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Izzy's being weird.
It all starts when Ed gets sick, and then falls out of bed and does something to his ribs in the process which makes it much, much worse.
They’re fairly sure it was something he ate, although Roach insists it wasn’t anything he cooked and Stede believes him because no one else has gotten sick, but it’s hard to verify when Ed spends most of his time sleeping it off. He’s spending all of his time in bed right now, leaving Stede and Izzy to handle looking after him and the ship together. Stede’s personal feelings about Izzy aside, the man does know what he’s talking about most of the time, and he’s got far more experience than Stede does to back it up.
Except that after a few days, Izzy starts acting oddly.
It’s not the normal erratic shit-fit that he normally does. He’s yelling less, which is the first sign that something’s up. Stede thinks it's just worry at first – Israel Hands displays emotions in the same way that a feral cat trapped in a small bag might – until he's sitting by the mast one day, helping Frenchie patch up the flag, and he looks up just as Izzy walks directly into a wall and bounces off, staggering into Fang on the rebound.
Stede blinks. He's never done that before.
To Fang's credit, he just rights Izzy, turns him around so he isn't facing the closest railing, and continues on with his day.
Izzy doesn’t even seem to have noticed he’s walked into a wall, stumbling off in the direction Fang had pointed him in.
“What the fuck,” Frenchie says, and Stede thinks indeed until he realises that particular exclamation is directed at him, because in his distracted state he’s accidentally sewn his breeches to the flag instead of the piece of fabric to his right.
It only goes downhill from there.
Izzy starts forgetting things.
Sometimes it’s funny – Stede is handing out cake one day (after the orange situation, he makes sure to share) and offers a piece to Izzy, which earns him a look of complete and utter bewilderment. It’s not the look he normally gives Stede when they’re doing ‘frivolous’ things, more like he’s never seen a piece of cake topped with cream and strawberries in his entire life. He does not take the cake, which is fine with Stede because it means he gets two slices of cake.
The second time they’re under attack.
Pirates again, of course. A rag-tag group that doesn’t seem to know exactly what they’re doing, just that they want to be the ones to kill Blackbeard. Everyone knows that Ed’s with him now, that they’re co-captaining, and it’s like being back in his childhood - everyone on the sea swarming in to try and hurt them. It’s been surprisingly ineffective so far, though. Perhaps because he’s not alone this time.
These are the times Stede is, despite himself, glad to have Izzy around, because Izzy is both unerringly competent at eliminating threats and has also begrudgingly agreed to make sure Stede is competent too. (Because Stede loves Ed more than words, but Ed’s swordfighting turns into flirting more often than not. With Izzy, they’re somewhat more inclined to actually fight each other.)
“Duck!” Izzy says and Stede bobs down obediently as Izzy’s sword slices through the air above his head, quite possibly slicing off a few golden hairs but also removing the pirate who was about to gut him. He gets to return the favour a second later, kicks out the ankle of a man creeping up behind Izzy’s back.
Izzy leaves him there to lunge at the next man – who hasn’t even noticed death creeping up on him, an easy target for someone as skilled as Izzy – but then he misses the man entirely and thrusts his sword into the side of the ship instead.
Stede stares.
Izzy stares.
(Thankfully, Fang clubs the man over the head while they are staring.)
“Captain,” Oluwande says, making a face like he doesn’t really want to have this conversation. “We have an… issue on deck.”
“More pirates?” Stede asks with some despair in his voice, but Oluwande shakes his head and so Stede follows him.
They find Izzy standing near the wheel with a cannonball in his hands. What he’s doing with the cannonball remains to be investigated, because there’s an uncomfortably blank expression on his face and he doesn’t appear to be moving despite the way he’s being stared at by half of the crew.
“Haunted, that one,” Buttons says.
“We’re not sure whether we need to… take action,” Oluwande says.
“…how long has he been standing there?” Stede asks.
“Most of the day,” Roach says. “Should we move him?”
They don’t need to in the end because Ivan comes past, stops, and then turns to take the cannonball from Izzy’s hands and put it down somewhere safely. That seems to break the spell, as Izzy blinks a few times and then immediately starts berating Wee John for putting a box of apples in the incorrect spot.
