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“Fuck off,” Izzy bellows. His throat is raw, his voice wrecked. Every muscle in his body burns - not aches, fucking burns, because each staggering step with his makeshift crutches and leg strained him, and then his miserable fucking excuse for a prosthetic buckled and collapsed under him. Bruises bloom on his arms and face where he hit the deck. His severed leg hurts so much that it’s circled back around to numbness.
None of it matters. He has to get out of this godforsaken room. Get away from the crew. How dare they stare at him like a dying animal? Like a creature worthy of pity? He can handle their disdain. His whole life has consisted of people’s disdain for him. He’s well-aware they’ve never respected him.
Their pity makes bile rise in his throat.
“Fuck off,” he snarls, and hauls himself over. Crawl. He can crawl on his belly like the fucking serpent. That’s all he is, a snake, the most unlovable of creatures, damned to crawl on his belly for swaying his captain to darkness. You live alone, you die alone -
“No.”
Strong, warm arms wrap around Izzy and haul him back. He thrashes only to find himself cradled in Fang’s arms. Fang’s always in tears nowadays, weak fucking bastard, and now’s no exception - but up close, Izzy doesn’t see weakness.
He sees grief.
It draws him up short.
“I’m sorry,” Fang says, “I’m sorry, boss, I don’t want to take away any choices from you, but you can’t crawl. Please.”
Jim crouches next to them. They rest a hand on Izzy’s shoulder. Izzy refuses to look at them, nearly sick at the thought of seeing disgust plain in their face. For a brief moment on Blackbeard’s crew, Jim followed him like a shadow, studying the blade with him, watching carefully as he plotted their course on the map he tacked up in his berth.
“Izzy,” they say quietly. “Let us help.”
“I don’t need help.”
“Please - ” When they next speak, they’re even quieter and exclusively speaking Spanish. Izzy can speak the language fairly well when he’s sober. It’s more of a stretch through a layer of alcohol. He struggles to catch their words: “At least let your crew help. Fang and Frenchie and Archie and me. Please.”
Izzy rubs at his face with trembling hands. “Don’t want anyone to see me like this.”
“I could close my eyes,” Jim says.
Izzy’s making sounds, terrible sounds, little whimpers with every breath. It’s miserable. It’s humiliating. He hurts.
“Archie, Frenchie, come here,” Jim orders in English. They’re there in an instant, kneeling in front of Izzy where he’s curled on Fang’s lap. Izzy can’t avoid eye contact forever - there’s shame in that, too. He forces himself to look at them, teeth bared, prepared for their contempt or shame -
Frenchie gently touches Izzy’s arm. “Here’s what we’ll do,” he says. “Fang and Jim here will help you to your room and get you settled. I’ll ask Roach about finding you something better for pain than the drink. And Archie and I will come check on you before we have our watch.”
“I don’t need to be coddled,” Izzy snaps, ignoring what he wants entirely.
“Maybe we need to take care of you, mate,” Archie says. “You know, for ourselves? Give us something productive to do? I don’t know,” she protests when Jim elbows her. “I thought he might feel better about it if he thought it would keep us out of trouble.”
Impossibly, Izzy feels a laugh clawing its way out of his throat. “As if you fuckers are anything but trouble.” It almost feels like those few calm moments on Blackbeard’s crew, usually below deck while they were sorting loot, when Izzy would listen to his ragtag survivors teasing each other and think maybe they might outlast the horrors.
If he looks straight forward, he can almost pretend he’s back there, down three toes but not a leg. He can pretend the crew of the Revenge isn’t behind him, watching.
He can pretend to have hope.
“Ready to go to your room?” Jim asks. Izzy nods. “Do you want Fang and me to brace you so you can walk, or do you want Fang to carry you?”
Izzy casts a look over his shoulder at the crew of the Revenge. They’re standing around awkwardly - yes, with pity in their eyes, but it doesn’t sting as much as Izzy expected. Maybe it’s the drink numbing him. Maybe it’s the warmth of Fang’s arms.
Still, he has a little pride left. “Help me walk until we’re out of their sight,” he says quietly, hoping no one other than his troublemakers will hear. “Then - then Fang can…can carry me, I s’pose.”
