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In the two weeks since their rendezvous with the Vainglorious, John Silver has spent only three nights in his own hammock. So when he fights through the drumbeat of pain in his head to wakefulness, he only has to breathe in deeply to know where he is. The soft, musty bite of canvas sailcloth--the captain has been lending a hand to the sailmakers again, apparently--along with leather and gun oil and salt, that’s Flint. The tang of iron, the oil he uses in his hair, holystone and soap, that’s himself, and mingled together, he’s in their bed, he’s home.
He pries one eye open and manages to look around the small cabin. Night has clearly fallen, and the lanterns are turned down low, so even though his open eye feels raw and sensitive, he doesn’t need to squint. Flint is at his little desk, a compass and sextant close at hand, charts spread around him like giant leaves. He looks exhausted, dark circles under his eyes and a smear of blood still streaking from his ear down his jaw and into his beard, and Silver frowns.
Then reaches a startled hand to his face. “OW.” That has Flint standing and rushing to his side, which would be sweet, only Silver’s too busy touching the cracked, abraded corners of his mouth with careful fingertips.
“Here, let me see,” Flint pries his hand away gently, and turns his face to the light. Silver’s head throbs with the beat of his heart. He feels heavy and stupid, like he’s been drunk for three days, only his fuzzy memories of their dramatic return from the town don’t include any alcohol at all.
“You’ll need to be careful,” Flint murmurs, letting go of his face finally, settling down to sit on the cot by his hip, setting it swaying dangerously. “Rope burns like that can take a long time to heal.” He tries for a smile, and almost halfway manages one. “Keep the talking to a minimum. Don’t eat anything large.”
Silver despairs. A line like that, and he’s completely unfit to do anything with it. He rolls his eyes instead, and shuffles himself carefully up until he’s half-propped against the wall of the cabin. He discovers whole new worlds of pain as he does; his shoulders are on fire and something in his back is very not-right, but sitting up is worth it, though he’s got Flint’s too-soft, too-worried eyes on him the whole time.
“I’ll be fine,’ he finally slurs, trying to move his lips as little as possible. “Jesus, they couldn’t have had us for more than six hours altogether. That may be a record, even for you.”
Flint cocks a disbelieving eyebrow at him, and pokes his shoulder, and makes a grimly satisfied kind of face when Silver recoils with a hiss of pain.
“Edward Teach strung me up by the wrists from the foremast boom of his ship about six years ago,” he says conversationally enough, and reaches towards the little bag of medical supplies Silver hadn’t noticed tucked in at the foot of the cot. “I don’t exactly remember why, though I’m sure it was at least partially because he never felt I addressed him with quite enough respect. After two hours of that, I couldn’t raise my arms above the waist for days. Tip your chin up.”
Silver obediently does, and Flint smooths some sort of cream that smells of mint onto the rope burns with his thumb, careful in the tender corners where his lips meet. It stings like the devil for a moment, but then the pain dulls as the skin softens, and he breathes a sigh of relief and gives his captain the closest thing to a cheerful smile as he can manage.
“That’s so much better. And while I have no doubt that your Blackbeard encounter was very painful indeed, I was actually standing for most of mine, so you can remove any thought you might have of invaliding me to this cabin.”
“John,” Flint sits back with a sigh, and damned if he doesn’t have the nerve to sound exasperated. “You use your arms to walk.”
Silver opens his mouth to protest, then realizes the futility when Flint is still tense as a too-tight anchor line, despite his clear exhaustion. And it’s not like the man doesn’t have a point. He eases himself down into a slightly more comfortable position instead, and lets his eye fall closed, tries to ignore the pain in his head.
“Tell me how it went, then. I remember the skiff ride back, but little else. Oh, there was an explosion. Don’t leave that out.”
Flint shifts a little himself, settles more comfortably on the cot, and props an elbow on one raised knee. “We took a great strapping big lad on board in Tortuga. Caleb Shaw, you know him? I was going over the logs when he came flying over the rail like the sea itself had spit him out--”
*
Silver wakes again, and it’s dark in the cabin. The full moon is shining in the open window, and a cautious blink and turn of his head confirms that his headache, at least, has eased, though the rest of him has stiffened up terribly. Flint is sitting on the edge of the cot again, shirtless now and facing away, though from the sway of movement Silver can feel in the bed and the warmth of the blanket beside him, he’d been resting there shortly before.
He can only imagine what thoughts might rouse James Flint from desperately-needed sleep at such an hour.
