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"This is over. you know this is over. He's over. That rich boy changed him."
"Bonnet is fucking gone."
"Do you think that matters? Or do you just want to tell yourself that it matters? That after a while, he'll go back to being the man you-"
"Don't." The word is so low and severe it stops him in his tracks, sends a shiver down his spine that even the warm sea air can't banish. "Above all else, a first mate is loyal to his captain."
"I'm so goddamned tired of that, as if that's some honor and not a noose around your fucking neck. What do you even get out of it? You take care of him, you wipe his fucking ass, you get him dressed every morning, and for what? So the legendary fucking Blackbeard can go down in history as the world's greatest pirate without doing any of the work himself. So that he can use you as a step stool." Leviticus reaches out for him where he sits, shocked and open-mouthed. "You could be so much more than him. We could. Together."
"What the fuck are you saying?" It lacks the heat it should have. Anyone else would be dead, after that display. Levi's thumb covers the x on his cheek- if he can cover it up, it's almost like it isn't there. Like Blackbeard isn't still in the room with them.
"Run away with me, Israel." There is a shudder that washes over him, a tremble of want in the set of his jaw that Levi recognizes, a shine in eyes like fine mahogany that says just for a moment that he is considering it. Leviticus clings to that shine like it's a star, like it could navigate him through the storm brewing around them and into a safe harbor. It's futile- it disappears like the stars, so quickly engulfed in too much darkness.
"Don't tell me this ship of fools has gotten to you, too." The dismissal hurts more than it should; what had he really expected? Every version of this conversation he had ever had in his mind had gone just like this, brutal rejection in every room and situation his mind could conjure. Maybe Izzy was right- maybe they had gotten to him here, encouraging him to hope for a future he knew he couldn't have. And yet, his sometimes-lover is staring at his mouth, as he often does, while he coldly dismisses his dreams- a harshly edged and burning hot sword through his stomach.
"Is it really so foolish?" Maybe he sounds more wounded than he means to, because the look Izzy gives him then is one of pity that twists the sword ever further.
"I can't just leave him. You know that."
"You love him. But he doesn't love you, Israel. He never h-" He's interrupted by a harsh shove, pressing him against the wall, and they are closer now, but only physically. Izzy's hot breaths spill across his bottom lip, the hard line of him forcing him into the wood paneling, and he wonders what it would feel like to die at this moment, a victim of his own big mouth. Still, he can't force himself to find any regret for what he had said.
"Fuck you." There is so much venom in the growl that leaves him, spilling in all directions, that Levi can't tell what part of what he said inspired it. Maybe all of it. The hurt of it all turns instantly into rage, poisoning his blood.
"And you call me a fool. You're no different from him up there, pining for someone lost."
Cold metal presses against the delicate skin of his throat, the fire in Izzy's eyes a burning ship adrift on an endless dark ocean. "I want you off this ship. Tonight."
"Or what? You'll kill me?" It's barked out like a laugh, hysterical. He's already killing him, Levi thinks; he just doesn't know it. The only difference is if it happens quickly or slowly. Leviticus tilts his head back against the wall, baring his throat to him. "Go ahead. Do it. Kill me."
"You need a lesson in keeping your fucking mouth shut." Izzy growls in response, and a blade presses in against his skin hard enough to sting, hard enough for him to feel warm blood start to drip slowly, to soak warm into the collar of his shirt- for a sick instant the panic and adrenaline and endorphins wash over him in just the right way that he is content that Izzy will be the last thing he ever sees. He remembers a poetry lesson, from when he was young, a line in a book somewhere- find what you love and let it kill you. His eye slips closed, and he braces himself for it all to end, when suddenly the pressure is removed and the knife is lodged in the wall adjacent to his covered eye with one violent and severe motion. It's Izzy's turn, this time, to sound hysterical. "You fucking idiot."
Leviticus doesn't have time to even hazard a response before Izzy has slammed their mouths together, pouring all the anger and desperation usually rolling off of him in thick seething waves and boiling just underneath his skin into a kiss that sears him, that makes his blood rush in his ears and his pulse pound. It's not the first time, but it's the first time like this- the detached and clinical Izzy who doles out affection in terms of a power play is nowhere to be found in it. He doesn't know the man kissing him now, and yet somehow he feels that he knows him intimately. His lip is bleeding, the iron mingling on their shared mix of tongues, his jaw aches from Izzy's hold on it, and the older man's fingertips are leaving bruises on his hip where he holds on for dear life- the pain is as much a part of this as the pleasure is. He gives it in return, fingers winding tight into thick black locks streaked through with silver-gray and giving a harsh tug that for a moment melts their courtship into honey and gold when Izzy honest-to-God moans against where they are melded together and instead of stopping, of pulling away and looking at him with that look of shock and embarrassment he has become so accustomed to, keeps going, keeps going and going and going. He feels small, and claimed, despite having 8 inches in height on the man devouring him, and the answering sound that slips from his mouth as he is shoved harder against the wall is such a long time coming it feels like it's been wrenched from him. A knee slots in between his legs, where he is aching more than he even realized, drawing another needy sound in quick succession from the deepest parts of him and making his hips jerk unbidden into the friction as well as they can in Izzy's grip.
