we can lose and call it living

by I_wouldnt_be_one_of_them

Summary:

It's been twelve years since everything fell apart, and John Silver is settled in New England. He has a nice house and a job he likes, and he's gotten used to the loneliness. It's a good life, he thinks, but of course that's cast into doubt when James Flint and Thomas Hamilton show up to find closure and, apparently, to see whether he's happy.

Notes:

"I'm just going to write a simple little silverflint fic" - me, immediately before writing over 31k words of silverflinthamilton in which Thomas and Silver interact more than anyone else

Thanks to my friend Teresa for reading over this for me despite never seeing Black Sails!

Title is from Call It Dreaming by Iron and Wine.

It's a Sunday in September, twelve years after everything, when Flint comes to find him. It's warm for the season, by New England standards, but overcast, so it's good weather for working outside. John, who usually goes in to work on Sundays, has taken the day off to take advantage of it, and he's in the middle of painting a fence when Flint walks up from behind him. He knows him without having to see him, just from the sound of his walk on the path, from the shape of him in his peripheral vision, from the way something inside him seems to click into place.

"Kind of always figured that it would be me showing up at your place, not the other way around," John says casually, not looking up from the fence.

"Is that so?"

He shrugs. "I thought maybe you would end up being right and I would regret it, and go chasing after you to beg forgiveness or something. Didn't really think you would have any reason to want to see me."

Flint sighs, and John finally looks at him. He's aged, of course, but he wears it well; the new lines in his face just make him look distinguished, and the streaks of grey in his grown-out hair blend with the auburn beautifully, reflecting the sunlight like silver and gold.

"And was I?" he asks. John frowns, and Flint clarifies, "Was I right? Do you regret it?"

Instead of answering, John asks, "Are you here alone?"

"Thomas is at the tavern."

"Good," says John. "That's good. I am glad you're together."

Flint looks past him at the house. "This was his idea. Me coming here now."

"Was it?" That's more of a surprise. Flint being here at all both is and is not surprising; part of John has believed that they would never see each other again, but part of him has known that such a meeting was inevitable, that too much was left unfinished between them to be left alone. But in all the scenarios he imagined, he never predicted Thomas Hamilton facilitating it.

"More or less," Flint answers. "I was the one who wanted to come, at first, but he convinced me to wait until I would be ready to see you without wanting to kill you."

"Well," John says. "Extend my thanks for that, I suppose. Should I be concerned that it's apparently taken this long for you to reach that point?"

"I spent ten years enveloping myself in my rage and building up to all-out war. Now I've spent ten years stripping that rage away. It's a process."

John looks down at his half-painted fence. He puts the brush down.

"Would you like to come inside?"

-

The house has always been much bigger than he needs for just him, but he's gotten used to it. With Flint standing in his parlor, it feels both massive and claustrophobic.

"Would have thought you would go somewhere further from the sea," Flint comments as he paces around the room glancing curiously at John's belongings.

John shrugs. "Couldn't quite let go, I guess. This is a good enough compromise."

He's still living in a port town, but it's on a river, and while it's apparently a particularly turbulent one, it somehow feels distinctly different from the ocean. The sea itself is also not far, an hour or two by horse to most beaches. Close enough that he can get there easily enough if he ever misses it, which he has on occasion, but just about far enough that he can justifiably go a while without seeing it. He avoided it for well over a year once and was never bothered.

And when he spins half-fictional stories about losing his leg to pirates, people don't think twice about him hesitating to board a ship.

"Why New Hampshire?"

"Got tired of the heat."

"Fair enough," Flint says, though he must be able to tell that it's not the entire truth.

There are two armchairs near the fireplace, and John gestures at them. They sit. While this reunion has been less tense than he may have imagined, it's a good deal more awkward. 

Murderous anger, they are familiar with. Friendship, they are familiar with. But John doesn't have a fucking clue what to do with polite acquaintanceship.

Flint stares around the parlor. John stares at Flint. Neither of them says anything. 

There's a shout of laughter outside, probably the neighbor's children, and Flint turns toward the sound, jumpier than he used to be.

John can't take it. "Why are you here?"

"I find myself unable to be at peace with the way things ended." He looks at John, finally, and there's an openness in his expression that is new, like Thomas Hamilton has unlocked something in him that was closed for too long.

"I'm not going to apologize for putting a stop to something that was going to end with all of us dead."

"I am not talking about the war," Flint snaps, "I am talking about us."

Us. His voice cracks subtly on that last word, and John feels the oddest sensation like a splinter from that crack has flown out and lodged itself in his own chest.

The problem is that for John, the war and us were always sort of the same thing. His relationship with Flint, whatever label anyone might have fixed to it, started as a matter of survival and ended that way too. He followed Flint because he was the one who could get him access to unbelievable wealth. He stayed with him because he was the one who could give him a life in which he mattered. He left him because they were going to be each other's end.

The two of them, and Madi, were the driving forces, the heart, of the war, and when they split, the war could not continue. The war was what kept them together, and when it ended they could not continue. In one fell swoop he ended not one thing or the other, the war or us, he ended everything. He knew it, and he did it anyway, because the alternative was too dark, even for people who thrived in darkness.

He had thought that there could not be anything between them, once the gold and the ship and the crew and the war were all gone. But James Flint is sitting in his parlor without any of those things holding him there, and he is saying that there is an us, and it is separate from what they did, and he is not at peace with it ending, and John Silver's world is shifting on its axis.

"It was always supposed to be temporary," he tries. "We were just trying to achieve something, first the gold and then a world safe from British tyranny. When it was over, I was always going to leave you. We were only ever working together because we were each other's best chance at survival and success."

"At first, yeah. But can you really look me in the eye and say that it didn't become something else entirely? You don't get to insist that someone be your friend and then act surprised when they don't see you as a temporary business partner."

"But you didn't even like me, really," he blurts, for some reason, as if people go around telling people they dislike their deepest secrets.

"How is it," asks Flint incredulously, angrily, "That someone I know to be so clever can be so incredibly fucking stupid?"

The clock in the corner chimes the hour. Something in the mechanism is broken, so it always makes a terrible noise, like a dying bird, and he's been meaning to get rid of it for ages, and would want to even if it didn't make him think about what Flint told him about the moments before Mrs. Barlow's death. John looks down at his hands as they wait for the sound to ring out to completion.

Eventually he asks, "When is he expecting you back?"

"He knows this might take a while," Flint says dismissively. "Are you trying to get rid of me again? So quickly?"

He looks up. He takes in the way Flint's eyes have gone hard again but his jaw is quivering almost imperceptibly. He glances at Flint's white knuckles on hands holding the arm of the chair like he'll have to be dragged out. He sees the man he thought he saved, or killed, still sitting here and fighting for life. He says, "I was going to ask if you would like to stay for dinner."

-

Flint does most of the work, despite John's protests that he is technically a guest, because "Of the things I may have missed about you, the cooking was not one."

"It's really unfair to hold that pig against me," John complains. "There was never anything wrong with anything else I made."

"The kind of food available on a ship is almost impossible to fuck up."

"So is soup. And I have managed to feed myself this whole time, you know."

"Something being good enough for survival does not mean it's good, Silver," Flint says. "Give me the fucking knife."

Impulsively he holds the knife out of reach, and Flint rolls his eyes and dives for it, but John hops out of the way. Flint immediately catches him, of course, and they wrestle for the knife until somehow John finds himself pinned against the wall, Flint holding his wrists, their bodies pressed against each other and faces inches apart.

They both freeze. What it says about them that this position feels so familiar, John doesn't know, but he can't think about it, too distracted by the heat of Flint so close and the gentle coarseness of his calloused hands on his skin and the color of his eyes because he absolutely cannot allow himself to look at his lips, although Flint's own eyes do seem to be glancing downward, but that's impossible because Thomas Hamilton is in one of the taverns downtown and with a man like that waiting for him he would never even think about kissing John.

He clears his throat, and Flint grabs the knife and tears himself away from him, spinning back to the table and violently chopping a carrot into admittedly perfect slices.

John leans against the wall for a moment longer, breathing slowly, before returning to Flint's side. "So," he says with a forced level of casualness that he probably sees straight through, "How did you find this place?"

"Madi."

Of course. He should have known that, really. She's one of very few people who knew where he was headed, and the only one he stayed in contact with at all. "Have you seen her, or did you write?"

"Both. I sent her a letter after we left the plantation, since I knew she would probably have doubts about whatever you told her happened, and we've been in touch occasionally ever since. But we met up with her a few months ago. In Port Royal, so you don't need to worry about me being seen alive in Nassau. She and Thomas got along well."

It's not surprising that Madi never saw fit to mention in her rare letters to him that she and Flint were in communication. Nor is it surprising that she and Thomas like each other. What's more surprising, based on everything Flint told him about Thomas and everything he knows about Madi, is that they didn't manage to immediately start a new revolution.

"How was she?"

Flint glances at him with a soft expression that he hates. "She was good," he says. Then, more hesitantly, "She told us where to find you and said you write sometimes, but she didn't say much about how you parted."

He pretends to be focused on the potato he's peeling, but finally Flint's eyes drilling into the side of his head get to be too much and he sighs. "It wasn't just that I ended the war, and made you leave, and forced a treaty through that she didn't want. It was that I did it all behind her back. I undermined her authority. Whether or not she could have forgiven me, if she wanted to continue to be perceived as a strong leader, she could not have me as a husband and she could not have me hanging around the camp. She made me leave within the week. I'm lucky she didn't cut me off completely."

"Did you come here right away?"

"No, I went to Nassau, thought I could help with the transition, but Rackham said the Guthries found me nearly as objectionable as you despite my role in making things go their way, and he politely informed me that if I didn't quietly disappear he would be forced to get rid of me the hard way. I figured New England was about as far away as I could get without going to Europe."

"Not interested in becoming a proper Englishman?" Flint asks lightly.

John snorts. "After the shit I saw there in my childhood and the shit you said about it? Fuck no."

Flint blinks at the voluntary mention of his past, but lets it go without comment. Instead he says, "Well, if you had gone over there, I can't say I would have followed you."

As if John didn't know that. As if it didn't play a part in his decision about where to go, no matter how much he told himself it didn't. He may have believed that he and Flint would never see each other again, but that didn't mean he was going to hammer in the nail in the coffin.

He can't answer. He passes the potato over to him, and Flint takes it, letting their fingers touch, and John watches him chop in silence and tries not to think he looks at home in his kitchen.

-

Despite all the things they could discuss, they're quiet through most of their meal. After a while, Flint, who has been making use of the uncomfortable silence to look around the dining room, asks how the hell he can afford to live in such a large, opulently decorated house, especially alone.

"You did not come here to ask about my house," John says. Flint glares at him and takes a spiteful sip of soup, which he didn't know was possible. He gives in and explains how not long after his arrival, when he was acting like a pathetic penniless heartbroken cripple and making everyone who met him think he was both helpless and likable, he was taken in by a kind old wealthy widow, who had no surviving relatives and, upon her death a few years ago, left him the house and enough money that he had no need to keep lodgers. 

It's about ninety percent truth, and seems to satisfy Flint, who says only, "It's nice."

"And where have you been living, then?"

"We left Oglethorpe's within a month," he tells him, and John refrains from saying that he knows that, because in a fog of questionable judgment following his expulsion from Nassau he went looking for them. He nods, and Flint continues, "We stayed in the area for a while, because it seemed easier logistically, but it was unbearable being in the Carolina colonies after what happened to all of us there, even though Peter Ashe was dead. We ended up in Boston. Miranda had wanted us to go there. Gates tried to send me there. It seemed inevitable, I suppose. That's where we've been for most of this time. Thomas works in a bookstore, and we have an apartment above."

Boston. Not so far. All these years, he's felt like Flint was a lifetime away, and all along they were only separated by a day's travel. 

"It's a nice city," he says hoarsely. "I've been a few times. It's sure as hell nothing like either Nassau or London."

"That's an understatement," Flint says with a hint of a smile. He shrugs. "We like it well enough. We don't feel quite settled, but after everything, I'm not sure if I ever will."

"You're happy together, though?"

Flint regards him with the expression he used to wear when he was trying, desperately, to understand him, to unearth his secrets even though he didn't know why they were secret at all, to see inside his soul and find the missing pieces that could explain his choices.

"Yes," he answers eventually. "We're happy together."

"That's good," says John, and then he says, "Then to answer your earlier question, no, I don't regret it, not really."

Flint shakes his head. "You're unbelievable."

"Of course I wish it could have happened differently, but Jesus Christ, Flint, all four of us are alive and the two of you are together and all three of you are something approaching content. You must see that none of that was going to be at the end of the road you were heading down. If what I did achieved that peace, I think it was worth it, no matter how angry you or Madi might be with me at any given time. I would rather have you angry than alone or dead. So no, I don't fucking regret it."

He watches Flint push his chair back from the table and walk over to the window. Looking out at the yard, Flint asks, "What about you?"

"Sorry?"

"You said all three of us - Madi, Thomas, and me, I assume - are content. What about you?"

"I-" Floored, he stammers, "Why is that important?" Flint scoffs, and John insists, "You said yourself, being with the crew was the only place I could ever matter." He looks away from Flint when Flint turns back to him, stricken, and finishes softly, "The crew is all fucking dead, and you and Madi are rid of me, so as far as I'm concerned there's not a person alive who would care whether or not I'm happy."

There's a thump like Flint's punched the wall, and then Flint growls, "I fucking care."

John's throat feels suddenly thick, and he swallows. Slowly he meets Flint's eyes, and shudders at how tired he looks.

"I care," Flint repeats. "God, Silver, you think this is what I wanted?"

"I don't know what you wanted," he manages. "I don't know what you want."

Flint drags a hand across his face. "You pushed yourself through every wall I put up around myself and installed yourself in my head and my heart," he says, "And then you ripped yourself out, and I'm left with a hole that I don't know how to live with, and I want to know why I have to live with that."

There have been very few times in John Silver's life when he has felt truly speechless, but he is now. He stares at Flint, and Flint stares back, pleading, but John doesn't know how to give him whatever closure he needs, not when he himself feels so flayed open.

He looks down at his mostly empty soup bowl. The moment dissolves. Flint says, "I can't look at you right now." Bile rises in John's throat, but then he finishes, "We can continue this tomorrow."

"I have work in the morning," John chokes out. "You can come by after five."

--

He sleeps very little, of course, and is distracted at work. Half of him expects that Flint won't come back at all, but when he gets home from his errands, he finds him sitting on the front step, back against the door, squinting in the sunlight to read a book.

"What are you reading?" he asks as he nudges him to the side so he can open the door.

"Plutarch," Flint answers, rising to follow him into the house. "What do you do for work?"

He's bought some things for the kitchen, and he goes to put them away, Flint trailing behind. "I'm a cook."

"You are not."

He grins. "No, I'm not." Flint leans against the table, watching him organize his purchases, and John says, "I'm a cooper."

"Really?"

"Slightly different side of trade from what we were doing, I know," he says dryly. "Definitely not the most exciting occupation."

"No, but you never really wanted the adventure, anyway, or so you said. I was just surprised. You like it, though?"

Again with asking about his happiness.

"I do, actually. It turns out I enjoy creating things more than I enjoyed stealing them."

Flint nods. "How did you end up doing that?"

Mostly by accident, like everything else he's ever done. He had got to talking with a man in a tavern not long after arriving, and the man mentioned that he needed an assistant with his coopering but was having trouble finding a boy to take on as an apprentice. John mentioned that he was in need of work and could be a quick learner if the fellow didn't mind hiring an adult, and he started the next day. Old Mr. Jennings retired a few years after, and now John has his own apprentice starting next week.

"Impressive," Flint says when he finishes telling him all this, "That immediately after getting to a new town, you managed to convince both a cooper and a landlady to take you in without question and care enough about you to leave you everything."

"What can I say, Captain, I've told you I'm a hard man not to like."

Flint shakes his head. "You're a shit, is what you are," he counters, but there's a smile there, and John ducks his head, hair swinging in front of his face, so his own smile, softer than this warrants, is less visible.

-

They grow more serious after they return to the parlor. Sitting across from each other once more, it feels like they should be discussing all the fraught history between them. And they will have to talk about it, he knows. Flint has traveled here to talk about it - he sure as hell didn't come just to mock John's cooking and ask about his job - and he won't want to leave until they've reached some kind of closure. They should get it over with, so Thomas Hamilton can stop waiting around for his truest love to put his past life to bed.

If they don't talk, Flint will not leave. If they talk, Flint will leave. Both options are unthinkable.

John will be alone either way. Either Flint will go with Thomas back to Boston or Flint will join Thomas in their room at the tavern, and either way John will stay in this house and lie in his cold bed and try not to think about what Flint is doing.

