Chapter Text
Blood trickles into his boot. He is not certain where it is trickling from. It is probably not even his blood. The squish of it in his boot is disquieting just the same. He lengthens his stride, hoping that will mean fewer steps. Squish on one step and then clunk on the next. Between the blood-soaked boot and the peg, Silver’s gait is wholly unfamiliar to him. He cannot stop hearing it the entire distance to where Flint is waiting in his rooms.
Flint is filthier than he is. Blood is smeared across his skin along with the dirt that coats him. Silver thinks that very little of the blood on Flint is his own. Flint had fought like an animal today, hacking men down on all sides and creating his own sea with blood. Silver had caught sight of him, his gun lost and his knife in his hand. He had been dripping with rage, with blood, with menace. Silver had been paralyzed at the sight.
“That went well, then.”
“As well as expected,” Flint replies almost before Silver is done speaking, as though Flint had anticipated his words. He hasn’t looked at Silver yet. He seems still dizzy with the energy of the fight. His eyes jump restlessly from point to point. Silver does not approach him too closely. The way he moves about the room has the feral edge of earlier that day when Silver saw him chase down a wounded man and separate his head from his body. Silver flinches at the memory.
“Is there any more that needs to be done?”
“Nothing that can be done today.”
Silver nods, though Flint has his back to him now and does not see it. Perhaps he will be able to sense it. He seems to have a preternatural sense for Silver. Silver finds himself often being deliberately abstruse to find the boundaries of Flint’s understanding of him. He is not certain he has discovered them all. But Flint is absent from this conversation. Silver thinks Flint hardly notices his presence at all.
“Are you hurt at all?” Flint asks. He is looking at Silver at last, in a vague and unfocused way. Silver almost recognizes this look, but cannot place it. He thinks he must have seen Flint wear it after a fight, that this is his look of coming back to himself after doing violence. The thought feels intrusive and sharp in his mind.
“Not really.” Silver taps his jaw next to a long and shallow but stinging cut. “This is the worst of it, I think. And you?” he asks carefully.
Flint shakes his head. “You’ll want to clean that cut. Before it festers.”
And if I want it to fester? Silver lets the thought slip out of his mind. It is too shallow for that anyway. He tugs at his beard and says, “I’ll need to shave this to clean it.”
“Good,” Flint says. He looks taken aback at his own quick reply, then shrugs it away. “It has never suited you,” he says without apology. Silver stares at him. Flint does not seem to notice. He is drifting away again to some distant place in his own mind. Silver may be able to guess where, and he does not like it.
“I have no razor,” Silver says, because it is something to say. Flint focuses again. “Not with me,” Silver says.
Flint face is a transition between two unrealized expressions. It is a stark contrast to the sharpness and clarity on his face during the fight. Silver does not like it. “I could use my knife,” Silver says. He speaks slowly, uncertain of himself in that familiar way.
Flint is looking at him, looking at the cut on his jaw. Silver knows it has stopped bleeding by now, but his hand twitches to wipe it clean anyway. Silver flushes and looks away. He is not asking Flint for permission. He takes his knife from his belt and goes to the mirror.
There is a basin of water there. It is not warm, but Silver splashes it on his face anyway. There is no soap or cream, no real razor. He feels Flint watching him as he drags the blade of his knife down his cheek. A tuft of his beard comes off with it. The slide of the blade on the skin of his cheek does not feel like his usual razor. On the next stroke his hand shakes and the blade slices into his cheek.
He hisses in surprised pain. He drops the knife and presses his hand to his cheek. Blood warms his fingertips. “Shit.”
Flint turns him around and carefully pulls his hand away from his face to see. His brow is furrowed. “I think this is deeper than the other,” he says. His voice is deep with amusement. “Have you never shaved with a knife before?”
“I have. I just- my hand was-” Silver swallows. Flint hands him a cloth and Silver presses it to the cut. He presses too hard and the cut flares with pain. He makes a sound, a quiet one that he can almost hide under his breath.
Flint hears it. He frowns and says, “Careful.” He takes the cloth back from Silver and folds it over so that the bloodstain is hidden. He holds it up as though he means to- But he doesn’t. He pauses with his hands inches from Silver’s cheek. His expression draws in on itself. Silver takes the cloth from him and wipes again at his cut. Flint is motionless for another long moment – his eyes are fixed still on Silver’s cut – then he reaches past Silver to pick up the knife.
“Sit down,” Flint says. Silver tenses. Flint armed with a knife- it is a sight all too familiar to him today. His memories of the fight are still tenderly fresh. But Flint has shed whatever ferocity carried him through the fight and he is just a man anew, offering to help.
