bakerstreet | Shipping Picture ♡ ｐｒｏｍｐｔｓ

There's no offer of pity in Flint's eyes. He's never responded to John's missing leg with anything other than practicality and he doesn't intend to change that now, when so many other things have changed between them.

He smiles, pleased and irritated in equal measures that Silver knows his tells well enough still to predict what he'll reach for in a fight. "I might have, had I been called on by Long John Silver. But I understand he's dead already."

He gets up for more wine. There's more effort in his movements than there was a few years ago. His shoulders and back ache all the time. He's not old, but he's older. "Well, you see me now. Cottage. Books. No interruptions." How idyllic he makes it sound. Do these things add up to happiness? What about the parts he doesn't mention: the boredom, the grief, the wear and tear on the body? And then there's the most impactful, most mysterious factor: "A husband." His face bears that careful blankness when he says the word. He says it to Thomas often, mine, my love, my husband, but never to anyone else. This much honesty is a luxury he will never have again: he will take it where he can. And for a moment, before carrying on, he savours saying it. Husband.

"But you..." Moving on. Busying his hands. "I'm not sure I see you. How do you live now?"

John isn't certain that he does see Flint. Or James. Whoever this man is now, the first three things he lists don't build anything close to a whole picture. Neatly tucking that thought away for later, the fourth item on the list is closer, though wildly unfamiliar.

As someone who has made it his business to listen, to glean information, to use that information for his own gain for a vast proportion of his own life... John had listened all the more intently when Flint had spoken about Thomas. Back in the days when Thomas was lost to him. To think of him as a living, breathing man. A solid presence in Flint's life rather than a memory upon which destruction and retribution had been inflicted on the world. His husband, Thomas.

He isn't able to temper the complicated look that ghosts across his expression. To know a thing pales in comparison to seeing with his own eyes the lived-in cottage, the assortment of belongings that cannot belong to Flint.

"I stayed with Madi, for a time," he finally offers, slowly, carefully unwrapping memories that he hasn't shared openly with another soul. Compressed as they were, the memories gradually fill him up, eyes unseeing briefly as he continues. "When it became clear my presence was providing everything I didn't want it to, I took my leave."

He pauses, blinking away the memory of the last time he saw her and giving himself a moment to refocus his gaze. It sharpens on Flint, his discomfort heavy in the way he shifts in the chair, in every part of him, he thinks, other than his expression.

"I returned to Nassau." A choice that had been right and wrong in equal measures. Returning to the island and finding it devoid of what had made it exhilarating had been an education. In fact, it had been there that he had discovered he was missing not just one but two pieces of what he understood gave him purpose, had given him something that couldn't be filled by anybody else. For the first time since he stepped over the threshold, over the final barrier to this conversation, he has to look away.

The mention of Nassau stops Flint in his tracks. He feels a brief but intense pain blooming in his stomach. Old, angry grief.

After a moment, he has control of himself enough to return to the fire with the wine, setting it between them. The cat, which has been watching his movements, jumps off the sill and runs after him to settle in front of the fireplace, stretching out long.

"I've avoided any news of Nassau," he says. His voice is gravelly. He and Thomas do not speak of New Providence. "Are you sure you want to bring me any now?"

"Had I any to share..." John trails off, carefully considering what the honest answer is. No, perhaps he wouldn't out of some sense of respect for the other man's wishes. Despite everything that they had done there, together. Things that even shedding identities couldn't ever truly bury. Irrespective of that, he can't deny the urge exists all the same, a sense of longing for closeness he can feel clamouring for his attention.

"No. Not of Nassau."

He abandons his cup to the table, one hand resting at the thigh of his good leg, the thumb of the other brushing a firm stroke across his own lips. He effectively silences himself, the explanation that might have followed pressed back down into its place, firmly still with his own thoughts rather than in the air between them.

