singillatim | (closed)

"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.”

Raju looks over at him, a relieved, pleased smile lighting his face at the praise, then fading as he turns back to the work of working the fish off of the hook and bashing its head against the ice. It's a hard, efficient movement again, made a little easier because of this one's greater weight, and Raju watches it with fierce attention for a moment to make certain that it's dead. Then he drags it closer, letting it sit on the ice to reel the line in a little further and set the pole safely aside.

"I should have brought something to wipe my hands on," he says, rubbing his fingers and thumb against each other before pulling the mitten off the other hand with his teeth. "Hand me that tea, would you? I want to have something warm in me before I get too much fish on me to touch anything. Ah, unless you'd rather take care of it instead."

For only being shown once Raju handles the dispatching of the fish with aplomb. He holds the single cup of tea up to Raju’s clean hand, smirking a little at the very prim and trim man having to deal with a little fish guts.

“You should do it,” he reassures him, clearly enjoying himself. “No better way to learn than through doing, and I’m sure you’re more than capable with a knife.”

Raju smirks back at him over the rim of the cup. “You’re right,” he says with complete confidence. “I am.”

The joke’s on Francis; Raju wants to do this, fish all over him and all, just to prove that he can learn it and be of use, that he can master it as well as a single round of fishing will allow.

He hands the cup back — not quite as warm as it was, but the taste is a welcome break from pine needles — and goes to his knees on the ice, tugging at the blanket around him so at least some of it sits under his legs, between his clothes and the cold. Then he looks for the right knife and cuts carefully, shallow, base to head the way Francis had demonstrated. That done, he reaches inside— then reaches inside some more, frowns, pulls out the insides of it a couple at a time, not in the single perfect movement Francis had used. Raju will have to practice it.

“How do you cut them?” he asks, frown deepening a little with each couple parts of organ that he pulls out, and the smell they’re starting already to bring with them. “Any shape in particular?”

He wasn’t being facetious; he can damn well tell that Raju’s good with a knife, a spear, his fists, any other thing he decides to put his time into. He expects this will be no different.

“That’s a different operation entirely. You can chop off the head and fins, descale and debone the body, try your hand at cutting a filet - but it can wait until it’s ready to be cooked. Just focus on scraping out the insides for any remains and rinsing it out.”

"Mm." Raju turns, focused, back toward his task. His nose wrinkles as he does it, but he keeps at it anyway, and soon he's shaking his hand out over the little pile of organs, watching something drip off his hand with a grimace.

"I see why you threw these out so quickly now. That smell..." Still, Raju leaves them where they are. Francis had mentioned making use of them, when Raju had asked, and so that's what he wants to do. He wants to show that he can do this properly.

He tries shaking his hand a little again; aside from a couple splatters of the liquid on it over the ice, the gesture doesn't do much good. "You chop them up don't you, though? And use them? I can put them in that jar with the rest of your bait once I, ah... do whatever it is you do with these."

According to the face he's making, Raju doubts anyone could actually do much. It isn't like he hadn't expected it to be disgusting, but he hadn't expected the smell to be this strong. And it's on him. And the smell is going to linger, he's sure, even after he rinses it off.

At this point Crozier finds the smell less off-putting than the feeling of scraped scales all over his bare skin, sticking to everything in sight. The smell…he can handle the smell.

He has to fight a laugh at Raju and the prissy little wrinkle in the bridge of his nose. “Just toss it,” he tells him, “we have plenty of bait. We don’t need more stinking fish meat hanging about.”

Raju’s hand hesitates over it — he really had wanted to do this properly — but after a second or two his hand darts down and flings the disgusting little pile at the hole in the ice. Good riddance, his expression says as he does it, watching them hit the side of the hole and slide down it.

“Ah—“ He rubs together the fingers of the hand that’d only held the fish, not scooped it out. Still a little sticky. The wrinkle at the bridge of his nose isn’t as deep as it was, but it lingers. He holds his hands out, palm up. “Do you mind rinsing these for me?”

That’s the one good thing about being on top of the ice, maybe: when you do clean off, you don’t have to worry about what the water’s dripping onto.

Oh, he’s being so precious about this whole ordeal! Crozier huffs under his breath and fetches the pot of tea, warm enough still to work for this makeshift vanity.

It’s a little silly, going through the motions like this to keep clean and presentable when every day is a struggle. He doesn’t disagree with it though; there was a reason he’d shaved daily when they were still hauling.

Crozier drips the warm herb-water over Raju’s hands, letting it spill onto the icy floor below. He gives his hands a few more rinses and sets aside the pan to rub the water into the pads of his fingers and his palms.

“I missed bathing,” he says quietly. “When I was with the Netsilik. It was difficult to keep clean in freezing weather, and I was a bit of an oddity to begin with.”

Raju looks a little surprised when it's the tea Francis uses for it — he clearly hadn't expected to wash so much, but he must have expected they'd need to, surely, after scooping the insides out of every catch that way. Raju will have to bring more water next time he does this, or maybe a spoon that he won't miss.

The thoughts are pushed aside when Francis starts rubbing at his hands afterward. He looks surprised again and then smiles, touched at the consideration; the herbs and the thorough attention are both going to help with the smell.

The quiet tone when Francis speaks has Raju looking up from their hands, smile fading into attention. "What did you do?" he asks almost as quietly, wanting to know about the Netsilik, about Francis. Particularly about Francis. "To keep clean? And what did they do?"

"Washed with melt water, when we could. Occasionally we'd bathe in the sea when it thawed, or the rivers and streams." His fingers slide between Raju's, lacing them together and then wiggling to get those final areas that needed a good scrub. He smiles playfully as he pulls back and gives each hand a final rinse.

He should have anticipated that Raju would need to clean up in between each fish, but it's an easy fix. Just gather more snow and boil more roots.

"I tried to bathe every morning. I'd scrub my face and my hair, and they'd all laugh and laugh as I struggled. Eventually I stopped trying so hard, but I managed to keep to my ablutions at least once a week with the help of some sympathetic friends. They pitied me."

There are dangerous waters nearby, Raju knows. Just why Francis was living with the Netsilik in the first place, why they pitied him; questions Raju is sure he already has the answer to, and doesn’t particularly want to make this man speak about again.

But Francis is smiling as he scrubs at Raju’s hands, seeming cheerful and happy to do this service for Raju as he talks about it. Strange isn’t it, the gesture, from an older man? But Francis seems to be enjoying himself, and Raju certainly isn’t going to complain.

So Francis seems to be in good humour. There should be plenty of room still for asking questions. “What did you need their help for? Staying warm long enough to finish up?”

Perhaps the act’s just a little break in all the tension the day had heaped on them, but it does make him feel better to do something so mundane as washing his friend’s hands. “Gathering up the snow for the meltwater, building the fire. Something like that uses up a lot of oil, and it’s not something I had to spare.”

He relied on their generosity for all things. It was all he could do to be halfway useful sometimes, and even then when they had him minding the children he’d spook them with his face and red beard.

But Raju’s hands are clean, so he steps back. “Speaking of which, I’m going to gather more snow.”

He’ll duck out without another word, happy to replenish their stores.

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cw fish death :(

Continued cw for more fish death

fish preparation time now

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