Chapter Text
They lose a few men when Eddy takes over the business. No one worth a damn, just cronies and grunts, but it still leaves them short a few hands. Eddy hires one or two to fill the ranks then turns it over to Izzy. Just tells him not to use Hornigold’s tactics and they don’t have to say anything else for him to get the gist. So Izzy does it the right way. He puts out a discreetly worded advertisement. He interviews people in his office (the office that had been Eddy’s and still bore the scars of her boredom on the desk, gouges with a blade that he runs his fingers over sometimes when he’s thinking).
Pete Black has a strange resume, no security work to speak of, no real skills except maybe a mechanical bent and an ability to show up on time to his interview, which is surprisingly rare.
“Why are you changing fields?” Izzy challenges Pete as he sits in the chair across the desk. The man isn’t very large, just an average man with a shaved head and a shabby paisley jacket over a tired work shirt. There are scars around his mouth and a tightness around his eyes, but when he speaks it’s with energy.
“Always dreamed of doing something more action based,” Pete tells him, a twitch of a smile on his lips that he keeps repressing when Izzy catches his eye. “See the world.”
And Izzy should throw him out, but he is on time and does actually have a resume, even if it's horseshit. He puts Pete on scutwork for now, and if he stays after getting the worst jobs then maybe he’ll be worth keeping.
Except Pete doesn’t seem to know what a bad job is. He seems happy to drive around one of their worst clients, who is a screaming harpy that’s never satisfied. Somehow, against all odds, Pete makes friends with the harpy and she tells Izzy that she’s pleased they finally hired a ‘nice young man’, which is baffling on several levels including that Izzy is fairly sure he and Pete are the same age.
”Met the new guy,” Eddy remarks over lunch one day. They’re eating in her office, going over blueprints.
“Pete?” Izzy makes a note on the margins.
“Yeah, how’s he doing?”
Yesterday, Pete stapled his shirt to a stack of papers, mixed up everyone’s coffee orders and forgot every hand sign Blue Toby had impatiently taught him. But he also re-did the coffee orders with the shop and somehow convinced them not to charge them again, fixed the fucking copy machine that’s the bane of Izzy’s existence, and this time took some video on his phone when Blue Toby re-showed him to study later.
“Not awful,” is Izzy’s conclusion.
“Huh,” Eddy eyes him. “Take him to the next away job then. Get some miles on him.”
There are a hundred and one other things to occupy Izzy’s attention, including other new employees. He doesn’t waste much time thinking of Pete. Even if the man does almost aggressively say hello to him every morning and hand him coffee (and Eddy’s, only Izzy brings Eddy their coffee. This is not actually one of Izzy’s little acts of devotion, but a very important step in the day to judge their mood and act accordingly) with a side order of attempted small talk. He never seems to be scared off by Izzy’s rough dismissals, just giving a cheery ‘Ok, see you later!’ and going back to whatever he’s meant to be doing.
It’s just Izzy’s luck that the next time he’s wounded on the line, the only person close to hand is Pete. It’s just a cut on his leg, but it’s bleeding hard while he needs to concentrate.
“I got it!” Pete says hurriedly. “I remember the first aid course!”
“Then get the fuck on it.” Izzy turns his attention to spraying more cover fire.
He is dimly aware of Pete messing around, but he’s focused on Eddy. Watching them coiled in wait and then charging ahead through the hail of gunfire, and at the last possible moment, purposefully dropping and sliding across the slick hardwood floors to kick the legs out from under the main agitator. The guy goes down hard and then there’s a lot of blood.
Izzy sucks in a tight breath. Watching Eddy work has never stopped doing it for him, even if he takes care to hide it.
“Holy shit,” Pete mutters down around his thighs. Yeah, holy shit, indeed.
“Go!” Izzy barks and the swarm of men they have laying in wait crawls out. He gets to his feet and finds that his leg is supporting him. Glancing down, he finds a halfway decent tourniquet and a bandage. Huh.
It’s only later, when he can finally be alone in a hotel room, that he removes the bandage. It’s clean underneath, except for an orange wash of iodine.
The next morning when Pete shows up with coffee, Izzy takes it and gives him a long stare. Pete meets it without flinching away or shifting as the others did. He, of all the strange things in the world, smiles at him.
“You didn’t fuck up the bandage,” Izzy informs him.
“Thanks! I wasn’t sure. You move a lot more than the test dummy.”
It is a sign of his gratitude that Izzy holds his tongue in favor of sipping his coffee and telling him to go do his fucking job.
After that, Pete is around more somehow. He’s just hovering at Izzy’s elbow during briefs, during jobs, and if they’re grounded between events, he’s somehow in Izzy’s office a dozen times a day. But...not annoyingly somehow. He just makes himself quietly useful. Buzzes around making copies, refilling Izzy’s bottle of water when it gets low, asking not entirely stupid questions about how to handle something better the next time, and if there’s literally nothing else helpful to be done, sometimes he just sits in the extra chair and seems to play app games.
“The others are in the conference room,” Izzy says coldly the first time Pete plops himself down.
