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For the first few weeks after Blackbeard returned to his true self, Izzy was feeling quite good with himself for getting rid of that idiot, Stede Bonnet. This was what he signed up for, all those years ago. And, of course, the limp and the necessity for a cane are mere consequences of this, his toe being the perfect sacrifice for the greatest sailor he has ever met, but he’s sure he will recover.
The new Blackbeard, resurrected from the ashes of Stede Bonnet’s destruction path, was violent and ruthless, just like the legends of the sea described him. No one dared to approach them whenever they made port, and Izzy never had to remind him of a plan ever again. Blackbeard was always ten steps ahead of him — and just as distant, but the distance was a sacrifice Izzy was willing to make.
And his joy was immeasurable when he heard the fate of the fucker who doomed Blackbeard. Stede Bonnet, dead as Izzy had always wanted him to be, his death cruel and painful and stretched out. Mauled by a jungle cat, run over by a carriage, a piano crashing over his body shortly after, erasing any hope for his survival. Just like he deserved to die. Izzy couldn’t stop smiling for the entire way back to the ship, excited to tell Blackbeard of his fate.
Right now, he reckons he made a big mistake. Lots of big mistakes, starting by selling Bonnet out to the English. And ending on telling Blackbeard of the man’s untimely death.
Izzy was excited to get his captain back. To serve the brilliant sailor that was Blackbeard. He loved the violence, the ruthlessness, and even if he was missing a toe or two, he was willing to pay that price to have him back.
Having learned of Bonnet’s death, Blackbeard becomes more violent, more ruthless, more maniacal and more insane — which Izzy loves, absolutely adores. He doesn’t mope, doesn’t cry, merely answers Izzy’s news with a “good for him” before sending him away with a veiled threat spoken by a silky tone and a smile that looks ten times more terrifying on his face.
Eat up. That’s it. Don’t forget to chew.
Izzy loves it.
Until he realizes how big was the mistake he made.
It starts when weeks have passed, and they still haven’t stopped at any port. The food is slowly running out, and the crew is growing more and more agitated. Izzy thinks to himself that Blackbeard has a plan, that he knows where they’re going, but when Izzy asks him, he sees the man smoking, dressed in that floral red silk robe — one that he was sure had been thrown away. When Izzy’s done with his question, Blackbeard merely smiles, sweet and overly innocent, and it reminds him too much of Edward.
But this isn’t Edward Teach. This isn’t Blackbeard, either. It’s something ten times more terrifying. There’s a tint of venom and mania behind that smile. Izzy freezes in place and feels an urge to desperately get away from this man as fast as possible.
Izzy realizes, then, that they’re completely fucked. And he begins regretting.
When they’re raiding another ship, while Izzy is too busy moving crates and crates of supplies and food from one ship to the other, limping around, he notices the way Blackbeard doesn’t really fight. He lets them try and kill him, getting himself new scars and wounds, that don’t kill him immediately, because Izzy defends him like a dog standing by its owner. He doesn’t really think about it, reckons that maybe Blackbeard’s knee is acting up again or just an unfortunate accident until he can’t lie to himself anymore.
It’s a stormy night and the entire crew is tying things down to the ship. Izzy is screaming his lungs out giving orders and goes as fast as he can to help them all out. None of them think they’re going to make it past tonight, but they keep fighting. He helps Fang at the helm, to steady the ship, and that’s when he sees it.
He can’t even doubt it.
Blackbeard jumps off the ship.
The only screams for help are his own, ordering anyone to help him get the man out from under the water. Izzy can barely walk without his cane, even less swim, but he screams for people to get him, because Blackbeard is sinking fast under the raging waters of the sea.
Surprisingly, it’s Jim who jumps. He doesn’t know how they got out of their room — maybe Fang let them out — and Izzy screams again for someone to help them get Blackbeard out of the water. Eventually, they manage to pull both of them up, but the captain is unconscious.
Izzy and Jim drag his limp body to his cabin, and Izzy can merely put his head on top of his chest and a finger to his neck and feel his pulse. Jim helps him undress the captain from his soaked clothes and goes around the ship looking for any fabric or blankets to warm him up. Eventually, they come back with various jackets of plenty of the crew and a rope, telling Izzy that it’s best that they tie him up now, before he wakes up, because he will do it again. Apparently, a few days before, Blackbeard let Jim out and told them that they should feel free to do whatever they want, including killing him.
Especially killing him.
Izzy can’t believe his ears, at first. He thinks he should scream at them, but his throat hurts from the screaming he did earlier, and he did see Blackbeard jump. Straight into the water, maybe hoping that his death would be seen as an aftermath of the storm.
Together, they tie him up, so he can’t leave the bed without someone to watch over him. Izzy tells Jim to keep the crew in check while they’re gone and doesn’t leave Blackbeard’s side. After a few minutes, the man wakes up and begins to cough the water out of his body, and it’s good to know that he’s still alive. Blackbeard only stays conscious for a few minutes, with Izzy’s prodding for him not to give up, to cough it all out, before falling asleep again.
