The touch makes him want more, now. Makes him want to press upon Jopson's earnest tolerance and draw him forward, kiss him deeper, feel the weight of him pulled into his lap, or over him on the floor, anywhere. Tangible, perhaps, in the way his hand squeezes Thomas' hip when he dots that kiss on his thumb, visible in the heated look in his eyes.
When it's you.
A remarkable thank-you to Jamie is due. Better work than introducing him to Sophia, who he likes plenty as well, but who is not about to lay down in his bed with this look in her eyes, enduring a beating and still aching to be touched.
"I'll still be here when it's done."
There are less painful positions in which to trade kisses. They can get there. Francis ducks down, presses a kiss to his temple. A moment to squeeze his hand and let him settle, and then he's stroking his hair back the way he's seen him do dozens of times, a sweep of dark hair over his ear, while he fetches the jar again with the other. Careful work, starting light to let the balm do its superficial work, before he'll start gently probing for places he can press into without too much pain. Not a nurse by any means, but he's been bruised up plenty, over the years.
Thomas knows he'll hear those words for the rest of his days, and as he settles belly down on the man's bed, chin propped on his arms, he begins to etch them against the back of his skull, imagining what they might look like in Francis' hand. (Francis, not Crozier, Sir, Captain - Francis). His eyes flutter closed under the man's touch, lips on his temple, fingers across his hair - he sighs and his shoulders relax.
"I'm not certain I would have had you not approached me yourself."
The furious, protective, encompassing thing he feels for this man would have stayed secret, tucked behind his ribs, wielded only as his stewardly devotion and care. It would be enough, serving him like this, caring for him at arm's length, but now - he doesn't have to.
"I would have stayed by your side regardless, sir. I am most comfortable here than I could be anywhere else."
Another ship. Another captain. London. Home. His family.
What does it say about him that in such short turn (life on the sea is never short) this man has seen him down to his core, and Thomas has let him in?
A little noise of discomfort, a thumb finding a tender spot, but it's one that makes his toes curl curiously, his lower back dip, a sigh following.
It stokes pleasant embers in him. A bit of fun, he always says, always tells himself, and so this must be too, but Francis has a bad habit of caring a whole lot about his bits of fun. Second best thing for it, on a voyage— first best is to not care at all, and never risk a problem if things turn sour, but if he were a man of first bests his entire life would look very different. No, this is him, all of him, not satisfied with seeing the way his steward looks at him and offering a quick pull in the pantry and a bracing slap on the shoulder after. Instead: whatever the bloody hell they're doing here.
"You've surprised me at every turn," he says, tucking that confession away somewhere dear. "Never sparred with someone who can be so bitterly stubborn and kindly patient at the same time. I'm happy you're comfortable. You have made me so, too."
Captaincy has turned out to be isolating, but his posts before this were, too. Any rank past lieutenant does it by degrees, and adding on the way those around him are always in a hurry to remind him of what he isn't, puts him a pace aside in most contexts. Not all bad: he is freer from politics, which he dislikes and is content to be shut out of, be it involving peerage or ship gossip, and he is afforded more privacy. He can leverage his status as an outsider with men who would not ordinarily trust an officer. He walks between worlds with less concern of acting outside his station, because his station is so socially unimpressive.
Plenty of his men love him, he knows, in a way only sailors can look up to superior officers. The way he has loved some of his own superiors. And then there is Ross, sitting in some near-mirrored position on Erebus, perhaps writing to Ann, perhaps laughing with one of the doctors, perhaps reading while his own steward knits socks and sharpens knives. Dear Jamie, always singular.
And now, Jopson.
Hm. He adjust his touch, keeping track of the reactions. Some discomfort will lead to mending, but it mustn't go too far.
"Is this too much?" Near his shoulder blade, pressing in. "Feels like a stone."
"It is my duty and my honor to challenge you, sir. It's usually for your own comfort, mind. I've done my best to let you come to things on your own time. Well, some of the time, anyway."
Training a Captain to accept a Steward hadn't been something he'd expected necessarily when he was hired on, but Captain Ross seemed more than optimistic. Hindsight, he can see Ross was as interested to see how it all went down as he was, though far more willing to watch both parties flounder for the amusement of it. Ross is at least a good commander and excellent sailor.
His eyes fall closed as Crozier's hands work over his back. Some places sing out particularly painfully, but he makes no noise other than a low hum or soft puff of air.
"No, it's - it's a good sort of pain, sir."
What happens if Crozier tires of him? If whatever intimate and strange thing they have shatters? If it is only temporary, lasting as long as the bruises on his back? Questions he'll chew on later. For now, his body sings with electricity - painful, yes, but under Crozier's hand it turns to something thick and hot, blood slowing and heat prickling his skin.
"Doctor's said I carry my tension in my shoulders. Always tells me to relax when I pass him belowdecks, to little success." Amusement, and a hitch in his voice again.
A fond tease in his tone, but there's respect, too. He knows it's unorthodox to offer any to a younger man, a civilian in a servant's station, but that's not all he knows. Self-aware of being difficult, and all too versed in the strict, sometimes brutal alien nature of life at sea. Merchant vessels have their ways, too, but these are Navy ships. There is no place in the world as they know it less like life at home than on a boat such as this. And despite these obstacles, Jopson has performed miracles.
Like convincing Crozier to be shaved and dressed each day, as though a strange doll. More than that, finding security in the routine. In Jopson's care.
"The curse of good posture."
A thoughtful sound, and then he leans further over him to get an angle with his hand. Pressing in, down, until he can coax a pop of freed tension. Gentle, barely-there rubbing after, dispelling the pressure from pushing. He continues touching him, mostly with his nearest hand, the other sometimes aiding, sometimes petting his hair instead. As the salve is settling, he turns to fish through something-or-other. Who knows what. Jopson can't see from where he is, a mystery.
Thomas laughs softly into the fold of his arms, accepting the teasing for what it is. He takes pride in his relentlessness, a dogged determination another commander called it, once. It's all he has in this life, really, that he can hold onto within an inch of its life. Steady, that Jopson, he's heard plenty of times.
The pressure into the knot under his shoulder blade makes him hiss, fingers curling into the sheets until it releases, and in turn he lets out a breath he's held, a pleasant and low hum when muscles relax. The bruising and welts on his back ease in their aches, too, now that they're warmed, soothed by the arnica and the gentle touches. He would take the captain's hands on him whether it hurt or not, welcoming the touch. A taste alone has made him hungry for anything he's given.
