“I’ve always loved you,” Izzy whispers, nuzzling a cheek against Jack’s chest. “I can say it now. Why was I so afraid?”
“I love you too.” Jack wipes a tear from Izzy’s eye. Though he swears he can hear the comet now, he tries not to look up. “But I’m afraid.”
"Leave it, boss," Izzy says, rifling through a fallen sailor's pockets.
Ed stares at the creature in the cage, tiny and frightened, its wings a frantic blur of movement as it tries to get as far away from Ed as possible.
"Fucking fascinating," he mumbles and reaches into the cage. The little fairy, blond and broadshouldered flits from side to side, but Ed's quicker. He gets a hold of it, almost squeezes it too hard.
"At least bring the cage as well," Izzy sighs.
It had been a hard, long day. All Izzy wanted was to get home, get out of his work clothes, and crash. Fuck of he knew what dinner would be. He'd sort it out after a nap.
Then he opened the front door and remembered that Nate was now living with him. Nate and a third of his managerie.
"Don't let Gealach out!" Nate called from the couch as, sure enough, the gray cat mad a mad dash towards Izzy's boots.
Izzy twisted his feet around to block the cat's path. "Oi! Git!"
Gaelach mrowled at him angrily as she tried to dart past him. Izzy managed to get the door closed without shutting it on her by some miracle.
"Why the fuck couldn't you help catch her?" Izzy grumbled, nearly tripping over the three other animals that had come to greet him---two dogs and a pig.
Nate was looking back at him with Karl the cockatiel perched pn his shoulder and olivia thw duck on his head. "'Cause I've got Nessie," he explained simply, holding the python up for Izzy to see.
Izzy’s arms strained against the weight of the oars, his heart breaking with every mile he put between himself and The Revenge.
Sweat stung the gash on his brow, a constant reminder that love wasn’t always pure and good. Sometimes, love was just another thing you had to survive.
Izzy had told himself that no soulmark could tell him who to love. Soulmarks were just the universe’s way of controlling suckers.
He’d told himself that over and over, until the moment he stood, enthralled, staring at his mark’s match across Roach’s shoulder.