The disparate pieces come to mind again: Nevarra, the Van Markhams, the rebel mages, the Imperium slaves and rebels, the elves, the pirates of Llomerryn.
This was always going to be a struggle uphill with the anyone who wasn't a mage or Rifter, Flint had said, not so long ago. If the incline has become steeper, the way up more given to loose rock and fewer handholds, is it worth abandoning their progress to seek a new method?
"Among others," John says, in the way of making an note on a sheet of paper, a reminder to himself to what must be included in any given address to the Walrus men. "All the more reason to be sure we hold the crew, and supplant them with the crews in Llomerryn. We'll have others, beyond the mages."
We'll have you, John doesn't say. It's a complicated statement, more burden than reassurance in this moment. But they'll have Flint, they'll have Madi. They have those aboard this ship, not all mages. Perhaps it would be enough.
The silence into which he lapses may be a deeper darker thing, but it is the kind of space he recognizes—one in which he knows generally the direction he might swim in to reach should he desire to surface again.
He's right. Something will need to be brokered with Llomerryn sooner rather than later. If not for this, then for the trade passing across the Waking Sea and from out of Rialto Bay. Whatever displeasure he might have for the prospect - the exact nature of which he cannot identify, only he knows that it irritates like a spur between his shoulder blades - weighs little against the rationale of the thing.
He studies some point past Silver - some feature in the cabin all in shadow beyond the pool of swaying lamplight. His breathing is quiet under the set of that hand. Most of all it is even. Measured. A tempo fit for examination of something he understands rather than the erratic attempt to take measurement of a failure he cannot parse in this hour.
(Today. Tomorrow. Maybe they will reach Kirkwall and he will still not have catalogued all the pieces broken off by it.)
When his eye line flickers back, something has quieted.
There is a shift in the air. John feels it when Flint's thoughts turn inwards. It's as if the tide comes in around them. John feels the lapping pull of it as Flint's eyes shift from his face. The light pressure at his wrist puts him in mind of a tether; the loose cup of his fingers at the nape of Flint's neck an echoing reminder of the shock of contact in the midst of so much wreckage and the long, clumsy tow back to shore.
Flint's skin is warm beneath his palm. There is no hitch of pain in his breath, but John knows very well that over time certain agonies resolve themselves so neatly that there is no outward sign. His thumb grazes the bristle of beard once more as Flint's eyes refocus and meet John's again.
"Let me," John offers, softly, before correcting himself: "Let us."
They are three now. Flint needn't thread the narrow line between Yseult, Darras and their own plans on his own.
"If we're to make full use of our forces, that will include a division of our own efforts as well. You have the mages to see to. Madi and I can oversee the efforts with Llomerryn. I imagine," he says, and there is something crooked in it - at attempt at resuscitating some ghost of wit, however dry. A thumb smoothing over a crack to mask that is was every there in the first place. Starting over, the imperfect nature of the attempt obvious only because the quarters are so close and because he is under John's hands. "That some measure of diplomacy will necessary in that, despite all that has happened here."
Which they all will admit is not his strongest suit.
The fractures are nearly tangible. John's thumb draws back and forth at the hinge of Flint's jawline, noting the way he draws at composure, the flash of humor. It's met with a slight smile before John nods.
"I'll speak to Isaac."
It says something that John begins there. But then, it had been Isaac in Nevarra that had begun the balancing act. If there is any alteration, it makes sense John considers it first with Isaac.
His hand turns slowly so as not to disturb Flint's fingers at his wrist as John's hand catches at his sleeve. The pressure of his fingers is light, entreating, as John straightens.
Some instinct flinches at the sense of leaving Flint alone with the enormity of this, without some tether. John studies him for a moment, hand settled, thumb at the hinge of his jaw.
You can ask me to stay, John doesn't say, because he doesn't yet know how to tread this narrow path he's set for himself. But Madi has her people here, for the moment, before they set out to carry the news of their defeat back to her mother, her home. What is left for Flint when John closes the door behind him?
That hesitation is marked. And for a moment, Flint balks in the face of it - stiffening against the shape of that hand and under the point of John's study. Some flicker of irritation rises, irrationally, behind his ribs to choke at the base of his throat.
