Chapter Text
Lonely and sweet, nor loved the less
For flowering in a wilderness
-
I could into thy bosom pour my thoughts
But ah! I will not
“Izzy, how do I fix this?”
It had started with that one question, just Frenchie asking him for help. Izzy should have known it wouldn’t end there, that it was just the start. But Frenchie was crew and he didn’t have much of that left by this point.
So he helped.
Jim asked for help occasionally, but it wasn’t the same. Jim asked a question and then left it at that. They’d get an answer and then they’d go away. Frenchie asked a question, and then took his answer as an invitation to never shut the fuck up again.
Somehow, a simple question about how to get blood out of leather had led to Frenchie following him around the deck yammering about his stupid fucking coat, as if having bloodstains on it wouldn’t make him look even more like a pirate. It was already ragged at the edges, what did a few fucking blood splatters matter?
Izzy still didn’t know how it happened. The yammering and complaining somehow led to them both sitting in Izzy’s cabin, as Izzy prepared to demonstrate how to use simple soap and salt water to get out the blood.
“It takes effort. You should just leave it so you’ll actually look like a fucking pirate.”
Leather wasn’t like plain cloth. It took more effort, more time.
“Yeah, I’ll pass. Think I look pirate-y enough with the black face paint and the claws and shit, babe. I don’t need to be gross, too,” Frenchie rolled his eyes at him before cocking his head to the side, “I tried scrubbing. It didn’t do anything.”
“It’s easier if it’s fresh,” Izzy sighed heavily, and scrubbed at the leather, “But you let this dry, so it’s a fucking nightmare.”
Frenchie sat on the bed with one long leg pulled up to his chest, with the other splayed out, resting his chin on his knee as he watched. The man looked like a child, limbs everywhere. It was absolutely ridiculous. What grown man sat like that?
Izzy’s joints ached just looking at him.
“If you’ve got lemons, you can use them. That helps.”
“Hey Iz,” Frenchie interrupted, leaning in closer, “Y’know you’ve got all kinds of rips in that shirt?”
Izzy glanced at his sleeve and scoffed, “Like I’ve got the time to sew up every little rip these days.”
Izzy really didn’t have much time these days. They were running the ship on a small crew, and it had only gotten smaller. By the time he got back to his bunk each night, he was too exhausted to do anything except pass out.
There were other reasons he avoided his bunk, but he didn’t like to think about that. It was bad enough when he sprang awake in the middle of the night at hearing the slightest creak of a board. He didn’t need to think about it while he was awake, too.
Especially not now, with Frenchie staring at him.
“How about I do it, then?”
He stopped scrubbing, and fixed his attention on Frenchie, “You’re supposed to be paying attention so you can be less fucking useless.”
Frenchie just sighed, “I can watch and sew at the same time, y’know.”
“Really,” Izzy said flatly, remembering several occasions where Frenchie had failed to do two things at once. The bard seemed to flail no matter what he was doing; his limbs went everywhere.
Admittedly, that had worked out in their favor a time or two while on raids. Flailing with claws had turned out to be deadlier than expected.
“Yes, really,” Frenchie snapped, narrowing his eyes, “So take off your fucking shirt.”
Izzy hung the coat over the side of the chair almost automatically. He had his vest halfway unbuttoned before he had the uncomfortable realization that he’d just followed an order from Frenchie, of all people, and hadn’t thought twice about it.
His hands hovered over the next button for a brief moment before continuing. If he stopped now, that useless twat was going to have questions. He always had questions.
When he got to his cravat he hesitated again, before slipping it and the ring into his vest pocket. By the time Izzy had gotten his shirt off, he’s pretending that Frenchie wasn’t just sitting there, staring at him.
Why was he fucking staring?
Izzy aggressively shoved his shirt at Frenchie, feeling heat rise up his neck when the other man didn’t move, “Well?”
Frenchie took the shirt hastily, tearing eyes away from Izzy’s chest.
