What a sweet young man. A crack shot with impenetrable nerves and decorum, here looking flustered over the lightest attentions. Crozier wonders if he's always been so overlooked, or if he just thinks his commander — Irish, as good as gutter-born — should be obliged to overlook someone in a servant's position.
"Perhaps it was a wise tactical maneuver to never tell you which repairs were my own," he muses, plainly entertained. "What was my hand, what was a tailor's, what was one of the gents' stewards before your arrival, what was the surgeon's?"
He's got jokes.
"I'll let you believe mine were the least worthy of any judgment, from you or your nose."
"If you've so many tailors, sir, then I can allocate your repairs to much of the crew then it seems. I could put my hands to use elsewhere; there's always plenty of laundry, Captain."
Ha. Laundry. That's definitely what he's talking about here - but he speaks so plainly that even the passing mate won't think twice. Either well respected or thought to be a little odd, Jopson doesn't mind either way, so long as he's able to do his job without fail.
"But rest assured I won't task you with something so trivial. You've a ship to command, after all, I will be certain you are always tip top."
A small smile and he looks away from the man, almost sheepish as he glances out over the deck.
"At least until you stain your shirtsleeves with grease or ink again. Then I might well send your mending to McMurdo. Not nearly as skilled with a needle as he is his hitches, sir."
As if. He'd sooner throw himself into the fire than give up the captain's mending.
"Your nose would go again as soon as he returned his work," Crozier says, pointing at him. Bit rude in polite society, but they're speaking casually here and now, just two men joking around. Closest thing to outside a pub they can get at sea.
He understands Jopson, he thinks. So much so that he's sure he didn't, not quite, earlier on— Francis cares a great deal about sailing, and about all the odd bits of science he's come to do despite no formal education. Young Thomas, in turn, cares a great deal about his work. There is no glory in toil, no matter what Catholicism has tricked so many of his countrymen into thinking (and which the English have happily exploited), but there is a freedom in defining oneself by a trade. Applying skill and time to something erases rank, origin, wealth. A sailor is just a sailor, and so, is a tailor.
Perhaps he'll throw himself overboard for even thinking in rhyme.
"God forbid I actually end up slovenly. You don't know how good you have it, lad. The tales I could tell about certain men."
Jopson laughs softly - yes indeed, his nose would go the moment anyone returned with poor tailoring in hand. No less tailoring meant for the Captain. A silly thing, enjoying this type of work when he's surrounded by men and sailors and Navy men who toil at much more complex and difficult things than he does. But no matter the wear of his clothes or the age of them, Jopson will be sure that Terror always has a Captain that shines just as her bow does.
"So long as I am your steward, sir, there will be no cause for concern. If you so much as appear to be leaning toward the slovenly, then it's best you send me to the gig and have me row my way back to England."
A sigh, a beat, then the heart of it.
"But I enjoy your tales very much, sir," he muses, a quiet honesty in the statement, meeting Francis' eyes, a light in his own. Maybe it's the alcohol that's made it so easy to speak casually like this up on deck. Some might think he's ill for the way he allows his back to curve, his posture to break, his face to warm and turn softer at its edges.
"So if you must be slovenly to regale us, then I suppose I must loosen my standards for a story or two, sir."
Jopson is stuck with him. No longer is he at risk of being sent out on a rowboat to fend for himself, out of punishment or suspicion— which means the threat has lost all power, too, and there is precious little to come between the relentlessness of this particular steward and his charge.
One day, there may be cause to regret endearing himself to Crozier. But they are on the other side of the world from that day.
A sigh, then, comically put-upon, for Jopson is well aware by now that Crozier considers himself bad at telling stories (no matter that he has thousands he could relate), and furthermore, is concerned the practice edges too close to gossip, which he truly dislikes. But, he did bring it up, a tactical error.
"Fortunately for you, I needn't mimic them to talk." He leans against the rail, hums something. Considers a pipe, or a cigarette, and decides it's too much trouble. "I knew a captain who took too close a liking to the goats we had aboard, once."
