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Izzy spends most of his time by the bow, next to what’s left of the figurehead, watching the horizon. In a strange, dissociated way, he realizes that he hasn’t spoken to Blackbeard– Edward— whatever the fuck his name is since he shot him. The memory that clings for him is one of his captain, splayed across the deck, surrendering to the crew. And wasn’t that exactly what he’d wanted? What they all needed?
Izzy was the one who forced the crew to hold on to the body. Most of the crew had wanted to throw it, throw him , overboard, since, they reasoned, that was what he’d wanted anyway. Fang had suggested the softer option of leaving him stranded on a beach. But Izzy was the one who’d clung to his captain like a deranged, maniacal child with a toy. And now he’s back. And Izzy hasn’t spoken to him.
To be fair, he’s been avoiding it. Not because he’s afraid. He is, but not in the urgent way that he gets at the wrong end of someone’s blade. He’s afraid of the truth, so much so that he can’t even recognize what that truth is. More than he’s afraid of Blackbeard, he’s afraid of what Blackbeard used to be. What he used to be to Izzy. And how fast it’s all fallen apart. It wasn’t fast, not really. It’s been a slow decline over the course of decades. But it feels like Izzy blinked and lost everything.
The sound of familiar footsteps interrupts his third hour of staring out at the horizon. The crew’s been leaving him alone, for the most part. They come by and check in on him every now and then, but they seem less inclined to hover now that they trust he’s not going to starve himself to death or jump off into the waves. The only person who hasn’t come by has been Edward. Until now. Izzy can feel his shoulders tense, as if on reflex, and he thinks about how fucked that is. This was once his best friend. It doesn’t ring true now, but he knows that it was, once. A long time ago.
“Morning, mate,” says Ed, coming up next to Izzy. His voice is deep—he’s just woken up.
“Morning,” Izzy answers.
“How’re you doing?”
“Fine.”
Silence. Not the comfortable kind, but the kind where Edward shifts back and forth from one foot to another and Izzy tries to communicate through his stare that he wants to be left alone. The crew of the Revenge would say that it was unhealthy. They would say that he and Edward would be better talking it through before everything unspoken between them festers and rots in their souls. Maybe Edward would say the same now. But Izzy doesn’t believe in the soul, and more importantly, he doesn’t know what there is left to say. Blackbeard doesn’t want him. He’s made that clear. That’s all Izzy needs to know.
But Edward won’t leave, won't stop shifting and wringing his hands. Izzy can hear it, but he keeps his gaze fixed firmly on the horizon. He doesn’t want to see his captain’s guilty eyes. Then, Ed comes up beside him and becomes significantly harder to ignore.
Izzy can hear him take a slow breath in and let it out. Probably something a crew member taught him. “Did I do that?” he mumbles.
Izzy barely hears him, and when he does, he wants to laugh. He doesn’t need to look at Edward to know that he’s asking about Izzy’s leg. Did I do that? As if the lunatic doesn’t remember. But then, that isn’t fair, is it? He knows how Ed’s memory gets, and his system of rationalizing things. Izzy’s spent the last few days telling himself that he was attacked by a shark. They both remember things the way they want to, the way they have to, to get by.
Izzy’s throat feels thick and full of cotton. Nevertheless, he chokes out a quiet little, “Yes.”
And it breaks him. It breaks him to remember the young man with the dark hair and those eyes so full of life, that night that they met. It breaks him to remember the raids and the treasure, the way he took care of Ed’s knee after he fell off of that roof and many nights after that. It hurts him, how far they’ve fallen.
The worst part is that they could have prevented all of this. Izzy can remember, like it was yesterday, shoving that drawing of Blackbeard in his face. He’d been trying to drag Edward back to the real world, his world, the only world he understood. It worked like a charm, but he’d broken him in the process.
Edward says nothing, but Izzy can hear the way his breathing has picked up and he hates it. Despite everything, he still can’t stand to see his captain dejected. He hates how he forgot that before Blackbeard, before they built the legend together, they were just two men, barely, carrying each other through the worst of times in back alleys and on filthy ships.
The memory is so heavy that Izzy nearly drowns in it, day after day. When he speaks, he doesn’t recognize his own voice. “We just can’t seem to stop hurting each other, can we?”
Ed’s voice is similarly unfamiliar. “No,” There’s a pause, and then he starts rambling. “But I promise, Izzy, just like I’ve promised everyone else, this is it. I mean it. I don’t even know… what happened, really. It was like something came over me, I didn’t even recognize myself for a bit–”
“It’s my fault,” Izzy drawls lazily. It’s the same thing he’s been telling himself during the worst hours of his nights. He says it like it’s obvious, because it should be. “I pushed you too hard.” He can hear from behind him that Ed is trying to think of something to say, so Izzy barrels ahead before he has the chance. “Besides, Edward, you should know by now that that’s not what I want.”
“What’s not what you want?”
