Chapter Text
Izzy Hands was standing on the deck of The Revenge, and he was hungry.
He was always hungry these days, a raw gnawing ache that was tolerable at best, and at worst forced him to hunch over with his eyes glazed, counting the minutes until he could eat again.
Not that there was a shortage of food on the ship - far from it. Bonnet always kept a plentiful supply of the best quality food on the ship, and made sure to stock up on the interesting local delicacies at every port. The crew had never eaten so well, and Izzy hated them for it.
He wasn’t sure when the need for hunger had started. Years ago probably, and things had gotten worse slowly but steadily until… well, until Stede Bonnet had come along and pushed him into freefall. The twat. At least before Bonnet, before Edward had started this insane obsession with this prissy blond haired fop, Izzy would have had to eat at least a semi-substantial amount if he wanted to make it through the next raid on an enemy ship. Now? With Bonnet in charge? There was hardly any danger of having to fight, no reason for him to keep his strength up.
And then there was the stress. Izzy couldn’t understand how he was more stressed out now, surrounded by an idiotic bunch of wet wipes, than he’d ever been while fighting for his life against the Spanish Army. It was probably something in the way Edward’s eyes skated over him now, the way he only ever half-listened to anything Izzy said… it bit at him to the bone.
It would have been an honour to go down fighting at Blackbeard’s side, to die protecting him. But now it just looked like Izzy would just die of boredom and neglect instead, curled up in a dark corner of the ship like a wounded animal. Would Edward even realise that he was gone?
Izzy doubted it.
He stared out across the ocean as the sun set, leaning heavily on the side of the ship. His thoughts were interrupted by the appearance of Buttons, who cleared his throat and gave his best attempt at a salute.
“Alright? It’s my turn to take over the watch, ye can go get some rest,” He said kindly, jerking his head towards the door to the interior of the ship. “I’ll keep an eye oot for sirens and sea witches and the like.”
Izzy nodded, forcing himself upright. “The ship’s on course for the time being, but we’re about to head into some warmer currents, so make sure to keep her straight. Other than that, nothing else to report.”
He watched as a seagull flapped down and landed on Buttons’ head. Buttons didn’t blink or seem to register this new addition to his headpiece - instead, he seemed to be looking at Izzy with a slightly concerned expression. Annoyingly, the seagull had the audacity to look at him concernedly as well.
He gave Buttons another brisk nod and walked quickly past him to his cabin, ignoring the impudent gull. As soon as he got through the door, he flopped heavily onto his bunk. Izzy could almost hear his bones creak as they settled into the blankets. Staring unseeingly at the wall, he allowed the exhaustion to overcome him for a moment, while he ran his meal plan through his head for the millionth time that day.
Tomorrow was Pete’s birthday, or at least he claimed it was. A few weeks into sailing together, Bonnet had asked the whole crew when their birthdays were, only to be horrified at the fact that most of the men had no idea when they were born. So then he’d asked them all when they’d like their birthdays to be, and he’d written it all down on that godforsaken calendar, and now every few weeks Izzy was forced to enjoy the festivities and wish happy birthday to a man whose birthday it most definitely was not.
So he’d have to eat some cake tomorrow - Roach got quite violently upset if someone refused to eat his cake, and after watching Lucius get chased round the deck with a meat cleaver, Izzy had quickly learned to accept the cake and eat at least a few bites.
If he ate three bites of cake, he could make up for it by eating less dinner… Izzy wondered if he’d be able to resist the temptation of the hot potatoes or thick slab of bread. The boiled vegetables he allowed himself to eat weren’t substantial and didn’t keep him full for long, but they contained at least some of the vitamins he so desperately needed, and they kept him strong enough to do his job. He’d survived this way for nearly two weeks now - fasting all day until it was finally time for dinner, when he was allowed at last to eat his self-imposed ration of exactly half his portion of meat and whatever vegetables he’d been given.
Nearly two weeks? Izzy refocused his eyes, pulling himself back to reality, and felt about under the pillow for a small leather-bound notebook. He flicked through it quickly, eyes scanning the dates and the records of the food he’d eaten, written painstakingly in his spiky black handwriting. It had become almost a compulsion to keep everything written down, to track everything down to the last morsel.
The entries got noticeably shorter as time went on, reflecting the way he’d constricted his diet, restricting and eventually cutting out anything he considered unnecessary until he was left where he was now, squeezing by on some protein and a few vegetables per day. Under some of the dates in his notebook there was nothing written; there was simply a single slash mark, to indicate he’d made it through the day without a single bite of food.
Those days gave Izzy a strange sense of pride - a feeling of accomplishment, almost superiority. After all, there wasn’t another man on board who could keep the ship together like he did, even on a full stomach. It proved he could do a better job than any of them, be a better pirate than any of them, while half starved. He was stronger than them, had more self-control, could endure more than any of them. He was sure that after even half a day of no food, half of this crew would be whining and complaining and refusing to leave their bunks. Meanwhile Izzy would regularly be standing out on the deck, on hour forty-seven without food, doing his damned job without even giving even the smallest hint of fatigue.
It seemed like no time at all had passed before Izzy heard people coming down from the deck to eat dinner - he hadn’t realised how long he’d been lying down staring at nothing. He heaved himself into sitting on the edge of the bed, with his hands on his knees and his boots planted firmly on the floor. With a deep breath he struggled upright, reaching out a hand to steady himself on the wall of the cabin as his vision darkened momentarily with an all-too-familiar headrush. Refusing to allow himself more than a moment of weakness, Izzy pushed his hand away from the wall, the dark spots in his vision reducing as he marched out of the cabin and down the corridor towards the kitchen.
Most of the crew was already there when he arrived, seated around the small wooden table and in seemingly high spirits. They were having an animated discussion about something, all grinning stupidly and looking at Black Pete as he mimed an explosion with his hands and made the accompanying sound effects. None of them looked at Izzy as he slipped into the sectioned-off part of the room, where Roach was busy ladling food onto an assortment of mismatched plates.
Roach looked up as he entered, smiling at him.
“Ah, Izzy! Perfect timing, make sure to get yours while it’s still hot!” He said, gesturing at the plates with the ladle. “Gravy?”
“No. And that’s First Mate Hands to you. Do you need me to take a plate up to the captain?” Replied Izzy, squeezing past him to pour some boiling water from the kettle into his pewter mug.
“Don’t worry, no, it’s OK, I’ll take them both a plate in a minute.”
“Understood.”
Izzy hadn’t been offering to take anything up to Bonnet, anyway. He shook some dried mint leaves into his mug from a large brown jar, and grabbed his mug and the sole plate without any gravy on it. He shouldered his way back past Roach and escaped into the corridor.
He never ate with the crew. He couldn’t face it, and not only because he hated the inane conversation that was invariably about the existence of mermaids or the biggest crabs they’d ever seen. He just hated it - hated watching Frenchie eat more than double what Izzy was eating and then go up for more, while still staying skinnier than Izzy.
He hated the resentment he felt when someone else left some food on their plate, as though leaving the most amount of food was a competition that no one else was allowed to even come close to winning. He hated feeling like all their eyes were on him, judging him for eating too much no matter how much he ate, while at the same time being worried sick that they would notice that he was eating too little and try to talk to him about it. He could never win, so he always retired to the safety and quiet comfort of his cabin, where he could eat in peace.