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The sense of unease starts slowly, tickling something in the back of Izzy’s brain but not fully taking shape. Like being unable to bring up a word - something is misplaced but he can’t figure out what.
He’s looking out across the deck, squinting in the sun, trying to place the uneasy feeling. But the sails are holding fine, the deck is clean, the crew is working away. He looks over his shoulder expecting to see Baz - the man is still often his shadow these days - but he’s not there. That is no longer unusual either. While Baz is more often than not in Izzy’s company, he has built his confidence enough to move about the ship freely, making new friends much to Izzy’s relief.
Izzy turns toward the wheel where Stede is in conversation with Buttons, but Baz isn’t with them. So he looks back across the deck, spotting Ed teaching Jim something to do with the rigging. Baz wasn’t following around Ed (arguably his second favorite person after Izzy).
The feeling of unease grows stronger but Izzy pushes it away - he has no proof anything is wrong yet.
He takes count of the crew - Wee Jim and Frenchie towards the bow; the Swede standing beside Oluwande, both of them listening to Ed’s conversation with Jim; Lucius and Black Pete not even trying to hide their nuzzling near the railing on the port side; Fang coming up the stairs to join Stede and Buttons; while Ivan sits in the shade beside the stairs.
But no Baz.
Izzy holds the fear down again - he still has the galley to check before he lets panic grip him. Sometimes Baz enjoys Roach giving him little tasks to do in the kitchen, like peeling potatoes or stirring stew. He likes to feel useful.
“Baz down here?” Izzy asks, standing in the threshold to the kitchen.
Roach glances up from a pile of chopped veggies. “No?” he says.
It’s hard to push his fear down this time but there are still places to look. First, he checks the Captains’ Cabin, where he and Baz both sleep these days. But it’s empty - Baz’s cot with its blankets meticulously made, still pushed up against the wall. But that’s okay - sometimes he gets confused and locks himself in the brig.
But the brig is empty too. Izzy lets the worry settle into his stomach then - rolling his guts into a knot that he hopes doesn’t make him lose his breakfast.
He goes to check his old quarters before the panic gets too bad. The first few months after Baz joined them, Izzy shared the first mate quarters with him - worried that making him share a room with Ed and Stede would be too much too fast. These days, that room is occupied by Frenchie and Wee John (with Jim and Oluwande having reclaimed their old room). The two have always handled a confused Baz well when he’s turned up in the room on the odd occasion that he’s forgotten he sleeps with Izzy in the captains’ room.
But, again - this room is empty too. Izzy even checks under the bunks. No Baz.
“Have you seen Baz?” He interrupts Stede’s conversation with Buttons.
Stede startles slightly, falling silent mid-sentence, brow furrowing for a moment before answering, “Not since breakfast?”
The four of them had eaten in the captains’ quarters that morning and then Izzy and Stede had gone above deck to get the day started while Ed stayed behind, having promised Baz he would help braid Baz’s hair.
But he wasn’t with Edward now.
“I can’t find him,” Izzy mutters, letting the worry show in his voice.
“Oh dear,” Stede agrees. “Suppose we better look for him.”
They start in the obvious spaces - the auxiliary wardrobe, under Stede’s desk, and the hidden spot they’d found him when he was sick a few months back. But they come up empty each time.
In the rec room, they hear the tiniest sound behind a stack of boxes – for a moment, Izzy is ready to dismiss it as a mouse, but Stede pulls back a crate and coos, “Oh, darling, there you are! We were worried about you!”
Baz looks awful. He’s shoved himself into a narrow space between the crates and the wall. His face is a mess of tears and snot, and the braids that Ed had so carefully weaved into his hair are falling apart. When Stede unearths him, he pushes himself further against the wall, pulling his knees up to his chest and hiding his face, like he could make himself disappear if he just tried hard enough.
“Baz,” Stede says, his voice infinitely gentle. He crouches down in front of the whimpering man. “What’s wrong?”
Baz shakes his head, still sobbing.
“Are you sick again?” Stede asks.
Baz shakes his head again.
“Injured?”
Another head shake.
Stede carefully lays a palm on Baz’s knee, but pulls it away when Baz startles like he’s been shocked.
Stede looks over his shoulder at Izzy, clearly at a loss. The two switch places with Izzy now kneeling in front of his counterpart.
“Hey Baz,” he says as carefully as he can.
Baz lifts his head enough to meet Izzy’s eye.
“There’s my boy,” Izzy says. “Do you want to go back to the cabin? Somewhere more comfortable?”
It’s then that Baz unravels enough to sign something– his hand rubbing his breastbone over and over again and Izzy’s memory slams into a flashback so hard it almost hurts–
Sorry. Baz is saying. Sorry. Sorry. Over and over again.
When Hornigold took their voices, he didn’t much care for them to communicate again - that was the whole point.
But he did like having something at his mercy. So he gave them back two words – Sorry and Please.
So they could always beg. Even without their voices.