Turning his head to rest a cheek on his arms, he doesn't bother investigating the sound, simply stares across at the wooden wall of the ship, the personal effects here and there that he's well and truly familiar with.
"I truly enjoyed this evening," he says finally, quietly. "The work, of course, but - it is nice seeing something you are passionate about with my own eyes, sir, and feeling the very same wonder."
A strong young man, though he holds that strength somewhere quiet and discreet. Until one happens to run right into it, like Crozier has. Someone more aggressive or prone to back-talk would have found himself floating behind the ship on a raft tied to a rope, but Jopson has somehow managed to wind his way close not just as a steward, but as whatever this, too. A playful affair or something they'll hold onto as long as it suits them.
It would be nice if it weren't fleeting, he thinks, and then immediately sets the thought aside to be discarded. Looking into those kinds of thoughts is like looking into the sun or into a whirlpool, and he just can't permit himself.
"I suppose I do have some passion for it," he muses. The bottle is of almond oil, its mind scent apparent now; popular wit ladies' faces and sailor's hands. Good for making abused flesh feel less like dried leather. "Christ alive, I'd better, out here."
If he were a proper rubber (i'm very funny), he'd know if this was the correct medical order to put anything on, or if he's just wasting the oil. But it seems fine, the salve is dried down enough, and he doesn't want to wait around for Jopson to get too cold before he continues. The oil goes on, and he touches him more, the same careful fashion. This time he strays a little, higher on his shoulders, lower on his sides, the small of his back. Slippery and smooth.
"You're clever enough to follow anything, I think. I'm glad you see the ... odd bits of eternity in it."
"I look forward to attending when the work allows it."
Sitting out in the cold, staring up at the heavens, listening to smarter men than he discuss angles and fixed points and distances. Difficult to worry about anything else out there away from the ship under the blanket of the inky night sky. He's more at peace out at sea than he ever was at home - that's something he packs away to think on later, when he's not got broad hands rubbing almond oil into his skin.
His eyes flutter shut as the hands extend their reach, and he can imagine they're not on a ship at all. Perhaps some flat, or grand house, wherever it is that the captain spends his time on land. Both of them tucked into a bed four times as large as this, as though it's something they do all the time.
Could it be? When the ship docks, what will come of this strange and new intimacy? Will they steal kisses in the dark of London streets instead of in the Captain's berth?
"Odd bits of eternity - I like that. Seems when you're at sea you've got nothing but eternity to think on. Each direction you look, all sea. The sky a sea of its own, now with a handful of globular clusters that I can put name to, in fact."
A smile in his voice, a shift when the man's fingers glide over his side, sensitive enough he'd almost call himself ticklish. He does feel a world better already, skin of his back warmed and pliable again - but he could be content to lay here under the captain's hands for eons if time and energy allowed.
"Careful, with my eyes closed I might mistake you for a proper rubber, sir, not a Captain."
A tease, a little snort against his arm. (i'm very funny toooo).
He's mindful of how Jopson moves. (Thomas, it's ordinary, but so is Francis, and so is James, and he might give the whole thing some ribbing but he finds it all charming, ordinary men, doing these outlandish things.) A curious touch at his side, more steady to avoid feather-light tickling, trailing up, to the edge of the curve of his pectoral, back down to the cut of his hipbone, even though it puts his hand half over the waistband of his trousers.
Eternity, and the expanse of the sea, a realm where men weren't born to. Almost whimsical notions, one he doesn't voice to most people— irrelevant to his work, and against the image of professionalism he projects. Rare, to share it. Feels good to have it well received. He carefully strokes circles into the tenser parts holding the young man's tailbone together.
A huff.
"If any girl working such a job had hands like these, I reckon she'd be let go with haste."
Too broad to be a comfort for most men, and rough from labor, moving with no guidance or education at all. Crozier working off vibes alone, here, bestie.
"But I will accept your flattery anyway, as it warms my ego."
"What is my job as your Steward, sir, if not to be sure your ego is healthy and intact?"
But the man's hands are divine, sending pinprick shivers along his arms, a trickle of heat into his face as the rough hands traverses down to his hip. Crozier has strong hands, a strong build - most sailors have to be made of tough stuff to make it out here, or at least learn how to build themselves to it. He thinks of the young Mr Chambers, how the men have rallied. A job well done, he supposes.
"I much prefer these hands," he says finally, coy and lazy, but knows he should be less indulgent. Never much for sitting still, he begins to shift his weight, dislodging Crozier's hand from him no doubt as he slowly turns onto his hip, then begins the careful move of sitting up. He wants to see his face, to look him in the eye again, even if his own is flushed from the attention, from laying face down in Crozier's bed.
It's a slow journey to sitting, legs hanging over the edge of the bunk now, knees bumping alongside Crozier's.
"Let me assist in readying you for sleep, sir," he says finally, reaching to take one of the hands scented still by almond, pressing his thumb carefully into his palm, the muscle along his thumb, to his wrist. "It's late."
Late, but he still wants to be close, to touch him, soak up this moment as much as he can before he has to return to the loneliness of his own berth after such a night.
Jopson moves and Crozier lets him, even if the lingering touch of his hands suggests reluctance; they cannot stay awake indefinitely and leave them sleepless and exhausted for their shifts, that much is true. Still, he offers him points of contact as he rights himself, and after one of his hands is captured (easily, sweetly), he raises the other to cradle his steward's face, looking sunkissed despite the dreary half-light.
A thumb scrapes over his cheekbone. He knows his own complexion is comfortably heated, not quite so flushed, but he's been enjoying himself. The temperature of the berth is toastier than ordinary by sheer virtue of two people being wedged into it, but of course it's more than that, it's interest, and proximity.
"I'd like that."
The tone of these moments has evolved over their weeks acclimating to each other. Combative, sarcastic, resentfully tolerant, and lately, a shifting tide of comfortable and coy. What new wind pattern joins these waters now? Crozier has complained that these moments are akin to being treated as a doll for Jopson to fuss over. Still does, now and again, just to tease him. The kind of doll a child would fling out of a pram in disgust, but Jopson is as attentive as can be.
He could rip the buttons of his shirt off, Crozier would laugh. Anything. It's a moment worth living inside of, no matter how it goes.
An unbroken loop, their bodies, with little touches even as he sits up, with their tangled hands, the one on his cheek. He tips his cheek into the touch, eyes closing at the sensation, warm skin, the rich scent of almond mingling with arnica and sea salt and ink. He presses his free hand over Crozier's, a staying motion - reluctance, shared.
