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Chapter Text

Stede isn’t entirely proud of the way he lets Izzy Hands rile him. He’s captain - co-captain, again - and however aggravating he finds the man, it’s still his responsibility to rise above the conflict. He does genuinely want to find a way forward. 

He’s not unaware of the rift between Ed and his first mate, the tangled bonds that Ed is unwilling to sever and neither of them have attempted to unravel. Izzy and Ed don’t talk, beyond orders that Ed directs at the air, and “Aye, captains” that Hands directs at the deck. 

Stede has to take a step back from his own reaction to Hands, and the animosity that’s festered between them. 

His first attempt at conciliation goes badly. Clearly the distance between them is not to be broached by the same brusque physicality that Ed employed with him.

Stede makes a point of observing Hands, when he can. Discretely, because he knows the man won’t take it well. 

Hands is still acting as first mate, because they don’t have anyone with half the experience he does, even among Ed’s crew. But the crew - Stede’s and Ed’s - don’t listen to him. They don’t follow his orders unless they know they came from Ed or Stede. Three months ago this would have delighted Stede, but now he realises that the smooth running of the ship rather depends on tasks initiated by someone who knows what they’re talking about, and that certainly isn’t Stede. Ed does, of course, but Ed’s - it’s been difficult. 

So Stede takes it upon himself to shore up Hands’ running of the ship, when he can. He tries not to let Hands see it, because no doubt he’d take it badly and start demanding all sorts of nonsense from the crew to make Stede look bad. And he tries to soften the sharp edge of Hands’ orders, because it’s obvious to Stede that the crew is willing to work hard - well, maybe not hard, but more effectively, at least - and largely ignore Hands because he’s an aggravating berk. 

Oluwande is a great help in all this - the young man has a good head on his shoulders, and the rest of the crew follow his lead with comparatively little bickering. If it was up to Stede, he’d make Olu his first mate, but - well, co-captains is one thing, two first mates is quite another, when one is Israel Hands. 

Hands continues to snap and snarl at Stede - Stede makes a point to bite his tongue, and it’s really quite satisfying to see Hands’ frustration at being denied a sparring partner. 

They finally take a ship - a sprightly little Italian sloop that fails to outrun them. Stede takes the lead - it’s not enough of a challenge to entice Ed, and Stede wants the practice. The Italians put up a brave fight, but they only have one fighter who’s a match for Stede’s crew - Stede takes a moment to be impressed that he could best Izzy Hands, then swings a dangling spar to knock the Italian out. 

Hands doesn’t thank him, but he doesn’t snap at him, either. 

Stede thinks, after that, that maybe things are improving between them. He’s wrong, of course, and proved so in the most horrifying way. Hands staggers towards him on the deck, wild-eyed, and it takes Stede a moment to realise - to believe - that Hands isn’t just angry and bitter in the way they’ve come to expect. He’s in distress, wild with it, mad - a danger to himself more than Stede or the crew. 

Even after Hands strips off his shirt, turns his back to the crew - and when has he ever turned his back on any of them, since Stede returned? Even then it takes Stede too long to realise what he’s done. 

“I didn’t do that,” he says, aghast. The man’s back is a mass of scars. Flogging. The scars are old, but they cover his back in layers, crisscrossed and stark. 

He sees Ed’s lack of surprise at the scars, sees the crew’s horror, the way Oluwande grips Jim’s hand so tightly, sees -

What does he see? He sees all the things he didn’t notice, watching Izzy Hands. That Hands never turned his back to anyone. Never ate with the crew, or shared their leisure time. Never talked with them except to bark orders or snap insults, and never the latter after Stede stopped retaliating. Never touched anyone - not to spar, or punish, or drag them to their work. Never crowded close to Ed to demand orders or action or attention. Never spoke to Ed. 

Stede feels sick, abruptly. 

Hands takes late watches and early watches and every watch in between. Doesn’t demand anything of the crew that he wouldn’t, now, do himself. 

Stede thought he was being conscientious, trying to make up for past sins. Didn’t think to ask when the man rested. If he rested. 

He sees, now, a man worn ragged by more than overwork. 

He turns away Izzy’s wavering blade with ease - far too much ease. It’s Ed who puts Izzy on the deck when he tries to lunge at Stede with a knife. He falls with a crack that echoes across the silent deck. 

Ed presses a hand against Izzy’s chest, holding him against the deck. “That’s enough, Iz,” he says. 

“Yes,” Izzy hisses. But when Ed starts to let him go, he snarls, “If you let me go I’ll kill him,” and Ed pushes him down again, hand to his throat. Izzy grins. “You’ll have to kill me.”

Ed flinches back as if bitten, scrambling away from Izzy, face torn with horror. 

“No,” Ed says, “I’m not going to do that.”

Izzy makes a wretched, animal noise. It sounds like it’s ripped from his throat. Ed reaches for him, but flinches back again as Izzy curls in on himself. 

Izzy strains to reach the middle of his back, clawing at his skin. Stede has a sudden, vivid memory of patting Izzy on the back - once, twice, and then Izzy had pulled away with a snarl, and Stede had assumed that he should keep his distance, not realising that everyone has kept their distance, and Izzy Hands would never be the one to close it. The only person who might was Ed, and Ed—

Ed turns his panicked gaze on Stede. “I don’t know what to do,” he says. “I can’t-“

Stede presses a hand to Ed’s shoulder. This is Stede’s to fix - his touch pushed Izzy out of balance, and perhaps his touch can pull him back. 

