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For the third night in a row, Izzy holds a lonely vigil by the side of Edward’s bed.
Fang had suggested throwing him overboard—a very harsh way to word what would have been a well-deserved funeral at sea—but Izzy couldn’t bring himself to part with his beloved Captain’s body just yet.
Ultimately, Fang agreed to keep Ed’s corpse onboard without much of a discussion. Probably hard to turn down the wish of a man with a bleeding stump for a leg and a bullet scrape across his forehead.
Izzy still isn’t sure why he can’t let go of Edward. After everything Ed’s done to him, any reasonable person would be glad to get rid of even the smallest reminder of his existence. Still, Izzy finds himself drawn back to Ed’s bedside, leaving only when someone calls him up to shovel down whatever meal they threw together. Something about Ed’s presence comforts him. He dabbed the blood off Ed’s cheeks and gathered his loose hair into a braid, just like Ed used to wear before he started sprouting his first grey hairs.
It would be easier if Izzy could hate him, but he loves him still.
The pain in the remains of his leg isn’t going anywhere, and neither is the dull ache in his chest that spikes whenever he looks at Ed’s face. At least Izzy feels useful here. At least he’s fulfilling his promise of loyalty.
Izzy is about to drift off into a shallow, dreamless slumber when something unexpected happens.
Ed’s chest slowly rises, then falls again. Izzy scrubs the back of his gloved hand over his eyes, hoping to wipe off whatever weariness still clings to them. He’s about to accept that his bone-tired brain just hallucinated the movement, but then, Ed does it again.
“Edward?” Izzy hates how his voice sounds—small and broken, and worst of all, hopeful.
Ed’s lips tremble open, slowly at first, then all at once until he can suck in a shaking breath.
Izzy leans forward, as close to his Captain’s body as he can without touching him. “Edward,” he whispers again. Beckoning him back into the world of the living.
Ed’s eyes flutter open. His eyelids look heavy, revealing more of the whites than the dark depths of the irises, but still. He’s awake. He’s alive. Izzy can’t fucking believe his eyes.
When Ed opens his lips again, an anguished guttural sound comes out.
Izzy’s breath catches in his throat. “Ed—” It sure would be helpful if he could scrape his brain for a word that isn’t just Ed’s name, but he’s coming up short.
Ed’s eyes flick back and forth in their sockets. He looks like a wild animal, but Izzy is sure there’s fear behind the ferocity. Finally, one of the sounds he croaks out resembles words that Izzy can make out. “Wh—where—am I?”
His voice is rusty and waterlogged, but it’s unmistakably Ed’s voice. Tears sting in Izzy’s eyes. He thought he’d never hear it again.
“Belowdecks,” he says, hoping it’s enough of an explanation for Ed to understand.
Ed doesn’t react. His eyes keep crawling along the ceiling like he’s searching for something.
“In the storage room. Where you…” Izzy sighs. He can’t say those words out loud yet. “Where they hid me.”
Ever so slowly, Ed turns his head towards Izzy. His eyes still look watery, and his movements are those of a drunkard staggering home from the tavern, but there’s a flash of clarity in his expression that assures Izzy that his captain is back for good. “Hid you?” He sounds genuinely shocked, and Izzy doesn’t think he’s in any state to be coming up with an elaborate lie right now. “Why would you need to hide?”
Izzy doesn’t say anything. His throat feels like it’s being crushed by iron stocks.
One of Ed’s hands creeps up the mattress and finds Izzy’s ungloved one. “Hornigold’s gone, y’know. For good. Don’t need to hide any longer.”
Hornigold— what on earth is Ed on about?
It takes every ounce of Izzy’s willpower not to pull his hand away as Ed grabs on tightly. It’s just the slightest bit of touch, but it makes him feel like ripping his skin off in tatters.
Ed’s eyebrows shoot up. “Why aren’t you wearing your ring?”
Heat builds in Izzy’s gut, and as he closes his eyes, he sees sparks flying behind his eyelids. He opens his eyes again and tries to keep his voice level as he replies, “I took it off months ago, Edward. You told me to take it off.”
“What? No. I would never do that.” Ed’s speech is still slurred and he barely manages to move, but his agitation ist clear as day. “Don’t say shit like that, Iz.”
Izzy is truly at a loss for words. His blood boils.
He remembers that day when Ed stopped wearing his ring and told Izzy to take his off, too—of course he remembers, it was not even a fucking year ago. That wound is still fresh, oozing and pulsing just like Izzy’s missing leg.
He remembers seeing the little green gemstone on Bonnet’s finger, too. Izzy was more surprised than angry—he thought Ed threw the ring overboard after their fight. He didn’t think he’d hold on to it.
Izzy’s hand flies up to his cravat where, even after everything, he still keeps his own ring safe. He never considered taking it off. Not even after Edward shot him. It would be funny, if it wasn’t so pathetic.
“You look like shit, Iz,” Ed says, squeezing Izzy’s bare hand. The touch burns worse than a bullet to the kneecap. “What happened?”
