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It’s not as though the Revenge and her crew were exactly strangers with trouble.
Honestly, they’d started courting trouble nearly from the outset, had more or less fallen into bed with it by the time it nearly destroyed them in the form of a British naval fleet, and were frankly committed to it once Stede finally managed to make his way back onboard the Revenge.
Returning to his ship with nothing to his name but a sunburnt crew and the clothes on his back had meant that they were truly in for a penny, in for a pound with the business side of piracy, particularly when said ship had been stripped close to bare in his absence. He’d forgiven Ed this—of course he had, he’d been asking Ed to forgive him far more—but it had meant that they were in dire need of just about everything. Stede and Ed had scarcely had time to kiss and make up, as it were, before the issue of their dwindling stores and complete lack of funds had become a rather urgent matter indeed.
At Edward’s direction, under Izzy’s surly advisement and with Stede’s selective approval, they’d begun to conduct raids on private vessels and the smaller merchant ships alike. They’d even engaged their fellow pirates a time or two, if the chance of gold was good enough and the risk deemed acceptably low. But they remained discriminating, always careful not to bite off more than they could chew.
In hindsight, it was rather inevitable that the choice would eventually be taken out of their hands.
“Don’t recon those’re Dutch ships,” Buttons says, standing at the quarterdeck’s starboard rail where he’d summoned Stede and Ed away from their afternoon tea. “Don’t look much like the Spanish neither.”
Stede leans out over the rail and squints at the tiny black splotch on the far-off horizon, wondering how the man can make any determination at such a distance. He’s leaning far enough that the sudden rasp of Izzy’s voice just behind him nearly sends him overboard.
“That’s not the fucking Spanish.”
Stede spins to look at him but Izzy doesn’t so much as glance in his direction—a response (or lack thereof) that Stede has more or less come to expect by this point. Instead, Izzy’s gaze remains fixed on the faraway ship as he passes Edward a spyglass. A long moment passes as Edward brings it to his eye and focuses on the horizon, then he breathes out a curse that has Stede instantly worried and tugging at his sleeve.
“What? What is it? Ed?”
By now they’ve attracted something of a crowd. Near half the crew have come to join them on the quarterdeck, all casting anxious glances between Ed and the mysterious ship.
“It’s the Cartanica.” Edward says, lowering the spyglass and turning to Izzy for confirmation. Their first mate offers up a grim nod and nothing more.
“What’s that then, a country?” Oluwande asks.
“Not one I’ve ever heard of,” Jim says.
“I have, I’m pretty sure, yeah,” Frenchie chimes in, not sounding sure at all. “Country west of Portugal, innit?”
Jim rolls their eyes. “There is no country west of Portugal, dumbass. Portugal is on the coast.”
“No, but—there’s all those islands off the coast, yeah? And I recon Cartanica—”
“Cartanica’s not a country, you yammering twits.” The crew falls silent at Izzy’s growl. “It’s one of the most ruthless pirate ships in the north Caribbean.”
No one, it seems, has a ready response for that. Stede keeps waiting for Ed to say something. When he doesn’t, Stede attempts to rally up a bit of confidence, as much for his own sake as the crew’s.
“Well, be that as it may. I highly doubt they’ll choose to start something if they see we’re flying Blackbeard’s flag.” Which they haven’t been, not since Stede and the crew’s return nearly two months ago. But they had kept it, folded up in the hold, at Izzy’s fervent insistence.
“I wouldn’t be so sure, mate.”
Stede turns to look at Ed, that spark of confidence sputtering out at the hesitation in his voice and unease in his eyes. “The crew of the Cartanica are known for being absolutely bloodthirsty. I’ve heard stories of them attacking British naval ships.”
“And they won?” Stede thinks back to their own run-ins with His Majesty’s navy.
Ed shrugs. “They didn’t lose.”
“Right.” Stede wrings his hands, looking again to the faraway ship. And really, it is quite far away, isn’t it? “Right. A tactical retreat it is then.” Stede issues this command with what he likes to think is a fair amount of captainly authority—only slightly undercut, he supposes, by the continued hand wringing.
But Ed is shaking his head, no longer looking at Stede but at Izzy as he asks, “You think they’ve spotted us?”
