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Izzy used to think he understood Edward, but he knew better now. She’d minimalized herself to fit into Hornigold’s ship- had to cut off parts of herself that couldn’t be broken down. Izzy encouraged it. He didn’t know any better, he thought it was the safest thing for her. It wasn’t until they met Stede that she was given the space to unfurl and rebuild herself, and Izzy began to realize how much damage he’d allowed her to take. Maybe that’s what pissed him off so much. He spent so long desperately trying to keep her alive and happy, only to be shown, effortlessly, that he’d been killing her. He didn’t like thinking about it.
His mind was dragged back to her young, beardless face every time he looked in the mirror. The ‘X’ on his cheek gained a new meaning, to him, when he saw her take up a quill, unfamiliar in her hand, and sign the act of grace with two short strokes. It had always been his favorite tattoo, but he cherished it all the more once he could read her name in it. The memory was still dear. They’d been drunk and holed away in their quarters with a needle and ink, sure that Hornigold would have work for them and too exhausted to do it. Ed always tied a stocking to the doorknob. Better for the captain to think they were fucking. After he’d caught them holding hands “like girls” at fifteen and seventeen, they were careful. Ed couldn’t live without an intimate friendship and Izzy only understood far too late why it was so important to her.
For years, he thought she wasn’t interested in men, because all she talked about was girls. He’d never met anyone so fascinated by women. She shared observations about how they’d walk with with arms bent at the elbow to accommodate their petticoats, and Izzy would notice the behavior later, in her. She didn’t get to see other women very often, and she spoke to them even less, but she paid attention when she did. If they were docked anywhere populous enough to have a brothel, she was there,
One night at dinner she asked, “do you ever notice how girls lean forward instead of back when they eat too much?” and Izzy looked over to see her elbows on the table, every man behind her reclined away. She still sat that way after meals, but until her stays were made, she’d suffered the waistband of her trousers just to feel herself in her posture.
Izzy took in the new information from the staymaker’s shop, reviewed what he’d missed, and foolishly believed there couldn’t be anything else he’d missed. Spending nearly every day with someone for as many decades as he had, the thought he knew everything about her. But she kept revealing things, spelling out what, in hindsight, should have been obvious. There was something more he wasn’t picking up on, and she told him on the beach, her petticoat dirty and her hair loosened by the wind. She was beautiful when she called him stupid, her dark lashes low and her eyes creased by her smile. She kissed his forehead, and her beard was perfumed. He choked and wound the ties of her apron around his fingers. He could never follow her thoughts. “What are you talking about?” He asked. It almost sounded like she’d drawn the boundary around her hair as a hint. He thought about how she and Stede had snuck off together and came back blushing down their necks, Edward shoving her stockings into the slits of her petticoats. There had been two lengths of embroidered ribbon in Stede’s hands and it took Izzy until then to realize they were her garters. He wondered if he was getting a sunburn. “Edward, if you want me to go back to my own room so you can fuck him, just say it,” he said, feeling a disorienting wave of déjà vu.
She was twenty, Izzy was twenty two, and who gives a shit how old Jack was? Jack, who Izzy genuinely believed was not attracted to men, would tease her about her hair and her eyes and how she held herself. “Pretty fuckin girly, Ed,” he’d say, and he was probably flirting, but it always made her flinch. That was when she started working on the character she played. He wouldn’t be named Blackbeard until she had her own command, but he was meant to be an archetype of masculinity from the beginning. He kept her safe, at the time, and Izzy got really used to the idea that nothing else could protect her. But Jack never actually punished her for her femininity the way Hornigold did. He said shitty things, but his actions encouraged it. She was always affectionate with her friends, and he didn’t reciprocate in the way Izzy knew she hoped unless it was sexual. “Girls are just better at being friends,” she’d say as she tried to convince Izzy to hold her hand again. Jack pretended not to enjoy sex with Edward. It made Izzy rageful and blood-thirsty. He openly joked with the crew about how she was just the best way to pass the time he could get on the ship, because her hair was “long enough to pretend”. Izzy would have liked the opportunity to kill him, but Buttons said he took a canon to the chest. Edward still fucked Jack, even though she must have heard how he talked about her. Ed never spent the whole night with him. She was always so careful not to wake Izzy when she crawled into his bed. He only wished she hadn’t smelled like Jack.