Crozier's stories will never fail to warm him in a way not even alcohol can touch. He laughs easily at the tale, at the way the man puts on the voice of the men he speaks of, and Jopson commits the details to memory. Life feels easy here on the deck of the ship in the cold and quiet of the night. The men below seem to settle (or pass out, it's hard to say), the noise dying down as each officer returns to their bunk or to the galley. A telltale sign that they should be returning belowdecks as well.
Jopson's still smiling to himself when they make it back to the great cabin despite the mess it's in. He'll sort it out in the morning - unusual for him, but he doesn't feel the need to waste the curious, golden moment like this on table cleaning. Instead he locks the door as he always does.
He shouldn't indulge himself but there's whisky in his veins and a lightness in his chest that draws him to the man so he can reach and touch his cheek, fond.
"Come, sir - let me get your things ready so you may get some rest before tomorrow, even if your stories are a very tempting distraction."
"What stories?" teasing, he captures Jopson's hand on him, holds it to his chest. "I've run dry of them, not a one left. Silent as the Sahara."
Gossip. He'd never. Crozier crowds into his space — the door's locked, after all, his steward is as meticulous as he is relentless, even warmed by drink — and catches him around the middle with his other hand. A posture almost like they're going to practice waltzing again, but there's no room at all.
"Do you have any you're hiding like an oyster guarding pearls, or should I leave the prying alone?"
Jopson snorts - silent as the Sahara is as far from the truth as can be. Though Crozier himself is not an noisy, busy man, Thomas doesn't think he'd like him so well if he was silent. But he's snatched up, the space between them eked out by the hand at his waist, stunning him into a stupid quiet for a few seconds.
Then a laugh, something a little bright, and maybe a hair louder than he'd ever allow himself were he not loose and warm from drink.
"I have no time for gossip and stories, sir, my time is devoted to you first and foremost," he says in mock seriousness, even as he reaches his free arm to wrap round his shoulder, fingers splaying at Crozier's neck, slipping into the hair there.
He leans in a little closer, almost conspiratorial. "I'm afraid I'm very boring, Captain."
Jopson is unbearably charming. A rare laugh, loose and like a wind chime, bright and ringing. It's very handsome, and fitting. Crozier sways them a little more, just playing. No room for anything, or real intent besides— not so drunk he couldn't do proper turns around a gallery, but he wants this more. Closeness, and laughter like secrets.
"You haven't bored me for a moment these long months," he asserts. "It's your sanity I worry for in that regard, enduring the things I can get on a tear about."
A very patient young man putting up with half the books they read being about magnetic navigation. Crozier enjoys his topics of study very much, but he's also very self-aware. The sorts of things only lunatics find interesting.
"You could tell me any story, and I'd like it. The mysticism behind a favorite color, or your preferred shoe sole."
"I rather enjoy the stars and magnetism and science of it all, even if I do not always understand it."
A soft scratch at his nape, up and down in the fair hair, settling against the warmth of him there is a pleasant addition to their swaying. Dreamlike, all of it, with the ship swaying in the water, the room warmed from the way officers packed in shoulder to shoulder, singing and drinking.
Quiet now, just as he prefers it, their little world secluded from everything else. He tips his head closer, letting their noses brush, their foreheads touch. "Be careful what you wish for, sir, else I'll bore you with tales of the great and terrifying blanket stitch or the many uses for basting and tacking. But my favorite color? A simpler story - I rather like the color of indigo best, I think."
He adjusts the hold on his hand, lacing their fingers together; distantly, he wonders if he's treating Jopson too much like a woman, with all of this. But surely he'd pull away, or at least stop moving towards, if he were making missteps.
"It can't be the same for me?"
Crozier, equally enjoying whatever Jopson might feel compelled to tell him, just as Jopson likes the stars and magnetism. He presses a kiss where their fingers are linked, mostly on his steward's knuckles, all pressed closed together still, and he smiles.
"I hope you spent plenty of time on deck on your Racer," he muses. "The water in those seas is that color, and goes on for an eternity under the sun. Probably reflected off your eyes and set you glowing. Aye?"
