@oceanfoamed (from here)
He couldn’t describe what it was that had come over him upon seeing Silver in the state he was in: it was almost like anger. So red-hot and forceful that it had driven all other motive from his mind, replaced by the singular desire to fix it by any means necessary. He had no expectation that dragging Silver off would be received well by him. But if it was a choice between Silver’s wrath and letting him keep pretending he could simply walk off his wounds until it killed him–?
“Not interested in the ship.”
Flint’s voice was gruff and subdued: he didn’t so much as glance at Silver at first, standing across the room from him, hands braced against a wooden counter. It wasn’t surprising in the least for Silver to assume that this was about the Walrus: had Flint still had any kind of purpose left, and therefore any desire to regain his captaincy, he’d have used Silver as leverage in a heartbeat. But now?
All he’d ever wanted was to walk away from the sea and find peace: there was no reason for him to return to it. Nothing left to tie him to a life of violence and danger, no martyr to drive him forwards. With his world so deeply thrown off-balance, and no Miranda to hold onto for stability, all he had were the few people that had–in Flint’s eyes–taken pity on him enough to at least ensure he wasn’t dead each time they made port.
Silver was one of them, shit that he was. And he was going to run himself into the fucking grave if someone didn’t forcibly intervene- and who else would dare?
“I take it you’ve been ignoring Howell’s advice.” Flint–or what was left of him now–turned to him, finally. “Can’t say I’m surprised – though I had hoped that being made captain might shake some fucking sense into you, make you less likely to risk your life by refusing aid.” He looked pointedly at the leg, then glared at Silver, lip twitching. “What the fuck are you trying to achieve, here?”
It was admittedly difficult to concentrate, when all of his body and mind seemed intent upon focusing on the part of him that was broken and in dire need of something – anything – to alleviate it. Now that Flint had hauled him here, Silver supposed there was little point in ignoring what his body most needed at the moment. If nothing else, perhaps alleviating some of his pain might help him better deduce what the fuck Flint could want other than his ship back that would cause him to do something like this.
Leaning down, his hands worked clumsily over the straps that buckled his false leg to the true flesh, hissing through his teeth as the pressure lessened, and needing a moment of distraction when at last he drew the damn thing off. Biting the inside of his cheek was a sore way to go about it, but the new, albeit smaller point of pain was enough to redirect his mind just long enough to keep him from crying out when at last, the false leg fell away from his body and clattered loudly against the floor, a sullen and firm reminder of how real it was. He balanced himself on a wooden peg, and there was nothing he could do to escape that reality.
Opening his eyes, he stared almost unseeingly at the empty space where the rest of his leg ought to be – at the carefully carved wood that filled that area courtesy of the ship’s carpenter and doctor Howell’s wise instruction. His gaze lifted now to his latest source of frustration, praying that he could focus enough through this not to be lead by the nose by this man and his capacity for resetting reality to suit his purposes.
“I didn’t volunteer for the job,” He reminded Flint flatly – the men had voted him in the moment Flint left, he hadn’t been granted a fucking say in the matter and they both knew it. “Or have you forgotten, somewhere in all of this, what I told you before?” It wouldn’t surprise him if the man had – so much had happened since that point. “I do not want to be a pirate. At this point, I simply have no other viable opportunities in which I can survive, thanks to this.”
He didn’t look or gesture at his leg. He simply stared Flint down, knowing the man would understand full well what “this” happened to refer to. “And in case being out here has caused you to forget the realities of piracy, what I hope to achieve remains exactly the same as ever. I intend to survive – and acting like invalid among those folk? Isn’t how I do that.”
Ocean Archive 