Chapter Text
The last thing Izzy remembered was getting shot and dying, quite painfully. At least he was pretty certain he remembered that happening. So when he woke back up on the deck of the Revenge he was all but convinced he'd landed in his own personal hell.
The fact that the crew were all standing over him, huddled like a flock of vultures with the sour expressions to match, didn't help. They looked down their noses at him like they'd smelled a rotting corpse, faces scrunched in varying degrees of disgust.
He'd landed himself in the gravy basket, because what other explanation was there?
“Why the hell are you back, Dizzy?”
“what?” distantly, he'd registered how small he sounded, how completely put-out. Not like he didn't have the right to, he just got fucking shot and died for fuck sake.
The crew side-eyed each other, exchanging silent conversation. Lucius just rolled his eyes, hands on hips before crouching down and repeating his question, enunciating each syllable like Izzy was a particularly slow child.
“you've been banished, y'know- kicked out, exiled. Ordered to fuck all the way off and never come back?” there was a glint of joy in Lucius’ eyes, the twat was enjoying this. Izzy knew the man wasn't a massive fan of his but even as socially constipated as Izzy was, he honestly thought the two of them had developed some kind of kinship after The Kraken incident. Or at the very least a begrudging respect for each other.
There was no respect in Lucius' eyes, just malicious glee “you lost Jizzy, remember?” his tone syrupy sweet. “Our captain beat you in one-on-one combat and kicked. You. Off.” he said, jabbing his wooden finger into Izzy's chest. Izzy barely felt it. The longer he laid there, the more questions he had. Each more pressing and disturbing than the last. If not for what he could only describe as shell-shock, dampening all his emotions, he might have just imploded right there on the deck.
He might have preferred that in fact, over the telltale hum of panic that had slowly kept up on him as he forced himself to take in more of his surroundings, searching for answers no one seemed willing to give.
For one, Ed wasn't there. He should be, he was the last blessed thing Izzy saw as he slipped away from the world of the living. Ed had been there, held him as Izzy breathed his last. Face split in grief for a man he knew for a fact to be dying. Hair cascading down his shoulders, shrouding Izzy's face like a mourning veil.
He wasn't here. But why would he be? Izzy was in hell after all. There'd be no Edward to comfort him here.
The next thing that struck him was just how little he ached.
It only registered after Lucius poked at him.
It felt like he was wrapped in thick padding, swaddled in a blanket of blissful numbness. The kind that follows just waking from a dream.
Izzy was old, certainly ancient by pirate standards. He ached and creaked like an old board. His leg, or rather his stump, was a constant nuisance. His joints complained at every opportunity.
And of course, there was the bullet that had killed him.
It should have given some sign it was there, some sensation. Pain, an icy chill, a maddening itch. Anything at all to signify the damage it had done.
But all Izzy felt was the tingling of adrenaline as the final damning details sank in.
He looked around, really looked.
Ignoring the heckling of the crew as he lay on deck, surrounded by faces he recognised, the same but different.
They all looked younger.
Not by much, not by a long shot. But the time he spent with the crew during the reign of The Kraken had aged them all. It changed them the same way war changes young soldiers. Hollows them out and fills them with horror.
Frenchie looked fuller, he was always slender, but there was a softer edge to him that months of scarce rations hadn't stolen yet. His clothes were plainer, his eyes brighter and not sunken or tired.
Fang looked more put together, face pulled down in concern and confusion. Izzy didn't manage to take in much more before he'd noticed that next to Fang, stood Ivan.
Ivan? What the fuck?
Izzy had a sudden, manic thought that maybe they'd both somehow ended up in the same corner of hell together, because Izzy distinctly remembered throwing the man's dead body overboard during a funeral at sea.
Jim was wearing their old tan coat, the same one that had been shredded to pieces in a raid, they wore a dagger at their hip that Izzy would have sworn they'd lost months ago during a storm too. Their hair was longer, in a way that suggested months of growth at least.
Or in a way that suggested time had passed, just in the completely wrong direction.
It was absurd, the fact Izzy was even entertaining the idea. His head was spinning, reeling from all the minor details that would only ever make sense in a fever dream. The whole crew were so utterly unchanged from what Izzy remembered from the early days.
Then there was Lucius. He was rounder in the face, clean shaven besides the side burns. He was sporting his older, less flattering clothing.
And of course, he looked absolutely delighted, in that cruel, scheming kind of way Izzy remembered.
Only Lucius hadn't looked at him like that in months. None of the crew had. Izzy felt an awful lot like one of those insects Bonnet liked to collect, pinned to a board.
He could feel himself squirm under the intense stares. He couldn't take much more. The electrifying thrum of adrenaline he'd felt simmering beneath the surface had come crashing in all at once as Izzy sat up with such abruptness that the rest of the crew jumped back.
Lucius had stumbled and landed flat on his ass, stringing together curses and pleas for Izzy to not kill him. Jim had pulled a dagger, poised and ready, muttering threats. Frenchie, Fang and Ivan had sprang back and landed in the arms of Black Pete, Roach and Wee John like a set of startled dominos.
Izzy's head was pounding, he looked around frantically, sitting ramrod straight, ignoring the commotion around him. He needed to find Ed. Find out where the fuck he was. What the fuck was happening.
Was he in hell? The gravy basket? Davey Jones damn fucking locker? Was he dreaming?
The crew's voices had blended into one another, white noise, loud and all encompassing until Izzy's gaze landed on the ghastly pale eyes of Bottons, standing by the mast.
Buttons looked back, and damn it Izzy could have sworn the man knew.
“Looks like ye’ve been thru quite the ordeal there Mr ‘ands.” he said like some ominous sage, eyes never once leaving Izzy's. It felt like he wasn't looking at him but through him.
“what the fuck?” Izzy managed, eloquently. He was at least present enough in mind to be pleased that he sounded more angry than scared.
“The Sea has her favorites, and she ain't done with ye yet.”
The rest of the crew had settled down a little in leu of whatever was going down between the previous first mate and Buttons. If Izzy could spare any space in his brain to care, he might have even paid attention to what they were whispering about. But as it was Izzy just found himself parroting his favorite phrase.
“what the fuck?” his previous anger slipping into something uncomfortably close to desperation as he looked down into his lap.
The cold dread that settled in his stomach had curdled abruptly into hysteric fear.
He had both his legs.
He kept staring, as if willing the illusion to shatter and for reality to come flooding in. If he looked hard enough, this dream would crack and Izzy would wake up.
He had half a mind to jump over the railing of the ship and into the sea, in an effort to sober up before registering that Button was talking to him.
“-fair to all her children, and She's given ye a gift. A second chance as it were. Dinnae waste it.”
“what. The. Fuck?” that one sounded hollow even to Izzy's own ears. But it was all he could force out, his tongue felt heavy, his mouth numb. He wanted to ask more, needed to.
He didn't know when exactly he'd accepted Buttons as some Oracle with all the answers. But somewhere between spilling his guts on deck earlier and dying, traveling back in time, or being flung so hard into the darkest vault in Hell he suffered literal whiplash, he decided Buttons was the absolute authority on all things impossible and otherwise batshit insane.
With that, he'd rallied his scattered mind enough to try to force out a more productive question. Before a chipper, shrill voice pierced through the air.
“What on earth is all this commotion about everyone?”
The crew that had previously been huddled around Izzy had parted like the red sea as Stede fucking Bonnet swanned in.