When he leaves he does not meet Crozier's eye, instead keeps his chin up but his eyes focused elsewhere. He spends the rest of the evening doing laundry, making some minor repairs to the man's shirts, polishing a second pair of boots, bringing him his meals throughout the remainder of the evening, keeping up after the crew to clean the mess and their lodgings. Pouring him a glass of something strong, seeing himself out when Blanky and he begin chatting together. Not a word spoken unless he requires anything of the Captain, or vice versa. A steward is best quiet and diligent, or so he's told himself.
Retiring earlier than usual (there is no need to hover at Crozier's side when he feels unworthy of any of the banter and late evening dialogue that sometimes occupies the ends of his shifts), he sits with a book in his lap, worn and dog-eared, practically falling apart. An old Dickens piece, something he'd been gifted by one of his father's old customers. The only book to his name, and one he's sure he can recite front to back - The Pickwick Papers aren't anything extraordinary, but it's something to do with his spare time: What was over couldn't be begun, and what couldn't be cured must be endured.
He wakes early, of course, fatigued from a poor night's sleep, but he reports to Crozier's quarters per usual, setting out his clothes for the day, pressing any wrinkles from the collar with a hot iron, fetches a plate of food for him, pours him something to help with the edge of last night's alcohol.
"May I ask when we are to be called, Captain?" Quiet, not meeting his eyes still, instead he's adding a few extra threads to a loose, wayward button on the man's great coat. "I should like to begin your laundry for the morning, but I don't want it to sit and go sour. If - apologies, if it's presumptuous of me to ask."
Not worried at all about his own wellbeing, no - but the laundry.
The privacy, the space, it isn't bad. He has grown accustomed to his steward, but he never forgets he's there— he hopes he never does. To allow servants to become unpersons, utterly absent from awareness, is a mental state he finds abhorrent. He told Ross about it once, his dear Jamie even now on Erebus, and the man admitted he'd never thought about it before, but would from that day forward. Crozier thinks of it now and again (they'd been so young then, hadn't they? fifteen years ago? twenty?), whenever he sees the man smile at a valet, or maid.
But because Jopson is a real person, his absence is a thing. A shape left behind, around which Crozier navigates in this small space. Gives him things to consider, by and by, from bedding down, to the night, to the morning.
The tea is good, like it always is now that they've sorted how he likes it. His steward has a knack. He drinks, one sip then another, and watches him fuss with the button. Diligent, productive fussing, as ever.
It is a little presumptuous.
Clink, the teacup finds the saucer. Crozier reaches out with one hand, and with his knuckles (not so bold, so inappropriate, as to use the soft pads of his fingers, like he might with a lady in private), tips Jopson's head up so that he's forced to look him in the eyes. Well. That's the idea, anyhow, he supposes his steward could just squeezes them shut, but he doesn't think him so avoidant.
Just looking. Is he afraid? Is he manic? Is he choking back resentment already?
The brush of knuckles makes something strange happen in his gut, a twisting and a flutter that is both pleasant and unwanted in the same breath. His head tips, doe eyes a little wider than they usually are, the barest hint of a surprised flush at the apples of his cheeks. No fear, mania, resentment - just the echoes of shame. It takes everything in him to keep Crozier’s gaze, to the point he even forces his hands to still on their work when he doesn’t need to look to complete a simple button repair.
“I see. Thank you, sir.”
The evening. He thinks ahead to his duties, and the things that may be completed for the man a little earlier, but even that feels unfair when the other men involved won’t have any advanced notice. No, the point is to work through the discomfort, after all. To feel the sting of welts and wounds when he’s turning down Crozier’s bed for the night, or crouched to assist him out of his boots.
No, he will simply have to shoulder through so the Captain does not notice the difference in his care. After dinner, then it will be done. He makes a mental note to check in with young Mr Chambers after. All the effort to spare him, and yet. How foolish.
“Would you like your bath prepared this morning, Captain? With the kitchen stoves still warm it would be a simple ask.”
Hands remain still, Jopson filling the air with asks and requests is simpler.
Well spotted: here is the real favoritism, telling him about it. A stricter captain (for all that he's just a commander) would have withheld the information. A less confident one would warn him against informing the others, and remind him that if it does get out, he'll know exactly who the gossip was. Crozier, for some strange reason he can't quite put a finger on even in his own mind, offers both intelligence and trust.
He should pull his hand back, and so he does. (He shouldn't have extended his hand in the first place.) Jopson is so tolerant and it is a puzzle—
Really, Francis, are you pretending to be an idiot now.
This is a foolish game for midshipmen and bored lieutenants, he doesn't know why he's doing it, except for how immediately the steward seems to rise to every occasion like a perfect volley on the other side of a racquet table. Quiet and unassuming, but Crozier sees him all the same. He picks up his teacup again.
"No, I'll sort it myself," he decides. "Have one of the boys bring the water by and leave it."
Is that the worse punishment, he wonders. The cold shoulder.
The Captain rebuffs him and it stings more than he know the whip ever will. Childish really how it strikes him, how easily a steady foundation is pulled out from under his feet. He should know better, he’s seen this happen before. He looks away and to the button he’d been mending, carefully tying off the thread and testing the tension on it.
“Yes of course,” calm, compliant, even if he wants to turn and grab the hand that’s left the ghost of something fiery on his chin. Even if he wants to find some way to express his regret all over again.
It doesn’t matter. He swallows it down, stomachs it. He’s wanted for far more before and hasn’t gotten it - the respect and attention of one man shouldn’t be so heavy. But it begins to feel like the first days working under Crozier - the frustrations, the indifference, everything with the air if I don’t need this, this isn’t important that a humble, grounded man would have. The coldness he feels now is different, creates a squirm of doubt.
“I will leave your coat on its hook here and go see that you’re brought the water and your plates collected.”
He rises, carefully setting the coat onto a hook by the door, then begins to tidy up from his pressing and seeing work.
Crozier's gaze follows the steward as he rises. He hasn't dismissed him, exactly, but he's always let Jopson move along the tide, so to speak. The young man knows his business better than Francis does, and the only reason to suddenly hew so close to tyrannical would be love of cruelty, which he has none of. It's the devotion that tempts, though he's not sure that isn't actually more dangerous. He could tell Jopson to sit back down and he'd sit.
He's reasonably certain he could tell Jopson to kneel, actually.
He does neither of these things. As ever, he lets him go about what he means to do, a professional steward as he is. Plenty to see to; there are no wasters on a ship.
"Only your continued competent workmanship, Mr Jopson." A pause. He runs a thumb over the edge of the teacup. A bad habit; keep your fingers out of your cup, Frank. He adjusts his hold. "We're in our own world here, at sea. I know you know that. But I know, too, that when it rears up in a reminder like this, it's like hitting a wall at speed. I have faith you'll walk it off and get back to it."
The idea that he might go back in time and stop himself from protecting the young Chambers is fruitless - he made his decision with the boy's wellbeing in mind. That it's negatively impacted his own and his occupation is another thing. He's a fool, Tom, for thinking this is only about the job, and not about the man in the chair, holding a perfectly made cup of tea. It has nothing to do with the cold dismissal, the lilt in his Irish accent, the disappointment.
