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randomfoggytiger · 11 months ago

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Collector's Edition: Cars and Conversations (Part I)

Mulder and Scully have traveled a lot a lot a lot during their years in the basement-- surely, they had pretty cool conversations on the road?

Loose chronological order below~

@wexleresque/hellsteeth's

stars

As he climbs into the passenger seat of his father’s Lincoln, Fox yawns. The dashboard clock reads 5:03 AM and the smug tilt of his mother’s lips suggests that the early hour is the result of considerable negotiation. The tires crunch on the driveway and his mother waves at him absentmindedly from the porch as they depart. She doesn’t make a habit of smiling, but in the dark, Fox thinks something close might be on her face.

The drive is quiet this morning, save for the news on the radio and the whistle of the wind through the cracked window. Sunflower seeds sail over the glass and Fox takes a few out of the bag, chewing on them for something to do.

“How’s work, Dad?” he asks as they pass Fall River.

Young Mulder is tossed back and forth by his begrudging parents.

the fbi basement bulletin board - Chapter 5 (Tumblr)

“Hm. Well you probably don’t need a medical professional to tell you this, but if you keep moving it around, it’s going to take longer to heal. You need to rest it.”

“Noted, doc. And you just missed the turn, by the way.”

S1 Mulder is bad at directions-- especially with a sprained wrist.

Local Radio (Tumblr)

Driving out to a little town in Indiana hadn't been in the original plan, but the business of Memorial Day weekend had removed flying as an option. They needed to reach their destination within 24 hours. So here they were, en route to another place that didn't even warrant a dot on the map (you've seen one, you've seen them all, he sometimes thought to himself).

Mulder is amused at a crazy radio station (and at Scully's reaction.)

Christine Leigh's (Alt. Ao3) Maybe?

"Okay, here we are." Maggie said this as she pulled off the highway and onto the road that would take them into Democrat Hot Springs. She was surprised that there wasn't more traffic. This town, if she remembered right, was supposed to be some sort of a resort area. Five more minutes, and they were in the parking lot looking up at the familiar sight of the neon arches, and that's all that mattered.

Captain Scully is back from deployment; and Maggie senses something is off with her youngest daughter.

@thatfragilecapricorn30's (Ao3) Tell Me You Love Me - Chapter 1

“How do you know where I live?” he asked.

Scully’s cheeks reddened; she was hoping he wouldn’t notice or find her actions inappropriate. “It was, uh, it was in your personnel file. I wrote down your address after you called me at home after the last case. I figured I may need it at some point.”

Mulder smiled. “Just trying to see if you’ve been spying on me.”

Post Deep Throat Scully can't shed her keyed-up nerves after driving Mulder back home.

@scullywolf's (Ao3)

Eve

Her eyes narrowed. “How far up north?”

“California’s a big state, Scully.”

“I’m aware of that. How far?”

He decided there was probably something very interesting over in the corner that merited staring at while he answered. “About 300 miles. Give or take.”

Eve Mulder sheepishly wakes Scully.

Red Museum

Sure, the old man wasn’t a member of the church, and similarities between him and Brother Andrew were all but nonexistent, but the cryptic “There’s something I’d like to show you,” with no further explanation, was enough to set her mental warning bells chiming. She was a grown woman, with a gun, but that didn’t mean she loved the idea of jumping into some random stranger’s truck after only the briefest of exchanges. Mulder joined her at the truck’s window, an unspoken question on his face.

Red Museum Scully communicates her anxieties to Mulder without a word.

Demons

The car company rep agreed to come and pick her up, and she sat down on the curb for only a minute or so before getting up again to pace off her nervous energy. A hundred horrible scenarios played themselves out in her head; at least ninety of them involved Mulder getting into car wrecks of varying degrees of seriousness. In order to keep herself from panicking, she tried to focus on the task at hand, which only made her angry that she was even in her current position in the first place.

Demons Scully has to call in a new rental car.

Drive

“All I’m saying,” she said pointedly, “is that it could be worse. We could be crammed in a room right now with a bunch of other agents, and instead we’re at least driving around through what you have to admit is some fairly scenic farmland.”

Mulder spared a moment to mourn their lost office.

Drive Scully appreciates being out in the field with Mulder again.

