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The way Izzy sleeps seems as though he could stand to stay down for more than an hour, though Stede can’t begin to guess at how long he might remain lying there in his and Ed’s bed, snoring into the crook of his own elbow. It’s up to him and Blackbeard, really. Stede has done only what he felt necessary, what he had to for Ed’s sake, and now he is back to feeling entirely out of his depth. So he resigns himself to waiting as patiently as he can to find out what might happen next.

At twenty past Ed finally stops staring at Izzy’s ruined back like a puzzle he’s only now discovering the nature of, and gets up to kiss Stede on the cheek. “Hm. You’ll watch him?” he murmurs, voice lilting with uncertainty.

“Yes,” Stede murmurs back. “Of course. Hand me my novel, though, won’t you?”

Ed does with a sweet little flair and a wink. He seems steady enough now, though he does almost forget to put on his breeches and boots. Stede thumbs through the silky pages of the book in his lap, watching him carefully return the robe to its hanger, then roughly garb himself in leather and belts and pistol. He does put on a pretty silk blouse though, and he looks lovely, so lovely that Stede risks waking Izzy up to tell him:

“Aubergine really is your color, Edward.”

“Huh? Yeah?” Ed glances down at himself. Meanders his way back to Stede and his book, touching reverent fingers to the robust silk ruffle over his heart. “Course it is. Thanks mate.”

They kiss again. Ed leaves to check on the ship. Stede smiles dreamily to himself and wiggles down into his chair, resettles his novel, content to remain cozy and comfortable.

From the bench Izzy rasps out, “He’s quick, isn’t he.”

Stede nearly flips the book off his lap, startled and a little frightened to suddenly be alone in the cabin with an awake Izzy Hands. “Er,” he says, and then, because he’s obviously already broken his promise to Izzy and been caught, he adds: “Oh, I can bring him back, if you like? I’m sure he won’t mind!”

But Izzy only shifts, hissing at the stretch and pull of his back, and in the shining sun through the ship windows with his skin rippling like a mottled sunset, Izzy is enchanting, frightening, otherworldly, like some dread, fey creature to dazzle and drag you down into the dark.

Izzy says, “You fuckwit. That’s not what I meant.”

“Oh,” Stede replies. “And…and what, exactly, is it that-”

“I meant that he’s not you, Bonnet! He wasn’t sat at some nanny’s knee as a wee little pink-cheeked, spoiled babe and fucking spoon fed all these pointless, fancy, frivolous words you constantly spew out!”

“Hey now,” Stede protests weakly.

Izzy’s spine archs up, like a striped and feral cat that’s spitting mad. But despite his constant fury and deep wells of disgust, he sounds remarkably calm when he whisper-shouts, “Oh, shut up and listen for once! You have all the advantages, don’t you, Stede Bonnet? All of them! And yet, you’ll never be half the man Captain Blackbeard is. Smart, clever, able to adapt to anything, even the fucking word abergine.”

“Aubergine,” Stede corrects.

“Just say the fucking color like a normal person,” Izzy mutters.

Stede huffs a frustrated breath. He drops his gaze and looks down at the novel in his hands, the spidery ink print and the story hidden within. Slipping his thumb along the edge of the pages, it slices his skin. There’s no blood; he can hardly see it, but it stings something awful nonetheless. “We- We teach each other new things,” Stede offers, because it’s true. “Like you said, Ed is clever. And- and he’s curious, always wanting to learn more! So… So what if I teach him another word for a color? Same as him teaching me different ways of tying a knot, hm?”

“Yeah,” comes Izzy’s drawling voice, thin and weak from their earlier activities, yet dangerous enough to have Stede’s heart pounding. “You keep telling yourself that they’re equal- survival is the same as pampering. Ha.”

“Izzy. Izzy what do you even want me to say!” Stede finally snaps out, shutting his novel with an angry thud.

The cut on his finger hurts.

Izzy snaps back, “Tell me you won’t squander him!”

“…what?”

“Edward loves you,” is a phrase Stede never expected to hear Izzy admit, let alone with such a wretched weight that Stede’s breath catches, sticky in his throat. But Izzy isn’t done yet. He says, “If you ever take that man for granted, I will cut off your legs and use them as paddles to row your corpse to the nearest deserted island, where I will set you on fucking fire.”

Stede feels faint. “Really now!”

“It’s not like we’re friends, Bonnet,” Izzy groans out, and slowly, slowly settles back down, body relaxing into the cushions. “Stop acting so fucking surprised when your enemies threaten you. It’s pathetic!”

Stede glares across the cabin at him, ears all hot and heart pounding, the grip on his book white-knuckled. None of the languor and good-feeling from their tryst earlier remains; Izzy has chased it all away. Stede huffs, complains: “Must you be so beastly!? And for the record, I would never want to be friends with you! But we’re- we’re certainly something now, aren’t we! And for Ed’s sake it can’t be enemies! So stop threatening me already!”

“Fuck’s sake. Quit your squealing,” Izzy mumbles. “Let me sleep. Go back to your fucking book.”

Instantly, Stede’s puckered and soured mouth drops open, all ready to deliver a truly scathing, outraged retort. Only… Izzy sounds so worn thin all of a sudden. Weary. Nearly miserable, Stede thinks with begrudging interest. Izzy’s arm curls a little tighter around his head in a move that is likely meant to be annoyed but just seems sad instead, like some stray curling up tight for warmth, and Stede stays silent, takes a few measured breaths, and looks again at the lashes and the way the sunlight almost blots out the array of ink on Izzy’s hip.

Stede’s finger still hurts, and Izzy Hands has a way of getting under Stede’s skin that no other bully in his life since his father ever managed, which is perhaps worth thinking on.

He says, softer now: “I shan’t squander Edward.”

Izzy snorts. “Prove it.”

Tucked away in his cushy chair, Stede snaps his book back open. Finds his place with another huff and a bit of a lofty sniff, muttering: “I will! See that you do the same, Israel Hands.”

In the fuzzy distance of Stede’s peripheral vision, Izzy finally lifts an arm, but only high enough to flip Stede off with before he drops it down again.

Within minutes, Izzy is once more snoring.

It takes much longer than that for Stede to be able to see the words on the pages before him clearly enough to read anything at all.

-

Stede drops off accidentally, dozing in the warm cabin to the lullaby of Izzy’s faint breathing. When he wakes again, the novel is still on Stede’s lap, barely two pages past where he started, and Stede grimaces down at it when he remembers the prickliness of his and Izzy’s conversation. He’s not eager to engage again, so instead he relaxes into his chair, attempting to slowly, quietly, gently blink himself awake, muzzy headed and out of sorts with the brief snooze. Which means he doesn’t realize at first that it’s Ed’s return that woke him, and it also means that Ed and Izzy don’t realize he’s awake, or at least Stede doubts that they do, because otherwise Izzy wouldn’t be smiling like that at Ed, rueful and a little mean but also surprisingly open, softened in a way Stede never sees him.

“Your time management, Captain,” Izzy murmurs.

“Don’t bother about that, Iz. I knew exactly how long I let you oversleep for, hm? No one’s gonna beat you for it.”

An eyebrow lifts. “Because you already did?” is Izzy’s sarcastic little reply.

Stede sees the silent, dark laughter shiver through Ed’s frame. “Yeah, Iz,” he agrees, and helps Izzy up to his feet. Hands his first mate his clothing, piece by piece for Izzy to hiss at as he pulls them on, fabric pressed against his hurts, hiding them away. Izzy tightens his necktie, the ring glinting in the mellow, late afternoon light, and Stede knows that he’s witnessing something he never would have been invited to see.

But Stede doesn’t say anything.

Doesn’t pretend to suddenly wake, yawning wide. No, Stede stays still and quiet in his chair, watching Ed and Izzy from beneath lowered lashes, heart in his throat and entirely reluctant to ruin this moment.

“The fuck are you wearing this time, Edward,” comes Izzy’s gruff, weary chastisement.

“Hm? Oh, clothes, wouldn’t you know.”

“Not- You know what I mean. That poncy, frou frou fucking shirt!”

Ed leans into Izzy, and Stede watches avidly as Izzy’s expression steels itself, as he refuses to back down. “Oh, that.” Ed leans in closer, murmurs in a cadence that makes Stede shiver, so low he can barely hear him, “Apparently this is my color, don’t you like it?”

“You look fucking ridiculous.”

“Hmm. Is that how you speak to your captain, Izzy?”

Izzy grits his teeth and gives Ed an exhausted look. But he also reaches up and flicks a finger at the ruffles of Ed’s blouse. “Purple has always been your color and you know it,” he replies. “But don’t wear this kind of shit off the ship, Blackbeard.”

There’s a tense moment where Ed and Izzy remain like that, too close and too intimate for the way they speak- as if in riddles, fighting without fighting.

Ed says, “As always, I will take your advisement into consideration,” and Stede can hear the empty smile in his voice.

Izzy’s mouth twists. The fuck you will, is left unsaid.

The tension shatters when Ed claps a hand to Izzy’s shoulder, fingers curling tight, possessive. “C’mon, man. You hungry? I’m hungry. Roach did something fascinating with fish and I want to see if it’s as good as it looks-”

“It won’t be,” Izzy mutters. “Fish is fish.”

“Hey, Stede! You coming?”

Stede startles where he sits, managing to knock the book off his lap. It clatters to the floor and when he looks up, embarrassed, he sees Ed with a warm look of amusement about his crinkled eyes and Izzy rolling his own. Ed’s fingers are still digging into the meat of Izzy’s shoulder.

Stede says, “Oh! Ah! Fish sounds- sounds-”

Ed hums encouragingly.

“We shall try it,” Stede manages, because he can’t very well agree with Izzy Hands, no matter that they’ve been eating fish far too often lately. They really must stop in at a port soon and restock. The last several ships they ransacked had fuck-all by way of fine dining.

“Yeah? Great! Lead the way, Captain!”

“Oh, very well, Captain!” Stede stammers back, and hurries to pick up and set aside his novel. His finger where he got the paper cut earlier still hurts. Izzy sighs like Stede is a particularly abrasive fact of life that he still isn’t quite sold on, and Ed winks at Stede when he shoves Izzy forward, forcing him to follow.

-

It’s strange and awkward, the three of them navigating the same space like this. Stede can’t help thinking glumly to himself on more than one occasion over the next several days that everything is much easier when sex is involved, even though the sex is, in fact, more than tricky enough on its own. Being near Izzy in public feels like walking a tightrope, dizzying and dangerous and like one faltering step will be Stede’s downfall. He keeps thinking about what Izzy said, and he says to Ed one night almost a week out from Izzy’s whipping:

“He really loves you, doesn’t he?”

“Whaaaat,” Ed says, nestled up against Stede’s side before the crackling fire on a thick, fur rug they’ve only recently acquired. “That’s not what the next part says, is it?”

Stede sets down the volume of poetry he was reading to Ed, Ed following along to Stede’s finger on the page and shivering, pressing closer with each lush, melting sentiment Stede recites. What words Ed has taught himself over the years, he now knows countless more. Stede hadn’t ever thought about it, not really. Reading together is simply something they enjoy, and the books Stede has selected- well, Ed learning his letters has never been what Stede held in mind when choosing.

“No, no,” Stede says distractedly. He stares into the crackle and pop of the fire and then looks at Ed, dearly beloved and so good and clever and wonderful. Stede wants to say, Izzy may not have been made for love, but like you, he found his way to it nonetheless, and oh, oh! What right do I have to you, to him, to love at all?

Instead Stede asks, “Do you really think someday we could- could do this with Izzy here?”

“Well,” Ed says slowly back, obviously perplexed and with his marvelously bushy eyebrows steadily lifting, rising, all surprise. “Maybe not- maybe not exactly like, like this? Izzy isn’t…”

“He loves you,” Stede whispers.

Ed grunts.

“I love you,” Stede whispers next, cupping a bristly cheek in one palm and leaning in, kissing Ed’s solemn mouth. Love is still a language that Stede is learning, fumbling for the words, the meanings behind them. Ed teaches him anew each day, every moment. Countless lessons revealed in the curious tilt of Edward’s head, the pained shadows flickering through his eyes; woven like a dream by the quick flicker of those cleverly cruel fingers, caught and held between those terribly kind hands. Stede’s heart grows bigger, bolder, remaking itself to fit all that love inside.

Ed makes a low, wretched noise. “Stede,” he murmurs, mouth brushing wet against Stede’s own.

“Let me show you,” Stede says, turning to him, needful and trembling, overcome. “Oh, Ed! You must let me show you what all I’ve learned, how well you’ve taught me!”

“You’re not really making sense, mate,” Ed gasps out. “But uh. Yeah, sure.”

So Stede kisses him and kisses him, lowers Ed down onto the plush, romantic rug, the fire warming them as Stede undresses him slowly, lingering over each bared inch to kiss and caress. When Stede notices the way that Ed is rubbing himself against the thick pelt, he smiles at him, flushed hot and tender, both hands sliding up Ed’s sensitive sides to splay out over his nipples, squeezing the soft give of his pecs. “Darling,” he says. “Do you like how the fur feels?”

“Mm, yeah,” Ed whimpers.

“Very soft, isn’t it,” Stede whispers, and Ed rolls his body against the tickling caress of the fur and up, into Stede’s greedy hands. “Why don’t you roll over for me, hm? Get comfortable while I get the oil.”

“Don’t need it,” Ed rasps at him, and “Don’t want it. Don’t- don’t want you to go.”

It is terribly easy for Stede to indulge Edward Teach, and because tonight was a bath night for Blackbeard, Stede hushes him and stays, fumbling out of his own clothes as Ed rolls onto his belly, carefully settling down with his hard cock pressed into all that thick, luxurious fur, and oh, oh the way that Ed groans when he experimentally thrusts, whole body shivering-

“Perfect,” Stede tells him. “Oh, my dear, my darling. You are so lovely, so-”

Ed whines and tips his hips up. The cabin is filled with the fire eating away at its fodder, with the sound of Ed muffling his rough breaths and hitching moans into his folded arms, buried into the rug. Filled also with the wet, squelching sound of Stede’s mouth buried between Ed’s cheeks, spit slick and hot and close in, intimate, Stede’s nose squished and his jaw aching in short order, lapping at the furled rim, pressing Ed open, open, until he’s soft and sweet and shaking, twisting back onto Stede’s tongue, moaning deep and long.

“You’re no gentleman,” Ed creaks out, laughing, as he always does any time Stede gets him to break a piratical taboo.

Stede wipes spit off his own chin, beaming down at Ed’s back. Runs his fingertips lightly along the furrow of Ed’s spine. “I would break every rule for the love of you, my dearest,” he tells him, and Ed laughs again, delighted, the sound shivering through the thick, warm air.

“In me,” he murmurs, starting to slide one knee up, offering.

But on the floor like this it puts too much weight onto the bad one, so Ed hisses and has to straighten out again, shoulders hunching up. “That’s okay,” Stede tells him, kissing each frustrated mound. “That’s all right, Ed. We’ll try it this way, hm? Tell me if- if it’s too intense, I can-”

Stede loses track of what he’s saying. He straddles the outside of Ed’s thighs, flexing a hand against Ed’s hip, getting him to lift up enough to let Stede angle in against him. It’s a tight fit, tighter and grittier than usual even allowing for the lack of oil, and Stede has to grit his teeth and swear fervently beneath his breath as he slowly works himself inside that hot, tight vise. Beneath him, Ed moans brokenly, gasping “Fuck, Stede! Oh, fuck, you- you feel so big like this, fucking- ngh, c’mon, c’mon, more, give me the rest, ahnn-!”

“Darling,” Stede moans back, shaking all over and feeling as though their lovely little romantic fire has turned voracious, gone and leapt into his skin to burn him up from within. “You’ll- Oh, you’ll make me spend myself too soon if you k-keep up such lovely words! Hush, shh, please, Ed!”

Ed gives a valiant effort toward obedience, but it still feels a miracle when Stede manages to press all the way inside without losing it entirely. They both groan as Stede tips forward, chest to Ed’s back, arms bracketing Ed’s shoulders. Their hands find each other, fingers tangling. And then Stede is curled around Edward’s sprawled, shivering body, caging him in, holding him down with the weight of all of Stede’s tenderness. “How does that feel?” he asks, mouthing at Ed’s shoulder.

“Good,” Ed murmurs, voice loose and lovely, tripping over his tongue. “Ah, f-fuck, Stede. So fucking good.”

There isn’t much leverage to be had in a position like this, but Stede wants to stay close anyway. Wants to pull out only far enough to push back in. Ed squeezes around him so wonderfully, making these darling, stunned noises every time. Lets Stede rock into him steadily, ever so slowly, so that Ed’s cock presses and drags against the thick fur, so that it rubs against Ed’s throat and scars and his nipples, a lovely softness to sink into, and oh-

Ed is crying out, squirming, chanting, “Yes! Oh fuck- yes, Stede, yes!” as he gets close.

A snap of Stede’s hips, deeper and dirtier than before. Ed cries out again, again, and Stede closes his eyes and holds him tight, squeezes him close, closer still, and manages to last long enough for Ed to come with a broken cry, body tightening up like a lightning strike down Stede’s spine. “Ohhh, love,” Stede chokes out as he follows a second later, spilling deep inside. He’s still breathless when he pulls out, sweat-slick and starry eyed, wedging between Edward’s thighs and trying to sound wicked as he gasps out dizzily, “Let me show you how far from a gentleman I can be, hm?”

“You- What? Ohhhh shitting fucking-”

If Ed has any plans to protest they’re strangled at the first hungry swipe of Stede tongue against his loose hole, tender and puffy and spilling Stede’s seed.

-

They discuss how to get semen out of a fur rug over breakfast. “I’m not certain,” Stede admits. “Mary and I weren’t much for the er, the rugged woodsman look, you see. Our carpets were taken out and beaten, I believe.”

“Oh ho. Are we talking about plans for Izzy now?” Ed asks, a twinkle to his eye.

Stede nearly snorts tea up his nose when only a breath later Izzy pushes the door open and makes his way inside, muttering, “You both better be up, it’s nearly God damned noon-” and stops short only a few steps past the threshold, the door swinging shut behind, giving a wary look at where Ed and Stede are both giggling over their scones. “What the fuck is it now?”

“Izzy, Izzy, hey, you know how to clean a fur rug?”

“Of course I fucking don’t.”

Izzy is glaring straight at Stede when he says this, posture pulling tight, and Stede knows that the angry little man is laying blame for such a question squarely on Stede’s shoulders. Stede feels his own anger flicker and wake, so he smiles brightly at Izzy, dabs his mouth with a napkin, and points toward the bathing room. “In that case, I suppose we shall have to see what we can do with a bit of good old fashioned scrubbing, hm? Grab a wet cloth and hop to it, will you.”

“You must be joking,” Izzy drawls.

“Not at all,” Stede says crisply, tapping the hilt of his marmalade knife atop the table. “I am your captain and I’ve just given you an order, haven’t I? So, what’s the confusion?”

“Stede,” Ed murmurs.

Izzy’s eyes flash, hot and dark. “I only serve one man.”

For a long minute there is not another sound. And then Stede raps the knife’s handle once more atop the table and says, “You are a credit to him, Izzy Hands,” before he has to get up and go into the bathing room himself, hot and anxious and sick in his stomach. He shuts the door and leans over the deep basin mounted into the wall, dipping his fingers into cool water and flicking the droplets over his face, trying to calm down.

When the knock arrives, Stede still hasn’t managed it. “Oh, Ed, I’m sorry,” Stede whispers, cracking open the door, “I don’t know what came over me, I only- oh, oh heavens!

Izzy snaps his hand against the door before Stede can close it, glaring up at him. “Don’t lie, Bonnet,” he says on a husky, mocking laugh. “You know exactly why you did it. A whole lifetime of feeling superior, waited on hand and foot. Really gets to you, doesn’t it, that I won’t roll over for you.”

Stede hisses at him. “Why are you still here!”

“Edward told me to make nice,” is Izzy’s casual reply, complete with a lazy shrug. A mean smile twists across half his mouth, his fingers curling menacingly over the door’s edge.

“This isn’t nice!”

“I’m not gutting you with that dumb fucking little play knife you were lording about with, am I?” he croons.

Stede’s teeth are grinding together, he’s still hot and angry and nauseas, and before he can think better of it he tells Izzy the truth: “All my life I have been ridiculed. Ohh yes, I am certain it will delight you to know that I have been called all manner of weak and soft and pointless in a variety of languages and often with the utmost genteel class and grace. My father assured me when I was but a pink-cheeked, spoiled babe, that I was less than nothing! And every little lord and lady who came along after agreed with him! And do you know something, Israel Hands?”

Though taken aback, Izzy doesn’t look impressed or bothered at all by Stede’s diatribe. Only sneers a bit, saying, “I’m sure you’ll fucking tell me, Bonnet.”

“For some stupid, foolish, absolutely hateful reason, your opinion somehow matters to me more than any of those wretched, well-bred bullies,” Stede forces out. Curling his fingers into fists so that they don’t shake so obviously, he leans down, nose to nose with Izzy. “You are terrifying. Competent. A genuine pirate! Everything I hoped and dreamed to find outside the gilded cage you hate so much for the color of its bars alone! Everything you have you earned and I- I-”

Blast it, Stede thinks fiercely.

“You are the actual worst!” Stede insists.

Izzy scoffs, “Tell me something I don’t already know, Bonnet.”

“See! Like that! The actual worst!” Stede heaves out, grimacing. “But despite that, despite- despite how angry you make me and how horridly mean you are at the slightest provocation, Izzy! I- I can’t help but- but-”

“If you say you like me then I will go and get that stupid little knife and gut you after all.”

Stede stamps his foot. Cries out, “I do not! But I respect you!”

This time, Izzy does look bothered. He works his jaw a moment, puzzled and trying very hard to hang onto his glare. “The fuck are you trying, Bonnet? You can’t actually expect me to believe that.”

Stede sniffs. Forces his spine straight and his fingers to unlock and flex, to tug sharply at his coat. “Believe what you will,” Stede says. “The truth remains. Well. That truth, and the fact that you are a raging asshole!” With that, Stede bullies the door open and Izzy aside, marching back to the breakfast table. He sits with a deliberate flair, chin jutted high despite the heat in his cheeks. “Where were we,” he says to Ed.

“Uhhh,” Ed replies. “You uhm. You doing alright there, mate?”

It is possible that Stede’s diatribe went up an octave by its end. “Perfectly swell, Ed,” Stede says, and reaches once more for the marmalade knife. He busies himself with a new scone and pays negative attention to the sound of Izzy’s feet moving so quiet as to be almost soundless across the boards, a perfectly dangerous rolling gait. He comes to a stop at Ed’s shoulder just as Stede takes an angry bite out of his scone.

“Can I go now,” he says to Ed.

“What? No, no, ‘course you can’t,” comes Blackbeard’s murmur. “Your daddy gave you a fucking order, didn’t he? Hop the fuck to it, Iz.”

Stede chokes on his angry, half-chewed mouthful.

“Edward,” Izzy grates out amidst Stede’s coughing and frantic chest pounding. Half a cup of tea later, Stede gasps and looks to Izzy, all his earlier outrage drained away so that Stede is left reeling and half-afraid the man will come at him with another knife and the will to actually use it this time.

But no, Izzy simply stands there, glaring murder up at the ceiling.

Blackbeard laughs, leaning back in his chair with his heels tucked in against the legs, arms crossed. For such an unassuming pose, he still manages to make it striking. He says, “Izzy, Izzy, Izzy. You’ve brought this on yourself, y’know.”

“Like hell I have, Captain.”

Stede interjects, “Uhm. My dear, perhaps this is not the time, or- or the way-”

“Noooo,” says Ed, wiggling back into his chair all smug and devilish. “That’s where you’re wrong, love. This is exactly the time. Exactly the way, hmm? Our Izzy can’t stop seeing you one way, so…”

Izzy groans. “You can’t be serious.”

“…could that work?” Stede asks, hesitant and curious. “Do you really think- oh, oh perhaps. With enough diligence? Enough time and effort? Well! I suppose it’s worth giving a go!”

“I hate you both,” is Izzy’s verdict, forced out through clenched teeth. “If you think I’m going to stay here and be subjected to debasing myself by serving this- this- waste of breath, this worthless, spineless, soft palmed fucking dipshit, then you’re even more out of your fucking mind than usual, Blackbeard!”

“Aw, but Izzy,” Blackbeard says, and Stede turns at that tone of voice to see his smile sharp and bright. “Stede already said it, didn’t he?”

“What,” Izzy snarls. “What could he possibly have said to make this worth enduring a second longer?!”

Ed gives Stede a pointed look.

“Oh!” Stede whispers, eyes going wide and heart lurching. “Oh, oh! It’s me, I’m up, uhm!” He gets back to his feet with a clatter and makes it halfway to Izzy before he realizes he’s brought the marmalade knife with him, dripping orange on the floor. But he can’t go back- he’s too nervous and excited and still a little angry, truth be told. So he goes toe to toe with Izzy and dares to lift his little rounded blade to Izzy’s bared throat.

He says, “Your…debasement, as you call it. Is very special to me, Izzy. Whatever superiority I feel exists only because you are - despite all your best efforts, I really must add - entirely worthy of conquering!”

Izzy snorts, dropping his chin down to give Stede a vicious look. The marmalade knife digs into his skin; he presses in against it harder when Stede keeps it there, refusing to back down. And Stede is relatively new to love; Ed has been teaching him and so too has the endless sea, the freedom. But somewhere along the way he thinks that maybe Izzy did some teaching as well, and though the words and the cadence of the language Izzy and Ed speak, and the one that Izzy and Stede are learning to exchange, are all a little different, the meanings behind them are remarkably similar.

“Israel Hands, I may not like you very much at all, but I can promise you this- that I shall never take you for granted either,” Stede whispers.

Against the little knife, Izzy’s throat convulses.

Stede quirks a rueful smile and asks, warily hopeful: “Don’t suppose that helps any, hm, dear boy?”

“Fuck’s sake. Save your flattery for someone else, Bonnet,” Izzy sighs. He looks over Stede’s shoulder at Ed, and this close it’s even easier for Stede to watch the way conviction firms Izzy’s face, devotion and love bolstering him, forging his resolve. “I serve one man, and you are not him. You aren’t Blackbeard.”

“Well of course not,” Stede agrees, soft and warm. “I never could be, could I?”

Izzy sighs again, expression twisting. His eyes close. When they open again he looks up at Stede with his fearsome, dark eyes blazing. “I’m not gonna fucking say it, understand? You don’t deserve the satisfaction, Bonnet.”

“Not yet,” Stede beams.

“Not fucking ever,” Izzy hisses.

Ed muses from the table, “I could make you,” which causes Izzy to jolt and bob his throat again, but Stede fusses, “No, no, my dear Blackbeard, not this! Leave that to me and Izzy, hm?”

“This had better be worth it,” Izzy says, sounding a tad fatalistic and entirely too pessimistic in Stede’s opinion.

“Dear boy,” Stede says warmly, “Don’t fret! Let us take care of you, hm? If you are very, very good, then of course you will be rewarded. You would like that, wouldn’t you? To be very, very good for daddy?”

“Hurrgh,” is the noise Izzy makes.

Stede beams at him, finally removing the marmalade knife from Izzy’s neck. Instead it is tapped against Izzy’s bottom lip. Stede says, “Open up, dear boy!” with his stomach buzzing and his hands shaking very slightly with angry, hopeful nerves. The rush of pure, relieved adrenaline when Izzy gives Stede a hateful stare but does as told, is almost enough to make Stede feel nauseous all over again.

“Oh, very good start, dear boy,” Stede murmurs, sliding the marmalade knife in, flat against Izzy’s tongue. “Now, close up! There you are! How’s that taste, hm? Yummy, isn’t it!”

When Stede pulls the knife back out, Izzy huffs. “How can you eat that? Cloying shit.”

“Oh, dear.”

“Izzy isn’t used to sweetness,” Ed says, still sitting at the table, patiently waiting for Izzy and Stede to work through their negotiations; to set up the board the way they need so that they can all play. Now, he gets to his feet with a hum that seems to make the very air crackle, tension ratcheting up Izzy’s spine, making his eyes wide and then go half-lidded. He licks his upper lip, watching Ed approach.

Politely, Stede takes half a step backward, giving Ed room to work within.

“Poor Izzy. Dumb bitch like him doesn’t know how to appreciate a treat, does he?” Circling around, Ed kicks down behind Izzy’s knee, forcing him to the floor. Before Izzy can do more than suck in a breath and try and balance, Ed puts a boot between his shoulder blades and shoves. “On your belly, dog,” he says, smiling wide.

“Fuck,” Izzy breathes.

Stede clutches the little knife, watching with breathless contentment as Izzy flattens down onto his belly. “Good thing you have Blackbeard’s help, hm, dear boy? Let’s try again, shall we?”

“Lick it up,” Blackbeard orders. “All of it. Your daddy wants a little tidying, after all. Might as well start here.”

Izzy creaks out another breathy fuck and then another and another and oh, thinks Stede with wonder, oh, but he’s already shaking, isn’t he? With a muffled whine Izzy sets about licking up every drop of marmalade Stede dripped onto the floor. When he’s done he stays right where he is, belly down at their feet and grinding his forehead against the spit-slick boards.

“Not half bad,” Stede decides.

