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Silver lies down on the floor of the Walrus and watches with unrestrained awe his crew -- his men -- these broken sacks of barely concealed meat and bone -- hoist the sails.
He has always been a cynical man. He’d been a cynical child, as well, and he suspected he likely emerged from his mother’s womb expecting the worst in people.
If he hadn’t, he probably had come to the realization only days later, left on the steps of an orphanage somewhere. Children are smart, and some responses are only natural to the human experience. It’s instinct for a child to cry when he is hungry, and it’s instinct for Silver to not trust the people he meets.
The thing with starvation, though, and the thing about dehydration is, it doesn’t take too much time for the more complex human emotions to leave you. Shame, for instance, flees swiftly, as does pride. And it turns out cynicism, even as deeply ingrained as Silver’s, has no place when you’re trapped on a ship that’s been slowly sinking over a period of weeks. He would have thought his distrust in human integrity and decency would have been stalwart in this situation, but the opposite proved to be true.
He can't look away. Their earnest is alien to Silver, but nonetheless fascinating.
He shifts slightly, squinting up at the unrelenting sun to watch them work frantically at getting them underway. He still holds the cup of water Billy had given him moments ago. He tries, but before long his eyes are too tired to focus on the specific movement of the men. He wants to encourage them (for that is all he is ever capable of now) but he feels dizzy trying, so he shuts his eyes and listens instead. He hears the hoarse shouts of orders from all sides, the triumphant yells every time the wind blew, and the creak, Christ, the glorious creak of a ship beginning to move.
Once, he’d sailed with a cannibal on a whaling boat. He hadn’t yet turned twenty, still a lad, and was so inexperienced and terrified, but so desperate for a job. It was this time that gave him a healthy hatred of sailing, but the cannibal had scared him more than the blackest parts of the sea, than the blackest parts of a whale’s eye. At first. But this was when Silver learned his most valuable lesson: there is nothing to fear from the things that like you. How he feels about them is inconsequential to that fact.
The cannibal had become strangely fond of Silver. They worked the same shifts, and so every night, they would whisper stories over the spaces of their hammocks. Silver had been so young then, his stories all embellished, terrified of losing the cannibal’s interest, and therefore his fondness. The cannibal’s eyes would be full of mirth as he told Silver tales of the rituals he grew up with, as he described the taste of human flesh sucked clean from the bone. Silver could never tell if he was trying to rile him up. He’d say his people would dine on the muscle of aged warriors of their tribe to gain their strength. They would eat the brains of their fallen foes, and instantly know the plans of their surviving enemy, the secrets peppered in the swell of pink matter. He’d tell Silver this was true of all living things. Eat fish to swim further, eat rabbits to run faster. He’d ask Silver, if this wasn’t how Christians got their wisdom, their courage, or their strength -- where would they get it from? God? The cannibal would laugh every time.
He’d definitely been fucking with Silver. Probably.
But Silver believes it now, anyway. Surely, his men are standing on shaking legs, blurred and weak but still standing. Getting them underway, getting them to safety, with nothing in their bodies but the blood and flesh and meat of sharks. And sharks have to keep moving, or else they’ll die.
He sighs, the shout of men and the whip of the sails soothing him like a melody. He should drink more water, but the distance between his mouth and the cup on his chest seems too great. His arms feel as heavy as the iron of his leg.
“Silver,” says a voice over him. “Silver! You have to get up!”
He thinks it over. “No.”
He hears Billy sigh, and it’s such a normal kind of annoyance that Silver smiles.
“You can’t just lie there,” Billy says reasonably.
Silver squints up at him with one eye. Billy looks harried and sweaty, but his face doesn’t look nearly as pale as it had before.
“I do not believe that I’m, in fact,” Silver says, “‘critical to sailing this ship once the wind returns.’ So I’ll think I’m fine right down here, thank you.”
“Yeah,” says Billy, “but the men who are critical to sailing this ship are trying to actually sail this ship, and one of them is going to trip over you and snap his neck.” Billy looks over his shoulder. “Captain!”
Silver sees Flint stopped in his tracks. He doesn’t say anything, just blinks at them with wide green eyes. Unlike the rest of the men, Flint doesn’t look any more alive now that the wind has returned. If anything, he looks about ready to blow away, looks stretched and thinned as he rushes around to help get the men where they needed to go.
Billy possesses a keen intelligence, Silver knows, but one thing he has never learned to do was hide it, the way Silver had behind a smile and the way Flint had behind teeth. Billy frowns at Flint, the cogs in his mind evidently working at some conclusion.
