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bisexualpirateheart · 5 years

Note

“Bet I can make you come without ever touching your cock.” - silverflint

You Clearly Have Something To Say

~ * ~

Silver leans back, watching Flint across the cabin. Flint can feel his gaze no matter what he does, no matter how hard he tries to focus. He’s been trying to focus for the better half of an hour now with still no luck. For whatever reason Dufresne has decided it’s easier to keep them in the captain’s cabin for now. Flint will take it. His shoulder still aches from the exertion of swimming out to fight and take the ship, and from being fucking shot for that matter.

“Something you wish to say?” he says at last without looking up. He knows very well Silver is looking at him, he doesn’t have to see it.

“Mmhm.” Silver says at last.

He doesn’t say anything further though and Flint attempts to keep his eyes on the chart before him. A few minutes pass, during which Silver speaks not at all but manages to fill the room with unbearable weight all the same.

Damn him.

“You clearly have something to say.” Flint manages to keep his own gaze on the chart upon the desk. The focus of Silver’s gaze yet weighs upon him but he refuses to give in to it until he has to.

Silver drums his fingers aimlessly upon the windowsill of the window seat. The evening breeze wafts through his hair, tangling it this way and that.

The silence swells in the cabin until it’s Flint can think about. The heady focus of Silver’s stare, the expanse of his focus is already making Flint want to escape. The heat of it all brings sweat rolling down his back, causing his shirt to stick to his skin.

“What?” Flint places his hands flat on the desk and stares at him. “What the fuck is it?”

Silver doesn’t blink. “I bet I could make you come without even touching your cock.”

Flint blinks. The words are so unexpected. Silver’s just watching him. That’s what he’s been waiting to say? That of all things?

“What?” Flint repeats. Perhaps he’s misheard. Perhaps the sea is finally getting to him.

“You heard me.” Silver says, sitting back, resting his hands on his spread thighs. Flint’s very aware of the rocking of the ship underneath them, the breeze flickering the lantern light, the half visible curve of Silver’s cock in his breeches.

“Why are you…” He sits back as well, trying to maintain some sort of balance.

“We have the night before us. We have to get through it somehow.” Silver shrugs. “You still seem to doubt my offer of assistance in managing this crew, or your need of that assistance.”

“And you think offering to…” Flint can’t even say the words, though thinking them brings up a volley of images Silver smiling at him, Silver crouching between his thighs, his hands on Flint’s knees, Silver looking up at him over his groin. “will assure me of this venture?”

Flint sneers the last of the words, certain that Silver will back down from this. He’s not a fool, though Flint occasionally has doubts on that score.

Silver just smiles which does nothing to dispel the images in Flint’s head and something very direct to Flint’s groin.

He considers. “If you fail this…” He says, still not entirely sure what Silver’s planning on doing to do exactly if he doesn’t suck his cock. “What then?”

Silver shrugs. “Then if you’ve truly decided you no longer need or want my assistance, we can part ways.”

It would certainly makes things easier if the crew didn’t consider them bound. They would might be persuaded to see reason on one of them, but not both. And still, Flint finds himself reluctant to cut ties with Silver just yet.

It doesn’t stop him from wanting to see what Silver will come up with though.

“All right.” He says, leaning further back in his chair.

Silver rises to his feet. “And what do I get if I succeed?”

“If?” Flint repeats. “You don’t sound very sure of yourself now.”

Silver shrugs again, slowly crossing the cabin to him. “Well?”

“What do you want?” Flint says. He’s fairly certain that question is already being half answered by what he’s allowing Silver to do here.

Silver comes to a halt right outside the span of Flint’s half-stretched leg. He leans on the corner of the desk, apparently considering the matter for the first time.

“A place at the table. A voice in what happens next.” He pauses, looking off to the window seat again and Flint takes the opportunity to admire the curve of his neck.

“And that’s all?” he prompts when Silver remains silent.

Silver swings around to face him. “A permanent position on your crew.”

It’s not what Flint expects him to say, and he’s fairly certain it shows on his face.

“All right.” He says again.

This time it’s Silver who’s surprised, though he hides it quickly enough. He simply nods and eyes Flint’s crotch.

“Get on with it then.”

“All right.” Silver says unperturbed. He eases off the desk and slides onto Flint’s lap.

“What the fuck?” Flint presses himself back against the chair, gripping the arms with both hands. “You said.”

“I said without touching your cock.” Silver leans in, a hand resting on Flint’s chest, drifting lazily down his shirt. “I never said I wouldn’t touch the rest of you.”

It’s true and Flint knows it, but he’s irritated at Silver and his loophole all the same. His hands grip the armchair even tighter as Silver’s hand wanders all the way down to his lower belly, just resting there. It makes Flint sweat even more.

“When was the last time you had a good fuck?” Silver asks curiously.

“What business is that of yours?” Flint snarls.

Silver shrugs and Flint’s truly starting to hate that gesture on him. It makes his slim shoulder muscles ripple in a way that make it all too easy to picture Silver in the throes of passion.

“Just curious.” Silver says smoothly, flattening his palm all the way against Flint’s belly.

Flint sucks in a tight breath. “Why?”

“You are the captain of one of the most notorious ships that graces Nassau with its presence in her bay.” Silver brushes his thumb idly along the top of Flint’s breeches. “There are many in the town that would probably welcome the chance to warm your bed.”

Flint laughs, startling both of them. “You clearly haven’t listened to the talk. The people of Nassau do not wish to find themselves in my bed.” He watches Silver as he looks down. “One of the most notorious?”

Silver glances up, a smirk on his lips. “Well, as you say, I haven’t listened to all the talk. Perhaps you are indeed the most notorious.” His eyes linger on Flint’s mouth. “But I have heard some of the talk, captain.” He leans in, careful not to touch Flint’s groin. “And you’re wrong.” His mouth breathes upon Flint’s collarbone before his lips brush Flint’s burning skin ever so lightly.

Flint swallows tightly. “Oh?” he keeps his gaze focused on the wall opposite him. He’s aware of Silver’s entire body: his hair falling forward as Silver leans in towards him, his shoulders hunched slightly, in a way that would make it so easy to encircle his body with Flint’s arm, the length of his cock, now evident pressed against the front of his breeches. Is Silver so truly aroused by this, simply touching Flint? How is that possible?

“Mm.” Silver says, brushing another kiss to the v of Flint’s chest and lower to his shirt, still kissing on. The shirt does nothing to protect Flint from the heat of his mouth.

He kisses his way down Flint’s chest and then simply slides from his lap to the floor, kneeling between Flint’s thighs. This is all too close to what Flint had imagined. His cock pulses at the thought and Silver grins.

Silver just looks at it, licking his lips. “Do you know what I would do if I were allowed to?” He says, almost idly.

“No.” Flint pretends his voice doesn’t sound strained as Silver leans across his knees, still just looking at Flint’s evident arousal.

“I would work my way down this impressive length.” Silver murmurs. “Kissing it once inch at a time until I got to that thick juicy cockhead of yours. And then I would kiss my way oh so slowly all around that delicious head, until you were dripping across my lips.”

Flint strangles a groan. Fuck, this is unfair. Why didn’t he think this through before he let Silver do this? He’s forgotten the point of this, except he can’t let Silver win. Yet all he wants is to come, and the more Silver touches him, the more he talks, the more Flint’s dying to fuck him.

“And then,” Silver continues, stroking his thumbs up the insides of Flint’s thighs. “I would take you so far deep down my throat, it’s all you can feel, and I fuck your cock with my mouth, until you can’t hold out any longer.”

He glances upward, his curls falling over his face as he does. “And then I’d slip you out and let you finish all over me.”

This time Flint can’t hold back the sound he makes. His cock is practically bursting from his breeches. He’s going to fucking come in his breeches like a mere cabin boy and just before he’s resigned himself to this fate, Silver leaves him mercifully bereft of further torture and climbs back onto his lap.

He’s oh so very careful to keep just a fraction of distance between their groins and it’s fucking killing Flint. Silver leans in, resting his folded arms against Flint’s chest, his mouth closer to Flint’s than their cocks are. His lips curve into that familiar smirk that Flint resents and appreciates in equal breath.

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Silver whispers “Me covered in you.”

At last Flint gives in, and reaches for Silver, clasping him by the back of the neck as he crushes Silver’s mouth to his. Silver moans into his mouth, his arms wrapping around Flint’s neck. His mouth is as starved for this as Flint is, and every time their tongues move together, Flint thinks he’s found both heaven on earth, and the secret to shutting Silver up. Well, in one regard at least.

His cock throbs as Silver groans louder and finally Flint pushes off, drawing back, panting. “Come, on, damn you.”

Silver’s hands drop to his shoulders. “You’re not getting off that easily, captain.” His eyes are bright with arousal and humor, and Flint wishes he didn’t find the sense of mischief in Silver’s soul so appealing, but he does, damn him. He finds everything about Silver appealing and he hates that admission in himself.

“Is that any way to say please?” Silver whispers, kissing Flint’s neck, rocking against his thighs.

Flint’s hands have found their way across Silver’s torso, one gripping his hip, the other slipping inside Silver’s shirt to pinch his nipple in retaliation.

“Fuck yes.” Silver moans.

He arches higher, his hands digging into Flint’s shoulders, still careful not to lean too much against Flint’s wound, and it’s maddening how he’s right above Flint’s cock. He can feel the heat from Silver’s cock even though there’s the barest of distance between them. Silver’s practically humping his thighs and it shouldn’t make him so desperate for more, but it does.

As he finished, indeed coming in his breeches like a damn cabin boy, he’s aware that Silver’s coming as well, his body moving in time with Flint even as their bodies are still held just a fraction apart.

Flint slumps against the chair, his chest heaving. Silver finally relaxes his grip on his shoulders and leans back. There’s sweat on his brow. At least he had to work for it, Flint thinks.

The smirk is displayed in full force as Silver slides off his lap. “Well?”

Flint clears his throat. “You have a place on the crew. Once the ship is mine.”

Silver nods. “Good.” He doesn’t quite look at Flint, as he turns away and Flint’s hand swings out to clasp his wrist.

Silver looks at him startled as Flint’s fingers dig into his skin.

“You think you can tease me like that.” Flint’s gaze is steady on his as he pulls Silver lower. “Touch me like that…You think you can talk like that to your captain and not expect retaliation?”

Silver swallows nervously. “I…”

Flint’s other hand reaches up clasp the back of his neck once more. He draws Silver downward until their faces are level. He watches the different emotions play out in Silver’s eyes and knows what he wants as truly as he wants it himself.

“So yes, you’ve won and earned yourself a place on my crew, on my ship.” Flint murmurs, “And also in my bed.”

It clearly takes Silver a moment for the words to sink in. When they do, the smile that spreads across his face is so rare, and yet more alive than anything Flint’s ever seen.

Silver simply leans in, closing the distance between them as he kisses Flint in response. Flint’s fingers stroke their way along his neck until he’s simply caressing Silver, a much longed for touch upon Silver’s aching skin.

When Silver draws off, he’s still smiling.

Flint clears his throat. “See that I don’t regret my decision.” He does his best to sound gruff, and for a moment he fears Silver is going to laugh.

“Aye, aye, captain.” Silver says in all seriousness. “You have my word.”

He looks around the room and Flint knows what he’s looking for. “There’s a pitcher there.”

Silver grins. “I’ll be back with water to…” He glances at the damp stain over Flint’s crotch.

“Mm, see that you hurry.” Flint says, and this time he sounds reasonably himself, all irritation and no patience.

It doesn’t deter Silver though, who goes out of the cabin whistling as he holds the pitcher in front of his own matching stain.

Is this what it’s going to be like from now on? Flint wonders as he strokes his beard. He has a suspicion it is, but strangely, he’s not averse to it. He leans back and closes his eyes, thinking of Silver, and the many delights of his mouth.

#silverflint #black sails #black sails fic #fanfic #not remotely appropriate for the workplace #another long ago prompt finally finished

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twofrontteethstillcrooked · 5 years

Text

silverflint drabble, 31 Dec. 2018

@silverflintdaily

celebrate, dream, melody

(canon-era au)

Flint should have known the men would celebrate, their cheers and a spattering of gunshots marking midnight as loudly as possible. He remained at the rail adjacent his cabin door, blustering wind carrying the men's voices out onto the water and away, and waited for the distinctive rhythm of peg on wood.

"I know, I know," Silver said as he approached after a few minutes. "You disapprove of the cacophony."

"It's all right. Though it isn't officially the new year for another three months," Flint said, keeping his eyes on the waves tipped in white, like a frilly skirt flipped up at the hem.

"Nevertheless." Silver joined him by the rail. The heat from his body reached Flint a moment later. "You must admit January 1st feels like an appropriate time to throw off the shackles of the old year, reflect on one's actions, and take stock of the months to come."

"'Reflect on one's actions'?" Flint asked with more than a little skepticism. "How have you faired in such introspection?" From the corner of his eye he saw Silver smile and look down for a second, before turning to watch Flint fully.

