Chapter Text
There’s nothing Izzy loves more than the smell of smoke. Specifically, the smell of smoke on water. It's a different scent altogether than a bonfire on land. A fire on land is just that, a fire. Smells like smoke. But a fire burning on the sea takes on a rich layer of salt and brine, sparks born and dead in an instant, extinguished by the waves. It smells like home.
This particular smoke is, of course, coming from the burning ship around them. It's a merchant vessel, decent sized. A small prize for Blackbeard, but they need the rations a ship like this is sure to have aboard. They haven’t made port in weeks now, and they’re running dangerously low. Burning it wasn’t exactly what Izzy had in mind, but- well, it's rare, these days, to see Ed like this. And right now? Ed is fucking glorious. He’s little more than a shadow in the combined smoke of the burning ship and the long-burning matches he’s lit in his hair, a phantom, the Reaper himself, doling out life and death with a languor that could almost read as boredom, if it weren’t for the clear glee with which Ed’s sword cuts into another sailor.
Even after all these years, he still takes Izzy’s breath away. This is his captain. This is the man that Izzy would live and die for. This is the man who took Izzy’s face in his hands and carved a brand into his cheek with ink and a needle. This is the man Izzy would burn the world for. This is the man who would light the match to do so.
Izzy should be perfectly, resplendently happy. If it weren’t for two small details, he would be. But those details are getting harder and harder to ignore.
The first detail is the shadow over Ed’s face, the way his eyes droop and how, every so often, his foot catches, sending him stumbling. He’s not drunk, Izzy doesn’t think, but too many sleepless nights can be just as potent as a lethal amount of rum.
The second detail is that their men are dying around them like flies. This detail isn’t important to Ed. It hasn’t been for years. It's important to Izzy, though not because he particularly cares about the crew. He has a select few that he harbors a small amount of affection, and a larger amount of respect, for. The rest of them are cunts and he could care less about them. But they’re resources. And right now, Ed seems determined to burn resources, animate and inanimate alike, quicker than Izzy can bring them in. It means that they’re stuck with some real bottom of the barrel talent, and it shows in raids like this one.
It’s a fucking merchant ship. There's no reason to be sustaining loss of life at the level they are. Izzy can count four of their own sprawled across the deck, dead already or beyond help, and he swears.
Another sailor charges him. He’s little more than a boy, maybe seventeen, with blood splattered across his clothes and a face white as a ghost. Izzy cuts him down without hesitation.
Across the deck, he sees Ivan take a blade in the side, and that’s what breaks the illusion. Ivan is one of the aforementioned handful of crew that Izzy likes. He brought Ivan into this life himself, years before, choosing him out of a lineup of hostages from a captured ship. There was something about the way Ivan met his eyes, defiant and angry underneath the haze of fear, that made Izzy take a liking to him. He’ll be damned if he loses him on a raid like this. Ivan deserves to go out with a little dignity.
“Blackbeard!” he hollers, cutting his way towards the cloud of smoke that obscures his captain. He can barely see Edward’s face, but the cloud pauses, like it's listening.
“It's done!” Izzy says. “We have what we came for.”
“Not done till they’re all dead.” Edward’s voice, rough and cracking, emerges from the smoke. It slithers across Izzy’s skin, settling around his throat like a lover’s caress.
“They’ll go down with the ship,” Izzy insists, even as that voice threatens to choke him. “There’s no land for miles, captain. They’re dead already.”
There’s a long, extended pause. Izzy fights the urge to look towards Ivan, to see if he’s managed to get back to his feet, if Fang’s with him, or another of the crew, or if he's been skewered by some fresh-faced sailor-
“We’ll watch it burn,” Ed says quietly. “From the ship.”
Izzy latches onto that like a lifeline. “She’ll burn spectacularly, captain.”
“Very good, Izzy,” Blackbeard says. “Get our boys back.”
