singillatim | (closed)

He exhales a quiet laugh through his nose. “Lucky for you that hole’s not big enough to fall through, else I’d be tempted to push you in for that sort of cheek.”

In the bag of gear that had been strapped to his back he fetches a pot, and he throws some snow into it for some tea and sets it on top of the stove.

Raju looks down at the hole in the ice like he's about to laugh and holding it back. Then, while he's looking over to watch what Francis is doing, he rocks forward suddenly as there's no more resistance against the drill. Francis' warning about that means Raju is too well-balanced not to catch himself and he leans forward on purpose instead, trying to look down into it as he pulls the drill back out and sets it aside.

Nothing there to see, of course. Even if the lighting had been better, it's only a long hole into water. He scoops up some of the newly-drilled slush from around the hole's edge, ignoring the cold burn of it against his skin long enough to dump it into the pot with the snow and then trying to rub a little of the cold out of his fingers.

"Mm?" he catches Francis' eyes and nods toward the pot. Francis hadn't said everything he'd had with him, had he? "Stew, or that flavoured water we have to call tea? Pine needles or something else?"

“Tea,” he says sadly, “a little leaf soup, as it were. Something to warm us up whilst we wait on these lazy fish to notice our bait.”

It looks like Raju’s drilled through to the water easily enough — good company and helpful with the more manual tasks.

“In my bag there’s a jar with some bait. There’s a pole in the wooden chest in the corner that should be serviceable.”

"Mm. Something warm would be nice, even if it is leaf soup." He walks over to the chest as he says it, picking the pole out and looking it over. He runs his fingers over the line and frowns at it, not liking the material he doesn't recognize and the reminder that this place is further than just Canada from any place that Raju knew.

But it does seem strong enough, he decides, and focuses on getting the jar next instead. "What bait do you use? I imagine worms would be impossible with the ground frozen like this, and anything edible you'd want for yourself. Fur, maybe?"

"Scraps mostly, whatever I have left from supper." In this case some fish that's about to go off, which'll be tempting enough for whatever's meandering at the bottom of the lake.

He's about as unfamiliar with the fishing equipment as Raju is. The line itself is exceedingly frustrating to deal with; he'd rather use a damned spear than have to deal with stringing up a tangled pole.

Raju makes a noise in acknowledgement and settles onto one of the benches, opening the jar of bait and taking a tentative sniff at it, then picking out a piece the right shape to thread onto the hook. If that isn't close enough to the way that Francis wants it Francis is going to have to do the rest; Raju puts the pole aside, rubbing his thumbs over his fingers and putting the mittens on again.

"Do you have a cup in that pack of yours?" He smiles, tucking his hands between his arms and his chest and hunches forward a little. "Or are we really drinking it like soup?"

“I have a cup,” he snorts. “Two cups, even, there’s one over by the stove if you don’t feel like sharing.”

He gets it; why kiss the same cup when there’s a bounty of two to be had.

He glances over his shoulder as Raju baits the hook, not so much minding him as watching him work with a vague sense of amusement and pride about it. Raju’s always so quick to learn; he figured he’d pick up on this as easily as had everything else.

"Mm." Raju thinks about the first meal they shared: one with the mug, the other with a canteen. And the way it's done at home probably isn't the way things are done everywhere. Francis probably prefers separate cups. Raju moves over to the stove for the other one, looking it over to try and tell whether it's dirty.

"How long do you usually spend out here? It's too far out to come and go whenever you need to eat or do anything else. Does it depend on how quickly the fish start to bite, or do you always have to spend a while settling in?"

“Typically I’ll plan to spend the day. I try to come out once a week, but it’s tedious work for someone with my limited capabilities.”

Gutting a fish alone can take an hour if it’s a particularly finicky breed.

“You can imagine my happiness at having some company this time around.” His smile is brief, but wholly sincere.

Raju looks up from the cup to smile back. "If you don't mind teaching me, I don't mind coming back next time. Once this business with the mines is sorted out."

He turns his smile down at the cup again, even though he's thoroughly inspected it. "If you're sure you wouldn't rather keep the time for yourself. I used to know some fishermen who said that was their favourite part." Not that Raju thinks that's likely, with the way Francis had looked just now. But for all Francis has made the commitment to stop keeping himself away from the rest of them, and for all Raju's teasing him about it, Raju doesn't have a sense yet for how much time alone Francis really needs. Best to let him know the opportunity will be there if he wants it.

“I’ve had plenty of solitude, enough for a lifetime. I have plenty of time to myself with all the walking we have to do to get from one place to another. Too much time to mull and morb, in fact.”

There’s still no avoiding solitude where it happens, but why fight companionship? Why fight the friendship? He enjoys having Raju around, very much so.

"We can't have that." Particularly not just now, with Francis' men going off into unknown dangers where he can't follow. No matter how well talking with them and arranging matters went, now probably doesn't seem like a good time for Francis to leave too much time for thinking. "It's too bad fishing is better for supplies than going for a run. Much better than walking at taking your mind off things."

"But fishing can be so damn boring, Raju," he laughs. "So, so damn boring! At least with walking the scenery changes."

There's a crate that's also in the corner of the little ice shack, and Crozier grabs it and hauls it next to the hole in the ice. "You might as well start the wait."

