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Silver is speaking, and honestly he deserves the full span of Flint’s attention, but he can’t help it. He can’t stop looking at his face, the profile as they walk away from the pile of dead redcoats at the Wrecks. Flint feels good, all things considered. His blade is wet with the blood of his enemy, and his shoulder is brushing against John Silver’s. Somehow in the time since they’ve known each other, the lilt of Silver’s voice has become as soothing as the press of seashells against his ears. When he was dead, it had been like he’d never get to hear the ocean again.
Flint watches the clear blue sky behind curving to Silver’s cheekbones, his steady yet awkward stride making him seem more solid with every passing step. Silver tells him his harrowing tale of disaster and unlikely escapes without the usual flair. Halfway through he notices Flint staring, and he must misinterpret the disbelief on Flint’s face, for he smiles softly and says, “Before I met you, Captain, I had to make up all my stories. A part of me wants to strike you for that, but a part of me wants to thank you, too.”
Flint listens to the account and is helplessly reminded of the tempest they sailed through. He feels strapped once again to the wheel of his ship while a raging wind and rain like a thousand needles try to rip him apart. In the weeks since, he has witnessed other storms, not nearly as severe and not nearly central to them, but he found himself trembling faintly at the sight of lightning crackling through the air like church bells, and he has to remind himself: I survived that, I survived that. And hearing Silver tell him of the water, the deep, heavy waters pulling him down, and the beach of dead men, and the shackles, Flint reminds himself: he survived that, he survived that.
When he’s not looking at Silver, he’s looking at their path, watching for any kind of obstruction ahead, so he can gently sway towards Silver, who will unconsciously drift aside and therefore avoid any holds or rocks to trip him up. Silver is here to lead them now, but God help Flint if he can’t make the way that much easier for him.
Flint feels good, but exhausted right to his core. The fierce desire to keep fighting momentarily disappeared at the first sight of Silver sitting in the sand dunes. It was like standing barefoot in the shallows, facing the horizon, and letting wave after wave knock the breath out of you. His need to fight has always been like his need to breathe, and both seemed difficult the moment he saw Silver again. He can’t believe he’ll get to rest once more in a world with Silver in it.
When Silver is done speaking, he looks to Flint for him to tell his own account. For a second, Flint can’t speak, can’t remember any details. It’s all shifting like shadows. But then the bruises from his fight with Billy all come out together like stars at twilight.
He tells Silver about Featherstone fucking them over, Billy’s desecration of his old home. He leaves out Madi’s bluff for no particular reason. If she wants to share it with him, she can. He understands why she did it, and he doesn’t begrudge her.
“When we learned what the plantation owners had done,” Flint says, “we realized the only option was to retreat. Billy disagreed. He --”
“Wait a moment,” says Silver. “We?”
“Madi and I.”
Flint is a step ahead when he realizes Silver isn’t beside him anymore. He looks back to see Silver staring at him with a small, private smile. “What?”
“You and Madi,” Silver says with an odd emphasis. His smile grows wider. The rest of the men walk around them, giving a wide berth, except Silver’s new shadow, who lurks behind and out of hearing distance. “You were together on this?”
Flint frowns. “Anything to do with the slaves in our endeavor here is entirely her decision. I was merely backing her up.”
Silver is now grinning fully, and it crashes down on Flint like another icy wave. Silver doesn’t look like a man chewed up and spit out by a merciless sea. He looks young and sharp and pleased with himself, despite not doing anything other than living. “And did she acknowledge this?”
“Well,” says Flint, scratching his chin. “She thanked me for it this morning?” He hasn’t had much time to contemplate that conversation yet, Madi’s sudden return and news of Silver overshadowing everything. But her thanks -- her smile -- had been striking in the moment. People didn’t show him their teeth unless they were looking to bite down on his neck, unless they were trying to tear him apart. The last time anyone had showed him any kind of real softness had been Miranda in his dreams.
Silver looks like he wants to bounce. They have so many concerns, so many problems coming from all sides, but Flint doesn’t have it in him to quell his delight. “She likes you now! She probably trusts you somewhat, too. I can’t wait to tell her how right I was.”
“That should make for a pleasant reunion, Madi slapping you,” Flint starts to walk away, then stops. “Wait. She didn’t like me before?”
Silver ignores him, walking ahead. “Despite all our obvious struggles, Captain, my life just got marginally easier. I should die more often.”
Flint knows he’s joking, but he grasps Silver’s arm anyway. He feels his own bones rattling loosely beneath his skin. He’s not sure what’s holding him together anymore but he knows it’s thin and perilous.
“Don’t,” Flint rasps. His fingers are tight on Silver’s elbow. He wants to feel the warmth of his skin but can only feel the heat of his coat warmed by the sun. He never touches Silver unless Silver needs him to, steadying his gait or helping him up. He never touches Silver because whenever he does, he can’t stop himself from wondering if the sea salt smell that clings to his hair can be tasted on his lips, too. He wants to explain himself now, but all he can say again is, “Don’t.”
