[deliverthem]

ABSENT THEIR PRIDE, THEIR GREED, THEIR SUSPICION, IN THE LIGHT OF PURE REASON? WHO SAYS NO TO THIS? THEY'LL BE RICH MEN IN A SAFE PLACE RATHER THAN DEAD THIEVES ON A LONG ROPE.

ripley's CAPTAIN JAMES FLINT of ‘BLACK SAILS.’ low activity, mutuals only. not spoiler free.

[hsm2]

Toby Stephens as James Flint | Black Sails VII.

[drunivers]

[ reassurance ] in a tense moment, sender takes one of receiver's hands to hold. /for miranda.

in silence, for once, james takes her hand in his. he’s warm, at least — sometimes, despite the constant heat of nassau, miranda feels chill down to her bones. london had been far colder, but she’d always been able to bear that without complaint. another reminder that she no longer belongs in england.

but she is no pirate murderess or farmer’s wife; she doesn’t delude herself into thinking of the small cottage in the island interior as anything more than a practical measure. miranda had always found home to be a state of mind, one found almost entirely in other people, and it should be clear to anyone looking in that whatever there is here is a pitiful imitation of human intimacy.

their coupling in the morning had been unsatisfying — that was what it was, for there was no reason to call it making love in a house with so little love. whatever love she and james shared had curdled and died in a cell in bedlam. it shouldn’t take fucking to make a home, but they do it anyway. miranda had at first to punish herself, to punish them both. now, she does it out of habit, like everything else in this life. like planting wheat in the autumn or making tea after church.

she turns over his hand in hers, studying it as she had once before, in a carriage in london. the callouses of a navy man; the scars of a pirate. if thomas could see this misshapen pair now, his wife and his lover, would he recognize either?

“i received a letter,” her voice sounds very distant, suddenly. she’d considered whether or not to tell james of this and decided not to. what was the point? it wouldn’t fix anything. it wouldn’t unspool ruinous time and bring them all back to a happy home in england. and yet, she continues.

“a girl who had been in our employ in london. she wanted me to know that she’d found new work, and that she was doing well.” she feels irrationally as though she’s casting some kind of spell. creating a prophecy, perhaps. after all, she knows how this will end and she cannot stop herself. does not want to stop herself.

“she also mentioned that my father in law would be visiting the carolinas in the upcoming weeks.” miranda lifts her eyes from her clean and bloodless hands to meet his gaze. she recognizes the charmingly honest lieutenant under the mask of captain flint. for how much longer? “she mentioned the name of the merchant ship he’ll be traveling on.”

[deliverthem]

her hands are warm and smoother than yours, unblemished by years spent scalding under a southern sun. they are not, however, smooth. miranda's hands have been roughened by something else. the garden she tends, perhaps. or some secret she has yet to divulge. in london, her hands had no course-ness at all.

a letter. you grunt in acknowledgement.

your fingers twitch within her grasp and your expression shutters. this whole time you've avoided meeting her eye but now you look away entirely. you memorize the wood grain of the dining table. it displeases you that miranda can be reached by anyone from their old lives. the point of the new name was to shield her from the fallout within london. but you have had this argument before. you should know better than to attempt to impose limits upon her communications. you are no more her husband than her warden. still, a scolding is brewing, bitter on your tongue.

my father in law, she says. swift, decisive, precise; as all blows should be. your blood runs cold. the room melts away in a burning heat, and yet, you stay frozen. father in law. a visit to the new world. that he should continue on, after what he did. not for the first time, you damn a world that continues on turning. you feel that the force of your rage should have sent its rotation to a stuttering stop.

you turn to miranda, meet her gaze, and in the same instant, your hand leaves hers. it rests upon your thigh, at the ready. you cannot feel its weight against your skin. there are nameless depths within her brown eyes. the only thing to be found there that is familiar to you is a fierce anger. that anger is all that tethers you to this reality. it is what binds who you have become to what has become of miranda. your shared history, your shared grief, your catastrophic rage.

"the name of the charter?"

[deliverthem]

your eyes are only half-open; your head propped at an awkward angle against a stray barrel. the sun beats down upon you, unrepentant. every inch of you feels damp with sweat. you watch the mast, the sails, straining your eyes to catch movement you know isn't coming. distantly, you miss the sound of the wind in the sails, the whip of taut fabric in the breeze. you miss anything that could drown out the sound of your crew, their flowing pulses, the buzz of the living.

the allure of the living has never been stronger. deep seated anger co-mingles with hunger. you can't tell the feelings apart anymore. you're ravenous. your men are starving to death, this is a fact, but you envy it. for them, death is a promise. you may very well starve for the rest of eternity. the men will turn to corpse, to bones, to sand. time will pass on and on, until the very ship warps in on itself and collapses, and your prone body is cast to the bottom of the sea.

you stand with a sudden urgency. the mind has a tendency to get lost in possibility when there is nothing else to stimulate it. the walk across the deck is thick and cottony. you may as well be a spectre, a vision, with the way your men's stunted muttering comes to a halt when you veer too close. dreamily, you descend below the deck. the shade offers no relief. the heat is just as sweltering in the dark as it is in the direct sunlight. you prowl forward; your body moving with animal instinct.

it’s only when you see @ownmyth that you realize you sought him out. silver is hunched over a wooden counter, his back to you. you didn't really wish to see him. you're exhausted by the scheming, the constant wheedling. you're tired of being prodded, examined, appealed to. you had thought, after charlestown, you had been gifted a confidant as a quartermaster. then came the lies, the posturing, silver's incessant need to make an enemy of you, so that he has something to rally against. you had thought a lot of things, after charlestown.

you would leave, if it weren't for the smell. the room reeks of blood. your first thought is that the smell is originating from his leg, from the piss poor treatment he offers his open wound. when you catch a glimpse of what silver is actually doing, you feel undone. over a bowl, he's stripping an eel in long, measured strokes, bloody rivers running down his fist. every muscle in you tenses, freezes to stone. your stomach pangs with desperate hunger. saliva pools atop your tongue. isn't this fitting? blood is no longer your personal affliction. all of your men will have no choice but to partake. the horrible captain flint and his parasitic crew. "what is this?" you croak. your voice doesn't sound like your own. your voice hardly sounds like a human's at all.

