Chapter Text
Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea
But sad mortality o’er-sways their power,
How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,
Whose action is no stronger than a flower?
O, how shall summer’s honey breath hold out
Against the wrackful siege of batt’ring days,
When rocks impregnable are not so stout,
Nor gates of steel so strong, but time decays?
O fearful meditation! where, alack,
Shall time’s best jewel from time’s chest lie hid?
Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back?
Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid?
O, none, unless this miracle have might,
That in black ink my love may still shine bright.
William Shakespeare
Sonnet 65
___________________________________________________________
“To old friends,” clink, “and to new horizons.”
Iwaizumi grins as he brings his glass to his lips, the sugary aroma of the rum contrasting with the sting of the alcohol on his tongue. It’s fitting, really. This whole night is bittersweet.
“I can’t believe you’re leaving me,” he says with a wink as he sets his glass back onto the table. “Never thought that would happen.”
Aran hums, leaning back in his chair. “Are y’upset?”
“No,” Iwaizumi says, and he isn’t. “I’m excited for you. You’ve been bored here for a long time.”
“Yeah,” Aran sighs. “It’s weird, though. Not knowin’ what’s next.”
Iwaizumi smiles, knowing. “Tell me about it.”
Aran’s gaze shifts from Iwaizumi to a spot over his shoulder, his eyes losing focus as he loses himself in thought. Iwaizumi’s smile softens. He knows the piece of parchment on the wall behind him well.
They’d stayed up until morning making it the night they’d decided to start this business. With red and black ink in little pots on the floor of this very cabin and brushes in their twenty-one-year-old hands, they had carefully painted a skull and crossbones in the center of the page, surrounding it with words that would stick with them for years to come: take with you your thirst for adventure, and leave your reservations on land.
Iwaizumi turns over his shoulder to look at it as well, following the curve of the letters with his eyes. “That sign has seen a lot of shit,” he muses.
“So have we.”
Iwaizumi snorts. “True.”
Eleven years of shit, in fact. Eleven years since they first discovered the island off the coast covered in caves full of pirate treasure, ten since they decided to make a map of all the booby traps so they could identify the best routes to the coolest spots, nine since they’d started taking their friends there for day trips, and eight since they commercialized it, offering tours to rich idiots with more than enough gold to fund their propensity for recklessness. Not that Iwaizumi can talk.
“Are ya gonna be okay?” Aran asks quietly, his eyes still trained on the wall behind Iwaizumi’s head.
“Sure,” Iwaizumi answers, snickering. “I’m not the clumsy kid I used to be.”
Aran laughs, his eyes twinkling. “Sure y’aren’t. Remember the time ya kicked the same tripwire twice in one day?”
Iwaizumi can feel his own high spirits bubbling out of his chest. “Lucky there weren’t two nets attached to it or you would have had to cut me down twice.”
“I still have a scar from fallin’ outta that tree.”
“And I still have a few from the time you fell off the side of the cliff and pulled me down with you.”
“I thought we agreed to pretend that never happened!”
“Fuck off, I never agreed to shit.”
Aran’s eyes flick back to Iwaizumi again as their laughter settles. They’re brighter tonight than they have been in a long time. It’s good to see him excited about something again.
“D’ya think ya’d ever quit and go do somethin’ else?” Aran asks.
Iwaizumi smiles and shrugs. “I don’t know what else I would do.”
Aran leans forward, his elbows on the table, suddenly serious. “Whatever ya want, Hajime. The world’s yer oyster.”
“I’ve got plenty of oysters-”
“Ya can’t tell me yer not gettin’ bored, too. I can see ya gettin’ grumpier by the day.”
Iwaizumi scoffs, faking offense. “Who are you calling grumpy?” He’s dodging the question.
Aran just looks at him, waiting, and Iwaizumi knows he’s right. Things have been slow lately. Easy. It isn’t what they wanted when they started this thing, and it sure as hell isn’t what he wants now.
“I am bored,” Iwaizumi admits. “A little. But this is my life, Aran. I built it myself. I can’t just give it up because I haven’t had a near-death experience in a couple months.”
“It’s been more than a year,” Aran points out. “You’ve never gone that long without a broken bone.”
Iwaizumi grins. “Maybe I’m growing up. Getting all responsible, or whatever.”
“Gross,” Aran says with a chuckle. “You really want that?”
Iwaizumi shrugs. “No, but it can’t hurt to try it for a while. Hell, if shit stays this boring, I can always come find you, wherever you are.”
Bang bang bang. “Oi, grandpas, it’s, like, one in the mornin’,” a voice calls from outside the door. “Iwa has a tour in five hours, for fuck’s sake. Get your wrinkly asses home.”
