#perfectmetaphore

@perfectmetaphore liked for a starter; James Flint -> John Silver

The hold came down to instinct.

Flint’s arm locked across John’s chest, the weight of his forearm digging in just enough to keep the man from thrashing free. The deck was chaos around them, men shouting for restraints, someone fetching the blade, the scent of blood turning the air thick and metallic. 

Flint didn’t flinch. Not once. 

He couldn’t afford to.

Silver’s leg was a ruin. Mangled, blackened with infection, something to be considered as literal fish food rather than a limb at this point. The crew had all seen enough battle wounds to know the look of something that wouldn’t heal. No one wanted to say it out loud. But when they finally met Flint’s gaze, the truth was there: ugly, merciless, necessary.

He gave one curt nod. That was all it took.

John was half-conscious, somewhere between delirium and panic. He bucked hard when they tried to restrain him, his good leg kicking against the planks, hands clawing at the air until Flint caught them: fingers wrapping tight around his wrists and forcing him still.

“John,” he said, voice low but firm. “Look at me.”

Silver tried to twist away, wild-eyed, desperate, but Flint held his ground. Their faces were inches apart. Flint’s calm against Silver’s terror. Around them, boots shuffled. Metal clinked. The sound of a blade being heated filled the silence.

For a long time, he didn’t say anything. Just kept his grip steady, his eyes fixed on John’s. The ship rocked beneath them, a cruel rhythm to match the storm gathering in the man’s chest.

Then Flint exhaled… slow, steady, like a man resigning himself to violence he didn’t want to commit.

“Don’t move,” he murmured, voice breaking just enough to betray what he felt. “You’re going to make it worse.”

Silver’s breath hitched, the whites of his eyes showing. Flint’s jaw tightened.

“I’m sorry, John,” he said quietly, so only he could hear it. “So fuckin’ sorry. But you know how it has to be.”

He gave the order with a small jerk of his chin. The others moved.

And Flint held him down. Through the scream. Through the sound of the blade. Through the shudder that wracked them both.

He was tired and incredibly grateful that he had nowhere specific he needed to be. Not until much later when they would all be walking in together for the opening ceremonies. As of now, all he was really worried about was getting coffee. As much as they would give him at once. Usually three espressos that he would pour into a big cup and drink as quickly as humanly possible without burning his mouth.

Today was not his lucky day, it seemed, because clearly he was far from the only athlete desperate for caffeine that morning. That line was long as fuck.

With a groan Bill found himself falling into the nearest seat, close enough to the line so that he could jump in when it got more manageable, and let his head dramatically fall into his arms. He'd noticed someone else at the table and hoped that whoever he was sitting with didn't mind too much.

"D'you think if I asked someone really nicely they'd get my coffee for me?" Bill mumbled, a near-whining tone hiding beneath his words. "Because it seems like the line is actually moving backwards.

URL: @perfectmetaphore Status: Open Meme: Stirring The Pot

No shit.

Its said plain enough with the journey his face takes, even for all that he isn't looking at Silver. Watching the water rush by beneath them instead. The just opened bottle of rum betwixt his fingers. Letting it hang as it wants over the edge. Bare feet swaying. He had come out here to be alone. To let whatever the hell part of his plan it was that pissed Silver off settle out. Or maybe its just because its Tuesday. Either way Billy's too tired from two flights and four meetings to rise to the occasion. If John wants to fight its going to be very one sided.

Liquid sloshes as he takes another swig. Leans away from the cord railing and props himself up on one hand. The other depositing the bottle in reach if John wants some. Blue that has turned an unnatural shade with the evening running lights, rising up a bit to look at the sky. Disappointment. There just doesn't seem to be as many anymore, as preposterous as that is too say let alone think.

"And I never said I was a forgiving one."

A now free hand rising between them, palm to the sky .

– British Isles, 17xx

Little reprieve is to be found in sleep that still ends in a paroxysm of anguish, feeling the stifling weight of churned earth on her face, limbs bound against resistance, doomed to suffocate.

It's barely been a week since her escape, forced to uproot while barely having enough strength to stand upright. On the shores of some unknown lake she finds no corner remote enough to hide in, and lies a broken thing, between its gentle tides and the mossy banks, spending as much time in the black water as she can while her skin restitched itself after the unspeakable was endured.

