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Stede doesn’t know how many days have passed since he started rotting in this cell.
His clothes are crusted with sweat and blood and saltwater, stiff where they press into his skin, and Stede wants to rip them off just for a bit of comfort, but his arms are tied to the wall behind him, hooked up and pulled just tight enough for him to feel it with every movement.
Stede aches , deep into his bones, and he knows there should be some kind of fear there but he’s just exhausted now, too tired to concern himself with even his own death. It seems inevitable, now, and he bites out a laugh, half-mad and hoarse.
Of course it was always going to end this way.
Everyone fucking warned him, is the worst part. But Stede Bonnet, proud, optimistic, fucking idiot that he is, genuinely thought he would be different. Honestly believed he could be a proper pirate, could do the things he saw other people do as if he was even slightly comparable to them.
But he’s not. He’s a child playing dress-up, a fucking hapless, helpless man who can’t even secure food for his crew without being captured. Tortured. Humiliated.
At least they’ve let him rest for a couple hours, that’s been a rare privilege recently. Sleep would be too strong of a word for what Stede actually manages; it’s restless, and not at all peaceful, but at least he’s alone. It gives him the time to assess his wounds, try to suckle some of the condensation seeping from the humid wooden wall, and then fall into a fitful state of unconsciousness. It’s about as much peace as Stede has been allowed for however long he’s been there -
And it doesn’t last long.
The door slams open with a start, rotting at the hinges but secure enough to keep the light out, and Stede inside. The brief flash of sunlight verges on painful after being kept in almost complete darkness, and Stede blinks rapidly around the sensation before taking in the sight of his captors. There’s three men, the same three men, the only three men Stede has seen since being dragged here.
They haven’t exactly introduced themselves, but Stede’s gathered their names, one at a time. Corbyn, who might be the leader or could just have the biggest mouth and heaviest hand of the three, large and square and grey in almost every sense; eyes, hair, skin. Smile.
The other two, Gutters and Marsh, it had taken Stede a while to tell the difference between, as unremarkable as they are. It had seemed important at the time, though - the gentlemanly thing to do - to know which was which. As it turns out, Marsh is entirely mute, tongue severed in his mouth so his lips click oddly when he smacks them. He’s almost reptilian in nature, slow blinking and cold, and what he lacks in conversation he more than makes up for with his unbridled enthusiasm. Stede’s back still aches with it. Gutters is tall and reedy and kind of pointless to the operation, there for the sake of being there, to fill space. It’s a sentiment Stede understands, and he wonders wildly if he and Gutters could have been friends, under different circumstances.
God, he really might be going mad.
The exhaustion and the dehydration and the pain are getting to him, so when Corbyn speaks, Stede doesn’t look up, head hanging down towards his lap with his arms pulled taunt behind him.
There’s a rough blow to his jaw and pain explodes through it as Stede feels a couple more teeth rattle loose. He spits them out, each a white pearl nestled in globs of thick, red blood, and his head is yanked up by his hair. Strands fall like dandelion fluff around his face, and Stede grits his teeth, as much as he can manage, against the sting.
He knows what they’re asking; what they want. They want what hundreds of other people want.
What Stede had wanted, had altered his entire fucking life for -
“Where the fuck is Blackbeard?”
Stede spits out more blood before it can dribble past his swollen lips.
“I’ve already told you, I have no idea.”
Marsh lifts his hand slowly, always so fucking slow with him, and slaps Stede across the face with the back of it. The impact of flesh on flesh isn’t necessarily all that painful, but his rings are sharp and spiked and tear into Stede’s cheek. He feels the skin pull and then give when Marsh draws back, and bites back a groan at the feeling. Stede doesn’t want to give them the satisfaction of knowing he’s hurt, even if it’s sinking down all the way to his muscles, his bones, straight through to his core. It’s the years at boarding school, followed by dinners with his parents, and then almost a decade in a loveless marriage; Stede can be quiet when he needs to. He’s certainly had the practice.
“We’ve heard about you.” Corbyn drawls, circling the room like a shark. “You’re Blackbeard’s dog now, his bitch . He’ll come for you, and he’ll find you. Dead or alive, he’ll find you.”
Clarity flares through Stede’s brain then, so white-hot and blinding that he laughs with it.
“You’re - fucking fools .” Stede chokes on the words, this time, throat cut raw with lack of use.
