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.

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.

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.

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.

He mistakes the twisting for pulling away entirely, tries to latch on a little tighter to prevent him from leaving, only to realize he’s just trying to face the door.

Face it down. That’s what Raju intends to do, it’s so plain to him now in his body language, the movement, the defiant yet frightened watch over their door. Crozier refuses to think of that thing bursting through the door and annihilating his friend first, but that’s exactly what will happen. Raju will be devoured first, then himself, their corpses found just like this, frozen in fear for all eternity.

It’s cowardly to hide behind someone, not a noble death at all, but what choice does he have now? He can barely move for the terror, and the only bit of strength he does muster is to drop his head into the nape of Raju’s neck. The trembling is even more obvious that way; he’ll hate himself for this later, but for now all he can do is stay stuck like a terrified statue, clinging to a younger man who fought through to be defiant to the end.

There’s a weight against the back of his neck, a spot of warmth in all the cold; Francis’ face, his breath against Raju’s skin. It firms up something at the core of Raju, something that’d started shaking lose with all his trembling. The trembling doesn’t stop, but Raju feels just a little more anchored underneath it.

He needs that anchor, a moment later. A howl cuts through the night, a sound that moves through the mind as much as it does the ears, a noise no mortal throat could make. Then a long, low groan. Not here, not here yet, but somewhere. The thought of fighting, weak as it was, looses its footing and washes away for good in the sound.

I’m going to die, the fear tells him. And the good man who’s counting on me afterward, when I fail. All that fighting for all those years is coming to nothing after all, second chance in this place or not. Everyone who matters is going to die in front of me. It’s going to happen again.

He knows how it’s going to look when it happens, the way Francis face will be when it hits the dirt, everything that used to light the blue eyes empty. He knows it. The breaths that he’s shoving out through his tight throat are starting to sound more like sobs. But Raju stays the way he is, fingers pulling at the fabric of Francis’ shirt when his fists tighten, arms tightening their protective cage around the man behind him in a shield for as long as he can be one. He feels breath precious and alive on the back of his neck and the empty air at the front of him, feels the yawning gap of nothing between himself and the door, and feels his body, feels all of him held with everything sharp and coiled inside him as if he really could fight the thing anyway. He doesn’t know how to do anything else.

He expects to hear soft huffs as the Darkwalker moves unencumbered by the forest, grunts and sniffs as though it were some sort of beast and not a thing that has the capacity to taunt them. He knows the tuunbaq, a thing that thinks like a human but acts like an animal, a protector of the land through vicious and terrifying means, but the Darkwalker is a devourer, a taker, and nothing else. It torments and destroys and eats, and Crozier can feel hate without purpose, fear for pleasure, anger without reason.

His arms creep around to Raju’s front, hand and what’s left of his left wrist splayed out to cover as much of his heart as possible. The Darkwalker’s footsteps seem to fade instead of growing loud in its approach, but Crozier keeps his hold - if he lets go then it might turn around, stalk its way back towards their little cabin instead of pursue another person. And it’s an awful, selfish thought, to let someone else bear the brunt of this, but he’s desperate not to lose again.

He shudders and holds his breath, waiting for that final shriek when the Darkwalker finally finds its prey. There’s silence, terrible silence, and then the scream comes. Crozier lets out a quiet sob.

The arms over Raju’s chest, the hand over his heart, almost make it worse; Francis trying to care for him still, as well as he can, and Raju can’t even see his face. If he turns to look at Francis now, he doesn’t know whether he’d have the strength to face this thing head on again. His friend is putting the one hand that he has left over Raju’s heart, and the next time Raju sees his face, if he lives to see it at all, it’s going to be slack and still and empty.

The sobbing noises of Raju’s exhales are rougher, should be loud in his ears but seem drowned out by the howling, the moaning that seems to reach out from the deep centre of the world, the footsteps…

…the footsteps that are growing distant now. Or maybe only quieter; he needs to breathe but he still can’t breathe, his chest hurts and the tips of his fingers are tingling, wound so tightly in Francis’ clothes. His head lolls dizzily with every heaving movement of his chest and the edges of the room are going dark, some black film creeping in between his vision and what little sickly light there is.

But he hears an indescribable noise, distant but somehow intense enough that he can almost feel it, and laughter…

Francis sobs behind him. Raju can’t connect the noise to anything; he can’t think why Francis is doing it, and any curiosity about it is distant.Everything is distant but the fear.

A moment later, an eternity later, Raju realises: the certain knowledge that he is about to die — the deep down certainty that it’s going to happen again, Francis’ face slack, body laying still on the floor in front of him — has drifted away while he wasn’t looking at it.

It’s over. The fear is draining away, its current only deep and strong instead of paralysing, and the thing killed someone else.

There isn’t room for anything but dim relief. The vice around his lungs has gone but their rhythm is irregular now, all stuttering stops and starts, and he doesn’t know how long it’s going to take him to force them into working order.

It’s gone. It’s gone. Fear lingers only like rivulets running through mud after a hard rain, but the light, the sky—

He only knows the fear is gone. The noises are gone. One hand reaches quick and desperate up to Francis’ hand and clutches at it, wraps itself tightly. And they’re alive. Raju looks over to a window, past the darkness at the edges of his view to the green light oozing dimly through it, and tries to breathe, and focuses on the feeling of Francis’ hand.

Crozier chokes back another sob as he listens to the gnashing teeth and wide maw snapping shut, paying witness to the indescribable horror of one of their own being eaten alive. The laughter follows, a mocking, disgusting thing, the fear ebbing, but the horror and slow onset of sorrow remaining.

He waits for the footsteps to return, head lifting to listen for the telltale sounds of the Darkwalker seeking its next victim. One hadn’t been enough the last time, its hunger almost insatiable with the amount of their number it had massacred. He listens for those signs they’re being stalked again, willing his heart to slow, knuckles turning white from the intensity of his grip. He can barely breathe for the stillness, but one moment drifts into the next and then again into the next.

It’s moved on. The sky is still green, but the world no longer seems to yield entirely to its influence. The fear is still fresh and raw, but he can feel that in a moment it’ll move back into an afterthought - lingering as much as the gnawing of hunger or thirst or cold might in their minds and bodies.

But oh, someone’s died. Someone’s gone, and it could be absolutely anyone. The Darkwalker had seemed to head towards the lake - Harry and Thomas are out there, the young girl, Ruby, Wynonna, possibly Edward too. He pulls his left arm back to dab at his eyes, working through the catastrophic loss that they now might face. He doesn’t let go of Raju though, needing him right where he is, wanting that reminder that he’s made it through and this isn’t some hallucination.

One arm moves away from him and Raju shifts to follow it, a part of him marvelling dimly at something like this happening without much conscious thought at all, at movement without having to push everything he has into forcing himself out of cowering. He tries to breathe and watches Francis touching his arm to his face, and looks at his face, the first time seeing it living after knowing he was never going to look on it again.

He notices his own tears only when one journeys far enough down through his beard to tickle at the corner of his lips and for an instant the old instinct tries to stir to stop it, find any way to hide it that he can — but the barracks and everything in them seem very long ago, and very far away, and it doesn't matter if he's caught at it now. What matters is Francis' hand, which he's let go of to turn and now clutches at again, and his other hand sets itself over Francis' chest so he can try to follow his friend's breathing. The door is at his back. It doesn't matter that the door is at his back. The deep down knowledge that he's about to die is gone, and he can see Francis' face.

"You're... still alive," he manages around his breathing, and makes a noise that starts life convinced it's going to be a laugh, and then isn't.

Relief and pain tangled up together, that's Raju's not-laugh, agony and fright that had been tamped down like gunpower in his chest suddenly exploding from a lit match. He shares the sentiment, feels it viscerally, though he can't make his tongue and teeth form those exact words. He settles for nodding very slowly; yes, he's still alive, and so is Raju, they've somehow survived again.

But Raju had thrown himself in front of him, faced down the door with the intent of...

Now that control is being returned to them, he lingers on the thought. His intent was to spare him? Save him? Be the first to die? This man, this friend, this dear, dear friend, had been mired in the same terror as him, but he'd still managed to act selflessly. It's remarkable.

Fresh tears threaten to spill onto his cheeks as his hand snakes away from his friend's. It finds the streaks left behind on his cheeks, tracing down from cheekbone to moustache before dropping to pull him into an embrace, chest against chest.

"You..." Ah, there's his voice. It's watery and rough, but at least it's back. He wants very much to tease him for throwing himself into harm's way or make some sort of joke about being horrendously outmatched by the Darkwalker, but sincerity wins out, especially when he feels his chest rise and fall against his. "You're still alive. I was convinced...it felt like the end of things. And you put yourself between me and the door."

Raju nods, quick and fervent, turning his face against Francis’ hair as the hand that isn’t pressed between them wraps tightly around Francis’ back. He can’t see Francis anymore this way but he can feel the solid reality of his body, his motion and warmth, the movement of his chest with his breath. He can’t tell whether he’s still crying and it’s a strange kind of freedom that he can afford not to care. His friend doesn’t need him to put it away and reassure, or to hold him up any more than Francis is holding Raju, or to be anything right now but alive and here.

“You have… to be close enough,” he manages. “Next time. So I can do it again. I don’t have to just… just watch. I can— I can do something.”

“Oh,” he murmurs, just as stricken to hear him admit it out loud. Only Raju would try to fight down a supernatural being for a friend. Others may try, but he would do.

They would have still died and died together though. Crozier inhales, a sputtering breath from an overworked pair of lungs, and brings his hand to the back of Raju’s neck.

“You’d try.” That’s all that would matter. “I wasn’t ready. I…I wasn’t ready to bid farewell to all of this.”

He wasn’t ready to say goodbye to Raju, who still has so much life left in him.

Raju nods again, even though ready isn’t exactly the right word, for him. After a certain point some part of him has always expected everything to end in that way, very suddenly and without any warning at all. Like that night, long ago now, the man — brave, Raju can afford to think it now, noble and brave — and the snake, and sinking down to sit with all the fight already draining out of him.

He doesn’t know why he’s thinking of it now, with his friend warm and real against him, watery voice rough, accent curling earnestly into his ear. The way Raju had felt then couldn’t have been more different. Raju hadn’t been surprised either this time or that one, but he had been ready for it, then.

His mind is quiet for a moment. Francis’ hair brushes against Raju’s cheek and then away from it as he breathes. It’s tickling against his cheek a little more regularly now, almost rhythmically. He feels Francis’ chest moving against Raju’s own with their breath, and the space between his ribs doesn’t hurt so much. A thought quietly filters in.

“You want to stay.” Raju’s voice is rough— his throat isn’t tight the way it was but it hurts a little, still — but it’s strong, happy with realization, proud. He pulls back just far enough to smile into Francis’ face. He isn’t certain how to explain, for a moment. He tries to. “I wanted you to stay, when Hickey— remember? And you aren’t ready to go.”

That’s what he said, he wants to stay —

Ah. That’s right. He’d been so willing to give up and just let the violent end come for him. Raju was so cross with him that night - a sharp contrast to the brilliant smile on his face now.

He wants to live. Yes, he suppose he does. It seems even more than a ‘want’ at this point, but a deep desire to keep this life just as it is, waking up to this very face every single morning.

Crozier pulls back just a little more, hand slipping down to cup Raju’s elbow. “I’m not,” he says again. “There’s still some life in me yet.”

Thanks to him.

Despite the heavy dread still lingering in the ait and the anxiety of not knowing who they’d just lost, he feels some of the warmth slowly begin to return back into his limbs. “…it was in Lakeside, wasn’t it?”

I'm not. There's still some life in me yet.

Raju's expression softens, if it can be called softening when there's still that thrill to it, that pleasure. It doesn't seem strange, to feel this way after being as frightened as he's ever been in his life; there's momentum in the pendulum still, and Francis wants to live, and so it's swinging back. It isn't a metaphor that really works, he hurts, he wonders if he's going to spend the next few days sore from nothing again. But he can breathe, and Francis is close and alive and touching him and wants to live. The hand that'd been between them had slid downward when Francis had pulled further back and it straightens its fingers and presses gently against Francis' stomach there, wanting to touch, not interested in very much distance just yet.

Raju's expression fades a little behind a thoughtful, distant look when Francis goes on. He's been out that way once, has a sense of where it sits in relation to where they are now, and he's confident that sense is accurate. It's the memory of that thing's noises that are more difficult to go over. Determination settles over Raju's face as his gaze goes distant. He can remember it however he wants; the thing isn't pumping fear into his mind now.

"I wouldn't be surprised," he decides, and studies Francis' face. That sobbing noise that he'd heard from behind him is making sense now, now that he can look back on it without terror crowding out all the space he needs to actually think. Francis cares. Cares enough to mourn whoever it was, even then, feeling the way they had. "Do you want to go that way? It'll be tricky in this dark, but you won't have to wait so long to find out what's happened."

There's a need and a want at play. He needs to know what happened to the Darkwalker's victim in Lakeside, but he wants to stay in the hunting cabin and not brave the cold just yet. As difficult as it is to weigh pros and cons in this moment, and logic ultimately wins out and he manages a shake of the head.

"No, it wouldn't be wise to leave right now." It's too dark to travel, the world too still.

He knows he won't be able to sleep again though.The Darkwalker's laugh is in his head and the world feels wrong; not quite upside down, but crooked in a way that seems unmendable. Someone's died tonight. Someone could die tomorrow too.

His eyes fall on Raju's hand just idly touching. He's glad he's here, even if he isn't necessarily happy that this delightful person is also fodder for some wretched beast. "If the sun comes up then we'll go," he adds, thumb rubbing the gathered fabric at Raju's elbow. "And if it doesn't, we'll gather what we can and head out together."

Raju nods. Something is pressing on him too heavily just yet to let this out by moving, tapping his fingers, jittering his feet. The weight of what’s happened.
He wants to stand and pace and do push ups, pull ups, work all of this out of him until he can sit still without it pushing at him, rest a little. He wants to stay here and keep touching Francis so he remembers his friend is alive.

He stays where he is, takes a slow breath — he can do that now — lets it out, feels his back under the one hand and as he speaks watches Francis’ front under the other. For all it feels easy to assume he’s familiar with all of Francis by now, he doesn’t usually touch him here, in this way, just settled like this. It feels better to think about than what he’s actually saying. But Francis should know. “The last time this happened, I— when it came to the church. That was when I left the Community Hall. Because I had a nightmare about it, and— well. There’s going to be more, I think. A little more often. For a time.”

Raju’s frowning, watching his hand curl, its thumb moving back and forth. The fit of the seal skin is than any other material, and the feel of it is smooth. He tries to keep his focus on it. It’s almost like he can feel Francis’ skin underneath his, this way. Francis hasn’t complained about that fire and panic in the mornings yet, or shown even a hint of impatience or real frustration about the times he’s woken up that way. Somehow, he hasn’t. Raju doesn’t understand it. But he still deserves the warning, particularly if they’re going to be travelling. It might effect where they can sleep, if nothing else.

His head dips down. It seems strange that there was a point in time when Raju wasn't living here with him. He recognizes that isn't the point of what he's trying to say, but it still strikes him all the same, as though it's unnatural for Raju to be anywhere else.

His brow furrows and he wets his lips, pondering their predicament. He isn't aware of Raju's touch; at least no more than usual at this point. "We'll prepare," he decides. "Our cabin as well as where we choose to sleep." If nightmares after an attack are a pattern, as is loss of control, then they can mitigate the damage done.

A fleeting image flashes through his mind: comforting a distraught Raju, holding him through the night to calm the nightmares, but as quickly as it'd come it disappears. He'll be charred to a crisp if he attempted that.

Hell, he'd be charred to a crisp if he attempted any other form of comfort, he's damn well sure of that.

Raju nods. If Raju's lack of control has to be a burden on them that way at least the person with him is Francis, who he can trust to bear the weight. If his friend is anything, he's prepared, and this is no different. He shouldn't have to be, not for this, but Raju's still a better choice to go with him for this particular journey than most anyone else would be. And he wants it to be him who sees Francis to Lakeside safely.

He sighs, then looks up from his hands at a window. "How many hours, do you think? Until the sun should rise?" No matter how much practice he's had being stuck inside, he never likes it. He'll start pacing soon, or do his best to train, find some excuse to move. They've been stuck inside here through blizzards before, he knows that Francis knows that's why he asks. It might help to know how long he's got. He should make a fire, too, as soon as it stops feeling so important to keep Francis where he knows he's here. Now that the terror and everything behind it is draining away, he's starting to notice how cold it is. His shoulders hunch and he slumps a little, leaning in toward Francis and his body heat. Odd to realise he'd forgotten the one thing he never can in this place, but only after the fact.

It's hard to tell with that sickly green miasma still hanging in the air. Crozier squints and reluctantly pulls himself away from Raju to tentatively looking out the window, hoping to see the moons or stars or something beyond the clouds. There really isn't much to see, and he can't help but scowl, slightly vexed but mostly anxious. There's so much outside of their control right now.

"I'd say four or five." It's a guess; he can't tell by his usual methods. But he knows Raju, and that's far too long to expect him to putter around and wait for action. "We'll wait for three."

And in the meantime he can keep Raju busy. They'll build the fire and cook a little, gather their supplies for the journey, eat and drink and bathe and then dress to head out into the cold air.

So they build up the fire, they prepare. The hours pass, and the sky stays its dim, foreboding green. In as many layers as he can still move in, with his bow slung at his side and arrows alongside the blanket and food slung across his back, Raju starts the walk up to the mines. They’ve made the walk together to Lakeside and back once before, and Raju remembers how often Francis tends to need to take breaks, though there’s a little more urgency now. The way through the mines goes well; down there it’s expected that it’s going to be dark, and the little fires inside makeshift torches reflect off the smaller space, off the ceiling and the walls, and light their way.

It’s just as well the torches stay in the mine where they’re useful, Raju thinks, looking down into the ravine he knows is below him. They wouldn’t do any good here.

He looks over the bridge. He knows the railway is there, but mostly because he’s been this way recently enough to remember what it looks like.

He looks back at Francis. “Someone fell here the first time they tried to cross,” he says. “And that was in the daylight. I think. But if the sun hasn’t come up by now, it isn’t going to.”

Ah. Fantastic. He remembers how treacherous this ravine was the first and second time around, and that was without the green haze that’s now continuously hovering above them.

Crozier pauses to set down his pack. He’s traveling lighter now, just in the inner seal tunic and trousers, the parka too warm now even if the thaw hasn’t yet come. His boots feel too heavy still though, the tunic a bit too much. Come summer proper he’ll likely be wanting his shirtsleeves again.

He sighs. They’ve been keeping a good pace, though he knows Raju’s slowing himself up for his sake. He wants to keep going while he still has the stamina; he’s ready, willing, and able.

“What’s our plan?” he ponders aloud, looking about as though another path might materialize.

For a moment Raju doesn't answer, frowning out at everything that he can't see. There are sturdy ways to cross that bridge, when they can be seen. And the ravine is very deep.

It was hours ago now when whoever it was had died but he remembers Francis behind him, the noises he'd made. He knows at least one of Francis' men is down in Lakeside, the men he keeps himself so isolated from, the men he worries over, the men whose deaths he carries such terrible guilt for, the responsibility of it heavy enough over his shoulders that Francis isn't always sure he's strong enough to keep his feet under the weight. The men who need him.

Raju's fingers curl into fists. The mittens keep his fingernails from cutting into his palms the way that he needs them to. He pushes a heavy breath out of his nose. He realises, dimly, that his jaw is tense, his teeth are clenched together. He holds himself that way, and he is still.

Francis needs light. He's going to need a lot of light.

"We should have something like a torch." He says it without looking around. His voice is solid and businesslike, a voice more used to giving orders than chatting, or laughing, or thinking very much beyond the things that it needs to. "Something that can carry a flame without burning up. A... bucket? Something metal? Wood won't do."

Should have. They have matches, kindling. There are branches they could fasten into something useable. They're more than able to cobble together something workable. If Raju was wanting something like a lantern though -

"We have some cans for melt water. Will that do?"

A torch would give off a fair amount of light, enough to at least see their feet. It wouldn't be the safest method, but there's not enough they can do otherwise. They have to get across the ravine. He needs to know, he just needs to know.

Cans. Not nearly large enough. Not for what he's thinking. And no handle, he'll have to either burn his hand holding it, if it burns as hot as he means it to, or risk damaging one of the mittens that he's been so careful to keep in good condition all this time.

It's his own fault. He should have anticipated needing to do this. But he hadn't wanted to. Hasn't wanted to practice it at all. And so he hadn't thought he'd need to. Hadn't thought Francis would need him to. He hadn't wanted to think it.

"It'll have to," he says in a flat voice, then turns and looks around for Francis' pack, moves with quick, efficient movements to find a can inside it and straightens up. He looks down into it. In the sick green light, the hollow inside looks as deep and dark as everything else. He wants to tap his fingers, his feet. He sets the can down and takes the mittens off him instead, puts them in the pockets of the blanket, takes that off and the parka beneath it. He holds the parka out to Francis, frowning and impatient and unwilling to get the precious thing dirty by putting it onto the ground.

"You'll have to stay back," he says, already starting to shiver. It isn't dangerous to be cold right now, he thinks, or Francis wouldn't have offered this to Raju instead of wearing it himself. It only feels terrible. And it'll be easier this way than it would warm and comfortable, the way he can very nearly be with what he's forced to call warmer temperatures and Francis' fine, odd coat on top of that as one of all of Raju's layers. He won't take something so valuable of Francis' only to risk burning it by keeping it on crossing that bridge. And it would be harder to do what he needs to, feeling like that. "But it'll burn bright enough to keep you safe. I have to make sure it... stays in the right place."

Crozier takes the parka with barely-concealed confusion painted on his face. Surely Raju isn't going to attempt when he thinks he's going to attempt. Surely he's not going to try to call on the flames that he works so diligently to keep in check. Surely he's not going to try to manipulate something he actively fears?

But of course he is. Raju knows how desperately he wants to get to Lakeside, how quickly he'd moved overland compared to his usual sort of careful plodding. Raju has been supportive the moment he'd said he was going; like hell is a treacherous crossing going to stop them.

But even still - "You don't have to do this."

He frowns, shifting the heavy parka over his shoulder. "We can make a couple of torches and move slowly. You don't have to attempt this."

Raju frowns at him, troubled. And tempted. That in itself makes it easier to shake his head. This needs to be done; that's what matters, and that's all. That should be all. "That won't be bright enough. Not here. You shouldn't have to take more risks just because I'm afraid."

Raju realises what he's said the moment it finishes coming out of his mouth. For a moment he doesn't move, eyes on Francis, businesslike expression cracking just long enough for surprise and shame to try showing through. Then he turns, the movements of his hands wrapping the blanket back around him and slinging his things around his back a little less efficient, less graceful and moving more quickly. He picks the can up. He puts the can down and takes out the fingerless gloves he's sewn out from a spare shirt and tugs them on. He reaches out for the can again, then stops and wraps the blanket around his face. Francis will only be able to see his eyes. That's better than nothing.

He tries not to give himself another moment of hesitation, picks the can up quickly, walks with long, fast strides over to where he thinks the right part of the bridge begins. But when he gets there...

For a long, strange moment, Raju is still. His fingers are cold. He realises he's breathing hard. Where's the blank, empty thing that used to make anything like this easy? He's been trying for it, but he realises now it hasn't come. Considering what he's wanting to do, that's probably for the best. His fingers tighten on the can, then loosen, then tighten again. He closes his eyes.

It's always here, isn't it? That's why he dreams of it so much. It must be here. Somewhere.

He frowns. He finds himself shying away from the memories, feeling around their edges in that easier, more familiar way, and not sure how to venture in it any further.

Alright. Something more recent, then. Kneeling in the snow. The cold that he feels in his fingers now but in his feet, painful at first, then numb. He remembers what he'd felt then, what he hasn't allowed himself to think on except that night, when he'd been forced to. All the time he's wasted here. How easy it was, once it'd happened, to welcome it, to let everything drain out of the punctures in his arm and away from him, and end up here after. But fingers large around his, slicking his hand with blood. The people waiting for him, even now, hoping and needing and waiting while he hasn't sent word for years, while he's here, while he let himself end up here, while he wants to stay here and happy and doing nothing while the desperate people who gave everything for him wait and wait, and wait forever. I'm sorry, baba.

He opens his eyes with a sharp breath, shaking his free hand. In the instant when his mind is too far away to expect it not to, the fire drips away from his hand's movement like water, spilling into the open can with the rest of itself. The light chases the dark back and forth as the can trembles in his unsteady grip, the movement that should be too small to see magnified by the size of the long moving shadows.

But it fits very neatly into the can. He'd intended it to be bigger. He doesn't know if— it's hard to think.

"Francis." His reach for a businesslike tone stretches tightly around what wants to be a shake in his voice. "Is this enough? It should be... bigger. Brighter. I-I think."

Selfish. He's selfish, being here, asking instead of doing, wanting to hear a yes so he can stop at only this instead of making it bigger and brighter and better than it is. He takes an unsteady breath and thinks it and narrows his eyes at the metal in his hand, and the flame in it grows. A little. His fingers are starting to feel the heat.

He understands. He hates it, hates seeing the look cross Raju’s face like he wants the earth to swallow him whole, hates that he’s doing this only to make the crossing safer for him, but he understands.

He must be tired too of always being a little bit afraid.

Raju starts and stops, then starts and stops, and God, Crozier wishes there was some other way. The flames come from distress, at least they do for him; what must possibly be going through his mind? And for his sake, some old man who couldn’t wait a day to find out something he can’t even change. Would a day have made any real difference? Dead is dead, urgency won’t undo what’s just been done.

Raju is insistent. Crozier won’t ask again to stop, even if he wants to.

In the dark he can just barely make out his form, but the way he holds himself, stiff shoulders now a little rounded as though cringing or wincing, still like a statue as he concentrates on whatever terrible thing he has to conjure to call forth the fire. He holds himself back and waits, breath catching in his throat, seconds ticking by slowly until the shadows begin to flicker and dance. He’s done it.

He’s done it!

What started as a concerned frown quickly softens, then brightens as he starts to smile. That nervous little breath expels with a soft laugh, making room for the pride that swells in his chest.

“My god, look at that,” he says, for a moment forgetting to answer him. He’s too pleased, too happy for Raju and his accomplishment. His joy is soft and measured though; he doesn’t leap forward to grab his shoulder or raise his voice beyond his very quiet astonishment. Raju is still frightened, he needs to remember that. “That’s incredible. A marvel. You just poured fire into a tin from nothing.”

Crozier laughs again, awed. But then again, he shouldn’t be so surprised at the success; Raju is a capable man with a well of strength and self-discipline. It was only a matter of time before he mastered this whole ‘fire conjuring’ business.

“Does it need to be more than that? How far can you see ahead of you now?”

Raju raises his eyes and looks over, surprised, at Francis’ laugh, his admiration. It’s the perfect opposite to what Raju’s feeling. Francis sounds proud.

When he looks back at his hand the fire is dimmer, and he grimaces. Damn it. Francis is too… too kind, too soothing. He’s too used to the way it feels looking at him, and that feeling is only going to help. Which isn’t what they need right now.

He tilts the can, aiming the light more toward the ground. Alright, but not enough. It would be enough, wouldn’t it, if he had practiced, but he’s grown lazy here, forgotten how to push himself and Francis isn’t the only person who’s going to suffer for it and Raju knows that, he knows that. He needs to do better. The feeling sitting heavy at the bottom of his stomach reaches up and squeezes at the base of his throat, and—

There. Better, anyway, if not quite as bright as it was. But he can’t let himself think that way for too long or he’s going to relax. His mind doesn’t want to hold onto any of these thoughts, and forcing them from slipping away into their usual place closer to the back of his mind is going to take constant attention.

“I’ll see farther if you stop being so damn kind to me,” he mutters, voice pitched low with irritation that doesn’t belong where he’s putting it, that feels wrong to aim that way but he can see the way that wrong feeling is helping and that’s the only part that matters, and the rest is a problem for later.

Cruel to be kind, is that it? He can't say anything positive, or Raju would lose the thing that fuels the flame. God only knows what that means exactly, what memories or dire thoughts he's subjected himself to.

It'd be wrong to let him languish for his sake, morally - and for a more selfish part of himself - emotionally. He's fond of this man, he doesn't want him to have to suffer for goddamned fire, but he said he wouldn't try to talk him out of it again.

He tries on an apologetic smile and nods. "I'll be quiet and let you morb then."

Raju’s stops himself from glancing over at Francis as his head’s already turning to do it. He focuses fiercely on the fire instead, tilts it toward the ground, walks forward.

He tries to mine his dreams first, the ones he’s had in the past about that thing coming, lying on the dirt with his finger over the trigger frozen, because the thing is coming, knowing the people counting on him are exactly who it’s come for, knowing that it’s here. He tries to mine the memory of when it’d come this morning. He remembers the man he… the man he tortured, what feels like a very long time ago. He remembers other things. Standing in uniform feeling nothing but a pressure somewhere deep inside him, and following orders.

It’s hard to hold onto, all of it, oddly difficult to keep any of it at the front of his mind and the light dims periodically, more thick smoke and tight pressure inside him than fire until it reignites with one particularly pointed thought or another so he keeps jumping from thought to thought, his feet moving over the tracks, fire large enough to illuminate a great deal of the bridge around both their feet when it’s bright, large enough at least to be aimed in front of Francis whenever it starts dimming.

It’s easy to think that the thoughts aren’t doing much. It feels like they’re not doing much. But he realises there’s land beside the tracks now, that they’ve finished crossing the bridge, and then realises that his eyes are stinging, that despite the gap for his sight he’d left in the blanket over his face that it’s been hard to see the tracks for a while, they’ve been blurring in front of him, realises that his eyelashes are wet. He realises that he’s breathing faster, that his heart is beating hard. The fire is more smoke now with flames which keep trying to grow and keep failing all compressed in on themselves somewhere underneath it but the can is hot even through the fabric over his palm, is hurting his bare fingers. The metal is thin, discoloured, growing holes near the bottom where the fire’s coming through, that none of it’s reached his hand yet but it’s been hurting to hold it. Raju stops walking. He keeps staring at it. He keeps breathing, becoming aware of the distant, scattered details of his body and trying to think whether he’s supposed to he putting the can and its fire down yet.

A hand touches Raju’s wrist, surprisingly-warm fingers cupping his hand and a thumb swiping across his palm. Crozier stands behind him, safe and sound on solid ground.

“Drop it,” he murmurs, voice soft but adamant. He sweeps his thumb again, heat from the fire making even frostbitten fingers start to burn. “You did so well. Let the tin fall into the snow now.”

Crozier had followed him across the ravine with bated breath, equal parts terrified and awed. It was exceedingly precarious at times, the holes in the bridge black windows into the long drop below, but never once did he feel unsteady on his feet. Now as he stands close he can see the tears on his eyelashes, proof of the hell he’s put himself through for them.

He squeezes his hand, thumb accidentally landing on his pulse but not moving an inch when he feels it fluttering against his skin.

Edited (Pressed enter too soon!!! ) 2024-06-08 00:21 (UTC)

Francis' voice, behind him. He'd known Francis was behind him through the walk, but hearing is different from knowing it. More real. It's Francis' hand that was touching his wrist, that's moving over his hand now. He forgets about the heat of the metal on his skin, and about the wet feeling blurring everything in front of his eyes. There isn't room for all of it. Francis wants him to drop the can; he watches it fall, watches it while the snow hisses and steams around it.

Francis' thumb is on his wrist. Francis thinks that he did well. Things feel better with it there, some cool and soothing thing spreading out from the heat of his friend's skin against his. Raju lets a breath out from between his lips, half-noticing the cloud of warmth it makes as it the air catches in the blanket wrapped over his mouth. The line of his shoulders starts to sag and his hand sags, arm starting to trust Francis to hold its weight up or let it drop. The mass of smoke rising out of the can's various holes begins to thin.

At home, it had been easy to operate this way. There had been orders, and when there weren't orders, there was routine. Raju looks up and around for his purpose, lacking anything that'd used to do in Delhi, but catches himself before he finds Francis' face and turns back to stare down at the can and the fire again. His hand hurts. It's important to keep his focus on the ground just there, on where it'd all dropped to, keep everything where it's supposed to be so nothing spreads. If anything else needs to be done Francis will tell him, and if there's anyone who won't tell him to do anything that's... Well, that's Francis again, so this is better than being home in that way, really. The thought floats there without anything to settle on and Raju lets it stay there, focuses on the fire again.

Edited (clarity) 2024-06-08 02:57 (UTC)

The snow sizzles and the flames pop, light from the tin shivering in short shadows against the ground as the fire starts to go out. Raju’s relinquished control; there’s no more need to linger in whatever he’s managed to dredge up from his memories. Not that he’ll automatically snap back into someone less lost, but Raju always seems more comfortable when he’s in full control of himself.

Crozier keeps his fingers on his wrist for just a beat or two longer than strictly necessary, lowering his arm as he feels that rigidity in his body start to loosen. When it seems enough he takes his hand back and passes Raju the parka which he so sorely needs, even if he doesn’t feel the full effect of the cold air just yet. He will soon, and then that’ll be yet another issue that he doesn’t need Raju to suffer through on his behalf.

He fills his lungs with the acrid smell of smoke, with narrowed eyes scouts the dimly-lit path up ahead. His gaze eventually falls back on Raju, and he makes a decision.

“We’ll make camp just up ahead.” He gestures to the soft sloping hill in front of them and stoops down to unceremoniously retrieve the tin can from the snow. Never good to waste a resource here.

“If I recall correctly there are some empty box cars not too far from here.” Good source of kindling and, joy of joys, a roof over their heads.

He looks back at Raju again and nods, guiding him into taking that first step forward. They can walk side-by-side here, Raju can press shoulder against his if he likes, lean on him a bit just like Crozier’s been metaphorically leaning on him this entire journey. He doesn’t know what he would do without him - and he really doesn’t want to think of what it would be like if that were the case.

Wearing fur had always seemed like a matter of vanity before, superiority. A pointed gesture, at home, and tasteless on top of it. He watches his fingers bury themselves in the dense fur of the coat. The parka, that's what Francis calls it. It hurts, a little, against the fingertips that'd been holding that can. He buries his fingers a little deeper, realising he's doing it because it's soft. He thinks it might be softer than anything he's ever felt. And warmer. He remembers opening his eyes after a long and terrible night and seeing what's in his hands resting over him, and watching Francis' back as he walked away.

Francis is saying something. He's been saying something. Raju looks up.

Whatever it was, it'd been something about box cars. If that's where Francis wants to go, that's where they'll go. Then Francis nods him forward, so Raju walks. Unthinkingly, he settles his stride close enough to Francis to press their arms together, looking at the fur in his hands and then over at Francis' hand, at the tin can in it.

"I'll need that," he says, after a moment of looking at it. His voice is brisk and efficient, matter of fact and flat. "There's no sense in ruining anything else."

“You didn’t ruin anything.” He’s warm and supportive, a stark contrast to Raju’s own somewhat bland tone. “You found a new purpose for something.”

He smiles and steps closer to him, guiding him in the right direction with a few well-placed bumps and pushes with his arm. He’s navigating by landmarks alone - curve of the path and the crossing of the tracks, that one tree that’s hunched over like an old woman, a large cliff of boulders or twin pines. Thankfully their destination isn’t too far, and soon the derailed box cars, some tipped onto their sides and twisted, quickly make an appearance in the tree line.

Crozier selects the best box car of the bunch - and look, there’s already a barrel for a fire - and has the two of them start to make camp. He gives Raju a few simple but direct orders, mostly collecting the firewood and spreading out the bedrolls, to keep his body occupied while his mind continues to be trapped in those bad thoughts. He focuses on the kindling and the cooking, setting out bowls of warm, fish stew and water once they’re sufficiently settled in for the night.

But once the work is over, the stillness returns. He sits close to Raju, keeping the quiet if that’s what’s needed, or idly chatting if a distraction seems called for.

Raju frowns down at the stew in his bowl. It's warm between his hands, and warm inside him — he hasn't wanted to risk the parka by wearing it yet, and he's hunched into the blanket wrapped around him— but it isn't sitting well enough to have any more. He hadn't expected it to. A tiny flame lights up one of the bits of fish as he watches, flaring out of nowhere before the fish sinks down under the surface again and the flame goes out with a little hiss. Raju grimaces, irritated, and pushes the bowl to one side, picking up the remains of the tin can to hold between his hands instead. Smoke curls lazily out of the holes burnt in its side, floating up from nowhere. He doesn't fidget with it. His fingers don't tap at its sides, his hands don't roll the metal between them. He's still. It's easy to be still, this way.

"I should keep watch for a while. After you sleep." He looks over at Francis and then pauses, surprised, by how close they are. Had he moved himself this close to Francis while he hadn't been paying attention? It's alright, of course, because it's Francis. But he hadn't expected it.

After a moment he goes on. "There's no telling what's going to be out there, on a night like this. Or, a day like—" It hasn't been a full day since they woke up this morning, has it? Raju sighs, looking back down at the stillness of his hands and giving up on the right word, and shakes his head. He got across what he needed to. The right word doesn't matter.

Crozier smiles, a touch of sadness in it. It’s as though Raju hasn’t even realized he’s been kept company this entire time.

Raju won’t sleep, and if he does he’ll have nightmares. There’s no doubt in his mind this is why he’s offering to take first watch. If he can avoid sleep for as long as physically possible then he can keep control of the flames in the tin.

Crozier places his hand on Raju’s shoulder. “When you’re tired come to bed.” No reinforcing the quiet explanations, just a simple statement. When he’s ready Crozier will be expecting him.

He nods softly and shifts away, ready to rest his bones a while. He’s also plagued by dreams, horrible ones, but he knows his will never leave him so long as he keeps breathing. Living with them is the only way to move forward, but lord, are they exhausting sometimes. They’re abstract now - large soup pots with human-like limbs simmering away inside of them, scattered papers fluttering away across a barren landscape, rusty chains cutting into disintegrating limbs.

He falls asleep trying to think about more pleasant things. Glittering stars, gently-rolling waves, a book of pretty poetry, the man behind him. He doesn’t tend to wake from his nightmares, even when he is in the throes of it, whimpering or moaning or listing an old muster roll in his delirium. He won’t wake from it tonight, though it’s particularly severe, a large beast with three heads crushing skulls underfoot like dead leaves, pausing only long enough for the next human in line to scream.

Raju sits by the slightly-opened door of the boxcar so the smoke can drift out. It isn't thick enough to give them away if any of those odd people are around somewhere watching, particularly not in this dark. He watches the smoke, wondering at how long it's taking to go away while Francis sleeps behind him.

There was a room, he'd set one up in his rooms in the city too, where he could go to move, to feel leather against his fists, to work something out of his body when he needed to. He hasn't needed it in quite this way since he'd ended up in this bizarre place. The fire flares a few times as the world grows sharp. He smells the snow outside, and the musty smell of the rusted metal and dirt inside of the boxcar, and he feels the cold. He pushes up his sleeve to see gooseflesh there, notices his foot tapping. He remembers that he'd been afraid before they'd crossed the bridge — he remembers that he'd said so — and tries to decide whether the fear, or wariness, or whatever it had been had been justified or not. His mind feels uncomfortable, too full.

He breathes. Slow breaths, bringing the bite of the cold into himself, warming it inside his body, pushing it slowly out of his mouth. He tries to think only of that, tries to let everything else inside him flow around it. He starts to look down at the tin to see whether it's working — the smoke would be starting to thin — and Francis whimpers behind him. Raju turns to look at his friend instead, shadows of the real fire inside its barrel lighting up the soft, strong curves of his face.

It's easy to know what's happening, easy to assume. Seetha had had nightmares, too, and old habit has Raju, unthinking just now, setting down the tin and easing over. He studies Francis' expression, raises a hand to smooth it over one side of Francis' brow and into his hair to smooth away the tension there. Habit tells him to touch carefully and gently, to ease into something more firm if the touch goes well, or doesn't seem to do anything at all. He'll have to watch Francis to see. But the touch isn't what it should be; Raju frowns at his hand and then tugs at the fingerless gloves impatiently, pulling the useless things off and tossing them some place behind him, and then smoothing his hand from Francis' brow to his hairline again.

There. The wellbeing that spreads out from Francis' skin to his, like liquid warmth. That's more like touching him should be. Satisfied, Raju settles on his knees, his hand light over Francis' hair, to watch him.

As the dream continues the Darkwalker’s green breath curls from its three heads, sinking low and spreading across the forest floor, withering everything it touches. Plants curl and decay, animals wither away, and people - vague amalgamations of his men, the Netsilik families who cared for him, the people here - begin to rot from the inside out. Their teeth start to fall from their heads and their foreheads trickle blood like Christ’s crown of thorns. They reach for him, claw at him, mouths gaping wide as mandibles loosen and then fall away completely.

Crozier’s distress increases, brow furrowing as sweat pools on his brow. It’s still mild discomfort at the most, until something particularly horrific twists his face into a grimace and he exhales a soft, shuddering sob.

Raju frowns, setting his hand along the side of Francis' face. His touch is still careful, and when he raises his other hand toward Francis' shoulder it stops before it gets there. Seetha hadn't liked too much touch at once, those nights; she'd been grabbed that day, carried away from them to safety, and more of that before she was even awake to realise what the touch was for hadn't ever helped. But he doesn't know the first thing about Francis' nightmares.

He's aware of an emotion now, clear and simple: frustration. He doesn't know enough about Francis yet, and it surprises him as if it's new, every time he finds himself needing to be familiar and realising over again that he's not. But he's going to do something.

"Francis," he murmurs, free hand settling for a light touch against the man's upper arm. "Francis," he says again, still quiet but more firmly: "Wake up now."

Crozier is typically easy to rouse by virtue of that naval structure and routine, but he’s been caught mid-dream and is slow to fully come back to himself. He grunts quietly and attempts to turn away, stuck in the in-between for a half a minute longer before it finally registers that he’s being woken.

Awareness sets in. He’s asleep in a box car, they’re out in the wilderness, vulnerable to all the insanity that lingers out this way. He bolts upright. “Raju,” he gasps, suddenly on high alert. “What‘s the matter?”

Raju's touch on him is light enough that Raju's hands fall away easily when Francis bolts up that way. Francis is sitting up, he is awake, and Raju takes him in; Francis doesn't know why Raju woke him up. Raju's gaze goes to the floor for a moment as the hint of a grimace moves onto his face. He sighs quietly.

"Nothing. You were dreaming," he says as he looks back up at Francis. He realises the hand that'd been on Francis' face is still hovering like it wants to reach again and he curls its fingers instead, rubbing his thumb into his fingertips to keep them busy. The grimace shifts into a similarly subtle wry smile that waits in the background of his expression, in the set of his eyebrows and at the corners of his lips. It feels wrong to just ask — he should have this figured out already — but he has to ask, doesn't he? So he does, even though his expression says he's already anticipating the answer being yes and he's preparing himself to apologise, preemptively. "Should I have let you get more sleep?"

Crozier presses the heel of his palm into his eyes and exhales. Here 'dreaming' implies that whatever sort of resting he was doing had been noisy and quite possibly disruptive. Frankly he's just surprised it hasn't woken or bothered Raju before.

"It's fine," he mutters, picking his head back up. His hand drops heavily onto his blankets and he looks at the fire, at the doorway, at the warped planks that serve as the floor - anywhere but Raju himself. "Talking in my sleep, was it? Maybe tossing and turning - whatever it was I'm sorry if it disturbed you."

He finally looks at the space beside him, realizing that Raju hasn't come to bed yet. Maybe it hasn't been too long since he'd fallen asleep, but he doubts it.

The reaction Raju gets isn't the ease he'd been expecting, which would have been something to apologise for. A man at peace with his nightmares would have been one Raju should have left alone. Instead Raju gets... shame? Raju's expression is clear and sharp, and focused on Francis as he decides what he's seeing. It's easy to think now, for this, and he doesn't entirely mind what he finds: Francis' reaction might be unfamiliar too, but the shame of a strong, good man whose compassion's led Raju through things it would have eaten through him for anyone else to see, that's something Raju can handle.

While Francis looks down beside him Raju uncurls his hand and sets it around the back of Francis' neck. "You didn't disturb me," he murmurs, ducking his head enough to try to find Francis' gaze, ready to meet it whenever Francis looks back up. "Did you want to keep sleeping? I should, ah— You said we're still learning each other, so I should know. I can wake you next time too, if, ah... if I'm awake for it. If you want me to."

At least he didn't wake him. That's the bright side in all of this, and it makes it easier for him to lift his head up and meet that intense gaze he knows is waiting for him.

Ah, yes, there it is, furrowed brow and dark eyes, long lashes framing the whole visage as though he's more baby fawn than grown man. He attempts to sit back, but he's weak in spirit and reluctant to pull away from Raju's hand on the back of his neck. "If I woke every time I had an unpleasant dream, I'd never sleep," he admits.

It's an unsatisfactory answer, and he knows it. He should give him something. "If I start talking in my sleep, then by all means, please wake me. As for the rest...I can manage." It's unpleasant, but he doesn't start fires when he's distressed by them.

Raju nods, focused, watching Francis and filing it away into the growing files he's building of what he knows about his friend. Nightmares more the rule than the exception. Raju takes that in solemnly, but it doesn't surprise him. For all the two of them don't understand about one another yet, there are some things they do. He feels a faint, sharp pull at the fact he hadn't known that already, sleeps too deeply to have noticed— but he learned that about himself a long time ago, and there's no point in thinking too much on it now. If Francis talks in his sleep he does want Raju to wake him, and that's more worth noticing.

And if this happens again, his friend dreaming badly but not speaking, Raju doesn't have to just sit there and watch it. Putting his hand on Francis' face hadn't woken him just now, had it? So maybe there's something he can do.

Another night. For now, Francis is awake already. Raju's grip squeezes very gently over the muscles of Francis' neck. "Do you think you could go back to sleep? We aren't done walking yet, and we woke up early. I... think. The rest of it will go easier with more rest."

The initial jolt of adrenaline has long-since disappeared. His exhaustion is tenfold now, being pulled mid REM-cycle destroying what little there was to gain from his short sleep. He nods tired. "Oh, yes," he says quietly. "I most certainly can go back to sleep."

But more rest goes for both of them, not just himself. Raju needs a reset, a fresh start; he needs to rest his body and at least attempt to let his mind drift away from his troubles.

"Do you think you could sleep now?"

Crozier can't bat his eyelashes. He wishes he could, and look alluring and sweet in his pleading, instead of just kind of odd, but he must play with the cards he's been dealt. He smiles, tries a little head tilt, inviting him to join him so they both won't be so miserable tonight.

Raju huffs out a breath, the invitation making him smile a little, wearily. The gesture is an inviting one, a tempting one, but—

—but what? Raju frowns a little, reaching for an answer and finding nothing where he expects something to be. There's no work to do. He's stuck here in Canada, and there's no work anyone needs him to do. They've already gathered all the supplies they're going to need for the trip, thanks mostly to Francis' work catching and drying their food, and despite what Raju had thought of as keeping watch, two people isn't enough to set a watch, not unless things are desperate enough to go without half a night's sleep. The question and the gesture is tempting, and there's no reason not to say yes to it.

Raju's smile widens, the alert lines of his posture starting to relax. He nods, pleased, and crawls around behind Francis to the free space in his blankets instead of toward the door and slipping his legs underneath. He keeps sitting up, watching Francis to see how he settles in, and so how Raju should settle in, but the extra layer over the lower half of him is a relief. It's warm underneath with Francis' body heat, and Raju had known that he was cold, but he hadn't known it, not until a little part of that cold started threatening to go away. He shivers a little as the hint of warmth tries seeping into him.

"I could try. It's hard without... I don't know. Being more tired. But we've been walking for hours. Maybe that will be enough."

Thank god, no further argument necessary. It was definitely the head tilt and the smile that did it too, not the softness or heat that awaits his chilly friend if he crawls into the blankets.

Crozier sinks down slowly, twisting onto his side facing inwards. It’s warmer this way. That’s what he’ll tell himself. It’s not because he wants him close enough to keep an eye on him, or because he is still a little rattled by the Darkwalker and his subsequent nightmare.

One of those horrified faces awaiting the Darkwalker had been Raju’s. If he just wants to keep his within arm’s reach for a while, who could possibly blame him?

“Lie down,” he murmurs, looking up at him one final time and then closing his eyes. “I’ll tell you the story of when I met the last survivor of the HMS Bounty mutiny and all their descendants.”

Eagerness lights up Raju's face. It's a good thing Francis already has his eyes closed, though, because: "You should be sleeping," he says as he slides further down into the comforting promise of warmth under the blankets, trying to mirror Francis' pose. Most certainly means he's probably closer to it than Raju's I'll try, and the longer until Francis is able to look for sleep, the harder it'll be to find it. Raju pulls the blanket over his chest and shivers once, then again, and lets out a quiet huff at himself, embarrassed that that's only happening now, as if the cold is only trying to fight him now on its way out. He focuses on rolling the end of the blanket up to lay under his head instead. "I already woke you up once. You can tell me the story tomorrow, while we're walking."

Crozier raises his arm - his left, the one without the hand - and lays it over Raju in response to his shivering.

He should be sleeping, but he won’t until Raju’s comfortable and stops his shivering. He’ll tell him about someplace warm and tropical, and perhaps it’ll transport them both for a little while.

“It’s best to begin with the story of the Bounty,” he says, voice low and relaxed, blatantly ignoring Raju’s suggestion. “You must know it. A famously cruel captain and a crew that’s finally suffered all the abuses it can stand. It didn’t begin that way though, as the sailors who lived through it would recount later. Bligh, the captain, and Christian, the head mutineer, were initially on good, even friendly terms.”

Crozier continues, describing the day-to-day of the crew of the Bounty with details only a sailor could know. He tells the story of the drunken surgeon, and floggings that eventually became more and more frequent in the journey. All was well in the initial stretch of the voyage though, a typically strict time at sea under the usual Royal Navy guidance, structured watches and calisthenics, horrible food, boredom. But then there was Tahiti, and the crew got their first taste of freedom.

The story gets a little bawdy, and Crozier even chuckles quietly when he describes the check for venereal diseases when they left port some months later. The crew was sorry to say goodbye to the bonny lasses and fresh food of the island, and things only got worse from there.

“Well, as you know Fletcher Christian reached the end of his rope with the paranoid Captain Bligh. They set upon the Captain in the middle of the night. Under threat of murder they bodily placed him, a very sad amount of supplies, and the remaining crew loyal to Bligh on a jolly boat and cut him adrift. The mutineers kept the Bounty for themselves of course, and turned her back around to Tahiti.”

From here Crozier speaks a little more softly, a little quieter. From there the story becomes one of Bligh’s treacherous open-boat journey on the sea, the Royal Navy hunting down and trying the mutineers, and the legacy left behind by the mutineers and their Tahitian families. When he reaches the point that it’s clear he’ll enter the story next he pauses.

“And tomorrow I’ll tell you the rest.”

The arm over Raju surprises, then pleases him, and the story pleases him, and he laughs a little when Francis starts telling it without even deigning to say no to Raju telling him to sleep. He tugs the blanket higher over himself and moves closer to Francis and it feels natural to be there, makes it easier for Francis' arm to lay over him and brings him closer to the source of all the warmth that's gathered under here. At first he shivers now and then, his body not used to the warmth, but the story and Francis' attention to it, instead of pointing out anything Raju's doing, makes the embarrassment easier to let go as Raju's attention follows where Francis is leading it.

And once he's started to settle in the arm that isn't pressed against the blanket under him needs a place to go, doesn't it? It feels natural to mirror Francis' posture here too and set his arm over Francis' side and, gradually, paying more attention to the story while the comfort and the warmth spread slowly inside of him, move closer as he listens, and closer, until his knuckles are brushing blanket on the floor beneath Francis' head and the tips of his fingers have started brushing fondly against the back of Francis' neck.

And tomorrow I'll tell you the rest, Francis says and Raju smiles, gaze alert and clear and fixed on the familiar face, the pitted, soft-looking plains of his cheek, the graceful swoop of his nose, the curve of his upper lip as he murmurs the end of the tale. The end of it for tonight. His voice — suited, Raju thinks, for stories, for listening to hours at a time without ever growing tired of the sound — is quieter now, either in deference to some perceived tiredness in Raju or quiet with his own. The latter, Raju hopes; a story before bed had never worked the way it was supposed to when he was a boy, either. If anything, it's only ever woken him up, and at least one of them should be about to get some sleep. But Raju feels good, he feels—

He doesn't know how to describe it. Light and sharp and, and something. Something he could feel spreading with the weight of the arm over his side while Francis spoke and spoke, that can feel now humming in every part of him. He feels it in the skin of his fingertips barely touching the skin at the back of Francis' neck. "Tomorrow," he murmurs, voice as warm as the rest of him, deeper than he realises it's going to be before he hears it coming out. "Thank you, Francis. It really is time for you to sleep, now."

“I’ll sleep,” he says, one corner of his lips lifting in a soft smirk. “I’ll sleep.”

As tired as he is, he doesn’t know how he’ll manage with Raju’s warm breath tickling his face and neck and his fingertips gently caressing to the back of his neck. It’s a pleasant dream to have while still awake.

He shifts in place one more time, eyes opening briefly to guide his arm underneath Raju’s head in lieu of a pillow. Of course, it gives him one more lovely thing to admire before he does drift off for the night, Raju’s expression soft and rather sweet. It makes his chest ache, but at least it’s a beautiful agony, one he hopes will show up again in his dreams.

He locks eyes with his and smiles again, quiet and contentedly, and then closes his eyes again with a little chuckle.

He’ll drift off again in good time, knowing that even if Raju doesn’t fall asleep at least he’s not sitting at the door of the car brooding all night.

When Francis puts his arm under Raju's head Raju lets out a surprised huff, smile widening, then softening at Francis' expression, the way he looks contented and happy. That Francis can look that way on a day like this one was makes the humming thing inside him shine a little brighter. The way that Francis had sobbed in his sleep, that noise that he'd made, that couldn't seem more different from the way that he looks now, satisfied, with his eyes closed.

Having Francis' arm under his head, Francis thinking of the slightly awkward angle of their necks laying this way and looking to solve it, it feels like being cared for, like when Francis cooks for him. It's a shame, Raju realises, that he hadn't been able to finish what Francis made for him earlier. He'll have to finish it tomorrow. He moves his own arm next to the floor slowly, not wanting to disturb Francis too much, and eases it under Francis' head, too, and then he lays that way, eyes still not moving from Francis' face.

It's rare, to be able to look this way. He works hard enough to drop, when he can manage it, and on those nights tends to fall asleep first. And laying further apart in their cabin, where it's warm enough to afford the distance, means there he's closing his eyes and trying to find his way to sleep on his own. He doesn't usually get to look like this. He'd gotten to look all through Francis' story, though, watching his expression shifting with the rising and falling of the tale and its moods, and he gets to look now.

The story drifts through the back of his mind, moving harmless and fascinating in the place the rest of the day's thoughts had been. The sight in front of him takes up the rest of the space, the feeling in him, whatever it is that's pulling at the edges of his lips and filling him up. It's just on the edge of too much but it's impossible to mind it, not when Francis is relaxed and happy and drifting toward sleep. Raju won't notice it when his own conscious attention dissolves into barely conscious thought, into feeling, and then into sleep, but it happens in time. If any nightmares try to take hold of him after that they lose their grip before long under the warmth and the wellbeing and the weight safe over his side and Raju sleeps heavily, once he manages to get there, and won't remember his dreams when he wakes up.

He wants to jump out of his own skin. He wants to pull his skeleton out of his body, tear his hair out, grind his teeth down to stubs. He’s uncomfortable, immensely so, snapping internally at every little inconvenience, feeling himself bubble with those old familiar thoughts of wringing a neck or punching a wall, even though in his heyday his wrath was mostly guided at himself and apathy towards everyone and everything else.

He doesn’t know why this is happening. These feelings of discomfort and agitation at every little thing comes right after waking with Raju in his arms, that lovely little glow he’d felt despite of the horror and the suffering. They’d been on their way to look for a death - he shouldn’t have been happy, and he wasn’t completely, but he’d felt like the crush of the world wasn’t so heavy. And by all accounts he should have kept feeling that contentment, but it comes and goes and he finds himself even wanting to lash out at Raju.

The situation with the madmen in the forest is still the big debate in town, with someone once more suggesting they kidnap one of their numbers. Crozier brings his vexation home, dropping his goods from town onto the table with a grunt.

“They’re going to start a goddamned war, one we’re not prepared for. There are children among their numbers, for Christ’s sake!”

The first few days of darkness and sick green sky are almost easy to take as an abnormally long night. But after a while it's more difficult: more difficult to pretend he knows when a day has passed at all, more difficult to pretend to sleep. Before this place, before going out at night meant being so cold he couldn't bear it, so cold it hurt inside and out just to stand outside in the wind and the dark, there'd been days when he could go out and do whatever was needed whenever he could. When sleep didn't always mean that it was night, sleep only meant that Raju couldn't keep going any more. It'd happened when he'd been a young man, and then once away from the structure of the barracks living in the city proper, with no one to report to but himself, and now it's happening here. He's trying to keep to Francis' schedule but it's harder, harder to stay inside, harder to stay still.

A couple times he's woken up convinced he's set Francis on fire by accident while he slept but he hasn't insisted on sleeping apart yet, and the tension that failure winds tight inside his chest has made him a little shorter with Francis, those mornings, than he wants to be. They'd been perfectly alright sleeping apart before, and it isn't cold in their cabin here the way that it had been on the walk to and from Lakeside, and in the broken down places there that were empty enough to sleep in. They could sleep apart again now and it would be alright. But Raju feels...

It feels better, still, to touch him. The certainty that something is about to come, something he needs to be prepared for, something he isn't remotely prepared for, with his arm over the warm and solid line of his friend's side, feeling his body just there even when Raju's eyes are closed, that certainty moves back a little.

Raju's thinking about that when they make it back, even knowing how on edge Francis is after going into the town, such as it is, and the conversations they'd had there. People there are saying whoever it is in the forest is going to try something now, that they already have and that's why all this is happening, or just that everyone here can't let this new thing distract them from the threat and they need to be proactive, to act. He knows it's bothering Francis, but he's lost all sense of when Francis does and doesn't want to sleep, and when he himself will sleep, and whether Francis is going to want to soon now that they're home, and he knows he needs to separate himself more once they both do, and he knows that he won't.

It's a ridiculous thing to be so focused on. But it's important. Something is going to happen, and keeping Francis safe is something he can do. Something he should be able to do.

"There's children everywhere," Raju says distractedly, moving over to the table himself and opening the bag Francis had put everything in. "It doesn't mean they aren't dangerous. We already know they're not afraid to kill."

He doesn't understand. No - it's not that he doesn't understand, it's that he doesn't understand why Raju, of all people, would be on the side of potentially letting harm come to children. This is Raju, yes? Not some sort of creature just wearing his face.

Crozier sits down at the table slowly, pulling off his glove with his teeth and setting it aside. If he wasn't so quick to anger then he might have sat there and tried to see some other way around his friend's reply - some kind of rationale or reason that would justify his response. He isn't that man today though, and he feels his face start to set into a bewildered grimace.

"That doesn't justify killing innocents. Surely you can see that."

Surely a man as practical and intelligent as Raju can separate children in a situation not of their choosing from someone making an actual choice to endanger other people. Can't he see that? He's trying not to let the bile rise, but the more he dwells on how absurd it would be the more frustrated he becomes.

"They don't deserve to pay for the sins of their parents."

There's thread in the bag and Raju's pulling it out as Francis finishes talking, inspecting it as he replies. He hasn't said any of this to Francis yet; maybe that's why Francis doesn't understand. If he's going to be safe, he needs to understand. "Children follow the path their parents lay in front of them. So who knows what they're learning in there. No one's arguing for going after the children first, but if it does come down to a fight, who knows what any of them are going to do? Adults or not."

There's something sour sitting in his stomach, and it tries to crawl up his throat. Raju swallows, pauses, takes a slow breath to wash the feeling away. That isn't what he's saying. Not like— "Neither of us is going to go after someone who isn't holding a weapon," he says, face looking a little sick, tone sounding a little desperate, only for a moment. "That isn't who we are."

But his memories tell him to be cautious, too.

"But if it does come down to a fight and you overlook someone who is, thinking they're innocent, you're going to get yourself killed. And other people, too." Raju's hand is still, holding the thread, and his expression is tight as he keeps looking down at it. "If the worst happens, you're going to need to know that."

Edited 2024-06-10 12:15 (UTC)

Crozier’s expression hardens. It feels personal somehow, as thought Raju expects Crozier will be the one to get someone killed with that line of thinking. It leaves an unpleasant taste in his mouth, and it battles with the part of his brain that knows Raju would never jump to attack him, least of all without reason. He can’t help but perceive it that way, and he feels that negative cloud inside of him multiply with every passing second.

“I’m not naive,” he snaps, palm hitting the table with a little more force than intended. Here’s his chance to be apologetic, but the anger twists the perceived dagger further. “I know what’s at stake, and I know a threat from something benign.

“But I won’t lose my humanity. I refuse to live that way. Children are never the enemy.”

Edited 2024-06-10 17:24 (UTC)

When Francis hits the table Raju looks up sharply, tight expression snapped into a frown. It’s a more aggressive version, suddenly, of what Lieutenant Little had said all those months ago. Francis believes the same, doesn’t he?Maybe Little even took what he’d said from Francis, his captain, who must believe it too, ideals and humanity above all else, at any cost, and what that means for the men for whom that cost is too high, who go out and fight in the ways that they have to. That’s what Francis is saying. That’s what he thinks. That’s what he’s thought of Raju this whole time, he just doesn’t know it.

The sour thing in Raju’s stomach reaches up into his sternum and starts squeezing. His grip is tight over the thread, and his other hand is a fist on the table as he leans over it. His expression is stricken but his voice is hard, demanding:

“What do you think those children are doing while their fathers are stealing and shooting and killing? A father’s fight is the son’s. That starts early. There’s no time in his life he doesn’t know it. You don’t get to make them innocent just because you want them to be; they aren’t going to lay down and thank you just so you get to keep your hands clean.”

There’s an itch at the back of his mind, a little whisper of a thought, that tells him to stop, stop, stop, stop all this, for the love of god, just stop! It’s there one moment and then it’s not, the swell of anger crashing over him again. He feels a judging stare and rankles; it’s always the judgement. He could be the expert in his field and still pushed aside, treated as though he were some kind of madman for saying what no one wanted to hear.

“You think I’m being sanctimonious,” he says coolly. “A child is vulnerable, even if they’re fighting someone else’s war. Even a child with a goddamn gun is still vulnerable. If that makes me a fool to believe then fine, you and the others can slaughter the lot of them, I don’t want be a part of it.”

Crozier stands again, still fuming. Hot, even, thinking of all the ship’s boys who were sold into the navy, of the lost childhood of that poor little Inuit girl. His tunic is too warm for him, so in his haze he goes searching for something to replace it.

“I don’t want them to thank me,” he grumbles. “I don’t want for a goddamn thing other than to stop seeing blood on the snow.”

It should be easy to sympathize, to feel for him. Francis is a kind man, a peaceful man, and he’s seen more suffering than anyone like him should have to live with. But Raju knows what Francis thinks of him now, of men like him, and needs to hear it out loud, and need pushes him away from the table to follow Francis, fists clenched tight, demanding.

“And if they aren’t as vulnerable or innocent the way you want? Keeping your humanity is so important, so you have to pretend they all still have theirs because they’re young? Not everyone gets to keep those ideals you all cling onto. They become what they need to be. What happens when you see what that really means? When an ‘innocent’ shoots the man next to you between the eyes, when he wants to do it again, is he still human like you? What is he, once he’s not pure and perfect anymore like you wanted him to be?”

The tight near-pain in Raju’s chest is a part of him and so is the heat inside his fists, over the inside of his fingers and over his palms, the hot feeling gathering over his chest somewhere, under his shirt. His breathing is fast. He stares at Francis, leaning toward him, gaze as demanding as the rest of him. He needs to hear it, out loud from his friend’s mouth, in the same voice that’d told him the things he’d done weren’t Francis’ to judge, that had sounded like it meant it.

Crozier rounds on him, incensed that Raju keeps fighting this battle. Humanity was the only thing that mattered in the end when things were at its bleakest, how can he not understand that? Hasn't he made himself clear?

"Of course they're still human!" he yells, throwing his hand and not-hand up in exasperation. "Have they lost their worth? Forget pure and perfect, why are you so eager to condemn a child!"

He doesn't give Raju a chance to respond, seeing a wall of red now. "What do you want me to say here, goddammit? That when push comes to shove I should jump at the chance to kill someone? You know I'll do what I have to, but I don't want to, and I don't think it's wrong to question the morality of killing vulnerable people indiscriminately."

"Questioning?" Raju says, incredulously. Francis' words sound so reasonable. Acting so reasonable, as if the flaw between all those kind, idealistic human arguments isn't bright as day there, when you try to put them together. "Or are you telling? You're very clear what a man becomes when he doesn't live by those ideals. How long does a child have before he becomes a monster, in your eyes? When should he have stopped? Thirteen? Sixteen? Twenty is too old by far. How many men dead, until then, before he stops being vulnerable? One? Ten? More than that? What point was it that—"

He has to try to pull in air. His breaths are shallow now, it must have happened while he was speaking, and it doesn't matter, his question, because Raju is too far gone already for that kind of grace, by Francis' rules. His rules, Little's rules, men who survived isolation and starvation and mutiny and come out the other side of it like that. It's one thing to suspect what you are but keep pushing forward and it's another to stop, failing and stuck here with the thing that was supposed to make it all worth it this far away with men in front of him who should know exactly what survival costs but who know something different instead, something better and who, if they only looked on Raju clearly—

He thinks he's about to throw up at first until the fire burns away the centre of his shirt. He reaches up toward the little spot of it but his palms, his finger, the index finger, the right one, near the tip where the trigger sits. It feels like a long moment, while Raju stares, but it probably isn't. It's only that it seems so natural to see flames eating at those places just now, near his heart and on his finger just there.

It's the need to get away from Francis' eyes that pushes him to turn as much as some shadow of good sense asserting itself, to hurry toward the door and reach out with a hand that's going to heat the doorhandle, and stumble out into the snow.

This doesn't feel like a hypothetical argument anymore, but fight based on some truths he hasn't been told - no, a fight based on truths he hasn't been allowed to know. He walks around like an open book now with his sorrow and guilt. There's nowhere for him to hide here, even if he wanted to. He wears his values on his sleeves, stitched into his skin from life experiences that left him visibly scarred.

His hope and optimism was born out of being callous to the point of harmful. He's admitted that openly to him. He was a frail, sick man that made a lot of mistakes that lead to the deaths of a lot of good people. It hangs on him, and he can't hide it.

He can't hide, but Raju can and has. It's just a lot less obvious now that he bursts into literal flames every time his emotions become too heighted, like they are right at this very moment. Whatever argument he wants to bite back dies on his lips as he catches the tendrils of smoke rising off of Raju's chest. He stumbles away distractedly and Crozier stands still, struck dumb by how quickly everything had escalated and how intense it had become between them.

Raju leaves and Crozier stares after him, looking at the empty doorway with his breath still rising and falling quickly in his chest. That adrenaline still remains, but it's taken on a more frightened and concerned edge. He hurries forward to follow, lingering in the threshold as he searches for Raju in the snow.

It should have never been like that. They weren't listening to each other, but rather talking at one another in an increasingly disrespectful tone that frankly will confound Crozier later when he tries to recollect why they'd been so angry to begin with. They're friends, they care for one another - when did they start viewing the other as the enemy?

