Chapter Text
‘If she’s the girl of your dreams, you love her, everyone sees, well what does that make me then? – I’m your villain.’ – Villain, Maisie Peters
Despite tirelessly serving a man of myth and legend, a figure forged in the fury of Hell, who lived on the nightmares of greedy sailors, Israel Hands had never once feared Blackbeard. After all, what was there to fear of a man made entirely of smoke and mirrors? Izzy had long ago learned that there were far more real, physical threats on each new horizon to fear, such as death on a Naval officer’s sword… or a captain’s dagger. A figure of myth couldn’t wield a blade against you, but a man could, and this man did, regularly. Izzy’s hidden open wounds and strained muscles burned in answer to the mere thought.
He had never truly feared Blackbeard before, but he feared him now.
He feared him enough that he couldn’t so much as knock on the door of the captain’s cabin. Each time, his hand flinching away from the wood before he could reach it.
Izzy also knew that mastering his fear was necessary to do his job, to help lead this ship, for his captain. So, he briefly closed his eyes, inhaling the balmy air slow and deep, attempting to force his light-headedness to settle, ignore the pain, like he had done so many times before. He allowed the icy thrill of adrenaline jumping at the base of his spine to lift him, as he raised his fist to the door again, hoping it would fuel him for what was to follow.
He knocked.
“Come in.” Blackbeard’s voice was unusually quiet and indistinct.
Izzy entered the room as slowly as he could without his captain commenting on it.
Blackbeard was but a blot of darkness in front of the heavily curtained and damaged windows by the bed, barely stirring. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, Izzy could see Blackbeard huddled, knees folded up near the chest, hunched over a piece of parchment spread across his lap, his finger tracing the characters.
Izzy frowned, stalling at the sight. Edward had always avoided reading wherever possible. He knew how to do so, enough to fill out a ledger, read lists of objects, or pick out the key points of a letter, but it was slow going and he could barely write, signing documents, like so many of the crew members, with a cross. He’d claimed that the letters tended to jumble in his vision, so Izzy had always agreed to do all the necessary paperwork, as the Navy had trained him.
“Captain? Can I have a word?” Izzy asked, his voice quiet.
“What?” his captain replied, just as quietly, not even looking up.
Izzy hadn’t seen Blackbeard respond so indifferently since before the time of Stede Bonnet.
“The crew are refusing to part with any treasure.” Izzy said.
“Why?” the reply was toneless.
“Because it’s fucking treasure.” Izzy said, his nervousness and irritation at Blackbeard’s indifference seeping through.
“Sort it out.” Blackbeard replied, still refusing to look up, a hint of warning now in his voice.
“I’ve tried to.” Izzy said, forcing himself to return to a milder tone.
Blackbeard stayed unnaturally still and silent.
“Captain?” Izzy said.
Blackbeard’s head snapped to fix Izzy with a glare, dark eyes lost in the smudged kohl surrounding them.
“I said fucking sort it out.” he snarled.
Izzy barely held back a flinch, instead holding himself as still as possible, determined not to give any response that could be seen as provocation.
“Can’t you even do that?” Blackbeard asked, voice filled with disgust.
Izzy couldn’t honestly deny that this job was far too much for him, but Ed had already threatened to replace him, and he knew what that meant, so he remained silent.
“Unless you need more encouragement?” Blackbeard’s fingers fell to the knife on his belt, but he didn’t get up.
Izzy knew what would happen next and couldn’t even find any motivation to resist it, only finding bone deep tiredness.
“Why are we doing this?” Izzy said, a question that had come to him a lot in the despair of the past few months, but he’d never dared voice.
He knew there was no good answer and Edward seemed to know that too, for he ignored it completely.
“Stop bothering me with your bullshit.” Blackbeard said, the tense set of his shoulders turning into a defeated slouch again, hand leaving the knife handle. “Come here.” Blackbeard said, voice surprisingly soft.
Izzy limped across the room, through the maze of boxes that littered the floor, full of trinkets from their latest slew of raids. Blackbeard had absently said he’d sort through them, but there wasn’t much evidence of that.
“Read this to me.” Blackbeard said, holding out the parchment he’d been examining.
Izzy realised what he was holding out was a crumpled piece of newspaper from the box on the floor that had been used as packing, specifically a page of obituaries. Half of the page, however, was taken up with an illustration of a single man someone had forked out good money to buy space for. The sight of the image made Izzy’s breath catch in his throat. If this was what he assumed it was, the portrait was an excellent likeness.
“What’s this?” Izzy asked, unable to conceal the waver in his voice.
“Read it to me, I want to be sure I’ve got it right.” Blackbeard said.
Izzy looked at him in disbelief for a moment, finding Blackbeard’s face carefully impassive still. Izzy didn’t know if what Blackbeard said was true or if this was some new way to humiliate him; watch him read and digest the information and use any stumbles over his words he might have to justify maiming him again.