Corbyn’s eyes narrow and Gutter comes to flank his other side, arms crossed and thoroughly unimpressed.
“What?”
“He won’t - Blackbeard won’t come for me. I haven’t s-seen him in months. ”
It shouldn’t hurt, not anymore; not after everything Stede’s been through in the last couple of days. But it does.
Fuck, it’s the worst pain Stede’s ever known , getting to love Ed, almost having him, just for him to slip away on a fishingboat and never come back. And that’s how Stede knows he’s alone here, that nobody is coming for him. That he’ll die here, rotting in this cell that smells of mildew and sweat and congealed blood, because the crew have been distant since he took Ed’s side and let him back onboard The Revenge. They tolerate him now, still allow him to be Captain, but there’s no more reading with Lucius, or playing piano with Frenchie. No late-night conversations with Jim and Oluwande as they pretend to not grope each other on his couch, and certainly no more story-time before bed.
They’re his crew , not his friends . Stede has to remind himself that every single day. It doesn’t get any easier to stomach.
He’s been training more with Izzy to compensate, and maybe that’s where the arrogance had come from. Stede had been doing better; Izzy hardly called him useless anymore, and ‘twat’ was starting to become its own term of endearment, something reserved for Stede only. By some warped coincidence, Izzy was probably the closest person Stede had on the ship, but even so… his loyalties will always be to the crew, and to Ed, before Stede. Stede knows this, has seen it proven true time and time again. He wouldn’t risk the crew in an unknown threat just to save Stede, subpar Captain and even more useless of a man.
Even if Stede wants him to. Even if it’s selfish, rotting and wanting in his gut, Stede wants Izzy to care enough about him to come., to save Stede from this vile place, this certain death.
But he won’t. He won’t .
“You fucking liar.” Gutter snarls, sending a kick straight into Stede’s stomach. He folds forward on the impact, bile rising in his throat which he can’t hold back as the strains on his arms refuse to give and the joints almost pop straight out of place.
“Nice of you to think I’m that loyal, gentleman.” Stede pants through the pain flaring in every joint and muscle and bone. “But why - shit - why would I be putting myself through this just to protect him? It doesn’t make s-sense. I don’t know where he is.”
“Because he’d kill you.” Corbyn sneers, eye twitching. He says it like it’s obvious, like Ed is some sort of monster ( vampire goth clown ) instead of… lovely, sweet, beautiful. All of the wonderful things Stede had thought of him before he left Stede on the beach for what was essentially a fucking fish . “If you rat him out, you’re dead. If you don’t,’ His foot lands on Stede’s ankle, pressing, pressing, pressing , “well, you’re dead either way.”
Snap .
Stede’s ankle shatters under his weight, and he groans at the searing pain, eyes rolling back as he fights to stay conscious.
Reality is smearing at the edges, white and fuzzy and crashing closer, closer inwards until Stede can barely see, can hardly think -
“So we’ll ask you one more time.” Gutter speaks as Marsh yanks Stede up by the collar of his filthy, torn clothes. Stede feels his shoulders and arms pull again, screws his eyes closed, bracing himself against the inevitability of excruciating pain. “Where the fuck is Bl-”
Gutter’s words are cut off with a shocked yell, a noise Stede barely has time to process before a warm spray hits his face. He blinks open his eyes in confusion when the pain doesn’t come, when Gutter doesn’t finish his sentence and when Stede realises that the splattering of blood coating his face and shirt isn’t his own.
Marsh falls to his knees with a forced, gargled choke, a knife spearing clean through his throat. His eyes go wide, and then glazed, and he slumps to the side in front of Stede, twitching as the life bleeds from him in hot, warm spurts.
Slowly, everyone looks to the doorway.
“Lay one more finger on my Captain.” Izzy sneers, daylight shining behind him, illuminating him like some kind of vengeful angel. Stede’s heart kicks into an uneven rhythm at the sight of him. “I fucking dare you.”
The world falls into a staggering blur of motion around Stede, and he tries to stay as aware as he can but his body is failing. The relief of seeing Izzy, of knowing that he might actually be saved, has the tension slipping from him almost too easily, and Stede fights to remain awake.
“Bastard!”
