#gentlehands

Chapter 10: I'm Unglued, Thanks to You

So Izzy has been ill for a few days now and the fever just doesn’t go down, no matter what Roach tries, so they are sailing as fast as they can to the nearest island to get some medicine there before it gets worse.

With the rest of the crew busy with the ship, Stede has been by Izzy’s side a lot, reading to him, changing the cold compress on his head as often as needed and trying to make him drink some water or eat something when he is at least half-lucid, but the man has been unconscious for quite some time now and Stede is getting very worried.

And, meanwhile, Izzy in his feverish state is having the most realistic dreams of his life, and they are a bit crazy because in those dreams Stede and he are together and they are… happy, which should be weird, but his brain is half-fried so he is only a bit confused at first, but then he simply enjoys it.

Thanks for the tag, @loki-is-my-kink-awakening

--

“You were the one who called us a mistake,” Stede reminded him, taking a slow, deep breath through his nose to stop himself from lashing out. “What the fuck are you even-“ “”Last night was a mistake,’ ‘I’m not ready for whatever this is.’ And then you left. Supposedly to go fishing, but we all know how that ended. So, yes, Edward. I loved you. And against my better judgment, I love you still. Even though you broke my heart, even though I have a hard time believing anything between us was ever real, I still love you. But you were gone, and you’ve been gone for months. Months where the last things you ever told me amounted to regret that we ever happened at all.” “Months you spent fucking Izzy,” Ed snapped back petulantly. Stede huffed, shook his head in disbelief, and suddenly understood why Izzy was always driving his whittling knife into things when he was angry. His body was tense in ways he so rarely felt, but he refused to allow it to control him. “I didn’t, actually,” Stede replied. “But say I did. Say, the night that you left, when Izzy brought me back here, we went to bed together. So what? You left. You walked away, you ended this. You do not get to tell me we were a mistake and then expect me to remain celibate for the rest of my life, Edward. You don’t get to be angry over what I did while you were gone. You don’t get to judge who I did it with! You don’t get a say in who and how I tried to move on!”

---

Chapter 8: I Can Almost Taste Happiness