A part of this puzzle, of the world. From anyone else, Crozier might think he was brushing off the question— an absurd thing to do, given their current configuration. What do you want, the both of them nearly nude, turning each other's mouths bruised-red, cocks hard and straining side by side through flimsy drawers. I'm happy with my job, sir.
It goes so deep, doesn't it. The way he finds his happiness through taking care of someone. How much he must get out of how they've found themselves, an agreeable affair in addition to the post at which he excels. He wonders: if he pushed him for an answer, what might tumble out? A confession that he wants his prick sucked or some heretofore unknown odd fetish, or would he plead that he has it, just like this?
Would he be happier with Ross, being one of the officer stewards on Erebus tending to their breathtakingly beautiful and brilliant commander instead? But no, even as he wonders, he thinks No, he wouldn't. Doesn't know why he thinks that. Greed, perhaps. Selfishness to hope that it's him, even though he must commit himself to remaining open to any weather as it comes. (If Miss Cracroft doesn't agree, then what? Will there be someone else Jamie has selected, will he be told to find someone now or have every door forever sealed, or—)
Francis would like very much for this to be everything he needs. It feels like a betrayal to think that. Jamie doesn't need to hear it, though.
He's been staring at him for too long.
"Feels like you might need something else, too."
He could kick himself for how thick with emotion his voice sounds when he's trying to make a lewd joke, incline his hips down to rock into his steward's arousal. C'mon, Crozier.
The silence between them is a comfortable, easy thing. Jopson thumbs softly over Crozier's chin, memorizing the lines of his face up close and in the light like this. Just a gentle brush of skin and the man's weight across him - like they were meant to stay like this, glued together, for how right it all feels.
There's something behind the blue of the man's eyes in the warm light, and he wonders if he looked closed enough if he might catch the thoughts racing in the man's mind. Francis deserves a life at sea and free exploration. Imagines him on a sloop, sailing on warm seas and exploring what the world has to offer, with neither crew nor navy watching over his shoulder, waiting for him to slip up.
The roll of hips brings him back to his own body, unable to withhold the low groan as their shared arousal becomes more and more obvious. It doesn't deafen him to the emotion in Crozier's voice - thick, intense, whatever it is. Jopson huffs softly and slides a hand against the man's nape, tugging him in for one soft kiss. A quiet way to sooth what lies behind the lilt of his accent.
"I do."
An arch of his back, careful beneath the man, but enough to grind their erections together, slow and sure.
"I suspect you need something as well, Captain," he murmurs, forgetting the burning thing in his chest and instead leaning up to nip at the man's mouth. There's time to parse apart that feeling later, and time only for the burn of their bodies now.
Whatever it is you need to give, I will hold for you.
He can't say things like that.
(Because—
simply can't.)
Instead he sighs, feeling like a teakettle venting steam. Jopson makes him want to unclip the leash on his patience, and bring him back to where they were that first encounter, with his steward on his knees. But this is better, no matter how slow. Something important lurking in the shared looks and trapped touches.
"And doesn't it just work out," he husks against his cheekbone, "that I have everything I need right here."
He can't say things like that, but he can say this, and make it filthier and hope that it's good enough. Good enough, that he and Jamie have what they have in between where duty takes them. Good enough, that he is trying to marry a girl for razor's edge of convenience and safety instead of love. Crozier is good at good enough. He has made it work for everything in his life, and here he is now—
Exactly where he wants to be. He could wish for nothing more.
He kisses him more, and manages to wedge just enough leverage on one elbow and knee to slide his hand between them. Doesn't do more than cover the stiff curve of Jopson's arousal with his palm, doesn't rut down or grab him. Just holds there, and gives him something to press against.
The boyish, desperate version of himself would cling to this - reach for Francis' face and ask him to say it again, over and over, so he can make sense of what it means beneath the layers of lust and want. The man, the steward, the committed guardian of this man knows better than to beg for truth in a moment of whimsy and want. But he'd be stupid to ignore the way the air feels a little heavier, that their touches and gazes mean something else.
Maybe he's being too much of a romantic, wanting what he isn't sure is there, or isn't sure he can have. But it feels real now, and even if it isn't the idea that this man needs him at all is worth it.
"I will always be at your side should you need me," he groans into one of the kisses. No honorific here, no proprieties, even if Crozier has done something to knock his senses out of place. To make his words too loose on the tongue, the pressure in his chest spilling over, a wisp of something he has to tamp back down.
There's little time for thought on it, his Captain's hand already encouraging the roll of his hips, slowly arching to apply more pressure, slow and sure. He will never say aloud he preferred as they were, tangled and pressured and cramped, hips flush to hips. Everything Francis wants to give him he will take, without complaint, without fuss. It will always be enough.
He smooths his hands along the man's arm, following it between them only to divert to his hip then along his spine.
"I wish to make you feel pleasure, too, sir," he murmurs, leaning to kiss his chin, his jaw. "Both of us, together."
He has to kiss him. For always, and for how good he feels. For how scalding hot he is even through the fabric of his undergarment. To be wanted so much, to have his own wanting welcomed and grabbed at greedily, is heady. You're just having an affair, he reminds himself, but that sensible voice is far away, now, and it gives up being heard right away.
"Alright."
Economical agreement. He can do that. Another fawning pet over him, and then he's shifting his weight, withdrawing his hand. They could, perhaps, find an alignment of bodies for hands between them to make work of it that way, but he has a better idea. Something unbearably sweet about Jopson wanting it together, pleading away from being serviced first.
He knows the compartments beneath the bunk well. Only one false start, discarding a bottle of violet water back into the drawer with its fabric scrap stuffing to keep things from knocking about while she ship moves. Successfully captured is a bottle of olive and clove oil, not as expensive as the almond from before, but more practical (and obvious) in its use. He spills it on his hand, and then reaches back between them. This time he undoes the tie and slides fingers around the length of Jopson's prick, no shyness there at all. Francis can't help but look down, even though the sight is mostly obscured. He gives him a loving stroke, and then repeats the process for himself. Hard and obscene, they lay against each other with nothing but hot skin and oil, and even a poorly envisioned upside-down sight is a lurid one that will be burned into his memory. To say nothing of the feel of it.
Rubbing against each other now is a different experience, free of anything that will chafe, or catch. This would be a fine time for someone to fire a gun on deck.
