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I. Calico Jack
Izzy tells him the plan twice, and then once more for good measure, at which point Jack slams down his tankard and says, “I got it, Jesus, Hands.”
“You have to get him off that ship,” Izzy says.
“You’ve said, pal.” Jack regards him steadily a moment, then leans back in his chair, swings his dirty boots up onto the table and waggles his eyebrows. “You want me to use…all the means at my disposal?”
“Don’t be disgusting,” Izzy says. He isn’t drunk enough for this. He’s never drunk enough, actually, where Jack is involved. “You know what he’s like. Bonnet’s like that time he decided he wanted to tame a shark, or when he thought he’d do well as a composer.”
“He got pretty fuckin’ good at the piano,” Jack says. “And he still plays, don’t he?”
Izzy grits his teeth. “Sometimes.”
Jack spreads his hands, like, There you have it.
“Are you going to get him or not?” Izzy snaps.
“For you, anything,” Jack says mockingly.
“I’ll pay you,” Izzy says.
“Don’t have to,” Jack says. “I’ve missed him, anyway. I tell you, the things that man can do with his tongue—”
Izzy puts his tankard down with too much force; ale splashes over his hand.
Jack laughs. “Fuck, you really are still pining for him, aren’t you? Thought even you’d get the stick out of your ass after—what’s it been? Twenty years?”
“Twenty-seven,” Izzy says. It’s automatic, correcting Jack.
“Long time to be in love with someone,” Jack says.
“What—you have no idea what the fuck you’re talking about,” Izzy says sharply. He can’t afford to stab Jack just now; he needs him. But his hand itches towards his sword all the same.
“Don’t I?” Jack tips backwards in his chair, balancing on the back legs. “Twenty-seven years, and you still haven’t realised he’d fuck you if you just asked.”
Izzy’s heart pulses with rage.
Before anything tears loose from him, Jack starts laughing. “God, Hands. You look like you want to kill me.”
“I do,” Izzy says.
“But you won’t.” Jack smirks. “Damn, I’m lucky you love him more than you hate me.”
II. Lucius
“Why are you helping me?” Lucius asks, still suspicious after weeks of Izzy leaving hardtack and water out for him. Izzy tips his head back against the wall, the wall Lucius is on the other side of, and sighs.
“I don’t know,” he says.
“If you’re only keeping me alive to get back at him about your toe, you need to tell me now. Because eventually you’ll forgive him, and then I’ll be fucked.”
Izzy stretches his legs out in front of him. He wiggles the remaining toes of his left foot.
“It’s just the pinkie,” he says absently. “I deserved it.”
“Um,” says Lucius. “Right, okay, so I’m not touching that.” A couple of seconds pass. “No, wait, I am. In what fucked up world did you deserve that?”
“I threatened him,” Izzy says. His voice is toneless. He doesn’t have the energy to be anything else, these days. “On any normal pirate ship, I’d’ve been hanged from the yardarm.”
Lucius says, “I’m glad you weren’t.”
Izzy snorts. “Yeah, someone needs to feed you.”
“No,” Lucius says. “It’s not that. Well, it’s a little bit that, but you’re actually…not terrible. Not always, anyway. Not unless you’re trying to be.”
“Is this meant to make me feel better?”
“No, shut up,” says Lucius. “You’re an unpleasant little man, but you—care about things. A lot. Too much, maybe.”
Izzy shuts his eyes. “You’re not making sense,” he says.
“Okay,” Lucius says. “It’s like, you were a right dick to all of us, and especially Stede, but I’ve been there. When the person you love finds someone new. I burned a guy’s house down over a situation like that, once. Mostly by accident. Okay, half by accident. It’s not my fault his house was, like, super flammable.”
“He die?” Izzy asks.
“No,” Lucius says. He sounds a little put out about it, which Izzy likes. “He was at his new girlfriend’s place at the time.”
“Shame,” Izzy says.
“Well,” Lucius says. “I probably could’ve dealt with it better. We’d only actually been together a couple of weeks. You and Blackbeard—that’s been a long time, right?”
Izzy frowns, trying to remember where Edward comes into this.
“No,” he says. “We’re not—like that.”
“Oh,” says Lucius. “Never?”
Izzy thinks, absurdly, of the time Edward had summoned Izzy to the captains’ cabin in order to show Izzy a shell he’d acquired. It had been a neat, shimmering spiral, sitting in Edward’s upturned palm like an offering. Looks nice, boss, Izzy had said. And then he’d brought up something—he can’t remember exactly—to do with a re-supply, or some small incident of insubordination, or a repair that needed to be carried out. Edward had closed his fist around the shell. When Izzy next saw it, it was at the back of one of Edward’s drawers, amongst the detritus of other useless knick-knacks Edward couldn’t ever resist picking up and taking for himself.
“I’m not,” Izzy says. Stops. “You think everything’s about sex.”
“Not sex, necessarily,” Lucius says. “Love, though.”
“Not for men like me and him,” Izzy says. He wiggles his toes again. The swelling’s gone down; soon, he thinks, the pain will stop.
Lucius sighs. He sounds disappointed, but Izzy doesn’t have anything else to give him.