"I find myself hale as a hare, Captain. A man of some influence, I believe you could call me; a quartermaster of distinction, perhaps." Silver put his hand over his heart. "Why, just before coming here I was patted on the back and called friend by no fewer than twenty loyal ruffians. They filleth my cup with brotherly kindness and fine rum. I am honored to be in their service, and as for the year ahead, it glitters like a horizon of golden coins." He dropped his hand. "We will make them princes of the new world, won't we."

His dark eyes did not shine the way they should have, had he been wholly convinced of his claims. The sight set something shivering in Flint's chest. Silver moved closer anyway, until by virtue of the ship rocking his body met Flint's at a half-dozen points Flint couldn't help but notice, wishing not to; wanting for nothing more than to take the most detailed inventory. In a flash he imagined what it would be like to put cool fingertips to all of those places, uncovered, on Silver's body: a pointed elbow, the mangled remnant of knee. A bare hipbone pressed like a holy relic into Flint's palm.

"Your skills mastering cuisine should also be considered," Flint forced himself to say, "as they have improved over the months to the point, I dare wager, you may one day be a sought-after cook. 'His sturgeon pye,' they'll say, 'is worth joining Flint's crew just for the chance of experiencing it.'"

"Well," Silver said, very dry, very near, "that'll always be the dream."

Below deck the men had begun to sing something with a warbling, winding melody, a low tune of loves lost at sea. Somehow Silver's rough hand was laid warm and real upon the back of Flint's neck and Flint leaned toward him without meaning to, his gaze falling on Silver's mouth.

"Happy new year, Captain," Silver said and closed the gap, kissing him softly. Softly, with a hum in his throat; insistently, as though it was not an accident.

There should be words, Flint thought, kissing him back, bringing him into his arms; there should be a way to stop this before it is all ruined.

But between kisses Silver whispered "I'm here" and "Hello" and "It's just me," and Flint could say nothing to halt any of it, he felt starvation now like a wild storm, like a fatal strike from a sword across his spine, and kept his mouth on Silver's until the panic in his mind fell away. It didn't seem like Silver could speak either, after a time. The air was ever colder around them and hot like sunlight where they touched. To break apart caused Flint an almost physical pain. He opened the cabin door and looked inside, breathing shallowly as if it could slow his racing heart.

Silver took two steps inside. He held out his hand.

Flint took it, and locked the door behind them.

_________________

the beginning of the legal new year wasn't changed to 1 January in England until 1752. Of course, they're not in England, but anyhoo

one of Silver's lines was pilfered from Bart Simpson lol

#silverflintdow #silverflint #fic #happy new year's!!!#new year's #black sails

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slverjohn · 6 years

Note

“war’s end” kiss for silverflint (u can make it as angsty as u wish i love pain)

so for me the “war’s end” is That Scene on skeleton island so prepare for major angst

*****

“I will stand here with you for an hour, a day, a year, while you find a way to accept this outcome, so that we might leave here together. For if not, then I must end this another way,” Silver tells Flint, his hand trembling as it holds the pistol.

He remembers an afternoon out on the cliffs in the sunshine, when he’d first landed a clumsy, glancing blow to Flint’s shoulder. The captain had positively beamed at him, laughing brightly and clapping a hand to his shoulder companionably.

I could stand here forever, he’d thought then, watching the way Flint’s eyes had lit up, counting the freckles across his nose.

What a fool he’d been.

He can feel the tears stinging at his eyes, hears the way they make his voice thicken and quiver, but he will not let them fall.

If he lets them fall, he’s not sure they’ll ever stop.

It’s been so easy, lately, for Flint to tell when Silver is lying. He wonders if Flint knows he’s lying now, knows that even John Silver could not come up with a fiction in which he could ever kill him.

“Do it, then,” Flint says, a horrible resignation in his eyes as he looks at Silver.

Silver’s hand is shaking worse than before, but he will not tear his gaze away from Flint’s. He wishes, not for the first time, that he had never met James fucking Flint, that he’d never known what it is to love someone like this.

“Thomas Hamilton is alive. Just - just let me take you to him. Please.”

Flint stumbles backwards as if he truly has been shot, leaning against the boulder heavily. The betrayal writ into every line of his features is clear as day, as though in mentioning Thomas Silver has crossed some invisible, irredeemable line.

“How dare you use him against me like this. How dare you. Why would - how could you tell such a hideous lie, when you know what his loss has made of me?”

It’s not the familiar, burning rage that Silver has come to expect from Flint; instead, it is a simmering, anguished anger, quiet but no less powerful.

“I wouldn’t. Not about this. He’s alive, Flint, I swear it.”

“Oh, you swear it, do you?” Flint sneers. “Well, if the fucking thief swears it, then it must be true.”

Silver flinches. Flint is in pain, he knows this, just as he knows the words were carefully chosen to make him hurt, but - fuck. To hear Flint call him a thief, as if that’s all Silver ever was to him, it cuts him more than he could have expected.

It’s easy to forget that Flint is just as good at manipulating others as Silver is himself, and he’s that been doing it longer.

“You’ve been lying since the day we met,” Flint says, angry tears in his own eyes now. “Why should anything be different now?”

For Flint to think that he isn’t different, that everything about the two of them isn’t different, it’s - it’s ludicrous. Flint knows more of him than anyone, even Madi; there’s no one in the world more different to Silver than him. The realization that Flint thinks Silver’s lies, his inability to make himself known, somehow imply any indifference on his part, makes Silver want to scream, want to fall to his knees.

Instead, he tosses the pistol (he’d never bothered to take off the safety) and throws himself at Flint, fisting a hand in his shirt and pushing at him harshly. “Stop this. Stop trying to hurt me, stop fighting. Let me save you.”

Flint’s eyes are wide and shocked, taken aback by how close they are, by Silver’s frustration. Silver doesn’t know if they’ve ever been so close, if they’ve ever let their breath mingle so intimately. He’s not sure why Flint looks so surprised, though: surely he must have realized that this has always been as much about protecting him as it is about Madi?

“Save me?”

“Yes, goddamn you.” Silver drops his crutch, reaching up to clutch Flint’s shirt in both hands, desperate. “I can save you this time, I can save you both. I’m Long John Silver now, not some frail seven year old too frightened to even - ”

He cuts himself off, closing his eyes and taking in a deep, shuddering breath, trying not to get lost in the memories. Soon enough, Flint will join those ghosts, become a thing of the past, and then he’ll let himself remember.

“Silver...” Flint’s voice is softer now, more hesitant, but Silver cannot bear to look at him, instead staring at where his dirt-stained fingers are buried in the shirt. He speaks to his quaking hands, face turned downward and away from his captain.

“You’ll go to Savannah and be with him, live with him, and you’ll hate me for taking this from you. I will live with your hatred, and you will live with your Thomas. You will be free of this war, free of your rage, free of Nassau and mutinies and me and - ”

“Silver - ” Flint tries again, but Silver, now that the floodgates have opened, can’t seem to stop himself.

“ - and maybe you’re right, maybe Madi won’t forgive me. Maybe I don’t matter. I never mattered before I was John Silver, after all. Perhaps some people aren’t meant to matter for very long, or at all. And - even if Madi should leave me, I’ll find a way to live with it. Alone was all I ever was, before you found me, and I can learn to be alone again. You’ve seen for yourself how adaptable I am - ”

“John,” Flint says firmly, reaching up and cupping Silver’s face in his hands, forcing him to look up and into his sorrow-filled eyes.

Silver laughs, slightly hysterical, through the tears streaming down his face. “That’s not even my real name.”

It’s almost not true, for he has never been more real than he has this past year, as John Silver. But John Silver is not the name his mother gave him, the name he can just barely remember hearing in her soft, lilting voice.

Flint sighs, hesitates for a moment, before speaking again. “Solomon.”

Silver goes rigid, even his ever-trembling hands freezing for a brief moment. He closes his eyes, presses his forehead against Flint’s, breathing slow and measured. If he doesn’t count his breaths, if he doesn’t keep them even, he might stop altogether.

“What was it you once said, about being made transparent?”

Flint snorts at that. “You are anything but transparent. John Silver, Solomon Little, whoever else you might be - every piece of you is hidden from sight.”

Silver pulls back, until he can look Flint in the eye, tears be damned. The time for pride has long since passed. “Not every piece. Some things, Madi tells me, are all too clear.”

He kisses Flint, just the barest, chaste press of his lips. And then, for once in his godforsaken life, he is brave.

“I love you. Let me save you.” His breath catches, hitching on what is dangerously close to a sob. “What is the point of falling in love, in loving anyone, if all it brings is agony? If all it does is force you watch the ones you love die? If that is love, I do not want it. Flint, that cannot be what love is, I cannot - ”

Flint kisses him again, pulls him close and holds him steady. It is not gentle, or sweet; it is a desperate, anguished thing, two men trying to make up for time long since lost. Flint’s kiss is searing, and Silver knows, even as he leans into it, even as he gasps against this onslaught, that it will ruin him.

That it will haunt him.

He pulls back, breathless and dazed.

“Flint, James, please - ”

“Alright,” Flint says, finally, wrapping his arms around Silver’s waist and resting his head on his shoulders. “Alright.”

#silverflint #mentions of silvermadi #silverflint fic #angst #black sails fic #my fic #fic prompts #first kiss #idk what else to tag this as??? uh #skeleton island pain fic #swansilver

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brassfannibal · 7 years

Note

37.“I tried my best to not feel anything for you. Guess what? I failed.”-silverflint

This is light-hearted (probably one of the lightest things I’ve written). There is a bit of angst but it’s mostly light lol so I hope you like it! Takes place between S3-S4 when they are at the maroon camp

Silver attempts to write a love confession to Flint - 1581 words

–

To Fail

The quill could snap between his fingers like a bone if he lets it. He can press until the ink bled into his fingers, staining the palms of his hands. He’d have all the words he can never fit onto parchment marking his skin.

He wasn’t any good at letters or poetry of any fashion. He’s attempted it and couldn’t stop laughing at himself. He had thrown himself into a fit of manic depression afterward that would be blamed on this bout of madness. Why exactly was he attempting to write James Flint a letter when the man resides a few quarters down from his?

Their training sessions had ended abruptly a week ago when Silver had pressed his mouth to Flint’s. He hadn’t known what to expect but the anger he received was not it. Flint had been furious with him as if this was a form of manipulation, a tactic to gain an advantage over the lessons. Perhaps, Silver could be that petty but not with this, not with him.

Although, that sounds too noble. He, of course, thought it would be a distraction but a distraction for them both. From the heat, from the future. He didn’t expect anything but a small reprieve.

That wasn’t true either though. He always expects things from Flint, more with each day. Another glance his way, a possible smile given to him that he can claim. A tired story about myths conjured out of the sea. Silver wanted to read to him, he wanted to hear what he thought of his musing. Where had that come from? What had any of this come from?

Flint had said: ‘I let you crawl around in my skull’ almost with a snarl to match.

The crawling was the easy part, Flint had let him into all those dark spaces and he had thought he’d make a small home there but he hadn’t let Flint into all those spaces of his own mind. He hadn’t.

He writes uselessly with the drying ink: ‘You miserable fuck’

See…he’s not much of a poet. Although, Silver thinks that is addressed more to himself than it is to Flint. He was a miserable fuck. He didn’t allow anyone to examine his history. It was already made by someone else’s hand why mar the sunlight by collapsing it into the space between them.

He’d imagine Flint sifting through the pile of rubbish that is his past and he’d examine each groove as if it’s something worthy to note.

He scratches out the words messily and dips the pen in ink once again. He writes: ‘I’m sorry’

But that wasn’t true either. He wasn’t sorry for attempting to push their dance a little further. He wants to do it again, so that wouldn’t make him sorry. He scribbles out the words, almost tearing the page with the force of it. He writes: ‘Fuck off’ three times in a row and then gently pushes the parchment aside for a new one.

This time he pours himself onto the page, the pen scribbling furiously and scratching out his thoughts, plucking them forward for Flint to read and examine like that twisted iron wreckage of the cage his heart waits in.

He reaches the edge of the parchment and tosses the pen angrily before folding the page. The ink may not have dried properly, but he didn’t wish to reread it. He didn’t need to see it, he just required Flint to.

He spends the better part of an hour pacing around his cot, wobbling on his crutch and mumbling to himself like a gibbering drunk. He’s lost his goddamn mind.

He gathers up the pages after spending far too much time in his head and folds them neatly along the creases. Hadn’t he already folded the page?

He thought about addressing it to ‘James’ but decided not to address it at all. Formalities were never his strong suit. He stalks across the camp, as much stalking his crutch will allow him to do and reaches the open door of Flint’s sleeping quarters. He knocks once on the doorway and steps inside without much announcement. Flint is reading by candlelight on his cot and sits up bewildered by his appearance. Silver watches the moment Flint remembers he’s supposed to be angry and he shuts the book loudly to punctuate it.

“What do you want?” He coolly asks.

“I wrote you a letter.” Silver replies and Flint squints at him with suspicious confusion.

“A letter? Whatever for?”

