Chapter Text
There is a knock on the door. Zheng glances at Olu, and then looks up.
"Come in?" she says.
Frenchie pokes his head in and flashes a nervous grin. "Do you have a minute?" he asks her. "Need a quick little favor."
Zheng pushes the map in front of her away and nods. "Whatever you say, um. Captain." It's been some time since she's had to call anyone else that, and she's still not used to it.
"Right!" Frenchie springs into the room and shuts the door behind him. "Just wanted to know, that is if—" He stops short. He sees Auntie finally, on the other side of the desk, smoking her pipe and staring him down.
Auntie snorts. "I smell it on you."
"I—yeah," Frenchie says. He glances at Zheng, then Olu, then Auntie, before turning back to Zheng. "I wanted to know. Could you please, if you like, no pressure or anything. But could you please mutiny me?"
Zheng shoots Auntie a sharp look; Auntie shakes her head in dismay. "I knew it," Auntie says.
Frenchie waves his hand and shakes his head. "Forget I asked. It's fine!"
It's a strange atmosphere that settles over the room; Olu nearly shivers at the change. He'd only just been looking over maps with Zheng and Auntie, trying to mark down from memory where Zheng's remaining ships might be, and things had been sweet enough. Now, Auntie's glaring hard enough to cut glass, Zheng is looking down with her arms crossed tight over her chest, Frenchie looks ready to bolt, and Olu's not sure what to make of any of it.
He looks between Zheng—strangely anxious—and Frenchie—strangely hopeful—and says, "I could mutiny you? If you want?"
Frenchie brightens. "We did vote for you that one time!"
Zheng frowns at Olu. "You used to be captain?"
"Yeah, we—uh, mutinied Izzy," Olu says. He grimaces. "He was different back then."
Auntie opens her mouth to interject, but Frenchie says, "So that means that Olu's been the proper captain of the ship ever since." He glances at Auntie. "Not really a mutiny, is it."
It takes a moment, but Auntie eventually rolls her eyes and nods. "All right."
Frenchie slumps, relaxed, possibly for the first time Olu's seen since Calypso's birthday. "Great. That's settled. Thank you, Captain Boodhari, I'm really more of an ideas man, and I do love the idea of being captain so possibly one day I might be—"
Olu turns to Zheng. "Did you want to mutiny me?"
Zheng gives him a wide eyed, surprised look that quickly turns hesitant. "I mean, I guess I could."
"How many mutinies has this ship seen?" Auntie asks.
Olu ignores Auntie, or at least pretends to. "Or we could be co-captains," he says to Zheng.
Zheng looks to Auntie and shrugs, hopeful. "That could work."
"I suppose it may be justifiable," Auntie hedges. "I would like an answer to my question, however."
"Well, there was almost a mutiny against Captain Bonnet," Frenchie says. "Izzy, Blackbeard, now me and Olu. So I suppose that's...four and a half?"
Auntie takes another drag on her pipe. "We're doomed." She frowns in thought. "Unless—"
Frenchie glances at Zheng, who glances back at him before looking at Olu with a quick shrug. "Unless what?"
"Have the three of you ever heard," Auntie says, "of a flat management structure?"
Elsewhere, Ed Teach watches the sun set over the ocean. Izzy's grave is between Ed and the sea, and Ed is between Izzy and the treeline; Ed lays on his side next to him, propped up on one elbow.
The ring is still tied to Izzy's gravemarker. There are just enough left who'd survived the British attack to know who the innkeepers are, and, regardless, on an island it would be difficult to escape; any potential grave robbers have been smart enough to stay away.
"You'd have liked today," Ed says. "Nice breeze coming off the ocean. Water's really pretty."
Behind him, there are animals in the forest. Birds, something else rustling through the undergrowth. Maybe tomorrow, he thinks, he'll lay between Izzy and the ocean, so Izzy has the chance to face the sea instead of the woods.
"Fang told me he didn't like the knife parade," Ed says. He drops his arm and tucks it under his head like a pillow. "I remember you trying to tell me that once. Can't remember the details. Sorry I didn't listen then."
A bird sings and the waves lap at the beach. If he listens hard enough, Ed thinks, he can hear the tide start to shift.
"He also said I should try to sit with myself and be quiet." A bit of dirt tumbles in the breeze and he watches the crumbs of earth move. "I can do it. Think I can do it, anyway. I can do anything. But...sometimes I just want to talk. So thank you. For letting me talk," Ed says.