These are outcomes which he created.

He does not regret it.

"Why did you not tell me that he was alive as soon as you knew?" Flint asks after an eternity, breaking John's reverie.

"Haven't you heard? I'm a selfish coward who only cares about manipulating other people to advance my own gains."

Flint's eyebrows fly up. "Did Madi tell you that?"

The days between when he told her what he had done and when she told him he had to leave had been tense, to say the least. She apologized for that particular outburst, afterward, but it was nothing he hasn't heard before. Nothing that isn't true.

He says nothing, and Flint sighs. "What was the real reason, Silver?"

That was the real reason, or part of it. But he says, "I knew that you would stop fighting if you saw him alive."

"And the war could only stop if you decreed that it was so." He shakes his head. "Who gave you the fucking right to make those decisions?"

You did, he thinks. When he conceded to the idea of Long John Silver, pirate king of Nassau, accepting that he was his successor, acknowledging that the power was his. When he told him about Thomas. When they were both recovering from Charlestown and he told him about Miranda through tears one night. When he let him see how vulnerable he was after killing Gates and let him decide how to handle it. When he taught him how to fight, how to defeat him. When he said thank you for opening that door. Flint put both his life and his heart in John's hands so many times, and trusted him to hold that power over him.

Flint had told him that if he couldn't do what needed to be done, he would do it for him. He had resented the hell out of it at the time, but he had assumed that Flint understood that it went both directions.

"I didn't know what the hell I was doing, Flint," he says. "I can tell you I was using the information as leverage, and that can be true. I can tell you that I thought it would be safer for both of you if your reunion didn't happen in the middle of the war, and that can be true. I can tell you that I was mourning Madi and it clouded my judgement, and that can be true. But beyond any of that, the truth is that everything was happening too quickly, and I had no idea what to do about it, and I made what I thought at the time was the best choice."

Flint bends over so his arms rest on his knees. Head bowed, he says, "You could have told me about it the moment you changed your mind about continuing the war, instead of forcing both of our hands in that forest. I killed six of our men, Silver, men who you told to kill me. Why did you do that? Why did you let it get that far?"

"I don't know," he insists, "Flint, I don't fucking know. I was panicking."

"And if you were so sure that seeing him would make me stop fighting, why take the extra step of locking me up? You could have arranged for Thomas to be freed, even if you didn't tell me about it until later, and you could have just taken me to him. Why leave him there? Why put me in shackles?"

"I'm sorry," he whispers. "At the time I could not see another way out, and I did what I thought I had to, and I cannot apologize for that, but I do apologize for the pain it caused you. The pain I caused you. I told you I don't regret the outcome and I do not, but I regret how we had to reach it. Captain, please look at me." He waits for him to lift his head, those green eyes burning into him, and repeats, "I am truly sorry."

Flint opens his mouth to respond, but the clock chimes, loud and grating, and he pinches the bridge of his nose and asks, "What the fuck is wrong with your clock?"

A shaky laugh is startled out of John's chest. "It's terrible, isn't it? It came with the house."

They wait for the sound to end. Flint's eyes are closed, and John can't look away from him. Finally there is silence. Flint's voice is hoarse when he says, "I have been so fucking angry with you."

"I know."

"There were days I wished I had just shot you, or let Dooley do it."

If he had, or if anything had happened to John at any other point during the days leading up to that moment, he would never have known about Thomas. Tom Morgan knew, of course, from going to investigate, but John had sworn him to secrecy and failed to give him any reason to think Flint should be an exception, and John had told no other living soul. If he had died, the information would have died with him, and Thomas Hamilton would have spent the rest of his life behind that plantation gate, with Flint none the wiser. That thought has almost certainly occurred to Flint, and probably only amplified his fury.

"It did strike me that I probably shouldn't have let you hold a knife near me, yesterday."

"I implied to you that I was past feeling murderous."

"Only a very stupid man would underestimate you in that regard, Captain."

He smirks, looking not unlike the man who told John to keep wondering where they stood, but it slips away quickly. "That's not who I am anymore and you know it."

"You don't feel murderous, but you did at some point. You are no longer consumed by your anger, but you are still angry. You are not that man, but you are here talking to someone from when you were. You want some kind of closure from me, but you don't seem surprised that I'm not offering you much of an apology. I find myself wondering what, exactly, you hoped to accomplish from coming here."

Flint takes a long time to answer. He looks down at his lap where he has been fiddling with his rings. When he speaks at last it is only to say, "I suppose I just wanted to see for myself what kind of life you traded me for."

It sounds like the truth. But now he has seen it, and he is still here.

--

The next day, Flint finds him at his cooperage.

He doesn't notice him at first. The workshop is open facing the street, so sometimes curious children gather around the entrance to watch him work, and he's in the middle of entertaining a small flock when he glances up and sees him leaning against the door frame behind the children. 

He wraps up the story he's been telling them and gives them curled shavings of wood to play with and shoos them off, and then it's just him and Flint, who steps further into the shop and quietly pulls up an extra stool to sit near John's shaving horse.

He would ask how he found him so easily, since he certainly isn't using the name John Silver here, but Madi probably told them his alias when she gave them his address; besides which, he knows he's the only one-legged cooper around, so any local could have pointed him in his direction. The question of why he's here is also pointless; it's likely half to make sure he wasn't lying and half to aid this baffling mission to see what his life is like. He settles for asking what Flint does for work, since he's mentioned Thomas's bookstore job but not his own.

"I help in furniture workshops," he tells him. "If I hadn't gone into the navy, I likely would have become either a carpenter like my father or a fisherman like my grandfather. I didn't want to fish but working with wood felt natural. I'm not interested in constructing buildings and I think I've had enough of ships for a while, so making chairs and cabinets seemed the logical choice."

"Boston is a good city for that, I hear," John comments, brushing some sawdust off his leg.

"So is Portsmouth," Flint points out, which is true, but an odd topic to use to find commonality between them. John just nods and goes back to backing off the stave he's working with.

Flint watches him work for a while. The scrutiny should be uncomfortable, especially given how on edge Flint generally makes him, but Flint seems calm today, and occasionally asks questions about his process, and it almost feels like a casual interaction between two woodworkers, rather than a reunion of former pirates with baggage between them.

"What is he up to while you're with me?" asks John when a period of silence grows unbearable.

"Thomas?" Flint clarifies, as if he could be talking about literally anyone else. "He's exploring the town. Wandering around near the harbor. Getting to know the local book sellers."

"And what does he think of all this?"

"Which part?" His tone is still deceptively mild, but he's tapping his fingers along the edge of the barrel next to him insistently enough to hint that the frustration underlying the past two days has not wholly evaporated. "This town? The things I did back then? The things I've told him about you? Or me being here with you now?"

John mostly meant the way he keeps coming back to him day after day, but. Yes. "All of it."

Flint sighs. "He likes it here, from what he's seen. He had trouble reconciling himself with the piracy, especially the level of violence I committed towards the end, but he's come to accept it. He knows that what passed between you and me was complicated and he wants me to do whatever is necessary for me to be happier about the resolution."

Thomas Hamilton must be a fucking saint. John moves away from the horse to start fitting his staves into a metal hoop. As he shoves the wood against the clamp, he wonders what Flint thinks it will take to reach that satisfying resolution. They have seen each other, and Flint has seen John's home and work, and they have discussed, though briefly, why John did what he did. They have mentioned Madi. They have acknowledged Flint's anger, and established that it is now a frustration underlying everything else rather than being violent, and they have implied that they have, despite everything, been concerned for each other's welfare. What is left, after addressing all of that, is beyond him. But Flint is showing no signs of leaving the cooperage, and has not said anything to suggest that he intends to leave Portsmouth any time soon. 

He glances up from his work. "I assume you know how to splice a rope?"

"Excuse me?"

Smirking at Flint's obvious bafflement at the subject change, he nods in the direction of a pile of finished buckets in the corner. "Those need rope handles, and the best way to attach them is by splicing. If you're going to hang around here that's fine, but you might as well be helpful."

Something like relief flashes across Flint's face. "I can do that."

John shows him where the rope is and demonstrates his usual technique, then returns to his own project. They work in silence for a few minutes, but he knows to expect more questions, and sure enough it's not long before Flint comments, overly casual, "You're back to wearing a peg."

"Mostly at work," he says. "I can sit when I'm preparing the staves or working on something small like this, but the larger barrels require me to stand, and I need both of my hands, so the crutch is no use."

"I had wondered how it worked, when you said you were a cooper," Flint says. "Everyone I've ever seen doing it seemed to be doing a lot of standing."

"I know it's an odd choice of career for someone with one leg. People used to think the man who hired me was mad. But I make it work."

"You've always been good at proving people wrong about you, I suppose." John shrugs and Flint asks softly, "Is this leg less painful, at least?"

He nods. "I had more input in getting it made, so it fits better, plus it's easier to take care of the stump when I'm not on a ship. I still have to be careful, but it's bearable."

"That's good," says Flint. "Are you ever going to answer me about whether the rest of your life is bearable for you?"

That is, actually, not exactly what he asked, before. What he asked before was whether he's content, not whether he can stand it, and in John's experience, one does not guarantee the other.

"It's bearable," he tells him, since that's the easier question to answer. Of course his life now is bearable. There has been very little in his life that he has not been able to bear. Even in his worst periods of suffering, he bore it. In contrast, his life now is far better than bearable.

Flint looks up from where he has been interweaving the strands of rope with more intensity than is strictly called for. His eyes are searching when he clarifies, "So you are happy?"

He feels that there is a right and wrong answer here, but he's not sure even Flint knows what it is. He settles for, "It's a good life."

-

The day progresses. Flint disappears when one of John's customers stops by around noon to discuss an order for half a dozen casks. John almost believes that's it, but then Flint returns half an hour later with fresh bread and apples, and John feels the inexplicable relief that rushes through him make its way onto his face. Something lights up behind Flint's eyes when he sees that expression, but he just throws an apple at him and grins when he has to scramble to put his tools down to catch it, swearing.

They eat, talking amiably about the nearby shopkeepers - Flint had the misfortune of meeting John's least favorite baker, who makes admittedly delicious bread but for someone whose living depends on making sales is bizarrely antagonistic to customers - and then get back to work, John getting started on the new barrel order and Flint continuing with his bucket handles.

When John is satisfied that he has done enough work for the day, they close up the workshop and he walks Flint back to the tavern he is staying at since it's only a few blocks away. 

As they near the building, Flint cuts himself off in the middle of a sentence and waves at someone approaching from the other direction. The man, tall and understatedly handsome with light hair and an easy smile, waves back and walks over to meet them. Flint greets him by clasping a hand on his upper arm, an almost intimate gesture that to anyone not looking closely at the tender way their eyes meet would simply look friendly. With a swoop in his stomach, John knows before Flint introduces them - quietly, since they're in a public space and they are all known by different names now - that this is Thomas Hamilton.

"Nice to meet you," John says, holding out a hand, although nice is not really the word for how he feels about this.

Thomas Hamilton shakes his hand and says, "Likewise. I'm glad to finally put a face to the stories."

There's a certain degree of sharpness just below the surface of his words, and John realizes that this is as much a warning as it is a pleasantry, like he wants to make it clear in one sentence that while he has encouraged Flint to pursue this reconciliation, he is aware of all of John's past treachery and will not forgive him easily if he hurts him again. Even as he levels John with a hard look like he's daring him to misstep, his kind smile does not waver, and somehow both expressions seem entirely genuine.

John clears his throat, nods, and retracts his hand.

"What have you been up to today?" Flint asks Thomas. His hand is still on his arm, his thumb idly smoothing a wrinkle in his jacket. John is somehow unable to look away.

"Nothing particularly interesting today, I confess. And what about you two?"

"He had me help make buckets," says Flint.

"Just the rope handles," John clarifies.

Thomas looks amused. "I'm glad he could be useful. I did tell him that harassing you at work may not be the best idea."

He assures him - both of them - that it was no trouble, and then they all stand there awkwardly for a moment. John runs a hand through his hair, then notices them both watching him and self-consciously folds both of his hands around his crutch, which he usually carries around even when he’s wearing the peg, just in case. "Anyway," he says. "I was just walking him back, so. I'll leave you to the rest of your evening."

"It would be all right if you wanted to join us for dinner. I would like to get to know you beyond just what James has told me."

Truthfully, John would like that too. Well, not really for Thomas to know him, but he would like to know Thomas. But if he's going to sit down with these two and have a meal and conversation with them while watching them look at each other so lovingly, he's going to need a bit more mental preparation. Whatever the fuck he and Flint have been doing the past few days is already overwhelming; bringing Thomas into it at this moment feels like too much.

"Not tonight, I think, but thank you."

They both look at him like they understand what he's thinking, which makes his skin crawl, but they just nod and say good night, and then they go inside to the tavern and John goes home and spends the whole evening failing not to think about them.

--

The next day he doesn't see either of them, which absolutely does not bother him. Flint has probably decided that they need some space, since spending so much time together after so long apart is jarring, and he and Thomas probably want to spend some time together, and anyway it's raining so they're probably staying at the tavern rather than walking to see him. It's fine.

The day after that, Flint is back at the cooperage. He doesn't say where he was the previous day and John doesn't ask.

John doesn't have more buckets for Flint to put handles on, and is too busy for conversation, but Flint seems perfectly satisfied to sit quietly in the corner reading a book he seems to have pulled from nowhere. There are dozens of places around town where Flint could sit alone and read. Most are likely more comfortable than a stool in a cramped workshop with sawdust in the air. John cannot dwell on wondering about Flint's reasoning for picking the one place where he would be in John's company.

He goes about his work. Eventually he takes a break, and he and Flint eat together, and they talk, but not about the past. It's friendly. It's nice. It's incomprehensible. John wishes Flint would just punch him and leave him to his life. That he could at least understand.

But fuck, he wants to keep this forever.

-

Thomas Hamilton is sitting outside his house when he gets home. John has to laugh when he sees him, because he's sitting against the door with a book in exactly the same way Flint was a few days ago. Thomas glances up at the sound and rises.

"Did he know you were going to do this?" John asks as he unlocks the door. Flint had gone on his way after they finished eating with a vague comment about wanting to see Thomas before he wandered off. At the time, John had been bemused, but now it is clear from the way Thomas avoids his eyes that they must have discussed this ambush, or at the very least Flint must have foreseen it.

He lets Thomas follow him in, and they stand in awkward silence in the kitchen as John makes tea. The water seems to take an obstinately long time to boil, but eventually they are able to take their cups into the parlor.

John has a chaise longue by one of the windows, and he sits there so his legs can rest. Thomas takes one of the armchairs by the fire, the one facing his direction, and silently watches him take off the prosthetic. There is absolutely no judgement in his expression, or revulsion, just idle curiosity, but something about him makes John nervous, and the scrutiny is not helping.

"So," John says, just to make him look up at his face. "You stayed together."

"Did you think we wouldn't?" Thomas asks sharply.

"No, I thought you would. I hoped you would. I just knew there was always a risk. I imagined it would be difficult for you to come to terms with everything he did."

"It was. I still struggle with some of it at times. He has explained his reasons, and I do truly understand most of those reasons, but that does not make the deeds less horrific."

"I think he was just as horrified with himself."

Thomas nods. "That has become very clear to me as well. And I believe that is part of why he has conflicted feelings about you dragging him from his war."

"I don't quite follow."

"He wanted to let Flint return to the sea. He was willing, ready, perhaps even desperate, to be rid of him, to become McGraw again and know peace. But what happened to Miranda destroyed all of those hopes and made him think he had to let McGraw fall away from him and Flint take over, rather than the other way around. And he hated it, hated Flint, hated himself, hated the things he was driven to do to maintain that identity, even as he told himself he was numb to it. I don't believe he thought he would ever recognize himself again, until you showed him another way. You revived James McGraw, Mr. Silver, and, as I understand you told Madi, unmade Flint. While he was, and perhaps still is, angry about the lack of choice and the deception, I know that he is, and perhaps always was, deeply grateful for the outcome."

"I don't really believe that McGraw and Flint were actually different people," John confesses. "I think he's always been both, regardless of what name he was using. I thought I removed Flint, too, but I see now that for someone who cares so much about how one's past creates his present and future, it is not so easy to let go of such an important part of himself. I imagine that Flint will always be there within him, even if he is no longer a pirate."

"Nevertheless," says Thomas, "You let him move beyond what he did under that name, and you reconnected him with his old life. With me. We both value that." He stands and walks over to examine a small bookcase, and John stares at him as he seems to ponder what to say next. "I see his point that those two parts of him have been held separate in his mind. I see your point that they are two parts of the same man. I see that these are conflicting concepts and as a result he is having trouble reconciling himself with who he is and what kind of life he should be leading. Yet I believe that they can be reconciled." Turning to John with that gentle sharpness he saw when they met, he says, "I believe that being here with both of us will help that reconciliation take place."