[ownmyth]

in a small act of mercy, at least, he turns his back to avoid looking at you. (you do not think of his large hand spread over your ribcage. you do not dare think of what anathema could make a fearsome man capable of so gentle a touch. if he’d tightened his grip, or lingered a moment more, everything that you are could have been shattered into glass.)

now that flint’s risen — you’d tried not to wince in sympathy listening to his heavy breaths, the tactile creaking of his knees — his bed seems bigger. your hands are on either side of you, gripping the edge of the thin mattress in an attempt to keep yourself steady. you feel the drag of the metal leg against the wood reverberate up to the stunted flesh.

why had he allowed you to stay? likely that he just didn’t want to waste the energy arguing. but if he’d said no — if there’d been a hint of pity you could read on those marbled features, you’d have dragged yourself to the farthest end of the ship, cost to your body be damned.

with his piercing gaze turned away from you, you feel as though you can remember to breathe. you lift your gaze from the floor, watching him. a fixed point. does he feel your eyes on his back? is he used to it by now?

“thank you,” you say, low, the words sandpaper grating from your mouth. shifting on the mattress, still seated upright. closing your eyes with someone else in the room is foolish, even more so with him. but sitting on this bed reminds you how exhausted you are. even your tongue feels leaden in your mouth. you keep your eyes on his back as you unbuckle the iron leg and let it drop with a clatter.

he’s not doing it for you, out of any pretense of care. he’s doing it to use you against the crew. him caring for you is no different than keeping a blade clean and sharp for the day he needs it in hand.

it’s a relief to remember this. it’s better this way, when you remember he needs you. how fucking unfortunate it’s become, that you need him too. you know you should be angry, that although your stumble seemingly doused the flames of his ire, your clumsiness only fuels yours. maybe, finally, you’ve become too worn out for anger: a misshapen, sun-rotted husk.

you close your eyes. flint must have seen you unconscious before, at some point after howell’s amputation: an opium fueled aftermath you pretend you don’t remember. the insides of your dry eyelids are red as a morning sky. you want to ask if he plans to stay while you rest (where else would he go?) but you don’t know which answer would unsettle you further — flint breaking routine to stalk amongst his emaciated crew on the foredeck simply because you asked, or him standing sentry like a loyal hound while you will yourself to sleep.

[deliverthem]

there's a knock of metal against wood that you take great care not to turn towards. instead, you return to your desk, stand where silver had been before his leg gave out. at the angle he'd been at, even you struggle to orient to reading your maps. you wonder how long he had been listening to you, if at all, and how much of the day had been spent trying to stay upright. he still feels the need to play soldier, to stand at attention at your desk. you shake your head, slipping into a frown with ease. he crew thinks him incapable of wrongdoing. you have let him get away with far more insolence than any other member of your crew. why does he still feel the need to put on an act?

distrust is an awful foundation to a partnership. the water was poisoned by gates' distrust of you. it's what makes your men act against themselves by turning against you. harboring resentment against your quartermaster is choosing to play a game with a losing hand. still, you know there is more to the story he concocted for you. misplaced trust is what got miranda killed. it's what allowed your life in london to be torn apart. you know silver is playing you and you cannot afford to forget that.

this time, you let yourself look in his direction, deathly curious to find out what face he's put on. as always, he is doing the exact opposite of what you anticipate. you'd expected him to fully lay down, but you suppose you aren't surprised by his need to maintain composure, even after being bullied into your sheets. you'd expected to turn and meet his eye. it seems that whenever you look to him, he's already looking at you. this time though, silver's eyes are closed. gratitude looks painful spread across his skin. it looks like exhaustion and starvation and sunstroke. you momentarily find it impossible to tear your eyes away from the sight of silver in your bed, his hair swept out of his face, his skin pale. you can't remember if you've ever been thanked for barking out orders. you can't remember the last time you'd told ordered someone to do something because you cared for their health.

anything you say would only be another excuse for silver to keep himself awake, so you make a noncommittal noise and continue about your day. you hobble to the other side of the desk and breathe out hard when you fall into your chair. getting silver to your bed took more energy than you should've expelled. you use two fingers to prop your forehead up, your arm hiding him from your periphery as you slump over your desk. everything in you wants to keep looking back towards silver. everything in you could use a drink.

your hand hovers over a divider, intent on going back to taking measurements, but your focus is shot. without silvers constant interjections and endless questioning, you could put your mind to plotting the course for when the wind does return. there are so many plans to make, problems to anticipate. yet, you find yourself drifting back to the dry rasp of silver's breath so close to your ear. the phantom of his weight stays pressed against you. you can still hear him breathing across the room. the warmth of your cabin in the afternoon is like a blanket. time feels slowed, as thick as honey. there is no sound in the room except your slow inhales, silver's exhales. your eyes slip closed.

