Archive of Our Own

There are some mistakes which simply prove too disastrous to ever move past. They hang around forever, like some sort of… hanging thing—a hanging thing of death— and all you can do, really, is keep a watchful eye on it and occasionally remind oneself that fucking ones’ (deeply unhinged) first-mate is never advisable. 

Unfortunately, the Ed of twenty-some years previous knew not of the danger of hanging-things-of-death. And the thing about Izzy was— is —he’s always just… there. 

High or drunk or, perhaps both, Ed of twenty-some years ago had looked at Izzy Hands and known the man was desperately in love with him; or at least the pirate’s version of love, which involved a considerable amount of screaming and blood. 

On second thought, maybe that was Izzy’s version of love.

Ed had known since Izzy had approached him in their late teens and demanded Ed place a tattoo somewhere on his person. The conversation—confrontation—had gone something like:  

“A tattoo?” 

“You fockin’ deaf now? Yes, a fockin’ tattoo.”

“Of what?” 

Izzy, who has remained approximately the same height since he was sixteen, had learned by necessity how to turn even the smallest of motions, like shrugs, into full-body performances. This is how Izzy gets noticed. (In stark contrast, Ed has only ever needed the barest hint of motion to bring a whole room’s fearful attention down on his head.) Izzy had shrugged with every muscle in his body in response to Ed’s—very reasonable, thanks—question. 

“Do I fockin’ care?” 

“I dunno’, mate. Do ya’?” 

Explosively, Izzy had thrown his hands up and back down again. Exasperation. Irritation. All the -ations. “For fock’s sake, Edward,” he sneered, as if he weren’t being the difficult one. 

“Alright, alright. Calm down.” 

Ed had chosen the face for practicality sake. It has never been wise to lose sight of where Izzy Hands’ teeth were in proximity to your flesh. At this point in their mutual pirate-careers, Ed had already seen him take a man’s throat out that way once. (That number would climb with age, though never into double-digits, unlike Stede’s Mr. Buttons. Now that Ed’s thinking about it, that might be why the two of them, Buttons and Iz, get along so well out of all the members of Stede’s crew.) The shape of the tattoo had also been for practicality’s sake. Something simple. Stupid. As utterly devoid of meaning as Ed could possibly make it, because he wasn’t dumb and Izzy wasn’t subtle. Ed hadn’t wanted this sort of thing to get taken the wrong way, and all. 

But Izzy—Izzy was downright worshipful , and Ed was not in any way prepared for the reality of that. Iz was so stupidly, blindly grateful for each prick of the needle that it gave Ed the same rush as a good fucking raid did—the same sort of high as seeing a British officer or some other twat tremble under him, his boot, or his blade. 

He steadied Izzy’s head in-place with his free hand on his neck, between pulls of a rum that burned like fire, of course. He’d squeezed harder than necessary, just to hear Izzy let out these shuddering little gasps of air that sounded like moans. This can’t possibly have helped. His thumb was situated close enough to Izzy’s pulse point that it was impossible to miss the powerful, rapid throbbing and the swallowing —Jesus wept, the swallowing. 

Like Izzy’s mouth had flooded with an uncontrollable amount of saliva at the simple proximity of Ed. 

And, well. It had. 

“I just don’t understand it,” Stede is saying, wringing a lovely little tea towel with golden embroidery between his fingers. Ed watches the movement. He would stop to still the nervous tremble of those hands if he weren’t occupied with the absolutely marvelous little treat that Roach had prepared. Bruschetta. What a concept! “He’s just—”

“I know,” Ed says around a mouthful of food that truly just has no business on a pirate ship. 

(That he truly has no business eating.)

“And the—!” 

“I know.”

“I just—” the tea towel hits the table with a frustrated huff. Stede stalks off to gaze out the window, jaw set tightly. He’s allowed said jaw to play host to a delightful layer of scruff that Ed can’t get enough of. Does excellent things to the insides of his thighs. 

Mm. 