“Captain,” Billy says again, glancing down at Silver. “Will you help me get Mr. Silver somewhere out of the way, so he might rest?”
“I don’t need to rest,” Silver says, closing his eyes again. “I’m here to provide moral support to the men.”
His eyes fly open again when Flint says, “Let’s take him to my cabin.”
Suddenly, the sun is blacked out overhead, and the shadowed shapes of Billy and Flint loom over him. They each get a hand under his arms before he can even open his mouth, and he’s upright before he can even start to form an argument.
“Drink your water,” Flint says, seeing him about to start. Up close, Silver can see a drop of red shark blood at the corner of Flint’s dried lips.
Silver drinks, but only because he is thirsty.
Billy and Flint tow him to the cabin, working in sync for the first time in a very long time. Silver feels like he’s moving through the air the way rain drips down a windowpane, fast and then slow, changing direction suddenly with every quick pull from the men beside him. His arms are tacked with blood and covered in dust that showered from overhead, gathered over the weeks on the still sails above. He should wash before resting, but then Flint and Billy drop him down onto Flint’s bed, and instead he just. Lies down.
He likes this room. The whitewashed wood and the colorless light that streaks through the wall of windows, and yet the room always feels cooler and shaded. It feels almost church-like in here, because it’s always silent, too. The crew, the rush of the wind, the crush of the waves -- all of it faded inside the reverence of the Captain’s cabin. Perhaps, though, that’s because he’s only ever in here with Flint, and then he’s listening intently for other things. He listens for what Flint is saying, what Flint isn’t saying. He catalogues every intake of breath, every measured pause, every lingering syllable. It had started off as a way to detect if Flint knew he’d lied about the gold. But now, it’s just another instinct, an impulse deeply ingrained.
So, without looking away from the ceiling, he hears Flint’s footsteps as he heads towards the door, and then he hears Billy go, “You too, Captain.”
Silver turns his head to watch Billy’s cunning plan unfold. He’s standing in front of the door, which is a bold but necessary move. The only way Flint would likely hear him out is if he literally has no other choice.
“What.” Flint doesn’t phrase it as a question. Questions require some kind of energy.
“You need to rest as well, Captain,” Billy says, folding his arms. Even as diminished as they all were, his arms aren’t anything to scoff at.
“The men--”
“The men know what they’re doing,” Billy insists. “Trust me, they want to get out of here just as much as you do. Some of them even more.”
Silver watches Flint twitch, his hands squeezing into fists at his sides. He remembers telling Billy days ago, refusing his water because he didn’t like how it looked, and Silver thinks maybe Flint might actually understands where Billy didn’t, because he says, “I’ve had more rations than they, I shouldn’t--” He steps forward.
Billy gently puts a hand on his chest to stop him. He looks older than his years, eyes hollow and gray, but there is an ounce of sympathy there, mixed in with a much larger amount of irritation. “A full ration of nothing is still nothing, Captain. And you’ve wasted all your energy getting us food. Both of you did.” He looked over at Silver. “You saved us all.”
He didn’t add anything else, but it was clear the “even though we were all only dying because of you two bastards” went unsaid. But the truth was, they did get food for the crew and save them from dying (by starvation anyway), so the acknowledgement of that from Billy and the momentary reprieve in the cabin would have to settle as thanks.
Flint’s shoulders sag, just a little. “You know where to go.” Again, not a question.
Billy nods. “I’ve poured over those maps as much as you have.”
Flint snorts. “Doubtful.” He glances over his shoulder, not quite looking at Silver. To Billy, he says, “If you need us --”
“I’ll reconsider it,” Billy says, having only enough strength to lift one corner of his lips.
“You get me,” Flint says, facing forward fully. “I don’t want to wind up in Cape Town because the men are too delirious to tell east from west.”
“Or worse,” Silver says from the bed. “They could mistake east for north, and we’d wake up in Cape Cod.”
“Yeah,” says Flint, still looking at Billy. “Make sure that doesn’t happen either, if you please. ”
"Honestly,” says Billy, any trace of sympathy gone as he puts a hand on the door. “They’re sailors. They know what they’re doing.”
Then, glancing around at them, he adds, “Better make sure they’re okay, though.” And he isn’t subtle about slamming the door.
Flint sighs, spins around, and then looks as if he immediately regrets it. Silver can’t tell if it’s because he’s dizzy from dehydration still or from seeing Silver, lying on the room’s only bed.
