Work Text:
It takes a cold plunge and the ripping pain of seawater up his broken nose for Izzy Hands to realize he’s finally hit his limit. If he thought the Gentleman Pirate was bad with his tea parties and frilly shirts, it is nothing to the agony of watching Edward regress under the influence of Calico Jack.
At least Stede Bonnet never deliberately baited a fleet of English war ships while their cannons were out of commission. The man was stupid, but not that stupid. And then there are the increasingly asinine games Jack plays. Whippies and Yardies are bad enough, but now the fucking idiot has introduced Danger Dangles and forced Izzy to play. And the amount of rum the man consumes! Izzy never thought he’d miss the sight of marmalade, but here he is, flat on his back, floating in the ocean, reminiscing about a simpler time when his boss was a different kind of whipped.
And so, for the second time in his miserable life, Izzy finds himself in the bed of a dinghy rowing away from The Revenge, silently cursing the name of Stede fucking Bonnet.
It takes him less than a week to find the Gentleman Pirate’s ship. Or rather, ships. At first, he thinks dehydration is making his mind fuzzy, but as he rows closer the amorphous brown blob on the horizon comes into view and he sees the monstrosity Bonnet has created.
Instead of a ship, Bonnet has strung together no less than seven dinghies, connected with rope and paired together behind Bonnet’s dinghy in the lead. The remaining members of his crew appear to each have command of their own dinghy, or at least they have been given permission to decorate them. Oluwande sits just behind Bonnet on the right in a dinghy painted orange with delicately drawn teal vines along the edge while Buttons, on the left, has rendered a frankly stunning portrait of a seagull on his.
“Is that another ship?” Oluwande leans forward.
“Looks to be, aye,” says Buttons.
“Actually, it has to be bigger to be considered a ship,” Black Pete chimes in.
“Is that the small angry fellow?” asks Wee John.
“Why don’t we find out?” Stede picks up his paddles and shouts, “Come now, remember what we practiced? A crew that rows together...”
“Grows together!” the rest of the crew choruses.
Izzy’s has had almost enough of this nonsense to consider turning back around, but as he wrinkles his face in disgust, his nose smarts painfully and he remembers his purpose here.
“Stede focking Bonnet, you’re coming with me.”
As one, the former crew of the The Revenge stops paddling—except for the Swede near the back who doubles his efforts.
“Izzy Hands?” Bonnet squints his stupid little eyes against the sun. “Is that you?”
“Aye, Cap’n. It’s him,” says Buttons.
“Want me to shoot him, Captain?” asked Black Pete, standing to get a better look.
“With what? We don’t have any guns!” Bonnet looks frantically about his dinghy, presumably for a weapon.
Black Pete passes Bonnet something that looks like a brittle stick with a bit of flat string tied around it.
“What’s this? Some kind of sling?” Bonnet asks.
“Rubberband launcher,” says Buttons.
“Drop your weapon,” Izzy calls out, raising his own actual gun loaded with an actual bullet.
Bonnet yelps and the little stick contraption falls to the floor of his dinghy.
“Good. Now we can get to business.” Izzy relaxes his hand just so. As much as he’d love nothing more than to sink a bullet into Stede Bonnet’s brain, he does actually have more use for him alive.
“And what business is that, exactly?” Bonnet asks.
“You, coming with me.”
“And why would I want to do that?”
“Because I’m the one with the gun, you stupid fucking—”
Izzy doesn’t get the chance to finish that particular thought—more’s the pity as he really does relish insulting Bonnet to his face—as something sails through the air and knocks the gun from his hand and into the water. Judging by the remains of bread and cheese all over his dinghy, Izzy is certain the culprit is yet another of Roach’s sandwiches.
Indeed, the cook leans out from behind Buttons, a mischievous grin on his face. “Thought you might be hangry.”
“What the fock is hangry?” Izzy picks bits of crust from the floor of his dinghy and tossing them into the water.
“It’s when you’re really hungry and you’re really angry,” Roach explains.
“I thought it was when you were so hungry that you got angry,” Pete says.
“Other way round, I thought.” Wee John waves his fingers around in a figure eight.