The man shakes a lot, and his skin is terrifyingly cold, and for the first time in his life, Izzy wishes that they hadn’t thrown away all of those fancy fabrics and clothes that belonged to Bonnet.
Jim gets them to port and sends Fang and Ivan out scavenging for something to keep Blackbeard warm and more rations. Everyone knows what happened. And maybe it was good that Bonnet taught them all to feel sympathy, because there are no mutinies being planned. In fact, they want their captain to survive.
It is strange, and Izzy would have been definitely against it, if it weren’t for the fact that he saw Blackbeard jump straight off the ship, for the regret eating away at his insides that Edward nearly died because of him.
When Blackbeard wakes up again, Izzy expected him to be angry, maybe freak out that he’s tied down to a bed with Izzy as his only company. But when he does open his eyes, at last, all he has to offer his first mate is a tired and disappointed look. Blackbeard doesn’t speak to him, just tries moving, feels the robe against his skin and closes his eyes again. Izzy can’t bear to speak, not that first time, can’t make his voice start working again.
He wants to scream and shout and cry and curse himself.
Izzy reckons that all of this broke him a little, too, like the missing shard of a chipped teacup. Maybe he's completely shattered. And he decides that he doesn’t care if Blackbeard wants to be Blackbeard anymore or if he will be Edward, only if he’s alive and well and sane.
He starts by cleaning up the captain’s chamber of old bottles of rum, sharp objects and anything that upsets him. He’s the one that brings Edward his meals, makes sure he isn’t trying to starve himself, and he makes sure the man is comfortable. Helps him stretch out his knees and cleans the kohl from his face. The beard is growing back, and he wonders if Edward will want to keep it.
He doesn’t know. Because Blackbeard hasn’t spoken since he jumped off the ship. He has never been one for softness, but he wishes that Edward told him about this.
At least he’s not freezing anymore. Or dying.
(Edward, hair blowing out in the wind, closing his eyes and jumping into the raging ocean below, wishing it swallowed him entirely—)
Or trying to die.
The first thing they do, by Jim’s request, is to go back to the island where Blackbeard abandoned Bonnet’s crew. They need a cook, and Mr. Buttons has a witchy way with the sea none of them have, and they want the crew back. Izzy agrees, unable to do anything else now that the assassin is out of their room and can hurt Edward.
They go back, and the island is empty. There are no corpses or bones nearby, which means that Bonnet’s crew is alive somewhere, they survived this. Jim sets them to sail for the nearest port afterwards, and Izzy simply lets them decide where to go.
He doesn’t care. They need a bigger crew, especially now that Edward is unstable. Jim seems surprised by this, and they thank him. Izzy doesn’t deserve their gratitude, he’s the one who needs to thank them, but they don’t want his gratitude either.
He spends most of his time next to Edward, but, sometimes, when Jim takes his place, he uses the opportunity to wander around the ports. He buys him more clothes (God knows he needs it), ones that will be comfortable enough for him, a hairbrush and a few nice smelling soaps and oils. It’s nothing fancy, but he wants Edward to go back to not wanting to throw himself off the ship the first chance he gets.
Eventually, Edward does get better. He stays conscious for longer and fights him less when Izzy is trying to take care of him. Sometimes, he unties him, so he can eat with his own hands, brush his hair, change his clothes. He doesn’t speak, eyes empty in a way they had never been before, but it’s a change for the better, because at least he isn’t drunk and not taking care of himself.
Jim’s been doing well enough in charge. The crew likes them, and Izzy trusts them. They could have killed Edward easily enough, but they jumped after him, helped him warm up, made sure he didn’t do it again. Izzy doesn’t want to be in charge, go outside to give orders to the people, but Jim doesn’t know the sea as well as he or Edward do.
Together, they plan their routes and what exactly they’re going to do from now on.
For the first time, the crew doesn’t want to throw him out of the ship.
When Edward does speak, for the first time, Izzy nearly has a heart attack. It’s soft, almost like a whisper, when he asks:
“Who’s manning the ship?”
Izzy doesn’t know how to answer, what to answer. He can’t think of anything despite Edward is speaking again, oh my God, and he feels his eyes fill with tears. Izzy breaks eye contact with him, not wanting to cry in front of his captain — always his captain, always — and merely answers:
“Jim.”
The truth is, for all Izzy wanted Blackbeard to return, he didn’t want any of this. It hurts. Edward is his friend, his only friend in the entire world maybe, and to see him reach that point of his life, and try to undo the damage that was already done… it drains him. It breaks him in ways he didn’t think were possible.
“Are they doing okay? They didn’t seem the captaining type.”
Izzy wants to laugh at the absurdity of that question. Are you doing okay?, he wants to say. You jumped off the ship and I thought you were going to die, he wants to scream.
Instead, he merely looks at Edward and says:
“No one’s thinking of mutiny yet.”
The captain hums.
And that starts a string of small conversations the two of them have. Sometimes, Jim joins them. It’s a bit of normalcy after everything, and Izzy can see a bit of the old Blackbeard behind Edward’s eyes. The way he knows where to go, knows the waters, thinks of plans with the two of them. It’s not everyday he wants to speak, but everyday he does, Izzy cherishes every word that comes out of his mouth.
