Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It’s a Tuesday, late in the afternoon, when The Kraken hears the news. 

He’s spent the months since marooning the crew on that spit of an island, raiding his way up and down the Caribbean with a vengeance he had never quite had the stomach to exhibit before—before he’d carved what was left of Ed’s heart right out of his chest and abandoned it to fester and rot on that dock as the rising sun turned the sky from indigo to lavender. 

The remaining crew of The Revenge —led entirely by the mad whim of their new captain—are not picky about which vessels they raid. Anyone unlucky enough to cross her path shortly find themselves thoroughly plundered and left to burn. 

In the last month alone, they had indiscriminately attacked Dutch Merchant ships, French pleasure cruises, even a handful of smaller Navy vessels, both Spanish and English alike. None who fought back were left alive, and those who surrendered were sold off to the highest bidder whenever The Revenge next made port. 

There was even one brilliantly momentous occasion when they’d quite ruthlessly broken up a wedding between two useless fucking pricks who fancied themselves in love.

The Kraken hadn’t even bothered to steal anything of value for himself during that particular raid. Except, of course, those two delicate porcelain figurines he’d liberated from the cake and surreptitiously pocketed. He’d figured he’d managed to do so before Izzy caught wind, but he often wonders if the little rat knew about it anyway. Izzy’s always had the unnerving ability to sense any and all weakness Blackbeard ever dared show, and The Kraken is pretty sure that particular act of twisted romanticism is no exception. 

Had Izzy somehow discovered what he’d done with them? That the villainous pirate captain Blackbeard, unhinged scourge of the seas and bane of the entire fucking English navy, had—through hot, stinging tears and hiccoughing sobs—spent a whole fucking evening meticulously altering the bride, in all her finery, to look just like him. Right down to the shorn beard and pitch stained eyes. 

Izzy could rarely look him in the eyes these days, whether out of fear or disgust, The Kraken couldn’t say. Didn’t care much either. Let the little prick brood over his missing toes or whatever else had his knickers in a twist this time, there were plenty more that The Kraken could sever. Maybe he’d just cut off the whole fucking foot next time and be done with it. If Izzy ever dared speak out of turn to him again, that is. 

Beyond asking for his orders, their heading, or when they were next projected to make landfall, Izzy has yet to actually seek Blackbeard out for any further insolent backchat regarding his previous feelings for a certain ex co-captain. 

Not until today had The Revenge happened upon any ship that actually hailed from Barbados, though. Which is probably pretty fortunate; The Kraken would not hear the name of the place spoken aloud. It remains as off limits a word on The Revenge as—as her previous captain’s name. 

This particular raid goes off as they all have before; brutal, efficient and fucking boring as shit. And—just like all the other times before— The Kraken doesn’t even need to be in the thick of it all to effectively sow the rumors of the twisted mad-man with a bleeding, gaping hole where his heart should be, leaving nothing but devastation in his wake. 

He watches from the bow of his ship as the melee unfolds, the merchant crew fighting back with enough degree of skill to at least cause this raid to stand out marginally against the rest. 

However plucky their efforts may be, it doesn’t take long for The Kraken’s crew to turn the tide, and eventually only those who surrendered from the off are left alive. Forced to their knees and bound as he finally deigns to descend upon the deck. 

Without sparing the cowering dogs much more than a single glance, he makes his way to the captain’s quarters—where he knows Jim and Fang will have the captain and first mate chained up, ready and waiting for The Kraken’s inevitable and bloody interrogation. His boots sound heavy and imposing on the wooden planks even to his own ears. 

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees the captive crew flinch with every approaching footstep and his smile is a carefully practised, cold thing. He clocks one bloke with a dark stain spreading across his britches and decides that one, at least, shall survive to tell the tale of what he witnessed today. He knows that by the time the snivelling little fucker finally finds another soul to tell, the story will be embellished beyond all rational belief.

For weeks now, there have been rumors swelling along the coast that Blackbeard really did choke the life out of men with great and terrible tentacled limbs. That he’d carved out his own heart and tossed it into the depths as an offering to Davy Jones himself, and that’s what his new flag meant, with its speared, bleeding heart. The Kraken had thought, at first, that these new reports would at least give Izzy some reason to smile again. Yet, the little weasel has remained annoyingly sullen and unreadable ever since first hearing of them. 

He’s still chewing over what exactly his first mate actually fucking wants if not this new and unhinged inflation of Blackbeard’s terrible legend when he enters the merchant captain’s quarters. 

Izzy is half swallowed in a shadowy corner, black rimmed eyes downcast as per fucking usual, the mopey cunt. Archie and Fang create an imposing guard at the door as they watch Jim tighten the ropes around the merchant captain’s wrists. Frenchie hovers just behind them, in his usual position of never more than a few paces away from the knife wielding assassin at any given time. 

They all look expectantly (and in Jim’s case certainly, pretty fucking hatefully) toward The Kraken as he slams the door shut behind him. 

Truth be told, there’s really no need for an interrogation on a ship this size—it’s easy enough to plunder without the slightest possibility of any loot being hidden away. But The Kraken is nothing if not consistent, these days. He enjoys making lesser men squirm, spreading that potent fear like a plague; let the world see his bitter madness and tremble in his fucking wake. 

The merchant captain’s eyes snap to meet his own defiantly, and The Kraken might feel a flicker of admiration at the fuckhead’s idiotic show of bravery if he had the capacity to actually feel that sort of shit anymore. 

“Let us go—” the fucker begins with a fair amount of heat, considering—well, this entire situation. Ship raided, crew dead or in chains, loot ripe to be fucking picked, and he not long for this world. 

“You don’t fuckin’ speak unless I tell you to.” The Kraken cuts him off with a slippery, cold inflection. The merchant captain glances at the wickedly sharp knife in The Kraken’s hand and snaps his mouth shut, swallowing once in audible terror. 

Better. Much better. 

The Kraken slowly walks around the cramped space, taking in the pitiful surroundings with a disdainful eye. Booted steps imposing as his knife tip trails along the edges of the maps scattered across the small desk, leaving a long, shallow scratch on the wood behind it. 

The harsh sound in the otherwise silent room causes the captives to twitch and flail like so many fish caught in a net. 

The kraken’s lips lift into a smile as insidious as his blackened soul. 

He’s just about to turn, to begin what promises to be a pretty fucking brutal maiming—he’s feeling violent after all, when his eyes catch on something, and The Kraken stops mid stride. He nearly stumbles as recognition clenches in his dead, hollow chest. 

A painting is hanging on the far wall, not of a lighthouse, but of a ship out at sea. His ship, leaving a port town behind with purposeful intent. His breath stutters out, choked and burning… The style is so familiar. 

Quick enough to make every single occupant in the room flinch, he rounds on the two chained men cowering before him with furious venom. 

“This painting, where did you get it?” He snarls, brandishing his knife in its direction. The first mate gulps loudly, terror in his eyes at the abrupt change of topic. 

It’s the merchant captain who answers him, his lips stumbling over the halting words. 

“B-Bridgetown, Barbados sir. About five months ago. It was painted by the Widow Bonnet.”

In The Kraken’s periphery, he registers Jim’s head snap up, followed by Izzy’s a heartbeat later. Fang shifts uncomfortably on his feet. Frenchie whines. Archie watches them all with confusion written plainly on her face. 

Finally, Ed begins to stir from within the inky depths of The Kraken’s soul.

“What did you just say?” He asks, voice low and filled with a malice he’s now desperately struggling to hold in place. His heart feels like it’s come loose in his chest, his pulse rushing through his body with a mighty roar as if a damn had burst. Every single emotion he’d kept locked up since he’d let that scrap of scarlet silk slip into the night demanding to be felt right alongside it. 

“The-Uh. The Widow Bonnet.”

“Mary Bonnet?” He clarifies. Because it can’t be. It fucking can’t be. 

The merchant captain nods, jerkily. 

“That’s the one.” 

His pulse is deafening now, his heart completely untethered, battering relentlessly against his ribcage, begging to be acknowledged.  

“What happened?” He manages to choke out. 

“T-To what?” 

“What happened to her fuckin’ husband?” He hisses, barely holding on now to the tenuous thread that keeps his beastly mask in place. 

“Well, he’s uh-he’s dead. Sir.” 

The world stops. 

Just fucking stops spinning in its tracks right there in that tiny cluttered cabin and The Kraken falters, Blackbeard takes a stumbling step backwards. Ed’s driving the show now and he can’t figure out how to make his tongue work enough to ask—how? How? 

“¡Mierda!” Jim spits, their voice vicious and harsh in the silence that’s choking Ed into crushing oblivion. 

He’s dead. He’s dead. Dead. Dead. Fuckin’ dead. 

The word clangs through him as though he’s standing too close to a large and terrible bell. 

Such a small word, such an incomprehensible thing. How could he be dead? Ed would have—he would have felt that. Wouldn’t he? 

“How?” Jim asks the question Ed’s too stricken to voice but the merchant captain glances toward him, clearly entirely too terrified to speak without his express permission. 

“Fuckin’ answer them.” He says, attempts to growl the words but all he manages is a strangled sort of half-whisper. His voice rasping past his teeth as he attempts to grip onto something, anything other than this fucking impossible, sickening reality.

“Well. Reports vary, y-you see. Some say he was mauled to death. Others say he was hit by a c-carriage.” 

Mauled to death? What the fuck.  

“Most reckon his wife topped him, though.” The first mate eagerly chips in, perhaps in an attempt to divert Blackbeard’s unstable wrath toward a different individual entirely. “She’s a very wealthy woman, now.” 

The world starts up its spinning again, except now it’s capsizing and tilting completely on its head as the flames of The Kraken’s rage are smothered into bleak nothingness by Ed’s terrible, awful, nauseating grief. 

“Mierda.” Jim snarls again, with even more feeling this time. 

The low pitched ringing of that fucking invisible bell is still echoing in Ed’s ears, insistent and demanding. Ed staggers to the door, unable to hear any more, unable to fucking think. 