Crozier's hand round him will always be a divine shock to his senses, sending white-hot sparks down his spine and flooding his body with warmth. Difficult to ignore it, the lewd image of the man's slick hand between them and even he steals a look when he can and not bump the captain's. Who is also looking down between them at the mess of his prick and the oil.
The hot slide of their bodies alone is nearly enough to make him furious with hunger and wanting. Groaning low against Crozier's mouth before kissing him again, desperate to taste him and more desperate still to muffle himself. The berth is a secure one, but it is still a ship, after all, and not some fortress. (How is he ever going to be able to return to normal life after this? What will he do with the pressure behind his ribs that doesn't have a home except here where he relieves it with kisses and touches and quiet moments and this.)
He pets down Crozier's chest, his sides, his hips, until he finds purchase against the meat of his behind, palming the muscle there and holding him firm as he slow arches up, grinding their slick cocks together, keeping contact both on the rise and the descent.
"Sir," he pants against the man's jaw, his cheek, the corner of his mouth. Another roll of his hips, and he kisses him again through it, licking hot into his mouth, trying to chase the telltale taste of him and feel utterly consumed by the man atop him.
Whatever small doubts he may have had — is this the right move, he did opt to leave their drawers on when he gave him the reins — are burned away at Jopson's reaction. He feels it even before the young man moves, some surge of energy in him pushing up, up, into his very spirit, stoking his own fire to scorching levels. They're going to burn the ship again this way, have to flood her to just to put them out.
Crozier rocks down into him, making electric sparks go off behind his closed eyes. They are some electromagnetic experiment, shooting out blinding colors and fireworks. It's less tight then fucking between Jopson's thighs on the ice, but it's so much more present, and the feel of being able to get his weight so rough against him, the feel of their stiff cocks sliding against each other, is all mind-melting. So much more than he's had in months, and made yet more still by all these particular considerations they've been making for one another.
"Sweet boy," he returns, barely able to get any words out, too busy catching sounds from Jopson's. Helping him muffle it all, helping himself stay quiet, and just feeling. He can't get enough. "So good for me, Tom."
Thomas holds onto the man as long as he can, fingers gripping at the muscle of his rear a little too tight with every slide, encouraging more pressure, more feeling, more of everything that's shared between them. Crozier calls him sweet boy and Tom and he can think of nothing more than the way their bodies press together, the way they kiss, the way the muffle one another and swallow up all the sweet sounds of pleasure.
Impossible to stay quiet, this sensation new and electrifying, the slide of their hard pricks too perfect to put words to.
"I try... to be good for you," he pants into the man's mouth, chasing kisses and arching up into the man, meeting his hips every time he bears down against him. It's impossible to tell what of the wet is the oil or the mess he's sure he's making between them. How could he not be wet with the want of him, body begging for more, more, more.
He releases the man's arse, mapping up his back, his sides, tangling their arms just long enough to get around them. He wraps his arms around his neck instead, kissing him hard and bruising, dragging his teeth along the man's bottom lip as he arches up against him again, creating a slow and steady rhythm rutting against him.
"You are," he promises him, earnest praise, practically sharing breath with him. "You are, Thomas."
Good for him. Always, he says, and Crozier can't help deny that it makes him feel impossibly hotter. Any brakes thoroughly off. Thomas gets so wet, he's never tumbled a man who leaks so much before the pinnacle, and it's wildly erotic. It makes everything slip so much easier, but it makes him want to lick it off of him, too. He wants to feel it all over his chest, wants to feel it pulsing out of him around his cock.
Just as good, this, because nothing else is possible; the way they're pressed together is practically fucking already. Francis angles up a bit, able to get more weight on his knees so he can grind down just that little bit more. He drags Jopson's outside knee up with one hand, giving them both more room, torquing his body a degree. They fit together even closer, and the slide of hot, hard flesh against each other makes his breath catch. If he were twenty years younger, he might have yelped.
The shift in their positions leaves his voice caught up in his throat, a hitching gasp cut short. He keeps his knee hiked up, pressing into the older man's side as they grind together like this, slick and lewd and utterly perfect. He holds onto his shoulders, his back, no doubt leaving little marks there as he arches up again, dragging their cocks together and encouraging the man to answer back with his own movements.
It's overwhelming, his mind's gone warm and foggy, the affirmations enough to make him moan lowly against his mouth without even the hitch of his hips. It won't be long - he can feel the beginnings of the wire deep in his belly beginning to wind up, strain. The way Crozier moves over him, their pricks slotting together slick and hot, makes it impossible to think of anything else.
"Thank you, sir," he breathes, licking at the man's lips, leaning his head to kiss him again and again between the rocking of his hips. His thighs will burn in the morning, his core will be tight and sore - a pleasant reminder of this moment together. It could only be made better if they were actually fucking, if he could feel stretched and full and complete with Crozier's weight atop him.
He loosens one arm around the man's shoulders. It's a little awkward, the way he reaches between them, but he presses his hand over both of their wet pricks - something for his Captain to fuck into that feels warm and snug, even if it is just a press of a hand to his own belly.
Crozier drags Jopson up into ever movement, straining for it, not caring at all about what it'll feel like in the morning; this is rough work, this life. Something always aches anyway. Be worth it, this time, not just from hitting a knee on a desk when the ship lurches.
"I can feel you getting so tense." Can he. He thinks so. It's a thrilling thought, even before Jopson winds a clever hand between them. His own cock twitches, and he's sure his steward will be able to feel it— against his fingers, against his prick.
There's nothing artful to it. They're rutting frantically together in a cramped space, and any description of it to a third party would be unbearably lewd and brutish. But if feels so intimate, so connected, so significant. They're facing each other and they're holding each other close and precious. Like they're doing something soft, and loving, and not risking bruised hipbones and stones. It's a wonder Crozier's elbow hasn't slipped. But it won't. He wants to see him off, wants to feel him climax, watch it on his face, and feel how wet he makes it between them.
The added friction and the slide of their bodies brings him closer still, every muscle tensing and burning, his toes curling into the sheets that are indeed softer than the blanket. A frenzied thing in him wants to keep his hand between them, grip their sliding cocks and stroke them both off like this but as Crozier bears his weight down and they move so inelegantly, wonderfully together, he reaches up for his hip.
