Work Text:
Alright Izzy Canyon
What's Izzy doing for NYE/NYD.
👇
Stede, selfish asshole, roped him into playing a duet at Stede's NYE party with Ned Low—Izzy's ex.
It goes poorly.
And by poorly, Izzy and Ned are making out on the couch after one (far too serious) love song and five shots of tequila each.
They wake up together and quietly pine for what was.
BECAUSE THEY'RE BOTH STUPID. WORK IT OUT GENTLEMEN
JUST—FUCKING—TALK—
Ned pulls away too soon. He doesn't want to; Izzy knows he doesn't want to.
But Ned can't look too needy; too hung up.
"Guess things got out of hand," Ned whispers. "Maybe we should have told him no."
"Yeah, maybe," Izzy says, not hiding the hurt from his voice.
There's early morning light gilding Izzy’s features, his face drawn in lines of familiar pain.
Ned could trace the wrinkles of his frown blindfolded, and shouldn't that mean something?
"I won't say anything", he finds his mouth saying.
"Yeah, that sounds about right," Izzy says before he can stop himself. He cringes at how petulant it sounds, and Ned is looking away like a kicked dog. "What the hell is it, Ned?"
"I just don't know what you want from me."
Silence falls for several beats before Izzy's laughs.
Ned used to love to hear him laugh. Possibly trite, but it had been music to his ears.
Now, he winces.
This laugh is painful to listen to, brutal and sharp, off key.
"Got me off. Isn't that enough?"
"Is it?" Ned asks, words running away from him again. He snaps his mouth shut, but the damage is done. "I'm sorry, I—"
I'm not over you.
I'm in love with you.
I never stopped loving you.
Ned's throat clamps shut around them all, and he goes a bit too quiet.
The heat of Izzy's gaze washes over him.
He'd always been able to feel when Izzy was near.
There's a pained sigh, the whisper of shifting sheets, and then a hoarse voice asks, "What more do you want, Ned? I fucking gave you everything, we -"
He cuts off when Ned's eyes turn his way.
Ned's mouth opens, and closes,
and he looks at Izzy desperately.
Fuck.
Izzy reaches out, gently grasping Ned's shoulder just like he had a hundred times before. Grounding. Nothing would happen. Izzy would never let it, even now.
"Gone quiet?"
Ned nods, and a frustrated tear slips down his face.
Strong fingers. Calloused. Familiar. One on his shoulder and then the other on his face, brushing away the tear as it slips down his cheek.
"You're alright. I'm here."
But you're not!
The words won't come, of course, but his heart is screaming them.
Ned pulls away all at once, wrenching away as if burned. "Don't touch me!"
He could always hurt with his words—he never lost his weapons.
Izzy stares back, furious. "Alright then. Have it your fuckin way."
Izzy knew it wasn't fair. He knew that. But he didn't care, as he reached for his clothes.
Of course the first fucking thing he grabs is Ned's shirt.
Izzy turns to toss it his way and sees Ned watching him with tears making his eyes shimmer, and rage darkening the blush across his cheeks.
He's heartbreakingly, hauntingly beautiful.
"Go ahead. Leave me. You're well practiced at that."
And that does it.
Ned stares at Izzy with shock, because it's true—and because Izzy should fucking know better.
His voice breaks on a laugh, and then Ned is weeping, because all the same reasons he left are still there.
He's still a monster, and Izzy still deserves better than that.
Ned doesn't see the tear Izzy brushes away, the violence of his movements a poor camouflage of the agony breaking his heart into pieces again.
Fuck. They just can't seem to stop hurting each other.
And Izzy, while he may be a dick, can't just leave Ned broken and alone.
"Fuck both of us."
Ned looks up, and shakes his head at the look he sees. "Don't do that. Don't act like you..."
Like you shared the blame.
"Was all me," Ned says, like it's true. And in some ways, it is.
He was a different man, a decade ago.
Through denial and pain, he'd stared in the mirror and wrapped his throat around the word abuser, and nearly throttled the psych that played messenger for that fact.
And then he tried to change.
Everyone else bought it, but Ned still knew what he was.
Monster.
He'd learned to recognize his triggers. What they represented. How they happened. Why he felt the urge to -
To hurt. The same way he hurt.
Just because he knew that he was full of broken pieces, jagged edges of his heart, slicing up him and anyone around him, didn't mean he could stop.
"Why do you think you're not worthy of love?"
He was staring the reason in the face.
This flawed angel that had gone ten years and still didn't see the scars Ned had left on his skin. That thought the world of him.
