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Gusts of wind hot like a dog’s breath tickled the limp sails of The Revenge as seemingly infinite still seas stretched out ‘fore and behind her. It had been two days since the ship had moved, and Izzy was starting to feel as if time was standing still. It always felt like that to him, when the ship was becalmed. With the lack of tasks to be completed he found himself restless, unmoored. There was too much free time, even by the standards of the sailing circus Bonnet called a functioning pirate vessel.
As it were, he was sitting in a secluded corner under the sheer shade of the mizzen course, all the way at the back of the quarterdeck, his vest long discarded in his cabin. The sun was high in the sky, and on any other ship it would be just past four bells, Izzy knew. He lazily scraped away at his latest whittling project, a hobby he’d picked back up in the weeks shortly after Bonnet’s return, mostly to keep his thoughts firmly away from the shark attack he’d suffered.
With half an eye he watched the crew, who were scattered under the shade of the mainsail, pretending not to listen to their leisurely conversation as he shaved away at the little wooden seagull he was carving.
“God it’s fucking boiling here, isn’t it?” Archie remarks. “Completely unliveable. Gonna melt if this goes any longer.” She sighs annoyedly, stretching her arms out above her head in an attempt to cool down. The crew let out various sighs and murmurs in agreement, none of them too keen to expel the effort for an actually productive conversation.
“I mean, I’ve experienced worse heatwaves, but you’re right. The heat is pretty killer.” Black Pete replies, his head in Lucius’ lap. Izzy involuntarily rolls his eyes a little. Black Pete was a decent sailor, definitely not as bad as some of the crew, but he did have a bit of a bragging issue.
As expected, the crew sigh at this, though it’s fond.
Archie glares at him half-heartedly.
“Easy for you to say, man. You’re not even wearing a shirt. I’m all sticky in all the wrong places and I can’t do anything about it.” Again, noises of general understanding arise from the crew. She continues; “Kind of unfair actually, me and Jim are the only ones who can’t strip down. Fucking stupid. Right, Jim?”
Jim nods and hums absentmindedly from the barrel they’re perched on. Their hat, dearly beloved once more after being released from the kraken, pulled over their eyes to generate some extra shade. They’re casually leaned back against the wall that the barrel is lodged against.
“Yeah. Fucking sucks.” They offer as a response.
“Jim isn’t a woman though, so they could technically go shirtless, right? I mean, Wee John has tits. Wouldn’t it be like, kind of the same?” Frenchie says puzzled, the question directed at Archie. Jim eyes him from under their hat. They respond before Archie can answer for them.
“Don’t want to.” They say bluntly, leaving no room for argument. Oluwande looks at them with an understanding expression, attempting to catch their eye, but Jim pulls their hat further over their eyes to finalize the conversation.
Izzy listens to the exchange with an unexpected interest, and his heart twangs with a painful kind of familiarity.
He’d always had a bit of a soft spot for Jimenez. They reminded him of himself when he had been younger and less haggard, when age hadn’t crept into his bones yet. Full of rage and righteous self-determination, scrappy but calculated. A feeling of God-like untouchability while wielding a weapon, defending his own and biting at the hand that feeds him. Standing for himself, and later on for Blackbeard. Possibility, heartache, opportunity and the entire world at his too big black boots and…
Nostalgia laps at his solar plexus like the ocean, regular but insistent.
It’s been a while, but he recognizes Jim’s discomfort like he does the lines on his palm. An evil thing that chews up your body until there’s nothing left to chew, until looking into the reflective surface of the water is something to be avoided and shutting your mouth is the only way to stop yourself from vomiting up your heart and lungs.
He remembers lying awake at night, praying to a god he doesn’t even believe in for a change. Remembers seeing Edward shoot up in height, growing taller than him. Remembers the way Jack used to tease him. Little Izzy, always in a tizzy. He remembers fabric tied like a vice around unwanted flesh.
