I'm LOVING all your kisses prompt fills! If you're still writing them, could I request: raking a hand through the hair and getting a good handful to pull the other person closer (before or during the kiss) for fitzier? Thank you!!
Post Canon, a reunion at an Admiralty reception
The dinner, hosted by the Admiralty in honor of the brave and tragic survivors of the expedition, is the last place on Earth that Francis would like to be. In fact, he thinks to himself, a tightly rehearsed smile on his lips as he nods at whatever brainless drivel the younger Barrow is spouting, he would give anything to be on a ship again surrounded by ice sheets and frigid water than to suffer through the social obligations that has followed his return to England.
He stares morosely at the water in his hand, pondering for an unfair moment, whether he should take up drinking again. His next best option would be to walk across the room, shove his face into the punch bowl, and, if not drown himself, at least enjoy a few second’s peace.
The morbid dwellings in his mind are forgotten momentarily when a man both familiar and foreign to him appears across the room.
Commander Fitzjames, resplendent and regal in his dress uniform, enters the arched doorway beside Lieutenant Le Vesconte. Francis’s eyes meet his across the way, and his heart stutters in his chest. It has been a devastatingly long time since they have seen one another, and all of Francis’s letters, short as they may be, have gone unanswered.
He brusquely interrupts Barrow. “Pardon me, sir. I’m needed elsewhere.”
He does not wait for Barrow to answer as he deposits his untouched glass on the table and quickly makes his way across the room. Fitzjames sees him coming, and there is a brief expression of panic as his eyes widen and he begins to take a half-step back.
Francis is too impatient to care that he is elbowing his way to Fitzjames’s side, and he pointedly ignores the gasp of the woman who gets shouldered out of his path.
“Commander Fitzjames, a pleasure,” he says, placing his hand lightly at Fitzjames’s elbow. “Might I have a word in private? It’s urgent.”
Fitzjames, despite the easy smile on his face, glances frantically at Le Vesconte who looks ready to step in on a moment’s notice.
Francis drops his voice. “Please, James.”
A tremor travels down Fitzjames’s arm where Francis is holding it, but his voice is even when he excuses himself. “I’ll find you later, Dundy, madam.”
The two of them exit the room the same way Fitzjames entered, and Francis leads him into a deserted hallway where the two of them will not be overheard. When he turns, Fitzjames’s shoulders have drooped. He looks like a child about to be scolded.
“How have you been, James?” Francis asks, taking a chance at reaching for his hand this time, rather than his elbow. “I haven’t seen you in months.”
Fitzjames gives a noncommittal shake of his head. “I was doing you a favor, Francis. After the court martial, I assumed that I was the last person you would want to see.”
Francis gapes at him. “Why would you think that?”
Unless, he realizes with thunderous dread, Fitzjames would rather not have his career sullied by the disgraced Captain Crozier.
When Fitzjames does not answer otherwise, Francis releases his hand. “Well. If you would rather I leave you be, I can. I’m no stranger to being rebuffed—”
“No!” Fitzjames interjects. “That is not what I want. I thought you didn’t want to see me as a reminder of everything…”
“Did anything in my letters give you that impression?”
Francis steps close to him, setting one hand at Fitzjames waist, the other carefully touching his cheek.
“James, I am old enough that I live with many regrets.” He slides his hand farther, his palm cupping Fitzjames’s jaw and his fingers brushing against the loose strands of hair by his ear. A thrill goes through his heart when James leans into the contact. “I do not want that for us.”
He kisses Fitzjames, half-expecting the man to pull away, but the ice melts in a great torrent. He kisses back forcefully, his arms circling around Francis’s shoulders. Francis digs his hand deeper into his hair, pulling him down close, and angling the kiss so he may better taste him.
Both of them are breathing hard when the kiss finally breaks.
Fitzjames closes his eyes, setting his forehead against Francis’s.
“I was frightened that you would hate me, after everything,” he admits, his voice tiny.
Francis chuckles, the sound equally sad and fond. “You could have simply written me back, you silly man.”
@anadequatesir replied to your post “an unexpected gift | crozier/fitzjames | 2144 The house in Banbridge...”
Oh I love this!! It has such a warm and cosy feel to it without being cloying at all. Just delightful!
thank you, that’s so sweet! i’m glad you enjoyed.