That was the worst sin of all.
"I'm never going to let myself hurt you again."
The words fall like stones into the space between them, and Izzy's intake of breath is ragged. He can't hold Ned's eyes again, and the loss of contact is like a knife to the gut.
Ned's heart hammers in his chest, loud as thunder, but he still hears it when Izzy mutters, "I wanted it. You knew that."
It's a trigger. Ned knows it is, and he clutches the sheets, voice a whisper.
"Don't."
It's dangerous, eyes trailing Izzy, falling on marks he left last night. Marks he was sure were hickies, but can he be? How does he know he didn't wrap his hands around Izzy's throat, pressing like a brand—
"Ned. Stop." Izzy's voice is close, and Ned is abruptly aware of hands gripping his own, gently tugging them from where they'd somehow gotten clenched into his own hair.
This close, the red and purple bruises blooming on Izzy capture his attention.
Marks. A claim - he has no right to make.
"God—" Ned starts, reaching out to the marks. "Look at you! One night and you're already—"
Ned's hand goes to his mouth, covering it as another sob escapes him.
.
.
.
"Don't fucking lie to me," Ned threatens,
and when Ned takes a step towards Izzy, he flinches.
Ned sees a boy, hair the darkest brown blooming white at the roots, staring up in fear.
Ned looks down and sees blood on his hands,
and he staggers backwards, out the door and out of Izzy's life.
"-don't - Ned, calm the fuck down! I'm fine! It's -"
Ned's eyes pop open, and this time, Izzy is beneath him on the bed.
His hair is wild, in his face, standing stark against the white sheets. Sheets. Bed. The party.
Last night, Izzy had been beneath him, much like this, except - now he's afraid.
Ned scrambles backwards, clean off the bed, pressing himself against the door, unintentionally blocking his own exit.
He laughs again, distraught, wheezing breaths as he threatens to rip his own hair out with how hard he pulls.
Only—
"What are five things you can see?"
He distantly realizes he's having a panic attack. Soft curtains, rumpled sheets. His own hands, no blood this time—focus. Their clothes, piled together. Izzy had always liked that.
And Izzy, staring at him. He looks afraid, but it's wrong somehow.
He's not afraid of him.
He's afraid for him.
No.
No. He can't do that.
It's not - he shouldn't -
The fear that Ned sees on Izzy's face is agonizing, but the care, the cursed love that had sprung up between them like kudzu, choking and suffocating, feels like it might kill him.
"Stop looking at me like that," Ned whispers.
Izzy stares at Ned for a long moment, caught in the everything that lays between them; the tangled web of love and fear and pain (wanted and not).
"I think you've spent a long fuckin' time blaming yourself for shit that I forgave you for a long time ago.
"I knew who you were, Ned. That didn't make it okay. I know that now. But it wasn't all bad.
"I can't rewrite history; I can't pretend I was okay with what you did to me. Especially that last night. But you have no fuckin' right to tell me what I lived through.
"I... loved you, Ned. And we had something—"
Izzy's voice breaks; he breathes in sharp, and his voice wobbles. "We had something so fuckin good, and you weren't ready, and I wasn't ready."
Izzy steps forward.
"I'm ready now. And I think that you're scared, Ned. Scared that you're ready, too."
Scared? He was fucking terrified.
His gaze sticks on Izzy. Naked as the day he was born. Maybe a little softer around the middle with the years gone by. Barrel chested. Strong legs.
And that burning determination in his eyes. That wildness. That fire, that drove them together and almost -
"I can't hurt you again," Ned whispers, "Please. I won't-"
Izzy takes another step closer, dropping to his knees so he's on Ned's level.
"Then don't." Izzy says quietly, that warm, sure light in his eyes.
But that's the thing about a fire like theirs.
It can warm. Keeping things safe.
Or it can burn you alive.
"It's not that simple."
A tear slips down Izzy's cheek, "Love is never simple." His lips quirk in a sad smile, "We're not simple people."
Ned stared at Izzy, kneeling before him like a man might kneel before a scared animal. Hand extended carefully, like Ned might bite, or might lean in, and press upon him a kiss.
He wanted the world for Izzy.
He wanted to be the man that pressed kisses onto bruised hands, and healed him.
But—
"I just want—" Ned whispers. His throat is still fighting him, but his fingers gently clench the carpet, and the fibers against his skin ground him.
"Are you happy?" Ned blurts out, instead of anything he'd meant to.
Because more than anything,
he wants Izzy to be happy.
Even knowing Izzy as well as he had - does - the emotions on his face shifts so quickly that's it's almost impossible to track.
