Impossible not to notice how Jopson responds to him. Makes something in him feel hungrier than it has any right to, not when he already has him here under his hands, against his body. Some of it is facilitated by Ross, he's certain — how could it not be, one of the most beautiful, affluent men in the bloody world sweetly touching and kissing him and coaxing him into being comfortable — but it's a jolt to his own ego, it bolsters his own particular affections. He puts his mouth over where that tiny split of skin is, linen between his mouth and the cut, and then noses higher, so he can kiss the back of his neck and the curve of his shoulder.
Feels good, doing this. He's slowly getting hard, but he's in no hurry about it. The way Jopson shifts back into him is pleasing, makes him heat up further, but he doesn't follow temptation to rut into him. Instead he continues to touch him, paying special attention to anywhere that earns more of a reaction. He plays with his chest, firm and sensual, liking the shape of him, the wiry hair, the hard buds of his nipples that he finds and tugs on gently.
The sounds, the telltale movements, just about make up for the fact that he can't actually see Jamie and Thomas kissing. Knowing they're doing it is dreadfully arousing in any event, and he can only encourage it. After reaching out to run an affectionate hand over the other captain's hip, he slides his touch down again, back on Thomas' body. He presses against his abdomen, his belly, and lower, to cup him through his pajamas. There's no pretense of rubbing his thighs, though his touch retains that steady, soothing energy as he cradles his weight of his prick.
Crozier's moves over his body like he knows it too well already, the plucking over his nipples, the slow path his hand makes alongside Ross' down his belly. Ross swallows another one of the younger man's pretty gasps with a kiss, sliding his body closer, even if it means he's halfway on the cot rails. Thomas grips at the younger captain's shirt, needing to touch something, body being gently warmed, molded into their touch.
"Shhh," Jamie murmurs against the steward's mouth, tilting his head to kiss his jaw, his neck, to his shoulder where Crozier's mouth was before. "We'll take care of you, Thomas, never you mind."
There's no coherent thought that could stand a chance against the gentle, almost reverent way the hand presses around his prick. He's grateful his hips don't buck like some needy school boy, but the faintest movement of his hips, a squirm of desire, may tell all. Jopson doesn't know when Jamie's hand moved, either, the slow up and down patterns coming to an end but only as his hand slides beneath the thermal fabric of his pajamas, gently nudging between the warm weight of Crozier's palm and the stirring line of Jopson's cock.
He sighs, colored in a quiet, throaty sound. A sound that makes him arch again, wedging him perfectly between the two older men. He nearly speaks again, but Jamie beats him to the punch.
"Move me like you'd do it, Frank," a murmur in the dark, against the soft, wet spot on Jopson's shoulder. There's no doubt going to be a soft, pale bruise there in the morning.
Jamie and Francis have each had their lovers, over the years. Jamie more than him, competitively at work finding a wife, and so regularly keeping a woman— affairs, or probing about courtship. He had a boy on his uncle's expedition, Francis knows, though the young man was never invited towards anything meaningful. And though together they've tumbled paid company together, this is new. It doesn't feel like Thomas is a stand-on, or like he's some kind of bridge between them. He's here on his own merits, and no one else could fill in. Francis is glad of it.
He is envious of Jaime's bare hand on the heated, silk-soft skin of Thomas' cock, and the kisses they're afforded. But it's a pleasant kind of envy. Admiring. His own position is an enviable one in return, he feels, with his own stiffening length now pressed against the cleft of his steward's behind as he's become tucked closer and closer, the three of them shifting gradually tighter around each other.
His shirt is going to smell like Jopson, after this. Only for a little while before it's whisked away. He'll remember this, that desperate murmur, those cut-off gasps. And how beautiful, how frightening, the southern sea is.
A calloused hand curls around Jamie's, around Thomas' prick. He makes him stroke him slowly, thoroughly, the pad of his thumb sometimes stealing a caress around the tender head. Careful movement, probably too slow out of consideration for how dry it's all starting. Something that can be remedied, but he isn't in any hurry. Tomorrow will find them soon enough, there's no sense rushing into it by getting this over quicker.
The world feels hazy and warm, much like a balmy day in the West Indies, not at all like the frigid arctic, icy and treacherous. The heat against his back, the arousal pressed against his backside, makes him feel like the sun is high overhead. Comfortable, lazy, warm. He wants more - to see Crozier, kiss him, put the taste of him on his tongue all over again, but he's a good boy, will do as he's told.
That, and Jamie's hand feels overwhelmingly lovely, knowing Crozier guides it. The pesky thumb gets him though, makes him tense, arch into the knowing hands and then back onto Crozier's desire, another sigh he cuts off by biting his bottom lip. There's some help with the slide of it all, too, as he begins to go a little damp. Almost embarrassing, how easy he's worked up, just enough that Crozier's thumb brings a small spot of wet through the fabric.
"Sir," Thomas murmurs again, pawing absently now at Crozier's arm, wanting desperately to touch him. He rests his hand over the older man's wrist, feeling his pulse, imagining it under his lips instead.
Another soft kiss from Jamie, the man rising up on an elbow for better leverage and encouraging Thomas to lean back into Crozier, even a little bit.
A quiet response, an echo of yearning. Sir, a whole other color of wanting compared to the morning he'd whispered Francis. Crozier likes both, which means he's in trouble. Another few long moments, just like this, feeling him clutch at his arm and letting that damp spot become more tangible under each teasing pass of his thumb. Finally, he relents to the silent plea (and Jamie's fussing, he can just tell).
Crozier shifts his weight to let Jopson lean back against him, tucking one arm beneath him to wrap around, let him grab onto, hands tangled or just pressing into his chest and holding him close. Jamie tugs down the steward's pajama trousers enough to free his cock and expose the rest of him— though only beneath the blankets and furs, still swaddled. He reaches back, deft, and Crozier feels his gaze on him even in the dark as Ross untucks him. It nearly makes him jump, only getting out some small aborted movement before a sigh; he's lost possession of the oil bottle, but feels slick on his hard cock, and then Jamie is hitching as close to Thomas as he can, his slippery hand taking his bare prick in his grip.
"More," he beseeches them both, and Crozier closes his hand over the other man's again.
Shirt rucked up, trousers down, once again he surrenders to the perfect mess of it all. How unseemly for a steward, but that thought quickly dissolves when he hears his name on Francis' tongue. He leans into him, fumbles for his hand, twining their fingers. It's much like being at sea - where these waves will take them, he doesn't know, but he trusts the two men wrapped up in the cots with him. Above anything else.
Impossible to ignore Jamie's hand behind him, the movement and sigh behind him. The slick hand wrapped round his prick again he hisses between his teeth, scrambling to grab for more than just the man's hand. the fabric of his night shirt first, the meat of his side. His hips jump at the easy slide of their hands and it's the slick nudge of Crozier's arousal against his backside that has him reaching.
"More."
It's awkward, uncomfortable at first, but he slides a leg back between Crozier's, arches back against him to provide him a surface to rut upon if he chooses, a slot made against the round curve of his behind and between the muscle of his thighs. Everything feels sudden and warm, and as Jamie hitches forward, fingers find purchase in the man's hair, tangling, and gently tugs him in for a kiss, more heated than the last.