“I’m not fucking hangry.” Though now that he thinks of it, he could eat. For a week, he’s subsisted on nothing but the meager rations he took from The Revenge.
“Since we’ve no guns between us, I suggest we discuss your request calmly.” Bonnet begins rowing again, bringing their dinghies close enough that they’re no longer shouting. “Now, I believe you wanted me to come with you. Is that right?”
“Is that right? Did I fucking stutter?”
“Well, before I consider your request, I’d like to know why. I’ve not forgotten, you know, how you tried to kill me—twice.”
Izzy groans. He wishes he had his gun. It would be so much easier to threaten this small, flouncing, joke of a man into doing his bidding than it is to actually talk to him.
“You’re needed aboard The Revenge,” he says, finally.
“Oh.” Bonnet sits back down as though the words have rendered his legs temporarily unable to hold his weight. “Right. Well.”
“Hang on a minute,” says Oluwande. “Am I the only one who remembers Blackbeard leaving us on that little rock to die?”
“Aye, ‘twas a dark time,” Buttons adds.
“I don’t want to be eaten,” the Swede says in a small, distant voice, eyes wide and staring off somewhere behind Izzy’s dinghy.
“Right, and we all remember Captain nearly getting blown up by that cannon when we tried going back the first time,” Oluwande continues.
“And the second,” says Roach.
“Yeah, if Blackbeard’s changed his mind, why’s he sent you? Why couldn’t he come himself?” asks Wee John.
“Yeah, we don’t forgive that easily,” says Black Pete. “Especially after what he did to Lucius.”
“He hasn’t sent me,” Izzy grunts.
“What’s that then?” Bonnet asks.
“He hasn’t sent me,” Izzy repeats, louder this time. “I’m here of my own damn volition.”
“What? Why?” Bonnet’s expression is stuck halfway between perplexed and disgusted.
“Because—and know if you make me repeat this, I won’t need a gun to end your miserable life—you weren’t as bad as his new boyfriend.”
“New… boyfriend?” Bonnet’s voice has gone small, his shoulders slumping.
Izzy wants to let him think it’s true, that Calico Jack has succeeded him in Blackbeard’s affection. He wants Stede Bonnet to squirm under the knowledge that Blackbeard’s moved on. That he was even capable of it. But it’s not true. Izzy is many things, but unobservant isn’t one of them. He sees how Calico Jack grows more and more desperate with each of his schemes and games, trying to stay interesting enough to keep Blackbeard’s attention. He sees how Blackbeard wants only the clown, not the man. And he sees Blackbeard retreat to his quarters every night, alone.
“Dreadful man,” Izzy says instead. “I believe you two have met, actually. Calico Jack.”
The hurt on Stede Bonnet’s face is enough to make the trip worth it. But as Bonnet crumbles under Izzy’s words, there is a pang in his chest. Guilt? No. Sympathy? Definitely not. Pain? Must be. He’s still sore from Yardies.
“Well, if Ed’s made his choice, I don’t see what I can do to change his mind.”
“Enough. Get in the dinghy. Let’s go.”
Bonnet grimaces. “I think you overestimate my persuasive abilities.”
Izzy wants to row over to Bonnet’s dinghy and tip the whole thing over. See how eager he is to climb into Izzy’s once he’s without a boat. Instead, Izzy takes a deep breath. In and out. Then another. And perhaps one more, yes. Then, he says something he never thought he’d utter in his entire life.
“I may not understand it, and I definitely don’t like it, but for some focking reason that is beyond comprehension, my boss has a weakness when it comes to you. And I’m—” he chokes back bile. “I’m absolutely certain you’re the only person in this whole god forsaken ocean who can talk sense into him. So, get in the focking dinghy.”
Bonnet’s lips twitch ever so slightly into a smile. “Well, maybe if you were to ask me nicely.”
“Get in the dinghy.”
“What’s the magic word?”
Izzy screws up his face, trying to recall anything he’s ever heard about magic. The memory comes to him of some insipid story Bonnet told the crew one night about a girl and a dress and some fucking mice, so he says, “Bipity focking bopity focking doo.”
“I was looking for please, but I suppose that will do.”