He feels a miserable fool going about his tasks now, in the quiet of the Captain's quarters where they'd usually speak with some relative ease or comfort. He trusts Crozier implicitly on all things regarding the sea, but trusts him more beyond that. A fool again.
"It is my duty to serve you, your ship, and our country. It is an honor, first and foremost."
Sewing mess tidied, coat hung up, clothes cleanly pressed and laid out for him, boots shined and carefully placed, the bed made up and surfaces tidied. The Captain's quarters are spotless in all ways, as though he'd never been there to begin with.
"I'll send the boy to you at once," a nod, and he turns to leave, fetch one of the ship's boys, send him up with everything he should need for Crozier's bath from the waters to the choice of soap and the texture of sponge and cloth sent along. Details, details, details.
He goes about his day quietly, keeping to himself save for the times he's called upon or required to bring the Captain his meals, all the way through dinner where it would be impossible to tell he knew what was coming after the meal. He doesn't eat much when the crew is served, but doesn't waste - just has less on his plate to move around until they're called to attention and steps forward as he's told to, the creep of shame working its way back into his skin as the whole of the crew stares at the line up of men.
More shame, even, when he's called first - when he begins to undo the buttons on his jacket, then his shirt. There's some mutterings the moment his shirt falls away, an odd sort of staring that makes red flush up his neck, that keeps his eyes angled straight ahead, ignoring his instinct to hide away.
One could argue about Francis Crozier having no love for cruelty, seeing this— it's perverse entertainment as much as it is a chilling collective lesson, every time the whole crew assembles for punishment. A ship is one unit. Flagrant violations cannot be secrets. It's disturbing to watch, and it's disturbing to be watched; yet more layers of discipline. See, when you behave out of line, it touches the lot.
Too cold to be on deck, would be even at noon. They are below, with a table bisecting the room, penitent men on one side with an audience of the crew behind them, officers on the other, the ship's master with his tools at the head, Dr Robertson opposite, his assistant surgeon over his shoulder.
No fanfare. Crozier reminds them of the service they're in, and gets on with it. Jopson first. Meddling and lying, he says as the steward pulls off his shirt. Ten strikes.
He could walk over and shake him. Really. Seeing it—
You prick. 'I can weather the lashes well enough', he'd said. 'The pain is temporary.' And he'd disbelieved him. Jopson isn't a seaman, he has no service record. If it wasn't entered into the memory of gossip and telling tales, there's no reason for anyone to have made note of it; whatever he'd gotten up to on Racer must have been plenty mundane. He was going to do endure it again? Over what?
Thank hell, or some other thing, that he isn't the sort to gape. But it's a hard look he gives his steward as the master tells him to brace himself. It's the strap, not the whip, but it'll go on his back and not his rear. Cotter doesn't go easy. One. It's a loud noise. Two. Crozier keeps looking at Jopson, and his wide, clear eyes.
The whispers are worse than the strap, honestly. The sounds of was it five or ten? can you count them? to it's the quiet ones innit? to best not cross him then. A mix of things that fill his head with noise as he leans in and takes his position as told by the sailing master himself.
He sucks in a slow, deep breath as Cotter raises his arm and it's with that lock-jawed idea of perfection, a professional fusser of all things, that he manages not to flinch. No, he won't flinch, not with his Captain watching. Crozier, watching. Their eyes meet and he keeps himself focused on the man, the lines of his face, the set of his brow, the tuft of hair pushed out of place by a winter cap, the stormy hazel of his eyes.
Three. Four. Each hit harder as Cotter warms up and each one making a muscle in Tom's jaw flex, tighten, grit. He won't flinch, he won't make a sound, he will simply take what he is due. There are more whispers - shock at the man's stillness, his quiet, his resolve. Something they know about him as it is, but in this light it brings an eerie pall upon the room.
Five, Six, Seven, Eight.
He keeps his hands flat on the table, his legs squared, his chest straight, eyes caught on Crozier's. This punishment has the Captain's name scribed beneath it, as though it's his hand that makes the strikes and not the strap. Part of him wants to climb over the table and tell him to hit him himself at this rate, that it would be more effective, help him better understand the level of the man's disappointment. The other wants to yell why, to rear against Cotter and the strap and the men watching this happen and for what? Reputation?
The fire roils behind grey-blue eyes, unblinking - the only change is the set of his jaw and the soft almost silent inhale at the tenth lash.
No one has to tell the gallery to shush; by the time the first blow falls, all are silent.
What's the point of such stillness, Crozier wonders. You said it was temporary, an accusatory thought even as he looks back at Jospon, who he doesn't want to see in pain, but less wants to see bear the ruinous weight of perceived favoritism. (It would be real favoritism.) You said it was temporary, and this isn't even a whip, but I can tell it hurts, lad.
Like he can fucking hear him. He thinks of his own brushes with discipline, humiliating instances as they were. Distant by now. Does he even remember what they were for? Does he remember what prompted any blow from his father, bent over the man's knee? Does anyone remember the infractions, or just the fear, the shock at the violation, a turn from something trusted into something vulnerable?
It's not to teach him a lesson. It's to right the ship. Jopson is part of that ship, and he proved it by stepping into it well up to his bloody middle.
Nine, and he imagines it's him. Ten, he imagines it's him with his bare hand.
Jopson is loosed without comment. Cotter puts a hand on his shoulder to wrench him up and turn him over to the doctor, who looks at his back and will either tell him he's fine to redress if there's no bleeding, or pass him off to the surgeon to fix anything that's split. Already, the next man is called forward. Instigating, complaining, lying by omission, Crozier announces as dispassionately as he had for Jopson's. Ten strikes.
As before. For the next, it's the strap still, but more strikes. The last two, the actual combatants, get the whip. Ten for Chambers. Drunkenness, fighting, cowardice. Fifteen for the other seaman. Drunkenness, fighting, stealing. It is here that the night turns truly grim. A horror, this punishment. Blood and panic have scents. Men watching flinch, now, and turn their eyes away. The second combatant gets to twelve, and Cotter raises his arm for the thirteenth before Crozier determines that's enough.
Wrenched away and shoved into the doctor's view, who gives him a once over and nods. Thomas knows putting his clothes back on will hurt more than the strap itself, but he pulls his shirt on as though it doesn't, then his coat. He glances back at Crozier, already announcing the next man's crimes, unsure of why he feels hot all over. (Thomas, please). When the whip comes out a terrible, dark thing akin to guilt and horror churns in his gut instead. The whip - the thing itself that Thomas lied for, to preserve Chambers a few moments of ship time without it. And here they are.
He will find the boy later - bring him something warm to help him sleep. He shouldn't, but it's what another seaman had done for him when he was lashed on the Racer. Small things go a long, long way.
The strikes turn brutal, the whole room tensing and turning acrid with the tang of blood and the uncomfortable coughs and huffs of men. It stops just before turning into something dizzying and the bloody man with twelve lashes is ushered off toward the doctor in far worse shape than he. The room is dismissed, the example made, and most of the men return quietly to their tables or to their hammocks to wind down for the evening as well as one can following such a show.
Thomas is no different. He straightens himself, turns to his own little hovel and splashes cold water in his face, smooths his hair into place, tries to cool some of the heat in his cheeks and throat. His back is murderously painful and it takes everything not to pour some of that cold water down the stinging heat of his spine. Instead he adjusts his jacket and slips back out.
