singillatim | (closed)

“I was thinking you might be a better hand at a spear than a rod.” Lord knows he was never quick enough for the kakivak, but Raju…

Well. He’s certainly more spry and quick than he’d ever been.

“When the ice melts the fishing will look a lot different. We’ll build weirs and cast nets.”

Raju frowns, finishing with the next piece of bait and dropping the hook down the hole a little more quickly than he had been, and quicker than he would have if Francis hadn't just implied they'd be better off moving to something else. He'd been taking his time a little bit, but now there's an implication to prove wrong, and more reason suddenly to get back to the fishing.

"Hard to imagine all this melting at all," he says, shaking off some of the tension and most of the frown. He'll manage the rod better this time, and it'll be fine. "How do you know when it's time to take all these huts down while it's still thick enough to take the weight?"

His suggestion isn’t because of passing judgement based on that single attempt to reel, rather he thinks Raju would be impressive with a spear. It takes a lot less sitting and waiting around too.

“When the sun starts spending more time in the sky. The thaw will come - the large piles of snow will start to melt. That’s when we’ll know.”

"Mm," Raju hums, attention fixed intently on the fishing pole. He won't be able to see under the water, the hole is too deep, but he'll see the line or the pole move. And he'll be ready. "And how will you know that? The sun's always behind ten different layers of cloud. When it tries to spend more time with us we'll hardly be able to tell."

Not that he's bitter about what he'd had without even thinking about it back home, being able to turn his face up and see a bright, wide open sky as easy as that, being able to feel the sun's real warmth over his face.

Well. Maybe a little.

"Still. At least the snow will be melted. I'd started to think that's never going to happen here."

Crozier falls silent for a contemplative moment. “The lack of sunshine can be distressing,” he remarks quietly, finally pouring into their tea, a concoction of dandelion root, into a single cup to share instead of two. It’s just easier.

“The sun will stop moving below the horizon after the summer solstice. It will circle and circle, but never set.” He takes a sip to test the tea and, finding it to his satisfaction, holds out the cup to Raju. “You will see the sun again.”

The quiet tone to Francis' voice gets Raju glancing, at least, away from the fishing pole, and then away from it again to look at Francis' offered cup. The corners of his eyes crease in a faint smile, and he takes it.

It's meant to sound like complaining, the times Raju says it out loud about the sun here. But it never quite does, not only like complaining, not to someone listening for what's behind it. Or for what isn't. His voice is never quite as light as it should be, when Raju tries complaining about these things. It's like his hands, before Francis gave him those mittens: it should only be a little thing. It should be. It should be.

Francis says it like a reassurance, and Raju's eyes move closely over his face as he feels the warmth of the cup in his hand and drinks. The drink is warm, wonderfully warm despite the bitter taste, but he's sharing so he only takes a brief taste before handing it back. "And then it won't set at all? I didn't realise we were far enough north for that."

In this cold the heat of the tea feels like a separate thing moving down his throat, a bizarre contrast to the air. He's aware of how little he knows about this place, how little he's studied about it, or any place remotely like it, or any of the things that happen here. The normal, natural things, the effects of the location and animals and temperature. If he'd known... But at least Francis is here, who knows and doesn't mind telling. "How long? It's... at least a few months, isn't it?"

“We were far enough north for the polar night, we’ll get the midnight sun. The only question is for how long.” He has plans to take measurements at some point, though he thinks this very non-scientific determination holds some weight.

He take the cup back and drinks without consideration of where Raju’s lips had been touching. He may think on it later, when he’s trying to fall asleep and realizes how close they’d been.

“A few months, yes. It’ll be an adjustment for all of us.” He sits back down nurse the tea, though he’ll hold it out to Raju whenever he seems interested. “But in the first few weeks it’ll be a novelty. We might even enjoy it, as odd as it is.”

And he’s eager to share it with people who haven’t experienced it before.

"Enjoy it?" He watches the fishing pole, thinking about that for a moment. "I suppose so. Isn't it strange, though? Never any night?"