Edward stepped back, her smile falling. She seemed to be about to try to wipe her hands on her apron before she remembered she wasn’t wearing it. “Why does it piss you off when I have sex?” She accused, resorting to wiping her hands on each other. “There’s gotta be a reason you can’t just be normal about it.”
Izzy glared up at her and he just knew his cheeks were burning. “I’m being so normal about it. I don’t give a shit.”
He’d only said it to cover his ass. He didn’t expect her to flinch and draw even further away from him like she’d been burned. “Fuck you, mate.” She said softly, her brows creased and her pouting eyes looking for a way out of the conversation. She pulled her block-printed fishue tightly around her shoulders and walked past him to rejoin the crew.
Something must have happened between Ed and Izzy. She was grinning when she left with him, but she came back alone, nearly as angry as she had been when Stede found his way back from Barbados. She was nice to the crew and she smiled at Stede, but it was clear that Izzy had fucked up. It must have been bad to actually affect her, familiar as she was with his caustic attitude. Her mood didn’t improve all night, and Izzy avoided them both. For the first time since Ed forgave Stede, Izzy didn’t come to bed with them.
She sat on a plush couch once she’d checked out of her sandy clothes and watched the door, her crossed leg bouncing anxiously. Stede sat carefully at her side. She ran her nail along the violet lining of her wrapping gown. “What happened?” He asked gently and her fingers tightened around the silk in her hands.
She glanced at him beneath creased eyebrows and chewed her lip. “We probably should have talked about this a long time ago…” she began apprehensively and he might have felt dread if he could imagine anything that would change his mind about her. He tilted his head and listened patiently. She sighed. “I love you,” she admitted with her eyes squeezed shut. She cracked one eye open to peek at him, likely finding his expression blank and confused.
“Have we not said that yet?” He asked. He couldn’t remember ever hearing it in her voice, but he couldn’t imagine they didn’t tell each other every day. “I love you too,” he said, troubled that she might not know. She let out the breath she held with a shaky little laugh. She didn’t know. “Are we not-“ he glanced at the door, feeling Izzy’s absence, “haven’t we been together this whole time?”
She gaped, painted nails hesitating by her chin, “like- fuck, Stede, like together ?” She asked. He looked at shoes and nodded. “Fuck.” She rested her fingers over her mouth. “Were we?” Her voice was soft and hopeful. She choked, “w-what about Iz?”
Stede leaned forward and hid his face in his hands against his knees. “I thought he was just shy.” He admitted. “Weren’t you- he slept in your bed while I was gone!” It sounded like an accusation. He just wanted to understand.
“Yeah, slept ! I-“ She dropped her hand, a dead weight on her lap. “You thought all three of us were dating?“ She sounded baffled, but then amused when she continued, “You thought you were dating Izzy Hands . I can’t fuckin believe… how does that happen?” She laughed.
Stede wished he could hide. He considered running to the library or he alcove and closing the curtain behind himself. “He’s always around, and we do everything together,” he argued. “We’ve all piled into that bed and it’s small . Until this morning, you and I always helped each other dress.” He was sure he’d find more things to list, but his mind was blank. “I’m not-“ he took a deep breath and started again, carefully calm, “it’s not silly for me to think the intimacy meant something.” The worst part was how happy he’d been. He wished he could at least kiss Ed, if kissing them both wasn’t an option, but he understood that Izzy wasn’t comfortable with that. He was fine with the relationship the way it was. It was exactly the way he always hoped love would be. Apparently the relationship didn’t exist at all, outside his mind.
He felt her velvet sleeve on his wrist and lifted his head to find her hand, too scared to touch him. “Hey man, I wish you were right.” She said softly. “I’m honestly really relieved, cause like… I was trying to figure out how to say it. I needed you to know I love you before I… Izzy’s been the most important person in my life for a long time…” she tried to explain.
Stede took her hands gently in his own, “Don’t worry, I know. He’s your right hand. That’s alright, I don’t mind being the left.” He lifted her fingers to kiss her knuckles.
She slipped from his grasp. “Stede, it’s not like that,” she said sadly. “I-I’m ambidextrous, like, I’m not choosing. There’s no dominant hand.” Her fingers laced together and pulled. “I want you both, if I can.”
He held his arms open, “I think you can.” She fell into his chest and he wrapped his arms around her. She tucked herself as close as she could, nearly in his lap. “But uh… what happened with Izzy?” He asked cautiously and she sobbed.