He pulls away then, enough to break their mouths apart, and Levi is sure this is the moment he's been waiting for, the push too far that will scare him away, but the look he once again expects to see isn't there, the fire in his eyes a different kind of burning. Izzy watches him like he's looking for something, breaths heavy and face flushed a high shade of pink and when he finds it, his mouth melds itself to the skin of his throat, licking clean the corner of the wound he had given him just moments ago, and then his teeth are sinking in, and he is sucking a mark in against his dreadfully pale skin that he can almost feel bloom into a brilliant and beautiful purplish-blue. Leviticus all but whines, and the sound is unattractive to him, but it spurs Izzy into action, adorning him with a string of those same marks as if he could wear them like a necklace- or more darkly, maybe, a collar. The thought makes a shudder run hot down his spine.
The hand has removed itself from his hip, has joined his other one in slipping underneath the thin protection of his shirt to caress old scars, to drag half-chilled fingernails against his stomach in a way that makes the muscles jump and clench under the touch, belying their and his need to be closer to him. It's completely overwhelming, to be touched this way- so overwhelming that he forgot for a moment the purpose of his own hands, that he could also be touching, grabbing, possessing. Izzy is far more guarded than him, by buttons and leather, but it doesn't stop him from sliding his hand up the curve of his spine, to let his thumb caress the swallow on his throat and then down along the curve of his sword arm, from readjusting his hand in his hair and the strength of his grip to draw another of those sandpaper sounds that turns his bones into hot jelly.
So preoccupied with touching he is, so overwhelmed by warm fabric underhand and the knee still pressing in against his length and the sting of ownership radiating through his throat, that he doesn't realize Izzy has stopped marking him until his voice and the tickle of his hair falling loose brushes- so close, too close, not close enough- against his ear. "If you're making fun of me, if this is some kind of fucking trick, If you're just trying to get your fucking rocks off, I swear to God I'll slit your throat. I'll slit it and I'll watch you die and I won't fucking think twice about it." He tries to sound tough, confident, and to someone else he might, but Levi can hear the shake in his voice, the unadulterated fear of letting someone see his passion and his need and his vulnerability who would turn it against him running like an undercurrent through the threat. Hadn't he heard the same thread in their arguments, felt it in all their kisses and touches before this? This is simply the first time it's been so near the surface. There is a wetness that drips onto his shoulder, and for both of their sake, he pretends to not feel it. Instead, the hand in his hair relaxes, the fingers carding through the length, fingernails scratching against his scalp in a way that draws a hitch from Izzy's shuddering breaths.
"I love you, Israel. For ten years, I've loved you." It spills out, like most things he says, before he can think about it. But why should he have thought about it? What could be gained by thinking about it? He had been thinking about it a long fucking time. There was no better time to say it, than here, where it propagates richly into the air like even the phrase itself is sure it might finally be believed. "Let me prove it."
Izzy pulls away, looking at him like he's never seen him before, like he's trying to categorize everything he's done in the last ten years they've known each other into a different mental box than he originally had. Levi has never seen him look so unsure of himself, so lost. He's always thought of him like the north star- he hadn't known where he was going, not really, until he had found him. Now it was his job to guide him- he hoped desperately that he wouldn't fuck it up. He ignores the tears tracked down his face, taking it into his hands like he just might shatter if he was too rough or indelicate, and pulls him into a kiss, much softer than their first of the evening. It tastes like salt and lingers like sugar- he pours everything he's held back for so long into it, into him, and he feels him shake with the weight of it, feels fingers wind into his own hair and a strong hand brace itself roughly on his shoulder. When he pulls away, it takes Izzy a moment to open his eyes to look at him, and he seems much more solid in his resolve than he had been before. Levi's hand lingers over the buttons on his waistcoat, not moving, just an implication. "Can I?"
"Get on with it." There is an impatience there not borne from the erection Levi can see clearly pressing against his leather pants, and he can't help but smile. There he is- that's the Izzy he knows. He shifts them a bit, moving him into a sitting position on the bench that ran along the opposite wall, carefully de-vesting him of the fabric barriers that lie between him and the prize of his bare torso. Levi saves the cravat for last, with its delicate silver ring- laying them both gently atop the pile of his discarded clothing, off to the side. Izzy's mouth opens, probably with another complaint about how slow he's being, but Levi silences him- fingers trailing through the soft, thick hair that adorns him to brush against the flushed pink skin of a nipple and turn the sound that leaves him instead into one that makes his cock twitch unbidden against the barrier of his pants.