It's a scrambling of things, fingers between their slick bellies, to his hip, to the curve of his arse, desperate to get him closer, harder, anything as something begins to well up in him. It's astounding pressure, nothing like the times he's been rent asunder before by him, or by Jamie, no. This has a heart to it he can't name, an intimacy he wants to hold onto.
It's why he resists it at first, denies his own orgasm just to enjoy the feeling of the man's body on his own, the huff of his breath against his cheek, the warmth of him. He arches one last time, though, and yanks at the man to press them as close as they can possibly be when he climaxes.
His head falls back as he tries to fight it off, his body moving so frenetically, hips jackrabbiting to chase his orgasm up against the man's body, spilling hot and sticky between them as he ruts mindlessly through the white-hot haze of it all.
"Francis," he groans, doesn't realize his grip on the man's arse could possibly leave a mark what with the way his nails dig in. He's a live wire of motion and want and desperation when he kisses the older man, messy and hard, as his hips shift, his dick twitches and he chases the last vestiges of his pleasure.
Like they're trying to claw their ways into each other's skin. Crozier holds him close, grinds down into him to give him everything, pressure, the rough, heavy slide, as much contact as there can be— no space at all between them anyway. He tells himself it's like this because it's new, and it has nothing to do with how he doesn't think he's ever had someone be so devoted. That if he'd given Jamie the same hard time he gave Thomas at the start, they'd have ended up entangled anyway. A dozen more things, that all burn away when he feels him begin to fall apart, and the whole of his focus is the young man beneath him and nothing else.
You're so beautiful, he doesn't get to say. He would bite it back but Jopson spares him, kisses it out of his mouth before he can make a fool of himself.
The hot spill between them twists something inside of him. His cock is wet with it, the animal proof of euphoric pleasure, and it presses hard against the part of his mind that decides when something feels good. This feels good enough to nearly be a climax of its own, like he's the same age as his young steward, probably able to get off a half dozen times given enough leeway to get there.
"Even good at that," he says against his mouth, harsh and desperate. "Look at you."
Look at what? Francis can barely see him, but it's enough. Flushed and red and sweaty, blown-out from pleasure. His movements stutter, just there on the edge, but experience jerks his reins. Consideration for not crushing his lover up into over-raw nerve endings in the aftermath. Oh, but he's so close. He stills anyway.
Jopson can think of nothing but the fireworks that burst behind his eyes, that turn his thoughts and sensibilities into nothing but warm and sated mush. His body pulses with heat and sparks, sensitive and needy still, the occasional slow roll of his hips upward to work out the rest of his desire.
Troubling, though, when Crozier stops. He hums, leaning up to kiss him, nip his lips.
"Don't stop," he murmurs against his mouth, less a plea and more a command in his own, stubborn way. A slurry of kisses follows, to his mouth, his jaw, his neck, tugging the man down, encouraging his full weight to fall upon him. "I want it, sir. To see you - to feel you. I'm yours for the taking."
To let him use his body to finish, let him rut against him however he'd like and see himself through. "Or do you wish for my hand? My mouth? My thighs?" A tease of words, delirious with his own orgasm as he presses feather-light kisses to his lips.
Thomas melts beneath him, melts into him, and it makes reality tip sideways. Crozier returns a wet, desperate kiss, and there's something — can't even put a name to it — in the way his steward orders him Don't stop.
No, there is a name: relentless. It's one Jopson doesn't like, and so he doesn't murmur it to him. But it curls in Francis' chest warm and affectionate. Even when he follows it with all that, like he's laying himself out on a banquet table, asking to be devoured, it's still sweet. Like burning sugar, like citrus fruit, something almost stinging in a way that feels too good to let go of.
He can't help but laugh, though it's little more than a rough exhale—
"What more could I wish for?" Surely he can feel him, how tightly wound. Crozier grinds into him, hard, but still carefully attentive for anywhere he needs to shift. "Just that you feel good, too. Just you."
To follow him into that melting, that's what he wishes for. He kisses him again, and moves, and it doesn't take long. A hand nearly (maybe genuinely) bruising at his side, the other tight in his hair, a gasp at his jaw. Crozier's mind whites out like the ice surrounding them, sees bright blooms like sundogs.
Everything feels dreamlike around them, gauzy and soft and warm, like there's a gentle summer breeze waiting for them just outside instead of the bitter winter. His eyes close as Crozier's body works against his, raising his hips and encouraging the man to tumble into the dizzying afterglow with him. Just you. Here with the warm veil over his eyes and the haze of reality distant and beyond the door of the berth, he can wrap those words up and hold them carefully against his heart.
Fleeting as it is, to be wanted by this man feels better than any lewd act could ever strive for. It will never be just him, anyway. There's Jamie, and the woman he's been told Crozier might fancy, and all of the weight of the world to negate it, but here - just you and you make him happy are enough.
He groans into the man's skin, turning his face against the stubble at his captain's cheek, sparked back to life by the bruising pressure at his side, the tug of his hair. Francis is a beautiful, strong, inspiring man. A gentle soul, a curious explorer, a lover of all things wild and beautiful and wonderous.
Sighing, he pets over the man's hair, his back, up and down, gently soothing him through his climax which he can already feel has made the skin of his hip and belly go sticky and warm. It's enough to stir him, to make the heat try and work itself back up for how incredibly delicious the thought is. To be painted with this man's spend, to walk the ship knowing it's there while the others are none the wiser.
A soft kiss to his cheek, his ear, then the corner of his mouth.
"You make me feel so good, sir," he whispers, encouraging and sweet. "And I only want to dp the same for you for as long as you'll let me."
What a sight, if he could paint Jopson's body as thoroughly as the younger man has done; alas, a meager offering in comparison. But still they're a mess, and for the time being, it's a comfortable one. Overwarm, sticky, slippery with oil, a sharper smell than even sea-salt. They could be doing nothing else right now. For all its vulgarity it is honest, and undeniable. A fixed thing.
Just you.
As long as you'll let me.
They are in trouble, here, probably. But Crozier is too involved with the drifting state of euphoria after spending to mind it. In the morning he will tell himself that's the lot of it; everyone's minds (but men most of all, he's noticed) over-commit themselves in the aftermath. It is a liminal space in which it's safe to. Private, secret things, that for brief moments get to be real, and then forgotten.
