Chapter Text
Izzy is dead. Surrounding him, there is only darkness and silence. Then, slowly, encroaching pain. His back hurts first and the ache spreads like fire to his shoulders, hips, knees, head–too many places to count. Yes, this must be death.
Hell is real, Izzy thinks, the old nuns were right after all.
Yet Izzy rouses still, becoming more aware of his state. He's laying on his back. Every breath feels sharp and short in his lungs; each inhale scrapes past his throat making it tickle uncomfortably. His mouth is full of gritty dirt and dust and gunpowder. Izzy can taste blood on the backs of his teeth.
When Izzy tries to open his eyes, his eyelids feel impossibly heavy and he simply cannot will them to move.
Suddenly, Izzy realizes he must be alive. A dead man has no need to take desperate, retching breaths, no need to unstick tender eyelids. Izzy's heartbeat is pounding through his skull, down his spine, in every single place where his body aches.
Damn.
Izzy forces his eyes open, blinking to clear the dust and blood away. He can't see anything, at first. Panics that he's gone blind. Only then Izzy sees the barest beam of light breaking the dark.
He's not dead but he's buried.
Izzy's beating heart picks up speed, blood racing through his veins like lightning in a storm. His grave is made of busted deck, broken rails, splintered support beams. As if he'd been in the bowels of a ship only to have the whole thing collapse in on top of him.
Is that what happened?
Izzy can't remember exactly how he'd ended up as he is. His breathing is quicker now but each breath is unbearably short, hardly any air makes it into his lungs. Shifting, Izzy realizes his chest is restricted, pinned down by a heavy length of wood. The reason he's finding it difficult to breathe, other than the gritty air and the panic racing in his blood, is the weight of the support beam pressing him down flat onto his back. Izzy couldn't lift the thing off himself even if he could move his arms into a better position. Which means Izzy is trapped.
Other than the distant and familiar ringing in his ears, everything around Izzy is quiet. Izzy can hear no shouting, no gunfire, no clashing of blades. Not a battle, then. Or the battle has long since finished. In the eerie silence, no one is talking, laughing, singing. Certainly, no one is calling out to him. Izzy doesn't know how he ended up buried in the oak guts of an unfamiliar vessel. He does know, however, that no one is coming to save him. No one ever has before.
Izzy is not about to lay here and die quietly. It's simply not in his nature. Death by sea or by blade, like a real pirate, is the only way Izzy knows how to leave this God forsaken world.
So Izzy takes stock of himself. He moves one foot, the other. His ankles are free but his left foot is in agony. Still, if he moves them into the right position, Izzy should be able to use his legs. If he can shimmy under the beam seated across his chest, Izzy may be able to climb his way out of the debris. Just as Izzy plants his feet to start moving, the beam on top of him is suddenly lifted.
Izzy sucks in a massive breath that sets him off coughing. A bit of the dizziness in his brain clears when Izzy finally gets in some air. That's when he can focus enough to see he's no longer alone. Wee John, Fang, and Ivan are moving debris and wood aside. Frenchie and the Swede are above Izzy a bit pointing down at him. Izzy stares up at them in confusion.
Why isn't anyone talking?
Izzy can't get this lot to shut up even on bad days. They talk through storms, in the middle of the night when they should be asleep, through work, through meals. Izzy has never heard the idiots be so goddamn quiet in the entire time he's known them.
Unsettled, Izzy tries to get up so he can get away from this weirdness as soon as possible.
A familiar hand on his shoulders halts him.
Ed is staring at Izzy, dark eyes full of intense emotion. So Izzy is in trouble, then. While Izzy can't remember what he's done, he's sure it's awful to warrant this maudlin, foreboding atmosphere. Ed's mouth opens like he's speaking, but no words escape.
"Captain?"
The moment Izzy speaks, all the blood inside his body turns to ice. He freezes. His breathing stops dead.
Izzy cannot hear the words coming from his own mouth. Izzy cannot, in fact, hear anything.
Frantically, Izzy tries to sit up again, to move, to run, to do something , but Edward holds him down once more. The other man gets in Izzy's face this time. Ed looks mad and upset, eyebrows furrowed in confusion, mouth twisted in anger, eyes glistening and giving away his worry and fear.
Izzy, Edward's lips curl around Izzy's name in such a familiar way, Izzy recognizes it immediately. So many years Izzy has spent staring at Ed's lips while the other man speaks. Now Izzy can understand some of what he's saying.
–stay still, Ed seems to be telling him, you hit your head, Ed continues, pointing at Izzy's head as he talks.
That makes sense. Izzy has seen a myriad of injuries in his lifetime and has known many a man who survived a severe injury to the head. Some of those men lost memories, others the ability to speak, others still the control of their own limbs. Head wounds are nasty and unpredictable.
Why didn't you– Ed looks frustrated, we–calling for you.
Izzy blinks up at the other man.
"Edward," Izzy hopes he's speaking out loud, hopes he sounds clear, hopes his voice isn't as weak and cracking as it feels, "I can't-"
Izzy is suddenly so tired. Dying would have been so much easier than this. Death is a mercy compared to life as an invalid. Reaching across his chest, Izzy finds Ed's hand where it's resting on his shoulder. When Izzy curls his fingers over Ed's knuckles, Ed's eyes widen. Just as Izzy is about to confess his failure to his captain, they are interrupted.
Ed's head whips up and he snaps his hand back from Izzy. Bonnet and Roach stumble into Izzy's line of sight, both running their mouths. Izzy can't pick out the familiar shapes of any words on their lips. So Izzy simply closes his eyes.
As they move him, Izzy offers neither help nor resistance. The three other men are careful as they roll Izzy to his side, slide a flat surface under him, and lay him back down. His whole body hurts so much but the pain makes Izzy feel distant and floaty. He's not sure he loses consciousness but one moment Izzy is laying on the floor, the next he's tied down to what feels like a door, and then he's being lifted up. Izzy doesn't have the energy to open his eyes anymore.
The muffled quiet is suffocating, not relaxing. Izzy's body gives in to exhaustion either way. Izzy feels the warmth of the sun on his eyelids before he finally passes out.