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He has a 50/50 guess at who will open the door, and Silver is not sure which he prefers. The door in question belongs to a quiet, unassuming little house, which he has learned now belongs to two very not quiet, very assuming, larger than life men. The thought of either being on the other side of it fills him with very different trepidation for very different reasons, but at least one carries significantly less risk of his catching a hand over his mouth and a dagger through his neck on sight.
Having prepared himself for every scenario, from slightly haughty nobleman to actual living embodiment of the wrath of the sea, he keeps his expression neutral as he knocks.
When he had considered the Lord Thomas Hamilton end of the outcome spectrum, he had been prepared for his captain’s truest love to be angry at him, maybe afraid, or even disgusted by the thought of such a filthy, no good pirate darkening his doorstep. Worst case scenario, some sort of misguided pity masquerading as Christian forgiveness. Really he’s prepared for just about any reaction other than the one he sees unfurl on Thomas’s elegant and goddamn it stupidly handsome face - delight. Pure, instant delight that radiates from him like a sunbeam.
"Long John Silver!" he exclaims. "I cannot begin to tell you how happy I am to see you here!"
Silver should have guessed he’d be recognized. After all, he is as confident this is Thomas Hamilton as he is that his own name isn’t actually John Silver. What he couldn’t possibly have predicted is that anyone would actually be glad to see him. While he takes a beat to redo his mental arithmetic to account for this new information, he’s grateful that Thomas does nothing to hide his own appraisal, looking Silver up and down and back up again like he can’t believe he’s really there.
He’s slightly less grateful that Thomas conducts his assessment towering over him in the doorway, having the audacity to be not just regrettably handsome but also ostentatiously tall. He also has the absolute cheek to commit such foul crimes as having soft blue eyes, which crinkle in their corners when he shines his equally soft smile all the way down to Silver, and long, lean fingers, which grip Silver’s hand in a shake that still manages to be soft for all its vigor.
Despite himself, Silver is a little disarmed by this charm onslaught and decides there is no strategic reason not to match Thomas’s friendly and welcoming demeanor. He flashes the lord his best winning grin. "I see my reputation pre-"
Silver is so caught up being affable and shaking Thomas’s right hand that he never even sees his left until it is connecting with his eye, punctuated by a sharp crack. He is so stunned by the fist, both literally and conceptually coming out of nowhere, that he actually finishes his sentence, "-cedes me," before crumbling to the floor at Thomas’s feet.
A wide smirk under a crown of annoyingly golden hair floats into the field of vision of the one eye he can still open, and he hears a small, satisfied chuckle over the blood rushing in his ears. "I cannot begin to tell you how good that felt," Thomas whispers inches from Silver’s face, the exhale of another chuckle breezing over his rapidly swelling eye, making him flinch despite his best efforts.
Ok, maybe there were two reactions Silver was not prepared for.
———
Silver is pretty sure it was not the punch itself that knocked him out so much as the aftershock of his head reverberating off the floor on impact, but there's no reason why that conviction should make him feel better. He supposes he just needs some sort of solace as he takes stock of the surreal path this day has taken so far.
He finds himself sitting at the table of Thomas Hamilton with a cool, damp cloth pressed to his swollen eye, the table owner in question staring into the fireplace, his back to Silver and the rest of the room. "So the prodigal quartermaster returns at last, eh?" Thomas rests his forearm against the mantle and his forehead against his forearm before asking his next question in that infuriatingly soft voice of his. "So why are you here now? What’s changed?"
"I don’t know," Silver says, pressing the cloth harder to his eye to distract himself from the answers to that question. "Why are you talking to the fireplace?"
Thomas somehow ignores that question even harder than Silver ignores his. "'I will arise and go to my father and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants. And he arose and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.' And if you think about that verse..."
At first Silver thinks Thomas must be making some kind of point, but the longer he talks with his back to him, the more Silver thinks that he forgot he has an audience for his little soliloquy. The thought occurs to him that somehow Flint might be the normal one in this relationship.
Suddenly the volume of Thomas’s voice increases enough to shake Silver from his fuzzy-headed musings, and he looks up in time to see Thomas make his dramatic turn back to the room to for emphasis "-and it’s just like the parable, don’t you see, John?"
Silver scrunches his nose and sighs and points to his bruised eyeball. "Yeah, I can’t actually see much of anything at the moment, and even if I could, that all sounded suspiciously like the Bible. Oh god, did I end up in the Christian pity outcome after all?"
"Well I haven’t the slightest idea what you mean by the Christian pity outcome, but it is the Bible, John, yes, and no, I do not pity you."
"Well I haven’t the slightest idea what point you thought you were making to that fire, so I suppose we’re even. And why are you calling me John now? It wouldn’t have anything to do with the fact that you’re talking about the Bible, does it? Maybe some clever little dig you’re getting in at me that you think I won’t notice? Or maybe some cryptic threat about cutting off my head or - oh god, it’s not just because it amuses you, is it?"
Thomas answers with a self-satisfied smile. "Well, a cheerful heart is good medicine." Silver wishes Flint would hurry home to put a dagger through his neck already.
