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The problem with Ricky Banes is not that he has no reserves of humility, it is not even that he unfortunately has the backing of the British empire – it’s that he is obsessed with impressing one person and one person only. Who that person is probably changes with the tides, but were he addicted to worship and fame from the masses like most poor sods, he would be easier to do away with it, but no. Prince Fuckwit wants recognition from who he perceives as the one from whom praise would mean the most.
Izzy recognizes the starving dog in him the moment he lays eyes on his unbearable pomp. He recognizes it because he was once the same – following at the heels of his first Captain until he quickly proved undeserving and then there was Edward, of course, always Edward. At least until he was shaken loose of his steadfast hero worship by pain of death and disillusionment. He’d watched Edward kill himself and try to take them all down with him. The Izzy that emerged from that calamity is just as different as the Edward Teach that survived a bludgeoning. Izzy is no longer focused on pleasing one person and their interests, but rather he’s re-committed himself to a group. A crew.
His crew.
Ricky doesn’t have such luck, and there’s a desperate, obvious part of him that knows he’s drifting untethered, flailing around to try and obtain his deepest desire even if he doesn’t fully understand it.
Izzy can see it when Ricky wakes from being knocked out by Auntie, eyes bouncing around like an insect gradually realizing its surrounded by frogs; at least until he catches sight of Stede Bonnet. His world appears to make sense then, and Izzy connects the dots from what Bonnet shared with them. Ricky’s desperate for approval from the Gentleman Pirate, and since he cannot have it, he will burn Bonnet’s world down around him so his only choice is to grovel at his feet.
King of the pirates Izzy’s ass, but at least his misguided idolization is right about one thing – even Stede Bonnet is better than this runt. And he’ll figure that out before the end, Izzy will help make sure of it; suicidal plan or not.
He has his eye on the rat bastard, close enough of an eye that the moment he draws his gun, Izzy stretches his whip, lashing it from the man’s hands before he has a chance to fire a surely errant shot. He has no faith in the noble-bitch’s ammunition training.
Izzy bares his teeth, snapping at the fool, “Fuckin’ useless cunt, remember?”
He drives that reality home by uncoiling the whip again and unleashing it with meticulous intention, the garish replacement nose dripping off the pisspoor Prince’s face. The snap of the whip leaves a gash on his temple, the blush of scarlet settling warm with pride in Izzy’s belly. The man shrieks at the close call, frightened fingers going to his face. It’s satisfying, so very satisfying, until that sensation goes stale at the veritable twinkle in Ricky Bane’s stupidly wet eyes.
Were there not a battle raging around them, Izzy feels certain he would be able to hear the slow shudder of Ricky’s breath as the puzzle pieces of his disturbed mind reconfigure around the statue of Bonnet he’s erected in its forefront, elevating an effigy of a new ambition right in front of it. A new person whose recognition Ricky desires so much that he might destroy an entire city to attain it.
“Fuck,” Izzy mutters under his breath. He ignores the prickle of dismay curling in his breast, instead moving backward to assist the crew with this ridiculous plan. It even works for a while as he concentrates on taking out anyone he doesn’t outright recognize. Against all odds, the crew attack just enough of these morons that they begin to retreat to the bay, to the Revenge and continued freedom, and it’s in that momentary high that his world gets scooped out from under him.
Abruptly he’s on his back, leg having been wrenched out from under him. His thigh burns, muscles contorted in a way that can’t be healthy. But there is Ricky, lording above him with a sword to his throat.
“You incessant, ugly-arsed coward,” Izzy bites out as his sword hand is sharply slapped by another blade, this one coming from one of the literal six soldiers entombing him on his back as though he were a rabbit cornered in a burrow by the hounds of a local lord.
“You wound me, Israel,” that name again, spoken as though Ricky is doing him a favor – being respectful - when that’s not the name he’s chosen all of these years. “I would have thought that thinking on my own two feet to capture an enemy of the crown would be worthy of at least a little regard.”
“Sure you would,” Izzy rolls his eyes, “That’s what you want, isn’t it? A pat on the head, to be told you did a good job? Well piss off, mate, so you caught a fucking cripple. Not exactly a feather in your cap when Blackbeard and his crew are out of your hands.”
It’s instinct to still call them all Blackbeard’s, even if he knows full well they’re really not. They’re Stede’s. They’re their own. But he refuses to say The Gentleman Pirate out fucking loud. He at least prays he’s right, that they’re over that hill and to the beach – gone, without him, but safe. This fucking plan had been a suicide mission anyway. If one of them has to go, it might as well be him. It’s not like he would have been able to run very fast anyway.
“Not all of Blackbeard’s crew.”
Izzy glares up at him, grin splitting into a laugh as he spits at the man’s feet, being poked and prodded to stand. “You keep telling yourself that, that you did well, that you’re a good little soldier… Cause you’re not going to hear it from anyone else. This is a mess you’ve made, and you’ll be paying for it, I promise you that.”