Silver looks at him uncertainly. “Are you sure you won’t cut me?”
“Just sit down,” Flint says.
Silver sits. He fidgets as Flint inspects the knife, rubs its edge. Silver fiddles with the hem his shirt, mirroring Flint’s movement. He stills when Flint drops his eyes to look at him. Silver swallows. Flint has held a knife to him before and Silver had thought that perhaps one day Flint would put that knife to use. Never like this though.
Silver expects to feel a frisson of panic when the knife presses to his cheek. He feels nothing like it, only a low hum running through his body. Flint could slit his throat without even trying, with only a twist of his wrist, and the thought sends a strange heat through his body. But he feels no threat in the cool metal of the blade. He finds that he is pliant in Flint’s hands as Flint turns his face to run the blade along Silver’s cheek.
Flint makes a smooth stroke with the blade and then another and another, never catching at Silver’s skin. Silver wonders if Flint has done this before. He must have. This feels practiced, perfected. Silver is abruptly certain that Flint has done this many times.
Unbidden images entrench themselves in his mind. He sees Flint shaving Thomas Hamilton in just this way. In a room much cleaner than this, with soap and cream and warm water and a good razor, with light filling the room. All these things that Silver doesn’t have. Flint – younger and unburdened – tilting Hamilton’s face with a touch of his fingers. Flint pouring his attention onto Hamilton, becoming familiar with these movements, with the curves of Hamilton’s face.
Silver’s stomach twists. I want that, he thinks. The thought comes into his mind with a pang. It is fleeting and it slips away from Silver before he can resolve it, leaving a yawning hollowness in its wake.
“Don’t move,” Flint says. Silver’s mustache is gone. The knife is at the corner of Silver’s naked mouth.
I want that. Silver thinks it deliberately this time, letting it run thick and slow through him. The thought insinuates itself in this fingertips, making them want to cover Flint’s hand and press it harder against his cheek. It knocks against his teeth, trying to escape his mouth. Silver swallows.
Flint’s voice is tight and he sounds unhappy. “Stop flinching. I’m not going to hurt you.”
Silver closes his eyes. Flint probably never cut Hamilton when he shaved him. He was undoubtedly all that was careful and attentive. He would have probably run his fingers over Hamilton’s cheek to make sure he missed no patches of hair.
“I know,” Silver says. He clears his throat. “You’ve done this before, haven’t you?”
Flint pauses. The blade hovers under Silver’s chin. “I have,” Flint says slowly. He tilts Silver’s head back, exposing more of his throat for Flint’s knife. Silver’s breath catches. The cool metal of the blade kisses his skin on the underside of his jaw. I want this, Silver thinks, this. Flint slides the knife up his throat. Silver tips his head back even further, an unconscious reflex. An invitation.
Flint pauses. Silver hears his breath catch. A moment later the knife is withdrawn and Flint’s thumb presses against Silver’s skin in it’s place. A long and slow stroke- almost a caress, Silver thinks desperately. Flint is checking for patches he missed, that is all. That does not stop it from sparking low in Silver’s gut.
Silver’s mood swings like a pendulum and he is suddenly ready to climb out of his bones. The knife at his throat, Flint’s hand holding him down; it’s too much to bear. His mind returns again to the fight and Flint’s brutality, and he wants to squirm away from the knife. The pendulum swings back and Silver’s need is too big for his body. He is riding the edge between want and aversion. And want is outpacing aversion and caution and everything else.
I have, Flint had said. Silver lets the thought rub itself raw against his mind: Flint standing behind Hamilton- Flint with his hands- Hamilton knowing- Flint- The roll of images outstrips his capacity to name them. I have. Flint has had this.
Since first hearing his name, Silver has been full of questions about Thomas Hamilton and Flint’s life with him. What did it feel like, Silver wants to ask. And, much more quietly, quiet even in his own mind, Did it feel like this?
Silver wants to put Flint’s fingers on his pulse. He wants to make Flint reach into his chest and wrap his hand around his heart. He wants to make Flint understand him and what he feels. Flint sees things so clearly, and Silver needs that clarity. He has none of his own. This thing he feels for Flint, it is new and unfamiliar places within him coming to life under Flint’s influence. It is him off-balance and being unable to quite fit the whole feeling in his body. Silver wants to shake it off of him but it has its claws in him. He won’t be able to free himself from it, so he must do something else.
