The dark water stretches in every direction beyond the stern window. With a clear sky and no record of how long he's been unconscious, there's no way of putting together even a vague notion of their bearing. The sea could be running in any direction and though the wind from here blows southeasterly and he can tell it must be blowing abaft their beam, none of those points in isolation from a chart or observation means anything. Nowhere.
"I see."
It's the only thing he says, attention apparently arrested so by the ship's foaming way that he might as well be talking to it instead of the man in the chair. Maybe there's the expectation that something more is to follow - a series of words meant to make this different, an argument attempting to allow the ship to wear windward and spin like a top back in the direction they'd come, at the very least a question for their intended landfall -, but nothing comes. Flint lapses back into silence. Anything more would be fundamentally wasteful of the energy necessary to shape the words, to hang them in the air where nothing can logically come of them.
Maybe it's the wound in his side or the weight of the irons at his wrists, but he can't bring himself to swallow and summon the effort. (Does it occur to him to save it for other things - like if Silver strays within arm's reach or Rackham does; to fight at the bolt in the bulkhead so fiercely that they're forced to move him from the greatcabin and into the fore where men with less resolve might be spoken to. Or is this just the end of that too?)
The words catch in the back of his throat as the silence stretches between them. John is not unaware of what he has forced Flint to sacrifice. As necessary as he finds it, he was unprepared to feel remorse for having wrenched Flint's war from him. He may as well have taken a limb. John imagines it feels much the same.
"Before I was returned to your company, I met with Max," John begins, hands coming together, elbows on the arms of the chair. "I'd thought to barter with her, but I hadn't realized..."
There's a great deal dwelling in that pause. John lets the thought spin out, remembering the shock of realizing just how far Max had strayed from his perception of her.
"She wasn't going to kill me. She was going to remove me. There was a place where people pay to make men disappear, and she'd bought a place for me. Or so she said."
Confirmation had come after. There was such a place. It would have had a spot for John. He would have been set beyond anyone's reach, erased and negated, figurehead no more. Had John not confirmed one more piece of information, he'd be more uneasy about relegating Flint to the same fate. He watches Flint's face, waiting to see the connection being made before pressing onward with his explanation.
There's no reason to look at him there in the chair, a small man with one leg in the sprawl of the Lion opulent (by the standard of ships) greatcabin. Great pirates stood in this room once. Hornigold, before he'd struck himself so violently from the account. Teach before they'd parted ways. Bellamy before he'd sailed North to dash himself on the cliffs of Maine. Long John Silver mist be the least of these men, one in a long and diminishing line. Is it funny that the greatest men this room will know are now him and Jack Rackham?
For a long minute Flint doesn't lift his attention from the warped window glass - not because he doesn't understand (he does), but because he doesn't anticipate John Silver to require anything from him to talk. When the length of the silence reaches him, he shifts where his chin is set against his chest and turns finally by some small degree toward him. The small motion is punctuated by the clank of chain.
"Is that how you think this works?" He speaks so low in the hollow room. That Captain Flint will be put away like a coat in summer. That he will go where he is told to go and live how he's told to live and will disappear like a body in canvas slipping under the mirror sea. That he will make it to their intended destination at all?
Not so long ago, John had said with great conviction, I don't want to be a pirate. He had wanted gold. He'd wanted a comfortable life. He'd wanted opportunity, not this kind of hardship. He'd never asked to be a pirate king, but he had stepped into the role Billy had made from him. Now it must be borne out.
"It's how it must work," John says, for the alternative is a more permanent removal of Captain Flint. And regardless of what John has become, he still cannot stomach the death of a friend. He still cared enough to seek out an option that would allow Flint his life. "I don't think you'll be as opposed to it as you may think now."
The reunion will not balance out what John is sending him to. Thomas Hamilton will not change the ultimate imprisonment John has arranged for Flint. But it is better than dying. John tells himself that, one hand kneading the stump of his leg fitfully, watching the silhouette of Flint's face.