How did his heart still have the capacity to break, even now? How could Stede Bonnet no longer exist in this world and Ed be none the fucking wiser, for months? There’s a battle raging inside him, Edward and Blackbeard and The Kraken all warring relentlessly, crying out for vengeance, screaming in agony, in torment, in utter soul shattering loss. 

“Captain?” Jim asks, gesturing to the two captives, grim malice and hateful expectation in their voice. 

“Throw them overboard. Let them all go. I don’t fuckin’ care.” He just about manages to rasp out the order before he’s grabbing for the door, for escape from this—this. Fuck. 

He feels Jim’s eyes on his back as they stare after him for a second longer, before turning away and mumbling a fluent stream of Spanish curse words under their breath. Izzy takes a decisive step out of the shadows moving in Ed’s direction, mouth opening to no doubt say something Ed really doesn’t want to fucking hear right now. 

“What the fuck just happened?” He hears Archie hiss.  

Ed ignores them all. He stumbles onto the deck and past the shocked expressions of the rest of his crew and their captives alike. He barely makes it back to Ste— his quarters on The Revenge before falling to his knees and sobbing up his broken heart in one horrid, hacking mess. 

He resolutely does not look at the painting that still hangs, untouched by his purge all those months ago, in the corner of the room.

After years of lying in wait—underfed and steadfastly ignored after murdering his father— The Kraken had been brought fully into harsh, devastating focus by Stede Bonnet’s abandonment. And in one final act of completely fucking Edward Teach over, with his death kills it off altogether. 

The agony of it surprises him, not because he’s unused to feeling pain, it’s been his only friend for months. But because the acuteness of this specific undoing—like it’s hollowing out his soul with a the blunt edge of a knife—is something he thought he’d already gone through, all those months ago, when he’d smeared pitch onto his face and rid himself of nearly every soft, pretty thing he’d ever coveted. 

Yet, here he is. Choking on the final twisted pieces of his very fucking identity like bitter bile, and it’s so much worse, so much fucking worse. Because there’s no glimmer of hope that he’ll find safe harbour to tether him, now. No kind eyes, no warm smiles, no Stede Bonnet. 

Never again. 

He didn’t realise how desperately he had been clinging to the thought of seeing the fucking prick again until this very moment, never mind if it was in hopes of cutting his throat or kissing him senseless.

“Something about this doesn’t smell right, boss.” Izzy’s mumbled words send a jolt through him, but if it’s from irritation or regret, Ed can’t be certain. 

He lifts his gaze from the ruined wooden floor beneath him to find his first mate hovering tentatively in the doorway, because of course he fucking is. 

Izzy’s never in his miserable little life been able to allow Ed any sort of peace before, and clearly feels no real need to do so now as he watches Ed pull himself tremulously back to standing. 

There’s an indecipherable sneer on his pinched little face, cheeks sucked in over his teeth. Behind all that apparent disgust though, there’s something else. Something nameless—touched with what could be hopelessness if Ed really feels like examining it, and he resolutely doesn’t want to fucking do that. 

Ed—Blackbeard— The Kraken —fuck! Whoever the fuck he is (and what does it even matter what he calls himself now anyway, when the person he breathes for no longer lives?) just stares blankly back at him. 

“Our heading, Captain?” Izzy says after a moment, heaving a sigh before clearly attempting a different approach to garner any sort of reaction. 

It’s an easy answer in the end. Ed wonders if it might always have come to this, even if Stede had lived. 

“Bridgetown, Barbados.” He drawls. 

Izzy’s eyes drift closed, as if he expected this answer but it pains him anyway.

“Edward…” 

“Is there a fuckin’ problem, Mr. Hands?” Ed spits, one last ember of rage igniting inside him even as the darkness threatens to snuff it out completely. 

“Let this lie, Edward. I beg you.” Izzy’s voice is close to a whine, his forehead shining with sweat. The stark pitch make up trailing from his eyes looks like a mockery of tears against his clammy pale skin. 

“Set the fucking course, Iz.” 

“Edward-”

“I said set the FUCKING COURSE.” He screams, throwing the knife he’d still been clutching at the wall directly behind Izzy’s head. The man casually leans away, a look of disappointment and disgust and still that unknowable something else on his face. 

“No good can come of this.” Izzy spits back, before turning heel and storming out as fast as his limp would allow him.

Ed falls back to lean against the desk, then sinks slowly to his knees once more, eyes flicking over the cavernous room around him as he goes; an empty shell of the warm, mad space it used to be. An exile of Ed’s own making. 

He all but crawls toward the bookshelf with the hidden lever, fingers fumbling on the trigger until he gets enough purchase on the thing to open the ridiculous secret door. 

The Auxiliary wardrobe is exactly as he had left it. Ed’s taken to sleeping in here occasionally, when he’s too tired or drunk or both to maintain any sort of lasting grip on his murderous alter ego. He curls up now amongst all the stupid fucking fine clothes, lets the faint smell of stale lavender envelope him, and begins to sob anew. This time he fully allows himself to be swept away in his grief and anger and despair. 

Dead, dead, dead. Oh fucking Christ Stede, please don’t be dead. 

He has only one comforting thought, one he grasps on to like a lifeline as the churning storm of his grief threatens to undo him, at last, in one final devastating blow. At least he isn’t alive to see the monstrous creature Edward has become. 

Chapter Text

Izzy stumbles as he limps his way back toward the main deck, his face itchy and hot, his eyes infuriatingly fucking damp. Fucking Blackbeard. Fucking Stede Bonnet.   He just about manages to catch himself on the door jam before any of the crew sees he thinks, but the screaming pain in his left foot is getting well beyond the barely manageable level of fucking excruciating it’s been for the last few days. 

“Fang!” He yells as he finally manages to haul himself those last few impossible paces onto the deck proper. “Set a course for Barbados.”

Jim’s head snaps to attention; wide, discerning eyes flicking over to Izzy as they smoothly clamber back aboard The Revenge. They’d set about letting the remaining crew of the merchant ship go mere seconds after Edward’s boots had left her decks, and Izzy had been far too caught up in his captain’s grief and rage to protest much. The ship has made good headway now, even with its pitiful wraps of crew remaining. It’s sails just starting to kiss the horizon line. 

“Are you fucking serious?” Jim cries. 

“Boss…?” Fang mumbles, hesitating. His eyes flick between where Jim is vibrating with indignant fury, and Izzy’s own hunched posture leant against the mast.

“It’s not your job to question me.” He snarls at Jim, ignoring Fang. “It’s your job to follow my f-fuckin’ orders. Your captain’s fucking orders.” Hell’s teeth but his foot aches. His head aches. His entire fucking being aches. Not his heart though, not his fucking heart. It would be a cold, dark day in hell that saw Israel Hands feel any kind of sorrow for a twat like Stede fucking Bonnet. 

The lie is almost believable, if not for the butter hollowness taking root in his guts that he’s trying very hard not to feel.

“He’s totally lost it, mate.” Frenchie pipes up, hovering behind Jim’s murderous frame. “You saw him in there, when he heard. Bloody lights went out in him. And I didn’t think there was any light left!”

“Seriously, what the fuck is going on?” Archie asks no one in particular. Izzy ignores her too, and chokes on a sigh.

“Captain wants to go to Bridgetown. So we go to fuckin’ Bridgetown.”

“This is a really fucking bad idea, jefe. ” Jim mutters, glaring at him. 

Izzy wants to punch them. All of them actually, the insubordinate little fuckers. He settles for thunking his head back against the mast instead. The dull pain of it distracts from the demanding agony currently shooting up his leg. For a heartbeat, at least. He barely registers the alarm-laced glance that’s exchanged between Jim and Frenchie as he lets his eyes flutter briefly closed. 

“I didn’t ask for any of you twats to voice your  pissing concerns. I fuckin’ told you to get us underway.”

“What’s he even gonna to do when he gets there?” Frenchie asks. 

Izzy manages to open his eyes to level the idiot with a glare that’s matched only by Jim’s. 

“Pretty sure he plans on murdering Stede’s wife, Frenchie?” Jim deadpans. Frenchie blinks.

“Oh, Christ.”

Fang, from his place next to the wheel, fucking whimpers.

“Who the fuck is Stede?” Archie asks, insistent now.

“Captain’s ex-boyfriend.” Frenchie answers simply, “Reason he’s all—” he makes a vague gesture with his hands that Izzy would reprimand him for if he could summon the energy to give any sort of fuck about the show of insolence.

“Used to be captain of this ship before the pendejo ran off.” Jim mutters, voice vicious and petulant. 

Archie’s eyes go wide. 

“Oh, shit. The one no one’s allowed to talk about?” 

Jim nods, and Archie sobers a little. Tucking her chin back against her neck, her face settling into a frown. 

“Fuck, yeah. Okay. Got it.”

Izzy’s mangled foot is throbbing relentlessly in his boot, and he doesn’t know how to ignore it anymore. He feels like the ship is tilting underneath him. As if it’s being tossed on the waves of an invisible storm. He almost laughs when he realises it’s because he’s dizzy.  

Fuck, dizzy Izzy. 

He imagines that little tart Spriggs is probably laughing up at him from his watery grave by now. As usual, thoughts of the boy and the fate he’d met only manage to sort of make Izzy want to be sick. 

Could just be the blood poisoning though. 

“Will you all just get back to fuckin’ work.” He mutters. 

“Boss, we can’t let him do this.” Jim tries once more to reason with him. As if Izzy would voluntarily sail within fifty miles of Bonnet’ fucking home town given the choice. 

Izzy finally loses the grip on the rapidly depleting reserves of patience he still has. With Herculean effort, he pushes away from the mast and into Jim’s space as they watch him with a single raised brow. They don’t even flinch at the sneer he plasters on his face. The little fuckers aren’t even scared of him anymore. 

There are much more terrifying monsters on this ship, these days.

“He’s fuckin’ Blackbeard.” He growls, the moniker sticking in his throat like a lie. “It’s not ours to question what he can and cannot do. Captain says Bridgetown so Bridgetown is where we fuckin’ go.”

