuts the door in his face.

Izzy calls him an asshole again on principle, then stomps over to the main hatch. He shrugs his arms into the sleeves of Bonnet's shirt as he heads down the ladder. It's softer than Izzy expects—some kind of linen. The buttons are fiddly and ridiculous; Izzy doesn't bother with them. Without the warmth of his glove, his burned hand has gone stiffer than stone, and his other one is streaked with dirt and dried blood. He'd only manage to close one or two of them, if he managed any of them at all.

The galley is crowded and over-warm and heavy with the stink of sweat and blood. Jim's altar is nearly overflowing now; the new additions include a Queen of Spades, half a piece of hardtack, a bluish chunk of sea-glass, and a ring missing the stone. Roach is bent over Jim, smoke curling from the cigarillo in his mouth as he tends to a gash on their shoulder. Bonnet is waiting beside them, one arm out of his bloody nightshirt. The rest of the cloth is bunched around his neck and throat like an old-fashioned ruff. He took an injury after all: a cut on the inside of his upper arm. It's small enough and shallow enough that it shouldn't need to be stitched up.

At the hearth, Lucius is actually doing something for once; he's cutting Bonnet's fabric stockpile into bandages, pausing every so often to stoke the fire beneath the pot of boiling water hanging on the hook. He's chatting with Pete as he works, who has a bandage tied around his temple, made from the same green and white calico Frenchie used for his fucking cat flag. When Lucius spots Izzy, he leers like Izzy didn't fucking kill three men tonight.

He drawls, "Oh, Izzy," and takes a step closer. "I knew you must be hiding something under all that leather and foul temper, but this—this—is more than I imagined." He reaches up like he's thinking of touching one of Izzy's nipple rings, then must realize it will cost him his hand and quickly pulls back. "It's criminal that you won't let me sketch you."

Izzy opens his mouth to chew into him, but Bonnet says, "Israel," soft, and Izzy—fuck his fucking life—stands down.

"Yeah?" he asks.

Bonnet seems to change course as he's about to speak. He tilts his head to the side and asks, "Is that my shirt?"

"Ed gave it to me," Izzy snips, feeling exposed, defensive. Behind them, Lucius gasps.

"Oh." Bonnet studies Izzy for a moment, his face curious, considering. Then: "How is he?"

"He's an obstreperous fucking twat," Izzy complains. "But you already know that." Bonnet's expression goes from pleasant to concerned in a blink, and Izzy finds himself adding, "His knee's buggered."

"Badly?"

"I've seen him worse," Izzy says, shrugging. "He just needs to stay off it for a day or two."

Bonnet says, "I'll help you keep him down," in a tone that slithers right under Izzy's skin. Lucius gasps again. "I don't suppose he'll take any laudanum?"

Izzy shakes his head. "I already asked. I came down here to get some heat for it."

Roach cuts in, saying, "Lucius," without looking up from Jim's shoulder. "Find a waterskin and fill it with hot water. From the kettle. What's boiling now is too hot."

With that, he spits the cigarillo from his mouth, grabs the rum bottle off the table, and uncorks it with his teeth. He pours a generous amount over Jim's shoulder.

Jim hisses, jerking against the hand holding them down. "Fuck."

"You're fine."

"That fucking hurt."

Roach huffs out a noise and blots at Jim's shoulder with a piece of pink and yellow fabric. "It'll hurt worse if it festers." He spares the crowd in the galley half a glance. "Where's the Swede?"

"Here!"

"Thread me a needle. One of the curved ones." Roach pauses long enough to catch Izzy's eye. "You need anything, man? For yourself?"

"No." Izzy's hip aches from being knocked against that barrel, but that's not something Roach can fix. "One of the prisoners needs a hot knife."

Roach makes another, rougher noise. "That fucker can wait."