Silver holds it out to him and states, “If I am to stand here and explain it to you then the whole point of this fucking letter would be void, would it not?”

Flint sighs and stands, padding over to him barefoot. Silver surmises he is the only one that can appear sleepy and enraged all at once. He rips it from Silver’s fingers and unfolds it with indifference.

Silver, however, is slowly regretting his decision and is tempted to limp down to the beach and let the waves carry him away. He observes Flint’s expression as his eyes glide over the parchment as if they are examining Silver’s heart and the look of utter confusion he presents him sinks any growing expectations.

“It says ‘fuck off’ three times…” Flint relays, creasing his brow.

“Jesus Christ…” Silver breathes with stalk-still horror. He had given him the wrong letter.

Flint eyes the page some more as if such a thing were fascinating and continues, “What exactly is this?”

Silver grabs it from his grasp and tears the parchment in two by the effort of it.

“Couldn’t you have told me this, Mr. Silver?” Flint questions and he still appears more confused than angry.

“It wasn’t…I wrote a different letter. I gave..you the wrong one.” Silver replies with the wave of his hand, towards the shredded pieces of what he suspects are now his dignity.

Flint hums and then slowly breaks into a low rumbled chuckle. He was laughing at him.

“I’m so very glad you find it so fucking amusing.” Silver snaps.

“What did the original say?” Flint asks and he’s trying to hide the laughter behind his words.

The original letter was a scribbled mess of thoughts that he is exceptionally glad didn’t reach Flint’s eyes.

“About our last training session…” Silver begins and Flint’s small smile immediately fades from his face.

“I think we’re done here, Mr. Silver. If you can kindly see yourself out. I have a busy day ahead.” Flint replies coldly. He was well practiced with shutting people out, Silver recognizes the disconcerting likeness between them. Such as when chaos meets chaos, it never balances. There is always a scramble to retrieve normalcy but neither of them will ever achieve it between them.

Flint is glaring at him and soon would come the insults, Silver realizes this.

He blurts, “I tried my best to not feel anything for you. Guess what? I failed.”

It wasn’t the chaotic scribble of his letter or the attempt at pulling something free from his heart. It just was. He failed.

Flint’s expression evolves into something resembling fear as if Silver had presented him with a ship killer and perhaps he did.

They stand there in equal heavy silence before Silver finally takes his leave. His thoughts suddenly bursting at the lively busy camp in front of him. The laughter of a far-off conversation grates on his nerves and he limps slowly away from any prying eyes. He finds a secluded spot by the murky lake and dares not lean to view his reflection. He stopped looking at reflective surfaces long ago, for that is the true abyss.

He hears from behind him, “I thought it was a manipulation.”

Silver startles and turns to see Flint, barefoot still and standing in the line of sunlight cradling the lake.

“It wasn’t.” Is all Silver manages.

“I thought after I told you of my past that you were trying to use it against me, to your advantage.” Flint continues and Silver shakes his head.

“I wouldn’t do that…” Silver replies and at least he hopes he wouldn’t do that.

“Tell me why then.” Flint commands and Silver’s lips break out into a bitter grin.

“I believe I already stated how I felt a moment ago. I won’t be repeating it.” Silver replies and he feels as though his chest could open up to shrivel his heart.

Flint walks closer, cringing when he steps on a bundle of acorns. The bitterness in Silver’s expression evolves into hidden adoration.

“I also failed,” Flint replies and Silver’s heart thuds loudly like a drum. The hopeful stillness and quiet chirping of birds is the only background noise.

“How did you fail?” Silver questions and tries to keep the growing hope out of his expression.

Flint sighs in frustration, “You’ve made me into a fool.”

Silver shrugs and grimaces when the throbbing familiar pain wraps around his thigh like a vise.

“Perhaps, you already were one, Captain.” Silver supplies and Flint closes the small distance between the bright dancing light.

Silver’s face breaks into a grin when he notices Flint’s sharp intake of breath, another small acorn patch has been thwarted by Flint’s bare feet. His small rumble of laughter is stolen from him when Flint presses his lips to his.

Silver can’t help but think in inconsistencies, the threading of time and the light as a guiding form between them but one thing is certain, John Silver will never attempt to write another letter again.

#ellelan #silverflint #black sails fic #ficlet #myfic #prompt

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lurkerdelima · 7 years

Note

27.“I don’t want to feel like this tomorrow.”-silverflint

For you @ellelan! Sorry it took me a while. 💕 I wrote you some illness hurt/comfort with just a hint of Silvermadi (and maybe an implication of future Silverflintmadi, idk). I hope you enjoy!

Flint is alone in his room on the island at dusk when Madi comes through the open door with a look of alarm on her face.

“It’s John,” she says, approaching the chair he’s sitting in, her feet soundless on the wood floor. “He’s taken ill with a fever. I’ve done what I can to make him comfortable, but he keeps calling your name.”

Flint’s up from his chair as soon as she says Silver’s name. He follows her to Silver’s room, frowning when she pushes open the door. The room is warm, almost unbearably so, and the air is thick with a sweet, stomach-turning sort of smell.

“His leg?” Flint asks Madi, and she nods, her brow creasing with worry.

“He won’t let me look at it, I think he’s afraid I’ll— he’s concerned about what I might think of it,” she says, standing at the side of Silver’s bed opposite Flint and stroking Silver’s sweaty hair back from his forehead. His eyes are shut and his teeth clenched, his body visibly drawn tight with pain. He’s got only a sheet draped over his nude form, but he’s sweating profusely regardless. When Flint touches his forehead, it’s burning.

“John. Can you hear me?” he asks, pouring him a cup of water from the pitcher nearby and holding it to his dry, cracked lips. “Drink.”

Silver opens his eyes for a moment and takes a reluctant sip, then turns his head away. “James,” he rasps. “Please.”

“Please what?” Flint asks, but Silver only groans in response and shifts restlessly in the bed. His back arches and he clenches his jaws with such ferocity, Flint has the urge to put something soft in his mouth and spare his poor teeth.

“He keeps having fits like that,” Madi says softly, taking a damp rag from the nightstand and swabbing Silver’s chest and throat with it. “You don’t think he’ll...?” she asks Flint, her luminous dark eyes boring holes into him.

“I don’t know,” Flint says honestly, miserably. Silver can’t just die - he’s lived through so much, such unbearable things he won’t speak of them, not even to Flint. This can’t be the end of him; he can’t simply shuffle off this mortal coil bested by a fever of all things. Resolved, Flint pulls a chair up to the side of Silver’s bed while Madi mirrors him on the other side. They sit looking at each other over Silver’s bare, heaving torso.

“Will he permit you to touch his leg? I have something that might help his sickness, but in this state he won’t so much as let me pull the sheet away,” Madi says. Flint thinks she mutters ‘stubborn ass’ under her breath and it makes him smile a little in spite of everything.

“I can try,” he says. He reaches for the sheet and starts to slowly move it down, but a hot, clammy hand on his wrist stays him. “It’s me, John. I need to see your leg so that I might help you. I’ve done this before, remember?” he murmurs in his most soothing tone. The hand recedes reluctantly, and Flint pulls the sheet out of the way to reveal Silver’s inflamed leg. It’s red and shining at the blunted end, and it feels warmer than the rest of Silver’s body when he touches it lightly. He looks up at Madi and she reaches across the bed to hand him a small wooden bowl with something thick and dark in it.

“Spread this on his skin. It will help draw out the infection,” she directs him, and he does as she says, applying the poultice to Silver’s scarred, angry stump. Silver flinches every time Flint makes contact with his skin but doesn’t yell or cry in pain, just hisses through his gritted teeth. Bless him.

“Now what?” Flint murmurs when he’s done as Madi instructed, eyeing Silver’s helpless, prone form. He’s shivering and sweating by turns now, muttering curses under his breath.

“If it works the way it should, his fever will break by morning. If not…” Madi trails off and locks eyes with Flint again.

He understands.

She takes Silver’s right hand in both her own, and after only a moment of hesitation Flint takes his left. Silver stirs, his blue eyes opening to narrow, hazy slits.

“I don’t want to feel like this tomorrow,” Silver whimpers, gripping Flint’s hand tight while his body shakes. Flint reaches out with the other hand to pull the sheet back up over Silver, covering him so that he might not feel so chilled. “I'd rather die. It hurts,” Silver chokes out as his fingernails bite into Flint’s palm. “I can feel them taking my leg again. God, James, help me, please,” he whispers urgently, trembling, curling in on himself.

Then he lets go of Madi’s hand and rolls toward Flint, eyes shut against the pain, blindly reaching for him. Flint doesn’t even think about it, just climbs into the narrow bed with Silver and takes him in his arms, Silver’s fevered brow tucked in the space between Flint’s neck and shoulder. One of his hot hands grips the front of Flint’s shirt and the other rests limply in his lap. Flint’s never known Silver to cling so, even in their most intimate moments, but he holds him close, trying to give him what he needs.

Slowly, Silver calms, and his erratic breathing gradually evens out. He’s fallen asleep, Flint realizes, cradled in his arms.

“He’s sleeping,” he whispers to Madi, looking at her over Silver’s lank curls in the dying light of the nearby lantern. She smiles at him wearily and stands from her chair, turning to leave. Flint is about to ask if she doesn’t want to stay, perhaps take his place in Silver’s bed, when she pauses by the door, one elegant hand resting on the frame. She drums her fingers there for a moment, like she’s considering her words carefully.

“I trust you,” she says quietly, and he knows it’s part reassurance, part pointed reminder - she’s choosing to trust him and could also choose not to, of her own volition, at any time. It’s a powerful thing to have, her trust. He won’t take it for granted.

“Thank you,” he says, and then she’s gone into the warm moonlit night, closing the door softly behind herself.

He dozes off with Silver’s damp, shivering body in his arms, hoping beyond hope that this man’s indefatigable stubbornness is enough to see him through another crisis and save his life yet again.

When he wakes, his internal clock tells him it’s close to dawn. A strong, warm breeze is howling outside, and the occasional squall of tropical rain batters the front door of Silver’s room. In his arms, Silver sleeps on unperturbed, clinging like a limpet and drooling on Flint’s shoulder. He feels less feverish, and when Flint lifts the sheet to peer at his leg, he can see that the swelling is much reduced and the skin underneath the poultice is slowly returning to its normal hue.

He’s about to ease himself away from Silver and out of the bed when the door creaks slowly open. It’s Madi, her hair loose, silhouetted by the rising sun like a benevolent goddess.

“How is he?” she whispers, drawing close on bare feet. She touches Silver’s forehead with the back of her hand and looks at Flint, visibly hopeful. “His fever’s broken.”

“I think he’s on the mend,” Flint agrees. Silver stirs in his arms then, opening his eyes and peering curiously at Madi, then at Flint, then beaming like he can’t quite believe his luck. Just as soon as the wide, boyish smile appears, it is gone, replaced by a more typical John Silver smirk.

“What’s happened here? What’s on my leg, and why am I naked? James, you know that you only need ask me if—”

“Enough,” Flint interrupts him, feeling such incredible relief at Silver’s overnight recovery that he doesn’t even mind too much his attempt at a witty remark. “Rest. You’ve been through an ordeal.”

“I’m perfectly well,” Silver argues goodnaturedly, then reaches for Madi, resting a hand on the back of her neck and drawing her down into a sweet, thorough kiss that makes Flint’s cheeks flush. “See?” Silver purrs when he pulls away, sprawling back against Flint with a contented sigh.

“Such a spoiled boy, to have not one but two people who care for him so,” Madi murmurs affectionately, settling herself on the bed next to Silver and smiling over his head at Flint.

“Lucky,” Silver corrects her softly, taking Flint’s hand in his own and twisting to look at him, the expression on his face stirring something in Flint that he hasn’t felt in years. “Not spoiled, but incredibly lucky.”

#prompt a lurker why not #prompt fills #ellelan #my fic #black sails fic #silverflint #hints of silvermadi #and potential for silverflintmadi #john silver has two hands

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olga-eulalia · 7 years

Text

You know how you start writing one fic that you get stuck on and then start writing another that you’re weirdly insecure about and so on ‘til you end up with over 3000 words of Monastery!AU SilverFlint CrackFic? [nods]

Warnings: Mature content. Non-native speaker writing here. Notes: Zero research went into the making of this fic. Additional Notes: Thighs.

For five whole days after his arrival at the monastery, Brother John had recounted the travails that had beset him on his journey to anyone who would listen and also to those few who would rather have not. How he had been plagued by thunderstorms and pelted by hailstones bigger than quail’s eggs. How he’d had to change his travel route when the river had become unnavigable only to find himself accosted by thieves, robbed of his meagre belongings which had also included the archbishop’s letter that they’d all been waiting for in their secluded sanctuary.

But -- a much-travelled man for someone of his young age -- it was by far not the only tale he’d had to tell.

His chattiness had been excessive, so much so that Brother William had eventually suggested that Brother John take a vow of silence for the duration of seven days in order to reflect on what it meant to be guided through such dangers unscathed. It was one of the well-tried ways of maintaining good order and discipline in their community and it had never failed to work. Until now.