Ricky considers him, somehow managing to still seem startlingly superior even while most of his men moan in pain and in various pieces around him. The prick truly does have tunnel-vision for what he wants.
Izzy really hates being right sometimes.
How familiar the fittings of the Navy ship are sting a dormant part of Izzy’s soul; it isn’t quite as bad as having to wear Navy colors again for the first time since being pressed into service in his childhood, but it is a near second. He practically knows his own way to the brig, despite it having been decades, long enough for their ship designs to change. There he waits for Ricky to come gloat.
And gloat he does. Endlessly, and with great pageantry. He even brings a chair to sit on, so that they might ‘be on even ground’. Horseshit, and Izzy says as much. It’s basically the only thing he says. He doesn’t wish to play this game, though it’s not as though he wants to rush his execution either.
Yet something tells him that his execution isn’t exactly slated. After all, the same six guards rotate in and out, and when he’s finally taken out of his cell, bound and brought to Ricky’s quarters by three of them, it’s as the shift bell rings and there’s not a soul in their path.
Ricky’s quarters are less flashy than Bonnet’s, even the post-Kraken, dressed down version of them, and Izzy feels at home in them. He’s often in the Captain’s quarters, both when Ed was his Captain and now that Bonnet is.. whatever he is to Izzy. Captain feels a bit disingenuous but he is something; just not something to be feared, so Izzy finds his way into his cabin whether the flounce is there or not.
“I’ve prepared a spread for us. I thought we might talk a little.”
Izzy eyes the various dishes laying out brightly on the table, a light blue tablecloth underneath. He means to say nothing, but being in these quarters instead of the brig has relaxed him a little. “You rich types are all the same. A dozen utensils and nothing hardy. Do you all eat like birds then?”
“It’s what we’re taught, yes, at least in public.” Ricky is clearly emboldened by Izzy’s participation. So Izzy just makes a sound and doesn’t sit down.
“I assume you won’t talk much, I accept that. I do hope you’ll eat a little at least. I would rather the illustrious Izzy Hands not prematurely starve on my watch, and the less you weigh, the more you’ll kick under the hangman’s noose. You’d rather it be quick yes? So eat up!”
Izzy stares at him, honestly a bit impressed at the joke, but largely annoyed at the pretense. “If you were going to kill me, I’d be dead by now. Why wait?”
“Well, Israel,” Izzy twitches at the name, “I’m a man fond of history, both reading it and making it. When Blackbeard dies, so shall Izzy Hands. It will be quite a tale, and if you were to die before Blackbeard is found, it would be a tragic missed opportunity.”
“Mhm,” Izzy hums, doubtful.
At least then there is blessed silence. Izzy tests his bonds then, knowing full well by the way Ricky is glancing between the table and him that he wants Izzy to ask how he is going to eat. He won’t give him the satisfaction. Rather he just stands there, scarcely looking around, scarcely moving. He wishes to be disinteresting, but unfortunately that just seems to make Ricky all the more invested.
“You really are stoic aren’t you?” Ricky finally gets up. He walks closer, but not so close that Izzy could strike him – he wants to, but there is still a whole ship of soldiers between him and escape, and with just his teeth and body weight, he’s unlikely to be able to outright kill Ricky. And such a shame, he doesn’t have Bonnet’s dumb luck with accidentally killing noblemen.
“Unflappable, really,” Ricky reaches out, he doesn’t touch, and is still so far away, but he still reaches, “I wonder what it would take to get under your skin.”
Izzy scoffs. The toff is like a spoiled kid in a pet shop, surveying a beast he wishes to crush and imprison only to call it ‘caretaking’.
“Why not try me?” His eyes gleam like the sabre they stole from him.
For all it’s worth, Ricky does seem to consider it. He even appears disappointed when he comes to the logical conclusion that he can’t. “I think not. But don’t you want some food? Come closer, please.”
Politeness again. Izzy rolls his shoulders. Ricky sits back down and gestures to no avail. He sighs, cross and petulant, “You don’t need your hands to eat. This is morsel food. Won’t you sit down?”
“What, so you can feed me as if I’m some invalid??” It is a joke, truly, but he quickly realizes that could be the only way for him to eat with his hands tied unless Ricky wishes to make him lap like a dog. And it could come to that, but that’s evidently not what Ricky wants, not if his eyes are any window into his thoughts. “Oh-ho, that’s it then huh? You probably had a right pretty image of this night going just the way you want. You, magnanimous and kind with your fancy fucking food. Me, a poor hungry prisoner, desperate enough to eat from your fingers like a prized…”
Izzy pauses, about to say ‘pet but he thinks better of it. He can see the way Ricky is squirming, the overzealous twitch under his eye, the large cut Izzy gave him moving in tandem.
His own narrow of their own accord, “Like your date. Like this is a lovely, clandestine little fucking date. Is that it? You want to woo me, Prince?”
