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What power art thou, who from below
Hast made me rise unwillingly and slow
From beds of everlasting, everlasting snow
See'st thou not how stiff, how stiff and wondrous old
Far unfit to bear the bitter cold
I can scarcely move or draw my breath
I can scarcely move or draw my breath
Let me, let me freeze again
Let me, let me freeze again to death
Let me, let me freeze again to death
Henry Purcell
He and Henry had grown incautious, out on the ice and now on the sliding rocks. They weren't the only ones; there was no God here, no Articles to desecrate. Men clung to each other at night, taking comfort where they could. Hands clutched between two men hauling, leaning against each other while gnawing at hard — too hard for teeth loosened by scurvy — biscuit. A kiss, unafraid of eyes upon them.
"Tell me what's on your mind, love," he asked in that strange Arctic twilight of near-summer, their heads bent together — Captain Crozier was in with Captain Fitzjames, now, and he could do no more tonight.
Henry smiled, pressed his temple more firmly into John's shoulder, sighing as John's arm came up around him. "You'll think me silly."
"Perhaps I already think you silly, for thinking I might object to your humour." It was a poor attempt, and they both knew it, but Henry huffed out a laugh anyways.
"I shall miss this, when we make it back to England." They all said when still, though John doubted any among them believed it now. Not with men dropping like flies. Not with Hickey's mutineers. Not with that great demon of a bear chasing them.
"Sleeping on rocks and hauling sledges? I am certain we can find you something suitably sharp, even in London. Coal, perhaps." Henry's laugh was a little less halfhearted, a little less like he was indulging John in giving it, and John chuckled with him.
"Being so open, I mean. You won't touch me like this in England. You couldn't, not where people might see. It's wicked of me, but…"
John's eyes smarted, and he tipped his chin up to stare into the grey and unending sky lest he should begin to cry again. He would not shed tears for Henry till-
Turning his head, he pressed a kiss to Henry's hair, unheeding the grease that turned his curls limp and sticky. "Not a single sliver of you could I ever think was wicked," he murmured, grateful over all things for the freedoms granted at the ends of the earth. He would not give any amount of peace to be in London if Henry were not there beside him.
"I pray for our rescue," Henry continued, rolling his eyes at John's vehemence, "but I shall miss it, having had it."
If you live, Henry, John vowed, fierce in the privacy of his own heart, and then continued out loud: "I'll kiss you in St James's Park."
That startled a true laugh from Henry, twisting in John's arms to look up into his face. "You wouldn't. God, I don't know if I'd let you," he said, his smile wide enough to break John's heart with bleeding gums.
"I would, and you will. I'll kiss you in front of the Admiralty," if only you will live. He kissed Henry's temple, his cheek, tilted his chin until he could kiss him properly; Henry would not open his mouth into it, kept it chaste so John might not taste the blood. John hated him for it, even as his heart swelled with love for him.
John had cried when his captain collapsed on the rock. He cried for Captain Fitzjames, too frail to keep himself upright, and he cried for his Henry, so close behind. He cried for himself, too, and the loss of a man he considered a friend, and the loss he foresaw in Henry's bruises.
He thought he cried for Captain Crozier, most of all, and the tears he could not shed.
He had the luxury of weeping for his captain, for Henry. No man looked to him for leadership. He had the luxury, too, of touching Henry where men could see, under the open sky. He did not have to maintain his separation from the world the way a captain did, even now.
His Henry still walked, and smiled, and joked with him, and pushed him away for being absurd. He could kiss him on the shale, and under the sky, and — maybe, maybe, if God was merciful — in St James's Park in front of the ducks. He was luckier than he could imagine.