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English
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Part 2 of Silverflint Mutual Appreciation Society
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Published:
2018-01-14
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1,673
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1/1
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James Flint Appreciation Week

Summary:

John Silver, having previously Felt Appreciated, determines to bestow the same feeling upon James Flint.

Notes:

A pendant to my previous John Silver Appreciation Week story. You don't need to read that one for this one to make sense.

This is in response to Tumblr's James Flint Appreciation Week, for the Day 7 prompt: Free Choice.

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Work Text:

“I’ve an important declaration to make,” comes the announcement just as the bed is jostled by the landing of the announcer himself leaping onto the mattress.

James had been happily dozing in warm, worn-in sheets in the warm morning sunshine.  Mornings are not when he is at his best, and he vocalises his displeasure at the disruption, something between a grunt and a growl.  Still, the change in circumstance is not all bad, as he is now covered in an amount of warm skin that corresponds to the body he likes best in the world.

“Come now, Captain,” says John, for of course it is John, as only John Silver would dare disrupt the sleep of such a volatile bedmate as James Flint.  “Open your pretty eyes and let me declaim what I have come to declaim.”

James cracks one eye he would call bleary rather than pretty and then, curse his foolish heart, all his peevishness disappears and he opens both eyes to the irresistible sight of his lover eagerly peering down at him, curls framing his face as he greets James with a blinding smile.  For all that they’ve had years together by now, for all that the dark of those curls is now well alloyed to match their owner's name, John is still such a child sometimes, and it never fails to make James’s chest clench tight with love. 

“What do you want, then?” James grumbles, but he pulls John’s head down to lie on his shoulder and strokes a hand along his back, and he takes John’s feline hum as forgiveness for his early morning irritability.

They get lost in that space for some moments, James’s hand running down and back up John’s bare, muscled back and John purring under the touch.  It’s only when James moves that hand lower and pinches the swell of John’s arse—perhaps not quite as firm as it once was, but no less pleasing for it—that the fleeting atmosphere is broken.  John yelps and squirms in a way that James finds distracting for other reasons entirely.  He decides to leave his hand where it is.

“Your declaration?” he reminds his lover.

John lifts his head and gives his hair an indignant little shake.  “Yes, you moment-ruining menace.”  He clears his throat theatrically.  “Ahem.  I hereby do officially declare this to be the beginning of James Flint Appreciation Week.”

He is so ridiculous and beloved.  “And what does this occasion entail, precisely?” James plays along.  He resumes his earlier stroking with the hand on John’s arse, navigating that familiar, tempting territory.

John’s eyes glint flirtatiously, and he shifts deliberately into James’s petting.  “I should think the name quite self-explanatory.  It involves a week of me ensuring you know you’re appreciated.”

“Hmmm, very well,” James says.  “Have you a suggestion for how we might begin?”  They are rocking against each other now, aligned just so, skin to skin, stiffening cock to stiffening cock.

“As a matter of fact, I do,” John sighs, and his voice comes low and louche and liquid.  “Tell me if I’m on the right track.”  He pushes up into James’s hand and then down into his enthusiastic body.

“If your track involves my prick in your arse, it’s the right one,” James cuts in, and feels a gratifying leap of John’s own prick against his and a hitch in John’s breath.

“As always, we are of one mind,” John purrs.  “So it’s good I already got up and made some preparations, isn’t it?” John purrs, holding up a bottle of oil before James’s face.

“I should say so,” James agrees, rolling John under him in their bed.  The sounds he proceeds to wring from John for the next hour make him feel very appreciated indeed.

{}{}{}

John makes good his proposal over the following days, and while James well remembers his own week of gifting John small things to please him, he is amazed at how John's offerings reveal a depth of care and sweetness that builds, day on day.

On that first morning, John had not only fetched the oil before waking James, but opened himself with it before returning to bed so that James was surprised to slide into his body with no delay.  On day two, John sat him down for a decadent hot shave, John’s slow, attentive strokes with a sharp blade coming warm and welcome across his skin.  Day three found a set of gleaming new awls awaiting James in his workshop for which he kissed his thanks into John’s mouth and throat.  Day four went by with no gift until James entered their bedroom to find John reclining like a pleasure boy, his bare, bronze skin gleaming in the lamp light and his eyes lined in kohl.  He offered a smile, a length of silken cord, and a promise to let James do with him as he liked for the night.  James eagerly accepted all three.

