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Alone in the permanent twilight of Erebus’s hold, James reaches for another crate.
It boggles the mind, in truth. The sheer volume of things they brought. As if they planned to lug their entire country along with them, bear it along like a seed they could plant. But the only thing that grows here is ice, rising up around the ship like a thicket of jagged trees.
James has spent a good amount of his time these past months slowly digging through their supplies. He does not strictly need to be digging through boxes himself. But there's some peace in it; when he's taking tally of their supplies, making notes as he goes, he needs only concern himself with numbers. 200 cans of tinned beef need mean nothing at all, when he is moving the cans from one pile to another to ensure he doesn't lose track. It's only later, when he's poring over his notes with Francis in the captain's cabin on Terror, that numbers such as those will begin to define the exact manner and time at which they all die.
He reaches for the next crate, tugs it over, and wills its contents to be something of use in a unspoken prayer toward no particular deity. When he levers open its top, his pent up breath escapes in a sigh. Napkins. Clean and ready for the officers’ table, as white and shiny as maggots.
When he’d reviewed the ships’ manifests back in England, it had all seemed perfectly sound. He can barely imagine the sort of man he was, to have thought such foolish thoughts. The sort of man with two feet on land and a good meal in his belly; the sort of man who thought the chill of a November morning in London was cold. When he imagines himself as he was, he sees himself as larger somehow; glossy, and full, and shining. He makes an effort not to imagine himself as he is now. He has not looked in many mirrors since that evening he glanced up to see blood beading at his scalp.
As he fumbles at the bottom of the next crate, which appears to contain nothing but stained sailcloth, his hand touches something soft. When he pulls his hand back, it comes with a handful of velvet.
James stares at it blankly for a long moment. He had not given much thought to where the surviving costumes from carnivale had been stowed; had, in fact, made a concentrated effort to think about it as little as possible. If he allowed himself to contemplate that night, and the hand he'd played in engineering it, the guilt will rise up in his throat like smoke.
But here and now, the memory is tangible beneath his hands. It is, James realizes, the same dress he had held up, considering, moments before the red dots at his hairline caught his eye in the mirror. It is largely intact now; some other man wore it to the revel, and then bore it on his back to safety. A soot stain on the sleeve, the vague smell of burning hanging in the folds of cloth—the scent makes James feel vaguely ill, but still he does not put the garment away. The fabric is softer than the clothes he's accustomed to. He rubs it between his fingers contemplatively.
Holding the dress now makes him think of Francis, in ways and for reasons he cannot quite explain. Perhaps because holding the dress mostly makes him think of carnivale, the fire that climbed up the walls as if to envelope them in an embrace, Doctor Stanley walking with his arms outstretched—and in the weeks afterward it was Francis, each time, who would drag James from the grasp of those memories. Francis, who had assuaged the guilt. With his words, and then with more.
So without stopping to question the impulse or any of the strange impulses that accompany it, James shoves the dress into the bag with his notes, and, wiping his hands on his trousers as if he can rub the touch of softness away, goes back to counting cans.
When he steps into Terror's cabin later that night to find Francis already bowed over a stack of notes, the slackening of tension in James's chest is as familiar as it is comfortable.
Francis looks up the moment he steps inside, and his smile draws all the creases of his face together in a pattern James wants to trace with his fingers. "How was the walk from Erebus?" Francis says, as Jopson helps James with his coat before he takes a seat.
"Spring is in the air," James says as he tugs off his gloves. "The temperature was a balmy fifteen below when I began my walk. I almost didn't take a coat."
"Perhaps we ought to do our work up on deck,” Francis says dryly. “Enjoy the lovely weather.”
“I suppose if all my fingers freeze off, I’ll no longer have to concern myself with writing out figures and manifests.”
