Chapter Text
Fang blinked at the sunny sea.
She was sparkling today, better than diamonds. He remembered his pa’s wrinkly hands, fingers flattened from years of knotting rope, pointing at the horizon line, when it was peaceful and blue and there was nothing but them and the stillness and the fish. “I can’t give you and your ma diamonds,” his pa had said, “but I can give you that view.”
His pa had been a fisherman. When he was just a little one, Fang had always thought he would be the same.
Well. At least he still had the view.
The memory scattered when a voice rasped in his ear, “Captain wouldn’t like to see you lallygagging.”
Fang gripped the headsail he’d been tying. “He’s still sleeping, Izzy.”
“Oh, I see. You only have to work when he’s here to watch. You can explain that to the crew when we fuckin’ run aground because of your negligence.”
“Ain’t a crime to look at the sea,” Fang said, but he was back at his rope, his hands already protesting. His fingers were cramped something terrible. Worked to the bone, they’d been.
It hadn’t ever been this bad in the seven years he’d sailed under Blackbeard. His first captain had been mean as a pimple—that was when the price of fish had fallen, when Fang’s ma had gotten sick, when he thought pirating could be good for a spot of cash, before he knew he’d be robbing the rest of his days.
Blackbeard had always been better than that first fucker. He’d been wild, it was true—Fang choked down a sigh for his good old doggy, Mr. Snuffles. Sometimes the captain had yelled at em, threatened em, but mostly he didn’t. Mostly the captain had just been a bit odd; once in a while he was good for a laugh, making them play games on deck through a stretch of dull water. Mostly, he’d brood and smoke in his cabin and then appear to give some batshit command that steered them through a raid, order someone to torture a hostage, vanish again. It was Izzy, stupid little Izzy the Spewer, that did most of the daily chores. And he’d never seen that mean bastard meaner than he was now.
He could still hear the man’s ragged breath as he peered over Fang, watching him work. Fang tightened another knot, imagining it was Izzy’s neck.
He wished Blackbeard would wake up—but maybe he didn’t, because Fang had seen the man backhand someone blind a week ago, his face all haggard and smeared with ashy shit, looking like a madman. At least with Izzy, you knew what to expect.
A month back, when they had sailed with Mr. Bonnet’s crew, Blackbeard had been different. Like he was in one of his good moods all the time—he’d joke with them, he’d spend his time on deck, he’d play pranks and smile. Izzy had told them this was bad. At first, Fang had thought it wasn’t fair, and then he hadn’t minded. It wasn’t bad to relax and chat with the other boys. It wasn’t bad to play music together and swap stories and eat the best food he’d ever had at sea. All these little fancy desserts that you had to cradle with your fingers.
And then, it had all gone away, quick and abrupt as a whip. The music, the games, the laughs. He almost never saw the captain now, and when he did, the captain never smiled.
A blow cracked Fang’s jaw. A clatter of teeth. White-hot pain bloomed, driving out all the other thoughts.
“I said you have to work!” Izzy hissed, and Fang bent over the rope, head aching in time to his fingers.
The crunch of boots meant Izzy was walking away, but the sound paused, and Izzy spoke once more.
“Oh, and Fang—just so you don’t have any more doubts about your role here, you can be on hostage duty tonight.”
“Yes sir,” Fang mumbled, knowing he would get worse if he said anything else.
And he had done something that would send Izzy straight up the masthead if he ever learned about it. Better to lay low than give him a single reason to watch Fang any closer.
When Fang looked up, Izzy was gone, and the bright sea only made his eyes smart and his head ache.
God. He was so fucking tired.
He didn’t sleep much, these days. When he bothered to close his eyes, sick of the chore of keeping the fucking things open, the state that claimed him was more like unconsciousness, like the navel-tugging lurch of blacking out. He’d once gotten his head clapped with the hilt of a sword—forgot to guard his left side, stupid, but he’d been a little idiot then and didn't know how men needed to be wary—and the blow had made him cough up two days’ worth of hardtack, had kept him shivering and sweating in his hammock for a week.