It was the fifth day when James began to wonder how long John had been planning this week-long project.  That was the day John shyly offered him a rather fine copy of The Odyssey bound in warm brown leather.  “You used to speak about how you hoped to make a home,” John said, uncharacteristically bashful.  “Now we seem to have one, and I thought you might like this to have in it.”

James smoothed his fingers across the finely tooled detailing on the spine and opened to the first end paper.  It was inscribed.

Always with you, oar to shovel, darkness to light. —Your John

His eyes blurred.  “John,” was all he could manage, and then he pulled the man tight into his arms and held him hard.

On day six, John gave him a ring.  It was a plain, silver band, no piece of pirate plunder.  “I know there’s no church that’ll have us, and I’ve never had much use for church, besides,” he said softly, holding the ring out in his open palm.  “But I love you, and I’ve no intention of being parted from you, and if you’ll wear this, I’ll have one just like it made for myself, and we could be promised that way... you know... like a husband to his... other husband, I suppose.”  John chuckled a bit at his own fumbling for the words that usually came to him so easily.

James took the ring from John’s palm and slipped it onto his smallest finger where it fit just right.  He pulled John to him and rested their foreheads together.  “Have one made for yourself,” he said, low and intent.  “For I love you, and I’ve no intention of being parted from you, and I’ll happily be promised to you like a husband to his husband.”  It came out of his mouth like a vow, which, he supposed, is precisely what it was.

John smiled at him and held the back of his head and kissed him, and James laughed into John’s mouth at how, for all the dangers and adventure and colourful characters of his life at sea, it was only now, with his carpentry and his small inland house and his husband, that his life felt truly full.

{}{}{}

It has been a week of unexpected and gratifying delights, and though John has been making jokes throughout about how to abbreviate his project’s title (“James Flint Appreciation Week is a mouthful.  Perhaps I can call it ‘J Flint A W’”) and speaking lightly of the whole thing, the truth of it is that James has, indeed, felt the force of how John is grateful to have him.  Who would ever have imagined them to be this forthright with their affections for each other back when a young thief stole and schemed his way into James’s crew?  But here they are, and James finds he has things he’d never believed he deserved, even with the Hamiltons all those decades ago in London.  John has taught him he deserves them, through persistence and frustration and kisses.  His life is so full of kisses now.

“Sit with me,” John says, here at the end of the last day of this week of tenderness between them.  He pats the sofa beside him.

James sits.  The fire is warm.  They’ve each got a glass of good whisky.  His lover has perhaps one last surprise for him after a week of offered pleasures, and he imagines it to be a good one.  James is quite content with his world.

John, however, looks nervous.  He tugs at the ends of his hair and puts down his glass, then picks it up again, then puts it down to smoothe his moustache.

“What is it?” James asks, stilling John’s restless hands in the grasp of both of his own.

John looks up at him, looks younger than he has in years, like a small boy afraid to confess.  James’s heart aches at it, and he brushes his fingers over John’s, hoping to soothe what troubles his lover.

John clears his throat and says, “I haven’t given you today’s gift yet.”

“John,” he interrupts.  “I’ve appreciated all of this week’s... well, this week’s appreciating, but you know I don’t need gifts from you to know how you feel.”

After a moment, John smiles fondly at him, like his affection has battled his anxiety and won.  He lifts his hands from James’s and cups them around James’s face.  “I do know, and I love you the more for how sure you are that I love you at all.  Nonetheless...” his smile fades into a determined look with which James is well acquainted.  John Silver means to accomplish something here.  “Nonetheless, I’ve one more gift for you to round out this week.”

“Very well then,” James says.  “What do you have for me tonight?”

John pets James’s hair back from his temples, joins their hands once more, takes a breath, and begins, “I was born in a small inn in Whitechapel to a father I never knew and a mother I hardly remember.”

Notes:

My Tumblr has been so delightfully flooded with James Flint appreciation this week, but really, my Tumblr is always there for appreciating James Flint. So come join me.

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