Ricky’s face contorts into some impressive displays of hurt and irritation, affirming everything Izzy is thinking. He throws his head back and laughs. “Did you have it this bad for Bonnet too? Were you going to capture him and ply him with treats? Did you imagine he’d tell you how strong you are, how wrong he was,” Izzy cannot stop himself now, mocking, “And oh, Prince Ricky, thank you, thank you for feeding me this…fuckin’ bird food, Prince Ricky, you’re so clever for beating me?? Fucking ponces, all of you!”
The audacity of thinking some creature comforts could sway Izzy Hands; absolutely incredible. He can’t stop laughing, though the way his own mirth causes him to bend at the waist does remind him that he is indeed quite hungry. He’s had but bread and broth since his capture, but he isn’t some thin-skinned rookie. Let them starve him, he’ll just snap his jaw the first chance he gets and sustain himself on their flesh and blood.
At the very least his laughter does stain the game Ricky is playing, and he’s unceremoniously led back to his cell. For his gall, he’s given a measly amount of cloudy water and not a trace of bread nor broth. Not for a day, then another.
The bare itch of his belly sets him in a much fouler mood, and by the time he’s towed before Ricky again, he would be lying if he said the spread of food were not far more appealing this time around.
“I hope you’re feeling as spirited as last time. I did try to think of your wishes,” Ricky’s smarmy voice is excessively haughty as he drags his cold, fanatical gaze down Izzy’s fatigued body, “You must have eaten too much of our generous guest’s rations to be able to eat with me. Either that or it was too rich for your constitution, so I have a different meal for you.”
Hardtack and what looks like a thin potato soup, no hint of steam coming from it. Sitting next to Ricky’s right elbow, within reach but clearly not placed for him, is a small selection of vividly colored fruits, a cutlet of finger-sized slices of meat, and a warm smelling oatmeal with wisps of steam wafting off of it. The scent blows right in his direction as Ricky leans on his chin and sighs.
“Will you sit?”
Izzy gnashes his teeth so hard there’s a squeak as his molars collide, loud enough to his own ears that he imagines Ricky hears it too. The man’s brows do seem to lift in accordance. Izzy scowls, taking a few steps forward but he squarely does not sit.
Ricky nonetheless smiles at him. “Excellent. I do have some updates for you. As you know, the Republic of pirates has yielded.” Yes yes, Izzy thinks, having been told. The businesses and home-owners were all given a choice – declare the King their sovereign or risk the penalty.
“And your former crew ran away with their tails between their legs.” Yep, another repeat. He also knows that the tone belies more so the unspoken judgement – ’Wonder how long it took them to look back and realize you weren’t there. Do you think they even noticed before they were on the ship?’ as Ricky had mused the day he told him, when he visited Izzy’s cell.
He doesn’t need Ricky’s prompting to contemplate how it must have gone. ‘Course they got to the skiffs before they noticed, not the ship at least. That would have been the case prior to his christening as the crew’s unicorn.
“Naturally, we’re pursuing them, but there’s something else I thought you might be particularly interested in.” Izzy pre-rolls his eyes, whatever Ricky’s about to say is sure to be further crowing about his so-called ‘achievements’. “It’s about an old friend of yours, though I do not believe your association ended very well. I still thought you’d like to know.. Benjamin Hornigold has taken the King’s Grace, and he sure is singing all kinds of secrets.”
Whether Izzy intends to sit or not doesn’t matter anymore. His veins turn to chunks of glacier and he wavers enough to incidentally require the chair perched right next to him. It’s as though he’s had his legs cut out from under him, and he knows what that feels like.
“What?” he croaks, unable to stop his disbelief from leaking out. Hornigold?? That brutal, bottomless wretch of a man, accepting England as his keeper?? Izzy blinks. He thinks about it, and then he laughs. Again, but not nearly like last time, when he’d been breathless with it. Just a puff of air that congeals in his lungs and paralyzes his chest.
Of course Hornigold went turncoat. He has only ever been rotted and narcissistic, he could never let himself fall to the Navy’s noose or rifles – he considers himself too important for that. He would rather bite the scruffs of everyone else than hand himself over, a deceitful lone wolf to the last.
Izzy’s quiet now, helplessly listening to Ricky’s words.
“Ah, yes, I thought you’d recognize that name. I’ve heard rumors you were on his ship, with Edward Teach, and Calico Jack. Samuel Bellamy too. Quite the delinquents you lot are. I’d love to hear some stories, Israel, if you would permit a tale. Maybe after you get a few bites down.”
Izzy snaps at him with a tempered sort of rage, “I’m not telling you anything. And don’t call me that.”
“What?”
“Israel,” he grits out. With his mind unraveling so unexpectantly, he clings to what is most reflexive. “That’s not my fucking name. It’s Izzy. Not that you have the right to call me anything other than Mr. Hands, you bootlicking bluntie.”
“Hmm. I see I hit a nerve here. I did not wish to upset you,” Ricky lies, the delight written all over his expression. Somehow even his ridiculous fake nose simpers at him. “Let me make up for it with another tidbit I think you’re going to want to know.”