"How?"

"You and I know him, as no one else in the world does, and he knows us. But we each only really know half of him, and have only glimpsed the other side, and he knows us from different parts of his life which has allowed him, and us, to compartmentalize his life. He was with me, and he was James McGraw, and then he was with you, and he was Flint, and then he was with me, and thought he must be McGraw. Now that he is with us both, he must be both, and so you and I must help each other understand the parts of him we do not know so he can realize that we do not love one or the other but the whole."

Love? "Beg pardon?" John is struck by the oddest desire to open the window next to him and jump out and run the fuck away. He is stopped by the knowledge that he would not get very far, and by the unimpressed look Thomas pins him with.

"Mr. Silver, I am not a stupid man. I know that the two of you were very close, and that leaving him with me must have been a sacrifice for you. I know that if you did not still care for him, you would not have continued to allow him, and me, to keep showing up here. I also know that part of his reluctance to let go of Flint was because he felt that it meant letting go of you, which he was not prepared to do."

Something panicky is scrabbling around inside John’s chest, something that was awoken by the implication that John loves Flint but is only inflamed by the frightening implication that Flint may still have feelings for him too. Rather than claw at his own rib cage to get rid of the sensation, he sits completely still.

Thomas turns back to the bookshelf, and lets the silence draw out. He runs a finger along the spines with a casualness that must be forced; this conversation cannot possibly be having so little effect on him. If it is, if he is truly so calm, then he may just be the most terrifying man John has ever met.

"Do you know what the first thing he told me about you was?"

"Something less than flattering, I imagine."

Thomas shakes his head. "I asked who it was that put him in those chains, and he was silent for a long moment, during which he looked very resentful, and then he said a friend."

"You must have found that hard to believe."

"I did," Thomas admits. "Frankly, Mr. Silver, it served to convince me that you had been lovers."

"What?" He had thought - hard to believe that James and someone who would do that to him could care about each other. He had thought Thomas would have concluded that they were enemies, not - that.

"It was that pause, I think, but also how he said it, like it was so terribly bittersweet. It was quite clear to me that whoever was responsible for him being there was someone about whom he had cared very deeply, who had somehow betrayed him. It was also evident that our reunion was part of the betrayal, and of course we were both overjoyed to be reunited, so I realized that what he was upset about was not being brought to me but being left behind. The person responsible for this reunion had torn him away from something important and abandoned him in prison, but he still called that person a friend, unwilling in that moment to say anything more negative despite clearly being angry. Who, I asked myself, could he miss so much even in such circumstances, other than someone he loved? And who would sacrifice whatever relationship they had with him to give him to me, if not someone who loved him?"

John says, "We weren't – it wasn’t – we were never… together. Like that."

"Oh, I know. At the time, however, I could not think of another explanation, and the way he was acting only deepened my conviction. He refused to say more about it for quite some time, wouldn't even tell me a name, and although he was aware that I knew he missed you, he seemed to feel guilty about it. I assumed that for whatever reason, he did not want me to know that he had another lover, or that the relationship had meant something to him. He had me, after all, and perhaps he thought it was shameful or selfish for him to still long for someone else as well. I kept my suspicions to myself, thinking he would tell me when he was ready, as he was doing with everything else from his life as Flint. He was hesitant to describe his deeds as a pirate to me, afraid that I would turn away from him in horror, but he allowed me bits and pieces of information and then more coherent stories, and gradually I gained a decently clear view of the full picture. But he still shied away from finishing the story. He told me about his war but not how it ended or how he ended up in the plantation.

"What he did tell me about, over a few weeks, was you. Thief, cook, ally, quartermaster, friend. I admit that I did not make the connection immediately, but I certainly recognized from his first mention that there was something different about how he talked about you compared to how he talked about others, even other people with whom he had close but complicated relationships, like Hal Gates or Eleanor Guthrie. I heard pain in his voice when he told many of his stories, but when he told stories about you, I realized as he progressed, that pain seemed both deeper and fresher. It dawned on me when he was describing the moment he saw you again after thinking you had drowned. I was quite certain that it was you who brought him to the plantation, and I still felt sure that he loved you, but it occurred to me that I was wrong about you being lovers. He talked a lot about Madi, and your relationship, and he sounded both fond and sad, and I remembered how much trouble Miranda and I had convincing him that three people really could be capable of sharing. And then he finally reached the end of his story, the end of Captain Flint, and he complained about the loss of potential, and he meant the war, but I knew that he was also talking about you."

"I have... no idea what you want me to say to that."

"If you insist on believing that what he is here for, and what you are hoping for, is merely closure for an alliance that ended poorly, that is your own business, but I would ask you not to insult me by asking me to believe that."

John opens his mouth, then closes it. Somehow he senses that his usual methods of deflection will not work here. He looks down at his hands.

Thomas sighs and mercifully changes the subject. "Are these all of your books?"

"Open that door next to you and see for yourself."

The door connects the parlor to Mrs. Gibson's husband's study. John rarely uses it, so the furniture is covered, making the room a bit grim in his opinion, but Thomas's face lights up when he sees the walls lined with books.

"Has James seen this?"

"Not yet." He picks up his crutch and rises from the chaise to follow him into the other room.

Thomas scans the titles on the nearest shelf. "Were these all inherited with the house?"

"Mostly. I've read a lot of them, though."

"Marcus Aurelius," Thomas murmurs, eyes cutting toward John for a moment. That one, which Flint brought up a few times, both in relation to the Hamiltons and for its own merits, John did buy himself, but he chooses not to mention that.

"'Whatever this is that I am, it is flesh and a little spirit and an intelligence,'" John quotes, partially because it's a line he rather likes and partially because it seems a less inflammatory choice than many of the other excerpts from Meditations he could recite. "Have you ever seen a severed hand or foot, or a decapitated head" somehow feels like a poor conversation piece.

"'Throw away your books; stop letting yourself be distracted,'" Thomas says, picking up the quote with a slight chuckle. "I'll confess to picking and choosing some of his bits of wisdom to live by and some to disregard entirely." He smiles, and when he casts his assessing gaze on John now, something about it is a bit less sharp than it has been.

-

John leaves him with the books for a while, retreating to the chaise in the parlor to rest his legs and drink his tea. When he emerges from the study, Thomas says, "I hadn't meant to leap right into the deep analysis of you and James. I do apologize if I made you uncomfortable."

He shrugs. "You've had over a decade to try to wrap your head around everything. I'm not surprised you're eager to share your conclusions."

"Still, we've only just met. I could have at least exchanged a few meaningless pleasantries first."

"It's not exactly a typical situation."

"No, I suppose it's not."

"What was your first conversation with him like?"

"I suggested that I thought he was uneducated and power-hungry, and he implied that I was naïve."

John grins. "How romantic."

"At least neither of us was holding a knife to the other's throat."

"Fair point." 

They fall silent, but they're both smiling. Thomas returns to his chair and takes a sip of his tea, then makes a face when he realizes it's cooled and puts it back down. They sit considering each other for a few minutes, and then John says, "Tell me something about him."

"What about him?"

"I don't know. You say we need to help each other know all parts of him, so give me some detail I might not know."

"You do know that I will be asking you to return the favor?"

"I think I can live with that."

-

He joins them at the tavern for dinner. After he and Thomas had exchanged a few facts about Flint and then a few about themselves, Thomas said, "Come spend the evening with us," in a way that sounded like a suggestion but clearly wasn't, and John just sighed and picked up his crutch. 

The main room is crowded, and buzzing with conversation and laughter. Still, they find Flint easily enough, sitting at a table in a corner and looking less than enthused about the fact that two other men are sitting at the same table and seem to be trying to engage him in conversation.

"I see he hasn't gotten much more sociable?" John murmurs to Thomas, who must bend down to hear him.

"He tries his best," Thomas replies tactfully, and John grins.

At that moment, Flint glances up and sees them watching him, and he smiles brightly enough that the men at the table turn to see who he's looking at, which is unfortunate because it means that John has to quickly try to hide how breathless that smile has made him.

"Oh, Mr. Gould!" exclaims one of the men, who John can see now are two of the millworkers he often gets the wood for his craft from. "How nice to see you! Do you know Mr. Barlow?"

"Hello, Mr. Wright. And Mr. Jacobson," he adds with a nod to the other man at the table. "Good to see you both. Yes, Mr. Barlow is an old friend. From my, ah, sailing days."

"Yes, he was just telling us he used to be a sailor! Mr. Barlow, were you there when the pirates took Mr. Gould's leg? What an exciting story!"

John winces, and he feels Thomas do the same beside him. Flint pauses with his drink halfway to his mouth. He casts a look at John that quite clearly says what the fuck but to Mr. Wright he says smoothly, "Well, exciting is one word for it, I suppose. No, I'm afraid I was... otherwise engaged at the time. May I introduce my cousin Thomas Barlow?"

Thomas moves forward immediately to greet Wright and Jacobson and shake their hands, and John sinks into an empty chair next to Flint.

As he props his crutch against the wall behind him, Flint leans over to whisper, "When I said we would become nothing but monster stories, I didn't really envision you being the one doing the telling."

"I was trying to keep the story as close to the truth as possible. I wasn't demonizing all pirates, just those specific ones, and I cannot say that I feel particularly bad about it given the fact that they did make it necessary to cut my fucking leg off."

"You think any of these people see a difference?"

"It's rude to whisper, James," Thomas cuts in mildly; he and the millworkers have apparently finished their pleasantries.

"No worries," says Jacobson amicably. "We were about to head out anyway, actually."

"Oh, please, don't leave on our account," says Thomas, sounding deeply sincere even though he is hovering in a way that suggests he fully intends to take one of their seats as soon as they're gone.

"Not at all, Mr. Barlow. I would love to get to know you and your cousin, and catch up with Mr. Gould here, but my wife is expecting me."

"Of course. Well, it was lovely to meet you."

They all say their goodbyes, and then it's just the three of them.

"Jesus, they were talkative," Flint mutters.

"I rather like them, actually," John says. "They're a bit overly friendly, and they're not the most tactful all the time, as that comment about my leg exhibits, but they're good men."

"I don't doubt that, but good men can be exhausting."

Thomas rolls his eyes. "Shall we perhaps order some food?"

-

Over codfish and vegetables and cider, they try their hands at small talk, since anything more important they could discuss should not be overheard. They are careful, too, to use each other's aliases, although Flint does break at one point and say, "I'm sorry, I can't - why would you name yourself that?"

Gould, he means. John is honestly surprised he hadn't mentioned it earlier, since he must have known it since talking to Madi. It's supposed to be a play on gold, as in silver and gold, which does, admittedly, sound fairly stupid. "It seemed like a good idea at the time," he says defensively. In response to Flint's judgmental raised eyebrow he admits, "I was very sleep deprived and slightly drunk at the time."

He had also been travelling for weeks, had a mild infection in his leg, and was distressed about the separation from Flint and Madi, so there were a number of factors keeping his head from being clear; he had still known almost immediately after introducing himself that it was a ridiculous name, but there was no taking it back. He's tempted to say that Barlow isn't much better - enough people knew about Miranda that it would not be difficult to link the name to Flint - but he suspects that it's sentimental for them, a tribute to their lost wife, and he keeps his mouth shut.

Otherwise, the conversation is not as awkward as he expected. Thomas, when he's not giving John a heart attack by talking about love, can be very funny, and so can Flint, in a sarcastic sort of way. They're also both excellent audiences for John's stories, Thomas because he's a good listener and because the novelty hasn't worn off, and Flint because, as he haltingly admits, he has missed them, and watches John with such fondness that Thomas catches John's eye at one point and raises his eyebrows as if to say, you see?

-

After they finish eating, he follows them upstairs so they can talk where it is comparatively quieter. The public lodging room in which they have been spending their nights holds six cramped, unwashed beds. The one Flint and Thomas have been occupying, along with one other man, a different one each night (the most recent of which, Thomas comments, snored impressively loudly), is near the window, which has a draft.

"Well this is charming," John says dryly, taking a seat on the end of the bed.

Flint snorts. "It's a tavern. I don't think any of us expected it to be any different."

"True enough." He drops the subject, but keeps thinking about it as Thomas sits down next to him and as Flint pulls up a wobbly wooden chair and as they discuss books while ignoring a man two beds over who is pretending to be asleep but is almost certainly masturbating under the covers.

While this is probably several steps down from whatever their living situation in Boston is like - and laughably distant from whatever Lord Thomas Hamilton had in London - it is fairly tolerable when compared to living on a ship or on a plantation or in Bethlem. Neither of them, he knows, would ever complain about these conditions. He wouldn't either - not so many years ago, in fact, this would have seemed like paradise. Still, most people with brains would rather stay somewhere nicer if given the chance, and he has a very nice spare bedroom that's just been sitting empty. Three spare bedrooms, in fact, because his house really is too big for just him, which just makes it more impossible to justify not making an offer.

When there is a lull in the conversation, he sighs and asks, "Would you like to come stay with me?" They exchange a long look he cannot begin to translate, and he shrugs. "I just figured that if you're here indefinitely, it's stupid for you to keep paying for this when I have an open room."

"Are you certain?" asks Thomas.

He is not, actually. He is at present wondering if having Flint in his home, sleeping a room away from him with the love of his life, will actually drive him insane, or if the proximity will be the spark for them to finally kill each other, or if he should be spending some more time panicking about the conversation with Thomas, or if reconciliation will go well enough that they'll finally leave and the parting will be worse than he imagined. He says, "Absolutely."

--

They move in two days later, because they had already paid for their spot in the tavern and because John wanted time to make sure the room was ready for them. When they arrive Saturday morning, dragging along a single large wooden trunk - and damn it, his heart still skips a beat thinking about the fucking cache - Flint asks, "No second thoughts about this?"

"None at all," John lies. "Let me show you the room."

He's given them the room across the landing from him, because he's not particularly interested in sharing a wall with them but felt odd putting them all the way on the opposite corner of the house. Unfortunately, this means they're in the widow's old room, which is in fact where she died, but he might not mention that unless they bring it up first. Not that they're likely to be superstitious about that kind of thing, but still.

"You maintain a house like this without servants?" Thomas asks, glancing around.

He shakes his head. "I pay a few women to come by to clean once a week. They were here yesterday. There's no way in hell I could do it all myself. It just made me uncomfortable having people living and working here full time, especially once the widow was gone."

"Because you were otherwise alone and you didn't like people being able to see you vulnerable, or because you didn't want to be a master?" asks Flint from across the room, where he's staring at a hideous portrait of Mrs. Gibson's late husband.

John manages not to flinch at the question. And Flint thought he was transparent to John and not the other way around? Jesus. He looks away from Thomas's shrewd gaze and answers, "Both. The staff she kept weren't slaves, I wouldn't have agreed to live with her if they were, but it felt too similar. I wrote to Madi about it and she told me I was an idiot, but it bothered me anyway."

"I highly doubt she used the word idiot."

"I read between the lines."

Thomas clears his throat and says, "Well, it is a beautiful house."

"I imagine you've seen far grander."

He tilts his head in acknowledgement. "Not without a great deal of paid and unpaid labor, though. I can respect you holding some principles. And anyway, I would prefer somewhere comfortable to somewhere opulent."

"It's not much of a principle." Before either of them can think he's just being self-deprecating or something he says, "Most of my business is providing barrels to use in trade. I know damn well that many of my customers participate in the slave trade in some capacity, and I don't do a thing about it. Between having paid servants living in my house and that, it's fairly obvious which is the greater evil, and the choice I've made regarding which one to let myself get upset about is hardly worth your admiration."

"If you refused to sell to anyone involved in trade, I imagine your business would die rather quickly."

"That's not the fucking point. I could have chosen any profession."

"My family held slaves for my entire life, and I never thought much about it, even as I was preaching about justice and humanity and doing good. In recent years I have been writing pamphlets against slavery, but that does not balance out. James sold slaves. Yes, he ended up finding common ground and being one of the most passionate champions for Madi's people's cause, but that does not erase what he did before, or the fact that his initial motivations for forming the alliance were self-serving. We have all been complicit, or worse, and nothing we have done or will do to try to redeem ourselves can be enough. But we must also allow ourselves to exist without feeling guilt for every action."

"I understand that, but there is a difference between allowing myself to pardon something I did in the past and ignoring the consequences of something I am actively continuing to do."

"Mr. Silver, with all due respect, you have committed an alarming number of murders. If you think that selling barrels is your most unforgivable atrocity, I really don't know what to say to you."

