Work Text:
Flint notices the swallow first.
A light drizzle of rain the night before had brought nothing but unbearable humidity aboard the Walrus, and many had decided the heat of the sun's rays was more tolerable than being suffocated by one's own clothes.
Silver sits in his cabin, reading to him the inventory of things they needed to resupply. They were in dire need of just about everything from food to weapons to spending money, and Madi and the Queen were looking at them like they were about to shove the whole crew back in a cage if they kept helping themselves to the island’s resources. So before they were to take Nassau back, they’d have to do a few raids. Quietly.
Silver’s jacket is gone, and the sleeves of his loose black shirt are rolled up to the elbows. He finishes the list and to be honest Flint's only half-listening, his mind elsewhere, so he's grateful when Silver hands him the list to look over.
And there, Flint sees it: on Silver's left inner wrist, a swallow. Slightly detailed in gunpowder black ink, the wingspan almost reaching the side of his arm. The skin around and under it is still pink and sore-looking.
"When did you get that?" Flint asks gruffly. He knows it's new but the question is how new, and also who, and also where, and also why.
Silver looks puzzled, and then glances down at his wrist, like he wasn't expecting to see a small bird permanently stabbed into his arm. "About an hour ago?" Silver says, like Flint's supposed to know. "Longworth did it. We were talking about where I'd sailed before the Walrus. Apparently I've warranted more than enough miles to earn it. Does she look bad?"
Flint blinks. “She?”
Silver looks at him blankly. “I like her. Don’t you have any tattoos?”
Flint has a tattoo on his lower leg, where no one will ever see it. It’s a dagger piercing a heart, and inside the heart, very small, are the initials T.H. At some point he needs to add the M.H. beside it, but. He hasn’t found the time, is all.
He also has a crescent moon on his upper arm that he got to lend him some legitimacy as a pirate early on. It’s not the largest tattoo, but it’s fine. Contrary to what people assume about him, Flint doesn’t actually enjoy to be in pain.
Flint chooses to ignore the question though because yes they are opting to being honest with each other but that doesn’t mean he isn’t allowed some secrets. And he still knows next to nothing about Silver.
Except that he has a tattoo of a girl bird on his wrist.
“Will that be all, Captain?” Silver says when he realizes Flint is just going to stare at him without answering.
Flint shakes his head and Silver leaves the cabin, his arm swinging like the swallow is flying away.
When they return to Maroon Island after the hunt - with some cannons, plenty of gunpowder, and more tea than they know what to do with - Flint comes across Silver sitting with the men, talking shit.
Silver’s shirt is off, and his right arm is bleeding. Longworth has it bent towards the fire so he can work. His upper arm below his shoulder is a mess of black and blood, until Longworth wipes it brusquely with a cloth, and Flint sees - an anchor.
It sits in a circle of rope, with a moon on one side and the north star on the other. Blocky waves fill the bottom of the frame. His moon looks just like the one on Flint’s arm.
It looks almost done. Silver isn’t even watching it being done. He’s telling a joke to the men.
“Alright, what about this one —“ he says, leaning towards the table like he’s giving them important instructions. “What did the leper say to the prostitute?”
“Shouldn’t there be a name in there?” Flint interrupts.
“Wha—no,” says Silver looking up at him with a start. Longworth is still banging away at Silver’s skin with a piece of metal and a hammer. “I don’t know any lepers by name. And the prostitutes I know wouldn’t appreciate being used in this joke.”
The men around the table laugh like that’s the punchline. Longworth wipes at Silver’s skin again and then rubs his forehead with the back of his hand. The anchor is quite large, covering most of his bicep. It must have taken him hours.
“On the anchor,” says Flint. “Traditionally, there’s supposed to be a name in there, to show what keeps you tethered.”
“He refused,” says Longworth. “Didn’t even want me to add a space for it.”
“I keep myself tied,” says Silver, leaning back in his chair. “Why? Do you know someone who’d want be tethered to me?”
“You could put the whole crew on there, starting with the captain,” says one of the men, Curtis, who will be assigned the shittiest shit detail the second they’re back out at sea, “and have it go all the way down your arm.”
