Therapist: "make space for the anger in your body"
Izzy: #IzzyIsMe #IzzyIsMicroFic

"I think I'm angry," Izzy tells Stede, "but I don't wanna scream about it or have you get defensive so I think we should save it to talk about in counseling."
"About today?" Stede asks
"And the stuff that didn't get done, yeah."
Stede proceeds to get defensive, make excuses, tells Izzy it's unfair that he isn't more understanding.
<This,> Izzy thinks as his rage simmers <is why talking about feelings is fucking stupid and I shouldn't have bothered in the first fucking place> #IzzyIsMicroFic

“I’ve always loved you,” Izzy whispers, nuzzling a cheek against Jack’s chest. “I can say it now. Why was I so afraid?”

“I love you too.” Jack wipes a tear from Izzy’s eye. Though he swears he can hear the comet now, he tries not to look up. “But I’m afraid.”

#IzzyIsMicroFic #CJizzy #IzzyHands

"What did you do" Izzy hisses at Bonnet
"Nothing!"
"He deserves better" Ed sobs
"Doesn't sound like nothing!"
"It's not me! He was dosed with a truth serum"
"The fuck does that have to do with anything?"
"I know any chance I had of him loving me is long gone but I-"
"Shh Ed it's alright. Bonnet's still here. You two made up. It's okay."
"It's NOT! I know it's too late and if I were a better man I'd do it, but Iove you too much to let you go, Izzy. Please, stay"
#IzzyIsMicroFic @IzzyCanyon

It had been a hard, long day. All Izzy wanted was to get home, get out of his work clothes, and crash. Fuck of he knew what dinner would be. He'd sort it out after a nap.

Then he opened the front door and remembered that Nate was now living with him. Nate and a third of his managerie.

"Don't let Gealach out!" Nate called from the couch as, sure enough, the gray cat mad a mad dash towards Izzy's boots.

Izzy twisted his feet around to block the cat's path. "Oi! Git!"

Gaelach mrowled at him angrily as she tried to dart past him. Izzy managed to get the door closed without shutting it on her by some miracle.

"Why the fuck couldn't you help catch her?" Izzy grumbled, nearly tripping over the three other animals that had come to greet him---two dogs and a pig.

Nate was looking back at him with Karl the cockatiel perched pn his shoulder and olivia thw duck on his head. "'Cause I've got Nessie," he explained simply, holding the python up for Izzy to see.

#IzzyIsMicroFic @IzzyIsEvents #butthands

Izzy looks up as Marmalade leaps deftly onto the desk where he's working, sits on his haunches, and drops the bag that has been held in his jaws. The bag wriggles. Izzy peaks to see a mouse the idiot cat has brought him like some prize loot. "Fucksake cat, you're meant to kill the mice, not bring them to me to take care of!" Izzy draws his dagger as he mutters to himself "I guess I shoulda named you Orange Beard after all"
#IzzyIsMicroFic

Izzy’s arms strained against the weight of the oars, his heart breaking with every mile he put between himself and The Revenge.

Sweat stung the gash on his brow, a constant reminder that love wasn’t always pure and good. Sometimes, love was just another thing you had to survive.

#IzzyIsMicroFic @IzzyIsEvents #YellowBoxWrites

Izzy had told himself that no soulmark could tell him who to love. Soulmarks were just the universe’s way of controlling suckers.

He’d told himself that over and over, until the moment he stood, enthralled, staring at his mark’s match across Roach’s shoulder.

#IzzyIsMicroFic #Rizzy @IzzyIsEvents #YellowBoxWrites

For @IzzyIsEvents 's #IzzyIsMicroFic challenge, I proudly present ASSUME THE POSITION, a series of four vignettes about captains in need of first mates:

There's an elegance to Izzy that rivals any dance Stede's ever been forced to attend. His cutlass might as well be part of his arm--Stede's seen him put his fingertips to candle flame, too, though he pretends not to notice. Stede knows well the urge to flagellate.

Izzy swings again, lower now, purposeful. The flames extinguish. Blip; blip; blip. Little lives cut short.

Something tugs in Stede's gut that he doesn't understand, that he's never felt, but he aches to be closer. Not like the yearning for Ed, no; this is a torch, not a lighthouse.

Stede touches the sweat clinging to Izzy's shoulders. He shudders beneath Stede's hand.

"I'm no Edward," he says.

"That's alright," Stede tells him. "Neither am I." He caresses Izzy's bare neck, wondering what happened to the ring. Izzy sheaths his sword, clever fingers brushing Stede's cheek. "I find myself in need of a first mate."

"You know the rules," and Stede nods. "Then I accept," Izzy says, "but the glove stays on."

#IzzyIsMicroFic

"Why me?" Pete asks as Izzy shuts the door. "Why not Fang or Ivan?"

Izzy sighs. Most first mates don't start out by immediately questioning their captains. He's surrounded by a sea of incompetence, but there's a dogged loyalty in Pete that Izzy intimately understands. It's not much, but Izzy's made do with less.

"You're the only one aboard with the right temperament for it," he finally says, unbuttoning his vest.

Pete brightens. "Of course I am! I'm the best man for the job."

"You tell your taller half?" and Pete nods. "Because I've no time to fend off jealous lovers."