The pain in his foot is excruciating and Izzy finally stumbles away from Jim with a breath that feels like it’s been wrenched out of his lungs with a clawed hand to lean heavily against the railing. 

Frenchie is staring at him, brows knitted together into one long line of concern. 

“This ain’t healthy, Iz.” He says, moving forward to haul Izzy up against his side, bearing his near to deadweight like it’s nothing. The warmth of him seeps into Izzy’s very bones and he just about manages to hold back from sinking further into the comfort of being held. Fuck, but it’s good to feel any kind of touch that doesn’t inflict pain. 

“Yeah, we think you’re in a toxic relationship with him, man.” Jim adds, watching Izzy with softened eyes. 

“Yeah. That guy does a lot of rhino horn.” Archie tacks on, almost to herself. 

“Fuck off. Fuck off.” Izzy attempts to slap Frenchie’s assistance away, but ends up sort of just flailing weakly at him. Frenchie remains as unbothered by the display as if Izzy is nothing more than a fucking bug that’s landed on his arm. 

“No, seriously. He’s chopped off at least another couple of your toes, hasn’t he?” The man says, voice as chipper and upbeat as always. Despite the way he’s touching Izzy like he’s some sort of half feral fucking animal about to snap his jaws and bite off a finger. “Pretty sure it’s infected the way you're hobbling around like a newborn lamb.”

“I’m fine. Fuck off.” Izzy does just about manage to shove Frenchie away this time, however all he really achieves is to set himself further off kilter. Izzy sinks to the floor, his fucked up leg sprawled uselessly in front of him. It pulses sickeningly, as if his heart has taken up residence in the ball of his foot. 

Frenchie clicks his tongue. 

“Let me have a look, mate.” 

“Come near me or my fuckin’ leg and I’ll Keelhaul you before you can say baguette, you twat.” 

“Baguette? What the hell does that even mean?”

“Frenchie. French.” Izzy mumbles back, and he might have been mortified at how hard it’s becoming to form coherent fucking sentences but there's black beginning to tinge the corners of his vision now and his head feels as heavy as a canon ball. 

Frenchie kneels before him looking perplexed for a second longer before he blinks owlishly and scoffs. It’s a nice sound. Izzy thinks. Warm. Soft. Kind. 

“I’m not even French. Honestly, I never should have let John talk me into wearing that beret.” He mutters under his breath.

Izzy tries to laugh. He’s pretty sure all that makes it passed his lips is a pitiful whine. He has just about enough presence of mind to be disgusted at himself when he feels tears gather along his lashes. 

His foot aches, and okay yeah, fucking fine . His heart fucking aches too. Bonnet is dead, and Edward is finally, irretrievably lost to him. Whatever fucked up shit that had happened in the days, weeks, months since, calling in Jack and the British had been the catalyst for it all. What had Izzy done? What had he fucking done?

Frenchie’s watching him with barely concealed alarm, his hands hovering over the clasps of Izzy’s left boot. 

“Let me look at your foot, mate. Roach taught me a bit about this stuff.”

“Unhand me. I’m fine.” 

Frenchie just tuts and leans forward to undo the clasp anyway. 

The raw skin of his left foot screams in protest as Frenchie carefully pulls off his boot, then peels away the dirty rag Izzy’d used to bind it and inspects the wound. 

“Fuuuck.” Jim huffs out, voice shaky.

“Yeah. That’s fucked up.” Archie agrees. 

From somewhere behind him, Izzy hears Fang sniffle. 

He hadn’t even registered the rest of them move closer.

“How long has this been infected, boss?” Frenchie asks, voice sharper than Izzy thinks it’s ever been. 

He tries to shrug. 

“Dunno. Since he took the last toe.” He mutters.

“A week ago?” Jim asks, voice thready and irritated as they drop to their knees beside him, shoving past Frenchie to grip Izzy’s shoulder. The dig of their fingers grounds him. Chases away the black spots now threatening to completely overtake his vision. “The fuck didn’t you say something?”

“N’bodies fuckin bis-ness” he garbles out. His stomach is roiling. His head is splitting. His heart is breaking. 

“¡Puto imbécil! You’re gunna have to lose the whole fucking foot.”

Izzy tries to twist away from Jim’s grip, but they merely tighten their hold against his thrashing.

“You’re not taking my fucking leg.” He snarls. 

“Yeah, well. We’re not gunna let you die either, hombrecito.” Jim counters with an eyerolly. 

“Why not?” He huffs miserably. Izzy blames the sheer unrelenting pain currently licking it’s way up his leg like fucking fire for letting out that little slip of vulnerability. 

Jim stares at him for a long time, mouth slightly ajar. Then sighs, long and sharp as they squeeze their eyes briefly shut. 

“Shut the fuck up.” They snap before rounding in Frenchie. “Any of Roach’s butchering knives survive our shitty captain’s many little breakup tantrums?”

Frenchie clicks his fingers before scrambling to his feet. 

“Yeah. Yeah, wait here.”

“Not going any-fucking-where, am I?” Izzy asks the remaining group at large.

“You need to shut up now, cabrón.” Jim hisses as they set about ripping the seams of his leather britches to mid-thigh. Izzy feels deliriously, ridiculously exposed despite it all. 

“Got em.” Frenchie announces cheerfully, clattering back into Izzy’s line of sight. “Also grabbed a bottle from the stash of laudanum we found on that Dutch ship couple weeks back. “

“Buen.” Jim says, distractedly. Then there’s a cold edge of a glass bottle being jammed none too gently against Izzy’s pursed lips. “Drink it you fucking psycho.” 

Izzy keeps his mouth firmly shut. 

Swearing viciously in Spanish once more, Jim’s fingers pinch harshly at his nose and Izzy has no choice but to choke down the bitter tonic. It burns his throat and he sputters as Jim pats his chest. 

“See, that wasn’t hard was it?” They say with a grim smirk.

“Yeah… this next step’s gunna be a bloody nightmare though, mate. Fair warning.” Frenchie chips in, as he reaches to undo the buckle of his belt. 

Jim moves to crouch over him again, holding up two equally horror-inducing implements in each hand. 

“Which one?” They ask Archie, as Frenchie tightens his belt on Izzy’s thigh. 

“Oh definitely the fucked up one. That one looks alright.”

“Oh, Jesus fuckin’ Christ.” Izzy moans. 

Idiots. Izzy’s life currently resides in the hands of a bunch of fucking idiots.  

“I’m not a fucking idiot.” Jim snarls, and Izzy has the insane but distant thought that they’ve somehow read his damn mind, before they shake both knives in Archie’s face. “Which one?”

“Oh. Oh. Dealer's choice.” She states with a shrug. 

“¡Me cago en todo lo que se menea!” Jim’s voice sounds distant now too, like Izzy’s hearing it through heavy cloth. “Fang. Hold him down.”

Two arms band around his middle and pull him firmly against what he can only assume is Fang’s own chest. Someone shoves a wad of fabric into his mouth and he bites down in anticipation. 

“Sorry about this, boss.” Fang murmurs in his ear. 

Izzy has one single fucked up moment to relish in being held, for once in his miserable life before—agony. Blinding, ripping, wailing agony tears at him. It’s in his leg, it’s in his soul. It’s fucking everywhere. 

So much for the fucking laudanum. 

“Jesus, fuck.” Frenchie’s trembling voice from his right, Izzy thinks. He can’t see him, though. Are his eyes closed? Must be. 

“Oh he’s a gusher.” Someone else says. Izzy can’t work out who this time, though. The whole world, everything he is, has spearheaded down to that sickening, scraping torment sliding against his shin bone. His body twitches and jerks with every pass of the saw. 

Izzy thinks he might be screaming. His throat is aching, like it’s been ripped open. Oh, yeah. He’s definitely screaming. 

None of it really matters though, not the mortification of screaming for his life, for his mother, for Ed, nor the devastating loss of something pretty fucking fundamental for a swordsman—Fuck, for anyone who expects to survive the sort of life Izzy leads—as he finally lets that enticing oblivion consume him completely. 

Finally. Fucking finally. 

*

“Yeah, it’s about 50/50 on if he’ll live, I reckon.” A voice says into the dark swirling nothingness thats still clinging to Izzy’s mind like fog hanging low on the horizon. 

Not quite dead yet, then. 

He cracks his eyes to find that he’s no longer sprawled awkwardly on the deck, but actually tucked into his own cot. The thin straw mattress is comforting and familiar under his fingertips. 

He senses more than actually sees two figures slump against the bed frame beside him. 

“Seriously though. Why’d you want to save this guy, anyway? He seems like a bit of a dick.”

“He his.” Jim agrees, but there’s a wistful fondness saturating their voice that makes Izzy want to throw up, and not just because of the noxious laudanum still swilling around in his gut or the delirious pain in his—fuck, his severed— 

“But he’s our dick. Y’know?”

Fucking cocksucker. Izzy thinks, as he succumbs to unconsciousness once again. 

Chapter Text

Izzy’s breathing is even in the quiet of the first mate’s cabin as Jim collapses to the floor and rests their head back against the edge of his cot. 

Their eyes flicker closed as a sigh slips past their teeth. They’d been running on nothing but terror and hatred for the last hour. Terror over losing Izzy—which is fucking unhinged considering how happily Jim would have let the little shit die if faced with the choice mere months ago, hatred for Ed who had proved beyond all doubt that he could be better than he is and had decided to fuck it all anyway. Terror of what Stede’s death could mean for the wife and children who’d survived him. Hatred that he’d abandoned them all to Blackbeard’s mercy once more. Frenchie was right; what little light left in Ed’s eyes had been snuffed out when he’d heard the words the Widow Bonnet, and Jim is certain they will all pay for it. 

Relief and exhaustion is all that manages to thrum through their blood now though, so potent that it leaves them shaking. 

“Seriously though. Why’d you want to save this guy, anyway? He seems like a bit of a dick.” Archie asks into the heavy silence of the room. 