Dreamland II

"...Mulder, I’m not proud of how long it took me to realize what was going on. I was about ready to drag you in for an MRI. Some sort of delayed-effect brain trauma from your trip out to the Queen Anne was the only thing I could think of to account for your dramatic change in behavior. Only it wasn’t you at all–”

“Well, you believe it now, and that’s all that matters. Now how do we fix things?”

Dreamland II Mulder and Scully catch up before heading back into the fray.

@cactustree's (Ao3) Fast Times and Slow Drives

She startles when she feels a warm hand on top of hers, and her eyes snap open as though jolted by an electric shock. She looks over to find Mulder studying her, his eyes darkened with concern.

“Watch the road, Mulder,” she murmurs, pulling her hand away from his.

“What’s wrong, Scully?”

Post Genderbender Mulder banters away Scully's apology with facts.

@h0ldthiscat's (Ao3, Alt. Ao3)

Survivor

She swats him away with one of her small hands when he touches her head and helps her into the car, but the look she shoots him lacks her usual antagonism, and the purse of her lips doesn't quite convince him that she's annoyed.

"Do you want another one of these before we hit the road?" He shakes a half-empty bottle of Gatorade at her as he slides behind the wheel, but she shakes her head once, firmly, and presses her lips together in a thin line, making them even whiter than they are.

Post Darkness Falls Mulder drives them home.

7. things you said while we were driving

She shoves the sunshade back up and clears her throat. “Can we go?”

He notices for the first time that her eyes are wet, that her chin is quivering despite her best attempts to control it. Remorse and guilt wash over him as he remembers an offhand comment from earlier in the week that explains her makeup, her nicer-than-usual suit, the set of her jaw.

Post Never Again Mulder's remorse soothes Scully's feelings.

Can I ask for a fic tonight? :)

“Was the drive okay?” she asks.

Mulder jerks his head back to the still open door and says, “Ask your son, he drove.”

William appears in the doorway, duffel bag slung over his shoulder, tawny hair in his eyes. “It was fine, Mom.”

“Good,” she says, shooting daggers at Mulder with her eyes, daggers that say she can’t believe he let their son drive in a snowstorm....

AU-- Revival era Scully is not pleased Mulder let college age William drive back in a snowstorm.

@crossedbeams’s (Ao3) I-Spy

‘I love this song!’ I explain, whizzing the twizzler I have pilfered from Mulder’s junk food haul around in some vaguely rhythmic pattern. I love music I just lack the skill set to express that love very elegantly.

Mulder chuckles at my enthusiasm and cranks up the volume, ‘I never would have had you pegged as a Clapton fan’.

S1 Scully tells Mulder about her family road trips.

@slippinmickeys's (Ao3, Gossamer)

Prompt Drabble Collection - Chapter 25 (Tumblr)

The thing was, it was next to impossible to see out the windshield.

Scully loved thunderstorms. Having spent a large portion of her youth in San Diego, they were still a novelty, even after years on other, more weather-prone bases and college campuses, and if she'd been home, she would have pulled up a chair next to her window and curled up there with a mug of tea, watching the light play in the sky and the water ping sharply against the glass.

However, as a driver she was cautious, and with Mulder, well, she had a reputation to uphold: He was the engine. She was the brake.

S1 Scully drives through a storm, donuts and a dozing partner included.

@brownies-and-tea/browniesandtea's Collect Call

“Mulder, it’s too late.” Scully sighed and leaned against the rain-streaked window of the car.

"I can't believe you're thinking fondly of that awful motel."

"I'm thinking fondly of a decent night's sleep." she stretched across the passenger seat.

S1 Mulder pursues a lead with Scully, from car to phone booth.

Ten's Learning to Breath (1/2)

In the elevator the women leaned him against one of the walls and kept talking to him, worried that otherwise he would go back to sleep and start sliding to the floor. Dana asked him questions, like his name and address, to keep him alert. She was relieved when she received the correct answers.

They got him into the backseat of Maggie's car, careful not to bump his head. Dana immediately raced around the car and got in the back herself. She fastened his seatbelt and watched as he leaned back against the headrest. He was asleep again before Maggie turned the key in the ignition.

AU-- Post One Breath Scully, Maggie, and Melissa are shocked at the state of Mulder's apartment.

