Chapter Text
Concern. A hint of fear. And then just empty space, wind in his ears, and a moment of sheer bewilderment. Huh?
Then he hits the water.
It’s cold, freezing, and at the shock of it his body inhales without his permission as the water gets in his nose, his ears, his mouth- he can’t breathe. Christ, he’s drowning. There’s no thought to what happened or how he got here, it doesn’t matter, all that matters is that he is going to die if he doesn’t do something now.
He’s hyperventilating, and that is so stupid because he’s breathing in water, but he can’t stop gasping for air. In the brief spaces between gulping for air, he screams for help. He doesn’t know who he’s screaming for, he can’t think, he just needs anyone to do anything. His limbs flail in the water. Lucius has never been a good swimmer, and his body is moving on pure instinct; it takes another moment to get his bearings enough to remember how to keep his head above water.
The ship. It’s moving; he has to grab it, somehow, hang on, because if it leaves him behind he will almost certainly die. His hands grab for it blindly, slapping around like they’re going to find some sort of handle, and he has to kick his legs twice as hard to make up for not using his arms to stay up. It’s not working, he can’t swim without his arms and the barnacles are cutting the shit out of his hands, he has to-
Rope. There’s rope, the extra rigging hanging off the ship, and he lunges for it, managing to grab some. He pulls himself farther along the rope, closer to the ship. He can climb it.
But as he tries to pull himself up- and fuck, it feels colder outside of the water, what the fuck- he realizes it’s not going to work. He’s gone from yelling to coughing violently, body spasming too hard trying to cough up the water he’s inhaled, and his fingers are too slow in the cold, and it certainly doesn’t help that he’s missing one, and he’s never had great upper body strength anyway, so Lucius barely gets his knees out of the water before he slips and falls back in.
He tries to hold his breath this time but he can’t stop fucking coughing so he just breathes in more water and hardly manages to grab the rope again before it slips away. He follows it to the side of the ship again, literally hanging on for dear life as he tries to just fucking breathe. His whole body hurts but his chest is especially sore from exertion and his throat is burning and his head feels like it’s going to explode. He coughs so hard he throws up, and then keeps hacking up nothing.
He forces in enough air that he can at least start actually processing again, and tries to think past the panic and the pounding in his head to what the hell he’s going to do next. He can’t risk falling and losing the rope, but he can’t stay like this, either. His arms are already starting to go numb, and if he passes out- which, with the cold water and his struggle to catch his breath, feels alarmingly likely- he will drown.
He has to tie himself to the ship. High, high enough to keep his head out of the water if-when- he blacks out. He works a knot around his shoulder, leaving enough slack to tie more. It’s too dark to see very well, especially past the fucking water in his eyes, and what feeling he still has in his hands is mostly pain from getting them sliced to shit, but he’s tied enough goddamn knots on this goddamn ship to get through it. He has to hold his arm up to get another knot below his elbow, one-handed this time. It’s messy, and ugly, but it doesn’t need to be elegant- it’ll hold him and it’s not the only one he has if it comes untied, and that’s enough. When he’s done, he collapses a little.
He's not breathing well, but he’s also not about to cough up a lung anymore, and it may not be enough but it’s still a relief. His arm hurts. Both of them hurt, but the one that’s currently dragging him behind a moving ship hurts more. Lucius wants to pass out. He feels cold and painful and heavy, and fucking exhausted, but he’s not done yet. He’s still angling his head above the water, he’s not high enough to know he won’t slip underwater again.
He wants to give up. He wants to not be here. He wants to be in his little ‘bed’ on the ship, warm and safe and curled up with Pete- Pete. Damn it. He doesn’t want to try to hold himself up on the rope with one hand while the other is forced through the process of tying another fucking knot. But, fuck, he doesn’t want to die, either. And if he doesn’t do it now…
Still wheezing, he manages to pull himself a little higher up the rope with both arms, but as soon as his right arm lets go, the left hand fails him and he drops lower again, the friction from the rope pulling at the cuts on his hands. Fuck. He tries again, but his damn hand is too shaky and numb and wet and finger-missing to hold him for even just the minute he needs to tie the last knot around his wrist. He tries again. And again. And again. All he gets for his troubles is more rope burn, which just makes it even harder because the blood makes the rope too slick to hold on to.
Maybe it’s fine the way it is. Maybe he won’t pass out. Maybe, if he’s lucky, when- if- he does pass out, his head will be facing up and be buoyant enough not to sink too far, so maybe it’s okay if he just drifts off for a bit… and maybe the sun is made out of goddamn rainbows and unicorns and maybe he’s a fucking idiot.
