Chapter Text
“It’s not as bad as it looks.” Roach assures—which doesn’t mean shit, considering it looks like someone had taken a machete to the side of Stede’s head. Izzy’s taken enough wounds to the head to know just how much one can bleed, to know that such a wound isn’t necessarily a death sentence… but there’s something about watching all of that blood come pouring out of someone he loves that makes him feel ill.
That, and the fact that it’s almost entirely his fault that Stede is here in the first place.
He says ‘almost’ only because he will maintain, until his dying breath, that none of this would’ve happened if the crew had just listened to him.
There was nothing fun about storms—and the next time the crew decided that they would rather sit around eating bloody scones and marmalade than do their actual fucking jobs, he was liable to anchor the entire lot of them. He could do a better job manning the ship by himself than the lot of them could combined, and that was horrifying—truly, truly horrifying.
Not nearly as horrifying as a barrel—which should have been secured (but Izzy had seen it, and the improperly tied rope that should have been securing it, far too late to stop it from sailing through the air with such terrific force it sent Stede clean through the rail and down, down, down into the tumultuous, inky depths below)—trying to kill his lover, but it’s up there. The fact that the blow had rendered Stede unconscious was an admittedly small consolation. It meant that he couldn’t feel the pain as Roach poked and prodded at his face with a pair of tweezers, attempting to remove all of the tiny, blood-soaked shards of wood from his wound. It also meant that, on top of everything else, he’d very nearly drowned—
Izzy sits at the foot of the bed, watching. His hair is starting to curl… just the tiniest bit, the occasional drop of water dripping down onto his nose or cheek and charting a course down the length of his face. Ed had had to wrestle him out of his clothes, and had left the sopping wet leather on the floor in a heap before disappearing to retrieve… something. Izzy’s certain that Ed told him, but… his brain feels fuzzy, like his entire head has been filled with cotton. It’s difficult to focus on anything other than the movement of Roach’s bloodstained fingers, on the soft plink as yet another sliver of bloodied wood is dropped into the little silver bowl that rests on their bedside table.
When Ed returns, it’s with something soft and fluffy in his hands. Some distant part of Izzy’s brain registers that it’s a robe—not one of Bonnet’s… or, at least, not one that Izzy had ever seen him wear. It’s softer than he deserves and somehow still manages to feel like sandpaper against his skin as Ed manhandles him into it. Ed’s talking again—Izzy feels the soft puffs of air against his cheek as he exhales, registers a slight ringing in his ears from words that that jumble themselves into pretty little knots inside of his head. And then there’s… pain, sharp and bright, as Ed’s fingers press into the sharp line of his jaw and force him to look away from Stede’s battered, broken body to—
“This isn’t your fault, Iz.” There’s an unmistakable finality in his tone, like he genuinely believes what it is that he’s saying and any attempts Izzy makes to argue with him will be dismissed with extreme prejudice. “It was an accident.”
“It wasn’t an accident.” Izzy croaks, “It was negligence. And had this been any other crew, weathering any other storm, you would’ve had the whole lot of them tied to the mast and flogged for it.” His throat hurts, like someone is taking a rake to his vocal cords. He supposes that that’s what happens when you inhale sea water attempting to prevent your unconscious lover from drowning—
Ed falters a little, “You can’t solve everything with violence, mate.” He doesn’t think that Izzy is actually advocating for him to flog the crew. On most days, he thinks that Izzy actually might come to tolerate them… On others, it feels like they’re never more than a handful of seconds away from Izzy screaming himself right into an aneurysm. “I’ll have a talk with them tomorrow, once we’ve all had a chance to cool off.”
Izzy sinks a bit further into the soft down of his robe, “If I get any cooler, I’m liable to freeze to death.”
A moment passes, and then Ed’s arms slowly wind around Izzy’s shoulders to draw him back into Ed’s chest. “Roach said that the… the shock might do that.” Roach hums in confirmation, while Izzy tries to figure out what in the hell he’d be going into shock over.
“I’m not the one that you should be worrying about right now.” Izzy says, his eyes flickering back to Stede’s bloodied face.
“Iz… You broke your fucking wrist.”
“And Stede’s head cracked open like a bloody egg. Between the two of us, it’s no fucking contest as to who’s worse off—”
“It’s not a contest. It shouldn’t be a contest.” Ed confirms, his voice rising in pitch ever so slightly before quieting at a look from Roach. “Look, between the two of you, you’re the only one I can do fuck-all for right now—”
“I don’t need—or want—your fucking help.” Izzy’s dismissal is immediate, biting. Ed just rolls his eyes.
“Men can die from broken bones, you know.” Izzy seems rather ambivalent toward the idea, which only makes Ed more upset. “Do I have to order you to let me look at your bloody wrist, Iz? For fucks’ sake, man, what would Stede think if he saw you moping about like this?”
