Haven't died yet, have I? Maybe we should try that.
Blackbeard stumbled into his cabin from where he had been drinking rum on the main deck, screaming to push the Revenger harder, faster towards the next distraction, the next bid for oblivion. He slammed the door shut behind him and took another swig of rum.
"That's what it all comes down to, doesn't it?" Blackbeard slurred on, talking only to the walls now. "That one day some fucker will actually have enough skill to put a sword through my heart or a bullet through my head."
An unexpected jerk from the ship sent Blackbeard falling to the floor, the rum bottle smashing. He cackled and rolled over onto his back.
"It should've been you, Izzy!" Blackbeard yelled at the shadows dancing on the ceiling. "Should've been you…"
He really thought Izzy would have been the one to kill him. He was the best swordsman Blackbeard had ever known, after all. Blackbeard sat up and reached for another bottle of rum. Grasping the neck, he brought the bottle into blurry shape before his eyes – his medicine to numb the pain. How very like his father he had become. His father, too, had drunk rum to an excess. Then, when he'd had his fill, he came home and hit his mother. Well, Blackbeard hadn't sunk that low yet.
"That's not true, though, is it, Captain?"
Blackbeard jumped backwards as the phantom swelled before him.
"Izzy?" Blackbeard gasped.
"It's not true that you wouldn't get drunk and hurt the ones who love you, is it?" sneered the Izzy phantom. "Because you just shot me. You twat."
Blackbeard shook his head. "You're not real."
"I'm as real as I need to be to tell you that, yes, you have turned into your old, drunk, asshole father. How about that, Captain? You're your own worst nightmare."
"Shut up!" Blackbeard screamed.
He picked up a bottle and threw it at the phantom but it had no effect. The ghoulish face of Izzy just sneered.
"Come now, Edward," the Phantom Izzy said. "We all turn into our parents eventually. My father ran in circles trying to keep my mother happy and she left him for a traveling salesman selling pretty little trinkets and beautiful fabrics. Fine things. Sound familiar?"
Blackbeard rubbed his eyes and, when Izzy still hovered in front of his vision, he turned to pour himself another drink.
"Oh yes, go for the bottle," said Izzy. "Daddy would be proud of his son. For the first and last time."
"I never cared what that bastard thought of me," Blackbeard spat.
"Oh, Edward, no one who strangles their father with a rope is indifferent to what he thinks of them," said Izzy. "But, see, he saw the rottenness in you, didn't he? The blackness. The darkness. What father would be pleased to come home to a son who was so clearly destined for nothing better than plunger and pillage?"
"I'm famous! I'm better than he ever was! I'm fucking Blackbeard!" he yelled back.
"Which is only a problem if you want to be loved," said Izzy coldly.
Blackbeard swayed on the spot.
"I don't –" he started to say, but Izzy cut him off.
"You do, though," Izzy said. "That's what started this whole fucking mess. Blackbeard never had this obsession with needing to be loved. If he had, I could have given it to him anytime. But you were always content to be alone. A lone wolf. Until of course Stede-fucking-Bonnet —"
"I'll shoot you again, I swear," Blackbeard snarled.
"And why did you shoot me in the first place, Captain?" sneered Izzy. "Because I spoke your lover's name? No, I don't think so. I think you were looking for an excuse to kill me. I was the one who kept Blackbeard alive, long after you wanted him dead. Or 'retired', as you put it."
"SO WHAT?" yelled Blackbeard. "So I wanted to stop! And you never fucking let me. Well, now you've got what you wanted. Blackbeard's here to stay!"
"How are you going to continue to be Blackbeard when you shot the one person who cleans up all your messes?"
"You're replaceable!" Blackbeard said.
"Oh really? Then why am I still alive?"
Blackbeard stared at the Izzy Phantom.
"I may be a drug-addled hallucination," Izzy smiled, "but we both know that Frenchie never had it in him to end me. Maybe that's why you chose him as your first mate. Couldn't bear to let me just die, could you? Had to drag it out."
"Fuck," Blackbeard spat. "Whatever, I'll deal with him in the morning."
"That's what makes you as bad as your old man," Izzy continued. "You couldn't even make it a clean shot. Just like your father, you'll drag the violence on and on until the bitter end. Until you're stopped, of course."