This time when he pulls himself up, he grabs some of the rope by his teeth and kicks his legs as hard as he can, managing to take just enough weight off his left hand to hold himself up while his right hand clumsily ties one last knot. The second it’s done, Lucius lets himself go limp. The strain on his tied-up left arm is painful, but it’s high enough to keep his shoulder above water, so even if his head falls to the side- which, without a reason to hold itself up, it immediately does- he’s still breathing air. Thank god. Thank god.
Assured that he isn’t going to die immediately, his body quickly starts shutting down. He has just enough brainpower left to realize that he’s lost his wooden finger. Pete’s going to be so upset, he thinks, and finally passes out.
***
Fang has been a pirate for most of his life; he’s seen enough death and destruction to be pretty much immune to it. The chaos of pirate life is entirely natural to him. He takes intimacy where he can get it, indulges pleasure when it’s available to him. And the past few weeks, working on the Revenge with Co-Captain Bonnet and his crew, have given him more of both than he’s had in a long time.
The story times with Bonnet spoiled him. Damned if he didn’t like that bizarre little man’s bizarre little crew. They were friends with each other, and they didn’t have to hide the fact. And they’d taken Fang in, shared their inside jokes, included him in their near-mutiny against Izzy. There was a sort of casual intimacy there he’d never seen before; they weren’t all soulmates or anything, but they trusted each other.
But that’s over now. Bonnet’s skipped town; Blackbeard’s vicious again; pretty much the entire crew of the Revenge is gone- maybe dead, soon. It’s hard, pushing the soft core of himself back down deep after finally getting to expose it. Arguing with Blackbeard when he’s like this would be a suicide mission, and Fang’s got a feeling that the captain’s not so open to the sappy stuff anymore. It’s not just because of Bonnet. When the captain first got back, he was in downer mood, sure, but they were going to- what was the phrase? Get through? Work it through? Something like that, it didn’t matter, so long as it was as a crew. They were even going to have a talent show! Fang and Ivan were working out a dance sequence to perform together.
Then, overnight, something changed. Lucius was gone, somehow disappeared from the ship in the middle of nowhere, and the captain was Blackbeard again. Fang has chosen not to think too hard about this, because he really likes Lucius, and it’s going to be harder to take Blackbeard’s orders if he jumps to some sort of conclusion, like that the captain almost certainly killed the boy. They marooned all the others but Jim and Frenchie, neither of whom were still here by choice, exactly. Blackbeard kept Frenchie because a certain number of hands are needed just to run a ship and Frenchie is the best sewer to update the flag (which both Ivan and Fang agree is too cheesy for their renewed tough-pirate image, and which Izzy can’t look directly at without grimacing).
And Jim is supposedly going to be won over to join their crew for real, somehow. Fang’s pretty sure that plan failed the second they marooned Oluwande, but he isn’t sure the captain ever paid enough attention to Jim to realize that. He was pretty swept up with Bonnet. The only other Revenge crew member he really talked to was… well, Lucius, which is bringing up a dangerous subject again, so maybe Fang should stop reflecting and focus on his 11th consecutive hour of lookout duty instead.
The problem is that there’s not much to look out for. Ivan’s guarding Jim, and Frenchie’s the only one sleeping on the deck, so Fang’s basically alone up here. They aren’t expected to run into land or anything for another few days on their course, and any other ship should already know not to fuck with Blackbeard. There’s really not much to do, and on a ship with a full crew lookouts change shifts every few hours, so such a long shift with nothing to occupy him now that everyone’s gone to sleep is hard to stay awake for.
He gets busy with busy work. Yep, the mast’s all set up right. The deck looks clean enough. Oh, there’s some rope hanging off the side of the ship; he might as well pull it up. But when he pulls at it, it’s much heavier than it should be. Has something gotten tied up in it? There’s a reason the unused rigging’s usually not left out on a well-run ship.
When he looks over the edge to see what’s holding down the rope, he can make out a shape being dragged beside the ship. It looks almost like… a person? Is there a person tied to their boat? Fang starts pulling up the rope. It’s definitely heavy enough to be a person, but Fang’s a big guy himself, and as he braces himself against the rail he makes steady progress dragging whatever it is up the side.
Something appears through the rail, rising slowly over the top. It looks like a hand- attached, of course, to an arm. It is a person. When Fang gets closer to grab the hand to pull it up, he sees it’s missing a finger. His grip on the rope loosens enough for the body to drop just out of sight, but he quickly gets hold of it again. Jesus, Lucius?
He pulls the body back up the few feet it had slipped, and when he grabs the arm and gets a look at the rest of it, he sees that it is, in fact, the ship’s scribe. He lifts the man over the railing and drops him softly to the deck.