Apart from being the archbishop’s messenger, Brother John had been sent with the express purpose of looking through and assessing the state of their library, as his findings would be a major component in determining the extent of the funding that would be allocated for the monastery’s restoration.

Brother James, as it happened, was the custodian of said library, the keys to all its greatest treasures dangling from his corded belt, their jangling dulled by a leather pouch, as he walked down the hallway and across the cloistered courtyard before and after each prayer. As such, he found it most disconcerting when Brother John fell into whispering with the monks in the old scriptorium when they stretched their backs and rested their weary eyes. And, as such, he found it even more disconcerting when Brother John followed Brother William’s advice and showed up one morning refusing to partake of speech. Because now Brother James had to look him in the face to figure out what he wanted, had to study those blue eyes and that bright, comely visage for such an extensive amount of time each day that his dreams started to feature it as well, in a most unholy union of Scripture and Fantasy.

The predicament was amplified by the fact that Brother John seemed to have latched onto him from the day they’d met. Sharing the same place of work, soon Brother John had also chosen him as the main person to affiliate with during their communal meals, oblivious to the fact that such a thing as seating arrangements in the refectory existed.

In general, it could be observed that their guest readily adapted to some of their customs while remaining willfully ignorant of others.

Just the other day, for example, when Brother James had climbed out of the wooden tub after his bath, taking heed to not slip on the stone floor, he’d found Brother John standing between him and his discarded clothes, a mere six feet distant, having entered the room at some unknown point and looking at him in such a way that his body had unwittingly started readying itself for something. But, with answers as unattainable as Brother James’s clothes in that moment, they had just stared at each other until Brother John had begun to disrobe as well, disrupting the entire rigorous schedule of everyone’s bath times with a gesture as simple as that of untying his cincture’s knot.

All of this erratic behavior was being tolerated by the abbot of their monastery, Brother Harold, who was probably hoping for a more favourable outcome to their humble petition by showing leniency.

So, after a mere eleven days, Brother James could honestly say that he had seen a lot more of their guest than he knew how to handle with dignity, and that he could do with a little less of him at this point. The time for evening prayers was nearing and, as often, he was still in the library then, leafing through books whose pages needed to be turned from time to time in order to remain supple, reading a bit here and there. The last of the monks had cleared out of the adjacent room already, a circumstance that he was all too aware of when Brother John stopped his scritching and came over to him, carrying an open book which he went on to carefully place on the writing desk in front of them.

On display was a Latin text about how one ought to share the fruits of one’s labour and, together, rejoice in the splendour of them. One page showed a miniature of two men dancing around a slender tree, holding hands. Brother John turned the page. Now the tree was considerably bigger and one of the figures had climbed it while the other was lying back at its roots. There was one more illustration in which a red fruit had been plucked and was being shared by the two of them.

The corner of Brother James’s mouth twitched.

Brother John showed no such reservations. He smiled, displaying his pretty front teeth, the crinkles about his eyes like the rays of the sun coming up over the hillside after a frosty, moonless night.

Being around Brother John was such an odd experience for Brother James, who after a few days into their acquaintance suddenly found himself in the role of interpreter and the sole provider of their talk. He’d thought that, perhaps, he’d initially been singled out as a companion because Brother John liked a challenge when it came to the telling of his stories, but now he was realising with ever more profound clarity that he might have been wrong. All signs pointed to them sharing many of the same interests, but despite Brother John’s previous openness, Brother James couldn’t confirm it with absolute certainty. He had no idea what could be disclosed without second thoughts -- whether it was safe to admit that he thought the pictures were amusing too, whether he could say that these were some of the tamest ones on the subject in the collection -- seeing as he was talking to the archbishop’s representative here, who was known to be a man of little good humour. It was a mystery anyway how someone as good-natured as Brother John had come to work for someone as dour and calculating as that.

“You should--” Brother James waved a hand, indicating that they were finished here, that Brother John ought to gather his notes as he was so diligently wont to do and return the book to its former place. “We don’t want to be too late for Mass,” he said, though there was plenty of time yet.

Brother John did not seem to agree. He did not budge from his spot and the presence of his body did not allow Brother James to step out into the aisle, where he was sure it was easier to breathe, either. Feeling hemmed in, he lifted his head to throw a glare at Brother John.

But the pleading look on Brother John’s face took him by surprise. Need was written in every line there by a depth of vulnerability that devastated Brother James. He was ready to do anything, he realised, to make it disappear. But it also occurred to him that there was an obvious solution to Brother John’s problem.

“Do you need to confess?”

Brother John nodded eagerly.

“I’m sure the abbot will grant you abstention from your vow for the duration of the confession,” he said, distressing Brother John further, who shook his head vigorously enough to make the curls there leap about.

“I’m sorry. I don’t have the authority to do that,” Brother James said. “But whatever it is that ails you, you could always write it down and burn it after.” He turned halfway, reaching for paper, quill and ink in the corner of the writing desk, but Brother John pressed a hand down on his wrist, stilling him.

Brother James, swallowing thickly, directed his attention back towards Brother John, only to see him lean in close and tilt his head up.

With Brother John’s palm on his skin like this and able to feel his warm puffs of breath on his lips, he was painfully reminded of the coarseness of his monk’s habit when the skin all over his body started to pebble, the hair rising on the back of his neck an all too brief warning before the sensation descended all over him in one fell swoop, and want scratched and tore at him with its claws. He slapped his free hand down over the edge of the desk to steady himself.

Starting with his hips, Brother John touched his body against Brother James, who had to fight the urge to part his thighs like an invocation, so that they were pressed together from chest to knees. And then, with his face upturned and his eyes open, slowly sank to his knees on the floor. Like a glistening-eyed angel serenely basking in the glory of Creation, every single one of his glossy curls a work of art unto itself, he looked up at Brother James, waiting.

“I don’t-- You should--” Brother James tried again.

Then he gave in and cautiously laid his hand on top of Brother John’s head.

In response, Brother John put his cheek against the aching center of Brother James and started to rub his face -- cheeks, brows, nose, open mouth, all of its loveliness -- all over it, while his hands were unceremoniously rucking the frock up Brother James’s legs and tucking it into the belt so that, as soon as it was done and Brother James was bare from the waist down, the view of Brother John, solemn in his worship -- palming naked thighs, grazing the tender skin between them with his thumbs -- was unobstructed.

Stroking up and down with his hands, stoking feverish excitement, Brother John now began to toy his wet mouth over the hard length of Brother James’s sex, tasting the head with the silky, pliant wrap of his lips, eyelashes fluttering as though he were deeply affected by the experience. He took Brother James deeper into the cavern of his mouth, letting him slide over the slippery rough of his tongue, inviting him down into the hot clench of his throat as he swallowed around him.

Brother James sobbed. He knew that if he were to make any other noise now, it would probably sound like the bull’s upset bellow out on the pasture, so he pressed his lips together tightly and kept his agonised groans confined.

Brother John then lavished him with motion and suction that had him straining and trembling, his skin so sweetly pulled at. Cushioned by the lushness of that mouth, worked at by a tongue that never let up, Brother James was losing himself in the sensations, until he could no longer discern which of the two of them was more eager for his pleasure or who was moving how and whether the floor was actually surging in waves. His release tore sharp and deep at him, tearing off a strip of his soul for spoils.

He sucked his lower lip between his teeth, breathing hard through his nose, but the shiver running through him would not abate for a long minute, nourished again and again as Brother John kept nuzzling about the juncture of his thighs, the sight of him doing so still hazy.

“Brother James?” a voice sounded from the outside.

Brother James craned his head over his shoulder.

Tall Brother William came to a halt at the open entrance door. He ducked his head inside, saying, “I’m looking for Brother John. It’s urgent.” So it was clear how much was visible from Brother William’s vantage point.

Brother James nodded. Then he shook his head, summoning his speaking voice. “He left a short while ago. He might be in his room.”

“Of course. Thank you, brother.”

After a moment, there came a series of tugs at his habit so that it fell to his ankles and covered him again. Then one more tug, asking him to sit on the floor and let both of them be obscured from view by the writing desk’s front panel.

Brother James readily complied. Once down there, he put an arm around Brother John’s shoulders and, in fits and starts, distracted by Brother John’s eyes, nosed his way in to press their mouths together fully. When he felt about under Brother John’s frock for his need, he found it satisfied already and, overcome with desire once more, felt compelled to seek those firm, reddened lips out for another kiss, licking his tongue inside gently and closing his eyes.

Many of his fellow monks were milling about in front of the church’s side entrance. For a second, he believed they had somehow already found out about his violation of the Rule and were going to excommunicate him on the spot, but circumstantial evidence had told him many times in the past that his was among the transgressions that were quietly tolerated.

So, folding his hands in front of him and sidling up to Brother Joshua, he inquired about the commotion.

“You haven’t heard?”

Brother James couldn’t say that he had.

“The real Brother John was held up by bad weather and had to stay at an inn downriver where, they say, he fell gravely ill and died shortly after. So, naturally, our Brother John must be an imposter.”

“Huh?” Brother James asked for lack of anything more coherent to say. Thankfully, a wall was there to lean against.

“But none of the treasures in the church are gone. No money has disappeared. And even all the cutlery is accounted for which, as everybody knows, never happens.”

“When I locked the library, all the books were there, too.”

“See? Except for our Brother John now, nothing has gone missing,” Brother Joshua said. “I just don’t understand why anyone would impersonate one of us when they could actually join our community anytime they wanted.”

Looking about, it was clear that their fellow monks were less upset than they could have been, many of them having grown fond of their false brother in the short amount of time that he had stayed with them. They clearly admired him for his spirit and for what was seen as a great sacrifice by all when he made the choice to abstain from his favourite thing to do. So they were as of yet undecided whether they should feel upset about being duped at all and some could already be heard advocating the virtue of forgiveness.

Brother Harold appeared, dispersing the crowd a little when he strode directly towards Brother James. “I need to talk to you,” he said, leading Brother James away from the group. His intake of breath was deep and disconcerting. “We’ve had word from the archbishop and, I’m afraid, he’s not granting us any funds either. Moreover, he was sending Brother John -- the real one -- to determine whether our library was suitable to house such costly treasures, and in the event that the answer should be no -- which it most likely will be -- initiate the transfer of it in its entirety to the archbishop’s summer residence.”

Upon seeing the reaction on Brother James’s face, he put a comforting hand on his shoulder and added, “I’m sorry.”

Almost ten years had passed since Brother James had been received into this community and had started his new life as a monk. The first couple of months had been difficult, his spirit biting and toiling at the reins, but eventually he had settled in, finding solace in the daily routine and a new purpose in the loving upkeep of the library.

The moment Brother Harold had given him the news, however, his former self had risen within him like a revenant, dragging all its ugly history, its fields of corpses behind as though they were the blood-soaked rags of a butcher.

Standing at the edge of the courtyard, he was now looking at the last of the sun’s golden rays glancing over the many dilapidated gables while the grey chill of evening had already enveloped the rest. His breaths were shallow. He was looking, but he was not really understanding.

And, as always in these moments, there was this thing within him that promised a way that would make him hurt less. That told him that if he were to seek out and rage against those who did injustice, it would be good, because it would be righteous. But he knew that thing well by now and had come to see it for what it was.

Eventually, he was sure, he would bear these losses as well, he just did not know how he would do it yet.

He turned his face towards the library, his doomed refuge, then, his intentions unclear. But as he was unlocking the entrance door, he noticed that instead of there being twelve keys, only eleven were dangling on the key ring. And as he was studying them closer, trying to discern which one was missing, his imagination helpfully supplied that the boarded windows in the attic could easily be reached by climbing the trellis on the side of the building if one were not averse to hazardous tasks. If one, say, was of a mind to steal an item from within.

Having slipped inside the building quietly, Brother James stopped and listened. Not a sound was to be heard.

Only once his eyes had adjusted to the darkness, did he become aware of the faint glow of light that fanned out from underneath the closed door at the back where they kept large iron-bound oak chests full of manuscripts too gem-studded, too fragmentary, too nonconforming to be made openly available. It was the key to one of those that had disappeared.

If Brother John had kept his nerve and utilised his cleverness to the last he would have barred the room from the inside, but the closeness of achieving his goal must have made him careless, because, when pushed, the door swung open without any resistance. The candle flame flickered and almost went out. There he was, their Brother John, on the floor, slapping the tome he’d been reading shut and scrambling to his feet.

“You could have asked,” Brother James said.

There must have been something in his expression that made Brother John frown and clutch the book tighter.

“You don’t have to pretend to stick to your vow, brother.”

Brother John tried to make a dash for the door, but was stopped all too easily. With an out-flung arm Brother James prevented his escape and pushed him against the wall, one hand at his throat.

“Did you kill the real Brother John?”

“What?” the man said. “No!” he protested. “I was just another traveller at the inn. We were talking until midnight when he excused himself because he wasn’t feeling well. Next day he didn’t show, so I carried his breakfast up to his room, but by then his fever had already gotten bad. When he wasn’t coughing his lungs out, he was actually trying to climb the walls. And then it wasn’t long before, you know.”

