Archive of Our Own ^beta

#1 Sweven

It’s been years since Izzy has been up at the crack of dawn—his role as first mate has always allowed Izzy to delegate the morning shifts, something he has no qualms taking advantage of. Not since his days as a midshipman has he been up this early and he yawns, his spine crackling as he stretches.

Only the cook is already up and the tall, lanky man shoots Izzy a grin before handing him a mug of coffee.

Even after half an hour, the sun has barely started to rise, but there’s a feeling at the back of his skull. Something’s off, something important that he needs to take care of before anyone else wakes up, he can feel it in his bones.

Izzy moves around the deck on quiet feet, tries to spot whatever is setting his hair on end. Nothing seems out of place, and he sighs and turns, just about to give up when he finally sees it.

There’s a cat sitting on the deck, brown and fuzzy, and it stares at the first mate with unblinking eyes as it lets out a little “mrowrrr?”

Izzy sets down his mug of lukewarm coffee on the railing with a grimace.

“Fuck.”

#2 FrazzledWriter

Rubbing his hands on his pants, Izzy walks over to the feline, eyeing the pest with narrowed eyes.

“How the fuck did you get on board?” He asks with no expectation of an answer.

The cat stretches, lazily taking his time to saunter toward Izzy. The cat stops in front of him and sits. Two amber eyes stare up at him, challenging in their luminous glow.

The feline pauses to lick his paws before saying, “The same way any of you idiots gets on board, I walked. The real question you should be asking is why am I on board? That’ll get you the answer you’re really looking for. Go ahead, ask.”

#3 shiphitsthefan

Izzy wants to, needs to, the question on the tip of his tongue, a coat of acid he can nearly taste. "Fine," he snarls, giving in, "why the fuck are you on board?"

"Not even a please? Your manners really are atroci–" Lucius squints, then tilts his head. "Is that seagull carrying a coconut?"

"Answer the fucking question!" Izzy demands, grabbing Lucius' scarf and tugging down hard.

"Ow, okay! I climbed up the barnacles and waited for Fang to wander by, but seriously," and he pries his scarf free from Izzy's fingers, "I think it's got a coconut by the husk in its little feeties."

Izzy eyes Lucius dubiously, but still turns to look behind himself.

#5 Montager

Sure enough, the jam room still remains empty and silent behind him.

Turning back to the hidden compartment the scribe is jammed into, Izzy views the lad again with a hint more patience, and a good deal more concern.

“Mr Spriggs, where exactly the fuck do you think we-nevermind, that’s not important. Lad, when did you last have any water?”

The scarf has been jauntily re-tied, not around its original place around his neck, but at a daring angle which catches the knot somewhere around the vicinity of Lucius’s right ear, and severely obstructs his vision.

He doesn’t seem to notice.

“Oh I’m not really a huge water person, I went days without it in a wicker trunk once, it did wonders for my figure, and my relationship with Jim.”

“Have you been drinking fucking seawater?”

Not giving Lucius a chance to babble more nonsense, Izzy scruffs him like an indignant gutter kit, half pushing him out of the cupboard and towards the open doors.

“Unfucking believable, let’s get you sorted out so we can deal with the real situation at hand here, yeah?”

#6 CyborgShepard

Izzy’s hand doesn’t stray from his nape as he leads them down the narrow hallway, like Lucius expects it ought to. The contact is the only warm point on Lucius’ body, and when Izzy halts—his free hand beckoning silence with how it’s suddenly raised—Lucius takes a moment to close his eyes in relief, rattle out a slow, cautious breath, and lean back into his touch.

The gloved thumb against his skin strokes a soothing arch over his skin, and shivers bloom in its wake. Lucius glances at Izzy.

But Izzy pays him no notice, staring straight ahead; Lucius wonders if Izzy even realises he’s not yet let him go.

Lucius’ head still feels like someone’s poured a cup of salt in it, coated his brain and dried up any kind of rational thought. He hears the voices up ahead, though, jibing and cruel and getting closer, and he finds himself grabbing for Izzy in turn.

“They’re going to find us,” Lucius hisses frantically; “They’re going to find us and they’re going to—”

“No, they’re not,” Izzy grits out, something equal measures protective and unconvinced in his tone, and his hand tenses against Lucius’ nape.

Frantic, out of his mind, Lucius can think of only one distraction; he turns to Izzy, wets his lips, and orders, “Kiss me.”

#7 unlovedhands

Izzy spends a beat of adrenaline-laced time staring at him, his eyes first squinting in scrutiny and then getting big with want when Lucius just stares back, unrelenting even in his frenzy. The hand at Lucius’s neck pulls him closer, their faces hairsbreadths apart, and he contradicts himself as he cautions, hoarsely, “Lucius.”

“Izzy,” Lucius returns, sassily insistent, yet steadfast as the blood rushing and roaring in his ears. He tips his head back into Izzy’s touch, wraps an arm around Izzy’s midsection, and draws him in. Their bodies thump against the wall of their passageway, startling them both, but as they jolt, they only slot closer together; in their panic, their buzzing furor, that’s all it takes.

Izzy mumbles, “why fucking not,” and closes the chasmic gap, the few inches of space that existed between them, held all their cares, momentarily annihilated by their shared regression to base instincts, to seek comfort in another human animal.

All of the sounds around them in their margin of space, any great peril or impending consequences – it all fizzles out in favor of the sound of Izzy’s sharp breaths, the press of his lips that once spit insults and now swear to protect in their searing ardency.

It’s over before Lucius truly knows what the air from Izzy’s lungs is like, before his palate is reformed by the salve of Izzy’s mouth against his, and Lucius sags against the wall, relenting to the pounding heartbeat in his ears. The hand that’d been in his hair, that’d cupped his nape securely, drops down, now clenched as his eyes shoot around askance, as his lips part only to warn, quietly, “I think they’re coming.”

#8 lustig

“Fuck,” Izzy swears, eloquent as ever as he follows Lucius' gaze, and Lucius sees Izzy clench his jaw, a calculating expression taking over his features.

Lucius still has not had a chance to process their first kiss when Izzy leans in for another one, as sure and suave about it as he was with the first, stealing Lucius’ breath right out of his mouth, his lungs.

“There will be time,” Izzy promises quietly, his eyes boring into Lucius’, the fire in them pinning Lucius to the wall like an ant under a burning lens: hot and suffocating and not quite like anything Lucius has ever experienced before (and he has experienced a lot) - and Lucius wants to ask ‘how, how are you doing this to me’ and tell Izzy ‘please never stop looking at me like this’ and worrying ‘do I affect you like you affect me?’

Lucius cannot voice any of it, he can barely move, but Izzy does not ask him to.

Instead, Izzy steps away from Lucius, his hand trailing down Lucius’ arm, over the back of his hand and along his fingers, until they separate with a spark dying in the air and growing distance between them, and Lucius wants it back so badly, the touch and the fire and the heat, everything - but Izzy does not hear any of Lucius’ internal screaming, all of Izzy’s attention now turned towards their pursuers coming closer.

He draws his sword, placing himself between Lucius and the exit from the little island of peace they had found and shared, for a single breath of eternity.

Lucius stares at Izzy’s back and wishes he could see his face instead. The low rise and fall of Izzy’s shoulders - every breath a sign of life, of hope, of I will not let them hurt you - helps Lucius re-center himself, following the pattern presented to him.

There will be no more hiding.

A new dawn has begun.