Chapter Text
-Before -
The clinking rings out into the daylight, eventually echoing and drowning in the sound below of the crashing waves. Flint taps once on Silver’s shoulder which elicits a frustrated huff and they start again. The clinking becomes part of the landscape. They were part of the landscape. Their boots kick up sand and the sun kisses their shoulders. This is their evolution.
Their breathing hushed and hurried, each matching the other with growing ease.
“You’re still looking at my eyes. Focus.” Flint comments and Silver swings daringly forward but receives a block from Flint. He smirks before stepping back; the sword held out comfortably.
“Again?” Flint asks.
“Give me a minute.” Silver declares and Flint nods, accepting to it. He sticks his sword in the sand and it sways from the force of it. The crutch is exceptionally hard to get used to. He slumps down onto the rock, letting it slip from him. Sweat collects across his exposed collarbone and the breeze is heaven.
“Not many more of these training sessions left.” Silver prods and squints towards the sky. He can hear Flint’s boots crunching in the sand towards him.
“You’re doing well I think,” Flint says and Silver moves his attention to the pair of eyes above him. Those pair of eyes that rooted Silver to the spot to an irritating degree.
“But I could be better.” Silver supplies with the lift of his brow and Flint grins a little.
“Yes, you could be but you’re a surprisingly proficient student.”
Silver chuckles and smiles wide this time and asks, “Surprisingly?”
Flint has that small impish grin still resting on his lips and they stare at each other like that, sharing smiles. There are only the ocean waves beckoning them below.
Silver didn’t know what this was, these moments. In the comfortable silence, there’s this slow closing of distance. The warmth of such a thing sets Silver reeling and his heart tripping over rhythms it’s yet to recognize.
Silver grabs his crutch and forces himself to stand and Flint is still watching him, curiously. As if he’s worthy of study; of memorizing. His eyes move to trace Silver’s lips and the implication is unmistakable. He’s done it before. This wasn’t anything new. If Silver is anything its aware. Always aware of how close Flint allows himself to physically be to Silver. It’s always right before the edge, right before the boundary is pressed but it stretches and bends. Yet such a thing doesn’t frighten him. It had felt like the culmination of all things fitting together like puzzle pieces. Beneath the sun, they are breathless and as content as either one of them could be in this moment.
Flint grabs his sword from the sand and they start again without a word. This time it was almost perfect how in sync their feet shuffled.
“Good form.” Flint complimented and Silver had to say he enjoyed the openness Flint is now granting him. He had unlocked the dreaded Captain Flint and now all he could do is smirk at him like he held the sun.
The clinking of their swords continued for a time yet until Flint changed the pace in a flurry of movement in which Silver received another tap on his shoulder. They were exceptionally close at this angle and Silver couldn’t bring himself to be frustrated. Their chests heave in tandem and Silver waits for Flint to back down as he always does. Although, Flint wouldn’t see it that way. They are disturbingly calm, despite asserting themselves in the heat. “You need to watch your stance during the last parry,” Flint says a little too quietly. They are still close, almost a breath apart.
“That so?” Silver asks and he can see it, that Flint is about to pull back, break away again.
“We’ll pick this back up tomorrow.” Flint acquiesces and turns away from him towards the woods that reached the horizon. Silver lets him go as he always did, watching his retreating back with a lightheadedness not attributed to the heat from the sun.
They’d be going into battle for Nassau soon and this moment would just be yet another memory for Silver to lock away; to pretend he didn’t visit.
--
- Present -
His mind is a deadly place to let rest in silence and the sound of the crashing waves help bring him into the present. There are marks in the sand where he remembers their feet dragged and he can still hear the faint echo of their breathing. The sun isn't welcome on his back and the light of day left nothing to shadow.
He knows he’s imagining the clinking of the swords but it’s still there, beneath every sound. He may be the man without a history but he’s also the man without a present. He haunts this landscape daily, lamenting and creating different outcomes. These outcomes are the lies he tells himself, that he hopes will eventually become his truths. There is one fact which eviscerates and blankets false hope. The two people he cared for most in this world hated him. Could he blame them for their anger? No. No, he could not, but he also wasn’t one to back away from it either. He betrayed them and ended their war against civilization to protect them both. That is what he tells himself and it is the truth of it, but not without its dark corners. Those hidden corners that reveal the ugly selfishness of it. John Silver wasn’t a saint nor did he try to be.
He stands from the rock, grabbing his crutch and rests it beneath his arm. He keeps his eyes on the sea and recognizes the loveless relationship there. He never liked the sea and it never liked him much either. He didn’t miss those waves or being pulled into the undercurrent. He doesn't have a place in his heart for it; there isn't much room left in that chamber. What he did miss and wouldn’t admit to is the sound of the Walrus creaking like its bones stretching out into the night. Those early days of spending the morning thinking of an excuse to visit the captain’s cabin. He’s never denied that he wasn’t in it for himself back then but he’d also be lying if he didn’t recognize the pull they shared and how helpless either of them was to it. It was very much like a spell from some sea witch and it's yet to break. If he could find that witch, he’d do whatever is necessary for her to sever the connection.