The final nail in the coffin is at dinnertime, when Izzy is passing by to get Ed some water instead of joining them and Lucius makes a sly comment about Izzy’s ass – just to poke him a little, his new favourite past time now that he’s sure Izzy isn’t going to hurt him. (Stede never stops him; why would he? Izzy kind of deserves it.) That’s not out of the ordinary.
What is out of the ordinary is Izzy’s reaction – instead of snapping back or storming off, he looks Lucius up and down in a way that makes even Stede feel dirty, a frightening little smirk appearing on his lips. He doesn’t come near Lucius the way he normally would, get up in his face in some half-hearted attempt at intimidation, just stares him down for a moment longer than necessary and then turns to leave without a word, or any acknowledgement at all.
“You okay, babe?” Pete says.
“…fine,” Lucius says, sounding a little shellshocked. “That was… kind of hot. Why didn’t he scream at me?”
Why didn’t he scream at Lucius? Stede thinks.
Time to get to the bottom of this, perhaps.
"I think there might be something wrong with Izzy," Stede says hesitantly, sitting down on the side of the bed gingerly.
There are many, many things wrong with First Mate Israel Hands, but that's a conversation for another day and one he won't be able to have with Ed, who seems to think that Izzy is a fairly normal example of a human being (or at least is fond enough of him not to care when he gets bratty.)
"Hmm?" Ed’s still looking wan and bleary-eyed, but he rolls over so he can stare up at Stede’s face. “What d’you mean?”
“He’s acting… rather strange,” Stede says, trying to figure out how to word I think your first mate is broken with a modicum of delicacy. He thinks about his grandmother – his soft, kind, lavender-scented grandmother who’d wander off sometimes when they forgot to keep an eye on her. “You know when people start to get rather old and their minds become…?”
“No,” Ed says blandly. “I’ve never hung out with anyone who was really old. Most of them die before they get that far.”
Ah. “Izzy was flirting with Lucius,” Stede says instead. Blatantly eyefucking him, that is. “Sort of.”
“Oh,” Ed says, makes a face. "How long's it been?"
"How long's it been since what, darling?"
“Since I got sick,” he says, gestures halfheartedly at his own face. It’s a very lovely face, even as sweaty and washed-out as he looks right now.
Stede catches his hand when he stops gesturing, presses his lips to the centre of Ed’s palm. It makes Ed smile, at least. “A week or two,” he answers. “What does that have to do with Izzy’s… condition?”
Ed makes a face again. This one is conflicted more than troubled, like he’s not sure if he should share whatever information he has on Izzy’s peculiar behaviour. “Anyone ever tell you stories about dead people who… come back?”
“Ghosts?”
“No,” Ed says. “Do people believe in ghosts? No. He’s a vampire.”
“But vampires aren’t…” Stede says, trails off.
The dots start connecting.
Izzy never eats in front of the crew. Stede had thought maybe he'd just been eating in private instead (too good for them,) but thinking back, even if he gets food he always passes it off to Ed, who's more than happy to have double the cake or whatever else they've acquired. He’d waved that off as part of Izzy and Ed’s relationship, their closeness, but he’s never seen Izzy look interested in food at all.
There’s other things, too – he’s seen Izzy asleep maybe once the whole time he’s been on The Revenge, and there’s been a few times Izzy’s said something, late at night when the moon is hidden, something that suggests he can see more in the dark than they can.
Then there’s the other thing.
Sometimes Izzy looks at people in a certain way – mostly Ed, but Stede's been on the receiving end too and he's noticed it once or twice with Lucius when they get a little too close to each other – with something cracked and needy in his eyes, barely-contained want. He figured it was... well, he'd never really thought about the cause of it at all. If it was anyone else he'd call it lust, but he figured it was just an Izzy thing.
“Really?”
“Bring him in here,” Ed says. “I’ll… I’ll take care of it.”
Stede can’t exactly say no, can he?
Izzy walks into a wall again on the way to the captain’s quarters, but somehow Stede manages to get him inside without any more disasters occurring. He’s still trying to wrap this situation around his head, keeps staring at the back of Izzy’s head like it’s going to give him answers. Izzy does take very nice care of his hair, doesn’t he? All his snide comments about Stede’s appearance despite how much maintenance his own must require. It’s silly.
“I don’t know what I’m doing here,” Izzy says once Stede’s closed the door behind him.
“Izzy,” Ed says, and there’s a flicker of disappointment in his voice.