"I suppose after that the most accurate description of what I was doing is drifting. It's a funny thing... finding yourself on the other side of belonging. Spending a lifetime fighting against belonging to anything, to truly understand with painful clarity what comes afterwards."

"Aimlessness. Yes." He pours wine, and muses aloud, "I sometimes think of you as you were when I first encountered you. You ricocheted from one desperate scheme to another, surviving mostly by accident, and my God you were an annoying little shit."

A quick, familiar glance aimed at Silver indicates, of course, that Flint is not quite certain about the past tense in that sentence — but it's a strange look in context, an inside joke from a past life. He transfers his gaze to the fire.

"But you were never aimless. You never drifted. You were frenetic with purpose, even if your purposes were...venal and ill-conceived." Silver's purpose is what Flint warmed to, in the end. He has always been weak for people with causes: it turns out the cause itself can sometimes be secondary. Old guilt stirs in him. That's his flaw, the reason Silver could undo him — his loyalty to the fight was always built on his loyalty for certain individual fighters. "When you leave here, when you start drifting again, without even the mission of finding me..."

He's about to ask what will happen to you? but he comes up with his own answer. His face shifts in the firelight and he looks back to Silver's face, a tightness in his expression. "You don't necessarily intend to start drifting again, do you? You thought it very possible I'd kill you here. At the very least, in satisfying some of your curiosity about my life now — my happiness — you've answered one of the questions that kept you interested in staying alive." He says it blunt and clear, but in the privacy of his chest he's reeling: pain and shock and unfair anger wrestle behind his sternum. He's tense, trying to keep the emotions off his face and out of his voice.

Aimlessness. A contemptible notion that casts a long shadow over the automatic, shallow smile that doesn't reach his eyes in response to Flint's assessment of their early days. Yes, he remembers those, too. A simpler time when all he gave a fuck about was himself. Their first meeting, much like their last, before this, he had crossed Flint. But the purpose, his purpose, had changed beyond recognition. How could the man he used to be ever reconcile the man he is today? He'd miss that man - the one before Nassau, before Captain Flint and his fucking war - were he able to unlearn everything he has at Flint's side.

But Flint doesn't stop there and John knows with certainty it's a case of can't and won't. The man peels back complicated layers, unpacks years of John keeping everything he is now within his own confidence, and does it with a superficial air of it not costing him a damn thing. No, John knows better than that and thinks perhaps it costs Flint almost as much as it costs him to keep it close to his chest.

He may not be as old as Flint is, but god is he tired. Tired of being precisely what it is that Flint had described: aimless. He holds that gaze, flames dancing in otherwise dark eyes. Once upon a time, long ago, he had shared his concerns with Flint as to the fateful end his partners seemed to find. What came to pass was the opposite, John delivering Flint to his end, instead. And yet here they are, broaching the subject once again of his own.

"Perhaps you should have."

Anger cracks as bright and quick as lightning across Flint's otherwise blank face. "I'm not interested in being your suicide method," he hisses, putting his cup down on the table with a hard clank.

He's hurt: he recognises it only slowly, as someone who has been mortally wounded doesn't initially feel the pain of his injury. This cottage has been kept relatively untainted by Captain Flint and his violence, and now here's Silver trying once more to provoke the beast for his own ends. "Do you think this peace, in this place, would withstand that?"

It's a close run thing, a dark kind of humour that bubbles up inside of him and almost escapes in a hollow laugh, the idea of peace. That men like them - curious in places that can never truly be satisfied, an itch that can't be scratched - can ever fully find it. It's with that same level of curiosity that John catches that flash of anger, of passion. How much he's missed that passion, he can't neatly sum up. There isn't anything neat about the dynamic between the two of them, no clear boundaries or edges that aren't pushed just that little bit more.

"I'm not sure even you can kill a man who is already dead," he finally says, moving to draw himself up from the chair he's been occupying to stand. He hadn't tracked Flint down to provoke him but, now that he has, he's hard-pressed to lay his hands on regret. Captain Flint had needed to be removed, that much had been certain. But what had been left in that wake... this cottage, the books, the quiet life that the other man had been so quick to try convincing him was his fully fleshed out, all-encompassing happiness? Surely not.

