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rottingformerfirstmate · 2 years

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Summary: Ed and Izzy have an unfortunate run-in with an old friend. The circumstances are less than ideal and the relationship between Izzy and Ed is less than simple- but if they’re lucky, maybe they’ll have the chance to sort it out. (BlackHands, Background BlackBonnet)

Warnings: Canon-Typical Violence, Torture, Kidnapping. For more detailed warnings direct message me.

WC: 6.4k | AO3 | Part: 1/2

There's no such thing as loyalty between pirate captains. In the best of times, a temporary truce can occasionally be reached, but even those are liable to immediate dismissal if a more lucrative offer reaches a captain's ear. Izzy knows this because he keeps a record of these things, a score book tallied in ink along his ribs of who Blackbeard might be more kind to. It's not a debt log, because there's no one who Blackbeard would indebt himself to, but it is a collection of symbols representing those most important to remember and their favor. Beneath the smooth leather of his vest and the thin weave of his shirt lie the marks of a thousand battles fought. It was nearly six years ago that they started the record. It now mars too much of Izzy’s skin. He still wears it with pride, though, and remains still facing the wall as Ed traces the marks with one light hand.

“I’m sorry, I’m still not quite following,” Stede admits, hanging back by about a foot, but still a clear presence disrupting any intimacy such a moment may have had. “Why keep a- a ‘scoreboard’ on Izzy?”

“I wouldn’t mind to write it on paper, if you’ll translate the symbols,” Lucius offers.

Reminded of both men providing company, Izzy tenses, but he doesn’t shift away from the gentle brush of the pads of Ed’s calloused fingers. Even in the darkest of days, Izzy has never shrunk from such a reverent touch, though it did not always remain gentle. Ed lets his palm flatten out across Izzy’s side, his pinkie splaying down toward the sharp line of the pelvis while his index finger drapes over the bumps of ribs, almost petting him in the way one may soothe a startled horse.

“Maybe not.”

Stede hums thoughtfully. “Is it a first mate thing?”

“It’s a First Mate Hands thing,” Ed corrects. He returns his attention to the score, tracing the scarred over symbol for an enemy long since vanquished and dead. “Hard to lose a record when it’s inked into my right hand’s skin.”

He locates the small cat, poorly inked in the middle of a late night a few months ago by Ed’s booze-laden hand. The tattoo, though newer than some others, is still old in comparison to the new arrangement of the ship. Stede’s return means that there are once again two captains aboard the revenge, balancing each other out and working to maintain an equilibrium among the fickle crew. Calico Jack popped up once more somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic, evidently not dead, although Ed can hopefully be forgiven for not checking in his rush to get to Stede. There’s two black X’s slashed in ink, that would be circled should Jack turn the tides back in his own favor and cancel out one of Blackbeard’s victories. It’s a simple system, easy to update, and perfect for the limited space. Prior to the start of the scoreboard, Izzy had tattoos on him, of course, including that beautiful hand-placed X beneath one eye, but there was ample space sprawled over his torso and it should last a few more years yet.

“Iz,” Ed prompts.

“We currently have favor,” Izzy says, finally stepping away and once again donning his gray shirt, fingers slowly pushing each button into the corresponding hole, all the way up to his collar, before reaching toward his vest. Ed hands it to him without prompting. “We’ve bested him twice, Edward, once at Blind Man’s Cove, and once at sea only a few weeks ago. Odds are in our favor, but he’ll be getting restless and desperate to prove himself. He’s your friend more than he was ever mine.”

The three pairs of eyes in the room all look to Ed, as they tend to when it comes to this sort of strategizing. The four of them come from different places and different swirls of thoughts in their minds, each with the unique ability to keep this ship and its crew alive and breathing, but in different sorts of peril. Battle strategy is Ed’s specialty. His losses are few and far between, even without his formerly fearsome legions aboard a vessel that nearly was a ghost town. Rather than sell his old ship, Blackbeard burned the thing. He was done with it, but no one else has a right to her polished planks and million memories. Izzy was the one to light the match that evening, tossed into the spoils of wasted kerosene after a reverent kiss to the hull.

