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WHO: Silver, Flint
WHAT: Two pirates scouring Kirkwall's bookshops in the service of important diplomacy work.
WHEN: Early Drakonis
WHERE: Kirkwall
NOTES: Doing their JOBS.

It is their fourth stop. They've wound their way through the more prominent Hightown booksellers, having worked their way from out of the company of skittish shopkeepers anxiously overseeing the systematic scrutiny of their shelves by two alleged pirates and into the clutches of what can only be described as Kirkwall's most peevish old bat:

"I don't care who you think you are; you can't be here this long without purchasing something," she'd wheezed at them in the cavernous old place, one hand trembling at the head of her cane and the other arm wrapped around a ginger cat with large blinking eyes.

Which is why they now own a collection of romance novels with increasingly unlikely love interests, including but not limited to a Chantry sister and a shapeshifting witch, between them. It's also why they're being left alone now to pick through the labyrinthine shop's back room, wading through unorganized stacks of used titles, and--

Choking on dust, mostly.

"Have you considered simply copying the book instead?" This said into his sleeve while scrubbing a thick layer of grime from one of the room's upper shelves.

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"You can't be serious."

As John pushes upright, crutch taking his weight, the haphazardly balanced box at the edge of the table tips. The resulting thud is followed by a whispery spill of yellowed paper. Their sole feline observer hisses in answer.

"You can't imagine that if I didn't trust you implicitly that I would have remained here."

The larger objections wait, momentarily stayed by the absurdity of that suspicion.

In some other circumstance, it might prompt a step forward. In this one - despite a lifetime of companion ways taken in the dark and in high weather with a ship rearing through trough and over wave -, the ladder checks him.

"You think this is a waste of time."

"I think you've shut me out."

John asserts this without missing a beat, because he cannot broach the idea that this has all been for nothing. He is here. They remain here. John knows they cannot leave empty-handed. How can he say that he fears they've wasted years and jeopardized their partnership for nothing?

Is it reassuring that the answer is some diverging line leading away from that point? That he refuses to give the subject even the merit of his attention. Or does that mean it matters more than whatever this is, on account of John Silver and his penchant for bending backwards to avoid any painful thing?

"I have shut you out? What has changed? We came here to achieve a shared end, and that is what I have been working toward. You know this. Part of that is now balancing the interests of the rebel mages while beating back the suspicion of three people who would rather I disappear down a dark alley. I was honest when I said I would protect your secret, but you knew when I said so that it would be me weathering the consequences. And you were happy enough then to let it be done. So what more do you want from me? To apologize that I'm not your fucking wife?"

"Happy? I was happy?"

That single, incredulous response bursts from John before he can stop it, and what follows is clamped down upon before it too can be put to voice.

There are other objections, old fears that crowd and choke him. What John understands consequences to be are vastly different than what Flint invokes here, but John cannot speak them aloud. Perhaps he wouldn't be able to even if they were truly alone.

He stops himself. Draws a breath. Swallows against the sharp, bitter impulse to snap.

"I'm not asking for apologies. I'm asking that you halve the burden."

But there is still the sense of the world coming apart beneath his feet, as if he'd been stood upon a shattering deck all this time and only just realized the danger of being plunged into the sea.

He isn't blind. No one could honestly accuse him of that. He can recognize when he's made a wound. The trouble is, he doesn't know what flinching is. Blood seeks out blood, and an open gash warrants the searching press of fingers - some follow up, whether it be in the form of a further slashing cut or the application of pressure.

"So your fingerprints can be left all over it and followed by anyone with half the mind to do it? Yseult is some kind of assassin, capable of and willing to put a knife to our throats given reason to do it"—pitch hissing lower—"Byerly Rutyer a fucking Ferelden spy, who already thinks he knows something.

"Has it not occured to you, with all your faith in me, that there might be some purpose in what I've chosen to do?"

Nearly two years they have been playing this delicate game. Two years they have been holding disparate pieces together through the force of their effort. There is a bitter, heady kind of relief to try snapping something into pieces instead.

The cat has fled. The whisper of paws and swish of tail are all John catches as he takes another step forward. Dust and grit swirls, disrupted by the motion as John moves to the foot of the ladder. Another conversation comes to mind: John sat on his haunches, looking up into Flint's face, I don't want to be a pirate.

"We are partners in this endeavor."

Is this a truth or an aspiration? Say a thing too many times at once and it rings false. John knows this. But still he says it again, waits for the world to acknowledge it properly.

"They assume it of us already. Why shouldn't my fingerprints be there?"

Held back: Do you know how completely I have been able to hide myself?

What use would it do to call attention back to the truth that had created this fracture in the first place?

"I'm telling you there is a way forward that does not see you carrying the totality of this endeavor on your shoulders."