Izzy’s shoulders are so tense someone could crack an egg on his spine.
“Hornigold is leading the flagship to track down as many pirates as he knows. Vane. Bellamy, if he’s still alive. Blackbeard too, yes. Do you know which one he’d prioritize? Because I’ve been wondering, who will get to Edward Teach first? Us, or your old Captain? And if he does get to them first, what do you think he’ll do?”
Izzy just stares. As much as he will not vocally entertain Ricky’s teasing, he is going down all kinds of dark paths in his head. How is it Ricky even knows that this is such a personal sore spot? Then again, he supposes it wouldn’t take much to find out that Izzy and Ed are Hornigold’s enemies. After all, they’d led the mutiny against him, and that is common enough knowledge.
“How about this, Izzy,” Ricky pauses to make sure Izzy notes how courteous he thinks he’s being by using Izzy’s goddamn name, “You take a bite, I take a bite. I give a tale, you give a tale. I can tell you what Hornigold’s been saying about you and your friends. You tell me a stories about your early pirating days. Seems more than fair. Old information for new. I do think you’d be getting the better end of the deal.”
It’s a decent arrangement, with little lost. Izzy has enough well known stories, tweaked to add mystery or told so many times by so many people that the details are impossible anyway. He could barter for hours without ever giving anything truly real away. But that would be bowing. It would be giving Ricky what he wants. And knowing about Hornigold has thrown him off, making him petty. His temper is all he can feel now, even past the gnawing of his stomach.
So after a moment of steeling himself, Izzy pushes himself up and away from the chair. He says nothing and refuses to look at Ricky. The man tsks, sounding distressed but not for himself. “Such a shame. Your stubbornness is only hurting yourself you know.”
Then Ricky eats. The piece of shit takes his time too, munching loudly with sporadic, breathy little half-moans of appreciation. The fruit is popped into his mouth quickly but delectably, and he licks the meat grease off his fingers with a steady pace. He saves the porridge for last, and Izzy almost believes he can smell it all the way up to the very last grain.
“Well, I am sure you have much to think about. I was glad to see you. Let’s do this again, let’s say three, four days from now?”
Izzy lurches despite himself. Even three more days of very little water, and no food? He can only go so long before he will start hallucinating from the lack of water. He knows he would still be alive, but he’ll be a near husk.
Ricky tilts his head, every despicable inch of him the benevolent royal, “A day then.”
Izzy snarls, some prideful speck in him exploding. He does actually move forward with pure intention, jaw snapping. Ricky picks up something next to him, a tinkling sound vibrating through the air. “You have a fucking bell for your guards?!”
“No,” Ricky explains nonchalantly while the guards dip in to heave him out, “I only use this bell for you, my rambunctious friend.”
Izzy gets a few good shoves in against the guards but is restrained once more.
One more day passes and he’s given barely more than a few drops of water and no food. When he takes his brace off, he worries about putting it back on due to a lack of lotion, the leather scratchy and his skin inflamed.
Ricky does not summon him. Izzy thinks only about his empty stomach sloshing with the two sips of water, the pain in his leg, and Benjamin fucking Hornigold – he thinks about the latter so much that he swears not much longer and the voice in his memories is going to leech out his ears, the looming figure to slink out after to touch him again. The press of his hands, even spectral, would be too much.
Hornigold’s last promise to Ed repeats in his mind, as all good echoes should. ‘I’ll flay your traitorous palms and feed them back to you, Edward! I’ll stab out your wandering eyes and shove them up your arse. Or Izzy’s. Yes, that’ll hurt more won’t it?’
If Hornigold has Blackbeard in his sights, he’ll stop at nothing to reap his vengeance. The fact that Izzy isn’t on that ship will be a disappointment, certainly, one he might exact from the crew’s backs in his absence. Especially Stede. Guilt burrows in him as briars on a sparrow chased into an unfamiliar thornbush.
“I apologize for making you wait an extra day,” Ricky says when he finally deigns to call for Izzy again, “We ran into an unexpected ship. A friendly, but it still took some time to sort out.”
The commotion the day before was noticeable, but Izzy hears all kinds of noise from the brig. Before the mention of Hornigold, he would play a game of pretending what inane or potentially significant course of action they were taking, but his mind is full, and his guts forlorn.
“I expect you’re more amenable to a meal now?”
There has only ever been one inevitable end to this gambit – Izzy will eat, even if it must be from Ricky’s hands. He’s not about to kill himself this way, and if Hornigold really is after Ed and Stede, then Izzy needs his strength. Refusing had been childish in the first place.
He answers with a growl that traitorously turns into a dry cough, but he clamors forward. He tries to pretend his left leg doesn’t burn as he sits this time, hands still tied behind his back as the misbehaving child he resembles even now. The scowl on his face could be called a pout for all the weary force behind it.
“Good, good. Do you remember the deal? A story for a bite and vice versa.”