Iwaizumi looks at Aran with an eyebrow raised. “‘Samu,” they say in unison, then dissolve into laughter.
“I’m gonna miss this little family,” Aran says, wiping a tear from his eye.
“And we’re sure as hell gonna miss you,” Iwaizumi says, his tone soft. “Come say hi once in a while, yeah?”
Aran grins, holding his hand out towards Iwaizumi. “Of course.”
Iwaizumi grins back, clasping it in his own and shaking it twice, then twisting his arm around to complete the ‘secret’ handshake they’ve had since they were kids. “Get out of here, then. Go be a vagrant or whatever the fuck you’re off to do with the rest of your life.”
“Yeah, yeah, don’t act like you’re not jealous,” Aran says with a laugh. “Tell everyone I said goodbye, yeah? Your uncle, too.”
Iwaizumi smiles as Aran gets up and grabs his coat off the back of the chair. He takes the few steps towards the cabin door, but pauses with his hand on the doorknob, his back to Iwaizumi and his shoulders down. He just stands there and breathes for a moment, and Iwaizumi waits.
“Don’t go dyin’ without me around, alright?” Aran finally asks, so quiet that Iwaizumi almost misses it, and he can hear the fear underneath the teasing lilt to Aran’s voice.
He nods, even though Aran can’t see it. “You, either,” he says.
Aran huffs, turning the knob and shooting one last look over his shoulder. “I’ll try.”
The door clicks shut behind him, and for the first time in a very long time, Iwaizumi is alone.
He looks around at the inside of the cabin, taking in all the different bumps and scratches in the walls. There’s the dent from the time Atsumu had thrown a bowl of cold stew at Suna for calling him a shit cook, and the pecked-out holes in the center post from the time Osamu had tried to adopt a wild bird. Kita had tried to spruce the place up by hanging paintings on the walls, but most of them have faded or been spilled on or otherwise destroyed by now.
He gets up from his chair and takes down the painting of the apples, tracing the wood behind it with his fingers where his and Aran’s names are carved. He remembers the day they did this, the same day Iwaizumi bought the boat when they were only eighteen. It made the whole thing feel real — they finally had the means to go out and chase their dreams.
And they had, for a while. They’d learned what all the sails do and where the ropes go and how to drop an anchor, and they’d taken the boat out to as many corners of the coast as they could find. No cave went un-inspected, no town went un-explored, and no day went by without the two of them doing something they’d never done before. They’d become friends with the locals along the entire eastern coast of Japan, immersing themselves in all the microcultures and learning as much as they could along the way.
Iwaizumi smiles, almost wishing he could go back to those days, visit a few people he hasn’t seen in a few years, but he’s happy where he is. He’s proud of how far he’s come.
He puts the painting back on the wall and straightens it, knowing that, by the morning, the rocking of the boat will have tilted it again. He doesn’t mind. He spends half his life swaying with the push and pull of the water below, too. He knows the feel of the sea beneath his feet just as he knows the feel of grass between his toes.
A flash of red in the corner of his eye catches his attention as he turns, and he looks back at the parchment Aran had been staring at earlier. The words stare back at him like they’re waiting for him, reminding him of why he’s here. What he’s doing. Who he is under the tour guide persona. He’s seen those same words every day for the last eight years, but tonight, they seem to speak to him like they haven’t since that first day. Take with you your thirst for adventure, and leave your reservations on land.
Somewhere along the way, he’d forgotten to follow his own advice.
There’s a phenomenon at sea that occurs right before the weather turns bad where the air goes eerily still. The waves die down, everything goes quiet, and it seems like the world is suspended in time. It’s the calm before the storm — or so the sailors say — and it’s something Iwaizumi has experienced many times.
As he blows the candles out and downs the rest of his drink, he finds himself hoping that whatever storm is coming is, at the very least, an interesting one.
___________________________________________________________
Iwaizumi has never felt the urge to glare at the sun before, but that’s exactly what he finds himself doing as it rises over the horizon and makes the drumming in his head boom increasingly louder the higher it climbs.
He should not have had so much rum last night.
He glances at the group of passengers gathered on the deck below where he stands at the helm, all looking at him expectantly, like they’re waiting for him to talk.
Right. Tour guide.
“When we get there,” he says, forcing his headache down like he’s drowning it in the sea around them, “make sure you stick close to me. The farther you wander, the higher the chance you’ll get seriously hurt. Or die, maybe. You never know.”
He can’t be bothered to apologize for being brash. It's just something that happens when he has a headache (hangover): his filter practically dissolves into thin air.