“I know,” Pete doesn’t look up, his shoulders hunching a little. “It’s quieter here.”
“Yes, I know,” Izzy says pointedly. It’s quieter by design. So he can be alone and concentrate.
“And you know. You might need something.”
Izzy didn’t know what to say to that. He might. It’s been known to happen. Usually he just stomps out and orders whoever is closest to do what needs doing. Pete doesn’t make much noise. He’s just waiting around.
To be of use. Izzy glances up to Eddy’s closed door.
....fine.
It does occur to him that Pete maybe has some issues with the other guys. Izzy keeps an eye out, in case it’s something that could trickle out at a job, but as far as he can tell, no one dislikes him. Fang and Ivan even seem fond of him. Pete eats lunch with them, looking like a period at the end of a burly sentence.
Maybe it’s the way that the lunches often turn into wrestling matches or other roughness which Pete, for all the bluster he spills at the slightest provocation, is ill-equipped for. He doesn’t tend to come out drinking on the weekends much either. When he does, he’s merry enough and does hold his liquor well. It’s the man’s free time so he doesn’t ask, but Izzy wonders a little.
“Where’s your secretary?” Eddy asks one morning, leaning in through the door.
“Who?” Izzy asks blankly. Eddy gestures at the chair that has, despite Izzy’s cool reception, become Pete’s. “He’s not my secretary.”
“Personal assistant, whatever,” Eddy waves that away. “I need someone to re-org my files.”
That’s Izzy’s job. He’s kept Eddy’s files straight for years but he doesn’t have the time right now, buried in their annual audit. He hesitates then nods, “I’ll send him in.”
Pete doesn’t seem as enthused as Izzy imagined he’d be to go into Eddy’s office, but he goes in. Izzy does not monitor that situation. Much.
Hours later Pete re-emerges and comes into Izzy’s office. He shuts the door behind him, which he’s never done before.
“Are they okay?”
Izzy frowns. “What do you mean?”
“It’s just…” Pete chews the inside of his cheek for a second. “They seem kind of… sad? I was in there for ages and they barely moved. Just sort of stared into space.”
Shit. “Probably just planning.” Izzy scrambles for cover. “You know how it is.”
“I-“ Pete sits down in the other chair. “I wouldn’t tell anyone but you.”
“Of course you wouldn’t,” Izzy sighs.
“I wouldn’t,” Pete insists. “Loyalty is important.”
“Yes.” Izzy gets up. “I’ll…ask. The copier is jammed again.”
“On it!”
Izzy comes out of the conversation with Eddy nursing a cracked rib, but at least she seems out of her dark mood. And he gave as good as he got.
Pete gives him an ice pack and a worried look. Izzy accepts the former and closes his eyes to the latter.
That night, Eddy drinks herself into a stumbling mess, which is predictable if annoying. Izzy props her up, intent on getting her home and away from anyone that might notice her plummeting mood. He makes it five steps and the burden is suddenly lighter. Pete is under her other arm. They're walking distance to her apartment and while Izzy is loath to expose her like that, he’s also exhausted and his chest hurts.
He doesn’t let Pete inside her apartment, but when he comes back out after getting her settled, Pete is still outside the door.
“Go home,” Izzy orders, exhausted.
“Let’s get you home first,” Pete says instead.
“Fuck off.”
“You’re not breathing right. Please.”
Izzy wants to push him aside. Growl. Punch him. But his rib is killing him and there’s other bruising aside from that. His home is well-protected. Pete isn’t exactly the most threatening man Izzy’s ever met. He could put him down in a second.
He doesn’t say a word, in the end. Just starts walking and Pete walks beside him. When Izzy starts to wheeze, Pete ducks under his arm and Izzy doesn’t fight him off. He doesn’t want it, but he wants to stop hurting. If only for a minute.
By the time they get to his apartment, Izzy has given Pete more than half his weight and he can’t bring himself to pull back. He has to slide his arm away to open the apartment door.
“I’ve got it from here,” he says hoarsely.
“All right.” Pete takes a step away from the door. “Good night.”
“Night.” Izzy shuts the door in the man’s face. Then he leans against the door, listening until he's sure Pete is well away.
Then he slides to the floor and lets his head bang back against the door.
Pete doesn’t say a word about Eddy’s moods. Izzy is prepared to fire him, if need be, but it doesn’t come up. Pete still brags and postures, eats lunch with the others, but mostly lingers in Izzy’s office. Now more sure that he won’t be kicked out, he’s there nearly all the time and Izzy isn’t sure when it became normal, but now it is. Pete has a chair and a corner of the desk sometimes and one day, Izzy is doing payroll and looks at Pete’s name. He’s inarguably more useful than half the lot. Eddy doesn’t like to weigh in on H.R. bullshit and has already called Pete his P.A. anyway.
With a little hesitation, Izzy clicks a few times. Changes a number. He knows Pete knows when he gets his next paycheck.
“Did I get a raise?” he asks, bemused.
“Job title change,” Izzy shrugs. “Don’t let it go to your head.”
“Do I get to know what I’m doing?” Pete blinks.
“Same as you have been. You aren’t a line guy.”