III. Frenchie
Frenchie finds him loading up a dinghy. Izzy curses: he’d chosen this watch specifically because Frenchie’s the least observant, but it turns out Izzy can’t even sneak past him, what with the cane and the limp. There’s nothing actually wrong with his foot anymore—Roach had said so, and Izzy’s inclined to believe him. But still: the limp.
“I don’t think you should leave,” Frenchie says.
Izzy raises his eyebrows.
“Not before telling him how you feel, at least.”
“Telling who?” Izzy says, although he has the sneaking suspicion he knows. He wonders if Frenchie has been talking to Lucius.
Frenchie ignores the question. “Longer you go without telling him, the more the poison spreads.”
Izzy sighs and rubs at his temple with the hand that’s not holding the cane. “What poison?” he asks.
“The poison your heart’s pumping out, because you haven’t told him,” Frenchie says knowledgeably. “It’s part of the reason you’re such a raging dick, actually. The poison. It’s hard to be nice when you’re in that much pain.”
“I’m not in pain,” Izzy says, leaning heavily on his cane, his healed foot throbbing.
Frenchie says, “I think, without the poison, you’d be okay.”
“Would I,” Izzy says flatly.
“And if you leave, it’ll just get worse,” Frenchie says. “You can only fix it by telling him you love him.”
“I don’t,” Izzy snaps.
Bonnet’s lot: everything is like this with them, holding hands and dancing under rainbows. There’s not one of them who could understand what it is between him and Edward. There’s not one of them who’d understand what it is to build a life with someone, for someone, and then watch them throw it away on a whim. There’s not one of them who’d understand why Izzy has to leave.
Frenchie regards him with unexpectedly piercing eyes.
“Okay,” he says. “You do whatever it is you have to.”
And then he’s stepping forward and giving Izzy a hug, what the fuck.
“You know, we might actually kind of miss you,” Frenchie says, “if you go.”
“No, you won’t. I make your life hell,” Izzy says.
Frenchie laughs, like he’s being funny. “Only person whose life you make hell is your own, mate,” he says, and then he walks away, whistling as he goes.
IV. Buttons
“You’ve got the ship in a right state, Mr. Hands,” says Buttons, staring out at the moon. This, this is why Izzy had specifically requested not to be put on midwatch with Buttons.
“I have, have I?” he says, because he may as well get this over with.
“Yer negativity’s pervading, yes,” Buttons says.
Izzy shakes his head. “Christ,” he says. “And what would you have me do about it, then?”
He knows the answer before it comes. He’d think the crew was deliberately fucking with him, if they were only that organised.
“There’s no shame in loving the cap’n as you do,” Buttons says, with his odd sort of gravitas.
“I fucking loathe Bonnet,” Izzy says.
“Ach, you know who I mean,” Buttons says. Olivia flutters down to land on his head, because this conversation wasn’t absurd enough already. Izzy considers fleeing to the other side of the ship, but his foot’s been worse than ever, lately, and even standing still the pain is lancing up his calf. “Olivia thinks he feels the same. Me, I’m not so sure, but there’s no reason to these things.”
“Well if the bird says,” Izzy mutters. Olivia lets out a squawk. It sounds, Izzy thinks to his own horror, offended.
V. Bonnet
“Izzy! Izzy! Israel!”
Izzy closes his eyes.
“I know you can hear me,” says Bonnet. “You’re being exceptionally rude.”
“Am I,” Izzy says. He’s sitting on the bottom step of the aft stairs, his coffee cooling beside him. It’s too early for whatever Bonnet wants from him.
“You need to make up with Ed,” Bonnet says.
Izzy cracks an eye open. “What.”
“Ed,” Bonnet says, as though his name will illuminate the issue. “He thinks you’re still angry with him, about—about everything.” His head half-tilts towards Izzy’s cane, which is propped up against the stairs. “It’s been very upsetting for him.”
“Oh, it has, has it?”
“I’m not saying he doesn’t have some things to apologise for,” Bonnet says huffily. “But he can’t do that if you won’t let him! He says you’ve been avoiding him.”
Izzy looks heavenward, at the blindingly azure sky.
“This is the smallest fucking ship he’s ever captained,” he says. “How in Christ’s name would I go about avoiding him?”
“Gosh, you’re unpleasant,” Bonnet says. “Heaven knows what he sees in you.”
“Competence, mostly,” Izzy says.
“Now, come on, Israel,” Bonnet says. He’s been a nuisance about Izzy’s full name ever since he learned it; Izzy allows it, on the basis that it’s preferable to Iggy. “There’s no need to be coy with me. I’m hardly blind, am I?”
“I have no idea what the fuck you’re on about,” Izzy says. He picks up the tin cup.
“I’m very aware of Ed’s past dalliances,” Bonnet says, looking down his nose at Izzy. He doesn’t have a lot of other options, with Izzy sat on the bottom step like this, but Izzy resents it anyway. “I assume you’re one of them?”
Izzy chokes on his coffee.
“Bonnet,” he gasps. “Are you out of your fucking mind?”
“Oh,” Bonnet says, a dawning understanding coming over his face. “So you’ve really never…? That explains it, too, I suppose.”