It's different. The line which can be drawn from their partnership to Nascere is distinct from the one which points directly to Silver, to whatever he is. It is closer to the path Rutyer has already charted once - 'And that information will be about Captain McGraw, Tevinter agent provocateur,' - and might easily do so again. It is different because he cannot tolerate the threat of it. It is different because this line, this direction, is somehow more delicate than All I want is freedom in Nascere, safe from the Qun and Tevinter and whomever else might come for its throat, and all the moving parts necessary to achieve that. Let Yseult, Rutyer and Thranduil have that if they care to dig for it. But twisting this piece of it into something unrecognizable— the possibility is so sour on his mouth.

His heel is hooked hard against the ladder's rung. He is trapped here, in this elevated point.

"I will see us through this," is what a zealot prays or someone with their guts in their hands says. If you say something enough times, it can become true. "Trust me."

"I do."

What else can he say? It is the truth. John offers so few of them freely, and he does not withhold this. His trust is a foregone conclusion. It stretches beyond the tie he'd made to this man and this war with a sacrifice of blood, bone and flesh. John feels the snare of it more acutely with each passing day.

"But you cannot say I am protected by leaving me in a dark room and hoping those who circle us will take no notice."

The thought of It worked once before, crosses his mind - a house on an island, a place meant to be preserved - and then slides away. It is at best a partial truth, and he can feel Miranda staring at him from somewhere between the rows of dusty books about them with all the penetrating demand that her simulacrum in the Gallows hadn't quite effected.

(There are smudges on his knee where he has set his dusty hand - a series of ghost-like thumb and finger prints against dark fabric which call out the restlessness inherent to all of this.)

"I understand what this must look like to you," resolves so evenly that it is dangerous. "Given the nature of our business, and with all the theater by which it is accomplished, and how we have a natural reliance on what is said and not said by who and to whom, I can see how you could believe it possible to exist in two states. To be both safeguarded and equal in this work. I once thought something similar."

That there could be two men with his same shape, and that the bloodier of the two could be put away in a time and place of his choosing.

"But the sooner you recognize that is a story you're telling yourself, the sooner we can decide how best to move forward from this."

When has anyone in the whole history of the world been both sheltered from and capable of changing it?

"Then tell me. What story should I tell myself to make this palatable?"

What makes all of this easier to bear? Is there some lie that will make Kirkwall feel less like forced isolation?

"The truth."

Is such an unyielding way of putting it.

"That either you can be satisfied with trusting that I can see us to the other side of this, that I'm acting in the interest of this partnership; or that you can be here, exposed to the details and made more vulnerable because of it. The indecision between the two seems to be weighing on you."

It's a bad bargain, John thinks. The observation is almost passive, just a detached notation registering in the back of his mind. No matter what he chooses, the fracture deepens.

"Come down from there."

John is careful with his tone. There can be no large gestures, no rise in pitch.

In some way, this is a moment to stall. Where is the third option? What cudgel can he grasp for to redirect the iron of this choice?

And so he does, for a moment as if he is biddable or has nothing at risk in this: the fixed heel of his boot coming unhooked from the ladder's rung, dusty hands pat clean against his thigh before they are turned to the task of descending the ladder.

The shop is silent as he descends. Even the sound of John's crutch on the floor is muted as he moves back, making space between the tables and the shelves for Flint to clear the ladder. The low burn in his shoulders is a warning, one that John registers and sets aside.

Briefly, he thinks it is a miracle the shelves have not collapsed. The damnable book has not presented itself. And now John is stood here, having made no progress on one task and arguably having worsened the more important venture he'd attempted today.

"You must speak to me."

He can't doubt now, but he does. Is this his own weakness and misery coloring his assessment of their position? He cannot withdraw, but that flash of uncertainty cannot be ignored.

But surely, surely it isn't only to his benefit. Surely they are more formidable when they know each other's minds. John cannot imagine that to be a miscalculation.

"It's nothing to do with my trust in you. You have it. That fact remains unchanged after all this time and will continue unchanged. Do not imply that my need to know your thinking suggests otherwise."

One hand remains in place, hooked there on a ladder's rung as if this will be the shortest part of this conversation and he means to resume this nonsensical task as soon as it's finished. There is spilled paper to be swept up and a shelf on the verge of collapse which demands a few volumes to be shifted from it. There must be other book sellers in Kirkwall.

"I'm not implying anything. You're welcome to any thought I have. But I am telling you if that is the case and if my presence in this isn't enough, more than yours will be required. Clearly you have concerns which extend past what we learned in Nevarra and whatever you think needs repairing between us. Why not voice them now? I was under the impression this road could be traveled in either direction."

Is it the time? The distance? The disappointment that Nevarra has not yet paid out as it was meant to? That taken on paper, they are hardly closer today to the goal then when they first made their way South to accomplish it?

(It will be easier to create the right thing to say if he knows that much.)

Am I?

What is he welcome to? That he feels the need to ask at all shows to John the fissure between them. There had been a point not so long ago when he'd understood Flint's thinking well enough that his questions could be concise, pointed. Now every inquiry at hand is broad, trying to grapple with large swaths of territory unaccounted for.

"You find no need for repair?" He asks instead. "You find our present state of affairs tolerable?"

