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In all his dreams, before his helpless sight, Francis will see it—James, stumbling his way into the mess, eyes barely visible above the scarf wrapped around his face, and as his fingers fumbled with his slops, as Jopson moved to help him, those dark eyes rolled and he crumpled in a heap to the floor.
For one heart-stopping moment he thought him dead as simple as that, how Hornby collapsed on the ice not six weeks ago, and his own knees buckled when he reaches James’ side, pulling that scarf away.
“The shock, sir,” Jopson’s voice soft even as he felt a warm (warm) breath faint against his fingertips, “the heat after being out so long.”
Hornby had not been caught in a sudden blizzard. Had not gotten separated and lost and wandered.
Ice crystals melting in the soft web of James’ lashes.
“My quarters,” Francis’ throat aching, a wonder it could make sound, “he can rest and warm up there.”
And so it is that James has been situated in Francis’ own bunk, stripped of his slops and outer layers, wrapped in blankets. He woke, once, wretched, murmured of the cold. Francis pressed a glass of gin to his lips, smell making his own stomach churn but alas they have been short of brandy for some time. James’ fingers too thick and clumsy with bandages and frostbite to take it, but Francis bade him sip and he did, and in minutes his eyes were closed again.
He will not lose the fingers. A little sore, true, but not so severely damaged as that.
They must thank God for small mercies.
He’s taken a little hot tea since, more gin, fallen back to sleep. An exhaustion to recover from, hypothermia.
Francis prays the cold has not gone into his chest, squeezes the fingers thin and limp beneath the bandages. It was James who reached for him, the last time he woke.
(And who he thought it might have been sitting with him—but no. The faint shape of his name on those lips, the crinkle of a lopsided smile.)
(Too much gin on an empty stomach. They must get something proper into him soon.)
Of all the misfortunes they have suffered—if they had lost James—
(If he were still a drinking man—)
A low whimper from the bed drags him from his thoughts. Those thin fingers spasm, a grimace twisting that pale face. Francis shushes him, smooths back a lock of damp dark hair, curls his fingers tighter around that limp hand. The whimper turns to a moan, sloe-dark eyes flickering open, feeling out the corners of the berth.
Find him, latch on as his breath catches, and cracked lips twist into a smile, the murmur so low he strains to hear it.
“Kiss me, Crozier.”
Drunk, he tells himself, drunk, too much gin, nothing to read into it until a dry cough and again, stronger,
“Kiss me, Francis.”
Don’t call me—
“James—” name escaping him but all it earns him is a slow blink, that frail hand tightening around his own.
“Please.”
He will not remember this in the morning, and the words are a lie but they are the ones Francis clings to as he leans in, presses a chaste kiss to that clammy forehead, that sandpaper cheek and as he is about to draw back James’ head tilts and there is the brush, the faintest brush, of dry lips against his own.
“You’re drunk, James,” he whispers, inhales the acrid smell of gin, lamp light shining in those eyes, and the answering smile is pressed against his jaw.
“That’s as may be, but the drunk man speaks a sober truth.”
(And in the morning, how true those words shall prove to be, when he wakes with aching neck and back squeezed into that narrow bunk, James’ arm warm around him, James’ head tucked in against his chest.)
(“For warmth,” he will say, should Jopson find them.)
(And James’ kiss will be just as sweet sober as it was drunk.)