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The weather turns on a dime.
The Lion is mere hours from Savannah—not a cloud in sight and sails stretched to the brim—when the temperature suddenly drops. There is no other warning: the sky takes a single, shivering breath and splits wide like a cracked skull. They are caught out. A thick wall of rain comes down, the deafening torrent broken only by snaps of thunder loud enough to shake the masts. The ship begins to shudder beneath their feet, groaning over each wave as though it were a beast in pain.
The crew hardly takes notice. The sails are wet but they are full. No man has to tie himself to the helm to keep them upright. All things considered, it is fair weather, still.
Could be worse, Silver thinks, blinking up at the broiling sky. When has a little rain deterred any man at sea?
Fate seems to take the question as a challenge. The storm draws away a few hours in as though the whole ordeal had been a playful ruse. In its wake, a tender fog descends, swirling across the deck like smoke. For his part, Silver is relieved to be able to walk around again without risking a broken neck. He is happy about this until he realizes that the sails have begun to sag.
The storm has stolen the wind. The gale that had been all but flying them to their destination has dropped, now, to a balmy breeze. Puffs of air occasionally nudge them forward, inch by reluctant inch. The loss in speed is so great that Silver leans over the railing to look at the cut of the sea against the hull, desperate for proof that they are moving at all.
Bafflement, this time, and all around. The men's hands still. They begin to talk. Silver glares up at the sky. This must be some cosmic fucking joke.
Jack loses his patience and his mind, right around the same time. He is so tense that Silver can scarcely stand to be in the same room with the man as he mutters under his breath about Philadelphia and the Guthries, dates and appointments he has promised to keep. Everything feels tenuous, breakable, so Silver tries to reason with him. He regrets it immediately.
“Oh, please,” Jack snaps. "Don't act like you aren't happy about this."
Disdain drips off his tongue as though Silver were personally responsible for their current speed. The day is almost gone, the sea sits around them as if it were a pond, and the very last thing in the world that Silver is at the moment is happy.
"Exactly what the fuck do I have to be happy about?"
Jack's mouth twists, ugly and smug, as though he has a great deal to say. For all his posturing, however, all he does is walk over to the window, waving a hand at Silver over his shoulder as he goes in a mixture of boredom and surrender. Staring at the back of his head, Silver feels himself edging towards anger, in earnest. Time was, he remembers, he considered the sentiment to be irrational. Futile and stupid, like pissing into the wind. And yet.
"May I remind you that I suggested you stay behind when we last made port?"
Jack sighs. "Yes, I remember."
"You didn't have to be on this ship," Silver says, and he itches to shout the rest as he steps around to catch Jack's eye, "You could have been in Philadelphia right now attending to whatever fucking business you’ve cooked up for yourself, if only you hadn't insisted on—"
"I wasn't about to leave you alone with him," Jack cuts in, sharp. "Not that my being here makes any fucking difference, clearly."
"What? What the hell does that mean? Jesus, if you're referring to last night—"
"A week ago we had an agreement!" Jack shouts, rapping on the window sill with his fist. "An understanding. And all it took for you to go back on your word was an hour with him in the hold."
"He wasn't eating!" Silver raises his voice to match. "What use is it to go all the way to Savannah if he starves to death on the way there? May as well throw him over the side right now, then, is that it? Is that what you'd like me to do?”
A tremulous beat of silence. Jack's reflection in the window rubs at his forehead.
“Good Christ. I never took you for an idiot, but you must be one if you think that is what concerns me here."
Silver draws back so that he doesn't smash Jack's head into the glass.
"In that case, please, share your concerns. You have my full attention, Captain."