He's on his knees, and the snow is cold. He tries shaking it off his hands and letting it slide down his chest, but the fire comes back so he holds more snow against his chest with both hands and shivers hard. He hates this, hates the unrelenting grim sky and the cold he can never, never get away from, cold that hurts inside his throat and against his skin, and hates everything that drove him out here, being so messily out of control that he couldn't put the flames out himself and looking it in front of a man he respects, hates that that man will have to know... other things about him, now. The past maybe, but the future, too. The essential truth of Raju that it somehow hadn't occurred to him to tell: what he is, the things he'll do.

He'd tried to tell Francis the things he'd done, managed what he'd done to that man in that abandoned room and been told it wasn't Francis' to judge, but he'd forgotten the part that matters more. The part where he'd do it again. Because of what he is. Of course Francis hadn't known that. He wants to leave but he can't bear to go. Footsteps from the doorway mean Francis is close enough to see him but Raju keeps looking down at himself instead, feeling the cold and the burns and the sour clenching of his stomach that'd nearly disguised the feeling of the fire gathering there until it became impossible to ignore it. He tries to ignore Francis there looking, and tries to steady his breath, and shivers again. It can't last forever, this particular state of things, but he wants it to. He doesn't want to explain, or leave. The skin on his chest and hands feels hot. Things were better when he'd been able to forget, somehow, the kind of man he is and neither of them had a single clue what Francis didn't know.

Whatever resentment still within Crozier drains when it becomes clear that Raju's trying to smother the little fires - ones he'd helped create - by pressing handfuls of snow to his own chest. It's gut-wrenching; he feels like an absolute monster.

Slowly he steps through the door and down the crooked stairs, letting the creak of the weakened wood give away his position, and crosses snowy footprints with loud crunching noises until he's standing just behind where he's crouched on the ground. He hesitates. What if Raju's still angry with him? What if getting near makes it worse? Then Raju shivers, arms still holding snow to himself, and he knows what must be done.

Crozier drops to his knees beside him and brings his hand to Raju's back. He lets it rest heavily on him, so he knows his intent, where he stands, where they stand together. Raju is not his enemy, and this fight is not like them at all. But things are difficult, and sometimes two people can become overly passionate or riddled with so much pressure and anxiety that it all just explodes out of them. He's almost certain that's what this is, and not a change in how they feel about each other.

His feelings for Raju may be complicated, but altogether they're affectionate and adoring and admiring. If Raju wants to speak he'll listen, truly listen this time, instead of talking over him or trying to win some sort of perceived argument. He's level-headed now, he can take his own personal feelings out of it for a spell.

The hand on his back is heavy and kind, reassuring in a way that sets Raju's insides twisting up again. He shivers, and doesn't know if it's from the cold. Francis is a kind man, still, even after the things Raju said. Because he thinks Raju is the kind of man who deserves it. Not looking at Francis could only delay the moment so far, and the moment is here, and Francis deserves to know. Raju needs to tell him.

"I, I'm—" Raju's voice is tense and tight when need pushes it out of his throat, then falters after trying the first word. He doesn't know where to start. He's never had to explain this before.

Has he? He'd tried. Hadn't he tried? But he'd explained it the wrong way, the first time, when Francis had just taken him in. Start at that lack, and fill it in. "I told you. What I'd done. One of the things I'd done. To that man. I beat him. But I—"

He doesn't know how to say this. He can feel his breath unsteady and sharp with the cold in his throat, can hear his heartbeat in his ears. He doesn't want to know how to say it. So he pushes it out anyway. Francis' hand is impossible to ignore, as steady and still as his back and shoulders aren't, heavy and reassuring and terrible. The awful, persistent feeling of it pushes the confession out of him in a way a pen and empty sheet of paper hadn't, years ago, the day he'd stopped writing home. "I forgot. I think I forgot, here. It's easy to forget when I'm not there, so I didn't tell you. When I go back I'll do it again. I'll do worse. I'd do worse here, too. To anyone that I have to. It doesn't ever matter who. I'm not like you."

The snow under his hands is melting. He watches it dripping between his fingers, and can't think of any reason to reach down and scoop up more.

He's going to immolate himself at this point, but Raju's trying, and it's absolutely killing him, and so he needs to try as well.

He doesn't smile, but his hand stays exactly where he's placed it on his back. He wants to hear what haunts Raju, why he was so damn upset when they were discussing the fight of the father and the child, why he can't seem to sleep at night, why he cried for his father to forgive him --

The pieces are there. He's clever, he could make assumptions, put all together without hearing it from Raju himself. He's an officer in an establishment that abused and subjugated his people, someone loyal to a fault and with streaks of heroism, but also filled with so much guilt that he starts and stops when he's trying to be authentic about his purpose and reason. He could weave a tapestry of his life, but he doesn't know, and he certainly doesn't fully understand. It wouldn't be fair to assume.

"Tell me why."

Calm, clear, concise. Tell him why he'll do worse. Tell him why he has to, when it's clear it torments him. He wants to hear why he thinks he's not like him.

A frown twitches over Raju's face and he twists to look back at Francis reflexively, looking confused, before he turns back, frowning down at the snow. It's a broad question, and Raju tries thinking its iterations through. Why isn't he like Francis? Because Francis has lines that he won't cross, and Raju doesn't. Like Raju's just said, so Francis must already know that much, for all he's still trying to understand the rest of it. Why won't Raju draw those lines for himself too, and stay behind them? That's a fairly broad question, too. And an obvious one. Maybe it isn't obvious to Francis.

If Francis wants to hear it, then Raju will say it out loud. A concept he knows is true, but which says something about him anyway. Something Francis needs to understand. So maybe that's alright, no matter how saying it feels. "Someone has to. Someone has to do the things no one else can bear to. Not men like my uncle, or Lieutenant Little, or you, but like me. I can do it. You don't want to believe your lines might have to be crossed. But I know what it feels like. So I can do it again. So I should, so you don't have to, none of you. So I will. I will. I should have explained that, before. You deserved to know what kind of..."

He pauses, taking deep, hard breaths. He feels hot, and can't tell how much of it's the fire, and whether that means it's going to get worse. Snow's still melting out of his hands. Feeling like this and kneeling this way in the cold, with Francis just there, this is familiar. At least he has his shoes on this time.

The last thought gives him just enough distance from the rest to get his breath back, and try and get his thoughts together. "...What you've been sleeping next to all this time. You must understand it now. Is that what you wanted to know? The why?"

His knees ache a little from the awkward angle of his arm, and he finds himself leaning slightly into him to relieve the pressure. He figures if he burns then at least he'll burn with his arm around someone, holding them close.

It's impossible to ignore the pause between 'you deserve to know what of kind of...' and 'what you've been sleeping next to all this time'. There's something unspoken in that heavy pause. He wonders if he knows, if the rest of that initial sentence had been, 'you deserve to know what kind of man you've fallen in love with.' He's been found out; that's why he's so angry, trying to push him away.

He takes his own deep breath, still smelling smoke in the air. He chastises himself; this isn't about him and his silly feelings. Raju is two seconds from bursting into flames and here he is thinking about frivolous things like rejection and embarrassments, things that don't matter in the least up against this. He pushes himself down the other path and considers Raju's answer carefully.

"No," he answers simply. That isn't quite it. Why he crosses those lines, what is he fighting so hard to do? What is it that drives him to do the things that others shy away? He wants to know those things, his actual why.

"No," he says again, hand still on his back. He rubs in slow circles now, silently reminding him that he isn't going anywhere, at least in part because answer isn't satisfying, although he does believes him. He believes that he's the man to get things done when others can't stomach it. He knows that he'll cross lines and give his entire self, good or bad, to get something done. "I know what kind of man you are. Why did you enlist, Raju? What happened with your father?"

It's as plain as he's ever put his questions to him. No dancing around it this time, he wants to know why he's the one who took on this burden. Just why did he torture that man? Why would he do it again? What's waiting for him on the other side of all this?

He can see the pendant on his wrist, a little reminder of the love at home. He's a sentimental man. Cruelty and sentiment don't mix.

Edited 2024-06-11 15:38 (UTC)

Francis leans into him so Raju can feel the pressure of his arm, and Raju doesn’t understand. That part is familiar, too. He remembers now that he’d told Francis about the torture, at first, expecting it to drive him away. But this is different, surely. What’s past could be mistakes, but what’s future is a choice.

The heavy hand starts rubbing slow, comforting circles over his back and Raju shivers again, a helpless, pleading noise stuck in his throat. His skin is hot under his hands, and under Francis’ hand—

Raju shoves his hands against the ground, closing his eyes. The lines of his face are hard for a moment, stubborn, and he thinks about the sharp sting of the ground against his palms instead, only that, and the heat in his skin begins to collect there.

Flames lick against the ground nearby as the snow sizzles. Smoke starts to rise into the air over it, hard to see against the sky, the dark. Francis’ questions circle in Raju’s mind like Francis’ hand over his back. He hadn’t expected this today. He hadn’t expected it at all. But if Francis is ever going to really understand, if Raju is ever going to know what he thinks at all, which way Raju really scores in his friend’s lofty moral tally, then Raju has to tell him now. He certainly isn’t going to say any of it when he feels better.

He doesn’t know how long he’s been quiet. His mouth is open. His breaths are deep. His hands are hot and the long unending night is cold, and he can feel Francis close and solid behind him. He can feel his body moving back and forth a little, loose and unresisting, under the pressure and motion of Francis’ hand. How long has it been since anyone else has rubbed his back this way? How long will it be, once Francis realises what Raju is?

Put the thought away. Francis needs an answer now. It doesn’t matter how Raju feels about any of it. It can’t matter if he wants to say it at all, so there’s no point thinking about anything more than he needs to.

He begins where he can. He watches the place in the snow in front of him, now mostly smoke, and answers with a voice that’s quiet and matter of fact, emptied of anything else. “I’ve only talked about it to Seetha. I was thirteen. I don’t remember what I said. She was there for… half of it. She was… they carried her away when they ran. So she knew most of it already. But I remember she asked questions. You can ask questions. Small ones. Small scale, I mean. I don’t…”

He frowns a little, and for a moment the frown holds there. He should be able to do this, to just say it. It bothers him, faintly, to have to say this instead.

“I can’t tell it without help. I tried… before. To you, but nothing came out. I don’t know… how to. It happened, that’s all. I don’t really think about it.”

Raju is drawing a map for Crozier. He can't answer things directly, it's too painful or too difficult or a sorry combination of both, but maybe if he asks the right questions he'll find the answers he needs.

Small questions. He can start small.

Raju killed his father. They carried Seetha away when the they ran, she only saw half of whatever it was. Something set off this chain of events. Crozier draws himself up, brows knitting together as he watches Raju struggle with his hands in the snow.

"You were thirteen," he says quietly, starting with what he knows. "Were you forced to kill your father?"

Raju’s chest heaves once, then does it again. Something freezes inside his chest, in his limbs, he feels cold and brittle and then hot and flames grow out of the smoke in one sudden burst of movement, spreading out from near his knees and his hands and growing brightly around him from there. Moving toward Francis. Raju lets his head hang, gasps for air, flattens anything happening inside him until the fire is a thin and trembling thing, trembling as Raju does. It thins and it shrinks, and the smoke starts building again, hanging very thick in the air now. Raju can’t really help that. It’s better than hurting Francis or killing him just because he…

He has to hold the thought away from him. Everything has to be very distant, now. To let any of it close is to risk what he refuses to. Just because Francis surprised him. Think of it that way.

“Forced?” he repeats the end of Francis’ question, trying to follow Francis’ direction. Francis is going to lead him through it. “Forced to…”

His breaths are deep and fast, and quiet. He shakes his head, slowly at first and then faster. “No. No. He— No. When did—“

The smoke shivers in a breeze that isn’t there. Raju shivers, cold washing over him, and the flames start trying to grow again. He tries to flatten his mind and his voice again, and doesn’t manage as well as he wants to. It’s hard. That isn’t any excuse, but it’s hard.

“How long?” He smells the smoke. He smells the smoke and the snow and he feels hot, he can feel sweat at the back of his neck. The snow is melted away under his hands, his palms don’t feel cold anymore. “How long have you… you know that I— All this time? Or, or…”

Raju couldn’t bear it, if he’d known all this time, all along known what Raju— but he can’t understand what Raju is, what he’s become, or Raju wouldn’t have to explain. He closes his eyes. Francis has questions so Raju has to answer them. That’s all. That’s all. That’s all he needs to think about now.

Fuck.

Being forced to pry himself part was not in his plan, but the heat from the flames licked a little too closely at his face for comfort. It knocks something loose inside of him, some far-away memory he’d ignored all this time.

Doctor Stanley’s painted face. He’d been a clown that night, hadn’t he? The ruffles soaking as he poured the liquor over himself, the burst of flames as he touched the torch to his body. The low, shaking moan of agony…

Crozier shakes his head and sits back, kicking a low trench in the snow between himself and Raju. He’s not leaving him now or ever. “I’d suspected,” he tells him with a grunt, side of his boot stomping into the ground. “I didn’t know for certain. The things you’ve said…your contrition that night.”

He finishes his retaining wall with a low sigh. “I’ve only just put the pieces together. Raju…tell me what happened.”

Raju breathes. He’s still hot and cold by turns, but the reality is setting in now that Francis has spoken it: Raju killed his own father. That’s what he did.

“I’ve never… heard it out loud. Before that. What I did.” Cold again, and he realises that the weight of Francis’ hand is gone. Of course it is. Raju is dangerous. The one good thing these damn flames have done, shown the stubborn man behind him what’s true when he doesn’t want to respond to that truth in the way he should.

Raju’s quiet for a moment. The moment stretches in his mind, then he realises he should speak. “That… my contrition. That night. It wasn’t for killing him.” Hot now, and the flames try to grow, and mostly fail.

“It was for giving up,” he says, voice tight, while Francis does whatever it is he’s doing behind him. “I promised him. I made him a promise, and I might have— I almost let myself break it. That’s why I was sorry.”

He doesn’t know what to say next. His throat hurts. He tries to think of what needs saying and there’s nothing there, but Francis had a question, before. The one that had surprised him.

He swallows. He swallows again. The flames tremble. He hasn’t eaten much today, but what’s there needs to stay down until Francis understands everything he wants to. For a moment Raju breathes, and tries to move his mind further toward it, to force the words into a shape in his mouth.

“He didn’t force me to. He had— he wore— I never knew. Explosives under his shirt. There was one—“

Raju’s voice cuts out. It doesn’t tremble to a stop, it only stops, and refuses to go any more.

He tries to put the words back in their place in his mouth, but they feel impossible there. They have to come out. He pushes them out, and once they meet the air they come out casually, and calm. The words are impossible words, and so no tone at all needs to come with them. “There was one bullet,” he says.

They feel just as impossible to hear as they do to say, the sharp contrast to everything around him so stark with it that all of that feels, now, impossible too. The snow is a clever prop scattered over a stage, soft and white and its cold far away. The heat isn’t coming from the flames; it doesn’t matter where it’s coming from, because the warmth doesn’t touch him. The colour of the flames starts to drain until they’re paler, their movement underwater slow, and stuttering. He can tell the smoke is tickling and itching in his throat, that that’s going to get in the way once he answers more, but there’s no reason to try to clear it.

“I’m a good shot. I was always—“ The easy, absent tone is cut with a cough, so Raju starts the sentence again. It doesn’t mean anything, or connect to anything. It’s an answer, and it’s true. “I was always a good shot.”

"And you were thirteen."

God. God, he feels like he's starting to understand now. A son carrying on the father's fight, the quick condemnation of treating all children as though they aren't capable of violence, the argument against his moral line -

He was thirteen, and his father had gotten himself into some sort of situation. A stand off, a fight, arrested - it could have been anything, his father needed to meet his end right then and there. There had only been one bullet. Raju did what he had to do, what no other person would do, and he took aim and fired.

He was just thirteen, the age Crozier had been when his father put him on a carriage with a stranger and sent him off to London, never to return home. He'd been so innocent and naive then, a good little boy who did what he was told. Undoubtedly Raju's childhood was filled with a lot more strife than his, more violence, more sorrow, but he'd still only been a child.

"You did what had to be done," he repeats, breathing in the smoke and holding back a cough. His eyes are starting to tear up, but he can't risk moving any further away. "What was the promise?"

"The promise." Raju considers the question. Thinking is slow; it would be very useful, feeling this way, if it wasn't for that. These kinds of discussions with Francis would certainly go more smoothly. The fire wouldn't be as much of a problem that way. Or would it? The crackling he's hearing, that probably means it's still going. The noise sounds as strange and slow as he feels, as everything else feels. He turns his right hand away from the ground so he can see its palm, rubs its fingers slowly together. There's a burn there. He knows that it hurts to touch it. It doesn't matter. Something about the gesture helps him remember.

"He took my hand. I remember... there's a particular way it feels when someone squeezes your hand without all their fingers. I haven't felt it since. And the blood was wet. Give every person a weapon. A gun in every hand. The ones we had were wooden. All but his. Perfectly balanced, perfect replicas. I suppose the carpenter he recruited must have done very careful work. I never thought about it at the time."

He pauses to cough, and then doesn't start speaking again. He frowns at the ground. The smoke is making his eyes sting. He thinks he hasn't explained everything Francis needs to know, but he can't think where to go after that.

"When I helped you aim properly," he says at the ground, throat starting to rasp with the smoke but very calm, following the path of his thoughts wherever they might lead. "Do you remember that? That was a real rifle too, but I suppose I wasn't touching it. I was touching you. I thought that might be why. I liked that better. Oh, you wanted to know why I enlisted. That was my uncle. My father sent him into the police, to keep an eye on things. It wasn't the police that came in the end, but he knew what I needed to. So I suppose it worked out. They appoint certain officers as Special Officers, to do... a lot of things. Weapon shipments. Ammunition shipments. My uncle wasn't suited for it. He's a better friend to the other men than he is an officer. I'm a very good officer. I never stopped... ah... I don't know how to say it. But I never stopped. That's why I'm not like you."

He has to pause again, half-coughing, half reflexively trying to clear his throat. The smoke isn't connected to the flames. He notices that, now that the two have been in front of him for a while. That should be strange, shouldn't it? But no more than everything else. There's an odd tension in his chest and his stomach, and at the base of his throat. There's an odd tension in his muscles, as if he wants to move them, but he doesn't. He wonders if he's shaking, at least a little, if that's why all his limbs and his back feel that way. He doesn't feel cold. It doesn't matter as much as the distant knowledge that Francis is somewhere behind him, needing to know the things Raju couldn't ever tell, if he didn't feel this way.

"Is that all of it?" he asks, not demanding or needing it to be, only sounding curious, checking for anything that he's forgot. "Do you understand everything now?"

The promise - it all fits into place so nicely now. He would have never made Special Officer without pushing, without going far beyond what was expected. He had to become what he hated; he had to hurt and subjugate in order to fit in and then eventually rise above. He had to be more than the British men around him, he had to be crueler, adhere closer to the rules, enforce with an iron fist. He had to be better than them, or else nothing would succeed.

The promise. What a goddamn thing to have to promise to a dying father, the father that you yourself had to shoot. What a thing to do to a thirteen-year-old. He’s inherently horrified by it, disgusted by himself for such a harsh judgement made so quickly.

But he was just a boy.

Another aspect of Raju’s personality becomes clear. If Raju is here, then he can’t fulfill that promise to his father, his village, Seetha. No wonder…no wonder he feels as he feels. No wonder he keeps it all so bottled up that it erupts from him in literal flames.

Crozier’s throat feels thick, a lump forming right behind his vocal cords. He sits back, heavy with the weight of everything he’d just learned about this man he’d been living with for months. With this man that he…

How could Raju possibly feel anything in return for someone who never understood his sacrifices? Some Irishman who wanted to rise in the ranks and be one of them, marry into them, be seen as English more than anything in the world even though he’d never be equal to them in their eyes.

He looks down at himself, his reddened hand and the mangled stump, and blinks very slowly.

“I understand,” he tells him softly. “I understand everything now.”

He understands. That's good.

Raju's silent for a moment. The flames crackle, very slowly. He realises he's half expecting the film to stop, the whole thing done. But it doesn't, and there's more yet left to do. There has to be. There always is.

"I was going to leave," he remembers. "There was something I wanted to know. I should have just asked." Emotion, now, faint but present in his voice: disgust. There's always more left to do better, too. "I didn't want to, but I didn't want to say any of that either, I think. I remember I didn't want to. But I did it anyway. You asked me to stay, once. But you thought I was... a different man then, I think. The kind of man who's going to fight to keep his humanity, like you. But you know better now. You can't count on me for that. I could go to that other house, the one we've been fixing. Or you could. It has running water. But all your things are here."

His heart is beating hard. He doesn't understand why. Francis is a... a distant concept, right now. A concept he would know well whether it was here or some place else, and that he and the good man somewhere behind him are different that way is something they've agreed on. The smoke is moving very slowly, lazily, and he finds himself blinking, trying to keep it out of his eyes. He could reach up and rub the feeling away; he doesn't, and the thought moves into the distance again.

"You'll still need someone you really can respect watching your back, but I don't know who I'd trust with you. I'll find someone."

Seconds tick by before Crozier realizes just what Raju means by that long, sort of rambling reply. He wants to leave him now. He's asking how best to separate them now, who would get what, who would live where - it's complete insanity.

"What the hell are you talking about?" he asks softly, incredulously. He reaches out to grab a handful of snow, almost absently, and starts sprinkling it onto the flames. "Do you think any of that would make me stop -"

He pauses to choose his words, rubbing his now empty palm onto his sealskin trousers. "Do you think any of it would make me renounce you? I don't...I don't see you any differently, Raju. We don't measure our deeds in a ledger; if we did I don't think I'd be in the black."

If he could see Raju's face now it might make the words come easier. He can't though for all the smoke and his own bafflement at how quickly everything had seemed to collapse. But he knows one thing for certain, one thing that never wavered, and it's belief in his friend's valiancy and courage. To do all that and still feel like he hasn't done enough - he'd laugh if he wasn't so afraid of crying, they're just so similar.

"Holding onto my morals hasn't done me an ounce of good," he admits softly. "I should have let Mr. Morfin die. He was begging for it, tormented by the lead rotting his brain, but I was so determined to bring them all home I couldn't see the suffering. I should have...I should have let the men eat Fitzjames. It's what he'd wanted, but I couldn't bear to see him carved up after putting him out of his misery. I'm not...my morals have done nothing but harm the ones around me. I used to think I need to hold onto that optimism when all was disintegrating around me, but where has that lead me, Raju?

"You...please don't go. Please."

He looks down to the ground, forlorn. "You have no idea how much you've made life worth living."

What the hell are you talking about? Francis says and Raju can feel himself frown. He hasn’t thought this through well enough. He’s gotten some of it wrong. It is hard to think this way, isn’t it?

Francis goes on after that, and the more he does the more obvious it becomes to Raju: this is important. It’s important that Francis is feeling whatever it is that he’s feeling now and it’s important that Raju should feel it with him, should feel how important hearing this is instead of only distantly knowing it. Convenient this might be, this separation and distance that makes it possible to voice unthinkable thoughts and its close cousin that he’d felt so often at home makes it possible to do unthinkable things but when Raju wants to have this moment for himself, to push through the fog and smoke between his thoughts and the rest of him to feel the impact of Francis’ confession and to care, he can’t find the way out.

He does feel something, a hint of it. Frustration, or maybe disgust again. Anger is easier. Anger isn’t the thing Francis needs now.

He breathes hard as he tries to push through it and gets a bout of coughing for his trouble. Please don’t go and You’ve made life worth living should mean something, and the blank thing holding himself apart from the rest of him is stealing it.

That odd, out of place tension in his limbs is there still. At home he would use it on a sandbag or weights, to feel something against his hands and in his muscles, to push and push against something until he felt almost right again. There’s none of that here.

The hand sprinkling snow over the flames, that had been Francis’ hand. The hint of a body nearby is enough to remind Raju that Francis’ body is there too, not only his voice, and Raju turns to meet it. Moving is easier than it feels like it should be. But the distant, unreal world doesn’t fall away, and Francis is there.

Frowning, he studies Francis’ face through the smoke, the way his friend is looking at the ground instead of looking up in the way most people would plead. He reaches out to rub the collar of Francis’ shirt between his fingers while he talks, hoping feeling it there will help. His other hand clenches its fingers into the muddy slush next to him, then relaxes so it can dig its fingers into the ground again. It should be cold, and he knows that it is. Feel something.

“I didn’t want to go.” It’s a fact. Facts are what he has. “I thought you would want me to. There are people who agree with you about whoever it is in that forest, about their children. Any of them should be grateful to live with you instead of me.”

He isn’t arguing for or against it. He says it in a voice that’s not arguing, or asking for anything at all. A voice that isn’t doing what it should, to say words that aren’t the words it should. Francis needs something now, and he needs Raju to feel so Raju can figure that something out.

“But I didn’t want to,” he tries again, in lieu of that. His gaze is fixed, now, on his fingers moving back and forth on Francis’ collar. His brows are pulling together in a faint frown, trying to focus hard. Maybe that small feeling in the tips of his fingers there, the bigger one around his other hand, will be enough to start with and bring him back to something else.

"Then don't."

It's simple enough, isn't it? If he doesn't want to go, then he shouldn't go. He's certainly not asking him to leave him.

"Don't go. I'm not asking that of you," he says softly, shifting a little closer. "I don't think you're any less of a good man now than I did this morning." That's what he's trying to say in all of this. None of this changes anything, except how Raju feels about himself. It's out in the open now, that display of self-loathing and fears of inadequacy.

And morality. That question of morality, that Crozier should live with people who agree with him. What he needs is the opposite of that, someone to challenge him. That's how Ross had been, how Fitzjames had been, Sophia. He doesn't need someone like himself, what good would that do him? And he's already established how little that morality actually means when confronted with a difficult choice.

Things he will or won't do - he's held onto these things for years in the vague hopes that he'll somehow make it up to the people he's failed. He's terrified of a repeat occurrence, that's all this is, he's afraid. Having some kind of hard line makes him less afraid, makes him feel more in control. Of course he isn't, none of them are, but it's a coping mechanism as well as anything else is.

"I apologize for not seeing things through your eyes, Raju," he adds, looking up at him now. "I couldn't understand. I...don't think I'll ever fully understand just how much you've had to do to keep your promise. But please see my sincerity when I say this, you are a good man who has been dealt a very difficult hand. Most would crumble under the pressures you've been under."

Francis is looking up at him so Raju looks up too, his frown carrying a hint of irritation now. “What on Earth are you apologizing for?”

But Francis was being kind. If Raju was… himself, he wouldn’t be irritated that Francis was being kind. Irritation hasn’t ever been the wrong thing before. To superior officers it could be turned into impatience to act, which is forgivable, and the inferior officers had always deserved it.

Raju squeezes his eyes closed, raising the heel of his hand— not that hand, that hand is dirty now, he’ll have to let go of Francis instead. There. —to rub it hard over his brow, as if that will clear anything up at all. But he doesn’t have to act as an officer should, or as a husband should, or anything else with Francis, does he? He doesn’t have to find a way to make it happen, he can just say it, and Francis will help.

“We can talk later. I can talk to you later. I can’t, I can’t, ah… I feel…” But there isn’t a way to explain it, is there?

“I feel strange,” he says, voice very quiet, a little defeated. He only realises it when he reaches for them, he doesn’t have the words. The hand that’d been digging into the mud clenches, the nails pressing into his palm not quite as good as the cold had been over his fingers, then relaxes his fist so he can clench it again. “I can’t talk to you like this. I want to do it right. You deserve more than this, but I can’t… I can’t think yet.”

He’s still combative, he can see it in his muscles. He’s still feeling like Crozier had earlier, like he wanted to flip the goddamned table, he’d been so frustrated. He didn’t feel like himself until he saw Raju burst into flames and stalk out, and even then it’d been a slow come down of sorts.

…but of course. Of course it could have something to do with the consistent, almost never ending fog in the air. The Darkwalker’s breath lingering in the air, seemingly having no other presence than to blot out the light, would actually be responsible for everyone’s short tempers.

Crozier sighs and hauls himself up to his feet. “I’ve said what I needed to say. I’m going inside,” he tells him. He holds his hand out, considering placing it onto his shoulder in some meager attempt to comfort him, but aborts the gesture at the last second.

“Until later, mn?”

Raju just needs time, and Crozier…well, he probably needs a little time to process too. Get his head back on straight. He considers him once more, kneeling there in the snow in anguish, and reluctantly turns away from him and walks back inside to sit by himself at the table.

He didn’t do it right. He still didn’t do it right. Raju presses the heels of both hands into his eyes, remembers about the mud too late and doesn’t care, lets out a frustrated noise with his breath. Francis is gone now and Raju got it wrong, but he’s never been any good at giving up anyway. He stands up in one sudden movement, takes long, quick strides to the door, but then pauses there, looking back.

He won’t bring the smoke in with him, will he? It doesn’t feel like it’s attached to him now, any of it. So maybe it will stay there.

He closes the door behind himself, watching Francis. He walks halfway to the table and stops. He doesn’t know what expression is on his face. Probably nothing, feeling strange like this. But strange in a more familiar way; everything in front of him is distant, but not so distant as it was. It all feels a little unreal, but not like a film isn’t real. Only separate from him. He thinks the irritation might have helped. Or maybe being close to Francis had helped. One of those is going to help Francis, at least, more than the other, so he knows what route he’ll be going with.

“The last time I felt…” He isn’t sure what word to use. He wants to be closer to Francis, so he walks the rest of the distance there. Francis’ hand is just there, so Raju wraps his own around it. “…off, like this. Almost like this. You washed my hair. I think that would help this time, too. I want to tell you… everything I should have, a moment ago, but I want to do it right. At home I’d train for a while, that helps, but when you—“

He stops, frowning at his hand. When he pulls it away from Francis’ it leaves mud behind. “The wrong hand…” he mutters to himself. His hand darts toward his trousers and stops, the instinct not to dirty them for something like this strong even when he’s been kneeling in the dirt already. His hand moves toward the blanket wrapped around him, but the same thing stops him. His hand hovers uncertainly in the air. There’s mud on his knees and on his face, and on his hand still, and on Francis’ hand now, damn it.

“I’m sorry, I’m still not… thinking, I should have…”

He frowns softly as he Raju trails behind him. That wasn't nearly long enough to gather himself, and it's proven when Raju starts trying to speak. He's all over the place, trailing off and getting mud on his face and then on Crozier's hand.

All he'd meant to do was give him space. If that's not what he wants, then fine. He can do that too, even if he muddles his thoughts.

Without a word he rises. There's no trace of that earlier anger on his face or in his movements, just a quiet little look of empathy and patience as he reaches for the blanket wrapped around him like a large comforter. He undoes the makeshift coat and unwraps it from Raju's shoulders, hanging it over one of the benches and then circling around him to fetch the meltwater by the fireplace.

He gestures for him to sit as he sets up the makeshift vanity, a clean cloth, a hairbrush, some soap fetched from their lavatory to do the job properly.

Crozier washes his hand, then holds it out to take up Raju's muddied fingers in his, sitting down across from him to scrub gently at his fingernails and over the back of his knuckles. He's almost afraid to break the peace, worried that he'll further agitate him if he tries to speak. Hopefully Raju will settle for his quiet nod, and understand that he's waiting for him to talk first again.

Edited 2024-06-12 23:58 (UTC)

As Francis unwraps the blanket from him, sets up the things he needs all at hand and organised, rubs a cloth over his fingers, his fingernails, his knuckles, the ramrod line of Raju's back and shoulders starts, minutely, to curve. His attention on Francis' hand moving over his is very close, intent on the sight and the feeling there as if it's the centre of the world. After a few minutes, when Francis isn't working on one particular finger or another Raju wiggles it, hoping if he draws more attention in himself to the way that the cold hurts, it will start to matter more.

Francis is here, and cleaning off his hand. Things are better than they were. Maybe Raju won't get it wrong this time.

"You said... most would crumble under the, ah... the pressures. But I— when it's... hard. I..." Raju's eyebrows pull closer together. There's still mud under his nails. Francis needs to know, where no one else ever has. Uncle's guessed some of this, he thinks. But he's never asked. It hurts Uncle to watch it, Raju thinks, when he allows himself to. What Uncle sees of it hurts him, and he doesn't want to know the rest. It won't hurt Francis, not in the same way. Not away from everything the way they are. There must be a way to say it somewhere. "...Maybe I do. I've never thought about it. I'm not myself. Maybe it really is humanity I'm losing when I... become whatever I am, when I feel that way. Maybe that's what it is. But I don't feel like the man you know. It's easier to follow orders that way, and to... talk about things. Like my father."

His father, and other things. If he's going to say any of those other things before he's thinking clearly enough to hurt with it, now would be the time. The next few sentences almost trip over each other coming out, and then he settles into explaining again. "I had a mother. And a brother. A little brother, before. That wasn't— that was the soldiers. I want you to know everything, but I don't think about it. So if I tell you I have to stop thinking, and stop feeling. But then you said those... those beautiful things..."

Raju pauses, frowning again, wondering over the word. It feels like the right word, now, and so it'll have to do.

"I want... I want to feel. For that. For you. That's what I meant. But you must have thought I wanted you to leave."

Edited 2024-06-13 02:49 (UTC)

Crozier moves on to the mud marring Raju's handsome face, tucking his thumb and forefinger under his chin and tilting his gaze up towards his own. He studies him.

Beautiful things.

"I thought I'd overwhelmed you," he says quietly. He leaves him just like that, cleaning the flannel in the warm water before he even considers touching it to his face. "I maybe said too much, or didn't sound sincere."

And the last thing he'd wanted was to sound insincere. It was never his intent to placate or dismiss, or try and smooth over difficult feelings when Raju had every right in the world to feel them. He'd just needed to say something - anything, and god, it'd been so difficult to find the words. Raju's past is unthinkable, which makes him all the more remarkable.

"Or perhaps you needed time to consider everything."

Crozier drags the flannel underneath Raju's eye, careful with the delicate skin there, and down over the elegant line of his nose. He inhales softly. "God. I never knew, Raju. I feel like a fool. I'm not sure...were I in your shoes, I wouldn't know how to keep going. I don't mean to sound flippant - I just wouldn't..."

He trails off, frowning softly to himself as he flicks a droplet of water off his cheek. "It's all of you, Raju. It's all the pieces of yourself trying to reconcile a terrible burden and a tremendous loss. It's all you, and you've never had your humanity taken from you."

It's Francis' fingers under his chin, tilting his head up. He can feel them there. He holds his chin up that way, the way Francis wants it, and breathes out very slowly, and as Raju watches the flannel dipping into the water the line of his shoulders and the tension in the rest of him drains out a little more. The flannel moves under Raju's eye and seems very close to him, close in a way the careful cleaning of his hand couldn't quite be, and his alert expression begins to relax in another slow breath out of him and half-lidded eyes. His fingers start to curl over his legs. But then—

It's all of you. It's all you. Him. Raju's eyes are still relaxed but his eyebrows pull in toward each other, frown faint but troubled. Only him, who did those terrible things. Not only his body but his mind, his self, who's capable of all of that. Those safer, better parts of him the monster, too. His chest moves fast with his breath for one breath, two, his heart beating faster, and his eyes slide off of Francis' face. He lets his heart beat too fast, lets his breaths come a little fast, while he stops thinking about the cause of it, his mind sliding onto safer paths and trying to leave that one behind. Francis had said other things too, things Raju had wanted to answer properly. His hands are frozen on his legs, half-curled. He makes his fingers stretch flat again. He feels his trousers against the skin of his palms, tries to track where Francis' hand is now. He breathes slowly in, and out again. He thinks back over the other things Francis had to say, his beautiful things. Things that had mattered, that Raju had wanted to feel. He can feel, can't he, now.

"You were sincere. I never thought you weren't." He realises he's looking up at the ceiling somewhere behind Francis, and moves his gaze back to the blue of his friend's eyes. He can't think why he'd want to look anywhere else. "You're a good man too, you know. Your morals, your decency, your kindness. Remember when you made those mittens for me? I didn't tell you how much it hurt, the cold. It was still new, then. I couldn't stand it, having to lose my mind on my own inside or go out into the damn cold so long that it hurt, and it always hurt. But you sewed them, for a man you barely even knew. With one hand. I almost wept right there when you gave them to me, you must have noticed. And you're always that way. Your morals, your decency. I've always admired it, even when we were... arguing. That's why I was, I was..."

He tries to figure out what he'd been, what he'd been thinking during that strange interval between coming home and going back out of it again, and snorts softly, giving up on figuring it out. "...so angry. The way you were talking about the children and the people who didn't agree with you were so different."

He had to learn how to be decent. It’s not something he wants to bring up now - Raju would take it the wrong way, assume that he needs to be taught how to be decent, when that wouldn’t be his point at all. The point would be - it’s not innate for him. It was work. Something he had to figure out, and he failed, time and time again.

Raju’s met him at a very strange time in his life, when all of that pride and envy had been sapped out of him entirely. What would he have thought if he’d met him when he was younger? How would it have been only a few years ago?

He frowns a little. He couldn’t remember his tone, but he doesn’t doubt he’d sounded harsh. It had riled him unlike anything else thus far, which is…strange. Very strange.

“I understand now,” he says quietly. “You held that act of kindness in such high regard, my decency. And considering me that decent soul, to hear me openly berate…you, without knowing, it must have felt like a betrayal of the worst kind.”

He exhales softly, a little huff of annoyance at himself for being so blind to it. He gives Raju’s cheek one more gentle swipe with the cloth and sits back. He holds out his palm in a somewhat frustrated shrug.

“That isn’t…my views on the subject aren’t so typically black and white. And I dug in my heels, even when I saw you were distressed. We’ve disagreed before, haven’t we? It’s never gotten this bad.”

Edited 2024-06-13 13:46 (UTC)

Raju's gaze moves to the flannel as Francis. He lets out a slow breath, noticing himself relaxing, missing the hand against his face already. His thumbs move against his fingers and the material of the trousers under his hands, some feeling to focus on now that his face is clean and the gentle care against it is done. But Francis' words make it into Raju's mind a moment later and he moves his gaze back to look at him, frowning as he tries to think. It's possible to do that now, even if he feels oddly balanced somewhere inside him, and slow.

"You just cared, I thought." He's feeling out the words as he says them, trying to make his way through it to wherever Francis is going. "About peace. You're a peaceful man. But... Maybe we haven't. Not like that. And it's come up plenty of times before. When we noticed them in Lakeside, everyone was arguing about what to do then, and your position was... the same, mostly. I never minded it before."

He frowns, going on in the tone of someone who's remembering something surprising. "It seemed like you knew the right way to handle it better than I did." He pulls at his fingers in the habitual gesture to warm them up, trying to use the gesture to focus, and noticing only once he does it that his fingers aren't cold anymore. "It must be all this dark. I've been trying to sleep at the... the 'night', when I should, but it's hard. Maybe it's getting to me more than I thought."

Typically he is a man that cares about peace, but more importantly, he believes in second chances. That's why he'd been so quick to bite back at Raju; it almost seemed like a silly little dream, giving people an opportunity to do better, that he was living in some fantasy world instead of a practical one. He used to be that man, the stubbornly practical, but it hurts him now to think of all the damage he did by being inflexible.

He thinks about that earlier anger, and how it had only subsided once he saw his friend literally on fire. The shock had been enough to shake him free from that hold the argument seemed to have on him. It's not a great sign, if someone has to endanger themselves in order to prevent further escalation.

"In our trips into town...have you noticed other people have been quick to snap at each other? Everyone's in a terrible mood. I thought it was the lack of sunlight as well, the scarcity of game perhaps, lingering illnesses, but that fog's stayed. That green haze."

The Darkwalker's breath, as he likes to think of it. The thought had occurred to him before, but it makes all the more sense to him now.

He looks out through the curtained window and licks his lips in thought. It hasn't been the same since the Darkwalker took Hilbert. That fog's never left them like it usually does. It's as though the Darkwalker's still hovering over them. "It's getting to all of us," he decides. Not just him, not just Raju, all of them.

Raju sighs. Francis is watching the window, and Raju is watching Francis. He doesn’t quite trust his own mind yet, and he isn’t comfortable enough with the impossibilities of this place to make many assumptions about it and be sure. But he trusts Francis’ judgement, and it does make sense.

“It wouldn’t be the first time odd fog was a sign of something terrible.”

There’s nothing he can do about the fog, or his own mind. But he can start a fire in the fireplace and warm up, now that he’s starting to care about the cold again. He stands with another sigh, quieter, and walking around Francis to get to where he’d put Raju’s blanket gives him the excuse to trail his hand over Francis’ shoulders as he passes behind. It won’t be enough when he’s feeling like this, but it’s something.

“But those other times only lasted so long,” he points out, digging in the pocket where he keeps stone and steel and tinder and pulling it out. “How long did they, would you say? And how long has it been? It’s hard to keep track of the time like this.”

He pulls his gaze away from the window at the touch, silently willing Raju to step back and brush his hand along his shoulders again. He fixes his face before Raju’s able to see the blatant look of longing there, focusing on the question at hand.

“Weeks, some,” he says, running his fingers through his beard as he mulls. “The fog that burned lingered for weeks, then the plague from the miasma, now this. I’d say another week or so until it dissipates or is replaced by something else, but Christ knows.”

He just wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a correlation at this point; this place doesn’t seem big on coincidences. But the intensity of things has been increasing, getting worse and worse. Who can say for certain when the green fog will lift?

Raju’s busy keeping busy with the fire, but Crozier’s not quite ready to be done caring for him. He frowns softly. “I thought you needed your hair washed.”

Raju looks up from the tinder and the fireplace, looking surprised. “I… thought you were done,” he says and smiles, making a sheepish, amused noise at himself, looking relieved. Francis had seen Raju was doing well enough now to get by without it, and so he would get by without it until enough time passed that he felt well again, and that was that, he’d thought. And he doesn’t need it now, exactly. He wants it, it would feel better, would help, but want isn’t need and it’d been easy to assume Francis had been thinking the same way.

“I feel… alright,” he tries to explain, focusing on striking a spark again. He’s very good at it by now. It won’t take long. “So I thought you didn’t…”

The spark catches then, conveniently, and he leans down to blow into it for a moment before straightening again and looking at what Francis still has set up to do it, and then at Francis. His relieved, pleased smile spreads a little more widely than he’d meant it to. “Well. It would be a shame to waste any of that though, wouldn’t it? You’ll have to put it away afterward either way.”

He hadn't been done, and he doesn't think he'd ever be done fussing over him, being able to touch him without provoking uncomfortable questions. He mirrors Raju's smile and shakes his head, holding his hand back out to the empty space in front of him

"Stop trying to justify it," he laughs, "just sit. There's nothing wrong with being pampered now and again."

And frankly, even if Raju was beginning to feel better, he still isn't completely himself. This method is tried and true - distract him with a little self-care, until whatever's plaguing him has been left behind completely.

"And I want to." It's important to include that. He's doing this for him because he wants to. It's an apology for his boorish behavior earlier, for making Raju feel as though he's less than, a monster beyond saving. His actual opinion of Raju couldn't be more different from what came out of that fight.

Raju huffs out a breath and ducks his head, caught out, over his sheepish smile. Justifying it. But the urge to argue with Francis about that isn't too strong, not now; Francis has seen parts of him now that no one else has, anyway. So maybe it was more than a joke, maybe he was trying to find a way to justify it.

But Francis wants to, anyway, he thinks, watching the fire. It's growing on its own now, and it'll continue to even if Raju stops tending it. It'll start the long process of warming the place up soon. But Francis wants to, so it's alright. Raju wonders at himself, just asking for his hair washed like he had, but since he did it's already on offer. So Raju stands and moves to settle himself in front of Francis, glancing up at him once and then back down at the floor, still smiling faintly. He crosses his legs, forearms resting over his knees. "You want me to, ah, lean back?"

"Mhm, just like this." Crozier lays a towel over his legs and eases Raju's head back into his lap. It's not just an excuse to cradle his face or gaze at him adoringly, but he certainly doesn't mind the added benefits of proximity.

The water's still warm as Crozier wets his hand and pushes it through Raju's thick head of hair. It'll take more time this way, but there’s less of a risk of freezing him out entirely. He doesn't mind taking his time with the process, and he doesn't think Raju'll complain either way.

"All right?" His fingers find their way down of his scalp and move in gentle, little circles. Even if his words didn’t quite accomplish what he’d intended, he hopes Raju will see the sincerity in him and his actions. Raju bared himself entirely, and he accepts - more than accepts, but loves as any lifelong friend might.

Edited 2024-06-14 14:05 (UTC)

Francis eases his head back and for a moment his hands are on Raju's head, his legs are behind Raju's shoulders. All around him. Raju's eyes are wider. He hadn't realised...

He takes a hard, slow breath in through his nose, the sensations sinking into him like rain into dry, cracked ground. He would have been able to do without but now that he feels it, feels the need, the difference that it makes—

Francis' fingers move through Raju's hair. He can feel them on his scalp. Any other thoughts dissolve away. His lips part and a breath makes its unsteady way out through them, only to be sucked shakily back in again when Francis' fingers start moving in circles. Raju would be embarrassed, he knows it dimly, at not keeping his reactions to himself, if he hadn't felt so off in the first place. Francis has asked a question, and Raju opens his mouth a little wider to answer it. He draws in a sharp breath instead, trying to find his way around the enormity of the sensation to answer it. He focuses on what he sees, moves his gaze over to Francis' face, and it helps. His fingers curl against the floor.

"...All right," he murmurs on his next breath, then clears his throat, blinking quickly as his eyes move away from Francis again. "Sorry, I ah..."

Raju’s pupils are wide, his breathing a little shaky and intense. Crozier pauses almost imperceptibly as he appraises his expression, looking for discomfort or any sign that he should stop and finding none. The exact opposite, in fact, every little twitch of his lips, flair of his nostrils, and quick exhale tells him to keep going.

He smiles softly, left wrist coming to rest in the nape of his neck. He’d hold him just there if he could. “All right,” he repeats again, a little disappointed that he’s turned away. He likes looking into his eyes, those pretty honey-brown eyes, the way they lift and crinkle when he’s smiling and how they glitter when he’s cooking up some plan.

He could wax poetic for hours, but should probably do so while he’s actually washing his hair. His hand pulls away just long enough to pick up the soap and lather up his hair, pushing his fingers back into his hair to massage it through. He works methodically, humming an Irish drinking song to himself while he gets every inch of his hair - and pauses to wipe some of the suds away from his forehead.

Any shadow of embarrassment drains away as Francis’ fingers keep moving and, as he forgets why he was avoiding Francis’ eyes, Raju’s gaze moves back toward them, drawn back and held there, fascinated, moving his head to get a better view. The feeling of Francis’ wrist against his neck shifts a little as his neck moves and it’s a particular feeling, the skin at the end of the stump resting against him there. It occurs to him that no one else could touch him quite this way. It occurs to him that this is Francis’ way of holding him there, the way his arm is under Raju’s neck instead of just against it, and something unfurls, soft and very warm inside his chest.

“You always sing while you do this,” he says, his words a little slower than usual, barely saving themselves from mumbling. He can feel his heart beating and his breaths are openmouthed and deep, a little louder and sharper whenever Francis moves his hand more quickly. One of Raju’s hands wanders up to brush its fingers down the arm Francis has under his neck, and then settles to rest lightly just below the elbow there. “Or hum. But it’s something different this time.”

Different? It probably is a lot different than the last time he’d sat Raju down and washed his hair. The purpose is the same, he wants to help his friend forget his burdens for a while, but the process feels a lot more intimate this time.

Because it is. This is intimate. Crozier is holding and caressing this man lying in his lap, looking into eyes and idly appreciating the curve of his lips, and he’s humming because he’s giddy like some boy with a schoolyard crush -

Ah. He wishes Raju hadn’t noticed.

He laughs gently, playing it off as he tips Raju’s head forward to rinse the soap from his hair. “It’s been a strange day,” he says simply. “And…oh, I don’t know. I somehow feel lighter in spite of it all.”

Raju’s whole face creases up in a smile. “Me too,” he says. He might not have enough tension in his whole body right now to really tighten his grip on Francis arm but he grips it anyway, happily. It’s impossible to think back before this moment, or ahead after it. He knows that he felt… worse, not long ago at all. But Francis is here, helping, gentle and looking down at him. There’s light spreading someplace inside Raju from the pads of Francis’ fingers downward. Or there might as well be.

“I can feel now,” he notes, tilting his head against Francis’ hand just to feel it move over his scalp again. “And I can feel you. I feel better.”

He lets out a slow, relieved breath. After a moment, he focuses on Francis again, free hand moving slowly, idly against the floor, feeling the texture of it beneath him. Sensation. Most of it’s coming from Francis now, but all of it helps. “What were you humming? I don’t know it.”

“I’m not surprised you don’t. Upstanding English patriots wouldn’t be caught dead singing an Irish drinking song. Barbaric.” He’s only somewhat facetious; it honestly wouldn’t surprise him if his fellow officers didn’t know any Irish songs, or if they did they saved them for more of their bawdy rounds of drinking.

“Wild Rover. That’s the name of the song. I don’t know why I’m humming it - I haven’t thought about it in years.”

His father would sing it after too much gin, and some of the lads when he was still a Midshipman would sneak a little too much rum and sing it loudly in the Orlop.

He shakes his head a little and inspects Raju’s hair for remaining soap. He combs his fingers through his hair, glancing back down into his face briefly and smiling once again. He’ll be sorry when he’s through here.

Raju smiles back at him, and the smile stays. He isn't thinking of the fact that soon Francis will be done; he's thinking of the fingers through his hair, the soft solidity of the legs under his shoulders, the wet feeling of the water on his skin, wet and clean on skin that's humming with the touch of a strong, kind man who cares for him. He feels better. More than that, he feels good. Cleaning his hand and cleaning his face and then this, there's something very... Relaxing isn't the word. Reassuring isn't either, but it's closer. There's something about it. Something happened earlier and it'd been terrible, but Francis is here, he hadn't left, and Raju hadn't had to leave. All those things Francis had said about Raju being a good man — he can believe, in this moment, that Francis believes it, even knowing the things that he does. Raju doesn't understand that, but with Francis making his regard so obvious and inescapable, maybe it's alright if Raju doesn't understand just now.

"Sing it for me," he smiles, still watching Francis' blue eyes. His other hand wants to be touching, too, so he moves it to curl around to Francis' leg, grip loose and fond. "I want to hear how it goes."

“Oh, you don’t want that,” he laughs, ruffling Raju’s wet hair a little. It sticks out of place for a second, making him think of when Raju first wakes in the morning, woke up this very morning that way in fact, in his arms tucked in close to him-

A song actually seems very appropriate right now. “When you’re covering your ears and asking for mercy remember that you wanted this.”

He doesn’t have the worst singing voice, but it certainly didn’t get him invited to sing in any choirs. It’s passable. Humming is far a more appropriate musical venture. “I’ve been a wild rover for many's the year and I've spent all me money on whiskey and beer…”

The chorus, of course, is always the most diverting part of any song, especially a drinking song meant to be sung at the top of one’s lungs in a pub. “And it’s no, nay, never - no nay never no more will I play the wild rover, no nay never no more!”

He pauses the tune briefly to chuckle under his breath. “You need to sign that part with me next time, Raju.”

He takes a breath and continues. It’s difficult not to feel a certain amount of homesickness for a place that was never his own when singing one of its songs. “I went to an alehouse I used to frequent I told the landlady my money was spent. I ask her for credit, she answered me nay, such a custom as yours I can have any day…” And then pauses to nod at him. “And it’s no nay never…”

There'd been a time in Raju's life when he'd had to actively discourage people from ruffling up his hair like that. Stronger pomade had helped. When had he forgotten that it felt good?

The thought is brief, and not nearly as important as the way Francis looks while he does it, when he laughs, and the way that he sounds when he sings. It's a simple tune — a drinking song, he'd said, so that makes sense — and the simplicity suits Francis' voice well. Raju stares up at him, fascinated, smile openmouthed but faint like he's forgotten about it and then spreading wide and delighted when Francis invites him to join in.

"No nay never, no more," he starts, quiet and flattening out the notes a little to make sure he doesn't sound too terrible over the unfamiliar tune. His voice hasn't ever seemed too bad, steady and clear enough, but he hasn't done much singing at all, and isn't sure how he might sound. At the same time, though, it's impossible to worry about it at all; Francis is singing, the first time Raju's really heard his voice this way, and looking down at him, and he thinks he could do anything wrong right now and Francis wouldn't mind it at all. When he goes onto the rest his voice is just a little less cautious, a little bit louder.

"Will I play the wild rover, no nay never no more," he finishes, smiling, The hand on Francis' leg rubs at it appreciatively, excited to sing together with Francis for a moment, and his hand on Francis' other arm squeezes.

He can’t remember the last time he’s sung with somebody else. Christmas with the Rosses before the trip to Antarctica? He always hated parlor games, so he can’t imagine he indulged that way.

He used to listen to the men singing in their bunks at the end of the day, or whilst on deck or hanging in the rigging. They’d sing with the officers during Sunday services, Sir John leading with a big, booming baritone. He’d listen, but never join. He’d never wanted to before now. Before this very moment he didn’t, couldn’t understand what could possibly be so diverting about singing with somebody else.

He smiles again and smooths Raju’s hair back into the neat swoop that he typically prefers. He wants to focus on just how much he liked singing with him, not on the fact that Raju’s staring at him like he’s some kind of marvel. He’d never - he isn’t, but Raju thinks… His attention meanders to his lips and he wonders briefly what they’d feel like on his, if they’d be soft and pliant or chapped and a little rough -

And then jump quickly back to his hair innocently, as though he hadn’t just tempted himself like that. God. If Raju knew.

“You’re a natural,” he says, quiet huff of a laugh through his nose. “Irish in your heart.”

Raju lets out a pleased little huff, looking flattered. Irish in your heart wouldn't have meant too much to him before meeting Francis, but something about hearing him say it is a thrill now.

"You weren't honest with me though, Francis," he grins. "You told me I was going to hear you singing and beg for mercy, but I didn't want to beg you even once. You have a fine voice for singing. In fact I wouldn't mind hearing it more often. Not what I was promised at all."

“I guess I’m not a man of my word anymore,” he sighs, very clearly (and playfully) exasperated.

He folds the towel around Raju’s head and starts drying out the strands with little squeezes to his hair. The rest he’ll let Raju handle, though he’ll be sad to part from him.

“There. Now you can slick it with that pomade or perfume or whatever the hell it was.”

This part feels wonderful, too, so Raju doesn't mind too much when his hand has to slide off Francis' arm so he can start moving the towel around. "I'm saving the pomade," Raju says, not much caring about it or about making his hair look like anything at this particular moment, happy only to still be here in this house, to feel Francis' legs under him and the heat of his body just there, to be talking to him about anything. Once Francis finishes it isn't going to occur to him to sit up, handling the rest or not; there's no tension in his body at all, only relief and that glowing, humming feeling, and he's happy here. "I just have to shape my hair before it dries. It could look worse, I suppose. But I'd have run out of the product by now if I used it every day."

“Saving the pomade for special occasions?”

He hasn’t moved away. He hopes Raju doesn’t; it’s so nice to just have him there, to be able to look down at him as he teases him and keep touching his head.

"Mhm." Raju shifts around but only to get a better look at Francis, too relaxed to mind the way the movement messes the hair at the back of his head as he moves against Francis' legs. It gives his reaching arm a better angle, too; he doesn't much care which part of Francis he touches, only wants to be touching something. "I haven't found much more like it anywhere yet, and I might need it someday. Who knows who I might want to impress?"

Oh yes, lots and lots of people to impress out here in the wilderness. Crozier smirks down at him, enjoy the easy conversation between the two of them. This is how it should be, not that visceral, snarling exchange they had not too long ago.

“Grand idea, save it for a wedding, or when Constable Fraser’s crowned King of Milton.”

"God save the constable," Raju snorts, and then smiles up at Francis for a moment, content, thoughtful. "But you're not wrong. There isn't anyone, is there? No one important."

He thinks over that idea. Thinks about the things Francis knows about him now. It's strange. There are things he can say, not just the awful parts but the everyday ones, that he's never really explained to anyone before. Uncle, a little, but not like this, not relaxed and just talking. When Raju goes on it's a little more slowly, charting new waters. "I... used to spend my time off talking to superior officer's sons, their cousins, the women they had their eye on. Involved in their lives. Getting on their good side. You have to look a certain way. But here, it only matters who I'd want to. And you don't care about any of that at all, do you? I could wear anything. I could grow my hair wild and stop brushing it for months and you'd only make fun of me."

"I'd worry about your mental stability, but yes," he laughs. He's finished washing his hair, so now he doesn't have a good excuse for touching him other than 'because he wants to'. Hopefully he won't get called out on it.

"I wouldn't care, no. Not to say I don't have an appreciative eye for beauty, because I certainly do." He loves the beauty of the sea or the ice, the kaleidoscope in the skies during the Aurora, fine paintings and the twinkling of stars in the sky. But he loves a good personality the best - a brave, intelligent, somewhat reckless person to balance out his careful nature.

"Hm." Raju squirms around, turning a little more onto his side to give his neck a different angle to look up at. That makes it easier too, incidentally, to put set a hand on Francis' leg, the other stretched flat on the floor just next to it. "But you don't care much about grooming, I thought. Is there something else you're thinking of when you're looking for beauty, then? Something you like?"

Idle questions. Satisfying questions; he's hungry to know the answer. He wants everything that he can get, and this in particular. He's hungry to know everything there is about Francis, the man who can hear all of Raju's terrible secrets without blinking, the man with his fingers moving over Raju's hair.

"Lord. If I knew we'd be venturing down this path..." he scoffs, very tenderly - yet casually - brushing Raju's hair around his ear to help him set it.

"Just because I say I don't care about meticulous grooming doesn't mean I don't enjoy it. I like a woman with coiffed hair and a pretty frock." He pauses in hesitation, then laughs a little at himself in embarrassment. There are a few other preferences he's accumulated over the year, but if he's too specific he'll admit to his other proclivities. He could pray that Raju doesn't immediately recoil in disgust, or he could keep being vague.

"Expressive eyes, and a smirk. I always did fall quick for a quick wit and a sly smirk. And I...well, I find that hands are very beautiful. I used to hate when they'd be covered with formal gloves. Gloves are for cold weather, not the opera or a dress uniform."

He makes a quiet little noise as he considers what else he appreciates in a person. "Laughter. A real laugh, and a shared joke. And I always did have a soft spot for the impulsively brave."

"Well, that proves my point, doesn't it?" Raju's hand lifts off from Francis' leg just long enough to gesture broadly in the air, then sets itself down again. "None of that's beauty, that's... everything else. The hands are close, I suppose, but all the rest— you're a romantic, Francis."

Raju says it with a grin, pleased with himself like he's caught his friend out. "Grooming and hair and fine clothes are the afterthought, and you're writing odes to wit and laughter and bravery. I suppose it isn't much of a surprise, I should have expected to see that romantic heart in a man like you." The self-satisfaction in Raju's smile is softening with fondness around its edges and his hand rubs its place on Francis' thigh a little, the gesture meant to soften his teasing. Because it is teasing, but it would be terrible if Francis thought Raju didn't see him all the more warmly for it.

“Oh, that’s hardly fair,” he protests, laughing quietly. “How is any of that not beauty?”

He sits back with a little huff. If he said anything else it would be too specific, he’d give himself away,, but he guesses being labeled as a romantic isn’t hurting anything.

“What about you? I bare my soul for you to criticize, the least you could do is tell me what you find beautiful.”

Raju opens his mouth, automatically ready with a usual answer—

—and then he pauses, considering. He can say anything, now. He doesn't have to say anything, so he can tell Francis anything at all.

"I, ah..." He looks down, over Francis' chest and his stomach and away, then back up at Francis' face, and he pauses for a second. "Would it... be so strange if I don't know?" Before he's finished asking he's smiling a little at himself, to get ahead of the answer being 'yes'. Not that Francis would think so, of course, but it is, isn't it?

"Eyes, hair, body? The usual thing, I think. There's never been any reason to pick anything out." Then his smile grows, teasing again, as he shifts around happily against Francis' legs. "Not everyone's going to skip the question and go straight to personality like you."

He chuckles under his breath. They’re both being a little vague now with their answers, but Raju’s never allowed himself to admire pretty things. There would have been no time for it when he was an officer - that would have been too frivolous! Or perhaps it has something to do with his fiancé and waiting to remain faithful.

“Some people don’t know what’s beautiful until they see it, mn?” Lord knows that’s been the case for him. He strictly admired blue eyes once upon a time, liked blonde and copper hair until he saw brunette locks carefully arranged into waves and curls. He admired tall, lithe figures, and then curvy ones, and then those with strong physiques - he’s the last person to have a physical type, but he knows what’s beautiful and what’s not.

“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being a romantic, do you?”

"Hmm." The sound is low, pleased and warm. "Certainly not. It's just rare. The real way, the way that you do it. It's... poetry is easy. You only have to read the right things, and remember how to say them later. And compliments are easy. But thinking, say... bravery, that that's what beauty is, and really meaning that — bravery, shared jokes — that's rare. You look at someone you find beautiful and you see them. Not just their shape, or the way they've done themselves up."

He shifts to put the hand on Francis' thigh under his jaw, too, propping his head up, and smiles up at Francis, admires him. "It's... good. I know that. You're a good man. You do know it too, don't you?"

He smiles warmly, albeit a touch bashfully at being looked at so closely. Truly looked at, seen like he’d seen others, like he’d seen Raju.

“It takes some reminding,” he tells him honestly. “And work. No man is innately good, or wakes knowing they’re good or decent.”

"Mm," he says, an agreeing noise, for all it isn't his own thought. He hasn't really developed his own thought on the matter. There are certainly days it seems the opposite. But without an ounce of tension in any of him, with that need to move so quiet, laying here cared for by a man who's proven time and again that Raju can trust him with anything, he doesn't mind agreeing.

"But what makes a man choose to do that work?" Or, agreeing was his first thought, anyway. It isn't what comes out of his mouth. Maybe pushing is too much of a habit by now. He doesn't sound like he's pushing, at least, his voice relaxed and agreeable even if the words aren't. "Where does that come from? Plenty don't. Most never even wonder if they should."

“Lord, that’s an even more difficult question, Raju. No easy answers today, mn?” He laughs and sits back briefly, looking up at the ceiling.

For him it had been a series of choices. He always thought he was a decent man; certainly before the fated expedition he wasn’t a bad man. But he was a sad man, a pathetic man, and he knew he needed to do better.

“I hurt a friend through my actions; that was my turning point. From that day on I knew I had to do better, but it was difficult and I faltered. I still do. But what it takes for each person, I couldn’t possibly say.”

"Mm. Someone needed you." Raju shifts around again, a little more onto his back. It's a little easier — just a little — to stay still at night, when Francis is so near and trying to sleep, and so needs him to be still. It's strange to be so relaxed while not actually tired, not beyond what's already becoming a normal pull at the back of his mind without any daylight to keep track of the night. He bends a leg, moving it back and forth in the air to try and tell the rest of him that it can keep resting. "I imagine that's at the heart of it; whether that matters more to a man than what he wants. You hurt a friend, and you didn't want to do it again. Plenty of men would have stopped thinking about it there."

It helps that the nature of the injury was traumatic. Hearing Thomas scream through the leather strap between his teeth as his leg was sawed off would have haunted the dreams of a stranger, let alone a dear friend.

He shakes his head. This conversation feels so casual, Raju sprawled out in his lap, the two of them laughing and joking. It feels good, even if the conversation's taken on a more philosophical nature now.

"Plenty of men are pricks," he says with a snort. "I've had my fair share of moments, don't mistake me, but I'd like to think my baser instincts are to be civil, if not kind."

Raju makes another one of those relaxed, wordless noises, thinking and still studying Francis, fascinated. The idea of Francis as he is now taking work to be that way is strange. Maybe it shouldn't be, but it is. "What were you like before? It's hard to imagine you anything but kind, the way you are now."

"Oh, yes?" That also sounds so strange to him, only ever being known as this creature. "All you need to do is have a frank conversation with Little or Irving. Gibson will probably tell you, Jopson if he's pressed."

But before that. Before those months in the ice when he'd gotten too ill to think straight.

"I was envious, and bitter," he admits, just a little more quietly than before. "I saw what others had and I wanted it for myself, and it was humiliating to feel that way. I loathed myself for it."

Crozier shakes his head a little. "And then of course there's the melancholy, quieter in my youth but unchecked after Antarctica. As the years ticked by it made me...difficult to be around. So I imagine. Then when I let the whiskey take full hold over me, I was cruel and jaded, and worst of all, indifferent. I'm certain you would have loathed me."

He's still surprised that Blanky and Jopson had stayed so loyal when he'd been nothing but abusive to them both during the worst of it.

“No,” Raju says, not giving either of them a moment to think about it, in that moment very certain. Maybe he hasn’t thought about it. But Francis has heard the worst of Raju and stayed through all of it; Raju should be able to do the same, if it ever came down to knowing the man Francis used to be, somehow. Besides: “The core of a good, kind man was always there. You wouldn’t have been able to grow into him later if it wasn’t there already. I would have seen that.”

In this Raju is very certain, too. Of course he would have. Maybe things would have been different, but he would have seen the kind of man Francis is underneath the rest, even if it was deep underneath. Raju isn’t blind.

He laughs quietly; Raju is so adamant, how can he not trust him? He admires his judge of character; perhaps if they’d known each other all those years ago he would count Raju among his closest friends, even when he was the worst version of himself.

“If you had known me then you could have knocked some sense into me.”

"I can do that," he grins. "Would it have done you any good? Your pride must have been more fragile then than it is now, I can't imagine you'd have thanked me for it."

“I would have tried to punch you.” His gaze falls back onto his face, his lovely eyes, and he laughs. He’d tried to punch Fitzjames and he’d loved those eyes too.

“But it might have helped. Lord knows I needed a rude awakening.”

"Mm. Sometimes a good brawl does help." He pauses, reconsidering. "Not for us, I suppose. Or maybe just not about this, or with that odd fog in the air."

It's easy to talk about fighting with Francis lightly now, with Francis' hand in his hair and his legs under Raju's hand and head, and the contentment glowing inside him makes it easy to grin as he goes on. "Maybe we can try it next time, see if a punch or two clears things up at all."

"That fight was hardly cathartic," he agrees. That brawl wasn't satisfying in any way; it wasn't as though they needed to get that all off their chests. Thankfully it had seemed to lead to something positive - this moment between them, a casual conversation about important things.

"Next time I start acting like a twat go ahead and knock me on my arse. I give you full permission." He doesn't think he'll need the second punch - he's seen Raju without his shirt, he knows those muscles could fully knock him the hell out if he's allowed to let loose.

"Mm." This time the noise is a displeased one, wrinkles pulling between Raju's brow. He considers it, shifts against Francis' lap, rubs his thumb back and forth over Francis' leg. "Tell me that again when we're arguing. I'm sure I'll like it better then. Don't think I would have this time either, anyway. You were... concerned, that's all. And not yourself, if your theory's right."

He gives Francis' leg a couple fond pats, smiling again. "We'll save it for the right moment. You can let me know."

Crozier wants very much to take the pad of his thumb and smooth those wrinkles away.

"This time surely wouldn't count. It it came to blows it wouldn't have been very sporting." But he's almost certain his theory is correct now, just by the way they'd fallen back into their typical easy exchange. The source of his anger hadn't been Raju - and it hadn't really been anger to begin with, but a slow, lingering feeling that the world was closing in and control was slipping away from him.

"I will, I will." He chuckles again and finally pulls his hand back from Raju's hair. He's done all he could with it; it's washed and dried and fixed up, and Raju looks once more perfectly coifed. He thinks quietly that it's a bit of a shame, that. It's a strange thing to want a friend to be dirty again, but here Francis Crozier is, wishing for more goddamned mud.