“Hmm. Shall we see if he’s learned how to appreciate a yummy treat, love?”

“Oh, yes. To your feet, dear boy!”

They get Izzy standing before them, red-faced and quietly furious. His jaw works, and then he opens his mouth to speak, but Blackbeard lifts one hand and Izzy snaps his mouth shut so fast his teeth click together. “Can’t trust that filthy mouth,” Ed muses. “Can we, Stede?” and when Stede says, “Oh, certainly not!” and Izzy’s face flushes hotter and his eyes glitter, Ed laughs softly and gives the next order: “Take your cock out, Iz. Let’s see how much you liked your treat.”

Shame twists Izzy’s face. But he opens up his breeches and lets his erection spring out, flinching when both Stede and Ed can’t resist laughing, delighted by the sight of him. “Dear boy,” Stede murmurs, stepping close enough to lay the cold, clean metal of the marmalade knife flat against Izzy’s hard cock. “I daresay you enjoyed it after all.”

Izzy’s dick jumps. Stede smiles at him, and dares pat that erection with indulgent condescension. The blade makes terrible little dull sounds when it meets hot, soft, vulnerable skin, bouncing Izzy’s dick against his belly. “Fuck you, Bonnet,” Izzy forces out, though the words are all fuzzy on the edges, catching in his throat.

At that, Stede tuts and takes away the knife, walking past Izzy to set it down on the table. With a dramatic twirl that only Ed gets to appreciate, Stede turns back around and steps smartly up, crowding into Izzy’s stiff back. He grasps Izzy’s open breeches with both hands, yanking them down to mid-thigh. “Manners, Izzy,” he chastises, thrilled when Izzy has to swallow down a furious little whimper. “Now then, since we can’t trust your mouth, we will just have to keep an eye on other parts of you to make certain you are fully appreciating what we’re giving you, dear boy! Now, hop to!” Stede gives a playful little swat at one of Izzy’s bare cheeks, causing him to jolt forward, out of range.

But Ed is there, catching him around the nape with a firm clasp, grinning fiercely. “You heard your daddy, Izzy,” he murmurs, dark and low, and then uses the hand on the back of Izzy’s neck to send him careening across the cabin floor, hobbled by his own breeches and stumbling toward the fur rug.

“Fucking shit,” Izzy gasps, and then stomps his awkward way to the bathing room.

While Izzy finds cloth and water to scrub with, Ed and Stede look at each other, wide-eyed and dazzled. “What are we giving him again?” Ed asks, voice lilting with uncertainty, and Stede reaches out his hands to draw Edward back to the breakfast table, the two of them sat down to watch Izzy work. He says,

“Why, we’re giving Izzy a chance to be good for us, aren’t we?”

“Ah. He’ll hate that,” Ed says, sounding steadier. “And by hate I mean it’s going to twist him up so fucking good. Hmm. We make a pretty good team, don’t we?”

“We do indeed, my love!”

Together they settle in, offering commentary as Izzy shuffles out with a damp cloth in his white-knuckled grip. They drink their tea and nibble on scones while Izzy does their bidding, throwing out: C’mon, Iz, your slutty dick is gonna make a mess before you’re done, hurry it up and Oh, well done, dear boy! Put your elbow into it, really give it a scrub, yes, that’s sure to make daddy proud!

“Is this fucking jizz,” Izzy hisses out when he’s halfway done, on his hands and knees in the fur, cock flushed and heavy, balls swaying between his spread thighs.

“Mm, Stede gave me his cock real good last night,” Ed agrees.

Stede blushes, “Oh, darling! I simply couldn’t resist you. I’m so glad you enjoyed it.”

“Kill me,” Izzy grouches into damp, sticky fur.

Blackbeard laughs. “What? You jealous I got to take your daddy’s cock when you haven’t yet? Izzy, Izzy, could be worse. Could be more jizz for our little slut to clean up. Stede here is proper filthy y’know. Put his mouth on my ass after and sucked all his seed back out, licked me all clean again. Fuck, that was- that was good.”

By the end of his tease, Ed is breathy, shifting in his chair.

Izzy looks scandalized. “That’s vile,” he hisses.

“You think so?” Stede says, prim despite the flush in his cheeks, the warmth in his chest, his gut, his own cock pleasantly plump in his breeches. “Then why is your cock drooling, dear boy?”

Ed laughs at the way Izzy shudders, red in the face. He bows his head down and gets back to scrubbing Ed and Stede’s mess out of the rug, the motion of his arm no longer jangling and angry, but clumsy. He gets even clumsier when Blackbeard says in a lazy, mean crawl, “Izzy wouldn’t like your tongue fucking him, Stede. His slutty ass can’t appreciate it. Isn't that right, Iz. Greedy bitch like you just wants a hard, fat cock. You want to be stuffed full all the time, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Izzy hisses.

“Probably been dreaming about it,” Ed muses. “Sick fuck like you can’t help it. Been dreaming about Stede’s dick? About squirming around on your daddy’s cock, begging him to cum in you?”

Izzy fractures a little more. “Yes,” he whines, shoulders up, dick bobbing, clumsily wiping the rug. “Yes, yes, fucking- yes.”

“That’s good, Iz,” Ed murmurs. “And if you keep being good, maybe you’ll even get it one day, hm?”

Stede is once more unbearably hard in his breeches. Being this turned on this often is dizzying, positively indecent. But Edward is so very alluring, and Izzy so delectable, and the way that he breaks apart beneath Ed’s focus each and every time- irresistible, positively breathtaking, enchanting! Stede reaches down and bites back a groan as he adjusts himself. Sees Ed do the same and smiles at him, their free hands reaching across the table to snag together, give a little heartfelt squeeze.

They let Izzy scrub a little longer, and then Stede tuts and says, “There. I think that will do, don’t you, Ed?”

“Yeah. Good enough,” Blackbeard agrees.

Stede gives a jaunty snap of his fingers, saying, “Here, dear boy, come along!”

Izzy rocks back onto his shins as if Stede struck him. Shocked face, wide eyes, tight mouth. And despite all that - or perhaps because of - Izzy’s darling cock sits pretty in the air, swaying heavily out of a neat thatch of black hair. He’s well groomed, which isn’t a surprise. Stede admires his fastidious care a moment, as well as the curl of an inky tentacle tattooed over Izzy’s hip, undulating down his thigh, Ed’s mark on Izzy finally revealed- and Stede wonders if Ed gave it to him, or if Izzy had it done for him.

“Oh, Izzy,” Stede sighs. “You are such a wonder, aren’t you?”

“W-What,” Izzy creaks out.

Stede snaps his fingers again and Ed says in a slow, syrupy sort of murmur: “Crawl to your daddy, now. Be a good boy.”

A wretched little moan leaks out of Izzy’s trembling mouth. He gets back onto his hands and knees and crawls across the soft rug, across the hard boards, all the way to Stede’s feet. “There you are,” Stede says, as soft and gentle as the hand he lays across the back of Izzy’s head. “There you are. Well done.”

“Has he earned another treat?”

“Yes,” Stede says, still with that terrible kindness, that awful gentleness thick in his chest, spilling cruel out his throat. “I do believe he has. But he was a very naughty boy at the start, now wasn't he? So I’m afraid he must be punished first. Don’t you agree, Izzy, dear? You were so naughty, refusing to obey and throwing such a little tantrum! You simply must be punished, darling.”

“Fuck,” Izzy croaks out, and “Yeah. Yeah, fuck-”

“Shh. Come up into daddy’s lap, now,” Stede tells him, and Izzy shivers hard all over, groaning, and clambers his clumsy way into Stede’s lap.

As they situate, Blackbeard gets to his feet, pacing back and forth with a slow, hungry gait. Izzy winds up straddling Stede’s lap with his knees wedged in tight between the outside of Stede’s thighs and the cushion of the chair arms. When he realizes how securely snug he’s become, Izzy makes a wet little chirrup in the back of his throat and clutches both hands onto Stede’s shoulders. His erection bobs, smearing slick against Stede’s shirt.

“Darling,” Stede whispers, tracing his fingertips along Izzy’s quivering flanks. “No need to play at being strong now. Wrap your arms around my neck, yes, there you go. Hold on to me, daddy’s got you.”

“Oh, fuck,” Izzy whimpers.

Stede hushes him again and rubs his hands over Izzy’s backside, cupping each spread cheek and digging his fingers in deep, unable to resist warming that cool skin beneath his palms, until finally Izzy gives in, presses his hot face into the crook of Stede’s shoulder, holding on tightly.

“Got a tiny ass, doesn’t he,” Ed says, watching Stede’s hands with hot, dark eyes. “Amazing what all you cram in there. How much he can take.”

Izzy whines, shifting fitfully, straining to spread wider. But with his breeches still tight around his thighs and his knees trapped, there’s nowhere to go. He curves his spine instead, offering himself up to Ed. “Lovely, lovely,” Stede moans, one arm lifting to sink his fingers into Izzy’s hair, petting at him. “Oh, how darling you are! Is he ready, dear?”

“Yeah,” Ed rasps.

“Excellent! And what will you give him?”

“Oh, proper spanking, isn’t it? Naughty boy, you said, and naughty little bitch boys get a spanking when they’ve misbehaved. That right, Izzy?”

“Yes, yes,” Izzy hisses into Stede’s neck. “E-Edward, please, please-”

“Shh,” Stede soothes, heat flushing through him to hear such desperate filth right in his ear. Izzy obeys with a little whine, and so Stede gives the lonely cheek still cupped in one palm a generous jiggle before letting go. “The only sentiment I want out of you, dear boy, is gratitude.”

Over Izzy’s sloped back, Stede sees Blackbeard grin feral. Then he steps into place, hauls his arm back and brings his hand down hard against Izzy’s ass. The crack of skin on skin is loud, shocking. Izzy makes a gutteral sound like he can’t breathe, like he’s drowning, and Stede hushes him again and pets his hair until Izzy whines out, “T-thank you.”

In reward, Ed spanks him again.

Stede doesn’t try and keep count. He’s far too horny and overwhelmed with Izzy in his lap, shaking apart as Ed disciplines him. Izzy’s choked up voice gets thicker, wetter, and Stede feels tears soak through the fabric of his collar, dampening his skin. He has to groan, hold Izzy tighter to him, and wedge his arm between their bodies to rub the heel of his own palm against his aching erection, in time to the crack of Ed’s spanks, in time to Izzy’s slurred out “Thank you, Captain, sir!” and fuck fuck fuck- it’s the sir that gets Stede in the end, he thinks.

No one told Izzy to say that.

“Oh, oh, you marvel,” Stede gets out, right as he digs his heels into the floor and bucks up into the hard press of his own palm, spilling inside his breeches. Izzy whines, snuffles, holds on tight, and Stede honestly thinks he might expire from sheer horniness when Ed chuckles and says, “That was real pretty, Stede. But hey. Now you’ve got both hands free, think you can spread Izzy’s cheeks a little more? I wanna spank that nasty hole before he’s done.”

Izzy gasps, his whole body going tense, and Ed snaps out, “Oh no you fucking don’t,” as he lunges forward, grabbing Izzy by the balls and tugging fiercely, keeping him from coming.

“Oh, oh my,” Stede whimpers.

Izzy wails between his clenched teeth, shaking and shaking and then finally subsiding. Ed lets go with a low curse and a grimace as he straightens up, flexing his knee.

“Too fucking easy,” he growls out.

“Sorry, sir, thank you, sir.”

Somehow or another Stede gets his shaking hands onto Izzy’s rear. The skin is no longer cool to the touch; it radiates heat. Stede groans and says, “Oh, oh! Your fearsome Blackbeard has truly done right by you, hasn’t he, Izzy?”

“Yes!”

“And now you want your little hole spanked?”

Izzy chokes on a sob. Forces out, “Please, sir!” through it anyway.

Stede spreads Izzy’s cheeks as well as he can, staring breathless and wondering up at Edward with his fierce gaze, his lovely soft mouth open and wet and hungry, focus sharpening him into brilliance.

“Good,” he whispers to Stede. “Don’t move. I’m gonna give him three.”

“Remember your manners, Izzy.”

“Yes, yes I will- I will-” is Izzy’s frantic, warbling promise right before he squeals into Stede’s neck, rocking with the force of Ed’s blow against his rim. “Thank you,” he wheezes out after, “thank you thank you thank-”

Ed spanks his hole again.

Stede thinks he may well go deaf in the ear Izzy is wailing into, but he doesn’t mind. For all that he’s already spent himself, the arousal that builds so darkly potent by Izzy’s surrender is still moving within him, filling up spaces he hadn’t known were empty. Stede watches Ed give Izzy his last spank with wide, loving eyes, and then gently lets go of Izzy’s hot cheeks to cradle his head in against Stede’s shoulder, crooning, “There, there, my sweet. Oh, you darling boy! How wonderfully you took your punishment! Oh, so terribly brave! Beautiful! Extraordinary!”

Izzy sniffles. His arms curl tighter around Stede’s neck, clinging.

While Stede soothes Izzy’s tears, Ed totters over to the bathing room. Comes back with a little pot gripped tight in his hand, wide-eyed and haunted and so wonderfully brave as well. “You did great, Izzy,” he croaks out.

A little whine flutters against Stede’s pulse.

Stede smiles, watching as Ed opens the cream. Dips his fingers in when Ed holds it out to him and says, “Oh, Ed, he loved that so much, didn’t you, Izzy?”

“Ye-es,” Izzy gets out, arching first away and then into the thick, cold cream Stede begins smearing over his abused bottom.

“And Blackbeard is terribly proud of how well you took your pain, Izzy.”

“Yes,” Ed says, standing close, watching Stede’s hands soothe. Slowly, his posture loosens. “Yeah, Iz. Fuck, that was- you’re fucking incredible. Let me do anything, won’t you?”

“Y-yes.”

“And now you’re letting your daddy make you all better, hm?”

Izzy whimpers, and though his knees are lodged in too tight for freedom of movement, he tries anyway. Tries to push back into Stede hands, following his fingers. Indulgent, Stede rubs slick cream over that puffy, angry rim, softening him. Izzy whimpers again. His hands curl in tight, knuckles digging into the meat of Stede’s shoulders.

“Please,” he whispers. “Stede. Please. You promised-”

“Your treat, yes, darling,” Stede hums, petting at that sweet, fluttering rim. “Don’t worry, you’ve more than earned this, so shh, shhh. I am afraid that the two of you were simply far too incredible, and I- well, I may have spent myself too soon, dear boy. But your daddy will make you so soft, so sweetly slick for Edward’s cock, yes?”

Izzy moans, rocking onto the tip of Stede’s finger, a hot, tight grip that pulses around him. So Stede keeps his word, rubbing in the cream and fingering Izzy gently open, tender little touches that make him whine and hiss with frustration, that make him shake and tremble and snarl through a steady drip of tears.

Slowly, Stede starts working him open more. Dipping two fingers in and prying him loose, massaging the tight muscle of his rim.

“He’s leaking all over you,” Ed murmurs, watching with bright eyes.

And he is, but Stede can’t care even though he likes these clothes. Izzy is coming apart in his hands. The tender pain left over from his spanking intermingles; weaves in so beautifully with Stede’s careful, tender touches. He breathes in loud, wet gasps and quivers when Stede presses in deep where he can’t hide how very soft and vulnerable he actually is. Quivers even more when Stede nods at Ed, sliding his hands back to spread Izzy’s cheeks once more.

“Fuck, Iz,” Ed murmurs, hands heavy on Izzy’s hips, forcing him to hunker down lower so he can get the angle to sink his cockhead past Izzy’s rim. “Never had you soft like this. S’nice, isn’t it?”

Izzy hiccups out an agreement.

They don’t last very long, not that Stede is in a position to cast judgement- his breeches are damp and clinging, proof of exactly how intense and magnificent this entire ordeal has been. Ed sinks in like a dream, Izzy opening beautifully for him. They both moan, pressing tight together as if their union is the single, sweetest thing they could have asked for. Stede feels his still learning heart overflow, remaking itself to grow bigger, bolder all over again at the way they move together, the way they sound, the way love makes them desperate and cruel and also, somehow, strangely kind.

“Edward,” Izzy chokes out.

“Yeah, Iz,” Ed whispers, pulling back with a clenched jaw and a hazy, wild light in his eyes. “You feel good, Izzy, fuck- so fucking-”

Overwhelmed, Izzy presses his face into Stede’s throat, the lower position no longer allowing him to hide in Stede’s shoulder. His goatee tickles. His sharp teeth sink in, digging in hard as Ed sets up a quick, smooth pace to fuck into Izzy with. Stede hisses and doesn’t shake Izzy off. Only removes one of his slick hands from Izzy’s spanked-hot cheek. Uses it instead to reach beneath and take Izzy’s pretty, leaking cock in hand and squeeze.

When Izzy comes, he does it with a shuddering sigh, slumping limp against Stede. Ed curses low, intense, folding down over Izzy, close enough to lean his temple in against Stede’s as he groans, grinding deep as he spills inside.

“Thank you, sir,” comes Izzy’s whisper from between them, pressed in, held close, stuffed full.

“Oh, darling boy,” Stede murmurs, eyes stinging, heart breaking and then reforging, again and again and again. Ed presses his temple hard against Stede, grunts, manages to croak out, “Yeah. Yeah, you’re… You’re welcome, Izzy.”

-

For all that they’re pirates, they seem to be doing very little pirating lately. Though perhaps buggering counts, only if that’s the case then every lad Stede went to school with are proper pirates as well.

Exhausted, he slumps back in his chair, sipping at a fresh cup of tea. He’s in a new pair of breeches, but still with Izzy’s seed damp across his belly, shirt sticking to him. Ed’s clean up was comparatively simple, and Izzy has been wiped down thoroughly, much to his slow wakening annoyance. Now he is all buttoned up and tucked away, seated at the remnants of their breakfast spread with his elbows on the table’s edge and both hands covering his face.

“So,” Ed says, leg jiggling a moment before he winces, stretches it out instead. He’ll be needing his brace, Stede thinks, though he’s been stubborn about wearing it lately.

Izzy’s voice is an acerbic, muffled drawl. “Is there a follow up to that, Captain?”

“Hmm. You tell me,” Ed mumbles. He snags a scone, picks off a piece of it and rubs it to dust between finger and thumb. “Did I fuck it, Izzy? You and me, you and Stede. Is it fucked?”

Stede bites his lip, a tell he quickly hides behind the rim of his teacup.

With a deep sigh, Izzy drops his hands. He glares at Ed, then Stede, then back to Ed. “If you’d fucked it, Edward,” he says with more patience than Stede would ever have guessed, “then you’d damn well know. Now, is that enough? Can I maybe go and see where in the fucking ocean we are? Probably halfway to fucking Spain by now,” he starts muttering, rising from the table, pulling his duties about him like armor.

Ed waves him off with half a smile.

When the cabin door shuts behind Izzy, Stede drops the teacup to its saucer and gasps, amazed at their good fortune. Slapping both hands to his cheeks, Stede exclaims, “Oh, oh! How wonderful! We didn’t fuck it, Ed!”

“Nope,” Ed agrees with the other half of that loving smile. “Guess we didn’t. Good. That’s…that’s real good.”

Stede reaches out for him; Ed reaches back.



-

Chapter Text

Stede and Ed repeat it like a mantra the whole rest of that day, into the night, and first thing the next morning: we didn’t fuck it. But for all that, it almost doesn’t seem real. Doesn’t seem plausible that they survived to tell the tale. Like a harrowing scrape with death: the sense of it lingers after, even into safety. The ghost that may have been, the echo of almost-tragedy.

“Stede, love,” Ed asks, a full day and a half since Izzy left their cabin. “You all right?”

“Oh, oh, yes,” Stede says, realizing all of a sudden that instead of sleeping he’s merely been laying on his back like a plank of wood, clutching the blankets about the edges of his body in a way that leaves Ed shivering, and all while staring unblinkingly at the ceiling.

Ed lifts onto one arm to squint at him in the dark. “Hm. Sure about that one?”

Stede lets out a breath and finally turns his head to the side. Smiles as he watches a very sleepy Blackbeard blink and blink, brushing a haze of curls away from his pillow-creased face. “Yes,” Stede says very softly. “I’m quite fine, Ed. How could I be anything else with you at my side?”

The blankets get untucked. Ed mumbles, “Can’t let you spoon me. Knee’s pissed. Could spoon you?”

“I would like that very much, yes.”

They shift, snort, giggle- eventually rearrange so that Ed’s bad knee is pillowed atop Stede’s inner thigh, Ed’s strong arm wrapped high up over Stede’s rib cage, fingers curling and uncurling dreamily through Stede’s chest hair. It tickles. Stede has to reach up and catch that playful hand in his, kiss its knuckles, stroke its palm with his thumb, settle it into stillness.

But even then, it takes a long, crawling stretch of time for Stede to fall asleep.

Because the tricky thing about harrowing escapes from certain doom, Stede is discovering, is this:

They are exhilarating.

Stede thrums with leftover tension. Feels wide-awake and giddy with it. More than that, he feels proud about having stood his ground. About having told the horrible, deeply awful personal truth about Izzy and Stede’s grudging, infuriating respect for him to Izzy. For two whole days more the relief and excitement of it all has Stede up at night and a buzzing paragon of cheer, good will, and confidence during the day, all the way up until the moment Ed leans his hip against the barrel Stede and Lucius are using to work through a ship anthem set to iambic pentameter.

“Oh, no, quick!” Stede hisses, slapping his hands at the ledger. In turn, Lucius slaps his hands off long enough to actually close it, because Ed isn’t supposed to see this-

Ed smiles around his pipe, eyes crinkling. “Don’t worry, I didn’t look.”

Lucius drapes himself over the ledger with his fingers curled under his chin, a too-sweet smile and narrowed eyes. “And I will just make certain it stays that way, Captain! How’s the opposition doing?”

“Oh, you know,” Ed says, waving away smoke.

“You shall be crushed!” Stede decrees, boldly planting both fists onto his hips and lifting his chin in defiance. “Mark my words! You shall be destroyed! My team shall take no prisoners! All will be carnage and death and- and really just- lots of tears and wailing when we are through enchanting everyone’s ears and hearts with our glorious verse! Prepare yourself for a vigorous bout of ransacking and pillaging, Blackbeard! Aha!”

To his side, Stede hears Lucius whisper Oh my god, is this roleplay? but it’s vague, like the sound of the sea.

Because across from him Ed takes all his attention with a smile that curls slow and warm and sweet as he laughs, murmuring, “Yeah? Proper sirens you lot, huh. But what if we drown you out with the power of ballad, hm? Roach has coconuts.”

“Coconuts?”

“Yeah, y’know…” Ed mimes knocking coconuts on the barrel, making a clok clok noise. When Stede gasps he nods, brings his pipe up for another puff, and explains through a haze of smoke: “I know, right? Wild shit. Who’d have thought coconuts could be so powerful! I mean, aside from me, obviously. I’m Blackbeard and my team has coconuts.”

“Oh, yes, that’s a good point,” Stede concedes, already enthralled. “Everyone knows the power of coconuts!”

Ed winks at him. “So yeah. Watch out, Stede. Maybe you’ll be my prisoner by end of the night, hm?”

“What! You’re taking prisoners!”

“Well, yeah. Ransom, mate. Plus, dumping bodies is a bitch and a half when they can’t move on their own.”

Stede considers that. “I see,” he says, nodding. “Write that down, Lucius, old chap! Deadweight is terrible for the lower back, I imagine, unless maybe we chop the bodies up into more manageable pieces?”

“Clean up,” Ed points out.

“Ah, yes,” Stede agrees, nodding once more. He says “Clean up!” and then immediately feels a chill roll down his spine, that ghost crowding close - a shadow of Izzy on his knees and the echo of Stede’s marmalade knife rapping on a table.

He gasps, feels his heart pound and his cheeks flush. Ed watches him with a concerned furrow between his brows.

“OKAY,” Lucius loudly interjects. “Enough of whatever in the hell that was! Now, Blackbeard. Did you need something from Captain Bonnet?”

“Oh, right. Yeah. Hrm.” Ed puffs a few times in quick succession, gaze darting across the ship. Stede is sad that his smile is gone. “Just uh. Can’t really run a ship when the captain and first mate are at odds, y’know.”

“Oh, Ed,” Stede says apologetically. “Are you and Izzy fighting?”

Ed turns back to him. Stares at Stede with wide, lovely eyes. “Uhm. No, mate.

“Captain Bonnet,” Lucius groans. “He means you!”

“No!”

“Yeah, mate,” Ed offers, wincing a bit. “Afraid so. Fang is worrying himself sick that it’s going to ruin our song contest, y’know? And I think Black Pete is carving a statue of you to remember you by.”

“Oh, actually,” Lucius says. “That’s a butt plug.”

“That- Wait, come again? A butt plug? Whyever would your butt have need of a plug!” Stede asks, deeply curious about this concept, which is indeed very fascinating to learn about and also allows him some breathing room with which to consider the slanderous accusation that somehow Izzy and Stede are at odds.

Outlandish! Preposterous! Stede hasn’t the foggiest as to where such a conclusion could have been made! Why, everything has been perfect, normal and ordinary and- and yes, fine, maybe Stede isn’t sleeping well, and maybe he’s been feeling a tad skittish about being within striking range of Izzy, to the point that he has been doing absolutely everything within his power to keep distance since. But that- that’s simply because of the thrill of a daring escape from ruin on the one hand, and common sense and long practice on the other. Isn’t it? Yes, surely that’s all it is! Stede and Izzy are no more at odds than they ever have been, and Stede has no clue what could be making the crew think otherwise.

Though…

If he had to guess, then perhaps the lingering sense of dread has the teeniest, tiniest bit to do with the future, rather than the past.

Stede would rather not ruminate on such things further, but Ed has that cast to his handsome face that means he’s quietly worried, puffing on his pipe all day long and leaning by himself against the railing, watching Stede out the corner of his eye. It makes Stede feel guilty- he isn’t meant to make things harder on Ed, especially not about this: Izzy and Ed and how Stede fits in.

“I might be fucking it,” Stede admits in a strained rush that night when they’re settling in.

Ed is on the edge of their bed, leg stretched out and hair caught up in both hands, working on tying it back into a neat bun. “Well. Maybe a little? Tiny bit, mate.”

“Did- Did Izzy say something?”

Slowly, Ed finishes with his hair. “Hmm. You worried he has something to say?”

“When doesn’t he,” Stede huffs, but he’s thinking about it now and- and yes. He is worried, isn’t he? Less because of the part where they made Izzy crawl and spanked him, mind, and more because Stede admitted some truly horrible, terribly vulnerable truths in a fit of passion, and now he has to live with that fact and however Izzy chooses to handle the knowledge.

“Oh, Edward,” Stede mourns, burying his face in his hands. “I’ve been a coward, haven’t I? And after you worked so hard to clear a path for us! I’m sorry, my love. Will you ever forgive me?”

“Yeah, ‘course. But don’t worry about that now, Stede. Can I try this butt plug out on you?”

The request is half what they’d already planned and half a distraction- Ed still has that thoughtful cast to his face, turning over the pieces in his mind, trying to find the answer. Stede wishes he knew how to help, but since this is his fault in the first place and he also really, truly wants to see what a plug up the butt feels like, he stops hiding his head in his hands and instead smiles, titters out, “Oh, most certainly, beloved!”

Ed’s grin really is such a lovely, surprisingly timid thing. “C’mere, then,” he husks out, and Stede gets up and goes to him, allows the soft rush of kissing Edward wash away his fears, his worries.

“I’ll think of something,” Ed says eventually, his fingers in Stede’s hair. “Something that might help, hm?”

There’s no doubt in Stede’s mind that Ed is referring to Izzy and their hopes, their desires, and how Stede is accidentally fucking it all entirely.

“Yes,” Stede agrees, hands flexing on Ed’s shoulders. “I trust you, Ed. We will make this work!”

Ed’s smiling when he kisses Stede next.

Because his knee is still acting up, Ed moves to the chair at the desk and scooches it back, watches as Stede generously oils his own hole, one leg up on the desk. The butt plug is smooth and cool to the touch, made of a lighter wood, but still substantial enough for some weight. Stede teases Ed as well as himself when he slowly fucks it in past his rim, but loses any semblance of steadiness when the flared head eventually presses him open wider than even Ed’s cock does.

“Oh,” he warbles out, belly clenching, sweat gathering on his nape. “Oh, oh, Ed, that- that is really-”

A low, throaty curse behind him. “Stede, c’mere,” Ed says, and with a groan Stede holds the plug in place with slippery fingers, drags his knee off the table and shuffles back, into Ed’s waiting hands. Control of the plug is taken over, and Stede whimpers gratefully for it, all hot and liquid feeling in his skin when Ed wraps one hand around Stede’s thick hip and squeezes, the other drawing the plug out a curious inch before guiding it back in and oh-

“Fuck,” Stede croaks.

Ed hums. “Yeah, love. Fuck is right.”

With that, Ed sets about working the plug all the way in, the hard, implacable toy stretching out Stede’s rim, pressing insistently against his walls in a sinful glide that only builds and builds. Stede clenches down on it because he simply can’t help himself. It feels so nice inside him, strange and foreign and good.

“E-Ed,” Stede sighs out shakily once the plug is fully seated in him. Every clench jostles it slightly. His rim tightening fitfully around the narrower base, Ed’s finger still crooked in the handle so he can give it a little tug now and again.