He doesn’t need telling a second time. Izzy snaps to, barking orders. He manages to get to Ivan without it looking like he’s showing favoritism. The man’s leaning against the railing, hand pressed to his side in an attempt to staunch the blood flow. He’s breathing hard.
“Come on, then,” Izzy says. “Lean on me.”
“Barely a bee sting, Izzy,” Ivan says, but he grabs Izzy's shoulder with a force that betrays the severity of the wound.
They limp back across to the Revenge before something fundamental in the merchant ship cracks in two. Izzy can see Blackbeard, standing at the helm, hair still smoking, watching the flames with an inscrutable expression.
Screams echo across the water. Something in Izzy sings in response.
He has to go to his captain. He knows this. Edward will be expecting it. To do anything else- it's unthinkable.
But Ivan’s grip on his shoulder is weakening, and they have no doctor aboard. Their last one fell in a raid two weeks ago.
“Come on,” he says to Ivan, urging him forward. Where he’s going, he’s not certain. Izzy’s no doctor, but he’ll tend to Ivan himself if he must. In the end, he takes him to the galley, sitting him down at the table.
“Keep pressure, and don’t fucking move,” he instructs. Ivan’s head lolls on his shoulders, eyes glazed over, but he nods.
“Yes, boss.”
“Good man.”
The cook served as the fucking doctor on Bonnet’s ship, right? He must have kept something here, something that would have gone overlooked in Edward’s purge of anything to do with the man who broke his heart. But Izzy’s head is swimming, from the smoke or the adrenaline or the way his eyes keep flicking back to Ivan to make sure he’s conscious, and he can’t fucking think-
“Looking for something?”
Izzy nearly slams his hand in a drawer as he straightens with a curse, coming face to face with one of the two remaining relics of Stede Bonnet left on this ship.
“Where the fuck did you come from?”
“Around,” Frenchie says with a jerky shrug. “What are you looking for?”
“What’s it to you?”
It's an involuntary response, given the same way Izzy would break a man’s nose for touching him unexpectedly. Frenchie doesn’t react. He just stares at him, with dark eyes both blank and uncannily perceptive all at once.
He’s never quite been able to get a read on Frenchie. He’d dismissed him entirely on Bonnet’s ship, to be very frank. The man’s clearly not a pirate. He’d lumped him in with Lucius in terms of usefulness. Maybe slightly above, if only because Lucius was, in Izzy’s opinion, the worst waste of space on Stede Bonnet’s ship aside from Stede Bonnet himself.
All he knows about Frenchie is that he’s an equally fair hand with a needle as he is with a lute, and that Izzy can count on one hand the number of times he’s seen him since the rest of Bonnet’s crew was marooned. And that realization is one he hasn’t had before. He’s been hiding, likely, which means he’s more clever than Izzy’s given him credit for.
The only other thing he can guess about Frenchie is that he hates Izzy. Then again, that’s true of most everyone in Izzy’s life, even Ed, most days. Izzy’s not a likable man, and he’s marooned Frenchie’s crew.
He’s not sure if it's hate he’s reading in Frenchie’s eyes now, or something else. Doesn’t much matter.
“Just trying to be helpful,” Frenchie says. It takes Izzy a moment to remember what he’s responding to. In that moment, Ivan lets out a groan. Frenchie’s head snaps his direction at once, body tense and alert. His eyes widen.
“Shit, mate,” he says. He all but vaults the divider between the galley and the storage to get to Ivan. He places a hand on his shoulder, helping hold him up. “Shit, you good?”
“Peachy, what’s it look like?” Ivan says. There’s no bite to it, not the way there would be if Izzy had said it. Frenchie gives him a grin, a shadow of how he used to smile back on the Revenge.
“Let me see,” he says, inching Ivan’s shirt up past his stomach, dropping to a crouch next to him. He prods at the skin around the wound with a long finger.
“Stitches, yeah?” he says. “I think, anyway.”