“I’m not?”
“No. You’re a P.A.”
You're mine goes unspoken. Because no one here is Izzy’s, not really. They’re Blackbeard’s men, Pete included.
“We’ll need someone to go in disguised,” Eddy says in front of the group some months later. “Someone that Santiago won’t recognize.”
Santiago was one of theirs, under Hornigold. He split off and now he’s trying to take down one of their best clients. It’s a serious job and no one is kidding around or making a noise that Izzy can use to work out some of his jittery anger on.
“Most of us worked pretty closely with him,” Blue Toby says. “He was around a long time.”
“I could do it,” Pete says.
“Sure,” Eddy snorts. “Like you’re not recognizable.”
Pete wilts a little, but doesn’t give up. “No, I mean I’m good. With a certain kind of disguise. I can do it.”
“What’s that mean?” Eddy presses and Izzy wants to know too.
Pete squirms under their collective attention. “I can do makeup and things. From when I was with the carnival. Make myself look pretty different.”
“How different?” Eddy’s eyes narrow. “Cause we don’t need a clown show.”
Pete pulls out his phone, walks around the table and shows Eddy something. Her eyebrows fly up, she leans in and really looks. With THAT look. The one that means she’s found something Interesting. Izzy really needs to see that picture.
“Just a hobby,” Pete mutters.
“Useful hobby right now,” Eddy decides. “Fine. Pete goes in to get the information. Izzy, he’ll need training for that. The rest of you are with me.”
It isn’t until they’re back in Izzy’s office that he whirls on Pete. “Show me.”
“...Fine.” Pete gives him the phone.
If it weren’t for the scars faintly visible through the makeup, Izzy wouldn’t have been sure it even was Pete. The hair helps tremendously, a light brown fall of loose curls that soften his face and the makeup makes him convincingly feminine. The dress is garish, too loud for what they needed, but it would work.
“A hobby?” Izzy asks dryly, trying to parse that.
“I do drag,” Pete exhales. “And yeah, I’m gay. So if that’s a problem, I’ll walk.”
Izzy stares at him. No one has ever come out to him before. Certainly not in such a forthright way. What is he supposed to do with that?
“We need you for the job,” Izzy says. “And I can’t fire you for being gay. It’s illegal.”
“Doesn’t stop people,” Pete’s eyes meet his. They’re electric blue in the flickering fluorescent lights. “Not like we don’t know from law breaking.”
“Not when it comes to H.R." Izzy clears his throat. “First rule of fishing for information is you can’t ask for it outright.”
“How do you get it then?”
And they’re off the races.
Eddy is fascinated with Pete’s drag kit, poking around and probably getting sticky-fingered if Izzy knows her at all. What they plan on doing with lipstick and blush, Izzy can’t even begin to guess. They make Pete talk through the whole makeup process, listening with that casually intense way that means they're memorizing the whole thing.
-Pete goes in with a name and a backstory that’s too elaborate, but Izzy couldn’t talk him down from. Instead of the garish dress, he’s in a dark blue pants suit. He looks like someone’s mom going to a work event, but at least it's realistic. Santiago is fooled, at least. Pete isn’t much of an actor and Izzy winces his way through most of the awkward flirtation, but it works and Pete makes it out just in time, the bomb Eddy planted going off.
“You should take him out to celebrate,” Eddy cackles. “Buy him a few rounds.”
And Eddy is just being fucking Eddy, but Izzy is used to a much lower quality of outcome from some of their staff.
He takes Pete out for drinks. He’s got questions anyway.
“How’d you even start with all that shit?”
They’re a few shots in and both just getting warm with it. The bar is loud, rowdy, but not one currently occupied with their colleagues.
“My drag mother...that’s a person that teaches you the ropes basically....she clocked me when I was still closeted. She was the best,” Pete smiles at the memory. “Taught me a lot about a lot.”
“Do you want to be a woman?”
“No,” Pete says, apparently unoffended. “It’s just fun to be someone else for a while. I like the makeup and clothes and things. I like performing.”
“....Performing?” Izzy’s voice might crack a little at that.
“Sure. Can’t do it much now what with the full time gig and all, but sometimes I do amateur nights and things. I mostly juggle while I lip sync. It’s fun.”
“And that’s...is this a gay thing?”
“I mean most of the guys that do drag are, but like most gay guys do not do drag?” Pete frowns. “Yeah, like a Venn diagram thing like you showed me.”
Izzy, who had to explain what a Venn diagram is twice just a week or so ago, is reluctantly pleased that Pete picked up on that enough to use it properly.
They may get drunker than Izzy intended. They may wind up walking the streets with a full bottle of whiskey that Izzy casually lifted from behind the bar when the bartender’s back was turned.
They may wind up drinking in an alley like Izzy used to as a teenager. No one is around to say but them.
“The thing is,” Pete takes a long swallow and passes the bottle back to Izzy. “I kind of thought you knew.”
“Knew what?”
“That I was gay.”
“How the fuck would I know that?” Izzy growls and clings to the wall a little as the world shifts unpredictably under his feet. He takes a long pull on the bottle.
