(no subject)
Oct. 21st, 2009 02:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
titusnowl"I may have an excessively morbid turn of mind, angel, but at least I'm cheerful about it." Ponce tried to catch Crusoe's eye in the mirror - propped on his footlocker, which was turned on-end to be a decent height for shaving and arrayed with soap-mug, brush and bowl of hot water - but the Australian was scowling at his feet, bent to readjust one of his puttees.
"I've been up for about fifteen minutes. I'm nowhere near awake enough to deal with you discussing getting yourself shot."
"You don't like it any better if I wait 'til after tea, o best beloved, so I may as well share my ideas when they occur to me." A gesture with the straight razor before returning to the delicate task of trimming around his moustache.
"You may as well not share them." Crusoe put the final twist on his wrapping and stamped his feet down on the ground, twisting to lie down across the cot with his hat on his chest.
"But then my genius will go unrecorded!" Ponce paused in his attentions to his upper lip to turn around with an expression that would have been the very picture of disappointment - wide-eyed, tiny frown - if the effect hadn't been ruined by the lather still spotting his face. "You're supposed to be remembering all these so you can pick the most inappropriate one when my hat gets blown off, you know - "
"If it comes to that, I'll figure something out. Change the subject."
Ponce snapped to attention, sketched a quick half-salute with his razor, clicked his heels, and turned back to his mirror with a chuckle. "Any suggestions for the new discussion, then?"
"Not you getting shot."
"So open-ended!" Ponce clicked his tongue before splashing water on his face, running a hand over his face and a discerning look over his reflection, and wiping the razor clean on a towel; then he stepped across the tent to join Crusoe on the cot, still damp-faced and open-shirted, trouser-braces hanging loose down his legs. "I haven't the foggiest what to do with an opening like that, my dear, as the bishop said to the actress."
"I've been up for about fifteen minutes. I'm nowhere near awake enough to deal with you discussing getting yourself shot."
"You don't like it any better if I wait 'til after tea, o best beloved, so I may as well share my ideas when they occur to me." A gesture with the straight razor before returning to the delicate task of trimming around his moustache.
"You may as well not share them." Crusoe put the final twist on his wrapping and stamped his feet down on the ground, twisting to lie down across the cot with his hat on his chest.
"But then my genius will go unrecorded!" Ponce paused in his attentions to his upper lip to turn around with an expression that would have been the very picture of disappointment - wide-eyed, tiny frown - if the effect hadn't been ruined by the lather still spotting his face. "You're supposed to be remembering all these so you can pick the most inappropriate one when my hat gets blown off, you know - "
"If it comes to that, I'll figure something out. Change the subject."
Ponce snapped to attention, sketched a quick half-salute with his razor, clicked his heels, and turned back to his mirror with a chuckle. "Any suggestions for the new discussion, then?"
"Not you getting shot."
"So open-ended!" Ponce clicked his tongue before splashing water on his face, running a hand over his face and a discerning look over his reflection, and wiping the razor clean on a towel; then he stepped across the tent to join Crusoe on the cot, still damp-faced and open-shirted, trouser-braces hanging loose down his legs. "I haven't the foggiest what to do with an opening like that, my dear, as the bishop said to the actress."
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-10-22 12:34 am (UTC)"Who is it that I hear tapping, as of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door? Come on in and tap no more."
Ponce's voice was cheerful, but if he was up this late there had to be a reason; Crusoe wasn't surprised to see the man bent over more of his hated paperwork, a stack at each elbow and his traveling desk in his lap. Ponce looked up with a smile that turned genuine when he saw who it was for.
"You need to work on blocking the light," Crusoe told him, shutting the tent-flap and reaching for a pillow off the bed to lay against the bottom.
"I need to work on an awful lot of things; man is born into toil and trouble, as the sparks fly upward. Do I have business or pleasure to thank for your company tonight?"
"Just saw your light was on, that's all." Crusoe sat on the cot and slid over, careful to keep his feet away from the piles of paper, so he was behind Ponce and could rest his arms around the other man's shoulders. "What are you working on?"
"Auditing the quartermaster's reports for the past millenium or so. I'm truly starting to think the man's illiterate, and just sort of shaking a pen over the page until some ink lands in the right spots. I had delegated it to Lieutenant Davies, but apparently /he's/ - what would be the functional equivalent of illiteracy for maths? We'll pretend it's innumerable. Davies is innumerable, and he's fallen so far behind that I simply had to take pity on him and step in." He frowned at one of the papers, picked another one up off the floor, cross-checked, made notes in a margin, frowned again before adding wistfully: "Angel mine, it would be terribly unethical of me to remark within earshot of Cuddles that both Davies and Mackay could do with a shovel of dirt to the face, wouldn't it?"