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From the moment he hears a light, rhythmic rapping on his door, Izzy knows—or at least has a vague, irritating idea of—where his evening is headed.
Hardly anyone else fucking knocks, for one, and no pirate but Stede Bonnet raps their knuckles a jaunty five times.
With his leg already taken off, Izzy can’t be fucked to get up. “Fuck is it?”
“Um. Stede,” squeaks a voice from behind the door.
“No shit. What do you want?”
“I wanted—well. Um. Might I open the door? This isn’t a conversation I’d like to shout—”
“Just get in here.” Izzy sits up. He wasn’t anywhere in the realm of falling asleep anyway, with the phantom pains of a leg long gone keeping him awake and inundated with a flickering play of agony from before Bonnet arrived. He swipes overgrown strands of hair out of his face, peering at himself in the mirror at the foot of his bed.
The door creaks open, and Bonnet pads inside the cabin, softly closing the door behind him like he might’ve been followed. He’s come around to collecting more foppish outfits again, but, like Izzy, he’s dressed down into sleep clothes already.
For Izzy, that means skivvies, but for Bonnet, it means that long, luxurious golden gown, which he holds snugly to his body like he’s cold.
Or, Izzy realizes with a sudden acute awareness of his pulse, like he’s naked beneath it.
“Hello,” Stede says awkwardly, still holding the robe with both hands. Izzy’s eyes feel too heavy to bother rolling them, so he scoffs.
“What do you want?”
“Um. Well,” Stede begins, and his voice is already watery in a way that makes Izzy’s stomach flip. “I suppose I was… feeling… bad.”
“So you’ve come to bother me?” Izzy asks and regrets it a moment later when he sees Stede flinch, wet eyes flashing. “How… can I help?”
“Oh.” Stede’s voice brightens marginally. He takes another step closer to Izzy. “Well, it’s just… I put this on because it’s comfortable, but I feel like I look… well… rather like a woman, I suppose. Ed is asleep, but I—I couldn’t find a way to lay where I couldn’t feel the… weight.”
The weight, Izzy assumes, is the barely-there hint of Stede’s bust behind the robe.
“And—and the last time I felt rotten like this, you happened upon me—looking for Edward, I believe, but… you, um. Made it better.”
“I made it better, did I?” Izzy crosses his arms over his chest. Stede’s eyes follow the movement.
“Yes. That is, you—you did,” Stede says gracelessly. He picks at the sleeve of his robe. “Would you like to…”
“Fuck sake, Bonnet, just get in the bed,” Izzy says, pulling the blanket from his legs. Stede’s eyes briefly widen at the sight of his stump, but he blinks and recovers, which is great because Izzy was growing nearer the point of decking him the longer he stared. He joins Izzy in bed, but he sits on the very edge of the fucking bed like Izzy’s going to bite him. “Come on, then.”
“Where…” Stede looks down at himself, then trails off. “Is it the gown, do you think? I’ve worn… more… rugged clothing, but it was so itchy, and where it wasn’t itchy, it was just… suffocating, and sweltering. I don’t know how you do all that leather.”
“I run cold.” Izzy shrugs.
“Cold-blooded. Hm. Of course,” Stede jokes, but it’s half-hearted. “I just… I didn’t like those clothes, even though I finally felt like a man—but why do I have to be uncomfortable to be a man? That… hardly seems fair.” His voice wobbles. “Though, what is fair?”
“Quit with the fucking dramatics, Bonnet.” Izzy hopes his voice has the right amount of warmth. Stede’s lip wobbles. Fuck. “I mean. You don’t have to be… uncomfortable. Still a man, in a gown or whatever dirty shirt you find,” Izzy amends. Stede lifts wet eyes to look at Izzy.
He whispers, “Thank you.”
“Yeah,” Izzy says, trying to look at anything but the glimmer of tears in Stede’s eye.
“I wish I could make the feeling go away.” Stede smiles sadly. Izzy knows what he’s grabbing for well enough.
“Right, then. Here. Sit between my legs.”
