Archive of Our Own ^beta

“It’s not that I don’t trust you, Roach.”, Oluwande said, just a tiny bit annoyed at this point. “But cutting off someone’s finger just doesn’t seem like quite the same thing as surgically removing someone’s breasts.”

He had followed the cook on deck where he was leaning against the ship’s rail, whistling one of Frenchie’s newest compositions, a song dedicated to the horrifying(ly cute) tabby cat they had seen in a pub a couple of weeks ago, while sharpening his steadily growing collection of kitchen knives.

“He didn’t even cut off my finger. I did that myself.”, Lucius chimed in from the stairs where he was writing down a poem The Swede was dictating to him. It turned out that he had quite a good memory.

After Ed had promised the crew that Lucius would serve as their communal scribe and then abandoned them on an island it had taken them almost six months to catch up to The Revenge again and another one to stop Black Pete from trying to stab Ed’s eyes out whenever he saw him. But as soon as everything was settled and they had fallen back into their old routines, The Swede was there, always following Lucius around wherever he went.

At first, Lucius was determined not to give in. But then, Wee John had told The Swede about the puppy eyes method which had resulted in Lucius bursting into the captain’s quarters in the middle of the night, too shocked to even scream, but still scaring the shit out of Ed who thought that his imaginary ghost Lucius was haunting him again.

It had taken Stede almost ten minutes to calm both of them down enough for Lucius to tell them about the two severed eyes he had squished with his fingers when he had tried to lay down on his bedroll. At least, The Swede hadn’t found any actual puppy eyes and instead bought some from Spanish Jackie’s human collection, which was a consolation for Fang who was immediately reminded of his late dog.

After that Lucius had to come to terms with the fact that if he didn’t want to find out The Swede’s interpretation of a killer argument he would have to give in, which is why he now found himself sitting in the one spot on the Revenge where he would annoy Izzy the most (in his way), jotting down an epic ballad in which The Swede appeared as a mysterious veiled woman dressed in white, known by the name Magdalena.

“Because you ran away.”, Roach complained. “It would have worked. Cutting off a finger is nothing compared to, say, evisceration. And I do that every day.”

“I really hope you’re talking about fish.”, Lucius said as he turned back to his journal.

Oluwande tried his best not to roll his eyes. “I’m really not doubting your abilities, Roach. But cutting off a finger is quick. That’s done in a second. What you’re planning to do won’t be quick at all. And it will hurt like hell. I don’t think it’s a good idea, that’s all I’m saying.”

Jim had watched the argument from the other side of the deck, a small smile on their lips. But now they pushed themselves off the railing and came over to the pair, instinctively interlacing their fingers with Oluwande’s.

“Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine. I’ll just get shitfaced or something, I won’t feel a thing.”

“Or we could knock you out before we start.”, Roach suggested.

“Yeah, no, that sounds like a terrible idea, both of it.”, Oluwande said, pulling Jim a little bit closer, totally not protective at all. Okay, maybe a little bit. But it was hard not to be protective of your partner when your partner is constantly pulling off shit like running into the bar of a scary pirate who has set a bounty on their head, or robbing said pirate, or trying to kill said pirate’s husband. Again.

When Jim had told Oluwande about their plan to let Roach perform top surgery on them his first, second, and third reaction had been pure excitement. Of course, he knew that they didn’t feel like their body really belonged to them – or parts of it at least – and Oluwande had been over the moon when they finally found a solution to that problem. All he wanted was for them to be able to love themself just like Oluwande loved them. But then he had thought about it a bit more and although the solution in itself really did feel like a great idea, he had started to worry that Jim and Roach, both having a tendency to rush into things first and deal with the consequences later, hadn’t exactly thought this whole thing through. A fear that proved to be true.

Both Roach and Jim opened their mouths, most likely to propose an even more absurd plan, but The Swede was faster.

“Maybe I can help.”

Three heads turned around to him and he ducked away, suddenly shy.

“My mormor used to cut off things from people all the time. Mostly arms and – things.”, he continued. “And she had medicine that helped people fall asleep and not feel anything.”

Lucius, who had kept writing down his words, stopped and looked up, slightly confused.

“That’s a bit of a jump in the narrative, don’t you think? They were just about to have a dinner party and it didn’t seem like that kind of dinner party to me – oh. Are you talking about Jim?”

The Swede nodded.

“Oh. Your granny was a doctor?”

The shyness slowly faded away from The Swede as he started talking about his grandmother until it was completely replaced by a smile.

“Well, sort of. Her dad was the doctor but she was better than him. Everybody said that. I didn’t like being in there with all the blood. But I always helped her with the medicine. We don’t have everything she used for it here, but I think I can come up with something. If you want.”

“I thought you couldn’t even read.”

“I can’t. What does that have to do with anything?”

“Nothing, I suppose.” Lucius closed the journal with a rich thud and rested his head on his arms, gesturing to The Swede to continue. Roach, Oluwande, and Jim had come over as well and were now forming a semicircle around the stairs, fascinated by the insights in The Swede’s unexpectedly eventful family history.

“I could make you something, like - “, The Swede paused, trying to think of a way to explain his thoughts in words. “A sleeping potion!”, he finished his sentence proudly. “And when we put that under your skin you will fall asleep for a while and not feel anything.”

Jim looked over to Oluwande who shrugged. They smiled.

“Okay, let’s try your sleeping potion.”, they said.

The Swede smiled back, a bit surprised that his proposal was actually accepted.