(Though he won't forget.)
"Promise you'll tell me if I'm smothering you," he says, with a trace of humor to his voice. "But stay with me a moment, Thomas."
He wants to hold him. As best he can, in this narrow bunk.
"I promise," he huffs softly, nuzzling in against the man's neck and breathing in the scent of him, warm and the tang of sweat and sea-salt. The weight of him, the warmth, the everything of him like this - Jopson wants to soak it up, commit it to memory. If this were a larger bed (a feather bed, even) they could wrap around one another and enjoy a comfortable evening.
The tent was lovely in its own right and this is, too. Aether will follow them wherever they go.
He reaches his arms up around the man's neck, one hand splaying down between his shoulder blades, holding him closer, feeling the tacky heat of his skin. They'll need to do something of the mess eventually but it's comfortable now, pleasant and warm. If there was room to move he'd pull a fur over them both and insist they deal with all the cramps come morning.
Instead he kisses him, sweet and slow, nothing of the hungry things moments ago but everything like the soft and gentle beginning to all of this.
"I will always be at your side, Captain, remember?" A smile against his lips, because it's true in so many ways. As his steward, as a man, as... this. Whatever they are like this. "I do try to keep to my word."
A bump of noses, another lazy kiss, his body beginning to relax into the afterglow of it all.
Crozier winds arms around him the best he can, one behind his head, the other just tucked against his side. The slightest shift of his weight to one side, though there's nowhere to go without pressing sweaty skin against the wooden bulkhead. Not as bad as rolling off, he supposes.
"I'll remember," he murmurs.
Always.
They can't, life isn't like that, but wouldn't it be a lovely state of things.
Slow, lazy kisses as they wind down. (If Jopson stirs enough to be noticeable, then, perhaps—?) Francis should get the up, so that they can get as clean as they can before parting ways. The idea of it is too far away to engage with, though. It would be agony if he could think clearly of it, but he's put it aside on some shelf, reckless, to be looked at later. All he wants is to stay right here.
Of course it can't last indefinitely, even if only as a concession to the way the chilly air eventually creeps into his berth now that they aren't moving frantically and heaving impassioned breaths. Bare-arsed and spent, in need of rest. Crozer pets his stewards side, his shoulder, looks at him up close and out of focus.
Perhaps he's more spoiled than other men here who sneak into dark corners or hide deep in the belly of the ship behind barrels and crates. Being in his Captain's cabin late on occasion doesn't draw the same suspicion as it might if he were a ship's boy squirreling away somewhere less safe with a lieutenant or some such. Lucky in their own right. Even if all of this is just a dream on the sea, a life that cannot be lived openly.
But slow and lazy and warm are the only things he feels, he thinks. Easy to stay pressured into the cushion of Crozier's bunk, to sink into the easy comfort of it all after their lovemaking.
"Mmm. Good."
A little delayed, but he's enjoying the moment. Jopson's eyes grow heavy so he rests them shut, close enough now that he can nose in for soft little kisses when he feels the need to. (Always - nearly always). Fingers trace up and down his spine, to his side, then back, the motions growing a little slower every minute that passes.
"Just a little while longer, sir?"
A question, soft and dreamy, the tug of exhaustion pulling at him. Perhaps from the adrenaline spike, the rush of everything in the evening that brought them here.
An impossible luxury. Crozier began this life in a hammock in the lowest position; it was jarring to get a lieutenant's cabin, and in one of those closets he made his life for over a decade, far longer than most. (He knows that Jamie had recommended his promotion, doesn't know how many times, or how passionately.) This little space here on Terror could be a palace.
Especially with such company. Lazy, soft, sleepy. The kind of cuddling ascribed to young lovers, not sailors having illicit affairs. And yet it all feels sugar-spun, gossamer.
"A while," he agrees, and he kisses his cheekbone, near his closed eye, and long eyelashes. "I'll tell you when it's time to move on."
Ah, well, eventually. He tries to make himself feel even a little bit of shame about it, but finds none. He's already decided he'll let Jopson sleep here, though he knows he can't risk the swap from last time. But, again: this is a luxury. There is space enough to make due, one way or another. So he just holds him, cradles him, and waits until he's certain he's drifted off. Tempting to follow, but he'll need to clean them up at least. Natural as anything for a man to fall asleep after, but he's got his standards, and pleasant exhaustion is no excuse to be inconsiderate.
Still. He dozes for a few minutes, enjoying the closeness. How warm Thomas is in sleep, how his breath feels against his skin. When he was a ship's boy, sailors told salacious stories about French ships and their oversized officer beds made for devilry. But of course, half the ships in the Royal Navy were captured from the French, and they're just as slender. No devilry to be found. Almost a shame.
Used to the rocking of the ship and the noise of the men at night, Jopson sleeps through most of Crozier's moving about. Only toward the end, when the hammock is put up and the man moving around for the last few moments, he rolls over to one side, tangling the blanket round his feet, but pleasantly warm and resting easily. He's far less put together like this, hair loose and flopping across his brow, a flush to his cheeks, all the tension in his shoulders gone, cocooned in the scent of fresh laundry and musk and Francis.
He sleeps soundly otherwise, occasionally mumbling in his sleep or sighing, finding a new comfortable position. When the edge of morning arrives he wakes naturally, his internal clock simply not allowing him to be late for his duties.
Jopson knows the moment he opens his eyes that he's not in his own berth, and almost absolutely in his Captain's. What surprises him, however, is the hammock, the man in it, and how close it is to the tiny bunk in the berth. Not quite sharing a bed, certainly not a cot, but there's something magical in it.
He'll blame it on the sleepy state of mind, but it moves something in his chest, to wake up to the crop of fair hair and a brow he's kissed now more times than not. Getting up and preparing for the day should be the next step, but with the captain here, he's blocked into the small space that has become quite warm with their shared body heat.
From his place in the bunk he reaches to touch the man's arm, his hand, and gently laces their fingers.
"M'sorry, Captain, but you'll have to wake if you want me to prepare your breakfast, sir."
Thomas knows he sounds ridiculous - voice thick with sleep, accent a little heavier, the guise of the dutiful, business-like servant not yet in place.