“Please don’t,” says Longworth, a little desperately.
Silver looks at the exhausted Longworth, then glances down at his arm for seemingly the first time. Then he says, “I have to take a piss. Why don’t you get some dinner and stretch your legs, and we can finish later. Say about an hour?” He stands up and stretches, stumbles a little under the sudden strain in his leg, and heads to the tree line.
Longworth also gets up and stretches, shaking his head a little.
“It’s not done?” Flint asks. “It looked finished to me,”
A pained expression passes over Longworth’s face. “He wants me to fill it in. I’ve only ever done small, detailed animals or big, simple things. This is big, detailed art. And he barely even notices it while I’m working! I’ve never seen anyone sit completely still, not even flinch, under the steel for four hours. He must have a really high pain tolerance. Which,” Longworth adds, shooting Flint a nervous glance, “we probably alreadyknewnevermind.”
Flint snorts, looking at the spot where Silver disappeared, considering. He’d left his shirt behind.
He’s about to go when Curtis says, “Hey, we never heard the end of that joke!”
Flint debates with himself for a moment, thinking about Silver in various states of pain. Then over his shoulder he says, “Keep the tip.”
Flint can still hear his men laugh all the way back to his quarters, the sound lifting over the soothing lull of waves.
By the time they set sail again for another raid, the anchor has mostly healed. He also has a turtle on the back of his right wrist and a dagger on his left forearm. His dagger isn’t piercing anything.
This haul they walk away with a stockpile of weapons, food and fresh water, actual money which is nice, a couple ornate chairs Flint thinks the Queen would like, and an honest to God real cook. Flint has him thoroughly searched and forces him to whip up a stew before allowing him on board.
They’re two days out from Maroon Island and everything is calm (but not Starvation Calm) and Flint walks up on deck to see Silver shirtless again. He’s in a chair leaning against the side of the ship, his head tilted forward on one shoulder while Longworth bangs away at the left and --
Silver is asleep.
Flint approaches swiftly. Longworth looks up, sees the expression on his Captain’s face, and grimaces. “He was awake when I started!” Longworth whispers urgently.
Flint looks at the bloodied art. It’s just started, but Flint can see what it’s supposed to be. “Does he know you’re doing this to him?” He says angrily, but. Quietly.
“He had me draw it first!” Longworth shoves a piece of paper into his hand and Flint looks at the whole thing. He keeps looking.
It’s a severed foot. Behind it is a skull, and it’s surrounded by flowers on both sides. A large rat is gnawing on the bone that’s peeking out from the top of the foot. Silver even had him add a couple drops of blood near the mouth. At the top and bottom there is a banner that says “RATS GET FAT WHILE BRAVE MEN DIE.”
Flint is still looking at the drawing when Longworth cleared his throat and says, “He was very specific.”
They both stare at the sleeping Quartermaster. There are dark shadows under his eyes, but at the moment his face looks peaceful enough.
“Keep doing what you’re doing for now. You’re due in the crow’s nest in a few hours.”
“Aye, Captain,” says Longworth, picking up his tools.
Flint stays staring at Silver. “I’ll be back to speak to him in five minutes,” he says finally.
“Aye, Captain.”
It’s more like twenty-five minutes before he finally pokes Silver in the side. He does it a few times, Longworth’s tools lifted safely away from his arm. The rat is already done and he’s moved on to the severed foot.
Silver startles awake but too badly. He looks up at Flint with one eye. “Are we there yet?”
Flint blinks. “We still have another day and a half.”
“Fuck.”
“Didn’t sleep much last night?”
“It is a constant, uphill battle, Captain, one I never know the true victor until the sun rises the next morning - is the pain going to keep me up all night, or is my exhaustion at dealing with you all day going to overcome?”
“You don’t seem to have a problem with sleeping through pain,” says Flint, nodding towards his arm.
Silver smiles at him sleepily. “This is a kitten scratch, Captain.”
“That,” says Flint, “is a severed foot.”
“No," says Silver, “it really isn’t.”
“I’m being literal,” says Flint, rolling his eyes and leaning on the ship wall. “I’m being descriptive. That is a severed foot and a rat on your arm.”