“Cause. You know. You and....” Pete starts, then trails off. “Or is that a secret?”
“Me and what.” Izzy’s head is suddenly very clear.
“Oh that’s worse,” Pete groans. “That’s so much worse.”
“Worse than what?” he demands.
“I thought maybe you guys were just weird about it. Some macho bullshit that includes roughing each other up, but it’s not that, is it?”
“What are you talking about!” Izzy throws up a hand.
“You and Eddy!" Pete shouts, then shrinks back, voice dropping to a whisper. “Uh, you’re just really intense about each other? Like all the time. And I thought...”
Oh. Izzy wonders if he could just kill Pete here. That would solve some things. But then who would fix the copier? And get the coffee? And ask Izzy if he needed anything ten times a day?
“No,” Izzy says heavily. “Not, it’s not...not that.”
“Was it ever?”
Izzy closes his eyes and can't find the words to respond. Something brushes his hand. So lightly that he thinks it might be a bug, but then it resolves into a hand, just a press of fingers.
“Yeah,” Pete says roughly. “Been there.”
It’s too much. It’s not enough.
"Hey, I’m totally soused, but we’re not far from my place,” Pete offers. “You can have the bed.”
Izzy would love to go home, but he’s not entirely sure where they are actually and doesn’t trust himself to even give his address straight to a cab driver. He just nods and follows and at some point there’s a bed.
In the morning, Izzy wakes with a violent start. The bed beneath him is unfamiliar, piled too high with blankets and pillows. Someone on the floor is snoring. He rolls over slowly, carefully, ready to stab them, but it’s just Pete on a further pile of pillows. Right. He climbs over the man carefully and makes his way into the main room of the apartment. There’s two other doors. The man must have roommates. Fabulous. Izzy makes use of the bathroom, which is at least clean, thank fuck, if overcrowded.
He makes to leave, but Pete stumbles out of the bedroom. “You want coffee?”
“Yes,” he decides.
The coffee is fine. Not his own brew, but his own brew is somewhere an unknown distance away. There are voices after a while. Two men stumble out of one bedroom, one absolutely enormous and the other a more normal kind of tall and pretty. They’re already laughing despite the early hour, over whatever joke. They stop dead when they see Izzy.
“Didn’t know you went out last night,” the thin one ventures.
“I didn’t,” Pete shrugs. “Izzy, this is Frenchie and John. Guys, this is my boss.”
“Hi,” John says slowly. “Is this a business breakfast?”
“Yes,” Izzy intones and Pete nods briskly.
Frenchie and John are either very dim or very polite and seem to accept that, even though Izzy has to look like roadkill. They make breakfast around him, keep trying to offer things. Izzy drains his mug.
“I’m going,” he decides, and goes to go find his boots. They’re in Pete’s room, ditched by the door, and he sits on the edge of the bed. He has to put them on, but fuck he’s tired and he just closes his eyes for a second.
“They’re not in the business,” Pete says from the door.
“Believe it or not, I figured that out,” Izzy drawls, opening his eyes reluctantly.
“I mean that they wouldn’t say anything.”
“Fine, there’s nothing to say.”
Pete closes the door and moves to the side so he isn’t blocking it. Something Izzy often does for Eddy by force of habit. Something Eddy does for him too, come to think of it. Has Pete picked it up from them? Or is he just like that?
“There could be,” Pete says gently. So softly. Too soft. Too soft for the business they’re in. Too soft to be anywhere near Izzy’s spines and prickles.
“No,” Izzy bends to pick up his boot, “I’m not....I don’t.”
“I think maybe...” Pete sighs. “I can’t tell you what you are, but I think you’re hot as fuck, actually. And I’m quitting, so. It wouldn’t be weird.”
“You’re leaving?” Izzy asks thickly.
“I almost fucked the job yesterday,” Pete points out. “I thought I’d like all the action, but my favorite parts are really fixing the stupid copier and hanging out with you. I can fix a copier at a lot of places where I won’t die and maybe...maybe we could still hang out. Sometimes.”
“You like spending time with me?” he asks incredulously.
“Yeah. You’re kind of funny? In a mean way. And hot. Did I mention that?”
“You did,” Izzy says. “I don’t- I haven’t-”
“Why not?”
Eddy’s favorite fucking question. Why not, Iz? Why can’t we do the impossible? Why can’t we punch the moon? And Izzy always has to be the one with the logistics, the explanation, the reasons. He always has to say no. No to every insane plan that turns out to work. No to every wild chance.
Izzy fucking loves wild chances. He didn’t agree to work for Hornigold because he likes safety. He just doesn't want to die from lack of planning.
Pete stands there, too soft. Soft blue eyes, soft exposed head and soft bedtime clothes. He’s not Eddy, who is hard all over, including inside these days. He’s not like Izzy. This isn’t his world and the things Izzy wants, there’s no way Pete can provide.
But fuck, he’s so tired of saying no.
“I don’t know.” He drops his boot. Pete crosses the room, stands above him and there’s no looming there. Just the shadow crossing Izzy’s lap.