The Captain's quarters need to be cleaned up from dinner, his bed made up for sleep, a nightcap, and night clothes prepared. While the Captain is out of sight he moves carefully, finding which ways he can bend and turn that won't send white-hot pain down his spine. It's only when he hears the scuff of boots and the groan of hinges that he straightens, tidying up the table, focused on the task.
"Your quarters are ready for you, Captain. I've just to remove these and pull the shades. Do you require a nightcap, sir? There's a decanter of water at your bedside all the same should you need it."
Work to do, still. In between becoming a sailor and becoming a captain he became a scientist, and still is; work on magnetism and heavenly objects remains a priority. Easy to get lost in, even if the distraction of Jopson's silent determination still sits at the edge of his mind like he's got a home there. Their naturalist sketches endlessly, and asks him a dozen questions about the rotation of the earth, watching as he draws out long equations to explain the spinning of the compass.
Nearly forgets dinner. Does forget to have any spirits, but that's fine. Lightheaded enough, he tells himself it's from the frustration of discipline, and not anything else.
(And it isn't, not anything. Something in particular.)
"Thank you, Jopson."
Everything is fine. He doesn't require a nightcap, just room to set down the box in his hands, a dozen rolled up papers and a jangle of magnetic odds and ends. Calibrating a dozen things through Fox's experiments.
"If you could clear up the table, and come back for the box—"
Not a lie, he does want him to put the box away. Eventually. It's just that, also in the box is a bowl, and while Jopson is clearing up the table, Crozier is setting something up in his cabin. Narrow, cramped, smaller than a servant's closet on land, it's nevertheless the roomiest berth on Terror, and he's become accustomed to moving about in it as if it were the queen's bedchamber. Now, when the steward returns, Crozier puts a hand on the door behind him to close it.
"A moment."
Maybe it will just be a moment. He's not being held captive in here. Crozier looks at him.
"Take your shirt off and sit," he indicates the chair from his desk, now in the middle of the slim clear space of the berth, "facing the wall." Straddling it, he means. "If you feel I'm overstepping, I'm putting my trust in you to find your voice, this time."
Clear up the table. Come back for the box. Thomas takes the order with ease, making certain the naturalist and others have their drinks topped off or take any food with them should they require it before he picks up properly. The table cleared and carefully wiped down and redressed, he steps back in to collect the box of items.
A moment.
All he wants is to return to his little cabin and lie on his stomach, let his back rest. He stills, watches Crozier shut the door behind him, and he wonders if he is once again going to be questioned, scolded. He opens his mouth to protest, then closes it, his brow pinching, confused. A glance to the chair, the open berth, the door shut behind him. Heat rushes back into his blood, and he'll chalk it up to the pain and the way he's been moving around since the whipping tending to the Captain and the other science-minded of the crew.
"A Captain and Commander cannot overstep on his own ship. It is simply impossible," he says finally, not quite the same cheek as before but still all the befuddled wonder of a Steward well and fully turned upside down by one man.
"The good doctor has already seen to my back and says it should heal without issue."
A little sigh. He doesn't move to leave, or take the box, or do anything other than stand in the close company of the captain. "I warmed the foot of your bed with the remaining coals from the kitchen, it will go cold before too long, sir."
Part of him wonders if it will be some other punishment, or if the man simply wants to see his injuries, if he wants to see the old scars, if he - he doesn't know what he wants. A day of distance, all brought to this.
If he and Chambers really are pulling each other off in the alcoves, the boy's lucky. A much worse crime if they're discovered— on some other ship, anyway. So long as manners and dignity are maintained, here on this expedition, the gaze of authority politely shifts.
(He and Jamie would immediately expire from hypocrisy, anyhow.)
"Aye, God on the ship, the French say," in a tone that suggests he very much can overstep, but of course they both know that. It's a matter of a commanding officer being called up for it, something that Crozier would not be, actually, but is offering.
"I'll sit just there, then, thank you."
His arse can be warm while they proceed. Unless, of course, Jopson finds his voice.
The extremes of it all leave him a little dizzy. The cold professionalism of a ship’s Captain turned to the exasperated friendliness of days and days before. He blinks a little dumbly and finally relents.
“I’ll reheat it for you when you’re ready to retire, sir.”
But he’d been given a directive, hadn’t he? He steps further inside and begins to remove his clothes. They come off slowly, his face still carefully pulled into practiced resolve. His jacket comes first, then waistcoat, then shirt. It’s the shirt that finally gets a face out of him, and a low grunt of pain as it peels away from the angry, swollen skin. He takes the time to carefully fold his clothes over the back of a chair and moves to the Captain’s berth, sitting as instructed.
You don't have to act like you're headed to the gallows, he could say. Punishment's over.
But is it.
While Jopson does as was asked, Crozier follows suit halfway; just his shirtsleeves and the knit over it, he undoes his cuffs, rolls his sleeves up to his elbows. At least the air is warm in the cabin, between the two of them milling about and the bed warmer. He doesn't gasp or wince at the sight of his back— that would be precious of him, and he's just not that way. Pain is pain, as he said, and they just get on with it.
Crozier sits, then, so he's speaking to Jopson's back. Brief, potentially mysterious noises occur. A scrape of metal over wood, the rustle of fabric as he picks something up.
"What are your siblings' names?"
An uninspired question, but he hopes to distract Jopson from tense anticipation at least a hair, because he knows the shock of application will be almost painful: he places a wet, cold cloth over part of his back, shoulder to rib.
The noises behind him pique his interest, but make tension pinch at his shoulders in spite of the tight pain of his back. The question surprises him, brings him back to the desk - you’re the oldest.
“Three, sir. One brother and two sisters. Henry John, Sarah, Mar- ah.”
The cold cloth comes as a shock, makes the wounds sing alive with sharp, needling pain until the cool sets in. He jumps at the contact, but relaxes a little into the back of the chair. It feels good - better than the sad attempt he was going to make himself. Stranger still that it’s the captain himself tending his injuries.
“Just - just a moment before the next.”
An admission if ever there was one of the pain. Ten angry welts, built up on top of one another in a furious patchwork, all laid over the pale and pink scars from the Racer. Finally, a soft little sigh.
Contrasting visions in his head, for this commentary.
One: sitting with Ross in the parlor of the hotel in Hobart they plan to put them up in, And he says to me, the steward you sent into my service, with the eyes, stop laughing you demon, he says—
Two: far too indecent to commit to words.
Crozier rests his hand high on Jopson's shoulder while he waits for him to gather himself. Away from any visibly reddened flesh, as though he hadn't been watching with such rapt attention, as if his eyes hadn't followed him when he turned as close as a caress, and he knows the strap did not go so high. His gaze now travels down over his back, over the swollen, angry skin, and the raised pale tracks of old lashmarks. Not nearly as old as the scattered few he has, their positions odd on his back, reaching almost to his sides now, having been laid into him before he was fully grown. Not nearly this many. All but the coldest captains are weary of giving too many to children, no matter the seriousness of their infractions. And those were the only years that Francis was ever caught engaging with infractions.