Phantom Izzy pulled a gun from his pocket.
"There's only one way to put down a mad dog," he said.
Blackbeard stared at him, and then smiled.
"The real Izzy would never shoot me," he said, turning his back on him.
Then, the sound of a shot rang out and all was blackness.
Haven't died yet, have I? Maybe we should try that.
Ed woke up lying facedown on the floor of the cabin. He wasn't sure if he had fallen asleep and dreamt of Izzy shooting him or hallucinated and passed out. Either way, his head throbbed. He went to reach for the rhino horn to dull the pain and his fingers brushed against something small and smooth. The stupid little figurines. The man and woman to be wed forever. Except they weren't. Blackbeard had seen to that.
Ed picked up the little blonde man, stared into his face as hard as he could. If he stared long enough, he could surely make it real – like the wooden puppet in the story. And if he could make it real, it could say the things he needed to hear.
"I love you, Ed. You are a good person. You are a fine man. I want to be with you."
"No, no, please," Ed groaned, squeezing his eyes shut. "Please make it stop. Please make it go away. Please, please, please."
Fresh tears sprang to his eyes and cascaded sideways down in his face and onto the floor.
"Sorry Ed. But, really, what were you expecting?"
Ed's eyes flew open that clear ringing sound of Stede's voice.
"Stede?" he gasped, staring around.
"Right here, Ed," said the little figurine. "I mean, look at you. What a mess. You've painted your face black? What's that all about? You can't just paint the beard back onto Blackbeard."
"You're not Stede," Ed whispered.
"I may as well be," said the Stede figurine. "You know, I always thought the story of Blackbeard was so cool. I really looked up to you. Then I met you and I realized, well, you're pretty basic actually, aren't you? Not really worth the hype, I'm afraid."
"Shut up! You're not Stede!" yelled Ed, shaking the little figurine in his fist.
"And then you let us get captured! No cool escape plan from the British, no dramatic exit, and you actually allowed them to shave your beard? I mean, come on, Mate, what were you thinking? Then you expect me to just jump into a dinghy with you? I don't do dinghies, Ed. I do ships. I'm not some low-born fisherman."
"I would have gotten you a ship," Ed sobbed. "I would have gotten you anything–"
"And China? Be realistic!"
"We – we could have gone anywhere," Ed gulped. "We just had to be together."
"What is this 'we' though?" the Stede-figurine plowed on. "I don't know that I ever agreed to a 'we', exactly. Sailing together was fun, sure, but being together? I mean, look at the state of you. Where is the finery? The pageantry? There's nothing subtle about you."
"I could have changed," Ed cried. "I could have been anything you wanted!"
"No, I don't think so," said the Stede-figurine, almost sighing. "Because, at your core, you will always be this. We are all born into a role, Ed. And your role is a rough, lower-class drunk who gets all his wealth from stealing what doesn't belong to him – what could never belong to your kind of people."
"SHUT UP!" Ed screamed and threw the figurine across the room.
It landed with a hard *thwack* against the opposite wall. Immediately, Ed jumped up and rushed towards it. He picked it up. It was unscratched. He breathed a ragged sigh of relief.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'll never hurt you," Ed sobbed.
He put the figurine back with its bride, which he had painted with black hair and a beard.
"But I'll never be this fine for you, will I?" Ed whispered, staring at the two together. "Not in this life."
Slowly, he moved towards the window. One by one, he pushed the figurines out. Maybe, in the sea, they could be happy. As they dropped, he could almost feel himself dropping with them, sinking below the cold waves, breathing the tangy water into his lungs…
Haven't died yet, have I? Maybe we should try that.
"There's a storm coming."
Ed woke up with a start at the sound of the voice. It was still night but there was a flicker of dawn on the horizon – a red streak where the sky met the ocean.
"There's a storm coming and you know it, don't you?"
It was the boy.
"I… killed you," Blackbeard said.
"Yeah, you did," said Lucius with biting sarcasm. "Thanks a lot."
They stared at each other for a moment, the boy coming in and out of focus in rippling waves before Blackbeard's eyes.
"And I know why, of course," Lucius continued. "I knew too much."
Blackbeard didn't answer.
"Not about your feelings and all that," the boy said, waving his hand dismissively. "Although I got an earful of that, I can tell you. No, I learned something far more valuable and far more dangerous."