“I don’t think hunting him down is in our interest, but we ought not avoid him, either. Stay the course. We’ll let Jack make his move first.”

Lucius jots this plan down for them and bids his farewell before returning to the deck to speak with the others, leaving only the captains and the first mate standing in the quarters. They don’t make a habit of dishonesty, but there is more freedom in speaking solely amongst themselves, Ed has found, and he’s not ungrateful for such an opportunity.

“I get the feeling,” he admits, “that Jack will want to see us all in ruin. This isn’t just a rivalry for him. It’s not for me, either, I suppose, after what he did.” Stede and Izzy share a glance. Ed watches them, taking note of the guilt still hanging heavy over their heads. He chooses not to absolve them of it aloud. “I want to follow him.”

“Captain,” Izzy says, hesitant but not stubborn in his conviction.

Pausing, Ed assesses Stede’s facial expression. Wary, but not afraid, and certainly not concerned enough to make it an issue. Izzy is the one more rattled, even if he’s better at hiding it from everyone else besides the captain whose whims he’s enforced over the entirety of a reign of terror made only possible by their partnership. Blackbeard is infamous, Ed knows, but would not be so without both Edward Teach’s skill and determination and Israel Hands’ bloodthirsty dogged loyalty. Blackbeard is less of a side of Edward and more the combination of Ed’s mind and Izzy’s saber.

“Please let me know when we catch sight. I understand he’s going to the Republic for some trading.”

“We'll meet him on the way or upon arrival," Izzy confirms. "May I, sir?"

"Dismissed," Stede approves, but Izzy still waits for Ed to nod in agreement before accepting the permission to leave.

The two captains, now left alone in their shared quarters, pick up their respective drinks of wine and rum. Ed lets the sharp tang of the rum dance over his tongue, much simpler than whatever he's supposed to find in the wine and much more likely to warm the thinning blood vessels under his skin. He licks the dregs off his bottom lip as Stede swirls the wineglass in his hand.

“Your reservations, Captain Bonnet?”

“No reservations, love,” Stede says. He takes a tentative sip of wine. “I just- I do wonder if maybe it isn’t the smartest idea to go after Calico Jack. Our crew is tough, but they’re…” he trails off as they each picture the ragtag group, “...not the most experienced quite yet. Certainly not like your old crew. Every man on that ship was like Izzy, I’ll bet.”

Ed holds up a finger and wags it back and forth in disagreement. “They were all brave and terrifying pirates, but there’s only one Izzy.”

“Funny thing to say. Ever said it to him?”

When Ed meets Stede’s gaze to parse out the words, he finds the man unwilling to look him in the eyes, an issue most frequently attributed to Stede trying to hide some gift or surprise he has planned for Ed. They don’t do birthdays or anniversaries or holidays, not really, but Stede is prone to great acts of romance. Every stop in port, for example, is accompanied by a bouquet of flowers that Stede’s delicate, soft fingers carefully strip of thorns before the stems reach a vase on Ed’s desk. A conspiratorial look is a threat to any other captain, from any other man, but with Stede it is almost always the precursor to an act of adoration or a declaration of love, and as such, Ed isn’t too inclined to ask Stede to explain his words.

“We should be arriving to the Republic tomorrow evening,” Ed says, and that concludes the conversation.

As the setting sun turns the blue wash of the sky into a softer orange more commonly found after heavy gray clouds have cleared the way, they arrive the following evening at the Republic of Pirates, true to prediction. Ed stares at the gentle hue for longer than he intends to as the crew sets the anchor and lashes down the ship, Izzy to his right and Stede to his left. The three of them keep this ship together, even if Izzy is at a lower station, and he thinks he might be able to survive any loss besides those two. Izzy, his most treasured and loyal friend, a first mate but not just that, and Stede, his co-captain who has reminded Ed what a kiss or touch with real love behind it feels like, are more than enough to take on the wide expanse of the world ahead of them.

