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It's a shit stretch, is the thing. He knows that. Knows that everybody else knows that, is trying not to look at him like they know it, especially since he'd threaded that skull to always hang from the breast of his jacket. Pretending real fucking hard that if you don't tell him he's being weird, he'll forget to be, or something. If he figures out you think he's weird, he'll getcha! Izzy is doing the shittiest job out of all of them—trying to keep him from noticing his clumsy attempts at managing him—but being fucked in the head doesn't make me stupid, Izzy, it just makes Jeff here a better mate than you. Give your captain's new friend a bow then, go on.
He knows he's going through more rum than he ever has in his life, because he's the one pulling bottles from the hold. Of course he knows how many have to be in the Captain's Reserve on any given night. It's bullshit that the Reserves are just a crate, now, but the point stands. He'd been putting the cabin's tall shelves to good use, stupid empty shelves you couldn't get rid of, bottles arrayed in dizzying display—but that shit last full moon, rough seas, the empties crashing everywhere—Izzy didn't think it was as funny as he should have, but he didn't fetch anyone else to come in and clean up all the glass and blood either. See previous shit about how we're all pretending ole Blackbeard is too fucked to be able to handle knowing that we know.
He knows. He knows. It's making him tired to know, hurting in his teeth, plucking weird strings somewhere in the pit of him when he least expects it. Not been right this month. The moon has been waning, the currents slowing, and he's still no closer to being able to sleep it off than he was when it stormed and the currents were swift.
He slumps on the window seat, really looks hard. Yeah, he'd counted okay: the moon is gone. Been gone all day. Underground, he's heard some sailors say, and that sounds as good as any story. Better than underwater, you'd see her there. If it's five, six fathoms deep before you can sink a man the very last time, how deep for a whole moon? How do you drown the moon?
When she goes down she lets him go, too. She gives him rest.
But. Shit stretch. Can't let go.
He's got his seasons wrong, or something, because the dark isn't pulling him like it should, and his teeth ache make his jaw hurt give him a pain in his shoulders, the drink isn't pulling like it should, and it's too much. His body is pulling harder. It isn't fucking fair how much it's too much.
Mum used to say how—
She knew that he was like this, wrong, but she said that instead, too much. They both knew she meant wrong, but it was probably nice of her to try. Liked what was right, his mum. Never caught her drunk.
Later when he figured out about the moon—could count what would happen inside him with the moon, every sailor knew the moon—he thought maybe it was that he'd gotten her moons, somehow. The South Seas ones. Because things were opposite, down there, moonlight on the other side from where you expected, catching weird reflections from the sun. Born in the north, him, so the moonlight pulled at him opposite somehow, set him up funny. But—it's not like it went away when he sailed south enough or anything like that, so maybe it was just him that was weird.
Fucking. Only slept some of those shitty shallow naps all week. He's tired. Like sleep's too deep for his stupid brain, skittering up here on the surface. It's shit, the whole thing is shit.
He rests his head on the window pane, and of course his fucking eyes don't close.
The cabin's dark, finally; nothing of Jeff or his mates in the window glass, the only sound the waters deep down below. After the storm—it took some persuading, but Izzy finally quit bringing him lamps. Too loud, currents too swift, everything flashing and intense in a storm: so keep still, keep quiet, make it dark. Izzy never fucking understands. Izzy, who has nine whole toes and isn't even crying in his cabin every night. Fucker can come after him some midnight when he's rum-sodden if he likes; he didn't persuade the bastard so hard he can't do that.
So like, that managing is going well.
Nothing in the glass; the not-moon rippling somewhere beneath the water. You had to be able to see what she was up to. She told you how it would happen, promised it would get dark and quiet some night soon and you could close your eyes, no matter how the water tried to roar. He needed her help to make it quiet. Once a month, no matter.
Could be tonight. The moon was dead and buried and she let him rest when she went. She pulled on him funny but it was like the tides, you could work it out. You could steer the ship different, work the sails, toss the cargo; it didn't matter, you could always work it out. Everybody knew about the moon. You could solve anything.