A throat clears behind him—the Swede, holding both the waterskin and the needle Roach wanted. Izzy takes the waterskin and, for some reason, looks at Bonnet. He must've moved his arm or scratched at the cut; a trickle of blood is snaking toward the bend in his elbow. As if possessed by one of Buttons' fucking phantoms, Izzy grabs a bandage from Lucius' pile, folds it twice, and presses it to Bonnet's arm.

Bonnet startles slightly. Izzy—still possessed—says, "You're bleeding."

"Oh. Thank you. I didn't even notice." Bonnet takes the bandage from Izzy, frowns at the smear of blood on it, and puts it back against the cut. "It doesn't hurt. I think Roach is being overcautious."

"You're the captain," Roach says, sloshing rum over the needle. Jim looks ready to bite him. "You need both arms."

Bonnet huffs out a laugh and looks up at Izzy. He asks, "Will you stay with Ed until I come up?" like Izzy had planned on doing anything else.

"Yeah, Bonnet. I'll stay with him."

Bonnet catches Izzy's wrist. It's a light touch—two fingers over Izzy's burn scar and his thumb against Izzy's pulse. Izzy freezes; everyone in the galley is looking at them, even Roach.

Fucking Lucius murmurs, "This is happening," to someone—probably Pete.

"Israel," Bonnet says, before Izzy can stab his way out of there. He says it low. Too low. "You saved my life today. Would it kill you to call me Stede?"

And Izzy—because he's still fucking possessed, apparently—replies, "No. I guess not."

+++

The captain's cabin isn't as cluttered as it had been before Edward threw all of Stede's shit overboard, but it isn't nearly as empty, either. They've been raiding merchant ships and privateers at a fairly steady pace since Edward and Stede reconciled, and Stede has been pilfering things here and there. He found a new fainting couch, and a new washstand, and a dining table that's only slightly smaller than the old one. The four chairs around it came piecemeal: two match each other but not the table, and the other two don't match anything at all. Losing the books, from what Izzy understands, is what had made Stede the most cross. As things stand now, the shelves are roughly half-full.

Izzy finds Edward sitting on the edge of bed, his head bowed and his hair curtaining his face. His bad leg is stretched in front of him, and he's holding a nightshirt in his hands like he isn't sure what to do with it.

"Here," Izzy says, hefting the waterskin. It makes a sloshing sound as he hands it over. "Put this on your knee."

Edward groans as soon as the heat touches him. He rolls the waterskin back and forth across his knee a few times before asking, "Is everything settled?"

Everything covers a lot of open water; Izzy sticks to what he knows Edward needs to hear before he can relax. "The prisoners are in the brig, and a watch has been set. The dead have gone overboard, the blood's been swabbed, and the crew is alive. No serious injuries. Oluwande has tied the periagua astern. I'll inspect her tomorrow. If she's in good condition, she might be worth towing to the Republic and selling."

"Fuck all that," Edward says. He pulls Izzy toward him by the tail of Stede's shirt. "You're not hurt?"

Izzy shakes his head. "No."

"Where's Stede?"

"With Roach," Izzy replies. Edward shifts like he's thinking about trying to stand, but Izzy pushes him back down by the shoulders. "He took a small cut," he clarifies, holding his thumb and forefinger about an inch apart. When he yanked Stede clear of Eyepatch's sword, Stede had fallen against the mainmast's lines; he probably grazed his arm on the sharp edge of a pulley. "He's fine. I've buggered myself worse shaving. Roach just likes to fuss."

Edward heaves out a sigh. "When I… I thought he'd—"

"I know."

"You saved him."

"Yeah." Izzy must still be fucking possessed because the next thing that come out of his mouth is, "You're happier when he's around."

Edward kisses him for that. It's slower and sweeter than he's used to—enough that his arms hang uselessly at his sides for a moment before he remembers how to move and puts his hands on Edward's shoulders. Edward slides his tongue into Izzy's mouth, soft. He brings one hand up to cradle Izzy's jaw and tucks the other under Stede's shirt and palms his hip. He shifts his bad leg and the waterskin plops to the floor. Izzy kicks it away and presses closer. A low noise catches in his throat.