Some panicked looks pass between a few of the tourists, but others look weirdly excited by the concept. That’s the thing about these tours: they tend to attract people with death wishes and a propensity for making dumb decisions. People with common sense aren’t usually the types to risk their lives for fun.
Not that Iwaizumi would know.
“I’m serious. There are booby traps around every corner, and while Aran and I-” He stops. Clears his throat. “While I’ve disabled a lot of them over the years, most of them are still active. I’ll show you where to step and everything, just make sure you’re paying attention.”
A hand goes up, and Iwaizumi squints through the light of the early morning, fighting off the urge to jump overboard. At least that would get rid of the tension behind his eyes.
“Yeah?” he asks, and he hopes it comes out less snappy than it sounds in his head.
It doesn’t, based on the way the dude reacts. Even his hair — black and grey and spiked up like owl horns — seems to deflate a little as he steps back and lets his arm drop down. He pushes on anyway. “When we got on board, you had us sign that waiver saying you weren’t responsible for our safety. Does that mean you won’t save us if we’re gonna die?”
Nine sets of concerned eyes turn back to Iwaizumi, and while he knows that, in a pinch, he’d sacrifice himself to save the group in an instant, he can’t let them know that. It’ll just make them act recklessly with the assumption that, if they fuck up, he’ll cover their asses.
“I’ll certainly do my best,” he says, choosing his words carefully, “but it’s better for everyone if you just do as I say.”
“How long until we get there?” a voice pipes up from the back, and Iwaizumi can barely make out a head of brown hair with a small blond tuft at the front behind the crowd.
“About another hour,” he replies. “You guys can go hang out in the cabin until then, if you want.”
There’s some murmuring from the crowd as they do just that, heading in through the door at the stern, and Iwaizumi sighs. He’s happy to have some time to himself.
It’s not that he doesn’t enjoy doing these tours — if anything, he takes a lot of pride in how knowledgeable he is about the area, normally providing commentary on each little island they pass and pointing out marine life along the way — but, today, he’ll take any peace and quiet he can get. It’s not just the hangover, either (though that’s definitely part of it). It’s also that this is the first tour he’s ever done on his own. In the past, when Iwaizumi wasn’t feeling his best, Aran would take over and provide the passengers with stories of their adventures, regaling them with tales of accomplishment and misfortune alike. The crowd would eat it up, too. Aran had a way with storytelling that Iwaizumi never did, so while he held the passengers’ attention with his words, Iwaizumi would just make sure they got to the island in one piece.
He’s having a hard time doing both, especially with the mood he’s in.
He takes a deep breath, looking out over the water and towards the horizon. The sun has risen enough to make the water glitter by now, bathing his world in bright oranges and yellows and setting his fucking retinas on fire. His face scrunches up of its own accord, trying to make out whether the shape he sees in the distance is another boat or just a trick of the light. He could be hallucinating it completely, too. With how little sleep he’d gotten the night before, anything is possible.
It looks like a boat, though. It looks like a big one. A merchant ship from the neighboring land, maybe? Or a passenger ship from up north?
The longer he stares, the clearer it becomes, and he realizes that not only is it a real boat after all, but it’s getting closer.
He shrugs, assuming it’s on its way to the docks from which they just departed, and turns back to his own boat, making sure everything is still in place. He lets himself daydream as he checks the sail, thinking about which route they should take once they get to the island. Nine is a lot of people — he usually has about two-thirds of that, and he usually has Aran with him to help keep watch — so they’ll have to take an easy path if he doesn’t want to lose anyone.
He hums to himself as he works, an old sea shanty his uncle had taught him when he was young. He’d told Iwaizumi that it was a pirate’s song, meant only to be sung in private, or it would attract the bandits of the sea like moths to a flame. Iwaizumi had called bullshit on that immediately, even as a child, and had never taken much care to watch his company when the tune happened to escape his lips. Even now, taking his career into consideration, he pays no mind to the warning he’d been given all those years ago. Superstition is a fool’s concern, after all.
Curious, and running out of things to do before he has to start guiding the boat to shore, he looks out towards the other boat again. It’s a lot closer this time — close enough, in fact, for Iwaizumi to make out the black flag flying high above the sails.
“Fuck,” he grits out between clenched teeth, steadying himself against the hull of the boat as the water swells beneath him. He’d know that flag anywhere.
His mind immediately starts running at breakneck speed. He’d always known this was a possibility. Hell, he takes thrill-seeking tourists through notoriously pirate-infested waters and onto an island full of pirate treasure for a living. He should be surprised it’s taken him this many years to actually see the bastards for himself. He knows what this means. That doesn’t mean he’s happy about it.
