Archive of Our Own ^beta

He revels in the soft touch of rustling silk beneath his fingers.

Oh, heavens, praise be to you for the sweet oblivion you give us!, he thinks, almost ecstatically, thoughtlessly running his fingertips over the masks in the trunk. Today, as Lady Britannia, he will once again fill the hearts of all these poor people with hope, if only for a moment. When their eyes and souls greedily devour this miserable piece of their homeland, they will remember that there is glory in their sad undertaking, even if it is diminished.

In the dim light, he glances carelessly at his face in a small mirror; on that face, a fleeting triumph has left its mark, almost imperceptible - the faintest glint in his eyes, the corners of his mouth slightly raised, his forehead momentarily free of the wrinkles of weariness -

—a dark liquid on the hairline. In the twilight, it could even be mistaken for ink if he didn't look more closely. But he does, and, by God, he regrets it. Slowly, as if delaying the inevitable, he raises his fingers to his face, trying to convince himself that they are not trembling.

Blood, no doubt. There is so little of it, but he already smells the familiar metallic scent. Perhaps it is just an illusion of a paranoid mind.

Part of him wants to do something, to seek help somehow; maybe run straight to Crozier (why?), maybe to Stanley (again, why? What can that poor man do in the face of a illness so familiar to every sailor, so merciless?

Part of him, the deranged part, wants to resort to more drastic measures.

He looks in the mirror again. This time, an involuntary fear is reflected in it, contorting his mouth and deepening his wrinkles. Soon, his still young, handsome features will be consumed by disease, and James, the dashing hero, will become a pitiful wreck of a man. Is it worth to live that way, knowing perfectly well how it must end, withering slowly but inevitably like a forgotten flower? Perhaps it is better to prevent the pitiful descent into a state of ugliness.

James cannot stand ugly things. He always understood William's love of surrounding himself with beautiful paintings; how wonderfully they filled the cold emptiness of the walls, how marvellous a remedy for sadness and sickness they could be! So he never stopped Will from buying yet more.

And now he would become a useless painting, thrown on the ground and trampled on, with the paint peeling off the canvas. He would no longer be able to provide any comfort...

James firmly turns the mirror and places it on the table; the image of the withered, ugly face does not leave him. He closes his eyes; to no avail.

Every morning, right after getting out of bed, Commander Fitzjames has a habit of combing his beautiful, thick hair, enjoying the familiar way the dawn light gives it a vivid, reddish gleam.

He has been doing this like a clockwork for years, and it's hard to blame him; he picked up the habit at the Coninghams' house as a boy, when his nanny insisted on combing his and Will's hair every day. At first he protested, but over time he had to admit that his protests had become nothing more than a ritual, and a rather pleasant one at that. He groaned, rolled his eyes, complained, but not too much, and in the end he always let Mrs Brown work her little miracles on his unruly curls. Will giggled, amused by his foster brother's antics, the touch of the old woman's worn hands was infinitely gentle, and James was secretly the happiest boy in the world.

James remembered how long he cried, in an unmanly way, after Mrs Brown's death. And from then on, he combed his own hair every morning, without any reminders.

Even when leaving Erebus for a journey from which he might not return, James took with him a small, old comb that had seen better days (W.C. - such initials were engraved on it, and James knew that in distant Brighton, a certain man brushed his own hair with a comb decorated with the letters J.F.).

But now, no matter how many times he runs his comb – or his fingers, in an act of almost frantic despair – through his hair, it always remains thin and dull. It no longer has a hint of sunlight in it.

And it keeps falling out, more and more every day; yesterday he held a whole handful of it in his fist, an ugly, tangled cluster. James still remains faithful to his old habit and combs and combs, but lately, he manages without a mirror; every morning he sits down and thoughtlessly, automatically runs the comb through the tangled, unpleasant-to-touch mess that was once his pride and joy.

But today, something suddenly snaps inside him as he removes the comb from his hair. Do these dark strands covering it entirely really belong to him? Disgust threatens to consume him and he tosses the offensive object away as if it had burned him.

