"Yes, of course!" he says, artificially light. "I've got a lovely selection of bath oils, perhaps adding some of those would be, um, soothing?"

Jim stares at him, baffled or displeased--or, very probably both.

"Whatever," they say. "So long as he gets some privacy, entiendes?"

"Why, certainly!" Stede says, offended. He wouldn't dream of intruding on Izzy's bath. No matter how appealing the thought of scrubbing the filth from the man's skin himself.

Jim stares at him for another long moment, then nods. They disappear down the corridor, somehow moving stealthily even in the open. Stede stands outside his cabin, one hand on the knob, exactly as conflicted as he was before. Finally, he sucks in a breath, straightening his spine.

"Come on," he says to himself, "toughen up!"

He is as uncertain as ever as to what that might look like.

*

Izzy stares down at the water he's used for his cursory scrub.

He just needs to make it to his cabin. Then he can get himself out of these fucking clothes, see what can be repaired, what will have to be replaced.

He wants to burn it all.

He breathes in, breathes out. His heart flutters like a bird in a trap. He can do this. He just has to get up.

"Izzy?"

Izzy's eyes snap open, body coiling tight. Stede stands in the doorway, face pale. They stare at each other. Izzy knots his hands together to keep from shaking

Stede second guesses himself all the way from his cabin to the kitchen.

You can turn back, he tells himself, and you really should talk to Ed and besides, Izzy doesn't really seem to be in the mood to welcome well wishers. Not to mention, Jim stabbing him for this seems less like a possibility and more like a certainty the closer he gets to Izzy. He'd already felt it in the dinghy, Jim glaring daggers, though luckily not throwing them, as he held Izzy.

Stede steps towards it, patting his pockets for a match to light a candle. Nothing. He peers into the larder, eyes adjusting. A little movement in the dark and suddenly Stede can see. Izzy sits on the floor, back to a barrel of cool water, head tilted back. He's wiped the the blood from his face, taking off his shirt and vest. He's sweating, skin pallid.

"Izzy?" Stede asks quietly. With aching slowness, Izzy raises his bloodshot green eyes to Stede's.

*

Izzy doesn't know what the fuck he wants to say to Stede.

Of course, he can't help but think as he starts talking, he doesn't have a choice at the moment anyway.

"I don't know whether I want to tell you to leave me the fuck alone or to never leave me alone again."

He hears himself say it, flushing bright red as he does. Stede stands stock still. His mouth is slightly agape, and god, the fucking twat looks like he's about to start asking questions.

"Please don't ask me anything," Izzy hears himself say. "I don't have a choice right now, I would say whatever pops into my head and it scares me to fucking death what I would say."

Stede's eyes are wide now, absurdly so, and of course the stupid bastard starts to speak.

"Izzy--" he says and Izzy, with terrifyingly little knowledge of what he's about to say, interrupts him.

"Christ you look stupid," he says, with perfect, unmalicious honesty.

Stede frowns, stammering defensively. Izzy's still talking, no longer even making an attempt to predict in his own mind what he might be about to say. Whatever it is, it's almost certain to be humiliating, but compared to the past, fuck, he still doesn't know how long, this humiliation feels paltry.

"Look at you, standing there with your fucking mouth open," he says, "with your fancy hair and your fucking velvet jacket. Fucking ridiculous, you twat."

Stede has stopped stammering, stopped trying to defend himself from whatever Izzy might say next. He stares down at his shiny fucking shoes with perfect little bows that exactly match the rich, salmon coloured velvet of his jacket and trousers, and my fucking god,

"Did you wear that on the fucking raid?" Izzy says, with a trace of his usual incredulity. Suddenly, to his own surprise probably more than Stede's, he throws his head back, laughing jaggedly

"Fuck me, Stede," Izzy says, wiping a tear from his eye, chuckling almost affectionately. "You are so fucking absurd."

Stede makes a wounded noise as Izzy continues

"You know, I don't even know how long I've been gone?" he says. Stede's eyes dart up from the floor and then back down, uncertain. "No windows in Hornigold's brig"

Izzy pauses for the first time since he started speaking. He turns his head to the side and spits, then takes a swig of water

Stede stays silent, waiting.