And he does think Edward is getting better, like the fool he is.
“Why did you stop me?” he asks Izzy, one night, just before he’s going to bed.
Edward might as well have slapped him in the face or fed him another one of his toes.
“What?” he looks at the man. “Why… why wouldn’t I stop you?”
“Come on, Iz. Look at me. There’s no point in keeping me around. You said it yourself, I’ve gone soft, I’m not Blackbeard anymore. I’m only here to give you trouble,” Edward tells him, not quite looking at him in the eye. “You would make a better captain than me anyway.”
There’s a promise under his words. Izzy has known him for long enough to understand that it’s a promise. Let me die. You’ll be in charge.
Of course, the crew would need a new captain. Someone who really knows the ropes.
The first time, like the idiot he is, Izzy said yes. And he stayed.
He watched as Edward fell in love with Stede Bonnet out of all people, sacrificed everything he ever achieved for that pathetic man, only for the man to get his use out of Blackbeard and break his heart. It was fairly obvious, from the start. And, now, there’s no one he hates more than that man. Even now that he’s dead.
He won’t make the same mistake twice. Not this time.
Stede Bonnet can go suck eggs in hell. He can stick the pain he caused all of them up his ass, because Izzy won’t let it happen again.
So, he grabs both of Edward’s hands and looks at him in the eye.
“Look at me, Edward, and fucking listen to me carefully,” he begins. “You are so much better than what you give yourself credit for. I was a fucking fool for trying to convince you otherwise,” he says. “So, I’m not going to let you kill yourself. Not for me, not for Bonnet, not for anyone, not even for yourself. I’m saying this as your first mate and as your friend: we’re both going to survive this, whether you like it or not.”
Edward’s eyes fill with tears, and Izzy lets the man sob against him.
It takes a while, for them to recover any ounce of normalcy. Izzy can’t fall asleep without being reminded of Edward being swallowed by the water, and he’s not even fighting, and I have to scream louder, he’s going to die, he’s going to die, he’s going to— and Edward is being dragged down by whatever is ailing him. It doesn’t seem like anything will go back to the way it was, Bonnet or no Bonnet.
But there is normalcy in the smaller things. Like brushing Edward’s hair when he has a headache, or taking care of his knee, or drinking tea with him. They don’t speak too much, except for a brief exchanging of words occasionally.
The knowledge that the crew they marooned is probably alive seems to soothe him a little. Izzy tells him that Jim is looking for them, when Edward asks why they’re stopping so much, and he looks relieved. He cries for a bit, and Izzy holds him, taking his hair into his fingers.
It’s a few days after that when Jim pulls him aside, outside Edward’s room, and tells him Lucius is alive, living in a secret passage of the ship ever since Blackbeard tried to drown him, and that they’ve been sneaking him food ever since they found him.
“You know, I figured, given this happened, that maybe he can come out now,” they say. “Everyone else has been helping me out, but we were kind of scared that you would, y’know, kill him and all that. I figured that now that things are more stable, I should probably tell you.”
Izzy has to regain his bearings for a moment. It’s too much information for a moment.
“Does he know what happened?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you think he’s going to try and hurt the captain?”
“I don’t think so,” Jim says. “Lucius was pretty beaten up when I told him.”
“Okay then. He can come out. Just… make sure he follows your orders.”
Jim nods and leaves, not giving Izzy the chance to reconsider.
Later, he tells Edward. The man’s eyes shine a bit, and he smiles for the first time in a while, telling him that Lucius is one tough son of a bitch. Izzy reckons he is, despite everything he thought about the boy before.
The boy doesn’t tease him, merely smiles sympathetically whenever he sees Izzy on the deck, which isn’t much lately. He spends most of his time with Edward in the captain’s cabin, slowly undoing the mess that has been made of him. And Lucius spends most of his time following Jim around.
Until the boy says he has something to tell him and drags him away from view, right before he brings Blackbeard some breakfast.
“So, I went into port with Fang and Ivan like Jim asked me to, and there’s a Captain Edwards who declared war on Blackbeard,” he says. “And hear this out. This guy, apparently, has a very posh exterior and doesn’t look or act like a pirate at all. He’s blonde, curly hair, white, complains about the quality of fabric a lot and doesn’t look like he could hurt a fly. Sounds familiar?”
“Oh fuck,” Izzy says. “But Bonnet’s dead. There’s no possible way that he survived being mauled by a jungle cat, run over by a carriage and crushed by a piano.”
Lucius hums in thought.
“It does sound suspiciously like a fuckery.”
Izzy feels the realization dawn upon him. Of course, it’s a fuckery. There’s no way that man would die such a dramatic and over-the-top death, unless he planned it himself to send a signal out to anyone who might see it. To Edward.
“Oh my God, you’re right.”
“Just thought I should warn you. Because if it is actually Cap… Bonnet, you might want to be prepared for it.”
Izzy bites his lower lip in thought.
