A/N: This fic is for the Can We Talk? forum's February challenge, From the Sidelines. Stories written for this challenge (which was issued by yours truly!) must be centered around a character who only appears once in the canon (in this case, John Silver) and must be under 1500 words long. (The word count for this story without the author's note totals 1103 words.)
Hope you enjoy it! Please R&R!
John Silver, the leading stock trader for the Silver and Hawkins Firm, was just about to enjoy a celebratory drink with his colleagues when he was greeted with a rather unpleasant phone call.
"A toast to my latest 'sale!'" he shouted, complete with air quotes that made his partners roar with laughter before clinking their wine glasses together. Silver's glass had barely touched his lips when his assistant Roger entered the room.
"Mr. Silver, you have a caller," he shouted over the laughter of the Wall Street pirates.
Silver set his glass down and sighed. He lifted his hands to silence his partners and made his way over to where Roger was standing, limping vaguely on his prosthetic leg. "Who is calling and what is their business, Roger?"
Roger grimaced nervously as he handed the telephone to his boss. "I would prefer not to be the one to tell, sir."
Not one to be angered by a few discouraging words from his assistant, Silver shrugged and told his colleagues, "Continue your celebration, friends. This may take a while." When he shut the door to make his way to his office, he heard the whooping, hollering, and excited chatter start up again.
Silver raised the phone to his ear and said, "This is John Silver of Silver and Hawkins speaking. May I ask who is calling?"
"Silver, old chum! I was hoping I'd get a talk with you," a familiar smug voice said through the receiver.
Silver scowled. Sinbad? What does that goddamn scalawag think he's doing, calling a man who hates his sorry soul at this time in the afternoon? And that's only the clean version of what he was thinking.
"What are you playing at, Sinbad?" he growled as he sat down at his office desk.
"Oh, so you want to get right down to the unpleasant business? No time for pleasantries, I see," Sinbad replied sarcastically. "Well, if you must know, Silver, you're about to be sued for all you're worth."
Silver found himself standing right back up again. "What are you talking about, Sinbad?"
"Oh, don't act like you're so surprised, Silver. You're fully aware that you've been scamming Everafters left and right lately."
This was indeed true. In the past, Silver had only worked with mortals, and he had played a fair game. It was against his morals to purposely do bad things to mortals, or allow anyone down on his luck to risk anything in stocks – and most of New York City's Everafters were pretty unlucky in terms of finances.
Of course, that was before he had held two members of Faerie's royal court on his ship at one time. It reminded Silver that there were in fact other well-to-do Everafters in the city. Not many, but a few. Plus, he sort of missed being a true pirate: bamboozling people to get their money. So he had been tricking some of the more well-off-though-dim-witted Everafters into buying bad stocks ever since his visit from Moth, Cobweb, and Veronica Grimm's daughters.
"Though that may be true, sailor, why do you think you have the right to sue me?" Silver inquired. "I've never done anything to you."
Sinbad scoffed audibly. "So routinely bombing the Staten Island Harbor and destroying my ferries is nothing?"
"You're not suing over that, are you, Sinbad? Because you know that it would be impossible to prove that my men did that. I have quite a collection of Forgetful Dust at my disposal, in case you have forgotten."
"Oh no, nothing like that, Silver. It's about something much more personal than those ramshackle old ferries."
Silver stifled a laugh. "This isn't about Veronica Grimm's daughters! Face the facts, sailor, their mother is gone. Keeping them alive is not automatically going to bring her back. Plus, I've already used the Forgetful Dust in that area. The police are convinced that it was their dear old Granny's fault, bringing them to a party on a ship with liquor. They have no evidence whatsoever of me 'kidnaping' or 'trying to kill' them. You might be punished instead for falsely accusing me!"
Sinbad chuckled over the phone. "Wrong again. In fact, this all goes back to your business trickery. You see, it has been brought to my attention that you have recently traded stock to a poor Everafter."
Surely Sinbad was lying. Silver had never, not once, done business with anyone lower class. It was against everything he believed in. And being a former pirate, he didn't believe in much.
He was about to protest, but Sinbad beat him to it. "I know you think I'm lying. But it's true. This Everafter is very close to me, and he tells me that he made you believe he had money so he could test his luck in the stock market. And now he's lost near $1,700."
Silver was furious. "Who is this Everafter? I have quite a lot to say to him."
"Don't bother, Silver. He's made me swear to secrecy about his identity. But he told me to inform you that soon, Silver and Hawkins will have lost about three times as much as he did. Pleasure speaking with you." And with that, Sinbad hung up.
Silver slammed the telephone back down on its dock. Who did Sinbad think he was? Certainly not someone who could mess around in the affairs of the pirates of Wall Street. But when he really thought about it, he reasoned that Sinbad must have been making this up to mess with his head. There was no possible way that a street Everafter could trick a respected Wall Street tycoon in such a way. Silver didn't know if he should be angry or amused that Sinbad would lie in such a fashion.
Deciding that this whole thing was nothing to worry about, Silver made his way back to the celebration. Roger was waiting there anxiously.
"What's the damage, sir?" he asked.
"It was nothing. Just a filthy sailor trying to scare me out of my money," Silver answered.
He headed back to the front of the room, where he once again raised his wine glass. "To our latest scam! And many thanks to our wealthy Everafter sucker, Mr. . . . " He paused to read the name on the files. "Ah, yes, Mr. S.B. Thesailor!" Then, he noticed something.
"S.B. Thesailor," Silver mumbled to himself. "S.B. The Sailor." He gasped in realization. "Sinbad the Sailor! The goddamn scalawag set me up!"
He dropped his glass in horror, creating a bright violet stain on the lounge's carpet. He continued to stand there, wide-eyed, as his partners exchanged looks of confusion.
A/N: Please R&R!