Nuzzling in against his palm, it's easier to catch every note of the man, feel every little bump or callus, imagine those hands on his back, on any part of him, over and over again. He's grateful, very suddenly, for the way the captain's rolled his sleeves, because it's his mouth that can traverse the skin for some time before he has to fuss with buttons and fabric. He presses a kiss to the man's palm, then the inside of his wrist, then his forearm. Chaste, sweet things that proceed to the elbow, where he has to release the man's hands to uncuff the fabric.
He leans back, taking Francis' hand once again and pressing his thumbs into the meat of his palm, fingers following the careful path his lips traveled until he hooks a finger into the divot of his arm and tugs the fabric free, unfurling the shirstsleeve. The second is much the same, in that he plucks the man's hand up and follows the line with mouth first, then hands.
Both sleeves down he reaches forward, scooting better to the edge of the bunk, staggering their legs so he may lean closer, smooth hands down his front first, adoring and curious, even in the way he brushes the braces from his shoulders. Everything reverent and awed, undoing the buttons of the man's shirt from the bottom up.
"If there were only one start left in the sky tonight, sir, which would you choose to see?"
A small smile as he continues, taking the buttons slowly so that his fingers may gently feel and touch the man along the way.
"I know that all stars have their stories. I hear the men telling them every time the season turns, but you must have a favorite, and I admit I greatly enjoy your stories."
All the fine hairs on him stand up, a prickling of it over his skin; Francis has to take a steady breath, then let out a sigh. Whichever arm Thomas isn't occupied with, he commits to stroking the young man's face, his jaw, spreading his touch down the side of his throat. A ghost of a touch over the notch of his Adam's apple, even as he keeps himself pliable for the slow, sensual unraveling. When he begins on the buttons, Crozier steadies there with his hands circled around his biceps, both keeping him close and supporting him.
Like stitches, together. Laced.
"My stories, hm?"
As noted between them: he is awful at stories. But for Jopson, and the stars, surely he can muster something.
"Alcyone." A Greek name, offered in his somewhat hammered-out brogue, four syllables. "The brightest star in the Pleiades. Which, thousands of years ago, were the sailors' stars. 'Pleiades' means 'to sail', or it did, sometime. They would rise, and it would be the season to go out and fish. The myths ascribe this to the Seven Sisters, patron nymphs of bits of the sea, of which Alcyone was one of. Poseidon's lover and a companion of Athena."
Crozier smiles, a lopsided, unguarded thing. Is this a good story? It's a bit off. Jopson would find a far more detailed, accurate account in a book— or two or three, and surely there's one aboard somewhere with better data. Alas, here's this old man's account.
But, see—
"In Ireland, they're bad luck. They go up over the start of winter and Saint Martin's Day, and setting to sea on Saint Martin's Day risks being drowned by a ghost."
An even worse summary (of which he is omitting mention of blood sacrifice, not interested in wrangling with the subject of Catholicism nor the subject of Celtic religion that influenced it). Crozier thinks it's very funny, though.
"I've shoved off a number of times in the cold, though, and she hasn't let me be sunk yet. So I'll be glad to see her last the longest, if all the others give up."
For all that the Captain thinks he's terrible at stories, Jopson has always enjoyed them. The timbre of his voice, the way he navigates the tales, and the amusement he gets from telling most of them, well. That alone is worth its weight in the lemon juice they drink on the daily. But Thomas listens, glancing up just in time to catch the the smile on his face, earning the man an earnest, warm smile of his own. He likes this look on him most, he decides.
Fingers continue their work all the way up to the top, and when his shirt opens he presses his palm in against warm skin, the hair there, feeling the rhythm of his heart beneath. Well, until he snorts at the story.
"Bad luck and you still sailed, sir? She must like you very much, your Alcyone."
Of course he did. He slides both hands under the fabric of the man's shirt, caressing his way along his collar bone, to his shoulders, where he gently pushes the fabric down, but not before tracing the lines of his shoulders beneath. He helps him out of one sleeve, then the next, taking the shirt up and folding it carefully, setting it aside.
"The men always tell the ship's boys that it's haunted, you know, so perhaps the Terror herself is Alcyone's ghost. I'll have you turn around now, sir - as you had me in the chair some days ago. Then I'll fetch you a nightshirt."
Easier when it's not about himself, directly. Aware enough to know he's still giving away this and that, his interests, the things he remembers and holds on to, but it doesn't feel like skinning himself alive if it's not a recollection of something with himself in a starring role. Insecurity or modesty or a loathing of hearing it from other men, he doesn't know. It is what it is.
Not much room for insecurity or modesty tonight. Jopson has peeled his shirt off many times now, but never like this; never with his hands pathing over his bare chest (scattered freckles and a joke of a reflection from his head, with patches in places that are both redder and whiter), sitting across from him with knees knocked, just as bare. He can't help the wanting touch of his own hands, so familiar with Jopson's back now, sliding over the contours of his chest, his belly, the dark hair a handsome contrast to his pale skin.
"Fear and darkness," he muses, of Terror and Erebus. "Very Greek of us."
Personifying everything, always. And then he makes a 'mm' sound, at the request. As if he would deny Jopson anything here and now, but moving — without doing anything mad like drag the young man forward into his lap — is so unappealing. Still, they must get on with it, and so he stands to let them adjust. As compensation, he keeps hold of one of Thomas' hands while they do so, having made an art of shuffling in the narrow space by now.
It would be easy to make this feel like every other undressing and preparation, like any other evening where he's gone to fetch shirts and coals and turn down bedsheets. The press of Crozier's hands to his arms, chest, belly - all of it stokes something low in his gut, makes the pink in his cheeks go ruddy and bloom upon his throat.
"Better still that a Greek star watches over you," he murmurs, circling and holding the man's hand until he's seated. By all means he'd promised a nightshirt, but now with his back to him, Jopson settles back down on the bed. He leans forward, grabs the seat of the chair and gives a steady pull, strength alone scooting the man and the chair back a few inches against the bed as much as he can, placing the man between his spread thighs.
A nightshirt can come later. He rubs his hands together, warming them before he reaches to touch the man's back, lightly at first, running fingers along his spine, the ridges of his ribs, the curve of his scapula. He leans in, mouth falling to the man's nape as he works his thumbs into tense muscle. Each movement earns the Captain another press of lips - his shoulder, to the cap of it, to his shoulder blade, mouth slowly following the working lines of his hands.
