![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
The Terror - Prompt Post 1
This is for prompts for all things AMC's The Terror (2018). Go nuts!
Cast RPF also goes here, shine on you crazy diamonds.
Cast RPF also goes here, shine on you crazy diamonds.
If you've filled (or started filling) a prompt, please make sure to link it in the comments of the Fills Post. And if you would like to cross-post your fills on AO3, here is the collection!
If you have questions or comments please contact us in the comments of the Mod Post.
Just to reiterate from the Mod Post, here are the RULES:
1. Be fucking nice. YKINMATO/KINKTOMATO at all times.
2. This meme is CNTW (Choose Not To Warn) but warnings are highly encouraged.
3. Prompts should use this format in the subject line: [SHIP], [DESCRIPTION]
e.g.
Hickey/Crozier, CNC knifeplay
Solo gen can be prompted as well alongside (a) character name and description
e.g.
Gen, Edward Little, having a nice day
4. Fills should use this format in the subject line: FILL: [TITLE], [PAIRING], [RATING], [ANY WARNINGS]
e.g.
Fill: The Last Hour, Hickey/Tozer, E, cw dubcon
5. One prompt per comment please.
6. Multiple fills for each prompt are welcome!
7. You don't have to be anon for your prompts or your fills but we do encourage it because of the vibe. You're also welcome to deanon your stuff by posting on AO3/Tumblr as you please!
Flat view, first comment: https://coldboys.dreamwidth.org/599.html?style=site&view=flat#comments
Flat view, most recent: https://coldboys.dreamwidth.org/599.html?style=site&view=flat&page=1000#comments
Top Level view, first page: https://coldboys.dreamwidth.org/599.html?style=site&view=top-only#comments
Top Level view, last page: https://coldboys.dreamwidth.org/599.html?style=site&view=top-only&page=1000#comments
Jopson/Crozier, post-rescue poisoning/unwellness
(Anonymous) 2022-10-02 11:06 pm (UTC)(link)Only a handful of men survived the expedition, and the ravages of the Arctic leave Captain Crozier so unwell that his health causes him to withdraw from society at times. Fortunately, he has his loyal steward to care for him.
OR, Crozier returns home with severe a PTSD/survivor's guilt/depression combo and Jopson isn't much better (although he is better at hiding it). Jopson starts to poison Crozier when things start getting too bad for him to handle. Crozier is smart enough to see the pattern but doesn't do anything about it. For Crozier, being physically unwell and allowing himself to be taken care of is the closest he can get to acknowledging a depth of grief and trauma he can hardly acknowledge, if he even feels he has the right to it (after all, he's lucky, he survived). For Jopson, putting himself in a caretaking role is probably both familiar and secure-feeling, but he's probably dealing with some of the same grief/trauma issues as Crozier is.
Oh, and they can fuck about it too.
+one or both of them really do have long-term physical effects from the expedition
+Crozier's "ill health" gives them an excuse to live together
+rescue (or whatever) happened after Fitzjames' and Blanky's canonical deaths, both of which are a huge part of Crozier's guilt
+dealer's choice if either of them had a past relationship where the other person is dead
+I don't know much detail but I do know that physical manifestations of trauma vary a lot depending on time and place, so if you want to throw some of that stuff in, go nuts!
Re: Jopson/Crozier, post-rescue poisoning/unwellness
(Anonymous) 2022-10-03 10:02 am (UTC)(link)In the meantime, hope it's alright to post a rec if you haven't read it (PTSD and physical injury, no poisoning):
https://archiveofourown.org/works/36110038/chapters/90016726
Re: Jopson/Crozier, post-rescue poisoning/unwellness
(Anonymous) 2022-10-03 09:54 pm (UTC)(link)FILL: Unwell, gen, M, post-rescue Jopson poisoning Crozier to keep him in need of care
(Anonymous) 2023-02-24 02:56 am (UTC)(link)1
This illness is unlike others, in that prayers work. Lying ashen-faced in his invalid bed, he can grind out to Jopson, “I do hope I am well enough to see James Ross when he comes up to town on Saturday,” and lo and behold, he will be. He will be upright, perhaps even seated, perhaps even up to a little walk up the street and down again, while James operates his old charm at a certain remove, for he can tell somehow that Francis is another’s now. He even will be well enough to take dinner downstairs, though inevitably he will suffer for it the next day, when another new symptom will present itself: a paralysis that comes and goes, or a new and incapacitating kind of headache, or even hallucinations, to accompany the usual fever, weakness, lassitude, and a foggy mind from which the haze never lifts.
His illness began in digestive trouble. It was as if his body were trying to expel the human matter it has taken in, and doesn’t understand that all of that matter has become attached permanently to his muscles and bones. But over time, the sickness has changed. It seems to be in every system of his body now, coming and going like themes in a symphony. The only constant is that he is ill.
2
He wishes he knew how Jopson is doing it. His mind, although clouded, still retains its essential capacity, and so he knows of course that it’s Jopson. In the early days, there were strange tastes in his food sometimes, tastes that he couldn’t help but notice were correlated with fresh attacks of sickness. But he noticed something else, which was that sickness was correlated with kindness – a kindness for which he could never ask. A cool compress on his brow, a tender massage of his temples, a sponge bath, a draught which takes the pain away and sends him to sleep – he still cries sometimes when he receives them. There was a time when he thought his tears were dried forever, and there was a time, before that, when his eyes were always wet. But that time is not this time. Now things touch him very deeply. He clutches the younger man’s thin wrist in its modish striped shirt, and he cries.
