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It slips out of him on accident, which is the troubling part. One moment he’s on deck surveying the men and the next he’s distracted by the back of Flint’s head and before he knows it he’s opened his mouth.
"What's that in your hair, Captain?”
He’s afforded a moment to hope that Flint hasn't heard him. Perhaps the wind is too loud, perhaps the shouting of the men in the rigging has drowned him out. But then Flint is lowering the glass from his eye and turning away from the horizon like a broadside being aimed. His brows have drawn into an irate frown by the time his gaze comes to rest on Silver, who is standing a little ways across the deck.
"What?” Flint asks.
Too late to run. The way out is through. “Your—“ Silver gestures with a hand. "There's something in it."
“What the fuck are you talking about?"
Flint takes a step forward as he speaks. It only serves to bring him into a slice of sunlight and Silver squints, trying to see better, and when he does, he smiles.
“You have a braid in it."
With something oddly close to panic, Flint looks up. The strand of hair in question sits out of his eye-line, however, starting at his temple and leading into the knot at the back of his head.
Silver hadn’t been lying, not wholly, when he had told Max it felt like a sickness: the tendency for his curiosity to win out over his hard-won insticts of self-preservation. It didn't happen often. He sometimes went months without it happening. Taking the page certainly was more intentional, for the cook had made its value too clear, and so he had lied to Max, to some extent. When it did happen, those around him tended to mistake it for bravery or stupidity, or some combination of both. Neither descriptor had ever fit Silver quite right until now.
"Did you braid it yourself, Captain?" he asks, and Flint looks at him again.
His expression flutters, caught between embarrassment and irritation before both disappear beneath an impassive mask.
"Does this conversation have a purpose?” he asks.
"No."
"I thought as much.”
He turns toward the stairs leading to the lower deck.
"But—“ Silver starts, and Flint stops at the first step, chin tucked into his shoulder. At this point, Silver can feel his instincts screaming at him to let Flint go. He stands over Flint, studying the braid more closely, at a new angle. “I have to say, that thing is masterful. Truly. Very precise. It begs the question—”
“What?”
“Are your hands that skilled?"
Flint’s gaze snaps up to meet his. It's the sort of glare that has made grown men cower, Silver knows. The sort of glare that has reduced thieves, murderers, awful sorts of men, into nothing. It would likely level Silver, too, if it weren't for the fact that under the freckles on his nose, Flint has gone pink. Silver grins at him. He hovers until Flint huffs and goes down the stairs, sporting an even more delightful shade under his scowl by then.
As they turn from the beach into the narrow, bustling street, Flint shoves a piece of paper into Silver's hand.
"Take care of this."
Silver reads it over, sidestepping a crowd of merchants with their arms full of produce.
"That's nowhere near enough rum to replenish our stocks."
"I'm well aware of that," Flint snaps, stalking forward without looking at him. "I need the men focused. I need them sober. You will purchase the items on that list and nothing else, understand?”
"I do,” Silver says, evenly. “But don't you agree that it would be wise to appease the growing discontent with a little—"
Like a sword stuck into the ground, Flint halts. Silver is already backing away before Flint has taken the first of three threatening steps towards him, his mouth twisting with distaste.
"I think you misunderstand your role here, Mr. Silver. I don't need you to—"
"Hey!"
They turn inwards in tandem to face the street. Nobody is addressing them. Nobody even looks at them directly, but when Silver cranes his neck a little he catches sight of a small gaggle of children at the far mouth of the alley. They are the most likely source of the racket and not much of a threat to anyone. He turns back to Flint to find that his eyes are still scanning the street.
"I didn't mean to overstep, Captain," Silver tells him. "I just meant—"
"Hey!"
Now the kids are even closer—pushing and shoving men twice their size out of their way—and it's only when they finally break through the dense crowd that Silver realizes three things in rapid succession; they are all girls, none of them are older than ten, and all of them—all of them, including the tiny one trailing in the back with a thumb in her mouth and a one-eyed doll in her hand—are looking at Flint.