“I always forget how much this place stinks,” Stede comments.

“Most pirate ships smell the same,” Izzy replies.

Ed has always been one to enforce some level of cleanliness. A pirate’s life is a grimy, sweaty, bloody one, but he has kept himself well-washed in his tenure aboard this vessel or that, and demanded at least some level of it from his crew. Stede and his assembly, however, view the matter just as Ed does: an important part of avoiding nasty infections or an overt odor. The scent of lavender soap is a comfort as much as an expectation aboard the Revenge nowadays. Blackbeard does not smell of salt from the sea or his own skin, nor does he reek of blood and guts and gore. Instead, the once fearsome legend can enter a tavern with the perfume of flowers clinging to his well-attended to beard he’s spent the last several months growing back out.

The crew departs first, save for Black Pete and Lucius, who volunteer to “keep watch” but will mostly be doing so through the porthole in Lucius’ room. Everyone has trades to make, stories to tell, and tattoos to obtain. There’s a sparing amount of ink on some of them, but they’ve all spent the past couple days talking about what they might like placed upon their bodies when they have the opportunity. Ed carries ink and needles, of course, but Stede has this upper class insistence on sterility and reputable work. No one in this world is reputable, Ed would argue, but he did not begrudge Stede or the crew such a comfort.

“I should go with them,” Stede says. “I worry about them being too rowdy.”

“Or too naive,” Ed corrects, “so probably. I’ll track down Jack, see if we can’t decide to play nice. Izzy?”

He doesn’t even have to check that Izzy follows him off the ship and onto solid ground, the two of them taking the few minutes necessary to keep their balance on an unmoving surface. Even if he didn’t know that Izzy would follow him anywhere, he can hear the soft pad of his footsteps. Ed can walk quietly, if he needs to, but one side of his gait is heavier and he rarely finds cause to sneak around. Izzy, on the other hand, is well-versed in the art of a silent approach, and only so many years together have trained Edward’s ears to hear the soft footfalls.

“I think Bonnet could be right, for once.”

Ed glances over his shoulder. “About?”

“I get a bad feeling, Edward. We shouldn’t have chased him here.”

“He won’t best me. We were friends for a long time, and I know how he thinks.”

Izzy huffs a laugh. “Don’t forget, he knows you too.”

Before Ed can ask what that means, he hears the slightest change. A single footfall, out of sync with Izzy’s but much quieter than Ed’s own. He turns, but not fast enough, because someone already has a knife to Izzy’s throat and a hand over his mouth. His eyes are enough to communicate what his words will not be able to in this condition; Izzy would like Ed to run. He wants him to get out now and get to safety so he can send proper help and rescue. Not too long ago, Ed would have listened, too. He’d have gone back to the ship and rallied his men, hunted down whoever dared lay a hand on his first mate, and given them hell before bringing Izzy home. Things are different now, though. Maybe it’s because of Stede, or because Ed has finally accepted the reality of all aspects of himself, or because he’s learned to read past the words and into the true fear in Izzy’s eyes. It doesn’t really matter why Ed doesn’t run now. Just that he doesn’t.

“I’d have to ask you to back down, grunt,” Ed tells their unexpected guest. “I don’t think you know who you’re fucking with.”

“Sure I do. I’m on my captain’s orders, after all.”

Ed laughs and inches his hand toward the grip of his sword as he looks around. No one else has revealed themselves, but he can tell from the weight of the air and the slight glimmers among the dim trees that could be eyes or weapons that he and Izzy are surrounded. This has happened before, and it’s not a death sentence so much as a challenge. The only problem would be the fact that Izzy already has a knife notched beneath his adam’s apple.

“Who’d your captain be then?”

“Old friend of yours- Calico Jack.”