“I would need to get a few things, though.”, he said. “And I want to be Jim too.”

“Nope.”

“Okay.”

__

A few days later a very confused chemist was robbed by a polite pirate in blue silk clothing, his not so polite boyfriend who was doing most of the threatening until he accidentally knocked over some glass vials and spend the rest of the time apologising for it, and a very peculiar blond man who preferred to sniff the substances instead of reading their labels and starting drinking the isopropyl alcohol on their way out.

The Swede set up his laboratory in the jam room. It took him a week until he finally finished, not least because the entire crew insisted on cramming themselves between the drums and hammocks to watch each and every one of his moves. The result was two fire outbreaks, a hole in the floor that could have been in Lucius’ head if Ed hadn’t pulled him away from the acid just in time (an act that was widely accepted as reparation for the ‘pushing Lucius off the Revenge’ incident) and a broken finger. Oluwande really started to wonder if knocking Jim out would have been the safer option after all.

But then The Swede stumbled on deck one morning, rudely interrupting Button’s sunrise dance, triumphantly held up two glass vials, and fell asleep on Wee John. Frenchie, who was standing nearby, barely managed to catch the potions before they shattered on the floor. As soon as he realized what he was holding he almost threw them away and instead handed them over to Wee John, mumbling something about how he didn’t want to fall for the powerful sleeping potion too.

Luckily, The Swede hadn’t been taken by the powers of his own concoction but was simply exhausted and they had him back on his feet in a few hours.

Everyone gathered in the kitchen where The Swede was explaining the use of syringes to Roach, peculiar instruments made of bird bones that his grandmother had seen being used by indigenous people in South America.

“And you’re sure this will work?”, Oluwande asked for the tenth time today.

“Jim will sleep and won’t feel any pain.”, The Swede confirmed somewhat proudly.

“We have decided to call it anaesthesia.”, Stede chimed in. “That’s Ancient Greek for insensibility. A rather fitting name, isn’t it?” Not quite able to contain his excitement he turned to Ed who was standing next to him. “I never got to name something. Well, I named the Revenge, but that wasn’t as significant as an important scientific invention. I really hope I did it right, The Swede did such a good job with it and I really wouldn’t-”

Ed cut him off with a kiss. He had found that to be the most effective method to shut Stede up when he was worrying too much or beating himself up over nothing. It worked marvellously, like always, apart from the offended huff coming from the corner Izzy was hiding in, not quite ready to admit that he too was interested in the current events.

Meanwhile, Jim was doing their best to reassure Oluwande who was growing more nervous with every second that passed.

“You can stay and make sure I’m okay if you want.”, they offered.

“You sure?”

“Of course, why wouldn’t I?” They grabbed Oluwande’s hand and squeezed it, their smile not quite as confident as usual.

“In fact, I’d probably feel safer knowing that you’re around to make sure he doesn’t screw me up.”, Jim said, gesturing towards Roach who was arranging some instruments, completely unfazed by the fuzz around him.
That’s how Oluwande stayed behind with Jim and Roach while everyone else slowly wandered back on deck. They spend the next hours trying and failing to occupy themselves, first in useful ways like scrubbing the floor or checking the orange supply, but they soon became restless again and one after the other they ended up huddling together in the captain’s quarters. Even Izzy silently slipped in at one point when they were already listening to Ed’s first attempt to read a book to them, a very sad fairytale about a mermaid that had all of them in tears at the end and lead to the unanimous decision to ban all books about people who want to become humans from their reading sessions.

They were just about to go back on deck when Roach came in with a big smile and even better news. The anaesthesia had worked, Jim was still rather groggy but fine overall and Roach was sure that he might just have completed the best work of his life. That was met with a lot of cheering and spontaneously started celebrations with the leftover isopropyl and it took Stede quite a while to usher them all out so that Jim could have his quarters to rest.

The next day Oluwande carefully helped Jim on deck. The opioids in the anaesthesia took a while to wear off and now the pain and exhaustion of the healing wounds started to set in, but Jim was determined to be back on their feet as soon as possible and Oluwande had given up arguing with them a long time ago. The only one already awake was Buttons who was steering the ship while talking to Olivia about a school of sardines she had seen on her morning flight around the ship. But it didn’t take long after they had settled underneath the mast for the other crewmembers to stir.

Frenchie was the first to get up. He yawned, stumbled through the door to the inside of the ship, and returned a few minutes later, considerably more awake now and eating an apple.

He set foot on deck again, saw Jim, and swallowed a big chunk of the fruit without chewing which resulted in a coughing fit that woke up the rest of the crew.

“Jim.”, he finally managed to say. “You woke up from the sleeping potion.”

“Of course they did.”, The Swede said, just a little bit offended that Frenchie had doubted him.

“You never know with these sort of things. Can’t trust witchcraft, that’s all I’m saying.”, Frenchie continued.

“It’s not witchcraft.”

“How can you be so sure?”

Lucius pushed past the two quarrelling pirates to take a good look at Jim. “You look great. You should totally wear some tight shirts as soon as you’re all healed up. I bet it would look hot.”, was his final verdict, delivered with a friendly wink.

“Thanks.”, Jim said, and then to the now pouting Swede: “And thanks for the anaesthesia. Way better than being knocked out.”

The Swede’s face lit up immediately. “Does that mean I can be Jim now too?”, he asked, although he already knew the answer.

“Still no.”, Jim said, but they sounded just a little bit less annoyed this time.