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Izzy knew he wasn’t the most pleasant person to be around. Edward kept reminding him of that ever since his captain made him his right hand man. Fang and Ivan didn’t try to hide that fact either, if the mumbled words they shared when they thought Izzy wasn’t hearing was anything to go by.
But the thing was, Izzy didn’t give a fuck. He didn’t survive this long on the sea being kind– a gentleman. Nor was he about to start just because a posh rich fuck didn’t like his tone. His crew were a bunch of stupid imbeciles who wouldn’t be able to survive on a stranded island for more than a day either.
They were pathetic, lazy assholes who Izzy bet never had their faces dragged on the deck. Their blood never spelt on the main mast. This was no pirate ship, this was a wreck about to happen.
“Cheer up, Izzy,” Edward told him, wrapping a condescending arm around his shoulders. Izzy hated that, and Edward knew it. “They’ve got a bird.”
Who the fuck cared about birds anyway.
But he sighed and smothered his anger. He could give Edward two weeks before they were back on their own ship, doing their own things. He knew his boss.
He thought he knew his boss.
The thing was, Izzy Hands had never seen Edward in love before.
And it was irritating.
Stede fucking Bonnet.
Anyone else, Izzy could reluctantly accept. But this twat?
Edward didn’t seem to see how he was wasting his energy on a low-life, good for nothing, rich fuck, when he could be accomplishing many grandiose things. Stealing, killing, making his name bigger than ever before, keeping Izzy and the rest of his own crew safe behind his image.
Izzy tucked his leather jacket tighter around himself. The nights were getting colder the more they traveled north, soon it would be too cold to fucking feel his fingers. He looked down from the crow’s nest where he was taking the first shift of the night. No one really bothered with night shifts in this fucking ship so he had to order them around every night.
They stopped complaining once Edward took pity on him and agreed that night shifts were an important part of the pirate’s life. The bald funny looking twat was the first one to volunteer.
Now they were all sitting on the main deck, huddled together to keep off the chill. They were listening quite attentively as Stede Bonnet read them a bedtime story. Izzy scoffed and leaned back against the nest. Fucking idiots.
Stede's posh voice traveled all the way up to the crow’s nest, bothersome as ever. Izzy shifted where he sat, getting more comfortable as he listened:
“‘When you get to be fifteen,’ her grandmother said, ‘you will be allowed to rise up out of the ocean and sit on the rocks in the moonlight, to watch the great ships sailing by. You will see woods and…'”
It was lulling, Izzy admitted, together with the swing of the ocean. Stede Bonnet’s voice wasn’t that bad after all. Izzy unconsciously relaxed against the nest, he leaned his head to the side and listened.
He must have fallen asleep at one point, because when Izzy came back to himself he felt warm all over, no remains of the cold stuck. He opened his bleary eyes. It was still dark, so he hadn’t slept much, and there was a wool shawl draped around his chest, and a still steamy tea cup by his side.
Izzy flushed but accepted the tea without a word. He drank it all in one go, enjoying the way his throat burned with the sweet peach tea. He had no idea who got him these things, no idea how they knew this was his favorite infusion.
But the thought strangely didn’t bother him.
Voices could still be heard on the main deck, whisperings now, almost imperceptible. He smiled into his cup.
Izzy Hands could be an unpleasant person to be around, but it seemed at least to some, he was enough the way he was.
He stayed the whole night in the crow’s nest.