The ocean has always been what carried his problems. He lost his parents and his grandfather arrived two weeks later on his boat and swept him up north to a fishing town. He was an angry youth and his grandfather curled his fists around rope and sails to keep them from being wrapped around throats, swung against faces.
When his grandfather died, far too skinny and far too forgiving, he fled to the sea again. Threw himself into a life of violence so he could forget the love he didn’t have anymore. Fought and learned and obeyed until he caught the eye of an Admiral and then pressed himself into a cast that fit the titles of officer and gentleman. Though he was only one of those.
Then he meets the Hamiltons, who one by one dig into his carefully built appearance and tear him apart with love. Miranda with her fierce belief in love and ever knowing gaze, unable to hide himself from her no matter how hard he tried. Thomas and his unshakable foundation built on knowing one’s self. Gentle hands paired with a mouth that spat words with merciless accuracy. A sort of benevolent malice for some things that made him shiver with pleasure to listen to.
You are not lesser than anyone, Thomas had told him once, firelight reflected in those pale eyes. Do not ever speak of yourself like that to me again.
Thomas’ anger had not been directed at him. It rarely, if ever, was. He and Miranda were usually the only ones spared from his ire.
He had forgotten that, for a time, how furious Thomas could be. With his father. With Parliament. With the world.
It should not have surprised him. Not later, when Thomas was taken and he was left with Miranda and her burning grief. Not when he stared into the water and thought about how easy it would be just to throw himself into the water. To let it take his rage and his grief as it had always done. But not yet, not while Thomas still needed him. Not when he had Miranda to take care of, to keep safe. Miranda, the one who they’d vowed to always protect, so she could be free.
And then Thomas was gone and he was left half a person, barely hanging on if only because his rage swallowed everything else.
He’d raged and wept and sometimes, only sometimes, he’d curl up in a hammock with Miranda and they would read to each other at night as the wind blew softly in from the sea. The sea, who carried them to a new life, a lonely and miserable life, but a life just the same.
The sea, who gave him the opportunity to become Flint, to become captain. The sea with all her treasures and all her violence had become the canvas for him to create himself anew. To empty himself of any vestiges of the past and replace them with the churning anger that matched the frothy waves of the harbor in Nassau.
The sea, upon which he met a man who was no one, from nowhere, just like all the myths and legends he’d listened to Thomas read for hours on end. A man who lied to the best liars he knew, including himself, and convinced them of his truth.
Flint knows only one thing to be true about Silver and that is he’s never met a man who was a stranger to himself.
Other people did not know themselves well, few ever do, but Flint could read Silver with the easiness and difficulty he could read a storm. He could try and predict what Silver would do and half the time he was correct. The other half had him caught up in such surprise and confusion he had to check sometimes that Silver was human and did not have the scales a siren would have.
And still, Silver seemed to surprise himself. That cold intelligence in his eyes negated by the obviously deep love he felt. His love of life and good things and good people. Of being free. Of being in power.
Being alive.
Silver did not seem to understand himself, as though he had no name and was drifting through life not quite sure who he was yet.
As though he was the sea, always changing, but the same at the core. A vicious, beautiful thing who could destroy and create simultaneously. A wild, tempestuous thing that would attempt to tear himself apart the moment he got the chance.
Flint was in love with the sea and she had sent him a man made from her waters. This is what he found to explain the man called John Silver the best. Or, at the very least, the easiest way to understand him.
He was wild, not in the vicious, violent way that Flint was. No, he was like the clear, warm water of a harbor. Tempting. Magnetic. Deceitful. In his looks. In his words. In the way he sames safe to approach, only for you to wreck upon the reefs of his sharp and sudden acts of destructive chaos.
He reminds Flint of himself and that perhaps is the most terrifying.
Smart enough to play the game. Smart enough to know better than to move against Flint directly. Smart enough to look at Flint and smile, those blue, blue eyes crinkling shut, hidden away from Flint’s gaze.
Utterly and intolerable irrational when it comes to emotions, just like Flint. Flint who goes wild with love, feral with the intense and ugly protectiveness it drags out of him. Anger so intense that it bleeds out of him into everything he touches.
Silver is not so violent, not outspoken or physical about his feelings most of the time. He talks and says nothing, but he shares the colors of the sea with Flint in his eyes. Those eyes cannot lie to him. He loves the sea. Knows her better than anyone in Nassau.
Knows Silver better than he knows himself. That is the way it is with men who come from pasts so terrible that they’ve buried them too deep to remember.
Silver is self-made, still being formed by his own hands, his own decisions.
Flint has long existed the way he is, even before he fully knew himself. He is like stone. Weathered, scarred, but still the same. Still James.
He still loves the same: irresponsibly and completely. He loves this man, with his hair that reminds Flint of the dark forests of kelp he grew up swimming through. His hands tangle in those black curls much the same, light scattering around him as he kisses him.
Being with Silver is much like being at sea. Flint feels as though he could do anything, go anywhere, Silver is full of possibilities and not all of them good or safe. But he looks at Flint like he could be all those things too. When they press their bodies together it’s like they are the shoals the world could break upon. Nothing could split them apart.
Nothing except each other.
Flint knows this. Sees it in Silver’s eyes. Love and fear in equal measure. Knows that one it’s there, fear will consume the love. Eat at it until all that’s left is the battered carcass of lingering emotions. The dredges of affection. The ghost of concern.