It is the continuation of that tangled, threeway kiss mornings ago by now; the three of them, wanton, unconcerned with anything besides finding the most pleasurable angles achievable in this less than ideal setting. (Less than ideal compared to a real bed in a room with a fire going, candles and perfume, a warm basin for after, but brilliant compared to trying to wedge anything into place in a berth or behind a rock in the snow. Worth appreciating, even with the inevitability of someone's sore elbow from the cot rails.)
Crozier helps, positioning his knee better and flexing forward. His cock slides just where Jopson is offering, and he wishes he could see it; the dark is its own kind of potent element, making everything else heightened, but his steward is so lovely and he knows the sight would be so obscene. Plenty sensation enough to feel, so imagine, to rock forward and think the head of his cock might press up against Jopson's sac if he angles it right. He can feel Ross, still covered, the hard curve of him pressed to the back of his hand.
He can kiss Thomas' shoulder and so he does, and he accepts and returns it when Jamie shifts to steal a few from him, pressed close enough to smother the steward between them. He kisses the back of his hand in Thomas' hair, he squeezes their linked hands, he murmurs half-unintelligible words of praise and endearment. A steady boil. Not yet frantic, on his account. He knows Jamie likes something drawn out as much as he likes being shoved against a wall in a hurry, and so he knows he'll want to win Thomas' climax first. Their hands on him, sharing it. Jamie tells him he's so good, so good for them both, You make Francis so happy, you know you do, and something about it—
He would never have expected it to be erotic, is all, and he can tell from the tone of the other man's voice he's doing it on purpose to rile him up, and that is erotic, too, to be known so thoroughly, to be trusted with it. This is all miserably stupid behavior, an unknown-to-science bear could tear through the camp, a storm could manifest from the ether, someone could walk too close by despite the thick layers of canvas and muffling winds. But he would lose a limb before giving it up.
Thomas groans at the hot slide of Crozier's prick between his thighs and he tightens them, flexes sinew and muscle to feel more of him, create friction. Anything to keep all of the heat and nearness closer and closer still. There's little room to do anything now, pressed between the two men, the sounds of their kissing so strangely erotic that another blur of precome wets the movement of Jamie's hand round him.
You make Francis so happy - and no, he doesn't know. He can't ever be certain what his captain feels. It's all new, this - pressed into makeshift beds and berths with the man and no words to describe why it makes the pathetic muscle of his heart squeeze and flip. Does he make him happy? If happiness is this, with the man's cock nudged between his thighs and his arms and mouth and everything on him, then he could take it. It would be enough.
But it sends his mind to whirling, makes heat blaze deep in his belly and his breathing goes a little shallow, little pants instead of the litany of noises he feels compelled to tamp down. (The danger of what they're doing will always be in their periphery.)
Jamie's hand moves slow, long strokes from root to tip, taking his time and grinning against Crozier's mouth each time they kiss. It's as much a game as it is a delight. Thomas can hear the way the younger captain's breathing has gone a little ragged, the way he can feel even his hardness pressed between their bodies. He drives his own hips back, chasing the press of Crozier between his thighs and against the underside of his arse - then back, driving himself into the circle of Jamie's hand, and inevitably driving Crozier's hand up and against Jamie's desire.
"Please, Francis, please..." Thomas whispers, already making a mess of Jamie's hand and beginning to turn needy, the slow burn bringing him up out of a simmer to something more frantic. He doesn't know what he's begging for, the words a response to every bit of praise he's given, and now with Jamie leaning into Crozier, speaking against the man's mouth he's been so good, Francis, your boy, hasn't he?
Jamie knows his mind as good as his own; his soul, too, something intrinsic and almost supernatural about it. (Crozier says he isn't superstitious, he's a scientist, he's not that kind of sailor, and yet he and Ross think they can read each other's minds.) Somehow, without Francis saying, he's fished out of his head that having this interpersonal progression with Thomas has made him happy. And God, it has, hasn't it. There is no pleasure like trusting someone, and they have earned something nearing it together.
Please, and his name. It makes him jerk Thomas' cock quicker, using Jamie's hand to do it, and it does feel an awful lot like their one mind is operating together this way. Such a good boy for him, and Jamie's been — well a brat, mostly, over the course of their friendship, but he adores him for it. Thomas is honey-sweet and there is biting cinnamon burnt sugar in Jamie, and he's here, something bitter, acidic, everything melting.
He could say—
A dozen stupid, suicidal things. The best, I don't want another one, the only one I've bothered with. Things he's bad at saying, that Jamie has had to wrench out of him or intuit and later demand (truthful) confirmation of. Not his place, is the thing.
What is his place: getting Thomas off, making him feel good, thrilling Jamie with the tangled intimacy of it, pressing the earnestness of his desire and his enjoyment into every touch, every inch of skin, every breath and scrape of teeth.
"There you are. Sweet boy. And you, you bloody menace."
Jamie's laugh is a breathless scrape and he follows it with Yes, yes—
Thomas can't tell their voices apart as everything in his body wires tight, burns white-hot, becomes focused on everything carnal. No thinking, no parsing their words apart only good and sweet and yes. It's not frenzied, any of it, but it feels like he's been sucked under water, pressure in his ears, in his belly, in the back of his mind.
What would life be like, existing like this? Caught between two vastly different worlds, storms of their own, these men, dragging him to and fro. They are perfect, the pair of him and he's picked apart in the onslaught of their passion - like they know he was meant to be here wrapped up with them all along.
He can't control himself when he plummets, when the mens' joined hands work him faster. A groan, first, low, and then Jamie's free hand pressing fingers to his lips to quiet him, and the feral, animal part of him wraps his lips around each one, near to gagging himself on them as he comes hard, spilling into Jamie's hand, wetting the fabric beneath Crozier's. He chases the feeling of Crozier's cock between his thighs, the tension in his body wringing him up tight, thighs clamping to create a tight, needy passage for the slick, hard line of him.
Jamie works Thomas until he stops twitching, murmuring sweet praises into Jopson's hair - shh, shh, shh, you've done so well - while Jopson sucks on his fingers to keep from making noise out into the quiet of the arctic night.
"Frank," Ross says, breathless, pulls his soiled hand free from Jopson's trousers and offers his fingers up to the other commander - cheeky, menace, a look what I brought you sort of chuckle in the dark.
Here is a problem with himself, he supposes: this should be sinful, but it feels holy. It feels sacred. Growing up he watched every countryman, every family member, negotiate with God and his tenets like a solicitor parsing wages, trying to litigate which was the right way to believe in the divine, for to pick the wrong one could lead to prosecution or death.
Just like this.
Crozier has seen no evidence of God, but he's tumbled more times than he can count, he's made lovers smile, he's been moved near to tears by emotion. Humanity is better than God, when they do good.
A lot of thinking for the animal satisfaction of making a young man spend himself. And for the equally animal enjoyment of Jamie's fingers in his mouth with that ill-tasting but deeply pleasing wetness, Thomas distilled down to the barest part of himself. When Ross' fingers are clean he presses a kiss to his steward's jaw, tells him: "You still taste good."
Hadn't gotten much, that night before the storm. But enough to recognize him again.
