bean-about-townn:

someone pls write an au where gates lives and james tells him about thomas mid s2 and later gates finds out that thomas could be at the plantation. so he drags billy off to find out

I did have an idea for a Gates lives AU a while back. It’s waaaaay on the back burner though so if someone wants it, more power to you, have fun. I was thinking that Gates might disappear when he goes back to the Ranger after he and Flint get drunk during the storm – the launch capsizes maybe and he washes ashore somewhere in Florida, a little waterlogged but basically ok, but the crew thinks Flint killed Gates, especially Dufresne who’s just paranoid that Flint’s going to find out about their brewing mutiny, and the said mutiny happens anyway, thus leaving us in the same place as in canon. Gates returns to Nassau just as Billy also finds his way back and there we go, problem solved, because Gates is alive, therefore Billy can’t blame Flint for that, he has no proof that Flint tried to toss him overboard (and I’m not sure I think he did anyway, but that’s up for discussion), and Gates is no longer angry at Flint because Billy is dead because hey, Billy’s alive, and we can all go back to our regularly scheduled plotting, scheming, and doing whatever.