“What,” Izzy says, inching closer to the bed as he does. It’s not quite a question – more of a snap, although it’s not nearly as sharp as the tone he reserves for everyone else. He sounds more lucid than he has for the last few days, at least.
"Man, why didn't you say anything?"
"Fuck off, Edward," Izzy says wearily. "I'm fine. I can manage a few days without falling apart."
“Stede says you’ve been-”
“Stede,” Izzy says, and there’s the venom he was expecting, “has no fucking clue what he’s talking about.”
And Stede would object to that, but he honestly doesn’t.
"C'mere," Ed says, catching Izzy around the back of the neck and drawing him in. Izzy goes, muttering obscenities the entire time but never really protesting or doing anything to actively back off, probably because Ed's touching him gentle and sweet and Stede knows from experience it’s hard to pull back from that. Some of the tension in his shoulders disappears and then ramps up again as Ed guides Izzy's face to his neck.
Stede realises what they're doing at that point.
Izzy's a vampire.
Izzy needs to drink blood to survive.
Izzy has been drinking Ed's blood this whole time.
For the first time, Stede catches a glimpse of fangs in the warm glow of the candlelight – long and oddly delicate, four on top and two on the bottom – and unwillingly, his body floods with heat. He watches as Izzy's expression shifts from tired resignation to something soft and heated, inhaling sharp through his nose as Ed's eyes fall shut.
Stede's breath quickens, against his better judgement. He feels like he's watching something inappropriate, flashbacks to when he was the tender age fourteen and walked in on one of the Roberts boys and his girlfriend, that first sudden rush of warmth in his gut accompanied with a distinct awkwardness of being an accidental voyeur. It’s a little different this time (he likes watching this time, can’t quite tear his eyes away from the way Izzy’s razor-sharp teeth press against scars on Ed’s neck that he’s only just noticed-)
"Can't," Izzy says before he bites down, turning his head and curling away from Ed in a way that looks painful. "You fucking idiot, you need to rest."
“Iz-”
“No,” Izzy says. He’s having trouble articulating the words around his teeth – fangs – but it doesn’t sound like he’s planning on budging.
Stede clears his throat. "What if someone else...?"
"I would rather fucking die than bite any of the idiots on this ship. I don't want to find out if their fecklessness is any more contagious than it already is," Izzy says instantly as he whips around to face Stede, and behind him there's a flicker of worry in Ed's eyes.
"Vampires get... attached to the people they bite, love," Ed says.
Stede's looking at Izzy when he says that, can see the tiny shift in Izzy's expression. Is that what you told him? he wants to say, the vicious little voice that comes out around Israel Hands rearing its ugly head. That it's all of your vampire instincts and not because you're in love with him, have been in love with him all this time?
Saying that now would be akin to suicide, he thinks. "Well," he says instead, "we can hardly let you continue like this. What about me?"
"That's worse," Izzy says dryly.
"Iz," Ed says.
Izzy turns to look at Ed – Stede can't see his expression from this angle, but he can guess that it's not pleased. Ed's own expression shifts from pleading to something else, a flicker of darker waters beneath the surface. It isn’t an expression that leaves any room for argument, and clearly it works on Izzy because after a minute of he heaves out a sigh and says, “fine. Fuck you.”
“Thanks, mate,” Ed says, the tension immediately bleeding out of him. It’s not entirely clear who he’s thanking as he sinks back onto the bed with a sigh, but as long as he’s getting some rest…
And then Stede remembers that he’s volunteered to let Izzy eat him.
Izzy’s still standing in the same spot, still staring down at Edward like he’s stuck again.
Clearly it’s up to Stede to get them moving, as he starts taking off his cravat. He sets it down on the closest flat surface, moves to unbutton his shirt and then realises he has no clue what blood drinking actually entails beyond the obvious. “Do I need to… do anything in particular for this? Should I be concerned about any adverse effects, or…?”
Izzy’s gaze snaps to him.
It’s not the same look he’d given Ed in the seconds before biting him – it’s dangerous, borderline predatory, but there’s a flicker of that same look he’d given Lucius earlier as well. Like he’s debating between getting his fangs in Stede or his dick, and that he might change his mind on that front at any moment.
(Stede tries very hard to think about his grandmother again, in the hopes it will help him regain some control.)