Anyhow, now the strange tastes are gone. The thing is done more subtly than that now, though sometimes he still notices that he is served rich or spicy food unsuitable for an invalid, and the next day will wake up to see colorful squares of light dancing in his vision, or a procession of brightly robed figures, very tiny, in the corner of the room. Or he will only wake up especially foggy or especially sore. But what the medicine or poison is, he doesn’t know, and he certainly isn’t going to have a doctor looking into his private matters.
3
There was a time, of course, when he sought illness on his own terms, rather than having the gift of illness given to him. To be drunk is to be sick, and this, too, has effects on every system of the body. He remembers the piercing headaches, like knives of light in his eyes, and the morning vomiting, the piss in his bed. Killing himself with alcohol was easy, and then it was hard. It was like holding yourself underwater when your body was calling out for air, and toward much the same essential result.
For this reason, he has begun to refuse the calming draught – turned his face away, held his breath. It is never forced on him, though Jopson does tell him, “You’ll upset yourself, sir. There’s no point in suffering when you needn’t.” But there are limits to what he will allow to be done to him, and limits, too, to what he will allow Jopson to do to himself, for he knows what memories he has of laudanum.
With the refusal of the drug has come a lessening of the pain, except on certain special occasions. Anniversaries, for example.
4
He knows that, of the two of them, he has the easier job. His mind is foggy. Jopson’s is clear. He is innocent, technically, of what is happening, and even if he were not, he would be the victim in the eyes of the law. Jopson could hang for this, and must live with that knowledge. Francis does not say “with the fear”; Jopson is an unusually fearless man. But certainly he knows that Francis could send him to the gallows, and it is Francis who has the upper hand, as always. As always, too, it is Jopson who fetches and carries, Jopson who cleans away bile and sweat.
It’s easier for both of them, living this way. His pride does rebel at it, sometimes, for he’d sworn that he would never again be helpless when others needed help, but upon returning to England and facing shame by day and dreams by night, he had simply found that he didn’t have the strength to do it. He could have, he thinks, if he had lived for ever in the Arctic. But home comes with habits, habits of living, and the things he has seen and done in the Arctic – well, the two of them can only bear it this way. He will not allow himself to die by his own hand, so he must live by Jopson’s.
5
Tonight he is very unwell. He has chills, even in August, and the headache trickles icily down the back of his spine. He is so cold that there aren’t enough blankets in the house to help, and his skin is so sensitive with fever that when Jopson tries, he writhes under their weight. Finally he says, “Take me to the fire.”
“Are you certain, sir?”
“Yes. Help me walk, Jopson, there’s a good man.”
“Good, sir?” Jopson’s eyes are hollow; he looks exhausted, and pinched, although he is still handsome – nothing will ever displace that bluish handsomeness of his, that submarine quality.
“Yes.” With a grunt he pushes himself up on his elbows, though he needs Jopson’s help to come to a seated position, and there is fresh shivering as the blankets fall from him. He is so far from shore tonight, so very far from even the sight of shore, that he almost feels James’ embrace. It has been exactly five years since he saw the look in his eyes die away. He is so close to him now – but he mustn’t give in to him. Those soft, wet eyes with their matted lashes –
“That’s it,” he says aloud, and lets Jopson help him up, drapes his arm over his shoulders. He puts all of his weight on him, because he must, and he knows his skin is ferociously warm, because the younger man pauses, closes his eyes, and breathes hard, as if he too will cry. He has anniversaries this month too. Francis knows all the ways that warmth helps.
“I must steady myself another moment,” he tells Jopson, lying. He tightens his grip, and Jopson says in an anguished cry, “I’m sorry, sir.”
“Sorry? Whatever for?”
The note of anguish has shocked him. It’s unlike him, even when Jopson himself seemed to be dying, to lose control so completely. In all this time, he has always remained himself, subtle and cool, as if the temperature of his body is a little lower than average. But tonight, as he stands with Francis’ heat against him, he swallows and says, “Sir, I –”
“I don’t want to hear it.”
“What?”
“Jopson, whatever you are about to confess, I don’t want to hear it. You care well for me, hm? You always have cared well for me. And I’m sorry – that I am such a burden to you.”
“You are a burden I am very happy to bear, sir,” says Jopson softly. “Are you ready?”
“Yes,” he says, not removing his arm from around Jopson’s shoulders. “Yes, let’s walk.”
Re: FILL: Unwell, gen, M, post-rescue Jopson poisoning Crozier to keep him in need of care
(Anonymous) 2023-02-24 04:28 am (UTC)(link)Re: FILL: Unwell, gen, M, post-rescue Jopson poisoning Crozier to keep him in need of care
(Anonymous) 2023-02-24 02:36 pm (UTC)(link)My fucking heart ;_;
Re: FILL: Unwell, gen, M, post-rescue Jopson poisoning Crozier to keep him in need of care
(Anonymous) 2023-02-24 10:27 pm (UTC)(link)Re: FILL: Unwell, gen, M, post-rescue Jopson poisoning Crozier to keep him in need of care
(Anonymous) 2023-02-26 07:46 pm (UTC)(link)