Raju heaves a breath, smiling upward. Francis’ hand is gone, which means maybe they’re done; Raju is so full with contentment now, and still lying here with his friend’s strong thighs and bodyheat beneath him besides, that the idea is hard to mind. It’s hard to really mind anything. “Back to it, hm?”

He twists to look toward the table and the goods still waiting to be put away. “Nothing on there that won’t keep, though.”

Minding is different from liking things exactly where you’re at. They could stay here a while more and Raju wouldn’t complain.

“Nothing that won’t keep,” Crozier smiles, happy to not be the only one reluctant to move.

They can get up and around later, the chores will still be there, that awful green fog that lights up the parts of their brains itching for a fight. For now this just seems a better use of their time.

He decides to tell a story about his time with Parry and the sick Netsilik, and how his trekking back and forth across the island with the elderly and children in tow had earned him an Inuit nickname. He hopes for a story in return, real or imagined, but it doesn’t matter. All that matters is the continued smile on Raju’s face and the lightness behind his eyes.

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.”

"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?"

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.”

"Hmm, but then how would you reach my neck right there?" His grin is absent, gaze distant as Francis' face is too busy to be looked at, and the only thing left to do is feel. This sensation too is a new one; Seetha hadn't bitten, and after they'd gotten a bit older leaving marks had started seeming... immature, somehow, undignified, and made it harder for others to pretend they didn't know well what they'd been doing, anyway. Raju studies the sensation, and finds that he's happy to be feeling it again.

His free hand moves slowly down Francis' unhurt side over the bizarrely soft sweater, the form underneath it, and slips his hand under the hem. There's something about doing things this way, sneaking his hand underneath, that wouldn't be there if Francis was still naked. Something good, or maybe only familiar. Raju doesn't think about what that something is, not for longer than a second, because Francis' skin is warm. It's warm and soft, and Raju can't resist the urge to pinch a tiny fold of skin between his fingers and twist, just for a second.

He yelps into the place just under Raju’s left ear when he feels one of those strong hands caressing him suddenly pinch and twist. He sits back with his mouth open in the mildest of bewilderment, then starts to laugh.

Crozier leans forward again to kiss him, still laughing quietly against his lips and into his mouth, delighted utterly by the surprise. It’s playful and possessive and just different, and it makes his body thrum with excitement. He thought Sophia was exciting, but it was never like this. He couldn’t remember ever being surprised.

“You’re the only thing allowed to leave marks on me. You’ll have to leave a note on the message board.”

Francis is kissing him and laughing while he does it and Raju laughs too, grinning, leaning into the kiss before moving into smaller, quicker kisses over the corners of Francis' lips, his hand moving up and down Francis' side over the spot that he'd pinched. Francis isn't kissing that sensitive skin behind his ear any more, not after Raju's distracted him, but he's laughing as he kisses Raju and that's just as good, if not much better.

Then Francis says what he says and Raju takes a sharp breath in through his nose, lets it out heavily through his open mouth. "Maybe I will," he breathes against Francis' lips, voice abruptly lower. Hearing that now, when Francis' body is so fragile still, when he'd been dying— The idea of standing between Francis and that kind of ruin and pain not only because he wants to but because Francis is his to protect that way sends a jolt through every part of Raju's body, a jolt that afterward leaves a little of itself behind. His hand on Francis' skin moves over to his other side, fingers stretched out wide to cover as much area as it can, barely touching, only covering the damage there.

"You should have told me that later." He lets his head dip lower, resting the sides of their faces together. "I can't leave my marks over this until it's all healed. Now I have to wait."

He isn’t certain what part of the suggestion struck a chord with Raju, but clearly it did judging by the low voice and the gentle pressing of their faces together. He allows himself to close his eyes, to imagine what will be when he’s finally healed. He’s always wanted to be wanted, but he hadn’t the foggiest what that might look like.

Rough, calloused fingers stroke along Raju’s neck. “Now you have to wait,” he says, still chuckling softly. “You can wait. You’re patient. In the meantime, I can mark you up as I’d like, mn?”

He pulls his head back to find his way back to Raju’s neck, demonstrating with a sucking kiss to his Adam’s apple. He wants very much to be healed properly so he can feel the full press of Raju’s body against his; it doesn’t seem fair that he can only partially be wrapped in his embrace. But he’s waited this long; he can wait a little longer.

"Mm." Raju tilts his head back to give Francis better access, the hand under Francis' shirt sliding back to his uninjured side and upward as Raju moves. As it does his splayed fingers brush over Francis' nipple, and he smiles at the feeling of it. He's free to enjoy the sensation this time, and rubs his thumb back and forth over it again. He doesn't feel very patient, but at least there are some wonderful distractions in the meantime.

"This is new," he says roughly, feeling Francis' mouth on him. His fingers twitch in a way that, happily, brushes his fingertips over the curve of Francis' chest. He runs his hand slowly along it. He thinks of digging his short nails in a little to make some marks of his own but it doesn't feel right now, not even on Francis' undamaged skin. He likes feeling this part of it healthy and whole too much, doesn't like the idea of causing Francis any pain. Biting would be different. Biting is going to have to wait. "The marks. Marking you. I've never— not since I was younger."

“Seems like a young man’s game,” he agrees. It’s not something he’s ever been eager to do - it would be unseemly, even perverse behavior in certain circles if one showed up with a love bite, and it’s not something Sophia would ever allow.

Because she was never his, of course. But Raju…

“An impulse,” he adds softly, fingers tracing down the slope of his neck and down to his shoulder. Just touching, caressing, exploring. Learning the things he could only look at by touch. “But one I’m rather enjoying.”

With that he bites again, this time on that same elegant curve of his neck.

"Mm," Raju hums, smiling at the feeling of it. His own hand wanders higher, but it's pulling Francis' sweater up as it goes so his hand drifts back down, over Francis' chest and his stomach, then draws out from underneath the sweater and tugs the whole thing straight again. "It's only a shame it's so damn cold. You could leave those wherever you wanted if I was warm enough to take anything off."

But he's almost used to having so many layers all the time by now, unfortunate as it is at this particular moment, so it's an idle thought. His hand drifts up the side of Francis neck as he says it and up behind his ear and he leans forward a little more, so Francis won't have to put as much effort into moving close enough to bite that way.

He stops his slow, inch-by-inch claiming of what Raju can afford to expose to the air to agree. He makes a soft noise, solitary hand slipping underneath the hem of one of those many layers of his.

Not the level with skin. Damn, he chose poorly, must be one of those silly shirts.

“As much as I’d hate to move you off my lap, it is warm in our furs…”

And then Raju could touch him again in that appreciative, playful way of his. If forced he’ll admit that even the roomy trousers are now becoming tight and uncomfortable, and Raju is bearing the brunt of the weight on one arm to keep them touching without hurting him.

“Then maybe I could convince you to take some of this off, and you could touch my chest without the pretense of a washcloth in hand.”

"I liked washing you," he corrects, hand moving fondly into Francis' damp hair. He'd gotten distracted instead of combing it out; it's going to be all over the place once it dries. "Not only because of your chest."

For a moment he grins, and then the grin softens into something tender. "But the furs are on the floor. And the floor is worse for your back, and your ribs." His thumb rubs back and forth over Francis' temple. "I won't make healing harder for you. Not even for this."

But then his gaze moves lower, lingering on the sweater and the tight way it sits over the body beneath him—

Raju only realises he's sighing when he feels himself do it. "Maybe if I pull a mattress out here," he murmurs as the movement of his thumb slows, gaze going distant and eyes narrowing. "But I'd have to clean it first, we haven't used it since I came here..."

Crozier smiles softly despite the burning, pulling Raju’s head down to kiss him soundly. “I won’t ask you to freeze on my behalf, and you won’t compromise my healing. Sounds like we’re at an impasse,” he murmurs against the side of his mouth. He hopes to sound sweet and reassuring rather than disappointed, even if his body screams in protest. He can quiet it, he knows how.

He pulls back just enough to look at Raju’s face as he traces along his strong jaw. “A project for another time. We can…”

He laughs softly. “I’d say we can wait, but I know how little we both want that.” And to prove his point he attempts to push his hips just a little from up off the chair, hand dropping to the round muscle of his arse and bringing them together. He sucks a breath through his teeth and tries to kiss him again, though he’ll settle for dropping his head onto his shoulder as he holds him tightly.

Being kissed soundly is a wonderful way to be brought back from the distraction of trying to plan, and the fingers moving along his jaw make him smile. He's very tempted to say he is willing to endure the cold after all, actually, he's on the edge of saying it, and then he doesn't; he thinks he's nearly used to the way the cold feels through him in every moment here until he faces the serious possibility of being naked. Naked with Francis' hand on him would be wonderful, but any hand can only touch so much at once, and the cold can reach everywhere. Raju doesn't even take all his clothes off at the same time to bathe. But he had in those hot springs...

Francis' hips bring an abrupt end to that particular train of thought. The pressure punches a thick, surprised noise that's muffled at first by his closed mouth and then by Francis', morphing from surprise to a groan inside their mouths. "Thank goodness your hips are alright," he breathes against Francis' lips, "so I can..." And he rolls his hips, pressing the two of them together wherever they might touch. Francis shouldn't have to do all the work here, after all. It's only helpful.

He could calm them, attempt to untangle the two of them so they’re both warm and Crozier himself spared from any potential hurt, but Raju groans into his mouth and bucks his hips right back, and Crozier feels so alight with desire Raju may as well set him on fire.

He wants this, has wanted it. He didn’t know what he even wanted, what he craved, but he has some idea now. He wants to feel the vibrations of his moans against his skin and see what he looks like when he comes undone completely. He doesn’t want to stop; there’s a nagging little voice at the back of his head telling him this chance may not come again. Absurd, utterly, but old habits die hard.

He gasps very quietly, the same way he’d done in the bathtub, as they brush together still in their trousers. Christ, but he wants to see him. It seems cruel that he can’t.

“That’s…that’s good,” he whispers. It’s rutting, like two boys having a stumble behind a barn, but who ever said that wasn’t a good time?

Raju makes a long, low noise in agreement and rolls his hips again, laughing a breathless, helpless laugh at the feeling. Francis doesn't want to wait. Raju doesn't, either. He won't risk Francis' health, but like this Francis can lean back, only lean forward when he wants to. It's better. They can make it work.

"Then let's keep going," he rasps, still breathless. His free hand presses against the chair behind Francis' head, taking some of the strain off his arm and his stomach to hold himself at just the right distance. It leaves him with no hands to touch with but he still has his mouth and ducks his head, takes his teeth very, very gently to the skin of Francis' neck before pressing a lingering closemouthed kiss to it. Raju remembers cleaning this spot before. It still smells like soap, it feels soft and clean and alive. "Just like this. I'll find you new trousers after. Nice ones, if you grab my arse that way again."

The mouth against his neck would be enough - the heat of his breath and the voice in his ear, the feeling of being completely surrounded by this man he adores, it all would be enough to send him spiraling into oblivion, but his body isn’t as quick as it used to be. It might be the one good thing to come from aging and being as ill as he had.

“Coming in our pants, like we aren’t two grown men.” He laughs very softly and goes to find the waistband of Raju’s trousers, fingers pushing in past all the layers seeking skin. He bucks forward again, just a gentle tilt of his hips, willing to do this much if Raju just keeps trying to devour him like the best meal he’s ever eaten.

Francis' hand touches the skin under his trousers and the noise Raju makes creeps higher than he expects it to, not a whine but something close, and his hips twitch forward, meeting Francis' as they both move. There's something about... well, he's touched Francis often enough since they started living together, on his shoulders and arms and back, but there's something about it there under Raju's layers of clothes instead of over the way that he'd expected, something about a hand in a place he hasn't allowed one to be for so long, touching with an intimacy he hasn't allowed himself for so long, that hits him from an angle that surprises him.

But the surprise made him bite down a little harder than he'd meant to; he makes a soft noise and kisses the spot, then kisses it again. Then another time, and he starts to feel a little better about it. "What do you want, Francis? Tell me."

Crozier makes a strangled little noise, feeling the jolt from the bite travel right between his legs, but keeps his hand wandering. It seems to have been a good reaction, and he certainly didn't mind it. A little bitemark, just for him, because of him.

"Don't..." He sighs, feeling warm skin under his fingers, the slow curve. Crozier eagerly sinks his fingers into the muscle and massages, unabashedly just feeling every little bit of Raju he's admired over the past few months. He tries again, "don't mistake that for a complaint. I want you just as you are, right here and right now."

He has questions about experiences, what they know and what might be unfamiliar, but nothing matters in the moment except continuing on just like this.

"You're vocal," he thinks to add. "I adore it."

"Mm." The hand moving over his arse, feeling as he does, has Raju squirming, which has the happy and torturous effect of rubbing them together in unplanned little stops and starts. Raju might have more layers over him than Francis does but he can still feel himself stiffening in his trousers, and he can feel Francis' crotch against his, and the very highest point inside his thighs, and it's a good thing Francis wants him here and now because it might not be time for now just yet but here is starting to feel inevitable.

Right on time, just as Francis compliments the noises he's making Raju finds himself making another one, half-cut off in his throat. "I don't mean to be," he rasps, low. "I just—"

He feels Francis' nails in his skin and he squirms again, letting out a rough, hard breath. That probably says more than trying to end the sentence on purpose would, so Raju lets it go in favour of sensation. This feeling should go somewhere, back into the man beneath him somehow. You're the only one allowed to mark me, Francis had said, and so Raju tries, ducking his head to put his teeth gently to Francis' skin, sucking the spot gently, kissing it carefully after.

He lets out a breathy noise, something like a sigh or a laugh that’s tangled up in desire, as Raju moves his mouth over his neck. He thinks briefly of Sophia, her guiding hand and soft yet stern commands, Ross’ steady embrace and chaste kisses to his head after those storms in Antarctica, his hand on Fitzjames’ neck - tenderness in all its many forms, joyful and bittersweet and sad and lovely, lovely. Raju doesn’t quite fit into any category he’s experienced before; he’s wholly unique, someone who will protect him for a change.

He smooths his palm over one of Raju’s perfectly rounded cheeks and hooks his hand underneath, grinding them together with his steady hand. “Jesus, Raju…” he groans, voice dropping low and deep. “I imagined having you for so long…you’re so beautiful, my Raju.”

Edited 2024-07-01 14:56 (UTC)

Raju lets out a groan that turns into a long, hard breath, that sharpens when Francis says it, my Raju, and he turns his head, pressing his forehead against Francis' neck. It's right in a way he hadn't thought but he'd been feeling all this time, it feels right but it's a sentiment that only suits another name, not the part of it he'd limited himself to when he'd started leaving home. But he wants to hear it from a loved one again. He wants to hear the way that it would sound in Francis' mouth, a sound familiar and wonderful and new.

"Rama." His voice is husky and still rasping, and he can feel the breath of it against Francis' skin. "That's my name. The rest of it. Say it again. Call me Rama."

Before he finishes speaking he's lifting a hand to find Francis' waistband and slip it underneath. He doesn't move it toward any spot in particular, at least not right away; he wants to feel skin under his palm, skin that, like Francis' hand on him now, hasn't been touched in too long, skin that's private and warmer under the soft clothes that Raju had found for him. Beneath Francis' stomach, over his hip. Raju's fingers are spread, and his palm is warm.

He pauses, groaning through bitten lip as Raju’s hand snakes into his trousers. His hand holds tightly to him, his head ducking to press a kiss to his head.

“Rama,” he repeats softly, head falling back to rest against Raju’s arm. “Rama.”

It’s as though one more veil has fallen away from this man. Perhaps the last one, that final wall between officer and protector and hero and just…Rama. As himself.

“You’re so beautiful, my Rama.”

Rama. There it is. The man he loves in ways both like and entirely unlike he ever thought he’d love a man, the man who’s his to care for and protect, says it again. And Raju hears the sound of his name again. Rama. So that’s what it sounds like in Francis’ accent. It sounds like being home, and like being some place entirely new.

You’re so beautiful, my Rama, the beautiful voice says, and Raju’s breath out sounds almost pained, and he realises he’s panting. “Francis,” he breathes, helplessly. He doesn’t know what to say that could give back what Francis has given him just now.

“My Francis,” he rasps through his tight throat, trying anyway. It’s hard to look into those eyes just now, he doesn’t know why, but he does it anyway. Looking makes his eyes sting and grow hot, and once he’s doing it he doesn’t want to look away.

His hand twitches over the soft skin just between Francis’ hip and thigh. There’s something, at least, that he could do. It isn’t enough, but he wants to do it. “Can I touch you?”

Edited 2024-07-01 22:15 (UTC)

It’s a little hard to meet Rama’s eyes as well, his fingers brushing dangerously close to where he’s currently straining against his clothes for him. He tries to swallow the lump in his throat, handless arm sliding over Ram’s shoulder as he tilts his chin up at the question.

Touch him…touch…?

He feels like his heart’s about to leap up from his chest and jump out his mouth. He wants to touch him, not just caress and explorer and hold as they’ve been doing. Crozier sucks in a very slow breath and nods.

“Yes,” he murmurs, his hand easing its grip slightly. He slides back to hold Rama’s hip, attempting that answer again in case his voice was too soft. “Yes, please.”

Francis' voice is soft and fervent, and even with the storm of... of everything that's inside him, it puts a small, tender smile onto Raju's face. My Rama is still echoing softly around the walls of his mind, repeating here and there quietly in his thoughts as if not sure what to be doing with itself. His fingers creep down further and find what can only be what they're looking for, all stiff solidity and soft skin. He doesn't grab carelessly the way he had with himself, in the days pleasure had made enough of a difference to touch himself at all; this is Francis, and Raju's hand is gentle. Fingertips brush around the width of it, and his palm brushes after.

"I've never touched a man this way," he murmurs. His throat is a little sore; that means he'd have been crying, he realises, if crying was easier. Was it the name, hearing it again? He tries to figure it out, to call the feeling up again, and only feels a wash of softness and warmth easing through him, and some powerful wave of something underneath that. My Rama, the thought comes again.

"My Francis," he answers it, and his thumb moves down the skin on the other side, very slowly, to settle his hand in a very loose grip. His fingers curl, brushing fingertips over the base, through wiry hair.

Crozier finds Rama’s face with his lips, pressing soft, reverent kisses to his forehead, his nose, along his salty cheeks. Has he been crying? Had he missed the signs? He’d been so overcome by Rama’s request - use his name, it’s only his to use, no one else’s - he hadn’t realized how significant the moment truly was for Rama. For his Rama.

Even though he hasn’t been touched in ages, even though Rama’s slightly calloused hand, so warm and strong but now delicately wrapped around him, feeling with something like appreciation (for him? he still doesn’t understand how), he tries to kiss him again. He attempts to use his wrist, this useless thing attached to him that’s always been a burden, to slide around his neck and hold him. If anyone could tolerate being held by a scarred stump it would be Rama.

Crozier bumps their noses together, then their foreheads, pulling in a shaking breath at the hand holding him. “You’re doing well so far,” he says, smiling softly. “It’s been….it’s been a long, long time for me. I might not…”

Perform, is the word he’s looking for. Last. He’s already trying not to squirm under his hand.

The feeling of Francis' lips against his is still new and welcome, comforting, and when he feels Francis' other arm moving around his neck he hums appreciatively into Francis' mouth. When Francis pulls back from the kiss his arm is still there and there's something reassuring about it, something settling a little of the tension Raju hadn't realised was inside him somewhere. With Francis' arm there, Raju couldn't pull away from him if he tried to. He feels their foreheads against one another and lets out a slow, relieved breath.

I might not... Francis says, trailing off, and Raju smiles. "Me either. I'm surprised I've lasted this long. I haven't, ah..." It's strange to say this. There's never been a reason to. But once he's told Francis one thing, he wants to tell him more. There's no reason for him to know, but Raju wants him to. "I haven't even touched myself this way in... I don't know. A long time. But I like touching you."

Raju's hand circles the length of him, loosely. He smiles into the eyes he loves so well and pulls his hand up slowly, skin brushing skin very gently, fingertips feeling him along the way. "What do you like?" he whispers, voice as gentle as the moving of his hand. "How does it feel?"

That's not a very surprising admission, given what he knows about Rama. His compartmentalizes and squirrels away real emotion just to get himself through the day; desire would never factor into it, even with his fiancé at home waiting for him.

He pulls himself away from thoughts of Rama's fiancé, reassuring himself that here he is mine, there he is hers. Here Rama is his. Right now Rama has his hands on him, and they're kissing and whispering to each other like proper lovers, and battered and bruised as he is he feels so goddamned alive it almost hurts worse than his lungs.

"I...uhn." His head dips slightly, a laugh catching at the back of his throat. "God, you touch me like you love me."

Which he knows he does, he just needed him to know, to have it said. It feels like love. He can't imagine anything wouldn't at this point though.

"A little firmer," he decides. "I'm not broken down there. Anything...anything else. Anything you wish to give me, I'll adore."

Raju listens to Francis’ direction, his smile warm and gentle, feeling full of the soft thing he’d felt when Francis had said his name.

“I do,” he says, voice quiet and steady, confident. The loose circle of his hand tightens just enough to remind him he doesn’t have anything to slick the sensitive skin there with, but not so much that Francis’ skin pulls against his hand, only brushes it. As he keeps speaking his hand’s new grip moves upward.

“I do love you,” he goes on, never wanting to be any further from Francis’ face than he is right now, his thumb moving up to trace the edge of the head underneath it.

He growls quietly and bucks into Rama’s hand. He loves him- it shouldn’t be such a marvel, especially when he has a gentle hand stroking him underneath his trousers, but it hits as strangely and as wonderfully as it had the first time he’d come to realize it. Rama loves him.

Crozier slides his own hand out from Rama’s waistband and brings it between them, caressing and cupping Rama outside his trousers rather than in. He can’t be as graceful as Rama in his movements, but he doesn’t want to be the only one feeling as good as he does, and he wants him terribly. All of him.

His breath shakes as he traces along his length, finding the base through the layers of cloth and following up until his fingers brush over the tip. The feeling might be dulled this way, he isn’t sure. He doesn’t really have the ability to think it through, all the blood rushing elsewhere.

Raju's smile grows a little when Francis' hips jerk. At the movement or the words, or probably both. It fills something deep inside him, knowing his love can effect someone that way. Francis isn't crying or waiting or hoping and desperate without any word at all. Raju loves him and that love isn't something to be endured. It adds to Francis' life, it makes Francis feel like this, and doesn't take anything away.

Whatever Raju's love makes Francis feel, Francis wants to give the feeling back. Or so Raju gathers by the hand against his trousers. Raju's hips roll, trying to grind into it. "Use your fingernails," he orders, half-breathless, then remembers to move his own hand again. "Trousers are too thick. I'll feel you better." Over the head, feeling the shape of it. The foreskin is just there; he runs the side of his thumb over its edge.

“You need thinner trousers,” he says with a slight lilt, attempting to tease but follow-through failing with a quiet groan.

He must be lying. Rama’s absolutely touched a man before, how could it feel this good, be this perfect the first time otherwise? He finds himself letting out a strangled laugh, the idea of the little command hitting his ears and wrapping itself firmly around his heart. He’d jump through fire for him - they might be a perfect match here in this wretched wilderness.

He curls his hand and rakes his nails, trying again to make Rama feeling something. He’d give anything to undo those trousers and take him out, maybe devour him instead of merely touching. These thoughts once more drive his hips up into Rama’s hands, stomach muscles starting to tense, legs shaking ever-so-slightly.

“Rama…Rama…” he gasps, dropping his head down against his shoulder. He abandons his attempts to touch him, for the moment anyway, grabbing onto his thigh and then up to his arm to hold. There’s the creeping desperation, the inability to control himself, he feels it building and building. “Rama, I won’t…Rama.”

Francis' laugh is a strangled, beautiful noise, and Raju catches his own moan in his throat, jerks his hips closer to Francis at the nails raking over his trousers to try and get more pressure, more sensation, and feels the movement bump against the hand he's got around Francis, then the breath in Raju's taken turns from an amused noise into a sharp gasp. Rama. Rama, in that tone, and Francis' head on his shoulder, his hand moving desperately over any part of Raju that it can grab. Raju turns his head to feel his cheek against Francis' hair, the damp of it chill against his skin and perfect, Francis' desperation, the way he's turning to Raju for shelter in the face of it, all perfect.

"I have you," he breathes, grip tightening just a little, thumb moving over the head and then the rest of his fingers moving up over it as well, and then gently back down again. "You can let go. Let go for me Francis, let me feel you. I have you."

He didn’t know he craved permission as much as he did when it was finally granted. Rama’s touch doesn’t ease off, he’s steady and reassuring, and between the encouraging words and the sturdy, absurdly muscular body holding him closely, there isn’t much of a chance of reeling in that need to just release. Rama’s got him. When all is said and done, Rama will still have him.

He grasps and twists Rama’s shirt as the trembling gives way to a very quiet, barely audible but for the gasp and slightly muffled moan, release of tension and beautiful agony and pain and any need to stop and think-

It all goes away, washed way away by the attention of a man with eyes that spark like fire and a smile that could make mountains bend. There’s just a calming static in his head from everything dimming that remains, his body still humming in those moments after he’s spent himself. His head stays pressed against his shoulder, and then he remembers to breathe.

Francis is relaxed against him, still leaning forward into him and softening in Raju’s hand. Raju shifts on the arm he’s leaning against to put more of the weight on the forearm and twist it around, spreading his hand across Francis’ upper back and the base of his neck, helping to hold him up. Raju himself is still breathing hard, his drawers absurdly soft like everything else in this place but too tight, and part of him wants to squirm and grind down onto anything that might find him pressure and friction and relief. But as that kind of urge has started waking up more and more often Raju’s gotten better at ignoring it, and there’s a deep satisfaction in ignoring it now. If Raju ignores it now he can keep holding himself still and steady, he can keep holding Francis relaxed and secure against him and know that he’s strong enough to keep him here, safe. That Francis trusts him with himself in a moment like this one, and that Francis is right to.

He feels Francis’ back against one hand, sturdy and solid, and in the other he feels Francis soft and vulnerable, and that hand lays him down gently, moves fond fingertips over the length of the soft skin, runs his hand in a trail over Francis’ skin up to his hip. Raju’s breaths are deep and fast, but steady. The fire banked inside him isn’t burning, only warming itself there, and its heat pushes him to kiss the side of Francis’ head once, then again, then a third time. His hair tastes a little, still, like soap, and it couldn’t matter less; Raju turns his face against Francis’ hair and breathes him in.

Soft kisses suddenly don’t seem nearly enough. Once his lungs are filled he raises his head and finds Rama’s lips for himself, sucking and kissing and biting, mind still blank yet somehow filled with thoughts of only this man. He’s ravenous, kissing him like it’s the first and maybe the last time.

Once he finds his bones have returned to their rightful place, he returns his hand between them, hand finding Rama’s straining cock beneath the layers once more. “Can you undo these?” he growls softly, kissing the side of his mouth. “I’ll keep you warm…”

Francis kisses fiercely, very hungry for a man who'd just been boneless and breathless in the aftermath of what they've done together. Raju's happy for it — would have been happy to stay that way for five minutes, or half an hour, or the rest of the night if Francis had wanted it, and he's happy for this too, to feel the lips and the passion of the man who loves him, who's happy to love him, somehow.

At the pressure of Francis' hand a noise makes it out of Raju's mouth and sounds like a plea when it escapes, half into the open air and half into Francis' mouth when Raju turns his head, chasing that kiss at the side of his mouth and wanting Francis' lips squarely on his. As he kisses Francis, as he feels the pressure over him, he squirms, and turns his head to breathe out hard against Francis' cheek, and shifts his weight, hand on Francis' hip moving to press against the chair behind him and his other hand moving down. He shifts himself more to one side to reach his trousers better, ignoring the stiffness of an arm held in one place for too long to flick open the first layer of his trousers. His fingers feel in danger of being clumsy but they aren't, they're moving quick and sure and one layer is open, and he starts work on the next.

I'll keep you warm. Raju shivers, and he doesn't know why. "You do," he breathes out hard, pressing his forehead against Francis' temple. The second layer is halfway done, and in a couple seconds it'll be open, too. Then his drawers underneath, but those will be easy to bypass, in one way or another. Francis will figure it out. Raju trusts him to. "You do keep me warm. All the time."

He doesn't know what he's saying. He does know what he's saying. He's saying more than one thing at once. There's the fire Francis has lit inside him now, and then there's the literal, and the metaphorical: the cold is awful here, and it's awful all the time, and Francis doesn't need it kept away, not in the way that Raju does, but he always tries. He tries for Raju.

Even if he’d been completely healed, no broken ribs or bruised eye to carefully navigate around, he hadn’t believe his body was still made for something like this. He’s damaged, missing limbs and scarred all to hell; there’s never been a time when out on the ice that he imagined himself with someone. A lonely man being lonely for the rest of his life - pathetic, but it was his reality, his bed would always remain empty.

Because he’d never dreamed or imagined - and when he thoughts did stray it was always in the past, never the present - he’d never thought about things like logistics or how he was supposed to please another person being as he is. When his mind started to drift to thoughts of Rama he didn’t let himself consider how things might unfold, because they wouldn’t, of course, but if they did he assumed he’d be altogether lost.

It’s not the case at all. The two of them, even like this, the hurried, frenzied nature of this coupling on a goddamned chair of all places, seem to move together as though they’ve been doing this for years. They ask and softly plead or command, and there’s no part of himself that feels wrong or out of place. He was made for this, for whatever that’s worth.

Crozier tips his head slightly to kiss along his jaw, feeling Rama’s fingers work his trousers open just for him. There’s the first layer, then the second, and Crozier’s hand slips down to feel the final layer of fabric with a quiet shudder. It’s a shame he can’t see him properly; he knows he must be absolutely stunning, but at least he can feel him. His hand slides underneath the drawers to take Rama, neglected and aching, into his hand, palm feeling smooth skin and the arch of his length.

The feeling of Francis' hand is a hard shock that punches a strange noise out of Raju, one that starts life as a gasp, then grows into a low groan that keeps trading space with the whine it can't decide whether to turn into. The reality of wanting was one thing: stray thoughts, sensitive skin, accidental friction and tension hot inside him, cravings unmet, Francis' body lax and trusting against him, those are all manageable. Manageable and, in a way, familiar, the wanting only valuable in the chance it gives him to hold himself back. The reality of getting is something else, something Raju is completely unprepared for, hadn't known how unprepared until he couldn't not know it, until he's having to lock his hips to keep them from twitching again as he locks down the rest of his body, holding himself tense in every muscle but still, holding his breath for a moment before he speaks.

"I..." he starts, as much a drawn out, shaking noise as a word. He realises he's hiding his face against Francis' shoulder, that the hand that'd been unbuttoning his trousers is gripping Francis' thigh. He tries to loosen his grip, and manages it just a little. He realises he can't quiet his gasping breath. That noise he's hearing is the fire somewhere, now louder. He can barely manage his body, suddenly; there's nothing he can do about it. "I won't... It won't be... long. I can't..."

He thought he might feel him melt against him, yield just for the briefest of moments and let himself be cared for, but of course it was never going to be that easy. He has to coax those moments out of him, but lucky for Rama he’s a very patient man.

“Easy,” he murmurs, “easy. Relax, Rama, try to breathe for me”

He shushes him gently again as he slides his hand slowly up, velvet skin under his palm, slick pooling at the head that he smears with his thumb. “Breathe, can you do that? You’re so tense, I want you to feel what I felt. I know you can, you’ll do that for me, I know. Just for me.”

Crozier turns and nuzzles against his head against his, trying to be solid for him, something to cling to. It puts pressure on his chest, just a little, but nothing aches or pains him. It’s worth a little discomfort for this man.

When Francis first tells him to breathe Raju's already doing it, has to so the pained noise he makes at Rama can make it out. But he stops again as Francis' hand moves, not able to stop his shuddering but controlling himself, chest tight with it, but Francis tells him again. Tells Raju — Rama — tells him to breathe, for Francis. Raju nods against Francis' shoulder, his neck, feels Francis' head moving against his and tries, letting his held breath out in a gust and pulling it back in again.

His hand is trying to clutch at what he realises by touch must be Francis' chest, gets so far as to brush against his shirt there but Raju moves it, presses it flat against the fabric of the chair behind him. He can't let go, can't move, or this is going to end too soon, but he needs to move, some of this needs to go somewhere so he slaps his hand against the chair, feeling the heat over and underneath his skin. But Francis is here. Francis is here, hurt, so the thing inside him can't let loose right here. Around him instead, a circle around the chair. A safe distance away. He feels Francis against him, and around him, and his breath shakes. Only them. The two of them, and Raju's self control. That's all that exists now.

There’s a fire in the cabin, a small rise of flame moving in a slow circle around their chair. The heat doesn’t touch Crozier, not the heat of the flames at least. Rama is the fire, and he burns against him.

He brings his hand down, makes a loose fist, and applies a soft pressure as he works his way along his length. Slow, careful, aware that Rama is sensitive and anything more might hurt him. He shudders as he strokes along back to the head; by touch alone he can tell Ram is as perfect as he’d imagined in his daydreaming.

The fire roars and Rama holds on, muscles so rigid Crozier thinks he could bounce a coin off of them. “Let go,” he urges him, gentle yet just a touch of sternness behind it. He quickly brings his hand up to his lips and sucks his thumb and forefinger, then pushes back into his drawers to use the added slick to massage and trace the tip while his palm squeezes and draws upwards.

Raju's breath comes in fits and starts and little gasps as Francis' hand moves, throat too locked down to make noise so he can hold on through the first time in this long that any hand has touched him this way. His forearm takes his weight against the chair so that hand can curl into a fist as tightly as he can hold it and let go that wonderful voice says, orders him, and Francis' hand is gone and just as quickly it's back and over him, moving, and it's too much, the hitched gasping of his breath tenses and tightens—

But let go Francis had said and with a stuttering, pained noise Raju does, and the noise sounds like a sob as Raju shakes against him. He wants to be touching the man who loves him, who was stern with him, let go, wants to be touching him more than he is, and his one hand moves toward Francis' side again, knows he can't be gentle enough now and moves down, trying to grab hard onto something that feels like a stomach, a hip, a thigh. His panting sounds like moaning and his breaths slow, and he feels wetness between his face and Francis' neck. He feels the heat of his own breath. The crackling of the flames is quieter. Raju still wants to be closer, to touch Francis more, and kisses his neck, then up to kiss his jaw, and then the side of his face, and then his mouth. Then he leans his forehead against Francis', panting, realises that his heart is beating fast when he feels it starting to slow.

"Francis," he says, voice raw. There's nothing in his head to follow it up with. He only wants to say the name, to feel the man and the love of him inside of his mouth.

He's shaking a little. That's alright. That's alright. Francis won't mind.

Rama tastes salty-sweet, Crozier meeting the kisses with reverence and soft awe. Each shuddering gasp answered with a quiet exhale of his own; he sighs as Rama presses their foreheads together.

He leans forward slightly, nose brushing against his cheek. His hand slides out from Rama’s drawers, mindful of how sensitive he must be because he feels the same, hand wrapping tightly around his back to hold him close. To keep him close. He’d hate for him to leave now, for this to end too soon, for them to go back to not being completely tangled up in each other.

“Rama.” He holds him, trembling and sore ribs and all, wanting him more and again (though his body says absolutely not, not for some time). He feels intoxicated by him, wanting every part for himself, strength and vulnerability and joy and pain, all the parts that make him the wonderful man he adores. He wants it for himself, selfishly, forever if possible.

He tips his head up and kisses him softly. “You’re a beautiful man when you fall apart, Rama,” he says quietly, slightly slurring his words as the adrenaline begins to fade.

Francis withdrawing his hand makes Raju whine quietly and squirm a little, and the arm around him, keeping him in place, gets a relieved sigh. Francis says his name — that's not the right way to think of it, that isn't enough, Francis says his name — and Raju's trembling is stronger for a moment, he shivers. What Francis says next after that next kiss, soft, easing him into the lassitude his body wants, makes less sense; the noise that Raju makes on hearing it is wordless and confused. He feels Francis' skin against his as he shakes his head, and he shifts onto one side, trying to lean half of himself against the armrest. It's a small space and most of it is space that Francis needs, but Raju's muscles are loose and weak just now and he won't risk leaning any of his weight on Francis and hurting him.

"You're not making any sense," he manages in a murmur, slurring a little bit himself in the fight against the pull to be too relaxed just now to speak. He breathes against Francis' face. His hand moves from Francis' thigh, feeling its way blindly and very carefully up him, up hip and stomach and over chest, neck, up to the side of Francis' head. His thumb rubs back and forth over Francis' temple and the arm that'd been holding Raju up moves idly down and up again under Francis' shirt and Raju lets out a long, slow sigh, satisfied.

“Yes, I do,” Crozier replies, shivering as Rama’s hand eventually finds its way up into his soft shirt. “Beautiful how you are now.”

Maybe he doesn’t make sense. God knows he feels more wrung out (in the best way) than he ever has before. That’s fine, it makes sense in his mind. He’s beautiful when all that tension floods out of him, beautiful now all boneless and seeking warmth and comfort. He’s beautiful this way, vulnerable only for him. He’s just…he’s beautiful, inside and out, and Crozier is overcome with love for him.

Crozier lays his head against the back of the chair with a low sigh of his own, hand smoothing up and down Rama’s spine, flirting with the very top of his very enticing arse. He smirks a little, snaking his hand back under his waistband to give that perfectly round rump a good pinch.

Raju wants to protest again, even if he can't figure out just how — the loss of control is part of it, has to be part of this sometimes, but Raju needs to keep Francis clean and dry, has to get up to get a new rag and the water, find them both new trousers, clean both of them off, finally dry Francis' hair, and the way that he is now is between him and getting any of those necessary things done, but those are a lot of words for a mouth that has to be coaxed into moving — but Francis moves his hand over Raju's spine and Raju shivers, and then he—

—he's pinched Raju's arse. That's what that feeling was. Raju's so unprepared for it that his whole body twitches and he takes a sharp, shocked breath and looks at Francis with parted lips and wide, surprised eyes. Then he begins to laugh. His body is too relaxed for a proper laugh so it comes out half breath and Raju curls forward with it, laugh progressing into almost a giggle as the hand on Francis' temple slides down to cup his head, and the hand underneath Francis' shirt curls fondly over his chest. "Who does that?" he manages. "Is that how you'll be winning arguments now?"

He’s tempted to ‘shoe’s on the other foot’ him, but dear god, the look in Rama’s eyes. First as they stare up at him, undoubtedly in shock that Crozier would deign stoop to such a level, then they crinkle in delight and amusement and he’s absolutely swooning from the sight of it.

“Next time I’ll just give you a nice slap on the arse, would that be better?” he teases, sweetly rubbing the spot he’d just abused. “But if it gets you to laugh like that, absolutely.”

Anything to make him laugh.

They should move; he’s sore and wants to fall asleep in Rama’s arms, but he also wants to stay like this for as long as possible. Freeze the moment, as it were.

It's strange to feel a hand rubbing him that way, to have anyone in his life who'd touch him there so casually. Strange to have anyone in his life who would do any of the things Francis has done tonight, strange that someone's made it a goal to make him laugh. Maybe when he isn't so relaxed, when this feeling isn't humming through him any more and leaving him tingling and light even as his limbs feel too heavy to lift without work, maybe then he'll puzzle over it. For now he's only happy, is touching him every place that he can while Francis is too injured to plaster their bodies against one another, and he loves Francis, who has his hand on Raju's arse, who wants to make him laugh again. Raju leans forward to kiss him, as passionate as he can be when Raju's hand is on one side of Francis' injured skull and his lips are on the other and it's more important than anything in this world to be gentle. Raju exchanges the idea of pressure for biting and sucking on Francis' lips instead, laughing low and breathless into his mouth.

"It's only going to surprise me the first time," he murmurs. "You'll have to work harder."

“I’ve got the rest of my life to work on my approach,” he murmurs back, pressing his slightly kiss-bitten smile against Rama’s mouth. “You’ll allow for missteps now and again, mn?”

Of the many ideas that cross a man’s mind when suddenly trapped in a world that wants them dead, ‘the rest of one’s life’ seems a bleak concept. Not so for Crozier. There’s a far different life to be had here for him, where the dead have risen and there’s companionship and love. And if his life is only extended for mere months or a few years, he knows his purpose. He will make Rama happy, and he won’t fear or despair, but live a life that has some spark of joy in it.

He presses forward to kiss him back, slow and deep, sighing quietly into his mouth before he pulls back once more. They really need to get off this chair.

He hates that they need to get off this chair.

Edited 2024-07-06 00:01 (UTC)

Raju turns his head away from the kiss to press his face into Francis' neck. This isn't the way he'd usually hide his expression when he needed to, but the impulse to hide it comes easily, and he's glad. The rest of Francis' life. Once he'd had the calluses built up to endure it, the need to keep disappointing the people who love him. Those calluses must have worn away when he wasn't looking, because it hurts.

A moment later Francis is pulling away, and Raju's smile at him is a little less relaxed and a little more polite, but it's still there; Francis is in front of him and happy, he's happy now, and Raju is trapped in this place anyway. It's like having Francis' arm around him, when he couldn't have pulled back if he'd tried to. He takes a breath deep enough to pull at his chest and holds it, lets it slowly out, studies the way Francis is sitting as he pulls back from him. The hand over Francis' head starts running itself down over it, smoothing down his hair, and the feeling soothes the tension inside Raju's chest a little. His other hand runs fondly down over Francis' chest. Raju can do that now, as much as he likes, and the new possibilities there are enough, nearly, to distract him the way he wanted them to.

"What is it?" he murmurs. "Uncomfortable?"

He doesn’t see the change in Rama’s smile; the touch feels the same, the affection just as genuine as it was before. “A little,” he admits quietly, hand moving to Rama’s waist. “As much as I’d hate to move, we can’t stay like this.”

They need to settle in for the night, prepare for the chill that will set in by changing clothes and fixing their bed. He needs his bandages put back on before he sleeps, or else he’ll actually do some damage rather than merely risking it.

Crozier reaches for the hand on his chest and brings it up to his lips, brushing a kiss to his knuckles. “But maybe worry about my hair at a later date, mn? Save something for tomorrow.”

Raju's eyes widen a little as Francis kisses his knuckles, expression shifting into quiet surprise. What he has with Francis, what they've started building — started now, or maybe a long time ago — every moment of it should remind him of Seetha and choices that he has to make, pain and other inevitable things. But he's never been kissed the way that Francis, sometimes, has been kissing him: like he's doing as much of the wooing as Raju is, like Raju isn't leading Francis into heartbreak so much as the two of them are taking turns leading each other.

And there's something about the thing itself, the obvious romance in the gesture. He's never once thought about how it would feel to be on this end of it before.

"I have to worry about your hair," he says, unwilling to move his one hand from Francis' just now but flipping the towel behind Francis over the top of his head with the other and rubbing it at his head gently. "We can't leave it damp all night. Besides, if we're moving, that means I get to clean you up now. I might as well worry about your hair while I do the rest of it."

The more time passes, after all, the more aware he becomes of that wet spot inside his trousers. Moving isn't necessarily going to be a bad thing, even if Raju didn't need something to do to stop himself from thinking. "You'll feel better once you're clean and dry, you'll see. I won't even take very long to find you new trousers, I've already looked through everything once."

Crozier squints up through the folds of the towel as Rama rubs the rest of the water out of his hair. He’s endeared by the finickiness, even if a little exasperated that everything should be done and done efficiently right then and now. There’s always a little room for things to be done later, or fall away entirely.

“I won’t argue with you on that point,” he says, “I’m sure I will.” Although if he was really being honest he’s more looking forward to their very new tradition of awkwardly sleeping upright together. It has been good for his injuries, and he can unabashedly lean into him as long as he wishes. He’s not eager to let him go just yet, but if they must….

“My hair must be dry now,” he grumbles.

Raju huffs out an amused breath, small smile creeping its way onto his face. "Like a boy," he teases, and if he's lucky the teasing will wash his misgivings to the back of his mind again, where they might find themselves shoved behind something else and forgotten there. The rest of my life hangs inside him like a weight, and he wishes it wouldn't. "A minute now and you won't catch a chill later."

Then he finishes, shifts to stand, and hesitates. He studies Francis' face, studying that pull that he's always felt in looking at him. He doesn't know about anything else, about the future, or duty, or pain, or anything. But he knows he can give in to that pull now, in ways he hadn't even considered for most of the time that he's felt it. He knows giving in to the want will make Francis happy. He brushes the towel back over Francis' hair one more time slowly, sets it back behind his head, and cups the side of Francis' face, leaning forward to ease his way into a kiss gentle enough to say everything with it he doesn't quite have words for, or maybe has said to Francis already. I love you isn't as dangerous for Francis as it feels. The danger is already done.

You touch me like you love me. Raju tries to kiss Francis like he loves him, too. It's the least he can do.

Behind the kiss is sentiment and warmth, Crozier can feel in his hand just resting on the side of his face and in his lips as they brush against his. He meets the kiss, very carefully tilting his head back a breadth, but doesn’t try to control or deepen. He understands this, he’s here to receive. If it’s a parting gift upon separating or a swell of affection is not for him to understand.

His hand raises from where it had settled against the arm of the chair, reaching far enough to just brush against Rama’s outer sleeve before he drops it back down again. He just wants Rama to know that he’s here, right here with him.

Crozier waits for Rama to pull his head back, utilizing whatever self control remains to keep his arms down and his body relaxed against the chair. He has nothing queued up to say when they do part - no quip or silly joke or compliment. He just has this, himself. Nothing more.

His gaze moves over Francis' face when he pulls back. He smiles a little, then stands. Easier to feel the wet spot in his trousers this way and he lets out a rough, amused breath, looking down at it and then at Francis. "I'll only be a moment," he says and brushes his hand against Francis' arm as he goes. When he comes back it's with a bundle of clothes for himself and another pair of soft pyjama bottoms for Francis, and he hands them over as he starts to strip.

"You'll need your bandages wrapped again too, won't you?" he sighs as he starts, reaching for the bundle of rags with one hand as the other lets go of his waistband. That's enough to start with, everything unbuttoned as it is. "Are you ready for that yet, or do you want to wait?"

He’d quite like to keep watching Rama take off his clothes, but he knows the time for indulging is over. He needs to change and get wrapped, so he starts stripping himself down to get prepared, starting with the impossibly soft jumper.

Taking off his trousers is more of a process than the shirt, and he pauses with them hitched around his hips to catch his breath. “Trousers first,” he tells him, wriggling out leg by by leg, handless arm pressed to his chest out of habit.

"Mhm." Raju, hale and two-handed, finishes taking his trousers and drawers off first, sets them aside and pauses after. It's odd to pause this way, he's getting goosepimples already, but the impulse to check on Francis took over before he'd thought about it and the realisation that it doesn't matter how little he wears around Francis any more, doesn't matter in a very different way from how it wouldn't have mattered before, stops him longer.

But shivering gets him back on task and he wipes himself down with a rag, tosses it with his trousers, and holds another one out to Francis. "Alright?" he murmurs, not wanting to charge in to do the thing for him — taking care for Francis' dignity is nearly as difficult, sometimes, as watching him in pain has been — but wanting to offer, at least, even if that stretches his time half-exposed to the open air out a little longer. He shivers again, and with his shirts still on, looks ridiculous, but solving both those problems can wait for a second or two.

Oh. He’s completely…oh.

Crozier takes the rag from Rama’s hands after his trousers are completely down and off, and he stands with a firm grip to the handle of the chair to wash without looking like a complete invalid. It’s an interesting mix of emotions - bashfulness and embarrassment, intrigue, curiosity…and yes, attraction.

He’s just so goddamned beautiful, it’s unfair. He knows he’s been unable to follow whatever routine he curated at home, so this isn’t even Rama at his peak, a loss of muscle and food taken whatever toll it had on him. But his body is still impressive and downright picturesque, and Crozier turns himself away in order to focus on cleaning and not staring like a goddamned love sick fool.

Francis turns away, and it gives Raju something more to stare at. It's thoughtful staring as much as it's anything else; the urge to stare at all is... new? Is it new?

Raju shivers again, grimaces, and focuses on pulling on his drawers over his socks, the first pair of trousers, the second pair. Once they're on it's a little easier to focus, not warm yet, but not quite as cold. And that happiness is still humming through him even now with rest of my life shifting its way into the back of his mind. Even now he feels the tired weight in his limbs, the hint of warmth. If the new burn marks on the floor weren't enough to prove what's just happened, if his new knowledge of Francis' body wasn't enough, Raju would feel different, even still. He glances over at Francis again and his gaze sticks there, contemplative.

"I get to stare all I want to now," he realises, pleased, and huffs in amusement at himself. "Thank goodness. I didn't know what to do with myself before."

He's mid-step back into a pair of clean pair of trousers when Rama gives that little huff. He jerks the waistband up, getting it mostly back into place as he feels the blood rush to his neck and face. They've kissed and touched and made each other...well, they'd been intimate, for God's sake, and here he is still getting flustered over such a little comment.

But there's so much behind it, isn't there? Rama is amused as he seems to realize there aren't any constraints on looking anymore. He's seemingly just plain happy with the revelation, being able to stare at him without limitations or having to hide himself. And he wants to look at him! He has been looking at him! Not that Crozier hasn't been staring right back; Rama just lends himself to being watched closely.

Crozier coughs quietly and sits back down on the bench, waiting for Rama to finish dressing so he can bandage his chest. "I...hadn't guessed that's what you were doing. You nearly always an intense stare when you're thinking."

"There's been a lot to think about." On the bench there's room to sit next to him so Raju does, grabbing for the bandage on the way. A hint at a frown moves over his face as he looks at it in his hands. He won't miss seeing the way it hurts Francis when he wraps it, even if it helps. He'd burn it once Francis was done with it, if there wasn't too much chance they'd need it later for something else.

Doing something else important with his hands gives Raju the reason, at least for a moment, to put the damned thing aside; he'd seen Francis' blood rushing to his skin when he'd first said it and makes as if to pinch that pink cheek now, then instead of pinching runs his thumb over the skin. "And plenty to look at."

It's nothing he'd say to a man, but so much of what he's done today could be described that way, so after a second of watching his thumb over Francis' cheek Raju goes on, smiling knowingly: "Blushing suits you, you know. I knew it would. You should do it more often."

He's rarely been on the receiving end of compliments, and he frowns in confusion as Raju sits close and touches his face. It's a quiet fire that burns in him now, his body too exhausted for anything but that magnificent little leap his heart gives at Rama's smile. He has dimples in his cheeks. Darling little dimples that makes the wear and strain fall from his handsome face.

"Blushing suits me," he repeats incredulously. Rama hasn't seen him with a full head of copper hair and too many freckles to count; the blushing would have looked like heat stroke or a sunburn.

"Do you honestly..." Crozier trails off, unsure of his question. Unsure of anything but his very deep desire for this incredible man, who looks at him and touches and kisses him with more tenderness and passion than he's had in -

What a sad thought. He can't remember if he's ever been touched with this kind of admiration. Maybe once or twice, with Ross, but that was James, dear.

"I'm certain I will," he finds, hand steadying himself in between their legs on the bench. "If you keep saying those things to me."

"Then I'll have to do it again," he says, moving a little closer to Francis on the bench, hand resting near Francis' as Raju leans toward him. His gaze moves over Francis' face. But Francis had been confused when Raju had said it, and of course he had; if he'd ever heard words like that before, he'd have been the one saying them. Not that that seems much like Francis either— not unless murmured very low into a waiting ear, that Raju can imagine very...

Focus.

"I know you said there isn't a usual for this. For men. But I... you don't mind it, do you? When I speak to you that way? I can see you aren't used to it, I'd hate for you to feel I'm treating you like... unlike a man. But you are beautiful. I don't know how else to say it."

Perhaps there is something usual between two men, but it isn't as though either of them would know about it. They'll have to make their own typical, navigate around what's awkward and what feels right. It feels an insurmountable challenge, one that Crozier wouldn't even know where to begin -

Except Rama's called him beautiful. He's called him beautiful, and he doesn't hate it. He doesn't hate it at all.

His neck feels a little hotter, ears burning now. "No...I don't feel...lesser," he tells him, choosing his words carefully. "Being admired isn't a familiar sensation, and I feel no more a man than I had yesterday. My initial balking...is due to unfamiliarity."

It's strange, and in that strangeness is where he feels turned upside down. "Do you...would you mind it? I confess I look at you with the same admiration, but I fear missteps."

At the question Raju looks away from Francis' red ears, hand sliding down to his jaw. He smiles, pleased at Francis' admiration and his cautious consideration, and takes a moment to imagine it. It doesn't take much work to imagine; Francis had been saying all sorts of things not ten minutes ago, when Raju could feel Francis over nearly every part of him. And anything he hadn't said, that had been communicated very clearly, too. From Francis, Raju would know exactly what it means.

"From you?" he says quietly, warmly. "No. You wouldn't make it... anything else. You do respect me. And if you called me those things, you'd still respect me. If you said it, it would be honest admiration. From you, I think... I could like it."

Raju feels his smile grow, pleased at the idea, and watches his hand hand moving up from Francis' chin, rubbing over the place the blush has spread onto one of his ears. "I like hearing about the way you look at me. It's you. How could I feel anything else?"

His intent gaze over his hand and Francis' blush moves to Francis' face again. "You aren't used to it at all, being admired? Not even by women?"

The divide between what's said in the throes of passion versus everyday admiration and compliments paid seems to be a clear one to Crozier. It's never been any other way. Those things are meant to be quiet and reserved, locked away in wit and an exchange of quips lest one person think the other too sincere. But here they both are, cleaned up and mostly redressed, simply sitting close and paying gentle compliments to each other, the urge to laugh and deflect tamped down by a careful, affectionate touch to his face.

"Perhaps in my youth," he tells him. But the truth was he always stood next to brighter-burning stars. Even if handsome in his youth, eyes were always drawn to James Clark Ross. "And later for my sailing, or work on magnetism. But that isn't what you mean, is it?"

He stops himself from leaning into the touch and falling into Rama entirely. "I would though, respect you. Do respect you. From that respect was where the admiration blossomed. I'd never met a man so casually selfless and courageous."

Edited 2024-07-08 15:33 (UTC)

A little of the pleasure on Raju’s face turns into surprise. Not at the description itself, exactly. No one’s needed the kind of large-scale, impressive feats that used to earn him those descriptions sometimes in the uniform, and out of it at home those sentiments had usually been more about what Raju will accomplish rather than anything he actually has. That isn’t the way that Francis thinks of him at all, and outside that, he can’t think of anything else that would fit.

“You think so?” Raju asks and then he realises how he sounds, and his smile deepens. His hand rubs its way down Francis’ ear and settles over the back of Francis’ neck, thumb moving back and forth. “I’m not fishing for compliments. I just haven’t done anything. There was that business with the wolves, I suppose, when you broke your ribs the first time—“

Raju gives him a wry look here, he isn’t going to pull the topic off track to say it, but twice is dangerously close to making it a habit.

“—but it wasn’t that impressive. I spent most of that making you run with me. Anyone can do that, if he’s healthy enough.”

Yes, yes, twice now with the broken ribs. It’s not like he went looking for that second occasion! He scoffs quietly at the sardonic little grin, his own amusement falling when Rama can’t seem to see himself.

“Ridiculous,” he says, “completely ridiculous. Valor needn’t be limited to being chased by goddamned wolves.”

His hand slides over Rama’s, up over his outer thigh until it finds a place to settle on his lap. “You walking into the cold with bare feet to spare the others from the flame, how you begged me to keep away from you, even though you were in horrendous pain. The way you dug me out from the collapsed ice with your bare hands. How carefully and dutifully you’ve cared for me. Does that not speak to selflessness?”

He knows he’s right, and he can’t keep the slight smirk off of his face.

As Francis starts explaining Raju looks up from Francis’ hand on his lap, frowning thoughtfully. It sounds very obvious when Francis says it all that way. Not that Raju could have done anything else any of those times, not and keep any of his honor, his self respect. But that doesn’t mean Francis is wrong. It means that Raju forgot.

“You see more clearly than I do,” he smiles, hand wrapping itself around the back of Francis’. “I’m lucky to have you.”

Then his warm smile curls with amusement, and the hand at the back if Francis’ neck makes a pinching motion at the corner of that smirk. “Or that’s what I would be saying, if you weren’t looking so smug about it. Besides, when I went into the snow in bare feet I didn’t know what a pain healing the damn things would be. Maybe now I’d take the time to put two layers of socks on each foot and lace up my shoes, and everything would be burned up by the time I left.”

“That’s why we keep the bucket,” replies Crozier dryly. “Throwing water at you whilst you fiddle with your shoes, that’s our method.”

But speaking of uncontrollable fire, Crozier briefly glances down at the char marks on the wooden floor. They formed a kind of circle around the chair where they’d…been together, just like the wall of flames that formed the night of the town meeting.

These flames had burned brightly and then calmed by the end, disappearing into smoke and smeared ash on the wooden planks. Harmless, in the end. Horrifically symbolic though, almost poetic. He glances at Rama, smug look softening into quiet affection. He hadn’t worried about their safety while it happened, not one bit.

“I’m lucky to have you, Rama. Truly.”

Raju looks surprised and then warm and he lifts Francis' hand, his turn now to press a slow kiss to the back of it. His smile is soft as he lifts his head away, looking steadily into Francis' eyes. "Any way you want me," he murmurs, then amusement curls at the edges of his expression again. "Though, it's a relief you want me this way after all. I've always loved you, of course, but the rest of it might have been a problem. I needn't have worried about what to do with it at all. You already knew what you wanted to do."

His face is burning hot now, his gaze dropping to the their hands so he doesn't have to keep looking into Rama's very beautiful eyes. Always loved him, but the rest... "I knew how to start, but not what to do after," he admits, laughing very quietly. That's a problem for the future - tomorrow, at least.

Crozier moves a little closer to Rama on the bench, letting their thighs touch together. He holds his hand in his, thumb moving over Rama's still-healing knuckles. "Did you languish very long, trying to understand what to do with it all?"

Raju smiles down at their thighs, their hands. Sitting like lovers. But that's what they are, isn't it? It's a strange thought. One that seems both strange and perfectly natural, by turns, but no matter how strange it is or isn't there's something very right about it. "I've been keeping busy. I didn't, ah..."

His gaze darts to Francis' face, then away to their hands with the faint, false amusement on his face of a man trying to look less embarrassed than he is. But Francis won't mind the lapse, will he? The magnitude of what Raju's missed about himself and for how long is... offputting, but Francis has a way of making the lapses and imperfections not seem as... as dire as they might otherwise be. "I didn't... realise until you were, ah... and then once you were going to live, there was so much to do. But so much time to just sit there thinking. Thinking myself head first into a brick wall. I wanted you, finally figured that much out, but once I knew—"

He shrugs, sighing and looking at Francis again with a rueful little smile. "And you?" His hand in Francis' curls over his fingers. He'll have to touch Francis' face again in a moment, or kiss him, or something. He wants more of that blush, somehow, and only touching it will do. But in the moment, a question: "You knew your own mind already, today. You've been thinking about it. When?"

He waits for Rama to collect his thoughts, happy to do so, patiently smiling and running his thumb back and forth over his knuckles. He could sit like this all night - if his body allowed that sort of thing - and be happy, so long as Rama stayed beside him.

His answer is surprising - and more than a little heart wrenching. Rama’s only started to realize things when he’d showed up in the snow so beaten that it seemed like he would die. He’d only puzzled things out when Crozier was on death’s door, and then after he’d slept and slept and slept…and when he’d started to heal he’d still been fragile. Hell, he’s still fragile now, unable to move long distances by himself or wash his own hair. Rama had all these weeks to mull over his thoughts, but even as he watched him slowly get better he hadn’t known what to do with said thoughts.

His smile, vaguely sad as he thinks about the man he loves ruminating and suffering all for his sake, turns just a little more bashful. Of course he had to ask, and Crozier needs to be truthful in turn to honor Rama’s vulnerability with him. “I…ah.” He laughs a little, looking away from him briefly. When was the moment exactly? There had been a thousand little moments, all of them converging eventually into what he feels for him now. But he knows when he first let himself think it, right down to the minute.

“When your feet were still healing,” he says, recalling when it all locked into place for him. “And we’d come from town and happened upon the cairns. That was when I knew.”

Rama had been….he’d been everything that day. He bowed his head to cairns and made space for his grief, and then after they’d sat in front of the fire and laughed and teased each other. He’d been smitten from that moment on.

"You've known that long?" Raju sounds pleased, puzzled. If he'd had to say when he'd started wanting what he does, feeling what he does, Raju isn't sure what he would decide, even now. And knowing that is strange. Offensive, but more than that, just strange. He's always trusted his own mind more than anyone else's. But if he should realise someone isn't only more learned than he is about survival here but is wiser, too, wise enough to be that much more aware of his own inner life and his own heart, that someone should be Francis. And of course it would be. That would be the person looking at him this way, holding his hand. Lucky isn't the word.

But, the cairns. An important moment, in more ways than Raju had known. Raju's brow wrinkles a little as he thinks over it. "You didn't mean to take me there, but showed me anyway. We stayed. What about it? I was grateful — I am grateful — that you showed me, but I don't remember doing anything spectacular."

He doesn't remember doing anything spectacular - of course he doesn't. "That's what makes you..." he trails off with a fond, soft sort of sigh. "That's why I'm so drawn to you."

Rama is spectacular even while doing perfectly ordinary things. The way he acts is considerate and with careful thought. He's loyal to a fault, quiet in his observations and astute in what connections he tries to make. This place is unfamiliar and horrifying at times, but Rama has always been courageous in the face of it, unwilling to give up even when the odds are stacked against him.

"That day you asked to pay your respects. You didn't cast judgement or think my efforts silly or without merit; you understood enough to let me have my mourning, and joined me in it, and then not long after you had me laughing and smiling again. That's...it's..." He trips over his own tongue; he has so much to say to him, and yet he struggles to find the words. He felt it, that's all he knows.

"You've seen all sides of me, and never once spurned me. I was smitten."

Raju listens. Of course he wouldn't judge Francis' efforts to grieve his enormous losses in whatever way he could; of course he would join that mourning if he were allowed to; of course he would try, once Francis was ready to leave, to make him smile. Francis has never forgotten his responsibilities to or his love of the people who needed him, even when that responsibility and that love and the grief it wrecked inside nearly destroyed him. Of course Raju would help a man like that in any small way that he could. It's the least of what Francis deserves.

But these simple, obvious facts performed because of course he would, of course Francis deserves them and so someone should give them to him, and of course Raju can, and would, and should be the one who does, recited sound like acts of love in Francis' mouth. As he hears them Raju feels it inside his chest warm and deep, deeper than he could chart without a map, and realises that they are.

You've seen all sides of me, Francis says, and never once spurned me, and Raju's other hand cups the side of Francis' face.

"I feel the same." His voice is thick, throat suddenly tight. His gaze is fixed to Francis' eyes, smile faint and helpless to be anything else. "You've never turned away in disgust. Even when... when you could have. Maybe you should have. But you were loyal, and patient, and kind."

He’s never seen any reason to condemn Rama or turn him away in disgust, even if there are sins and moments of shame in his past. He’s not without guilt either, and their burdens are numerous and troublesome even without the added pressures of just surviving every day. If Rama can see past the bad in Crozier, then Crozier can and should do the same for Rama.

Not that it was ever in question.

But he seems to understand, his eyes bright and his hands warm and comforting against his face. He looks to Crozier - looks into him, through him, right down into the soul of him - and Crozier’s lip lifts in a lopsided echo of Rama’s own smile. “I’d found a friend in a terrible place,” he says, voice just a notch above a whisper. “You’ve been a gift.” It’s a simple statement, and doesn’t say nearly enough, but yet…

Yet it says what it needs to. He’d found a treasure in the bleakness of the Arctic, someone who went out of his way to make him smile and protect him. He’s never deserved any of it, but it came his way all the same. A gift. Someone to love.

Crozier covers Rama’s hand with his own and tries to swallow the hard lump in his throat. He can feel it making it difficult for him to speak already. “How unexpected for us both,” he tries, just a hint of a laugh in his voice.

Raju looks at him. Listens to the roughness in his voice, feels his skin. “You called me Rama earlier,” he murmurs, roughly. “Even after the heat of the moment was long over. When you didn’t have to. That’s a part of myself I…”

He lets out a slow breath, looking away and catching sight of his wrist. “That’s why I wear that,” he nods toward the cord, his half of Seetha’s pendant. “So I didn’t forget it was waiting for me, that some day I should be Rama again. But I’d started to think… I’d buried it too long, and maybe it’d suffocated there. I’d realise I’d forgotten I was wearing it, that I’d ever been anything else, and it was…”

It wasn’t anything. He’d realise it and soon after his mind would be empty. He hadn’t been able to afford anything else. The horror of it only comes now, after. But there’s too much else in him for horror to keep a foothold for long. Raju’s troubled gaze, then fixed on the pendant, moves now to Francis’ face again, smile small but growing, fixed on Francis, relieved. “But here I am. I see Rama again, with you. That’s a gift, too.”

He locked Rama away when he left his village. He had to, he had a mission to complete, a promise to his dying father to fulfill. Everything was wrapped up in being Raju, it was life or death, and Rama had been buried under the weight of all that. He’d nearly lost himself entirely - Crozier can understand that all-too-well, that fear of losing yourself completely in the need to be something or someone else.

But the thought that he’d brought Rama back - he doesn’t know if he’s ever seen a divide, Raju versus Rama - but he can feel his heart thundering in his chest knowing this beloved man feels that way. If he sees Rama, then that’s who Crozier loves. He loves the man with the pendant and heart that would give all of himself and leave nothing left to save his people.

He smile fades ever-so-slightly as he leans forward, bringing their foreheads to rest against each other. He blinks softly; Christ, is he crying? He couldn’t even feel it. “Here you are,” he murmurs. “I love the man that you are, Rama.”

The British saw the officer, of course, A. Rama Raju; the superior officers and their families must have loved one another, but they certainly didn’t love him. They only saw what he could do. They saw the officer with the hard face and the spotless uniform, and they used him.

The people at home, they saw a hero. They saw Rama and they loved him, loved their savior when he encouraged them to keep hoping and keep living and keep waiting for the day when their great hope Rama would win them weapons so they could finally fight, and then win them their freedom. They love the man who keeps himself strong, and keeps them strong, and so soothes their fear and their rage and their hope and their need.

Francis sees the man. Francis needs… well, only a man. The man that he is. Francis watches everyday acts and sees, somehow, something extraordinary. The spectacular act of heroism Francis needed was Raju going quietly to his knees in front of the monuments to Francis’ grief, and staying with him after; Francis’ great need is only for Raju, not as an empty soldier or a larger than life hero or an upright and faultless husband, some source of unyielding force and unending strength. But as a man. That’s what’s so monumental to Francis to send those tears down his cheeks now.

Raju’s throat hurts a little. It’s everything, it’s all of it, but the thing that trips him over into tears is Francis’ own, some kind of permission there, and Raju feels Francis’ forehead against his own, and lets out a hard, rough breath, voice thick with their tears. “I love you, Francis. Everything that you are.”

His breath hitches and he smiles on the hard exhale, corners of his eyes crinkling. “Thank you.”

He loves him. He loves him. He replays the words in his mind over and over again. Everything that he is, all the bad and all the good, all the spite and envy and missteps and guilt, all the pieces of him that are broken and never will be properly mended - he loves him, not in spite of all those things, but perhaps because he is all those things. He's been loved but not tolerated because of the things he is and isn't - Irish, middle bred, no ear for politics, a sailor who keeps but a single drawer when on land.

It's all of him, not just the acceptable pieces. He sees the ghosts that haunt him and has stayed. They're a fitting pair, aren't they? Both of them plagued by their pasts and unsure of their futures. But they work, they make each other smile and laugh, they hold each other when things are difficult and try to protect each other from the ills of the world.