And he—he was horrible, was cruel, was a fucking strategist, no matter how shit it all got. He has tools. Like here, best one: Captain's Top Shelf Reserve, there at the bottom of the Reserves crate. It actually was top shelf when he took the cabin, okay, just... that whole cock-up with the shelves and the storm, right, and fuck Izzy anyway. He's fucking Captain, he gets the Reserves and the Top Shelf, however they're tucked away. Captains get stashes of the really good powders and tinctures and they get shit done.
The moon was helping, he could help her. Like sleep, easy: laudanum. The rum wasn't pulling its weight on this one.
Mm, but: the rum would keep him from having the shakes in the morning. Wouldn't do a thing to stop everything hurting him being too much, stop the moon rising tomorrow the sun bringing daylight to drown him. Darker now, brighter later. So there's absolutely no time better for Top Shelf shit than right the fuck now.
Unless of course it was a week ago.
Eh, extra then, on the toothache powder. He squints, picking through his treasures. Plenty of tobacco; aconite, camphor oil, salts for crotch rot... here, saltpetre. Fine, white, glimmering in the shadow; lustre of the dying moon on gentle waters. Little light, little bottle, keep it quiet.
Little stuffy, little stupid. Laudanum's kicked in enough for him to shed his jacket, sending Jeff clanking to the floor.
Hm.
He pulls a few bottles of rum up from the Reserves, rescues the stupid fucking dressing gown from beneath them, lets it flow through his fist. Soft, aching, bruising shimmer, creeps up his spine.
Top Shelf night though, right? Could maybe just put the damn thing on.
Right.
Right.
He breathes very, very deliberately, does not wipe his face, and shuffles back to the window ledge with bottles in tow. He curls, draws the robe close. The robe holds him, keeps him in, like a hammock; like when they sew you in quiet, quiet, before they throw you to the water the very last time. Soft. It hurts, everything hurts.
It is very dark, and he would very much like to sleep.
He unstoppers a bottle.
*
For some reason Izzy is back in the cabin with a lantern and all. Waking him up, which is total bullshit, because he has to know he hasn't been sleeping.
Izzy's shining the light right in his face?
"Get off," he snarls, only what he hears is some idiot fucking groan like: kkkiaaaah
Izzy says something indistinct—touches him? Asks something over and over in that voice like I need you on deck, no, now, you absolute child. His face looks weird. Too sleepy for this.
Izzy is shouting for Ivan and Fang what the fuck.
He fell on the floor, that's all. Don't need a fucking audience for that. He's shaky, yeah, he's always shaky these days, Iz took his pistol couple of weeks ago. Or like. That time with Jack when they drank that elixir? Laughing, laughing, laughing himself sick, fell off the chair, felt like he was rolling on the floor howling right on, but actually his body was freaking out, throwing a fit. Giddy, like. Jack had laughed hard at that. It's fucking funny, Izzy, it's fucking. His hands have ants in them.
And they're slapping the floorboards without him. Okay.
Shit, ow.
His head tries to join in, but actually Fang is already under it.
Izzy decides to shout right in his fucking face, because of course he does. Pokes him in the eye a few times before he catches an eyelid and peels it wide. Lamp burns his eyes, scalding, hot little fireworks of leftover colour wherever he tries to look. Why won't Izzy shout words at least?
He tries to ask, but the words of the question come out as this really weird gurgle deep and wet and shapeless, and shame pools in his stomach hotter than the light behind his eyes because they all just heard him make it.
Not Ivan?
Right, walking up now, great.
Fang strokes his head, won't look at him, saying something that's not words either. Fang is blurry. The fuck kind of weather does mist belowdecks mean.
God Izzy's so angry. Hitting-angry?
Body keeps moving without him—not a storm, wrong phase, not a storm, wrong, wrong—Fang pulls more wiggling body into his lap. Under his puku, here, the good kind of soft, rumbling organic. Whatever Fang's saying is soft. Why's it taste like metal. Make it up. It'll be the talk about—he gives the crew, the one about how the dark moon is bad for fishing, and planting, and—Fang's soft everywhere his body touches him, his body that hurts so much—nobody's even hit him but his insides are screaming and tearing themselves to pieces, can bodies do this?
Arms stopped, arms stopped, huge breath while his chest isn't busy. Dangling, unattended lines. Snapped. His heart is pumping so hard everything's going to be shivery in a minute. Head keeps trying to slump from Fang's lap to the floor. One massive hand keeps damping all the sound one side of his head pushing it back.