“Where did you get-” Izzy began.
“Read it!” the booming shout made Izzy flinch.
Izzy swallowed down the lump in his throat, roughly shoving away all other thoughts but for the words on the page in front of him.
“We announce the passing of- of Stede Bonnet, aged 49, on the 10th December 1717, husband to Mary Bonnet and father to Alma and Louis Bonnet.”
With that statement, what little hope Izzy had been holding onto slipped through his fingers like sand. Two months. Bonnet had been dead for two months.
“What?” Blackbeard asked sharply.
“What do you-”
“The last names.”
“’husband to Mary Bonnet and father to Alma and Louis Bonnet’” Izzy repeated, the words stinging in his throat.
Blackbeard sagged for a moment, head bowing over his clasped hands, eyes squeezed shut and giving a laboured sigh. He was still for far too many seconds.
“Captain?” Izzy said, sharper than intended.
Abruptly, Blackbeard sat up, legs moving down from the bed, fully turning to face Izzy. His eyes, that had been so empty these past few months, were suddenly burning with an alarming level of clarity and focus.
“Once we’ve restocked at Nassau, set a course for Barbados.” he ordered.
Izzy felt a new sensation crawling up his spine as he processed the request.
“Why-” the word faltered, “Why would you want to do that?”
“I want to talk to this Mary.”
Izzy couldn’t even begin to imagine what Blackbeard had in store for the unfortunate woman Stede Bonnet had married, nor what it would mean to the crew. Taking them onto land always came with risks, but taking them onto Barbados, presumably all the way to wherever Bonnet’s rich wife and children lived, likely with her whole team of servants in attendance, was just begging to get them all caught and hanged.
“With due respect, do you think that’s a good idea?”
Blackbeard rose up to his feet immediately, looming over Izzy, toe to toe with him, close enough to feel his angered breaths on his face, Blackbeard’s hand firmly around the handle of his knife now.
“It’s not your job to think, is it?” the words were sharp and wielded with precision. “It’s your job to carry out my will, do I need to remind you of that?”
Izzy’s muscles locked into place, but he still forced his face up.
“It’s my job to protect you, before anything else.” he said, careful to keep his voice emotionless, a statement of an immutable fact.
“I don’t need your protection, I’m Blackbeard.” the other man spat into his face.
Izzy’s jaw clenched. This was the kind of statement Blackbeard was never supposed to make. As ships were captured and surrendered, as crews came and went, as Ed’s brief strange passion projects and a parade of flirtations passed by, Izzy stayed. However warped and distant their relationship had become, Izzy was an immovable fixture of Edward’s life and Blackbeard’s image, just like the well-worn leather of Edward’s clothes, the beard on his face.
“Barbados is crawling with the British.” Izzy said, trying to pull Edward back to reality. “I don’t want you to walk straight into the Navy’s arms, or risk being recognised on land.”
Blackbeard’s hand closed on the back of Izzy’s neck, grasping him firmly, as close as he could get to grabbing his collar, like Izzy was a small badly behaved dog, making him freeze in his grip.
“I am your Captain, and I am telling you to set a course for Barbados.” Blackbeard’s voice swelled in his ears, filling Izzy’s head, until there was space for nothing else. “So, you can either do that, or take your fucking boot off. Options.”
There was a time when Blackbeard standing over him like this, his focus entirely on Izzy, made Izzy feel like he held all the power at the centre of the universe, but lately every time it happened, it was more like only the force of his own will that was keeping his incomplete skeleton together.
This time though, there was a maniacal glint in the man’s eyes, a hint of liveliness, a hint of Edward, suddenly shining through. He could feel the tremble in Edward’s hand on his neck radiating down his spine, see the desperation in his eyes, the yearning for Izzy to provoke him. Perhaps Edward was relying on him to provide direction, as much as he was trying to force Edward to give him direction, each trying to sail towards a North Star that could never be reached.
“Is doing this making you feel better, Edward?” he asked, the question forming all of itself, in a sudden desperation he thought he’d lost.
“What do you care about Edward? Blackbeard is what you wanted. You asked this of me.”
“Not this.” Izzy said.
“No, this,” Edward shook him slightly, “this is what you wanted, it was never about what I wanted.”
“I always try to do what’s best for you, no matter what.” Izzy’s words were stronger now.
“What’s best for me? Right, sure.”
“I do, always.” Izzy said, with urgency. “Even if it’s not what you want to hear. I always want to protect you from harm, no matter what.”
“Don’t give me that bullshit. You do it because you have to.”
Izzy’s stomach lurched, like he was clinging on a cliff face, that was falling to pieces under his hands. He’d taken it as given that Edward would always understand how Izzy had chosen to follow Edward over and over, that he’d heard and understood the promise Izzy had explicitly made to him to serve Blackbeard not matter what.