He lets Jopson lean back more against him, taking his weight, letting himself rock into that space between his thighs. Still not frantic, because he paws Ross forward to follow, his hand switching gears to touch him now, greeted by a low sound when he tugs at his pajama trousers to delve inside. Almost too warm between them, like he might sweat through everything. Burn through it. Sink into the ground, the ice, the permafrost.
Every nerve ending in his body sings to life even as he leans back into Crozier, melts at the very warmth of him. Jamie licks his own fingers when the older man is done, the bitter taste of the steward enough to make him hum, like a fat cat that's gotten into the cream. Easier still to chase the younger man with a kiss, his slick palm reaching between them again to pet his abdomen, to his belly, soothing.
"Thank you, sir," Thomas sighs, tilting his head into the kiss, wanting to turn and have his own, but not until both men feel the same buzzing warmth he does. It makes his thoughts go molten, a dewy summer haze in the biting cold of winter. Jamie's voice reminds him much of the sweet, sticky honey kept in the little jar by the tea set - thick and rich, and Thomas understands immediately why men and women both quiver at the knees for him.
He touches Crozier's arm, fingers slowly tracing the strong muscle of his forearm, to his wrist. Wraps his hand around Crozier's, loose, wanting to feel the way Francis pleases Jamie, learn what the man likes from his Captain. In the same note he arches into the little movements between his thighs, disregarding his own over-sensitivity. It's a striking sort of bite that keeps him present.
He wants to see both men off - it's his duty as much as it is his desire. Jamie groans, the warmth and weight of two hands enough to make him laugh a airily. He grips Thomas' side, a pretty handle made in the dip of the man's waist. Thomas in turn leans up to kiss him, lazy and hungry, chasing the taste of himself of Jamie's tongue, all the while he squeezes his hand over Crozier's.
Tucked in so close to Jopson, and pulling off a man he first fooled around with because they almost started throwing punches. Too much, too scrambled up in tension, and now he knows just how to hold his cock, just how to stroke him. He could get Ross off in a matter of heartbeats, but he wants to feel him. What other chance will he get, just so? With someone else they're both so fond of suspended between them, sharing hands and mouths and sweat and fluid. All of this will warm him through the ice for months yet.
He shows Jopson how to touch their commander. Lets him feel it all through his hand, as he mouths kisses and worries in gentle teeth marks against his shoulder, and the soft part of his ear. His cock is still so hard, and it twitches where Jopson has it held snug and possessive. His other hand, threatening to go slightly numb thanks to his arm being wrapped beneath his steward, still clutches onto him. Linked there, a precious thing.
Slow and steady, until Jamie swears a desperate, rasped word, and grabs at their hands. It makes Francis exhale a laugh, feeling the impatient demand even before the shift in mood— tells him alright, alright, I've got you, don't I always, and jacks him off just the way he needs. He feels nails biting into his shoulder where Jamie scrambles a hand, polite even then, not wanting to claw at Thomas who might not appreciate it. Always goes so tense like it hurts just before. Maybe it does; Francis thinks it must just be like everything else with him, so intense, be it his intellect or his drive or his passions. In the dark he can only half-see his expression, but he knows it well anyway. Hot, wet spend in his hand, and he pulls him through those spasms, Jamie enduring it with his face buried against Thomas to help stifle himself, though he's practiced at being silent through it.
Like all his strings are cut, then. The weight of command, the demands of his station (the encroaching inevitability of failing health that he'll never speak of), he's always useless in the aftermath. But pliable, happy, euphoric. He sighs and murmurs and keens into them both, bestowing soft messy kisses, bubbling over with it.
Thomas receives Jamie as he burrows into his chest, shuddering through his climax with an intensity that suits him. Easy to feel the tension in him, the way the commander's long limbs twitch and flex, the way his body seems to be anything but his own for a few fiery moments. Impossibly erotic, the way his hands molds over Francis', how he manages to come away with a smear of the man's spend over his fingers.
His other hand wraps around Jamie, fingers diving up into his hair and cradling him into his chest, letting him find somewhere warm to fall in the aftermath of it all. His turn to murmur soft shh, shh, shh, you did very well, sir into the man's soft hair, nosing at his temple as Jamie catches his breath. Thomas can't truly settle all loose-limbed and warm until he's certain Francis has had his fill.
He grinds his bottom back against the captain, an invitation in the dark, coupled with his free hand reaching back to palm along Crozier's flank, fingers working beneath the fabric of his pajama trousers and resting there against the warm skin of his hip, petting him there, smearing the wet of Jamie's spend into his skin.
"You can, if you'd like," Thomas says quietly, head turning to try and see him in the dark where he thinks of saying chase your desire with my body. But it's no use, and keeps his other hand petting Jamie's hair while the man mouths lazy wet kisses against his collarbone. "Or would you like my hand, Francis? Anything."
Anything, and that's true, isn't it. Jopson would do anything for him, let him have anything. He imagined it was him flogging him, with the strap; he would have let Crozier push him down over the table and take his bare hand to him. He let him fuck his mouth on his knees when he was already in pain.
Doesn't need to be that way. (Though it can be, sometimes, because it's enjoyable.) They nearly kiss, almost close enough for it, cheek to cheek for a moment, scraping so near.
"Let me have you any way I asked, wouldn't you," he murmurs. Their hands are still linked and he flexes his fingers, tightens them again. Grounding them together. "Just this, Tom. You're so good, just as you are right here."
Jamie hums and nuzzles in, bumping noses and foreheads with the younger man. He slips his hand down, presses at Thomas' thighs so he can wriggle fingers in between to toy with Francis' cock where it's tucked. It makes Crozier's knee jerk in surprise, the sudden change in sensation almost ticklish. A huff of laughter, and he ducks his head against Jopson's shoulder. Mmn.
"You don't have to be noble about it," he half-drawls, a teasing, familiar complaint.
"Hardly—"
"You're just being mannerly, I know, but you make everyone who wants you wait so bloody long. I bet you ignored Thomas for ages." Jamie presses a kiss to the steward's mouth. "He did, didn't he. Do you want him to make a mess all over you now?"
"James—"
But his breath is caught on some other feeling, sparks down his spine.
Jopson's eyes close into every little kiss, but it's the captain's words that quiet him, render him still and pleasantly obedient. Crozier could ask for anything right now and he would melt, allow it, revere him for it. Foolish, maybe, how willing he is to give himself over to what could be a fleeting nautical romance. Tom, Crozier says, and he tries to memorize the sound of it on his tongue.
He parts his thighs just enough for Jamie's hands, groaning lowly at the sensation of the fingers pressed between his thighs and the slide of Crozier's desire absolutely searing his skin. Thomas squeezes the man's hand, uncaring that the position is going to leave him with a bruise on his hip from the rails. One more reminder of this, blissful and pleasant and befuddling.
"He was very kind to me, even in his punishment."
A murmur in the dark, equal parts earnest as it is lustful. The strap, the searing heat of their gaze, the press of hands on his back, and...
He turns his head, cheek to cheek again, mouthing at his skin, the stubble there he'd been too stubborn to allow him to shave off.
"Come for me, Francis," he whispers against his skin, the fingers of his free hand squeezing his hip, nails making half moons of his skin. And then, a little coy: "I won't waste a drop, sir."