“Almost certainly,” is Izzy’s immediate response. “Prow’s pointed dead at us—”
“And the wind’s at their tail,” Ed finishes. “The Cartanica, she a three masted barque?”
“Four masted, if I recall.”
“So we’re not outrunning her.”
Izzy scoffs. “Not with this crew.”
“Hey, now—” Stede starts, but Izzy isn’t done.
“By my estimates we’ve got thirty minutes, maximum, before they’re on top of us.”
Ed gives a slow nod. “Ready the crew,” he says quietly.
“Ready them for what?” Stede exclaims as Izzy turns on his heel and stalks toward the forward quarterdeck. It’s clear some decision has been reached without his assent, and while Ed is perfectly within his rights as co-captain to make a call on something he clearly knows more about, Stede would at least like to be informed of what that call is.
Edward meets his gaze, starts to respond. But any explanation is promptly made redundant when Izzy begins barking orders to the crew down on the deck.
“Hostile ship to starboard! Ready the cannons and take up arms! Prepare to be boarded!”
Stede, stricken, can only turn to Ed with wide eyes and feet that feel as though they’ve been stuck fast to the deck. He casts about for a single useful thing to say and comes up empty.
“C’mon,” Ed says, and the soft, even tone of his voice is such a reassuring contrast to Izzy’s hoarse shouting that the roiling turmoil in Stede’s head does settle somewhat. But even Ed’s hand resting steady on his shoulder can’t do much to soften the impact of what he says next. “Let’s go find you a gun.”
Truthfully, it’s all a bit of a blur after that.
Izzy’s estimate proves to be spot-on, and thirty minutes later finds a veritable swarm of black-clad pirates charging over gangplanks onto the deck of the Revenge. Ten minutes after that, and Stede can scarcely keep track of the mayhem happening around him—though he does at least try, from his relatively defensible position up on the quarterdeck, to maintain eyes on his crew. Jim is a veritable blur, weaving their way through the sea of bodies and leaving prone forms in their wake, while Roach and his cleaver carve an equally effective, if slightly more haphazard path through the chaos. Directly below the railing where Stede stands, Wee John and Fang form a wall of brawn before the entrance to the cabin, and far above in the crow’s nest, Buttons is lobbing empty bottles at their foes’ heads with startling accuracy.
With so many of their opponents decked out in black—and Edward having changed into his full Blackbeard getup for general intimidation purposes—it’s harder than it might otherwise have been to keep track of Ed in the fray. Distracted as he is at having lost sight of him again, Stede nearly doesn’t notice the figure coming up behind him before it’s too late. As it is, he only just manages to jump clear of the blade that slices through the place he’d just been standing. He brings his own sword to the ready with a strangled yelp and spins to face his would-be assailant, a waif-thin man with scars on both cheeks and a gap-toothed grin.
“The Gentleman Pirate, I presume,” the man rasps, with a sort of manic glee that has Stede swallowing reflexively.
There’s a flintlock pistol at Stede’s hip—one of Ed’s, there at Edward’s urging. Even now, he can’t quite bring himself to reach for it. There’s something about the uncontrolled devastation of a gun, the explosive finality of pulling the trigger… Stede just doesn’t think he’s a gun person.
Of course, he supposes that means he must be a sword person which—well, he’s certainly better with a blade than he had been when he first took to the sea.
He’s improved enough, at least, that he’s able to parry the scarred pirate’s initial lunge. He side-steps the next swing, leaps back from the one that follows. He’s holding his own on the defense at least. But as his opponent continues to advance, Stede becomes aware he’s rapidly running out of room to retreat. Quite soon the small of his back hits the rail at the quarterdeck’s rear, and Stede finds himself with no place else to go.
“Got you now, your lordship,” the scarred pirate hisses, with a grin that looks liable to split his gaunt face in two.
Then there’s a bang, and the man goes down howling as his shoulder explodes in a burst of red.
In his shock, Stede looks down at his own side, as though the gun there might just have decided to fire on its own accord. But then the downed man lets out an agonized scream, and Stede looks back up to see Ed, grinding his heel into the mass of flesh and blood that was once a shoulder. Sword in one hand and a pistol in the other, his hair wild about his shoulders and eyes frankly murderous, he looks every bit the Blackbeard men tell stories about in the night.