"Forgive my forwardness, but I wanted to return your kindness."
An unexpected configuration, but it keeps Crozier from doing what he had half a mind to (drag Jopson against him the moment they were both standing), so perhaps for the best. Pacing themselves, or something of that nature; years ahead of them still, on this voyage. That they are making a commitment is an unavoidable thing.
His breath catches with the first touch of Jopson's mouth. He turns his head enough to look at him sidelong, and places one hand on a bracketing knee, squeezing him.
"There's nothing that would be too forward," he assures him, voice pitched lower from interest alone, "From you to me."
All of it is welcome. Anything Jopson would like to do to him, and anything Jopson would like done to himself. Crozier is only concerned with overstepping due to the difference in rank between them, but even there, he knows Jopson is plenty grown with an already eventful life behind him. He won't insult him by treating him like a nervous child.
"Believe it when I tell you that tending to you is as much a kindness to myself."
Everyone in this room is getting off on it and it's pretty great, actually.
The lower notes in Crozier's voice do something to him that he can't explain. He's had plenty of follies in his time, fumblings in the back of the pub or behind the school house or even in the lower decks of ships. They do what they must at sea, no less, but the man's voice makes something churn deep in him. That they're sitting so close is a mistake in some ways, for the way his thighs tense, the way his blood is rushing south to stay for wintering.
"Do you recall when I first tried to button your coat for you? I was sure you were going to have me whipped onto the foredeck for the surprise of it. We've come some ways if there are no limits to my forwardness now, sir."
He leans in, enough that his bare chest brushes the man's back as his chin perches on a shoulder, enough that his massaging hands can add weight and press into the muscles low in his back, just above his waist band.
"But I feel the same. That nothing could be too forward from you to me. "
He bows his head, presses an open mouthed kiss to the man's neck, the juncture where it curves into shoulder, all the way to the soft spot beneath his ear, nosing in against the shell of it.
"I thought about putting you on a raft to Erebus," he says, sounding fond of the memory now. "But it's as I said: relentless. No one but you could have managed it. Or this."
Different things. Being his steward, and being someone who's kissing his neck. Inhabiting the same space, yes, and they are making a dangerous tangle of it. But this whole business is dangerous; they are more likely to die in the cold and dark than they are to decide they detest each other. Even if they do detest each other, they'll have time to get over it. How strange that is. He thinks, briefly, of Jamie and Ann, and how their betrothal would go much smoother if she were to put a disguise on and sail with him. Love that endures inescapable proximity is the strongest, isn't it? It's so for the two of them. Even now he knows the other man's mind. Just where he'll be heading, depending on the weather at first bell. Just how he'll feel about it.
Crozier leans back into him deliberately, turns his face into Jopson's. Not quite kissing range, but an intimate, cloying close press. Nothing too much for the either of them. Good, this accord.
"You know I would have been sent back to you, and likely made to paddle myself for letting you bend me so easily."
Thomas snorts a little, something genuine and fond murmured into Crozier's skin where he kisses, finding new places for his mouth to land. The first few months were challenging, not knowing what might make the Captain fuss and spit and huff, if any of it would ever become routine for him. But here they are, and with Crozier leaned back into him, he loops on arm around his waist, broad palm pressed just below his ribs.
Strange that this is his Captain leaned against him, that days ago he stood across from the man defending himself and his foolishness, and now they're here, of all places.
"I'll do whatever you see fit, sir," he teases, face hot and flushed, everything warming with their cheeky contact, the dusky buds of his nipples pebbling against the rush of heat with their bodies pressed together eking out the cold air. "If suffering a night in your bed is what I deserve for my cheek then who am I to question it?"
He pets up the man's chest, over muscle, the divots of his ribs, the hair, where he simply strokes his fingers up and down along his sternum, light and absent minded. He should move, get Crozier dressed for bed, get him tucked away and warm, and yet here he is. Touching him, leaning into him, brushing his mouth against the man's temple, the high point of his cheek. He wants to kiss him properly, but that will have to wait.
A hand over Jopson's on his chest, the other still on his knee. Their position would be comical if not for the necessity of it, in this narrow space. There's plenty of room in the great cabin to tip him over the table. Maybe tomorrow.
"That what you want, to be made to suffer for it?" Makes the muscles in his abdomen clench to think of drawing Jopson forward over his knees, hand on his backside — lower than where the bruising is — and prompting that intense, devoted look in his eyes. "Explaining at first bell would no doubt be an odyssey for the both of us—"
What a time that would be.
"What I see fit. Is for you to come out from there and around so I can kiss you."
Can't lean back, scramble into the slim cot together, without hurting Jopson's back (waste all his patient work, come now). He likes this, the way they're playing and teasing, but if nothing's too forward then— here, he shifts, moving the chair, moving himself, and pulling his steward close for a hungry clash of his mouth against his.
"I wouldn't let them suspect a thing, sir," he murmurs, a little breathless, graveled, his own hunger betraying him now. How long has he stood in this room dressing this man and wondered what it might feel like to be held by him, touched, kissed? Even taking his lashings he imagined the Captain as the whip himself, and here they are, intertwined and teasing and on the edge of something already.
It stands to reason the sudden motion surprises him, but there's little resistance in the way stumbles up to his feet and surges into the kiss, utterly desperate for it since the very first brush just moments ago. He reaches for Crozier, hands scrabbling for his sides, strong arms wrapping round him. He chases the kiss, open mouthed and wanting, fingers curling, leaving a smattering of half moons across the man's back.
"Captain," he murmurs, almost plaintive, rational thought making a sad attempt to kick in but is wholly distracted by how one pull of his hands brings their bodies utterly flush, making obvious the way he's already excited from the evening, the hardening line jutting against the older man's hip. "Never mind."
And he's kissing him again, this time daring to nip and suck his bottom lip between his own.
Mutual passionate grappling, the thread of tension having wound so cozily with their indulgent, petting touches suddenly going taught. Crozier is still careful with him, having to re-direct an initial aborted grab. Not going to hold him around his back, and so he digs the fingers of one hand into dark hair to hold his head, help press him into deeper, hungrier kisses, and the other finds his rear. Tugs him close, delighting in the feeling of his steward hard against him. It sends a jolt of arousal through him straight to already-stirring flesh, and he internally shrugs off restraint about it.
Captain. Shouldn't like that so much, but the way Jopson says it, like there's nothing he wants more than to be here doing just this, twists something in him the most correct way.