Jamie laughs into Jopson's mouth and he pets fingers along the underside of Crozier's cock in the warm press of the stewards thighs.
The way Jopson talks about it, that horrid thing that tipped them over the edge, makes his cock twitch. No doubt they all feel it, Jopson in the soft skin between his thighs and Ross with his fingers, stroking him, teasing him, encouraging him to find a slide there that tucks himself even closer up against the steward's body.
He wants him. He aches for it. Usually easier to keep control of, to not want something he puts off-limits at sea. I won't waste a drop, sir. Like his cock belongs against him, inside of him, giving him everything to taste and consume and keep sacred.
Arousal does the daftest things to his bloody thought process, doesn't it.
Crozier kisses him, shifts up enough to manage it halfway as he ruts steadily into his backside, letting Ross guide him, keeping Jopson sandwiched between them. Finally letting himself slip into taking his own pleasure. Not that he hasn't been— he finds himself on edge quickly once he allows himself full awareness of it all, and a shudder runs up his spine. Fuck, he doesn't quite let himself say aloud. His other hand grips Jopon's hip, hard, a mirror of the grasp on his own.
Something deep and feral in him wishes he could feel more of Crozier, made full and hot and taken in the cool of the tent. The thought takes him somewhere for a fraction of a moment, but the kiss brings him right back. He groans into Crozier's mouth, low and wanting, the kiss a little strained for how he twists to meet it but he feels starved for it, hungry in a way he can't explain after he's already been spent once.
His hand leaves the older man's hip, reaching for the one at his own and gripping the man's fingers, pressing them into his skin harder, encouraging him to grab and take and pull however he needs. The pressure between his thighs, Jamie guiding the older man's prick so he can feel it slide between his cheeks and up against the back of his sac - it makes him more than delirious with want.
Jamie strokes the underside of Crozier's cock, the other hand dragging him in for a kiss, a nip against his lips as he whispers to him - give your sweet boy what he wants, Commander. What he wants, too - Jamie to feel him spend hot and wet over his hand, messy between Thomas' thighs.
The next slide of Crozier's prick and he circles his hand, giving him a delicate squeeze, adding even more friction.
The angles are a mess. The weight of the furs, the segmentation of the bunks, the awkward press and tangle of so many limbs and hands. But it's enough, and it works for him, maybe better than one of them taking him in hand artfully— it's raw and needy, a feedback loop of it, and Jamie says Your sweet boy like he hired him just to give him something special, like he'd looked at Thomas and could foresee this exact place in time.
Ridiculous. Crozier'd made him shave himself to prove he could do it without slicing anything off while the ship swayed.
And yet.
A slower fuse sometimes, but he's still a mortal man. Between the contact and the encouragement, it doesn't take much longer. A low sound, a gasp, and he clutches Jopson all the harder (too hard?) as the peak finds him and sends him over. Everything going as tense as can be before breaking open, like a dropped vase.
Over Jamie's hand, between Thomas' thighs, the asked-for mess. It feels wrenched out of him, suddenly hyper-aware of how tiring the past few weeks have been with all of his nerve endings turned inside out and open. A lightning bolt to his body and a tranquilizer to his brain. His face is buried against the soft spot between Jopson's ear and the rest of him, crushing close. The loud crash of his heartbeat deafens him momentarily, sound slowly returning, seeing stars behind his eyes in the dark as he winds down.
Crozier could clutch him until he bruises bones and Thomas wouldn't protest - no doubt there will be a bruise over the pale skin at his hip, perhaps even something on his shoulder the way Jamie worked it. It sends a faint thrill down his spine to think about it, warms his cheeks, his body beginning to slip into the pleasant warmth of the other two.
Jamie sighs when he feels his hand go sticky and slick, chuckles softly, but everything in it impossibly fond. For how intimate all of it is, there's pleasure in the filth of it, too - in the way he licks his fingers clean, the taste of Crozier so familiar even if sour. It will never taste good, but it will always taste like Francis.
He kisses Thomas after, deep and slow and sensuous, sharing the taste of the man they both care for on it, like they were meant to do this all along. Jopson lingers in the kiss with Jamie, hazy and sleepy and sated, chasing the taste of the older man on his tongue - the sounds of their kissing soft and wet in the dark.
When Jamie pulls away in the dark, Thomas almost reaches for him, wanting the nearness, craving the intimacy. The distance doesn't last long, anyway, and the commander gently helps him away from Crozier, a hand between the man's thighs to help part them, leaving the sticky mess for now, and encouraging him to go flat to his back, looping an arm around his waist and settling in on his side beside him.
"Captain," Jopson whispers in the dark, hand finding the one wrapped round him and tugging the older man, inviting him to crowd against his chest.
Crozier sacrifices shirttails to make sure Jopson isn't going to wake up dismally uncomfortable, even though they're all going to be a smidge revolting in the morning. A burden worth undertaking. He shifts closer, and first slides his hand up to cup his steward's jaw. His, something about it stirs him in a way he knows better than to look at closely.
"Good boy."
He kisses the side of his mouth, leans up to give Ross one too, and then he's settling in with his palm over Jopson's heart. Jamie exhales, a sigh, and he nearly laughs to hear it; aware his dear friend is already half-asleep. Characteristic of a sailor to be able to nod off at the drop of a hat, but this is charming all the same. He must have needed it.
Francis will drift off soon, too. A habit to force himself to stay awake, like doing the last rounds on watch. He wants to make sure Jamie is safe, and that Thomas is comfortable. His thumb rubs gentle patterns on him, through his own shirt the young man is wearing.
They'll be a sight come morning, but that will be easy enough to settle - Jopson's faced worse messes as it is, and tending to the pair of commanders hardly seems like a chore. For now, though, he likes that they're anything but their titles and ranks - Francis, Jamie, Thomas. He reaches his hand to rest over Crozier's, lightly resting his palm over his fingers, holding them close to the beat of his heart.
Good boy, he says, and if he were not so tired himself it might stir something in him. (Does, in a way - a mental tally to remember the man's said it). He noses into the older man's hair, breathing him in and soaking up the warmth of him beneath the furs and blankets.
Thomas kisses his temple, lips lingering against the skin. Foolish to imagine them anywhere else but a tent in the arctic, but he does for a moment. It'd be easy to imagine some London apartment, comfortable but practical. He smooths a hand down Crozier's back, tracing each vertebrae up and down in slow, lazy lines.
He hums, thoughtful, goes quiet as Jamie bullies up close to him, nestling up against his other side. Once he settles and sighs again, Thomas presses another kiss to Crozier's temple.
It is — expectedly — a right pain in the morning, but they make do. Gigs from Erebus arrive to transfer laundry, supplies, packed away findings, and the like; Crozier takes reports and the officers have a meeting on overturned crates. Some time is snatched away by a half-dozen minke whales passing by the ships, porpoising and spyhopping and sending up gusts from their blowholes. There's some talk of trying to kill one for food, but Ross forbids it on grounds of how deceptively difficult whaling is, no matter how modestly these ones are sized. They're here for research and exploration, not to spend the rest of the week struggling through boiling blubber.
They lose a lieutenant to a smashed finger, and Crozier takes his watch overnight, leaving Jopson and Ross to have a nice time (or just a nice nap) without him. Hooker tries to stay up with him, recognizing a captive audience, but only lasts a few hours.
