Chapter Text
After Stede comes back, Izzy leaves.
It hurts, the way Izzy takes off in the night without a word, but Edward can’t say he blames him for it.
In the few months since Stede came sailing back into their lives, Izzy had made himself scarce. Stede’s crew became halfway decent sailors in the time they were apart and needed less guidance to keep the ship running. What they did need, Olu managed well.
Izzy relegated himself to night watches. Ed rarely saw him, and when he did their conversations were short, stilted. Izzy spent more and more time staring at the horizon and Ed caught him more than once reaching up to gently touch the X tattooed on his cheek.
Ed was happy Stede was back, his heart had never been more full, but he missed his first mate. Izzy was a part of him the same as the sea. A constant, thrumming energy that formed the basis of his life. It pained him that he could feel the distance between them grow.
It was an unremarkable night the last time he saw Izzy. Stede had gathered the crew for their evening story. Ed took his traditional space next to him, leaning his back against the barrel on which his lover sat, eyes upturned to watch him read.
They were both warm and happy with drink, the crew relaxed after a successful raid. Ed pulled his eyes away from Stede to look around him, smiling at the group of people that had forgiven him, had helped form this life he never thought he could have.
Out of the corner of his eye, there was a small shadow, perched on the stairs behind everyone else. Izzy watched him with an unreadable expression. Ed smiled and raised his glass. He wished Izzy would join them for story time, maybe he would bring it up with him next time they spoke.
Izzy nodded, once, before getting up and silently making his way below deck. Edward didn’t see him vanish below, his eyes already back to Stede as he did a particularly horrible French accent.
When he awoke the next morning Izzy, and one of their dinghies, were gone.
-
He doesn’t come out of the captain’s cabin for two days after Izzy leaves. Stede sets course for the Republic of Pirates, certain that Izzy must have been headed there and that they could bring him back on board.
Ed doesn’t have the energy to fight him or say that Izzy would have never left if it wasn’t permanent, so four days later they find themselves docked in familiar territory. Ed strides off the ship and straight into Jackie’s, because if Izzy had been there, she would know.
Jackie looks up when he stops in front of her table. In a rare show of hospitality, she gestures to the seat next to her. Before Ed can even open his mouth she beats him to the punch.
“If you’re looking for Hands, he’s gone already.”
Ed feels like he’s been decked. “Where?”
“Not sure. Sailed in here two days ago off some sloop that picked him up in the middle of the sea. Asked if any crews were looking for new bodies.” Jackie looks him up and down. “The fuck did you do?”
“I didn’t-“ he starts, indignant, but Jackie raises her wooden hand and his mouth snaps shut.
“Forget I asked. I don’t even want to know.” She sips her drink. “Just so happens Bellamy was in port after a shit raid. I sent him that way. Assuming he joined up, they left yesterday.”
It’s like being dunked in cold water. This wasn’t just a fight to get over, Izzy had joined another crew. Was serving under another captain.
Jackie doesn’t know where Bellamy was headed, so Ed thanks her and walks back to the Revenge feeling like he’s two steps behind his own body.
Everything inside him is screaming to go after Izzy, to chase Sam fucking Bellamy to the ends of the earth and drag Izzy back to his side. But Izzy left, and he knows exactly why, and he looks at Stede and wonders if Izzy can find happiness like he has with someone else.
He and Stede talk it through and decide it was Izzy’s choice to leave and they have to respect it. If Ed didn’t know any better, he’d say that decision looked just as hard for Stede as it felt for him.
-
Ed keeps an ear to the ground for news of Izzy, just in case. And news does come.
It feels like following a trail of breadcrumbs, the way he can keep a vague eye on Izzy through port gossip. Izzy Hands is as famous a name as Blackbeard, and their separation was enough of a shock to stir up a fuss.
“It’s true! I saw Sam Bellamy in Matanzas, and Izzy Hands was sailing with him. Maybe Blackbeard really is going soft like the rumors say if old Basilica finally jumped ship.”
Ed ignores what’s not important to hear.
He hears that Captain Bellamy’s crew has never been so bloodthirsty, flush with coin and sinking ships with abandon.
He hears when Bellamy names Izzy his new first mate.
He hears when Izzy is given his own ship in the fleet, his own crew to manage.
He also hears that Bellamy’s antics are catching bad attention.
He hears that pirate hunters are starting to sail closer and closer to the havens.
He hears a lot of things that make him worry for himself, and Stede, and his crew, and every one the fuck else he knows.
Sam Bellamy’s ship goes down in a storm and Ed swears his heart would’ve given out had the bar patron telling the story not quickly confirmed the rest of the fleet survived.
He pays for his drink and leaves as fast as he can before he does something stupid, like cry in relief.
A month later, he hears buzz that Izzy is kicking up trouble for the British navy in New Providence.
A few weeks more and he hears a much louder buzz, one that says the British are pushing onto the isle, rounding up pirates for execution or pardon (if the choice is given at all).
Ed feels uneasy, worry creeping up his gut, but it’s too hot for them to try to sail into the Republic now. Izzy will be fine. Izzy is always fine.
But then word comes that Izzy has been captured by the British navy in a small settlement on the west of the island and everything is very quickly not fine at all.
-
Getting Stede to agree to rescue Izzy takes less convincing than Ed anticipated. The crew is another story entirely, but he can’t blame them for being unwilling to sail into a navy hotbed for a man they don’t even like. It takes four hours of arguing, plus a less-than-friendly reminder that there are two perfectly good dinghies they can board if their captains’ orders aren’t to their liking, before they reluctantly concede to the mission.
