Work Text:
The London fog was as familiar to Archie as his own breath.
His first night aboard the Justinian he'd dreamed of this fog. Lying restless in his hammock, struggling to control an unruly stomach, he'd imagined himself back here -- walking these familiar streets, breathing this damp chilled air -- and drifted to sleep, the fog curled around him like a blanket.
Later -- in a hole in the ground, seemingly a thousand lifetimes removed from that frightened, homesick middy -- he'd hallucinated these streets: felt the air cool and wet around him, reached to brace himself against familiar damp English stone -- only to see it disintegrate before his eyes into yet more Spanish dust.
Now, finally returned, Archie had to laugh at the cruel humour of time. That which once had soothed now felt stifling. The comforting blanket of his dreaming was now a clinging, clammy chill, pressing in on him from all sides. There was no comfort here. While his memory had stayed still he had moved on. To a sailor used to the Atlantic's mists and squalls, the London fog was strange and foreign; the ragged cobblestones strangely treacherous to feet used to the slick wood of a frigate's deck. The London of his memories remained, but the boy of them was gone.
Squaring his shoulders, he quickened his pace; he mustn't keep the examining board waiting.