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This is hardly the first grave Jim has both dug and reopened, but they would honestly like for it to be the last. It's not the act itself; Jim's buried enough bodies now for it to no longer serve as a reopening of a wound along with the earth. They just don't want to find any surprises in this shallow pit.
"What if he's—"
"¡Cállate!" Jim hisses back at Archie, tossing another spadeful of dirt to the side. "No what-ifs. This is a what-if free zone."
"I'm just saying!" Archie keeps digging.
"Well don't. Not even entertaining the option, okay?" Jim wipes their brow on the back of their arm. "You're worse at being quiet than he is."
Pete makes an affronted noise from the opposite side of the grave. "I did apologize for dropping the shovels." A clod of dirt flies up into his face from Jim's spade and Archie starts snickering.
"Will you two keep it down‽"
"As if they could hear us over the fuckin' racket they're makin' up there," says Archie, rolling her eyes.
"If the shack is rockin', don't bother knockin'."
"Ayy, Pete!" Archie punches his shoulder; Pete wobbles but balances himself on his shovel. "That's a good one!"
"You know he stole that from Lucius, right?" Jim doesn't take their eyes off their work. What if Archie's right, and Roach and Jackie were wrong?
Pete scoffs and pauses his digging. "Borrowed."
"Yeah, whatever, it was still g—" Archie straightens up as her spade hits wood. Jim throws their shovel to the side and slips down into the grave, settling onto their knees, using their hands to push the soil away where they can. The lid of the crude coffin emerges beneath their dirty nails; Jim swears they can still smell the oranges that these repurposed crates used to hold.
"Pete's side needs more digging," says Jim, pointing shakily with one hand as they reach up to tap Archie's ankle with the other. "Go help him!"
"Yeah. Yeah! On it."
The three work quickly. By the time Jim's ready to jimmy it open with their knife, Pete and Archie have moved enough dirt away to keep it from slipping into the coffin once the lid is finally open. Jim's not as small as they were the last time they did this; opening it takes more finesse and a fair amount of shuffling around. They're as glad as they are heartsick about the lid not even being nailed down.
A man not even afforded the luxury of nails in death.
His face is pale against Jim's palm, cheeks sunken, pallored. They wipe furious tears into their elbow, then reach up to give Archie a hand down. She picks up the lid and tosses it out of the grave, out of the way, and Jim winces at the noise as they gather him up in their arms.
He's so cold. Fuck.
"C'mon," whispers Pete. "Hand him up to me."
Jim's strong, but Archie's stronger, and it takes both of them to deliver him up out of the earth.
"You gottem better than the shovels, right?" Archie asks, and Pete nods. "Jim, love, you gotta let him go."
It takes more effort for Jim to release him again than digging ever could.
Archie bumps them with her elbow. "Even if it didn't work, you know he'd be happier to end up in the water." She hoists herself out of the grave, then reaches down for Jim. "Stop thinkin' this was a bad idea."
"Goddamn," Pete says, rebalancing the weight in his arms. "Heavier than you'd think." His forehead creases. "Colder than you'd think," he adds, a tremor in his tone.
"So then don't think," Jim snaps. They take Archie's hand, boosting themself out on what remains of the coffin with their toes. "Where's the decoy?"
"I already switched them out," says Pete, heading back down toward the dingy. Sure enough, Archie has the real unicorn's leg in her hand, and the ring on her thumb. The second leg from the ship's figurehead is stuck crookedly in the dirt, and missing its crossbar, but Jim doubts the men playing innkeep in the shack will notice.
They take a moment to seeth. Hostia puta, his fucking headstone was his leg and he didn't even earn a name on it. Jim relaxes their fists, then clenches them again, glancing at the shack. Izzy gave you everything. ¡Pueden irse ambos al infierno!
"Jim." Archie trails her fingers over Jim's knuckles. "Let it go, Jim."
They exhale. They nod.
Archie and Jim fill the hole back in, attempting to leave it as they found it, as Jim dug and covered it before. When Pete tries to come back to help, Jim waves him away. They've left Izzy alone for too long already.
"Hey." Archie swipes beneath Jim's eyes with a calloused thumb. "It's gonna work out exactly like it's supposed to," she says carefully before kissing Jim's nose.
They close their eyes, leaning into Archie's warmth and life. "Then I'll breathe easy when he does," Jim vows.