They stare at each other for a moment.
“I’ll get up,” Silver finally says, propping himself up on his elbows. He places the water cup on the ground.
“No.” Flint even goes so far as to come forward and put a hand on his shoulder to stop him. “Stay. It’s not like I haven’t slept at my desk before.”
And now, the conundrum Silver has faced almost daily since the loss of this leg. He isn’t an invalid. He isn’t sickly or weak, or at least, right now, no sicker or weaker than Flint. Flint also has a few years on him, and as much as he doesn’t wear them normally, it shows today, with all they’ve been through. They had eaten the same amount, fought the same sharks, and hauled them on board together. Flint was a superior officer who would need to be well-rested for whatever horrors they face next, and Silver is not a fucking invalid.
That being said, he really doesn’t want to get up.
But Flint does need to rest too, and he deserves to do it comfortably, and if he hadn’t been able to kill Silver on the longboat after hearing his confession, Flint likely wouldn’t kill him for reaching out and grabbing his wrist before he could pull away entirely.
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Silver shifts all the way to the other side of the bed, turning onto his side so his back was pressed to the hull of the ship. He still held Flint’s wrist. “We can share.”
It’s almost too easy, how quickly Flint agrees. He’s blinks down at Silver once, twice, before settling down on the bed beside him. The cot sways slightly on its chains, but doesn’t collapse under their combined weight, and after a moment it settles.
Flint is lying on his back, staring up at the ceiling, unblinking. His right side hangs slightly off the bed. Even though they’re both thin shades of their former selves, they are still grown men, and the bed was not built for two to lie side by side. Silver still has a grip around him and Flint hasn’t made any attempt to shake him off.
“You know, Captain, I don’t believe I’ve ever seen you look comfortable,” Silver says, voice dry, “but I’m fairly certain it doesn’t look like that.”
Flint huffs, and then after a moment, he turns on his side.
Silver doesn’t know why he’s surprised. There was only two ways they both could fit, and Flint isn’t about to turn his back on Silver. Still, when he finds himself looking into pale green eyes, inches from his own, he is surprised.
The movement dislodges Silver’s hold on Flint’s arm, and his bloody hand rests in the space between them. Their knees are brushing together. Silver grips the cool sheet when he feels a puff of air hit his lips and he realizes it came directly from Flint’s mouth.
He drops his gaze and looks down. Unknowingly, he’s been smearing sharks blood on the faded linen, and he lets go instantly.
“Sorry,” Silver says, starting to pull away.
Flint grazes the back of his hand, and he freezes. “It’s fine,” he says, his own stained hands running gently along the tendons. “It’s not the first blood this bed has seen.”
Silver looks back up to Flint’s face, but Flint is tracking his own hand moving now up Silver’s wrist, now up his forearm. He looks half asleep already, except his eyes are open, watching himself touch Silver almost dreamily. His hand strokes his elbow and Silver shivers despite the midday heat.
The slight movement causes Flint’s hand to still, his eyes to flicker up to Silver’s face. He’s not sure what expression Flint sees there, but he doesn’t resume his idle explorations. But he also doesn’t remove his hand where it rests now on Silver’s upper arm.
All at once, Silver’s whole head feels heavy with exhaustion, and with all the thoughts that suddenly spring into his mind, feeling Flint’s skin touching his. He tilts forward from the weight of them all, resting his forehead against Flint’s. Now, he can feel those same soft breaths, brushing against his collarbone. His whole body feels cavernous: he feels wide and stretched and ongoing, even the parts that have been cauterized.
Silver doesn’t close his eyes though, and he can tell Flint hasn’t either. Silver says, “Do we need to -- talk. About...what I said to you, earlier?”
“No,” says Flint quietly. His fingers slip from Silver’s arm and land on his ribcage. Each finger slots perfectly between the visible bone. “Unless you have something more to add?”
“No,” Silver says, trying not to twitch at the sudden weight on his side. He thinks if Flint presses down hard enough, Silver’s skeleton will shift under it like sand. He wants to curve into it. “No,” he says again.
Flint hums, his hand running back and forth in the grooves of Silver’s bones. Silver has shared a bed before when sex isn’t involved, as a youth in orphanages and shelters, while on shore leave when the inns are overcrowded. It never feels like this, not once. Usually some effort is given to keeping yourselves from touching, unless the night is cold. He thinks he might still be trembling and hopes to God it’s from the shock of the day.
