There are so many good ones! I was going to pick "well, there are the monsters," but decided to go with "are you blowing things up?" instead, because I felt the latter would lead to AWESOMENESS. :D
First of all, I’m so sorry it’s taking me so long to get to the rest of these prompts! BUT I AM GONNA DO IT!
Okay, my dear, thank you for clarifying that you wanted Pirate Disgustoids as a pairing, in case I had any doubts ;). I was pretty excited about this prompt, and had no idea where I would take it. It turns out, I wanted to take it into a modern AU in which Silver decides to make his boo a little surprise. I hope this is satisfactory <3
“Why does it smell like something’s burning?”
Flint stalked into the kitchen, sniffing at the air like a suspicious bloodhound.
“Why is the kitchen covered in white powder? And why do you have a flame torch?” He wrapped his arms around Silver, whose back was steadfastly towards him as he continued to ignore the onslaught of questions. He moved Silver’s long pony tail out of the way and pressed his lips to the appetizing bump of his top vertebra.
“I have my reasons,” Silver replied, shivering at the touch of Flint’s mouth as it traveled up the nape of his neck.
“Are you blowing things up?”
Silver chuckled and leaned back against the wall of hard muscle behind him. Through the thin cotton of his tank top, he could feel the tufts of Flint’s chest hair rubbing against the skin of his back.
“For your information, I’m attempting to make crème brûlée,” Silver replied, breath hitching as Flint’s mouth located his earlobe and latched on. “The crème part, I think I got down. The brûlée-ing bit requires more skill than I appear to possess.”
Flint’s chin propped up against Silver’s shoulder, he took a dolorous look at the kitchen counter before him.
“The place looks like you’re making a bomb,” Flint confirmed his prior suspicion.
“Well, you’d know, wouldn’t you, Captain?”
“Just,” Flint’s hand reached out and wrapped about the propane gas torch, “go easy on the trigger finger. This isn’t an AK-47.” He pressed the torch back into Silver’s hand, keeping his own hand wrapped lightly over the top. “You’re supposed to brown the sugar, not blacken it.”
Silver didn’t actually give a shit about the dessert anymore, so he turned his head completely to begin mouthing at the hinge of Flint’s jaw, slowly making his way towards his lover’s lips. He might have been a liar and a thief, but he could never lie about the fact that when Flint talked in military lingo, it made him as hot as the burned sugar under the torch.
“You’re a terrible cook,” Flint whispered, pushing the last of the untarnished ramekins closer and pressing his finger over Silver’s to click on the flame.
“Thank god I have other skills then,” Silver whispered, kissing Flint hard while the smell of burned sugar filled their nostrils.
Flint’s free hand snuck underneath Silver’s tank top, caressing the warm skin there as he put down the torch. His eyes traced the contours of Silver’s face as their lips separated, taking in the flour in his hair and the streak of beaten eggs across his cheek.
“My god, you’re a mess,” Flint giggled, leaning in to lick the makings of the batter off of Silver’s face. “What would you do without me?” He pushed the ramekin with the perfectly browned sugar over the top of the cream towards Silver.
“Not attempt to make you your favorite dessert, probably?” Silver replied with a crooked, saucy smirk.
“Probably,” Flint agreed, pulling Silver in for another slow kiss. “But I love that you never let your capabilities stand in the way of your ambitions,” he added, nipping at Silver’s lower lip.
“And I love that you’re a fucking asshole,” Silver replied, trying to bite the smirk off of Flint’s infuriatingly hot face.
Both men took an uncertain step away from the counter, their arms still wrapped around one another. Among the chaos and the fallen soldiers strewn along the kitchen, there sat one perfectly presented ramekin of a very appetizing looking crème brûlée.
“Should we eat this before or after we fuck?” Flint asked, pensively.
“Definitely before,” Silver stated with certainty. “For all we know, this isn’t very good, and I would hate to end this evening on a sour note.”
“I love you,” Flint said and Silver’s eyes lit up with the light of a thousand stars.“I’ll get us a spoon,” he replied with a soft smile.
so @corsaircourser whose username i can’t tag right now wtf asked for “22. It’s not heavy. I’m stronger than I look.” which i immediately tweaked. also i’m fucking eating my words here because this is....a little grim. NOT angsty, but like. casual conversations about cannibalism. like if you watched the show Hannibal this would probably be considered tame. this is also my second (2nd) black sails fic with a romantic cannibalism theme which is an interesting fact about me.
set during 3x4
“It’s not heavy. I’m stronger than I look.”