He crouches beside Izzy. 

“Izzy, can you look at me?” Izzy cracks an eye open. “I’m sorry,” Stede says. “It wasn’t my intention to curse you, and I’m very sorry this is happening to you.”

There’s a murmur from the crew behind him, and he suspects he’ll have to explain that he hasn’t actually cursed Izzy, but that’s a problem for later. 

“I think I can lift the curse,” Stede continues, “but I’ll have to touch you again. Is that okay?”

Izzy stares at him, at the hand he’s cautiously holding out. Stede lays it carefully on the back of Izzy’s neck, and Izzy shudders. 

“Alright?” Stede asks softly. “Where - it was lower, wasn’t it, where I touched you.” He shifts his hand, dragging across the scarred skin. He hesitates, moves it again, swipes back and forth until Izzy gasps, and Stede lets his hand rest in that spot. 

“It’ll be okay,” he says. “Give it a moment, let it—“

Izzy abruptly flails at him, and Stede has to catch Izzy’s arm with his free hand. 

“Easy now,” he says, and, just as abruptly, the fight goes out of Izzy. Stede sets his arm on the deck, and moves to untwist the hand Izzy has buried in his hair. After a moment, Stede starts to card his own hand through Izzy’s hair. 

Izzy sobs. 

“It’s alright,” says Stede. As if a dam has burst, Izzy sobs again and again, each one a painful, choked sound. “I know, I know,” Stede tells him. “Let it out.”

He pulls Izzy into his arms as carefully as he can - Izzy slumps against him, his sobs quietening but not yet abating. Stede whispers platitudes in his ear, hoping they comfort him but not certain they’re even heard. Ed watches them with wide eyes, and reaches a tentative hand to take Izzy’s where it hangs slack on the deck. 

There’s a shift in Izzy’s breathing, evening out as he slumps further in Stede’s arms. 

Stede waits until he’s sure that Izzy’s asleep before he speaks. “We can’t move him, not yet,” he says to Ed, keeping his voice low. “He’ll wake, and he needs rest.”

Ed nods, an odd, stuttering movement. “I’ll go - get some blankets.”

“Water, too,” says Stede. “He’ll need it when he wakes.“

Ed nods again, and stumbles away from them. 

It’s Oluwande who brings blankets, the same plain woollen ones the crew all use, not the fine ones from the captains’ cabin. Roach brings water, and food, little pastries that can be eaten in one bite, nothing too rich. 

Stede concentrates on the man in his arms. Izzy’s still as a corpse at first, utterly drained of energy, but he grows restive, twitching through dreams, though thankfully none are enough to wake him. As the day wears on, he grows lax again, and Stede can shift him so he’s lying more comfortably against Stede’s chest. 

He’s frowning still - not so fiercely as when he’s awake, but even deep in sleep his face is pinched, careworn lines pulling at his features. Stede bats away a sudden urge to press a hand to the worst of them. 

It’s evening by the time Izzy wakes - lax one moment, tense and ready to flee the next. Stede keeps a firm hand on his shoulder. “Easy,” he says. “It’s alright, you’re safe.” He helps Izzy sit up, but doesn’t let go. Izzy fumbles his hands from beneath the blanket and scrubs them over his face. 

“Fuck,” he says softly. 

“Have some water,” Stede tells him, holding out the cup - Izzy frowns at it, but takes it with a careful, barely shaking, hand. “There’s food, too, if you can stomach it.”

Izzy drinks greedily enough, after a first hesitant sip, but he ignores the food. Stede pours him another cupful, and Izzy empties it again, then sets it on the deck. 

Stede readies himself for Izzy to attempt an escape, and then asks, “How do you feel?”

To his surprise, Izzy barely twitches. “Like I’ve been keelhauled,” he says. 

“I’m sorry.”

Izzy doesn’t say anything for a moment, picking at the edge of the blanket. Eventually, he says, “I know you didn’t curse me.” 

“Ah - good? I mean, of course not.” Stede considers the man still slumped in his arms. A certain delicacy is needed, to keep him from retreating. “But I fear I have played some part in this, as captain—“ Stede dares not say ‘your captain’, though he is determined to act on it, “—for not noticing that you were—“

“Going fucking mad?”

“Were in distress,” corrects Stede. Izzy’s jaw works, as if he wants to spit, or curse, but he does neither. “You need rest,” Stede tells him, because that is easier to broach than the other thing, the thing that has Izzy still leaning in to Stede’s touch. “Is there anywhere we can take you?”

Because Izzy’s still leaning against him, Stede can feel him tense up. “You’re putting me off, then.” Not a question, a resigned statement, the tremor well hidden in his harsh tone. 

“No, not at all,” Stede tells him. “But you need rest, and if there’s somewhere - someone, perhaps?”

Izzy shifts and turns a scornful eye on Stede. “What the fuck makes you think I’ve got anywhere to go? If you want me gone, put me off at the next port. Don’t act like you’re doing me a favour.”

Stede suppresses a sigh. Every attempted kindness catches on a new prickle, with this man. “We don’t want you gone. We want to help.”