“Fuck,” he says again as he jumps down onto the deck, heading towards the cabin. He should be able to outrun these sons of bitches with a boat built for speed like his is, but the ship that had been barely visible on the horizon just ten minutes prior is now well within cannon-shooting distance, and Iwaizumi doesn’t really know what to do about it.
Honestly, he knows he should be scared, but he’s more pissed off than anything else. He’s pissed off at the crew of the pirate ship for seemingly coming after him (because he has to assume that’s why they’re here), pissed off at himself for getting into this situation in the first place, and, most of all, pissed off at whoever he’s allowed to be pissed off at that he has nine wealthy, doe-eyed motherfuckers on his boat with him, their lives fully in the palms of his hands.
“Fuck,” he yells a little louder, running a hand through his windswept hair as he stills at the door. He has to go in there. He has to tell them that they’re doomed.
He opens the door and, once again, nine pairs of eyes turn in his direction.
“Uh,” he starts, eloquent as always, and then scratches at the back of his neck. How does he even say this?
“What’s up, Iwaizumi-san? We almost there?” owl-head asks hopefully, stepping towards him.
Iwaizumi winces. “Not quite. I, uh, have some bad news.”
“How bad?” asks the blond, older guy whose breath Iwaizumi thinks probably always smells like tobacco, based on the whiff he got in passing earlier.
“Well,” Iwaizumi says, steeling himself for the reaction he’s about to get, “I’m pretty sure there are pirates tailing us.”
There’s a deafening silence in the room, even the sound of the water against the underside of the boat muffled by the tension hanging in the air around the group. It’s so thick, Iwaizumi might even struggle to cut through it with a sharpened butcher’s knife.
“Okay,” tobacco-breath says. “What do we do about it?”
Iwaizumi blinks. He expected more screaming. “I have a gun,” he says, realizing he probably should have gotten it before coming in here to tell them the situation.
“A single gun?” the short guy with the fucked-up eyebrows asks. “What if there are like twenty of them?”
“Or thirty,” blond tuft adds from beside him.
“Or thirty-five,” owl-head whispers loudly to the guy with the black hair sticking up in every direction, clearly starting to panic.
Iwaizumi sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose between his thumb and his pointer finger. “Yeah, a single gun.”
“Well that’s bad fucking planning,” the giant man with the massive arms says from tobacco-breath’s right.
Tobacco-breath scoffs. “No kidding.”
“Alright,” Iwaizumi says through his teeth, his patience running thinner by the second, “no offense, but why aren’t you guys terrified right now?”
Boom.
The whole boat rocks violently against the waves, forcing everyone to hold onto something to keep themselves from falling.
“What the fuck was that?” the third shorty — the one who arrived with blond tuft and eyebrows and kind of looks like he’d kill you with a smile on his face — asks, voicing the thought that had just run through all of their minds.
Iwaizumi can feel his heart pounding in his chest. “A warning shot,” he chokes out. “Probably. Seeing as we’re not dead.”
“Yet,” eyebrows yelps, blond tuft and the terrifying one nodding along.
“You have a plan, right?” the guy with the red hair asks, hanging off the arm of his tall, stoic counterpart. “I mean, you’ve gotta have a plan, right?”
He doesn’t. His plan, in this situation, always involved Aran, but these people don’t know that. They don’t know this is his first tour on his own.
They’re all just looking at him. Waiting. He feels like a farmer leading lambs to a slaughter, which is bullshit, because lambs can’t sign a consent form releasing the farmer from liability or responsibility for their safety, and these motherfuckers absolutely did just that, but there’s nothing he can do about it now. They all signed up for this, including him. They’d known this was a possibility from the start.
“Okay,” he says, clapping his hands together, “I’m going to go get my gun, but I don’t think you’d be out of line to start making peace with your lives. Just in case.”
He’s out of there before anyone can get upset with him for being so tactless, slipping out of the door and back onto the deck like he hadn’t just left a bunch of tourists to ponder their own imminent deaths. Yeah, it was a dick move, but in his defense, this hangover is a bitch, and these might be his final moments on Earth. Sue him.
The gun is under a floorboard by the mast, hidden from searching eyes in case he gets any particularly curious tourists aboard. He pulls up the board and inspects the musket, making sure it’s still functional, then swings it over his shoulder and looks out to sea. Sure enough, the ship is almost close enough to spit on.
He doesn’t have time to get back to the cabin. He’ll be shot before he gets halfway to the door.
So, instead, he ducks down behind the helm, obscured by a crate off to the side as a rope ladder unfurls, bridging the gap between his little tour boat and the pirate ship towering over it. He watches as two men come sliding down, jumping onto the deck with no attempt to be quiet about it, boots hitting the wood like mallets on a drum. The first one down — shorter than the other, but still probably taller than Iwaizumi, with rose-colored hair — puts his hands on his hips and looks around. The other man — very tall with a dark, brooding look — drops next to him and shoves his thumbs into the waistband of his breeches.