“Wait 'til he gets to the roses.” Longworth has started working on his arm again.
“Why.”
Silver turns back to look at him. “And what would you know,” he says, “about works of art?”
Silver’s smiling at him still, his eyes crinkled shut against the sun. His hair is pulled back away from his face and his chest somehow looks hard and soft at the same time.
“Not a fucking thing, apparently,” says Flint. “Can you please not fuck up my crew member’s eyes, especially one we rely upon to see if anyone is coming to shoot us from a distance. Take a break. You may not be in pain, but he is.”
“I’m fine!” Longworth insists, and when Silver turns to look back at Flint, Longworth mouths at him “please help me.”
He’ll never understand everyone desperately struggling to make sure Silver liked them. In his experience, Silver just needed to be told to fuck off a few dozen times and he’ll never leave you alone.
They’ve been back on Maroon Island for a day, waiting for the scouts to come back with another lead. Flint thinks another hunt or two and they might finally be ready to head back to Nassau. He wants people talking about what they’re going to do next, waiting in fear, but there’s a delicate balance between waiting on edge and forgetting what one was so nervous about in the first place.
He heads down to the beach after someone tells him he could find Silver down there. Even though he doesn’t think the men are ready to lead a full-scale assault on Nassau yet, he and Silver have been planning what would be most effective, attacking from land and sea in a frontal assault, or infiltrating the island and taking out the key figures before anyone realizes they’re there until it’s too late.
Flint had voiced his surprise that Silver wasn’t in favor of making a spectacle since everything else he did usually involved one, and Silver had replied with a lack of surprise that Flint’s only strategy was the application of brute force in the most dramatic way possible.
They’d reached a stalemate, but last night Flint had come up with a few more good arguments instead of sleeping, and was reading to come at Silver with everything he has, but then he finds Silver on the beach.
Completely fucking naked.
All the arguments in Flint’s mind vanished, along with his knowledge of sailing, speech, forward mobility, and how to get air into his lungs and back out again.
Silver is sitting in a chair and his bare right leg is stretched out in front of him. A threadbare sheet is held over his crotch and his left leg. He’s covered in a light sheen of sweat, his hair hanging down the back of the chair, and he’s staring out into the ocean, lost in thought. The dagger on his left forearm is pointing directly towards --
Nothing. The sand. Flint doesn’t know. Because he absolutely refuses to look.
Then Longworth comes out from a nearby hut, tools in his hand, and Silver breaks out of his reverie to watch him set up.
Thinking it’s now slightly safer to approach with another person there. Silver sees him walking up and smiles at him widely and Flint nearly trips in the sand.
This has always been his mistake. Nothing about John Silver is safe.
Flint thinks maybe, just maybe, he might be attracted to danger.
A married woman. A married man. This idiot. He didn’t tell Silver at the time but there was definitely more than one pattern when it came to their relationship.
When he got to where Silver and Longworth were working, Flint could see a outline of a large mermaid on Silver’s thigh. It starts right below his hip and stops right above his knee.
“Good, you’re here,” says Silver. “Last night I thought of at least seventeen reasons why my approach to seizing Nassau is the correct one and how you are completely in the wrong. Find a chair and get yourself a drink, you’re about to be so stunned by my flawless logic you will most assuredly need to sit.”
He finds a chair. He has a drink. And somewhere around Convincing Argument #9 he stops berating himself for focusing only on the flex of Silver’s thigh and the sharp curve of Silver’s hipbones, and actually listens to what Silver is saying.
Flint has problems. Fuck, does he have enough problems. It’d be nice to get at least some of them out the way.
There’s a knock on his cabin door the next night, and Silver enters sheepishly. He’s holding a wet cloth, and for once he’s wearing his goddamn shirt.
“I need a favor,” he admits, closing the door behind him. It’s late. Flint had been reading for a little before the candle light had grown too faint. He’d been about to go to bed.
