#husbandpirates

Instead, Flint simply clenches his jaw and storms out, slamming the door behind him. Silver’s almost disappointed.

Howell and Billy come in soon after, the former to check his stump and the latter to update him on his newly elected position. After he’s faked a suitable level of surprise, he manages to get Billy to tell him what happened in Charlestown.

“None of us know for certain. Flint won’t say, but - ” Billy hesitates, glancing toward the closed door as if the captain is listening at the door.

“But?” Silver prompts, squeezing his eyes shut and biting back a groan as Howell starts to wrap his stump again. 

“Mrs. Barlow is dead.”

“What?” Silver asks, shooting upright from where he’s slouched on the bench. Howell shoves him back down against his pillows, and it’s only Silver’s complete shock that stops him from putting up more of a fight.

No wonder Flint’s been hiding out in here: he’s grieving, for fuck’s sake.

Billy and Howell take their leave not long after, and Silver is left to his thoughts. It’s not the most pleasant place to be, right now, his mind, and so when the door opens again an hour later he’s almost grateful for the interruption.

Until he realizes that it’s Flint, returned from whatever it is he’d been doing to calm his temper and avoid Silver.

For a time, it’s quiet, Flint moving about the cabin, reorganizing his desk as Silver watches silently. Eventually, though, it’s as if Flint can’t help himself:

“Howell’s satisfied with your recovery?”

Silver nods, surprised that it’s concern for his wellbeing that’s prompted him to break the silence. “As well as he can be, given that we’re on a moving ship.”

Flint nods, turning back to his papers. Silver, though, can’t just leave it there, now that he knows, now that he can see the grief in the slump of his shoulders.

“Billy told me. About - about her,” he starts, watching as Flint stiffens where he stands. “Captain, I’m so sorry - ”

“Don’t,” Flint says quietly. “Just - don’t.”

“If you want me to leave, to move down below with the other men, so you might have some privacy to grieve - ”

“No,” Flint interrupts harshly, turning to face him, eyes bright.

Silver frowns at this. “I know there’s little trust, if any, between us, but surely you know that you don’t have to keep such a close eye on me. Not anymore.”

He can see the tic in Flint’s jaw as he tries to keep himself calm. “That’s - that’s not it.”

Now Silver’s just perplexed. “I don’t understand.”

Flint seems torn, briefly, as if he’s not sure it’s worth the effort to explain himself to Silver, before he sighs and moves to sit with him. When he finally speaks, it’s halting, hesitant. 

“It was only after the dust had settled at Charlestown, after we finally were underway and heading back toward Nassau, that I realized you weren’t there. I’d been so caught up in my rage, my righteousness, that I barely registered who was standing next to me as we fired upon the bay. I asked Billy where you were, and the look on his face - ” He stops then, hands clenching into tight fists. “I thought you were dead. I thought you had been killed when Vane took the warship, and that Billy didn’t know how to tell me.”

Silver almost wishes he had been killed, but he doesn’t say this.

“And all I could think, for that brief moment, was - Not him too. I can’t lose him too. I’d lost so much, and - ” he cuts himself off, shaking his head as if to clear those angst-ridden thoughts. “I hadn’t realized, until then, how important you had become to me. I needed you. I need you. I would not cast you aside, leave you with the rest of the men, as if you were not the most important among them.”

Silver, for once in his life, is speechless. He stares at Flint, completely astounded, for several long moments.

“For fuck’s sake, say something, would you?” Flint snaps, obviously uncomfortable with how vulnerable he’s made himself. 

He reaches over, resting his hand over Flint’s fist. “I - I didn’t know.”

Flint slowly, cautiously, loosens his fist, turning his hand over until their palms are touching, until Silver can lace their fingers together. It’s perhaps the first truly affectionate touch they’ve shared, and yet it feels almost - familiar. It feels right.

“Nor did I,” Flint admits, staring at their joined hands.

“Well, I’m not going anywhere,” Silver jokes half-heartedly, gesturing to his mangled leg. Flint’s grip on his hand tightens, and he looks back up at Silver.

“Good,” he says firmly. His eyes, now that Silver can see them, are damp, and there are dark circles under them. Silver, in a moment of madness, tugs on his hand, until Flint is standing over him.

“Come here,” he says insistently, gesturing to the space by the window next to him. He scoots closer to the edge, and gives Flint his best stern, authoritative glare. It’s good practice, he thinks, for when he’s quartermaster. Flint hesitates for all of ten seconds before he starts taking off his boots, before he clambers over Silver and curls up on his side. There’s a brief moment, where Flint’s hand simply hovers over his chest, as though he’s not sure such a touch would be welcome. But he does, in the end, let it rest on Silver’s chest, just over his heart. 

There are countless obstacles facing them, Silver knows; many of his own making. Flint still suspects him, still doubts the story he told about Vincent. They have a war to fight, a crew to manage, and their own complicated relationship to navigate. 

The first time it happens, Silver is recuperating in Flint's cabin following the most catastrophic incident of his not exactly incident-free life. One moment he's asleep in the window seat and the next he's awake and shouting, breathless with pain, tears stinging his eyes.

It feels like his left leg below the knee is being crushed, mangled. “Help,” he calls weakly, delirious. A figure approaches him in the darkness and he reaches out, grabbing for the person, taking their hand and squeezing for dear life. Ever so slowly, the pain eases a bit and he comes back to himself. He realizes that the lower half of his leg can't really be hurting, because it's gone. It's strange how much a missing limb can ache.