Iwaizumi curls in on himself even further, trying his best to stay out of sight. He’s watching the men through the spaces in the helm, but if he can see them, he knows they’d be able to see him should they look in this direction. He shifts, hiding completely behind the crate. He’ll just have to figure out where they are by the sound of their footsteps.
“Cabin, you think?” one of them asks.
The other doesn’t respond, but Iwaizumi assumes that he agrees, because the two start walking away from where Iwaizumi is and towards the cabin door.
Fuck.
He peeks out from behind the crate to see two more pirates drop down onto the deck — one with a near-shaved head and a scowl that could rival his own on the worst of days, and one with the fluffiest, most stupid-looking brown hair Iwaizumi has ever seen — and flank the first two as they all take up positions around the door. Pink-hair sways his hips a little as he walks, and if Iwaizumi didn’t know better, he’d swear that tall-dark-and-handsome is staring at his crewmate’s ass.
“Hanamaki, you’re distracting Matsukawa,” fluffy-hair complains.
Scratch that, he might have hit the nail on the head.
“Is that true, Issei?” pink-hair croons, turning to tall-dark-and-handsome and making a kissy face. Hanamaki and Matsukawa, respectively, it seems.
Matsukawa snorts. “Yeah. You wore those breeches today on purpose, didn’t you?”
Hanamaki smirks. “Maybe,” he admits.
Iwaizumi feels like he’s watching a goddamned mating dance. He’s known of these people for all of three minutes and he’s already ready to vomit. Not because they’re gay — hell, he’s gay — but because PDA makes his stomach churn, and this whole situation is already making his gut feel like it's boiling.
“They’re gonna hear you guys,” fuzzball says, and his voice is as grumpy as he looks.
“And?” Hanamaki asks, unsheathing his sword. “What are they gonna do about it, throw fancy words at me?”
Matsukawa snorts again. It kind of works for him. “They might,” he says.
“Who cares? I won’t know what they mean, and what I don’t understand can’t hurt me,” Hanamaki says, and then he takes a step forward and kicks down the door.
Iwaizumi hears the tour group scream from where he’s hiding, and he curses to himself again, trying to figure out what to do. He could just start shooting, but he doesn’t know how many pirates are waiting in the wings to catch him as soon as he comes out from behind the crate. If they haven’t noticed him yet, it’s safer to stay where he is. Besides, he’s never even shot the gun before, let alone at an actual human, so he’d probably miss and accidentally shoot blond tuft or the buff one in the foot.
He should have learned their names. They’re all going to die, and when they see each other in hell, Iwaizumi will have to go ‘hey, dude that looks like an owl and his friend, eternal bedhead, what’s up?’ like an asshole.
“Hey guys!” Hanamaki yells gleefully, brandishing his sword with finesse as he steps through the door. “I’m Makki, and I’ll be your strikingly good-looking robber on this fine afternoon. Please hand all your valuables over to Mad Dog here and don’t make a fuss, or I’ll have to stick this sword down your throat!”
He gestures to it dramatically, and the angry fuzzball — Mad Dog — enters with a burlap sack held out in front of him. The group starts to deposit jewelry and coin purses into the sack as Hanamaki prances around the room like he’s enjoying this, and Iwaizumi thinks he probably is. He eyes Matsukawa and fluffy-hair, who are guarding the door, considering the risks of trying to take them out first, when his attention is drawn back by a commotion from inside the cabin.
“Valuables,” Mad Dog growls as he shakes the bag in front of tobacco-breath. The guy doesn’t budge. “Don’t make Makki search you.”
“Oh, I’d be delighted ,” Hanamaki sings, stalking over to the pair.
Mad Dog scoffs. “Be my guest.”
Hanamaki points his sword at tobacco-breath’s throat, and Iwaizumi can almost see his grin through the back of his head from a hundred feet away. “What do you say, old man? Wanna get added to Issei’s skull collection?”
Matsukawa straightens up from where he’s slouched in the doorway, and Iwaizumi can’t tell if it’s out of excitement or concern.
He looks dangerously close to actually slicing the guy’s head off, so Iwaizumi decides then and there that, the release of liability they all signed be damned, it’s up to him to save this motherfucker’s life. As soon as he makes this decision, a few things happen at once.
Hanamaki presses forward, eyebrows screams again, and Iwaizumi aims and cocks his gun. The click is quiet under the sound of his blood rushing in his ears and the pounding in his head, but it’s overpowered by a shink of metal on metal, and suddenly, his neck feels very, very cold.
