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“Again.”For a moment the word hangs suspended in the chilly air of the lower deck. The space is packed with men but none of them makes a sound. None except Mr Hickey. His breathing fills the room with an undercurrent of white noise, a sequence of ragged pants that is bound to be interrupted by the crack of the whip any time now.The muscles in his arms and shoulders stand out like wires. Despite the cold, his skin glows with a sheen of sweat. Behind him, Johnson raises the whip again.Everyone holds their breath.The sharp snap of the cat cuts through the silence. A few of the men flinch in sympathy. Hickey grunts in pain, squirming on the table he's bound to, and something in Crozier's stomach twists in response. He can't tear his eyes away from the mess that is Hickey's arse. Welts have sprung up in the lashes' wake, angry and swollen, and bruises are beginning to bloom where the skin is still unbroken, but there are also open, gaping cuts where the whip bit into the flesh, deep and deeper with every blow.The cat o'nine tails is nasty business, but as captain Crozier can't allow himself the luxury to be squeamish. Some men, especially in their situation, far away from home and with too much time on their hands, trapped and desperate, tend to forget their station, and so they must be reminded of it. The chain of command has to be upheld, at all cost. Their survival depends on it. On discipline. On order. Now more than ever with that thing out on the ice.It's high time for Crozier to tighten his grip before matters get completely out of hand. He shouldn't be surprised he has to deal with a budding mutiny, given how little attention he paid to his crew and his ship and his duties over the last months, to anything really but his daily ration of whiskey. But no more. He has been captain for long enough to know the only way to quell a rebellion is a display of strength. One cannot let offences slide, not even minor ones, much less something like Hickey's plot, without risking one's command.Though there is something else that has influenced him in his decision. As rational as he might paint it for himself, it has an emotional core he'd rather not dwell on. He buried it, deep, at the very bottom of his memory, but the mind has its own laws, and sometimes, like the tide will wash up what's been lost, so does Crozier's thought.The sight of Hickey's firm little arse painted red by the whip stirs something in him that should better lie dormant, something dark and dirty, something he ought to be punished for too, and yet it is only Hickey, who has to pay the price.Crozier can't help but revel in his pain. In fact, he can't get enough of it. He enjoys to see him suffer.There is something sublime in the way the body is stretched upon the table, how it trembles and bleeds. It makes him think of worship, of sacrifice, a Papist notion perhaps, but one he relishes. He's drunk on it, on the power, on pleasure, it swells inside him, and he must be careful to keep it hidden.“Again,” he says and again the whip strikes down on torn skin and bleeding flesh.__ _The wrath burns inside him, so bright it's almost blinding, red and liquor-hot, and oh, the self-control it takes not to leap to his feet and kill him on the spot! He wants to choke him with his own bare hands. How sweet that would be, and how well deserved!Treachery is one thing (not unexpected perhaps, some characters are simply unable to stay on a righteous path, and Crozier shouldn't be surprised Hickey is one of them, given his… predilections) but his unbridled insolence is impossible to tolerate.Who does he think he is, to speak to him like that?(If he's not careful, he will know why. The memory will slip through his guard and he will remember what it was that made Hickey's assume he would tolerate his insubordination. And he will realize it wasn't merely negligence on his side but outright foolishness, and that he'd love to forget all about it, or better still: to already have forgotten about it. He almost has, but the memory is like an itch he somehow cannot get rid of.)Clutching on to the last shreds of his restraint, he announces the final verdict: “Lieutenant Little, tell Mr Johnson that Mr Hickey will be punished as a boy.”(For that's what he is, isn't he? A boy, an erômenos in the sense of the ancient Greeks, someone who bends over for an older man and…)His self control doesn't fail him but his fists are clenched so tight, the knuckles shine white through the pale skin and the nails leave marks in his palms.__ _The drink was a mistake. Crozier should not have offered it in the first place. A captain is not supposed to associate with his petty officers, and for good reason. They might get ideas – overestimate their importance, forget their place. Crozier has seen it happen before, how one lapse into familiarity can cause an erosion of discipline. Accordingly, it's pointless to argue what happened is not, at least in part, his own fault.Perhaps he would not even have noticed something was amiss if not for Jopson's indignation, which is, in fact, impossible to overlook. It's not that he'd dare mention it, not in words, but there's this certain turn of his head, the distinct twist of his lips, a coldness in his eyes Crozier is quite unaccustomed to. And once he's picked up on it, the cause of Jopson's displeasure becomes quite obvious:The way the caulker's mate looks at him – there is something unseemly about it. By all means his station should render him invisible to the officers, unless they want something of him that is, but most of all to the captain, and yet, he stares at him, brazenly, irrespective who might take notice. He doesn't even attempt to hide the sly expression, an unsettling sort of smug grin, eyes gleaming like a rat's in the dark.But glances are nothing you can reprimand someone for, Crozier decides and so he bears both, Hickey's brazen stares and Jopson's disgruntlement.However, some day something must have happened that upsets the fragile balance. Perhaps Hickey said something impudent to the wrong person or someone overheard him who shouldn't because one evening, Jopson suddenly abandons his policy of silent indignation.Fingers twisting nervously into a towel, he lingers in Crozier's small cabin even after he's been dismissed, hovering next to the door like an anxious little ghost.