Izzy ratchets up the glower in his eyes as much as he can. Ricky smiles at him, and accepts that for the response it is.
“Water first though, seeing as you won’t be able to talk without it.”
Ricky tips a cup in Izzy’s direction. Loathing sets his bones aflame but he lets the cup sit against his lips and tilts his head back when Ricky nudges. He can feel the man’s gaze on his throat as he swallows. There’s an answering grumble of his stomach as it realizes it’s about to have something to process.
After he drinks, Ricky impales a portion of beef onto his fork and lifts it close to his own lips. “How about we start with something simple. Hornigold told us that Teach had been on his ship for quite some time before you arrived. And that you were a feral thing who turned on your original Captain the moment it was clear that Hornigold was going to win. Care to confirm, deny, or perhaps give me a few more details?”
Ricky takes his bite then, tale proffered.
Izzy rumbles with amusement, “That imbecile wasn’t my Captain. He wasn’t capable enough to be anyone’s Captain. He was lucky to have a good bosun, and Ed killed him.”
He lists over as he speaks, blinking a little as he tries to think of his point.
“Hm, I think we’ll bend the rules a little first. Take this.”
A lump of hardtack, seemingly presoaked in water, is in front of him then; it’s the same options he’d been offered before. A sailor’s rations, nothing elaborate or even particularly appetizing; the same sort Izzy has sustained himself on for years. Izzy only hesitates because obstinance in the face of any order that wasn’t his Captains’ is written into every fiber of his being. His stomach growls so violently he finds himself closing his eyes. He doesn’t want to see the contentedness on Ricky’s face.
He seals his mouth around the piece, though he does smirk a little as he nicks Ricky’s fingers. He chews slowly, deliberately, and lets himself trace the slide of the familiar glob of hardened flour as it makes its ragged way down. It feels like shame, but it also just begins to fill the voracious hole in him.
“So, Teach killed the bosun of your first Captain?”
Not his first Captain, not even his first pirate captain, but he isn’t offering more than he needs to. “Yes. Ed took out the only other fighter who was worth a damn on that stinking ship, ‘sides me. So I did what any sane person would do. I made myself useful. I begged, because respect can be earned even from the bottom if you’re good enough, but you can’t get your life back after it’s been lost.”
Ed had liked his honesty, his fire, and convinced Hornigold to take him on. He was one of six crew members to be accepted onto The Ranger. He’s a bit lost in his own memory when he hears an encouraging sound and snaps his eyes into focus to see a wedge of salted beef pinned between Ricky’s fingers.
He hates himself as he leans forward. This time, Ricky places it in his mouth, skirting away quickly so he can’t bite him. The meat is better than the hardtack, at least.
“Hornigold confirmed that you and Teach led the mutiny against him. Though he said it was your idea, not Teach’s. No one seems to care about that, but I do. Is it true?”
His lip twitches to show his teeth, “’Course he said it was my idea. It wasn’t anyone’s singular idea, it was the only path forward. Mutiny opened up to us like the sun at dawn, the only way out of Hornigold’s reckless plans.”
“If he was so terrible, why did you not kill him?”
“Pirate code.” Izzy says it like it’s ever that simple.
“I don’t believe that for a second. Was it a grudging respect? Gratitude?”
Izzy doesn’t answer, though his gaze shamefully darts down to the only new dish on the table, set up between them like a compromise – a nest of steamed cabbage.
“Hrm, I suppose you did answer the original question. I’ll give you this one.”
But not the cabbage so it seems, rather another hunk of water-dunked hardtack.
“Would you like something more to drink?”
Izzy hates that he does, but he refuses to nod, he just freezes, food still in his mouth. Ricky chuckles a little and Izzy swallows, the spark of repugnance growing. He nevertheless accepts the tin cup against his mouth.
“You know of Anne Bonny and Mary Read, yes?”
Izzy again gives no indication of agreement, but Ricky nods as though he has. “They escaped from the King’s decree, for now. They’re sure to be found, eventually, but…”
“Good,” Izzy says with a pointed amount of relish. “May they live long enough to be blood-sucking thorns in your King’s side. Why’d you even go back to being the crown’s lapdog? Bonnet said you did what he did, left to dip your toes in adventuring, but you returned. Is it really just because you got your nose chopped off? Are you so weak?”
Ricky seems unfairly pleased that Izzy has shaken up their routine already, asking him questions now. He bristles at that, but there’s no taking it back now.
“I will admit, the mystique of being a Nassau renegade lost some of its charm when I couldn’t even breath in the scent of seasalted air… but no, I realized I could do more. Be bigger, better. I’m not just some cog in the King’s machine, my small-minded friend, I’ve got bigger plans than you know.”
“Is that so?” Izzy doesn’t even bother wasting time being upset at being called small-minded. That’s not entirely wrong after all – Izzy is at his best when he’s thinking short-term, one or two steps at a time, not beyond that. Big picture thinking, creativity, is Edward’s area, or Bonnet’s. He’s there to keep them grounded and alive while they dream their way into the heavens. All he ever asks is to be by their side when it happens, but he’s beginning to accept that he’s likely to be left on the earth to decay without them.