The boy’s soaking wet, of course, and freezing cold, and the shoulder tied to the rope is definitely dislocated, but he’s breathing. That much is obvious because the breaths are shallow but loud, raspy in a way that’s not usually a good sign. Fang is torn between thrilled that Lucius is alive and worried that he won’t be for long. He has to get help. He’s about to yell out, when it strikes him that he doesn’t know why Lucius was overboard. He either got thrown overboard and tied himself to the ship, or was tied and then thrown over to be dragged along like a modified, prolonged keelhauling. Either way, there’s a good chance he’s not supposed to be rescued.
If it were a few months ago, or if it were someone else, Fang might do the reasonable thing and throw him back. If Blackbeard or Izzy want someone dead, it’s in Fang’s best interest to play along. But it’s Lucius, and Fang really likes Lucius. He’s friendly and hot and he’s taken an interest in him that no one else has before. Fang doesn’t want him to die. So he’ll save him. But it has to be secret, so he’s gotta be careful about it. Find someone he can trust.
Frenchie’s just a few meters away, and there’s no way he’d sell out a member of his own crew to Blackbeard- he’s perfect.
“Sorry Lucius,” Fang whispers as he leaves the body for a minute. “Be right back.” He creeps over to Frenchie’s hammock, where the bard’s lying dead to the world with a strip of cloth tied over his eyes.
Fang pulls up the cloth, and in response Frenchie immediately bolts up and pulls away, nearly falling out of the hammock. “What-“
“Shh!”
Frenchie looks at him with wild eyes, calming when he recognizes the other pirate. “Oh,” he says, and Fang shushes him again. “I thought you were Izzy come to kill me,” he whispers, and then pauses. “Are you here to kill me?”
“No,” Fang waves him off. “Come with me.”
Frenchie climbs out of his hammock and follows Fang down the deck. “Are we doing a mutiny? Where’s Jim? What are we-“ he stops when he sees Lucius lying there, eyes going wide for a moment as he quiets down and gets closer. He seems to find what he’s looking for. “Not dead,” he murmurs in relief. “What happened?”
“I don’t know.” Fang kneels down to start untying the knots around the scribe’s arm. They’re sloppy and bloody, which makes him think Lucius must have tied them himself, probably because he was saving himself from something he wasn’t supposed to survive. “I think he was thrown overboard.”
There’s a second of silence. “Izzy or Blackbeard, do you think?”
Fang just shakes his head.
“Right, so that explains the whispering. What do we do with him? We can’t leave him up here on the deck, and it’s not like either of us have rooms to keep him in.” Another pause. “Jim has a room, but Ivan’s guarding it.” There’s an obvious question in Frenchie’s voice, but he doesn’t ask it.
Fang considers. “I can ask to switch,” he says as he carefully pushes the boy’s shoulder back into place. “We can hide Lucius somewhere nearby, then I switch with Ivan, and when he’s gone we bring in Lucius.”
Frenchie inhales doubtfully but makes a clicking sound of resignation. “Yeah. That’s probably our best shot.”
They start lifting him together, but it quickly becomes apparent that it’s easier for Fang to just carry him like a baby. Frenchie leads him to a storage closet near Jim’s room, and Fang deposits Lucius on top of a crate of oranges. “Stay here,” he says, and Frenchie gives him a thumbs up. He’s looking around at the supplies when Fang closes the door.
Fang turns the corner to the corridor leading to the room. He tries to look casual, but Ivan’s eyes narrow as soon as they catch him. “I thought you were on lookout,” he says, eyes darting around the hall to see if anyone’s followed.
“Yeah,” Fang starts, and realizes he hasn’t planned an excuse. Ivan’s just looking at him, though, so he goes for it. “Wanna switch?”
Ivan stares at him for a second. “What?”
“Wanna switch?”
Ivan looks around again. “Did Blackbeard tell you to-“
“No,” Fang admits. It’s not great. Going against orders, even just switching positions, is usually a big no-no, and if the captain’s gone back to being Blackbeard… “Please.”
There’s a pause that’s longer than Fang would like. Ivan looks at him conflictedly, once again looking around as if Izzy’s about to jump out and catch them. Whatever he’s looking for, he doesn’t seem to find it. Finally, voice strained and low, he says, “Fine. Not for long, but, fine.”
“Thank you,” Fang sighs in relief. “Not for long. I’ll be up again soon and we can switch back.”
Ivan nods doubtfully, but moves out of the way to let Fang take over. As he’s about to turn the corner, he turns back. “Fang. Whatever you’re doing… don’t get caught, yeah?”