He tunes back in, “—and this obsession with you! Not that you’re not worthy of it, my darling, not that at all. It’s just that you and Blackbeard are rather disparate these days.” Stede says “Blackbeard” like another man would say “sewer-rat” which Ed can’t really disagree with. Most days, Ed feels like that even about Ed. 

More kraken than man, he is, despite Stede’s numerous objections. 

“You’d almost think he’s in love with Blackbeard!” Stede finally bursts forth, whirling from the window. The trailing end-thingies of his fancy coat—the turquoise one, the one that shimmers in the sunlight when they’re on deck just so— wag furiously with the motion. 

“Uh, yeah. That’s pretty much it, that,” Ed confirms. 

Stede blinks at him. “Pardon?” 

“In love with Blackbeard,” he clarifies. 

“Pardon?” Stede squeaks. 

“Iz’s always been like that.” He waves his hand in a sort of round-about motion to indicate Iz’s general Izzy-ness about it. “Got worse after we fucked, though. And then another twenty times worse with the whole…” he wiggles his own bare toes—all ten of them. 

“Sorry, ‘fucked’?” Stede squeaks in dismay. 

Ed rests his weary head in his hands, scratching at his scalp. “Once,” he bemoans. Once, once, once. “I knew it was a mistake when I did it. Little bugger has never been normal about anything a day in his life. Thought it would help him set himself right if I just… gave him what he wanted.” 

There’s something in Stede’s expression now besides just shock, something a little bit like morbid fascination—the same sort of morbid fascination that allows Stede to watch Ivan skin a man with a tiny fork on Ed’s word but would have him gagging at the thought of doing it himself. He comes around the table—careful of his trailing white sleeves and the remains of Roach’s spectacular breakfast spread—to sit across from Ed, eyes wide. 

“And that was… intercourse? With you?” 

Ed tips and twists his hand this way and that—a rocking boat on a tumultuous ocean. A more-or-less. “It’s Iz,” he offers. 

Stede’s brow folds and creases in thought. “So?” he raises teacup and saucer to his delicate lips, sipping once and sighing. 

“So it’s fucking—not sex. Not… intercourse. We fucked.”  

“There’s ah…” Stede pauses. He flushes a lovely pink. “A distinction?” 

Ed leans back in the chair—sprawls, really—and grins. If there’s one thing about Stede—and good sweet God, there’s so many and Ed really just loves this man— it’s that nothing gets him hornier than a little bit of dirty-talk. Ed has some thoughts about growing up rich and smothered in decorum, like Stede did. Stede insists that he “went to Boarding School” and that such talk is not foreign to him, but God if Ed can’t get the man squirming and hard as diamonds with nothing but a sentence. Or two. 

“Between sex and fucking? Oh, absolutely.” He grins, waiting. 

Stede, pink as the lace trim around his sleeves, makes a motion like go on already, on with it. Ed delights, privately, that what Stede is really asking for is explicit details about the time Ed fucked his first-fucking-mate absolutely stupid.

“Fucking is fucking, mate. There’s nothing soft or romantic about it. God knows Iz and I never kissed,” he adds. 

“You didn’t?” Stede asks, surprised.

“Well, no. Not like we do. More like…” he stops to choose his words carefully, keeps his eyes eagerly on Stede to see how he reacts and says, “Fucking his mouth with my mouth. Bit his lips up so dark they bruised. I think he actually liked it more when I bit ‘im and split his lip open. Couldn’t even taste the booze after that. Just blood.” 

Pink as lace becomes red as a tomato. Stede, probably not even aware of it, shifts a bit in his chair. “And you’re… sure he liked that? A bit much, don’t you think?” 

Ed scoffs. “Was wet as the fuckin’ ocean, man! Barely even touched him! Just fucked him up a bit.” 

Stede stumbles over those words and blinks once, hard. “Sorry,” he begins—and Ed makes a note about that, about the constant reflexive apologies and how Stede really, really shouldn’t ever feel the need to apologize for just… fuckin’ participating in the conversation—“you said ‘wet’?” 

“Oh,” Ed blinks back. Yeah, maybe a bit of a key detail, that. “Iz’s got a cunt.” 