There’s a rustle in the brush. Jack is probably here, if Ed had to guess, waiting for the right moment to reveal himself. Let him show his hand, then. Instead of acknowledging what this truly represents, Ed strokes his beard thoughtfully. He circles Izzy and the grunt, noting the careful shift of Izzy’s weight depending on where Ed stands in relation to him. Small changes like that are what make him as excellent in combat as he is. He knows every small detail. The grunt moves slightly to keep eyes on Edward, and Izzy will always throw any threat away from his captain, so it’s not surprising.

“Calico Jack. Izzy, do you know a Calico Jack?” By the time Ed finishes speaking, he’s back in front of the pair of them. Izzy doesn’t make an expression in response. He hasn’t quite figured out the play yet. Ed can work with that, though, he just needs to push the right buttons. “You should uncover his mouth. That’s Blackbeard’s first mate, show him some fucking respect.”

Unsurprisingly, the grunt does, and Izzy smiles a little as he speaks. “No, Cap’n, I don’t think we’ve come across one.”

The shock on the grunt’s face is not due to the same cause as the ripple of murmurs flowing outward. Everyone else is antsy with the blatant disrespect, but this grunt, this little puppet, is more frightened than anyone else. The thing about Blackbeard is that his reputation was hard won through the toiling hours of Izzy and Ed’s combined skills. This pirate, who probably wouldn’t even be able to restrain Izzy without a knife to his throat, was not told all the details. Izzy’s face is well known, as is his status, but Ed’s face has been shown to few survivors, and that number is smaller in recent years. There was no reason this grunt would’ve figured Blackbeard to be walking across the less busy areas of the island with his first mate, when Izzy typically travels alone or surrounded by other members of Blackbeard’s crew rather than with the captain himself.

“Sorry, you must have us mixed up with someone else,” Ed tells him. “You’ve had your fun. Lower the knife and perhaps I’ll kill you quickly.”

“Q- Quickly, Blackbeard, sir?”

“The opposite of slowly, aye.”

“That’s enough, Blackie.”

The new voice, recognizable and as grating as the serrated blade of any knife, comes from behind Ed. Calico Jack walks the way Ed walks, the way Stede walks, and the way most pirates save for the treasured few walk- loudly, with swaggering wide steps and the jingle of accessories. Ed doesn’t turn around, even as Jack comes up close enough behind him that Ed can smell the liquor on his breath.

“We meet again.”

“It seems so, unfortunately. I thought for certain you’d died at Blind Man’s Cove with the English, and now I’ve had to see you twice more since.”

“Neither of us are going to die there,” Jack says.

He has his hands on his belt as he joins his grunt behind Izzy, taking the knife from the boy’s grasp and dismissing him. Jack, unlike the grunt, is more than capable of physically restraining Izzy as well, and doesn’t hesitate to yank back his arms in one hand and hold them tight, the knife in his other preventing Izzy from putting up a real genuine struggle. Ed doesn’t think Jack wants Izzy dead at the moment; if he did, the deed would be over with, but he also knows better than to push his luck.

“What’s your plan, Jack?”

“On your knees.”

Jack digs the blade in hard enough for a rivulet of blood to drool down Izzy’s neck, sinking into the fabric of his cravat and the collar of his shirt. Edward sinks down obediently, despite the clear disapproval on Izzy’s face, and raises his hands in the universal gesture for surrender. More of Jack’s men overwhelm the space now, someone shoving Ed’s face into the dirt and stepping on the back of his neck to keep him pinned while he’s frisked and his weapons are ripped away. His gun, his sword, his knife. His jacket is taken too, just to ensure there’s nothing in its pockets, while another set of hands search his pants. His boots are removed and searched too, but luckily, the clothing is returned before his hands are tied behind his back. They must want to keep visibility, he realizes, and retain his ability to carry on. Perhaps Jack is looking to bargain. Blackbeard won’t negotiate with him, nor will he honor any deal made with Calico Jack, but truth is not always the most important thing.