Finally Jack turns, and his eyes are far gentler than his tone, which cuts like a blade. "All right. What concerns me is that Flint is now walking around this ship unsupervised. What concerns me is that you didn’t think to tell me about this before you allowed it to happen. But above all what fucking concerns me is that I know what he does to you every time you speak to him, I can see it in your face—Jesus Christ, everyone can see it, do you really think we're that stupid? Don't answer that. I know as a rule pirates aren't the most intelligent of creatures but they still talk. And they have eyes, most of them. Everyone knows. How he gets to you, what he means—you and him, it’s—honestly, it's about as subtle as a fucking gun to the head. I can imagine what it's costing you, making this trip, truly, I—don't look at me like that—it may sound like a load of bollocks to you right now but believe it or not I've some experience with how this loss will sting. So with all that we have to lose, all that I have to lose, I cannot for the life of me shake the feeling that if given even half the chance you won’t just—"
Jack catches himself. The unsaid sits between them. His expression goes from a troubled grimace to something that seems akin to sympathy—to pity—and Silver wants to recoil from it; to fight him, to start shouting. He doesn't get the chance, as Jack shakes his head and walks out of the room.
Silver avoids him for the rest of the day.
The men are even worse. With nothing better to do, they group together in dark corners and begin to whisper, voices swirling around the the ship like malevolent spirits; we’re cursed, it's a curse, it's Captain Flint that's done this, you mark my words—
On something like reflex alone, Silver resists. He shakes his head and laughs it off and tries to ensure everyone within earshot that the wind will return, that they’ll begin to move again soon, that Savannah is home to the best brothels in the Americas as far as he's heard. Universal truths hold fast; men need certainty and Silver dances the dance.
But Jack’s crew does not know him. Jack’s crew does not respect him, and it soon becomes clear that Jack’s crew could not give less of a shit about him, because they barely lift their heads in the mess hall to listen to what he’s got to say. Only Ben and Hands deign to hear him out, though they both stand together in the corner quietly fuming; Ben over the losses he's suffered and Hands over Silver's perceived mercy and weakness. On an island miles from here, the late and great Long John Silver turns over in his grave along with his ever faithful and ever dead crew.
It is a familiar feeling, being ignored. Not too long ago Silver considered the state a blessing. It made him invincible, untouchable, quietly lethal like a snake in the grass. All he knows of it now is a painful rage, which leaps around inside of him with nowhere to go. It is with that very same rage that he finds himself pacing like an animal in the Captain’s cabin just before nightfall. He tries to will the ship to move beneath him. The ship refuses to cooperate. Drawls lazily on, as though it has all the time in the world.
Silver's leg aches. He refuses to sit. He lifts his head to look out of the window and the ocean stretches out, flat, and dark, and maddeningly quiet. Skeleton Island is long behind them and Savannah still far ahead and this pause in between the two feels darkly fated; a moment suspended, cleaved clean out of time.
This is punishment. It's fucking purgatory.
The thought freezes Silver mid-step. Only a day without wind and reason has already abandoned him. Stick an inordinate amount of men into a tiny cramped space and this was bound to happen, surely. Perhaps superstition was catching like the plague.
Time passes inexorably onward. The sun has dipped close to the horizon and the sky is casting a muted blue hue into the cabin when the door behind Silver slowly creaks open.
"If you say another word you'll end up in the ocean, Rackham."
“Evening.”
A beat. “Out for a stroll?”
"Not quite." Flint enters the cabin and shuts the squealing door behind him. "I heard we lost the wind."
This is new; Flint walking freely onboard. It would have been unthinkable a few days ago, leaving him unshackled like this. The Flint that Silver had first met—the one that sank Dufresne's captaincy armed only with a few choice words spoken at the right time—that Flint would have by now concocted some bloody scheme to take the reigns of Jack's ship. That Flint would have likely succeeded in the endeavour even if he were being kept under lock and key. Only Flint hasn't been that Flint for some time, now. Since the hold, since Silver had begged him to eat. Since before; for longer than Silver wants to think about.
"Yes, we lost the wind." Silver stares out of the window as if his eyes will catch on a single thing but the flat expanse of the sea. "Jack is throwing a fit about it. This is my fault, as far as he's concerned. I've apparently the power to bend the weather to my will, did you know? Because it is fucking news to me."
The floor creaks, yielding beneath Flint's boots. “Would that make you Poseidon, then?"
"If the shoe fits, I guess."