Something creaks. Edward drags his mouth down the line of Izzy's jaw. He tugs on Izzy's hip and eases sideways like he wants Izzy on the bed. Izzy stops kissing him just long enough to strip his boots off and toss them aside. He's leaning his knee on the mattress when he hears shuffling—bare feet walking on a rug. Fucking Stede. He's still half-in-half-out of his nightshirt. The bandage around his arm is striped blue and white. He must've taken his shoes off just inside the door.

He chirps, "Oh! Am I interrupting?" like an absolute fucking ass.

Silence. Edward is statue-still next to Izzy, except for the thumb drawing careful circles over Izzy's hipbone. The heat in Izzy's gut is a living thing, twisting and coiling tight. Muffled voices pass outside the cabin—Frenchie and Wee John. Izzy looks at Edward. Stede. Edward. Stede. Color flushes Stede's cheeks; he shifts his weight from foot to foot like he's thinking about turning around.

And Izzy—because he has honestly and truly lost his mind—holds his hand out and tells Stede, "Get the fuck over here."

Edward makes a noise that's—too much. It's too much. Surprise, excitement, arousal, wonder. Izzy feels all of it underneath his skin. Edward says, "Iz," rough, but Izzy puts a hand over his mouth. He doesn't need Edward being Edward about this right now.

Stede hesitates when he reaches the bed, and he cuts Edward a glance that Izzy can't read. Izzy doesn't dare look and see what's on Edward's face in reply. Stede touches Izzy's arm and says, "Israel," in a cautious voice. "Are you sure?"

Izzy says, "No," and kisses him anyway.

He isn't sure what he expected: that Stede would be prim about it, prissy, all stiff posture and stuffy, aristocratic restraint. He's a bit caught off guard when, instead, Stede curls a hand in his hair and slips his tongue right into his mouth. It's nothing like kissing Edward—who often kisses like a fight, like the fraught moments before a raid, like the two of them jumping from a burning ship in the dead of night, shaking with nerves but laughing because they're still alive. But it's good. Impossibly fucking good. And then Edward presses up behind him and it's even fucking better.

Edward kisses Izzy's neck, right where it sweeps into his shoulder, and then his teeth are there: sharp, sharp. Izzy's shirt comes off somehow, despite the way he's clinging to Stede's shoulder and arm. Once it's gone, Edward runs his hands down Izzy's back, fingers teasing over the lash-scars that stripe him from shoulder blades to hips, still sensitive so many years after Hornigold gave them to him. He shivers with it, gasping right into Stede's mouth. Edward catches Izzy's sleep pants by the waist and tugs them down. Before Izzy can complain about being the only one who's naked, Edward presses up behind him again. His cock is hard against the curve of Izzy's ass.

Izzy pulls away from Stede's mouth and grabs the nightshirt where it's still in a ruff around his neck. "Off," he demands. "Get this off. All of it." Edward grinds against Izzy's ass and huffs out a laugh.

Izzy's lived at sea so long that he's mostly fucked and been fucked by sailors, except for the rare handful of times he's paid for someone's company on shore. He's used to tattoos and wind-burn and lash-scars and hands roughened from working ropes and oars. Stede has none of those things. Aside from the two sword-scars on his stomach, his body is unmarked. Callouses are starting to form on his hands, but the rest of him has barely seen the sun or salt air.

Izzy doesn't get to stare very long; as soon as Stede's sleep pants are off, Edward steps around and herds him onto the bed. Stede tuts at him, murmuring, "Someone's impatient," but he climbs up and scoots back toward the window. "How are we doing this?"

Edward shrugs. "No idea." He's standing on one foot again. He says, "I've got to be on my good side," and smacks Izzy on the ass. "Come on, Iz. Up."

There isn't enough space. Edward nearly falls off—something his knee doesn't fucking need—and then someone's foot bumps the bedside shelf and a bunch of Stede's fripperies crash to the floor. But Stede pitches himself on his side, his back against the window, and he brings Izzy with him, which puts his leg over Stede's thigh and his face between his tits. Edward spoons up behind him and bites at the back of his neck.