"What the—" Silver starts, slanting him an incredulous look. "Are they talking to you?"
“No.”
There's something about the cadence of his voice that makes Silver laugh, once. Then Flint glances at him out of the corner of his eye.
“Hang on,” Silver says, drawing close. “Do you know them?"
"Mr. Flint!" the girl leading the pack exclaims, coming to a stop toe to toe with Flint. She's shorter than the rest, barely reaching Flint's hip—Silver guesses about eight or nine at most—with blonde hair done up in two buns on either side of her head. One is tightly wound and the other is sticking up in tufts. "We've been lookin' all over for you!"
She looks cross, of all fucking things, and the rest of the girls crowd over her shoulders on cue, mirroring the sentiment. Silver recognizes all of them. He’s seen them around; playing behind the tavern and building sandcastles on the beach. They are the sort of kids to be put into a home if Nassau were the sort of place to have homes.
"Now is not a very good time, girls," Flint says through his teeth, and Silver's mouth drops open. "I've ship business to attend to and it’s—Molly?" Flint's voice takes on an unfamiliar colour. “What happened?"
"It was him," the girl—Molly—says, sticking her lip out in a grimace. It's bleeding, staining her teeth red. She has an angry scratch across her cheekbone and flecks of dirt in her hair.
"Robert?" Flint asks, and Molly nods. What the fuck, Silver thinks.
It is with equal parts awe and pure horror that Silver watches Flint drop into a low crouch to get to Molly's eye-level. He stares in shock for a moment before glancing up and down the busy street; nobody is batting an eye at the ridiculous scene before them; the most fearsome pirate in the new world reaching out a hand to carefully tip a little girl's chin up. Flint’s knuckles are still blue from the last prize they took. This is a fucking mirage, of some sort, surely.
"Tell me what happened," Flint demands. His words are customarily blunt but his tone, Silver wishes he could unhear it. He knows then, is certain, that he doesn't want to be around for the rest of this conversation. He moves to step away so as to disappear down the street before Flint shakes himself out of whatever this is and kills Silver for bearing witness to it, but in his haste to leave, Silver knocks into a passing man. He earns a rough shove for his troubles and it serves to bring him closer into the circle than he was before. He curses under his breath and tries to will himself to go deaf. It does not work.
Molly's jaw is locked in a stubborn pout. "He pulled me hair, Mr. Flint," she's saying in a furious rush, "He pulled it so hard I screamed and I—"
"Molly smacked him!" the girl closest to Molly interjects, hopping up and down, "You shoulda seen it, Mr. Flint, she did it jus' like you showed us! And then—"
"And then," the girl on Molly's other side cuts in, leaning over her shoulder, "And then, Robert got proper pissed, Mr. Flint, sir, he—"
"He smacked me back," Molly finishes with a glare at each of her friends for interrupting. "He smacked me back and I fell."
"I see," Flint says. His voice is still intolerable. Silver is filled with a rush of relief when Flint releases her and rolls back onto his heels to stand but then Flint says, "I'll have a word with him."
Jesus Christ. Silver bites the inside of his cheek to keep from saying it.
"No!" Molly yells and grips onto the front of Flint’s jacket. In a flash, Flint has ten little hands on his shoulders and he doesn’t resist as he’s forced back down into a crouch and Silver is starting to feel like he’s never fucking met the man before him as Molly continues, "If you tell Robert off he'll just tell the rest of the boys! They won't ever leave us alone!"
Flint doesn’t shrug their hands off. "I could speak to their parents," he suggests, looking around at all of them, "Would you prefer that?"
Captain Flint. Speaking to parents about their misbehaving children. Captain Flint, with ten little hands on his shoulders. Captain Flint protecting children he has no fucking business protecting. Silver's feels himself starting to panic with the wholly unwelcome sensation of being dragged backwards in time.