“Fucking…wow,” Ed says, raspy and heated.

“Ed,” Stede whines.

Curious, Ed turns the plug. A noise pulls out of Stede that is entirely out of his control, lust punching through him, sweeping him away. He shakes, shivers, hot all over and ohh, he fumbles his own erection with both oil slick hands, grasping at himself desperately, but-

“Ah ah, love, no touching. C’mon now.”

Stede feels dizzy as always at the option of surrender, the fact that he can and it won’t be testament to failure or cowardice or a lack of strength. The trust that he and Ed have built turns the concept beautiful instead, extraordinary. Makes Stede content to wait, to let this happen, because Ed will always do right by him. Will never laugh, will never grow frustrated or disappointed; will always hold him after, glowing with contentment, and tell Stede how much he loves him and how beautiful he was, how amazing.

Stede’s hands slip from his heavy cock, obedient.

Ed rubs his free hand up and down Stede’s quivering flank, petting at his leg hair, squeezing at his flesh. The plug twists again. Stede jolts; throws his head back with a moan and shivers when Ed tugs, playing with his rim. He says, “Hey. Hey, Stede. Wanna do something fucked up?”

“Yes,” Stede whispers.

So Ed gets Stede’s shirt back on him, his coat. Sits him down in the chair at the desk and tells him about what he wants in a dreamy murmur, the ways in which Blackbeard wants to play, and then he waits a minute, then a minute more as Stede catches his breath, blinks his dazed way toward sanity so that he can really think it over.

That ghostly thrill shivers through him once more; exhilarating, terrifying, dreadful.

But Ed’s dark eyes are steady on Stede’s face, his warm, rough hand gentle over Stede’s on the desk. He asks, “Is it still a yes?” with a voice gone low and aching, dragged out raw and dark. “Can I…?”

Stede could say no.

He could say no and Ed would understand, would do something else, tucking away his disappointment. But through the roil of fear and uncertainty, Stede finds another truth-

He doesn’t want to give this up.

So Stede says “Yes,” again, reaching out with his free hand to stroke the pads of his fingers across Ed’s knobby wrist, the bristle of dark hair. The smile he dredges up is tremulous, but genuine. “Oh, Ed. I think it’s a marvelously fucked up idea! Let’s do it!”

Blackbeard thrills at that, his chin tucking down in that slight bashfulness that always makes Stede want to melt. “Yeah? Cool. Great. Fucking fantastic. Be back in a shake then, you just sit here all pretty and read your book, hm?”

“Happily,” Stede assures him, and then Ed is out the door and Stede is gasping, suddenly alone and horny and nervous and also very, very full, trying not to rock his ass against the chair to see if he can reach climax like that. The plug’s clever handle is designed to sit between his cheeks in such a way that Stede can wear it with ease, even seated like this, and it’s madness of the best sort. He will have to go and give Black Pete an excellent review after this. Maybe commission another, or- perhaps three.

One each for him, Ed, and Izzy.

Despite the compelling fantasies that thought brings to mind, Stede somehow manages not to rock himself to ruin by the time the cabin door opens next and Ed and Izzy spill across the threshold. They don’t get very far before Izzy is reeled in. The door is shut with quiet care as Ed says in a hushed, tight voice, “C’mon, c’mon, I want to fuck you.”

“I-” Izzy’s head snaps to where Stede sits at the table, trembling fingers clenched around the cover of a book he doesn’t even recognize, can’t see a single word of.

Izzy looks frazzled, wide-eyed, and Stede is strangely aware of the lovely little mark inked on his cheek, the way it bunches and jumps when Izzy’s jaw drops, clenches up all over again. “Captain,” he rasps, and Ed sinks his fingers into Izzy’s hair, casually cruel, to give him a chastising shake.

“Quiet now,” Ed hushes him, “I know a whore like you can’t help it, but you gotta try and be quiet for shit’s sake. Your daddy’s right over there reading, don’t you know? You wouldn’t want to interrupt him, now would you.”

“N-no,” Izzy grates out, a hollow little whisper of need.

“Yeah. Thought so,” Ed laughs, shaking Izzy again like a doll.

Stede has to bite at the inside of his cheek as he clenches up around the plug instinctively, trying not to make a noise. To simply sit here as instructed, pretend to read his book. To be quiet and act like nothing is happening. To watch, but secretly.

His fingers are shaking as Stede turns a page. The whisper of the paper seems very loud in the cabin.

Izzy flinches. Shivers.

“Yeah, Iz,” Ed murmurs, fingers tightening, going in for the kill at the first sign of weakness. “Daddy’s being so nice, isn’t he? Letting me play as much as I want. Even letting me drag a nasty little whore into his nice, pretty home to use up. Daddy’s being so good to us. But only so long as your whore mouth doesn’t make a single fucking sound. Got it?”

Izzy’s breathing gets rougher, louder, see-sawing out of him. But he keeps his mouth shut, glaring down at the floor, the fur rug, the toes of his own boots. He nods once, sharp and helpless, and Stede is wide-eyed at the way he starts trembling.

Which is when Ed glances across the room and catches Stede’s gaze; it’s like fire ripping through him, the sudden shot of lust at that connection. When Ed winks at him, Stede stifles a whimper and turns the next page, pretending at a lack of care even as he clenches down on his plug and raptly, hungrily watches the way Ed uses Izzy’s hair like a leash, to yank and drag at him, bullying him across the cabin, pressing him up against the wall with a vicious shove, cheek to wood and turned so that Izzy can see Stede at the desk, so that Stede can see the rising flush across Izzy’s face, the hard swallow of his throat.

Again, the only sounds in the cabin are their boots on the boards, the push and pull of labored breathing, the rustle of clothes.

Furtive, secretive. Somehow it seems that way, for all that it’s anything but. Stede feels as though he’s drowning. Catches himself rocking against his chair and has to bite down again on a whimper, force himself to stillness.

And oh, but it’s strange being so silent! Strange and terrifying; a swooping in Stede’s belly, a tremor in his heart. There’s a prickle of wrongness gathering across his skin, making his cock jump, and he wants to squirm with it, entirely uncomfortable, but- but he doesn’t want to stop, either, and he doesn’t mind not being in control right now even though Izzy is there, even though this is new, even though this is a side of himself that is soft and weak and baring it’s throat for Ed, a side he never expected to share with anyone else. But for all that- for all of that fear, uncertainty, the thrilling edge of danger scraping close-

Stede still wants this.

So he turns another page.

Across the room, Ed holds Izzy pinned with ease, assured and vibrant.

“Give me your ass, Izzy,” he murmurs, and Izzy really is so darling like this, so pretty- all that tension, all that endless anger at the ready, and it just…melts away under Ed’s violence.

Instead of snarling, Izzy’s lashes flutter softly, sweetly, and his face goes slack, capable hands turning clumsy, fumbling at his clothes, his breeches, working them down below the curve of his buttocks.

Oh, he looks positively obscene like that, pinned to the wall and with his ass hanging out, cock bobbing free. Vulnerable, more naked than he would have been if he’d actually been allowed to take off all of his clothing, Stede thinks, overtaken entirely by the fact that Izzy still has even his gloves on. Stede shivers in his seat; feels the soft pile of the cushion beneath his own balls, his thighs, and shivers again, feeling just as whorish, just as obscene, and oh, oh-

Another whimper is bitten down.

Stede turns a page.

Across the room, Ed hums appreciation, bumping his hips against Izzy’s ass to make him sway in place. Izzy lets him. Izzy will let Ed do anything, anything. Will even let Ed get one of Izzy’s arms twisted up behind his back in a painful grip, or so Stede assumes-

Izzy’s face twists, a moan torn out of him.

Ed wrenches his arm higher.

“Fuck,” Izzy chokes out, going onto his toes.

And Izzy’s cock spurts onto the floor with a sickening splat, and Stede is wincing and quivering and rocking against his chair again even before Blackbeard’s voice crawls through the air, serrated at its edge: “What did I say about that whore mouth, hmm?”

Izzy flinches. His cock leaks some more and he grits his teeth as Ed holds him like that, strained to the point of breaking, and doesn’t make a sound.

Half a minute of silence and then finally Blackbeard eases up, lets Izzy drop back down and breathe through the lingering pain. Stede is still rocking against the chair shamelessly, letting the plug jostle around inside him, lighting him up as he watches Izzy blink dazed eyes open; and when Izzy forgets not to look, when Izzy’s stunned quiet gaze catches on Stede’s, Stede doesn’t look down, away.

Oh, he couldn’t possibly look away. No, not when Izzy looks like this, flayed open and pinned down and pulled inside out.

Stede shakily turns another page.

“That’s better. My cock now, whore,” Ed croons. “You know what to do with it.”

Stede bounces against the plug, and then bites his lip hard to stop, to return to stillness, and the whole time he is achingly aware of Izzy’s eyes on him, watching him, hissing soundless as he works Ed’s cock out one handed, hitches up his hips, guiding Ed’s cockhead in against his rim, sink in-

Izzy’s expression turns to agony; something very close to bliss.

“Yeah,” Ed says, a sharp bite. “Let me use you.”

At that, Izzy shudders hard all over, rattling against the wall, coming apart in the violent grip of Blackbeard’s hands until he’s left limp, defenseless, strangely serene. Ed takes him raw like that, nothing but his own leaking dick to ease the way. Stede can’t fathom it; but Izzy’s breath only hitches as Ed insistently nudges into him, forcing his way inside, calling him a whore and lilting out soft as a lullaby yeah, yeah that’s right, ass like yours needs fuck-all to take a juicy cock, huh? Ha! Guess you were made for this, slutty ass like yours. Made for me to use up, yeah Iz? Mm, yeah. That’s right. Tighten up for me, like that, like that- uhn. You fucking- like this so much, guess it hurts good doesn’t it? Knew it. Knew you were nothing but a filthy whore, you l-love it when I’m this deep, huh, yeah yeah. And you take it so well, a fucking- a fucking pro, fucking-

By the time Blackbeard shudders, groans, and unloads in sharp, indulgent thrusts, Stede feels as caught and captive and inside out as Izzy, is breathing in harsh gasps, stunned and horrified and wretchedly turned on.

Izzy’s cock sways in the air, drooling, too far from the wall for any friction.

Somehow, Stede turns another page.

And Izzy shivers at the crisp rustle, gaze half-lidded, dark and soft and still watching Stede. He doesn’t blink as Ed pulls out, doesn’t move an inch even when Ed lets go of his arm, stops holding his face against the wall so that Ed can dig both thumbs into Izzy’s used hole, spreading him wide, laughing when his seed spills out, spatters over his boots.

“Not bad,” he says, all breathy and wild. “Ohh Izzy, Izzy. Not fucking bad at all. Maybe you’re a good enough whore even for daddy to appreciate, what do you think?”

Again, Izzy shivers.

“Yeah, I can feel you clenching up,” Ed laughs. “Don’t get ahead of yourself. Ass this filthy isn’t good enough for someone like Stede. But maybe… yeah, yeah. Your mouth’s been well behaved for once, hasn’t it, Iz? Bet your daddy likes that. How good you were at being quiet. Bet he wouldn’t mind if you were to crawl under that table and suck his dick. Go on, go on, if you want a cock to slobber over, go for it. Show me.”

Stede can’t turn any more pages.

All he can do is gasp when Izzy braces one hand against the wall and slides down, down, onto his knees. Once more, Izzy crawls his way to Stede. It’s different; it’s the same. Stede sits where Ed put him and squeaks when Izzy disappears beneath the desk, startles when Izzy’s hands touch the insides of his knees, spreading them, and Stede doesn’t fight it, can’t fight, oh fuck, why would he ever want to. Izzy’s gloved hands slide up Stede’s thighs in a smooth, cool caress, and his breath is harsh, panting little puffs of air that leave Stede twitching, wondering where they might land next, how long it will be before-

Izzy’s hot, wet mouth wraps around Stede’s cockhead, and he has to let go of the book entirely and clap both hands to his mouth, muffling his groan.

Across the room, Ed raises one finger to his lips and breathes, “Shhh.”

A whimpering whine makes it out from between Stede’s clenched fingers. His eyes close. The cabin is suddenly too small and too warm and too stifling; the shirt and the coat cling to his skin and the contrast to his bare legs is horrible, wonderful, a sickening rush. Stede sits there, clenching up around his secret plug while Ed watches him unravel, while Izzy drags his thumb lightly across his sac, sliding more cock into his mouth, up and down until Stede is spit-slick and dripping.

And Izzy is quiet, so quiet- only the faintest of moans, a whisper of pleasure at having a cock in his throat and seed still dribbling out his ass and oh, ohhh fuck-

It’s almost painful the way Stede’s orgasm is wrenched out of him. The way his body tries to crumple; knees up, back curving as his balls tighten in Izzy’s palm, as Stede spasms and shakes and he clenches almost brutally around the hard plug, each jerk of his body nudging it around inside him. Even his cock finally pulsing its load into Izzy’s mouth, coating his tongue, doesn’t feel so much relief as exquisite torture, Izzy suckling greedily at him with another whispered moan, heightening the pleasure.

There are tears caught in Stede’s lashes. He’s biting at his own palm, sobbing out breath, trying to stay quiet through it all.

Finally, finally- Izzy pulls back, lets Stede slip from him.

The quaking subsides into tremors. Izzy sighs out heavily against Stede’s thigh, drops the hand that had been so surprisingly careful with the squishiest bit of Stede, and leans his head onto Stede’s knee, simply breathing, harsh and thick and wet beneath the desk.

Stede blinks open tear-sticky eyes and seeks out Ed.

Ed, who is standing on the other side of the desk with his dark, hot eyes soft at their heart, liquid and wondering. “Oh, love,” he whispers, a chink in the violence. “That was perfect, that was- fuck, Stede, that was amazing.”

Now the relief. Stede feels it swoop over him soft as cotton, cool as the sea breeze after a storm. His knotted up body softens, unkinks, spills loose and warm and shivery in his chair, across the desk. Curling his hands around the edges of the book, Stede stares at Ed, wants nothing more than to kiss him and kiss him and-

“Ah,” Ed breathes, holding up a finger to his lips once more, winking at Stede.

From beneath the table comes a soft grunt. The sound of skin on skin, and oh, oh- what a darling, thinks Stede, all warmth and bubbling bright. Because that’s Izzy still huddled under the desk at Stede’s feet, foolishly trying to jerk himself off.

Ed laughs without noise. Stede sees the passage of it, the way his lovely shoulders shake with mirth. The smile he wears is all teeth and his eyes are narrowed, viciously pleased. He says, “Ah ah, Izzy,” and into the sudden, panicked silence as Izzy stills his hand immediately, Ed closes the distance to the desk, ducks down and reaches beneath and-

Izzy hisses, “Fuck, wait, I- I can-”

But Ed doesn’t wait. Stede is wide-eyed all over again, mouth hanging open in stunned awe as Ed hauls Izzy out from beneath the desk by his ankle, dragging him without care across the boards. There are punched out, grating whines and the sound of those leather gloves scrabbling on the floor; Izzy’s naked bum appearing like the moon suddenly revealed, and then Izzy is twisting, flailing as Ed yanks. When they’re nearly at the fur rug, Ed stops. Lets Izzy’s ankle go so that the heel of his boot knocks sadly into the wood of the floor, so that Izzy’s left on his back and splayed out, chest heaving.

From his vantage at the desk, Stede can see how mused Izzy’s hair is. Can see his mouth open wide, red and wet, goatee glistening from spit and semen. Can see Izzy’s flushed desperate cock, still hard and waiting.

“Getting above your station, aren’t you, whore?” Ed says softly.

Izzy curses thickly and it comes out half a moan. His shoulders press hard into the floor, arching his back, heels slipping, sliding. His dick jumps, eager for more.

It feels like a dream, watching them. Stede blinks slowly from his chair, too full and very warm and with a shiver caught and held beneath his skin. He watches as Blackbeard offers a cruel smile, a boot on Izzy’s cock. “You were pretty good though,” Ed muses, idly increasing pressure, cruelly easing off when Izzy gets close. “Hm. Could keep you. Wouldn’t mind having a whore at the ready, ass out and mouth sloppy. Would you like that, Iz? You want me and daddy to keep you? Keep you on the floor by our bed maybe, ready for use? Yeah, yeah you want it. Want to be our little fucktoy…”

Beneath Ed’s boot, Izzy is shaking, gasping, head tilting back and eyes rolling, right on the edge, and Stede wants nothing more than to help Ed get him there.

With careful, clumsy fingers, Stede reaches out and turns a page.

A choked, shamed cry- Izzy’s hands slap down onto the top of Ed’s boot, holding him in place as he bucks up, grinds into the sole. Stede watches the spurt of his dick, listens to his hoarse voice cry out again, again, until he swallows them down, until he’s flinching under the pressure, too much, too much and yet-

Izzy holds Blackbeard there a moment longer, whimpering.

Ed’s smile is still a dark and feral thing, but also satisfied, deeply tender. “Yeah,” he murmurs, rough and low. “Yeah, Iz. I think we’ll keep you.”

-

Stede gets his kisses. Sweet, lush, never ending- Ed pulls him to his feet, mumbling endearments, devout curses and sinful praise. Stede trembles in his arms, melting, glorious with the affection, content to be held as Ed commands Izzy to remove Stede’s plug- “Gently, Iz,” he says, soft and slow. “He’ll be tender.”

“Fuck’s sake. He’s always like an overripe bruise,” Izzy mutters, but he does as bid and carefully works the plug from Stede’s hole, one hand holding him spread.

Stede whimpers, tilts farther into Ed’s space, winding his arms around him. “Ohhh,” he sighs. “Oh goodness! How empty I feel! So loose!”

“Bad?” Ed asks.

“No, no,” Stede decides, kissing the fuzzy curls of Ed’s short beard, the corner of his crinkled eye. “Oh, Ed! I feel wonderful!”

Behind him, Izzy snorts and sets the used plug onto the table with a clatter. Curses when it rolls off and he has to catch it, put it back again with more care. “The fuck even is this,” he mutters.

“A marvelous toy!” Stede turns in Ed’s arms, wrapping him about Stede’s chest like a second coat. He beams at Izzy. “I shall have one made for you as well, and Ed! But that one is mine!”

Izzy makes a disgusted face. “Like I want something that’s already been up your ass, Bonnet!”

In Stede’s ear, Ed snickers quietly. Stede laughs more loudly, reaching out both hands to beckon Izzy come closer. Warily, Izzy does so. Stede winks. “Dear boy, you certainly wanted Ed’s cock only moments ago, now didn’t you?”

“That- You…”

Before Izzy can stomp away in a fit of annoyance, Stede catches him by the arms. Here in Ed’s warm embrace, in the fizzing delight of having done well under Ed’s loving, fierce direction, Stede becomes untouchable. Izzy is small and angry and wonderfully sweet, and he belongs to Ed and also, a little, to Stede. So Stede pulls him in, holds him close, hums as he bends down to kiss at Izzy’s face, bright loud pecks that make Izzy hiss, squirm, snarl out,

“The fuck is wrong with him!”

Ed nuzzles into Stede’s hair, smiling against the hinge of Stede’s jaw. “Nothing, mate. Stede’s perfect. Just gets a little, er…loopy sometimes.”

“Izzy, stop fussing!”

“You will regret this,” Izzy half-yells, throaty voice wild, a little frantic. “Bonnet! I mean it, fucking- fuck, fuck-”

Stede tilts his head; captures Izzy’s mouth beneath his and sweeps his tongue inside. “Mm,” Stede hums, pulling back an inch or two to stare thoughtfully down at Izzy’s stricken face. “Tastes bitter. All that outrage, maybe?”

Izzy snarls, “Your fucking jizz, Bonnet!”

Ah, yes, that would explain it, Stede thinks. Then he bends his head again and gets back to kissing Izzy, a new and daring thing, the way he’s all stiff, making little sounds of muffled outrage. The way he presses in despite that, adjusts the angle of his head and gasps when Stede sucks on his tongue, scraping it gently with his teeth.

“He kisses sweet, doesn’t he?” Ed murmurs.

Izzy shivers, makes another fuzzy, furious noise and reaches out to grab hold of Stede’s jacket, hanging on.

When Stede’s need for kisses is finally satisfied, Izzy is half lidded and flushed, still wary but- a little different now. Some of those steel-hard, straight edges he so carefully holds himself to have splintered, making him jagged, sharp, a more fragile shape. Stede imagines he could reach out and set him collapsing, if only he finds the right weak point.

“Lovely, Izzy dear,” he sighs out, fingers interlocked behind Izzy’s neck. “Oh, I quite like kissing you! Ed, have you kissed Izzy? It’s lovely, lovely!”

Ed laughs softly. “Yeah, mate. Once upon a time.”

“Ohh, you must kiss him now!”

The laughter gets bigger, warmer, pressing into Stede in mellow waves. “Yeah? All right then,” Ed murmurs to Izzy. “You heard our captain. C’mere and give us a kiss.”

A complicated, strange little noise creaks out of Izzy.

Stede unlocks his fingers. Lifts one hand to tenderly brush back the loose strands of Izzy’s hair, smoothing them into order. “Go on, then,” Stede encourages, bursting with love, with delight.

So Izzy leans in, chest to Stede’s chest. Tips his face up to Ed as he leans across Stede’s shoulder. Stede catches them at it from the corner of his eye: a soft blur, their mouths meeting sweet, slow, a wet slide. Izzy whimpers; Stede wraps his arm around the small of his back and hums, closes his eyes and tips his head against Ed’s shoulder, content. Wedged warm and safe between them, Stede relaxes, drifts, listening happily to the slick sound of Ed’s tongue, the startled gasp Izzy can’t contain, the three of them tangled up and bound together.

-

This time, Izzy doesn’t get an easy escape- neither out the door or into sleep. Instead, Ed sets him to the task of fetching water for the tub, determined to let Stede soak and be pampered even after he’s settled back into his skin, feels entirely himself again. When the tub is filled and hot enough, Ed takes off Stede’s coat and shirt and hands them to Izzy, who stands just behind his captain with a pinched, weary look about his face.

“Does his fucking lordship need anything else?” he asks, snidely sighing as Ed carefully helps Stede in.

“Yeah, actually,” Ed says. “Stool’s too low for me right now. Sit, Izzy. Scrub his lordship’s back, would you, while I go rustle up a snack from the kitchen. I’m fucking hungry. You hungry?”

“Fuck me,” Izzy groans.

Ed swats him on the ass, winking at Stede. “Already did. Why you think I’m so hungry?”

“Safe travels, dear!” Stede chirps out, lifting a dripping hand to wave Ed off. With a dramatic bow, Ed leaves them alone in the cabin, the door closing quiet, firm. Stede lowers his hand. A log splits in the fireplace. Izzy crosses his arms and looks down his nose at Stede, corner of his mouth lifting in a sneer.

He says, “Well? What are you waiting for?”

Stede peers up at him, sinking lower in the wonderfully hot bath. “Er- Have you not had many baths, Izzy? The whole point is to linger! To soak! To let the heat and the water envelope you most tenderly, working out all your tension- ah, yes, I believe I have answered my own question, haven’t I. You likely have never had a bath in your entire life.”

“Not everyone can afford to wallow in their own filth,” Izzy says, easy and calm. “No. People like me, like Edward- we have better things to do.”

Izzy is still sneering down at him, fully dressed and full of contempt while Stede is completely naked, exposed.

Stede waits for that vicious thrill to cut through him.

When it doesn’t, when all that happens is Stede’s heart picking up the pace a little, nervous but not terrifyingly so, he smiles up at Izzy in grim challenge. “Dear boy,” he chides. “Stop huffing at me, will you? Your captain gave you an order I believe. Scrub his lordship’s back, wasn’t it?”

“I’m going to murder you,” Izzy whispers.

Stede’s smile gets bigger, bolder. “Ha! Already tried and already failed, I believe! So what’s left, Hands?”

“You…”

“Why keep fighting when we all want it, hm? Here, let us try a different avenue of approach! Izzy, be a dear and scrub daddy’s back, hm?”

Izzy’s hiss of “Oh, fuck you very much, Bonnet!” comes out strangled.

He takes an angry step back.

“Ah, well,” Stede murmurs. His smile softens a little, turns rueful. “Worth an attempt. Very well, Israel! If you hate me that much- if you’re truly going to walk out on this, us, at least hand me the sponge and the bar of soap, won’t you? I will get to work while Ed is gone.”

“Oh, yes,” Izzy drawls. He kicks at the stool, sends it clattering closer to the back of the tub. Then he shakes his head, says, “Keep whining. Tell me all about how me choosing not to give you a fucking wash is going to ruin everything, all of it, like you haven’t been doing everything in your power to avoid me like I have the God damned plague.” even as he strips off his gloves and seats himself down in a violent collapse, snatching the sponge, the soap, reaching over Stede’s shoulders to dunk both into the water.

“Izzy,” Stede starts, entirely surprised.

“FUCK,” comes the hoarse shout of Izzy’s lovely, angry voice, right in Stede’s ear.

Stede winces. Says, “Yes, well, if you could just calm down for one second,” and reaches out his own wet hands to unbutton Izzy’s soaked cuffs, rolling up his shirtsleeves so that his bare forearms are on display.

And if Stede’s fingers caress curiously, well- that’s neither here nor there, now is it?

“My lot in life,” Izzy mourns. “To play nursemaid.”

“No wonder you became a pirate, you’re quite terrible at it- yeouch!”

Izzy has dropped the soap into the water and begun scrubbing at Stede’s shoulder with mean vigor. “You don’t fucking know how much work I’ve done,” he says, low and soft and dangerously intimate, nose sliding against Stede’s nape as he leans over, dragging the sponge across Stede’s chest, scraping across his nipple on its way. “Everything I do, both out there and in here, behind closed doors. All to keep Blackbeard safe, sane, fucking functional.”

“I…”

“You fucking don’t,” Izzy tells him.

Stede breathes in deep; reaches once more for bitter honesty. “You’re right,” he admits. “I don’t know. But I- I thank you for it, Izzy.”

“I didn’t do it for you!”

“I know! You did it for Edward! But I am still grateful, Izzy Hands, so take that and choke on it if you must!”

Somehow, it always ends with them yelling at each other.

But Stede doesn’t think it has to be a bad thing- he isn’t afraid, isn’t even terribly mad. His heart is set to a quick beat, something steady and bright, exhilarating. Izzy loses interest in putting a punishing force behind the sudsy sponge, and is now idly stroking it over Stede’s skin, lathering his chest hair, his breathing all steady and calm.

Stede says, “Quite relaxing, baths.”

“Weirdest fucking person I have ever met,” Izzy sighs. “Gimme the soap, Bonnet.”

Stede sniffs. “No, don’t think I will. Fetch it out yourself, dear boy.”

With a snarl, Izzy lunges to the side of the tub on his knees, so that he can glare fiercely at Stede as he plunges his arm back beneath the surface. Stede squeaks when Izzy’s fingers pinch his side, poke his belly, claw at Stede’s thigh to pull his legs apart. “Oh, oh really!” Stede fusses, that delightful jump to his pulse, the upward lift of his heart. Izzy’s mouth pulls into a wide, mean smirk as he lets go of Stede to fish out the soap.

The sponge is made sudsy again.

Izzy stays on his knees, hanging over the edge of the tub as he moves the slightly rough sponge in slick, curious ways beneath the water. Up and down Stede’s legs, over the curve of his belly, beneath his knees.

“You’re so- so fucking thick,” Izzy rasps out, and his own voice sounds thicker than normal, strangely affected. “There’s so much of you. Fuck. You’ve never been hungry a day in your life, have you?”

Stede drags in the thick air. Blinks dazedly up at the ceiling and lets Izzy curl his fingers around one of Stede’s ankles, lifting it from the water so that he can scrub at Stede’s heel, his toes. Stede manages: “Ah, ah- Uhm! Not. Not hungry in the way you are referring to, no!”

“You ticklish?”

“I would never admit it,” Stede hisses.

Snorting, Izzy drops Stede’s foot back into the water with a splash. Goes for the other one, just as merciless. Stede squirms and curses and glares at Izzy with a tight mouth, refusing to cry out, and Izzy’s smirk this time is just as mean, but also amused.

Stede snaps out, “What was I waiting for?”

“Hm?” Izzy’s eyebrow lifts. “The fuck are you on about now.”

“After Ed left,” Stede explains as Izzy drops that foot and the sponge. Finds the soap once more and lathers it between his palms. There is something about this, Stede thinks, that is enough to break his heart- Izzy’s anger, his care, all this time spent tending Edward and now, even here when it’s just the two of them, Izzy kind enough not to take a rough textured sponge to Stede’s sensitive bits.

Izzy’s slick hand curls around Stede’s soft cock, sliding down the length of it. “Oh, that. I was waiting for you to admit how much you regretted this.”

“The- kisses?”

“No,” Izzy mutters, rubbing his fingers along Stede’s cockhead, then down at the base where his hair curls, then under, under- oh, a soft cradle for his balls, curious, questing fingers at Stede’s entrance, circling, oh, oh-

“T-then what,” Stede gasps out, eyes shutting, spine arching.

“You couldn’t have meant it,” is Izzy’s soft reply, as soft as his fingers inside Stede’s loose body, petting at his quivering walls. “What you said last time. Wasn’t surprised when you practically jumped ship every time you came across me after. Couldn’t be true.”

