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I just finished this AMAZING fic that @fellshish told me about and holy shit I think I am dead now. It’s just SO SO GOOD.

Run, don’t walk, to read this historical fic with some of the most beautiful writing, exceptional character takes and PERFECT tone.

No Second Eden by @balloonstand

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Aziraphale is an angel and a virgin. Cultists love him.

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This is actually a really interesting type of water retention that long grass does that I've never thought about before!

You can see how much slower the snow on the long grass is melting, which creates a slower percolation of water into the ground!

It's amazing what a difference vegetation can make for communities that struggle with drought conditions!

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heartbreaking:

girl has sooooooo many ambitions and ideas for projects but can only get 1.5 basic tasks done per day

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My First Fanbind! A Black Sails Fic Anthology Series

It took me a year (and a lot of anxious research) before I worked up the courage to bookbind fanfiction, and after months of on-again-off-again work, my first fanbind is finally done!

I knew that if I was going to bookbind fic, I had to bind something from the Black Sails fandom, aka the fandom and show that have had the biggest impact on my life. Y'all, I almost went into academia to study slavery in the 17th-18th century Caribbean because of this show - when folks say this show rewires your brain chemistry, they are NOT kidding. THEE show of all time. Happy 10th anniversary to Black Sails! This fandom is small but mighty. May we continue to get our hearts and souls blasted to smithereens by this show for many years to come.

Ao3 abounds with magnificent Black Sails oneshots, so I decided to put together an anthology of my favorite Silverflint fics under 20k, which I split into two volumes. Included are works by @justlikeeddie, @vowel-in-thug, @balloonstand, @annevbonny, @francisthegreat, @nysscientia, and more! Thank you, thank you all, you brilliant wonderful people, for gracing the Internet with such amazing writing. When I read the fics in these anthologies I want to fling myself into the sun.

More on the design and binding process below the cut!

Vol. 1 Page Count: 270 (12 fics) Vol. 2 Page Count: 248 (11 fics) Body Font: Sabon Next LT (10.5 pt) Title Font: Goudy Old Style Other Fonts: IM Fell English, pirates pw

The typeset (which I did in Word) took a while, mainly because I'd never done it before. Manually adjusting the hyphenation line-by-line was especially tedious. After making these books, I abandoned Word in favor of InDesign, in large part because InDesign gives you way finer control over your justification and hyphenation settings.

Regarding my actual design choices, I'm happy with how the ocean motif on the title page turned out (it's not the same pattern as my endpapers, but they're complimentary) and I'm very fond of my divider dingbats, which are little swords! Goudy Old Style was a fun title font to use, since it's the font that Black Sails uses as its logo. The stories in Vol. 1 are divided into parts based on what Silver WAS at that point in the show (cook, quartermaster, or king), and Vol. 2 is split up into comedies, histories (AUs set in the canon universe) and tragedies - befitting Black Sails' Shakespearean ~vibes~.

I stuck to a flatback binding, as I wasn't feeling quite ambitious enough to try rounding and/or backing. I've learned that I ~Anakin Skywalker voice~ hate sanding, enjoy folding/sewing, and don't LIKE edge trimming but enjoy the results enough to make it worth it.

The real adventure was decorating the cover, which remained bare for months. After agonizing over Illustrator and experimenting unsuccessfully with HTV and lokta paper embossing, I ultimately turned to using stencil vinyl to paint on the designs. There was a bit of seepage under some of the stencils, but I was able to scrape off the excess with my Cricut weeding tool without damaging the coated surface of the bookcloth (probably Arrestox Blue Ribbon from Hollander's). Even though it was very time-consuming, I'm so happy with the end result of the stenciled paint job and I intend to stick with stencils for my foreseeable future binds.

Are there things I would change? Sure. It was humid out when I printed, so the pages have got a wave. There’s an extra two pages in Vol 2. that I have no idea how I missed, and I got a line of glue in the middle of one of my Vol. 2 endpapers. I’m pretty sure I didn’t case in quite right, since my endpapers pull away from the case at the spine. I think the inner margins are a bit too big, and despite going line-by-line there’s still some wacky justification spacing in the typeset. But man, am I proud of these books! It is so satisfying to learn a new skill - MANY new skills, if we’re being honest - and to make something both beautiful and practical. If I’m still binding in two years or so, I can see myself redoing the typeset in InDesign, cutting out the existing text block, and reusing the cases. I’m also already planning for Vol. 3, which will be Silverflint Modern AUs.

Thanks for reading!

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*sits down to write a smut fic* The plot of this smut fic is that Character A believes himself abandoned by God.

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A meme I made that says it all!

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twobrokenwyngs replied to your post “Whetstone chapter 2*: Silver shaves Flint (5.2k, pwp) It only took 4...”

........NO WAY.

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Whetstone chapter 2*: Silver shaves Flint (5.2k, pwp)

It only took 4 years folks but we did it 

*this isn’t a sequel, just another version of the original

On a calm day, his thoughts would tread a neat path through his mind, proceeding like a lineage. First, in the present: capitulation, which is to surrender or yield on stipulated terms. Then, one generation older, one branch up the tree: capitulatus, the Medieval Latin, which is to draw up into chapters. Quite the leap, but his tidy mind could manage it on a different day. The next branch above that, the classical Latin: capitulum. Chapter or heading. Dangerously high in the tree, capitus, the diminutive. Little head. After that, the apex of the tree, but also the deepest root, the seed that became the whole lineage: caput. Head.

On a calm day, his mind would manage this regression through time and language to this seed of clarity quickly, tidily, to instruct him on his own thoughts.

Today, he has his head in his hands, mind awhirl with meaningless noise. Today he is pulling at his hair. Surrender. Chapter. Head. He doesn’t know what to make of them, these words buffeting him, storming around his mind. Refusing to show him their meaning or to teach him which direction his next step should be. He pulls at the roots of his hair. Surrender. Chapter. Head. 

He might tear his hair out of his head. He had been rather vain about his hair, in another life. He had taken the greatest pride in its length, lustre, and polish. As much as his uniform, he felt that his hair had been able to distinguish him, mark his rank and respectability. And Thomas Hamilton had only increased his vanity about his hair through the attentions he paid it. He would pull the ribbon from Flint’s- from McGraw’s- James’ hair and he would run his fingers through it over and again, and he would-

Flint pulls, pulls, and pulls at his roots.  Surrender, chapter, head . He can’t force it to make the sense that he needs it to make. 