He watches Gutter snarl, leaping over Marsh’s corpse with a dagger already at hand. Izzy deflects him once, twice, before Gutter lands a blow to Izzy’s side. He takes it in the right way, the way Ed had taught Stede a lifetime ago, and snarls into the pain. Izzy grabs Gutter’s wrist, still attached to the knife, and swings him around just in time to receive the fatal stab wound Corbyn was waiting to give to Izzy. Gutter splutters and writhes against the sword, shocked and disbelieving as his hands fall from the dagger in Izzy’s side and to the sword cutting him all the way through, framing the wound with trembling hands.
In his panic, Corbyn makes the mistake of withdrawing the sword, and that’s when Gutter collapses to Izzy’s feet. The moment of distraction is enough, and Izzy stumbles forward with a knife and slits Corbyn’s throat. He hardly seems to notice, eyes trained on his fallen friends before he keels over and joins them both on the ground.
There’s so much blood everywhere, Stede can’t even tell where it’s coming from anymore. He focuses his vision on Izzy, takes in the sight of him, eyes blazing and knife raised, gripping a wound in his gut he got from protecting Stede , of all people. Stede isn’t sure if it’s the tiredness, or the dehydration, or maybe even how surreal the last ten minutes have been, but he feels weak looking at Izzy; safe in a way he hasn’t felt in months.
“You came.” He breathes, voice and vision wavering.
“‘Course I fucking did.” Izzy’s blurry figure moves closer, and then falters. “You seriously thought I wouldn’t?”
“Never doubted it for a second.” Stede lies, and then immediately passes out.
~’*’~
Awareness comes back to Stede slowly, and then all at once, until he’s jolting forward with it, heart beating rapidly with panic as he takes in his surroundings. He’s half expecting to be back in the dimly lit cabin, smelling of mould and salt and despair, but when he can move his arms freely, and feels the soft linen of his own sheets under his fingertips, Stede calms considerably. The room is doused in a soothing glow, warm and comforting and achingly familiar. It’s more candles than Stede would usually use, more candles than he thought they even had on the ship, but he knows one member of the crew has a fascination with candles, has his own personal stock -
“Fucking shit , Bonnet. Thought I lost you for a second there.” Izzy rasps, and Stede’s gaze falls to him immediately.
Izzy has pulled up one of Stede’s antique chairs to the side of his bed, close enough to allow him to draw the thin gold curtains, giving them a false sense of privacy. He’s shirtless, and Stede eyes the bandages wrapped around his midriff, the small circle of red oozing from the centre.
Stede isn’t sure how he feels, or what to make of anything. His ankle aches where he drags it across the sheets, stiff with a splint Roach has used to straighten out the broken bone. Everything else hurts as well, but not as badly as he reckons it should; Roach has probably slipped him something to ease the pain. Still, he’s littered with bruises and cuts and wounds, some infected and some incredibly fresh, but he feels sticky ointment over his face and back and there’s a balmy, minty taste in his mouth, coating his gums and the holes where some of his teeth had previously been.
And despite that, despite the hours of pain and fear and a loneliness so crippling, Stede thought he could die from that alone, he feels… good, looking at Izzy. But their relationship isn’t like that. It isn’t warm and comforting and honest. So Stede falls back into the usual rhythm, the dance he’s been doing with Izzy since they first met. The one where he pretends to not notice the lingering glances, the almost yearning touches, and Izzy does the same, looking away whenever is most convenient, like right now.
“Careful, Izzy. You almost sound like you care.” Stede gasps as he slumps further down into bed, getting as comfortable as he can. Izzy shoots up immediately, and if there’s any pain in his side from the movement he doesn’t show it. Instead, Izzy gentles Stede down into the sheets with a press of his palm to Stede’s shoulder, smoothing out the blankets in a surprisingly tender, almost mindless motion.
“Wouldn’t want that, would we?” Izzy bites out, but he’s smiling. Stede wonders if he’ll ever get used to Izzy’s smile, how it softens him and makes him appear a much younger, less complicated man.
He goes to sit back in the chair and Stede reaches out without thinking, taking Izzy’s wrist in a tight grip.
“Thank you… for coming for me, for killing those men.” Stede takes in a shuddering breath. “For everything, really.”
“‘S my job.” Izzy shrugs, but there’s an endearing pinkness to his cheeks, and he’s not meeting Stede’s gaze but Stede can feel the rapid flutter of his heartbeat underneath his fingertips and that’s telling enough. “Did you honestly think I wouldn’t come for you?”
