Chapter Text
Predictably, chaos unfolded.
Everyone started shouting and flailing their arms wildly (making zero contact with any bats), and Oluwande and Archie immediately hit the deck, which pretty much meant Jim was brought along for the ride, bone-rattling landing onto the bare wood, included.
Pete was firing his gun into the air blindly, and Lucius had grabbed a bucket of water and had thrown it at the tiny creatures, as if they were a fire.
Frenchie had started yelling something that sounded kind of like directions, but at the same time, Zheng had also started barking out orders.
Roach seemed to be trying to ineffectually catch a few of the closer-flying creatures in a net with too-wide holes, all the while screaming shrilly in terror.
Izzy had jumped up as the bat wave had first hit them and had been pacing back and forth on his own deck anxiously up to this point, feeling helpless and being pissed about it. But then Fang had dived gracefully onto the deck in front of Jim's huddled group.
The unexpected relief Izzy had felt at seeing his old friend was strangely heartbreaking.
“Jim, I know he's not first mate, but tell Fang to help Frenchie! Tell him-” Izzy was shouting, his heartbeat thundering in both their ears.
Jim had immediately started relaying this, seeing as they had no better plan at the moment, but Fang was already shaking his head.
“Naw! Cap’ns doin’ just fine! But guys, we need to get you outta here before those bats kill Jim again!” He cried, swatting at a few of the bats that came too close as gently as he could.
Their captain was currently torn between swinging at the bats with his lute and trying to wrestle the gun away from Pete, but Jim couldn't argue with the assessment without being a bit of a hypocrite.
“Aw, Fang, not you too!” Archie scolded loudly, sounding genuinely betrayed.
But then, just like that…the bat storm ended as suddenly as it had begun, the deafening whispers cutting out abruptly, leaving Spanish Jackie screaming in a way that Jim would never have called girlish out loud if someone had asked them, even under torture.
Everyone more or less had stopped their own panicking and had turned to look at her as her last scream cut off abruptly.
She coughed awkwardly as she glanced around at everyone and straightened the waist seam of her pantsuit indignantly.
“It's not like Jackie's scared of bats. Jackie just don't trust ‘em. You know they got freaky little fingers on the ends of their nasty little ball-skin wings, right? Means they can steal,” she challenged, pointing at Frenchie and nodding as she imparted this insider knowledge.
To Jackie's credit, Frenchie did actually seem pretty blown away by this information, narrowing his eyes thoughtfully as he looked around at everyone.
“This wasn't my fault! Just so everyone knows!” Jim called out as Oluwande and Archie helped them up.
“And how do you know that?” Auntie drawled slowly, crossing her arms.
“Do you know?” Oluwande jabbed, seemingly running out of patience.
“I might have a theory.”
“Well, are you going to actually tell us at any point?” Jim asked, starting to feel sick again.
“Not right now.”
“Why not? Why do you have to be so mysterious?” Jim growled.
“Because if I say it out loud and I'm wrong later on, it will be embarrassing,” the woman explained simply, her lips pursed and her eyes dilated like a cat's.
Jim stared at her for several angry seconds.
“Yeah, okay, fine,” they spat finally, finding no flaw in her logic.
“Hey, uh- Head-pirate guy? You might want to come look at this?” Tarpon called from the starboard railing.
Everyone rushed over from their scattered positions amongst the tangle of disarrayed party chairs to the side of the ship with a loud scuffle, and several people swore under their breath at what they saw:
Backlit by the fingernail slit of the moon, the silhouette of a large ship that was very obviously of the pirate persuasion was currently gliding up alongside them… and strangely, it was pitch black with no visible light sources on board.
But not being able to see any finer details was apparently not needed for the former first-mate-shaped jack russell terrier that was frantically bouncing up and down along his own deck in Jim's head.
“JIM! THAT'S ANNIE! ANNIE! THAT'S MY ANNIE! JIM! IT'S ANNIE!” he was shouting over and over again, making it a bit hard to concentrate on the bizarre external conversation going on beside them.
“Ohhhhh, okay, the bats were, like, some kind of fucked up cover screen for a stealth attack,” Zheng said as she squinted out at the silently drifting ship.
“What!…wicked! That's the most badass stealth method I've ever seen! Hey, cap, how do we action something like that for us?”
Izzy-Izz- Izzy, calm- IZZY ! Jim was struggling to say over the swordsman's excited shouting.
And then Izzy stopped- not because of Jim, but seemingly because of something he had just realized.
Izzy? Who's Annie? What's going on? Who is that? Jim asked, eyeing the ship with a growing sense of dread.
“I mean, I'm not really sure where we'd get them?” Frenchie was saying, scratching the back of his head.
“I know a guy,” the Swede said quietly from down the line.
“That ship…that's the Queen Anne's Revenge …Edward's ship,” Izzy said breathlessly, his brow furrowed.
¿Estás seguro? Jim asked sharply, their unease mounting.
“I'd know that ship by the fuckin’ trail it left in the water, Jim. It's definitely Annie…but…yeah, no- that's not possible, because…” he trailed off, uselessly climbing his own side railing and hanging onto a rope to get a better look.
“I'm not- entirely confident we have enough for everyone to get their inoculations just right now,” Frenchie was saying, still unsure.
“Awh, yeah-naw, mate, fully poked, right here,” Archie was cheering, grabbing Tarpon and hugging him close with one arm. “We were in a cult that actually loved kid vaccinations, both of them, came in real handy in the eighties, actually-”
“Guys.” Jim said, their voice so urgent that everyone turned to look at them. “Izzy- Izzy says he knows that ship. He says- he says it's the one that belonged to Blackbeard.”
Everyone exchanged surprised glances and Fang immediately blanched.
“Wha-? Naw…me and Ivan…we did just like Izzy asked! Promise! We left her in the usual place with a few good crew members to look after’er-” he insisted, squinting out at the ship as it now slowed to a stop at least a hundred yards or so out from them.
“Are you guys not…like, super concerned at this point? About the enemy ship lining us up…what apparently used to be Blackbeard's?” Ezekiel was asking, his eyes bulging in fear at the mention of the former pirate king's prized property.
“I mean, we don't know they're enemies…it could just be Fang and Izzy's friend's, dropping in for the party,” Pete reasoned, still sounding cautiously optimistic.
“We didn't exactly send out invites, mate,” Frenchie said, looking out at the ship.
“Well no, not on such short notice,” Pete argued back, his hands on his hips.
Lucius was leaning over the railing and taking a drag off his cigarette.
“I mean. They haven't fired on us, yet…and they're not deploying any boats I can see. And unless they have a gangway as long as Pete's dick, they're not exactly walking over,” Lucius coughed, nodding in that direction.