“I’m sure we could rig you up some kind of pen prosthetic,” Francis says with a glint in his eyes—a brightness which remains even as they settle in to work. James has seen it more and more over the previous months since the man emerged through the literal fire at the end of withdrawal. Seen it even more frequently than that these past weeks since James shoved Francis up against the door to his berth, the breath frozen between them as James stared into Francis’s eyes, waiting for confirmation of what he had begun to suspect for months—and receiving it, when Francis reached up to run his fingers across the underside of James’s lapel. It had been sex, after that.
But when they were both slumped against each other in the aftermath, breaths still coming shallow and hard, and Francis’s mouth had felt its way down James’s cheek as blindly as some tender, newborn thing—in those moments, James had known it was so much more than that.
It’s some time later that the crisp clack of paper as their edges strike the wooden desk drags James back from the faint doze he’d slipped into, bowed over a spread of lists and figures himself. He raises his bleary eyes to find Francis looking at him, a fondly teasing smile on his lips as he reshuffles his papers.
“Tired already?” Francis says. “It’s barely dawn.”
“Just resting my eyes.”
They settle back in. There are no noises from the rest of the mostly-deserted ship; just the creak of Francis shifting in his chair as he rubs at an ache in his shoulder, though the frown he fixes on the papers has nothing, James knows, to do with physical pain. If only their troubles were limited to the discomfort of a stiff neck.
“Do you have,” Francis says, “the list of Erebus’s provisions already confirmed to be spoiled?”
“It’s somewhere in my bag,” James says, pushing it across the floor with his boot as he rubs at his eyes; the pressure of his fingers makes red splotches flare behind his eyelids as he listens to Francis rifle through his things. It’s only when the long stretch of silence begins that James first realizes something is not as it should be.
“James, what the devil’s this—”
He pulls his hands away from his eyes, and Francis is holding the dress—half-tugged out of the sack like some drab serpent half-born from an egg. James feels his face go rigid, but can do nothing to force himself into the appearance of ease. Francis’s expression is vaguely amused, until he looks up and sees James.
“I found it. Among the rest of the things.” James says it because it’s the truth, and not yet damning. He reaches for it, to shove it out of sight as quickly as possible, to dismiss it as nothing but an unfortunate joke; but Francis does not relinquish the garment to him.
“And you brought it here,” Francis says, one eyebrow raised.
James has absolutely no answer to that. But the light in Francis’s eyes is not of mockery. He stares between James and the dress with a faint, contemplative smile on his lips. His fingers move over the velvet.
“Softest thing I’ve felt in a while.” Francis’s voice is little more than a murmur.
James cannot look away from Francis’s fingers as they run over the mauve velvet. Caressing it as if it isn’t empty; as if there is warm flesh beneath, capable of perceiving his slow, pensive touches. James can almost feel them. His breaths turn shallow.
“Francis, I—” James begins, and then he stops. Francis is looking at him. His hands on the dress have stilled. Francis does not need to know the precise words of what James was about to say in order to intuit quite clearly what James wants. James, conversely, does not know what Francis wants. Francis is and always has been as closed as the face of a watch to him, showing only what he is meant to see and never the intricate tickings beneath. James wants Francis to want this. He wants that very much.
Slowly, Francis holds the dress out to him. Only an inch, but that initial movement bridges a distance far greater than the scant arm's reach between them. "Had you thought to try it on?" Francis says, his voice neutral. As if such a course of action were totally normal, not at all perverse.
They have not been drinking. There are very few rational excuses left to them, now. Even fewer reasons why James should choose to degrade himself, by putting on the offending garment under the pretense of anything but jest. If he does not make a mockery of it then it will make a mockery of him.
James's throat bobs. He reaches out; his fingers brush the velvet hesitantly. It is shockingly soft. His hands are chapped and dry, but the fabric make him feel as if he's touching warm water, sinking into the cracks of him.
“Give me a moment.”
He steps into Francis's berth to change. He's aware, as he does, that it's ridiculous; that the idea of Francis watching him awkwardly strip and clamber into this unfamiliar contraption is no more intimate or embarrassing as the idea of Francis seeing him in it at all. The entire situation is absurd, the idea that he's hauled this foolish garment all the way here from Erebus so that Francis might see him in it, and do anything but laugh. But as he undoes his cravat and lays it on Francis's bed, and his sweater and waistcoat follow, it is not shame which makes his fingers tremble.