“Explains what?” Izzy asks, knowing the answer’s bound to be horrible.
“Well, you were rather upset about my presence in Ed’s life,” Stede says.
“Yeah,” Izzy says. “You’re a shitty pirate and every day you don’t get him killed is a fucking miracle.”
“So you’ve said,” Bonnet says, waving a hand, “many times. What’s interesting is that you really don’t seem to understand that what you feel towards me is simple jealousy.”
Izzy’s got a blade hidden in his cane; he could slash Bonnet’s throat quicker than the man could react. It seems a lot of effort, though. His foot still hurts.
“I’m not jealous of you, Bonnet,” he growls.
“But you are!” Bonnet insists, blissfully unaware of how close he’s skirting to his own demise. “You love him, and seeing him with me is understandably difficult for you, as a result.”
“God, not you, too,” Izzy says hotly. “Just because you want to—to hold Edward’s hand, and play with his hair, and fucking kiss him all the fucking time, doesn’t mean we all do!”
He feels ill, and the way Bonnet’s looking at him is only making it worse.
“Well,” Bonnet says, “that’s certainly illuminating.”
He’s gone before Izzy can reconsider about murdering him.
I. Edward
“Whole fucking crew thinks I’m in love with you,” Izzy says, having stumbled into one of those rare occasions when Edward is alone in the captains’ cabin, Bonnet out doing whatever he does to make himself feel like he has a purpose on the ship. “And now your boyfriend does, too.”
Edward’s mouth twitches. “That a complaint?”
“Fucking—yes, Edward, what the fuck did you tell him?”
“Didn’t tell him anything, mate,” Edward says, slumping back on the settee with one of Bonnet’s dressing gowns open over his usual trousers. “He probably just, y’know, watched you for a bit, came to a conclusion.”
Ever since Bonnet had brought it up, Izzy can’t stop thinking about kissing Edward. It’s all Bonnet’s fault, clearly—Izzy had never thought of such a thing before—and doesn’t mean anything, except—
“What if I am?” he says, his lungs feeling unfit for purpose.
“What if you’re what?” Edward says. He does this, sometimes, pretending he doesn’t understand, when he fucking always understands. It’s irritating, really. It’d be stupid to be in love with someone this irritating.
“What if I’m,” Izzy licks his lips, and then feels extremely stupid about it, “in love with you?”
“I dunno, mate,” Edward says. “Are you?”
“How am I supposed to know?” Izzy snaps.
Edward raises his eyebrows. “Okay. Well, when you figure it out, I’m, you know. Around.”
Izzy almost stomps out of the captains’ quarters there and then. Something stops him. Edward enjoys being evasive, yeah, and he likes having things to hold over people—but he doesn’t look how Izzy had expected him to. There’s no smugness, no ire. He looks like he’s being informed that it’s sunny outside.
“You knew,” Izzy says accusingly.
Edward widens his eyes, projecting innocence. That sort of shit might work on Bonnet, Izzy thinks derisively.
“How would I know?” Edward says. “You don’t even know.”
“That doesn’t mean anything,” Izzy says. “Apparently even Calico fucking Jack knows, so it’s not like—”
“Jack?” Edward says sharply, going from lounging on the couch to sitting upright in the span of a blink. Right, Izzy remembers, Edward had always been a bit weird about him and Jack. “What the fuck did he say to you?”
“That I love you,” Izzy says. “Fucking keep up, Edward.”
Before Bonnet, saying something like that, in that tone, would’ve earned Izzy ten lashes, delivered privately because Edward had always said that a first mate wasn’t supposed to get punished in front of the crew.
Now, Edward laughs. It’s the kind of sound that Izzy would cross oceans for. Forget content; this is Edward happy.
“You’re really fucking stupid, Iz,” he says.
Izzy would argue the point, but he’s just ceded the ground of self-knowledge to Calico Jack, so it’s not an unfair assessment.
“Yeah,” Izzy says. “I guess it doesn’t matter anyway. Bonnet, and all.”
Edward regards him with a softness in his expression that arouses both tenderness and anxiety in Izzy’s chest. Edward is still, ostensibly, Blackbeard; this sentiment of his is still dangerous.
It doesn’t feel quite as bad as it used to, though.
“I think it could matter,” Edward says. “You might have to figure some more shit out first, but—yeah.”
Izzy blinks at him.
“Huh,” he says.
“Do you want,” Edward says significantly, “me to say anything?”
Izzy isn’t sure what he means. “No,” he says. Then, because he’s apparently taken the ravings of Frenchie and Buttons to heart, he says, “I think I need to say it.”
“Okay,” Edward says, settling back against the cushions again. “Take your time.”
“Fuck off,” Izzy says instinctually. “Hang on, no, wait. I love you.”
It doesn’t really feel like anything. There’s definitely no magic to it; they’re just words. They don’t have the power to change anything.
But then Edward smiles, and it’s beautiful, and Izzy thinks, Oh, right, that.
“Good job, Iz,” Edward says, and it’s a little condescending, but Izzy loves him, doesn't he, so it doesn't matter all that much.
He leaves the captains’ quarters with a spring in his step.