“Aw, babe. That's so nice,” Pete grinned, running his hand on Lucius’ back.
“And unnecessary,” Auntie growled, gazing over at the deathly still boat through her spyglass.
Jim was about to grill Izzy more about the Queen Anne when they slowly became aware of a faint scratching noise, coming from the direction of the side of the ship.
Lucius looked down and squinted for a moment…then he turned a shade of pure white and dropped his cigarette, backing away from the dark edge while making a terrified choking noise.
Something that looked like a cross between a drowned demon corpse and a huge emaciated monkey pulled itself up over the railing with long, sinewy arms ending in black-fingered claws.
Its hair hung in dripping black strands over its hollow black eyes, and its fang-lined mouth cracked open wide in a guttural clicking gurgle that was somehow shrill.
Everyone on board screamed (including Izzy), and Pete lunged forward and drove his knife directly into the creature's face, sending it tumbling backwards off the ship and taking Pete's blade with it.
It was a short-lived relief however, because in its place, three more of the abominations crawled up and over the gunwale, and from the sound of it, there were many more making their way up.
And now, actual true chaotic terror descended.
Everyone who had guns had fired at the creatures. If it had much more of an effect than just staggering them slightly, Jim couldn't see it.
They were diving for one of their many hidden dagger caches, suddenly very grateful they had thought to make several of them around the ship even before Blackbeard had shown up, and suddenly very ungrateful that the entire right side of their body was raw, exposed skin.
They bopped their fist on a loose board in the wall of a step up to the quarterdeck and grabbed the pair of knives waiting inside.
They hadn't been oiled in ages and little patches of rust coated the previously shiny blades like little land masses on a very realistic-looking map. Jim wasn't particularly upset about this given the current circumstances.
Before they had even fully gotten back up on their feet, though, they were hit by something that felt like a hairless bear and had been sent rolling in a sloppy, wet grapple.
One of the creatures had tackled Jim and even though it had them pinned, they also had the full power of Jim's legs at their throat, as Jim had their feet on either side of the entity's cord-like neck, holding it in place.
The thing's long, thin arms flailed at its side as its blood red nails nicked and scratched at the wood on either side of Jim as it clawed violently and stretched its neck to reach towards Jim's head. Deep in its black hollow eyes, two milky white pupils searched spastically over their already wounded body for their most vulnerable parts.
Its teeth were incessantly snapping and snarling as it hissed and slobbered out putrid sea water in tiny streams.
Jim managed to situate themselves better just in time for their legs to give out under the beast's unnatural strength, just barely bringing both knives up and around in time to catch inside the thing's mouth in a scissor cross as it cleared half the distance between their teeth and Jim's neck easily in this new position.
Jim tried to slice the demon's head clean in half by cross-cutting their knives, but whatever this bastard's skin and muscle was made out of, it definitely wasn't normal flesh. A strangely familiar shape flashed next to its jaw and Jim's subconscious realized distantly what it was…a beaten metal earring similar to theirs, shining wetly in the lantern glow like a holy brand.
But despite its yellow fangs (each one about as wide as an adult finger) relentlessly grinding and scraping the metal of the blades as it chewed and licked them, the terror was suddenly diminished slightly as the abomination started making small, satisfied “nom-nom” noises as it started chewing and sucking on Jim's rusted daggers.
Suddenly, one of the corroded blades snapped, causing Jim to cry out in anger.
“Jim! Horndagger!” Izzy shouted over the horrific sounds coming from both the crew and the beasts as they battled around them. He had impotently drawn his sword but was still shaking in frustration at just being a bystander in all this.
Jim reached down and found the wooden knife almost immediately, and it twirled beautifully in their hand despite the weight difference to what they were used to.
They thrust the wooden horn upward into the thing's chest with all the strength they could muster…but instead of a clean, deep pierce like they had hoped for, there was only a slight thunk and a small puncture wound that caused the creature to suddenly stop their gnawing of Jim's weapon with an almost sad kind of confused sound.
It looked down at the horndagger in complete mystification and even brought its hand up to poke experimentally at the wooden spiral as a very small amount of red blood leaked out and twisted around the very tip of the blade.
Jim almost felt bad suddenly, because the little hurt noises it was making sounded a bit like Archie a few moments ago: betrayed.
And then Wee John's shillelagh came flying in from Jim's right, hitting the creature in the head and sending it tumbling away into darkness.
“DON'T GO GETTIN’ YOUR NASTY SECRETIONS ALL OVER THE IRIDESCENT SILK!” John Feeney boomed over everyone fighting, making several combatants pause momentarily in alarm before continuing on with their scrapping.
“Thanks, dude!” Jim shouted out jubilantly as the massive man went to go retrieve his giant stick.
“The same goes for you!” He growled at Jim as he stalked past.
Jim had whipped the robe off and had spun around to try to get sight of Archie and Oluwande and was immediately relieved to see they were both still miraculously in play:
Archie was hacking away at a demon with the machete that was almost always at her side (sometimes sex wasn't even exempt), and Oluwande had thankfully reached one of his own weapon stashes he had made around the ship the same time Jim had.
And double-thankfully, pretty much every single crew member that wasn't already armed had at some point gotten the same idea to stash something somewhere.
Pete and Lucius were stabbing at, and warding away, several grey-skinned enemies with what looked like tridents that had been set alight with fuel-soaked rags tied onto the prongs.
The Swede had something that looked like a flail made of forks at the end of a thick chain, and his already intimidating wife had what appeared to be a nailed bat looted from the previous bat raid in one hand and her gun in the other.
Roach, who was still screaming continuously, had obviously claimed Izzy's meringicorn horn for his own, but in addition, he had also pulled out a very large steel tray cover and was very effectively using it as a shield, warding off two demons at once.
Unfortunately for Jim, the beast Wee John had dealt with had been replaced by two others…and everyone else was a little too busy at the moment to help.
The new enemies both lunged forward with what sounded like submerged screaming, one of the lanky things on their freakishly long back legs and the other galloping on all fours like a zombie gorilla.
“Jim- let me take over-” Izzy was saying, his teeth on edge.
No way, old man! I don't even have a sword! Jim accidentally screamed at Izzy, bracing for the impact and readying the horndagger in their uninjured hand, feeling more confident with its effectiveness just now.
“No, that's not what I mean-” Izzy said almost too quietly for Jim to make out.
The one on all fours hit Jim first, bowling them over and ripping their scars open in several places as they pinned them to the ground.
“You don't have to do it yourself this time if…if you'd rather I-”
Jim heard someone scream their name distantly as the second creature closed their massive teeth over Jim's bad leg, ripping the fabric on their pants to shreds like it was made of warm butter.