It is uncanny—as instinctual as breathing—the way the hairs on the back of his neck stand up to attention as Flint approaches. It gnaws at Silver now; the nameless hunger to turn around. To look at Flint, to see his face, to gauge and measure and understand. To be understood. Clenching his teeth, Silver resists. Keeps his eyes on the horizon and suddenly knows; knows with a terrible, sick clarity that this is how he will spend the rest of his days; constantly aware of Flint's absence as he has always been of his presence. Staring at a void as impossible to ignore as Flint has always been. The loss threatens to level him before it has even come to pass.
Flint comes to rest by him with both hands clasped behind his back. His shoulder would be touching Silver's if one of them were to lean and close the gap. The distance seems deliberate. Silver does not breach it.
"Any reason for this hostility?" Flint asks, and for a moment Silver thinks he is speaking of something else.
He clears his throat. "Jack is under the impression that I do not wish to see this voyage through to its end."
He takes care not to look at Flint as he says this. In his periphery, he can see Flint's ghost; back-lit in blue and trapped in the window. The ghost slants Silver a look.
"Is he right?"
His gaze is like a weight. The impulse to run is overwhelming.
"Jesus, not you, too. Of course not. I'm not glad for this, if that's what you're asking."
The dying light of day plays gently across Flint's face. His eyes narrow a hair before he looks away. For a time, they stand there, shoulder to shoulder but not quite, in silence. The fog descends further around the windows of the cabin as if conspiring to press them closer together.
"The men seem to think we're cursed," Flint murmurs.
"The men always think we're cursed," Silver returns. "Fuck the men."
He realizes after he’s spoken that there’s no spite in his words as he’d intended. He sounds as pathetic and exhausted as he feels. When he chances another look at Flint's reflection, Flint is wearing an uncertain frown. The kind he hardly ever dons. Silver braces on his crutch to face him.
"I'm sorry, am I to understand that you agree? You actually think we're cursed?" Flint says nothing. “Oh, for fuck’s sake."
The words are scarcely out of his mouth before Flint is also turning. “Don’t be absurd, I think you know me better than—that."
They stare at each other, curved in like brackets. This close, Flint's eyes faintly glow, catching the remaining light in the room. His expression is inscrutable. Silver feels a sudden pull to speak, to lean—but Flint is already turning away.
“I put no stock in superstition," he says. "I would, however, be remiss if I did not point out that it is highly unusual to drop out of the trade winds given our current bearings. Nigh unheard of, even.”
Disbelief overpowers all other concerns; Silver gapes at him. “Maybe it’s the hour or the lack of sleep—you still don’t sound like you disagree with them."
“I’m only trying to give an explanation for the state of the men. Their paranoia, in this particular case, is understandable. Somewhat."
This, too, is incredible, unbelievable; Flint defending the men against him. More evidence that the world has shifted beneath their feet. Everything will be different—unrecognizable—going forward. When it becomes clear that Flint will not elaborate further, Silver lets his eyes drift back to the sea.
The cabin is silent again. Airless. It feels isolating and monumental, as though they are at the edge of the world, looking out. But not together. Silver stares at the precipice of his life and wants, desperately, to lean into Flint's side. He is sure that it would let him breathe easier, that the stubborn knot at the base of his throat would unravel if only he could only feel Flint at his shoulder.
As if that would help. As if that wouldn't make their imminent separation worse.
"When we were becalmed," Flint says, "Do you recall what you said to me?"
Silver feels the trap coming. The same way he feels all traps coming; a twisting warning in his stomach, urging a change in direction.
“Remember? I'm not entirely certain I’ve even gained the weight back yet.”
Flint makes a contrary noise, his eyes flitting over Silver's reflection in the window. The humour concealed in his expression is a relief. It's a fucking lifeline.
"Hold on a minute—are you calling me fat?"
Flint rolls his eyes. "I'm fairly certain that's not what I was implying."
"What were you implying?"
"Only that you gained the weight back."
"That doesn't sound altogether different from—"
"Silver. Stop."
The name falls quietly out of his mouth, but it might as well have been a shout the way it makes Silver go mute. He feels as though he's being dragged across the floor, kicking and screaming, into something he would never look at in the light if he were given a choice.