“We don’t have a doctor,” Ivan says.
“Yeah, I know. I was offering,” Frenchie says. Izzy frowns.
“You’re not a fucking doctor.”
“Nope. Skin and fabric’s not so different, though,” Frenchie says. “I mean, if you’re cool with it, I can. Unless you want Stabby here.”
He jerks a thumb towards Izzy. It coaxes a chuckle out of Ivan, Frenchie smiling encouragingly.
“Go on then,” Ivan says. “Iz’s sewn me up before. It always scars.”
“Not a fucking seamstress, am I?” Izzy mutters.
“Lucky for you, I basically am,” Frenchie says. “That’s why I’m here, isn’t it?”
That comment has a bit of a bite to it. Izzy chooses to ignore it.
Frenchie fishes a pincushion and some thread out of a pocket of his over-large shirt, instructing Ivan to keep his own shirt held up while Frenchie works. Izzy lingers, though he should be getting to Ed or risk suffering the consequences, but he’s hesitant to leave Ivan alone with Frenchie- though, really, what risk does Frenchie pose to someone like Ivan, a seasoned pirate, someone Izzy’s trained himself? But he knows Frenchie’s lying about skin and fabric being basically the same. Izzy’s sewn both. Skin’s trickier.
Frenchie, though, seems to have a handle on it. He bites the thread off with his teeth, threading the needle, all the while keeping up a steady stream of conversation with Ivan, keeping him conscious and alert.
Izzy wonders, for the first time, what kind of a life Frenchie’s lived, that would allow him to treat a moment like this with such levity.
He moves towards the door. Frenchie looks up, pausing in his movements.
“First mate Hands, sir,” he says. Izzy turns just in time to see him hold out a piece of cloth. Izzy takes two steps forward, taking it cautiously.
“What’s this?”
“For your arm,” Frenchie says, gesturing to Izzy’s left. Izzy looks down, and frowns. Huh. He hadn’t even noticed that one. He nods once, the only gesture of gratitude Izzy knows how to display.
“Just want to be helpful,” Frenchie says, for the second time.
***
Ed’s still standing at the bow when Izzy emerges, cloth held to the gash in his arm. It's not bad, but he’ll be sore come morning. He’s always sore, though. Always hurts. This injury is just another discomfort in the long list of discomforts life sees fit to hand Izzy.
Ed doesn’t look up as he approaches. He keeps his eyes fixed on the burning wreckage of the merchant ship, the flames reflecting in the dark water. There’s a few crewmen still splashing in the waves, grabbing onto boards and bits of furniture. They’ll be dead come morning. It’s a cold night, and the sea is cruel enough to freeze a man, right down to his marrow. Ed seems to take no pleasure in it. His hands are clenched on the railing in front of him, dried blood crusting on his gloves. The kohl on his face is flaking, smearing underneath his eyes and across his jaw. Izzy can see the ends of the matches Ed used to create the smoking effect scattered across the deck.
“You missed it,” Ed says, not looking up. He’s right. The ship’s still going down, but the best part of the burning is past.
“Sorry, boss,” Izzy says. “Ivan got stabbed. Had to sort him.”
“Doctor’s job, isn’t it?”
“Doctor’s dead, captain,” Izzy says. Ed frowns.
“Really?”
“Two weeks ago.”
“Mmm. Shame.”
“It is. We need a doctor,” Izzy says. He neglects to mention Frenchie, tending to Ivan in the galley. Seems unnecessarily cruel to undo all of the work Frenchie's done to stay out of the spotlight when it doesn’t matter.
“We’ll get one,” Ed says, waving a hand.
“We really need one. We lost a lot of crew today, Edward,” Izzy says. It's maybe the wrong time to push this, but lately, it's never the right time with Edward, and the sight of those four bodies lying dead on the deck of the merchant ship, sunk to the bottom of the sea now, lingers whenever he blinks.
“How many?”