"You're beautiful. I've wanted to tell you so fucking bad, Izzy. All those fucking games we've played, all these years. I've wanted you so fucking bad I thought it would drive me goddamn crazy." He doesn't stop playing with him, eyes riveted on his face, and Izzy won't make eye contact with him, but that's okay, because he can still take in every detail of him, how his mouth bows open so perfectly when he tweaks or pulls or tugs at his sensitive anatomy just the right way, the pink flush to him turning into a more ardent red.
"Could've fucking- shit- could've fucking said something-" he lies, and he knows it's a lie, but this is their banter, this is their banter at its height, and they could have just as easily had this conversation on deck, but it would be missing something, it would be behind a barrier. The barrier is crumbling now, falling into the sea like the last wall of Atlantis.
"No I couldn't have. You'd just as soon have run me through and thrown me overboard." He laughs.
"Still gonna, if you don't touch my fucking cock already." And there is laughter in him, too, so foreign that it punches him in the stomach with the flutter of wings, that it fills his heart with syrup. He's never heard him laugh before, not genuinely, not really- he wonders what else he's missed out on. He doesn't want to miss another fucking thing.
He leans down, breath brushing against his ear, and his hand slips lower, lower, until he is fingering a stab wound scar just above the hem of his pants and feeling the muscles under them jump forwards just like his own had earlier. "How do you want me to touch it? With my hand? With my mouth? Do you want to finish that way? Would you let me take you, Israel?"
Izzy groans, fully, the sound so intoxicating as it fills this small space and moves against his skin and wraps around his brain that he feels all but drunk on it. "You're going to be the death of me, you know that?"
"I sure hope not. It'd be tough to explain to everyone why you died hard."
"Just fucking- fuck me already, you irritating-" And Levi once more silences him with a kiss, the back of his hand brushing against his length, his barely contained laughter and Izzy's whimper coming together into a special kind of music. He shifts their positions again so they lay sideways on the bench, just wide enough for both of them to fit comfortably, himself in between Izzy's now spread legs. In this position, their still-clothed cocks rub together deliciously, and suddenly he is possessed with the fantasy of rutting against him until they both ruin their respective pants, and he is forced to steady himself before only he ruins his respective pants. His Israel has asked him to be fucked- how could he possibly deny him? For a moment he works on stripping himself of clothing, which must make the other man happy, as he busies himself once more with exploring his anatomy, thumbs tracing scars he had given him and ones he had received from others, sending a pleasant shiver down his spine. In turn, he busies himself with removing those damned leather pants, and then a pair of underwear so ruined by the events thus far he would think he had already finished in them if he wasn't still rock hard and at attention. He can't help himself, the urge to touch overriding his brain and common sense. It's a pretty cock, about 7 and a half at full mast and thick enough to make his mouth water, the neatly trimmed black hair that frames it peppered through with bits of silver just like the hair everywhere else, and when he balances on one arm to grab it, giving it a short pump, thumb dragging through the bead of pre at the tip, it draws a sound out of Izzy that pales to the ones in even his most salacious and fulfilling wet dreams. The whole ship can probably hear him, and it fills him with both pride that he's managed to make him feel so good and a fierce possessiveness- nobody else should get to fucking hear him. Nobody else deserved it. He hardly deserved it, if he was being honest. Izzy fucks into his hand, as if to draw his attention, as if his attention could have possibly been anywhere else. "Please, Leviticus, please-"
"I know, I know... I feel it too." He removes his hands and grinds their cocks together, his still covered with fabric, as if to give him proof, and they both shake at the friction of it. There is something that sits heavy on him, though. Something that he can't possibly proceed without knowing, not because it especially matters what the answer is, but just because he has to know. "I just- I don't. Have you ever-"
"Have you?" He snaps to interrupt him, once again not looking at him, and it's answer enough.
"No. But I want to figure it out. Together. So just.... tell me, if I should stop doing something, or if you like it. I don't..." he trails off, confidence a bit shaken.
The answer seems to surprise him, and he looks at him again. There is a softness to him, a sentimentality just beginning to peek its way out from his very center. He takes Levi's cheek in one hand, although he does it in a way that suggests the movement is unfamiliar, alien. "Can't be any harder than taking a sword, right?"
"I hope it's a little better than taking a sword."
"Fuck, so do I."