It's on the last morning before they have to catch the tide out that Jamie gets a wish granted. He's on the other side of the hill, wrapping up some last notes in the observatory hut. Crozier notices first, but it's only a few heartbeats later that someone yells.
"Jopson." A note of expedience in his voice, but when he gets the steward's attention—
In their final morning, Jopson spends much of his time packing up the commanders' non-essentials and his own personal effects. It's an easy job for how tidy he keeps things, for one, but it gives him time to think about on the trip. A strange one to begin with, out on the ice while Terror and Erebus drifted on the water after a storm - but stranger still for his tentmates.
A wonderful thing. He'd never imagined the arctic tundra could ever be something so warm and sacred. For that's what it was - sacred, to be wrapped up in furs and warmed by two men he cares for. One he's grown to care for in their time here, and when Crozier was out on watch, they could have done anything in his absence. Instead they lay tucked in against one another, wrapped up together, and talked until they could barely keep their eyes open. Things that men cannot do in the light of day - on many levels.
It means leaving this place is bittersweet. Jamie will return to Erebus, He and Crozier to Terror. A world apart even if only by water. But work must get done and the fantasy dissolved, as are the way of things out at sea. He's just packing some of Crozier's field notes when the man calls and he looks up, worried at first, until -
Following the line of Crozier's arm he blinks up at the feature they called mountain when they first arrived here. But now, with plumes erupting from the top, he stares, awed by the look of it. A volcano. Just like Ross and Crozier both expected it to be.
"It is an excellent send off for Camp Aether, sir," he says quietly, astonished, coming to stand beside the captain and watch in wonder, elbows knocking though not intentionally. His body knows a comfortable familiarity that, while focused on the horizon, forgets its propriety.
"Even so cold and it's capable of this." A gesture, a childlike wonder that makes him want to move closer, as though he could climb it in the distance and look down to whatever fiery belly lies within.
He could kiss him, out here under the white sky, watching the eruption. Jamie, too, who even at this distance Crozier can tell has practically split his face open with a smile. Of course it's a volcano, it was shaped like one, but of course, because James Clark Ross called it Erebus, it's alive. Breathing smoke, belching fire, like the living nightmare his ship is called after. Mount Terror, he suspects, purely for thematic consistency, will sleep silent and watching, like any proper lurking horror.
"We're the same distance from the heart of the Earth as Hawai'i," he says, because i triple checked and in fact it was called the kingdom of hawai'i and hickey is just that eurocentric. "Or thereabouts. Something inside this rock we live on is as volatile as blood."
Alive, in a way.
It's frightening, and it's beautiful, and it's going to put their departure back to the barest minute, because this all must be recorded. Crozier nudges Jopson with his elbow, shoots him a brief, pleased look, and then he's off, hurrying over to Ross so that they can get to work. Reactions are scattered: fear, wonder, some who've seen others go in different places in the world are pretending they aren't impressed. It'll be drawn from every angle, even by men with no artistic talent, just for fodder to remember it by. The shape of the plumes, the weight of the ash clouds, the tempo of it, the exact time.
Smoke goes from black to white over the course of their recording, and then their leaving. Far enough away that the strange smell of it doesn't touch them four hours after, but close enough that they'll be able to scour the shoreline for debris to collect. He and Ross and the surgeons talk until the last second about the timing of marine life moving about before it blew, animated. It doesn't properly hit him until he's helping shove Jamie's gig off the rocky outcropping.
Well, goodbye for now, he supposes. They stare at each other.
"I'll just throw my report over in a bottle," is as good a parting as anything.
Always a little heartache. Ross watches him for the perfect amount of time, looking away the second before it becomes strange for anyone to observe, and Crozier turns to oversee the last of everything.
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Feels good, doing this. He's slowly getting hard, but he's in no hurry about it. The way Jopson shifts back into him is pleasing, makes him heat up further, but he doesn't follow temptation to rut into him. Instead he continues to touch him, paying special attention to anywhere that earns more of a reaction. He plays with his chest, firm and sensual, liking the shape of him, the wiry hair, the hard buds of his nipples that he finds and tugs on gently.
The sounds, the telltale movements, just about make up for the fact that he can't actually see Jamie and Thomas kissing. Knowing they're doing it is dreadfully arousing in any event, and he can only encourage it. After reaching out to run an affectionate hand over the other captain's hip, he slides his touch down again, back on Thomas' body. He presses against his abdomen, his belly, and lower, to cup him through his pajamas. There's no pretense of rubbing his thighs, though his touch retains that steady, soothing energy as he cradles his weight of his prick.
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"Shhh," Jamie murmurs against the steward's mouth, tilting his head to kiss his jaw, his neck, to his shoulder where Crozier's mouth was before. "We'll take care of you, Thomas, never you mind."
There's no coherent thought that could stand a chance against the gentle, almost reverent way the hand presses around his prick. He's grateful his hips don't buck like some needy school boy, but the faintest movement of his hips, a squirm of desire, may tell all. Jopson doesn't know when Jamie's hand moved, either, the slow up and down patterns coming to an end but only as his hand slides beneath the thermal fabric of his pajamas, gently nudging between the warm weight of Crozier's palm and the stirring line of Jopson's cock.
He sighs, colored in a quiet, throaty sound. A sound that makes him arch again, wedging him perfectly between the two older men. He nearly speaks again, but Jamie beats him to the punch.
"Move me like you'd do it, Frank," a murmur in the dark, against the soft, wet spot on Jopson's shoulder. There's no doubt going to be a soft, pale bruise there in the morning.
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He is envious of Jaime's bare hand on the heated, silk-soft skin of Thomas' cock, and the kisses they're afforded. But it's a pleasant kind of envy. Admiring. His own position is an enviable one in return, he feels, with his own stiffening length now pressed against the cleft of his steward's behind as he's become tucked closer and closer, the three of them shifting gradually tighter around each other.
His shirt is going to smell like Jopson, after this. Only for a little while before it's whisked away. He'll remember this, that desperate murmur, those cut-off gasps. And how beautiful, how frightening, the southern sea is.
A calloused hand curls around Jamie's, around Thomas' prick. He makes him stroke him slowly, thoroughly, the pad of his thumb sometimes stealing a caress around the tender head. Careful movement, probably too slow out of consideration for how dry it's all starting. Something that can be remedied, but he isn't in any hurry. Tomorrow will find them soon enough, there's no sense rushing into it by getting this over quicker.
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That, and Jamie's hand feels overwhelmingly lovely, knowing Crozier guides it. The pesky thumb gets him though, makes him tense, arch into the knowing hands and then back onto Crozier's desire, another sigh he cuts off by biting his bottom lip. There's some help with the slide of it all, too, as he begins to go a little damp. Almost embarrassing, how easy he's worked up, just enough that Crozier's thumb brings a small spot of wet through the fabric.
"Sir," Thomas murmurs again, pawing absently now at Crozier's arm, wanting desperately to touch him. He rests his hand over the older man's wrist, feeling his pulse, imagining it under his lips instead.
Another soft kiss from Jamie, the man rising up on an elbow for better leverage and encouraging Thomas to lean back into Crozier, even a little bit.