[ownmyth]

@deliverthem: [ 14. ] sender whispers, "you’ll ruin me," before biting receiver’s lip hard enough to draw blood.

the two of you are tucked away from the brilliant streetlights of an american city that had been in its infancy, if that, when you were born. it's still the nineties -- you think. the new millennium.

centuries ago, you'd have feared this closeness. feared it with him. not so ago, you'd buried him in an unmarked grave to cheat death. your death, madi's death. christ. you'd succeeded at one of those goals, but not in the way you'd intended.

he mouths at your bottom lip, nipping hard enough to break skin, spill the stolen blood that floods your veins between your mouths. YOU'LL RUIN ME, he says. haven't you already? haven't you both ruined each other beyond repair, lifetimes ago? like paint on a ruined canvas, or rot on a wound. there's no separating you now.

this time, you're the one sealing flint's gesture of devotion with an open mouthed kiss, taking his jaw in your hand to keep him tilted toward you. you hook the first two fingers of your other hand into the waist of his trousers, pulling him forward. he tastes of blood. he tastes familiar.

when you pull away from him, you smile, mean and in dripping red. you pat his cheek once -- a strike in slow motion. "i missed you too, baby."

[deliverthem]

silver pulls you closer, hips first, and you go willingly, pressing into his messy kiss like you’re starved for it. violent whims lick at you: you want to bite and nip across the length of his skin, worm your tongue in before the wounds can heal, take the pieces of him he won’t freely give. instead, you settle for weighing silver’s blood on your tongue, savoring, remembering.

there are times you can almost imagine you’ve forgotten him, finally let him slide into the recesses of your memory like blood sliding against your palate. silver has a preternatural sense for when he’s slipped from your mind— always showing up just when you’ve stopped looking for him in every room. you hate him a little more every day, bitterness always growing right alongside that endless affection you harbor for him. comorbidities.

"you’ve looked better," you lie as he breaks the kiss, already getting your hand around the leather swathed scruff of his neck. in the black of night, his eyes are unnaturally shining and his mouth is blood drenched. your monstrous creation, still every bit the conniving swashbuckler of nassau legend. he smells of leather and cologne. you can’t tell if it’s the expensive sort or the shitty bottles bought in gas stations. he wears it well all the same.

there’s a predictability to this, to the two of you, easily anticipated like a well-crafted song. you’ll crash together, meld to one another’s side, and slowly suffocate under the weight of it all. then, you’ll pull apart for air, for months or years or decades, until one of you craves it all over again. history repeating. he is forever burying you, you forever damning him.

"what do you want now?" your voice exasperated, accusatory, even as you dig your fingernails lovingly into his nape. what is it this time? does he need new falsified passports? gotten bored with the latest scheme? run out of money? you wish you could really make out the color of his eyes, the first shock of sky after you’d crawled out of your own grave. "my coffers are already empty."

[ownmyth]

the way he snarls, invades your space, should make you cower. or at least find a semi-graceful way to slip back from that poisonous stare. these are the instincts that have kept you alive. instead, satisfaction rolls through you, accompanied by a strange feeling not unlike the way you felt watching flint bludgeon a man to death with his bare hands. maybe it is a natural response at this tenuous thread of power you seem to hold over him at the moment, your knowledge of his true nature. or maybe it is merely the dangerous allure of curiosity. either way, you know too well the risks of finding yourself too comfortable, too confident in your upper hand.

flint weighs and skins you with his stare, and your nervous smile is a reflex action, one that spills fresh blood in your mouth. you lick your lips again. you've seen him covered in blood so many times; very little justifies your confidence that a mere split lip will tempt him in the way you fear (hope?). then again, perhaps it is merely a matter of control. when there is blood in the water, sharks are not discerning. you are beginning to realize that flint is a man constantly at war with his savage hungers. but what kind of man has that sort of willpower? what kind of man has that inhuman a drive?

you've never seen the captain at a loss for words before. this is the closest he's come to it, right now, right here, and you watch the rage kindle in his eyes as banking coals. for some reason it makes you want to draw near, a child huddling by a candle flame, and you think of the tales you've heard on the ship of sirens and their beguiling songs, meant to enchant the minds of sailors until they run themselves aground. you'd chosen flint's side over the crew's more than once now, and each time because the rational thinking showed that he was the agent who would most likely lead you to an outcome where you got your share of the gold, enough to walk away. but now you wonder if this -- something, these unnatural urges that seem to haunt your mind when he is near, hasn't affected your rational thinking as well.

some lesser cousin of fear races lightning down your spine, and you've always been susceptible to the thrill of an opportunity. "i wouldn't say scrutiny, captain," you keep your tone light, soothing, genial. the tone you'd used just earlier today in an attempt to dissuade a beating. "it's merely a part of my job, making sure the men are happy..." and now you drop your gaze to his mouth, deliberate. "and well-fed."

it isn't that you think he'll entertain your offer. certainly not today. but he needs to get used to the idea that he can depend upon you, to keep his secret, to have his counsel. if all it takes in the bargain is some of your blood at some point in the future, that's hardly a bad deal, all things considered. you'll need to prove yourself -- you're more than the ship's cook, more than just another one of the men, his pawns -- once he takes his position back from dufresne. (unbidden, you wonder: will he use his wit and rhetoric to appeal to the crew, to reclaim his place, or will he smash dufresne's head in like he'd done the other man, singleton? you picture flint in an animal frenzy, tearing into the arrogant mutineer's throat with those needle teeth you'd seen so briefly, and that -- that feeling bubbles up in you again.)