What is he supposed to say? There is nothing he can produce to make up an easy dismissal with. I'm well, is fundamentally untrue. You've done all you can, is unsatisfying.
And there is a copper tang on his tongue. It reminds him to loosen the set of his jaw to the tune of aching teeth recently clenched tight, and by then he is confident that if he opens his mouth something practical must find its way out of it. For they have been practicing at it for hours, he thinks— only that thing in the base of his throat which comes up is all pierced through anger and frustration and split knuckle despair mingled together in a short catching sound. He puts his hand over his face before the tears come, and is furious when they do.
This is not such a sudden thing, but the yielding of Flint to it still comes to John along the same lines as the crack of thunder, the snapping of a mask in the midst of a storm. The raw vocalization of pain John had been able to guess at, imagine the shape of and estimate the depth of, draws him instinctively closer.
Earlier, John's offerings had been measured, couched in what he thought were terms easier for Flint to hear. (If I can halve the pain of this for you, so we can better see a way forward, I'd do so. Without question.) Comfort like a thrown line in a storm, quantified and carefully measured to be more easily taken in hand. But there's nothing measured in the way he sways carefully forward to take Flint's face in both hands, weaving beneath the splayed palm masking his expression.
"Don't do that," John says quietly, one thumb set at Flint's wrist; just the suggestion of pressure, nothing more. "Don't hide."
It is a severe thing that shield, thumb pressed hard to brow bone and fingers clamped tight, and for a long time nothing can alter it. The world narrows. It is a closed, blank place and a body is trapped there - grown too full for its skin and unable to molt it. That it hears John clearly or feels the set of his hands makes as little difference as what Flint wants does. That he knows what he's doing and how he sounds and what he is refusing is irrelevant.
The options are not to ignore what's being asked of him, or to lower his hand; they are to be powerless and do nothing, or to close tighter. He chooses the second thing because it is what he can control.
(They tell horror stories about abominations in Tevinter too.)
The silent shudder of Flint's body through this pain is familiar. John knows it. The wordless denial is not so far removed from John having attempted the same, holding shattered pieces of himself together with two hands as he burned with fever and endured through it.
John knows himself to be at a disadvantage. He is good at a certain kind of comfort, the kind of effortless, smooth-gleaming comfort that is nothing but a stall. He couldn't bring himself to give that to Madi nor to Flint.
Maybe it is a blessing that John doesn't consider the weight of his nature, what part of himself Flint is closing out. Maybe that too is a kind of self-preservation, refusing to acknowledge what may hurt him.
Softer: "James."
A name like a struck bell. A name said to the sound of Look at me.
He breathes in. It's a harsh sound, and is held for a long measure high in his chest until it fails there or until the sensation comes back into his fingertips or until the sway of the ship reaches him again and he is reminded of the arrangement of himself in relation to everything else.
What it isn't for is the time it takes to master the thing unwinding in him. That much is obvious in the naked anger and grief still left in his face when he at last recalls the ability to shift his hands and by lurching degrees lowers his guard to take John's wrists into them.
His exhale too is sawing rough. He can't bring himself to look at him.
John watches him, observing the winding storm move across Flint's face. His palms are warm at John's wrists, though his gaze doesn't return to John's face as John's fingers resume the slow, soothing curl at the nape of neck.
What balm can John offer? (I don't know that it's a thing to be eased, he'd said.) He is aware of the limitations of his own body, how far his own balance can stretch, how much longer he can stay on his feet. He is aware that there is maybe nothing he can say in the face of what Flint has lost, but that if nothing else he can make himself into something steady enough for Flint to lean against.
Some objection moves in him. It catches to curl briefly at his lip or to yank at the already uneven rhythm of his breathing, and his grip at John's wrists tightens, then moderates - the kind of ugly, unpredictable weather fit for being carried away by. When he looks at him, it's an abrupt shift. Restlessness and fear rise together like a flash of temper in his face.
"The way forward requires placing real trust with Riftwatch. With people willing to trade for their security. I'm not blind to that." They are untethered. Without Nascere, they require an anchor point. "You know what that becomes."
Faith becomes empty houses and dead women on fine dining room carpets.
The aftermath of that betrayal is muddled with pain and fever, but John had been able to discern the shape of it from the devastation Flint had meted out in it's absence and the violent grief that had clung to him for long weeks after.