“I promised Howell that if I insisted on getting all these tattoos so close together, I would make sure to keep them clean with fresh water and also, and I’m quoting here, ‘not neglect to clean my goddamn leg while i’m at it.’ I bathed the rest of them, but one Longworth did today I’m having trouble reaching. It’s on the center of my back. I saw you were awake, so I thought…”
He holds out the cloth. It drips onto the floor. Wordlessly, Flint takes it from him, and Silver whips off his shirt.
Flint stares. And not just for the usual reason.
“What the fuck are those?” he says, glaring incredulously at the cartoonish pig and rooster adorning Silver’s waist, right below the jut of his hipbones.
“What?” says Silver, sounding a little hurt. “They’re supposed to stop me from drowning!”
“That’s a ridiculous superstition,” says Flint, and he keeps staring at the vee of Silver’s hips, angry that a pig and rooster aren’t making him any less appealing, “and you know how to swim.”
“Yeah, well, I’d be swimming with only three and a half limbs now,” says Silver, folding his arms. “I figured it couldn’t hurt.”
Refusing to feel like an asshole, Flint walks behind him, and Silver brushes his hair to one side and. Oh.
In the center of Silver’s back is a sun. It’s large, but much simpler in detail than his other tattoos. He can’t help but marvel at Longworth’s skill, for it’s a perfect circle, but he supposed Silver’s given him plenty of opportunities to improve. It’s still slightly inflamed, and the rays shift as Silver’s shoulders move, like the way the actual sun wavers on particularly hot days.
Flint’s mouth feels dry. There were days in England, or when he’d been sailing on a ship up north, when he’d felt so frozen and brittle inside, like his whole being were made of ice and frost, and in his coldest moments he’d visualize plucking the sun out of the sky and swallowing it down, letting it smolder within him. He can’t believe, all these years later, in this humid, tropical hell of a paradise, he might finally get the chance.
He says, as he begins to run the cold cloth down Silver’s back, as his eyes track the drops of water trickling down towards the top of his trousers, “It’s slightly larger than my moon.”
Silver looks at him over his shoulder. “So you do have a tattoo?”
“A couple,” says Flint, keeping his eyes on his own hands. “I have a moon on my upper arm.”
A pause, and then, voice low, “Someday I’d like to see it.”
Flint has been wondering about all this. He’d have to be a complete idiot to not suspect all this was, in part, about offering Flint something Silver couldn’t voice. He has no guarantees, no assurances, and is taking all the risk and danger out of Silver’s hands. If he’s being honest, that’s one of his habits he doesn’t usually mind.
So after a moment of consideration, he lets his free hand trail forward to run across Silver’s chest, lets his fingers brush against a nipple. Silver freezes.
“What would the others say,” Flint says softly into Silver’s ear, “if they knew smooth, cunning John Silver’s method of seduction was just to strut around half-naked like a goddamned wanton peacock?”
Silver lets out a shaky laugh, leans back hard against Flint, completely careless towards the new tattoo on his back. “They’d say, ‘Wow, that man is truly a cunning genius. Look how well it worked.’”
Flint acknowledges that by kissing the side of his neck softly, and then biting down. Silver bucks under Flint’s hands, both of which are now roaming across his chest, wet cloth abandoned on the floor.
“I want to see your tattoo,” says Silver, turning in his arms a little too fast. He tilts forward a little on his iron leg into Flint, and Flint catches him with his lips. Silver opens his mouth for him instantly, and he slides his tongue against Silver’s and it feels like kindling, fire starting in a dark night.
Silver moans desperately into his mouth, clinging to the front of Flint’s shirt. He breaks away just long enough to rip Flint’s shirt over his head and kisses him again, noses nuzzling, teeth nipping at lips.
Silver’s hands move up along Flint’s arms, which helps him find the plot again because he leans back, breathing hard, and inspects Flint’s moon.
He rubs his thumb along it and you’d think he was tracing Flint’s cock, the reaction it gave him. He never gave the small moon much thought. It had been clouded by the air of disapproval from Miranda when she’d first seen it, when he’d first found a ship to sail.
But now, Silver is looking at it with awe, and Flint thinks it’s a rather nice looking moon.
“It looks like mine,” says Silver, and he leans in with his right arm, where the anchor has been healing nicely for weeks. In the night sky behind the anchor, what keeps Silver stable and brave, is the north star, and a moon like Flint’s.
