Black Sails A/B/O
Nov. 28th, 2018 07:51 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stele3C&P from a Twitter/email convo with @theroseandthebeast, on the subject of Black Sails ABO (edited for clarity of goddamn vision):
theroseandthebeast: also I was 100% thinking about a Black Sails a/b/o/ fic this morning on the train. for reasons.
Me: ……..*slides over to you* Accidental bonding, perhaps?
therose: *leans in* I am LISTENING
Me: Silver the omega doin’ his thing, being a manipulative little shit, has no idea how fucking STARVED alpha!Flint is.
It’s been ten goddamned years since Flint lost his bond mate. He’s gotten by with beta!Miranda, but he’s more than a little rut crazy. The crew whispers that he uses his rut to fuel his murderface, and they’re not totally wrong.
Then Silver’s first heat of their acquaintance hits rather conveniently after they take the Spanish warship. He’s all set to use it to make nice with the crew BUT THEN….
therose: Flint is so angry and turned on he can’t see straight. Silver thinks he’s going to kill him, but he’s only like. one-fourth right.
Me: But then someone says something about how the captain never ruts, and he figures it’s their mutual interest for the two of them to GET IT ON, so Flint will be a little less stabby all the time and Silver will have ingratiated himself to the crew by taking one (or two) for the team.
And they both need some stress relief! except then Flint knots him and it’s weirdly intense and Flint keeps lingering over the side of his neck.
Silver: “I have made a terrible mistake.”
therose: i think one of the things I love about a/b/o (and [soul] bonds and WHATEVER) is like. how do you deal with the universe saying THIS ONE
Silver is Not Pleased that its anyone – probably he’s run from people and situations before, but he’s stuck in this one b/c GOLD
Me: Yeah. And oh how man, what if he panics and fucks someone else? To prove that he’s not Flint’s, both to himself and to someone else in order to win their trust, and secure his share of the gold??
Max? Anne Bonny? Oh god, Charles Vane???
therose: ACK. Max and Anne are way too dysfunctional at that moment so U KNOW WHAT yeah Vane will do
Me: *kicks feet* SO. Post Charlestown, post-Miranda, post-reveal, post-LEG, they are totally broken and fucked up. In the doldrums they’re all too weak to have any hormone reactions, but then, inconvenience! Silver goes into heat in the Maroon camp.
therose: *chinhands* Flint can bide his time, when it calls for it and the wind is southerly, buuuuut he might lose his cool a little
Me: Silver tries to hold out at first because he doesn’t think anyone will want a one-legged wretch. And Madi is like, you want drugs? My knot? WHICH IS HELLA APPEALING, but. But. Flint. And… FOR FUCKS SAKE. He wants FLINT with him.
“I HAVE MADE SO MANY TERRIBLE DECISIONS,” he confides in Madi.
“Sounds like it,” she says and throws them in a heat hut.
By the time Flint actually gets to the hut, Silver is covered in sweat. He’s skinny from the doldrums and he’s taken off the prosthesis. He’d considered trying to be seductive but then thought fuck it, might as well go full horror show here.
And at first Flint is like, no. nope. not falling for this again. And Silver is like, YOUR DISTRUST IS NOTED AND UNDERSTANDABLE PLS DICK ME.
therose: Silver: lOOK AT WHAT YOU’VE DONE YOU PRICK
Me: They’re freaking out at each other from opposite ends of the hut, Silver on the bed mat and Flint just inside the door.
Flint: “You’ve shown yourself perfectly capable of finding whatever heat partner you want, why is this any different?”
Outside the hut, the Walrus crew and the Maroons are like: “oooooooooo boy.”
therose: me, crying, shoveling popcorn in my mouth: this is my new favorite story
Me: And Silver is like, cry-yelling because fuck you, it was you in my head. Vane might’ve had my body but he was you in my head and that is NOT supposed to happen! I’m not welcome in your head, fine, you’re in mine. You won, you beat me, PLS WITH THE DICKING.
therose: me, dying Flint, also dying
Me: I haven’t quite finished the series yet but I’m
partially spoiled for what happens at the very end re:
unburying their gays. SO LET’S TALK ABOUT JOHN SILVER
FINDING OUT THAT HIS ALPHA’S ORIGINAL BONDMATE IS STILL
ALIVE, AND HE DECIDES TO SEND FLINT TO HIM, BECAUSE HE IS
SCARED OF BEING LOVED AND THINKS FLINT WOULD BE HAPPIER WITH
THOMAS.