Izzy doesn’t even hesitate, “Fuck, does my head hurt. That Izzy should’ve done a better job of making sure the ungrateful, utterly worthless imbeciles that I call a crew secured the deck—maybe then I wouldn’t have wood in my bloody head!”
Ed wrinkles his nose, “You know… you got the voice down, but I can’t help but feel like the anger is a bit… extreme.”
“Oh, fuck off.”
Ed slides onto the bed behind Izzy, and Izzy’s head hits his chest with a dull thwap. He doesn’t reach for Izzy’s injured wrist (not just because he has a feeling that Izzy will yank it clean out of his hand the second his fingers curl around it, even if it means injuring himself further in the process—but also because Izzy is cuddling up against him, soft and sweet, and he’d come too close to losing him—to losing them both—that day to take that little sliver of comfort for granted), just presses feather-light kisses to the sopping wet crown of Izzy’s head as they watch Roach finish pulling all of the little slivers of wood out of Stede’s skin.
He wonders, briefly, if Roach will stitch him up… but he’s not surprised when the man opts not to. Most of Stede’s wounds are actually quite shallow—they’re not so much wounds as they are… particularly deep splinters, caused by particularly large slivers of wood. The main wound, however, is deep. Roach mentions a potential skull fracture, and Izzy tenses, stiff as a board, in his arms.
Stede makes a small sound of discomfort as fresh gauze is stretched out over the nastiest of his wounds, and a moment later—
Stede tries to speak, but abandons the efforts relatively soon thereafter when his throat rebels something fierce.
“Easy there, captain.” Roach abandons the half-placed bandages in favor of retrieving a cup of water from the bedside table. Sliding a hand behind Stede’s back to prop him up just far enough to prevent choking, he helps him to take a few small sips, “You can have more in a bit. Drink too much at once and you’re liable to upchuck all over your expensive linens.”
“T-Thank you, Roach.” His voice is scarce above a whisper, and even sustaining that seems to be causing him immense pain. “What… What happened to me? I feel like death.” Roach lowers him back down onto the bed to continue fussing with his bandages.
“There was a storm.” He says, matter-of-fact. “You took a nasty blow to the head and fell overboard.” He casts a sidelong glance in Izzy’s direction. Now that Stede is awake, Izzy seems determined to look anywhere and everywhere else—“Izzy saved you.”
Silence. Then, “Iggy saved me.” He repeats, like the idea is so ludicrous he doesn’t even need to make it a question. “You’re joking.”
Roach frowns, “I’m not. Izzy fucked himself up pretty bad pulling you up out of the water, and has been hovering at your bedside ever since.”
Ed’s fingers press into Izzy’s skin hard enough to bruise… and while ordinarily he’d find the pain to be deliciously grounding, right now it feels more like Ed is holding his head underwater and laughing, merrily, as he drowns. It feels like an eternity has passed since the last time that Stede had purposefully fucked up his name—Ed tries his damndest to hold back the anxiety that rises in him like the tide, filling every little nook and cranny until… he can’t breathe. He can’t fucking breathe. Because of course—of course—Stede will remember Roach and the rest of his little rag-tag crew; he’ll remember Blackbeard (because who could possibly forget him?), and Ivan, and Fang, and… Izzy.
He'll remember Izzy alright… but he’ll look at him like he’s looking at him now. Like he’s the same man who’d sold them out to the navy… the same man who’d awakened the kraken and… His foot throbs, the space where his pinky toe had been red and angry, the entire foot swollen to the point of constant discomfort. Because of course—of course—it’s not enough that he’s changed, that he’s better now. Life will just keep finding ways to epically fuck him over… so what’s the point in even trying? And he knows… he knows that that’s not fair. That Stede could’ve forgotten any number of things—the fact that he’d seemed to have forgotten that he liked… perhaps even loved… Izzy wasn’t some kind of personal slight.
But fuck… it certainly feels like one. And Izzy hates the fact that all that it takes is that purposeful mispronunciation of his fucking name to start the waterworks. He hadn’t cried when he’d broken his wrist so badly his hand was bent the wrong way, hadn’t cried when Roach had slipped a strip of leather between his teeth and told him to bite while he snapped the bones back into place—
But he’s crying now, like a motherfucking baby. And it’s all Ed can do to hold him just that little bit tighter as he whispers soft assurances into his hair—
Stede is up again—Roach has propped him up against the headboard now, so that he can get a better assessment of the man’s faculties. But as Roach continues to poke and prod him, it becomes ever more clear that Stede only has eyes for Ed and—“Ed, darling… what is Iggy doing in our room?”