#welcome to the 'what if Ed & Izzy actually had time in the series to try and heal and maybe be better together' vignette show lol

[izzy-b-hands]

Mini s2 blackhands fic-ish thing below the cut

"Fuck," Ed tugs at the rope, then at his belled collar. "Shit. Okay. Not ideal, but-"

The wind gusts; the rope pulls, and his collar gets tugged with it.

He's more or less alone on deck. Everyone else is busy with other chores (not a bad thing, despite being wrecked to shit, the ship's starting to look pretty good), far enough away they can't hear him gag and choke when the rope tugs again.

It's his fault, for not minding the end of the rope as he tied it on to the rest of the rigging, for not making sure it couldn't whip up and get caught under the just loose enough edge of his collar-

A gloved hand lands on the rope, pulling downwards to relieve the tension and let him breathe again.

He makes careful eye contact with Izzy, letting their eyes meet for only a moment. "You don't have to help me."

"No," Izzy sighs. He's slightly off-balance, leaning more with the movement of the ship to stay upright, but how much of that is his adjusting to moving on his new prosthetic versus the result of the rum and whiskey bottles he's been polishing off is uncertain. "I don't."

"They'd tell you not to."

"They might," Izzy shrugs, as he lifts his other hand, and saws through the rope with his knife.

The rope slips away from them, and Ed can finally take good, deep breaths again.

With the tense rope gone to hang onto, Izzy stumbles and trips forward.

He doesn't even have to think about catching him. He just does.

They pause there. Ed helping to hold Izzy up as he gets his balance back. Izzy, holding on to him tightly, but his eyes only on the collar.

"No more rigging work for you," Izzy finally says as he adjusts to stand beside Ed, only partially leaning on him. "Not until that's off. I don't want that happening to you again. If anyone else has anything to say about it-"

"I tell them it came from the orders of the first mate," Ed interrupts gently. "Um. Thank you, for this-"

He hasn't fully let go of Izzy, yet. Nor has Izzy pulled away any further. He's steady now, but Ed's hand still holds at his waist.

Not the first time he's let his hands linger there, after all. It's still, after everything, a comfortable spot for them to be.

"Don't thank me," Izzy sighs, a deep, aching, tired sign. "Just stay alive. For the sake of the Captain."

'And you too?' is what he wants to ask Izzy. But he doesn't.

He forces himself to let go of Izzy, adjusts the collar to be slightly tighter while he watches, and nods. "I can do that. I think. Gonna try, at least."

"All any of us can do," Izzy says. "No more rigging."

"No more rigging," Ed agrees, and watches him walk away towards the Captain's quarters.

He still cares. He shouldn't still care. Ed wants to pull Izzy back and beg him to explain it, how in the fuck does he still care about him after all of this?

But the words strangle themselves in his throat, and there's railing to be painted, easier than trying to force the words out.

Ed kneels to look for the paint brush and small box of paint that's been getting tossed about the deck with each wave, and tries not to shudder when the bell on his collar jingles.

#text post #i feel like this is too short for ao3 but my brain wouldn't let me do anything else until i got this down so #welcome to the 'what if Ed & Izzy actually had time in the series to try and heal and maybe be better together' vignette show lol #this is a very early on sort of moment in it but. lots of ideas along this line that I've been tinkering with #also while i do enjoy cat boy ed i do worry abt the collar getting caught on shit so why not address that here #also a little of Ed having to just barely sit with the discomfort of what he did to Izzy and what the physical consequences of it all are rn #like the cute soft jingle of a bell #not ship tagging anything bc I Do Not Trust but if folks wanna reblog and do so go for it (only if u wanna reblog ofc) #anyway im gonna convince myself to get up and maybe make cookies. maybe write fic in between that and making dinner

[celluloidbroomcloset]

So. Tragically, to politely menace in service of the great cause, I have been forced to spend more time than I care to on my non-NHS/healthcare twitter. I have come across the decidedly bizarre - and reading against script and performance - take that Ed does not smile or appear happy in the morning after conversation in Man On Fire until Izzy interrupts for the docking scene intrusiveness. Yeah. That's a pretty wilfully dumb reading. I thought so too. But I'm interested to know what you thought. Like, I was seeing a very tender conversation that was fraught with stuff Ed was trying to set up, then an Interruption that neither welcomed that put a pin in a conversation they really should have had

He does smile - it's not "grinning from ear to ear," but he's smiling through a good bit of his conversation with Stede. He's also being emotionally open - they're talking about what happened when he died, about how Stede's presence saved him. He's leading to a more serious discussion about what he wants, but he doesn't even seem nervous about that. He's calm, he's relaxed, he's happy. He only tightens up when Izzy shows up (even then, not much), and then he doesn't speak except to tell him to fuck off.