“Thank you, Lucius,” he says, patting him on the back. Lucius seems surprised, tilting his head and smirking like he usually does.
“Huh. Jim was right. You barely act like yourself anymore.”
Izzy presses his lips together, everything from the past few months coming back to him, like his life passing through his eyes.
(Lucius and Pete having sex in the storage rooms, having something between each other Izzy wishes so much he could have for himself.)
(Edward looking at Stede with the most pathetic heart eyes he has ever seen.)
(The crew nearly throwing him out of the ship. Edward's little: "I'll take tea in my room.")
(Edward being swallowed by the sea below, not even fighting it, because he wanted this, he was waiting for this moment —)
Oh, God, he was an asshole to everyone.
“Yeah.”
He watches Lucius leave before dragging himself back into the captain’s cabin.
A part of him wants to tell Edward. Give him a choice. Stede Bonnet broke him, but it’s really Edward’s choice if he wants to go after him or not.
(Edward jumps off the ship in the middle of a storm, and Izzy’s throat hurts from all the screaming, and he can’t swim and Edward is going to die—)
He doesn’t want a repeat of that. He also doesn’t want to watch Edward slowly die inside.
It’s time they talk. About everything that happened, before and after Stede. They have been pushing it aside, neither of them wanting to address the massive pink elephant in the ship with the name “Stede Bonnet” and the words “Edward’s suicide attempt” engraved on its sides. No one wants to talk about it, really.
Izzy sits down next to Edward’s bed, where he’s tied up, and frees him from his binds, before stretching out both of his knees and fastening the brace around the left one. Edward doesn’t fight, hasn’t been fighting him for a while now, and he’s used to this routine. Izzy watches the man as he eats the food. It’s nothing great, not with the lack of a ship's cook, but it’s enough to get him fed.
After Edward is done eating, Izzy looks at him and asks:
“What happened between you and Bonnet?”
Edward looks surprised, but it quickly fades into disappointment and resentment. Izzy’s not sure if it’s aimed at him, but, with all the mistakes he has made, that doesn’t sound like a wrong thing to assume.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Okay,” Izzy says and doesn’t press, merely explains. “I’m asking this, because Lucius reported to me a few moments ago that there is a possibility that the man is alive and looking for you.”
“What?” Edward widens his eyes.
“Did I ever tell you how he died in the first place?”
When Edward shakes his head, Izzy recounts the tale of Stede Bonnet’s death. Immediately, he sees a bit of light behind Edward’s eyes, the first time the man has looked alive since his suicide attempt, maybe even he returned to the ship. If this is the price to pay to keep his captain alive, Izzy will pay it. He will play nice, he will lick Bonnet’s shoes, answer to him like he's his captain, if it means that Edward will never see suicide as an answer again.
Edward’s eyes fill with tears — and his first mate can’t quite pin their reason, if they're tears of joy or sadness — but Izzy continues speaking:
“There’s a Captain Edwards whose description matches Bonnet’s. He has declared war on Blackbeard, and Lucius and I think that it’s a ploy for him to see you again. So, I’m giving you a choice. I can track this Edwards guy and arrange a meeting,” he offers. “If he’s not Bonnet, I’ll get rid of him, because we really don’t need people declaring war on you right now. If he is, and you want to see him, I’m going to have to tell him about what happened. And I need to understand what happened between you two.”
Edward nods, more of an understanding gesture than him accepting the offer. And then, Edward tells his tale.
He fell in love with Stede. They were arrested together and signed the Act of Grace together. Edward confessed his love to Stede — not exactly his love, but pretty much so — and they kissed. Edward, the brilliant man that he is, arranged a way for them to escape, to run away together, to somewhere they could be happy. And Stede, after promising him that he would be waiting for him at the dock, never showed up, forcing Edward to return to the Revenge upset and alone.
Instead, Stede Bonnet went home to his wife and children, and, a few days later, he died.
Izzy wants to punch the man. He will probably ask Edward for permission before doing it. But Edward keeps speaking, and he keeps listening:
“After you told me he died, I just…” Edward presses his lips together and closes his eyes. “I didn’t see the point in moving forward. He’s the best man I’ve ever known, and he’s dead , and I’m the one here, and there’s just no point. I figured that you all would be better off without me, anyway. No one wants a crazy old captain.”
Izzy wants to punch himself, too.
“I stopped eating, first, because I might as well die of starvation or thirst. And then I freed Jim a bit later. They already wanted to kill me, and they had every right to, so I thought that it would be a nice way to go. Like a proper revenge quest. I just… I told them to be quick about it,” he explained. “And then they didn’t do it fast enough, and I was sick of waiting for things to happen, for people to put me out of my fucking misery already, and then the storm happened. You know the rest.”
Izzy looks away from him.
“I’m sorry,” he says, closing his hands into fists. “It’s not worth a damn, but I’m sorry.”
“You stopped me now,” Edward answers. “And you helped me get back on my feet. Kept the ship afloat while I was… recovering. That’s got to be worth something.”