[deliverthem]

he smiles and the urge to strike him increases tenfold. you taste it in the air, the familiar tang. saliva builds in your mouth. if silver would just stop smiling, stretching out the thin skin, he would stop bleeding. he won’t, though, and you suspect he can’t. silver chases after information in the way desperate men chase after a drink—- senselessly, at great personal expense —- and you’ve seen that smile gain him access to libraries worth of private information. as he tries to show you the rounded, blunt ends of his teeth, you find it fitting that his own blood is staining that grin pink. still, he smells of salt and meat and iron. senselessly, you hunger.

it’s a comfort to know you could have your way with him. crash his skull against the deck and lap at what leaks out, rip your teeth into the skin of his neck and drain him dry. it would take so little effort from you. he wouldn’t have the time to react. the crew would be helpless to stop the rampage, the carnage. you could take them all on, you’d likely win.

instead, your mouth curls at his insinuation, throat working to swallow. he cannot be so stupid as to think that hunger is a trite matter to you. no. this is more brazen puppeteering from silver. he’s pulling at loose threads to see what within you unravels. he means to make your nature a bargaining point, a weakness upon which to be negotiated. he has conjured you into an animal, a creature of base instinct and violent whim. an animal is easy to herd, easier to understand. rational thinking, reason— that is a much more difficult thing to anticipate.

if you are to be something less than human, then so be it. but you are no animal. you will never again be reduced to merely a foot soldier and you certainly will not be maneuvered by the likes of silver. there is no longer anyone that can mold you into anything else than the shape you are making yourself. you take a step backwards and fold your arms over your chest. you needn’t speak, your face conveys your displeasure without your tongue getting involved.

silver looks at you like there’s a prize to be taken, if he can only crack through your defenses. all across the globe men seek to move against you: on nassau, on english shores, on this very deck. silver is distracting you from what matters. a beach full of spanish soldiers, gleaming coins laying on pale sands. good practice says the majority of the soldiers will stay back to protect the gold. a small company seeking reinforcements will already be underway. these are the important things, this is where your head should be. how your men — fickle bastards that they are— can think of anything else but the urca gold is beyond you. hal gates had been so brilliant at illuminating the baffling thought processes of your riotous crew.

there are many more important things at stake than your own personal hunger. the tide of need recedes and you with it, head rearing back. your authority has been stripped from you. the whole of your chain of command has fallen apart. time and energy will have to be spent rounding up the mutinous lot of pirates who’ve conspired against you. you’ll have to commandeer your own bloody ship and your only aid will be silver, a man so slippery you can’t fathom putting any weight on him. he’s got too much against you already. this ego of his is a problem you haven’t figured out how to handle: stoke the flame or smother it? if it burns too bright, fire will catch. he’ll get the idea in his head that he means anything, anything beyond his current use. still, silver has an impressive knack for worming his way into situations he has no good reason to be in. he’s done this from under your nose. twice. if he can use that talent to help reinstate your captaincy, he may very well be worth the storm of a headache brewing behind your eyes. you appraise him slowly, carefully, with more levity than just seconds ago.

"just what is it that you think you’re doing, right now?"

[ownmyth]

like everything else he sets his mind to, flint sucks cock with the dedication of a soldier going to war. you watch the arch of his brow, the disdain he manages to convey even with his mouth full has you feeling a kind of ache within you, that has nothing to do with that particular part of your anatomy.

the captain is on his knees before you, and still you know that the constant push-and-pull between you, that ever-present power struggle, isn't over. you know there's an endgame here, for flint at least, (there must be, there always is) but your focus keeps slipping, back to the spit on his lips and those cold green eyes, the intensity that he watches you with, as though you're a prize ship he's calculating how best to take. that stare does as much for your arousal as the wet heat of his caesar's mouth, and here you are panting, sweat-sticky curls falling loose into your face, trying not to squirm in your seat like a virgin girl.

he has some freckles, ones you would have never noticed without his hair shorn, without him in this vulnerable a position. you resist the urge to touch them, map the cartography of captain flint with your greedy hands. he hums against you, as though he's content this way, and once again you wonder what possible plan, what inevitable endgame, could be worth this for him?

flint does something with his hand, then, and you have to shut your eyes and brace your hand where it grips the armrest, tight, tighter, in an attempt to prevent your hips from snapping forward -- you don't want to choke him. "jesus!"

you're going to come, he tells you, in that same flat, no-nonsense voice he uses to issue orders, and by the time you remember to resent the notion that he knows you so well, you've already come shuddering at his command.

your spend coats his face, his neck, his fucking beard. it's ridiculous -- the picture he makes, the picture you must make, the whole damn situation. but oddly enough, you don't feel like laughing. your chest is heaving, still, and you can't stop staring at him. "where," your voice sounds absolutely ruined, and you take your hand from the back of his head, quickly, burnt. "where the fuck did you learn how to do that?"

you don't even ask because it's something you want an answer, not really. you ask because it's something to say, because you're looking for anything that might stop him looking at you like that. anything to break this moment of uncharacteristic sincerity and bring your world somehow back into something close to alignment.

[deliverthem]

silver’s voice is pitchy, rocky, the gasp of it crawling down your spine. beneath your hands, the man comes apart, his lips fall open and his body shudders and he’s making a mess. on you, at your behest. you keen, a heaving, desperate thing, at silver’s efficiency in following your orders, even now, even while you’re pious on your knees. through heavy eyes you watch him, fascinated, reverent as he battles his way through the haze of pleasure. in the extreme light of your cabin, silver is vivid and contrasting, the black of his hair swirling against the pink of his forehead, otherworldly and tantalizingly human. a caravaggio, in the flesh.

he can’t stay silent long enough to catch his breath, nor to let you catch yours. you tongue over your bottom lip, slow, assessing. hunching over him is doing a number on your spine. you extricate the hand that had been wrapped around him and let the other slide from his hip to his knee. thoughtlessly, your thumb glides over the hair at your chin to your lips, slipping into your mouth to taste at his spend.

you unfold from him, the movement straining the fabric at your hips, pressure on your cock making you want to jerk forward. it’s a moment of cyclical need, push-pull, ouroboros. you bite it off at the head, press the hand still shining with spit into your groin. there: easy, maddening pressure, like staunching a wound. your jaw sings from good use, your head swims like you’ve had to much to drink.

