“How do you do it?” Izzy asks, regretting speaking up at all as soon as the words came out of his mouth. It was just them out on deck. At least just them near the bow. Why he was sitting there, he couldn’t say for certain. Nor could he say for certain why his stupid fucking mouth decided to say something.
“Do what?” Frenchie didn’t look up, sewing up the broken sail, which had been damaged in their recent raid. His hand skillfully threading the material back together.
"Just-" It's been strange these past few weeks, with Bonnet's crew most likely all dead except the bard in front of him and Jimenez, wherever they were. Stuck with Blackbeard who quite frankly, even in Izzy’s opinion, has gone fucking mad. But here Frenchie was, just sitting and sewing. “After all this shit. How are you so…”
Frenchie stops his sewing to look over to Izzy. “So what?”
“Calm.” Izzy finished. Lamely.
“Well,” Frenchie shrugged, “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Why wouldn’t-” Izzy cut himself off to stare at Frenchie bewildered. “Why would you?”
Frenchie pauses, seemingly thinking the question over. “Because… I have accepted the circumstances.” He shrugged again, turning back to his work, “Gotta have faith it’ll all work out one way or another.”
Izzy didn’t respond to that.
“Why are you so upset?” Frenchie then asks.
“You should be angry.” Just that. Plain and simple. Frenchie should be furious. His friends are dead. He was going to die.
Frenchie turns to him again, eyes narrowed. “And you think I’m not? Why do you even care?”
“I don’t.” Izzy said through gritted teeth.
“Maybe I just have better ways of dealing with my emotions than you.” Frenchie huffed.
“Do you deal with it?” He couldn’t stop himself from asking. Never once has he seen Frenchie ever actually react to something, and miraculously after something happens Frenchie is nowhere to be found.
“I don’t need to go around yelling at everyone, so I would say so, yeah.”
A smile tugs at Frenchie’s lips. “Do you have no one else to talk to Mr Hands?”
“It’s my job.” he replies instead.
“Nothing would get done otherwise.”
“Well, maybe you’re just not as good at your job as you think you are.” Frenchie says, suddenly growing a pair of big fucking balls.
Izzy glared, “I’m good at my fucking job.” He growled.
“But no one likes you, right?” Frenchie says, smugly. “They all hate you because you yell at them and yet they still don’t do what you say.”
Izzy’s jaw tightened. “I don’t care if those fuckers like me or not.”
Frenchie raised his brow. “Yet here you are, talking to me, because no one else will listen to you whining.”
Izzy scoffed. “I’m not fucking wining.”
“No, of course not.” Frenchie replies. “Why'd you even come talk to me in the first place?”
Frenchie smiled, a strange sight. “You know Iz, if you weren’t so uptight all the time maybe you would have more friends.”
Izzy narrowed his eyes. “I don’t get friends.”
“Yes, because you are a dick.” Frenchie was really testing his fucking luck.
“Because,” Izzy stressed, “It’s my duty to keep everyone from fucking dying, and keep Ed content. No time for that shit.”
Frenchie hummed. “And how’s that been going?”
He was trying. Truly fucking trying to keep this shit show together. The last few weeks have made Izzy the most stressed he’d ever been in his fucking life. That was saying something. He’s surprised he hadn’t gone completely grey. Crew were dropping like flies, while the Kraken sulks in his stupid ex-boyfriend's room. On top of refusing to dock for supplies and new crew, which they desperately fucking needed.
“How about a deal, then?” The question shakes Izzy out of his thoughts and looks to Frenchie incredulously. “You be nice to the crew, and see if they’ll actually do as you say.”
“The crew doing their jobs.”
That’s stupid. He thought.
“That’s stupid.” He said aloud. “They’d think I was on something.” He wished he was.
“Well. how about this-” Frenchie shifted, completely facing Izzy now. “-We try my way. Not be a dick. Be real nice and if it doesn’t work we can go back to your way of shouting until everyone can’t stand you.”
Izzy crossed his arms. “I don’t like this.”
Frenchie smiles. It was quite unnerving. “You want to prove me wrong don’t you? Prove that my happy-go-lucky niceness doesn’t work in any way?”
Why the fuck was he even considering this? “2 days. That’s it.”
“Alright, fair. 2 days it is then.” Frenchie held out his hand, “It’s a deal.”
What the fuck did he just get himself into?
Izzy ignored Frenchie’s hand. “I’m not going to make any fucking friends.”
Frenchie let his hand fall back to his lap, but still grinned at him. “Ah, but I didn’t say make friends. I said be nice. Huge difference there, mate.”
“They won't take me seriously.”
Izzy glared. “They’ll just think I want something from them.”
“Well, you do want them to do their jobs, right? This way you’re asking as opposed to screaming orders at them.” Frenchie says with a smile. The bards too good with running his fucking mouth. “You can’t expect any respect from them just because you are First Mate, gotta give it to them too.”
“Trust me, the crew will be more willing to work with you if you ask nicely, instead of screaming at them. They’re grown men… and others.” He said as an afterthought. “Not children.”
“Hard to tell sometimes.” Izzy grumbled, before pushing himself up to stand, ignoring the flare in his foot at the motion.
“Ah- Before you go, show me.”
Izzy glared at him. “Show you what?”
“How you’ll do it. How you’ll talk to the crew.”
Frenchie shook his head. “Nope, that was an order. Ask nicely Iz.”
He already fucking hated this. “Can you do your fucking job?”
“That’s not asking nicely.” Frenchie said, “Do it like a gentleman would.” Oh, the fucking nerve of this man-
“I’m not a fucking ponce.” Izzy growled.
“Well, pretend you are for 2 seconds.” Frenchie replied, “Be a ponce with manners, it gets you somewhere.”
“To an early fucking grave, more like.” They weren’t talking about Izzy being nice anymore.
Frenchie waved that comment off, “Come on try it, try being nice to me Mr Hands.”
Izzy stared at him, but the bard simply stared back, head cocked to the side just waiting. This was fucking stupid.
“Can you do your job… please?” Izzy cringed as the word left his mouth and Frenchie smiled.
“Of course I can Mister Hands, sir! Right away!” Frenchie replied, giving a very over the top salute before grabbing his needle. “See Iz works like a charm.”
Izzy rolled his eyes. “Whatever.”
Frenchie looked quite pleased with himself. “Now try that with everyone else. You’ll be surprised how quickly they’ll comply.”
Izzy didn’t believe him for a second, and turned to walk away.
Izzy tightened his jaw to keep from telling the bard to go fuck himself.
This was complete bullshit.
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