Flint stands, watching Billy by the treeline. Watching the strange men behind him file out ahead, training their guns on Flint’s crew, who are still too weak and starved to do anything but blink and curse. Billy looks grim, more so than usual, with a gun pointed at his head.
Flint stands, and then, slowly, moves to stand in front of Silver.
Silver, who is still on the ground, and letting out quiet exclamations as a man with a gun approaches them. Two more men with weapons are quick to follow. Flint can’t see what Silver is doing, but he can feel him shift at his feet. He is still on the ground when the men approach.
The man in front of Flint looks at him like he’s fishing. Like Flint is just another fish caught in a net. There’s no anger, no passion, no sympathy. No wariness about what Flint or his men might do. It’s just another task -- to catch him, to kill him, like all the other fish before and all the ones after. Flink thinks this man could cut off his head and then never think of him again.
The man says something, which Flint doesn’t understand. But Flint understands the barrel of his gun. Slowly, so slowly, he lifts his hands and removes his own weapons. He tosses his pistol, his sword, and his knives into the sand. The other men scoop them up, while the man in front of Flint doesn’t even glance at them.
Flint sees out the corner of his eye Silver following suit, his own pistol striking the sand, and then the man in front of Flint glances at him.
And suddenly, the man in front of Flint becomes the man in front of Silver. He points his gun at him and says something sharply, but the way he gestures with his pistol suggests only one sentiment: get up.
Flint finally looks down. Silver’s hands are shaking, in part due to the imminent threat, but also because they’ve been starving, and sick, and when you can’t eat, you can’t sleep either. He has the iron leg on but it’s not straight, and he’s fumbling with the buckles to try and adjust it, but the faster he moves, the more his hands shake.
The man in front of Silver repeats what he said before, only louder, and gestures harder with his gun.
“Wait!” Flint steps in front of it, hands still raised. “Just wait. He just needs another moment.”
The man says something again, his face as passive as before, but the other two men approach Flint, and the man in front of Silver pulls back the hammer of his gun.
“Wait,” Flint says again, “he just needs a moment, please.”
There’s a hand around his arm and he’s never felt so frail in his whole fucking life. The hand wraps itself almost all the way around his forearm and begins to tug. Normally, Flint wouldn’t have been moved an inch, and he tries to stay still, but he is also shaking, and with one more tug the only thing that will be standing in between Silver and a gun is air, but if he struggles they’ll both be gutted like fish either way.
“Just wait, please -- “ and the man in front of Silver steps forward.
“It’s on,” Silver says breathlessly. “It’s on. Captain, help me up, quickly.” He extends his hand to Flint and it’s still shaking. Flint doesn’t need to be asked twice.
He hauls Silver up and Silver stumbles, sinking into the sand. Flint’s hand comes up on his chest to steady him, and he feels sick at the bones he can feel through his shirt. Silver grimaces in pain but says nothing.
The man in front of them says something else, a single word, and gestures again with his gun. He leads them towards where the rest of Flint’s crew are waiting by the trees, waiting for them to head into the forest.
One of his men has run away, and Flint doesn’t even entertain the notion that he might see that fellow again. None of their captors seem all that bothered by it, though, which at least means they don’t plan to take the escape attempt out on the rest of them.
Or that whatever fate awaits them is so bad that any further punishment seems pretty irrelevant.
Silver is cursing beside him as he stumbles along. Flint is terrified what might happen if he falls again, afraid of any sort of additional attention on him and his missing limb.
Silver bumps into him, not very hard at all, but Flint sees the opening and takes it. He grabs Silver’s arm roughly and throws it over his shoulders before Silver can even get his mouth open.
“Enough of this,” Flint mutters, looking straight ahead. “The time for pride would have been before we almost starved to death.”
“It’s not --” Silver sighs quietly. “You need to save up your strength for what’s to come. You don’t need the extra weight.”
Flint feels his whole body trembling under Silver already. The muscles in his neck ache sharply, like he’s being drawn and quartered. His side feels stitched at the awkward angle of his body. Silver jerks when he walks, and it pulls and presses at every healing bruise and cut on him.