There is a knock at his door. Flint almost doesn’t even hear it over the tumult in his mind. But he hears it, and if he thought that there was even the barest whisper of a chance that it was anyone other than Silver knocking, he would not have said, “Enter.”

It is Silver, of course it is Silver who steps into Flint’s room with all the comfort and familiarity of a person entering his own room. He closes the door behind him, then Flint can hear him pause as he takes in the sight of Flint, who has not bothered to unclench his fingers from his hair. Flint can sense Silver adapting to this. His footsteps, even, become softer, less boisterous than his knocking had been. He approaches more slowly and cautiously than he had entered. Flint wonders how Silver would react if Flint said, “Surrender, chapter, head” aloud. He wonders if Silver can hear it being said inside Flint’s mind.

“Quite the storm,” Silver says mildly. Neutrally. He might be making small talk about the weather. Every dialogue with Silver is like Silver holding a door open for Flint and seeing if he will walk through it. Asking where Flint would like to lead him. 

Flint wonders for the hundredth – for the thousandth – time who Silver was before Flint met him. All he knows of Silver is the way he takes his cues from Flint. There are only glimpses and guesses of what lies beyond. 

“Nothing we have not seen before,” Flint answers brusquely. He is embarrassed now that he let Silver see so much of him. He smooths his hair and looks Silver in the eye. “Wouldn’t you agree?” 

“Difficult to say,” Silver says, sitting opposite Flint. He does not look away; he never breaks a gaze. He should have been a courtier, Flint thinks. He may be easy to provoke, but he is nearly impossible to ruffle. Flint wishes to ruffle him. If Silver truly wants to join Flint in this mood, he will have to enter it ruffled. 

Flint arranges himself in his seat as though he is comfortable and tries to bring his thoughts in hand. He pulls the drawstrings of strategy to close the bag around the mess of his thoughts. He tries to count the number of times that he has wormed his way under Silver’s skin- very few. He does not need to count the number of times Silver has welcomed him in- none at all. Silver will be in his mind soon enough, so Flint tries to tidy it for him. 

Silver, rarely companionably silent, has begun talking. Flint listens to his tone more than his words. It keeps rolling like the tide, changing, modulating. Probing. Like waves breaking against the stone of Flint’s mood, wearing it down in precise and purposeful patterns. Flint knows that Silver has his own mind and motives, his own plans for Flint. Maybe it should worry Flint. Maybe he should send Silver away. But Flint finds it perversely intriguing. He wonders what Silver would do with him, given his way. What a surrender to Silver would mean for Flint. 

Surrender. Chapter. Head.  

Flint clenches around his thoughts once more. He notices Silver notice it and either of them could say something, but neither one of them does. Silver’s tone changes slightly, then rolls back into a different one. He is going to let Flint retreat; he will follow him and neither of them will mention why. 

“It’s not lice, is it?” Silver asks.

Flint glares at him and Silver grins back at Flint. Then he adopts a more innocently concerned expression and mimes pulling at his hair. “Is it because you have lice, do you think? I hear it makes your head-”

“My hair is clean.”

“Yes?”

“Cleaner than yours has ever been.”

“That would make your head a nice home for the lice, wouldn’t it?”

“Would you call my head a nice home for anything?”

Silver’s expression freezes, his fluidity stilled. Pinned down. One foot in the door, but Flint does not want to enter as an intruder. It would be so much sweeter for Silver to come to him, inviting him in. The thought of Silver welcoming Flint pangs and Flint–

Flint runs his hands through his hair, tugging at it. Ask me, he thinks. Just ask me and I’ll tell you anything. Don’t try to trick it out of me, just ask.

“Is- have you always been so vain about your hair?” Silver is smiling. His shoulders are tensed, ready.

Flint feels the familiar, almost nauseating mix of fear, disgust, and hope at this vulnerability of Silver seeing something that grows from Flint’s very core. And the small twinge of pride in Silver for being to leap the etymological branches that cluster around Flint’s true meaning. 

“Yes,” Flint says. 

“And do you keep it long and well-kept,” Silver asks, “so that one day you’ll be able to go back?” 

“Back?”

“To England. To whatever was before all this.”

Flint cannot stop himself; he lurches out of his seat and stands, breathing quickly. 

Capitulation. Head, chapter, surrender. 

No, Flint wants to say- doesn’t want to say. No, I keep it because I need to love it, I need to cherish one thing about myself. I keep it because I want to be seen for what I am. So that, someday, someone might run his fingers through it lovingly and tell me that it is nice. 

And it’s not even as long as it used to be.

Not because he wants to go back to England. Not because he could imagine himself returning to his position in her Navy. Not because he could wash his hair and his face, put on clean clothes, and blend in with the society that had turned away from him. 

This is all primed at the tip of his tongue, but something in his mind says  are they not the same thing? James Flint cannot have those fingers in his hair, soft touches, caring caresses. They belong to James McGraw. This hair belongs to James McGraw. 

“Yes,” Flint says. The word is choked and pathetic. “Not England. But yes. Before.”

Silver has stood too and his expression has that same stillness as before. But it isn’t panic that is frozen on his features now. It is more an expression of pain. “You think you-” Silver stops himself. Flint recognizes the effort that it takes.

“Don’t you?” Flint asks. Doesn’t Silver ever want to turn his back on the sea and walk forward into a quiet life?

Silver looks at him with astonishment in every line of his face. “No,” he says slowly. “And neither do you. Not really.”

Flint opens his mouth, then closes it. He studies Silver’s face, trying to understand.

Silver says, “You say it, but that doesn’t mean that it is true.” 

You should know, Flint thinks bitterly. Then: You should know, Flint thinks achingly. “It’s the truth,” he says.

Silver fixes him with a look. “You’re pulling it out, Flint. Your hair, you’re pulling it out.”

Flint drops his hands. He hadn’t even noticed that they had crept back to his head.

Head-

“It- it used to be longer,” Flint says lamely after a moment. “I cut it before I boarded my first pirate ship.”

“How many inches?”

Get out, Flint almost says.  Out of my room, out of my mind . 

Don’t you like it like this, he doesn’t almost say, do you think it would be better longer? Shorter? What would tempt you?  

He imagines it: laying against Silver’s chest, with Silver’s hand in his hair. Silver alternates running his fingers through it hypnotically and playing with individual strands until Flint’s body floats away on a gentle current and the only thing that exists is Silver playing with his hair. But this fantasy feels flat, like a drawing. The room is too bright. His hand in Flint’s hair is too clean. It is slightly wrong in a dreamlike way. McGraw could have those things, but Flint-

And to Silver, he can only be Flint. The name McGraw would be a lie in Silver’s mouth. 