It is not too late to undo this. He knows exactly how to do it. How to play the part, as if it were all in jest—as if it had always been in jest. He finishes stripping to the waist, and then turns to the dress; it's a bit of a production to fumble his way inside the skirts, feeling like he did as a child when he would hide himself under his blankets and pretend the white world around him was snow. Inside the dress smells like mothballs and another man’s sweat, and smoke of course as well.
He holds his breath until he surfaces from the close warmth, gets his hands through the sleeves; the neckline is low and open, and the air even in Francis's narrow berth is chilled. Still, he doesn't reach for the door—rather reaches up under his skirts for the buttons of his trousers, and on a final last-minute impulse, finishes stripping from the waist with shaking hands.
At last he turns to the door, only distantly allowing himself to note the strangeness of having so much of his upper body exposed; the looseness around his legs, the rustle whenever he moves, both restricting and so deliciously freeing; he doesn't let himself think for long, however, lest he think his way out of this entirely. Instead he slides open Francis's door and stands there, smoothing a hand over the dress's skirts before finally gathering his courage to look up and meet Francis's eye. With a half-smile, aiming for wry and coming nowhere close; and a look in his eyes that is almost defying Francis to laugh.
Francis doesn't laugh. He remains in the chair where James left him, angled towards the door. James draws in a breath, smoothing the fabric down over his legs as an excuse to avert his gaze; feeling incredibly foolish and incredibly strange, everything around him softness and open air, cold and warm mingling.
"How do I look?" James, says, his tone falsely light—for of course, the answer is ridiculous. Or perhaps even obscene. He knows—of course he knows—the sort of man who does this. Who would take pleasure from it. Knows he ought to be as ashamed of himself now, as he ought to be of what he allows Francis to do to him; and what he does to Francis in turn. There are words for a man like that. Ugly words; words he had, before now, thought himself exempt from. Suddenly, he is not so certain. Suddenly, he wants to step back and wrench the door shut again, and tear the damned thing off himself.
But it's a long, slow breath that James hears next—not a laugh. And when he looks up, Francis is still looking, from his place in the chair; his expression warily appreciative, his eyes pouring down James's frame like water, getting caught in the exposed hollows of his collarbone, the tightness of the dress where it's cinched against his waist, the folds of softness and shadow that fall around his legs, not quite to the ankles, for the dressmaker clearly had not envisioned a man of greater than middling height slipping into his garment. The neckline insists on slipping down James's broad shoulders, no matter how he holds them or tries to push it back up again. In the end, he stops trying.
"You—Christ, James." Francis raises a hand to smooth down his hair distractedly, at last tearing his eyes away from the velvet around James’s waist. "I don't rightfully know what to say."
James licks his lips.
“What are you thinking?”
Francis’s eyes studiously remain on James’s face. “I’m not certain.”
“That’s no answer, Francis.”
Francis lets out a huff of aggravation, his eyes straying lower again—and then staying there.
“I am thinking,” he says at last, “that I ought to enjoy the sight of you this way half as much as I actually do.”
And it's that which finally allows James to cross the space between them; slowly, still marveling at the strangeness of his bare legs beneath the skirts, the rustle of so much unnecessary fabric, the tightness of the bodice against his waist and chest. He stops just before Francis's chair. On impulse Francis reaches for him, one hand hovering just over the neckline before James reaches up to cup its back and press it to the space where skin and fabric meet. He sees Francis's eyelids flutter.
"You could say," James says softly, "that you like this."
"I like this," Francis repeats almost instantly, his fingers sliding just within the neckline to trace the warmth beneath. Every inch of James’s exposed skin is beginning to pimple with gooseflesh, and that's as good an excuse as any for Francis’s other hand comes up to settle on James's waist, and pull him closer—until James is standing between his knees, the skirt bunching around Francis’s legs. A grin breaks over James’s face, fleeting; and then longer when Francis returns it.
