Work Text:
Lazaretto Creek, Tybee Island, Georgia
1719
Silver sat in the rowboat with Flint, who was currently dozing opposite him, hands cuffed. He was trying to figure out how exactly to say good-bye. Usually words came to Silver easily, like a magician’s trick, pulling bright-colored scarves from his sleeves, but they were not—they were not the truth. For once in his miserable fucking life, he wanted to tell the truth, all the stark, unlovely, blood-red, hurdy-gurdy viscera of it. It had come to feel like a poison, like some malignant creature trying to claw its way out of his stomach.
Just take it from me, he wanted to demand, to moan. I never wanted it.
Did anyone ever want it? Did Flint, returning at last to his golden-haired lover, want to know the shabby bits of—affection that Silver kept hidden away, pitiful things, only to be taken out and admired by moonlight and ocean spray? More importantly, now, in the magnolia-scented dusk, at the end of his epic, did Flint deserve to be troubled with such futile, gasping little emotions? They couldn’t even rightly be called hopes, or imaginings, because that would imply a wish for even the slightest chance of future realization. And Silver would never be so foolish. No, the truth was some sad, unhoped-for child, some awful, misshapen thing with no place in either of their lives. Flint would shove it back at him, and it would float on the Lazaretto Creek, to the Savannah River, to the Atlantic Ocean, another castaway in a sea lousy with them already.
Maybe it would hurt him. Maybe I want to fucking hurt him, Silver thought. Maybe Flint deserved to think about it, to think about Silver’s little seedlings of affection, and what they could have grown into if they had been allowed to take root. Maybe, maybe when he’s finally with his precious fucking Thomas, he could think of all he had given up, knowingly or unknowingly, in order to get there. It was a small, and vicious, and hurt little voice that said this, from somewhere in Silver’s chest.
He stared at Flint. He stared at Flint and felt his blood sing out. It was rushing, galloping, yearning: let me out. As if the truth would burst through his own veins to be told, uncaring of what was in its way. Silver was searching for the words, now, something frantic building in his chest. They were all clumsy, and cheapening, and wrong. All so foreign to the soaring, aching thing living inside him. For a hysterical moment the only thing Silver thought would do was to split his own chest open and shove his anemic little heart, still-beating, into Flint’s hands. He almost laughed at the idea. Certainly Flint would have laughed if he’d heard it. Risible, he’d have called it, in his crisp accent, and Silver could imagine his teeth flashing as he said it.
But the more he tried, throwing words like so many darts, the farther from his target he seemed to hit. Silver-tongued Silver, he thought bitterly, struck dumb precisely at the moment it mattered most. Even if he could manage, somehow, to find the magical words that could make Flint understand, could Silver survive their telling? Perhaps he may as well rip his heart out of his body: for what words would leave enough of him left so he wasn’t a cripple twice over? The sun was dropping lower and lower over the horizon, and all Silver could do was stare.
“What’s happened?” came Flint’s voice, rough with sleep.
Silver’s eyes snapped to the other man. “Sorry?”
“You look as if you’ve seen a ghost, Silver,” Flint said flatly.
“No,” Silver said absently, “No ghost.”
Flint looked disturbed by Silver’s queer answer, and queer tone of voice. The man was evasive as a rule, but usually accomplished it via circumlocution, not conspicuous vaguery.
For a moment, the two men simply looked out on the swamp, letting the creek bolster their boat quietly. The frogs were coming out in full voice.
“You must be anxious to see him again,” Silver said quietly, observing the water-bugs skitter across the surface of the water.
Silver could hear the smile in Flint’s voice as he said, “Yes. Yes, I am.”
How Silver hated him in that moment. Hated the content look on his face. Hated how something in his own heart was happy for Flint. What the fuck? Quickly, he cast about for something clever or pithy to say, perhaps something that would really anger Flint, and make it so that the captain would rage at him or ignore him until Hands returned. He needed to steer the conversation—the atmosphere, really—toward safer territory.
“His cock must be enormous,” Silver settled on, smirking. “Considering you burnt down half the world for losing it.”
