Chapter Text
I Didn't Intend To Kiss You
“So, which was it?” Silver asks, as if the conversation had never paused, and Flint has to stop unbuckling his boots to stare at him in confusion. “A welcome, or a warning?” he adds, clearly trying to be helpful.
“Both, I suppose,” Flint answers honestly after a moment, and keeps working on the boot, hoping Silver will shut up and sleep. It has been a long day. A long week. A long year, frankly, and all he wants right now is rest. Talking with Silver lately has been exhilarating and challenging and like nothing so much as a sparring bout between closely-matched partners, but right now he just doesn’t have the energy.
“You do realize I wasn’t in the running for sainthood before I met you, right?” Silver’s actually grinning at him, the shit, and it’s so unexpected that Flint just blinks. “Not that I don’t appreciate it, but I might not need either.”
“You were running small cons and stealing things you didn’t even know the value of when I met you,” Flint answers, after a long moment of consideration. “Not that I don’t appreciate what you’re trying to say, but I think we’re on a whole new level, now.”
“Always thinking so highly of yourself,” Silver scoffs, and lays back on the simple cot, stretching himself out with an unselfconsciousness that Flint has to look away from, before the image burns into his eyes forever. “I could have been a Spanish spy. I could have been a spy MASTER. A whole new level. Really.”
“Give me that,” Flint says, cranky, noticing his rucksack on the other side of Silver, against the wall of the hut. “And I saw you fling yourself wildly off the side of my ship, slap into the ocean with the entire crew looking on. If you were a spymaster then, you were the worst in history.”
“Reminding a friend of past embarrassments is very impolite,” Silver informs him, and does not hand him his pack.
“What else would we ever talk about?” And this is honestly one of his favorite things about Silver, the way he somehow can make even the most serious conversations turn in a way that will have Flint hiding smiles in his beard, or turning away to quell a laugh. He hasn’t laughed so much in…
“You see? Like that. I’m your quartermaster, Flint, I’m supposed to have at least a bit of respect from you, I’d say.”
“Respect is earned, Silver,” and he knows Silver can see him not-smiling, since the idiot is still grinning at him as he gets up and pads over, reaching for his bag himself. Leaning down for just a moment, he takes his eyes off Silver for the most brief of seconds
Soft mouth against his. A cool, dry hand on the side of his neck, and the tickle of a moustache against his cheek. He’s too startled to move, even when Silver lingers, pulling his bottom lip between his own, but the touch of tongue galvanizes him and he kisses back instinctively. Leaning down and turning in, taking this surprising gift, he meets Silver’s tongue with his own, and it is sweet-hot, burning like honey mead, everything he had not allowed himself to want.
“I didn’t intend to kiss you,” Silver says when they finally, slowly, reluctantly part, and he’s looking into Flint’s eyes with the most sincerity Flint can recall. “But I won’t apologize for it.”
“No,” Flint says, and strokes his thumb along the maddening, tempting, gorgeous hollow of Silver’s throat, framed by his open collar. “No, I wouldn’t want you to.”