Chapter Text
Izzy knew his time was up the moment Bonnet sailed back into their lives, his impossibly alive crew in tow, and brought Edward back from the Kraken’s clutches.
His captain’s self-destruction was so much worse than watching him become someone soft and unfamiliar. He had seen Edward upset before, melancholy, sorrowful even, but never lost in such torment as he was after Izzy pushed him past the brink.
It was retrospect that gave Izzy that clarity. When Ed would smile at Stede or laugh with the crew, Izzy’s heart would break thinking of what he almost destroyed.
Izzy took night watches because it meant he wouldn’t have to think about it.
He wouldn’t have to hear Edward’s laugh and remember his sobs.
He wouldn’t have to see Edward with Bonnet and know, in his bones, that he could never match.
So instead, he hung to the outskirts and tried to be helpful the only way he knew how: as a first mate.
Even for that, though, they no longer needed him. Months of sailing to catch up with the Revenge had shaped Bonnet’s crew into halfway decent sailors, none of whom respected him.
With nothing to occupy his mind, Izzy found himself more and more thinking about something Edward said in a fit of drunken despair.
“I just wanted to be Edward. Not Blackbeard. Just Edward, but he’s not enough.”
Izzy couldn’t understand it at the time, but he also couldn’t remember when he was just…Israel.
The X under his eye would sting at the thought of being anything other than Izzy Hands, First Mate. All he knew how to be was Blackbeard’s. But Blackbeard was dead, and Izzy didn’t fit into Edward’s new life.
Finally, after months of feeling himself slip away, he knew it was time to go.
That night he hovered on deck while Stede read his crew a tall tale of beasts and love. Edward was beautiful, like always, eyes shining with lantern light and adoration for his lover.
They looked good, together. They looked happy. They all did.
Edward caught his eye and raised a glass to him. Izzy burned the image into his memory and knew that he would carry it in his heart until he sunk beneath the waves. His chest ached as he gave a nod and Edward turned away from him for the last time. Turned to his better life.
Thank you, Edward, he thought, I’m sorry.
He was gone by morning.
-
Bellamy was a twat then and a twat now, but it still felt good to be among proper pirates again.
He reminded himself of that daily. This was real piracy. Wake up, eat, maintain the ship. Raid, drink, sleep.
Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.
He reminded himself every time he bit into hardtack and thought of seasoned stews and fresh fruits. He reminded himself every time he heard the off-key shanties of piss drunk sailors and thought of pleasant lute chords.
He reminded himself when he lay on the hammock he managed to bully someone out of and thought about soft pillows and sheets. He reminded himself when he overheard tales of questionable sexual conquests and thought of books with dragons and princes.
It was near enough to drive Izzy to madness, how despite his best efforts he allowed Bonnet and his ridiculous crew to soften him. He’d been happy with his life before they came along.
Hadn’t he?
The question grated enough he tried to drown it with excess ruthlessness, but even that was ruined for him now.
Cutting flesh just made him think of Jim.
Knocking out teeth, the Swede.
He couldn’t even enjoy setting fire to ships without thinking of fucking Feeney.
But in everything he did he very specifically, with great difficulty only worsened by the aching of his heart, did not think about Edward.
Edward was happy.
He was happy.
It was fine.
-
Izzy had been made the first mate, then given his own ship, and it all felt so fucking hollow some nights he debated throwing himself into the ocean.
But then the storm came, Sam Bellamy and his crew actually did get thrown into the ocean, and the prospect stopped being so tempting.
The Whydah sunk below the waves and took the rest of Izzy’s fight with it. In his cabin, he stared at his small looking glass, touched the X under his eye, and asked himself the unanswerable question once again.
Izzy Hands he knew, but who was Israel?
Maybe it was time he found out.
-
Izzy always had an ear for the grumblings of a situation about to go sour, a habit left over from decades of cutting off mutinies (and appendages) to protect Edward.
New Providence was seeing more Navy activity, and thus, Acts of Grace.
A fuckery brewed in his head.
In any English settlement, there were bound to be at least a few ‘former’ pirates mixed amongst the usual men. Very few found their re-education enlightening enough to deny an old crewman when asked for a favor.
On the west of the island was a small town, apparently not big enough to warrant second thought about sticking two fucking pirates on prison duty.
He approached them as they drank one night, offering two pouches fat with coin for a simple request. Did they have any enemies? Perhaps someone in his size? They were eager enough to help that the answer was likely yes.