“Oh, oh, but it is, it is-”

“No,” Izzy mutters again, curling his fingers.

Stede cries out, hands grasping at the hard edges of the tub, slipping, sliding. His knees bang into the sides as his hips lift, chasing that sensation. “Again, Izzy,” he whispers, “Oh, oh, again, dear boy!”

“I’m a fool,” rattles out of Izzy’s throat, miserable, quiet, as though already lost.

“Aren’t we all, though?” Stede asks fuzzily, and it’s probably not the right answer- he’s not certain there’s even a question at all, not with that dark and starving look in Izzy’s eyes. “Oh, Izzy,” he whimpers out, and then lifts his arm to reel Izzy in, close enough to bite, to kiss, to fall to pieces together.

-

When Ed finally returns, it’s to Izzy folded over the side of the tub, two fingers hooked inside Stede as he works over that spot that builds and builds, heavy and brutal, and makes Stede’s soft cock spurt out whatever is left in him.

Stede’s arms are tight about Izzy’s shoulders, kissing him and kissing him, gasping out, “Oh, oh yes! Yes, Izzy, yes, that’s it, that’s- ohhh!”

“I’ve got dinner,” Ed muses. “Guess you two are the show.”

Izzy pulls his mouth away. Stede whimpers, curls his fingers tight in Izzy’s hair in petulant demand. And it does make Izzy hiss, but he doesn’t fold. Pain alone has never been enough to break him- only Ed’s hands wielding it can come close, and Stede’s hold over him comes from a different angle.

“Did you get lost on your own ship, Edward?” he asks mock-sweetly. “Had to dote on his lordship this whole fucking time.”

“Izzy,” Stede huffs, but then groans and lets go of Izzy with a flop, sinking back into the water and forcing Izzy’s fingers to slip free, because- well, perhaps that was being a little too indulgent after all. Stede’s heart feels faint with how hard it’s been pounding all this while, his stomach twisted, his balls aching, his ass positively fluttering with sensation.

He drapes an arm over his eyes, water trickling down his cheeks and chin, and says, “Oh, Ed. Izzy was, in fact, quite the darling boy for daddy.”

“I hate you,” Izzy grumps. “So, so fucking much.”

Stede smiles, dazed and dreamy. “Mhm, I know you do, dear boy. Don’t fret. Ed, do you think I can just stay here forever? I’m not certain my legs exist any longer, to be honest.”

“What. And be like a- a mermaid?”

“Oooh, that could be fun,” Stede says. “This is the ideal environment for it!”

But because Stede is not, in fact, a mermaid and can’t ever be one in truth, despite his and Ed’s fantastical musings about what all mermaid-Stede could get up to - liberally peppered with Izzy’s confounded, scathing retorts - he ultimately hauls himself out of the bath and dries off while Ed sets the table.

Somewhere in the midst of those preparations, Izzy decides he’s ready to take his leave, but not before Ed crooks a finger at him, Izzy sighing showily and limping close, muttering, “Yes, Captain?”

“Open your mouth,” Ed murmurs back.

Stede glances over in time to see that lovely little mark on Izzy’s cheek jump again. He opens his mouth. Ed breaks off a piece of something fried golden and places it on Izzy’s tongue. “Have a taste, at least,” he says, eyes crinkling, a little dark in the way of Blackbeard, warm in the way of Ed.

Izzy chews, swallows. “Tastes better than a toe,” he admits roughly.

At that Ed laughs, shrugs. Says, “Yeah, mate, I’d sure fucking hope so, especially compared to your nasty ass ones. You ever wash your feet?”

“Too busy washing his,” Izzy drawls, jerking a thumb over his shoulder at Stede.

“Oooh, he’s ticklish, you gotta be careful he doesn’t accidentally kick you in the face, y’know.”

Stede stomps a foot, face flushing. “Ed!” he cries, “Do not give Izzy more ammunition to use against me! He wasn’t to know!” To which Izzy scoffs and replies, “Bonnet, obviously I fucking knew, you’re pathetic at hiding your tells!” and then Stede is forced to chase Izzy out of the cabin entirely in affected outrage, so that he can sit down with Ed at the table and nurse his wounded pride over a bounty of randomly selected edibles.

“I am not ticklish,” he mopes.

“Stede, love,” Ed offers, squeezing his forearm. “You really fucking are.”

-

That night, Stede sleeps heavily, deeply, wakes to the sun high in the sky and his body aching, sluggish with so many hours in repose. He stumbles up, dresses. Goes out onto the deck and squints at the light. Finds Ed with his dark head bent down towards Izzy’s, listening to him.

“There you are,” Stede interrupts. A yawn then interrupts him, and when he’s done with it he finds Ed smiling at him and Izzy rolling his eyes, looking annoyed. Stede huffs. “How could you let me sleep so late!”

“You needed it, love,” Ed tells him.

Izzy drawls, “We get more done without you here to make a mess of things.”

“Well! That’s not very polite, dear boy,” Stede claps back without thinking, and then that thrill zings through him- the chill and the fear and the uncertainty, because they’re on the deck and the Swede is nearby, clubbing fish, and Jim is up in the rigging above them doing exercises for their core, and Stede Bonnet just called Izzy Hands dear boy.

Izzy’s lip curls. “I am not, in general, a very polite person,” he warns.

“He can be,” Ed tells Stede. “Put him in the right situation and poof, Izzy’s a regular old boot licker, can make anyone feel respectable, all puffed up and important. Saved all our asses a time or two, mine especially.”

“Edward,” Izzy sighs. “Do shut up.”

Ed smiles mysteriously, as if spilling secrets that aren’t his own to tell isn’t at all a thing he’s suddenly in the habit of. The only fair thing to do, Stede decides, is to even the playing field a little. He says, “Izzy, is there a particular trick to making Ed here put on his brace? His knee’s been troubling him terribly and he simply won’t-”

“Oh, no,” Ed breathes.

Izzy’s eyes narrow as he turns, glares sharply up at Ed. “There, you see? Even Bonnet can tell! Why you get so fucking stubborn about this-”

“Izzy, Izzy, Izzy!” Ed has both hands up to ward him off.

“What,” Izzy hisses.

For a second Ed stares at Izzy, then Stede. Then he says, “Later,” and makes a break for it, lunging for freedom. Both Stede and Izzy let him go, taking note of the way he favors his bad leg.

“You have to take better care of him,” Izzy forces out, sounding like he had to grind the words to dust to force them past his gritted teeth.

“I would love to, with- with your…assistance,” Stede offers awkwardly back, grimacing. Then he forces himself to shake off the distaste and give a haughty sniff as he doubles down belligerently. “Yes! That’s it exactly! The two of us together, working to take care of Ed! I think that would make him happy. Don’t you think so?”

“Not this again.”

“Yes,” Stede insists. “This again!”

Izzy groans. “Fine. Yes. Fucking- Tell me, were you put on this earth with the sole purpose of ruining my life, Bonnet?”

“Oh, no,” Stede says cheerfully. He claps Izzy on the shoulder and, when Izzy jolts under the force and slants a venomous glare Stede’s way, he drops his arm hurriedly and shuffles a few feet away from danger. Then he winks and chirps out, “That’s just a bonus, dear boy!”

-

It is, of course, not so simple.

Stede and Izzy still set each other off at the slightest provocation. Ed refuses the knee brace, though he does allow Stede to massage his aching thigh, his knotted calf, hissing at the relief. “What the fuck is the problem,” Izzy hisses at him, three days later while the rest of the crew is gathering for their bedtime story.

“I don’t know, do I,” Stede hisses back. “If I did, wouldn’t be much of a problem, now would it!”

“What the fuck good are you,” is Izzy’s mocking little scoff, and Stede feels rage build up hot and brutal in the hollow of his throat, building and building and-

Stede manages to swallow the hateful urge to be hateful down, keeps it in his belly instead so he can read aloud the next fantastical chapter everyone has been waiting for, and so that Izzy can go and settle himself mutinously on the deck, purposely arranged so that Ed can drape his bad leg over Izzy’s, keep his knee propped up at a slight bend, so that it doesn’t hurt so bad.

The image of them there makes Stede’s heart overflow with tenderness and his stomach roil with frustration both.

It isn’t as if Izzy isn’t struggling himself, Stede fumes.

More than once Stede has caught Izzy gnashing his teeth at Edward’s fashion choices. Why, Ed has begun putting darling little bows into his beard, now that it’s of a decent length again, and every time Izzy nearly has a conniption!

“Leave him alone!” Stede snarls protectively after a particularly vicious incident, poking a finger fiercely at Izzy’s sternum. “Let him wear what he wants! So what if it isn’t to your dreary aesthetic, with all your- your black and black and oh! What’s this? More black!”

“It’s not fucking that, Bonnet,” Izzy snarls in turn.

“Then what!”

They are squaring off in the cargo hold once more, trying to keep their quarrelling hushed, possibly failing entirely. Stede is prepared for Izzy to sneer at him, spit at his feet, and try and storm out like he did the first time Stede dared broach the topic of Ed with him, but-

He clenches a hand in his hair and laughs instead, hollow and frustrated. “God, to be so entitled,” he rasps out. A meanness tugs at the corner of his mouth, then gutters out. He spits after all, but doesn’t turn, doesn’t leave. Izzy glares up at Stede and says, “If your pompous ass wants to strut about the streets of Nassau like a bloody fucking peacock, fanning your fucking tailfeathers all oooh look at me, look at me! I am soft and flash and just have sooo much money! then by all means! But I will not allow Edward to do so.”

“But- But- Why, I ask you!”

“Because I don’t care if you get gutted!” Izzy roars. “But Edward- I won’t allow it!”

And that shuts Stede up quick, long enough for Izzy to calm his ragged breathing, smooth his shaking palm over his hair to tidy it, so that maybe he can pretend like he hasn’t just let Stede see the ugly beating of his heart. He leaves, and Stede thinks on that all the rest of that day and into the next, and in the end he still doesn’t agree with all of Izzy’s horrid fussing and naysaying about Ed’s choice of wardrobe, but he does at least understand where it’s coming from now.

So nothing about moving forward is easy at all, but amazingly, perhaps miraculously- Izzy and Stede are both trying, stubbornly, foolishly, lovingly.

At a certain point in the following week, Izzy steps up next to Stede, bumps his elbow and squints into the morning sun. “You can use sex,” he says. “With Edward. Don’t tell him what you’re doing. Don’t tell him I said anything. But… You must convince him that he will ruin all of his fun if he doesn’t take care of the knee.” and when Stede sucks in a gasp and spins on his heel to face him, Izzy’s lashes are lowered and he’s peering at Stede out of the corner of his eye, wary and exhausted and quietly furious at the need to say anything at all.

“Thank you,” Stede says, short and sharp.

The trick works beautifully, and Stede is almost sick to his stomach that he can’t admit to Ed that it was Izzy taking care of him once again. But somehow Izzy must be thanked; he must be rewarded for his hard work, the labor of his loving heart. Stede purses his mouth and stiffly asks Izzy to come look over a batch of charts he’s found while Ed is busy weaving a tall tale about his early days as Blackbeard under Hornigold for the crew, and when Izzy sneers at him but follows inside the cabin, asking “What is this really about, Bonnet?” it’s altogether too easy for Stede to drop to his knees and pull Izzy out from his breeches.

“Oh, fuck-”

“Do not pull my hair,” Stede says primly. Izzy is small and soft and a little sweaty against his fingertips. “But you- you, Israel Hands, are just- sometimes really, truly, fucking good, and it drives me quite mad! And- and you deserve a reward for it, I have decided. So! Daddy will give you one, understand?”

“What the fuck,” Izzy croaks out, gaping down at him.

Stede jiggles his limp dick between his fingers. Gives Izzy an amused look when it immediately starts to thicken. “Come now, dear boy. Don’t be coy.”

“I’m not! I don’t- why in hell are you-”

“Ed is wearing the brace again,” Stede says simply, and marks the flicker of recognition across Izzy’s face: his clenched jaw, the jump of his lovely mark. Stede leans in and gives a sweet, chaste kiss to the head of Izzy’s dick. “And that was with your help, wasn’t it, Izzy? And darling, sweet boys who have been very, very good and helpful get rewards, you see.”

Izzy gasps for air. Grits out, “Bonnet,” but then doesn’t seem to know where to go from there.

Another jiggle of Stede’s fingers. Another chaste kiss against the slit. Stede asks, “Don’t you want daddy to be nice to you, Izzy? I can be ever so sweet to you, if only you’ll let me, dear boy.” When Izzy only gasps again, stubbornly silent, Stede tuts gently. “Shame. Your cock is really very pretty, you know. Small and sweet like you! I wouldn’t mind putting it in my mouth…”

A desperate noise punches out of Izzy.

“Yes. You’re so wonderfully small,” Stede says. “Why, I imagine I could fit the whole thing in easy! But only very good boys deserve their daddy’s mouth on them, don’t you think? So if you haven’t been a sweet, darling, helpful little thing, then, well.”

“Please,” Izzy gets out on a hitching breath. His hands come down, clumsy and heavy on Stede’s shoulders. “Oh, God. I-”

Stede gives his cockhead another lush kiss. “Izzy, darling. Have you been a good boy?”

The expression on Izzy’s face is truly wonderful; twisted up, desperate and shocked. Stede surprised him, it seems. A wonderful little thrill goes through Stede, mean and tender, to know that he is the reason that Izzy Hands is crumpling, folding, squeaking out in horror: “Yes, yes, I- I have. I’ve…”

“What was that, dear boy?” Stede asks when it seems that the poor thing needs some assistance getting his words out. He licks at Izzy’s slit. Hums when Izzy’s dick jumps, when Izzy groans long and low and awful, the leather of his gloves creaking as he kneads at Stede’s shoulders.

Finally, it comes as if ripped from him: “I’ve been- been good.”

“Yes,” Stede agrees softly, a whole warm rush rolling through him when Izzy shivers hard, breath sharp and short, whining in his throat. He teases the underside of Izzy’s erection with a barely there stroke of his knuckle. “You have, haven’t you? Well done, Izzy. Now, let daddy make your pretty little cock feel very nice, hm?”

“God,” Izzy heaves out. “Yes!”

Stede is sorely tempted to see if he can coax Izzy into saying it, into calling him daddy with his own desperate mouth. But this is meant to be a true reward; so instead Stede wets his mouth and opens up, letting Izzy slide across his tongue. He’s not nearly so small as Stede suggested. A little wider than Edward, shorter than them both. But still enough that Stede must wrap his hand around the base to ensure he doesn’t take in too much. Izzy whimpers above him as if Stede had taken him entirely in his mouth, however, and Stede feels such a wonderful kind of darkness wake up inside, unfurling, prodding him into pulling back with a teasing lick, a kiss to the slit, so he can say, “Tell me how good you are, darling.”

Above him, Izzy is biting down on his lip, eyes all clenched up. “Fuck,” he wheezes out. “Fuck, fuck, I-”

Stede pinches the inside of Izzy’s thigh. “Language!”

That warrants a hiss and Izzy’s eyes flying open, wide and shocked. “S-sorry,” he slurs out, and oh, oh, how lovely, how wonderful. Stede pinches him again in the same spot. Izzy yelps, “Sorry!” and, when Stede does it once more, “Sorry, sorry, I’m sorry!”

“Three pinches for three swears. Now you are a good boy again, aren’t you, Izzy dearest?”

“Yes, yes! I’m a g-good boy,” Izzy agrees dazedly, blinking down at Stede and- and it’s almost as if this is all he’s ever wanted in his life, to be sweet and darling and loved very tenderly. Shakily, Stede puts his mouth back on him, suckles hard, and moves the hand on Izzy’s hip backward, sliding his palm across Izzy’s ass hesitantly.

But Izzy whines out, “Ohhh yes, yes, please-!”

Stede seeks out the furl of his hole, petting at it until it flutters. His other hand keeps working over Izzy’s cock as Stede mouths over the head, twirling his tongue around and around the slit until Izzy’s knees are shaking. When Stede finally pushes his finger in, Izzy’s rim clinging against him before yielding all at once, letting Stede inside where he is pulsing and hot and so terribly, wonderfully soft-

Izzy cries out.

The first spurt of his seed hits Stede’s tongue. Carefully, Stede pulls back, closes his mouth and rubs his lips against Izzy’s cockhead, sliding his hand up and down his spit-slick length, letting that greedy ass clench up tight around his finger, oh, oh-

“You absolute darling,” Stede gasps out when Izzy is done.

The sound that comes from Izzy is small and quiet and brutally pathetic. Stede says, “Darling,” again, pulling Izzy down, settling him across Stede’s thighs, and doesn’t remove his finger from where it’s tucked inside Izzy’s hole- not when he’s still spasming down around him, refusing to let him go. “Come here, sweet boy, come here,” Stede orders, and gives Izzy messy, bitter, slick kisses across his face. On the little x-mark, then on the opposite cheek. On his nose and his furrowed brow, the edge of Izzy’s neat goatee. Then Izzy makes another greedy little mewl of a whine, hands still kneading at Stede’s shoulders, so Stede presses his mouth against Izzy’s own and kisses him, kisses him gently, passionately, with all the tenderness Stede has at his disposal.

He’s terribly tempted to ask Izzy if he would very much mind sitting on daddy’s cock, as this whole ordeal has been entirely too sexy and wildly gratifying for Stede not to be completely hard in his breeches and positively aching with it. Alas-

Izzy’s kisses get less sloppy.

His body cools, his heart calms, and even his ass stops trying to fuck Stede’s finger deeper. Instead he bites Stede’s lower lip with sharp teeth, a little warning sting. “Ouch,” Stede complains, but obediently leans back, pouting.

“Get your finger out of my fucking ass,” Izzy huffs.

“It really, really doesn’t last long with you, now does it?” Stede huffs back, but goes ahead and withdraws the offending digit.

Izzy hisses, rising up higher onto his knees and knocking his temple into Stede’s. “What the fuck was that,” he asks in that deceptively calm way he has.

“Er- a reward,” Stede stammers out. “No, that is- like I said at the beginning, Izzy! It was a thank you! For your help! I just- I only thought you deserved something nice is all, but considering you’re, well- you, I didn’t know what else to give you except sex!”

“You’re such a fucking moron,” Izzy laughs, grinding his temple in.

Stede winces, but holds firm. “You liked it,” he sulks.

“Fuck you,” Izzy croons out, and then he’s on his feet and tucking himself away, grimacing at a splotch of his own seed where it dripped down Stede’s chin and onto his thigh.

Stede purses his still damp, tingling mouth. He supposes he should feel foolish to be left on his shins on the floor with a raging erection, but for some reason he really doesn’t. “You’re welcome!” he calls out, as loftily as he knows how, and Izzy flips him off very lazily as he walks out the door, which really-

Coming from Izzy, that’s practically thank you, daddy, I really loved being your good little darling boy.



-

Chapter Text

Stede doesn’t think that he’ll breathe a word of his and Izzy’s dalliance to Ed this time around, but he is surprised all over again at how very different this relationship is to the one he’d had with Mary, where opening up was tantamount to emotional suicide. He doesn’t want to keep a secret that feels like a secret, and for whatever reason this one does, so he checks in with Ed, asking, “Hypothetically speaking, my dear, say I were to, er- have a little bit of fun with Izzy just the two of us, would that-”

“Hypothetically?” Ed cuts in, grinning. “You mean like, hypothetically you’re going to ambush him in his cabin tonight and fuck him until he cries and calls you daddy, or as in it’s already happened?”

“Edward,” Stede squeaks out, the suggestion getting him flustered and warm and tingly from his toes all the way to his cheeks.

Ed only gives him a look.

Stede laughs, then, and admits: “Hypothetically as in something has already happened, yes, though not- not that particular morsel. Not yet! He greatly fears such vulnerability, I think.”

Ed hums agreement. “We’ve had good reason.”

“Oh, Ed,” Stede whispers, and the titillating tingle fades but the warmth remains, grows deeper, stronger.

He watches the way Ed’s gaze flickers away, vacant a moment as he visits old memories. But then Ed looks back at Stede and smiles, gentle, gentle, and takes each of Stede’s hands in his, rubbing his thumbs into Stede’s palms and kissing his knuckles, scooching his chair closer so he can murmur out soft as silk: “Don’t fuss, don’t fret, it’s fine. We’re learning there are other ways, aren’t we? Yeah. We are, can’t help it can we, what with you and all your- your lovely letters and your crazy as shit team building exercises and- and the marmalade, the fancy suits and the talking, so much talking! Fucking shit, Stede, you talk so fucking much and I don’t know how you get people to listen to you half the time-”

“They really mostly don’t,” Stede protests, surprised.

“Yeah, no,” Ed grates out, holding Stede’s hands close to his face, his mouth, biting a little too hard at a finger before releasing it. He says, “Do you know how many fucking times I tried to talk to Izzy about- any of it, all of it, and we just- we were so fucking bad at it, Stede.”

“It does seem you both…hit a few rough patches along the way.”

The laugh that squeezes out of Ed is all huffing and humorless. “We drove each other mental by the end. But he- I told you, didn’t I? Like a sickness. Mired in the marrow of my bones, isn’t he.”

“Do you regret it?”

Ed sets his teeth into another knuckle. No pressure, just worrying at Stede’s skin before moving on, tongue pressing against a ring. His voice is muffled when he says, “Regret not being better, maybe. Good enough man would have walked away, left Iz to his peace. Better horizons.”

“But you love him,” Stede says softly.

“Yeah.” Ed’s teeth clink against a gemstone, the metal fitting. “For what it’s worth, yeah. I do. So maybe I regret it in a way but not- not really. I hate him and I love him and I don’t know how to be without him. We’re fucked in the head, probably. Hurting each other over and over again and still-”

Ed’s breath hitches.

He swallows thickly, eyes wide and troubled by his own sins, staring hopefully up at Stede like a man waiting for someone, anyone to convict him.

Stede considers that. Considers, too, the words Izzy told him an eternity ago, all the way at the beginning of Stede’s meddling: cruelty is what lingers. And Stede thinks about sickness as a word for love and how that might translate when what you fear most of all is the hollow impact of kindness, and he has to swallow hard at what he finds all over again- the proof of love in dark and barren places, stubbornly rooted, refusing to come up no matter how harrowing the winds of time, no matter how ruinous the blooms.

With a trembling voice Stede says, “Well, that’s- that’s a complicated knot to untangle, isn’t it. Why! You said it yourself, Ed. You both have reason to fear gentleness, to- to be cruel, rather than kind…”

“At the beginning,” Ed confides. “It wasn’t so bad. We were on top of the world, weren’t we? Blackbeard and his Dread Hands. We owned the seas, but then…”

How strange, the way they both keep fading in and out, as though this conversation is too stark a thing to look at straight on; it must phase out of reality from time to time, a ghost returning to the bed of its grave only to rise once more, determined to finish. Stede clears his throat, flexes his fingers in Ed’s too-tight hold.

Says, because he must: “But then?”

“But then,” Ed heaves out, and Stede gets the feeling that for Ed the telling of this is like carving out pieces of himself, healthy and vital, so that he might reveal to Stede the fetid wound at the core of him, something that still rots within.

Something rancid, yes, but precious nonetheless.

He says with a wondering sort of air, “It wasn’t enough! Fuck, Stede. I didn’t know it wouldn’t be enough. I had all the power, the control, all the fear and prestige I could ever want and it was just- hollow. So fucking hollow, man, I ached with it. I got sick with it. Dull and dead and nearly buried, and Izzy-” again, Ed’s breath hitches, but this time he pushes past, explaining, “-Iz was happy. It was exactly what he wanted, or near enough. So for a while I tried. I kept up the motions. Fucking- corpse man putting on a play, but- I couldn’t even get out of bed sometimes, y’know? Made Izzy sick with it. Spitting mad, confused, afraid- he didn’t like who I was becoming. Didn’t like that I wasn’t- that I wasn’t who I was meant to be on the inside, that-”

“Shhh,” Stede soothes.

“I should have let him leave,” Ed gasps.

“Nonsense,” Stede cracks out, throat a vise and tears building behind his eyes, his heart so big, so full. “Oh, Ed! You forget something, I think! You banished him and still that man came back for you, with the British Navy no less! Oh, Edward, my darling. Don’t you see- don’t you see-“

“What,” Ed whispers.

It’s a strange and painful thing, Stede thinks, to come to the realization that Izzy Hands, for all his errors and anger, has been a better husband to Edward Teach than Stede ever was to his own wife.

He has to breathe through it a moment, then say, gentler and far more raw than he means to: “He loved you enough to fight for you, didn’t he? Maybe he liked the life that you didn’t, and maybe he was afraid of who you were becoming, different than before, weren’t you? Softer, hm? More vulnerable? But still Izzy chose you. He never willingly let you go. He certainly wasn’t ever going to leave, not even if you tried to push him away and, and I dare say I know you well enough by now to assume you did just that, didn’t you, Ed?”

Ed lowers his head, presses their hands in against his face, over his brow and his haunted expression.

In his chest, Stede’s heart feels as if it is weeping. “Ed, Ed! Don’t you see? The two of you have always loved each other as well as you knew how. For good and for ill, through sickness and health and against all better judgement, I might add. You kept trying too.”

“Yeah…I. I guess.”

“Well I’m not guessing,” Stede says fiercely. “I see it plain, Ed! And I ask you this- what matters in the end, my dear? That it’s a perfect showing, or that you keep on trying to get it correct, hm? Because I know my pick and I’ll tell you a secret, it is not the former!”

Ed nods his head a few times, knocks Stede’s knuckles against his temples, and then jerks his head back up to stare at Stede, too intense by half. “That’s what I’m talking about, see- what we were missing, maybe. Stede, all your fucking kindness. It gives you a unique perspective out here.”

“Really, Ed! I’m not- not some saint!” Stede gets out.

Ed agrees, “Oh, yeah, no, you can be a right bastard, love, but that’s half the charm, isn’t it? You’re sort of unpredictable like that. It’s fun.”

“Hm,” is all Stede manages as Ed nudges aside the cuff of Stede’s coat, kisses the inside of Stede’s wrist. Then he says, “Darling, should we- should we maybe say more? You seemed quite cut up, after all, we can keep talking it out-”

Ed’s smile is pressed against Stede’s pulse point. “Hm. Thank you, love.”

“I…you’re welcome?” Stede manages, flustered and flushed as Ed kisses his palm, the join of each finger. Slides off his rings one by one. “You’re really certain you wouldn’t rather-”

“Mate, I’m about to crawl outside my skin with all this talking,” Ed answers, low and rough and growling a bit. His teeth scrape skin; soothed immediately with a wet, clever tongue. “You’re not wrong, Stede. And between the three of us we’re fucking making it better and that- that’s what counts, like you said, so instead of going in circles and circles and fucking endless circles chasing grief can’t I just- I dunno, make love to you instead? I’m good at that, aren’t I?”

“O-oh! You are, you are!”

“You’re a great teacher,” Ed murmurs, eyes so warm and dark and terribly kind, and Stede laughs in a way that comes out almost a sob, leaning down to touch his forehead to Ed’s, their fingers tangled together at their mouths, held fast and stubborn, stubborn, constantly finding new ways to reach out.

“Ah, Ed,” Stede sighs. “You’re a marvel, my love.”

“Gotta keep up with you, don’t I,” is Ed’s sweet tease.

Stede shivers, chest all tight and belly gone hot and liquid with just this, just this- Ed and his words and his mouth brushing against Stede’s skin, too close to be perceived clearly, yet not nearly close enough. Stede wants to learn him down to his bones, harbor him like his own most precious of sicknesses, a loving rot in the hollow of his heart, filling him up, inescapable.

Ed makes a hungry little noise. Bites again at Stede’s knuckle before pulling back, lifting their tangled hands to press his mouth again at Stede’s pulse.

“So hey, hey,” Ed asks, a breathy murmur in between mapping Stede’s veins with the point of his tongue. “What you were asking about, with Iz and you- that something that happened today? Saw you two sneak in here.”

“Y-yes.”

“Mmm. That mean you’re all spent? Not up for…”

Another shiver moves through him, and Stede gives in, gives over to love in all its bounteous forms, says with bright cheer, “Oh, no, actually! Izzy left me in quite the state because he’s a cruel little mean man, so- so really- mm, Ed…” only to quickly fall to incoherence when teeth scrape gently across his skin, tingling and wonderful and not anything near enough to satisfy.

Only when the two of them are half undressed and tangled together on the bed, the sunset a melting cacophony of color through the window as they move tenderly together, that Stede remembers to gasp out:

“Oh! So! You’re fine with it then!”

“The fuck are you on about Stede?” Ed whines, on his hands and knees over him, trousers off only one leg and knee brace on the other digging into the outside of Stede’s thigh. His hips buck suddenly, making Stede nearly lose the bounty in his slick grip- both his and Ed’s cocks trapped beneath his fingers, pressed against his belly and rubbing deliciously against each other. “Of course I’m fucking fine with this, fuck fuck, tighter, Stede, c’mon!”