“Our people are different in many ways,” Madi says, low but
perfectly audible over the crash of waves far below them.
“But I do not think we are so different that you could
tell me the mark on your neck means nothing to
you.”
Silvergrips his crutch, grits his teeth, tightens his resolve even
as the ship’s sails dip over the horizon. “It was
never mine.”
(At some point they were in bed together, on the tail end of
something dark and awful, and Flint murmured
“Thomas” in his sleep so sweetly that Silver
thought he could feel his own heart shrivel inside of him.)
therose: silver you’re the worst the worst the wooooooorst let flint love you
Me: Yes, we agree that he’s the worst, now let’s talk about Madi deciding, fuck it, she wants that treasure. She’s made contact with Maroon camps on Jamaica: they’ve managed to maintain control over most of the island but the British are sending more troops and the balance of power is shifting. They need the kind of help that a large cache of treasure could buy them, in bribes and supplies.
So she tracks Flint and Thomas down, because fuck if she’s going to chase some stupid, scribbled-down treasure map. Flint sent one letter, only one, to Silver after Silver sent him away; Silver has never opened it. Madi steals it and reads just enough of it to know that he will still be where Silver sent him. That he has, horribly, vowed to be there should Silver ever want to find him.
Once she follows that path herself, Madi is both deeply unsurprised and deeply pleased to find a blossoming community of England’s refuse: the inconvenient bastards and cast-off wives, those who had engaged in infertile relationships, the mad and the “mad.” The plantation is no more a prison than a refuge, its original owner still present but quite obviously humbled and properly relieved not to have it any worse than he does.
She almost feels bad for disrupting their peace, but then Flint–his hair grown longer than she has ever seen it and soft without the salt air–sees her and his shoulders go rigid, his eyes searching at her sides, behind her, the cart, everywhere.
She is a little surprised by Thomas Hamilton. First, because he is an Alpha, standing right at Flint’s shoulder with calm assurance and absolutely no shame; second, that he uses that calm assurance to turn to Flint and say, “Of course we’ll help.”
therose: SCRREEEEEEEAM
Me: Can you imaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagine what Thomas Hamilton, Alpha, has to say to John Silver the first time they meet? Long John Silver, most feared pirate on the high seas, and he is fucking FROZEN in place while this impossibly tall, lean man with patrician features looks him up and down.
“So,” Hamilton says brightly. “Madi says you’re going to help us find the cache. We’d better be off, I’m given to understand that we’re racing quite a number of your former crewmen.”
“What? The fuck I am.” Once he’d gotten over the shock, joy, and horror of seeing Flint again, Silver had already started making plans to flee Nassau. For Florida, for France, for the bottom of the fucking ocean if it comes to that.
Hamilton’s eyes flash and his voice drops into the kind of growl that makes the hair on the back of Silver’s neck stand up. “Oh you will. Or I’ll show James the letter that you wrote back to him but never sent.”
For a moment Silver can’t place the subject–but then he is gripped with a new horror. Madi must have found that one, too, when she stole the first. The betrayal wounds, but he doesn’t have time to even feel the pain. His hand drops to the knife at his belt.
Hamilton may once have been the pampered son of an earl, but the intervening years obviously told him when someone is seconds away from killing him. He says carefully, “I don’t have it on me. It’s safe, somewhere that James will eventually find it, should anything happen to Madi or myself. Now, let’s discuss your crew.”
(What Silver doesn’t know is that Madi wasn’t the one who showed Thomas the letter. It came to his hands from James, to whom Madi had given it over at once upon her arrival in Savannah, along with her opinion that if something or someone did not intervene soon, John Silver was likely to drink himself to death by the end of the year. The letter was not any prettier than the hand that had written it; despite his black curls, blue eyes, and omega-sweet scent, Long John Silver is not a pretty man. But it was as heartfelt as it was anguished, enough that Thomas might believe that the feelings he saw in James’ eyes were mirrored deep inside the blackened, blood-soaked heart of the most infamous pirate yet living.