Crozier slowly brings his hand up brush his thumb under Rama's eye, catching any tears that might have fallen, then tilts his head back oh-so-gently to press a kiss to his lips. He lets him feel the brief smile that spreads across his face, then angles his head to fit them together properly, inadvertently sharing the sigh that escapes him. He tastes a little salty, a little sweet, lips still just as lush and indulgent as they'd felt when he'd first kissed him earlier that evening. His fingers trail down to his beard, along his jaw, pulling back to press smaller kisses to his lips and over his cheeks and nose.

Odd to smile as he feels those little kisses there and feel the wetness at the edges of his eyes at the same time, to know it's at the corners of Francis' too even if Francis' face isn't far enough away now to see. One hand cups the back of Francis' head gently while the other clutches at his arm, and Raju does smile, darting little kisses back wherever the movement of Francis' head allows it. And it's odd to do this, kiss like this only for the sake of it; this, too, he hasn't done in a long time. Longer than since he's had sex, surely. Things between them had been serious and solemn in those later years, when he'd been home long enough to be the husband she'd needed. Even with the crying, though, this is anything but.

Raju gives a satisfied sigh, hand moving from Francis' arm to his shoulder to his side, and then running itself down that very slowly, soaking in the shape of him. He doesn't say anything; everything important has already been said. He wants to feel.

The tears start to dry up and he continues to kiss and be kissed, hand staying on Raju's head to keep his face nice and close. He pushes his fingers through his beard and then up to his hairline, tender and deliberate as he caresses along his temple and over the shell of his ear.

His chest is starting to ache though, and not in the lovesick kind of way. He hates it, but he needs to end the moment and get them back on track. With a gentle nip to his lower lip he pulls back, smiling apologetically as he meets Rama's eyes and drops his hand down over his heart.

"I need my chest wrapped," he reminds him, sorry to even have to say it.

"Mhm." Raju nods, still smiling as he takes the sight of him in. Looking at him feels new, even if nothing outside of them — or inside of them, for Francis, in a very literal sense — has changed. Raju will need to do the same chores, prepare the same food, wrap the same bandages in the same way. Everything has changed, even if some of it hasn't.

Raju steals one more quick kiss that becomes just a little less quick than he'd intended as he bites Francis' lip, and he's smiling in a playful, self satisfied sort of way as he pulls back from it. He watches Francis for a moment. Then he stands, finds himself running a hand over Francis' hair, huffs out an amused noise at himself. Even as he picks the bandage up again, his smile only dims. It's still there, and the pleasure is still there, some sharp, excited quality to the warmth inside him.

"Are you ready?" he asks, less because he thinks Francis isn't and more to give him a chance to brace for it. Wrapping this isn't pleasant, but it's necessary, and that's alright. Not so long ago in this very room, Raju was going to lose everything. But he has more now than he'd dreamt he could. The setbacks are worthwhile, compared to that.

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.”

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.

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?"

While the goal is to slink out unnoticed, Crozier's cautious to keep himself mostly upright and moving without wincing or grimacing. He doesn't want to look any more pathetic than he already feels. Only once outside and moving down the snow-covered street does he start to slow up, breath heavy with each step, leaning on Raju more and more until most of his weight is pressed into his friend's side.

"No," he says, walking through one of the slushy puddles at his feet. "No, we'll walk. The bridge."

He can't do it yet. People will undoubtedly be going back to their homes in the town, Hickey and Gibson back to theirs somewhere near here - he won't let Hickey see how low he's sunk.

"Wait until we're past the bridge," he says again, this time warning Raju to keep himself in check. They can't set the town on fire, even if they're both angry enough to watch the whole thing burn. They can't destroy even if others seek to do precisely that.

He clenches his jaw, breathes out hard, gives a tight nod. But he can't make that promise, really — the further they get from all the watching eyes the more of Francis' weight he leans on Raju, and the more Raju's reminded of what happened in there, what needed to happen and what didn't. How much Francis needed them, and the vulnerable people who died that night, and the vulnerable people who will. Keeping anything from actively catching on fire is the most that he can do; he keeps everything in his mind as forced down as he can manage, and snow melts around him in a spreading wave, smoke rising up from it.

He can hear the sound of Francis' strained breath even better now. The wheezing is a familiar sound, one he's started to consider a reminder, and the smoke in the air stays clear of Francis' face, the heat rising from the ground is split by the progress of his feet. His skin, now that he knows to pay attention to it, is hot in a way that, even now, he registers as strange, sharp cold hitting it from the outside with something else heating it from within.

The bridge. That's what Francis has asked. It doesn't matter why. So he'll keep this up until the bridge. That's all he needs to think about now, that and guiding the slow and precious weight of Francis leaning against him. He can do all that.

He can’t offer anything to Raju in this moment, any words to help calm him were robbed of him between the injuries and the events of the town meeting. He just focuses on the walk, the slow trudge forward, the slow creep of helplessness crawling up his spine.

What does he do now? Any appeal to the group won’t be heard; he has no influence here (clearly), no power or control. There isn’t the structure for it, and bless his men who can’t seem to shake the Royal Navy, but it isn’t appropriate here.

Hickey’s been empowered. More will die.

He can feel the heat radiating off of Raju, but instead of concerning it feels almost comforting. He leans a little closer, trying to draw in a little more heat.

Francis leans closer into him and Raju grips him a little tighter, feels his breath rough and cold in his nose, feels his jaw clenched as he looks in the direction that the bridge will be. Only that. And then away from this damned place.

Once they reach the place he's tucked the wheelbarrow away he leans Francis slowly against a tree, gaze focused and darting over him to make sure he's stable there. Francis had been leaning so close, needing him, and it hurts to let him go, even for this. But he has to be patient. He has to do this right, and deliberately. He can't even let impatience outside of him now. So he grabs the wheelbarrow, moving it close to Francis and holding up its handles to tip its wheeled end to the ground, so it'll be easier for Francis to simply lay back into the blankets piled up inside it. His throat hurts, everything pressed so tightly inside him now, and the mud under the melting snow is beginning to dry and crack under the sustained heat.

"Is this alright?" he says tightly, eyes on Francis' every movement. "I can move it closer."

He hates this. Looking down at that goddamned wheelbarrow, thinking about all the indignities piled on him the last month alone, the careful maneuvering and planning it took to get him out to the town hall in the first place, only for Hickey to be told the words ‘not guilty’ makes him want to scream bloody murder.

“It’s fine,” he says instead, leaving the security of the tree and stepping onto the baked clay surrounding their feet. Raju is trying so hard right now. This forest might go up in flames tonight, but he knows he’ll at least get him home first.

Holding the side of the wheelbarrow, he sinks himself back into it and waits for Raju to tip it upright. He’ll do it slowly, so that nothing jostles, but it’ll still hurt like hell.

No matter how gentle Raju tries to be, the journey back is going to hurt Francis. Both his pride and his body. But he’d put himself through it anyway, when he shouldn’t be traveling at all, has to put himself through it now, just for—

He thinks about how important it is that he bring Francis home safely now. No one else is going to do it. The snow melts in front of their path as Raju pushes, watching the smoke part for Francis like the tip of the wheelbarrow is the bow of a ship, feeling the strain in his arms and chest to keep the wheelbarrow steady, and keeps thinking of how important it is to keep Francis safe now so that the smoke and heat are as gentle with him as Raju himself needs to be, and doesn’t think of anything else.

Once they’re at the cabin he carefully helps Francis out of it and to the door. He sees Francis seated and comfortable. He goes straight outside again, and walks as far from the cabin as he can bear to — not far, while his friend is sitting so vulnerable inside it, just far enough that the cabin won’t catch when everything else around him catches on fire.

It’s a relief to let it go. For a moment he only stands there, fists clenched as the fire grows from nothing around him, as he starts panting and his skin grows hot. He starts pacing, missing the punching bag again, missing his equipment. The flames follow him as he paces in a circle around the cabin, raising something almost like the wall of them he’d raised while Francis had been dying. He might have died, and the useless lot of them would still be sitting back there moralising and applauding all those righteous speeches about how the right and moral thing was to do nothing, absolutely nothing at all, and Francis’ murderer would still have walked just as free.

There’s nothing here that he can hit. Nothing designed for it, and nothing that would help. No one he can go after without condemnation from the very same crowd which thinks itself so righteous for ensuring a community built to keep only the fittest and most deadly of them safe. But there are plenty of trees.

He turns and throws his weight behind his fists at a sturdy one and the impact is almost satisfying so he does it again, and again, and then keeps doing it, and fire begins blooming over the wood after each successive hit. His arms are tired, his hands are sore, he remembers what would have been his friend’s last words, a friend who’d been more caring and profoundly loyal than anyone has ever been, anyone who didn’t need him. Francis doesn’t need him to be anything and never has, has always cared for him anyway, and he would have died, hurt while Raju wasn’t even there, and the town full of people he’d been counting on to be there next time in his stead has turned their back, if it happens like that again they’re going to just let it—

He screams, deep and raw and enraged, and on his next hit fire lights across the tree and through it, and with a drawn out creaking noise, it falls in a spray of snow.

Raju hears his panting breath. He watches fire eating up the length of the tree as it sits there on the ground. He listens to its crackling and realises his arms, held a little up from his body, are trembling, then realises that’s because he’s tired. Tired is good. Tired means it should be safe to go inside now. So he does, trudging to the door, making his way inside, turning slowly and pushing the door closed slowly, noticing the way his knuckles have split as he does it before his gaze catches on the fireplace. There’s fire inside it.

“I forgot to light that before I left you in here,” he realises. His voice scratches in his throat. That would be the yelling. “Or did I… It doesn’t matter. I can make you tea, you must need it after that ride back. How are you feeling?”

Raju is holding it together for his sake. He’s angrier than Crozier’s ever seen him - angrier than he would have ever been if he’d been the one who’d gotten injured. He’s angry because of him, because he had insisted on walking into town for this, even if he was only a week out from the initial attacked, only for it to have been a complete waste of time.

He’s surprised that Raju’s able to keep himself under control long enough to get him settled inside their cabin, but once he hears the roar of flames outside he knows he’s finally snapped. He frowns softly and pulls himself back up, muscles and bones all crying out in protest, and walks to the window to watch the fire and smoke rise in the air.

There’s another roar to his right, one that seemingly comes out of nowhere as the fire in the hearth suddenly comes to light. His initial fright turns into quiet endearment and worry; he wants Raju to come back unscathed, and hopes he won’t try to stay out all night.

When he does return he’s back in his chair, making sure it looks like he never left it. He raises his head to study Raju from head to toe, smelling smoking and seeing blood on his hands.

“When you wrap those,” he tells him quietly. No chastising, no chiding. Raju did what he needed to do, and he waited until he was across the bridge. No one else was hurt but himself.

Raju looks down at his knuckles, then wonders why. It isn't as if he hasn't seen them already. He nods, goes to the lavatory to rinse his hands, feels an odd sort of quiet, a still wariness with tension underneath. The tension is anger, he realises, as he comes back into the sitting room and sees the fire there again. He's keeping it lit. He thinks he recognizes it by now, the unnatural way the force inside him moves when it looks this way. That means he's still angry.

He goes over to the rags he keeps in here now, picking through the pile to see if any are the right size and shape to wrap around his knuckles. His gaze catches on Francis as he's doing it and stays there, and his searching hand slows.

Of course Raju's still angry.

How are you feels like such a pointless question, after what they've just endured. He wants to hear it, but he doesn't want to insult Francis by asking something so painful and obvious. Instead: "How's the pain? I can find snow to wrap in some of these, numb some of it a little."

He's miserable. The journey and the subsequent stressors of the trial made everything so much worse, but adrenaline kept the pain away. Now back at home, having sat and rested in front of the fire, his body feels as awful as it had the first few days after the attack.

And he can't do a damn thing about it. Nothing will really make the pain go away, not without compromising all the work that was done years ago. But God, what he wouldn't give for a sip of whiskey, to numb it all just one more time...

He shakes his head carefully. "Rebandaging would help more. They've come undone in places." Or at least feels that way, it could be that his body has unwound and the bandages have stayed in place. "Tea'll be good for your throat. Use some of that maple syrup we found to sweeten it."

Francis is trying to take care of him. Raju's surprised to feel his lips curling up just a little into a small, fond smile. He recognizes, by now, the careful way that Francis shakes his head, but he's trying to take care of Raju anyway. His friend's generous, kind nature is wasted on these people.

His smile fades and he looks down at his hands, one holding the rag in place against his middle while the other tries to tie it. This isn't long enough to do it himself. He allows himself to follow the pull toward Francis to move closer to his chair, crouching in front of it and setting his hand on the armrest next to him. "Help me tie these, then I'll rebandage your ribs. Then we'll have tea."

It's a pitiful plan, set against everything they'll need to prepare for — everything, now, that they can't count on backup or support for at all — but it's enough to get them through this moment now. His free hand takes up one end of the rag underneath his other but his gaze gets caught on Francis' face again. "We'll manage," he insists, voice forceful and low, free hand moving to Francis' knee. "We'll make do without any of them. You'll see."

Crozier absently reaches for the bandage before Raju has a chance to ask. He grimaces - grimace on top of a grimace thanks to his blackened eye - his heart sinking to hear what he’d already felt out loud.

Abandoned.

His men, the ones who see sense, they were counting on him to prevent more of the same. He recalls the argument he had with Little during the darker days of the month, accusations that he’s given up. He hadn’t then. He feels a little like he should now.

“Most of the children spoke while the adults stayed silent,” he says quietly, not wanting to inadvertently goad Raju into another firefight. “I don’t understand it, Raju. Were no trial or tribunal, just people speaking. So many took objection to just talking.”

They’re all going to die here.

Raju nods, free hand moving to the rag again to tie it up in concert with Francis' movements. There's something soothing about it, moving together in even that one small way, anticipating where Francis is going to wrap the thing around or pull it tight, and what he needs Raju to do in return. It's the best of what's inside him right now, the part of him that can move and think that way, and he tries to focus more on it than anything else. "They only want it to be talking. If none of them did anything wrong no one needs defending, and nothing has to change. It's more comfortable. I should have known things were going to be that way."

Scowling, he pulls his end of the rag tight a little too quickly, catching Francis' fingertip in the loop. He tugs the loop loose and holds his hand apologetically over the back of Francis' for a moment, sighing. Of course things were going to be that way. They always were. Why would any of them stand up for someone when they didn't have to? But he'd never even considered it might happen that way. He never thought he was that much of an optimist. He hasn't ever expected that kind of support before.

It feels better, touching the back of Francis' hand. But it'd be strange to keep holding onto it. He makes his hand drift away, taking up his end of the rag again.

He’s to blame, of course, for Raju’s disappointment. He was so sure of himself, wasn’t he? He was positive that he could address the community he’s helped support and that they would find him credible and see the threat in front of them. His belief in this was firm, so firm that he would have insisted on walking to Milton had Raju not found that bloody wheelbarrow.

He looks down at his now uncovered hand and silently wishes Raju would return.

“The Darkwalker isn’t going to be the threat to these people, it’s using the beast as a scapegoat that’ll be their undoing,” he muses out loud, taking up his half of the cloth once more and trying to pull it tightly. “Hold still, Raju.”

Raju huffs a soft breath, some echo of amusement carried with the sound; it isn’t the first time someone trying to help has told him to keep still like that, and it certainly won’t be the last. The amusement, such as it is, fades quickly; he holds his hands still long enough for the two of them to finish tying the one hand, and then presents the other.

Raju isn’t looking at his hand, though; Raju is looking up at him. His expression is solemn, and curious. As little as he wants to dig up memories in Francis that are going to hurt, he himself might need to know, to learn what he can, if it will help.

“That sounds like a lesson you’ve learned already,” he murmurs, as close to gentle as he can afford to be. “Is that what happened to your men? Before?”

They barely feel like memories anymore, just the same story being reread. He lifts his gaze to meet Raju’s eyes; it’s impossible to keep the pain out of his own. He can only mask so well.

“It didn’t help. The creature was vindictive in its nature. It hunted us, tore us to shreds, robbed us of our souls.” And not in a metaphorical sense. “But we were always the biggest danger to each other.”

Their hubris, the need to fulfill Barrow’s grand promise to England, those ships, their supplies, the men - all of it stacked up against them.

“The parallels are too numerous to name.”

This time when he takes Francis' hand it's no apology for moving too quickly, it's to comfort, and so when his hand grips Francis' Raju keeps it there. For a moment he studies Francis' face. He wants Francis to name them anyway, and Francis didn't.

Raju thinks on it while he looks at him, and then Raju doesn't ask. If any of those painful lessons are things that Raju needs to know, then Francis will tell him. And if any of the failures of that time are useful in this one, Francis is the one who's going to know it. Raju needs to know everything so he can make a plan, needs to make a plan so he can keep them safe, needs to keep them safe because he's the only one who can — but Francis is a thoughtful man, and intelligent, and kind, and wise enough to temper all of that with practicality. Raju can trust his judgement, even if it feels strange to do it.

"You still care about them, don't you? Everyone back there, even now. About making sure they can make it out of this too."

He does. God help him, he does still care for them all. He doesn’t want anyone else to die.

“You think me a fool,” he says quietly, glad at least that Raju’s hand is back on his again. He holds it as tightly as he can, weak as he feels. “I cared for them too, even the mutineers. Good people are capable of terrible things in times of desperation.”

But they’re nowhere near desperate. No one believed him about that either.

“Further north nothing grows, not even moss. Game was scarce. The ice was so thick we couldn’t fish. There was nothing, Raju, and here there’s still so much plenty…”

Raju looks surprised, and then troubled; he grips Francis' hand tighter. "I don't," he insists, hating the quiet way that Francis said it, resigned to believing Raju could ever think of him that way. "I..."

He finds himself looking away, down at his hands. It's harder, he realises, to meet Francis' eyes. "It's what this place needs, even if they don't deserve it. A man who can be kind, like you. But I... don't think I can be that way. Not now. You don't feel..."

He shakes his head, searching for the word, then looks up again to frown into Francis' eyes. There's that pull to looking at them, even like this. The bruised, swollen one only makes him want to cover Francis up somehow, put himself between this man and the rest of the world. But that isn't all he wants, right now. He names it. "...angry? I'd be too angry, where you are. Or... disgusted. I don't know."

"I'm livid," he tells him, trying to turn his hand to squeeze Raju's palm against his own. "I just can't light fires over it."

His delivery may be dry, but the warmth there isn't. He ducks to try to Raju from turning away from him again. "I'm in too much pain for anything more than this right now. Maybe it's resignation as well. I hope not, but..."

Crozier frowns quietly. His head is still tilted up, but his gaze is unfocused now. He's considering how much he wants to say, whether Raju should know about these expectations. Well. Of course he should. Raju should know it all. They're in this together now, aren't they?

"Little and Irving look to me to lead," he starts, slow and with very careful pauses for his breath. "Jopson and Goodsir are more reasonable, in the end they were far more practical...but none of them can shake the 'sirs' or 'Captain', and every time I do nothing I feel as though...." He grimaces softly, putting his hand up to his chest a moment. It feels tight. "I'm killing them a second time."

Raju's eyebrows draw together, concern deepening the lines of his frown. He goes to his knees so he can lean further forward, moving one hand to the back of Francis' head, the back of his neck. "What more could you have done?" It's less a question and more of a statement, a demand. "You gave everything you could to keep anyone more from getting hurt, you nearly died for it. Look at you, even bringing yourself there and back took a toll. If anyone's killing here, it wasn't your hand that gave the weapon over. You did everything you could."

“I could have argued it differently. I could have…” Could he have kept arguing? He wants to blame himself for his failure, but he’d been too tired to keep going after he said his piece.

It’s so hard to meet Raju’s gaze now, but he can’t look anywhere else. He’s so intense, as though he can see right through him.

“I can’t do anything. I’m helpless here, helpless to stop even Hickey, of all people. Hickey, who is so obviously guilty!”

"They knew he was guilty." Raju's voice is still intent but his expression is almost confused; even as he needs Francis not to blame himself, he's thinking it through. "We thought that would matter, that surely anyone would want to stop him from doing it again— but we won't make that mistake twice. They knew everyone was guilty, they didn't care. Little was practically asking to be punished, for rules and consequence, and no one cared. There's something else they wanted more. We have to think about it differently."

His grip over Francis tightens, hopefully reassuring, and he doesn't look away from Francis' eyes. "We aren't helpless until it's done. We keep trying." Raju pauses, sighs. Smiles a little, wryly. It's odd to be in this position, the one who isn't pushing forward, who would step back and stop if someone else gave him the word to. He isn't really used to it. But these aren't his people, and anyone who might have been has made it very clear where they stand on protecting the vulnerable, forming a real community, doing what's difficult to keep everyone safe. Everyone who's his is very far from him, except the one in front of him now. "If you're sure that's what you want? To keep everyone safe here, whether they want to be or not?"

No. No, he isn’t sure. He can name a handful of people he doesn’t want to see harmed, a handful of his surviving men that he’d give his life for, and then - there’s the person who is with him here now. But that certainly doesn’t mean all.

“I’m not sure I can answer that yet,” he tells him honestly. His head slowly leans against Raju’s arm, his gaze lowering to his lips just a little absently. “Perhaps it will look different in the morning. Right now…right now I feel like wouldn’t have minded if you burnt it all down.”

Francis leans his head against Raju's arm and Raju leans a little further forward, one hand braced on the seat and the other secure where it is and ready to stay there, for as long as his friend leans that way against it. "I want to go back and do it, when I think about... all of it. The complacency. The moralising. The accusations. They knew damned well what everyone there did and spoke very well of themselves for being so generous and merciful about it. Convenient for them that doing nothing is so much easier. I suppose anyone who can't defend themselves in the next attack are worth the loss, while the rest sit around admiring one another for how clean their hands are."

He pushes a hard breath out through his nose, jaw clenched. "I should have spoken up more. Especially when that boy spoke to you that way. I thought the adults could decide their own minds regardless, but— but I should have known better. Just because this isn't home doesn't mean the people are any different. It's only colder."

He heaves a sigh, frowning, and the hand on the seat sets itself against Francis' leg, fingers curling over his calf. "I'm sorry, Francis. You did everything you could, but I could have done more. Tried harder."

Some of it may have been the Darkwalker’s influence. Hell, he knows a lot of it was. But Hickey’s methodical carving up and hiding of a body decidedly wasn’t. It didn’t matter, he wasn’t believed.

“And faced the same ridicule? Nonsense,” he says quietly, energy fading rapidly. Raju is a comfort, plain and simple. He could sleep like this and be entirely comfortable. “No one was ready to act. They will the next time it happens, but it’ll be too late.”

At least no one will take any meat given to them by Hickey without finding its source first.

“I don’t understand the minds of some of these people. I think…that might also be a hindrance. Who wants to listen to a man from 1852?”

Eighteen fifty-two. Raju had pushed the question into the back of his mind and after that carefully never wondered, but now he knows. Almost lucky, then, that they have larger problems just now, and there's too much else inside of Raju for there to be much room for that.

Still, for a moment Raju looks at him, studies the soft and handsome face — handsome still, and handsome in its potential, for what it will be again after it heals. Nearly seventy years. And already, Francis must be... But he can feel Francis' neck underneath his hand, solid, alive. Even the wheezing of his breath is, in moments, more of a comfort than its absence. He can't imagine not listening to this man, no matter how unpleasant the thing he had to say.

"Anyone with sense," Raju says firmly. "What did you say that wasn't a fact? That wasn't obvious? Only to get told you were singling him out." Raju makes a disgusted noise. Mindful of those accusations Raju had voted to punish everyone, not that it matters at all now. "But you're right. If you do decide you want to go back to... protecting the lot of them, somehow, we can figure it out. I'll write down the arguments I remember, we can go over it."

Raju's hands both squeeze and he smiles a little, sadly, but warm. "You did speak well. If a man looking like you do making a speech like that didn't convince enough of them, nothing would have done it."

Crozier had voted for those who were absurdly cruel in their attacks, where the apparent Darkwalker influence ended and their own moral failings had begun. Hiding the bodies, mutilating them after the attacks had ended, being dishonest. But evidence wasn’t strong in most cases - only his own, it seemed.

But Raju says something that briefly takes his attention away from all the arguments and failings and frustrations of the past evening. We. Raju means the two of them, working in tandem together. If Crozier heals properly and decides that he wants to keep fighting, then Raju will help him. It isn’t even a question for him, is it? He’d just do it, by virtue of what?

By virtue of Raju being Raju, of course. What else? This very loyal, very noble man will stay by his side even if no one else would.

He smiles ever-so-slightly, eyes closing briefly. He’s falling asleep upright. “Looking beat to hell, you mean? It does have its advantages, oddly enough.”

Crozier raises his hand to his chest, eyes opening again with a soft grunt of pain. “I need to have my bandages redone.”

"Mm." Raju stands, slow enough that the arm Francis has been leaning his head against doesn't move much. He looks around for a pillow, setting it on top of another so it'll sit on its own at the level of Francis' head before slowly easing his arm away. But not completely away; he presses just a little, enough to suggest Francis lean forward, or at least sit up straighter. "Put your arms out and I'll get that off you, unless you'd like to just hold it up while I work. I'll be quick."

Raju smiles a little. It's hard to see him this way, hurting even doing nothing, sitting there, having hurt himself this way only to be roundly ignored, insulted, backs turned by people who could have tried to protect him. And sitting here hurting now, for that. But that's no reason to let his mood — and so, Francis' — fall every time the subject of that pain comes up. "Advantages?" Raju asks, to distract him. His smile deepens as he takes the hem of what Francis is wearing and starts to lift it upward. "You mean, to tug on people's heartstrings and get what you want? Have you been taking advantage of me, Francis?"

He moves as directed, leaning forward and raising his arms up. Everything yanks up when he does, the bruised tissue and overworked, still-healing muscle, it all pulls and stretches with the unfamiliar movement of his arms raising in the air.

Even so, Crozier returns the smile as he hisses through his teeth. “Mhm. I’ve got you wrapped around my fingers, don’t it?” Voice muffled now, “I’ve been using you as a pillow for days now, and I haven’t heard a single complaint.”

That’s the thing about exhaustion, at a certain point it mirrors intoxication. And sometimes, though it was rare, Crozier could be a punky, amusing drunk who enjoyed making people smile.

"Mm." Francis is going to be hurting no matter how Raju does this but Raju takes care anyway, carefully picking the clothes away from Francis' wrists and over his chin, setting them aside. Being gentle with him helps Raju at least, whether or not it makes much of a difference to Francis, and smiling and joking with him helps. "Is that what's been happening? And I thought I was doing that because I like it."

He's still smiling, but he's glad he has the bandage around Francis' ribs to focus on, instead of his face. Is that something Raju would have said before? He would have felt the same before, spoken about it even before he knew what it was, or what some part of it was. And if Francis had ever thought him strange or overfamiliar before, he'd never said anything about it. It's probably alright.

"Here, and here..." he murmurs, fingers brushing the places the bandage has come loose, memorising them. "I'll tie this differently, so it holds up better. Just a moment..."

He starts unwinding it, hands even quicker at it now that he's become familiar with the way it has to sit. "What are you talking me into next? This power of yours is only lasting so much longer, you're going to want to use as much of it as you can."

Because he likes it. Of course Raju would choose to say that at this particular moment, while he touches his chest so delicately. It’s been that way for a while now, tenderness and care, as though Raju’s attention to his broken body would be enough to cure him alone.

He lowers his hand to the arm rest to brace himself as the bandages are removed and his chest goes through the wrapping process once more. If he could focus on the pain instead of the light flirtation, inadvertent as it is, it would probably be better for his mental state, dour and low as it already is from the beating he’s taken today alone.

But it’s good to smile. Hell, it feels good to focus on anything besides the town meeting and Hickey’s smug little face at all those not-guilty votes from their peers.

“Reading that godawful pirate book out loud, that’s what I’ll get you to do one day,” he decides, smirking softly.

Raju's huff is meant to sound exasperated, but he's still smiling as he does it. "You wouldn't," he scolds, a little bent so he can reach better, gaze focused on the movement of his hands. It's important, making sure that the bandages lie flat, that they're wrapped correctly, that they're a certain balance between too tight and too loose that he and Francis have already gotten perfected, so long as Raju focuses well enough on doing it perfectly. And he does, so it will be. "Try it and I'll—"

He realises when he reaches for something like pull these bandages tight, see if I don't that he can't quite bring himself to threaten Francis with anything right now, even jokingly, even if they both know Raju would rather take a swim in the icy lake than actually hurt him. "—find real spice to put in your dinner," he finishes, with the same emphasis as if the obvious hesitation hadn't been there. "And you'll have to eat it anyway. You said you hated hot food, didn't you?"

The threat definitely lacks more bite, but Crozier is a good sport (and still more than a little loopy). “Oh, Christ, not more spice. You’ll kill me with a curry.”

He laughs low in his throat, though if he were being honest with himself, he wouldn’t mind something with heat in his mouth. And what does he even know of Raju’s home customs and foods anyway? Not much at all, which is a shame. But Raju himself might have a little heat, all that fire that pours from him, he might kiss the same -

“What would you use to spice the root stew we make?” he smiles, grip letting up to brush his fingers across Raju’s knuckles. “Maybe we can ask that boar the next time it comes around.”

"Mm." Raju tries to make a face — of all the bizarre impossibilities they face down in this place, the ridiculous ones are still the hardest to take — but he feels Francis' fingers moving across his knuckles like they're lighting something up under his skin, so he smiles faintly, in spite of himself. "It spits them out though, doesn't it? You really want your food from there?"

Then he sighs, thinking about it seriously. "I was never much for cooking, though. It was never a priority. I wouldn't have the first clue how to make any of it now." His smile starts to shift slowly into a distant frown. It hadn't seemed important. He supposes he'd been assuming he'd be able to enjoy things like that... later. Some time later. If he survived the efforts he's obligated to go back to long enough to earn it.

Better not to think about any of that too closely. Luckily he still has this bandage to finish wrapping. Unluckily, he's almost done with it. At least that's going to make Francis feel a little better. "Some kind of chillies, maybe? Chilli powder. Or ginger. But it wouldn't matter without knowing what else to put in it. We'd be better off asking for bread, or fruit."

“What better time is there to learn something new?” Crozier hisses, that tightening in his chest from the bandages making the breathing come a little easier. There’s pain with it, the particular ache of jostled things being reset making tears pool at the corners of his eyes. Raju is being careful with him, but those bandages need to be tight.

“Christ knows I’ve never known how to cook,” he admits, bringing his hand to his chest and holding it. The ache makes him want to grind his teeth, but he knows the bandages are doing their job. It will hurt less in the morning. His outlook might be less bitter in the morning too, but he’s less hopeful there. “But survival…you figure things out.”

There’s a slight melancholy look in his friend’s eyes. He doesn’t know what it is exactly about their conversation that makes his smile fade, but it almost certainly has to do with home.

“Fruit would be a nice change of pace though,” he admits. “Tell me what kind.”

And here's the worst part of doing this: hurting Francis for his own good. Satisfying, in its way, to know that it helps, keeping Francis' ribs stable and safe while his body can't, but seeing the pain is hard. Hard even though Francis can bear it, though he himself could if he'd had to, and though Francis has borne it this far. He's started to wonder if it's wanting Francis in the way he'd wanted Seetha that's making it feel that way, if some confused part of Raju is feeling that and trying to treat Francis in the way he'd treat a woman in pain like this.

He's been wondering, but hasn't come up with an answer. What he's sure of is that he wants to run his thumbs over the corners of Francis' eyes. He wants to soothe him and wipe away the tears pooling there. But a man has his pride. Raju's already letting himself be gentle in every other way, and Francis thinking Raju doesn't believe he can handle it might hurt him as much as the pain would. But Francis isn't a soldier, doesn't seem to have that particular kind of pride, so maybe Francis would...

Francis needs these bandages finished, more than anything else, so Raju needs to keep his hands to their work.

His eyes flicker up to Francis at the question, and a little of his smile comes back. Francis is still trying to distract himself; he'll need a lot of distracting after the day they've had, and if Raju is going to do that he'll have to stop thinking so much on unanswerable questions and ridiculous things. "I don't know all the places you've sailed to. Have you had mangoes? Mangoes are popular. They'd be a nice break from all these meats and roots."

Crozier’s been holding onto his more undignified noises, even if things are becoming more and more uncomfortable with each pass of the bandage. Raju happens to reach the point in his chest where the ribs are the most damaged, and he groans quietly and looks up to the ceiling as his body tries to readjust.

“I’ve had a mango before,” he gasps, blinking rapidly, “but I couldn’t tell you what it tasted like. It was lifetimes ago.”

He wants to elaborate - sometimes those stories can help, not just to hear them but to tell them, but for the life of him he can’t focus on anything but the now. He bangs the heel of his hand against the arm of the chair, exhaling slowly as he tries to gather himself. It’s better now, things have settled and he can handle the ache.

“I’d eat anything fresh though. Do you know what I’ve wanted since coming to Milton? An orange. A goddamned orange.”

Raju's jaw clenches. The best thing to do for Francis is keep going so his hands stay moving steadily and quick; hesitation is the thing that'd stretch it all out longer. Not that this will stop hurting Francis once he's done. But Raju will be done with doing it, at least. And Francis will be safer, all the broken parts of him held in place again. Its been made very clear that no one else is going to look out for Francis, not if that means doing something hard — it's more important than ever now that Raju be able to do these things. And so he will.

"Then that's what we'll ask for," he says, smile flickering on again as he glances at Francis' face. "A box of oranges."

He looks down again at his hands. A moment after he finishes asking they'll be done, at least with this, but Francis won't be done needing distracting. "I've seen them once or twice, at parties, but never had one. What are they like?"

He tries to mirror the smile. A box of oranges for the holidays. Perhaps they can ask for cloves too, make little pomanders to hang in the thresholds and windowsills. It seems like such a frivolous notion though, and it would be their second holiday season spent here. Celebrations would be more bitter than sweet, he imagines.

"Never?" he asks, a touch surprised. He thought oranges were native to India, but what he doesn't know about Raju's home could fill a book and then some. But he does know one thing about oranges that's probably as true for Raju as it is for him - "they're pricy. A rich man's fruit, and rightly so, as delicious as they are. Sweet and tart, just a touch of that bitterness from the peel."

A box of oranges, for him and Raju to share. He inhales, testing the boundaries of the bandages, exhaling to stretch it slightly. He takes a few more of those deep breaths until he's more comfortable in his own skin, the wheezing quieting.

"Or we could ask for the boar to just kill Hickey for us," he adds a little darkly. "Do you think it would oblige?"

Raju's imagined what it would be like, needing to settle himself in the constricting pressure of the bandages tight around him that way. As he watches it now his hand drifts toward Francis' shoulder and he allows it to settle lightly there. Then Francis asks that last question and he snorts, smile grimly amused. "I think it's worth a try. Who could blame us for what one of those creatures decided to do? There's precedent enough for that, after today. Then if it refuses, we'll ask for oranges."

He quite possibly shouldn’t be encouraged to think about murder, but it makes him feel better, the idea of Hickey being slaughtered by a giant, gift-giving boar. “I think either way we can’t lose.”

He tries to smile, but he’s too pained and stops himself about halfway through. “I need to sleep,” he says quietly, turning his head away from Raju. He’s looked pathetic enough today.

"Of course," Raju murmurs. He realises he's watching Francis — not what Francis wants now, judging by the way he's looking away from him. Distraction, poor or not, can only go so far, and the betrayal today was personal for Francis in a way it can't quite be for Raju, and Raju knows what it looks like when, close quarters or not, a friend needs to be alone.

Francis' shirt is still off; it hurts him to raise his arms, and seems cruel to insist he do it again now, when it's only the two of them. Raju lets his hand slip away from Francis' shoulder to add another blanket atop the first, the warm, soft fur that's become as familiar to Raju as any bed, and shakes them straight and aligned with each other, and sets them over Francis' shoulders. Raju tucks the blanket around him, finds his hand lingering over Francis' shoulder again, his arm. But if solitude is what Francis needs now then that's what he'll get and Raju lets his hand drift away, stepping back. He'll stay near the fire the way he always does but maybe with his back turned, take up a book or some quiet way to keep his hands moving. And then— "I'll be here when you wake," he says, quiet.

And he will be. The rest in this place might not stand up for this man in the way he needs, but it was ridiculous to count on anything like that anyway. Raju will do what needs to be done. He'll be here.

As badly as it hurts now, Crozier knows the worst of it's to come in the morning when he wakes. His body protest at its continued ill-treatment, and he'll likely be in a state and not wanting to do much of anything besides have a little tea to keep Raju from worrying.

In these moments it would be so easy to give into the despair he feels, and Lord knows he's done it before. He doesn't want to be that man anymore though, and those conscious efforts to keep pushing, keep trying, keep hoping have become more engrained in his being than simple habit. He wants to keep trying. He wants Hickey to keep his grubby little hands away from the people he loves, and he wants people to see that he's not merely dredging up the past for the sake of it.

But don't they see, don't they see how mired they are in what happened to them? Where's the grace for the dead and newly-risen? Is that not enough to keep one's thoughts occupied indefinitely?

He thanks Raju quietly and pulls the furs up just a little, settling in for the evening and forcing himself to sleep. It comes, but it's uneasy and strained. It's so hard to breathe.

Come morning the hurt will be worse.

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.

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.

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.

Oddly closemouthed for Francis. He’s one to explain, or reassure, or complain the way he had when the injury had been nearer, and the inescapable pain of it had been worse. Raju doesn’t hide the intent focus of his stare; asking about Raju’s looking would mean admitting there might be something there to look for, so if Francis is hiding pain from Raju now, he won’t.

“Why don’t we switch places?” Raju suggests, tilting his head toward the pan, it and the fireplace further away from Francis now than the herbs he’s moving to, nearer and with a place to sit in front of them. “If this sticks to the pan this time we’ve fewer herbs left to cover up the burnt taste, and you’re better with the pan than me.”

Raju’s expression aside, it has the advantage of being true. It’s a lower standard Francis has put up with for his meals sometimes, since he’s been hurt, since Raju won’t waste good food practicing and experimenting in the way a part of him wants to until he’s sure he can manage the tools consistently and well. So who would protest, unless he wants to sit down to spare himself? It’s not something Raju takes any satisfaction in, not least because it might worsen pain that needs easing. But this is Francis, and so Raju needs to be sure.

Damn it all to hell, he doesn’t want more fretting, is that so much to ask? But no, Rama had to do the clever thing and call him out on his white lies.

His movements are hesitating and stiff as he pauses and turns towards the pan, not so much focused on the task at hand but the way Rama is crouched down beside the fire. He knows he can’t do that in this state; hell, he can barely get himself in and out of a chair today. But if he gives in now and admits that he’s in pain, then Rama will most assuredly: 1. be angry at him for hiding it, and 2. refuse to touch him ever again.

So Crozier takes a very confident step towards the pan and Rama. “Of course,” he says, voice struggling to remain neutral. “Not a problem at all.”

But it is a problem, a very big problem, and it’s apparent as he takes that second step, then the third. He’s in agony, and not the kind he can usually push through to get something done. He’s worked muscles that haven’t been used in years on top of those still-healing, very tender injuries, and now every step is just proving that he absolutely should not try to do this. He pauses in the fourth step, face falling.

“I-I can’t.”

Instantly Raju stands, frown now businesslike and he's at Francis' side, gaze moving over him, hand so gentle against his back it barely touches. Moving the chair to Francis, he decides, would be better than the other way around, and in a moment the heavy thing is there behind him and Raju's hands are at Francis' shoulder and his back.

"You can sit," he says and offers Francis his hand to hold onto the way Francis had needed near the beginning, when seeing him able to stand at all had lit something bright and hot inside Raju's chest. Watching him moving in that stiff, halting way feels very different, now. Raju's expression is focused, troubled, as close to neutral as he can keep it, and he's silent until he sees Francis settled — as settled as he can get now he's in this degree of pain again — back into the chair he's going to be spending a lot more of his time in.

In a moment he'll arrange a few pillows in the way that seems to help, or at least not hurt. In a moment he'll move the fish off of the fire. Right now Raju only looks down at him, looking troubled. "You could have done it yesterday," he points out, tone nearly neutral, but quieter than he'd intended it. It's hard to see Francis this way, and he doesn't want to put words to the reason behind the pain yet. Easier, or at least more bearable, to prompt Francis to do it instead.

It seems like resignation, sitting down in that chair, but it couldn’t feel more welcomed to his very tired body. He holds Rama’s hand tightly, so, so tightly, and refuses to let it go even as he settles back into his little prison in the form of respite.

Rama is worried. He’s trying not to let it show, but Crozier knows his face too well to not see the signs. It’s in his eyes, he always has trouble masking his anger or hurt in them, in the way his jaw and neck tightens. He’s worried but is fighting not to let it show.

“Yes,” he agrees, finally letting Rama take his hand back. “Yes, I could.”

He could do lots of things yesterday that he can’t tolerate today. God. He hopes this is only temporary.

He just needs to rip the bandage off now, not keep Rama waiting for an explanation. “I woke up sore, but to no obvious sign that I’d exacerbated my injuries or wounded myself. I assumed it was temporary, but as the hours passed the ache seemed to worsen.”

Francis' grip on his hand loosens, but Raju can feel the ghost of how tightly he'd been clutching it and doesn't move his hand away. He crouches instead, letting out a long, slow breath as he thinks over Francis' words.

"It's very bad, isn't it?" he says softly, neutrality melting away bit by bit to make room for the crease deepening between Raju's eyebrows. He looks down from Francis' face, over his chest, as if he could see anything there that hadn't been obvious ten minutes ago. "You're sure it's only sore? Strained muscles?"

His hand moves down over Francis' ribcage, trying to find a balance between feeling their alignment there and pressing too hard. But he has to know. "Your ribs aren't..."

Crozier knows what he’s feeling for, a bump where it shouldn’t be, a raised or depressed area where his ribs have fractured again. He covers Rama’s hand quickly and shakes his head, wanting to get as far away from that line of thought as possible. “No, nothing’s broken. I wouldn’t be able to move at all if that were the case, I promise you.”

He tries to ease that concerned look in his eyes with a slow nod; he promises, nothing is broken. He wouldn’t try to hide that from Rama.

He inhales softly, partially because he’d been holding his breath as Rama touched his chest, but mostly just to prove that he can still. It doesn’t ache, at least not terribly. “It feels like I overworked myself yesterday.”

Raju holds his gaze while Francis gives him that slow nod. He could insist on checking, Francis had been trying to hide it earlier—

But Francis' manner is completely different now. And Francis isn't a child. He has to know that Raju trusts him. Raju takes a controlled breath and nods, and then nods a few more times, eyes roaming over Francis before he looks down, away, and leans back a little. He thinks over yesterday, with a very different eye this time to the way he's been thinking over it before.

"We didn't..." He stops himself, jaw tightening, frustrated. We didn't even do very much isn't the right way to think of it. Is, probably, the reason Francis feels this way now. He looks at Francis' face again, frowning, hand around Francis' a little tighter. "I should have been more careful. More gentle with you. I should have known better."

He glances away. They didn’t…

He could guess what he was about to say next. He’s grateful that he doesn’t, that he seems to pause and rephrase his thought, but what next comes out of his mouth is the exact reason he tried to hide it in the first place.

“I wanted it too, Rama,” he tells him firmly. He made his decision then knowing the risk. Even if his judgement was a little clouded at the time, he still would have wanted it. “You’re not to blame for this.”

Raju’s frown deepens. “I could have…” he insists, then pauses as he searches for a way to end the sentence. It’s true anyway, even before he figures out the details of what exactly he could have done. “Done more of it. Made things easier for you. I know you’re still healing. I could have… I don’t know.”

He shakes his head, gaze drawn to Francis’ chest again, sounding frustrated. “Done something differently and spared you this. You’ve spent enough time in pain already.”

“It’s a sprain,” he argues, “I did too much too soon. Please, don’t blame yourself.”

He thinks about reaching for his hand again, but he wants Rama to know how much he means it: he’s not solely to blame for the state of Crozier’s body. It takes two, doesn’t it? So his hand finds Rama’s neck, holding him steady as he meets his gaze with something quietly stern in his own.

“I would have known if something was wrong in the moment, and I would have stopped.”

Francis is asking Raju to trust him, to trust his judgment; Raju nods automatically, then keeps meeting that stern gaze for a long moment, trying to work something out.

It’s a strain. Bruises and muscles. Things that heal. Things Raju himself has worked through. Francis is telling him it isn’t serious enough to worry over, and Francis is a man who Raju respects and trusts, and so Raju should accept it. If any other man told him the same Raju would accept it, and doing it wouldn’t be this hard.

But if Seetha said it to him, he wouldn’t take her at her word, would he? Not in the same way. Seetha is his responsibility. Keeping her safe is his responsibility. And Francis…

“I know,” he says belatedly. “I trust you. But it…” He sets his hand on Francis’ knee, frowning at it for a moment before looking into Francis’ eyes again, like looking into the river. “You’re my responsibility. I know you can fend for yourself, but I’ve never loved a man like this before, and I can’t do it any other way. I should have been looking out for you.”

Crozier frowns softly, though he does understand. This isn’t just one friend reassuring the other and promising to be more careful the next go around, it’s different now. Isn’t it? He has to think if things were reversed how he’d feel - if it were Sophia he’d beat himself up for failing to protect her. If were Rama…yes, he’d probably feel the same way there as well.

He nods softly. He doesn’t know any other way to love, and neither does Crozier. His fingers rub against the back of his neck sympathetically. “Don’t spend too much time beating yourself up over this,” he tells him quietly. “Let’s take it as something to be cautious about in the future.”

He hopes that says enough. He doesn’t want Rama to start treating him like he’s made of glass.

"Cautious?" Raju sounds a little doubtful, not certain how he feels about the word. He can't seem to stop studying Francis' body; he wishes it were for a more pleasant reason. "I thought I was."

He runs his hand down Francis' ribs again, very gently this time, barely brushing his shirt. "I just..."

He sighs. It doesn't matter. Francis is tired of being in pain, too. "Snow and warm rocks," he says in a stronger, more businesslike tone, fingertips lingering over Francis' side. "Those should help until this passes. Do you think you'll be able to eat?"

It’s just as he feared. They had been cautious, Rama had been so careful with him and yet this still happened. He’s going to blame himself, and Crozier can’t stop him.

He frowns and follows Rama’s line of sight down to his chest. No new bruises, nothing that wasn’t there the morning before. “I can eat, it’s just discomfort when I’m seated,” he says, finally relenting to the care he’s going to receive now. Worry worry worry, always the worry. What he wouldn’t give to be whole again.

He pulls his hand back from Rama’s neck with a fond little touch to his cheek.

At the touch to his cheek Raju looks up, sighs out just a little of his tension, finds his lips curling with just a little bit of a smile. Francis might not have touched him so freely this way just yesterday, and he realises all at once that he's been missing it. Or something like missing. Can he miss something Francis has barely even made a habit of doing yet?

It's something. It doesn't change the fact that Raju's hurt him, and Raju's expression doesn't lift very much. Then he smells—

He rushes over to the fire, grasps the rag wrapped around the pan, pulls it close and grimaces, wedging the corner of the spatula between the burnt bottom of the fish and the pan. "You can eat, but you might not want to," he complains, frustrated, and then starts muttering to himself. "Could cover it up with berries, but that might be a waste..."

Oh hell, the food! He grasps the armrest and leans himself forward slightly, looking through the smoke at Rama holding a very sorry-looking pan of fish. He sighs quietly.

“Keep it for bait,” he mutters, pressing his hand against his ribs and sitting back again. “We’ll eat from one of the tins tonight.”

His emergency-beyond-emergency stores, the things he’d found in some of the homes on the outskirts a while ago. He’s reluctant to eat from them only from his own poor history with canned food, but they’re modern and haven’t hurt anyone yet. He can push through the discomfort.

“Don’t beat yourself up over it,” he adds, offering Rama a soft smile. He’d distracted him away from the task at hand, it’s his fault their supper burned.

Francis' soft smile gets a hard breath and a firming of Raju's jaw as he looks back down at the food. He's pushed and pushed for excellence in everything and it's set him apart, set him to accomplish all manner of impossible things. Things impossible for anyone else but him. How to speak and stand and dress and run and fight and think—

But not this small, essential thing. Not feeding a man who's too sore now to even sit forward without pain, let alone cook for himself. Not making sure that Francis doesn't get so sore in the first place, that he heals well, that he doesn't have to shove down memories of being slowly poisoned to have his meal just because Raju couldn't manage a fish.

"There's enough here for you," he declares, stubborn, as he pokes the spatula at it. "Half of each are still edible on the top side. I have berries and the tea, and some of that dried fish if I'm hungry later. Or a tin if I need it. You can have fish."

Rama told him it would be this way - just a few moments ago, in fact. He is going to do everything in his power to take care of him, apparently including eating dried fish and tins so Crozier can have the fresh fish. Fighting it wouldn’t change his mind: this is how he loves.

Crozier nods softly in agreement. He’ll have the fish and Rama can find something else. He needs to learn to be cared for in this manner, at least until he can do the same himself.

“At least come sit with me whilst I eat.” A small but reasonable demand.

Raju looks up from the pan, for a second or two visibly surprised. For all Seetha's streak of stubborn insistence that she knew best had softened around its edges as she'd gotten older it had never gone away, particularly not in private. Raju only realises he'd been expecting to have to push to give Francis the meal that he should be able to provide when he doesn't.

It isn't as good as being able to cook this properly would have been, but this way at least Raju can give him something. Not tins. Not feeling the way that Francis does about them. So it's easier to smile at Francis a little now, knowing he can take care of Francis in this one way and that Francis is going to let him. Raju does smile for a moment, nods, then he turns his attention back to separating the worst parts of the fish and pushing the rest onto a plate, pouring the tea, bringing it all over. During those first days after, once Francis was well enough to eat but not well enough for too much more than that, it'd been easier to use a piece of wood as a tray to put the food on his lap, with a hole cut the right size to at least keep the cup from tipping too far in one direction or the other. Raju is glad for it now, and glad he hasn't bothered to move it from its spot against the wall so it's still close.

"I'll pay more attention to it next time," he says, setting the tray on Francis' lap and putting everything in place. There's something in being so close to Francis now; thinking more about just what that something is can wait until the more important things are done. "Or make something different. I found a book on foraging that looks promising but I haven't looked at it properly yet."

Ah, the plank of wood merges. He sighs a little to see it but says nothing, merely accepts his meal and the hot beverage with a grateful smile. Because for all of his complaining about being invalided all over again, he’s exceedingly grateful for Rama in everything he has done and will do.

“It’s a hot meal, I’ll never be upset when offered a hot meal,” he reassures him, reaching for the cup of tea first to let the fish cool off from being molten lava.

“You’ll surprise yourself yet, with all this foraging and hunting,” he adds after his first sip. It makes things feel oddly better, and he smiles a little more happily towards Rama. “Master this wilderness yet.”

Easier still to return Francis' smile, watching him drink, and Raju settles onto the arm of the chair as he does it. He could sit some place else, but this is closer. And Francis' hair is closer; it's less that Raju makes the decision to run his hand over Francis' forehead, pushing back his hair, and more that his hand is drawn to it and drifts that way on its own. Raju's sigh is slow and satisfied, hand lingering on Francis' head as Raju feels a little bit more of the tension running out from him. He himself wouldn't have touched Francis this way yesterday, either. Not so freely, anyway. Not for no reason. He wonders how he'd managed without it.

"But it's so slow, all of it," he complains, watching Francis. "At least the fishing you know where you're going and what you're going to be doing once you're there. But I never know where the greens are going to be. Looking always feels like wasting time."

Crozier only has the one hand to do anything with, but he has a second arm that easily leans on top of Rama’s lap. The vantage point is lovely too, he can turn his head and look up into his pretty eyes while he drinks his tea, wishing silently to have his hair touched once more.

“It only feels like it when you come home empty handed, but you’re mapping things out as you go. It’s just how things are.” He smiles sympathetically. “I know, you’d much prefer something a little more exciting. I appreciate your efforts, Rama.”

"It's not—" he starts automatically and then stops himself with a huff and a noise of faint amusement, hand on Francis' head sliding down to the chairback behind his head, looking down at the arm in his lap. He hasn't touched this one very often. There's something about this kind of injury that feels as if it should be left alone, out of... respect, maybe. Or maybe something else.

But then there'd been yesterday. Raju hadn't noticed this changing in him too, but maybe it had. And maybe the rest of it is the warmth that spreads out inside him in a burst whenever he hears Francis call him that. He reaches out to Francis' arm, turning it a little so the underside of Francis' wrist is facing up, the easier to run his thumb over the skin there, exploring it while he thinks of how to explain.

"I'm just not... used to being here, I suppose. Even now. I used to skip over foraging altogether unless I ran across something edible by accident." Odd to think about that, now. His meals had been nothing but the tins. Francis has been changing things for Raju for even longer than Raju's known enough of himself to think about it.

The urge to drop his head onto his lap as well is strong, but he's just as strong and can refrain. It just seems a shame to begin something and then have to maintain one's self-control the day after. But this level of affection is acceptable, a soft touch, the feeling of Rama's hand touching his ugly scar tissue, almost as though it's something to be loved and not reviled.

He nods softly. Rama feels as out of place as they first did on that fateful expedition - not knowing what to do, feeling like a fish out of water, like an intruder in this world. Rama is a capable man; not just capable, but he's the very best in all things, and he's struggling here.

"Does it help to know that's how I felt for a very long time?" He sets down his cup and eats a piece of the fish with his fingers. He doesn't bother with utensils now except for the occasional spoon for soup or a knife for cutting. "I was out of sorts, relying solely on the kindness of the men and women around me. I was like a child. The worst part was I couldn't do anything to help, I was still learning to us just my right hand.

"I know it's not the same, but...wanting to help, and just not knowing is exceptionally frustrating. But you've learned quicker than I ever did, and you know me, I'm not prone to idle flattery."

Raju looks up from Francis' arm to watch him closely, sharply interested as he always is in anything about Francis' life from before this place. He imagines it: losing his own hand, having to learn... well, everything, after. Francis has been learning for years, and he still couldn't take care of his own sleeve that once, when he'd been too angry to take care with it. Raju tries to imagine that kind of loss, the loss of assurance in himself, that he'll be able to take care of those things, and can't quite do it. And the way Francis says it, it seems like that'd happened when he'd been new with the people who'd taken him in and taught him so much of that knowledge and skill that Raju so admires in him now.

He lifts Francis' forearm and spends a moment studying it. The impulse, always, is to avoid the stump at the end, the part of a body that shouldn't ever see the open air. Raju pulls at Francis' arm and ducks his head to press a slow, lingering kiss to it. It's a marvel how much better, calmer and more stable, he feels afterward. He wonders if it's always going to be this way, touching Francis in all the ways he hadn't been able to before. Or simply hadn't thought to.

"You know so much about surviving here." But being calmer doesn't mean he isn't still going to complain: "But I haven't really learned anything. Not properly. Taste that fish; I didn't even get the herbs on it before it burned."

Cooking had been something he'd trusted others to take care of, before. The cook at the barracks, Seetha at home. But he needs to be the one to do it now, and that means doing it well. He grimaces a little.

Rama kisses his scar tissue, tenderly and sweetly, and for a moment Crozier's brain stops working. It's something to be ashamed of, a reminder of his greatest failure, something than makes him less capable and a figure of pity - but Rama holds it without disgust, kisses it without revulsion. His eyes grow wide and his mouth opens in slight awe; Rama must love him. He must, and it's just as much as a marvel now to see it was it was the night before.

"I've had decades to learn, Ram," he says quietly, voice a little lower with barely-restrained desire. God, he wants him now, ruined chest and all. He uses 'Ram' without thought, not knowing if it's taboo to shorten his name, but his very western habits aren't ignored so easily. "And you've kept us alive all this time. I couldn't do anything for myself, that was all you."

The change in Francis' voice is small, but significant; Raju's gaze sharpens again. He recognizes that tone. His gaze moves to Francis' arm, then back to Francis' face. Is that how it is, there? He was aware of Francis' body before but he's aware of it now, too, its proportions, the way that his skin looks around the edges of the bandage. His expression is intent, and fixed on Francis'.

"I want to do more than keep you alive." Francis' voice isn't the only one, now, that's gone lower. His fingers curl over near the skin that he's just kissed. It feels natural, as he does, to move his other hand, brushing its fingertips over the back of Francis' neck. "I want to do something you like. Cook something better. But everything needs sugar or vinegar or honey or flour."

His long hours with nothing to do but research haven't borne much fruit, nothing really useful, and even now Raju is frustrated about it.

“You do so many things that I like,” Crozier argues quietly, craning his neck ever-so-slightly. He wants to be kissed. He’s aching to be kissed by him, a sharper ache than anything in his chest. He refrains, because he must. Rama touches his neck and that should be enough. “You found me this little board, for instance. You make me tea before I even ask. You wash my hair. You wrap me up in furs when I’m cold.”

There are a thousand other things Rama does for him, and it just seems like such a shame he’s choosing to focus on cooking, of all things. He loves him in all these little ways, all of them heartfelt and thoughtful.

The frustration on Raju's face softens, looking down at him, hearing him say those things. Hearing the way that Francis feels when he does them. "All these compliments," he murmurs. "I'll listen to all of them and grow lazy, if you keep on that way." It's in Francis' tone, his arm in Raju's lap, the warmth of him so near and the way Francis is holding his head, as if he wants—

Raju's lips are only a few inches away from Francis' when he stops, thinking again about what he's doing and he looks at Francis this way, close, looking over his skin, his cheeks and lips, into his eyes. His hand is tighter around Francis' wrist and he feels the scars under his fingers, feels the warmth of Francis there. He can smell Francis, cooked fish and pine and the faint smell of soap when he breathes in. He can see every shade of colour in those remarkable eyes. He stays leaning this way, and doesn't move back yet. He doesn't want to.

“Does that mean you’ll listen to reason? Impossible.” He doesn’t think Rama even knows what lazy looks like, let alone how to let himself be lazy. He laughs softly, glad to see his eyes brimming with amusement - and perhaps something else - instead of that irritation at himself.

He can bridge that gap between them himself, but he would lose that indulgent look into his handsome face, the intensity of Rama’s stare on him, the indescribable feeling in his chest at the two of them existing this closely. But he wants, and he’s only a man, so he pulls himself up those last few inches to press their lips together, a contented little groan escaping at the contact.

Raju's satisfied noise comes from deep in his throat in response and he feels it, feels the noises they're making in their lips. But Francis is leaning forward, he'd put his hand on his ribs when he'd done it before, leaning forward is going to hurt him now so Raju pushes into the kiss, hand on the back of Francis' neck moving around to his shoulder and pushing on it, too, wanting to chase Francis as he leans back until Raju can kiss him knowing that Francis isn't moving at all to do it.

He feels Francis' lips against his for a moment more. Then he pulls back, only a little further away than he was before. His eyes flicker briefly down over Francis' chest, the wrapping over his ribs. He smiles, looking apologetic, regretful. "Francis..." The hand on Francis' shoulder drifts down, feather light over Francis' chest and then his ribs, stays there as if Raju could push this feeling into the injuries there and help, do something that actually feels like helping. As if he could push the pain out and fill Francis up with this instead only by willing it. He can't, but he leaves his hand there anyway. He sighs, apologetic smile faint and lingering.

He eases back against the chair, glad to be pushed but not pushed away from him. He sighs quietly, nearly chasing his lips again as Rama pulls away. He stays put at the rueful little smile, understanding as Rama's eyes land on his chest.

"A kiss won't hurt," he says, voice still rough. Kiss him again, Rama. Kiss him again. He takes his hand off of the plank on his lap and covers his, holding him gently over his chest. None of this hurts as badly as not being kissed by him.

Raju looks at him. He realises he's breathing harder. A kiss. A kiss won't hurt, will it?

Will it?

He feels the hand over his. He breathes. He leans forward again, free hand moving to support himself against the chair as he kisses Francis, slow and hungrily. But he realises he's pressing Francis back into the chair and his throat is tight, suddenly, and he pulls back, eyes wide and alarmed. He looks down over Francis and back up again, looking for any sign of pain. He sighs, looks away, and then looks into Francis' eyes again, regretful, lips parted like they weren't ready to stop yet. Won't it? he wants to ask, and doesn't want to, but needs to know it regardless.

It won’t. It won’t. He says it like a prayer in his own head, Rama’s lips finally on his, giving him what he wants so terribly, his breath in his mouth filling him up slowly. He runs his tongue over his briefly, just barely stopping a groan, which morphs into one of slight disappointment as Rama ends the kiss.

He pulls back and looks frightened, and Crozier just wants to cry in frustration. He shakes his head; he’s fine, he’s perfectly fine, Rama couldn’t possibly have hurt him. He tips his head back and silently asks, pleads with a single look, brow knit in confusion and lips very much not being kissed.

A kiss won’t hurt. He doesn’t hurt. He’s fine. He can’t deny him a kiss, not now, not when he’d waited so long and so patiently just to have him.

Raju looks at him, the knit brow, the pleading look on his face. Raju's chest heaves with his breath. He leans in for a kiss, more careful than the last, then pulls away, and his next kiss is shorter, and the one after shorter than that. When he pulls back a third time Francis' face is still close, and dear, and his body is healing and delicate, and regret steals over the devotion on Raju's face.

"I... I won't... let you down. You don't have to look at me that way." The way he'd looked when Raju had stopped kissing him. Like it will hurt if Raju doesn't. His hand moves to the side of Francis' face, fingers curling as if resisting the urge to grip, and brushing instead against Francis' skin. "But I can't— I won't... hurt you. You're hurting enough already because of something I..."

But it's true, isn't it? The fact that it's hard to say doesn't change that. He has to push the rest of the sentence through, and his throat half-strangles it on the way out. "...something I did. You need to heal."

“Something I wanted,” he argues, voice catching. Something he wanted that had hurt him, and then hurt Rama by proxy. Whatever argument he wanted to deliver dies quickly; Ram felt awful, and no amount of logic would change that.

He exhales softly and looks down at the cooling plate and cup on his lap. He’d beaten himself up about this too - he needs to be able to care for him. It’s easy for Crozier to forget that Rama watched him nearly die.

“You won’t let me down,” he agrees, adamant. Rama could never. “If…we need to refrain entirely…”

Not just from lying together, but all else - it’s agony just to even think about it.

"I think..." Raju's breath is warm over his lips. His gaze is hot over Francis' body. "I want all of you," he says, quiet and hungry. "If I do anything I'll do everything. It'll be hard, I know, but..."

His thumb moves over Francis' lips. It moves slowly, exploring, as if the other times he's mapped the territory there can't be trusted and he needs to learn all of it again. "It'll get easier. You'll see. You're too important to take the risk. Your health is too important. And I couldn't—"

Raju's gaze fixes on his thumb, away from Francis' eyes. His lips thin, and he takes a harsh breath in through his nose. He shakes his head, looks away for a moment, and meets Francis' gaze again once his own can be confident, steadier. "We'll grow used to it. It'll be alright."

He wants Rama to devour him - judging by that look in his eyes, all fire and yearning, he wants to. He’s barely holding himself back.

Crozier’s a grown man, a sailor, in fact; he knows how to live a life of denial and celibacy, but he’s never had someone look at him like that. He’s never had someone want him to the point of not being able to control themselves - he’s never met a man like that, bubbling passion and need. To not even be able to kiss him is like a punishment for a crime he didn’t commit.

He can’t answer verbally yet, but he locks eyes with his and nods in resignation. He won’t grow used to it, and he’ll hate every moment he can’t have him, but he’ll wait. He’ll live like a monk again if he must. He kisses the pad of Rama’s thumb softly and pulls his head back.

Raju watches, gaze fixed as Francis pulls his head back, knowing that he can't follow. His hand lowers itself slowly, as if it doesn't know where to go. He needs to pull back too, sit up straight, maybe lean back. He tries, and it doesn't happen. Or maybe he isn't trying very hard.

His hand settles tentatively near the edges of Francis' beard, longer than it was, and as untrimmed as ever. He rubs the very tips of it between fingers which still need to be feeling something. "Your beard is terrible now, you know," he murmurs, voice low and, in the moments before he manages to wrestle it into something approaching casual, very rough. "You look more like a hermit than ever."

Easier to keep touching and easier too, maybe, to focus on that. Not that he's ever minded the beard, but anything which doesn't make Raju need to kiss him when he looks at it is a relief.

It looks terrible because they were horribly distracted the night before. He was lucky to have gotten his hair finished by the end of things! He sighs quietly, just managing to stop himself from turning his head into Rama’s hand. He’s still so close. He can just push forward and demand another kiss -

“You’ll have to wait a while longer to trim it,” he says with a smile. “When the soreness goes away some.”

He can’t stand having Rama this close and not able to have anything more than this. He picks up his cup of tea and drinks a little more of it, trying not to seem so bothered.

Raju wants to stay this close. He wants to keep leaning in this way to watch Francis eating the meal that Raju made. Such as it is. It's a sorry, simple thing as meals go, but it's keeping him alive. Helping him heal. He wants to move his hand from the edges of Francis' beard deep into it, and touch his jaw underneath and feel the shape of him.

Francis seems to be focusing only on his tea. He's doing it for a reason. Raju leans backward in small and stilted increments, his gaze at least able to stay exactly where it is.

"And until then?" His thumb rubs over the hair at Francis' chin one more time, slowly, before it sinks down to the armrest, gripping it. "I'll just have to look at it?"

"You'll just have to look at it," he repeats, setting his cup down as he chuckles. It hurts, goddamn it all, but at least he doesn't need to hide the grimace on his face. "You'll be just fine."

He picks at the fish again with his hand, not wanting it to go stone cold. Rama made the effort to cook it for him, even if his appetite isn't there he's still going to eat. He's never going to be one to waste food or someone's work.

And it takes his mind off of wanting Rama to kiss and hold him, knowing he won't even gt that much until he's completely healed. This is going to be hell.

Time passes, and Raju doesn't quite get used to it. Not that there isn't still time to, but he'd expected it to be easier. He hadn't wanted anything at all for years and even before that, after he'd started the work but before moving it to Delhi, sometimes he'd come home and... well.

It isn't easier now, in any case. But Francis does, eventually, seem less sore. In less pain. It's easier for him to stand, and to move. The relief of it is powerful, but the urge to touch, the thing inside him that's still convinced that he could help if only he could put his hands just there keeps rearing its head, which doesn't do a thing to help the rest of it. The need. There's as much relief in leaving to forage or hunt, now, as there is tension in needing to finish it quickly and come back to keep an eye on things.

There's no reason to leave right now. They have plenty of food.

"You aren't cold?" he asks, not looking up from the book on one half of his lap or the notebook on the other. He doesn't need to to know what Francis is doing, and what exactly that looks like. "You're sure?"

“I’ve been sitting in front of the fire sweating,” argues Crozier from his place at the basin.

He’s been more and more independent as of late, but still cautious, still afraid of a setback. If he does the wrong thing and inadvertently puts more time into this very long recovery period he might just go mad. He has been going mad, in fact, a silent stream of self-abusing thought running through his mind every time he even so much as looks at Rama with less-than-pure intentions.

But his mind is focused as he starts to strip his top layers away - he’s in desperate need of a scrub up after spending all day drying out fish and hanging herbs; he can smell the smoke lingering on his skin now, in his hair. No, he needs this little bath, it’s all about practicality at the moment.

“Besides, you know I don’t get as cold as you do,” he adds, lathering up a flannel with a a sliver of soap. He’s bare from the waist up, the lower half he’ll less concerned with today.

"Mm." The sound of clothes being taken off was unmistakable. He hears Francis moving, hears the wet sound of the flannel being rubbed against itself. He keeps looking down at the book. Bark looks like this, the leaves look like that...