"Curare," Jackie had called it, grinning madly as she dipped the empty cartridge into the bottle with a pair of tongs. She'd twirled it in the air, letting it coat the casing, an even glaze. "Traded this secret for a few bottles off the top shelf." She chuckled as she added, "And then went and got the bottles back too."
"Not a given," Roach had said, strapping the bags of English blood wherever he could find room for them, "but you're likely to survive it."
Izzy had shaken his head, more of a quiver than anything. "Assuming he shoots me where your bags are."
"Exactly!"
"And assuming an empty cartridge doesn't wound as badly as a bullet would."
"Well, yes."
"And assuming the blood dilutes the poison enough to not immediately fucking murder me when it hits my skin."
Roach's face had done a complicated wiggle, somehow managing to smile and frown all at once. "Theoretically," he'd said.
Izzy sighed. "I volunteered to guard the hostage so one of you twats wouldn't get yourself inevitably fucking slaughtered in this fucking madness." He ground his hoof into the dirt floor, grimacing. "It's long past my time to take the long sleep."
Jackie slapped the back of his head. "Fuck off, Israel. You're not getting rid of us that easy."
"What do you think?" Izzy's mouth had curved up at the corners, and he swiveled his eyes to Jim, grunting as Roach tightened another thin linen sack around his waist. "Do I not deserve a fuckin' nap?"
Jim looked away, over where Stede and Ed stood with Minor Prince Dickbag, oblivious, eyeing the gun they'd ordered no one to take. Something about propriety and playing the game right, Stede had said, and which Ed only shrugged about. But then again, Teach had been playing the long game in getting rid of Izzy for months, as far as Jim could tell.
Rich people morality, Jim had decided with a huff. Armed hostages aren't a problem when you somehow always get your way, and damn whoever gets hurt for the privilege of yours.
They steadied their breathing. "Viejo," Jim had said, meeting Izzy's tired eyes, "I will bury you today, but not for the last time. You get what you get, ¿comprende?"
Izzy had only laughed, then stood silent as Roach kept adjusting the blood, like a judge's scales gone wrong. Later, when Ed and Stede took turns at dressing each other, straightening their hats in the mirror of their lover's eyes, Frenchie slipped an empty cartridge full of hopes and dreams into the prince's gun.
"Trust us a little, yeah?" Roach asked, holding Izzy's face in his hands. "You still owe us another song, little swallow."
Izzy closed his eyes, nodding like the doomed man before the noose.
The first thing Jim sees from the hoisted dingy as their eyes clear the side of the ship is that damn near every bedroll and blanket available has been gathered on the deck. Olu reaches out for Jim's hand and Jim's happy to take it, even if they aren't sure where the two of them currently stand with Zheng Yi Sao aboard.
"Why not give him the actual bed, man?" Jim asks Frenchie as Olu squeezes their hand, keeping Jim from throwing off his touch. "Or even a room with some fuckin' privacy or decorum or something?"
"Well, one," Frenchie starts, taking Wee John's knitting as its handed off to him, John now busy taking Izzy from Pete and Archie, "it's not his turn on the captaincy rotation, and you know how he gets about rule-following. Two, have you actually smelt that mattress?" Frenchie gags dramatically. "I knew Blackbeard wasn't letting us bathe but I guess that law applied 'cross the board."
Jim steps to the side to let Roach through. "Okay, so the bed's fucked. What about the rest of it?"
"Wasn't sure how he'd react wakin' up in a room or below deck," admits Frenchie, leaning in, "given all the shit that's been done to him without the sky overhead. He's safer up here, with all of us."
"Fuck." Olu's palm is warm on the back of Jim's neck. "Yeah, alright. You win this round, Today Captain."
John and Pete barely have Izzy settled on a stack of bedrolls before Lucius is sitting down beside him. Jim thinks they should tell him to get out of the way, but Pete catches their eye, and he shakes his head, mouthing something that looks like don't. Roach seems content to work around him anyway, ear placed on Izzy's now-bared chest as he calls out to Fang.
"Get rid of these squibs for me, yeah?" and he prods at one of the unburst blood sacks.
"Were my idea, that name," murmurs Frenchie. "Squids are fulla ink, and blood starts with a b. Roach thinks it'll catch on, if this works."