"Fuck your metaphorical death," Flint barks. "If I stab you now, you'll still bleed out all over everything. And I have more than enough stains to live with."

He's tense, poised to jump up from his chair, but he resists the urge for now. It makes him feel like a leashed dog snapping and snarling at the end of a chain. "Going somewhere?"

"Some you just can't wash clean," John agrees, voice low and level despite the hammering of his heart against his rib cage, understanding with depth of experience. Shared experience. His cane is left propped against the arm of the chair he's vacated, uneven steps taking him closer to the man barely restrained in the confines of his own.

He half-imagines, with each passing step, if this moment is similar to whatever ill-fated instinct a moth has the moment it catches sight of a flame. In this instance, it is his own potentially ill-fated decision to surrender to the pull he can feel drawing him closer to the man who looks on the very edge of something. Perhaps they ought to put that to the test, his insistence that violence won't be his first answer to Silver's unasked question, framed in his rapidly decreasing proximity.

Flint is on his feet the moment Silver draws within two steps of him, pulled to standing as if by magnetic force. Much as he's trying to contain himself, he simply isn't made to be passive. He steps into Silver's space before Silver can do the same to him.

The crutch left by the chair infuriates him. If Silver wants a fight he could at least scrabble for every advantage he can get, and Flint knows he's steadier with the cane, has seen him use it as a weapon in and of itself in times. It's selfish of him to leave it, robbing Flint of the chance to claim there was any fair fight between them.

This whole visit is selfish. Nose to nose, Flint snarls his accusation: "You scattered who I was, and now you come here looking for him."

As he says it, the light from the fire catches Silver's face in a particular way and suddenly James wonders — did he just come here looking for Flint? Or is it that James doesn't know who else to be around him?

There are other options, maybe. He could be otherwise with him. The idea stops him, shuts him up before he can say more. There is something startled and watchful in his expression as a new idea emerges wet-winged from its chrysalis. His heartbeat reverberates in his head.

Stopping short, if only for the fact that Flint has made up the rest of the distance, John glances upwards. The difference in height isn't as pronounced as it had been with others, but it's enough that John has to alter his eyeline. It's been a long time since he'd feared the man he's practically nose to nose with, the closest he has been to sharing the same breath with another person in what feels like forever.

In fact, they're so close that, for a moment, he thinks perhaps he could count all the faint freckles on the other man's face, were the light in the room just a fraction better. As it is, part of Flint's face is cast into a soft shadow that the firelight can't reach. It's poetic, almost. A physical, rooted in reality example of what it is that John thinks he's come here to do. All that remains is for Flint to grant him that much. Or not. Fear, he thinks, is not of the man himself, but for the very real possibility that he will deny him what it is he seeks.

"No. I didn't come here looking for him. I came here looking for you. Whoever it is that survived Flint. James, isn't it? You say that this is who he is, who you are - cottage, books, a quiet life free from interruptions. A husband." He vaguely gestures to the room at large but his eyes never leave the other man's.

"But I am not so certain that it's all you are. ...and I want to find out. Now, you can strike me down, throw me out, never see my face again, if that's what you want. Or... you can show me."

James, isn't it? Silver says, and all the disparate parts of him twist and dig into each other. Hearing him say that name provokes outrage and delight: how dare you, do it again.

Flint opens his mouth: James shuts it.

He gets one chance at this, he realises. There are no more visits coming.

His hand comes broad and still rough-palmed to Silver's jaw and he tips his mouth up to kiss him. It's not tentative: he does nothing tentatively. He kisses him with confidence and aggression and something like defiance, full and heavy.