“You’re not actually going with him, Captain,” Oluwande says.
“Seems I must.” Bonnet pats the side of his dinghy. “I leave her in your capable hands, first mate Oluwande.”
“Wait, since when am I—do I have to be—”
“I’ll be first mate if Olu doesn’t want to,” says Black Pete.
There is a resounding chorus of no from the rest of the crew as Bonnet climbs ungracefully out of his dinghy and into Izzy’s.
“Well then,” Bonnet says once he’s settled. “Heard any good tunes lately?”
Izzy still hasn’t heard any good tunes after four hours of Bonnet singing different shanties he’s picked up along the way. Some of them are actually the same shanty, just with different words. And some of them are peppered with misheard lyrics that the idiot’s just gone and made up himself.
When Bonnet goes to sing a fourth rendition of Wellerman, Izzy puts his foot down.
“Why don’t we play a game instead for a while.”
“Oh, I love games! How about—”
“I’ve got one I mind.” Izzy eyes him warily. “It’s called the silent game.”
“I’ve never played!”
“I’ll say.”
“What are the rules?” Bonnet leans in eagerly.
“You have to stay completely silent—no talking. First person to make a sound loses.”
“Well, that doesn’t sound very fun, does it?”
Izzy raises an eyebrow and puts a finger to his lips.
Bonnet is blessedly quiet for one, two, three seconds. Then, he says, “Ah, guess you win. Now let’s play another one. How about I-Spy?”
“Absolutely not.”
“I spy with my little eye something that is blue!”
Izzy doesn’t dignify that with a response.
“You have to guess,” says Bonnet.
“I don’t have to do bloody anything.”
Bonnet leans back. His loose shirt—inexplicably still white, despite being at sea for weeks—hangs open, revealing his chest unnecessarily. He looks not unlike the man Izzy met all those months ago, sweaty and frantic, shirt carved to pieces by Izzy’s blade, but for the short beard he now sports.
To think, Edward was actually charmed by this ponce. Of all the men in all the seas, it had to be Stede fucking Bonnet.
“The way I see it, we have two options, Mr. Hands.”
Izzy would rather eat another of his toes before asking exactly how Bonnet sees things, but the Gentleman Pirate isn’t waiting for an invitation to share.
“We can spend this trip stuck together in a dinghy resenting one another and having a foul time and nothing changes between us, or we can learn about each other and try to enjoy this time together, have a little fun, play some games, find some common ground. What d’you say?”
Izzy dons his best sneer and says, “I’ll take the foul time.”
“Well, that’s disappointing. But I suppose, to each his own.” He flings one leg over the other. “The sea. That was the blue thing I spied.”
“I don’t give a shit.”
“Oh, I know. But just as you’ve chosen the foul time, I’ve decided to enjoy myself. So I’ll be playing whether you want to join me or not.”
Izzy groans. “You’ve got to be focking kidding.”
Bonnet doesn’t acknowledge him. Instead, he just turns his face into the wind and says, “I spy with my little eye something black.”
If Bonnet keeps this up, Izzy thinks, he’s going to blacken that little eye so it can’t see anything at all.
They sleep in the bed of the dinghy, a plank of wood between them. Izzy curls into a ball, glad for once that he is small. Bonnet tosses and turns beside him, rocking the boat back and forth.
“For fuck’s sake.” Izzy sits up and turns to see Stede lying with his torso beneath the seat, head up near the stern of the dinghy, feet dangling off the side.
“Oh, hello there. Did I wake you?”
“No.” Izzy drops back down and rolls over to look at the sky. It’s a clear night and the stars twinkle. Fuckin stars.
“Ah. Can’t sleep,” Bonnet muses. “Me neither.”
There’s a blessed moment of silence and stillness during which Izzy thinks he may eventually nod off, but then Bonnet continues.
“So, Calico Jack.”
“What about him?”
“I… suppose I’m surprised to hear he survived the cannonball.”
“Tenacious bastard.” Izzy wasn’t surprised. Nothing surprises him much anymore—nothing except Stede Bonnet. “Bit of advice. Never assume death unless you bury the body yourself.”