“I was told I’d get sick of the sight. No horizon, only water for days on end. I didn’t, sir. Even here on Terror I try to find some time above decks outside of my duties, though I doubt I was ever glowing. Certainly not in these temperatures.”
Though he can picture it and slot Crozier’s description alongside the feeling of wonder and awe that struck him every time he looked out over the deck. So very different from London and it’s maddening noise.
“Perhaps I did before I realized how trying life at sea could be.”
The kiss draws his eyes to their linked fingers, pulls with it a wistful and dreamy sort of smile. Relaxed, comfortable, warm. Again it would be so easy to stay like this for the rest of their days.
He tugs their joined hands up, just enough that he can mirror the kiss, but to Crozier’s knuckles instead, lingering.
“I’ll try to tell you more stories, sir. At least until you’re utterly sick of me.”
In some other realm, he tells him: he does glow, like a painting from antiquity, the colors packed in with old pigments and dyes like his favored indigo. But it's too saccharine and will sound the worst kind of sentimental. Crozier should spare them at least a little, as already they'll be pretending this wasn't happening in the morning. It's a wonderful game to be playing, though.
"You're relentless in everything to date," he tells him, a compliment. "But in that you'll fail, Mr Jopson."
Crozier's just not going to be sick of him, see.
Oh and he was supposed to go easy on it, spare them anything that sounded too serious. He'll blame the drink. A safe haven, alcohol is. Instead of letting his mouth run on further, he puts it to better use, and kisses him.
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no subject
"Perhaps it was a wise tactical maneuver to never tell you which repairs were my own," he muses, plainly entertained. "What was my hand, what was a tailor's, what was one of the gents' stewards before your arrival, what was the surgeon's?"
He's got jokes.
"I'll let you believe mine were the least worthy of any judgment, from you or your nose."
no subject
Ha. Laundry. That's definitely what he's talking about here - but he speaks so plainly that even the passing mate won't think twice. Either well respected or thought to be a little odd, Jopson doesn't mind either way, so long as he's able to do his job without fail.
"But rest assured I won't task you with something so trivial. You've a ship to command, after all, I will be certain you are always tip top."
A small smile and he looks away from the man, almost sheepish as he glances out over the deck.
"At least until you stain your shirtsleeves with grease or ink again. Then I might well send your mending to McMurdo. Not nearly as skilled with a needle as he is his hitches, sir."
As if. He'd sooner throw himself into the fire than give up the captain's mending.
no subject
He understands Jopson, he thinks. So much so that he's sure he didn't, not quite, earlier on— Francis cares a great deal about sailing, and about all the odd bits of science he's come to do despite no formal education. Young Thomas, in turn, cares a great deal about his work. There is no glory in toil, no matter what Catholicism has tricked so many of his countrymen into thinking (and which the English have happily exploited), but there is a freedom in defining oneself by a trade. Applying skill and time to something erases rank, origin, wealth. A sailor is just a sailor, and so, is a tailor.
Perhaps he'll throw himself overboard for even thinking in rhyme.
"God forbid I actually end up slovenly. You don't know how good you have it, lad. The tales I could tell about certain men."
no subject
"So long as I am your steward, sir, there will be no cause for concern. If you so much as appear to be leaning toward the slovenly, then it's best you send me to the gig and have me row my way back to England."
A sigh, a beat, then the heart of it.
"But I enjoy your tales very much, sir," he muses, a quiet honesty in the statement, meeting Francis' eyes, a light in his own. Maybe it's the alcohol that's made it so easy to speak casually like this up on deck. Some might think he's ill for the way he allows his back to curve, his posture to break, his face to warm and turn softer at its edges.
"So if you must be slovenly to regale us, then I suppose I must loosen my standards for a story or two, sir."
no subject
Jopson is stuck with him. No longer is he at risk of being sent out on a rowboat to fend for himself, out of punishment or suspicion— which means the threat has lost all power, too, and there is precious little to come between the relentlessness of this particular steward and his charge.
One day, there may be cause to regret endearing himself to Crozier. But they are on the other side of the world from that day.