"in her majesty’s service." you say, because it is truth enough, because you think it will punch a laugh out of silver and you find you like the way his breath hitches when you knock him off his rhythm. silver is looking at you like you’re insurmountable, a myth, a tale to unravel, instead of the obstinate and aging iconoclast you are. here, you want him to know you as james flint, the man, not legend. it’s a vapid, fleeting thought- to want to be unmade and glimpsed at. you work through it, rationalize it away. there is so little of you silver hasn’t already experienced first hand.

you squeeze around his knee, your own creaking as you shift upwards. you cast long shadows across his torso as you move, drawn to the vibrant red of his lips like sailors of legend are drawn to siren songs.

"thought that’d finally shut you up." it’s a wonder you can see any of him, with how lidded your eyes are, but you’re sidling closer and closer, a hairsbreadth from kissing silver. you want to press against him, slip beneath his tongue, show him how you taste of his spend. find out if he tastes foreign or if he just tastes like you, intrinsically, as though the two of you were once cut from the same cloth. the seat of chair and your crotch are at just the right angle and again, there’s that consuming pressure that makes you want to rut your hips like a wild animal. instead, you blink, eyebrows twitching, following the instinct to seek out that striking, haunting blue. you finger at one of his curls without looking at it, gently working the coil around your index. "though, i suppose, a man has to be wrong every once in awhile."

[ownmyth]

@deliverthem: YOU’RE BLEEDING.

"am i?" when you speak, you feel the split in your lip. reflexively, you bring a hand to your mouth to catch the blood that follows, a slow drip caught in the space between the thumb and index finger of your right hand. you lick blood off your upper lip, tonguing the broken skin, and then you notice flint's stare. he’s good at hiding his tells. not that good.

or maybe it’s just the getting shot, nearly drowned, and deposed from captaincy that has weakened his resolve. you eye him curiously, thinking of the monstrous visage that had crouched over the body of mr. gates. you haven’t seen that face again since that day, but you think of it, often. how closely it must linger behind the human mask.

a destructive, vicious part of you wants to see just how close. to tempt the beast out.

you smile at him. it’s charming and it splits your lip as intended. your own blood is warm and sour on your tongue. what would it taste like to someone like him?

“certain members of the crew took issue with this morning’s address.” you tilt your head, trying not to act like you’re cataloguing his reactions. “they wanted to make sure i was aware of that.”

surely flint wouldn’t show his true face now, here — he couldn’t afford to, not with his captaincy still in doubt until he can depose dufresne. and yet, you watch him watching you. you refrain from wiping your bloodied hand on your trousers, let the blood drip instead, and bead on your upper lip. the innocent concern tints your voice as you ask, “are you…” hungry “all right, captain?”

[deliverthem]

your expression is flat, porcelain smooth. the fight to remain detached is significant, muscles rolling like the sea beneath your skin. blood flows from his lip, spreading across his hand, rivers of iron atop tanned, warm skin. under the sun, silver's blood is obscenely red, as vibrant and inviting as fruit in a still life. you clench your fists.

it’s as though charydbis herself opened a pit in your stomach, a great whirlpool of need. hunger churns cataclysmically through your guts. historically, the urge is a slow, dull drip, not unlike the consistent splash of water below deck when it rains. some days, it’s a minor torture, no worse than any of your other demons. some days, keeping a handle on your base instinct requires an iron grip, requiring every ounce of your military precision, and still it can feel like grasping at sand. you grip that crawling, desperate hunger in the palm of your hand, and viscious anger spills out. drips through, slides down the valley between thumb and forefinger to the meat of a palm.

you're following the path silver's blood is making, now, a tantalizing crimson river. you have years of experience with your crew’s poorly treated flesh wounds and the thick smell of hemorrhaging deckhands. a small split in a lip should have no affect on you.

perhaps, it is because you are so bloody angry. a deposal, a mutiny—- a mutiny against you? you, who leads the lot of them, bucking and screaming, to a future beyond a poor man’s death? you, who has reached the upper ranks so many times that climbing the rungs feel like perfunctory, superficial act? you, who will rip their power from them, again, and wield them as weapon. you are the death blow to the men who made you, you are the scourge of the society that birthed you. you are their captain because no one else is willing to stoop so low.

or, perhaps, you are riotously hungry because silver knows of you, the lurking monster beyond the man. he knows to face you like a stalked deer knows to tense a seconds before the bullet is shot, knows like prey instinctively knows to keep watch on a predator. perhaps, it is because of what he saw that day. hal crushed against you, broken, silver above you, unctuous, both men unerringly human. and you, so far from it.

there’s legends of what civilized society does to men like you. you’ve heard story of pyres built sky high, a crucifix as an anchor around one’s neck, flames consuming the flesh that consumes flesh. you know what they did to thomas, sentenced him to death after death after death below the sea. the look silver gives you feels inflammatory, incriminating. there isn’t judgement on his features, but a mirror does not judge, only reflects. he can’t possibly fully understand the full extent of what your crime is, yet, he doles out sentencing, probs at your weaknesses. his own blood spills onto his tongue as he goads you. you’d quite like to hit him.

day after day, silver slithers his way further into the crew. he endures his beatings with patience, tends to lick his wounds without the company of the other men. he’s quite good at winning people over when they aren’t looking, a guerrilla attack on their better senses. you are not so easily swayed. after all, you are barely a man. and here he is, laving his tongue over his split lip.