****
When Fang closes the door, there’s a moment of rest as Frenchie waits for someone to tell him what to do before he realizes it’s just him, a bunch of supplies, and an unconscious Lucius. And that doesn’t sound right. Frenchie has particular skills- he’s good at music, he can sew like the wind, he’s good at keeping his head down and at charming people into giving him secrets and money. He’s not exactly the kind of person you turn to in a crisis. Roach is the doctor of the ship- more of a surgeon, really, but the closest they have to a doctor. And Lucius definitely looks like he needs one.
He's started shivering, and he’s wheezing, and he’s soaking wet and freezing cold. Frenchie doesn’t even know where to start… so he might as well start anywhere, right?
The clothes are dripping everywhere, and there’s no way Lucius is going to dry off in those, so they should probably go. Necktie, jacket, shirt- all heavy with water and salt, but not too hard to remove; harder than if he were cooperating, but easier than if he were fighting, probably. Frenchie drops them in a pile on the floor. Lucius usually takes better care of his things, but it’s not like he’s going to complain right now, and anyway the floor is hardly the worst thing to happen to those clothes in the last few hours.
Frenchie takes the pants off next, and it’s convenient that they’ve always been so loose and baggy. He leaves the underwear on- that would be cheeky, wouldn’t it? Nothing he hasn’t seen before, living on the same ship and all, but if they’re going to Jim’s room… well, maybe Jim’s seen it all too, but maybe not. So he leaves them alone. As for what to replace the clothes with… Frenchie just takes the edges of the tarp protecting the oranges Lucius is lying on and wraps it around him like a blanket.
The shaking’s a little worse, but maybe that’s a good sign- like his body’s fighting off the death spirits. And, oh, Frenchie’s mom always taught him that peppermint would ward off spirits that stole your breath, though it doesn’t work on cats. It would be good if he could find some here. And grog- seawater will make a bastard thirsty like almost nothing else, and maybe he can use it to wash the cuts on his hands. Amputating both hands is a little beyond his level of expertise so it would be ideal not to get to that point.
He's still rummaging through the shelves when Fang comes back. He’s found a few bottles and some grog to fill them with, but no peppermint. Fang gives him a thumbs up and scoops up Lucius like he doesn’t weigh a thing. He doesn’t wait for Frenchie to finish up, so Frenchie just grabs some bottles of grog and the pile of wet clothes and follows. With any luck, the water will dry up by morning; just in case, he drops an empty bottle that might explain the mess. As for the tarp covering the oranges… well, it's just going to go missing. Nothing he can do about that now.
He scrambles to catch up to Fang, who’s waiting outside Jim’s door. That’s smart; Jim might’ve cut his nuts off if he walked in by himself with an unconscious crew member. Jim isn’t much one for friends, other than whatever their relationship was with Oluwande, but Lucius is probably close enough. So it makes sense to let Frenchie take the lead.
He knocks lightly on the door, but doesn’t wait for an answer before he opens the door. Unsurprisingly, Jim’s already on their feet facing the door, looking ready to pounce. They soften a little when they see Frenchie, but tense up again when Fang follows. Their eyes narrow when they see Lucius; Frenchie has enough experience with people- especially people like Jim- to know that they’re deciding whether or not to take this as a threat.
He steps in to help with that decision. “Before you do anything, hear me out. Obviously things have gone pretty crazy.” Jim’s brows furrow, and Frenchie notes that, okay, maybe it’s not that obvious to someone who’s been locked in their room all day. But that’s not the point. “We found Lucius overboard, and we’re pretty sure we’re not supposed to be helping him, so we need somewhere to hide him so Izzy and Blackbeard won’t find him. You hid Lucius before, right? Last time he went missing? So we figured you could maybe, you know. Do that again. Please. Because if you don’t, they’ll probably kill him, and maybe kill us for helping, and then you’ll be all alone on the ship so really it’s better for everyone if you just help hide him.”
Jim’s eyes dart back and forth between Frenchie, Fang, and the door throughout the speech, but they linger longest on Lucius. “Fine,” they grit out, and make way for Fang to put Lucius down on the bed. The scribe has unconsciously curled into the bigger man’s chest, which is pretty cute, even if it’s just for body heat, and Fang seems hesitant to leave him. “Where’s Oluwande?”
This is the hard part. “He’s not here,” Frenchie starts, and that’s about as far as he gets before Jim has him cornered up against a wall. They’ve got an arm up against his chest, and their hand flexes emptily by the side of his throat like it’d rather be holding a knife. Fang is watching but makes no move to help. Great.
“Then where is he?”