“What do we have here?” a tinkling voice asks, dancing down the steel blade pressed to Iwaizumi’s throat.
Iwaizumi doesn’t dare move. He tries to look at whoever is about to kill him out of the corner of his eye, hoping that in his dying moment he’ll at least get to see who’s about to put him out of his misery, but the pirate stays out of sight.
“Tell me,” the voice continues, smooth like velvet, “are you the captain of this ship, or am I wasting my breath?”
Iwaizumi bites the inside of his cheek and nods (shallowly, but as much as the blade will allow).
“Good,” the voice chuckles, “then you can tell me what your shitty little boat has been doing on my seas.”
“Your seas?” Iwaizumi snaps. “It’s the fucking ocean.”
Shit. Now would be a great time for his filter to come back.
“Tsk, tsk, you seem to have forgotten the position you’re in,” the voice chides, and then it’s close enough to send a shiver down his spine. “I could kill you right now if I wanted to, Icarus.”
Icarus. The name Iwaizumi had given his boat the day he bought it, painted on the side of the hull in black. He’d been young and void of superstition, tempting fate for the sake of being a rebel, sure that he’d be able to escape an ironic death with nothing but stubborn will.
It seems like the universe has finally taken the bait.
“It’d be a pity, though,” the voice mumbles, now more to itself than to Iwaizumi.
Iwaizumi glances down at the blade. “Why’s that?” he asks.
It twists against his skin, flattening out so that he’s staring straight into a pair of rich, brown eyes through the reflection in the metal. “I’d hate to kill someone so pretty.”
Iwaizumi’s breath hitches. He knows that gaze; he’s heard stories about it, told over pints of ale in the still of the night from men who swear they’ve kissed death on the lips and walked away to tell the tale.
“I would really hate to die,” he says, and the sword glints in the sunlight as the eyes in the reflection are replaced with a toothy smile.
“You’re funny. Maybe I should keep you as a pet.”
“I’m not a fucking parrot,” Iwaizumi spits before he can think better of it, but the pirate only laughs. He seems amused by their situation, which makes sense, considering he’s not the one in mortal peril, headache and nausea notwithstanding.
Iwaizumi is sure he knows whose crew this is, now, and the identity of the man on the other end of the sword. They’re famous, known for attacking even the most well-funded warships and making it out unscathed. They’re ruthless, highly skilled, and they rarely leave anyone alive.
A hand works its way into Iwaizumi’s hair, pushing up from his neck towards the top of his scalp, and he shivers. “We don’t just keep parrots around, you know,” the pirate says. “I’ve had a monkey on board before.”
“What are you insinuating?” Iwaizumi growls, his already limited patience wearing thin.
The pirate chuckles. “Nothing, Icarus. Only that you remind me a bit of our primate friends.”
“You fucking-”
He feels the sword nick his skin as he moves to turn around, and the pirate gasps delightedly. The sword presses harder against Iwaizumi’s neck, and he sees a small trickle of blood darken the edge of the blade as it does. He stops moving.
“A struggler!” the pirate exclaims, sounding almost excited, for lack of a better word. “Tell me, Icarus, what was your plan just then? How did you think that would go?”
Iwaizumi has no idea. It was instinctual — a knee-jerk reaction to being insulted by someone he’s never met — and definitely the wrong move. “I didn’t have a plan, asshole,” he admits, the pounding in his head growing louder by the second.
The pirate chuckles, leaning in close to Iwaizumi’s ear. “Scrappy, then. I like that.”
The sword shifts again as he stands from where he’d been crouched behind Iwaizumi and walks slowly around to his front. He comes into view like a planet, fully eclipsing the sun with his chest, his sword pointed right at Iwaizumi’s heart. There’s no question about it, this is-
“Oikawa Tooru,” Iwaizumi mutters. “Captain of the Aoba Johsai.”
Oikawa laughs, loudly and unabashed, throwing his head back into the light so that the shape of his face is clear against the rising sun. He’s beautiful, in a way. In a dangerous, terrifying, unnerving sort of way.
He comes down from his high, grinning at Iwaizumi like he’s a miracle, and winks. “Well, now we’re on uneven ground,” he says.
“Uneven ground,” Iwaizumi repeats, glancing down at the sword against his chest. “What gave you that idea?”
“Not like that, Icarus,” Oikawa pouts. “You know my name, and I don’t know yours.”
Iwaizumi gawks. The infamous pirate captain Oikawa Tooru is pouting at him like a disappointed child. What does one even do in this situation?
“Captain,” a voice calls from the cabin.
To Oikawa’s credit, he doesn’t flinch. “Is there a problem?” he calls back.