“Flint, you’re pulling it out.”

Silver does not mean at that moment; Flint’s hands are clasped behind his back. His military at-ease. Feet shoulder-width apart, knees straight, left hand covering the right behind his back like his wrists are shackled. Put him in his Navy uniform and he would be entirely unremarkable aboard the  HMS Scarborough . It makes his stomach turn. 

“It’s too long,” Flint says finally. It is as much as he can say. He can’t offer much, but he offers it all. He puts everything in Silver’s hands and wonders if Silver knows it. 

“If it’s too long,” Silver says, “you should cut it.”

He says it simply. He sits as he says it. It’s settled, his casual body language says, and easily so. 

He does not know, then, that he has uprooted the tree of surrender, chapter, head in Flint’s mind. Flint had not realized how accustomed he had become to its shade until Silver had drawn it back and given Flint the sun. 

Flint sits too. You should cut it. A weight off of his shoulders. “Will you do it?” Flint asks before he thinks about asking it. Maybe he should look away from the surprise on Silver’s face after he says it, but he drinks in every little change in his expression and saves it in his mind for later. “I don’t have a razor here, but you can use the knife.” Flint nods to the knife sitting unsheathed on his table.

There’s a moment’s pause. 

“Why shouldn’t I?” Silver says softly, almost to himself.

“I can’t do all your thinking for you,” Flint snaps. He should not have asked. “Will you do it or not?” So, he asks a second time. He knows that one cannot right a mistake by repeating it, but he always seems to do so.

Silver’s expression hardens. He stands up, grabs the knife off the table, weighs it in his hand. He takes a step toward Flint’s chair and Flint doesn’t move. He doesn’t care why Silver is approaching him with the knife. What matters is that he is stepping closer. Another and another step. And he is right in front of Flint. His leg brushes against Flint’s bent knee. 

This close, Flint can hear when Silver’s breath quickens and becomes audible. Flint could close his eyes and just listen, except that he can’t tear his eyes away from Silver’s face. Silver hefts the knife up like it is heavy. With his free hand, he takes a lock of Flint’s hair between his fingers. 

Flint almost flinches away from the touch. Once, when Flint was serving his first week on a ship in the Caribbean, he had gotten terribly sunburned. One of his crew mates had soaked a cloth in cool water and applied it to the burn. Flint had flinched away from that in the same way, the reflexive protection of the injury even from its cure. 

“I’m not a barber,” Silver says. Both of his hands are still, one on the knife and one in Flint’s hair. “I’m going to cut it very short. I’m going to shave it.”

Flint nods twice, just to feel Silver’s hand moving through his hair, although it is really more that his hair is moving in Silver’s hand. What is it to take something from someone who is not giving it? He does not want to be a thief; being a pirate is enough. 

“Are you sure this is what you want?” 

He wonders what Silver is really asking, because he knows that this is what Flint wants. “Go on,” Flint says. He can feel his heartbeat in his throat.

Silver goes on. One lock at a time falls from Flint’s head and lands at his feet. It happens quickly. Flint is looking at Silver and he practically misses it. 

Then Silver circles around the chair until he is standing behind Flint, and Flint has nothing to distract him from every sensation on his scalp. He had not expected it to feel like this, cutting his hair. He has been pulling his hair out at the root for long enough that he had forgotten to imagine that cutting his hair might feel different from that. He thinks:  this doesn’t feel like losing something . And it surprises him. 

It all surprises him. The softness of Silver’s hands on his head. Even the knife is gentle, an extension of Silver’s touch. He had been ready for the bite of its blade on his scalp, too sharp to be a harmless razor. Silver has tamed it down to a caress. This, all of this, Silver’s touch is almost, almost, almost, almost- 

 “That’s good,” Flint says. He says it without thinking, and he does not think about it after he says it. 

Immediately, Silver’s hand falters and Flint feels the knife’s sharpness for the first time. He feels the opening of his skin under it. Not very deep, but some blood. Head wounds bleed a lot.

“You spoke too soon,” Silver says. His voice has the same shake as his hand. He presses his fingertips against the injured patch of skin. 

Too soon, Silver says. Too soon. Flint thinks he should have said too late, it is more true. It is too late and Flint still has not said what he should. 

A week ago, he could have told Silver, you’re the only person I smile with anymore when the two of them had been laughing at something clever Silver had said. Two weeks ago, he could have said, I am less afraid of being understood when it is you who understands me when Flint had turned to Silver after several quiet minutes of watching the sea to find that Silver’s eyes already rooted on him, unconcerned at having been discovered looking at him. 

And it is not just the beautiful things that he has bitten back. It is also the shameful, burning things that scrape his throat like rough stone as he silences them. It is when he has to look away when Silver is holding the neck of a bottle or the post of a railing loosely in his hand, and Flint could say yes, just like that, that is how I would like it. Or the mornings where he could have looked Silver in the eye and said, I couldn’t sleep until I had brought myself off to the thought of you. I touched myself and pretended that it was your hand. Then I slept soundly for the night. 

It is a mistake to think about that. Heat grows in him, twisting and spreading vine-like through his body and pooling low in his belly. He tries to focus on the pain from the cut, but Silver’s fingers are pressing tenderly on it, too tenderly to hurt. Through the descending haze of heat, Flint thinks that if the cut was deeper or wider, maybe a pedantic academic could argue that Silver’s fingers were in him. Maybe in a future tome of their intertwined stories, a historian could say, and James Flint did feel John Silver inside of him, just once, through a hole in his head. Silver slipped in and out in one moment and that is the whole story. 

Neither one of them has spoken a word in some minutes. Flint has surely stopped bleeding by now. He could say that, and Silver would finish his task and it would just be one more favor between them as the world continues on outside of this room. 

Flint reopens his should’s, this time in the present. This is harder. His mind works in the past tense.

He should be more upset at giving up his hair. He should be thinking less of the feel of Silver’s hands on him and more of this loss. He should be less aware of the heat of Silver’s body close behind him. He should stop wishing that Silver would step closer. Stop imagining that two people might be able to live in one body if they press themselves closely enough together. His mind should be in the past and not this hypothetical future or hypothetically-slanted vision of the present that will only hurt him when it does not come.  