"You're dead," Blackbeard said.
"I learned that you are truly unlovable," said the boy, coolly. "Oh you've always known that, of course. But it didn't really matter until you fell head over heels in love with –"
"Stop!" yelled Ed.
"— Stede fucking Bonnet. You were so desperately in love with him that you opened your heart to him. You must have forgotten for one stupid moment that a man like you can't be loved. I mean, you couldn't even keep Stede's interests and he's literally obsessed with pirates."
"Shut UP!" Blackbeard screamed and ran at the boy, but he was nothing but vapor.
"You can't kill me twice, unfortunately," Lucius said with a small smile. "But, actually, I don't think that Stede and love and being unlovable and all the rest of it was the whole reason you decided to kill me."
Blackbeard panted, glaring at the apparition.
"You saw something in me," said the boy quietly. "You saw someone much younger than you who had already found love and had no difficulty bearing his heart, talking about his feelings. You saw someone who loved freely and who was loved in return. And you resented me for it."
Ed began to tremble.
"As a young man, what were you doing? Killing your father? Lighting boats on fire and watching the entire crew burn to death? I mean, what the fuck, right? That doesn't scream 'hold me close! I need to be loved!' now does it?"
Ed shook his head.
"Anyway, that's your life done with it. I'm here to help now. Or, maybe, to repay the favor."
"I don't need your help," Ed mumbled.
"Oh, come on," said Lucius, rolling his eyes. "You're just going to sail forever? What kind of a plan is that? You can't put Ed back in the box of Blackbeard. You've tried that. It's not working. You can't be Ed, because Ed is a crumbling, hideous mess. Of course if you had any guts at all you'd just put a bullet through your head and be done with it. But you like a bit of fuckery don't you?"
Ed stared at him, imploringly.
"You want it to end. You want this to be over," said the boy. "Well, there's a storm coming."
Ed turned and looked at the red horizon again. He stared at it for a long time, silence ringing in his ears. Then he turned back. The boy was still there, watching him.
"It won't be bad enough," said Ed, quietly. "The storm. It'll be bad. But not bad enough to sink this ship."
"No," said Lucius. "But a bit of fuckery might just get you the reaction that you've been craving, won't it?"
Ed sat down on the bed again, considering the boy's words.
"How much further do you think this lot is willing to be pushed until they fight back?" he continued. "Maybe Frenchie will let you push him til the end, but Jim? Even Fang. They're close to losing it, Mate. And it only takes a couple of crew members to start a mutiny. Or, in your case –"
"A murder," said Ed.
"And I would say, that not only do they want to kill you," said Lucius, stepping closer to Ed, his eyes full of fury. "They deserve the chance to kill you."
Haven't died yet, have I? Maybe we should try that.
Edward Teach woke slowly on the morning of his death. He was covered in sweat from the booze and the rhino horn. He walked slowly over to a basin to clean himself up. He washed off all the black paint and tied his hair back neatly. He spoke to Frenchie and saw the lies in his eyes. He confronted Izzy Hands, gave him the option to end it all, as he had done in the dream, but he refused. He was right, after all. This was his own mess and he had to clean it up. There was the dullest ache in his heart as he walked away from Izzy, knowing he would use that bullet to end his own pain – the pain that he, Ed, had caused.
He had loved Izzy – as best as he could; which wasn't any kind of love at all.
Ed took the wheel then and saw the storm on the horizon. It was time for it to end. It was time for Blackbeard and Edward and all the rest of it to be destroyed. He hacked off the wheel with an axe and, still, they did not kill him. He demanded that Jim and Archie fight to the death. Still, they did not kill him. He threatened to blow a hole through the mast, which would surely kill them all, and still –
Bang.
The sound resonated with Ed before the pain did. And there was Izzy, pale as the moon, with the smoking gun in his hand.
"You indestructible little fucker!" Ed cackled. He was glad, really, that Izzy would be here for this.
When Jim raised the cannonball for the final deathstroke, he tried to picture his corpse, floating at the bottom of the sea, being eaten up gradually by fish. But he couldn't. All he could see was Stede's face. All he could hear was Stede's voice.
"Ed, no, don't do this –"
Then all became black.