@glorioustidalwavedefendor replied to your post “Do you have an AO3 account? I absolutely love your terror fics but...”
@aes-iii I would love to see them on ao3 <3 I love your style so much! The “selkie!crozier” one is still an all time favorit of mine! <3
i’ll definitely make an effort to get them up there, then! at one point i started writing a bit of (different) selkie!crozier, but then i feel like it became A Thing and i just kind of stopped. here, anyway (i’m sorry not much of it is the desired frmc/jfj):
In the southern seas James had seen mermaids.
Always and only from a distance, their skin blue-black or golden-green and flashing iridescent in the clear shallows: they had avoided the shipping, fled blue-fin swift from from the cutters' bows, away into the crystal depths. In the Med, sirens: lovely, impossibly lovely, lying bare on the warm and lovely rocks, the wind carrying little twists of their undying song to turn the head even at a seaman's safe distance. Other things, too, he has seen, sprites and sea-witches, beings he does not know what to call, some lovely and some as cold as drowning: ships that were not there, cities below the swell. Such are a sailor's tales, though landsmen think them quaint.
And when after twenty years aboard he had taken his final shilling from the master, slung his sea-bag on his shoulder and made his way here to this island which he had once seen in the sunset, with the little boats running home to harbour, and which he had still dreamed of sometimes, people had whispered: one for the selkies. And he had not questioned this, for it seemed after all no stranger or less than the hundred other strangenesses of the sea.
=
On the island there is a stretch of beach and a sweep of cliff and above in the tall grass on the clifftop a whitewashed house, far enough from the town that the sound does not carry and close enough that the lights show in the night. Before the house on the seaward side the nets hang drying in the stinging wind and on the strand below the cliff a small white boat lies on her side, her mast unstepped now at the close of day.
In the house the kettle boils, and James rises to make himself his tea.
The first year has been hard, but he has not come so far by turning easily from hope. If he has not yarn to mend his sweater or milk for his tea, at least he will not starve: he catches now enough to eat and salt and smoke, enough to trade to the peat-cutters for his fire, enough now and then to sell and buy himself some oats or flour or honey. Last autumn's burst of labour, helped by the lads from town, had seen to the state of his roof; his doors and shutters fill their frames; his sails are in fine order. When winter comes and the little garden stops yielding he will be worse off than he is, but he will go then and walk on the shore and cut kelp among the black-shawled women: and here in this moment, in the long light of evening, he has a cup of real tea and the warmth of the fire, and he is content.
Into this peace comes the characteristic rap on the door, and James exhales--it is not precisely a sigh--through his nose. Contemplates ignoring the sound: wonders what the cost of angering the sea might be, for a fisherman. "Yes," he says, not entirely loud enough, "I'm coming." He doesn't bother trying to sound surprised.
=
The first one had been blonde.
It had been the third day of the storm when she had come to him, and the rain like pebbles flung against the walls. The knock on that day unexpected as it should have been: and when he'd held the lantern out into the darkness the light had caught her not-quite-human eyes a glancing blow. A concerning circumstance, to be sure. But she had been thin and bare and cold, her long hair tangling wet in the circling winds, and she had looked at him with those wide-set blue-grey animal eyes, and he had stepped aside to let her in: the first mistake, perhaps.
Sir, she had said, sitting at his only table wrapped in the blanket from his bed, you have done me a very great kindness. Like something from a folktale. James, who had met his share of djinn and tricksters, had been wary. Still he had put a bit of oatmeal before her, which she looked at with distaste, and a glass of black kelp porter, which she had taken happily: he had not asked her the necessary questions, perhaps out of some premonition of endurances to come. She had done the work herself: Shall I tell you something of myself, she'd said, and when James had left enough of a pause she had continued: my father keeps his hall below the sea. A long and longing look, then, from below her long pale lashes: the freckles across the bridge of her nose. She really had been quite a pretty thing.
In the morning he had gone to the place she had described to him, down among the rocks on the shore, and found there among the broken shells the neat smooth fold of her sealskin where it lay. Had not even unfolded it, merely carried it in a glossy bundle up to the house where she still stood wrapped in blankets, her hair combed out now into smooth wheat-gold waves. He had placed the bundle before her with the slightest bow, and she had put her small hand to it as if surprised. You are. Returning it to me? The oddly put-out look on her face: slight pout of her blush-pink lower lip. "I am," James had said. "Is that not what you had asked? That I should fetch it for you?"
