bean-about-townn:

ellrond:

thomas seeing the huge scar across flint’s chest left there by singleton 

james telling him the story of that particular event, the event that triggered everything else, the urca, the mutinies, the war

telling thomas, and remembering with a smile, how miranda had bandaged him up and dressed him in clean white clothes, how he had whispered that he found the urca and that everything was about to change, all their hopes for nassau were soon to come to fruition 

how things went south and they fought and thomas’ name was spoken and miranda was right and james was wrong 

about abigail and miranda’s plan and how it took them to charles town and in turn resulted in her death… but how it also united the pirate lords of nassau for the first time in a way that they had not been before and how that had led to the start of the war

thomas touching the jagged scar and james closing his eyes, remembering miranda tending to it and cleaning it, keeping james safe from infection, keeping him safe in the small ways that she could

thomas looking at it and feeling awfully strange, as if the scar is the last thing of miranda that is left in the world, the last physical note of her existence on the earth, touching it as she touched it, his fingers carefully tracing where hers did

james and thomas sitting in silence and thinking about her, missing her, knowing that whilst they are happy together now, they will never be whole again without her

why would u do this thing to me. i see ur angst and raise you: James looking at Thomas’s scars

the ones from the chains of Bethlem, the accidental but unavoidable marks that encircle the wrists of anyone unfortunate enough to wear manacles for an extended period of time

the ones from the doctors of Bethlem, the ones Thomas was told were necessary to cure him (there’s nothing wrong with me, Thomas would say. and i will not break because you tell me it is necessary) 

the ones Thomas brought upon himself by fighting, by his rebellious nature, by daring to live and keep living when every aspect of the life Alfred Hamilton condemned him to seemed calculated to kill him 

and 

the ones on his palms, from where he dug his fingernails in until he draw blood, when the nightmares would come (James and Miranda lying dead, James and Miranda hating him, James and Miranda forgetting him………..) 

and 

the ones from where peter’s man hit him over the head to knock him out, when they dragged him from Bethlem and onto a ship, where he was kept in new chains in the hold, and his feet were always wet with seawater, and he didn’t see the sun or hear another voice. where he screamed, and no one came 

and 

sugar plantations are dangerous places. especially for a man still weak from the treatments of Bethlem. Thomas has scars from this place too. He hates them – hates anything that people tell him to be grateful for, when he knows they are wrong