Before he gets a chance to open his mouth again, Izzy’s in his personal space, close enough that the fact that he is not breathing becomes glaringly obvious for the first time. He’s not trying to intimidate Stede this time – doesn’t even seem to care about his usual posturing right now, and somehow that makes it successful.
Stede doesn’t know how to react to this at all. Izzy pushes him backwards and he falls into the chair he’d unconsciously backed himself up against with a muffled thump, hands on the armrests to steady himself. It doesn’t help. All he can do is stare as Izzy slides into his lap, knees on either side of Stede’s thighs to trap him in place.
"Stay," Izzy says, a hand on his shoulder to keep him still.
“I,” Stede says, his mouth suddenly dry. He swallows, but it doesn’t help.
Izzy’s going to drink his blood.
"We're going to do this, and then we're never going to fucking speak about it again," Izzy says slowly. Threateningly. It’s a little more like their usual conversations and less like Stede’s having a very strange, surprisingly sexual dream. “Ever. Do you understand, Bonnet?”
“That’s perfectly fine with me,” Stede says, tipping up his chin.
Like this, Izzy’s a little higher up than he is and it’s strange to have to look up at his face instead of down. It’s unsettling in its own way and Stede thinks vaguely that he should’ve grabbed a knife before this moment because even if Izzy’s not particularly terrifying usually, he does have the capacity to rip out Stede’s throat and Stede’s giving him the perfect opportunity to do exactly that right now.
“Are you going to get on with it, then?”
“Like a fuckin’ lamb to the slaughter,” Izzy says, some semblance of his usual displeasure shining through the silky tone of his voice. “How did you survive this long when you are this eager to press your face up against death, Bonnet?”
Stede doesn’t answer because well, he doesn’t know. “Do you plan to sit on me all day, Israel?”
Izzy scowls at the use of his full name but it has the desired effect of making him get on with it, as he leans in close enough that Stede can feel the full press of Izzy’s body heavy against his own. His lips brush up against Stede’s jaw and he has to suppress a shiver, fingers tightening on the armrests. He’d somehow forgotten that part of Izzy biting him with his fangs means that his mouth will also be on Stede's skin, strangely soft despite everything else about him being sharp.
“Last chance,” Izzy says, lips moving against Stede’s neck.
“Do it,” Stede says without giving himself time to think about it, bracing himself for an untimely death.
It doesn't hurt. Or it doesn't hurt as much as he thinks it will – teeth press against his skin and there's a tiny pinch that he barely notices before he feels something warm slide down the side of his neck, hears Izzy swallow.
Oh, he thinks dimly, ignores the part of him that feels oddly disappointed. He shouldn’t be disappointed. He shouldn’t even care about any of this, they’re only doing it out of necessity. An ache spreads under his skin but he only vaguely registers it under the sensation of Izzy’s tongue catching the stray trail of what is definitely Stede’s blood, pushing his shirt out of the way to suck at his collarbone, and that’s-
How is he going to hide his rapidly-thickening cock when Izzy is sitting on it?
Stede focuses on sitting as still as he possibly can, not giving anything away as Izzy drifts back up and starts sucking on the bite he’s left. He closes his eyes to try and centre himself but that only makes it worse because now he’s stuck with the sensation of Izzy’s mouth on him, of the press of their bodies and the tiny noises Izzy is making and the way Izzy is ever-so-slightly rocking his hips up against Stede.
Well, he thinks in the relative safety of his own mind. Fuck.
Opening his eyes to stare up at the ceiling doesn’t help him much either, though.
Then the mouth on his neck disappears and Stede bites back the kneejerk urge to whine, because this is not what he’d had in mind when he’d volunteered for this. (Yes, you did, a traitorous voice in the back of his head says. You wanted this.)
Izzy sits back and there's something dark in his eyes, blood red and shiny on his mouth in the candle’s glow – Stede's blood, and it'd be so easy to lean in and lick it off, he wants to lick it off, wants to taste himself on Izzy's lips, doesn't.
"Was that enough?" he finds himself asking. How much do vampires eat, anyway?
Izzy meets his gaze. “It’ll do,” he says eventually, and his voice suggests that he’s been affected by whatever madness is possessing Stede right now. “Can’t have Edward’s boy toy getting under the weather now, can we. I’ll survive.” He shifts to get up, one hand braced on the back of the chair, and Stede’s stomach lurches unpleasantly.