“Yes, well. I do have quite a nice shovel—or I did.”
Izzy can think of a few things he might do with a shovel right about now.
“And he’s back now?” asks Bonnet in a high, quiet voice. “Bet Ed loves that.”
Izzy lets the silence stretch between them, hoping that’ll be the end of it. And maybe it would be, but something in his chest flickers and twists and damn. “Edward doesn’t love anything anymore.”
“Not even… whippies?”
Izzy shudders. “I hate whippies.”
Bonnet sits up suddenly. “You do?”
“Really, what is the point?”
“Destruction and machismo, I suppose.” Bonnet sighs. “I thought you said Ed was… well, that Calico Jack… you know. That they’re back together.”
Izzy prods his swollen nose, if only to remind himself why he’s doing this, the pain he has endured at the hands of a stupider man than Stede Bonnet. “Believe me when I tell you separating them is what’s best for Edward.”
“Oh, I’m not arguing, I’m just wondering whether that’s what Ed thinks, too.”
“Why do you give a shit?”
Bonnet gives him a look, so disarmed and demoralized Izzy almost feels… something about it.
“Well,” Bonnet says with a sad smile. “You deciding what’s best for Edward is how we got into this mess to begin with, if you’ll recall.”
Izzy does recall. He remembers it with startling clarity, the way the Gentleman Pirate ruined everything. It was all fine before he showed up. plundering and pirating with Blackbeard. Plundering and pirating for Blackbeard. It was good.
Or maybe it was just predictable.
“Go the fuck to sleep, Bonnet,” Izzy mutters.
Bonnet lays back down, but a few moments later, a laugh breaks through the quiet.
“What is it?” Izzy asks against his better judgement.
“We both hate whippies,” Bonnet says, the smile bleeding through to his words. “I knew we had to have something in common.”
On the second day, Bonnet introduces a new absurd game.
“We take turns naming pirate-y things in alphabetical order,” he explains. “So for example, I might start with the letter A, so I’d say, Ahoy! Then, you have to think of something with the letter B.”
Izzy says nothing, hoping his disinterest will deter Bonnet.
It doesn’t.
“You might say Boat or maybe Bosun. Maybe you might even say Bonnet.”
“Why the hell would I say that?” Izzy says through his teeth.
“Bonnet!” Bonnet repeats gleefully. “That’s me!”
“I know that’s you, you imbecile.”
Bonnet frowns. “Well, you don’t have to be like that. I suppose I’ll carry us on—C… Captain!”
Izzy keeps his mouth shut and rows…
“Now it’s your turn.”
…and rows…
“The letter D is next.”
…and rows…
“Come on, this one’s pretty easy.”
…and rows…
“Deck! It’s not that hard.” Bonnet’s face wrinkles in disappointment or derision. Izzy can’t quite tell, and he decides not to care.
“You do realize I can’t read, right?” Izzy says finally.
Bonnet perks up at his contribution to the conversation, eager even at Izzy’s dismissal. “You know your letters at least, surely.”
Izzy does, a fact he chooses not to share with Stede Bonnet.
“Well, I’ll go again. E… now that’s a hard one. E… E… E…”
Izzy would rather hear Blackbeard sing his terrible mopey song than Stede Bonnet repeating the letter E ever again.
“Oh.” Bonnet goes quiet, then, and Izzy thinks maybe there is a god after all, but then he whispers so quietly Izzy thinks at first it is the wind, “Edward.”
It’s so searingly sad, Izzy feels his breath catch in his throat like a fish stuck in a net. Bonnet’s face goes slack as he turns into the wind, eyes closed. The pain is somehow everything Izzy has wanted this man to feel, and simultaneously harder to watch than a talent show put on by the former crew of The Revenge.
“F is next, right?” He says, the words coming out scratchy and broken. “F is for fuck you.”
Bonnet opens his eyes and smiles encouragingly. “That’s the spirit. Alright… G… G…”
And Izzy hates himself for feeling relieved that Stede Bonnet, this sorry excuse for a pirate, does not cry.
On the third day, they run out of rations. Izzy rows them ashore, pulling the dinghy up a little inlet and tying it to a fig tree.
