Open RP

[goingtobeunwell]

[Open post for RP - games, one-off threads, etc.]

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Singillatim - June Event, early in the month

[goingtobeunwell]

The sky turns that telltale green, sickly instead of beautiful like the Aurora, the air grows suffocating and thick, and a persistent feeling doom seems to hang over the town of Milton. Crozier knows it's seeping slowly into his veins, like the lead from the poorly-soldered tins, that chill turning everything around him into ice, including the warmth of the cabin he's turned into a little home.

Normally he can stave it off, rather they can stave it off, keeping all that dread and horror outside their walls together, but as the green sky becomes more and more oppressive it begins to seep into the cabin.

The night the Darkwalker comes that overwhelming sense of terror wakes Crozier up in the middle of the night with a start. He throws off his portion of the blanket and grasps his chest, doubling over as his breath begins to come in quick little panicked pants. He isn't certain if he woke Raju or if the fear has gotten a hold of him too - he's too frightened to do anything but look down at his own lap.

[load_aim_shoot]

He's only ever felt this way at times like this. The feeling isn't his. He'll realise that later. He'll realise, too, that he's going to have nightmares about this, the way that he always does afterward; not about what's coming, but about feeling his mind and body too frozen inside themselves to fight it. He doesn't know that's what he's feeling, now. His limbs are heavy and stiff. A thought finally comes to him: he wants to pull the blanket over his head and lay as still as he can. He finds himself remembering it, being a boy and wanting that on waking up but knowing who was sleeping beside him, vulnerable to it and needing him, and shoving himself up.

There's someone sleeping near him now. Someone with one hand, who hasn't ever trained to fight, who's only just learned, really, how to shoot. Raju knows how to push himself, to shove at stiff limbs until they're forced to move to his orders. But he hadn't been able to do it before in the Hall, knowing that the worst was coming, laying stiff and frozen in that folding bed next to more of the cheap, temporary things full of people he didn't really know. He pushes at his body anyway. He tries. There's someone here, now, who needs him to try.

He notices the blanket sliding down into his lap. He realises that he's sitting up. He's out in the open now. He realises that he's gasping, trying to shove enough air into lungs that are suddenly too small for it, that his chest is pressed smaller, that it hurts, but nothing like that has ever mattered before and this, whatever it is, doesn't matter either. He knows it without knowing it, feels it without acknowledging the sensations at all. Francis is there, doubled over. The fire that had been in the fireplace has gone out and the only light to cover him washes in sickly green over his shoulders and knuckles and bowed head, over his hair, and then Raju is close to him, watching his own hand clutching over Francis', over the hand Francis is holding pressed against his own chest. A moment later Raju feels it happening, notices the feeling when the tips of his fingers had scraped against Francis' chest and his shirt.

He wants his friend to straighten up, or look up so Raju can see his face. Raju's other hand must be on Francis somewhere, he can feel something solid that gives a little under his grip. He opens his mouth to tell him so, tell him to look up, to look at him, and wonders why his voice isn't coming out, and realises that his throat hurts, compressed in on itself the same way his chest is. It's a struggling, strangled noise that comes out. If they were any further apart, it would be too quiet to hear.

[goingtobeunwell]

He’s not proud of startled gasp he lets slip when a warm hand is suddenly grasping his - or in theory would find the moment embarrassing, except absolutely everything is too overwhelming to overthink. The fear is paralyzing, the hold over him only just allowing for desperate breaths and trembling. His head does raise, vision shaky under the green glow, and it’s just enough to hear Raju’s little noise of suppressed agony.

His limbs are lead now, heavy and unwieldy, but the smallest, tiniest part of him wants to twist and grab onto him. It’s such a quiet voice that it has to scream over all the other scraping, grinding noises to be heard, but hear it Crozier does eventually. He breaks from the paralytic hold just long enough to pull his hand away and latch onto that warm body beside his, arms moving tight around his waist and around his back.

He doesn’t have to say anything, they both know. It’s coming, it’s coming again for one of them, maybe more, and they’re powerless to stop it.