His hand slips, the dagger in his gloved hand cutting the pointer of his ungloved one. He hisses quietly at the sudden sharp sensation and brings his finger up to his mouth, the taste of warm blood grounding him.
The crew don’t notice. Though he’d been somewhat accepted into their fucked up little family after the whole Kraken incident, he was perfectly content to just observe and analyse. Especially on days like these, when yelling at someone to do their fucking job would yield no result. Today though, he might make an exception, he thinks as he wipes his finger on his trousers.
—
By the time the temperature has dropped enough to finish the necessary business, the crew have already spread out over the ship. Izzy idly wonders if they have a mental compass to detect him, since they always seem to disappear as soon as actual work needs to be done. The only person unlucky enough to still be on deck is the Swede, who is promptly told by Izzy to “Swab the fucking deck”. After making sure the Swede’s doing his job, Izzy sets out to find Jim.
He finds them in the bilge throwing knives at various person-shaped targets, and he stands in the doorway for a bit, intrigued. Knife throwing was a skill he’d never quite managed to master, making him respect Jim all the more.
“You gonna come in or just keep watching like a creep?” Jim bites out between the throwing of two knives, sounding on edge. Both knives miss their target, and they turn around to look at Izzy with a frustrated sigh, their dominant hand twitching fruitlessly at their side.
Izzy wordlessly steps into the room, remembering how he isn’t quite as soundless as he used to be, the thunk of his hoof betraying his step. He closes the door behind him and slowly moves to stand in front of them.
“Heard the conversation up on deck this afternoon.” Izzy says, voice flat.
“Which one.” Jim replies, equally dry as they spin a dagger between their fingers distractedly.
Izzy leans against a nearby barrel, moving his weight off his prosthetic. The remaining stump is sore today, the heat and sweat making it chafe against the fabric of his trousers.
“The one about the heat, and takin’ your top off.” Izzy says, face carefully neutral.
“I’m flattered, viejo, but I’m not interested.” They say, their tone sharp but not unkind.
Izzy shakes his head at their response.
“No, nothing like that. I just…” He searches for the right words but comes up empty. “I might have a solution to your issue.” He waves a hand over his chest in a circular motion. Jim looks at him suspiciously, clearly unconvinced.
“Right.” They say, tilting their head to the side a little, not quite catching on.
Izzy can feel a jitter steal into his fingers, his heart picking up speed as he tries to think of ways to convey his message without giving away too much of himself. Once more, language escapes him.
So, in what he will later review upon as an act of insanity, he starts to unbutton his shirt.
“Oye, viejo, I told you I’m not interested.” Jim protests, their eyes wide as they raise up their hands defensively.
“Shut up, shut the fuck up, shut up. Don’t say a fucking thing.” Izzy mutters as his face slowly goes as red as a tomato. When he’s about halfway done with his buttons, he pulls the fabric of his shirt aside, showing his chest. He looks at Jim with a raised eyebrow, unwilling to vocalize his affliction.
Jim looks back at him with their eyebrows knitted together, almost frantically confused.
“You came here because you wanted to show me a scar.” They say, in that stunted way they sometimes speak.
Izzy pinches the bridge of his nose, his frustration coming to a boiling point. If they don’t figure it out soon, he’s going to go fucking mental, he thinks.
“It’s not about the fucking scar, you stupid fucking fucker”, He bites out angrily, “It’s about what was there before the scar.” He says, his voice raising significantly. “Jesus fucking Christ, I should’ve just let you suffer, this isn’t fucking worth it. Never mind.” He trails off, his face red from humiliation and exasperation as he finishes his rant.
This whole thing was a mistake, he shouldn’t’ve even assumed Jim would want to do something drastic like amputating their chest at all. He buttons up his shirt again and almost turn to the door when he catches Jim’s eye.
Jim looks back at Izzy like he’s just handed them all the stars in the sky on a silver platter, their eyes wide and mouth slightly agape. For a couple of seconds they say nothing at all, mouth opening and closing like a fish on dry land.