Izzy, predictably, scoffs at this. Stede lets his frustration get the better of him and shakes him by the scruff of his neck. It makes Izzy go limp, an incoherent sound ripped from his throat. Flushing, he stares fixedly at the deck. Stede decides it’s better not to examine this reaction, and says only, “We do want to help you.”

Chapter Text

“I’m not saying you should all start hugging him,” starts Stede. 

“Thanks, ‘cause I like having my insides on the inside,” says Frenchie. 

“Maybe just - don’t avoid him so much?”

“Listen, boss - it sucks, yeah, but he’s - he’s been a fucking asshole to us for months, and it’s not like he’s suddenly a new person.”

“But he is a person,” says Stede. 

“He’s always been a person, that’s not the issue here.”

“I’ve an idea,” says Oluwande, and Stede breathes a sigh of relief. “Jim-“

Jim raises an eyebrow at him. “I really hope you’re not suggesting I hug him.”

“No! God, no, Stede’s the only one mad enough to hug him - no offence, Captain -“

“None taken,” says Stede, magnanimously. 

“You should spar with him,” continues Oluwande. “We all should, really. He’s a hell of a fighter, we could all learn from him -“

“Remember what I said about keeping my insides on the inside?” Frenchie says. 

“That’s why Jim should go first - they’re the only one who could beat him.”

“And then, what, he’s going to decide he can’t kill us all and go easy on us?” asks Roach.

“It might give him a way in to - I don’t know - seeing that he doesn’t always have to be in control.”

Stede beams at Oluwande. 

The crew agrees, with varying degrees of enthusiasm. As they leave the room, Jim lingers at the door. “He’s not ready, you know,” they say. “He’s still exhausted. If I fight him now—“ 

Stede nods. It hardly needs said. Izzy would lose, and badly, and then he’d retreat to nurse his wounds (which would quite possibly not be metaphorical), and they’d be back where they started. 

“We could find you a different cabin,” Stede tells Izzy. The cabin has been scrubbed, the bedclothes replaced - there’s no sign anything untoward happened here. Izzy just squints at him. “If it’s been bothering you,” Stede says. 

“I’m not having nightmares,” says Izzy. “I can’t fucking sleep.”

“But if it-“

“I’m not scared of falling asleep here, Bonnet. I—“ Izzy stops. “You - fuck.” He sits down heavily, head in his hands. 

“You slept on the deck, when I held you.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Bonnet—”

“I won’t drag it out if it’s not working,” says Stede. “And I’ll leave when you’re asleep.”

“Jesus fucking - fine, go ahead. Not like it’s going to be more humiliating than it already is.” 

It is, a little, for both of them, with barely enough room in the cabin to move around, and the bunk too small by far. Stede sits, and Izzy rests his head on his lap, facing away—“I’m not fucking hugging you, Bonnet”—and lies there stiffly with his arms crossed, scowling, until Stede’s hand drops to his neck, and then he whines and presses his face against Stede’s thigh. Stede’s breath catches, but he forces himself to act as if nothing has happened, running his fingers through Izzy’s hair until his breathing evens out and his limbs grow lax with sleep. Stede eases from beneath him, and flees to his own cabin. 

“Alright?” asks Ed, half asleep. 

“Yes, of course,” he replies, and presses in close, drinking in the contented noise that Ed makes. 

Stede doesn’t exactly make a calendar, but he makes a point of going to Izzy every few days. Izzy bears it with his usual grace, although he’s more likely to be sullen than snarling. And sometimes it’s just Stede putting a hand on Izzy’s shoulder, or his arm, or the nape of his neck, and waiting until the tension drains from Izzy’s narrow frame. Then he’ll shrug out of the touch, and walk away with the barest acknowledgment. 

Sometimes Izzy will shudder, and lean into the touch, stoic expression cracking, and Stede will pull him close, hold him until the shaking stops. 

And sometimes Stede will sit at the end of Izzy’s bunk, cradling his head and running a hand through his hair as Izzy fumes. It’s never as fast as that first time on the deck, and more often than not by the time Stede makes it back to his own cabin, Ed is asleep. 

He’s very nearly startled into pushing Izzy off the bed the first time the man actually speaks after he lies down. 

“You’re the one who made them clean the hull.”

“Ah, yes - thought it would be wise. You seemed quite - pressed about it.”

Izzy huffs an almost laugh. “Yeah,” he says. Then, after a moment, “Thought it was Edward.”

“No. I’m sure he would have,” Stede says, reflexively defensive, “if I hadn’t.”

“If he could pull himself away from your bed long enough,” Izzy says snidely, then freezes. 

“It’s not like that,” protests Stede. 

“Yeah, it- I don’t want to fucking hear about it.”

Stede expects it to take longer for Izzy to relax after that exchange, but he’s drifting within minutes. Stede’s so absorbed in tracing idle shapes on Izzy’s back that it’s not until the ship’s bell rings to mark the change of the watch that he realises he’s been sitting there for an hour. 

Ed’s asleep. 

Stede doesn’t catch Jim approaching Izzy to ask him to spar, but comes on deck one evening to find them dancing around each other. He’s worried, for a moment, because they lash out at each other with unbridled ferocity, until he realises the sound he’s hearing is the dull clack of wood against wood, not the clash of steel. 

“Belaying pins,” says Frenchie by way of explanation. “Olu’s idea.”