J. C. Sun's Car Ride

My partner is next to me, as he always is, but for the first time in months, he's wearing his glasses. They make him look like an owl: a giant, somber six-foot owl perched in the driver's side seat. However, I doubt any owl has ever rolled his shirtsleeves up to the elbow and cradled a book in his lap, or chased the paranormal for a living. Nor do I think any owl has ever looked quite like him: the slightly twisted nose, the clear hazel eyes and the annoying, annoying little lock that, even now, droops across his forehead. It takes a wrench of will to resist the urge to reach out and to smooth it into place.

Post Firewalker Scully is bonded to Mulder now.

@seek-its-opposite/seek_its_opposite's

transient luminous events

He is still just standing there, the sleeves on the turtleneck he didn’t need to wear pushed up at the elbows. She is suddenly, vividly aware of the car, of the hot metal and the smell of rubber in stagnant humidity. Duane Barry’s trunk smelled like a spare tire. Her mouth goes cloth-gag dry.

“Can we?” she asks. She waves her hand at the road ahead and wonders how she’s so sure of this: He’d have known what she was asking even if she hadn’t.

“Sure,” Mulder nods. He looks relieved. He grabs their flashlights from the glove compartment and hands her one, and the flood of Pfaster’s headlights behind her eyes softens and clarifies into two beams that will never outrun her. And they walk.

Post Irresistible Scully confronts Mulder on his bubble-wrap method of protection.

if you weren't so

She tilts her chin up at him, at the usual angle, and finds that the geometry between them is the same.

“I need to talk to you,” she says. “Something’s happened.”

Behind him, his not-wife drags a recliner over the threshold in reverse, yelling at the houses that all look like hers.

“I have to talk to you alone.”

She says “alone” like she always says it and wonders if she meant to do that. There are days when she’s sure she could leave him in the dirt and still wind up in a room with him at the end of the world. As they slip behind the truck, she's gripped by the idea that to Joanne Fletcher, she is the woman Mulder shouldn’t be with.

AU-- Dreamland II Mulder and Scully try to find a way back to each other.

theramblinrose's Irresistible - Chapter 5/Chapter 6

“I didn’t know when I’d hear from you,” Mulder said.

“I’m at the airport,” Scully said. “I’ve got a car. I’m driving in. I just wanted to call before I left.”

“Anything wrong?” Mulder asked.

“No,” Scully said. “Honestly—everything’s feeling pretty right, Mulder.”

AU-- Irresistible Mulder and Scully are juggling their new relationship, a surprise pregnancy, and the fallout from the nefarious Pfaster.

eponine119's Same Old Fight

-Turn it back, he'd insisted, his knuckles white on the steering wheel with the effort of keeping the car on the narrow twisting road, This is making me jumpy.

-I don't know why I let you drive.

-You didn't have any choice.

-Mulder, pull over and let me drive.

-No.

S2 Mulder rescues Scully after their blowout fight almost ends with an explosive conclusion.

Sneakers/sneakers's

Walter Skinner's 'From Left Field

"But I don't see why Skinner should care about the book. It didn't mention *him*, and it didn't even use our names." Scully stood in front of the bookcase, scanning the shelves. "We didn't divulge anything classified; I'm sure the reading public thinks the whole think is a joke."

"But they had the nerve to claim I ate *twelve* piece of sweet potato pie!"

She pulled the book down. "Skinner's going to complain about your eating habits?"

"But I *hate* sweet potato pie, Scully. You know that, remember? I turned green at the gills last Thanksgiving, when your sister-in-law offered me some."

Post Jose Chung's From Outer Space Skinner has his thoughts on the book.

Sweet Home D.C.

"But the reception . . ." She looked out the window at the 1 AM darkness. "I think we both need to get some sleep. Turn the radio back on if you want to."

He did.

<< . . . Sweet home, Alabama . . . where skies are so blue . . . sweet home, Alabama . . . Lord, I'm coming home to you . . .>>

"That guy's got something wrong with his head, Scully."

Mulder and Scully, switching songs and swapping gum.

Evil_Little_Dog's

Cassadaga Bound

Dana squinted out the car window. "I don't think there's enough room in this town for all the witches, or demons, or devils in Florida, let alone the world."

S3 Mulder detours he and Scully to a fortune teller's.

Travelogue

“We’re not lost.” Mulder shot her a look then turned back to the road, correcting for the drift. “We’re directionally challenged.”

