Work Text:
Izzy usually slept alone. It was a luxury in a life like his - the ability to have a bed attached to the floor and a door to close between him and the rest of the world at night was a balm very much welcomed. Every so often, though, he needed a bit of company, loathe as he was to admit it. On those nights, he’d share a room with Fang or Ivan, showing up outside their door after things aboard the ship had been done to his satisfaction for the night.
These days, when he showed up, it was just Fang. They had both moved around the holes in their routine carefully, those first few times without him.
Tonight was one of those nights. They’d been growing a bit more frequent after the Kraken’s reign, due in no small part to the sort of bonding one experiences through shared grief, shared hardship. And maybe just a sprinkling of softness had taken root in him, finally, due to Bonnet’s crew. They were by all rights a family. Izzy stopped outside Fang’s door, and knocked twice before entering, as always.
Fang was sitting up in bed, knitting something that had begun to take the form of a slightly wonky sweater vest. He’d taken up the practice after learning it from Wee John, and so far had only done simpler projects, so he was still getting the hang of handling all the angles and counting his rows properly. He’d made a soft sort of sleeve-sock for the end of Izzy’s missing leg a couple weeks back, and it was perfect for sleep, the texture soothing. Izzy had brought it for tonight, in fact.
“Hey, boss,” Fang smiled, setting aside his project.
“Hey.” Izzy’s throat felt dry. Why, after everything, did he still get awkward in moments like these?
Not to worry. Fang knew what to do. He was practically an expert. “Your leg need tending to?” He asked gently, as he did everything. For someone who had, on more than one occasion, used his strength to tear a man limb from limb, Fang was really a sweet person at heart.
“Er, yeah.” Izzy agreed, because that was the excuse he’d first used once they started these nights up again, in the depths of Edward’s darker days. It had originally been just his toes, not the whole leg, since Fang had been one of the only people he trusted well enough in those earlier days not to use the weakness against him. Now, Fang often handled the maintenance of his prosthetic. “Only if you let me pay back the favor,” he added, tone light. He liked to care for Fang’s leathers or jewelry, when he could. Not out of necessity; Fang was more than capable of keeping them up himself. Something in Izzy just liked the quiet work, the easy way of feeling useful.
“Of course!” Fang’s eyes crinkled up when he smiled like that. It was one way to know it was something real. “Get yourself over here, c’mon, I’ll scooch up!” Thus encouraged, Izzy crossed the threshold and made his way to Fang’s bed, settling down so that they were lightly touching from shoulder to knee. Once situated and leaning comfortably, he carefully unstrapped his golden hoof and offered it to Fang, taking one of his older leather vests in return.
“How long’ve you had this one?” Izzy asked, curious. He didn’t think he’d ever seen Fang without it.
“Longer than we’ve been sailing together,” the man confirmed. “Probably almost thirty years now.” Izzy nodded. That made sense. It was odd to think of Fang as someone separate from their crew. Not that they were co-dependent at all, but the man had been sailing under Edward for so long now, he didn’t think it’d feel right to have him anywhere else. Who knew, though. Bonnet and his troupe had shaken things up so much recently, anything could happen. Edward had been talking a lot recently about some kind of inn by the sea.
Speaking of Bonnet’s group, Izzy spotted a short charcoal pencil lying on the desk to his right when he reached for the small rag and soft brush Fang used for his things. “That’s the lad’s, isn’t it?” Fang giggled.
“Yes, but you shouldn’t call him that, Izzy! He’s at least thirty, you know!”
“Still a lad to me.” It was no surprise to see the boy’s mark on Fang’s space. They’d been spending a lot of time together of late. Izzy studiously focused on what he was doing, gently wiping down the leather with the rag, and then going in with the brush for the finer details. It was important to get all the dirt and dust off before anything else. They each spent a few quiet minutes setting to their tasks.
“You two getting serious, then?”
Fang, for his part, was using a similar rag to get at the ankle of the hoof, where grime liked to accumulate in the crease. He’d work through cleaning the wood thoroughly and polishing it to a shine, and then halfway through the evening, they’d switch so Fang could work on the leather straps and framework. Izzy knew how it would go like clockwork.