"You know at first, I thought I would escape," Izzy says blandly. "Told myself that anyway. Even after I saw Ben again"

Stede's eyes dart up again, a hint of confusion in them. Izzy grins mirthlessly

"Used to make me call him Ben," he explains. "Didn't like having me call him captain while he was fucking me. Called him Ben on deck once though, and he had me whipped half to death. About a month before Ed's mutiny, I think"

"I was still laid up. Figure Ben probably would have thrown me overboard in a day or so if Ed hadn't decided he'd had it with the old bastard."

Stede is staring at Izzy again, listening intently. It makes Izzy feel exposed, and he pulls his legs in, holding tight, back pressed against the water barrel

"Never thought I'd see him again. Thought Ed killed him for the longest time, and he didn't say different. Didn't hear of him again for ten years after"

"And then..." Izzy trails off, frowning, as a number of different thoughts play through his mind at once. "Ed was as scared of him as me, I think. Him and Jack, they were all bluster, all bravado. Hornigold's boys. But underneath it..."

He stares down at his hands, lost for a moment before he sucks in a breath, looking up again.

"Anyway. So, I understood. Why he couldn't kill him, you know? I never held it against him. And I know he couldn't..."

Izzy looks up at Stede imploringly, pleading for understanding. Stede's mouth still hangs open, though he at just no longer seems on the verge of asking Izzy any of his endless, inane fucking questions.

"I knew he wouldn't come for me," Izzy says. His heart hammers at the stricken look on Stede's face. "It's alright. I knew the whole time, and I was so fucking scared, but I understood. And I knew Jack might, probably would even, but he's dead."

"And I knew, after the first few... hours? Days?" Izzy shakes his head as he looks up at Stede, eyes too large in his face as he recalls. "How many times can an old bastard like that get it up in one day, anyway?"

Stede gasps, face constricting in horror. Izzy carries on, heedless, and utterly incapable of stopping anyway.

"I knew I wouldn't escape. And I knew Ed wasn't coming, and Jack was dead, and so I was ready. I didn't want Ben to kill me."

"But I guess it wouldn't have made a fucking difference in the end--dead's dead, and that was the only way I was getting out."

Stede's eyes fill with tears. At one point Izzy probably would have relished the prospect of making Stede cry. Now it barely registers, except as a faint regret.

"I was so fucking angry when that little fucker didn't slit my throat," Izzy says. "Took me a minute, but when I saw Jim, for a second I thought maybe I was wrong."

"I thought maybe Edward had come for me. That maybe I meant so much to him that he was willing to face Ben for me."

A few years spill out of Stede's eyes. He raises a hand to cover his mouth. Izzy looks up at him almost sympathetically.

"Figured it out quick enough, though," he says, sighing. "If Ed came up against Hornigold, he wouldn't be doing it with fuckin' mist and phantoms."

Izzy's head tilts to the side. He gives Stede a melancholy smile.

"You left him alive, eh?"

Stede's lip trembles as he lowers his hand.

"Yes," he says, voice shaking. "No casualties on either side, other than the, uh, jailer I believe Jim killed."

Stede looks down at the floor again, voice small.

"I was quite proud of that," he adds. "At the time."

Izzy's smile is utterly bleak now.

"You should be fucking proud of it," he says. "Stealing Ben Hornigold's bedwarmer from under his nose with one fucking casualty?"

"That's fucking impressive, Stede. Stupid, but impressive."

Stede laces his fingers in front of him, squeezing his hands in some obscure rhythm as he speaks.

"I wish... I wish you wouldn't call yourself that," he says nervously. Izzy looks confused, so Stede keeps speaking. "His bedwarmer, I meant. That isn't-- you're not--"

Izzy shakes his head, looking away from Stede.

"I am," he says, voice toneless again. "As long as he lives, that's what I am."

"S'pose I could just end it by dying myself," he adds. "But if he catches me off guard again?"

"I would come for you."

Stede's voice is louder than he intends. Izzy's eyes widen as they meet his, and Izzy finds himself at a loss for words, something hard to come by at the moment. Stede speaks firmly. Izzy's mouth goes dry.

"If he ever comes anywhere near you again, I promise him," Stede says. "I will kill him."