“You?” They bring out, at a loss for words.
Izzy’s heart hammers in his throat, distinctly aware that if this news ever gets out it might be the end of him. He’s also aware of the fact that this might be a once in a lifetime opportunity to connect with a person over this specific issue. He swallows and nods quietly.
“Me.” He sighs.
There’s a brief pause in the conversation that feels an awful lot like dust settling. Jim up at him like he’s something to look up to, and Izzy briefly wonders if this is how he looked at Edward, before deciding that that was different. That was worship. This is kinship.
“How?” They ask, an almost hopeful tone in their voice. Izzy grimaces.
“Cut the fuckers right off.” He says darkly, looking away. He vividly remembers the agony of hacking away at his flesh, the way he almost died, the way he would’ve bled out then and there if Edward hadn’t found him and brought him to the ship’s doctor. “Almost killed me, but it was worth it.” He pauses for a second. “I had to do it on my own, though.” There’s an unspoken ‘But you wouldn’t’, and it truly doesn’t need to be said for the message to get across.
Jim shakes their head incredulously, a smile slowly forming on their face.
“I’ve never… I mean I’ve thought about it.” Jim struggles, scrambling for sentences. Izzy’s face softens a bit.
“You didn’t consider it a viable option.” He says, not unkindly. He scratches his goatee, thinking deeply. “The recovery is awful, I should warn you. I was layed up for weeks.”
Jim shakes their head, beaming at Izzy.
“I don’t care; I’ll make it through.”
Izzy vaguely considers that they might not be referring to the surgery alone.
They sit down on a nearby crate, chuckling to themself. Izzy can’t stop himself from smiling as well as he sits down next to them, stretching out and crossing his prosthetic over his leg at the ancle. It’s a strange sensation, for someone to know you so intimately with so little information. He feels exposed, like an open wound, but somehow, it’s not a completely unpleasant feeling.
“It’s fucking hard, isn’t it.” He says, looking at Jim sideways.
“You’d know, apparently.” They say, still a little shocked. “But yeah, I guess. Feels like I can’t quite get a grip on life sometimes. Like I’m trying to pick up a mouse, but my fingers are covered in oil.”
Izzy just hums in response.
Jim takes a deep breath in, and Izzy can see them fidgeting with their hands, tapping their fingers against one another. They keep looking at him and then looking away again, as if they can’t quite believe it.
Izzy presses his back against the wall, willing himself to merge with it. However nice this interaction might be, the amount of attention and adoration that’s suddenly on him makes his skin crawl a little. His fingers tap against his good leg one, two, three times in quick succession. He needs to get out of here.
“Right, well, I’ll be off.” He says awkwardly, his mouth feeling strange around his own voice. “Come find me if you need anything related to… well, this.” He adds in a quieter tone.
He dusts off his trousers and adjusts his baldric before nodding curtly, moving to turn away from Jim and towards the door.
Suddenly Jim stands up as well, and before Izzy can realize what’s going on, Jim has wrapped their arms around him. It’s strange, and he can’t remember the last time he was hugged like this, in a way that wasn’t desperately uncomfortable. For a moment he’s unsure of what to do, but he quickly gains his bearings back and brings his arms up to hug back, pulling Jim into his chest, his ungloved hand on the nape of their neck.
Just as soon as it happened, it was over. Jim takes a step back, an unfamiliar sheen over their eyes.
“Thank you. Truly.” they say solemnly, before turning around and stalking off, most likely to find Oluwande.
Izzy is left standing there, perplexed and frozen in place, suddenly alone again. He wipes a tear from his eye, absentmindedly wondering when that happened, before following Jim out the door and returning to his cabin.
—
Days later, no one will notice him smiling at Jim as they discuss preparations for the big chop with Roach, except for Jim themself. When they notice him staring, Jim will covertly grin back at him with the force of a thousand suns, and Izzy will feel their light soak through his skin, and there will be no heatwave on the planet that could match the warmth that envelops his bones.