"Roach better pray it fuckin' worked," Jim says, just loud enough for Roach to throw them a worried glance as he sits up. He turns his attention back to his patient just as quickly, pulling out a needle-tipped syringe from the depths of his apron, turning Izzy's head to the side as he taps on his neck for a vein. "Who's got the helm?" they ask, staring as Roach lines up the needle and pushes it home.
"Jackie 'n Auntie're on it." Oluwande continues rubbing at Jim's neck. "Plan's to meet up with the rest of Zheng's fleet around H—" Jim doesn't need to crane their head back to know that Olu will have concentration writ large on his face in an attempt to pronounce something; they look, regardless, because they can. "Hé ēn jiǎo, I think? Whatever it is at the bottom of South America."
"We're gonna sail around Cabo de Hornos?" they ask incredulously. "You've gotta be shitting me."
"Better than waiting around for the English to regroup." Zheng has redone her hair into a simple bun; given that she's just come down from the rigging, Jim isn't surprised. They are slightly shocked that Zheng accepts Olu's other hand with a soft smile, even though he's made no move to stop touching Jim. "Plus, not for nothing? This crew survived those two idiots. I think you're gonna be fine with a little cold weather."
"Easier to take on the English with a full navy than one toy boat," adds Frenchie, "if we decide to come back, that is."
"There's question about it?"
Zheng looks beleaguered. "Ooo, yeah gir—bo—" She stops and looks at Oluwande.
"Person?" he suggests. "Or just Jim."
"Just Jim then. Anyway, yeah, not sure I'm interested in taking them all on until we've at least met up with the other half of my crews." Zheng sighs, staring back toward the coastline rapidly disappearing behind them. "Potentially need to wait until I've replaced the ships I lost here. I refuse to be tricked like that again."
Jim starts to protest, but Roach shouts happily before they can. "He breathed in!"
Fang claps his hands as Roach begins to alternate pounding on Izzy's chest with his fist and listening to his heart. Jim can hear every thud of flesh to flesh, and the sickening snap of ribs beneath Roach's force seems to echo in the pauses. Lucius clings to Izzy's hand until his knuckles are equally as white; when he meets Jim's stare, his eyes are wet.
"Puta madre," Jim murmurs, distantly aware that Oluwande's arm is wound around their chest, and that each of their two hands is being held. "Breathe, you absolute bastard. Breathe!"
"It's not the breathing to be concerned with," Roach tells them, then smacks Izzy's chest again. "The curare freezes all the muscles." Thwack. "He was always gonna breathe again." Thwack. "It's his heart we need to worry about." Thwack.
It feels like a small eternity that the amassed crew watches Roach work. Jim can hear the telltale sniffling of the Swede, and wonders where he's hiding, if there's even a barrel aboard. Pete takes a knee behind Lucius, squeezing his shoulders.
"God dammit Izzy," Lucius snarls around a sob as Roach plunges another syringe into Izzy's neck. He's clutching at Izzy's stiff arm with both hands. Jim wonders if it will leave a bruise. "If I'm not allowed to die, then neither are you!"
Thwack.
Izzy pushed Jim and Archie into the auxiliary wardrobe and slammed the door shut. Outside, they heard the kraken slither in, followed by the series of snorts and coughs that meant it was about to rain hell on them all again.
A pause. A breath.
"You gonna tell me who did it, Iz? Tell me who tore that shirt into strips? Who folded them up all neat 'n tidy?"
"I did."
The kraken laughs, dark and deep. "You really expect me to believe you've gotten your course again this close to your deathbed?"
Izzy inhales, a shuddery thin reed. "Ran out of herbs three raids back. You won't let us stop in port. Was inevitable."
Jim hears the kraken settle into its throne. "Take off your boot, Iz." There was a susurrus of leather. "Nah, mate. The other one. You've still got four on that foot. Don't need the other one yet." A clatter of steel on the boards; the scrape of a boot; the thwack it made against the bottom of the door where Jim hid.
"What do you want of me, Captain?" he asked.
"We've got two bleeders aboard who saw fit to make use of what wasn't theirs," the kraken said, "who you see fit to lie about to your captain. Reckon you owe me a toe each, Iz. Don't you?"
Archie bit through the skin of Jim's palm even as the inside of Jim's cheek leaked iron on their tongue. But Izzy never screamed, and neither did they.
Thwack.
Ed cradled Izzy in his arms. There was blood—so much blood. How could it all be from the squibs he wore beneath the borrowed uniform? How was Jim supposed to bury this man alive without knowing if he was actually dead?