"Oh, well if it's going to be as exciting as that," Raju grins, picking up the fishing pole again. It'd taken a while to cut through the ice; he starts tugging at the line to try and make it long enough to drop the distance he remembers drilling through. This, he's at least mostly sure, is the way he's seen people doing it. The pole looks different from the ones he knows, though. If it's wrong, Francis will correct him. "You do your mulling and morbing in here too, then, usually? All day?"

He chuckles and pulls yet another makeshift seat, this time an overturned plastic bucket, to sit across from Raju. “That’s just the thing, I’m nearly always mulling and morbing. I’m a generally unpleasant person, haven’t you figured that out by now?”

“Hm.” Raju tries to catch Francis’ gaze with a pleased, knowing smile, then looks back to his hands. Pulling at the line like this isn’t as smooth with the mittens on; as he speaks he tugs them off again. One more part of his body cold for another minute won’t make much difference, and somehow it’s easy to feel cheerful anyway. “Another thing you’re terrible at, then. You should play more to your strengths, hasn’t anyone ever told you?”

"You sound like James," he grunts, watching him try and get used to the line. "He used to say that all the time. And I do. That's why I've convinced my friend to do most of the manual labor in this fishing endeavor."

Raju's knowing smile widens — convinced, of course — and then he looks away and leans forward, deciding to move the pole and find out whether he's made the line long enough. He uses the moment to go through his memory. Obviously, particularly after Francis' request to keep all of his confession from the men themselves, Raju hadn't written down anything Francis had told him that night. But he thinks he remembers a James. The one whose grave was disturbed.

Not something to mention now, of course. But Francis mentioning him at all probably means Raju can ask after the man himself.

"Oh?" he asks, trying to look down the hole as he feels the weight of the hook lessen in a way that probably means it's hit water. "What did he say it about? Your abysmal try at being unpleasant company?"

“Oh, I was miserable in those early days.” He’ll readily admit that now. “I’m certain the sentiment was I’d be less of a twat in general and more like the heroic sailor of those Antarctic stories.”

He would have never measured up to those stories, he just wasn’t that sort of man. He was never flashy, always quiet, humble. The very opposite of James Fitzjames.

“Tell me when you feel a tug on the line.”

Raju grunts and looks back over to the fishing line, reminded to pay attention to it. He isn’t sure what he’s supposed to do with it while he waits; he gives the pole a couple jiggles, waits a moment, and when nothing happens he turns his attention to Francis again.

There’s a balance in whatever Raju is going to ask about today. He’ll back away from anything it seems like Francis doesn’t want to talk about, try to learn what he can without reminding Francis of anything he doesn’t need in his mind just now. He’s curious of course, and eager with it, but if he meeds to he can put that curiosity away.

“What stories? Ones about other explorers or about you?”

Crozier’s happy to sit back and let Raju figure out the nuances of fishing. When there is a tug he doesn’t intend on stepping in to help, better to figure it out through trial and error.

Plus he thinks it might be amusing.

“Mn?” He raises his head, momentarily distracted and needing to think on the question. Who? “Oh. Me. My stories.”

Raju’s eyes light up, eager, though he’s trying to keep at least some of that emotion off of the rest of his face. Francis only just told him about another man who expected the wrong things out of the fame that Francis apparently had, back home. And a man who’s done the things Francis has said that he’s done, well, why wouldn’t he?

Maybe Raju could have read about it when he was young, if he’d ever decided knowing about the English navy would have been useful. Maybe he could have when he’d been older, in that apartment in Delhi, if he’d ever found more time. Maybe something about the man in front of him had been there, buried in one of the piles of books spread out around the place and over the floor.

Anything that had been clearly isn’t something Francis is as excited about. Not the heroic side of it, anyway. Raju thinks that he can work with that.

“So they weren’t real then, the stories?” He grins. “Were you more of a twat then too?”

He huffs in slight amusement at the thought - and at hearing Raju just repeat the word 'twat', of course. "I imagine I was less of one then." He was certainly happier then, captain of his own ship, adventuring to the ends of the earth with his other half, exploring unseen lands and making discoveries that would make the expedition famous.

"The stories were real," he relents, finally smiling quite genuinely. "It was all real. Wilder, in fact, that what had been initially reported. We brought penguins aboard the ships and had dances in the ice. I sailed Terror blind through a wall of icebergs, and stayed on my feet for an entire week to see us through storms."

Raju sets a forearm on his thigh and leans over it toward Francis, Francis' expression warming Raju's grin into a smile. The pole is an afterthought again, sitting idly in his other hand. "Well, I can't ask about all of it at once. People at home didn't believe that you'd done all those things, at first? Did they think you were lying about parts of it, or just exaggerating?"

“Oh,” he laughs, “they believed it plenty! I had a man like Ross telling the stories, and he’s the darling of the Admiralty. No, there were diaries, letters, sketches, specimens. All the things to back up some of the more unbelievable pieces of the expedition.”

And he never bragged, of course, not once. It used to drive Ross mad, his reasons being if Crozier talked himself up more he’d win his bride and command and accolades.

He finds himself smiling across the ice at Raju, feeling just a little bashful and hot around the ears. He still doesn’t like to boast, but the way his friend is staring makes him want to tell him all about the marvelous sights he’s been fortunate to see.

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