spent a good portion of the last few days babysitting my little cousins who are between the ages of 0 and 6 (theres 4 of them but i wasnt with all of them the whole time), and im just thinking like. i think people overdramatize how "annoying" kids are. like i rarley get annoyed with small children. teenagers, absolutley - but little kids? it kind of befuddles me how people can "hate little kids"when they are so sweet and well intentioned and devoid of negative intent. like its so hard to get mad at someone who is just a little guy that is so in awe of the world and everything in it. like ? yeah sometimes its annoying when theyre loud, but not more annoying than when adults and teens are loud. honestly. its often less annoying. again, hard to get mad at small children when they are so well intentioned and so unaware of so many things. they have such a bare bones concept of what is causing issues for other people...and the great thing is if you explain it to them theyre a lot more receptive to it than adults tend to be. as someone with severe auditory sensory issues, im well experienced with asking adults to stop doing things that are making noises that are causing me intense physical pain, and they tend to get up in arms about it. they have an entitlement that children honestly dont. a lot of people think of children as entitled, but when i tell my 6 year old cousin "hey, could you please stop kicking the wall, that makes my headaches worse, and that makes me sad" or "could we take a break from listening to music, im starting to feel overwhelmed" or something like that, they either do the thing i asked or they dont but they just politley ignore me about it instead of getting defensive and angry and insulting me. and if the second thing happens you can just go to plan b, which is finding something that they like, and drawing their attention to that, so they stop doing the thing that was annoying. i think a lot of people who think all children are entitled and annoying maybe do too much yelling at children and not enough talking politley to them and explaining why they want them to do certain things. it does wonders to just tell a child, "please stop, thats making me sad." or "i know youre having fun, but can we do a different activity for a little while?". i think theyre more receptive to this sort of thing than adults because theyre so early in the process of "figuring out how the world works" that they are openly accepting of the idea that they sometimes need to learn new things! they dont feel threatened by the idea that theyre in the wrong, unless you make them, by being mean to them about it. and so if you just dont be mean to them about it, it works out in the end.
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Thinking about Izzy with hanahaki, coughing up flowers over Ed for like 25-30 years. Yeah it sucks but its not gonna kill him. Obviously keeps it a secret (From Ed at least, Fang and Ivan caught on but they don’t wanna get involved in All That so they keep it to themselves and help Izzy out when he gets bad spells. None of them mention it but Izzy is grateful, which makes it all the worse when they start palling around with the Revenge crew over Izzy :’Tc).
(Uh, readmore cause I didn’t expect this to get. Like. Huge. lmao)
Then Stede Fucking Bonnet comes along and things get worse as he watches Ed fall for Stede, even if he doesn’t really understand. Still, he manages. Gotta push through, Ed would expect nothing less.
And when Stede leaves and the Kraken happens Izzy goes through a good bit of hell. Ed is barely out the room after the toe incident before Izzy is hacking up so many flowers he thinks he might actually die this time. He doesn’t, though. Cleans himself up, puts his shaky legs to work. (And then Lucius finds out, doesn’t really matter who pulled him back on board, Izzy knows about it because none of them are subtle. He keeps the secret because. He’s really not sure. But Lucius is in the walls and he hears Izzy having a fit and now he knows. He wants to ask. Tries to, even, Izzy shuts him down and he’s not even angry when he does it. Just. Defeated. Lucius silently adds another thing to his ‘Things I’m Gonna Bitch At Blackbeard For Once He’s Not Crazy Anymore’ list.)
When Stede comes back its. Better. For a while. There’s a lot of hurt all around but everyone is alive and they’re (mostly) talking it through as a crew. Ed makes his apologies to the crew, even to Izzy. Stede makes his apologies as well. Izzy accepts that This Is His Life Now. Since Stede seems to actually want to learn now that he can’t just throw money at all his problems Izzy offers to actually teach him (instead of ‘teaching’ him like Ed does). He shows him the ropes (literally), gets him passable with a sword, keeps Ed focused when he’s teaching him navigation (not Izzy’s strong suit, he can manage if he needs to but Ed’s always been better at it). They actually find themselves getting along.
Izzy starts joining the crew during ‘story time’ (sometimes its stories, sometimes its other group activities, easier to just give it the one label). One night, after Stede finishes the story and everyone is heading to bed, he watches Stede and Ed head to their cabin. Sometimes they’ll ask him along for a night cap, not always though, and its. Fine. But. He watches them head off without him. The way they hold each other as they go, smiling, only eyes for each other.
He barely makes it to his room before he’s coughing up the most flowers he’s done since Ed fed him his toe. He, frustratedly, sets to work cleaning them up but. He actually stops to look at them. He stares. And stares and stares.
Two distinct types of flowers littler his floor. He tries to deny it but he understands immediately the implications. Fuck.
