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Fitzjames has never liked it when they leave Erebus for Terror. Francis Crozier’s drunken melancholy seems to pervade every deck and cabin on board, and it feels somehow colder over here, though it couldn’t possibly be any different. Besides, Sir John is the leader of the expedition. Why could Crozier never bother doing them the courtesy of insisting they use Erebus’s wardroom for these meetings?
Fitzjames is feeling somewhat more morose than usual. When Sir John hasn’t been reminiscing at length with Crozier, he’s been wrapped up in his own thoughts and rather more quiet than normal while Dundy has been ignoring Fitzjames completely, eyes only big enough for Lieutenant Little and dinner. Lieutenants Gore and Irving are pensively quiet at the far end of the table, leaving Fitzjames trapped between Dundy’s shameless display and Sir John’s total indifference. Opposite him, Crozier, meanwhile, has been glowering at Fitzjames over his third or fourth glass of whiskey for the last several minutes. It’s beginning to wear on Fitzjames’s nerves.
It’s childish, but it makes him feel fragile and unwanted that no one is bothering to speak to him. It doesn’t help that Fitzjames hasn’t had a good night’s rest in weeks. Perhaps months. Certainly, last night’s vision of ships pulled under ice straight into the frozen pits of hell—by now Fitzjames was confident hell could have no fire in it at all—had not helped much to put the man at ease. He is just so exhausted. Fitzjames realizes he’s scowling or perhaps pouting. He reminds himself: there are worse things than this. The dinner is all but finished, and then he can try to get some rest.
Crozier leans to Sir John to whisper something in his ear. Fitzjames can’t quite make out the words, but Crozier’s determined staring leads him to assume he is the topic of discussion. Sir John shakes his head disapprovingly at whatever crass comment was made but laughs just the same. Fitzjames frowns at the sound, wary of its cause. He looks to Sir John for an answer, but this only makes the man laugh more heartily. Fitzjames narrows his eyes and switches tactics, raising his eyebrow at Crozier. What falsehood could the miserable drunk have said at his expense? Fitzjames broods.
“Was it a good joke, then, Crozier?”
“Captain Crozier,” Sir John corrects firmly, but then he snickers, leaving Fitzjames more wrongfooted. He’s being laughed at, he knows, but in what capacity? Was it how tired he looked? Was it that obvious?
Dundy and Little’s conversation comes to a natural pause, and like that, all eyes and ears are turned to the three superior officers. A faint sense of foreboding sings out in Fitzjames’s chest, a slight squeeze around his heart.
Fitzjames can hear the blood rushing in his ears. It almost sounds as if they’re out at sea again. He tells himself this is no worse than being shot. No worse than being doomed. He can withstand this.
Crozier grins. “Was just an observation, Fitzjames. Hardly a joke at all.”
Sir John makes no reference to Fitzjames’s title, and he resists the urge to be churlish, keeping his voice friendly enough.
“What was the observation, then, Captain?”
“Only that when no one begs you for a story at dinner, you remind me of nothing so much as a fancy breeding bitch lurking under the table—begging for her master’s scraps, chafing at the company for not giving her enough attention.”
Fitzjames sputters with indignation, a blush rising in his cheeks at the vulgarity of the insult. Dundy bursts out laughing, which sets off the rest of the lieutenants as well as Sir John. Fitzjames’s eyes don’t leave Crozier’s, and then—amidst the laughter—something unthinkably worse does happen: Fitzjames feels tears start to well in his eyes. He is immediately overcome with panic. He can’t cry. Not here! Not in front of these men, who already respect him so little. Fitzjames drops his eyes to his empty plate, willing the tears not to fall. He’s so overwhelmed he can’t be sure if everyone is still looking at him or not. He certainly feels the scorch of their pitying, judgmental gazes, but perhaps that’s just in his mind. He’s sure Crozier could not have seen the tears.
After a bit of coughing and a hasty sip or two of wine, Fitzjames feels composed enough to look up. He finds himself, for the first time all evening, the absolute center of attention—an object of great amusement apparently. He flushes more darkly. He feels a tear escape despite his best efforts.