He opens his mouth, closes it, opens it again, "Try to be. You know I was never good at that shit."
Ned nods, and gods, he's still crying, just quietly. He hates crying.
Izzy leans forward, and when arms wrap around Ned's shoulders, Ned lets him.
Time passes, and hands rise, wrapping around Izzy's waist. Izzy relaxes from the kneel—hell on his leg—and leans into Ned.
Silence falls, but it's different; comfortable until a question breaks it.
"Are you happy, Ned?"
Now? Yes.
With Izzy, warm and safe and in his arms, always. Happier than he has any right to be.
Normally?
He survives. He takes pleasure in some things sometimes. Most days he moves through because he has no other choice. Not one he'll allow.
He leans back just enough to meet Izzy's eyes.
"I don't know how to answer that."
Izzy gives him a familiar smile, "Honestly. Answer it fucking honestly."
Ned takes in a shaking breath, "I know that I'm lucky to be alive, but somedays I don't think I deserve it."
Izzy's eyes glitter, "Fair enough, but you do. And more, Ned."
Ned doesn't know how to answer that without starting an argument, so he lets it go.
He breathes Izzy in, letting the percolating questions drift away.
He needs Izzy in his life.
He's known it for years, an unrelenting itch beneath his skin to possess that he never successfully stamped out.
He looks up at Izzy, and from the surrendered look in his eyes, Ned knows this is it—the end of the line. Izzy won't chase him, if he runs—he'll accept Ned's verdict of himself, and finally be free.
He's strong enough to do it.
He has to be.
He will.
Ned leans in—
closer, rather than further away.
He lifts his head, tracing his cheek across the skin, until he's leaning into the juncture between shoulder and neck.
Izzy's neck is scabbed over from a bite Ned laid there last night, and the skin is beginning to heal.
Ned breathes in the faint scent of iron, and that curling, violent thing in him stirs when Izzy reaches a hand into his hair, grip harsh and grounding, pulling his mouth flush with the wound.
Ned inhales, sharp and panicked, until he hears Izzy whisper,
"Please."
The word rolls through him as a physical movement, shivering down his spine. His fingers tighten their grip onto narrow hips, bite into the spots where bruises already darken Izzy's skin.
He wants. Wildly. Desperately. Ned mouths over the wound, once, twice, making Izzy give his own shiver.
"Be sure. Are you sure?", Ned growls, barely recognizing his own voice.
There's desire in its husky throb. Lust, but not just sexual. The sheer, gluttonous need to take, to have, to possess this man.
Are you mine?
"I trust you, Ned," Izzy whispers into his ear. Gentle. Sweet.
Surrender.
He bites down.
Izzy curls against him, and they shudder in tandem as blood drips into Ned's mouth; paints his tongue with iron and salt and Izzy. "Fuck—" Izzy shouts, choked off and wanting, and Ned realizes that nothing lays between them anymore. Not the past, or people—or their clothes.
Izzy wrenches himself into Ned's lap, chest to chest, pressing the root of his pleasure into Ned's—but it's more than that, as fingers curl into white hair and pull, freeing Ned from the grip of Izzy's wound. Ned's eyes are glassy as he stares back at Izzy, devoted and needful and obsessed.
Izzy stares back at Ned, eyes trailing over the blood that paints Ned's lips, and it hits him all at once that Ned looks at him just the same as the day they met, and all the days after.
"You never stopped loving me."
Ned inhales, sharp, and for a moment, he looks like he might weep.
They say that the truth hurts, and Izzy's words rip through Ned like a sword through the gut. The grief grows in his belly, a dark, ravenous hole that wants to swallow him down, let him sink back into that dark place.
His breath speeds, his heart pounds, and he pulls in a shaky breath.
That voice, his self-preservation, tells him to lie. Don't give away that final piece.
Of course he still loves Izzy, but -
Izzy's grip tightens in his hair and Ned hears himself say, "I don't know what survives death, but if it's me at all, it will love you as well. Nothing changes that."
Izzy stares at him, and it's a furious thing that crawls out of his throat. "Then why—" He can't even finish the sentence, and he feels his grip on Ned's hair go too tight, forcing his hand to relax.
Ned stares back at him.
Don't ask.
Please.
Get up, and walk away.
...
Ask.
For fuck's sake, ask.
I'll tell you.
I'll tell you anything.
And you'll finally get away from me.
Izzy opens his mouth,
and Ned lays the hangman's noose over his own neck.
"Why the fuck did you leave?"