"I think," Flint cuts in softly, "That I would like to see the library Thomas was so excited about."

It is, very obviously, an attempt at avoidance. He's decided he wants this particular difficult conversation to be over now. John should really push back and insist that they all push through, because they do need to talk about these things, and because Flint shouldn't be the only one who gets to dictate what they are going to find resolution on and when. But he is a weak man, and he takes the out.

-

"So," Thomas asks John as they sit on the sofa John had uncovered while getting the house ready for company, watching Flint peruse the shelves, "James said that you are going to have an apprentice. Am I right to assume that he will not be living here either?"

Flint glances up like the thought has never occurred to him, and John says, "No, I would have mentioned that when I invited you to stay here. He probably should live here, that would be more traditional, but his family lives closer to the cooperage than I do so I thought it made more sense for him to just stay there. I don't know how to look after a child anyway."

"Aren't you lonely?" Flint asks. "Being here all alone?"

"I've been alone for most of my life, Captain. Believe it or not, I am used to it."

"But you thrive when you're surrounded by people." He sounds oddly upset about this. He pushes the book he's holding back into its place and pulls a chair over to sit in front of them, close enough that their knees are touching. "You gave up so much to be able to stay with the crew. How can you be content living in silence?"

"What choice have I had, Flint? We've been over this. Most of the crew is dead, something you and I both played a part in. I sent you away. Madi sent me away. Who, exactly, do you think I should be living with? Should I be living in some kind of almshouse just to be around other people? Am I supposed to find a wife? Where the fuck would I ever find someone else who I could bring myself to allow to really see me?"

He breaks off and takes a shuddering breath. Flint and Thomas both look somewhat aghast, and he closes his eyes against them. There is a pregnant pause during which he feels sure that they are having some kind of silent communication, and then Thomas clasps his shoulder and says, "Well. We're here now, at least."

And that's just fucking it, isn't it? They are here. For now. And when they leave, John knows already, the loneliness will be more suffocating than it has ever been before.

He opens his eyes.

Flint's head is bowed, and one of his hands is in Thomas's. The other is resting on his own knee, flexing like he wants to reach out for something, and John aches to take it.

"I adapt to whatever social situation I find myself in, Captain," he says tiredly. "You don't need to worry about me."

"Will you stop fucking calling me that?"

"What?"

"Captain. Flint. Either one. I don't-" He runs a hand through his hair, frustrated, a habit John doesn't think he had back then. He raises his head to meet John's eyes. "That's not who I am anymore. Madi told us that you said yourself that you stripped Flint away, unmade him. How can you kill that side of me and then insist on calling me by his name?"

John and Thomas glance at each other, thinking of their conversation from two days prior. Some guidance as to how direct to be about this would be appreciated, but Thomas just shrugs.

"I did not kill you. How can I look at you sitting here in my study and think you're dead?"

"You told Madi-"

"I was wrong when I was talking to Madi. Flint and McGraw were both always there, no matter how much anyone might want to believe that they could be separated or pushed aside."

"What would you like him to call you, my love?" Thomas asks gently.

"My name," he cries. "You can think that I am still the person I was as Flint if you want, but it still wasn't my fucking name. I'm going to be living in your damn house, Silver. After everything, I think you can call me James, don't you?"

"All right," John whispers. "James." He feels Thomas squeeze his shoulder and watches James smile faintly, and repeats, "All right."  

-

John doesn't work on Saturdays, so he is around all day to watch James and Thomas settle in. He offers to help them unpack, but they don't have much in the way of belongings with them, so that goes quickly, which is good since the intimate domesticity of organizing their clothes is not something he really knows how to handle.

He can tell they’re curious about the rooms they haven’t seen yet, so he gives them a quick tour of the other bedrooms, although in his opinion the two spare rooms are not very interesting, since most of the furniture is still covered.

“What are you telling your housekeepers about this?” James asks. “Will they make an issue of the fact that there are two of us but we’re only making use of one bed when others are available?”

“I trust them to be discreet. I understand that you have more than enough reason to be wary, but please trust my judgment on this.”

Five years ago, John made several consecutive mistakes which unfortunately culminated in Frances walking in on him fucking a man, and he’s fairly certain she has never said a word about it to anyone, and Anna and Maria are in an intimate relationship with each other. He has no interest in explaining any of this to James and Thomas, but he knows without a doubt that none of these women are going to expose them.

Either his certainty shows in his face or there is more trust left between them than he deserves, because James looks considering for only a moment before nodding and saying, “All right.”

John blinks and turns to Thomas, who is really the one most entitled to paranoia, but he also looks unconcerned.

“We would not be here if we felt unsafe, Mr. Silver. If James trusts your judgment, then I will trust you both.”

Probably a stupid stance to take given everything, but whatever he’s comfortable with. John shrugs and says, “Well, that’s about it for the tour, I think. There’s an attic, but there’s not much up there, and then it’s just my room, but you don’t need to see that.” They just look at him expectantly and he sighs. “But you’re both nosy bastards. Fine.”

He leads them into his bedroom and leans awkwardly on his crutch as they look around.

“It’s really not that interesting,” he mutters, but then he sees the moment James notices the drawing on his wall. “Oh, no, don’t look at that.” But it’s too late; James has already walked over to look more closely.

It’s a picture of the Walrus, as best as he could remember her, which would be embarrassing enough. To make it worse, anyone looking closely at the background could see two small figures in a launch out by a whale carcass. As James stares at it, and Thomas goes over to peer over his shoulder, John stares at the floor, praying it will open up beneath him.

“Is that your ship?” Thomas asks.

“It is,” James murmurs. He clears his throat. “When did you learn to draw, Silver?”

“Taught myself a few years ago when I was bored. It’s just a hobby.”

“It’s very good,” offers Thomas. “How is it as a likeness, James?”

There’s no answer, and John looks up to see that he’s still just staring at that little rowboat. Thomas glances between them, seeming concerned, and he’s just opening his mouth to say something when James turns suddenly and crosses the room to wrap his arms around John.

“What is happening,” John gasps, one arm automatically rising to return the hug and the other desperately trying to hold his balance on the crutch.

James brings him closer with a hand on the back of his head, as if that’s remotely an answer, and his fingers tangle gently in John’s hair. John shivers and glances behind James at Thomas. Finding his expression to be bewildered but not bothered, he buries his face in James’s shoulder.

They have, he realizes, never embraced. He and Madi hugged on several occasions, but never he and Flint. There had been a moment, when they were reunited after he nearly drowned, when he thought they might both have wanted to, but with people around it felt unwise somehow, and there was never another time. He might have liked to hug him goodbye, but that had felt dangerous on several levels so he didn’t let himself consider it seriously.

In some of his imagined scenarios of their possible reunion, they fell into each other’s arms, but he had assumed when it did not happen immediately when Flint showed up here that it never would.

“How,” James whispers in his ear, “How can you draw that picture, years later, and hang it up in your bedroom, and tell me that you do not regret giving us up?”

“I already told you why I can’t regret it,” he whispers back. “How can you stand here with him right there and act like you’re not happy I brought you together?”

“Your insistence that I can only ever prioritize one thing or another may be one of your most frustrating qualities. Of course I am glad that he is with me. My love for him does not mean I cannot also wish that the man who told me we should be partners and cared enough about that conversation to immortalize it with art would stop trying to end our partnership.”

John pulls back a bit. "There is a difference between regretting something and wanting it to be different. I am telling you I do not regret it."

"John."

"Don't," he pleads. "Don't make me say it. Not today."

That is, he realizes as soon as he says it, a kind of confession of its own, and he knows that James hears it as such, knows that Thomas probably does too.

The hand James had on his head slid down when John pulled back and is now resting near his shoulder; the other has settled near his waist. Both are touching him tenderly now, lightly, barely there - he knows, he must know, that John will only react badly to being held down in this moment, no matter how much he may wish to be held - but he feels the warmth of the touch like a brand nonetheless. He dares not pull away, though, and so they are stuck not quite embracing but not quite standing on their own.

"You don't have to say anything," James tells him finally. He presses their foreheads together, and John lets him. God, they are so close now. All it would take would be for one of them to tilt his head just a bit and they would be kissing.

"I just." He squeezes his eyes shut so he can't see James's eyelashes blinking an inch away. "I don't-"

"I know," whispers James, and he probably does know, the bastard. He stays in his space for another moment, and then slowly draws away.

Thomas clears his throat. "It really is a lovely picture, Mr. Silver. I like the detail of the little shark fin over here."

The tension breaks like a wave and begins to recede. James chuckles, and John smiles shakily.

"I've got some shark sketches somewhere if you'd like to see them some time." Some time when he can sort through his drawings ahead of time and make sure he doesn't accidentally show them any of James, because this experience has been mortifying enough.

"I would like that very much."

"Thomas draws, sometimes, too," James says, as if the thought has just occurred to him, looking between them with sudden eagerness. "You should draw together."

"We can do that, I guess."

"James has been hoping that you and I will be friends," Thomas explains, walking over to stand beside them. "A hope I share, although I hope that will not be dependent on my artistic skills."

He watches his lover hold another man and come perilously close to exchanging declarations of love, and his response is to offer his friendship like it's nothing. He's fucking unbelievable.

"Friends," John echoes. "Sure, why not."

--

They're definitely planning to kill him, he concludes that night, as he lies awake staring at a crack on his ceiling. It's the only possible explanation for why they're here, and why they keep checking that he's really alone here. The conversations where they imply that James cares for him and that Thomas is fine with it, the hug, the way Thomas caught his hand on the way out of the room before they parted for the evening and squeezed it with a smile - it's all an attempt to seduce him into complacent vulnerability, and when he finally lets them in that's when they'll strike.

A minute later, of course, he decides that he's probably being ridiculous, and pushes the thought from his mind. Mostly.

Still, it's all so unreal. James has been in Portsmouth for exactly a week, and now they're living together. It seems impossible. Then again, the first week of their acquaintance was no less eventful, with John lying his way onto the ship one day and somehow indispensable days later, and several murders in between, so maybe this is just how it is with them. Who knows where, or who, they will be in another week.

Needless to say, he gets very little sleep, and, restless, he rises early. He's reading on the chaise in the parlor when James and Thomas come down, still wearing what they wore to bed. They appear well rested; presumably a high-quality bed in a private bedroom provides better rest than a tavern. John is happy for them, truly, though envious. James's hair is loose, falling in messy waves around his shoulders, and Thomas has a hand resting casually at the small of his back. They both look - the only word John can think of is comfortable. Like they're at home here. He does not understand them at all.

"Hello," he says.

"Good morning," Thomas answers. "Do you have any eggs?"

"I do not, but you're welcome to whatever's in the kitchen. I know there's some bread, and I think the pears should be good."

"Thank you."

He leaves the room, but James stays, claiming the rarely used love seat.

"Not joining him?"

"I'm not usually hungry in the morning."

John returns to his book, and a few minutes later James says, "Thank you, by the way."

"What for?"

"For inviting us into your home. I know that might have been uncomfortable for you, but we both appreciate it."

"It's nothing."

"It's not, and I wish you wouldn't do that."

John doesn't bother responding to that. He just stares down at the page, where he has read the same paragraph five times without processing a single word.

"John."

"I need to go to work," he mutters. James sighs, but John ignores him, strapping on his peg and heading out, pausing only to nod at Thomas when they pass in the hall.

-

After the past few days, he had almost forgotten that his new apprentice is starting, but he's glad for it, because having to focus on training means that he can't spend all day thinking about his guests.

Sam, his ten-year-old apprentice, reminds him a bit of himself, if he'd had a nicer childhood. He's talkative when he thinks it will be welcome, energetic and charming and humorous verging on sarcastic, and he's quiet when he needs to be, observing John with almost unnerving focus. John starts him out with a few of the most basic skills, and he picks them up quickly.

"I think this is going to be a great partnership," he tells Sam's father when he comes to pick him up at the end of the day, and he means it wholeheartedly.

"And of course you know all about great partnerships," Thomas comments from behind him once they're gone.

John whirls around, heart pounding. "Jesus Christ - where the fuck did you come from?"

"Terribly sorry, I didn't mean to startle you," he says, which John doesn't believe for a moment. "Why did you invite us to stay with you if you're going to distance yourself?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

Thomas watches him as he locks up. "Last night, you were visibly uncomfortable when we indicated a desire to be your friends. This morning, you shut down the conversation and ran away the moment James tried to show his gratitude. Why are you unwilling to let people express emotions to you?"

"I genuinely needed to get to work, Mr. Barlow," he says, conscious of passers-by. It has the advantage of being the truth, but Thomas just rolls his eyes and tugs him onto a quieter street. John hisses, "I don't want his gratitude, all right? For anything. He doesn't fucking owe me anything. Neither of you do. I don't understand how the two of you can act so calm and friendly. This is not a normal situation."

"Of course it's not. We are all aware that this is complicated, and that whatever it is we're doing here is going to be a difficult process. I know that facing the ghosts of your past and opening up your home at the same time cannot be easy for you, but I am asking you not to push us away. You think this is easy for James? You think he's really calm about all of this? Don't be naive. But he is trying, and you could do the same."

"He's trying," John echoes. "I can see that, but I don't know what it is he's trying to do. How am I supposed to respond if I don't know what I'm responding to?"

"I really don't think he's being all that unclear, Mr. Gould. Perhaps instead of trying to respond, start by trying to listen?"

"What does that even mean?" he despairs.

Thomas sighs. "I am not going to be a translator between you. These are conversations the two of you need to have for yourselves. Maybe, though, there have been too many emotionally charged discussions in a short time, and some things should wait. For the time being, can you just accept that he wants to be in your company?"

He can't accept that, really, even though all facts seem to point to that conclusion, but whether it is true or not, he can at least indulge it. They want to spend time together, the three of them? Fine. He wants that too.

He starts walking, and Thomas demands, "What are you doing?"

"I'm going home, Mr. Barlow. How do you expect me to be in his company if I'm standing on a random street corner?"

"Oh!" He falls in step beside him, and though John doesn't look at him, he can see him smiling out of the corner of his eye.

--

The next few days, fading into weeks, are less tense, after that, as they all stop pushing each other and just let themselves adjust to the new living situation. 

Once everyone's sleep gets back to normal, John and Thomas discover that they generally get up around the same time, so they spend their mornings together, sitting at the kitchen table eating porridge or fruit and drinking tea or coffee in a sort of polite domesticity that John would not have predicted in a million years. Sometimes James makes it downstairs before they leave, but usually he sleeps a bit later; apparently after a lifetime of being an early-rising sailor, he's had enough. John is still unclear on exactly what either of them have been doing during the day, but wherever Thomas goes in the morning apparently brings him past the cooperage, so he walks John to work most days, slowing his long stride to match John's pace but somehow making it look completely natural.

One day after work John notices that something seems quieter than usual and asks, "Did you fix my clock?"

"Yes," says James. "You're welcome."

"Well," Thomas interjects, "Technically he broke it. He couldn't figure out how to make the chiming mechanism sound right, so he just took it out completely."

"You're welcome," James repeats, and John laughs.

They keep doing things like that, making themselves useful around the house, taking liberties like it's theirs. John had never gotten around to finishing painting the fence he was working on when James arrived, and he gets home two weeks later to find that Thomas has done it for him. They push some of the furniture into subtly different positions that make it easier for John to move around. They befriend the housekeepers. They reorganize the books in the study.

In the evenings, the three of them do exactly what Thomas proposed, and just accept each other's company. Sometimes they go to the tavern for dinner, but mostly they take turns cooking. James acknowledges that most of John's food is quite average, and he can bake an excellent pie; John exaggerates his own indignation over the skepticism of his skills; Thomas just laughs at them both. After eating, they retire to the parlor or the study, and read, or draw, or play chess or dominoes or card games, or just talk.

By silent agreement - well, silent from John's perspective; he suspects Thomas and James have discussed it - they don't talk much about the past, or the reasons for their presence here, or the feelings that have yet to be acted on or explicitly defined. Instead they talk about John's apprentice, the weather, the people James and Thomas have met around town, woodworking, politics, books.

John learns that James likes Shakespeare's sonnets more than his plays and that Thomas gets perverse entertainment out of mocking any literary plot centered around romantic jealousy. He learns what they're like when they get worked up about the state of relations with the local indigenous peoples. He learns that James gets cold easily, and that Thomas sneezes when he goes outside on a sunny day. He learns that Thomas cheats at backgammon and that James is fond of cats.

He learns that he is more fucked than he had thought.