“So why come here, then? What are you looking for in here?”

Brother John tried to lift the book he was holding, its title written in gilded Arabic script. “Initially, I came for this. On the Potentiality of Transmutation.”

“Also known as The Frenzied Ramblings of Vasquez the Andalusian. Yes, I am aware of it. Though it won’t be of much use to you since it’s missing one vital page. The second half of the formula that supposedly turns base metals into gold.”

Brother John smiled, self-satisfied. “That,” he said, “I have memorized.”

Brother James took him by his habit’s collar. “Who the fuck are you?” he asked, an unbidden bout of fondness weakening his anger to desperation.

“Well, coincidentally, my name is actually John,” the man explained, “John Silver. And I happen to know about your plight. I also happen to be a very good alchemist.”

#fic: black sails #silverflint #au

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primal--scream · 7 years

Note

angst,4: “ I don’t love you anymore. ”-silverflint

Why do you make me hurt myself this way???? Canon? Treasure Island? Don’t know ‘em. Whoops. Angst is hard for me, so I hope this is alright. Mostly below a cut for length.

John slowly makes his way up the cliff until he reaches the top. He lowers himself carefully, his legs dangling off the edge. It’s a ritual, even eight years later. Every day he makes a pilgrimage to this exact spot. He passes the hours carving wood roses, his eyes looking up every so often to scan the horizon. He waits all day for signs of a ship that will never come, carrying a man he knows he’ll never see again.

The gaping maw of loss that used to reside inside him has subsided to a slow rolling ache that he’s learned to live with. His memories of James no longer bring him searing pain that he can barely abide. Now, when he thinks of James he can smile, even as the moisture gathers at the corners of his eyes. Most days it never falls and he comforts himself with the knowledge that what he took from James was far eclipsed by what he gave in return.

In the beginning the sadness and rage had eaten at him every day. For the first year he’d been unable to see his way out of the despair that plagued him. He’d come to this spot and he’d raged at the sea, at the sky, at the very heaven’s themselves. Screamed until his voice no longer came and his body shook with exhaustion, so tired some days that he slept where he collapsed, unable to make it back down to the camp.

He’d silently pray for death as he lay spread eagle in the sand. He prayed for something to ease his pain and his fear and longing. His hate for James on those days had only ever been eclipsed by his own self loathing. He’d used the one good thing they’d had as a weapon. Part of him had been angry that James had given up so easily. Was John so hard to love? Was he so easy to walk away from? Had he meant anything to James at all?

With time had come clarity. John had used James’s own insecurities against him as only a lover could. What had John really expected the outcome to be, when he’d told James to go? Had he expected James to fight him as he’d told James he didn’t love him?

“Thomas is alive. He’s imprisoned on a plantation in Georgia.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Why would I lie?” James only stares at him. “Point taken. I would never lie about this, to you of all people.”

“Even if it’s true, he’s a different man now. I’m a different man now. We’d have no common ground. There’s nothing left for me or him down that road.”

James takes a step closer, and John takes a step back. He can’t allow James to touch him if he’s going to make this work.

John holds out a sack filled with coins and gems. “You’ll need this to buy his release.”

“I’m not going, John, and that’s final.”

John doesn’t need to ask why, he knows all too well why. He finds the lie he needs and steels himself. “I don’t love you anymore, If I ever really did. If you’re hoping that what’s between us will continue, I have to tell you it won’t. I have every intention of marrying Madi, and there’s no place for you here.”

He sees the disbelief in James’s eyes, sees him swallow thickly, “John.”

“Take it and go, James.”

James had gone. He’d not even stayed the evening. By the time John had put himself back together and returned to the camp James was gone, his hut empty. John had sat on the bare cot and replayed every minute of the last six months in his mind. Every memory had been an open wound. He tortured himself with the look of despair in James’s eyes as he’s taken the bag from John’s hand.

Madi had come to him later, confused, and angry that he’d used her to perpetrate a lie. He’d tried to make her understand that he couldn’t keep the the knowledge of Thomas from James, that James had a right to know.

“He chose Thomas, just as I knew he would.”

“He did not choose. You made him go.”

“Eventually he would have gone on his own. What he feels for me, and what he feels for Thomas are not equal. I was relief and solace to him in a time when he needed comfort. Thomas was his entire reason for being.”

She’d looked at him with such sadness. At the time John hadn’t understood why. Over the last number of years, as he’s sat on this cliff, he’s had the chance to examine every memory from every angle and he’d seen what he’d missed then. James had loved him. James would have stayed, had John let him. And had he one day decided to leave and seek out Thomas, he’d have asked John to go with him. The realization had come too late.

In his deepest fantasies, he imagines a life where they’re together. A life where they can grow old next to each other, where they can keep the nightmares at bay for each other the way they once had. He imagines a life here perhaps, where they could be open, where they would be respected and protected, or perhaps somewhere on another island, where they could be self sufficient, where they could swim in the sea, bodies entwined on the sand as they loved one another. Or maybe in the America’s, somewhere deep inland where they could live off the land and keep each other warm when the nights grew cold.

His imagination knows no bounds. Sometimes he’ll lose himself so deeply that he’s shocked to realize that what’s in his mind, isn’t his true reality. He’ll emerge from a daydream, his heart full to bursting only to realize the spot next to him is empty and will forever be so.

Just as the sun starts to dip below the horizon he rises and takes the finished rose to the ever growing piles fifty yards away before making his way back to the camp. Against her better judgement Madi had allowed him to stay and build a life with her people. John has never been more thankful.

As he reaches the outskirts of the camp he’s greeted by Madi and Solomon’s oldest child. He presents a small stack of thick branches for John to work on later around the fire after the evening meal. He spends most of his time whittling toys for the other children in the camp, listening to the others talk about their day.

At night he lies in his cot covered by a single blanket performing his second ritual of the day. He pulls the black leather cord from under his shirt and brings the silver ring to his lips. He kisses it once and silently wishes James a life of love and peace before tucking it back into his shirt as he waits for sleep.

#silverflint #angst #huge fucking angst #happy ending??? what the fuck are those #@ellelan #prompts #fic:mine

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jaynovz · 3 years

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tell us more abt the hannibal and black sails parallels pls

Okay, first off, I am so sorry this took so long!! I’ve been moving and shit has been so busy.

Second, yay!! This question. Now I have an excuse to ramble.

Okay so, the two shows do have a lot of similarities. The big one you notice right off the bat is that both have an extremely codependent relationship at the center.

There are a ton of ways the Flint-Silver and Hannibal-Will relationships parallel, like, they both talk about melding minds with another person, being monstrous, reveling in being monstrous, being made complete by an unlikely source, personas/playing roles/person suits, knowing yourself more completely next to another person, darkness as a source of freedom, something beyond choice/being drawn inexorably into a person’s destructive orbit and being forever changed by it. They deal with the nature of truth, both have supernatural elements, both have religious imagery connected to one half of the ship (Flint and Hannibal both compared to god).

Also, both shows end with an impossible choice and, ostensibly, tragedy; and they both have open endings that are interpretable based on what you want to believe.

But at a certain point, the similarities end and the two shows veer off from each other. Namely, the dynamics between the two ships are fundamentally different in a lot of ways, and it's more interesting to look at the ways in which they don't parallel. At the end of the day, the biggest one is that Silverflint is not anywhere near as destructive, whereas for Hannigram, mutual self-destruction is sort of the name of the game. Silverflint may be as codependent but I think the important addition of either Madi or Thomas or (ideally) both, helps make the relationship a lot healthier. If they would actually just talk to each other and work some shit out, it could be great. This is of course contingent on whether you think one or the other could compromise. (The compromise being that they come to some middle ground between Flint giving up the big picture Cause for personal happiness, or Silver throwing in genuinely with the idea of revolution and it being worth the risk of the people most important to him.) The end tragedy of Black Sails sets us in a spot where it doesn’t seem like either Flint or Silver are willing to do so, but perhaps one or the other could grow and change (with helpful mediation, as stated.)

Whereas Hannigram, well. It’s rooted from the very beginning in gaslighting, manipulation, and a completely skewed power balance. It’s absolutely like, this person has done so much bad shit to you, they’ve killed people you love, they’ve sent people to kill you, they’ve lied to you, isolated you, made you fundamentally doubt what kind of person you are etc. But still, you literally can’t cut them out of your life because nothing is ever going to compare to the experience of having them around even if it’s, most often, largely a negative influence. Like, damn. So dark, so unhealthy. They’re the zero-sum game.

For Will it’s: you love this terrible, terrible thing and you hate yourself for loving it, but also can’t deny it and it makes you feel alive. And for Hannibal, Will’s really the only person who can understand and accept him, but also is uniquely positioned to be able to lie to him, manipulate him in return, and be his utter ruin. They both tried to cut each other out and it didn’t work. So, can’t live with him and can’t live without him. That’s why we end with a cliff dive (impossible choice), Will can’t abide the thought that this thing that is objectively terrible, this ugly thing, is the thing he wants desperately, but he also can’t give it up. So it’s like, “let me try to do my last little bit to society by throwing both our asses off of this cliff b/c we’re both terrible.” Will is so interesting b/c he is at all times living in both the dark and the light and has trouble reconciling these opposing drives. It’s a function of his magic empathy.

(I think they’re metaphorical cliffs also b/c like.... there are no cliffs in Maryland jsyk. What is it with these shows that I like and Metaphorical Cliffs. Edit: I have been corrected there are some cliffs in Maryland but they're not as absurdly high as the ones in Hannibal.)

Anyway, let’s do the one-to-one and talk about Empathy and my Mirrorball boys first. Silver and Will are both extremely good at reading people, seeing what they most need to be, and shapeshifting into it. They both have the ability to shrug on different personas as easy as changing clothes. HOWEVER, the way in which they view this ability is very different. For Will, it’s a curse, he literally cannot turn it off, can’t stop himself from doing it, and it torments him. And I think for Silver, he also does it unconsciously and can’t help himself, but it’s not a torment in the same way. It’s rooted in survival and is an acquired skill that a very intelligent mind learned in order to stay alive. Though I would say they could commiserate on their mirrorball tendencies getting them into trouble/in over their heads.

As for Flint and Hannibal parallels? Well Hannibal is the unrepentant monster who revels in wickedness and largely views the rest of humanity as inferior. He’s having an absolutely excellent time murdering and cannibalizing folks, and the only real thorn in his side is Will Graham and his inability to kill Will b/c Hannibal loves him.

I think Hannibal is the absolute beast that Flint fears himself to be. And though both are presented as the “destructive orbit” or “intoxicating presence” and both perpetrate great violence... well they’re on opposite ends of the spectrum as far as how they view those behaviors. Flint is drowning in guilt constantly, hates that he has to be this monster, the persona of the dread pirate Captain, and that he’s losing more and more of his humanity every time he does some heinous shit. Whereas Hannibal is a “happy little duckling,” literally feels zero guilt about his heinous acts. Hannibal’s playacting a real man in a lot of ways while Flint is playacting a monster. So, Flint wears a monster suit and Hannibal wears a person suit.

Anyway, I could go on and on about this. The way they use supernatural elements, the way characters embed multiple meanings in subtextual dialogue, how well quotes from Silverflint can transfer to Hannigram and vice versa. Oh the way each show deals with like, queer issues, disability issues. etc etc ad infinitum

But I’ll let this be it for now, lol. If you wanna hear me ramble more, let me know~

THANKS AGAIN FOR ASKING.

#fictionandmusic #thoughts #hannibal #black sails #hannibal spoilers #black sails spoilers #hannibal/blacksails

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twofrontteethstillcrooked · 6 years

Text

"This thing where you manhandle me needs to stop," Silver said sternly.

"Of course, Mr. Silver," Thomas said. "Your cooperation in this matter is appreciated."

"What matter? What's going on?"

an outtake of silverflint/flinthamilton, because this week has been bananas so what if i wrote 90 more scenes of people falling asleep? WHAT IF.

Silver had been dreaming: salt, pecking seagulls. He followed Madi down into the ship's caverns and she disappeared. In the cabin Flint lolled in a hammock while Thomas unrolled a map across the desk. They were rehashing part of the dinner conversation, about when the parish might place a new direction stone, and Flint pointed to Silver to say, 'He has a way with eels.'

"How can you be sleeping at a time like this?" Thomas asked, and the only reason Silver heard him ask was because Thomas had thrown open the bedroom door a split second before speaking.

A sliver of moon was visible through the window. Not a dream. "It's night," was all Silver could come up with as a response. He tried to grab back the blanket.

Thomas, being nine thousand times more awake, was too fast. "Here," he said, proffering forth Silver's crutch in exchange. "Come on then."

Until this second Silver had never thought about punching, or even pinching, Thomas; he'd rarely even been annoyed by Thomas, which was, in hindsight, astounding, because Thomas obviously had the means to be a hugely annoying person. Silver thought about fisticuffs now. He was, as ever, disadvantaged by being shorter than Thomas -- though most were shorter than Thomas, and Silver was shorter than many -- and possessed of fewer limbs. The element of surprise, of being underestimated, had worked to Silver's advantage before, and might work again.