But this will be the past soon enough. He closes his eyes and memorizes the feel of this moment so that he can live in it again later. He writes this all over his mind:  He is standing behind me so I can’t see his face, or anything else. But I can feel his heartbeat in his fingertips on my head, and everywhere else I can feel him not touching me in that way that almost feels like a touch. He has a knife to me but he is using it to free me.  

Another chapter for the book of Silver that Flint keeps in his mind, always open.

And Silver still has not moved. For a wild moment, Flint is certain that he is paused like this to let Flint commit the moment to memory, but then Flint realizes that he is finished. Finished cutting off Flint’s hair. But he is still standing there. He is waiting for Flint to react so he can react to it.

Flint reaches a hand up to his scalp to feel how short his new hair is. He gets up out of the chair – Silver’s hand stays motionless as Flint moves himself politely out from under it – and walks to the mirror, rubbing his hand across the surprising velvet of his short hair. He looks at himself in the mirror, sees how he looks. He looks how he feels when he calls himself Flint. It is not just his hair that Silver has cut away with the knife, it is the chain that connects him to the anchor of his former life, his escape from who he truly is now. Now he is only one person.

His expression startles him more than the sight of his hair; his eyes are dark and hungry, his lips parted and his cheeks flushed.

The strange and familiar sight of himself is not enough to distract him from noticing as Silver follows him to the mirror. He resumes his place behind Flint, just as he was while cutting Flint’s hair. Flint’s eyes meet Silver’s in the mirror. Their eyes are equally dark and hungry. Silver’s have a wildness to them that Flint wants to study, to record, to savor. He wants to unravel it and understand its every nuance; he could just ask, he supposes. But it is so sharply painful to ask someone for something when you do not know if their answer will be yes.

He turns around so he and Silver are face to face. The table the mirror is sitting on presses against his back. Silver is so close to him that it feels useless to try to estimate the distance between them. Flint feels a heightened awareness of his environment, like the bright clarity of his senses during a battle. And he feels that same calmness that he feels in a fight for his life, the calmness of necessity and single-mindedness.

Silver’s eyes move frantically, darting all over Flint’s face. Begging for something, some hint.

“What is it?” Flint asks.

“You let me cut your hair.”

Flint wonders if Silver is still holding the knife. “No, I asked you to cut my hair.” Silver still looks lost, so Flint tries again: “What is it?”

“Can’t you just tell me where to go?” Silver looks away, but only for a breath, then his eyes turn back to Flint like a weathervane fixed in the wind. “I don’t know where I am, but I think you do. Can’t you tell me where I need to go?”

Flint wants to reach out and take Silver into his arms, lead him to the bed and show him his heart. He wants to say  I was there before, I know the way forward  and then lean in slowly enough that Silver will know what is coming before he feels Flint kiss him. He could do this and Silver would accept it all, as he has accepted the other things that Flint has asked him to.

But he does not want Silver to accept it, he wants Silver to ask for it, with his words and his eyes and his hands.

His voice is rough when he says, “You cut my hair because you knew that I needed to have it cut.”

Silver leans in slightly, like he wants to climb directly into Flint’s mind. His eyes are locked onto Flint’s, so he would see if Flint dropped his gaze to those lips that are tantalizingly close and coming closer. And Silver would take the cue, Flint knows he would. So he does not look. 

He looks instead into Silver’s blue eyes. He watches them slip out from under Flint’s gaze and  jump from point to point on Flint’s face. He sees when Silver looks at Flint’s lips. Can Flint make his lips look softer and more inviting just by wishing it?

“Sometimes I feel that you know everything,” Silver says quietly. “That if I want to understand something I don’t need to look at it, I just need to look to you.”

Flint shakes his head slowly, keeping his eyes steady on Silver’s.

“You’ve been here before, haven’t you? You know what this place is called,” Silver says.

“I’m here now, with you.”

Relief washes over Silver’s face – Flint was ready for a hundred emotions to come over Silver’s features, but relief is not one that he had expected – and he kisses Flint. Their arms are already around each other, Flint realizes belatedly. He tightens his hold and parts his lips so he can taste Silver’s mouth on his tongue. 

Silver is not timid. His hands are strong and firm on Flint’s sides and he eagerly meets Flint’s tongue with his own. He is not following any lead but his own pleasure, Flint realizes. It makes him dizzy with desire. He wants to give Silver everything, even the things he doesn’t know yet how to want. 

Silver inhales sharply and Flint realizes that he has spoken some of this aloud. Or Silver can truly read his mind, just as he always half-suspected. 

And Flint says it again, just to make Silver’s breath come faster, to see his eyes get darker and to feel his erection grow harder against Flint’s leg. Flint spreads his legs apart so that one rests between Silver’s. Silver presses against it, sending waves of lust through Flint, shuttering his mind to any other thoughts other than want, need. He runs his hands across Silver’s back, drunk with the permission to touch as much as he wants to.

Silver’s hands are on the laces of Flint’s breeches and that flinching reflex tugs at him again, but now it is because he is already on the edge and he wants to love Silver slowly all night long. But he would never be able to pull away from Silver and he stands, dazed, as Silver pulls his cock out and begins to stroke him. He is not hesitant at all, not fearful. Even in his fantasies, as he brought himself off quietly in his bed alone, Flint had never been able to imagine that Silver would be this eager for him. 

Flint begins to talk as Silver strokes him. He says, “You don’t know how many times I’ve thought of this, of you. Ever since I met you, every time I’ve given myself pleasure it was to the thought of you.”

Silver’s hand falters. “Fuck,” he says hoarsely, “fuck.”

Flint reaches for Silver’s laces, trying to remember how to use his fingers. He manages it finally, clumsily, and wraps his hand around Silver’s cock. It is hot in his hand, silky to touch. Silver’s hips jerk forward and he loses his rhythm again. 

Flint follows Silver’s lead, letting him choose the pace for them both. Silver’s lust-dark eyes meet Flint’s, and Flint can see the effect it has on Silver. Flint wraps his free hand around the back of Silver’s neck and pulls their foreheads together. 

Flint is so close now. His hand keeps stilling on Silver as the world beyond the sensation of Silver’s hand on his cock recedes. He can’t stop the little thrusts of his hips. He pulls his head back at the last moment so that he can see Silver’s face. He looks at Silver’s eyes, the color in his cheeks, his lips that are red and shiny from kissing Flint. And he comes. 

Silver says, “Oh.” His voice is so raw with lust that Flint would surely come again if he could. 

