#bsbigbang2018

No one expects love. But sometimes, it’s right across Sullivan Street, at Walrus Cottage Blooms.

Some Affair James/Miranda; James/Thomas; James & Thomas & Miranda

When I first met you, you were so— unformed. And then I spoke and bade you cast aside your shame, and Captain Flint was born into the world.

How the Hamiltons made Captain Flint.

My @blacksailsbigbang, and also the fic I have BASICALLY been trying to write for about a year and a half. Finally produced as the groupest of group efforts, feat. beta reading and philosophical problem-solving by the patient and perceptive @gotakobayashimarulife; historical consultancy from @johnnyvod, finally putting her PhD to the important use I assume it has been waiting for; and, of course, beautiful illustrations from @toastie-the-know, who was talented and generous enough to draw not one but THREE scenes from this fic.

“Versatility?” Miranda asked. She had met McGraw in person now a handful of times. He had been rigidly polite in her presence, to a degree that made her suspect that he might not be entirely indifferent to her appearance and her reputation, although she had also thought it possible that it was a manner drilled into him so deeply as to have become a permanent state of being.

“Did you know that he was bred a common sailor?”

“Was he?”

“And yet he impresses his captains so well that he is a Lieutenant by twenty. Berthed, presumably, with the incomparably tedious sons and nephews of the Sea-Lords— and yet his star ascends so far above theirs that he is assigned liaison to one of the first families in the country. Oh, and despite having been at sea since childhood, he appears to have found the time to read Homer, and has upon more than one occasion quoted him to me, in translation. I rather think that is a man made to live always in more than one world at one time.”

"My Lord," said Miranda, as it pleased her to call him when he became fanciful, "were you ever at sea? Perhaps they are all reading Homer."

Here’s the first chapter of my fic for @blacksailsbigbang - the rest to follow shortly (once I’ve resolved a minor formatting issue…)

All the thanks to @ponytailflint for their fantastic cover art and @benditlikerackham for their support and guidance as beta.

Summary:

James has fled the New World for the Old, shed his name, and found quietude in his solitary existence. That is, until his favourite worst memory appears on the farm track, collapses upon his sopha, and refuses to be shaken loose. While Corsica smoulders and war becomes ever more likely, Flint and Silver enter a war of their own: to reclaim their past and forge an uncertain future.