“I think you don’t need to hurt so much,” Pete offers and then leans down. Izzy doesn’t push him away.
The sex isn’t anything like what Izzy’s done before. Pete laughs sometimes, not at him, but apparently just from enjoyment. He’s firm, but not rough, and doesn’t give Izzy much to work with direction-wise. It’s unmooring and strange. The kissing is...it awakens old memories. Not of Eddy, who once kissed like they were trying to chew through his soul. Faith had kissed like this. Slow and inquisitive and sweet.
The sweetness makes Izzy’s skin itch, but he can’t pull away from it either.
Pete tenders his resignation the next day with a wink and his number written across the bottom. Like Izzy didn’t already have it.
He doesn’t call.
For all of a week.
Then Eddy takes him along on a job and they both almost die and things are like the old times. Except Eddy leaves him standing at the door of the bar after with a wink and a finger gun before disappearing into the dark night. Leaves Izzy alone. Which is fine. He can be alone with the adrenaline and the churning in his gut.
He pulls his phone out, not letting himself think about it.
“I’m performing at this new place tonight, actually. We all are,” Pete says merrily. “Come over and see.”
It’s nothing like an order, but Izzy’s been ordered around all day. A request is fine. And it was maybe also a bit of a dare. Would Izzy show up at a gay club? Sit through a drag performance? This is Pete’s territory at last, a line in the sand that Izzy is being gently taunted to cross.
“Yeah, all right.”
The performance is baffling and he doesn't think he’s alone in feeling that way. Several people in the audience also look like they were slapped with a fish. Which is one of the acts. The bar is aggressively decorated, crystal and colors. Flags everywhere. It is very much not his kind of place. There seems to be an issue with the bartender, a nervy thin lady who disappears halfway through the night and doesn’t come back. The barback starts making drinks which are disgusting so Izzy has to deal with the whole thing sober, which he could do without.
Pete is pretty good though. Him and the roommate juggle and it’s not terrible. The knife throwing is fucking excellent and Izzy makes a mental note in case they need a new close combat specialist. Alfie has been playing dangerous lately.
“You came!” Pete beams at him when he finds him after the show.
“What did I just watch?” he asks flatly.
“Fun, right?” Pete laughs.
“Fun adjacent,” he settles on, which only makes Pete laugh harder.
Izzy doesn’t make people laugh. That’s not a thing that he does. He does go home with Pete again, this time with more presence of mind. The sex is pretty good all over again.
After, Pete puts a hand on his arm.
“Hey, stay the night, huh? Go again in the morning? Get some breakfast?”
Stay. Izzy doesn’t get asked to stay. Izzy, if anything, is told in clear terms to leave. And when he isn’t, he goes anyway, unsure of his welcome. But that’s a clear invitation. And it’s late. No work tomorrow.
“Can’t do breakfast,” he yawns, “but yeah, fine.”
“Oh right, death by nuts, eggs, soy and stone fruit,” Pete recalls from Fang’s unwanted, but necessary training on ‘how not to kill your second-in-command by getting lunch'. “What if I make something?”
“...Fine,” Izzy concedes.
And it is fine, actually. He doesn’t sleep great, but they do have sex again in the morning and Izzy hasn’t gone twice in the span of twenty-four hours in a long time, so he’s feeling remarkably mellow. Pete isn’t much of a cook, but anyone can make toast.
It becomes a thing. Not every week, not even most weeks, but at least once a month or so. Sometimes Izzy will go see the show, but usually he just meets up with Pete after. There's sex and breakfast. He gets used to Frenchie and John’s shenanigans even, though mostly he tunes them out and leaves when they get loud.
Then one otherwise unremarkable night, Izzy’s sitting at the bar wondering if it’s worth asking this week’s alcohol dealing flake for a vodka tonic when Eddy sits down beside him.
“So this is where you’ve been disappearing to.”
Every hair on Izzy’s body stands up straight. “Yeah.”
“I thought maybe you were in on something interesting,” Eddy tsks. “Maybe planning some good old fashioned betrayal.”
“I wouldn't-” he starts to protest.
“But then I remembered who I was talking about,” Eddy laughs darkly. “So I thought maybe you’d finally picked up an interesting vice or something. But Izzy in a gay bar I did not expect.”
“Well. Here I am,” he says miserably, wondering if he can get Eddy out of here before the show starts.
“Hi! Good evening!” Leda House comes on the mic with outstandingly terrible timing. She makes for an attractive enough woman, but the man underneath the makeup is a total fucking weirdo. Izzy had one conversation with Stede Bonnet which was more than enough. “Welcome! Hello! It’s the Friday Night Spectacular! I’m your host Leda House and tonight you’ll see things! Stuff! Amazing feats! Please get your drinks and get your tipping hands ready, for the beautiful and mysterious Frenchie!”
“Iz,” Eddy says with a giddiness that makes Izzy want to reach for his gun on pure reflex, “is this a drag show?”
“Yes.” What’s the point in denying it?
Eddy at least watches quietly enough. Actually, they seem enthralled.
“The host, do you know them?” Eddy asks.
