ALSO YES OKAY SO
1.) billy is basically blacklisted from nassau - partly because of... everyone else, but also partly because his paranoia has grown so much that he doesn’t trust any of them not to spy on him for silver. he gets to england under an assumed name, and after drinking himself almost to death, winds up at the admiral benbow and after an INTENSE detox courtesy of whatshername, slowly remembers how he ended up there and everything leading up to it
2.) john silver is just a bitter, sad, lonely bisexual who can’t get himself off and doesn’t trust anyone else to try, but he also has a reputation to protect so he cultivates that mystique and that persona to the point where the john who loved flint, the john who gave his leg to protect his crewmates, etc etc, is just a ghost in a little box deep in his soul. he’s got his eyes and ears everywhere, and when he hears that a company based out of bristol is taking on crew for a trip to search for flint’s treasure... well, how could he resist?