Making a guttural noise deep in her throat, Scully glanced out the window.

Mulder, the car, and a ditch.

@sunlightscully's (XF Writing Challenge - Food)

They have perfected the art of car eating. The driver orders and pays and hands the greasy bag over to be unpacked. The passenger unwraps the driver’s burger. They share fries.

When he pays she asks for the bare minimum and nothing too expensive. He orders extra large milkshakes and pretends he doesn’t see her stealing sips. They compensate for each other. Ketchup has not been spilled in years.

Mulder realizes he loves Scully.

Starbuck's (FFN) Wake Me When We Get There

"Shouldn't be much longer, Scully."

She made no acknowledgment, lying her head upon the seat once again. He continued driving as she drifted in and out of consciousness. White line. White line. Yellow line.

"Wake me when we get there, Mulder."

Mulder keeps the volume down so his partner can sleep on the long drive home.

@wtfmulder/@momdadimpoppunk's (Ao3) drabble; pay no mind

Scully paces around the car, branches and leaves snapping quietly under her weight. But she’s not angry, not at all, or nervous. She occasionally bends down to steal a sunflower seed from him and pauses to crack it before continuing her little loops.

Mulder and Scully find their own ways to entertain themselves when the rental car breaks down.

@incidental-ao3/incidental's Febuwhump 2023: The Truth is Out There (And the Fic is In Here) - Chapter 18

“No, Mulder, I should be keeping you awake, you’re the driver.”

“But I am awake,” he argued reasonably. “So there’s no reason for you to torture yourself when you could catch another few hours’ rest.”

“Don’t be dramatic, it’s not torture,” she scoffed. He smirked.

“Could’ve fooled me,” he said. She scowled sleepily.

Scully tries not to fall asleep, and Mulder ruminates on life before lights.

@mulderbabe77's Taco Stands and Regrets

He pushed down a little harder on the gas pedal.

“Are you gonna throw up?” He gulped, hoping to hear a no.

“Nope,” she answered and for a moment he almost sighed with relief. “The other thing, I think,” she finished, grimaced again and held a hand to her cramping stomach.

“I’m on it!” He sped the car up a little more.

Ten minutes later they could see the exit just ahead. Mulder was shifting uncomfortably in his seat.

Mulder and Scully both get food poisoning while on the road.

@hamster-on-fire/fade_into_the_dusk_with_me’s For The Sake Of Driving (Ao3)

They’d do this sometimes. Drive. They were always driving, it seemed. But when it was dark like this & he was scared like this, or tired like this, or just utterly numb like this, it was different. The curve of the road up ahead could feel like a whole conversation; the silence, an opening, & they’d both sit there, like staring at a sterile wound.

Mulder and Scully help each other decompress on long, long car drives late into the night.

Timemeantnothing's On the road again

“We helped keep the Germans from getting Thor’s Hammer.”

“Mhmm,” Scully hummed, turning the corner.

“It was Einstein, Scully. We protected Albert Einstein.”

“That was very good of us to do.”

Mulder and Scully, driving: hot ladies, aliens, cheek kisses, Triangle rambles, and Millennium contentedness.

Thank you for reading~

Enjoy!

**Note**: I am a "separate the art from the artist" person through-and-through; but my lists will no longer be featuring writers that have blocked me-- tooooooo much drama has been kicked up over that issue.

36 notes · View notes

naivety · 6 months ago

Note

Hey! You don’t know me, but I’m a Black Sails fan from ~2020-2022 who still checks the tag for fun and I enjoy what you said about Silver and Billy, in addition to what 4x05 foreshadowed about the ending of the war and Silver’s relationships with Flint and Madi… I always called 4x05 the “John Silver Divorce Episode” for that exact reason… I literally have a playlist on Spotify for it. 😂😂

it is genuinely so fundamental to the audience's understanding of silver and yet i forget that episode exists. the duality of black sails. this ask did make me rewatch the episode though and i forgot billy literally tried to kill flint and by extension madi in a shootout preceding all of that, which just makes the gut punch of it all more insane because silver literally did not need to shake cry throw up about betraying billy. when he'd literally just betrayed flint and madi's coalition and by extension silver like one episode ago. but he did! he does! cause that's his buddy! silver and billy were in the flint understander hater trenches together just last season. he's pissed at billy for fucking up an incredibly delicate situation while also putting the two most important people in his life directly in the line of fire at the same time, and yet he knows exactly why billy did it because they used to be on the same page about flint not even that long ago, so he can't even hate billy for it. he can't and he doesn't!