Izzy doesn't say anything back. Ed hadn't expected him to. He plucks a flower, fragile and delicate, from next to the grave, and begins to pull off its petals.
The night falls. Black Pete eases into the room he shares with Lucius. "Hey babe, did you hear about the mutiny?"
Lucius looks up at Pete with a frown. "Somebody mutinied Frenchie?" He's splayed out on their bed, holding something in his hands, and he has to crane his neck to look back at Pete.
"Yeah, Olu! And then Zheng mutinied him. And then Auntie like, anti-mutinied all of them."
"Is mutiny like, a metaphor, or—"
"I think they all just really mutinied and then undid it," Pete says. He swats at Lucius's knee to move him and sits down next to him when he does. "Now we have three captains. Whatcha got?"
"Nothing," Lucius says. He sighs, shakes his head. "A shark."
Pete peers at it; it's well made, beautifully whittled. "Where'd you even get that? Was it a wedding present? Kinda weird to get a shark as a wedding present but..."
Lucius turns the little shark over in his hands. "Izzy gave it to me."
Pete gasps a soft little oh. "It's sweet," he says.
"I asked him how he lost his leg, and he said a shark did it, then he gave me this."
With a frown, Pete says, "I thought it was Blackbeard."
"It was. But Izzy was trying to tell me to keep moving," Lucius says. He stills his fidgeting, frowns at the thing. "To stop dwelling on everything, same as what you'd said to me. I proposed to you after. Went below deck and drew that portrait right away."
Pete brightens and smiles. "So I've got Izzy to thank for—" His face falls. "Huh."
Lucius's smile is sharp and bitter. "Bet you wish you had the chance, don't you?"
"I...well yeah, I do wish." Pete frowns at him. "Maybe next time we visit him."
"Yeah that's just it, though, we shouldn't have to visit him. We shouldn't have to go to—God, I fucking hate Stede Bonnet."
"Babe—"
"I hate that he gets his little, whatever, happy ending, that Blackbeard gets an inn by the sea, and Izzy gets nothing. What did he do to deserve it?"
"It's not about deserving," Pete starts.
Lucius nods and tries to swallow his anger. "I know."
It's been a week. Less than, maybe—the days have blurred together—and Pete didn't know Izzy the way Lucius did, it seems, but he still feels a hole in his chest regardless. Pete had asked Izzy to sing for them, after the birthday party, before it had all gone downhill.
He's still not sure they should have had the wedding when they had. He doesn't regret it—not like that—but Lucius still smokes, and Pete thinks he's seen him sneaking a drink here and there. He's not sure he got it right when he'd told Lucius to snap out of it the way he had.
"I know you know," Pete says softly. "I just gotta say it for myself. And...maybe we can talk about it. All of it."
It's not what Lucius expected, that honest vulnerability. Maybe he should have, but Pete doesn't hold Lucius's surprise against him. He looks at Pete and tries to give as much honesty as he got. "I don't think I'm okay," he says.
Pete swings his arm around Lucius's shoulders and squeezes him close. "I know that too."
Stede looks out the broken window and sighs. A small glass lamp by the grave, a shadow laid out on a blanket beside it. Something has turned Izzy's cravat, twisted it so it faces Ed, and it glints green and unearthly in the flickering lamplight.
He doesn't begrudge Ed this. There's no jealousy or frustration. There had been tea in the shack, and a kettle, and he makes a cup to take out to his man.
The sea whispers to him as he walks.
In the very early morning, with Ed finally sleeping fitfully and uncomfortably beside him, Stede slips out of bed, goes to sit at the grave, and quietly says, "Good morning, Izzy. I have so much I wanted to ask you."
"Hey," Archie says. She leans in the doorway and watches Jim peel potatoes. "Wanna fuck?"
Jim holds up a potato and tries not to smile. "Kinda in the middle of something," they say.
"Fair," Archie says. Plunking down next to Jim, she takes a potato and pulls out her own knife. "You miss him."
Jim's first thought is to Olu, somewhere else on the ship. "He's around. Probably got lost."
"Not that him," Archie says. She knocks Jim's shoulders. "Dead one. That sweet guy who was a dick."
Jim ducks their head. "I wish we hadn't left his sword there." It's all they can come up with in the moment, and that fact twists around their heart like a vine.