He glances up, and the tight thing inside his chest sends a shock through the rest of him again. He's seen plenty of men without their shirts before and it's never felt this way. But he'd seen Francis without it too, more than once, and never known...

It's hard to hold on to the thought. He looks down again, rolling his lips between his teeth, curling one hand into a fist and then loosening it again. Two rows of flat, dark green needles. Red berries...

He realises his thumb is tapping fast against the notebook paper. "But you don't even smell bad," he tries. "Just like herbs. And fish, but I'm well used to that by now. Aren't you?"

Unaware that he has an audience, Crozier unceremoniously starts washing himself with the flannel and the cooled water. He sighs quietly to himself; it feels good to be able to do this much on his own again.

He's hearing concern for the chill in Rama's protests, nothing else. "I'll be fine," he says, running the flannel over his shoulders and across the back of his neck. God, but that feels good, and he knows he's getting the thin film of grime off of his skin. "It won't take long at all."

"Mm," he says again, and the idea of it not taking long compels him to look back up, and then not make himself look away. If Francis does this, Raju will have to just sit here knowing that he's doing it— but if he finishes, Raju won't get to see at all. Terrible either way. But, well, it feels good doesn't it? Raju finds that he wants that, the feeling, even if he can't match it to the kind of action that he'd like.

His eyes track the flannel moving over Francis' skin. He wants to be the one doing that. That hand should be his hand. When he thinks it, briefly, it's as if he can feel it there.

For a moment Raju the thought both sit where they are, quietly. "I should do that for you," he decides to say, voice lower and gaze now fixed, the decision too close to when he's actually said it to bother holding himself back. "Later. Once you're well."

Crozier picks up his head and glances over his shoulder, finally feeling Rama's stare burning into his back. That was the trouble to begin with, wasn't it? Rama had insisted on bathing him, washing his hair, dressing him - they couldn't keep their hands off of each other.

"You can do as you please," he replies, moving the cloth a little more slowly. He dips it back into the water, forgetting to ring it out as he draws it down his chest, rivulets of water running down to his navel. "Once I'm well."

Raju leans onto one leg, the book sliding down over the notebook as he shifts and crinkling its pages. He doesn't look down at them. The water drips over Francis' skin.

"Francis," he says, a sharp sort of really? in his tone. Nonsense, to think he hadn't felt this way before, or hadn't noticed it. Maybe it's sharpened now by the idea that he could. He could stand and walk over there. He won't, but he hadn't even known to decide not to, before.

Nonsense to think Francis doesn't realise what he's doing, either. Raju can't tell yet. It's hard to think past the effect it's having now.

Crozier absolutely knows what he’s doing. There’s been a fair share of moments when Crozier’s been in Rama’s place, staring at him hungrily as he hauls firewood or stretches after he wakes for the day. All lean muscle and beautiful eyelashes and dark hair - he’d pin him down and devour him whole if he could. He wants him desperately…so yes, admittedly this might be a little revenge.

“What, Ram?” he smiles, flannel running over each nipple, leaving them pert and hard, and then down lower and lower to catch the water. If somebody’s going to stare he should give them a show, that’s just having good manners.

Francis is smiling. Raju catches the smile before his gaze moves down again over Francis' hard nipples, following the path of the cloth. His body feels tense in every place that it can be, and he's very aware of the hard beating of his heart. He huffs something that's nearly a laugh, ducking his head before it rises again, gaze pulled back. He's leaning onto his arm, hand pressed flat onto the floor, and it's as far forward as he's permitting himself to go. "You're an ass, has anyone ever told you? Have I ever told you?"

“What about my arse?” he asks innocently, gesturing to his waistband. “Did you want to see it?”

He grins briefly, gap in his teeth peeking out before he turns back to the basin. The flannel’s set aside in favor of splashing water over his face and head, running his fingers through half-copper, half-graying hair.

He’s having a grand old time here, especially knowing he has his full attention. He can sympathize with Rama’s plight, but he has full faith in his continued good health.

This time he does laugh, helpless not to. The water over Francis' skin, the fingers in his hair, the terrible teasing and Francis' happiness, and that gap between his teeth revealed so briefly by his grin— Raju wants him very badly. He watches Francis wet his hair, knowing Francis is showing off for him, and feels his drawers growing tight. It's wonderful and terrible and the teasing's hit its mark, but Francis doesn't seem to expect Raju to actually take him up on it. So of course he wouldn't do anything else.

"Of course I do," he grins, that low tone still settled in his voice, even as laughter lingers around it. "If you'd be so kind."

“That could be dangerous, my love,” he says, voice a bit of a low purr in his throat. He rubs at his neck and then picks up the flannel to rub himself down a final time, slow and with a lot more attention to detail. A spot on his wrist here, the hollow of his neck, his collarbones.

“Is that really something you want?”

Raju looks surprised and then his hand curls into a fist, he leans even further forward, then lets out a hard breath through parted lips. My love was the last weight on a scale Raju didn't know was there, and he knows for certain now that he can't allow himself to move at all. If he did, it'd be to do something he can't allow himself. It'd been a matter of course at home, sometimes more or less often but never a surprise, the affectionate words. He realises, vaguely, that he can't remember the first time he and Seetha said something like that to each other. Whenever it was, it surely wasn't a surprise then either. But Francis is an adult whose life could have taken him anywhere else, and that he'd want to call Raju my love now wasn't ever guaranteed. It's an odd feeling. Not surprise, exactly.

"I want everything." The serious, intent way that it comes out wasn't something Raju planned, but it's true, and there's no reason for Francis not to know he means it. His gaze moves over Francis' body, down and then back up again. He starts to smile. "And I like danger. I like a challenge. Show me."

He realizes the moment it’s said that he’d just leveled a challenge to Rama. He pauses to look back over to him, unsurprised to see the want in his face but taken aback by the other emotion there. He isn’t certain what it is exactly, he’s hard to read.

But he wants everything, and there’s no joking or teasing to detect in his words. Crozier inhales sharply. He feels a bit like prey walking straight into trap, but there’s an obvious thrill to be admired and have the command of someone like Rama.

“If you insist,” he says, thumb in his waistband. He pulls at his trousers, revealing small clothes first (that sealskin pair hasn’t been worn in quite some time) as he steps out of each leg. He locks eyes with him again - Rama wants to see his arse - and then turns around to strip off the last piece of clothing.

The tight, powerful feeling inside him tells him that he could he could right now, that he should, that Francis is so close and there, there is all of him, and Raju could just get up and have it. There's no chance that feeling is going to win, not now with Francis' injuries healing but all the more obvious with the bandage off, but Raju likes the fight. Both hands are curling their fingers against the floor.

"You were washing, weren't you?" he asks, voice just as sharp as his gaze. "Go on."

He shivers, a little from the cold, but mostly from the fire burning in Rama’s eyes. This game is as delightful as it is agonizing. They can tease each other all they want, but they both know Crozier isn’t fully healed yet. They’ll tease and laugh and then ultimately have to calm themselves down again before it goes too far.

Hasn’t it already gone too far?

He smiles wickedly and picks up the flannel again, letting it wander lower and lower, his body angled away from Rama so his actions are slightly veiled from him. The flannel gets dipped back into the basin, Crozier bending slightly as he wrings it out, then lets the water drip back down his chest and back.

Raju catches himself leaning to try and see what Francis has hidden by turning away from him, and laughs under his breath as he stops himself. He waits until Francis has bent down, admiring the view, and until he's straightened up again.

"Not going to let me see the rest?" He isn't really complaining about it, even as part of him wants to. It's a game of restriction, after all, and Francis' teasing is restricting just enough. But he wouldn't be complaining if he did see more, either.

“You only said arse,” replies Crozier, moving slowly as he bends to wash his thighs.

It’s strategic as well - the less Rama sees the more fun the game is, of course. It has nothing to do with the heavy rush of blood between his legs, the red blush creeping from neck right down his stomach and rapidly swelling cock.

He never took himself as an exhibitionist, but when the voyeur is as striking as Rama…well.

He allows for the slightest of peeks as he twists to wash the back of his thighs and down to his calves.

Raju's still sitting, still leaning toward Francis. His hands are half-clenched on the floor and his head is cocked, and his gaze is between Francis' legs. He catches Francis' peek at him and the gaze moves to Francis' face and he grins, knowing and pleased. He might be able to see a blush there, angle of Francis' stance permitting, and knows in a rush that Francis might be able to see Raju's interest even better now if he looks at the same spot in return. Or maybe Raju will have to shed a layer to make it as obvious as it feels. Maybe if Francis asks.

"I did," he confirms, gaze admiring. "And if I said something else?"

He thinks Rama knows he'd give him whatever he wanted, all he would need to do is ask. In fact, he'd probably give without needing to be asked, but Rama's voice is low and silky, and it wraps around the part of is brain that craves more.

"I'd consider it," he replies, looking outright at his clenched hands, the rigidity of his posture that seems wound up like a gear. He could leap forward now, pounce and just take what he wanted, but that remarkable self-control is keeping him in stasis.

Well. Not all of him. He can plainly see the tugging of his trousers, the dozen layers or so that Rama wears be damned. He smirks softly, trying to keep himself under control despite the very real burning in his belly. If he asked Rama to wash his back right now - no, that isn't part of the game. He can't. But he can shift his weight and turn, just barely letting Rama catch a glimpse of his hidden front.

A noise makes it out from the back of Raju's throat, low and appreciative. He shifts his weight to shift his position in his drawers and lets out a hard, slow breath through parted lips. "What would I have to do?" he murmurs. "To get you to do more than consider?"

He can think of a few things.

Crozier brushes his hair back from his face, licking his lips in an impression of a man deep in thought. "What would you have to do..."

Well, those trousers are probably very uncomfortable. "You could let me see what I'm doing to you," he tells him, brow raising suggestively. "You look like you might need a little room in your trousers."

A smile spills over Raju's face and his hands hurry to the buttons of his trousers— and then stop there, as he realises he's just hurried himself away from the collected, controlled impression he'd been cultivating before. He ducks his head over a very quiet laugh, gaze quickly growing hungry again as he looks back up, his eyes raking over the parts of Francis that he can see.

His fingers move quickly again, undoing one fly and then the other, hooking his thumbs under his drawers and pushing the whole lot down a little on one side, a little on the other, groaning a little as he has to shift to make it happen and feels the material moving against him. Then he tugs up his shirts, moving their ends out of the way. Then his hips are bare, the very tops of his thighs are bare, the skin of his stomach just above his groin feels the air. It doesn't feel cold at all. He pauses a moment looking into Francis' eyes and smiles, pleased, reaching inside his drawers to tug his cock free.

"What about this? Can you see what you're doing now?"

He feels winded by the sight of him, clearly as thrilled and uncomfortable as he is from all this prolonged eye contact and unabashed flirting. Just a hint of his bare skin makes his mouth water like a goddamned animal, whatever remaining bit of blood that had been making its way to his brain automatically diverting downwards.

"I can see," he says, trying to swallow the hard lump caught in his throat. God. God. He wants to get down on his knees and worship him with his mouth. He can just imagine how he tastes, how he'd feel on his tongue...

He returns the smile, red now from head to toe. He's a man of his word though, and turns so Rama can get a good view of the front of him, flushed chest and need all on full display for this man. He keeps his chin up and his hand on the flannel despite the very strong urge to cower and cover himself, locking eyes with Rama and then taking a good long look at his body.

He wants to be closer. He wants to, it would be alright it would be easy...

Raju bites his lip over his smile, gaze moving up Francis very slowly, taking its time with every part of him. When he reaches Francis' groin he glances up to his face, smile growing, and his own hand moves just a little over sensitive skin. He lets out a hard breath and moves his gaze over the top half of Francis, head to neck, to chest, to stomach, to hips.

"I want to taste your skin," he says, voice rough. "Look how far down that blush goes. I want to mark the rest of your skin that colour, too."

He sways just a little, enchanted by him - his own hand on himself, the gravel in his voice, the intense stare, that dazzling smile. Even mostly dressed he's completely arresting.

"You'd be the only one who would ever see it," he says, hand moving to the table to keep himself steady. An idea starts to takes hold of him slowly, growing in intensity as he looks at him there on the floor. What would it be like if he belonged only to Rama? What would it be like to become devoted to his every whim and desire, letting him and only him to mark and have him as he wishes. To give up that control and place it in the hands of this man, this very lovely, loyal, fiery man with whom he trusts more than anything or anyone.

"You could have everything."

Everything could mean anything, now. It certainly means Francis' body, its shape and its softness, its strength and its vulnerability. It means Raju reddening all that skin however he likes, and holding Francis after. It means he'd be the one stepping in when Francis is unsteady to hold him up. Raju wants it. He can feel it in his chest, and in the blood rushing to his cock, how much he wants it.

"I will," he says, completely confident that it's true, no matter what else it means. "Do you turn that colour every time? Or is it showing yourself to me, now?"

“I honestly wouldn’t know,” he says with a quiet, somewhat strangled laugh. Maybe it’s standing here in his altogether, bare and hard, showing off for a man sculpted like a god who for whatever reason is looking at him with barely restrained desire. “Maybe it’s just you.”

Crozier sets the flannel back into the wash basin, leaving his hand free. “Do you turn pretty colors too? A reddening of that gorgeous skin of yours?”

He smiles and ducks his head for a moment, pleased at the compliment. But he isn't looking away for long; when he looks back his eyes move up and down over Francis again. The hand he's got on himself moves to his thigh and grips it. "Sometimes. I'm told I tend to flush during the middle of things. Why? You'd like to see it, would you?"

“I think I can’t live without seeing it for myself.” Only a slight exaggeration; he does feel like he might perish if he doesn’t see his skin darken as he kisses and bites him in those sensitive places.

He leans back against the table with his body, biting his lip with a quiet hiss. “What would you have me do now, Rama? You have me naked and wanting; what next?”

Raju huffs, smiles. "A dangerous question," he says, and lets his eyes linger on Francis while he considers the possibilities, purely to feel the strain of it. He shivers, then laughs a little under his breath.

He thinks on it for another moment, watching Francis leaning back against the table. A little of his cheer — just a little — replaces itself with concern. "You've been standing for a while. You should sit down."

But— "Without coming closer," he adds hurriedly. "I think I need you to stay where you are."

He wouldn’t have crossed the invisible line, but he heeds the warning when a nod. He wouldn’t dare come any closer - he wouldn’t trust himself, and apparently Rama feels the same.

Crozier lowers himself onto the chair with the armrests, sitting back with spread legs and his hand just barely resting on his thigh. From this vantage point he can look down at Rama, his body still good and flushed, cock heavy between his legs.

“A dangerous question for a dangerous game,” he hums, smiling softly at him. “I’m trying to decide what I’ll want most when we’re able to touch again. I want to bite the inside of your thighs.”

Francis sitting down is worse. How didn't he expect it to be worse? It's in the spread legs, of course, but there's something commanding about it, Francis sitting there that way, in spite of him having not a single piece of clothing on. Or maybe because of that. For a moment Raju only watches him, eyes wider. He takes a couple harsh, controlled breaths in through his nose, and his hand tightens over his thigh.

He smiles a second after, pleased with what's just occurred to him. He pulls one side of his trousers a little further down, and then the other side, and his fingertip finds the inside of a thigh and starts slowly moving down. He takes a sharp breath in, a part of him grateful when the path of his finger is stopped by the bunch of fabric high over his legs. "Where? Here? Higher, or lower?"

Crozier’s eyes widen in surprise, then narrow shrewdly, his nostrils flailing in amusement. Oh, how clever. Frustratingly clever; he wishes his mouth was there instead of Rama’s own hand.

“Higher,” he says, voice deep and surprisingly rough. “Higher, and then higher still.”

He traces his own thigh, bringing his fingers up to the crease between his leg and pelvis, trailing it further down. “Right here. I’d leave marks on you.”

Before Francis, the only man's voice he'd heard while feeling this way was his own. It'd never occurred to him that it might sound like Francis' does, feel like Francis' does. He feels a chill over hot skin and shivers, grin sharp as his finger moves upward again, following the path Francis' hand is tracing. His own hand pauses there, and he feels himself breathing harder than he was.

"I don't have your mouth," he murmurs, gaze meeting Francis' eagerly. "What shall I do here instead?"

That is certainly a problem, but fortunately he has a perfectly fine substitution.

“A scratch of your fingernails,” he decides, hand moving back to rest upon his thigh. “No, a slow raking of your fingernails, gentle at first, then hard. That’s how I’d sink my teeth into you.”

He smiles wickedly.

Raju's smile spreads a moment after Francis' does, fixed and happy and fascinated. He positions his hand obediently, doing the best he can with his short, neat nails, fingertips gentle at first and then digging in. He lets out a hard breath at the sensation, fingertips in place of Francis' teeth just there. Impossible to do it here and now, looking at him, without imagining Francis' mouth.

"Like that?" Raju grins up at him, satisfied and panting a little.

“Like that,” he smiles, his own nails digging into his leg betraying his cool exterior.

“After I’d bitten and kissed there,” he starts, breath hitching in his throat. It’s amazing what a naturally guilty Irish man will say in the throes of desire. “I’d bury my mouth and nose in those short curls of yours and inhale until I was drunk off the scent of you.”

Raju pushes out a long breath, a pleased noise. He imagines Francis' body taking up the space between Raju's legs and spreads his knees a little, imagines the feeling of a nose against his skin just there, the heat of Francis' breath. He takes a moment to keep imagining it.

"Can't very well do that myself," he murmurs. It's more a comment than a complaint, and he isn't done. "And while you're down there? Would you let me take your hair in my hand? I don't pull."

They'll have to both just imagine these things, Crozier with his head between Rama's legs, Rama with his hand on Crozier's head. "I would," he answers, "but I can't imagine you not pulling."

Rama looks like he'd tug in between caresses. He doesn't hate the thought, Rama's hand guiding him with a pull here or there, Rama yanking hard when he's done something to please him. It's certainly new, not something he would have ever asked for.

"What should I do next? Are you an impatient lover?"

"I don't have to be," he says and then ducks his head over a laugh, smiling at Francis. "Sometimes," he corrects himself. "But I want to see what you'll do. You want to explore, don't you? Smell me? Feel everything?"

On 'everything' Raju reaches behind his cock to run a hand over his balls, very carefully in deference to how sensitive he is now, how magnified each touch feels with Francis' eyes moving over him that way. "Taste everything? What do you want?"

“Touch and taste, yes,” he says hoarsely, feeling himself throb in response. His imagination starts to run wild - he wants it all, and suddenly what ‘all’ is expands to include parts of his own anatomy. If he’s going to love a man he’s going to love him, all of him.

He bites his own lip as he finally allows himself to brush his own cock with his fingers. What noises would Rama make if he touched and kissed him on that sensitive place just below his balls, would he clench his jaw or ball his hands into fists, would he praise him or curse him in surprise? What if he cupped his stones while he used his mouth on him, how would he react if his moved his attention lower and even lower still?

“Right now,” he says, brow furrowed as he openly admires Rama, “I want to put my mouth on all of you. Not just your prick, though…god help me, I’d try to swallow every bit of you if I could, so that nothing would go to waste.” His head lolls back slightly, hips jerking. “I think I’d touch that spot underneath your stones, and massaged until you whined.”

The force inside him tightens as Francis bites his lip, as Francis' head lolls back and his hips jerk. It's a privilege to see him this way, naked, slowly losing himself to the pleasure of what they're creating together. The hand Raju has over his balls moves a little at a time, down to the spot Francis suggested. He takes in a sharp, quiet breath at the sensation they find there and then another deeper as his fingers press harder, relax and press harder again. His head tips back a little, eyes half-lidded, and he's panting again.

"Like this?" he breathes. "Would you touch yourself as you did it? Both of us at once?"

Exactly like that, except it would be his doing, all his doing. He grunts softly, imagining it was Rama’s hand on him as he reaches down to grasp himself at the base. “Maybe if I was using my mouth on you,” he laughs, “and had my hand free. If you looked that way I would have to. Christ, Rama, you’re so beautiful.”

He squeezes himself, his fingers working slowly back up his own length. “Together. I’d like the feeling of the both of us in my hand.”

You're so beautiful, Francis says and touches himself, fingers moving slowly, and Raju mirrors the motion with his free hand, his other pressing at the spot Francis wanted to touch and he shudders, an instant's surprised noise making it out of him and he laughs breathlessly, gaze fixed on Francis. "Together," he says, going on between harsh breaths. "I'd like that. I want to be touching you. My hand around yours."

He must have been correct in his assessment of that particular spot. How he wishes he could touch it for himself - he wants to be the one to draw those desperate breaths from him.

Together. He thinks about Rama’s hand on him that night and tries to imitate his touch, that slow exploration and the way his fingers circled the swollen head of his cock. He feels his stomach muscles tense and laughs quietly; just thinking about him, just remembering would be enough, and now he has this remarkable sight in front of him. He’s not strong enough to resist.

“I’d kiss you then, swallow up all those gasps of yours.”

Raju nods, loose and hurriedly. "I want that. I want to feel you in my mouth." Francis' hand is moving slowly and so Raju's hand is too and it's awful, awful in a way that winds everything waiting in him up more tightly, more powerful for it. A smile trembles at the edges of his parted lips as he watches Francis and moves their hands in time. "I want to be kissing you while we come."

He wants to be kissing him now.

“Yes,” he agrees, voice starting to sound as wrecked as he feels. “Yes.”

He sees Rama mirroring his movements, and with a breathless laugh he starts to move his hand just a little faster, just a little more deliberately. He circles the leaking head of his cock with his thumb, hips jerking again, desperation building.

“Come with me now, Rama,” he says, caught between a plea and an order.

Raju's hand moves faster with Francis' as Francis laughs and Raju is gasping now, mouth open. Francis' order, his plea, calling Raju by the name he always calls him now sees Raju shuddering and his other hand presses at that spot behind his balls in the way Francis had wanted, hard, fingertips pulling in just the right way and so he comes, both hands tightening, realising he's ducking his head and looking up again, wanting to catch Francis' eyes, see his face through it.

Crozier doesn’t know at what point he started closing his eyes; he has to force himself to open them again, wanting to keep watching Rama, needing to see his whole body shudder as he spends himself. After all the first time they’d touched each other he’d been distracted, too busy with other racing thoughts and chasing his own pleasure to really take in how gorgeous Ram is in the moment.

And god, but he is. He’s exceptionally gorgeous, his hair falling in his face and eyes burning as they look at him. Crozier doesn’t have to move his hand any quicker, it’s the sight that does it for him, the way that Rama comes because of him. He comes with a very quiet gasp, brows knitting and his head falling back as he pushes into his own hand.

His breathing is heavy and desperate in the moments directly after, but healthy. Not struggling or pained.

Raju notices it too, the breathing. It plays into the picture he makes: Head back and neck exposed, legs spread, hand still around himself and chest moving — moving easily for all the bruises, breath desperate with pleasure and with nothing else. Francis is healing, and he's well. He's happy. Raju's gaze is fixed on him even as Francis' head falls back and Raju's own panting begins to slow. His hands start to slide away from himself.

He's hot, he realises. Strange to feel that way in this place, and he's sure that it won't last, but he feels hot. Flushed, maybe, and he wants all these clothes shed so Francis can look on it, can look on on all of him as he's been allowed to look on all of Francis now. In these moments after he feels like he could do it, cold or not. Maybe it's for the best he'll have to wait, that they're already done. He'll decide again on a warm day.

Francis is beautiful. Raju wants to touch him, still; maybe he's always going to. Now that the temptation to perform something more athletic is done, maybe he can. "Could you stay still?" he asks, still a little breathless. "If I kissed you? Right now?"

Could he stay still? What a question! He came so hard he doesn’t think he has any bones left, but then Rama follows it up with the prospect of kissing and he growls low in his throat.

“Yes.” He takes his hand off of himself, placing it back over his thigh, looking down at him with his head still leaning back against the chair. “Yes.”

He could stay still for a kiss.

Raju's smile breaks over his face and he stands, finding his balance as he pulls his drawers and trousers up, tucks himself in, lets them stay unzipped with the ends of his shirts bunched up behind him as he makes his way over. His legs are weak, still; once he's close enough he lets himself stumble so he can catch himself on Francis' chair with a grin, one hand on each armrest. It's tantalizing being this close to all that bared skin even now, and since Francis is watching him Raju lets himself look, eyes moving over Francis slowly. Then he smiles into Francis' eyes, lowering himself just enough to press their lips together.

His head swims as Rama approaches, soft and rumpled and looking as delicious as he had just moments prior when he still had a hand on himself. His body couldn’t possibly respond a second time - maybe if allowed to rest in between, but he’s a realistic man - but he could see how that alone would be enough for him.

But he stays still, as he said he would, the only movement being his head as he gently tips it forward to press back against Rama’s very soft and kissable lips.

Raju takes his time, smiling against Francis' lips, letting the kiss go on until he's nearly satisfied — as close as he's going to get before they're able to lay together afterward, until Francis is healed enough that Raju wouldn't worry about one or both of them moving too much in their sleep. Then he pulls back and smiles at Francis for a moment from here, the distance the he likes most, where he can see very clearly the colour of those eyes.

Then he sinks down onto one armrest, not sure if he should keep his distance any more, but wanting to be close. And he can lean against the chair himself this way, if only a little. That's probably for the best, with how relaxed he feels.

"I think I could fall asleep," he murmurs. "We weren't doing anything important before, were we?"

Falling asleep in Rama's arms sounds wonderful. He can't have it now, so he'll have to add it to the very long list of things that he Wants when he's fully healed, but he can dream about it. Imagine what it might be like to have Rama and then fall asleep in his arms.

"You were reading," he says, leaning forward with a grunt. "And I was bathing. Which I need to do again now."

He huff out a soft laugh. "Had I known that's all you needed to exhaust yourself...well."

"Mm." Raju's gaze sharpens a little as Francis starts making moves to stand, pushing enough of his lethargy aside to watch and see whether he can do it without pain. He might be feeling a little better than he was, and they might not have touched at all until afterward, but last time...

Well, he'll see. It's hard to focus on worrying just now with Francis laughing softly and joking with him. "Have you been wanting to exhaust me?" he grins, eyes still tired and half lidded. "Once you're well I could suggest some more techniques."

“Maybe I have.” He turns his head slightly and puts his hand on Rama’s thigh, laughing again to himself. It’s a runaway locomotive now, this thing between them, barreling off with no easy way of stopping. “I look forward to hearing your ideas. In the meantime I’ll just imagine them for myself, mn?”

Best if Rama doesn’t try to list out all little notions, so he can focus on getting himself out of the chair. He’s starting to chill now, and the evidence of their exertions beginning to grow uncomfortable. His hand lowers to the arm, knuckles turning white from clutching it hard as he starts to rise.

He’s still moving slowly, but he does so without a wince or grimace. The thoughtful planning of each movement has served him well so far, and once he’s standing on his feet there doesn’t seem to be anything pulled or knocked out of place. He stretches slightly, then picks up the flannel to unceremoniously wash himself again in the cold water of the basin.

Raju watches him, appreciative even without Francis making it a show, watchful of any of the signs of pain he's become too familiar with. But Raju, at least, can leave and do other things when he needs to escape the reminder of what'd almost happened. Francis can't.

Time passes, and Francis continues to handle the whole thing fairly well, considering. Maybe because things do change, even if too slowly - The bruises change colour and continue to fade. Francis moves a little more quickly, a little more easily. Raju finds himself imagining what Francis looks like under his clothes, and remembers the way he'd disregarded those kinds of thoughts before without so much as a decision about what they were, and doesn't know what that says about him, or whether he needs to do something about it.

But Francis is here, and Raju knows now how he feels about the man and what he wants with him, more or less. Not all of it has to do with sex.

Francis' hair gleams in the sunlight coming from the window. The sight of it is beautiful, in the way it's always beautiful, and picks out every individual uneven strand in a bright halo of light. It's been growing untamed long enough that the texture is starting to change, frizzy and dry in a way that might suit other men perfectly well but the man who in all other ways Raju looks at with desire stirring inside him...

"You said I could trim your beard a couple weeks ago," Raju says after a minute or two of steady staring, from his place leaning against the wall. "Do you remember? Do you still mean it?"

Crozier’s been deep in thought, mostly pondering the finer points of possibly constructing a fish weir in the thawing river. If successful they wouldn’t have to worry about food - if successful no one in Milton would have to worry about food. He’s still troubled by the thought of putting effort into a community that would turn against them as quickly as they had during the town hall, but if he was being honest with himself, not helping at all doesn’t sit right with his conscience.

He’s so wrapped up in his own head that he doesn’t realize Rama is in the same room as him. He lifts his head when he speaks, smiling softly as he lays eyes on him. Rama stares quite frequently; he’s not sure he’ll ever get used to it, that softness behind his eyes that he’s helping to create.

He laughs quietly and brings his hand to his beard, patting down some of the wayward hairs. “Is it that bad?” It probably is. “I meant it, yes. I still do.”

The soft smile that'd been mirroring Francis' deepens with pleasure. There's something in Francis saying yes to him, of course, but there's something about him letting Raju do this, too. Even with how long Francis has been injured, Raju hasn't tired of taking care of him yet.

"Good," Raju says, leaning this way and that to see different angles on the beard in the bright light and noting spots he wants to come back to once he can. "We should do it while there's good light, I'd hate to do a bad job of it."

There’s nothing quite like making Rama smile. If he hadn’t agreed to getting his beard trimmed before he gladly would have at that smile alone. His breath hitches in his throat; maybe he’ll touch his head while he trims his beard. Wouldn’t that be lovely? At the very least he’ll be able to look up into his beautiful brown eyes.

“The light is pleasing enough now,” he says, tipping his head in spite of himself. “What do you think?”

"I think that's a wonderful idea," he says, pleased, and moves close enough to raise a hand to Francis' face. This kind of gesture in this kind of way is new to him still, and the pleasure on his face leans a little fascinated as he watches his hand scratching through the wiry hair over Francis' cheek.

"You're in the perfect spot already," Raju goes on, other hand coming to rest naturally over Francis' waist, light and barely touching. "I've been admiring it. Sunlight compliments you beautifully."

He supposes that one day he’ll grow used to the sweet words and sincere compliments, but today is not that day. He glances away with an awkward smile, familiar little flip in his belly as Rama touches his waist and sings his praises. He does find himself leaning into the touch slightly, doing so without even realizing his body has started to automatically respond to Rama this way.

“Does it?” he says, laughing quietly. Rama is genuine with his compliments, even if it’s still hard to for Crozier to believe. He’s learned now to accept and even be a little pleased by them.

“Is that why you decided to ask about the beard now? You’ve been staring?” He’s teasing and absolutely flirtatious in tone.

Even the words themselves aren't like complimenting a woman; Francis isn't playing a game when he looks away and acts doubtful. He isn't hoping for more while trying to seem modest. He genuinely doesn't seem to know what to do with it. But neither does he seem to mind, leaning into Raju's hand and after a moment rallying enough to flirt back. Raju looks from his hand to smile into Francis' eyes, proud.

"Of course I was. Why wouldn't I be staring at the most beautiful sight for miles? This is starting to make you look like a hermit, though." He rubs the ends of Francis' beard between his fingers fondly, hoping the observation cuts the compliment enough to make it palatable.

Rama does look at him as though he’s the most beautiful thing for miles. It makes him feel incredibly fortunate to have found someone like him in this, of all places.

“So less of a beautiful sight,” he replies dryly, eyes crinkled in delight. “Mn, we must fix that, mustn’t we? I wouldn’t want you to tire of the view.”

"I won't," he says easily, just smiling at Francis for a moment. "But I won't mind improving it a bit. Here, I'll get a chair and pull it over. This spot is perfect."

He moves to get one, looking back at Francis as he moves it. "What do you like? What length and shape?"

He considers some of his past teasing with a faint, almost mischievous sort of smile.

“What if you simply shaved it completely?”

He’s starting to feel a little less like some wandering hermit, and more like he did when he was still…himself. Perhaps it was time to try it without the beard.

For a moment Raju stops pulling, looking surprised. His gaze darts over Francis' face, trying to imagine it. They've talked about it before, but it's harder to imagine now that suddenly it's nearly a reality. It isn't that Raju isn't curious, he wants to see it. But Francis has worn his beard more or less that way since they'd first met; the man's face seems made for something growing there. "Completely? You mean, all the way off? You're certain?"

“I can always grow it back,” he reasons, still smiling. He lives for a good shocked expression on a pretty person. “Why? Would you be repulsed by a smooth face?”

It would be different. And maybe if Rama hates it it’ll give him a little reprieve from temptation!

"Of course not," he grins, pulling the bench the rest of the way and then going for the dish of soap and bucket of pine needle water, his grooming kit, a sheet that hasn't yet been torn apart for rags. "It's only that you've always had it. As long as I've known you, anyway. And it covers so much of your face. What am I going to be seeing under there? There could be anything."

“A chin, I imagine,” he says, closing his notebook and setting his pencil aside. He can do the prep work for Rama, sitting himself back and removing his shirt to keep the hair from falling on his jumper. “A lower lip.”

He does give the question a little more consideration, reaching for the pine needle water to give his beard a cursory scrub to soften the hair and his skin. “A few scars here and there. Imperfections.”

Raju leans back, watching Francis take his shirt off and letting his eyes wander after. He wasn't going to ask for that, but if Francis is volunteering, Raju isn't going to stop him. As Francis goes on Raju's gaze flicks back to Francis' face; he sounds a little more serious at that than he did at chin and lip and Raju thinks of Francis' discomfort with compliments, studying him.

"Are you trying to warn me?" Raju smiles. "I'm going to like it. I like your face already, you know."

He laughs softly. “I’m told it’s endearing, which sounds remarkably similar to being placated.”

But it’s his face, it’s the only one he has, and he doesn’t hate it. In fact, he’s looking forward to Rama seeing the rest of it.

“But I know you’ll like it.” He looks up at him with a quick smile and leans back into the chair, ready for the cold to hit his face again.

"Good." Raju flashes him an eager, closemouthed smile that's eclipsed a second later by businesslike focus as he steps in close, taking Francis' chin between his fingers and turning his head this way and that. He doesn't have to move Francis to get a good look, he could move himself instead, but he wants to. He likes holding Francis' chin this way.

His hand rubs at the beard as he draws his hand away, fondly. Last time seeing it for a while, messy and unkempt as it is.

"I think I'm going to cut the excess off first," he says, reaching in his kit for his scissors, "and then wash what's left. Unless you'd like me to wash all of it before anything else. Who was it who was placating you about your face?"

He doesn’t try hiding the preen in his smile as Rama holds his chin and inspects his beard. As far as beards go he knows it’s not a pretty sight - not clipped and trimmed and flattering like the one on Rama, but he’s been fond of it. It makes him feel less connected to the old world he left.

“Trim, then wash,” he agrees. “And no one you need to know about, Rama. They aren’t here for you to threaten.”

"I wouldn't." Raju takes up the sheet, grinning at Francis as he drapes it around his shoulders, over his chest. "Unless you asked," he adds, then his free hand tugs a portion of Francis' beard just enough to hold it straight. "Last chance to keep your beard."

He waits but knows Francis won't tell him he's changed his mind, and in a moment he's holding the little scissors as close to Francis' face as he can get them. "Keep still now, this shouldn't take more than a minute." Jaw and cheeks first, then he'll move down to the neck. Bit by bit Raju starts cutting it away, holding Francis' jaw and turning his head by his firm, careful grip when he needs a new angle.

"I did think you preferred to keep it long, though," he says absently as he focuses on his hands and Francis' face. "What changed your mind?"

He doesn’t change his mind, pushing for Rama to continue with a soft nod. Change doesn’t bother him. Once upon a time maybe it would have, but he wouldn’t have made for a very good explorer if he was too set in his ways.

“You know I stopped shaving after I came to stay with the Netsilik,” he recounts, raising his chin up absently. Being tended to in this way is oddly familiar. “But before that I stayed shaved. I’d preferred it then. I suppose I’m just eager to see if I’ll feel the same as I did then if I rid myself of the beard.”

"No uniform," he notes, holding some of the chunks of beard under Francis' chin tight enough so he can start cutting them off. It's odd to see the length he's become so used to disappearing this way. Odd, and a little exciting; but he isn't done yet, so he doesn't yet let himself take a look at the whole picture of Francis' face. Only pieces, a section of his jawline here, part of his neck there. It isn't all uneven stubble quite yet, but it's close. "It won't be quite the same."

The first ‘snip’ gives him a pleasant little shiver down his spine. No turning back now - not unless he wants to look even more a mess than before, at any rate.

“It’s only fitting; I’m a civilian now.”

"Mm." Raju pulls and snips in a line over Francis' cheek, thinking about that. It isn't how he thinks about himself; but of course it wouldn't be. Francis' work is done.

There's something stirring under the thought. Now isn't the time to look on it, so he leaves all of it in the dark. He takes a slow, steadying breath, finishing the one cheek and moving to his neck on the other side. "You're a retired man now, hm? Is this what you thought retirement would look like?" He gives Francis a little grin as he glances at his eyes, the little joke — the stark difference between this and any civilization, particularly the kind Francis must have at one point expected back home — helping pull Raju's mind down other safer paths.

It’s safer to joke about ‘retirement’ than discuss the very depressing truth. He thinks about the last time he ever heard James Clark Ross’ voice, the heartbreak he couldn’t stand to listen to as one friend explained to the other that they’d all died miserably.

“I thought I’d be married,” he admits, smiling a little sheepishly. “Married, with a successful command under my belt, perhaps some children on the way.”

"It'd suit you." Raju cuts one line off Francis' beard, then another, then another, then moves on to that side of his chin. "Fatherhood would suit you." He realises after he says it that, in trying to focus on that topic instead of the one the 'civilian' comment had first turned his mind to, he's forgotten to wonder whether he should be careful; it isn't easy to hear about what you'll never have, for all Francis had been smiling about it a second ago. His eyes move to Francis', his expression watchful and a little cautious.

His smile has a touch of sadness to it, but there isn’t any threat to derailing the moment. He’s come to terms about the life he always wanted for himself, but would never have.

“I always thought it would,” he says somewhat breezily. “And marriage. I thought both would suit me well. But some dreams aren’t meant to be.”

Raju makes an agreeing noise and turns his attention back to his hands. Some things Raju can't change only by willing it, no matter how sure he is that Francis should have had the life he'd wanted. It's an odd thought. But after everything Francis has lived through, even Raju can't argue that Francis might find his way back to that life now. He runs his thumb slowly over Francis' jaw instead of any other gesture that'd draw more attention to itself. Then he moves the scissors up to Francis' cheek, cuts there for a moment, and then he's done. With this one part, anyway. Mostly.

He considers the picture Francis makes, finds himself smiling, then moves the scissors to Francis' upper lip. "I'm looking forward to kissing you without this in the way," he says with a grin as he cuts the hair there shorter, then cleans off his scissors and puts them away, drawing out what he'll need for the rest and setting all of it aside. "And seeing what that lower lip really looks like."

He hopes this means more kissing in his near future, and the thought of that alone is enough to drive away thoughts of Rama missing out on the chance to be a father. He can imagine it - he’d be anxious, worried about repeating past mistakes, worried about passing all the bad parts of himself onto his child, but sweet and fun and all the things a good father should be.

“You’ll be pleasantly surprised. There’s a birth mark shaped like Portugal under there,” he says with a deadpan smile.

Raju half-tries at restraining his smile, mostly for show, a silent faux-protest against Francis saying ridiculous things. "I'll be taking you to task after all of this if there's not," he says, amused, and gathers a little of the pine needle water in his hands to spread it over the lower half of Francis' face. Then he rubs a sliver of soap between his fingers and smooths it over Francis' cheeks, feeling the long stubble beneath his hands.

"You're lucky there's not much direct sun here," he notes as he does, studying Francis' half-uncovered face. "Once I finished you'd be half-pale. Much more striking than Portugal down there."

He laughs softly. He knows Rama wants to laugh, he just knows.

"Thank you for not making me look completely ridiculous," he tells him, raising his head so Rama can have better access to the remaining stubble. "One last farewell kiss to the bearded man?"

Raju pauses, surprised, then smiles again. "Not farewell," he corrects, scooping water in his hands and spilling it over Francis' face as he bends, rinsing the soap off with the same gesture he uses to take Francis' face in both of his hands. "If I miss the layer of hair between my lips and yours I'm sure you'll grow it out again." And with that Raju kisses him, slow and thorough. A little more thorough than he'd intended to be, but as he does it he realises he doesn't see any reason to stop before Francis wants to.

Crozier closes his eyes and lets himself be kissed, a low, satisfied rumble rising in his throat. “Mm.”

The last time they’d kissed like this his hair didn’t get finished, and so with great reluctance he pulls away, pressing a few quick kisses to his lips and then sitting back. “Well, let’s find out if you approve.”

Raju makes a pleased noise to answer that rumble Raju can feel in their lips, in Francis' mouth. As Francis pulls back Raju realises he's licking his lips, then smiles in a bright, amused way at Francis. "I will," he says, and then turns to set things up. He hooks the strop over something nearby and unfolds the blade, starting to run it with quick, practised ease back and forth over the leather side.

"It's been a long time since I used this," he says as he does. "But I've been looking after it. You're in good hands."

A moment more and he's setting the blade aside again to start on the soap, glancing up to study Francis' face as he wets the brush, lathers the soap. "Your hair is longer than it was when you used to shave, isn't it? I'll be the first to see you looking this way." He looks pleased when he says it. Curious as he is about the man Francis says he used to be, the way that man used to look, the way Francis must have seemed when performing the work that would define the rest of his life, Raju finds he likes this too, the idea of seeing something new. Being the first to see something new, because his hand was the one that did it. There's something about that.

“I wouldn’t assume otherwise,” he replies, because there isn’t any question in his mind otherwise. Rama is meticulous in caring for his things, especially something that came from home. There’s so little that came with them from their past lives.

He watches Rama prepare the blade and lather, smiling at the familiarity but intrigued by how intimate it feels with someone other than a steward wielding the blade. Rama is going to bring that razor to his throat and the delicate skin of his cheeks and around his lips, the trust blooming in his chest and overflowing into adoration.

“I suppose you will be,” he smiles, feeling a little heat in his face.

Raju's hand slows as he looks up and catches that hint at a blush. His smile deepens as he pinches gently at Francis' cheek, leans down—

—and stops just short of kissing him, rolling his lips pointedly between his teeth while his eyes carry his smile. His false pinch tightens into a real one for just an instant, long enough to tease Francis, and then he straightens up again, starting to brush the lather over Francis' face. "If there's anything more you'd like to warn me about, say it now. Once I start I'll need you to keep your mouth closed until I'm finished."

Goddamned tease. He wants to pinch him right back, but now begins his trial. He needs to keep his mouth shut while his face is shaved, not only to protect his nose but to prove to Rama that can do the damn thing. He doesn't have to always speak, even if Rama knows full-well what he's doing when he leans in close like that and smiles with that beautiful goddamned smile.

He holds his gaze and shakes his head firmly; no, there's no more he needs to say.

Raju looks pleased, mostly with himself; not answering even before Raju's finished lathering says Francis might be taking it as a challenge, which opens up an avenue that Raju hadn't been considering before. He looks pleased while he lathers one cheek and then the other, across jaw, across upper lip and under chin, over neck. Then he sets the brush down and picks the blade back up, positions the bench behind Francis, kneels there, one hand on his shoulder and the other in front of Francis, blade not opened yet.

"I'm used to doing this for myself only, you understand. My hands are more used to shaving from this angle." He flips open the blade, holding it while leaning around, craning his neck to get a look at Francis' face, as if deciding where to start. "You know, I've been thinking about what I'd like to do to you, once you're well. Would you like to hear?"

Ah. He fully knows what he's doing, his Rama. Maybe his hands are more used to shaving from that particular angle, or maybe he wants to be impossibly close while he does this. He certainly knows he's made a promise not to speak, and considering that movement would also be ill-advised Rama now has a fully captive audience.

He answers with a raise of his brow. As though he'd say 'no' to an offer like that, even one that'll probably wind up killing him in this chair.

At the raised brow and nothing else Raju makes an amused noise, the breath of it moving the lather a little. He holds the blade close to vertical, sets it in place, and moves it down, hand slow and precise as it cuts the stubble away. The sound is more satisfying than he remembers, but then he hadn't ever let his own stubble grow this long until he'd grown it out altogether.

"I've been thinking about what you wanted to do to me," Raju says as he begins. Cheek to chin, in one slow smooth stroke. He picks the blade up, moves it to the side just a little, and does the same again. "The skin behind my balls," he goes on, casually. "You must like being touched there, too, if you've been thinking about it." One more stroke, and then slow attention to the trickier parts next to the lips and near to the jaw. "But I wouldn't be starting there, of course. I think I'd start with your chest. It's been so long since I've been able to touch there."

He pauses, smiling at himself, ducking his head for a moment. "It feels like I've done it before, doesn't it? But I haven't gotten to touch you there at all. Not really. I'd like to feel everything." His free hand moves from Francis' shoulder to his back where the sheet over him parts, sliding slowly over the bare skin there. "Do you think you'd like that?"

Lord knows how long Rama had been waiting to spring these thoughts onto Crozier. He likes to think that he’d been plotting some sort of revenge for the strip show, but it’s more likely that this is a spontaneous little ploy that just so happened to fit in with a desire to groom his wild-looking beard.

He speaks of such filthy things so casually, hinting at the touches before his fingers lightly brush along his bare back. Crozier has to stop himself from shuddering and ruining the integrity of the shave.

He answers by locking eyes with him, mouth lifting in a lopsided smirk. He’d love if he touched him, really touched him, nothing with that worried care behind it.

Francis meets his eyes very deliberately and seeing that smirk pulling unevenly at his lips deepens Raju's smile. His hand wanders downward, settling at the soft skin between Francis' spine and his hip. "Then I'd like to taste you," he says casually, shifting to lean forward a little more, reaching around Francis to rinse the blade and then start on his other cheek. "Your chest first. Your nipples. Your stomach. I want to know what they taste like in my mouth. And I'd like to know how sensitive your nipples are."

His fingers move just a little, as if they're thinking about inching around to the front. They don't, but his hand poses itself, ready to. "Should I test that now do you think? Or should I wait?"

He returns the question with a look that plainly says keep going, Ram, one day you’ll get yours.

Crozier can imagine those pearly teeth on his chest, his hands cupping his pecs like tits and his mouth making everything red and slightly swollen. Yes. Yes, he would like those things now, it would be excellent if they could just rip each other’s clothes off right now-

But he’s half-shaved, and this is a game, and he’s going to win. He merely raises his shoulders in a gentle, laissez faire shrug.

Raju's smile splits his face and his hand has to pause its shaving for a moment as he ducks his head toward Francis' shoulder to laugh, quietly.

"Well, if you really don't care," he says, turning his attention back to Francis' face as he recovers, starting the next feather light motion of the blade in a line down Francis' cheek. "I suppose I shouldn't move my mouth lower then, either. I wasn't paying attention to your thighs before. The inside of your thighs, high up. I wonder if it's smooth or rough. If it would be easy or hard to mark you there. I should let my fingernails grow a little, I think, so I can find out."

With that he draws back just enough to wash the lather off the blade again. "Raise your head for me. Look up at the ceiling."

Crozier loves making him laugh. It’s quickly becoming one of his favorite things in the world, seeing that wide smile on Rama’s face the seconds before he breaks into a great big guffaw or a small chuckle. It’s beautiful, every time it’s beautiful.

He lifts his chin towards the ceiling and holds his upper half still, his hand idly reaching out to brush across the front of Rama’s trousers. A purely coincidental touch, of course, just accidental and nothing more. He’s not responding to the fact that Rama’s is teasing him with thoughts of his hands and mouth exploring his inner thighs.

Raju lets out a sharp breath, half amused at the coincidence of Francis' touch and half something else, and his smile lingers on his face as he eyes the underside of Francis' chin. He'd made the lather thick enough to coat the long stubble but not so thick he couldn't see which way it grew, so if he scrapes the blade that way...

For a moment he's silent, all his focus on his hand, on the soft slope of Francis' chin into his neck, the sound of the stubble cut under the blade and the feel of it, the careful balance between touching Francis' face and not. It'd be hard to really hurt Francis this way, at least by accident, but even a small cut would be unforgivable to this man, from Raju's hand.

"But I haven't decided if I want to yet," he murmurs, concentrating less on his words now. "Mark you, I mean. Or if I want to be gentle. Both, I think." He picks the blade up, repositions it to start another long, slow stroke. "But I can't do the two at once. Maybe it'd be slow, to start with."

Edited 2024-07-25 01:17 (UTC)

The slow grating noise of the razor clipping down his stubble makes the top of his head tingle. It's like butter being spread across a piece of toast, a soft scraping of a blade shaving his rough face smooth. He exhales quietly as Rama moves the blade carefully over his skin; it won't be long now before the beard and moustache is completely gone.

He hums softly in approval. Slow to start sounds nice. All gentleness first, then the roughness. He'd be fine either way, he's quickly come to realize -- he'd like Rama in all ways, new and wondrous as it all is.

Raju hums back. "Slow, then," he says after a moment, craning his neck to try and see the other side of Francis' face, then changing his mind and shifting around to lean over Francis' other shoulder for the better view. The hand on Francis' back slides over toward his hip as Raju shifts his weight, and Raju's thumb moves back and forth over the skin there. "I'd like that. I think... I want to be good to you, Francis. Take care of you. Be sure that you're well. Then..."

He pauses to concentrate on the little details, the last bits. Jaw to neck, making certain every bit of it is smooth and clean. "Then we can see about the rest. I'll find out how many places I don't have to be careful with your skin. That's the one good thing about living in a place this cold, isn't it? You're already covering everything up."

I want to be good to you, Francis. He believes him, dear god, he believes him. He's already so good to him, so sweet and tender and concerned in all things, but the thought that it could somehow be better-

His head swims. He wants to whimper. Maybe it's the touch too, that simple stroke of his thumb over the hint of bare skin there.

He hums again, wanting to be able to speak now. Hasn't he played this game well enough? Hasn't he been so terribly good and still throughout this whole endeavor? He tries to meet his eyes, tries get him to see that he agrees, but ends up going for that hand touch again. This time his hand brushes against Rama's, along his knuckles and down his thumb.

Raju feels the touch against his hand and the razor pauses its movement, drawing back from Francis' jaw as Raju's expression softens. "Nearly finished now," he says, hand on Francis' hip turning to try and grasp Francis' reaching one at whatever angle the two can fit together. "Look straight ahead, bite both your lips in for me." That should pull the skin tight enough to make it easier to shave, and keep those lips out of the way.

"One of the worst sins of this damn beard," he goes on, feeling Francis' fingers in his, feeling Francis' skin in his care as he sets the blade lightly under Francis' mouth, "is the way it hides your lips. You never trimmed there, either." That's one pass with the blade done. "I've felt them, but I want to see. You have a wide mouth, I think. And I know your lower lip is thick enough to bite." And another pass, leaving the skin beneath it smooth and bare. "But what shape is the other one, exactly? I want to see all of it. I want to feel all of it."

He finishes the last pass underneath Francis' mouth and pauses, smiling a small, satisfied smile. "I'll just have to wait, of course. Still your upper lip to go."

He does as instructed without thought, biting his lips to draw the skin taut for a smoother shave. This is new to him, being admired for his physical features - his lips, of all things. He can safely say he’s never given them a second thought.

Rama takes such great offense to his beard! And frankly, Crozier has been charmed by the one on Ram’s face, the peek of plump lips underneath the well-trimmed mustache and carefully-maintained beard. He can feel those lips just fine, though he has full faith that he’d look as gorgeous as he does now clean-shaven.

He hopes Ram won’t be disappointed by what he sees. He doesn’t think he will be, but the fear always lingers despite logic.

The focus on Raju's face looks a little excited, now. His gaze is sharp, and his lips are pressed tightly together, with a smile pulling up at their edges. One pass on each side, a very careful few movements with the corner of the blade here in the middle, and then—

Raju slides off the bench, hand squeezing Francis' as he lets go of it so he can stand in front of him, taking the whole of the picture in at once. His eyes dart over Francis' face, creased up at their edges as his smile breaks out from its restraints. He presses his lips together again, but the pleasure and excitement's already escaped. He rinses the blade in the water, puts it aside, dips his hands in the pine-needle water to smooth it over Francis' face, washing the stray spots and lines of lather away, all without looking away for more than an instant at a time.

"There you are," he murmurs, hands settling onto Francis' cheeks, smooth under his palms. His thumbs trace the curve of that now-visible upper lip, starting at the middle and working out. The shock of the difference is lesser than it would have been if Raju hadn't been the one shaving him; it's a transformation, but Raju's been eased into it. He would have been this pleased either way. "You know, some men look exactly the same whether they've got a beard or not. Not you."

Well! The words may be confusing - what does that mean, that he doesn’t look exactly the same - but the smile on his face and the touch to his naked upper lip is not. Ram seems fascinated, maybe even a little enchanted by what he sees.

“Am I really so different?” he wonders, same upper lip slightly curling into a slow smile. He leans his head to one side, into Rama’s palm, looking up at him in expectation of the answer.

The pressure on his palm as Francis turns his head into it sinks into Raju's chest, and he feels the precious weight of Francis' trust against his sternum as he keeps looking, taking him in. "Mm. The beard changed the shape of your face. And here, you have cheeks—" he smiles as his free hand slides slowly over the soft plane of one, "and a chin," as his thumb traces the round curve at its top, then the slight cleft at its bottom. Then his gaze gives in to the pull back to Francis' mouth, the hand holding Francis' head starting its thumb moving back and forth from the newly-smooth cheek to the corner of his lips.

"And it's easier to see you smile now," Raju says warmly, satisfied. He gets to touch everything now, and see everything. He hadn't known how much he'd wanted that until now, realising that he had it.

And he can’t help the brightness of that smile now, how light and expressive his face is as he gazes back into the sweet face of the man he loves.

“Is here anything that surprises you?” he asks, wanting Ram to keep caressing his face. If this is all they did together, a caress and a fond look, he would be content for the rest of the week. “Said cheek or lip?”

Raju nods, smiling. "Cheek—" his fingers curl over one, more pitted than he'd been expecting and there's no way to say so out loud, none that would carry the warmth and pleasure that he feels seeing the life in Francis' skin out from the inside of him to Francis' ears, "lip—" he brushes fingertips over it again, the bow of it smooth and shapely amid the square solidity of his face, "chin—" his hand moves down over the soft jawline that the beard had, a little, shown and the small, prominent curve of chin that it hadn't, pausing his finger over the cleft there.

Then Raju breathes out an amused noise at himself. "Everything surprises me," he says, delighted, and curls his fingers over Francis' chin, his fingernails happily too short to do anything but play at marking the skin there.

"Look at that, would you." He notes it as his hand turns, curled fingers realising how that prominent chin makes a fine place to grasp, if someone should decide he wants to take hold of Francis' jaw and turn Francis' head for him. Raju demonstrates for himself, pushing just a little, trying to firmly tip Francis' chin up toward him.

"Perfect," he murmurs, smiling at his hand and then, self-satisfied, into Francis' eyes. "Surprises everywhere."

Gears are turning in Ram’s head as he watches his own hand explore the face he’d carefully unmasked. It’s amusing in itself just seeing him make realizations about this and that, but his pleasure in Ram’s reaction is quickly replaced by a sharp lighting of desire as his chin is grabbed.

He tips his head back with a low growl in the back of his throat. “Look at that,” he says, clearly looking only at the man who has his full attention. “And what would you do with this?”

The growl and tone of Francis' voice sets the pressure Raju'd felt in his chest uncurling out into the rest of him. He looks down at the dear face bared by his hand, turned by his hand to look up at him, at Francis not looking anywhere else. He'd kissed Francis before. It only fits that he should kiss him after.

Raju bends slowly, the one hand keeping loose hold on Francis' chin and the other sliding around to the back of his head, fingers sliding into his hair. "What else would I do?" he whispers, close enough that he can feel his breath against Francis' lips, and he bends just a little further and kisses him, lips moving slowly.

Edited 2024-07-26 02:00 (UTC)

He tastes electricity in the air in the moments before Ram touches his lips to his, a kind of ozone on the tongue before a bolt of lightning strikes the earth - or in a more familiar sense - the sea nearby. His hand immediately reaches for Ram’s hair, grabbing his hair in a possessive grip as he surges back against the kiss. Ram is soft and exploratory, but Crozier is hungry for him. He kisses like he hasn’t kissed him in weeks - as though he hasn’t kissed him ever - though he lets Rama keep control of how their lips move, how they fit together.

Raju sucks in a surprised breath through his nose at the sudden pressure, the hand in his hair, and then an approving noise comes from some place deep back in his throat and he presses forward too, his own hand in Francis' hair tightening. It's an odd thing, the feeling; no one's really touched his hair for a very long time. No one before Francis. He'd washed it first, a long time ago, gently. And this now. It hadn't really occurred to Raju that someone else might grab his too, that his might be the hair in someone's hand while lips press hungrily against his, and it only seems right that he let Francis know the way he feels about it so he makes another noise, a hungry one, into Francis' mouth. There's something to it, kissing this way with Raju's grip still on Francis' chin, ready to loosen if Francis tries to draw away but firm, holding him here. Raju pauses the kiss long enough to bite at Francis' upper lip, laughing quietly as he lets his teeth slip off it and goes back to kissing Francis again.

Oh, this was not a good idea. It’s one thing for Rama to talk about all these heavenly-sounding things he’d like to do to him, it’s another thing to have him biting his lip and holding his chin. He groans into his mouth, dizzy as he slides his tongue against his lips briefly.

He does have sense enough still to pull back, deciding it’s reward enough to get to see the expression on Ram’s face just moments after he’s been kissed.

Raju looks just a little dazed and very satisfied, eyes half lidded, smile curling faintly at still-parted lips. Raju's hand stays curled in the air for a moment after Francis pulls away from it and it drifts down toward Francis' chest, then corrects itself and tugs the hair-covered sheet around Francis' shoulders a little higher. Raju straightens, his smile growing slowly. He doesn't want to let go of Francis yet; one hand settles against Francis' shoulder and the other drifts down onto his arm, feeling its shape.

"Does that answer all your questions? About what I think?"

Edited 2024-07-27 00:44 (UTC)

It is well worth it, Rama’s dreamy smile and long eyelashes melting him right into the chair. His own hand caresses down Ram’s neck and then over his chest as it slowly drops away from him.

“It does,” he murmurs, “very thorough.”

He idly touches his own bare face, laughing quietly to himself in amusement. He feels like a new man - a clean-shaven Francis Crozier, what a novel thing.

There's a hot trail over his skin where Francis' hand had moved over and away from him. He watches that hand touching his newly smooth cheek and makes a soft, amused noise, both at his own reactions and at Francis, clearly not quite used to his own face either. His smile deepens, fond, around his eyes.

"I have my aftershave, too," he notes. He'd half-intended to mention that earlier but, well. Other things had come up. "I hadn't used it for some time before I got here, either, so there's enough left to last you a while if you like the smell." He leans to pull it out from his grooming kit. Sandalwood, cedar, a hint of some sharp spice — he hasn't smelled it in a while and realises, unscrewing its top and tipping it toward Francis, that he wouldn't mind it, Francis smelling like what a part of Raju's mind still says smells like him.

Crozier's mind immediately zeros in on the same thought - he'd smell like Rama if he wore his aftershave. He'd be on his skin, wrapped up in his scent like a coat that clings to him for days. He leans forward and inhales the warm, woody scent; it says Rama through and through, heat and earth, familiar and exotic.

"I like it very much," he murmurs, excited at the idea of sharing something like this with him. It's Ram's from home, something personal and special to him, and he wants Crozier to wear it. It's a piece of civilization, a little bit of luxury, smelling like something other than just being clean.

Raju tips the bottle over his own palm, looking pleased, sets the bottle down, and rubs his hands over one another in two long swipes. There's something about the way Francis had agreed, the quiet tone over the excited words. All this means as much to Francis as it does to Raju. Well, of course it does — but hearing it. Hearing it is wonderful. It's because he sounds happy.

Raju leans forward to smooth his hands over Francis' cheeks, fingertips first, into fingers, into his palms. His fingertips trace the hills and valleys around Francis' mouth and he smooths his hands over the whole landscape once more, taking the time to rub it in. Then he moves his hands across Francis' jaw, under his chin, over his neck, from the middle outward. It feels odd to have his hands spread over Francis' neck like this; the movements of his hands are very gentle.

"There," he murmurs, gaze moving up to Francis' face. "How do you feel?"

This whole time he’s been subject to Ram’s meticulous care and rapt attention. It’s not unlike a steward caring for his captain; he knows full-well what this sort of attention is like, having received it on just about every expedition, but none of the touches or thoughtful details mean the same. This isn’t just another duty by a hired servant, this is a choice, all of these little moments are choices Ram has made, gifts he’s willing to give to him. It’s like every inch is being adored, and Crozier feels so wrung-out and overwhelmed by the tenderness that he can barely keep the silly grin off his face.

The aftershave tingles on his skin, the scent enveloping him and giving him the sense of being transported elsewhere. Somewhere hot and sunny, where people like him burn and sweat instead of brown and glow like the locals.

He sits up a little straighter in his chair. “I feel like a man reborn,” he tells him without exaggeration. “Less of a mess of a person brought out of the wilderness against his own will. Thank you.”

A man reborn means the shaving is probably going to be at least semi-regular, from now on. That isn't the only thing it means. One of Raju's hands falls to his side and rubs its fingers against themselves, feeling the traces of the alcohol there, while the other reaches up and runs its thumb over the curve of Francis' chin. "Against your will? I don't know about that. You asked me to shave you, didn't you? Instead of trim?"

Raju smiles down at Francis' jaw, his mouth, watching the movement of his thumb and the landscape it's moving over. Then he looks into his eyes. "And you asked me to stay in the first place. I didn't sling you over my back and walk you out on my own."

Ram seems fascinated by his chin; he didn’t realize he’d been hiding it from him all this time.

“I knew when to hold onto a good thing,” he laughs. Of course he’s not some put-upon hermit, as much as he’d tried to mold himself into one in the beginning of things. “Not the beard.”

"It wasn't so—" Raju stops himself before he can lie, ducking his head over a grin and reaching to wipe his hands on a rag. "It wouldn't have been so bad with a trim."

He reaches out for the sheet around Francis' shoulders, gathering up the ends so all the hair doesn't spill out when he lifts it off him. It's odd smelling that familiar scent here, of all places, stronger when he bends forward with his arms briefly around Francis' shoulders; sandalwood and alcohol and the chill in the air, and snow somewhere outside the windows. He turns his head toward Francis' neck and smiles a little. He likes it, he thinks. Maybe he likes the way those two disparate parts of his life fit against one another better because it's Francis who's wearing the scent. Raju straightens, bringing all the corners of the sheet together and looking over. He finds his gaze drawn to Francis' chest and stomach, and it lingers there for a moment before moving up to to smile, teasing, at that oddly bare face. "You'll realise what you've been neglecting the next time we eat. How long has it been since you've had a meal without hair in your mouth?"

“I think you underestimate my ability to keep myself tidy,” he grumps teasingly. He knows he was a mess, especially by Rama’s very exacting standards.

That drawn out glance at his bare chest doesn’t escape him, but it’s not unexpected. Not with the way they’d been kissing just moments prior. He ducks his head a little and reaches for his jumper, pulling it back over his chest with a little smirk. Now the aftershave will linger on his clothes, almost as though Ram himself had been wrapped up in his things.

He moves smoothly through the act of getting dressed and then rising from the chair again. He’s nearly there, almost fully recovered from his stint as a human-sized paperweight, with a new look and the beginnings of something he hadn’t imagined for himself. He glances towards Rama warmly, still so much want in his stare, and shakes his head with a playful little ‘tsk’.

“If I wanted to shave myself next time would you take objection to that? Because I’m fully capable, I’ll have you know.”

"Not at all," he says, moving to shake the sheet out over the bin. "My things are yours. Just take care of it all or I'll have to hide it from you."

He grins at Francis, walking over to put the cap back onto the aftershave, put the shaving soap away, shake the brush through the water and peer at it to make sure he's gotten all remnants of the lather off. "The way I used to do back at the barracks. I'll be happy to do it for you again, though. Whenever you want me."

Raju's peering at the bristles on the brush again but his grin sharpens, knowing Francis is, like him, worked up enough to hear want and think all kinds of things. "Did you like it, shaving yourself? More than having someone else doing it for you?"

He huffs a laugh through his nose. So much for subtlety.

“I don’t abuse what doesn’t belong to me, you can trust in that.” Ram having to hide it whilst living in the barracks tells him all that he needs about the lengths he’s had to go through to preserve his possessions. He thinks about his days still sleeping with the crew in the converted mess - he would sleep with his things secreted underneath his pillow.

“I do,” he tells him, grabbing the ratty broom they’d scrounged from another abandoned cabin. He sweeps with the handle carefully anchored against his wrist, a slow but well-practiced process. “I enjoy doing things for myself. Always have. But things are just expected of you when you grow in the ranks.”

"Hm." Raju sets the brush down to dry, leaning shoulder and hip against the wall, arms crossed, and taking a moment just to watch him. Watch his body. Watch how hard he's worked to manoeuvrer so easily with the one hand. Watch the bare face, which is probably going to be strange — wonderful, but strange — for a while yet. "I never thought about that before. But then the officers back home always seemed to enjoy it, sending others scurrying around to do their work for them. It would have been too strange, wouldn't it? If you'd asked to shave yourself, or... dress yourself, or whatever else."

When Francis had talked about the way he used to be, he'd said he'd been... jealous, hadn't it been? Resentful? That means ambition too, so: "Especially if you wanted a higher rank some day," he guesses. "It wouldn't do to remind anyone where you came from."

“I must admit there is a certain amount of pleasure to be had when someone follows your command, especially when you’re used to being the one following said orders. But having someone shave and dress you…that’s a different level of command, isn’t it? Less officer and more member of the leisure class.”

But it would have been odd to turn away the services of a steward. It was a must for officers. “I suppose one can get used to anything, and having as good a steward as Jopson, who was more a spy who also served tea than anything else.”

Raju huffs an amused noise, grinning. "Odd to think about you that way," he says, pushing off the wall and moving to put the rest of the things away, most everything back inside the grooming kit and that set aside, the water and the pine-needle water both back in their places. "Using subterfuge like anyone else. That was my uncle's work at home. He kept you up on the mood of your men? What they were thinking?"

“I used to tell him he could be a newspaperman. He always knew the goings-on of both ship - Antarctica and that last expedition.” He was a valuable asset, and not just because he was the only one Crozier felt like he could actually trust for a while there.

Thinking about Jopson always tugs at the center of his brain responsible for guilt. “A captain of his ship is traditionally responsible for choosing his crew. The Admiralty gave this duty solely to Sir John; he picked my entire crew, from cook to officers. But I was allowed to choose my steward, and naturally I brought the young man who had accompanied me to Antarctica.”

And doomed him.

Raju nods as he picks up the bench, moving it out of the way. His thoughts, even after so long in this impossible place, move more easily into explicable patterns: Francis' steward was there, alive, and is here, alive, and what had happened — what Francis insists had happened, what William says happened to him, what Raju has no option but to trust — between the two points is easy for his mind to skirt the edges of like walking around a puddle, without quite stepping in the middle unless something else should draw his foot there.

"Instead of one of the others you'd sailed with before?" he asks, moving over to the chair Francis had been sitting in to move that as well. "He must have made an impression that first time."

That Thomas Jopson certainly did. He was terrified during the fire on Terror, then when they'd crashed into Erebus on that horrible night, but he stayed standing and alert and always by his side. He was a good man, brave and kind, and Crozier knew he only wanted him as his steward from then on out.

"He did. He was on the Racer chasing slavers in the Caribbean before he went to Antarctica. I've never met a kinder soul."