When he slept, these days, it felt more like that. A hard, sickish tilt into oblivion. Dreams would come, and none of them made any fucking sense. People had the wrong faces and spoke in tongues he didn’t understand, and he would recognize where he was but couldn’t think for the life of him what it was called.
And then he would open his eyes, his body aching like a fat blister, and it wasn’t that different.
He could have stopped sleeping on the floor. But the bed was bad—the bed was terrible. The bed was a dick, and only bad, weak, sniveling things happened on that bed. Best to avoid the dickhead bed.
He could have stopped drinking so much rum. The last time he’d drank this much for this long, it had been fun as hell. The poison ran right through him, out with his piss. It made even the port towns dance to and fro like they were all rocking out to sea. Jack had cackled in his ear, perfuming it with his hot, rummy breath, fingers tugging at his hips. Life had been a never-ending party.
A month back, when he’d raided the rum trader’s vessel, he’d kept the king’s share for himself. He had wanted a fucking party—not this gritty tang in his mouth and this fucking pounding in his skull, worse than a hilt to the head.
But how had he been before the rum? Bad. Fucking terrible. Only bad, weak things happened before the rum, so embarrassing he wanted to heave himself overboard rather than think of them.
Blackbeard drank. Blackbeard didn’t get sick or slouch off to whimper when he was in his cups. Blackbeard uncorked another dirty bottle with his teeth, shimmering like sin, and marooned the first person to spill their guts, the music of the jeers from the crew cheering him on.
So he did, too. And if, maybe, when the crew was reeling and the stars began spinning overhead, too fast to follow, he stumbled to the captain’s quarters and retched into the bed pan—if at the height of his drink, his vision started blurring and his throat got tight from something that was far worse than puke—no one would ever know.
This is what men did. This used to be the height of fun.
What the fuck had happened to him, where he couldn’t bring himself to give a single shit? Where sometimes his head would just fuck off, and he would blink and not know how long he’d been staring at the sea, useless as a little kid.
At first there had been shit to do. Shit to do was good. Threaten Izzy, the little fuck, make the flag badass, ransack the captain’s quarters, get a new crew, get rid of the old mopey one, launch a showy raid or two to prove that Blackbeard was back. And that had been—yeah, even then it hadn’t really been fun.
It was the same shit over and over and over—raiding, robbing, a flash of red from the blood, the wash of blue from the sea—and he always felt tired and he always felt unclean. No wonder he had been so determined, months ago, to kill Blackbeard, maybe to die along with him. Blackbeard was boring as hell.
He could drag himself through the day, numb himself through the nights, but with each passing week he was losing hope that he would ever think it was fun again.
Fun had been tea and breakfast set for two and dainty, ridiculous little melon spoons and soft fabrics—no no no, fucking no. Bad. Melon spoons were bad. Cutlery was very bad.
Blackbeard ate with his hands like a goddamn animal, and he knew that was all he was destined for. Breakfast was rum. Tea was—also rum. The marmalade was pickled now—brined over with saltwater on the bottom of the ocean floor. Maybe an octopus or shark had gotten fat.
Fun was bad. Soft things were bad. He didn’t deserve soft things.
Rum was better. He deserved the oblivion and ache and grit of rum. Just like his fucking dad.
He—Blackbeard—whatever—opened his eyes from another hellish babbling dream. He found the bottle, and the sugary sting burned his throat, but he drank it down because soon it would let him stop fucking thinking. Pirates didn’t have to think, or feel, or do much of anything. And that was okay.
He wondered if it was sunny outside the dark curtains he’d tacked over the windows. He decided he didn’t care. He rolled off the floor to stand, and the blankets and shit in the middle of the empty room reminded him of a rat’s nest.
He walked out from the captain’s quarters. They were due to intercept an English merchant vessel after sundown. And since the fucking fiasco and Act of Grace—dangerous to think about, bad, dangerous, stupid, fucking fuck—he hated the English more than anyone else right now—well, almost everyone else—but no, fuck no, he definitely wouldn’t think about him.