Must, he says. You may think, he says. As if he is the arbiter not just here in this room, but everywhere and for everyone. As if he doesn't just know every small piece in play here, but owns them. Controls them. As if he has all along. As if the reason any of them are here in this room has anything to do with him and not a series of choices by other men and women who accidentally placed him here to make this decision he has no right to make.
(It scrapes something raw in him, a knife stripping flesh from bone maybe.)
"Really. And how did you arrive at that conclusion?" It's only just barely a question instead of a flat judgement of Silver's assessment. How the fuck did he get there?, and the thought is so laces with anger that he can taste it bubbling up in his chest and flooding into his mouth, pressing against the backs of his teeth.
He doesn't mean to, but Flint is so still there in the stern window seat that it's as if he's part of it - or some dangerous predator pretending to be - or his attention is so divided into the stab of resentment that he's neglected to do anything else with himself. He can't remember the last night he forgave someone of anything; it's a good thing Silver hasn't actually asked.
Perhaps there will be no forgiveness. Flint may never forgive him. Madi may take this decision poorly. John will have to live out the rest of his days under the weight of their grievances. He'd never imagined willingly taking on such a burden at the beginning of this journey. His fingers tap along the edge of his thigh before he lifts his hand to the arm of the chair instead.
"Because I know Thomas Hamilton is alive," John tells him, braced for Flint's reaction. This is why he'd kept out of arm's reach. John has no desire to die.
There was no way to soften the statement, even if John had wanted to. This news is a blunt object. It will come down like a swung club no matter what sweet words John sought to wrap the news in velvet. All there is for him to offer is a truth that Flint must have long ago put to rest. John can only imagine the effect it will have on him, and he wouldn't like his own odds going up against it.
It shouldn't meant anything to him - that this is the thing Silver says to exonerate himself with. What is one terrible lie beside everything else? He's already undone every worthwhile thing. He's replaced the stones in the wall they'd been unbuilding. An hour, a day, he'd said. At least there on the island, the words had seemed true. His reasoning had felt as honest as it was broken. He'd believed those things. This is different.
Flint looks at him, split open and hacksaw dull. It feels like being strangled, he thinks. And laughs, lopsided and flat - one short crackling sound as the sea shifts under the ship's hull and the greatcabin murmurs around them.
But he cannot pretend that he isn't using what he knows of Thomas Hamilton to disarm the weaponry of Captain Flint. He doesn't deny that. It is a sin. One more sin in the long line of transgressions John had committed. This one is both the least and greatest among them at once. He took a confession made to him in the dark and used it to root out the one thing that could dismantle his dearest friend.
If Flint was ever his friend. John applies the word to him knowing that it does not fit correctly. They had been more and less than friends. And John has torn that asunder now. He does not think the gift of Thomas Hamilton will be suitable to repair the damage he's wrought.
"I'm giving you back to him," John says, because it's the only hope he has left. Captain Flint's story ends in a reunion with his long lost love. The world continues as it was, undisturbed.
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no subject
"I see."
It's the only thing he says, attention apparently arrested so by the ship's foaming way that he might as well be talking to it instead of the man in the chair. Maybe there's the expectation that something more is to follow - a series of words meant to make this different, an argument attempting to allow the ship to wear windward and spin like a top back in the direction they'd come, at the very least a question for their intended landfall -, but nothing comes. Flint lapses back into silence. Anything more would be fundamentally wasteful of the energy necessary to shape the words, to hang them in the air where nothing can logically come of them.
Maybe it's the wound in his side or the weight of the irons at his wrists, but he can't bring himself to swallow and summon the effort. (Does it occur to him to save it for other things - like if Silver strays within arm's reach or Rackham does; to fight at the bolt in the bulkhead so fiercely that they're forced to move him from the greatcabin and into the fore where men with less resolve might be spoken to. Or is this just the end of that too?)
no subject
The words catch in the back of his throat as the silence stretches between them. John is not unaware of what he has forced Flint to sacrifice. As necessary as he finds it, he was unprepared to feel remorse for having wrenched Flint's war from him. He may as well have taken a limb. John imagines it feels much the same.