Flint wants to say something, but no words can replace the act of falling to his knees in front of Silver and taking him in his mouth. So he acts and does not speak. Silver’s body tightens and the sound he makes is as sweet as Flint's release had been. His hands fall onto Flint’s head, and he is caressing the hair he just cut. Flint swallows him down deeply, the smell of Silver’s sweat giving him a heady rush. 

Flint draws back after a moment so that he can catch his breath, and he looks up at Silver. He takes in the beauty of him with his shirt rumpled from Flint clenching at it, his breeches discarded beside him, and his whole body shiny with sweat. His gaze lingers on Silver’s cock, standing up for him. He remembers what he said about giving Silver everything and he says, “Here.”

He turns around and braces himself against the table, half-bent over it. He doesn’t have anything, any oil. But he wants this. Silver split his scalp with a knife and it was a caress. This will be just as sweet. 

He hears SIlver’s sharp intake of breath. He feels Silver’s hands on him. Two dry fingers touch him and Flint smiles. 

“Don’t you need- don’t you have any oil or-” Silver sounds more aroused than anything else. 

“It’s all right, I want it,” Flint says. He'll beg for it if that is what Silver wants. 

“Flint,” Silver says. Flint looks over his shoulder. Silver’s expression is such an intoxicating mix of lust and tenderness that Flint nearly averts his eyes, certain that he is trespassing somehow by seeing this. “Flint, this is not the only night for us. We’re going to do this again.” 

We’re going to do this again  . Flint wants to ask him to repeat it, just so he can be sure he heard him correctly.  We’re going to do this again  . It is the same thunderbolt as hearing  then cut it  had been. Flint grabs Silver’s hand and kisses his palm, unable to speak. 

Still holding SIlver’s hand, he tugs Silver against his back. He feels Silver’s cock between his legs, sliding against him. The head of it presses against Flint’s balls. Silver moans and rocks forward again. Their mingled sweat creates a slickness that allows Silver to slide comfortably. Every time he pumps his hips, Flint hitches back to meet him and so every thrust is something they are doing together. 

“Next time,” Flint says, loving the taste of that phrase in his mouth, “next time you’re going to fuck me properly. You’re going to feel me hot and tight around you and you’re going to hear me asking for it deeper. I’ll come just from your cock in me, you won’t even need to touch me, that’s how much I’ll want to feel you in me.”

Those nights of touching himself and thinking of this, Flint had neglected to imagine so much. He hadn’t thought to imagine how Silver’s chest would be hot and sweaty against his back, or the way that he could feel Silver’s hair draping over him. He hadn’t considered that Silver would stop to kiss the back of his neck. And even in his most self-indulgent fantasies, he had never imagined that when Silver came, he would call out Flint’s name.

Flint would be content to stand there forever, the edge of the table biting uncomfortably into his hips now that there is no distraction from it, and Silver almost suffocatingly heavy across his back. But Silver pulls him up and looks intently into his face for a moment before drawing him in for a deliberate, soft kiss. 

When Silver breaks the kiss, he slides his cheek next to Flint’s and says quietly in his ear, “I’ve thought about it too. I didn’t know why, but you were always there.”

They stand there in an embrace that neither wants to break. They’ll have to break it eventually, but that is fine. This is not the only time this will happen. They are going to do this again. Flint tucks his face into Silver’s neck and breaths in.

He opens the book of Silver in his mind and begins to write.

[balloonstand]

[Aziraphale/Crowley 2.5k]

Crowley has never been restrained before. Physically, that is. Handcuffs, ropes, chains- nothing like that. He wasn’t made to be contained. Not until this moment, in Heaven of all places. In Aziraphale’s body of all things.

He is tied to a chair in Heaven facing a tribunal of angels. He is tied to a chair. He could almost laugh at it, but he is much, much closer to thrashing around in the chair and pulling at the ropes until they snap. But he keeps Aziraphale’s body as still as he can and his face as neutral as possible.

They had discussed the night before how carefully they must play their roles. Aziraphale had said, “If we don’t do this right- if we’re not convincing beyond a shadow of a doubt, it will all be for nothing.” In between his words he was saying, “If you aren’t convincing, I’m going to be tried as a traitor and killed for going along with your plan to save the world.” Well, maybe that wasn’t what he was saying. It doesn’t sound like the kind of thing he would say. But it’s the kind of thing that Crowley hears, and it’s how he chose to interpret it and what he is thinking about now.

Earlier that morning, he had dressed himself in Aziraphale’s clothing. First, he’d had to take the clothes off of Aziraphale’s body. One layer at a time. The jacket. He had draped it over the back of a chair because Aziraphale had kept it in tip-top condition for more than 180 years and Crowley understood what that meant. The tartan bowtie he had dropped on the floor. Aziraphale had bared his teeth at that, practicing what it would be like to be Crowley. It made Crowley shiver. He paused- thought about picking up the bowtie, but didn’t. Then, he took off Aziraphale’s vest and pocket watch.

“So many layers,” he had murmured. “Too many.” Aziraphale had just tilted his head at Crowley. He lifted his arms away from his body slightly so that Crowley could pull the vest off of him. It also landed on the floor.

He had undone the buttons of Aziraphale’s shirt out of order. The night before, he had undone done exactly like that out of urgency, his own and Aziraphale’s. That morning, he had done it deliberately. The shirt was warm to the touch and he had wanted to put it on right away and soak up that warmth like the sunshine. He put the shirt on the chair with the jacket.

Aziraphale had undone his own belt, pulled his own pants off of himself. He had folded them before holding them out to Crowley. He’d had a little smile on his face.

Crowley had dressed himself like a rewind of undressing Aziraphale. Pants. Shirt. Vest, pocket watch. Damned bowtie. Jacket. And Aziraphale had helped him. He did up Crowley’s buttons and adjusted the bowtie. He straightened the jacket. He had given him a thorough once-over and nodded his approval. He had looked slyly at Crowley and said in a happy voice, “There. You’re an angel.”

Crowley had always thought that Aziraphale brought him as close to redemption as he might ever hope for. It hadn’t been the right moment, but when Aziraphale had said I forgive you, Crowley had thought that he might on the spot shed his demonic status like a skin. It had felt so good that it had hurt. And it isn’t just that; Aziraphale effortlessly exudes grace. Like a dog sheds its hair, Aziraphale exudes grace. And Crowley has trailed after him for six thousand years like a duckling after crumbs. Aziraphale sheltered him from the first rain with his wing, and Crowley has been following him ever since, with his hands outstretched.