He prowled down the hall, swinging his bottle, shaking his head to clear it, scanning the halls for Iz. Blackbeard was awake.
“Fang—Fang,” Ivan whispered.
The man looked up, then looked back down, plump face crumpling.
“You alright?” Ivan tried again.
“‘S not that bad,” Fang shrugged, in a way that made Ivan grind his teeth.
Ivan tracked how Fang’s eyes were listing over his shoulder, scanning the deck like a rabbit for a hawk.
“He’s gone. He’s meeting with the captain, he’ll be down there as long as he fucking can.”
The air rushed out of Fang’s mouth as he stopped pulling at the ropes and cracked his swollen fingers. “Aw, thank God.”
“You know how he acts about meeting with the captain,” joked Ivan. “Like he’s got an audience with fucking King George himself.”
“Yeah,” smiled Fang, but his smile was thin.
Ivan cleared his throat. “I got something for you. Two things, actually.”
“You didn’t have to do a thing.”
“Nah, man, I wanted to. I saw Izzy on the prowl—he shouldn’t have done that.”
It was bad form—worse than bad form—to strike your shipmate. And for what? Fang had been braiding rope for weeks now. That just wasn’t done, had never been done in his time on Blackbeard’s crew.
The thing Ivan had learned was the thing most pirates learned. With some notable exceptions, all the bloodthirsty rah rah was a bit of an exaggeration. Not that it was all flowers and teamwork—at least it wasn’t for most pirates, Ivan now had to make an exception—but no sane man liked killing. It was more about making a threatening show of it, so ships handed over their loot without a drop spilled. You played at bloodthirsty, spread that rumor, occasionally torched a vessel or cut the toes off an especially dickish sailor and kept the guilt to yourself, and then you could do your job and send some back to your family and friends.
But something had changed recently, and that little fucker Hands was a part of it.
Ivan pulled out a tiny bottle. “Found this in the kitchen. I think a drop should do to help your jaw. Don’t mix it with rum if you been drinking.”
Fang whistled at the laudanum. “I saw a guy drink a bottle of this shit once. Got his dick tattooed and said he didn’t even feel a thing.” Fang looked up at Ivan. “Then he died.”
“How bout you don’t do that, then?”
Fang snorted. “Which part?”
Nonetheless, he dribbled a few drops on his tongue and wrinkled his face at the bitterness. “Fuck, that tastes like ass.”
“Maybe this’ll help.”
Ivan extended the little biscuit he’d been holding behind his back. Its runny topping could almost be icing if you squinted at it and were halfway to drunk.
“Happy birthday,” he mumbled, knowing the gesture was something Izzy would mock to Davy Jones’s Locker and back if he was here to witness it.
Fang looked, for a second, like he was about to sneeze, and Ivan realized he was holding back tears. “I forgot it was.”
“I heard them say the date yesterday when they were talking bout the next time to make port. Sorry that the new kitchen lad doesn’t shit about cakes. I know how you miss cakes.”
Fang squeezed Ivan’s hand, and they were both embarrassed, but Ivan let it happen. Why the fuck not.
He snatched his hand back when one of the new crewmates sauntered past, working his mouth like he was chewing a piece of gristle. Ivan couldn’t remember this one’s name—these new boys they’d scrounged up were either terrifying or terrified. He hadn’t had the time to ask where they were from, what they liked to do, if they had a man or girl or anyone they fancied on land somewhere, so they all ran a bit together in his mind.
He exhaled through his nostrils and said the thing he’d been thinking all week. “Sometimes I think how close we were to killing that twat.”
Fang didn’t have to ask who he meant. “Makes me miss the old captain,” he muttered, “before Izzy got all wound up. I thought he looked sorta—fetchin— in that robe.”
“Thought I might do impressions at the talent show,” Ivan admitted, and wished he hadn’t, but that was hardly the shit to give right now.
Fang’s eyes crinkled. “You’re good at impressions.”