and as he and flint and madi go around trying to clean up his mess, flint betrays madi! in silver's eyes, of course, not madi's as we learn later, but flint does what flint always does which is his own thing with or without the say of the people he's asking to go along with it. though we explicitly know silver, who is building this entire thing with flint and is actually integral to flint's own desire to decide to build it back in 3.06, is right next to him moment of and begs flint not to bargain with the maroons' cache and his own life in one fell swoop, and he, of course, does it anyway. silver doesn't care about this war, he cares about these people, and they care about it, so he does what he must because, well. where else would he wake up in the morning and matter? but flint keeps asking more of silver than he knows how to give! and silver keeps trying to give it anyway!

it's this very thing, in my opinion, that he tearfully reveals to madi has him so scared back in 3.07. not responsibility for flint's crew, but flint himself. the responsibility of protecting the crew and even the world around him from flint in the role billy first fulfilled, or tried to, after gates, as well as the responsibility of being all flint asks him to be, who silver keeps saying he is in answer. he can't help himself and i think he knows this, which is why he and billy's mutual understanding starts to have tiny fractures in the duldrums. his response to billy saying he needs to garner enough of flint's respect to maintain his position as both gates and miranda did is 'both of those people wound up dead', and billy has no response for him because it's true! billy almost wound up dead too, which silver himself was willing to manipulate to maintain his position on the chess board next to flint and his crew at one point back in season 2. the difference between billy and silver in the duldrums is insanely that silver believes in flint, and billy does not. which is the exact opposite of silver's claims back in season 2 as well. billy believes in the utility of flint's mythos, while silver has begun to believe in flint like. a deity. which is beside the point, but i think after charlestown, silver's realized he's reshaping himself to fit more permanently here, quite literally considering his actual physical shape changes as a result. for the crew, not flint, which is something that builds a trust with billy, but as silver reveals in the maroon camp, he has come to care for flint as well. silver has seen both the myth and the man in flint at this point, while billy has only ever caught glimpses of the latter, and the outline of his own morality clashes to harshly with the little he has seen anyway.

silver, on the other hand, has no outline to clash with other than his own survival, which we have seen him fundamentally put on the line for the crew, but silver choosing to listen to billy in the duldrums and secure his position beside flint, even if those who did it before all wound up dead, is silver doing it for flint too! in a way billy never had to, much to his relief, i'm sure, because he can only stomach flint in small doses, as the shootout on the plantation illustrates. flint's utility as the face of their movement often demands a high toll on the people building it for and with him, and billy is similar to silver in that he's always cared more about people, even if he can see the merit in most of the schemes flint proposes, often more than even silver. silver balks at the idea of picking and choosing who to feed in the duldrums while billy doesn't, because he knows where flint is coming from, that it must be done for the bigger picture, but he doesn't berate silver for balking either, because he also knows where he's coming from is genuine care for the people who make up the picture.

(hi this is j from the future and i spent like two hours typing and thinking about this because i am normal about television. you may read sooo much black sails meta blabbering in many circles at your own discretion below the cut <3)

this is why silver likewise balks at flint's plan to gamble the cache for nassau's bigger picture, because in doing so he's not only gambling with is own life as collateral, which is something silver's come to hold dear, but doing it without consulting with madi and her people first, who the cache now belongs to, who have also become dear to him. this is why the first person he goes to after billy is madi. while with billy, silver's ironically kind of become who billy was to him and flint in the duldrums, and he defends flint's decision to a balking billy, he can be vulnerable with madi because of what she promised to be to him; a tether to keep him afloat in all of flint's gravity. silver knows his defense of flint comes from a different place than billy's in the duldrums, which is his attachment to flint the man, not any inherent, bigger picture, because it's a picture silver's never been able to see. he's not an idealist, which is the one thing billy and flint have in common. he sees what's happening in the world around him now, and what he must do to ensure his own survival through it, but slowly he's decided to ensure a crew's survival with his own, and then flint's and then madi's, and her people. not because he can see what they can, but because he can see them. i think he knows this about himself, and it's why madi offering herself as a tether to keep him grounded amidst deciding to follow someone who he can do nothing but blindly believe in impacted him so much. he feels like he's flying blind because he is, but madi offers him support in case he falls.

