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flintsjohn · 7 years

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heya kiddos i am back with more silver feels So I just finished one of the books I had to read for class (Paraìso Inhabitado by Ana Marìa Matute, which I really recommend) and it broke my heart but also provided me with a good enough plot for this. Silver tells his backstory. Set more or less during the 409 flashbacks. 1.4k, warning for Silver/OMC.

*****

"James?"

Silver knocked gently on the door to the captain's hut, leaning heavily on his crutch, his back stiff and bowed after the hard work they had put into the training a few hours earlier.

Flint had just finished bathing and was putting is clothes back on. He beckoned Silver in with a nod, a playful smile on his lips.

"Haven't you had enough for today?"

Silver huffed a laugh, sitting on Flint's cot with a tired sigh. He casted the crutch aside - his leg had been too irritated even after his bath to put the peg on, so crutch it was for today - and leaned back to rest his head against the hut's wooden wall.

"I was actually hoping we could talk."

Flint's eyebrows rose, but he didn't say anything. He simply sat beside Silver, gesturing for him to start on the conversation.

"I think I'm ready for you to know my story," Silver whispered, his eyes locked on the hut's ceiling, like he was avoiding looking at Flint for as long as he could. James shifted closer to him, his right hand closing around Silver's left one in a silent encouragement.

"When you told me about Thomas," Silver started, his voice so low that Flint had to strain to hear it, "Did you wonder why I had no other reaction to it than expressing my apologies?"

James frowned, recounting back to the night they had spent around the fire after burying the cache. It had been a strange reaction, to be sure, but the fact that Silver had found a way to weave himself into that narrative had distracted him.

He told him that much, and Silver nodded a little, like he was considering how best to proceed.

"I admit I wanted to find a way to become indispensable to you. But that wasn't all of it. You told me you think my story - what I told you and the men up until now - wasn't true. And you're right. It isn't. Not all of it, at least." He stopped once again, seemingly to collect his thoughts.

"I wasn't born in Whitechapel. My family was Spanish, from Madrid. I lived there until I was ten. I wasn't an orphan, either. Or, well, I was only an orphan in the sense that neither of my parents cared for me. My mother had others to think about, and I was the smallest and easiest to forget in the house. I loved my father, almost worshipped him, until one day, when he was heading out for a hunting trip, he promised that he would come back to me. He never did. My mother died when I was twelve, during the war, after we had to get away from the city. I followed an aunt to England, but once there she left me at St John's home - that part is true, I spent three years there."

At this point, Silver finally looked over at Flint, who was staring at him, eyes wide like he was trying to take in as much information as he could. John moved closer, his fingers intertwining with James's. He soldiered on with his story.

"Before the war, we lived in one of the good neighbourhoods. I met Gavriil there. He was a year older than me and he came from far away - from Russia. He introduced himself as Gavi, because his name was difficult for anyone in Spain to pronounce. For almost a year he was my only friend. We both loved inventing stories about imaginary worlds filled with fairies and dragons - something that adults didn't really understand. We called them the Others or the Giants. I felt I only belonged when I was with him, trading tales that we had heard from the servants caring for us."

Silver took some deep, steadying breaths, and felt Flint's hand squeezing his, though the captain kept silent.

"Nobody really cared about how close we'd grown, we were still children and love didn't mean anything, it was just a word. That was what they were trying to tell us, at least. I didn't believe them. Gavi didn't either." Silver smiled, glancing at Flint before continuing. “When months passed and we were still attached to the hip, the Others deemed that it had been enough, and started trying to divide us.

"I'll make it short and say that they didn’t have to wait long. He fell ill - meningitis, they said. There was nothing they could do to save him, he died shortly after. But before he died, they let me see him, and he told me, looking me straight in the eye, that he would find me again. I waited for him, for years." Silver heard Flint take in a sharp breath.

"Needless say I didn't find him, because people don't come back from the dead. But I looked for him in every person I met, I wouldn't resign myself. Until-" He shifted so he could face his captain, a sad smile playing on his lips. He noticed that Flint was holding his breath, so he finished the sentence in a murmur "- Until I found you. You- you're nothing like him and yet you seem so similar, so familiar somehow."

Silver tightened his grip on Flint's hand then, glancing down at their joined hands, lost in his thoughts. James felt like there was still a part of the story left to tell, but he didn't want to press the other man into revealing it. As he sat there, staring at his quartermaster, he noticed how young he looked, how small he really was when he wasn't trying to maintain a regal posture to better fit in his newly acquired role.

After some minutes spent in silence, Silver spoke up again. “There was a particular story we liked, one of the few that had actually been written down. It was called the Raven King, but I can’t quite recall what it was about, only that we never got to the end. After – I was never able to pick it up again.”

Silver fell silent again, his eyes blinking rapidly like he was trying to will away the tears. Flint moved as if to hold him, but before he could put an arm around him, Silver shifted back, an ashamed look on his face as he dried his eyes with his shirt. He let out a self deprecating little laugh, his fingers fidgeting with one of his many rings.

“So now you know my story.” He then added, almost as an after-thought, “I’m not that different from you.”

His head hung so low that Flint couldn’t see if he was crying or just staring sadly at his hands, but he moved in again to hold him, and when Silver struggled he almost growled, “Just let me hug you, for fuck’s sake.”

Silver went limp in his arms, letting the captain arrange their bodies so they were lying on their sides on the cot. For a long time, neither of them said a word. At some point, Silver turned so he could bury his face in Flint’s neck, a soft sigh escaping his lips.

“Better?” Flint asked under his breath. Silver still had to open his mouth, which was starting to worry Flint, but he hummed contently from where he was trying to burrow himself deeper between the cot and Flint’s body.

“John?” Flint shifted so he could push Silver’s hair out of his face, his fingers fitting under the man’s chin so he could look into those deep blue eyes, still shining with unshed tears. Once again, Flint found himself remembering how young Silver really was.

“Please don’t think I’m saying this out of pity,” Flint went on, his rough hands cupping Silver’s face, “I’m sorry this happened to you, but I am endlessly thankful you decided to share this with me.”

He said so in the softest tone Silver had ever heard, and he felt his eyes fill with tears again. This was precisely why he had always kept his story to himself – he didn’t want people to think he should be treated like something fragile. He wasn’t weak. When he looked up at Flint, though, the captain was smiling, his eyes gentle and full of love.

“I don’t say this because I think what you told me makes you something less than what I already knew you as. I’m telling you this because I recognize how much you must trust me to open up to me. And I want you to know that that trust is mutual. That love is mutual, John.”

Flint cradled him in his arms, and Silver understood that he wasn’t expecting anything in return for his words. As he relaxed back against James’s body, Gavi’s words came back to him.

“I will find you, I will come back to you.”

And he did. He did.

#silverflint #silverflint fic #black sails fic #flint x silver #my ficlets #IDEK GUYS IM SAD ALRIGHT #this doesn't even make sense idk #anyway have some silver feels bye

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