They stare at the twin tattoos, each aware of the implication, and even though it’s completely accidental, it overwhelms Flint. Voicing it out loud seems too much too soon, so he grabs Silver roughly by the face and kisses him gently, ever so gently.
He lets one hand drift down towards Silver’s ass, runs his fingers swiftly down the crack until he’s over his hole. He rubs Silver through his pants, not too hard but with obvious intent, and the way Silver whines and pushes back onto his hand shows that once again they’re on the same page.
He walks Silver backwards slowly, keeping him steady with the hand on his ass, until they get to Flint’s bed. Then Silver pushes him away.
“Take off your pants,” says Silver harshly, sitting down to remove his shoe, “and get something slick to use.”
“You silver-tongued devil, you,” says Flint wryly, as he rushes to comply. He’s about to leap on him when Silver holds out his hand to stop him.
Flint watches as Silver takes off his belt, as he lifts his hips off the bed slightly to get his trousers off, and awkwardly pushes the rest of them off, so he ends up sitting there in nothing but his iron leg. And then, his eyes hooded in the low candlelight, he undoes the laces of the boot, and slowly eases it off. The stump doesn’t look at red and bloody as it did the last time he’d seen it, after Silver had killed Dufresne, but it still looks mean and painful.
Silver drops the boot carelessly to the floor and scoots up to the top of the bed. He looks like newly found treasure on Flint’s bed, his skin like exposed gold, peppered with the smoke of violence and gunpowder used to find it.
Now Flint leaps at him, pot of oil he normally keeps to shine his cutlass gripped tightly in his hand.
He aims right for one of Silver’s nipples and starts worrying it between his teeth, working the pot open blindly. Silver’s head is thrown back against the wall of the hut, moaning with abandon. It’s late but there probably wasn’t a soul in the camp who couldn’t hear him right now. The thought to try and silence him drifted through his mind for a second before it vanished completely. He wasn’t some lowly Lieutenant being used as a pawn in a brutal political game. Flint is, quite literally, on top of all this, and Silver is, quite literally, right beneath him, and any fool in his company who dared challenge him now for finding what joy there was to found was doing so knowing the full amount of carnage and destruction he was inviting upon himself.
He ends up coating his hand and most of the bed with oil because he really should have stopped sucking on Silver’s nipple to open it, but he just tosses the empty pot over his shoulder and slides one finger into Silver.
“Oh, fuck. Oh. Oh,” says Silver, writhing on Flint’s hand as he adds another finger. And then, “Christ, I’ve been parading myself in front of you in various states of undress for weeks waiting for you to get your head out of your ass and take me, you oblivious son of a bitch.”
Flint hums in agreement, moves lower to take a bite in the crease where hip meets thigh. Somewhere between the pig and the mermaid. His fingers are still working him open when he looks up and says, “That’s not what all these tattoos are about, is it?”
“No,” says Silver, and gasps as three fingers curl inside of him. “Shit, Captain. Will you just fuck me already?”
“I don’t want to hurt you,” says Flint, rubbing his beard against the side of Silver’s cock, nipping lightly around the base.
“You won’t,” says Silver, and when Flint looks up at him, he grins. “I may or may not have prepared for this possibility earlier today when I was alone.”
Flint pictures that for a second before he pulls his fingers out and lines up his cock to Silver’s hole. He kisses Silver hard enough to bruise, just once, and says, “Just how easy do you think I am?”
Silver laughs breathlessly. “You are, without a doubt, the most difficult man I’ve ever met. But I’m nothing if not an optimist.”
Sinking into Silver is what he hopes retaking Nassau will feel like. He grabs one side of Silver’s thigh, the other gripping his hair, and rocks into him. Silver meets him at every thrust, both hands digging into Flint’s ass like he’s trying to pull him even closer. His teeth have latched onto Flint’s collarbone as though trying to muffle his own unrepentant moans.
Then there’s only the sound of harsh breathing, the sound of flesh slapping wetly against flesh, the sound of Silver going, “fuck, Captain, harder, please,” the sound of Flint going, “feel so good, so perfect, Christ, don’t stop.” Flint feels desperate and hard in the most curious way, like they were doing this moments before an untimely demise and fucking Silver was the only way to save both them.