Deep, deep inside. James and Madi are out to dig up buried treasure; Thomas Hamilton is, too, and God help the man who gets in his way.)
theroseandthebeast: also I was 100% thinking about a Black Sails a/b/o/ fic this morning on the train. for reasons.
Me: ……..*slides over to you* Accidental bonding, perhaps?
therose: *leans in* I am LISTENING
Me: Silver the omega doin’ his thing, being a manipulative little shit, has no idea how fucking STARVED alpha!Flint is.
It’s been ten goddamned years since Flint lost his bond mate. He’s gotten by with beta!Miranda, but he’s more than a little rut crazy. The crew whispers that he uses his rut to fuel his murderface, and they’re not totally wrong.
Then Silver’s first heat of their acquaintance hits rather conveniently after they take the Spanish warship. He’s all set to use it to make nice with the crew BUT THEN….
therose: Flint is so angry and turned on he can’t see straight. Silver thinks he’s going to kill him, but he’s only like. one-fourth right.
Me: But then someone says something about how the captain never ruts, and he figures it’s their mutual interest for the two of them to GET IT ON, so Flint will be a little less stabby all the time and Silver will have ingratiated himself to the crew by taking one (or two) for the team.
And they both need some stress relief! except then Flint knots him and it’s weirdly intense and Flint keeps lingering over the side of his neck.
Silver: “I have made a terrible mistake.”
therose: i think one of the things I love about a/b/o (and [soul] bonds and WHATEVER) is like. how do you deal with the universe saying THIS ONE
Silver is Not Pleased that its anyone – probably he’s run from people and situations before, but he’s stuck in this one b/c GOLD
Me: Yeah. And oh how man, what if he panics and fucks someone else? To prove that he’s not Flint’s, both to himself and to someone else in order to win their trust, and secure his share of the gold??
Max? Anne Bonny? Oh god, Charles Vane???
therose: ACK. Max and Anne are way too dysfunctional at that moment so U KNOW WHAT yeah Vane will do
Me: *kicks feet* SO. Post Charlestown, post-Miranda, post-reveal, post-LEG, they are totally broken and fucked up. In the doldrums they’re all too weak to have any hormone reactions, but then, inconvenience! Silver goes into heat in the Maroon camp.
therose: *chinhands* Flint can bide his time, when it calls for it and the wind is southerly, buuuuut he might lose his cool a little
Me: Silver tries to hold out at first because he doesn’t think anyone will want a one-legged wretch. And Madi is like, you want drugs? My knot? WHICH IS HELLA APPEALING, but. But. Flint. And… FOR FUCKS SAKE. He wants FLINT with him.
“I HAVE MADE SO MANY TERRIBLE DECISIONS,” he confides in Madi.
“Sounds like it,” she says and throws them in a heat hut.
By the time Flint actually gets to the hut, Silver is covered in sweat. He’s skinny from the doldrums and he’s taken off the prosthesis. He’d considered trying to be seductive but then thought fuck it, might as well go full horror show here.
And at first Flint is like, no. nope. not falling for this again. And Silver is like, YOUR DISTRUST IS NOTED AND UNDERSTANDABLE PLS DICK ME.
therose: Silver: lOOK AT WHAT YOU’VE DONE YOU PRICK
Me: They’re freaking out at each other from opposite ends of the hut, Silver on the bed mat and Flint just inside the door.
Flint: “You’ve shown yourself perfectly capable of finding whatever heat partner you want, why is this any different?”
Outside the hut, the Walrus crew and the Maroons are like: “oooooooooo boy.”
therose: me, crying, shoveling popcorn in my mouth: this is my new favorite story
Me: And Silver is like, cry-yelling because fuck you, it was you in my head. Vane might’ve had my body but he was you in my head and that is NOT supposed to happen! I’m not welcome in your head, fine, you’re in mine. You won, you beat me, PLS WITH THE DICKING.
therose: me, dying Flint, also dying
Me: I haven’t quite finished the series yet but I’m
partially spoiled for what happens at the very end re:
unburying their gays. SO LET’S TALK ABOUT JOHN SILVER
FINDING OUT THAT HIS ALPHA’S ORIGINAL BONDMATE IS STILL
ALIVE, AND HE DECIDES TO SEND FLINT TO HIM, BECAUSE HE IS
SCARED OF BEING LOVED AND THINKS FLINT WOULD BE HAPPIER WITH
THOMAS.