He makes a low, thoughtful sound as he unfurls the next piece of cloth, and then he lays it opposite the first. A third down the middle will cover the bulk of it, but again he waits, again with a hand high on the slope of his shoulder. Letting the cold seep into the inflammation to soothe it.
No further questions. If Jopson wants to tell him — about his siblings, about the scars, about Chambers — he has space to. If not, quiet between them has always been easy.
The third goes on and he sinks his weight into the back of the chair, hangs his head as the cold cloth does wonders for his pain. So does the hand on his shoulder, high, nearly where he could slip fingers into his hairline, or around his nape. He has rough, sailors hands, and he commits the attention and touch to memory.
He sits quietly for a few minutes, eyes closed, enjoying the companionable silence. It’s always easy company with Captain Crozier in a way he appreciates - words often difficult day in and out, and to save that energy for the crew he’s sure makes himself far more effective a Steward.
“He’s made of softer stuff, Chambers. I found the men drinking in their hammocks, telling ghost tales and childish stories. The young man was crying, likely worse due to the drink. Utterly fuddled with it, I think. But the men were keen to run him up, and I suppose I pitied him. I cried in my hammock for two weeks straight about a month at sea. Captain Byng wasn’t an easy man to serve and I worried for my family - he caught me one evening when he came to speak to one of the ship masters. I was blamed for the men’s rowdiness, though I didn’t partake in it. The path of least resistance at the time - I needed the position and the funds that it carried.”
The lashes, then. All while the older seamen watched with feigned solemnity. A cold crew in many ways, but work that Jopson enjoyed, and thrived within.
“I suppose I saw myself in Chambers. He seems younger than his years - I’d hoped to spare him a pain that may harden him against us. Presumptuous of me, I hardly know the boy and he’s gotten the whip anyway.”
He shifts his weight, foot knocking back against Crozier’s.
Good, that Jopson can't see him from this angle. (He'd have to turn his head, try to.) Because it's now that Crozier looks surprised, and how absurd, to have remained so stone-faced during the punishment only to be malleable now. To hear him speak so openly is rare, and so he listens.
A civilian being lashed doesn't bring the same camaraderie as it does between those enlisted. Always just a little apart. He imagines Jopson, lacking even the benefit of a sailor's training, and he thinks he understands. His own introduction to this life was so different— practically a child still, not trying to escape poverty but invisibility. He wanted to live. See something, anything, beyond the house, and the same green hills, and his mother forgetting if he was Hugh, Francis, or Graham. They were not wealthy, but it was a big house and well-kept, and no one went hungry. But it was still a shock. Another big house, floating, going from world to world, and failings ruthlessly judged and hammered into place.
Jopson's foot knocks his.
"I know."
It won't. His steward is too clever for that. He nudges his foot forward, a loop of contact, hand on his shoulders, toe to heel.
Another little while before he says anything. Mulling it over.
"Your empathy is a mark of honor, as a man. As a human at all. Far ahead of plenty. Maybe even most." His hand rubs over the base of the younger man's neck. He may still be buggering Chambers. Who knows. "Bad luck that this situation was a mess for all involved."
Crozier can't apologize for having punishments doled out. Not on the boy, not on Jopson. It simply isn't a realm, as a commanding officer, as the acting captain on the ship, he can afford to step into. Not even here in the privacy of his own cabin. Not even in his own mind. If he has the capacity to be sorry about it, he doesn't allow himself to acknowledge it. Any shake in confidence can lead to ruin, he knows damn well.
"Chambers may find solace in brotherhood after this," he muses. "And in that solace there is strength. If not, I wish for no man to be made permanently unwell over being unsuited for the work. I will speak to Ross about it, when we next winter on the island."
Jopson feels foolish for letting his mouth run, for exposing just how vulnerable the last two days have left him. It wouldn't be hard to serve a cruel Captain, to tend to war mongers and brutish politicians. It's the isolation that gets at him worst - losing the companionship of the man serves, trapped in his own thoughts. A dangerous cycle when there is nothing to mark the difference in days, weeks, months, than the passing of the sun overhead.
His shoulders relax under Crozier's hands, letting out a low, shaken sigh when one travels to the base of his neck. It's good the man can't see his face, or the way his eyes flutter closed, the way he soaks up the attention, warmth returning beneath his skin, a little life coming back into his eyes. But by the grace of God his back hurts.
"He handled himself well, I've no doubt they'll rally to him now."
The men will turn to the aid of most who have been lashed - not so openly where commanders and officers might see, but in small gestures. Jopson knows there will be little waiting for him. He's on a different step, and usually alone. For now, though, he has this - the Captain's care.
Quiet again, mind churning, thoughts bouncing around, the urge to say everything now he feels so terribly raw, but the stubborn care of a steward, not wishing to add to a burden that he's already done in. He'd like to ask about the naturalist, about the things Crozier's sky box of trinkets has revealed, or what they intend to look for next they have open, clear skies. That would mean admitting he eavesdrops, that he sometimes pauses when filling one of the naturalist's glasses to peer at the drawing he works on.
"I've kept you up, sir. My apologies."
He doesn't move yet. He knows doing so will hurt beyond measure, the cold cloths warmed now by his angry, inflamed skin.
Wounds heal. Broken bones mend strong. Scar tissue, like the kind on Jopson's back, earned for perceived weakness, is thicker than what was there before. The crew will knit closer, they will work better together; what is sacrificed is more space between command and them. But that's how it should be. A steward walks a high-wire strung between decks. Between the community of the crew, and the island of command. Crozier reckons he'll have a few more spotters, after this. Not enough to even out the number of those who are indifferent, or those who look at him with suspicion over his access to the officers and freedom from hard labor, but some.
A hammock on Racer, to his own berth on Terror. He must have done well, or at least not done offensively. Or perhaps Ross picked his name out of a hat.
However it happened, Francis is glad for it.
"Oh? You strong-armed me into this?" He thumbs a slope of muscle where neck joins shoulder. "Sneaky of you. Just sit for a while, Jopson."
Don't make me order you. (Don't make me forget that saying You looked beautiful, while it was happening would be madness.)
The hand stays, as though it alone can prevent any escape. Crozier leaves it until a gentle touch confirms the strips have all begun to match the temperature of Jopson's body, and then, carefully, he peels one off. Just one.
"Here—" a lean into view, as he stretches to take the pillow (so neatly tucked) from his bed. He hands it to Jopson before he rights himself. Not done yet. The one strip is replaced with another from the bowl, still freezing cold from the melted ice. He is careful about laying it down, and then swapping out the next, and the next.
"Not too long," the commander muses. "Or it'll go raw. But some minutes still, I think."
"Shall I tell you the steps I took to strong-arm you then, Captain?"
A weak joke, but he could make one of it. A map of his wrong doings that have otherwise made the Captain sit him down here, tend to his injuries. But the threat is there all the same - don't make me order you. He doesn't even have to say it. (Though part of him wishes he would).
The thumb skirting muscle has him sighing faintly, uncontrolled, the touch tender and so unfamiliar. The Captain's bare skin against his own - that's a tightrope he's wanted to walk for some time, but would never, ever put voice to it. The Captain has his own prospects, certainly, and yet he can't get the look of the man's eyes out of his mind. The hazel mixed with the coldness of a man giving punishment, the hazel burning enough that he could almost imagine the hand hitting him instead of the straps.