He focuses on the scrape of the knife near the cut on his cheek. Flint has saved this difficult portion for last. Silver allows his mind to empty of thought and fill only with perception. He occupies himself with feeling every touch, tucking it away in his mind for his hungriest days. He wrings every lingering drop of sensation from this. The nearly tickling, prickling feel of his newly shorn skin. The unavoidable flare of pain as Flint passes the knife between his two cuts. The rush of blood to his cheeks, pooling around where Flint’s fingers press indents into his skin. He feels it all, deliberately.
Silver lips are parted and he breathes deeply. He can feel Flint’s warmth transude from his body across the narrowing distance between them. He cannot remember the last time he was cold, but neither can he remember ever being warm like this.
He would have never supposed this could be palliative to be completely at Flint’s mercy. The idea that Flint could hurt him – even with an accidental slip – is very distant from his mind. He wants to Flint to remain in this posture, knife harmlessly at Silver’s throat, until Silver remembers why he had ever feared this.
He does not get his wish. The thought has hardly taken shape in his mind when Flint sets the knife down on the table and Silver realizes that he is speaking.
“-finished,” Flint is saying. Silver drags his mind up out from his well of sensations. He feels that he should know this edge in Flint’s voice; it is familiar but he cannot name it.
Flint has come around to stand in front of Silver. His face is quite blank. Silver wonders what his own face is reflecting and tries to tame it. Flint’s gaze jumps across Silver’s face and Silver does not know where to look. To look in Flint’s face, he has to tilt his head back, bending his neck. It seems fitting that he has to twist himself into an unusual posture to be able to see Flint. Flint’s expression morphs into something chaotic as he looks down at Silver. Silver can feel his gaze like it is a physical touch. There is something growing between them in this long, quiet moment.
Flint reaches for Silver to help him to his feet. He drops his hand as soon as Silver is on his feet but does not move away. He is looking at Silver very intently. It is difficult to return that gaze.
“The knife gives a much better shave than a razor,” Flint says quietly. He hesitates a moment, then brushes his knuckles down Silver’s cheek. The touch might be shocking if he had not grown accustomed to Flint’s hands on his face. He feels that they have crossed a boundary that he had not even sensed was on their horizon. He wants to know what is on the other side of this boundary, how far the land on this side of it stretches.
“You must trust me,” Flint says. His voice is rough, each word catching reluctantly in his throat. His gaze is too sharp. He is daring Silver to tell him that he is wrong. He is ready for it, Silver sees how he has braced himself for that answer.
“Yes,” Silver says, somewhat surprised by how easily the word leaves his mouth.
Silver has wondered- but he thought it was only a projection of his own desires onto Flint. There were moments when he wondered, but they were outnumbered by the multitude of moments when Flint made him feel very foolish for ever thinking of it. It does not feel altogether foolish now.
Flint’s knuckles make another sweep down Silver’s cheek. They trail lower, run along his jaw. Almost like the knife Flint wielded earlier. Then, like a bolt of lightning, a soft touch to Silver’s bottom lip. This is a new touch, not somewhere the knife has been. A thrum of excitement travels through Silver; how many more new touches will there be, he wonders. His lips curve up into a smile under Flint’s thumb. He steadies himself with a hand on Flint’s chest.
Flint’s wide eyes are fixed on Silver’s lips. Silver can hardly breathe. He does not fully understand this – he cannot even fully understand himself in this – but he understands well the distinction between want and need, and Flint needs this. Even if he does not want Silver, he needs him. He needs him like this, open and trusting and touchable. It may not ever need to go further than how they are this moment, but Silver so badly wants to know if it could. Of its own accord, Silver’s hand creeps up from Flint’s chest until his fingers rest against the hollow of his throat.
He tilts his head invitingly. Flint mirrors the movement. His eyes are searching, searching. Silver can lead him.
He shakes Flint’s hand away from his face so he can bring their mouths together. Flint’s lips are so soft under his. Silver marvels at how soft they are. He presses harder to feel them give under the pressure. Flint’s hands come up and rest on Silver’s waist. He digs his fingers in hard when Silver presses his tongue to the crease of Flint’s lips.
Silver eases back. Flint’s eyes are closed and Silver cannot help staring at the wet streak on his lips. I did that, he thinks. Heat rushes through him. He wonders if Flint will let him do that again, or if that is enough for him. He waits for Flint to open his eyes.
“How long have you known?” Flint asks. His eyes are still closed and his voice is raw.
“I did not-”
“You did, you must have. Tell me-”
Silver kisses him. Flint takes Silver’s face in his hands and tips his head back, exposing his throat. This is so familiar now, baring himself in this way for Flint. Silver lets out a rough breath when he feels Flint’s teeth close lightly on his pulse point. Flint’s hands tighten around him.