Izzy presses his lips together. He doesn’t really think it is worth anything. Not compared to the mess he made. Truth is, the Blackbeard he wants has never existed. He’s just a man, making decisions on the basis of whether he’ll live to see the next day, and he needed someone like Stede to show him that life wasn’t just survival, that he could be happy, and Izzy ripped that out of his hands.
Bonnet, in turn, ripped Edward’s already broken and tired heart out of his body and hurt him in ways Izzy never could — because Izzy never had the leverage Bonnet had — until he was nothing but the husk of the man he had been before.
(Edward jumps off the ship and the sea welcomes her child in her arms again. He doesn’t fight her embrace, like one usually does when they’re drowning, and he lets the water crawl inside his airways, and he waits. And Izzy screams for help, eyes full of tears as the realization that his captain has jumped off the ship, that he has given up, and Izzy can’t jump after him and everyone else is panicking, too, because they’re not a good swimmer, not like Edward is. But Edward isn't even trying to swim and he's not going to make it—)
Izzy can’t go back to not knowing. He can’t go back to his ignorance, and he can’t undo his mistakes. He sighs and looks at Edward again.
“It’s been a ride,” he says, not agreeing or disagreeing with the man.
“It has.”
“Yeah,” he says, head in his hands. “Do you want me to track him?”
Edward doesn’t answer, merely looks away. Izzy understands it, having been sailing with the man for long enough.
“If he really wants to come back to you, I’m sure the man’s already looking for you,” he says. “We can wait for him to come. Prepare the ship and everything.”
“And what will you do? If he comes and it’s actually him?”
“I’m going to punch him in the face,” Izzy says, nearly automatically, and then he smiles a bit, imagining the way that man is going to look at him afterwards. When he looks at Edward, the man is smiling a bit, too. It’s a nice look on his pretty face, after all the coldness and the sadness. “And then I’m going to give him the usual shovel talk. You know, if he hurts you again, I’ll cut off his balls.”
“And make him eat them,” Edward contributes. And Izzy does laugh.
“Yeah,” he extends a hand towards Edward, a silent request, and Edward holds it. “Do you want me to tell him what happened? I think it’s best if he knows it as soon as he’s back, the others already do, and Lucius will most definitely tell him as soon as he has the chance. I know you won’t want to do it.”
Edward avoids looking at him for a moment, but Izzy is used to this already, Edward has always been terrible at eye contact. So he waits for a bit, and the other man nods.
“Yeah. You’re right. It’s better if he already knows.”
“Okay.”
Izzy stands to leave, and Edward immediately puts his wrists out, to be tied up like they usually are. It’s a painful sight. So, he asks:
“If I leave you untied, will you do it again?”
Edward widens his eyes, surprised, before shaking his head softly.
“Okay. Good. I’ll leave you to it, then.”
And he leaves Edward, surprised and free, for the first time in a while.
Later, the man comes out of the cabin, dressed in the clothes Izzy bought for him. There’s no kohl in his face, and the growing beard is intact, and he greets the crew with a smile. He congratulates them all for being such a great crew, for keeping the ship afloat while he recovered. They eat dinner together, that night, all complaining about the lack of a ship’s cook.
From then onward, Edward roams around the deck for most of the day. He works with the crew as one, directing them to the ports, managing rations and thinking of recruitment. Lucius follows him around as his scribe, taking notes on what’s happening. He’s more centered and healthier, more so than he has ever been before.
Izzy feels a sense of pride crawling inside him.
They end up recruiting another person, a cook, to manage their rations and meals. They’re called Ginger, and they reminded Edward too much of himself when he was younger, impressing Blackbeard himself with their ways in the kitchen. They’re a bit taller than Izzy himself, with long wild red hair that they keep tied in a messy bun, most of the time, and the bluest eyes Izzy has ever seen. Ginger is good with knifes and with food, and everyone’s glad that they finally have a proper cook, one that really knows what they’re doing. Of course, they get along quite fast with the crew, especially Jim, for some reason, and they’re a lot of fun to be around of.
And after a trial period to see their loyalty, Izzy pulls them aside and tells them about what happened. So, they understand why things work the way they work.
“Oh shit,” they say, eyes widened. “I didn’t know that.”
“This doesn’t leave this ship.”
“Yeah, I guessed that much, with him being Blackbeard and all,” they say. “I’m not going to turn my back on him. That’s fucking awful. I’ve also had some rough patches in my life.”
They pull their sleeves up, revealing various scars on their arms. Self-inflicted wounds, they tell him, from when they were kicked out of their home, nearly fifteen years ago. Ginger asks him not to tell a soul, and Izzy agrees.
With good food being handled by Ginger, the entire atmosphere of the ship is better. Not to bash on Fang’s cooking, but he’s not nearly as good as they are. And, for the first time in a while, everyone on Blackbeard’s ship is happy with themselves.
Including Edward.
Izzy doesn’t think he’s ever seen him smile like that before. Joy written all across his face.
Of course, he still has some work to do with his relationship with the crew. Edward apologizes to Jim, Lucius and Frenchie, for the ones they lost during the marooning and for the attempted murder, even though he doesn’t think they’ll forgive him — and doesn’t think that they should. He apologizes to Fang and Ivan, too, for going mad and letting them all starve.