While he wouldn't mind hearing an answer, he isn't looking for one; it's more asking to make a statement than anything, and he goes on without waiting for Francis to reply, looking over at him curiously. "How many times have you done it, that midnight sun? In your expeditions?"

His brow furrows at the question. How many times? He hasn’t thought about it before. There was Parry, Ross, the search for the missing whalers in the North Sea, his time in Antarctica…

“Over a dozen at this point, perhaps closer to fifteen, sixteen seasons?” He can really feel his age in the answer. “It’s strange every time, yes. One waits and waits for that sunset and it just never comes - the sun circles about in the sky, never disappearing. Sleeping becomes a new chore, finding a way to keep your usual hours, telling time…it’s all an adjustment.”

And he’s certain Raju is going to struggle with it, but not as much as he did with the polar night. He’s from a land of so much sunshine and warmth, for his sake he hopes the thaw does come.

Excitement curls over Raju's face and he leans over his thigh, closer to Francis, his previous focus on the fishing pole forgotten.

"Sixteen." The phenomenon itself is one thing — the impossible frustrations of this place, the involuntary nature of it, has spoiled the excitement Raju might have had for some of its features otherwise — but the idea of adapting to it so many times, all that experience, has Raju's voice eager and impressed when he speaks about it. "Everything you must have learned and seen. I'll have to follow your lead when we get there."

He’s used to being an oddity by now. Every one of his experiences is a novelty, something people hear and then follow up with a hundred questions about the how and why. But that’s not Raju’s reaction, it’s something akin to awe, and sincerely meant instead of put upon or searching for something self-serving.

He feels his neck and ears grow warm at Raju’s look of genuine curiosity, that handsome face and those clever eyes - he’s glad it’s dark in this hut. He makes a soft noise in the back of his throat and nods. “A blindfold as one sleeps or dark drapes, that’s the secret.”

"I'll have to find some." Still smiling, Raju studies him. Francis had been excited to talk about the adventure and the discovery and the excitement of it even the first time they'd ever spoken to one another, and he's still happy to now, but there's something markedly different about it from what Raju would have been used to back home, especially from an officer who's had the kind of long experience and celebrated successes that Francis has had. There, from that kind of man, Raju might have expected to be hearing any number of things. But here, there's only drapes. A blindfold. A simple suggestion, and that's all.

"Not one for bragging, are you?" he says thoughtfully, still looking fascinated. "And you a commissioned officer. Those parties they all go to, the balls where no one actually enjoys the dancing and everyone stands around talking about themselves, did you all have to go to those? Or was it only if you wanted to be seen?"

Ah, those Admiralty galas and fancy dinners, the bane of his existence. He ducks his head with a soft smile.

“I doubt you’d be my friend if I were a braggart and a commissioned officer.”

Crozier never hated glory, but he certainly never knew what in the hell to do with it when it did come his way. No, he was humble, always humble, until it began to be to his detriment.

He manages another glance up, another little peek at his friend’s face, and has to duck back down again. “I went to the ones I was made to go to. Otherwise I avoided them where I could. They’re exhausting! All the firm handshakes and empty platitudes - have you ever gone to an affair like that? Horrible.”

Raju smiles, warmly and a little bit amused. "They aren't so bad. You only have to—"

He pauses, his free hand and the one holding the fishing pole already raised to gesture. "I forget, you're navy but not military. Maybe this won't work for you. But there's a good deal of strategy involved in captaining on the sea, isn't there? It's only strategy. You know this person and that one and that one," he points out figures in an imaginary crowd, "you know what they expect and what they want. You decide what victory looks like and how to get it. It's like any battle, only cleaner. I always wondered if you superior officers were made to go. There must have been heaps of them after those discoveries you and your friend made at the South Pole. It was, ah... James Ross, wasn't it? The two of you must have had to go to every fancy affair there was."

Of course Raju would have a strategy for these things! Divide and conquer. “Where were you when I needed you, mn?”

But of course those grand parties were different for him. He wanted to be seen when he was still trying to court Sophia, and those gala affairs were the best way to do it. And naturally being lauded by the entire nation certainly helped things along.