Izzy is thrown down next to him to receive the same treatment, thrashing and kicking and spitting insults the entire time now that Ed’s first plan has failed and he has yet to think of a second. Like a feral, mad beast, Izzy spews venom to anyone he lays eyes on, unwilling to stop barking for a moment despite how little it will do.

As they approach a more crowded area, where the thick vegetation begins to thin and dirty faces begin to appear, Ed stops him. “Iz, he hisses, scarcely speaking with how soft his voice spills, but still enough to capture Izzy’s attention and quiet him. “Enough. Have some dignity, even if they have no respect.”

Like Ed’s word is gospel, Izzy straightens his back, sets his jaw, stares ahead, and allows himself to be marched through the city’s heart. Most of these people have never even seen Ed, let alone know him to be the face of Blackbeard, but he can tell who puts the two puzzle pieces together. Izzy, Blackbeard’s first mate, subdued and continually sparing glances at Ed to check on him, and Ed, beard once more passable, whistling a shanty, and with at least five weapons pointed at or pressed to him, make quite the couple. As the group marches through the most crowded and rowdy slums, silence precedes them and follows in their wake, cut only by hushed whispers and the clear tone of each note Ed whistles.

They make it back to Jack’s ship without any helpful or disastrous incidents. By now the night sky has fully overtaken the sunset, leaving the yellow-orange sweep of lantern light to illuminate the deck. Jack walks up to Ed, pressing them toe to toe and eliminating even the air to breathe that wouldn’t be shared with him. Between his presence and the solid wall of muscle behind Ed holding him in place, it feels increasingly claustrophobic.

“You can forgive him,” Jack states slowly, drawing out every syllable as he points to Izzy, “but not me?”

“Yes,” Ed answers. It’s not even a question.

Up close, the blue of Jack’s eyes looks tumultuous and wild, like the frothing ocean on the most stormy early mornings. “Why?”

“He was acting from love.” Ed does not allow himself to look over to Izzy, but he still hears the intake of breath. It startles him that Izzy appears to be put off by the words. Edward has never been so lost as to not think that Izzy loved him; they are captain and first mate, two halves of a whole, and the eternity they’ve been that way, there is no other word. “That’s forgivable.”

“As was I. Try again.”

“He was afraid for my life.”

“As was I.”

“He was ready to sacrifice everything for me.”

“As was I! This isn’t fair, Blackbeard, and you know it. What’s so special about this guy? He’s a swordsman, but so are you as I recall. I don’t think Izzy the Spewer gives good head, does he? It wouldn’t end well for you.” Ed starts chewing on the inside of his cheek. “And I don’t foresee the great Blackbeard bending over for his first mate, honestly.”

Edward spits in Jack’s face.

He watches it drip down Jack’s cheek, allowing himself a second of pride in the matter as Jack steps away from him, noticeably out of spitting range. He doesn’t stray far, though, remaining in their vicinity as he sizes Izzy up to determine his next move.

“Or maybe you’re just hung, Mr. Hands, I couldn’t be certain. If you are, he probably does let you, doesn’t he? My Blackie takes it like a champ, as I’m sure you would know.”

“Show some fucking respect when you speak of my Captain, dog.”

This sleight receives retaliation in the form of a backhand that would have sent Izzy sprawling to the floor if he wasn’t held up by the pirate restraining him. Ed manages not to physically react, but his chest still tightens at the sight for reasons he cannot explain. It was just a single slap, more disrespectful than anything else. They’ve been in worse situations before.

“Get him on the mast,” Jack decides, gesturing toward Ed but staring down at Izzy with something hard in his eyes. “Strip his fucking shirt before you do.”

It takes three men to drag Ed to the mast. He doesn’t give the struggle his all, not when he still doesn’t have a good plan in mind, but he doesn’t make it easy on them either. He throws an elbow here, rams his head back into someone’s jaw there, kicks between a pair of legs somewhere. They do win under such uneven odds, of course, slicing through the rope around his arms just to remove his shirt and coat and resecure him to the mast. The tug of the ropes forces him to hug it, arms outstretched and up on his toes, cheek pressed against the splintering wood painfully. He knows what this becomes. He has done it many a time, ordered it on enough occasions that he’s responsible for more whippings than there are drops in the ocean.