But they seem to be willing to forgive him, given the time.
When they’re nearing port again, he approaches Izzy on the back of the deck, when he’s observing the sea.
“How’s the foot?”
“You know, the usual,” Izzy answers. “Hurts like a bitch.”
“Do you think it’s infected?”
“Maybe, but it doesn’t look that bad. My foot is just… swollen. And it’s taking it sweet, sweet time to heal.”
Edward hums.
“I’m sorry. For cutting off your toe.”
“Don’t bother yourself with apologizing to me, Edward,” Izzy answers. “I deserved it. Needed someone to put me back in my place."
“It still doesn’t make it better. I should have talked to you.”
“It wouldn’t have worked,” he says. “I was a stupid fucker. And a stubborn one at that.”
Edward laughs and nods.
“I should take you to a doctor, when we reach port,” he says.
“No. We don’t want to be caught,” Izzy answers. “If the foot has to go, it has to go. But it’s not that bad.”
“Not yet.”
“Not yet,” Izzy agrees.
Edward extends him a hand, smiling.
“Thank you,” he says. “For helping me.”
“I’m pretty sure I’m the one who made it worse in the first place.”
“You didn’t have to help me.”
Izzy looks away from the sea, at Edward. And he thinks he sees, now, what Stede Bonnet saw in this same man, before. The way his eyes shine, his smile, his awkward way of just existing. He’s the most beautiful man Izzy has ever seen, under the light of the setting sun, safe and healthy and sane.
And he can’t help himself.
Instead of taking his hand, Izzy stands on the tip of his toes — pressing too much weight to his cane — and presses a kiss to Edward’s lips. The other man doesn’t kiss back — it’s too brief, merely a brush of the lips — but when Izzy separates them, Edward is staring at him with widened eyes.
“Iz… I…”
Izzy thinks he might cry if he stays there for a moment longer, pressing his lips together and trying to push the tears back. He knew Edward didn’t feel the same from the start, but he was always glad to serve him. For as long as he’d like Izzy to do it. And now, even though he knows that his heart belongs to Stede Bonnet, the recognition of it hurts much more than the simple reminder from his unfaithful brain.
“You don’t have to feel the same way,” he says, despite himself. He wants Edward to choose him, but he won’t force him to do it. “I want you to be happy. Even if it’s not with me. I will stay by your side for as long as you wish me to.”
They hug for a while. And it feels good to be enveloped by Edward. He wants to cry, smelling the soaps and oils Izzy bought for him, but he forces himself not to. This is already hard enough. After they separate, both of them with tears in their eyes, and Izzy leaves, Lucius pulls him into another hug.
“I saw what happened,” he says, voice as wobbly as Izzy feels. “It’s okay.”
Izzy cries against him, then. And he's unable to stop the tears from flowing down his face.
He finds that he can’t sleep, that night, thinking too much about how much he hurt Edward, about that stormy night that nearly cost him the man he loves. He rises from his small cot, grabbing his cane and a pair of pants, and walks around, trying to keep his heart at bay. There's light coming from the kitchen, he notices, and he finds Ginger in there, working. They don’t seem to be able to get much sleep, too, cleaning knifes with tired eyes, long hair loose around their shoulder. They notice him with widened eyes and make a motion with one of their hands for him to come in the kitchen.
“Can’t sleep, Mr. Hands?” they ask, always polite, the only one of the crew who actually sees him as their superior, not since Blackbeard went back to being just Edward.
“I should be asking you,” he answers, sitting on the floor. “What are you doing up?”
“I’m too agitated,” they answer. “So I’m getting ready for tomorrow.”
Izzy hums, understanding what they mean.
“I meant to ask you, actually, what’s up with your foot?”
“I lost a finger. The pinky.”
“Ew. That’s awful,” they say, abandoning the knifes, putting them back where they belong. “Can I see it, Mr. Hands?”
“It’s best if you don’t.”
“My dad was a doctor. I learned a couple of things from him,” they say. “Come on. You can trust me, it’s not like I’m going to cut off your foot or anything.”
They sit down in front of him, and Izzy extends his leg, putting his foot on their lap. They carefully undo the bandages around his foot, and Izzy looks away, despite himself.
“That’s swollen. And infected. And not fully healed, it seems,” they look at the seam of the wound. “Must hurt like a bitch.”
“It does,” he answers. “It mostly tingles, except when I actually try moving.”
“We should wash this,” they say. “I’ll cut the stitches open and stitch it myself, cause, the way it is, this won’t do. You’re not going to be able to walk without a cane ever again, I’m sorry to say, because of balance and that shit, but you should be able to walk without pain. And wear shoes.”
“As long as the pain is over.”
They pat his leg and tell him to wait. They come back with a bit of soap, two small towels and a bucket of water. Then, Ginger takes off their bandana and tells Izzy:
“Bite this. This is probably going to hurt.”
