ninetoes | Noctium Inbox

Vulnerability is not something Edward is fond of. It hadn't been easy for him to begin with, harder after he thought he'd lost Stede, and has been diligently working on embracing it for the past however many months now, all leading to this point perhaps. Who knows. And so when Izzy doesn't answer right away, Edward is terrified.

Just as quickly, Izzy is moving on him, in his lap and on his lips, fingers in his hair, chests together. Ed drinks it all in, warm arms wrapping around him and pulling him tightly against himself, eyes fluttering closed and lips open and pliant. In this moment he is Izzy's, open and bare, to do anything he wants with.

He isn't thinking about their fight. He isn't thinking about the fear he feels of his heart being handled by another again. He isn't thinking about anything other than the present, Izzy against him, so focused on him that he hardly notices the slow creep of Synchrony from his Sapphire; weak, but not absent.

Weak but present. Weak but alive. It's enough.

Izzy notices immediately, and it's almost startling as the familiar feeling sparks in his ruby. He doesn't pull away or acknowledge it except by sinking in deeper. If they were to stop now he might crumble, already reeling from, well, fucking everything.

Add hope to that? Add choosing to believe Edward's beautiful words? It's too much.

He holds on like a lifeline. Like he needs the kiss to breathe. Like they're underwater again, always under the waves, but maybe not anymore. (Though in a very real sense he would left Edward drag him down without question.) Izzy hasn't forgotten about their fight, but he has forgotten about Dean for the time being, so there's that. He wishes it were easy to let go of everything, but he has a long memory and a chip on his shoulder so deep it's barely a shoulder anymore. Break him down. Build him back. Anything, he is begging, so long as they're together.

When the kiss breaks naturally, Izzy takes a breath, forehead to forehead, noses side by side. He doesn't dare pull back. Doesn't dare open his eyes. Can he trust this? Can he trust any of this? He doesn't know, but he wants to.

"Say it again."

It damn near leaves Edward breathless, gasping for air as their lips part. He doesn't dare pull away, still cradling Izzy close to him, his hand sliding up his back and shoulder to cup at his jaw again, thumbing over the mark on his cheek. Izzy’s request makes him laugh, a breathy and amused sound.

His hand drops but doesn't go far, fingertips sliding down the collar of his shirt until he finds the cravat tied there, a ring in the knot that once upon a time, Edward had plucked from a raid and given to Izzy, and here it sat ever since. Ed's fingers move until they find the small rock there, pressing purposely against it.

"I love you." he repeats quietly, as requested, "And I promise to do whatever is necessary to make you believe it."

The reflex here is to say those sound like Bonnet's words in Edward's mouth, but he wants to hear them so badly that Izzy can't bring himself to ruin it. To point out this is coming fifteen years too late. Can he just...not challenge everything for once. Can he just let himself have this? The one perfect moment, and believe it?

He doesn't know what Ed needs to do to make that happen. Everything. Nothing. Just be with him. Just love him for fuck's sake. Maybe even, if he's feeling up for an impossible challenge, teach him to do what he and Stede have learned. Teach him to be better. To do better. Even if it's just to have the words to be able to ask. To have the words to say I love you, too. I have always loved you.

He can say it in a million other ways, he has, he always will. But those words, those three little words-- god. They feel so-- incomprehensible. Is this what it's like for Ed and Stede all the time? They can just...do this? Allow this? Be this and it be safe? Be possible?

That feels so beyond Izzy's abilities as a man.

I love you. I love you, I love you, I love you.

"This is a good start," he murmurs, trying to identify the feeling between his ribs as he leans into the touches that trace and envelop his body. As he cards his hands through Edward's hair and joins them around his shoulders, pausing only for a moment to remove his glove. He wants as much contact as possible, and none of it inhibited. The feelings in him become more intense. Pain, but not quite. Pleasure, but overwhelming. It's the feeling he's always had for Edward, it just... it means something new, now. Or maybe, there's just a new name for it.

They aren't Stede's words. One of the things that hit Edward the hardest the last they two of them had talked was that Izzy felt he couldn't trust him. His word means nothing. He thinks, were Izzy’s words. He'd meditated on those a lot. If that was true, then nothing Ed said could fix the rift between them. If that were true, the all the 'I love you's in the world didn't mean dick. Ed hoped that wasn't the case. That it was just Izzy being Izzy. Trying to hurt him back in the ways he's been hurt. Ain't that just the way.

The words and feelings were so much easier with Stede. Natural, even. But it's why he'd warned his husband using them on Izzy. They were too different. Izzy had too many barriers. He wasn't ready and maybe he still isn't entirely, but this is a nice step.