Back then, with Flint, they had forged a bond that was unspeakably deep and difficult to sever, but for all they could speak with one mind, for all they said there was no space between them, they hadn't really known much about each other. John had known what Flint looked like while killing someone, and what he was afraid of, and what he was driven by, but not how he took his tea or how many pillows he would prefer to sleep with if given a choice. He had loved Flint the way some men love the sea, and admired Thomas the way one might admire an idealized historical figure or a hero from a book, but he had not really known or loved either one of them just as people. There had seemed to be nothing mundane about them, and whatever he may have wanted from them seemed unattainable.

Now he has seen James grumble about stubbing his toe on a table, and Thomas sigh after spilling water on the floor on the way to fill the bathtub. Now they are real, and he knows them, and they are so close, and fuck, he likes them so much. 

--

The leaves on the trees change color over the course of a few weeks, gradually casting an orangey glow over the whole town. The maple outside John's bedroom window turns a vibrant scarlet seemingly overnight, while one of the oaks across the street skips straight to brown and showers the ground with a blanket of leaves that the neighbor's children discover with shrieks of delight and dive into.

On one chilly morning in mid-October, John wakes early, heartbeat racing from blurrily remembered bits and pieces of a bad dream. Unable to fall back asleep, he gets dressed and pulls on his peg leg and a jacket and stumbles outside with the thought of taking a walk and letting the cold air clear his head, and that's how he finds Thomas, sitting on the front step watching the sunrise.

"Good morning," Thomas says sleepily, and John returns the greeting and sits down beside him.

"What are you doing outside?" John asks. "It's cold."

"I could ask the same."

He shakes his head. "The two of you, always turning everything back on me." He knocks his shoulder against Thomas's and answers, "Trouble sleeping. Same for you?"

Thomas nods. "I imagine the three of us have seen enough to inspire several thousands of nightmares. It's a miracle any of us can ever get any sleep at all."

"I haven't noticed you up during the night before."

"Sometimes I just stay in bed. But I could see some of the dawn's color through my window this morning and I knew it would be better from out here."

John glances up at the sky. It's not as intense as the sunsets they often see, with their rich, fiery dark colors; this is a lighter, more mellow kind of illumination. But it really is beautiful, and he says so. Still, "You should wear a coat if you're going to sit out here. I would be very disappointed if I went to the trouble of bringing you back together only for you to freeze to death on my front step."

Thomas laughs. "I will keep that in mind." He shuffles closer to John, as if chasing his warmth, and John puts an arm around him without even thinking about it.

They sit in peaceful silence, staring at the pale pink and yellow sky, marveling at the way the gold sun catches on the autumn leaves on its way up.

John is perilously close to drifting off on Thomas's shoulder when Thomas breaks the quiet. 

"When did you know that you loved him?"

John freezes. "Sorry?"

"James," Thomas says. "I've already told you that I know you care for him. It doesn't bother me. I was just curious when it started for you."

A crow bursts out from a tree down the street and takes to the sky, cawing insistently, and John tries to regulate his breathing as he watches it. He manages to whisper, "You first."

If Thomas is bothered by the deflection, he does not show it. He just hums thoughtfully and says, "I knew there was something right away, of course. He's very attractive, you know, and he was so sharp that I was intrigued by him immediately. But the realization of how deep it was came more slowly. I think if I had to pinpoint a moment when I realized it was love, it would be at one of my salons. I was talking to someone, I don't remember who, and I happened to glance across the room and saw James and Miranda talking. Most of the people at those gatherings - most people, full stop - either barely acknowledged her presence or stared at her like they were just waiting for her to do something improper for them to gossip about. She and I were both used to it, much as we disliked it. But James was looking at her like he really saw her, and thought she was the most interesting person in the world. They hadn't even started their affair yet, then, and I know that it hadn't even occurred to him that such a thing was possible, but already he saw something precious in her. She was looking at him the same way, and when I saw the two of them in that moment I remember just thinking, Oh. Of course."

"I wish I could have gotten to know her," John murmurs, tightening his arm around Thomas, who leans into the touch.

"You would have liked each other, I think."

He glances at John, as if contemplating whether to remind him that he hasn't answered the question, but John waits for him to look away again, because that will be easier.

"Has he told you about how I got the crew to see me as valuable, after we found the gold?"

"By telling them their own secrets and letting them beat you for it? Yes, he mentioned."

"I saw him, trying to act like he wasn't watching, and I saw how he reacted. And the first few times they hit me, he kind of winced, like he was sympathetic to how it must hurt. Every other man in that room was either angry or laughing, but not him. Sure, I think he was amused, and a little impressed, but there was also that edge of discomfort. He didn't even like me, had threatened me a thousand times, but I think seeing me in pain bothered him, just a bit. Everyone had been telling me how sadistic he was, but in those moments, I realized he might be the most compassionate out of all of them. He definitely didn't mean for me to see that, but I did."

"And that was when..."

"No. I don't think so. At the time, I wouldn't have ever called it that, and there was still a long while after that when I really didn't like him much. But in my life, there hadn't been a lot of people who gave even that much of a fuck about me, and seeing him react like that meant something to me. I guess that was when I started to let myself think about it. About what it might end up meaning."

Thomas nods slowly.

John sighs. "You still want a more definitive realization."

"I want whatever you are willing to give me, John, and no more. I know that putting this in words makes you uncomfortable, especially since you haven't discussed any of it with James. I don't want to upset you. I just want to understand."

There's a chipmunk on the path in front of them. Quietly, they watch it scurry closer, sniff the air, and dart away, and disappear into a bush.

He considers the question. Maybe it's odd, but he hasn't really answered this question in his own mind before. There has been little point in trying to deny his feelings for James to himself, but he has tried not to dwell on them, tried not to think too hard about the details. What good would it do him to identify the moment he doomed himself? Flint was gone and he was alone and nothing could come of any of it.

But now he has been asked, and so he thinks about it.

He could tell Thomas about the moment in the cage at the maroon camp when he realized he didn't want Flint to die – because he did not want someone he loved to die.

He could tell him about the third time he made love to Madi, when something came over him, mid-act, a fleeting thought – that while he would be a very lucky man to be allowed to continue like that with just her for the rest of his life, he would be just as glad if another was there with them.

He could tell him about the moment he really truly recognized that he was in love, too late, standing in the forest on Skeleton Island, the words Thomas Hamilton is alive hanging heavy in the air, the deeply wounded and angry and baffled and desperately hopeful expression on Flint's face excruciating. Realizing that Flint was right that life without him would never be enough, but that there was no undoing what he had set in motion, no salvaging what was already ruined.

He could tell him all of this. Someday, perhaps he will. There is something about these men that compels him to be honest with them. But these are not tender memories to be laid out in the pale gold morning light, not like Thomas's story. These are things better left for dusk, when vulnerability can feel more like power, when they can sit by a candle and watch the smoke mingle with the darkness and let the truth do the same. And anyway, Thomas is right that there are things that should be expressed to James first.

Seeming to recognize that John is not going to fill the silence, Thomas takes a breath like he's about to say something, but then the door opens, and James huffs, "What the fuck are you doing out here in the cold?" and they follow him inside, moment over.

--

When things between John and James finally progress, it doesn't start as a dramatic moment. They're just eating dinner, the three of them, like most nights. There's a lull in the conversation, which had been about taxes, and after a moment of peaceful silence, James asks, out of nowhere, "Do you know why I killed Gates?"

Thomas had been in the middle of passing John a bowl of beans, and they both pause, glancing at each other's startled expressions.

John slowly puts down the bowl and looks to James.

"He was going to stand in the way of you continuing to pursue the Urca gold, I assume."

"Yeah, but more specifically." John shakes his head, and James says, "He told me that he was going to send me off to Boston with Miranda, whether I was willing to go or not, and tell everyone else I was dead. He knew that I would be furious about it. He knew the men might be unhappy if they found out. He knew he would be sorry to never see me again. But if it meant pulling the crew off of what he saw as an insane path, and keeping me safe from both them and myself, he was going to do it."

"And so you broke his neck."

"I did."

"And then I did essentially the same thing."

"You did. And I just let you do it. I shouted at you, but I let you do it. And then after it was done, even when I hated you, all I wanted was to see you again. Why the fuck do you imagine that was?"

"I imagine you wanted to break my neck."

"But I didn't," he confesses, "Not really."

"Why, then?"

James reaches across the table and takes his hand. John swallows.

"You and Gates had a number of things in common, as you yourself have commented on. But chief among your many differences was the fact that as fond as I was of Hal Gates, I was never in love with him."

The words hang in the air for what feels like several minutes as John turns them over in his mind. He blinks at James, who just keeps staring earnestly at him, and then he looks down at their joined hands as if they will have the answers written on them, and then he turns to Thomas.

"Don't look at me," Thomas says. "I've told you I don't mind."

"Will you give us the room?" James murmurs to Thomas, looking apologetic.

"I would like to continue eating my dinner, love, if it's all the same to you, but by all means take this elsewhere if you would prefer privacy."

James rolls his eyes at him, but stands, tugging at John's hand. "Come on," he says, and, helpless, John follows him to the parlor.

"To be very clear," John starts once they're standing facing each other, "That was you saying that you were in love with me."

"Obviously."

"And." He shifts his weight, and looks in his direction, but not at his face. "And what tense is that?"

"Look at me."

John slowly lifts his eyes to meet James's. The warmth he sees takes his breath away.

"All of them," James says. "Past, present, future. I loved you then, John Silver, and I love you now, John Gould, ridiculous alias and all, and I suspect I will continue to love you until I die."

"And Thomas?"

"Thomas and I both know that love can be shared. He knows that I love and want you both, and we would not be here if he wasn't all right with that. If he wasn't all right with the idea of me acting on that."

John nods, slowly, trying to take in the explicit confirmation of everything he has tried to convince himself they weren't implying.

He can't stop staring at him dumbly.

"Are you going to say something?" James asks gently. He's smiling, but the muscles in his face twitch, very subtly, like he's trying not to let the confidence falter, and it suddenly occurs to John that he's scared. Fuck, does he think that there might be a world in which John would not return this?

"My mother killed my father," he blurts out. "He beat us all the time, and one day he took it too far and almost killed me, and she stabbed him to make it stop. When people found out, they had her locked up. Not in jail, but in Bethlem like Thomas, because when she said it was self-defense and accused him of abuse, they thought that a wife who would question her husband's judgment must be mad. I never found out what happened to her there because when they came to take her away, I ran. After that I lived on the streets. I was never at St. John's Home for Poor Orphan Boys, but I would have been sent there if I hadn't run away. I did know someone who gave accounts of daily goings-on, but he was a boy named Will in a street gang I got caught up in. Solomon Little was the name of my brother, whom I left behind and who probably did end up in that orphanage. You once wanted true stories about my past. All of that is the truth. I can tell you the rest if you really want it, but you'll have to give me some rum first."

James reaches out, slowly, as if to a wounded animal - though perhaps a beloved pet rather than a stray - and brushes a wayward curl out of John's face, tucking it behind his ear. "Thank you," says James, clearly recognizing the story for the offering it is. "I am genuinely sorry that happened to you. Thank you for telling me."

His hand falls to squeeze John's shoulder, and John presses into the contact and allows James to pull him into a hug. He whispers into his neck, "I love you."

It is only the fourth time he has said those words out loud that he remembers. Once to his mother. Twice to Madi; once when they were lying in bed enjoying a rare moment of peace and once, desperately, in the days following his betrayal. And now. His voice is so soft, and muffled by James's skin, that he has no idea if James has even heard him. But James pulls back just enough to press a gentle kiss to his temple, and John thinks that he knows anyway.

They can't seem to stop holding each other. John's universe narrows to the feeling of James's shirt as he clings to it, the oddly sawdusty smell of him, the warmth of his chest. Eventually they have to move to the love seat because John's leg is threatening to give out, but still they do not separate fully. John finds himself mostly in James's lap, and for a long moment they just stare at each other, smiling like fools and doing nothing but share each other's air.

Suddenly John bursts into laughter, and James tries to frown at him. "What's funny?"

"Sorry, just - I can't believe you would tell me like that. Why the hell would you start a declaration of love by bringing up the friend you murdered, that is absolutely the least romantic-"

He's cut off by lips on his.

The first touch is not much of a kiss. John is still talking at the beginning of it, and James is smiling, so their mouths don't really fit together right. They pull apart and laugh awkwardly, and James mutters, "Shut up."

"Never," John says, and this time they lean in at the same time.

All this time, John tried so hard not to imagine this - what kissing Flint - James - would be like - what their first kiss would be like - but of course he did imagine it, and he never imagined it like this. Usually he pictured an urgent, passionate thing: back then, maybe they would collide at the end of a battle, blood and adrenaline rushing through their veins, one man's hands running frantically over the other's body with the excuse of checking for wounds, someone shoved against the nearest wall or piece of furniture, mouths meeting with force; in the years following, maybe they would reunite and be so overwhelmed by seeing each other again that they would fall into each other hard and fast.

Other times, when he was feeling especially morose and allowed himself to think of what they almost had as love, not just attraction, he imagined it happening with aching tenderness, soft and hesitant yet purposeful, pressing together slow and deep, every movement a question and the answer all wrapped up together.

This kiss, now that it is finally happening, is not violent, or wondering, or earth-shatteringly intense. It just is. It is two people, coming together. It is long awaited, it holds the promise of so much more to come, and it is a very good kiss - but it is just a kiss.

It is a reminder that now, they are just men. They are not kings or gods or monstrous things, fighting to exist, holding onto each other for dear life so the darkness would look beautiful instead of terrifying. They are just John and James, safe and human and in love and alive.

For the first time in years John feels like he can breathe normally.

"I love you," he says again, slightly louder, against James's lips, and James says, "Come to bed with me," and John says, "Yeah, all right."

-

They end up in John's bedroom - John's bed - because James's room is also Thomas's, and while he may approve of this coupling, it seems wrong to do anything in his bed. At least, without him there too, John thinks absently as they stumble through his doorway, and then he shakes his head to clear that slightly unexpected thought from his mind, and after that he is back to focusing entirely on James. 

James pushing him on the bed and crawling up to cover him with his body in a way that should make his fight or flight instincts go wild but just makes him feel warm, James kissing his neck and shoulder and chest, James seeming to melt when John finally gets his fingers in his hair, James laughing as they both get tangled in their clothes trying to strip them off, James panting into his mouth while John wraps his hand around his cock, James whispering beautiful things into his ear that bring tears to his eyes, James kissing those tears away and not commenting on it, James riding him, James cleaning them up when it's over and then curling his body around John's as if he never plans to leave.

"Not to make light of your past," he murmurs afterward, absently stroking his thumb along John's upper arm, "But I can't fucking believe you could have been Long John Little."

"I will push you out of bed," John warns.

"No you won't."

"I absolutely will," he says, and then he damages his credibility somewhat by leaning in for another kiss.

-

There's a knock on the door after a while, and James snorts and says, "I'm sure you're learning that he doesn't care much for boundaries."

"I did get that impression, yes." John lazily pulls the sheet up to his waist and calls for Thomas to come in.

"I'm going to bed," he tells them, crossing the room and leaning over John to kiss James. "Are you staying here tonight?"

"If you're both all right with that."

John certainly has no protests, and Thomas nods his agreement, staring at John's bare chest for a moment with an idle kind of hunger that John will definitely spend some time overthinking later. "I take it this went well, then?"

"Very well, I thought," says James, "But you're going to embarrass him." He kisses John's cheek as if to point out a blush.

"Hey," John protests. "I'm not embarrassed."

"No?" Thomas smiles, teasing. "In that case, James, please, tell me everything."

John rolls his eyes. "Go to bed, Thomas."

James laughs, just a huff of air against John's neck, and Thomas says, "All right, Mr. Silver, I'll leave you alone for now." He kisses James again and gives John's shoulder a light squeeze, and heads across the hall after bidding them goodnight.

"He's a very unusual man," John murmurs when he's gone.

"That's one way of putting it," James agrees. He starts to bite a mark into John's collarbone, then pauses. "You do like him, though, right?"

"I do. That wasn't meant to be a bad thing. There just aren't many people who would be so cavalier about sharing their lovers."

"You seem fairly calm about it."

"I am also a very unusual man." James bites down harder. "Ow, stop that." He leans in for a quick kiss, then says, more seriously, "I know that you and Thomas love each other. After what we both gave up for the two of you to be together, I have no interest in dividing you. I would respect his relationship with you even if I didn't like him. But it helps that as it happens, I like him very much."

James takes his hand. "Good. I thought you might like each other, but I wasn't sure. I'm glad you do." Running a finger along a scar on the back of John's knuckles, he asks, "Do you miss her?"

He means Madi, of course. They have, for the most part, avoided talking about her. "Of course I miss her. Don't you?"