He turns then and sees Madi standing in the beach weed before it meets the sand. He’s immensely surprised by it and almost topples over the edge. A fitting end to John Silver, if there is one.
There is no warmth beneath her eyes but she tries to convey a comforting calmness to him that he appreciates.
“You won’t find him here.” She says and it slices into him worse than any dagger. He was the cause of all of this, after all. “He’s why you come out here, yes?”
Silver breaks eye contact with her and concentrates on the line of thick foliage at the mouth of the horizon.
“Considering no one in camp speaks to me, I didn’t think I’d be missed.” Silver replies and he knows it’s a cheap trick, one that encourages pity but Madi had none.
“There are some that still harbor ill will for what you’ve done and they have asked for your departure.” She declares and he leans on his crutch, his heart hammering against his ribcage.
“And…you? What do you have to say about it?” Silver tries and he knows the answer will shatter the veneer of calm he’s trying to convey. She’s silent for a long time after that and he chances a glance at her. She’s watching him with quiet despondency. The pain of that silence is worse than anything she could have said. He nods once and presses his lips together which form a bitter smile. His expression twitches with the threat of collapsing into anguish. He was to be torn apart. This was his punishment.
“You needed someone to hold a tether, I held it but you don’t need one anymore, John,” Madi says, softly. He took her purpose and the promise of a new future. He’s undeserving of her kindness she gives him and would have preferred her to scream at him. He would have preferred violence from it. This…this is a finality. One he thought of and should have prepared himself for.
His voice cracks and his eyes shine in that cursed sun, “And if I refuse? I promised you I’d wait and I don’t—”
Madi interrupts now with a new-found ferocity, “I don’t need promises anymore. We are beyond that which you can accept. The war was just as much mine as it was Flint’s. I sat in front of Woodes Rogers and I told him about the century of voices that still call to me. They have yet to cease and they never will. You took that from me. That isn’t something I can forgive. We needed to love each other to build this alliance and I think something could have been born from it, had those first promises come to fruition but not now..that flame is gone. It is not something that can be rekindled. I don’t want your promises, John. They are not mine anymore. They do not belong to me.”
He’s drowning in the maelstrom of her words, crashing and claiming his mind like a possession. Tears have now spilled down his cheeks and escape from his chin, landing in the sand. The sand where he once thought contentment was an achievable future. His voice is small and pitiable, “Where am I to go?”
She walks towards him than with her stunning strength of decency and grace. He lets the wave of it hit him and pull him under. She wraps her arms around him into an embrace. He holds her tightly, his hand bunching in the fabric of her shawl. He rests his face on her shoulder and he’s shaking from the effort. He knows she can feel it and she holds him steady. “Do something for me.” She whispers against his shoulder.
He breathes, “Anything…” He’s hardly able to articulate words.
She pulls back and studies his eyes, which are now wet and reddened. She recites, “Find him.”
--
Silver lies on the small cot in the humid hut for one final night. He wept on the beach after Madi had left him. He released all of his despair on that goddamned slice of peace that mocked him. The clouds hid the sun and he was thankful for it. That cliff side deserved to be corrupted with it. He despises the little history he's built. He wants to be rid it, he wants to forget.
He stares up at the ceiling which casts shadows from the moonlight and he watches them wane. He could try to stay and have them cast him out time and time again until they grew tired of it and ended him.
Find him.
Wouldn’t he be chasing a ghost?
He stood from the cot and stepped outside into the unforgiving humid night air. He gathers what little strength he can muster and he screams. He screams deafeningly and tore his throat from it. His entire body burns and aches as if he has thrown himself into a fire pit.
He fucking misses him. He misses the terror, the exhilaration, the darkness and drowning in the dread. He misses James Flint more than he’s ever missed anything. It ripped him apart from the inside even if there isn't much left of him to destroy. Madi wouldn’t forgive him and who’s to say Flint wouldn’t either? At the very least he could burrow a deeper hole into Flint where he’s already wounded him. He could collapse them both. Something he couldn’t do with Madi. Madi isn’t destroyed by what happened, she is a force and an ever-burning torch. She is order. As for him and Flint, they are torn from the separation. They are callused and scarred by it. They embody destruction. Silver has always been a lightning rod for Flint’s rage and channeled it where it was needed most.
He stood in the dark that night ready to wail more at that stubborn star-filled sky. He’s afraid. He’s afraid of what he’s about to continue and finish creating. Long John Silver felt like he could have died with Captain Flint. How many others would have rested easy in their beds hearing that? How many others would have rejoiced as if the sun had parted from the clouds? He couldn’t allow that to be. This war may have been over and he was exceptionally relieved of that fact but Captain Flint and Long John Silver are not dead. They were not meant to wilt away like this. This isn’t what he wanted. This isn’t what he was trying to attain for the three of them.
He limps around the hut like a madman, his leg throbbing from the effort. He spoke to the shadows in his head and tore at his hair which messily rests on his shoulders.
Find him.
Madi’s words are the seed planted in his skull. The very last seed of a dark hope that kept Silver breathing. A small flicker of light rumbles to life inside him and he watches the sunrise from this idyllic camp for the final time.