A sudden memory strikes him like lightning; a dark winter night, two boys lying together in Will's sick bed, his brother telling James about his nightmare in a trembling voice.

"I was old, Jas, old, ugly and wrinkled, my hair had fallen out. But that wasn't the worst of it; people gathered around my bed and pitied me. Poor thing, they said, he has lost all his abilities, he is as helpless as a little child. And I tried to tell them that I was perfectly capable, but I couldn't get a word out or make a single movement."

James remembers that he successfully comforted Will, who eventually fell asleep peacefully in his arms, but what exactly did he say? He cannot remember.

He desperately tears off layers of clothing, as if they were skin he wants to crawl out of and leave behind. Finally, he achieves his goal; he stands half-naked, half-mad and completely terrified in the tent.

His wounds have reopened.

He always liked to turn these terrifying experiences into heroic deeds worthy of Lord Nelson, who calmly continued his duties even after his arm was amputated, but now, alone in his tent, with fresh wounds instead of old scars, only vaguely looming somewhere on the edge of his mind, he succumbs to human despair.

Was this how Nelson felt when he finally found himself alone in his cabin? Did he also want to curl up so tightly that he would disappear?

Or perhaps James Fitzjames, his father's failure, is simply not a worthy officer of Her Majesty's Navy?

The wounds sting, James lifts the dirty mirror with a trembling hand, though the facts are clear. These injuries, his great pride and symbol of the wonderful achievements of a young, ambitious sailor, now seem only a stigma.

He wonders gloomily how long he can endure this renewed pain before he inevitably becomes a burden to his own men. It is good to be a heroic survivor, but only in memories, in the comforts of English parlors, not in a situation like this.

James should be a bright beacon of hope for his men.

And their hero, his mind suggests pitifully. That is what you would like to be. You want them to praise you as their saviour. You dream of those English salons where, you promise yourself, you would sit quietly, with a benevolent smile, and only gently but firmly deny their praise. 'Oh, it wasn't like that, not at all! It wasn't my doing; we all worked equally hard and conscientiously!'"

He hides his face in his hands, suddenly realising how foolish he is.

Now his men will not only fail to praise him — they will hate him. In the last moments of his pitiful life, he will lose what little admiration they could ever have had for him.

No, he thinks suddenly, raising his head with a new surge of determination. He will walk alongside them until his death. The day they see his fall will also be his last day.

James tries to get up, but to his utter embarrassment, Francis looks at him reproachfully and gently – with just one finger – but very effectively, makes him lie down again.

"James, don't get up, you blockhead," Francis says, seemingly sternly, but his lilting accent deepens, a sign of concern. "Don't you even dare to get up."

James frowns, his embarrassment only intensifying as he remembers how firmly he vowed not to be a burden.

"You shouldn't have stopped, you know," he says quietly; only after a moment does he realise that he has used the word 'you', for the first time explicitly excluding himself from the group of those who have a chance of survival. "You should go while you still can."

Francis looks as if he is about to both burst into tears and hit James. However, he does neither, instead placing his hand on James's shoulder and then, as if struck by a sudden thought, moving it to James's cheek, his tired fingers brushing the skin of his fellow officer in a perfectly brotherly gesture.

"We won't leave you, you foolish, dear man! We won't leave anyone."
"Francis..." he says very slowly, thinking frantically how to say it. "Francis, old boy, you know I'm not a delicate damsel in distress who needs to be saved"

He puts on the most smug expression he can muster, despite the fiery pain in his side and arm.

"...Did I ever tell you how, during the Opium War..."

"You, sir, are beyond redemption," Crozier declares. (He still does not remove his hand from James's face, despite the fact that the prolonged touch is beginning to seem a little strange, a bit too...). "What else will you tell me? That the musket ball was the size of a cherry?"

It's not the funniest joke he's ever heard, but James laughs loudly, for his own sake as well as Francis'.

He forgets about one thing.

He sees the joyful sparkle in Francis's eyes suddenly fade and the older man withdraws his hand; it takes James a moment to understand what caused this change, and then the realisation hits him with full force, with a piercing pain in his heart. He quickly closes his mouth, hiding his dark, swollen gums and the gaps where his teeth used to be.