It is, she had said, still with that air of mild frustration. And I thank you for it. She had looked at him then, a raking look from top to toe, and softened perhaps a little. Then she had risen, dropped the blanket on the chair, taken up her magic skin and walked straight out his door without another word.
=
The second had been dark, sparking and sweetly curved. The full swell of her breast and the round shape of her hip had drawn his eye but he had been no more a fool then than the first time: nor, at least, had she expected him to. A summer night, that one, and the heat lying like nectar on everything: and she had pressed her sealskin into his hand and said "take it, at least" as she'd slipped past him into the house: she had not bothered to beg a sheet and he had not offered, watching her inspect his cups--pull down a bottle from his shelf and pour, a few fingers for each of them. A bit more in her own, he'd thought.
"You'll not have me for a wife," she'd said to James, leaning up against his doorframe. "I knew as soon as I saw you."
"I won't," James says, mildly. "I have no need of a wife, here."
"Would you like to fuck anyway," says the selkie.
Not an unappealing prospect, but he'd had no intention of misstepping in his game. He had shaken his head, a smooth slow easy turn. A sigh from the seal-maid.
"Right," she'd said, "Well, I have to stay the night. Otherwise they'll say I haven't tried."
They had drunk their whiskey and played picquet until the sun had come up, and then she too had slipped into the sea.
=
The third had been a young man with dark hair and light eyes whom James had ushered in with alacrity, though there was no one on the path and no one out to sea.
"Hello," the man had said, soft, gentle, "I expect you know the rest." He had been lean and supple and very, very handsome, with a charming habit of pushing his dark hair back from his eyes with a curled hand, and James had thought for a moment of going along with all of it: of seizing the skin, hiding it—on a rafter, perhaps, or down in the forward locker of the little boat—waiting out the years until this lad without a name saw fit to steal away (ah, and there was the ache). A poor choice, to be sure.
"I can't give you a child," James said, to fill the silence, though in practical fact he knew nothing of the sort: magic, after all.
"Oh," said the young man, "no. It's not about that."
A pause: the young man looking around as if considering his future home. Less willing than the girls had been, James thinks, and something in it turns him cold.
When he sees James staring the young man blinks, makes a sort of half gesture: the flush across his breast in the cold makes James swallow. His soft prick which he makes no move to cover.
"It's the house," the young man says, as James says "Would you like a blanket," so that they pause again and look at each other: and the young man nods, and James crosses the few steps to his bed to fetch it. As he wraps it round the lad's shoulders the lad says "the house" again, and then as James goes to pour them a drink.
"One of us has to be here," he says, as he accepts the cup and tilts it to his lip. "Those are the Terms."
The Terms of what, James is not foolish enough to ask. Whatever bargains have been struck he wants no part in them.
"One of you," James says. "But not you, specifically."
The young man smiles at him: a genuine and lovely smile, full of sharp teeth. "I have someone," he says. "A fisherman. In the village." It should not be quite such a blow as it is, but then it has been some time since James has been held.
"I will not keep you from him," James says.
"I must stay the night," says the young man.
But he is gone by the time James wakes, and the blanket folded neatly on the table.
=
"Oh," James says now, at the door. "I had expected someone else."
Someone less clothed, for one: the man before him wears an old pea-jacket buttoned to the throat and plain blue trousers; he is barefoot, but then so many sailors are. Someone younger and leaner and perhaps more inclined to look up at James adoringly through perfect lashes: all these things.
"Did you, indeed," says the man, with something worse than humour. "How disappointing."
Still he does not move from the doorstep, and James wonders for a moment if he has misplaced the man's face, if he is some old shipmate come calling: but then the autumn sunset catches the animal glint in his eye, and James knows as he always does.
"Oh," he says again, stepping back from the doorframe. "Perhaps not."
The man steps inside: casts James a brief glance. "Whiskey," he says.
"Haven't any," says James. The man looks at him again, disgusted: "Haven't the money," James says. "Stout?"
"That will do," says the man, and pulls out a chair at the table.
=
"I expect," says the man, "you're rather tired of this." He swirls his porter in its glass: his fingernails are a little long, with a faint blueish cast.
James looks at him, across the table in the falling light, and wonders. He reminds James of a captain he'd had once, as a young man: nothing in his looks but in his manner, somehow, a kind of worn and guarded honour. An odd choice for a seduction, James thinks, and contemplates it: finds the thought not unappealing.