He leans down to brace a hand on the back of Francis's chair. Francis tilts his head back and meets James’s kiss with an open mouth, wasting no time before their tongues begin to mingle, warm and wet and so very distracting that James is hardly aware when Francis’s hand begins to travel upwards. He feels it, though, when Francis seizes the dresses laces which James could only partially do up himself—and once Francis has them wound around his hand, without warning he jerks them tighter.
James gasps at the sudden feeling of the lacing being cinched around his chest, so tight the air is almost driven from his lungs. In the long moment of shorter breath he looks down into Francis's face, dark-eyed and wanting, and gathers his skirts in shaking hands so he can swing his legs over Francis's and settle into his lap.
“Oh, James.” Francis’s touches begin to wander almost instantly. Up and down James’s back, over to splay across his stomach, getting caught on the jutting bones of his hips. But they keep finding their way back to the neckline, the flat expanse of James’s chest exposed.
Francis's fingers trace the velvet now, rather than the skin. "Pretty," he says, his voice soft and distant, as if speaking aloud only to himself; but the word makes a flush creep up James's chest, which Francis is singularly positioned to observe. His eyes follow its path up James’s neck, and then rise to his eyes. Francis’s mouth is open, slightly, and his eyes are bright. His hand rises seemingly out of nowhere, James is so fixated on his face, and when his thumb drags over James’s mouth it is blunt and firm and warm.
“Very pretty,” Francis says, in scarcely more than a whisper. As if it is a secret, between them. And James’s breath shudders out of his lungs in that instant, and he lets Francis press his mouth open, the pressure pinching his lip against his teeth.
“Christ,” he breathes, around Francis’s finger; at himself, at what he’s doing, allowing to be done to him; letting Francis call him pretty, letting himself enjoy the faint curl of embarrassment in the pit of his stomach, and the genuine satisfaction that sits even lower than that. A weight and heft Francis cannot possibly have failed to notice.
James can’t smell the smoke anymore. Now all he smells is Francis. His other hand dips down to James’s knees, rubbing them through the fabric of the skirt. Close to where James wants them, but not quite. It’s he who bunches his fists in the fabric and rucks it up, so Francis’s hand can slip beneath.
The minute his palm slides against James’s bare thigh a noise escapes them both. This is, James realizes at once, the first time he has been so bare beneath Francis’s touch; unencumbered by trousers half-undone, stiff clothing pushed aside in only the most crucial locations, but never fully removed. Now, Francis’s hands can wander over his skin as they please. James never before would have been able to sing many praises about the erotic value of a knee, but the feeling of Francis's fingers slowly massaging the skin just above them is enough to make him press forward, needy and needing Francis to know what he's doing to him.
“You’re so warm.” Francis’s hand shifts up his thigh, and then slides to caress its underside. His other hand has slid down to the side of James’s neck, the thumb rubbing up and down over the exposed line of his windpipe. "So lovely." Francis's lips brush the base of James's throat, as soft and fumbling as the words he speaks. "You're lovely. You feel so lovely.”
“Francis.” James’s erection presses to Francis’s stomach so firmly it almost hurts; the skirts are soft against his bare flesh, and when he moves his hips it slides over his cock in a way that has James’s bare toes curling against the rungs of the chair where they’re braced. He wonders if Francis is thinking of Sophia. Imagining his body soft and supple, instead of broad and long in all the wrong places, his corners made harder still as his fat and muscle dwindles. But then Francis’s hand settles over the hard rise of James’s hip and presses against the bone, presses those thoughts right out of him.
James closes his eyes, presses his forehead to Francis’s temple and lets the words he’s wanted to say for weeks now float through the haze to the forefront of his mind. Something about the dress makes them easier to speak. “I want you inside.”