The pillow is a welcome surprise, one he takes with a near bashful dip of his head, using it to bolster himself against the back of the chair, sinking his head sideways upon it, arms tucked carefully underneath. It smells of him - sweat and musk and the rich spice he uses to freshen up the man's linens every so often.
He jumps a little with every new application, the cold cloths a shock at first, but relaxing again after the last one is placed.
"Thank you," he murmurs, quiet and with the air of fatigue on the end. Poor sleep last night, all the stress from the day, the lashing - if it weren't for the welts on his back he's sure he'd nod off quickly, and deeply.
"I'll gather a clean case for your pillow and a nightcap for you when we're through. But still some minutes, yes."
Crozier's hands are steady and careful; the contrast between how rough they look and feel, work-worn and strong, and the delicate precision he's capable of, writing long formal letters and calibrating intricate navigation devices, on tactile display. He's not as good at attending to another person as Jopson, so deft with his needlework, his grooming, the expert slip of fingers over his face for shaving (what an adjustment that's been, coaxed into it like a bear taking treats from a zookeeper) but he doesn't apologize. He thinks the younger man likes it anyway.
His touch lands here and there on Jopson's back, making sure the cloth is adhered. He presses a dry towel against the small of his back, wiping away freezing runoff that threatens the waistband of his trousers. He rubs his hands together, chasing the worst of the chill off, before placing them on the steward's biceps, then slides then up to the caps of his shoulders. Carefully rubs, thinks about where his own joints get the most sore through repetitive motion and anxious tension.
Thinks about how that pillowcase is going nowhere, actually.
"When we're through, you're going right to bed."
Good luck arguing.
"I won't have another boy in, I'll just leave any mess for you to sort in the morning. Maybe make one on purpose just to amuse you, since I know you look for extra things to put to rights. See if you can guess which disorderly pen arrangement was my absentmindedness and which I tipped over willfully."
The hands skate over his arms and shoulders and he can’t control the way the hair at his arms at the nape of his neck stand at end. His eyes flutter closed entirely, letting the man make work of his tense muscles. Particularly sore now after the lashings, the way he’d pressed his weight into his arms to keep from reacting, from showing the pain.
“And if I refuse? Will you carry me there yourself, Captain? At the very least allow me to make you a warm brew to help you rest.”
There’s a lazy, almost casual tone to his voice as the fatigue sets in, his accent a little thicker, voice a semitone deeper.
He’s not had anyone touch him like this in ages, not with such care. Admittedly there have been a few little flyaway moments with a deck hand or even a ships boy but not since Racer. Not since he met Captain Crozier, who haunts his dreams and makes miserable work for his own hand when he’s alone at night. Now he has this for reference. Hands rough from work at sea, a callus on the side of his right middle finger where the quill presses. He’s washed these hands, trimmed his nails, and so much more but to feel them like this?
He has to stop thinking about it - his blood has begun to turn a touch too warm and will betray him before too long.
He sits up a little, just enough to try and turn to look at the older man.
“Wait, Sorry. Do you often willfully make messes for me to chase after, sir?”
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When he leaves he does not meet Crozier's eye, instead keeps his chin up but his eyes focused elsewhere. He spends the rest of the evening doing laundry, making some minor repairs to the man's shirts, polishing a second pair of boots, bringing him his meals throughout the remainder of the evening, keeping up after the crew to clean the mess and their lodgings. Pouring him a glass of something strong, seeing himself out when Blanky and he begin chatting together. Not a word spoken unless he requires anything of the Captain, or vice versa. A steward is best quiet and diligent, or so he's told himself.
Retiring earlier than usual (there is no need to hover at Crozier's side when he feels unworthy of any of the banter and late evening dialogue that sometimes occupies the ends of his shifts), he sits with a book in his lap, worn and dog-eared, practically falling apart. An old Dickens piece, something he'd been gifted by one of his father's old customers. The only book to his name, and one he's sure he can recite front to back - The Pickwick Papers aren't anything extraordinary, but it's something to do with his spare time: What was over couldn't be begun, and what couldn't be cured must be endured.
He wakes early, of course, fatigued from a poor night's sleep, but he reports to Crozier's quarters per usual, setting out his clothes for the day, pressing any wrinkles from the collar with a hot iron, fetches a plate of food for him, pours him something to help with the edge of last night's alcohol.
"May I ask when we are to be called, Captain?" Quiet, not meeting his eyes still, instead he's adding a few extra threads to a loose, wayward button on the man's great coat. "I should like to begin your laundry for the morning, but I don't want it to sit and go sour. If - apologies, if it's presumptuous of me to ask."
Not worried at all about his own wellbeing, no - but the laundry.
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But because Jopson is a real person, his absence is a thing. A shape left behind, around which Crozier navigates in this small space. Gives him things to consider, by and by, from bedding down, to the night, to the morning.
The tea is good, like it always is now that they've sorted how he likes it. His steward has a knack. He drinks, one sip then another, and watches him fuss with the button. Diligent, productive fussing, as ever.
It is a little presumptuous.
Clink, the teacup finds the saucer. Crozier reaches out with one hand, and with his knuckles (not so bold, so inappropriate, as to use the soft pads of his fingers, like he might with a lady in private), tips Jopson's head up so that he's forced to look him in the eyes. Well. That's the idea, anyhow, he supposes his steward could just squeezes them shut, but he doesn't think him so avoidant.
Just looking. Is he afraid? Is he manic? Is he choking back resentment already?
"After dinner."
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“I see. Thank you, sir.”
The evening. He thinks ahead to his duties, and the things that may be completed for the man a little earlier, but even that feels unfair when the other men involved won’t have any advanced notice. No, the point is to work through the discomfort, after all. To feel the sting of welts and wounds when he’s turning down Crozier’s bed for the night, or crouched to assist him out of his boots.
No, he will simply have to shoulder through so the Captain does not notice the difference in his care. After dinner, then it will be done. He makes a mental note to check in with young Mr Chambers after. All the effort to spare him, and yet. How foolish.
“Would you like your bath prepared this morning, Captain? With the kitchen stoves still warm it would be a simple ask.”
Hands remain still, Jopson filling the air with asks and requests is simpler.
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He should pull his hand back, and so he does. (He shouldn't have extended his hand in the first place.) Jopson is so tolerant and it is a puzzle—
Really, Francis, are you pretending to be an idiot now.
This is a foolish game for midshipmen and bored lieutenants, he doesn't know why he's doing it, except for how immediately the steward seems to rise to every occasion like a perfect volley on the other side of a racquet table. Quiet and unassuming, but Crozier sees him all the same. He picks up his teacup again.
"No, I'll sort it myself," he decides. "Have one of the boys bring the water by and leave it."
Is that the worse punishment, he wonders. The cold shoulder.
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“Yes of course,” calm, compliant, even if he wants to turn and grab the hand that’s left the ghost of something fiery on his chin. Even if he wants to find some way to express his regret all over again.
It doesn’t matter. He swallows it down, stomachs it. He’s wanted for far more before and hasn’t gotten it - the respect and attention of one man shouldn’t be so heavy. But it begins to feel like the first days working under Crozier - the frustrations, the indifference, everything with the air if I don’t need this, this isn’t important that a humble, grounded man would have. The coldness he feels now is different, creates a squirm of doubt.