Izzy draws in a shuddering breath, filling his lungs with the scent of sleep and rot that fills the room. In a split second, he decides to give Ed the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he really doesn’t remember the storm. Wouldn’t be much of a shocker, with how rough Jim was with his head.
“We sailed right into a storm. The Revenge is wrecked, so we’re not going anywhere. I tried to figure out our position, but Bonnet doesn’t have a single fucking functioning sextant aboard—”
“Fuck are you talking about, mate?” Ed mutters. “Revenge? Bonnet? Did you hit your head or something?” He opens his eyes a little wider and looks up at Izzy’s face. “That why you’ve got that gash on your face?”
An acidic taste rises in Izzy’s throat, but he swallows it down. As much as the words hurt, he sees no hint of dishonesty on Ed’s face. Whatever is going on right now, he can play along.
“Yeah. That’s it. Just hit my head.”
“I still don’t understand how this happened,” Ed says, wrapping his arms around himself. “Like, how can I just… forget twenty-something years of my life?”
It’s been days, and they’ve played through this conversation at least a dozen times, but Ed is hellbent on solving what Izzy has long accepted as an inexplicable mystery. Still, he turns in his seat at the small desk in the middle of the captain’s cabin and faces Ed. “Cannonball to the head will do that for you, I suppose.”
Ed blinks at him in confusion. It’s fucking heartbreaking. He still looks like the man who chopped Izzy’s toes off for daring to talk back one too many times, but he acts like the kid who would buy sweet treats on shore leave and giggle as he snuck into Izzy’s hammock late at night. He furrows his brows as he asks, “Did that happen to me? In the storm?”
“In the storm, yeah,” Izzy says, hoping to evade further questions.
It’s not exactly a lie. It happened in the storm. He can’t yet bear telling Ed about everything that happened after his memory breaks off—the years and years spent sailing the Queen Anne’s Revenge together as their love turned dark and violent, their breakup, Bonnet, Bonnet’s disappearance, the Kraken…
He’s not sure who he’s even trying to protect here, Edward or himself. Until he figures that out, he’s going to inhabit this liminal space in the great cabin with him, trying to avoid any outright lies while he spares them both the truth.
Ed’s posture is sunken and slouched as he stares at his face in the mirror of Bonnet’s vanity—one of the few pieces of furniture that survived the Kraken’s wrath. “I look so fucking old. You do too, Iz.” He touches a strand of hair that is more silver than black, careful like it might crumble to dust if he’s not gentle enough. Izzy only dimly remembers how it feels to be touched like that. “‘s fucking scary, being this old and not remembering half my life.”
Izzy sighs. “Yeah, I bet it is, Eddie.”
At that, Ed smiles. “At least you still call me Eddie. That’s good.”
“Sometimes,” Izzy says warily, trying to force down the memories of the last time he uttered the nickname.
“Guess some things never change.” Ed spins around in his seat with the nimble movements of a much younger man, then winces and places his hand over his bad knee. His face goes through a series of expressions before he faces Izzy again with a serious look. “Y’know what else never changes? I love you, Iz. You know that, right? I’ll never stop loving you.”
A hard, heavy clump of ice sinks in the pit of Izzy’s stomach. He knows that Ed means it as he says it. This used to be true, once upon a time, many screaming matches and broken bottles ago. Ed used to be so sure that things would never change between the two of them. So did Izzy, if he’s honest. Back in the days Ed lives in now, he could never have predicted that their relationship would turn this ugly.
“Iz?” Ed asks, pulling Izzy out of his miserable reverie. He’s still waiting for an answer, Izzy realises, but as much as Izzy enjoys playing pretend for Ed’s sake, he can’t force that lie over his lips.
“Yeah,” Izzy stammers, and then allows an uncomfortable silence to fall around them.
As so often, Ed can’t stand more than a few beats of being quiet. He rises from his stool and crosses the room to plop down on the desk right in front of Izzy.
“I’m so fucking curious about everything that’s going to happen!” Ed looks happy, Izzy thinks, excited just as he used to be before the years at sea dulled his bright, beautiful eyes. “Or, well. Has happened, I suppose.”
He reaches out to brush his fingers over Izzy’s thigh, right above the strap of his makeshift prosthetic. The touch hurts—the wound is still fresh and sensitive, still drooling blood and pus into Izzy’s rapidly declining stock of bandages—but what hurts more is the easy, intimate familiarity of it.
God, Izzy misses the way Ed used to touch him.
“Like, what happened to your leg, mate?”
Izzy’s blood feels like black, icy water running through his veins. “Shark got me,” he rasps, his voice feeling brittle and thin.
“Shit, that’s kind of badass,” Ed says. He looks amused, and Izzy feels sick with it. “Where did we even run into a shark?”
Izzy shrugs. “Oh, you know. Guess I should’ve been more careful.”
“Guess you should have,” Ed says, a soft smile spreading out on his face. “But I bet I got the fucker good after he dared to hurt my Izzy, didn’t I?”