“Permission to maim this bastard?” the voice yells, and Iwaizumi’s eyes go wide. He has to do something.
“Wh-”
“Wait,” Iwaizumi says, panicked. “Wait.”
Oikawa’s expression changes. While he never looked away from Iwaizumi in the first place — ever competent when it comes to piracy, it seems — Iwaizumi sees the moment his grasp on the situation slips.
He smiles, but this time, it’s with intrigue rather than joy. “Something to say, Icarus?” he asks.
“Yeah,” Iwaizumi says, his thoughts still running circles inside his head. “Just give me a minute.”
Oikawa’s grin widens, his eyes glittering. “You have half.”
“Captain?” the voice calls again.
“Just a second,” Oikawa sings, his eyes still trained on Iwaizumi. He’s not letting him out of his sight.
There’s no way, then, that Iwaizumi can get to the gun at his knees without being sliced in half, let alone with enough time to shoot anybody. He’s trapped here, at Oikawa’s mercy, and he can’t think of a way out of it.
Unless.
“Take me instead,” he grimaces, feeling the weight of his words sink through his body and down to the floor, pinning him in place. “Let them go.”
Oikawa’s eyebrows shoot up through the wisps of hair that decorate his forehead, and his mouth falls open in surprise. “What?” he asks, the corners of his lips turning up in amusement.
Iwaizumi sighs. “I said take me. As a hostage, or whatever. Or kill me. I don’t care. Just let the terrified sons-of-bitches in there go home.”
Oikawa huffs out an astonished laugh. “Curious,” he says, looking Iwaizumi up and down as if for the first time.
“Well?” Iwaizumi growls.
“Sounds like you want to spend more time with me, Icarus,” Oikawa croons. “Can’t bear to leave me now that we’ve met?”
Iwaizumi’s jaw drops. “That’s not-”
“Am I just that captivating?” he continues, not paying Iwaizumi any mind. “I guess I am, but there’s no need to be so forward about it.”
He’s lost in his own world, Iwaizumi realizes. He’ll probably compliment himself to death.
“I’m charming, I know, but-”
“You have a terrible personality.”
“-that doesn’t…” he trails off, blinking a few times before his eyes refocus. “What?”
Iwaizumi smirks, impressed with himself that he was able to catch Oikawa off guard. “I said, you have a-”
“I heard you,” Oikawa says, scowling. He presses the tip of the sword harder against Iwaizumi’s chest where it had slipped a little during his rambling. “No one has ever said that to me before.”
Iwaizumi gulps.
“Maybe they just haven’t had the balls to say it, though,” Oikawa continues, tilting his head in thought.
He stands there for a moment — still thinking, it seems — and Iwaizumi waits. There isn’t much else he can do. He’s at knifepoint on the other end of one of the most famous swords in the world, and while a smart man would be shaking in his boots right now, Iwaizumi can’t help but think he hasn’t killed me yet. There’s a chance that he might make it out of this alive.
He waits for what feels like hours, but must only be seconds, before a slow smile spreads across Oikawa’s face. Time to face the music.
“Alright, Icarus,” he says, slowly. “Have it your way.”
And then he steps back.
Iwaizumi blinks, shocked into a state of paralysis as his brain struggles to come to terms with what’s happening. Is he understanding this correctly? Is Oikawa taking him hostage?
“Unless you’d rather I kill you right now,” Oikawa says, quirking an eyebrow and apparently reading Iwaizumi’s mind.
“No,” Iwaizumi says quickly as he moves to stand up, his head spinning. “No, I’ll come with you.”
Oikawa grins. “Amazing. This is so fun!” he yells, grabbing Iwaizumi by the hand.
Iwaizumi stares down at where their fingers interlock and scowls in confusion. What is happening?
“We’re leaving!” Oikawa calls out to his crew, shoving Iwaizumi forward towards the rope ladder and gesturing for him to climb.
“Hah?!” Hanamaki yells from where he currently has two hands around tobacco-breath’s throat.
Matsukawa snickers from his position in the doorway.
“I said we’re leaving,” Oikawa responds, heading up the ladder after Iwaizumi. “Take whatever else you want, but leave those lubbers alive.”
Mad Dog glares up at him, his arms crossed over his chest next to Hanamaki, and the one with the fluffy hair just rolls his eyes.
“You’re bringing one with you?!” Hanamaki asks, his tone pitched high and alarmed.
“In exchange for the safety of his passengers,” Oikawa confirms, and then he tries to drag Iwaizumi away from the side of the ship.
Iwaizumi falters, tripping over the wood as he fights to keep an eye on his boat. “Wait, how will I know they’ll be alright?” he asks.