Silver clears his throat and says, “But I did want to say --”
“Oh, Jesus Christ,” Flint says. He tilts his face up slightly, even though they’re still pressed together, so that their noses brush. Up close, his features are a blur, but Silver can tell his lips are quirked in an almost-grin, the same one he’d given Silver after killing the first shark. “What now?”
“What you did the other day, with Palmer and Oates,” Silver says. “It was the right thing to do.”
Flint stills, his fingers stiffening on Silver’s side. He doesn’t say anything.
“It was the right thing to do,” Silver says again, fast and urgent. He fists the front of Flint’s shirt. “It was the only thing to do. And I couldn’t -- I knew you were right and I shouldn’t have let you stand alone in that. It should have been my hand carrying down the sentence, and so I wanted to -- I don’t know. I don’t know what I wanted to say. I wanted you to know that it was the right thing to do. I guess I wanted to say, thank you.”
Nothing at first, and then a shudder runs through Flint, face shifting back down so their foreheads were once again resting on each other. His breath is coming out in quicker pants, a soft noise emanating from his open mouth with every exhale.
Silver loosens his hand on Flint’s shirt but doesn’t let go, pushes down hard and assuring on his caved stomach. “Flint?”
Flint doesn’t say anything, but he nods quickly, their brows bumping together. Something seems to escape his body, a tension he hadn’t realized he’d been holding in every part of him suddenly releasing, and he seems to sink into the thin mattress in relief. His hand continues its gentle touches on Silver’s skin.
Silver wants to add something else, desperately wants to find something worth saying. It dawns on him that he wants to find something nice to say to Flint, some stronger words of kindness or gratitude. He doesn't think Flint would appreciate it any, but the impulse is there and it shocks him. He supposes it's Flint's fault, really. In Silver's entire long and strange life, of all the people he's ever met, worked beside, befriended, and loved -- the nicest thing anyone has ever done to him is look at him with a smile and say, "Again?"
The Walrus lurches forward then, the bed swinging down with an old creak. Flint’s fingers push down on Silver’s ribs reflexively, but other than that, neither of them move. Piercing the silence of the cabin, a cry resounds outside, the heartiest cheer known to this ship in a good long while. Footsteps bound overhead, causing more dust to rain down on them, but they just blink it out of their eyes. They don’t have the strength for much else.
“It’s astounding to me,” Silver says, because even though he’s tired down to his soul, and he knows Flint is too, neither of them are closing their eyes to sleep. “You know, I once sailed with a cannibal, or someone who was thought to be a cannibal. He’d tell me all about consuming the flesh of man or beast gave you the qualities of the thing eaten. Eating a bear will help you survive the winter, for instance, or eating a bird will ease your travel over long distances. Apparently, eating a man will help you know his thoughts.”
“If you want to know what I’m thinking,” Flint rasps, but Silver can hear a smile even if he can’t see it, “all you need to do is ask.”
“Fuck you.” Silver smiles too, slips his hand in the opening of Flint’s shirt curiously. He can feel Flint’s heart pounding right in his hand, can feel the heat of all that blood lying close to the surface. “It’d be a hell of a lot fucking easier for me to eat you to know what the fuck you’re thinking.”
The words lie there, shoved into the small crack between them. Flint’s hand drifts down to Silver’s waist. Silver’s own runs up, fingertips dipping into the hollow of Flint’s throat. Fuck, he thinks he’d swallow Flint whole if it meant he’d understand what Flint was thinking all the time. If it meant knowing him just a little better. If it meant he’d know why Flint first touched his hand, and why he hadn’t stopped yet. And he’d offer himself up to Flint just the same, let Flint feast on him. Silver would hand Flint the fucking knife and fork, if he had any idea that Flint wanted to taste.
“What I meant was,” Silver continues, voice soft and rough, “it would explain how those men up there are able to move with such vigor. Weeks of starvation, but as soon as their belly is filled with some shark meat, they are able to move as though they’re at the peak of health. It’s as if all the strength of those sharks have possessed them now, enabling them to get us all to safety.”
Flint, ever the educated man, seems to be thinking this theory over with solemn sincerity. “If that is the case,” he says, “then there is a contradiction inherent when applied to the two of us.”
Silver drags his hand up Flint’s chest until it reaches his neck. His thumb rests on the sharp point of his jawbone. “And what’s that?”
Flint sighs, leaning into Silver’s hand. Finally, he closes his eyes, lets his own hand trail across Silver’s back, up his spine. “What is the strength of a shark to men like us?” he asks. “We are the killers of sharks.”