“ G-gone, but he’s okay, I think, for now.”
“For now?”
“He and the others never came back from the talent show. Only Izzy and Ivan came back, but they weren’t bloody or anything, so I don’t- I don’t think they hurt them. Just left them. Marooned them. And that’s not great, obviously, but they’re fine- they’ll be fine, someone’s bound to find them, right? So they’re- they’re okay.”
Jim seems entirely unconvinced, but lets up a bit. “Who else?”
“Everyone.” This surprises Jim enough that they let him go entirely. “We’re the only ones left.”
They look him up and down skeptically. “Why you?”
A bit rude. “Um, Blackbeard wanted me to sew something for him.”
“Olu can sew,” Jim says mulishly.
“Sorry to interrupt,” Fang cuts in, “but can one of you come over here and try to warm him up a little? I’d better get back out there; keep up appearances and keep an eye out for Captain or the Spewer.”
“Right.” Frenchie moves to take his place next to the bed, where Lucius is shaking like a leaf under the blanket. Lucius makes a little noise when Fang leaves, which is nearly enough to pull him back down, but Frenchie nudges him away. “Go on, then.”
Fang hesitates, but finally steps out of the room, stopping to take one last, long look before he closes the door in resignation.
“Good. Okay, that’s sorted. What’s next?”
Jim’s jaw works back and forth for a second. Finally, they say, “Oluwande has an extra shirt. It’s too small but he won’t throw it away because he actually paid for it. It’ll probably fit him.”
“Great! Perfect. You do that then. And I will… uh… wash his hands.”
“Sure.” They don’t look up from the drawer they’re digging through.
Frenchie takes a second to take stock of the damage. There’s a finger missing, but that’s not new- shame the wooden finger’s gone, but it’s not a medical emergency. There are plenty of cuts, some of which are bleeding sluggishly, and some on the left hand look like they’ve been torn up a bit. Bandages would be good. He has to remember to get those for next time. And maybe his sewing kit, too; some of the cuts look pretty bad. But he doesn’t have either of those things right now, so instead he just douses the wounds in grog and pats them down with the tarp.
By the time he’s done that- which he can only hope was helpful- Jim is standing over him with a shirt and a pair of pants. He grabs the pants and starts pulling them on to Lucius’s body- harder getting them on than off, it turns out, which Lucius would make a joke about- and expects Jim to start on the shirt, but they just stare at him.
When he’s finally done with the pants- or close enough, anyway- he again pauses for Jim to do the shirt. They wrinkle their nose at him. He sighs. “Fine. But the least you can do is hold him up, alright?”
Jim huffs dramatically but complies, pulling up the torso so Frenchie can maneuver the shirt on. It’s hard, with the shaking and all, and it doesn’t help that the wheezing has progressed to raspy gasps and his breath smells shit. When Frenchie’s got the arms in the sleeves and the head through the neck hole, Jim drops the scribe unceremoniously before he can roll the shirt down properly. “Why the hell does his breath smell like that?”
As if to answer- but more probably because of the movement- Lucius promptly starts coughing so hard Frenchie worries he’ll have to deal with a hacked-up lung. It’s loud, honestly more powerful than Frenchie would have thought he was capable of right now, and Jim slaps a hand over his mouth to quiet him down. Frenchie pushes his head to side so he doesn’t choke, unsure if that applies here, and is promptly vindicated when the coughing gets particularly wet and Jim makes a horrified face, gagging a little.
The coughing calms down soon after, and, lips shut tight, Jim removes their hand from Lucius’s mouth. Their palm is coated in dark, yellow-green slime. It smells. They hold their hand up stiffly, looking away and closing their eyes without saying a word. Frenchie takes what he assumes is the hint and wipes it off with part of the tarp. Opening their eyes again, they look at the walls, at Lucius, and at Frenchie before wiping off what remains on his shoulder.
“Oh, ew!”
“He spat up on my hand,” Jim hisses, looking murderous, “and I’m not wiping it on Olu’s and my things.”
Frenchie’s about to answer, but Fang- who has apparently reentered the room without either of them noticing, which isn’t that surprising for Frenchie but certainly is for Jim- beats him to it. “Is he okay?”
“He better be,” Jim scowls.
Frenchie sighs. It’s not easy being the most charismatic person in the room. “I think he’s fine. His breathing sounds a little better, at least.”
Fang nods. It’s strange, seeing how different he looks when he’s caring about something from when he’s just being one of Blackbeard’s crew. It’s like his eyes are bigger somehow. “It’s still too loud,” he says.
Jim frowns, but Frenchie doesn’t get it. “What? His breathing?”
