#fitzwin

(During the voyage of the Beagle, while Darwin was away from the ship exploring the interior of South America.)

I think of you every time the ship pitches, which is every few seconds

Are you dead? No wait you can't be dead I just got a letter from you

Come back and look at these crazy fossils I found! [gives a wildly exaggerated/physically impossible description of these alleged fossils]

Did you get my apology letter?* I promise to get my shit together

"Est avis in navibus Carlos rarissima Darwin" Charles Darwin is the rarest of birds aboard ship

Our friend's wife died but idk why he's sad, surely no one actually wants to be married to a woman

Come back I'll send you a boat I'll send you a boat literally whenever just please come back soon

Remember that guy you stole bones with??**

Here is two paragraphs of the imaginary conversation I'm having with you right now

Haha I didn't mean that I'm actually DRUNK ON TEA

At least you're not THAT far away I GUESS

PS I wish I could be excited about your adventures but I just wish you were here and I'm worried you'll get hurt

Did you know that Darwin wasn't actually working for the Navy, nor was he even the ship's actual naturalist – he was officially Captain FitzRoy's "gentleman companion"? Did you know that he wasn't assigned to sleep in the captain's cabin but he did sometimes anyway? Did you know that before the voyage, FitzRoy received a letter from Darwin that began in a slightly apologetic tone, assumed Darwin was about to say he had a girlfriend, threw the letter in the bin, dug the letter out of the bin, and realised Darwin was actually just asking him to put in a good word for a friend's son who wanted to join the Navy? Did you know that FitzRoy named a mountain after Darwin for his 25th birthday? Did you know that Darwin wrote to his sister that FitzRoy made rooms seem larger and air easier to breathe? Did you know that when Darwin was away from the ship, FitzRoy wrote to him to say (paraphrased) "I think of you every time the ship pitches, please come back ASAP, here's two paragraphs of the imaginary conversation I'm having with you"? And also "est avis in navibus Carlos rarissima Darwin," which means "the rarest of birds in ships is Charles Darwin"? Did you know that FitzRoy called Darwin "Philos," short for "natural philosopher," which they definitely both knew just meant "love" because they'd both studied Greek? Did you know that Darwin got kinda mad about FitzRoy getting married when they returned to England, and didn't attend the wedding?

Haha that's so weird idk what it's all about tho. Anyway:

FitzRoy draws on Darwin’s arm. It’s 1833, and this is the most erotic thing either of them has ever done.

what if we spent every evening together on a tiny ship thousands of miles from home and developed a profound attachment to one another as each other’s only true companions and wrote letters full of tender yearning every time we were apart and supported each other’s scientific minds until we got back to England and it all fell apart and then you used the data from the voyage to uncover some existentially horrifying science facts which drove us even further apart and by the time we learned how to love each other as flawed human beings beyond our mutual youthful hero-worship I was already dead

I’m js what if we kissed on the second voyage of HMS Beagle

not me taking the Oxford comma out of my fic title because it suddenly felt too modern and too American

What if we kissed on the second voyage of HMS Beagle

(I still very much think Darwin and the captain were fucking)