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delphiTitle: Things Wondrous and Divine
Fandom: Our Flag Means Death
Relationship: Frenchie/Izzy Hands
Rating: Mature
Word Count: 1,275
Content Info: AU: Izzy Hands Lives
Summary: The crew puts in for repairs at what turns out to be a bioluminescent bay, but Izzy and Frenchie aren't messing around with any Natural Phenomena. Or, the one where Izzy appreciates Frenchie's cynicism.
Notes: Written for![[archiveofourown.org profile]](https://archiveofourown.org/favicon.ico)
caladria as part of the 2025 Canyon Christmas exchange. Also available on AO3.
There was a lot to appreciate about Frenchie. Any idiot with eyes could come to that conclusion. Izzy Hands, however, fancied he might be the only man for whom his captain’s chief appeal was his cynicism.
“Cynic” wasn’t necessarily a word you'd immediately attach to Frenchie. Even “practical" wasn't usually front of mind. You could easily miss it, if you got distracted by all the singing, and the capering, and the—the fucking prettiness. But stand beside him when death was breathing down your neck, and you’d see it.
That man held a map of the world in his head. Not the sort that only sketched out how to get from here to there, but one that laid out and measured how things really worked along the way. Frenchie knew the precise borders of where a man’s greed and selfishness could be counted upon to lie, and from there he could chart how his own luck might run through mean and narrow banks or deep, cold water.
Seeing the world had been a bit of a letdown, he’d said the day Izzy met him. It was nice to have a deadline, he’d said the day they were meant to be executed together. Izzy might have fallen for him then and there if he hadn’t already been knocked down as low as a man could go.
And now it was Frenchie next to him with an equally skeptical expression as the sun went down on the beach and they watched some of the crew drift away from their little party to start gawking at the strange, bright blue lights flickering to life under the water of the dark lagoon. Izzy glanced sideways. Frenchie, his lanky frame curving away from the marvel like a wary question mark, glanced back at him. A clearly shared thought: Well, nothing good's going to come of that.
Izzy jerked his chin up the shore toward the treeline, and Frenchie swooped down to grab a bottle of rum and whatever snacks he could shove into his pockets.
The crucial dozen steps were made without haste but with firmness of purpose. Frenchie lent him an arm on the uneven sand, just as far as the edge of a stand of palm trees. Izzy thumped the nearest trunk once to check for bats, then lowered himself to sit with a faint grunt.
Relief flooded into his lower back and good leg. The current clambake and drunken revelry on the crew's part had more or less been earned. They had all put in a decent day of labour careeening and refitting the ship. The Black Cat was scraped and tarred right down to her keel, she was sporting a new set of spars, and the crew had finally found, tried, and banished the stowaway Izzy had been hunting all week—an enormous opossum that had been prodded out of the hold with a broom and was now pushing its luck by napping beside the cookfire on top of heap of sailcloth, fat on cake and shellfish.
Frenchie tucked himself up against Izzy's side, warm and lax, his hair smelling faintly of burnt gunpowder from having helped Wee John 'test' their munitions this afternoon. Under that was the pleasing mingle of coconut oil and sweat that made Izzy forget his exhaustion in favour of getting close.
"Does it look like it's up to something?" Frenchie asked, peering suspiciously down at the portions of the lagoon that could be glimpsed between the cooing crowd.
"I wouldn't put it past it," Izzy said, even though he couldn't rightly say if it was animal, vegetable, or mineral. It could have been coral, or some swarm of sea bugs, or the burning remains of a falling star for all he knew. "We'll keep an eye on it."
He slid an arm around Frenchie's waist and watched as the sea foam crackled like lazy lightning as the shallow waves broke on the shore. It probably qualified as some sort of miraculous event, or at the very least the sort of Natural Phenomenon that twats with more schooling than sense sailed halfway across the world to study. All the more reason to mistrust its effects on anything that worked for a living. At least the ship was a safe distance away, dragged up onto the shore and holding its own like a fortress in the darkness.
Frenchie unstopped the bottle, took a sip, and passed it over to him. "I once saw a jellyfish that glowed like that. It was as long as a whale—a little whale, at least—but when my mate hauled it in, it shrivelled right up and looked just like a jimmy hat."
Izzy took a swig and snorted. "He didn't use it as one, did he?"