and he does!!!! in the beginning of 4.05 he is absolutely falling!! flint has done another thing he can only sort of understand, at the cost of things important to him, and he hates it but he's defending it to billy's face, which also feels a little like betrayal even if billy's earned it because silver is absolutely doubting flint's judgement even if he says he isn't and billy knows it, and silver runs straight to madi for that support. to be caught. he explains what flint's done rather gravely, especially compared to how he relayed it to billy. it's an environment safe to admit his doubts to, but it almost appears like he's braced to have to defend flint to her as he did with him anyway. he thinks he's telling her she's been betrayed by someone close to him, who she has expressed nothing but doubt and skepticism about by the way!! until her mutual widower arc alongside flint opened up an understanding between them, she was honestly similar to billy in function; someone silver constantly had to explain and excuse flint's actions to. but he doesn't realize there's been a change until she absorbs the conflict of it all live in front of him, and then she turns to him and says 'i think he made the right decision'.

when i first watched this episode, i was flying blind, and found myself constantly unable to track where silver was going to come at a situation from at any given moment. i did not understand him and did not understand why he was so upset by her reaction to everything. like. isn't she parroting the things silver's just told himself? she's defending flint's judgement, as he just did to billy, as he's done all season long and long before. and yet he is in utter disbelief about it!!! he is watching in real time madi take the blow like it wasn't a breech of trust on flint's part, to make this decision without asking anyone else involved, without asking her, directly ignoring silver's asking him not to as he made the deal anyway. the very same person who he's had to try to convince to trust flint for the last several months of his life. who, i think, he found safety in because of their skepticism and doubt, because his split between disciple-like belief in flint and constant doubt that it might kill him at the same time frightens him. he knows the multitudes of flint, why he's worth believing in just as much as why that belief could kill and has killed people before, and he knows he keeps choosing to believe flint anyway. someone who believed in him and absolutely not flint was a tether to reason, escape from something he felt might be inescapable, and she's barely batted an eye at yet another patented flint betrayal of mutual cooperation in decision-making, in painting this bigger picture, together.

she does not balk! she does not catch him!!!

and then. and then!!!! she asks him to betray billy! she doesn't know it, but she proposes to him the same kind of proposition(s) that flint had that threatened to drown silver in the first place, that she said she'd anchor him from! silver's overplayed his hand, except. and yet he's underplayed it. he's given madi and flint all the reason to think he's on the same page as them, that he cares about this movement just as much as they do, and when flint asked him point blank for elaboration, he denied it. they have no reason to doubt him, so they trust him. to do what he must to keep their revolution alive, to understand why he must, because he's done it before and they think he believes in it, and he keeps selling that he does. madi asks him to betray billy, and silver rebuts with skepticism that what they want out of nassau is impossible without billy's utility to it because all he has is a farce of half-real fear, his inability to see the same picture she and flint do, his doubt, and she asks him to have faith that it's survivable. that it will be hard, but they can survive it. but right now, silver feels like he can't! not if they keep asking him to do these things! flint asking him to betray madi like this, madi asking him to betray billy. he doesn't want to do any of these things! he cares too much about the present (and the past) to sacrifice it in order for the future.

he doesn't want madi to say it's survivable, he wants her to tell him he doesn't have to do it. yes, he can understand why they might need to betray billy for the greater cause, he knows intimately why, actually, because he's aligned himself with the two people who could convince him to do such a thing, but he also knows billy is his friend! just like he knew why flint made this deal in the first place, but he also knew he loved madi, and madi loved him, and trusted him, and to try and put both of those things together is too contradictory. it's fucking hard! flint's entire inner conflict is just how fucking hard it is, and he and madi ask him to do it anyway! the difference between flint and silver is that flint's vision for the future could always guide him to make all these sacrifices worth it, worth something. and the two times we see flint think about giving up, making all those sacrifices mean nothing because they're fucking hard and it's torture to keep making them, it's actually silver who convinces him to keep going. not because he believes it, but because it's what flint needs to believe to survive it, and silver knows him enough to know it. he justifies flint's own actions to him, just as flint had before he ran out of lies to tell, just as madi does to silver in that moment. and he says it, 'you sound just like him'. idealists. words silver knows well, but the difference between them and him is that to him they're just lies you tell yourself to keep going. they're lies he told! and they're asking him to believe it, believe them.