“I will leave your coat on its hook here and go see that you’re brought the water and your plates collected.”
He rises, carefully setting the coat onto a hook by the door, then begins to tidy up from his pressing and seeing work.
“Is there anything else you require, sir?”
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Crozier's gaze follows the steward as he rises. He hasn't dismissed him, exactly, but he's always let Jopson move along the tide, so to speak. The young man knows his business better than Francis does, and the only reason to suddenly hew so close to tyrannical would be love of cruelty, which he has none of. It's the devotion that tempts, though he's not sure that isn't actually more dangerous. He could tell Jopson to sit back down and he'd sit.
He's reasonably certain he could tell Jopson to kneel, actually.
He does neither of these things. As ever, he lets him go about what he means to do, a professional steward as he is. Plenty to see to; there are no wasters on a ship.
"Only your continued competent workmanship, Mr Jopson." A pause. He runs a thumb over the edge of the teacup. A bad habit; keep your fingers out of your cup, Frank. He adjusts his hold. "We're in our own world here, at sea. I know you know that. But I know, too, that when it rears up in a reminder like this, it's like hitting a wall at speed. I have faith you'll walk it off and get back to it."
Still: no help with the bath today.
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He feels a miserable fool going about his tasks now, in the quiet of the Captain's quarters where they'd usually speak with some relative ease or comfort. He trusts Crozier implicitly on all things regarding the sea, but trusts him more beyond that. A fool again.
"It is my duty to serve you, your ship, and our country. It is an honor, first and foremost."
Sewing mess tidied, coat hung up, clothes cleanly pressed and laid out for him, boots shined and carefully placed, the bed made up and surfaces tidied. The Captain's quarters are spotless in all ways, as though he'd never been there to begin with.
"I'll send the boy to you at once," a nod, and he turns to leave, fetch one of the ship's boys, send him up with everything he should need for Crozier's bath from the waters to the choice of soap and the texture of sponge and cloth sent along. Details, details, details.
He goes about his day quietly, keeping to himself save for the times he's called upon or required to bring the Captain his meals, all the way through dinner where it would be impossible to tell he knew what was coming after the meal. He doesn't eat much when the crew is served, but doesn't waste - just has less on his plate to move around until they're called to attention and steps forward as he's told to, the creep of shame working its way back into his skin as the whole of the crew stares at the line up of men.
More shame, even, when he's called first - when he begins to undo the buttons on his jacket, then his shirt. There's some mutterings the moment his shirt falls away, an odd sort of staring that makes red flush up his neck, that keeps his eyes angled straight ahead, ignoring his instinct to hide away.
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Too cold to be on deck, would be even at noon. They are below, with a table bisecting the room, penitent men on one side with an audience of the crew behind them, officers on the other, the ship's master with his tools at the head, Dr Robertson opposite, his assistant surgeon over his shoulder.
No fanfare. Crozier reminds them of the service they're in, and gets on with it. Jopson first. Meddling and lying, he says as the steward pulls off his shirt. Ten strikes.
He could walk over and shake him. Really. Seeing it—
You prick. 'I can weather the lashes well enough', he'd said. 'The pain is temporary.' And he'd disbelieved him. Jopson isn't a seaman, he has no service record. If it wasn't entered into the memory of gossip and telling tales, there's no reason for anyone to have made note of it; whatever he'd gotten up to on Racer must have been plenty mundane. He was going to do endure it again? Over what?
Thank hell, or some other thing, that he isn't the sort to gape. But it's a hard look he gives his steward as the master tells him to brace himself. It's the strap, not the whip, but it'll go on his back and not his rear. Cotter doesn't go easy. One. It's a loud noise. Two. Crozier keeps looking at Jopson, and his wide, clear eyes.
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He sucks in a slow, deep breath as Cotter raises his arm and it's with that lock-jawed idea of perfection, a professional fusser of all things, that he manages not to flinch. No, he won't flinch, not with his Captain watching. Crozier, watching. Their eyes meet and he keeps himself focused on the man, the lines of his face, the set of his brow, the tuft of hair pushed out of place by a winter cap, the stormy hazel of his eyes.
Three. Four. Each hit harder as Cotter warms up and each one making a muscle in Tom's jaw flex, tighten, grit. He won't flinch, he won't make a sound, he will simply take what he is due. There are more whispers - shock at the man's stillness, his quiet, his resolve. Something they know about him as it is, but in this light it brings an eerie pall upon the room.
Five, Six, Seven, Eight.
He keeps his hands flat on the table, his legs squared, his chest straight, eyes caught on Crozier's. This punishment has the Captain's name scribed beneath it, as though it's his hand that makes the strikes and not the strap. Part of him wants to climb over the table and tell him to hit him himself at this rate, that it would be more effective, help him better understand the level of the man's disappointment. The other wants to yell why, to rear against Cotter and the strap and the men watching this happen and for what? Reputation?
The fire roils behind grey-blue eyes, unblinking - the only change is the set of his jaw and the soft almost silent inhale at the tenth lash.
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What's the point of such stillness, Crozier wonders. You said it was temporary, an accusatory thought even as he looks back at Jospon, who he doesn't want to see in pain, but less wants to see bear the ruinous weight of perceived favoritism. (It would be real favoritism.) You said it was temporary, and this isn't even a whip, but I can tell it hurts, lad.
Like he can fucking hear him. He thinks of his own brushes with discipline, humiliating instances as they were. Distant by now. Does he even remember what they were for? Does he remember what prompted any blow from his father, bent over the man's knee? Does anyone remember the infractions, or just the fear, the shock at the violation, a turn from something trusted into something vulnerable?
It's not to teach him a lesson. It's to right the ship. Jopson is part of that ship, and he proved it by stepping into it well up to his bloody middle.
Nine, and he imagines it's him. Ten, he imagines it's him with his bare hand.
Jopson is loosed without comment. Cotter puts a hand on his shoulder to wrench him up and turn him over to the doctor, who looks at his back and will either tell him he's fine to redress if there's no bleeding, or pass him off to the surgeon to fix anything that's split. Already, the next man is called forward. Instigating, complaining, lying by omission, Crozier announces as dispassionately as he had for Jopson's. Ten strikes.
As before. For the next, it's the strap still, but more strikes. The last two, the actual combatants, get the whip. Ten for Chambers. Drunkenness, fighting, cowardice. Fifteen for the other seaman. Drunkenness, fighting, stealing. It is here that the night turns truly grim. A horror, this punishment. Blood and panic have scents. Men watching flinch, now, and turn their eyes away. The second combatant gets to twelve, and Cotter raises his arm for the thirteenth before Crozier determines that's enough.
And that's the end of it.
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He will find the boy later - bring him something warm to help him sleep. He shouldn't, but it's what another seaman had done for him when he was lashed on the Racer. Small things go a long, long way.
The strikes turn brutal, the whole room tensing and turning acrid with the tang of blood and the uncomfortable coughs and huffs of men. It stops just before turning into something dizzying and the bloody man with twelve lashes is ushered off toward the doctor in far worse shape than he. The room is dismissed, the example made, and most of the men return quietly to their tables or to their hammocks to wind down for the evening as well as one can following such a show.
