Chapter Text
A violent shudder ran through the hull of the ship, ending in a sudden jolt that almost threw Izzy out of his bunk.
“Sorry, all!” Came the sound of Stede’s distant shout from above.
Ripped from his previously peaceful sleep, Izzy sat up, rubbing his eyes. Who the hell let that blundering maniac steer the ship? The man was a walking insurance hazard at the best of times, let alone when he was left in charge of navigating a thousand-ton ship through tricky waters. Disorientated, he fumbled to light a candle, illuminating the dark gloom of his windowless cabin.
What time was it? He must have slept for a long time, if even Bonnet was up and about on the deck. He was sore, every muscle aching from the brutal combination of having over-exercised and overslept. His head ached, too. So did his stomach. He lay there for a while, watching the thumb on his right hand twitch out an irregular rhythm on the blankets. These muscle spasms would come and go from time to time, always in his fingers, thumbs, arms. Izzy wasn’t sure what caused them - they’d started shortly after he’d started restricting his food intake, and they’d been getting more and more frequent ever since.
He knew that he should get up, storm up to the deck and unleash a torrent of rage at whoever was standing closest, demanding justice, insisting on being let back to work. But now that there was no pressing obligation to get out of bed, now that he had even the slightest excuse to remain lying here, he found that he just… couldn’t do it. There wasn't a single drop of energy left in him to muster.
The sound of someone tapping at the door startled him out of his stupor. It creaked open, despite Izzy’s silence, and he watched the shape of Oluwande shuffle in at the edge of his vision.
“Thought that might have woken you up! Here, I got you some breakfast.” He said, brandishing a bowl. “Don’t worry, Buttons has taken over navigation now, so there shouldn’t be any more nasty surprises.”
Izzy heaved himself into a sitting position, wincing slightly as the pain in his head sharpened.
“I can get my own damn breakfast.” He growled.
“Yes you can, but you weren’t gonna, were you? So I’ve bought it for you.”
Oluwande sat down on the chair again, placing the bowl next to Izzy. It was porridge, with a sprinkling of brown sugar on top. Izzy was horrified - sugar was expensive, valuable! Why were they wasting it on him?
“I’m not hungry.” He lied, turning his head away.
“You don’t have to be hungry to eat, y’know.” Oluwande leaned back in his chair. “It’ll give you energy for the day.”
Izzy said nothing. It was a world view so contrary to his own; he felt bad enough for eating even when he was hungry, for God’s sake.
“Why don’t you want to eat?” Oluwande said quietly, his voice gentle. “Are you ill? Is it the food, don’t you like it? Or are you like afraid of choking, or something - I knew a man like that once, he’d had a bad experience nearly choking to death as a child. He wouldn’t eat without someone with him, in case it happened again.”
“No.” Said Izzy shortly. “Nothing like that. I eat when necessary.”
“Well clearly not! You passed out yesterday! Why didn’t you have something before that?”
Izzy scowled. Thanks for reminding me, he thought bitterly.
He shrugged. “Didn’t think I needed to.”
And that was about as open and honest as he was going to be. Hell, he’d probably already said too much.
“That’s really concerning, Iz.”
“First Mate Hands!”
“But why? You’re not stupid, you do all the supply lists and the inventory checks. You know how much a grown man needs to eat to work safely on a ship. But then here you are, still working yourself to the point of exhaustion and not eating half as much of the rest of us! There’s gotta be a reason for it, cause it just doesn’t make sense.”
Izzy just shrugged again. It didn’t have to make sense to anyone else, they didn’t have to understand. He didn’t want their empathy, their concern, their pity. He just wanted to be left alone.
Realising he wasn’t going to get an answer, the other man sighed, leaning forward to push the bowl further towards Izzy.
“Come on, it’s going to get cold. And the captains’ve said you won’t get a meeting until you’ve finished the whole thing, anyway.”
“Mr Boodhari, if you’re gonna hold me prisoner in my own room, I have a right to speak with the captain of the ship.” Izzy’s words were frosty.
“Alright, calm down mate, no one’s holding you prisoner. They said if you don’t eat then you’re clearly ill, or at least something’s not right with you, which means there’s no point in discussing you coming back to work, ‘cause you’re obviously not in a fit state to.”
Seething, Izzy grabbed the bowl and spoon, intending to gulp it down as fast as possible with the intention of giving Bonnet and Edward more than a piece of his mind when he saw them. He wondered how much he would be able to shout at them before incurring an actual punishment. It didn’t matter, anyway. Nothing could be worse than this.