With a plan in place, Izzy kicked up enough dust to get a target on his back. Going against decades of survival experience, he made his movements obvious and loud. Then he scheduled a time to meet with a back alley trader and told his new friends where it would be.
The dinghy trip was long and silent.
Izzy got to the shoreline, took a deep breath, and walked into the navy’s trap.
-
“You sold me out!” Izzy snarled, nose broken and blood coating his goatee. His stomach churned at the irony of the words leaving his lips.
He was taken away to rot in a prison cell until morning because Izzy Hands’ hanging would be a spectacle one wouldn’t want to miss.
Predictable twats.
It was four hours from sunrise when his ‘reformed’ pirate contacts shoved a man, bound and gagged, into his cell. He was exactly Izzy’s height and a very approximate build. Izzy’s own hair was shorter, but a similar shade of gray. An easy fix.
He was perfect.
Twenty minutes later and the man’s face was beaten bloody, his unconscious form at Izzy’s feet. Another ten and he was dressed in Izzy’s clothes.
Izzy considered keeping his ring, the only thing aside from the X on his face truly left from Edward, but settled instead for pressing a gentle kiss to the green gem. It was too risky to take.
The next morning a battered man, completely incapable of speech from a shattered jaw, hung at the gallows and then the eastern sea wall.
Israel Hands, stowed away in the hull of a merchant’s vessel, sailed to the west.
-
Israel expected faking his own death to be the hard part of this particular personal journey, not what comes after, but then he starts feeling the ship rock with the familiar rhythm of a sea about to storm and he remembers how shit his luck is.
He’s grateful it’s been well over a day since they set sail. At least there’s nothing for his stomach to throw up when he feels it churning. He keeps himself from dry-heaving to avoid the noise, but with the way the crew is screaming at each other on deck, it isn’t really needed.
A nasty wave hits the ship and Israel’s shoulder slams onto the wall. He hisses in pain as he hears “man overboard!” and realizes that he may have gone through the trouble of faking his death just to die in a fucking storm two days later.
That’s not going to happen.
He makes his decision (not really a decision at all, considering the alternative) and rushes up to the deck. It looks just as bad as it sounded from below. Rain is coming down so hard he almost can’t see, crewmen and unsecured cargo are sliding across the boards, and the mast looks dangerously close to cracking.
He can barely hear the captain shouting orders on the other side of the ship, but decades of experience kick in and he jumps into action, relaying the commands and moving to help the overburdened crew. The looks he gets only last as long as it takes the next wave to hit.
When the storm finally passes, the deck is silent.
In front of Israel stands who he assumes to be the captain of the ship, a barrel-chested man of about his same age.
The captain looks him up and down, then gestures with his head to the door leading below deck.
“Come with me.”
He’s led to the captain’s cabin and sat down in a chair across from a very old desk.
The captain reaches underneath and produces a bottle of something golden, then pours two healthy glasses. He holds one out to Israel, not unlike one would a friend. His eyes crinkle at the edges with kind humor.
“Aren’t you a little old for a stowaway?”
In conversation, he learns that Captain William Connell is just over 60, with more years spent sailing than most of his crew have spent alive. Israel knows he’s been clocked as a pirate, the tattoos and grizzled face are hard to misinterpret, but as they talk William doesn’t bring it up.
What does come up is that Israel is a competent sailor looking for a fresh start, and William is in need of someone on crew with “a head on their shoulders and a brain behind their eyes.”
When they emerge above deck William tells the crew they have a new member.
He stands up straight and introduces himself as Israel.
-
Israel learns that spending a lifetime as a pirate makes him uniquely adept at avoiding them, which he could have guessed, but is nice to know regardless. Over the next few months he suggests small improvements to the ship which, to his pleasant surprise, William always enacts.
The first time they outrun a pirate ship the crew gets him so drunk in celebration he sleeps the entire next day. They’re confident in taking more valuable cargo, which means their pockets are respectably lined.
Israel grows his hair out to his shoulders and keeps it tied in a bun. He lets his beard cover his whole jaw, but still keeps it trimmed and neat. He actually stops wearing black in favor of the more neutral tones of his crewmates.
Many nights end in William’s cabin, drinking and sharing stories of their lives. There are no hidden daggers on this ship, no mutiny afoot. Israel finds himself more relaxed and open than he’s ever been. In William, for the first time in decades, he’s found a friend.
