Chapter Text
You defile beautiful things.
They’d told him it was a suicide plan and Stede had said, he’d said-
And now Izzy won’t stop bleeding.
“Roach.” Stede whispers, tugging on the other man’s elbow.
He’s unconscious now, cradled in Ed’s arms – is that a good thing? Conserving energy? No one’s acting like it’s a good thing. They’re not even moving.
“Roach, you need to do something.” He tugs harder and Roach stumbles, knocks into Frenchie who falls – no, sinks down. Arms wrapping around his knees, shivers starting – it’s not even cold out Stede thinks distantly.
“Captain.” Roach says, gently, quietly, Jim passes behind them – goes to Frenchie. “It’s too late. A hit to the gut like that?”
“Well, I don’t accept that.” Stede snaps.
His voice is loud. Louder than it should be but he has to raise it to be heard over Ed’s cr- over Ed’s noises.
Roach doesn’t snap at him for it though, just looks back sadly, his own eyes wet.
“We have to try.” Stede insists. Reaching for his captain voice and hoping they ignore it when his voice cracks.
“Please?”
Stede’s Father had wanted him to know the business of life and death. Had insisted he be around for livestock’s births and slaughter. He’d never been good at it. Hated the noise and the smell and the feel of blood congealing under his finger nails.
This is so much worse
There’s always a stench in the confines of the ship; comes from too many people in too small a space. Heat and sweat and meat that they should have eaten yesterday. His own attempts to perfume the place mixing in to make it sickly, now layered with the overwhelming copper tang of Izzy.
Ed’s still crying. Twitchy, whiney little noises like he can’t stop, even as he follows Roach’s instructions, holding a slab of Izzy’s flesh back whilst Roach’s hands dig around inside.
The bullet hadn’t gone through. That’s a good thing.
Roach can’t find it. That’s not.
Stede had seen picture books – medical texts with organs neatly labelled in Latin. He can’t tell which ones are currently spilling out of Izzy. Bulging around Roaches wrist as he hunts. It’s nothing like the books Stede thinks hysterically. He should write a letter. Should complain.
“He still with us?” Roach asks and Stede squawks out an ‘mmhhmm’, even though he really has no idea.
He’s got his hands on Izzy’s neck, feeling his thready pulse. He’s supposed to tell Roach if it stops or spikes but how can he hear it over Ed’s crying and the blood rushing in his own ears and above them, the noise of the ship as they guide it away form the burning republic? There were still Brits alive and ready for revenge and there’s black spots floating in front of Stede’s eyes so how is he supposed to feel for a pulse when-
‘Ahah!’
There’s a soft clink of metal on metal, a bullet dropped carelessly in a saucepan.
It cuts through the noise.
“He said he wanted to go.” Ed tells him.
They’re side by side, sat on the floor by Izzy’s bedside. Stede wants to hold Ed’s hand but they’re both occupied. One resting lightly on Izzy’s wrist, fingers stroking over his pulse point. The other is being used to clutch Izzy’s wooden leg to Eds chest.
“That’s just something people say.” Stede whispers back, pressing their sides together as much as he can.
He’d say something like that he thinks. If he was dying and a loved one was crying over him. Say he’s ‘at peace’ and ‘ready to go’ and all those reassuring phrases.
He’d like to think he’d be brave like that.
“Think maybe. He wanted to go on his terms.” Ed mumbles as if Stede hadn’t spoken. “Quick like. Not – not…”
Roach said he found the bullet in Izzy’s stomach. It was lucky, he’d said, that it wasn’t the liver, the intestines, any of the multitude of glands full of nastiness waiting to spill out.
He sewn it up and then sewn up the outside and then gone to make dinner.
Life has to continue on, apparently. For some of them.
So if – when – Izzy recovers. It’s going to be difficult. To eat. To move. To stand even - all that muscle it had cut through on the way in. That they’d cut through to dig it out.
He won't be a swordsman anymore.
Stede let his eyes linger on the bumpy stitches on Izzy’s side. Imagines them inside him as well, one of those horrible bulging sacks being held together. He feels bile in his throat and resolutely swallows it down. That comes from the stomach doesn’t it? Bile? Bile and the horrible acid that creeps up to his throat after too much spice. That’s all spilled then, into the rest of him. Could keep spilling, if Roach had missed even a stitch.
It would be slower now. The death. But it could still come. Be even more painful. And there’s Ed and Stede but no crew now, all busy with keeping the ship afloat, keeping them alive.
They’d been so still. Stede doesn’t think he’s ever seen all of them still at once outside of story time. Gathered around Izzy and Ed, marking their respects.
He’s alone now, apart from Ed and Stede. Alone in the hold with a belly full of stitches condemned to a slow, painful death when he could have- condemned by Stede whose too selfish to let go of anyone else, to give Izzy even a shred of dignity or peace or-
“Stede?” Ed whispers.
Stede is suddenly aware of the wall digging into his back where he pressed himself in, a faint pain in his leg where he’d dug his hands in with a too tight grip. He lets out a shaky breath and forces himself to let go, reaches out instead to clumsily cover Ed’s hand with his. Feels the warmth of Ed’s skin under his palm and the scratch of wood under his fingertips.
“He’s not going anywhere.” he tells Ed. Looking into his eyes firmly until Ed gives him an uncertain half smile back.
“I’ve got to check on the crew.” Stede adds, unfolds his shaking legs and hobbles out despite the mournful noises Ed lets out. Keeps walking until he’s out on deck and can safely throw up over the side.