but for real that flashback in 409 is so raw i almost can't bear to watch it. silver looking down and ashamed as flint rebukes him for his manipulation and he gets ready to take whatever words flint wants to inflict on him. until flint takes it a step further and guesses at the secret meaning of silver's self-insertion into the story (that is to get the edge in a possible fight), that maybe silver himself had not fully realized was there. because they are still friends here and silver threw up a shield by instinct as a safeguard, but he does not really want flint to think that of him, that he would harm him, he would never do that, he is not like that. and he has had flint's good faith for so long now that the idea of losing it-- he's almost on the verge of tears, "slow down, I-" he chokes on it. he can't even finish. and flint is so attuned to him at this point, so singularly focused and attentive that he turns from calmy suspicious to placating in an instant and treats him with such careful tenderness ("i am not angry with you") that it cracks silver open and gets him to admit the realest thing he has ever said in the entire show. that he does have a story, he just wants no one to know it. and at this point flint relents because he can see silver cannot bear this. but the fact that he was even able to get him there, to even name a past that he had always tried his best to pretend did not exist, to conjure an outline of it if not to fill it out. i think it's the deepest into silver that anyone, probably even madi, ever went.