Francis curses, soft but emphatic; the hand on James’s hip spasms. The fingers suddenly press harder. “We haven’t the time—nor, for that matter, the proper necessities—”
“Damn the time and damn the necessities, Francis, I’ll not think of such things now—”
“We must, James—”
At once James seizes Francis’s hand, the one which had settled against his neck. He raises and without ado closes his lips around two of Francis’s fingers, sliding his mouth up and down their length without breaking Francis’s gaze. The reasonable protestations die on Francis’s tongue. James laves his tongue over the creases behind Francis’s knuckles as he thrusts Francis’s hand into his mouth. Only when he begins to suck does he let go of Francis’s wrist. Immediately Francis pulls his hand free, and plunges it beneath James’s skirts.
It's possibly more intimate, in the physical sense of the word, than anything shared between them yet; more intimate than James was prepared for. His breath comes out of him sharply as Francis pushes his finger in, James’s hands grasping desperately at Francis’s shoulders; it’s strange, an invasion, but it’s Francis and James wants him there, wants to feel him inside, in his deepest places. He presses his lips to Francis's forehead, not so much a kiss as an anchor. And when Francis hits on the exact right spot, James grunts, heavily—and begins to push back against Francis's hand.
“Christ, James.”
James pulls back far enough to look Francis in the eye as he continues to ride his fingers. James’s cock is hard between their bodies, and with every movement it grinds against Francis’s as well.
“I want to—lay you down.” Francis’s voice trembles. “My berth. Want to push those damn skirts up and look at you. Touch you. Put my mouth all over you.”
James is moaning now, slow and rhythmic with the rocking of his hips. With a slowness that belies the quickening movement of his fingers, Francis leans up to press his mouth to the corner of James’s lips. Not a kiss. Merely the drag of contact. James feels it when Francis’s mouth opens, feels the words as they come against his skin. “Want my cock inside of you.”
“Oh God.” James’s eyes squeeze shut as he presses himself down against the pressure of Francis’s fingers, unable to stop himself. “Francis, hurry. I’ll not last.”
Still Francis works him with his fingers, breathing slow, shaky breaths against James’s bared collar. The silken lining of the dress drags over his erection, but it's the image of Francis fucking him that James can't ignore now, how Francis's hips would surge up against him and James would feel him, every inch, pushing so deep inside of him, so much deeper than this.
“I’m close.” It’s Francis who says it, not James; though James can feel the shiver of his own release building in his limbs like a static charge. Francis’s voice is plaintive. His fingers writhe and twist. There’s no time, no time now, James knows that damn well—it’s so much, it’s too much, the weight of Francis’s cock rubbing him through the fabric of trousers and dress, the press of Francis’s warm chest against the exposed skin on his own, Francis’s other hand continuing its slow exploration of James’s legs, hooking underneath his knee—and then jerking their bodies even closer, until every movement of Francis’s other hand pushes James harder against Francis’s cock.
“Going to come inside,” Francis mumbles against his neck, and James knows it’s part of the fantasy but for one blinding moment it’s Francis’s cock thrusting within him, not his fingers, and James is going to feel every last pulse and shudder as Francis spends inside of him—
James grinds himself down on Francis’s hand with a low, guttural moan as he comes, head tucked against his chest, and he jerks helplessly against Francis while the fingers inside of him tremble. It’s only another moment before Francis finds his own release, arching against James and breathing a soft, broken oh into the hollow of his collarbone.
Afterward, Francis slowly extricates his hands from James’s skirt. His forehead still rests on the bare warmth of James’s clavicle as he runs his hands up and down the fabric, occasionally stopping to clench it in his fist. And at long last he tilts his head back with a shaky smile that matches James's, and opens his mouth to speak—but there is nothing to say. Nothing but softness between them now, and the rustle of fabric beneath Francis’s hands. Outside the ice pushes and groans against the ship, but within their breathing quiets. It seems in that moment they could quiet into nothing.
Until the sound of some stirring foot scrapes the floorboards above their head, and James climbs off of Francis’s lap to return himself to the way he was.