“Bad fucking call, mate,” Ed growls, tossing his gun aside and hauling the man up by the front of his shirt. A single, vicious push sends him toppling over the rail and into the sea.
Ed turns to Stede then, the black fire in his gaze snuffed out in an instant. “You alright?” he asks, reaching for Stede with the same hand that had just sent a man overboard. Stede, not quite trusting his voice in that moment, nods. Ed doesn’t appear particularly satisfied by this response, but there’s scarcely time for further reassurances. More black-clad figures wielding steel are climbing the stairs to the quarterdeck, and Stede finds himself shoulder to shoulder with Ed, attempting to keep the onslaught at bay.
For a while, they manage it fairly well. Stede is getting quite good at the parrying business, and Edward is a constant flurry of dark leather and flashing metal to his left. Stede’s right side is, however, rather more exposed—a fact which turns out to be something of an unfortunate oversight.
“Stede, shit—” Stede, busy fending off the opponent he’s been engaging head-on, can scarcely register Ed’s words before he’s being tugged back by his jacket and nearly off his feet, Edward shoving past him in the same motion to block the sword of the man who’d come up on Stede’s right. He makes quick work of it—two ruthless swipes of Ed’s blade, falling just shy of immediately fatal, and their latest assailant is dispatched in short order.
Just—not quite short enough. Not quick enough that Edward has time to fully sidestep the attack that comes from the man Stede had just been holding off. The blade grazes his chest, and Ed lets out a bark of pain as he brings his own up to bear.
Stede doesn’t think, doesn’t even realize he’s dropped his sword before the gun is in his hand. He’s never shot a man, never shot an animal either—the thought of hunting had always turned his stomach round. But he levels his borrowed pistol straight at the man going for Ed’s throat, cocks the hammer and reaches for the trigger—
And watches as the man’s head rolls cleanly off his shoulders onto the deck.
Stede’s gun, still un-fired, is suddenly pointed directly at Izzy’s heaving chest. Over his still-outstretched sword, wild eyes ringed in blood spatter fly instantly to Ed.
“Edward—” Izzy rasps.
“I’m good.” Ed presses a hand to his chest, seemingly unbothered when his palm comes away crimson. He looks to Stede. “Seriously, had way worse.”
“Then get your damn sword back up,” Izzy growls, spinning around to face the rest of the deck. “You too, Bonnet. ‘Less you’d rather stand there fondling your fucking gun.”
The battle over the Revenge is still very much in full swing, the shouts of men and clang of steel ringing through the air, but Stede feels the shift in tide at once. Ed’s grinning like a loon as he wipes off his hand, glancing over at Stede and waggling his eyebrows, the very picture of manic overconfidence. It’s the look of a man who suddenly knows how a fight is going to go and has decided to enjoy it. Two steps in front of them both, Izzy stands poised with his shoulders back and cutlass at the ready, all the grace and deadly patience of a viper.
And Stede—Stede replaces the flintlock at his hip, only just remembering to lower the hammer before he does. He glances down, finds his own blade abandoned on the deck, and stoops to pick it up. He finds his stance again.
But really, it’s not much of a fight after that.
The rum flows freely that night. The crew, all piled into the jam room to avoid the chill night air and misting rain that had started up just before dusk, drink like men who’ve tasted death and gleefully sent it back. Along with the rum there’s brandy and ale, and some concoction of Black Pete’s own making that Stede’s not brave enough to sample.
He doesn’t sample much of anything, really.
Something heavy had settled itself deep in his gut, not long after the last of their foes had fled over the gangplanks back to the Cartanica—some unnamed fear that Stede hasn’t had the chance to properly examine in all the commotion since. It weighs his stomach down like a stone, hovering at the edges of his mind even after he’s made three separate rounds on the crew and ensured that, remarkably, no one has been badly hurt.
Which is not to say there weren’t any casualties. Roach had doled out quite a few stitches at the galley table in amongst prepping food for a celebratory meal (he’d tried to recruit Lucius to assist him in the role of a nurse, without much success). Frenchie had managed to twist his ankle, of all things. And Oluwande had needed a bullet dug out of his shoulder.