Ivan once wouldn’t have stood for this kind of talk—all sensitive, barely a “fuck” to ease up the honesty. It was the kind of thing they would have done with Mr. Bonnet’s men. Sure, it had been maddening that while he’d been getting his hands dirty for years, there were all these inexperienced, friendly fucks getting paid by the week to play guitar and water a plant and pretend to sweep. But, shit, he guessed he missed it too.
He’d never known a captain who would stand for such a thing—only Blackbeard had, hadn’t he?
“Wish Izzy didn’t have it out for you, Fangie,” said Ivan in a low voice. “Where’s his sense of loyalty, huh?”
Fang licked his lips. “I gotta be careful not to make him angrier at me. That’d be...”
“What do you mean?”
Ivan glanced around, but the rest of the crew was hunched over, swabbing the deck and swigging rum in the sun, not bothering with them at all.
“I did something bad, man!” hissed Fang. “Something that might make him hang me by my toes if he found out.”
“What?”
But Fang shook his head. “I don’t want it on you if—anyone finds out. Aw, fuck,” he sighed, “things have gotten shit around here.”
And Ivan couldn’t argue with that.
Fang massaged the bright pink rose already blooming on his jaw. “Remember when the French…got Bastian?”
Ivan didn’t say yes, but of course he remembered.
It had been the first matelotage on Blackbeard’s crew. Man and man. Partners. Mates for life. And a year later, Ivan’s sweet, laughing man was killed by a French naval ship.
He wasn’t in a mood to get all blubbery, so he said, “I was about upset enough to run off and sell hats in Tortuga or something. Get away from it all.”
Of course, he’d been more in the mood to fire a canon into his own belly, but neither had been possible, and Ivan tended to think it was better this way. He hoped so, at least.
“I’d go to your Tortuga hat shop.”
“Don’t bother. I don’t really know shit about hats.”
“I think Captain’s heart is broken, is all,” Fang murmured. “And no one who’s sailed with him would think less of him for dealing with it in his own way. We got hearts too.”
“’Cept Izzy.”
Fang nodded in agreement. “’Cept Izzy.”
Ivan leaned in closer to Fang and lowered his voice, just in case. “But what if Izzy weren’t here?”
As Ivan watched the notion register across Fang’s face, the bright sunlight felt as cold as the middle of the sea.
“He hired all these new men,” Fang whispered. “You think we could convince them?”
“We tried mutiny once, and it didn’t go over. Not with Captain here. But tonight, during the raid—what if Izzy was to get tangled in the crossfire? Who would ever know?”
Ivan kept talking, faster and faster. “I could do it, pay the little shit back. I wouldn’t even have to—well, I could always just knock him out, and if he fell overboard…All I’d need is for you to watch my back.”
Fang began to toy with the rope, stopped, and faced Ivan with a smile.
“That would be the best fucking birthday present I’ve ever had.”
Jim watched a rat peak its quavering nose through the hole. If Jim hadn't been tied to the wall, they could have snaked a hand around the creature, just like Nana had taught. Since Jim had started sitting still, barely moving but to watch the sun twist through the window, the rats had gotten bold.
They’d given up yelling after the second day. On the third day, Edward—Blackbeard—Black-Baboso, however his royal fuckface desired to be addressed these days—had glowered in the doorway and asked if they would board and crew his other ship, Queen’s Anne’s something or another, now sailing in fleet.
“No,” Jim spat. “Where the fuck is my crew?”
The man had stood there, caked in shadow, all that shit still shining on his face, watching them. “Dead, probably,” he muttered, after a pause thick enough to sink your teeth into. “I marooned ‘em. Told them to practice their little show.”
“Where?” Jim hissed, because if they spoke any louder they would scream.
“Dunno. Some sandbar, barely big enough to walk across. They should be nice and tan from the sun by now, maybe a little skinny. If the thirst hasn’t gotten ‘em.”
He smirked through the shadows, slowly as a cat at cream. “Bye, bye, old crew.”
That was when Jim had lurched up and kicked between his legs, kicked him where it would hurt. They would have kicked more, but the hijo de puta could still move fast, even when he was listing from drink, and his sword gleamed at his hip.