Moonlight paints him in stark black and white. Everywhere the sun has touched is marked with freckles, thick on his neck and jaw and throat, then scattering in an ever-refining spray over the slopes of his shoulders and down his back where stray sunlight has peeked in his open shirt collar. Like raindrops on a windowpane, Silver thinks dreamily, still half-asleep, and he leans up carefully and presses his face against the top of Flint’s spine, resting there warm and quiet for a moment.
“When they chained me, after a while, I imagined you walking through the wall, like Ares, the god of war,” he murmurs into that pale, sleep-warmed skin. Almost a kiss. “Holding a flaming sword, coming to break my shackles and rain down fire and vengeance on anyone who stood in your way. And then you did, and you did.”
One sardonically arched eyebrow is all he can see, as James turns enough to speak against his own shoulder, looking back. “Ares never had a flaming sword. And why is it that whenever your wits are addled, you suddenly ascribe all manner of supernatural powers to me? Starvation. Rum. Now a head injury? This is becoming a concern. And we came in through the bloody door.” His voice is hushed and fond.
Silver just shrugs. He knows what he knows. Flint’s shoulders shift a little, and Silver moves back just enough to put his hand where his lips had been. Fingers trace down the delicate bumps of spine, bracketed by solid, hard ridges of muscle that wing out to broad shoulders and ribs, and he marvels at the beauty of it. That he finds it so necessary to touch, right now, something he’d never even thought to want before. He taps his fingers on stray freckles. One-two-three-four-five.
“I suppose it’s just my mind trying to make sense of how different you are from anyone I’ve ever met. Your mind once set seems to never waver, and you throw the will behind it to get it done, through whatever magical means you must. It’s extraordinary, truly.”
That gets him a quiet, tired huff of laughter, and Flint scrubs a hand over his head. “You really are daft right now. Go back to sleep, let your mind settle.”
Somewhere on deck, the watch rings the bell of the hour, and it just punctuates how quiet everything else is. One-two-three-four-five, Silver taps his fingers again, then flattens his palm against the curve of Flint’s shoulder and drags it down to the small of his back. He’s drifting, not asleep or truly awake, watching his own hand move, suspended in the quiet dark night. They are alone in the world, in this bed, on the sea.
“How did I get back onto the ship?” he asks suddenly, as the thought drifts into his head, and that finally prompts Flint to turn, swing his legs back up, and curl against him in the cot, dislodging his hand but bringing his face close enough to kiss. So John does, a carefully soft press of mouths.
“We tied you into the bosun’s chair and had the men lift you up and in,” Flint answers against his lips.
“Shit,” Silver answers back the same way. “That’s embarrassing.”
“You passed out in the skiff,” Flint draws back a bit and smoothes Silver’s hair out of his face, tucks it gently behind his ear, a move that’s becoming familiar and beloved. He’d done it in the skiff, and more, Silver remembers suddenly, and knows his eyes go a bit wide.
“In front of the men,” he marvels, and as usual, Flint has no trouble following his thoughts.
“I am not ashamed of you,” he says, more firmly than anything yet, and Silver tries to stop him there.
“I know. James-”
“Or embarrassed by what we are. We have married couples signed on our articles together on this very ship, and I hold them in the highest regard. Surely you must know that.”
“I realize that. I-”
“It is habit, and old wounds, and I must beg your patience for a while longer yet. Some things become so deeply worn as habit that--”
Silver finally shuts him up with another kiss, since he doesn’t want to move his arms at all, and his mouth is right there so conveniently.
When they’d first started this, he’d worried that his inexperience in such things would trip him up. The lush curves, soft skin, and mysteries of a woman's body had always been more to his taste, and though few sailors could claim to be innocent in the ways of pleasure between men, he’d only bothered with it very occasionally. And with Flint, he’d imagined wild passion, challenge and answer, the volatility that he’d been warned of so often carrying over into this new part of their relationship. That’s there too, but more often he sees this incredible tenderness, as Flint eases him down with infinite care, not jostling a single bruise or strain, and kisses him soft and thorough, hands finding their way into his hair as they almost always do.
“I know,” John finally says, when they part to breathe. “I know. I never doubted it.”
“Good,” James smiles at him, and settles again like he’ll finally sleep, himself. “Now rest. We make port in Trinidad in three days and then home, and I won’t return you to Madi looking like we’ve been beating and starving you the whole time aboard.”
Silver smiles at the thought of her, tucks his face more comfortably against his pillow, and closes his eyes. “I thought this was the part of the night where I got the welcome home blowjob?”
“Go to sleep, Silver.”