"Yeah, it was a good sword," Archie agrees. It hasn't been very long since they'd buried the old man. There have been chores to get to, and setting sail has always been an exhilarating thing in Archie's book and, it seems, Jim's. But there's a light that's dimmed in Jim's eyes and Archie hates to see it. She's never been very good at this kind of thing, always fallen back on action and distraction to get through.
So she sighs, stab her knife into an innocent potato, and takes Jim's knife too. That's a dangerous move, but Archie figures if she does it with enough confidence, she'll be fine. "Come on. Time for a grief fuck."
"Maybe," Jim hedges. "Could use a gruck, I guess."
There's a fog; he realizes it's the light filtering through his eyelids. Izzy wakes. He gazes up at the cloudy sky.
Beneath him, the sand shifts, and he pushes himself up. The smell of the salty sea hits him, almost rotting in a comforting, familiar way, and he breathes deep.
Behind him, a voice booms, "Long time, sugar tits!"
Izzy closes his eyes again, groans, and falls back into the sand. "Fuuuuuuuu—"
Through it all: the Revenge eases herself through the churning sea. Calm, she prays. Calm, when he returns to me.
For some time, Izzy watches the ocean come and go. He thinks it should be cold; there is a breeze, damp and sinking deep into him, and the sun hangs static over the gray horizon.
Jack drops down next to him, a half-empty bottle in hand. He knocks the glass against Izzy's wooden leg. "Nice. Where'd you get it?"
"Crew made it for me," Izzy says.
For a moment, Jack gives him a look, then huffs a laugh and takes a swig. "Not what I meant."
Izzy nods, eyes downcast. "Edward."
"Over blondie, I bet."
"It was complicated," Izzy says quietly.
"Always is with that bastard."
Izzy had never known Jack to drink like this. He'd been good at pretending; he'd learned young how to make it look like the bottle was emptying quickly. It's strange, he thinks, for Jack to be so free with the drink now. Izzy wonders how long Jack has been in this place, and then realizes he's not sure what this place even is. "I don't see any gravy," Izzy says.
Jack cracks a smile and grabs his crotch. "Got plenty here if you want it."
It's enough to get a chuckle from him, though he shoves Jack away. "Fuck off."
Jack half falls and springs back to his side quickly, a smile on his face. It's brittle, however, and his voice shakes just barely as he says, "This ain't the gravy basket anyway. That's just your brain doing weird shit when you're about to fuck off your mortal coil or whatever. It's no fiddler's green, either. This? This is something else." He holds the bottle in front of Izzy. "Wanna drink? It doesn't do shit, but you can pretend if you try hard enough."
Izzy stares at it for a moment, a thousand responses fighting for air. "No," he says eventually. "Thank you."
"More for me," Jack says. He takes a swig. "Not that it ever stops flowing."
"Do things just appear here, as you need them?" Izzy asks.
Jack shrugs. "Guess so. Fuck, it doesn't matter. Tell me how you went."
Izzy doesn't want to think of it; the sharp blossom of pain, red and slick against him. "They took me back to the ship," he says instead. "Laid me out on a bed of wool coats. It was so soft. I thought I'd never felt anything so soft before."
Jack stays quiet for a moment before he says, "Sounds nice."
"The last thing I saw was Eddie, dressed all in white. I'd never seen him so beautiful. He cried for me." Izzy looks down at his hands; they're clean here, not covered in the warm blood that had been the last thing he'd felt as his body had fallen numb. "I sang for the crew, just a few nights ago. I don't know if they cried. I hope they didn't."
There's the sound of liquid swilling through glass; Izzy looks up and sees Jack downing whiskey that never seems to empty. Jack pulls off with a grunt and says, "That's fucking bleak."
"Why?" Izzy asks.
"Forget it," Jack says. "Anyway, I got fucked up by a seagull."
As if summoned, a seagull swoops into view, lands in the sand between them and the waves. She calls, and Jack throws a clump of dirt at her.
"Fuck you, Livvy!" Jack says. Livvy flutters to Jack's shoulder, and he kisses her beak. "Bitch."
"Why am I not surprised you're a bird guy now," Izzy mutters.
Jack clambers to his feet, careful not to jostle Livvy; Livvy flies off into a nearby copse of trees anyway. "Come on," Jack says. "Got someone else here you'll wanna meet."