“Our people are different in many ways,” Madi says, low but
perfectly audible over the crash of waves far below them.
“But I do not think we are so different that you could
tell me the mark on your neck means nothing to
you.”
Silvergrips his crutch, grits his teeth, tightens his resolve even
as the ship’s sails dip over the horizon. “It was
never mine.”
(At some point they were in bed together, on the tail end of
something dark and awful, and Flint murmured
“Thomas” in his sleep so sweetly that Silver
thought he could feel his own heart shrivel inside of him.)
therose: silver you’re the worst the worst the wooooooorst let flint love you
Me: Yes, we agree that he’s the worst, now let’s talk about Madi deciding, fuck it, she wants that treasure. She’s made contact with Maroon camps on Jamaica: they’ve managed to maintain control over most of the island but the British are sending more troops and the balance of power is shifting. They need the kind of help that a large cache of treasure could buy them, in bribes and supplies.
So she tracks Flint and Thomas down, because fuck if she’s going to chase some stupid, scribbled-down treasure map. Flint sent one letter, only one, to Silver after Silver sent him away; Silver has never opened it. Madi steals it and reads just enough of it to know that he will still be where Silver sent him. That he has, horribly, vowed to be there should Silver ever want to find him.
Once she follows that path herself, Madi is both deeply unsurprised and deeply pleased to find a blossoming community of England’s refuse: the inconvenient bastards and cast-off wives, those who had engaged in infertile relationships, the mad and the “mad.” The plantation is no more a prison than a refuge, its original owner still present but quite obviously humbled and properly relieved not to have it any worse than he does.
She almost feels bad for disrupting their peace, but then Flint–his hair grown longer than she has ever seen it and soft without the salt air–sees her and his shoulders go rigid, his eyes searching at her sides, behind her, the cart, everywhere.
She is a little surprised by Thomas Hamilton. First, because he is an Alpha, standing right at Flint’s shoulder with calm assurance and absolutely no shame; second, that he uses that calm assurance to turn to Flint and say, “Of course we’ll help.”
therose: SCRREEEEEEEAM
Me: Can you imaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagine what Thomas Hamilton, Alpha, has to say to John Silver the first time they meet? Long John Silver, most feared pirate on the high seas, and he is fucking FROZEN in place while this impossibly tall, lean man with patrician features looks him up and down.
“So,” Hamilton says brightly. “Madi says you’re going to help us find the cache. We’d better be off, I’m given to understand that we’re racing quite a number of your former crewmen.”
“What? The fuck I am.” Once he’d gotten over the shock, joy, and horror of seeing Flint again, Silver had already started making plans to flee Nassau. For Florida, for France, for the bottom of the fucking ocean if it comes to that.
Hamilton’s eyes flash and his voice drops into the kind of growl that makes the hair on the back of Silver’s neck stand up. “Oh you will. Or I’ll show James the letter that you wrote back to him but never sent.”
For a moment Silver can’t place the subject–but then he is gripped with a new horror. Madi must have found that one, too, when she stole the first. The betrayal wounds, but he doesn’t have time to even feel the pain. His hand drops to the knife at his belt.
Hamilton may once have been the pampered son of an earl, but the intervening years obviously told him when someone is seconds away from killing him. He says carefully, “I don’t have it on me. It’s safe, somewhere that James will eventually find it, should anything happen to Madi or myself. Now, let’s discuss your crew.”
(What Silver doesn’t know is that Madi wasn’t the one who showed Thomas the letter. It came to his hands from James, to whom Madi had given it over at once upon her arrival in Savannah, along with her opinion that if something or someone did not intervene soon, John Silver was likely to drink himself to death by the end of the year. The letter was not any prettier than the hand that had written it; despite his black curls, blue eyes, and omega-sweet scent, Long John Silver is not a pretty man. But it was as heartfelt as it was anguished, enough that Thomas might believe that the feelings he saw in James’ eyes were mirrored deep inside the blackened, blood-soaked heart of the most infamous pirate yet living.
Deep, deep inside. James and Madi are out to dig up buried treasure; Thomas Hamilton is, too, and God help the man who gets in his way.)
