Chapter Text
Izzy figures this is the end for him, or something close to it.
Then again, he thought it was the end when he was unconscious all that time in the hold, and he thought it was the end when Edward put that gun in his hand. He thought all of them would meet their end when he hauled himself up on deck, hoping he'd be enough to turn the tide.
Indestructible, Ed called him. He doesn't feel it now, that's for sure.
As he takes another swig from the bottle, Bonnet pops up, seemingly out of nowhere. Not that Izzy could have seen him coming, clinging to the rope as he is just to stay upright. Not that he cares that much about minding his surroundings anymore anyway.
"He's seen better days, hasn't he?"
Chipper, Bonnet is. Too loud, too bright for Izzy to handle in his state. And too cheerful by half, given that the crew's about to vote Edward off the ship. Izzy's not going to stop them, either.
Bonnet's talking about the headless figurehead—not a horse, but a unicorn, Izzy recalls. With nothing better to look at up here, he's certainly been staring at what remains of it long enough. Long enough to resent the way it still rears up, proud and prancing, while he's barely ambulatory.
"At least he's still got both legs!" he shouts into the wind.
He didn't mean to say that out loud, exactly. But between the drink and the pain, and Bonnet adding on to his annoyance, Izzy can't bring himself to give a fuck.
"Yes!" Bonnet crows, in the direction of the figurehead. To Izzy, he says, "Oh, he can't hear you. He's got no head."
Izzy doesn't dignify the obvious with a response, and Bonnet carries on like he wasn't waiting for one.
"You've got a head, though." Bonnet eyes the bottle as Izzy pours not nearly enough down his throat. "Which you should… look after."
One could say he's trying to sympathize with Izzy's sad state of affairs. Trying and failing, with that high and mighty look of his. Izzy doesn't want it. He stares Bonnet down. "What do you want, Bonnet?"
Not that it matters, what Bonnet wants. Frankly, it's pretty nervy of him, coming to Izzy asking for favors now, after Izzy's already done him the enormous favor of holding his ship together under Edward's wrath. Not that Izzy did it for that, just. Well, it doesn't matter now.
Still. Bonnet's the only one among them who's plucked up enough courage to seek Izzy out in his self-imposed exile, and he's not put off at all by Izzy trying to drink himself to death, nor the missing lower half of his leg. He rescued Izzy off Zheng Yi Sao's ship when it would have been easier just to leave him.
So Izzy doesn't stop him from asking. He knows exactly why Bonnet's here, though, and sure enough—
"Uh, well, here's the thing," Bonnet begins, like he's introducing a delicate topic of conversation. Izzy would rather the entire conversation just be over and done with, but he doesn't interrupt. "The crew, they're in a bit of a deadlock over the whole banishment of Ed thing."
Izzy highly doubts that. If he knows this crew—and he thinks he does by now, at least those who've served under him, under the Kraken the past few months—Bonnet's the only one pushing for Edward to stay, and the rest would just as soon see him fed to the sharks, Blackbeard or no. Izzy clings tighter to the rope and tries not to let Bonnet see him shaking from the effort to hold himself upright.
"And I just thought, seeing as, well—"
And suddenly, Izzy's smearing black makeup on his face, scrubbing it off again. He's leading raid after raid, no rest, nothing but the next ship and the next. He's sitting in the hold with the crew, being held by them, trying to make sense of it all.
"—you were the one who kept his body aboard—"
He's hauling himself up out of his deathbed, half a leg down and a fresh graze on his forehead, knowing he has to stop Edward from killing the lot of them. He's watching the crew beat Edward nearly to death, knowing he provided the distraction that gave them the upper hand.
He's ordering Edward's body be stored below instead of given an immediate burial, knowing that if Edward stands a chance at life at all, it'll be up to him to take it.
"—maybe you should weigh in."
Weigh in? The answer Bonnet wants is obvious, but Izzy can't give it. The way Izzy can barely keep himself upright, yeah, maybe he deserved that, provoking the Kraken the way he did. But the cruelty and neglect Ed's demonstrated towards this crew—Bonnet's crew, never Edward's, not in their hearts—that's harder to forget, even harder to forgive.
"You've already murdered him once," Bonnet says, flippant like they're sharing a joke. "Seems like a pretty good payback."
And where does Izzy even start with that one, he wonders. The way Bonnet will never understand him and Ed and what they do and don't owe each other—the way he can't possibly, when Izzy doesn't always know where the lines are himself.
"So, what do you think?" Bonnet asks.
What does Izzy think? That he never should have let it get this far, that any of this happened in the first place. That Bonnet should leave him to rot in his fate alone. That they should toss both him and Edward overboard, to die and be eaten by sharks together.
"My vote?" Izzy says, as Bonnet listens with bated breath.
He heaves himself up from the rope for greater effect and looks Bonnet in the eye.
"A rotten leg's got to come off."
He doesn't elaborate. He doesn't have to. Bonnet meets his gaze, sympathetic, looking like he understands far more than Izzy's comfortable with.
Then Bonnet screws up his face, and, so quick it could only be an impulse Bonnet chased to its swift conclusion, leans in and presses his lips to Izzy's forehead. Right on the scar left behind by Edward's gun, by Izzy's own hand—his mouth a balm that threatens to crack Izzy in two with its tenderness.
As if Bonnet doesn't see him as something crumbling apart at the seams, but as someone who could be made whole again. Who could still be of use, somehow.
Bonnet pulls back and steps away, down toward the deck.
"Right," Bonnet says.
And just when Izzy thinks he's leaving, Bonnet pokes his head back up. "Just to confirm, was that a nay or yay on the banishment?"
Izzy growls, and this time, Bonnet does beat a hasty retreat, leaving Izzy alone with his thoughts and Bonnet's kiss on his skin.