Stede chokes and starts coughing like he’s dying. Ed’s feet hit the floor before he’s really consciously aware of it and he’s hovering by Stede, patting him on the back even though Stede wasn’t eating anything, and generally fussing like his Ma’ used to fuss after him back when he was still small enough to fit in her lap. 

When the fit passes, Stede exclaims, all worked up about it and chastising, “Edward! You can’t just—” he splutters more, shooing away Ed’s worrying Ma-like hands. “You can’t just say that!” 

“Oh. You think?” 

Stede gives him a look that says the answer is obvious and Ed’s obviously missed it. On anyone else, Ed might find the expression uncomfortably irritating, even downright fucking infuriating. On Stede, it just makes Ed wonder if this is how Stede talked to his kids when they did something disappointing. Ed wants to see Stede around his kids. Stede’s kids—not Ed’s; Ed doesn’t have kids. Oh, but there’s a thought: Stede and him with kids together.    

He gets distracted by that for a good while and when he tunes back in to the conversation, Stede is going on about “privacy” and “not making a habit of cataloging the genitalia of his crew” and “Jim would have us both by the balls if they knew we were talking like this about anyone!” 

Yeah. Ed can see that. Fair point, really. 

“My bad, then. Sorry, Stede.” 

Stede sighs. “It’s quite alright, love. It’s just us. But… well. You know now.” 

Ed slings his feet back up onto the table. The nice dishes rattle. Stede gives him a fond look. “Want me to keep on, though?” Ed asks. 

Stede’s eyes sparkle. 

Yeah. Ed thought so. 

In Ed’s past dalliances—Stede would use the word “dalliances”; Stede has rubbed off on him in a lot of ways, evidently—it usually, at the very least, started with a, “wanna’ fuck?” Some even started the proper way, with a kiss and everything that either gradually heated up into something more or was, honestly, just a necessary precursor to someone’s cock in someone’s hand, throat, or ass. 

Twenty-something and dumb, Ed had just… shoved his thumb into Izzy’s mouth. He’d felt how wet it was for himself. Pushed down on his tongue, hard, just to see what Iz would do. Iz let his jaw drop open, all loose and easy like he had never been before, and Ed had shoved a second and third finger in there as well. Just to see. Just to feel. 

Iz, never once looking away, had closed his lips around those three fingers crammed in his mouth and sucked. 

“Jesus fucking fuck, Iz,” Ed had murmured. He was fucking enraptured by it, by that look in Izzy’s eyes the whole night, by the proximity of him. The Look only intensified as Ed moved his fingers in and out of Izzy’s mouth, pantomiming fucking him like that until Iz had shuddered all over and his eyes had just fluttered shut. 

Like there was nothing else he’d rather be doing than getting some stupid shit tatooed on his face and sucking on Ed’s fucking fingers in return. Like it was a gift. Like Ed was a gift. 

“Yeah? God, you want it. You hard, Iz?” Ed had said, still moving his fingers in and out and in and out. He had practically leaned up onto his knees such that he was hunching over Izzy, forcing his head and body back into a bend. (He was young enough then that his knee wasn’t yet six-ways fucked. He could do that sort of thing—tower over his slutty first mate without a care in the fuckdamn world.) 

Iz sucked him harder in answer. 

“Get yourself out, man,” Ed had demanded, eager to see it—see Izzy’s cock at-attention for him. 

Izzy had frozen, eyes flying open like he’d been caught at something. His pupils were still blown to shit, though. (Even if they weren’t, Ed probably wouldn’t have stopped. Not with Izzy.)

“What?” Ed taunted and all at once ripped his fingers away from Izzy’s mouth. Izzy swayed after them, like losing them was the worst thing to ever happen in the history of mankind, and so Ed had grabbed him by the hair and held him still like that. “Embarrassed? What, is it small or something?” Ed gave him the Blackbeard grin, the fucking sharp one. “I don’t mind, Iz. I like you small. Can crush you better.” 