“The coughing. I could hear it from outside. Not loud, but I could hear it. Anyone else guarding you is going to hear him too, and they’re going to come looking.”
“The chest muffles sound,” Jim sighs. “That’s where I kept him last time. And it’ll hide him if someone comes in the room.”
“You can’t cover his mouth if he’s there,” Frenchie points out.
Jim grimaces. “We’ll gag him.”
That doesn’t sound right. It sounds awful. “You can’t take a sick person, gag them, and stuff them in a box. That’s- there’s no way he’s going to get better like that.” He turns to Fang for help, but doesn’t find it.
Instead, Fang’s face has gone hard again. “If it’ll keep him quiet,” is all he says.
“He doesn’t like small spaces,” Frenchie says plaintively, as if that’ll change their minds. “When he wakes up he won’t know what’s going on. He won’t be able to breathe properly in there.”
“He won’t be able to breathe at all if they kill him,” Jim says darkly. Frenchie swallows hard. They’re right, but he can’t imagine doing that to somebody he’s trying to help. To a hostage, yeah, sure, fun, but a sick friend?
But the decision’s been made. Fang’s already moving closer to grab Lucius, looking grim, and Jim’s getting out of the way to let him. Frenchie feels like he should do something to stop it, even though it’s really the most reasonable option, and there isn’t exactly anything he can do against two people like Fang and Jim anyway. Instead he watches as Fang gently deposits Lucius into the chest and Jim tears an even strip off the side of the tarp.
Jim rips the long strip into three pieces- one with the spit-up on it, one that they knot up into a ball, and one that’s longer than the other two. The two clean- well, cleanish- strips are going to be the gags, then. Just as they’re about to put them to use, Frenchie finally snaps back into motion. “Grog,” he says.
Jim looks at him like he’s just said nonsense. “What?”
“He’s got to be thirsty. Let him- let him drink, first. I have grog.”
Fang nods. “We’ll leave some here. When he wakes up, he’ll probably want more. We’ll see how he takes it now.”
Frenchie brings a bottle, and Fang tilts Lucius’s head up so Frenchie can give him a bit of grog. His eyes only briefly flutter open, but he drinks what he’s given greedily, enough that he starts choking on it, and at the sound of the coughing Jim pushes Frenchie out of the way to shove the ball of fabric into his mouth and wrap the remaining strip around his head. They close the chest on him and jerk their head to the door. Fang takes the cue and slips out quickly, coming back a few moments later looking a little less tense.
“Couldn’t hear a thing,” he says.
But from this side of the door, kneeling just a few inches away from the chest, Frenchie can hear it. Choking, gagging, desperate sniffs of air through the nose. He gets up and walks to the door where it’s quiet. Jim’s watching him. He doesn’t want to be here anymore; he is, suddenly, exhausted.
Frenchie gathers himself for a moment before he speaks. “We should get back up before anyone notices anything.” He pauses. “I’ll take the tarp back to the storage room. Next time I’ll try to bring bandages or something for his hands.”
“Throw away the piece with the mucus on it.”
Right. The spit-up. He takes that piece of the tarp, folds it into his pocket, and grabs the rest. He goes straight to the storage room to throw the tarp back over the oranges- oh, right. They’ll have to feed him at some point. That can wait until he’s awake. For now, all Frenchie really wants is to go back to his hammock. He wants to fall asleep and forget about Lucius and the marooning and the Kraken. He wants to wake up to the sound of petty bickering and see Wee John sleeping in the hammock next to his.
Fang opens the door and beckons him out, meaning he’s already switched back with Ivan and the coast is clear to go back up top. Frenchie follows him up, just barely remembering about the fabric in his pocket before he collapses into his hammock. He drops it over the side of the ship and tries not to think about the man in the chest downstairs.
When he closes his eyes to sleep, Fang has already gone back to keeping watch. With any luck, he won’t find anything else tonight.
****
Jim’s always been a light sleeper- as long as they can remember, anyway. It wouldn’t be much good being an assassin who sleeps through trouble, after all. And being a light sleeper isn’t usually a problem. It’s a good security measure, and Oluwande’s both quiet and considerate enough that he doesn’t often wake them up.
Lucius, bound and gagged and probably completely out of it, is not so thoughtful.
He’s not loud, not through the gag and the chest, but he’s certainly not silent either. He is for a while, when the coughing dies down, but it only takes a few hours after that for him to start waking up enough to freak out. It’s not too big a deal- it’s not like he’s strong enough to really cause problems yet- just some light banging and barely audible cries. Jim doubts the guard can hear anything at all from the other side of the door, especially with the chest moved to the farthest wall.