“My crew would never go against what I say,” Oikawa says with his chest puffed out. “They respect me too much.”
“No we don’t,” Matsukawa calls from below.
Oikawa huffs. “He’s just upset that he doesn’t get to watch Makki threaten anyone else’s life. Apparently it’s hot,” he explains, which doesn’t put Iwaizumi at ease. Like at all.
He tells Oikawa as much, but Oikawa just laughs.
“Too bad, Icarus, you’re just gonna have to trust me.”
He drags Iwaizumi over to a stack of crates to the side of the cabin door, pulling out a rope about the length of a rowboat, and then walks them over to the mast.
“This’ll be your home for the foreseeable future,” Oikawa says, trying Iwaizumi’s hands together in an expert knot and then looping the rope around the mast behind him. “I’ll give you a little wiggle room, since you’ve been so compliant, but you’d better get comfortable.”
He says the last bit with a wink, putting emphasis on compliant in a way that makes Iwaizumi’s headache grow about four times stronger.
Iwaizumi pulls on his restraints as Oikawa finishes and steps back, his hands on his hips and his bottom lip between his teeth, poorly concealing a self-satisfied smile. The rope is secure, and Iwaizumi would guess that he’d sooner dislocate his shoulder than slip out of the knot around his wrists or pull the rope free from the mast. From his expression, Oikawa seems to be very aware of this. It kind of makes Iwaizumi want to punch him in the face.
“Are you always this cocky?” Iwaizumi asks, his jaw tight.
Oikawa snorts. “Get used to it, bucko. You asked for this.”
“Can I take it back?”
“Nope,” Oikawa says, popping the ‘p.’ “Welcome aboard.”
He turns with a casual wave, stuffing his other hand into the pocket of his breeches and disappearing into the cabin without looking back. Iwaizumi sighs, closing his eyes against the sunlight as the full impact of his situation hits him like a tsunami.
He’s been captured by pirates. Eleven years of sailing these waters like he owns the place, and the moment Aran leaves-
Aran.
Iwaizumi shudders, imagining how different things would be if his friend had been here. If he hadn’t been alone.
“I’ve really gone and done it now, huh?” he mutters under his breath.
Aran’s parting words ring through Iwaizumi’s head like tiny bells, tinny and sharp, only making his headache get worse. Don’t go dying without me around, okay? he had asked.
“I’m trying my best,” Iwaizumi mumbles, then chuckles to himself. “Finally getting that adventure I wanted, though, aren’t I?”
He looks up at the sound of boots hitting the deck, the other four pirates hauling the ladder back up and over the side of the ship as they board. He meets Hanamaki’s gaze, the pirate’s stare cold and calculating and terrifying at best.
Iwaizumi winces. “I may have spoken too soon,” he mumbles.
Hanamaki smirks, his lips thin, and saunters over to where Iwaizumi is tied up, stopping only a few inches in front of him. He leans down so that they’re face-to-face and sneers.
“Listen,” he says, “I don’t know what made the captain decide to bring you on board, but one wrong move and you’re walking the plank. You understand?”
Iwaizumi narrows his eyes, his hangover fueling his fire. “I don’t think that’s your call,” he growls.
Hanamaki’s face falls, only slightly, but enough for Iwaizumi to feel like he’s won (as much as one can feel like they’ve won while tied to a mast and unable to move). “You fucking-”
He stops, his eyes going wide, and he looks to his left where Matsukawa has appeared with his hand on Hanamaki’s back.
“Leave him alone, yeah?” Matsukawa urges. “You can play with him later. He looks pretty rough.”
Hanamaki turns his attention back to Iwaizumi, who knows he can’t possibly look good with the way his body is rejecting being awake right now. He’s sure that his telltale grimace says it all.
“Alright,” Hanamaki grumbles, “but I’ve got my eye on you, fucker.”
Iwaizumi smiles as sweetly and sarcastically as he can manage, and he’d give a little wave if his hands weren’t bound behind his back. “Get me a blanket, will you?” he asks.
Hanamaki snorts. “Fat chance. Freeze.”
He walks away with Matsukawa in tow, the latter shooting a curious look over his shoulder as they depart. Iwaizumi would, at minimum, wonder idly what that’s about, but his eyelids are drooping and his head is pounding, and he thinks that if he doesn’t get some sleep right now, he might keel over and die just from the severity of his exhaustion.
As he fades from consciousness, he thinks he can make out some whispering from the portside of the ship, but he’s out before he can eavesdrop long enough to hear anything substantial. All he catches is a vague “What makes him so special?” before he’s completely unconscious, his head drooping forward until his chin hits his chest like a ragdoll with a severe lack of stuffing, and the world goes dark.