"pardon?" you grit, but it comes out like try me. with the crew milling about, your hostility is clipped, blunted. the men will not take kindly to your angry voice carrying across the deck. not now. not yet.

you start a sentence, abort it with a huff. you could easily spot out the pulsing of every heart aboard this vessel, the same way you can choose to let in the sound of the walrus cutting through the waves. before you, silver’s heart thumps and wails, life thundering through his veins. you know the sound of the living in a distant way, a hymn from childhood, but you remember the way being truly alive felt with startling clarity. your head cocks to the side, animalistic, and then you’re shifting closer, taking great care to look into the man’s eyes. "i can assure you, mr. silver, it is not my wellbeing that should currently be under scrutiny."

[patrick-stewart]

Toby Stephens as James Flint BLACK SAILS | 2.06

[drunivers]

he smiles, thin and mean like a knife's edge, and you're becoming distinctly aware that you don't need to fake your arousal -- the slight widening of your eyes, the instinctive way your tongue wets your bottom lip. it's the smile of a man who has done awful things. it may be performance, as you're starting to realize, but such distinctions feel distant in the weight of that heavy gaze, solely on you.

kneeling at his feet, and yet you feel like you're the one holding the puppeteer's strings. maybe because he allows it -- you wonder how often he's let anyone get this close to him without a blade in his hand. (you think of the line of his body pressing you against rock back at the wrecks, his knife at your throat. it's not that you have a death wish, exactly -- more that flint and the reaper seem inseparable to some degree, and it's impossible to court one without alerting the other of your attentions.)

unlike the other captains, you've never heard of flint requesting the services of any of the whores in nassau. you've heard, of course, of the mythic mrs. barlow, but you have a hard time picturing her. a hard time picturing anyone servicing flint in this way. you want to ask him outright if it's been a while, if only to see what he'll say, but you understand the precariousness of this moment. flint misreading your approach as a ruse to get information could be dangerous -- for the intimacy of the moment, and most certainly for you.

you didn't think yourself attracted to flint, but it's undeniable that something in your veins wakes up at the heat of his gaze -- the entire world of his attention focused on you. how rarely can anyone make that claim, for the man who is always ten steps ahead?

"i'm glad to hear we're on the same page," you say, and lean forward to slide your right hand from his knee up his thigh. you don't take your eyes from him for a moment, watching him the way one might watch a dangerous animal. it's hardly your first time doing a favor like this for another man, although it might be the first time you find your own body interested in its outcome. "i understand you're a busy man, so i'll do my best to make this quick."

you shift closer on your knees between his spread legs, close enough that the edge of the desk might obscure you from anyone unfortunate enough to enter the captain's cabin at this time. you smile insouciantly and say, partially because you enjoy the novelty of issuing what might as well be an order, and partially because you're still half-convinced that reaching for what you want directly might get your hand cut off at the wrist, "would you take your cock out for me, then, captain?"

[deliverthem]

silver’s bottom lip gleams, his eyes blown out black, and want sinks into you like a dagger. your stomach caves in and you feel lightheaded, a foundational piece knocked loose within your chest. he’s still fucking talking, and you’ve heard him spitting and cursing before, coating his tongue in the vernacular of the crew, but it’s never had any real intention behind it. not till now.

his voice is more cemented in your head than half the crew. in the numerous, but fleeting, fantasies you’ve had about silencing john silver, this hadn’t come up. not for lack of imagination, more an excess of practicality. pleasure is never at the forefront of your mind. it is often buried under a mountain of more imperative obligations, more profound considerations. it suits you best to rest all of your men as pawns and nothing more. they can remain disloyal and aggravating means to a crucial end, you can remain aloof and inhuman. of course it is silver, sly silver, conniving silver, who easily awakens a roaring beast of arousal within you.

you wrap your hand around silver’s tanned wrist, grip stern and unforgiving. it’s a death rattle, your ego gasping for the final word. you’re smiling a shark smile still, voice dipping with a mean, mirthful humor. "this," you say, gaze trailing from the wicked fullness of silver’s bottom lip, down to the hollow of his collarbone, to the steadily growing arousal at your groin. "this earns you no favors."

as suddenly as you grasped him, you let go. a few deliberate motions and the knot to your trousers comes undone, exposed without ceremony. beyond your wooden, heavy encounters with miranda, you haven’t been so revealed to someone in nearly a decade. a life spent among seamen has made you impervious to nudity, experience in these matters has previously made you unabashed in your lust. you feel yourself flush anyways. silver’s stare feels leaden. scalding. you feel frozen in this moment, the two of you stagnant, permanent features, carved into reality like statues, embossed into the flimsy fabric of time.

"go on, then, mr. silver." your voice sounds odd. "i’ve yet to see you do any real work around here."

[ownmyth]

AND WHEN THE URCA'S OURS, WHAT'S TO STOP ME FROM KILLING YOU ANYWAY?

WELL, THAT'S A FEW WEEKS FROM NOW, ISN'T IT? WE MIGHT BE FRIENDS BY THEN.

[ownmyth]

@deliverthem: I LOVE YOU. IS THAT WHAT YOU WANTED TO HEAR?