So, for now, they swallow back their frustration. Of all the things they’d change right now, Lucius’s noise level barely makes the list. Sure, it’d be nice if he were quiet, but it would be nicer if he just weren’t sick and trapped in Jim’s chest, if he didn’t have to be hidden, if he hadn’t been thrown off the boat and left to die. It would be nicer if Blackbeard hadn’t lost his whole mind and gone evil on everyone, if he hadn’t marooned the whole crew, if Oluwande were here instead of on some fucking island in the middle of nowhere. There’s a lot wrong right now, and it wouldn’t be fair to take it out on Lucius just because he’s the one who happens to be here.
But Jim’s never been all that fair, and their blood is practically burning in their veins, and they can’t sleep with the fucking noise coming from the chest. They push themselves out of bed and stride over to the chest, pounding on the top to quiet him down. It’s for his own good, they reason; if anyone does happen to come in, and they hear him, it’s game over. So it’s good to scare the fight out of him, for now.
They open the lid, and quickly grab the arms that come flying up at them. They pin the arms back down to Lucius’s chest and hiss, “There’s a man outside the room, and if he hears you, he will kill you. Me entiendes? If you make noise, you will die.”
It’s hard to tell how much he’s understanding- his wide eyes are darting wildly all over the place and he definitely doesn’t seem lucid- but he does go nearly silent. He’s still shaking and his breathing is rough and erratic, but it’s not enough to be a problem. His eyes don’t settle, but they do find their way to Jim’s approximate location and waver there uncertainly, as if trying to find a place to focus. He tries to sit up. Jim pushes him back down.
“Be quiet and stay still. If they find you, you will die. Stay here.” They grab the lid and close it again, pretending not to see Lucius shaking his head desperately.
He may not like it, but he is quieter- finally quiet enough for Jim to get some sleep. But now they feel bad, and isn’t that ridiculous. They’re saving his life and they feel bad about it. Since when are they so soft, anyway? That’s usually Olu’s forte. If Olu were here, he’d know what to do. He’d probably think of something better than gagging Lucius in a box. And it’s always easier to sleep around Olu; Jim’s the fighter of the two of them, but being around him still makes them feel safer, warmer, more comfortable. But he’s gone, and now they have to worry about what the hell he’s going to do stranded on a deserted island. He’s smart, more than smart enough to get through pretty much anything, but being marooned with no resources…
It's impossible to tell if they get any sleep or not. If they do, it’s not nearly enough, and they’re in a hell of a mood when that asshole Izzy bursts into their room in the morning, gun drawn.
“Hijo de puta!” Jim covers themself up with the blanket. “Que mierda- what do you want?”
“The captain wants to see you,” he says. He doesn’t seem sorry for barging in- if anything, he looks glad to be making them uncomfortable. “You have 3 minutes to get dressed. I’ll wait outside.”
He doesn’t wait for an answer before slamming the door shut behind him. For a moment, Jim fantasizes about slitting his throat and watching the light fade from his eyes. Buttons could eat the remains. But that only lasts a moment; unfortunately, they don’t have any knives on them, and real life demands attention.
They grab their binder and get dressed. As they’re headed to the door, they remember their little secret.
Fuck. They kneel down by the chest and open the lid again. Lucius’s eyes wince at the light in the cabin- still alive, then. For now. “Remember, if you get caught, they’ll kill you. Don’t respond to anybody who comes in. Make noise and die, got it?” Jim whispers.
Lucius nods frantically, but still puts his hands up to stop the lid from coming back down. It doesn’t work.
Jim latches the chest closed, and waits a minute to be sure he’s not going to try to break out. No movement. Good; that honestly feels like a weight off their shoulder. They don’t get to relish in it- they don’t want Izzy to come back in and test the set-up, so they have to get moving.
Izzy’s waiting in the hallway, finger pointedly tapping his gun. He jerks his head to the side, motioning Jim forward. “Captain’s office,” he says.
Jim scowls at him, but doesn’t test his patience. Izzy follows them up the stairs- gun probably still pointed, though they can’t see it. When they reach the deck, there’s no sign of Frenchie. Not even either of Blackbeard’s other guys. The ship feels remarkably quiet… and, to Jim’s surprise, it’s not a welcome change.
The captain’s office is dark and clouded in smoke, but Jim can still make out the man sitting at the large desk. They can even see that he’s still wearing that stupid paint on his face. If Jim had a knife, and Izzy weren’t pointing a gun at them, they’d carve the painted flesh off his face and make him eat it. The sheer audacity of this man is infuriating- marooning Olu, knocking Jim out, locking them in their own room, and then demanding to speak to them at gunpoint all because of a stupid breakup…!