Jim realized what Izzy meant suddenly and felt a bizarre mix of overwhelming affection and deep-running irritation.
Thanks, Tito…but I'm not scared to die anymore…I'm just pissed! Jim screamed internally.
Then, as the gorilla creature opened its jaws wide and roared at Jim, they realized they were smiling insanely, and they answered back with their own roar, right back in its face.
The scream was so primal that the creature looked taken aback momentarily, blinking in an almost offended kind of way, and then it growled and opened its mouth wide and enclosed Jim's entire face in its rancid smelling mouth, the pricks of their fangs settling on their skin…
“OKAY, WOAH! WOAH! FELLAS! EVERYONE STOP WHAT YOU'RE DOING, STOP FIGHTING!” Someone was yelling in a clear voice, accompanied by a long blast on a bosun's whistle.
The creature with its teeth clamping gently onto Jim's skull released their face with a sickening squelch and hacked out a hoarse laugh as it emptied its mouth of excess spit.
“I vas going to say, dat was definitely vaaay past de tirty-second mark, hehe” it chuckled as Jim coughed and spat out their own share of the beast's drool.
The other demon-thing ran it's tongue against Jim's skin one more time before he also released their leg with a disconcerting suction-pop noise.
“Is this lighdening scar? You are being hit by lighdening???” It asked curiously, its head cocking to the side slightly.
Jim was only just now realizing that even though the siege had been somewhat violent (they had a feeling the soreness that resulted from being tackled- twice- was going to make them miss this current soreness), none of the three creatures attacking them had done any direct damage.
The sound of the crew of the Revenge still attacking their invaders carried across the deck like beautiful music…it seemed everyone had somehow survived.
Archie was still hacking away at the same demon they had been engaged with at the beginning, each strike of her machete accompanied by a determined grunt.
Lucius and Pete had teamed up with Frenchie and were all back to back, spinning in a circle as Frenchie shot his gun and Lucius and Pete stabbed and gouged at several enemies with their spears.
Zheng was battle-screaming and stabbing three creatures in a loop as they now stood calmly around her, watching her with polite fascination as her sword made a disgusting crunching noise as it pierced their rapidly-healing skin over and over.
Roach’s platter shield had several chunks taken out of it but he was still using it to repeatedly bash a nearby monster over the head as it blandly said “Ow” at each cacophonous hit.
“Guys, seriously…c'mon, stop fighting!” The voice called again, this time the distinct accent jarringly familiar.
A solid figure had seemingly materialized from the edge of the ship in a cloud of black smoke. A thick beard poked out from underneath a heavy hooded cloak that was almost the same exact color of the night around them.
“Easy for you to say, Darth Dickhead!” Archie was shouting over hell's orchestra. “Why don't you do us a favor and stop being so hard to cut in half…you fuckin’…fuckin’..” but she stopped short, her words trailing off weakly.
The man had pushed back his hood in the full view of the lantern light and several people froze.
His eyes were a lighter shade of amber now, and his locs had been pulled back into a dashing ponytail, but there was no doubt about it…that was, inexplicably, Ivan.
“Fuck! I thought it was you lot!” He said joyfully, his arms spread wide in excitement.
And then he disappeared sideways in a wad of black and silver as Fang tackled him with his full force.
“Ive! I can't believe it! You're alive! I can't believe you're really, really alive!” Fang was weeping from their hug on the floor, squeezing Ivan so tightly the man was making sharp gasping noises while patting the older man's arms affectionately with his pinned hands.
“Actually, no! M’not!” Ivan wheezed out, causing a look of pure agony to flood Fang's face. “M’not dead, either, though!” He quickly amended, seeing this.
He bared his teeth in a sneer and revealed two gold-plated fangs glittering in the flickering lights.
“I'm a vampire? Yeah? Everyone here is a vampire? Was that not obvious as you were fighting us?” Ivan said as he pointed a still-Fang-trapped finger around at the creatures who all stood around them, shuffling awkwardly.
“What-? Naw, vampires don't look like this, mate, these guys look like fuckin, uh-” Archie had started, looking smaller than usual standing next to the long-torsoed creature she had been hacking away at.
“Ayy! Be nice- they might not look it, but this lot is true blue, alright? They're family,” Ivan said, trying to sit up while still hugging Fang.
“Awh. Okay. Right. They- look…uh…like a different kind of horrific…than what I'mmm normally used to. Is all,” Archie amended, clearing her throat and cycling her hands in front of her to draw out any positivity, like Fang had taught her. The creature beside her nodded slowly, pleased.
Izzy had been watching all of this in a primordial mud soup of emotions. Most of it was an undisguised joy…seeing that, against all odds, two of his oldest friends still had one another, and had found each other again…almost like fate.
The other emotions were less clear…but there was one Jim had seen shine out like a lighthouse beacon before being stuffed back down violently into the chest inside his chest…and that was a blazing green jealousy.
Izzy had caught Jim looking inward and had huffed sharply out his nose.
“If you think I'm gonna get all choked up because he somehow fuckin' survived a cannonball blast when I didn't even make it past a gut shot, get bent,” he growled, but he was still beaming ear to ear, his arms crossed comfortably.
Jim had picked themselves up and was already walking over to Fang and Ivan with everyone else, and they happily accepted Archie's hand as the two of them met halfway there.
Oluwande, who had been using his wire cord as a whip to pull enemies off and away from his crewmates as needed, was accompanying a very shaken-looking Zheng to the circle now forming and Jim reached out a hand to place on Zheng’s shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze. It was met with a grimace.
“What the hell is wrong with this ship?” she muttered shakily.
Tarpon, Ezekiel and Wyatt had also rejoined everyone, looking very shell-shocked, but hopeful. Jim had actually been impressed by what they had caught of them in battle for the split second they were looking:
Tarpon had slid into the back of the legs of two creatures who had been standing too close together as they were attacking Auntie (she seemed slightly miffed at the body count theft), and both Wyatt and Ezekiel had jumped off the stair bannister behind the furious woman, clotheslining the enemies backwards into the deck with an ungodly thud. Jim had nodded at them in congratulations and all three looked ecstatic to be even slightly recognized for their part.
“Maybe is okay we don' always look like vampires, boss? Maybe fear is amplified by confrontation of unknown,” shrugged the long-torsoed vampire Archie had been fighting. It was staying closer to her than what she was apparently comfortable with, based on her body language. It craned its neck down to face her.
“You have teach me three new cuss word. Thank you. Best human on ship,” he whispered, offering his closed fist to her.
Archie smiled at the ball of claws in happy disbelief for a second before booping her knuckles heartily into the creature's offered ones.