“You aren’t that heavy,” Flint says. “I’m stronger than I look.”
Silver doesn’t say anything, and then he snorts softly. “You must have the strength of Goliath, then, Captain.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means I’ve yet to see you look anything other than strong.”
It’s a lie, even if Silver doesn’t realize it’s a lie. Silver has seen him weeping on the floor with Gates in his arms. He has dragged Flint’s unconscious body from the depths of the sea. He has looked right into the heart of Flint and effortlessly seen how awful it is to be him. He has listened to Flint beg, in so many words, for Silver not to leave his side. They shared a cabin recently, in the days following Miranda’s death. Their entire relationship has been nothing but Flint being weak and Silver refusing to notice.
They come to a clearing of wood, and the ground drops below them. Silver steps away from Flint as they gaze out onto the expanse of the Maroon camp. It’s large and bustling and sophisticated. Flint had known they were fucked before, but now he understands just how much.
Their captors lead them down the embankment, which is rocky and steep. Flint walks in front by design, so when Silver finally trips (almost immediately), he lands right into Flint’s back. And then it’s easy to hook his arm around Silver’s tiny waist. Silver has no choice but to loop his arm back around Flint’s neck.
He’s flushed, like he might be embarrassed, and his features are twisted into a snarl.
He feels stupid to say it, but Flint asks again, “Are you alright?”
This time, Silver nods, teeth clenched, before finally spitting out, “Sand.”
“What?”
“There’s -- sand. In the boot.” Silver bits on the bottom of his lip hard enough to turn pink white. “It’s like grinding down right on the bone with each step.”
His fingernails dig sharply into Flint’s neck, in and out, like an agitated cat extending its claws. Flint doesn’t think Silver even knows he’s doing it. It’s the familiar twitch of a person in agonizing pain, unable to stop it and trying desperately to find something else to focus on, even if it’s another pain.
“It’ll be a small comfort, I suppose,” Flint says softly, turning his face so it goes right into Silver’s ear. Silver’s nails dig in again.
“What is?”
“When they decide to finally eat us,” Flint says, “there’ll be less of you to go around.”
Silver lets out a choked laugh, turning to Flint in surprise. Their faces are suddenly so very close.
“I must be honest,” Silver breaths, not looking away. “The thought had crossed my mind back on the ship. That we might have to resort to such measures. And you’re right.”
“I am?”
“It was a comfort.” Silver, of all things, smiles.
Flint looks away, even though he’d started the joke. The harsh terrain is ending soon. He can already see the edge of the river through the trees. He feels Silver panting on his cheek, as heavy as his whole weight on Flint’s frame.
Without thinking, Flint says, “No one would have eaten you on that ship.”
Silver huffs. It hits Flint’s eyelashes. “I don’t think the men like me that much to spare me if that’s the path we had found ourselves on.”
Flint doesn’t know why they’re talking about this. Maybe because they have, in some fashion, found themselves on a similar path, towards a gruesome end, and there’s nothing they can do about it now. Maybe because Silver has stopped twitching and instead is just pressing his fingertips lightly on the nape of his neck. Whatever the reason, Flint says, “I wouldn’t have let them.”
He doesn’t know why he says it, only that now, in this moment, with Silver holding Flint up as much as he’s holding Silver up -- now, he believes it. He’s not sure where the impulse comes from, but it’s there all the same. It’s the same kind of impulse that had struck him in the past, when that other sailor had insulted Miranda in that tavern, or when he’d asked Thomas’s father to leave the dinner table. He hadn’t known where or why those impulses had overcome him, then, either.
As if reading his mind, Silver says wryly, but no less quietly, “I wonder if you would have spared me before, when you were still in the dark about my role in the Urca gold.”
Flint doesn’t answer, because he also doesn’t know that either. And really, it makes no difference. He does know, however, that the only thing he’d felt upon hearing Silver’s confession was pure, unimaginable relief.
“It doesn’t matter anyway,” Silver whispers. “If you had tried to spare me -- either we would have both been the first to be eaten, or the last two left remaining. The two of us, gorged on the blood and fat of our brothers. And then, what do you think would have happened?”
They arrive at the river. There aren’t nearly enough boats for everyone, but their captors are efficient in dividing everyone up, so that their guards are never outnumbered by their prisoners. Flint is put in a boat alone with Silver, possibly because they are still supporting each other.