"I do, very much, but I've also seen her more recently than you have, and she and I weren't lovers."

Does the reminder that she allowed them to visit her sting? It does. But she has mentioned, recently, that it might be all right for him to come for a visit before long, or she might even be able to come to him. She has not given him a timeline of when that might be possible, but it gave him hope nonetheless. He tells James this, but adds, "I am aware that even if such a reunion happens, it likely will not go the way this one has gone. Her sense of duty to do what is right for her people takes precedent over whatever she feels or felt for me. I think that I will never stop loving her, but I am mostly at peace with the fact that my romantic relationship with her is, and will remain, over. It's enough to know that she's reached a point where she's happy most of the time and that she doesn't hate me."

"I never wanted this heartbreak for you," James whispers.

"It was my own creation."

"And you still say you do not regret it, I suppose."

"I wish that I had more of her than what I get in a few letters a year," John says. "But if she was dead, she would not be sending me any letters at all, so no, I do not regret it."

They fall into a thoughtful silence that is not as tense as it could be. James keeps holding his hand. "I miss it sometimes," he admits after a few minutes. "The war."

"Thomas seems to think that part of you was glad I dragged you away from it."

"Part of me was. I hated so much of what I did during that time, and although I still take issue with your methodology, I am very glad that Madi and Thomas and you and I are all alive. But part of me grew used to the darkness and bloodlust I had fostered in myself, and sometimes I catch myself wishing I could let it consume me again. You were right, back then, when you said it felt good."

John nods slowly. He, too, has felt that aching hunger for something unnamable and violent, usually late at night. He used to keep a sword, just in case, but the desire to feel it thrumming through the air was so horrible and insistent that he sold it.

"I think," he says cautiously, "That you're proving my point that you needed to be removed from that environment before that thing inside you consumed you entirely."

James makes a soft noise that might be agreement, then brings John's hand up to press a kiss to the back. "I think," he says, mimicking John's cadence, "That I would rather be consumed by you."

"That," John tells him, smiling, "Was almost sappy, and I would find it an appallingly bad line if I wasn't so fond of you."

"But you are fond of me," James grins. "And since Thomas has been so kind as to leave us alone for the night, I think you and I can find something better to do with our time than talk about war."

"I believe you were the one who brought it up, but I see your point. Of course we should go to sleep." He laughs as James rolls his eyes and manhandles him on top of him.

"Kiss me, you shit," he growls, and with such a romantic request, what can he do but oblige?

--

James is asleep when John gets up the next morning, and he can't stop glancing at him - James Flint in his bed! - as he gets dressed, and smiles when he stirs only a little when he presses a kiss to his forehead before going downstairs.

Thomas is already in the kitchen, pulling a kettle out of the hearth, and smiles at him when he walks in.

"Good morning," he says mildly. "Pleasant night?"

John sits down and takes the teacup he offers him. "You know the answer to that."

"Just making conversation." Thomas joins him at the table and nudges his ankle with his foot. "I know you have had trouble believing this, but I really am happy for you both."

"I appreciate that, even if I don't fully understand it."

"Don't you?"

"Sorry?"

"You love him, yes?" When John nods, hesitant even now to voice it, Thomas says, "And despite how surprised you seem by recent developments, part of you must have known, back then, that he had similar feelings for you."

He has spent over twelve years trying to tell himself that he knew no such thing. Easier to pretend he hurt Flint less than he did if he pretended not to know about those feelings. Easier to come to terms with his loneliness if he pretended not to know that he had a chance to have something with Flint and gave it up. But he did know. He knew when Flint told him he was not welcome in his head, not realizing that his face gave away the fact that he was already in and could not be dislodged. He knew when they hunted the shark. He knew whenever Flint smiled at him. He knew when he trusted him with the truth about his relationship with the Hamiltons. He knew when he asked about his past. He knew when he was willing to go along with his terrible plans after Rogers took Madi. He knew in the forest. He knew, and he exploited that love, used it as a weapon against him. He knew, he has known, and now that James has said the words out loud, there is no more denying it.

Thomas reads his agreement in his face and continues, "Yet when you learned that there was another who also had his love, you did everything you could to get us together, because you knew that it would make him happy. And now that we are all in one place, now that the feelings between you have been spoken, now that we both must share, you are still not acting uncomfortable with his relationship with me. Because you love him, and you know he loves me, and you want what is best for him, what will make him happy, and you know that he is capable of being with two people."

"So you're saying that you and I are in very similar situations, just on slightly different timelines, so we should be able to understand each other well."

"Exactly." He reaches across the table to tap the back of John's hand. For a paranoid moment John wonders if he somehow knows that it's the same spot James kissed last night, before remembering that he's trying not to think the people he's close to possess supernatural powers anymore. "As such, I think there is nothing for either one of us to be insecure about, and this little triad can be something very good if we just allow ourselves to continue to be friends as we have been thus far."

There's a creaking upstairs that must be James getting up. Both of them glance up at the sound with mirrored smiles, then back to each other, and John says, "I think we can probably manage that."

--

Over the next few weeks, John is surprised by how little actually changes, at least during the day. Thomas sticks to his word of maintaining a jealousy-free friendship and continues walking John to work. James comes to see John at the cooperage sometimes, but acts no differently to him there than he did before their relationship took this new form; maybe they would kiss hello and goodbye, but Sam is there and the workshop is open to the street, so that's a no. At home, the only difference in the afternoons and evenings is that instead of occasionally kissing Thomas, James now occasionally kisses both of them.

Night is different, because now James alternates between the two bedrooms. He stayed with John the first several days, then started passing between them. The first night he went back to Thomas, John did feel the jealousy he told them both would not be a problem; he lay awake bitterly reflecting on how empty his bed felt, and was snappy with Thomas in the morning. But that evening, when he got home from work and found them on the sofa in the study, James's head in Thomas's lap and Thomas stroking his hair, a soft intimate moment he would feel like he was intruding on if they didn't both look up and smile at him so brightly when he walked in, the bitterness faded away and all he could feel was gratitude that they were letting him be part of this at all. After that - after pulling Thomas aside later to apologize for the way he spoke to him that morning - he lets himself adjust to sometimes having someone beside him at night and sometimes not. Neither he or Thomas ever pressure James one way or the other, beyond sometimes looking at him questioningly if one of them goes to bed before the other, so it's interesting watching him choose, seemingly at random most of the time. They don't talk about it much. Sometimes Thomas will go upstairs, and James will stay with John a bit longer then kiss him goodnight and follow Thomas up. Sometimes, usually when he's in the mood for sex, he'll quietly ask one of them to go up with him; it's a bit awkward, at least for John, for him and Thomas to know about each other's sex lives, but he slowly starts to get over it. Sometimes James goes up before either of them and it's anyone's guess as to who will find him in their bed later.

James himself seems fairly happy about the whole situation, although there are some nights when there's a deeply conflicted expression on his face when he looks between them. It always passes after only a moment, so they don't talk about it, but that surely can't last forever - not that any of this can. For now, John settles for telling himself that this arrangement is working perfectly for all of them, and they continue sharing their days and splitting their nights, and it's about the closest to happy he's been maybe ever. He came close, with Madi, but the shadow of the war was always hanging over them, even at the very best moments. He loved Madi - still does love Madi - and would not take back his time with her, and tries not to compare her and James, but he cannot deny how much better he feels now, knowing what it is like to be at peace.

-

"You said that the three of us being around each other would help reconcile the two sides of him," John comments to Thomas one afternoon, when John and James have been together for just over a week. "Do you think that has proven true?"

They're taking advantage of a surprisingly nice day to sit in the back yard. John and Thomas are practicing drawing nature. James had been watching over their shoulders and complimenting their work until they told him he was being distracting and he wandered off to rake leaves.

"Yes, I do," Thomas answers, not looking up from his sketch. "I think the fact that he has started a relationship with you demonstrates that. It means he has accepted that he does not need to choose."

"What about your point about us getting to know all parts of him?"

"I have noticed a difference in him. He is surer of himself, I think, than he used to be. In London, he had a temper, but he rarely let me see it, and most of the time he was very hesitant, quiet, conscious of his obligation to bow to authority." John snorts, and Thomas smiles and glances over at him. "Exactly. You knew a man who had come into his own abrasive power. After you returned him to me, but before we came here, I could see that he had been that man, but that he was struggling to suppress it for my sake, thinking I would only desire the comparatively submissive man I had known. Forgetting, of course," he adds with a smirk, "That I first kissed him after he stood up to my father so boldly. He was so terribly careful around me for a while, like he was afraid I would see how angry he was about everything that happened and not understand it. He would snap at me and then spend a week apologizing for it. He told me all about what he did and experienced as Captain Flint, but he usually tried to speak neutrally, as if to distance himself from both the horrific things and the good."

"And since being here, you perceive him as, what? Less timid? Less distanced?"

"Something like that, yes. He bickers with you without worrying how it will be taken, and he is more willing to mention people and events from that time, not as stories or confessions but just as parts of his life."

John adds a bird to one of the branches of the tree he's drawing while he considers that. "I suppose he seems different to me, too," he says eventually. "He's. I don't know. Kinder? Back then, the role he felt obligated to play often required him to be cruel. I could see even then that he would have preferred to be good, but I never fully got to see what that would look like. I started to, when we became more like friends, but there were still walls between us that we maintained out of the fear that if we stopped hardening ourselves against the world it would destroy us. Now that all three of us are safer, those walls have been lowered and I can see how gentle he can be if he doesn't have to fight."

Thomas sets his sketchbook down. "James has been fighting his whole life, I think. We just saw him during different battles, and he was employing different tactics. I knew a shy man who could get violently angry. You knew a vicious man who could soften. The rage and the kindness are both center to who he is, he has just had to exploit one or the other and suppress the other at various points in order to survive. I am glad that we have the chance to know his peace, in which he is able to be more balanced."

They both look over at James, across the yard. The rake isn't quite a shovel, but it's closer to that than an oar. Men like Jack Rackham, so caught up in the idea of legacy, would probably find it incomprehensible that James McGraw was a promising Naval officer, James Flint was a fucking legendary pirate, and yet James Barlow cleaning up behind John's house is the best off.

He looks up as if he senses them watching him, and smiles.

"I'm glad, too," John says, smiling back.

A sudden breeze whips some of the leaves out of James's carefully shaped pile, and John and Thomas both laugh at his look of consternation. He glares at them, but there's no heat to it. They watch him for a few more minutes, then John goes back to his drawing.

Thomas comes to sit closer to him, so their shoulders are brushing. "Do you mind if I look at your work?"

John shrugs and tilts the paper towards him.

"I like the way you get the twists of the branches," Thomas says. "I feel I'm always making them either too soft or too sharp. You make them look so natural."

He shows John his own sketch, and John nods. "It's not bad. Your issue is that you're focusing on the outlines, so it's looking flat. Try some shading or cross-hatching along the curves. See this point here on mine?"

"Oh, yes, I see." He tries to imitate the technique, but John can tell he's pressing too hard, so he grabs his hand.

"More delicately," he says gently. He wraps his hand around Thomas's and carefully guides him in roughly the right motion. He realizes when he's already in the middle of doing it that it's a weirdly intimate gesture, and also a pretty terrible way of teaching this, but it's too late now so he just hopes his face doesn't show his sudden awkwardness.

"Thank you, John, I'll keep that in mind," Thomas says once he's released his hand. He's looking at him a bit oddly but doesn't comment on the handholding, just asks, "You really taught yourself all this?"

"I've always been a quick study. What about you? Did little Lord Hamilton have lessons, or did you pick it up later?"

Thomas snorts. "I had a few lessons about appreciating art, and a few basic drawing lessons, but they were certainly not part of my regular curriculum. My father did not deem artistic skills necessary for me. Miranda, on the other hand, was apparently forced to sit through endless drawing lessons growing up into an accomplished lady, so she taught me a bit. I got back in practice after the plantation."

"Lots of portraits of James, I suppose."

"He's a very good subject."

"I can't argue with you there."

Smiling, Thomas says, "You're not so bad yourself, though." He flips back a few pages in his sketchbook to display a picture of John, bent over his own drawing. It's rough, clearly hurried - probably he was trying not to be obvious about staring at John - but John likes the way Thomas has made him look. Focused, yet without worries. And kind of beautiful.

As far as he knows, it's the first time anyone has ever drawn him. He swallows around a suddenly tight throat. "You drew me?"

"Is that all right? I wanted practice with different kinds of hair."

"It's fine," he says hoarsely. "It's fine. And you did well with the hair."

"I'm glad you think so. The first few attempts were much worse."

The first few attempts. Thomas has drawn him more than once. He's been deemed a subject worth spending time on. It doesn't necessarily mean anything - after all, Thomas has also spent several hours trying to perfect drawing one random tree - but still, something about him was interesting to Thomas, something that urged him to make him into art.

"Thank you," he says, completely nonsensically.

He's saved from Thomas responding to that by James coming back over. "I've done what I can with those fucking leaves. Are you two ready to go back inside yet?"

Thomas elects to keep working a bit longer, but John and James go in together. They had some intention of making tea, but they get distracted and end up blowing each other on the chaise instead. Curled up together afterwards, John blurts out, "Did you know he's drawn me?"

James hums. "Yeah, I've seen a few of his sketches. They're good." Belatedly hearing something in John's voice, he asks, "Does that bother you?"

"No, I'm flattered. It's just." He tries to find the words. "My mother," he starts haltingly, trying not to notice the way James instantly becomes more alert. "My mother wanted to be an artist. She never was, I'm not sure if she ever created a single work - we couldn't afford materials, and my father wouldn't have allowed it anyway. But she dreamed of it. I don't remember her very clearly, but I remember sometimes she would look at something and describe how she would like to draw it. It's part of why I wanted to learn to draw. Anyway, sometimes instead of singing me to sleep she would tell me about the portraits of me she imagined painting. I liked picturing them. I had only ever seen a few portraits before, and they were all of rich people, so the idea of being in one made me feel important. When she was gone, I assumed the possibility of someone creating art of me was too. I didn't think anyone else would want to."

"You are important," James murmurs. "I would draw you too, but I'm really terrible and I don't have the patience to learn. You'll have to let Thomas speak for both of us." He kisses John on the forehead and says, "I'm sorry about your mother. You both deserved better."

"I sent an inquiry to Bethlem," John whispers, looking away. It's the first time he's told anyone this; he couldn't bear to write it in a letter to Madi, and there was never anyone else with any reason to know. "A few years after we parted ways. I hadn't thought about my mother in years, always thought it wasn't worth dwelling on things that couldn't be changed, but it occurred to me that if Thomas could be miraculously found alive and mostly well after so long, maybe she could too. I sent a letter asking about the whereabouts and welfare of one particular inmate. If they had said she was alive, I had a stupid fantasy of sailing over there and launching some absurd rescue."

"But they didn't," concludes James softly.

"They did not." He sighs. "Fever, they said, not long after she arrived. It could be a lie, I suppose, but she was no one of any political importance so I can't imagine they would have reason to fabricate an end for her. I have to assume she's truly gone."

"I'm sorry."

"I did not have high hopes when I sent that letter. I knew when I ran away that I would likely never see her again. I accepted that loss a long time ago."

"That does not make it less tragic."

He watches a bird fly past the window. "No, it doesn't."

Silently he adjusts so he can rest his cheek on James's chest, so he can just barely hear his heart beating, low and steady. This in itself is a miracle. A reminder that while most things that are lost never come back, some things do. "I love you," he breathes. "I am glad that you and Thomas are here."

James doesn't answer, just runs a soothing hand up and down his back a few times, and they lie in peaceful, bittersweet quiet, breathing in tandem. When Thomas makes his way inside, he finds them still entwined there, fast asleep.

--

In the middle of November John wakes to pain radiating from his leg. That's not unusual, but the intensity of it is - it's such an old wound now that it's more a persistent dull ache most of the time. It hasn't hurt like this, blindingly sharp and raw, for years.

It's his own fault, he knows. It's been bothering him for days and he hasn't done enough about it. There had been a stupid incident outside the cooperage, loading barrels into a wagon; Sam had dropped one of the barrels and it started to roll, and John lunged to stop it and got his metal foot twisted in the cobblestones, in such a way that the end of the false leg ended up getting slammed up hard into the end of the stump, with enough force to inflame it a bit. It wouldn't have been a problem, if he had been able to clean and dress it immediately and then take some time without the prosthetic, but they were so busy that he just couldn't, and so for days he has shoved the increasingly irritated and swollen leg into the leather and tried not to show how excruciating it is to stand, and not been as careful as he should have been when caring for it at the end of the day.