Maybe that’s what gets him talking about Edward.
He doesn’t say who Edward is. He doesn’t even use Edward’s name. But he finds that once he begins talking about him Israel just…can’t stop himself. It’s been over a year since he left the Revenge. It’s the longest he’s been apart from Edward since they were boys.
He talks about being young lads stuffed into single hammocks on filthy ships. About how they learned to sail together, to fight together, to read the stars and the clouds and each other. He spares William the more gory details.
After many more nights and many more drinks, Israel, in a quiet voice, tells William about how he loved Edward. How scared he had been when Edward strayed from the life they built together. He tells him about Bonnet, and the jealous rage Israel felt seeing Edward swoon over him.
He can’t bring himself to admit to William what he said to Edward that day in the captain’s cabin, only that it was cruel and unfair, and he knew it was a mistake the moment he saw the light extinguish from Edward’s eyes.
“Eventually, his lover came back for him. The universe gave him another chance at happiness, and I wouldn’t stand in the way of it again. I couldn’t.”
William hums thoughtfully. “So you set out to find your own? Happiness, I mean.”
Israel scoffs, but William looks at him expectantly.
Was happiness what he set out to find when he left? Izzy was the antithesis of happiness. His presence alone kept Edward from it for god knows how many years.
Israel drinks rather than answer. William doesn’t push, but the question sticks with him as he tries to sleep.
What makes Israel happy?
He thinks of his easy camaraderie with William. He remembers the way the Revenge crew interacted with each other, and the sharp undercurrent of jealousy he’d masked with bitterness.
He wonders, now, what it would have been like if he’d assimilated along with Ivan and Fang. He can see them as clearly as he sees Edward in his final memory aboard the Revenge, comfortable and warm, surrounded by people they could call friends, not just a crew.
But Izzy Hands wasn’t capable of that, so wrapped up in anger and pain as he was then. Izzy could only ever be what he always had been, Blackbeard’s right hand.
Thinking about it, Izzy was dying long before a body hung from that eastern sea wall.
Israel wants to go home.
-
Two months later Israel is asleep in his bunk when a commotion on deck has his eyes flying open.
“Pirates!”
He launches himself upright, grabs the cutlass and pistol he keeps by his bed, and rushes up the stairs.
The moonless night has given way to the first lights of dawn, and Israel curses under his breath. On the horizon, much closer than it should be, is a large ship flying a black flag. They must have been tracking them and extinguished all their lights to take advantage of the dark.
William is by the wheel, eyeglass pressed to his face and complexion white as a sheet.
“Captain?”
He lowers the glass with a grim expression. A number of scenarios go through Israel’s head, the final and most frightening of which is-
“Blackbeard.”
Israel immediately spins around so his back is to the oncoming ship. “Are you sure?”
William nods, once, never taking his eyes off the Revenge. Fuck, he can’t do this. For all that he loves and misses Edward and even, bloody hell, fantasizes about going back to him, this is too soon.
“I think we can outrun him, Captain.”
“I fucking hope so.”
Israel wraps a cloth around his face and joins the crew as they pull every trick he knows to try and escape, but every time Israel looks behind him the Revenge is closer.
He feels a pull on his soul so strong it’s a miracle he doesn’t fling himself overboard and swim to her.
Edward knows every trick Israel does (they taught each other most of them) so it’s only a matter of time before the Revenge gets close enough to fire a warning shot. The crew and captain agree it’s better to be boarded than sunk and raise the white flag.
Israel is terrified.
He jogs over to William and yanks him below deck, out of earshot of the crew and visual of the Revenge. He takes the fabric off.
“Captain. If I’m correct, there’s a man on that vessel that goes by the Gentleman Pirate. If I’m correct again, he’ll only be here to loot, not kill. If you oblige his commands we may all make it out alive.”
William gives him an incredulous look. “Some old friend of yours?”
Israel grasps for a way to explain that ‘old friend’ wasn’t exactly what he would call Stede Bonnet, but the silence stretches until he can see William connect the dots.
“You can’t be serious. Israel, you can’t be serious.”
Israel nods and casts his eyes down. There’s silence before William breathes heavily through his nose.
“Stay down here. Or don’t, it’s your choice. But if something goes wrong, I’ll protect my crew. I hope it’s with you, but from you, if I must.”