Dundy is laughing immodestly, uproariously at his expense—tears of a very different sort in his eyes. Crozier is sneering in his victory. Lieutenants Little and Gore are shaking with barely contained laughter. Even Sir John is chuckling. Irving, at least, has gained his composure, but his eyes dance with mirth.
Fitzjames opens his mouth to defend himself. Anything but to sit silently like a fool, but the only thing to come out of his mouth is a humiliating croak of a cough. Tears, meanwhile, continue to flow, and Fitzjames scrubs at them self-consciously. For a moment, he wishes for a tragedy. A sinking. A war. The creature. Something to rend him to pieces. It would surely be more bearable than this.
Now, Crozier laughs. Cruelly. Sir John titters a final time and gets to his feet. Everyone rises with him, Fitzjames onto slightly trembling legs.
“Take a moment to compose yourself, James,” Sir John says, not unkindly. It fills Fitzjames with the deepest shame, which infuriatingly only causes the tears to multiply. He doesn’t want anyone's pity!
“Actually, I’d like a word in private with Crozier,” Fitzjames chokes out, wiping his face impatiently on the sleeve of his greatcoat, which he hadn’t removed before eating for the chill in the wardroom. Now, it suffocates him.
Sir John eyes the now silent Irishman as he downs the last of his whiskey. “We’ll not wait for you, then.” A bite of impatience, of condescension. Then, ruthlessly, to Crozier: “See him safely back over, won’t you, Francis?” It serves to boil the blood in Fitzjames’s veins all the hotter.
Sir John leaves, followed by the lieutenants, who all nod to Crozier and Fitzjames. Dundy’s satirical salute is the final straw. This will come to blows, Fitzjames decides. He’s willing to risk Sir John’s wrath if it means wiping the smug look off Crozier’s face and wringing the pitying thoughts from the minds of his inferiors. He is James Fitzjames! He’d been the first choice of all the men here to lead this journey!
As soon as they’re alone, Fitzjames lunges around the table, almost mindless with rage, his eyes blurred from the tears that still haven’t bloody stopped.
Crozier’s laughs again, lower and more dangerous. The Terror’s captain sets down his glass and opens his arms as if to welcome the approach. In an instant, Crozier has Fitzjames by his greatcoat’s lapels, eyebrows cocked as if to say, “And now what?”
Fitzjames raises his arm, thinking of slapping the insolent expression from Crozier’s face, when the man shakes him bodily, much like one might shake a reluctant sail to unfurl it. Dazed for a moment, Fitzjames hesitates, but then his hands fly to the other man’s wrists to pull him off his greatcoat.
He proves no more successful in this endeavor than the whole company had been at extracting their ships from the packed ice. Absurdly, the tears continue to fall. Through them Fitzjames meets Crozier’s mocking eyes once more, a gruff plea on the tip of his tongue.
“Hm. I think I much prefer you like this, Commander,” Crozier murmurs, as if to himself. His cruel blue eyes fixed determinedly on Fitzjames’s still leaking brown ones. The title comes easily to Crozier now, finally, when he has been brought low, Fitzjames supposes with bitterness.
Fitzjames scoffs—more hot tears dripping from his chin onto Crozier’s sleeves—and he begins struggling anew to extricate himself from Crozier’s relentless grip, releasing his wrists and instead twisting to slip out of his greatcoat with the same desperation of a lunatic in an asylum attempting to remove his straight jacket.
Crozier tsks disapprovingly. “None of that now, Fitzjames!” he barks out sharply in his captain’s voice. Fitzjames furiously opens his mouth to retort when Crozier gives him another full-body shake. Fitzjames feels his teeth clack together painfully, and he lets loose a tiny gasp of pain, even as he continues to writhe in his coat like a man possessed.
Crozier’s amused smirk becomes a frown when Fitzjames’s disobedience persists—unseen by the man still struggling in his grasp.
Once Fitzjames finally frees his arms from the coat, Crozier simply lets it drop to the floor between them. In his haste to escape, Fitzjames has managed to back himself into a corner. Still trapped, he freezes uncertainly. The tears have stopped, thank God. Surely, whatever this game was is over now. Crozier has won, proven himself stronger and wittier, and he’ll let Fitzjames go back to Erebus. Surely.