“Yeah, bro! No problem, I can teach you at least five more, anytime!” She gushed, turning to Jim a moment later and mouthing “I just fist-bumped a vampire!” in an excited hiss.
Ivan was nodding his head thoughtfully.
“Yeah-yeah…you know you're probably right on, Boyan- let's put it to a vote: who here thinks it was way scarier, not knowing what we were at first, rather than if you knew we were vampires from the go?” he said as he finally managed to pull both himself and Fang up to their feet.
A few hands stayed down, but the majority of the crew of the Revenge had definitely voted in favor for the fear of ambiguity.
“Good feedback, good feedback…Okay, that settles it…we still use the bats, but cut down on lore-dependent things like snarling and hissing. We stay undefined for the duration of the raids to further instill fear into our marks, but every time else…V-life 4-life, baby!” Ivan concluded to happy cheers from his crew.
“This’ll probably cut our thirty-second time by at least five seconds! And I can dye my hair again! Oh- Uh- here ya go, dude. That was a killer shot,” the initial vampire that Pete had stabbed said as he handed his knife back to him.
“Hey, thanks! I was kinda bummed I did that, actually…this was my mom's favorite weapon,” Pete gushed, taking the knife.
“I know…I’m a scryer. Did you know she killed fourteen people with that thing?” The vampire asked, looking at the blade with slight concern.
“Haha! Yeah,” Pete chuckled calmly, resheathing it.
A small, polite cough sounded from behind them.
“It might be for the best if our enemies don't know what we are, really” the vampire that Jim had managed to wound with the horndagger was saying. Her voice was soft and thoughtful, her accent disarmingly refined. “There are certain aspects about our physiology that might… avail us to be kept secret,” she finished gently, touching the spot on her chest. It was definitely healing, but still looked bloody and sore.
“Shit! I'm so sorry, I didn't know-” Jim had started, feeling insane once again.
“Oh- No, darling- don't worry about that- you did splendidly. Indeed, I had a marvelous time…I love it when there's rust on weapons, it's like little blood-salt snacks,” she laughed prettily, patting Jim on the hand and making them blush.
Archie had run over and hugged Ivan around the neck as well, and it seemed the combined weight of both her and Fang wasn't really a factor: he twirled carefully in place as they all laughed like lunatics.
Ivan had been the one to find Archie in the first place: they had gotten into a bar fight while Ivan was scouting the Keys for new crew members. And then shortly after, Archie had been the one to walk in on Ivan, with his tiny little kiln, practicing his metalwork in a dark corner in the lowest part of the ship, and had then immediately forced him to start making jewelry for everyone on board.
“Okay, alright, let's go then, let's add another! Izzy, hop on! See if you can climb to sit on my shoulders!” Ivan was laughing, still spinning gracefully.
“Oh…uh- Ivan, about that,” Fang was saying, a bit out of breath from having to hang on as they twirled. “Izzy didn't make it- he got shot and died…about two weeks ago.”
Fang didn't exactly sound like he was joking, so Ivan stomped to a halt abruptly, causing both Fang and Archie to follow inertia and whip sideways sharply with identical cries of pain as they slammed back into hanging positions on either side of Ivan.
“Wha-? What are you goin’ on about? I sensed both you an’im all the way over on the Sanguinocturna, it's why I popped over,” he protested, pointing over at the nearby ship that Jim was only now noticing had gotten close enough to deploy a gangway, almost as if it had snuck up to stand beside them like Buttons sometimes used to.
The stealth vibes with these guys were off the fucking charts.
“Naw…he died,” Fang confirmed quietly, as if he was indicating something slightly embarrassing.
“But- I can sense him, even right now. He's over there somewhere…right?” He said as he pointed past Jim and squinted into the darkness behind them. “Stuck in a barrel or something, again?”
“Try pointing a little closer, mate,” Archie said in a surprisingly gentle voice as both she and Fang let go of Ivan's neck and landed softly beside him.
Ivan leaned in close to Archie and whispered “Arch, that's Jim- pretty sure you had a crush on them at some-” before she dealt him a pretty sharp elbow jab to the ribs.
“No, you bongledong, I'm saying Izzy's soul is in Jim's body,” Archie growled. She had thankfully not added the “duh” at the end that was held back with what Jim knew was immense restraint.
Ivan and everyone on his crew turned to look at Jim in shock. Or at least Jim thought it was shock.
“What?! How the hell did that happen, man?!” Ivan cried, walking closer to Jim.
“Uh…well, first, I think I drowned? Still not clear on that…then I got hit by lightning, and then…I think I drowned again? And when I came back, Izzy was…just kind of here?” Jim was saying awkwardly, a little too aware of everyone staring at them at the moment.
“Aw, no…Iz…Jim…fuck, m’sorry,” Ivan said earnestly, clapping Jim on the shoulders with his ringed hands.
When Jim had awoken, head full of throbbing pain and blind fury in the small spice-storage-room-turned-brig with Ivan after Blackbeard had taken the ship, the brooding henchman had immediately started to apologize…but Jim had jumped up as quick as a cat and had launched a pretty effective punch at his face, causing him to cry out and slam a still very discombobulated Jim right back into the wall in a very uncomfortable full-body pin.
After Ivan had regained his wind, he very calmly (for the situation) implored Jim through gritted teeth:
“Listen, mate, I genuinely don't know why Captain had you knocked out like that, but I gotta say- I can't really blame’im at the moment!”
“Where's Oluwan-” Jim had spat at him as they bucked back into the struggling man in a vigorous but fruitless effort.
Ivan easily slammed them back into the wall, cutting off both their question and air supply.
“That was a compliment, by the way! And I don't know! We ditched most of your crew on an island a bit ago,” Ivan grunted in an effort to keep Jim compressed against the admittedly delicious-tasting wall. “If you want to see any of them ever again, you've got to calm down, bro.”
“You…what?!” Jim wheezed almost soundlessly in shock. “Where? How long ago was it?”
“A couple hours. Maybe. If that,” he was panting, slowly releasing the pressure off Jim as they showed signs of relaxing. “If you chill out, you might be able to find a way to get back to your pack, right?”
Jim gasped in a lungful of air in both desperation and relief: if that were true, the crew still had a pretty good chance of surviving…they had only been a couple miles from land around then. Jim had relaxed fully at that…and Ivan had even slapped them on the back a couple times as they coughed.
Presently, Jim immediately buckled with a groan, the scar network on their arm screaming from the places it had been torn open in battle.
“Oh- shit- right-” Ivan said, eyeing Jim's scars and turning to a vampire that looked far more human than the rest. “Bishan, think you could spare some blood? Jim, let Bishan heal some of it…well, the bleeding parts, anyhow.”
Jim couldn't help but notice that Bishan’s eyelashes looked longer and thicker than their entire arm.
