😶 – Quietly lean against my muse [ for Vane, in That Verse, RIP ]

{ Touch Starved Meme }

The dynamic between himself and Flint had shifted dramatically since Charlestown – though nothing from that point could have indicated to him that matters would culminate into what they were now. It was like two tigers that had held territorial dispute for years, only for one of them to get caught in a poacher’s trap and the other to inherit everything. Yet unable to leave it’s fellow to die, it began looking after it – defending and caring for it – until its old rival was in fact a brother, a comrade it would defend to the last breath. 

The wounded one hadn’t lost its claws – it was still as strong and as terrible as ever – but it was slower to engage. Quieter than it used to be, less interested in the things that used to be exciting, less engaged in the things it ought to do in order to survive. It could recover – but so long as it was too hurt inside to overcome the attack, it needed another – and moments like these, when Flint leaned on him in silence like an old friend, were indicators that the hurt was still bleeding somewhere deep within. 

Charles did not draw away – nor did he draw any particular attention to the contact between them beyond a slight lean of his own, increasing the solidity of their position. Silently assuring that so long as Flint needed strength, he could rely on Charles to provide it whenever he was present. 

The book in the other’s hand had fallen lax, and seemed to be drooping toward the floor. Quietly, he reached out and collected it, glancing to see if the man was awake or if he had fallen asleep. From the glassy stare, Charles deduced he was somewhere in between both and turned the book over in his hand, peering grimly at the pages before him. 

Teach had taught him letters, the art of reading and writing. It was not his strength, but Rackham made him keep up on it, insisting it was a valuable skill set – and it had proven to be so a few times, when the other man hadn’t been available to consult on something. This was – a different matter altogether, but he was not equipped to deal with Flint’s wounds the way he could stitch up a crew mate, or plug a hole on a ship. This was – stranger, than any of that, but queerly familiar enough that he had some fundamental understandings. One of which was that the state Flint was presently in was not safe, and he needed to be drawn out of it. 

Huffing softly, he set his hand on the page, and began to read the words aloud, hoping his voice and the phrases from the book might stir the man out of his stupor. “By MANNERS, I mean not here, Decency of behaviour; as how one man should salute another, or how a man should wash his mouth, or pick his teeth before company,” Charles paused – and as a man who read slowly, it might not have been too notable overall as he tilted his head a bit slightly at the book because frankly he’d been unaware there were particulars in how one picked their teeth. 

Carrying on dutifully, however, Charles maintained his slow but steady passage down the page. “- and such other points of the Small Morals; But those qualities of man-kind, that concern their living together in Peace, and Unity. To which end we are to consider, that the Felicity of this life, consist not in the repose of a mind satisfied. For there is no such – such – “ 

The fuck is that, Charles fell off, staring and trying to make sense of the letters, before sliding the book back to Flint helplessly, because that didn’t look like English – and if it was, it was no word he had heard before or knew to pronounce.