The fight takes them across the deck from bow to stern and back, slipping between the crew, who have all stopped to watch and, Stede is relieved to see, equally disposed to cheer Izzy’s successes as Jim’s. Jim is faster, and leads their dance across the deck, but they’re well matched by Izzy’s experience - Izzy moves with economic grace, and catches every strike Jim aims at him. 

Until he doesn’t. Stede can hardly make out what happened - Jim feints, and twists, and suddenly Izzy’s on the deck, breathing hard, with Jim straddling his chest. Stede steps forward, not wanting to interrupt but wary of how Izzy will react. But he only drops his belaying pin, and lets his head fall back on the deck. 

“You’re leaving your left side open,” he says after catching his breath. 

“Like hell I am,” says Jim. “Who is it that’s on the deck?”

“You can’t always rely on your speed,” says Izzy. Jim makes a dismissive noise. “You won’t always have it,” Izzy continues. “Fuck knows I don’t any more.”

Stede leaves them to it. It’s a start, at least. He goes back to his cabin, where Ed is waiting, idle, and doesn’t pause by the little cabin their first mate sleeps in. He doesn’t. 

Chapter Text

He’s woken by an elbow in the gut and a sharp cry as Izzy scrambles off the bed. He holds up his hands as Izzy blinks awake.

“Fuck,” says Izzy, the panic in his eyes abating.

“I thought you didn’t get nightmares,” says Stede.

“Yeah, well, I lied.” He flicks his eyes up and down Stede, slumped on the narrow bunk. “Thought you were going to leave when I fell asleep.”

“I did! I do—must’ve drifted off,” says Stede. “I apologise,” he adds stiffly, “for overstepping the bounds of our agreement—“

“Fucksake, Bonnet.” Izzy shakes his head. “You fell asleep, you didn’t—fuck off, will you? I’m not getting back to sleep now. Ed—He’ll be looking for you.”

He isn’t, of course, because it’s the middle of the damned night. Stede doesn’t sleep again either.

Now that they’ve established that Izzy isn’t going to gut them at the slightest provocation, the crew has proven almost keen to interact with him. Sparring on deck becomes a regular occurrence—“I know what you’re doing,” Izzy hisses at him, sweating and dishevelled after a swordfighting lesson turned to hand-to-hand and Fang and Ivan joined in the demonstration. “Did you put up a fucking rota?”

“No,” says Stede primly. “They came up with that themselves.”

Wee John manages to winkle out the fact that Izzy was a gunner before he joined Ed’s crew, and persuades him to share his expertise. They spend a merry—on the part of the crew, even if Izzy stays stern and sharp-tongued throughout—afternoon aiming at surplus barrels floated out in a haphazard line from the stern. The crew crowd close around Izzy as he takes aim, until he snaps, “Don’t stand behind the cannon when it fires, you utter twats.”

Stede comes across Izzy and Roach in the galley not long after, Roach lining up plates and offering a baffled-looking Izzy choice morsels.

“Fucking hell,” he says after one. “What the fuck’d you put in that?”

“Ancho chillis, mostly.”

“You’re not serving Bonnet that. He’d have a stroke.”

Roach laughs. “No, he gets the stew.”

Stede likes Roach’s stew, so he doesn’t feel too slighted. He decides not to interrupt them.

“Go on then,” he hears Izzy say as he backs away, a curl of amusement in his voice. “What’s next?”

The next ship they raid is a French barque, and if Stede is being completely honest, it’s a trifle more than they’re ready for. Stede’s determined to get a handle on leading the attack, however, so he doesn’t call on Ed’s help. But the fuckery—there’s some wire work, and a bearskin, and Frenchie does some sterling work with a kazoo—falls a little flat, and they end up leaning on those sparring lessons a little harder than expected.

Still, they prevail in the end, and the bounty is well worth the exertion, sugar that’ll fetch a pretty penny at any port, and only a few bodies to heave over the side—well, more than a few, but they are only French—and only a handful cuts and bruises to show for it themselves. Stede counts it a resounding success.

It does leave them all a little wound up—he lets the crew take potshots at the vessel as it lists into the darkness behind them. He’s about to retire, himself, and make a report to Ed on their success, when he sees Izzy prowling the deck, restless and stormy-faced.

It’s a mark of their progress, he supposes, that it’s so obvious that Izzy’s tightly wound. It’s taken long weeks, but—at least until now—Izzy’s tension has eased markedly. Stede hopes their good work has not all been undone.

He follows Izzy as he stalks away from the crew, and catches him just before he reaches his cabin. Izzy flinches at the touch, and Stede raises his hands placatingly, waiting for Izzy to let him approach.

Izzy laughs—brief, and a touch cruel. “It’s not that, Bonnet,” he says. Then, when Stede frowns at him in bafflement, “You don’t want to stick around for this. I might—“ Izzy stops, and looks momentarily horrified. “You should go to Edward.”

It takes far too long after Izzy’s shut the door in his face for Stede to realise what Izzy is implying. Mortified, he flees to his cabin, where Ed’s waiting to hear about the raid, and Stede’s absolutely not distracted by what Izzy might as he tells Ed about the misfiring fuckery. They talk long into the night, spitballing improvements—which mostly boil down to changing everything except the kazoo—and it’s good, as good an evening as they’ve had in a while.