“Sit…” Stede blinks several times, but he’s quick enough on the uptake that Izzy knows any protest is all for show. “Okay…”
Izzy makes room between his legs, reaching forward to lift the mirror at the end of his bed as Stede shimmies in between his legs. He grits his teeth as he feels pressure against his cock, but he doesn’t move Stede, either. Izzy strains to reach, failing with an entire Stede between his legs.
“Oh!” Stede chirps. “Allow me.”
Stede—helpfully, Izzy begrudgingly admits—adjusts the mirror until they’re both in view. He gasps softly as he settles back, silk whispering against the fur of Izzy’s chest. Izzy tucks his face into the back of Stede’s head and breathes in the scent of his hair as silence stretches on.
“Well, should I take this robe off, then, or—”
“Nah,” Izzy cuts in just as Stede slips it down his shoulders. “Leave it on.”
“Leave it on? It’s hardly convenient if—”
“Hush, Bonnet.” Izzy brings one leg up to his chest, working his leg out of his smalls and letting them slip down the residual leg. He raises a hand to graze against Stede’s cheek, directing his attention to their reflections, where Izzy can barely be seen from behind Stede’s shoulder. “Look at us.”
“Hm? Oh, my… we do make quite the fetching picture together, don’t we?” Stede tilts his head, angling into Izzy’s touch like a starved animal chasing scraps. Izzy wonders if Bonnet got his shit together and had sex with Edward after all, or if he’s still being cagey about it.
“Yeah.” Izzy spares them a glance together, looking away before the picture has the chance to settle in his head. “Did you want to talk about it?”
“Oh, well, you’ve heard most of it,” Stede says, his tone taking on a forlorn droopiness, every word heavier. “I just can’t bear this… body. I look at it and I think… woman. It’s worse because I’m quite sure I wouldn’t feel that way about anyone else, but only with myself.”
“Let’s have a look at you, then,” Izzy says and raises a hand to the robe’s fastening, waiting for Stede to stop him.
Stede doesn’t; Izzy suppresses his smirk at how utterly fucking unsurprising it is.
The robe falls away without resistance, Stede’s breath catching in his throat with a sad little noise as his body is bared to the mirror. He tilts his head down. Izzy hears a cry build in Stede’s throat and feels heat whip through him as he redirects Stede’s stare to them again. “Don’t look there. Fuckin’ told you—look at us.”
“I don’t…” Stede trailed off, his eyes brimming with fresh tears. Izzy catches his eye in the mirror as he brings a hand to Stede’s chest.
“It’s these, yeah?” he asks softly, breath snaring in his throat as Stede whines and twists into his touch, irises skipping away to the corners of his eyes.
“Yes, and I shouldn’t like them touched,” Stede says, his voice quiet in its shame as Izzy squeezes. “If I were a man…”
“Bonnet,” Izzy interrupts.
“Then I wouldn’t…” Stede carries on, sniffling, “like them being… massaged in such a way.”
“Turn around a minute.”
“Hm? What? Why?” Stede does it without waiting for Izzy to answer. Izzy uses his free hand to catch one of Stede’s hands where it dangles at his side. He brings it to his chest, acting before he can think better of it, and feels his heart thud a rabid, kicking beat as Stede’s soft palm makes landfall. Stede’s eyebrows shoot up, but he gives an experimental squeeze, and Izzy groans.
“Think I’m a woman for liking it?” Izzy asks, heat simmering in his gut as Stede’s eyes go alight with fascination, fingers pinching and pulling.
“Absolutely not,” Stede answers at once, his gaze pinned to the furred expanse of Izzy’s chest, skipping down just once to Izzy’s stiff prick.
“Mine are practically fucking bigger than yours,” Izzy says. “Turn back around.”
“And leave this revelation behind?” Stede says, his voice near something playful as he obliges Izzy and faces the mirror again. Izzy feels Stede deflate a bit and chews his lip. He ghosts his hand over the bottom of the robe where its silk spills over his bare thighs and hikes it up.
“Sit,” Izzy instructs. Stede’s brows furrow like he’s putting together pieces of a puzzle. His cheeks tinge pink and his eyes widen.
“Oh.” Stede shifts, planting his legs astride Izzy’s, and for a moment, Izzy thinks he’s successfully circumvented the crying.
The strange cocktail of relief and disappointment doesn’t last long in his system.
