Chapter Text
The Kraken stood over Frenchie, screaming at him for something that he did – he couldn’t even remember what it was anymore.
The man’s eyes were huge in his thin face - they had always been so but now there was a hunger and wildness in their brown depths that seemed unnatural in a man.
They were not the eyes of man at all.
They were the eyes of a Kraken.
At first everyone thought something really bad had happened to Blackbeard. Torture maybe, or something like that, something that Stede didn’t survive – that was why he had seemed so very broken when he returned to the ship. And then it had leaked out, probably from Fang or Ivan – God knew Izzy Hands wasn’t talking.
They had escaped, Blackbeard and Stede, from the British and had planned to runaway – all the way to China wherever that was.
Frenchie couldn’t say that the idea that Stede would just up and leave the crew, without even trying to get in contact – particularly when he must have known that Izzy, angry, vengeful Izzy Hands who had all the reason in the world to hate them and make them pay, had been given the Revenge as his own by the British – didn’t hurt.
But it was very on brand for Stede, so the bard couldn’t exactly say he was surprised either.
Anyway, that was what they had planned to do – but Stede never showed up at the dock, and according to Blackbeard anyway, this was because he had abandoned him.
Exactly why he had done this, didn’t matter to the legendary pirate.
Blackbeard had been in love with Stede Bonnet, and had gotten his heart stomped on. And now … that was everyone else’s problem.
Blackbeard had opened his mouth so wide to scream at Frenchie that they young bard could see the hanging tonsils at the back of his throat. They wriggled and writhed as the man’s screams descended from a vocal admonishment of Frenchie’s stupidity to what could only be described as a wordless wail of pain and rage and all things bad.
Frenchie knew he should be afraid, probably was deep down within the little box inside his head, but honestly, he’d been afraid so much lately - that the whole situation was just starting to make him feel numb.
As Frenchie watched that great pirate of legend and myth stomp up and down like a child that had been denied his favourite toy, Frenchie couldn’t help but wonder why he had never seen it before? Seen quite how unhinged ‘Ed’ was – because this, this wasn’t the usual reaction to a breakup, even a pirate break up.
This wasn’t the reaction of someone getting over a breakup at all. This was the reaction of an unhinged madman, who maybe had always been an unhinged madman.
And again Frenchie wondered why he had never seen it before? Or at least never realised it before?
But the truth, as was so often the case with things like this, was that he had. He just hadn’t known what he was seeing at the time.
***
It had been the first week that Blackbeard had been on the Revenge.
Captain Bonnet was still ill, lying feverous and mostly delusional in his bed. They’d all been kind of convinced he was going to die. Blackbeard’s rescue had still been so new and exciting that they almost didn’t care that technically he, or at least his crew, had captured the Revenge and were now trying to control it. And the crew of the Revenge herself were technically prisoners on their own ship – looking back that really should have bothered them more than it had. But there had been a lot else going on: Jim wasn’t a guy, Blackbeard wasn’t just a story in Black Pete’s tall tales, and the captain hadn’t been executed by the Spanish … there was a lot to process.
Plus, they all just met a real-life hobbit.
Granted one that was constantly angry and screaming at them that he was in charge and that they were prisoners now but still … hobbits were hobbits, and back then that had been a magical word. Look, he wasn’t really proud of this next part, but you have to understand that hobbits, or at least the idea of them were a really big deal on the oceans.
They weren’t just lucky, they were charmed. And the fact that Blackbeard had a hobbit as his first mate - that just made him all the cooler.
Plus, Blackbeard was that fearsome creature of legend, so the fact that he seemed to really like the crew just made him, he didn’t know, more awesome. So maybe Frenchie had developed a little bit of a … he wouldn’t say crush. Because he didn’t really think his feelings were romantic, or sexual, or even just plain old infatuation.
But he was fascinated by the man, the man that had managed to get a hobbit on his ship a hobbit … a race that were notoriously wary of the water … so yeah maybe he turned into a little a bit of a stalker.
But only like for maybe two days at the most, and he wasn’t really good at it or anything like that.
It was sometimes he happened to be sitting somewhere, strumming on his lute and then maybe Blackbeard would walk by. Maybe he’d be talking, usually to himself about the clouds but once … the last time that Frenchie had dared to do this … there was someone else with him.
It was Izzy Hands.
“Who is she?” I mean not that, that had been Blackbeard but the answering reply, that had been Izzy Hands
“The feck is who?”
Yep, that had … probably been Izzy Hands. I mean it had to be, who else would have spoken to Blackbeard like that? Everyone else on his crew were much too afraid of him – bedwettingly so? Which in hindsight, should have been the first clue that something had been a bit off about the man.
But again, there had been a lot to process at the time.
“Mary. Who the fuck is Mary?”
“We don’t have women on the ship, or effeminately named men, so I don’t know why you would think I knew. Edward, we need a plan. I can’t read your damn mind, so if you have one will you please stop being so fucking mysterious and whimsical and just tell me. Is it something to do with the clouds, or the birds, or fucking Bonnet in the bed?”
“Yes, Bonnet in the Bed. Bonnet in the Bed. It’s to do with him, it’s all to do with him. He’s the one that said it.”
“Said what?” Said the hobbit in Frenchie’s memory.
“Mary.” Said Blackbeard so calmly as if this was not only the answer to the question that Izzy Hands had just asked, but the answer to all the questions that Izzy Hands would ever ask. It wasn’t of course, but the way Blackbeard said the name then … it really sounded like it.
But not clearly to Izzy Hands.
“Bonnet is not awake and he’s currently recovering from being very thoroughly almost hung, so whatever he’s says is a delusion. Sleep talk from a dream.”
“Names don’t come from nowhere; he could have known a Mary.”
“Not on this ship - the only one who’s not a man here is that Jim person.”
“And you.”
“I was talking sex, not species, you twat.”
“I’m not a twat.”
“Then stop acting like one”
Suddenly there was a terrible sound of something hitting flesh, and the rustle of movement. Maybe even the sound of someone’s hand crushing a windpipe and a hobbit’s gasp, and that terrible rasping voice edging the words.
“Frodo Fucking Flying Twat.” Out, through gasps for air.
“I am not a twat, you halfling dog.” Said Blackbeard in a voice that was too calm for comfort. “You remember that, or I’ll chop off your toe and feed it to you.”
Suddenly there was a thud, like the sound of someone quite short falling from a great hight, and Frenchie heard the sound – he was sure he heard the sound – of Izzy Hands breathing great gulps of air. As if no one had their hand around his throat anymore stopping him.
“Now,” said Blackbeard still panting himself. “The name, we need to know who she is?”
Another gulp of air from Izzy Hands and then….
“She’s probably a woman he abandoned back on shore, he wouldn’t be the first. Either way she’s not here, so whoever she was to him before, it can’t have meant enough to take her with him.”
“Women aren’t allowed on ships.”
“And they don’t have libraries either, but that rule clearly didn’t bother him.”
Silence, and the soft pants of two pirates then … “Yes, you’re right. You’re right of course, I’m just … I’m just letting this all get to me. I just … I think I need a sleep, a lie down … I’m tired.”
There was the sound of boots slapping against the boards of the ship’s deck and then … Blackbeard walked by, back into view. He didn’t look at Frenchie sitting on his little box in the shadows. Didn’t see him. But the voice behind him did.
“What on Gandalf’s Balls are you looking at, Twatface?”
Then Izzy Hands had screamed at him and told him to get back to work and Frenchie had put the incident into the tiny black box in his mind where he kept all the bad things that happened. He hadn’t thought about it anymore.
But looking back now … yeah there had been signs.