But he doesn’t want it to take Raju. Therein lies the source of his fear, that someone he loves will be taken from him (his men, oh god, he hopes they’re safe, he can’t protect them from this-), and Raju is right here and their door seems so, so flimsy now.

[load_aim_shoot]

Francis’ arms are tight and secure around him. He thinks, When it comes, I can fight it and the thought is washed away. He tries again, imagining it coming, and the thought is gone before he finishes it carried in a tide of fear. His arms are around Francis now. His legs aren’t his own, they belong to the feeling that’s stealing everything else, wouldn’t support him for a second even if he tried to make them stand. But he can turn in his friend’s grip and shift his own until he’s facing the door, arms behind his back looking for whatever kind of grip on Francis they can reach.

His bow is too far away from him. The arrows are, too. The bodies it’s already killed hadn’t been fighting back at all. He can feel his body trembling with every gasping breath in and every breath he pushes out. It doesn’t last long, does it? Once it comes, it shows itself right away? Raju can’t remember. It feels like it’s been years already. Francis is behind him. He’ll be ready when it comes. He has to be.

Cont. Sing June Event

[goingtobeunwell]

He can feel Raju’s hand moving places that aren’t his body and huffs slightly, pulling back to inspect what manner of nonsense Raju is getting himself up to now. But he catches the sight of his strong fingers on the buttons of his own shirt, and it sends a shockwave down his spine that settles in the pit of his stomach.

Oh. Oh, oh yes. Oh yes, the quick movement of nimble fingers over his buttons, slowly revealing more and more of that golden skin -

It does something to him. The buttons and his fingers - Christ, he’s obsessed with his hands - and the way Raju moves without consideration, just casually undressing so he can attack more and more of his skin.

He feels a surge of possession over him, and growls in the back of his throat as leans forward again, this time taking teeth to his skin, his lips and tongue to soothe the reddening marks after. “Stop being so damned distracting then.”

[load_aim_shoot]

"I'm sorry, am I the one who..." The motions of Raju's hand stutter to a stop as he lets out a breath, surprised and amused and pleased all at once. He can feel teeth on his neck, and he can feel Francis kissing and licking there after, and the sensations are entirely new. He takes a mostly-still moment to consider what he's feeling. Then his hand moves to tug at his second layer too, fruitlessly; this one would have to be pulled over his head, and the other would need more unbuttoning first, but for a moment at least Raju can hold it out of the way, goosepimpling skin bared to Francis and to the chill air.

"I didn't know we were going to be biting," he says, a little breathlessly. "Do I get to do that next?"

[goingtobeunwell]

To be fair the biting wasn’t planned, but how could he possibly resist that supple neck?

“I didn’t anticipate wanting to leave my mark on you,” he murmurs, sucking a spot onto his skin with a soft, pleased groan. All he could do for so long was look, and now he has a feast laid out before him.

He’s never bedded a man. He never imagined getting the opportunity - he’d only ever wanted James, dear, and that was out of the question. But all those fancies, all the lonely nights on the night when all he had were his thoughts to keep him company, when he let his mind just wander, could never compare to what he has in his lap. “You can do whatever pleases you.”

post-june event town meeting

[load_aim_shoot]

Not guilty. Not guilty. Not guilty. As every verdict is read out Raju’s breathing comes faster and deeper. After one, his jaw clenches. After another, his hands clench into fists. Not guilty. Not guilty. Not guilty.

Not guilty.

Every single one.

What was it he’d said? Why are we pretending to be a community at all if each time one of us has a bad feeling, we're going to allow them these abominations without any consequence? That’s what he’d said. And he’d been assured there was an ideal outcome — labour, enforced rebuilding, something. Something.

The tension’s been building in him since before he’d stepped inside the Hall today. It’s a wonder nothing’s caught on fire yet. The fireplace, a couple times, has acquired a second, oddly flickering, oddly shifting flame behind it, but now—

He’s pacing in front of Francis. He hasn’t thought about tending to himself, too busy watching the battered body of the man beside him now to make sure he really wasn’t about to die, and his nails have grown too long. They dig into his palms. He knows the feeling now, the fire building inside him, even if it sometimes takes him a while to realise that it’s there. He closes his eyes. His breaths don’t lighten at all, but they lengthen. When he opens them up again he sees the people standing up there, the people between him and the accused who are practically handing them the weapons to do all of it again—

Deep breaths. Hard breaths. His mind coats itself in a heavy quiet, everything that wants to fill it heaving at the walls in the same way his chest is heaving for breath. The wall beside him begins to smoke. So does the floor beneath his feet. He turns to Francis, puts a very gentle hand on the uninjured side of his back.