As soon as the head of Izzy’s cock slips between Stede’s folds, a croak of a cry hitches in Stede’s throat, and Izzy flicks his eyes up in the mirror to see his eyes are brimming with tears. Fuck. He scrunches his eyes shut quickly, breathing hard against Stede’s shoulder as his cock throbs.
It doesn’t help. He’s too weak-willed to keep his eyes off when he hears Stede sniffle.
“What?” he grits out, stopping himself from nudging his shaft the rest of the way inside.
“Well, I don’t think I should want this…” Stede trails off, a disconsolate note in his voice. Izzy’s chest tightens. “I do, of course…”
“Then be quiet,” Izzy instructs, sliding his hands over Stede’s stomach.
A tear drips down, and Izzy shudders, imagining it on his skin or in his mouth. He turns Stede’s head. “Oh… may I—”
Izzy doesn’t bother to let him get the rest of his words out. He kisses Stede hungrily, groaning openly into Stede’s mouth as Stede shifts his hips and easily envelops the rest of Izzy’s short cock. He makes a low, satisfied noise in his throat, then fucking squeezes around Izzy, and white flares behind Izzy’s closed eyelids.
“Christ,” he mutters into Stede’s mouth, then lets his hips lift, but with only one leg to lever himself and the day’s work wearing him down, he has no chance of fucking up into Stede like this. He withdraws, dragging his tongue in a calculated stroke past the corner of Stede’s mouth and snarling deep in his throat at the salt dancing on his tongue. He savors it for a breath, then slaps Stede’s wet cheek lightly. Stede inhales sharply, eyes snapping open and spilling more tears. “Move. Bounce on it, Bonnet.”
“Yes, yes, sorry,” Stede warbles. His watery sorry reaches behind Izzy’s ribs and draws each bone in until his lungs lack the room to expand properly, leaving his breaths shallow and shaky. He digs his nails into the doughy flesh of Stede’s stomach. He’s going to fucking come if he’s not careful. His eyes unfocus as he remembers Ed leaving him squirming and spent in his cot, Ed’s boots as he retreated down the hall only after Izzy brought himself off a second time.
A sob from Stede’s chest tugs Izzy back to the present. He forces his face deep into Stede’s neck and breathes him in again, muggy cabin air lacing with the hints of lavender on Stede’s skin. He can hear Stede’s whines this close, catching and stopping in his throat as he rises and falls on Izzy. He seems unfocused, and Izzy could use the distraction before he blows his fucking load.
“Bonnet, look at us. Focus.” Izzy lifts a hand to Stede’s hair and forces his head up with a mean yank, eliciting a high, grating sound like a rudder screeching as it meets a rock. Stede’s eyes drool fresh tears. Izzy swallows pooled saliva and glides his free hand up to tweak a nipple until Stede whines and writhes, disrupting his already-graceless rhythm on Izzy’s cock.
“I can’t… focus when you’re so cruel,” Stede complains, seemingly caught between wanting to push into the sensation on his chest and pull away from it.
“Focus on that then.” Izzy points to the mirror again. “Look at yourself, Bonnet. Could anyone other than a man take my cock as well as you are?"
That gets Stede to snap his head up again, hazel eyes focused on the mirror. “N-no?” he stutters out.
“Fucking right.” Izzy pinches at Stede’s nipple again, savoring the gasp. “Tits don’t make you a fucking woman. Having a cunt doesn’t make you a woman. You’re a man, same as me.” Another hitching whine started up, but Izzy cut it off by letting his other hand find Stede’s dick, pulling on it sharply. “You even have a little cock like me.”
“I-Izzy,” Stede mewls, his voice breathy. For a moment, Izzy imagines Stede is looking at him. “H-how—how do you know?”
“Know—what?” Izzy finds a rhythm of rubbing Stede’s cock, kneading his tit, and rolling his cock into him, grinning as Stede loses articulation.
“That I’m—haa—a man,” Stede says with visible strain, his rubicund cheeks creasing. “It’s just—hnnh—you seem so—oh—certain,” he finishes.
“Surround myself with men all fucking day, don’t I? Think I don’t know a man when I see one? When I feel one?” He accompanies the last by squeezing Stede’s tit, earning him another whine. “Ordinary men are a doubloon a dozen, Bonnet. You’re fucking… incredible.”