“Week after week,” he says. “James and I were exhausted, and then he went off and retired and didn’t have to deal with that nonsense any longer. I was on my damn own!”

"Surely he still got invitations." The fishing pole droops as Raju forgets about it even more, still imagining the rough, practically dressed man in front of him all neat and pressed in those elaborate dress uniforms, circling the edges of those large, elaborate decorated rooms, trying his hardest not to speak to anybody. "He had an excuse to turn them down though, and you didn't?"

“Mn.”

There was no for escape from the showy affairs of the Admiralty and English society, not if he wanted his own commission. He had to appear, to grin and bear the insufferable pandering and the way Sophia would smile at him from across the room.

“Fortunately when I won my final appointment I was allowed to make my excuses. Outfitting the ships took time, and Sir John could brush shoulders with the Admiralty.”

He notices the pole dip, Raju’s focus on him and not the fishing, but doesn’t comment. He doesn’t need to - this wasn’t really an outing designed to gather resources, but rather an excuse to do something quiet with a friend.

His ‘final appointment’. That would be that last, doomed expedition, wouldn’t it? Probably best not to mention it.

“Luckily for you,” Raju says, and grins a little. “But I’m sure they missed you at the parties.”

“A sentiment shared by no one,” he replies dryly. No one missed him much after Ross married and he’d started drinking more heavily.

“Tell you what - if there’s ever a fete here you can help me strategize and plan my social priorities.”

Raju’s grin grows, pleased and wicked. Strategizing for a party, of course, includes all the dressing up beforehand, too. “You’re going to regret that,” he promises.

“But I’m sure you’d do better here anyway. You’ve seen everyone at the town meetings, none of them seem the type for pointless bragging and nonsense, not the way they were back home. And if they are, who’s going to order you to play nicely? You can say anything you want to, for whatever reason you want to. That wouldn’t be so bad as all that, would it?”

Oh, he doubts he'll live to regret it. No one's going to be throwing a party any time soon, they're all too busy just trying to survive. And he very, very much doubts it'll be the sort of party where people get too drunk and exchange braggy stories.

"Say what I mean, when I want to say it? Oh, that could be devastating." He gives Raju a wink and a cheeky smile.

The wicked edge to Raju's grin disappears into delight. A wink and a smile is quite a change from the man who'd been ducking his head modestly a minute or so ago, and it's a little thrill to see him comfortable enough to tease. "You don't have something specific in mind, do you? What and to who?"

“Oh, not as many as you’d think,” he chuckles, charmed by Raju’s obvious amusement. “One or two…”

Maybe more, but he doesn’t know the townsfolk as well since he’d decided to live out in the wilds. They seem mostly fine.

“You aren’t going to tell me, are you?” he grins, and then the pole jerks, and his grip is loose enough that it falls onto the ice. “Shit—“

Raju leans hurriedly the other way and reaches for it. But his far hand is the one with the mitten on and it doesn’t grab properly, and the pole skitters a few more inches toward the hole in the ice before Raju leans even further forward, completely off his seat, actually grasp it.

Embarrassment is knocking already but Raju’s too focused just now to let it in; his gaze darts from the line to his hands, and the pace at which they’re very, very deliberately reeling. He can be embarrassed once he’s made sure he’ll be doing the rest of this right.

He’s about to name names - he’d really tear into Hickey if given the chance - but the pole jerks and flies right out of Raju’s hand. It starts skittering along with the fish below, hook properly imbedded in its mouth having helped itself to a good meal. He leaps to his feet in silent encouragement, peering over with his hand on his knee to watch the line as its steadily reeled up and out of the ice.

Occasionally he glances up towards Raju’s knitted brow, smiling oh-so-softly at the look of sheer determination in his eyes. His attention’s drawn back towards the hole in the ice when the fish finally emerges with frantically waving fins.

It’s a big ol’ fish, and Crozier whistles. “Impressive.”

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cw fish death :(

Continued cw for more fish death

fish preparation time now

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