Izzy bites it, nods, and they begin kneading the sensitive skin of his foot with hands full of soap. For a moment, he thinks he might pass out from the pain, and he’s not sure if he’s screaming or not, but he sees a green liquid coming out of the wound, and it keeps coming out, Ginger cleaning the strings of green as they press against the most swollen parts. It’s honestly disgusting to look at, so Izzy closes his eyes.
After the kneading is done, gentle hands clean his wounded foot. It tingles and only stings when the soap touches the stitches he made himself, but it’s necessary.
“I needed to get the pus out,” they tell him, when he opens his eyes again, to see one of the towels covered in green and red. “You feeling okay, sir?”
Izzy nods, unable to form words.
“Okay,” they say, finishing drying up his foot and grabbing the stitching supplies. “Now, I’m going to stitch you up again.”
Izzy closes his eyes again when they start cutting the stitches open, and pour alcohol straight into the wound to disinfect it. It hurts a lot, but it’s a bit less than how it hurt when the finger was cut off. They’re gentle with the stitching process, and, once they’re done, Izzy can see that he shouldn’t have done the stitching in a hurry.
“There, it’ll take some time to be less swollen, but it won’t get infected again. When we reach port, we’ll have to buy some bandaging supplies, but you should change these bandages thrice a day, at least. May I?”
Izzy nods, and they start bandaging his foot again.
“Is your name just Izzy, or is it short for something?” they ask, just to distract him from the process.
“Israel,” he tells them. “It’s short for Israel.”
“That’s a nice name,” Ginger tells him. “Do you know what it means?”
“No.”
“God perserveres,” they say, smiling. “My grandmother was fascinated by the meaning behind things. She had whole books about astrology and names in her library.”
“What about yours?”
“Ginger means pure, virginal. I am neither, it was given to me as a nickname by my first boss because of the color of my hair,” they say, laughing a bit. “And I didn’t like the name my parents gave me when I was born. So I named myself.”
“What’s your name?” he asks, and only after he blurts it out he regrets it. “If you don’t mind me asking.”
Ginger looks at him, pinning him with those blue eyes and smiling like they're having fun.
“It’s Orion. Don’t tell anyone.”
Izzy widens his eyes in surprise, because he can’t believe that they actually told him. But then he smiles back.
“That’s a pretty badass name.”
“Thank you,” Orion says, going back to finishing up the bandages. “So, feel free to stop here three times a day to change your bandages and once a day to clean the wound. We should also buy you a pair of sandals next time we reach port, so you don’t have to walk around barefooted,” they tell him, helping him stand up. “It’s not going to do much for now, but it will get better, Mr. Hands, that much I can promise you.”
Izzy nods, and they accompany him to his room, bidding him goodnight before going to sleep.
The next day, his foot tingles a bit less.
Edward, apparently, hadn’t known that Orion had some experience in the medical field. He just liked the way they carried themselves. But he was happy to know that they were helping him with his foot. It’s a good thing, to have someone like them on the ship, for whenever someone is hurt. They’ve been doing wonders with managing the rations, and they’re quite experts when it comes to raiding merchant ships. Edward likes their style of doing things, the fuckery that just comes naturally to them.
Edward grows close to them, too, like he does most of the ship’s crew. They’re very similar, Izzy notices when they’re side by side, and have very similar mannerisms. Ginger is easily agitated and gestures a lot when they speak about something they really care about, which Edward does, too, but to a lesser degree. They laugh a lot together, when they're all sitting in a circle, in the night.
The nightmares Izzy has eventually go away, but the memories don’t quite leave him. Not when it’s storming, and he sees Edward too close to where he was that day, just before he jumped, looking out at something, studying the storm, before heading back and giving them all orders. Izzy thinks he might die, one of these days, if he doesn’t stop looking at Edward every time a storm takes place.
Orion notices, of course. And they take his mind off it to the best of their ability, while they change his bandages after a storm, talking about the stars above them or the meaning of names and certain herbs with medicinal properties. They have lots of things they know of, and Izzy thinks he understands why Bonnet’s crew was fascinated by his nighttime stories once he hears Orion talk about their grandmother and their adventures before landing themselves as a part of Blackbeard’s crew. Those stories take over his mind for days, when he's still remembering the details and the passion Orion had for these memories of theirs.
It helps him to fall asleep, later, without the usual nightmares that bother him.
Orion is magical, speaking about the shape of the clouds, the smell of certain herbs, the position of certain stars and the importance of naming things. Izzy can't help but feel compelled to listen to them, to indulge them in wanting to know, to asking them about something he saw that resembled what Orion told him about.
Izzy wonders, now, if this is how Edward felt when he met Stede. This fascination with a person who came from a completely different background than his own, who knows different things than what he does. Orion was raised by a doctor and a seer in a town in the middle of nowhere. When they were young, after their mother died, their father kicked them out of the house and they were taken by their mother's mother, a woman who had every single reason to be convicted as a witch, but managed to be perceived as just an insane old lady. In their grandmother's cabin, they coined the name Orion for themselves, and, after she passed, they pursued their dream of being a cook.