“Oh,” Stede whines, and it’s the only warning before he lets out a sob that makes Izzy’s prick jump like it can reach that buzzing throat from Bonnet’s cunt. Izzy bites down on his lip hard, but the splitting pain as he draws blood draws him even fucking closer to coming inside of Stede. He drags his bleeding lips in fervid presses along Stede’s neck, remembering where he bit down.
It’s a miracle Edward didn’t fucking skin him for this the first time, and Izzy should know better than to keep playing with fire when there are equal odds of getting singed and getting incinerated and, with Edward’s mercuriality, no way to determine which will happen to you.
As Izzy feels Stede’s cunt tighten around him, he loses the thought altogether and grazes his teeth against Stede’s skin just to hear him moan.
The moan is more of a sob, but, judging by the way Stede bounces to meet him, Izzy finds it pretty fucking likely they mean the same thing.
So, as he tries to shove himself hard enough inside to offset his size, he grunts, “Cry for it, Bonnet.”
For his part, Stede does, just about fucking immediately, start crying louder, and Izzy brings his mouth back down to Stede’s shoulder to bite him roughly. Stede yelps with pain, but the sound tapers into a wanton moan as Izzy gives Stede’s tit a compensatory squeeze, then both noises clear the air long enough to make room for the hitched sob that tumbles past Stede’s slack lips.
It’s all Izzy can fucking do to try and get Stede off through his own need to come, pouring all of his focus into his hands and hips and leaving his head dangling against Stede’s neck. His efforts, at least, seem to bear some fucking fruit, because Stede sobs harder, his cunt gushing slick around Izzy’s cock as it swallows his small shaft on every plummet.
“Please, oh, please—” Stede pauses for a cry. “Don’t stop, Izzy, keep going! Ohh-hooh, just like that, my darling—”
Tears splash onto Izzy’s cheeks, raining from Stede’s clumped eyelashes, and Izzy shivers violently as he fights to keep from coming before Stede. Stede doesn’t take much longer, and once Izzy’s lungs feel like they’ve fucking shriveled from oxygen deprivation, Stede crashes over the edge, throwing himself back against Izzy and sobbing inconsolably as he comes.
The force of Stede’s shoulders wracking and the milking contractions of Stede’s cunt draw Izzy’s come out like a magnet, ripping his pleasure out from the one concentrated point in his core to spread all through his body in white-hot flames.
With a stifled grunt, Izzy finally stuffs himself as deep as he can go and spills inside Stede. He drags his tongue up the tear-streaked length of Stede’s neck, savoring the taste of salt and sweat on his tongue.
“Oh, Izzy, good lord!” Stede babbles as Izzy feverishly gathers every drop of the cocktail made of Stede’s misery and pleasure. “Thank you!”
Izzy shudders again as it abates, leaving him feeling like he’s been cored, his insides scooped and emptied, and he was the fucking top.
Stede is unnervingly quiet, drooped against Izzy’s chest, but his eyes are open, his body rising and falling as he pants. Izzy’s softening prick doesn’t so much slip out as Stede’s cunt drops him out after hanging onto him for dear life for several fucking minutes. It hits his gut with a wet slap.
Like always, Stede breaks the silence. “Goodness, Izzy.”
“What.”
“That was… well, no less passionate than the first time,” Stede remarks. Izzy slowly unsticks his chest from Stede’s robe, savoring the tang of sweat in the air as he gets his breath back. Stede turns to peer at him. “I do wish I didn’t have to leave.”
“You don’t.” Izzy knows Ed enough to know it’s not true. “I know you don’t sleep with just the robe.”
After a pregnant pause, Stede sighs. “Oh, you caught me. I took off my gown before I left the cabin.”
“Still haven’t shagged him yet,” Izzy says.
“Very astute observation,” Stede quips.
“Shut up.”
“You kept the marks away from my neck. How thoughtful…”
Izzy does recognize the sting of a bite on his neck; he doesn’t even know when it got there.
“I suppose I’ll be going.”
“Wait,” Izzy says, and Stede smiles in the mirror before turning to catch Izzy in a kiss.