He waits—longer than he means to—before he seeks out Izzy again. Izzy opens his door, and doesn’t even curse when Stede says, “I wondered if we might speak for a moment,” just raises his eyes to the heavens and then steps back, letting Stede into the cabin. He props himself against the wall and crosses his arms, and lets Stede sit on the bunk and fuss with his cuffs.

“What,” he says flatly. “Speak, if you’re going to. God knows I can’t stop you.”

“It’s rather a delicate—“

“Oh for fucksake, Bonnet, is this about the raid last week? I’m not going to force myself on anyone. It’s not—haven’t you ever come out of a fight with your blood up? Of course you have, I’ve fucking heard you and—“ Izzy’s growing ire stumbles, as it so often does these days, over Ed’s name.

“It’s not about that,” says Stede. “I didn’t think you—well—it’s none of my business, is it, so long as you—so long as everyone’s—“ He catches Izzy’s eye. Briefly, before he turns his gaze stonily to the far wall. Stede powers through their mutual embarrassment. “I actually wanted to ask you about—about Ed.”

Izzy’s jaw twitches, but he doesn’t speak.

“It’s only—we’ve been getting along better, haven’t we? All of us.”

Izzy shrugs. He’s no less embarrassed, but it’s softened into something diffident. “S’pose,” he mutters.

“But you’ve been keeping your distance from Ed, and—I know there’s so much history between you, and not a little hurt, but I thought—I wondered if you might see your way to forgiving him.”

Izzy gapes at him. “What do I have to forgive him for?”

“Well.” Stede’s gaze flicks to Izzy’s foot and back, to which Izzy gives a dismissive shake of his head. “He pushed you away, and we followed his lead. Left you isolated.”

“Bonnet—fucksake, Stede, you know what I did to him. He had every right to push me away.”

“I think he regrets it, all the same,” says Stede. Even as he speaks, he knows it’s the wrong thing to say.

Izzy’s eyes narrow. “Did he say that?”

“Not in so many words,” Stede admits.

“Then I think I’ll pass.”

“I really think—“

“You think? He hasn’t even fucking mentioned me, has he?”

“That’s not—“

“I know I’m—“ Izzy taps the side of his head sharply. “But I’m not so fucked in the head that I’d go anywhere near him when he hasn’t forgiven me.”

“He would, if only you’d—“

“That’s bullshit, and you know it. If he was going to forgive me, he would have already—“

“It’s not that simple—“

“—and I’d know, because he’d be here, not you, and he’d—“

“He’s not—“

“—call me in when you’re planning raids, or—“

“—well.”

“—at least give me—what the fuck do you mean, he’s not well?”

They stare at each other for a moment, Stede desperately wishing he could take back his words. “I beg your pardon,” he says. “I misspoke. I apologise for trying to push you into doing something you’re not comfortable with.” His voice sounds strangled, something heavy catching in his throat. He stands, reaching blindly for the door. “I’ll leave you to your—“

“Fuck,” says Izzy quietly. “How bad is he?”

Chapter Text

“I’m sorry,” says Stede. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to bring this to you, it’s not—I know it’s not fair, when you’re—I’ve been trying to—oh, God, I’m making such a hash of things.” The tears spill over, and he presses a hand to his mouth to stop a sob escaping. 

He almost expects Izzy to push him out the door and slam it in his face; instead there’s a hand on his back, coaxing him towards the bed. He stumbles to it, and Izzy sits beside him, hand still careful on his back. “Sorry,” he chokes out, and Izzy makes a dismissive noise. 

Catching his breath, Stede manages to fumble out a handkerchief and blow his nose, and risks a glance at Izzy from behind the delicate lace trim. Izzy’s hand is rubbing slow circles on his back, but he’s staring at the floor, expression guarded. After a moment, Izzy sets his shoulders and asks, “Is he tired or bored?”

“Tired,” says Stede, and feels Izzy’s hand spasm. “But he’s—“

“Yeah,” says Izzy. Still not looking at Stede, he says, “I’m no use to you—“

“But—“

“Bored, I could help. All you need to do is distract him with something new, long enough to get him moving and fed and—but the other, I—“ He swallows. “You know what I did last time. How it ended.”

“It’s different, though,” says Stede. “He’s not—not distressed, or anything like that. And you—you said it was your job to keep him content, you must have helped before—“

“I was shit at it. Couldn’t handle it. I’d just—poke at him til he got sick of me, and he’d—that’s why he—why I—“ He shakes his head. “I was shit at it.”

“I’m not any better,” says Stede. Izzy makes that dismissive noise again. “It took me far too long to realise what was happening. I took him at his word.”

“Why wouldn’t you?” says Izzy. “You’d be better asking almost anyone else on the crew, than me. Talk it through, and all that.”

“I can’t, not for—it wouldn’t be fair, after everything that happened. And I—I am their captain. I can’t keep asking them to solve my problems.”

“But you can ask me?” 

There’s a hint of a smile in Izzy’s eyes as he says it, but Stede still says, chagrined, “I didn’t mean to.”

After a moment, Izzy says, “You really think he wants me to“—he grimaces—“forgive him? You think it would help?”

“I’m sure of it.”

Izzy sighs. “Now?”

“Oh! No—no, I can’t ask that of you,” says Stede. “In your own time, of course.”