Jim would have clawed, gone for the eyes, the groin, the throat, the soft areas to tear—they knew how to fight, even if this wasn’t one they were likely to win.
But the fucking scoundrel stood there and laughed, laughed so hard that Jim stumbled back and missed their advantage, laughed like it was the first interesting thing he had encountered in weeks.
If Jim had been a different person, they might have cried.
On the fifth day, that coño Hands had informed them they were a prisoner. Since Jim had been under watch since waking up, the only difference was that now their hands were bound.
On the seventh day, it had not been one of the usual bastards, but Frenchie who stood outside their prison. Jim had waited as long as they could, then had spoken in a whisper:
“If you untie me, then we can get out of here. I’ll pretend to go to the bathroom, and on the way back, we grab a knife from the kitchen and jump overboard.”
Frenchie stayed silent.
“I know it sounds insane, but I’ve been listening. You know we’re making port today so they can bring on new crew? They’ll all be busy managing the extra hands, and we can swim to shore and disappear.” Jim shot him a grin. “I’m good at that.”
And Frenchie did not move or look at them, and Jim remembered how he had been a soldier, and he knew how to pick the winning side.
Jim hadn’t given up—they’d whispered to him for as long as they dared. They asked if Frenchie was okay, what they could do for him; they insulted him, called him a traitor and a coward; they repeated what Blackbeard had said about their friends, probably dying on a deserted island.
At this, Frenchie’s face tweaked, the first flicker of acknowledgement Jim had seen.
“Izzy told me himself,” said Frenchie, eyes fixed at the wall. “Give it up, Jim. I can’t help you. It’s too late.” And Jim studied the bruise on his cheekbone and stopped wasting their breath.
It was now the fifteenth day.
Humans could go three without water.
Maybe the sandbar had a hidden stream. Maybe one of those idiots had brought a canteen—wineskin—anything. Maybe one of their talents involved materializing vast quantities of fresh, safe water.
Humans could go twenty days without food.
Maybe the sandbar had coconuts. Maybe it was on the path of a merchant vessel. Maybe Olu could figure out how to spear a fish.
Maybe, maybe, maybe.
They hoped and hoped and hoped.
The rat eased its way into the room. One thing that could be said about Stede Bonnet—it was a room; his ship didn’t have a brig. It made Jim roll their eyes and also wish they could call the captain an idiot to his sweet, stupid face. What pirate builds a rec center but not a brig?
Jim would never have joined his crew had they known the height of his incompetence. If Jim hadn’t been racing away from the Republic of Pirates, away from Spanish Jackie’s hired assassins, hadn’t dragged Olu to the first merchant craft sailing fast and far away, hadn’t docked in Barbados, hadn’t signed with the strange, yellow-haired gentleman who promised his crew fair pay—well, too much would be different to count.
And now—Could they coax the rat into chewing through their bonds? It sounded like a fucking fairytale.
Should they prove loyalty, get the privileges Frenchie had, then seize the first opportunity away? Maybe not the first, maybe the second or the third—the third was good, that way the crew wouldn’t expect Jim to stick a knife in someone’s thigh and sprint. But it was slow. Humiliating and slow.
Maybe wait for a meal break and then disarm the guard, next time they were close to port. In the broad daylight? Surrounded by crew? They’d get shot in the water before they touched the land.
There was no plan. All Jim had was their desperation to escape, and their desperate hope that they had a reason to bother. Jim had never had a person before. Jim didn’t know if they could go back to not having a person, if Olu wasn’t—if Olu didn’t—
The door opened, and the rat scattered.
It was Fang; Jim’s breath slowed a twitch at the sight. Of all the people who could be on guard duty, Fang was the best.
Jim had respected Ivan as a fighter when they had worked together, but that meant he did what he was told; glowered at them in a way that forbade tricks. Willis was an asshole; Tom was sniveling loyalist to Blackbeard, terrified of stepping out of line. Izzy only took guard duty when he was in a sadistic mood. But Fang, Fang wasn’t mean. In Jim’s weaker moments, the two of them would even talk, a bit. Which was to say Fang would talk and Jim would pretend to be surly, but they didn’t really care. It was almost nice to hear a voice.