But he quailed as soon as he’d raised the first spoonful half way out of the bowl. He couldn’t eat all this. He’d already eaten yesterday. He couldn’t have Oluwande see him eating again. It felt like failure. And porridge was the kind of food that people ate on cold winter mornings, saying things like ‘it sticks to your ribs.’ Izzy could imagine it coating his insides, adding another layer of fat to his stomach, undoing all his hard work.
A strange feeling of anxiety arose in his stomach and chest, making him feel sick. His throat felt too tight to actually let anything go down it, if he managed to convince himself to actually get anything into his mouth. He let the porridge that was on the spoon slide back into the bowl.
Oluwande spoke again. “It’s just a bit of porridge, I promise there’s nothing to be afraid of. I’m right here with you.”
That’s part of the fucking problem! Izzy wanted to scream. Just leave me alone!
“Do you want me to get something to eat as well? So you don’t feel weird.”
Izzy raised and lowered one shoulder.
“Alright, I’ll be right back.” He said, raising himself off of the chair and exiting the room.
He returned a few moments later, carrying a plate of dates and a book.
“I got this to read.” He explained, indicating the slim paperbound volume. “Lucius and Frenchie wrote it together. I’ll take the chair over here to sit at the desk, look, and read this while we both eat. That OK?”
Izzy nodded mutely, deciding not to point out that as far as he was aware, neither Frenchie or Oluwande could read. To Oluwande’s credit, his actions actually did make him feel better about the whole thing - less like he was being watched, supervised, judged. Infuriatingly, Izzy actually felt touched by the gesture; he couldn’t remember the last time someone had made an effort for him, the last time someone had genuinely given a shit about his comfort and well being. He was far more used to screamed orders and threats of violence.
Slowly, he tried again, this time managing to take a mouthful in spite of the knot of anxiety in his stomach. It tasted good, somehow better than he could have imagined. After a few more small, tentative spoonfuls, he was surprised to find that the panic began to dissipate, little by little. He risked a glance at Oluwade. He was sitting happily ignoring Izzy, focused on the book he’d brought with him. As Izzy watched, he chuckled at something on the page and reached to take another date.
Right. The sooner he finished this bowl, the sooner he could tell the captains exactly what he thought of them. Maybe he’d threaten to leave, make them realise how much they needed him around.
Turning over imaginary scenarios in his head of what exactly he was going to say to the captains, Izzy slowly made his way through the bowl on his lap. It was easier than he had expected, and he hated himself for it. He felt guilty - he should have put up more of a fight, should have refused to eat point-blank. And now that he’d started, why couldn’t he stop himself from eating? It was as though something primal in his subconscious had now taken control, overriding the part of Izzy’s brain that was screaming at him to stop spooning more porridge into his mouth. He was just going along with their stupid little plan until he’d got them off his back, and then he could easily start restricting again, he reassured himself. Hopefully they would lose interest soon, before all his hard work was undone.
And just like that the bowl was finished. Izzy set the bowl down quietly, waiting for Oluwande to look round of his own accord. He wasn’t going to make this any easier for him than he had to, and he was hardly going to say ‘finished!’ and hand the dish back to him like a child. He tried to get a better look at what the other man was reading - it seemed to be some sort of comic strip, hand drawn in Lucius’ scratchy style. There were no words, only what looked like caricatures of the crew, running about on various adventures. Izzy could only hope that he didn’t feature in it. He didn’t want to know how they all saw him.
After a while, Oluwande finished the book. He turned to face Izzy, smiling.
“Alright, you done? Great, I’ll let the captains know.” He said, standing up and collecting the bowl. “I’ll be back later with your lunch.”
Izzy didn’t reply, just grateful that Oluwande hadn’t said anything patronising like ‘good job!’ or ‘there, that wasn’t so bad, was it?’ He wasn’t sure he would be able to withstand that level of humiliation, no matter how well-intentioned it was.
“I’ll see you later, then.” And with that, Oluwande left the room.
Ugh, he felt awful. He felt full, a sensation he hadn’t felt in fuck knows how long. It made him feel disgusting; it was all he could do to lie there and resist the urge to claw his stomach out of his body. And the guilt of eating a whole bowl of food was weighing on him. Where was his stamina, his resistance? He couldn’t let this happen again. If he kept giving in so easily, soon he’d be no better than the rest of them, stuffing themselves with three meals a day. Izzy couldn’t allow that to happen.
A muffled voice from the other side of the door interrupted his stream of self-pity.
“Izzy? It’s me, Stede!”
What. Why the hell had Bonnet come down to his cabin? Izzy shot out of bed as quickly as he was able to, trying his best to ignore the unfamiliar tight feeling in his stomach. He wrenched the door open, his face a mask of fury.
“Can I help you, Captain?” He asked, unable to keep the contempt out of his voice.