In some ways, aren't they making a similar gambit? Aren't they trading on their vulnerabilities to draw allies closer? John's silent for a long moment as he considers the parallels, before he exhales, drawing up words at last.
"Listen to me," John begins, words coming as an echo, thumbs gentle where they smooth along Flint's face. "I cannot divine what the future holds for us. I won't lie and say that there is no possibility that Riftwatch won't fail us in some way."
Has Riftwatch not already failed them? John is keenly aware of every moment of the past year, of the dithering and hesitation over the prospect of taking decisive action, while their enemies ran rampant. He does not say this aloud.
"But I see no reason to assume that if Riftwatch were to give way beneath our feet, that we need be dashed to pieces. There are people who would follow us. We know the measure of them now. We are not at such a great disadvantage."
He is so aware of Flint's hands at his wrists, the movement of emotion across his face.
"I don't put my trust in them. I put it where it has always been, with you, and Madi, what we might work together."
There is at first an urge to rebel against the shape of any shred of consolation or of reassurance. He can feel it jagged in his center. It is a wound in need of protecting, something which would require both hands to shield and press closed.
Listen to me, John says. Eventually, hands still clamped tight over Silver's wrists, he does.
As an old line might separate under tension and be slowly unraveled to its basic threads, he gives. That copper tasting fury and fear rise enough to be insupportable and are dashed down again. All things become exhaustion. It isn't well, but it is honest in a way that even all that flashing vehemence wasn't—as if his outburst were some last thrashing denial before this point where his grip eases. Where, under the slow scuff of John's thumbs, Flint draws in a jerking breath.
He holds it for a moment before exhaling it all at once, but evenly.
The response comes to John this way: the exhale of breath, the relaxing of fingers that had clutched so tightly at his wrists. He thinks again of sailing through a storm, and the quiet that comes afterwards, when the force of nature has blown itself out. For a little while there is just the sound of the ship around them and the exchange of breath, the warmth kindled between them.
"Lay down with me," John entreats, after a time, when the ache in his leg and shoulder have grown past bearing. "Come here."
He's drawn slightly back as he speaks, but his hands don't shift, don't break Flint's grip nor cease the gentle pass of his thumbs.
He pulls away. It's a small thing, done in tandem to his hands smoothing clumsily down John's forearms. His fingers shift briefly at the coat's elbows as he draws back from that reassuring press of thumbs, the warmth of rough palms. When he releases him, it's to smooth one hand against the tension knotted in his brow then back across the crown of his skull. The bristling short hairs prickle at the scrape of his palm— And then to catch the edge of the desk, using its weight to pry himself stiffly out of the chair with a great scuff.
Go ahead, says every line of him. He'll be just a moment to fold away compass and ruler, the half charted headings. To bolt both cabin doors.
In the stretch of that separation is time enough for John to lay aside his coat, remove his boot. It is enough time to take stock of blossoming bruises, the clinging smell of fire and ash. (A reminder of the abomination in the Gallows yet again.) The ache in his shoulder and hip have spread, prickling across his shoulders and back dully as he lays aside the crutch.
Thus situated, he watches Flint's labored progression through the cabin. Marks the secured doors, the cleared table, the way he favors his bandaged side. (An echo back to their return to this cabin in the wake of Nevarra, after Isaac had repaired the crushed dent of his ribs then.) Some old habit urges John to fill the silence, but nothing comes to him just then. One hand folds over the other, thumb over fading scars.
Despite whatever aches plague him, there must be something to the simple exercise of doing - of moving about the room, of reorienting the cabin's space toward some other purpose, turning the lamp down - for by the time Flint joins him again some of that sense of battery has slipped away. Or has been papered over, or is simply harder to make out in the lower light. Or tucked elsewhere, for turning over in his fingers later when he is alone again. Regardless, he is a duller, less sharp thing. Which is for the best; the space is narrow for one person much less two, and there are pointy elbows and stiff knees and bruised shins and cut sides and Maker knows what else to contend with already. No need to bring any additional rough edge into play. They can hardly afford further injury.
"Make yourself comfortable," he says, hand very brief at John's knee before fishing away after the laces at the inside of his boot. He shucks them at the speed his pain will tolerate. "I'll find some way of being beside you."