“Oh, yes, yes of course,” Stede agrees, and then has to tip his head back with a moan when he does, wonderfully overcome. He almost forgets what he was asking, but after a moment Stede remembers. Manages in a thick voice, “I mean- I mean about me and Izzy, dearest, is that- is that okay? That we-”

“Fuck yeah, so fucking all right, it’s hot, it’s hot,” Ed groans out, rolling his hips a little faster now, a low and dirty grind that makes Stede gasp, both because of how damned good it feels, and also because of the way Ed’s beautiful body looks, all sinuous grace with his hips flexing and thighs tensing, and oh, ohhh!

“Gorgeous,” Stede gasps. “Ed, Ed! Oh! You’re stunning, you’re mesmerising!”

Ed’s chin tucks down shyly. “Stede,” he says, all soft and sweet and hungry for tenderness, this marvelous man with his dread dark past, so eager for kindness, for gentleness. Stede reaches up, sweeps his hair back behind his ear.

“I love you,” he whispers.

Ed leans down, down, bracketing his arms on either side of Stede’s shoulders. Keens out, “Stede,” and kisses him, kisses him hungry and sharp and trembling, mumbling out, “I love you, I love you, I do, fuck, fuck-” into the space between their bruised mouths.

Under such an onslaught as that, it’s really no time at all before Stede is hissing and throwing back his head again, drowning in pleasure. His heels dig into the bed cushions as he comes in hot spurts on his own bared chest, hearing Ed groan deep and guttural, whining, “Fuck fuck fuck come all over me,” which isn’t at all a thing Stede can do in this position, sadly.

So instead, when he can almost see and hear and feel his face again, Stede lets go of his own softening cock and Ed’s still hard and pulsing one, gives one final lush kiss to Ed’s sweet mouth before encouraging him to lean back, to shuffle his knees further up until they’re pressed in tight against Stede’s rib cage.

Ed reaches down. Presses his cockhead into a smear of spend, rubbing against the soft curve of Stede’s pectoral with a needy whimper.

“Mmn,” Stede manages, still with stars shooting inside his head. “Titty fuck, my dear?”

“Yeah, yeah,” is Ed’s choked up reply.

Stede flails about for a pillow to prop himself up a bit higher with, then hooks his hands around the backs of Ed’s thighs, shoulders curling and arms tucked in, and honestly, Stede is impressed himself at how bountiful his chest appears like this: all ample curve and deep cleavage, made filthy by Ed’s cock sliding between, the flushed head peeking out again and again and-

The door opens abruptly.

“Captain,” comes Izzy’s irate voice, backed up by Lucius and Black Pete bickering just behind, “your fucking adoring public are- shit. Fucking- out,” Izzy snarls next.

From the bed, Stede and Ed watch wide-eyed and compromised as their first mate turns on his heel, quivering with intensity as he pushes Black Pete and Lucius back, as if they can’t easily see over Izzy’s shoulders at what their captains are up to at this exact, very horny moment.

With a silent shake of laughter Ed rests his hands atop Stede’s chest, palms covering his pink nipples. “Well shit,” he mumbles. “Guess that finally happened.”

“Indeed! It was bound to eventually,” Stede agrees, mostly managing not to blush. “At least our Mr Hands is here to make certain Lucius doesn’t draw us mid-coitus-”

“Speak for yourself,” Ed mutters, wryly amused.

“-so it will be a matter of moments only before we may re-engage, as it were, and-”

And Izzy’s shoulders hunch up at the threshold.

Stede’s voice falters.

Over him, Ed’s knees suddenly squeeze in against his ribs too tight, because there is- is quite suddenly something wrong, something about the way Izzy carries himself, the way he seems to draw himself inward and tension gathers along his spine, the way it pulls his arrogant head down. Stede realizes all at once that for Ed’s sake, Izzy is giving up ground to Stede. That he is going to follow their crew right back out that door, going to walk away as if he doesn’t belong here, with them, with Ed.

“Iz, wait, hey,” Ed mumbles, but too soft, too aching.

So Stede cries out, “Israel Hands! Just where do you think you are going, hm?!”

There is a muffled guffaw beyond the door frame.

But what matters most is that Izzy stops dead in his tracks, hand tight on the door- neither in nor out, not yet. “You’re clearly fucking busy,” he drawls.

“Hands, Hands, Hands,” Ed says next, cock still nestled amidst Stede’s cleavage. “I think you could stand to keep your own busier, hm. C’mon, get in here, shut the door. You know where the oil is?”

“No I don’t fucking-” Izzy drags in a breath and steps backward. Slams the door. Turns and makes a show of pinching the bridge of his nose as he collapses back against the wood. “Tell me. Are there any other ways you’d like to well and truly fuck over the respect and reverent fucking distance a crew is meant to have for their captain and first mate, you absolute twats, or have you managed to check fucking well everything off the fucking list already?”

“Oh! Oh, there’s a list?! Well, in that case I really would have to cross-reference it wouldn’t I,” Stede muses, idly stroking the soft curl of Ed’s leg hair.

“There is no fucking list!” Izzy shouts.

Stede pouts. “Well, maybe there ought to be. I should sit you down with Lucius and-”

“You’ve lost the plot entirely,” is Izzy’s tired interruption. “Fuck it,” he adds. “Where’s the oil and what am I doing with it?”

The oil is not in its usual place, of course, as it’s been used liberally in their current pursuits, and has wound up buried beneath the cushions. Ed and Stede both assure Izzy as he fetches it out that soon enough they’ll show him where all their secret, fun things are hidden away, to which Izzy mutters annoyances. For all that muttering, however, his expression is sharp and hungry as he strips off and tucks away his glove, slicking his fingers and reaching between Ed’s cheeks to rub against his rim.

“Your orders, Captain,” he murmurs, so careful and calm.

“Stede, tell him!” Ed gasps, lovely eyes wide and whole body given over to a shiver. Nestled between Stede’s pecs, Ed’s cock, which softened some during their interlude, twitches eagerly.

Adjusting his grip on Ed’s thighs, Stede takes his cue. “Oh, only play with his rim, Izzy dear. At least while he gets back into the mood. Tiny little taste, hm?”

“Fucking tease,” Ed laughs, shivering and warm.

“I only aim to please,” Stede says back, smiling brightly up at Edward’s dear, darling face, the straggle of his hair and the flushed brightness of his cheeks, the dreamy darkness of his eyes. Lovely, so lovely. Stede reaches up and cups his cheek, smile softening but no less incandescent with love for the small curve of it, marveling as Ed nuzzles into Stede’s palm, gives himself over to their hands.

“Captain,” Izzy says, soft, soft, barely even there.

Stede glances at him; is surprised to find that Izzy is looking at Stede now, mouth parted, sharp and hungry still but- more than that, Stede thinks, though he can’t guess at why, the change, only sees the trembling hurt and need that leak from him.

Izzy says, “One finger or two?”

“Two,” Stede answers warmly, and oh! his smile hasn’t changed at all, has it?

Still incandescent with love even face to face with Izzy Hands.

With a slow, stunned blink, Izzy bites at his lip and turns back to his task, does as Stede directs: touches Ed with curious fingertips, prodding at his rim, slipping in first one, then another, forcing a stretch and rubbing and rubbing against the tight muscle until Ed groans out, spine arching, and Stede whispers, “Yes, darling, that’s it. Look how good you’re making him feel, hm? Well done, well done, a little more-”

Izzy’s breath hitches. His eyes shut. He sways in closer to Ed, closer to Stede, a knee bending and setting itself against the edge of the bed, bumping up against Stede’s leg. His free hand settles onto Ed’s hip, skids helplessly down the warm, bare skin to the top curve of his thigh.

“Yeah,” Ed breathes, lashes fluttering and his hands flexing against Stede’s chest. “Iz, yeah.”

Together Izzy and Stede get Ed all the way hard again, so turned on he’s making sweet little murmurs in the back of his throat, shivering at the soft touches, the teasing pleasure of a cock not fully encased, of fingers not fully sheathed.

“C’mon,” he rasps out. “You bastards, c’mon.”

Izzy looks to Stede.

“Not yet,” Stede tells him, even though his back is aching and his shoulders are straining and the skin of his chest is wet and a little chilly and overly sensitive, a raw drag of feeling. Izzy takes a deep breath. Doesn’t let Ed chase himself to fullness, so that their darling Blackbeard gets noisy, gets desperate, hips jerking fitfully back and forth. “Fuck,” he heaves out. “I can’t- you gotta give me more than this, Stede, please.”

“This all you can take, Edward?” Izzy dares to ask, and in his voice there is a wonderfully ravenous, reckless quality, something surprisingly bright and light.

It makes Stede laugh even as Ed curses Izzy out, threatens him a little. Izzy’s expression is quietly smug, loudly rapturous. He looks again to Stede. Blinks in startlement when he finds Stede already watching him with tender eyes, a contented smile.

“Bonnet,” he says, uneven and strange. His hand curls restless around Ed’s thigh, slips down another inch or three.

“What do you think, dear boy?”

A flicker of tongue. Izzy presses it against the corner of his mouth, openly affected as his gaze drops, back down to where he’s playing with Ed’s rim.

Stede waits, and so does Ed- as best he can, at least, gasping for breath, shuddering hard at how close he is, how long he’s been denied the pleasure of orgasm. Stede’s back is going to be a beast to unkink after this, but he can’t look away from the flicker of emotion across Izzy’s face, the shadow-cast severity and the frightened, vicious tightening of his eyes, the way his cheek bunches beneath the little x.

Stede doesn’t have far to reach. Izzy’s hand has been drifting down, closer and closer to where Stede’s hand rests. He whispers, “Darling.”

A shiver wracks Izzy’s frame. He closes his eyes, breathes in harsh. Opens them again and glares down at Stede. “I don’t know,” he says, hoarse. “Do I? I don’t- tell me. Bonnet, fucking tell me how to be good. I want. I want to make it good for him, for-” and then he grits his teeth, expression twisting, bowing down until his forehead is pressed against Ed’s shoulder.

Ed whines. “Iz,” he says, slapping a hand clumsily down his own thigh, to where Izzy and Stede are thumb to pinky, barely touching.

Beneath the cover of that palm, Stede dares to tuck in closer. To interlock fingers, to grip on tight. Perhaps unsurprisingly, there are tears prickling at his eyes, hot and sweet. He beams up at Izzy, who isn’t looking, and Ed, who’s squirming.

“It would be my honor,” he says.

Izzy barks a laugh, rubs his face against Ed’s skin. “Sure. C’mon, then. What do I do?”

It seems a miracle that Stede would murmur instruction about how to take care of Edward Teach and actually have Izzy listen, but he does, he does- all the while worrying at his bottom lip with sharp teeth and focusing on Ed with pinched, strained eyes, dark and loving. “You’re good at this,” Stede tells him quietly, and Iz flinches and hisses and Ed sucks in a harsh breath, pressing fitfully back onto Izzy’s fingers, forward into Stede’s cleavage. On his thigh, Izzy and Stede’s fingers remain interlocked, though Ed’s hand slips, fumbles at Stede’s forearm, gripping tight.

Izzy moans as Ed’s pace gets more frantic, more artless.

“Tell him he’s beautiful,” Stede whispers.

“Fuck,” Izzy grits out.

Ed’s voice is a soft, wanting whine: “Iz, Iz, please-”

He’s cut off by a shout as Izzy’s expression twists, love so intense it’s pained, full of a wretched kind of longing. “There’s the spot,” he says, creaky and hoarse, and then he gulps down a breath and sets his jaw, says, “Edward, you’re- fuck, you have to know, you have to know-”

“Izzy,” Ed gasps, and then cries out again, fingers so tight around Stede’s forearm he fears there may be bruises leftover.

Stede says, “Darling!” and “Izzy, control yourself!” as he winces, as Ed shudders hard and shakes fit to fall apart and lifts up high on his knees, cock rising to the air, throbbing and slick and so hard it looks painful. The hand that had been resting against Stede’s chest reaches back, grabs blindly at Izzy. But he can’t reach from that side, and Izzy bares his teeth at the gesture, presses that spot again that makes Ed shout.

It’s too much, Stede thinks, despairing.

It’s Izzy Hands drowning in love and fear, and it’s Ed letting him, letting him drag them both under.

And Stede thinks of Ed’s tumbling, wounded words, his insistence that Stede can help, and Stede isn’t some saint, he doesn’t know what he’s even doing half the time, and it was his own suggestion that set Izzy off in the first place, but- Stede is full of love and outrage and tenderness, at the very least, and so he won’t sit idly by and let them do this again.

He untangles his hand from Izzy’s. Forces Ed to release his arm.

Curls forward in a way that burns his stomach fiercely, that allows him to cock his fist and draw back, so that he can send a wallop knuckle-first right into Izzy’s side.

“Fuck!” Izzy hisses, dancing back half a step.

Stede glares at him, sweaty and mused and aching and sad. “Control yourself,” he says again, voice a little thin and shrill. “Right now, Israel. I mean it!”

Izzy stares down at him, wild and unmoored.

“You will touch your captain gently, with reverence, or not at all, Israel!” Stede hisses, still glaring, and then he flops back onto the cushions because his core can really only handle so much strain. Izzy blinks down at him, mouth slack. Ed holds still over Stede, body a strained arch and prick still hard, still dripping.

Slowly, Stede reaches out and wraps his fingers around Ed, squeezing sweet and slow, a tender little apology.

Ed shivers, breathes out a sigh.

“Fuck,” Izzy says, and Stede bites down hard on the urge to belittle him for how his range of vocabulary is as extensive and useless as his ability to fuck, but- “Sorry. I- Sorry, Ed,” Izzy croons, and he tips his head in again, forehead to Ed’s shoulder. He must move his hand, his fingers, because Ed’s breath hitches and then trembles out another sigh, tension relaxing.

“Iz,” he croaks out, half a laugh. “You fucking shit.”

“I know,” Izzy mutters. He laughs a little too. “You fucking beautiful bastard.”

That makes Ed shiver happily. He starts moving again, gentle little undulations of his hips, riding Izzy’s fingers. Izzy lets him, barely moving at all, and Stede’s hand is a loose fist for Ed to push into, gentle touches, barely there pleasure that builds and builds once more.

“Aw fuck,” Ed gasps.

Stede quickly shuts his eyes and tips his head back, letting Ed spill hotly across him, hitting his shoulder, his throat, his chest.

Somehow, Ed is laughing bright and happy as Stede and Izzy withdraw their hands, help him onto his side. It’s awkward, Ed holding his knee carefully and wincing as he straightens it, as Izzy lays a careful hand atop the brace’s strap, asking, “Bad?”

“Not too bad,” Ed says, smile lazy and loose.

“You were brilliant, dear,” Stede tells him, tight and furious.

Ed looks at him, all over surprised. “Hey, hey,” he says, “you okay, mate?” and thankfully Ed seems okay, for all that Stede and Izzy turned what should have been a lovely, sweet little orgasm into a veritable battleground. Stede forces out a breath, tries to say Yes, but winds up wailing,

“No, not in the slightest!”

Izzy makes a little murmur of annoyance. “His Lordship is pissed I didn’t obey,” he tells Ed, all mocking drawl.

It only makes Stede angrier. He snaps at Izzy, “Yes, yes I am,” and then gets out of the bed, all tense and stiff with a wrath inside him that is familiar, hateful and sticky. He says, “On your feet, Hands,” as he does up his breeches, paces across the room to stand with heels together and hands folded behind his aching back by the desk. He doesn’t try and hide his glare, the way his teeth grind together.

“Stede, mate,” Ed tries. “It’s really-”

“No,” is Izzy’s interruption, thoughtful. “Let him have it, Edward.”

“Iz. C’mon.”

Stede interrupts this time: “He wants it, too.” The words sound distant, echoing. Stede’s ears are full of a warm rush, his blood pounding through him. “Don’t you, Hands? The chance to be absolved of your crimes, hm? To let the hurt wash away your sins?”

Izzy’s jaw clenches. His little mark jumps as his mouth twists. He gets to his feet.

“Yeah,” he agrees. “Close enough, Bonnet. Aren’t you fucking clever.”

Still on the bed, Ed scratches at his belly and gives Stede a steady look, which Stede does his best to hold- not easy, when he knows he's too angry for the crime, that Izzy did, at least, correct himself once Stede intervened, and most of all it isn't easy when half the anger is directed at himself, too. But Ed only says, “All right, then.” as Izzy makes his way to Stede, and Stede breathes out sharp and snaps his gaze now to Izzy, who has a wry smile quirking his mouth.

“I am pissed at you,” Stede tells him, low and hissing.

Izzy’s brow rises.

“Put your hands on the desk. Now. You’ll be punished, of course. Tell me, how many swats do you think you deserve for being a coward, hm?”

Izzy’s brows furrow. “Fuck you,” he grates out, but he also reaches down and undoes his belt, tugging leather down his thighs- a thing Stede forgot to tell him to do, and he’s outraged all over again that he’s somehow grateful that Izzy went ahead and did it, because leaning in over his back in order to undress Izzy seems suddenly too intimate, too soft for what Stede still wants.

So Stede pushes: “How many, Hands.”

Jaw working, penis flaccid and thighs very pale beneath the bristle of his dark leg hair, Izzy turns and sets his hands on the desk’s edge, bending slightly at the waist. “As many as you need,” he grates out, low enough that Stede almost doesn’t hear him. “Until you’re satisfied. That’s how many I fucking deserve, Bonnet.”

“Too right,” Stede says, and gives him the first.

He is not kind and he is not gentle. Stede strikes Izzy’s rear as hard as his tired arm can stand, palm stinging at the impact. The sound of it is loud, the only sound in the room. Izzy’s fingers dig into the wood, nudging aside an unrolled map. But he doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t cry out, or gasp, or even grunt.

Stede purses his mouth. Gives Izzy another.

Again, no sound other than the crack of flesh on flesh. Izzy’s bottom blooms beautifully red, Stede’s mark left on him clear as anything.

He chokes out, “Apologize.”

“Make me,” Izzy growls back, shoulders hunching up, and-

And there is, Stede thinks, a stunning little thread woven into that defiant snarl. A sweet little entreaty; a man begging to be given the space to admit his pain, his weakness, his desires.

Like Ed, Izzy wants better for them.

Stede shakes out his arm, takes in a deep breath. Says, “I trusted you,” as he lands another punishing blow, enough force to rock Izzy up onto the toes of his boots.

Izzy doesn’t respond.

Both cheeks are red now and Stede’s sore arm aches. “Israel,” he says. “Izzy.”

Izzy bows his head, waiting for the next strike.

Stede obliges, then stares at him, finds he dislikes the way the color begins to fade. Focuses his strikes on one spot only and says in between the next three spanks: “You let me down tonight, Mr Hands. I thought- I thought you wanted to be good! I thought-”

A low noise. Izzy grates out, “It’s not that- fucking easy, Bonnet!”

“Then try harder,” Stede orders, in time with the next crack of his palm. His free hand comes down heavy on Izzy’s back, grabbing a fistful of vest, of shirt. He spanks him again, gratified when a thin cry forces its way past Izzy’s defenses. It moves Stede’s arm again, another handprint layered, another, another.

“Bonnet,” comes Izzy’s gasp.

“You are a capable man, are you not?”

“I- yes!”

“You are,” Stede agrees, and finally lets his hand fall to the other cheek. “About most things, but not, it seems, the most important. Do you understand, Mr Hands, why I’m so disappointed in you?”

Izzy rocks onto his toes again, groaning.

Another crack of flesh on flesh, and at this point Stede will be suffering bruising of his own across palm and fingers. Good, he thinks fiercely, and lands yet another blow.

“I asked you a question, Mr Hands!”

“Yes,” Izzy admits raggedly, lifting his ass up, pressing into the abuse. “Please, fucking- stop calling me that!”

Stede hits him harder than any of the others, breathing strained, shoulder aching and back all knotted up, soles of his shoes squeaking against the floor.

Izzy grunts, hisses. Shakes beneath the hand Stede has fisted in his clothing. Whispers, “Stede,” and then gasps out a litany of curses when Stede sets his nails into the spot on his rear that Stede has so carefully turned livid, the red so deep that Stede feels sick at the sight of it. Stede drags his nails inward from the edges, pinching lightly at the center.

“Here again, Mr Hands?”

“Fuck, no-”

Stede grimly spanks him right where the pain has gathered, right in that pulsing heart of red. The howl out of Izzy isn’t as bad as it could have been; none of the crew likely heard out on deck, not unless Black Pete and Lucius are eavesdropping, which they may well be. Izzy’s voice is meant for secrets, though. Meant for low murmurs and sickle-moon threats, for the quiet dark.

So Izzy’s howl isn’t very loud, but it is genuine, shocked out of him.

For a moment, Stede can only stand there and breathe. The sound of that raw cry echoes in his head, his chest. His lungs expand for what feels like the first time since Stede realized his error. He loosens his hold on Izzy’s clothing. Smooths them out fastidiously. Then he says, as gently as he can stand, “Mr Hands,” and lays his own hot, swelling palm against Izzy’s flank, right over the inky curve of a kraken’s tentacle.

Izzy shivers. “What do you want from me, Bonnet,” he rasps.

“You were scared,” Stede tells him.

“...Yes.”

“And you let it control you.”

“Yes.”

“Apologize, Mr Hands.”

“I’m-” Stede watches Izzy’s whole frame swell up, furious and indignant. “-sorry,” he chokes out, mangled and thin, like there’s only the barest crack available for him to escape through. “For the- for letting you d-down. I- I-”

“You will do better,” Stede tells him.

This time, Izzy’s voice is even quieter, hushed as if afraid to let Ed hear: “I want to. Fuck, Bonnet, I do, I do, I fucking-” His body is still a tight mound, shaking and shaking, his clothing rustling and his shining red ass tensing and relaxing. Stede’s fingers trail up his hip, along the edge of his shirt, ghosting over flesh. “Stede,” Izzy creaks out. “Stede, please. Fucking- you know he’s everything. You know he is, you know- but it isn’t easy, I’m not meant- I’m not-”

“There. That’s all right then,” Stede murmurs, and now his voice is thick, hushed, the careful restriction of rage collapsing in on itself, leaving behind something that aches like tenderness, like regret, like hope. He strokes his hand down over the curve of Izzy’s ass, laying his hand across the marks he’s made, owning them.

“How,” Izzy snarls.

Stede presses in, gently gently. Another wretched noise drags its way out of Izzy’s throat as Stede tells him, “You’ll learn by doing. And when you make a misstep like tonight, I will set you straight, hm?”

A scoff. “Just like…that?”

“Yes,” Stede answers. Finally, he lifts his head and seeks out Ed, watching from the bed with a carefully neutral face, eyes soft and half-lidded, worried but willing to let them work it out, to trust Stede, to trust Izzy. Willing to let them try.

Stede says, “I know it isn’t easy. But that’s never stopped you from loving Edward before, has it? From trying again and again. You’ll be fine, dear boy. I have complete faith in you!”

Then, he gives Izzy a jaunty little pat on the rump.

“Oh, fuck you, Bonnet!”

Stede smiles, a little less grimly, a little more satisfied. “Just a few more spanks should do it,” Stede declares, only Izzy replies back with, “Fuck you no-” and Stede feels a sudden guilty swoop in his belly when he remembers that Izzy had told him no before, in the midst of his anger, and Stede had willfully ignored him. Not this time, he thinks. This time he will be better than that and let Izzy go.

But then…

Izzy doesn’t move at all.

Stede frowns down at his trembling, waiting body, still yielding to Stede’s punishment. “Er.”

Ed laughs from the bed, the first noise he’s made since Stede and Izzy began. “He likes to say no, sometimes,” is the explanation. “But that doesn’t mean he means it, right, Iz?”

“Fuck you, Edward,” comes Izzy’s tired reply.

His head is still bowed down. His spine is still uncomfortably arched. Stede reaches out and presses his finger into the cheek that looks less angry, making Izzy jolt. He says, “Well, now! That is certainly confusing, my dear! How am I meant to know when the no is playful and when the no is genuine, I ask! That won’t do.”

“Don’t be a fucking idiot about this, Bonnet, for fuck’s sake!” Izzy points out, now sounding irritated as well as tired: “You did it earlier.”

“Yes, sorry about that,” Stede says, somewhat more breezily than he probably should. That little twist in his gut gets twistier. He breathes out a hard breath and forces himself to admit, “And I… I apologize for pushing you too far earlier, Izzy. Now that I know you struggle in that particular area, I shall refrain from leading you there!”

“You twat. Don’t fucking go soft on me. How else can I…”

Stede thinks the unfinished end of that statement is likely get better, but despite Izzy’s protest he can’t quite bring himself to push harder at the moment.

Without the anger and worry holding him so tightly, Stede is feeling all of his aches and sore points. His hand really is stinging fiercely. But now that he’s threatened more spanks and Izzy seems to want them, Stede can’t very well fail to deliver. Izzy will never let him live it down if he does, so Stede huffs a breath and fusses, “We must find a way for me to differentiate, I think, if you at all want that kind of play with me, dear boy,” while giving Izzy the promised spankings. “Perhaps a word? Something unique, out of the ordinary for what you might say, so-”

“Oh, fuck,” Izzy wheezes, once more rocking onto his toes.

“-nothing with those vowels,” Stede agrees, giving him another. “Can’t at all sound like daddy, either, hm, darling?”

“Fuck me fuck me fuck-”

Smugly, Stede gives him the last, a strident clap of skin on skin right on that brutal spot Stede so lovingly, painstakingly worked into him, deeply bruised and aching already. Izzy screams, muffling it with clenched teeth as he goes up onto his toes once more and stays there, trembling something awful.

“I’m afraid I can’t fuck you, my dear,” Stede tells him, resting his hot hand on Izzy’s hotter cheek.

“Why not,” is the surprisingly petulant answer.

Stede laughs, glances over to Ed with raised brows, all surprised. Ed winks sleepily at him, “Not everyone can get it up again fast as you, you slut. C’mere, Iz. Your daddy is otherwise occupied for a bit, but you’ve been a good boy, yeah? I’ll be nice to you.”

“Drat, I’m late for story time,” Stede realizes.

“You don’t do nice, Edward. Not to me, at least,” Izzy protests, tongue a little clumsier than it was before the finale. But he pushes himself up to standing, turning around and blinking at Stede with a flushed face and sweaty forehead, hair all mused and eyes hazy. Stede can’t resist reaching out, cupping his cheek-

“Agh,” says Izzy.

-and leaning in to kiss him, just the once, very softly. “Apologies, Izzy dear,” Stede murmurs, stroking the line of Izzy’s goatee with his thumb. “But your Edward will take very good care of you in my stead, hm? He’s learning too, after all. Use the cream, Ed!”

Ed waves him off. Tells Izzy, “Get the cream, yeah? Knee’s still screaming at me,” and Stede wishes very terribly that he could linger, at least watch Ed start slathering Izzy’s raw bottom with soothing coolness - and perhaps steal a bit for his own throbbing hand - but needs must, and the crew is waiting and the night is not, so Stede hurries to get dressed. When he’s finally respectable and presentable and armed with a book, he finds Ed stretched out on the bed, fully naked.

Izzy is equally naked and sprawled across him, but facing the opposite direction. “This is fucking stupid,” Izzy snarls, hands tight around Ed’s ankles.

“What this is fucking genius, mate,” Ed denies, slathering his fingers with cream and merrily smooshing it around on Izzy’s reddened skin. “Like, aside from how your slutty fucking prick is drooling all over, making a fucking sea out of my belly button. Fuck, Iz. You want your daddy’s cock that bad, huh?” Ed jiggles Izzy’s abused cheeks, smiling wide and pleased when Izzy groans, burying his face in Ed’s shins.

Stede makes it out of that cabin somehow, but it isn’t easy.

-

Despite the chorus of catcalls and ribald commentary from the crew, Black Pete and Lucius smug in the background having orchestrated it all, they settle easily enough. Stede does his best to lose himself to the story, the characters, the voices he is known for- he has to, because no matter how choppy the waves or stormy the horizon, this one thing is something Stede is very good at, something everyone depends on him for, which is always a bit of a relief.

But no matter how hard he tries, his heart isn’t quite in the performance tonight.

He gets only three pages in when Jim says, “Fuuuck. Didn’t you just get laid? Why are you so stiff right now,” which has half the rest of the gathered crew hissing at them to shut the fuck up, and the other half piping up in grim agreement while Jim doubles down: “The voices are shit, stop babying him!”

“Like you could do better,” Stede sulks.

Jim raises their eyebrow, the lantern light outlining their nonplussed expression in stark relief. “Yeah, ‘cause I’ve never given a fucking performance before,” is their mocking reply. “Never fooled every last one of you. Oh wait.”

Normally Stede is more full of admiration than jealousy by this aspect of Jim’s acting prowess and backstory, the long con and the excellent fuckery, the murder and the tragedy, but tonight his mouth puckers right up at the reminder and his heart feels like it follows.

At his scowl, Jim huffs a litany of exasperated curses. “Captain, c’mon.”

The crew is all in outrage now debating, and he should really set aside his mood and pettiness and attempt to soothe them all, but his hand hurts with every turn of the page and he finds that he’s jangling inside his skin, sick and suddenly sour and a little shaky, once more wondering have I fucked it? and just, really-

Is it so impossible to not constantly wonder at how he’s ruined a thing, why, what to do next to fix it?

Stede claps the book shut. “Actually. Can someone else tell a story tonight?” he asks, voice a little thin and trembling. There’s a brief, mad scramble to pick who is going to take the deck in his stead, and Stede burns hot and cold with shame and love, closing his eyes and holding tight to his story book and listening as Jim says, “Oh, fuck no, not me. There was a reason I played mute, remember?” and so Frenchie starts off, Black Pete interrupts, and Lucius weaves in dry commentary.