Izzy nods, a quick jerk of the head. He looks at Stede, finally. “Wash your face,” he says. “He’ll notice. Assume the worst.”

“Oh,” says Stede, scrubbing ineffectually at his face. “He’ll notice anyway.”

“Yeah,” says Izzy. “You’ll feel better, at least.”

Ed notices, of course, and frowns when Stede tells him it’s nothing. He stops Stede from bustling around the cabin, pins him with those irresistible eyes, and Stede nearly crumbles, but manages to say, instead, “It’s nothing you need worry about, anyway. Just—let it be my worry, not yours.”

“Your worries are my worries,” says Ed. 

“And yours are mine,” says Stede. 

Ed scoffs. “I don’t have any worries.”

“Then you needn’t worry.”

Ed opens his mouth to retort, then closes it. Stede takes the opportunity to pull him towards their bed. “Not sure that follows,” he grumbles. 

Stede busses his cheek, then, when he’s distracted, kisses him properly. “I love you,” he tells Ed, who brightens. 

“Love you, too.”

Ed sleeps, at least. 

Stede doesn’t expect Izzy to turn up at their cabin door the very next day. And he does try very hard not to give Izzy pointed looks whenever they end up in the same part of the ship. He’s almost persuaded himself he’ll have to further coax Izzy into talking to Ed; he has no doubt that he’ll make a more convincing argument when not sobbing into Izzy’s shoulder. Well, only a few doubts. 

And then one morning Izzy raps on their cabin door, and, on entering, gives a terse but barely expletive-laced report on the night’s watches, the weather—mild, with a middling breeze taking them towards a favoured Dutch shipping route—and the general state of the ship and crew. 

Stede and Ed stare at him. He fidgets. 

“Thank you, Izzy,” Stede says when the silence starts to drag. Izzy nods in acknowledgement, and turns away. 

“Alright, Iz?” says Ed, a little too loudly to be entirely casual. 

Izzy doesn’t turn back, but flicks a glance at Ed over his shoulder. “Aye, captain.”

And then he’s gone, and Ed’s letting out a long slow breath, and then they spend the rest of the day as if nothing has changed. 

But that night Ed winds his arms tightly around Stede and buries his face in Stede’s neck and says, “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” says Stede automatically. “Whatever for?”

“F’r Izzy.”

“Oh. Well. It’s a work in progress,” says Stede. “He doesn’t yell half so much at the crew these days.”

Ed’s laugh rumbles through Stede, who winds his fingers through Ed’s hair and doesn’t ask, can’t ask—

But he seems better, in the following days, and sometimes he and Izzy stand on the quarterdeck together, talking too low for Stede to make out what they’re saying without being too obvious an eavesdropper. 

He catches Izzy himself, one afternoon when the crew are taking a leisurely lunch and Ed has curled up in their cabin once more. “You and Ed seem—“ he starts, only to realise Izzy is ignoring him, scanning the skies with a pensive look. “Is something wrong?”

“Don’t know,” Izzy says. “Don’t like the look of those clouds, but—Edward’d know.”

“I’ll get him, shall I?”

“Might be nothing,” says Izzy, shoulders hunched. 

“I’ll get him,” says Stede. “He won’t mind, you know,” he says gently. “He does still like the sailing, I think.”

The first squall hits them before Izzy can respond. 

“Fuck,” says Izzy. 

“I’ll get Ed,” says Stede. 

“Get everybody,” snaps Izzy. “All hands on deck,” he yells, striding towards the helm. 

It isn’t so bad a storm, in the end, with them all working together—Ed takes the helm from Izzy and guides them towards clearer skies, calling out orders that Izzy assigns and the crew carries out with admirable speed. 

Stede stays at Ed’s elbow, trying to keep track of it all. And if he screams a couple of times when the water comes over the quarterdeck or the ship sits on its stern, then the storm is the only one to hear it. 

It’s dark before they clear the storm, and Ed stays at the helm through the long night that follows. Izzy splits the crew into watches so they can rest, but he and Ed and Stede stay on deck, mindful of the clouds they’ve outrun but cannot see behind them. 

“I should’ve been there. Would’ve seen it coming.” Ed paces their cabin, frowning to himself. 

“Well, no harm done,” Stede says, although he doesn’t entirely disagree. “And now I know what to look for! A learning moment, don’t you agree?”

“Yeah,” says Ed, not sounding convinced in the slightest. “You’ll check on Izzy, yeah?”

“I—yes, if you think I should. He seemed fine, when we went below.”

“He doesn’t like storms. Never has.”

“Who among us does?”

“Not like Izzy,” Ed insists. 

“Then I’ll check on him,” says Stede, and presses a kiss to Ed’s hand. “I’ll be right back, though.”

They’d left Izzy talking through the morning’s tasks with Olu; he’d nodded Stede towards Ed’s departing figure, after the sky brightened and the storm proved itself to be growing distant on the horizon. He’d seemed steady enough, to Stede’s eye, but Ed knows him better. 

Izzy isn’t in his cabin; Stede finds him in the galley, picking at a ship’s biscuit and nursing a mug of something indeterminate. 

He looks well. Tired, but at ease. 

Of course, he still scowls when he sees Stede, setting the mug down to ask, “What now?”

“Nothing! Just—checking in.”

“I’m fine, Bonnet. Fuck off.”