Though he didn't say much of importance, it was enough. Jim harbored a hunch that Fang was itching for a way out himself—why else would you make smalltalk with the hostage? And that was something they could use. Of all the escape plans, that one was the least like Jim—be nice, just ask the nice man to let you free—but it could be the most likely.
And today, Jim could make out a nasty blotch on Fang’s face, shining through his white beard in the dim fire from the setting sun.
“Did you trip?” Jim asked.
It took the man a moment to answer—Jim wondered if he was deciding whether to confess. “Tripped into Izzy’s hands, is what happened,” he grumbled. “The wanker.”
“Hands’s hands.”
The man gave a grunt of humor. “Hands hands.”
There was something odd about him today, Jim noticed. Was he drunk? He sat heavily on the floor, his mouth hanging open like a fish’s.
“What’s the agenda next?” tried Jim. “Docking for supplies, trading crew? Raiding? Moving ship to avoid the navy?”
“You know I can’t…tell you.” Fang scratched his belly.
“What will happen if you tell?” Jim demonstrated their tied hands. “All you’d be doing is keeping me from going crazy in here.”
Fang was shaking his head. “I suppose…don’t know much. Raid tonight.”
“At night?”
“Surprise the English…” Fang said, as though through molasses.
Jim’s pulse quickened straight through their aching wrists. At night, with confusion, with noise, with an unusually inert Fang—it was perfect.
“You know, Jim,” said Fang, his head nodding, “I am sorry. Always thought you were real tough…and…”
Too many things happened at once.
Jim was spared the confusion of responding when Fang slumped forward, tumbling onto the floor as though he’d been conked on the back of the head.
“Oh God!” A voice squeaked, and Jim spun on their hands to find its source. “Is he dead?”
It was still an empty room—Jim must have been drugged—maybe them and Fang both—
A familiar, sweaty face squirmed out of a pile of rope into thin air. Jim’s mouth moved soundlessly—but how? Where? Was it really him?
“Jesus,” the face said, procuring a hand to wipe its brow. “I had no idea if that passage led anywhere. Might have been stuck behind that wall forever.”
And before Jim could even realize what they were doing, they had launched forward on their knees and had barreled into Lucius Spriggs.
It took Lucius a second to be certain that Jim wasn’t about to murder him.
“It was a hug, estúpido,” they’d rolled their eyes—but he’d never really been certain about Jim’s likelihood for murdering him at any given point in time.
“Fine, but you have to know, with your hands behind you like that it looked really scary.”
“Then untie me!” Jim had jangled their wrists at him.
Lucius fussed with the rope for a minute but fuck him if he had ever paid the slightest bit of attention to rope craft. Pete had taken his share when he’d been assigned that task—nope, moving on, moving on, taking a hard left turn from that train of thought.
It was also extremely unhelpful that Jim kept craning around to critique him in Spanish, jerking their hands in the process. They were impatient enough that they didn't even seem impressed when he explained how he'd been living in the walls for almost three weeks, surviving off the scraps Fang fed him. Rude.
“Sorry,” Lucius huffed, sitting back on his heels. “I would have brought a knife, but I didn’t know which path led to your room until this morning. And if you’re discovered crouching in a pile of rope, you do not want to be holding a knife.”
Jim conceded the point. Lucius turned his attention to Fang. When he laid a finger uncertainly on the man’s neck and tried to poke a bit, he thought he could feel something. Probably. He was snoring, so. Lucius hoped he wasn’t about to choke—He seriously owed that man a lot.
“You did this?” Jim asked. “Did this to him? Put something in his drink?”
And that was the strangest thing—he hadn’t. There’d been a whole different shindig planned: Frenchie would lure Fang off duty and Lucius would psst to Jim. Imagine his surprise when Fang keeled over, like Jim had strangled him with their mind. Ooh. That was a scary thought.