He leaned back in the little rowboat, eyeing Flint glibly. Now Flint, if he was feeling patient, would simply call him a little shit, and it would be over; if not, Silver might have to dive into the creek in order to escape with his life. Either way: safely diverted from talking about things, God forbid.
But Flint simply shifted and scratched at his beard absently while surveying Silver with puzzlement.
“Now why would you want to ruin such a lovely evening by saying something as crass as that?”
“Your suggestion that I have any sort of agenda besides mere curiosity, ruining evenings or otherwise, is repulsive to me.”
Flint smirked, and Silver took a moment to consider just how spectacularly that had backfired. Flint, meanwhile, had scented blood; he knew that the sudden uptick in bullshit coming out of Silver’s mouth simply meant he was getting closer to the wound.
“Silver,” Flint said, peering into the increasingly dark swampland that surrounded them, “we’re almost out of time.”
Silver frowned. “You speak of this as an ending, and not a new beginning with Thomas?” he asked, far sharper than he had intended.
“Surely it can be two different things at once?”
“For you, perhaps,” Silver answered, for in his mind, the moment Flint left was always the moment it all ended. The moment his vision could never see beyond.
Flint, bless him, seemed content to leave it there.
Silver, to his own surprise, was not.
“You do know,” he asked quietly, “that I did not bring you here as a punishment? That I brought you here because I thought you’d want to be with him?”
It wasn’t nearly enough, and it glossed over too much, most glaringly, the cuffs binding Flint’s wrists. There had always been too much history between the two of them. Somehow, by the time they had met, it had already been too late. It wasn’t that they had chosen another option; it was that they’d never had a choice to begin with. Now, so late in the game, the weight was crushing. Silver was glad of the reminder. He dared a glance at Flint, finding green eyes staring back steadily.
“Yes,” Flint answered, and Silver struggled to hear him over the crepuscular sounds of the swamp. “Yes, I know.”
They sat in silence for a moment.
“Do you think he’ll still want me? After all I’ve done?” Flint asked, his voice cracking and wavering, staring into the night. Silver saw what he was truly asking: can there be such a thing as redemption? But Silver had always found it best to ignore those questions that could not be answered, and so turned his thoughts to Thomas Hamilton.
Of course Thomas will, Silver shaped his response. He’ll want you, in spite of everything you’ve done, in spite of who you’ve become.
And his heart, tripping along sadly, answered for itself: I’d want you, it said. I’d want you because of everything you’ve done, because of who you’ve become.
A tear rolled down his cheek and Silver shoved it away hastily, grateful for the falling darkness that covered the movement. Who asked you, anyway.
He sighed gently. It was almost over.
“Only a fool wouldn’t want you,” Silver answered, finally, something like tenderness, soft and slow, flooding his chest. I’m drowning, he thought lazily. My heart is bleeding and I’m slowly drowning in it, and there is nothing I can do.
And, oh, there it was, after all that agonizing: the truth. Only a fool wouldn’t want you. At once far too oblique, for it was well-documented how much of a fool Silver was; there was room to maneuver, there, and Silver did like that in an answer. And yet, far too earnest: for what could that imply besides, he shuddered to think, I want you? All that agonizing, and it had suddenly come out of his mouth, fully formed, as if Silver had meant for such a thing to be said. He had expected a bloody scene, his guts spilled all over the place, musket fire in the air, and found only himself, quietly dying of hidden wounds and internal bleeding.
“Silver, I—” Flint began, and Silver didn’t have the courage to look at him, though he smiled at the gentleness he heard in Flint’s voice. “I—”
“In another world,” Silver interrupted. His voice was no higher than a murmur, but Flint found it commanding enough to stop speaking nonetheless. “In another universe. Do you think we might have been something?”
Silver looked at Flint, feeling bold in the darkness. They could barely see each other now. A beat passed, silence filled only by crickets and frogs.
“Yes,” Flint confirmed suddenly, more a gasp than a word. “In another world,” he said, “In a kinder world.”