So Izzy supposes it’s possible that this touched, vain noseless twat has a hint of brilliance to him; if Stede Bonnet does, why not this prick? And he did blow up most of the fleet in Nassau, he’s done something right. He’s not some remarkable tactician, not a chance, but dumb luck is not out of the question. Maybe like Bonnet indeed.
“Oh yes. Perhaps you’ll be there to see it. Perhaps not.” Judging from his enthusiasm, Ricky certainly wants Izzy there.
“Can’t wait,” he says dryly.
“Here.”
The cabbage is in front of him now. It’s not part of the deal, he hadn’t shared anything, but he accepts it nonetheless. And this time he gets a chance to nip at Ricky’s fingers, although the man seems pleased by that. His stomach is tightening now, reminding him that eating too much too quickly after starving for so long would have ramifications. But he’s still so hungry…
“I can ask you the same thing, you know.”
“What?” Izzy’s voice is a bit embarrassing; maudlin from contemplating his aching abdomen, slow as a result of days of imprisonment, as though it were all catching up with him.
“Why did you go back? You made a deal with the Navy. You sold them Bonnet, for your own Captaincy and, from what I heard, your Captain, as well. Bartering one man for another is one thing, but with the Navy? For Blackbeard?”
It feels like forever ago, the mindset he was in when he made the biggest mistake in his life. The reminder strikes him as bodily as an untacked chest of commandeered treasure during a storm.
“I truly don’t understand why Admiral Badminton agreed to that. No one did, though of course the crown got, and lost, Blackbeard anyway. But still, Badminton gave up Blackbeard, for Stede Bonnet? The Gentleman Pirate…that was when I knew he must really be something.”
It isn’t merely Izzy’s lip that twitches, or even his eyebrow. It’s his whole damn face.
“I am surprised they both kept you on after that. So what happened, exactly, to drive you to betrayal? Did you at least have a plan, like I do?”
The twinge has turned into a full blown conniption. His belly churns, sick with food and stress and memory. Were his hands free, he’d be using them to batter Ricky’s face into putty.
“Oh. I hit another sore spot I see. Maybe we’ll work up to that one?” He sounds so fucking smug. A pulse takes Izzy’s vision by the wayside, visceral offense sinking so deeply he wishes to defend himself the only way he truly knows how – violently. He imagines himself launching across the table, dishes and food clattering to take whatever part of Ricky he can down with him. It would be instant gratification, and it would hopefully surprise the spoiled prince. But the cost…
Izzy still hasn’t eaten enough to soothe his throbbing stomach nor the resultant headache, and what little energy he is getting from the paltry scraps he’s being fed needs to be conserved. Logically, he knows that, and he can only be petulant as that mindfulness wins out.
But that doesn’t mean he’s happy about it.
The thought of throwing himself across the table to chew off what remains of Ricky’s face gets Izzy through the rest of the meal. He continues to endure the humiliation of accepting slivers of food for the fee of a story, and the more he eats, the more it seems his senses return to him and he’s able to obfuscate most of his answers. Eventually he’s returned to his cell, hardier than when he left, and still unsure which of them won that round. At least a bottle of oil is delivered to his cell, and he unabashedly uses it to relieve some of the sting in his leg.
The next afternoon, he’s brought again, rinse wash and repeat. And again the next day. Near the end of that session, when he’s feeling hardier, more assured, Ricky offers him alcohol. He refuses, not wanting to muddle his brain any further. Ricky is clearly disappointed by that, and twists the knife he’s ever holding in Izzy’s belly by asking him a dreaded question.
“You’ve shared much about your youth, and I thank you for that. But I want to know something new. I want to know about Stede Bonnet.”
“’Course you do.”
“Is it really so surprising? The man went from landed gentry to playing pirates, and he won, at least for a little while. Were it not for the destruction I wrought on Nassau, his name would still be heralded in those streets, I heard it myself. The same streets that once sang of your exploits, the loyal attack dog of Blackbeard… You hated him, enough to sell him out, but now you’re on his crew. And it is his, isn’t it? Not Blackbeard’s, no matter what you’ve said.”
Izzy wishes he could run a hand over his eyes, momentarily regretting not accepting the booze.
“I have very little to say about that man, excepting the fact that he’s terrible.” He means to give a far more muddled answer, but saying anything nice about Bonnet is still a challenge. Fortunately, Ricky misunderstands.
“Terrible you say… Fierce, is he then? He doesn’t seem like much, but that’s probably how he gets ‘em, every time.” Ricky’s timbre goes higher and higher, his praise trickling into a self-serving thrill. Izzy once more understands why Ricky idolizes Bonnet so much. He wishes he was Stede. “People underestimate him. Just like me.” Yep there it is.