A thoughtful hum reverberated on his shoulder. "He might have. His nose fell off a month later."
Some more of the crew broke off from their axe-throwing competition to check out the water. Archie was now poking the blue lights with a stick. A few of the new lads they'd taken on in China didn't break from their barrel-drumming, but their rhythm took on an unmistakable goading beat of 'Do-It! Do-It! Do-It!'
Izzy tensed, all too aware of where anything this crew took an interest in eventually ended up. Roach was already trying to catch some of the stuff in an empty bottle, and Fang was stripping off to wade in. Izzy was tempted to shout that anyone who stuck it on or up their nethers would be on their own in dealing with the consequences, but the drumming and chatter was loud enough that he would have had to get up to be heard.
"Fucking hell," he settled for muttering.
"What do we do when it gets them?" Frenchie asked.
He forced himself to unclench his jaw. "The pump's fixed. We might have enough spare canvas to make a hose. Spray the fuckers down. We did that once back on the Queen Anne, when half the crew came back from Tortuga lousy."
"We're good on fresh water," Frenchie agreed. "If that stuff lives in the sea, fresh water might send it packing."
Izzy nodded, relaxing. That stood to reason, and now they had a plan.
Frenchie tilted his head back to look up at him, contorted like a vine around him and somehow managing to make it look comfortable. The bit of moonlight shone like a piece of silver in his eyes, and the corners of his mouth were tilting up in a smile that still made Izzy feel like he'd taken a punch to the throat every time it was turned his way.
Then Frenchie was pushing the rum bottle halfway into the sand for safekeeping and throwing a knee over him to straddle his lap. Izzy grabbed him by the shirtfront, holding him there for a moment, just drinking in the sight of him.
Cynicism, yeah, that was Frenchie's chief appeal. Only, the optimism on the flip side of it was a close second, being the sole brand of it that a man like Izzy could put his faith in. It was unlikely that nothing would go wrong tonight, said Frenchie's hands—a solid third place and climbing—as one of them stole into Izzy's vest and the other palmed his cock through his trousers. But there were decent odds of getting in a shag before it happened.
In full agreement, Izzy closed his eyes and pulled him down, letting the waves and drums and laughter fade into the background behind the soft, dirty sound of slow, hot kissing and the stealthy clothes-rustling of another minor miracle.
Fandom: Our Flag Means Death
Relationship: Frenchie/Izzy Hands
Rating: Mature
Word Count: 1,275
Content Info: AU: Izzy Hands Lives
Summary: The crew puts in for repairs at what turns out to be a bioluminescent bay, but Izzy and Frenchie aren't messing around with any Natural Phenomena. Or, the one where Izzy appreciates Frenchie's cynicism.
Notes: Written for
There was a lot to appreciate about Frenchie. Any idiot with eyes could come to that conclusion. Izzy Hands, however, fancied he might be the only man for whom his captain’s chief appeal was his cynicism.
“Cynic” wasn’t necessarily a word you'd immediately attach to Frenchie. Even “practical" wasn't usually front of mind. You could easily miss it, if you got distracted by all the singing, and the capering, and the—the fucking prettiness. But stand beside him when death was breathing down your neck, and you’d see it.
That man held a map of the world in his head. Not the sort that only sketched out how to get from here to there, but one that laid out and measured how things really worked along the way. Frenchie knew the precise borders of where a man’s greed and selfishness could be counted upon to lie, and from there he could chart how his own luck might run through mean and narrow banks or deep, cold water.
Seeing the world had been a bit of a letdown, he’d said the day Izzy met him. It was nice to have a deadline, he’d said the day they were meant to be executed together. Izzy might have fallen for him then and there if he hadn’t already been knocked down as low as a man could go.
And now it was Frenchie next to him with an equally skeptical expression as the sun went down on the beach and they watched some of the crew drift away from their little party to start gawking at the strange, bright blue lights flickering to life under the water of the dark lagoon. Izzy glanced sideways. Frenchie, his lanky frame curving away from the marvel like a wary question mark, glanced back at him. A clearly shared thought: Well, nothing good's going to come of that.
Izzy jerked his chin up the shore toward the treeline, and Frenchie swooped down to grab a bottle of rum and whatever snacks he could shove into his pockets.