He shuts his eyes. His crew should know they’re missing by now, he assumes, or at least that something is wrong. When he approached the harbor, he realized that their own ship wasn’t in eyeline of Jack’s, so the commotion here won’t be too disturbing or even noticeable to The Revenge. The slithering of leather against cloth makes Ed bite back a sharp inhale. He forgets sometimes that there are people he let in before he was experienced enough to know better, and these people are more than capable of using every pain in his life against him.

“Untie Mr. Hands, please.”

The rope drops to the deck with a dull sequence of thuds, and a whip cracks. Ed can’t see what’s happening behind him, but he can picture it when he shuts his eyes. Calico Jack, placing the leather in Izzy’s hand and guiding him to curl his fingers around the handle. Izzy, testing the weight of it in his arm and staring at the ridged and scrawled surface of Ed’s back.

“Mr. Hands, I’m going to give you two options here, and the choice is yours. You can whip your captain a hundred times, or you can let my crew whip him a thousand.”

Edward curls his fingers against the wood. With all his might, he wills Izzy to be brave. Just for a little while, just for him, please be brave and take the horrible tongue in hand and snap it through the air against the now unbearably tense muscles of his back. He needs Izzy to be brave, he whispers into the night air, because then it’ll be over sooner. All he can hear is the roaring in his ears, pounding with his heart and drowning out everything to a hymn not too far from the call of the ocean.

The first one isn’t too bad, all things considered. It bites, but it doesn’t break skin. There will be a welt. Nothing more. The burn of the whip sparkles under his skin, brighter than the knowledge that Izzy was definitely not hitting him at full strength; he didn’t even come close. Blackbeard has put a whip into Izzy’s hand and watched him flay deep on the first strike against a man with much more muscle to break through than Ed has on his body by this decade of life.

“Come on now, Israel,” Jack sneers, “I know you, weak as you are, can do better than that. It doesn’t even fucking count. From the top.”

Izzy mutters something Ed can’t hear, but sure as the sun rises in the East, he raises the whip once more and catches a long bar across Ed’s back at a near forty five degree angle. This one hurts much worse, hot blood welling in the furrow left behind by the whip. He braces himself for the next, which finds a new area of skin to inflict pain upon. There is love even here, he thinks, where Izzy tries to hit him with less of the length of the tail and chases down an unmarked patch of skin with each of the following dozen lashes.

“Stop.”

In the pause, Ed sags against the mast. He can hear Izzy’s heavy breathing, but it doesn’t sound quite as wheezy as when he truly overexerts himself with swordplay or carrying heavy loot. Ed furrows his brows and tucks his nose into the wood as if the scent of it might calm him. If it smelled like his ship, maybe it would, but there’s too much oak and the scent of gunpowder stuck in the grain.

“Pathetic. Give it to me.”

Before Ed can even process Jack’s words, the hardest blow yet crashes against his legs. Even through his trousers, leather and comfortable, he begins to bleed. His clothes have been snapped open as well with the sharp taste of the whip. The fact that the two implements of the same material both protect and wound him doesn't escape his notice. A second of the same magnitude strikes his right arm, barely missing his face. He flinches from the score in the wood.

“Hit him like you mean it, Mr. Hands. Put your back into it.”

Izzy’s blow hurts less by a razor thin margin, but Ed feels the difference. That difference is it being Izzy, he thinks dazedly, because Izzy isn’t capable of hurting him in a way he won’t come back from, both as a virtue of Izzy’s behavior and of Ed’s own dedication to his loyal first mate. He makes a noise against the mast that could be a laugh or a sob.

“Much better. Okay, that’s one.”

“What?” The whip’s tail hits the floor and Ed jumps again without meaning to. “I had almost ten-”

Edward blinks and flexes his hands. It felt like more.