Watching him carefully now, Flint goes on, "You feared that I had conjured you into a storm, do you remember?"
"Yes. Yes, I remember."
"I fear the same, now."
There's a beat. The trap is sprung.
"Can we just, please—“
He has no idea what he's asking for until he meets Flint's eyes again; Flint looks tired, and sad, and somehow infinitely gentle—all three at once and more—and Silver knows what he wants, then; he wants so badly to shake him, wishes he were angry, wishes Flint would yell, fight; fight him. If given enough time Silver is sure he could drag that out of him, turn the expression on Flint's face into something easier to look at; twist out the rage and the hurt and ugly broken trust that he knows is in there, simmering just beneath the surface and running God knows how deep, only there isn't. Enough time.
"We could," Flint says lightly. "I could. But surely you must know we're running out of time."
Silver recoils from the thought, sometimes; the idea that he and Flint share a mind. In moments like these it feels frighteningly possible. It feels true. He can feel Flint in his head, in his blood, in his bones and marrow, unshakable and irreplaceable.
"What would you have me do?"
"Nothing." Flint turns towards the window once more. "Only for you to say what you wish to say before you no longer can. Perhaps that is the reason for this."
Silver looks from the ghost in the glass to the man by his side. "Are you saying the wind left so we could talk to one another?"
Flint raises a shoulder into a shrug and knocks gently into Silver's side.
"Superstition is catching, isn't it?"
Hours have passed, they must have. The bottle of rum they lifted from Jack's stores is half-way gone, and yet the day has not broken, the wind has not picked up. The sea is still flat as a salt-bed around them, the ship unmoving beneath them. They are, however, getting somewhere.
"This place you were speaking of, this plantation,” Flint says, looking up from where he’s seated in the chair across from Silver, "You intend to sell them my servitude, is that it? You can say it,” he prompts, when Silver stays silent. "There’s no point in holding back now.”
Silver clears his throat. “Yes.” He pauses for a moment, breathing. “I intend to buy your place there.”
Slowly, deliberately, Flint nods, turning his gaze down into the mug in his hands. Tell me you understand, Silver wants to say. He wants to beg. Tell me you see that I've no other choice.
Instead he says, "I do not for one moment believe you will stay there for very long, however.”
Flint hums contemplatively as he leans back in his seat. "You think I'll break out? Why? You will have ended this war effort once and for all by the time I do. What use would there be?"
"What use—" Silver catches himself; decides against saying the name again for fear of evoking a reaction. He grips his drink tighter. "You will break out because he will be there. Even if you don’t wish to free yourself, you will free him. I know you will. And afterwards, you two will live out the rest of your days as you please."
Flint regards him for a long moment over the rim of his mug. There's a tenseness around his eyes, the set to his mouth, that seems to soften the longer he looks. At the end of it, Silver can feel the way Flint's gaze turns inwards, examining whatever conclusion he has reached. It's one that is inaccessible to Silver now, he cannot figure it out no matter how hard he tries. So much for sharing one mind.
"What is it?" he asks at last, his voice hushed. He leans forward. "Tell me what you're thinking."
A number of things," Flint says, evasively. "First among them being that I don't believe you."
"Look, I’m not—"
"Don't," Flint cuts in, harsher. He takes a quick swing of rum and when he speaks again his tone has gentled. "I don't believe you, and I'm not going to. In that regard there's nothing you can do. You're a fool to try."
The cabin creaks around them. Silver strains himself to hear anything but the ship settling, desperate for some footsteps on the deck above them to indicate a change in the wind, to indicate some way out of this. He feels helpless, suddenly, trapped, and the memory rushes in, unbidden; Sister Margaret leaning close to him, as if divulging a secret. Her kind eyes on him, her soft hand taking Silver's own, red one, her other one brushing his hair out of his bruised face.
If you keep on like this, chico, some day soon there will be wolves at your door, and there will not be a soul on God's green earth who believes you when you cry. You wouldn't want that, would you?
I'm not lying, Silver had said, though his name had neither been John nor Silver then. He'd wanted to repeat it again and again and again until his tongue turned to stone. I'm not lying. I'm not.