“Come on.” He can’t leave without him. Not even for a moment, with a single member of this useless— “We need to go home.”

[goingtobeunwell]

He was argued down by a child. He thought his point clear, his evidence solid and tangible, his demands for recognition of these heinous crimes (with nothing said of punishment) enough for them to come together. Surely, surely they could recognize what is right and what is just and what should not be forgiven, at least agree on that if nothing else!

But he was argued down by a child. Accused of bringing past grievances to the meeting. Of fueling a false trial, misjustice, wasting time. Christ. He came all this way to town with a punctured lung, only to be told by these people, his so-called community, that he was wasting time with this.

He can't look at Harry Goodsir or John Irving, the men Hickey'd mutilated and stabbed before, his honest-to-god former victims. He's failed them yet again. He came on too strong, didn't argue it correctly, misjudged his audience - maybe all three mistakes, perhaps more.

Alarm bell ringing, no one to listen.

It will happen again, and again, and again, until they're all...

The touch to his back jolts him out of his thoughts of ice and shale. Christ, they're still here. He blinks slowly and holds out his hand for assistance. "Take me around the side so I don't have to speak to anyone. Please."

Cowardly? Yes, but it's apparent to him how little good he can do here.

[load_aim_shoot]

There's no question that he and Francis are of one mind on this. Not speaking to anyone. Francis, likely, isn't as worried about setting someone on fire.

Maybe worried isn't the word.

He takes Francis' forearm, so Francis has the whole sturdy line of it to lean on instead of only a hand. He presses the things inside of him flat and waits, patient, for his friend's broken body to move, and nods to his request, and leads him to where he needs to go.

Raju can still move through this place as familiarly as if he stayed here every day. He used to. It's a stranger thought than ever now, incongruous with the reality behind him, the crowd of people who would have preached forgiveness and blind mercy even if—

A flame flickers beneath his boot, and Raju's mind goes quiet, and the flame dissolves into smoke. Raju opens the door. He leads Francis through it. The snow is bright, and the cold is sharp over his skin. He'd forgotten to wrap the blanket properly over his neck and head. It doesn't matter. He only remembers it.

The more steps they take away from the building and all its flammable wood, the deeper Raju's breathing gets again. The snow begins to melt in a circle around his feet.

"We're farther from the wheelbarrow here." It needs to be said. His hand is careful on Francis' shoulder, steady on his forearm. His voice is flat, so that it won't be anything else. "Do you need me to bring it to you?"

A Mid-June Thread

[goingtobeunwell]

The morning after they'd kissed and been intimate for the first time had felt unreal, like waking up from a very vivid dream. Crozier wouldn't have been sure of it at all if it weren't for a shared smile, knowing and overwhelmingly affectionate, and the little ache in his ribs telling him that it hadn't just been his imagination. It had all been real, the friendly caresses that gradually turned romantic, the shared words of admiration building and building until they finally revealed what each had been struggling with: they loved each other.

While they'd been careful with their...activities, it clearly had been just a little too much for Crozier's body to take. That morning he's able to stand and move, but his stamina quickly ebbs just a few short hours later. The quick walk from the chair to the fire or the table starts to slow, and by the time the evening comes he starts to struggle to hide the wincing or soft grunts that comes from any movement. He doesn't want Rama to see; he doesn't want him to feel responsible. If presented with the choice to be with him he'd make it again in a heartbeat.

[load_aim_shoot]

Raju hasn’t figured out whether anything has changed yet. Not in a clear enough way that he feels like it’s settled, anyway. He feels the same cooking a meal for Francis now as he did yesterday, as he had those few times he had before the terrible end to that long, dark month and what he’d learned about himself after. He feels the same… love, he realises now, it’s love with which he’s doing even something like this. He’d known that, in a way, but he hadn’t known it. Hadn’t been thinking about it as an act of devotion as clear and direct as any fighting that he’s ever done.