It's so dark outside beyond the cabin's stern windows. The sea is black, the sky is jet, and the muted glow of the oil lamp is just warm enough to erase all texture and light from all things both inside and out.
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no subject
This was always going to be a struggle uphill with the anyone who wasn't a mage or Rifter, Flint had said, not so long ago. If the incline has become steeper, the way up more given to loose rock and fewer handholds, is it worth abandoning their progress to seek a new method?
"Among others," John says, in the way of making an note on a sheet of paper, a reminder to himself to what must be included in any given address to the Walrus men. "All the more reason to be sure we hold the crew, and supplant them with the crews in Llomerryn. We'll have others, beyond the mages."
We'll have you, John doesn't say. It's a complicated statement, more burden than reassurance in this moment. But they'll have Flint, they'll have Madi. They have those aboard this ship, not all mages. Perhaps it would be enough.
no subject
He's right. Something will need to be brokered with Llomerryn sooner rather than later. If not for this, then for the trade passing across the Waking Sea and from out of Rialto Bay. Whatever displeasure he might have for the prospect - the exact nature of which he cannot identify, only he knows that it irritates like a spur between his shoulder blades - weighs little against the rationale of the thing.
He studies some point past Silver - some feature in the cabin all in shadow beyond the pool of swaying lamplight. His breathing is quiet under the set of that hand. Most of all it is even. Measured. A tempo fit for examination of something he understands rather than the erratic attempt to take measurement of a failure he cannot parse in this hour.
(Today. Tomorrow. Maybe they will reach Kirkwall and he will still not have catalogued all the pieces broken off by it.)
When his eye line flickers back, something has quieted.
"I'll speak with Darras."
no subject
Flint's skin is warm beneath his palm. There is no hitch of pain in his breath, but John knows very well that over time certain agonies resolve themselves so neatly that there is no outward sign. His thumb grazes the bristle of beard once more as Flint's eyes refocus and meet John's again.
"Let me," John offers, softly, before correcting himself: "Let us."
They are three now. Flint needn't thread the narrow line between Yseult, Darras and their own plans on his own.
no subject
Which they all will admit is not his strongest suit.
no subject
"I'll speak to Isaac."
It says something that John begins there. But then, it had been Isaac in Nevarra that had begun the balancing act. If there is any alteration, it makes sense John considers it first with Isaac.
His hand turns slowly so as not to disturb Flint's fingers at his wrist as John's hand catches at his sleeve. The pressure of his fingers is light, entreating, as John straightens.
no subject
What else is there to say?
"Go be with her."
The loss must be more broad for her, he thinks - stinging for its lack of specificity.
no subject
You can ask me to stay, John doesn't say, because he doesn't yet know how to tread this narrow path he's set for himself. But Madi has her people here, for the moment, before they set out to carry the news of their defeat back to her mother, her home. What is left for Flint when John closes the door behind him?
no subject
What is he supposed to say? There is nothing he can produce to make up an easy dismissal with. I'm well, is fundamentally untrue. You've done all you can, is unsatisfying.
And there is a copper tang on his tongue. It reminds him to loosen the set of his jaw to the tune of aching teeth recently clenched tight, and by then he is confident that if he opens his mouth something practical must find its way out of it. For they have been practicing at it for hours, he thinks— only that thing in the base of his throat which comes up is all pierced through anger and frustration and split knuckle despair mingled together in a short catching sound. He puts his hand over his face before the tears come, and is furious when they do.
no subject
Earlier, John's offerings had been measured, couched in what he thought were terms easier for Flint to hear. (If I can halve the pain of this for you, so we can better see a way forward, I'd do so. Without question.) Comfort like a thrown line in a storm, quantified and carefully measured to be more easily taken in hand. But there's nothing measured in the way he sways carefully forward to take Flint's face in both hands, weaving beneath the splayed palm masking his expression.
"Don't do that," John says quietly, one thumb set at Flint's wrist; just the suggestion of pressure, nothing more. "Don't hide."
no subject
The options are not to ignore what's being asked of him, or to lower his hand; they are to be powerless and do nothing, or to close tighter. He chooses the second thing because it is what he can control.