Maybe he could seduce him, and afterwards sleep the deep rejuvenating sleep of the well satiated.

Silver took a deep breath. That. Hmm. Was not a cliff he ought to be considering flinging himself off just yet, never mind that Thomas, disheveled and warm in a nightshirt, was prying him off the mattress into a standing position.

"This thing where you manhandle me needs to stop," Silver said sternly.

"Of course, Mr. Silver," Thomas said. "Your cooperation in this matter is appreciated."

"What matter? What's going on?"

Thomas stepped away upon checking Silver could in fact stay upright with the crutch. "Just. Come next door."

He strode from the room like a person accustomed to being followed. Silver wanted to resent that, except... Now he was sort of curious. The floorboards were icy through his sock and stepping outside to go from his own door to Flint and Thomas's was painful like Silver had belly-flopped onto an ocean. The little kitchen was empty and dark, and Silver arrived in Flint and Thomas's barely lit bedroom having given up on the idea that perhaps a dazzling sight would great him (Madi, or a treasure chest riven open with jewels, or even just a jar on the mantel labeled "Lord Hamilton's Good Sense").

Flint lay in the middle of the mattress, curled on his right side away from the bedroom door. He was trembling. That Silver could somehow see he was trembling-- Silver felt glued to the floor, like seawater was rising around him. His crutch bit into his palm. Thomas pushed back the quilt to take his place in bed to Flint's right. He tipped his head at Silver and pulled a face like, Why are you just standing there?

Silver made his way to the bed, and climbed in to align himself along Flint's back, tucking his knees up behind Flint's. When he ran his arm around Flint's waist Flint grabbed his hand possessively. Silver breathed in the soap scent of Flint's damp hair and neck -- a bath had been had, it seemed -- and Flint pressed back against him. They were like spoons stacked in a fancy nef. (Aptly, the one old nef Silver had ever been in the presence of was shaped like an English galleon, worked in gold atop a beckoning mermaid. Thomas had probably owned seven. Nefs, not mermaids.) (Though Thomas having once owned a mermaid seemed...oddly plausible.) Silver couldn't see much in such low light, in such a position, but he could feel Flint sigh as if now everything was fine, and a last tremor left Flint as he began to stroke his thumb into Silver's palm, like he knew it was sore.

You are truly unbelievable, Silver wanted to say to him. Since he couldn't figure out how to in a way that would convey the exact best tone -- namely, that Flint was a horrible melodramatic faker and also that Thomas was a co-conspirator of the foulest sort -- Silver kept his mouth shut. He let his arm relax. Flint felt right under his hold; like he fit, or like Silver fit, molded to his back, like it made any sort of sense that this was where and how Silver was meant to be sleeping. It didn't help, or it helped more than Silver could comprehend.

Thomas chose that moment to reach across Flint to pat Silver on the head before putting that hand somewhere on Flint in a way that seemed mutually beneficial. Silver wouldn't think of denying Flint and Thomas their intimacies, but being patted on the head was intolerable. Silver swung to plotting a little revenge inside his skull. In the morning he could over-boil Thomas's egg. He could stand on a kitchen chair and jump Thomas as he passed by. On. Jump on. He could--

"Please stop scheming so loudly, Mr. Silver."

"Stop telling me what to do, Mr. Hamilton."

Flint made a noise like he was stifling a chortle. Treacherous villains, the both of them.

'He misses you,' the letter said, 'though he says nothing of it.'

Madi had written hastily, Silver could tell; her words had a sharper slant than when she wrote with leisure. There was a small tear near the bottom, and a water stain shaped like a sheep. On the back Thomas had sometime started what appeared to be either a market list or recipe: 2 eggs, flour, turnips. The date at the top proved the letter was eight months old, give or take a week, and the wrinkled, fraying page had been folded into a variety of shapes in that time. Had been read, and reread, and kept, despite its decay.

'He will not look for you. You must go to him.'

It was, Silver thought, as if Madi had seen everything he'd labored to keep hidden: he'd stopped going to the hill. He contributed to the common good, helping around the camp, cooking meals with improving if usually improvised skill, making jokes with children, chatting with elders and mothers about topics ranging from weather to war to the best ways to remove candle wax from cloth. He and Madi had achieved some kind of marital accord; she hadn't tied him to the bed while he slumbered and bludgeoned him to death with a heavy pan. She loved him, he loved her, their life together wasn't a lie.

It just hadn't been the whole truth. Silver used to think a half-truth was better than none, and occasionally even preferable, and through his own transgressions had been violently disabused of the notion since.

Flint gave a soft, questioning hum, his eyelids twitching. He moved his forehead against Silver's leg and his hand opened and closed, as if he'd caught and was holding close whatever he reached for in the dream. Silver pulled the blanket up to his shoulder, and Flint frowned. Silver smiled. Trust Flint to be grouchy about more blanket though snow was throwing itself against the house and the bedroom fire was burning ever lower.

In the kitchen Thomas was chunking ice out of the water bucket for tea. After one crack Flint huffed as if the commotion were disrupting all his dream-self's adventures. In a roughened voice he said, "Why aren't you under the covers?"

"I need to be up soon," Silver said.

Flint huffed again and went back to sleep.

Silver slipped the letter back between the fourth and fifth days of the old copy of The Decameron Flint had, it seemed, been reading. Left under Flint's pillow, Silver supposed, it had migrated -- a corner poking Silver in the eye had been what roused him this time. (To the book's credit, its interruptions were less boisterous than Thomas's.) He put the tome on the tiny bedside table and slid down into the blankets. Flint stirred to throw an arm over him and press his face against Silver's sternum, as if to insist on being embraced. Silver listened to Thomas rattling the tea kettle and felt guilty for possibly as many as five seconds. Flint tightened his hold.

I used to wake missing you so much I did not think I could bear it, Silver thought, pressing his face to Flint's hair. And then I did bear it; and that was worse.

He was about to give a mawkish sort of sigh when Thomas came in and put his frozen-corpse fingers on the back of Silver's neck.

"Good morning," Thomas said, cheerfully evil, after Silver yelped.

"Why," Flint said blearily, as Silver tried to haul Thomas down onto the bed.

Outside a rock dove tapped at the windowsill, a peevish and judgmental bit of commentary if ever Silver had heard any.

#also it has snowed 3x since sunday why #silverflint #black sails #fic

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slverjohn · 6 years

Note

If you're still taking them: Silverflint and 29!! 😍😍😍

i decided to challenge myself and try to not write about 4x03 (there are already so many amazing oh-my-god-you’re-not-dead fics, and I’d constantly be comparing myself!), so have a post-Charlestown drabble

29. “I thought you were dead.”

Silver floats in and out of consciousness for almost a week after he loses the leg. The one constant - excepting the pain - each time he wakes, is Flint. He is always there: sometimes sitting next to Silver’s window bed, reading a book; sometimes working at his desk, glancing over what feels like every ten seconds; sometimes asleep on the hammock across the room, depending on the hour.

He doesn’t remember Flint spending so much time in his cabin before: either something happened in Charlestown that lead to this self-imposed isolation, or Flint is watching over him, like some sort of angry, violent guardian angel.

This prompts him to imagine Flint in a toga and holding a lyre, and Silver very nearly snorts out loud (that it is Flint, however indirectly, who has prompted a smile from him since he’s lost his leg, is not lost on Silver).

Still, the thought that Flint cares enough to sit with him as he recovers, it’s - well, it’s more than Silver deserves, to say the least, no matter how it makes his cheeks warm.

So when Flint finally tells him he’s been voted quartermaster, tells him he’s essentially trapped here (we’ll take care of you, they’d said, and oh, how it haunts him) tells him they’re nearing Nassau, Silver in turn tells the most half-assed lie he has in years.

Flint suspects him, he can tell. They’ve both become too in tune with one another these past few weeks for Silver not to notice the minute tics in his face, the twitches and furrowing of his brow. Flint, in turn, surely notices that Silver cannot bear to meet his eyes, how his breathing has gone tight not simply because of the pain.

Maybe if he’s lucky Flint will cut him down right here. Maybe Flint will kill him where he lies, and Silver won’t have to spend the rest of his days as an invalid.

At this point, Silver’s not sure he’d even try to talk his way out of it.

Instead, Flint simply clenches his jaw and storms out, slamming the door behind him. Silver’s almost disappointed.

Howell and Billy come in soon after, the former to check his stump and the latter to update him on his newly elected position. After he’s faked a suitable level of surprise, he manages to get Billy to tell him what happened in Charlestown.

“None of us know for certain. Flint won’t say, but - ” Billy hesitates, glancing toward the closed door as if the captain is listening at the door.

“But?” Silver prompts, squeezing his eyes shut and biting back a groan as Howell starts to wrap his stump again.

“Mrs. Barlow is dead.”

“What?” Silver asks, shooting upright from where he’s slouched on the bench. Howell shoves him back down against his pillows, and it’s only Silver’s complete shock that stops him from putting up more of a fight.

No wonder Flint’s been hiding out in here: he’s grieving, for fuck’s sake.

Billy and Howell take their leave not long after, and Silver is left to his thoughts. It’s not the most pleasant place to be, right now, his mind, and so when the door opens again an hour later he’s almost grateful for the interruption.

Until he realizes that it’s Flint, returned from whatever it is he’d been doing to calm his temper and avoid Silver.

For a time, it’s quiet, Flint moving about the cabin, reorganizing his desk as Silver watches silently. Eventually, though, it’s as if Flint can’t help himself:

“Howell’s satisfied with your recovery?”

Silver nods, surprised that it’s concern for his wellbeing that’s prompted him to break the silence. “As well as he can be, given that we’re on a moving ship.”

Flint nods, turning back to his papers. Silver, though, can’t just leave it there, now that he knows, now that he can see the grief in the slump of his shoulders.

“Billy told me. About - about her,” he starts, watching as Flint stiffens where he stands. “Captain, I’m so sorry - ”

“Don’t,” Flint says quietly. “Just - don’t.”

“If you want me to leave, to move down below with the other men, so you might have some privacy to grieve - ”

“No,” Flint interrupts harshly, turning to face him, eyes bright.

Silver frowns at this. “I know there’s little trust, if any, between us, but surely you know that you don’t have to keep such a close eye on me. Not anymore.”

He can see the tic in Flint’s jaw as he tries to keep himself calm. “That’s - that’s not it.”

Now Silver’s just perplexed. “I don’t understand.”

Flint seems torn, briefly, as if he’s not sure it’s worth the effort to explain himself to Silver, before he sighs and moves to sit with him. When he finally speaks, it’s halting, hesitant.

“It was only after the dust had settled at Charlestown, after we finally were underway and heading back toward Nassau, that I realized you weren’t there. I’d been so caught up in my rage, my righteousness, that I barely registered who was standing next to me as we fired upon the bay. I asked Billy where you were, and the look on his face - ” He stops then, hands clenching into tight fists. “I thought you were dead. I thought you had been killed when Vane took the warship, and that Billy didn’t know how to tell me.”

Silver almost wishes he had been killed, but he doesn’t say this.

“And all I could think, for that brief moment, was - Not him too. I can’t lose him too. I’d lost so much, and - ” he cuts himself off, shaking his head as if to clear those angst-ridden thoughts. “I hadn’t realized, until then, how important you had become to me. I needed you. I need you. I would not cast you aside, leave you with the rest of the men, as if you were not the most important among them.”

Silver, for once in his life, is speechless. He stares at Flint, completely astounded, for several long moments.

“For fuck’s sake, say something, would you?” Flint snaps, obviously uncomfortable with how vulnerable he’s made himself.

He reaches over, resting his hand over Flint’s fist. “I - I didn’t know.��

Flint slowly, cautiously, loosens his fist, turning his hand over until their palms are touching, until Silver can lace their fingers together. It’s perhaps the first truly affectionate touch they’ve shared, and yet it feels almost - familiar. It feels right.

“Nor did I,” Flint admits, staring at their joined hands.

“Well, I’m not going anywhere,” Silver jokes half-heartedly, gesturing to his mangled leg. Flint’s grip on his hand tightens, and he looks back up at Silver.

“Good,” he says firmly. His eyes, now that Silver can see them, are damp, and there are dark circles under them. Silver, in a moment of madness, tugs on his hand, until Flint is standing over him.

“Come here,” he says insistently, gesturing to the space by the window next to him. He scoots closer to the edge, and gives Flint his best stern, authoritative glare. It’s good practice, he thinks, for when he’s quartermaster. Flint hesitates for all of ten seconds before he starts taking off his boots, before he clambers over Silver and curls up on his side. There’s a brief moment, where Flint’s hand simply hovers over his chest, as though he’s not sure such a touch would be welcome. But he does, in the end, let it rest on Silver’s chest, just over his heart.

There are countless obstacles facing them, Silver knows; many of his own making. Flint still suspects him, still doubts the story he told about Vincent. They have a war to fight, a crew to manage, and their own complicated relationship to navigate.