But bringing him all the way back into Heaven itself- even Crowley hadn’t thought it would be possible for Aziraphale to bring him back here. He had never imagined he would see it again. Heaven is just the same as it was; he wouldn’t expect any different. Throughout the years, Aziraphale would sometimes mention Heaven in passing after a visit there or when he missed something about it. Crowley would squirrel these tidbits away to examine later. He’d lay all these stolen details out in his mind and compare them to his crystalline memories of Heaven, before he had Fallen. It had always seemed about the same, which disappointed him mildly. He couldn’t quite put his finger on why. Maybe he just liked the idea that his exile had affected Heaven even in some tiny, almost imperceptible way. But being here now, he sees that it hasn’t. Heaven is eternal, with or without Crowley. It’s exactly the way he remembers it.

The ropes around his wrists are the only surprising part of it. They are foreign to him as a part of Heaven and as a reality in his life. Hell, for all that it does, does not waste time with true restraints. He knows that even now as Aziraphale wears his body to his trial where he will be found guilty of betraying all the kingdoms and denizens of Hell, he will not be tied to a chair. There’s a certain honor about it. A freedom that Crowley hadn’t really noticed. Maybe this chair is a mistake. Heaven is supposed to be better than this.

So yeah, maybe he has thought about it. What it might be like to come back to Heaven as an angel. Not seriously, of course, but sometimes he thinks about it fleetingly, like when Hastur is being- well, himself. Or when Aziraphale is being a little too holier-than-thou. Or when the wind blows or the sun is setting or he’s tired. Every moment that he’s still Fallen. He doesn’t miss it. He certainly doesn’t want to return to the fold. He just thinks about it.

But the Heaven that he thinks about is the one that is welcoming. One that smiles at him when it sees that he is back. Maybe he has only been around one angel for too long, and he can only think of his angel when he tries to think of Heaven. A heaven that is Heaven like Aziraphale is an angel would never tie Crowley to a chair. Crowley doesn’t like being tied to a chair. He very much does not like it. His wrists were not made for ropes. He was not made to be contained in any way.

And then it hits him. Well, then it smothers him in a wave of fury that he has to struggle to keep off of his face. He’s been thinking about this wrong; these ropes aren’t tied around his wrists at all. He isn’t bound to a chair. The principality Aziraphale, angel of the Lord, is tied to this chair. Crowley’s Aziraphale. He could ignite with all this rage. He could turn into flame and burn the ropes away, burn the angels into annihilation, bring Heaven itself down in fire.

He doesn’t do it. He is restrained here. He focuses. He forces a small smile as the archangel begins to speak to him. Gabriel’s words are like the ropes too.

“Ah, Aziraphale,” Gabriel is saying. Crowley doesn’t like hearing Aziraphale’s name said like that, like a disappointment. How has Aziraphale put up with this for all these years, Crowley wonders. “So glad you could join us.”

Join us, that’s rich. Aziraphale would smile here, so Crowley tries to muster one. “You could’ve just sent a message. I mean, a kidnapping. In broad daylight.” He keeps his tone light but his words can’t really be softened.

“Call it what it was: an extraordinary rendition.” This time it is almost impossible to give Aziraphale’s responding smile. “Now, have we heard from our new associate?” Gabriel asks.

Behind him Uriel says, “He’s on his way.”

Gabriel acts delighted. “He’s on his way. I think you’re going to like this. I really do. And,” he says, bending down to be eye-to-eye with Crowley, his false delight slipping and the real malice beneath it showing through, “I bet you didn’t see this one coming.”

Crowley tries to focus, but his mind is tangled in a messy line of thought as he tries to understand these chains that he hadn’t known had been weighing his angel down. Being damned brings with it a certain measure of latitude that Crowley has never thought to appreciate. Hell knows it can’t really control him; apparently Heaven still thinks it can control its angels. So this is what his angel has been dealing with. Every time he has gotten that downtrodden look on his face as he explained that Gabriel sent him an irritated note, this is the voice he heard. This voice that says you are nothing even when the words he speaks are different.

There is a freedom that comes with being Fallen, one that Crowley is still working his mind around. He has never thought his superiors were better than him. He has never cared what they thought of him beyond what mattered to his survival. Other demons don’t matter to him.

Then – speak of the devil, Crowley thinks sardonically – another demon walks in. Heaven is just lousy with demons, isn’t it? What is the neighborhood coming to?

“You don’t get this view down in the basement.” This is a demon who was not an angel once. He has never seen this view before. Crowley doesn’t look at him. He knows what he is here to do.

He keeps his eyes on the pyre as the demon lights it, following the pillar of flame up and up and out of sight. By the time he looks back down at the rest of them, the demon is gone and Gabriel is talking again. Crowley tries to listen like Aziraphale.

“So. With one act of treason, you averted the war.”

Crowley says as Aziraphale, “Well, I think the greater good-“

“Don’t talk to me about the greater good, sunshine. I’m the archangel fucking Gabriel. The greater good is we were finally going to settle things with the opposition once and for all.”

Crowley knows that his smile is too angry to be believable. He can’t help it. Aziraphale has given six thousand years to the greater good. And the only opposition that Crowley can see is the archangel fucking Gabriel who has never thought once about the greater good, or perhaps any good at all. Only the Great Plan.

Uriel steps forward and unbinds him. “Up.”

Crowley stands. For a wild moment, he believes in Heaven again and thinks that Uriel is freeing him. Or at least giving him a chance to defend himself as he stands on his own feet.

Bolstered by this hope, Crowley says, “I don’t suppose I can persuade you to reconsider? We’re meant to be the good guys, for Heaven’s sake.” It doesn’t hurt his mouth to say Heaven’s sake this time.

Gabriel’s expression hardens. “Well, for Heaven’s sake, we are meant to make examples out of traitors. So,” he gestures at the fire, “into the flame.”

Crowley feels cold in the shadow of the Hellfire. The hope that had barely begun to flutter in him is stomped out. There’s nothing left in Heaven for him or for Aziraphale. And he had known that before. He’s almost certain that Aziraphale knows it too. They’ve both made that choice now. But, for a moment, there had been hope and now it is gone and there is only the nuclear shadow of it on his heart. Crowley promises himself that he will be patient with Aziraphale, gentle with his last bit of hope for Heaven.

