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Israel Hands sat by his Captain's side as he slept. He hadn't moved from his position all day, only shifting to change the cloth from Edward’s head. The idiot had gotten himself overworked to the point of sickness again. He did this a lot. After days of not leaving his bed or drinking himself to sleep, he would get a sudden burst of energy, and they would find a ship to raid. Then they’d raid another. And another. This was one of those days. They had barely stopped. Edward had watched the horizon as a new vessel came into view, still somewhat tipsy from the weekend-long drinking session. When he felt the ship was close enough, he gave his commands. It was a glorious raid and one that lasted longer than they usually do. It was a reasonably even match. There we no casualties in Blackbeard’s crew, only a few injuries. By the end of the raid, they had killed every single one of the merchants. After they ransacked the sloop, they burned it down and organised their haul, which took far longer than it needed to, and then the withdrawals started.
Which lead them to this, Izzy sat, vigil, as he helped his Captain get through the worst of it. Edward whimpered from the bed, head falling to the side, knocking the damp cloth from it, a soft call of “Iz” on his lips. Izzy shut his eyes and gave a small sigh, dampening the blood-stained fabric with the cool water set beside him. It felt weirdly deja-vu as he replaced the cloth on Ed’s head, though it was not the first he had done so. He was transported to a different time. A time when he was much younger: where his hair wasn’t streaked with white and grey, where there were no lines etched into his face, where his bones didn’t ache as much. A young but no more happier time.
He was holding vigil, watching as his mother was treated by the doctor, sweat visible on her forehead, hair falling in greasy strands around her. Finally, the doctor finished checking her over and stood, turning to the small child, whose feet dangled over the edge of his seat. “She’ll need to be kept cool, when the cloth no longer feels wet, you must dampen it in the bowl of water and replace it. Give her this,” He showed the boy of no more than five the bottle of medicine. “Twice a day until she starts to show signs of improvement and fetch me. Try and make sure she eats and drinks at least something. Can you handle that?” Israel nodded and the older gentleman nodded back. “Good boy. I’ll leave you to it then. Fetch me if she gets any worse.” And then the doctor left, closing the door to their small home behind him.
Izzy hopped off his stool and headed over to his mother, sitting on the edge of her bed, taking her larger hand into his own. Margaret’s glassy hazel eyes half-opened as she felt her son’s presence. “Hello, darling.” She smiled softly, voice hoarse.
Izzy’s eyes filled with tears, and his bottom lip wobbled. “Mama-” His voice broke, tears spilling down his cheeks and Margaret’s gaze softened even more.
“My poor boy.” She weakly pulled him into a hug, tucking his head into her neck. “Shh, I’ll be alright.”
That was the first time she got sick. Once she got through the worst of it, she never bounced back. With his absent father, it always fell to Izzy to help his mother when she couldn’t stand from the bed. On her better days, it was Margaret who taught Izzy all that she knew, which admittedly wasn’t a lot. Israel became quite estranged from his peers after that first year. He rarely got to play with them in the street, preferring to stick to his mother’s side. As he got older, it became somewhat easier to look after her. He grew up to be strong to replace his mother’s fragility. He made sure that she was always protected, and always looked after. Even when his father came home drunk, seeing Margaret laying in bed on her worse days, sick and frail. Izzy took the blows. It was Izzy who plotted against his own father, who would be the bringer of his demise in his teens.
The winter of his 16th year was when it happened.
He knew it was only a matter of time. There were no good days this year. She was bedridden most days, unable to even sit up without help from her son. Her son that lost his entire childhood to look after her, to make sure she was okay. In the last few months of her life, she struggled to hold down even soup, the liquid upsetting her shriveled stomach. Practically skin and bones, her breathing shallow, and once thick, dark hair had turned to grey.
Israel helped Margaret sit up one morning, a hand against her back as the other grabbed his mother’s own. “There you go, just got to give you this morning’s dose and then you can go back to-” He was interrupted as her hand, stopped his own, her gaze sad when he met her eyes.
“Israel, my sweet boy.” She said carefully, her voice hoarse, a coughing fit threatening to build inside of her. “This- this is no way for-” Her breath wheezed. “For either of us to live. Do we- do we have to? We both- both know what’s coming, my darling.”
Izzy swallowed the lump in his throat. “I know but I can’t just- I can’t let you die. I refuse.”
“Oh Israel, don’t f-fight me on this, please. I- It’s for the best. You can’t keep living like this my dar-darling. I can’t. It’s too much. I can’t go through this again and I know you can’t either.”
“Ma-” Izzy started, voice thick with tears.
Margaret reached her shaky hand up to cup his face. “You’ve been so brave all these years. You’ve- you’ve given up your whole life to make sure I was okay. I- I refuse to let you waste it on me any longer.”
He barely felt the tears as the waterline broke, sending them rolling down his cheeks. “What am I supposed to do without you? I can’t- if I stop, then-”
“I know. I know my darling. You’ll be so much happier, my love. Maybe you can even find someone who loves you just as much as I do.” She smiled sadly. Stroking a little strand of hair from Izzy’s face, she then pulls him down to leave a gentle kiss against his forehead and finally let's go. “You should- you should take my ring, my boy. Give it to somebody who makes you feel alive.” She said as she wiggled the ring off her finger with ease.
“Ma, I can’t take this from you,” Izzy said softly, looking down at the emerald she deposited in the palm of his hand.
“Of course, you can.” She said, curling his fingers around it with her own, giving his hand a small squeeze. “You- you deserve to find the happiness, I didn’t. You- you know the best moment of my life was- was when I held you in my arms for the- the first time.” She wheezed and then began to cough, spittle flying from her mouth as the fit that she was holding back overtook her.
Izzy immediately began to soothe her, rubbing her back as he whispered soft reassurances in her ear. “I’ve got you. You’re going to be okay. You’re going to be alright. Easy does it.” Eventually, she stopped coughing, breath gasping as Izzy helped her lay back down. “You should rest. Take it easy, don’t overwork yourself. You’ll be okay.” Izzy carefully stroked the hair from her face, watching her.
She passed away that evening. He never gave her the medicine.
Izzy fiddled with the ring interwoven in his tie, eyes damp as he laid his eyes on Edward. His Captain, his friend, his… he didn’t know what. It was an inexplicable feeling, this something welled up in his chest and threatened to burst. It made him want to scream, cry, and laugh. It made him want to crawl inside a hole and shrivel away. It made him want to stroke Edward’s long dark hair and soothe the fever with his lips... Edward mumbled in his sleep, closing in on himself like a shrimp and Izzy sighed, releasing his fantasies into the open air. He wouldn’t get what he wanted. It just wasn’t a thing that happened for people like him, like them.