Work Text
It was typical, of course, that James should be so animated by sensibility.He never had been a man to do anything by halves, had always dedicated himself with wholehearted zeal to anything he undertook. And whatever men might say of him, in the depth of his determination or the extent of his recklessness, he could never be said to be undemonstrative. Whatever joy he felt—and he was often a joyful man—would always find its way to eyes, and then his voice, until he fairly radiated with an energy that could ignite any space in which he found himself. It was the quality that most often endeared him to people, of course, and the one by which he now found himself (and found himself welcome, at that!) in the presence of a so typically guarded a man as Francis Crozier.It might be typical to describe James as luminous, but tonight he was positively effervescent. “My God, Francis,” he announced without preamble from the direction of the hallway. “There’s a sight I never thought I would witness in my lifetime.” He was leaning carelessly with one shoulder against the door frame, having entered, as was his habit, without knocking.Francis scowled and bent forward to adjust the collar of his coat in the mirror. “You’ve said that about a good many things of late, James,” he muttered at his reflection. “But you might have perhaps reminded me that this ordeal was even a possibility sometime before we made it back—I would have certainly deserted at Stromness and you would never have seen me again.”“Ha! Glad I didn’t, then.” James inclined his chin to better observe the scene before him. “But it would never have worked, of course. You would have been lost without my advice. You are not so clever at accents or disguises as I am, you must allow.”Francis looked back over his shoulder and raised an eyebrow, gesturing at the abundance of gold trim with which he had been forced to adorn himself for the evening. James suppressed a laugh, a brief forced exhale through his nose.“Not a disguise, Francis.”“Well I bloody well feel like it is. What was wrong with my old one, anyhow?”James trumped Francis’s incredulous expression by raising both eyebrows at once. Francis sighed loudly and turned to cast another frown at his appearance in the glass. He tilted his head again, contemplating the squared shoulders and the set of the collar that James had been so particular about.“You look marvelous,” James assured with a nod of approval. “I had no doubts of course. But having never had the opportunity to see you in full dress, at close range, I had been curious—”He pushed off the door frame with casual ease. Drifting across the room, he lay a hand on Francis’s arm, and ran a single gloved finger over a swath of fine blue cloth.“Hm. The actor in that Antarctic tableau didn’t discourage you of the notion, then?”“Honestly, Francis.” James reached up to brush the man’s hand aside, replacing it with his own in the process of pinning the epaulets to his coat. He grinned with artful delay in the direction of Francis’s shoulder as he worked. “You are far more handsome, of course.”Francis leaned back against the dressing table and tilted his head to stare at the ceiling with a disparaging groan. “I should hope so—“ he muttered irritably.James made a chiding sound through his teeth. He gave a teasing prod to Francis’s other arm, but edged closer as he turned to work on that side.“There,” he said, soon enough, moving his hands inward to rest against the man’s chest, admiring the structured material, and the perfect way it accentuated his stern features and solid form. His gaze wandered, traced an invisible path down to the place where Francis’s hand rested idly against his leg, and over the gilded lines of the coat tails that draped gracefully about his hips.With a telltale squeeze of his hand he made to pull away, meaning to continue his observation from several paces back. He had hardly thought to even shift his weight from one leg to the other, however, when he found that Francis had gotten a foot around his ankle, and a swift hand around his arm prevent him stumbling backward. “Oh,” he all but whispered, masking his instinctive gasp with a laugh. “We should be going...” James quashed any further comment with a weakly grave expression.“Perhaps,” Francis murmured, moving his hand to grace over the exquisitely polished buttons of James’s own coat. He made no indication of hurrying their departure, pausing instead and lingering with a firm hand against James’s side. Carefully, reverently, his fingers traced the gold belt—a captain’s, now—that sat neat and high about his waist. With his head tilted in distraction, a stray piece of hair had tumbled across Francis’s forehead. Since their arrival in London it had grown long enough to begin curling again, and teased about his right eye with no regard to even the most studied application of oil. As much as the effect pleased James, who had declared it surpassingly heroic—reminiscent, he said, of the dash and intrigue that had surrounded Francis as the Antarctic Hero of ‘42—the newly-lauded Hero of the North could not himself grow re-accustomed to it. In thoughtless habit Francis reached up with his free hand to brush it back into place.