“Woah, woah- W-wait…won't that make me, like…a vampire or something?” Jim asked, genuinely terrified of this idea. Even Izzy felt an ick run up his back for a second.
Several vampires chuckled as they exchanged glances.
Ivan was smiling handsomely, his shiny teeth on full display. “Naw, bruh…you have to really want to be a vampire to become one, trust me. Just drinking our blood or getting it mixed in with yours won't do nothin’,” he assured Jim as every vampire immediately nodded. “There might be some slight and very… temporary side effects, however…”
“Side effects? What, like super-strength?” Jim asked, suddenly excited.
“No-”
“Like scary teeth?” Archie asked hungrily.
“Well, no-”
“Will they talk to bats?” Roach asked from the table where he was apparently serving a very short vampire some shrimp on ice.
“Uh… maybe,” Ivan said thoughtfully after a second's consideration.
“With me, it is usually just basic night-vision,” Bishan said with a shrug, sounding slightly bored as he stepped forward.
The actual process didn't seem to be anything dramatic…Bishan had simply pricked his thumb on his fang and started finger-painting his blood on Jim's torn scar spots.
The effect was gradual but pleasant…a gentle heat traveled up the arm they were holding out and up into their neck as he dabbed…and when it hit Jim's throat, it was a burst of cherry-cinnamon-iron flavor that caused their mouth to flood with saliva…and for the night to spring into a brilliant explosion of light and color.
“Woah!” Jim and Izzy said in unison, as everyone around them flinched slightly. Several vampires smiled and bobbed their heads.
“Yep, night-vision, just like always. Someday I will give something useful, like double-jump,” Bishan said, sounding resigned as he moved on to Jim's throbbing leg.
“I dunno, man, night-vision seems pretty damn useful to me,” Tarpon said from behind Ezekiel and Wyatt.
Ivan glanced at the three seemingly for the first time.
“Who the hell are you guys?” he asked in a somehow friendly tone.
Tarpon, who had apparently become the group's de facto leader of sorts, smiled awkwardly.
“Just some dudes,” he shrugged.
“Oh. Okay, cool, then…nice to meet you, bros! Pretty useful for humans I guess, yeah. Sometimes we forget. But it'll only be a couple hours, anyway…” Ivan was saying, approaching Jim again. “Listen, Izzy…”
This had startled both of them a little, Izzy's shoulders tensing slightly, and Jim, going from awe at the sudden clarity of their surroundings directly into a very detailed close-up of Ivan as he stood there looking devastated.
“Mate…I'm so sorry…I just always imagined when I caught up to you again, you'd be here…I've told everyone so much about you and Fang…and about all you guys, really,” he said, glancing around at the crew of the Revenge. “How the hell'd you bite it, man?”
Izzy was a bit stunned at the raw emotion in Ivan's voice. He had always been very guarded when it came to anything too sentimental. Apparently that had changed.
Fang prickled noticeably, causing Bishan to make a very stealthy exit after just managing to blot the rest of Jim's wounds closed.
“Some posh-cunt named Ricky did him in! Calls ‘imself Prince Ricky! As if! He shot Iz in the gut like a rat coward!” Fang spat from their side, reunion tears still sparkling on his cheeks. “Izzy didn't even have his sword drawn! Only way someone like him could get a jump!”
Suddenly, Izzy felt something he hadn't recognized for himself in a long time: a deep, aching homesickness. And it wasn't for a place…it was just people.
Okay, maybe it wasn't just people…
“Ask him why he has Annie, ask him why…why it's crammed piss-full of vampires. Which are a real thing, apparently. What the actual fuck,” Izzy muttered gruffly. His cheeks had gotten a little pink and his arms seemed to be crossed more out of restraint than anger. His good leg was bobbing just slightly.
“Izzy wants to know…uh…what's up with you having Blackbeard's ship?” Jim tried to ask as delicately as possible.
“Okay, see, yeah- that's part of it, right? We figured Blackbeard wasn't needin’ it anymore, and I realized, we vampires, we can completely heal major wounds and illnesses in our own bodies after a certain amount of time, yeah? Well- I figured, I dunno- if maybe you weren't captain here already (both Jim and Izzy caught Frenchie shift uncomfortably at this), or if maybe you just felt like…eh, changin’ things up a bit- you could, maybe, if you wanted to, fly with us for the next few decades. We'd look after ya till you were up to anything, obviously, but after a while, you'd never need another puke bucket again,” Ivan said anxiously, looking at Fang for support.
Jim had assumed Ivan knew Izzy better than to think he would ever want to “change things up” in any way, shape or form, but the man inside their exhausted head had seemingly melted in place.
He wasn't crying, but his nose was very red, suddenly. And his eyes did seem a little more glassy than usual.
And when he spoke finally…it was after several false starts and a lot of dry swallowing.
“I…tell him, I…”
And then he hung his head and shook it. When he looked back up, he was swallowing hard, and his eyelashes were wet.
“Ah…fuck it…just hug him,” he shrugged.
Jim blinked, frozen.
“...That wasn't a joke, actually,” Izzy insisted after a few moments of inaction.
“Oh…Uhm-” Jim began out loud, going rapidly from pale white to bright red.
But then they shrugged, too, and scooted forward awkwardly, their arms opened out beside them.
“Oh- Uh- what-” Ivan was muttering, understandably a little cautious of Jim's approach.
“Izzy wants to hug you,” Jim breathed flatly, already kind of over this.
“Oh! Hey! Too fuckin’ cool,” Ivan growled, scooping Jim up in an admittedly satisfyingly strong bear hug, audibly cracking several of their vertebrae in the process.
Fang was in tears again and piled onto the embrace as well, causing Jim to have what little breath they had left in them to be squeezed out in an almost silent groan, the feeling hauntingly familiar.
Izzy was breathing just fine though, and now he was beaming.
“Guys…Jim is still recovering from lightning death and you're making them flat,” Roach was saying, walking up with his new vampire friend.
Both Fang and Ivan reluctantly let go (after one last small squeeze from Fang), and Jim gasped in a nice, cool lungful of air.
Izzy's face was slowly falling, though, and as Jim caught their breath, his tired eyes were searching Ivan's changed ones.
“Ask him how it happened on his end,” Izzy said, almost reluctantly.
Jim held a finger up (they required no back slaps just now) and doubled over coughing a couple times before they were able to begin.
“Ivan…Izzy wants- wants to know what happened to you…after the- after you got hit and knocked off the ship.”
Ivan looked shocked for a second and turned to stare at the area where it had happened. The top part of the railing had been heavily damaged as Ivan had been blasted against and over it, but had been almost seamlessly patched by Pete in the restoration process after they had all taken the ship back.