Contingencies, he might claim. Gave it a rehearsal go to himself, as he puttered around swaddling Jopson in blankets and climbing into his own pajamas. If someone managed to get past the locked great cabin door, and his locked berth door, and then surprise him, he can claim he's in the hammock for back pain related reasons. The bed's almost obscured. Could work, perhaps.
But the best reason to be slung so close is sharing space. Good enough, his specialty. Crozier sleeps well in the hammock, dropping off in minutes, content beside the younger man, and selfishly looking forward to the way his sheets will smell like him the next time he actually ends up beneath them. Spare blankets sort him out just fine for the night, and he's still bundled in them when Jopson gently wakes him in the morning.
Muzzy eyes blink open at that first touch, and soft address. As usual, Crozier wakes easily — can startle awake even from a dead drunk state (foreshadowing) — and he finds his place in the world quickly despite the sleep in his eyes. Mm, it seems his course of action was the right one. Jopson looks well-rested, and content. Beautifully ruffled in the morning. It makes something in him ache with a desire to see him wake in the morning light of some countryside bedroom, beneath a window with a sheer curtain.
"Will I?" a little muffled. He raises his head to fully escape the blanket. Mph. He squeezes Jopson's hand. "Oh, I've got you held hostage, don't I."
Always a boy with a vivid imagination, it's easy to picture them both somewhere warmer, somewhere private, shared only between them and the lazy rays of the sun. (What does Crozier's skin feel like, warmed under summer heat? Could he taste the golden rays on his lips? His brow? Tinged with the salt of his sweat, so different now from the cold and the ice?)
"Mm. It seems you do," he mumbles, a lazy smile pulling slowly over his face. He turns his cheek against his extended arm, resting his head there, watching Crozier peek out from his blanket.
Yes, one day they will be like this in the sunlight together, even if it's a small and cramped room somewhere far, far away. Just once, he'd like that. (The hopes and dreams will be shattered because foreshadowing).
"And what is my ransom, good pirate? There is a gallant sea Captain who may pay a fine penny to have me returned."
Squeezing his fingers around Crozier's, wishing they were close enough he could tangle their legs, that he could kiss him, entice him to stretch out with him a few minutes longer like they have the time for it. (They don't. They never will.) He has to sound half drunk for how sleepy and content he is.
Not much hope for side sleeping in a hammock, but Francis turns as much as he's able, keen to see Thomas so open and relaxed, and to play this little game for another minute. They both have very strict internal timepieces, and soon enough the day will begin.
"I suspect he'd pay just about anything."
Hm, perhaps a foot wrong. Should have made a joke about Who's the gallant one? Captain Ross, of course? —he's the one with all the pennies, anyway. But Crozier would. For any man under his command. And for Jopson, well.
Hopeless, as it turns out. A pirate could ask for his fingers and he'd calmly remove them on the spot.
"We can.. sail for Atlantis."
Jesus and Mary he is awful at it, though, and a brief face he pulls, near laughing, betrays his self-awareness over that fact. Giving it a go at any rate. What fantastical things are pirates said to do? Help.
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A part of this puzzle, of the world. From anyone else, Crozier might think he was brushing off the question— an absurd thing to do, given their current configuration. What do you want, the both of them nearly nude, turning each other's mouths bruised-red, cocks hard and straining side by side through flimsy drawers. I'm happy with my job, sir.
It goes so deep, doesn't it. The way he finds his happiness through taking care of someone. How much he must get out of how they've found themselves, an agreeable affair in addition to the post at which he excels. He wonders: if he pushed him for an answer, what might tumble out? A confession that he wants his prick sucked or some heretofore unknown odd fetish, or would he plead that he has it, just like this?
Would he be happier with Ross, being one of the officer stewards on Erebus tending to their breathtakingly beautiful and brilliant commander instead? But no, even as he wonders, he thinks No, he wouldn't. Doesn't know why he thinks that. Greed, perhaps. Selfishness to hope that it's him, even though he must commit himself to remaining open to any weather as it comes. (If Miss Cracroft doesn't agree, then what? Will there be someone else Jamie has selected, will he be told to find someone now or have every door forever sealed, or—)
Francis would like very much for this to be everything he needs. It feels like a betrayal to think that. Jamie doesn't need to hear it, though.
He's been staring at him for too long.
"Feels like you might need something else, too."
He could kick himself for how thick with emotion his voice sounds when he's trying to make a lewd joke, incline his hips down to rock into his steward's arousal. C'mon, Crozier.
"Or am I imagining?"
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There's something behind the blue of the man's eyes in the warm light, and he wonders if he looked closed enough if he might catch the thoughts racing in the man's mind. Francis deserves a life at sea and free exploration. Imagines him on a sloop, sailing on warm seas and exploring what the world has to offer, with neither crew nor navy watching over his shoulder, waiting for him to slip up.
The roll of hips brings him back to his own body, unable to withhold the low groan as their shared arousal becomes more and more obvious. It doesn't deafen him to the emotion in Crozier's voice - thick, intense, whatever it is. Jopson huffs softly and slides a hand against the man's nape, tugging him in for one soft kiss. A quiet way to sooth what lies behind the lilt of his accent.
"I do."
An arch of his back, careful beneath the man, but enough to grind their erections together, slow and sure.
"I suspect you need something as well, Captain," he murmurs, forgetting the burning thing in his chest and instead leaning up to nip at the man's mouth. There's time to parse apart that feeling later, and time only for the burn of their bodies now.
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He can't say things like that.
(Because—
simply can't.)
Instead he sighs, feeling like a teakettle venting steam. Jopson makes him want to unclip the leash on his patience, and bring him back to where they were that first encounter, with his steward on his knees. But this is better, no matter how slow. Something important lurking in the shared looks and trapped touches.
"And doesn't it just work out," he husks against his cheekbone, "that I have everything I need right here."
He can't say things like that, but he can say this, and make it filthier and hope that it's good enough. Good enough, that he and Jamie have what they have in between where duty takes them. Good enough, that he is trying to marry a girl for razor's edge of convenience and safety instead of love. Crozier is good at good enough. He has made it work for everything in his life, and here he is now—
Exactly where he wants to be. He could wish for nothing more.