BOTH of them are happy, but it's that relaxed, calm happiness of two people really comfortable with each other - and how often have we seen Ed actually relax throughout the series? He's breathing again. He's at peace with himself.

And then he spends a good part of the episode laughing and smiling with Stede, until things start to go south.

That's just a dumb reading unsupported by the text.

#ofmd #our flag means death #stede bonnet #edward teach #gentlebeard #i don't know why people want to make it more angst-y than it is #ed is relaxed #he's in bed with the man he loves #it's not complicated

[cyrelia-j]

[fic preview] Wheel Cage (original)

Based off of Tim Ransom’s John Dunn character [super loosely since it’s only a 5 minute scene] the following is a preview prologue of a 2nd person POV story I couldn’t resist starting. You may recall a story idea I mentioned from the spotlight on that character so this is that fleshed out!

Title: Wheel Cage

Genre: Drama/Suspense/Romance/Horror

Summary: With the world well on its way to a zombie filled hell, retired ATF agent Ed Miller is cashing out early. That is, with a little help from his son Isaac, the two of them figure on securing a little safety net he and his old team stashed away. Under the guise of an accidental [non zombie related] death, Ed cashes out his insurance policy, knowing that his last living team mate, John Dunham wouldn’t waste time in going to grab the hidden stash.

And that leaves Izzy to catch that same armored Greyhound from El Paso to NYC to seduce the old bugger and filch his key to the lock boxes along with the rest. Easy enough, right?

Notes: in the prologue a warning for offensive language (swearing and homophobic/sexist) but no other warnings. 2nd person POV and a trans male character. Big 80s references and aesthetic and age gap. Any feedback super welcome :)

---

“John huh? I like that. They call me Izzy. You ready to take a trip around the world with me?...”

           For as long as you can remember it’s always been you and your old man against everyone. Ever since his old lady (you haven’t called her “mom” since you were five) served him up the divorce papers with a slice of birthday cake and you said you weren’t leaving your cousins and your collection of baseball cards, it’s just been the two of you. She hightailed it with your older sister - who you haven’t spoken to either since she refused to stop calling you “Jenny” some seven years back - and so the both of you just up and said fuck everyone else.

 So when your old man made the proposition, you didn’t think twice before agreeing.

           Here’s the situation. You found out your old man wasn’t as Dudley Do Right as he’d have led you to believe. Seems he and his old narc buddies made some big bust back in the day, back before the strung out zombies were actual fucking zombies and they didn’t exactly tell the Feds and the rest the whole of their haul. Got his picture in the paper like a real hero and all ‘cept Mr. All American Hero made it with a cool couple million and disappeared it like Houdini.

 Course you didn’t exactly grow up in luxury and he sure as shit didn’t lose it in the divorce like he did the house. Trying to make off with all that dough woulda set off every agent in the country asking questions so the four of them made a gentleman’s agreement: they stashed it away in some series of lockers up north ‘til enough time passed and sure enough old Dan and Bill kicked it getting caught in Atlanta leaving just your old man and John Dunham. Dunham being an old desk jockey who’d probably live forever and while your old man never had a bad thing to say about “good old John”, your old man didn’t figure on splitting the pot when he was so close to taking the whole kit n caboodle for himself.

 He also figured with the whole world well on its way to some Romero zombie hell better now than never while south of the border was free and clear.

 You didn’t exactly blame him either and the both of you figured it’d be easy enough to live like kings south of the border. Course he couldn’t exactly walk into the fucker’s office and whack him. Well… seeing as how as of today, April 1st 1987, the whole world thinks your old man died in a car accident six months ago, he probably could. But while your old man may be a lot of things, a killer ain’t one of them. Thief? Sure. Liar? What man isn’t? (And if his ex old lady’s to be believed a wife beater too, but the only time you ever seen him raise a hand was to block her throwing a lamp at his head when he said your sister “Miss Priss” Priscilla might be going with her - likely not being his anyway - but he’d be damned if she made off with his Izzy.)