Lucius shook his head. “Uh, no. Izzy assigns guard duty in the morning so I was going to have Frenchie tamper with someone’s food tomorrow—it’s the only way to know who’s getting it, they all drink from the same bottles. It’s pretty gross.”
Jim gaped at him. Finally, thought Lucius, a bit of well-deserved recognition. He’d always been good at snooping, but learning most of the secret passages without once getting caught and memorizing the inner workings of the ship had been a fucking feat.
It was only when Jim said, “Forget getting any help from that bastard,” that Lucius realized they been gaping about the whole Frenchie-part-of-the-plan.
Ah.
“Well,” said Lucius, trying to sell it with his eyes despite his impending dread, “Surprise!”
The door swung open and Frenchie ambled in. When he saw Fang on the ground, he did a double take. “Neat! Did you get him?” He tousled Jim’s shoulder. “Ahh. Long time no see, my guy.”
When no one answered, Frenchie cocked his head at Lucius. “That was the signal, yeah? Did we decide on the signal?”
Lucius hiked his eyebrows up his forehead. Absolutely no social awareness on that one.
“Well, um…” Frenchie settled for a smile, “I brought a knife! So, that’s—oof!”
This time, when Jim launched themselves at Frenchie, it was definitely not a hug.
“I’m sorry—ow—sorry—fuck—I was just playing along—”
“So you TELL me that, you stupid—”
“I winked at you—”
“Obviously I didn’t see, probably because I’d been locked in this room for a week…”
“Never—know—when they’re listening—in—”
It took the most serious conflict resolution Lucius had ever done, all hissed under his breath, to get Jim off.
“Alright, alright. You—” Lucius scooted Jim back with difficulty. “And you—” he teased the knife from Frenchie’s hand. “Had better shut the fuck up or you’re going to get us all fucking killed, and I am not dying again, not for either of you.”
That did it. Or maybe the knife he was trying to brandish menacingly in his hand. He’d been doing a lot of things menacingly lately. Turns out, he did menacing really fucking well.
“Right. So.” He looked between them, the sounds of Jim’s heavy breathing loud of enough that he was tempted to make some snide remark, but decided it wasn’t the time. “Kay, Jim. Frenchie was helping me the whole time. Because he kept cool, he heard all kinds of shit that he told me, and that was very sweet of him.”
“Frenchie. Jim has been taken prisoner because objectively, they’re just more threatening than you. And you can understand that it must have sucked to be stuck in this little room with Blackbeard’s crew looming over you for two weeks, and then your only friend does the same shit.”
Frenchie stared at his lap. “Sorry, man. Also, heard you kicked Blackbeard in the balls. That’s pretty rad.”
“Will someone fucking untie me?” Jim fumed. At Lucius’s warning glance, they said, “Fine! I promise not to attack him again, I accept his apology, whatever.”
Jim was much more amenable when they were rubbing their wrists and stretching.
It was Frenchie who said it first. “So now that things are…more chill…how the fuck are we gonna get out of here?”
Lucius had had time to think about this one. Since Fang had thrown him the little barnacle-swing-thingy and smuggled him into the empty marmalade storage—turns out the new pirates didn’t have much need for marmalade—it had been pretty much all he thought about. And assorted longing and regrets. Most of which would be fixed with escape.
He’d been planning for a dead of night thing, ideally tomorrow, which he happened to know was a new moon because, well, there were some things you just didn’t forget after a naked man with a seagull on his head bellowed them at you enough. Frenchie, on the other hand, kept saying the raid and Fang’s episode (?)—fainting spell (?) —sudden narcolepsy (?) would be perfect cover.
And tonight meant they could leave faster. Lucius was a huge fan of leaving faster.
“Jim, what do you think?”
They had been gnawing on their lip, gazing at the ground.
“My knife,” Jim said.
As reluctant as Lucius was to arm a very angry and unstable Jim, he had to admit it would be the most useful in their hands.
Jim looked at the kitchen blade he’d passed them and shook their head. “My knife. My family knife. I already risked everything to get it back. They took it somewhere, but I know it’s on the ship.”