“Anything else, Jopson?” Crozier asks, not without an undertone of fond amusement in his voice.Jopson blushes as he takes heart to voice his concerns. “I hope it's not too forward of me to say but – I don't trust him, sir.”Crozier raises an eyebrow. “Who do you not trust?”“Mr Hickey, sir.”Jopson looks as if he wanted the ground to swallow him up, it is quite endearing. What on earth can it be that he finds so embarrassing?It's late, Crozier's brain is sluggish with alcohol. The realization takes its time but the whiskey not only makes him slow, it also lowers his guard, and an image flashes up before his inner eye. Dark blond hair, lips stretched wide. The sensation of a mouth, warm and wet and tight. The slight dampness of his hair under his fingertips when he pulls him close.Jopson can't possibly know of that episode, can he? Hickey wouldn't… The indiscretion, unforgivable...What if he saw them? Crozier can't remember if he could have, his memory is fuzzy as it is.Unreal. A dream. A nightmare.“If I had known, sir,” Jopson stutters, “I could have...”His voice trails off, and this is the moment Crozier definitely stops finding their little conversation amusing.“You could have what?”Jopson flinches at the sharpness of his voice. He has his eyes downcast like a schoolboy confessing his wrongdoing to the headmaster, hands clasped tightly, though his voice is low but steady when he speaks.“If you need me to perform a service for you, sir,” He takes a deep breath. “You know you need only ask.”__ _“Let me help you, sir. Let me help you remember.”The snake has eyes bright and blue as an endless summer day stretching out over the ice, and every bit as cold. The warmth of his smile is treacherous as the Arctic sun, it might burn you even as you're freezing.Some part of Crozier knows this, but he doesn't move. His fingers tighten around his glass, clutching it like a lifeline. The cabin is spinning. He wants to protest but his voice is gone. Instead he watches Hickey reaching out and tracing the inseams of his trousers, upwards, with the queerest expression on his face.“I don't think-” he had stuttered when Hickey got to his knees in front of him only moments before, but Crozier's legs had fallen apart readily enough as he inched closer. It must have been the talk about home, about love, about women left behind, hopefully waiting for them.“Don't you miss her?”Such genuine fondness for his own sweetheart on his face, how could have Crozier resisted? There is a bond between men who know love, he thought. He always had been a sentimental drunk. And so Hickey got it out of him. He didn't even have to make much of an effort. Perhaps it was merely the spirit of the moment, but Crozier said too much, he was too open, too candid about his feelings. No gentleman should share details of his love life with another man, but then, Crozier is not a gentleman, is he?They're two Irishmen far from home, and they're drunk, and he misses her so, so much.“Just think of her,” Hickey says when he opens Crozier's belt.Francis closes his eyes. Even dead drunk, he's aware he'd be in Hickey's place, with Sophia. In no possible world she would kneel before him like that. There have been precedents to prove this assumption. He remembers what it is like, to be on his knees between her legs. He remembers everything, the quivering of her thighs, her scent and taste, all over his chin and mouth and nose, her fingers in his hair, cruel, demanding.He is half-hard before Hickey has even touched him.“Think of her,” Hickey repeats, the lure of lullabies in his tone. “Sophia...”Francis' mind is a haze. Dreams and drink and desire. Memory is magic, he can hear her voice now, feel her lips on his neck.The finger closing around his cock are rough, callused, unmistakably not Sophia's, but that doesn't stop him from bucking up into the touch, painfully hard within a few firm strokes, and then, the heavenly warmth of a mouth, wet and welcoming, a tongue pressing up against his swollen flesh.He grabs Hickey's head, clumsily, fingertips digging into his skull, he pulls him closer, fucks his mouth, and God almighty, Hickey's as much a slut for the pain as for his cock. What a greedy little thing, swallowing him down like a dockside whore. If he behaves like one, he should be used like one too.Perhaps it's the drink, or the place, or months of pent-up frustration, but Francis doesn't hold back anymore, he doesn't even try to. He takes what is offered, selfishly, brutally, he pushes his cock as deep as he can, balls-deep, until Hickey gags and sputters but Francis doesn't care. Something savage has broken loose inside him and he's not willing to put it back in its cage. Not yet.He pulls out, thrusts back in, again and again, until the pleasure becomes overwhelming and he comes with a slurred curse deep down in Hickey's throat.