“Yeah, she owns the bar,” Izzy mumbles into his drink, which was mostly water. Another shit bartender, another night at the Revenge.
“Introduce me.” Eddy demands. Shit.
Eddy takes to Leda House immediately. It’s....well. Izzy has seen Eddy getting someone they want before. He can’t help but compare it to how Eddy got him. There was no charisma then, no sweet words. Not like now as Eddy smiles that thousand watt smile and Leda melts under its force.
“You know if I tell her that Eddy’s off limits, she’ll listen.” Pete drifts up to his side, out of drag now.
“I have no say in who Eddy takes home,” Izzy says. And Eddy is busy, full attention outward.
“I’d ask you to come hide out at my place, but the apartment is a disaster,” Pete says regretfully. “They’re working on the plumbing.”
And suddenly Izzy wants to be anywhere but here and he doesn’t want to be there alone. “Come over.”
“Yeah?” Pete smiles brightly at him. “You sure?”
Leda giggles and Eddy puts a hand on her knee.
“Yes.”
It’s not so bad to make Pete breakfast for once. He eats it happily and looks around the apartment without being invasive and just says, “Nice place. When did you move in?”
“Ten years ago.”
“Huh,” Pete nods once slowly. “Yeah. Must be nice. To not have too much stuff. Our place is packed full, kind of a lot.”
Izzy does not say that he likes Pete’s apartment. Or his bed with too many pillows. It’s too close to something else.
He dreads seeing Eddy again, but she doesn’t come in for a few days. That happens sometimes, and he doesn’t get nervous until it’s going on day four. Just when he’s about to go to their apartment, they swan in, dressed in bright colors and dragging the sunshine in after her.
“Great find, Iz!” She claps him on the shoulder and practically dances into her office, slamming the door shut behind her.
It’s the beginning of the end, though Izzy won’t know that for another few months.
Eddy, clearly happier overall, does not bring that mood to jobs. Instead she comes in happy and goes out to work irritable and mean. Izzy takes the jabs as his due and parries them back, but his usual attempts to rile her into fighting shape have little effect. Her door closes in his face more and more often.
”You could quit,” Pete suggests one night. They’re just laying in the dark, at Izzy’s place again. They switch off now. And not just on Friday nights. Seems like he's with Pete more often than he's not somehow.
“And do what?” he asks with a snort.
“Whatever you want,” Pete shrugs. “You want things, don’t you?”
Izzy does. He wants things to be what they were. He wants to still be young and feel like he understands everything.
He wants to be in control again, but these days he’s not sure he ever was.
Eddy shows up on stage one night. Izzy watches her with a detached shallow ache. She’s beautiful and happy. She looks like she’s sliding in battle, but no one is going to shoot at her. She’s safe here, in this madhouse. Safe and herself. Maybe he’d never known her at all. He listens to them declare their love for Leda House, to speak that truth out over a microphone to any ready ear.
“What do you think?” she challenges when she sees him in the crowd. She asks him from the stage, towering above him. No one else knows who she’s addressing. There’s a wild cheer as though she’s talking to them all.
Izzy holds up his hand and flexes a few fingers together. One of their signs. A private signal if they had to go behind the backs of their own people. It’s got a lot of meanings, but he knows she’ll understand this one. ‘Job Done, All Clear’
She nods once. Signals the same back to him.
“You good?” Pete checks in, frowning as he finds him downing another shot.
“No,” Izzy laughs, wildly, spiraling out. “It’s fucking over. Fucking Stede fucking Bonnet.”
“Ooookay, let’s get you home then.”
It takes an upsettingly short amount of time to close up shop. Eddy comes back to sign things, to pack up. She removes herself one step at a time like it’s just another dance, another fight that she can win without looking.
“You could take over,” she floats to him the first day they actually talk about it, meaning it's actually the last day, with just the things left to sign sitting between them.
“No.” He drives the point of his knife into the desk, into one of the gouges she’d left behind. “I don’t want it.”
“Fuck, okay, Iz, chill.”
Chill. Right.
Izzy doesn’t take over. He doesn’t go to Jackie with the handful that can’t give up the work. He considers it, but it’s a weird liminal space. Eddy is no longer his boss, but she’s also not gone. The job has dissolved, but he didn’t quit or really get fired. He’s just....not. Not Eddy’s second hand. Not Eddy’s shadow. Not anything really, except somehow....still someone Pete looks for after a show. Someone Pete takes home and kisses like he's worth something.
Still someone to someone. Whatever that means. And he does want things, as it turns out.
“A P.I.?” Pete wraps a hand around his shoulders, kisses him on the cheek with a loud smacking sound that makes Izzy roll his eyes. “So cool!”
“Just something to do,” he grumbles, but Pete isn’t letting go. They’re at the bar and anyone could see, but...who cares? His reputation means less and less every day anyway.
They’ve been having sex together for a year at this point, known each other for three or four. Izzy’s sitting in a gay bar under a fucking chandelier and his life has disintegrated out from under him, except for Pete. Who is steady and warm against him, more solid and dependable than Eddy ever was outside of the job. Pete knows what he is, has watched him kill someone at least once and read most of the paperwork in his old office. There’s no hiding from him, really.