It’s a stuttering thing, the lot of them trying to fill in the gaps. Stede lets it wash over him like the warm waves of the sea, listening to their mistakes, their second attempts, their thirds- how the story that unfolds is terrible but spirited, how they laugh and relax.

Eventually, when they’ve all talked themselves out, he murmurs, “Good night all,” in a voice a little more tender, a little more natural.

“Night, Captain,” sighs Fang.

Wee John mumbles out, “Feel better, yeah?”

Stede stands there and smiles and aches at the sight of them all sprawled out and peaceful, snoring like a lullaby, until Buttons appears like a ghost at his side, drawing him away, so he can say, “Trouble brewing, Cap’n?”

“No, no,” Stede assures him. “Nothing like that, Buttons, never you fear!”

Buttons gives the sky a steady look, hands clasped behind him. “Truth be, trouble comes in many forms, cap’n. Why, Karl and Olivia had their fair share of trouble, I can assure ye of that. I can perform a cleansing ritual, if you want. Fancy joining me for a bout of moon bathing? Or perhaps ye would rather some ginger up your bum? Does wonders for bad build up.”

“What! Is that a thing! Wait- did you put ginger up- up Karl’s-”

“I did not,” trumpets Buttons, still gazing at the stars. “He was a wee one, rest his soul.”

“Yes. Indeed.”

“But for you, cap’n, a bit of ginger might do. I could-”

“Oh, that- that’s really not necessary!” Stede assures him, appreciative and a little appalled at the prospect. “But thank you for- for the thought, as it were.”

“If you change your mind, cap’n.”

“I know where to find you,” Stede agrees, clapping Buttons on the shoulder.

And then- there’s nothing for it but to take the next step, to go back to his cabin where Ed and Izzy and Stede’s own choices await. He opens the door quietly, in case they’re asleep. Ed is, he hears quickly enough, those soft, familiar snores filling the warm room, lowly lit but brighter than the deck was, at least. Stede sees Ed sprawled in bed beneath the covers, Izzy atop them and stretched out by his side, a rigid pale line along the edge of the space.

“Well now,” Stede whispers, for lack of anything else.

Izzy’s back moves in a heavy sigh.

He’s naked, still. Stede can’t help but stare at the state of his ass, hanging off the bed as it is. Stede has left his mark. His heart thumps at the sight, throat tight and stomach swooping, and-

His dick gives a traitorous little twitch.

“Izzy,” he says, and then goes to sit on the couch and put his face in his hands, breathing deep. The sounds of Izzy rolling off the bed aren’t loud at all but still make Stede flinch. He wants to stay miserably hunched and dramatic about it, but he suddenly can’t stand to have Izzy Hands sneer at him like this, so Stede drops his hands onto his knees and straightens up, lifts his head.

Izzy comes over, horribly naked and sneer absolutely in place. “Where’d that jaunty fucking attitude go, Captain.”

Stede’s stomach drops. He scowls up at Izzy, stiff and tense and unhappy.

An eyebrow lifts, waiting for Stede’s rejoinder.

He can’t find one.

“Don’t be a wet sack of shit about this, Bonnet,” Izzy says, low and throaty and slowly precise.

Stede tenses further. “Don’t you tell me how to feel,” he hisses back.

Izzy rolls his eyes and utters a single, scathing “Imbecile.” before he stomps forward, shoving Stede back with a hand on his shoulder, pinning him against the couch. Between one affronted breath and the next, Stede has a lap full of Izzy, who’s hair is all mused and whose mouth is bitten red, eyes so bright.

From far too close Izzy murmurs, “I’m telling you not to turn this into a thing, you useless twat. I already know you’re an incompetent buffoon. Practically worthless. Pathetic. No need to make a big dramatic show about it, fuck’s sake.”

“Says the man crawling naked into my lap,” Stede bites out, tart and bitter. “Says the stupid little fool who begged me to help him, earlier!”

Izzy’s fingers dig in, fisting into fabric. Amazingly, he doesn’t seem angry. Stede’s chest tightens up and his heart and lungs squeeze fit to turn to dust when he sees Izzy laughing softly, mouth stretching into a cruel, pleased shape that shows off teeth. “There you are,” he says.

“What…”

“You think I’m not good at my job, Bonnet? Fuck off, as if Edward wasn’t enough. Now I’ve two of you to manage. At least you’re embarrassingly easy to read. Been playing you like a cheap fiddle for ages, now, haven’t I?”

A barb rests on the tip of Stede’s tongue: Certainly, you seemed to be doing a smashing job of it when I first met you all, must be why Ed cast you off, why you lost control, why he turned away from you in the first place. But it’s held in place by Now I’ve got two of you long enough for the cruel impulse to become softened, broken down, diminished as he remembers what all Ed admitted to, how long the road and how difficult the terrain and how very, very hard Izzy tried nonetheless.

Stede grimaces. “You are really-”

“What. Go on, Bonnet, what am I,” Izzy whispers, a hoarse threat as he leans in over Stede, knees squeezing tight against Stede’s hips.

Stede slips his hands up, drags his fingers against Izzy’s skin, sliding his palms up to flesh still hot from the earlier punishment. “Why’d you let me,” Stede asks instead, fitting his hands to the marks he made. Ed’s snores are still filling the room, keeping Stede and Izzy hushed, quiet, slow and nearly still. Stede finds he’s breathing too fast.

Izzy is staring at his mouth, eyes dark, hungry.

“I pay my debts,” he murmurs.

“But what does that actually mean in this particular circumstance,” Stede complains, even as he angles his face up, as Izzy descends, as they’re suddenly kissing with slow, mean deliberation, tongue and stinging scrape of teeth, wet and filthy.

It’s a relief, which is a strange thing to have Izzy be the one to give. But tension Stede’s been holding for what seems like hours suddenly loosens its hold. In turn, Stede tightens his grip against Izzy, spreading his abused cheeks with a firm squeeze. Izzy whimpers into his mouth; squirms like he can’t resist the urge. Stede’s balls hurt and his back is sore and his dominant hand smarts something awful and his dick is apparently the strongest part of him aside from his heart, because there it is, sluggish but determined about filling out again, thickening up.

“Izzy,” he breathes, pulling back to kiss his bottom lip sweet.

“Fuck you,” Izzy groans.

So Stede does it again, soft and slow, coaxing Izzy to melt into him, all the while his weary hands are rubbing against Izzy’s spanked bottom and daring to press in, to find his slick rim, loose from whatever he and Ed got up to while he was gone.

“Can’t fucking come again,” Izzy tells him, tensing up and shuddering, then relaxing in turns. “Edward- fuck, drained me dry. C-can’t-”

“Do you want to stop, dear?”

It’s a half-hearted question at best, particularly when Stede’s already pressing two fingers inside, curious as to how much Izzy can take, how hot he’ll be inside. The answer is dizzying- Izzy takes his fingers easy, pulses around him in a slick, clinging grip, overwhelmingly hot and hungry.

“Oh, ohhh,” Stede whimpers out.

“Ngh,” is Izzy’s reply as he works his hips, rolling his spine.

It’s distracting. Delectable.

But Izzy’s cock remains soft and sticky, and that- that is dangerous. It sparks violently inside Stede’s chest, waking up the hungriest parts of him. When Stede tips his head back against the couch to try and gasp in air, he sees Izzy with color high in his cheeks and a painful grimace on his face, teeth set too hard against his bottom lip right where Stede kissed him.

Stede tries a little better this time. “Iz-Izzy,” he gasps. “Tell me yes or no.”

“Fucking- shut up.”

“Not until you tell me if this is all right!” Stede hisses back, ramming his fingers in deep and rough, all the way to the knuckle before dragging them back out too quickly. Izzy chokes on a noise, eyes flying open. Glares down at Stede and trembles there a moment.

Stede rubs his fingertips against his puffy rim, gentle, gentle. He asks, “Shall I stop, or shall I keep on?”

“Yes,” Izzy grates out.

Stede scowls up at him. “Yes to which, Izzy?”

“Fuuuck fuck fuck you absolute shit! Aren’t you the one who said you’d- you’d make it better? Take the pain and- fucking, Bonnet, c’mon, just-”

Stede sucks in a sharp breath, a whole wave of tingling heat thrilling through him, remembering that first foray of a sexual altercation.

The things he said.

The things Izzy said back.

Softer than he intended, Stede admits, “I want to make it better. For- for you, Izzy. Not just Ed, not just-” to himself as much as to Izzy.

They both wait a moment to see if Stede will take it back, but-

He doesn’t.

He only looks up at Izzy and waits.

From the bed, Ed snores gently. The ship creaks around them like a living thing, and a battle rages behind Izzy’s dark, angry gaze; all that distance, all that hardness and sharpness he’s made himself into, built up like a barricade.

Once more, Izzy finds a crack to let light eke through.

“I know you do.”

Stede can only stare up at him in helpless wonder, dismayed and awed, thinking about love and pain and about how easy it is to choke on it, to flee from it, to give up and give in when nothing seems to ever go right. How much Stede has yet to learn, and how it truly isn’t Ed alone who is teaching him all the hidden, precious meanings.

“Thank you,” Stede tells him.

“Fucking… Whatever, Bonnet. Now can we get on with it,” is Izzy’s answering snarl, low and raw with his jaw still tight, and Stede suddenly hates that the mark of his tattoo is lost to the dim shroud of night, but Stede imagines the dear little lines of it jumping, crinkling up, warped by the apple of his cheek as Izzy grimaces and grinds his teeth against the urge to simply go.

“Oh, Izzy…”

“Bonnet, I fucking swear if you-”

“We really must find you a tell,” Stede interrupts with a stubborn pop of aggressive cheer. He tucks his fingers back into Izzy’s clinging heat. Watches intently the way Izzy shudders, some of the battle that still spits and sparks in his dark eyes easing. A tender little thrust is given to soften him up even more as Stede muses, “If acquiescence is such a burden to you. Some way for me to know- to know what is the good kind of forcing, and what isn’t.”

A furious noise tangles in the back of Izzy’s throat as he rocks onto Stede’s fingers. Smiling, Stede presses a third against Izzy’s rim; the fury shatters on a low whine.

“I must have some way to know that you want this, Israel.”

When the third finger sinks in, rubbing against hot soft walls and wedging Izzy open around Stede’s knuckles, Izzy gives a groan that Stede hushes, patting at a hot cheek to get Izzy’s attention. “Behave yourself,” Stede whispers. “Mustn’t wake, Ed, now.”

“Ah ahh,” drops from Izzy’s tongue.

Stede gives him a disappointed look and sad little click of his tongue, which gets another whine dragged out of Izzy and his whole body tightening up on the thick twist of Stede’s fingers.

But his cock stays soft.

Stede knows, because he can’t resist looking at it. Can barely stand how much he wants to push, to take; to see what Izzy will allow.

“Israel,” Stede says, voice thick.

“Bonnet,” Izzy rasps back with weary condescension. He sinks down onto Stede’s fingers as far as they’ll go, taking a moment to swallow down more noise before gritting out, “Trust me. If I see red, you’ll fucking know. And that’s the best you’re getting from me, you fucking shitheel, so- fucking make a choice already!”

“Shh,” Stede hushes.

Izzy clenches up again, hips jerking. His cock shifts a little, still sticky and used up, all sweet and soft.

Stede wants badly to put his mouth on him.

Instead he takes a deep breath and tips his head back up, meeting Izzy’s dazed, dark eyes. “Very well. Unlace me, then, if you want it so bad,” he whispers.

The way Izzy goes loose and weak above him at the order is a hard ball of heat in Stede’s chest, cramping his gut. He licks his lips, takes his fingers out and just holds onto Izzy, barest graze of skin-to-skin, a soft whisper compared to the earlier cracks of pain. Izzy chokes down another noise. Fumbles his fingers at the laces of Stede’s breeches. Pulls him out with greedy hands, squeezing hard.

Stede winces. “Izzy, really now. Slick your hand first!”

“With what, Bonnet!”

A gentle spank to Izzy’s ass, then, with the flats of Stede’s fingers only. “Ed slathered it on thick, didn’t he,” Stede muses, breathless at the way Izzy jolts, a stream of hushed curses dripping like honey from his bitten up, swollen mouth.

Izzy reaches back behind him. Slicks his hand with the excess cream over his own skin. There’s not actually much left, most of it worked in already by Ed, then again by Stede here on the couch, in this taut, fraught moment between them. But it’s enough to make Izzy’s hand gentler when he strokes his fist down Stede’s erection, working him to full hardness.

“Too much for you?” Izzy asks.

Stede bites his own lip, digging his heels into the floor. “N-no.”

“Fucking liar.” Izzy laughs, taking his time, sliding his fingers around Stede’s girth, squeezing up from root to crown. “Only good thing about you, Bonnet. You think you’re God’s gift to the world, and you’re not- but sometimes, you try so hard to prove it, don’t you?”

“Wha-”

“You’re a fucking idiot,” Izzy says, voice thick with satisfaction.

“And you’re- you’re- oh, ohhh, Izzy, you-”

“Go on,” comes the little croon, as Izzy shifts, gets into position. As his head bows down and he presses his temple to Stede’s, a hard point of contact. As he presses his slick rim against Stede’s cockhead, starts sinking down in slow increments.

Stede gasps, clutching at him.

He must dig his fingers too deep into abused flesh, because a hiss escapes Izzy, and oh, oh- Stede would lighten his touch, but he can’t, he can’t. It’s all too much. The thick twist of emotions inside him, the regret and the relief, the want and the anger and the hope. The room dim and the night deep and Ed still snoring gently in their bed, only a little ways away. And Izzy, oh, Izzy, well- he’s so wonderfully tight and hot and just barely slick enough as he bears down, trying to relax into the stretch.

Stede wants to lean back and somehow watch it happen. See the way Izzy opens up around him; the obscene, sublime act of Stede claiming space inside his body, of Izzy letting him. He’s too overwhelmed to even suggest a change in position though, heels skidding wretched across the floorboards in a grating whine that echoes his whimpering at the sharp sting of pleasure.

“Fu-uuck,” Izzy rasps out.

Somehow, Stede manages to find a healthy dose of familiar mockery, blinking his eyes into focus, staring up at him. “T-Too much?”

Only Stede’s cockhead has made it inside, Izzy clenching up fitfully around the fat intrusion, body trembling at the stretch and pressure, bigger than what he usually takes. His face is flushed all over, eyes wide and dazed. Mouth open, wet and red. A flicker of tongue pressing against the center of his bottom lip, where teeth pressed, where Stede kissed him, and-

Oh, but he is truly a vision like this, isn’t he?

“Need some help from daddy, my dear boy?” is Stede’s next breathless taunt.

With a snarl, Izzy sharpens all at once.

Drops down Stede’s cock so that Stede is seeing stars again. “Iz- Izzy,” he squeaks out, but Izzy only shivers, rocks up half an inch and then back down, groaning deep in his chest. Stede’s heart skips a beat when it makes Izzy’s soft cock bounce against his thigh, and oh- oh fuck-

“Darling,” Stede manages, fire in his skin, boiling in his blood.

“Gonna fucking gag you.”

“You’re perfect. Oh, look at you, so gorgeous on my cock, aren’t you, darling? You take it so well,” is the foolishness that spills out of Stede’s mouth next, and his hands are on Izzy’s hips now, then slipping up, curling around his waist, fluttering up his ribcage. He can’t help himself.

Not with Izzy working himself up and down, up and down, soft and sweet and already used up, left empty and still longing to be filled.

He growls, “Bonnet, just- shut up, let me-”

“Oh, very well, you demanding brat,” Stede mourns, and has to tip his head back with a thick swallow, closing his eyes, because he’s utterly spent and exhausted and Izzy like this is too much, far too much, and Stede can barely stand the sight of him or the roiling arousal built up in his own gut, nearly sickening.

Izzy grunts. Shifts a little. His hands drag down, palms spread out over Stede’s chest, fingers curling into his shoulders. “Finally you listen to your betters,” he croaks out.

Stede wrinkles his nose but doesn’t fuss. Instead he keeps his eyes closed and lets the tips of his fingers drag up and down Izzy’s marred skin, mapping out the shape of him as he lifts a little, rolls back down onto Stede. It’s all heat and tightness all of the time, Izzy barely letting more than an inch escape the hungry grip of his body.

And it’s good- Izzy feels wonderful, delicious, so terribly hot and soft and sweet burying Stede inside him again and again, but oh-

“This isn’t going to work,” Stede hums.

With a muffled curse, Izzy drops down onto Stede’s lap, so that he’s buried all the way.

But Stede’s cock is softer now, and Izzy doesn’t lift back up again. He lets loose a gusty sigh and tips forward, head bowed down so his hair tickles against Stede’s jaw, forehead pressed against Stede’s bared throat.

“I’m too fucking tired for this shit,” Izzy groans.

Stede laughs, which makes both of them startle and then hiss in discomfort as it jostles his prick. But still, it’s not enough- his hands slide down Izzy’s sides, rubbing up and down along his back; all that warm skin, the breadth of him solid and real as his breathing slows, as he gentles.

“You’re too greedy,” Stede tells him dreamily, eyes still blissfully shut. “Wanted to have daddy’s cock so badly it made you foolish, didn’t it? Excellent planning on your part. Perfect execution.”

A snort. “Oh, go fuck yourself, Bonnet.”

“I daresay I’d do a better job of it than you,” is Stede’s smug reply.

The snort transforms into a chuckle.

Izzy must be well and truly tired, Stede thinks, and isn’t at all surprised when Izzy digs his fingers deep into the meat of Stede’s shoulders and levers himself up and up, enough for Stede to slip back out, landing against his own thigh in a sad little splat of leftover ointment and failed ambition.

“Yeah sure, with that floppy prick?”

“I could do it,” Stede grumbles.

But he doesn’t put up a real fight. Instead he slumps into the couch with his head tilted all the way back, eyes shut. He’s exhausted, feels empty and hollow and aching with it, and for once he doesn’t care that Izzy is here to see him looking weak. He doesn’t even have energy to tuck himself away, do up his laces again.

It would be no surprise, however, for Izzy to get up now, to find his clothing and don his layers, notch each button into place one by one. But he doesn’t. Izzy stays, even though it’s only Stede; even though Stede can’t fuck him proper.

He settles back down over Stede’s lap, knees on either side of Stede’s hips. His hair tickles Stede’s jaw, his throat; Izzy’s head comes down heavy against Stede’s shoulder again, and oh- he hadn’t thought about it before, but this is a familiar position for the two of them, isn’t it? How strange, Stede thinks, as a fearful sort of longing and tenderness swells in Stede’s rib cage.

Stede asks: “Do you require an apology? For- earlier. The punishment.”

“Get over yourself,” is Izzy’s quiet reply. “Stop acting like you’re alone in this shit show you’ve dragged us all into, you fucking twat. We’re not your god damned children, Bonnet. We’re not your responsibility.”

Stede’s breath hitches.

A fist comes down against Stede’s chest in response, knocking over his heart.

Then it stays there, only resting, and Stede doesn’t know what to think about that let alone say, because he hadn’t quite realized he was- doing anything of the sort, really, but it certainly-

“Whatever do you mean.”

The hand knocks again. “Don’t be stupid, Bonnet.”

All at once Stede’s eyes sting. He hopes that hand stays there a while longer. “But that- that’s the only reason Ed allowed me to- the only reason you allow it at all, so…”

Beneath the curl of Izzy’s knuckles, Stede’s heart beats heavily, all twisted up with fear, with worry, with greed.

Izzy knocks again. “So fucking what?”

There’s something wonderfully soothing about keeping his hands busy; so Stede strokes up and down Izzy’s back again, that warm skin peppered with scars, a surprising and unknown terrain Stede is only now beginning to explore.

“So,” Stede whispers. “So I am meant to make it all better. Aren’t I?”

Izzy gives a disgusted little groan, his knuckles digging in painfully. “Not your fucking children, Bonnet, I mean it!”

And here, again: a lesson to be learned, a new facet of what it means to love. Stede said it to Ed earlier, didn’t he? He is no saint with the grace to shoulder all of their hopes and dreams, but he-

He tried.

For Ed, for Izzy, for their impossible, stubborn love.

Stede breathes through that realization, too aware of his own heart, heavy and aching, of Izzy’s fist curled like it longs for a weapon, empty against his chest.

He thinks he understands what Izzy is driving at- that Stede can try his hardest but that doesn’t mean that Ed or Izzy will listen. And if Izzy can make mistakes and be forgiven, if Ed can; if it can still be all right afterward then- so can Stede. They are each of them grown men with their own tangled histories, their own burdens to carry, and it is not actually Stede’s responsibility to fix them no matter how badly he wants them healed.

“Well,” Stede eventually says, “You may not be my children, but delightfully enough, I am your-”

Izzy bites him viciously right at the juncture of neck and shoulder, and before Stede can do more than pop his eyes open in outrage and drag in a breath for a properly startled yelp, Izzy has slapped a hand onto Stede’s mouth and wrestled him down onto the couch in a thrash of limbs and wounded pride. “Shut up, you twat,” is Izzy’s low, hoarse censure. “You’ll wake him.”

With a hiss, Stede licks a flat, broad swipe along Izzy’s palm.

“You’re disgusting,” Izzy hisses back. He twists his hand without removing his palm; pinches Stede’s nose shut, shoving him deeper into the cushions with a vicious, sharp look about his face, even with all his hair hanging down and-

Again, Stede thinks, heart fluttering: a vision.

Stede makes a valiant attempt to bite Izzy’s thumb off, muttering in a dull, nasal tone against his wet palm, “You’re a bully and a tyrant and I will have none of it!”

“Me!”

“You! Unhand me, Hands!”

With a lazy, damningly fond looking sneer, Izzy does as told. Plants his hand instead against the couch cushion and pushes, levering himself up and off, to his feet, only-

His arm gives out.

They both grunt when his weight collapses back down onto Stede.

“Fucking…five minutes to rest and then I’m out of here,” Izzy mutters, goatee tickling against the skin of Stede’s throat.

“Mhm, certainly,” Stede wheezes out.

Astoundingly, Izzy gets heavier and heavier atop him, boneless and soft, body relaxing. His breathing gets slow.

Stede blinks up at the ceiling with one foot down on the floor and the other propped up over the arm of the sofa, stunned. Then he blinks over at the half-shuttered lantern hung up on the wall. At the sliver of darkness beyond the closed curtains and the dearly familiar lump of Ed still snoring quietly in their bed.

“I am too sore for this position,” he tells the world at large.

The world at large doesn’t seem to care, but then again, neither does Stede in this moment. He closes his eyes. Lets his breathing fall into sync with Izzy’s. A gentle push and pull.

Chapter Text

Stede wakes as he hits the floor.

He gasps because it hurts, his hip and shoulder first, brutal contact. Then he rolls onto his front, whimpers in dismay, and wiggles onto his back to stare bewildered at the familiar ceiling.

“Is there a storm?” he eventually thinks to ask, though it comes out kind of croaky.

Ed says, “Could say that, mate.”

Which is about when Izzy stands up off the couch - and oh, that’s right, Stede remembers all at once the whole exhausting ordeal of the other evening like a wave crashing over him, at once buoyant and dizzying - still naked. Stede would like to have a better look at him in the morning light, but all he can really focus on at this vantage is Izzy’s flaccid penis and balls dangling down.

Enticing, but also-

“Did you shove me,” Stede squawks, slapping at Izzy’s knee.

Izzy kicks at him, sort of. “Fuckin,” he growls out, then stomps over Stede’s body to escape the narrow confines between couch and chairs, one of which Ed is reclined in, puffing on a pipe and watching the both of them with heavy lidded, opaque eyes.

Perhaps it would be best to stay down here, Stede suddenly thinks: already belly up.

“Ed,” Stede starts, then stops.

Smoke billows, curled clouds like claws. “Mm.”

Stede can’t think what else to say. But his body hurts something awful, so with a groan he levers himself up again, hooking a sore arm onto cushion and heaving, staggering to his feet. He glances over the back of the sofa, sees Izzy with trousers on, vest open as he does up the buttons on his shirt.

He’s staring at the door like he can magically transport himself beyond.

Stede leaves him to it. “Good morning, Ed! Have you been awake long?”

“Nah, just a couple hours,” Ed murmurs.

“What! And no breakfast!”

“Izzy wouldn’t’ve liked that much, now would you, Iz?”

“Fuck,” is what Izzy says this time, fastidious even in his horror as he fastens his kerchief, sliding on the ring to hold it into place. Then his vest, his shirtsleeves, his boots and sword slung on. Finally, he slicks back his mussed hair. Forces his glittering gaze away from the door with a hard shift of his jaw. “Edward, you’re the captain of this fucking ship.”

“One of them, yeah.”

“So why did you decide to stay in here while we were- you know what, it doesn’t matter. You’ll always do what you fucking please, won’t you. Who has the deck?”

“Oh, well,” Ed gives a little insouciant shrug. Crosses one leg ankle on knee, then grimaces and tries the other. “Someone, hm? Maybe Fang, or, y’know. One of the other ones. Aw, c’mon, man! Don’t make that face. Been a while since I saw you sleep, is all.”

“God,” Izzy rasps. Whatever aggressive distance he was busily winding about his heart slips and falters; he sags in place.

When no further conversation springs forth between them, Stede gingerly stretches, doing a slight squat to try and ease the tightness in his legs. “I still haven’t,” he points out as he does another. “Not a proper night’s rest, at the least. Because someone here didn’t wake me, and someone else was sacked out atop my chest last night where I couldn’t actually see him, you see, and then shoved me, quite rudely might I add! So-”

“Bonnet,” Izzy sighs. “Your fucking prick’s still out.”

Stede looks down in surprise. “So it is!”

“Hypnotizing really, watching it sway back and forth like that,” Ed mumbles, eyeing Stede and settling farther back into the chair. It creaks a little ominously as he puffs away, still coming across remarkably opaque for all he says, “Why’d you tell him, Izzy, I was enjoying the show,” as Stede puts himself away again, laces loosely tied.

“Breakfast,” Stede insists.

“Be a man, Bonnet,” Izzy drawls. “Stop whinging about your fucking stomach.”

“Now then, that’s really uncalled for!”

Ed puffs and puffs away. “Ritual, isn’t it? Hornigold was like that too.” The chair creaks again, and across the room the curtains aren’t drawn, but weak sunlight still filters in.

It’s strange; he’s never felt trapped between Ed and Izzy before. “There’s nothing wrong with a few of the finer things to ease the way,” Stede says, and then: “This morning seems to be going a little pear shaped, is all, and I really think if we all just- just sat down at the table with a choice bit of breakfast, why- why wouldn’t we all feel better and-”

“Ed,” Izzy interrupts. “Edward, what the fuck are you doing.”

“Hmm?”

For a moment when Stede blinks over at him, Izzy is lost in a halo of morning light, the crack in the curtains lashing across him. Then he steps out of it and Stede can see the expression on his face: wondering, hungry, a little exasperated. A smile twitches his features into a new shape, skin crinkling up all over before he works his jaw and wills it away. He snorts, stepping up next to Stede.

“Don’t be a twat.”

Ed makes a face, sulky and sorry. “Can be if I want to be, fuck, who’re you to give me orders?”

“Your first mate,” Izzy says back, slow and easy. “And the only fucking fool who’ll follow you to hell and back and then back again. That is, before this idiot,” he adds, swinging his hand into Stede’s gut.

“Ow!”

“Baby,” Izzy mutters, and does it again.

Stede catches his wrist; Izzy tries to twist out of it, succeeds, and backs away, face once more carefully schooled. “I’ll send for your fucking breakfast, but I’ve a ship to oversee, it seems. Boss, I don’t want to see you on deck until you’ve- fucking figured out what this is about.”

“He’s gotten uppity,” Ed frowns. “Hasn’t he?”

Stede scowls Izzy’s way. “Terribly so!”

A jaunty lift of his middle finger and then Izzy is striding out the door. Stede and Ed remain alone, stilted in a way that they haven’t been since-

“So it’s this again, is it?” Stede slumps back onto the couch, same position as he’d been in last night when Izzy came to him. The reminder twists around his heart; Stede grimaces, rubbing at the ache beneath his sternum. Even though it’s a good kind of pain it still hurts, after all.

“What’s that supposed to mean.”

“Izzy,” Stede answers, keeping it simple, even.

“Doesn’t really answer the question, does it, mate?” is Ed’s low, rumbling response.

Stede’s face twists; he can feel it happening, doesn’t bother to fight it. His own knuckles knock against his heart and he says, “Was it really even a question with the way you asked it! Regardless, I daresay it answers a great many things! You never have managed to see straight when it comes to Izzy. Entirely too protective of him-”

“What are you on about.”

“You are! You’re all heart with him, Blackbeard, not a lick of sense when it comes to Izzy Hands!”

“Hey.”

“It’s true,” Stede insists.

Ed crinkles his nose, nonplussed. “Like you aren’t the same,” he mutters, flicking imaginary lint off his bent knee. “Remember that time you refused to speak to me for a whole fucking week, you nutter? Just cause Iz pissed in your ale, fuck’s sake man, it tastes like piss anyway!”

