🤞 Come up beside them and tap the shoulder opposite where they’re standing | TF’S JOJI TO GATES A;LSKDJF

“Little shit,” Hal laughed, having barely even caught the flash of Joji’s arm in time, and still he’d looked the wrong fucking way. His elbow flicked out toward the taller man’s side – a playful jab of retaliation. No harm done, and frankly with Flint in one of his moods it was damn nice to be able to just spend some time relaxing with the crew. Even if they were little shits!

@tidefated

Pretty

intolerablexsacrifice:

_{@oceanfoamed (from here)}

_{Flint stares at him. Then he stares some more, because it’s not immediately clear to him that Hal might be joking. His face twitches like he’s barely containing something (that something being both amusement and sheer exasperation with the bastard), the back of his neck warming.}

_{“Always,” Flint says, dryly. Just for that, he fusses with the collar of Gates’ shirt again, then steps back to finally let the man breathe. “No harm in looking presentable, Hal. You’d think you’d been hauled through a bush coming in here.”}

Every now and again, a man found himself faced with an age old choice: to mischief, or not to mischief. Hal considered himself a man with a great immunity to the urge of the former, but every now and again the temptation was so fucking heady he just could not restrain himself.

“You never tell me I’m pretty though, so how’s a man to know?” He asked, not giving a fucking hint to the man whether or not this was a jest or a genuine criticism. Flint struggled at the best of times to read a room, and games like these were almost mean in a way because of it – but at the end of the day, Hal was only human.

Sometimes, he had to have a little bit of fun.

“In case you missed it,” He gestured to the interior around them, “We’re surrounded by bush. I kept to the path, thank you. Not my fault I got a bit rustled up on the way in.”

👗 – adjusting their clothes [ @ gates because LISTEN flint is Fussy and that Fussy Energy has to go SOMEWHERE ]

{ Nonverbal Starters }

Hal stood still as he was henned over, and once it seemed Flint was quite finished, he couldn’t contain himself any further. “Am I pretty?” The inquiry held all the sombre intensity such a question deserved. He expected a very good answer, for putting up with this.

“I don’t want this.” [ @ gates, pick a verse any verse ]

{ Four Word Prompts }

Hal’s head tilted to the side very slowly, whispers in the dark rising to an incoherent cacophony as he tried to catch their words, knowing that the anger within him was what was stirring up their attentions. He focused on them for too long – silence reigned in the outside world as he pinned Flint with an unseeing stare, listening to voices disembodied and vicious as the violence inside of him.

“And I did?” He wondered too softly, as if by keeping his words quiet it would encourage the thunderous roar of the shadows to dull itself in his mind. “This is what we have now – you have no position to be bitching about it,” Hal could no longer tolerate the howling. Reaching up, he turned the noise into action, using the shadows in order to silence them.

With uncanny force, Flint’s chair shot forward, knocking into the man’s knees and forcing him to sit down. Wordlessly, Hal crossed over and set his palms down on the desk, the noise fading now to the usual soft and meaningless background chatter. “So how about you do us both a favor and start thinking about what we’re going to do about it.”

We. That was the power word in his statement, for though he spoke forcefully – if quietly, unwilling to stir the shadows into chaos again – there was no questioning the fact he remained – for better or worse – Flint’s man. Changed, and questionably a man at all, but his to command and direct if he willed it. Yet with that came a heavy weight as well – a responsibility to do right this time, because there would surely be no third opportunity presented.

‘i wish you were here.’ [ @ ghost!gates ;^; ]

{ The Unforgivable Starters }

The anger that had reigned through him for so long had faded by now, and while such sentiments would have sent him into a flying rage before on account of who was responsible for the fact he wasn’t there anymore, now he could only find himself pained by the awareness that Flint had no more wanted this than he had. It had been a perfect storm – one that he had summoned against himself, if he were honest in the silence he was damned to, and more often than not these days Hal saw little reason to be dishonest with himself.