“Four. Maybe five,” Izzy says, casting an eye around, seeing Orik leaning against a barrel, a nasty looking stab wound in his ribs. Even with a doctor, his chances would have been slim. Izzy counts him among the dead now.
“Worth it, though,” Ed murmurs, flames dancing in his eyes.
“Hope so. How much did we get?”
“What do you mean?”
Something drops like a stone in Izzy’s gut. “Supplies, captain. What did we get?”
“What supplies, mate?”
Edward sounds genuinely baffled, like he’s no idea what Izzy’s talking about.
“Supplies- Edward, tell me you’re joking. We- the whole point-”
“Ah, ah,” Ed says, holding up a finger. “The point was to watch it burn.”
He points at the ship. “She’s burning. And you were right. She burned spectacularly.”
Izzy draws in a deep, shuddering breath. “We needed those supplies, boss. We don’t have enough to make it to port-”
“Then we’ll just take another ship,” Ed says with a shrug.
“With what fucking crew?” Izzy demands. “Edward, look around-”
He’s silenced at once by a single, cutting glance from Ed.
“We’ll take whatever ship I say we’ll take,” Ed says. “That’s how it works. Right, Izzy?”
Izzy chooses his next words carefully, the place where his toe used to be throbbing painfully. “Yes. All I’m saying, captain, is that our boys are stretched. We don’t have a lot of men right now.”
Ed takes that in, tilting his head.
“We lost how many?”
“Five, boss.”
“We have two crew we aren’t using.”
It takes Izzy a second to realize who he's talking about.
“Do you mean-”
“Mhm.”
“You let Jimenez out of the hold, they’ll kill you,” Izzy says bluntly.
“They can try,” Ed murmurs. He almost sounds like he welcomes it. “You won’t let them, will you, Izzy?”
The thing is, Izzy’s not so sure he can best Jimenez. They’re talented. Top of the line, for Bonnet’s crew, even for his. They’re younger and spryer and fueled by an anger Izzy is more than familiar with.
“Course not,” he says, instead of voicing this. “But- Frenchie’s not a fighter, boss.”
“He’s a pirate, isn't he?”
Debatable.
“On a technicality, maybe,” Izzy says. “I don’t know that he can even hold a sword.”
“He might surprise you. It's like you said, isn't it? We need every man we can get.”
There’s a logic there, is the thing. It makes it difficult to argue. Izzy’s not even sure why he wants to argue. He’s got no investment in Frenchie’s life. Whether he lives or dies, Izzy likely wouldn’t bat an eye. But Frenchie could be helpful. He can be, just not on the front lines of a fight. He’s proven that tonight, keeping Ivan from bleeding out. Put him on the front lines, and next time, he might not be around to do it.
“Boss-”
Whatever he was going to say is cut off by Ed turning to him, a flash of what looks like real concern overtaking his features. It softens him, just for a moment, makes him look years younger than he is.
“You hurt, Izzy?” he asks. His hand darts out to where Izzy’s holding the wad of fabric to his arm. Izzy can feel the leather of his gloves over his skin.
“Just a scratch,” Izzy says, throat dry. Ed hums, deep in his chest, eyebrows furrowing as he nudges Izzy’s hand aside. There’s a slash in his shirt sleeve, blood seeping out around the fabric. It's slowing, though. Edward replaces the cloth all the same, applying a steady pressure.
“Gotta keep yourself in one piece,” he says chidingly. “Can’t do this without you.”
“I'll try harder next time,” Izzy says. A tiny smile plays on Ed’s lips, and for a moment, Izzy forgets entirely that he’s not in one piece at all, and Edward is the culprit behind that.
This is his captain. This is their life. He has what he wanted, Blackbeard is back, Blackbeard is his and he is Blackbeard’s.
If all that is true, Izzy can overlook the pit steadily forming in the center of his stomach. He can overlook a lot of things, when it comes to Edward.