“No, that’s not true. We’ve worked together for most of our lives. You know me better than anyone has ever known me and I daresay the same is true for me about you. I have… love for you, Edward.”
Edward’s expression could only be described as disgusted, and he let Izzy fall from his grasp, carelessly, pushing past him.
“Oh, come on.” Edward said, but there was a weakness in his voice that Izzy took to be disbelief, as though Izzy hadn’t spent most of his life fighting by his side.
“I do.” Izzy persisted. “And we’re all worried about you.”
“Oh, fuck off. Don’t pretend.” Blackbeard snapped.
“You think I’m pretending?” Izzy asked incredulously.
Blackbeard scoffed, turning to face him, prowling back towards him.
“No, I know you are.” He said, eyes once again cold, the spark in them gone. “You told me you only answer to Blackbeard. You want the myth, the monster, because you’re too weak to survive on your own.”
Izzy forced himself to step closer, against every instinct, but needing Edward to understand.
“I need you to be Blackbeard, because it’s the only thing that protects you, protects all of us.” Izzy stressed. “You showed Edward to everyone and look what happened. I won’t stand for watching Edward get hurt. Everything I’ve ever done has been to keep you safe, all parts of you. Why won’t you let me help you? Why do you always act like I’m your enemy?”
Blackbeard grabbed Izzy by the throat, fingers biting into his neck for a second, before holding him at arm’s length.
“Because you are my enemy!” he said, voice so low and furious that Izzy could practically feel it, like a distant rumble of thunder. “You wore me down for most of our lives and betrayed me the second I didn’t do what you wanted anymore.”
“That’s not-” Izzy squirmed in Edward’s grip.
“But it is.” Blackbeard said through his teeth.
Izzy wanted badly to defend himself, but he knew Edward wouldn’t listen to him, completely refused to see things from Izzy’s point of view, even before they’d reached rock bottom.
“If you see me as your enemy,” Izzy said, voice straining against the other man’s hold on him, “why do you keep me around?”
“Because I don’t trust you out of my sight.” Blackbeard said. “And because if you wanted this; you deal with it.”
“I didn’t want this.” Izzy said weakly. “Nobody wanted this. The crew certainly don’t, they’re worried about you too. The atmosphere on this ship is completely poisoned. But if we could all just maybe, talk it through.” Suddenly Izzy could breathe fully again, left wheezing as Edward took a step back from him, rage gone, face strangely open and vulnerable.
“As a crew?” Edward muttered.
Before he could respond, Blackbeard was striding out of the captain’s cabin onto deck, where the crew were gathered.
A pit opened in Izzy’s stomach as he stumbled after him, protests falling on uncaring ears.
The crew were spread out across the deck, heads whipping round to Blackbeard with the crash of the opening door. There was something akin to guilt on their faces, like every time Blackbeard entered a room, whether they’d been having a risky conversation or not.
“Hi everyone,” Blackbeard’s falsely jaunty air was jarring. “So, I’ve heard that some of you aren’t happy with the management style on the ship.” His eyes raked over what was left of the crew, the deck unnaturally sparse.
Izzy saw Jim and their newest recruit Archie draw in closer together, Frenchie twitched from where he was slouched against the railing, Ivan gripped the wheel tighter and Fang openly balked.
“Care to elaborate, anyone?” Blackbeard asked.
Everybody was still as statues, as though staying still would somehow hide them from Blackbeard’s sight.
“No?” Blackbeard asked brightly. “Well, good, because I’ve decided on our next move. We’re restocking at Nassau, then we’re going to Barbados.” he announced.
Jim and Archie shared a look, Frenchie frowned confusedly in Blackbeard’s direction, and Fang and Ivan sought out Izzy’s eyes, faces questioning, but the moment he sensed it, Izzy turned his gaze resolutely to Blackbeard’s back, not wanting to risk being caught conferring.
“I thought we were trying to break that record?” Archie said. “We still doing that at the same time?”
“Forget that.” Blackbeard waved a derisive hand.
“Forget it?” Jim’s tone was far too sharp and confrontational for Izzy’s liking.
“Yeah, was kind of a stupid idea anyway.” Blackbeard said.
“But what would you like us to do with the loot?” Fang asked, voice quiet and submissive.
“I don’t know.” Blackbeard said. “Throw it overboard? Fence it? Just get rid of it. That’s not important. Anyway, thoughts?”
The crew’s eyes darted toward each other, but they still didn’t move.
“Come on!” Blackbeard said, bracingly, too loud for comfort. “Fang?”
Fang glanced around at the others as though expecting someone else to step in and save him, before he shrunk away from Blackbeard.
“If that’s what you want to do, Captain.” Fang said, resigned.
“Right!” Blackbeard said. “Ivan?”
Ivan flinched, eyes wide.
“Whatever you say, Captain.”