Izzy spits the question, wounded, furious. "You knew I didn't fucking cheat on you. I would have stuck through you through anything. I fucking loved you more than anything in the fucking world.
"Why—why?"
Finally.
Ned smiles out at the crowd, gathered for the execution, and leaps.
"If I didn't leave, I was going to kill you."
The words fall into the space between the two of them like the first rocks of an avalanche. A herald of the disaster to come. The blood on his lips is both a declaration of his desire and a warning that Izzy is now in the clutches of a monster.
Izzy's eyes are wide, but not with fear, not yet.
Sweet Israel.
He was just as blinded by love as Ned had been, for a time. As desperate to be hurt as Ned was to hurt him. Unable to see the beast that already had teeth around his throat.
"Ned. No. You wouldn't have. Fuck. You were never -"
"But I would have, my love," Ned croons lovingly.
He raises a hand to cup Izzy's jaw, feeling the delicate flutter of his pulse.
When he licks his lips, it tastes like love.
Izzy stares at Ned, and sees the truth in his face.
He realizes he's not surprised.
Izzy looks at Ned, and for the first time, he lets himself see.
.
.
.
Ned stared down at the pavement, where police tape still blocked off the sidewalk.
His brother is dead.
Ned might not have told him to jump, but may as well have.
Richie was his responsibility, and he had locked him in a gilded cage until he'd leapt from the highest branch to get free.
Ned stared down at where blood had coated concrete, until the fire door popped open.
Ned's eyes met with a stranger's, hair still more pepper than salt, an × just below his eye and a cigarette in his mouth.
The man glared, until he realized Ned was sitting on the ledge.
"Bit cold for stargazing, isn't it?"
"I won't be here long," Ned responded.
He turned away and tried to put the stranger out of mind, until the man climbed over to the ledge next to him, plopping down. "Hey—what—" Ned started, until he realized the man was recovering from a busted lip. "Bar fight?" Ned asked. He looked the sort, honestly.
"Something like that."
Ned knew it was a lie.
He knew the words of someone trying to distract him. But he was transfixed by the story the bruises half-told.
Before the end of the night, he'd leaned in, pressing his teeth to the wound as the man clutched at him.
"Leave him. He'll kill you."
Ned knew from experience.
The man eyed him up and down, and shot back, "You might, too."
"Yeah, I might. But I'll make it worth your while."
The man had grinned, and had left with Ned's number.
He didn't call right away. But Ned waited.
Then one day, he got a call from a number he didn't recognize.
The man from the rooftop hid in his apartment. When the police arrived, they found "Eddie" in Izzy's place with a knife.
Ned had held onto Izzy that night, and let him fuck his hero before he could change his mind.
.
.
.
"You were going to jump after him," Izzy says. It's old news between them, but he says it anyway.
"I was."
"You were going to kill me."
It's a truth, out in the open at last.
"Not... Not intentionally."
"But given the way things were going—I kept hurting you. I kept trying to stop, and then losing it, thinking you were leaving, or cheating, or didn't love me—"
Ned laughed a broken laugh. "I kept hurting myself, trying to make it so I couldn't hurt you."
"Your arm—" Izzy interjects. "You broke your own fucking arm."
"Yeah. But it was a fucking stop gap. We were heading in one direction, and that was with one of us in the ground.
"The night I left—I tried to turn myself in. Got sent to a psych ward, and... Been in and out of those ever since."
"I tried to find you," Izzy hears himself say. He's in Ned's lap still - he should move, but, he needs to hear this, wonders if he won't hear something closer to the truth if they stay close like this.
Ned's smile is haunted and there's ghosts in his eyes as he says, "I know you did."
Izzy isn't sure he can feel more pain. That's the only explanation he has for why he feels almost numb at that confession. "How the fuck did you know?"
Ned's heart aches, but he needs Izzy to know the truth. Needs him to know what type of monster he gave his heart to.
"I never stopped loving you."
Izzy shakes his head, incredulous, "What the fuck is that supposed to mean to me now?"
Ned gives him a tremulous smile, "I told the hospital to deny I was there. I loved you so much I let you go." He cups Izzy's face, "I loved you enough to let you live."
Izzy gives a soft sob and closes his eyes.
Ned reaches up, almost instinctual. Izzy cries, and Ned wipes the tears away.
"I wanted to see you. But I knew what I'd do. I was voluntary. They'd have sent me home with you, and you'd have let me stay.
"And then... I'd get angry."
Ned's arms, Izzy realizes, are still wrapped around his waist.
Izzy's spine stiffens, but Ned doesn't loosen his grip.