“Should’ve left him at port with that mad Frenchman,” Stede huffs.

Ed snorts. Takes in a deep breath and creaks on his chair again. Puffs away at his pipe. Eventually drags out, “You’re right. Even at our lowest, guess I’ve always been…”

Stede delicately offers: “In love?”

Ed coughs, choking on a sharp inhale. When he’s done waving away the smoke and the fit, he wheezes out, “Right, yeah, so. About last night.”

“Izzy and I,” Stede says, wonderingly, “have worked it out between ourselves.”

A charged moment; then Ed blows out a gusty breath and his leg clatters down, soles of his boots sliding rough against the floorboards as he relaxes. “Yeah? Good, that’s good. Wasn’t sure. Didn’t really know if- or what you got up to after, without me. Been a while since I woke up alone. Didn’t expect- yeah, good. Glad you’re both chummy, man.”

“Ah,” says Stede, startled all over again.

But Ed’s nodding his head and puffing on his pipe in rapid little bursts, clouding the air. He slaps his palms down onto his thighs and leans forward, grinning wide and crooked, a stretch of clenched white teeth between the trimmed bristle of his moustache and the curling wildness of his beard. “Great!” he exclaims, and then, when the door swings open and Lucius can be heard drawling, “Is this really in my job description these days?” Ed throws himself out of the chair and adds, with that same giddy, sharp edged brightness,

“Breakfast, Stede! C’mon, I’m starving!”

Stede blinks. His knuckles twist against his chest, and it feels like his heart skips a beat. “Oh, well, yes,” he says, gamely rising to his feet, despite his exhaustion. “Breakfast will be- good. Put us to rights, hm?”

Ed is already at the table, picking meat from bone with little twists of his fingers.

-

As breakfast winds to a close, surprisingly quiet, Stede gets frustrated. Perhaps he should pry, or explain. Perhaps Ed only needs Stede to tell him again all the sordid, vulnerable details for him to once more find Stede and Izzy intermingling charmingly hot; to remind him that this is precisely what he said he wanted in the first place. Perhaps a few simple words would be all Stede needs to sort out this bout of silliness. He thinks this might be jealousy, of a sort, but he can’t quite tell, having had very little experience with it himself from the outside looking in.

But Stede can’t stop thinking about how sore he is, how tired, how unfair this feels after having already worked so hard to make clear the lines he was and wasn’t allowed to cross just yesterday, and so all he really wants is for this to be made easy for him; for Ed to be the one to reach out, to try and mend.

“I tell you what,” Stede says, dabbing at his mouth. “I think I could do with a bit of a lie-in. That couch isn’t very forgiving, I’m afraid!”

“Ha,” says Ed.

“Not to mention Izzy,” Stede goads with a serene smile. “Heavy sleeper, isn’t he?”

Ed’s foot jiggles under the table.

“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, do that. I’ll leave you to it, hm?”

Which isn’t at all the kind of response Stede is wanting. “No, not yet,” he sulks. “Breakfast is-” mostly finished, because without chatter to fill in the void between them he and Ed made thorough work of the meal. He clears his throat. Feels his own indignation fold in on itself. The buffer of a fine meal and civilized ritual has failed him, it seems.

Stede attempts: “Ed. Shall I tell you about it?”

Ed merely licks grease off his thumb, glancing up from beneath his lashes.

“Izzy and I,” Stede clarifies, clearing his throat. Ed is looking particularly wild and fetching this morning, which isn’t helping Stede’s nerves any. “Last night, and- Oh, Ed! Only you seemed so content with the two of us coming together alone, you see? Seemed entirely on board with it! You said it was fine! And now-”

“No, no. It’s enough,” Ed interrupts, low and striving for soothing; badly missing the mark. “That you two did- whatever. Nothing, y’know, left fucked between you two, yeah? You’re good?”

“Er. Yes?”

A brow quirks. Ed asks, “You sure about that, mate?”

“When am I ever sure of anything about Izzy,” Stede huffs. Leaning back in his chair, he groans. Works his shoulder gingerly. Everything aches so very terribly, and Stede is tired and worn out and still feeling remarkably hollow. He wants to get up and pace about, but he can’t bring himself to move. “I do believe we are as well as we’ve ever been, if it’s any consolation.”

“Wonderful,” Ed says.

But that’s all he says, is the thing. Stede doesn’t know what’s the matter, what this thing is that lingers. If it’s not jealousy, perhaps it’s something else, but Stede doesn’t know what and the frustration mounts, comes out in a way he hadn’t planned, or realized he might be bothered by. “Did you really think I’d forced Izzy into a- ah, compromising and vulnerable position that he didn’t want,” he asks, a little more tetchy than he meant to. As a distraction, he picks up his linen napkin and begins to fastidiously clean his own fingers of greasy remains.

“Don’t know all what the two of you think is good or bad, do I?”

“That’s not fair!”

Ed shrugs, again with that insouciant air.

Stede flicks the linen down onto his demolished plate with a puckered mouth and furrowed brow. “You are the one who said he likes being forced!”

“By me,” Ed grates out, low and intense. His gaze darts around for his pipe, something to do with his hands. Interrogation turns him jumpy, prickly. “And you, that’s new, isn’t it? And yeah, it’s fine, it’s fucking hot as sin, love, don’t get me wrong, but- I don’t know, Stede! Fuck. Fuck! What do you want me to say, huh? Yeah, fine, I was fucking- a little bit concerned maybe, or, or I don’t know-”

“Truth now, Ed.”

Blackbeard slams his hand down onto the table, making all the pewter dishes rattle about. He gets up, paces around to where he left his pipe and then stares at it in his hand, furious. “I was scared,” he croaks out, soft as a summer rain. “I said- all that shit, y’know? And you said it. You said you’re no saint. But you’re fucking- you, Stede. Should’ve known you’d try, I- I fucking-”

When Ed jerks his chin up to look Stede steady in the eyes, the expression in them is dark, spitting, as hard and sharp and aching as Izzy’s seemed last night, wounded with wanting.

“Oh, Ed,” Stede breathes. “That’s enough now, that’s enough-”

“I knew you would,” is Ed’s hollow explanation.

“I. What?”

Ed flickers the pipe between index and middle, like a street performer dazzling their audience before the trick, the sleight of hand. “Well I’m Blackbeard, aren’t I? Fucking genius. Knew it’d make you try harder, love. You can’t help yourself sometimes, y’know?”

“Well that’s, that’s-”

Stede isn’t certain what it is, exactly, but it doesn’t feel very nice.

“Yeah,” Ed barks. “Pretty fucked, huh?”

“And with Izzy,” Stede says slowly, feeling his way through this surprise. “Did you really think that I- I know the punishment was a little much, perhaps, but- but it didn’t go that far, and- and I really did try not to fuck it, Ed, I tried so hard!”

“I know!” Ed shouts, and he’s pacing around the room again, jagged and sharp, erratic. “Fuck, I know, Stede. I just- I woke alone. Thought I’d fucked it all up, somehow, pushed you too far, chased you both away fucking finally, finally because I was too selfish, too greedy, tried too hard to have everything I want and that’s not- I can’t have-”

“Ed, Ed, shh.” Stede forces himself up from the table, goes to him. Catches Ed’s arm and drags his hand out from the growing snarl of his hair, where he keeps fisting the anxious fingers not fiddling with his pipe. “That’s enough,” he says.

A hitch in his chest. Ed stares at him, wide-eyed, haunting. “Sorry,” he whispers.

“You are very much so forgiven, dearest,” Stede whispers back.

“Fuck.”

The pipe clatters to the boards between their feet. Stede nudges it aside with the toe of his shoe, smearing spilt tar as he shuffles in closer. Hums as Ed’s forehead thunks down onto Stede’s shoulder; he winces where Ed can’t see it. “Take it back, Stede. Fucking. Don’t deserve forgiveness,” comes a muffled mutter, even as Ed burrows in deeper, seeking comfort.

“Ha! Too bad, Blackbeard,” Stede tells him, looping his aching arm about Ed’s shoulders and petting at his fine, hazy hair with a bruised palm, tender fingers. “It’s yours regardless! My gift to you, my dear, and it’s terribly crass to return a gift, don’t you know?”

“Is it? What if you don’t like it?”

“Well, you must pretend, haven’t you? But I fancy myself a very good gift giver.”

A rusty, musical chuckle; Ed’s fingers in Stede’s shirt, tugging him closer yet. “Yeah,” he says. “Think you are, mate. I- thanks.”

Stede only hums a little, holds Ed as long as he can before he’s drooping, exhausted, and Ed is chuckling again, shepherding Stede over to the bed. Before settling in for breakfast, Stede had washed up, dressed for a new day. But instead Ed slowly bares him piece by ruffled piece, carefully setting aside the ensemble before dragging Stede’s favorite, most comfortable nightshirt over his head, down and down.

“Hair’s a mess,” Ed says, smiling, crinkling and warm.

Stede yawns. “Rakish?”

“Fuck yeah,” is Ed’s sweet murmur, and then Stede is tucked in and fast asleep before he can even tilt his cheek for a kiss goodnight.

-

He gets woken for lunch by Izzy barging in, slamming the laden platter down onto the table and then drawling out “Courtesy of Blackbeard. Here’s hoping you choke on a fish bone, Bonnet.”

“Not fish again!”

“Missing the landlocked life yet?” Izzy asks, sounding chipper about it.

Stede lifts onto his less sore arm to glare blearily at his first mate. “As if you haven’t been bemoaning the lack of culinary choices we have at our current disposal!”

“You’re the one moaning,” Izzy says, lifting the dome and examining the bounty within. Steam rises in the air, and Stede’s stomach gives a wane little gurgle. With a sharp, resounding jab, Izzy replaces the dome. “I know how to accept the realities of the world, Bonnet. We make due out here on the sea. None of this pointless fucking frippery and idiocy.”

“You’re too crude to understand,” Stede sniffs.

“Crude and rude, don’t you fucking forget it, you twat.” Izzy is back to drawling now, circling his finger round and round the polished dome, the awful squelch of his finger on the pewter making Stede want to shudder. It’s the bare hand he’s using to irritate Stede, leather-clad one resting lightly on the table’s edge.

Somehow, despite his aches and the crumminess of rising from a nap that isn’t near enough to put a dent into the lingering exhaustion, Stede bullies himself upright.

“Oh! This is terrible,” he complains, bare toes tapping against the wood floor.

Izzy smirks up at him. “What.”

“You’re being awful and I just want to kiss you. Is this what it’s to be like from now on?”

“God,” Izzy hisses. “Fucking hope not.”

Despite the censure, Izzy leaves the dome and strides over to Stede. “You look so fucking stupid,” he mutters, tucking a finger beneath the wide, ruffled collar of Stede’s nightshirt, flicking it so that it drops all the way down and off Stede’s shoulder where it had already been slipping.

“Manners, Izzy!”

“God,” Izzy hisses again, looking pained. “Fucking- kiss or-”

“Well I don’t know,” Stede sulks. “Do I want to let such an uncultured, mean, quite possibly rabid dog that near my face?”

“Oohhh,” Izzy breathes, setting his knee abruptly onto the bench’s edge between Stede’s thighs and looming. “I’ll show you a fucking bite, Bonnet. I can make you bleed. Be fucking glad to.”

He’s staring right at Stede’s mouth with a hungry, dark look.

Stede tips his face up to him. “Repulsive animal. You’re horrible! You- mmph.” It’s a simple enough kiss, more ticklish bristle of goatee and smushed noses and the perplexed panic of sudden intimacy than it is anything soft or lush or sexy. Izzy doesn’t bite. Stede touches his fingers to Izzy’s hip where he knows a tentacle curls beneath the leather, and lets the kiss linger a moment.

“Well then,” Stede says, pursing his tingling lips when Izzy finally steps back, scrubbing at his own mouth.

“Fuck,” is his reply.

“I still don’t like you very much.”

Izzy glares over the gloved hand with high, mocking eyebrows, rubbing roughly at his mouth as if the bit of new tenderness has stained him. “And I’d still sooner piss on your corpse than be your friend, Bonnet,” he croons, muffled and annoyed.

“Wonderful! Exactly what I wanted to hear!”

Izzy flips him off, because he’s horrible and refuses to let Stede have the last word.

Behind them, the door swings wide open in an abrupt fashion, putting an end to their little kiss-squabble. Ed tumbles in and shuts it just as abruptly, leaning back against the wood and staring at them with wide eyes.

“Oh. You two, hm? Didn’t realize.”

Izzy drops his hand and looks heavenward. “The fuck? You ordered me in here, boss.”

“Did I? Funny that. Doesn’t seem like you’re, hm.”

Stede tugs his nightshirt back into place and cranes around Izzy to see Ed better. “What’s that, dear? Is something amiss? Izzy, won’t you move!” he adds, prodding at Izzy’s leather-clad calf with his toes.

Izzy moves, all the way to the door and Ed, saying, “There’s still work to be done.”

“There’s still work to be done,” Ed mimics back, shoving off the door with a showy sigh and then hauling it back open, rolling his wrist to invite Izzy to precede him. “Yeah, yeah. You always say that.”

“Because it’s fucking true.”

“Ed,” Stede says, a little plaintive. It catches him right at the threshold, teetering on his heels, which he turns into a swivel to look back at Stede with a wink.

“Nah,” he says. “Nothing amiss, love.”

The door gets shut.

Stede stares at it a minute, then he gets up and totters over to his lunch which he is apparently meant to be eating alone. That’s fine, he thinks, and gets up almost as soon as he sits to fetch his novel. But he can’t read and eat as he needs both hands to multitask and one of them still hurts most terribly. So he pulls on a robe and opens the door and hollers down the short hall to the deck, beckoning Lucius in to read to him.

It is, in as far as extremely sore and still very sleepy lunches go, surprisingly pleasant.

Afterward, he does his best to venture out into the world. Several crew members ask after Stede’s oddly bruised fingers and Stede should have expected it but he’s become wonderfully adept at ignoring Lucius’ sly looks and pointed inquiries whenever he doesn’t wish to engage.

“I didn’t see any slap marks though,” the Swede points out.

Frenchie snorts. “Yeah, man, no. Don’t imagine it was that kind of slapping. Haven’t you ever-”

“Don’t corrupt him,” Wee John protests.

“Ugh, is this why you asked for two more butt plugs?” Black Pete mutters, sounding a little too put out to not be entirely keen on the details. “Well, we all know who it was getting beat, don’t we. It wouldn’t be Captain Blackbeard, after all.”

“Babe, don’t stereotype.”

“Babe, I can stereotype if I want to!”

Stede stutters and stammers and feels his cheeks get entirely, foolishly hot, and sweat trickle down the back of his neck because on the one hand, there is a gleeful part of him that wants badly to boast about his amazing and tumultuous sex life, but on the other hand are bruises from a very complicated, intensely personal moment that Stede has no wish for anyone to know about with any degree of veracity, and he’s left worrying terribly that Izzy Hands will magically appear as if summoned-

“All right, all right. Enough! Give the fucking captain some fucking air, you annoying, gossiping fucking shits!” Izzy snaps out, appearing at Stede’s elbow.

Stede feels faint.

The crew, thankfully, obey the first mate and disperse with only a couple of titters and curious side-eyes, and Frenchie starts up a lovely little taunt of a romantic ballad, crooning through the salt air, bright against the stark blue sky.

“You’re useless,” Izzy mutters.

Stede scowls, no longer faint; irritation is as natural as breathing whenever Izzy is around. He wants to say So you’ve said on numerous occasions, and yet I am still captain of his vessel and you, Izzy Hands, are not, but when Stede opens his mouth to deliver the tart dismissal, what he hisses out is:

“Thank you!”

Izzy looks appalled.

“Shut up!” Stede is still hissing, still hot and sweaty and flustered. “Don’t be you! Don’t be mean! I didn’t know what to do! I didn’t think to create a backstory for this!”

“A- what?”

Stede waves his bruised hand around in the air, which makes it throb. “Oh, you plebeian,” Stede mourns. “A backstory is integral in a fuckery, in order to keep the lie going strong! To act without knowing your character and their past is to be destined to failure!”

“…what,” is all Izzy says.

With a haughty sniff, Stede cradles his wounded hand to his chest. “You wouldn’t get it.”

“How is this my life,” Izzy mutters, and then he grits his teeth and stares into the sun and adds, “You bruise pathetically easy, Bonnet. Soft hands. Fucking- you’re useless like this. Go back inside, stay out of the way and maybe this playpen of fucking toddlers will stop fucking gawping long enough to get some actual work done.”

“I still have one hand I can use on you,” Stede snarks back, and is surprised when Izzy only snorts, a sneer pulling at his mouth that feels familiar; warmly mean, rather than cruel.

“Twat,” Izzy rasps. “Need to use something other than your own fucking hand next time.”

Next time, Stede thinks, and a little thrill runs through him that’s just as warm and mean as the expression on Izzy’s face. How preposterous, how strange, he thinks, to be suddenly here, like this: Izzy Hands and Stede Bonnet alone for actual minutes and not-quite-yelling.

Before he realizes he plans to, Stede asks him, “Last night, did Ed…tell you about what he and I discussed? Yesterday, before you arrived.”

Now, Izzy’s sneer fades. A quiet kind of pensiveness takes its place. “Does it matter if he did, Bonnet?”

“No,” Stede says. “Yes. No! Well it depends, doesn’t it? If you talked to him about it. Like we do- and. And I like to think we can- oh. Oh, I don’t know.”

“What.”

More preposterous, wildly strange: Stede wants to ask Izzy if Ed has manipulated him, has set him up like a puppet on marionette strings or a shadow play of his own making. He thinks the answer is yes, of course. He still wants to ask; he wants to not be alone, to not be worried, to not feel badly.

But he only says, “The two of you need to work on your communication skills, I must say.”

This time Izzy isn’t amused; he scoffs, shakes his head, and turns away from Stede. “Fucking useless ponce,” he mutters, then adds, a little sharper: “Get off the deck, Captain. We don’t need the crew making up tales about what the fuck you did last night to leave you so fucking- pathetic.”

“You are the worst,” Stede tells him.

Izzy flips him off as he goes, leaving Stede to the harsh sun in the distant sky and Frenchie’s horribly beautiful, entirely unrealistic, and absolutely mocking little love ballad. Instead of going into the cabin, he climbs up the foremast and is in tears by the time he gets to the foretop, his abused hand now further hurt by rough rope. But he settles into place, the flap of the sails married into the rush of wind, and looks out at the horizon line, the endless blue.

He thinks about honesty.

He thinks about freedom and commitment.

He thinks about himself and Ed and Izzy, and he can almost see the shape they may make someday, all their broken, jagged pieces filling in each other’s empty spaces. If they can forgive themselves, keep forgiving each other. If only they can continue learning how to reach out rather than turn away.

Eventually, Ed joins him.

“Hey,” he says, dropping down beside, legs sprawled and hair wound tight into a bun.

Stede smiles at the sea, the sky, the wisps of clouds. Leans into Ed’s ready shoulder and says, “Hello there,” and “You look quite lovely today. Carmine is another excellent color on you.”

“Carmine, huh?”

Glancing down, Stede sees him plucking at the red silk of the shirt Ed has beneath his leather. “Yes,” he says, so soft he’s afraid the wind will steal it, carry it down to Izzy’s ears. “That particular shade of red, such a vivid crimson, isn’t it? Carmine.”

“Yeah, I know it. Hmm. Maybe not that particular word but y’know. Seen it all, haven’t I. Know what’s what. But it’s a funny sort of fuckery, isn’t it? How fucking- people come up with whole heaps of rules for what a thing is or isn’t or allowed to be,” Ed muses, dirty fingers rubbing the bright hem between. “Dizzying. Like all those- fucking forks and spoons and shit, y’know?”

Stede hums, conceding the point.

“Don’t mind when you teach me fancy bullshit, though.” Ed leans into him some more, pressing his head back against the foremast, bun cushioning his skull against the rough wood. He grins, a little reckless, and lifts his fingers from his shirt to sweep them across that distant horizon. “What’s a word for that color, Stede?”

“Azure. Ah, perhaps cerulean?”

Ed tilts his head to rest against Stede’s, warmly mumbling, “You don’t fucking know?”

“Mary was the painter! They’re very subtle differences!” Stede doesn’t know quite when it happened, but Ed’s fingers are tangled with his. He says, again without thinking, “Will you teach Izzy these words?”

“Hmm? Why the fuck would I?”

“Because,” is all Stede can say, but he thinks: because you love each other.

For several minutes neither of them speak again; they only sit there and watch the waves. The ship is an arrow pointing the way forward, the needle of a compass heading toward freedom. Stede holds Ed’s hand and Ed holds his, and together they contemplate the cerulean sky, the azure sea.

“Maybe,” Ed says, softly, gruffly. “Used to like showing him shit. But he just fussed, mostly. Too worried about now now now, you know? Like. If we had food. Who in the crew was planning mutiny. Whether we lived or died.”

“Ed,” Stede chides, smiling slightly. With a nudge of his shoulder and a jaunty pat of his hand, Stede beckons Ed to use his thigh as a pillow. Ed slips down until his head is propped up on Stede’s thigh, eyes closed and a smile nearly lost in the wild growth of his beard. Their joined hands rest atop his chest.

Years ago, when he and Mary were first wed and still trying, stiltedly, to make the most out of it, they had gone out to the green and tried to copy the other pairs they’d seen. Mary with her skirts tucked carefully under her knees, Stede with his head pillowed on her lap, staring out across the manicured grass; wishing for flowers, for freedom.

There aren’t any flowers out at sea, but there’s this- the wind and the horizon and Edward Teach with his cheek against Stede’s thigh, face tilted toward Stede rather than away.

“You tell me plenty of things,” Stede says.

“Yeah, ‘course. You listen. You fucking- let me, yeah? You engage with me, all delight and weirdness so I don’t feel fucking stupid for it, y’know? I stopped trying with Izzy after…”

“After me.”

“Yeah,” Ed says. Then: “Maybe. Might be time to try with Izzy again, I guess.”

Yes, Stede thinks.

He doesn’t say anything else aloud, however. After all, Izzy and Ed are not his children, not his to fix. But they are his, he thinks, and is content to stay on the foretop a little while longer, waiting for the sky to turn color: to slip into lavender, to mauve, to indigo, to a stream of alizarin speckled with stars high overhead, so that he might once more teach Ed something new, something lovely, something that isn’t about survival or pain, but simple beauty.

-

After dinner Izzy comes in, picking up tidbits left on Ed’s plate. The cheese rind, a slice of pear, the last quarter of a biscuit Ed left floating in a goblet of ale. Stede stares, nose crinkled, listening to Ed and Izzy exchange the day’s drudgery. Watches Ed’s hands move, gathering up the last of the withered grapes, plucking them free and dropping them into the little bowl that had housed their lonely, mottled pear.

He then pilfers the barely touched biscuit from Stede’s plate as well as the last bites of fried Butterfish that Stede absolutely could not stand to choke down, with an easy, sleek kind of grace, the kind that makes Stede think of the lads in the lodge when they’d wanted to cheat at cards; nearly unnoticeable.

That’s the last of the ship’s fruit, Stede thinks, watching the bowl with its meager bounty exchange hands, from Ed to Izzy, who eats without fanfare; again, that nearly unnoticeable deliberation.

Stede says, “I think it’s time for a grocery run.”

Ed leaves off telling Izzy he cannot, in fact, keelhaul Black Pete for being a little shit, because we have new management and they frown on that kind of thing, don’t they?

“Boring,” Ed says, crinkling his nose.

“Welcome to sailing,” Izzy interjects, sounding worn in, like wheel ruts on a path; ingrained with familiarity. “We have enough fucking furniture stowed away to outfit half a dozen fancy fucking houses, Ed. Find us a port, give me two weeks.”

“Two?” Both of Ed’s eyebrows are raised, one stacked atop the other.

“New management,” is Izzy’s dry response, a sharp glance flicking Stede’s way. Then it’s gone, but Izzy adds, “Don’t have to worry much about desertion when these twats are getting a fucking salary, now do we? We can afford two weeks.”

“Hmm.”

Stede gets up from the table, says, “Both of you! Shut your eyes!”

“The fuck.”

“Sure,” says Ed, and when Stede checks over his shoulder he sees Ed with his eyes shut, lounging back in his chair. A boot is already up on the seat Stede has vacated, stretching out his knee. Izzy is glaring at Ed, then at Stede.

“Go on,” Stede hisses, “Do it!”

“Why in the ever loving fuck should I do a single thing you say, Bonnet.”

Stede stamps his foot; his heel makes a strident clacking sound. But Ed beats him to an excuse, saying in a slow, simmering murmur, “You obey your captain, Izzy. How it’s done, yeah? Stede says close your eyes, you best close your fucking eyes.”

With an irritated sigh, Izzy does so. “Fucking twats, the both of you,” he mutters under his breath. The bowl is clutched tight in his gloved fingers.

Under the cover of secrecy, Stede pulls out the canister of shortbread he’s been saving from its little hidey-hole. Only when it’s dropped onto the table amidst their emptied plates does he say, “Ta-daaaah! Okay, you can both open your eyes. Carry on, gents! I’m enjoying this bout of shop talk immensely, if only Lucius were here to take notes for me- oh, but then I wouldn’t have taken out the- well, it’s fine, isn’t it? Have at!”

“Stede,” Ed says, a slow crawl of wonder. “You been hiding fucking loot from me?”

“A few innocent secrets are healthy, I believe,” is Stede’s prim reply.

Izzy- laughs.

“The fuck, Bonnet,” he says when he’s done with the- the laughter. Stede is left gaping, feeling suddenly unmoored as he watches Izzy set his almost empty bowl down and pry off the lid. What had started with five neat rows of shortbread now contains only two, crumbly little biscuits that have held up surprisingly well. Dry, but still tasty.

“You can…do that?”

“What?”

Ed squints up at Izzy, a crooked grin on his face. “Laugh,” he explains. “But like- not in a shit way.”

“Oh, fuck off,” is Izzy’s grumble, and now he’s frowning down at the shortbread, running his fingertips in a line an inch above each row, not yet taking one. “You love the colonies, Ed. Pick a port that isn’t complete shit. We can head to Nassau after.”

“Why the extra stop?” Stede asks, coming back to stand behind his chair, fingers curling over the ornately carved wood of the backrest. “Can’t we just- oh, I don’t know. Have a jolly good row with a trade ship?”

Finally, Izzy selects five of the shortbread and tucks them into his little bowl. He licks the crumbs off his fingers, nudges the canister over to Ed. Says, “Oh, certainly, Bonnet. Could do. But then we’d still have a fuck ton of stupid fucking furntiure below deck taking up all our fucking space, now wouldn’t we?”

“Point,” Ed concedes, snagging a biscuit and slotting it between his knuckles, trying to walk it across. It crumbles to nothing; Izzy rolls his eyes, takes two more biscuits and shuts the lid. “Hey, now.”

“You’re making a mess,” Izzy says. “Don’t waste it.”

“We’re going on a grocery run!”

“It’ll still take a month!”

“Boring,” Ed says, his boot thudding down to the floor. He gets up, circles the table, kisses Stede on the cheek and then turns to go-

“Ah,” Stede calls out, struck with a sudden desire. “Ed, dear. Think you forgot something.”

Ed looks back over his shoulder. “What?”

“Izzy’s kiss.”

On the other side of the table, Izzy startles badly. Ed gives a curious kind of grin and a wink, saying, “Give him one of me, love. Later.” before he’s out the door of the cabin, and once again Stede and Izzy are alone at mealtime. Stede’s heart beats very loudly in his ears; he feels dizzied, buoyant.

He says, “Well. Should we-”

“No,” Izzy snarls, and then he follows Ed right out the door. He takes the bowl stuffed high with shortbread with him as he goes.

-

“Is this to be a permanent thing then,” Stede asks in the morning, yawning and scrubbing at his face. The bristle of beard is rough on his still sensitive palm. He winces, switches to the other hand.

“Nothing in this world is permanent,” Izzy says. “But what, precisely, are you blathering on about this time?”

“You at meal time.”

Izzy seats himself at the table, Ed’s usual spot. Stede stares in outrage, throws off the blankets, and stomps blearily to the cabin door then out of it, onto the deck, trumpeting, “Someone! Anyone! I am in dire need of your assistance, if you please- oh, Ed, not you!”

“Well, why not me,” Ed says, fiddling with his gun and looking hurt.

He also, Stede makes note, looks very beautiful and windswept, hair like a veil about his shoulders; Stede goes to him, curling his fingers beneath Ed’s chin to tip his petulant expression up. “Why hello,” he says, soft. “You weren’t in my bed this morning.”

“Sent Izzy in,” Ed says.

“I noticed. Are you trying to turn me off the fish even more than I already am?”

When Ed laughs with his eyes all crinkled up, Stede leans in to kiss him. Gets him on the cheek, the soft fluff of his beard. Stede’s fingers uncurl, stroke through it. “Getting longer, hm?”

“Think I should shave it again?”

“Oh, well,” Stede stammers, tugging a little harder than he means to on Ed’s beard; Ed’s eyes darken, a soft noise sighing out of him. “If that’s- I suppose if that’s what you want, my dear?”

Ed laughs again, leans in. “Nah, I’ll keep it like this a while more.”