Fitzjames tentatively lifts a hand, wanting to wipe the remaining tears from his face, but quick as a flash, Crozier snatches Fitzjames’s offending wrist in one hand and fists his other into the taller man’s hair. Fitzjames lets out a surprised yelp as Crozier jerks his head back, forcing his chin up to reveal his pulse thrumming just above his neatly tied cravat.
Humiliatingly, gallingly, Fitzjames feels his eyes fill with water again. He screws them shut, and Crozier makes a pleased noise, tugging harder and squeezing Fitzjames's wrist tightly. To compensate for the downward pressure, Fitzjames bends his knees slightly. He reaches his free hand up to try and dislodge the Irishman’s from his head.
It’s at this inopportune time that the door opens with an audible creak, and Thomas Jopson steps into the wardroom. The fist in his hair tightens, and Fitzjames chokes back a whimper. Crozier turns to face his steward without releasing his quarry.
The young man’s eyes take in the whole scene with a decidedly neutral expression, as if he’s seen this sort of thing a hundred times. Perhaps he has, Fitzjames speculates wildly. He wonders if it is worse to be the only subordinate or one of many to face Crozier’s wrath like this.
In the terse silence, Crozier’s hold on Fitzjames loosens infinitesimally, and he seizes the opportunity to try and escape, but Crozier’s head snaps back around, his expression venomous. His grip tightens, and he pulls Fitzjames towards him before slamming him against the wall. Fitzjames feels all the air leave his lungs in a pained wheeze. More bloody tears!
Jopson gasps quietly in surprise. Evidently, that crosses a line that Crozier had yet to tread over, Fitzjames thinks hysterically.
“Jopson, I ought to have you keelhauled for entering the wardroom without so much as a knock of warning.” Crozier’s voice is light, with no weight to the threat whatsoever. His malice is all focused in his eyes, which bid Fitzjames hold still.
Jopson answers him with an equally calm polite tone, “Begging your pardon, Captain, but I did knock, sir, though the door was ajar…”
Crozier glances back to his steward, as though waiting for more to be said, and Jopson begins to sound nervous as he continues, “I-I’d thought you’d retired for the evening, sir.”
Fitzjames considers very briefly asking for Jopson’s aid. Would the steward be inclined to help? On the verge of opening his mouth, Fitzjames sees something like regret in the young man’s eyes, even as he gives the Erebus’s second-in-command the tiniest shake of a head. The message is clear: Please do not ask it of me, sir.
Crozier’s eyes follow the silent denial to the crestfallen look on Fitzjames’s face, and his smirk is back in full force. Fitzjames feels humiliation color his cheeks a deep red. Why did Jopson have to come in at all? Servants are such dreadful gossips. Soon all of the Terror will hear of his shame. Then, it will spread to Erebus like a disease bringing fog. If they don’t perish in this wasteland, Fitzjames’s career just might anyway.
“Jopson, I thank you. You’re dismissed for the night,” Crozier says. The hand wrapped around Fitzjames’s wrist gives a vicious squeeze as if goading him to argue.
“Of course, um, good night, Captain.” Jopson bows as he slips from the room. He spares Fitzjames one last dip of his head. “Commander.”
Even in earnest from an inferior’s mouth, it sounds, nay it hits like a condescending slap. It echoes in Fitzjames’s head just as the door slamming shut—dooming him to Crozier’s mercy (or lack thereof)—echoes in the silent room. Fitzjames is irrationally hurt, even as he reasons with himself that this is no betrayal. Jopson of all the men was never going to forsake Crozier’s goodwill to help Fitzjames. But why did no one else come in? Surely Sir John had noticed that Fitzjames had not followed. Or Dundy! Did no one on either of these bloody ships respect him, like him, as much as Crozier?
This unwanted thought brings on an equally unwanted fresh flood of tears, and Fitzjames curses aloud. Crozier laughs at him again. The laugh smarts painfully, just like a birch rod to the back of the hand.