"Before I was returned to your company, I met with Max," John begins, hands coming together, elbows on the arms of the chair. "I'd thought to barter with her, but I hadn't realized..."
There's a great deal dwelling in that pause. John lets the thought spin out, remembering the shock of realizing just how far Max had strayed from his perception of her.
"She wasn't going to kill me. She was going to remove me. There was a place where people pay to make men disappear, and she'd bought a place for me. Or so she said."
Confirmation had come after. There was such a place. It would have had a spot for John. He would have been set beyond anyone's reach, erased and negated, figurehead no more. Had John not confirmed one more piece of information, he'd be more uneasy about relegating Flint to the same fate. He watches Flint's face, waiting to see the connection being made before pressing onward with his explanation.
no subject
For a long minute Flint doesn't lift his attention from the warped window glass - not because he doesn't understand (he does), but because he doesn't anticipate John Silver to require anything from him to talk. When the length of the silence reaches him, he shifts where his chin is set against his chest and turns finally by some small degree toward him. The small motion is punctuated by the clank of chain.
"Is that how you think this works?" He speaks so low in the hollow room. That Captain Flint will be put away like a coat in summer. That he will go where he is told to go and live how he's told to live and will disappear like a body in canvas slipping under the mirror sea. That he will make it to their intended destination at all?
no subject
"It's how it must work," John says, for the alternative is a more permanent removal of Captain Flint. And regardless of what John has become, he still cannot stomach the death of a friend. He still cared enough to seek out an option that would allow Flint his life. "I don't think you'll be as opposed to it as you may think now."
The reunion will not balance out what John is sending him to. Thomas Hamilton will not change the ultimate imprisonment John has arranged for Flint. But it is better than dying. John tells himself that, one hand kneading the stump of his leg fitfully, watching the silhouette of Flint's face.
Please forgive me.
no subject
(It scrapes something raw in him, a knife stripping flesh from bone maybe.)
"Really. And how did you arrive at that conclusion?" It's only just barely a question instead of a flat judgement of Silver's assessment. How the fuck did he get there?, and the thought is so laces with anger that he can taste it bubbling up in his chest and flooding into his mouth, pressing against the backs of his teeth.
He doesn't mean to, but Flint is so still there in the stern window seat that it's as if he's part of it - or some dangerous predator pretending to be - or his attention is so divided into the stab of resentment that he's neglected to do anything else with himself. He can't remember the last night he forgave someone of anything; it's a good thing Silver hasn't actually asked.
no subject
"Because I know Thomas Hamilton is alive," John tells him, braced for Flint's reaction. This is why he'd kept out of arm's reach. John has no desire to die.
There was no way to soften the statement, even if John had wanted to. This news is a blunt object. It will come down like a swung club no matter what sweet words John sought to wrap the news in velvet. All there is for him to offer is a truth that Flint must have long ago put to rest. John can only imagine the effect it will have on him, and he wouldn't like his own odds going up against it.
no subject
Flint looks at him, split open and hacksaw dull. It feels like being strangled, he thinks. And laughs, lopsided and flat - one short crackling sound as the sea shifts under the ship's hull and the greatcabin murmurs around them.
What a hideous thing to promise him.
"Don't." Do that. "Don't use that here."
no subject
But he cannot pretend that he isn't using what he knows of Thomas Hamilton to disarm the weaponry of Captain Flint. He doesn't deny that. It is a sin. One more sin in the long line of transgressions John had committed. This one is both the least and greatest among them at once. He took a confession made to him in the dark and used it to root out the one thing that could dismantle his dearest friend.
If Flint was ever his friend. John applies the word to him knowing that it does not fit correctly. They had been more and less than friends. And John has torn that asunder now. He does not think the gift of Thomas Hamilton will be suitable to repair the damage he's wrought.
"I'm giving you back to him," John says, because it's the only hope he has left. Captain Flint's story ends in a reunion with his long lost love. The world continues as it was, undisturbed.