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A quiet response, an echo of yearning. Sir, a whole other color of wanting compared to the morning he'd whispered Francis. Crozier likes both, which means he's in trouble. Another few long moments, just like this, feeling him clutch at his arm and letting that damp spot become more tangible under each teasing pass of his thumb. Finally, he relents to the silent plea (and Jamie's fussing, he can just tell).
Crozier shifts his weight to let Jopson lean back against him, tucking one arm beneath him to wrap around, let him grab onto, hands tangled or just pressing into his chest and holding him close. Jamie tugs down the steward's pajama trousers enough to free his cock and expose the rest of him— though only beneath the blankets and furs, still swaddled. He reaches back, deft, and Crozier feels his gaze on him even in the dark as Ross untucks him. It nearly makes him jump, only getting out some small aborted movement before a sigh; he's lost possession of the oil bottle, but feels slick on his hard cock, and then Jamie is hitching as close to Thomas as he can, his slippery hand taking his bare prick in his grip.
"More," he beseeches them both, and Crozier closes his hand over the other man's again.
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Impossible to ignore Jamie's hand behind him, the movement and sigh behind him. The slick hand wrapped round his prick again he hisses between his teeth, scrambling to grab for more than just the man's hand. the fabric of his night shirt first, the meat of his side. His hips jump at the easy slide of their hands and it's the slick nudge of Crozier's arousal against his backside that has him reaching.
"More."
It's awkward, uncomfortable at first, but he slides a leg back between Crozier's, arches back against him to provide him a surface to rut upon if he chooses, a slot made against the round curve of his behind and between the muscle of his thighs. Everything feels sudden and warm, and as Jamie hitches forward, fingers find purchase in the man's hair, tangling, and gently tugs him in for a kiss, more heated than the last.
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Crozier helps, positioning his knee better and flexing forward. His cock slides just where Jopson is offering, and he wishes he could see it; the dark is its own kind of potent element, making everything else heightened, but his steward is so lovely and he knows the sight would be so obscene. Plenty sensation enough to feel, so imagine, to rock forward and think the head of his cock might press up against Jopson's sac if he angles it right. He can feel Ross, still covered, the hard curve of him pressed to the back of his hand.
He can kiss Thomas' shoulder and so he does, and he accepts and returns it when Jamie shifts to steal a few from him, pressed close enough to smother the steward between them. He kisses the back of his hand in Thomas' hair, he squeezes their linked hands, he murmurs half-unintelligible words of praise and endearment. A steady boil. Not yet frantic, on his account. He knows Jamie likes something drawn out as much as he likes being shoved against a wall in a hurry, and so he knows he'll want to win Thomas' climax first. Their hands on him, sharing it. Jamie tells him he's so good, so good for them both, You make Francis so happy, you know you do, and something about it—
He would never have expected it to be erotic, is all, and he can tell from the tone of the other man's voice he's doing it on purpose to rile him up, and that is erotic, too, to be known so thoroughly, to be trusted with it. This is all miserably stupid behavior, an unknown-to-science bear could tear through the camp, a storm could manifest from the ether, someone could walk too close by despite the thick layers of canvas and muffling winds. But he would lose a limb before giving it up.
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You make Francis so happy - and no, he doesn't know. He can't ever be certain what his captain feels. It's all new, this - pressed into makeshift beds and berths with the man and no words to describe why it makes the pathetic muscle of his heart squeeze and flip. Does he make him happy? If happiness is this, with the man's cock nudged between his thighs and his arms and mouth and everything on him, then he could take it. It would be enough.
But it sends his mind to whirling, makes heat blaze deep in his belly and his breathing goes a little shallow, little pants instead of the litany of noises he feels compelled to tamp down. (The danger of what they're doing will always be in their periphery.)
Jamie's hand moves slow, long strokes from root to tip, taking his time and grinning against Crozier's mouth each time they kiss. It's as much a game as it is a delight. Thomas can hear the way the younger captain's breathing has gone a little ragged, the way he can feel even his hardness pressed between their bodies. He drives his own hips back, chasing the press of Crozier between his thighs and against the underside of his arse - then back, driving himself into the circle of Jamie's hand, and inevitably driving Crozier's hand up and against Jamie's desire.
"Please, Francis, please..." Thomas whispers, already making a mess of Jamie's hand and beginning to turn needy, the slow burn bringing him up out of a simmer to something more frantic. He doesn't know what he's begging for, the words a response to every bit of praise he's given, and now with Jamie leaning into Crozier, speaking against the man's mouth he's been so good, Francis, your boy, hasn't he?
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Please, and his name. It makes him jerk Thomas' cock quicker, using Jamie's hand to do it, and it does feel an awful lot like their one mind is operating together this way. Such a good boy for him, and Jamie's been — well a brat, mostly, over the course of their friendship, but he adores him for it. Thomas is honey-sweet and there is biting cinnamon burnt sugar in Jamie, and he's here, something bitter, acidic, everything melting.
He could say—
A dozen stupid, suicidal things. The best, I don't want another one, the only one I've bothered with. Things he's bad at saying, that Jamie has had to wrench out of him or intuit and later demand (truthful) confirmation of. Not his place, is the thing.
What is his place: getting Thomas off, making him feel good, thrilling Jamie with the tangled intimacy of it, pressing the earnestness of his desire and his enjoyment into every touch, every inch of skin, every breath and scrape of teeth.
"There you are. Sweet boy. And you, you bloody menace."
Jamie's laugh is a breathless scrape and he follows it with Yes, yes—
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What would life be like, existing like this? Caught between two vastly different worlds, storms of their own, these men, dragging him to and fro. They are perfect, the pair of him and he's picked apart in the onslaught of their passion - like they know he was meant to be here wrapped up with them all along.
He can't control himself when he plummets, when the mens' joined hands work him faster. A groan, first, low, and then Jamie's free hand pressing fingers to his lips to quiet him, and the feral, animal part of him wraps his lips around each one, near to gagging himself on them as he comes hard, spilling into Jamie's hand, wetting the fabric beneath Crozier's. He chases the feeling of Crozier's cock between his thighs, the tension in his body wringing him up tight, thighs clamping to create a tight, needy passage for the slick, hard line of him.
Jamie works Thomas until he stops twitching, murmuring sweet praises into Jopson's hair - shh, shh, shh, you've done so well - while Jopson sucks on his fingers to keep from making noise out into the quiet of the arctic night.
"Frank," Ross says, breathless, pulls his soiled hand free from Jopson's trousers and offers his fingers up to the other commander - cheeky, menace, a look what I brought you sort of chuckle in the dark.
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Just like this.
Crozier has seen no evidence of God, but he's tumbled more times than he can count, he's made lovers smile, he's been moved near to tears by emotion. Humanity is better than God, when they do good.
A lot of thinking for the animal satisfaction of making a young man spend himself. And for the equally animal enjoyment of Jamie's fingers in his mouth with that ill-tasting but deeply pleasing wetness, Thomas distilled down to the barest part of himself. When Ross' fingers are clean he presses a kiss to his steward's jaw, tells him: "You still taste good."
Hadn't gotten much, that night before the storm. But enough to recognize him again.