Molly shrugs. Her bottom lip is trembling. "I don't know, Mr. Flint, I—"
"Tell him that Captain Flint will drag him into depths if he touches you again."
Eleven pairs of eyes turn towards Silver at the same time. All of them appear to have forgotten his existence, Flint most of all, as he blinks at him like he’s just noticed Silver standing there.
"What did you say?"
"Tell Robert—" Silver hesitates, before crouching next to Flint and addressing the girls directly. "Tell him Captain Flint makes a list of all little boys who hurt little girls. Tell him if they hurt you, if they so much as touch any of you ever again with the intent to do harm, Captain Flint will climb out of the sea and into their dreams, and drown them as they sleep in their warm, warm beds."
The girls are all staring at Silver now, some with their mouths open, and Flint is—Silver has no idea what Flint is doing because he can't bring himself to look. The hush that has fallen over the group is broken as Molly puts her hands on her hips and brings her dirt-smeared face in close to Silver's to regard him for a long moment. Her blue eyes are still wet with unshed tears when they narrow into suspicious slits.
"Who the fuck is he, Mr. Flint?” she demands, and Silver guffaws.
“Mind your manners, Molly," Flint says, and he's using that voice again; authoritative but warm. "This is Mr. Silver, he's—"
"I'm no one," Silver interjects, meeting Molly's sceptical stare head-on. "Perhaps I'm a seer, a prophet, a follower of an ancient sea God. It doesn't matter. All you need know is that I know the power of a good story. You tell Robert what I just told you, and I guarantee those boys will leave you alone."
After a moment of whispered discussion among themselves—interrupted by furtive glances at Silver—most of the girls seem to be on board with the idea. All of them are excited at the prospect of the boys pissing themselves with fear. All of them, that is, but Molly. She keeps scowling at him, until she exchanges a look with Flint. Whatever she must see in his face, her expression relaxes, and she appears to deflate somewhat.
“I don’t like you,” she tells Silver belligerently, stepping away from him at last with her hands on her hips. “But I like Mr. Flint. We like Mr. Flint.”
Silver rocks back onto his heels and stands up. “I can live with that. He’s a hard man not to like.”
He feels Flint look at him. The little one with the doll in the back cranes her neck above the rest.
"You have nice hair, Mr. Silver, sir.”
There’s a slightly odd glint in her eye as if that statement means more than she’s letting on. The girls all take a moment to consider Silver's hair, and even Molly seems to agree, because she gives a curt nod at her posse and suddenly Silver is surrounded. There's a little hand in his hand and there's ten more on his shoulders and then he's being dragged away by a force too strong to belong to ten little girls.
When Silver looks back at Flint, the girls close in on him. He sees nothing but a flash of Flint's smile before he's pulled unceremoniously into a side street.
“What’s that in your hair, Mr. Silver?”
"You are joking," Silver says, running a hand over his temple. He had spent close to an hour this morning combing them out.
Flint slides in next to him at the railing, rests his forearm next to his. "The girls have a way of hiding their handiwork," he says, his eyes on the horizon. His shoulders are loose with something Silver can't put his finger on but can't stop looking at. "I spent days unravelling mine last time and I still find new ones."
"This is your fault," Silver tells the side of his face. "Setting your hounds on me."
"I didn't set them on you," Flint corrects, a twitch to his mouth. "I think you know by now that when they make up their minds there is little I can do to stop them."
He sounds warm again. Silver goes stupid with it, or maybe he doesn't, but that's his excuse for what he says next. "What you're doing with those kids—looking out for them when you've no duty to do so, it's—admirable, Captain."
Flint draws away a little to look at him, puzzled. He stays that way—his gaze searching—before his expression unwinds, expands like a breath into a much gentler smile that slips right through Silver's ribs like a blade.
"You should keep it," Flint says. He rights his hand up on the railing and lets his finger twist once through the curl of hair over Silver's cheekbone. "It suits you."