Silver doesn’t seem to be waiting for an answer, and in fact seems to have forgotten the whole conversation, staring out at the camp in trepidation. Even so, Flint doesn’t think Silver would like his answer, that, in that scenario on the ship, Flint would never have eaten a single man. He would have given all the meat to Silver, to keep him strong, and alive, and when there was no one left but him, he’d offer himself up for a final meal. He’d only ask that Silver start with his heart.
Ooooh! Silver and Flint, 2. “You’re too young to hate the world.”
(Set some time post-S3, pre-S4.)
This had been a terrible idea. They were sitting sprawled under the windows behind Flint’s desk, passing a bottle of something vile and only probably rum between them, and Silver was losing his grip on that little voice in the back of his head that was telling him they probably ought to have stopped drinking about a quarter of the bottle ago. It was so cosy here though. It felt hidden, and safe, and the guttering candles made the world look soft and warm. The gentle rocking of the sea might have made him feel drowsy, if it didn’t also require him to keep having to go looking for his centre of balance, with mixed results. He settled for shuffling his shoulders further down the wall, and if he pressed a little closer against Flint’s side then neither of them said anything about it. Perhaps it wasn’t just the candles that were making everything feel so warm.
“The greatest barrier to enacting change or enlightenment on a large scale is and always has been everyone else,” Flint said, concluding some excessively philosophical point regarding the nature of the world and everyone in it that Silver had only been half paying attention to.
“Yes, well. The world’s fucked, isn’t it?” Silver said, taking the bottle from Flint, but making no move to drink again. “Most people can’t be trusted as far as you could throw them. I believe we’ve covered that in numerous ways on numerous occasions.”
“That’s not true and that’s not what I meant. There’s a lot of good in people, if you look hard enough,” Flint said, and his voice was soft in a way that Silver so rarely got to hear. “You’re too young to hate the world,” he added.
Silver turned to look at Flint, wearing a look of open disbelief that was sure to rile before he even opened his mouth. “I’m sorry, was that Captain James Flint, demonic scourge of the West Indies, trying to educate me on positive thinking? Jesus Christ, the world’s turned upside down. Are you feeling quite alright?” he said.
“You’re a smart-mouthed fuck,” Flint said, tugging the bottle out of his hands and raising it to his mouth. The low light almost managed to hide the redness in the tips of his ears.
“Now that is true,” said Silver, pulling the bottle off him again. “Since when did world weary bitterness have anything to do with age though? It’s about life experiences. I’ve met obnoxiously upbeat octogenarians and cynical ten year olds. I was a cynical ten year old.”
Flint raised an eyebrow. “That is surprising. Here was I thinking you must always have had the irritatingly sunny disposition you had when we first met,” he said.
Silver hummed in amusement. “A sunny disposition of the sort only achieved through spending so much time resentful and melancholic that one day you find yourself flying out the other side of it without a rat’s arse left to give about anything. And you had a knife to my throat when we first met! My winning smile and sunny disposition were my best and only weapons,” he said, ignoring Flint’s reaching hand and sliding the bottle further out of reach, just because he could.
“If you say so,” Flint grumbled, catching hold of his wrist with strong fingers and prying the bottle from his grip.
“I do say so,” said Silver, distractedly rubbing the suddenly hot and tingling skin of his arm. “Anyway, I’m not that young. You have no idea how old I am.”
“How old are you?” Flint said evenly, looking at him with eyes that were far more focused than Silver was entirely comfortable with. He wasn’t a lightweight, but he felt suddenly rather as though he’d been drunk under a metaphorical table - or onto a literal floor - and he wasn’t certain how deliberate it had been.
“That’s really rather a rude question, Captain,” he said, straightening up a little. His back cracked in protest. “How old are you?”
“Older than you, and old enough to have an even more limited supply of rat’s arses left to give,” he said, passing the bottle back across without looking away from Silver’s face.
Silver narrowed his eyes, placing the bottle safely out of reach. “You don’t like me sunny, you don’t like me bitter,” he said. “What does a man have to do to win your good favour?”
Flint smiled in that way that he had that put the wolves from fairy tales to shame. “You could try talking less,” he said, before he leaned forward and made it so.