“Ed was asking after you,” Stede tells him, and Izzy’s expression softens. 

“I’m fine,” he says. “Go on with you.”

Stede searches his face for a moment longer, but sees nothing but plain weariness upon it. “Alright.” He reaches to clap a hand on Izzy’s shoulder, but thinks better of it, and busses Izzy’s temple before turning to leave. 

Stede is several steps into his cabin before he realises what he’s done. He claps a hand over his mouth to stop a whimper escaping. 

“You alright, love?” asks Ed. 

“I’ve just done something monumentally stupid,” Stede tells him. 

“Monumentally?” asks Ed, failing to hide his amusement. “Surely not.”

Stede is steeling himself to reply when the door crashes open. 

“What the fuck was that?” It’s clear that all their work to ease Izzy’s temper has been quite undone by Stede’s thoughtlessness. He sags in the face of Izzy’s fizzing rage. 

“What’s up, Iz?” Ed’s tone is very careful, but there’s an edge to it that stops Izzy short. 

“He,” spits Izzy, “fucking kissed me.”

Now it’s Ed’s turn to clap a hand over his mouth, and Stede hurries to clarify. “Platonically! On the temple, as a sign of affection. And respect! But I acknowledge a boundary was crossed and I take full responsibility—“

Above his hand, Ed’s eyes are dancing. 

“Where’d he kiss you, Iz?”

Izzy starts to gesture at his forehead, stopping abruptly to snap, “That’s not the fucking point, Edward—“ before Ed cups his face gently and presses a kiss to his temple. When he pulls back, Izzy gapes up at him, and they stand like that for a moment, tense as a bow. 

“Eddie,” says Izzy, and Ed crumples, arms flung around Izzy’s neck. He sobs, and buries his face in Izzy’s chest. 

Izzy shoots Stede a horrified look, but brings his arms up to embrace Ed. “Eddie,” he says helplessly. 

“‘M sorry,” sobs Ed. 

“Edward, no, I’m the one who should—“ Here he must see Stede shaking his head frantically. “It’s alright, Eddie,” he says instead. His arms tighten around Ed. “You’re alright, lad.”

Chapter Text

Ed pulls away from Izzy abruptly, spinning to face Stede with a guilty expression. “I’m happy,” he says, voice trembling. “I’m so happy with you, I am, I just don’t know why I’m so fucking miserable—“ His voice cracks, and both Izzy and Stede crowd close. 

“Oh, Ed, love,” says Stede, catching Ed’s dear face between his hands. “It’s alright. It’ll be alright.”

Izzy’s hands are tangled in Ed’s shirt. “We’ll get through it, Eddie,” he says. “It’s different now, you can—“

“I don’t know why I’m like this,” sobs Ed. “I hate it.”

Stede hushes him. “I think it’s only that you feel things so deeply, my dear—“

“Is it?” asks Ed, voice sharp and brittle. “Only it all feels like it’s all churning about at the top, and there’s nothing underneath. It’s just a bloody chasm.”

“Ed,” Stede says, wretchedly, and Izzy echoes him, and they both wrap their arms around Ed and hold him as he shakes between them. 

Stede has no notion of how long they stand like that, until Ed’s trembling stops and he grows restive once more. Stede chivies them towards the chaise—Izzy sits with a grimace, and Ed throws himself down, his head coming to rest in Izzy’s lap. Izzy stares down at him, one hand tangling again in his shirt, the other combing back Ed’s hair. 

Once he’s arranged Ed’s hair to his satisfaction, Izzy says, “You know I’m fucked up, right? I am, don’t make that noise”—because Ed has attempted to sit up with a stricken expression—“We all know it. But Stede’s—he’s helped. And the crew—“

“I’m sorry,” gasps Ed. “I’m sorry I couldn’t—“

“No, shut up, that’s not what I’m saying. I know you couldn’t, we’re not—the crew, they just keep—fucking—asking questions. Like “What are you doing?” and “Have you eaten?” an’ “What’s a bowline?” an’—and it helps. Fuck knows why, it’s not like there’s any less shit in my head, but it’s—there’s more, now. More in my head. An’ I know that doesn’t make any fucking sense, that it would help, shoving more stupid shit in there with the awful fucking shit, but it does, like there’s more of me, like I’m—“ Izzy stops, and his jaw works for a moment, and Stede can’t quite make out the word he mouths to himself. Then he says, terse, still gripping Ed’s shirt so tightly his knuckles are white, “So we could start there, maybe.”

Ed doesn’t speak, his breath hitching. Stede opens his mouth, and closes it, and Izzy fixes him with a somewhat defanged glare. “If you want to say ‘talk it through as a crew,’ Bonnet, now would be the moment.”

“I wasn’t going to,” Stede protests. He was, sort of: as Ed and Stede and Izzy, if not the crew, but it doesn’t matter anyway, because Ed says, on a breath—

“Yeah.”

Izzy’s glare softens, as does his grip. “Alright,” he says, half a question, then, more firmly, “Alright.” He leans down to press a kiss to Ed’s temple, drops his gaze to the floor. 

“What’s a bowline?” asks Ed. Izzy laughs, and makes as if to push Ed onto the floor—Ed catches his hand and tangles it with his own. He reaches for Stede with his other hand, and Stede lets himself be pulled closer, dropping to the floor beside them and leaning against Ed’s hip. His knees will protest this later—there’s not even a rug beneath him—but it hardly matters, for there’s an ease growing in Ed that’s been missing for months. 