He feels the same doing this simple chore for this man as he ever has; the only change is that he’s thinking of Seetha while he does it, wondering if cooking for him had made her feel the same kind of warm, satisfied eagerness that he feels now, the same happiness. But they hadn’t had much time for happiness. Or maybe he hadn’t. And won’t, when he goes back, not even for someone who loves him and counts on him for it, not until his work is done.

Grim thoughts. Or, just… unnecessary ones. He hears Francis behind him and looks that way instead, away from the fireplace and the pan on it, and frowns, realising after he looks that he knows that sound, and shouldn’t be hearing it now. Not from a walk of that length, after as much healing as Francis has had — not enough healing, not yet, but some. He’s gotten better. That trip out to that damn town hall had set him back a bit, but he’d kept healing after.

“Alright?” Raju asks, ignoring the pop of fish in the pan and the smell of it for a moment so he can study him.

[goingtobeunwell]

Hell. He thought he’d been quiet with that one. He’d twisted, or moved too fast, or some other damn thing as he’d been washing up in the water closet, and now he can’t walk without feeling all those still-healing muscles screaming in protest. He’s sore, damn it. He absolutely loathes that he’s feeling this way, a setback brought on by just the slightest of indulgences.

“Mhm,” he answers simply, refusing to say anything more. Rama will blame himself, he’ll feel guilty, he’ll start handling Crozier with kid gloves again - maybe he’ll even regret doing what they did. Crozier can’t abide any of that.

Painfully aware that he’s being watched, he holds his breath as he finishes his walk back to the bench. He’s supposed to be helping with their supper; he’s fairly sure he can continue chopping some herbs for their fish without looking like he’s in agony. Maybe it’s just over-exertion of his muscles, and after some rest tonight he’ll be just fine.

singillagim-adjacent non-canon, splits from july-ish

[load_aim_shoot]

Raju shuts the door behind him, hand pressed to the door as he takes off the helmet, looks at it, frowns at the metal crown on its front. It seems cruel of this place, to make him wear this here and now. He'll need a mirror to check that everything on him is the way he expects, but without looking he knows every piece of this uniform better than he knows the back of his own hand, though he's never worn it before. The hat and the trousers, the same dark green colour, the trousers tucked into heeled boots with high cut brown leather he can feel tight around his calves, up to just below the knee. He knows the brown belt sitting at his hips with its wide silver buckle, with that damned crown. The strap from it, the weight of the pistol at his hip. He knows the red of the jacket, that bright red, and he knows the gold braid dangling from a shoulder and hooked into one of the golden, gleaming buttons. He knows the medals over his chest.

His hand drifts off of the door and touches its fingertips tentatively to his face. Bare again, save for the smartly kept moustache there. His skin might be flushed with the cold; all this cloth would be just this side of too thick at home, but here it lets the cold air through. The cold, at least, is familiar in a way which doesn't feel... strange. It's probably the jacket, the wide belt. Thicker, and fits more tightly than he's used to. That's all.

He hasn't stopped frowning, and he hasn't said hello to Francis yet. It's all too strange for hellos. He's still getting used to it.

[goingtobeunwell]

Isolation works wonders for keeping some of the usual nonsense outside their door, but it also makes it difficult to understand when something usual (outside of the Aurora, which is hard to ignore) is happening in the world around them. This time Crozier doesn't realize anything's amiss, and goes through his usual schedule of chores and some light work outside before returning to the hearth to work on a supper for him and Ram.

He hears the door swing open and Rama step inside, immediately turning around from the pan to greet him. The fish continues to sizzle as he quietly stares and rises to his feet, mouth opening in confusion and a small twinge of something else he can't quite name -- he's wearing...what is he wearing? Why is he wearing that?

His eyes look down at the shining boots that hug his lower legs, the fit trousers, the tight, well-tailored jacket adorned with medals and a smart-looking gold braid slung over his chest. A pistol at his side, the medallions and crown - mirroring in many ways a marine or an officer's dress uniform. It makes him think of the heavy epaulets Jopson used to have to strap to his shoulders before command meetings. The uniform, so out of place and yet clearly familiar to Ram, is so distracting that he almost doesn't notice the shaven beard.

