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Jim snaps into wakefulness before they've registered anything about what woke them, knife in hand. Looming over them is a man all in black, something long and thin held at his side, and Jim snarls at him to warn him back - not that their rational mind, running a few seconds behind, would think that would make any difference. But those few seconds run out, and Jim's brain catches up with their instincts and their eyes, and the picture before them becomes clearer.
The man is a good six inches shorter than adrenaline had assumed, with shorter, straighter hair. His pale skin is washed out and sickly looking in the bluish, watery moonlight. White guys really don't handle stress well, complexion wise. It doesn't help that there's still some grease paint on him, stark black and wet, dripping down the side of his face from his hairline like blood. The long and thin thing at his side, which Jim in their enraged terror had mistaken for a sword, is in fact a cane.
Izzy.
"Santa mierda, Dios mío, maldito hijo de puta," Jim swears. A few months ago, Jim would never have thought, 'Oh, it's just Izzy.' There wasn't any respect for him back then, but Jim was never stupid enough to think that meant they could have no fear either. It's not quite a perfect switch now; Jim still wouldn't say they respect him, but there is no fear at all. And the relief that it's him and not- Well, it's enough to make Jim feel fucking faint. "What do you want?"
"I..." Izzy starts, but then he stops and doesn't start again. In Jim's arms, Archie stirs. She was already awake, Jim knows, but waiting for the right moment to strike. Now there's no need to strike, there's no need to wait. Jim feels a tickle of movement at their back too - Frenchie. Fang, lying crosswise over their heads, is snoring still but with the even cadence of a man who is faking it. There are others here too, people brought over from the Queen Anne who no doubt wish they had been left behind and forgotten with their fellows just like Jim sometimes wishes too. None of them have bothered to learn their name, so Jim hasn't learned theirs either. They frequently disappear anyway, and are replaced, and disappear again. There's no lingering false sense of security that Jim and the people they care about won't end up like them. Not after Ivan.
Jim watches Izzy standing there, lingering the way hope didn't. He's leaning heavily to his right side, hovering his left foot up off the deck. He's missing his vest, and his boots, and the tie closure of his pants is undone, ends dangling. No cravat either, but Jim looks for the ring and finds it on his marriage finger. It catches the moonlight sporadically, hidden in the shadow of his body. He's been managing admirably during the days to still look sturdy, even as he gets more and more broken down just like the rest of them. Worse than, really. Considering... everything. That sturdiness is gone now, in the harshness and tenuous safety of the dark night.
Izzy's chin tips back, like he'll look over his shoulder, but then he doesn't. He meets Jim's eyes instead, and - seemingly deliberately - lets them see him. Standing alone, between them and... there. There were noises tonight, after the crew had cobbled together something approximating dinner from the foodstuffs that had been left unbloodied on the ship they'd raided today. Blackbeard's voice, low and unintelligible. Izzy's voice, quiet and strained. A crash, a bang. No screaming, though, no crying. At least there's that. Izzy has his own room to go back to, lick his wounds in and sleep in privacy. Technically. But there are some situations, Jim has learned on this ship, where another person is a much better security measure than a closed door.
"It's cold," they finally say, the first excuse for what Izzy clearly wants that they can think of. Izzy doesn't react to their obvious lie, the humid air that is sticking Jim to the deck as they speak. The Caribbean has a months-long tropical storm more than any kind of autumn. It's practically a miracle they've not yet sailed into a fucking hurricane, in three months without docking. That's the one thing Blackbeard is really good for. It's like the storms tell him personally where they'll be. Jim scoots in closer to Archie, and feels Frenchie scoot in the opposite direction at their back, clearing a space for Izzy to take.
"C'mere in the middle," he mumbles. "Bet you give off heat like a furnace." His voice is sleepy thick and slow but still calm and with a natural authority Jim wouldn't have expected either, back when they knew him as the idiot who accidentally nailed himself to the deck and believed they had crystals in their womb. He's the only real leader on board now, though. The Captain is playing a fucking fairytale villain, and the First Mate is his favorite damsel to distress, and Frenchie fits into the empty space they've left seemingly against his will. Even the Anne guys take his lead - when he can't manage to avoid giving it, that is. Not that Jim can really blame him for trying.
Izzy sets his cane to the side, leaning up against the capstan. There's not enough room to use it effectively among all their sprawled limbs, or else maybe he's worried about the noise it makes. Whether it's Blackbeard he doesn't want to disturb, or the few of them here that aren't already awake, Jim can't actually guess. Not anymore. And maybe they would have been wrong before. Maybe not. Doesn't matter now.
Izzy limps into the space Jim and Frenchie have made for him, at a slow and horrible pace. His feet are bare, the left one wrapped up in clean bandages probably equally to protect the injury and to hide it from Izzy's own view. He pauses when he reaches the clearing of the rest of the crew's bodies, staring down at it dully as he tries to figure out how to put his body down without doing the same to his foot. Jim doesn't offer help - they don't know what they'd do anyway, but more importantly they doubt he'd appreciate it. They don't want to drive him off, or poke at his pride enough to make him hurt himself more acting like nothing's wrong to spite them. He ends up balancing precariously on one leg and tipping down onto his hands, his elbows and one knee, and then finally onto his belly. He rolls to get onto his back, gasping wetly when he can't completely keep his foot from any and all contact with anything and everything.
After a long, long moment - just long enough, probably, that he can pretend he thinks they've all gone back to sleep - Izzy brokenly rasps, "I'm sorry." Jim doesn't know what in the fuck he could have to be sorry for, and the longer they wonder the more they don't care. Izzy breathes out shakily after having said it, some of the tension bleeding out of his frame. He seems to know they're not upset with him, that they won't be, not expecting reprimand or punishment or accusation from them. If anything he seems relieved just to get it off his chest. Slowly, his breathing steadies, and he curls up into a ball on his right side, facing away from Jim.
The impulse is painful like a pulled muscle, but Jim obeys it and untangles themself from Archie to roll over and wrap an arm around Izzy's waist instead. He's curled up so tightly he feels smaller than them, and he flinches when their touch first lands on him. In only a few quiet breaths, though, he unwinds slightly. Eventually, Izzy's back starts to shake against their chest. He keeps his sobs as silent as he possibly can, just little hitched breaths and the occasional wet sniff. Jim doesn't look to be sure, but they think he even covers his mouth with his hand. They hear Frenchie move, come back in closer, and then Fang too, and Archie spoons up behind them. Hesitantly, she reaches an arm over Jim far enough to touch Izzy too, just the back of her hand brushed up against the small of his back.
Izzy cries himself to sleep in their arms while Frenchie, carefully quiet, hums them all a lullaby. It takes Jim a long time to fall back asleep after that, and they can tell its the same for the rest of them too. They lay there together in the dark, in the quiet, not speaking it but all bringing themselves to accept and adjust to the new dynamic they'll wake up to tomorrow, whether Izzy is still here when the sun comes up or not.
The grey area is gone now. There's no going back.
Izzy is one of them.