The angels are looking impassively at him. Crowley approaches the column of flame reluctantly. It’s not that it might hurt him; he knows it won’t. For all that he’s wearing Aziraphale’s form and feeling Aziraphale’s hopes, he is a demon without any illusions of holiness. And yet. He’s inches away from the flames and it feels like Falling. And this time he’s even a good angel.

Doesn’t matter. He has chosen his side.

He thinks about Aziraphale and gives them all a real smile, his first since coming to Heaven. “Well. Lovely knowing you all. May we meet on a better occasion.”

Gabriel says, “Shut your stupid mouth and die already.” His smile is as fake as any that Crowley has given him.

He and Aziraphale, they’re too good for this. That’s all that Crowley can think. He steps into the fire to show them.

He is ensconced in flame. It’s rather nice in there. Crowley imagines that this feels the way that laying out on a hot day feels to humans. He basks in it. He rolls his head on his shoulders stretching his neck and settling back into himself. Despite his body, he’s all Crowley now, no need to play as Aziraphale. He opens his mouth and breathes out his rage as flames.

The angels are recoiling from him. He smiles at them the way he would in his own body. Good, he thinks. He has done what he needs to do here. Now, he can do what he wants to do here.

Heaven can never have Aziraphale again. He’s Crowley’s now. Crowley’s responsibility, his privilege, his life. He thinks about the ropes they had used on him. Crowley has freed Aziraphale from bondage before. He had miracled the wrist irons off of Aziraphale in the Bastille. He had sprung him from the first police station in Edinburg in 1853 after a misunderstanding concerning a farm cart and a carriage. Even his damn clothes – all those oppressive layers – Crowley had taken those off of him too.

And that’s the pit in the peach. The center of it all, the seed. It’s been six thousand years of have I shown you what you showed me the first day we met? Have I made you feel like that? Here, I’ll do that miracle for you, it’s on me. Here, I don’t want you to embarrass yourself. Here, can I give you a lift home? Here, just a little demonic miracle of my own, have your books. He’s piling it around Aziraphale like offerings at an ancient temple. Aziraphale is the oldest religion in the world and Crowley is the first worshipper in the history of Creation. To give this much to Aziraphale feels like grace; to get it back from him as well, is something new to the universe.  

[balloonstand]

Aziraphale can sense love, after all. He does have some idea of what Crowley feels for him. It is not the sort of quiet feeling that wants to hide in the background of the other flashes of love that Aziraphale sometimes feels. Crowley is not the quiet sort of demon to feel things and do nothing with it.

When Aziraphale thinks about it, he thinks of a present all wrapped up in shiny paper and covered in bows. You see, the wrapping paper is Crowley’s restraint. Aziraphale can pretend that he doesn’t know what’s in the box because Crowley has hidden it, covered it all up in his self-control and his patience and taped down the edges. Aziraphale can pretend to wonder if there’s something in there that’s not love.

Crowley has put his love in this box for Aziraphale and covered it up like it’s a surprise, waiting for Aziraphale to decide if he wants to open it. One day, if-when-if-when Aziraphale wants to, he knows that Crowley will let him peel back that wrapping paper. He’ll throw the wrapping away and open up this gift that Crowley has been holding for him for- Aziraphale doesn’t actually know how long. Sometimes he lets himself think about opening it. In his mind, he adjusts the bows, feels the smoothness of the wrapping paper. He scratches at the edges of the tape and thinks about how easy it would be to pull it all back look in at what’s inside. One flick of his hand and he could undo unknown millennia of deferral.

Crowley’s eyes are on him, watching Aziraphale toy with his self-restraint. Crowley indulges him with this, like he indulges him with everything, and the look on his face is not always fond when Aziraphale puts the present back on the shelf, unopened.

So maybe he shouldn’t play with the wrapping paper so much. Maybe he shouldn’t twist the trailing strings from the bows around his fingers as he thinks about what it might be like to tear it off in one wild, reckless moment. Maybe that will keep that look of cool disappointment off of Crowley’s face. If he pretends like he doesn’t know about the present at all. And there shouldn’t be a present anyway. So maybe that is what is right.

Crowley can’t sense love like Aziraphale can – he is a demon after all, and to be honest, Aziraphale isn’t quite sure that even other angels have the same nose for love that he does – and so he can’t know that Aziraphale has his own present for Crowley. It is much better hidden. The wrapping paper is several layers thick, and it is covered with shipping labels that say FRAGILE and HANDLE WITH CARE.

Aziraphale does not like to think about that one as much. To rest his fingers on the creases of Crowley’s self-restraint is- it’s exhilarating. It’s a Creation’s worth of possibility and life and it’s right beneath his fingertips, practically singeing him with its heat. His own tightly-wrapped gift makes him feel only lightheaded when he thinks about it. It is not so easy to think of opening that one. You could say almost impossible.

Sometimes, though. Sometimes to think of Crowley’s hands on that present, Crowley’s fingers gently peeling away the stickers, undoing the bows, stripping away the packing and lay it all bare- 

Sometimes it is almost more than enough. 

[balloonstand]

Crowley has never liked the water very much. It’s not a metaphor or anything, he just doesn’t like it. And it’s not because of holy water either, or any of that nonsense. He isn’t a very symbolic kind of demon. Water isn’t other kinds of water. There’s the river with river water, the sea with seawater, and the church with holy water. The rain with rain water.

It might be because of the rain, actually. He hates the rain in particular. The rain feels very judgmental for all that it is just a natural weather phenomenon. Whenever the rain shows up, it takes up all the space outside. Everyone scurries indoors to let the rain have the run of the place.

He’s saying all of this aloud to Aziraphale with five bottles in between them. None of them are water bottles, he says smugly, like this proves his point beyond argument. Aziraphale would roll his eyes if he was certain that this was all nonsense, but he can never quite be sure with Crowley. It could all mean something very important to him and Aziraphale would never roll his eyes at something important.

“You think I talk too much, don’t you?” Crowley says in a much different, much more sober and amused voice.

“I don’t think that at all,” Aziraphale says huffily.

“You were thinking it, just now.”

“Do you read minds now?” He pours Crowley another glass. He had been enjoying Crowley’s tirade against the most abundant liquid on the planet and wanted to hear its resolution.

Crowley accepts the refill and keeps his eyes fixed on the glass. “Just yours.”

Aziraphale very much wishes they were still talking about water. “Obviously not because you were wrong. I don’t think you talk too much.”