A relieved breath, which Stede doesn’t bother to hide. “Lovely,” he murmurs, leaning in to kiss Ed again, proper this time and lingering in the morning glow on the deck, and really, Stede doesn’t see why he can’t just take a little step, then one more, walk Ed back up against the mast and-

Wee John says from behind them, “Thought he needed something?”

“Seems he’s found it,” Frenchie says, amused.

“Guess you’re feeling better, Captain,” Ed says, still with those lovely dark eyes, pulling Stede in. His hands are steady on Stede’s shoulder, Stede’s chest, palm flat to the tempo of Stede’s heart.

“A little peaky still, actually, Captain!”

“Then best tell these deck hands what you need and take it easy for the day. Hmmm. Izzy‘s still in there. If you…need anything.”

Stede huffs, straightening his nightshirt. Reaches up to fluff his hair and regretfully steps away from Ed. “I shudder to wonder what he’s up to- oh yes, right-o! I did need something! A new chair to the captains’ cabin, now, and do be snappy with it!”

“A chair?” asks Frenchie, trading a look with Wee John, who shrugs. “Haven’t you got plenty in there already, Captain?”

“Can’t do with too much variety,” Stede sniffs.

He sends back the first two proffered options and then heads below deck himself, fussing at volume. “Easy, mate,” Ed suggests, but Stede turns to him and wails, “They know what the cabin looks like, Ed! How could they presume I would find chartreuse and lavender velvet acceptable.”

“Er,” says Ed, wide-eyed.

“Line them all up, chaps,” Stede says, grimly surveying their belly full of loot.

-

Nearly an hour later Stede finally hauls the selected chair into the cabin, huffing and puffing and banging a leg on the doorframe. “Here!” he cries out, once he’s over the threshold. “Now! Get out of Ed’s chair!”

Izzy’s over in the library, which is slowly being filled out again. He doesn’t turn around; only laughs, the nasty kind, and keeps flipping through pages. “Surprised you haven’t found more stupid, pointlessly sheer curtains, Bonnet.”

“It takes time to- oh! Oh!”

There’s a pile of books dropped to the floor beside Izzy, careless. Stede flings the chair away from himself with a clatter, racing over in outrage. He isn’t thinking when he barrels straight into Izzy’s back, which is a pity, as it causes Izzy to careen into the shelving, the book he’d been listlessly rifling through knocked to the floor, bent pages and spine up-

“You fiend,” Stede hisses. “You utter scoundrel, you black heart, foul criminal!”

Izzy coughs, or laughs- it’s so wretched, Stede can’t tell. He vibrates with vulgar readiness beneath Stede, not unlike a blade pulled from its sheathe. “Fucking- books are what do it for you?”

“What!”

“Not such a gentleman, now, are you,” Izzy croons, and Stede is painfully aware of how completely his body covers Izzy’s, nose buried in dark hair, no space left between them.

“Oh, are you- you cannot be serious.”

“Fuck off. No, Bonnet, I didn’t set this up deliberately. Ed said to wait here until he arrives and I decided to entertain myself, that’s all.”

“You could have occupied yourself with food!”

Beneath his own chest, Stede feels every breath Izzy takes; strained, shallow. He mutters, “Captains’ meal, Bonnet. There are rules.”

“Yes, but you’re…”

“What.”

Stede doesn’t say But you’re Izzy. because that seems a foolish, pointless observation.

It’s true though; of anyone, Izzy might be allowed some special behaviors, allowances no one else would get. He’s First Mate, for one. Ed’s lover, for another.

And now, Stede’s as well.

“What,” Izzy says again, but differently.

Softer, stranger, more exasperation than disdain, if Stede had to guess.

“Were you lonely?”

Izzy goes very still beneath him before huffing out, “Don’t fucking flatter yourself, you gaping twat,” in a bluster that feels protective, viciously defensive, so Stede takes half a step back, one hand still tight to Izzy’s shoulder, and looks at the mess of his lovely books on the floor, the haphazard pile so petulantly left. In spite of his anger at the sight, Stede hears Izzy’s low rasping voice echoing in his mind, his heart, muttering: Ed said to wait and-

Stede takes a deep breath, leans more of his weight in. “Rules, is it?”

“Bonnet-”

“Oh, no, don’t think you can escape this little tantrum of yours unscathed, Israel,” Stede says, the name sharp on his tongue, blade-bright. “What wrong have these books done you! None, you miscreant! They simply exist, full of wonder, and here you are, you horrible little troll, pulling them out one by one just to dump on the ground like- like-”

Izzy’s breath rasps in his throat. “Bonnet,” he says again, thicker this time. “What’re you…”

Stede presses his body back into Izzy, face buried in dark hair. Then he murmurs soft and quiet near Izzy’s ear: “You wanted attention, didn’t you? Well, you have it, now. And since you are in such dire need of it, daddy will teach you some manners, hm?”

“Hell,” comes Izzy’s whisper.

“Yes, you’ve been a very, very naughty boy.”

Someday, perhaps, it will stop being a surprise- the indignities Izzy has begun allowing him. But for now, Stede is still full of sharp wonder when Izzy makes a quiet, pained noise, and doesn’t try to escape. Stede’s fingers dig in. He asks, “How many books do you think you’ve mistreated, Israel?”

“Why the fuck would I know,” is Izzy’s sullen mutter.

Stede tuts, sharp and disappointed. “You don’t really want to keep being so rotten, do you? Come, now. Behave yourself for daddy, hm?”

“Fucking- twenty maybe!”

“Twenty!”

“Thirty-fucking-two,” Izzy bites out, shoulders hunching up. His hands lift on either side of him, grasping at the shelf near chest height. He still doesn’t make a move to push Stede away. “Had plenty of fucking time to page through them. Found each one fucking wanting for anything of merit, Bonnet, fucking- useless pieces of shit-”

“Aha! So you were lonely!”

“Fuck off,” Izzy snarls, shoulders up around his ears now. “Was not.”

Stede tuts again, voice lifted in sweet mockery. “Acting out, weren’t you, instead of being a good boy and simply asking daddy to play with you? Ed was quite right. You do need a firm hand, don’t you.”

“I- no.”

“Did your last spanking wear off already, Izzy?”

There’s a bit of a laugh, then, but less wretched this time. “You barely even hit me, Bonnet,” Izzy drawls, and just like that his defenses are fortified. “You got more bruised than I fucking did, you idiot.”

“Yes, well,” Stede returns, fighting for prim, managing sulky, not at all willing to give up. “As you said, I must use something other than my hand next time, Izzy! And I do believe you have invited this next time already, and goodness, so soon! You are quite the needy thing, aren’t you.”

“You clearly are in need of the practice. As inept in this as you are in all fucking things.”

But despite the vitriol, he remains in place.

Stede feels the full force of wanting roll in, a dark, stormy desire that sweeps through every limb, settling heavy in his chest. So Stede reaches past him, taps his finger along the spines of the books arrayed near Izzy’s face, humming. “Thirty-two, was it,” he asks.

Izzy shudders. “...Yes.”

“You will let me know if you see red, Izzy,” Stede tells him, selecting a volume and hefting it in his hand, testing the grip. He slides it back into place and bumps along for another as he waits for Izzy’s reply.

“...Fucking. What’s wrong with you.”

“Oh, don’t be so churlish, Izzy,” Stede says, cheerfully enough. “I know you’d rather bury your needs and desires and happiness where you can deny them, but that simply won’t work for me!”

“Your obsession with happiness is infantile!”

“So says the man too scared to be complicit in his own pleasure,” Stede volleys back, fingers tight on a likely volume. He presses in; still in his nightshirt, it’s easy to press the slight hardness of his cock in against Izzy, a threat and a promise both. He thinks for a moment, a little wildly, how lovely it might be to simply rub off on Izzy like this; Izzy remaining passive, simply letting Stede use him-

Stede clears his throat. “Think of this like a new set of rules for you, Izzy. You like those, don’t you?”

“I could just deck you.”

“If we reach fisticuffs as the only course of action, then we’ve already gone too far, I daresay.”

“Christ.” There’s laughter again; soft, quiet. Izzy bends his head and rests his forehead against the books he callously mistreated. Nudges back a little into Stede with his hips. “Fine, Bonnet. I’ll give you your fucking word, you pathetic, pansy-assed twat, I’ll-”

Stede pulls out a narrower volume, letting it drop spine down against the shelf in a sharp thud right near Izzy’s face. “Try that again, Israel, but with some manners this time, hm?”

A sharp, shallow breath in that Stede can feel through his own chest.

Izzy says, “Red! Will that serve his lordship? I’ll say red if I want you to stop. Happy now?”

“You know you can just call me daddy, Israel.”

“In your fucking dreams, Bonnet.”

“Sadly, I don’t really remember my dreams! Well, not the nice ones at least. So I suppose I’ll just have to keep working on you until you give in to what you want so very badly, my naughty boy,” Stede chirps out, stepping to the side, leaving Izzy there against the shelves with his fingers clenched and his feet shoulder width apart.

Again, that sharp wonder.

Izzy stays right there where Stede put him, waiting.

His arm is still sore, but luckily his palm and fingers seem fine; it doesn’t hurt to grip the book, the rough weave of the selected hardcover making it easier to grip than leatherbound would be. Not thin, precisely, but certainly no tome. Stede tries a few swings in the air, testing it out, rearranging his grip. Then, when Izzy blows out a harsh breath and says, “Do you need a fucking engraved invitation, you ponce, or are you going to get on with-” Stede swings the book in against Izzy’s leather clad thigh in an underhanded little arc, which makes the rest of that sentence turn into, “-fuck.”

“Books are weighty things, aren’t they,” Stede says, giving him another. Only the bottom third of the book catches against Izzy’s inner thigh, the rounded edges of the cover likely digging in, the flat of it making a hollow thud as it connects.

Izzy snarls, “Use them as cannonballs, then!”

“Just because you don’t understand a thing,” Stede tells him sternly, keeping up a steady rain of blows, from three, to seven, all the way up to twelve, all on the same thigh as he carries on, saying, “doesn’t mean that there isn’t merit, Israel. Only a naughty boy would wreck something so- so magical, so transformative and precious!”

“Fuck, fuck, you are so fucking stupid, why am I letting you-” Izzy rasps, but he’s crumpling a little beneath the steady assault, struggling not to flinch away.

Stede stops when he hits fifteen, taking a moment to switch hands; to stretch out his forearm, to flex his fingers, to adjust himself and surreptitiously press the hard cover he’s been hitting Izzy with against his own heavy cock for brief relief. He hisses, “Hurts, doesn’t it?”

“This is- fucking nothing, Bonnet.”

“Yes,” Stede agrees.

He switches hands again. Steps in so that he can angle down onto the other thigh, and it is a bit of a pity that he can’t see Izzy’s pale thighs bloom with color, to see if there are any imprints, raised welts that he might be leaving. But he only says, “You can handle quite a lot, can’t you? Except, apparently, being forgotten. Left alone.”

“Bonnet,” Izzy hisses, knee buckling. He clings to the bookcase, an elbow up along its length now. “Watch it-”

“It’s true, isn’t it, though!” Stede tells him, and swings the book once again, the dull thud of it connecting with the back of Izzy’s thigh almost obscene. “Naughty boy, wrecking daddy’s precious things. Tell me, what was it precisely that caused you to lash out, hm, Israel. Were you jealous?”

“Fuck you-”

Another dull thud, Izzy’s protest lost to a harsh gasp.

“Tell me the truth now,” Stede says, delivering the twenty-sixth blow. But Izzy is stubborn and silent and strong against the pain, so Stede tuts and swings the book a twenty-seventh time, a twenty-eighth, and he’s worked up a rhythm and learned how best to let gravity do most of the work, the thud as it makes contact louder now, sharper, harder than he’d been at the start.

Izzy makes a strangled noise. “I- I don’t-”

“The truth, Israel. Did you think you weren’t one of daddy’s precious things, is that it? Is that why you took it out on my poor books? Petty, silly jealousy!”

“Maybe I just,” Izzy gasps, trembling where he stands. “Ungh, fuck, fuck!”

Stede finishes up with thirty, then waits.

After a moment, voice shivering, Izzy manages a weak snarl: “Maybe I just thought the place could do with a bit of redecorating, Bonnet.”

“I see.”

For the last two, he swings the book harder than he’s dared so far. Izzy makes a delicious, squealing little noise behind his clenched teeth. Carefully, trying not to let any fatigue show, Stede places the book back where it belongs on the shelf, pressing in behind Izzy again.

“You will pick these books up, Israel.”

“And if I don’t,” Izzy dares, rough and aching.

He could take more; of course he could, nothing Stede is able to give him will match the pain Ed can dole out, the agony that lights Izzy up from the inside. But that isn’t what Stede wants; isn’t at all what Izzy needs from him, no. So instead of threatening, he cajoles. Slips his hand around to Izzy’s throat, skates his palm up to press his fingers into the softness beneath Izzy’s chin, tilting his head up, angling him so Stede might lean in and kiss the corner of his open mouth, scrape of goatee making his lips tingle, his body throb.

“Then you won’t get the present daddy brought for you,” Stede says, kissing him again, sweet and barely there. “Aren’t you ashamed, darling? Such a fussy tantrum you threw, assuming you’d been forgotten, and all the while I was thinking of you.”

“W-what,” Izzy says, and Stede can see his eyes wide, dark and shocked and with the whites showing all around.

“Aren’t you ashamed, Izzy?”

“I-”

Stede murmurs, “The truth now, my boy,” with his lips moving against Izzy’s cheek, a tender, dirty glide.

“Did you really-”

He cuts himself off, but not before the need and longing bleed through. Stede has to close his eyes, drag in a struggling breath, because he feels raw all of a sudden at the weakness of it, the sore point Izzy is letting Stede press on.

“Oh, Izzy,” he says, too soft. “You are wanted, you know. I promise you that.”

A horrible, quavering sound shakes loose; it sounds as if Izzy is collapsing in on himself, demolished under the weight of his own need, too rotted through to withstand it any longer. “I was,” he grates out. “Jealous. Bored. I felt- forgotten.”

“There,” Stede tells him, still too soft, his own eyes stinging with tears. “There now. My good boy.”

“Yes,” Izzy gasps, weight sagging into Stede again, and oh, oh he’s lovely, so lovely, trembling in Stede’s arms, letting himself be moved, turned around and pressed back against the shelves. He lets Stede kiss him proper: slow and sweet, both of Stede’s hands cupping his jaw, both of Izzy’s fisted into Stede’s coat as he whimpers, sucking on Stede’s tongue.

It’s addictive, maddening. Stede pulls away with a gasp, a groan, his thumbs sweeping across Izzy’s cheeks, settling against the hinge of his jaw.

Izzy’s lashes are low, expression soft, open. “You still haven’t fucked me.”

And he’s right, but neither has Izzy picked up any of the books he so carelessly dropped. Stede kisses him again, once, twice, feeling Izzy’s weakened knees start to give out beneath the attention. Stede pulls back, humming. “Israel,” he tells him, gently, gently. “You will be a good boy for daddy and pick these books up. Won’t you?”

“Yes,” Izzy breathes, clinging to him. “Da- hng.”

He catches himself, but barely.

Stede doesn’t stray from his plans only because of how the lust of that near-slip bowls him over in such a wild, a dizzying burst, paralyzing him. “Oh, darling,” he whimpers out when he can breathe again, and Izzy turns his flushed, shamed face from Stede, eyes clenched shut.

“Oh, yes. There he is,” Stede whispers. “My precious, sweet boy. Aren’t you?”

A high whine ekes out.

Stede kisses his temple, right where the soft white of his hair sweeps back. “Go on, Izzy. Are you daddy’s good boy, now?”

“Y-yes,” Izzy gasps, clutching at him. “Ohh, da-aah, fuck, fuck!”

Stede wants to press; to push. Izzy is weak with wanting, he’s needy and hungry and hateful with it, the deep furrows in his brow shaped into agony. He could break him, Stede realizes; he could make Izzy say it here and now, he’s so close to giving it up that the thrill of it vibrates under Stede’s tongue, squeezes a band of fire and thorns around his chest, his lungs and his heart; it tastes like metal, like blood and love and victory, and Stede wants to ruin him-

“That’s enough,” he gets out, voice shaking. “Izzy, darling. That’s good. That’s enough.”

The relief is palpable: Izzy goes even weaker, boneless, held up only by the shelving at his back and his desperate grip on Stede’s coat, Stede’s body pressed to his. They’re both hard, because of course they are; it’s a low throb on Stede’s awareness, and he fights to gain his bearings, to gather some restraint.

Izzy didn’t say the word red, but Stede still-

Well.

He doesn’t want to fuck this.

“Izzy,” he says, quiet, and Izzy turns his face with a low, throaty snarl, some helpless and hungry sound. Finds Stede’s mouth and kisses him, sharp and biting and brutal. Stede whimpers; does his best to keep up, kissing him and kissing him until Izzy is steady again.

Slowly, Izzy leans back; blinks his eyes open. Says, “You could’ve-” before he has to stop, clear his throat of thickness, sentiment.

“Yes,” Stede agrees, careful. “But- I can wait.”

Those dark, hazy eyes narrow; sharpen. “Wait for fucking what, Bonnet.”

“Well. For- for you, of course.”

“Twat. Save your fucking pity for someone else,” Izzy hisses, with none of his usual affected disdain. He looks suddenly terrified. Angry. He shoves at Stede, forcing him back.

Stede, affronted, exclaims: “Perhaps I would, if only you weren’t so pitiable!”

And he expects Izzy to lash out then; when he doesn’t, Stede scowls down at him, opens his mouth for another barb, but- Izzy is staring at Stede’s chest where Stede is furiously rubbing the heel of his palm over his heart, that loud and voracious thing, laboring under the pains of learning, of loving.

Right where Izzy had come knocking.

“I’ll pick up your fucking books, Bonnet,” is all that Izzy says; careful, stilted.

“Yes, quite,” Stede grimaces. “You do that!”

A smile, blade-sharp. “What, not going to tell me I’m a good boy?”

“You murdered the mood, you horrible brat,” Stede says, acerbic, feeling himself flush, hot and awkward and trapped suddenly. Izzy’s vicious smile grows. He takes a step forward; Stede stumbles back.

The laugh this time is-

“Oh,” Stede murmurs, because the anxious, prickling unease melts at the sound of it. “You really can- well. Well! Who knew you could sound so-”

“What?”

Stede rolls his wrist, trying to find the words. He purses his lips; settles on: “Normal?”

Izzy only rolls his eyes, dismissive. “Twat.”

“Oh, I know you are,” Stede harrumphs. “But what am I, hm?”

“A fucking embarrassment to God and country,” Izzy mutters, turning toward the books. While he gets to work putting them to rights, Stede goes to the table, set as always for two, himself and Ed. Now, there is a third chair. Stede takes in the angles; adjusts them; nudges his chair one way and Ed’s the other, making room for the third.

“There now,” Stede says, patting his fingers atop the backrest. “This is yours, Izzy. That one is mine, and that one is Ed’s. I’ll thank you to remember these little details.”

Izzy slots in the last book, staring askance. “A chair.”

“Yes, a chair!”

“That’s your fucking present?” Izzy runs fingers through his hair, the little x mark on his cheek bunching as he clenches tight his jaw. “That’s your fucking- present for me? A fucking- chair?”

Stede blinks at him. “Yes?”

Izzy’s hands come up, curled into claws. He seems uncertain what to do, how to react. Stede thinks he’s probably too furious for words, and it would be easy, so tragically, painfully easy to let him find a scathing reply, to keep going on as they have been, each of them finding chinks in their armor, little tells to guess at, to try and make peace with.

But that’s exhausting. And Stede has given up a lot for a taste of freedom, to learn what love is, bravery; the hard work of commitment. He doesn’t want this lost in translation; he doesn’t want for his troublesome heart to fumble again, again, to wait for a wave of anger to carry him forth into honesty, and he tells himself fiercely The truth now and so-

He blurts out, “You can’t just take Ed’s seat! That’s his, and you certainly can’t have mine! So I thought. Well. I only thought- if you’re meant to be a- a permanent fixture, you see. And you are, aren’t you? So you must have your own place at our table. Don’t you, er. Don’t you see, Izzy? You must.”

“Fuckin- Bonnet.”

“What!”

“You can’t do that! That isn’t what I- I don’t need-”

All at once, the door swings open, Ed tumbling through in a rush, which is fast becoming his modus operandi, Stede notes. He says, in a showy bluster, “Hey, mates, did I- did I miss anything? Are you- oh. You’re just. Standing around, huh. Well shit.”

“Edward,” Izzy grates out, sounding like a storm is brewing.

Stede flings an arm out, plaintive. “Ed! Tell him how hard we worked to find the perfect chair! He’s being terribly ungrateful even after I explained. I mean really! This disregard for others gifts is utterly uncouth, I’m a wonderful gift giver! Why can’t he just-”

“I’ll show you fucking ungrateful,” Izzy snarls, taking one violent step forward.

Stede jumps, fingers clenched on the carved wood. Then he scowls, deliberately drags the chair out with a scrape of wood on wood. “Israel Hands,” he says, daringly. “Take your seat, won’t you? C’mon now! It’s time for breakfast!”

Izzy glowers at him.

“Right, so. Can I tell you something, Izzy?” is what Ed says, making his way to his own chair. He pulls it out, less loudly than Stede’s angry showmanship, and plops into it. Kicks out Stede’s chair a little with his boot and then lolls his head to the side, looking at Izzy from a glittering, dangerously pretty angle.

Stede knows how that look affects him, certainly. No surprise when Izzy muffles a curse and glances once up toward the ceiling, as if praying for strength.

“What,” he says, flat.

“I want you here. And I think you do, too,” is Ed’s gruff reply. He rolls his shoulders, sits upright. Reaches out to start snatching food for his plate. Takes a bite of cheese, like none of this matters, like Izzy and Stede aren’t in a standoff across the room from each other; like Ed isn’t gouging himself open, reaching past the rot for the heart beneath. “But you fucking- you built up all these rules for us, didn’t you? This dream, yeah? About who we get to be, who we can’t be, and I don’t. I don’t-”

Stede watches Izzy’s defenses falter; weaken.

“New management,” Ed tries, awkwardly clearing his throat. “Right? So let’s do- something new, something more, yeah?”

“Like you didn’t set plenty of those fucking rules yourself,” Izzy points out, and Stede is being very quiet now, a skill he learned when he was very young. He is waiting and he is watching, and so he is witness to the way Izzy’s face blooms open, not unlike the other morning when Ed had shown that possessive little bit of protection, of affection. Hungry; exasperated; afraid of how much he wants it.

“Well that- Now, Izzy, is that the take away, here, really? Not-” Ed is wincing, stumbling over truth and pride and fear and love and a whole lifetime of habit, of repression, of side-stepping the killing blow. His clever fingers are fiddling with a biscuit so desperately it’s crumbling into ruin. Under the table his bad knee jumps, heel scuffing the floorboards, so Stede reaches out and taps Ed’s ankle with his own, smiling encouragingly when Ed glances up at him, startled.

“The truth now, dear,” Stede whispers.

Ed blows out a breath, holding Stede’s gaze. “Yeah, no, listen, listen. You’re right, Iz. I did as much damage,” he admits, a low murmur. He looks to Izzy. “Sorry.”

For a moment, Izzy can only stare. Stunned; still afraid. So incredibly, painfully full of longing with his dark, wounded eyes, his gritted jaw; that lovely mark jumping, jumping. “Sure. Fine! Let’s entertain for one moment this crazed line of fucking thought, shall we? Of the three of us like- like- fucking shitting God damned fuck, you complete twats!”

“Always a way with words, our Izzy,” Ed murmurs, a ghost of a smile crinkling his eyes.

Stede wrinkles his nose. “Try that again, won’t you?”

“Piss off, Bonnet,” Izzy drawls out, sounding tired, sounding stubborn. “Like you have the right. What’s it say, then, Edward, that the chair his lordship chose for me has none of the fucking- padding that the two of you have, hm? Might as well have gotten me a- a fucking stool, Bonnet, if you want so badly to show me my fucking place in the scheme of-”

“Don’t you like when you can feel the hurts, Izzy?”

Izzy stares at him, mouth hanging open. “I… the fuck does that…”

“Stede had a bit of a crisis,” Ed says, laughing softly. He winks up at Stede, who blushes and huffs, mutters, “Ed, really. He doesn’t need to know!” but- of course he needs to know. So Stede huffs some more and throws himself into his own chair, snapping out his napkin but otherwise protesting no further as Ed keeps going, saying, “Oh, yeah. Fucking- nutter, our Stede. Back and forth in circles about whether pampering you meant comfort or something that would let you feel each of your little aches when we’re through with you. Told him to ask, but-”

“You would have laughed at me, Izzy! And not the nice kind!”

“-yeah, didn’t seem the smartest choice,” Ed agrees, still collecting choice bits of breakfast. “So Stede fucking had us debating craftsmanship and style and durability for a fucking lifetime trying to pick you the perfect fucking chair, y’know. Be ungrateful, don’t you think, to not sit on it. Yours, after all.”

Turning his tense, unhappy face from them, Izzy blows out a harsh breath. Stede and Ed sit at the table and arrange food, neither of them eating, neither of them wanting to startle Izzy into fleeing. The third chair remains pulled back, waiting.

“Not like this would even- one of us ought to be out on deck, at least, so this is just. A stupid, nonsensical, moot fucking point, but.” He takes a deep breath, then says, “No one else sits in it,” with his shoulders deliberately down, hand resting on the pommel of his sword. He swallows; glares out the window. “That’s the rule, right, Bonnet?”

“Er- yes,” Stede says, heart rabbiting in his chest.

Izzy grinds his teeth visibly. Gets out, “And it doesn’t- go anywhere. Whether I sit in it or not. Right?”

“A permanent fixture,” Stede promises, waving Ed down when he looks puzzled, curious, put out about being left out of the deeper meaning. Ed grumbles but subsides; slumps in his chair, watching Izzy with half-lidded, cautious eyes.

“...Is the chair why you picked the thighs, Bonnet?”

“Ah,” breathes Stede.

He can feel his entire body flush, no doubt blotchy across his chest and up his throat, easy to spot in his nightshirt, which really, why is he still in his nightshirt? He should have dressed properly while Izzy tidied. Should have armored himself; made himself less vulnerable and exposed and-

“So that’s a yes,” Izzy drawls, a vicious, satisfied grimace pulling at his features.

Beside him, Ed makes a furious little noise, banging a fist down onto the table and making Stede jump, startled. Everything rattles. “Fucking-” he gets out, savage. “Did you two! And I fucking! FUCK!”

“Ed,” Izzy says next, a warning.

“Fuck!” Ed says again, burying his face in both hands. “Fucking fuck fuckity shitting fuck!”

“Er. Is there something- amiss, my dear?”

Ed doesn’t remove his hands. “No,” he mutters. “Fucking- don’t worry about it. Izzy, are you sitting or aren’t you? Breakfast, mate. Fucking- first meal of the day and all that shit. Blah blah fucking, who cares, better question! Did you two fuck just now?!”

“Oh, no, not- not that-”

“He hit me with a fucking book,” Izzy drawls, amused.

Ed muffles a yell.

Stede and Izzy ignore him, as Stede is too busy being mortified and hopeful, and Izzy finally makes a choice. He prowls forward, toward the table. Walks around to his chair and touches his gloveless fingertips to the hard wood, tracing the graceful arch of its high back. It looks severe; but the carvings are beautiful, intricate, a riot of leaves and flowers and berries, a hidden sparrow.

“Fine,” is all he says.

He sits.

Scooches closer to the table, chin up, head angled. “You fucking twats going to start eating so I can, y’know, fucking join in at some point today?”

“Oh, we’re keeping that rule?”

“Yes, Bonnet, we’re not throwing the whole fucking lot of them overboard just because Blackbeard wants to play fucking house, fuck’s sake.”

Ed peeks at Izzy through his fingers, gaze dark and hungry, roving. “Comfy, mate?”

Izzy flips him off without looking at him. But his cheeks are a little flushed. He wets his lower lip, shifting slightly against the hard seat. Stede’s breath stutters in his chest. Nervously, he reaches out and serves himself yet another helping of fried fish. He can’t stop thinking about how Izzy’s bruised thighs will be pressing against the chair’s edge, digging in.

“Well,” Stede starts, drawing out the word in consideration. “If we’re keeping that rule, Izzy, I suppose- I suppose you may as well occupy yourself as we dine? It would be terribly rude, after all, to leave you simply- waiting.”

“Yeah,” Ed says, nodding his head, dropping his hands, forgetting whatever it was that had him in a strop and smiling, smiling. “Fucking- awful of us if we did, huh, Stede? Maybe Izzy should-”

“Touch himself?”

“Absolutely,” Ed agrees, and the smile is wolfish, all teeth. “What d’you say, Iz?”

“No,” is Izzy’s low, rasping response. He squirms in place a little, clearly enjoying the throb of pain. But his smile is beatific and half-feral, and he says, “Not on the menu today, Captains. Now eat your fucking food already.”

“Uppity,” Stede hisses, stabbing at his fish.

“Fuck yeah! He is, isn’t he!” Ed has to drain his goblet of ale in a long series of pulls, rolling his shoulders when he comes out of it, gasping for air, trying to shake off a hunger no amount of breakfast can sate.

Izzy laughs at them; it’s mostly the nice kind.




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