"You can tell me," he breathes in between tasting his mouth, his tongue, feeling the hard enamel of his teeth against his lips. Anything, nothing too forward. Crozier likes the way he almost bites him. He likes the taste of his mouth. He likes the feeling of the curve of his behind in his hand, the whole of him shaped so strikingly. (Ah, youth, but did Francis ever look like this? No, not quite. All a bit more square.)
Messy, eager, indulgent. Swaying just a little where they stand. He has to mind the bruising on Jopson's back, can't just shove him into the bulkhead wall. Rapidly nearing a quick pull in a closet, the very thing he thought to avoid, but he feels on edge. He feels the younger man on edge, too, and very much wants to send him over it.
Thomas groans against the older man's mouth, the fingers in his hair, the firm grip at his backside - all of it too much and not enough. The burn of wanting for so long and finally finding a way to uncork it, release the pressure and send it into a frenzy has made it hard for him to think clearly.
"I wont break, sir," he mutters against the man's mouth, this time interrupting the messy kisses by biting properly - capturing the soft flesh between his teeth and giving an insistent tug until it scrapes by the blunt edges and pops from his mouth. A second time, but this with a messy, almost desperate little keen. "I want you to touch me."
Not just his delicates and all that, no - he tugs Crozier to one side, spinning them. Thomas' land with his back flush to the bulkhead wall with a low moan of something caught between pain and helpless arousal. He'll regret it later, maybe, or perhaps they will hurt in a different way for him come morning, but for now he wants to feel it.
"I imagined it was you the whole time," he pants, palms sliding to Crozier's front, to his trousers, expertly undoing all the fastenings. He's done this many times before, after all, then utterly fumbles with his own, one hand gripping the older man's hip, the other trying to futz with his waistband. "You with the straps. Or your hands. Anything you'd choose."
A mix of instincts at first: a strong desire to keep the young man from pain, a strong desire to see just what he'll endure to please him. How badly does he want, for just kissing and petting to be not enough? Does it transcend wanting, into needing? (Stop it, he tells himself, but changes track and decides to worry about that line of thinking in the morning. Have the bloody moment.)
Like a fantasy. Thomas reaches in somewhere, grabs it. I imagined it was you. His cock jumps for it, a lewd giveaway of mirrored thoughts even if he doesn't say so aloud. He braces his hands on Jopson's hips and pushes him harder to the wooden wall, shoving against him, kissing him with proprietary eagerness, like the steward belongs to him entire. Like this is right where he should be, under his hands, telling him Anything.
"Would that have made you learn even better?" In between biting, possessive kisses. "If pushed you over the table myself and took my hand to you? If I made you count and thank me for each strike?"
Not that Jopson hasn't performed perfectly since then — and before then, aside from one incident, born of genuine fraternal love it seems — but the fantasy has clearly had them both in a grip. Crozier watches him just as closely now, eyes on his even as he reaches one hand back to find the vial of almond oil again.
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When it's you.
A remarkable thank-you to Jamie is due. Better work than introducing him to Sophia, who he likes plenty as well, but who is not about to lay down in his bed with this look in her eyes, enduring a beating and still aching to be touched.
"I'll still be here when it's done."
There are less painful positions in which to trade kisses. They can get there. Francis ducks down, presses a kiss to his temple. A moment to squeeze his hand and let him settle, and then he's stroking his hair back the way he's seen him do dozens of times, a sweep of dark hair over his ear, while he fetches the jar again with the other. Careful work, starting light to let the balm do its superficial work, before he'll start gently probing for places he can press into without too much pain. Not a nurse by any means, but he's been bruised up plenty, over the years.
"Thank you. For telling me."
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Thomas knows he'll hear those words for the rest of his days, and as he settles belly down on the man's bed, chin propped on his arms, he begins to etch them against the back of his skull, imagining what they might look like in Francis' hand. (Francis, not Crozier, Sir, Captain - Francis). His eyes flutter closed under the man's touch, lips on his temple, fingers across his hair - he sighs and his shoulders relax.
"I'm not certain I would have had you not approached me yourself."
The furious, protective, encompassing thing he feels for this man would have stayed secret, tucked behind his ribs, wielded only as his stewardly devotion and care. It would be enough, serving him like this, caring for him at arm's length, but now - he doesn't have to.
"I would have stayed by your side regardless, sir. I am most comfortable here than I could be anywhere else."
Another ship. Another captain. London. Home. His family.
What does it say about him that in such short turn (life on the sea is never short) this man has seen him down to his core, and Thomas has let him in?
A little noise of discomfort, a thumb finding a tender spot, but it's one that makes his toes curl curiously, his lower back dip, a sigh following.
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"You've surprised me at every turn," he says, tucking that confession away somewhere dear. "Never sparred with someone who can be so bitterly stubborn and kindly patient at the same time. I'm happy you're comfortable. You have made me so, too."
Captaincy has turned out to be isolating, but his posts before this were, too. Any rank past lieutenant does it by degrees, and adding on the way those around him are always in a hurry to remind him of what he isn't, puts him a pace aside in most contexts. Not all bad: he is freer from politics, which he dislikes and is content to be shut out of, be it involving peerage or ship gossip, and he is afforded more privacy. He can leverage his status as an outsider with men who would not ordinarily trust an officer. He walks between worlds with less concern of acting outside his station, because his station is so socially unimpressive.
Plenty of his men love him, he knows, in a way only sailors can look up to superior officers. The way he has loved some of his own superiors. And then there is Ross, sitting in some near-mirrored position on Erebus, perhaps writing to Ann, perhaps laughing with one of the doctors, perhaps reading while his own steward knits socks and sharpens knives. Dear Jamie, always singular.
And now, Jopson.
Hm. He adjust his touch, keeping track of the reactions. Some discomfort will lead to mending, but it mustn't go too far.
"Is this too much?" Near his shoulder blade, pressing in. "Feels like a stone."
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Training a Captain to accept a Steward hadn't been something he'd expected necessarily when he was hired on, but Captain Ross seemed more than optimistic. Hindsight, he can see Ross was as interested to see how it all went down as he was, though far more willing to watch both parties flounder for the amusement of it. Ross is at least a good commander and excellent sailor.
His eyes fall closed as Crozier's hands work over his back. Some places sing out particularly painfully, but he makes no noise other than a low hum or soft puff of air.
"No, it's - it's a good sort of pain, sir."