He kisses him more, and manages to wedge just enough leverage on one elbow and knee to slide his hand between them. Doesn't do more than cover the stiff curve of Jopson's arousal with his palm, doesn't rut down or grab him. Just holds there, and gives him something to press against.
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Maybe he's being too much of a romantic, wanting what he isn't sure is there, or isn't sure he can have. But it feels real now, and even if it isn't the idea that this man needs him at all is worth it.
"I will always be at your side should you need me," he groans into one of the kisses. No honorific here, no proprieties, even if Crozier has done something to knock his senses out of place. To make his words too loose on the tongue, the pressure in his chest spilling over, a wisp of something he has to tamp back down.
There's little time for thought on it, his Captain's hand already encouraging the roll of his hips, slowly arching to apply more pressure, slow and sure. He will never say aloud he preferred as they were, tangled and pressured and cramped, hips flush to hips. Everything Francis wants to give him he will take, without complaint, without fuss. It will always be enough.
He smooths his hands along the man's arm, following it between them only to divert to his hip then along his spine.
"I wish to make you feel pleasure, too, sir," he murmurs, leaning to kiss his chin, his jaw. "Both of us, together."
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"Alright."
Economical agreement. He can do that. Another fawning pet over him, and then he's shifting his weight, withdrawing his hand. They could, perhaps, find an alignment of bodies for hands between them to make work of it that way, but he has a better idea. Something unbearably sweet about Jopson wanting it together, pleading away from being serviced first.
He knows the compartments beneath the bunk well. Only one false start, discarding a bottle of violet water back into the drawer with its fabric scrap stuffing to keep things from knocking about while she ship moves. Successfully captured is a bottle of olive and clove oil, not as expensive as the almond from before, but more practical (and obvious) in its use. He spills it on his hand, and then reaches back between them. This time he undoes the tie and slides fingers around the length of Jopson's prick, no shyness there at all. Francis can't help but look down, even though the sight is mostly obscured. He gives him a loving stroke, and then repeats the process for himself. Hard and obscene, they lay against each other with nothing but hot skin and oil, and even a poorly envisioned upside-down sight is a lurid one that will be burned into his memory. To say nothing of the feel of it.
Rubbing against each other now is a different experience, free of anything that will chafe, or catch. This would be a fine time for someone to fire a gun on deck.
(Doesn't happen, thank Neptune, or whoever else.)
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The hot slide of their bodies alone is nearly enough to make him furious with hunger and wanting. Groaning low against Crozier's mouth before kissing him again, desperate to taste him and more desperate still to muffle himself. The berth is a secure one, but it is still a ship, after all, and not some fortress. (How is he ever going to be able to return to normal life after this? What will he do with the pressure behind his ribs that doesn't have a home except here where he relieves it with kisses and touches and quiet moments and this.)
He pets down Crozier's chest, his sides, his hips, until he finds purchase against the meat of his behind, palming the muscle there and holding him firm as he slow arches up, grinding their slick cocks together, keeping contact both on the rise and the descent.
"Sir," he pants against the man's jaw, his cheek, the corner of his mouth. Another roll of his hips, and he kisses him again through it, licking hot into his mouth, trying to chase the telltale taste of him and feel utterly consumed by the man atop him.
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Whatever small doubts he may have had — is this the right move, he did opt to leave their drawers on when he gave him the reins — are burned away at Jopson's reaction. He feels it even before the young man moves, some surge of energy in him pushing up, up, into his very spirit, stoking his own fire to scorching levels. They're going to burn the ship again this way, have to flood her to just to put them out.
Crozier rocks down into him, making electric sparks go off behind his closed eyes. They are some electromagnetic experiment, shooting out blinding colors and fireworks. It's less tight then fucking between Jopson's thighs on the ice, but it's so much more present, and the feel of being able to get his weight so rough against him, the feel of their stiff cocks sliding against each other, is all mind-melting. So much more than he's had in months, and made yet more still by all these particular considerations they've been making for one another.
"Sweet boy," he returns, barely able to get any words out, too busy catching sounds from Jopson's. Helping him muffle it all, helping himself stay quiet, and just feeling. He can't get enough. "So good for me, Tom."
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Impossible to stay quiet, this sensation new and electrifying, the slide of their hard pricks too perfect to put words to.
"I try... to be good for you," he pants into the man's mouth, chasing kisses and arching up into the man, meeting his hips every time he bears down against him. It's impossible to tell what of the wet is the oil or the mess he's sure he's making between them. How could he not be wet with the want of him, body begging for more, more, more.
He releases the man's arse, mapping up his back, his sides, tangling their arms just long enough to get around them. He wraps his arms around his neck instead, kissing him hard and bruising, dragging his teeth along the man's bottom lip as he arches up against him again, creating a slow and steady rhythm rutting against him.
"I want to be good for you always, sir."
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Good for him. Always, he says, and Crozier can't help deny that it makes him feel impossibly hotter. Any brakes thoroughly off. Thomas gets so wet, he's never tumbled a man who leaks so much before the pinnacle, and it's wildly erotic. It makes everything slip so much easier, but it makes him want to lick it off of him, too. He wants to feel it all over his chest, wants to feel it pulsing out of him around his cock.
Just as good, this, because nothing else is possible; the way they're pressed together is practically fucking already. Francis angles up a bit, able to get more weight on his knees so he can grind down just that little bit more. He drags Jopson's outside knee up with one hand, giving them both more room, torquing his body a degree. They fit together even closer, and the slide of hot, hard flesh against each other makes his breath catch. If he were twenty years younger, he might have yelped.
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It's overwhelming, his mind's gone warm and foggy, the affirmations enough to make him moan lowly against his mouth without even the hitch of his hips. It won't be long - he can feel the beginnings of the wire deep in his belly beginning to wind up, strain. The way Crozier moves over him, their pricks slotting together slick and hot, makes it impossible to think of anything else.
"Thank you, sir," he breathes, licking at the man's lips, leaning his head to kiss him again and again between the rocking of his hips. His thighs will burn in the morning, his core will be tight and sore - a pleasant reminder of this moment together. It could only be made better if they were actually fucking, if he could feel stretched and full and complete with Crozier's weight atop him.
He loosens one arm around the man's shoulders. It's a little awkward, the way he reaches between them, but he presses his hand over both of their wet pricks - something for his Captain to fuck into that feels warm and snug, even if it is just a press of a hand to his own belly.