That’s it?
Something comes to life inside him – the dark, ugly part that always rears its head around Israel Hands – and before he really thinks about it he's fisting a hand in Izzy's hair tight enough to hurt, wrenching his head forward so Stede can shove their mouths together inelegantly.
It's not a graceful kiss. It's barely even a kiss at all, just a harsh clash of lips and teeth slick with blood and spit. Izzy's razor-sharp fangs slice into his lip and there's the pain he was expecting, white-hot and sparkling behind his eyelids. It makes him shudder with the intensity of it, the sudden flood of arousal through his body. He can taste his own blood on Izzy’s tongue and it’s not entirely unpleasant.
Stede’s pretty sure he’s never kissed anyone like this, desperate and violent and blind with his own arousal. He feels like he’s caught in a storm, some uncontrollable force of nature that makes him push his tongue into Izzy’s mouth.
Izzy’s not safe from it either, moaning into it and grabbing him back, his hands braced on Stede’s chest like he can’t help himself. He’s started fully rolling his hips against Stede’s now, the press of his erection through both layers of their clothes still glaringly obvious. Stede’s just as hard, feels like he’s going to lose his mind from it.
How do Izzy and Ed survive this on a regular basis? God, it’s just – he can’t get away from the rolling waves of pleasure and pain, pushing him in one direction and then the other until he’s lost in it, until he can’t think about anything at all.
“Bite me again,” he’s saying without really thinking about it. “Bite me again, Izzy, Izzy please-”
Izzy swears, rough like it’s been torn out of him as he sinks his fangs into the spot between Stede’s neck and shoulder. This time’s not as delicate as the first was, less controlled, and the sharp pain ripples through him and knocks him overboard into deep waters as he hears himself groan and come, hips jerking up into Izzy’s body.
(Despite himself he thinks about what it would feel like to fuck him like this, his dick deep inside of Izzy as Izzy penetrates him in an entirely different way, and the thought makes him shudder.)
“Fuck,” Izzy’s saying, “fuck, Bonnet, you fucking-”
They’re both out of control, he thinks, this was always going to happen one way or another, like gunpowder and fire. Izzy's still grinding down against him and the friction is too much for Stede, his breathing going shaky and loud and obvious as his spent cock twitches in his breeches. He’s going to – embarrass himself or something if this keeps going, so he shoves his hand between them instead, curls his fingers around the shape of Izzy’s cock in his breeches.
That’s enough for Izzy, apparently, because he lets out a bitten-off moan and his rhythm goes stuttery as he rides his orgasm out against Stede’s hand.
Stede lets him ride it out, still reeling a little. He’s not sure when he closed his eyes, blinks them open as Izzy pants against his skin.
"Ed," he says hesitantly, when the darkness refuses to fade. "Is blindness a side effect of vampire blood-drinking, by any chance?"
Ed doesn't respond but Izzy does, a huff of amusement that blows cool air on Stede's neck. It makes his damp skin break out in goosebumps. "The candles fucking blew out, you twat."
"Oh." That makes more sense. “Are you… was that sufficient?”
“What, you want more?” Izzy’s back to sounding vaguely pissed off by his presence, although there’s something satisfied in his voice now that makes Stede want to shiver. “I’m fine, Bonnet. That’ll keep me going until Edward is fully recovered.”
“Oh,” Stede says again because yes, this was a one-time thing, wasn’t it? They’re not going to do it again. Right. He should probably start collecting himself, then. "Are you going to get off of me?"
"Maybe," Izzy says, low and a little sultry in a way that Stede's never heard him sound before. Then he coughs, clears his throat and his voice is back to its usual derisive sneer when he speaks again. “If you talk about this at all with anyone else, I won’t fucking hesitate to kill you for real this time.”
“The same to you,” Stede says coolly, even as his brain’s supplying him with images of Izzy doing exactly that, but in a more… sexual manner.
What’s wrong with him?
“I’ll relight the candles,” Izzy says, shifting off of him, and Stede ignores the way his fingers twitch to try and keep him in place. “Can’t have Stede fucking Bonnet stubbing his delicate little toes in the dark, can we?”
The world lurches back into place.
Stede doesn’t know if he likes it or not.