He shifts just a bit again, moving down his body, and lubes up his hand with the pre Izzy is continually leaking, using the other to spread him a bit wider apart, fingers rubbing and wetting at the sensitive spot before one slips inside the tight heat of his body, drawing the breath from him and earning a hiss from the man now above him. His body suctions at his finger like it's trying to draw him in, like it's trying to eat him. "How is that?"
"Not as bad as a sword." Is his only response, so he continues to push forward, probing, exploring, as Izzy shifts and huffs and squirms.
"Do you think you can take another?"
"You're not gonna fucking break me."
He removes his hand, slicking it up again, and this time slides two fingers into his lover, earning another little hiss. The inside of him feels so good, Levi can't imagine what it's gonna feel like around him, and the thought pushes him to scissor his fingers a little bit faster, to adjust their positions, to open him up the best he can. After a few minutes and the addition of another finger, Izzy is pushing back against him, his squirming now a concentrated action to push himself deeper onto Levi's fingers. There is a soft spot he finds almost by accident, and when he presses into and rubs it the way Izzy cries out has Leviticus once again practically almost cumming without even being touched.
"If you don't quit that, this will be- oo-ooh god, ooooover-" He chokes out as he is played with, and Levi withdraws from him, getting back into their earlier position, except this time he is so so close to being inside that heat for himself, and he can't take it, he wants it so bad, he wants it more than he's ever wanted anything, and Izzy is looking at him like he wants it too, like he also can't take it one more minute, and so he begins the process of driving himself home inside him, slowly, inch by torturous inch of that tight heat swallowing him up while Izzy grabs at him, tears forming in the corners of rich brown eyes either from the stretch or the emotions or the unbecoming of them as two separate people that sliced through Leviticus as surely as a blade would with pure, hot, feeling. It isn't until a drop of water falls on Izzy's cheek that he realizes he is also crying, and when he bottoms out inside him, he presses his face into the crook of his neck, emptying it all there like water for the sparrow.
Izzy grasps at him, fingernails digging into his back. "You can move. Please move. Leviticus, please." Before tonight, he's never heard him say that word at all, let alone so many times. He can say the same for his full name. Levi places a kiss against his throat before he pulls away, pulling out of his heat to push back in, setting up a gentle rhythm and the chorus they make is one of sweet friction, of two halves becoming a whole.
"Fuck, Izzy, Israel, you feel so fucking- So perfect for me- better than I ever- ever could have- fuck!-" The praise does something to him, further dilates his already blown pupils, has his cock twitching where it lay heavy against his stomach. He can't believe it's never occurred to him that he might like it, and he digs into it now. "My north star, my fucking everything, all mine-"
Izzy really likes that too, and he pulls him back into his mouth to muffle the sound he would have otherwise made against his tongue. The rhythm is getting less gentle, the slap of skin against skin echoing through the small room, and neither of them can bring themselves to mind. Levi is already embarrassingly close, considering how long they've been at this, but if the way Izzy's heels are digging into his back and his cock is leaking anew between their stomachs is anything to go by, he also won't take long to finish off. Levi adjusts his angle, looking for that soft spot again, and when he finds it the man underneath him all but fucking sobs. "Right there- Don't you dare stop- I really will kill you if you stop- Fuck fuck fuck-"
It's all pushing him even closer, even faster. "Where do you want me to-"
"Inside. Mark me. Make me-" He bites his tongue, as if that would be giving away too much, but Levi glows with the weight of what he knew he was going to say. Make me yours.
He picks up the pace again, and it's a fucking Herculean feat of strength that he manages to hold off until Izzy tightens around him, until he is spilling between their stomachs and the fingernails in his back are almost certainly pressing in hard enough to draw blood with a cry of Leviticus that tears at Izzy's rough-hewn throat and rips his orgasm all the way from the depths of his fucking bones, that makes him see a white so pure he's sure he's died mid-coitus and gone straight to heaven. They are both trembling with it as he fills him up, as he paints his insides, as he is the first person to ever do so. Levi collapses on him, can't help it. He feels much more weightless than he's sure that he is, but if he's too heavy for Izzy to handle he doesn't say that, doesn't say anything.
They spend a moment just catching their breath, enjoying each other's body heat and the way sweat slicks between them, hearts still pounding.
"Does this mean you'll leave with me?"
Izzy laughs again, as if the answer to that should probably be obvious. His heart soars; he could do anything with this man at this side. He could lift a mountain, could run across an ocean, could fistfight a shark, just for that laugh. "You really are a fucking idiot."
"But I'm your fucking idiot?"
There is a kiss pressed to his forehead, still unsure, uncertain, but there nonetheless. He does not think that these things will persist in their public time, and that is fine with him, as long as they persist sometimes. Maybe he can talk him into wearing a ring of his own, one day.
"Yeah, my fucking idiot."