“Every time I have to remind you how to do it, you start from zero,” Jack says. He sounds so proud. Blackbeard is going to knock out his damn teeth when he escapes. “Unless you’d rather my boys and I handle this.”

Ed takes the deepest breath he can manage, just to feel the ache in his ribs from all the tension and strokes of the whip. “Iz,” he says.

“Yes, Captain?”

“Cap-?” He doesn’t know what he’s saying anymore. Maybe getting whipped like this for the first time in a very long time is scrambling his brain. “As your fucking Captain, Iz- no, no- as your Captain, First Mate Hands, I am ordering you to hit me like you mean it. Understood?”

When Izzy doesn’t immediately respond with his words or his weapon, Ed grits a sob into the wood and hopes no one else can tell what it is he’s doing, even if there’s no way that can’t.

“Do you understand your fucking captain?"

“Yes. Yes, sir, I understand.”

He strikes Ed again without Jack’s prompting, a blinding white-hot gash appearing on his lower back, crooked and crossing. This one, of course, wrenches a cry out of his mouth into the night sky. After that, Izzy doesn’t give him a single reprieve from the full brutality of his strength. Around halfway through, he runs out of unmarked skin and must continuously lash the already tenderized and bloody flesh again. It’s the worst whipping Ed has ever endured, made worse by the duration since the last and the person who keeps striking him. That’s when Ed shuts his eyes tight and allows himself to cry until there’s no tears left to run down his cheeks. Some time shortly after that, he can’t even make sound anymore. He just struggles to breathe until he thinks he might have died because he hasn’t felt the kiss of Izzy’s beating in what feels like an eternity, but isn’t sure because if he was dead he wouldn’t hurt this badly.

Then a thumb swipes against the bottom of his orbital bone and catches a stray sticky near-dry tear. Ed opens his eyes to Izzy’s. Just Izzy. His bottom lip trembles until Izzy steadies it with the same finger he used to swipe away old tears. “Edward?”

“I’m okay.”

“That’s enough,” Jack interrupts, yanking Izzy back and revealing that his wrists are now manacled in front of him with thick chains. “Get them both down to the brig.”

A chorus of voices reply, “Yes, Captain,” with varying levels of enthusiasm. While he’s slowly untied and quickly shackled, he studies their environment. It’s nearly sunrise, given the pink tinting the horizon. It certainly felt like it took all night for the whipping to end, but he doesn’t understand how it actually could have. At least he has a decent idea of the time based on the progression of the sky. Ed quickly, however, realizes they’re no longer docked at the Republic, but out on open waters, with next to no hope of getting off this boat without having another to board.

“Come on, bitch,” someone says, presumably to Izzy, because he then grabs Ed under the arms and starts dragging him toward the doors to get below deck. It takes a moment for Ed hold his own weight enough to start a clumsy walk, though he lets Izzy guide him. “Can’t believe we get Blackbeard and it’s this idiot.”

Ed stops cold, forming a plan of retaliation, but before a single thought forms, he hears a scream, followed by a gurgle and a thud. He turns to see their escort on his back, scrabbling at his torn throat. Izzy spits red on the ground and rolls his shoulders. “Reckon he’s got keys?”

“Izzy.”

They’re still on deck and surrounded. Jack raises an eyebrow at his dying crew member, but makes no move to help him, instead approaching his two captives. Izzy slots himself in front of Ed without hesitation.

“Izzy,” Ed repeats, a little more frantic than he meant to. He takes care to stay quiet, leaning forward so his lips brush the shell of Izzy’s ear. “Apologize. Please. He’ll ask. Just apologize, and-”

“Cute,” Jack says, now directly in front of them. Izzy reaches one hand back, seemingly searching for something, but it settles pressed against Ed’s bare lower stomach as if to hold him back. Physically, it won’t stop him. Yet, at the same time, he feels compelled to obey the silent request when there’s so much anger radiating off of someone who’s usually too caught up in juvenile frustration and repression to feel it. People who often find Izzy angry just aren’t looking hard enough. “Are you done, Mr. Hands?”