“Stop that!” James caught him by the wrist before he could proceed. “You’ll spoil your gloves.”Francis merely blinked at him, indignant at this interruption to the moment’s peace. “Oh, will I now?” He pursed his lips and made a vain attempt to cast the defiant curl aside with a directed breath of air. “But then tell me, James. What else am I supposed to do? I can’t just ... toss my head as you do and have everything fall into place!” James snorted, shaking his long hair aside exactly as Francis had described. “Contrary man. You really do hate this, don’t you?”As if in apology, he pressed forward to lay a kiss against Francis’s forehead. In a gentle motion he tilted his neck as he leaned in, so that the brush of his lips and the sharp point of his nose swept the offending hair neatly to the side. “Better?” he asked, with a wicked glint to his eyes.“Unconventional, I’ll admit, but surprisingly effective.” Francis‘s hardened expression dissolved in a laugh, and he slid his arm out of James’s grip to grasp his hand instead. “I’d like to see you try that trick in public, though.”Francis could not say he was listening for a reply, occupied as he was with the contours at the back of James’s hand, and the softened way in which they rose and fell beneath white kid leather. But distraction alone could not account for his shock at the reply that did come—not from James, but issued in a thoroughly amused voice from the vicinity of the doorway. “Already done, my dear Frank.”James snatched his hand back at once, before Francis could scarce react. He snapped his head sideways with a sheepish grin, expression working in rounds as he grasped for some humorous explanation. Francis, meanwhile, could only bring himself to stare at the floor, biting his tongue and feeling a perceptible redness flush across his face. James Ross, of course, was the most understanding friend a man could ask for. He must have had some inclination when he invited the two men to stay together in his home. And yet — “I knew you would be up here stalling for time,” the voice continued, as unmoved as if Ross had walked in on nothing more than the observation of a marginally late tea-time. “Well, get on with it, old man! Kiss him in return and we can all be on our way.”Cursing internally, Francis was certain that a wordless conversation, probably at his own expense, was being conducted between the other two men. He did not have to look up to imagine the tight-lipped amusement on Ross’s face, as he fought to suppress any more demonstrative show of humor, or the wide-eyed shock that prevented the usually eloquent James from speaking at all. When he finally mustered the courage to shake his head and raise his eyes in a glance to the side, Ross had already gone. James was left staring at an empty doorway, lips parted in what may have become, given time, a laugh. Francis watched as James’s stiff posture dissolved into a most uncharacteristic slouch of his shoulders.With a sigh that trailed into an unreadable low whine, James ducked his head and lifted a hand as if to brush something out of his eye. “James,” Francis pushed himself off the table and caught the man’s hand loosely in his. “Forgotten your own orders, already, is it?” At the monosyllabic hum that served as James’s response, Francis gave a small laugh of acknowledgement, and pressed a reassuring squeeze to his hand. He leaned in to drop a kiss at the corner of his eye, drifting against the bridge of his nose. “And mentioning orders,” he continued, “I believe I have just received some of my own, which you heard as well as I.” Dipping lower, steadily and with clear purpose, he moved to catch James’s still-parted lips. “Now,” Francis concluded when he pulled away, smiling in earnest now with a perceptible glint in his eye. “If you believe I have performed my duties to satisfaction—shall we be on our way?” Waiting for James’s answering nod, Francis reclaimed his hand with the sole purpose of extending it again in formality. “Captain Fitzjames,” he offered, an invitation with an open palm that was only slightly too affectionate, and placed only slightly too much emphasis on the first word. James drew himself upright, all officer-like posture and dignity—but the smile that had been lingering beneath the surface finally broke across his face, and he returned his hand to Francis’s with most un-officerlike alacrity. Later, he would be circulated through a current of blue and gold, the dark swirl punctuated with the white flashes of hands that sought to shake his, or that moved through the air in the gestures of half-told stories cut down for respectable consumption. In that room, Francis would linger stoically at his side, arms folded neatly behind his back, like a man forever on parade. Francis’s hands had never spoken like other officers in unnecessary flourish, but for now one remained laced together with James’s, seeking the warmth of each other, only relinquishing his hold when they had travelled the length of the hallway and descended the stairs.