“For this to be… it.” The last few weeks have been agonizing. But the time before that, when he was still getting used to seeing Edward with Stede, drinking tea and exchanging pleasantries instead of being an actual fucking pirate… that was almost worse. He draws a line between the two of them— the time on the Revenge with Stede and the time right after Stede left. In both cases, Edward had been completely inaccessible to him, locked behind a door that, for one reason or another, Izzy had no idea how to unlock.
“I don’t understand you, man,” Ed says, “What’s wrong with… not being absolutely fuckin’ deranged all the time?” Izzy isn’t sure if deranged was Ed referring to Izzy, or Ed referring to himself. Isn’t sure if Ed is sure. The lines blur sometimes.
“You used to,” Izzy insisted, “Understand me. Before you got bored .” Even to his own ears it sounded like he was pleading.
“Yeah, sure, and then I got bored. And I don’t get how you didn’t. What we were doing before— raids on empty ships, drinking ourselves to death, the occasional act of senseless violence— that was like torture to me.”
“And it was my dream,” Izzy interrupts, “That was the entire point, Edward! The very reason we got into this in the first place. So that we could reach the top!”
Edward sighs. “It wasn’t what I expected, okay? Maybe I’m not good at planning ahead, but I don’t want to keep fighting until I die. Especially when the fight’s not even fun anymore.”
Izzy scoffs. “Fun! Fucking fun. Everything has to be fun to you. Everything has to be new and fresh and exciting. You can’t just pick something and stick to it, can you?”
Ed shrugs. “No, I guess not.”
Izzy says nothing for a bit, letting the silence grow and get uncomfortable again, before he decides that he’s in too deep anyway. “I don’t understand what you see in him,” he mumbles.
For the first time since Ed joined him at the bow, Izzy looks up at his captain. Former captain. Ed is looking right back, his deep brown eyes brimming with something that’s not quite fear. Vulnerability, is that it? It’s not something Izzy’s used to. “It’s hard to explain.”
“Try.”
Ed looks surprised for a moment, and then his face breaks into a shy sort of smile. Shyness. Also not something Izzy’s used to. “Well, he makes me laugh. We have fun together. He’s kind. I almost never feel like I need to not say something around him. I feel like a better person around him, more relaxed and everything, like all the good things about him rub off on me. And he’s so weird, Iz. I mean, the books, the fancy ship, the suits and the robes. I’ve never met anyone like him before, and I don’t think I ever will again—”
Edward stops suddenly, like he can tell that stabbing Izzy would hurt less. Izzy is glad, though. He’s finally confirmed what he suspected Edward wanted all along. Stede is everything that Izzy isn’t.
But Edward isn’t finished. “I hope you find that someday,” he says, “Whether it’s with a person, or just… with yourself.”
Edward says it like it’s some grand, impactful truth, but all Izzy feels is empty. “Not sure if that’s even possible. I’ve built my whole life around Blackbeard, you know that.”
“I do. I’ve built my whole life around Blackbeard, too. But I’m not just Blackbeard, and you aren’t just Blackbeard’s first mate.”
A bitter laugh escapes Izzy’s chest. “Yes, I am. That’s all I’ve been, for ages. And I was okay with that, by the way.”
“You know, I thought I was okay with being Blackbeard. Turns out, I was just scared to be anything else.”
If Ed had come up here and attacked or threatened him, Izzy barely would have flinched. Now, he feels his own chest heaving, his breath running out. He holds on to the bar and counts the birds in the sky, like he’s learned to do since he lost his leg.
He hears Ed sigh. “You don’t want to talk about this right now, do you?” Ed asks. Izzy shakes his head, because right now any words would bring tears with them. “Alright. That’s fine. You know where to find me, if you need me.” He reaches forward, as if he’s going to pat Izzy on the shoulder, but he pulls away and disappears into the ship.
If you need me. Izzy doesn’t know if he wants to laugh or cry, so he doesn’t bother with either. Still, it’s ironic. As if he hasn’t needed Edward for his entire life.
And that’s the problem, isn’t it? After a while, he stopped needing Edward, and he started needing Blackbeard alone. He’s still clinging on to the corpse of what had been, harassing his oldest friend for something that he can’t give him anymore.
He thinks about this new Edward. And Stede, specifically. For a while, he really had convinced himself — or deluded himself, more accurately — into thinking that Edward’s new feelings were dangerous to everyone involved. But after this week, and looking back — the robes, the late morning breakfasts, the fuckin’ smiling all the time— Ed really is happy, isn’t he? Happier than he’s been in ages.
Izzy’s grip is like a vice on the railing. He’s afraid that he’ll pass out and drown if he lets go. It’s fitting, he supposed, for him to be the one stuck to the front of the ship like this. He is the new unicorn, after all. What motivated the crew to do that for him, he’ll never know, but… But. Well. They had, hadn’t they?
I hope you find that someday.
Stupid fuckin’ Edward Teach, always in his head. Izzy knows better than to hope by now. Hoping gets you nowhere. But here he is, with his new leg, the Revenge’s new unicorn. Maybe he doesn’t have to hope. Maybe all he has to do is wait.