“He his.” Jim agrees, because it’s true. Izzy is and always has been a huge fucking dick. He’d been mad little man on a power trip when Jim had first met him, but even they couldn’t deny that he was the only fucker aboard The Revenge who took any of the shit that came with a life of piracy seriously and Jim had always begrudgingly respected him for that. 

Then they’d watched as little pieces of him were  chipped away by a man who was supposed to be his fucking friend, had gritted their teeth in cowardly silence while Izzy took the brunt of every single one of Ed’s unhinged lashings out and knew he’d done so to protect this crew from as much harm as he could possibly absorb. And now well, God fucking help them but Jim sort of loves him for it. 

“But he’s our dick. Y’know?” They murmur, because that’s true too. Izzy is theirs, all of theirs. He belongs to this ship and to this crew and Jim has so little family left these days, they’ll cling to any scraps they can find. 

“There was a time when life meant something on this ship. When we lived for each other .” They say, voice choked and rough in their throat. Fang and Frenchie and Ivan had lived it with them, so Jim’s never had the opportunity to actually voice just what life meant for them not so long ago. 

“And not just to survive.” They continue after a trembling breath and a heartbeat, “Guess you never know when you’re in the middle of the good old days.” They think of Olu, of almost kisses and actual kisses. Of meals shared and chores resolutely avoided. They feel Archie’s eyes flickering over their face like she can’t get enough of their words and it sends warmth through them like nothing has amongst these hollow planks and ropes sails for a very long time. 

Then Archie leans forward and breeches that scant space between them, chapped lips brushing against Jim’s and that warmth multiplies tenfold. 

“What was that for?” They ask, heart hammering against their ribcage. 

“You have hope. It’s cute.” Archie shrugs back. 

Jim sighs, and lets the corners of their lips tug up into a small grin. 

“Didn’t always.”

“No?”

“Nope. Used to think the world was pretty fucking hopeless, actually.”

“What changed?” 

Jim’s heart is still beating an erratic rhythm in their chest as they choke back tears that have threatened to fall for months. They’d only managed to hold them at bay this long due to sheer fucking determination, because if they allow themself to feel that grief, it very well might destroy them completely. 

“Someone came into my life and he was wonderful. He was—he was family.”  

Archie seems to realise that Jim won’t—can’t, fucking can’t —say anything else about it right now, and hauls herself to standing with a small smile. 

“Come on, Jimenez. I’m fucking starving.” She says, reaching to pull Jim up beside her. 

Jim thinks of the saw in their hand and the blood on the deck and wrinkles their nose. 

“Yeah, I’m probably good for food for the rest of the week.” They mutter as the two of them leave Izzy's quarters. Archie doesn’t let go of their hand, and Jim would stumble from the joy of it if not for the fact that said hand is keeping them firmly grounded. 

“Great! I’ll take your rations then.” She crows. 

“Oh, fuck you.” 

*

It’s later, much later when they're both back in their room that Archie asks the question Jim’s been quietly dreading. 

“What was he like?” Her voice is hushed, her figure barely illuminated by the single candle on the corner where she sprawled back against the cot. The harsh shadows it casts across her face make her look striking and otherworldly. Beautiful. 

Jim blinks, the gentle inquisitiveness of her question making their heart stutter. 

“¿Que?”

“The person you… the one who gave you hope?”

“Olu?” Jim ventures, as they try hard to stamp down on the raging instinct that surfaces to run, fucking run from this conversation. 

“Yeah.” Archie nods as a small smile plays across her lips, “Olu.” She repeats his name like she’s tasting it, like it’s delicate and precious. Sanctified. 

Fuck. To Jim, he might as well be. 

“I don’t—I don’t know how to talk about him.” Jim chokes on the words, that terrible grief now thick and cloying in their throat. 

Archie shrugs, but there’s nothing dismissive in her expression. Just an open curiosity that warms Jim from the inside out. 

“Just try.” She suggests, quietly. 

Jim’s breath wobbles as they suck it in behind their teeth, behind that coiled fucking viper of grief that constructs their throat most days, poised to strike at any moment and send them spiralling. 

“He was… he was kind. He was so fucking kind. Kinder than anyone has a right to be in this life. And funny. And sweet. ”

Archie hums, leaning back against the rough wooden wall behind her with a serene expression. Jim steals themself for what they’re about to admit next; their single greatest sin. 

“And I fucking left him.” They hiss through gritted teeth. Archie’s eyes are on Jim’s face now, still curious, still free of judgement. 

“Just before Blackbeard lost his fucking mind. I chose revenge on the bastards who killed my family over what we had, what we were building,” Jim breathes out. “It hurt him, I know it did. Because it hurt me. Fucking killed me to be away from him. So I came back and he welcomed me with arms wide open, anyway. No questions asked. I swore— ¡mierda!” Jim cuts off with another pained growl, the corners of their eyes stinging as they push past the urge to sob. “I swore I wouldn’t let anything separate us again.”

Archie watches them for a moment longer, understanding settling into her features as her eyes soften. 

“He taught you to forgive.” She states, simply. 

Jim’s answering chuckle sounds humourless and hollow in their ears and they shrug. Wonders how to explain that it was actually Jackie of all fucking people who had started Jim on that particular path. No, Olu had taught them something much, much more important. 

“I dunno. Maybe.” They shrug, breathe.“He taught me that life doesn’t have to be dark and shitty all the time. He taught me how to love again.”

Archie sighs, small and quiet in the silence, and winds her fingers through Jim’s, squeezing once. 

“Wish I could thank him for that. And for loving you, for keeping you safe.”

Jim closes their eyes, willing the tears to stay trapped behind their fucking eyelids. 

“I miss him. Fuck. I really fucking miss him.”

“I wish I could have met him.” Archie’s voice is wistful as she continues, thumb still rubbing idly against Jim’s grimy knuckles. “Wish I could have been part of this crew when it wasn’t a total shit show.” 

Jim snorts. 

“Oh, it was definitely still a shit show back then. Just less of a fucked up one.” 

Stede had been… a fucking shitty pirate. 

But the words that Jim had thrown at him all those months ago, when they’d been ambushed by the Spanish no longer rang quite true these days. He may have been history’s worst pirate, but he certainly wasn’t the worst captain. (No, that esteemed distinction definitely belonged firmly on Ed’s shitty leather clad shoulders.) 

In Jim’s more candid moments, they could almost admit that Stede was well on the way to being the best, even as ridiculous and idiotic as he was. He’d allowed kindness and gentleness to wind its way around the ship, nurtured it into a living breathing thing that had given Jim the space in their heart to love Olu. To love them all. 

Stede hadn’t been perfect by a long shot, but he had been theirs. But the fucker had left them, left them all in the clutches of a mad man with a broken heart and then he had the fucking audacity to die before he could make it right. Jim wanted to hate him. They wanted to—

“Reckon I’d have liked him?” Archie asks suddenly, and for one single mad second, Jim thinks she means Stede, before she clarifies. “Your Olu.”

Her words stop them short. 

Jim’s Olu. Jim’s Olu who was wonderful, Jim’s Olu who was dead. Dead like Ivan. Dead like Stede. Dead like Lucius and Pete and John and Roach and Buttons and The Swede. 

All of them soft, most of them idiots. All of them gone. Jim’s entire family ripped away from them once more. Except this time, they sort of maybe cared about the one who’d done the ripping, and there was no fight left in them these days to pursue any kind of revenge, anyway. 

Jim nods furiously, scrubbing tears from their cheeks with frustrated fingers. 

“He was impossible not to like.” They sob out. Then they bury their forehead into the crook of Archie’s neck and let the grief finally—completely—take hold. 

*

“You still love him?” She asks, a long while later as they’re curled up against each other in Jim and Olu’s old room; the only refuge either of them can carve out in the festering darkness now seeping into every crack of this ship, where before there had only ever been sunlight. 

“I’ll always love him.” Jim murmurs back, feeling the truth of those words settle heavy and unmoving in their chest. 

Archie nods, links her fingers with theirs once again. A single bright point in all this gloom. Jim could kiss her, just for that. Just for understanding that Oluwande would always exist in Jim, even now when he no longer breathed. 

How could Jim be falling for someone else when Olu still lived in them like fucking sunlight? 

How could Archie mean this much to them when Olu still took up so much space in their heart? 

“I’ll take what’s left.” She whispers, voice calm and gentle and heartbreakingly certain. 

The words echo in Jim’s mind long after Archie has drifted off to sleep beside them. 

Jim doesn’t sleep. They lie in their cot, arms wrapped around Archie and try desperately to figure out exactly what it was about their conversation that makes them feel like throwing punches. 

I’ll take what’s left. The words rattle in Jim’s brain and no matter how they try to make them fit they don’t make fucking sense. 

What’s left. What’s left. What’s fucking left. 

Fuck that. 

By the time Archie begins to stir, Jim’s entire body is near vibrating with the wrongness of those words. 

“Morning.” She mumbles, face scrunched up adorably against the light filtering in through the small window. She shuffles to sit up, brow furrowed as she takes in Jim’s—probably pretty alarming—expression. 

“Did you not fuckin’ sleep at all?” She asks, still staring at Jim like a puzzle to be worked out. 

Jim ignores her words, rounding on her and pushing into her space with a desperation that’s probably far too intense for the early hour. 

“I need you to know… there’s no left overs for you like fucking scraps for a dog.” Their tone is sharp as they try to convey exactly what’s been bubbling up in them since Archie’s whispered confession last night. 

Jim is mortified to watch hurt chase it’s way briefly across her face before she squares her shoulders and nods. Then she’s pushing up off the bed, legs shaking a little and fuck. Fuck. Jim is a fucking idiot. 

They jump up to follow her, clumsily rushing to soothe, to make her understand. 

“No, wait—” 

“It’s okay. It’s just life.” She says looking up briefly before her eyes dart away, but the resigned acceptance Jim finds there makes them want to scream. 