__ _The light catches on his blond beard, in the blond hair, and his smile is like sunshine.It reminds Crozier of home, of grain-fields and summer warmth, of whiskey and Sophia of course.Sophia, sweet, beautiful Sophia.At night he dreams of her. They're swimming, the water a soft and warm caress. The heat of her body is so real when she puts her arms around him, as if he were actually there, back at Platypus Pond. Her bare skin pressed close to his feels so wonderful, the slickness of her desire so much wetter than water, the squeeze of her fingers perfect as she strokes him.These dreams make him weak and they're in a place that doesn't allow weakness.It only waits for you to slip up and stumble, right into its deadly embrace. One small mistake, one moment of distraction is all it takes. This place wants you dead. It wants you as still and cold and white as the waves, frozen and lifeless, and Crozier knows it. After all he's been here before, four times, with Parry, before he sailed south with Ross for a different pole and a different adventure.Sometimes it seems he spent more of his life in the ice than in the mild climate of his home country but he wouldn't have it any other way. He fell for the Arctic's siren song a long time ago.You never feel more alive than in the face of death, and perhaps that's why he got so addicted it, to the ever-howling winds and the groans of the ice and the gnawing of the frost, there's a clarity of mind to be found here, at the very edge of the world, that does not compare to anything he has known before, or will ever know somewhere else.“A toast,” he says, raising the glass. He can't remember if it's the third or the thirteenth but then you can't drink often enough to a safe return, to England, to Ireland, to their queen's health, and to love of course, always to love.“To women,” Crozier exclaims.There is a strangely sly little smile on Hickey's face when he repeats after him.“To women. To love.”__ _Francis Crozier wills his hand not to tremble, but to no avail. It's been too long since he had his last drink and the whiskey sloshes and splashes clumsily out of the bottle and into the crystal glass. He could have asked Jopson. He is aware of his condition of course. (Naturally. There's little going on on the ship that gets past his steward, and least of all the connection between Crozier's moodiness and the dwindling supplies in the spirit room.)Crozier could pretend nonetheless, for appearance's sake, for his own peace of mind, that it is not the lack of alcohol that afflicts him. He could pretend he was shaking with cold or a fever. But at this stage, whom would he fool? Not even himself!The pain pounding in his temples, the roiling of nausea in his belly, the shaking of his hands – they're not indications of some ordinary illness. They're indisputable signs his body has begun to depend on a constant supply of alcohol to function. He needs whiskey now as much as he needs water and air, shelter and warmth, sleep and nourishment, and Crozier hates himself for it.He has always been a little too fond of his liquor, but it wasn't until this wretched journey that he became addicted to it. Over the long months since they set sail from London, vice has crept up on him. Slowly, barely noticeable at first, hiding in the bouts of melancholy that befell him during the long winter they spent anchored at Beechey Island. At night, curled up in his clammy bunk, he thought back to Van Diemen's Land, those few glorious days when everything had seemed possible, a whole different life, full of unknown wonders, untouched by cold and darkness and desolation.Loneliness is a terrible fate, the worst of all perhaps. And so he sought solace at the bottom of bottles, a lot of them over the months. Every drink a reward, well deserved for his sacrifice of leaving Sophia behind and joining this mission with the mere purpose of keeping an eye on Sir John because she asked him for it.“Keep him safe for me, Francis,” she said, her hand clutching at his, so soft and warm and desperate. He could not have denied her anything in that moment.He was drunk on her presence like he is drunk on whiskey. Why else would he have agreed to this madness? There are only so many times you can tempt fate, and he's been here before, with far more capable leaders than a man who had to resort to eating his boots, and still, despite their competence, there had been times he thought he'd die here, at the end of the world, just another dead lump of frozen meat.Now all their lives are at the mercy of the old fool he promised to protect, and just look at how well that worked out. In his ignorance, Franklin steered them right into this trap, and only God knows if they're ever going to escape it – and there had been nothing, Crozier could do about it.You gave me too much credit, my love, he thinks. No one can save an idiot from himself, least of all when he's in charge. And given the futility of his task, it's no wonder he's taken to drink. The whiskey provided him with some comfort at least, the notion of warmth, a fleeting memory of happiness.It still does.Crozier raises his glass into the dim light of the lamp and swirls the oily liquid in the heavy crystal. It looks like sunshine. Magical. A charm against the relentless cold.He takes a sip and imagines a room bathed in golden light, the sound of Sophia's laughter, the damp heat of her breath against the shell of his ear. I'm going to return to you, he thinks, and I will propose again and this time, you won't deny me.And Crozier clutches onto this thought just as he clutches at his glass, brimful with warmth and oblivion.__ _The sea reaches up from beneath with merciless claws, scraping against the ship's hull, squeezing the planks until they groan under the pressure. The pack has got them. It's mid-September 1846, they've been in open water for exactly three and a half months until the ice caught up with them again. Francis Crozier snaps Dr King's book shut and pours himself another glass. It's going to be a long winter.~