For @corsaircourser, who requested #4 “Come here, let me fix it” with Silverflint. My old pirate husbands from my AU reunion verse kind of took over this one from me, I hope that's okay! <3
Rated G I suppose, no sexy times here. No warnings for anything except Silver swearing like a sailor.
This is set in a little universe of my own invention, so long story short for anyone who hasn't read that: Flint and Silver have reunited as old men, after Thomas has passed and Madi has left Silver. They lead a ridiculously adorable life on a small farm in Louisiane territory with a big dog named Junior.
Silver is in the kitchen of their modest farmhouse on a bright morning, making breakfast for himself and Flint and humming a happy little tune under his breath. Flint meanwhile is sitting in the parlor with their giant of a dog, playing with him with his favorite toy: a disgusting old chewed-up sock of Flint’s.
Suddenly, from the kitchen - “Son of a motherfucking whore!”
Flint frowns and gets up from the couch with a quiet groan, padding barefoot into the kitchen to see what's gone wrong. He finds Silver clutching his left hand with his right, his teeth bared in a grimace of pain.
“What's happened?” Flint asks, taking in the scene. Silver’s hair is loose around his shoulders, gray streaks shining in the light of the early morning. He's barefoot same as Flint, just recently out of bed, and it looks like he was in the middle of making the tea when whatever made him curse so loudly and enthusiastically took place.
“I burnt my stupid fucking hand. How many years working in kitchens and I burn my motherfucking hand making the bloody tea like I do for us every single bleeding, arse-fucking day,” Silver says, practically snarling.
“You do get exceptionally foul-mouthed when you're angry. Under other circumstances I might find it arousing,” Flint jokes, earning him a dark look from Silver. Flint goes past him to the laundry bucket outside the back door, taking a cloth that's been soaking in cold water. “Come here, let me fix it,” he calls out to Silver, sitting down and stretching out his legs.
Silver emerges through the back door from the kitchen, moving awkwardly because he can't use his left hand on his crutch the way he normally does. He sits heavily next to Flint on the back stoop, silently proffering his left hand.
Flint presses the cloth to Silver’s hand, clucking in sympathy at the hiss of pain he gets in response. He lifts the cloth a little to look at the burn, relieved to see it's not that bad. Painful, to be sure, but not as serious as he'd feared.
“Will I live?” Silver asks, his humor starting to come back as the initial blinding pain of the burn fades.
“Hm, I think so. You might lose your arm though, tea burns can be absolutely vicious,” Flint jokes back.
“Did you hear about the pirate who lost his left leg and his left arm?” Silver asks, squinting in the sun, his fingers gently curling around Flint’s.
“No,” Flint says, raising one eyebrow at him questioningly.
“He’s all right now,” Silver says solemnly, then starts laughing, amused by his own joke.
Flint groans. “That was terrible, you should be ashamed of a joke like that.”
“Watch it. I burned myself making your tea, Mr. McGraw,” Silver says, grinning crookedly over at Flint.
“Thank you so very much for your sacrifice in the line of duty, Mr. Silver. It shall not be forgotten,” Flint says, his face twitching in an effort not to grin back.
“Arse,” Silver says affectionately, leaning over to steal a fleeting kiss from Flint. They usually try to keep their hands (and other body parts) off each other outside the house, to keep up the flimsy ruse of being cousins.
“Let’s go back in. I'll help you,” Flint says, clambering to his feet and wincing at how his knees creak. He helps Silver up and puts an arm around his shoulders, walking slowly with him back into their house to resume their quiet, peaceful morning.
Oooh, for the fanfic trope in the inbox ask! "Pretending To Be A Couple/Undercover As Lovers"
HMMMM i’ve never thought about writing this, and i’d say i have difficulty imagining this for anybody in black sails canon.
but then i just had this image of mark read and anne bonny pulling a Fake-Out Make-Out and i DIED so. not sure what circumstances would force them to go Undercover As Lovers but it’s something to do with rescuing jack, probably. so yeah, if i ever wrote this trope it might be for them.
corsaircourser replied to your post: I finally watched The Forest Scene again. It’s...
I still haven’t been able to rewatch that scene. It’s just too much, all at once, and I CAN’T
Mhm. I’m actually heartbroken. They’re both too good, and it’s all too much of everything. It’s so beautifully done, but the fact that that’s the last scene we’ll ever have between those two characters is such an upsetting thing.