“Not my life.” They growl, before taking a deep settling breath. “There’s Olu and there’s you and I love you both. I love you equally. It’s like when I met you the amount of love in me doubled or some shit and that’s yours. It’s yours and only yours and it’s not what’s left over. Never what’s left over.” They spit out the last like it’s offensive. Archie doesn’t deserve bits and pieces. Archie deserves the whole, she deserves fucking everything. 

Wide, liquid brown eyes flick up to meet Jim’s hard stare once more. Archie swallows, and she trips a little as she moves closer. 

“Oh. Yeah. Fuck, yeah. Okay.”

Jim breathes easy for the first time in hours, days, months as they lean forward to meet Archie halfway, resting their forehead lightly against hers. 

“Eres la mujer de mi vida.” They whisper, hands curling up to clasp Archie’s face, reverent and worshipful. “Quiero estar contigo para siempre.”  

Archie’s breath stutters. 

“Fuckin’ likewise.” She whispers, and Jim’s mouth curls into a smile even as they drop to capture hers up in a kiss. 

Chapter Text

Frenchie is pretty sure he’s never wanted to do anything less in his entire life than what he’s about to do right now. 

He shuffles his feet and stares down his current nemesis with his heart crawling all the way up to rest on his tongue; the door to the captain’s quarters remains steadfastly closed. Because Frenchie is way too chicken shit to open the damn thing. 

He’d been inside just the once when… when Captain Bonnet had still been in charge, and it had been pretty nice, actually. Surprisingly not stuffy-and-pretentious sort of nice. Fancy and frilly, sure, but warm and welcoming when you got down to the nitty gritty of the space. 

Yeah, definitely not like that now that’s for sure and certain, from what Frenchie remembers at least. He hasn’t been inside since that horrible day when whatever dark spirit that possessed Ed had taken over. When all his friends had been left behind to die. When he’d been dragged in front of a great big desk in the middle of an empty room and came face to face with a demon that wanted him to sew. Sew. 

A life of piracy and all he had to show for it—the only skill that could actively save his damn life—was being second best on board with a needle and thread. Never mind the fact that it was actually John’s thing more than his. 

The box in his mind rattles insistently, until the lid pushes open enough to remind him that he should hate himself over the relief he felt—still feels—that Blackbeard had chosen him over the big guy to take on the task of updating his flag. 

Relief that he’d been spared over his best friend for a skill he is definitely inferior at. 

Lock it up. Lock it all the way up, Frenchie. 

The lid refuses to budge. Stupid, useless thing. 

Point is, he’d decided right then that if he had any chance of surviving life under the command of an evil spirit then he needed to become brutal and do it bloody fast. 

Jim had helped him fashion his knuckle knives the very next day. They were dripping blood by the third, and the box in Frenchie’s mind had manifested not long after. 

Despite only seeing it that one time—despite his attempts to shove the image into that newly fashioned box in his head—the bleakness of that room had haunted him ever since. Just a dark, bitter reflection of what Blackbeard’s soul had become since the captain had left him. Left them all.  

No more silly books on the shelves, no nice shiny trinkets littering every surface. No fancy rug that felt a little too pristine beneath his dusty, worn out boots. 

Frenchie shakes his head quickly and forces the lid back down. Down on John and his friends and Stede and Izzy’s left leg. 

He really should just knock, to be honest. But his hand flat out refuses to comply with his brain. 

Izzy’d always acted like a buffer between the nutter in charge and the crew. But now Izzy is… well. Unconscious and on death’s door in his quarters according to Fang who’s now playing nursemaid. 

Definitely not fit and healthy enough to act as Blackbeard’s punching bag this time, that’s for sure.  

Izzy’d lost a leg to this guy; least Frenchie can do is try and take up his self sacrificing mantle. Letting Jim do it would only end in bloodshed on both sides and honestly, Frenchie would put everything he owned on Jim coming out if that fight victorious, considering the way they glare at their captain whenever he shares space with them. Which isn’t exactly often, but Jim’s hatred is palpable. 

Archie’s far too new to this whole mess to throw to the sharks just yet and Fang… well, Fang’s barely gone a day since Ivan died without sobbing against his shoulder, so Frenchie’s not sure he has it in him to offer up the big softie as chum either. 

So Frenchie it has to be. 

Bloody hell, caring about people on this ship is exhausting. How the hell had Izzy done it? 

Well, nothing for it, really. 

He pushes out a long breath that shakes around the edges and lets his knuckles fall against the wood. 

Silence. 

He knocks again. 

There’s a distant thud from within, then the clinking of glass before a gravelly voice calls out. 

“What?” 

Oh, Christ. 

Frenchie opens the door. 

The room is—if possible—even more depressing than it had been when all this started, with its tattered paper tacked to the windows and empty of all furniture and embellishment save that imposing desk and a painting of a lighthouse in the corner. 

Not empty anymore though. Not by a long shot. 

Stacks of chests and barrels are shoved against every wall, empty rum bottles litter the floor and there’s got to be at least two dozen knives stuck point down in the desk, and another sticking out of the paneling next to the doorway. Then there’s what looks like a nest in the middle of it all, piled high with unfamiliar pillows and blankets strewn around it. Stained black with pitch and nothing like the jewel toned satin things Stede used to have covering every conceivable surface. 

Frenchie gulps.

“Cap’n?” He calls into the gloom. 

What Frenchie had initially dismissed as a particularly lumpy blanket shifts a little in the middle of the makeshift bed. 

“Yeah.” The blanket mumbles. 

“Um.. well,” Frenchie hums, hesitating. 

“Where the fuck is Izzy?” 

Shit. Deflect Jim had told him. Deflect. Right, he can do that. 

“He’s… he’s not feeling well, cap. Bout of the ol’ seasickness, y’know?” 

A long silence is all that follows before Frenchie hurries on to a safer topic. The whole objective behind this little suicide mission; an update on their heading. 

“Wanted me to tell you that we’re on course for Barbados, Mr. Blackbeard sir. Be there at sun up.” 

“About fuckin’ time.” The blanket growls, before Blackbeard surfaces from the bundle like a sea creature from the depths. 

Frenchie wants to ask if Blackbeard really is going to kill Stede’s wife. Didn’t the guy have kids? Would the Kraken kill them too, for no other crime than sharing the guy’s blood.

Ed had always been a little unhinged, even before the demon took root in his soul. But Frenchie had never taken him for a child killer. 

Would never have believed he’d mutilate his friends foot either, yet here they are. 

He decides to ask. He reckons he can spare a toe or two, if it at least gave him peace of mind. 

“Cap… are you, are you sure?” 

Dark eyes snap to meet his and Frenchie’s answering gulp is loud enough that the others probably heard it all the way across the ship. 

“‘Bout this?” He clarifies, “going to Bridgetown and…” 

He trails off as those eyes flicker and for a moment, a teeny tiny moment, Frenchie thinks he sees Ed peeking out. 

“You’re new to this. So I’m going to pretend you didn’t just question a direct fuckin’ order and let you go back to whatever the fuck it is you do.”

“Yeah, no. Absolutely.” Frenchie starts backing slowly toward the door. 

“One last thing.” Blackbeard calls. Frenchie freezes. That’s definitely a toe then. Would it be the pinky? Shit, how the fuck had Izzy faced this every day? 

“Is he dead?” Blackbeard asks, voice low enough to send a shiver all the way down Frenchie’s spine. 

Oh Christ, if the captain’s asking him to take on the responsibility of verifying Stede’s death, Frenchie will throw himself overboard. Would Ed prefer confirmation of the guy’s death or not? He’d rather take his chances with the sea. 

“Eh, sorry what was that?” He whispers, choking on the words. 

“I’ve known the little prick for twenty years, and he’s never let something like fuckin’ sea sickness stop him from getting on my nerves. So, is he dead?” 

Izzy. He means Izzy. Shit, is it normal for hearts to beat so fast it feels like it might fall right out of your ass? 

“Um. No cap’n Blackbeard. Sir. Just. Um. Well, it’s his legs. He’s, uh, only got the one.” 

Frenchie winces as he delivers this news. Maybe a ‘rip the bandage off quickly’ approach isn’t the best plan. He had hoped to keep the specifics of Izzy’s injury far away from this conversation until Blackbeard’s grief spiral let up, at least. 

The captain stares him down, slowly raising a single eyebrow. 

Frenchie takes that as all the question he’s going to get. He continues stumbling over his answer. 

“His, uh. Well, his foot was infected.”

Something complicated flashes across the captain’s face before that familiar lack of light settles back into place. 

“Dismissed.” Is all he says. Snapping the words out into the heavy silence of the room. 

Frenchie jerks his head down in a nod. Don’t need to tell him twice. 

“Right you are.” He starts fumbling for the door behind his back, eyes never leaving the devil huddled in the middle of the floor. 

“Oh, and Frenchie?” The devil calls, voice sweet and dark and full of promises that he’d really rather not see come to fruition thank you kindly. 

“Yes, captain?”

“Don’t ever fuckin’ lie to me again.”

“No sir. Definitely not. Yup. Trust is king. And queen, I always say.” 

“Get the fuck out of my face, man.”

“Yup. On it.” 

Frenchie bolts from the room, and doesn’t stop running until he gets below deck. 

*

Ed’s getting pretty fucking sick of feeling like the world is capsizing. All topsy turvy and shit, like he’s about three seconds away from puking his guts up or being hurled off it all together. 

He’d… he’d fucking —his only friend left in the world and he’d—sure, the fucker had practically begged for it, in the beginning but—

He’d—Ed had— “it’s his legs. He’s, uh, only got the one.”

Oh, shit fuck. 

Ed sniffles into his nest of blankets. Hauls one up over his head and wonders if he just never moves again, will he just melt away into nothing? 

Guilt isn’t really something he’s ever coped well with. He’d always delegated the big job to people like Izzy and Ivan for that very reason. 