He looks so different, so unlike himself. He can't imagine what a smile would look like on his handsome face, not while wearing that blood-red jacket. He closes his mouth, licking his lips idly as he pulls the pan off the fire and takes a few tentative steps towards him.

Ram looks so handsome in that uniform. So put-together, so controlled, so measured, so unlike the man he's come to love. He has the sudden, surprising urge to hit that chiseled, uniformed man across the face, get that red-coat down onto his knees in front of him and...

Oh.

[load_aim_shoot]

Raju's tentative hand is drifting toward his hair, now. It's a different kind of shock from the rest, to find it neatly swept back and held there. He thinks he keeps himself as neat as he can, here, but there's only so much you can do with scissors, a comb, and wet hair. But it wouldn't do, would it, wearing the rest of this without looking neat. Neat enough to show respect for the uniform. For what it represents.

He takes a slow, bracing breath, gaze finally moving up to Francis as his hand drifts down again. He tucks the hard helmet under his elbow, an automatic gesture, and his gaze slides off Francis' eyes and toward the floor. "I haven't worn this one before," he says quietly, tone bare of anything much. "It's the one I... wanted."

He lifts his arms a little, palms up, studying the sleeves. "It fits." He doesn't know why that seems notable. As if he'd outgrown it, here.

How Crozier Got His Groove Back Cont.

[goingtobeunwell]

He isn't certain just what had fueled this particular fire in Ram, but he won't be complaining. Not as he feels the heat from the kiss start to make other parts of him light up, not as he starts to feel things he hasn't felt in years and years begin to churn within him, not as Ram's possessive hold on his shirt makes him feel so wanted an loved. A youth spent traipsing about the Arctic left little time for romantic ventures; he hadn't known the best years of his life were over until he was reminiscing about Antarctica with a very much engaged James Clark Ross.

He'd hoped that Sophia would see the years still ahead of him, that she'd understand he still had more to give, but he doesn't begrudge her for seeing reality where he only spoke of dreams. He can dream here though, in between back breaking work and freezing nights, he can live a sort of in-between life that had potential of being rich and beautiful despite all the hardships.

He digs his fingers through Ram's hair and pulls back, seeing their breath rise from the space between them. Or maybe it's steam.

[load_aim_shoot]

Raju grins at him, panting out breaths that mist between them in the cold like smoke. The cold that he can't feel just now; he's fulfilling Francis' dream for him just by being here. He thinks it, watching the face that's familiar and strange all at once, feeling Francis' jumper under his hands and the skin under it against the backs of his fingers and then he's leaning forward, kissing along Francis' clean jaw and toward his neck.

[goingtobeunwell]

The heat moves to the line of his jaw, burning a trail right down to his neck. He tilts his head back and sighs, breath puffing out into the air above his head.

“I thought I was to make it up to you.”

[goingtobeunwell]

[Continued from here]

Ram lays him down like a blushing bride on her wedding night, and Crozier laughs softly as he sinks into the mattress. He still feels oddly dainty, and the feeling isn’t helped by the way Ram’s looking down at him, hand hovering suggestively over his shirt like he’s just waiting to tear his clothes off of him. He waits with baited breath…

And continues to wait. And wait. And wait some more.

Rama knows Crozier well, because his vexation rises the longer he’s being teased. He huff and wriggles slightly, deciding he’ll just need to ruin the moment and complain.

No. Better idea.

“Are you not interested in taking my clothes off?”

[load_aim_shoot]

Raju ducks his head over a quiet laugh, raising it again to smile at him. "Oh?" He bends his finger so its tip catches in the gap between one button and another, fingertip brushing skin. Then he leans in, biting his lip over his smile, and kisses at the corner of Francis' eye, and then again at Francis' cheek, an attempt to soften -- though certainly not apologise for -- the teasing. "Is that what you wanted? I though you only said you wanted to go to bed."

