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They’re somewhere north of Florida and the glare of sun has tempered back to merciful as the tall, dark banks of a thunderstorm come ashore. Down the coast, the ship continues on to meet the Spanish governor smuggling wine into his settlement, keener to have cheap access to his vice than wait and wait for it with the privilege of the king’s taxes. It’s a job best for a skeleton crew, and the men are due some leave, so all non-essential hands had been left to swim ashore miles north, sort their business, and meet again in a week’s time.
Ed had followed Izzy as he usually does, as he had done since he’d first silver-tongued his way onto Hornigold’s flagship promising to make a good deckhand, and as always, he doesn’t ask questions. He prefers to watch, to figure out how Izzy’s mind works by observation than trying to pull words out of his short-spoken friend. When they pick their way through a hedge of bramble and are just within the treeline of a clearing, Ed knows there’s shady business afoot, excitement welling up into his throat. Ed would gladly steal a plain slab of stone if it gave him the slightest thrill.
Izzy crouches at the edge of the field, squinting over the squat rows, spotting crimson, dark and ripe, dotted all through the greenery. Ed points to the farmhouse on the far side of the treeline, at the man walking in and smoke rising from the chimney. They must be sitting down for supper, no need for a fire for much more than cooking this time of year, and after a long moment to see if the man emerges, Izzy hisses to Ed, “let’s go”, and jogs into the field.
He’s quick but picky, whispering to Ed “just the dark ones, make sure they’re not soft”, finding large berries that weight his palm, heavy with sweetness, fed by sun and storms. He fills his pockets, Ed holding out the front of his shirt like a basket and giggling as he fills it with strawberries, pulling up whole coils of vine trailing from the tops, darting his eyes back to the house to make sure they’re not seen.
They’re nearly getting greedy, Izzy’s pockets full and Ed’s shirt stretched out and stained with ripe fruit, when they hear the creak of a gate and a dog up in the far field guarding sheep sights them, meets Izzy’s eyes, and lets out a sharp bark. Ed answers it with a loud giggle and they turn heel and run, disappearing into the trees before the dog bothers to make its way across the farm. They continue further into the woods, not wanting to try their luck camping out near the same place they’d just robbed (a little less labor for the farmers, that’s all), the occasional stacked stone walls disappearing and larger, older trees standing tall in the deeper parts of the woods.
Izzy spots a clearing of soft moss under the bowed limbs of a live oak, its trunk thicker than the both of them put together. Ed gapes up into the canopy, the corners of his mouth drawing up slowly into a grin. He grabs Izzy by the wrist and tugs him over to the base of the tree, trying to see if they can even wrap their arms around it, barely able to touch the tips of Izzy’s fingers on the far hand.
“Must have stood here for centuries.”
Izzy hums, reluctant to let go of Ed’s hand, letting it drop. “An old soul,” he agrees, walking back to the bed of moss and stretching out with a satisfied groan, hands tucked behind his head, staring up into the golden sun filtering down through dark green leaves, ferns and moss and lichen decking the thick boughs like festive finery.
Ed empties his shirt-basket of berries into the pile Izzy had made between them, half-heartedly cleans a berry with his sleeve and takes a bite. “Fuck me, that’s sweet.”
Izzy smiles. “You like it?” It’s been two years since he’s had a strawberry, never in the right region at the right time to find them in season, and it’s as if nature knew he needed a treat. The berries are perfect, soft enough to muddle against his tongue without the sourness of having gone over-ripe, or the bitterness and waxy texture of one not left long enough on the vine. They might be the most perfect strawberries he’s ever had in his life.
He tosses the top with its sacrificial bit of clinging flesh over into the brittle leaves littering the ground outside the circle of moss, the both of them eating their bounty in comfortable silence. A wren braves getting close enough to steal a treat of its own, lighting on the ground and pecking at a discarded strawberry top before picking it up and taking it off to enjoy somewhere up in the branches. Ed pulls out a water-skin and takes a deep drink, passing it to Izzy who nods his thanks and sips at it, his mind reminding him he’s putting his lips around where Ed’s had just been.