This is what spares Flint’s life. Looking at those eyes, blue against the green of the forest, this is what he sees. Love consumed by fear. He knows this feeling, only now it is Flint who is unafraid. Who stands in front of him and does not move, knowing his death will come by Silver’s hand one way or another.
silver/flint: “You forgot to say the magic word.” OR “Are you fucking kidding me?”
send me a prompt and a pairing and i’ll write you something light hearted!
sorry this took so long!
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“Let me in.”
“You forgot to say the magic word.”
Flint can hear Silver’s shit eating grin through the door.
“Magic word? It’s my house!”
“It’s our house. Both our names are on the deed.”
“I built it you shit, let me in!”
There’s a moment of silence, and then the lock clicks and Silver opens the door. He’s got his hair tied up and he’s in a filthy white shirt, half untucked from his trousers.
“What are you doing?” he asks, brow furrowing. Silver just pivots, motioning for Flint to follow him. Flint does, walking with him down the hallway to their bedroom.
“You’re home early,” Silver says without turning around. “I was almost done.”
Flint has always wanted a bedroom with a window facing the sea. Ever since he was young and slept in the tiny spare bedroom in his grandfather’s flat that had no light because that’s how tenements were.
The bedroom in their house had no window because it had not been meant to be the bedroom. But it was a room that fit two people better and was further back in the house, away from a front door that Flint always barred at night.
Now there is a window frame, large and three paneled, with what looks like a window seat, sans cushion, beneath it.
“The glass won’t be in until Friday,” Silver says. “Had to order it special because of the shape. I wanted stained glass too but the man just looked at me like I was craz-”
He’s cut off by Flint turning on his heel and yanking him forward by his shirt lapels, crushing their mouths together in a kiss that’s more teeth than not. He draws back for a minute, hands coming up to cup Silver’s face, and then he tugs him in for a second, gentler kiss. Silver smiles when they break away to catch their breath.
“I take that to mean that you’re pleased?” he says, only a slight gasp to his voice.
“I love it,” Flint says, turning to look at it. “Can’t wait to fuck you on it.”
“That’s not what i built it for!” Silver complains. Though now he’s looking at it with a considering expression.
“Of course not,” Flint says, picking up the carpentry tools he’d taught Silver to use. “It’s only for reading.”
He strips off his shirt and gets to work sanding down the wood of the frames, already thinking of patters he can carve into the wood.
Silver lays down on the bed, curling up on his side to look at Flint.
“And don’t think that I don’t know that this is Mr. Wellington’s carpentry work. That old bastard wouldn’t know the grain of a wood if it told him,” Flint says as he smoothes out the wood with a practiced hand.
Silver rolls his eyes and says nothing, content to watch Flint work.
16 silverflint for the kiss prompts? i love silver's scrunchy face
16. when one person’s face is scrunched up, and the other one kisses their lips/nose/forehead
It’s early in the morning, the gray light of pre-dawn not even edging up the horizon yet. Silver blinks, trying to figure out what it is that woke him up. The window is open, but they’d left it that way last night to let in an unseasonably cool breeze. The candles were unlit. The cat was asleep in her coveted spot in the curve of Flint’s knees.
Except, Silver noticed, it was his knee she was curled up against. He sat up and looked behind him and realized Flint wasn’t in bed. This was wrong, because Flint slept in these days, liked to wake up well into the morning and lean over and kiss Silver awake.
“James?” he calls out, looking around the dark room. There’s silence, even from the hall, visible through the open door. He gets up, grabbing his crutch and making his way out into the hallway.“Flint?” he tries this time, and still he gets no answer. Silver frowns, but he can see the warm light of a lit candle coming from the direction of their small living space. He lopes forward and finds Flint asleep on their settee, a book in is lap and a candle lit on the side table, dripping wax onto the cloths that Flint had just finished embroidering last week. Silver shakes his head and goes over to blow out whats left of the candle.“James,” he says softly, leaning down to nudge him. “James, come to bed.”Flint blinks awake, squinting at Silver.“Wha-?”“When do you even come out here? You were asleep before I was.”“I was restless,” Flint says, sitting up. His hair is a mess and Silver automatically reaches out and smooths it down. Flint leans into his touch with a sigh. Silver frowns, cupping Flint’s cheek and sweeping his thumb across the delicate skin under his eye.“Was it a nightmare?”“No,” Flint says, brow furrowing. “I was looking for something and I couldn’t find it. So I woke up and decided to read so I wouldn’t disturb you.”Silver’s face softens, and he slides his hand down to tug at Flint’s nightshirt. “Come on, back to bed. Marmalade was curled up against me, and you know how my one knee is insufficient for her heating needs.”Flint laughs, standing, and he pauses for a moment to study Silver. Silver frowns again, squinting up at him in the dark.“What?”“Nothing,” Flint says, before leaning down to kiss Silver’s forehead. Silver sighs into the touch, tilting his head, and Flints lips trail down to kiss his cheek, the tip of his nose. Silver scrunches up his nose at that, but his face softens when Flint’s lips finally slide over his in a sweet kiss.“If I hadn’t let you ravish me all last night I’d have you here right now,” Silver hums, biting at his lip.“Please don’t say ravish, it makes you sound like a cheap story in a dirty pamphlet,” Flint sighs.“Oh, and what were you reading? High literature?”“...Canterbury Tales.”“That’s what I thought.”