Fang shifts Izzy off of his lap. Jim maneuvers Izzy’s arm over one of their shoulders; Fang takes their other arm. They slowly make their way out of the room -
Archie calls, “You would get your asses kicked in a five-legged race,” and Jim and Izzy both flip her off” -
and around the corner. As soon as they’re out of sight of the crew, Izzy lets go of Jim and reaches for Fang. He’s held Izzy before, not just the day that Ed shot him but many nights before that too, when they were young sailors desperate for affection. Fang cradles him close. Izzy closes his eyes and lets himself imagine he’s simply had too much to drink on shore leave and Fang’s carrying him back to the deckhands’ quarters for a good sleep.
Fang’s muffled tears ruin the illusion.
“Quit that,” Izzy orders, hitting his shoulder. “Quit fuckin’ crying.”
“I can’t. I’ve tried. I’m sorry.”
“Well, try harder.”
“Hey,” Jim says. A door creaks. Izzy opens his eyes just as Fang gently lays him on his bed. Izzy expects them both to leave. Instead, Fang lies down on the bed beside him and cuddles him close. Jim sits on the edge of the bed, their mouth a tight, anxious line. Their hand keeps making aborted motions toward Izzy’s face.
“Am I that horrible to touch, Jimenez?”
“Shut the fuck up,” Jim says lowly. Their hand trembles when they finally touch Izzy’s face. Izzy isn’t sure he’s ever seen them shiver like this, not even after gutting scores of men. They’re strong, the kind of person who would do well as a quartermaster someday, maybe even a captain if they can get their temper under control.
Maybe not a captain, though, because Izzy’s never heard a captain apologize in his life, and the next words out of Jim’s mouth are “I’m sorry.”
“The fuck for?”
“I let him be alone with you.” Jim’s shaking knuckles gently brush the skin next to the long, slow-healing scar where the gun Ed gave to Izzy misfired.
“Don’t be a fucking idiot, he would have killed you. I’m not worth all that.”
“ Yes you are, ” Jim and Fang snap at the same time.
Izzy’s words catch in his throat and choke him. They come out as a formless sob. He bites his tongue until he tastes blood.
Jim crawls into bed alongside him. Between them and Fang, there’s plenty of places for Izzy to hide his face. There’s so much fucking shame in hiding. Izzy does it anyway.
He must sleep, though for the first time in months he doesn’t dream at all. He wakes up cold and alone. Of course he’s alone. Maybe Jim and Fang were a dream. The lower half of his missing leg hurts.
Someone bangs on his door. “Fuck off,” Izzy tells them. They knock more insistently. “Fuck off,” he roars. He grabs the bottle from his bedside and throws it at his door. It bounces off the frame and shatters on the floor.
“Hey, hey, no,” Frenchie says. He’s through the door in an instant, bracing Izzy when he tries to stand. Archie’s right behind him, tucking herself under Izzy’s other arm. “Look, we were going to leave it as a surprise, but - ”
“We should fit it on him anyway,” Pete says from the hall. “Make sure it works. I mean, of course it’ll work, we made it.”
“What,” Izzy snarls, “what the fuck are you on about? Why can’t you all leave me alone?”
“Because we love you,” Fang says as Frenchie, Archie, and Izzy reach the doorway.
“Mm, love might be a little strong of a word for me,” Lucius says. He’s smoking again. If he were within reach instead of leaning against the opposite wall, Izzy would snatch the cigarette from him and take a drag. “But ‘care’ would work.”
“Well, I love you,” Fang insists.
“We all care,” Jim says. Izzy peers around and discovers that “all” really means the whole bloody crew, both his ragtag survivors and the crew of the Revenge, Wee John and Olu and every single one of them. “I know words probably feel worthless, but maybe this won’t.”
They hold it up so he can see:
A leg, golden and sturdy, just the right length to fit. Izzy can tell just from looking at it.
If his arms were free, he would cover his face. As it is, the entire crew sees his face crumple, hears the sobs that tear free of him. They all see him lose his footing as the cries he can’t stifle fold him in half.
Jim and Fang catch him. They wrap themselves around him, and Frenchie and Archie close the circle behind him. His core four, his fierce survivors, his - his -
“I love you,” Fang says, “I love you, boss, I do.”
“We’re right here,” Archie says.
“Yeah.” Frenchie’s lips brush his temple just shy of his scar. “Not going anywhere without you.”