“Yup, got it!” Frenchie said, voice higher pitched than normal, “I’ll take care of these, no problem at all!”
Izzy picked the coat back up. Stupid twat.
“Just, uh…d’you have any thread? And a needle?” Frenchie suddenly seemed nervous, and Izzy just pointed at the chest by the bed.
Frenchie scrambled over the chest, stumbling over himself and almost falling as Izzy just stared at him in bafflement. What the fuck?
“I’m fine!” He exclaimed, swinging the chest open and digging in. Izzy couldn’t see his face anymore as he rummaged, finally coming out with a spool and a needle. It was undyed thread.
“Do you have any black?”
Izzy just shook his head. It wasn’t like it mattered. So his clothes wouldn’t be solid black, he’d fucking live. They were short on options when the only supplies they gained were what they raided.
Still, Frenchie looked unhappy as he closed the chest and came back over to the bed. And Izzy finally remembered that he was supposed to be doing something, not just watching Frenchie, and started scrubbing again.
Izzy stared at the coat, to keep from staring at the man who had somehow simultaneously sprawled out and hunched himself over on his bed. And they both fell quiet, Izzy trying to focus on scrubbing the blood out of the leather, and not on Frenchie’s attention fixed so resoundingly on him.
The other man was sewing. He should be looking at that, or the coat in Izzy’s hands. But he wasn’t, Izzy could feel his attention focused firmly on Izzy himself. And as he scrubbed, he could feel warmth reaching from his neck to his face, desperately glad that he had the coat over his lap.
Izzy narrowed his focus to the coat, refusing to acknowledge there was another person in the room with him. The silence settled, and Frenchie started humming.
There was something calming about this. It was almost like practicing with his sword, repeating the same motion over and over again until there was nothing else. He could feel the tension easing from his shoulders as he continued scrubbing, the only sound in the cabin Frenchie’s humming.
It almost came as a surprise when, after who knows how long, Frenchie finally spoke.
“Hey, I think you’ve got it all out.”
Izzy looked at the coat, then up at Frenchie. The other man must have finished sewing some time ago, and was just sitting there with his legs folded up, the shirt on his lap. How long ago had he finished?
He’d been sitting there in silence, just watching Izzy.
Izzy flushed again, suddenly remembering his discomfort, and shoved the coat at Frenchie.
“Good,” He snapped, “You can handle it yourself next time, I’m not fucking doing it for you again.”
Frenchie smiled slowly at him.
“Sure thing, Iz. I’ll just find something else you can help me with.”
Izzy scowled.
Frenchie chuckled and stood up slowly, stretching as he went, before casually handing the neatly folded shirt over to him.
“Here you go, babe. See you, tomorrow, yeah?”
Frenchie’s fingers brushed lightly against Izzy’s shoulder as he left. It was a soft and fleeting touch, gone before he even really felt it, but he still found himself unmoving in the chair. He almost imagined he’d see fingerprints when he glanced down, but there was nothing.
He wanted there to be fingerprints.
“Fuck.”
Izzy’s voice sounded too loud in the now empty room, and he let out a slow breath before unfolding the shirt. The rips in the sleeve had been repaired with the grey thread, along with that small tear at the bottom of the shirt. And-
What was that?
Izzy shook out the shirt and held it up, staring in confusion at its front.
Right on the chest, where it would rest over his heart, was a flower. Frenchie had embroidered a flower with clustered buds, alongside a sprig of leaves with berries.
What the fuck was this?
Izzy cast a side-long glance at the door, as if Frenchie would suddenly reappear and explain himself. But he didn’t, and Izzy just shook his head in confusion as he redressed. And if there was a moment before he put on his vest where he gently ran a finger over the flower, no one else had to know that.
And if there were times over the next few weeks, where he casually touched that spot on his chest as if he could feel the thread through his vest, no one needed to know that, either.
It didn’t make him feel any less lost in a nightmare. But he did feel less alone.