About five different looks of understanding pass over Silver’s face, and Flint finds each one more devastating than the last. He hitches the crutch firmly under his arm, so he can touch Flint’s wrist. The gesture isn’t to remove his hand but to keep him steady, to apologize, to assure. There are other people around them -- dangerous men, men they must be mountains in front of, imposing and unchanging, as tall as the moon and deadly to cross.
With Silver touching him and understanding him, though, he feels as still and as gentle as a single tree in an immense forest. He feels calm, and able to grow.
“Tell me more about your newfound friendship with Madi,” Silver says quietly, rough fingertips edging beneath the cuff of Flint’s sleeve.
Flint lets out a sigh, and finds himself smiling again. “When she thanked me, I also discovered she’d read a book I consider a favorite,” he says, and slowly withdraws his hand. They do have to keep moving. “I was hoping to find a moment to discuss it with her sometime.”
Silver also sighs, with an air of someone pretending to be annoyed. He matches his pace with Flint. “Perfect. You two can spend whole evenings quoting books back and forth to each other, and I’ll just be sitting alone in a corner -- a sad, ignored Pirate King.”
Flint chuckles, more surprised than anything. “I think there’s a copy of it at my old home. You can read it, if there is ever a quiet moment again in our lifetimes to read.” Then he adds, “Of course, I’m not sure we’ll be welcome back there, since Billy just tried to kill us both.”
“He what?”
Flint can’t go home again. Even with Billy coming to their aid today, a gun was still aimed at his head and fired. While Flint can compartmentalize in the name of a bigger picture, he’s not about to sleep soundly under the same roof as him.
Besides, with their coup a tentative success, with the only remaining power dwindled down to Eleanor locked away in the fort, he can’t abandon Nassau to go inland. Tomorrow he’ll likely have to go down and confront her, whatever that may entail, but tonight he needs to rest.
Billy and his men are holding themselves down in the tavern, so the only place big enough for Flint’s crew is the brothel. The girls there seem pleased by this, not wanting the other men around, which seems to Flint a sign of something changing, his own diminished ferocity or Billy’s growing bloodlust. But the brothel has the beds, so he’s not exactly complaining.
He’s in one such bedroom now, trying to process the day. This time the previous night, he’d been fighting in the dark, friendless, despairing. He always found he fights hardest when he didn’t care if he lived through it, so by the end of it when inevitably survived, it feels almost anticlimactic, and he’s out of step for a long time afterwards.
But tonight they are victors, in a way. Tonight they sleep on Nassau’s shores, and his friend is alive again. If he hadn’t been there himself the whole way along, he wouldn’t believe any of it.
He lays in bed on top of the covers, the hour late and the island heat causing him to remove his shirt and shoes. It feels like a luxury, to be so off-guard even for a couple hours. The sheets are soft on his skin. He should be sleeping, but his mind swings like a pendulum, drifting back to the day he’s had and to the cotton rubbing on his bare back.
There’s a single knock on the his door, and he can’t even respond before it’s swinging open anyway. Silver is making an effort to be silent, Flint thinks, but the crutch is even louder than the iron leg.
“At least you knocked this time before just barging in,” Flint says, not moving.
“Oh,” says Silver, pausing in closing the door to look at him. “No. I didn’t knock. That was the crutch hitting the door when I was trying to open it. I can’t believe you of all people don’t use your lock.”
Flint shrugs on the pillow. He knows what Silver would say if he told him that a lock wouldn’t do much good if anyone actually wanted to kill him. “Did you need something?”
Silver approaches the opposite side of the bed. “I told Madi about Max’s attempt to arrest me. The woman was raised like royalty, so she’s too gracious to voice it. But she’s currently taking a very pointed, very spiteful bath in Max’s old quarters.”
Flint doesn’t want to ask, but he asks, “Isn’t that the kind of thing you’d want to be around for?”
“Madi is thrilled I’m alive and back with her, but is still of the opinion that baths are meant to be enjoyed in peace and quiet, two things I am not exactly known for. Again, I think it’s a princess thing.”
Flint smiles. Miranda used to be the same. She’d spend over an hour alone in the bathtub, leaving him and Thomas to their own devices, before emerging, wearing only a thin robe and a soft smile, smelling like an entire garden and ready to join the both of them.
Without another word, Silver places his crutch along the wall, and then lies down in bed beside Flint. It’s almost more surprising than Silver returning from the dead. Flint’s breath hitches, locked tightly in his throat. There’s half a foot between them, and Silver is fully dressed, but Flint can feel that warmth finally, emanating down his entire side. They both stare silently at the ceiling.
“I told her I was coming here,” Silver says suddenly, a little too loud.
“What?”
“Madi.” He sounds inexplicably insistent. “She knows I came here. To see you.”
“Oh,” says Flint. “Okay.”