He needs to kiss Flint again, to taste his lips again, his tongue. He dips his head back down to do so. Flint’s teeth catch around his lip and he bites. He is much more dangerous to Silver like this than he was with his knife to Silver’s throat. He tries to soften the kiss and Flint bears down hard. Silver takes Flint’s face in his hands, holds him steady and shifts so that their lips just brush against one another’s. This is not another fight, he tells him. He tells him with his tongue and with the pads of his fingers that he wishes to be soft with him, as much as he can be. He needs to tell him that he wants it all, not just this moment of it.
Silver pulls back to watch Flint’s face as he trails his hand down his chest to his stomach, to dip below the waistband of his trousers. Flint closes his eyes and Silver worries that he is pretending that he is elsewhere. “Say my name,” he says without thinking. He does not like the sound of his voice or the way it wavers.
Flint’s eyes snap open, his gaze sharp and present. “John Silver,” Flint says. His voice is steady, with a slight question in it. Silver wants Flint to say his name again. He forgot to savor it. “I see you,” Flint says. “I see you, John Silver.”
Silver feels his lips part. Flint’s eyes dart all across his face and a surprised smile tugs at his lips. He tilts his head, smile growing and growing. “John Silver,” he says again in a tone unlike he has ever said Silver’s name before. He wraps the fingers of one hand around the back of Silver’s neck and pulls him in to kiss his throat. He sucks at a spot at the edge of Silver’s jaw and Silver cannot help his moan. He feels himself growing hard.
“How did you find me?” Flint whispers against his neck. “How did you become this to me?” Silver gasps, dizzy at those words. What am I, he wants to ask, what am I to you? But he can’t make his mouth shape the words. He is afraid to know that definitively. He lets Flint show him instead. He drinks in the branding kisses Flint trails across his skin. He loses himself in the patterns that Flint traces on his back with clenching fingers.
Flint pushes Silver’s jacket off his shoulders and Silver hastens to pull his arms out of the sleeves and drop the jacket to the floor. Flint pulls his own off too and then reaches for Silver again, his hands greedy. He pulls Silver tightly against his body, one thigh in between Silver’s legs. Silver can feel the press of Flint’s erection on his leg. He is just as hard as Silver is, Silver realizes. He can’t help rubbing himself against Flint’s leg. They are not quite kissing anymore, their foreheads pressed together and their noses brushing.
Flint slides a hand down the back of Silver’s trousers and pulls him in harder, as though there is any gap between them left to close. The friction is hot and delicious, but it is not enough. So close, but Silver can’t quite-
“Please,” he says. His sounds- oh, he sounds just like he feels.
“Please?” Flint repeats in his ear. He brings his hand around between to cup Silver and Silver rocks against it gratefully. Flint traces the length of Silver’s cock with his thumb. “Anything, ask me for anything.”
Words fail him again. Silver has no vocabulary for this. He fumbles with Flint’s laces, hands shaking. Flint watches his hands with his lips slightly parted. When Silver takes too long for his liking, Flint leans away from him and works his trousers open himself. He takes one of Silver’s hands in his own and deliberately kisses each knuckle. Then he pulls on Silver’s hand, bringing it down to his cock. He takes Silver’s fingers and wraps them around it. Silver squeezes experimentally and a Flint makes a deep sound of appreciation that makes Silver hungry for more.
He wants to know what want looks like on Flint, how pleasure sits on his features. He strokes Flint, drags his thumb over the head of Flint’s cock and looks into his face to see. He pauses, arrested at the familiar expression on Flint’s face. He recognizes this look, Silver realizes. He has seen shadowed versions of it before. Never this naked nor this heated, but Flint has looked this way at Silver before. Silver’s heart thuds against his ribcage. He feels almost lightheaded. Flint does want him. He wants him. Flint has looked at him in this way in Silver’s most ordinary moments. He wants him. The thought ignites every part of him.
Silver is frantic now. He strokes Flint, eating up every gasp, every shape his mouth makes. He needs to see it. His body is hot and his skin feels tight all over. This is perfect, perfect. His own cock is hanging out of his trousers but otherwise forgotten, so spellbound is Silver by the small miracle he is performing. Flint’s face is tinted red. His mouth is a soft o and his eyes never leave Silver’s face. Silver strokes him a little faster to see his flush rise more. Flint’s heavy breathing grows into soft moans and Silver wants to press his ear to Flint’s mouth so that he will not miss a single one. But Flint’s eyes are dark and glassy and Silver is not willing to look away.
Flint is getting closer. He starts thrusting into Silver’s hand. He is responding to Silver with his whole being and Silver is- he needs Flint to touch him back. He needs for them to do this part together. He needs it.