“Sure, people underestimate him.” Izzy had. He still does, perhaps. “But he’s also just one lucky bastard.”
“Why so disparaging? Isn’t luck just as important as skill? Is it not luck that you and Teach have survived so long? That you’re still alive even now, when you’re in the Navy’s hands, my hands? If I had less to learn from you, if I were not a man of history and myth, you’d be dead by now. Luck is nothing to snub your nose at.”
“Don’t fucking lecture me about luck you naïve Navy cuck,” Izzy snaps and then breathes in heavily. He purses his lips enough that he has to look away, swallowing everything down so firmly that he could imagine his tongue might follow.
Of course luck is significant, Izzy has been through battles and storms and disease – he knows luck intimately, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to praise someone for succeeding through happenstance.
At least, not behind their back or to their face. His own mind is fine, as Izzy has already conceded after his endeavor to train Bonnet, and the scarlet jacket fiasco. After Bonnet so proudly declared he ‘did a punch’, and then proceeded to nearly wreck the tenuous atmosphere on deck only to somehow come out the other side with more allies than before.
“No need to be so uppity about something so small. But we can move on then.. Do tell me, how did Bonnet start working with Teach? He must have impressed him so.”
The gorge he just swallowed rises back up with a vengeance and Izzy bows under the pressure, “Bonnet is a hurricane of ridiculousness and yes, dumb fuckin’ luck, and you’re gonna have to draw your own conclusions about how and why he and Blackbeard are working together. The only thing you need to know is that you should be afraid of that. Of them, and their crew. They’re crazy, absolutely batshit, and if you keep following them, they’ll infect you too and take you down with them.”
“It’s rather sweet, how you try so hard to discourage me from following them. Well, it’s your turn for a bout of luck then, because the last news we received says that Hornigold is closer to them than we are.”
Izzy says nothing, and endeavors to stop his mind from tumbling down any rabbit holes. “I don’t hear a question in all of this.”
“Eager for my scraps, are you?” Ricky lifts up a spoonful of that heavenly oatmeal, and by all that’s rotted in Davy Jones Locker Izzy desires precisely that. A scrap, a taste, specifically of that fucking honeyed porridge. But his pride refuses it, and they end the afternoon there, with Ricky licking up every last remnant of his meal, eyes heavy lidded and never moving from Izzy’s tetchy disdain.
He’s not getting enough nutrients to really be of much use; he only gets a meal if he shares it with Ricky, but at least he’s not starving as much. He’s got sufficient energy to accomplish what few paltry exercises he can manage in his cell without any weights or weapons. Water is also limited, and Izzy grows accustomed to conserving it. Oil for his limb and brace are gifted to him on sporadic occasions, seemingly for good behavior, which is repulsive. He also gets used to hearing Ricky’s smarmy voice, which is far harder than going without enough food or water.
He’s going on and on about how he managed to convince the brassheads of the Navy to give him control of their main fleets by exaggerating the horror of losing his nose. How he tricked Captain Zheng Yi, and came up with the idea of exploding clocks.
“It seemed ostentatious enough that it wouldn’t be suspicious – they do view the English as impractically excessive with our luxuries.”
Izzy let out a sound that could be noncommittal, or perhaps even a little laudatory, since as stupid as it was, it had unfortunately worked.
“I admit, I didn’t fully expect it to go so well. I thought I’d annihilate half of her fleet, not nearly all of them. What do you think? Wasn’t it a bit of a miracle?”
“Fishing for my approval again are you? Your questions are all the same.. I don’t give a shit what brilliant plan you come up with, I’ve sailed with tacticians sleeker than shits you’ve taken. I’ve watched better men die screaming, and you? You have the look of a man who is going to die squealing, and I can only hope to be there to hear it.”
“Impertinence again,” Ricky clucks at him. But Izzy can see from the gradual red halo encircling his permanently wet eyes that he feels hurt. The fucking sensitive, validation-mongering ninny. “I’ll assume that means you’ve eaten your fill then. I shall see you tomorrow.”
Izzy hasn’t managed to devour nearly enough, but he doesn’t resist when he’s led out of the room. Withal, there’s a dread clinging to the gradually slimming meat around his ribcage, a feeling like he’s failed some sort of test. He loathes that he has to care about Ricky’s moods, but Izzy’s continued strength depends on it. He has to keep himself capable enough to help his crew if the chance shows itself, that hope the only thing keeping him going as it is.
When he sees Ricky next, he has a contraption in his hand. A segment of polished, thick leather with a metal loop sticking out of the front, a buckle on the back. Within the loop is a chain, melded onto it with no seam in sight. Izzy recognizes it without much effort, going rigid at the insinuation.
Ricky looks down at it and back to Izzy with a sympathetic mien that heralds him as a man doing what’s necessary, nothing more, nothing less.
“No.” Izzy’s parched voice breaks, his unwillingness no less potent.
