[ It is an odd thing, to see the entirety of one’s life in stark relief. It’s an odd thing to see the shit fall away, the unimportant crap that fills a life sink to the bottom of the sea like a dead body. Rather: at first, the notion that anyone else might kill Flint was offensive simply out of pure competitive jealousy. No one else merited killing Flint, especially not some puffed up governor who got the opportunity out of luck and not skill.
But then all that emotion calcified and burned away into something more true.
It’s dark and late and the ship is moving at a clip, with the kind of wind that keeps the crew busy and the captains without much to do.
Charles sees Flint on the deck, a place he has not been in the past few days, maybe because of the shame, or the guilt, or perhaps the grief. It doesn’t matter. Charles doesn’t care.
He steps up.]
And now?
[It seems like an important thing to discuss: what happens when they arrive in Nassau.]
[The moon is heavy in the sky, and the night air moving under it tugs steadily at the edges of his clothes. It nips at him with the same animal curiosity as it does the warship's canvas. Presently, the wind is an ally. But it's possible that it will recall it's bite as they descend below the edges of Spanish Florida. It's possible the wind is not the only thing that will recall there are other directions to set its teeth in once they pass into those more southerly latitudes.
The stern deck is crisscrossed with the shadows from a dozen rigging lines, a blue black spider's web draped shroud-like across the ship's hip and heels. Flint, inside its net at the taffrail, bears remarkably little resemblance to a ghost as he turns his face toward the sound of Charles Vane's approach, his address. If there is something dark and calculating in the pit of his eye—
Well. When is there not?]
It seems that is likely to depend on your former shipmates.
[He's heard a rumor. Something about a great deal of Spanish gold stolen off a beach.]
[He asks, casually, but there's that tone in his voice that suggests something else. Not that he has nothing to do with Jack and Anne, but rather, that he has no control over them save Jack's desperate desire to please Charles. So Charles can control him, and they both know it. It would not take more than a look, a careful consideration.
But this is not how they play this game, and it's not how Charles plays any game at all. Neither captain is an island, but still.
He takes a breath.]
Between your crew, and mine, Flint.
[He clarifies that, although he suspects that Flint will press back towards gold.]
[He straightens by a wolfish degree, some reflexive predatory intent in the square of his shoulder and the lowering of his chin. Though his eye slides briefly past Vane there on the stern deck with him, fleeting forward along the warship's beam. There's no seeing all the way forward given her fleet of sailcloth, but for a moment the target is clear regardless: somewhere ahead of them lies an island, and work to be done on it.
It's only a moment though. Then Flint's insistence has reeled itself back here, wound tight as if on a tether he might simply release and reclaim at will. His attentions steady there on the other man beside him.]
At this moment, everyone here in this ship is united in the pleasure of a temporary victory over a goliath. But they'll remember their empty pockets the moment they step foot on Nassau and find they've been made comparatively destitute. Or do you imagine Jack Rackham means to be generous enough with his newfound power to keep this alliance whole?
[He doesn't say anything for a moment. They're in a strange place, the two of them; since the moment that Flint landed on the island all those years ago, Charles has been gunning for his downfall, and now-
-now, they're here, willing to forge some kind of alliance, over the knowledge that the beast that's coming is bigger than either of them. All of them.
So.]
Jack'll fall in line.
[He says it with a slight gritting of his teeth, the belief there but just simmering under the surface, because he knows it is true, at the end of the day.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
you owe me internet money
But then all that emotion calcified and burned away into something more true.
It’s dark and late and the ship is moving at a clip, with the kind of wind that keeps the crew busy and the captains without much to do.
Charles sees Flint on the deck, a place he has not been in the past few days, maybe because of the shame, or the guilt, or perhaps the grief. It doesn’t matter. Charles doesn’t care.
He steps up.]
And now?
[It seems like an important thing to discuss: what happens when they arrive in Nassau.]
$$$
The stern deck is crisscrossed with the shadows from a dozen rigging lines, a blue black spider's web draped shroud-like across the ship's hip and heels. Flint, inside its net at the taffrail, bears remarkably little resemblance to a ghost as he turns his face toward the sound of Charles Vane's approach, his address. If there is something dark and calculating in the pit of his eye—
Well. When is there not?]
It seems that is likely to depend on your former shipmates.
[He's heard a rumor. Something about a great deal of Spanish gold stolen off a beach.]
no subject
[He asks, casually, but there's that tone in his voice that suggests something else. Not that he has nothing to do with Jack and Anne, but rather, that he has no control over them save Jack's desperate desire to please Charles. So Charles can control him, and they both know it. It would not take more than a look, a careful consideration.
But this is not how they play this game, and it's not how Charles plays any game at all. Neither captain is an island, but still.
He takes a breath.]
Between your crew, and mine, Flint.
[He clarifies that, although he suspects that Flint will press back towards gold.]
no subject
[He straightens by a wolfish degree, some reflexive predatory intent in the square of his shoulder and the lowering of his chin. Though his eye slides briefly past Vane there on the stern deck with him, fleeting forward along the warship's beam. There's no seeing all the way forward given her fleet of sailcloth, but for a moment the target is clear regardless: somewhere ahead of them lies an island, and work to be done on it.
It's only a moment though. Then Flint's insistence has reeled itself back here, wound tight as if on a tether he might simply release and reclaim at will. His attentions steady there on the other man beside him.]
At this moment, everyone here in this ship is united in the pleasure of a temporary victory over a goliath. But they'll remember their empty pockets the moment they step foot on Nassau and find they've been made comparatively destitute. Or do you imagine Jack Rackham means to be generous enough with his newfound power to keep this alliance whole?
[That bitch?]
no subject
-now, they're here, willing to forge some kind of alliance, over the knowledge that the beast that's coming is bigger than either of them. All of them.
So.]
Jack'll fall in line.
[He says it with a slight gritting of his teeth, the belief there but just simmering under the surface, because he knows it is true, at the end of the day.
But.]
He'll want to think he has say in it.