——-
"I believe the phrase James used was ‘such a little shit’?"
Silver is already regretting the suggestion that they swap Flint stories, as though that would somehow ever have been a safe topic, while they wait for him to arrive home. Silver thought it would at least keep him off the Bible verses, but by the third time Thomas shouts something like, "If you do not forgive men their sins, your father will not forgive your sins!" to emphasize a point, Silver gives it up as a lost cause.
"So let me get this straight. I once heard Flint literally describe you as having the wisdom of Athena and the splendor of Apollo, and I got…such a little shit?"
Thomas has the decency to blush and look at least a little flustered at the secondhand compliment. "If it makes you feel any better, he did say it with a great deal of affection."
Suddenly, as Thomas starts on another tangent, Silver feels hot under his collar, and the urge to run anywhere, be anywhere but here is overwhelming. He pushes his chair back from the table, oblivious to anything but his rising panic and regret of coming here at all. Which is why he fails to notice that Thomas has moved to face the fireplace once again and is preparing for another dramatic turn.
Silver is up and out of his seat before he can chicken out of this chickening out, passing right behind Thomas as he swings around with a flourish. "- there is always a path for redemption, even in this situation, even for y-"
His arm’s momentum combines with Silver’s own to make this contact just as impactful as Thomas’s first punch, and Silver is practically clotheslined back onto the floor, his head rushing to greet it like the fast friends they are becoming.
As he fades into blackness, Thomas’s face, his stupid, angelic face, floats in front of his once again. "You know, John, while we’re on the subject of forgiveness, I hope you won’t mind my saying that felt as good as the first."
"Well hallelujah," Silver whispers before allowing the darkness to claim him.
——-
As he takes in the scene of Silver’s two bruised eyes and Thomas’s bloody knuckles, a look of frustration settles onto Flint’s face, one Silver is very familiar with, and he feels smug that it is directed at someone other than him for once. And if he’s feeling especially smug that its target is Flint’s perfect little lord, well, who could blame him?
"My god, Thomas," Flint hisses, and Silver allows himself an ember of anticipation for the admonishment Thomas is about to receive. "When I told you that Silver had such a punchable face, I didn’t expect you to take me so literally."
The ember fizzles and blinks out, replaced by the cold comfort of resignation, as no retort seems adequate. For the first time in a lifetime of miserable moments, Silver might actually be too miserable to speak. "So this is what hell will be like," he says anyway to no one in particular, convinced that nowhere other than hell would he be forced to witness the wicked grin this ginger bastard devil flashes at his cherubic bastard lord at Silver’s expense.
Lord Left Hook moves from behind Silver to stand next to Captain Fuckface, a snort from the latter drawing a giggle from the former. As Silver allows his battered head to droop, his shower of curls may be able to block out the sight of the two lovers’ mirth, but nothing can prevent the sound of their merriment from ringing in his ears in stereo. Soon they are laughing so hard they have to cling to each other to remain upright. Their difficulties don’t preclude them from discussing what exactly it is that makes Silver’s face so punchable (Thomas thinks his "Springer Spaniel hair" doesn’t help; Flint thinks it’s "you know, all of this," waving his hand in a vague circle around Silver’s whole face).
Thomas catches another fit of giggles from that non-description, and soon they are both back in hysterics, laughing and crying in equal measure. "You - you could have at least -" Flint stammers, failing to summon his normally Herculean self-restraint, fighting for every word. "My love, you could have at least saved me an eye." Thomas loses any decorum he had fought to regain and bursts into a fresh peal of laughter while Silver silently catalogs everyone he has ever murdered for a lesser offense.
"All apologies, James," Thomas finally chokes out. "Well, not for the first eye anyway." Flint’s curiosity is piqued enough to regain himself for a moment, though he is swaying like he is punch drunk. He assumes a mask of faux concern and cocks an eyebrow in question. Thomas puts a conspiratorial hand to Flint’s ear and whispers loud enough for the neighbors to hear, "The second one was an accident." He follows this proclamation with the most exaggerated wink anyone has ever attempted.
Silver’s only solace is that is they are now both laughing so hard that it surely must be painful.
——-
Silver had assumed up to this point that his misery has been fueling their amusement, but when their godforsaken laughter finally dies down (and Jesus, it’s like they saved every single laugh from every single day they were apart to share together at his expense in this moment), Flint’s expression gradually turns to one of genuine concern as he finally takes in the full state of the poor, wretched moppet sitting before him.
The very second he spies the sliver of remorse in his captain’s eyes, Silver tries to look a little extra pathetic, like it’s the good ol’ days on the Spanish warship’s window seat. It’s challenging, though, with the greatest weapons in his face’s arsenal growing steadily more black to match their usual blue. He settles for a hint of a suggestion of a pout and a quiver in his bottom lip. Feared pirate king he may have been, but Silver will never be above an opportunity to steal every single square inch of moral high ground when it suits him, whatever the cost. Why yes, he is the aggrieved party here, thank you for noticing.
