#I went looking for Hamilton/Flint fic once and there was hardly anything

[chocolatepot]

do you think the extend of good storytelling is by how gay it is, and how much shipping fanart can be produced from it? and yes bonnet was a massive racist and slave owner this isn't news

a1) I said nothing about good storytelling. Someone in the notes on that post complained about OFMD getting the fandom and hype that Black Sails didn't; I pointed out that fun + queer joy = fannish engagement. It sounds like you should go berate them for caring about not getting Hamilton/Flint fanart!

a2) As someone who actively likes reading, watching, and writing romances, yes, I do think that fiction with well-written and well-acted romance is more appealing than fiction where that's a super minor note.

b1) It seems like you don't understand historical fiction? The real Stede Bonnet was a slaveholder. The character named Stede Bonnet written by David Jenkins & co. isn't. Having an issue with that isn't exactly baseless, but for moral consistency you have a LOT of other fiction to object to as well, so you should get on with that to make it clear that this has nothing to do with being mad about one pirate show being more widely loved than another.

b2) You probably shouldn't rest your "down with OFMD, up with Black Sails" rhetoric on moral grounds, because all the characters in Black Sails are also pirates, and the real people many of them were based on (such as Charles Vane, Blackbeard, etc.) were rapists and murderers. Even on the show itself, one of these has his men gang-rape a main character.

If you just hate OFMD, that's mystifying to me but totally valid. If you hate OFMD and want to seize on an objective reason to declare the show to be Objectively Immoral and all its fans to be Bad People, that's childish behavior and you should really put your energy into creating the kind of fic or art you want to see for Black Sails instead.

[slverjohn]

would you write a sequel fic for your abigail fic? it's so cuuuuuute! maybe flint reading her diary or something?

When Silver wakes, it’s to the smell of stew at his bedside, no doubt placed there by one of Max’s girls. He’s been stuck in this fucking room for nearly two weeks, laid up on Howell’s orders while Flint finishes negotiating with Rackham and Vane.

If he weren’t constantly drinking rum (not laudanum, never laudanum) to numb the pain, he’d be more insulted that Flint hadn’t at least tried to bring him along. He is the quartermaster, after all. Still, perhaps it’s for the best. He can’t be sure that Rackham doesn’t know it was him who sold the information in the first place, and if there’s one thing he can be sure of, it’s that Jack fucking Rackham doesn’t know when to keep his mouth shut.

He sits up slowly, reaching over for the bowl once he’s settled at least somewhat comfortably among his pillows. It’s still warm, thank fuck, and whoever made it is a sight better than Silver when it comes to cooking. It’s only as he’s finishing, wiping away the remnants of the broth from his growing stubble, that someone knocks at his door. He can’t help his surprise as he looks up and sees Flint in the doorway, holding a book and looking mildly uncomfortable. Silver wonders, absently, when the last time it was he’d spent any time in a brothel, if he has at all.

Still, he waves him in, putting the empty bowl aside. “Didn’t expect to see you here, Captain,” he says, which is, really, the most polite way of asking where the fuck he’s been. He hasn’t seen Flint since the day he’d been put in this room; he’d overseen Silver’s installation here and left without another word.

“We’ve finally reached an agreement,” Flint offers, coming to sit in the lone chair in the room, on Silver’s good side. “Vane will take the Warship, and we will return to the Walrus.”

Silver raises a brow at that. “Awfully sentimental of you.”

Flint lets out a snort at that. “Hardly. Vane sees it as recompense for what would have been Abigail Ashe’s ransom.”

Ah. That makes more sense. He shifts, sitting up more fully. It’s extremely uncomfortable.

“When do we start?” he asks, knowing full well the next step in this plan is to carry out assaults and raids, spread fear among magistrates and citizens alike.

Flint places a hand on his shoulder, pushing him back down, settling his sudden antsiness. “A few weeks, I’d say. There’s still repairs needed on the Walrus, and the risk of infection on your leg is still too great, according to Howell.”

Silver scowls at this, glaring at his stump with utter contempt.

“There’s another matter I wanted to discuss with you,” Flint says after a moment, sounding almost hesitant. “I’ve been meaning to for some time, but I confess I didn’t know where to begin.”

He fingers the book, holding it in his lap, and Silver itches to reach for it: he’d gone through every book in this bloody whorehouse within the first week, and anything, even some unmarked book, would be enough to pique his interest.

“Does it have anything to do with that?” He asks, gesturing to the book, and Flint nods, expression unreadable. “What is it, then?”

“This is the journal Abigail Ashe kept while aboard the Walrus,” Flint answers, his voice carefully neutral, and Silver can feel himself start to pale.

“Oh.”

“The magistrate read from it at the trial while I was in chains. It would seem that her time with us made Miss Ashe rather skeptical of her father’s rhetoric,” He opens the journal and reads an excerpt. “‘I fear that the stories I’ve heard may have clouded the truth more than clarified it. It would seem these monsters are men…I am forced to wonder if my father is simply mistaken or if his motives are something more deliberate than that…’”

“She’s a perceptive girl, that one,” Silver offers, trying to maintain his composure.