“Well, what now?” Bonnet asks.
“Go into town and see what your coin can buy,” Izzy commands, pointing in the direction of the nearest human settlement.
“Ah, yes. You see, about that,” Bonnet rambles on. “I actually don’t have any coin.”
“Course you do. You’re the Gentleman fucking Pirate.” It pains him to say Bonnet’s joke of a title aloud, but he’s pacified slightly by the insertion of an expletive. “You’re richer than God.”
“Well, not anymore. I gave it all up.” Bonnet shrugs his shoulders meekly.
“You… what?”
“When I left my family—the second time, I mean—I let them keep my wealth. Didn’t think I had all that much use for it at sea, what with… things as they were.”
“Things as they were?” Izzy regrets asking it immediately.
“Well, yes.” Bonnet glances down at his shoes—far more practical boots than the odd buckled things he used to wear. “I thought I was returning to the open arms of the most successful pirate alive. Didn’t think we needed my fortune on top of that.”
“Right.” Izzy’s throat closes around any other words he might speak. Instead, he points into the trees and grunts. “Forage, then. And I’m not sharing my haul.”
They part ways there, Izzy going to the right and Bonnet to the left. He finds kindling and wood without issue, but food is scarce. Most of the fruit that grows there isn’t in season, and he only finds a couple of unsmashed coconuts. In the end, he returns with little more than a snack.
Bonnet takes far longer to return. At first, Izzy thinks he must have gotten lost and considers leaving camp to find him, but then he remembers he doesn’t care.
As hunger wars against his greater purpose, there is a rustle of leaves and Izzy looks up to see Stede Bonnet, laden with sacks of oranges and what looks to be an entire roast duck clutched in his hand.
“Could use a little help,” he says, staggering under the weight of his prize.
“Found some coin after all, did you?” Izzy mutters as he takes the oranges from Bonnet.
“No—better. I looted these off some sailors.”
“What did you do, sing and dance for them?”
“No.” Bonnet frowns, looking down at the cooked bird in his hands. “robbed them.”
“You… robbed them.” Izzy hardly believes it, but then how else could Bonnet get his hands on such spoils?
“The Gentleman Pirate has a few tricks up his sleeve.”
Izzy eyes him as Bonnet sets the duck down on the edge of the dinghy and begins carving pieces off with his knife, altogether surprised to learn Stede Bonnet even carries one.
Silently, Bonnet hands Izzy a few pieces of meat and an orange before settling in to eat, himself. Izzy glances down at his own foraged dinner and sniffs. He eats the duck without complaint.
Izzy is woken by shouting and gunfire.
“Get up! Let’s go!” Bonnet’s face swims in and out of focus above him.
“What did you do?” Izzy sits up, dragging himself from sleep with difficulty.
“Nothing!” Bonnet says hurriedly, shoving at Izzy’s shoulders with a franticness he hasn’t seen from this man before. “Well, I suppose I did something, but really they’re overreacting.”
“They?” Izzy shoots a look back across the beach to see uniformed officers racing toward them—half a dozen at least. “You led the British navy to us?”
“Led is such a strong term.” Bonnet hauls the sack of oranges over to the dinghy, spilling them across the bed of the boat in his haste. “You see, those sailors I robbed last night may, perhaps, have been officers.”
Izzy wants to take it all back. Every nice thing he’s ever thought about this man should be erased from the record. He is as stupid as Calico Jack, and he is just as dangerous, and Izzy should have left it all alone. He’ll certainly never meddle again, if he escapes this with his hide intact.
By the time the officers have swarmed their encampment, Izzy has rowed them out of the bay—too far for the guns of the English to reach them—but another problem arises almost immediately.
Izzy’s arms stop working. A dull ache spreads from his fingers, through his wrists, and up to his forearms.
“Everything alright?” Bonnet asks as Izzy lets go of the oars.
Izzy just grunts and flexes his fingers. “Got a cramp, that’s all.”
But it’s not all. It’s a great deal more debilitating than he wants to admit. He shakes out the muscles, but no matter how he tries to soothe the spasms, they only seem to get worse.