“Frenchie?”
As relaxed as the man’s posture was, his expression was now strained.
“Um, I don’t have any problems with it, but, um why?” Frenchie asked.
“What does that matter?” Blackbeard asked sharply.
“Well, like, no pressure,” Frenchie said, “but if you’ve got a goal in mind, might be good to like, prepare, or something.”
“What does that matter? We’re going there, that’s all you need to know.” Blackbeard snapped, glaring at Frenchie, his hand straying far too close to the hip where his gun was.
“If you’re going to ask for their opinions, Edward, the least you can do is bloody listen.” Izzy said, eager to draw his attention away from Frenchie.
“Fine. I’m listening, I’m listening.” Blackbeard said and Izzy realised the error in his ways as the other man drew his gun but didn’t raise it just yet. “Jim, let’s start with you. What do you think, honestly?”
“I would like to know why we’ve changed our plans all of a sudden.” their jaw was set, posture like they were ready for a fight and Izzy knew Blackbeard wouldn’t be able to handle it.
Fang seemed to think so too, for he shied away, closer to Frenchie.
“You want to know? You all want to know, huh?” Blackbeard said, maniacal grin back in place. “We’re doing this because I say we are. Because I’m the captain. That’s how things work, when you sign on with Blackbeard.”
“Not all of us willingly signed on with Blackbeard, did we?” Jim returned.
Izzy’s stomach lurched at the way Blackbeard’s hand clenched on the handle of his gun as he prowled towards them, everyone else taking an almost imperceptible step back.
“You’re dissatisfied with my leadership, are you?” Blackbeard said. “Well, there’s an easy fix to that.”
Blackbeard raised the gun to Jim’s head. Jim straightened their shoulders, looking up into Blackbeard’s face, a defiant glint in their eye. Izzy was forcibly reminded of himself; of the many times he’d tried this act with Edward.
Where Blackbeard was concerned, Izzy had thought of himself as special. As young adults, together they had worked with their fellow crewmates to overthrow Hornigold’s tyrannous captaincy. But when their newly built crew on the Marianne had fractured in Edward’s unpractised hands, Izzy had been the only one to stand by Edward Teach. That night he’d sworn his undying loyalty to Blackbeard. He had been completely confident in the fact that he was indispensable to Blackbeard, untouchable, and that taking a firm hand with him would shock him out of his flights of fancy. He’d been arrogant and he’d been proven wrong, like Jim was surely about to be.
“Going to kill me, then?” Jim challenged. “You’ve only got a crew of six. How do you expect to survive with even less?”
“I’ll handle it.” Blackbeard said, with a click as he took off the gun's the safety.
Izzy knew that he wasn’t playing around, not this time.
“Pack it in!” Izzy yelled.
The crew’s heads snapped to him, Blackbeard stayed facing the crew.
“This isn’t about them, any of them, and you know it.” Izzy said. “We all know the reason we’re doing this. Because of your feelings for Stede fucking Bonnet.”
“Stede Bonnet is dead!” Blackbeard roared.
For a moment all that could be heard on deck was the sound of the sails straining in the breeze and the rush of the steady waves.
“Um Captain,” Frenchie’s voice broke as he said the words, “Beg your pardon, but are you saying that for dramatic effect,” Frenchie asked, “like in a he’s ‘dead to us’ way or actually-?“
“He’s dead.” Blackbeard said flecks of spit escaping him.
He shoved the crumpled obituary at Fang’s chest.
Fang took the parchment in his hands, looking at the picture, eyes widening. The crew crowded around the picture.
A wail burst from Fang and Ivan froze. Jim’s jaw tensed and they visibly swallowed, and Archie frowned at them. Frenchie’s gaze fell to the floor, going very, very still.
“He’s not coming back for you. He left you all.” Edward’s voice broke. “They’re dead and none of them are coming back, so get over it. You follow me now, or you die. Understand?”
“No.” Izzy said. “Nobody understands because nothing you’re doing is making any fucking sense, Edward.”
Now Ed turned to face him.
“Are you questioning me again?” Edward said, words a clear threat.
Izzy wanted badly to flinch away, to say whatever it would take to pacify Edward, but he couldn’t, because if Edward didn’t get out his anger at Bonnet soon, the crew would have to suffer for it.
“Yeah, I am.” Izzy said, making a decision. “I know you’re upset, but why is it always them that has to deal with your bullshit. You want to go on a suicide mission, fine, but don’t drag them into it. Pick on someone your own size. You know, I gave you shit for sitting whining about losing your boyfriend, but frankly, this is even more pathetic.”
Edward stared at him for a moment with the same expression he’d worn that time when they were still teenagers and Ed wouldn’t get up in time for battle and Izzy had dumped a bucket of cold water over his head. Then, just like that moment, the shock dissolved and turned to fury. But this time, Edward shot him.