Chapter Text
Lucius Spriggs, generally, was not allowed to participate in raids. And that’s how Blackbeard liked it.
There were a lot of reasons why.
Stede didn’t want to risk his scribe’s ability to take notes. Lad was already down one finger in raid related fuckery. Any more and things might get problematic. Then Ed would have to listen to Stede, and Lucius’ sketching subjects whine.
Lucius also was honestly kind of a shit fighter. They’d never got him trained to weapon work proper, and he relied too heavily on finding convenient chunks of wood to wallop people with when cornered. Buttons swore the bite or fight reflex sometime just took awhile to develop in late bloomers, but Lucius seemed a bit of a lost cause.
Lucius also got squeamish around gore. Though at least he’d stopped fainting.
Tended to be a screamer. Which, while impressive in both pitch and volume was pretty fucking distracting during a fight.
And Ed didn’t want the kid to get hurt.
So yeah, Lucius wasn’t generally allowed on raids. And that worked out fine for everyone involved.
Except when it was their ship being raided. Kind of hard to avoid being in a raid on your own ship.
Ed spared a glance down at the familiar body crumpled at his feet and adjusted his stance to protect the boy.
He hadn’t seen the attack, just Lucius sitting on the deck of the ship, a bloody hand clutched to his side, staring up at his captain like a smacked puppy.
“Ivan! Roach!” Ed shouted, driving his sword into someone’s gut and shoving the newly minted corpse out of the way.
Ivan slotted in place next to him, axe raised and Roach skittered behind them, swearing and dragging Lucius backwards towards the meager protection by the quarter deck stairs. In tandem Ed and Ivan stepped backwards, creating a wall in front of the scribe and cook-slash-medic.
Ed didn’t allow himself to think about it any more. He couldn’t. He was the Captain. Co-Captain. Crew came first. Crew members second.
Slash, thrust, parry. Boot to the face. Dagger to the belly.
Repeat.
He fell into the comforting rhythm.
The fight was over mercifully quickly, and the Revenge was the victor if the cheers were any indication.
Ed swept his gaze over the part of the ship he could see, assessing the bodies scattered around, but it looked like the poor bastards had fought to the death. None of the crew among them.
He caught the eye of his first mate. Izzy glanced behind Ed, but drug his gaze back up, a grimace of regret twisting his lips. “All clear, Captain.”
“Good.” Ed didn’t let himself look down yet. “Check the crew for damage, then the Revenge. Start chucking bodies after that.”
“Aye Captain.” Izzy nodded, scowled, then stalked off, kicking a corpse as he went.
With the order given, and responsibility temporarily transferred, Ed dropped down beside Lucius and Roach, assessing the new threat.
Roach was nearly on top of Lucius, gore slick hands bearing down on the wound in Lucius’ side like he was trying to pin the kid’s soul to the deck.
Lucius was, surprisingly, considering the amount of blood coating everything, still conscious, weakly clutching his crew-mate’s arms, eyes unfocused but sliding around like they were trying to find something.
It took several taps of Ed’s fingers against his clammy cheek before Lucius’ eyes tracked over, focusing on his Captain.
“Eyes stay open. Got it?”
Lucius nodded.
Ed patted his cheek fondly, then pressed his fingertips against Lucius’ throat. The pulse was weak, and at the same time jackrabbitting about. His breathing was rapid and shallow. All that combined, plus the fuckload of blood meant bad news.
“He stop bleeding?” Ed asked.
“Don’t know. Didn’t want to let up long enough to check” Roach replied, all business in his role as ship’s doctor.
Ed slid his hands carefully under the blood slicked ones, taking over the task of putting pressure on the wound. “Get what you need. Grab whoever you want to help.”
Roach was clambering up and away, and Ed and Lucius were left on the deck.
Experimentally Ed released pressure slightly, just enough to be reassured that the bleeding had slowed, if not outright stopped. Hopefully it was not because there wasn’t any blood left to come out.
Lucius hissed when Ed put pressure back on the wound.
“You can scream if you want mate.” He tried to joke. Lucius just stared at him with the same confused puppy expression, before his eyes slid away, still searching for something. Or someone.
Ed was aware of the silent knot of people gathering around them, but kept his attention on the boy.
He had heard Roach calling for Black Pete and Fang to help him. Lucius and Pete were rather adorably codependent, in Stede Bonnet’s words, and Ed didn’t want Lucius getting himself worked up because he couldn’t see his lover.
“Look at me” Ed commanded, digging the heels of his hands into the soft flesh for emphasis.
“Fuck” The boy wheezed, eyes snapping back to his tormenter.
“That’s good. You’re doing good.” Ed tried to make his voice reassuring. “You’re going to have a nice proper pirate scar from this.”
“Yay.” How Lucius could nail the deadpan delivery with most of his blood painting the deck, and clearly slipping into shock, was a mystery to Ed.
“That’s the spirit. Hey! No! Eyes open!”
Lucius jerked as if he had been slapped, prying his eyelids up after a few false starts.
“That’s it. You need to stay awake for this part alright?”
Technically, it probably didn’t make much difference. But it gave the kid a job to do.
“Hurts” Lucius complains softly.
“I bet. You look like shit.”
“You should-“ Lucius gasped, “see the other guy.”
“Yeah?” Ed encouraged. The sudden burst of awareness was encouraging.
“Mm. Stabbed him with a ……fork.”
“A fork?” Ed mentally added possible confusion to the list of symptoms. “You brought a fork to a raid?”
Lucius tried to shrug and then cried out, hand scrabbling on the deck as the movement aggravated the wound.
“How’d you get a fork?” Ed asked, trying to keep the boy responsive.