"fuck you!" unasked for, unwanted, the oath bursts from your mouth anyway, like spitting blood. "fuck you, why would you --?"

flint looks haggard, near-skeletal among the mist and the trees of the island, but you know better than to be fooled. you see the blood on his sword, on his clothes. there are no others left alive who'd underestimated his competence. or his cruelty.

you knew that this moment would come. the inevitable parting of ways, where flint's hunger for his war would drive you and madi into that endless storm. where you'd outlive your usefulness as his tool, his right hand, and you'd end up in the ground for it. like gates, like mrs. barlow, like thomas hamilton. there had been a time when -- no. there had been a time you'd believed that you and he were truly partners. that there was nothing that could come between you, not the english in nassau, nor billy's pitiful attempts at manipulation. that since you'd revealed your scheme to him in that longboat, flint had finally come to see you as an equal. to listen to you, even.

surely that's what mr. gates had believed too, while flint's hands were closing around his neck.

you'd stared into those dark depths, and he'd looked back, and he'd seen something -- how empty you are, how base, your wretched, rotten heart. something. and now, cunning and desperate, he thinks to fashion this insight into a weapon to use, proclaiming love to prepare you for the killing blow? you aren't that naive.

"i see you," you say, too loudly. your words ring in the stale air of the forest. "i see what you're trying to do." the hand holding your sword has begun to shake uncontrollably, and your eyes burn. "if you think i'll stand here and listen to more of your lies, your false fucking promises ---" anger, hate, something else blocks your throat like a rising tide. you swallow harshly. "there really is no lie you won't tell to achieve your ends."

[deliverthem]

you scrape it up from your stomach lining, dread sour in your mouth, and you let your tongue mold the words into something smoother, digestible. i love you. it's a phrase you've only ever used sparingly, instead opting to hide it away in actions like one might tuck a precious letter between the pages of a book. before, you have acted because you could not will yourself say it. today, you say it because you cannot bear to act. the sword in your hand aches to wilt downwards, the blade longing to kiss the ground in surrender, and it is only through muscle memory that you keep it upright.

"a lie?" you shake your head, slack with confusion, mounting bitterness. you feel cracked open, unmade. emotion unfold like a play upon your face. all of which you are is open for silver to prod at, to pilfer through. fuck you is his response. the depth of his anger is rattling, though for the life of you, you don’t know why. it’s not like you didn’t know that it simmered beneath his skin. you suppose you hadn’t thought the full force of it would be turned upon you. "to what end? what reason do i have for that?" you need not finish the thought, explain yourself further. he does not have to feel it the same. you care only that this day does not end without silver knowing love for him festers like rot in you.

your rage builds, desperation too. he knows better than to think there is anything other than ruin down this path. his fear fogs his mind, makes him think there can be any advantage in surrender. he knows what comes of playing by their rules: where that put thomas, where that put miranda. the end is finally within reach and he threatens to blunder it all.

"we are on the precipice of having all of which we have worked towards." again, you shake your head ‘no,’ watch him with eyes lidded by misery. for so long, you have felt death nipping at your heels, heard it howling at your doorstep. the only fear that now accompanies the thought of death's blow is this: the monarchy continuing on, breathing even when you are not, the boot of civilization pressing further into man's neck. the end cannot only be yours, it must be england’s too. "giants slain. thousands freed... we will sail back to nassau and find liberation. we will carry madi— and that chest— in tow."

christ, you don’t know how you got back here. having to explain this all. it burns to have to paint this picture again, to point him towards an answer he should be able to find in his sleep. still, you will be the steady, stable ground beneath his feet until he can find his sea legs again. you will salvage this, gather up bits and pieces of comfort like broken glass, until you have collected enough scraps to make rebuild what has been broken. he does not have to believe, not in this mission, only in you. you can still stay the course.

silver’s eyes are darker than you’ve ever seen them, his blade shaking like the sword is an extension of his limbs. "this-" your voice dips, broken and awful in your throat. the forest is deadly still around you. you’re reminded of hal, his body crushing you into the wall of your cabin, rigid and sturdy as stone, and then, so unbearably limp. "this is not something you will want to live with."

[blacksailsblr]

BLACK SAILS 2.01 “IX.”

[deliverthem]

continued from here. @ownmyth.

this is not the first time you’ve been becalmed, though you wouldn’t mind if it were your last. hunger has a way of eating through a man’s sanity. minor grievances become misdeeds worth taking aim for, old resentments rise to the top of mind like pond-scum. these things can mostly ge avoided, if one is careful. pirates are no different to command than navy men: you rule with an iron fist, squeezed so tight you cannot remember the shape your hand makes when unfurled. your men- they can resent it, they can thrash in your grip. their hatred, their frustration, their ire, you shoulder it without complaint. that’s all well and fine, so long as you are dragging them forward, always forward.

momentum is a precious thing. fickle. your momentum cannot die with the wind. and, should you make it past this, should the sails ever fill again, you will have to keep momentum by reminding your men of the necessity of war. you will need your quartermaster’s silver-tongue poised to smooth over your harshest edges, ready to placate and inspire. civilization threatens to smother every one of you and you have to be ready to remind them to fight for air.

silver falters and you step forward, his ribcage landing in your palm. he looks up, scarlet-lined eyes full of hatred, and you don’t know who it is aimed at. you don’t know that you care. you look down, past his raw shame and between your bodies, trying to accurately assess all the points in which the two of you are tethered. you don't say anything. silver is doling out his own punishment, harsher than anything you deem necessary, self-immolating for reasons you couldn't care less about. does a dog understand why it is being scolded, or does it only learn not to bite in front of you again?

you grunt with exertion, slinging silver's arm over your shoulder, and start the exhaustive walk to your bed. he’s warm, disturbingly so, like he's spent the past hour baking under the sun instead of hovering beside your desk. the journey is loud, your rasping inhales, the huff of his exhales at your ear, but despite this, you find yourself thinking only of the crackly, anguished sound of him asking to stay. when you reach your cot, you sink beside him on the mattress, breathless. you rest your elbows on your thighs, clasping your hands together.

sun filters across the cabin, touching salt-warped furniture and woven rugs and silver’s legs, both the flesh and the metal. something stirs in you. you think it must be anger. when you stand, your knees croak and groan. your whole body feels rickety, like the ship in the earliest hours of the morning.