He lets Jopson lean back more against him, taking his weight, letting himself rock into that space between his thighs. Still not frantic, because he paws Ross forward to follow, his hand switching gears to touch him now, greeted by a low sound when he tugs at his pajama trousers to delve inside. Almost too warm between them, like he might sweat through everything. Burn through it. Sink into the ground, the ice, the permafrost.
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"Thank you, sir," Thomas sighs, tilting his head into the kiss, wanting to turn and have his own, but not until both men feel the same buzzing warmth he does. It makes his thoughts go molten, a dewy summer haze in the biting cold of winter. Jamie's voice reminds him much of the sweet, sticky honey kept in the little jar by the tea set - thick and rich, and Thomas understands immediately why men and women both quiver at the knees for him.
He touches Crozier's arm, fingers slowly tracing the strong muscle of his forearm, to his wrist. Wraps his hand around Crozier's, loose, wanting to feel the way Francis pleases Jamie, learn what the man likes from his Captain. In the same note he arches into the little movements between his thighs, disregarding his own over-sensitivity. It's a striking sort of bite that keeps him present.
He wants to see both men off - it's his duty as much as it is his desire. Jamie groans, the warmth and weight of two hands enough to make him laugh a airily. He grips Thomas' side, a pretty handle made in the dip of the man's waist. Thomas in turn leans up to kiss him, lazy and hungry, chasing the taste of himself of Jamie's tongue, all the while he squeezes his hand over Crozier's.
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He shows Jopson how to touch their commander. Lets him feel it all through his hand, as he mouths kisses and worries in gentle teeth marks against his shoulder, and the soft part of his ear. His cock is still so hard, and it twitches where Jopson has it held snug and possessive. His other hand, threatening to go slightly numb thanks to his arm being wrapped beneath his steward, still clutches onto him. Linked there, a precious thing.
Slow and steady, until Jamie swears a desperate, rasped word, and grabs at their hands. It makes Francis exhale a laugh, feeling the impatient demand even before the shift in mood— tells him alright, alright, I've got you, don't I always, and jacks him off just the way he needs. He feels nails biting into his shoulder where Jamie scrambles a hand, polite even then, not wanting to claw at Thomas who might not appreciate it. Always goes so tense like it hurts just before. Maybe it does; Francis thinks it must just be like everything else with him, so intense, be it his intellect or his drive or his passions. In the dark he can only half-see his expression, but he knows it well anyway. Hot, wet spend in his hand, and he pulls him through those spasms, Jamie enduring it with his face buried against Thomas to help stifle himself, though he's practiced at being silent through it.
Like all his strings are cut, then. The weight of command, the demands of his station (the encroaching inevitability of failing health that he'll never speak of), he's always useless in the aftermath. But pliable, happy, euphoric. He sighs and murmurs and keens into them both, bestowing soft messy kisses, bubbling over with it.
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His other hand wraps around Jamie, fingers diving up into his hair and cradling him into his chest, letting him find somewhere warm to fall in the aftermath of it all. His turn to murmur soft shh, shh, shh, you did very well, sir into the man's soft hair, nosing at his temple as Jamie catches his breath. Thomas can't truly settle all loose-limbed and warm until he's certain Francis has had his fill.
He grinds his bottom back against the captain, an invitation in the dark, coupled with his free hand reaching back to palm along Crozier's flank, fingers working beneath the fabric of his pajama trousers and resting there against the warm skin of his hip, petting him there, smearing the wet of Jamie's spend into his skin.
"You can, if you'd like," Thomas says quietly, head turning to try and see him in the dark where he thinks of saying chase your desire with my body. But it's no use, and keeps his other hand petting Jamie's hair while the man mouths lazy wet kisses against his collarbone. "Or would you like my hand, Francis? Anything."
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Doesn't need to be that way. (Though it can be, sometimes, because it's enjoyable.) They nearly kiss, almost close enough for it, cheek to cheek for a moment, scraping so near.
"Let me have you any way I asked, wouldn't you," he murmurs. Their hands are still linked and he flexes his fingers, tightens them again. Grounding them together. "Just this, Tom. You're so good, just as you are right here."
Jamie hums and nuzzles in, bumping noses and foreheads with the younger man. He slips his hand down, presses at Thomas' thighs so he can wriggle fingers in between to toy with Francis' cock where it's tucked. It makes Crozier's knee jerk in surprise, the sudden change in sensation almost ticklish. A huff of laughter, and he ducks his head against Jopson's shoulder. Mmn.
"You don't have to be noble about it," he half-drawls, a teasing, familiar complaint.
"Hardly—"
"You're just being mannerly, I know, but you make everyone who wants you wait so bloody long. I bet you ignored Thomas for ages." Jamie presses a kiss to the steward's mouth. "He did, didn't he. Do you want him to make a mess all over you now?"
"James—"
But his breath is caught on some other feeling, sparks down his spine.
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He parts his thighs just enough for Jamie's hands, groaning lowly at the sensation of the fingers pressed between his thighs and the slide of Crozier's desire absolutely searing his skin. Thomas squeezes the man's hand, uncaring that the position is going to leave him with a bruise on his hip from the rails. One more reminder of this, blissful and pleasant and befuddling.
"He was very kind to me, even in his punishment."
A murmur in the dark, equal parts earnest as it is lustful. The strap, the searing heat of their gaze, the press of hands on his back, and...
He turns his head, cheek to cheek again, mouthing at his skin, the stubble there he'd been too stubborn to allow him to shave off.
"Come for me, Francis," he whispers against his skin, the fingers of his free hand squeezing his hip, nails making half moons of his skin. And then, a little coy: "I won't waste a drop, sir."
Jamie laughs into Jopson's mouth and he pets fingers along the underside of Crozier's cock in the warm press of the stewards thighs.
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He wants him. He aches for it. Usually easier to keep control of, to not want something he puts off-limits at sea. I won't waste a drop, sir. Like his cock belongs against him, inside of him, giving him everything to taste and consume and keep sacred.
Arousal does the daftest things to his bloody thought process, doesn't it.
Crozier kisses him, shifts up enough to manage it halfway as he ruts steadily into his backside, letting Ross guide him, keeping Jopson sandwiched between them. Finally letting himself slip into taking his own pleasure. Not that he hasn't been— he finds himself on edge quickly once he allows himself full awareness of it all, and a shudder runs up his spine. Fuck, he doesn't quite let himself say aloud. His other hand grips Jopon's hip, hard, a mirror of the grasp on his own.
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His hand leaves the older man's hip, reaching for the one at his own and gripping the man's fingers, pressing them into his skin harder, encouraging him to grab and take and pull however he needs. The pressure between his thighs, Jamie guiding the older man's prick so he can feel it slide between his cheeks and up against the back of his sac - it makes him more than delirious with want.
Jamie strokes the underside of Crozier's cock, the other hand dragging him in for a kiss, a nip against his lips as he whispers to him - give your sweet boy what he wants, Commander. What he wants, too - Jamie to feel him spend hot and wet over his hand, messy between Thomas' thighs.
The next slide of Crozier's prick and he circles his hand, giving him a delicate squeeze, adding even more friction.
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Ridiculous. Crozier'd made him shave himself to prove he could do it without slicing anything off while the ship swayed.
And yet.