“Touch me,” he whispers. “Please.”
Flint’s hands are on him instantly, as though he had only been waiting for permission. He wraps his hand around Silver and pulls tight and slow up the length of him.
Silver says, “Yes, oh god.” He forgets about his hand on Flint, his grip loosening. He doesn’t realize this until he feels the hot slide of Flint between his fingers as Flint pulls away. As Flint folds to his knees in front of him. Silver takes a surprised breath and his heart slips on a beat. Silver sees it: Flint is going to take Silver in his mouth, end this all with his tongue. Flint’s hands run up the backs of Silver’s thighs. A smirk is playing around the corners of his mouth; he is about to show off. And Silver will not be able to match him once he is finished. Silver needs to be his equal, his partner in this here and now.
No one else makes Silver feel so many contrary things at once, Silver thinks as a wave of heat runs through him. He manages to push a single syllable past his lips: “No-”
Everything stops. Every point of contact between them is severed and Flint is rising to his feet, his expression darkened with horror. He is trying to speak, jaw working but no words coming out.
“No,” Silver tries again, and Flint’s expression shutters, “no it’s- it’s all right. I only meant I would prefer if we- like this. Together.”
Oh, Silver thinks as he watches Flint’s expression slip into plain relief.
Silver presses his forehead against Flint’s and takes him in his hand again. He tilts his head so he can kiss him. He feels Flint smile against his lips and he drops his forehead onto Flint’s shoulder. Their mingled smell hangs heavy in the air around him. Every breath he takes brings him closer and closer.
“Have you ever been fucked?” Flint says in his ear. He strokes up and twists. Silver jerks in his hand and moans. “Have you ever fucked another man? You’ll like it, I think. You’ll be so good, won’t you? You’ll give me what I need.”
“Yes,” Silver gasps.
“Say you’ll do it, say you’ll fuck me.”
“I’m going to fuck you,” Silver says low and urgent. He tries not to slur the words, but all this shared pleasure is making his head spin. “I’ll fuck you however you want, just show me. Rough, gentle- I want to fuck you.”
“Next time,” Flint says, his voice tight. “I promise you.” He kisses Silver. He misses his mouth as they rock their hips in thrusts into each other’s hands, and his lips press against the cut Silver had made shaving. The spike of heat that hits Silver’s gut is wholly unexpected. He tilts his face, inviting Flint wordlessly to do it again. Flint does. He runs his tongue along the edge of the cut and it sparks wonderfully with a clean pain. Flint speeds up his hand on Silver’s cock. Silver mirrors him, stroking faster and tightening his grip. Silver is urgently aware of his approaching climax; he wishes he could ride this edge forever with Flint.
“There are so many things I want with you,” Flint says indistinctly. He is on that edge too. Silver can read it in every jerk of his hips. He can feel it in the hot silky skin under his fingers as he strokes faster and faster. This is new, but so familiar, so easy. Silver already wants more. He thinks about what they have both promised for next time – next time – and it is too much.
“I have to-” It is as much warning as he can give before he comes. It rolls deeply through him, hollowing him out with its force and speed and leaving him trembling. Flint holds him tightly and Silver is grateful.
With his head still settling back onto his shoulders, he works his hand up and down the length of Flint’s cock. His movements are slowed by the liquid-looseness of his muscles. Flint wraps his hand around Silver’s and sets the pace. Silver opens his eyes – he wonders when had he closed them– and drinks in the look on Flint’s face.
“Come on,” he says, voice rough, “do it.”
Flint does, beautifully. His body shakes with his orgasm. Silver feels Flint’s release soak into his shirt. Flint’s hand drops from around Silver’s, but Silver keeps stroking him slowly until Flint is completely soft in his hand. He tucks Flint back into his trousers carefully, and then himself. He supposes that this may be the moment he should leave, but he wants only to be near Flint right now. He steps in closely and tuck his face into the crook of Flint’s neck. He lets their bodies touch down their entire lengths. Flint’s arms come up and wrap around him.
Under his cheek, Silver can feels a patch of dried blood, and that brings back memories of the fight, only hours old. It provides an odd counterpoint to this moment, and Silver wonders how these two things could happen in the same day. There is nothing simple about Flint.
Silver wants to unlock the rest of it. He has seen Flint’s passion and now he wants to be trusted with his amusement, his ambitions, his mistakes. He is hungrier than ever for it, in the long and abiding manner. Next time Flint had said. He had promised. Next time will not be enough for Silver. A lifetime of next times may be enough, but it may not. He hopes he will find out.