She'd chuckled, almost despite herself, and Silver had felt bile rise in his throat.
Oh, child. Little boys like you always lie.
"What else, then?" Silver finally concedes, and Flint's clear eyes meet his own once more. "You don't believe me, that I understand. I accept it. But there's something else you wish to say, and I can tell you aren't saying it."
"What gives you the right to know?" Flint snaps suddenly. In my head, you're not welcome, Silver thinks, and it’s absurd that he wants to laugh.
"This was your idea. The wind needs the truth to blow, remember?"
"Are you saying you agree with me now? You agree with the men?"
"I am saying," Silver says, looking away with the pretense of refilling his glass. "It can't hurt to try. We can attempt to appease the Gods, surely, even if they don't exist."
Flint huffs, a sound between a scoff and a sneer. Then he hesitates, and that's when Silver can see it again, the truth on the tip of his tongue. There in his fidgeting hands.
"I cannot face him," Flint says, in a small, rough voice, like a weight is sitting on his chest. His thumb tucks between his fingers to roll his ring. "Even if this—even if this isn't some elaborate ruse, even if you are not lying to me, like you have been for months now, it seems, I cannot—how could I? I'm not the man he remembers. I am not the man—I am not a man he could—"
He cuts off on a tremulous exhale and half-rises from his seat at the same time, leaning forward to take the bottle of rum from where it sits next to Silver's elbow. Silver watches him come closer and it is then that the instinct seizes him, by the throat like an animal trashing to dig its teeth in. Before he knows what he's doing he's taking Flint by the wrist; his warm, warm wrist, still crusted with blood, his skin torn and bruised, and Silver feels nausea roil through him again when he touches the scars of his own making, feels it turn his sea-sick stomach over.
"He could," Silver says, and Flint tenses over him like a bowstring. "He could. He would."
"How the fuck would you know?”
The desperation that breaks Flint's voice is unmistakable, despite everything. The flare of fury in his eyes is more blatant a cover than any Silver has ever seen. He relaxes his hold on Flint's wrist to accommodate for it, but doesn't entirely let go, his own hand serving only as a buffer between Flint's and the surface of the table now. Flint can pull back at any time. He doesn't move.
"Because I do," Silver says, quietly. All else is so silent he feels as though he's screaming it. "I do, just as I imagine he did, once. And he will again. No matter his sins, Captain Flint is not as hard to love as you think."
He would have missed Flint's faint tremble if they hadn't been touching. He would have missed the way Flint's breath leaves his mouth then, when Silver swipes his thumb over his skin; stuttered, the air shivering between them as if something has broken loose. It is not the first time he has said it, Silver thinks. He’d implied as much in the hold, when they were on their knees together; it had been clear, he thought, when they woke up together hours later still tangled up in one another. And yet, still, Flint's entire body goes slack in Silver’s hands, now, whatever stubborn uncertainty he was feeling flushed out of him by a gust of wind.
The cabin around them shakes as if breached by a burst of canon fire. Startled, they both look up at the same time just as a stampede of footsteps erupt above them, men shouting, cheering, whistling like a pack of beasts. Silver stands, and Flint draws back, and they meet at the edge of the world again, both of them scrambling to look out of the back windows into the impenetrable darkness. The flag is fluttering, if only faintly. The sea comes alive beneath their feet with a hiss, licking the hull as if it had never left and Silver, he—fucking laughs, he can't help it, as a sudden wave of hysteria hits him. Superstition is catching. It's definitely fucking catching.
He's still laughing when Flint steps close, and Flint's eyes are smiling, lit bright in the moonlight when Silver looks up to meet them. A pale hand reaches out and Silver’s laughter dies in his throat; he would think it a phantom if it weren’t so gentle on the side of his face, Flint’s thumb grazing back and forth over his ear again and again. Silver leans into it, briefly consumed, before he comes to his senses, takes Flint by the front of his shirt, and pulls him into a kiss.
That is the first and last time he kisses him.
(Or so he thinks. God, after all, works in mysterious ways.)