Izzy—
Izzy
Izzy's bearing down on him. God his face, glowing, livid. Izzy straddles him and sinks down onto his chest, which hurts, gear on his bare chest, what happened to the robe? Shit hell what happened to fuck fuck fuck the robe shit fucking
Someone pushes down on his legs, hard, but Izzy's in the way and he can't see who. Ivan? Izzy won't stop staring at him. Fuck out of here with your light, Izzy, useless in the fog.
Arms, Fang's definitely the one pressing them to the floor, didn't he just quit this fucking floor-arms shit ow ow fuck ow drawing and fucking quartering they're cracking his ribcage open they're squeezing water out of him. Soggy trickling down to his ear.
Izzy's hand
drifts closer, closer
pinches his jaw.
"Teeth hurt," he tells him, but Izzy's squeezing too hard, and it sounds like wailing.
Some other hand of Izzy's finds him and tips a mug of something—bitter—behind his teeth—like he is a child. Like he is an imbecile. It's worse than soggy it's drowning him. It tastes dry and terrible and like so much snot. Izzy's gloved hand claps over his mouth and splashes him but he hadn't spat that shit out yet. Sloppy. Fucking soaking. Tidal surge. Was he drooling?
Izzy pinches his nose, too.
He swallows
swallows, swallows
Izzy's trying to kill him
he can't do a thing about it.
Maybe Izzy will crush him to death maybe he'll smash his head in, he feels terrible. Smash his head. His ears are ringing he's so dizzy he's going to fall up to the ceiling and crash through the upper decks, what the fuck was that drink.
Oh puking now. Maybe Izzy could fucking move.
Everybody gets off him fast when they figure it out and Izzy shoves him on his side for good measure.
Because he's a child, or feeble, and he—can't—
Retching fucks up your stomach!
Retching fucks up your whole fucking body!
Fuck what if he pissed himself too, how would he know?
His arse, can feel his arse hanging out though, the robe is gone the robe left the robe betrayed him. Everyone can see his arsehole. Why the fuck barge in in the middle of the night to look at a man's arsehole.
Crackly popping little patterns in his whole fucking head each puke kind of sounds like a terrible little scream actually. Izzy can hear them Izzy is going to start shouting at him again it's the middle of the night Izzy can see his whole arse.
He stops trying to crawl away and starts clawing around for the robe. Feels a suggestion of it, passive. Massive. Clutches where it might be. Contorts to do it; folds his head to his chest.
It smells terrible—
Izzy's reaching around and sticking his fucking fingers up his fucking nose because he reeeally wants to decorate them with chunks of weird sick apparently because that's what's in his nose right the fuck now.
Bum showing? No he fixed it. Number one captain.
Nope, time to puke more. What the fuck full-body retching, this is all the medicine gone, more—pain—
The robe is so flimsy it's too soft and open his chest feels shitting terrible is his heart actually outside his chest?
Izzy, Izzy, it hurts, "Bleeding," he's pretty sure he says correctly, because Izzy knocks him to his back and pushes robe sleeves away to make sure there aren't—he hasn't—Like that would be happening. That's fast currents, right now is dead, how can Izzy be so fucking stupid?
Why pour that shit in him, he felt shit from drinking and he's fucking told Izzy he's going to drink more dark of the moon, has for years—
—more throwing up—
—none of this fucking counted why the fuck is he acting like this, what a prick. Lamp is too close again and Izzy's fingers are pressing up and down feeling all up and down his legs now too bumps chitters a bruise every time crawling tap tap he's got to—he'll tell Izzy what the fuck he—he's—coughing and choking on whatever sour shit is left in his mouth. Izzy's such a fucking cunt, doesn't he—
—tastes like snot again, massive, massive snot inhalations—way worse than any pipe—smoke inhalations, from ships where people burned up—human candle tallow—
"Here, boss, you gotta keep breathing," the body around him rumbles, and—
So he's crying again, so what, he cries every night of his life, eyeblack always stings, charcoal and fat, man cries when he's this exhausted and no one will let him sleep. Let him sleep. Let him—Izzy shouldn't—
"M tired," he tries, and there, okay, there. Shit voice. Whatever, he'll be the guy with the shitty croaky voice for a while, he's not even a guy who can breathe. "Gotta—sleep. 'Cause." Yeah. Yeah. Words are coming, slow. Thin, weird, pitch it higher? Buy time.