What happens if Crozier tires of him? If whatever intimate and strange thing they have shatters? If it is only temporary, lasting as long as the bruises on his back? Questions he'll chew on later. For now, his body sings with electricity - painful, yes, but under Crozier's hand it turns to something thick and hot, blood slowing and heat prickling his skin.
"Doctor's said I carry my tension in my shoulders. Always tells me to relax when I pass him belowdecks, to little success." Amusement, and a hitch in his voice again.
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A fond tease in his tone, but there's respect, too. He knows it's unorthodox to offer any to a younger man, a civilian in a servant's station, but that's not all he knows. Self-aware of being difficult, and all too versed in the strict, sometimes brutal alien nature of life at sea. Merchant vessels have their ways, too, but these are Navy ships. There is no place in the world as they know it less like life at home than on a boat such as this. And despite these obstacles, Jopson has performed miracles.
Like convincing Crozier to be shaved and dressed each day, as though a strange doll. More than that, finding security in the routine. In Jopson's care.
"The curse of good posture."
A thoughtful sound, and then he leans further over him to get an angle with his hand. Pressing in, down, until he can coax a pop of freed tension. Gentle, barely-there rubbing after, dispelling the pressure from pushing. He continues touching him, mostly with his nearest hand, the other sometimes aiding, sometimes petting his hair instead. As the salve is settling, he turns to fish through something-or-other. Who knows what. Jopson can't see from where he is, a mystery.
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Thomas laughs softly into the fold of his arms, accepting the teasing for what it is. He takes pride in his relentlessness, a dogged determination another commander called it, once. It's all he has in this life, really, that he can hold onto within an inch of its life. Steady, that Jopson, he's heard plenty of times.
The pressure into the knot under his shoulder blade makes him hiss, fingers curling into the sheets until it releases, and in turn he lets out a breath he's held, a pleasant and low hum when muscles relax. The bruising and welts on his back ease in their aches, too, now that they're warmed, soothed by the arnica and the gentle touches. He would take the captain's hands on him whether it hurt or not, welcoming the touch. A taste alone has made him hungry for anything he's given.
Turning his head to rest a cheek on his arms, he doesn't bother investigating the sound, simply stares across at the wooden wall of the ship, the personal effects here and there that he's well and truly familiar with.
"I truly enjoyed this evening," he says finally, quietly. "The work, of course, but - it is nice seeing something you are passionate about with my own eyes, sir, and feeling the very same wonder."
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It would be nice if it weren't fleeting, he thinks, and then immediately sets the thought aside to be discarded. Looking into those kinds of thoughts is like looking into the sun or into a whirlpool, and he just can't permit himself.
"I suppose I do have some passion for it," he muses. The bottle is of almond oil, its mind scent apparent now; popular wit ladies' faces and sailor's hands. Good for making abused flesh feel less like dried leather. "Christ alive, I'd better, out here."
If he were a proper rubber (i'm very funny), he'd know if this was the correct medical order to put anything on, or if he's just wasting the oil. But it seems fine, the salve is dried down enough, and he doesn't want to wait around for Jopson to get too cold before he continues. The oil goes on, and he touches him more, the same careful fashion. This time he strays a little, higher on his shoulders, lower on his sides, the small of his back. Slippery and smooth.
"You're clever enough to follow anything, I think. I'm glad you see the ... odd bits of eternity in it."
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Sitting out in the cold, staring up at the heavens, listening to smarter men than he discuss angles and fixed points and distances. Difficult to worry about anything else out there away from the ship under the blanket of the inky night sky. He's more at peace out at sea than he ever was at home - that's something he packs away to think on later, when he's not got broad hands rubbing almond oil into his skin.
His eyes flutter shut as the hands extend their reach, and he can imagine they're not on a ship at all. Perhaps some flat, or grand house, wherever it is that the captain spends his time on land. Both of them tucked into a bed four times as large as this, as though it's something they do all the time.
Could it be? When the ship docks, what will come of this strange and new intimacy? Will they steal kisses in the dark of London streets instead of in the Captain's berth?
"Odd bits of eternity - I like that. Seems when you're at sea you've got nothing but eternity to think on. Each direction you look, all sea. The sky a sea of its own, now with a handful of globular clusters that I can put name to, in fact."
A smile in his voice, a shift when the man's fingers glide over his side, sensitive enough he'd almost call himself ticklish. He does feel a world better already, skin of his back warmed and pliable again - but he could be content to lay here under the captain's hands for eons if time and energy allowed.
"Careful, with my eyes closed I might mistake you for a proper rubber, sir, not a Captain."
A tease, a little snort against his arm. (i'm very funny toooo).
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Eternity, and the expanse of the sea, a realm where men weren't born to. Almost whimsical notions, one he doesn't voice to most people— irrelevant to his work, and against the image of professionalism he projects. Rare, to share it. Feels good to have it well received. He carefully strokes circles into the tenser parts holding the young man's tailbone together.
A huff.
"If any girl working such a job had hands like these, I reckon she'd be let go with haste."
Too broad to be a comfort for most men, and rough from labor, moving with no guidance or education at all. Crozier working off vibes alone, here, bestie.
"But I will accept your flattery anyway, as it warms my ego."
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But the man's hands are divine, sending pinprick shivers along his arms, a trickle of heat into his face as the rough hands traverses down to his hip. Crozier has strong hands, a strong build - most sailors have to be made of tough stuff to make it out here, or at least learn how to build themselves to it. He thinks of the young Mr Chambers, how the men have rallied. A job well done, he supposes.
"I much prefer these hands," he says finally, coy and lazy, but knows he should be less indulgent. Never much for sitting still, he begins to shift his weight, dislodging Crozier's hand from him no doubt as he slowly turns onto his hip, then begins the careful move of sitting up. He wants to see his face, to look him in the eye again, even if his own is flushed from the attention, from laying face down in Crozier's bed.
It's a slow journey to sitting, legs hanging over the edge of the bunk now, knees bumping alongside Crozier's.
"Let me assist in readying you for sleep, sir," he says finally, reaching to take one of the hands scented still by almond, pressing his thumb carefully into his palm, the muscle along his thumb, to his wrist. "It's late."
Late, but he still wants to be close, to touch him, soak up this moment as much as he can before he has to return to the loneliness of his own berth after such a night.
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A thumb scrapes over his cheekbone. He knows his own complexion is comfortably heated, not quite so flushed, but he's been enjoying himself. The temperature of the berth is toastier than ordinary by sheer virtue of two people being wedged into it, but of course it's more than that, it's interest, and proximity.