Silence stretches out between them.

"I believe you," Izzy says finally, voice hoarse. Stede swallows. They stare at each other. Izzy looks down again. "I didn't just think about Ed and Jack. I knew... I thought I knew you wouldn't come for me either, but I thought about you anyway. You're such a stupid fucking prat."

Stede looks away, face falling. Izzy doesn't stop.

"I don't know why I'm always thinking of you. I never knew what Edward saw in you. I kept trying to figure it out."

"You're fucking clueless, and your taste in clothes is ridiculous, and I can't believe you commissioned a fucking pirate ship with secret fucking passages and pay your useless crew a fucking salary and never make one of them do a fucking lick of work and..."

Izzy stops mid rant, breathing hard, face still drawn and pale.

"... and I'm trying to say thank you," he finishes awkwardly. "You put your crew at risk for me, and I appreciate it, I think."

"I..." Stede says, and then, "that is to say--"

And then, with Izzy still curled on the floor, unable to look him in the eye, Stede turns and flees.

He passes Jim as he goes. They draw a knife as he squeezes past, narrowing their eyes at his departing form.

"Hey!" they shout as he disappears around the corner. "Don't make me fucking stab you, hijo de puta!"

He should talk to Ed. He will talk to Ed. He straightens his shoulders, grips the handle firmly. He's going to talk to Ed.

A minute passes, then two.

Stede lets go of the door handle, shoulders slumping again. He wants to talk to Ed, he does, just... later. He slips into a secret passage instead. He has a lot of thinking to do.

*

Ed sits on the bed, staring at the wall in front of him. Izzy's back, he thinks. He doesn't know exactly what they did.

But he didn't. He froze. He let the fucker go and now...

Now the idea of seeing him again, facing him, the idea of what he might be doing to Izzy--it was too much. It was all too fucking much. He didn't expect Stede's plan to work, not really. It seemed fucking impossible, absurd that they could steal Izzy back from Hornigold not just once but twice. So when Stede tentatively asked if he'd come along at least, help see Izzy to safety, Ed didn't answer.

He just turned on his side, staring at the light leaking through the closed curtains. He didn't really expect any of them to come back, if he's honest with himself. And now... Now they're back. Izzy's back. At least, Ed figures he must be. No one's come in to tell him. The thought settles strangely. Izzy's back

Ed doesn't know how to face him

*

Izzy's still sitting on the floor of the larder when Jim comes in. They settle on the floor across from him

They lean back against the wall, arms resting on their knees, casual, comfortable.

"Need me to stab that fucker for you?" they ask, startling a laugh out of Izzy. "Don't even have to kill him. Lo puedo. But I don't have to."

Izzy shakes his head, smiling a little.

"Nah," he says. He bites his tongue, longing for companionable silence. It lasts less than a second. "I offered to suck his dick."

Jim blinks, eyebrows shooting up, and Izzy looks away.

"He take you up on it?" they ask, a knife appearing in their hand as if by magic

"Fuck no," Izzy snorts. "Course he fucking didn't. Look at me. Barely wiped another man's come out of my fucking beard. Haven't even taken a bath. I reek of it. I'm disgusting. The fuck is even wrong with me, that I would offer that? Why would I ever want it again? Fuck, don't even know why I wanted it with Ed, or Jack. Maybe Hornigold's right. Maybe it's all I'm good for"

Jim clicks their tongue, frowning.

"Fuck, man," they say, knife spinning idly between their fingers. "Give yourself a fucking break, eh?"

Izzy snorts again, shoulders around his ears. He feels like he could fucking cry. He doesn't want to talk about this.

"I just--" he starts. He's so relieved when Jim interrupts him that he gives a convulsive little sob.

"Come on, viejo." Jim stands, extending a hand, inviting but not insisting. Izzy takes it.

They pull him to his feet, steadying him with a hand on his shoulder.

"Let's at least get you into a bath, before you decide anything that hijo de puta had to say about you or anything else is fucking true, okay?"

They keep their hand on Izzy's shoulder as they guide him out of the kitchen, towards Stede's extravagant bathroom. It's the first time in days Izzy hasn't felt like screaming.