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Cold Boys Kink Meme ([personal profile] coldboys) wrote2026-09-28 01:56 pm
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Polar Explorer RPF - Prompt Post 1

This is for prompts for all things general Polar Explorer RPF.

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!

Under this umbrella you can prompt: 
  • Historical versions of Franklin Expedition(-adjacent) guys (Rossier, Gore/McClure, etc)
  • Madhouse at the End of the Earth/Belgica Expedition
  • Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration - Shackleton, Scott, Amundsen, Mawson
  • Andrée Expedition
  • Karluk Expedition
  • etc

Prompts in line with adaptations of Heroic Age stories can also fit here, for example if you want to specifically prompt Hugh Grant!Cherry from The Last Place On Earth getting wrecked (which someone really should). 

No blorbo too obscure for this post! EXCEPT: NO PEARY ALLOWED. God I hate that guy.



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.
Mertz/Ninnis, sex crying
 
Solo gen can be prompted as well alongside (a) character name and description
e.g.
Gen, Emil Racovitza, discovering a crazy new fish
 
4. Fills should use this format in the subject line: FILL: [TITLE], [PAIRING], [RATING], [ANY WARNINGS]
e.g.
Fill: The Very Next Day, Cherry/Birdie, E, cw self-harm
 
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! 
 
8. Feedback on prompts and fills is AWESOME; please take longer conversations to the discussion post.


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FILL: "Awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed," general spookiness

(Anonymous) 2023-01-16 02:46 am (UTC)(link)

This is my first time ever writing something with ghosts so I hope you enjoy! Inspired by a) reading "Into Thin Air," b) realizing that Jon Krakauer is the editor of the series that most recently printed Huntford's book in the U.S., so they've probably talked at some point? c) some hot goss I heard once that Huntford lives not too far from SPRI, and d) a touch taken from Michelle Paver's novel "Dark Matter" (highly recommend)

Title is from Walter Benjamin's essay on the "angel of history"

It was almost midnight when Roland Huntford settled into his armchair in front of the fireplace in his study with his final cup of tea for the day. Only a few coals still crackled in the grate, casting off a faint red glow, adding little to the single lamp burning in a corner. The old clock on the mantle ticked away the minutes in the still, dark, room. The only other sound to be heard was the slight clattering of the teacup and saucer as he lifted the cup to his lips.

At the age of 95, he did not venture out of his home as much as he used to, but he still had enough to fill his days. Mostly he spent time here, in his study, answering letters and emails, reading new works published under the Modern Library Exploration Series from Penguin (oh yes, he owed Krakauer a response to his email, mustn’t forget to write him back), and giving the occasional quote to a journalist over the phone any time a new book on Antarctica was published. His age was a convenient excuse too, because staying home meant he never had to have an awkward run-in in town with the folks from SPRI, could avoid the searing gazes he’d received from the staff and researchers whenever he’d bumped into them while running an errand or – as he used to do decades ago, when he was feeling especially brazen – attending an evening lecture at the Institute. Well, let them keep their silly prejudices and sentimental attachments. At the end of his life he could hold his head high, knowing he’d always been right. He took a long sip of tea, tipping the cup back to catch the last of the liquid at the bottom of the cup.

As he brought the cup down to place it back on the saucer, he gasped out loud. On the opposite side of the fireplace, in the second armchair, sat a man – no, not a man, a collection of black tendrils in vaguely human form, sitting upright with legs crossed, not fully opaque and not fully articulated. Huntford’s whole body gave a little tremor, and he blinked his eyes, and then...

Nothing.

The chair was empty. Silly old man. It was dark outside, and the lamp was dim. Of course, it was just the light casting shadows across the chair. Stupid that it gave him such a fright. He was only tired, it was time to go to bed. Still, he was careful to turn the light on in the hallway before extinguishing the light in the study, and only then did he make his way up the stairs to his bedroom.

That night he dreamt of a blizzard. The cold bit his face and raced down the back of his neck, worming its way under his clothes and pricking his skin. He heard voices shouting, but the words themselves were drowned out by the howling wind. He tried to open his own mouth, to ask what was going on, but snow rushed in and filled his throat. He tried to cough it up, tried to take a breath...

He sat up with a start. It was early morning, the pale dawn light slipping through the window. There was no blizzard, of course there wasn’t, but the room did feel a bit chilled. He looked down and saw that the sheet and blankets, which had been carefully tucked in the night before when he went to sleep, were now lying in a heap on the floor near the foot of the bed. Strange, that had never happened before. He must have thrashed around during his nightmare, and they’d come undone and he’d kicked them off the bed. No matter. He rose and began to pull out his clothes for the day, taking his warmest wool sweater out of the bureau.