And of course, there was Edward’s chest, now wrapped up in nearly-white bandages that Stede struggles to keep his eyes from drifting back to in the middle of conversation. Edward himself is quickly far too drunk to notice Stede’s wandering stare; he’s just as high off their victory as the rest of the crew and hadn’t shown the slightest hesitation over Black Pete’s brew or anything else on offer. By the time the festivities are winding down, he’s far enough gone that Stede has to all but carry him down the hall to their cabin.
“That—that was fucking fantastic,” Edward says, as soon as the two of them stumble their way across the room and tumble into bed. He squirms around, kicking off his trousers before splaying out over most of the bed with his head on Stede’s shoulder. His eyes shine in the moonlight streaming in from the window, and he’s babbling the way he does after a strong drink or seven. “The party and the raid. Raid went over damn well. Doesn’t usually go that way when you’re the one getting raided.”
“I suppose not,” Stede says.
“Fucking miraculous we didn’t lose anyone, actually,” Ed continues. He frows a bit, looking thoughtful. “Didn’t even lose any limbs. Day like this, you’d expect the crew to be a few limbs short at least.”
“We got quite lucky,” Stede manages.
Ed grunts in agreement. “Damn lucky.” He nestles further into Stede’s shoulder, bright eyes sliding shut. “So damn lucky with you…” he murmurs, and is asleep between one word and the next.
Stede lays awake for a long while, just listening to him breathe. He alternates between gazing down at the half of Ed’s face that he can see and staring up at the moon where it flits behind the dissipating clouds. Every so often, he’ll go to run a hand down the skin of Ed’s back and be met with rough cotton bandages instead.
He’s not sure what time it is when he finally slips out of bed, putting a waistcoat on over the shirt and trousers he’d never gotten round to taking off. His sword is propped up beside the fireplace with Ed’s and he picks it up as he creeps out the door.
As soon as he gets above deck, he regrets only putting on the waistcoat. It’s long since stopped drizzling, but there’s still a significant chill to the air. He considers, briefly, going back for a coat. Considers going back to bed with Ed where he belongs. But as soon as he thinks about Ed, the uneasy weight inside him grows heavier, and Stede decides that braving the cold of the night is significantly easier than being forced to consider why exactly that is.
When he gets to the center of the deck he stops, suddenly not quite sure how to proceed. Feeling somewhat foolish, he draws his blade. Stede tries to picture figures coming out of the darkness—makes enemies of the shadows and strikes out at them, parries their imaginary blows. He pictures a man running up with his blade ready to strike—not at Stede, but at someone else—and lunges forward to deflect the attack. He—
“Your form is shit.”
—absolutely does not scream at the sudden voice from just behind him.
Stede does, perhaps, let out a brief warning cry as he whirls around—blade still very much up, thank you—with his heart only half beating out of his chest. Izzy, arms crossed as he leans against the mast, merely curls his lip in response.
“Christ, Izzy, what—” Stede lets his blade sag as he works to catch his breath, left hand pressed against his chest. Dear lord, but his heart is beating rather fast. “What on earth are you doing out here?”
“You think anyone else on your miserable crew are in a fit state to keep watch?”
“Ah.” Watch, yes. Watch does seem particularly necessary, after today. The man has a point, Stede’s forced to concede. “I suppose I hadn’t really thought of it.”
“‘Course you didn’t.” Dark eyes narrow as Izzy’s gaze sweeps over him from head to foot before settling on his sword arm. “Just like you never think to keep your fucking guard up properly.”
And Stede, well. Stede really has had a very long day. There’s exhaustion in his bones and a growing tightness in his shoulders, and that heaviness deep inside him that still hasn’t left. He’s not sure he can quite take Izzy berating his swordsmanship at the moment.
“Why do you care, Izzy?” he asks, because he can’t believe it comes from a place of any concern over Stede’s wellbeing.
He’s not prepared for the way Izzy suddenly snarls, shoving off from the mast to stalk toward Stede with one hand falling to his own sword.
“I care,” he hisses, a hand-width from Stede’s face and spitting venom. “Because your carelessness is going to get Edward killed.”
Stede stops breathing, feels as though his heart may just have stopped as well. The flat of his blade is pressed up against Izzy’s stomach, but the other man doesn’t seem to notice.
“I—” he stammers, words utterly failing him. “I don’t—” That heaviness in his gut has grown faintly nauseating. His throat feels thick as he swallows against the bile.