Fang had gone pale as he also glanced at the railing with a look of pure dismay, quickly adding, “Only if you're comfortable talking about it!”
But his best friend had only smiled and put a gentle hand on his shoulder to comfort him.
“Nah, it's alright, Fang…sometimes talking about it helps, right?”
The older man beamed.
“Yeah! That it does, brother!” He said, looking over at Auntie and smiling. The woman only pursed her lips tighter.
Ivan cleared his throat and nodded, his smile fading.
“Okay…so, uh, right. Right. Well, from what I can remember…we were in that battle with that one ship that Blackbeard said looked French but Izzy said looked Italian…”
Jim remembered. It had actually been an Italian ship stolen by French pirates. They had ended up having a surprisingly easy time sinking it.
“I reckon they had shot a cannonball at us or something…but they must've been shit shots…”
They had been. They had also actually fired all their canons at the same time like idiots (it had been the reason Blackbeard had been able to sink them so easily), and had somehow missed with every single shot except for the one that had arced across the entire ship from the port side and had exploded Ivan over the starboard side, right in front of a screaming Fang, and had sent him down into the dark, frothy waves under an unseasonably cold twilight sky.
“When I got knocked out into the water…I just knew I was a goner….and I wasn't even sad or angry, or anything…just- disappointed. Kinda…regretful, like. I felt like maybe it wasn't all worth it. Maybe the thrill of killing…wasn't more fulfilling, ya know? I never really got rich. Definitely not famous with both Izzy and Blackbeard on board. Maybe I should have just been a jewelry maker like my sister wanted. For a little bit I just floated as I thought about all that…my chest and shoulder were hurtin’ something fierce… But then,” he paused, seemingly for dramatic effect, “I bumped into something! I think it must have been some kind of family of sea monsters…only they looked like big, ugly pug-dolphins…and they were all black and white, just like me, bro!”
Ivan patted his chest, indicating his striking black and white patterned shirt. It looked pretty much the same as his old one…but this one had ruffles and was definitely made of a nicer, more shimmery fabric.
“They must have thought I was kind of like one of them but with legs , because they carried me all the way to land…it was this small island that wasn't even on any map I knew of…I dragged myself ashore and fell asleep surrounded by the skeletons of a bunch of wrecked ships. And when I woke up…I was still alive, and on a sunny beach!”
Fang gasped at this, fully invested. Jim smiled as they looked around at their fellow crewmates…he wasn't alone.
“Well…when I say alive,” Ivan continued, catching a few of his crew members' eyes as they all chuckled together. “I was in bad shape, brother. I was just layin’ there, cookin’ in the sun and waiting to die and wondering just what I was waiting around for…but then I heard something coming from a cave at the bottom of a cliff just a little down the way…it almost sounded like whispering…but they were saying…nice things? Encouraging things? Things like my mom never even said to me…”
Izzy had swallowed hard at that…he had always tried his hardest to be the exact opposite of encouraging to Ivan and Fang.
“So I figured. Why not? At least I can die on a positive note, right? Go out on some good vibes, yeah? So, I spent most of the morning and afternoon dragging myself that way. Just so I could hear them better. And when I finally got there…it felt like…I dunno- it felt like I was safe for the first time in my whole life…because well, I'd found them…” Ivan beamed, looking around at his new family. They all looked back at him with equal adoration in their eyes. Inside Jim's head, Izzy was smiling.
The gentle-voiced vampire next to Jim cleared her throat politely.
“Hmmm, what actually happened was, you fainted around the time of twilight and when darkness fully fell, we simply ventured out and collected you,” she said, blinking innocently.
The vampires all started openly laughing at this, the unearthly noise sounding a bit like the bottom of the boat hitting gravel.
“Right, Trisha, thank you,” Ivan continued, but he was giggling slightly along with everyone else. “Yeah, anyway, medium story short, they offered to make me one of them, and I agreed. And I mean fully… they didn't trick me into it or anything. In fact, a couple of them tried to warn me against it. But in the end, it didn't even hurt that bad. And then, after like, three hours, all my broken bits and pieces were back to bein’ spick and span, bro…let me tell you…I could do cartwheels again!”
“He did several,” Trisha said, her voice a dreamy monotone. “This was after he had evacuated his insides of his human waste, mind you…so it was all quite messy…”
Jim found themselves distantly wondering if she liked salsa dancing.
“Yeah, thanks, Trisha,” Ivan growled, sounding like he had also been working on his patience a little, as well.
“Wait, wait, wait…” Wee John asked. “What were a bunch of vampires doing shut up in some random cove-cave out in the middle of the ocean? Drawing ships in for food?” He wasn't looking at them, exactly, but at the strange and fascinating proportions surrounding him.
Ivan's smile went crooked a bit, and he glanced around at his fellow vampires…and several of them sighed in a resigned sort of way.
“Yeah. A bit of that. They're not proud of it. They did what they could to survive. Can't expect them to just sit and watch each other starve. If they weren't going to feed themselves, they were still going to try to make each other eat.”
A particularly terrifying vampire hung her head in shame and Pete hesitantly reached out to pat her on the shoulder.
“But nah, what they were really doing…was hiding,” he said after a long pause. “They were hiding away from everyone else. Mostly humans. They were just…tired. Tired of everyone bein’ so…unnecessary cruel to one another. When you become a vampire, it's like…I dunno, I guess you just get more empathetic. You can sense more like this. You don't want to hurt anyone anymore, and it hurts when other people do it. And it…I guess it just wears you down real fast.” He finished, shaking his head sadly.
Several vampires had their heads hanging at this point, and Jim almost couldn't bear to look at them.
Zheng cleared her throat politely.
“So…if you don't want to hurt anyone, uh, was all that just now…for show? What was the point? Scare tactics? Some kind of…game? No…A test, maybe?”
Ivan looked thrilled that someone was actually keeping up.
“Exactly that! Three points to the pretty lady with the insane body count!” Ivan said with surprised delight, pointing at her and causing her to smile slightly. “It's ultimately the reason why we have the Sangui- Blackbeard's old ship. I floated the idea: maybe I could make up for all the nasty shit I did before, and maybe we could stop more bad stuff from happening, if we weren't rotting away in some stinking cave somewhere…maybe we could actually make a difference if we…I dunno- went out hunting for it?”
Everyone that still had full eyelids were using them to squint at Ivan now, and Izzy's head was even fully cocked to the side like a chihuahua.
“Is he implying…he's…a fucking pirate hunter now?” he rasped in disbelief, sitting down heavily in Stede’s worn armchair.
“No! Just the really shitty ones!” Ivan said, holding out his hand imploringly, causing both Jim and Izzy to jump.