Impossible here, at least, not to see the context: the contrast between Francis' regard for this man and the distance he's said he's put between himself and all his men. The ones still living, here. But saying anything about it for no purpose wouldn't be kind, at least not directly. In lieu of that he moves closer, smiling at Francis and running a fond hand over his hair. "He sounds like a good officer. A good man. How has he been doing here? This place is quite a change of pace from hunting slave ships."

He huffs softly at the little hair ruffle. “It’s quite a change from the rocks of King William Island,” he says, going back to his sweeping. The dust and hair need to finish their journey of getting swept out the front door.

“I don’t know how he’s been. He didn’t look well at the town hall.”

It’s a hard thing to admit. Jopson had been glued to his side, and then one day decided he needed to not see Crozier for a while. It has hurt, but he understood. Jopson doesn’t need to be mired in the past if he can help it.

And that town hall was a while ago — long enough for Francis to be up and sweeping across the room, to be doing it without the slow, pained effort any of those movements would have needed from him before. Raju watches him for a moment, unsure. At home, he'd always expected that he would be involved in the lives of the people at home again, someday, as soon as he was done. But Francis doesn't have that.

"If we start going into town more often, one of us might see him," he offers. It isn't something he's inclined to do for its own sake; it's odd to not be committed to one approach or the other, when every decision in his life up to this place was a calculation, how close this took him to his goal and how far that would move him away. But he's committed to Francis, at least, and he's no stranger to spending time around people he doesn't care for. If doing it might help Francis worry less, then Raju wouldn't mind. "I can keep an eye out for you."

It’s a testament to Ram’s affection for him that he would even offer. He finishes his task and sets the broom aside, crossing the room to set his arm on Rama’s shoulder and then the back of his neck.

“Thank you, but he’s in Lakeside now. If he comes back to Milton…”

He shakes his head softly. “Ah, I don’t know, Rama. I suppose it couldn’t hurt to at least look out.”

Since Francis is so close Raju puts an arm around his back, feeling the sweater under his hand, touch gentle against the chest underneath it. "Then we will," he says, confident, encouraging. He keeps looking at him a moment, then kisses Francis' cheek, because it's right there and he wants to know how it feels now under his lips. Smooth, of course, and warm. He feels the pull to kiss Francis again on those shapely lips this time and resists it, gaze darting over his face, smile crinkling at the corners of his eyes.

The easy affection is novel, but not unwanted. If he’s lucky enough to continue being on the receiving side he just may get used to it, and wouldn’t that be a lovely little life? He smiles and caresses the curve of his neck, happy to just share in this moment with him without wanting for more.

The healing continues as Crozier refuses to jeopardize his health again, even if not touching Rama is so frustrating it’s almost insidious. He can stare all he wants, flirt all he wants, moon and long and admire, but he cannot touch and it’s driving him to distraction. But the happy day comes when Svetlana visits and gives him that final check - his breathing will never be the same, but he’s as fully healed as he’ll ever be. No long fragile or frail, able to walk and work and forage and all the things he’s been itching to do since the fight with Hickey.

He and Ram eat their dinner together and talk about the day, as they usually do, Crozier keeping that one vital detail to himself as they enjoy the fish pie Svetlana delivered earlier that day. They clean up and build the fire and lay the furs for their bed, Crozier doing a little light reading before he dims the lanterns and secures the doors and windows. He crawls into the furs and lays on the side he’s typically occupied, still holding onto his news.

Raju slips into the side opposite, not thinking of anything in particular. There's the usual awareness of Francis, awareness of the distance. There's the usual brief comparison of before, when he'd slept roughly this far away from him without ever considering sleeping closer, to now, when considering it is the only thing that he can do. He thinks of the first night they'd slept next to one another, as close as Raju wants to be, when he hadn't been able to consider anything then but the desperate animal comfort of it.

He doesn't mind not being able to touch the way he wants, not exactly. Or, he doesn't mind minding it. Usually. But the nights are harder. In Delhi there'd been plenty of work to do, and if he only tried hard enough to find it, and did it for long enough, he hadn't needed help falling asleep. Raju sighs, turning onto his side, arm draped over his chest. It's usually at least a little easier if he can look at him. Francis loves him, and wants to be with him— and he's just there, so really, Raju is lucky.

He likes to look at Ram as he’s falling asleep as well, his soft expression and comforting presence enough to usually soothe away the worries of the days. He indulges in this for a moment, looking at Rama in the glow from the fireplace and watching the shadows dance over his skin, before he begins to inch closer.

“Svetlana gave me more than the pie,” he tells him cryptically.

Confusion creases Raju's face. It's an odd time to mention it; they'd talked about the visit earlier, when Francis had explained the food. Unless there was something Francis hadn't wanted to say then, that's easier to say in the dark. Raju props himself up on his elbow, confusion focusing and turning into concern.

"Bad news?" Maybe the pie had been less a gift and more a consolation. Raju tries to catch some kind of clue from Francis' manner. He doesn't seem concerned, at least not yet. Would he? He tries to think whether Francis has ever delivered him bad news on purpose before; Raju doesn't know how he would do it.

“The opposite, in fact.” He won’t let Ram dangle for too long, but he is enjoying the anticipation.

Once close enough he slides his arm around Rama’s waist, urging him closer with a gentle tug. “The good doctor says I’m fully and completely healed.”

Realisation moves just slightly faster than the smile breaking over Raju's face. His gaze moves down, darting here and there over Francis' body and then moving up to his face again, the shock of Francis' news as hot inside him suddenly as the weight of Francis' arm over his waist. He sets a hand on Francis' jaw, hardly lets it brush Francis' skin as it moves over his neck, pausing at the collar. "Completely?"

He takes a moment, enjoying the pressure in his chest and the heat licking at his insides underneath it. "You knew this all day," he goes on, grinning a little too much to quite manage making it an accusation. "And you waited untill now to tell me?"

Crozier starts to laugh, quietly at first, then more loudly as his amusement at himself and Ram’s mild protest builds. It helps too that he can belly laugh now and it doesn’t hurt, nothing hurts, everything feels as it shoulder.

“I did, I’m sorry,” he says through chuckles. He wanted to surprise him, which he thinks he accomplished very nicely. “I wanted to surprise you.”

He slides his arm onto the furs behind Ram, moving forward and pushing him carefully onto his back. He wants to pin him down and kiss him just like he’d been craving all this time.

Francis pushes him onto his back and Raju's smile, the warmth on his face from watching Francis laugh, doesn't exactly disappear but it does fade, surprise and wide-eyed anticipation taking centre stage. He's looking up at Francis in a way he hasn't looked up at any man. The rhythm of things had fallen naturally into place the last two — first two — times that they'd slept together, but with Francis' body whole more possibilities are open to them now, and many of the ones which involve Raju on his back are ones he hadn't considered before this very moment, feeling the floor and blanket beneath his shoulders and looking up at the man who loves him with the same passion with which any man has ever loved his wife.

Here's the more familiar impulse to roll until Francis is beneath him instead. But a man who's had to restrain himself so long as Francis has deserves a little free reign, doesn't he? Certainly one does who Raju trusts this way. Besides, Raju wants to know what Francis is going to do from here. And which part of it is making Raju's heart beat so hard.

His hand hasn't left Francis' collar; two fingers are hooked into it now, pulling it a little away from Raju's chest. His other hand flattens itself against the blanket and pushes, pushing Raju just far enough up to crane his neck and press their lips together.

Crozier surges forward to meet the kiss, groaning softly in the back of his throat as his nose brushes against Ram’s cheek. If it weren’t for those big, expressive eyes of his, wide in surprise and glittering in the low light, he might have found a little more restraint — might being the operative word, he knows his weaknesses, and having this very beautiful man finally pressed against him is more than even his self-restraint can handle.

As he presses down he can feel the thrum of Ram’s heart - or is that is own - and he deepens the kiss to devour him. He’s been more passive than he’s ever had to be, which surprisingly had its merits, but he wants Rama in the ways he’d imagined, all the ways he’s dreamed of adoring him. His hand on the fur slides down until it comes across Rams, and he links their fingers together as he pins it down.

He's pressed back as Francis surges into the kiss and Raju can feel the weight of him unfamiliar and solid, trapping Raju securely exactly where he is. He can feel Francis' heart beating hard too, that's how close they are. How close they finally are. Francis' fingers link with his and then they press down, even more that's keeping him in place, and Raju lets out a laugh against Francis' lips that he'd expected to sound amused but comes out sounding giddy instead, excited and unsteady. Being held down this way is something Raju's only expected to feel in a fight, something to push against and win— but he doesn't have to win, here. Here the force holding him in place is Francis, who stays with him even when he shouldn't, who'd washed his hair and his hands and tended to his feet before they'd made their commitments to one another at all, at least out loud. Francis who's steadfast and intelligent and kind. If there's anyone with whom he can stop pushing trust to lead him it's this man and the thought is... well, it's a relief, an enormous relief but it's something else too, something washing through all his limbs at once.

Still. There's no reason to make things too easy on him.

The hand Raju's got on Francis' collar starts to creep up toward the back of Francis' neck, elbow out and the bend of his arm open enough that an arm on its own could slip itself through and push Raju's down to the blanket without any hand involved at all. Not making it too easy, but not making it too hard.

"And the other hand?" he grins against Francis' lips, hand continuing its slow journey toward holding Francis down somewhere. "What are you going to do about that?"

God, he loves this man.

Crozier bites at the grin, pulling back with an audible little smack as he sucks Ram’s lower lip red. “The cheek,” he says, very quickly following the silent lead and pushing his handless arm through to pin that other hand down to the floor.

He can’t imagine Rama’s ever let someone do this to him, but he can’t allow himself to think about it because ultimately his thoughts would drift to his fiancé. She doesn’t need to be in this bed with them tonight, not when he finally has Ram in a place to kiss and touch and hold as he pleases. He thinks of their first kiss and then before that, those moments of gentle, supportive, friendly touches between them, how he would crave more without even realizing it was what he wanted.

Crozier pushes his weight down onto Ram’s arms and kisses him again, leg sliding over his in a slow conquest of him. He wouldn’t be successful at all if Ram didn’t allow for it, if he didn’t also want this just as badly.

Francis' body is all on him now, and his arms are pinning Raju's arms, and his fingers are interlocked with Raju's fingers. He can feel Francis' chest against his, and his stomach against his, and his leg sliding up, and up. He feels covered, held, with Francis in a way he never has before. That reaching need to touch inside him that never quite goes quiet is muffled behind the weight. His chest heaves, pressing firmly against Francis' with each hard indrawn breath. His fingers curl tighter against Francis' and his arm twitches, pressing just a little against Francis' arm, and then just a little bit again. Just enough not to push it anywhere. But when he presses down against the floor it's with force, enough to push his lips more firmly into Francis', to push his body more firmly against Francis' weight. The leg that lifts and tries to curl around Francis' leg, or around the back of his knee, or anything that it can bend to reach is automatic, a half-formed impulse from the part of him that still thinks this is a fight coming out unformed and clumsy, or a need to be even closer however he can, or maybe it's both of those things. He doesn't know, he isn't thinking about it. He's too busy feeling.

It’s so worth all that waiting and patience, it’s so good, so indulgent to actually kiss and touch without worry. Ram’s body lifts and Crozier bears down, the two of them acting in tandem to just get that much closer, to be that near, to tangle themselves together physically to match all the ways they’ve already been entwined.

Crozier quietly gasps for breath between kisses, eagerly diving back in for more and more each time. With his face now clean-shaven he can really feel the brush of Rama’s beard and mustache against his skin, one of the small (or not-so-small) reminders that he’s fallen in love with and is deeply attracted to a man. Said man feels so strong and sturdy underneath him, it’s entirely new and strange and intoxicating.

The leg around Francis' manages to reach what might be the backs of Francis' knees, or his thighs, and Raju pulls that part of Francis toward him even as Francis is pressing himself against Raju, as Raju is pushing up against that wonderful weight pressing on him everywhere. There's something almost tranquil about it, being held down that way by this man, like a heavy blanket thrown over his thoughts that makes even the sudden hunger he's feeling into something that feels slow, and the movement of his hips grinding up against Francis' is slow. Raju takes a sharp breath in through his nose at the sensation, not breaking the kiss, and groans his need into Francis' mouth, the hand under Francis' arm curling its fingers as if wanting to grip something.

Crozier swallows the groan and responds with a quiet hum in the back of his throat. He’s not thinking about anything more but kissing and holding him at the moment, though the effect this is having on him is undeniable. Ram’s mouth is hot against his, his body silently asking for more as it tries to bring them together. He doesn’t know how much is voluntary either, that gentle bucking of his hips pushing back against his and making the fire in his belly burn even brighter.

He pulls his head back, partially to catch his breath, but mostly to bring his mouth down to the elegant slope of Rama’s neck. As much as he wants to keep kissing him - and he absolutely will - he wants to hear those groans more clearly.

There are lips on his throat and Raju lets out a surprised breath, looking openmouthed up at the ceiling. Every little touch, every gesture, feels like something new laying like this, with a man like Francis above him. He pants out a couple heavy breaths and then the need starts to creep into them too, each breath with a hint at a moan trailing it as he feels the lips against his skin pressing over his throat, feels the pressure and the weight but not the friction, so much and not enough and not allowed to reach for it, held the way he is. His head thunks back against the blanket and he laughs breathlessly.

"This is all you're here for?" he complains, his tone strained and delighted and impatient and in love. "Teasing me? This is what you've been dreaming about doing, all this time?"

Each hitch in Ram’s throat, every strangled moan and laugh, fuels his growing desire to do a hell of a lot more than just kiss. But it’s nice to hear a little desperation, a little impatience, because he sure as hell has been wallowing for the past few weeks.

“I don’t think that’s an actual complaint,” he mutters, nipping the more delicate skin in the hollow of his throat. “I’m not teasing, I’m savoring.”

But he has been dreaming of ravishing him completely, getting his lips on that beautiful brown skin of his and kissing every single inch. He thinks back on their trip to the hot springs, his sculpted chest dripping wet, the way his body had looked on the floor while he touched himself - temptation incarnate.

Savouring. Raju's head lifts to look— or try to look. With Francis' teeth where they are the view is mostly the back of his head, and Raju drops his head back again with what might be a sigh. And might not be. Raju isn't sure, suddenly, is wondering how long it'd been, even before he'd left those years ago, since he'd thought to savour anything like this at all. It seems— indulgent, somehow, the idea of Francis taking his time on purpose, only for this. As if the rest of it isn't indulgent already, but—

There's just something about taking time, as much to simply do it as to move them closer to anything, simply to enjoy it for its own sake, that hits Raju strangely. He still isn't sure just why.

His hips writhe again, not with his leg pulling them harder against Francis' this time but only moving, helplessly. He feels his lips still stinging from their kissing, and the weight of Francis over his chest and his stomach and his arms, and he feels Francis' mouth against his neck.

Admittedly, this isn't the best moment to try to think much of anything through.

"Savouring," he rasps, echoing Francis as he tries to put all of this into words he can use to direct Francis with.

"You... like this part?" is what comes to him, a little faintly between heavy breaths. "Just this?"

"Savoring," he repeats against his skin. Ram sounds surprised. Maybe it's the fact that they both men that confuses him, that one man would want to savor and cherish another man. "I love all parts."

He sucks and worries at a spot on his neck, a little sorry that Ram will never get to show it off to others, before finally giving Rama a reprieve. He pulls his hand and arm back and leans over him, plucking at his shirt collar idly. He'd like this all a lot better if Ram was wearing less clothes...

"It's been a while since I've been able to take my time and enjoy myself. Why wouldn't I savor you?" Look at him. He smiles softly as his hand travels down the front of his shirts, then slips underneath the hem and disappears.

The loss of the pressure holding his arms down is a shock and he watches Francis a little dazedly in the wake of it, feeling the ghosts of the sensations where Francis has just moved away. He blinks to try and focus, still breathing heavily through his mouth, as he watches Francis' hand moving down Raju's buttons, then disappearing underneath them. Francis' skin is against his skin; his next breath in shudders. His fingers twitch, but his arms stay where they are; one arm twitches, as if about to rise, and then doesn't. It seems wrong to move them, still. Or maybe he only doesn't want to, to keep feeling the echoes of Francis' weight holding them there.

"Going to savour me under there too?" Raju breathes, chest heaving as he watches Francis, feels him there.

"Going to savor every last inch of you," he replies simply, smoothing his hand up his flat stomach, feeling the brush of hair under his palm. He finds his navel and circles his fingers idly, leaning down against to kiss him while he caresses the hard lines of his muscles and soft dips under ribs. He brings his hand up to one of his nipples and just barely ghosts the pads of his fingers over it as he pushes his tongue into his mouth.

He can't pin him down any longer, but it doesn't seem like Ram is trying to fight him for control. Rather it seems like he's a little too overwhelmed to do anything but quietly question him, and now he can't even do that, he's being kissed so thoroughly as Crozier plays with him under his shirt.

His sharp breaths are uneven as he feels Francis' hand, inhaling sharply at the touch in places he... he hadn't realised, had he? That no one's touched him here in that long. He'd stopped thinking about it. But here's Francis' hand, now. And Francis kisses him, and Raju leans up into it with a rough, hungry noise. Francis' hand brushes over his nipple and he shudders, mouth opening wider as he gasps and feels Francis' tongue moving inside.

One arm lifts from the blanket and falls back, and then it lifts again, slow and helpless not to, moving here and there over parts of Francis like it doesn't know where it's going. It brushes with uneven pressure over a neck, an ear, over soft skin and what must be a jaw, up onto a cheek, then down again over Francis' neck and across to his chest, then back to grip over his shoulder, loosely at first and then all at once stronger. His other hand lifts too but when it falls back again it stays, fingers curling, and the need to reach out with it moves instead into his body and he writhes, then arches his back to try and move his chest against Francis' hand, or his chest, or anything that's there.

Crozier very happily fixes the situation with Ram’s other arm, pinning it back down with his to at least keep part of him still. He seems so lost, though not unwilling by any stretch of the imagination. Just learning what it feels like to love him, and be loved by him, and what it looks like when someone like Francis Crozier wants to spend the night devouring every morsel now available to him.

Tongue still sliding against Ram’s, teeth and lips and shared groans, Crozier’s fingers slide to other nipple to tease it stiff. What he wants is to taste them, put his mouth on that dark skin and suck until Ram doesn’t know which way is up, but this is just as fine too. He touches and pinches and strokes in slow circles, driving himself mad as he pushes his body against Ram’s, hard cock straining against his trousers now being nestled against one of his thighs.

Francis' arm moves to hold his down again and Raju lets a hard, relieved breath out through his nose, body still moving but not pressing quite so urgently against Francis' as it was. He tries, a little, to move the arm and feels it stay in place, and the certainty of it relaxes something.

But then Francis' fingers pinch his other nipple and start rubbing circles over it and his body surges up again, the grip on Francis' shoulder tightening again, he finds himself trying to suck the air out from Francis' mouth. He shudders, and an urgent roll of his hips feels Francis' cock so he rolls his hips again. Again his leg bends around Francis' but only the one leg this time as Raju tries to spread Francis' legs wider. It's a step without any real plan to it but if he cocks his hips at just this angle his own hard length might brush Francis' just this way... It isn't enough, especially not through layers of drawers and trousers, but it's more, and more is what Raju needs every time Francis fingers pinch and rub at him the way he is, every time they push those urgent noises out of Raju's mouth.

His reaction to being pinned back down is almost the opposite of what Crozier thought would happen - he relaxes, Ram’s body easing against the furs and melding with his in gentle rising of his hips and the desperate kisses. There must be something about it that comforts him, so Crozier moves his hips again so that his lower half is settled directly on top of him, bearing down until their pelvises meet and start to grind together.

Edited 2024-07-30 23:30 (UTC)

Perfect. This is perfect, with Francis' hips exactly where Raju wants them, and he makes the most of it as best he can. His hips move with more passion than grace and he pauses, panting hard through his nose as he holds himself still, trembling with every exhale as he tries to ignore everything pressing on him from everywhere for long enough to pull himself together. At least a little together.

Then his hips move once, graceful now, a liquid roll against Francis' groin, and then they move again, establishing and then maintaining a steady rhythm. The movement of his one free hand is less steady, patting its way upward rather than moving smoothly, but after a moment it settles at the base of Francis' head, fingers tightening for an instant in Francis' hair and then relaxing again, staying relaxed. He breathes out hard, pressing his lips against Francis'. He can keep them that way, loose and not pulling. He can remember to do that. He just has to touch, has to be gripping something, and Francis' hair is as beautiful as the rest of him, and it's right here, so close.

He shudders as Ram finds his rhythm, his head finally drawing back to catch his breath. It's too much, his mouth and his hips are too much (not enough); he can't understand why it took so long to meet someone so compatible with him, someone who just fits so well. He doesn't know why he had to be kidnapped from his bed and thrown across time to find this man, but in this moment he's so grateful he could weep.

He leans his cheek against Rama's and pulls his hand free from that nice, warm place under his shirts, grabbing at the hand at his head and practically throwing it back down onto the furs. He pins him again, holding him still as he takes control of their pace, slower but harder, building and building with hushed gasps pressed into his hairline.

When Raju's hand is thrown down onto the floor again his composure slips, eyes wide and lips parted in surprise. Then he breathes out, slow, relieved, and doesn't have time to relax into it, Francis' hips and his weight are grinding against Raju hard, slow enough to let this feeling build. Francis' hand had left Raju's nipples sensitive and his shirt rubs against them each time the movement of Francis' body presses their chests together, his lips haven't had time to recover from Francis' against them, and Francis is gasping into his hair.

It's that last, as much as any other part of it, that starts Raju shuddering on each inhale. His leg tries to wrap around Francis' again to press at Francis' upper thighs at every moment Francis rubs against him, pressing them together harder, tilting up his hips in those same moments, working with the rhythm Francis has set, breathing out against the side of Francis' face. The only thing keeping Raju from coming is the clothes between them; his rhythm stutters as his hips try to move faster, give himself more, and he pauses, agonisingly still, then forces himself to match Francis' pace again. The effort makes him even harder, puts pained noises behind each breath. His fingers clench, and can't go anywhere. Or don't. His head presses hard back against the floor, his mouth open. He wants to move faster desperately, and with Francis guiding them both to this instead, won't ask.

As exquisite as those noises are, frustrated and just a little bit tortured, it wasn’t his intention to drive him mad. He just wanted to see how far he could take things, if Ram would let him dictate the pace, if that was something he secretly desired like his hands being held down or his body covered.

He presses kisses into his temple, down to the shell of his ear where he nips the lobe and growls low in his throat. He finally relents, snapping his hips hard and fast, bringing them together over and over, the friction driving him mad.

It’s good like this, but it would be better naked. Rama needs to be warm though; he has to keep this man away from the cold.

The comfort and care of the kisses down the side of his face stands out brightly overtop the sharp edge of need inside him and as Francis nips his ear, makes that low noise, Raju's turning his head toward the side of Francis' face. As Raju's turning his head Francis snaps his hips and their slow rhythm is suddenly fast and merciless and Raju's pained noise is blatant now, not half-hiding behind his breath but emerging on its own, sharp and stuttering out from his mouth. After an instant, or an eternity, he pulls himself together enough to move to match, frantic, gaze pulled to look for Francis' eyes before he even realises why, that he feels good, feels wonderful, an instant's balance on the razor's edge of wonderful, endless sensation and he wants to be looking into the beautiful blue of those eyes when he—

The stuttering, pained noise is back again and he curls as far forward as Francis' grip will let him, turning his head again to try and muffle the noise against Francis' skin, his cheek. His fingers are curling helplessly into fists, his hips are stuttering along with his voice, and his trousers are wet.

He’s not far behind, but he does hold out long enough to watch Ram in all of his resplendent glory sprawled out underneath his body. He’s beautiful, his groans and desperate thrusts going straight to that jumble of nerves and tensing muscles behind his navel. He feels like a watch that’s been wound too tight, everything is too much, sense and thought pushed so far down in his mind that it might as well not exist.

He lets Ram have a hand back, this time guiding his palm up to the back of his neck to hold onto him. He’s quiet as he lets out his last shudder, hips slowing but not quite stopping, moving luxuriously against Ram’s to draw those last few moments of pleasure out of the two of them. He stops when it becomes too much, laying over him with his head somewhere between his head and his shoulder.

Raju's hand clutches where it's led desperately, feeling Francis shuddering against him and then going still. Raju is still against him. This slow, drifting calm— it's rare, he remembers. Rare to feel this way afterward. Maybe this is what Francis meant, when he'd said that earlier. The thought wanders slowly around his mind, some place in the background; the sensation of Francis over him is more prominent in front of it, the knowledge of his body, its size to match his, of a height and stockier, solid. The sensation of his skin, warm and soft and here, right here, with him. And he's warm.

"'s this what you meant?" he murmurs when the thought ambles back around into view again, the movement of his mouth lazy and satiated. "When you said... you wanted to savour me?"

Crozier huffs a soft laugh against Ram’s neck, finding a space to kiss. There’s sweat and Rama’s own clean, earthy scent, warm and welcoming. “Mmhm.”

He’d live in this place forever, loved and sated, but he wants to be able to look down at him too. He’s missing those unbelievably expressive eyes, and it pushes him to finally pulls himself up to lean over him. “Of a sort. I would have taken my time if I’d been more patient.”

Raju's eyes curve with his bright smile as he laughs, the sound quiet and still a little breathless. "Taken your time?" Raju asks, disbelieving, and pauses for a second to look up at him. His hair shines in the flickering light of the fire, and the hand near Francis' neck rises to brush it back from Francis' forehead. The movement isn't quick or even graceful; Raju's hand feels as heavy as his arm does, his body satisfied and slow. It takes effort to do and, because of the angle, the hair is going to fall back where it was as soon as Raju's hand moves. It's worth it for the feeling of it against his skin now.

"Taken more time... You're trying to kill me, Francis."

His fingers idly brush through Ram’s now-untidy hair as he looks down on him admiringly. He leans into the soft touch without thinking, lovely though brief, and smirks as the hair ultimately falls back into place on his forehead. It’s a sweet gesture. He didn’t know that love could be this sweet.

“If I were trying to kill you I’d take a less subtle route,” he says with a chuckle, mostly still in between quiet breaths. It was a lot more exertion than he’d been used to.

Raju makes an amused noise, gaze moving here and there as Raju looks at him. His own fingers move down and around, tucking a little hair behind Francis' ear. He feels Francis' fingers through his, too. There's nothing but this for a moment, the sensations, the heat of their bodies, their breathing. Francis' breathing.

"Come on," he grins, hand moving to Francis' shoulder and pushing gently as Raju tries to roll them both to their sides. "Lay down. You'll be doing yourself in, if not me; how long ago was it you couldn't walk across a room without help?" Impossible for Raju's joy not to deepen then, as he adds: "And look at you now. Exhausting the two of us at once."

“Told you,” he murmurs, rolling gently off and onto the furs, “completely healed.”

He smiles softly, that happiness born from relief apparent in Ram’s voice. It’s mirrored in the way he raises his hand to caress Rama’s cheek, joy in the touch and this luxurious moment of just being together, comfortable and warm and close. He slides his hand down to his jaw and cups his face, drawing him in to kiss soundly.

Edited 2024-08-02 00:10 (UTC)

The hand over his cheek, on his side and looking at one another, brings it home that they can do this now. Lay this way, this close, together. It's been forever. Francis kisses him and the space between them is as small as the time between now and the last time they'd lain close this way, not kissing then, but close. He needs to know the time between truly is as small as it feels, that it's over, needs to feel that Francis is well and not on the verge of death, or recovering in pain. He can see it, and the doctor had said it, but he works a hand up under Francis' clothes anyway, onto his ribs while he breathes carefully through his nose, kisses Francis in return, skates his fingers over the area he's spent so long watching and trying not to touch. Laying the way they are his hand can rest over Francis' side, fingers spread, as if he could... protect it, or feel something there he doesn't already know about, or... anything. His other hand clutches at Francis' shirt as the one on his ribs tightens and then loosens again, shying away from grabbing it too tight, reflexively.

He used to imagine this moment, the two of them becoming impossibly close in their shared bed, their hands on each other sliding slowly into something more romantic than comforting, a soft touch of lips in the dark, a breath on the nose and a scrape of facial hair on a cheek. But those had been daydreams, not anything he’d imagine coming true, and there’s so much he couldn’t have possibly have anticipated in those silly daydreams. Nearly dying, for one, but the look in Ram’s eyes, the way he kisses him back and holds him; it’s all more than his paltry imagination could have conjured.

He exhales against his lips and nods slightly. He’s okay, he’s fine. Touch him and see.

Raju takes a bracing breath in through his nose, drawing back inches, just far enough to look at him, close-up. He nods and leans forward again to touch their foreheads together, still nodding, and in a sudden movement pressing down on Francis' ribs harder. Not so hard as it feels like he is; harder than he should dare without being absolutely certain that it's safe. He takes in a sharp breath as he does it and his look into Francis' expression is urgent, worried. That would have hurt Francis very badly, once. Raju remembers exactly the way that it would sound.

His eyes are stinging, suddenly. He knows the way it looks; caught it in a mirror once and studied how easy it would be to hide. Not as difficult as he'd have thought, unless the other person is paying special attention, or is very close. He knows the way his eyes shine when they feel this way. His breaths are faster, feeling the pressure of his fingers there. His lips press too tightly together. But he has to know. Has to be sure.

It doesn't hurt, not even a twinge. Rama is gentle with the touch but still a strong man, but there's nothing. No pain, not even a little tenderness in the areas that had been most affected. He'd been so thoroughly beat that it felt like he'd be forever broken and fragile, and he knows it must have seems like that for Rama more than anything else.

He nods softly, nose brushing against Rama's as he refuses to pull himself away or put any real distance between them. See? Just like he said, he's healthy and hale once more. The relief must be overwhelming for Ram, because it certainly feels that way for him too, but he wasn't the one who had to watch him nearly die. He wasn't the one who bore the burden of these injuries, who felt the weight of life and death almost constantly.

It doesn't do to imagine what life would have been like for Rama had he actually died that night, or never really recovered. What kind of choices he would have made, knowing Hickey had done what was promised, living with the fact that his friend had died in front of him like so many others in his life. They skirted that awful future; it's worth celebrating, or at least letting oneself feel that happiness, if only briefly.

His throat is tight. Ridiculous to feel this way, with the joy and lassitude all through him, as close to someone he loves as they can get without crawling into each other's bodies; to feel on the razor's edge of tears grieving something that never happened with come still drying on his drawers. But he feels Francis nodding against him, and remembers what were the last words of the man in front of him until they weren't, and still expects the way he's pressing against the side of Francis' chest now to be careless, breaking through a boundary he hadn't realised he'd built between himself and this man.

The move to get close enough to Francis that Francis won't see the tears is instinctive the moment they start to spill over. Raju doesn't know where he'd intended to put his face: the side of Francis', with the odd angle and the plains of the side of his head not the shape his face needs to press itself against, the curve between the softness of Francis' jaw and his neck that needs an odd angle to get to, and Raju's hand against his side stops its pressure to spread out over all the space that it can cover instead, feeling the heat and softness of the skin there and the bones deceptively solid beneath it. He takes a hard breath, lets it out openmouthed.

That’s a very wet-sounds breath. Crozier sighs quietly, his lips finding Rama’s cheeks and the salty tears that he begins to gently kiss away.

Joy and grief are sometimes intertwined; he understands that better than anyone. He doesn’t try to stop Ram from feeling as he does, his arms finding their way around him to hold his body tightly to his own. He wishes he could have protected him from all this - but could he have stopped what they became to each other? The worry will never truly go away so long as they live in this place.

Francis is caring for him. Holding him tightly, kissing his cheeks where the tears, despite Raju, flowed over. Raju feels cared for. But—

He tries to bring his breathing under more control but it slips through his fingers, and what he gets is less. "I'm alright," he tries, over unsteady breaths. He moves his head to make the angle too difficult for Francis's lips to reach his cheek without work and feels a wrench of guilt at it and moves his head back, eyes closed, and tries again. "I'm alright. It's—"

He's the one who should be doing those things, making the gentle, soothing gestures, and he's the one who should be caring for Francis, as he has been. And he's had time to realise Francis isn't going to die, plenty of time, he'd gotten used to it long ago, and there's no reason to be doing any of this now. He can't explain. He shakes his head, but couldn't bring himself to move away from Francis' affection if he'd been trying to.

If Rama kept his head away he would have broken Crozier’s heart, not that he would ever say so. The gesture is enough to tell him to back off though, and he lays his head against the furs with a thoughtful licking of his lips.

“It’s fine,” he reassures him, voice hushed. “All’s well.” Sometimes everything’s just a little too much.

“You spent a long time walking the razor’s edge when it came to my health.” Best to just name it.

Raju feels his lips tremble, and presses them more firmly together. He's quiet for a moment. He swallows. He turns his face away from the blankets and draws just far enough back to look at Francis, hands still on him, control over himself retaken by the skin of his teeth. His eyelids tremble as he focuses on Francis past the blurring in his view, drawing in a breath and holding it for a moment before he answers, not allowing himself to think in it in too much detail to say it honestly.

"Only a few days." He keeps the words quick enough that his voice, at least, is steady. "That doctor even told us, after that. We knew you were probably going to live."

“And then all that time after that,” he says, unconvinced. A few days is still more time than anyone should have to live with that kind of uncertainly. “When I wasn’t strong enough to even wash my own hair.”

It takes a toll on a person, having to be a caregiver. He has that awareness now, having sat by so many bedsides and mopped sweat and blood and tears from dying brows.

"I knew," he insists, shaking his head. "You were going to be fine. And you have been." He looks to Francis' side again, expression firming up unhappily as he braces himself, then curls his fingers and presses his knuckles down against Francis' side. "I could have done this yesterday. I've known you're alright for long enough, I'm just being..."

His hand lifts its pressure again and skates carefully down Francis' side, settling at his hip. He shakes his head and gives Francis a tight smile that's supposed to be cheerful. "I'm being ridiculous. It's good to see you this way. It really is."

“Sentimental.” He smiles quietly. “You’re being sentimental, over me. I’m very flattered, by the way.”

He lets out a soft laugh through his nose, hopefully to break Rama out of spiral. He’s clearly annoyed with himself, and though Crozier doesn’t mind a little sentiment now and again, he doesn’t want Ram to end the night on that forced smile.

Raju's smile fades into surprise, looking up at Francis' face again. Then his gaze goes distant, confused and thoughtful, brow furrowing just a little. He sighs, gaze flickering back to Francis' eyes and then to the front of his chest, where he watches himself loosen his grip on Francis' clothes and smooth over a crease there with his thumb. When he blinks his eyelashes still feel wet, an inescapable reminder of that loss of control. His faded smile is more wry now, and more genuine.

"You're flattered? When you make love to someone and get cried on for it? No wonder you don't care for compliments. I think I've been doing them the wrong way this whole time."

“I suppose there’s always room for improvement,” he replies, glad to see that smile loosen up. He has a knack for breaking tension, but sometimes Ram is a tough nut to crack. “But you’d be surprised how often my romantic escapades ended in tears.”

He grins, clearly joking. He doesn’t think he’s made anyone cry - his trysts were never that emotional to begin with.

"No wonder, if this is the way you always do it." He watches his hand smooth its palm over Francis' chest and then keep moving, trying to find a spot where he can feel Francis' heart beating. His wry smile stays over his lips, trying to make a joke of this, but it's easier to watch his hand than Francis' face as he says it:

"Any woman you've kissed would have cried after seeing you that way." Seetha would have cried. Raju would have been able to comfort her. It had always been easy, with her, to act in the ways that he needed to. The ways the she'd needed him to. She would have been sentimental, for him; he would have been strong and steady, for her. "But there are easier ways to get someone into bed, you know. Easier on your ribs, at least."

Any woman - would Sophia have cried? Did she ever weep for him when he was lost, spare a few tears for him in between mourning for her uncle? Did she ever regret…?

Of course he’s thought about it before, briefly, when looking back on that old life. But he never desired to return, never saw anything worth going back for, even when he did think of Sophia. Maybe she did weep for him, but years later he would hopefully just be a footnote for her.

“I’d forgot,” he says, covering Ram’s hand with his own. “You only started finding me attractive when I broke myself. It’s not been a tried and true method; you’re the first I’ve ever seduced with broken ribs.”

He feels for Francis' heartbeat a second longer, then turns his hand and wraps it around Francis'. Sentimental.

It doesn't matter. He's done crying now, at least. Francis doesn't have to comfort him now.

"Mm," he says, glancing up at Francis' face. "I don't recommend trying it a second time. It already worked on me, and the recovery time is hardly worthwhile."

“Oh, no need to beat a dead horse,” he agrees whole-heartedly. “I don’t have to seduce you twice. You’re stuck with me now.”

As though Ram would ever consider leaving now after putting up with him through all of that, not when he’s finally able to pull his weight again. He’s a lucky man that Ram stayed, he knows this, but he also knows this man’s heart. He would have never considered leaving.

He snorts and then goes still, studying Francis. "I must be, now that you're healed." His smile grows a little. "Best not to let it happen again, hm?"

“I promise.” He won’t let himself get that hurt ever again, so long as he can help it.

“Come here. I want to hold you.”

All those nights sleeping near each other, and then all that time sleeping in close proximity with the very frustrating inability to touch - all Crozier wants is to have this man in his arms.

“Maybe another trip to the hot springs is in order.”

Raju's smile grows, this time more happiness than anything else. There's a part of him, the part that'd railed against being too sentimental and comforted, that almost tries to rail at this — but he can hold Francis, too, and he's wanted it long enough to drown the rest out. So Raju moves closer, smiling, and drapes his arm over the straight, steady line of Francis' side. His drawers and trousers are uncomfortable now with the stains there drying, and won't be any less so by morning, but it's warm in here, and Francis is finally close, and Raju doesn't want to go anywhere.

"Hm, I thought you were saying how warm it's been. Wanting to warm up?"

There’s no internal struggle for Crozier, although he’ll be embarrassed in the morning that he fell asleep in his own spend like a damn adolescent. He wants him near and will only be content when he feels his body close to his own.

“You’re always so cold, Rama my love,” he mutters, eyes closing as he slips his arm underneath Ram’s head. “…and I want to see you naked.”

Raju breathes out a quiet laugh, settling his head on Francis' arm and moving even closer, curling his arm over Francis' back.

Rama, my love. And laying here finally close enough to feel the heat of him, to see his eyelashes, pale like his hair, against his cheek as Francis closes his eyes. This is what he'd wanted for. This, now. Raju feels something he hadn't known had locked up loosening itself inside him, and his muscles lose tension he hadn't known was there, and he breathes out slowly.

"And give everyone else there a show as well?" he murmurs, relaxing, thumb rubbing back and forth over Francis' stomach. "I'd think you'd have had enough of only getting to look."

"Why not share?" he mutters, starting to unwind. The muscles in his face relax, shoulders slump as his free hand comes to rest in the very small space between them, curling against Rama's outer shirt. He'd probably murder anyone who stared at his Rama in the same way he did, but he's a pretty man and people should stare.

He waits a beat before adding quietly, "I won't only be looking this time."

Raju watches Francis' hand curling against his shirt. There's something vulnerable in the gesture somehow, with Francis close, relaxed, on the way to sleep and content, and trusting him, and something blooms inside his chest, something that feels too large to fit inside it. Behind Francis, a tiny flame blooms into view and spreads in a familiar line outside the boundary of the blanket and Raju watches it, huffs quietly. There would be more burned marks on the floor than that one, if he stood up and looked.

The fire won't burn either of them. It hasn't come close to Francis since Francis was hurt. So there's no point in mentioning it until the burn marks become obvious, come morning.

"In the water, Francis?" Raju says in a warm, completely ineffective tone for scolding. "That would be a show."

He studies Francis' face, its closed eyes, the relaxation on it, and everything behind the relaxation. He wants to kiss some part of it, and he will. He can. The knowledge that he can is delicious enough; for a moment Raju only holds onto it.

“We can start in the water,” he mutters, a very small smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. It’s brief, and then it fades again, face morphing back into that slackened, tired state. He’s not quite asleep yet though, not quite wanting to fall asleep and leave this comfortable, intimate moment.

“I don’t think anyone could possibly blame me for wanting you.”

"Mm," Raju hums, not disagreeing. He's still watching Francis' face. He hasn't gotten enough yet of looking at Francis this way, eyes closed, relaxed and close. "Let's rest first, hm?" he says and leans forward, touches a featherlight kiss to one closed eyelid, then another. "I haven't slept well in ages," he whispers, a smile in his voice, and settles close enough to feel Francis' breath against his face.

It might be easier for Raju to sleep, normally, after making love this way, but he hasn't been close to Francis in so long. It might be a long while before he sleeps tonigh. When he'd first laid down that idea had seemed like a trial, wondering how many hours he would have to endure here still and awake; it seems like a gift, now.

He agrees with a quiet hum; they should rest and finally take advantage of this blessed moment of closeness. With the feeling of Ram’s lips on his eyes he drifts asleep, grip on Rama’s shirt loosening as his breath evens out and slows.

The next few days are spent making up for all the times he couldn’t help with the more back-breaking chores. He chops firewood and finally goes out foraging, happy to bring Rama with him and learn a bit of what he’s discovered in those books. They have to replenish their stores of herbs and roots and fish, and he takes advantage of the warming weather to spend more of his time outside. But it’ll get cool again soon, he knows this. Summer will be over before they know it, not that this was much of a summer for Ram.

After a long day spent repairing the cabin roof and walls Crozier pauses in front of the fire to stretch out his sore muscles. He’s thinking about the hot springs again, how nice it would feel to soak right about now, but thinking about leaving to walk to the springs would open them up to interacting with the others again. They could run into god-knows-who out there, and God knows —

God knows the separation has been good for them both, even if it’s starting to weigh on Crozier now that he’s actually capable of working again. He prods at the fire, concern lining his face and furrowing his brow, his thoughts drifting to the oncoming winter. They’re going to starve. Resources will start to run out, goods that have been scavenged from locations further afield like Lakeside would be consumed and used, and people will be lost. It was easy to wash his hands of things when he could do little other than lie there, but now…now he feels the guilt bearing down on him again.

Edited 2024-08-04 21:41 (UTC)

Raju turns from washing off his hands, moving closer as he catches sight of Francis' expression. He'd been thinking of washing the sweat away — the cold of taking some of his clothes off to wash isn't quite so bad when he's just been working — but there's not much hurry to do anything in this place, and he wants to know what Francis is thinking about.

"I know I left those repairs a while," Raju says, leaning next to the fire with crossed arms and tilting his head, studying him. "But that's not what's putting that look on your face, is it?"

He pulls his gaze from the spot he’s been prodding at with the metal poker, his eyes just a little bleary from staring a little too long at the flames. He rubs at his temples, one at a time, and then his eyes, wondering how to broach the subject with Rama without setting the forest on fire again.

“House repairs are not putting the scowl on my face, no,” he mutters, getting up to fetch a little melt water to drink. “I’m thinking about the others, Rama.”

Best to just pull the bandage off quickly, as it were.

He waits a beat before clarifying, because he knows the questions are coming, “I’m concerned. I can’t pretend otherwise.”

The urge to rub one of Francis' temples for him fades as Raju's distracted, once Francis begins to explain. Begins, but doesn't finish, waits for Raju instead of going on. Raju frowns, not unhappily but curiously; it seems an odd thing to be thinking about when Raju's at least mostly certain Francis hasn't seen any, or at least many, of them since he's been injured, and even fewer since he's healed. Maybe whatever problem he's worrying about isn't a new one.

"About Hickey? They made their own bed with him already, I think." It's more a reminder than a final judgement. Raju knows himself, and the man he needs to be, and what duties that man can't afford to forget, and he isn't going to completely turn his back no matter whether the others turned theirs first. But it isn't worth worrying over ahead of time; Francis certainly doesn't need to be worrying about it unless the problem is directly in front of him. He's had plenty to worry about already.

“No, not with Hickey,” he explains. The mutineer is like a splinter in one’s toe - annoying and constant, but not the biggest problem a man could have. He’ll undoubtedly kill again, but he can’t wring his hands over that right now or else he’d drive himself mad.

“I worry about summer ending,” he continues, patting some of the water onto the back of his neck. “Despite what some of the others may have thought, no one knows what true desperation is yet.”

But if the animals continue to be driven away, if the thaw never comes, despite their best efforts they’ll all begin to starve.

Raju sighs, gaze going distant as he thinks about it. 'No one' means him too, he knows. Francis and his men speaking of starvation always reminds a part of him of his father, the things his father had made sure that he knew, but starving here would be different from starving at home; here the little food left isn't taken and sold and shipped away, it doesn't grow at all, and what does belongs only to the first person to find and take it. The rest of them had made it very clear that it's every man for himself here. Only for men like Francis is this a land of plenty, though even he can't feed everyone. But if Francis feels some responsibility, still, to try...

Raju sighs.

"You want to start giving them food again." He doesn't sound like he's about to start arguing against it, even if he doesn't sound thrilled by the idea either. "Or is there something else to be worrying about? The cold?"

Got it on the first guess. Crozier nods very softly; yes, he wants to start giving them food again. "I always worry about the cold." But people have shelters and firewood and clothing; there'll be a more pressing need soon.

He shakes his head slightly. "I should teach them how to survive, like I was taught. Being incapacitated as I was..." He'd stopped providing for the people living in Milton, stopping helping with trade and assisting the vulnerable in the community center. But what if he'd died? What if that help had been completely cut off from them?

"People suffered without my assistance. I can't think otherwise."

"I think they made their bed there, too." Raju looks troubled after he says it, distant. He looks at Francis' face, studying it a moment, and then frowns down at the floor again. Here, again, is another revelation about himself beginning to dawn over a horizon Raju hadn't known to look for, and again one he could feel sick about if he thought on it too long. But Francis just there saying those things earnestly makes the comparison impossible to avoid.

"It's easy for you." He asks it like a statement, studying Francis' expression again. "Worrying about all the rest of them. Still."

“It’s not for you,” he replies, inflection lifting like a question.

It isn’t as though he can’t recall the trees going up in flames, the rage that Ram had only just managed to keep from consuming an entire forest. He’d been so disappointed and so enraged by the almost flippant dismissal of their concerns that he’s convinced he would have cut them off completely if it had been a viable option.

They’re two very different men sometimes, even if they both are steadfast in their convictions.

“Still,” he echoes. He understands what that ‘still’ signifies - Rama had to cart his sorry self into town, had to listen to people call him a hypocrite, had to play nice despite knowing Hickey threatened to kill his friend on more than one occasion. ‘Still’ Crozier worries for them, ‘still’, even after they wouldn’t hear reason.

It's not for you? Raju looks down, crossed arms pressing down harder over his chest. It's not, for you?

At home, the people waiting for him at home, caring for them had been easy. Well. It had been hard. But that difficulty had been his world, and pushing himself through all the needs and the duties and the trials of it had always come to him like breathing. Then he thinks of the people living not so far away in the building he'd spent so much time sleeping in, a place full of people sleeping, eating, living next to one another who never spoke. It'd been like the barracks that way, familiar. The barracks had always been that way, not for others, but for him. He thinks of the people living there, and in the town, and in the houses scattered around it. Scattered like the people themselves, their lives sitting loose and separate instead of woven tightly together, any rule — such as it is — decided on based on what was more comfortable, instead of on which of them needed it. Raju thinks, and he compares, and he realises.

It is easy. Only if those people are his. He hadn't thought it of himself, in any moment before this one: it's easy for me, only if.

"No." He's too used to being open, with Francis: he realises only afterward that the word's come out with pain obvious in it.

"No," he murmurs, voice harder now to press the other emotion out. "It's not."

It's not for you? he hears in his mind again, jaw tight, and has to know. "Does that surprise you?"

Does that surprise him? There are many things about Rama that surprises him, but that wouldn’t be one of them. Crozier’s heart was made for being broken and betrayed; he can be as angry as he wants in the moment, but he’ll mend and forgive. Ram’s protected his heart with a fine layer of steel - he’s had to. If something penetrates that protective layer it won’t heal so easily, but Crozier knows his heart is sincere and big and beautiful.

But he can’t tell how Ram feels about his own answer, if he’s reluctant to admit that he doesn’t worry about the others, that it will take some effort to earn his trust again. If it that’s even possible anymore.

“No,” he tells him quietly. “No, I saw the fires.”

Raju takes a slow, bracing breath through his nose, aware that the leaning posture that'd looked casual a minute or so ago looks less so now, with his shoulders hunched forward and his gaze fixing itself on the floor the way it has.

There are still times he isn't used to it, to the inside of him being so visible. It isn't as if Francis wouldn't have known how angry Raju was without it, but something about Francis seeing it because Raju couldn't keep it in, eyecatching and unavoidable— Well, Francis did see it, and if he isn't surprised now then he saw more than just the fire itself. Maybe more than Raju had, at the time.

"If you'd died—" He has to pause, lips parted, while he waits for the thought to pass. "They would have voted the same way. No matter who was hurt. Or worse. So long as they could pat themselves on the back for their good Christian mercy afterward. You don't— still? That doesn't stop you? It doesn't change anything?"

“People have let me down before.”

And he couldn’t stop caring for them. No - that’s not right, he had stopped and it proved disastrous. There is part of him, that harsh voice that reminded him all throughout his recuperation that no one cares what his rank is here. They’d openly chastised him for bringing up the past, and wanted everyone to move on with a clean slate despite the very real baggage they brought with them to this place.

It shouldn’t be so easy for him to start caring about them again. They’d actively spurned him, and Ram’s point still stands - if he’d died nothing would have be done differently.

Crozier frowns to himself, his own body language looking a little resigned. “I still feel…responsible.”

Francis doesn't sound happy about it. He doesn't sound insistent or stubborn. He's strange that way. He always has been, at least as long as Raju has known him; maybe the man he says he used to be would have pushed here, or pushed about anything at all. Maybe that man would be insisting now. Francis only says it, in that way he has. Gentle is the word that comes to mind. Maybe it's the right one.

"How?" Raju looks up from the floor again, at Francis. "You tried to warn them of a danger and they as good as spat on you and turned their back. But..."

He takes a slow breath, lets it out in a hard sigh, and makes an effort to sound less frustrated and confused as he goes on, more curious. "And it's easy for you, still. To feel they're still yours to help. That they deserve it. How?"

The word ‘deserve’ hits his ears wrong, as though survival is something to needs to be earned, but it’s apt in the way Rama uses it. He feels that whatever goodwill they’ve earned should have been revoked when they refused to listen to him at the town hall, and Crozier can see why. He follows the logic. It’s sound. It makes sense, and perhaps how he feels now doesn’t.

“Maybe…” he starts, thinking of the men boiling boots in Rescue Camp. “I’m too….”

Maybe he’s too haunted to do otherwise. He doesn’t have the words for that though, to express those echos properly without sounding like the broken wretch he knows he is.

“I can’t do it again,” he admits, voice low. “I can’t watch it again. I can’t be the voice that says, ‘I told you this would happen’, and then keeps its distance to watch it all unfold. I-I can’t, Ram, I can’t.”

Edited 2024-08-07 22:55 (UTC)

The pain that stutters into Francis' voice sees Raju's expression shifting, drawn eyebrows lifting, gaze that'd been focused inward even as he'd been looking at Francis now sharper and focused on him properly. Raju straightens, arms and defensive posture unfolding as he moves closer and puts a hand on each side of Francis' face, thumbs resting over Francis' cheeks. "You won't," he promises, confident. "Then you won't. I just..."

He leans to touch their foreheads together. It allows him to be closer, to comfort with his heat and his touch and his breath, but it allows Raju to close his eyes, too. If he's led Francis to thinking Raju's going to leave him to repeat the horrors of his past, even a little, he owes Francis an explanation, but he can't imagine looking even Francis in the eyes while he says it. "I... I just thought...

"I thought I was a man like you," he whispers, rasping. "But..."

No. Maybe he can't say it out loud after all. He moves on: more composed, still hushed. "I just wanted to understand. That's all."

The pain that he hadn’t realized had been so close to the surface spills over as Rama brings their foreheads together. He grimaces, swallowing a soft keening noise that threatens to escape his throat, tears making his sight blur. He closes them - problem solved.

“Is it a weakness?” he whispers. Rama doesn’t understand, and he can’t blame him. If he wasn’t him, if he didn’t have all those memories and that heavy sense of failure, would he sounds like an absolute madman?

“I don’t….you don’t want to be like me.” There’s nothing here to admire or want to imitate. There’s no part of him, pathetic and stuck in the past as he is, that should be respected.

For all the moments Raju's had to face the idea he doesn't know this man so well as he feels he should, the moments he's taken Raju by surprise, in this moment Francis is clear. In this way Francis has always been clear. In the face of Francis’ shame, his own disappears. It’s easy to act, at least, when a man he loves needs him to.

“You failed.” Too close to see properly, but Raju opens his eyes. He’s murmuring, words hushed but matter of fact, so that Francis will know what he understands. “It was yours to protect your men and now—“

There’s matter of fact and then there’s cruel. The end of the sentence sits where he left it. “But you still want to fight,” he goes on. “People need you, and it still matters. You failed, but you didn’t forget that you can do more — more than the others and more than you are — and so you should. No matter who they are or what they’ve done. Or what you’ve done. All that matters to you is that someone needs you. If I—“

For all saying it is easier when Francis needs him to Raju’s throat stops his words here, and his voice loses some of the volume that it’d gained. His thumbs start moving in a steady rhythm back and forth over Francis’ skin. It helps, and he goes on.

“If I… knew I’d be that way. Afterward. After I… That I’d be like you. Maybe then I wouldn’t be…”

It’s a long pause, then. To figure it out and then to force it into the open air, where it will harden and become real.

But it’s Francis, who’s lived through all those things. Francis, who’s in front of him feeling this way. There’s no one anywhere he could have said this to, except the one he hopes will hear him now.

“…afraid. Of… failing, the way you did. If I knew I was more like you. Maybe I wouldn't be so afraid. Why wouldn’t I want it? How could I want anything else?”

Afraid. Rama is afraid. It seems like such an impossible thing for this man, who sometimes has more courage than sense.

He was afraid all the time then, and he’s still frightened now. It’s that fear that pushes him to care about the men and women in Milton, to consider offering help and even guidance, even if he wants nothing more in the world than to just keep to himself. He’s duty-bound even when no one’s asked or even wanted him.

He takes a sharp breath and his hand comes to rest on Rama’s waist. “I didn’t know I was going to fail,” he finally says. “When I kept pushing, I didn’t know that was going to be the outcome. I could have never guessed. And even now…even now I know as little as everyone else in this damn place.

“It doesn’t feel like it should be admired. And you…I wish….” He pulls his head back, eyes opening again, watery and a little bloodshot. He wishes Rama could fulfill his mission, and that there wasn’t so much left up in the air. “I wish there wasn’t so much left undone.”

Raju watches Francis as Francis pulls far back enough to see. He doesn’t know what to do with Francis’ wish; it seems impossible that there’s ever going to be an after when the undone things are behind him, when failure isn’t the demon nipping at his heels as he fights to somehow outrun it.

“Always more work left to do,” he murmurs, dismissing it as he tilts his head forward, focusing on Francis again, the more important work of making him see. He starts his thumbs moving over Francis’ cheeks again. “Why shouldn’t I admire you, Francis? You haven’t forgotten your duty to help, no matter who, even when it’s not easy. I’m… I’m not. That way.”

He huffs out a breath, gives a brief, tight smile that fades into something more intent as he focuses on Francis’ face. “So what should I be feeling instead? Not admiration? Something else?”

He doesn’t want to dismiss this very big knife dangling over Rama’s head, not after he was so vulnerable with him. But he gets what he gets in fits and starts when it comes to Ram sometimes, and he takes the admission and holds it close.

He doesn’t want to talk about himself. He started this conversation to begin with, but he wants to leave it all in the past and not have to listen to words of admiration. It’s upsetting, being admired for being so pathetic.

“You should pity me,” he grumbles, stepping back from him. “Sometimes I doubt that I’m duty-bound out of any sense of moral decency or compassion, but because when I close my eyes—“

When he closes his eyes he sees the outlines of the chains on Little’s face, or Goodsir’s carved-up thighs and buttocks. He shakes his head and turns away, back to his basin of water to wash his arms and face.

“You should see the ghosts hovering around my shoulders. I care because if one more person dies on my watch I’m going to lose my goddamned mind.”

Raju watches Francis’ back. He wants to step close to Francis again and run his hand down it. But that’s a difference, Raju supposes, in loving a woman and a man; Seetha might move away but she would always move back again eventually, into his arms, and he would comfort her then. But a man sometimes needs to face his pain alone.

Or at least, a foot or two away.

“What would most men would become, in your place? Callous? Cruel? Selfish?” He pauses and then goes on dryly: “Save their care only for the few who matter most, and damn the rest?”

It isn’t as if Francis’ need couldn’t be a weakness too, easily, but that isn’t what Francis needs to—

But here’s another difference too, isn’t it? Should Raju draw Francis’ attention away from the harder truths, or would that be coddling? Francis hasn’t spared Raju for the sake of a nicer truth before. Raju doesn’t have to be, here, the husband he would have been to Seetha. He can say the whole of it. Francis will be thinking it too, anyway, and will want the thing named and dealt with.

Raju doesn’t move closer but he does shift his weight toward Francis, intent, hands half-curling toward fists at his sides. “We will lose people here. And you might not be strong enough to bear it. Not any more. But you won’t stop caring. It’s only driven you to act. I won’t pity that. We should all hope to still be half the man that you are after suffering half of what you’ve lost.”

Maybe in asking to be pitied he’s really just allowing himself to wallow. Maybe it’s the arguing that makes him sounds petulant and pathetic, or as though he’s trying to find someone to pat him on the back for continuing to push on even though it’s certifiably insane to keep caring. Maybe that’s what he wants, to keep being punished for all the things he didn’t do.

He can hear the insistence in Ram’s voice, can see him in his own mind even though his back is turned, that intense stare and curled fists. He exhales softly, his own hand finding the rough table and spreading his palm out to support himself in a lean. He falls silent, thinking over their gentle disagreement, Rama’s annoyance at the others and his own inability to detach himself despite the harm it’ll inevitably cause.

“It’s easy for me to keep caring,” he finally relents, circling back to the phrase that started this whole thing. “It hasn’t always been like that. I’ve taken myself out of the equation, Rama. There’s no Francis Crozier when it comes to others. You…this between us, is the only thing I’ve allowed myself.”

Raju frowns, quiet a moment as he thinks that through. This doesn’t sound exactly like what Francis said he’d been doing when they’d met, but then the idea of separating himself from the people it was his to care about and help is something Raju—

Well. Maybe he has done a great deal of it. But the reasoning was very different, wasn’t it? The emotion running through them fills in each of them entirely different spaces; Raju throws himself forward where Francis needs to be nudged, and Francis moves with his steady, patient steps through places Raju hadn’t even thought to cross. The shame in Francis had been easy to see, but this part of it is different.

“I don’t understand.” It’s hard, still, to keep this foot or so between their bodies and not touch him. But maybe it’s easier for Francis to speak on it this way, not looking so a part of him might pretend no one else is listening. “I know you keep a distance from the others that you don’t with me. What does that have to do with… this? With wanting to help?”

“It means…”

It doesn’t feel convoluted, but he realizes he’s saying things without a filter. He runs his palm over the rough-hewn tabletop, trying to walk the line between being honest and over sharing.

It’s easier to give your entire self when you hold yourself away from the crowd. It’s easier to give when you expect nothing from it, no self-satisfaction, no happiness. He looks back at Ram finally; he knows how that feels. He knows he does, what it’s like to choose loneliness out of a sense of duty.

But he chose life and happiness this time around. He chose Ram, and this little cabin, and their silly collection of books, and all the quiet moments spent in front of the fire finally feeling alive.

“Selflessness to the point of one’s own detriment is a new habit of a mine, but a habit nonetheless. It’s the trouble with caring too easily. I didn’t care for my own wellbeing, because my own wellbeing matters little.” A pause. “Or it did. Talking about this…questioning why I forgive and help still…I don’t think I would have ever considered why if not for you. It didn’t matter before.”

Raju looks down for a moment over his smile. “I wouldn’t have either, if I was at home. I guess there’s not much reason there to ask questions. Or anyone whose answers I wouldn’t know already.”

He looks up again, searching Francis’ face now that Francis is looking at him and he can properly see it. “But I want to know everything about you. And I admire you, Francis. I always have. I think…”

Raju watches Francis earnestly. He likely won’t like hearing any more, at least not anything too close to praise. Raju’s thumbs start circling over his fingers, and he shoves his hands into his pockets to keep them still. “There’s a great deal I could learn from you, if I try.”

He finds it difficult not to smile. As much as he doesn’t want to hear the praise - running from it instead of seeking it will forever not be strange - coming from the man he loves, knowing it’s wholly sincere, makes a kind of satisfied warmth bloom in his chest. He admires Rama too, his unwavering loyalty and bravery, his self-sacrifice and the way he loves so truly and with all of himself. It’s a good compliment, one he might even be able to accept.

He takes that step forward, towards Rama and his hands stuffed into his pockets to keep that physical tic still, stopping when he’s close enough to touch. He doesn’t think he’s able to speak; he tries, opening his mouth to say something, anything, but he quickly falters.

What could he possibly say to that? How could he even begin to express how grateful he is to him, the depths of his own admiration and love for the kind of patience and understanding Rama gives to him daily? He can’t, but he can pull him back into his arms for a tight embrace.

As Francis comes nearer Raju keeps himself still, but watches closely; this odd position of theirs where Francis wants a course of action but doesn’t respect it, or doesn’t respect the parts in him that are driving it, while Raju doesn’t want it exactly but respects it a great deal, make it important to say what he’s said, but whether Francis will accept it isn’t certain yet. If he couldn’t, that wouldn’t be anything to hold against him; responsibility is heavy and the loss of it is even heavier, sitting like lead in Francis’ heart and outweighing anything else.

But Francis opens his mouth and nothing makes it out — it meant something to him, then. Then he hugs Raju suddenly, still silent, arms tight, and Raju’s arms move up around him too, squeezing with gentle, steady pressure while he presses the side of his face against Francis’ head.

He could say something else now, something to comfort, or to drive the message home. But it couldn’t be clearer that the words had hit exactly the place Raju had hoped they would, and no more are necessary just now. Raju rubs Francis’ back instead in slow, long strokes, and lets a hard breath out against Francis’ hair, ready to hold him there as long as Francis needs.

He couldn’t say how long he needs to be held, not knowing he needed this in the first place. But he did need it, the pressure of his hold and the feeling of Rama’s head tucked against his, and slowly he feels every muscle in his body begin to unravel. He leans forward slightly and exhales; Rama’s breath against his hair is comforting in ways that he couldn’t possibly explain.

He holds onto him for a long while. It’s indulgent and not something he would have ever allowed himself, except with this man right here. It helps, it all helps.

“You’ll help me up when I ultimately fall,” he says, and it’s not a question. When disappointment and bitter sadness overwhelms him once more he knows he’ll have Rama there to help steady him.

There’s a sudden fear that he’ll lose him too, but he won’t entertain it. He can’t.

The certainty in his voice, once his voice comes, makes Raju smile against Francis' hair. "I'll sit you in front of a fire," he confirms. He doesn't need to argue that Francis won't need it; they both know he likely will. "A blanket around your shoulders. I'll make your dinner, and read to you if you want it, and sit with you if you don't. I'll wash your hair and your feet until you can stand to do it yourself again. Anything you need. I'll help you up."

Raju presses a kiss to the side of Francis' head, lips half-catching an ear. The solidity of Francis' chest, his sides, his back, all feels wonderful under Raju's arms. It feels wonderful to touch him now, to be allowed to comfort where he'd been standing back before. "You know," he murmurs, "I admire you more for all this. It might be easy to want, but that doesn't make it easy."

Rama lists all the way he’ll care for him, all the ways he has cared for him in the past, those little things that make him feel so loved and cared for, and he feels that last little bit of shame get buried down again. It doesn’t leave him, he doesn’t think that part of him will ever heal, but he can live with himself.

He’s the only one who could express his admiration so openly and for it not to feel insincere. He believes that Rama feels that way; that somehow, impossibly so, he believes Crozier is worthy of admiration. He’s not certain if he can respond - and what to say? Thank him? Tell him that he hopes beyond measure that he won’t completely disappoint him? No, but he can return the sentiment, and turns his head to press a soft kiss to the corner of his mouth.

He likes the life they’re beginning to find here. “Perhaps it won’t feel so terrible to fail for a change,” he finally says, having pulled back just enough to speak to him again.

Raju keeps his arms and hands on him as Francis leans back, Francis' body close beneath his arms, and Raju studies him. He studies the words, the scope of them and how they feel in his chest and his throat and the pit of his stomach. Francis, for one reason or another, has always been the reason Raju ever tries to examine these things. He's the only reason the idea ever seems a little less hopeless, when Raju does.

"Maybe it won't," he rasps quietly and smiles, the expression small at first but growing over Raju's face.

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.

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.

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.

It says so much about the world Rama left behind, his entire life wrapped up in the pursuit of goddamned red jacket. He hasn’t even worn it yet, this well-tailored, shiny reminder of the people who murdered his family.

He doesn’t know what to make of it, seeing Rama like this. Seeing him in the outfit of the people who would have never seen him as an equal (and god, does he knows how that feels, that overwhelming sense of being an imposter, a fake wearing those clothes) makes him feel strange. His Ram deserves more than what that uniform could ever be - but it’s a disguise, it’s a disguise he reminds himself. It’s not Rama’s heart, it’s not who he truly is, even if he gave his entire life to it.

He’s torn between wanting to admire him, because the tailoring is spectacular, and also wanting to tear the uniform right off of his body.

“Your beard is gone…”

That seems strange too. This place dressed and shaved him!

Raju blinks as he looks up again, actually focusing on Francis for the first time since walking inside. A smile flickers over his face and starts fading away again as soon as it's there.

"What do you think?" He regrets the question nearly as soon as it's out of his mouth, and isn't sure why. "More or less strange than when I shaved yours?"

What does he think? He thinks...

He thinks he's handsome as all hell, is what he thinks. Stunning even. Put together and strong, but still frail for some reason.

"More," he says definitively. "More, because I assume you didn't do this yourself."

Crozier steps forward, getting close enough to reach out and brush his fingers across one of the medals.

Raju's gaze follows Francis' fingers, frown twitching at the corners of his mouth as his attention's drawn down to the medals. "I'll grow it out again and you can shave it after," he tries, attention still drawn by Francis' exploration, in spite of himself. "Then we'll be even."

He's quiet a moment, looking down at himself. Then he sighs, tugging straight the already-straight jacket. "It feels strange," he confesses, quietly. "Wearing this, I feel like I should be taking orders from someone." He hears what he's just said, and the frown spreads to his eyebrows, deepens at his mouth. His fingers curl, thumbs trying to rub against them before they tighten into fists. He wishes he could take the words back. But they're true.

His fingers find their way to the golden braid, like the pocket watch chain that used to drape across his waistcoat but absurd, and tugs on it. The idea of giving orders is sticking in his brain; the idea of giving Rama orders, of him just taking what he’s given in that signature bloody coat, is tempting. Very tempting.

“We could be even now,” he replies, flicking at one of the golden buttons. It opens slightly, ruining that pretty and perfect sight. “You know I’m well-practiced in giving orders, and you, currently, have an undone button.”

Raju looks at him, surprised out of some small portion of his frown. He's quiet a moment, studying Francis. It's less that he can't follow where Francis is leading, and more the time it takes to match this particular man to it. And it's hard, a little, to move there from where he is: the uniform is an important one, and he's never worn any uniform at home for anything that wasn't serious.

But he trusts Francis. And it isn't as if he knows what to do with wearing the damned thing here. "I'm... sorry, sir," he tries, frowning at Francis, not convinced but following anyway. "It won't happen again."