 Well maybe he didn’t call you Izzy back then but your memory, your rules.

 And here’s where you come into the whole scheme.

             You’re not a killer neither but you also may be just a bit of a thief yourself, and more than that you’ve got a certain charm about you that your old man says you inherited from him. Your old man also says he doesn’t know why he paid all that money for you to lop your tits off and change your name to Isaac if you’re still gonna prance around wearing makeup like a “goddamn fairy”. You like to remind him that’s exactly what you are loud and proud and if makeup is good enough for Alice Cooper and all the hot new glam bands he can just shut his hole or find himself a new honeypot.

             Course you’re not exactly the traditional va va voom vamp but that’s only gonna keep the suspicion off you a hell of a lot better than coming on like some boozy lot lizard, and if your old man hadn’t fallen asleep ten minutes into Murphy’s Law then maybe he’d know that those middle aged straight lace types seem to have a thing for cute and lovable punks half their age. He conceded (as big a Bronson fan that he is) you might be onto something and that settled the matter there, you hanging up the payphone outside the shithole apartment where you’ve been crashing, tucking the number back into your wallet.

             You’d been crashing on your pal Stevie's couch, helping out with the rent from a few “odd jobs”, and while you hated lying to her, you sure couldn’t tell her the real reason you were headed up north where they got shit locked down a hell of a lot harder cause of the “mess”. So far as she knew, you took your old man’s “death” hard and on top of that come to find his half a mil insurance policy was a bust to boot leaving you with a big fat nothing and in need of a place to stay. Wasn’t a far stretch seeing as how the insurance companies were finding it all too easy nowadays to call any claim they didn’t’ want to pay “ineligible” living dead shit. It wasn’t a lie exactly anyway, seeing as how you’d followed your old man’s instructions to the letter and made sure he got every untraceable dollar coming to him.

 Alright, so you kept a couple thousand for necessary expenses helping out Stevie (and getting your ticket and some new kicks) but it wasn’t like you pissed it away at the arcade.

             Stevie refused to buy your ticket though, saying you were crazy to go up north with some guy you met at a bar and chatted up on the phone and she didn’t care how good of a screw he was. Course you couldn’t tell her it was your old man you’d been plotting with so you just packed up when she left for work at Sid’s, left another hundred dollars, and swore in the note sitting next to it that you’d call after you were settled, sure she’d bawl you out a good one but you know the less anyone knows the better. You ended up paying some wino looking about to turn any second twenty bucks to buy your ticket and an extra dose of the anti Z Juice to keep quiet if anyone came ‘round asking any questions on the matter. You promised him you weren’t killing no one, just leaving a shit situation.

             It’s simple, you think as you shoulder your duffle bag, ticket out of El Paso ticket in hand. Blow the old fuck ‘til his eyes roll back into his head and swap the four bum keys for his. Nick his wallet once you get to NYC so you get a head start, and meet your old man’s contact in Jersey once you’ve secured the money. You got his old piece, his thirty nine and you can’t say as you’re a shot up to his standard but you don’t know a man to have ever missed jamming the muzzle of a gun into someone’s gut either so you’re none too worried about that part of it.

 Bullets don’t work none too well on them other fucking things if you ain’t a crack shot but you got your Dynaco L-Rod for that.

             You make sure to smile nice as you approach the benches where everyone’s waiting to start boarding. First impressions and all that and ain’t no need for either piece here between the shock fences and the scans. Nah, you’re rocking your ripped black jeans just tight enough and your favorite half threadbare Dokken shirt neckline stretched out not quite off your shoulder, and your choppy brown hair is streaked with red same as your lips. You look pretty damn dynamite with your black leather boots up to your knees and a swagger in your step sure you catch a few eyes wondering if staring at your ass makes ‘em bent or not when they see the slight bulge of your crotch and your lack of tits.

 Yeah, fucking putty, you think with a wink to a straight laced dope in a polo shirt and khakis, strutting over to Mr. Paper Pusher Dunham, counting dollar signs in the whorl of his thick black - has to be a dye job pushing fifty five like that - hair and grey Garanimals button down.

 Only one thing you didn’t figure on as you take a seat next to him and get ready to charm…

 ...And that’s fucking John Dunham.

#writing #creative writing #Drama #lgbt writers #lgbt fiction #cyrelia-j #pov #2nd person pov