"You'd keep pushing me," he murmurs, "It's your way." Ned lifts a hand and runs his fingers through the Izzy's hair, seeing the flinch.
His smile is beautiful, like an avalanche is beautiful.
Cold. Shimmering. Deadly.
Izzy starts, "Ned,-"
Ned presses fingertips to Izzy's lips, and Izzy falls silent.
"Say what you want. I won't hurt you for it. Just please... Don't lie to me."
Izzy stares up at Ned as Ned pulls his fingers away, and he thinks—
He thinks of a snow leopard, reaching a summit that would kill him,
and he finds he doesn't mind it.
Izzy leans forward, his hand taking Ned's wrist, and he lets the tip of his tongue trace the pad of Ned's index finger, swirling around it before swallowing the digit down, whole.
Izzy licks a stripe up the underside of Ned's finger, letting it go, staring into hazel eyes gone dark.
"I want you to stop telling me who you were."
Izzy leans forward, and his breath tickles Ned's ear. "Because you couldn't kill me. So I think you killed him, instead.
"And I think you're lying to me.
"Lying, like you have for the last ten fucking years, to protect me."
He traces Ned's neck with kisses, up to his temple, and then back down, hovering over his lips.
"So I want you to show me who you are. You, the man wearing my lover's skin like a mask."
Izzy reaches up, and when he pulls Ned's hair, Ned lets out a startled gasp, and his eyes go completely black.
"Show me how you love."
Izzy leans in and kisses him, and Ned kisses back like a man drowning, finally coming up for air.
Izzy pulls them apart, whispering, "Show me how you hurt."
The early morning light turns spilled blood into glittering crimson as it paints their bodies, as they mark each other with bruises that will fade and cuts that will scar.
Hours come and go, and Ned has to carry Izzy into the shower on shaking legs. The hotel shower has hot water and lots of it.
Ned places Izzy on the floor, gentle, and then catches himself against the tiles, strings cut now that Izzy is safely down.
He turns, sliding down next to Izzy, reaching up to the bar of soap.
He reaches over to Izzy, starting to lather Izzy, and he does something peculiar—
he pulls on Izzy's bad leg, gently, until it's under the heat of the water.
Ned's free hand absently runs along Izzy's fucked knee, rubbing into the tension he finds there.
Izzy stares at him, white hair haloed in the morning sun, a soft smile blooming across Ned's face as he hums a tune.
As his body aches with fresh bruises, his wounds stinging pleasantly under the warm spray, Izzy thinks about the man who fucked up his knee.
Izzy's tongue darts out, feeling the bite of the split on his lip where Ned had bit down, splitting the skin, as he'd made Izzy come for the third time.
"Come home with me."
Izzy doesn't realize he's spoken aloud until the quiet, pleasant song goes quiet, and his beautiful, wonderful monster's eyes turn up to look at him.
Ned's hands only pause for a moment before resuming their massage on Izzy’s bad leg.
"Please," Izzy whispers.
Ned rubs circles into tender muscle, still weak years after the 'accident'.
He doesn't meet Izzy's eyes, doesn't open his mouth to speak, and when Izzy reaches out, putting a grounding hand on Ned's shoulder, he realizes Ned is shaking.
"Okay," Ned whispers, voice straining against fear.
Ned hesitates, and then asks,
"Are you sure?"
Before Izzy can respond, a tear drips down the side of Ned's face.
"Hey," Izzy says. He pulls Ned into his chest, and Ned clutches onto him.
"I'm sure, Ned."
He rubs circles into Ned's back, and Ned nods into his chest.
Izzy has no idea how long they linger in the shower, and he doesn't care.
The hotel sheets are splattered with drying blood, spots of maroon standing out starkly against the blanched white. It makes Ned smile and Izzy laugh.
"Let Bonnet deal with the cleaning bill."
Ned agrees, kissing him soundly.
Ned pulls on his clothes, discarded the night before. It had been an understated ensemble; a sharp contrast to the bright, performative silver Ned had worn when they were young—well, younger.
Izzy realizes he's changed too; dropped the set of armor for something else entirely; something him.
He still wears the leather jacket, though. It's too cool not to, and he's still him.
Ned still wears the silver cravat; a sharp edge, rather than a signal flare.
Izzy smiles at Ned, taking his hand.
Ned smiles back, and as they walk out into the winter night, the warmth of Ned's body is a balm for the cold, rather than a burning fire.
Izzy will burn again.
He knows that.
But he looks at Ned, beautiful and dangerous, and he hopes he burns well for the flames.
-Fin