What if Jim was the killing blow?
Izzy spun lies for Ed on broken breaths, on and on and on. It was harder to listen to the tale he wove than it was to watch his muscles twitch and settle into rigor. Jim found the old scar inside their mouth and prodded it with their tongue just to feel anything.
What would there be to say at the funeral when the man himself gave a false eulogy?
Did he really blame himself?
Did he really die?
Thwack.
A lone gull circled overhead as Jim dug the grave. They let the others prepare the body. Jim has only prayers and the work of their spade to offer as sacrifice, only the penance of a blade shifting the dirt. It sounded like so much steel against a secret door.
Jesucristo, please, let this be Lazarus' tomb.
Thw—
"I have it! His heart—I have it!"
A chorus of cheers, but Jim can only slump relieved against Oluwande. Across the deck, Lucius weeps into Pete's neck.
Behind them, perched on the rail, a seagull cocks its head, then flies away into the starlight.
The crew took turns keeping vigil for a week.
When Izzy hadn't woken up the first morning, John had picked him up and said he was heading to the former jam room. "Don't want him wakin' up a burn victim t' the sun, do ye?" he'd asked when Frenchie protested.
"Then one of us is sticking to him like tar," he'd snapped back. "I will not let him wake up alone again on this ship!"
Jim hadn't minded a bit to take Izzy from John as Frenchie's box finally cracked open. They'd already removed themself from the captaincy rotation anyway—like hell they'd be getting all their duties done when Izzy's body was still reacquainting itself with life. Jim pulled their weight, like they all did these days, but nothing extra besides. Their place was here until it was no longer Izzy's.
Lucius often stayed below with them. He and Jim would attempt to relieve each other only to sit together talking, instead. Jim would hold Izzy up for Lucius to run the damp cloth over his mouth to keep him from dying again from thirst.
"Roach still says no to the bathtub," Lucius said, day in and day out. On day three, he'd added, "Christ, Izzy, you still smell like piss and the grave."
"Ugh, don't flirt with him in front of me, pendejo." Lucius cracked a smile.
Some days, after he and Jim had bathed him the best they could and changed out his smalls, Lucius would crawl onto the stacked pallets beside Izzy, just to hold him, and Jim would tell the old bedtime stories until they both laid still. Pete would make his way down eventually, never letting Lucius out of sight for long. He and Jim would just nod at each other; they both understood the solemnity of being the anchor.
"Grub's done," he'd finally say, then stand and keep staring at the two. "You go on," Pete said to Jim, "I'll convince him to eat later. He needs the sleep more." When Jim returned, Lucius and Pete were always at whittling lessons. Something about narwhals that Jim didn't fully understand, but didn't require an explanation for.
Archie and Oluwande took turns shooing Jim back up on deck. "I owe him as much as you do," and Archie would smile that goofy grin that spoke of everything she hid underneath. "Go bounce around in the rigging for awhile."
"You need sunlight, mi media naranja," and Oluwande would kiss Jim's forehead. Jim wondered if they'd ever make it back to lips against lips, or if that had floated back out to sea with the kraken, as well.
Frenchie brought new flowers every day, armfuls of knit roses from John. "I keep tellin' him you're gonna run out of room for them," he said, sitting down beside Izzy. Moving his hair off his brow. Holding Izzy's hand, though Izzy couldn’t hold it back.
Roach flitted in and out, checking the tension of Izzy's muscles, seeing if Izzy could grip his hand yet. Seven days of, "Still alive, but not here."
On the eighth day, after Roach checks his eyelids, Izzy blinks.
Jim's on their feet in an instant—"¿Viste eso? Viste eso, ¿verdad?"
Roach doesn't reply, but Jim didn't expect him to. "Can you hear us, Izzy? Can you blink for me again if you do?"
Izzy's brow furrows slightly, but he blinks once, twice more. He gives Jim an incredulous look when they start shouting, ecstatic with laughter, and Jim's never been so elated to be told to shut up without words.
"Welcome back, my friend," and Roach may sound calmer than Jim as he squeezes Izzy's hand, but his smile betrays him.
Fang becomes a constant companion after that—"I'm no good at nursemaiding," he apologizes. "I just cry a lot and get in the way." It probably shouldn't surprise Jim that Fang is the first of them to kiss Izzy, right over the still-fading scar from the kraken's last stand. His lips are on Izzy's skin as soon as Izzy finishes blinking his consent, like Fang's been waiting to do it all along.
