#and stede & izzy r soulmates too cause i said so 😈

[izzymarksthespot]

There's been an idea rattling around in my head, vaguely inspired by this post (can't find the original for the life of me): angsty Steddyhands/Stizzy/Gentlebeard soulmate au, where you cannot physically hurt your soulmate - as in your body simply won't let you.

Prepare yourself, this is a long one.

Izzy, increasingly irked and unsettled by Bonnet's influence on his captain, challanges him to a duel like in s1e8. Stede accepts, the duel commences - but as it goes on Izzy cannot shake the feeling of wrong wrong wrong which follows, making his movements sluggish, blows weaker and heartbeat fast and anxious.

Finally, he has Bonnet pinned - only when he tries to run the other man through with his sword, he can't do it. He freezes mid-thrust, muscles of his sword hand seizing, the blade of the rapier an inch away from the blonde's stomach. They stare at each other in shock, and soon commotion starts as the crew tries to see what exactly is going on, and did Izzy actually stab the captain? Ed hovers over them both in panic and confusion.

Izzy drops his sword at his captains prompting, and backs away with a "What the fuck did you do to me, you bastard?!" aimed at an equally flabbergasted Stede. While they bitch at each other, the crew wonder aloud what has happened and how odd it was that Izzy just froze (Izzy's never done that before!), and Lucius goes with a mocking "aww, Iggy actually likes the captain and doesn't want him hurt, how sweet!"

Buttons comes around then, takes in the scene, eyes Izzy with an unreadable expression, and goes "Nay, Mister Spriggs, more like cannae bring hisself to. I reckon 's only one reason fer it."

Everyone's like 🤨🤨 and Izzy's about to retort something scathing and awful, but suddenly he gets an inkling in the back of his head, a flash of a memory and words actually fail to come out of his mouth.

And Buttons just easily goes with "you cannae hurt yer soulmate, can ya?" and all hell breaks loose. Obviously everyone is laughing the idea off, cause come on, Stede and Izzy? There is no way, what an idiotic idea! Buttons, no more moonbathing for you, you're talking more nonsense than ever!

Both interested parties are strangely quiet though.

Frenchie - who's well informed on the soulmate matter, ofc - suggests they can simply test it out: all Stede and Izzy have to do is touch (skin to skin) to see if the soul marks appear.

Before either Stede or Izzy can reject that idea, it's Ed who does, there will be no fucking checking or touching; there's an aura of danger coming off of him in droves and his dark eyes are trained solely on Izzy.

Long story short, he throws Izzy off the ship (figuratively, just orders him to leave), Izzy's hurt and sells out Stede to the British (the only soulmate he has is Blackbeard and he wants him back), the whole shenanigans with act of grace still happen - Stede still leaves Ed and goes back to Bridgetown; and Ed spirals even harder in his absence because now he additionally thinks Stede left cause they're not soulmates (Stede actually could and did run him through with his sword, and if they were he wouldn't be able to, would he?)

He goes into the Kraken mode, taking most of his anger and hurt onto the person who is obviously responsible for this - Izzy.