And Iz had, honest to fucking God, moaned like Ed was paying him to do it. Shivered, too. All over. Quivered like a fuckin’ leaf in a storm. And it was—it was a damn revelation. The closest Ed had ever even seen Izzy-fucking-Hands come to submissive was when half of Hornigold’s ship had come down with something nasty that killed off half the crew in practically a week. Izzy had been so feverish he was hallucinating. Iz would have thrown himself into the ocean and drowned if Ed hadn’t climbed on top of him and just… held the little fucker down for a good long while. Izzy had gone pliant and content like a goddamn rag doll, for all that he was still burning up and occassionally vomiting. 

They had been little more than boys, then. Ed hadn’t thought about that incident in years. With Izzy’s hair clenched tight in his fist and Ed’s hand still tacky with his spit, it was all he was thinking about. 

“Gonna’ crush you like a bug,” he’d said—terrible dirty talk, really; honestly pretty fuckin’ stupid—and Iz had let out a whine that sounded very much like a yes, please, crush me like a bug under your boot. 

Ed had thrown him down—wasn’t a far fall, really; they were already kneeling on the floor—by the hair and crawled over him. It felt so much like trapping him there that it’d given Ed even more of a rush than the whole thing up to that point. He’d managed to convince himself that this was a good idea. Izzy was clearly desperate for it and had been for going on ages, now. And Ed was having fun— so much fun. Why not? Why not fuck his firstmate into the floorboards? Why not see if he could get him to scream? 

Then, Ed had actually gotten Izzy’s pants open. For a gut wrenching moment that felt way too much like terror—in hindsight, it was terror — the only thing in Ed’s head was the simple fact: Izzy didn’t have an erection. Ed himself was so hard his leathers were actively fucking killing him. But Izzy just— wasn’t. 

And then. 

Then. 

He’d gotten the damned pants down around Izzy’s thighs and an eyeful of neatly-trimmed dark hair, glistening wet, and absolutely not a single dick in sight. Well, not a dick- dick. There was definitely a little something there, towards the top, that looked pretty damn interested in Ed. 

He’d stared at him, dumb and speechless, for a good thirty seconds to an eternity. Izzy had started to look pale, and had moved like he was going to sit up and wriggle away from Ed. 

Ed, surprised though he was, didn’t feel any differently about the whole thing. Izzy leaving was not part of the (admittedly nonexistent) plan. He was stronger than Iz, so he’d thrown his arm down across Iz’s chest and pinned him onto the floor. At the same time, he brought his fingers down to where Iz’s dark hair was shiny and wet. 

And fuck, he’d slid in like a knife through butter. 

Izzy’s back had bowed so dramatically that his head smacked into the floor with a painful-sounding thud. His mouth flew open and a sound— oh, a very good sound— rushed out of him all at once. Ed felt it move through Izzy’s chest where his arm was holding him nice and secure. His legs twitched underneath Ed’s ass. 

Ed had fucked a woman before . Fucked a few, even. Iz’s hardware seemed to be about the same model, really. But Ed had never fucked a woman this goddamn wet before. It was incredible—felt like nothing else ever had. A single finger in and Ed could already feel Izzy just pulsing around him, smoother than the finest fabric God had ever dreamed up and hotter than the fucking sun. 

He stretched his hand enough that the finger remained tucked warm and tight inside Izzy while his thumb brushed the thing that protruded to meet him. The grip Iz had around Ed’s finger went so tight he lost circulation in the damn thing; Iz yelped . 

All sorts of mean about it, Ed leaned down until his chest brushed Iz’s, until there was no space between them at all and Ed’s lips brushed Iz’s ear. 

“I was right,” he whispered, fucking giddy with it, just really truly on cloud fucking nine, “Your cock is small.” 

“And then he just—” Ed mimes an explosion and continues, “came. Just like that.” 

“No,” Stede gasped, scandalized and clearly fucking loving it. He’s red up to his carefully-trimmed eyebrows, practically squirming in his fucking seat. Ed’s eating him up. Better than the fucking Bruchetta by a mile. “Just like that?” 