"I'd like that."
The tone of these moments has evolved over their weeks acclimating to each other. Combative, sarcastic, resentfully tolerant, and lately, a shifting tide of comfortable and coy. What new wind pattern joins these waters now? Crozier has complained that these moments are akin to being treated as a doll for Jopson to fuss over. Still does, now and again, just to tease him. The kind of doll a child would fling out of a pram in disgust, but Jopson is as attentive as can be.
He could rip the buttons of his shirt off, Crozier would laugh. Anything. It's a moment worth living inside of, no matter how it goes.
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Nuzzling in against his palm, it's easier to catch every note of the man, feel every little bump or callus, imagine those hands on his back, on any part of him, over and over again. He's grateful, very suddenly, for the way the captain's rolled his sleeves, because it's his mouth that can traverse the skin for some time before he has to fuss with buttons and fabric. He presses a kiss to the man's palm, then the inside of his wrist, then his forearm. Chaste, sweet things that proceed to the elbow, where he has to release the man's hands to uncuff the fabric.
He leans back, taking Francis' hand once again and pressing his thumbs into the meat of his palm, fingers following the careful path his lips traveled until he hooks a finger into the divot of his arm and tugs the fabric free, unfurling the shirstsleeve. The second is much the same, in that he plucks the man's hand up and follows the line with mouth first, then hands.
Both sleeves down he reaches forward, scooting better to the edge of the bunk, staggering their legs so he may lean closer, smooth hands down his front first, adoring and curious, even in the way he brushes the braces from his shoulders. Everything reverent and awed, undoing the buttons of the man's shirt from the bottom up.
"If there were only one start left in the sky tonight, sir, which would you choose to see?"
A small smile as he continues, taking the buttons slowly so that his fingers may gently feel and touch the man along the way.
"I know that all stars have their stories. I hear the men telling them every time the season turns, but you must have a favorite, and I admit I greatly enjoy your stories."
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Like stitches, together. Laced.
"My stories, hm?"
As noted between them: he is awful at stories. But for Jopson, and the stars, surely he can muster something.
"Alcyone." A Greek name, offered in his somewhat hammered-out brogue, four syllables. "The brightest star in the Pleiades. Which, thousands of years ago, were the sailors' stars. 'Pleiades' means 'to sail', or it did, sometime. They would rise, and it would be the season to go out and fish. The myths ascribe this to the Seven Sisters, patron nymphs of bits of the sea, of which Alcyone was one of. Poseidon's lover and a companion of Athena."
Crozier smiles, a lopsided, unguarded thing. Is this a good story? It's a bit off. Jopson would find a far more detailed, accurate account in a book— or two or three, and surely there's one aboard somewhere with better data. Alas, here's this old man's account.
But, see—
"In Ireland, they're bad luck. They go up over the start of winter and Saint Martin's Day, and setting to sea on Saint Martin's Day risks being drowned by a ghost."
An even worse summary (of which he is omitting mention of blood sacrifice, not interested in wrangling with the subject of Catholicism nor the subject of Celtic religion that influenced it). Crozier thinks it's very funny, though.
"I've shoved off a number of times in the cold, though, and she hasn't let me be sunk yet. So I'll be glad to see her last the longest, if all the others give up."
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Fingers continue their work all the way up to the top, and when his shirt opens he presses his palm in against warm skin, the hair there, feeling the rhythm of his heart beneath. Well, until he snorts at the story.
"Bad luck and you still sailed, sir? She must like you very much, your Alcyone."
Of course he did. He slides both hands under the fabric of the man's shirt, caressing his way along his collar bone, to his shoulders, where he gently pushes the fabric down, but not before tracing the lines of his shoulders beneath. He helps him out of one sleeve, then the next, taking the shirt up and folding it carefully, setting it aside.
"The men always tell the ship's boys that it's haunted, you know, so perhaps the Terror herself is Alcyone's ghost. I'll have you turn around now, sir - as you had me in the chair some days ago. Then I'll fetch you a nightshirt."
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Not much room for insecurity or modesty tonight. Jopson has peeled his shirt off many times now, but never like this; never with his hands pathing over his bare chest (scattered freckles and a joke of a reflection from his head, with patches in places that are both redder and whiter), sitting across from him with knees knocked, just as bare. He can't help the wanting touch of his own hands, so familiar with Jopson's back now, sliding over the contours of his chest, his belly, the dark hair a handsome contrast to his pale skin.
"Fear and darkness," he muses, of Terror and Erebus. "Very Greek of us."
Personifying everything, always. And then he makes a 'mm' sound, at the request. As if he would deny Jopson anything here and now, but moving — without doing anything mad like drag the young man forward into his lap — is so unappealing. Still, they must get on with it, and so he stands to let them adjust. As compensation, he keeps hold of one of Thomas' hands while they do so, having made an art of shuffling in the narrow space by now.
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"Better still that a Greek star watches over you," he murmurs, circling and holding the man's hand until he's seated. By all means he'd promised a nightshirt, but now with his back to him, Jopson settles back down on the bed. He leans forward, grabs the seat of the chair and gives a steady pull, strength alone scooting the man and the chair back a few inches against the bed as much as he can, placing the man between his spread thighs.
A nightshirt can come later. He rubs his hands together, warming them before he reaches to touch the man's back, lightly at first, running fingers along his spine, the ridges of his ribs, the curve of his scapula. He leans in, mouth falling to the man's nape as he works his thumbs into tense muscle. Each movement earns the Captain another press of lips - his shoulder, to the cap of it, to his shoulder blade, mouth slowly following the working lines of his hands.
"Forgive my forwardness, but I wanted to return your kindness."
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His breath catches with the first touch of Jopson's mouth. He turns his head enough to look at him sidelong, and places one hand on a bracketing knee, squeezing him.
"There's nothing that would be too forward," he assures him, voice pitched lower from interest alone, "From you to me."
All of it is welcome. Anything Jopson would like to do to him, and anything Jopson would like done to himself. Crozier is only concerned with overstepping due to the difference in rank between them, but even there, he knows Jopson is plenty grown with an already eventful life behind him. He won't insult him by treating him like a nervous child.
"Believe it when I tell you that tending to you is as much a kindness to myself."
Everyone in this room is getting off on it and it's pretty great, actually.
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"Do you recall when I first tried to button your coat for you? I was sure you were going to have me whipped onto the foredeck for the surprise of it. We've come some ways if there are no limits to my forwardness now, sir."