"You do not want a wife," says the man, "nor a lover." James tilts his head. "And I would make a poor show as either," says the man. His teeth when he smiles are human, not sharp: gapped at the front. "But you need a man to take the tiller while you haul your nets, and a man to dig potatoes while you take your catch to town." He spreads his hands: they are scarred. "I have a few years left in me."
"I can hire a man," James says.
"I am stronger than a man," says the selkie. "And I am faster."
Outside the wind turns round the cottage like a cat stalking a mouse. Across the table the man with the gapped teeth holds James’s gaze for a moment, something fierce and raw in him, and the wind rises, rises: then falls, suddenly, and the lamp flickers and the man shuts his eyes, abruptly, as though in pain.
"Do you know," James says, "Not one of you has ever given me a name."
"Francis," the man says, without further probing.
"Francis." says James. Hopes he has kept some of the absurdity of it out of his voice.
"I was born under a slate roof same as you," Francis says, sharply, though of course James was born in no such place. Smoothly (a sailor after all, James thinks) Francis drinks off his glass: sets it down: looks toward the cupboards on the wall. There is a blue shadow of exhaustion under his eyes, and James wonders—
"What happens to you," James says. "If you don't find someone? Someone to—take you?”
"I found someone," Francis spits at him. His voice loses its bitter edge a moment, softens into sorrow. "Twice."
YOU GOT IT i havent done a lot of fitzier stuff in a while
002 | Send me a ship and I will tell you:
When I started shipping them: i mean its the flagship really - that scene where crozier hits the table and james is like >:T and then just everything after that in general -chefs kiss-
My thoughts: i like the dynamic between them with two conflicting personalities that have several converging points between them such as feelings of inadequacy, jealousy, self esteem issues, a desire to be seen and loved - but i like that they’re dissimilar enough to cause tension and drama and good banter
What makes me happy about them: that by the time they leave the ships they genuinely love and respect each other and it carries on through to the very end of them in the show
What makes me sad about them: DEATH
Things done in fanfic that annoys me: depictions of james where he’s never been with a man irritate me in so many ways like please let’s be honest with ourselves and believable people - also homophobia in fics but that’s just a general thing and not specifically related to fitzier but i do see it in some fitzier fics (not as much as the internalized homophobia narrative with irving but i mean at least there it’s like understandable)
Things I look for in fanfic: tender!! soft!! love!! drama that ends happily!! i just want nice things!!!
My wishlist: honestly with fitzier being the prominent fandom favorite there’s not really any content i’m hurting for :/// i dont mean that in a bad way but like really
Who I’d be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other: crozier with irving or macdonald, fitzjames with goodsir or le vesconte
My happily ever after for them: m...mawwiage... nice house, just in love and together and healthy and healing ;o;
@anadequatesir replied to your post “Can we see your cat?”
What a beautiful cat!! I also have a black and white girl but she's a fluffy one :)
Thank you! Yours sounds lovely!
I learned just the other day that some of the neighbor children have, in our absence, named ours Crow. And there is a little girl on the next block who is quite a fan, too: we never go by that she doesn’t call out, “Hello! I like your cat!”
anadequatesir replied to your post: 002 for Fitzier? :D
Yasss agreed! Do people really write James not having been with a man before? If either of them is going to be inexperienced it’s definitely Francis
francis rawdon moira crozier has been in the navy since he was 12 if u think he’d be inexperienced with men then u dont know anything about the victorian royal british navy
@anadequatesir replied to your post: fic rec: Across the Line
I survived and it was wonderful
Isn’t it just! I’ve re-read this last chapter three or four times now, snuggling down into it like soft knitted blanket. I have other things I need to be doing right now, but I’m looking forward to reading it all in one go, start to finish.
They’ve just put it all up on AO3, too: Across the Line
Hi! Just went to your etsy and didn't see the Fitzjames gender sticker which I'm desperate to get my grubby genderqueer little paws on. Is it sold out? If so how am I supposed to plaster my entire body in it?? Thanks so much! I love your artwork!
Hiii, thank you so much for getting in touch!! He's still very much in stock, and part of the Fitzier sticker listing here! :D I need to update the main thumbnail for them, haven't had a chance yet to take one showing them all off at once, sorry about the confusion 😅