Though he had the energy for it, Hal opted not to materialize in that moment. He felt that the sight of him would not help in this – and though he did not wish to be forgotten, he also did not want to be held on to so tightly that Flint lost himself. Unable to help in any substantial way, Hal slipped away, and decided to make use of himself by harassing some of the crew who were proving themselves especially problematic – if he could haunt them overboard, that would be delightful, but he’d settle for distracting them to the point they forgot to cause trouble in the meanwhile.

“I keep hoping it’s a dream,” Flint says, quietly. His mouth twists up into a wry-looking smile. “Keep wanting to be awakened somehow.” [ @ survived!gates in That Verse ]

{ Heart Of Everything Starters }

Hal opened his mouth to say something, and in the end found he had nothing in his repertoire for this. He could hardly imagine what it must be like – to spend so much of one’s life twisted up in a revenge story against an entire country and way of life in the name of one person was wild enough. To suffer the loss of someone so deeply and discover them alive and well was an emotional upheaval in and of itself.

To have the person one had forged themselves into the sword of turn around and retire you – Hal honestly couldn’t even begin to sympathize with such a dramatic set of circumstances, let alone offer empathy for it. The whole thing was beyond his sphere of understanding – but in the end he knew he had to try. At this point, he was one of the very few who seemed interested in doing so – and the other two were just as confusing as he was!

What must it be like, Hal wondered, to have three men whom you tried to kill with full intent – and in some cases on multiple occasions – being the ones to hold you up and check in on you when the one you fought for, killed for, and lost everything for decided you weren’t what was wanted?

Reaching out, he gripped the man’s shoulder. There were no words for any of this, he knew, so in the end he just pulled Flint to him and hoped that a hug might suffice where words fell short.

A New Way To Grow

@intolerablexsacrifice [x]

When Hal had heard of Flint’s sudden retirement, he certainly hadn’t believed it to be anything more than some sort of ruse. Some strategy for another mad scheme – but what he hoped to achieve had been so fucking incomprehensible that he had found himself looking into it more deeply out of sheer macabre curiosity.

In the end, it had all mounted up to his own return to Nassau and a rather early retirement as well – not that he had any intention of letting Flint know his reasons for stepping off the account had anything to do with him. His ego was dangerous enough, even if it was relatively quiet these days. He’d checked in on the man a few times, noting the steady slip toward a dangerous tip in the man’s humors and knowing if he was going to make any difference in it, now was the time to do so.

He hadn’t really known what to expect from the old gesture of familiar humanity and comfort, but a full embrace was so far off the list that he just stood there, struck stupid by such an unanticipated openness from the other man. The comment jarred him out of it, and earned a laugh even as Flint drew back and seemed to retreat in as complete a way as he could manage, that old Navy propriety snapping up like a shield so fast it was a wonder the man didn’t give himself a headache.

“Takes one to know one, I think,” He shot back, even as he reached out and slung an arm around the other man’s middle and giving him a squeeze back, shaking his head against the aborted mention of gratitude and the past between them – or rather the point of it which separated them. “We all make mistakes,” He remarked, almost lightly, “If we live to learn from them, we might as well do so.”

He recognized his own crime against Flint that day, belatedly. It had been months of frustration after the fact, before he had dawned upon that little realization, and with it he had found a strange balance between annoyance and understanding. It was a place Flint had lived so well for so long, it rather made sense that even this would be something Hal could figure out how to forgive.

“But enough of all that,” Hal cleared the air between them with acknowledgement and a focus forward, “How about you walk me through this garden – let’s see how much you know.” He was fair certain it had been Barlow that had maintained it, and while that did not necessarily mean Flint didn’t know how to manage it, it did give them something to focus on for a time and would be a project Flint could maintain, which should help form routines essential to balancing one’s humors.

Hggg

@intolerablexsacrifice continued from [x]

Maybe it had been petty – but Christ on a Christmas cracker the way Flint jumped was so funny Hal forgot all about the fact he was dead and collapsed in on himself from laughing so hard. It was like throwing a cucumber at a cat! Pure, harmless entertainment at its finest.

It seemed he wasn’t the only one amused either, and something warmed as Flint laughed. It was times like this – when Flint was amused by him and seemed like he might be okay – that Hal thought he saw something bright in the corner of his eye.