The moment Flint's - no, James' - lips are upon his own, John realises with fast approaching clarity what a dangerous knife's edge he's been walking. A hand reaches up to bunch into the collar of the other man's shirt, fingers intertwining between folds of fabric and pulled tight. Its intent is not to push away or drag closer, simply to stay upright with something solid and real to cling on to.

His awareness narrows down to the tiny part of the otherwise vast, somewhat horrifying world that they fill out together. This is... brand new. A road forking off from everything they had known of each other up until this very moment. Surprise makes him uncharacteristically slow, but he's never been anything but fiercely adaptable in whatever this man throws at him. The hand not twisted into James' shirt reaches up to wrap around the back of his neck, serving as another point of contact and a means by which he can anchor himself in that kiss.

The hand not framing Silver's face comes to his arm, fingertips pressing in deep. James doesn't mean to bruise, but perhaps he accidentally does. His head is full of senseless noise.

He kisses him for a long time, deep and rough, but not violent. His roughness is more practical, passionate, not meant to hurt. When their mouths break apart his breath burns in his chest and he has to gasp in air.

Fuck it. He doesn't say anything, doesn't let go of him, doesn't move away, just keeps Silver's gaze and stares back at him as if expecting an answer: well? Do you have something to say about it?

Devoid of James' mouth, John's breath is laboured and shaky, the hollow of his throat deep as his lungs draw in sorely needed air. He feels dizzy, though whether that's due to the lack of air or the kiss itself, he doesn't have the mental wherewithal or desire to distinguish. His arm is sore but it really doesn't matter.

The hand at the back of James' neck slides to rest at his shoulder, a thumb resting gently along his collarbone as he holds that gaze. The expectation he finds there is less than surprising. Biting at his bottom lip thoughtfully and finding it sore and swollen but not unpleasantly so, his eyes drift around the other man's features, up to his hair, across his cheekbones, his jaw, that mouth and then back up to his eyes.

"Well. Infinitely more preferable than the poker route."

Silver must recognise the exasperation that colours James' face. He relinquishes his grip slightly, without fully letting him go: his hand moves from Silver's face to his shoulder.

He doesn't trust or appreciate the glibness in Silver's voice. It's something that wouldn't sound out of place coming from his mouth years ago, when he was first aboard the Walrus and when everything he said was a deflection. It doesn't match up with the dizzy look in Silver's eyes, or the way his thumb runs James' collarbone.

"If you'd like me to do that again, you could stand to be less flippant." Or if he doesn't — James swallows. He doesn't think he's misread the situation and Silver that severely, but he's been wrong before. "...I should stress it's not this or the poker. Presumably there is some — middle ground, if you'd prefer."

"No. I'm reading the page you are. It's the same, trust me."

John has, at the very least, enough grace to look apologetic for his previous choice of words. It's an old habit, one that proves, even in situations like this, hard to lay to rest. It's hardly like he hasn't just exposed some vulnerable part of himself, drawn open the curtains for James to take a look. No, they are past that, and while habits are hard to break, it isn't impossible.

"I apologise," he finally says, forcing his brain to produce the words that have been so hard to say otherwise. "It's a force of habit. Self-defence, I suppose. When I asked to know you, it wasn't with the intent to... hide myself. From you. Though... to clarify, hopefully slightly more eloquently than I might have been up until this point... yes, I would very much like you to do that again."

James' exasperation doesn't vanish, just shifts to something softer and more amused, still edged with disbelief: he's rarely seen Silver so uncertain with his words. That he's caused it stokes some heat in his belly.

He shuts him up out of mercy and catches his mouth when he's barely finished speaking. He can afford, now, to be a little less rough, a little more inquisitive, kissing him open-mouthed and slow. Slow, slow. His hand comes from Silver's arm to his side, spreading out there to steady him.

Grateful for more than just mercy, assuming he's read that much right, John is more prepared this time. Stepping in closer until their bodies are flush at the chest and hip, his hand drifts up into the back of James' hair. His lips part, this this time more readily, to open up another part of himself for the other man to explore.