"rest." you command, speaking without turning around to look at silver. a step forward. you’re closing in on one of the many paper-lined tables in the cabin. "the men are looking to follow you down whatever path you deem fit. it would be wise to know which way a road leads before you head down it."

[deliverthem]

continued from here. @ownmyth.

you roll your eyes, sigh through your nose. the muscles below your eyes twitch. you half-heartedly fight off a look of amusement, annoyance, both. he’s challenging you, even while you suck his cock. there very well may not be anything in this realm that can shut him up. though, you suppose you've stopped trying to. not when he's badgering you, not when he's blatantly lying to you, and never when he is like this: his voice rough and rolling, interrupted by tiny little gasps, half-swallowed moans. even now, he's so fucking cocksure.

in-between his legs, silver looms large above you. he's seemingly fully at ease in your chair, splayed out and pretty. more blood than any sane man could fathom has been spilled for this ship, this cabin, this chair. and here silver is, sat in your hard-earned throne, calling you captain while you rest on your knees. you twitch in your pants. his eyes are lidded, hazy, and his lips gleam with spit. you imagine yours do too. the buttons of your shirt are mostly undone, the flesh that covers your heart exposed. despite this, you’re burning up, flushed all the way from your ribs to the apples of your cheeks. to avoid deigning silver with a response, you raise a singular eyebrow and slowly lower your mouth back onto him.

silver’s hand lays against your head, smoothing across your skin. it’s a possessive touch, simultaneously grounding and ruinous, and you find yourself hunching over further. there isn’t much of a logistical difference between you giving and him taking, but it feels distinctive now. you want to feel as much of him as you can, feel alive and present and thrumming against his skin, but you're wary to push him past his limits. in lieu of grabbing at his thigh, you squeeze at the flesh of one of silver’s hips, a hand jammed beneath the waistline of his pants. the other hand, well-

you thumb at a prominent vein on the underside of silver, following the course up. the motion stops when you meet where his flesh is wet with your spit. your hand travels back down. you press the head of him against your tongue, then further, your lips eventually grazing your own fingers.

you hum. the weight pressed to your skull, the agreeable repetition of his thumb. your eyes have fallen closed, lost in the easy glide, but they open again when you realize you're missing out on watching silver unravel. you take in the pink on his cheeks, the heave of his chest, the mane of his hair. he slips from your mouth and let your lips carve up cruelly. "yeah," you draw, voice grating, scraping like rock against rock. "you’re going to come."

[notmorbid]

thrust.

dialogue prompts from thrust: a novel by lidia yuknavitch.

sometimes the story of who you might become comes before you understand it.

it's much easier to study the emotions of another than try to feel them for yourself.

stasis can kill a person.

no one ever becomes anything stuck inside staring at shadows, languishing in plato's cave. you can forget you have a body at all, living that way.

being alive means walking toward death.

i better get back home, before there's trouble.

the holes in a girl have to fill with something.

are you fucking with me?

the whole concept of evil: what the hell is that all about?

my love of _____ is bigger than a lot of things.

i love you. my love will always be in your body.

your grief is killing you.

remember: you can't save anyone.

i have never felt homesick.

i feel hope-sick.

hold as still as a statue.

i've never met a _____ like you before.

perhaps 'monstrous' is just another word for 'magnificent'.

fiction and fact are not at war.

the body has its own calculus, doesn't it?

everyone shifts masks, every hour of the day.

maybe sometimes, death isn't death anymore.

do you suffer when you sleep? does it stay with you when you wake?

i don't know how to talk about what it means to be haunted.

i don't know if that was love, or something else.

there is no word for what we are to each other.

where are your parents? where do you live?

how do we assemble our hearts, to keep us from breaking apart?

when did you stop ____?

there's a world of shit in your eyes.

i'm not allowed to have _____.

i can't remember ever being [age].

i wish i were anyone else's daughter.

no one should ever have to live like this.

isn't 'enforcing freedom' an oxymoron?

i have nowhere to go but down.

i can hear your accent. you think it's gone, but it's not.

i want to kill you, but you're already dead.

no one wants kids like us.

you will never be apart from me. i will always be with you.

tell me how long to kneel and i'll do it. you know i will.

the death of languages is what precedes the death of the world.

it's not understanding i want, it's attention.

remember to stay human.

tell me what you feel in your body.

grief does not exist in linear time.

when do you feel most human?

you're like a secular angel.

it's okay. i know where the story's going.

memory is just making stories.

studying a thing isn't the same as being a part of it.

don't take things that are not yours.

memory is proof that imagination is a real place.

a story can be anything, at any moment, if we need it badly enough.

you don't look crazy.

how is anyone supposed to know who they are, anymore?

even if you are crazy, you're okay.

grief is an object you have to carry over time, like a body.

isn't everything everywhere resting on bones?

the past gets buried, but it comes back when people least expect. like ice melting away, or water rising.

that story took a very sad turn.

not all stories happen with a beginning, a middle, and an end. maybe they never do. end, that is.

nothing is more important than giving children stories they can grab onto and live by.

there is no place that recognizes 'mother' as a form of employment.

we could have been anything. we could, still.

between 'inert' and 'pervert', i choose pervert.

why does no one listen to children?

it's not wrong to want to be loved.

i'm not needy. you're just antarctic.

have you ever had opium tea? i have some at my place. i live very near here.

you're the most sentimental brute i've ever known.