He doesn’t know if Ram wants to play, but Crozier can sense when he’s struck on a personal weakness. He wants him, just like this, in that neat little uniform that symbolizes everything he hated most in the world. He hates the uniform, but he loves Ram. He adores Ram, handsome creature that he is, filling that uniform like no Englishman ever could.

Would it be better if he was wearing the uniform too? Maybe not. It would be a distraction, and lord knows he would rip that thing off as soon as he found himself in it.

“Fix it,” he growls, palm on Ram’s chest. He pushes at him insistently.

It's obvious the uniform strikes some kind of note inside Francis, too; Raju realises that, belatedly. He'd been fascinated as soon as he'd seen it, hadn't he, and then this now. It's a role, Raju understands that, but a role Francis had suggested, and suggested it right away. The growl, the push — Raju doesn't hide the way he's studying Francis, trying to figure him out, not the way he'd hid everything back home. But he doesn't stumble back either, has fallen back into the stance he'd used to stand in without even noticing he'd been doing it. And if a superior officer wants you to move back, they'll tell you. Raju stays where he is.

"Right away sir," he says briskly, reaching up to re-fasten the one button. His movements, he realises as he does it, are a little like his stance, fallen into something else while he wasn't noticing. The way he reaches up, moves his arms and fingers, is only graceful if grace can be assembled one piece at a time: bend the arms pull the button fasten it, three separate precise motions linked stiltedly together instead of one complete motion working toward one end. He'd never noticed that before, that he moves differently.

But he's lingered, noticing. He would have been expected to move back to attention right away before and does it now, late, dropping his arms to his sides and looking straight ahead. But where he wouldn't allow his gaze to rest on any officer giving orders at home that impulse doesn't last here and his gaze focuses again quickly, frowning at Francis to see what else he's going to do.

Sir. Why does that do things to him? He's been called 'sir' a thousand times - not an exaggeration - in his life. Why is it that Rama doing the same, addressing him by title, golden buttons gleaming in the soft light of their fireplace, makes him feel like he can't control himself? But any further introspection is a luxury that his brain can't afford, not with the way Rama stares back at him expectantly.

"You're handsome in red," he says, not letting the commander's tone drop, though the sentiment is coming from him directly and not some facade. He is handsome in red; it just might not be the ideal shade or cut of cloth. "Boots polished, medals shining, well tailored coat and trimmed beard. Other than that button how could I find fault with you?"

Well. He can absolutely find fault with him, that's the game, isn't it? Find a little fault and maybe...offer a little correction?

Crozier brings his hand up to Rama's chest again, running his fingers over the medals they both never actually received, dragging his fingers over the curve of his large pectorals tugged over the jacket, the sling of the golden braid dangling across his chest like a decorative little rope tying him in. "You're too perfect," he tuts.

It's odd, the way he notices everything now. As if he hadn't noticed anything before. As Francis, in that faux-commander's tone details the perfections of Raju's uniform pride is glowing faintly in his chest, even though Francis isn't an authority of any kind, won't be reporting what's done well here to anyone. Not that anything's actually been done well at all. It's there even knowing this is a game. Feeling its warm glow makes Raju as uneasy as the uniform itself, but thankfully Francis is unhappy with him, and there's that instead to deal with. Or should he think of him as Crozier now, through whatever game it is Francis is playing? Or Captain?

Raju moves his gaze from Francis' face to the air in front of him. His fingers are curled tight at his sides, in the way they always were; the one at his thigh, the other holding his helmet in place, both likely to move and twitch and fidget unacceptably if he doesn't keep them clenched at least a little. And then the strategy of figuring out what to say: always a strategy when one of the ranking officers speaks to craft exactly the right response, regardless of how likely this particular line of inquiry would have been back then.

"It gives the men something to look up to," he says to the wall in front of him, his voice lower as it is in uniform, hard confidence filling out every syllable. "Captain."

“And what if I want you to squirm, mn?”

It’s almost as though someone else is using his mouth to speak, a darker side of himself that still desires control and the tiniest level of power. That man who hit the bottle, demanded respect without earning it, the one who was wrathful and envious and secretly wanted others to fail. Of course this is a silly thought; there’s no separate man, it’s just him and his baser urges at the sight of Rama in this fetching uniform.

He takes a step forward, directly into him, foot physically separating Rama’s legs as he uses his slightly taller form to intimidate him. His hand slides down his coat slowly, dropping down his waist and then even further still. “Do you think you’re so above all the others that you won’t crumple? Do you think you’ll still be the picture of a perfect officer if I have my way with you?”

His smirk is soft but wicked, and he drops his hand even further to cup between his legs. “Are you perfect here too?”

Raju's expression doesn't so much as flicker when Francis cups between his legs, not with all the warning those questions had given. A neat way to illustrate the game for him, and if those are the rules, Raju is going to win.

Or at least make Francis fight for it. Francis wants victory here and so Raju wants him to have it, but showing nothing is a skill Raju's spent a large part of his life developing, and a recent part of it practising almost constantly. But Francis hasn't seen that, has he? Francis has seen more of him than any one person, but has he ever seen this part of him?

It hardly matters now; by starting this, Francis has already asked to see it.

"Sir," he says evenly. It's the only answer he can give, in the roles set: an acknowledgement without protesting, or anything that might be taken for back talk. A response without a response at all. He doesn't step back, or move, or look anywhere.

He’s good, but then again, he would have to be, wouldn’t he? Crozier smiles even wider, impressed but not relenting. It’s already too much fun.

“You are,” he declares, forefinger and thumb searching for the outline of his cock. “You’ve got a nice, fat prick between your legs.”

As though he hasn’t touched him before.

He keeps his hand exactly where it is, cupping between his legs and then pushes forward, forcefully walking Rama backwards until his back hits the door.

Francis' fingers search, and find, and the outline they trace begins to stir as soon as he feels that much-loved hand moving there. His breath in, feeling it, is a little deeper than normal, but very quiet. His nostrils flare a little.

Then Francis begins walking him back but once he gets close enough there's nothing to do with it but move, and so that at least hardly counts as a response. But he keeps his gaze carefully unfocused and carefully off Francis while he does it, so there's no doubt he isn't giving in, only responding.

"Sir," he says again, determinedly neutral. Of all the conversations he's had with any officer before there isn't exactly a script for this one.

“Sir,” he repeats with a touch of a snarl. He takes his hand off of him only to press it, palm outstretched flat, against the chest of his chest. He pushes hard, making sure Ram is nice and boxed in against the door, and then kisses him hard.

It’s less about catching Rama off guard and having him break, and more the overwhelming need to possess him and have him all for himself. This very beautiful man with self-control that would intimidate a Royal Marine is his and no one else’s, and he both wants the world to know and to keep him for himself like a precious secret. He kisses him with all that hunger, consuming him utterly with his hand still pressed against that blood red coat.

Francis kisses him hard and Raju's eyes snap closed. He finds himself kissing back, breathing hard through his nose and moving his lips against Francis', and one hand lifts, and then snaps down to his side again, clenching itself into a fist. The hand holding his helmet curls its fingers tightly around its edge. His chest heaves harder rhythmically against the force of Francis' hand with his breathing, and won't stop even after the kiss is done, while Raju's staring straight ahead again with the muscles of his jaw tight.

He’d hoped Rama would kiss him back, but as he ends the kiss with a sharp bite to his lower lip he sees those stiff limbs and that disciplined stare. It’s hard not to be impressed by that level of determination, but he can work with it.

Crozier laughs quietly and takes the helmet out from under from Rama’s arm, setting it onto the nearby hook by the door. “You won’t be needing that,” he tells him. “Arms up over your head, and bring those hands together. Now.”

He does look to Francis' eyes then, studying him again, thoughtful and confused and frowning. It'd taken his hand an instant to make itself relax its grip when Francis had started taking his helmet and that — or something like it, for some more likely reason — might have been a disaster at home, seeming to refuse a ranking officer anything, even by pure reaction, even for a fraction of a second. But that, and the order, and the threat in the order, sits starkly against everything he feels whenever he thinks of Francis, or looks at him, like bright sun rising in him behind deep shadow. And all that sits oddly next to being told something like this without it being a fight, trusting the other man to make this something good, because that man is Francis.

Easier to stop thinking about how any of it feels, and only do. Only follow Francis' orders, and nevermind the what or why.

Raju's gaze fixes itself back to the wall in the distance ahead of him, holding his wrists next to one another and raising his arms, his knuckles hitting the door above his head. "The handcuffs on my belt are new, sir," he says, tone very neutral, apropos of nothing. Certainly not because a navy captain who hardly used his weapon might not know the things were there, heavy in the pouch at his waist and ready to be used. "I haven't had time to prepare them for inspection."

He’d been planning on pinning his wrists above his head with his hand, but cuffs are so much more efficient, and it’s a ringing endorsement from Rama himself to proceed. He looks through the bag at his waist and finds the handcuffs, as shiny and pristine as the buttons on his coat or medals pinned to his chest, and ‘inspects’ them closely to understand the locking mechanism. They’re different than what he’s used to, more intricate but clearly easier to operate.

“A practical inspection then,” he nods, snapping them around both wrists easily. “Keep your hands up. If they drop…”

He has to think of a threat, but when one doesn’t come to mind he settles for a stern Look. His hand goes to Rama’s trousers again, this time the buttons and then his drawers, stepping close to him as he pushes both pieces down his hips. He growls low in his throat and kisses along that bare jaw.

Keep his arms up. An order, and a challenge. It's a relief, the one certain goal in the middle of everything else. He keeps them up when the chill air hits his thighs, and when Francis' lips start moving over his jaw. The metal is cold over his skin and heavy on his arms, and presses into his wrists where they press against the door. It's a bit of a surprise, that something like this would be the first time he feels them put around his wrists, instead of putting them around someone else's. It doesn't feel the way he'd thought it would. But of course it doesn't, considering.

His heart is beating harder — as much, he realises, from ruining the uniform leaving the trousers on the floor as from Francis' lips. After a moment, he turns his head; he didn't get an order to but it gives Francis more room, and he likes feeling his teeth there.

Ram willingly presenting his neck is something Crozier won’t pass up. His lips move along that strong jawline and up to the spot just under Rama’s ear, where he sucks and bites as his hand finds Ram’s prick underneath his jacket. His fingers wrap around him and begin to stroke along his length from base to tip; he wants him hard and aching, there’ll be no mercy.

Wrists cuffed, neck assaulted by teeth and tongue, cock being stroked by fingers that have been quick to learn him, Crozier knows he’s performing an all-out attack on Rama’s resolve. But it’s a game, and he knows he can take it. He’d say otherwise.

Raju doesn't quite keep his breathing steady. Quite becomes more of a generous description as the moments go on: his arms grow heavier, Francis' mouth is warm, and his blood is rapidly rushing south. The lowered trousers trap him just as surely as the handcuffs do, making it impossible for him to move away gracefully if he'd wanted to, and keeping his arms this way means he can't touch Francis back.

He presses his arms a little harder back against the door, watching the ceiling with his head tipped to the side, feeling everything.

As he sucks a deep, purple spot into Ram’s skin he starts to think about other things he might want to touch with his mouth. He’s almost certain he can get Rama to groan if he goes a certain route, even if he hasn’t exactly done anything like it before. He’s a clever man though, not above trying something new and facing potential embarrassment. He can probably figure it out as he goes.

With that willingness to endeavor he places one more bite to his neck and then lets himself drop down to his knees in front of Rama. He has to pluck open a few of the golden buttons on Ram’s glorious coat for easier access, pushing and then tucking aside the half draped under the impossibly big belt so that it doesn’t look like he’s ducking underneath a skirt. He wants to see Rama while he’s doing this - and Rama to see him.

He’s eye-level with Ram’s prick now, and he takes him back into his hand with a soft smile, appreciative and fond despite the game. “Much more impressive from this angle,” he remarks casually.

Francis moves, and Raju frowns. Raju risks a glance down and his eyes widen, and he stares. Francis compliments him casually as if this were any other day, smiling, and Raju opens his mouth to say—

"...Sir," he manages, voice betraying only a little bit of surprise, a little bit of tension, and he looks forward again, bracing the back of his head against the door for a sensation to focus on. There's no room, here, for are you sure. In Francis' play at giving orders he wouldn't have knelt there in the first place if he wasn't, anyway, so Raju supposes that he must be.

Raju remembers it, suddenly: his feet hurting in a way they never had before, Francis kneeling in front of him to tend to them. To his shoes. He'd thought of this then, hadn't he? Has Francis thought of something like this too, before now? And how many times has he actually done it? What was it he'd said, when Raju had asked about his lovers an eternity ago?

There's nothing he's able to ask, within the outlines of their game, so there's nothing worth wondering about. The only question he needs to concern himself with is how to keep himself still.

There’s just a hint of uncertainty in Rama’s voice; he’s caught him off guard and it’s like music to Crozier’s ears. He slides his fingers down and then through the wiry hair between his legs, marveling to himself at how delicate the curls actually are but how masculine and alluring the whole picture is before him. It’s something he didn’t know about himself, how much he’d be attracted to the coarse hair at the bed of a hardened prick. But it Ram, he reminds himself, it’s all Ram. He might love everything there is to find about him, simply by virtue of being him.

“Captain,” he reminds him, happy to be contrary for the sake of the game. Appreciation still ongoing, he takes him back into his hand and finally leans his head forward to touches his mouth to velvety, sensitive skin. He groans very softly; it’s new, it’s so new, and the taste is heady and slightly salty and intimate and Ram, and he can’t imagine there’s anyone besides his fiancé would have even dreamed of having it on their tongues.

By the time he takes him properly into his mouth his stomach is twisted up by possessive and greedy thoughts of him. He’s asking a lot of him, keeping his arms up and body still; he doesn’t want him in pain, but he thoroughly enjoys the idea of getting him out of his own head.

Francis' mouth touches him and Raju takes a sharp breath, but keeps it mostly quiet. It seems impossible somehow that Francis would do this, that Raju would feel warm wetness around himself and know it's the inside of Francis that he's feeling, Francis who he's inside that way. It's the last thing Raju had expected at all, let alone now.

Then Francis' mouth slips over Raju's cock and Raju finds himself holding his breath, jaw clenched. His hands, still above, him, clench into fists. He's going to have to take a breath in a moment; he'll wait until he knows he'll be able to make it a quiet one.

The learning curve is steep, almost straight up into the air, but Crozier is less concerned than doing this perfectly the first time around than he is just making sure Rama doesn't hate it. He doesn't seem to be in distress, at least from what Crozier can ascertain from this angle, and he pulls his mouth off with a soft noise to kiss and suck along his length again.

This is not how this usually goes, he knows from limited experience that there's generally a lot more contact than he's making, but Ram must realize he's figuring this out as he goes along. Hopefully he'll give him a little grace as he explores - not that he's given him much of an option otherwise.

Crozier shifts his weight from knee to knee, hand finding purchase on Rama's hip as he tries again. Maybe he's too old to be doing this, inexperience making him look silly, but he doesn't feel foolish as he watches the way Rama's breath seems to hitch in his chest.

Francis gives him brief, teasing little touches, almost more distracting than taking all of him into his mouth would have been. Raju thinks, anyway. Like everything with Seetha it feels like a lifetime ago, and even then taking him inside her mouth all at once had been the smallest part of all they'd done. Then he feels Francis' lips again against sensitive skin and any urge to compare, not so strong in the first place, collapses, and what he's thinking about are the sensations. Francis' lips, and the growing ache in his arms, and the growing ache in his cock. Francis has beautiful lips but Raju can only feel them, in this play at rank and orders should at least try to keep looking ahead. He has to imagine instead, what they must look like pursed against him.

At least Francis focusing so much lower gives Raju room to loosen his grip on his expression. He blinks more, allows himself to look... surprised, maybe. Maybe surprise is what's over his face now. Raju allows himself to breathe in brief, intermittent breaths between the moments when Francis is touching him, feeling his cock hardening as everything he's feeling now keeps pushing out the things he'd been feeling then, when he'd walked inside feeling so unsettled and strange. There's less and less room for that now with Francis' piecemeal attention, the tension it sharpens inside him.

Edited (had second thoughts about what i'd established about raju and seetha's sex life) 2024-08-06 13:46 (UTC)

His eyes flick up briefly towards Ram’s face, looking for discomfort but finding wide eyes and raised brows instead. He inhales a sharp laugh through his nose and takes him into his mouth again, concentrating this time on what it feels like to have the heft of Ram on his tongue and the scent of him filling his head.

It’s dizzying, bordering on being just a little too much but not overwhelming enough to stop. He doesn’t want to stop, he wants to experience this, wants to learn this side, and all aspects, of pleasing the man he loves. If he takes his need to overthink things and nitpick at himself away from the equation he can just enjoy it, the way he tastes and feels and the sound of his breaths beginning to stutter in his chest.

Crozier caresses his hip fondly as he begins to suck, thinking back on all the things that used to drive him absolutely mad. He laps at him with his tongue attempts to move his head so that the sensitive head brushes across his lips as it moves in and out of his mouth. He tries one thing for a while, then another, eager now just to see what will earn a response from the man in the officer’s uniform above him.

Raju's body twitches when Francis touches his hip, so focused is he on the sensation from only the one area, but he hardly has time to focus on his hip before Francis is back at it, switching techniques so that Raju can't get too used to any one thing. His tongue, his lips, make it impossible to ignore the pleasure and, oddly, the pain too; the growing ache in his arms and shoulders is harder to ignore somehow while he's feeling so much from Francis' industrious efforts down below. At the same time, that ache makes it that much harder for the pleasure to reach the zenith that he needs it to; each makes it that much more difficult to endure the other.

After a time he finds himself starting to squirm, moving his hips to try and— he isn't sure. He stops them before he can get out of the movement whatever it is he's looking for, stops the shifting of his shoulders and its clinking of the handcuffs against the wood, aware how hard he's breathing only after renewed efforts to hold himself still. He hears his own harsh breaths and presses his head back against the door, keeps his body still again and his gaze straight ahead.

Rama’s determination is admirable, it always has been, and Crozier is beginning to realize he needs to throw or change the game, or else he’ll be on his knees all night. Very desirable in theory, being on his knees with Rama’s cock halfway down his throat, but absolutely a fantasy better suited to men who aren’t middle aged or named Francis Crozier.

He pulls his head back again, calloused pads of his fingers slowly tracing down the hard line of Rama’s iliac crest and through that tuft of coarse hair. “If you want to hold my head I’d let you,” he all but purrs. “All you need to do is look at me and smile.”

Raju's fingers twitch, feeling Francis' hands on him. Raju's eyebrows furrow. He very carefully doesn't look down. He breathes through his open mouth, thinking.

He and Francis haven't played any games like this before, so he doesn't know what Francis might do. But the man Francis is pretending to be, so far as any of this could parallel anything Raju knows at all, would he be offering something like that in earnest?

It must be a trick. There's a catch. Something he's too unfocused with the lust stirred by Francis' warm, soft mouth to realise. But of course if there is, he won't be allowed to ask outright.

"...Sir?" he manages after a moment, then hurriedly corrects himself. "Captain?"

Of course he wants to look at Francis, of course he wants to smile. But the officer wouldn't. Maybe that's the trick. It's hard to think, just now, exactly what it is that he's supposed to do.

Oh, he doesn’t want to lose. Of course he doesn’t want to lose, so very typical of him. Crozier laughs softly and takes him back into his hand, still watching Rama’s face as he fights to keep his composure. “Look at me, Rama,” he says, voice low and silky. He’s speaking as Francis, not as an officer. “Look at me.”

He strokes him slowly, thumb circling the head of his cock with a luxuriously little swipe. “Smile at me and you can lower your arms.”

Raju hesitates. But Francis repeats himself, look at me, and Raju risks it. His jaw tightens, breath heavy and irregular as he works to keep his expression neutral. Seeing Francis’ fingers moving is more of a shock than he’d expected it to be, and he tries to focus past the way the electric sensation matches up with the sight of them well enough to think.

Smile. He’d sounded like Francis when he’d said it, not much like an officer or a captain, and his laugh had sounded soft and kind. Raju’s shoulders ache, and a man who loves Raju wants Raju to smile at him.

Smiling on purpose. It isn’t happening just by thinking about it. Maybe he’s too used to looking at Francis and feeling it happen on its own, or maybe it’s the uniform and the uniform’s leftover habits. In any case, Raju’s two brief twitching attempts at it feel as odd and unnatural as they must look and he stops quickly, eyebrows pulling into a frown. His mouth opens, then closes again. His lips twist into something wry and amused, which he’s sure doesn’t count in the way that a real smile would.

“And if I don’t?” he murmurs as if it’s a challenge, one he’d fully intended to issue in the first place. Don’t, can’t— well, he might as well have.

And if he doesn’t. Crozier laughs again, annoyed but endeared horribly by him. Of course he’s not going to take the out offered to him; he wouldn’t be Rama otherwise!

“If you don’t I’ll leave you with those cuffed wrists,” he threatens, “or maybe I won’t let you spend. That would be a fitting challenge.” He shakes his head and brushes his fingertips over the inside of his thighs, not meaning anything by it but a light touch.

Not finishing after everything Francis has done for and to him here would be endurable. If that’s the best threat that Francis has, he should know that.

“Whatever y—“ The word is cut off by a gasp, a real gasp, that’s come out of Raju’s mouth all on its own. His thighs joined the rebellion of his body too, spreading wider to avoid the sudden sensation of… whatever that had been, and his hips had squirmed, trying to find some escape that isn’t there. His upper body had begun to curl forward, and the handcuffs hit the wood above him again as he straightens with a too loud thunk. It’d happened too quickly for Raju to put a stop to it.

He raises his chin, looking ahead of himself again. He finds himself clearing his throat once, quietly.

“Whatever you like,” he tells the wall, neutrally. “Captain.”

At first he thinks that Rama's mid-sneeze, his body leaning forward like it's being propelled forward, but then he sees the wriggle in his hips and hears the hard ka-thunk of the metal cuffs hitting the door. He looks up at him and guesses what happened, but of course he has to be certain, and the only way to be certain about anything is through rigorous data collection.

"Whatever I like," he hums quietly in response.

He's a little impressed that Rama's decided to act like nothing's happened. That same sort of monotone reply only fuels his desire of making it happen again, but this time he tries with the other thigh, caressing his sensitive skin with a light touch of his fingertips.

Raju’s leg jitters away from the sensation all on its own. His jaw is clenched against another gasp, but his sudden breath in through his nose is audible and sharp. The noise and the movement is a loss in their game, Raju so obviously unable to repair the crack in his composure, but admitting it would be a worse one.

His fingers curl tightly against his hands for a moment as he forces his leg straight again, closer to Francis’ hand as if nothing had happened. The muscle of his thigh tenses as he does it,, twitching as he tries to convince it to relax against the touch that he knows now is coming. Coming somewhere. Of course Francis is going to use this, and if he hasn’t made any part of this predictable yet he certainly isn’t going to start now.

It shouldn’t be getting to Raju at all, certainly not more than those earlier efforts of Francis’ mouth. He hasn’t been ticklish this way in so long he barely remembers it. But there’s no room to question it just now; what he needs to focus on keeping himself still so it doesn’t show. He’s better at that now than he was, so hiding the sensation now surely isn’t as difficult as it feels. He only has to get used to it.

Crozier knows when his focus is about to shift, and it does so immediately when Rama gives him another reaction to the light touch. Sucking his prick apparently won’t do it, but something as simple as tickling might bring him to finally cave.

He leaves more delicate and sensitive areas, at least for the moment, and lets his hand travel up towards the part of the thigh just below the crease between pelvis and leg. This has its charms too, the ability to appreciate him in these slow and careful ways, and he waits just a beat before finally running his fingers up and down the soft skin, touch barely ghosting over his thigh.

Raju feels Francis’ hand moving away from his cock and further up his thigh, the grip — at least in this instant — firm enough to avoid the bizarre problem that’s already so derailed the direction of Francis’ attentions. Up Raju’s thigh and then he feels Francis’ hand stop, and then—

Raju’s leg tries in a sudden twitching way to move out again, and again his hips squirm. His mouth is open, he realizes when a huffing breath stutters out of it. He presses his lips hard together in a doomed effort to press the smile out of the corners of his lips.

“Francis,” he says, warm and exasperated, and tries to focus more on his shoulders and arms, the burning feeling of holding them up more familiar, and miles easier to deal with.

“I didn’t realize you were so sensitive…” he hums, pleased that he’s seeing those cracks in the facade. It’s well worth it to hear his name spoken like that.

And there it is, that sweet little break in the act. He chuckles softly but doesn’t relent, because why would he? His hand pauses, waiting an impossibly long moment before he starts back up again, hoping to catch him by surprise. He’s going to be merciless.

The words are confirmation, as if Raju needed it, that his weakness has been noted and that this isn’t the last time that Raju is going to see it used against him.

Raju waits, and realizes Francis is waiting too, to keep Raju off balance. He finds himself biting at the inside of his lip.

“I’m not—“ he tries, but sudden sharp, gentle sensation over skin no one but Francis has touched in years interrupts, and stuttering gasps are what make it out before he closes his mouth tight over another smile. His head thunks back against the wood in his hurried look up at the ceiling, to try and hide the break in his composure at least here, if not in his squirming hips and twitching muscles.

God, he’s still fighting so hard. It’s impressive, and a little frustrating, but mostly it just pushes Crozier to keep going. He leans his handless arm against Rama’s leg, pinning him back against the door while he levels a full-out attack on his inner thighs, all light touches and caresses in the name of tickling the living daylights out of this man.

If he gets him to laugh, to really laugh, he’ll take those cuffs away and bring him off properly, in whatever method he chooses.

It starts as hitching movement in Raju’s chest that his clenched jaw and held breath behind it doesn’t allow to turn into real laughter. He rolls his lips between his teeth to pin them there. But the first gasp that sneaks in cracks the shell open and a laugh that’s more breath than noise is still laughter, even stifled behind lips pressed tightly together. So far as Raju is concerned, anyway, compared to what Raju is used to and what he’s trying for. Especially as those lips begin to curve despite all Raju’s attempts to stop them and impulsively Raju grasps at the excuse to take that as a loss if losing might mean relief from the glut of sensation underneath Francis’ fingertips.

“Stop!” he says, finally looking down at Francis. Laughter sneaks around the edges of the word whenever he opens his mouth, but it might as well, he’s as good as admitting defeat anyway. “Stopstopstop. Stop.”

He pants openmouthed, feeling his smile, aware of the still half-hard feeling of his cock, realising his arms are bent with linked hands pulling at the back of his head. He hadn’t thought about doing it, had needed to grab something and had needed something outside his focus itself keeping them there. At least they’re still above his head, and against the door. He doesn’t have to lose at everything.

At the third or fourth ‘stop’ Crozier pulls his hand away, the very pleased look on his face remaining on his face. As far as he’s concerned they both won the game, though if Rama needs it spelled out he’ll let him have it. He braces himself with his hand against the door and stands, mouth brushing against Rama’s cheek as he reaches for the hands above his head to bring them back down.

He can’t quite unlock the cuffs yet, but the idea is to provide as much relief as possible. Just letting his arms rest ought to do wonders for Ram.

“You did so well,” he says, pressing his mouth against his jaw again. He kisses along his smooth skin, lips tickled by his mustache as he finally brings their mouths together again for a hungry kiss.

When Francis' mouth first brushes against his cheek Raju chases it, but he's distracted an instant later by the movement of his arms. The pain of it shows in little grimaces and quiet grunts of effort as his muscles and joints are guided down and away from that now-familiar angle, and then Francis' mouth is against his jaw, and his head is moving back to give Francis room without Raju once thinking about it. Then their lips are together and Raju moans into it, leaning into Francis' weight, hands grasping at whatever they can reach from where they're cuffed together between their bodies.

The crotch, incidentally. That's the thing that he can reach. It's plenty close enough to the place his hands rest. Bending his arms takes more effort than it should just now with his muscles trying to insist on doing no more of anything at all, but if the gesture effects Francis even a little then it's worth the work.

Rama’s hands brush against the tightness in the front of his trousers and he gasps into his mouth. He hadn’t been expecting him to push back, which in hindsight is a very silly move considering this is Rama so of course he’s going to give as good as he got. He laughs slightly with his lips pressed to his chin, thrusting his pelvis into his hands in approval.

“Your arms must ache,” he murmurs, massaging each upper arm playfully. He starts to drift, moving down lower and lower, and then finally drops back down to Ram’s neglected cock. He doesn’t intend on tickling him again, but he also doesn’t immediately take him back into his hand.

Francis' response is a satisfying one, a gasp and a laugh — for some reason Raju hadn't been expecting the laugh — and he gives Francis another squeeze as Francis thrusts into his hands, but then Francis is moving downward again. Raju doesn't quite expect more tickling but Francis doesn't do anything else either, and for a moment Raju only watches him. He's doing it on purpose. Making Raju wait again. Raju tries to make a face, but it comes out smiling.

"Are you waiting for me?" he asks, innocently. "Maybe I should..." In front of him as they are now, after all, his arms are bound at the right level. Watching Francis' face, Raju reaches out to — well, to take matters into his own hands.

Crozier gives a playful little growl as Rama’s hands start pawing at him again. “You’ve been so patient all this time, what’s the hurry?” he teases, knowing full-well that their game is over and Rama is just Rama again. But all this touching gives him another idea, and he picks up Ram’s hands and guides them to the front of his trousers.

“Help me with these,” he smiles, leaning forward to kiss him again.

Raju's smile is quick and wicked, and stays wide and pleased over his face as Francis leans in to kiss him. As they kiss Raju's hands work, his fingers not tired and lazy in the way his arms are trying to be, and soon Francis' fly, simple with its single button and only a zipper underneath, is open and Raju's hands are making their way inside. His fingers brush Francis' length, a little greeting before he moves to push Francis' trousers down, one side of his waistband at a time.

"You know damn well what the hurry is," he mutters against Francis' face, grinning. "You're the one who's been teasing all this time."

He can’t very well argue with something that’s absolutely true, but he does grin right back against his lips as Rama attacks the front of his trousers. He shivers; that cool air suddenly on a very sensitive, very warm part of him hits sharply, making him very aware of how needy he’s actually feeling.

Well, he can fix this frustration for them both. He pushes his hips against Ram’s and takes them both into his calloused hand. “Is this better?” he breathes, letting them slide together, hot and firm in his palm.

“Mm. Much,” Raju says, feeling those calluses against one side and Francis’ length against the other, rough and soft skin both stirring what had been at half mast toward full hardness again.

“But you’ve kept my hands away from you for so long.” He leans forward, breaking up complaint and request with a nip at Francis’ jaw. It’s still a bit of a thrill to be able do that; it isn’t quite the same act, he’s realising, when a kiss there mostly gets you a mouthful of hair. “And taken yourself in hand already. What should I do to you now?”

It's an easy answer, one delivered with a very deliberate stroke to both of their lengths. "You should kiss me." He pushes forward and brings their noses together, slipping down against his cheek with a breathy laugh.

He'll let Rama bridge the gap between them, his own focus on the heat, dizzying feeling of bringing them together like this in his hand. He remembers talking about this when they weren't allowed to touch, and had been wondering what it might feel like ever since.

Raju doesn't hesitate, starts in with Francis' lower lip between his teeth and proceeds from there. But his hands still need something to do, cuffed between their bodies as they are; practised as he is at holding himself mostly still there's no chance of it now, there's too much ready to light up inside him, so while his mouth is busying itself his hands turn in their cuffs to wrap around Francis'. They won't take control there, happy to follow — at least, if Francis is leading anywhere straight away. He isn't quite confident, still, that Francis won't try teasing him again.

Fortunately the urge to laugh again at Rama's little insistent hold on his hands is quelled by the teeth on his lips. He wouldn't dream of teasing him now, not when he's also so thoroughly enjoying himself, but he understands where the worry might come from.

...and yes, it would be a little funny if he tried something like that again right now, but he doesn't have a death wish, and desire is a far stronger motivator than having a laugh. He moves his hand a little faster, pushing his hips forward as he kisses him back in between soft gasps for air, that tight, intense feeling at the back of his navel building and building.

The noise Raju makes into Francis' mouth is insistent and happy and a moment later, as Francis' hand speeds up, he makes another one, more urgent. His hands match Francis' speed and he finds his hips moving, trying to win himself even more friction, even more movement. His kissing is fiercer, more insistent, and one of his legs manages even with his trousers around his knees to wrap itself around Francis' calves. It's an effort to pull him closer, that last, but if it trips Francis' balance a little that's alright too; the door is still behind Raju, still solid enough to hold them up if either of them tips back into it.

Crozier absolutely overbalances and falls forward, hips knocking into his in a kind of lovely, accidental thrust. He turns his head and laughs against the side of Rama’s neck, breathless and amused and horribly desperate for him. He’s quick to regain his equilibrium and starts his hand up again, alternating between pressing quick kisses to his mouth and catching his breath. He’s smiling through it all though, turned on but so endeared and amused that he can’t help himself.

Raju is grinning too, now. Impossible not to feeling Francis' laughter against his neck, his lips against Raju's while he's smiling that way. And the way he'd fallen into Raju, the way it'd felt, the way that his body feels against Raju's now — Raju's going to have to try doing that again sometime. But sometime is vague and far away and there's not much room in Raju's mind for anything but now, with Francis leaning into him and moving his hand that way against the both of them, and happy. Raju's breath is coming faster, loud and rough between kisses, and his hands aren't keeping time with Francis' quite as perfectly as they were.

"I..." Raju starts, and realises his voice is tight with pleasure, and unsteady. "I'm going to... Francis..."

“God,” he gasps, stomach twisting in desire at the sound of Rama’s wavering voice. “God, I hope so.” Because he’s not strong enough to withstand any of this - Ram in that red Imperial Officer’s coat, the polished boots, the coifed mustache. Ram handcuffed and trying to resist the way his mouth must have felt on him, his hand on his thigh, that surprising laugh from a sensitive and ticklish spot. It’s all too good, too playful and silly and undeniably attractive, and Crozier is quickly beginning to realize that Rama himself must just be a weakness. He’s impossibly to resist.

He won’t stop his hand, won’t stop the kisses, turning more and more desperate and messy, until he’s just at the precipice of not being able to do a damn thing but tuck his head against his neck and groan low with his release.

Edited 2024-08-14 13:11 (UTC)

I hope so makes Raju laugh. Any other time the laugh might be a smile instead but that tight knife's edge of pleasure turns it into the kind of ungraceful giggle he's never once let out while in uniform, and he lets it out now into Francis' hair while Francis tucks his face in against Raju's neck. Raju feels Francis' groan against his skin, feels wetness splashing up onto his jacket, tightens his hands and he's coming over that knife's edge too, with stifled noises and gasps and then panting, locking his knees so he doesn't drop while Francis is still leaning against him.

A few breaths, a moment, and then he's sliding down against the door, working to move slowly even under their combined weight, moving his hands to Francis' stomach and side to hold him as he carefully lowers them down. As he does it he kisses the side of Francis' head, then the top of it, then his forehead as he settles against the floor, legs with their lowered trousers tangled around Francis'. "The first time you've ruined my shirt instead of my trousers," he mutters, breathless, then: "Look at me straight-on so I can kiss you properly."

The slow sinking to the floor is appreciated, though less dramatic than the outright collapse Crozier’s body would have probably done if not supported. He feels those light kisses to his face, his forehead, though he doesn’t immediately raise his head when Rama demands it.

“You can’t suddenly start ordering me around,” he mumbles from his vantage point of his face pressed against his neck, the rush of good feelings making him giddy. “You’re still wearing the jacket.”

Raju feels tired and wonderful; his laugh is light and easy with a hint of that earlier giggle still in it and he runs a hand down Francis' back, kisses at his ear and then at the back of his head, the closest to Francis' neck that he can reach without moving either of them too much.

"Well, why don't you order me, then?" he grins, and his voice drops briefly into a very relaxed, very terrible approximation of Francis' accent: "'Rama, I order you to kiss me properly,' and then you don't move, and I have to keep trying while I figure it out."

“Christ,” he mutters, voice very much muffled by the coat still, “is that what I sound like to you?”

He lets out a very long-suffering sigh and shifts slightly, arms finding their way around Rama’s thin waist for a comfortable hold. “Rama,” he says, trying for Deep and Serious. “I order you to kiss me properly.”

Good luck, he’s not going to make it easy.

Raju laughs again, warm and fond and pleased with everything. He bites at the inside of his lip, thinking. There isn't too much that he can do without moving, but maybe if he does move Francis will grumble about it, which wouldn't be a bad thing at all. So. There's Francis' face against his shoulder and neck, inaccessible; but there's skin visible at the back of his neck and it's tempting and Raju gives in to it, moving not his head but his hand, wiggling the tips of his fingers in a line up Francis' neck and over his jaw, and then Raju begins pinching gently at his cheek right at the border where Francis' skin meets his.

"But your lips are so far away," he grins. "You won't move even a little for me?"

Well! He should have expected Rama to play a little dirty! But he is a man with 12 siblings, after all, so a few pinches and tickles aren’t going to make him relent just yet. Even if he does want that kiss.

“No, not even a little,” he tells him, hugging him a little more tightly to his body. “Figure out a different way, Ram.”

Raju's grin grows and he wiggles his body, a little to try and loosen Francis' hold on him, but mostly just to feel him. He takes another moment, weighing up his other angles of attack, then tugs the back of Francis' collar down, pressing his lips to the newly exposed skin. Then his lips move up, pressing kisses in a trail that tries to follow the path his fingertips traced a moment ago, at least as far of the angles of their necks allow.

While he does it his other hand moves down, under Francis' shirt and up it, fingertips brushing gently over his stomach and side. "Are you sure?" he asks, between kisses. "'A different way' could mean anything. You might not like it."

He's not terribly mad about the kisses to his neck or the way Rama's fingers seem to be creeping along underneath his shirt. "Or I might adore it," he counters, because so far he likes this method, whatever that is. "Either way you should just bloody do it."

His head turns, but only a little, giving himself a little more room to take a proper breath. "Instead of just threatening it."

Raju chuckles. Without any more fanfare the hand ghosting over Francis’ side starts pinching at it here and there over his skin while his other hand spreads over Francis’ other side in anticipation of Francis trying to move away. He’d been half-planning to stop kissing Francis’ neck as he did it but the best plans make plenty of room for improvisation, and kissing whatever parts of Francis that he can reach feels like the best idea just now.

He should have assumed that the pinching was going to continue, possibly ramped up to an annoying and intolerable degree. Somewhere around the fourth or fifth pinch Crozier starts to writhe in a way that’s clearly searching for a way to get away from the assault.

But he’s also laughing, wheezing slightly with each pinch to his skin, hand twisting in Ram’s bright red coat to keep himself from jolting straight up. He’s resisting in the best way he knows how, by pretending it isn’t that intolerable.

Raju's laughing too, grinning too widely to kiss anything while he does it. It's the first time he's heard Francis' breath wheezing since his injury when it'd meant something entirely different but the glow of the moment keeps the association at a bizarre arm's length; Francis' laugh tended to have that quality even before, and Francis is happy now and Raju is too, a light, easy, playful sort of happiness with the warmth of their lovemaking lingering in his limbs and Francis' fine, strong body writhing under Raju's hand.

He manages his grin long enough to plant a fond kiss near the side of Francis' head and keeps pinching, never focusing on one area for long so there won't be any one direction for Francis to try and escape to. "So?" he asks, laughter lingering somewhere behind his voice. "Do you adore it, then? Should I keep going?"

He ends the question with a pinch that's got a little twist at the end of it, fingers tugging themselves off his skin in a sharp, pointed way. There's an easy way out here, unless Francis really is enjoying himself.

With the little twist at the end of the pinch the onslaught finally becomes intolerable enough to acknowledge it. He yelps against his shoulder and pulls his head up, "mercy!"

He laughs, bright and unrestricted and trying to wiggle his way out of his grasp now. "Mercy, mercy! No more!"

He can see that maybe if they were getting started with things rather than right at the end how he might want Rama to keep pinching him - there could be certain feelings that go along with a bit of friendly pinching - but right now he needs him to stop so he can kiss him properly.

Raju laughs along with him again, enjoying the sound and the feeling of Francis wiggling against him trying to escape, and enjoying granting that mercy, too, setting his hand to rubbing gentle circles over the spots he'd been pinching before.

"I did warn you," he says, voice deep with satisfaction, and ducks his head to press a firm kiss to Francis' lips. The pressure of his lips, the feeling of him there, and under Raju's hands, and their legs tangled together, the lingering glow from Francis' laughter — it's perfect. Everything about the moment is perfect. His gently circling hand slows, distracted, and Raju slows the kiss, savouring it.

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.

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.

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.”

"Well," he breathes out, his laugh quiet against Francis' skin before he kisses it again, "I'm not stopping you."

His hands let go of Francis' collar, smoothing over his shoulders. Raju is only enjoying himself, enjoying his lips against Francis' skin, the pressure of his body and the soft shape of his jaw. And if that ends with Francis enjoying himself too, well, that doesn't mean he can't be making up for cheating Raju out of that victory does it?

“There’s a lot I could do, but I need to know just how angry you are about your loss.” He tilts his head, strands of hair falling over his cheek. His eyes are very much still on Ram’s lips, thinking about the heat from the kisses and how nice they’d be if they were peppered all over. Throat, perhaps, chest, maybe even lower if Rama was feeling particularly playful.

“Helps me gauge,” he clarifies delightedly. He can be playful like this, but there’s something about it coupled with his youthful appearance that just makes him all the more eager.

Raju has to move away from Francis' neck to look at him. But on the other hand, he does get to look at him. He lifts a hand from Francis' shoulder to brush his hair back from his face, fingertips brushing Francis' temple, very gently tucking his hair behind his ear. Once that's done his hand stays there, fingers curled and still brushing at Francis' head.

"Furious," he murmurs and his grin grows, his thumb moving over Francis' ear fondly. "Can't you tell?"

All those loving touches? “Absolutely, very obviously furious,” he smiles, feeling his ears grow warm for other reasons besides Ram’s heated skin.

He turns his head, hoping to move quickly enough to catch Rama’s palm for a kiss. His hands finds his lower back again and he tugs his body closer. “But would you protest if I made it up to you here?”

Francis kisses at Raju's palm and Raju's fingers curl, as if some part of him's trying to capture the feeling of his lips just there and hold it. Then he tugs and Raju lets out a hard, happy breath, feeling even more of Francis against him, and the soft-edged thing inside him concentrates even more, and he doesn't think he could stop smiling if he tried to.

"We're on the ground now, aren't we? What more do we need?"

He can't think of a single reason not to, right here, do whatever it is Francis is wanting to do. The cold would stop him before, if nothing else did, but he's as far as he can imagine being from cold now.

Isn't the typical answer to that four walls and a fireplace? But Rama is still burning hot, and he doesn't seem opposed to the idea of capitalizing on the rush by doing something untoward out in the open like this. There isn't a soul around, and their home is fair distance away, and the more that he thinks about it the more he'd really like to have him now.

He grabs Ram's leg and hitches it up over his hip, fitting them together nice and snugly as he presses most of his weight against Ram, and Ram in turn against the tree behind him. "I see, you would have been fine up in the tree after all."

Francis moves Raju's leg up and over his hip, around them, locking the two of them together. Raju's smile grows, delighted at the movement, the feeling, and bends his leg to ensure Francis stays exactly where he is. "Mm," he agrees, voice low, and winds an arm around Francis' neck. "As high up as we could go. The very top, with the world stretched out beneath us."

Would that have been possible? Definitely not. But possible isn't really a factor for Raju right now, feeling this way. Between the rush of the chase up and down the trees, and Francis, and the way his leg around Francis' waist is stirring something fiery underneath the happiness, Raju could do anything at all.

He wonders if Rama is hot enough to keep the both of them warm. Well. Easiest way to find out is to just try, isn’t it? But right now he wants to kiss him again, that gorgeous smile that lights up Ram’s face so tempting and sweet that he just wants to eat him up whole. He surges forward again, heat immediately burning against his lips as he kisses him hard.

Rama’s body, tucked up so snugly against his own, is giving him just enough friction to build on, but it isn’t enough. It isn’t nearly enough. His right hand has more practice with all the various layers of clothes, so the left stays put as his right snakes between them and starts to unfasten and tug at their trousers.

Raju laughs, wiggling to give more room — or maybe only to make the journey of Francis' hand more interesting, who's to say — as he sends his own free hand down between them to help, moving it in concert with Francis' as instinctively as he had when sharing climbing space with him. It's easy, knowing what Francis is pulling at or unbuttoning now without even looking and doing just the thing he needs to make it happen, and doing it.

"We'll have to take them off at least a little," he murmurs, smile wicked. "Unless you'd prefer a wet walk home."

"Thank god for long coat, mn?" He doesn't relish the thought of baring his entire arse to the cold, but he thinks he can hitch their trousers around their thighs to prevent going full exposure. Rama may be hot to the touch right now, but he's not completely impervious to the cold. Things might still freeze if left out too long.

But once bare skin is touching bare skin he's far less rational. Once his hand is back in Ram's hair he pulls him in for another kiss, far more playful than their last. He bites his lower lip sharply and laughs; the youth must have poisoned his brain, because he's not thinking one bit about where they are or if people might be able to see them from the path.

Raju laughs, warm, too warm for the layers he's wearing and savouring the combination of cold air and soft, warm skin touching his. "You call that making it up to me?" he teases, the hand that'd helped Francis bare them to each other moving to wrap itself around one or the other or both of them. There's something about doing this for Francis, and something about being done for by Francis, and there's time enough to do both. Right now he's too happy and eager for more, too impatient to wait for Francis to give them more of that friction himself. "Biting me that way? I can bite too, you know."

“I wish you would,” be growls playfully, teething gritting as Ram’s hand roams between them. He’s more than happy to let Ram touch first; it allows him to focus on keeping them both upright and pressed against the tree. It also allows him to lean forward and take his earlobe into his mouth, biting there too just to tease a little more.

Raju makes a brief, pleased noise in the back of his throat, his hand around them twitching to tighten just for an instant before it keeps moving. Raju feels wonderful, and Francis feels wonderful against him, and Raju wants to feel him, and his hand moves a little faster than he realises, a little faster than it normally would without anything to smooth the friction of the movement. His leg drifts down from Francis hip to rub itself down the back of Francis' thigh.

"I can't very well like this, can I?" Raju's other arm unhooks itself from around Francis' neck as he speaks, so he can draw his fingers down over the exposed slivers of soft skin between Francis' thigh and his hip before giving a quick pinch. "Not with my ear in your mouth."

The pinch makes the urge to bite and leave his mark on him even more insistent. God, he wants him, wants him in ways that he hadn't ever considered wanting from a man before. He tugs on his earlobe and pulls back with a low, delighted laugh.

"You're doing much more important things right now." He illustrates his point by pushing his hips forward, making Ram's hand push against his own stomach.

"Oh?" Raju grins, his freer hand keeping its fingertips moving over that juncture between hip and thigh, trying to see how far in he can get his hand with Francis trying to keep his trousers at least most of the way up. Either forcing his hand in is going to make them start to fall, or he's going to find room to cup Francis' balls in there. It feels like a win either way.

"And what's that? The important thing? You mean something like this?" The hand around the two of them moves up again and its fingertips rub around the head of Francis' cock. The gesture isn't a graceful one, not like it would be if Francis' was the only one in Raju's hand, but he trusts the touch and the twist of his hand is effective. The motion isn't for Raju's own sake, exactly, but he takes a sharp breath when he does it.

Crozier definitely isn't strong enough to handle being fondled this thoroughly while holding two people upright at the same time, but by god he's going to try, if not for his sake then for Rama's, who deserves a little fun now and again. And he seems to be enjoying himself, as absolutely ridiculous as it is to be standing in the woods half-naked and groping each other.

He lets out a quiet shudder as Ram starts getting more specific with his hands. He's obviously searching for some kind of reaction, some kind of response that would make Crozier's knees buckle. Touching him like that, wandering hand with all that heat from his palm and silky cock against his, is proving to be just as distracting as probably intended.

"Yes," he gasps, hips bucking forward. "Yes, like that. I'm going to drop you if you don't stop."

Raju's laugh is deep and all breath, most of his focus going to the movements of his hands and everything that he's feeling there. "Then you'll have even more to make up for, won't you?" His searching hand finds what it's looking for as he finishes saying it and explores the landscape there with its fingertips. He can only be so careful when he can't see what he's doing, and he wouldn't be in the mood to be careful anyway except that it might get to Francis more thoroughly if he was.

His hand moves down and up again, their cocks sliding sideways against one another in his grip, and Raju shudders, in his chest and shoulders and breath, all shaking for an instant against Francis. The hand around Francis' sack twitches. "How do you feel now, Francis?" he breathes. "Like dropping me?"

The cheek! And worst part is Ram knows exactly what he’s doing, teasing Crozier while he’s got a very firm (though pleasant) grip on his stones. “I feel like fucking you into the ground,” he growls.

In fact, being horizontal seems more practical with each passing second. He freezes his left hand to splay it beside Ram’s head against the tree, hitching Ram up again by the thigh in some ploy to gain some control back. With Ram’s hand on him there’s only so much he can do; he can’t really buck forward or grind into him, and he can’t spare a hand of his own right now, so he’s left with his mouth which eventually finds a spot on his neck to kiss.

The noise Raju makes is as much delight as it is shock. He wonders if fucking him into the ground is a figure of speech, Francis' habit from thinking about women when he feels this way, or if there's something specific that he's thinking of. If Francis proposes it in earnest, Raju would be delighted to find out. But maybe he doesn't have to wait.

"Oh?" He rolls his head to the side to give Francis' mouth room to move, hand over them moving up and turning its wrist and moving down again, hand on Francis' sack moving its fingers in small, idle motions. "Is that so? Why don't you tell me, what exactly do you want to do?"

While he's completely in Raju's hands, while he can't afford to so much as twitch his hips too far. The knowledge of it's in Raju's voice and in his eyes when he rolls his head just far enough back to look at Francis, the self satisfaction and the eagerness and the joy.

He takes advantage of the expanded area of neck available to him and covers it in kisses, biting gently at a spot that would be visible just above his collar and swiping his tongue over the mark. How hard the bite directly correlates to how gentle the touch from Ram’s hands; he knows he has him wrapped around his finger.

He knows vaguely what he wants - an idea, a notion, something talked about but nothing he’s ever experienced or done first hand. But he suddenly wants it very badly, to be buried inside Ram’s body, to be enveloped by him entirely and listen to all the noises he’d make as he fucked him sweetly. He knows himself, he’d be embarrassed to say if this were any other situation, but Rama has him by the stones and he’s looking at him like his very stare could set him ablaze.

“I want to be inside of you,” he says, knowing full-well that it’s Ram who is in charge, it’s Ram who has the final say-so. “I want to have you.”

There's hardly time to experiment with that wonderful tie between the minute changes in the angle of his gripping fingers and the strength of the bites over his neck; Francis' answer is very clear, and in the moments after he gives it Raju devotes his attention to meeting Francis' eyes and everything he sees there. "You do," he says earnestly, and decides: "If we run home. Can you be ready again, by then?"

Because he's going to finish them here first, of course. Then, after that, there's no reason they shouldn't be able to try something else.

His heart threatens to jump out of his chest and up his throat as Ram locks eyes with him. He inhales sharply; what does he make of what he wants? And then Ram makes his decision.

“Yes,” he tells him immediately, no not an ounce of hesitation. By god, he can be ready again for this man. “God, yes.”

Crozier kisses him again, both of his hands grabbing for Ram’s arse as he encourages him to move his hand again.

With a noise of deep satisfaction Raju does move, feeling his thighs tighten as Francis grabs his arse — both hands — and resisting the urge to buck his hips, all the rest of his muscles tightening briefly with the need to keep himself still. His hands need the room to work. His one moves, quickly again, up and over the both of them, around, down again, while his other tickles Francis' sack fondly before moving for his perineum. Francis had mentioned this, hadn't he? Before his ribs had healed, when they'd been...

Raju doesn't have it in him to look back at the memory. Everything is focused on the now, on the way Francis' skin feels against his in his hand, the way it feels under his fingertip as Raju pushes and scrapes carefully, experimentally. His eyes have fixed themselves on Francis', his lips stay parted, panting out warm air, and he is all sensation, all joy, Francis' joy.

As much as he wants to kiss Rama’s smile and feel that obvious delight against his mouth, he has the mental capacity still to recognize when the attempt might throw them both off. Instead he settles for leaning his face against Ram’s, alternating between that or resting his head on his shoulder, groans becoming louder and louder the more Rama persists with his touch.

He can’t recall the conversation that would have led to this, nor anything else for that matter. He’s starting to see stars behind his eyes and feel that familiar tension in his abdomen - building pleasure and building pleasure, pressed against this wonderful, beautiful man who laughs with his eyes and hands and shoulders and kisses him with such unadulterated passion. He groans again, this time as a warning, or about as close as he can manage.

Between the noise and the tension in Francis' body Raju catches his meaning and shifts a little, moves the angle of his hand, and hopefully when Francis finishes the mess will go in some harmless direction. He could make certain if he moved more but he doesn't want to move, he wants to feel Francis' body against his, in his care, the line of Francis' side against his and his hip under the crook of Raju's knee and Francis' head against his shoulder.

"I love... the noises you make," Raju manages, roughly between hard breaths panting out against the side of Francis' face, hands moving. "I'm making you sound that way. Let me hear you."

Crozier can't quite wrap his mind around the fact that Ram seems to enjoy the way he sounds. Seems to enjoy him, seems to like those things that he's never considering worth liking, seems to love those things.

"Christ, but you do love me," he whispers, as though it's only just occurred to him. It's entirely ridiculous and he knows it, and he laughs helplessly into Ram's shoulder, though it quickly turns into a strangled groan. He can't last, he won't, he doesn't want to. His fingers dig hard into the muscles of his arse, spending into Rama's hand with those same noises Rama professes to love so much.

It's the words that tip Rama over, the words and the laughter after them, even more than the fingers digging into his arse — and it is Rama in these moments, with the you do love me whispered next to his ear in that voice — and his usually silent orgasm comes with a laugh, happiness spilling over. He lifts his cheek from Francis' head to see snow melting in a spreading circle from around his feet, smiles, then gives Francis a last fond touch, shuddering at the feeling over his own sensitive skin too, and tucks them back into their trousers, turning his head to kiss at whatever part of Francis' face is nearest.

"You only just realised?" he murmurs after a quiet moment, laughter still in his voice. "I haven't been doing half the job I thought I had."

He can feel the moment Rama starts to tense, but the laugh - god, the laugh is like flint hitting steel, it sparks in his stomach and chest - makes his entire body shake in his arms. All those sculpted muscles on a lean and healthy body quaking in obvious delight, and he’s the one responsible.

He picks his head up as well and kisses him back, because yes, he only just realized, but just this part. Just this little thing, that Ram loves the noises he makes when they’re intimate, is brand new information. Someone loves him for something as little as the noises he makes.

Raju kisses him back a great deal more slowly than he'd have been able to a few minutes ago, fingers sliding up Francis' sides, palms over Francis' stomach and his chest. He pulls back smiling, quiet for another moment while he enjoys the close view of Francis' eyes.

"Come on," he decides happily, hand sliding down Francis' arm for his hand as he steps away, turning, with no regard for the loose, wobbly feeling at his knees. It'll be another challenge, like the way the snow melts under his shoes as he moves over it. He isn't sure if he's run before feeling quite this way. "I said we'd run back, didn't I? Are you as quick on the ground as you are in the air?"

It’s the only time he’s been eager to let go of Ram, and it’s only when he reminds himself of the promise of more. “I don’t think I’m nearly as fast as you,” he laughs, trying to straighten out his clothes and roll up his sleeves. He’s worked up a bit of a sweat.

“But I’m willing to try.”

He grins, noticing the puddles around Rama’s feet and side-stepping one of them to find his mark. All that burning skin, he finally realizes must have a fire burning on the inside instead of the out.

“Ready? Go!”

Despite the wobbly knees he somehow finds it within himself to sprint forward, all that blood resettling elsewhere in his body.

Raju watches him rolling up his sleeves, biting his lip over a smile. When Francis yells go without waiting at all after his ready Raju's smile breaks out into a grin and Raju dashes behind him. It seems like Francis is having an easier time finding his balance than Raju, those wobbly knees giving him more trouble than he'd expected. He feels like he could run faster than the sun, but the happiness let loose by their lovemaking is running lose inside his body, distracting it when he tells it to go. He feels loose all over and if he hadn't spent so long going back and forth through these woods in every moment he could stand to spend outside, he might have fallen on his face at least a couple times by now. He does come close.

He doesn't manage a jump quite high enough and only mostly clears a log, stumbling on the landing. "Have you ever waited a full count before a race?" he calls to Francis, laughing. "Or do you always cheat this way?"

“I don’t always race!” he laughs brightly.

Crozier isn’t as interested as winning this one as he had in their race to climb up and down the tree. He’s also not nearly as fast, and so when Ram stumbles he was only about three or so pages away, close enough that he can turn about and grab the stumbling man by the arm. Mid-hold he changes his mind again and takes him by the hand, running forward again with Ram’s right hand firmly clenched in his left.

Raju lets out a hard, happy breath, only remembering to look away from Francis a moment later, luckily before any of the scenery reminds him he ought to be watching out for it. He's starting to breathe more heavily, his legs are working, he'd be surprised if his skin wasn't flushed darker, from the exertion or from Francis or from simple happiness, or all three. "Then maybe you don't know the rules at all!" he counters, shifting their grip to link their fingers more tightly together. "How do you expect to win if you're taking me with you?"

"I'm winning right now," he laughs breathlessly, yanking him closer. Close enough to accidentally brush his shoulder against Ram's as they continue to hurry down the path together, though it does slow him up some. "I'm with you."

Yes, yes, horribly romantic to the point of being a little sickening, but what does he care right now? He's in love and full of energy and everything feels just a bit brighter in the moment.

Any cooling down his body might have started is undone when he hears it; Raju's smile is fit to split his face, his grip tightens. He hasn't missed the way pulling him close has slowed Francis down and lets himself stumble again, this time toward Francis to bump into him, wanting to tease, slow him down further.

"Then we'll just have to share the prize," Raju says, gaze fixed on him again, now counting completely on Francis and his own peripheral vision to warn him to one side or another for logs or trees or dips in the path. He has more important things to be looking at just now.

Crozier's balance and concentration begins to suffer as Rama smiles, completely and utterly dazzled by him. He laughs quietly as the shoulder-bump causes him to misstep, but he yanks Rama with him as he crookedly walks along the path.

He watches the forest ahead, even though he can feel Ram's eyes on him and is oh-so-tempted to turn and pin him to a tree again, and finally responds with an affectionate squeeze of his hand. "Ah, I think we'd enjoy sharing, don't you?" he laughs, turning quickly to give into the temptation of Rama's face being so close by stealing a peck to the cheek.

"I think I'd enjoy getting inside a lot faster," Raju answers, grinning at Francis for a moment more before looking ahead of them to try and take the lead, speeding up. He'd leaned after Francis at the peck on his cheek, unthinking and helpless not to give in, at least for a moment, to the urge to follow him and move closer. But the faster they get to a place with real privacy the faster he can get just as close as he wants to, and that's worth holding out for.

He thinks he’d enjoy that very much himself. He lets Rama yank him forward and starts to jog again, seeing the path up to their cabin in no time at all. They didn’t get very far in their walk before they’d gotten sidetracked, after all.

It’s Crozier’s turn to start running again, but he doesn’t let go of Ram’s hand. He won’t until they’re inside and he can have his hands all over him, at the very least.

Raju laughs and puts on an extra burst of speed too, the heavy tug of their linked hands making his feet even lighter, and he doesn't bother to close the door before he's pulling Francis by that hand and crashing into him to kiss him, without much regard for how well or badly he's fitting their faces and bodies together.

"Take this damn blanket off me," he rasps as he pulls back, his free hand tugging in an enthusiastic, undirected way at Francis' collar. There must be a cold air blowing in from the open door, but the happiness putting heat off him like a furnace hasn't cooled and he can't feel it. "And everything under it too. It's hot in here."

It occurs to him sharply and suddenly - he might get to see Rama completely bare. It hasn’t happened before, all their encounters have involved some form of clothing, little fits and starts of nudity but never anything close to naked due to the cold. He’s admired Rama in pieces, his stomach or his arm or the feel of his chest and thigh under his hand, but the thought of potentially seeing all at once is absolutely thrilling.

“Christ, yes.”

Crozier isn’t going to worry about his own clothes until Ram’s good and bare. He takes the order to heart, yanking off the blanket and then his other layers, peeling one by one off at record speed with his two hands until Ram is standing chest out in front of him. And god, the wait was worth it. He’s sculpted like a god, perky tits with dark-colored nipples, strong shoulders and lean waist, and — surprisingly very little chest hair.

He’s gorgeous, of course, and Crozier unabashedly stares and touches, allowing just this brief pause before his hands are on the waistband of his trousers.

Raju laughs, forced to abandon any attempts at getting Francis' clothes off in order to move his arms, allow Francis what he wants. And Francis wants it, seeming just as hungry as Raju, the two of them just as in step in this as they'd been running here. It's flattering, the way Francis pauses even now to look, once he's half done. Raju knows he isn't what he'd been in Delhi, spending so much time enjoying himself with Francis instead of training. And he eats more than he had in the barracks. Still, whatever Francis wants must be what he finds, and sharp satisfaction spreads over Raju's face as Francis' fingertips and his stare move over Raju's skin.

"You like it?" he breathes, leaning forward to tug at Francis' jumper now that Francis can take care of shedding the bottom half of Raju's layers without Raju's attention. "You should show me, too. I never get to see you."

“You can see me in a minute, don’t be so damned impatient,” he chuckles, trying to playfully swat him away. “I averted my eyes when we were at the hot springs, like a gentleman, when all I truly wanted was to stare like a lecher. I’m getting my fill now.”

He has him toe off his boots and then starts tugging the layers down all at once to expose his lower stomach and hips. “Worth the wait,” he mutters to himself, breath hitching in his throat as he pushes down his trousers and drawers and lets them unceremoniously puddle around Rama’s feet.

God damn. It’s obscene, how beautiful he looks, how utterly perfect. His hand fits just-so as he grasps his hip, letting his eyes roam and drink him in from lower legs up to the nape of his neck.

What a stupid place this is, to be so cold all of the time.

Despite the injustice of Francis' own clothes Raju helps, watching Francis' face fixedly, somehow not minding everything covering Francis up quite yet because the way Francis is looking at him...

There's even more left in him to set alight because the way Francis is looking at him lights something up, something Raju hadn't expected to feel quite the way it does, and after a moment he realises it's because the way Francis is staring is new.

Seetha had looked, of course. She'd looked, and she'd loved him. But she'd been familiar with his body, in one way or another, for all the life she could remember living. They'd both been, with the other. They'd treasured one another but, he realises, hadn't ever thought to marvel quite this way. Maybe it had never occurred to her, the way it had never occurred to him. Francis, now, is looking at him like he's a wonder, a revelation, and the pleasure of being looked at that way by this man overflows into another flush over Raju's skin, at his chest and neck, across his cheeks as he stands there, trousers pooled around his ankles, unmoving even as the hand on his hip flares into pinprick feeling in every little place Francis is touching. Raju's chin lifts as he breathes in slowly, expression awe and helpless pleasure. His hands curl into happy fists.

"Your face," Raju murmurs and then expectantly, hoping to hear some elaboration on the topic, maybe the same heat in Francis' words that Raju's feeling from his gaze now: "You do like it. As much as that?"

“My face,” he echos distractedly, finally daring to caress his chest with the lightest brush of his fingertips. He follows down his sternum and under the sweep of his pectorals, back up over one nipple to follow the slope of his collarbone. “Oh, yes,” he whispers, eyes wide and voice awed as though beholding something holy. “I like it very much.”

Rama belongs on an altar - his bed will serve, of course. He follows his fingers as they sweep along his shoulder and then back down to his hip, eyes drinking in what he can see of his lower half. Strong thighs, pretty cock, muscled abdomen and pelvis, shapely legs. “You’re the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen,” he tells him breathlessly. “My god. The whole picture…it’s so much more than I could have imagined. I need to see you on our bed. I want you laid out for me so I can touch and taste all these perfect pieces of you.”

Raju's laugh is a quiet, giddy little huff of air, his gaze fixed on Francis and his lips pulling into a smile he couldn't stop if he'd wanted to. The more Francis brushes against Raju with his fingertips so carefully with that awe on his face the more Raju leans in toward him, the fists he's holding his hands in the only thing keeping them at his sides. But it's too... too wonderful, being looked at that way, touched that way, as if something worth that awe is happening just because Raju is standing here all bared to him, to break the spell by reaching back no matter how strong the pull Raju feels to touch him.

The sweep of Francis' fingers makes Raju shudder, the trail it leaves over his skin and the joy filling him up hardening his cock, too. "Beautiful?" he murmurs, not sure why the word is striking him so powerfully now when he's never cared for the word one way or the other before, from anywhere but Francis' lips. But the way Francis is looking at him. He isn't even asking Raju to do anything to look at him like some treasure of immeasurable value that he'd never expected to stand in the presence of. To stand here and be seen is enough, the end unto itself.

"If you don't take your clothes off first," he promises, voice low and eager and smiling, "I'm going to tear them off."

Can he? It doesn't matter. He'll find a way. He has a knife, somewhere.

“Tear them off and you’ll have to mend them later,” he teases, gentle caresses pausing for a moment. He cups Rama’s face in his hands, eyes drinking the graceful slope of his nose and his dark, thick eyelashes and brow. His eyes, glittering bright and half-moon shaped from the smile that reaches it, lock with his and he smiles in adoration.

“Beautiful,” he repeats. He tips his head forward and presses a kiss to his lips; if his mouth is occupied then he can’t protest. But he does relent after a minute of kissing, what started slow and sweet growing hot and heavy again. He pulls back and finally allows Rama to help him out of his clothes.

Raju'd started pressing into the kiss, his hands finally allowed to uncurl and touch and already slipping underneath Francis' jumper, sliding over skin, and when Francis pulls back Raju's hands slide all the way up, pulling everything off Francis' top half at once whether Francis is ready or not to keep it from getting stuck on his arms or his face.

"You got to look at me," he says, half-trying to make it sound like a complaint and half focusing on unbuttoning Francis' trousers. "Now let me look at you. All this waiting, Francis."

He did get to look at him, and he’s going to keep looking at him. This is just a temporary setback. “It’s terrible, isn’t it? All that waiting,” he chuckles softly, his gaze drifting down to his own chest as he pushes his wayward hair from his face.

Oh. That’s right, the scars left by the tuunbaq is gone. He’d almost forgotten about them entirely, but it strikes him odd not to see it on himself, those obvious claw marks as signature a marker as his stub of a hand. He blinks away some of his surprise and looks up at him with a sheepish smile.

Raju looks up from Francis' trousers long enough to meet Francis' sheepish smile with his warm one. "If you'd taken these all off earlier you'd have had more time to get used to it," he teases, sliding Francis' trousers down along with his pants beneath them, hands lingering over Francis' hips. Raju steps in close to him, and his hands slide behind Francis, and Raju gives a sigh of contentment when his hands settle to cup half each of Francis' arse.

"This here," he says, his hands jiggling their cargo for a moment. "You said it's different now, earlier. How different?"

His eyebrows go right up to his hairline at Rama's unashamed grope. "You tell me," he laughs, shimmying a little closer, wanting to bask in the heat of his touch. "Does it feel different? I can't remember if you'd ever had yourself a decent goosing of my rear end."

"Not half so often as I'd like," Raju grins, enjoying the nearness of him, of their stomachs against one another, their thighs, the parts of Francis' body that touch warm and soft against Raju's stiffening cock. "I'll have to be very thorough this time. I might take notes. But I'll need to lay you out to get a good look. You were saying something about a bed, weren't you?"

