Chapter Text
“No. Absolutely not.”
Silver had waited until Billy had shut the cabin door behind him before spinning around and shouting the words at James. He sounded as resolute as the sun was to rise.
James slumped back in his chair and let out a heavy sigh.
“I knew this would be a difficult thing to suggest,” he began but Silver cut him off.
“Difficult? To suggest?”
He let a bewildered chuckle escape him as he walked up to James’s desk, iron leg thudding softly over the wooden floor. He leaned on his good leg, the rest of his weight against the desk as he looked at James through his brow.
“Even if I wasn’t completely shocked by the notion and were willing to consider it,” he began slowly, “I fail to see what is wrong with each of us satisfying ourselves the way seamen have been doing since whenever the fuck. The result is the same. You say you want to alleviate tension between the three of us. I don’t see the difference…”
“Yes you do,” James cut in flatly. “You know perfectly well this is much more than simply relieving tension. What has been going on between all of us is nothing so easily pushed aside. Even I’m willing to admit it.”
Silver pinched his lips together in frustration but he couldn’t deny the truth of it, not if James were willing to admit it. They had been circling one another like sharks did their prey, only their hunger was for something else entirely.
He and James and Billy all needed to admit it.
He loathed James in that moment and the look he was giving him.
“Tell me you see another way to resolve this, and I’ll consider it,” said James when Silver didn’t fill the silence between them.
Silver snorted. “You mean aside from Billy and I coming to blows and me decking him with whatever kitchen utensil is handy?”
James failed to hide the half grin that graced his lips, peeking out from under his beard.
“Yes. Aside from that.”
Silver shrugged and said simply, “We endure it.”
James looked up at him and opened his mouth but nothing came out. Instead he looked down at Silver’s leg as though he wanted nothing more than to magically fix it. Silver gave him a bitter smile when James met his gaze again.
“This is something we do not have to endure,” James replied. Silver loathed the way his voice had gone as soft as breath. It often did when it was just the two of them now. It was what James sounded like without Flint, he figured, and it always affected him.
Now, Silver huffed out a sigh. He crossed his arms and raised a hand to his beard, stroking it. A habit he’d picked up from James.
James rose from the desk and walked around to him. His sea green eyes bore gentle and agonizing holes into Silver’s.
“As I said, neither of you need to decide today. Take some time.”
Silver looked up at him, his hand stilling over his chin.
“You think Billy will go for this? Truly? He seemed quite upset when he left.”
“You’re friends with Billy. I am friends with you. I’m hoping he’ll realize that while he makes up his mind.”
Silver smiled ruefully.
“And being friends with our bosun, I can tell you I think there’s a good chance he’ll suggest we endure it as well. I know him better than you.”
James looked up at him too sharply and Silver saw a wound there. He winced inwardly and realized the folly of his words too late.
“That’s what I’m hoping to change,” James said in that soft and raw voice again.
Silver steeled himself against it, pretending his will as an unaffected as a mountain.
“We could endure it, if we had to,” he insisted. “We’ve all endured much worse.”
Without warning James moved and snaked his fingers in Silver’s hair, clutching at him and pulling him bodily towards himself.
“What–”
Silver’s couldn’t finish the question because James pressed his lips to his own. He pressed other parts of himself into Silver as well and Silver let out a helpless whimper. Then he brought his hands up and shoved back against James, breaking their contact.
“What the fuck?!”
“Can you endure it?” James asked him in earnest, fingers still curled into his hair. “Is this something you want to endure, John?”
In the silence that followed John’s ears rang with James’s ragged breathing, in sync with his own. James’s point crashed into him like a maelstrom, cruelly ripping away the last of his resolve and denial.
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So I just wanted to add this is proving to be one of the funnest fics I've written. >:D