Now he has to live with those choices. Dimly aware that his face is wet with tears, he pushes off his blanket and hisses when he sees that the skin has broken from being rubbed against too much, and there's blood and pus oozing and crusting over. He needs to clean it, now, but when he pushes himself out of bed, he realizes that there's no way in hell he's going to make it downstairs to get water.

He'll get James, he thinks, James will scold him for letting it get to this but he'll get the water for him. But James isn't here, he remembers as he grabs his crutch. James has gone to Boston for the week, to settle some business there.

Thomas, though. Thomas is here. John expected him to go with James, had braced himself for the house being silent and empty again, but Thomas had just shrugged and said that there was nothing in Boston that needed his attention and he had no interest in enduring travel just to keep James company.

Living together, just the two of them, has proven easier than John could have anticipated. They both miss James, but are not lost without him. Their morning routine, waking around the same time, eating, and walking to work together, is unchanged, and in the evenings they sit together and talk or read or draw or play games perfectly peacefully. John likes and trusts Thomas, genuinely enjoys his company, and has just about persuaded himself that Thomas returns the sentiment and not just for James's sake. Still, the idea of letting him see him like this, let alone asking for his help, makes him deeply uncomfortable.

But his leg feels like it's on fire, so he has no choice. He hops, cringing, across the landing to knock on their bedroom door.

It takes a few knocks, but eventually Thomas appears, rubbing at his eyes. "John? It's the middle of the night."

"I know, I'm sorry," John says, holding himself on the door frame.

"Are you all right?"

"Not really," he manages. He sways as he's hit with a fresh wave of pain, and Thomas reaches out to brace him as if on instinct. "Shit. Thanks. It's my damn leg, I fucked it up again. I need you to get me some water so I can clean it."

"Of course."

He helps him back to his bed, then goes downstairs, and comes back quickly with a large bowl of water and some clean rags.

"Will you let me help you?" he asks softly, setting the bowl on John's bedside table.

John shakes his head and picks up one of the rags. "You don't need to do that."

"I am fully aware I don't need to. I know that you can do this yourself. I also know that it will be easier if I do it for you, and I am telling you that I am willing to do so." He moves away from the bed to light a few candles, then comes back and gently tugs the cloth out of his hand. "There is no shame in letting people take care of you, John."

He thinks about refusing, but it really would be better with help. And fuck it, there's no one else here to know or think badly of him. "Do it," he mutters.

Thomas nods, pulls a chair up to the side of the bed, lifts the bowl into his lap, and dips the cloth into the water. John flinches at the first touch to his leg, and Thomas waits patiently for him to calm down before continuing. "How did this happen?" he asks, voice level, carefully dabbing around the blisters.

He tells him, then lets himself fall back into the pillows Thomas has propped against the headboard for him. "I hate this," he whispers. "This shouldn't still be happening. It's been over a fucking decade."

"I imagine circumstances were less than ideal for allowing the wound to properly heal when it was new, and you've likely had plenty of other opportunities over the years to aggravate it further."

John grunts in acknowledgment and watches mostly quietly as Thomas works. He's gentler than John would have been for himself, but thorough, and when he's finally done cleaning the bottom of the stump, he sets the bowl and rags aside and wordlessly starts massaging the tense muscles of John's leg above the wound. It's astonishingly presumptuous, and alarmingly intimate, but it feels so good that John cannot find it within himself to be angry about the violation.

"You're going to take tomorrow off work," Thomas tells him, pressing his thumbs hard into John's skin, mouth twitching when John squirms. "You are going to let this wound get some air, and you are going to rest. Saturday you already have off, although James should be back by then so you'll have to put up with him worrying about you, which I'm sure you will find less relaxing. We will see how this looks by Sunday, but even if you're feeling well enough to go into the cooperage, you absolutely should not wear the peg. You can go on the crutch and direct Sam, but you should not be putting weight or friction on this for several days."

"Are you a doctor now?" John grumbles.

"If I thought you would let me call for a real doctor, I would, but I think he would tell you the same thing."

He stands and comes around to the other side of the bed. John blinks at him, bewildered, but Thomas sits on the mattress and starts massaging the calf of his good leg. John inhales sharply. He doesn't know if anyone has ever thought to be concerned about both of his legs. It's just the one that was ever injured, of course - except in occasional nightmares, when Vane's men come to finish the job - but the other does get strained from bearing so much of his weight, and Thomas's hands easing the soreness bring such relief that he has to close his eyes.

"Why are you doing this?"

"I don't like seeing anyone in pain, John, especially anyone I care for."

The sensation of pain in one leg and pleasure in the other is making his head spin, and maybe that's why he blurts, "Anyone James cares for, you mean."

"If you were anyone else, I would think you were fishing for compliments." Thomas's fingers curl around John's leg in a torturously soft caress. He says, "Look at me, please." Reluctantly John opens his eyes, and Thomas meets them with the gentle firmness John has come to expect from him, his eyes shining with the reflection of the candlelight. "Do not put words in my mouth. It is true that James cares for you, and that he will be glad to know that I did not leave you to suffer alone, but this has nothing to do with him. My regard for you is my own, and I am helping you entirely because I want to."

John looks away. "Thank you," he says to the empty chair, and Thomas does him the favor of not responding.

They fall into silence. John should put a stop to this, he knows, as Thomas's hands slide further up to his right thigh. His night shirt is long enough to preserve whatever modesty he may have left, but not long enough that they are not creeping into dangerous territory. He is still in enough pain that nothing could really happen between them now, but there is a line of plausible deniability that they are hovering over. If they are going to cross that line, they should not do it while James is away, surely. But it is hard to think rationally when Thomas is kneading away a knot that has probably been there for months if not years.

Feeling the light roughness of faded callouses - a decade of hard farm work followed by a decade of just selling books - John asks, "What was it like? The plantation?"

The hands still for a moment, then resume. "Tedious, mostly. Certainly better than Bethlem, but I had no complaints when James suggested we leave."

"I am sorry for leaving you there."

"I know you are." Another few minutes, then he finally pulls away. "Sleep, Mr. Silver. I will get a message to your apprentice in the morning."

-

The next day, Thomas sticks to his word, contacting Sam and forcing John to stay at home, but truthfully John doesn't put up much of a protest. Thomas's assistance has made a tremendous difference, but it still hurts like hell, and while he could probably push through it, none of the orders he has to fill are urgent enough to make it worth it.

He does, however, complain loudly when Thomas tries to confine him to bed, and when he gets the housekeepers to carry his meals out to where he's sitting like he's too much of an invalid to make it to the kitchen or dining room, and when he insists on caring for the wound for him again, and when they realize that they didn't catch the infection quite quickly enough and a fever hits him in the middle of the day.

"You don't need to look so smug," he grumbles as Thomas helps him back to bed.

"I'm not smug at all, John. I'm concerned."

"You look smug."

"You're delirious," Thomas tells him, which. Might be true.

He sleeps for most of the rest of the day but it seems like whenever he wakes, Thomas is there, putting a cool wet cloth on his heated forehead or tucking his blankets over him just as he's struck by a chill or putting a pillow under his leg or quietly reading aloud from the chair next to the bed. It's not unlike being in Flint's cabin after Charles Town, except that he never witnesses Thomas weeping in the corner the way he heard Flint sometimes, and also the pain isn't nearly as extreme.

The fever breaks quickly - he feels mostly fine by Saturday morning - but not quickly enough that he doesn't miss James getting back late Friday evening. He wakes in the morning to find him lying on his side beside him, one hand resting over his heart. He's glad for that hand, because it's heavy enough that he's sure it's real. He hadn't let himself think about it so starkly over the past week, but now he realizes that some part of him had been thinking that he might never come back. Of course he knows, intellectually, that James would never leave for good without saying something, especially now that they're fucking, besides which of course he would never leave Thomas; still, the irrational part of him had felt the thought hanging over him, and he's glad to now be proven  wrong.

"Hello," he whispers.

"Good morning," James replies softly. "Thomas told me what happened. How are you feeling now?"

"I'm fine," he says, ignoring the way James rolls his eyes. "When did you get in?"

"Around eight last night. I knew something was wrong the moment I opened the door."

"Really."

"Mm. It was too quiet."

"Fuck off," John mumbles, and James laughs and kisses him.

"I'm sorry I wasn't here."

If he'd been here, this might have been avoided altogether, because he would have noticed John trying to hide the pain the moment it happened and made him deal with it properly. But Thomas can hardly be faulted for not yet knowing him so completely.

"Your husband rose to the occasion."

He sees James silently mouthing the word husband, but he just says, "He's very good at caring for people. I'm glad you had him. I still wish I'd been here."

"It's really only been a day," John assures him, "And I've had much worse."

James sighs and kisses his shoulder. "That is a terrible metric for pain."

Maybe so, but it is the metric John has been using for most of his life, especially this past decade. The glancing cut from that sword is nothing compared to what his father did that one time, that burn is nothing compared to amputation, slicing his finger instead of a stave is nothing compared to thinking Madi was dead, hitting his head on a tree branch is nothing compared to sending Flint away. There are any number of things that are worse than this particular incident.

He kisses James rather than talk about it, and James must know that's what he's doing but he lets him get away with it this once.

--

By Wednesday John is completely better, not that his keepers would agree; they let him go back to work on Monday, but just on the crutch, and they've been making him let them clean and bandage the stump for him before and after work every day. It's very touching, really, how intensely they apparently care about his physical welfare, and the extra attention is undoubtedly good for the leg, but he is getting increasingly fed up with getting fussed over. He'll let them do this for another day, so they can tell themselves he's had a week of care, but he's going to go back on the peg on Friday even if he has to wrestle it from them.

He's resting on the chaise after work, reluctantly letting James tend to his stump, and since he doesn't want to watch James work, he's staring ahead, which means that Thomas, who's looking at something on the bookshelf, is right in his line of sight.

As Thomas runs a finger down a spine of a book, John finds himself thinking - certainly not for the first time - about the other night, those hands on his body. The warmth of his palms sinking into his thighs, the strength of his grip, the tenderness of it, the terrifyingly tantalizing prospect of what would happen if one of those hands just slid a bit further up -

He jolts out of his thoughts, and James, finishing up, pulls his hands away quickly to avoid hurting him.

"Are you all right?"

"I'm fine."

There's a little crinkle between Thomas's eyebrows when he's concentrating. John is seized with the desire to kiss it. He thinks of Thomas saying my regard for you is my own, and then he thinks of James saying love can be shared.

"Thomas," he says. His voice sounds funny to his own ears, and James raises his eyebrows at whatever he hears in it, but Thomas seems distracted.

“‘The books, the authors of all the mischief,’" he quotes. “What would Cervantes say of our collection, do you think? Which of these tomes would be condemned to the flames for sparking improper ideas and which would be pardoned?”

John shakes his head fondly, nudges James out of his way, and picks up his crutch to go over to stand behind Thomas. He is still saying something about Don Quixote, apparently oblivious to the fact that John's heart must be audibly trying to burst out of his chest. What he's about to do could make things for the three of them very awkward, if he's wrong about this. But he really doesn't think he's wrong.

"Thomas."

He turns around, finally, and blinks when he sees how close John is. "Hello," he says softly.

"Hello." John gently pushes Thomas up against the door between the parlor and the study, tugs at his shirt to make him lean down, and kisses him.

Distantly he hears a clatter behind him that must be James dropping something, but all he can focus on is the way Thomas inhales sharply in surprise as their lips meet but immediately kisses back, hands coming up to frame John's face and pull him closer. 

John had been reasonably certain that Thomas was attracted to him, but he's still pleasantly surprised by how eagerly he responds to this. They push against each other, gently at first but growing rapidly hungrier. Feeling suddenly intoxicated, John thinks, this is where Flint began, and for a moment he understands it all with a clarity that he has never fully had; he sees how knowing this man could drive someone to all kinds of irrational wonderful ideals, and he sees fully how outrageous it was that anyone could call loving this man a crime. He wants to weep, wants to turn around and tell James you are not a monster, you were never a monster, and yet he himself feels so wild, so willing to become a monster again to defend this, that it's almost not true.

Then they pull apart to breathe, and he comes to his senses, and reminds himself that all three of them are just people. He meets Thomas's cool blue eyes - not the blue of the ocean; not something you can drown in - and he breathes, and he pulls himself together, and he leans in again for another kiss, and this time he lets himself focus not on implications or history or society but on the simple, easy pleasure of it. Just lips sliding together, a hint of tongue, a hand in his hair.

"How unexpected," Thomas says, slightly breathless, when John draws back at last. He leans back against the door and glances over John's shoulder at James. Whatever he sees there makes him smile, but John can't quite bring himself to look at James yet, or to look away from Thomas. 

"And here I was beginning to think you weren't surprised by anything."

"The only reason I felt so sure that you and James would get together was because you both told me about your feelings for each other." Seeing the face John makes at that, he laughs and says, "Or at least, you didn't deny it when I asked you. My point is that I had no such certainty that you were interested in me. There were moments when I felt we may be headed towards something, but I did not anticipate you making a move quite like this, or at least not for a while."

"I didn't either, to be quite honest. It just felt right in the moment."

"Well, to be clear, I am very glad you did."

James chooses that moment to approach, tentative in a way John has rarely known him to be but heard described by Thomas, footsteps slow, eyes wide and dark when John turns to look at him, cheeks flushed. He comes right up to them, and as if on instinct they each move to take one of his hands. He squeezes back, staring between them. "The two of you never cease to surprise me," he says before kissing John and then Thomas. "Have I mentioned how glad I am that you like each other?"

"You have, but feel free to tell us again."

He kisses them again, looking a bit manic. "Fuck, I love you both," he says hoarsely. "John, I am so glad you're such a good problem solver."

"Thank you," John replies, trying to focus on the words rather than on Thomas's hand still in his hair. "In what way?"

"I was getting so tired of feeling like I was choosing between you at night. But if we're all together that's not an issue anymore."

John laughs as James presses a line of frenzied kisses down his neck.

Thomas grins, too, but says, "I think you may be moving a bit fast there, darling. You can't just invite me into John's bed for him."

"Oh, he absolutely can," John says without fully thinking about it. Thomas looks a bit startled, and James pulls back from his neck to look between them again. John falters. "I mean. If you want?"

"I was just surprised," Thomas assures him. "It took me days to get James into bed after I kissed him the first time."

"There were other factors there," James protests.

Ignoring him, Thomas kisses John again, long and slow, then leans in to whisper in his ear, "I want."

John shivers. "Jesus, you're going to kill me."

"No one is killing anyone," James says, trying to sound stern but mostly just seeming pleased. Pausing for a moment like something has just occurred to him, he asks, "Do you want me to leave you alone?"

"Of course not," John blurts at the same moment Thomas gasps, "Never."

James chuckles and says, "I meant for your first time together, not in general. I thought it might be fair since I had each of you to myself for a while."

John and Thomas turn to each other, questioning. "It's up to you," Thomas says quietly. "I'll be happy either way."

Having both of their eyes on him, expectant, even though there is no real pressure behind their gazes, is horribly intense, and John feels so terribly bare. It doesn't bode well for how overwhelming a threesome with them will be, but he pushes that thought aside and lets himself breathe for a few seconds and think about it, think about what he wants.

"I think." His voice comes out dry and he swallows, a thrill rushing through him when he notices them both watching the movement of his throat. He tries again, tells Thomas, "I do want to be with just you at some point, but right now I want you both."

-

Upstairs, Thomas efficiently divests all three of them of their shirts and presses John back into the pillows, kissing him the whole time, while James reaches between them to tug their trousers down.

Thomas, John is rapidly learning, is a very, very good kisser. Not that James isn't - he's perfect, obviously - but while James enjoys kissing but not as much as other activities, Thomas devotes himself to it as if he could quite happily do nothing else for hours. He knows exactly when to add just a bit more pressure and when to ease off a bit, when to bite and when to turn gentle, when to pause for air and when to push back in. No one has even touched John's cock and already he's overcome. With one hand he clutches at Thomas, digging his fingers into his back, scraping along his shoulder blades, and with the other he reaches out blindly until he finds James, who interlocks their fingers, happy to serve as his anchor in this.

James, until now content with watching them, leans in to take one of John's nipples into his mouth, the movement finally spurring Thomas to pull away from John's lips, though he doesn't go far, turning his attention to his other nipple; John moans and James glances up to grin at him, shark-like, before returning to his task.

John grins back, squeezes his hand, and lies back to enjoy this.

-

It should probably be no surprise when it turns out that Thomas fucks as well as he kisses.

--

They fit together perfectly, the three of them. What was good as a V is excellent as a triangle; they are all more open with each other, James can stop hopping between beds except on nights where one of the three wants space, and Thomas's mission to unite James's two lives into one man seems easier to achieve when the three of them are truly together instead of splitting his attention.