It doesn't matter now, anyway. Ed is happy with this progress. It's something, and he has Izzy back in his arms, completing the weird triangle that's developed between them. Izzy is as essential to Edward as Stede is, he just has to convince him that he is without the normal pressure to comply. Edward’s normal tools need to be abandoned. He needs to use an entirely new, different set. He needs to let Izzy do this his way, even if Edward is desperately hoping to cuddle up to him and Stede in their bed tonight and maybe sleep like that for the next twenty hours or so. Sue him.

"Yeah? You don't fucking hate it???" Ed finally asks, teasingly. He's still himself. Hasn't gotten rid of all his annoying habits.

If Ed did then something would be terribly, terribly wrong, and Izzy would have to fight whatever changeling it was that had inserted themselves in Ed's place. Best not to make him worry. Sharp things get involved when he's worried.

Blades, tongues. That's the thing about Izzy. As good as he is a swordsman, he can be equally, if not more devastating with words. Edward knows this. He slings words like deadly arrows, and whilst he doesn't always find his target, Ed is an easy mark.

Izzy snorts and smiles, lips finding their place against the corner of Ed's mouth. It feels like their youth. Tucked away in the darkness out of sight, drunk on each other, touch starved, making stupid jokes. He's falling in love all over again.

"I fucking hate it," he answers dutifully without any heat at all and trusts Ed to solve the riddle for intention. Izzy pushes his hands up the back of Ed's skull, nails gently scraping his scalp on the down card, and then they curl to settle into thick, soft tresses. The luxury of it all. Absurd. A feast before the pauper. He pulls, just a little bit, testing to see where the boundary sits these days.

"You do my fucking head in."

Edward’s scoff is short-lived, Izzy's nails raking against his scalp and making him purr. One of his favorite feelings ever, perhaps. Even the pull is allowed, imagine that.

It does feel like old times, and it's nothing Ed hasn't heard a thousand times over by now, each time his eyes rolling a little further back into his skull. This time is different. Without the heat, it's playful. Ed could sit like this for hours, letting Izzy play with his hair while they nip at each other's fingertips.

"Your head's been fucked for fuckin' years, mate." he replies, smirking against those lips and giving Izzy’s cravat a playful little tug. "Fuckin' miracle it still works."

The sheer indulgence it would be to stretch together like cats in a patch of sun and bask in warmth. Biting for fun and fun only. Lazily grooming. Contemplating absolutely nothing. Peaceful nothingness. Izzy wouldn’t have the slightest idea how to approach that without frustration and idle hands. Maybe something else he could be taught. Finding purpose in peace. Gasp at the thought.

“Ohho~ the big pot calling the kettle black, are we.”

Murmured. Playful, again. He remembers how, if only just.

“You’re a lunatic throwing stones.” Why is that so sexy?

There are four decks aboard this massive vessel, each of them furnished with places to lounge. Sun baths with no other intention than to simply do so is a reality.

"I'd hate to watch you have a meltdown trying to convince me which one of us is the kettle, so I'll spare you." he huffs, leaning back only far enough to reach for his neglected brandy and take a small sip before placing it a bit closer to reach.

"Is that so?" he scoffs, his hand returning to Izzy, this time creeping into his own hair, disheveling it a bit. "And in this fantasy are we living in the glass house together?"

It wouldn't be that much of a meltdown, Edward is the pot, end of story. But he doesn't care enough to make a point out of it.

Izzy's hair is freshly washed and styled, but falls easily under the touch. No one had introduced him to hairspray, which is to Ed's benefit right now. Just foreign smelling shampoo (Dean's) and a bit of wax (also Dean's). It could do with a cut, and falls into Izzy's eyes.

"Probably," he has to admit. That's kind of their whole thing, isn't it.

"Why, are you gonna chuck me out?"

It's kind of nice to see Izzy not completely put together, even if it's just his hair in his eyes. It makes him look softer, a version of his younger self. Ed sweeps it back best he can, trying to keep the view of his eyes unobstructed.

"Nah," he replies, just wanted to confirm that Izzy’s equally as mad. He leaves that part unsaid. "Actually, was wondering if you might want to stay in our room." he thinks for a beat, "Bed's more than big enough for three of us... I'm not ready to let go of you just yet."

The last part is said only to be Very Cute of course, Izzy can still say no. Ed won't understand, but he'll deal with it. It's also an open invitation for the foreseeable future, which he should probably specify, but he doesn't want to get ahead of himself.

The man's half insane, he'd said about Edward. Insane, unhinged, a lunatic. All of it true. But also true is Izzy being right there alongside him, mad as a fucking hatter.