“Are we....” Izzy half-forms the question, then can’t quite see it through.
“I think,” Pete gets in a little closer and when Izzy doesn’t shove him away, he rests his chin on shoulder, “that we can be whatever we want to be. So. Do you want to be?”
Izzy wants things. Stability. Order. A job. Someone in his life so his brain can’t devour itself.
“Yeah,” he says, and hopes Pete can hear him over the music so he doesn’t have to repeat himself.
“Okay. Then we are.”
The word ‘boyfriend’ doesn’t appear on their lips for another few weeks. Izzy says it first, which seems to free Pete up to say it all the fucking time with this lilt of pride that makes it impossible for Izzy to shy away from.
Stede hires a new bartender. What else is new? Except that Pete likes this one. Izzy misses Pete’s save at the interview because he doesn’t hang out at the bar in the middle of the fucking day like some people, but he hears all about it later.
“He’s kind of...”Pete trails off then grins. “You’ll like him.”
“I don’t like people,” Izzy informs him and Pete just laughs. This far in and Izzy is still not sure if Pete genuinely thinks he’s joking or just finds Izzy’s natural crabbiness hilarious.
Izzy likes Lucius immediately. He shouldn’t. The man is obnoxious, full of jibes and his humor is so dry that it grates like sandpaper. He flirts incessantly with varying degrees of seriousness and upon meeting Izzy, he compliments Pete for ‘landing a DILF’, which Izzy googles and then wishes he hadn’t.
“He likes you,” Pete points out as they get into Izzy’s car one night.
“He flirts with everyone,” Izzy rolls his eyes.
“Yeah, but it’s different with you.”
“Nah, it’s different with you.” Izzy can hear the warmth of Lucius’ interest when he leans over the bar to talk to Pete. They’re friendly, Pete is friendly with everyone, but it’s not the way Lucius talks to Frenchie or Roach or any of the others.
Pete reaches for his seat belt, slides it slowly across his chest. He gets like that, moving in slow motion when he’s grappling with something. Izzy leaves him to it, listening for the click before hitting the gas.
“Okay. Like...I don’t usually go for this, but Lucius is very....open.”
“That’s one word for it,” Izzy agrees. He’s pretty sure Lucius would open up his skull and let someone climb inside if he could get off on it.
“So. You know. If we told him we're a package deal. I think he’d go for that.”
Izzy almost crashes the car. It’s a good thing Pete is wearing his seatbelt as he slams the brakes. They both hang in the silence for a second.
“Or....not,” Pete grimaces.
He doesn’t really casually touch Pete much. He lets Pete manhandle him as much as he likes, but Izzy rarely offers him the same. It’s...fucking dumb, actually. He reaches over and takes Pete’s hand like he’s seen Eddy and Stede do a million times. Pete holds back, eyes wide. Behind them someone blares their horn, so Izzy gets them moving again. When he’s finally safely parked in his garage, he turns to Pete in the gloomy dark and asks hesitantly,
“Are you serious about that?”
“Yeah, Iz. It’s not my usual thing, I’m a one dick at a time sort of guy and I know you are too, but....”
“Yeah,” he breathes out. Lucius is something else altogether. He’d make it easy because he makes everything like that easy. Izzy’s known him for about two weeks and can already tell that. Maybe because it reminds him of Pete a little, actually.
“Could be fun,” Pete offers. “And if not...then we don’t do it again.”
Like it’s that simple.
“Oh wow, yeah absolutely,” Lucius grins at them. Apparently some parts are that simple. “I’m flattered, fellas. Threesomes are a forte of mine.”
“Really?” Pete looks dazzled. Izzy knows his own expression is carefully schooled blankness, but fucking hell, Lucius does have a killer smile.
“Oh yeah. Take a little coordination, some planning, some improv. We’ll have a great time.”
It has to be at Izzy’s place because Pete’s roommates will tell the entire fucking world otherwise. Lucius steps inside the apartment and his eyebrows fly into his hairline, but he doesn’t say a word about it, apparently intent on getting on with things.
About midway through, Lucius puts his hand on Izzy’s shoulder and playfully, but firmly says, “Suck me off.” And Izzy short circuits, banging down to his knees so hard and fast he feels it in his molars. So. That happens.
They have to talk about it after, which is a special kind of hell.
“Don’t be shy about it,” Lucius waves away Izzy’s monosyllabic responses. “This way we all get what we want.”
“I didn’t even know you wanted that,” Pete says, clearly hurt.
“Neither did I,” Izzy admits, eyes on the floor. “Sorry.”
“I wasn’t sure you knew that word,” Pete reaches out, rubs his back. “We’ll figure it out.”
The important takeaway is that Lucius makes it clear he’d go again in a second. And he winds up staying, crowding the bed, but also dispelling the air of caution that tends to linger between Izzy and Pete all the time. They always hover around each other like something might shatter. Lucius is happy to break everything and glue it back together again.
