So – does everyone remember this extremely excellent art from the other day? 

https://riisinaakka-draws.tumblr.com/post/164219221218/a-bad-day-huh-captain-flint-and-his-badass

I – may have done a silly little fic thing in response. I had to. The art made me laugh. 

The door creaked, and Eleanor stopped just outside it.

She was not drunk enough for this. She wasn’t sure anyone ever had been.

“Flint,” she said, and the man in question looked up from his spot on the floor, “are you a fucking man or a cat?”

The pirate on the floor shrugged.

“It got stuck.” He gestured with his free hand, and the arm hanging by one voluminous sleeve from her door latch swayed somewhat as if to further illustrate his point. Another man might have sounded plaintive, in his situation. Charles certainly would have, but coming from James Flint, the words were a simple statement of fact.

“And you decided to sit on my floor and feel sorry for yourself,” she observed, and he looked down again.

“Something like that.” He gave a tug at the trapped sleeve. “Fucking thing needs a good blacksmith.”

She rolled her eyes.

“You couldn’t possibly wear just the one layer like any other man on this damned island,” she said, and he glared. “And yet for some reason, I’m the one that’s not permitted to captain a ship,” she muttered. She pushed on the door, and he gave a noise of alarm, attempting to shuffle across the floor as she moved through the doorway.

“Eleanor!” he protested, and she rolled her eyes again.

“If you’ve gotten splinters in your arse from the floor, you can forget asking me to fetch a doctor,” she told him, and he turned wounded eyes on her. “Oh, don’t give me that look.” He turned his eyes to the floor, and –

Damn it all, she thought. Half the West Indies terrified of the man and not only was she not terrified with them, but she found herself bringing the mug of ale in her hand back to the door and settling herself on the floor next to him, her skirts tucked around her knees exactly as if she were fifteen again. She held out the mug of ale and he took it, swirling it around once as if to check for anything unappealing in the grog, and then drank, a long pull. He closed his eyes for a moment, and then handed the cup back to her. He did not speak – simply sat, looking ridiculous, hand suspended in the air, the fingertips of his other hand in his lap, the fabric of his coat straining gently at the slight pressure as he leant back to look upward at the thing properly. Whatever he say there seemed to cause him to despair, as he redirected his gaze to the floor with a sigh, and Eleanor felt herself soften.

“If you want to talk -” she started to offer, and he shook his head.

“No,” he said, and she nodded.

“I’m guessing you came here to discuss something,” she said, and he looked across at her, startled. She gave him a quick smile, and, to her surprise, Flint smiled back.

“I came to tell you the haul from our latest prize is a bit short,” he said, and she felt irritation lance through her. This was the cause for this bout of – whatever the fuck it was?

“I don’t -” she started, and Flint continued.

“The schedule wasn’t aboard,” Flint told her, and she felt her spirits sink. “I searched the entire damn ship – no sign of it. But -” He held up a finger, and pulled forth something that she could not see properly at first, the way that his free hand fumbled with it. At last, he produced the item, and she stared.

“Where the fuck did you find that?” she asked, and something flashed over his face – something indecipherable and gone again almost before she saw it.

“Doesn’t matter,” he rumbled, and handed over the heavy, beautifully wrought glass paper weight in his hand. She took it carefully – it might have weighed a fucking tonne, but she could not help but marvel at the delicacy of its crafting.

“You were saying your papers kept getting mixed up,” he said. “Now you’ll know if it was the wind or your nosy fuck of a lover.”

“We’re not -” she started, and then stopped, and saw Flint’s expression shift again.

“You threw him out?” he asked, and she gave a sigh, putting the paper weight aside.

“It’s a lovely color,” she admitted, dodging his question. Truly, it was – a beautiful clear blue that reminded her of the sea on a sunny day, or the color of the sky when there were no clouds obscuring it, and she could not for the life of her figure out why Flint looked as if the damned thing might possibly scorch him if he looked upon it for too long.

“That’s not an answer,” he told her, and she rose.

“No,” she said, “it isn’t.” She reached out. This little tete-a-tete was over, and she had no intention of indulging Flint’s shit all day. She untangled the man’s sleeve thread from her door in one deft movement, and Flint’s arm dropped. He rolled the shoulder, and looked up at her, mild irritation flashing over his face.

“Thank you,” he grumbled eventually, and placed the hand against the floor. A curse left his lips a moment later, and Eleanor smirked.

“Hand asleep?” she asked, and Flint swore again. “Next time, try untangling yourself, or I might put you to work as the house mouser.” He gave her an irritated glance, and then the corner of his mouth quirked. It was funny – even he had to see that, surely? A moment later, the smile grew, and then he laughed – snorted, really, but still, he was laughing, and Eleanor allowed herself to smile.

“Tell you what,” he managed after a moment, “if I see any mice on my way out, I’ll be sure to bring them to you.”

“Dead, please,” Eleanor told him without looking up from her account book. “I pay by the tail.”

The downstairs tap room that day could be heard to go quiet entirely for several minutes, shocked at the sound of Captain Flint and Eleanor Guthrie laughing until they could laugh no more.