“Ah - yes. I was wondering if I could just pop in for a little chat.”
Begrudgingly, Izzy stood aside to make room for Stede to breeze past him into the cabin. This was so improper! Bonnet should be summoning Izzy to his quarters, not turning up outside his door ‘for a little chat.’ It was completely unprofessional - but then, that was Bonnet all over. Not knowing what to make of the situation, Izzy snapped the door closed and turned to face the captain. Both men stood awkwardly for a moment, unsure of what to do next.
“How are you feeling, Iz? Recovered any from yesterday?” Said Stede at last.
“I’m fine, thank you Captain.”
“Do you have any idea what happened? It was all such a shock - one minute you were standing there, and the next you weren’t! Did you get sudden seasickness? That happened to me once, you know, I thought I’d got over the seasickness after about a week on board, but then all of a sudden one morning it hit me again, and I had to go and lie down for the rest of the day. That’s when I had the idea to write the book about my adventures at sea, you know. Lucius managed to write down the whole of the first chapter in between swapping out the damp cloths on my forehead.”
Izzy raised an eyebrow. Every time he spoke to Bonnet, he found he had a new respect for the crew for not mutinying yet.
“No,” He replied impatiently. “I’m a pirate, I don’t get seasick.”
“Well, are you ill, then?”
“No, I’m perfectly well.”
“Well that’s good, otherwise we’d have had to keep you in your cabin, and Oluwande too, to keep it from spreading. And myself, now, I suppose!”
Izzy just nodded, not fully paying attention. Where the hell was Edward? Why hadn’t he come down to see him with Bonnet?
“Izzy,” Stede continued, his voice infuriatingly gentle. “The crew says you haven’t been eating much recently. And if it’s not because of seasickness, and you’re not ill, do you know why that might be?”
Bunch of bloody snitches. Why couldn’t they just let him mind his own business, instead of telling tales on him?
Stede turned the desk chair back around to face the bed, and took up the same position as Oluwande had the previous evening, motioning for Izzy to sit opposite him.
“If you don’t eat breakfast, you won’t have enough energy to get through the day, you know. Do you think that might be why you fainted?”
Izzy sat on the edge of the bed, trying not to cringe at the word ‘faint.’ Christ, did Bonnet think he didn’t know? Did he not realise that Izzy was very, painfully aware of the consequences of not eating?
“Don’t know,” He said noncommittally.
“Did you really think that we wouldn’t notice, piled on top of each other as we are on this ship?”
Izzy said nothing. To tell the truth, he had thought that. Thought. Hoped. Prayed.
“We just want you to be OK, that’s all. Come on, Izzy - you won’t be able to keep being a good first mate if you carry on like this, will you?”
Stede had said this encouragingly, earnestly, leaning forward like a father giving a reluctant child a pep-talk before the big game.
A jolt of anger shot through Izzy. What the hell did Bonnet know about piracy? In Izzy’s experience as first mate, you were either good at your job or you got killed. It didn’t matter how you were feeling, as long as you got the work done. If you weren’t up to the task, or if the captain wasn’t satisfied with your work, there were hundreds of other power-hungry fools out there who were eager to take on the task. It had taken him years to feel secure in his role with Blackbeard, to build a relationship strong enough that he could be fairly sure that he’d be kept alive, even when something went wrong.
“Captain, if you have a problem with the way that I’ve been performing my duties -”
“No, that’s not what I meant! You’ve been doing a great job, Izzy. But we need a first mate who’s strong, and fighting fit! How can you whip the crew into shape when you’re in this state?”
And all of a sudden, Izzy was filled with a white-hot, blinding rage. How dare this spoiled little cunt waltz in here and tell him anything about his job. He wanted to lash out, to scream, to show Bonnet just what fighting fit looked like.
Somewhere deep inside of him, he knew the anger was irrational, nothing more than a reactionary defence of the open wound in his mind that was being poked at. His only option was to mask the vulnerability with an attack.
“Fuck off, Bonnet,” Izzy snarled, finding himself unable to give a shit about the consequences of this blatent disrespect. “I’m fine. What I choose to do is my fucking choice, d’you hear me? So long as it doesn’t start to interfere with my duties. And, if it does, you can do whatever you want with me. You can kill me, demote me, drop me off at the next port, whatever. You just keep out of things that don’t fucking concern you.”
Bonnet had the nerve to simply look mildly affronted.
“Well, I didn’t mean -”
But Izzy cut him off. Pure, unrestrained fury was flooding through his veins, causing his voice to raise to a strained shout.