A sigh, then, comically put-upon, for Jopson is well aware by now that Crozier considers himself bad at telling stories (no matter that he has thousands he could relate), and furthermore, is concerned the practice edges too close to gossip, which he truly dislikes. But, he did bring it up, a tactical error.
"Fortunately for you, I needn't mimic them to talk." He leans against the rail, hums something. Considers a pipe, or a cigarette, and decides it's too much trouble. "I knew a captain who took too close a liking to the goats we had aboard, once."
Then commences a story. It's absurd.
no subject
Jopson's still smiling to himself when they make it back to the great cabin despite the mess it's in. He'll sort it out in the morning - unusual for him, but he doesn't feel the need to waste the curious, golden moment like this on table cleaning. Instead he locks the door as he always does.
He shouldn't indulge himself but there's whisky in his veins and a lightness in his chest that draws him to the man so he can reach and touch his cheek, fond.
"Come, sir - let me get your things ready so you may get some rest before tomorrow, even if your stories are a very tempting distraction."
no subject
Gossip. He'd never. Crozier crowds into his space — the door's locked, after all, his steward is as meticulous as he is relentless, even warmed by drink — and catches him around the middle with his other hand. A posture almost like they're going to practice waltzing again, but there's no room at all.
"Do you have any you're hiding like an oyster guarding pearls, or should I leave the prying alone?"
no subject
Then a laugh, something a little bright, and maybe a hair louder than he'd ever allow himself were he not loose and warm from drink.
"I have no time for gossip and stories, sir, my time is devoted to you first and foremost," he says in mock seriousness, even as he reaches his free arm to wrap round his shoulder, fingers splaying at Crozier's neck, slipping into the hair there.
He leans in a little closer, almost conspiratorial. "I'm afraid I'm very boring, Captain."
no subject
"You haven't bored me for a moment these long months," he asserts. "It's your sanity I worry for in that regard, enduring the things I can get on a tear about."
A very patient young man putting up with half the books they read being about magnetic navigation. Crozier enjoys his topics of study very much, but he's also very self-aware. The sorts of things only lunatics find interesting.
"You could tell me any story, and I'd like it. The mysticism behind a favorite color, or your preferred shoe sole."
no subject
A soft scratch at his nape, up and down in the fair hair, settling against the warmth of him there is a pleasant addition to their swaying. Dreamlike, all of it, with the ship swaying in the water, the room warmed from the way officers packed in shoulder to shoulder, singing and drinking.
Quiet now, just as he prefers it, their little world secluded from everything else. He tips his head closer, letting their noses brush, their foreheads touch. "Be careful what you wish for, sir, else I'll bore you with tales of the great and terrifying blanket stitch or the many uses for basting and tacking. But my favorite color? A simpler story - I rather like the color of indigo best, I think."
no subject
"It can't be the same for me?"
Crozier, equally enjoying whatever Jopson might feel compelled to tell him, just as Jopson likes the stars and magnetism. He presses a kiss where their fingers are linked, mostly on his steward's knuckles, all pressed closed together still, and he smiles.
"I hope you spent plenty of time on deck on your Racer," he muses. "The water in those seas is that color, and goes on for an eternity under the sun. Probably reflected off your eyes and set you glowing. Aye?"
no subject
Though he can picture it and slot Crozier’s description alongside the feeling of wonder and awe that struck him every time he looked out over the deck. So very different from London and it’s maddening noise.
“Perhaps I did before I realized how trying life at sea could be.”
The kiss draws his eyes to their linked fingers, pulls with it a wistful and dreamy sort of smile. Relaxed, comfortable, warm. Again it would be so easy to stay like this for the rest of their days.
He tugs their joined hands up, just enough that he can mirror the kiss, but to Crozier’s knuckles instead, lingering.
“I’ll try to tell you more stories, sir. At least until you’re utterly sick of me.”
no subject
"You're relentless in everything to date," he tells him, a compliment. "But in that you'll fail, Mr Jopson."
Crozier's just not going to be sick of him, see.
Oh and he was supposed to go easy on it, spare them anything that sounded too serious. He'll blame the drink. A safe haven, alcohol is. Instead of letting his mouth run on further, he puts it to better use, and kisses him.