“You’re fuckin’ next, Calico.”

Jack unsheathes his sword and studies its blade. “I could run you both through, if I wanted to- make a little kebab. If that’s your preference, of course.”

“No, sir,” Izzy growls.

“What was that?” Jack cocks his head to the side. “Whose ship are you on?”

Izzy looks ready to make things worse, but Ed puts a hand on his shoulder. The small touch is enough. “Yours. I’m sorry, Captain Jack.”

Jack turns away, but Izzy still spits at his feet before he leaves. It’s hard to be angry when Ed would have done the same thing in his shoes, but he knows that Izzy’s going to have to pay for his arrogance. Both of them likely will. Ed braces. The ripple of his muscles beneath Izzy’s touch has him tuning around, a question in his gaze when he meets Ed’s face. Before the guilt of distracting him sets in, Izzy is grabbed by the shoulder and thrown down onto the deck. A member of the crew takes hold of Ed, one hand gripping his chains and the other on his shoulder with the thumb down and digging into the agonizing mess of his back, and walks him to the brig below deck, all the way to the bottom most level where it’s moldy and humid. He doesn’t have it in him to struggle through all the pain, so he allows himself to be more or less tossed into the brig. The metal grate slams shut immediately.

In the deep belly of the ship, there are no port holes, so he has nothing but his own mind to determine the passage of time. The brig does not contain a cot, although that is standard thoroughfare for pirates. Stede is abnormal for placing a bed in his brig. Ed has nothing but creaky wooden walls and the slimy algae growing in the cracks to stink up the limited air. There’s a lamp lit a few feet down the hallway, casting a dim light to see by. He settles in the corner of the room at first, but doesn’t stay because he can’t make himself lean his injured back against the surface. He’ll definitely get an infection, but he’d prefer for it to be treatable and his body to be alive by the time they get out of here, one way or another.

He doesn’t expect to fall asleep, but the next time he opens his eyes, his head is cradled in Izzy’s lap and there’s a certain stiffness in his back. He silently sifts through the memories of the night and decides the stiffness, separate from the pain, belongs to the dried blood trying to pin his skin to the perfect shape he contorted himself into over the course of his rest.

“Ed?” Izzy says cautiously. “You awake?”

“Aye, unfortunately.” Ed struggles to sit up, pretending not to notice Izzy’s supportive and guiding hands as he does so. “What’d they do after they hauled me off?”

“They considered cutting out my tongue, but Calico Jack is apparently too excited to hear me beg, so that’s been tabled for the time being. They settled.”

Izzy lets go of him and holds out his right hand, his swordhand, with a strip of fabric from his shirt wound around it to cover the place where he used to have a middle finger. An involuntary wince escapes Ed’s mouth. It shouldn’t. He’s cut off one of Izzy’s toes, and had fed him said toe, when he was too lost in his own fury and pain to be anything other than a monster. This is different, but it’s partially due to the difference in perpetrator. Only Ed is allowed to permanently alter his first mate. He’s the only one who even tattoos him. There’s a certain personal anger that comes with the knowledge of what was done, and it’s only pushed down because Ed knows he has to think about this carefully so he can get them out.

“I have good news, though.”

“Do tell.”

After making sure Ed can sit up on his own, Izzy unties one of his boots and slips it off. He plays with the sole for a long moment before unlatching a compartment and producing a tiny knife, maybe four inches total, two of which making up the blade itself. Ed stares at it.

“They didn’t find it when they searched my boot,” Izzy explains. “It’s not much, but it’s something, isn’t it, Cap’n?”

“Yeah. It’s something.”

They stowe the knife once more and start biding their time for the right escape opportunity. It would be a raid, or when they dock in a port, or something like that. At some point the ship is bound to come across something. All the two of them have to do is survive and listen from the brig in the meanwhile for any clue they’re able to escape. It wouldn’t be the hardest thing Ed’s done. He tells himself he can do it.