The Irishman uses his hips to press Fitzjames’s lower half into the wall, pinning him in place, and tugs none too gently on Fitzjames’s hair, until his neck cannot bend any further. Fitzjames groans in defeat. At a loss, feeling his heart thump somewhere in his throat. He’s suddenly warmer than he has been since they left England.
“Poor thing,” Crozier croons in his ear, pressing a savagely cruel kiss to a wet cheek.
Fitzjames feels his face heat up even more. His mind returns to him with this new abuse. “Stop this at once, Crozier! Let go of me!”
“‘Crozier’! Such impropriety from Mr. Ceremony! Speak nicely and call me ‘captain’ and maybe I’ll let you go easy, you prima donna.”
Despite his promise, Crozier only draws closer, leaning forward until their chests are pressed together, crushing Fitzjames’s arm against the wall overhead by the wrist in the same movement. Fitzjames struggles to breathe evenly through the tears and the pressure and moans in pain at the way it wrenches his shoulder and neck.
Crozier ignores his panicking in favor of kicking his feet further apart and inserting himself between them. Leaving not a lick of space in existence between their bodies. Craning forward as he is, Fitzjames struggles to stay upright, his free arm braces against the wall behind him to keep him from falling to the floor.
He tries to push himself off the wall using this arm and the one still shackled around the wrist by Crozier’s hand. Fitzjames flexes his hips, using all of his strength to push at the man pinning him down when suddenly a thrill of terror runs through his body like a spark of electricity. To his horror, Fitzjames has become aroused. He stops struggling immediately trying to press further into the wall instead. Crozier’s cruel smile suggests Fitzjames has failed to hide this shame as well as hoped.
Unable to take this any longer, Fitzjames cracks. “Stop!” he begs.
Crozier waits expectantly. Fitzjames flounders for a moment before remembering. He speaks through clenched teeth, “Captain.”
Crozier snorts, “I believe I said speak nicely, James.”
He tugs forcefully on Fitzjames’s hair, wrenching his neck and wringing a throaty whimper from him. The sound embarrasses Fitzjames deeply. He feels so weak, so warm. He shuts his eyes again, taking a deep breath to try and think of another way out of this mess. To will his body to listen to him. To cool. More gulping breaths. More stinging wetness from his eyes.
“There you go,” Crozier encourages. At last, his tone has lost its biting edge. It’s gentle. Fitzjames shivers at the change. Somehow, it’s worse than the laughter. It brings more tears.
Fitzjames will surely die if this goes on any longer. He lets out a shuddering breath, trying to string together a coherent demand that will get him released. Crozier must not like the look in his newly opened eyes because he frowns.
“Speak nicely, or I’ll have you flogged.” The tone brooks no arguments.
“What do you want me to say?” Fitzjames cuts out bitterly, desperation rising in his heaving chest. The indignation stops the tears mercifully.
“Why, suddenly mute, are you? Nothing to say at all now that we can see through the mirage? Seen through to the sniveling little bitch beneath the blustering stories? Believe me, we all knew it was there.”
Fitzjames lets out a strangled whimper and shakes his head. It’s not true! It’s not fair!
He opens his mouth to argue, but Crozier cuts him off: “Ask me ‘Please, Captain Crozier, let me go, so I may cry alone in my cabin like a scorned young maid.’”
Fitzjames whines aloud in protest. His flush begins creeping down his neck. The heat of humiliation courses through his veins. Crozier’s ironic smile grows more predatory. Fitzjames feels his cock begin to throb in time with his rapid heartbeat. He needs to get out of this room before he loses what little control over his body he has left. He could concede he had lost if it meant being able to retreat.
“Please...please, Captain Crozier,” he began, crying in earnest once more. “...let go please, so I may…” he broke off, unable to hold eye contact and degrade himself. Magnanimously, Crozier allows this, loosening his fingers to run them through Fitzjames’s ruined curls. The sweetness of the gesture throws Fitzjames for a moment. His hips jerk forward, and he moans.
“Yes?” Crozier prompts him to continue, his demeanor wholly indifferent. Mercifully, Crozier pulls back so their only point of contact is the now gentle fingers tangled in Fitzjames’s hair and the perfunctory hand pinning Fitzjames’s wrist against the wall, which has long since gone numb. Head clearing somewhat, Fitzjames sniffs.