The kiss itself is so wildly different from the first - so wildly different to what he'd understood that Flint could offer and what James actually delivers - that even if he'd had the inclination and ability to speak, he wouldn't know what to say. He's speechless, thoroughly and resoundingly caught up in what he'd like to be every inch of the man kissing him. Without meaning to, he groans into the kiss, the mere thought that maybe - just maybe - being taken apart by James like this is the singlemost thing he wants in the world at present.

Kissing Silver is quite unlike kissing Thomas. His beard rasps against Flint's, his stature and weight press differently against James' frame, and there's none of the familiarity that he's used to — he and Thomas are easy with each other, long past any awkwardness or fumbling. He hadn't expected how different someone new would be. He had never expected to kiss anyone new — and certainly not Silver.

James isn't worried about what Thomas will make of it. Thomas has no jealousy in him: he's stupidly, absurdly generous. And if James had had the idea to kiss Silver and not gone through with it, Thomas would have chastised him for cowardice and been right to do so.

This couldn't have happened before. Not like this. Not slow, careful, thoughtful like this. They had their moments, Flint and Silver, moments of quiet between the fever pitch of battles and chase and negotiations, but never the space or the time or the freedom for this kind of honesty. It would have been far too risky back then.

Forehead to forehead, catching his breath between kisses, James murmurs, "You didn't — intend this, I know. But does it — perhaps answer some of the curiosity that brought you here?"

How John can feel so simultaneously lost and found, so seen in such a short space of time is temporarily out of reach. He doesn't put it out of mind, but it's difficult to work his way to a conclusion with James' lips consistently demanding attention. Attention that he finds himself more than happy to supply.

When the other man's words finally line up into a full, comprehensible sentence, it takes him a moment, and then another, to understand them for what they are. And god they're so fucking gentle there's another moment's pause as he swallows down an unbidden lump in his throat.

"I would be lying to you - and myself - had I said I hadn't imagined... something like this. But intended it? No." He's glad for the fact that he doesn't have to explain that, that James already understands well enough. With some effort, he pulls his head back so he can look the man in the eye, cheeks flushed and gaze momentarily indiscernible.

"Yes, it has. And... sparked more."

James will have to ask about what he imagined. His mouth hooks up at the side, his eyes casting down to study Silver's face. He stores the question for later. He has other things to ask now.

"Have you been with other men before?" he asks, calm and searching — a touch warning, maybe. He doesn't want Silver to rush. A genuine curiosity motivates him too. Silver always seemed more interested in schemes than in sex.

The answer to the question is simple, but the explanation is far from it. John's eyes snag on the half-smile and for a moment, he's back to feeling like time is starting to lose all meaning. Had he not walked through the door less than an hour ago uncertain as to whether he would be walking back out alive?

"No," he answers, finally, glancing back up at James' eyes in an attempt to marry up tone with whatever shade he finds there. Curiosity, it seems, and the kind of look he finds almost difficult to comprehend is being given to him.

"No, I haven't. But..." Silently he asks himself why - how - there seems to be more buts this side of developing a fucking conscience. Perhaps he'd be more appalled by its appearance had he not had a hand in putting back together what concerns him now. Whatever Flint had expected, and whatever James is expecting now, he hadn't really returned to the man to shatter that peace he'd been warily describing earlier.

"Thomas?"

James shakes his head, and snorts. "You don't know Thomas." Then it's his turn to regret his automatic turn of phrase. He pinches his lips together, irritated at himself for his own bluntness. This needs a more careful explanation.

Gently, he eases back just enough to put some space and cool air between them. Just enough to ensure they can both think straight. "He has no capacity or need for jealousy. He has my total fidelity, and I his. This...can exist alongside that. I don't propose to deceive him." One eyebrow twitches upwards. He can't stop himself from adding, "Had I sent you away without acting, against my own wishes, he would have been the first to call me a coward."

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