“¿Podías escuchar a Izzy this whole time?” Jim gasped, their head starting to hurt again.
“No! No, of course not- it's just easier now that I can pinpoint where he's at. And I only caught that last bit because of how pissed off he is. It's not really happened that much I'm talking to actual dead people. No offense, Iz”
Ivan looked genuinely bothered that Izzy might be upset with him, and to his immense credit, Izzy seemed to recognize this. He lowered his head and steadied his breathing.
There was a long, awkward silence while Izzy grumbled and collected himself. In his memory, Frenchie's hand reached out for a split second towards the gloved fist now balled tightly on his thighs. Finally, he sighed.
“A’right,” he mumbled, his head bobbing slightly. Jim took that as a good sign, even though his fists still seemed pretty clenched in their own opinion.
“R-really shitty ones?” Jim prodded gently, their grin at full cheese power.
“Well- yeah! That's the whole thing we have goin’- it's the only way I talked this lot into leaving their depression cave.” He teased, poking a nearby vampire gently on the shoulder. Several vampires grumbled their agreement at this. “Look, this is how it goes…luckily, we don't need blood that often. But we do need it. And I argued, if we have to feed, why not feed on people who deserve it? Right?”
Zheng had been holding her finger to her lip again, thinking, but suddenly her head shot up to look at Ivan.
“That thirty second mark… Shitty pirates,” Zheng purred as she nodded slowly, apparently finally getting it.
“Right! The shittiest of the shitty! Back when I was on Blackbeard's crew, I noticed there were always these one types of guys…I called them the hockers… they were always trying to trade stuff for their life…and it was almost always usually other people. People that were weak. People that didn't get any say in the matter.”
Zheng and Auntie were both exchanging knowing glances. Then Zheng looked back at Ivan, her jaw set in anger.
“Uh-huh. One time I had a guy try to trade me an entire boat full of orphans he had bought as slave labor in exchange for his life. Not for any of his other crew or anything, mind you. Just him. Luckily they were pretty smart kids and were able to operate the ship just fine without any of the adult crew present. Or at least they were doing pretty okay when we last saw them,” She was saying, her lip curling in disgust.
Several people turned to look directly at her.
“You left a bunch of orphans in charge of a whole boat? By themselves?” Lucius asked, taking a drag off of his replacement cigarette.
“Oh, c'mon, there were like, fourteen of them on there, at least. They knew how to operate the canons,” she snapped back, one of her twin tails coming loose from the buns she had put them in to fight the vampires.
“No- that's the right idea!” Ivan said, pointing at Zheng again before Lucius could argue back, because he definitely looked like he wanted to. “Mostly. More or less. It's usually something like that within the first half-minute. Or sometimes they'll try to switch sides. Or maybe they just try to ditch the crew and swim for it. My personal favorite is when they try to use slaves, or their own crew, as a meat shield. That's always pissed me off,” he hissed through his teeth.
Izzy had smiled at that, despite himself. A very satisfying- and presumably related- memory had flashed by of Ivan picking up a British officer from behind and throwing them overboard in one powerful, fluid motion. Nevermind that there had been a fellow soldier still gripped tightly in front of him as a barrier when he did it.
“Anyway, anyone that pulls that shit, we ice- flat out. The memories we pull from feeding off them is usually more than enough to null and void any sympathy we might have had at some point. Then we strip the ship of anything we need or want, hand the ship over to anyone who didn't try to explicitly sell their brethren out, and heavily reinforce the fact that nobody will ever believe them if they try to tell anyone about us, and we leave.”
The now-even-more terrifying man grinned toothily and shrugged as Frenchie's crew stared in stunned silence.
“How…how many ships have you hit like this, Ive?” Fang asked, amazed.
“Oh, uhhhh. I think, like, five so far? One ship we sank almost immediately because the whole thing was painted orange and purple, so that doesn't count. Then one ship had apparently just unionized and their morale was stellar , so we just kinda high-fived them all and left…but like I said, we don't really need to feed that often. You guys were the first ship to just keep fighting with no stank vibes or hocking of any kind. Good on you, bros, tight to the bitter end,” he beamed, looking around at them. Fang was giggling and gave him a powerful fist-bump.
“Even past that sometimes, it would seem,” Trisha hummed, looking very intently at Jim and picking her nose. Jim blushed again… ¿Por qué she had to do that just like Archie?
“Hey, yeah…aren't you even curious about why Izzy's even here in the first place? It's pretty much the first thing we tried to figure out,” Oluwande mused, Zheng's one arm wrapped in both of his.
Ivan blinked at this and gazed around at everyone like they were crazy. He nodded his head to indicate the now-disheveled party display.
“Well, it's for his birthday, ennit? About that time Fang?” he laughed, slapping the other man playfully on the arm.
Fang grinned and gave him the thumbs up.
“That it is, brother! A whole night of just fuckin’ off and doin’ whatever! Ten-whips! Arm-breaky! All Pirate Wrestling! Got real rowdy on nights Captain joined Izzy. Miss those days,” the older man laughed.
Frenchie shifted at this slightly and fang quickly backpedaled. Inside Jim's head, Izzy saw this and took another steading breath.
“Oh, eh- sorry boss…I meant Blackbeard. Not captain,” he laughed as he patted an awkwardly smiling Frenchie on the shoulder.
Ivan's eyes went wide as he turned to Frenchie.
“Oh, man… you made Captain, French-man? Right on! Right on, bro!” Ivan said as he extended his hand to Frenchie in congratulations and pulled him in for a brutal chest-bump when he naively accepted. “Can't argue with that! I mean, I wouldn't have picked you for it, personally, but only because I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy. There's a reason I'm not doin’ it, myself,” he laughed, causing several vampires to nod solemnly, apparently in agreement with this sentiment.
All of Frenchie's crew exchanged confused glances with each other.
“Hold on a tick…are you saying you're not captain?” Frenchie asked, looking like his head was also feeling wrong-side-out, still.
Every vampire either started laughing or shaking their heads. Ivan was doing both.
“Naw, bro. No way. No shitting way. I'm just now first mate, and sometimes that's too much. I guess I might be a decent teacher but I'm definitely no leader,” he chuckled, pulling the bosun's whistle out of his shirt ruffles and showing it off. The lip piece ended in a little silver skull. “Naw, but hey- you really should meet our captain, though. He's usually not very sociable but I think you guys might actually hit it off. Somebody go get Jer, make sure he's not still sleeping in or something. Trisha? Would you mind…?”
Trisha had shrugged almost sleepily and had shuffled off towards her ship as asked, leaving Jim a little disappointed…until they noticed it had left a space open beside Zheng.