Still, Izzy is nothing if not the worlds most repressed trooper. He sticks it out. Or. Tries to. Its hard because Stede and Ed keep asking after him and seeking him out and talking and touching him and. Its just camaraderie he knows but. It makes him want. And he knows he can’t have that. He wouldn’t have a damn botanical garden in his chest if he could. Its starting to take its toll on him though. He can tell its getting bad because Stede and Ed are starting to worry about him. They don’t say it in so many words but he can see it in their eyes. Ed is more hesitant to go on raids, makes up some excuse about his knee playing up more than usual, but Izzy knows it because he can see how his hands shake even when at rest and he’s thinking about him slipping up in a fight. Stede’s plying him with herbal teas and feeding him several small meals throughout the day, he’s noticed Izzy can’t stomach much anymore, how he’s getting weaker by the day because of it.
He leaves after Lucius catches him having another fit. A bad one. He says he’s going to get the captains but Izzy begs him not to. ‘Not yet,’ he lies, ‘I’ll tell them myself but. Just. Give me some time.’ Lucius begrudgingly agrees, gives him two days. ‘And if you haven’t told them by then I’m going to do it myself and you can thank me later.’ Izzy leaves that night.
He shouldn’t be surprised, when he finds Calico Jack in some seedy bar at the nearest port he can reach, though he is. ‘Thought you were dead.’ He finds himself relieved he’s not, its nice to have a familiar face around if he’s gonna die here. (He knows he’s dying. Not immediately, he’s got more fight in him than that, but. Its coming on the horizon and he knows it. Like he knows a storm eventually follows a red dawn.)
Jack eyes him, calculating, never as drunk as he pretends to be. Izzy doesn’t know what he sees but he breaks into his usual grin and says, ‘Nah, still got - what is it - four? Four lives left. Take more than some crazy bird’s cursed cannon ball to take down Calico Jack, babydoll.’ If it were anybody else, Izzy would be bristling at the nickname, but he’s long since resigned himself to being called things like that from Jack. Jack loses his easy grin though and adds ‘You look a bit like death fuckin warmed over though, fuck happened to you?’ There’s genuine care in his tone and it reminds Izzy so much of Ed and Stede and, thank fuck Jack seems to notice because Izzy’s slapping a hand over his mouth and Jack is taking his arm and they barely make it to the shitty little room Jack’s occupying before the petals start spilling out. Jack holds him through the fit, its nice. Izzy almost regrets when its over because Jack sets him down on the bed and steps back, fixes him with a look he’s too exhausted to decipher. ‘Fuck.’ He says, eventually. ‘Think we’re gonna need a drink for this.’ The alcohol burns his tender throat but he knows Jack is gonna get him to talk anyway and its easier with the rum so he drinks. And he talks.
Jack doesn’t call him an idiot but its strongly implied. Izzy doesn’t know what he expects him to do, its not as if he chose this. He doesn’t call him an idiot though, instead he. Takes care of him? Its odd, he knows Jack isn’t as callous and heartless as he pretends to be, knows he’s actually got pretty good bedside manners in fact (There’d been a time before all the legend and everything after when they were all sailing together, they’d lost their medic during a raid and Jack stepped up. He was no doctor but he knew enough to keep everyone from dying til they go someone new. He also had a child and Izzy knew, for all that he was regularly absent from their life, he wasn’t an absent father. He knew how to care for people.), but it surprises him nonetheless to have it turned towards him. Like it matters to him that Izzy is as comfortable as he can be, given the circumstances.
Izzy manages to be up and around most days but they’re growing fewer. Lacking much better to do (he’s never been good at sitting idle) he follows Jack around when he can manage to get out of bed. On days where he can’t Jack still goes out, Izzy wonders why, he mostly just drinks and fucks around, its hardly as if he can’t do that here with Izzy. He supposes he must not make for very good company, sorry state he’s in. Still.
He’s more than a bit annoyed that it takes him hacking up even more flowers after Jack leaves one morning, with a ‘Be back sometime this evening Babydoll, I got something for you,’ to realize. ‘Fuck’s sake,’ he rasps, staring down at the mound of three distinct types of petals. He’s so tired. He’ll clean it up later, promises himself he’ll be up before Jack gets back to clean them up.
He dreams of warm hands, fond smiles, soft touches, and tender voices and wakes coughing up more and more flowers. He can’t breathe. Tears sting his eyes, from the pain in his throat and his lungs, at the thought of being alone at the end like this. He spares a brief thought towards how Jack will react, coming back this evening to find him gone. Wonders how Stede would react. Edward. Still more flowers.
The door bursts open and Izzy doesn’t have the air or the energy to startle. Jack. Jack is there and he looks panicked. And there’s Stede behind him. And Edward. Somehow Izzy finds the air to let out a hysterical little laugh, it comes out more of a gasp. Must have died already, he thinks, how else could they all be here, as though his thoughts summoned them.
‘Izzy!’ He’s not sure which of them is calling him, his vision is starting to go spotty and his ears are ringing. Maybe none of them, maybe its a trick of his desperate, dying mind. There’s hands on him, warm and soft and. Instinct tells him to fight, he can’t see who’s touching him, he knows he needs to fight but. He’s so tired. He can’t see but he feels his eyes slip shut.
‘Izzy, I love you.’
Nothing.
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