It sits in his stomach now like a stone tossed into a pond as his mind cracks open and every single action driven by his heartache comes spilling out. The crew left to die, Izzy’s mutilated foot, Lucius’s desperate screams for help. No wonder Jim hates him. No wonder Izzy couldn’t bring himself to meet his eye. No wonder Fang and Frenchie are so scared of him they can barely string a sentence together. 

No wonder Stede had walked away from him that night, back to his comfortable life and soft, pretty wife. 

The wife who had killed him in the end. Ed had driven Stede back to her and now he was dead. 

Well there’s one act of revenge he can pull off without the guilt of it festering in his gut for lashing out. 

One final fuckery before he can follow Stede at last, no matter if he’s wanted or not. 

They’d be better off without him, wouldn’t they? Izzy and the others; all that remains of the family Ed had coveted for himself. The family he’d brutally, unthinkingly torn to shreds. 

Chapter Text

The first thing Jim thinks when they finally set foot in Bridgetown is that it’s sort of a shit hole. The second thing they think is that Olu would have loved it. 

Not for any particular reason other than that Olu had the sort of personality that loved everything. He’d have found it easy to laugh at all the posh assholes swanning around the crowded streets. Would have made Jim laugh at them just as hard. 

As it is, all they can muster up right now is a clawing sense of loneliness, despite the woman at their side. 

Archie is so like Olu in that way. So quick to find joy, so quick to laugh. 

Olu would have liked her, Jim knows. Olu might very well have loved—

No good thinking about it. No good thinking about him. His easy smile, his warm hands, the tentative way he kissed—

Stop. Just—just fucking stop. 

They hadn’t flown the colors as they’d approached the bay, and had anchored the Revenge far enough from the port proper that—unless someone was really looking—she shouldn’t be recognised by passing eyes on land. If Izzy had been conscious, Jim’s pretty sure the vein on his forehead would have actually burst at Blackbeard’s half-assed attempt at being incognito. 

And Jim can’t help but wholeheartedly agreed with the little asshole’s make believe assessment; this whole fucking thing is absolutely, definitely one huge risky mistake, in their opinion. 

For fuck’s sake, they’re currently walking the street of one of the busiest port towns in the Caribbean looking like exactly what they are, which is to say—fucking pirates. Blackbeard hasn’t even bothered to dress down at all. Frenchie, Jim and Archie have at least tried to work in some fabrics to their clothing other than leather. 

If anything, Blackbeard just looks even more terrifying than usual, pitch trailing down from his eyes like errant tears, hair wild and unbound down his back. The attention of passers-by had followed him all the way from the docks, most of them leaning to whisper to a neighbour behind cupped hands, eyes wide with suspicion. 

“This is a terrible fucking idea.” Jim snarls for what feels like the hundredth time that morning. 

“No arguments here.” Frenchie mumbles back, eyes fixed on two dock workers ahead, watching their little landing party with interest as they haul barrels off a small fishing vessel. 

“The pendejo’s gunna get us all fucking hanged.” 

“Yeah, starting to wish I’d offered to watch over Izzy last night, to be honest.” Archie’s fingers hover over the gun Jim knows is hidden beneath her jacket. They resist the urge to reach for their own weapon, the weight of their family’s dagger, a comforting, familiar presence at their hip. 

“What does he even need us here for, anyway?” Frenchie asks, watching their captain’s back a few paces ahead with a frown. 

“Fuck if I know. Hold down the wife so he can slit her throat?” Jim offers. Archie wrinkles her nose. 

“Fuckin’ dark, man.” She mutters. 

Blackbeard had been eerily chipper as dawn broke to reveal Bridgetown fast approaching on the horizon, gathering the crew on deck and asking for volunteers to join him on land. Not a single fucker had stepped forward, and their captain had merely laughed like the complete fucking mad man he is and pointing to the three of them with a challenge in his eyes. That gaze had remained on Jim the longest, taunting malice edged with something like desperation lingering there. 

It’s an expression Jim hadn’t been able to shake since, as if their captain had been begging them for something. 

To stop this madness? End his misery? Dare suggest a mutiny? Jim couldn’t say. All of this was fucked. Hollow and devastating and fucked up beyond all belief.

He hadn’t asked about Izzy though, hadn’t even looked for him. Or Fang. 

Jim isn’t sure which is worse, that possible unspoken plea or the fact that Blackbeard seems so indifferent to the brutal fate of his oldest friend. 

Ahead, the fucker in question comes to a halt on the fringes of an early morning market. Tellers still setting up their wares under drab canvas canopies.  

“Stock up.” The captain tosses the words over his shoulder, barely glancing in their direction before setting off again. 

“Um. On what, exactly?” Frenchie asks, because the idiot has a death wish, apparently. 

“Whatever the fuck we need. Not planning on making landfall again for a long fuckin’ time.” Blackbeard spits, still moving away. 

To their right, Jim can just see Archie raise an eyebrow, then turn to Frenchie and mouth what the fuck.

Jim’s gaze doesn’t leave Blackbeard’s retreating form, however. Something queasy and slippery writhing in their gut. They can’t recall a time they’d ever met anyone quite as unhinged as the man they reluctantly call their captain, and they’d been raised by Nana, for fuck’s sake. 

That nameless anguished expression from this morning flashes in their mind once more. 

“Should we be, like, letting him do this?” They ask their two companions, who have since turned away from the captain’s shrinking figure to a market stall, the teller watching them intently, silently. Fucking fearfully. 

Frenchie’s eyes meet Jim’s and he looks utterly downtrodden. Bone fucking tired. The terror that had wrapped its way around him during those first awful weeks after their whole crew had been left behind is well and truly gone now. Only this pale-faced resignation remained. 

“What can we do, we can’t kill him.” He says on a sigh that sounds like it comes all the way up from his toes. “You know what he’s like; there’s no way we’re stopping him any other way.” 

“She killed Stede, right?” Jim pushes, “Like, we know that for a fact?” 

Jim’s no stranger to a thirst for revenge, it’s probably the only fucking thing they can see eye to eye with their captain on these days. But still that heavy wrongness sits in their chest. 

“Do you really think cap was taken out by a jungle cat? He was an idiot but… it does sound ridiculous, even for him.” Frenchie intones, expression still flat and lifeless. 

“So we should want revenge, then?” They ask. It’s funny, despite their own history with the endeavour, all they can really summon right now is the same sort of resignation that Frenchie wears wrapped around him like a new coat. 

He shrugs, reaching out to inspect a pot of unidentifiable spices in front of him.

“Maybe. Don’t feel much of anything anymore to be honest, man.” 

Jim’s eyes catch on Archie, who’s moved away to haggle down a barrel of oranges a few stalls to their right. Their heart fumbles a little. 

“Cap left us too.” Frenchie continues, inspecting another non-descript pot. 

Jim hums in agreement. 

“Can’t say I even blame her if she did kill him.” He continues, “Imagine being married to Stede.” 

Jim snorts. 

Jesus, what a fucking nightmare. 

“Yeah, I’m good, thanks.” 

Frenchie throws them a wry smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. Then again, none of his smiles do anymore. 

“Point is, there’s nothing we can do. About any of it. About cap leaving, or Ed going batshit. Gotta focus on keeping each other alive through to next week, let alone some posh-knob woman we’ve never met.”

Frenchie must ultimately decide that the ship’s reserves of fucking paprika or whatever are stocked enough, because he squares his shoulders and steps away from the stall with another shrug. 

“Besides, don’t even want to think about what he’ll do if we do try to stop him and don’t manage to actually kill him. I like my toes where they are, thanks all the same.” 

Jim happens to agree with him. They cast one last look toward where Blackbeard has since melted into the crowds of the high street ahead before turning to join their friends. 

“Si. Si, you’re right.” They whisper, quiet enough that Frenchie likely didn’t hear them from only a couple paces ahead. 

Jim has so few family left, just the two people next to them and two more left behind on the ship. One of which may very well die (or be dead already) despite all Jim had done to try and save him. Someone who almost definitely hated them all, viciously. Life debt owed or not. 

Sorry Mary Bonnet, Jim thinks, as Archie reaches over and clasps their hand tightly between her fingers. You’re on your own.  

*

Mary Bonnet is under the distinct, and ominously increasing impression that she is not alone. 

Not alone as relating to this precise moment in the garden, while the children and Doug hide from the heat of the midday sun inside the house. 

She’s rarely actually, truly alone these days. Having finally carved out a life for herself that she’s quite proud of, and infinitely thankful for. With a man who loves her and her children fearlessly, and holds no boyish whim to swan off on a pirate ship and leave her to pick up the pieces as a jilted wife. 

She sighs, paint splattered fingers pausing on the canvas before her and shakes her head. 

She really needs to stop thinking like that. She’d put her resentment for Stede firmly behind her months ago, after her unsuccessful murder attempt and his quiet, wonderful confession. Neither of them had wanted the life they’d been forced into, and he had never been one to make the best of things. That had always been her strong suit. 

And really, Stede leaving had been for the best in the end. Her current, lovely life is proof of it. 

She sincerely wishes nothing but the best for him, and his Ed, wherever they may be. She even often hopes that maybe, when the sensational events of his ‘death’ stop being the main topic of gossip in town, he might just come back and visit. With Ed in tow. The kids truly do miss him, his letters—all signed with increasingly ridiculous aliases, of course—come far too infrequently. 

That foreboding sense of being watched creeps back along her spine as her thoughts drift to how excited the children will be when the next letter does arrive. It prickles the base of her neck, and the hairs on her arms rise despite the sweltering heat of the day. 

Someone is most definitely out there. 

She casually pats the front pocket of her apron, as if looking for a new brush, and nearly sighs out loud when her fingers brush the handle of the small knife she uses to trim her canvases. 

Her relief is dizzyingly short lived, as a dark shadow falls across the unfinished landscape in front of her, and the cold metal blade of a much larger knife than her own is pressed against her throat. The scruff of a beard catches unpleasantly against her neck as a voice growls, low and menacing in her ear. 

“The Widow Bonnet, I assume.”

Well. Fuck. 

Chapter Text

To her credit, Mary Bonnet does not flinch. 