The wild look in his eyes tells Flint Silver might be feeling the same, so he lets go of his hair, reaches for Silver’s cock, and pulls. It only takes a few tugs before Silver is keening, his back arching. He clenches hard around Flint and he sees stars, coming shortly after with a couple more erratic thrusts.
Flint collapses on top of him, content to breathe. Silver’s hand is on the back of his head, stroking idly, panting gently in his ear.
After a moment, Flint pulls out and goes to roll off of him when Silver stops him with a firm hold on his arms.
“Your back,” says Flint. “I don’t want to crush you.”
“You’re not,” says Silver. “I like the feel of you top of me. The weight.”
That hits Flint like a bolt of lighting directly to the gut, but a minute later and it starts to get a little too warm, so he shifts a little to his left, so now he’s only mostly on top of Silver, slightly on top of the bed, his head resting on Silver’s shoulder.
“If you like me on top so much,” Flint mutters into his neck, “I’ll just have to ride you later when you fuck me.”
“Jesus Christ,” says Silver. He brings a hand up to cover his eyes. The swallow on his wrist flutters at him. “I’ve made a huge mistake.”
“Mmm,” Flint agrees, shifting closer to Silver, one arm around his waist. “I’ve been saying that since I first met you.”
----
He doesn’t see Silver again until nightfall, spending most of the next day aboard the Walrus overseeing preparations to set sail again for their last haul before heading back to Nassau. The scout had returned with knowledge of a merchant ship carrying enough weaponry for their war and enough goods to leave for those remaining on Maroon Island as a gift.
He finds Silver at the camp while the lamps were still being lit. The sky is clear and red, the fading sun casting everything in a solid glow. The nighttime birds and insects have already started singing. A group of men, including Silver, are sitting close enough to a fire to get light but not heat. They’re playing cards.
Silver has his shirt off again.
When Flint walks up, he sees Longworth putting away his tattoo supplies. Flint watches him stand up, back crooked like he’d been hunched over for hours.
“Are we even going to have enough gunpowder for this raid?” says Flint by way of introduction.
The smile Silver shoots him is brighter than the fire. “There’s still enough for a few rounds,” he says cheekily. He flips a card and says, “It’s getting a little dark, Curtis, can you read this card? Is it an Jack or --”
“Aww, hell,” says Curtis, throwing his cards on the table. “I’ve never seen a half-nude man cheat as well as you do, sir.”
“Why, I can’t imagine what you’re talking about, Curtis,” says Silver, “and I’m deeply hurt by the implication.” But they aren’t betting for anything, and no man walks away from the table with any ill-feeling towards their Quartermaster.
“You still haven’t told me the point of all these tattoos,” says Flint after everyone has retired to other corners, leaving them alone in the crowd. He reaches out and brushes Silver’s hair off his shoulders, letting his fingers linger on the skin, letting anyone who might be watching see.
Silver shrugs, watching him intently. “I like them.” Then he says, “And I can’t control how people see me when they see the leg. But I can control everything else they see.”
“Who’s been looking at you wrong?” Flint says, distracted, letting his eyes and his hands trail over the new tattoo. “I’ll break his fucking hands.”
At the center of Silver’s chest, right below the hollow in his throat, is the splitting image of the Walrus, looking stalwart and strong on rough seas that spread out to the edges of his armpits. Above it is a banner that reads “SMOOTH SAILING”, and beneath the banner is a crescent moon and the north star.
“That’s very sweet of you,” says Silver, and it’s clear he means it, “but it’s more of a precaution.” He stands, brushes Flint’s elbow to steady himself for a moment before letting go. They’re still standing too close.
“‘Smooth sailing’?” Flint asks. “Since fucking when?”
Silver smiles that shiteating smile of his. “I’m an optimist, Captain. I believe I’ve told you that before.”
He turns and leaves, and Flint is following right behind him. He figures Silver will need some help cleaning his tattoos again, and while it’s never been Flint’s style before before, he’s starting to see the appeal in thinking positively.