He says, "Iz. Tell us what you want."

Izzy isn't going to ask to get fucked. Not in front of Stede. He grinds his hips back and mutters, "You know what I want."

Stede makes a soft, surprised sound and asks, "Are you sure?" even though he's already passing Edward a jar of what's probably coconut oil. "Ed told me he rather gave you a hard time earlier."

"What?" Izzy snaps. He tries to glare at Edward, but he has Izzy pinned against Stede by the hip and he's hiding his guilty fucking face between Izzy's shoulder blades. "You told him?"

And Stede—Stede is still fucking talking: "He told me everything. He said that first, you rode him nice and slow, and then after that, he turned you over and had you from behind. And then"—he teases his fingers into the crease of Izzy's thigh, the back of his hand just brushing Izzy's cock—"he still wanted more of you, so he rubbed himself off between your legs."

A noise punches out of Izzy's throat. He shudders, curling in on himself. Fuck. Fuck.

Stede's hand—sliding up Izzy's side—stills. He asks, "Did I embarrass you?"

"It's not that," Edward says, his wet fingers almost where Izzy wants them. "If you keep talking like that, he'll come."

Izzy sucks in a shaky breath. "Ed, shut up."

Edward's fingers rub over his hole—not pushing in, just there. And Izzy—he'd be lying if he said he isn't sore. But it's good. So good. Edward rubs over his hole again and he shudders, rolling his hips. When Edward finally quits fucking around and pushes one in, Izzy hisses and claws at Stede's shoulder.

"Israel," Stede says, soft.

Izzy shakes his head and grinds back against Edward's hand. "I can take it."

Edward hums in agreement. "He can take a lot." He nudges a second finger in and bites at the back of Izzy's neck again. "Seeing you two like this… I won't need much." Another bite: this one more tongue than teeth. "You ready, Iz?"

"Hurry the fuck up."

That gets a laugh out of Stede. He curls a hand in Izzy's hair and tips Izzy's head up for a kiss. He brings their mouths together just as Edward is finally pushing in and in and in, swallowing all the hitched, shivery noises Izzy makes. It's—too much. Way too much. But Izzy wants it. He always fucking wants it. He grabs at Stede's hip, digging his nails into Stede's skin. He's already wrung out by the time Edward starts fucking him, his eyes stinging and his throat raw, shaking and gulping air.

"Oh," Stede says, breathless. "He really can take a lot."

Edward's next thrust rolls them up against Stede, nearly pushing him flat, and Stede wraps his arm around Edward's back, pinning Izzy between them. Izzy loves it when Edward holds him down, but this—this. He's full. And he's trapped. All he can do is let Edward use him however he wants, let Stede kiss his mouth and bite at his throat and tug at his fucking hair. And then—Stede reaches between them to toy with one of his nipple rings. He rolls it between his fingers and Izzy whines behind his teeth.

"Israel?" Stede asks, his voice all sugar. "Can you come?"

Izzy slurs out something that isn't quite a word.

"Is he wet?" Edward asks, rough.

"Soaked."

"Don't," Izzy chokes out. Heat is sparking under every inch of his skin. "Don't—"

"Don't what?" Stede asks. He's rolling his hips now; Edward, somehow, has his hand wrapped around his cock. "Don't tell you how good you feel rubbing against me? Don't tell you how much I want to feel you come?" He teases Izzy's nipple again, and Izzy's whole body jolts. "Ed wants you to come too. He's told me how good it feels when you get nice and tight around him."

That—that's it. Izzy comes all over Stede's hip and thigh, shaking through it, his face buried in Stede's throat, his mouth open and wet against Stede's skin. Edward groans, "Fuck, Iz, fuck," and then his hips jerk—once, twice, three times. He shudders hard as he fills Izzy up, his hand slowing on Stede's cock as he catches his breath. Stede makes a low, soft sound and arches up to fuck into Edward's fist. He grabs at Edward's arm with one hand and Izzy side with the other. His face is flushed and his mouth is kiss-red and his hair is sweat-dark at his temples.