They glow when they talk about the mythology they grew up with, the traditions they still follow after such a long time. And Izzy wants to hear them talk for an eternity, to learn every single nook and cranny of Orion's mind and what they're willing to share of their past.
He reckons that, if he's the captain, Orion is his First Mate.
Eventually, when Izzy's foot is nearly healed, the peace the crew and Edward managed to conquer. Captain Edwards finds them. And Izzy looks at him through the scope of his spyglass on the deck, and he knows it’s Bonnet as soon as he lays eyes on him. He has grown the beginning of a blonde beard and his hair is longer than it used to be. He tells Edward to wait in the captain’s cabin, and the man, as they agreed, obliges, and orders the crew to raise the white flag, sending Orion over in a dinghy to tell him they can board the ship.
As soon as Stede is on the ship, he’s asking to see Edward.
Izzy stops him. And he does exactly what he wanted all those months ago and still wants now.
He punches him in the face.
The man’s head turns to the side with the force of the impact — Izzy didn’t put enough strength behind the punch, he doesn’t want Stede to be actually injured — and he can see, out of the corner of his eye, the way Jim, Lucius, Frenchie and Fang keep Stede’s crew at bay. Orion has a hand out for their knife.
“Good, got that out of my system,” he says. “So, we have a few things to discuss before you meet Edward. Edward has specifically asked me to do this, so, before you stress yourself out with me, we need to talk.”
Stede seems concerned for a moment, but he nods. Izzy tells him exactly what happened for the last few months, ever since Edward came back. Tells him about the marooning of the crew, Jim’s kidnapping, and the part where he made Izzy eat his own toe. Tells him about when he went completely mad after learning about his death and, of course, the suicide attempt.
The crew behind them is shocked. No one dares to speak, but they are shocked.
“What?”
“Edward was… unhappy when you left, to say the least, as I’m sure he’ll tell you.”
“He’s alive?”
“Yes,” Izzy answers. “Jim jumped after him and we helped him recover.”
“Oh God…”
“So, Stede Bonnet, I want you to listen to me very carefully,” he says, a warning in his tone. “If you ever hurt him again like that, I will personally feed you your own balls and throw you off the ship. And I can assure you that there will be no one to stop me,” Izzy tells him. “I will not let Edward die like this. Not for you, not for me, not for himself. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Now, come. Edward’s waiting for you.”
He doesn’t stay for their reunion. Those two have a lot of things to talk about. They have their own mess to undo.
He doesn’t want to join the reunion of the entirety of Stede’s crew, either. It’s full of tears and kisses over there too. Black Pete and Lucius. Jim and Oluwande. Everyone is happy to see each other, except for him, it feels like. So he heads to the back of the deck, where he’s out of view and out of everyone’s way.
Orion finds him a few moments later, leaning against the railing.
“Hey.”
“Hey,” he answers. “Not going to join the party?”
“I don’t really know those people apart from what Jim and Lucius told me. Didn’t want to bother them.”
“Not even going to introduce yourself?”
“Not now,” they tell him. “Maybe later. When everyone’s calmer."
Izzy hums, nodding.
“Heard you ate your own toe,” they say, stepping a bit closer to him.
“Yeah.”
“That’s a sick way to torture someone.”
“Wasn’t really torture,” he tells them. “I asked for it. I threatened Edward. Sold him and Stede out to the English. I was a fucking asshole, I think I deserved worse than eating my own toe.”
Orion tilts their head and hums.
“Maybe it was for the better. I think you’re pretty nice.”
“Oh, shut up.”
“Hey, it’s the truth.”
“You didn’t know me before. Lucius says that I don’t even act like myself anymore.”
“Maybe it’s good that I didn’t know you before,” they tell him. “People change. And it’s nice that I got to meet a better version of you.”
Izzy turns to them and finds the genuineness behind their eyes unsettling. Orion isn’t the type to wear their emotions on their sleeves like that, usually hiding behind a mask of sarcasm or indifference, except when they're in the kitchen, speaking about magical things and symbols.
“You can’t just say that,” he tells them. “We’ve known each other for a while, and you’ve been helping me a lot, but you can’t just… tell me that. I’m fucking disgusting. I made Blackbeard want to kill himself, I ruined him, that’s not something I can just…”
Before he can finish that thought, there are lips pressing against his own, and a hand against the small of his back. Instinctively, he closes his eyes and kisses back, and when they break apart, Orion’s forehead touches his. They open their eyes and say:
“I sewed up your foot. I think I can judge what’s disgusting or not for myself.”
Izzy pushes them away, playfully, laughing at them.
“What a way to ruin the fucking mood.”
“It’s my specialty.”
“No, your specialty is actually that fish dish you made for us last week,” a voice calls from behind them, making both of them turn and look. Lucius. “And I fucking called it!”
Lucius looked behind himself and yelled something to Jim about a bet, and Jim yelled something back in Spanish, making the rest of Stede’s crew completely confused. Izzy looked at Orion again and saw they were smiling a bit. And he decided to make the most of it, pulling Orion down by their collar and kissing them again, to the sound of cheers of the people behind them.