Ed nods. Adjusts himself. He’s not wearing much more than one of Stede’s robes—the red one with the little flowers that feels as gentle as eyelashes on his skin—but the way Stede’s responding to the whole sorry tale has him more than halfway hard already. 

He chuckles and follows up, “I think, in total, he must’ve come like… four times.” 

“Four?!” Stede practically shrieks. He looks fucking delighted though. “That’s… how is that even possible?” 

“Cunts are neat like that,” Ed shrugs. 

“That’s not a very nice word for it,” Stede points out, ever the gentleman. God, Ed loves this strange, wonderful man. 

“What should I say instead?” 

Stede thinks for a moment. “Garden of Venus?” he offers, nonsensically. 

“The fuck?” 

“No?” Stede looks real broken up about it. “Harbor? Whim? The nether end?” 

“These are all for ‘cunt’?” Ed snorts. “Stede these are…” 

“Awful?” 

“Just bloody fuckin’ terrible, mate.” 

“Sorry,” Stede grimaces.

“Don’t apologize, man! You apologize too much. They aren’t your words, are they?” Ed stops. “What’d your wife call it?” 

Stede’s grimace intensifies. “We—ah. Didn’t really… refer to it.” 

“You never talked about your wife’s… ah… parts?” Ed tries. 

Stede buries his beautiful, tomato-red face into his hands and cries, “No! We definitely did not! It just sort of…” he gestures vaguely with his shoulders, unwilling to remove his face from his hands. Ed tries to stifle his laughter. “I don’t know! It was all very perfunctory! It was just… the done thing! You marry, you consummate the marriage, you get lucky or you try again for children!” 

Something about his own words strikes Stede like a gong. He jack-knifes up, hands dropping away in an instant as he stares at Ed in horror. 

“You had sex with Izzy,” Stede states. Maybe he broke something in his brain with all the blushing. He repeats, slowly, “Inside of his… you know.” He swallows painfully. 

“Yeah?” Ed prompts. “Got like… all my fingers up there and then my cock. Christ, he was tight like a fucking vice, man. Shot off way too fast. Embarrassing, honestly, but I’d been fucking with him for a while and it was just really fucking good—” 

“Edward!” Stede hisses. He’s pink again. “Did he… you know…” he drops his voice to a whisper, as if Izzy Hands himself is skulking about in the hallway outside the Captains’ Quarters, “Get with child?” 

In a ranking of all-time terrible mental images,the picture of little Izzys running around on the ship screaming, biting and inevitably welding tiny swords is at the very top of Edward’s Absolutely-Not list. 

“No! No, man!” Ed says, probably much louder than is called for. 

“Well, how was I supposed to know?!” 

They only ever talked about Izzy’s… parts once. It was that very same night when the same visceral terror that struck Stede just now struck Ed—God, how did Ed forget about that? He’d nearly bit his own tongue off when the thought occurred to him. Izzy had just fuckin laughed at him before showing him a handful of scars—pretty gnarly ones, too. Two on the chest, where he had his tits taken off, and one on the low abdomen where Izzy said he threatened a surgeon at gunpoint to, in his words, “take all the bullshit out”. 

“No,” Ed says. And then three more times for emphasis. “Iz had like… surgery. Doesn’t have the bits for it.” 

“Oh!” Stede says. “That’s possible?” 

Ed shrugs. “I guess so.” 

Stede makes a face. “Seems like it’d be awfully painful.” 

“Probably,” Ed admits. He hadn’t thought about it like that before. He’d just been fucking relieved that he hadn’t accidentally, well. 

They both sit in silence heavy with relief. It is, predictably, Stede who launches them back into the thick of it, giving Ed a look he can’t quite discern before asking, “You said it just made it worse, to have done the deed with him?” 

Ed sighs and scrubs a hand through the stubble on his face. He nods. 

“How do you mean?” Stede asks him. 

It makes him feel like shit, to think about it, let alone to put it into words. It’s the same set of feelings he has reserved as Izzy-Specific Feelings and they include a general feeling of grossness (at himself), frustration (with Izzy), and a guilt so sharp and aching he can feel it in his teeth. Ed doesn’t want to think about it—or talk about it —anymore than he wants to talk about the toe-thing. 