Anyone else in the vicinity when Fang's keeping Izzy company gets regaled with stories of their shared past. As the days pass, Izzy rolls his eyes more, though he still doesn't move his mouth. When Fang bursts into giggles telling Jim and Frenchie about finding Izzy in the crow's nest with Jack after a storm that nearly capsized them, Izzy struggles to move his fingers, but manages to flip him off.
Auntie begins to visit, too, always with soup, complicated yet smooth broths without noodles. When Jim tries to take the spoon from her to feed Izzy themself, Auntie smacks their hand away.
"If you want to feed him," she says, "then go make your own soup." Jim knows what it's like, to need someone to care for, when you don't have that duty any longer.
Lucius finally returns around the time Izzy has remembered how to smile, just a little, at the corners of his mouth. He stands at a distance until Pete smacks his ass and gives him a playful shove forward. Izzy's chest rises and falls in quick succession, though the laughter stays behind his still-wrapped ribs.
"I made you, uh, this," Lucius finally says. He picks up Izzy's hand and unfurls his fingers to deposit what looks like a crudely-shaped wooden fish with a unicorn's horn. "It—it's a narwhal," he tells Izzy, sitting down beside him. "Because you can't be a unicorn, because those don't exist, and you're not a shark, because you didn't die when you stopped moving, and—"
Izzy's eyes are watering, and the effort it takes for him to move his right arm to clumsily deposit his other hand over Lucius' own seems tremendous. He must tug, because Lucius goes easily, fitting his side in the space between Izzy's arm and his body, lips seeking and finding each other like there's no one else aboard. Izzy doesn't seem able to kiss back much, but he has a death grip on Lucius' shirt, and he still hasn't stopped smiling.
"Come on," Pete whispers to Jim, pulling on their arm. "Let's give them some room."
It's a gray cloudy day above deck. Jim looks to the helm and sees not only Zheng, but Archie, smiling and laughing together. There's a seagull on the taffrail, grooming itself. Oluwande and Frenchie sit near the capstan, mending a sail as Wee John perches on a crate nearby, knitting as always, wearing the fantastically feathered hat he'd made for the day's captain to wear.
"Do you think he remembers me?" the Swede asks suddenly from Jim's left, and they startle. "I know my teeth are different now."
"Only the best for my head husband," says Jackie, and the Swede turns a frankly adorable shade of pink. "But why wouldn't Izzy remember you, baby? How's anyone supposed to forget you?"
Jim shifts over to squat beside Olu. "Puta mierda, they're so gross together," they say, elbowing him and jerking their head toward the scene they've escaped. "Were we ever that gross, naranjito?"
Oluwande chuckles. "I think you'd've stabbed me if I'd ever tried to be cute."
"I mean." Jim thinks about Lucius and Izzy below, about second and even third chances. "I'm not stabbing you now, am I?" and they swivel their eyes to meet his.
Frenchie coughs after a lengthy pause. "Here, are you two still together? I—well, John too, s'ppose—we'd been wondering."
"I don't know," says Jim. Their hand finds Olu's; it feels like making port after a long voyage, like finally finding land. "Are we?"
"We could be," murmurs Olu. The rest is lost between their mouths.
It's a Thursday, Jim thinks, when Izzy finally speaks. There'd been a raid attempted on them the night before, but the crew held them off long enough for John to sink their ship with a few well-placed blasts. Jim, still covered in blood and sweat, had relieved the Swede from what he'd started to call "Izzy-sitting", sliding down into the chair and immediately falling asleep.
They can see the moon beginning to fade from the sky through the deck access overhead, the slats still unplaced from the night's activities, as their eyes open. The next thing they notice is the hum of a tenor; a familiar tune.
Jim turns their head, smiling sleepily at Izzy, awake and watching them. "Morning, viejo. Y—"
"How'as t' fun'ral?" he asks, and Jim laughs so hard that they cry.
"It was bad," they tell him, grabbing his hand, kissing his knuckles. "It was real fuckin' bad."
"Fuckers." Izzy closes his eyes and sets his lips. "Where's m' leg?"