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"I can feel you getting so tense." Can he. He thinks so. It's a thrilling thought, even before Jopson winds a clever hand between them. His own cock twitches, and he's sure his steward will be able to feel it— against his fingers, against his prick.
There's nothing artful to it. They're rutting frantically together in a cramped space, and any description of it to a third party would be unbearably lewd and brutish. But if feels so intimate, so connected, so significant. They're facing each other and they're holding each other close and precious. Like they're doing something soft, and loving, and not risking bruised hipbones and stones. It's a wonder Crozier's elbow hasn't slipped. But it won't. He wants to see him off, wants to feel him climax, watch it on his face, and feel how wet he makes it between them.
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The added friction and the slide of their bodies brings him closer still, every muscle tensing and burning, his toes curling into the sheets that are indeed softer than the blanket. A frenzied thing in him wants to keep his hand between them, grip their sliding cocks and stroke them both off like this but as Crozier bears his weight down and they move so inelegantly, wonderfully together, he reaches up for his hip.
It's a scrambling of things, fingers between their slick bellies, to his hip, to the curve of his arse, desperate to get him closer, harder, anything as something begins to well up in him. It's astounding pressure, nothing like the times he's been rent asunder before by him, or by Jamie, no. This has a heart to it he can't name, an intimacy he wants to hold onto.
It's why he resists it at first, denies his own orgasm just to enjoy the feeling of the man's body on his own, the huff of his breath against his cheek, the warmth of him. He arches one last time, though, and yanks at the man to press them as close as they can possibly be when he climaxes.
His head falls back as he tries to fight it off, his body moving so frenetically, hips jackrabbiting to chase his orgasm up against the man's body, spilling hot and sticky between them as he ruts mindlessly through the white-hot haze of it all.
"Francis," he groans, doesn't realize his grip on the man's arse could possibly leave a mark what with the way his nails dig in. He's a live wire of motion and want and desperation when he kisses the older man, messy and hard, as his hips shift, his dick twitches and he chases the last vestiges of his pleasure.
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You're so beautiful, he doesn't get to say. He would bite it back but Jopson spares him, kisses it out of his mouth before he can make a fool of himself.
The hot spill between them twists something inside of him. His cock is wet with it, the animal proof of euphoric pleasure, and it presses hard against the part of his mind that decides when something feels good. This feels good enough to nearly be a climax of its own, like he's the same age as his young steward, probably able to get off a half dozen times given enough leeway to get there.
"Even good at that," he says against his mouth, harsh and desperate. "Look at you."
Look at what? Francis can barely see him, but it's enough. Flushed and red and sweaty, blown-out from pleasure. His movements stutter, just there on the edge, but experience jerks his reins. Consideration for not crushing his lover up into over-raw nerve endings in the aftermath. Oh, but he's so close. He stills anyway.
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Troubling, though, when Crozier stops. He hums, leaning up to kiss him, nip his lips.
"Don't stop," he murmurs against his mouth, less a plea and more a command in his own, stubborn way. A slurry of kisses follows, to his mouth, his jaw, his neck, tugging the man down, encouraging his full weight to fall upon him. "I want it, sir. To see you - to feel you. I'm yours for the taking."
To let him use his body to finish, let him rut against him however he'd like and see himself through. "Or do you wish for my hand? My mouth? My thighs?" A tease of words, delirious with his own orgasm as he presses feather-light kisses to his lips.
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No, there is a name: relentless. It's one Jopson doesn't like, and so he doesn't murmur it to him. But it curls in Francis' chest warm and affectionate. Even when he follows it with all that, like he's laying himself out on a banquet table, asking to be devoured, it's still sweet. Like burning sugar, like citrus fruit, something almost stinging in a way that feels too good to let go of.
He can't help but laugh, though it's little more than a rough exhale—
"What more could I wish for?" Surely he can feel him, how tightly wound. Crozier grinds into him, hard, but still carefully attentive for anywhere he needs to shift. "Just that you feel good, too. Just you."
To follow him into that melting, that's what he wishes for. He kisses him again, and moves, and it doesn't take long. A hand nearly (maybe genuinely) bruising at his side, the other tight in his hair, a gasp at his jaw. Crozier's mind whites out like the ice surrounding them, sees bright blooms like sundogs.
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Fleeting as it is, to be wanted by this man feels better than any lewd act could ever strive for. It will never be just him, anyway. There's Jamie, and the woman he's been told Crozier might fancy, and all of the weight of the world to negate it, but here - just you and you make him happy are enough.
He groans into the man's skin, turning his face against the stubble at his captain's cheek, sparked back to life by the bruising pressure at his side, the tug of his hair. Francis is a beautiful, strong, inspiring man. A gentle soul, a curious explorer, a lover of all things wild and beautiful and wonderous.
Sighing, he pets over the man's hair, his back, up and down, gently soothing him through his climax which he can already feel has made the skin of his hip and belly go sticky and warm. It's enough to stir him, to make the heat try and work itself back up for how incredibly delicious the thought is. To be painted with this man's spend, to walk the ship knowing it's there while the others are none the wiser.
A soft kiss to his cheek, his ear, then the corner of his mouth.
"You make me feel so good, sir," he whispers, encouraging and sweet. "And I only want to dp the same for you for as long as you'll let me."
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Just you.
As long as you'll let me.
They are in trouble, here, probably. But Crozier is too involved with the drifting state of euphoria after spending to mind it. In the morning he will tell himself that's the lot of it; everyone's minds (but men most of all, he's noticed) over-commit themselves in the aftermath. It is a liminal space in which it's safe to. Private, secret things, that for brief moments get to be real, and then forgotten.
(Though he won't forget.)
"Promise you'll tell me if I'm smothering you," he says, with a trace of humor to his voice. "But stay with me a moment, Thomas."
He wants to hold him. As best he can, in this narrow bunk.
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The tent was lovely in its own right and this is, too. Aether will follow them wherever they go.
He reaches his arms up around the man's neck, one hand splaying down between his shoulder blades, holding him closer, feeling the tacky heat of his skin. They'll need to do something of the mess eventually but it's comfortable now, pleasant and warm. If there was room to move he'd pull a fur over them both and insist they deal with all the cramps come morning.