He leans in, enough that his bare chest brushes the man's back as his chin perches on a shoulder, enough that his massaging hands can add weight and press into the muscles low in his back, just above his waist band.
"But I feel the same. That nothing could be too forward from you to me. "
He bows his head, presses an open mouthed kiss to the man's neck, the juncture where it curves into shoulder, all the way to the soft spot beneath his ear, nosing in against the shell of it.
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Different things. Being his steward, and being someone who's kissing his neck. Inhabiting the same space, yes, and they are making a dangerous tangle of it. But this whole business is dangerous; they are more likely to die in the cold and dark than they are to decide they detest each other. Even if they do detest each other, they'll have time to get over it. How strange that is. He thinks, briefly, of Jamie and Ann, and how their betrothal would go much smoother if she were to put a disguise on and sail with him. Love that endures inescapable proximity is the strongest, isn't it? It's so for the two of them. Even now he knows the other man's mind. Just where he'll be heading, depending on the weather at first bell. Just how he'll feel about it.
Crozier leans back into him deliberately, turns his face into Jopson's. Not quite kissing range, but an intimate, cloying close press. Nothing too much for the either of them. Good, this accord.
"Careful now, or I'll keep you here again."
Less asleep this time.
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Thomas snorts a little, something genuine and fond murmured into Crozier's skin where he kisses, finding new places for his mouth to land. The first few months were challenging, not knowing what might make the Captain fuss and spit and huff, if any of it would ever become routine for him. But here they are, and with Crozier leaned back into him, he loops on arm around his waist, broad palm pressed just below his ribs.
Strange that this is his Captain leaned against him, that days ago he stood across from the man defending himself and his foolishness, and now they're here, of all places.
"I'll do whatever you see fit, sir," he teases, face hot and flushed, everything warming with their cheeky contact, the dusky buds of his nipples pebbling against the rush of heat with their bodies pressed together eking out the cold air. "If suffering a night in your bed is what I deserve for my cheek then who am I to question it?"
He pets up the man's chest, over muscle, the divots of his ribs, the hair, where he simply strokes his fingers up and down along his sternum, light and absent minded. He should move, get Crozier dressed for bed, get him tucked away and warm, and yet here he is. Touching him, leaning into him, brushing his mouth against the man's temple, the high point of his cheek. He wants to kiss him properly, but that will have to wait.
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Lad, honestly.
A hand over Jopson's on his chest, the other still on his knee. Their position would be comical if not for the necessity of it, in this narrow space. There's plenty of room in the great cabin to tip him over the table. Maybe tomorrow.
"That what you want, to be made to suffer for it?" Makes the muscles in his abdomen clench to think of drawing Jopson forward over his knees, hand on his backside — lower than where the bruising is — and prompting that intense, devoted look in his eyes. "Explaining at first bell would no doubt be an odyssey for the both of us—"
What a time that would be.
"What I see fit. Is for you to come out from there and around so I can kiss you."
Can't lean back, scramble into the slim cot together, without hurting Jopson's back (waste all his patient work, come now). He likes this, the way they're playing and teasing, but if nothing's too forward then— here, he shifts, moving the chair, moving himself, and pulling his steward close for a hungry clash of his mouth against his.
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It stands to reason the sudden motion surprises him, but there's little resistance in the way stumbles up to his feet and surges into the kiss, utterly desperate for it since the very first brush just moments ago. He reaches for Crozier, hands scrabbling for his sides, strong arms wrapping round him. He chases the kiss, open mouthed and wanting, fingers curling, leaving a smattering of half moons across the man's back.
"Captain," he murmurs, almost plaintive, rational thought making a sad attempt to kick in but is wholly distracted by how one pull of his hands brings their bodies utterly flush, making obvious the way he's already excited from the evening, the hardening line jutting against the older man's hip. "Never mind."
And he's kissing him again, this time daring to nip and suck his bottom lip between his own.
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Captain. Shouldn't like that so much, but the way Jopson says it, like there's nothing he wants more than to be here doing just this, twists something in him the most correct way.
"You can tell me," he breathes in between tasting his mouth, his tongue, feeling the hard enamel of his teeth against his lips. Anything, nothing too forward. Crozier likes the way he almost bites him. He likes the taste of his mouth. He likes the feeling of the curve of his behind in his hand, the whole of him shaped so strikingly. (Ah, youth, but did Francis ever look like this? No, not quite. All a bit more square.)
Messy, eager, indulgent. Swaying just a little where they stand. He has to mind the bruising on Jopson's back, can't just shove him into the bulkhead wall. Rapidly nearing a quick pull in a closet, the very thing he thought to avoid, but he feels on edge. He feels the younger man on edge, too, and very much wants to send him over it.
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"I wont break, sir," he mutters against the man's mouth, this time interrupting the messy kisses by biting properly - capturing the soft flesh between his teeth and giving an insistent tug until it scrapes by the blunt edges and pops from his mouth. A second time, but this with a messy, almost desperate little keen. "I want you to touch me."
Not just his delicates and all that, no - he tugs Crozier to one side, spinning them. Thomas' land with his back flush to the bulkhead wall with a low moan of something caught between pain and helpless arousal. He'll regret it later, maybe, or perhaps they will hurt in a different way for him come morning, but for now he wants to feel it.
"I imagined it was you the whole time," he pants, palms sliding to Crozier's front, to his trousers, expertly undoing all the fastenings. He's done this many times before, after all, then utterly fumbles with his own, one hand gripping the older man's hip, the other trying to futz with his waistband. "You with the straps. Or your hands. Anything you'd choose."
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Like a fantasy. Thomas reaches in somewhere, grabs it. I imagined it was you. His cock jumps for it, a lewd giveaway of mirrored thoughts even if he doesn't say so aloud. He braces his hands on Jopson's hips and pushes him harder to the wooden wall, shoving against him, kissing him with proprietary eagerness, like the steward belongs to him entire. Like this is right where he should be, under his hands, telling him Anything.
"Would that have made you learn even better?" In between biting, possessive kisses. "If pushed you over the table myself and took my hand to you? If I made you count and thank me for each strike?"
Not that Jopson hasn't performed perfectly since then — and before then, aside from one incident, born of genuine fraternal love it seems — but the fantasy has clearly had them both in a grip. Crozier watches him just as closely now, eyes on his even as he reaches one hand back to find the vial of almond oil again.
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i'm gonna kms over my own weird typos
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