Jim has to bite the inside of their cheek to keep from lunging at him right there. They’re impulsive, but they’re not suicidal. They’ll get him, eventually, but for now they have to wait. For now…
“Jim,” Blackbeard greets, and they glower in response. “I trust you’ve thought about the offer to join my crew.”
“Toma tu maldita tripulación y métela en el traste. Ándate a joder!” They spit at him.
He doesn’t even blink. “We’re coming up on the Republic of Pirates tomorrow. I’m getting more crew there. It’s up to you if you want to join the crew before then, or if I’ll be giving your room to someone else. I’m sure Ivan and Fang could use a room. And if you don’t want to join the crew… I’m sure we’ll find somewhere to put you,” he says, and as if to underline the threat, Izzy clicks the safety off on his gun.
In their mind, Jim stuffs the gun down the fucker’s throat and pulls the trigger. In reality, they clench their fists so hard it hurts. They have to be smart about this- which is, again, usually Olu’s job. But it’s just Jim now. “Fine.” The word barely claws its way out of their mouth. “But I keep my room. And no one knows I’m not a dude. The beard goes back on, and I’ll be mute again- Frenchie can bring my food to the room and I’ll eat in there.” Something occurs to them, then. “And he moves in with me.”
“You don’t get to make demands, dog!”
“Quiet, Izzy,” Blackbeard waves him off. He looks intrigued. “Mute, huh? I can work with that. So long as you kill when I tell you to. You keep the room… and Frenchie can stay with you. I’m sure he’ll be just fine… as long as you cooperate, of course.”
Jim’s jaw is clenched too tight to get any words out. Instead, they nod jerkily, just barely keeping their anger in check.
“You’ll get your knives back when the rest of the crew is on board. You’re a good fighter, Jim. But even you can’t go up against an entire pirate crew. Until then,” he pauses, considering. “You have free roam of the ship. But we’ll be keeping an eye on you… Now get out.”
He turns away from them, and Izzy shoves them towards the door. “You heard the man, get out!”
It takes everything Jim has to keep from snapping, so instead they scream. Izzy just smiles.
Half an hour later, Jim finds Frenchie in the kitchen. He’s making food- it actually looks decent.
“You can cook?”
Frenchie startles at the sound of another person, but loosens up when he recognizes Jim. “I spent some time in service. Had to pick it up along the way.”
There’s a new bruise forming along the left side of his face, and Jim’s voice dies in their throat at the sight of it. Fuck. They wish so, so badly that they could kill whoever did it; they know that they can’t. Violence, the one thing they were raised for, is not an option right now, and it feels like a missing limb. Still, they don’t miss the way Frenchie says it- that he was ‘in service.’ He’s mentioned it before, but hasn’t really given any details. Jim’s never pushed. They know what that can mean for someone who looks like Frenchie; Olu grew up in the Republic of Pirates, away from all that, thank God, but they’ve made a point to avoid the mainland for that very reason.
Frenchie’s staring at Jim. “You good, babe?”
“Yeah,” they say. It tastes like ash. “You’re moving in with me.”
His hands still. “What?”
“Told Blackbeard. I’ll join the crew but you live in my room with me. We’re getting more guys tomorrow and I’m gonna be a man again. And we’re rooming together.”
“Oh,” he says simply, and is silent for a moment before bursting back to life. “Oh, great! I love being room people! So much better than sleeping on the deck- Wee John and I thought maybe we weren’t welcome there after the English raided, but now things are much worse, so that wasn’t the problem. Can we put up a sitting nook? Or do we need- the… space…” Frenchie trails off. “Oh, right. That. Yes. I can help with that too.”
Jim watches his thought process unfold in real time. “I’m going back to eating in my room. You can join. If you don’t like the new crew.”
Frenchie turns back to the food in front of him. “Do we wanna… start that today, or…?” He’s stirring something in the pot, but his eyes are looking around for anyone who might be listening.
“Better than eating with that pendejo Hands.”
Frenchie nods. “And it’s- well, not to be strange, but it’s not going to be uncomfortable, me sleeping in your room?”
“Maybe,” Jim answers honestly. They haven’t shared a room with anyone but Oluwande since they were a kid, and Frenchie is very much not Olu. “But I’d rather have you there. Make sure they haven’t, you know. Done anything.”
Frenchie breaks into a teasing smile. “Careful there, Jim- someone might get the impression you like me or something.”
On another day, Jim might have gotten annoyed, refuted it. But today, they’re just grateful for a bit of levity in the dark, a familiar tether in an otherwise unrecognizable storm. “Don’t get used to it.”