“So I may cry alone in my cabin.”
“Mm?”
“Like a scorned young maid,” Fitzjames spits out. He glares at the floor even as he keeps crying. Fitzjames is beginning to wonder how he hasn’t fainted from dehydration after all the barrels of tears. Wouldn’t that be a mercy! Gradually, Crozier’s silence catches up with Fitzjames, who finally dares to tear his gaze up from the floor.
“What, release you so you may give into the sin of self-abuse?” Crozier asks, doing his best impression of Sir John’s incredulous piety.
Fitzjames heaves with sobs; they intensify when it registers that this was an exercise in futility. Crozier was never actually going to let him go. He’d just wanted to hear him beg. Fitzjames begins struggling anew. He wrenches his head to the side and succeeds in shaking Crozier’s grip on his hair, but before he can do anything else, Crozier crowds him up against the wall again.
His hand finds its way back into Fitzjames’s hair, although now it glides more gently—sweetly brushing out the tangles it had just made. Against his better judgment, Fitzjames leans into the captain’s mocking touch. He jolts and cries out as a harsh thigh is pressed against his aching cock. He rocks against it mindlessly, seeking the only relief being offered.
As if in reward, Crozier’s hand leaves Fitzjames’s hair, and finally permitted to tip forward and hide his shameful tears, he does so. The hand returns to attempt, gainlessly, to dry his face. After a second, Fitzjames realizes the gesture isn’t meant to dry his tears but merely a cruel parody of them, tracing the same path with a sneer of satisfaction. “Poor, poor, Fitzjames,” Crozier coos.
The mockery makes another full-blown sob explode out of Fitzjames. His mind screams at him that this is what Crozier wants, but he can’t seem to get any control over himself. He cannot seem to stop rocking his hips forward.
“Now, now,” Crozier admonishes. His hand goes to Fitzjames’s chin and tips his face back up. He watches with a strange intensity in his eyes as Fitzjames gives himself over to the crying, whining, and keening. The eye contact makes everything so much worse for Fitzjames, and he seems to cry for several uninterrupted minutes before starting to gasp desperately for air. Trying to steady his breath does very little under Crozier’s scrutiny, with his thigh jammed against Fitzjames’s prick. Fitzjames feels helpless to stop the tears. He is suddenly fearful he won’t ever be able to stop crying. This paranoia, of course, serves naught but to give rise to new tears.
“Such a pretty thing,” Crozier whispers.
Fitzjames spends in his pants with a yell, leaning forward to hide his face in Crozier’s shoulder, surprised beyond belief when the man allows this without comment. Fitzjames’s hips still, and he finds his knees shakier than ever.
Crozier laughs at him. “Of course, you’d like that, you vain little dandy.” He presses his knee against the mess cruelly, snickering at the shudders it evokes in the body beneath him. “Although I do suppose, you were quite happy with what came before as well, hm?”
“Enough, enough! Please, sir!” Fitzjames pleads for mercy, hips spasming weakly under the pressure. Crozier relents.
“Finally, speaking nicely. Sweet now that you’re a satisfied whore, hm?”
Fitzjames is struggling to keep his wet eyes open, but he bristles at the insult instinctively. “No, sir,” he ventures.
“No? You’re not satisfied?”
Anxious to be understood, Fitzjames tries again, “No! I’m not—”
One of Crozier’s hands slides into Fitzjames’s trousers and begins toying with his softened prick. Fitzjames falls silent immediately, clutching desperately to the man’s shoulders as his knees give way entirely. Crozier laughs and holds him upright by the hip.
“No, I suppose you’re not. Just this sopping wet at all times, then? Always just waiting for a surface to frig yourself against?”
“No, sir!” Fitzjames protests.
“Oh, to be sure!” Francis bumps his forehead against Fitzjames’s, startling the man into opening eyes he had not realized were closed. “I suppose I was right the first time. You’re a breeding bitch desperate in need of attention. A cock to fill you up.”