[goingtobeunwell]

“And here I thought you were a clever man that could understand innuendo,” he mumbles up into his face, though mostly that well-trimmed beard part that ghosts past his own lips. The kisses don’t soften his mock-annoyance at Ram’s sudden turn at coyness. “If you don’t want me I suppose I could let all that warmth you’re generating go to waste.”

His own hand finds Ram’s hip, fingers digging in suggestively to his firm muscles.

Singillatim, 2025 January event (strings)

[load_aim_shoot]

Raju wakes up certain he's going to see fire somewhere.

Not as common as it was; it'd been a few nights a week when Francis had first asked him to stay here. But he wakes up expecting--

But the only thing his half-turn away from the warmth of Francis' body, half-sitting up, head emerging from under the blanket and arm now thrown outside it finds him is cold air. He frowns, realising it. No fire. So, no nightmare. He'd been dreaming of...

He reaches for it, the memory still fresh and lingering inside his chest somewhere. And reaching he finds Seetha, at home, framed by trees and sky and houses he hasn't seen in...

Well.

Raju shivers, starting to draw his arm under the blanket again, and stops before it makes the journey the rest of the way inside. His hand. His finger, and on it: a darker red than he's used to, as if darkened with age, or as if stained with something. Thick; frayed. Leading to something he hasn't followed it back to in... would it be five years, now?

The memory of the dream, faded but real, tells him there's a slender body in the bed somewhere, certainly nearby, moving to press trusting and asleep against the front of him. The one he feels behind him, soft and sturdy and putting off heat like a coal rolled out from a fire, the way he always does once Raju is close enough to tell, would wake up if Raju moved away. If Francis isn't awake already. The feeling rising up into his chest, thick and sour and heavy, isn't bad enough that Raju needs to go anywhere, and the air is so damned cold here at night, and under the blankets with Francis it's warm...

Raju sits half-sitting up, watching his outstretched hand, and doesn't know what to do with himself. He isn't quite as ill, yet, as it feels after a nightmare. If he stays here he'll have to try and think of something else.

[goingtobeunwell]

He doesn’t wake immediately, body used to having another person in the bed with him now. It had taken some time, but since he’d lost the muscle memory of a lopsided deck or rolling waves underneath his feet there hasn’t been a reason to jump out of bed at any little disturbance.

But he is sensitive to restlessness in his partner, and when Ram sits up it shifts the mattress enough that Crozier’s aware aware of the movement he turns over.

There are so many strings attached to him for one reason or another, but none feels as important as the red string tied around his finger. Crozier feels immediate distress, and also a number of additional emotions too complicate to parse through.

He blinks, feeling like he’s swimming in molasses, and draws his hand over his face.

“Ram?”

[load_aim_shoot]

Raju’s head turns, attention drawn away from his one hand long enough to set his other briefly on the shoulder of the body next to his. “Go back to sleep,” he says, habit, saying the familiar words in the familiarly sleep-roughened voice with the familiar gesture from his dream, but the shoulder under his hand is strong instead of slender, the sound of his name deeper.

Francis won’t do it so easily, will he? He’s got more reason than Seetha, here, to think there’s good reason to wake up when Raju does. “There’s no fire. I’m alright.”

It feels true. There isn’t any fire. The weight churning uneasily in his stomach is familiar, the sour feeling rising from there to his chest and throat a familiar rope inside him, tying a familiar knot. He’s woken up this way plenty of times; it probably doesn’t feel too bad. He lies nearly back but not completely, swallowing and taking deeper, careful breaths. The thread, he catches sight of it again. It’s s stained, frayed, waiting for cleaning and repair that’s refusing to come—

He sits up so quickly that for an instant he’s nearly dizzy with it, socked feet on the floor. He shudders in the sudden chill, without half his usual layers between him and the air. He turns to pull the blanket up around Francis where his movement tugged it away and stops, starting at the two red threads next to one another. The one connected to Francis is short just now, with no distance to cross, and bright, and strong. Raju closes his eyes, pushing the sight of the both of them away from his mind just as he pushes at everything stirred up by it. His breaths only shake a little, strictly measured and deep. A moment. He only needs to take a moment. He’s being ridiculous. He’s making it harder for Francis to sleep.