A slower fuse sometimes, but he's still a mortal man. Between the contact and the encouragement, it doesn't take much longer. A low sound, a gasp, and he clutches Jopson all the harder (too hard?) as the peak finds him and sends him over. Everything going as tense as can be before breaking open, like a dropped vase.
Over Jamie's hand, between Thomas' thighs, the asked-for mess. It feels wrenched out of him, suddenly hyper-aware of how tiring the past few weeks have been with all of his nerve endings turned inside out and open. A lightning bolt to his body and a tranquilizer to his brain. His face is buried against the soft spot between Jopson's ear and the rest of him, crushing close. The loud crash of his heartbeat deafens him momentarily, sound slowly returning, seeing stars behind his eyes in the dark as he winds down.
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Jamie sighs when he feels his hand go sticky and slick, chuckles softly, but everything in it impossibly fond. For how intimate all of it is, there's pleasure in the filth of it, too - in the way he licks his fingers clean, the taste of Crozier so familiar even if sour. It will never taste good, but it will always taste like Francis.
He kisses Thomas after, deep and slow and sensuous, sharing the taste of the man they both care for on it, like they were meant to do this all along. Jopson lingers in the kiss with Jamie, hazy and sleepy and sated, chasing the taste of the older man on his tongue - the sounds of their kissing soft and wet in the dark.
When Jamie pulls away in the dark, Thomas almost reaches for him, wanting the nearness, craving the intimacy. The distance doesn't last long, anyway, and the commander gently helps him away from Crozier, a hand between the man's thighs to help part them, leaving the sticky mess for now, and encouraging him to go flat to his back, looping an arm around his waist and settling in on his side beside him.
"Captain," Jopson whispers in the dark, hand finding the one wrapped round him and tugging the older man, inviting him to crowd against his chest.
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"Good boy."
He kisses the side of his mouth, leans up to give Ross one too, and then he's settling in with his palm over Jopson's heart. Jamie exhales, a sigh, and he nearly laughs to hear it; aware his dear friend is already half-asleep. Characteristic of a sailor to be able to nod off at the drop of a hat, but this is charming all the same. He must have needed it.
Francis will drift off soon, too. A habit to force himself to stay awake, like doing the last rounds on watch. He wants to make sure Jamie is safe, and that Thomas is comfortable. His thumb rubs gentle patterns on him, through his own shirt the young man is wearing.
Very quietly: "All's well?"
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Good boy, he says, and if he were not so tired himself it might stir something in him. (Does, in a way - a mental tally to remember the man's said it). He noses into the older man's hair, breathing him in and soaking up the warmth of him beneath the furs and blankets.
Thomas kisses his temple, lips lingering against the skin. Foolish to imagine them anywhere else but a tent in the arctic, but he does for a moment. It'd be easy to imagine some London apartment, comfortable but practical. He smooths a hand down Crozier's back, tracing each vertebrae up and down in slow, lazy lines.
He hums, thoughtful, goes quiet as Jamie bullies up close to him, nestling up against his other side. Once he settles and sighs again, Thomas presses another kiss to Crozier's temple.
"All's well. Get some rest, captain."
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All is well, and he'll get some rest.
It is — expectedly — a right pain in the morning, but they make do. Gigs from Erebus arrive to transfer laundry, supplies, packed away findings, and the like; Crozier takes reports and the officers have a meeting on overturned crates. Some time is snatched away by a half-dozen minke whales passing by the ships, porpoising and spyhopping and sending up gusts from their blowholes. There's some talk of trying to kill one for food, but Ross forbids it on grounds of how deceptively difficult whaling is, no matter how modestly these ones are sized. They're here for research and exploration, not to spend the rest of the week struggling through boiling blubber.
They lose a lieutenant to a smashed finger, and Crozier takes his watch overnight, leaving Jopson and Ross to have a nice time (or just a nice nap) without him. Hooker tries to stay up with him, recognizing a captive audience, but only lasts a few hours.
It's on the last morning before they have to catch the tide out that Jamie gets a wish granted. He's on the other side of the hill, wrapping up some last notes in the observatory hut. Crozier notices first, but it's only a few heartbeats later that someone yells.
"Jopson." A note of expedience in his voice, but when he gets the steward's attention—
"Look."
It's a volcano after all.
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A wonderful thing. He'd never imagined the arctic tundra could ever be something so warm and sacred. For that's what it was - sacred, to be wrapped up in furs and warmed by two men he cares for. One he's grown to care for in their time here, and when Crozier was out on watch, they could have done anything in his absence. Instead they lay tucked in against one another, wrapped up together, and talked until they could barely keep their eyes open. Things that men cannot do in the light of day - on many levels.
It means leaving this place is bittersweet. Jamie will return to Erebus, He and Crozier to Terror. A world apart even if only by water. But work must get done and the fantasy dissolved, as are the way of things out at sea. He's just packing some of Crozier's field notes when the man calls and he looks up, worried at first, until -
Following the line of Crozier's arm he blinks up at the feature they called mountain when they first arrived here. But now, with plumes erupting from the top, he stares, awed by the look of it. A volcano. Just like Ross and Crozier both expected it to be.
"It is an excellent send off for Camp Aether, sir," he says quietly, astonished, coming to stand beside the captain and watch in wonder, elbows knocking though not intentionally. His body knows a comfortable familiarity that, while focused on the horizon, forgets its propriety.
"Even so cold and it's capable of this." A gesture, a childlike wonder that makes him want to move closer, as though he could climb it in the distance and look down to whatever fiery belly lies within.
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He could kiss him, out here under the white sky, watching the eruption. Jamie, too, who even at this distance Crozier can tell has practically split his face open with a smile. Of course it's a volcano, it was shaped like one, but of course, because James Clark Ross called it Erebus, it's alive. Breathing smoke, belching fire, like the living nightmare his ship is called after. Mount Terror, he suspects, purely for thematic consistency, will sleep silent and watching, like any proper lurking horror.
"We're the same distance from the heart of the Earth as Hawai'i," he says, because i triple checked and in fact it was called the kingdom of hawai'i and hickey is just that eurocentric. "Or thereabouts. Something inside this rock we live on is as volatile as blood."
Alive, in a way.
It's frightening, and it's beautiful, and it's going to put their departure back to the barest minute, because this all must be recorded. Crozier nudges Jopson with his elbow, shoots him a brief, pleased look, and then he's off, hurrying over to Ross so that they can get to work. Reactions are scattered: fear, wonder, some who've seen others go in different places in the world are pretending they aren't impressed. It'll be drawn from every angle, even by men with no artistic talent, just for fodder to remember it by. The shape of the plumes, the weight of the ash clouds, the tempo of it, the exact time.
Smoke goes from black to white over the course of their recording, and then their leaving. Far enough away that the strange smell of it doesn't touch them four hours after, but close enough that they'll be able to scour the shoreline for debris to collect. He and Ross and the surgeons talk until the last second about the timing of marine life moving about before it blew, animated. It doesn't properly hit him until he's helping shove Jamie's gig off the rocky outcropping.
Well, goodbye for now, he supposes. They stare at each other.
"I'll just throw my report over in a bottle," is as good a parting as anything.
Always a little heartache. Ross watches him for the perfect amount of time, looking away the second before it becomes strange for anyone to observe, and Crozier turns to oversee the last of everything.
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