Thomas is no different. He straightens himself, turns to his own little hovel and splashes cold water in his face, smooths his hair into place, tries to cool some of the heat in his cheeks and throat. His back is murderously painful and it takes everything not to pour some of that cold water down the stinging heat of his spine. Instead he adjusts his jacket and slips back out.
The Captain's quarters need to be cleaned up from dinner, his bed made up for sleep, a nightcap, and night clothes prepared. While the Captain is out of sight he moves carefully, finding which ways he can bend and turn that won't send white-hot pain down his spine. It's only when he hears the scuff of boots and the groan of hinges that he straightens, tidying up the table, focused on the task.
"Your quarters are ready for you, Captain. I've just to remove these and pull the shades. Do you require a nightcap, sir? There's a decanter of water at your bedside all the same should you need it."
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Nearly forgets dinner. Does forget to have any spirits, but that's fine. Lightheaded enough, he tells himself it's from the frustration of discipline, and not anything else.
(And it isn't, not anything. Something in particular.)
"Thank you, Jopson."
Everything is fine. He doesn't require a nightcap, just room to set down the box in his hands, a dozen rolled up papers and a jangle of magnetic odds and ends. Calibrating a dozen things through Fox's experiments.
"If you could clear up the table, and come back for the box—"
Not a lie, he does want him to put the box away. Eventually. It's just that, also in the box is a bowl, and while Jopson is clearing up the table, Crozier is setting something up in his cabin. Narrow, cramped, smaller than a servant's closet on land, it's nevertheless the roomiest berth on Terror, and he's become accustomed to moving about in it as if it were the queen's bedchamber. Now, when the steward returns, Crozier puts a hand on the door behind him to close it.
"A moment."
Maybe it will just be a moment. He's not being held captive in here. Crozier looks at him.
"Take your shirt off and sit," he indicates the chair from his desk, now in the middle of the slim clear space of the berth, "facing the wall." Straddling it, he means. "If you feel I'm overstepping, I'm putting my trust in you to find your voice, this time."
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A moment.
All he wants is to return to his little cabin and lie on his stomach, let his back rest. He stills, watches Crozier shut the door behind him, and he wonders if he is once again going to be questioned, scolded. He opens his mouth to protest, then closes it, his brow pinching, confused. A glance to the chair, the open berth, the door shut behind him. Heat rushes back into his blood, and he'll chalk it up to the pain and the way he's been moving around since the whipping tending to the Captain and the other science-minded of the crew.
"A Captain and Commander cannot overstep on his own ship. It is simply impossible," he says finally, not quite the same cheek as before but still all the befuddled wonder of a Steward well and fully turned upside down by one man.
"The good doctor has already seen to my back and says it should heal without issue."
A little sigh. He doesn't move to leave, or take the box, or do anything other than stand in the close company of the captain. "I warmed the foot of your bed with the remaining coals from the kitchen, it will go cold before too long, sir."
Part of him wonders if it will be some other punishment, or if the man simply wants to see his injuries, if he wants to see the old scars, if he - he doesn't know what he wants. A day of distance, all brought to this.
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(He and Jamie would immediately expire from hypocrisy, anyhow.)
"Aye, God on the ship, the French say," in a tone that suggests he very much can overstep, but of course they both know that. It's a matter of a commanding officer being called up for it, something that Crozier would not be, actually, but is offering.
"I'll sit just there, then, thank you."
His arse can be warm while they proceed. Unless, of course, Jopson finds his voice.
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“I’ll reheat it for you when you’re ready to retire, sir.”
But he’d been given a directive, hadn’t he? He steps further inside and begins to remove his clothes. They come off slowly, his face still carefully pulled into practiced resolve. His jacket comes first, then waistcoat, then shirt. It’s the shirt that finally gets a face out of him, and a low grunt of pain as it peels away from the angry, swollen skin. He takes the time to carefully fold his clothes over the back of a chair and moves to the Captain’s berth, sitting as instructed.
“Is this how you’d like me seated, sir?”
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You don't have to act like you're headed to the gallows, he could say. Punishment's over.
But is it.
While Jopson does as was asked, Crozier follows suit halfway; just his shirtsleeves and the knit over it, he undoes his cuffs, rolls his sleeves up to his elbows. At least the air is warm in the cabin, between the two of them milling about and the bed warmer. He doesn't gasp or wince at the sight of his back— that would be precious of him, and he's just not that way. Pain is pain, as he said, and they just get on with it.
Crozier sits, then, so he's speaking to Jopson's back. Brief, potentially mysterious noises occur. A scrape of metal over wood, the rustle of fabric as he picks something up.
"What are your siblings' names?"
An uninspired question, but he hopes to distract Jopson from tense anticipation at least a hair, because he knows the shock of application will be almost painful: he places a wet, cold cloth over part of his back, shoulder to rib.
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“Three, sir. One brother and two sisters. Henry John, Sarah, Mar- ah.”
The cold cloth comes as a shock, makes the wounds sing alive with sharp, needling pain until the cool sets in. He jumps at the contact, but relaxes a little into the back of the chair. It feels good - better than the sad attempt he was going to make himself. Stranger still that it’s the captain himself tending his injuries.
“Just - just a moment before the next.”
An admission if ever there was one of the pain. Ten angry welts, built up on top of one another in a furious patchwork, all laid over the pale and pink scars from the Racer. Finally, a soft little sigh.
“I can take another.”
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One: sitting with Ross in the parlor of the hotel in Hobart they plan to put them up in, And he says to me, the steward you sent into my service, with the eyes, stop laughing you demon, he says—
Two: far too indecent to commit to words.
Crozier rests his hand high on Jopson's shoulder while he waits for him to gather himself. Away from any visibly reddened flesh, as though he hadn't been watching with such rapt attention, as if his eyes hadn't followed him when he turned as close as a caress, and he knows the strap did not go so high. His gaze now travels down over his back, over the swollen, angry skin, and the raised pale tracks of old lashmarks. Not nearly as old as the scattered few he has, their positions odd on his back, reaching almost to his sides now, having been laid into him before he was fully grown. Not nearly this many. All but the coldest captains are weary of giving too many to children, no matter the seriousness of their infractions. And those were the only years that Francis was ever caught engaging with infractions.
He makes a low, thoughtful sound as he unfurls the next piece of cloth, and then he lays it opposite the first. A third down the middle will cover the bulk of it, but again he waits, again with a hand high on the slope of his shoulder. Letting the cold seep into the inflammation to soothe it.
No further questions. If Jopson wants to tell him — about his siblings, about the scars, about Chambers — he has space to. If not, quiet between them has always been easy.
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He sits quietly for a few minutes, eyes closed, enjoying the companionable silence. It’s always easy company with Captain Crozier in a way he appreciates - words often difficult day in and out, and to save that energy for the crew he’s sure makes himself far more effective a Steward.
“He’s made of softer stuff, Chambers. I found the men drinking in their hammocks, telling ghost tales and childish stories. The young man was crying, likely worse due to the drink. Utterly fuddled with it, I think. But the men were keen to run him up, and I suppose I pitied him. I cried in my hammock for two weeks straight about a month at sea. Captain Byng wasn’t an easy man to serve and I worried for my family - he caught me one evening when he came to speak to one of the ship masters. I was blamed for the men’s rowdiness, though I didn’t partake in it. The path of least resistance at the time - I needed the position and the funds that it carried.”
