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A splash. A yelp. A cry for help. A… shoe?
Did someone fall overboard again?
Fang sighed heavily as he went over to the window where he’d seen the shoe go past. He knew several of the crew were drinking up on the deck where they were still planning out the talent show. After a long day at the helm, however, he’d just wanted a chance to relax a little, smoke his pipe. That’s why he’d opened the window in the first place. Now it seemed he’d be performing a rescue for…
The little artist boy! He recognized those cries!
Fang knew he had to move quickly. The boy wasn’t the strongest sailor amongst them and he didn’t know how long he’d last in the sea, or if he’d fall behind the ship. Luckily, the crew wasn’t one to tidy up, and he was quickly able to find a length of rope. As much as he’d like to simply jump in after Lucius, he knew he needed to be smart about this or they’d both be in trouble.
Moving quickly, he formed a series of knots to create a ramshackle ladder that should allow him to pull himself back up to the ship, and formed a loose loop of rope to tie under the boy’s shoulders to drag him back up as well.
The cries for help were getting more desperate. Then quieter.
As soon as he was done with his knotwork, Fang dove right in. He swam to the last place where he’d seen the boy, aiming for the churning of arms flailing, hoping he wasn’t too late. The boy’s head was popping in and out of the sea. He’d likely be taking on a lot of water, but hopefully he could still be saved.
Finally reaching him, Fang pulled the boy’s waterlogged weight up, struggling against the flailing body.
“Lucius! Lucius!” Fang cried. “I need you to calm down or we’ll both drown out here!”
Recognizing a familiar voice, Lucius seemed to calm down marginally, if only just. Fang looped the rope under his arms, explaining as he did that he needed Lucius to calm down and float, and that the rope would keep him above water until he could pull the boy up. He wasn’t sure how much of that came across, and worried about succeeding either way. But it was too late for that now.
He began to pull himself back up the rope knot by knot. It was painstaking work, as he could ill-afford any mistakes at this point. But eventually he reached the top, praising Captain Bonnet for his overenthusiastic approach to windows that meant he didn’t have to climb too far. Managing that, he began to coil the rope, using his own weight as a bulwark to pull Lucius up behind him. Seeming slightly more conscious, Lucius was able to hold onto the rope around him in sheer terror, but eventually with teamwork they were able to get him back aboard ship.
“There you are,” Fang said gently, as he patted Lucius’ back and helped the boy cough up the seawater in his lungs. “You’ll have to watch your step more carefully! I won’t always be there to help if you fall overboard.”
Lucius glared at Fang in a way he’d never seen the boy glare, at least not at him.
“I didn’t fall,” he snapped. “I was pushed. By your boss.”
“Ed? Why on earth would he do that?”
“That wasn’t Ed,” Lucius said faintly as he began to lose his strength. “That was something else.”
And with that, Lucius fainted, leaving Fang with an armful of passed out artist and a very bad feeling.
–
Lucius awoke slowly, with a burning throat and a pounding head. He struggled to remember where he was and why.
Then it hit him.
Ed.
No.
Blackbeard.
He sat up quickly before a strong hand pushed him back down (thankfully, as he immediately revisited some of the seawater that apparently still hadn’t left his system).
“Fang?”
“There you are,” Fang responded. “It’s been a couple days, I was beginning to worry.”
“A couple days?” Lucius yelped.
“Shhh, shhh!” Fang looked about them, frightened, and made shushing gestures. Lucius recognized the small room Fang had chosen as his cabin, dimly lit. He also realized that he could smell liquor on Fang’s breath. Still, he took a cue from the older man and lowered his voice.
“Fang, what’s going on? What happened? And have you been drinking?”
“Haven’t stopped drinking,” Fang responded morosely. “You’ve missed out on a lot, artist boy. It’s been a rough couple of days. You were right. I don’t know what you remember, but you were right. That’s not Ed, up there, anymore. That’s something else.”
“Blackbeard?”
“No,” Fang responded, looking even worse, if that were possible. “I’ve worked with Blackbeard for years. He’s wild, and violent, and unpredictable. But not cruel, at least not to us, his crew. This is something new.” Fang inhaled deeply, then leaned even closer, dropping his voice to the barest whisper. “He’s calling himself the Kraken now.”
Lucius couldn’t help it. He snorted.
“Shhhh, shhhh!” Fang all but cried again, if one could cry and whisper at the same time.
“I’m sorry, but just… ‘The Kraken,’ are you serious? Talk about melodrama.”
“It’s not funny, Lucius,” Fang said, his face dropping even further. “He’s really gone off the deep end this time.”
“Ohh, what’s he doing? Listening to sad music? Wearing somehow darker clothes? He already changed his name.”
Fang looked pained.
“I mean, yeah, a little. He’s doing this weird make-up thing, and he does have Frenchie play some strange music sometimes. But that’s not it, you need to listen.”
“Alright, alright,” Lucius drawled. “You have my complete attention.”
“The crew is gone.”
“Wait, what do you mean, gone? You just said Frenchie is playing weird music?”
“Frenchie is here, and Jim is locked up. But the rest of them are gone.”
Lucius sobered, feeling a chill down his spine. Black Pete?
“What do you mean, gone,” he repeated. “Gone is a very vague term, Fang.”
“He marooned ‘em,” Fang began to blubber. “Put 'em on a tiny island and left them there. God only knows what happened to the poor souls. They’re all gone and I didn’t do anything to stop him.”
Lucius felt as if a ghost passed through the room as Fang began to drink from a mostly empty bottle. All his friends. His lover. His love, actually. Gone.
Because, what, Ed - the kraken, Jesus, get over yourself - had gone through a bad breakup? Lucius had never felt so angry as he watched this beautiful man before him sob over not doing enough to stand up to Blackbeard as he murdered an entire crew of (idiotic but) pure-hearted sailors.
“Fang, there was nothing you could have done,” he stated firmly, patting Fang on the back as he gently pried the bottle out of the man’s hands. He couldn’t help but flash back to pulling the scope out of the Captain’s hands. Will he never stop having to console other people? “Fang, if you had said anything, done anything, you would be right there on that island with them. And then who would be here to take care of me?”
A cheeky tone at the end, perfectly calculated to add a small smile to the older man’s face. God, it was tiring being the emotional brain cell of the ship. But someone had to be.
“Now, what are we going to do about it?”
“Do?”
“Well, I for one am not ready to write off the crew. They may be idiots sometimes, but they are really hard to kill. And if they’re all gone, they at least have Oluwande, which means one capable adult. So let’s figure out a plan. We have Frenchie, and we have Jim. And the two of us. What are we going to do about this?”
For the first time since Lucius woke up, he saw a real smile cross Fang’s face.