That evening, after washing the dishes and listening to the first episode of a new radio drama, he once again sat down in his armchair with a cup of tea. He settled back against the cushions, and then squinted across the room. The other armchair appeared... closer? Was that possible? It seemed like it had moved several inches closer to the fireplace, closer to the chair he now sat in. But that was impossible, he hadn’t touched it. His mind was still agitated from the events of last night, was all. No matter.

Tonight he had his copy of the newspaper with him, and as he held up the paper and flipped through the pages a familiar place-name caught his eye. He began to skim the article. It seemed that a new museum exhibition about dinosaurs from Antarctica was touring the United States. Since the show included fossils that had been picked up by Scott’s expedition, the organizers had borrowed some gear belonging to the men of the Terra Nova from SPRI to display alongside the prehistoric remnants, and these were apparently proving quite popular with visitors. Huntford snorted. How idiotic. Did the exhibition explain that Scott’s men might have survived if they hadn’t been dragging heavy fossils with them while they were already starving? That that was only one more bad decision on Scott’s part in a long list of bad decisions stretching back to London? He shook his head.

He lowered the newspaper, still grimacing about this unbelievable curatorial decision, and immediately jolted back against the cushions. The black form was back, but this time the form was more sharply defined, and it was definitely a man: a man dressed in a black suit and waistcoat and tie, with an old-fashioned bowler hat resting in his lap. The details of his face were blurry, but Huntford could make out a sharp, beaked nose, a narrow jaw...

He gasped. “Is it... is it you?”

He blinked and the figure was gone without a trace. This time Huntford did not stop to turn off the lamp as he raced upstairs to bed. Sleep did not come for many hours. When he awoke in the morning, feeling irritable and unrested, the bed coverings were once again in a heap on the floor. As he swung his legs over the bed to get up and get dressed, he found that he couldn’t feel his toes. He wiggled them, trying to regain some sensation, then cautiously brought one leg back up on the bed and bent forward to inspect his foot. His toes were pure white, the skin waxy and hard to the touch, a sign of incipient frostbite.

He spent the morning rubbing feeling back into his toes and bandaging them, just in case, but he felt ridiculous the whole time. He adjusted the heating in the house and threw himself into his morning chores and then into his correspondence, trying to keep from letting his mind wander. He emailed Krakauer, setting up a time to talk on the phone the following day at five o’clock in the evening. Huntford was almost one hundred, and he still had most of his faculties, so if strange things happened to his body and his mind every once in a while it was surely just a normal part of growing older. But that didn’t mean he ought to let that same mind keep playing tricks on him, when he still had the self-awareness to realize what was happening to him. He resolved not to let whatever apparition his brain had conjured up spook him into giving up his favorite evening ritual.

That night after dinner, he carried a fresh bundle of logs into the study and dumped them into the fireplace, determined to build up a roaring fire and enjoy it for as long as possible. After he lit the fire, studiously avoiding letting his eyes wander anywhere else, he rose and brushed the ash and wood splinters off of his trousers. He then forced himself to turn and look at the second armchair.

He was not imagining things. The chair had moved again, a few more inches this time, and now it was even closer to his regular chair, sitting just at the opposite edge of the fireplace. He went over to it, made himself touch the seat cushion and the pillows, but no, there was nothing amiss with it. Just a piece of furniture that seemed to move on its own. Other than that, nothing else in the room was out of place. He huffed and went to go put the kettle on.

With the fire blazing and the hot tea scalding his mouth, Huntford felt newly emboldened. He felt absurd for letting himself get carried away like this. It was just his mind processing the subject he’d been so long immersed in. Of course the figures he’d written about would be rattling around in his brain, even now – how could they not be, after all of the time he’d spent with them? They were a part of him. They lived in his head. He knew them... He yawned. He must have slept worse than he’d thought, he was feeling drowsy even with a full cup of tea in him. Oh well, it was important to rest, and there was no problem in dozing in his chair. This was his house after all.

He didn’t know what time it was when he awoke. The fire had burned down to almost nothing and the clock on the mantle could be heard but its face couldn’t be discerned in the darkness. But him...

Huntford could see him clearly. He was sharply defined now, as sharply defined as a living man, sitting even closer to him, barely a single long pace away. He sat calmly, his hands resting on the hat in his lap, eyeing Huntford blankly.

Huntford jolted upright. “It is you! Roald Amundsen, as I live and breathe. It is such a honor.” The words came tumbling out. Why was this apparition here? Had he come to thank Huntford? Was he speaking to him from the afterlife, appearing to express his gratitude that Huntford had repaired his reputation and told the whole world what a hero he really was?

The Amundsen in the chair said nothing. Instead he cocked his head at Huntford slowly, as if deciding what to say. Huntford still expected some sign of praise, some words of thanks to come out of his mouth. But as he watched with horror, Roald’s mouth began to dissolve into the air, like sand blowing away in the wind, until there was only a terrible blankness on the lower part of his face. The figure blinked once and his eyes, before cold and impassive, were now two black holes, inky and bottomless. Huntford screamed as he dropped the teacup, porcelain shattering across the floor like a gust of fine powdery snow.