But almost the instant he poses the question, he considers that it's likely Flint does. Consider the state John had found him in. Consider the stretch of time in which they were first acquainted. The answer is almost a foregone conclusion when set against that memory.

Edited 2020-03-27 17:56 (UTC)

That hand is a tether.

It keeps him within arm's length of the ladder, one in a series of checks. But the distance between them in this back storeroom with all its dust and moldering paper isn't really so great; the way Flint flexes forward against it in response isn't inconsequential and neither is the shifting line in his face. There is a bright, scalding heat in it - the instinctive snarling look when clipped by something sharp -, which bristles then at once involuntarily gives way into a shape which is both more razor keen and more open to battery.

"Is that what you think this is? That I'm enjoying this? That I would be rather be in a room with the likes of Rutyer and the Provost, trying to convince them that the way forward should be more certain than pinning all our hopes on the whims of rich Antivans and whomever in Orlais still has people left standing to drive in front of them? Don't be fucking absurd," is snapped back, though the brittle part is--

"It's a sacrifice. One I have been willing to make in the interest of keeping you comfortable here rather than dictate circumstances you would find yourself obligated to avoid. If I didn't want to preserve this, don't you think I would have found a cleaner way of setting you aside?"

Somewhere, in the backroom, the decrepit shop-keep is certain they're still arguing over someone named Beverly.

But the reality is this: the earlier assertion of happiness sliced like a dagger, and this further assertion of comfort is salt thrown across the gash. The weight of sacrifice does not settle easily onto his shoulders, would not even if he were truly untouched by the endless isolation of his present position.

"I did not want this."

Again, the old refrain. One more entry in the long list of events and circumstances he had tried uselessly to avoid.

"You're angry with me."

The statement is almost resigned. He should have said that first, knowing they would end here anyway.

"For what?" Is his grip flexing on the ladder rung. "I'm not angry with you. I'm"—searching for the right word—"concerned."

Isn't that true? He thinks it must be. That if he wasn't, every part of this - not just the argument, but the demands of the work and what has become necessary to invest in - would feel less severe.

"I'm sure you're capable of both."

It is of some comfort to John that he can divine the place where anger gives way to something more complex in Flint's expression. But that doesn't leave him with any path forward. He knows the root of both anger and concern.

After all these years drawing breath and walking this earth, John has not yet found a way to rip out the part of himself that creates trouble. What sacrifices Flint makes in the name of safeguarding it adds a new layer to John's misery. He'd suspected, but confirmation brings no real peace.

"My well-being, and our goals, all come to nothing if your time spent in those rooms wears you past the point of tolerating the situation at all. I'd thought at the least I could offer assistance with that."

But it's useless. It's repeating the same offer in hopes of trying to find some new combination of words that will push past the impenetrable wall Flint has constructed. Maybe there's some truth he could offer (that he's miserable, that he's grown tired of this city and this organization, the kind of truths he cannot ever say aloud) that would rattle Flint enough to sidestep his rationalization, but John deems the risk too high. He's already been truthful enough about privately held facts for a lifetime.

"Stop," is curdled frustration as much as it is an order of dismissal. His hand comes away from the ladder, and at once he is moving: around Silver to begin collecting the loose papers spilled over the floor. It's a ready substitute for-- it's something to do with his hands, with the impulse to do act in some way.

"This is not a question of what I can tolerate," he says, gesturing with the growing collection of papers. The upended box is righted. "This is about how I have been asking what exactly it is that you're so troubled by and how you still haven't given me an answer which includes you in it."

The answer, the truth, is akin to cracking his own apart. For all the trust between them, there are instincts he can't shake. An answer that includes him feels like an impossibility. There are limits to how vulnerable he can allow himself to be, especially now that he's already given over a far more destructive truth to Flint.

If he cannot frame this in terms of the effectiveness of their partnership, of how useful John can be with Flint withholding information, then how does he frame it?

"It's a simple answer, really."

So simple John doesn't know how to speak it aloud.

"I can't tolerate our present circumstances."

Two concise statements, so narrow as to not betray the full scope of John's feelings on their situation.

He straightens.

There in the shop's dusty, ill-lit back room, the shape of Silver seems somehow folded shut. As if there is very little to study, nothing to look at and find an answer in. He looks anyway, and his attention is bright in the way that burned things sometimes are.

When he does speak, Flint says, "We're not having this conversation here," and dumps the collection of papers back into their box.

The beat of silence is all it takes for John to reconsider. That single slip of armor is enough for a knife. It's a matter of when it will come.

"Alright," he answers.

In this moment, he misses Madi so acutely it's hard to draw breath. He'd slipped with her as well, though he can't recall if that moment had felt like this one. The details are lost to him now.

But he does wonder (if only because it's a tactic he would certainly fall back on) whether the objection to venue is just a way to divert any further discussion altogether.

"Where? A tavern? The Walrus? Your office in the tower?" John's tone is forcibly light as his hand blindly settles on the dusty shelf to his left.

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katabasis - 2020-03-29 02:33 (UTC) - Expand

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