It tickled Lucius’s brain—he’d stolen it from Spanish Jackie’s ridiculous coat pocket in one of his more impressive maneuvers, if he did say so himself. “The one with the brown—hand part? With your name on it?”
“Si, si! You’ve seen it.”
“It’s in the closet thing in the captain’s quarters. There’s a passageway.”
Lucius—and from his expression, Frenchie, too—saw where Jim’s brain was headed before they’d even said anything.
Frenchie laid a gentle hand on Jim’s shoulder. “Jim. I get it. But—our friends need us. Olu needs you.”
Jim was blinking. If Lucius didn’t know better, he might think they were crying.
“What else has he got in there?” Jim asked.
“I—uh—”
Lucius had only ventured into the secret wardrobe once. Thanks to Stede’s heavy-handed passage design, it was pretty fucking obvious which one led to the main part of the ship, and he hadn’t wanted to tumble into Eddie’s bed or bathtub or something. Yuck. But if you crept all the way to the end of the passageway and scooched the summer linens—a little loud for his taste, but very Stede—you could crawl into a wardrobe. He’d heard shuffling and had crawled, backwards, inelegantly, as quickly away as he could.
“All kinds of stuff. It’s like a little…a little shrine to Captain in there. It’d actually be pretty sad if he wasn’t a homicidal maniac. Like books. A bunch of clothes. Little forks…a shovel, I think? Truly, I cannot stress enough the insane amount of clothes. And a few random knickknacks, knifes and maps and necklaces and shit.”
But Jim’s eyes were slits. “Maps,” they said. “How are we going to find the island without a map?”
“I thought, we could just probably row. Get there in a few hours,” Frenchie offered.
They ignored him.
“Fine,” snapped Lucius. He was not about any of this right now, but he knew Jim had a point. “We go steal the shit, hide in the tunnel and then what?”
“They’ll be using the dinghies to board the vessel,” said Frenchie.
“So we have to steal one first.” Jim’s brow furrowed. “We need a distraction.”
Lucius and Jim both spun to Frenchie, who held up his hands in protest.
“Guys—sorry—did you not see me fuck it up last time? Captain Bonnet fanfiction? I mean, fuck. If I do that again we’re all dead.”
“Then do better,” snarled Jim.
“That’s hardly encouraging!” Frenchie ran his hands through his hair. “I’ll—yeah. Come up with something, I guess.”
Lucius had time to swallow his panic—this was not a good plan—and say, “In…thirty minutes?” before the unmistakable clack of boots filled the adjoining hallway.
Frenchie stared, blank terror in his eyes.
“Go—pretend you’re checking on him, go,” Lucius mouthed, and Frenchie scuttled to Fang.
Jim held up their ropes. “Tie me, loose. Get the knife. Get the maps. I’ll see you here in thirty minutes.”
Lucius tried his best with the mess of rope, sweating his fucking ass off, as the sound of footfalls got louder. He was just launching himself into the passageway when the door opened. He didn’t have to see the room to hear the smug smile dripping off Izzy’s voice.
“What in the name of fuck is happening here?”
He couldn’t stay to hear what happened next, just slid backwards on his tippy-toes, praying the wood wouldn't creak beneath him.
When he was out of earshot, Lucius turned and edged up the walls. Noise floated from beyond the paneling, and Lucius reflected what a maniac his old Captain had been. He could think of lots of sickos who would put this amount of secret spying space to less savory uses. Old Captain. Hopefully not—that odd little man had grown on him, and he hoped Blackbeard hadn't done anything awful to him. Was that what all this was about? The Blackbeard act? Some sort of psychosomatic guilt for murdering his boyfriend?
Lucius clenched his teeth. At least Stede was a nice maniac—not one who dealt with his feelings by launching an innocent scribe into the choppy fucking sea.
Lucius hunched onto his hands and knees, careful to not tweak his back, and pulled apart the summer linens.
Knife and map, then straight back to Jim. Knife and map. Knife and—
Oh.
Oh fuck.
“You,” rasped Captain Blackbeard, staring dead at him.