The lashes, then. All while the older seamen watched with feigned solemnity. A cold crew in many ways, but work that Jopson enjoyed, and thrived within.
“I suppose I saw myself in Chambers. He seems younger than his years - I’d hoped to spare him a pain that may harden him against us. Presumptuous of me, I hardly
know the boy and he’s gotten the whip anyway.”
He shifts his weight, foot knocking back against Crozier’s.
“It won’t happen again, sir.”
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A civilian being lashed doesn't bring the same camaraderie as it does between those enlisted. Always just a little apart. He imagines Jopson, lacking even the benefit of a sailor's training, and he thinks he understands. His own introduction to this life was so different— practically a child still, not trying to escape poverty but invisibility. He wanted to live. See something, anything, beyond the house, and the same green hills, and his mother forgetting if he was Hugh, Francis, or Graham. They were not wealthy, but it was a big house and well-kept, and no one went hungry. But it was still a shock. Another big house, floating, going from world to world, and failings ruthlessly judged and hammered into place.
Jopson's foot knocks his.
"I know."
It won't. His steward is too clever for that. He nudges his foot forward, a loop of contact, hand on his shoulders, toe to heel.
Another little while before he says anything. Mulling it over.
"Your empathy is a mark of honor, as a man. As a human at all. Far ahead of plenty. Maybe even most." His hand rubs over the base of the younger man's neck. He may still be buggering Chambers. Who knows. "Bad luck that this situation was a mess for all involved."
Crozier can't apologize for having punishments doled out. Not on the boy, not on Jopson. It simply isn't a realm, as a commanding officer, as the acting captain on the ship, he can afford to step into. Not even here in the privacy of his own cabin. Not even in his own mind. If he has the capacity to be sorry about it, he doesn't allow himself to acknowledge it. Any shake in confidence can lead to ruin, he knows damn well.
"Chambers may find solace in brotherhood after this," he muses. "And in that solace there is strength. If not, I wish for no man to be made permanently unwell over being unsuited for the work. I will speak to Ross about it, when we next winter on the island."
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His shoulders relax under Crozier's hands, letting out a low, shaken sigh when one travels to the base of his neck. It's good the man can't see his face, or the way his eyes flutter closed, the way he soaks up the attention, warmth returning beneath his skin, a little life coming back into his eyes. But by the grace of God his back hurts.
"He handled himself well, I've no doubt they'll rally to him now."
The men will turn to the aid of most who have been lashed - not so openly where commanders and officers might see, but in small gestures. Jopson knows there will be little waiting for him. He's on a different step, and usually alone. For now, though, he has this - the Captain's care.
Quiet again, mind churning, thoughts bouncing around, the urge to say everything now he feels so terribly raw, but the stubborn care of a steward, not wishing to add to a burden that he's already done in. He'd like to ask about the naturalist, about the things Crozier's sky box of trinkets has revealed, or what they intend to look for next they have open, clear skies. That would mean admitting he eavesdrops, that he sometimes pauses when filling one of the naturalist's glasses to peer at the drawing he works on.
"I've kept you up, sir. My apologies."
He doesn't move yet. He knows doing so will hurt beyond measure, the cold cloths warmed now by his angry, inflamed skin.
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A hammock on Racer, to his own berth on Terror. He must have done well, or at least not done offensively. Or perhaps Ross picked his name out of a hat.
However it happened, Francis is glad for it.
"Oh? You strong-armed me into this?" He thumbs a slope of muscle where neck joins shoulder. "Sneaky of you. Just sit for a while, Jopson."
Don't make me order you. (Don't make me forget that saying You looked beautiful, while it was happening would be madness.)
The hand stays, as though it alone can prevent any escape. Crozier leaves it until a gentle touch confirms the strips have all begun to match the temperature of Jopson's body, and then, carefully, he peels one off. Just one.
"Here—" a lean into view, as he stretches to take the pillow (so neatly tucked) from his bed. He hands it to Jopson before he rights himself. Not done yet. The one strip is replaced with another from the bowl, still freezing cold from the melted ice. He is careful about laying it down, and then swapping out the next, and the next.
"Not too long," the commander muses. "Or it'll go raw. But some minutes still, I think."
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A weak joke, but he could make one of it. A map of his wrong doings that have otherwise made the Captain sit him down here, tend to his injuries. But the threat is there all the same - don't make me order you. He doesn't even have to say it. (Though part of him wishes he would).
The thumb skirting muscle has him sighing faintly, uncontrolled, the touch tender and so unfamiliar. The Captain's bare skin against his own - that's a tightrope he's wanted to walk for some time, but would never, ever put voice to it. The Captain has his own prospects, certainly, and yet he can't get the look of the man's eyes out of his mind. The hazel mixed with the coldness of a man giving punishment, the hazel burning enough that he could almost imagine the hand hitting him instead of the straps.
The pillow is a welcome surprise, one he takes with a near bashful dip of his head, using it to bolster himself against the back of the chair, sinking his head sideways upon it, arms tucked carefully underneath. It smells of him - sweat and musk and the rich spice he uses to freshen up the man's linens every so often.
He jumps a little with every new application, the cold cloths a shock at first, but relaxing again after the last one is placed.
"Thank you," he murmurs, quiet and with the air of fatigue on the end. Poor sleep last night, all the stress from the day, the lashing - if it weren't for the welts on his back he's sure he'd nod off quickly, and deeply.
"I'll gather a clean case for your pillow and a nightcap for you when we're through. But still some minutes, yes."
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His touch lands here and there on Jopson's back, making sure the cloth is adhered. He presses a dry towel against the small of his back, wiping away freezing runoff that threatens the waistband of his trousers. He rubs his hands together, chasing the worst of the chill off, before placing them on the steward's biceps, then slides then up to the caps of his shoulders. Carefully rubs, thinks about where his own joints get the most sore through repetitive motion and anxious tension.
Thinks about how that pillowcase is going nowhere, actually.
"When we're through, you're going right to bed."
Good luck arguing.
"I won't have another boy in, I'll just leave any mess for you to sort in the morning. Maybe make one on purpose just to amuse you, since I know you look for extra things to put to rights. See if you can guess which disorderly pen arrangement was my absentmindedness and which I tipped over willfully."
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“And if I refuse? Will you carry me there yourself, Captain? At the very least allow me to make you a warm brew to help you rest.”
There’s a lazy, almost casual tone to his voice as the fatigue sets in, his accent a little thicker, voice a semitone deeper.
He’s not had anyone touch him like this in ages, not with such care. Admittedly there have been a few little flyaway moments with a deck hand or even a ships boy but not since Racer. Not since he met Captain Crozier, who haunts his dreams and makes miserable work for his own hand when he’s alone at night. Now he has this for reference. Hands rough from work at sea, a callus on the side of his right middle finger where the quill presses. He’s washed these hands, trimmed his nails, and so much more but to feel them like this?
He has to stop thinking about it - his blood has begun to turn a touch too warm and will betray him before too long.
He sits up a little, just enough to try and turn to look at the older man.
“Wait, Sorry. Do you often willfully make messes for me to chase after, sir?”
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i'm gonna kms over my own weird typos
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