He didn’t know how he’d make it to his five o’clock call. He’d been on edge ever since he thought he’d seen the phantom the night before. Huntford had taken several sedative pills and had finally fallen into a deep, dreamless sleep, curled up on top of his bed coverings. The medication had worked as described and he slept for almost thirteen hours, waking groggy and cotton-mouthed and feeling annoyed that the morning was already gone and his daily routine was off.

He went out to a pub in a part of town far from SPRI and had a gigantic lunch and a pint, and then did some grocery shopping. He stopped by the post office to buy some stamps and walked along the river for an hour to stretch his legs. At last he couldn’t put off going home any longer or he was going to miss his call, and so he finally turned back towards his house.

Once at home, he put away his purchases in the kitchen, made another cup of tea, and considered taking the call at his kitchen table. He did have some papers he needed to review during the conversation, and the table would be a good place to spread them out. But he decided that since he always worked in his study, he would not change his habits now. Besides, it seemed appropriate given the question he wanted to pose to Krakauer.

“Roland, how are you?” Jon Krakauer’s upbeat voice boomed across the phone. Roland took a deep breath and answered that he was well. They fell into their usual rhythm, exchanging small talk and catching up on life events before getting down to work. It was nine in the morning in Washington state, where Krakauer lived, and as he described the beautiful clear morning sky and distant mountains he could see out of his window to Roland, the older man began to relax. Then the conversation turned to the new printing of Last Place on Earth. As the book was part of the Modern Library Exploration Series, and Jon was the series editor, he wanted to check if Roland had any updates he wanted to include, or if he wanted to write a new forward. Huntford reviewed the notes spread out across his lap, and more than an hour had passed by the time they covered everything.

“Well, it’s always great to talk to you, but unfortunately I need to get going soon. Was there anything else, Roland?”

Huntford steeled himself. It was an odd question, but he thought if anyone might be able to take it seriously, it was this fellow journalist and writer who known something akin to Huntford’s experience.

“Yes, I do in fact,” he replied. “I know this is strange but... Jon, do you believe in ghosts?”

“I don’t think there’s a person out there who does what we do who doesn’t believe in ghosts,” came the reply over the phone with a bit of a chuckle. “I mean, the things we’ve seen, the conversations we’ve had, the people we’ve dug out of the archive and put on the page – I don’t know how it doesn’t haunt you. The people I knew on Everest, the ones who died...” he trailed off... “It’s been more than twenty-five years and I still feel their presence everywhere. And to know that there are people out there, both survivors and the loved ones of the dead, who were hurt by my book, when I thought I was being as accurate and respectful as possible...” He trailed off again. “Well, I think about that every day. It follows me around everywhere. I know you know something about that yourself, Roland.”

“Mmm, yes.” Roland nodded. He gazed down at the papers on his lap. He almost didn’t want to press the point, especially since he’d dredged up the subject of the 1996 Everest season, and he knew how painful that was for Jon. But he had him on the phone, and he had to ask. “But actually, Jon, I meant... well, what I meant to say was, do you believe in ghosts? Like real ghosts?”

“Hmmm... well...” came the cautious reply. “I don’t know. But I do know this. I’ve talked to enough climbers who claim to have seen ghosts of their lost comrades to think that there just might be something to it. I mean, the rational part of my brain thinks it’s just a psychological coping mechanism, you know? But there are things in this world that can’t be easily explained. I mean, even Shackleton claimed that there was an extra man with him on the trek over South Georgia, right? Right, Roland? Roland? Are you there?”

Krakauer’s voice kept coming over the line, but Roland couldn’t hear him. He’d felt a draft in the room, and as he lifted his eyes from his papers he saw him again. Roald Amundsen was sitting stiffly in his second armchair, now less than three feet away from him. But this time, he wasn’t alone. A second man – Scott, it had to be – stood next to the chair, one hand settled on the armrest. Both spirits dressed in somber black suits, both with horrific faces with no mouths and only inky black holes where their eyes should be, black holes that seemed to absorb all of the light around them. Roland’s hand moved of its own accord to pull the phone away from his ear, and then in a sudden rush two spectral hands, arms longer than any human’s, were reaching out towards him in unison...

From almost five thousand miles away, with his phone set to speaker mode resting on his desk, the American journalist heard what sounded like Roland Huntford’s mobile dropping to the floor, and then nothing but a series of blood-chilling screams.

Re: FILL: "Awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed," general spookiness

(Anonymous) 2023-01-16 05:23 am (UTC)(link)
Hey Anon, this was perfect! Love to see Amundsen and Scott teaming up in the afterlife to give Huntford what he deserves!
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