But it’s Stede asking. 

There’s not a lot that Ed wouldn’t do, if Stede asked. 

“I think he just… wanted it more, after. I could tell. Could just… see it on him, ya’ know? He’d get this look in his eye and I could tell he was thinking about it. Remembering it. And he’d look like that most when he was doing something to piss me off,” Ed explains, haltingly. “And look, Stede, the morning after? When I’d sobered up and just had a moment to fucking think? I didn’t like what I’d done. How I’d… been, with him. It was…” 

“Rough?” Stede fills in with his sympathetic eyes and tone, looking at Ed with so much love even as Ed admits to practically bullying Izzy into having sex with him.

He’d gotten Izzy to scream, alright. He’d gotten him to writhe and struggle and fucking squeal. And he’d fucking liked it, but also hated it. Just… really fucking hated it, after. Hated himself, after. Ed can’t even fathom doing the things he did to Izzy to Stede. Sex with Stede is… it’s with Stede, keyword being “with”. 

Sex with Izzy was… it was Ed doing things to Izzy. And Izzy seemed to like it, as much as he liked anything. Begged for it, even. And Ed, shamefully, disgustingly, horrifyingly liked it. And he hated that he liked it. 

“Wasn’t just rough, mate,” Ed rasps. And, because he is a man who talks about this sort of thing now—because Stede wants him to be and Ed wants to be good for Stede, he admits, “I was cruel. And afterwards I just… hated it. That I’d been that way. That… I liked it.” 

“Oh, darling,” Stede starts, but Ed plows right on. 

“And he just didn’t get the fucking message that I wouldn’t do that again. He just kept on goading me, for years, until I hauled off and punched him out. And still just looked fucking giddy to have even gotten that out of me, ya’ know? And I just hated doing it. I hated him for wanting it. It’s fucked up,” he loses steam. Croaks, “I’m fucked up.” 

Stede’s chair screeches against the floorboards. There are hands on his face—his face that he hadn’t realized was wet with tears; fuck, he cries so much these days—and Stede is looking at him with those enormous eyes of his and kissing the fucking tears away. What the fuck. What the fuck this insane man. God! Edward just loves him. 

“We’re all a bit fucked up, I think,” Stede says. He has a special way of cursing, Stede. He says “fucked” better than anybody else in the world says “fucked.” Fucked, fucked, fucked, Ed plays in Stede’s voice in his head. 

Stede perches on the edge of the table and lets Ed tuck his face into Stede’s stomach for a while and hide. Stede is a very good hiding place. Much better than the bathtub. The smell of him gets to Ed’s head. It calms him down just like the smell of good tobacco does. 

Eventually, in a voice that is so soft and parental it makes Ed think about kids-with-Stede again, he says, “I think that you and Israel wanted different things from each other. What he wanted from you, you couldn’t give him. But, you likely never said as much, and he pushed you anyways. And what you wanted from him… well, you didn’t communicate.” 

“I don’t want anything from him,” Ed lies. It’s a funny thing, to lie without knowing exactly what the lie is. He wants loads of stuff from Izzy. He wants Izzy to be fucking normal, for one. But everything else is so tangled and incomprehensible it might as well be Stede’s Ecclesiastical Latin. 

Stede doesn’t call him on it, even though he definitely knows Ed is lying. He always knows. He just hums, thoughtfully, and drags his fingers through Ed’s hair to make him shiver.

“I think I understand him better, our Mr. Hands,” Stede says. Ed’s brain sticks on “our”. Our, our, our. 

You can have him, man, Ed thinks frantically.

And oh. 

There’s a thought. 

He sticks on the Thought so hard for so long that, when he comes back around, Stede is talking about something entirely different and Ed has no idea how much he missed. He finally stops hiding in Stede’s lap. 

“Stede,” Ed says. “Stede,” he says harder. 

“Yes, love?” 

Ed swallows. His throat is suddenly very, very dry. “I have a really crazy idea.” 

And Stede—the fucking psychopath ; God, Ed loves him—lights up.