He is poetry in motion, Edward Teach. Soaring highs and devastating lows, searing and soothing, but impossible to deny.
And yet.
Israel Hands has made it an art.
He may be, Stede unaccounted for, the only person capable of telling Ed no, meaning it, and then enforcing that no through to the bitter, bloody end. Doing all of that and telling the both of them that he does it for their own good. That he’s pulled and polished the ugliest, most jagged parts of them in the name of survival, and kicked the soft scraps under the bed to be forgotten because that’s where they were safest. Acts of love, all of them, as rough and jagged as they.
But love… Three times someone has tried to say that word tonight. That horrible, wonderful word that can not be applied to him. But this time it bursts it’s way out of Ed like blunt force trauma and Izzy doesn’t stop him.
It hangs there, in the teary air, and Izzy can’t breathe. He has wanted this without allowing himself to want it for so long, that finally hearing the words and- what’s worse, believing them- feels wrong. Guilty. Twisted. Sullied. These are the words reserved for others, he doesn’t— how—
His eyes sting and suddenly time catches up with itself in the real world, having slowed like honey off the spoon with nothing and no one in his vision but Edward and their life.
The violin falls aside, set down somewhere, isn’t thinking, just moving. Izzy threads one hand into Ed’s hair and straddles the end of the piano bench in one quick, efficient motion. He presses right into the other’s space and reconnects their lips, deep and desperate, other hand to cup Ed’s jaw. Like he’d press himself under Ed’s skin if he could. Make a home in his chest and stay there forever.
no subject
And yet.
Israel Hands has made it an art.
He may be, Stede unaccounted for, the only person capable of telling Ed no, meaning it, and then enforcing that no through to the bitter, bloody end. Doing all of that and telling the both of them that he does it for their own good. That he’s pulled and polished the ugliest, most jagged parts of them in the name of survival, and kicked the soft scraps under the bed to be forgotten because that’s where they were safest. Acts of love, all of them, as rough and jagged as they.
But love… Three times someone has tried to say that word tonight. That horrible, wonderful word that can not be applied to him. But this time it bursts it’s way out of Ed like blunt force trauma and Izzy doesn’t stop him.
It hangs there, in the teary air, and Izzy can’t breathe. He has wanted this without allowing himself to want it for so long, that finally hearing the words and- what’s worse, believing them- feels wrong. Guilty. Twisted. Sullied. These are the words reserved for others, he doesn’t— how—
His eyes sting and suddenly time catches up with itself in the real world, having slowed like honey off the spoon with nothing and no one in his vision but Edward and their life.
The violin falls aside, set down somewhere, isn’t thinking, just moving. Izzy threads one hand into Ed’s hair and straddles the end of the piano bench in one quick, efficient motion. He presses right into the other’s space and reconnects their lips, deep and desperate, other hand to cup Ed’s jaw. Like he’d press himself under Ed’s skin if he could. Make a home in his chest and stay there forever.