There is, however, a small pause in the playful turn of the conversation where Izzy wonders if the offer is because Ed is scared he'll leave again. Izzy wonders if he would. If he should.

No.. no, it would break him. Break Ed too, maybe. His heart broken to shards and ground into the dirt, only just beginning to approach something akin to healing, full of self loathing and conflicting, affirming rhetoric, he still can't allow Edward to suffer at his hand. Not now. Not after what he's said. This glimpse of tenderness just for him.

"I don't want you to let me go, Ed."

And truly, he doesn't. Pathetic as it feels to say.

Edited 2022-11-22 02:49 (UTC)

Such sentiment from Izzy makes Ed's cold little heart grow three sizes larger. It feels alien to be so soft with this man, but refreshing in a way Ed can't begin to articulate. The same reason why it felt so natural and positive to be under Izzy’s vampiric pull. It balanced out the bitterness. Izzy took care of him then, but the reality of Ed's world was that Izzy always took care of him. Kept him content and motivated, protected him from ever being seen as anything but a god to his crew. He feels so guilty to have corrupted that over the years.

"Well I guess we won't be playing together this evening, after all..." he teases. "S'alright. We have all the time in the world."

Stede will be thrilled, he thinks, to see the two of them emerge arm-in-arm into their bedroom, to all crawl into bed together and to sandwich Izzy between himself and Ed. Ed is excited to see the look on his face, for Izzy to feel surrounded by their affections and for himself to feel somewhat at peace.

"Lemme know when you're ready, then." he murmurs into Izzy’s hair, "You can borrow a nightshirt or something. Like I give a fuck." he chuckles. They're probably all Stede's anyway.

“A nightshirt? You posh fuck,” he teases gently through a smile.

This is nice. Nicer than it has any right to be. Nice enough to sweep away anxiety about sleeping in a bed with other people.

It was fine whilst under the spell. There was no fear of danger being exposed like that. Hopefully that can just…continue. Hopefully that’s all past them, now.

So long as they all stay content.

Izzy breathes deep and commits the moment to memory. Ed’s scent and warmth against him. The stillness in the air, how solid it all feels against the fear he’d come aboard with. How odd it feels to be this bare and not worried about holding the line or protecting himself. How light he feels with his barriers down and armor off.

Is this how it feels? Is this how Edward and Stede feel all the time?

“We should play. We’ve got one song in us, don’t you think?”

"It's fucking cold at night." he mutters defensively, but there's no bitterness in it. "Although I forgot you come with your own natural sweater, so I reckon you don't need one." He continues as if he doesn't love every furry fucking crevice on this man's body.

He's surprised by Izzy’s suggestion, but honestly excited. It has been so, so long. He smiles in response, skin crinkling at the corners of his eyes, then nods and slaps his hands encouragingly across Izzy’s ass.

"Alright, yeah. Get up, old man. Can't play these keys with you between us."

"Watch it," Izzy warns, though the depth of his pulled dimples betrays him.

Reluctantly, like he's making a show of it, Izzy detangles himself and gets up, retrieves his violin, and sits back down on the corner of the bench. Enough space to let Ed play, but tight enough to brush shoulders. He dutifully faces the other way, arms brushing, and holds himself at the ready.

"I'll follow your lead, Captain."

"I plan to." Is Ed's only retort, and in fact does watch Izzy’s little show, the way he pries himself off of Ed like it's a chore (which is the cutest thing he thinks he maybe has ever seen Izzy do), watches him fetch his violin, and grins at the way he settles back against him closely, as if touching each other was as necessary as oxygen.

He feels like a fucking kid again.

"You always do." he chirps, settling in better to play the keys, beginning again the song he'd started before. He can't help but smile, and feels somehow like he's smiling with his entire body, if that's even possible.

Could be. Kinda feels like it is. That tiny little hum between them certainly helps.

Izzy would be a fucking liar if he didn't wish for the floodgates to open back up. He doesn't know what the hangup is. Ed said he loved him, that's... that's so much. All of this is so much.

So maybe it's him. Maybe there's nothing wrong with Ed at all, maybe it's all him.

An uncomfortable, unpleasant thought, but not all that unsurprising, really.

Forgotten for the moment in any case, because he's feeling downright giddy. Which would be embarrassing if he didn't want it so badly.

Izzy closes his eyes, listening to the opening bars for his cue to join in, and sends his bow to the strings right on time. From there? It's easy sailing. Calm waters and gentle winds. The music has always been a balm. A place of conversation, speaking without words, without any direct action other than collaboration. Ed is more talented than he thinks, and it's always amazed Izzy. His little variations, reorchestrations, improvements, adventure. No sheet music or brittle lessons to fall back on, just talent and inspiration. Ed's always been like that, in everything he's done, and Izzy remembers back when they were young and hungry and far less worn, falling in l- being taken over with that awe over and over again.