Of course they tell him he can come back whenever. He takes them up on that. These days, Izzy and Pete don't hold Friday nights as sacred, since they're together almost every night, so it’s not a big deal that Lucius often counts out his tips, sticks them in his pocket and follows them home. And in bed, he’s sweet and soft with Pete, and sweet and hard with Izzy, and it’s deliciously good. Izzy gets to make sure Pete is happy and he’s satisfied on a level he didn’t know he was missing.
Out of bed, Lucius likes to linger in the mornings. He makes fun of Izzy’s apartment and starts leaving things around the place. His daring apparently spurs on Pete, and suddenly there’s just...things. Everywhere. Books, a newspaper, doodles on napkins, clothes of all varieties and someone’s Revenge mug shoved in among the cabinets.
Izzy leaves every single thing where it lies. Like if he touches them, they’ll disappear.
“What if we bought a bigger bed?” Pete asks, half-asleep himself, one hand on Izzy’s right shoulder, kneading a little at a tense spot.
“Why?” Izzy melts with the massage and the word comes out a little slurred.
“Be more comfortable. Don’t have room at my place, but here we could.”
They could. It would be saying something though.
“Is that a thing?” he mumbles.
“Bigger beds?”
“No...just. All of it, I guess.”
“Yeah, it can be a thing,” Pete says softly. “Do you want it to be?”
“I liked what we were,” he says. “Before.”
“Me too,” Pete assures him. “But...”
“Yeah.”
They buy a bigger bed. They don’t tell Lucius first because he’s a fucking know-it-all and it’s nice to surprise him sometimes. Izzy figures, worst case, he just has a bigger bed now. Sometimes Pete rolls up on top of him and they both almost die of heat exhaustion, so it’s a win-win anyway.
So they just bring Lucius home one Friday night and make it to the bedroom and watch his face go slack in disbelief.
“What did you do?” he asks, a little brokenly.
“So we all fit,” Pete explains, which thank fuck for him really, because Izzy would’ve said something cutting about Lucius’ powers of observation and ruined it.
“But-” Lucius starts, then stops.
“It’s okay.” Pete reaches for his arm, holding him like he’s tethering him to the earth. It’s a good move, works great on Izzy all the time. “It’s not a demand or anything. Just an invitation. So you’re comfortable. Okay?”
“Yeah,” Lucius says, the word broken in half. “But I thought I was just visiting.”
“No,” Izzy realizes he has to say something or Lucius will read rejection there. “We want you to stay. As often as you want to be here.”
“You’ll never get rid of me,” half a threat, half a promise.
They don’t get rid of him. If anything, it works out beautifully when Lucius’ roommate sets their place on fire. Izzy and Pete show up with Frenchie and John, move him out in a matter of minutes. They install him at Izzy’s place ‘temporarily’. It’s strange to share his home all the time, and he feels like he’s tripping on something every five minutes, which only gets worse as Pete half-moves in too to be closer to both of them.
When Izzy can’t take it anymore he just declares,
“I’m moving and you two assholes are coming with me, so find a place with three bedrooms that doesn’t fucking suck.”
“Wow,” Lucius says flatly. “I can’t wait with an invitation like that.”
“I like apartment hunting,” Pete says serenely. “Can we get a balcony?”
They get a balcony. Izzy gets a room where he can shut the door and have absolutely nothing on the floor. Sometimes he goes in there and just cuts notches on the underside of his desk like he’s a wild animal locked up for too long, but that’s just sometimes. Most of the time, he’s on the couch in the living room. His old one had a mysterious moving day accident and has been replaced with the deepest, softest, most comfortable couch in the world. It’s horrifying how often he accidentally falls asleep on the damn thing.
-Eddy shows up to the housewarming party. She brings prepackaged vegan cookies and shoves them at Izzy like she wants a sticker for it.
“These have nuts in them,” he points out.
“Motherfucker,” she sighs.
“You want a beer?”
“Please.”
They wind up on Pete’s balcony while the rest of the party rages inside. The place will be a disaster later and when he tries to clean it, Lucius will order him to bed and Pete will already be in it, naked as a jay and laughing at the two of them, arms spread wide in welcome.
For now, Izzy’s just grateful no one’s broken glass yet.
“Life works out weird, huh?” Eddy toasts him, then uncaps the beer with her teeth in a move that has never failed to make him wince.
“It does,” he agrees. “You good?”
“Never better.” She stretches her legs out, resting her feet on the railing. She’s beautiful in the fading sunlight, but in an objective way. Izzy has no more room for her inside, he realizes. They’ve shoved her out somehow, made room for themselves and no one else. “You?”
“Yeah.” Izzy uses the bottle opener on the Swiss army knife Pete bought him for his birthday. It’s plain, utilitarian. Not unlike the ring Pete thinks he doesn’t know about that’s been sitting in a box in Pete’s coat pocket for the better part of two months. Izzy hasn’t said a word, too afraid that it wasn’t for him until Pete started giving him long thoughtful looks when they were out for a walk. Gearing himself up. Izzy will be ready with a yes, when the moment comes. They'll have to get one for Lucius too, down the line. Izzy's got a design in mind already. “It’s all pretty fucking good.”