“Bold of you to assume we’ll be living through this, you unmitigated shit!” Hal was all but beside himself with fury, but that didn’t stop him from making clear both his frustration and his doubt in no uncertain terms. “Might be better for you if we don’t,” He grumbled in addition – a not so empty threat of retribution for getting them into this disaster in the first place!
“Uhh…” Gates, having completely forgotten the whole ‘call me pretty’ conversation, has found himself temporarily thrown by the compliment. Unthinkingly, he looked down at himself – perhaps the boss was being sarcastic, and he had some manner of grotesque stain on his shirt?
Nope. Just as pressed and polished as he could be after weeks at sea and no port towns to spend money to bathe in.
Looking up, he shrugged and grinned, figuring he might as well roll with it. “Don’t I always?”
Oh he didn’t like this question – or rather, he supposed he didn’t like his answer, the words that fell from his lips so readily to reveal to himself a truth he hadn’t even known was sleeping inside of him. “I suppose because – I feel I don’t want to admit that backing him in the first place was a mistake. If I weather through this, maybe it will all work out, and my actions in helping that man secure the legacy he once had on this island will be made worthwhile, as opposed to a growing mountain of regrets, lies and broken promises.”
Something nagged at him – something more insistent than guilt or even frustration. He was intimately familiar with the sensation that he had forgotten something important, and knew better than to chase it. It would come or it wouldn’t, but if he tried to grasp onto whatever his mind was trying to tell him, it would inevitably become impossible to obtain until days after it was actually relevant.
So he kept speaking, insisting that they would not kill Flint, merely depose of him. That he would personally see to it Flint and the Barlow woman were secured in the wake of it, sent off with their pardons. It was an ideal solution, the best option available in light of the brewing mutiny and the fact Flint was losing all track of how to exist without a fight. There were men who would kill to be pardoned, to be offered the chance to live the quiet life this hell robbed them of.
Still, that nagging, hassling sensation –
Wait. He had it – or rather, it had him. Flint was a man who killed to appease the fact he would never be sorry for what he was robbed of, only that he didn’t fight to keep it then. To threaten him with exile was crueller than the promise of mutiny – if only he had thought of that sooner!
“No – I suppose that won’t work for you at all, will it?” He deflated – as much as he hated this situation, he also had no intention of making an enemy of Flint. The situation was fucked, but he had spent too long beside this bastard not to want to see him off well. “So we’re back at an impasse then.”
There was only one thing for it – if he couldn’t exile Flint –
“I resign. When this is over – how you get out of it is your business. As for me – I’ll find my way elsewhere.”
“Mm,” The sound is involuntary, and the way his hand moves to swat the captain aside is as instinctive as the slight and strange way he cocked his hips so that he could arch his side out of easy reach. “Fuck off, you twat,” Falls from his lips before he even looks and realizes who it is, and it is decidedly not who he thought it was.
Which, admittedly, was about ninety percent of the crew. He had a good enough rapport with most of them that he knew the better majority of the lot would try it – some were too serious, others too respectful, and still others – smart enough to know Gates didn’t like them enough to let them get away with it.
Still left a pretty large majority though.
“What’s gotten into you?” He could not help but wonder – playfulness wasn’t really a public thing with the captain. “You’re not sick are you,” A tease to make up for the other response, his hand reaching over as if to check the man’s forehead – further indicating Hal wasn’t actually pissed, just startled.
“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!
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.”
Flint’s gaze was intense and furious as he watched Gates drink. The anger did not seem directed at one specific thing, exactly: it simply was, and it radiated off of Flint in every twitch and squint, like some inextricable part of him that could not be let go of. His hand was curled around his own tankard, but the moment Gates spoke it was clear Flint had all but forgotten the drink was even there.
At the suggestion of feeding them some bones, Flint made a scathing, frustrated sound: he rose abruptly, the way he often did during conversations like this. Like he was too restless to stay still. His fingers twitched at his side while one hand lifted to rub at his beard, back turning to Gates as Flint moved towards the window. He glared out through the glass a while, then turned that mismatched gaze back to Gates, still equally as wound up.
“Fuck them,” Flint hissed, and looked away again. After a beat, he paced slowly along the space behind the desk between them, mulling Gates’ words over. As much as Flint believed that he knew better than the crew–as much as he elevated himself above them constantly–he could not deny that they were necessary for what he wanted to achieve. He needed their support, unless he wanted a mutiny on his hands and to lose all hope of ever acquiring that fucking gold.
“Those men–” Flint all but rounded on him, leaning forwards to brace both hands on the desk. “–cannot be trusted with this until the last possible moment. If I were to tell them what we’re hunting, I wouldn’t trust a single fucking one of them not to either sell that information or let it slip through sheer carelessness. But if I don’t–” He straightened again, finally conceding the point with a vague gesture at Gates: you’re right.