Izzy and Ed share the same concerns, and perhaps that is part of the problem. Both of them still have so much to say and yet are afraid to say it and ruin what little progress they've made. Ed, at the very least, has prepared himself to be calm in case it didn't come back so easily. Given the state of things, he tried to simply be relieved that he feels it at all.

"Beautiful, Iz--" Ed remarks as Izzy's strings begin to sing in time with his playing, the only words he bothers with, letting their song take over for them. Edward definitely doesn't see this as the talent Izzy does, having learned a few songs out of sheer boredom does not an artist make, and he has heard Izzy play such beautiful music even without him, which has always been encouragement for Edward to learn another tune.

Which is ironic then, perhaps, because Izzy finds so much inspiration in Edward and, though he's tried (god how he has tried) never thought himself that inspiring. Effective, yes. Resolute and determined, of course. Productive, practical, effective, worth having, but inspiring? To Edward? That feels so far beyond his reach.

He smiles wider with the compliment, posture straightening that little bit left before he sinks back into the natural flow. The song takes a sweep of drama and he follows, puling and holding it's highest note with delicate vibrato before letting it crash back down into the melody. Washed away with the pull of the tide.

Izzy finds himself swaying gently as they go, brushing on the fourth count almost every time. That's one thing they've always had: rhythm. It's just been, for so long, the only sing in Izzy's heart has been the clash of steel and blood.

"Catch me," he murmurs back and races the scales in deviation to the song.

Izzy Hands inspires Edward every day. Inspires him to be better, to be stronger, to be the legend that they built together. He inspires him to get out of bed. He inspires him at his lowest, most depleted moments and encourages him every step of the way, even when it's sometimes negative, it inspires results. For Izzy to think otherwise is nearly absurd.

It's easy for Edward to fall into tbe swaying rhythm Izzy begins, seeking out that little brush of shoulder, looking forward to it each time. At Izzy’s words, Ed makes an amused noise and chases the notes with his own, finding Izzy instinctively easy to follow despite the departure from the norm.

Chasing a creative string into unpremeditated improvisation. How very unlike Izzy. It's the inspiration. It's basking in Ed's warmth, turning like a sunflower towards the source. He can't help it. He could never help it. Doesn't want to.

They play there, in uncharted waters, for a lovely measure. Exciting, playful, full of all the things Izzy doesn't know how to acknowledge much less say. But he's trying, listening to the response like it's spoken word. Maybe that counts for something.

It does feel like a conversation, at least, there is emotion behind it. There always had been, and before it was easily dismissed if questioned. Just two boys playing music, having fun. There's no one to hide from here but themselves, and while they've done quite a job of that over the previous months, Edward feels hope that now that this seal is broken it will be easier to overcome.

Synchrony buzzes subtly even under their music, setting the tone for the piece, and Edward finds he's watching his own hands less and less, head turned beside him to watch Izzy feel the music and play note after beautiful note.

There could be a certain brand of elegance in the way Izzy moves when he thinks no one is watching. When he's focused on a task, eyes closed, pouring himself into music. He plays for the moment, for Edward, for the both of them. All his attention pulled into one fixed point, anchored here, on the bench, for them and them alone.

The brush of arms, tiny, tantalizing drag of fabrics. Each time like a greeting. I'm still here. I'm with you. I couldn't leave you for the world, now. I never really could to begin with.

What a shame it is when the song ends. When final notes hover in the air and there is nothing, nothing else but them.

The last chords ring out under the hammers and across the strings. Izzy releases the tension from the bow in his hand to his own strings and feels the echo of the moment. It feels holy, somehow. Reverent.

A breath. A beat. He turns his face to look at Ed with something gentle and yearning, and then he's leaning in for a kiss devoid of all their harsh, jagged hurt. Those things aren't welcome here right now. Not on hallowed ground.

It's such a stark difference from the way Izzy first entered the room. His posture alone, the fluidity of his playing as opposed to the cold rigidity of before. Fascinating. There is always more to Izzy than meets the eye, and Edward loves that about him.

Izzy’s eyes meet his finally and Edward feels that jump in his chest that he feels when he's looking back at someone he has feelings for. He leans into the kiss without hesitation, an arm sliding around Izzy’s waist snugly.

"You've still got it." he murmurs when their kiss ends naturally, a smirk creeping up one cheek.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

Hello typo my old friend..

no subject

no subject

no subject