Fitzjames protests in his mind, even as he can feel arousal returning, and with it, the tears. Crozier opens his mouth, to spout more obscenities, but Fitzjames, doubting he can take it, surges forward to press a kiss against the Irishman’s mouth.
Crozier responds enthusiastically. His hands abandon their posts, and he grabs Fitzjames’s face to kiss him with more attention than Fitzjames had ever considered the man capable of providing. In a way, it’s the most intimate thing they’ve done so far.
“You’ve done very well for me, haven’t you, Commander?” Crozier’s voice is new, gentle in a more honest way, and Fitzjames preens to hear it before he recalls under what circumstances he’s heard it before: when Crozier speaks to Neptune.
“Yes, you’re a good bitch, love,” Crozier assures him with another kiss. Fitzjames pulls away to shake his head in denial, even as he ruts up into Crozier’s hip, fully erect again.
“Liar. Such a shame. I thought you wanted to be good for me, James.”
Fitzjames can’t help the desperate sound he makes. It’s far too loud. At this hour of night, anyone—everyone—might have heard it. “Please! Captain, I’ll be good!”
“Will you?” Crozier sounds skeptical.
“Yes! Please, sir—” Fitzjames begs.
“Go on then.” Francis kisses him and then presses down on his shoulders. Fitzjames crumples beautifully, legs all but useless. Crozier snorts and pulls him back up to his knees, leaving Fitzjames face to face with the large bulge in his trousers.
Fitzjames glances up nervously. Crozier releases him to undo the buttons. His cock springs forward, less than an inch from Fitzjames’s nose. Crozier’s hands move to grip Fitzjames by the nape of his neck.
“Now, then, Commander Fitzjames, don’t you want to be a good boy and take it all?”
Fitzjames does, desperately. He opens his mouth and swallows Crozier down to the base of his cock, gagging but not pulling off. Crozier groans appreciatively. Fitzjames adjusts slowly, but tears flood out anew, he tries to blink them away.
“Keep your eyes open, James,” Crozier orders. Fitzjames does so, but he keeps his eyes turned downward. Crozier sighs and then adds, “Look at me, love.”
Fitzjames looks up. When their eyes meet, Fitzjames tries to find comfort in the fondness there, but it’s tempered by an equally repugnant level of egotism that inflames in the entirely wrong way. Fitzjames begins to pull off, but Crozier’s hands steady him in place.
“Come on, you’re doing so well, James. Keep at it.” Fitzjames tries to ignore the heat that flares throughout him at the praise, but he obliges. He begins to suck and hum around Crozier’s prick with spirit.
“Such a good boy,” Crozier moans. Fitzjames’s hips start forward, thrusting against nothing. Crozier barks out a laugh and shoves one of his boots between the kneeling man’s legs.
“Go on then, James, rut like the dog you are with my prick between your pretty lips.” Fitzjames struggles vainly to restrain himself, but the abuse and praise both seem to elicit a burst of need that he has no control over.
“Such a wanton whore, James…I suppose next time you won’t be satisfied unless I take you completely.”
Fitzjames whimpers at the thought of Crozier inside of him. It’s not something he’s ever done. He shakes his head. Crozier’s hands card roughly through his hair, in same the way the man pets Neptune. They settle at the back of Fitzjames’s head and begin to grip tightly. At their urging, Fitzjames stops bobbing his head, though his tongue still works desperately at the tip of Crozier’s cock, which leaks generously. The salt of it reminds Fitzjames of his tears. His eyes flutter shut.
“Atta boy, James. Of course, you’ll want me to fill you up?” Crozier groans and pulls Fitzjames back until only the head of his cock remains in the man’s mouth.
“Open your fucking eyes, Fitzjames!” They burst open, and Crozier slams himself down Fitzjames’s throat and cants in and out punishingly.
Fitzjames gags desperately as tears erupt from his eyes again, but he doesn’t dare drop his gaze. His hands scramble to work open his own trousers, so he can reach inside and touch himself. Fitzjames can feel Crozier’s movements grow faster as he nears his orgasm.