“You think you can talk about strong, about fighting fit? Why don’t you take a fucking look at yourself? You’ve never done a hand’s turn of work in your life, you stupid shitbag of lard! You don’t know anything, not one fucking thing, about what it takes to survive this life. You can’t even control yourself around cake, let alone control a crew.”
He didn’t even know why he said it. He just knew that all he wanted was to hurt Bonnet, to make him ache on the inside, like Izzy ached. He hated himself for it, for trying to trigger Bonnet into sharing his pain.
“So you can piss off with this bullshit about whether I can do my job or not, about how worried you all are about me. I don’t give a fuck about a single one of you, and I’d appreciate it if you returned the favour!”
He paused, breathing heavily. Stede didn’t look in the least perturbed.
“Well, there’s no need for all of that. Izzy, we’re just trying to find a way to help you. It’s dangerous for all of us if you go on like this and-”
“Yeah, who’s ‘we’ anyway? Where the hell is Captain Blackbeard? Why hasn’t he come to deal with me himself?”
“Ed is… busy right now. He’ll be along shortly, I’m sure of it.”
Izzy snorted.
“Right. Well, as he’s still officially my captain and he hasn’t given me a direct order to remain in my room, I think I’ll be returning to my duties now, if it’s all the same to you.”
“Izzy, I’ve talked with Ed, and he agrees with me about this. Besides, the crew’s under strict orders to make sure you stay in your cabin - as soon as you’re two steps out of that door, you’ll just be stopped by one of them. It won’t be for long, Iz, just until we can figure out what’s going on with you and how we can help. It’s just for safety, alright?’
Stede smiled at Izzy in what he must have thought was a calming and friendly manner. Izzy resisted the urge to put a dent in his jaw. Patronising git.
This was sick. Confining him to this room and forcing meals upon him was almost worse than any other punishment Izzy could think of. Briefly, he considered his options - escaping his room and simply maiming anyone that stood in his way sounded tempting, but ultimately counterproductive in the long run. Perhaps if he waited until the middle of the night, he could get to one of the lifeboats and steal away without anyone noticing? He could strike out on his own, find someplace where he could live without bother.
Beginning to formulate a plan in his mind, Izzy raised his eyes to meet Bonnet’s.
“Fine.” He growled. “Just see how quickly this ship falls apart without me.”
“That’s the spirit,” Said Stede cheerily, reaching over to clap him on the shoulder. “Good man.”
“Yeah. Whatever.”
“Right then, I’d better get back up to navigation.” Stede stood up and crossed the room to the door. He looked back, his forehead creasing with worry as he saw Izzy’s dejected form sitting slumped on the bed.
“We just want you to be alright, Iz.” He said gently. “We’re really just trying to help. I hope that you can allow us to do that.”
And with that, his peach-coloured coat tails were whisked away as he shut the door with a quiet snap.
Izzy was trapped. Great. He wanted to scream, to break something. Instead all he could do was sit motionless on the bed, too angry to think anything coherently. He had never considered himself claustrophobic, nor indeed had he ever heard the word, but his cabin suddenly seemed far smaller and darker than he remembered. He felt like he might snap at any minute and start clawing at the wooden walls in a desperate bid for freedom.
But he couldn’t bring himself to even stand up off of the bed - despite the fact that he’d already eaten a bowl of porridge with sugar of all things, he still felt exhausted, like he’d been completely drained of whatever nervous energy had been keeping him going for so long. He was dreading what was coming next, knowing that it wouldn’t be very long before Oluwande turned up with the next meal.
Not that he was going to eat it anyway, Izzy decided. He’d eaten enough today already, and he wasn’t about to have his progress ruined by some annoying busybodies who didn’t know what they were talking about. No, they could do what they liked with him, he wasn’t going to give in.
Nothing to do.
But sit.
And think.
Izzy couldn’t take his eyes off his body, desperately trying to see what it was the rest of the crew saw that worried them so much. All he could see was the fat that wrapped itself around his arms, his thighs, his stomach.
He was no longer hungry, but he still felt sick to his core. He could imagine the porridge and sugar already loading itself on his body, undoing all his hard work and dedication in a matter of bites.
Well, since he had nothing better to do… perhaps he could work some of it off through some surreptitious exercises.
Maybe he could just walk laps of the room…
It wasn’t ideal, but Izzy found that he could leave his legs on autopilot and allow his mind to wander as he walked. He spent so much time locked inside his own head these days, drowning in thought. His mind wandered back to Blackbeard. To Ed. Why had his captain not come to his cabin, and instead sent Stede Blasted Bonnet to do his dirty work for him? With the knuckle of his thumb, Izzy beat out a rhythm on his collarbone while he paced. He hadn’t realised he’d grown so far apart from his captain.