The expression on Izzy’s face is more than fury; there’s something in his eyes that edges perilously close to fear.
“You’re right,” Stede breathes, and feels Izzy go utterly still. Because he is, isn’t he? That’s the thought that Stede has so carefully not been thinking, the dread that’s been clawing at his ribs since the moment he’d seen Ed’s blood staining a blade that had been meant for him. “I’m really not a very good swordsman,” he admits, to both Izzy and himself. “A decent captain, a fairly good host, I should like to think,” And Stede is well aware he’s rambling now. “But then things like today happen and—well. I can’t exactly protect Ed from a sword with a supportive work culture and a well-stocked pantry, can I?”
“You don’t fucking need to protect Edward,” Izzy says, and sounds disgusted with the very notion. “You just need to keep your own ass fucking covered so that he doesn’t have to do it for you.”
“Yes. Quite,” Stede is quick to agree. “Quite right. Will you help me then?”
Izzy gaps at him. “Fucking what?”
“Will you teach me? Proper swordsmanship. Ed has tried, but—” But the two of them typically end up making out against the mainsail’s mast before they ever get very far, is what Stede very deliberately does not say. “You’re by far the most skilled hand I’ve ever seen with a blade,” is what he elects to go with instead.
“You want me to teach you,” Izzy parrots back, deadpan.
Stede tries for a hopeful smile, is fairly certain he only ends up looking sheepish. “Please?”
A really, very, incredibly long moment passes in absolute silence. When Izzy finally takes two sharp steps back and whips his cutlass from its scabbard, Stede thinks that there’s a fairly decent chance he’s about to be run through on it again. But Izzy turns and stalks halfway across the deck before whirling back around, sword poised and teeth bared.
“Fine,” he spits. “You can start by fixing your fucking stance. The next time I stab you, I at least want you to make it a fucking challenge.”
Stede looks at Izzy. Looks at the other man’s feet, then down at his own.
He fixes his stance.
It quickly becomes a routine, very much at Stede’s insistence, initially. He seeks Izzy out like clockwork every night at eight, herding him up to the deck and typically away from whatever chore he’s skipped dinner with the crew to finish himself. And though Izzy always has some sort of protest at the ready, Stede never has to harangue him for long.
Then comes the night when Stede finds himself rather tired after the evening meal, his arms really quite sore, and he thinks that perhaps he’ll allow both himself and Izzy a well-deserved break. He’s tucked into an armchair with a book and a cup of tea at half past eight when there’s a rap at the cabin door. When he opens it, he finds Izzy standing in the hall with his sword in one hand and Stede’s in the other.
“You’re late,” Izzy mutters, thrusting Stede’s own blade at him hilt-first before marching away up to the deck.
It’s mid-January, and even in the north Caribbean the nights are cool, especially with the wind coming off of the sea. The crew has taken to sleeping belowdecks more often than not, which is convenient for Stede and Izzy’s purposes, but it doesn’t mean that they never have an audience.
“Go for the legs, Captain! The legs!” Frenchie is shouting, on one of the nights when Stede and Izzy’s lesson has once more become the evening’s entertainment.
“No no. Hands is far too short for that,” Roach argues, and Izzy scowls as he and Stede continue slowly circling one another like sharks. “Go for the head!”
“Using a difference in size against your opponent can be a viable strategy,” Izzy allows, rather magnanimously. Then he strikes out, whip-quick, and Stede is unprepared for the way that he does go for the legs. The first swing, Stede blocks. The second, he dodges by a hair. The third draws a stinging line across Stede’s thigh that would have been an amputation if Izzy hadn’t been holding one of the dulled blades they’d acquired for just this purpose.
“Just don’t forget that it goes both ways,” Izzy concludes, smirking as Stede rubs at his leg and grins back.
Stede can’t recall when Izzy had stopped cursing at him with every other piece of advice. He suspects that may have been when he became a halfway decent swordsman, in Izzy’s estimation.
The first time Stede manages to land Izzy on his back, he has half a second of shocked jubilation before wondering if the man is about to jump back up and slit his throat just on principle. He’s grateful that it’s late enough the crew had all grown bored of spectating and gone to bed. Izzy is always a hair less ruthless on the nights when they don’t have an audience, and Stede has often wondered at the fact that a man as skilled as Izzy Hands still feels he has anything to prove.