"Roach's got it. And Lucius has your ring," they say, "before you ask." Jim can't decide whether to tell Izzy that Ed wouldn't let Izzy be buried with them. Maybe some secrets are better kept. "You scared the shit outta me," they admit instead. "All the fancy speech-making—did you really wanna die?"
Izzy sighs and looks away, down toward his quilt-covered foot. "Seemed eas'r. F' all'uv us."
"Wouldn't have been easier for me," and Izzy looks at Jim with something approaching shock. "Would've killed Lucius, you know, losing you. Fuck, would've destroyed us all, especially wh—"
"Jim." Izzy squeezes their hand as tightly as he's able.
"After all that bullshit you told him, none of us even knew what to say over your body!" Jim pitches forward off the chair, hitting the boards in a way their knees won't soon forget. Maybe if they're closer to him, this will feel real—Izzy's fingers in their hair seems real enough. "You couldn't even let us say goodbye right, asshole."
After Jim pulls themself back together, staring down at the soggy patch on the quilt like it's offended them personally, Izzy asks, "P'ncil?"
"Lucky I'm literate," they tell him, pulling a broken stub of one out of their pocket. The only parchment nearby is Lucius' sketchbook, but Jim thinks he'll forgive them for using it. Izzy writes with painstaking care, his grip almost too loose. There's a V etched in his forehead from concentration, or maybe frustration, and Jim doesn't stop to reconsider, just leans in and kisses it for existing.
When Izzy finishes, he lifts his hand to Jim's cheek, and Jim knows an invitation when they're given one. Izzy's lips are still dry and chapped from dehydration, but he's warm, alive, and that's all that matters. Their fingers find Izzy's hair, soft without all the lacquer he tends to use, from careful washing here in what could have been his deathbed. His mouth opens on a gasp as Jim tugs at Izzy's bottom lip with their teeth, desperate to rest inside of him by any means possible.
Jim can't help the snarl when Izzy tugs at their hair and pulls them apart, but he's wheezing. "Your ribs," Jim says. "Sorry, old man."
"Brilliant kisser, aren't they?" Jim jerks their head around to find Lucius leaning up against the wall, watching them, an unlit papelate dangling from his fingertips. He tucks it back behind an ear, pushing off of the wall with his foot. "Only ever got the one, but I'll never forget it."
"Could always bring me more knives," Jim suggests as Lucius picks his sketchbook up from where it rests on Izzy's thighs. "Or not. I'd kiss you knifeless."
"Good to know," he murmurs with a wink, turning the page around to see what's been written. Suddenly, Lucius frowns. "'Bonnet needs all ten of his toes,'" he reads aloud. "What's that all about then?"
Jim feels the sigh from the depth of their soul. "It means sometimes it's better to tell a captain exactly what he's expecting to hear," they explain. "I really hate you now and then, Izzy, you know that?"
He hums, looking fond. "No, y' don't."
"Oh my go—oh my god, wait, you're t—" Lucius bounds out of the room, shouting at the crew on deck to come down below.
"Oh you've gone and done it now," Jim says, hoisting themself back into their chair. "Now they're gonna want another fuckin' party."
Izzy only smiles.
They have to raid a few ships to make it happen, but when Calypso demands a birthday redux, Calypso gets what she wants. Besides, the raiding gives Izzy enough time to be mostly upright again, even if he does still slur his words when he's done too much else in a day. Roach isn't sure that it's permanent, but there's no real way to know.
"Beats being food for worms," he'd said with a shrug at one of the crew’s regular post-lunch meetings. "Though if you had been dead, mon chou,” and he’d kissed the corner of Izzy’s scowl, “we'd've taken you out to sea anyway. So I suppose it beats becoming a reef?"
"Still shit," Izzy had groused.
Roach had looked thoughtful, then deposited himself directly in Izzy's lap. "Could try kissing it better more thoroughly, perhaps?" Frenchie had adjourned the crew meeting quickly thereafter.
But there's no slurring when Izzy sings, he's discovered, which means Izzy sings quite a bit. Auntie has become quite enamored with teaching him the songs of both her and Zheng's ancestors; even now, tonight, she's taken a front row seat as he serenades Calypso.
Frenchie laughs but keeps playing when Wee John gives up the act in favor of pulling Izzy to him, his back to John's chest, kissing up and down his neck to try and throw Izzy off-tune. It doesn't work, but Jim can't deny that it's fun to watch.