Stede isn’t used to hearing Izzy’s voice so… small, or vulnerable. On instinct, Stede rubs his thumb across Izzy’s wrist, notes the shiver it pulls from him with rapt attention.
“I… had hope, at some points. Not always.”
His admission has Izzy turning to face him, eyes wide and incredulous.
“You’re my fucking Captain, Bonnet.”
Stede raises a brow. “And? That doesn’t mean much, Izzy, not when you do more for the crew than I’ll ever be capable of.”
Izzy looks like he’s about to protest then, mouth gaping before slamming shut. There’s a beat of silence, where nothing can be heard besides the crackle of the candles and their shared, shallow breathing, but then Izzy speaks, and it’s more gentle than Stede’s ever heard him.
“I think you’re pretty capable.”
It’s not right, hearing those words from Izzy’s mouth, seeing the soft look which accompanies them. This isn’t what they do, the intricate dance they’ve formed to avoid talking about - fucking everything, really.
Stede scoffs. “Don’t flatter me, Israel. We both know that’s hardly true.”
Izzy glowers down at him. “You’re fucking alive, aren’t you? Can’t say that about a lot of pirates.”
“Well, a lot of pirates don’t have you.” Stede hums in amusement, but Izzy doesn’t smile back.
“You do.”
He seems just as startled as Stede at the words, eyes wide and searching, mouth open as if he can suck the admission back into his throat, his heart, bury it deep like treasure and mark it with a cross for a later date. But the words are out , nestling between them, writhing in Stede’s gut and his chest as he stares at Izzy like he’s seeing him for the first time, new and brilliant and shining and, fuck, his .
Stede doesn’t know if he pulls Izzy down or if Izzy just falls into him, but their lips meet in the middle, hard and rough and wanting, months of watching and waiting and hoping seeping into the kiss.
And God, despite everything, the aches and the pains and the torments Stede hasn’t really started coming to terms with, kissing Izzy has Stede feeling like he can breathe for the first time in ages. The rub of his beard, the hard press of his lips, the teasing tip of his tongue as it edges along the seam of Stede’s lips, it’s all intoxicating, and wonderful, and Stede wants more .
He reaches up and threads a hand in Izzy’s hair. Izzy comes easily, kneeling on the bed and leaning into Stede’s space, kissing him deeper, and Stede sighs against his mouth, losing himself in the gentle pull of it all.
Stede tries to draw Izzy closer, impossibly so, and he drags his legs apart slowly, giving Izzy more space -
Until the splint on his leg catches in the sheet, and pain ricochettes up Stede’s spine like a gunshot. He breaks away from Izzy with a gasp and Izzy’s hands are on him in an instant, pushing him insistently into bed, forcing Stede to lay all the way down.
“We can continue that when you’ve actually fucking healed.” Izzy grits his teeth, brows pulled down in concern as his hands over Stede’s bruised body.
Stede pouts but he’s grateful; with the wound in Izzy’s side, he’d be scared of hurting either one of them.
“Is that a promise, Israel?”
Izzy hums, and with the candlelight reflected in his eyes, they seem to be almost sparkling.
“You fuckin’ bet it is, Bonnet.”
Izzy catches Stede in a quick, chaste kiss, but when he goes to move away Stede grips his wrist again.
“Please… stay. Here, I mean.”
He watches and waits as Izzy seems to debate this. After a breathless moment, he swallows thickly and nods once before crawling into the space next to Stede.
He’s warm against Stede’s side, pressing into him in the bed which is just slightly too small (with Izzy’s body flush with his, Stede actually thinks it might be the perfect size), and Stede sighs with it.
The medicine Roach definitely gave him is slowly wearing off, and the pain is coming back in startling little jolts, so Stede wraps an arm around Izzy’s shoulder, drags him onto his chest, and lets his eyes fall closed.
“Be here when I wake up.”
Stede isn’t sure if it’s a question, or an order, but exhaustion takes him before he can hear Izzy’s response.
When Stede wakes, Izzy is still wrapped in the sheets, in his bed, in his arms , and not even the throbbing, pulsing agony coursing through him can ruin that. Izzy hums in his sleep, turns into Stede’s chest with a content little smile, and Stede wonders if everyday could be like this.
For once in days, months, years , Stede has hope again.