He’s shocked frozen when Izzy tips his head back against the deck and actually laughs.
“That, Bonnet,” he says, between throaty chuckles, “was not fucking bad.”
Stede remains stunned for several more moments, but he eventually has the presence of mind to reach out a hand and help Izzy back to his feet.
“Few more months, we might just make an effective killer out of you,” Izzy says, eyeing him up and down.
Stede supposes he ought to be a tad horrified by that prospect. It’s high praise though, coming from Izzy, so he elects to take it in stride.
“As long as I can keep Ed safe during the next raid, I’ll be happy.”
The near-perpetual scowl drops back onto Izzy’s face like an anchor.
“I told you back when we started this, Bonnet. Only thing you need to worry about is yourself.”
Stede shakes his head. “I’m always going to worry about Ed,” he says honestly. “If I can protect him—”
“That’s not your fucking job!”
Izzy’s expression is abruptly furious, and Stede rears back in surprise, left reeling by the sudden vitriol. There’s something buried in Izzy’s voice, beneath all that venom, something in his cutting glare he’s not quite fast enough to hide.
“You think it’s yours?” Stede asks, incredulous, and watches Izzy’s eyes go wide as the shot hits its mark. “You do, don’t you? You think—”
Izzy takes a step back. It’s such an unexpected move that Stede’s voice falters, and he can only watch as Izzy takes another, then another, all the while shaking his head with an expression that speaks not of denial, but of disbelief.
“You don’t understand anything,” Izzy rasps. “Not one fucking thing. You—” He breaks off, looks down at his own hands. Then he pulls off his glove, of all things.
“You think the raid by the Cartanica was as bad as it gets?” he asks, fingers working at the knot in his cravat.
Stede is by this point at such a loss, he can’t even think of responding to the rhetorical.
“Twenty years, I sailed with Blackbeard.” The cravat, ring and all, gets tucked away in the same pocket as the glove. Then Izzy’s hands are moving to the buttons on his waistcoat. “Another ten with Edward before that.” One by one, the buttons come free. When the waistcoat hangs open, Izzy fixes Stede with a look that lands like a physical blow. “Edward doesn’t kill.”
Stede has to swallow twice before he can tell Izzy, “I know,” and even then he barely manages a whisper.
“You think I’d be telling you if you didn’t?” Izzy snaps, tossing his waistcoat to the deck. He breaks eye contact again to unbutton his cuffs, and Stede takes the opportunity to draw a shaking breath. “The most notorious pirate to ever live—there isn’t a man or country sailing that doesn’t want him dead, and he won’t—” Izzy pauses, halfway through working down the line of buttons on his shirt. This time, when his eyes meet Stede’s, there’s a flash of something haunted there. “Not even to save his own goddamn life. You have no fucking idea what that’s like.” It takes only the smallest shrug, and Izzy’s shirt flutters to the boards beneath his feet. “Thirty years, I’ve kept him alive,” Izzy tells him, in a voice only just louder than the waves on the hull. “Thirty years. So yeah, Bonnet,” he whispers. “It’s my fucking job.”
Two meters in front of him, Israel Hands stands bared to the waist. And Stede doesn’t see it at first, the light of the half-moon being what it is. But then he does.
Edward has many scars—Stede is intimately familiar with every one of them. But Izzy—
Beneath all of his meticulously-buttoned up layers, Izzy Hands scarcely has anything else.
“Dear Lord, you—” Stede searches for the words, for any words, to describe what stands in front of him. He quickly ceases even trying. There are no words for what he’s suddenly been faced with.
Izzy’s torso is a battleground crisscrossed by lines, some short and fine, others wide and jagged, in every shade of white and pink and purple. His left hip is dominated by a red knot of scar tissue, ugly and raised, his right arm by a scattering of round marks that can only be from a musket. There’s a deep purple line on the left side of his chest, short and narrow like a stab wound, and so close to his heart that Stede doesn’t know how he’d survived it.
It’s this last that Stede finds himself reaching out towards, and only then does he realize his feet have carried him across the deck, closing the space that Izzy had put between them. He remembers himself just in time, but he still can’t quite manage to pull his arm away. His fingers hover centimeters above Izzy’s skin.