Jim buries their face in Izzy’s shoulder. They’re shaking nearly as much as he is. “You’re ours,” they say. “We’re family. Okay?”
Izzy chokes. His cough’s disgusting, his breath must smell, but none of his crew flinches away. In fact, Jim somehow wiggles themself closer to him, clinging like a child. Izzy drips tears into their hair.
The four of them guide him back to sit on his bed. They hold him there until his sobs become hiccups, his hiccups tremors. The rest of the crew stays in the hall, but he can hear them talking quietly.
“Talking about me,” he mumbles.
“Sure,” Fang says. “They’re worried, boss. We’re all worried.”
“Why?”
“Eh, don’t ask that,” Archie says. When Izzy looks at her, she shrugs. “It’s no good asking why people feel things in my experience. They just do. Gotta accept it.”
Someone in the hall says “yeah.”
Izzy snorts. “Come in, then, instead of haunting the hall, you fuckin’ twats.”
They all squeeze themselves into his room. The air’s close, people are shoulder-to-shoulder, but no one complains. Pete kneels by the bed and carefully holds the golden leg up by Izzy’s residual leg, measuring length with his eyes. He nods. “Looks good.”
Lucius weaves through people to hand a note to Izzy. “I suppose you don’t need this since we’re giving it to you in person, but since I went to the trouble of writing this note….”
Izzy unfolds it. “For the new unicorn,” he reads aloud. His voice cracks halfway through. He clears his throat. “Do you lot even know what a figurehead means?”
“They’re the spirit of the ship,” Oluwande says.
“A good luck charm,” Frenchie adds.
Jim leans their head on Izzy’s shoulder. “Keeps the crew safe.”
Tears blur Izzy’s vision again. He blinks and lets them fall.
“D’you want to try it out?” Pete asks from where he still kneels in front of Izzy. “No pressure or anything.”
Izzy roughly wipes his face with his sleeve. Nods. “Show me how it’s supposed to fit.”
Izzy expected shoddy craftsmanship. He really did, and who could blame him? He’s seen how the Revenge’s crew works. Instead, the leg is a beauty, strong and practical, with a fabric-cushioned cup to ease the impact of each step on his residual leg. Wee John demonstrates how the straps wrap around Izzy’s leg. Pete shows him how the leg itself fits.
Izzy weeps at how soft the fabric is. Even that causes pain.
“Here,” Roach says, handing him a flask of water and two strange little blue capsules. “Got the recipe off a sea witch. From experience I can say it won’t take away all the pain, but maybe it will cut through it a little.”
“Anything’s better than nothing,” Izzy admits. He’s so tired of pain that he would swallow the capsules even if he were afraid they might be poison. But he’s not, is the thing; he’s not afraid. It hurts how much he’s not afraid.
“Is it hurting you too much to try right now?” Wee John asks.
“No, it’s not even - fucking hell.” Izzy scrubs his face. “Eyes are just - fucking leaking at this point, I don’t know why. It all hurts, but it’s not all bad. Don’t ask me to explain that, I don’t fucking understand it either.”
“I do,” Lucius says. He’s been quiet for a while, watching the crew get Izzy’s leg arranged. He never used to look so haunted. His old softness nearly got him killed, yet Izzy finds himself wishing Lucius could have it back. He wishes Lucius didn’t regard him with so much understanding. “It’s like there was a band around your heart, isn’t it? You locked all your wants down, all your fears down, wouldn’t let anyone touch them. That’s how you survived. And now, that band’s been severed. You’re letting us snip it right in half. And that’s good, probably healthier for you in the long run, but it hurts - all the blood rushing back into the places you tried to strangle.”
Izzy doesn’t know what to do with Lucius being so right. “Fuckin’ cocksucker,” he mumbles, acutely aware that he sounds affectionate.
“Aaaand done,” Pete says, finally standing. “Your leg is secure. Enjoy!”
Jim lets go of Izzy for the first time in an hour in order to shepherd the crew out of Izzy’s berth. “Make a path,” they order.
Archie and Frenchie lever Izzy to his feet. “Looking good,” Frenchie says. Archie gives Izzy a double thumbs up.
“I’ll be right here the whole time, boss,” Fang says. He’s got one hand hovering under Izzy’s elbow and the other near his waist.
With his whole crew watching, Izzy takes his first step.