His smile has long since ceased to be beautiful; with this bitter thought, he doesn't even try to hold Francis's hand to his cheek, even though he desperately wants to.

"Go to your men, Francis," he says quietly, with discouragement. "They need you."
"James..."

James just closes his eyes. He doesn't want to see that expression (of concern? disgust?) on Francis's face.

"Captain Fitzjames, they are your men too," Crozier's voice is almost a growl. "And they need you as well."

A moment of silence, a moment of hesitation. And finally, very quietly:

"I need you, James."

But James can only feel anger at this blatant lie, though he doesn't have the strength to shout it in Francis's face.

No, Francis certainly doesn't need a barely breathing corpse.

He is awakened abruptly by the sudden touch of a familiar hand (he got to know it in such a short and yet such an intense time)

The darkness surrounding them prevents him from seeing the expression on Francis's face. "I thought you were asleep," he wants to say stupidly for a moment; he stops himself at the very last moment. He cannot destroy this intimate but strangely natural moment.

"Shh, James, it's okay," Francis whispers, his lips so close to James's face that he can feel his warm breath on his skin. "It was just a dream."

Ah, yes, now James remembers; vague clouds of ash forming into the shape of arms, surrounding him on all sides like the embrace of a jealous lover, while he looks in horror at the distant, raging fire, in which small, pitch-black figures carelessly perform some terrifying, pagan dance...

He tries to speak, but somehow he can't.

"I'm here with you, I am, my heart... James, please, will you allow me to call you that?"

'My heart'! James feels warm tears of profound relief on his cheeks and only nods in response to the surprisingly bold question, overcome by a sudden weakness. But then a thought occurs to him...

"Francis, are you a dream?"
"No," Francis tells him. "Can you feel my touch?"

James does.

"My heart; how right it is to call you that! You are as essential to me as it is... don't leave. Don't leave!"

The last words come out of Francis Crozier's mouth with a bitter sob.

"Francis?"
"Yes, my heart?"
"Please, could you touch me one more time?"

When he looks into Francis's eyes, even in the darkness he can see that he understands, and James doesn't have to add that he needs to feel that this isn't actually a dream.

(That he is still alive.)

Francis's cool hand resumes its caress, moving slowly and gently over his useless legs, swollen from illness. James blesses the darkness and the heavy blanket resting on his completely naked body - both prevent his dearest friend from seeing the scurvy rash and the multitude of smaller and larger bruises to which his skin is now so susceptible.

"Francis, please don't take the blanket off; I look hideous," James suddenly hears his own weak voice. It sounds like childish whining and he grimaces involuntarily.
"You don't look hideous!" The shock in Francis' words and the simultaneous ardour of this assurance somehow only make it worse.
"I wish so much that you would remember me... differently. Not as I am now."
"James." Francis continues to stroke his legs, though James suddenly realises that even if he can't see the defects, he must be able to feel them because of the rough, scaly skin. "Believe me, no matter what you look like, my affection for you will always remain the same. Besides, listen; when we return to England, you will blossom anew. Thy eternal summer shall not fade, nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st..."

James struggles to lift the corners of his chapped lips in a pitiful parody of a smile.

"...Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade," Francis finishes bravely, though his voice breaks slightly at the end.

James remains silent, unable to find a response to all this naive hope.

The face, on which excruciating pain has left its mark over the past few weeks, is finally calm, now that Francis has released James from his embrace to give him to Death, the most jealous of lovers.

Francis has already cried all his tears and whispered prayers over the motionless body in a hoarse voice; now he just looks, greedily absorbing the features to which Death has added something almost boyish - the wrinkles on James's forehead have smoothed out, leaving only those around his mouth, from laughter. There is a certain calm dignity in James's pallor, reminding Francis of a picture from an illustrated Bible he had as a child - Moses standing with his staff proudly raised above the parted sea.

This dear face now looks as if it were above time, neither young nor old, but certainly very beautiful, and Francis clings desperately to these last minutes of painful adoration.

Just a few more precious moments - vanity in the face of eternal life! - and he will have to give the body back to the earth from whence it came.