Chapter Text

They sit, of an evening, demands of the ship allowing, in the bed nook—Stede at one end, Izzy at the other, with Ed curled beside one or the other or sprawled across both—and they talk. Not—it doesn’t come easy, although their tears do, even Izzy’s, as they unpick their past and their present. Stede is as drained as either of them, every time, but he wakes feeling lighter, and he thinks they do too. Ed doesn’t cloister himself away so much, eats lunch with the crew in the galley; Izzy has been seen to smile, almost, and has taken to meeting the crew’s teasing with a droll sardonicism that has them scrambling in a panic when it first appears. 

“I knew it,” he hears Lucius whisper. “The little bugger has layers.”

“You did not,” counters Jim. “You just wanted to get under them.”

“I couldn’t have wanted to get under them if I didn’t know they were there, could I. Quod erat demon-dem—QED.”

“Physical layers don’t always mean internal layers,” said Jim. “Buttons hardly ever has layers at all, but damn, the man’s complex. Piscem natare doces.”

Lucius pouts. “Alright, you with your fancy nun Latin.”

But no, it isn’t easy. 

“First captain I had,” says Izzy, and pauses. “Navy. Mean bastard. Loved a flogging.” Each word is ground out, and Izzy doesn’t meet their eyes. “I was flogged for a uniform infraction. And buggery,” he adds, “but that was later. The first time, I’d torn a hole in my shirt, hadn’t had a chance to patch it. ‘Five of your best, Mr Bowden. The cane’s broke, so he’ll take the lash.’

“When I jumped ship, joined the Walrus, I thought it was going to be different. No officers, an equal share of the spoils, a say in every decision. It was bullshit. Her captain was just as cruel, only he smiled and shook your hand and if you disagreed with a decision it was a knife in the dark or first place in the next raid, or a whisper in the right ear and suddenly your best mate was trying to cut your throat. Couldn’t have been happier when he sold me to Hornigold. Always knew where you were with Ben.”

“You were sold?” asks Stede, horrified. 

Izzy shrugs. “Not like—I wasn’t indentured or anything, I could’ve left, if I’d had anywhere to go. Flint need a partner for a raid, and Hornigold needed a gunner—“

“The last one blew himself up,” says Ed, nodding.

“—so I was volunteered.”

“I remember that,” said Ed. “I mean, obviously I remember you joining—I remember them making the deal. I’d been a powder monkey up ‘til about a week before Williams blew himself up, but Hornigold took a shine to me, made me cabin boy. Had me serving his best Madeira while they hashed it all out. Flint gave me a real de a ocho, and Hornigold told me he’d cut out my tongue if I told anyone their plans.”

“He told me he’d feed me my balls if I told Flint anything about the Ranger,” said Izzy. “‘Spose he figured Flint would turn on him, but we never made enough profit to be worth taking down.”

“Wait,” says Stede, because notwithstanding the need to unpick the typically horrible threats made to their younger selves, he has to ask: “Flint—James Flint?”

Izzy rolls his eyes. “Oh, here we go,” he says. “Yes, Captain James Flint, terror of the seven seas, king of Nassau, bastard of the first water. He wasn’t some piratical genius, not like—he was just ruthless. No different from Kidd or Every or Hornigold, just better at hiding it until he decided to gut you.”

“It was his quartermaster who was the brains, I heard,” says Ed. 

“From me,” chides Izzy. “He was. Only pirate I ever knew who got out of it alive. Runs an inn in Bristol, clean as you like. Flint’s dead, and God rot his bones. Hornigold was—“

“—such a dick,” finishes Ed. 

Izzy eyes him carefully. “Yeah.”

“He’d turn on you faster than—I dunno, some fast, fickle bastard. Your best mate until you crossed him. Over, like, nothing. Shall we gut this Spanish captain or slit his throat. Breakfast options. Nah, I’d like porridge actually, cap—bam! Half your teeth out. You could never—never turn your back on him. Never—”

“Never relax,” prompts Stede, when Ed doesn’t continue. Ed nods, and curls closer. 

Izzy says, “He didn’t turn us against each other.” He hesitates, his expression falling. It’s painful to see, but better than the careful blankness he’d had when talking about Flint. “We did that ourselves.”

“No,” says Ed, muffled against Stede’s shoulder. “It was Hornigold. Leading by example.”

“I—“ Izzy falters, and Ed reaches for him blindly. Izzy takes his hand, stares at it. 

“Izzy,” says Ed. 

“I didn’t see it,” says Izzy. “I was so used to having to watch my back, by then. Didn’t think—it was such a relief to have a captain you could see coming. Always knew what he was thinking, even if it changed before the next bell.”

Into the silence, feeling his way with care, Stede says, “My father was very strong, and proud, and cold. And I think that if I’d had even an ounce of that strength, I would have ended up just like him.” He hesitates, and joins his hand with Ed’s to pull Izzy closer. After Izzy falls against them with a disgruntled sigh, Stede says, “You’re both very strong men.”

Ed makes a noise of protest; Izzy is silent, but Stede can feel him trembling minutely. He runs a soothing hand down Izzy’s back. “Strong enough to be better than them, even if it’s hard to leave them behind.”