The nearby village keeps her heart on edge. Humans she would have otherwise welcomed, befriended, isolated and then hunted now have her sinking into the depths, unseen. Why fear death when only life can betray you? Where was this God they all spoke of, the saviour in your hour of need – the great interventionist? How could His children be beaten into servitude while those who profit from it walk free? And what happens to them then, if it all ever comes to pass, what of their worn bodies and tattered minds, and after all, after all, what then?

She sits by the water's edge, under the shade of an old willow, chewing plantain leaves into a pulp and smearing it over the torn skin around her ankles. Her usual gowns, embroidered, beaded, fit for a nymph, are but a weak glamour of shredded fabric now, something dragged through the road, left to die in the sun. And the song she would have sung dims to a gentle hum, half to remind herself that she still lives, half to carry her pain.

“If you want to negotiate,” Will says thinly, lips pursed. “You will have to get your men to stop hurting mine.” His fury is tapping against the thin layer of restraint he has. If not for him, for those under him. His ship was a small convoy of traveling academics, foolish in the grand scheme of things, and regrettably, everyone he held dear was on the deck of the ship. “They’re not fighters; no one is going to be a problem for you, so such displays of violence are not needed. State your terms, what do you want?”

In DEATH, the HUNGER gripped icy talons into her body that SCORCHED. They rooted around her CADAVEROUS CHEST, messily twining around her ROTTEN LITTLE HEART. It felt like damnation, it felt like DESPERATION, and it BURNED, BURNED, BURNED.

NAILS TOO SHARP are clawing into the chest of the man she has PRESSED to the ground. JAGGED CANINES tearing through the flesh of his neck with all the ease of tearing a heel through skirt hems. BLOOD flows quickly from the wound, sluicing between her fingers and seeping into her dress.

╭GREEDY RAVENOUS LITTLE WRETCH╮

The swift inhaled gasp toward the mouth of the alley SCARES her, A VIXEN CAUGHT GORING THE HARE. Curvy frame jumping away from the body as though it STRUCK her, managing only to scramble backward further into the growing lake of viscera. Gentle brunette whorls of hair sway from their swirled updo, a lock of hair coming to be stuck STICKY in the crimson coloring her mouth and cheeks.

‪❝I didn’t mean for,❞ ‬ a beginning and an end all wrapped into one PLEA. Pretty head shakes back and forth, honeyed eyes WELLING hot with tears that spill over her thick lashes. They leave INHUMAN trails of pink, the salt of them mixing with blood.

❝  you  should  learn  to  behave  yourself.  ❞  knows  his  words  are  as  weightless  as  a  sail  set  free  to  the  whims  of  stronger  winds.  speaks  them  out  of  habit,  yet  pulls  john  closer  with  eager  hands.  ignores  the  danger  of  being  found,  as  he  is  made  rather  vertiginous  by  the  reward.  ❝  truly,  tell  me  why  i  even  bother  being  civil  with  you.  ❞  james  is  no  stranger  to  the  art  of  telling  lies,  but  in  practice,  he  is  nothing  more  than  an  apprentice       ⎯⎯⎯        easily  seen  through  by  eyes  that  actually  look.

his  actions  are  paper-thin,  more  scandal  than  proper  etiquette,  when  he  dips  his  head  to  place  his  lips  at  the  curve  of  silver's  throat.  it  doesn't  matter  that  there  is  nothing  more  than  a  flimsy  wall  between  them  and  the  rest  of  society.  an  apt  metaphor  that  lodges  itself  like  a  knife  between  his  ribs.  ❝  go  on  then,  make  your  case,  ❞  make  your  case  and  stake  your  claim,  ❝  make  it  quick  .  .  .  we  don't  have  all  day.  ❞

richard  is  pretty  sure  anything  past  one  am  is  always  the  wrong  time  to  make  any  type  of  call.  too  drunk,  too  full  of  self-pity  and  pain  meds  that  never  quite  manage  to  take  the  promised  edge  off.  he  doesn't  even  know  what  he  wants  to  say  [  .  .  .  ]  fumbles  around  ❛ i  don't  want  to  feel  lonely  tonight  ❜  and  ❛ didn't  think  you'd  still  be  up  ❜  like  a  drunk  staggering  'round  the  bar,  doomed  to  hit  his  head  on  familiar  mistakes.