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John Silver was fucked. And while he was painfully aware of that fact, he couldn’t bring himself to do a single thing about it. He felt the part of him that he had been trying so hard to ignore tugging at him from the corners of his mind.
During the first part of his life he had successfully casted it away. He had always known his survival depended on it. He had lead a life free of cares, a life of opportunism pushed at its maximum. He had prided himself in being clever. Of course he had also been a coward but he hadn’t been ashamed of it and had liked to think it was just further evidence of his cleverness. Only fools were brave. Fools and people who needed to prove themselves, to receive other people’s approval. Fortunately, he was not stupid nor did he care about how other people perceived him, except for when he needed them to get what he wanted.
At least, it used to be the case.
Now, here he was, a leg missing and fighting someone else’s war: Maybe he was a fool after all. He could see no other sensible reason for him to be in his current situation, following a man on the verge of madness into a demential plan to bring England’s downfall.
Or maybe he could think of a reason or two.
If he forced himself to think about it, it was strange that a man possessing such wits, such an ability to talk his way out of any situation and to get whatever he desired as he did had not got rich and settled nicely before that incident with the schedule. One could say it was because there had been no opportunity before. But he knew it wasn’t quite the truth. He had had plenty of opportunities. Of course none as enticing as the Urca gold but still. The truth is that he always wanted more, always loved the feeling getting more through the simple power of his tongue and his wits procured him. He liked outsmarting people. He had always been defiant of that feeling, knowing the danger that came with it, but it had always been there. Of course he wanted the profit as well. Of course, he had wanted the gold. He had wanted it so badly that he had put his life on the line.
But now that he had given up his share and that it was being used to try to win this war, he could not lie to himself anymore. He could be genuine with himself, if only for a few moments.
He didn’t know what he would have done with the gold. What he had really needed was the pursuit of it. Because otherwise he would have had too much free time, too much time to think about the emptiness of it all. No interest for the people around him, no other goal than always getting more. He enjoyed life but he had never been the kind to overindulge in bodily pleasures. Truth is, Silver had always just been following the flow and made the most of it. Carefree.
And then he had met Captain Flint.
John still couldn’t quite wrap his mind around how much this man had changed his life. At first, he had been afraid of him and, if he stuck to this impulse of honesty, a part of him still was. But not in the same way than in the beginning. In the beginning, Flint was a mean to an end, a necessary evil to achieve his goal, the Urca gold. He had immediately perceived how dangerous a man like him was, a man from whom he should get away as soon as he would have secured his share of the treasure. Hell, the first time he had seen Flint, the guy was literally murdering a man bare handed for a theft he knew very well he hadn’t committed.
But as his fate became more and more intertwined with the captain’s, he had found himself becoming more and more interested in Flint. He had wanted to know more about the mystery he was, to know what was going on inside his head and how far he could go. As time passed, his eyes had become more and more drawn to him. Worse, he had felt something beginning to move inside him, something that he’d rather had stayed asleep buried in the depth of his guts until he died.
He had felt it flip inside him on that fateful day and he had known then that he could never go back to who he used to be. That day, Flint had asked him to talk to the crew, to convince them to follow him to Charlestown. Silver had asked him why he would do that, now that the gold was gone and that he had no interest whatsoever with Flint. Silver had asked Flint but, in reality, he had asked that to himself. He had known Flint didn’t want the gold. He had known Max would take care of it, he just had to wait until the crew she had appointed returned with it and he could have taken his share and fled far away.
And yet.
When Flint had told him that the more the men would rely on him the more he would feel responsible for them, he had felt the truth of this statement in his bones and he had known he wouldn’t walk away from this.
So he had gone to talk to the crew. He had got on the ship that would take him to Charlestown, far from the gold, far from who he used to be. And what he had feared the most had started happening. He had started to care about other things than himself. He had started to care about the men he fought alongside with. Before he had known their names and their habits in order to better manipulate them. Now, he was worried about them when they were sick or hurt. When one of them died, he was genuinely sad.
He had started caring about what they thought of him for other reasons than just survival. He had started enjoying them liking him and liking them in return. He had ended up caring so much that he had lost his leg for them, that he had endured torture for them, he who had always been unable to endure any pain.
He had started to care about the outcome of Flint’s plan. He had rooted for the truce and the pardons to be obtained in Charlestown and once this option had been out of the picture for obvious reasons, he had become utterly invested in conducting this insane war against England.
But worst of all, he had started to care for Flint.
No.
He was fascinated by Flint. All his life Silver had adapted himself to the world, to reality in order to survive and to make the most of it. Flint forced reality to adapt to him. By the force of his will alone, he could bend the world. He had an intensity that mesmerized John. Silver had always been the one to make other listen and believe his every words but now he found himself listening and believing Flint. He was not entirely sure that his captain was even a man. To him, he was more akin to the ocean itself. His fits of rage as merciless as a tempest, his cold focus similar to a sea of oil and, most of all, the depth of his mind the image of the mysterious and unknown abyss.
Sometimes Silver could feel himself getting lost, drowning in the abyss. Strangest, when it happened he had no wish to go back to the surface. He liked it down there. There, he felt his own depths echoing Flint’s, he felt like there was no separation between them, he felt like everything he had been hiding inside himself, that he was afraid to let loose, could finally unravel freely and fully.
He had craved Flint’s respect more than he had craved anything in his life. More than the Urca gold. He had wanted the whole attention of the man focused on him. To be honest, he had believed he was not worthy of it, that he would never get to Flint’s level. He had half-believed Flint was a god.
He had cared about Flint and he had been inexorably pulled towards him but it didn’t mean he had loved him or even liked him. It had more been like awe, a feeling of astonished admiration. He didn’t understand how such a being could have been allowed into existence. He had seen the cracks in the man’s shield, he had seen his weaknesses and yet Flint had always seemed so far away, so unreachable.
This had changed when Silver had been forced to take the respect Flint wouldn’t give him for the crew’s survival and his own. He had taken the captain with him on a small boat and revealed the way he had fooled the captain without his awareness. At this point, he had feared Flint would kill him. But the other hadn’t. And so he had felt like crying when he had been able to tell him they worked better as partners. Strange how much emotion the man could bring out of him.
Later, after they had killed the shark, securing food and water and thus their survival, Flint had flashed an ecstatic grin to John, one he had never seen before. Silver had been exhausted, hungry, thirsty and on the verge of a break down and yet he had felt something he had not felt since he was a child. Pure joy. Thrills all the way down his spine.
After this event, the balance had shifted between him and Flint. The latter began caring about his quartermaster, worrying about him, his health and his feelings. But John was even more worried. He could feel that Flint’s will to fight, his will to live was at its lowest.
So, when Billy had came to tell him to not try to dissuade the captain from sacrificing himself, Silver had been forced to face for the second time in his life a truth he didn’t want to face.
He had every reason to want Flint to sacrifice himself. That would save the crew’s lives. His own life. It would put an end to the war with England which, if he was honest, was very likely to be lost. So. He should do as Billy advised him to. Hell, the captain would most likely be more than happy to let himself get killed.
And yet, yet every fiber of his being was screaming for him to act otherwise, to not let the other drown in the depth of his sorrows. That’s when he had realized he was completely and utterly fucked.
He cared for Flint.
He was fascinated by Flint.
Bur more importantly.
He loved Flint.