and despite himself... he does! billy parrots sentiments we see silver parrot to flint in the finale, of this cycle of sacrifice for a vision they are never privy to, offers him this tether and silver severs it, another part of himself that holds a kernel of something real, something true, because he doesn't think they want that part of him. he is in tears!! it is absolutely devastating, and he does it anyway. he falls right back into the whirlpool cycle he feared would drown him and thought madi could save him from. she asks him to sink down further into it, and he does, because he's made himself entirely unknowable if he's not known by them, known as this; trustworthy enough to suffer sacrifice as they do. he needs to be that person, so he is. he thought he and madi agreed to be each others' tethers, agreed to trust that instead, but he refused to be truly known at the same time, so it was never going to work. she thinks he's someone he's not, and he refuses to give her an alternative, so what else is she supposed to trust him with other than what he's said she can? she trusts him to sacrifice billy for them, and he does! she knows it hurts him, and she tells him that, that she might not know all of him but she knows him enough to know this is hard for him, but she thinks it's survivable. together, for the future they are trying to build, it's survivable.

but silver can't see that future. his response is to ask her if he would be enough, if he were to ask her to sacrifice what she held dear, if he could ever dare to ask, would it be enough for that future, and she can't answer. and he runs away from the unknown of it. he knows in that moment he could do this until it kills him. he'll do and become whatever he thinks they want him to even if it kills him, because he thinks her picture of the future and him in it requires it, because she couldn't give him an alternative. because he couldn't give her one! something about it resonates not just with silver asking flint if what is known about him can be enough maintain their trust in each other, but with flint asking who silver is, who he was, and silver being unable to answer. madi and flint and silver's futures worth so much sacrifice are diverging. he tries so badly to see her's, flint's, to pretend he can, but then it kills madi, and it's all he has left of her, but then she's alive again, and... it's not worth it. it isn't. he can't keep pretending and flint doesn't know silver well enough to convince him to believe, because silver himself has denied flint of knowing.

thought i was done but i hit play again on my rewatch and billy literally says to silver's face that he'd follow him. that he thinks flint thinks they need him, that it would all fall apart without him, but he believes it could be silver instead. billy offers this tether of skepticism to silver in this moment, this mutual inability to see the future flint and madi are asking them to believe in. and it is complete harmony with silver's conversation with madi we see in the premiere!! in which madi calls back to silver's fear of the fates of those closest to flint and tries to tell him he doesn't need to sew himself to this man to matter, for her to follow him. that she would follow him wherever he lead. she believes in him! she believes in him even though he denies her of knowing him fully because he does not believe in himself. he doesn't know who he is outside of their belief in it, which all started with a lie anyway. my name is john silver, and i happen to be a very good cook- i mean and i have a long fucking memory. he doesn't believe billy when he says this and, try as he might, he never convinces himself to believe madi either, or flint when he says he believes he's the best of them. hands asks him in his moment of wavering why he should follow him if he doesn't know, why should anyone. he is not a real person and he knows it, they know it, all of them know it, but he refuses to be known as anything else to any of them!! flint asks him to betray madi, madi asks him to betray billy, billy asks him to betray flint. they are in a square of trying to convince each other what's lies and what's truth, believe in me, trust me, and only silver knows what his corner contains in a way none of the others or their dynamics with each other can compare to. silver knows all of them, and all of them know each other, but none of them know him, so he's always the one who could make or break them. and he's the only one refusing to bare the whole truth of himself to any of them in the end, so of course he breaks them.

#starbuck #j rewatches black sails #black sails meta #ummm cannot say how sorry i am for this dec you sent one (1) ask and you get this #thank you for sending it though it feels like an excuse to squeeze the crazy gay media analysis out of my brain with a hydraulic press #cleansing ritual #this is more for me than you please do not read all of that unless you're like. billysilver corkboard and string on occasion because #well i didn't even know i was billysilver corkboard and string on occasion. and here i am #i am So normal about television #p.s. obi wan voice of course i know you i'm a long time follower!#i am very sorry this is your first interaction with me probably hsdfdsk um. i would very much enjoy your john silver divorce ep playlist #were that something you were willing to share <3

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