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When Ed wakes up, there’s this extra pressure inside his skull. It’s weird, like someone talking from far away, a low hum he can’t resolve into words. He sits up in bed, jostling Stede awake, and says, “Can you hear Izzy in your head?”
Stede peers up at him. “Er. No, dear. Am I supposed to?”
“Sounds like Izzy.” Ed closes his eyes. “Yeah. It’s distant, but that’s him. Seems annoyed.”
“He often does,” says Stede.
“You don’t believe me.”
Stede shifts guiltily, and then rises so he’s propped up against his pillows, hands folded over his stomach. “You’ve been awfully concerned with Izzy lately,” he says. “Do you think this could be some sort of manifestation of that?”
“No,” Ed says, “it’s definitely him. Thinking something about the sails. Did the lightning damage them?”
“Maybe.”
With some effort, Ed tries to focus on the presence in his head. He wonders if Izzy’s got the same thing going—if he’s noticed yet. It doesn’t seem like it; Izzy’s thinking about the usual things, about repairs that need doing and other ship-related business. He’s thinking about how to get the crew to actually listen to him. He’s thinking about the Queen Anne, and how things are both better and worse now than they used to be. When he thinks about Ed, it’s to wonder if Ed ever misses their old ship, too.
As he concentrates, Ed hears Stede get up and start puttering about. He’s just about to join him, on the assumption that Izzy can’t hear him in return, when he feels a bolt of something like recognition. It’s immediately followed by Izzy’s mind spiking with panic, so sharp it makes Ed gasp. His heart starts racing—Izzy’s emotions bleeding through to Ed’s body.
Before he gets the chance to recover, the door’s bursting open.
“Edward,” Izzy says. And then he stands there, his mouth parted, and Ed can blink and see himself through Izzy’s eyes, messy-haired with the sun shining through the window behind him, the sheets barely covering him. He feels an anxious shiver of lust, which would be something all by itself, but then there’s the other thing: the bigger thing.
“You think I’m beautiful,” Ed says. Elsewhere in the room, Stede drops a teacup.
“Edward,” Izzy says again, small and desperate. “What the fuck is happening?”
“You’re in my head.”
“You’re in mine.”
“You seem tense,” Ed tells him.
“How did this happen?” Izzy demands, like maybe Ed did it on purpose. “I’ve had a headache since last night, ever since—”
Ed clicks his fingers, triumphant. “That fuckin’ out-of-nowhere bolt of lightning! Yeah, me too. Then I woke up and you were just—here.” He taps his temple.
“This makes no sense,” Izzy whispers. “Why us?”
“Maybe,” Stede contributes from where he’s kneeling on the floor, collecting teacup shards, “you have some unresolved issues.”
“Yeah, could be that,” Ed says.
Izzy, glaring at the wall to Ed’s left, says, “No.”
“Look at me again.”
Now that he’s in Izzy’s head, Ed’s sort of amazed that he doesn’t explode on a more regular basis. He’s wound up so tight that even as a mere observer, Ed feels a sympathetic tension building in his shoulders. It’s not even anger, really—just this never-ending sense of wrongness.
He also feels the way Izzy responds to the order: a little rush of calm followed by a barrage of worries, enough for anyone to get submerged under.
“Hey, this thing goes both ways, right,” Ed says. “You’ve got me, too.”
“The way you think is weird,” Izzy says.
“You’re no picnic yourself.”
Izzy looks at him. It wasn’t a fluke; seeing himself through Izzy’s eyes is like seeing the moon through Buttons’. Beautiful. Utterly untouchable.
“So now you know,” Izzy says.
“The whole time?” Ed asks. Quick as a flash, he sees a younger version of himself, the way he looked when he and Iz first met, and it’s blinding. Ed hears himself making a sound, almost pained. “Fuck, Izzy.”
Izzy says, “I never meant for you to know,” and it’s all Ed can do not to leap up from the bed and grab for him.
“You love me.”
Izzy nods miserably. His thoughts on the matter are equally pitiable.
“That’s a good thing,” Ed says. “If you’d tying yourself in knots for a second, you could probably work out why.”
“Ed,” Stede says, “don’t be cruel.”
“No, come on, it’s not like I’m not thinking about it.”
“You’re lying,” Izzy says.
This is a bit much. Ed gathers the blankets around his hips and gets up, taking the five steps necessary to get close to Izzy—so close that Izzy starts thinking about the way he smells, and then tries to stop thinking about the way he smells. Ed wonders if his whole life is like this. It seems exhausting.
“We’ve had this thing going on for ten minutes,” he says, “and you think I’ve worked out how to lie in my own head?”
“If anyone could,” Izzy mutters.
“That’s flattering, mate, but would you just…?”
“You can’t love me,” Izzy says.
“I can’t?”
“You don’t.”
“You do?” asks Stede, unhelpfully in the present circumstances.
“Iz, you’re the biggest pain there’s ever been in anyone’s arse. If I didn’t love you, why the fuck would you still be here?”
This, of all things, is what breaks through the anguish in Izzy’s head. It’s like a single match being lit up in a pitch-dark room, so lovely Ed almost can’t breathe. Maybe this is the thing about Izzy’s mind: hope, when it appears, is so fragile that it’s unspeakably precious.
“I believe you,” Izzy says, very softly.
“You don’t,” Ed says. “You just want to.”
“That’s a good first step,” Stede says. It’s nice of him; Ed hasn’t told him he loves Izzy in as many words, has spent the last few months skirting around and alluding to it. But Stede doesn’t seem upset—maybe he’d seen it coming after all.
“I can feel how you feel about Bonnet,” Izzy says. “That’s weird.”
“That’s love, too, I hope,” says Stede.
“Different sort,” Izzy says.
“Yeah,” Ed says. “Different sort. They’re both good sorts, though.”
Izzy snorts.
“They’re both good sorts to me.”
“Bet you don’t call Bonnet a pain in your arse,” Izzy says. He’s smiling, and he’s looking right in Ed’s eyes, and Ed thinks that if he could bottle whatever’s happening right now he’d get drunk on it in a heartbeat.
Feeling reckless, he thinks back to Friday, when he wasn't able to sit down, and says, “Sometimes he’s a pain in my arse.”
Ed’s always loved earning Izzy’s begrudging laughter. It’s even better with the inside view, with the bright burst of amusement followed by Izzy’s judgement kicking in.
“I like your brain,” Ed says.
“Thought it wasn’t a picnic.”
“Yeah, I fucking hate picnics,” Ed says. “How’s mine?”
“Your what?”
“My brain.” Ed grins, giddy. “You like it, Iz?”
“You’re a mad genius twat. I already knew that,” Izzy tells him. He steps closer, pulling Ed's free hand into his. “And I already loved you.”
“Yeah, I already knew you were a grumpy bastard,” Ed responds. He squeezes Izzy's hand. “Love you, too.”