“Now now, don’t be so quick to judge. You said last time that things have become monotonous... You gave me a lot to think about, you always do, and I realized I’ve been approaching you all wrong. You said it yourself, I have been treating you like, a, well like a date. A potential partner, or, I want you to be.”
The pointedness sets mold percolating in Izzy’s guts. Up to this point, Ricky hasn’t aired his desires so openly, and to recall something Izzy believes he said over a week ago does not bode well.
“I need to handle you the way you’re used to. Like a pirate does. Only then can you learn my rules and become worthy. So… come here, like a good boy.”
“And you think a pirate would do… whatever kinky shit this is?” He’s stuck in an intelligible cross between laughing and snarling. “You really are a vapid cunt.”
“Oof, so rude again. I’m really trying here. I’ve given you meals a prisoner could scarcely dream of, all for the price of simple conversation. I am not a heathen, but it was suggested to me that I might dabble a bit to alter your conditioning.”
The world starts to tilt beneath Izzy, his hands clammy where his palms are crushed together, spine so stiff his calves ache. “My what.”
Ricky has the audacity just to smile at him, beatific as fresh apple pie is to men like him. Vile as sudden cloud-cover to men like Izzy. He jingles the goddamn collar in his hand, like this is some mundane request.
“No. Fuck no. You think I’m just going to waltz over and let you, let you…” His face is heating up, his temper surely draining what energy reserves he has, and still the hysteria wins out. “Fuckin what, collar me?? You’re taking the loyal dog rumors a bit too seriously you weird sick fuck.”
“Maybe.” Ricky shrugs. “Doesn’t really matter, this is going to happen. But I understand now that surrendering so suddenly like this is too much to ask of you.”
The tinkle of that ludicrous bell signals the guards to enter. Their faces are a mix of eagerness and repulsion, whether for him or themselves as they are forced to bend to Ricky’s whim. They reach for him, but Izzy makes them work for it. He catches one hand with his teeth by dipping down and meeting them half-way, and he kicks the other. It’s useless, but the strikes he does land at least stoke the bloodlust in him.
But he’s still malnutritious and slow, and eventually they get him secured on both sides, one of them holding his head while they march him to Ricky’s side. He bites and kicks, the irony that he’s acting like an unruly mutt not lost on him.
“It doesn’t need to be like this,” Ricky coos as he slaps the leather around Izzy’s neck, stumbling a bit with the latch, not the least bit practiced. “You’ll get used to it. I hope you’ll even grow to like it – I intend for this to take away the burden of choice. It must be heavy on your shoulders, to be existing without orders, without discipline. But I’ll be your new master, your new Captain.”
“What’s heavy is your filthy ego, to think you could be worthy enough to be my Captain. We’ve been over this,” his breath is slowly squeezed very nearly out of grasp as Ricky tightens the collar far past where it needs to be to loop across his neck. Speaking is more puffing out air than syllables. “You’re nothing. No one. A… fucking…”
He wheezes, spittle wet on his chin. Ricky seems to think better of how tight he’s made it, relenting enough for him to complete his insult, “Insignificant tryhard cunt.”
It’s not his best work, but it’s more about the twisted certainty radiating from his expression. He has seen worse than Ricky goddamn Banes, and he is not afraid.
Wearing a genuinely wounded scowl, Ricky tugs the chain attached to the metal ring, like tugging on pigtails. “I am hurt that you still think that. I really thought commandeering almost every pirate ship and tearing apart the rest in Nassau’s harbor would have proven I am a capable leader. That those who listen to my orders live to rule another day. But I should have known you’d be a tough one to convince. You need more evidence. I’ll give that to you.”
He tugs. Izzy burrows his heels to the best of his ability, but either Ricky has more muscle than his figure conveys, or Izzy truly is far weaker, because within seconds Izzy is cowed into moving. Ricky slides the chain through another ring cemented into the flooring, then he pulls the line shorter and shorter.
When Izzy finally tumbles to the ground, it’s with an embarrassing crack. The bones of his knee grind like shards of glass under boots after a barfight, while his left wooden leg sticks out awkwardly. He can barely glance up with how short the leash is, a fucking leash, this is insane, but when Izzy does get a glimpse, he sees Ricky cinching the chain onto a newly minted cinch on his desk.
“I’m going to remove the ropes on your hands now…”
Well he certainly won’t fight that, even if allowing Ricky to do so comes with its own unique lance through his pride As ever with rope, the initial relief is followed by a sharp sting. One he tries to rub away even if that only makes it feel worse.
“Get on your hands. You can push yourself up enough to keep that unicorn leg of yours stretched out. Unless you want me to remove it?”
“Don’t fucking touch me.”
Ricky chuckles. When Izzy doesn’t acquiesce to settling on all fours, Ricky tsks. Something comes down hard on his side, smashing the air out of his lungs. Whatever it is, it’s blunt and large, almost like a paddle. It very nearly blows Izzy over, and when he is gathering his breath back, he’s hit again. This time he does fall over.
“There we go, at least that’s closer to the floor…”