Izzy wants him—wants to touch him. His limbs feel heavy now, useless, but he reaches his hand down and runs it over Stede's cock. Stede arches again, and Edward—moving as much as his knee will allow—leans over Izzy to kiss Stede slow and deep. They end up touching Stede together, Edward stroking his cock and Izzy palming over the head. Stede, flushed now to the base of his throat, tangles a hand in Edward's hair and murmurs, "Oh, oh, oh," into Edward's mouth.

He must be close; his chest is hitching and his thighs are trembling. Izzy helps Edward give him a few more strokes, then shifts down the bed. He nudges Edward's hand out of the way and swallows Stede down.

"Oh," Stede breathes. He clutches at Izzy's shoulders, which means the hand in Izzy's hair must be Edward's. "Israel, that—oh."

His fingers press into Izzy's skin as he comes, and he rolls his hips up and up and up and works himself deeper into Izzy's mouth. Izzy sucks him through it, pushing up against the hand still in his hair and drawing back down until Stede is nearly filling his throat. When he feels Stede's leg start to shake, Izzy pulls off and slumps against Stede's thigh.

Edward's hand slides from Izzy's hair to the back of his neck. Stede says something about needing a towel, but Izzy just closes his eyes.

+++

Izzy wakes up to sunlight slicing though the cabin's windows. His left arm is numb from elbow to wrist and Edward's hair in his fucking mouth. Edward is sprawled out at Izzy's right, face down and snoring, his arm thrown across Izzy's waist at an awkward angle. Stede is curled up against Izzy's other side, his leg hooked over one of Izzy's and his hand on Izzy's chest. This bed isn't big enough for three people. Izzy should get up and go back to his bunk.

This was a stupid idea—so stupid that Izzy should go find Fang and Ivan ask them to keelhaul him. He should know better than to get caught up in one of Edward's whims. He and Stede barely tolerate each other. And now Stede has seen him spread out and fucked open and so slack with pleasure he could hardly speak.

He should ask Fang and Ivan to keelhaul him twice.

He starts to shift down the bed so he can sneak out without waking them, when Stede—who apparently has a habit of lying in wait—taps a fingertip on one of Izzy's nipple rings and says, "Stay."

"For what?"

"Breakfast?" Stede offers. His morning voice, to Izzy's horror, is deliciously low and raspy. "It should be here shortly."

"Breakfast?" Izzy squints at what he can see of the sky through the curtains. "What time is it?"

Stede shrugs, "Around eight."

Izzy jolts at that—he's almost always up by dawn—but before he can go anywhere, Stede leans in until he's pinning him to the bed with his body.

He says, "I asked Roach to bring some coffee for you, since you don't take tea if you can help it. I also sent for your clothes, so you don't have to slink back to your bunk in your nightclothes."

"Roach has better things to do than fetch my clothes."

"Yes, he does," Stede agrees. He taps the nipple ring again, with what feels like a little more intent. "I sent Lucius for your clothes."

"Lucius?" Izzy barks. Beside him, Edward mumbles and burrows deeper into his pillow. "Why the fuck would you send him?"

"He wasn't doing anything."

"Lucius never does anything. His entire job on this ship is not doing anything." Izzy blinks up at the ceiling and tries to ignore the fact that Stede's mouth is on his collarbone. "He'll tell the whole ship I was in here last night."

"Israel." Stede taps the nipple ring again—this time, there's definitely intent. Izzy fists his hands in the blankets to he doesn't push his tit into Stede's hand. "The whole ship knew you'd be in here last night after you killed a man to protect me."

He starts to say he did it for Edward, but he's not so sure about that anymore.

Stede continues, "If you can't stomach the idea of breakfast with us, at least stay until Ed wakes up. He's wanted this for some time."

"What?" Izzy asks. He glances at Edward, who is still asleep, the absolute twat. "He…?"