Flint clucks his tongue in sympathy in a very un-Flint-like fashion and uses the back of his hand to wipe away the joyful tears that have finally stopped flowing from his stupid, beautiful eyes. He then lowers the hand to gently caress the slope of Silver’s jaw. Normally Silver would be torn between leaning into the touch or jerking away, his perpetual state of being, but he is too busy feeling smug that was so easy. He didn’t even have to flutter his lashes or unbutton his shirt a little lower.
"Silver, I don’t know what to say except I’m sorry-" Flint mutters just loud enough for them to hear. Silver’s previous misery is evaporating as fast as the smirk on Thomas’s stupid, beautiful face. As always, he muses, it’s better to be lucky than good, and he has claimed a very rare prize indeed in his world, an apology from Captain James Flint. In a situation where he was fully prepared to have to be the wrong one. (Specifically, as Madi had taken great pains to make clear to him, "the most wrong anyone had ever been." Her exact words, which, yes, she had also made him say out loud, and yes, still leave her island.) And all he has to do to get that apology, and with it the upper hand, is take a few punches and get laughed at? Silver has plenty of experience with both.
"I’m sorry -" Flint cuts himself off again, clearly agonizing over how to end this damnable sentence. Internally, Silver is frothing at this opportunity to be gracious and throw his captain a lifeline in such uncharted waters as him getting all the way through an apology to someone he hasn’t already murdered. If he plays his cards right, and if Thomas Slamilton over there doesn’t get too involved, maybe Silver can even get Flint to apologize for other things, things that are absolutely Silver’s fault. Things that Madi made so very clear are all his fault.
Flint leans down to his eye level, and Silver hopes it’s to get a better look at the vicious injuries his oak tree of a lover has inflicted on him and not just his usual, garden variety standing too close to someone. "It’s all right," Silver practically coos with compassion, "you don’t have to -"
"I’m sorry that Thomas missed a spot," Flint whispers an inch from his face, then rises to tower over him with a cold, wicked, alarmingly sexy grin, which he’s much better at than apologizing.
"Missed a spot?" Puzzled, Silver frowns, which means that when Flint’s fist connects with the spot on his jaw he was caressing just the moment before, the corner of Silver’s mouth is low enough to take the brunt of Flint’s pinky ring.
He takes some small satisfaction in spitting the resulting blood on their floor, which is an easy task now that he is back on the floor. For the third time today. And the day is far from over. So very far from over. (He swears he can hear Madi’s faint laughter, wondering not for the first and not for the last time what drastic measures will be required to stop hearing it in his lowest moments. Like learning how to be a person. Or maybe getting a parrot.)
Flint adds insult to added injury by offering him the same hand he just decked him with, but Silver has no choice but to take it if he wants the modicum of dignity being off the floor, his new and evidently only friend, will provide. Although at this point maybe it’s easier if he just stays there between rounds.
"You know, John," Thomas drawls, "for being such a schemer, I’d have thought you’d see that coming a mile away. Maybe if you could actually open your eyes all the way, you would have."
Silver exhales through the one part of his face still functioning properly and wonders at what point even Flint will understand if he murders Thomas just a little bit.
"It’s just like my second punch - you walked right into it."
Flint is fully prepared for Silver’s lunge at his very brave, very stupid, still stupidly handsome lover, catching the concussed man around the midsection and gently pushing him back into his chair once he stops trying to break free.
"All right, that’s enough," Flint growls. "We’ve had our fun - well, two of us have had our fun, but now it’s time for us to discuss something I’m sure we can all agree on." Thomas reluctantly drops his mocking expression and nods, and as Flint turns to Silver, he feels the beginnings of hope bloom cautiously in his chest that something about this godawful day can be salvaged.
"I’m sure we can all agree that this face looks even more punchable somehow with two black eyes but a bruise on only one side of the jaw. Throws off the symmetry. It’s like an arrow pointing to the spot that hasn’t been punched yet." Thomas pretends to consider Flint's suggestion very seriously and gives a nod of affirmation as Flint gestures around his features like currents on a nautical chart. At least this time Silver has the chance to register the "yet" and brace for impact.
As he drifts back into consciousness yet again, he hears Thomas’s dulcet tones. Based on their content, Silver knows his words are meant for him upon awakening, even if they are spoken in the direction of the fire. "How should you be? You should be like a rocky promontory against which the restless surf continually pounds -"
Silver has no interest in where this little speech is going while his head is churning like the sea, so he interjects with, "I’ll at least thank you for the small mercy of something other than Bible verses, but please no more lectures."
Thomas whips around to face Silver again, one corner of his mouth raised in amusement. "Ah, but there are so many verses suited to this particular situation. Why, you yourself have been the best object lesson for Matthew 5:39 that anyone could ever ask for."
As his two tormentors' laughter once again fills the room, Silver sighs and wonders if that quote about having to lie in your own bed after making it is also from the Bible. Meanwhile, an ocean away, Madi feels the beginnings of a smile tug on her lips for no particular reason at all that she can tell, and a small laugh escapes them. The next thing she knows, the laughter has built until she is shaking from it, and this time Silver knows for a fact he can hear it as it reverberates through his battered skull.