Crowley throws his head back as he laughs. The rain is beating on the windows but his laugh drowns it out for a moment. Aziraphale thinks he sees some of Crowley’s drink slosh out of his glass as he laughs with his whole body, but none of it lands on the cushion or the floor. It is as though Crowley is cleaning it up as he spills it. No matter what kind of mess they drink themselves into, there is no evidence the next morning that Crowley was a part of it. Aziraphale frowns.

Things that are in motion should stay in motion until they are done being in motion naturally, Aziraphale is thinking. If the wine is falling out of the glass, it should be allowed to continue its natural journey to the floor. No one wants wine on the floor, but spilled wine should be spilled. Things that have started must be allowed to come to their end.

“And now you’re thinking,” Crowley bobbles his head side to side the way he does when he’s teasing or mocking, “you’re thinking damn, he really can read minds.” He puts on a bit of voice when he says it.

“I am not,” Aziraphale says crossly.

“Then what are you thinking?” Crowley slouches further down into his seat and smiles lazily at him.

“I am thinking- I am thinking…” Aziraphale feels too foolish to say what he is really thinking, that Crowley should just let his drink spill. “I’m thinking that you should like the rain.”

“And why’s that?” He sounds entirely uninterested.

“Well. We saw the first rain together, didn’t we?” Aziraphale isn’t entirely sure why that should mean that Crowley would like the rain, and he hopes that Crowley doesn’t ask.

Crowley takes off his sunglasses. He takes a drink. When he lowers the glass, he looks Aziraphale in the eyes and says bluntly, “We also saw the rains that caused the great flood that covered the earth for forty days and forty nights. The rain that drowned all those people.”

Aziraphale swallows. “That was- different. You shouldn’t count that as rain.”

“And why not?”

“There’s usually not that much of it.”

It is one thing to look Crowley in the eyes when he is wearing his sunglasses, and other to look him in his naked eyes and see him looking right back. “If there’s a little of something there may just be a lot of it,” Crowley says. A bit of the slur is coming back into his words and he doesn’t look pleased with how that thought filtered through the alcohol before it left his mouth. “You never know when the rain will stop. Maybe it will rain for forty day and forty nights again. Maybe there’s a lot more rain than you think there is. Maybe you should pay attention.”

“I don’t follow.”

“I know you don’t,” Crowley says. “I can read your mind.”

The next morning all the bottles are stacked neatly. The glasses are clean and there are no stains from spilled drinks.

[balloonstand]

12/19/18 [Silver reflects on Peter]

Years later, Silver attends a Catholic mass. There is no reason for him to do this, but there’s no longer any reason for him not to do it either. Nostalgia doesn’t crash down in waves over his head when he crosses the threshold of the house of God and devotion doesn’t warm his heart. It doesn’t even really feel familiar, despite the countless masses he attended as youth. But neither does it feel strange. It just is, and it is what he is doing right now in this moment.

He is in perfect balance as he sits down in the pew and ignores everything the priest says. The sermon is about family, but Silver’s mind turns over a memory of something else. This is the way of things for him- doing one thing and thinking of something adjacent but not associated. He half-experiences the things in his life now, and the lively half of him is busy on something else that exists only in his mind.

Anyway, the memory he is tilling like a field is of his six-year old self trying to find the man underneath the church in his hometown. The priest had said his many, many words and Silver had only heard the ones about Peter being the rock that Jesus built his church on. He had worried about Peter living under the church and he had wanted to bring him food. His mother had explained to him later that it was symbolic and Silver forgot all about it.

Until now. It’s a funny thing to think of a building being built on a man. It’s a funny thing to look back on your own memories like they’re stories someone told you once. It’s a funny thing to think of building yourself on another man’s stories.

Yes, Flint is at the core of all of these thoughts. Silver had stopped telling himself his own story and had told himself Flint’s story for so long that he had lost himself to being a secondary character to Flint. And that had been the point, hadn’t it? Forget his past, become something to someone that mattered. Build himself anew upon the sturdiest rock he could find.

Silver only takes the wafer at communion and not the wine. The body but not the blood. He thinks Flint might have made something of that. He wishes sometimes that Flint could be here to decipher the things that Silver does. Silver needs to understand himself through the codex of Flint’s perception.

That’s the problem with building your church on one rock. As Silver walks out of the church with the wafer still dissolving in his mouth, he thinks, this is the problem with it. The rock can crack under the weight of the church. It can break, it can turn to sand and wash away, and then the church will fall to pieces. The rock can decide it isn’t a rock any longer. Is the church still a church?

He probably will not attend another mass. The body of Christ has dissolved completely in his mouth.

[balloonstand]

12/28/18 [Me, somewhat drunk, wondering what kind of car Flint would drive]

Silver doesn’t mean to, but he spends most of the day trying to guess what kind of car Flint drives.

He thinks it’s too easy to guess truck. It’s too easy because it isn’t right but a truck is big and powerful and it projects what Flint projects. With the commercials of them rumbling off-road through whatever bits of nature seem the least likely for a truck to drive over. Pioneering, conquering, owning. But that’s just a projection, isn’t it? Silver knows him better than that – deeper than that – and he smiles as he checks that one off his mental list.

It’s not a long list. He doesn’t know that many kinds of cars off the top of his head. Muscle car? A caricature of what Flint would look like driving a truck. Laughable to Silver, who enjoys the laugh. Those little two-door sports cars wouldn’t be big enough to contain him, and Flint would be stiff with the discomfort of all that flash and luxury. Convertibles- who drives convertibles? Men like Flint would not. Silver takes a sip from the bottle and sits up a little straighter. No, not a convertible. Wagon, crossover, coupe- Silver is going to run out of kinds of cars that he knows and he can’t picture Flint sitting comfortably in any of them. He knows the spaces that Flint does not occupy, but it is harder to know the ones he does.

That’s the root of it, isn’t it? Silver has seen his map enough to know his borders and boundaries, but he still feels that he is only guessing at the topography, the details within. Are there rivers and forests here or there? Silver does not always know- well, he never knows, but sometimes he fills in the map with geographical points of interest, guessing at their location and altitude. And sometimes he wonders if there are any cities or mountains on this map at all or if he is only building his own cities and looking at the view from the peaks of his own mountains and pretending that they are Flint’s instead.

He plays his guessing game from that angle too. What kind of car would he, Silver, drive if he had his license? He finishes his drink and grabs another. Something big- no, something medium. Something new. Something bright red. Silver smiles. He knows what kind of person drives a convertible and it’s him. This is not the way to guess what Flint would drive. Silver makes himself laugh about it, but he really wants to finish this new drink as he laughs out loud to himself.