Later, when Izzy wobbles tiredly, Pete catches first his arm, and then his lips. Lucius starts cheering, and they both flip him off to the crew's raucous laughter.
Jim relaxes back against Olu, pulling Archie close to their chest. When Zheng leans over from where she sits beneath Oluwande's arm… Well, maybe it's the rum bathtub punch, but Jim can't help but take what's offered. They're only human.
They feel Archie turn in their arms, and then hear her and Olu kissing, barely audible with the Swede singing brightly to the captain of his own heart. Jim stops paying attention to anyone else but the lovers they're touching after that.
They do spare one fleeting thought— We came so close to losing this all. —and then let their thoughts float away entirely.
Jim runs into Lucius on their way to relieve Frenchie from the previous day's captaincy. "Oh, is it you today?" he asks. Lucius' cheeks aren't so sunken these days, and he's reacquainted himself with sunshine. He looks happy enough that Jim wants to kiss him about it, so they do, Lucius' laugh quickly turning into more appreciative sounds when they back him against the wall. "Was going to say you—" He arches his chest into Jim's wandering hands. "Fuck , was gonna say you wouldn't need my services, but—" Lucius squeaks enough when Jim tweaks his nipple through his shirt to have them dissolve into giggles. "Jesus Christ, now I'm not sure what I even need."
The door to the cabin swings open, and Lucius takes a deep breath as he adjusts his trousers. "Morning, Spriggs," says Izzy, still buttoning his waistcoat. "Jimenez," he adds with a nod; even if he wasn't currently dressing himself, the state of Izzy's hair would have been a dead giveaway.
"Maybe I'm not captain today, after all." Jim tries to tame Izzy's hair into something slightly less obviously fucked out. "Can't believe you're sleeping your way up the chain of command."
"Fuck off!"
"He's not, actually," Frenchie tells them, hopping out on one foot as he tries and fails to put his boot back on the other. "He doesn't want a turn running the ship."
"What?" Lucius and Jim look at Izzy in unison; Jim's glad to see their own shock writ on Lucius' face.
"¿Cómo no?" adds Jim when Izzy doesn't immediately explain. He's not even looking at them, focused on Frenchie's continuing struggle to completely shoe himself. "It's not because these pendejos tried to mutiny you before, right?"
"Hey, pendejo yourself," Lucius says. "You'd have totally been in on it if you'd been here."
"Were a bit of a prick to us." Frenchie still looks sheepish, as well as half bootless as Izzy pulls him to his feet. Izzy still says nothing, only sticks out his wooden leg to give Frenchie a place to brace his boot while he gets it on. "Thanks, Da—" His eyes go wide. "Uh, Mr. Hands, yeah, ta."
"I have so many questions," deadpans Lucius.
"Look," Izzy starts, "you lot are all perfectly welcome to play at captaincy every day so long as we don't get got. Here, what was it you called it?" he asks Frenchie.
"Collectivism. See, because we're collected as a group, and the group matters more than the person technically in charge."
"Yeah, sure." Izzy brushes something off Frenchie's shirt, a hint of a smile playing at his lips. "But something's got to be stable in the hierarchy on this ship, and I've been a first mate longer'n Jim's probably been alive."
Jim snickers and cuffs Izzy's shoulder. "We could rotate through that position too."
"If there's one thing we're all good at," Lucius says, playfully tugging at Izzy's newest cravat, "it's switching positions."
"Every captain needs a first mate." Izzy takes Lucius' hand, brushing a kiss along the back of it. "If you're all captain," he says as he walks off toward the door to the upper deck, "then I know exactly where I'm needed."
For a moment, once the door has shut behind him, no one speaks. They all seem to decide to follow Izzy en masse; the door reopened, they can see Izzy making his way to the fo’c’sle.
Lucius finally breaks the easy silence. "Daddy, huh."
"Shut it!" Frenchie hisses. "I'm still captain for the next thirty seconds!"
"I'm gonna need the hat," reminds Jim. They watch Archie talking to Izzy animatedly as Frenchie darts back to the cabin. "What's the agenda for the post-lunch meeting today, anyway?"
"On it." Lucius cracks open his book. "Oh, looks like Jackie's inquiring about finding a second ship to go rescue her other spouses with. Roach says we need a citrus run. And Izzy's asked for a decision to be made on a new figurehead."
Jim smiles as Izzy makes his way to the prow. "No decision necessary," they say. "We've already got our unicorn on board."