Izzy hasn’t thought about that sign in years and years–
“You have nothing to apologize for,” Izzy says, gently but firmly. “You’ve done nothing wrong.”
With that Baz begins to cry in earnest again.
Izzy feels totally lost, completely unmoored. Something is wrong but he can’t figure it out.
Baz manages to take a deep breath and this time he signs, Please. His hands clasped in front of him like a prayer. An obvious parody that anyone would recognize.
“Please what?” Izzy asks. “I’ll give you anything I can.”
Please, Baz repeats, and then with shaking hands, signs Bunny. His weathered hands next to his head, two fingers on each hand pointed up, mimicking the ears of the creature. Please, Bunny, sorry.
Izzy is confused - bunny? He looks around the space for the little stuffed creature but it’s not there. Which isn’t unusual - Baz did keep the thing in his sight for weeks after he’d been gifted it - clearly afraid the moment it wasn’t in his hands, it would disappear and he’d never be allowed it again. But slowly, slowly, he’d built up trust in Izzy and Stede and Ed and the crew and the knowledge that he would be allowed to have things. And keep them. Unlike on Hornigold’s ship–
“He’s lost his bunny,” Izzy finally puts together, speaking over his shoulder to Stede. “We will find him,” Izzy promises Baz, reaching out and taking Baz’s hand.
Baz lets him, gripping his fingers a little too tightly.
“It’s okay,” Izzy assures him. “We’ll find Bunny.”
Baz nods, but Izzy isn’t sure he understands.
“Oh, poor dear,” Stede frets as Izzy carefully extracts Baz from his hiding space. Stede takes Baz’s other hand and gives it a gentle squeeze. “We will find him. He couldn’t have gone far. He’s got short legs, after all,” Stede whispers, conspiratorially.
Baz keeps his chin down, only meeting Stede’s gaze in fleeting glances - reverting to his well-earned fear of eye contact.
“Where did you see him last? In the cabin, maybe?” Stede asks.
Baz nods.
“Well, let's start there.”
The cabin looks the same as it did when Izzy left it this morning after breakfast. He stands holding Baz’s hand in the middle of the room while Stede searches.
“Not on the couch, or under the couch,” Stede says, crossing over to the table where they had breakfast this morning. The dishes have already been cleared but Roach wouldn’t have picked up Bunny - not even as a joke.
“Not on your chair,” Stede says, tilting back the chair Baz sat in at breakfast so they can all see it’s empty.
“Not on your cot. Not under your cot. But, don’t worry dear, we shall find him.”
He pauses, looking thoughtful and then says, “Ah,” and walks over to the captains’ bed–
Baz likes sleeping in his cot most nights. But he also likes snuggling– and the night before had been usually chilly. All four of them had ended up bundled together into the captains’ bed. It had been a cramped fit, but cozy. (Izzy still hated admitting how much he loved being pressed up against his guys like that.)
In the mayhem of extracting themselves from the bed this morning, Stede’s many blankets and sheets had become a tangled nest of fabric and no one had put in the effort to make the bed yet.
“I wonder,” Stede mutters to himself, grabbing the top blanket off the mess and shaking out. He repeats the motion with a second blanket and a third and–
Bunny tumbles out of the tangle of fabric and flops onto the floor.
Baz makes a sound like an animal being stabbed.
Stede picks up the stuffed creature carefully, rubbing his palm across its face to dislodge any loose lint.
“He just got lost in the blankets! Guess we weren’t the only ones cold last night,” Stede says, holding Bunny out to Baz.
Baz drops Izzy’s hand and is across the room, grabbing up Bunny and hugging him to his chest, in a flash.
He sinks to his knees in front of Stede, leaning forward to rest his forehead just above Stede’s knee. He’s sobbing again– worse than before. Absolutely wracked with the tears, unable to control what’s left of his damaged voice.
“Oh, darling, it’s okay,” Stede says, carefully, a hand cupping the back of Baz’s head, the other resting on his shoulder.
“Hornigold would give us things just to take them away,” Izzy explains, his voice barely audible over Baz’s cries. “He must've thought–,” Izzy clears his throat, finding himself suddenly having to repress the urge to cry. “He thought we took the rabbit away to punish him.”
Stede pales at that and then he’s going to his knees in front of Baz. He cups Baz’s face, gently.
“Never,” he promises. “Never, never, never. We’ll never take your things, sweetheart.” He kisses Baz’s temple.
Baz starts to calm down a little as Izzy sinks down beside him, rubbing his back with his gloved hand. “There are no punishments here,” he says - he’s said it before but he knows – Hornigold had Baz for years - Baz may never fully believe that there are no punishments on the Revenge. But he can keep assuring him.
Baz clutches bunny in one arm and frees his other to wrap it all the way around Izzy and grab hold of Stede’s shoulder. They hold him while he calms down.
Ed finds them there not long after and joins the little huddle - knowing gaze meeting Izzy’s - remembering all the times that Hornigold threatened to take them from each other.