Instead of answering, Stede ducks down and curls his tongue around Izzy's nipple. Izzy hisses out a noise and grabs at the first thing he touches—fucking Edward's arm. He digs his nails in a little, but Edward just mumbles some more.

Izzy says, "Stede," and—because he can’t think with Stede's tongue on his skin—tugs on Stede's hair. "Ed saying he wants something doesn't always mean he wants it. He has whims. Fancies. He once sailed us halfway to Cape Horn because he wanted to see a certain kind of bird."

"I know he has whims. This isn't one of them."

"He"—Izzy glares murder at Edward, who is still fucking sleeping—"He could've said something."

Stede shakes his head. "No. You told me yourself that there isn't much you wouldn't do for him." He brushes the X on Izzy's cheek as he continues, "He knows that, and he didn't want this to be one of those things. He wanted it to be your idea."

And Izzy—he wants it. He actually fucking wants it. Even if that means he's been possessed by one on Buttons' phantoms. He says, "Fine. We can try this—" He cuts of and makes a vague, uncertain gesture. He wouldn't have the first clue what to call this. "But I'm not moving in here. And I'm not having fucking tea parties, so—"

"Will you two shut the fuck up?" Edward grouses. He barely lifts his head. "You'd think you two are the married ones, the way you're bickering."

Before Izzy can stuff him through a porthole, someone knocks on the door. And because no one on this ship has any manners, the culprit—fucking Lucius—just invites himself him. He has Izzy's clothes in his arms and a terrible smile on his face.

"Good morning, Captains." Lucius smirks before adding, "Izzy." He sets the clothes on the table and studies Ed, Stede, and Izzy with an impertinent twist to his mouth. Then: "Fine. I'll just come out with it. The lads want to know if this"—he waves at the bed—"is a permanent arrangement or something casual or more of a one-time—"

"Lucius," Stede cuts in, frowning. "That's none of your business."

"You're right, it's not," Lucius admits. "But we've been so bored with out any wind, and the betting has been a bit hectic since that display in the galley last night, so—"

"Betting?" Izzy barks, at the same time Stede yelps, "Display?"

Lucius opens his mouth to explain, and the ship starts to sway: back and forth, back and forth. A beat later, the crew on deck erupts into cheers.

Stede asks, "Is that the wind?"

"I think so, yeah, Izzy replies.

Edward says, "Fucking finally," and rolls onto his side. "I've been expecting it for an hour."

+++

Between the breakfast Edward had insisted he eat, and the bath Stede had insisted he take, Izzy doesn't get on deck until after ten. It's the latest he's ever started his day since he went to sea, but he still spends another half an hour drinking a cup of coffee at the starboard railing.

The wind is fairly light, and it's moving north-by-northeast when what they really need is a good gust north. But it's enough to get them moving again, and that's enough to quell the crew's nonsense superstitions. This ship is still a madhouse, but right now it's a madhouse without whistling or altars or flags or talismans or herbs or brooms.

Izzy's watching the Swede and Wee John unfurl the main topgallant with minimal results when Oluwande approaches him at the railing. He asks, "Did the Captains decide about changing our heading?"

Edward and Stede are at the bow; Edward's waving his arms as he explains how he predicted the wind. Stede is rapt, looking at every bit of sky Edward points at. Izzy's pretty sure Edward's peddling horseshit.

"St. Augustine will do," he replies. They need the oranges, and they can sell the periagua there as easily as the Republic. They might even get more money for her in St. Augustine if Stede puts on one of his posh outfits. "Don't let them open more sail, not when we're towing. We don't need that extra weight straining that bad rigging."

"Got it."

Izzy's next sip of coffee is cold. He's debating going to the galley for a fresh cup when Edward shouts, "Iz," and waves Izzy over. Beside him, Stede is smiling. The wind is in their hair, and Stede's cravat is flapping sideways on his neck like a flag. Something warm is taking up space behind Izzy's ribs.

He dumps his coffee on the deck to give Frenchie something to do and heads over to join them.