“Izzy Hands without use of his hands…” Bonnet’s earnestness is almost cutting. “Well, that’s not good, is it?”
“You try rowing all day for a week and see if you can do better,” Izzy growls.
“Oh, certainly not. You’re much tougher than me.”
Bonnet looks down at his own hands, no longer as soft and clean as they used to be, but still a fair deal more than Izzy’s, which are weathered to the point of making his leather gloves entirely unnecessary. Izzy goes to tug them off, but his fingers stiffen at the movement.
“Here, allow me.” And before Izzy can stop him, Bonnet reaches across the dinghy and takes Izzy’s hand in his. He makes gentle work of easing the gloves off, careful not to actually touch Izzy’s skin. “Can’t believe you wear these out here. Really, all that leather is terribly hot.”
Izzy chokes on his own breath.
“Temperature wise, I mean,” Bonnet clarifies, apparently not embarrassed at all by the double meaning. “And I’m sure the dehydration doesn’t help.”
“Neither does lugging around your added weight,” Izzy grumbles.
“That’s right!” Bonnet nods encouragingly. “You’ve been rowing for two.”
It might be nice, to hear his struggles so thoroughly validated, if it wasn’t coming from Stede Bonnet. This man is the last person Izzy wants aware of his failings, of his weaknesses. For Bonnet to look on at him in pity like this, it is more scorching than the sun.
But Bonnet does not stare for long. Instead, he reaches for the oars and begins to row. He is a little clumsy at first, but then he sinks into a rhythm and Izzy sits in stillness as Stede Bonnet treats him like a passenger without complaint.
They continue on like this all day, with Bonnet rowing and Izzy watching. At one point, Izzy finds himself nodding off a bit. Bonnet doesn’t try to stop him. Instead, he hands Izzy the folded sack for the oranges to use as a pillow and doesn’t say another word.
On the fourth day, they spot The Revenge. It lurks in open waters, not far from where Izzy left it, sails slack. In his absence, it seems, Blackbeard has not done much in the way of sailing. The thought buoys his heart slightly. Perhaps Edward does need him, even just in this small way.
“You let me climb aboard first,” Izzy says as they draw even with the ship. “Just in case he’s in a mood.”
“Well, this is already an improvement over last time,” Bonnet says, a false cheeriness in his voice covering up worry.
Izzy pauses with his hand on the ladder, considering for a moment whether he should mention that the cannon fire was all him. Edward wasn’t even on deck. In fact, Izzy isn’t sure Edward knows Bonnet is even alive. Eventually, he decides that truth is for better men than him, and he climbs on.
The first thing he does once he’s back aboard The Revenge is step on Calico Jack. The man is lying in what is either a pool of rum or his own piss. Izzy prefers not to guess. The rest of the crew mills about in Izzy’s periphery, but he doesn’t much care for them.
“Get up,” he grunts as he treads directly on Jack’s face. With any luck, his nose will feel half as bad as Izzy’s did after Danger Dangles.
“I didn’t want to fuck the dolphin, I had to,” grumbles Jack as he slowly rises from slumber, smacking his lips together, eyelids fluttering. “Never mind—just a dream. Where’s Blackie?”
Izzy ignores him and crosses over to the door to the captain’s quarters to knock insistently with his whole fist. “Edward? Are you in there?”
Silence greats him from the other side.
“Edward?”
“Iz? That you?”
“Edward, you’re needed on deck.”
The door creaks open a fraction of an inch and the face of Blackbeard appears in the crack. Painted with kohl, eyes half lidded, the greatest pirate to ever live stares back at him. Izzy half expects to be forced to eat another toe for his insubordination, but murder does not flood his gaze. Instead, there is a quiet loss, a restless hope.
Blackbeard pulls the door open and grasps Izzy by his collar. “Man, you can’t just sneak off like that.” He laughs, but it’s an empty sound, like he is out of practice.
Izzy swallows with difficulty, guilt churning in his stomach. He didn’t tell Edward he was going. He didn’t think his boss would notice. The fact that Edward did scratches a wound inside him open.
“Had a job to do,” Izzy says gruffly.