“He was..mm..stealing the silver. Thought I …thought I grabbed, oh Jesus fuck, a knife. Forked him in the balls.”
Lucius’ head rolled against the deck, teeth clenched as he panted through the pain. “Fuck, it hurts.” Small tremors jiggled Ed’s hands.
Ed blinked, and thought back. Lucius had been kneeling in a scattered debris field of silverware when the captain spotted him. He hadn’t thought it was an important detail in the moment.
“Hate to see you with a soup spoon, mate.” Ed teased, not allowing the boy to see his concern as he felt a fresh rush of warm blood slide through his fingers.
Lucius leveled a weak glare at him and opened his mouth to argue but then his eyes fluttered shut, and Ed felt the body under his hands go limp all at once.
“Fuck. No, come on.” He muttered, keeping both hands on the wound. It wasn’t a prayer.
Two more bodies crashed down beside Ed. Pete landed hard on his knees opposite his captain, quickly dropping the pile of ripped up cloth so he could run his hands through Lucius’ hair and over his slack face.
“Babe?” Pete questioned, voice cracking.
“Not dead.” Ed said shortly. Dead men didn’t bleed. “If he wakes up, keep him distracted. Pin him if he tries to move.”
Pete nodded, pressing a kiss to the corner of Lucius’ mouth before carefully maneuvering himself so that he was sitting with the boy’s head in his lap, a hand drifting to Lucius’ shoulder in case he needed to hold him down.
That man was a pirate through and through. Ed wasn’t sure even he would be able to follow orders so calmly if it was Stede lying on the deck, that close to death.
Roach, his hands newly clean and a box in his arms, knelt down at Ed’s side. eyeing up his patient with a professional eye as he laid out threaded needles, rum, canteens of water and the small iron that Stede used to press the wrinkles out of his cravats.
Ivan, behind him set down another pot of water and a pan that held a small fire. Without being asked, he put his hands on Lucius’ right leg . Wee John materialized from the cluster of onlookers and knelt down beside him, taking the left leg and arm. Ed shifted his weight, pining the boy’s right arm under his own knee.
“Still bleeding?” Roach asked, once they were all situated.
“Think so.”
There was a murmur from the crew but Ed kept his focus on Lucius. The kid was absolutely grey, lips white, and his breaths were so shallow that Ed only knew they were still there because he was pressing his hands down so tightly on Lucius’ side.
He waited for his orders. The ship’s doctor was in charge with shit like this. He was just the captain.
“He’s going to fucking hate this.” Roach sighed, picking up the small iron and setting it over the fire. “Alright. Here’s the plan. Once the iron’s hot, lift off that cut and get it as clean as possible. Drown it in rum. I’ll see if I can sew it. Burn it shut if I can’t”
Ed nodded, noting the placement of each item he would need.
Beneath him, amazingly, he felt Lucius began to stir. Every man tensed and tightened their grips on whichever limb they had. Full body shivers started climbing up the scribe in waves as he swam back to consciousness.
“You got shit timing boy.” Ed muttered.
Lucius’ eyes fluttered open. Then closed again. His mouth moved, in what might have been an attempt at speaking. Another shiver. Another blink.
“-ete”
Ed wasn’t sure he had actually heard that, but Pete must have.
“It’s alright baby. I’m right here. Just uh- just go to sleep alright? Yeah?”
Lucius’ head lolled to the side, cheek coming to rest in the palm of Pete’s hand and he was gone again.
“Fuck. Alright.” Roach cleared his throat. “On three.”
——
“I can’t believe you let them brand me.” Lucius grumbled, for what felt like the thousandth time, leaning back against the pillows of the Captains’ bed.
“Can’t believe you stabbed a man in the nuts with a dessert fork.” Ed replied, testing to make sure the tea was cool enough before handing the cup to the scribe. Neither of them commented on the fact that Lucius was still weak enough to need help keeping the delicate china steady.
“Did I actually do that? Honestly, it’s kind of a blur.”
“The Swede said he pulled a fork out of one of the bodies before dumping it overboard. Can’t imagine two blokes getting stabbed with silverware in one raid.”
Lucius wrinkled his nose. “Well, at least we’ll still have the full set.”
“And you’ll always wonder who got the balls fork when Stede sets the table.” Ed agreed.
“Ugh.”
Ed took the cup back and set it on the table before helping Lucius to lie back down, brushing the back of his hand over the boy’s forehead to check for fever.
It had been three days, and Ed had to admit, they had been incredibly lucky, all things considered.
The wound, a long slash from navel to ribs, had to be cauterized, but it had kept just enough blood in his body to buy him some time, and would, Roach had assured the boy, create a pretty badass scar.
It had been touch and go for much longer than anyone wanted to think about, but after a day Roach had examined his handiwork and declared Lucius would most likely live.
There had been a slight fever at first, and the kid could barely stay awake long enough to get the heavily sugared tea down him, but things had gradually improved. In the meantime, it was a constant stream of crew mates in and out of the captains’ quarters to visit or watch over the scribe.
They had just managed to get Pete out of the room two hours ago with the threat to toss him in the ocean if he didn’t go clean up.
“No fever.” Ed declared.
Lucius sighed, closing his eyes. “you think I can get away with using a salad fork for dessert? “ he asked, drifting off to sleep before he could get an answer.
Ed patted the kid’s shoulder, and carefully sat down on the edge of the bed. He was used to Lucius dropping off mid sentence by now.
Maybe he needed to rethink things. Lucius Spriggs still would not be allowed, generally, to go on raids, but if a raid came to him, Ed decided, Lucius would at least have a good sharp knife. If the kid was that efficient with a fork, a knife should do just fine.