“How many times—?” Stede tries to ask. How many times had Izzy taken a bullet, stepped in front of a blade there wasn’t time to block? How many times over did Ed owe Izzy his life?
“Does it matter?” Izzy counters, with surprisingly little bite. He sounds, if anything, deeply tired. “A good captain protects his crew, and a first mate protects his captain. That’s all there is to it.”
That’s not all there is, Stede thinks fervently. Not even slightly. Because the tapestry of Izzy’s skin speaks to something Stede’s not sure there’s even a name for. Something beyond loyalty, beyond all sense—certainly beyond all duty.
Beyond anything Stede, for all the love in the world, will ever be capable of—he hasn't a single illusion about that.
Stede thinks of a dozen unavailing things he might say, discards them all. His fingers hover still, mere inches below Izzy’s heart. “What about you?” is what he finally asks, the words spilling out. By the time he realizes he’s given them voice, it’s far too late to take them back.
Izzy scowls. “What about me, Bonnet?”
“It’s your job to protect Ed,” Stede says firmly, almost fiercely. Because it has to be, he sees that now. He’s near certain both Ed and Izzy’s lives depend on it, and that thought frightens him and tears at him in equal measure.
Stede imagines any one of Izzy’s scars on Ed’s skin instead, and something inside of him breaks.
But seeing them on Izzy hurts nearly as much.
“It’s your job to protect Ed,” he says again. “And it’s Ed’s job to protect the crew.” Stede finally thinks to pull back his hand from where it hovers in the space between them, curls it next to his own heart instead. “Just—who’s protecting you then?”
Izzy scoffs—a short, ugly sound—and turns his head away.
“I don’t need anyone to protect me, Bonnet.”
And Stede nods. “Of course not,” he agrees. Because he’s certain that Izzy will accept nothing less. “Only—would you mind very much if I tried?”
All the months they’ve sailed together, and everything they’ve been through—Stede’s never seen shock written across Izzy’s face the way it is now.
“You—” Izzy sputters. Bared as he is, it’s impossible to miss the flush that starts in his chest and creeps up his neck. Whether it’s the mark of violent mortification or indignant rage, Stede honestly couldn’t say. “If you fucking— What?”
“I don’t imagine I could do but so much!” Stede hastens to clarify, as soon as he feels the odds might be slipping toward rage. “I just thought, well. That it could only help. With your looking out for Ed? If you knew that someone was watching your back too.” Stede forces himself to stop talking then. He resigns himself to the very real possibility that he might just wind up murdered by Izzy Hands in the middle of his own deck after all.
But Izzy only stares at him, long and hard and searching for something Stede can’t begin to guess at.
“You— If— Fine.” He bites out at last, and Stede lets out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding. Izzy tears his eyes away, suddenly looking absolutely anywhere that isn’t at Stede. The flush is still there beneath his skin, but Stede thinks that the odds of rage being the cause are rapidly diminishing. “If you want to—for Ed, that’s—fine.”
Stede’s almost surprised by the wash of relief that stilted capitulation brings him. He feels a smile threating, despite everything. “Thank you, Izzy,” he says, genuinely.
“Shut up, Bonnet,” Izzy spits back.
“Really, I—”
“I told you to shut the fuck up!”
“Fine!” Stede puts his hands in the air. “No more talking.” He looks around, finds where Izzy’s blade has been laying, forgotten, on the deck, and stoops to pick it up. He offers the sword up hilt-first.
Izzy, for the second time in as many minutes, looks at Stede as though he’s surely gone mad.
“What, you want to keep practicing?” Izzy asks. “Now?”
“Quite! Or, well—” He looks pointedly at Izzy’s chest. “I suppose you might put your shirt back on first.”
“Fucking Christ…”
“I’m only thinking of your health!” Stede vows, as Izzy snatches up the discarded garment and starts shoving his arms through the sleeves. “Part of watching your back means ensuring you don’t take ill with pneumonia, after all.”
“I swear to God, Bonnet, I will fucking end you.”
And Stede—well perhaps Stede has gone mad, just a bit. Because he finds himself positively grinning as he readies his own blade and prepares to engage a somewhat irate Izzy Hands. He doesn’t think about his stance, hasn’t in ages—he knows that it’s right.
“Well,” Stede answers. “You’re welcome to try.”