Pete chuckles filthily as he looks Izzy over. "He's only jealous because I get to fuck you first." His fingers trace the scars on Izzy's chest with reverence.

Yeah, Izzy thinks. You'll do fine.

He grabs Pete's wrists, has him pressed against the stupid bookshelf before Pete's done gasping. "Reckon I'll be the one doing the fucking here, Black Pete."

Pete spreads his legs. "Aye-aye."

#IzzyIsMicroFic

"A word, Captain?"

Stede turns from his beached boat. "Yes, Mr. Buttons?"

"Ye've yet to make me a proper first mate." He tugs his bandana.

"Ah yes! Simple matter of tweaking the manifest; I'll put Lucius on it at once."

"Must be ye who completes the rite."

Stede blinks; Buttons doesn't. "The rite?"

"'S'bout dominance." To Stede's horror, Buttons is disrobing. "'Tis proper a captain buggers his intended first."

All the ships in Stede's head capsize. "There's no other way?" he asks, batting Buttons away from his trousers.

Buttons considers. "Ye could always answer the Question."

"Oh thank God. I've always tested well!" Stede mops his brow. "Let's have it."

"Name one-thousand sea creatures."

"That's not a question!" snaps Stede.

"Then ye forfeit."

"No, I--" Stede thinks quickly. "As Captain, my duty is to delegate, yes?"

Buttons shifts. "Aye."

"Then I delegate this."

"To?"

"You. Tell me when you've finished," and Stede makes a hasty retreat.

#IzzyIsMicroFic

Hornigold twitched beneath Ed's feet as he sat on the dying man's desk. He looked from Izzy to Jack, both splattered in gore.

"Can only pick one of you," he said. "Best figure it out."

"We can't fight!" Jack turned to Izzy–"Tell Ed we ain't fightin'."

Izzy's bare fingers brushed the hilt of his sword.

Jack's face fell. "Babygirl?"

"Could have a fuck-off," Ed said, amused. "Last man coming wins."

"Nah." Jack threw his axe to the boards at Izzy's feet. "I'm gonna fuck off. Alone." Jack plucked up Hornigold's whip, dragging it as he left, a tail between his legs.

"Thought you were Jack's man," Ed murmured, crooking one finger.

Izzy heard; obeyed. "Never been anyone's but yours."

Ed smirked as he pulled out his cock. "Go on, Iz. Mount it like the dog you are."

For all Jack loved him, he couldn't hurt Izzy like he needed, like Ed was too willing to do. Ed made him beg to bleed and then thank him for the wound.

When Izzy came, Ed whispered in his ear, "I win."

#IzzyIsMicroFic

#IzzyIsMicroFic
"Why do you let him do this to you?" Frenchie asks, dabbing a foul-smelling mixture on Izzy's freshly bruised face.
"So he doesn't do it to you," Izzy answers quietly. Frenchie stops & stares; then he presses a soft kiss on Izzy's cheek & starts singing to him.

#IzzyIsMicroFic It took just 5 minutes, even with all the kissing. “There,” Ed grinned, sitting back proudly in Izzy’s lap. “You’re really stuck with me now, mate.” “And you with me,” Izzy chuckled, wincing slightly at the sting of the fresh X on his cheek and so, *so* in love.

It should be more difficult than this, losing himself to this mouth that’s not the mouth he truly wants. To disappear into the push and pull of the moment.

It should be impossible, with how thoroughly he is already owned.

Yet Bonnet’s kisses claim him entirely

#IzzyIsMicroFic #Stizzy @IzzyIsEvents #YellowBoxWrites

#IzzyIsMicroFic @IzzyCanyon
It's not intentional the first time. Izzy stumbles across the portal and finds himself flung into Stede's body, looking through Stede's eyes.
Ed is there, looking at Izzy (Stede! Looking at Stede) through a cloud of smoke, like a pristine relic from decades past.
Izzy wants to drown in Ed's attention. When the portal spits him back to his own body, he claws his way back to the mouth of it, intent on seeing that adoring look on Ed's face again.
Just one more time.

“You wear his whip.”

Izzy squirms, guilty under Anne’s harsh gaze.

“Did you-“ he reached for it, reluctant but willing to hand it over.

“He’d want you to have it.”

The guilt doubles because Anne’s right: Jack would’ve.

Izzy had never deserved him.

#IzzyIsMicroFic #CJizzy @IzzyIsEvents #YellowBoxWrites

Izzy hears Ed strumming his guitar and singing as he enters their flat:
And I'll dream each night of some version of you
That I might not have, but I did not lose
Now you're tire tracks and one pair of shoes
And I'm split in half, but that'll have to do
So I thought that if I piled something good on all my bad
That I could cancel out the darkness I inherited from dad
No, I am no longer funny 'cause I miss the way you laugh
Once called me forever now you still can't call me back
#IzzyIsMicroFic

“Look at you,” Jack ran a hand up Izzy’s hairy thigh, possessive.

“Get on with it,” Izzy squirmed, embarrassed.

Jack smirked, “Not a chance, Princess. I’m gonna take my TIME. Get you hooked on ol’ Jack, proper-like.”

Izzy bit his lip. He was already hooked.

#IzzyIsMicroFic #CJizzy @IzzyIsEvents #YellowBoxWrites