(They tell horror stories about abominations in Tevinter too.)
no subject
John knows himself to be at a disadvantage. He is good at a certain kind of comfort, the kind of effortless, smooth-gleaming comfort that is nothing but a stall. He couldn't bring himself to give that to Madi nor to Flint.
Maybe it is a blessing that John doesn't consider the weight of his nature, what part of himself Flint is closing out. Maybe that too is a kind of self-preservation, refusing to acknowledge what may hurt him.
Softer: "James."
A name like a struck bell. A name said to the sound of Look at me.
no subject
What it isn't for is the time it takes to master the thing unwinding in him. That much is obvious in the naked anger and grief still left in his face when he at last recalls the ability to shift his hands and by lurching degrees lowers his guard to take John's wrists into them.
His exhale too is sawing rough. He can't bring himself to look at him.
no subject
What balm can John offer? (I don't know that it's a thing to be eased, he'd said.) He is aware of the limitations of his own body, how far his own balance can stretch, how much longer he can stay on his feet. He is aware that there is maybe nothing he can say in the face of what Flint has lost, but that if nothing else he can make himself into something steady enough for Flint to lean against.
"Where are you?" he prompts. Talk to me.
no subject
"The way forward requires placing real trust with Riftwatch. With people willing to trade for their security. I'm not blind to that." They are untethered. Without Nascere, they require an anchor point. "You know what that becomes."
Faith becomes empty houses and dead women on fine dining room carpets.
no subject
The aftermath of that betrayal is muddled with pain and fever, but John had been able to discern the shape of it from the devastation Flint had meted out in it's absence and the violent grief that had clung to him for long weeks after.
In some ways, aren't they making a similar gambit? Aren't they trading on their vulnerabilities to draw allies closer? John's silent for a long moment as he considers the parallels, before he exhales, drawing up words at last.
"Listen to me," John begins, words coming as an echo, thumbs gentle where they smooth along Flint's face. "I cannot divine what the future holds for us. I won't lie and say that there is no possibility that Riftwatch won't fail us in some way."
Has Riftwatch not already failed them? John is keenly aware of every moment of the past year, of the dithering and hesitation over the prospect of taking decisive action, while their enemies ran rampant. He does not say this aloud.
"But I see no reason to assume that if Riftwatch were to give way beneath our feet, that we need be dashed to pieces. There are people who would follow us. We know the measure of them now. We are not at such a great disadvantage."
He is so aware of Flint's hands at his wrists, the movement of emotion across his face.
"I don't put my trust in them. I put it where it has always been, with you, and Madi, what we might work together."
no subject
Listen to me, John says. Eventually, hands still clamped tight over Silver's wrists, he does.
As an old line might separate under tension and be slowly unraveled to its basic threads, he gives. That copper tasting fury and fear rise enough to be insupportable and are dashed down again. All things become exhaustion. It isn't well, but it is honest in a way that even all that flashing vehemence wasn't—as if his outburst were some last thrashing denial before this point where his grip eases. Where, under the slow scuff of John's thumbs, Flint draws in a jerking breath.
He holds it for a moment before exhaling it all at once, but evenly.
no subject
"Lay down with me," John entreats, after a time, when the ache in his leg and shoulder have grown past bearing. "Come here."
He's drawn slightly back as he speaks, but his hands don't shift, don't break Flint's grip nor cease the gentle pass of his thumbs.
no subject
Go ahead, says every line of him. He'll be just a moment to fold away compass and ruler, the half charted headings. To bolt both cabin doors.
no subject
Thus situated, he watches Flint's labored progression through the cabin. Marks the secured doors, the cleared table, the way he favors his bandaged side. (An echo back to their return to this cabin in the wake of Nevarra, after Isaac had repaired the crushed dent of his ribs then.) Some old habit urges John to fill the silence, but nothing comes to him just then. One hand folds over the other, thumb over fading scars.
no subject
"Make yourself comfortable," he says, hand very brief at John's knee before fishing away after the laces at the inside of his boot. He shucks them at the speed his pain will tolerate. "I'll find some way of being beside you."
It's so dark outside beyond the cabin's stern windows. The sea is black, the sky is jet, and the muted glow of the oil lamp is just warm enough to erase all texture and light from all things both inside and out.