Ignoring it as usual, he smiled as the younger man slumped and chided him. “Just cause you can’t purr,” He shot back, knowing it wouldn’t be heard and not minding one bit. He flashed to the front of the desk instead, fluttering paper again, as a means of acknowledging he heard the complaint, if nothing else.

Can’t Touch This

@intolerablexsacrifice continued from [x]

When it had first happened, Hal had been absolutely furious with Flint for killing him and positively despondent with his fate as a ghost. As time had come to pass however, he had found that there was a surprising sort of comfort in being dead. He had no obligations or responsibilities, and with no need for food, drink or sleep he had nothing but time.

At first he hadn’t known what to do with it – but as he spent more time in the state, he began to acquire energy. He found that his energy would increase as a result of certain things – and decrease whenever he spent it on particular actions. He’d begun experimenting – learning what he could do, what cost the most energy and what granted the most energy.

So far, mischief seemed to be both the most taxing and the most gratifying – in every sense. As Flint suddenly made uncomfortable noises and stood like a rabbit before the wolf while he was stared at by the others, Hal fucking lost it in the corner, unseen by all as he laughed, knowing that there was nothing Flint could do about this and thriving on the man’s frustration now – knowing his frustration later would charge him up enough to make up for the energy spent on this to begin with.

Fuck, but if there were not perks to being dead.

The Challenge In Our Promises

intolerablexsacrifice:

~

_{Watching Gates set up the wash basin, Flint felt the old, constricting silence settle in his throat. He knew that had anyone other than Hal walked through that door and seen him like this, his world would have begun collapsing around him already. Weakness like this was not something to be shown in front of a crew, ever.}

_{He faded, a little. Felt the world slip out of focus, the sounds of Gates’ movements muffled and distant as Flint tried not to think about the blood, and the exhaustion, and how utterly unrecognizable he had become to himself. But he looked up when Hal moved into his line of vision, the world sharpening.}

_{Flint stared dead-eyed until Hal crouched down, at which point the captain’s brow began to furrow. He took the cloth almost tentatively from him, watching Gates with the intense, sharp gaze that usually meant he was trying to read someone. Hal… did not mock. Did not ask questions, or treat this as anything other than offering a cloth to someone that needed to scrub the blood from their face. Flint couldn’t name the emotion that rose in him because of it.}

_{He turned the cloth over in his hands a few times before swiping his face with it, the scrape of the fabric grounding him, dislodging the silence that had stuck itself in his throat. “Good,” he said, quietly, then–eyeing Gates for a moment, his expression unreadable–slowly began to uncurl, and push himself up off of the floor. “Should keep them content for a while.”}

_{He moved past him, towards the wash basin. His eyes fell on the clothes laid out, but the first thing Flint did was begin scrubbing at his hands, keeping his back to Gates as he did so. He would need to wash them again afterwards- trying to clean the blood out of his hair and beard was already proving a difficult task- but it felt necessary, regardless, to have his hands somewhat cleaner beforehand.}

_{He glanced sharply at Gates, then turned away, reaching for the clothing that had been laid out.}

_{“–if you have something to say, just fucking say it.”}

Hal kept an eye on Flint as he cleaned up, measuring where he was at and determining if it might be wise to keep him cooped up a while longer or if getting him out under the sun for a time might be more beneficial. He hummed, indicating his agreement with the assessment – he knew that Flint had not wanted this detour, but he also knew it was exactly what the crew needed in order to keep them manageable.

Perhaps that was exactly the right response for answering all questions though. Maintaining a relative silence seemed to have put Flint on edge, especially in light of what appeared to be a complete breakdown, and that was enough to convince Hal to keep the man safely out of sight for a good while, until his humors could rebalance themselves.

“Breathe.” The first word was succinct, but it was the most important thing he had to say at the moment. “Get yourself cleaned up – whatever this was, it is over and we are going to drink, eat, and forget about it. Which will be easier to do when you don’t look – and likely feel – like you’re stuck in the center of it.”