“I’m your best friend, aren’t I, Iz?” Ed asks with an innocence that makes Izzy suspicious. Ed’s odd like that, soft around the edges but sometimes as if he’s poking around for a weak spot, a way to get in, his curiosity untempered by kindness when he’s searching for a bruise in someone as dark and tender as his own.
Izzy responds with caution, keeping his tone calculatedly nonchalant. “Reckon you’re my only friend, so sure, ‘spose you hold that honor.”
Ed beams brighter than the sunlight dappling the mossy ground around them. “Good. You’re mine, too.” He leans in and pecks Izzy’s temple, his mouth smearing the pale brow with strawberry red. The rest of Izzy’s face quickly flushes the same color and he reaches up to swipe the wetness away despite how much he wants to keep it there, let it soak into his skin and stain him. Ed chuckles, ruffling Izzy’s slicked-back hair. “Oh, he’s bashful!”
Izzy sneers if only to mask the sting. “Oh fuck off, don’t be unkind.”
Ed scoffs. “I’m not! It isn’t unkind if I’m sweet on you, right?” He picks up the last fat berry and hands it to Izzy, smiling warmly. Izzy tells himself it’s only the phantom rock of the sea that makes his heart feel like it’s being tossed around in choppy waves, takes the last fruit and raises it in a silent toast of thanks, having no words to speak, much less think after being told such a thing. Surely, Ed’s only teasing, he’s years younger and doesn’t know anything about love. Right?
But when Ed tuts his tongue and pulls Izzy against him, telling him no one’s around, stop acting like someone’s after you, lays down and draws Izzy against his chest, tucking Izzy’s head under his chin, they settle together as if they had been forged that way, no adjustments needed to get more comfortable, perfectly relaxed and held as if Ed and the earth scooped up the weight of him, body and soul, to carry it for him a while.
In the summers of his youth, Izzy’s mother sent him into the forested Midlands to help a distant relative’s farm sow and hunt and herd. When his chores were done, Izzy would wander alone deep into the trees, sit in the quiet and watch and listen, learn the birds and plants simply by observing. When he was still small and light enough to safely make it up into the top branches, he’d stretch up on his toes and stick his head above the canopy and look out over a sea of shifting green beneath a wide, endless sky, the tree beneath him swaying and creaking like the hull of a ship buffeted by the open ocean. He’d dreamed of freedom there, somewhere just beyond the edges of the rippling forest, knew there was more under the sky than the small misery he’d known so far in his short life.
He thinks of those moments of young solitude now, dreaming of freedom, realizing he’s found it, scrappy and patched together, in this ruthless life at sea, and most of all he’s found it here, with Ed. Something in his chest rolls again, then cracks open like the shell of a sprouting seed, splitting its armor to seek light and grow. Unbidden, his lungs draw in a trembling breath and heave back out with a sob, his eyes overflowing. He goes tense and nearly pulls away, embarrassed and disoriented by the swift and intense wash of emotion, but Ed squeezes him a little tighter, kisses the top of his head, and Izzy lets go, body going limp in Ed’s arms as he lets himself cry, rinsed clean by the bittersweet realization, golden and painful, that this is the first time he’s ever truly been loved. He knows, he simply knows, the feeling is so strong and clear, and only in its arrival does he feel the ache of it’s previous absence, of the atrophied place love had always been meant to reside in him, the humble little hovel he’s tucked his affections for Ed away into. At last, he feels as though he’s been properly invited into himself, offered and encouraged to make a home there without keeping his bags packed by the door.
Ed says nothing, offers no platitudes, only comfort in the form of a stroking hand down Izzy’s back or soft kisses against his hairline, waits until he’s gone still and quiet, and even then, he does not ask. Izzy feels wrung out, loose-jointed and sedate like he’ll slip into slumber at any moment, but he sits up before the soothing purge can take him under, staring down at Ed, all lovely dark eyes and open gaze. He wonders if sweetness like this, like the short strawberry season, is only meant to last a little while, but he refuses to deny himself its enjoyment if it’s destined to be only brief.
Izzy leans down and kisses Ed softly, intently, and Ed kisses him back. Above them, the wind rattles the dark green leaves in the whooshing hiss of crashing waves, the sound of freedom scoring the aching medicine of the overdue gifting of love, and for a while, they are only young and each other’s.