Bones in the Ocean by bunflower

Chapter 2

Six months later, and Technoblade finds himself in a familiar port, sans one hand and a ship.

After the sinking of his ship and subsequent loss of his entire crew in the wake of the freak storm, he'd taken it upon himself to resign his mantle as a captain of the Navy. No self-respecting captain allows his ship to go down without him, and yet, intentionally or not, that's exactly what he did all those months ago. He can scarcely get a good night's rest without remembering the sounds of splintering wood and strangled screams and the feeling of icy water crashing over him again and again-let alone getting behind the helm again.

And his hand?

It'd been taken from him as punishment for his failure. It was only fitting, really. He'd stood before his superiors, in disgrace and disarray, and confessed his sins for all to hear. How he, a captain of the Royal Navy, had abandoned his ship and his crew to a watery grave. How he'd stretched out that same hand, and in turn taken the hand of a criminal, of a pirate, and accepted his aid. And his superiors had looked upon him with cold disdain and asked him but one question:

"Which hand?"

His fighting hand.

It still hurts, most days. The metal of the prosthetic is cold and unyielding, rubbing against the scarred joint in a way that makes his bones ache with phantom pain. It's a constant reminder of what he'd done, of the mistakes he'd made, and of the cruelty of those he'd sworn his allegiance to for the majority of his life. He's learned to live without it as best he can, training into the late hours of the night, relearning what had once been instinct, retraining his muscles to balance on the opposite side. It's discouraging work, and some days he takes more steps back than forward, no matter how the sweat drips from his back from the labor of his efforts.

He's begun to lose hope in ever regaining what was lost.

He works at the docks now. It's mediocre work, but he's good at it.

He misses the sea.

Sometimes he stands at the window of his room and stares out at the tide as it pulls in and out from shore. He watches the sailors as they pass by on shore leave, milling about purchasing supplies and regaling their loved ones with stories of their trip. He sits in the pub and listens to the pirates, and for once doesn't shudder with distaste at their fanciful, exaggerated tales of heroism and daring escapes; instead, clinging to them for whatever comfort of familiarity he can get his hands on. It's not his position to apprehend them anymore, anyway. And so he leaves them be, and dwells in his envy, and tries to remind himself that the situation he's in rests on his shoulders; that the only one to blame for his distance from the sea is himself, for he could have found his resting place there instead.

He blames the storm, sure-the wind and the waves and the thunder each deemed his enemy. He blames the pirate, Philza-his captor, turned his rescuer-for being the reason they traveled those waters, for pulling him free from the sea's grasp to live another day with the guilt of the lives of his crew resting upon his shoulders.

But most of all, he blames himself.

He keeps a journal. In it are the names of every single member of his former crew-every life lost to the wreck. He inks their names, again and again, committing them time and again to his memory for fear of ever forgetting how much they meant to him. They were his comrades, and he their captain, and he thinks he'll live forever with the burden of being the only one to make it out of the wreckage alive. There are no bodies to recover, no belongings to return to their grieving families. Everything went down with the ship, now resting somewhere on the ocean floor.

All he has left is the memories.

He distracts himself with his work, mostly. He puts his shoulder to the grindstone and works the docks from sunrise until sunset, carrying crates of cargo and helping the ships make port, securing them to the docks with lines, and helping to lower the gangplanks. He wakes up, watches the sun rise over the horizon, goes to work, and returns just in time to see it set. He loses himself in the familiarity, though a persistent tug remains in the back of his mind, forever calling for something he can't have anymore.