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Jim stares at their hands, waiting to recognise them.
They wait to meet Oluwande’s eyes and find them familiar. They have mapped his eyes so many unrecognisable times.
Jim is not crazy.
They know this. They know it. They know what is real and what is not. They do.
Jim is not crazy.
Jim waits to recognise the tune that Frenchie plays — it is supposed to be familiar. They sing along to it.
They do not know it.
Jim does not remember what happened after watching their father fall to the ground, and perhaps this is a good thing.
Jim does not remember what it is like to feel truly happy, to feel truly at peace, and perhaps this is a good thing.
They’re trying.
Oluwande helps, they think. Emotions are hard, always have been. They take more mapping than the scars on Olu’s hands, ones that Jim has traced too many times to count. They remember these times.
The scars are not familiar.
Emotions are hard, always have been. Probably, they were happy before their father died. Before their brother died. Before their Nana taught them to sharpen the knife they took from their father’s corpse.
Probably.
Emotions are hard, always have been.
They are beginning to become less — not hard, because that isn’t how this works — foggy. They are trapped behind a mirror instead of a wall, behind bars instead of cement.
Oluwande helps, they think.
Helps by telling them things he knows about them — things that are real.
Jim knows these things are real, they know they are real, they know their knives are real, their skin is real, their clothes are real, the splinter they tug out of their thumb is real, the bruises and the scrapes and the scars and the screaming, it’s all so real, they know and they know and they know —
But they do not recognise them.
Perhaps it is a good thing that emotions are so hard.
This would probably be much more difficult if they weren’t.
It sets in at odd moments.
They’re throwing knives, and suddenly they catch sight of the way their hand twists. They do not recognise it. It is muscle memory, and they throw again and again and again and keep watching their hands, waiting to recognise them.
It does not happen, and Jim looks away.
They’re listening to the captain — Bonnet — recount the deeds of the day, the ways in which the crew of The Revenge have made their mark in the pirate world, and his voice is unfamiliar. They’ve spent months hearing that voice. Perhaps it has been a year. They could tell you its name, the man it matches. Perhaps that would just be memory, or something like it, because Stede Bonnet is a name that fits in their mouth, but they do not know why. They wait to know.
It does not happen, and Jim decides to listen instead to Lucius, whispering sweet nothings into Pete’s ear. They press firmly shut the question that springs to mind — who is that?
They wake from a nightmare, head on Oluwande’s chest, surrounded by his scent, and they wonder why such a safe place is so terribly wrong. Why the arms they trust to protect them are familiarly unfamiliar, why they can name the colour of Oluwande’s eyes but not understand it.
There are moments, in the in between, where Jim doesn’t notice, or Jim recognises everything. Where Jim stares at their hands and everything is familiar.
It is late at night, and they sing Oluwande to sleep, Spanish rolling off their tongue like the first drops of condensation on a cold orange. They are here, they revel in the memory of hearing this song, before Everything Went So Terribly Wrong. They know it, and it is familiar.
It is high noon, and Stede tells the crew the tale of King Arthur, Guinevere, and Lancelot. He tells them the first story, of death and destruction and Lancelot tearing the other two apart. Then he tells them the second story, the one he says he prefers. In this one, the three are in love. They face every challenge together, Arthur, Guinevere, and Lancelot, lovers to the grave. Jim likes this one better. They know the captain’s voice, and they do not think to relearn it.
It is somewhere between dusk and dawn, and Jim is sobbing. They feel everything, they remember Nana’s bite as well as her bark, how she stopped tending to their wounds after the first time. They remember the way Bonifacia rolled off her tongue, even after they’d told her they’d changed it. They remember the waves of discomfort rolling off of Oluwande, even though he tried so very hard to hide it. They remember the sound of their father’s body hitting the ground, the wet slap of his stomach splitting open, a gaping maw of blood and gore. They remember everything, and it hurts. It hurts, and they are there, they know this pain, they recognise this pain.
Jim stares at their hands, waiting to recognise them.
It does not happen, and they look away. The sun is high in the sky, but it is September — they think — and the sails are full of wind. The cold bites their cheeks as they walk across the deck, avoiding the eyes of the rest of the crew.
They nudge Oluwande with their boot, and he looks at them, smiling like he always does, like he is always happy to see them, like they are better than whatever else he could get up to. They trust him, even though he is unfamiliar.
A silent conversation is passed between them, spoken through soft eyes and wringing of hands and careful nodding. Lucius has been teaching the crew sign language in his downtime, and Jim makes the sign for U — unfamiliar, unknown, unrecognisable. Olu knows it, Olu recognises it, because Olu recognises everything.
He stands and leads them away from what he says is loud.
Jim hadn’t quite noticed.
The captains know the importance of mental health. It is something that Jim perhaps overlooked even after… everything. After they lost Oluwande, and after the Kraken took control, and after…
This is not helping.
Their room is not stiflingly hot, but it is not bitingly cold, either. This is a fact that Jim notes, but does not recognise.
Oluwande steps softly around them, asks if he can take off a few of their clothes. He indicates their hat, their coat, their boots.
They nod. They do not want to speak, for if they do, they know their voice will be a mystery to them. They do not want to speak, either, because they are just. So very tired.
They watch, detached, as Olu helps them shrug out of their clothes, leaving them standing loose and flimsy. He sits them down on the bed, unlaces their boots.
Jim finds their way between Olu’s arms, their back against his chest. He’s running fingers through their hair, and it feels good. It feels good, but it is foggy.
They know Oluwande. They know he cries when he gets really stressed out, they know he cannot slice an orange to save his life. They know he doesn’t have a favourite colour. They know he learned to fight in the alleyways of Nassau, back when he didn’t have a story to his name and was seeking adventure among pirates. They know he has been teaching them to pull their punches, to defend themself along with him.
They know it, but it is not familiar.
There are tears running down their cheeks, and they revel in the feeling, the reassurance that their body feels the weight of their distress, even if their mind does not.
They want to sleep.
They want to wake up and know and recognise.
It happens sometimes. It does not, others.
They do not know how to fix it.
Jim closes their eyes. They do not look at their hands. They do not wait to recognise the world.
They know it is Olu behind them, and some small, paper thin, foggy part of them recognises him.