The crucial dozen steps were made without haste but with firmness of purpose. Frenchie lent him an arm on the uneven sand, just as far as the edge of a stand of palm trees. Izzy thumped the nearest trunk once to check for bats, then lowered himself to sit with a faint grunt.
Relief flooded into his lower back and good leg. The current clambake and drunken revelry on the crew's part had more or less been earned. They had all put in a decent day of labour careeening and refitting the ship. The Black Cat was scraped and tarred right down to her keel, she was sporting a new set of spars, and the crew had finally found, tried, and banished the stowaway Izzy had been hunting all week—an enormous opossum that had been prodded out of the hold with a broom and was now pushing its luck by napping beside the cookfire on top of heap of sailcloth, fat on cake and shellfish.
Frenchie tucked himself up against Izzy's side, warm and lax, his hair smelling faintly of burnt gunpowder from having helped Wee John 'test' their munitions this afternoon. Under that was the pleasing mingle of coconut oil and sweat that made Izzy forget his exhaustion in favour of getting close.
"Does it look like it's up to something?" Frenchie asked, peering suspiciously down at the portions of the lagoon that could be glimpsed between the cooing crowd.
"I wouldn't put it past it," Izzy said, even though he couldn't rightly say if it was animal, vegetable, or mineral. It could have been coral, or some swarm of sea bugs, or the burning remains of a falling star for all he knew. "We'll keep an eye on it."
He slid an arm around Frenchie's waist and watched as the sea foam crackled like lazy lightning as the shallow waves broke on the shore. It probably qualified as some sort of miraculous event, or at the very least the sort of Natural Phenomenon that twats with more schooling than sense sailed halfway across the world to study. All the more reason to mistrust its effects on anything that worked for a living. At least the ship was a safe distance away, dragged up onto the shore and holding its own like a fortress in the darkness.
Frenchie unstopped the bottle, took a sip, and passed it over to him. "I once saw a jellyfish that glowed like that. It was as long as a whale—a little whale, at least—but when my mate hauled it in, it shrivelled right up and looked just like a jimmy hat."
Izzy took a swig and snorted. "He didn't use it as one, did he?"
A thoughtful hum reverberated on his shoulder. "He might have. His nose fell off a month later."
Some more of the crew broke off from their axe-throwing competition to check out the water. Archie was now poking the blue lights with a stick. A few of the new lads they'd taken on in China didn't break from their barrel-drumming, but their rhythm took on an unmistakable goading beat of 'Do-It! Do-It! Do-It!'
Izzy tensed, all too aware of where anything this crew took an interest in eventually ended up. Roach was already trying to catch some of the stuff in an empty bottle, and Fang was stripping off to wade in. Izzy was tempted to shout that anyone who stuck it on or up their nethers would be on their own in dealing with the consequences, but the drumming and chatter was loud enough that he would have had to get up to be heard.
"Fucking hell," he settled for muttering.
"What do we do when it gets them?" Frenchie asked.
He forced himself to unclench his jaw. "The pump's fixed. We might have enough spare canvas to make a hose. Spray the fuckers down. We did that once back on the Queen Anne, when half the crew came back from Tortuga lousy."
"We're good on fresh water," Frenchie agreed. "If that stuff lives in the sea, fresh water might send it packing."
Izzy nodded, relaxing. That stood to reason, and now they had a plan.
Frenchie tilted his head back to look up at him, contorted like a vine around him and somehow managing to make it look comfortable. The bit of moonlight shone like a piece of silver in his eyes, and the corners of his mouth were tilting up in a smile that still made Izzy feel like he'd taken a punch to the throat every time it was turned his way.
Then Frenchie was pushing the rum bottle halfway into the sand for safekeeping and throwing a knee over him to straddle his lap. Izzy grabbed him by the shirtfront, holding him there for a moment, just drinking in the sight of him.
Cynicism, yeah, that was Frenchie's chief appeal. Only, the optimism on the flip side of it was a close second, being the sole brand of it that a man like Izzy could put his faith in. It was unlikely that nothing would go wrong tonight, said Frenchie's hands—a solid third place and climbing—as one of them stole into Izzy's vest and the other palmed his cock through his trousers. But there were decent odds of getting in a shag before it happened.
In full agreement, Izzy closed his eyes and pulled him down, letting the waves and drums and laughter fade into the background behind the soft, dirty sound of slow, hot kissing and the stealthy clothes-rustling of another minor miracle.