Not when he creeps up behind her, not when his blade kisses her neck, not even when his hand grips her shoulder in a crushing grip as he leans down to whisper threats in her ear. 

“The Widow Bonnet, I presume?” Even Ed has to admit that as far as pseudonyms go hers is pretty badass. That’s coming from a guy who has two pretty fucking cool ones, if he does say so himself. 

The woman beneath his blade simply squares her shoulders and raises her chin. 

Huh.

“Yes, and you are?” There’s derision there. Cold and calculated just like all those fucks at that stupid boat party. It serves only to ignite his wrath further. 

“None of your fuckin’ business.” He snarls, applying a tiny bit more pressure against her jugular. 

“Oh, of course. How silly of me to assume the man about to slit my throat is any of my business.” She sniffs. 

Ed blinks. Ah, the famed passive aggression Stede had always so vehemently scorned and so very easily adopted. 

Doesn’t fucking matter anyway. Ed’s not the man he was, sulking like a child after being laughed at for not knowing which stupid fucking fork to use when. Escargot is fucking disgusting anyway. 

This Ed, this broken cobbled together, grieving mess of Blackbeard and The Kraken and plain ol’ Edward Teach has far more experience with this sort of shit now. 

So, fine. He’ll play.

“Not gunna slit your throat, love.” Not yet, anyway. But that’s nothing she needs to know about. He draws away the knife with a flourish, but tightens his grip on her shoulder to a punishing degree. “But you so much as scream and I’ll fuckin’ gut you where you stand.” 

He lets his hand drop, and Mary lets out a trembling breath. The first sign of weakness since he’d made his move and slipped from the shadowy treeline at the perimeter of the property. 

Interesting. Ed’s not been in the presence of many high-born ladies, but aren’t they all supposed to be delicate, faint at a gust of wind types? 

This woman before him is hard as fucking steel. 

He backs up a step as she rises to face him and looks him up and down with a slow, measured gaze. Which in Ed’s experience is either a come on or a fucking sizing up. The scrunch of her nose suggests it’s definitely the latter. If he was more of a pussy he’s pretty sure he’d wither under her glare. 

“What is it, exactly, that you want?” She asks stiffly. 

He grins, and he knows the expression is nothing but The Kraken. All teeth and cold, brutal promise. 

“Want to know how you killed your husband.” Is all he says, letting his shoulder lift in a shrug that’s far more blasé than he actually feels. 

Is he really dead? Fucking please tell me he’s not dead.

Mary’s eyebrows shoot up as a little crinkle forms between them—whether it’s confusion or alarm, Ed’s not totally sure. 

“My husban–”

A squeal of delighted laughter pierces through whatever she’s about to say. Ed’s gaze snaps over her shoulder as two children come sprinting out of the large house toward them, coming to a careening stop at Mary’s knees. 

Ed nearly flinches. 

Children. 

Fuck. His children. Stede’s flesh and blood standing right here in front of him and gazing at him with an open sort of curiosity that’s so intense it makes him feel decidedly inferior. 

What do they think of him, decked head to toe in impractical, fucking sweltering black leather. His beard still cut short but definitely unkempt and stained with weeks old pitch. 

Holy fucking shit, why won’t they stop fucking staring?

The girl has Stede’s eyes, curious and wide and—shit, fuck. The boy definitely has his smile, tentatively thrown in Ed's direction from where he’s peeking at him behind his mother’s skirts. 

Real fear settles onto the features of Mary’s face for the first time since their interaction began and Ed feels it like a dull knife in the gut. 

Children, real life fucking kids. How could he have fucking forgotten? 

What the fuck had Ed been thinking—he can’t take any more from this family. Whether she killed him or not, Ed’s never been faced with two totally innocent consequences just staring at him like he hadn’t been about to spill their mother’s blood all over the garden they play in every day. 

Unaware of Ed’s latest spiral of self-loathing, Mary whips around with wide, frantic eyes and ushers the children away from him. Placing herself firmly between them and him. 

She has to turn her back on Ed to do it, which should be the perfect opportunity to carry out exactly what he came here to do—if he didn’t currently hate himself so fucking much. 

If the living breathing proof of Stede’s very existence weren’t standing right fucking there. 

“Children. Go inside.” She murmurs, voice high and sharp. “Go inside and find Doug.”

“Mama, who is he?” The girl asks. 

“He’s no one, Alma. You need to take your brother and go inside, now.” 

“Does he know dad?” The boy asks, eyeing Ed with a familiar shrewd expression. Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh Jesus fucking Christ. 

“Louis.” Mary’s voice is sharp enough that the kid’s eyes flick away from Ed and land back on his mother. 

Ed takes a huge stumbling step backwards. Gut clenching, head pounding. 

“I won’t ask again. Both of you, go inside. I’m just going to talk to the gentleman and then I’ll be right behind you, alright?” 

Ed backs away further. What the fuck had he been thinking? He can’t be here, he can’t do this. He can’t kill this woman in front of the children of the man he’d loved so fiercely. 

He can’t leave them orphaned and alone. Stede would hate him for it. Hate him. It’s that realisation that decides him, in the end. 

Silently, he melts back into the treeline and runs without any destination in mind other than not fucking here before Mary Bonnet can turn back around to face him. 

*

Fucking hell, Stede, is all Mary has the capacity to think as she frantically ushers her children away from the dark, furious man at her back. 

Fury and aspiring murder aside, it’s pretty clear the man is positively drowning in grief. Make up smeared down his face from what could only be the remnants of tears. The cold defeat in his eyes, the set of his shoulders. The way his fucking lip had wobbled.

All of this leaves her about ninety nine per cent sure he’s Ed, but she’s not willing to allow her children anywhere near him while she confirms her suspicions and explains the truth behind Stede’s death. She can empathise with his plight, but that is where she draws the line. 

She needs to be smart about this. Stede may love this man just as much as she loves Doug, but he’s definitely a pirate. And a fucking unhinged one at that. Who sneaks up behind someone and threatens to cut their throat without an introduction first? 

God, she might actually murder her ex-husband for bringing this nonsense back to her front door once again. 

She waits until she’s certain both children are safely back inside, before straightening up and turning to face the knife wielding madman who’d captured her ex-husband’s heart. Determined to rip him a new one once the matter of her innocence and Stede’s ultimate survival is squared away—

He’s gone. Nothing but birdsong in his wake. That awful feeling of being watched has disappeared too. She’s truly alone out here now. 

“Fucking men.” She mutters, throwing her hands up in the air and stomping back to the house. “So fucking emotional.”

Stede had sent her and the children an address a little over a month ago. For a soup kitchen in fucking Nassau. Under the alias Edward Thomas. 

She would reach him, tell him his Ed seems to be under the unfortunate misconception that she fucking killed him, and could Stede kindly fucking rectify that at his earliest convenience. 

Best wishes and get fucked. 

She just knew Stede’s ridiculous fuckery would come back and bite her in the arse, eventually. A jungle cat, for fuck’s sake! Of course people who heard the story outside of those who witnessed it would assume the worst of her.

Never mind the fact that Stede had been looking for Ed for six months and had apparently still not found him . Which, considering her ex-husband and all that he is, really shouldn’t surprise her at this point. 

In the solitude of the garden, Mary stomps her foot and throws her hands above her head with a huff. 

For fuck’s sake, she had to everything around here. 

*

Izzy’s head is aching so badly, it’s almost enough to distract from the pain shooting up from the stump of his missing leg. Almost. 

He furiously fights the need to rouse himself out of his semi-conscious state and look for a pitcher of fucking water, or even better—rum—but it’s no use. There’s an incessant fucking chattering of multiple voices around him. Fucking twats, this is meant to be a sick room. 

“…just saying, she was definitely alive when I looked.” 

“What, cap just decided not to off her on a whim, then? ‘S not like him.” 

“I don’t know what to tell you, Frenchie, but the guy’s practically fucking catatonic. It’s like he wants to—”

“Will you lot pack it the fuck in? I can’t hear myself think.” Izzy grinds out the words between clenched teeth, cutting Jim off. Blissful fucking silence descends for a few seconds before Frenchie greets him with a cheerful inflection. 

“Hey boss. Nice to see you ain’t dead.” 

Well, the peace was nice while it lasted.

“Was I fuckin’ supposed to be?” It’s an effort, but Izzy manages to pull himself up to lean back against the headboard to glare at him. He steadfastly refuses to acknowledge the way Frenchie’s hand shoots out to grip at his elbow in support. 

“It was touch and go there for a while, yeah.” He replies as he lets Izzy go. 

“Never seen so much blood come out of a person before. Fuckin’ unreal, mate.” Archie tacks on with a smirk that makes Izzy sort of want to grin back. Like his perilous injury is nothing more than an inside joke between them both. 

Oh, seriously fuck these people for making him weak enough to even consider it. He glances around at the faces gathered, Jim and Fang rounding out his unwanted little bedside party. 

“The fuck you all doing here?” He snaps.

Jim rolls their eyes, but their expression can only be described as mildly relieved.  

“A thank you would be nice.” They snip back at him, a smirk curling on their lip. 

Izzy shifts, then winces. Jim’s face falls into something much more complicated as they watch him glance down at the stump that is now his left leg.

“I told you not to take the fucking leg.” He tries to snarl, but the words come out more like a sob. 

Jim’s dark eyes flash, and they lean forward to catch his gaze with a hard glare. 

“And I told you we weren’t going to let you die.” 

Maybe they should have. He’s nothing but a fucking liability now. Can’t even take on that oh so important job of absorbing all Ed’s darkness. He’s just too damn tired, and the thought of bearing that brunt once again makes him want to hurl up his guts. 

Could just be the way the ship is being tossed around on the waves though. Nausea is something he’s grown accustomed to feeling while at sea. 

“We still on the way to Bridgetown then?” He asks none of them in particular.

“Nope,” it’s Frenchie who answers, “left a day or so ago.”

The fuck? How long had Izzy been asleep?