"That bloke we cut open once," he hears come up out of his gross wet face, "and his insides were backwards? Heart flipped over to the right?"
"Jesus," says Izzy, "what the fuck," and starts touching him up again, this time his chest.
He blows his nose on nothing in particular, like Izzy'll get caught in the spray. "It's like that, but the moon," he explains. Strong. Going strong. He can't clench his hands shut. Keep talking. "And it's always going to take more to hit it right, when you're wrong."
Izzy wipes his face and then smears the mess on the robe, and he sits up to kill Izzy so fast he gets dizzy.
"Don't disrespect your captain," he says, soft, dangerous, broken, pathetic. Okay.
"Shut up," he hears, panicked, "shut up, shut up, shut up."
"Wouldn't let Captain Blackbeard suffer," he presses on. "Lantern's hot, cur, your captain's eyes are burning, out of, out of," and then something weird happens, "dark, dark, d– d–"
It's got him somehow and it's the opposite of sinking, it's one oar dragging him in a circle and he can't look up or down and his throat buzzes, kind of a ggkkkk—
Izzy pounds his back and it turns into a cough. Which brings the lantern swinging too close to his eyes, and he can't help it, he screams a little, it's too much. But he clenches, and now his fingers move. Gonna take a minute but Izzy's going to know to go fuck himself presently.
Strategist. Yes. He pushes Fang's arms away. He drives his hands under Izzy's ribcage jabbing at his lungs and then Mum can't breathe she's retching too retching fucks you up! He rolls he'll get under the table they never see him there, gonna make it, but at the last second—Fang's on him, at his throat, of course this is how he goes, dizzy and doped as fuck and some more-canny fuck strangling you that's actually just the world.
"No," Izzy croaks, and the pressure lets up, and he tries to stop the world shivering. Stinking drunk dead at 40-whatever, strangled and smelling like last night's rum. Mad cunt beats long-time partner down where they live, partner sends someone else to hold him down, partner is more compassionate than mad cunt has ever been. Mad cunt breaks both his arms age 10, gets madder, heals stronger. Moon unearths ghost of arm-breaker and last known corpse created by broken-armed wretch who stares drenched skull-faced and wide-eyed from absolutely fucking nowhere real. Can't breathe. More in late edition.
Is that—from underground, floating up five fathoms, all his dead are—head hurts so much everything won't stop Izzy never leaves off with the fucking lantern.
Dad hit—
Dad never killed anyone—
What the fuck is up with his arms? What he has left is wrenching his head sideways to smash on the floor next to Fang's knee. The crying might be laughing now.
"Don't let go," Izzy says, sounding exhausted, like he's got the world's worst headcold. "Doesn't matter what he says, keep hold of his arms."
"I'm right here," he snarls, and he knows what it sounds like. "I'm captain and you're some prick who gets off on chewing up toes."
Izzy makes some kind of strangled noise and then he's top volume, completely unhinged. "I need you to pull it the fuck together. You need to keep your eyes open, right now, and you're going to fucking do it."
He spits in Izzy's face.
Izzy hits him, hard.
If Izzy can scream in his face he can scream in Izzy's. He knows who's scarier. He knows what it sounds like when he screams without words. He hopes it crushes Izzy's bones.
Izzy strikes him again. "Wrong."
"I'm tired," he manages, snot and saltwater in his lungs, everywhere it's all it's everywhere he—
"Edward. Edward!" Fang's clamping his wrists harder Izzy didn't even say to. He can't reach anything. "You have to look at me, look at me—"
"I need to sleep, fuck you—fucking—"
His head can't beat against anything except Fang's awful plush chest—
"Please," he tries, "please, please—Izzy—please—"
"I said don't close your fucking eyes again."
"Izzy. Izzy. Please Izzy. Please, please, I'm so tired, please."
"Edward."
"I'm so tired," he says, and it's just sobs. "Why won't you let me go. Please. Izzy. Let me go."
But Izzy stands above him, lantern held out, the only beacon in the deep, dark sky; the cabin, the ship; and he says to Edward, "No."