“Every moment we spend hunting more profitable prizes for their sakes is a moment that I cannot afford to waste,” he muttered, fidgeting at his beard again. “That we cannot afford to waste.” But the crew thought he was weak–
His eyes fell on the tankard on the desk; Flint reached down for it, took a swig, and set it down again: the smell of blood reached him every time he lifted his hands anywhere near his face, and he could not make himself sit back down again.
“The Urca has to take priority. There’s simply no other option.”
Hal did not react as Flint displayed his frustrations – not so much because he believed the man’s anger impotent, as due to the fact he was holding on to the faith the man was smart enough to put his emotions aside and approach matters critically once he’d had his outburst. Lips thinning just long enough to form a smack as Hal shot his brows up and tilted his head to the side, conveying plenty without saying a goddamn word, he took another swig of his drink as Flint talked himself around.
The gesture in his direction was noted over the rim of his tankard, and Hal saluted the man before he set it down as the captain muttered to himself. Still he waited, having a feeling this was not the end – and finding himself proven correct when objectives seemed to realign themselves within Flint and settle stubbornly into place. Hal took a breath, because as much as he wanted that haul – at least one of them needed to give a fuck about the crew.
“I don’t pretend to understand your ambitions, just like I know there’s not a man aboard this crew who’ll care. Thinking beyond full bellies and purses is not what they are here for – and loyalty among pirates is something that must be purchased and respected or it wanes. Your own rise to captaincy should prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that a crew that sees its captain as weak and unwilling to pursue profitable prizes is replaceable.”
Tabers had been a damn good captain – Gates had a feeling even Flint could acknowledge that much. He’d played it safe, sure, but there was never a time his crew wanted for pay. Not once. And now that same crew was going months without it or any explanation for it while being lead by the man who had promised to give them profits unheard of under Tabers by bringing them a taste of a good fight. There was no way in hell Flint was truly naive enough to think he could keep this crew under these conditions. Again, simply being the best for a time did not in turn ascertain one could maintain that title without proving it.
“So unless your intent is to kill a man every other week – which might incite fear enough to keep you in business for another three months, but guarantees a mutiny within six – I am going to have to suggest you come up with something better than what we have running right now. Because you can degrade this crew all you like,” And Hal was not fond of how conceited Flint could get, which showed itself only in how cold and stern his own tone became, “You’re fucked without them. So figure this out, because that little display back there isn’t going to make them respect you again, but it is going to make them question if following you is worth not only no pay – but also, apparent instability.”
“Mmhmm.” Flint looked amused, mouth curled into a smirk at Hal’s sense of humour. Well- that, and what Flint perceived to be an indication that Gates was in no mood to be fucked with today, not even by him. But his eyes flickered to the older man’s hands. Though Flint’s tone was carefully nonchalant–as if this was simply something that happened to everyone, nothing out of the ordinary–there was still that barely-detectable trace of caring in itwhen he met Hal’s gaze: “Bad again?”
Hal was honestly never in a mood to be fucked with, but he was very good at projecting an approachable demeanor that caused folk to overlook danger more often than not. That Flint could pick up on it ever would have been an enormous surprise to him – especially at a time when he was, more or less, in fairly high spirits.
At the inquiry, he huffed and just barely managed to keep back the if you make it to my age jibe burning on his tongue as he replied, “When isn’t it?” His hands always gave him hell – there were just days when they were louder about it, was all. He shrugged though, showing it wasn’t at the worst it could be and that as per usual, he would manage. “Still doing better than Dufrense’s teeth I wager.”
Damn kid kept scrubbing at them like he thought if he rubbed just right, the crew would forget he’d ripped a man’s throat out like some kind of damn animal. Or maybe ( and arguably more likely ) if he cleaned them just the right way, he might forget what he did – and how it made him feel.
“Nope.” Hal refused to be swayed by cuteness today. Absolutely refused. He was not going to budge –
Another nudge of Flint’s head against his shoulder and he could feel himself cave. It was like dealing with an overgrown cat – or worse, a very big toddler. Irritated with himself for being amused by the damn antics, he shifted just as Flint leaned in to try and get him again, looping an arm around his neck and hauling him in to knuckle the top of his head and fuss ginger locks into a nest so disastrous not even a seagull would love it.
“Alright you little shit,” He grumbled, “Fine,” He was going to regret this, “I’ll talk to Tabers for you – but no promises.” The captain was about as stubborn as this bratty redhead – though Hal had a feeling Tabers was going to meet his match in this boy yet. Heavens knew he was already done in by the little bastard!
Ocean Archive 