“And Blackbeard?” He aims the question directly at Frenchie this time, who darts a glance toward Jim before answering. 

“He, uh. Told us to weigh anchor and then locked himself in his quarters. Hasn’t been out since.” 

Izzy absorbs this with a slow blink. Blackbeard retreating to his quarters for days at a time is hardly out of the ordinary these days, but the cagey way the lot of them are acting is making him itch. 

“What was his heading?” 

“Didn’t give one. We’re sort of just sailing aimlessly around right now.” Frenchie seems to mull something over before tacking on, “he did mention to me that he wants to sail forever and never set foot on land again. But weird, I thought, but then…”

The it is Blackbeard goes unsaid. 

With over twenty years of sailing at Ed’s side under his belt, Izzy is no stranger to the obsessive need to keep moving that takes root in him sometimes. But this… this is something else, Izzy can feel it in the marrow of his aching bones. 

“He kill the widow then?” He asks, voice quiet. Izzy’s caution over that particular endeavour had gone unheeded, or so he’d thought. He’d been rather preoccupied with the blood poisoning at the time to check in. 

Jim exchanges another loaded glance with Archie this time, and it sends Izzy’s teeth grinding. What the fuck are they not telling him, exactly?

“No. Found out where she lives and checked for myself before we left. She was running around the garden with her children and another man.”

Izzy pauses. Considers. Nothing had been able to stop Blackbeard when he’d been latched on to an idea before. Not Izzy’s carefully considered caution, not rational fucking thought. Not even Calypso herself. 

“Listen, Izzy. Uh—Boss. Jim reckons the captain’s sort of fallen off the deep end.” Frenchie admits, voice halting and quiet. 

Izzy gestures impatiently at his leg. 

“No fuckin’ shit.” 

Frenchie shakes his head. 

“Nah, I mean. They think he’s trying to get himself killed.”

Ah. So that’s it. This big secret they’re trying to keep. Never mind that Izzy’s been the sole bearer of that knowledge for decades. His answering sigh is long and slow. He feels it all the way down in his gut. 

“Ed’s always trying to get himself killed.” He admits. “Pretty sure it’s the only way he knows how to live.”

“Not the only way.” Jim mutters, their meaning dripping like honey from every word. 

Golden-hued days spent watching Ed from the sidelines, wrapped up in Bonnet and the fragile sort of peace he’d inspired, happy for the first time in years. All his nervous energy soothed away by the frilly ponce who had him wrapped around his little finger. And Izzy positively, enviously hating it, all the way down to his bitter, rotten core. 

“So you think he’s planning to follow him? Bonnet, I mean.” He asks, because he needs to know exactly what it is they’ve worked out about Ed and his erratic moods. This crew may be strange, and oftentimes, completely incompetent. But they are observant to a fault. It’s the only way they’ve managed to survive this long. 

“What if he already has?” Jim asks, eyes dark. “Thrown himself off the ship or something.”

Izzy refuses to entertain it. Ed’s the only thing that tethers his very soul to this world. He’d have felt it of Ed was… he’d have felt it, unconscious or not. 

“Nah. Not his style. If he’s gunna go he’ll outsource the job. To me. To us.” He says, the truth spilling out of him now, with no hope of stopping. Because Blackbeard never could make the tough call, it had always been Izzy who’d taken on that burden for him. 

Jim nods as if they’ve already worked that out.

“That’s really fucked up.” Archie mutters, her brows furrowed into a deep line

“That’s Blackbeard.” Is all says but he doesn’t disagree. It is undoubtedly fucked up beyond all logical belief. 

“What’s Blackbeard?” A sharp voice calls darkly from the doorway. 

Every single member of the crowded room flinches as their captain stalks amongst them. 

No one answers him, and he seems to be expecting this because all he says is, “get out.”

His eyes never leave Izzy’s as he barks the order at the rest of the crew. 

Frenchie scrambles for the door, followed quickly by Archie and Fang, who keeps his eyes planted firmly on the floor as he passes Blackbeard’s glare. 

Jim is slow to leave though. Squaring their shoulders and refusing to look away until Blackbeard’s gaze drifts away from Izzy and settles firmly on them. 

“He’s your fucking friend.” They hiss, voice dripping with disgust. And the words are implied as a reminder but Izzy knows they are about  as close to a warning as anyone might dare when staring down a man such as Blackbeard. 

Izzy near enough preens at the fucking protectiveness in their words, though, and isn’t that the most fucking ridiculous thing?

Fuck, but he respects the hell out of the kid. Insubordination or not. 

The flinty expression is Blackbeard’s eyes falters a little as Jim pushes past, before flicking down to stare at his boots. It doesn’t take long, however, for him to find his resolve once more as he shakes his head, raising his face to level a glare in Izzy’s direction as if Jim had never interrupted him. 

The mad man is back, ice cold challenge in his eyes. 

Izzy breaks the silence first. 

“How’d Bridgetown work out for you?”

“Yeah, it fuckin’ didn’t.” Blackbeard huffs out a sigh. 

“Bonnet’s wife escaped the wrath of the great and terrible Blackbeard, then?”

“Couldn’t do it.” Ed mumbles, and it’s definitely Ed speaking . Izzy’s heart near enough leaps right out of his chest with the hope he feels. 

Ed moves forward to occupy the seat Frenchie had been in when Izzy came to. 

“I had a great dream last night.” The abrupt change of topic makes Izzy’s head fucking swirl. 

“Good for you.” He retorts with a sneer. 

“It was. It was good for me.” He pulls out the gun strapped to his hip as he speaks, and Izzy can’t help but keep his eyes glued to it. “See, I dreamed that you killed me.” 

Ed reaches to push the cold metal into Izzy’s hand where it sits limp on the mattress. 

The swirling in his head halts with utter, crystal clarity. Fuck, no. Take another toe, take my other leg. Fuckin’ anything but this. 

“For fuck’s sake, Edward.” Izzy recoils, snatching his hand away from the offending weapon being forced into it. 

“Take it.” 

“I can’t— we won’t fuckin’ do that.” 

“I took your leg. You take my life. Turn about’s fair play.” 

“Fuck off. Fuck off.”   Izzy wants to scream, wants to jam the barrel to his own head. Would do anything to drown out that awful, poisonous voice in his head that’s fucking agreeing with this lunatic. 

It could end. All of it could end right now. 

He tries to slap the gun away once more, but Blackbeard holds fast. Fingers curled tight around Izzy’s own, pressing them into that biting, hated metal trigger as he raises the barrel to rest against his forehead.

“Fuckin’ do it.” Ed snarls and the words in Izzy’s head are screaming at him now. 

It could end, it could end. All of it can finally fucking end. 

Izzy’s mind snaps. It’s the only explanation for what comes tumbling out of his mouth next. 

“Don’t fuckin’ make me do this. I have love for you, Ed.”

However fucking unhinged, the word’s have the desired effect. Ed’s hand falls from the pistol and Izzy hauls it away from his head to rest against his own chest. 

“Fuck off with that, man.” Blackbeard snaps, pushing to stand and whirling away with a sneer. 

Izzy pushes on. He’s in this now, might as well see it to the end. 

“I’m worried about you, we all are.” The words come a plea, high and desperate and so fucking heartbroken. . 

“Oh, fuck off.” 

“You think I don’t know what this is?” He growls, practically spits out the words. “We’ve worked together for years. You know me better than anyone has ever known me and I dare say the same is true for me about you.” 

“Shut the fuck up, Iz.” 

“You think I don’t see what you’re doing? Ed, this has gone fuckin’ far enough—the crew are—”

“Since when have you ever given a single fuck about this crew?” 

Frenchie’s fingers in his, the devastating desperation on Jim’s face as they rushed to save him from his own stupid fucking stubbourness. Fang’s quiet sobs in the night as Izzy lay half conscious over the prospect of losing another friend. 

“This life is about mutual fucking respect. You know that. And you’re fuckin’ losing it.” 

Jim’s parting words were proof enough of that. 

Ed snorts. But says nothing. 

It all finally clicks into place. Exactly what this is. What it’s always been.

Jim was wrong, Ed’s not just now gearing up to get one of them to kill him. He’s already been actively doing whatever he can to make them turn on him. Not just since the news of Bonnet’s death, but before it. Casting Spriggs into the drink, separating Frenchie and Jim from their people and leaving them to die, taking Izzy’s toes one by one, the punishing pace of trying to break Lowe’s record. All of it in an effort to… oh, the stupid fucking twat. 

“Oh-ho ho.” Izzy’s sobs are dressed up as laughs and his chest is splitting open and he’s just so fucking tired of following this man like a mutt looking for scraps. “You scared, Eddie?” He taunts. “Too scared to do it yourself?” 

This is his own fault. His fault, all of this his fucking fault. If not for Izzy’s jealousy and Jack and the English and the stupid fucking act of grace. Bonnet leaving them all behind like he hadn’t shown each and every one of them a different way to live.

All three of them to blame, then. Bonnet, Hands and Teach. The utter ruination of this crew. 

He clutches the gun tighter to his chest and sobs anew. 

“Clean up your own fucking mess,” he snarls to Ed’s back. “I’ve been doing it all my fucking life.” 

Silence descends on the room, and Izzy watches Ed’s shoulders tremble as he clearly attempts to gather himself back together. 

“I loved you, you know.” He murmurs and Izzy’s breath snuffs out on a cough, the words wrapping around him like a choking, biting chain. 

Loved. Loved. Loved. 

Ed shoulders rise and fall once in a noncommittal shrug, as if those awful words aren’t Izzy’s death sentence. 

“Best I could.” He tacks on, and Izzy Hands breaks. 

Not enough, never fucking enough. Israel Hands wasn’t made to be loved right. To be loved well. 

Ed retreats back to the open doorway without another word and Izzy’s eyes linger on him hungrily until he’s disappeared completely from sight. 

Then he raises the pistol still clutched in his hand, puts it to his forehead and pulls the trigger with a prayer for forgiveness he knows he doesn’t deserve tasting sharp and bitter on his tongue.