But for now, as Flint holds him close and keeps his darkest thoughts at bay, as they share warmth and comfort as best as they know how, this will be enough.

#silverflint #silverflint fic #pre slash #kind of #my fic #fic prompt #black sails fic #husbandpirates

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captain-flint · 7 years

Note

I wanted to ask, how do you reconcile the creators' words with your headcanon? I'm talking specifically about a shame farm. If we accept Steinberg's view on Reunion or Flint/Anne being ay or silverflint subtext, shouldn't we accept that Flint/Thomas stay imprisoned? He said, "putting him in the place that he’d stay until the book starts" (the book starts like 19 years later). If we quote him whenever we want to prove our opinion, doesn't it make us hypocrites to ignore this one? :(

i don’t think it does, tbh. the writers have all given us their interpretations of the characters, relationships and events, but they’ve purposely left some of them ambiguous in the show so the audience can decide for themselves. for every one of those issues you’ve mentioned none of us have rock solid proof that our opinions are the accurate ones, we just go with what we think fits the best and most of our opinions happen to coincide with the writers’. yes, we also lean on the writers’ interpretations when they match ours to prove some point, but that shouldn’t (and from what i’ve seen, it doesn’t) stop anyone from going against the creators’ words. you can disagree with them on a matter if the narrative allows you to disagree. now, i know, we all try to push our ideas onto others and it ocassionally creates tension (it’s the fandom way), but i believe that with this show everyone should be welcome to their own pov if the situation allows it. did the creators say they think flint and anne are gay? yes. do some people still interpret them as bi? yes. is that wrong? no. do the writers insist on silverflint subtext? yes. do all the fans see it and approve of it? no. should they? no. do the creators think flint deserves to rot with thomas on that plantation? perhaps. should we believe that too? we don’t have to. is that allowed? absolutely. do some people believe flint died in the forest and the reunion is fake? yes. are they idiots? yes. the point im trying to make (and probably failing to) is that with this show the creators’ word is not always the gospel truth. unless the creators explicitly say something is as is or the situation couldn’t be more obvious, then you’re welcome to interpret as you wish and if it doesn’t always match the creators’ idea, so what?! we all see the world a little bit differently. and if i remember correctly, jon steinberg once said he wouldn’t want the audience to see some things the way he does (i think it had to do with the reunion and he implied his version wasn’t as happy as the one we saw. don’t quote me on this though, it’s been a while since i’ve read that), so there you go :)

#anonymous

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lurkerdelima · 7 years

Note

18. “I’ll be here as long as it takes.” - silverflint

This turned into about 1650 words of something that starts off angsty and ends...hopeful? Happy? Something in between. Nothing explicit here, just some weird pining-y stuff and eventually a kiss. Set several years past the end of season 4. Mentions of Flintham but I’m not going to tag it that way because we all know what would happen then. ;)

I hope you like it, Elle! Thank you! ❤️

It’s been a long day for James. He’s been out of the house working at his shop all day, and now that he’s finally heading home, it’s to an empty, quiet cottage. Thomas is off traveling for his own work, and will be gone for at least another two weeks’ time. He’s relearned how to be at peace with only himself for company, but he still gets so lonely sometimes.

He trudges up the path to the cottage and is about to open the front door when he notices it’s already ajar. He pauses, confused, and realizes he can hear faint music coming from inside.

He pushes the door open, feeling a chill go down his spine. “Thomas?” he calls, hoping it’s just his love returned home early. Something tells him it’s not.

The music stops. James creeps toward the kitchen of the cottage, wishing he’d thought to grab a fireplace poker or a candlestick or anything, really, to defend himself against the intruder.

When he arrives in the doorway of the kitchen and can at last see the stranger in his house, he doesn’t recognize him at first, truly. The man sitting at the table is all rough-hewn dark clothing and a crooked, gold-capped smile, with a massive black gray-streaked beard and a milky, sightless right eye. He’s got a guitar - Thomas’s - in his lap but has ceased playing it. When he sets it aside and leverages himself up to standing, only then does James realize precisely who has broken into his home.

“John,” he whispers. ‘Taken aback’ is a massive understatement for what he feels - he’s not sure what reality he’s been dropped into that Long John Silver should be standing in his kitchen, staring him down with his one good eye. “What the fuck are you doing here?” James snarls, a sudden tide of anger rising in him.

Silver shifts his weight and makes his way slowly toward James, the familiar thump of his crutch far more ominous than it used to be.

“The treasure,” he says, pausing several feet from James, wisely keeping his distance. “Where is it?”

“Skeleton Island, you know that,” James says, folding his arms resolutely over his chest. He wants Silver out of his house, now, but some insatiably curious part of him also wants to know what Silver thinks he’s doing. Why visit him here, why now? Why visit at all? They parted on terrible terms and haven’t corresponded or seen each other a single time in the years since.

“Where?” Silver asks, and if James isn’t mistaken his voice is rougher, angrier than it used to be. His dialect is changed, too, from what James can tell thus far. He sounds less John Silver the quartermaster and more Long John the pirate king. It makes James wonder, fleetingly, if he ever really knew him at all.

“Why should I tell you? What will you do if I don’t, kill me?” James asks challengingly, lifting his chin to look down his nose at Silver. He can feel a muscle in his jaw jumping.

“Don’t be daft,” Silver growls and pushes past James, going toward the liquor cabinet to- fetch himself a bottle of rum? He’s acting like he lives here; it’s infuriating. “I won’t kill you. I need you alive, I do.”

“Why?” James asks, fighting the sudden impulse to rip the bottle of rum from Silver’s hands and smash it on the floor.

Silver slumps against the wall, rum in hand. He looks a sight. He’s filthy and bloodied, and his long hair - worn loose, as though to conceal his blind eye - is in desperate need of a wash. He takes a drink from the rum bottle, clearly at ease with making James wait for a reply.

“Dead men tell no tales,” he says at last. “I need you to tell me where you buried the chest. If I kill you, I’ll never know. Ironic, innit? At our first meeting you kept me alive for what I knew, and now I return the favor.”

“I’m not going to tell you, so you’d best be on your way,” James says, looking away. As much as part of him is still absolutely furious with Silver for what he did, another, softer part of him is distraught to see Silver in such poor shape. “Get out, John. Go now, before Thomas gets home and your very presence here causes an unnecessary scene.”

“He’s not coming home tonight, I know he’s gone traveling,” Silver says dismissively. “You look surprised, Captain. What? Did you think I came here today on accident, hey? You underestimate me. No, I shan’t be leaving. Not until you tell me what I needs to know.”

“I could just kill you and save myself the trouble,” James says darkly, threateningly.

“Aye, you could. But y’ won’t. You could have done on the island, or on the boat, or even on the ride to Savannah. But you didn’t, because you can’t,” Silver says smugly, and James hates how right he is. “You can’t kill me.”

“You need to get out of my house,” James tries again, growling through clenched teeth, even as he’s aware it’s a losing battle he’s fighting. “Now.”

“I’ll be here as long as it takes,” Silver says calmly, unflinching.

So begins one of the strangest periods of James’s life, and he’s endured quite a few strange things in his time. Silver sleeps on a couch in the parlor, he’s generally foul-tempered with a mouth to match, and he’s at once familiar and utterly foreign to James. If Silver asked, he’d freely admit that he’s considering just smothering him in his sleep to be done with this whole farce. He isn’t sure why he can’t bring himself to just tell Silver what he wants to know so he’ll leave - spite, perhaps.

On the evening of the third day, James begins to insist that Silver take a bath, at least, if he’s going to stay.

“You stink,” he says flatly. “You’ve clearly been at sea for far too long. I won’t have you ruining my furniture with your soiled clothes and filthy hair.”

“Fine. Draw me a bath, then,” Silver says, picking at his teeth with a knife. He glances at James with his one functional eye, as though testing him to see his reaction.

“Why can’t you do it?” James asks, but to his chagrin he’s already pushing his chair away from the table and standing before he can stop himself.

“Because I’m lacking a leg and an eye these days, Jim, and more to the point I just don’t want to,” Silver says, sticking the knife point-first into the tabletop. “You may not be, but the rest of the world, they’re feared of old Long John. I’m a king now. The king you and your accursed crew made me become.”

“Stop talking like that, you sound ridiculous. And don’t fucking call me Jim,” James snipes, but he goes to draw Silver a bath regardless. When it’s ready, Silver starts removing his clothes as though he doesn’t care that James can see him. As James pointedly turns away, he thinks he can see a smirk on the pirate king’s face.

On the morning of the sixth day, James finally asks the question that’s been niggling at him since Silver arrived.

“For what purpose did you really come here?” he asks Silver as they share a mostly civil breakfast.

“To find out where your bloody treasure is buried so I can take it for myself,” Silver says, in a tone that indicates he thinks James is losing his wits in his advancing age.

“That’s not why,” James argues softly, fixing his gaze on Silver’s one good eye, still the clear, calm blue that he remembers, despite everything else that’s changed about Silver. “I don’t know what the reason truly is. But I don’t believe it’s just the treasure.”

Silver says nothing in reply, just looks away from James, staring down at his plate like it’s done something to gravely offend him.

It takes until the end of the eleventh day for Silver to do something that brings his true motivations to light. James has long since retired to bed alone when he wakes from his light sleep to the sound of the door creaking slowly open.

“What are you doing, John?” he murmurs, facing away from the door, resolutely not turning over to look at the corsair in his bedroom.

“I don’t know,” comes a hoarse whisper that sounds so much like the John Silver that James used to know, he rolls over and sits up, almost expecting to see a nervous, uncertain young man instead of a world-weary pirate king.

“You didn’t come here to interrogate me about the location of the treasure,” James says with a certainty in his voice that he’s starting to feel in his gut.

“No,” Silver says, his face the picture of anguish, of internal conflict. He looks like he’s in physical pain.

“You came here,” James says as he slowly climbs out of bed, approaching Silver like he might a wild animal, “because you missed me.”

“Yes,” Silver grits out, slumping against the doorframe, all the fight visibly gone out of him.

“I’ve missed you, too,” James whispers when he’s only a few paces away from Silver. “I didn’t want to. I fought it, I denied it, to myself and to Thomas. But it’s true, John. Damn it, I’ve missed you so much.”

“But Thomas…?” Silver asks, looking hopeful but understandably wary.

“Already knows. I’ve told him all about you, of course,” James admits with a helpless little laugh. “He’s been the one telling me I should find you. He’s better than I deserve.”

“Impossible,” Silver scoffs, almost playfully, and then he’s moving into James’s embrace and kissing him like they’re the only two people in the world, and a part of James that he didn’t realize was absent quietly slips back into place.

#prompt a lurker why not #prompt fills #ellelan #silverflint #my fic #black sails fic #post s4 au

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jadedbirch · 7 years

Note

Look, bubbles! - silverflint

For Mistress Elle, I hereby fill this prompt! :* This takes place in the fanfiction gap between seasons 2 and 3.

“Captain, a word?”

Flint turned to find a woman standing behind him, wearing far too elegant a dress for such a hellhole, or so the tavern had begun to appear to him post the events of Charles Town.

“You’re Eleanor’s… uh… replacement,” he said, recognizing the Madame and the new proprietor of Eleanor’s business. Rackham and Bonny’s wily little partner. Who helped fuck him.

“Max,” she smiled a benevolent smile at him.“I remember you,” he said, unable to hold back a scowl.

“It’s about your quartermaster,” Max said, familiarly winding her arm into his and drawing him away from the bar.

“What’s he done?” Flint growled. He wouldn’t underestimate Silver’s ability to still somehow fuck shit up for him, even short one leg. The pirate alliance in Nassau was far too new and too fragile to toss away. He batted down the sudden pang of worry that crept into his belly as he allowed Max to lead him across the walkway and… towards the brothel. “Jesus, don’t tell me he’s killed one of your workers.”

“It is nothing like that,” Max spoke quietly. “It is simply a matter that I thought best dealt with by you directly, lest word got out.”

Well, that wasn’t terribly reassuring. Flint sighed. “Is he all right?”

“He is unharmed,” Max said, and that, too, wasn’t terribly reassuring.

“Christ,” he muttered, following her down the corridor, past the sounds of overzealous fuckery that emanated through the thin walls.

She stopped before one of the rooms, gesturing for him to halt while she knocked on the door: three short taps and one loud one. The door opened, and through the crack Flint beheld Anne Bonny’s threatening scowl, which melted into a soft smile as she nodded and stepped aside to allow them free passage inside.

“After you, Captain,” Max nodded, gesturing for Flint to enter.

In the bedroom, he beheld a curious sight. By the large bed stood a brass washing basin, surrounded by a large puddle where a peg leg lay sprawled in a state of half-drowned melancholy. A mop of wild curls spilled over the lip of the tub. The mop of curls appeared to be - Lord aid him - singing some kind of a sea shanty that Flint would scarcely want to contemplate where Silver may have picked up.

