WHO: Max & Various WHAT: A little catch-all post, mmaybe some open starters to come but I'll edit if so. WHEN: Ambiguously Harvestmere WHERE: Places NOTES: Black Sails spoilers and discussion of slavery in the thread with Silver.
Max's chin tilts, just so. It isn't as if she imagined John eager to risk his own skin, of course, but for all that he has become intwined with Flint's crew, she had never quite pictured him putting down roots. (There was a woman, wasn't there? Rumors that had seemed to Max out of character in much the same way. What if neither were?)
"I do." Softer, as if deciding only as the words leave her lips. "I do believe that of you."
Not of Flint. But Flint's friendship isn't what she's after today. Flint's won't be the one tested.
"Perhaps as long as that we have that in common, we need not be at odds."
To think, if things had gone differently in the beginning—
It was always about security in some form or another. He had never quite explained that to Max. There hadn't been time, and afterwards it hadn't seemed to matter. He'd given up his share, so whatever he'd planned for it was severed from him as thoroughly as his leg had been. Freedom, comfort, all of it, he'd have to achieve it by different, more difficult means.
Madi. At the end of all of this, she waits for him.
"I know you have people you wish to provide for," John says, careful of the tone, the expression on his face. He does not mean this as a threat. "I am much the same."
The closest John will come to acknowledging Madi in Max's presence: couched in ambiguous phrasing that could so easily apply to his crew, to the number of pirates fighting back on Nassau. The similarity is pleasing to him, reassuring in a way he does not like to fully consider. That sameness has always been there, which is truly what makes this difficult, makes them both wary of each other. Moreso than ever these days, with Max's priorities having shifted in a way John hadn't anticipated.
"All of which to say, I'd prefer not to be at odds with you."
For many reasons, anywhere between genuine appreciation and dreading the idea of having to constantly account for her as a threat to his machinations. But it all came to the same thing, really: it would be nice to be on more even footing with her.
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"I do." Softer, as if deciding only as the words leave her lips. "I do believe that of you."
Not of Flint. But Flint's friendship isn't what she's after today. Flint's won't be the one tested.
"Perhaps as long as that we have that in common, we need not be at odds."
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It was always about security in some form or another. He had never quite explained that to Max. There hadn't been time, and afterwards it hadn't seemed to matter. He'd given up his share, so whatever he'd planned for it was severed from him as thoroughly as his leg had been. Freedom, comfort, all of it, he'd have to achieve it by different, more difficult means.
Madi. At the end of all of this, she waits for him.
"I know you have people you wish to provide for," John says, careful of the tone, the expression on his face. He does not mean this as a threat. "I am much the same."
The closest John will come to acknowledging Madi in Max's presence: couched in ambiguous phrasing that could so easily apply to his crew, to the number of pirates fighting back on Nassau. The similarity is pleasing to him, reassuring in a way he does not like to fully consider. That sameness has always been there, which is truly what makes this difficult, makes them both wary of each other. Moreso than ever these days, with Max's priorities having shifted in a way John hadn't anticipated.
"All of which to say, I'd prefer not to be at odds with you."
For many reasons, anywhere between genuine appreciation and dreading the idea of having to constantly account for her as a threat to his machinations. But it all came to the same thing, really: it would be nice to be on more even footing with her.