could you write a fic where maybe hands is silver's father? and that's why he follows him? i just don't get why hands is so devoted to silver maybe that's why
i do think there’s a fic where this happens but i don’t know it’s name! but i’ll give it a whirl, girl
—
“What do you want from him?”
Hands doesn’t turn to face Flint. Nor does he cease sharpening his blade. This, of course, only irritates Flint further. He doesn’t much fancy the sight of Israel “Basilica” Hands standing at his quarterdeck glowering down at his crew like some sort of ill-intentioned spectre.
Flint steps forward until he’s standing next to the man, hands clasped behind his back as though he is merely overseeing the goings-on of the ship, and not attempting to interrogate his quartermaster’s newest ally.
“Forgive me if I’m overstepping, but - ”
“You don’t give a shit if you overstep,” Hands interrupts gruffly, and -
Well, fair enough.
“I’m finding it difficult to understand why you’ve chosen to follow Silver, in this moment,” Flint gets straight to the point, and Hands lets out a snort.
“I don’t want to fuck him, if that’s what yer worried about. I’ll leave that to you, Captain.”
Flint curls his hands into tighter fists, fighting the urge to throttle Hands and have it over and done with. “I don’t think you’d enjoy it if we started discussing captains and what they do - or in your case do not - desire from their quartermasters.”
Hands finally stops swiping his whetstone along his dagger, stiffening considerably. “Fuck you.”
“I don’t give a shit what you think of me. What I do care about is how you are so fucking devoted to Silver. You’re not a smart man, but you’re by no means a stupid one either. So why? It can’t just be because you share a distaste for Charles Vane.”
It is at this moment that Silver walks onto the main deck, as though summoned by the mere mention of his name. He looks haggard, bereft without Madi. It makes Flint’s heart ache, to see the pain writ in every line of his body. Silver frowns when he sees Flint and Hands standing together, but evidently he has more pressing matters to attend to and so he moves to speak with DeGroot.
“He looks like his mum, that’s why,” Hands says after a time, his gaze still locked on Silver’s eyes.
Flint whips around to face Hands fully, incredulous. “What?”
“Didn’t notice at first, with the beard and all. Everything ‘cept the eyes. Those are mine.”
Flint stares at Hands, mouth agape. “You cannot possibly mean what I think you’re implying.”
“Bit hard to miss yer own eyes staring back at you.”
He shakes his head, in disbelief. “I don’t - his mother?”
“A whore in Nassau. Pretty little thing, Portuguese - maybe from a colony, who gives a fuck. Spent all my time with her, when I weren’t sailing or when Teach was…” Hands trails off for a moment, a bitter twist to his already sour mouth. “Got to know her face pretty well, if you catch my meaning.”
“And somehow you missed the fact that she might have carried a child - your child - to term?”
“Disappeared, didn’t she? Went off to Tortuga out of the blue. Haven’t seen her in nigh on thirty years.”
Flint still isn’t convinced. “She didn’t necessarily leave because she was having a child, for fuck’s sake. Nassau isn’t always pleasant to its whores.”
“You think I just jumped to this? I tested the waters. Dropped a few bits of Portuguese I learned from her. Silver knew it, he did. Pretended like he didn’t but he did. Called him a son of a whore, just to watch him flinch. Knows an awful lot about Tortuga, as well, for someone who says he’s never been.”
“That doesn’t -”
“He’s mine, damnit. I’d bet my life on it.” Hands slams his dagger into the rail, and Flint is suddenly reminded that the man is unhinged at best, and perhaps he shouldn’t try so hard to undermine this strange attachment to Silver. If Hands thinks Silver’s his son, he’s far less likely to turn against him.
Still, if Hands were to bring this up with Silver, it could upset him greatly. The last thing he needs after losing Madi is to deal with this sort of delusion, no matter how likely it might be.
“Will you tell him?”
Hands shakes his head. “Fucking his mum don’t make me his father. He’d know that better than anyone.”
In the end, Flint leaves the conversation with a splitting headache, a wariness toward Hands he’d not felt previously, and even more questions about who Silver is and where he comes from. He’s fairly sure only the first two will fade.