He also realizes he's still holding Flint’s hand. “I'm sorry,” he whispers and then lets go, lying back on the pillows in the window seat. He allows Flint to make him drink a little water, and then he falls asleep again, a blessed release from the pain.

---

“I can read palms, you know,” Silver says lowly one night while he and Flint are holed up alone together, strategizing. “Learned how as a child,” he says, then picks up the tankard in front of him and drains the rest of the lager in it. He may be a little drunk, but so’s Flint, so it works out.

“You can do no such thing,” Flint argues genially, then finishes his own drink and thrusts his hand across the table at Silver. “Read it, then, if you're so fucking talented. Tell me my fortune.”

Silver grins to himself and takes Flint’s right hand in his left. “Hmm, let me see. You're going to live to be very old,” he says, tracing his right index finger over Flint's life line. “These here,” he taps the lines at the top of Flint’s palm, “represent children, which is odd because there are three lines and to my knowledge you don't have any offspring.” He glances up at Flint, who minutely shakes his head, then continues. “Fascinating love line, here, Captain. There's a break in it, a gap of some kind,” he murmurs, smoothing his right thumb over the line on Flint's palm. “But then it picks right back up after the gap. I don't think I've ever seen that before.”

He looks at him again, but this time Flint won't meet his gaze. “Worthless nonsense, all of it,” he says softly, and after he speaks Silver realizes he's still holding his hand. It's warm and broad and a little rough.

“Good thing you didn't pay for your reading, then,” Silver jokes and lets go of his hand quickly, before things get any more awkward.

---

Silver has never been very fond of the jungle, what with its rampant large insects and punishing humidity. Now that he's relying on a false leg, he hates it even more. The terrain is soft and unpredictable under his iron foot, and with every step he feels only moments away from falling flat on his face.

At one point he stumbles and nearly crashes into Flint, who's walking directly in front of him. “Sorry,” he says, panting with exertion. He can't take much more of this, but he can't say anything like that. He can't look weak.

Flint, bless him, just reaches back, offering his arm to help Silver steady himself. Silver grasps him by the hand instead, intending to leverage himself forward so he can walk next to Flint instead of behind him. But the heat is exhausting him and his body betrays him, so he stays a step behind instead. He just can't catch up, but he keeps trying, needing to keep up the illusion of being as strong and fast as he ever was.

After a while he realizes he's still holding Flint’s hand and he immediately lets go, feeling his face flush red. Must be the damnable jungle weather getting to him.

---

It's so late at night it may as well be morning. Flint has poured his heart out to Silver, has finally revealed the reason for everything he's been doing - for all the violence and bloodshed, for all the hardships he's endured. The life he's led, the man he's become. It makes a certain strange kind of sense, that Flint is the type of man to fight so fiercely just for love. It suits him.

They're lying back next to each other in the dying light of the lantern when something crashes loudly in the nearby undergrowth. Silver sits up abruptly and looks wildly about himself, seeing Flint do the same out of the corner of his eye. When neither man nor beast appears from the bushes to kill them both, Silver slowly lets himself relax again. As his breathing slows and his heart calms he gets a pleasant, warm feeling washing over him, and it takes him a moment to realize where it's originating from - he and Flint are holding hands. They must've grabbed hold of one another when the noise startled them.

“My apologies,” he jokes, dropping Flint’s hand and smiling at him shyly.

“No need,” Flint says, and smiles back in much the same way.

---

Now that Madi is gone, Silver feels nothing but pain. It's like losing his leg all over again, but the location of the wound is different - his chest is gaping open, searing with pain, bleeding. He's dying, he's sure of it.

Only one person dares come to him in his horrifying haze of pain. Only one person touches him, and he reaches out desperately, needing the gentleness of that touch. Needing so much to have something, anything, to ground him in the world of the living. He's losing his grip.

He knows Flint only means to place a comforting hand on his shoulder, but Silver reaches up and grasps that hand hard, clinging to it for a long moment as though he's drowning and only clutching desperately at Flint will save him.

“John, I'm so sorry,” Flint says softly and Silver just lets go, turning away from Flint and folding his arms on the table. He rests his head on his folded arms and sobs, vaguely feeling Flint put his hand on his shoulder again.

It's the only thing keeping him from sinking into the floor in an effort to disappear forever, wretched and ruined.

---

Silver knows they only have so many nights left together. A part of him recognizes with dreadful certainty that once he reveals his plan to Flint, once he ruins the war Flint’s worked so hard for, he'll like as not never see or hear from him again. If he even lives, if Flint doesn't just kill him outright.

So. It stands to reason that he has to make his move while he's got time.

He comes to Flint's cabin at night. He knocks, he waits. When Flint answers he backs him into the room and takes his face in both hands, kissing him with such ardor that their teeth knock together. As Silver expected - hoped, really - Flint responds eagerly, sliding his arms around Silver's waist and pressing their bodies together.

Silver's never loved a man like this before, but Flint has, and teaches him how that night. He finds rapture there in Flint's arms, looking into his eyes, his freckled skin alive and warm under Silver's tingling fingertips and his name heady and delicious on his tongue. James, James.

When they've finished, when they're lying on their backs in Flint's bed, both of them grinning huge silly grins at the ceiling, Silver does something he's been fixating on all evening. At long last he purposefully reaches over and takes Flint’s hand in his own, lacing their fingers together and giving Flint’s hand a gentle squeeze.

Flint squeezes back and leans over, gracing Silver with a gentle kiss. When he pulls back, his eyes are soft and sparkling, and Silver tells himself he must never forget the perfect beauty of that moment.