He can hear Silver shifting beside him, but he can’t look over at him. He could barely stand to look at Silver’s profile in full daylight earlier, but once he had caught a glimpse he hadn’t been able to look away. There’s no telling what might occur if he saw it horizontally, by candlelight.
“I wanted to give this to you earlier,” Silver says. “But there wasn’t an appropriate time, what with the battle and all.”
And then there’s a book, suspended over his face. Flint sees the dirt in Silver’s knuckles before he’s able to look fully at what he’s holding, and when does, he can’t take it from him. He can’t. The cover is dark with water, the pages curled and stained. His eyes feel tight in his head all of a sudden. He can’t take it.
“How --?” He chokes out. He thinks he might know how Silver felt, tangled in rope and crushed beneath the waves.
“When I managed to get back into the Walrus, it was just there,” Silver says. His hand doesn’t waver, holding the book out. “Floating beside the goat. I don’t know how it got there. I don’t even know why I grabbed it. I just did.”
Finally realizing Flint isn’t able to move, Silver places it beside his lax hand on the bed between them. The feel of the binding brushing against his hand jolts him like lightning striking sand, turning him into glass. He feels fragile, feels like Silver can see right through him, if he is looking.
He finally picks it up. It’s heavier than an anchor in his hand. He opens it to the first page. The inscription is still there, streaked from water and faded, but still there. The odds of Silver finding this book are about as high as the odds of Silver surviving at all, but Flint has never been a man bothered by odds.
Flint closes the book and rests it on his chest, over his heart. He closes his eyes, too. He wants to thank Silver, but no words seem sufficient. He’d never experienced this before -- so many things taken from him being given so freely back. All of it, too, given by Silver, without him even realizing he was doing it. He wishes he could give something to Silver in return, but all Flint has to give is himself, and he’d given that to Silver a long time ago, without Silver even realizing Flint was doing it.
So all he says is, “The goat?”
“Stop,” says Silver. “I’m trying not to think about it. Poor old girl.”
Flint can’t help it -- he laughs. It’s short and sudden, but it came right from his belly, shaking the bed. He feels Silver looking at him hard, but he keeps his eyes closed. He still can’t look. But says, still smiling and without thinking, “If you’re staying awhile, you might as well get comfortable.”
There’s no movement right away, but then Silver shifts. He cracks open an eye to watch Silver sit up and remove his coat. He tosses it on the floor and starts to turn to Flint, and he quickly shuts his eye again. It’s not cowardly, if it’s all he can do to survive.
But it proves to be pointless anyway, because Silver is lying down again, and this time he’s right beside him. He must be on his side now, because there’s warm breath on his cheek, and an arm resting on his stomach, curling right beneath Meditations.
Flint tenses, and so does Silver, like he’s afraid he’s misread the situation. But this is how they’ve always operated, even when they were acting like enemies. If Flint can’t act, then Silver steps in to do so, and vice versa. This knowledge is what lets Flint relax, to forget his terror and exhaustion and lean into it. It becomes easier to do so once he touches Silver’s arm, holding him in place, once he sighs and tilts his head towards Silver just so.
He can feel Silver relaxing along his whole body, his head coming down to rest on Flint’s shoulder. His long hair tickles Flint’s neck, and it smells like the sun and like sea salt.
“I’m glad I’m alive,” Silver says into his ear, the words falling down Flint’s spine.
Flint snorts softly. “Of course you are. I’ve never met anyone with as strong a survival instinct as you.”
“No,” Silver says. Then he presses a kiss into Flint’s temple, dry and lingering, and says, “I mean, I never want to die, sure. But I’ve never been particularly happy to be alive either. Until now.”
An hour ago, Flint couldn’t have been able to agree. Five minutes ago, he couldn’t. Ten seconds ago, before Silver had kissed him, he couldn’t have said the same. Now, he agrees.
“Will you stay,” says Flint, “until I fall asleep?”
Silver hums in agreement. “But only if you tell me another one of your stories,” he says. “They’ve proven to be remarkably useful.” His fingers trail along Flint’s bare waist absently, the smallest gesture making all the hairs on Flint’s body stand on end.
“What do you want to hear?”
Silver is silent a moment, thinking. Then he says, smile clear in his voice, “Tell me the story of how you beat the shit out of Billy Bones. It’s my very favorite.”
Flint grins despite himself. “That just fucking happened,” he points out. “And I don’t see how it’s particularly useful.”
Silver shrugs. “It’s still my favorite,” he says, “and I’m discovering just how useful being happy can be.”
Being happy has only ever caused agony for Flint, which is why he still feels terrified, curled in a warm bed with John Silver around him. He doesn’t feel fear when facing guns, or blades, or cannons. But he feels it here. “How’s that?”
Silver’s arm tightens around his waist. “Because I also forgot to lock the door,” he says, voice as low and luring as the inside of a seashell. “Let any man just try to kill me in this moment. I’d show them exactly what Long John Silver is capable of.”