A few days after the mutiny, Zheng looks up at a knock at her door. She's getting used to these interruptions again; they're different from the way Auntie would enter, softer and giving her a moment to pause her thoughts.
"Come in," she says.
It's Oluwande, smiling as he peeks into the captain's cabin. "Not a break in your day, unfortunately," he says. "I guess that's a bit of a loss."
She smiles at him. "Eh, you're not the worst consolation prize. What's up?"
"Been talking with a few people," Olu begins. "Nothing too big happening, but thought you should know about it."
He's acting a little nervous about whatever it is, though she's not sure why. "Go on."
"It's about Izzy," Olu says.
Zheng stiffens slightly. She tidies up some of the maps on her desk, hoping he doesn't see it for the distraction that it is. "All right."
Olu frowns—he noticed, she realizes—and squares his shoulders. "Thing is, I think a lot of the crew, they didn't really get closure, you know?"
Zheng takes a deep breath, re-centers herself, and nods in agreement. "I can tell. Mood on this ship can get pretty sour pretty quickly."
"A-and it's not, like, anyone's mad at you or anything," Olu adds.
She frowns a bit. "I mean, I wasn't captain when we sailed away."
"You were captain-esque," Olu says.
Zheng thinks on it, then shrugs. "Fair," she says. "I didn't know the guy but it feels like he saved you a few times?"
"Oh, I don't know about that. Well, that is—" Olu stops and glances in the direction of the deck. Zheng imagines who might be out there; Jim, probably, throwing knives or practicing with a saber. Then Olu continues: "He saved Blackbeard's crew a ton. So I've heard."
Zheng takes his hands and pulls him close. "And are you...part of the crew that needs closure, for the purposes of this conversation?"
He looks down at their clasped hands. "Yeah. Guess so. I didn't get to know him like the others did, but he sang for us. Pretty, like a songbird."
"Sounds like he was one of the good ones," Zheng says.
Olu laughs thickly. "Nah, he was a dick. But he was our dick."
It doesn't take long for her to agree. "All right. Are we talking a visit to his grave, or something else?"
"Not sure anyone wants to go back there," Olu says. "At least not yet. And someone'll have to stay behind like last time if we did that, anyway."
"Burial at sea it is," Zheng says.
"Burial at sea," Olu agrees.
"And what about the other guy?" Zheng asks.
Olu frowns. "The other—hang on, you mean Buttons? Blackbeard said he turned into a bird."
Zheng smiles in a doubtful, skeptical way. "And do we believe him?"
Olu gives a tentative frown. "What, that a guy could turn into a bird?"
With a quick shake of her head, Zheng says, "We've all seen bird guys become actual birds. No, I meant Blackbeard."
"Okay, I mean normally yeah I wouldn't believe him either, but this is Buttons," Olu says. "He's the most bird-guy guy I've ever seen."
"If you say so." She doesn't sound entirely convinced.
"We could put it to the rest of the crew, if nothing else it might be nice to say hello to him." He hesitates, squeezes her hands. "Listen, I got something else. Tell me if I'm overstepping."
"Overstepping..."
"I know you sort of didn't want to be captain again," he says.
A part of her wants to tug her hands out of his; she lets them go limp instead, until he drops them. "What makes you think that?"
Olu shrugs. "Lucky guess. But I'm right."
"You're right," she admits quietly. "Last time I was captain, all I ended up with was half a fleet of dead sailors. I don't know how I missed everything."
She expects that he'd tell her she's qualified, that she knows what to do, that everyone makes mistakes and sometimes they're terrible ones. He'd be right and she wouldn't be able to argue his points. Instead, Olu says, "I can talk to Frenchie if you like. Two of us could take some of it back."
"I don't want the crew to wonder who the hell their captain's supposed to be from one day to the next," Zheng says.
Olu sighs and nods. "All right." He leans in to kiss her, takes her hands again, then catches her gaze. "I'm still happy to be the break in your day, you know."
She smiles. "I know."
"And if you want to do any kind of memorial for your fleet..."
Zheng nods. "Let me talk to Auntie. She's as much a part of it as me. Honestly though, I just want to kill the guy who killed them."
"Guy killed Izzy too, I don't think you'd get much pushback on going after him from anyone here," Olu says.
"Memorial first," Zheng says.
"Memorial first," Olu agrees.
The sea answers the Revenge:
We love you. We can make no promises. We will try.