And where they had all been a bit reserved about physical contact or affectionate language between either pair in front of the third, despite knowing that they theoretically approved of each other's relationships, now they are freer with it. While they must still be very cautious in public, having such a sanctuary within the house, where they can touch each other whenever they want without caring who sees, is monumental for three men who have known such restriction in the past. The apartment in Boston, James and Thomas tell John at one point, was something like this, but since it is in the heart of the city and directly above an active store, they often felt a need to be more alert, and of course the house in London was full of servants who may or may not have been loyal to Thomas's father. So John's home, nearing the outskirts of town, with a bit of distance between neighbors, with no servants except on Fridays, is, in a way, the first time they have been able to be safe and comfortable to this degree.

The quick pecks exchanged in greeting become something visibly warmer; the pet names Thomas is fond of using become more frequent; it becomes unusual for there to not be at least two people holding hands at any given time; sometimes there are passionate kisses on the love seat in the middle of the afternoon for no reason at all other than someone desiring it at that moment.

It is good, it is surprisingly easy, it seems to bring joy to all of them, it is something that is possible because John is part of it - yet he cannot push from his mind the fact that it is temporary. As much as James and Thomas act at home here, they already have a home, and it is not here, and it is not with him. Surely soon they will remember that. He knows it could be any time; they have already been away from their jobs and home for so long that whatever arrangement they met with their employers must be running out.

"Where are you?" James asks him once, the three of them squeezed on the chaise to watch snow fall outside the window. James is plastered along John's side, playing with his hair, and Thomas is sitting at the end, back facing the room and legs between the chaise and the wall, with all three of their feet in his lap. It is the first heavy storm of the year, and even though it is far from the first winter any of them have seen, there is still a certain intrigue to it. Thomas and James have been talking fondly about how much Miranda hated snow, hated the way all people could talk about at parties for months was how beautiful it was, hated its wetness. John is silent, just staring out the window blankly, and of course James notices, and whispers, "What are you thinking about?"

He's thinking about how he is not Miranda. He is thinking about how no matter how much they may like him, no one will ever feel that kind of undying devotion for him. He is thinking about how soon they will be watching snow fall in Boston, and he will still be here, alone with the cold.

He says, "I'm thinking about what a bitch it will be walking to work in this tomorrow."

There is no way James doesn't see that it is partly a lie, that there is something else bothering him, but he lets it go. "How do you usually get to work in the winter?"

"With great difficulty, generally," he says, "But when it's particularly bad, Gregson two houses down usually lets me use his carriage.”

With great difficulty, incidentally, is also how he will manage saying goodbye to them whenever the time comes.

When are you going to leave me? he almost asks, a dozen times. They set the table together and he thinks, when will you tire of this? They talk about books and he thinks, when will you return to your book seller in Boston? They fuck and it is rapturous and he thinks, when will this stop being enough or when will this become too much? They lie together in an Edenic glow and he thinks, how long until this ends?

He does not voice any of these concerns, of course. They would be kind about it, he knows, but no good could come from it. Right now they exist in this suspended state where if they don’t acknowledge the imminent departure, it won’t happen. If he brings it up, they might say, yes, of course, we do need to leave, thanks for reminding us, and then all of this would shatter apart and it would be over forever, just like that. Or maybe they would feel guilty about him being upset, and extend their stay a bit longer out of pity, and then the beauty of their relationship would fade into tense, awkward staleness, until they resented each other. He would almost prefer the sharp break to that.

He will not allow either option to become reality, not because of him. He will just let the separation happen whenever it happens, and not worry about it. Yes, it will be hard for him to listen to them say goodbye, but he will endure it.

He always endures it.

In the meantime, he commits himself to enjoying the time he has left rather than counting it down. They smile at him and he smiles back, appreciating the moment. He acts aggressively normal, embracing routine with all he has, making himself make love to them without urgency, as if the thought that each time could be the last has not occurred to him, going to work each day and not asking them about their careers at all in case it makes them want to return to their jobs in Boston, laughing over dinner, deliberately leaving his drawings of them as unfinished sketches as if he is not desperate to memorialize them, always speaking to them casually.

Going to work helps. In the house, everything is so good that it’s all he can think about, but in the cooperage, his focus has to be on the curve of the staves and the tightness of the hoops. The steady normalcy of the process of his work is a rhythm he can give himself over to, and for several hours a day he can breathe.

His apprentice’s presence helps, too. Sam is good at reading his moods and distracting him from them. Asking for extra instruction when he needs something to devote himself to. Joking around when he needs to laugh. Insisting they both take lunch breaks when his hands are shaking. Offering his help on a project at the exact moment he needs a reminder that he’s not alone. It’s a bit uncanny, having a child see through him like this, but it’s not unwelcome. It’s good to know that even if things with the Barlows go wrong – when they go wrong, more likely – there will still be people here for John. Maybe it’s pathetic, relying on someone else’s child to quell his loneliness, but it’s more than he had a few months ago, and he’ll take what he can get.

He makes his barrels. He kisses James and Thomas whenever he has the chance. He smiles whenever anyone asks how he is. He is so practiced in acting as if everything is all right that when James occasionally seems concerned about something he’s let slip into his expression, he’s able to deflect it effortlessly. He’s so practiced in it, in fact, that he can almost convince himself.

--

"Mr. Wright asked how you were doing," John says when he gets home one evening after stopping by the mill to arrange for a delivery of wood for his staves. Thomas and James are curled up on the love seat, and he leans down to kiss them both. "He knew you were staying here."

"I suspect many people know that, dear," Thomas comments. "It's not that big a town. If you're worried about what people might think, I'm afraid we're a bit past that."

"I mentioned it to him," says James. "I was picking up materials from him for my job and he wanted to be conversational.”

"Your... job," John echoes slowly. “What job?”

“With Mr. Boardman, the cabinetmaker.” James raises his eyebrows like it’s a confusing question, which is just ridiculous. “I’m sure I’ve mentioned it.”

John shakes his head. “You most certainly did not. When the fuck did you get a job?”

“The end of October, officially.”

“The end of – it’s December. You’ve had a job for nearly two months and didn’t think to tell me?”

James looks as baffled as John feels. “We both have. Thomas was hired by a bookseller. Neither of us ever said anything about work around you, really? And you didn’t ask? What the fuck did you think we’ve been doing all day?”

John stumbles over to one of the chairs. “How the fuck should I know? Wait, exactly how long are you intending to stay here?"

"Hopefully permanently," James says.

"What?"

"Well," Thomas amends, "As long as you're willing to have us."

John tries to remember when he might have been hit on the head recently. "But - your life in Boston?"

“We’ve been here for three months,” Thomas points out. “If we were planning to return to our life in Boston, surely we would have done so already.”

That had struck John as odd, as well, but this is not an outcome he had permitted himself to consider. Looking wildly to James, he insists, “But you said that you felt like living in Boston was inevitable for you.”

“Aren’t you the one who told me nothing has to be inevitable?” When John just keeps staring at him, he sighs. “I also said that we didn’t feel settled there. We like it better here.”

“With me,” John finishes skeptically.

“Yes, with you,” Thomas says with a cautious smile. “Do you mind, since apparently we failed to ask you before?”

"I - no. Of course I don't mind, I just wish you'd told me."

James frowns. "You could have asked what we were doing during the day or how long we were planning to be here at any time if you wanted to know."

"No, he's right," says Thomas. "We were planning for all of our futures, without bothering to include him in those discussions."

"I can't imagine what it would be like to have someone make decisions about your future for you," James snaps.

"James."

John stares at him. "I'm sorry, are you implying that this is some kind of bizarre revenge? I give you a life with your lover without your permission, so you move into my house without mine? Are you serious?"

Chagrined, James sighs. "No, I didn't mean that. I'm sorry. You're right, we should have made our intentions clear."

“And your intentions are to stay here with me for as long as I let you,” he clarifies. They both nod and he asks shakily, “How long have those been your intentions?”

"When we decided to come here, we did not come with the specific goal of inviting ourselves into your home,” Thomas tells him, “But we did know that depending on how things went with you and how we liked the town, there would be a good chance we would want to stay. We never felt entirely at home in Boston, and whether we ended up living in Portsmouth with you or not, we felt ready to move on from there. We told our employers and landlord that we would likely not be back except to tie loose ends."

"That's why I went down there a few weeks ago," James explains. "To close some accounts and pick up our remaining belongings from storage. You really didn't realize that?"

"You never told me why you were going," John protests, reeling. "You just said you had business. And I was unconscious when you got back, so I didn't see you bringing anything in, and I haven't been going through your closets."

"There's an entire shelf in the study that's been filled with books that weren't there before," Thomas comments.

"You're both bringing books back all the time, I can't keep track of that!”

"Did you really think we would start a relationship like this with you and then just leave?"

Yes, of course he did, because since when is he allowed to have something this good and keep it? He can't answer.

"John." James looks appalled. "You thought we were going to leave you, and it didn't occur to us to ask us when? Or hell, ask us to stay? What would you have done if we just announced one day that we were moving out? Just waved goodbye?"

"Probably," he admits. And then spent several days locked in his room sobbing, he doesn't say, because this is humiliating enough already.

"Would it even bother you at all?" Thomas asks. "John, do you even want us to stay?"

"Would it bother me?" He's starting to feel like a parrot. "What the fuck, of course it would bother me. Of course I want you to stay. I always wanted you to stay. I wanted to fucking beg you to never leave. But I couldn't ask. I couldn't ask you to stay and hear you say no."

They both stare at him with something a bit too close to pity, and he tries to look past them at the wall, which can't judge him.

"Don't look at me like that."

Some silent communication passes between them, and then James says gruffly, “John, please come over here.”

“You know there’s no room,” he mutters, but he sighs and gets up to walk over to the loveseat. They tug him down between them, though he lands mostly on top of Thomas, and they each take one of his hands.

“I love you,” James tells him. “I love you, and you've said you love me. Do you think that means nothing to me?”

"We loved each other back then," he says. "Whether we acknowledged it or not. That wasn't enough to keep us together."

James flinches, but doesn't let go of his hand. "You're the one who made me leave you," he protests. "I never wanted to. You know that. Stop pushing me away. Stop expecting me to stop caring about you."

"And stop ignoring my feelings," Thomas says. John can't quite turn enough to look him in the eyes - not that he would want to anyway - but he squeezes his hand, and Thomas squeezes back but sounds stern when he continues, "You need to stop seeing me as the prize James gets at the end of the story, John. First you pushed him out of the war and out of your life and into my arms without considering how I might react to it, to him. That worked out well enough, but it might not have. Just because we loved each other ten years earlier did not guarantee anything. Now you seem to be expecting us to finish with you and move on to our happily ever after together, without considering that either of us might want something different than the ending you have decided is ideal or inevitable for us. I have told you, again and again, that James is not going to choose between us, and now we have established that there is affection and attraction between you and me as well. Yet you still believe that one day he will choose me, and that I will just go along with whatever he wants. That is not how this works. We are equal partners in this, all three of us."

James kisses John's temple. "I care for you and for Thomas. Thomas cares for me and for you. You care for both of us. There is no fucking reason for any of us to have to give anything up for anyone else's sake, when we are all already comfortable with the arrangement as it is."

John opens his mouth as if to say something - fuck if he knows what - but his throat is so thick that he closes his mouth, and his eyes, and just breathes, deep and shuddering, until he feels less like weeping. His lovers - his lovers, these incredible men who are apparently not going to leave him - wait patiently for him to be able to speak. Finally he manages, "I have never been able to get, or keep, what I want. Especially anything I wanted as desperately as I want this. I never considered the possibility that this could be different. I could not let myself consider it, and have it hurt even more if it didn't work out in my favor."

Thomas rests his chin on John's shoulder and whispers, "You must know neither of us wished for you to be in pain."

"I know. This is not your fault."

"Can we agree," James asks, "That all three of us should have communicated better from the beginning about what we wanted from this?" John and Thomas both nod, and he continues, "Can we agree that it has now been established that all three of us want this relationship, and want to continue living together?" Again they nod. "Good. Can we agree that going forward, Thomas and I will do better to tell John our plans, John will do better to let us know when he is feeling insecure about his place in this relationship, and we will all do better about conveying what we want?"

"Yes," says Thomas.

They both look to John, and he sniffs and says, "I can try."

"Good enough." James leans in to kiss him, and John lets go of his hand so he can cup his face and deepen the kiss. "I love you," James says firmly when they pull apart. "I do not want to go anywhere without you."

"I love you too," John says, "And I am going to try to believe that, but you're going to have to work very hard to convince me."

"Any suggestions on how to go about that?" Thomas asks, releasing his hand to slide his arms around his waist.

"I think," John gasps as one of those hands creeps down between his legs, "That you're on the right track."

"I don't think I love you yet," Thomas admits, nipping at John's ear, "But I feel sure that I am headed in that direction. In the meantime, I like you very much, and you are not getting rid of me."

John bucks his hips as Thomas presses his palm against the growing bulge in his pants. "The feeling is - fucking hell - entirely mutual. Now, since we're apparently being communicative, I'll be blunt and say, will you two bastards please take me upstairs so I can fuck you properly without worrying about falling off the damn furniture?"

James laughs all the way to the stairs.

-

"Ask us," Thomas orders gently.

John thrusts into him hard and says, "Now? Really?"

"Yes," says James from behind him. "John. Ask."

"Stay," he cries. "You terrible, wonderful people. Please stay with me."

James kisses his shoulder and tells him, "Always. You stupid shit. Of course we're staying."

-

"I would like to hear about your jobs," he says later, when they've dragged themselves back out of bed to eat. "You listen to me talking about my stupid barrels all the time. I can't believe I've never heard anything at all about what you do."

"Your barrels are beautiful, not stupid, John," sighs Thomas, "But by all means, if you want to hear stories about how many of our neighbors have appalling taste in literature..."

James groans. "Thomas, for God's sake, just because they're not all philosophers -"

"Oh, I see," John says. "You weren't leaving me out, you were just sparing me your pretension. That's fine, then."

He can't stop grinning, even when Thomas throws a biscuit at him.

--

 

Sleep is slow to come one night in early spring. Not because of the weight of the past - although there are certainly still nights when that does plague him despite his best efforts - but because Thomas with his high body heat has cuddled up uncomfortably close to him and he doesn't have the heart to push him off. 

Outside, it's raining. The water will melt away the last remaining snow from the winter - undoubtedly replacing it with mud, which will be unpleasant, but at least the scattered crocuses that have been cautiously peeking out from under the snow this week will be more visible. That will please James; he has not mentioned a fondness for flowers to John, but the first time they noticed one of the blossoms, he smiled with a sweetness that would shock anyone who knew Captain Flint.

John is starting to get over his own shock about all this. James and Thomas curled around him like parentheses, their hands resting against each other across his stomach. Waking up and going about their days and coming home to each other, to him. A letter from Madi resting on the bedside table, waiting for him to reply to confirm the date for the long-awaited visit. Second chances. A life with people he loves, people who in their own ways love him too. A life he's living, not just surviving. Maybe he doesn't deserve it, after everything, but he wants it, and he's done letting go of things he wants.

"Are you awake?" he whispers.

"No," James grumbles, and Thomas chuckles; John can feel the warm puff of air on his neck.

"Back when you first got here," he says, running his fingers through James's hair, "You asked me if I was happy." James lifts his head to look at him, and he tells him, "Ask me again."

"Were you happy, then?"

That wasn't what he meant, but fine. "No, I wasn't," he admits. "I tried to tell myself I was. For the first time in my life, I was comfortable, safe, wealthy, at peace, secure. Nice house, good job, some people around town I was kind of friends with. It was genuinely a good life, and so I wanted to believe that I was content, but I think I knew, even before you came and pointed it out, that it was incomplete, and I think I knew exactly what I was missing."

James leans in to kiss him, and he smiles into the kiss but pulls away.

"Ask me again."

"Are you happy?"

"Yes," he says immediately. "Fuck, James, yes. I never knew I could be so happy."

Thomas has raised his hand to play with a lock of John's hair, twirling the curl around his finger so gently he can barely feel the tug on his head. James watches them both with a soft smile. "I feel the same."

"Me too," murmurs Thomas, pressing a kiss to John's shoulder and then letting go of his hair to lift James's hand to kiss his knuckles.

"Now go to sleep," James demands through a yawn. "We can tell each other all about how much we've improved each other's lives in the morning."

"As if you'll be awake in the morning," Thomas teases, and as they grumble at each other until their voices trail off into sleep, John can do nothing but smile.

 

Notes:

Thank you for reading! I'm on tumblr @sparrowsfallingfromthesky