They decide the best course of action will be to steal a small ship and sail quickly and quietly. They’ll enter the settlement, find Izzy in whatever jail they have him held in, and bring him home.
Travel and preparation will take a week.
Ed doesn’t let himself think of being too late.
It’s been almost a year since Ed let the rage of Blackbeard take him over. The captain of the ship they commandeer loses a hand at the first inclination of denying their demands. Stede is a silent but supporting presence behind him, but Izzy is all that’s on his mind.
You face death, for general crimes of piracy against the crown, Badminton repeats in his head. As he loads the boat with the supplies he thinks about how quickly they were going to kill Stede. How only hours had passed between capture and firing squad.
He thinks about how Izzy was there to keep him safe from that fate, even if it was him that brought the danger in the first place.
He thinks about Izzy, all alone in a dirty jail cell. Was he thinking of Ed? Was he hoping he would come?
Ed has never prayed, but he bargains with god while they sail.
-
The Revenge is anchored far from the island while the crew, sans Buttons and the Swede, load into their stolen ship. He and Stede are below deck for the approach, Ed full of so much nervous energy he wears tracks into the floor pacing back and forth.
The thought of a world without Izzy Hands in it is unimaginable, unfathomable. He should have never let him go. He should have talked to him that night, should have reached out more, should have told him how much he means to him-
They have to be there in time. They have to be.
Their approach is agonizingly slow and safe. He hears when the island is in sight. He feels when they sail wide around the Republic, coming closer to the shallows. He listens to Olu calling that they’re close.
So he knows when the ship falls completely, agonizingly silent.
Ed’s feet feel like they’re bolted to the planks when a quiet knock comes on the captain’s cabin door. Stede answers and it’s Lucius, looking pale and shaking slightly. He whispers something, refusing to look Ed in the eye.
Stede’s entire body language shifts. His face goes from the neutrality he was maintaining for Ed’s sake to horrified. The color drains from him and, even from a distance, Ed can see shine spring to his eyes. Lucius looks down at the floor while Stede turns to Ed.
Nothing needs to be said.
He knows.
They’re too late.
Ed’s heart drops past his stomach and straight out of his body, sinking into the depths of the ocean where he may not ever recover it. His feet propel him forward, but Lucius stands in his way at the threshold.
Their relationship has mended since Ed tried to kill him, but Lucius always keeps a physical distance from him. To feel his hand on his chest, halting him, was a surprise enough to stop Ed in his tracks.
“Captain, I’m not sure if…it’s…”
Ed doesn’t want to imagine what he’ll see on the deck, but he has a horrible idea. They haven’t made it to the port. They haven’t even rounded into the cove of the settlement.
He knows what the navy will do on the outskirts to ward pirates away.
He gives Lucius a tight nod and the boy reluctantly moves. Ed walks to the deck like a man to the gallows.
The crew looks no better than Lucius, and Jim is the only one who meets his eyes. There’s something like pity in them. Everyone else’s gaze stays downward, so Ed takes a fortifying breath, closes his eyes to savor one last moment where a world with Izzy Hands may exist, and looks up.
He wants to vomit. He wants to scream. He wants to burn all of New Providence to the ground. He wants to destroy everything he can touch. He wants to jump into the sea with an anchor tied to his feet.
Instead, he speaks in a quiet, broken voice.
“Cut him down.”
-
It takes nearly an hour to sort out the logistics of how to get Izzy’s body down. It ends up involving Jim scaling the sea wall and Fang maneuvering the ship so Roach can climb the mast and keep Izzy from dropping onto the deck.
Ed goes through the motions of coordination, but he feels like his entire body has gone numb.
By the looks of the corpses (he doesn’t recognize the other two, doesn’t care to) they’d hung there for at least a few days. The Caribbean heat had not been kind.
The stench is horrible. Most of the crew wraps cloth around their faces. Lucius and Stede both wretch off the railings, the latter looking horribly guilty about it.
Fang sets course back to the Revenge.
They all give him his space as he sits with the body of his first mate.
Roach placed a piece of cloth over Izzy’s face when he brought him down, and Ed finds himself thankful for it. From what little Ed could tell from a distance there wasn’t anything pleasant to see.
Izzy’s clothes are the same as last Ed saw him in, just missing the weapons
Around Izzy’s neck, nestled just under a line of mottled and bruised flesh, is his green ring.
Ed remembers when he presented that ring to Izzy, young and drunk on the spoils of their first real raid together. He remembers how he felt the next day to see where Izzy had tied it.
The first sob escapes Ed’s throat when he thinks about Izzy wearing it to his death, even as far apart from each other as they were when it happened.
The tears don’t stop after.
At some point, Stede comes to sit beside him. Ed appreciates that Stede knows there’s nothing that can be said, offering instead just a hand in his, a grounding presence, and an assurance that he, at least, is still here.
No one on the ship speaks.
They reach the Revenge and Ed numbly moves through the steps for a burial at sea. Pete fetches a clean sail from below deck. Olu helps him move Izzy’s body onto it. Wee John helps with the delicate folds of burial.
They pause the wrapping for Ed to gingerly free the green ring from Izzy’s cravat and slip it on his finger.
Ivan and Fang help transfer Izzy to a dinghy and Ed rows out alone, quietly declining Stede’s offer to come with him.
He needs to do this alone. It had always been him and Izzy against the world. It makes sense for it to be just them at the end as well.
Ed gingerly picks up the body of his best friend, his first mate, a piece of his heart manifest and now gone.
He allows himself a moment to press his forehead to the cloth.
“Thank you, Izzy. I’m sorry.”
He lowers the body into the water.
He doesn’t row back until dusk.