Flint looked over at Max, who stood quietly by Bonny’s side, both their faces unreadable and entirely unhelpful. He took a few more steps closer, circling to the foot of the tub, where Silver lay in all his disrobed glory, hands slapping like the fins of a struggling fish against the surface of the bath water.

“Silver,” Flint said, not certain what exactly he was expected to do with the “situation” unfolding before him.

A pair of limpid blue eyes slowly rose to fix upon his nose. “Look, bubbles!” Silver offered, with an idiotic grin spreading over his face.

“What am I supposed to do with this?” Flint finally asked.

“He showed up in my room,” Max began to explain a bit helplessly, “drunk out of his mind and raving. We haven’t been able to get him to leave since.”

“And whose idea was it to give him a bath?” Flint asked, eyes still taking in the sight before him. This sight, although not particularly uplifting, was nevertheless not entirely unpleasant.

“His own,” Bonny ground through her teeth.

“I did not think it was wise to allow your men to see him like this,” Max continued.

“So, let him prune in there, what do I care?” Flint snapped. “Surely you two can find another place to shack up for the night,” he smiled at Max and her little partner with all his teeth.

“Get ‘im out, or I’ll fetch Jack and Vane next,” Bonny snarled. “He’s yer quartermaster. That makes ’im yer bloody problem, don’t it?”

Flint’s hand twitched towards the hilt of his sword, mirrored immediately by the quick movement of Anne Bonny’s hands. Their alliance, he reminded himself, was still far too fragile to throw away over one drunk, naked quartermaster, playing with bath bubbles in the middle of some Sapphic inferno.

“Fine,” Flint muttered, relaxing his hands. “Just… give me some time to get him decent again, and I’ll get him out of your… hair.”

“I would appreciate it, Captain,” Max smiled again, taking Bonny by the hand. “We’ll be downstairs if anything…”“Go,” he interrupted her.

“Come, Anne.”

Flint watched Bonny follow the Madame out the door, her scowl once again melting under that soft, expert touch. With the women both gone, and the door closed tightly behind them, he let out another defeated sigh and sank down upon the unmade, ruffled bed, letting his head sink into the hold of his own hands.

“God damn it, Silver,” he muttered, addressing neither particularly the man in the tub nor whatever deity kept dangling this man before him, like some exotic and most certainly forbidden fruit.

“God damn it, Silver,” the pruning nuisance echoed him from the tub.

“What are you, a fucking parrot?” Flint snorted, raising his head and looking the man before him over from head to his one remaining set of toes, that dangled over the edge of the tub.

“Caw-caw!” Silver replied. “Wish that I were, Captain, wish that I were. For were I a parrot, I could spread my wings and fly the fuck far, far away from here. Do you think parrots need two legs to perch? I suppose it might be an inconvenience.” Silver once again clapped his hands against the surface of the water, sending soap suds either which way.

“You’re making a mess,” Flint pointed out a bit despondently.

“Aye, that is my specialty,” Silver nodded and graced Flint with a wide eyed grin. “Can we stay here?” he suddenly asked. “I like it. ‘S quiet.”

“Quiet,” Flint repeated, just as his ears picked up reinvigorated sounds of a squeaking bed and amorous grunts from beyond the wall. “Jesus, how much did you have to drink, Silver?”

“Not nearly enough, if you ask me,” Silver replied with that same grin. “I can still feel my legs. Both of them. Which, in itself, is disconcerting.” One of his arms reached from the tub towards Flint. “Can you check, Captain? It hasn’t grown back, has it?”

“Only if you’re secretly part lizard,” Flint replied, his furrowed eyebrows softening. He slinked down from the bed and sank to the wet floor by the side of the tub. “Silver, I need you to help me get you out of there.”

“No,” Silver pouted. “Not out. In. Stay here with me, Captain.”

“The water’s surely grown cold. You might catch your death.”

“In the infernal heat of Nassau?” Silver asked with an air of a highly offended individual. His arm moved again, trailing across Flint’s shoulder. “Huh,” he muttered with a dazed look.

“Come on, Silver.” Flint gathered himself and leaned over the tub, allowing his arms to dip under the water and lock behind Silver’s back. “Let’s go. Put your arms around my neck.” Why exactly was God testing him like this? Oh yes, probably because God, too, as well as the King, was incredibly offended by his existence.

Blessedly, his quartermaster did as he was told, for once, lifting up his arms and circling them around Flint’s neck, like a very amiable python. Silver reached up and rested his forehead against Flint’s own and closed his eyes, apparently in no rush to actually be lifted out of the tub.

“Put your leg back in and push,” Flint suggested.

“Nah. This is nice, too.” Silver’s hand brushed against the freshly shaven skin of Flint’s skull, shocking him. He had not grown entirely used to the feel of it yet since he had updated his look, and having another man’s hand on the exposed, vulnerable skin left Flint unbalanced. “Prickly,” Silver muttered.

Flint could at this point let the man go and step away from the tub. He could very easily walk out of that room and leave Max and her lover to follow through on their threat of fetching his new partners (who have all fucked him repeatedly). These all seemed like very logical and achievable choices. Instead, he closed his eyes and allowed Silver to continue touching the back of his head with those long fingers while his body lay exposed and wet in Flint’s unexpected embrace.

“Do you ever think about kissing me?” Silver asked, his arms tightening around Flint’s neck. “Because I do. I mean, you. I mean, I think about kissing you. All the time.” Silver’s breath tickled the hollow of Flint’s neck. “Which is kind of suicidal of me, really. I usually have much better self-preservation skills than that.”

“Do you ever shut the fuck up?” Flint practically moaned. He pulled upwards, attempting to drag Silver bodily out of the tub, with or without his assistance.

“James Flint,” Silver muttered, his head rolling back, his body limp and clinging at the same time. “You’re so strong, Captain. God, how are you this strong?”

“I’m mostly powered by rage and a festering sense of my own superiority,” Flint explained with a grunt as he fell backwards into Max’s bed, pulling Silver’s unhelpful body along with him.

“That sounds right,” Silver purred against his ear, wetly - God help him - cuddling up against Flint’s side. “But I’d still really like to kiss you.”

“Perhaps when you’re sober,” Flint protested, weakly, attempting to brush the other man off.

“Again, when I’m sober,” Silver mewled amicably, pressing his open mouth against the thin material of Flint’s shirt where it barely covered his shoulder after all the effort of reeling that unwieldy fish out of the water.

Silver’s body was already beginning to warm to the touch, the sheets absorbing the moisture from his skin, and Flint smirked at the thought of Max and Bonny finding their sheets somewhat worse for wear upon their return.

“You’re really good at this, you know,” Silver spoke again. It was strangely good to see him like this, pliant and with that smile of contentment on his handsome features which had been so oft marred by agony in the past months.

“At what?” Flint asked, breathlessly.

“Taking care of me.”

Perhaps it wasn’t such a big deal, in the grand scheme of his moral transgressions, especially of late. Flint wrapped one arm around Silver’s naked, narrow waist and pressed him closer, letting their lips touch with gentle uncertainty. After everything that Silver had stolen from him, perhaps the least he could do in return is steal a kiss back. Even if only one of them remembered it in the morning.

#fic #prompt fill #silverflint #featuring maxanne #and splishy-splashy #black sails #ellelan

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old-long-john · 7 years

Text

WIP meme

Do This: List all the things you’re currently working on in as much or as little detail as you’d like, then tag some friends to see what they’re working on. This can be writing, art, vids, giftsets, whatever.

I got tagged to do this quite a while ago by @jmeelee and @vowel-in-thug (I think) and I’ve been meaning to do it but kept forgetting. Yet again I’m wondering whether talking about wips will actually push me to start writing again or not, but it’s worth a go.

I’ll tag @jadedbirch @nettlekettle @reluming and @lurkerdelima if any of you feel like it.

I really only have one thing that’s half written that I think of as a wip that I definitely intend to finish at some point, and it’s the post-series/post-TI silverflint thing. I can’t remember if I’ve posted any bits of it before, but I’m just gonna post a chunk of the beginning for (hopefully) tantalising funsies. It needs reworking in light of the actual series ending, but still.

Fucking small towns. Fucking inclement weather. Fucking craven captains afraid of a little wind and rain, bolting for safe harbour at the drop of a hat. It was a fucking divine conspiracy to trap him in this place that stank of fish and horse shit and seaweed, and where the most scintillating conversation available was about the fucking harvest - bountiful crop of turnips this year, apparently, though the cabbages had struggled - and where every fucking person felt the need to openly fucking ogle his missing fucking leg. Not that Silver was becoming bitchy or irritable in his old age, but Jesus, what he wouldn’t give for a brief snatch of intelligent conversation. Two days he’d been confined to this inn, since the storm had driven the ship he had been passenger aboard into the harbour. The worst of the weather had passed, but the streets were still inches deep in a thick slurry of mud and shit, and he didn’t much fancy his chances of remaining upright if he tried to navigate his way through them for a turn about the town. He had tried asking the innkeeper if he had any books he might borrow, but the man had looked at him as though he might be a dangerous lunatic. He supposed, on reflection, his unkempt appearance didn’t exactly lend itself to the image of a literate man who would want to read books, rather than simply tear the pages out of them to line his sodden shoe. And so he remained distractionless in his confinement.

He was sat at the bar nursing a pint of ale after his lunch, an uninspiring stew that was best not too closely examined, letting the noise of the other patrons’ conversations wash over him. He had colonised this particular stool soon after arrival at the inn and made it his own, tucked against the wall so that his crutch sat hidden in shadows and his loose trouser leg was out of sight. He had long ago perfected the art of pretending not to notice when people’s gazes inevitably wandered down to the space where his left foot ought to be, but the more tired or riled or bored he was the more difficult it became to ignore, and fucking hell was he bored right now. He felt that itching buzz beneath his skin that begged him to get up, to move, to do anything, but getting into an altercation with the next bumpkin to make the mistake of glancing down was a pisspoor solution to his frustration. He’d feel better for it, certainly, younger and stronger and as though he had some kind of power over his own damn life, but it wasn’t worth being run out of town for that. And so he buried his face in his mug of too-weak ale, continued to work a groove into the bartop with his thumbnail, and eavesdropped on the table of men behind him.

“Well you know why that is don’t you, Ted? That Captain Barlow’s been telling the kids stories again. Had my Daisy petrified of the storm the other night he did, convinced that some sea monster was going snatch her from her bed.”

“What’s he been saying now?”

“Just the usual tall tales. Supposedly, years ago Davy Jones himself drove him into a living tempest that almost swallowed him whole. Said that the sea reached out with waves a hundred foot high that thrashed his ship and ate half his crew alive, and when the storm spat him out the other side he spent months adrift, becalmed and starving, cursed by the Devil. He’s promised to tell them next time how he caught sharks bigger than oxen to feed his famished crew, armed only with his bare hands, a dull blade, and the will to live. Absolute rubbish, but the kids believe every word out of his mouth.”

There was a strange buzzing in Silver’s ears and his mouth felt suddenly very dry. Frozen in place, mug raised to his lips, he swallowed against the bile rising in the back of his throat. It had been a very long time since he had heard that name or those stories. A lifetime, it felt like. When it had all finally gone to shit, when he had seen that there was no future ahead of them that carried with it anything resembling victory or life, he had been the one to cut the cord and run. As fast as his leg would carry him. Drowning men weren’t rational; given half a chance they would drag you under with them, without even realising they were doing it, and so after he had wept and raged and wept some more, he had made the decision for both of them. After everything he had lost, and everything he had almost lost, he just couldn’t stand to give any more to that fucking island or the ravenous cause. They had taken enough from him. He only wished there was a way to stop it from taking him too, but he knew in his gut that Flint had been consumed by that place long before he had ever met him. He was already a ghost. And yet-

“Perhaps you should go and talk to the Captain then. Tell him to lay off.”

“Ha! Not likely. He might just be some old sea dog but he gives me the creeps. There’s something about his eyes. It’s sinister, you know? He’s good to the kids, but I don’t like dealing with him myself.”

“Must be embarrassing to be more lily-livered than your own nine year old daughter, Frank.”

“Excuse me, friends,” Silver said, finally turning on his stool to face the table behind him where two of the men were laughing while one spluttered with indignation. “Pardon my intrusion, but I couldn’t help overhearing. You mentioned a Captain Barlow? He sounds rather like someone I used to know. You wouldn’t happen to know where I might find him?”

The man called Frank looked him up and down, disdain clear in his gaze, eyes settling too long on the frayed seam of his left trouser leg, and Silver had to quash the bristle of truculence that passed through him. He forced the bland and inoffensive smile to remain fixed on his face while he waited for a reply, listening intently over the thrumming pulse of his blood behind his eardrums. Finally, the man spoke.

“I don’t rightly know where he lives, but a few days a week you’ll find him selling his catch by the harbour,” he said. “Might be there today. He’s a prickly old fellow though. Doesn’t take kindly to questions, I’ll warn you.”

Silver smiled again, though he made no effort to extend the warmth to his eyes. “Many thanks,” he said, and he downed the rest of his ale in one long gulp, picked up his crutch, and left the bar for his room.

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