Israel nods. “Understood, Captain.”
William goes above deck and Israel stays below, trying to calm his racing heart.
What if Bonnet’s no-killing rule expired? What if Edward catches sight of Israel and runs him through for leaving? Fuck, what if Edward isn’t even there at all?
Boots hit the deck.
Israel moves to stand under the grates covering the cargo hatch so he can keep an eye out. He sees William standing with his pistol drawn, but doesn’t yet hear the noise of a fight. What he hears is-
“Ahoy, there! Seems we’ve finally caught you!”
Bonnet sounds like the exact same chipper peacock he was when Israel left, fucking christ-
Two heavy thuds as recognizable as Israel’s own heartbeat hit the deck next. “And it was a pain in the fucking ass, so don’t try anything brave. My patience is already up.”
Edward.
The tension on deck ratchets up once Blackbeard makes his appearance. Israel catches one of the youngest of the crew shifting his weight, a hand on his dagger and a very bad decision brewing in his head.
Bonnet is oblivious. “Now then, we’ll be taking your-“
“Like shit you will be!” the boy yells, making to lunge forward but aborting the motion when the sound of Bonnet’s crew pulling their blades echoes around. William holds out an arm but the energy has shifted.
Israel makes for the stairs and begins to climb but his body freezes in the doorway at the top.
Edward and Bonnet stand side-by-side on the deck with their backs to him, swords drawn and steady. Israel is certain he stops breathing, caught as he is by the sight of them.
It’s Jim who notices him first. Even with his hair pulled back and jawline covered, there’s no mistaking the X on Israel’s cheek or the tired lines around his eyes that he earned long before Bonnet came along.
Their jaw drops and they lower their dagger, a soft whisper of ‘mierda’ on their lips.
Israel meets William’s eye over Edward’s shoulder. Stede catches William’s focus shift and turns around, his sword dropping immediately from his hand once he sees what William is looking at.
Israel takes a deep, deep breath.
“Edward.”
Israel hadn’t screamed, but everything else on deck stops as if he had. Stede is still frozen in place, jaw slack. Jim hasn’t raised their blade again. William’s crew must see something change in Edward’s face because many lower their weapons.
Seconds seem to stretch into hours while he waits for Edward to face him. It takes so long Israel thinks perhaps he hadn’t heard, but finally he turns, and their eyes meet for the first time in over a year.
Nothing else exists for Israel in that moment but Edward…who looks fucking terrified.
“Edward,” Israel says again, quieter, taking a step into the light. He can see Edward’s breath catch in his chest and is overwhelmed by the urge to run to him, to smooth away whatever fear has taken hold of his captain, but Israel is fairly certain it’s his fault. Just like everything else was.
So instead he waits.
Edward’s first step toward him is hesitant, like if he moves too quickly Israel will disappear. It’s only as he gets closer does he speed up and let tentative hope replace the fear in his expression.
He tosses his sword aside and comes to a stop only inches away.
Edward’s hands are shaking as they come up to cup Israel’s face. His right thumb strokes over the X under his eye, the other hand firm over the swallow on his neck.
“…Izzy?” Edward whispers, broken, disbelieving, with tears rapidly filling his eyes.
Israel closes his eyes and leans into Edward’s touch, reaching up to place a hand over his.
It’s the warmest, softest thing he’s ever felt.
“Yeah, boss,” Israel whispers back, “It’s me.”
A sob rips itself out of Edward’s throat.
“I buried you,” he chokes, tears now freely running down his face, “I was too late, and you were gone, and I buried you.”
Israel can feel tears wet his own cheeks. “I’m sorry,” is all he can think to say, but apparently it’s enough.
Edward yanks him into his arms.
Audience be damned, Israel wraps his arms around Edward and holds on tight while Edward clings to him like a dying man to flotsam. The breath is crushed from Israel’s lungs, his ribs creak, and warm leather clings to his skin unpleasantly.
He never wants to let go.
He vaguely hears Stede and William behind them dissolving the remaining tension, but he couldn’t give a shit less about any of it.
Something inside of Israel slots back into place and he knows, without a doubt, he’s back where he’s meant to be in this world.
When they finally pull apart, eyes red and cheeks wet, Edward removes something from his own finger and places it in Israel’s palm.
His ring.
“Please,” Edward whispers, “Come home?”
Israel smiles.
He does.