Her face had gone back to a dissociative sort of distress, her bottom lip clamped tightly between her teeth.
Jim quickly and surreptitiously grabbed Archie's hand again and dragged her over to fill the gap, and in an absolutely insane feat of bravery, reached out and gently enclosed Zheng's hand in their free one.
Zheng didn't react too noticeably on the outside; she had simply glanced at Jim out of the corner of her eye, her face still full of anxiety.
But then, almost imperceptibly, her body had relaxed and she had subtly turned her hand until their fingers were aligned to ever-so-slightly spoon together.
“I'm all for a little squelchy meet-and-greet ‘cuz, frankly, that sounds fascinating, but uh, can we backtrack for a sec?” Lucius was cutting in, already rolling another cigarette. “You think Izzy came back from the afterlife to camp out in Jim's head…because it was his birthday?”
Ivan paused at that, one eye squinted in thought. “Well, yeah, why not? Not the weirdest thing I've ever heard happen. Why else would you be having a birthday party for a dead guy? He never even had a proper one when he was alive,” he said, his gold and black fingernails flashing as he scratched his sideburn.
“Ah, but that's the point! We were having an unfinished-business-birthday-party after we found out he was here! So he can finally rest in peace!” Fang said, his eyes wide with excitement. “Some pretty interesting developments were unfolding when you guys showed up!”
“Developments?” Ivan asked slowly, his eyebrows raised.
“Okay-” both Frenchie and Izzy started in unison.
Archie cut in somewhat helpfully.
“Majority main theory: Captain and Izzy were boinkin’ it, Captain is disputing it for some floppy reason- uh, waiting on confirmidizzles from the Izzle- that's where we lost the plot due to, uh, sonic-attack-bat-interference , and uhm, yeah,” she finished in a sniff. “I feel like I should be paid extra for keeping track of all this, yeah? Not even writin’ it down,”
Everyone, including Ivan as his crew turned expectantly towards Jim.
“If they're waitin’ on little ol’ me, you can go ahead and tell them all to fuck off, we didn't do anything and it's not anyone's business why we didn't,” Izzy snapped, sinking deeper into the cushions.
But Ivan was now rubbing the side of his cheek thoughtfully.
“I dunno Iz, you were spending a shitload of time together before that rift thing happened,” he said, causing everyone to make an unnerving cracking sound as they all turned to look at him in shock.
“Was only about an hour or two a day,” Frenchie said, almost shortly.
“That could be enough time for Izzy, if he's in a hurry,” Roach offered cheerfully, his arm comfortably draped across his new vampire friend's shoulders.
“It wasn't sex,” Frenchie stated firmly, only looking at Jim. Inside Jim's skull, Izzy was trying very hard to not look at Frenchie. He was apparently failing, because his stomach was not supposed to be right there.
“I mean, it was always pretty quiet in the room you guys used…if it wasn't sex, what was it?” Ivan asked, seemingly genuinely curious.
Frenchie took his own steadying breath and finally looked away from Jim.
“I was just helping him…to relearn French. Alright? That was it. Fancy-schmancy man steals his Captain, French is a fancy-schmancy language. Don't have to use math for that to… add up,” he finished miserably, staring at the ground.
This was followed by a chorus of ohhhs from everyone on Frenchie's crew and several people started nodding.
“Okay, wow- yeah. That makes so much more sense. Kinda disappointing, actually,” Lucius said, trying to bat away the hand of a nearby vampire as it tried to take his cigarette away.
Everyone stood in awkward silence for a moment, reflecting.
But inside Jim's head, Izzy's own mind was betraying him. Frenchie's face was suddenly splashed across everything, and it was so uncharacteristically furious that Jim had to fight not to flinch. He was on the verge of screaming or crying or both, his raised voice muffled and warped, apparently saying something Izzy would not- or could not- revisit right now. The only thing was…whatever Frenchie was saying, it hadn't mattered, because-
“Ivan and our Captain…they are doing the ‘boinking it,’” Boyan said slyly from behind them.
Archie's mouth popped open audibly and she gave Ivan a shocked look that had him immediately rolling his eyes. She slapped him hard on the shoulder with the back of her open hand, joyfully scandalized.
“Boyan, why do you always have to bring that up at some point? Nobody cares, it's not vital informa-” he started in a groan, but just then there was a rattling sound coming from the direction of Ivan's ship followed by a very upset voice that was a strange mix of musical and business-like: definitely a captain of some sort. Jim already wanted to roll their own eyes in exhaustion.
Everyone turned that direction expectantly, and Jim gripped both Archie and Zheng's hands tight.
“-not like I don't like meeting cool people , - Trisha-, it's just I prefer to look decent when I do, and you can take all that ‘not caring what other people think’ bullshit and use it as a hull scraper, I have dignity, dammit, and it comes at a high price, time-wise,” he was saying as he stomped across his deck to the gangway plank.
The man, who- just like Ivan- seemed more human than the water-logged corpses around them, sounded surprisingly young, and was now fussily adjusting his lavishly decorated cloak (bones, teeth and gems) so it would sit correctly on his shoulders. He had also pushed back the hood to hastily undo a silky black scarf wound tightly around his head.
“And dios fuck-damning mio, you guys know I don't like to leave my room before ten pm! Midnight is basically just night-noon, and I need way more notice than that!” he said as he whipped the scarf back behind him and mounted the plank connecting their ships.
Jim's hands suddenly went limp over Zheng and Archie's, and their mouth fell open, their entire body going numb slightly.
They caught Archie looking at them out of the corner of their eye, but they couldn't look back at her…their eyes were glued to the approaching Vampire Captain.
A cascade of shiny black curls flopped almost sloppily onto the man's forehead, and he was watching his footing only vaguely as he finally reached their side of the bridge, Trisha in tow.
But now he had ran his fingers through his lavish hair and had thrown it back off his face and Jim was wondering if maybe they hadn't passed out again and were in some bizarre dream.
“Jim…?” Izzy said, sitting up slowly in concern.
“I am so sorry about that, ladies and gentlemen! Bit of a wild predawn makes for a late evening-after, if you know-” the Captain had started grandly, spreading his cloak wide and flashing his blazing white fangs in a charming grin.
But then his eyes had moved through the crowd far enough that they had inevitably fallen on Jim, and he had dropped the side of the cape he'd been holding up dramatically in the freakishly bright lamplight and had gone a very pale color that wasn't exactly gray, but was pretty damn close.
The two stood facing each other, frozen except for the strangely identical strangled noises they were emitting.
“¿B-ben?” was all the Captain could finally say in a choked voice.
“¿Gervasio?” Jim heard themselves gasp in return.
“Called it!” Auntie hissed, pumping her elbow once in muted victory.