Izzy woke up with vomit in his mouth. He rolled quickly to the side, spitting it out onto the floorboards, ignoring the smell as it hit him. Later he would ponder how his body must have been awake before his mind, to already have responded that way, but for now his thoughts

were on another body. Stede's. Izzy hadn't seen the dagger, and he had been looking, had been watching Stede like a hawk right up until the moment he'd turned and seen the axe. And Stede had seen it too, had been paying enough attention to Izzy to pull him away,

to miss whatever other threat had been descending. Stede had been paying attention to Izzy, instead of paying attention to himself. The feeling of sickness he had woken too suddenly twisted into a fathomless rage. How dare Stede do that to him, how dare Stede make Izzy see

him die again, make Edward see that. What fucking right did he have- There's a low animal growl filling the room suddenly, but Izzy doesn't have the wherewithal to even hear it, let alone recognise that it was coming from him. He was moving without thinking,

snatching up enough clothes to pass as human as he dresses himself and bursts out of his room, barefoot and unarmed. Not even wearing his ring. He doesn't pass anyone in the corridors, probably wouldn't have seen them if he had, could only think of one face he needed to see

in that moment, one man who the mere sight of would either reduce him to tears or incite him to murder. He didn't let himself ponder which one he'd prefer as he clattered through the door in the captain's cabin, the sound prompting the two sleeping figures to jerk awake,

and then he's in the bed as well, right on top of Stede hands on his shoulders, almost around his neck as he just shakes him. "YOU FUCKER," he can hear the tears in his own voice, the shaking in his hands not just anger but despair, panic, his mind filling the bed with blood;

Stede covered in wounds. "HOW DARE YOU, I'LL FUCKING-" his voice chokes off, and the blood in his minds eye is painted over and obscured by a fresh layer of crimson; real and hot and pouring all over Stede and the sheets. Blood coming from him. Izzy's eyes snap to the side,

focus already slipping as he sees Ed, wide-eyed and confused, the hand that has plunged the dagger into Izzy's neck trembling. The dagger that Ed keeps under his pillow at night, for protection, the one Izzy gave him when they were boys, the one that now he was using to protect

Stede from an intruder. "Iz?" Ed's voice is soft, broken "Iz, I- no no no no-" "Israel?" Stede's voice is a whisper, a breathless lament. Izzy swallows around the dagger, his throat tearing itself apart from the inside. And then the day starts again.

Izzy looked up at the ceiling and very deliberately bit his tongue. He probably deserved that.

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