“I don’t know what possessed me to take it. We were in the middle of a battle, moments away from death, and yet…”

“You were about to become the monster you’d always feared you were. It must have been a small comfort, to know there was at least one person who didn’t believe that.”

Flint grimaces, ever reluctant to seem vulnerable. Silver can relate, truly, but right now he’s more focused on whatever the fuck that journal says about him. He ignores Silver’s little insight. “I read the rest of it that first night, before the fires at Charlestown had even gone out.”

“I doubt you came here to gossip about her obvious infatuation with Billy,” Silver jokes, though Flint does not laugh. He sighs, biting the bullet. “I take it she mentions me?”

At this, Flint gives him a sharp look. “I admit, I was surprised. Considering I had given a direct order for all crewmen to give her a wide berth.”

“We only spoke a few times,” Silver says quickly, defensively. “And each time it was her who came to me. I swear, I never approached her.”

Flint nods, accepting Silver’s truth, before turning back to the book, flipping to a new page. He reaches over, placing the journal in Silver’s lap. He taps the page. “This, however, was what surprised me most.”

Silver’s throat feels suddenly tight, and he swallows convulsively. He knows what it will say. “Captain, I don’t -”

“Read it. Please.”

And so he does, noting how worn this particular page is, how the letters are smudged slightly, as if someone has been running their fingers over them again and again.

Though I have spoken at length with Mrs. Hamilton on Captain Flint, and though I have heard accounts of him from all sorts of places: Miss Guthrie, my father, even the papers; I have found that it is Mr. Silver’s view of his captain that interests me most.

Mr. Silver is, by his own admission, a “self-serving sort of man.” Captain Flint himself has told me that Mr. Silver would sooner sell out his own mother than put himself at risk for any other person. Mr. Silver, I can tell, thinks this of himself as well. He thinks of himself as apart from the rest of the men, isolated by his own ambition and a sense of self-preservation.

But I have found that this is not the case. Or at least, not anymore.

Mr. Silver once told me that he’d ingratiated himself with the crew for the Captain’s sake, to prove himself essential to the other man’s aims. He told me of how he’d convinced the men to join us on our voyage to Charlestown, to join Flint on his journey towards a better future, because Flint had asked it of him. He mentioned, in passing, that he’d once dragged Flint from the ocean, saved him from drowning after a grueling battle.

He insists that he’d done all these things simply because they suited his interests at the time, and I think a part of him genuinely believes this. Mr. Silver does not seem to realize that all his actions as of late have been for Flint, his every decision considering what would be best for his Captain.

When I asked about the love he clearly felt for the Captain, Mr. Silver went white as a sheet, shocked that he’d been discovered. It seems to me that he would prefer to remain a stranger to his own heart.  When he did finally speak freely, though briefly, of his thoughts on Flint, he seemed almost confounded by the strength of his own feelings.

Mr. Silver is in love with Captain Flint. This much is certain. He loves Flint in the covetous, awed way in which only the loneliest of people are capable. He loves Flint so much it frightens him.

That Flint has inspired such a deep, restless, and loyal love in such a man gives me pause. It must be a very special person indeed, to move a self-serving, solitary man to love so very intensely, without the slightest hope of gaining anything in return.

Fuck, it’s so much worse than he’d feared. Silver sucks in a sharp inhale, his breath coming faster. He can feel himself start to panic, and now he can’t run from this, not like he could have, would have before.

Flint has read this. Flint knows.

Silver slams the journal shut, tossing it onto the sheets beside him.

“Silver,” Flint says quietly, and he squeezes his eyes shut, paralyzed by his own anxiety.

“Don’t,” he whispers. He looks down at his hands, white-knuckling the blankets on his lap.  “There’s pity in the eyes of every man on that crew, every person in this brothel, when they look at me. They look at me, and only see what’s happened to me. And you - you looked at me differently, yes, but - there wasn’t pity there. I can’t - I can’t bear it, to have you pity me now, over this, of all things.”

Flint takes his hand, gently prying his fingers loose from the fabric. “Silver. John.”

Silver does look up at that. Flint has never, not once, called him by his first name. And the look on Flint’s face - it’s -

Well, it’s not pity.

“It’s true, then?” Flint asks, eyes wide. He looks like he can’t believe what he’s hearing, like he’s been completely blindsided.

“Like I said. She’s a perceptive girl,” he can’t say it, not yet. Maybe not ever.

Flint, at his admission, actually smiles. At first Silver thinks he’s mocking him, that he finds his quartermaster’s infatuation amusing. But then Flint laces their fingers together, stroking his thumb along the back of Silver’s hand, and his breath catches.

Flint lifts their joined hands, presses a kiss to Silver’s knuckles.

“Then perhaps I owe the perceptive Miss Ashe my thanks.”