“Haha, I guess you could say we are. I really like him.” Fang gushes like a teenager at a sleepover, voice high. “I think we’re really becoming close. He's spent the night three times this week, even though he has Pete! And he's such a great cuddler! Oh, it's so nice to have him back.”
“You like him enough to go steady, then?” Izzy asked, curious.
“Oh, no. I don’t think so.” At that, Izzy looked up, glancing over to look at Fang’s face in the candlelight. How was he so sure? Hadn’t he just said the two of them were getting serious?
“What do you mean?”
“Well…” Fang started his sentence without seemingly knowing how to finish it, unsure of how to put his thoughts to words. “You know I’ve never had trouble loving people. Loving anything, really.” His voice was muted, quiet, even though it was just the two of them in the room, the door closed. His hands paused in his work. “And Ivan and I really had something. We just fit so well. I knew I’d sail with him until the day I-” He cut himself off. Ivan and Fang had begun sharing a bunk a few years into Ivan’s tenure aboard the Queen Anne , and had never stopped. Izzy had always assumed they were in it for the long haul. He guessed he’d been right, in a way.
“Anyway,” Fang continued after a few moments of silence, voice a bit shaky. Izzy set down the items he was holding and tentatively set a hand on Fang’s leg next to him, which the bigger man took and held with a grateful look. “I just never really understood the whole big thing with- with dating, and relationships and that. I mean, I love to canoodle! I can get into sex and all, too, with the right person. It can be fun!” He playfully nudged Izzy with his shoulder, mood lightened once again. Ivan’s presence, overall, had become more of a comforting ghost than any sort of haunting spectre. “But romance just wasn’t ever for me.”
Izzy nodded, thoughtful. It did make sense, in a way. Fang hadn’t ever had a sweetheart, or a beau that he could recall. Just Ivan, someone to share his life with. They’d started and ended each day with each other, eaten meals together, sometimes acted as one unit in battle, but he’d never seen them kiss. Izzy’d just assumed they were shy about PDA, but he should have known better. Fang loved everything with the same sort of guileless, easy grace men like him so rarely possessed.
“I get that, I think. Only really happened a few times for me, if I’m honest.” Izzy loved rarely, and when he did, he loved hard. It was part of why this crew scared him so much. Fang smiled again, a soft thing that Izzy didn’t know what to do with. At a loss, he returned Fang’s earlier nudge to the shoulder, and looked back to the vest in his hands before allowing himself a small smile of his own. Fang took the cue for what it was and resumed his work, too.
Now done with the preliminary cleaning, Izzy handed off his rag and brush to Fang and began working oil into the leather with repetitive circular motions. Fang began his work on the top of Izzy’s prosthetic, mirroring what Izzy had done earlier. For a long while, they sat together in companionable silence, each happy just to exist next to the other. It had been just what Izzy needed. The press of Fang’s leg to his left was warm against his own.
Finally, Fang handed the leg back to Izzy, finished caring for it. It was perfect, as always. Better than he deserved. He handed the vest back, too, and Fang turned it over in his hands.
“Thank you, Iz.” He didn’t need to thank him. It was the same work he did for Fang more often than not on these nights together. Still, Izzy nodded, once, to acknowledge that he had heard.
“Can I stay tonight?” Likewise, he didn’t need to ask. It was a foregone conclusion, at this point. Still, Fang grinned back.
“Of course.” He got up to blow out the candles and helped Izzy out of his trousers so he was just in his smalls for sleep, since it wouldn’t make sense to put his leg back on just for that. Izzy pulled on the knit sleeve Fang had made for him, and then the two laid down together under the blanket. Izzy laid awake for a long while in the dark.
“Fang?” He didn’t reply, either too sleepy or thinking himself. “I should be thanking you,” he whispered softly, almost afraid to be heard. He rested his head against Fang’s shoulder.
As he drifted off to sleep, he thought he felt Fang shift closer to rest his cheek against the top of Izzy’s head in turn.