Instead he kisses him, sweet and slow, nothing of the hungry things moments ago but everything like the soft and gentle beginning to all of this.
"I will always be at your side, Captain, remember?" A smile against his lips, because it's true in so many ways. As his steward, as a man, as... this. Whatever they are like this. "I do try to keep to my word."
A bump of noses, another lazy kiss, his body beginning to relax into the afterglow of it all.
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"I'll remember," he murmurs.
Always.
They can't, life isn't like that, but wouldn't it be a lovely state of things.
Slow, lazy kisses as they wind down. (If Jopson stirs enough to be noticeable, then, perhaps—?) Francis should get the up, so that they can get as clean as they can before parting ways. The idea of it is too far away to engage with, though. It would be agony if he could think clearly of it, but he's put it aside on some shelf, reckless, to be looked at later. All he wants is to stay right here.
Of course it can't last indefinitely, even if only as a concession to the way the chilly air eventually creeps into his berth now that they aren't moving frantically and heaving impassioned breaths. Bare-arsed and spent, in need of rest. Crozer pets his stewards side, his shoulder, looks at him up close and out of focus.
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But slow and lazy and warm are the only things he feels, he thinks. Easy to stay pressured into the cushion of Crozier's bunk, to sink into the easy comfort of it all after their lovemaking.
"Mmm. Good."
A little delayed, but he's enjoying the moment. Jopson's eyes grow heavy so he rests them shut, close enough now that he can nose in for soft little kisses when he feels the need to. (Always - nearly always). Fingers trace up and down his spine, to his side, then back, the motions growing a little slower every minute that passes.
"Just a little while longer, sir?"
A question, soft and dreamy, the tug of exhaustion pulling at him. Perhaps from the adrenaline spike, the rush of everything in the evening that brought them here.
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Especially with such company. Lazy, soft, sleepy. The kind of cuddling ascribed to young lovers, not sailors having illicit affairs. And yet it all feels sugar-spun, gossamer.
"A while," he agrees, and he kisses his cheekbone, near his closed eye, and long eyelashes. "I'll tell you when it's time to move on."
Ah, well, eventually. He tries to make himself feel even a little bit of shame about it, but finds none. He's already decided he'll let Jopson sleep here, though he knows he can't risk the swap from last time. But, again: this is a luxury. There is space enough to make due, one way or another. So he just holds him, cradles him, and waits until he's certain he's drifted off. Tempting to follow, but he'll need to clean them up at least. Natural as anything for a man to fall asleep after, but he's got his standards, and pleasant exhaustion is no excuse to be inconsiderate.
Still. He dozes for a few minutes, enjoying the closeness. How warm Thomas is in sleep, how his breath feels against his skin. When he was a ship's boy, sailors told salacious stories about French ships and their oversized officer beds made for devilry. But of course, half the ships in the Royal Navy were captured from the French, and they're just as slender. No devilry to be found. Almost a shame.
Eventually, he gets to it. So very careful.
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He sleeps soundly otherwise, occasionally mumbling in his sleep or sighing, finding a new comfortable position. When the edge of morning arrives he wakes naturally, his internal clock simply not allowing him to be late for his duties.
Jopson knows the moment he opens his eyes that he's not in his own berth, and almost absolutely in his Captain's. What surprises him, however, is the hammock, the man in it, and how close it is to the tiny bunk in the berth. Not quite sharing a bed, certainly not a cot, but there's something magical in it.
He'll blame it on the sleepy state of mind, but it moves something in his chest, to wake up to the crop of fair hair and a brow he's kissed now more times than not. Getting up and preparing for the day should be the next step, but with the captain here, he's blocked into the small space that has become quite warm with their shared body heat.
From his place in the bunk he reaches to touch the man's arm, his hand, and gently laces their fingers.
"M'sorry, Captain, but you'll have to wake if you want me to prepare your breakfast, sir."
Thomas knows he sounds ridiculous - voice thick with sleep, accent a little heavier, the guise of the dutiful, business-like servant not yet in place.
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But the best reason to be slung so close is sharing space. Good enough, his specialty. Crozier sleeps well in the hammock, dropping off in minutes, content beside the younger man, and selfishly looking forward to the way his sheets will smell like him the next time he actually ends up beneath them. Spare blankets sort him out just fine for the night, and he's still bundled in them when Jopson gently wakes him in the morning.
Muzzy eyes blink open at that first touch, and soft address. As usual, Crozier wakes easily — can startle awake even from a dead drunk state (foreshadowing) — and he finds his place in the world quickly despite the sleep in his eyes. Mm, it seems his course of action was the right one. Jopson looks well-rested, and content. Beautifully ruffled in the morning. It makes something in him ache with a desire to see him wake in the morning light of some countryside bedroom, beneath a window with a sheer curtain.
"Will I?" a little muffled. He raises his head to fully escape the blanket. Mph. He squeezes Jopson's hand. "Oh, I've got you held hostage, don't I."
Having fun, even half-asleep.
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"Mm. It seems you do," he mumbles, a lazy smile pulling slowly over his face. He turns his cheek against his extended arm, resting his head there, watching Crozier peek out from his blanket.
Yes, one day they will be like this in the sunlight together, even if it's a small and cramped room somewhere far, far away. Just once, he'd like that. (The hopes and dreams will be shattered because foreshadowing).
"And what is my ransom, good pirate? There is a gallant sea Captain who may pay a fine penny to have me returned."
Squeezing his fingers around Crozier's, wishing they were close enough he could tangle their legs, that he could kiss him, entice him to stretch out with him a few minutes longer like they have the time for it. (They don't. They never will.) He has to sound half drunk for how sleepy and content he is.
"But I could be convinced."
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"I suspect he'd pay just about anything."
Hm, perhaps a foot wrong. Should have made a joke about Who's the gallant one? Captain Ross, of course? —he's the one with all the pennies, anyway. But Crozier would. For any man under his command. And for Jopson, well.
Hopeless, as it turns out. A pirate could ask for his fingers and he'd calmly remove them on the spot.
"We can.. sail for Atlantis."
Jesus and Mary he is awful at it, though, and a brief face he pulls, near laughing, betrays his self-awareness over that fact. Giving it a go at any rate. What fantastical things are pirates said to do? Help.
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