This time, Izzy can’t force himself to reply.
Ed leans in—for a kiss, Izzy realises, and panic seizes him.
He turns away. He doesn’t want Ed to see the tears streaming down his cheeks.
Izzy has long stopped believing in God.
When Bonnet and his crew of imbeciles show up in the middle of the night on a ship captained by none other than the legend that is Zheng Yi Sao, Izzy thinks he may have to reconsider. He thought he was going to die aboard the crippled Revenge, saltwater and a half-rotten seagull his last meal.
In a way, he’s grateful. He didn’t want to die like this.
But in another, far more urgent way, he’s terrified. Things between him and Ed have been good, these past few days. He tried to resist for as long as he could, but when Ed crawled into his bed in the middle of the night, demanding kisses and comfort, there was no way Izzy could refuse.
It was so easy to fall back into their long-practised rhythm, easier still for his hands to find all the spots on Ed’s body that made him shiver with pleasure.
It wasn’t right, but it was easy. If he was going to die, Izzy could at least allow himself to spend his last hours in this mimicry of old bliss he thought was lost forever.
Ed wanted it, too, he reminds himself.
Now, as Bonnet blunders his way across the gangplank, Izzy can’t tear his eyes off Ed’s face. He’s not sure what he expected to see, but there’s nothing on there to either calm him or confirm his worst fears. Ed’s expression stays guarded as the two crews reunite and Bonnet receives hugs and salutations from all sides.
“Who’s that?” Ed asks, nodding in Bonnet’s direction. “I feel like I should know him, with how everyone’s all over him.”
“Stede Bonnet,” Izzy answers around the rapidly expanding lump in his throat, “the bane of my fucking existence.”
“Sounds like a twat,” Ed says mildly. “Looks like one, too.”
Bonnet peels himself out of Frenchie’s arms. He turns towards Ed, and his entire face lights up.
Izzy places a hand on Ed’s elbow. He’s being possessive and ridiculous, he knows, and he’s taking advantage of Ed’s confusion, but he can’t hand Ed back to Bonnet’s greedy hands just yet. He wants to stay blind and bask in this mirage of happiness for just a little longer.
Fang shoots him a weird look and subtly shakes his head.
Izzy’s not going to deal with that right now. He turns back to Ed. “Shall we go back inside, Eddie?”
Ed nods. “Probably better if we do. Everyone’s looking at me like I insulted their mother or something. Shit—did I?”
“Something like that,” Izzy says, trying to keep his voice level. The crew’s ire is more than justified, and Izzy understands them all too well, but admitting that would require telling Ed about all the things he did and then forgot. Izzy can’t have that. Not yet. “We’ll figure out a way to make it up to them, alright?”
“Yeah,” Ed says, the unease on his face giving way to a soft smile. “Thank you.”
This time, when he leans in for a kiss, Izzy doesn’t push him away.
Letting Ed spend even a second alone with Bonnet was a mistake, Izzy knew even before he agreed to it.
But what was he supposed to do? Deny Ed’s curiosity? Keep him locked up in the great cabin they’ve shared for these past weeks to let him drown in his confusion? Izzy can be cruel, when he needs to, but not like this. Never like this.
Still, when Ed opens the door so hastily that it almost falls off its hinges, Izzy is shocked to see the heat in his eyes. It’s over, Izzy understands before Ed even opens his mouth.
Ed storms over to the desk where Izzy broods over the newly reinstated ship ledger. “I remember now,” he says.
He might as well cut off another toe. It would hurt less, Izzy thinks.
Ed pulls off the ring Izzy put there just a week ago, twisting and turning it between his fingers. “Can’t keep this thing, now, can I?”
He holds it out to Izzy, but Izzy remains frozen where he is. He can’t take his ring back. He can’t.
Ed drops it on the desk with a wooden clattering sound that makes Izzy flinch. Ed looks at him like he wants to say something. He opens his mouth, then closes it again, then crosses his arms over his chest with a deep sigh. “Look, mate, it is what it is, yeah?”
“Suppose so,” Izzy says. He turns away from Ed to keep his voice from breaking and his tears from spilling over. “I’m glad you have recovered.”
So am I, he expects Ed to say, but that answer never comes. Instead, Ed clears his throat. “So. Stede wants the cabin back. Can you move your shit back down to your own room?”
A request, not an order. That’s fucking weird.
“Of course, Sir,” Izzy says—a reply to the order Ed should have given.
“Thanks,” Ed says, and he’s already halfway across the room.
Izzy wants to stop him, to say something—anything at all, while he still has the chance, before Ed sinks back into Bonnet’s arms and forgets all about Izzy’s existence. I meant it, maybe, or It was all real to me. But when he opens his mouth, no sound comes out.
The door slams shut again, and Izzy’s tears start to fall.
He curls his fingers around the ring so hard the edges of the gemstone cut into his flesh. He hopes they draw blood.
It is what it is.
He should’ve let Fang throw Edward overboard when they still had the chance.