“Yeah?” Blackbeard loosens his grip on Izzy’s collar but doesn’t let go. “And you’ve returned with the spoils of war, I assume?”
“Something like that.” Izzy glances over to see Stede Bonnet’s blonde head appear, followed by the rest of him.
“Hello there, Ed,” Bonnet says quietly.
Izzy is released from Edward’s grip—for that is who stands before him now. Though he still wears the makeup and the leather, he sheds the disguise like a snakeskin. His very way of standing changes at the sound of Bonnet’s voice, and he lets out the smallest whimper that only Izzy can hear.
“Steve?” Calico Jack blunders forward. “Thought you were dead!”
“Likewise.” Bonnet looks as though he’s just smelled something foul—and maybe he has, being upwind of Calico Jack.
“You should not be here, man,” Calico Jack says, clapping a hand on Bonnet’s shoulder. “Blackbeard’s made it pretty clear he doesn’t want to see you.”
Izzy is mollified only slightly to see that Jack cannot tell the difference between Blackbeard and Edward, that he does not know the man intimately enough to see the change occurring as they speak.
“Funny. I was going to say the same thing.” And without tearing his eyes from Edward’s once, Bonnet shoves Calico Jack over the side of the ship.
A mighty splash punctuates the silence, and then a distant Calico Jack says, “Think there are any dolphins around here?”
No one answers him.
Izzy opens his mouth to say something—smooth things over, maybe. But there is no smoothing needed. The tension between Edward and Bonnet builds like a great wave, so thick Izzy couldn’t cut it with a knife if he tried—and has plenty of them. The two men simply stare at one another, as though if they blink the moment will crumble.
“You look…” Bonnet doesn’t finish the though, only sighing a little wistfully, as though the pleasure of seeing Edward again after so long is too much to bear.
“Yeah,” Edward says. “You too.”
Bonnet takes a step forward, matched by Edward, until they stand only an arm length’s apart. A million words seem to pass between them through eye contact alone, but finally Bonnet clears his throat and speaks again.
“I, uh, suppose you’re quite angry with me. I don’t blame you—I’m angry at myself.” He rolls his lip between his teeth, eyes dropping to Edward’s mouth before flashing back up to meet his eyes. “I have an apology, and an explanation—both, if you want them—but I imagine you have a lot to say as well and I—”
Edward cuts him off, trailing a finger along the short blond hair covering Bonnet’s chin, and says only, “Beardy.”
“Oh, yes.” Bonnet’s fingers inch up to tangle with Edward’s. “I missed you terribly, you see, and I thought it might help to have something that reminded me of you on my face.”
“Oh, I think we can do better than that,” Edward says, bumping his forehead against Bonnet’s, their smiles so blistering and bright it hurts to watch.
“Oh, just kiss him already,” says a voice form inside the captain’s quarters—a voice Izzy recognizes.
He leans over to get a good look, and there is a rather damp looking Lucius, covered in seaweed and sand, an exasperated smile on his face.
“Piss off, ghost,” says Edward, waving a hand to brush him away.
“Boss,” Izzy says slowly. “Is that… Mr. Spriggs?”
“Yeah, but he’s just in my head.”
Bonnet frowns. “I assure you, he’s not.”
“Yeah, we can all see him,” says a leather clad Jim from behind the wheel.
“Oh, thank god.” Frenchie leans over the edge of the crow’s nest, lute in hand. “Thought I was being haunted.”
Edward tears his eyes from Bonnet’s for a moment to look Lucius up and down. “But I killed you. Didn’t I?”
“Nah.” Lucius holds up his hand, pointing to his wooden finger. “I’m a strong swimmer. Plus, turns out, this makes me more buoyant.”
Bonnet laughs, then. “Well, that’s excellent news, Lucius. Perhaps you can run along and fetch some parchment and ink.”
“Why on earth would I do that, Captain?” Lucius asks.
“Because.” A twinkle shines from Bonnet’s eyes and he raises up on his toes to brush Edward’s nose with his. “I think this might be a moment worth sketching.”
As their faces careen toward a kiss, Izzy turns away. Not because he doesn’t want to see, but because he doesn’t want to smile.