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“What the fuck is this?” Izzy demands, staring into the box.
“It’s a hand,” Pete says brightly. “I whittled it for you.”
“The fuck for?” Izzy asks, picking up the wooden hand and examining it. “I didn’t lose my fucking hand.”
The wooden hand well-made and polished smooth. There’s a wrist that tapers into a rounded handle, molded to fit easily in one’s palm. The wooden hand is a good weight and nicely balanced. Easy to hold.
It’s also flipping him off.
“I just figured, you know, arthritis. Could happen soon—”
“—fuck off—”
“—and it’d be a shame if you couldn’t fully communicate with the crew anymore,” Pete continues, unfazed. “So, I made you a backup hand, just in case.”
Izzy stares at him. “... ‘not fully communicate’?”
“Sure,” Pete says with a shrug. “I mean, if you can’t flip us off, that’d really cut into crew morale.”
It wasn’t that long ago that Izzy would have thought such a statement indicative of a crew losing all respect for him, but with this crew, the respect came later and in the form of gifts like this. A unicorn leg made from the old figurehead. A fake gravemarker and empty wooden casket to smuggle him away from Ed and Stede’s retirement plans.
It’s not that he’s ungrateful. On his worst nights, Izzy still wakes up in a cold sweat, barely biting back a hoarse yell about repairing window sashes or leaking roofs. A shudder passes over him now, even with the brief thought of being stuck with Ed and Stede in that “fixer-upper.”
But now: a hand, permanently molded in admittedly his favorite wordless gesture. It’s… thoughtful, if strange, and still not a building on the verge of collapse.
“Thank you, Mr. Pete,” Izzy says. “I didn’t know you whittled.”
There’s a funny, fond smile on Pete’s face. “I whittle.”
He doesn’t continue, another marked difference from the people they once were.
Izzy glances to the prow. “Anything other than hands?”
“I’m sure I can figure it out.”
“I’d like you to help me with something.”
It takes the better part of a month to carve the new figurehead, even with the two of them working on it. Pete thinks it ought to be a surprise, and Izzy finds himself in agreement. What they’re working on isn’t a secret, but that doesn’t stop Lucius from making a new joke about woodworking every time they disappear to work on it.
(The spare middle finger proves to be quite useful, as it turns out.)
Once the new figurehead is affixed to the prow of the ship, it’s worth all the effort and double entendres. The mermaid glitters like an emerald in the afternoon sun, elbows tucked against her sides and palms turned towards her chest. Both middle fingers raised.
“Looks good,” Jim says.
“It’s perfect,” Fang says.
“Exactly our brand,” Roach says.
“Feels right,” Oluwande agrees.
“Color’s much nicer,” Wee John adds.
“I like the tail bit,” Archie says. “Like a sea serpent.”
“Wherever I go,” Lucius says, leaning this way and that; “her eyes seem to follow me.”
“Well done, Pete and Iz,” Frenchie says, clapping them on the shoulders. “Think we’re ready to start tricking some rich pricks out of their trust funds?”
The mermaid turns towards the horizon, leading the Revenge and her crew towards another adventure.