“Swallow it down like a good boy, Commander,” he all but growls. Fitzjames nods as best he can under the circumstance, and it forces the man’s prick further down his throat. A whining and more tears result, and Crozier finally comes with a satisfied sigh. His hands grip Fitzjames’s head like a vice until he’s swallowed every drop, and then Crozier’s eyes slip closed.
The room becomes silent except for ragged breathing and the slick sound of Fitzjames’s hands moving on his own prick. Crozier’s silence, at first welcome, becomes unbearable quickly. Fitzjames desperately moans around Crozier’s softened cock, and the Irishman pulls himself away and opens his eyes. He looks refreshed and watches Fitzjames’s distress with a keen but dispassionate eye. He seems completely disinterested, and Fitzjames all but weeps at the indifference.
“Please, Captain!” Fitzjames cries out, heedless of the noise.
“What is it, Fitzjames?” Crozier asks.
“Please, touch me, sir, please! Anything!” Fitzjames cannot see for all the tears, but soon Crozier’s hands are replacing his own, jerking his aching cock.
Fitzjames ruts up helpless into the ring of his fingers but cries out in anguish when the rhythm is interrupted as Crozier bends down. But Crozier swallows his complaint with a bruising kiss and starts rubbing him again more gently. His thumb finds the slit and kneads aggressively, and Fitzjames is again, screaming.
Crozier laughs, and his eyes find Fitzjames’s once more. “Look at you!” his gaze blazes with possessive hunger. “My good, my sweet boy! You’re oh so pretty when you cry, James,” Crozier whispers into his ear, and Fitzjames’s vision goes white. His whole body shakes with his release.
Distantly, he feels Crozier allow him to collapse boneless to the floor. It doesn’t seem like time is passing, but then he’s blinking himself into consciousness as Crozier nudges him insistently with the toe of his boot. Fitzjames gasps. He covers his eyes with his hands and massages them. Somehow, even more tears begin to force their way out of his tired eyes, and Fitzjames moans aloud. Crozier crouches down, pulls his hands from his face, and watches, seemingly entranced, as the last of the tears stream away.
“Not going to go back to the Erebus then, Commander Fitzjames?” Crozier asks as if Fitzjames wasn’t wearing trousers stained beyond recognition and reeking of spunk. He didn’t even want to imagine what his hair looks like after the abuse it had suffered.
Fitzjames glowers at Crozier, and is on the verge of a retort, a demand for some decency, when a yawn splits his face. Crozier drops his hands and stands up. Fitzjames tries and fails to follow suit.
“Poor sleepy little bitch. Bit off a bit more than you could chew?” Crozier laughs. “Come then, I’ll take you to bed if in the morning you promise to be sweet and suck me off again.” Crozier holds open the door to his cabin, and Fitzjames scampers in on hands and knees. Crozier takes great pleasure in seeing Fitzjames reduced to his current state, based on the heat in his eyes, but though not as exhausted as Fitzjames, he just closes the door and readies for bed. Fitzjames tries not to be grateful.
Crozier undresses to his underclothes, cleans himself, and then leans over and tugs Fitzjames to his feet with a shocking ease. Fitzjames, who had begun to drowse slightly, yelps as his world spins, and his long legs again fail to support him in a meaningful way. Crozier grumbles “damned worthless slut” under his breath with something like affection and has Fitzjames lean against the berth. After a moment, Fitzjames realizes he’s being undressed. By the time Crozier has managed to remove Fitzjames’s thoroughly soiled pants, the man’s eyes have fluttered shut. Crozier peels off the sweat-soaked shirt and cravat and rubs a clean damp cloth across his prone form without rousing him.
Fitzjames sleeps deeply, dreamlessly, until well after dawn. Until well after he will be missed on Erebus. Until well after Jopson has entered to take away the laundry and dress Crozier (with the least patience of his entire stewardship career, having gotten almost no sleep from the noise in his adjoining berth). Until well after every crew member of both ships has perfected an impression of Commander James Fitzjames in the throes of passion.
Fitzjames wakes and, for a moment, it’s glorious. He’s never felt so well-rested, so satisfied, so warm. And then, with the heavy hand of his superior slammed down on his shoulder, it all comes rushing back. Fitzjames looks up at Crozier. Captain of Terror indeed, he thinks.