"Notes! You'll have time for notes?" He pushes his hips forward cheekily, just enough to get in a bit of a satisfying jolt for the two of them. "Once we find a bed you won't be thinking about notes. You'll have to let go of my arse first though."

He doesn't want him to let go, but if they separate now they won't have to until much, much later.

The sudden forward motion of Francis' hips earns him a quick shaky inhale from Raju and he ducks his head over Francis' shoulder, breathing. "Mm," he hums as he straightens again, expression considering as if he has to think carefully over Francis' proposed exchange. Letting go now for pleasure in a minute... He thinks over it. His feet slip out from the puddle of clothes at his ankles very slowly, trying to hold Francis' gaze to keep him from looking down and noticing it. Then Raju pinches sharply at the soft flesh under one of his hands and jumps back in the direction of the bedroom, just out of range of easy retaliation unless Francis follows, and watches him expectantly, cheeks starting to hurt from his grin. Of course Raju is going in that direction, to lead him there or follow him or be chased, but there's no reason not to make a game out of it on the way.

He helps, astonished. He should have guessed that cheeky brat was going to try something like that! He has to wiggle from his own trousers in an undignified manner before he can give chase, but give chase he does once he’s completely free of his clothing and able to dash right after him.

Running around stark naked with half an erection - not something he ever pictured for himself at this stage in his life. It’s delightful; he loves being able to play games again. He tries to get close enough to him to catch him and throw him onto the bed, breathless laugh and the slapping of bare feet on the floor alerting Rama to Crozier’s close proximity,

Raju tries to dart here and there but it's only for an instant, for the look of the thing, and when he runs into the bedroom and Francis throws him on the bed his laughter is breathless too, surprised and delighted. Before he's even finished bouncing on the mattress he's reaching out, trying to snatch at Francis' arm and lean back. If Francis falls onto the bed with him, wonderful. If he makes Raju work to get him there, that's wonderful, too. He can't imagine anything Francis might do right now that wouldn't be.

Crozier doesn’t stop himself from falling into the bed right along with him, body landing half-on, half-off of Rama’s. He takes advantage of this new vantage point to start covering his chest in kisses, sighing softly as his lips touch his supple skin. He’s only been able to touch so far, but now that Rama’s bare he wants to taste and appreciate him properly. His lips travel down to one of his nipples and his tongue traces the skin until it puckers and hardens.

Raju's breathing is rougher, and when Francis licks around one of his nipples Raju shivers, starting to roll onto his side and stopping himself before he can get far at all, not wanting to move Francis' mouth. His legs bend as he resists the urge to curl up. Ridiculous that he should feel ticklish at this, too, that last time he'd felt that way in a moment almost like this hadn't been an odd fluke. But it's wonderful, too, Francis touches him in ways no one has in years, in a lifetime, and it's wonderful.

"Careful," Raju rasps, a hand reaching for Francis' shoulder and scrabbling at it for a moment before grasping it. "I may not last long this time either. You're too..."

He thinks over it for a second, panting a little, but can't think of a single word, or even a few. Too everything. He's too happy just now to pinpoint the feeling's source.

Crozier lifts his head with a playful little smack of his lips. “If you come before I’m able to fuck you, I’m going to be very cross with you,” he teases, brushing his fingers along his side.

He squirmed like he was feeling ticklish again - as though he’s not going to explore that further, especially as it means getting to put his hands all over him. He’s been dying to do exactly this, and he grins wickedly and moves his fingers up to underneath his arms, then down to his sides, then on the inside of his thighs, searching for those sensitive areas as he basks in how gorgeous Ram is like this, how lucky he feels to get to feast in this way. Eyes and mouth and fingers, everything is devouring him like he might not get a second chance to drink him in.

That sounds like a challenge, to last as long as he can, and he feels himself rising — well — to meet it, but can't figure out whether the wonderful feeling of Francis' fingertips tracing their terrible path over Raju's skin makes that challenge easier to meet or that much harder. At the touch under his arms Raju takes a sharp breath, arms spreading in a sudden movement and then going still, muscles tense and fingers curling into the blanket. The muscles of his stomach and his thighs and calves clench as Francis brushes over them but at the touch to his thighs his legs twitch too, trying to close against themselves before he lets out a hard breath and opens them wider, pressing his head back against the mattress.

"Francis" he warns, tense and happily. "I'm not going to kick you. But—" But he might. He won't. He might. He wonders if he should warn Francis to be careful again.

On one hand, he doesn’t fancy getting kicked, but he doeswants to see him laugh. “It would serve me right, wouldn’t it?”

He moves to one side of Ram and continues to search for a ticklish spot, all the while continuing to admire every part of him. He’s under no illusions that this good thing will last, but for the moment he just wants to lose himself and pretend. Nothing else exists but the two of them.

Francis' comment gets a breathless, amused noise, shaky with the ghost of laughter either from Francis' joke or Francis' damned fingers. Raju twitches away as Francis explores and then moves back, breathing unsteadily through his mouth. "You said it, not me," he agrees, fingers clenching in the blanket under him before he forces them to straighten again. "I thought you wanted to fuck me, notAah—"

That protest, it turns out, was badly timed, and a particular movement of Francis' fingers pushes a startled, urgent noise out of him, something that might have become laughter if he hadn't clamped down on it so fast. He does it without deciding to, without thinking about it; the muscles of his throat tighten over it as his muscles elsewhere twitch and tense. The noise he lets out after is another breathless one, at himself more than the tickling.

"Than drive me..." he pauses, more careful this time, to see whether Francis is going to continue, and once it's safe finishes, "crazy, Francis," in a gasp, grinning up at the ceiling.

Edited 2024-09-22 22:34 (UTC)

He isn’t sure why Rama fights so hard not to laugh - a habit repeated now as Crozier searches for that spot that’ll send him straight through the roof. It’s stubbornness, something about self-discipline or control, or winning, though the why doesn’t matter as much as how he’s going to get him to break.

“Why can’t I do both?” he says with a smirk, letting up the touch only to attack him again in a different spot. “It’s more fun to drive you mad. Everything else can wait until I get a laugh out of you.”

Preferably with an adorable little wheeze and wriggle, maybe a tiny plea to have mercy. A man can dream, can’t he? And right now this is very much what he wants from Ram.

Edited 2024-09-23 17:18 (UTC)

It isn’t so much the places Francis is tickling that eat at his resolve but the unrelenting nature of it. But certain places do get more of a stifled, choked-off reaction than others: His nipples, of course. His armpits, the insides of his elbows, his sides, the skin between his hips. The tops of his thighs. If Francis risks lower, behind his knees, the sensitive skin there and Francis’ persistence, and the smirk in Francis’ voice will win him a burst of laughter, sharp and delighted, before Raju wrests his voice under control again. His legs twitch hard and then still, and fall open wider.

“Everything else?” he wheezes, feet scrabbling at the blanket more to ease the part of him that wants to squirm away from Francis’ fingers than to try and get any real distance. “It’s not that important.”

Then, mostly to add another protest and a little just for the pleasure of feeling it inside his mouth: “Francis!” he says again.

He drops his head down onto Rama's chest at that laugh, joining him with his own little pleased chuckle. His whole body thrums with desire for him, the elation on his face and that beautiful laugh making his heart twist almost painfully in his chest. The joy is so large it feels overwhelming, like he couldn't possibly contain all that he feels for this man.

"Rama!" he laughs, finally pulling himself up. He pushes the hair back from his face and looks down at him, grin slowly fading from his face as the heat in him takes over fully. Rama on his back like this, fully naked, legs spread and chest heaving - he's going to remember this moment for the rest of his life. He needs to, every single little detail needs to be remembered, from the way his body hair looks in the faint light to the twitching of the muscles as he laughs and flexes and moves.

"Rama." His voice is low now, want apparent.

Everything about this is intimate, there's not a single thing in or around him right now that's not, but Francis dropping his head onto Raju's chest is one more thing; there's a vulnerability and a trust in the gesture that clenches in his chest and throat, and he knows all this pressure inside him would be bursting into a fire some place around them if the feeling — the happiness — hadn't already been turning itself toward making him warm all over. Warm enough to go without anything covering him up at all in a place where he hasn't worn less than two layers even inside since the moment he found enough spare clothes to do it.

Any more and he'll be sweating. He thinks it absently as he watches Francis watching him, the fruitless squirming to escape Francis' fingers slowed to a stop.

The tone in Francis' voice signals a change in their game; Francis has got enough of the first thing that he'd wanted, then. The expression that spreads over Raju's face is hungry and wicked. One of his arms is propping him up by the elbow; the other reaches out and grasps the back of Francis' neck, wanting to pull him close enough to kiss him, close enough to feel his lips and anything else that might happen to press against him as Francis moves.

He meets the kiss and swears he can taste the heat on his tongue. It swirls in his mouth and burns all the way down into his belly, lighting him up with like it’s a bonfire.

Now he has to figure out logistics. Goddamn it. But he wants what he wants, in his kisses and touches and that glint of mischief in his eyes that Rama wants it just as badly, and so he needs to follow through. His body is never going to be more ready to please and keep up with Rama than it is now. He pulls himself away, his swollen lips beckoning and inviting him for another quick kiss against his better judgement.

But he finally does move away, having considered what they might need. Some kind of oil? Or grease? Christ, that doesn’t sound pleasant at all, but he needs to be confident here. He’d asked for this, after all.

Well. Does he? Does he really have to be confident and self-assured?

“I’ve never done this,” he laughs quietly, brushing his fingers across Ram’s abdomen fondly. “I think we’ll need oil to ease things. Something from the kitchen or washroom?”

Raju opens his mouth, his first instinct, too, to make some decision about it, authoritatively. He lets out a brief, amused noise instead, reaching out to capture Francis' hand before it can make Raju's stomach twitch again, skin no less sensitive just because Francis has stopped actively trying to tickle him. Francis admitting he doesn't know much about this makes it easier, for Raju to admit it too. Surely it should have the opposite effect but somehow it doesn't. Somehow Francis not knowing doesn't mean that Raju has to guide him anywhere.

"Ah..." He thinks over it, shakes his head. "Or soap, maybe?" he suggests and laughs a little, feeling ridiculous and tightening his grasp on Francis' hand to compensate. "We have enough of that too. Unless we'll need a lot of it."

He can do all these things with Francis, both clothed and completely bare, he can say all manner of filthy things, but for some reason this is the thing that sends a flush into his cheeks. There's something about mixing the everyday with the erotic, feeling this way and talking about the practicalities of the proper material and their supply of it. He almost can't tell it from all the other warmth in him, he feels the colour gather under his cheeks with a different kind of heat.

It's a show of vulnerability, the two of them so usually self-assured admitting they don't know what in the hell to do in this horribly intimate moment, and something Crozier knows he would never show another soul save for this man here. But he doesn't feel embarrassed or like the moment's been sufficiently ruined, it's just...a part of them. A part of this, the experience, being together. They laugh more than any two people ought to, at least from prior experience, but Crozier can't imagine any other way.

"Soap would work," he considers, and of course it's with another laugh. He shakes his head and brings Rama's hand up to his lips for a quick kiss to his knuckles. "Lord, I guess I'll go have a look. Stark naked. You stay right where you are though. I want to come back to this sight."

He has to follow through on this promise and do it quickly, or else Rama would become too tempting as he continues to lie there on the bed looking like a full feast. Crozier stands and hurries to the other room, and is filled with immediate regret. It's goddamned cold. All the more reason to hurry though.

Francis saying he wants to come back to just this sight sends pleasure curling over Raju's face. Raju's body is what it is, he's worked too hard on it to have any doubt about that. But all the work he's put in has been for work, has been for a purpose, and seeing it admired this way, now...

He's happy. He realises it again as he watches Francis walk away, appreciating the way his arse moves with his stride. Even if they weren't both stark naked and about to do something Raju's never done before he'd be happy this way, continuously feeling the enormous revelation again of that same unbelievable fact. But all the same, it is a shame Francis can't walk around that way more often. He wonders, again, how different it had looked before, when Francis had always kept all of his clothes on and looked the way that Raju's used to.

But Francis wants to find him the way he left him, so Raju has himself to attend to; it isn't going to be a chore. Raju keeps his legs spread, watching the doorway as he takes himself in hand, not really grasping, just holding himself there, his hand making small, lazy movements, as much to tease Francis with all he isn't able to do yet as to keep himself half-hard.

Soap winds up being the method chosen, after almost every other option is rejected for being potentially unpleasant - grease or cooking oil, or downright disgusting - lard or some other congealed substance. They’re not animals, and this is Rama and Rama’s body, and the last thing he wants to do is disrespect or somehow desecrate that beautiful man who’s given him so damn much. The soap smells pleasant and is clean - it’ll serve their purpose just fine.

He returns expecting either Ram to have responded to the light command with cheek or with strict sincerity, but he hadn’t anticipated him to take a little imitative. He pauses in the doorway and sucks in his breath, eyes raking over his disciplined hand and sprawled legs on their shared bed. Dear god. As though he hadn’t wanted him badly before, he feels a surge of possession and craving as he walks to him, all those other far away thoughts of other obsessive habits completely forgotten.

Crozier kneels between spread legs, mirroring their position from earlier against the tree, and watches him with utter fascination on his face. His hand touches his knee and then idly slips further up his thigh, fingers brushing against curved muscle leading to coarse, curled hair and sensitive skin. He just touches for now, exploring all the spaces of Rama that he’s only imagined before. He listens for his breath and soft noises, pauses for movements in his hands and on his face when his fingers brush behind his balls and down towards his shapely arse.

Raju watches Francis stop in the doorway, watches him come over and kneel, and Raju's hand keeps idly moving. For all his body stays still, though, he can't stop his smile growing wide over his face. Seeing Francis affected this way, seeing him this way at all— it's good. Francis' hand explores again, making Raju's leg twitch, his thighs tensing, locking his throat thoughtlessly over any urge yet to make a noise. Francis' fingers keep exploring and slip past his balls, behind them and over the sensitive skin there and Raju takes a sudden breath in through his nose. His eyes are fixed, eager and fascinated, on Francis', and he feels the ring of muscle around twitch, tighten and relax, knowing where those searching fingers are going.

For all that he lacks in experience, for all of the thrill in touching him like this for the first time, Rama’s body feels familiar to him, even now. He smiles at that sharp inhale, fingers massaging carefully and he bends forward to kiss Rama’s solid stomach. He moves his mouth along to his navel, dragging his tongue along the rim as he gently prods.

Does he use the soap now? Probably, yes? He doesn’t want this to be uncomfortable for Rama, though he could feel that hard cock of his pressing against his chest as he leaned over him. He sits back up and picks the container up from the bedspread, inspecting it one more time before he opens it up and spreads it over his fingers.

“You’ll tell me if it’s too strange to continue, yes?” he tells him, soap-slicked fingers brushing against his arse again.

The kiss to his stomach makes the muscles there twitch too. Every time Francis touches him anywhere in this way it’s a shock, his body still unused to being exposed, to being looked at like a priceless work of art, to being touched like something holy. With no clothes in the way, Francis can touch him anywhere; it’s effecting Raju in a way he hadn’t expected.

Francis kisses his stomach, and Raju wants always to be touched like this. Francis licks around the rim of Raju’s navel and Raju’s next breath shakes a little, his hand that’d gone still against his cock drifting down to lay against his thigh.

“Yes,” Raju agrees faintly, gaze still fixed, not thinking much on what it is that he’s agreeing to. Once he does he shifts his attention to Francis’ eyes, smiling at him. “It won’t be strange. Not from you.”

He finds himself letting out a giddy, amused breath, almost laughing, and adds: “Not too strange, anyway.”

“Strange enough for a first time,” he agrees, laughing under his breath. His nose brushes against the trail of hair leading from his navel and down his pelvis, just a moment in time that should be so significant but somehow is. He gets to be intimate with this man, this man that he’s fallen in love with; he gets to kiss his stomach and feel the brush of hair against his cheek and chin. If he had the words he’d write poetry about how alive the heat of his skin against his lips makes him feel.

He circles his fingers again, then just finger, feeling the resistance but breaching it gently. He’s care, oh-so-careful, as though holding a very expensive, very precious instrument.

First time. What an odd thought. Whatever was odd about it is washed away, though, as Francis' nose brushes the trail of hair in a place that, like most other places Francis touches him, it feels like a lifetime since he's felt anything human there, skin and warmth and sensation against his skin. It tickles, of course, and Raju's breath hitches. His fingers twitch, uncurl from the blankets, then curl into them again, his other hand joining the first, needing something to grab to keep his grip away from Francis while Francis focuses on... whatever it is he's planning.

The plan is fingers first, apparently. It surprises Raju how tight he is around only one. At the same time Raju feels the impact of that particular feeling of release, of intimacy tinged with something thrilling, that comes of breaching what's expected, of doing it together. At home it had been there every time he and Seetha lay together, with the pretence of Seetha as an unmarried woman to keep up, even if everyone knew. Here with Francis those pretences don't exist but this, the act itself, brings it back again. It's anything but what anyone who knew him at home would think, in this room with this man who puts his finger up Raju's arse the same way he's touched Raju this whole time, like the act is something sacred.

Raju's actually doing this, now. He wants to know more about it, feel more about it. There's the soap slick on the outside of him and Francis' finger, inside but not quite inside, careful. Raju wiggles his hips around Francis' finger, trying for more sensation. "You can do more," he suggests, not sure what he's suggesting exactly but wanting something. "It doesn't hurt, just... tight, I think."

Not hurting is optimal, and at this point more important than seeking his pleasure - though that second point is certainly something he keeps at the forefront of his mind. He wants so much for himself - to touch and taste and look until he’s had his fill of him, a difficult if not impossible task - but he especially wants Ram to feel good.

“Tight,” he repeats quietly, brow furrowing. He can feel for himself that he’s tight, but pushing too much could hurt him. Still, Ram knows his body, so Crozier nods softly and pushes his finger inside, past his first knuckle and on towards the second. He holds his hand still, hearing his own heartbeat echoing in his head, then moves it very slowly, in and out of that tight heat with a shudder traveling from the base of his own spine to his shoulders.

“Still doesn’t hurt?”

He can't see what Francis is doing but his gaze is fixed there anyway, past his own erection, on the movement of Francis' arm. He breathes through parted lips, feels the muscles around Francis' finger beginning to relax and then relaxing more with the help of Raju's hips, moving in tiny circles to feel Francis' finger sliding against the edge of him. He feels himself pushing back against Francis' finger, opening up to it. Francis asks if it still doesn't hurt and Raju shakes his head, the movement quick and distracted, no, it doesn't hurt—

—except, he's starting to feel something, isn't he? Something that can't be from Francis' very careful finger. Raju's eyebrows twitch, almost frowning. The squirming of his hips slows as he tries to focus on the inside of him. His gaze moves from between his legs to Francis' face and he huffs out an amused puff of air, brow still wrinkled and the edges of his lips starting to curve up. It's a moment of watching Francis' face that way before he answers because it doesn't hurt, and he doesn't mind...

Francis is going to think the answer to his question is yes by now, though. "It doesn't hurt. But..."

He breathes out a half-laugh, shaking his head. There is a sensation there, but it's hardly strong enough to be worth saying anything. The muscle around Francis' finger tightens just for a moment, experimentally. "Circle your finger around more. I want to be sure. It's not... what you're doing, exactly..."

Well, there’s bound to be some strange feelings, but strange isn’t painful and the demand for more experimentation a fairly encouraging start. “That’s…probably expected,” he supplies, not knowing what’s normal and what’s not. But having someone finger you for the first time is bound to be a usual sensation, and he lets out another laugh through his nose.

“All-right, let’s try…” He trails off with a nod and tries to do exactly that, circling his finger inside of him and watching his face for any wince or twitch of pain.

Maybe if he touched him it would help…couldn’t hurt, at least? He sits up, still mindful not to jerk his hand away or make sudden movements that might hurt him, and takes his cock into his hand to give him a few long strokes.

There's not pain on his face as Francis' finger circles but there is something, something the half-frown and absent gaze says he's paying attention to. The crease between his brows eases as the motion goes on — it does feel good, over top of that odd background sensation that's starting to creep more toward the foreground, now.

And then Francis puts his hand around Raju's cock and Raju gasps quietly, not expecting it, holds the breath and feels the movement of Francis' hand, wiggles his hips and tips his head back at the sensation of both of Francis' hands working on him at once. It occurs to him that Francis wouldn't have been able to do this before, not both things at the same time— not unless he was willing to use his mouth—

Raju closes his eyes, realising he's panting a little as he cuts the thought off there. He has enough to focus on already. And he's supposed to be telling Francis something.

"The... soap," he remembers as he opens his eyes to look up at the ceiling, voice a little more breathless than before. "Don't distract me before I can tell you. Um..."

It is a little embarrassing still, even as distracted as Raju is. "Maybe the oil instead. Or..."

Oil is harder to find though, isn't it? Do they have enough of it to... He can't tell. He's too... well. He's very distracted. "I don't know," he says with a little half-laugh, and lifts his head to smile at Francis, too warm and pleased with all of this to mind anything, even Francis knowing Raju was wrong about something.

The soap? Is it not…doing what it’s meant to do? It all feels fairly well-lubricated to him, and both his hands still while Raju finally gets out the cause of the ‘strangeness’. Oil, not soap, the soap is…?

He pulls his fingers out with a deeply furrowed brow. What’s wrong with the soap?

And then he realizes, and his head drops in exasperation. “Jesus Christ, we’re idiots,” he mutters. Soap is scented and likely made with things one wouldn’t want inside their body, and he’d just gone ahead and pushed a fair amount into Rama.

He starts to laugh softly as he wipes his hand on a shirt on the floor. “Do you need to…ah, are you…”

Oh, this is ridiculous. He starts to laugh again, louder this time, at himself and at Rama’s choice of words and just at the two of them, really, and shakes his head quickly. “Let me get something to wash it off, Ram,” he tells him, leaning forward to press a fond kiss to his lips.

Francis' laughter coaxes more out of Raju too, his half-laugh turning into a giggle, and he leans forward into it when Francis kisses him. Maybe the embarrassment of making the wrong decision doesn't have to be that terrible, this one time. "I don't need to, no," he answers what they're both talking around, grinning. "It burns a little, that's all."

But he doesn't mind letting Francis go to get something to wash some of it off with, either. He leans back onto the bed again to wait, allows himself to squirm a little, bites his lip. It should feel ridiculous, shouldn't it, being tended to like this? But what he's thinking is mostly that all this is already more fun than he'd have expected, if he'd thought to expect anything at all; that particular feeling of the soap where it is, in other circumstances... Well.

While Francis goes wherever he's going Raju cups a hand around his cock again. Coming back to that won't surprise Francis this time but Raju likes doing it, likes Francis watching him doing it. And it distracts him from the fact of laying here waiting.

Crozier’s hurried journey takes him back to the washroom for a dampened flannel and then a brief pause in the kitchen. Oil is a scarce resource, but then again, having two hands and a very comfortably-naked Rama in his bed is as equally as rare and should be enjoyed. To hell with seasoned food, he wants to have his man.

He returns with both things, eyes immediately landing on Ram’s busy hand, and once more his own cock throbs in response to the sight. Crozier sucks in his breath and eases himself back down beside Ram on the bed, setting the cloth in his non-occupied hand and then dipping forward to suck a reddened mark onto one of his beautiful tits.

His. His his his.

Raju watches, delighted, as Francis bends over his chest, and squirms at the electric sensation of his mouth. The squirm and twitching tensing of his muscles sends another wave of that burning sensation through the other end of him and Raju grunts, head falling back. "You're so... distractable," Raju manages, voice breathy with pleasure. One hand moves up to Francis' head. moving itself over his hair. "Weren't you going to do something?"

“I’m getting there,” he mutters mid-lick. He doesn’t raise his head but does manage to pass the cloth to Ram, smiling against his skin as he does so. “Tell me when you’re ready to try again.”

Until then he’ll keep himself occupied by lavishing attention to one of Ram’s nipples, the other getting a decidedly rougher treatment as it’s tweaked and pinched by Crozier’s fingers.

Raju's writhing gains a distinctly urgent tone, movements faster and harder as he squirms. His hand's been clenched around the cloth for a moment before he remembers what it's for, and it's a moment again before he realises why Francis has handed it to him.

"I'm ready now," he complains, the hand on Francis' hair moving down to his shoulder to clench there. "Francis—"

He laughs breathily, shaking his head. Francis handed him the cloth, and how he has to try and focus on what he needs to be doing with it. He takes his hand off Francis' shoulder and moves the cloth over to it, then reaches down, laughing again when he feels what he's doing and realises all the rubbing he's going to have to do here is going to send this current of sensation rushing through him even harder. "Francis," he laughs. "You're terrible. Do you know what this feels like?"

“I can’t, no,” he laughs. The scrabbling at his shoulder finally makes him relent, just for a moment to let Ram collect himself. He’s going to watch him though, just as turned on watching him laugh in exasperation as he tries to clean up from their previous attempt.

He should probably be ready for him when he’s finished though; god knows he’s teased him enough already. He gropes for the bottle of oil and opens it up with two-handed ease, spreading it across his fingers with a little smirk. “I’ll get mine next time, I’m sure.”

"Mm. You will," Raju promises, fervently. "It's good. I never thought about it before. I want to do this to you, exactly like this."

He focuses for a moment. His nipples and his chest are still singing with the echoes of Francis' teeth and lips and tongue, but that wonderful mouth itself has moved away, so focusing is a little easier. Good enough, he decides, and lets out a hard breath when he pulls his cloth-covered fingers out. "Now," he breathes, glancing at his hand as he flicks the cloth closed and reaches blindly to set it aside but putting most of his focus to Francis, to putting his free right hand over Francis' chest, rubbing down over Francis' stomach and his side. "Right now, Francis. The longer you make me wait the longer I make you wait for it next time."

Francis has a fair amount more patience, generally, than Raju does. That doesn't matter. Waiting is the most terrible thing Raju can think of right now, so it's the only threat that he has.

“Now,” Crozier repeats, a little dazed. He wants to see Ram’s fingers disappear like that again. Maybe if he’s loose enough he’ll be able to fuck himself on his own hand -

Focus. Focus. He has to focus, even as his mind’s bombarded with thoughts of Ram having his perfectly reasonable revenge on him. A shiver travels from the base of his neck down along his spine, somewhere along the way triggering the part of him that feels that electric surge of desire. A mischievous little look crosses his face before his oiled-coated fingers quickly replace the ones that Rama had taken away from himself.

He’s tight and hot, and now he’s delightfully slick, and Crozier presses kisses along Rama’s neck as he pumps his fingers in and out of him. “I don’t need much convincing,” he murmurs, “if it’s half as good as you make it look I’d be eager to try it. This side of it is so damn good too, Rama.”

Raju huffs an appreciative breath as he turns his head, giving Francis' lips more room. "Good..." he murmurs and his right hand reaches up to move over Francis' jaw, to rest at the back of his neck. But he needs to touch Francis more while Francis is here and bare like this, needs more of everything, so he lifts his legs to try and bend them over whatever part of Francis is there to wrap around behind. If that pulls Francis closer to him that will be wonderful, and if it jolts Francis out of his rhythm for a moment that's good too; just because Raju's having a wonderful time doesn't mean he's past wanting to tease him.

It succeeds in both aspects, pulling Crozier’s hips down and blocking him from moving his hand as freely. “And you fussed at me for taking my time!” he grumbles, biting his neck in mock annoyance. “Here I am giving you what you want.”

He takes his own form of revenge and hooks his fingers slightly, angling them up into his body as he pushes slower and deeper.

Francis pretends to be annoyed and bites his neck, and Raju's cheeks curve with his wide, self-satisfied grin. But an instant later the expression's gone; his eyes widen, he pulls in a gasp that's nearly louder than most of the other noises he's made this far. The hand on the back of Francis' hand is clutching tightly enough on its own that he's glad he's kept up with trimming his nails. He doesn't want to hurt Francis even a little, it's just...

The blankets and cloth clutched under his left hand are on fire. A little. A very little. He looks at them for a second, panting, then moves his palm over them and tightens his grip to snuff them out.

"Francis," Raju breathes, looking up at him. "Do that again. Whatever you did."

Even if Ram did hurt him he’d be forgiven. Maybe even in the moment he might encourage it - who’s to say what he might crave from him?

He sees the smoke and for a split second looks bewildered. Did he just…? Was that a fire he saw? He looks down into Ram’s face and replicates exactly what he did before, pushing his fingers inside of him deeply and then curving his fingers upward.

They may set the bed on fire. It’d be entirely worth it.

Raju's prepared for it this time. Still, his hips buck and squirm and he lays panting, openmouthed. His legs try to pull Francis a little closer as his hips squirm again, looking for friction, breath shuddering at the feeling of Francis against him. "You have to try this," he breathes shakily and laughs a little, giddy. "I'm not going to..."

It's embarrassing but it's true, so he makes himself warn Francis, and feels his cheeks reddening. "Ah, to last much longer. I think. If there's something else you said you wanted to do..." In spite of the complaint in his tone, Raju's grinning as he looks up at Francis. He can't help it. He doesn't think he could be doing anything else now if he'd tried.

He has little doubt that the first chance Rama gets he’s going to pin Crozier down and do exactly what was done to him, but he’s far too distracted to imagine it. Where Rama is a little embarrassed but mostly giddy, Crozier is simply overcome. Feeling Rama clench down on his fingers, the heat and the perfect pressure, has made him absolutely dizzy with want.

He presses a kiss to his neck and one to his shoulder as he eases his fingers back out of him, gripping Ram’s hips and using that strong hold from his thighs to position himself between his legs. Even typical logistical thinking is gone out the window - he doesn’t care about angles or fitting them together just-so, he just needs to slip into Ram, to be inside of him and feel for himself just how good this is.

Chest leaning forward slightly, hands still using Rama’s leg and hip for balance, he pauses to catch his breath when he makes that first slow ease into him. Not all the way, not quite yet, but just enough that Crozier is sorely tempted to snap his hips and drive himself in all the way up to the hilt. “Fucking hell,” he exhales.

Francis is going slow, taking a breath, and for once having to wait is a good thing; Raju might last that much longer, even now, with a moment to catch his own breath. But only a moment — looking up at Francis, Raju tightens the ring of muscle around Francis' cock, the sensation of it sending a shiver up through his body even though he's warm, as warm as he's ever been. His right hand grips Francis' arm hard, using the grip to keep his legs still instead of pulling Francis in closer to him. There's going to be time for that. Not yet. "Good?" he manages, grinning and completely confident of the answer.

He laughs under his breath. Smug, even now, even with another man inside of him. Rightly so though looking as he does below him, gorgeous and shuddering and tightening - he wants to drive him mad, clearly. "Incredible," he smiles, leaning down to kiss him as he finally fits them together snugly.

His left hand finds Ram's and entwines their fingers, palm against palm, as he pushes their hands against the bed and holds fast.

Francis' lips are against his, Francis' palm against his. He can even feel Francis' skin against his cock as Francis moves far enough inside him to fit the rest of them together. Raju's hand tightens and loosens rhythmically over Francis', feeling the fire of earlier try to spill over outside of him, feel Francis everywhere, and circle back again, the extra warmth sinking outward from inside him into his skin. His stomach muscles tighten as he leans forward into the kiss, holding himself up just enough to push into it.

"If I finish first, keep going," Raju breathes against Francis' lips. "I want to feel you."

If he finishes first - god, what a thought. Could he come just from this? Best not to think too much on it; he knows he's already metaphorically and literally playing with fire right now, and either one of them could lose their senses and end what's an indescribably-wonderful moment. Another first for them both, another experience just for the two of them and the two of them alone.

He nods softly; he'll keep going, absolutely and without question. He wants to be drunk on him, the kind of drunk that makes him feel invincible instead of invisible, the kind of drunk that makes he feel like he can do anything and everything. Crozier spreads his legs out for balance and raises himself up slightly, testing out this new position with a careful thrust of his hips.

Christ, he's perfect, inside and out.

"We'll see how long I can last," he laughs under his breath. "You feel so good."

The thrust has Raju grunting and tightening his grip around Francis' hand again, and he laughs as Francis does. "So do you," he admits, biting his lip over a smile. He's aware that he almost feels strange about it, doing this, is aware that he could, as much from the, ah, the location that's getting all this attention as the position he's in to do it. But like most other things that people, if they knew, would say that he shouldn't be doing, it does feel good. It feels wonderful, and Francis is here feeling it with him, and the touch of Francis' skin in so many different places is the only thing that keeps all of it from spilling out in anything more dangerous than this wonderful heat glowing through all of him.

He feels wonderful, and he wants to touch. He leans forward again to do it, happily anticipating what that will do to the angle of Francis' cock inside him, as far as he can with one hand pinned to the mattress, wanting to kiss any bit of skin that he can reach. He decides, at the last moment before his mouth connects, that he'd also like to bite a little. He wants more, and that feels somehow the way to get it, and he knows that Francis will understand.

He feels Ram trying to move, trying to crane his body up towards his, and doesn’t prevent it. He stops pushing against Ram’s hand and merely holds it, leaning forward as he tries to meet him and feeling the revitalizing sting of a bite on his skin.

Crozier does understand. He growls softly and snaps his hips, wanting to reward and encourage the teeth on his skin. It also feels so nice for him, deliriously so, and he seeks out more of that contact, more and more, bringing them together over and over.

The snap of Francis' hips gets a hard, happy noise out of Raju and then with Francis' movement more start making it out of him between his panting and he's clinging to Francis, free hand gripping Francis' shoulder and the other Francis' hand, and his hips are pumping in time with Francis' thrusts, and when the angle of their movements hits that spot Francis discovered before the noises Raju is making become more noise than breath. A moment later when the pleasure in him tips over and he spills onto Francis' stomach it's with a noise of surprise and a rush of heat into their linked hands, and he presses his forehead against Francis' neck and his shoulder. Then he starts kissing the skin there over and over, panting, but his hips are struggling to keep the pace they had been now and their movement stutters, and Raju has to lay back.

He's trying to move with Francis still but it's harder, he's loose and he's tired, and the kind of contentment moving through him is one he's only very seldom known. He can't express it by kissing the rest of Francis' skin any more; he contents himself with turning his head and kissing the hand linked with his instead, keeping his gaze turned upward, onto Francis' eyes. No matter what else has changed about Francis his eyes are the same shade of blue, the same tan ring around their inner edge. Like looking down into a riverbed. Or, up into one. The thought might not make sense; the only thing that does is the skin and warmth against him, the two of them, connected everywhere.

There's something about the rush of blood and raised adrenaline that makes things that wouldn't normally be appealing, like mixing bodily fluids or the rising heat between two people making everything slick with sweat, absolutely arousing. Crozier feels Ram tense underneath him, delightfully so, and holds him as closely as he can while he fucks him through his climax.

Rama is beautiful, peppering little kisses against skin and then his hand.

There's no way he'd ever last too much longer, not with the way he feels underneath him, not with how he's looking up at him like he's the only thing that exists in the world. Crozier eases himself down on top of him and cups Ram's face with his free hand, touching him tenderly as his own pace slows and becomes erratic and unbalanced. When he does spend it's with a lowered head pressed against Ram's shoulder, heavy breathing and a quiet groan as his body stills and then shudders.

He's still inside of him, joined with him. He can't think of anything else but him as his heart beat continues to race moments after he's spend himself.

Inside of himself Raju can feel… well, plenty of different things, some of which he’s never felt inside of him before. He can feel it between them too, wet where Raju had come against Francis’ stomach, smearing along with his sweat over his skin. And he can feel the weight of Francis’ head against his shoulder, the soft warmth of his breath against Raju’s skin. The hand that’d been clutching at his shoulder moves down to smooth over Francis’ hair once and then a second time, slow and lingering. The legs Raju’s wrapped around him lower slowly, their grip loosening, his heels sliding down Francis’ back and over his arse on their way to relaxing.

Raju’s wandering hand slides down the back of Francis’ neck, over his shoulder and his back. He pulls the hand linked with his in close to kiss the side of it again. His eyelids want to close and they’re trying, the relaxation all through him pulling at them too, but he wants another look at Francis’ face first. He’s been looking but he wants more of it. He had a hand in his and another cupping his face in the same moment, and has now the secure weight of a much loved body over his everywhere; he couldn’t have more of Francis than he does, but he wants more anyway. One more look at him. Raju’s expression is solemn and searching, and if Francis looks at him it will break into a soft, warm smile. Then Raju might let himself sleep.

When his head raises again, to laugh maybe in some sort of awe and disbelief, or to smile and kiss him again, he finds Rama already staring up at him. If he weren’t already so winded it would have knocked the breath right out him, the way that Ram looks at him now. Crozier cups his face again, thumb brushing over his jaw and cheek, eyes searching his and finding warmth and love.

He presses his lips to his softly, joining them one more time before they start the process of separating. The moment lingers as the kiss does, teeth grazing sweetly again Ram’s already plump lips. He sighs softly when he does pull away, already thinking of how he’s going to wrap himself around Rama as they sleep.

[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?”

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."

“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.

When Francis' fingers dig in to Raju's hip Raju makes a thick noise deep in his throat and rocks forward, hand wound in Francis' shirt. For a moment he looks over Francis' face, eyes wide and eager, and breathing hard. He wants to tease him a little longer, he does, but he wants Francis too much in this moment to be anything but honest.

"If I don't..." he breathes, watching his hand skate a little more quickly up Francis' stomach. "Make you wait..." Up to his chest now, and around his collar, which Raju unbuttons just far enough to lean his face into a shoulder and breathe out hard against it, breathe in and smell his skin. His other hand is still clenched against the bedframe. "...I want to make this good enough. For you."

It’s just a touch, just a simple gripping of his hip, and Ram’s pushing against him and panting into his neck, the very picture of desperation. It’s a marvel. It’s not just a marvel, it’s astonishing to him, who’s had flings and dalliances but never this sort of fierceness, especially something that keeps building in intensity.

He almost doesn’t understand it. Desired is one thing, but Rama sounds like he’s about to come apart for want of him. He feels that twist in the pit of his stomach, a rolling, tumbling free fall of a feeling that creeps along his spine and in his limbs, settling into a deep burn in his loins.

“You want me that badly?” he whispers roughly, hand moving to caress down the back of Rama’s neck.

The touch to his neck sends a shudder over his shoulders, and he rolls them in twitching little movements to try and work the feeling out. He'd known, of course, that he'd been missing Francis' company, his touch, the feeling of his bare skin under Raju's fingers, but he isn't sure why it came on like this, so suddenly in a rush in the moment he felt Francis' fingers gripping his hip, so much harder to hold inside him than he'd expected it to be. He's gone much longer without before. He'd known he'd been wanting Francis, but he hadn't really been thinking about it.

His hand skates over the skin of Francis' shoulder, stopped soon by the limits of the shirt's collar, shirt still mostly buttoned. He takes Francis' shoulder in his hand, grip tentative, not sure how much he'll need to hold himself back when he does it. He turns his head enough to feel Francis' skin against his forehead, and knows at least where the force of it is coming from: "I missed you," he rasps, the need not separate from walking under the trees with their shoulders brushing, or pulling numb fingertips away from a hot pan, or feeling a large, callused hand close around his in the dark, but part of all of it, part of the pull to fill in the empty space Raju had left in their lives when he'd forgotten Francis. He can feel Francis against his skin and in his breath, and he wants more of it very badly, and he's missed him.

He’d missed him - and he understands. They might as well have been separated for months instead of weeks for how skewed and lonely everything felt. Rama slept on the floor in front of the fire and wouldn’t even give him a kind look - he’d despaired that he’d never have this ever again.

Crozier’s fingers push through Rama’s hair, then find a hold to pull his head back up and guide his lips on his. He shivers at the anticipation of the kiss, then swallows down all those harsh breaths and desperate noises, leg hooking over the back of Ram’s thighs to bring him down closer. He isn’t likely to be successful unless the kiss is that distracting for Rama, although for his part the rest of the world melts away the second he has him this close.

The hand in Raju's hair already has him humming wordlessly and when Francis pulls him into a kiss from there the noise turns eager. He's gripping Francis' shoulder making hungry noises against his mouth when there's suddenly pressure against the backs of his knees, and suddenly he's kneeling on the edge of the mattress without having decided to be that close. Maybe he couldn't have decided, if he'd had to do it on his own; he wants it too much. But Francis does too, and so here he is.

Laughing, Raju swings a knee around, fitting his lower legs to either side of Francis' body. "Impatient," he rasps, rubbing his hands hard up either side of Francis' body from hip to chest and back down again, feeling him, wanting the shape of him under his hands.

His leg lowers with an unceremonious ‘thump’ against the bed as Ram straddles him, divine weight pressing him further down into the bed. He gasps as his hands find his waist again, his hips, back up to his chest, and gives a nice little tug on Ram’s hair to counter the chastising.

“Yes, I’m impatient, look at you!” It seems obvious to him why he’d be impatient to be touched by a man as beautiful as Ram.

“Are you warm? Will you take off your clothes for me?” He knows it’s not the most reasonable request for him; he’s always so cold, but he hoped that those warm hands meant he was heated like a furnace on the inside.

Raju bites at his lip, eyes moving down and up over Francis, all laid out underneath Raju and wanting him. He remembers Francis' body in his arms, the way he'd started relaxing into the dancing, relaxing against him. How vulnerable Francis is, in spite of what you'd think to look at him, and how dedicated, and how much Francis loves him. Raju wants the small amount of heat gathering under his ribs and dancing over his skin to be enough.

There's a way to make it work. He starts tugging at the blanket underneath Francis, other hand tugging his shoulders up as Raju pulls their blanket out from under them. He gently pulls Francis' hand out from his hair so he can twist around and pull the blanket the rest of the way, awkward and one-handed as he doesn't want to let go of Francis while he does it -- at least until it's time to pull Francis' hips up to tug the blanket out from underneath them. His hand lingers there for a moment, then slides itself down the outside of Francis' thigh, then Raju's flicking the blanket over his own back with a flourish, pulling it over his head, and twisting around to brace himself on hands and knees over Francis again, grinning eagerly. "Now I'll take off my clothes for you. Are you going to help?"

He has no idea what the hell Ram’s doing at first, and he tries to anticipate his movements by shifting and wriggling and then finally sitting up when he realizes he’s going for the blanket. When Rama’s properly covered he lies back with an amused huff; if this is what it takes to see him bare then he’ll gladly feel like lying under a tent for a spell.

“Yes, please.” His smile becomes a bit more wicked as he finds the hem of Rama’s shirts and slips his fingers underneath, burrowing until he feels soft skin and a light smattering of hair. God, yes. His mouth waters slightly as he thinks of the chest underneath, and eagerly (and mostly haphazardly) begins tugging apart buttons.

With a happy noise Raju leans on one hand and turns the other to help, gets inpatient with that, then leans on a forearm instead to free up his other hand.

“Is this helping?” he asks, amused. He runs the side of his face against Francis’, kisses at the corner if Francis’ lips. “Or are you only here to feel me up?”

“Why limit myself?” He’s more than capable of both groping and ‘help’ him with his clothes, though he’s far more interested in the former. He tilts his head to invite Ram’s lips against his again, gently biting his lip as he finds another button to undo.

He eventually becomes impatient and momentarily pauses the indulgent side of undressing Rama to focus on getting those clothes off. “You and your layers.” Once his chest is bared though Crozier immediately returns to touching, hand cupping firm muscles in his back and sliding to his chest and massage his well-built pectorals. He licks at lower lip in thought and then flicks his thumb over one of his nipples, just for good measure.

Raju’s shiver is as much from the sensation that flick to his nipple sends ringing through him as from the cold, although he’s feeling that too; Raju’s skin is pebbled with goosepimples where his shirts hang open, though it’s bearable under the blanket with Francis’ heat and his body to distract him. Bearable, and easy to think of what he wants instead.

“My layers?” he pants, frustration driving him to hold one part of Francis’ shirt with his teeth where his hand, occupied with holding him up, can’t reach, while his free hand undoes it. His protesting is muffled around the cloth in his mouth. “What about yours? Keep teasing me and I’ll tear this open. I want to see you.”

Desperation is a good look on Ram, for him, in fact, that desperation to see all of him in its natural state. All that pale and freckled skin, scarred to hell and wrinkled and pocked - and he’s desirable all the same.

“Do it,” he growls, finding his nipple again and outright pinching.

Raju whines out a startled, pained noise, not sure if the sound is pleasure or a protest or both, and rocks his hips hard against Francis’, legs tightening around him again. He rears back, panting breaths deeper now, putting one hand on either side of Francis’ shirt and only thinks about what he’s doing when he’s about to.

It will be very impressive, won’t it. If it works.

He moves his hands down, to the buttons that tend to wear out faster. He looks down at Francis, feels everything stirring inside him pressing him to see, to feel, and thinks of how it feels to impress Francis, when he manages to.

Not all the buttons go on his first pull, but most of them do. A second pull at Francis’ shirt gets the few near the top and bottom, and ultimately, Francis does have more ground to complain about layers than Raju does; the skin beneath him is bare. With a low, satisfied hum he bends to take Francis’ nipple in his teeth, expecting Francis to be less sensitive there than Raju himself is but wanting to taste him.

Consider him fully impressed. As the buttons go flying every which way a low, aroused growl radiates out deep from his throat. He’d guessed it’d be worth it to ruin the shirt, and he was 100% correct - entirely worth all the mending they’ll have to do later, especially when Ram dips his head and starts in on the teeth. Sparks fly behind his eyes in surprise, head tipping back with a sharp intake of breath.

That’s…oh. New, and very, very good. Crozier reaches down to find purchase, fingers pushing into Ram’s back and then up to settle in his hair again. It’s again with the unfamiliar: having his hips held, being spun about, being held from behind and having sweet things whispered in his ears. He raises his hips to seek some pressure, some relief, desperate in his own way now.

He’s well aware it’s a man he’s sleeping with. He knows the solid weight of Francis, the breadth of him, knows the sound of his voice. But that growling noise reminds him anyway, spreads satisfaction deep in him — tearing that shirt, even with the two tries it’d took, was enough and Francis is impressed.— with want overtop and through it.

The gasp he gets a moment later, fitting his teeth around Francis’ nipple, is encouraging, and so are the hips raised against his own, the fingers in his hair. Maybe his nipples are more sensitive than Raju’d thought; in any case Francis likes feeling him here, which means there’s no reason not to stay this way and do this more. He rolls his hips against Francis’ and feels the friction of his own drawers sliding under the movement of Francis’ hips and cock against his. His lips move around his teeth over the puckered skin under his mouth, sucking gently at Francis there while his fingers find the warm, soft skin at Francis’ side and dig in, then loosen, a thumb running back and forth in wordless apology at the brief grip.

He sucks air through his teeth, suction bordering on painful but in the kind of way that makes the blood rush, then hisses yet again as Ram’s fingers push into his skin. Soft, quiet noises escape between each exhale, and he grips a little harder at Ram’s hair to keep himself from attacking him in turn.

It feels so good to have his body against his, feels so strange still to have someone lavish this much attention on him. It’s both - good and strange and strange and good, and clearly his body is more than happy with the attention.

Those soft, quiet noises are wonderful, Francis’ pleasure and his need exactly what Raju has needed to hear all this time even if he hadn’t known it, and soon the movement of Raju’s hips is rhythmic — or as close to it as the noises are, in time with them, with his own hard breaths.

“Didn’t know you liked this,” he breathes against Francis’ skin, pressing a lingering gentle kiss to the places his teeth had been. He risks a tug, accidental or purposeful, at his hair when he moves his head but it’s worth it to fix his mouth to Francis’ other nipple now, switching out the hand that’s holding him up so he can pinch and roll Francis’ first nipple between his fingers. “But I can hear it. I can hear you do. You sound beautiful.”

Beautiful! He doesn’t know what to make of that - the desire behind it is certainly present, Ram’s teeth and fingers continuing to torment him, the insistent pressing of his hips against his. It’s so sincerely meant, and he knows he feels the same for Ram - he’s gorgeous, completely beautiful - and his head begins to spin.

He makes a soft, keening noise in the back of his throat, then inhales a bit too sharply and chokes on the air. He coughs once, but it’s enough that about three seconds later he hiccups.

Raju's teeth are around Francis' left nipple a little after that keening noise starts, eager to take all the noise Francis is making and make them louder, more, take the pleasure he should have been giving Francis before and give it to him all at once. He isn't biting down at all but holding Francis' sensitive skin firmly enough in his mouth to gently pull, experimentally, then Francis chokes and Raju lets go and looks up at him, waiting to make sure he's alright. Francis hiccups once, and it's confirmation enough that the choking wasn't anything serious; Raju smiles warmly, softly, and then his free hand goes back to twisting Francis' nipple between its fingers.

"Is this alright?" That keening, delicious as it is, isn't a noise he hears from Francis often; the pause to be sure of Francis' even breathing has Raju thinking he'd better make sure, though not without one more lingering moment to suck Francis' nipple in his mouth. His lips pop back off again with a wet noise and his voice comes out rough, he speaks in the same moment he grinds his hips in the same lingering way into Francis' again. The sensation of it has his fingers tightening around Francis' other nipple; he doesn't mean to, but he doesn't mind that it's happening, either. "Too much?"

It is too much, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t enjoying himself. It’s new and intense, and those wet sounds Ram’s making as he sucks and laps at him like he’s some kind of scrumptious dessert is fueling his own desire.

“It’s perfect,” he whispers hoarsely, looking down at him with fire behind his eyes. He cups his face and slides his thumb over Ram’s lower lip, plump and a little swollen. “Christ, you’re perfect, Ram. I haven’t-”

He interrupts himself with another hiccup, which causes a slight jolt.

Francis' thumb moving over his lip has Raju's mouth parting further, he breathes out hard against Francis' hand--

Francis hiccups again, cutting off what he'd been about to say and sending Francis' body moving with an unrehearsed little jolt underneath Raju. The lip under Francis' thumb curves with Raju's smile, wicked, pleased, and definitely laughing at Francis a little.

"Haven't what?" he asks, before taking Francis' thumb into his mouth and sucking there, too, keeping pleased, smiling eye contact with him. Raju's fingertips give Francis' nipple one last fond roll between them before his hand spreads, smoothing itself across Francis' chest and down his ribs with just a hint of friction from his short nails, moving as low on Francis' stomach as those still-fastened trousers will let him reach before curling, ready to pinch suddenly enough to interrupt any answer Francis tries to go on with. If there's one thing Raju's good at it's taking advantage of the opportunities that come his way, and interrupting him once with the surprise of a pinch before his body, if that keeps going, interrupts him itself a second time, is too good an opportunity to pass up. Of course he wants to see if he can make Francis keen like that again, but there's no harm in teasing him a little more first.

As though he could possibly answer with Ram’s lips wrapped around his thumb. His thought was only half-complete to begin with, and then Ram pursed his lips and sucked, and whatever was in his own head flew right out the window. The touch to his chest, the careful raking of well-kept fingernails, fights with the wet heat of Rama’s mouth, which in turn struggles for attention against his beautiful brown eyes. Crozier struggles to formulate a reply, thumb pulling from his lips to trace slowly over his upper lip, leg curling to keep himself from bucking up against him.

“I haven’t ever felt so-”

The hiccups again and lets out a low, annoyed groan. He hasn’t ever felt so adored, so much attention being lavished on him, so like some exquisite instrument being learned, and he tries again to answer.

Biting his lip over his smile, Raju times his pinch to interrupt Francis' next try and then moves lower, kneeling over Francis' waistline and going low to put his teeth to work helping his hand undo the button there. It risks promising something he doesn't know how to do, putting his mouth so low on Francis now, but Francis had seemed to like it when he'd used his teeth on his shirt button before, and making him happy that way again is worth anything. There are things his mouth can do down here, anyway, that don't need him to be practised at sucking Francis' cock. He can figure something out.

"It doesn't hurt, does it?" Raju presses his cheek to Francis' stomach, chin moving his unbuttoned trousers open wider as Raju looks up at him. "Your hiccups? Because I want to make it worse. I want to make all of it worse. You sounded gorgeous when you got them, the noise you were making just before, like I was taking you apart. I'm going to hear that noise again."

Ram succeeds in interrupting him with the pinch, but the urge to yelp is silenced by the sight of his teeth on his trousers. His cock strains against his drawers, now sadly neglected as Rama leans over him to touch like he is at his waist and even further down.

“N-no,” he breathes, shaking his head softly. Those wide eyes staring up at him, feigning innocence as he says such filthy things. “Nothing-” He hiccups again. “Hurts.”

Aches, yes. Is a little painful and uncomfortable in some ways, but nothing outright hurts, and in fact the promise of Ram making it worse sends a shiver down his spine. He wants more of those cries he didn’t even realize he’d been making, wants to pull more of those sounds out of him - and Crozier’s sure he’ll succeed, stubborn man that he is. He caresses the cheek that isn’t pressed against his stomach, chest jumping again as he tries to bite back the next hiccup.

Raju grins, turns his head to kiss Francis' stomach and then sucks at his skin, tasting him while his hand moves up again, rubbing a fond circle over Francis' chest. "Good," he murmurs warmly as he unzips Francis' fly, hand pulling it down very slowly while his mouth holds the other side still.

"You like it," Raju goes on as his hand slides underneath Francis' trousers, under any clothing there to the skin beneath, "when I put my mouth on you?" He takes Francis' hip in a tight grip for a moment, then relaxes his hold again. Kneeling low like this lets Raju put both his hands to work, knees enough to hold himself up; one slides around Francis' back, pushing toward himself to try and get Francis to arch just enough that Raju can set his palm high on Francis' arse, pushing his hips up while his other hand pulls any clothes around his hips down over the swell of skin under Raju's palm, then down over his thighs. It isn't really a question; Raju can tell very well that Francis does.

"Well, I like it when you make noise for me. When you can't help it." He pulls a little more slowly as the cloth moves over Francis' cock, watching the newly-revealed skin very closely. He doesn't say, though, that he doesn't want Francis biting anything back; trying to make him impossible for him to keep his mouth closed over anything will be more fun than simply asking. "What haven't you ever felt? What were you trying to tell me before? Try it again."

He hasn’t experienced the shape of this unknown, the excitement of not being in full control. What he wants to tell him is precisely that - he hasn’t had anyone toy with him in this way, lovingly caress all his various imperfections and still find them desirable, want more from him and enjoy the way he sounds as he whines and cries and moans.

It will absolutely not come out of his mouth that way. It’s all he can do to follow along with Ram’s gentle guidance, and then as even more of him is bared he finds it harder to focus on anything but the man hovering over him. He inhales sharply, hand sliding down one of Ram’s arms, tracing muscles that flex almost imperceptibly under his palm. He hiccups low again and tries to take another breath, not wanting to be interrupted by his own damned lungs. “I haven’t had someone pay me this much attention,” he manages.

Does it do his thoughts any justice? Absolutely not, but it’s all he can do for now as he tries to even out his own breathing. If he relaxes the hiccups will go away, he just needs to…

He pauses. Waits a beat. Maybe they’ve gone. Maybe -

He hiccups again and groans in frustration with himself.

Since Raju hasn't done anything in particular between the first hiccup and the second one, it's clear that particular groan isn't coming from anything he's doing. Some other time, Francis' frustration might win him some sympathy; here and now it gets him a laugh, pleased and close against his skin as Raju pulls Francis' trousers down to his ankles and leaves them there.

"What's wrong?" he asks, knowing the answer and pleased with Francis, with himself, with the world, with the feeling of the skin under his palms as he slides his hands from Francis' knees up toward his hips, easing Francis' thighs further open. He charts everything he feels underneath his hands as they move, hair or bumps, moles or freckles, calluses or untouched skin, and when his hands move in close to the softness of Francis' balls he brushes his fingertips over them, the barest touch. He bites at his lip, thinking, then moves in just close enough to Francis' cock that when he speaks Francis will feel the air of his breath moving over it. Not close enough for any part of it to touch him now, but if the next hiccup jolts his body in just the right way... There's no guarantee, of course, but Raju thinks he'll have plenty of opportunity to experiment with 'accidental' touch before they're done.

"If you want something, Francis," Raju whispers, looking up at him, "you have to tell me."

With his trousers around his ankles he’s even more restricted than he was before - there’s no shifting of his legs or hooking his ankle around Rama now. He grunts softly as Ram brushes by his cock but doesn’t touch it. It’s maddening in how deliberate his exploration is, how much he skirts around the one very obvious part of Crozier’s body that’s begging to be touched.

But he won’t plead with him. He’s not at that point - there’s still some fight left in him yet.

“I want your mouth on me again,” he tells him, voice sounding a little more broken than he would have cared to sound. “I don’t care where.”

See? No pleading. No demands for immediate satisfaction. He can hold out a little while longer.

"Oh? You don't?" Raju smiles brightly at him, hands smoothing their way over the soft, vulnerable skin high on Francis' thighs, mouth moving closer to his cock, moving just inches away from the length of it. Then it moves down further, landing at the inner crease between thigh and hip, and bites at it gently, licking and sucking in the moments between his words, as close to Francis' balls as he can get without touching them. "Put your hand on yourself. On your nipples, but lick your fingers first. I want you to pretend it's my mouth. I miss the taste of you already."

Edited 2025-01-06 14:57 (UTC)

He didn’t care. Doesn’t. Wants him in whatever way Ram will give, even when it’s just his undivided attention. Wants to feel loved and adored and worshipped by him, even if it’s just a teasing nip to his thighs. He exhales shakily, chest jumping with a quieter hiccup, and brings his fingers to his own mouth.

He pauses a moment, looking back down between his own thighs at Rama. He has a question on his tongue, one that undoubtedly would be met with outright skepticism, open mocking, or some kind of fed-up show of annoyance, so he holds it in and parts his lips to suck on the tips of his own fingers.

Crozier’s eyes close as he pulls his fingers out with a soft pop. He makes another quiet noise, something like a sigh as he imagines Ram crawling back up his body, giving him that wickedly handsome smile as he laps at his nipple. He reaches down to touch himself, hesitantly at first, then with more effort as he attempts to relive every lick and suck from Ram’s mouth on himself.

Between kissing a trail down Francis' thigh, Raju watches him. "Beautiful," he says, palms sliding back up, feeling the loose muscle of Francis' thighs under his hands, feeling the fat of his arse as well as he can without pushing Francis' hips up again, cupping the skin there as he sucks at a spot chosen at random low on Francis' stomach. "I never get to see you like this. All of you at once. Working yourself up that way. Would you do this again, tomorrow? Sitting by the fire all wrapped up, with your hand under your shirt thinking about my mouth?"

“Uhn.” His hips bucks slightly as Ram keeps talking, imagining himself in front of the fire touching himself as he waited for him to return from some errand. He gasps quietly as he pinches himself, thinking of his teeth, a low groan sharply interrupted by a loud, invasive hiccup.

He finishes the groan, this time in frustration with himself, and his hand drops to his side.

The place Raju's got his mouth had jumped underneath it, sudden and involuntary, when Francis hiccuped; Raju stops sucking at the skin there to turn his face against it, laughing, grip looser now on Francis' arse. Raju's laugh is low and fond even while Raju is certainly laughing at Francis, and he presses a gentle kiss to the spot under his mouth before looking up.

"You sound frustrated again," he points out, grinning. "Problem?"

“Are you laughing at me?” He grumbles a few more words of frustration quietly to himself, laying his arm over his eyes so he doesn’t have to look at Ram smirking at him. He tries to inhale slowly again to make the hiccups go away, but it only seems to make the next one worse. “God dammit.”

He’s ruining this!

Raju's grin softens. There's a certain boundary past which annoying Francis stops being fun either of them, and Francis sounds as if he's nearing it; in the interests of easing Francis past his own frustrations Raju crawls up Francis' body again, settling on one side with his cheek against his fist. For a second Raju's quiet, studying the very close view he's got now of the arm Francis has thrown over himself and trying to spot the expression hiding beneath it.

"I'm laughing because I like it," he says, the amusement still there in his voice, but gentler. His own free hand starts rubbing long circles over the chest and stomach that are bothering Francis so much, and he kisses the wrist Francis has got dangling over his face. "Look at me, won't you? You've got too lovely a face to cover it up this way."

Edited 2025-01-07 03:50 (UTC)

He doesn’t know what part pushes him over the edge - the insistence that Ram likes the disruptive hiccups, his strange noises, his ‘lovely’ face which is undoubtedly not that at all - but the softness followed by yet another hiccup makes him outright wince.

“Please don’t.”

For all those moments he’d been dragged out of his head, he feels like it’s taken nothing for him to be knocked back down.

“Just…give me a moment.”

Raju bites at the inside of his lip, eyebrows pinching, studying him. The boundary he'd thought was approaching, Francis has already passed; Raju isn't sure what he's being asked to stop, exactly. Everything he's just said feels true. The don't might mean the endearments, the affection-- Francis has never asked him to stop that before.

Keep moving forward, Raju decides, but cautiously. He slips his forearm under him -- leaning on his fist feels too casual, now, as if he isn't taking Francis seriously -- and takes Francis' wrist in a loose grip, trying to ease it upward slowly, slowly, fractions of an inch at a time, giving Francis a chance to refuse him but tilting his head, trying to catch a look at the man underneath. "Look at me, at least," Raju murmurs, voice and expression intent, focused on any glimpse of him. "Or, at least let me look at you. I want to see you. Will you let me?"

For all of his vexation with himself, he can’t turn away from the softness in Ram’s voice, the obvious concern. He lets him tug his arm down but doesn’t turn to look at him, eyes heavily lidded as he stares up into the ceiling and gives another pathetic hiccup.

“Are you certain,” he hisses under his breath, “that I’m not spoiling the moment? Because it feels like I am.”

"You're not happy." It's as complete an answer as Raju has for what feels too obvious for explaining. It isn't about spoiling anything. It's about the reason Raju was so eager to get Francis in bed in the first place which, as hungry as he's been to gain back everything he'd lost in forgetting Francis, isn't really about lust. Not at the heart of it. "I can put my mouth on you wherever you want, later."

Please don't is still floating uncertainly in Raju's mind somewhere, but if that had been about the affection for him, Raju isn't sure how to do anything else. So he does kiss at Francis' wrist again where Francis has set it but the kiss is lighter than before, tentative.

"You said they weren't hurting you," he points out, voice quiet and curious. He watches Francis' face, still just as intently now that he can see it, but caution says not to put his hand there yet. But Raju's hungry to touch him -- maybe some of it's the lust, but Raju feels like he's always hungry to touch him -- so he settles for a hand settled lightly half-on Francis' ribs and half over his stomach. "So this isn't about that. What is it about?"

He blinks hard, throat feeling thick as he tries gather the pieces of himself that are rapidly unraveling. This is not how this night was supposed to turn out, with all its celebrating and followed by the smoldering between them.

“It’s so childish,” he says through gritted teeth. “I’m spoiling this with my-my damn noises.”

Edited 2025-01-09 02:37 (UTC)

"You said that before," Raju points out, voice neither patient nor impatient, only stating a fact. "That you're spoiling the moment. But it's like the dancing, Francis; I don't make love to you to a script. There's only me, and only you. That's what I want."

He can't quite help it, the affection, looking at Francis this way: his hand moves to Francis' side and curls, brushing its fingertips very lightly from ribs toward hip and back again. "And I told you, I like your noises. You really should have told me when I said that, that you didn't." Is it a mistake, to put anything lighthearted in when Francis is looking and sounding like he does? Well, it's a useful way to approach the question he needs to ask, with luck a ridiculous enough one with a seemingly obvious enough answer to get Francis actually talking through it. "You don't like making noises for me?"

“It’s unseemly,” he grumbles, though the answer is no, he does like making noises for him. He likes it very much, and it’s doing them both a disservice to deny it.

But he doesn’t like the damn hiccups! The hiccups are making whatever good feelings they’re cultivating together completely halt.

He slowly lets the tension in his shoulders unwind and his head drop to one side - towards Ram, and his soft touches and even softer expression on his face. When he finally brings himself to look in his eyes he can see the sincerity in them, the slight tinge of worry at his over-the-top reaction to his own body. He feels himself start to relax again, and picks up Ram’s hand to bring to his face.

“It’s not any of that, Ram. I’m not used to this amount of attention and I-”

The hiccup that interrupts this very sentimental moment is the loudest, most disruptive one of all. He stares at Ram after it finishes echoing around the room, then begins to laugh.

“These goddamn hiccups!”

Reflexively Raju's expression goes blank at the sound, which lasts just long enough for Raju to actively decide to keep his face still that way; Francis has only just started to thaw, only just touching and looking at him again and explaining instead of blaming himself for ruining something that doesn't exist, and the last thing they need--

And then Francis laughs and amusement curls over Raju's face a second after, with relief mixed into it. As tense as Francis is, or maybe was, laughter is a wonderful sign. "Is it the hiccups bothering you, then?" Raju asks, moving the hand under Francis' to rub his thumb over Francis' lips, tracing the shape of the smile as he'd laughed. "Or the attention? I was enjoying both, but if you aren't..."

He trails off and then smiles a little, tentative and teasing. "Well, I don't know. I suppose I could close my eyes and pretend I'm not paying any attention to you."

He shakes his head softly, letting Ram feel it under the tips of his fingers. “The attention is new, a little strange,” he admits, reflexively kissing the hand tracing his lips. “But I’m enjoying it.”

Maybe it’s because it’s Rama, or maybe because it’s novel. But he doesn’t feel silly being put under the microscope like this.

“I do feel like a child with these hiccups.”

Raju's eyebrows rise. "A child?" he asks, incredulous and fond, encouraged by the kiss to his fingers as they drift over Francis' thicker lower lip, his thinner, shapely upper one. Encouraged enough to bend one of his legs, letting his thigh and knee rub against Francis' thigh, settling on top of it with only inches separating the bent knee from that sensitive skin Raju'd been so carefully just avoiding with his mouth only a minute or so ago. It isn't the time to try and work Francis up again, not seriously, but it is the time to suggest it. And rewarding to do on its own, too, sending heat stirring in Raju just to touch him this way.

"Do you remember what I was doing to you when you got them?" He smiles into Francis' eyes, pleased with the memory and entirely focused on him. "Why don't you tell me how you felt, feeling me so keenly you couldn't breathe properly?" Raju moves his thumb slowly over Francis' lips again and pauses halfway, pulling Francis' lip down and moving in for an enthusiastic -- though brief -- kiss, hand spread over Francis' cheek, sucking on that same lip as he draws back again, looking satisfied with himself. "And tell me then how childish you're feeling."

The heat and pressure of Rama’s thigh pressed against his is reassuring, and more than a little stimulating. He exhales through his nose as Ram presses the kiss into his mouth, hot and fierce but sadly brief, and hisses from that sting of the teeth on his lower lip.

He stares back at him a moment, gears turning in his mind, before taking hold of Ram’s head and kissing him ferociously, possessively, so he knows how much he wants him, how good he’s made him felt. There’s another hiccup, one that he keeps in his throat so that his chest jolts but he doesn’t make a noise, and he kisses him through it.

He doesn’t have to tell him how it all felt - Ram could see his erection, the way that he throbbed with every scrape of his teeth or lick of his tongue. But he does want to answer still, and murmurs against his mouth, “there’s nothing else that exists but you and me, that’s how it felt.”

Raju kisses back just as ferociously, moving even closer to Francis and pressing their bodies together. Then Francis murmurs exactly what Raju had been hoping to lead him to and Raju smiles so deeply that his cheeks round out and Raju kisses him again, more slowly this time, appreciatively, but just as passionate. When that second kiss ends he draws back enough to set his hand over Francis' chest, which he'd felt jump with the noise Francis had been holding back, which had reminded him:

"If we keep going, you have to remember that. Remember that I want you all the time, even when you're embarrassed." Raju's smile comes back. He bites his lip over it and then tilts his head to nip some place near Francis' chin, biting and kissing in a slow line upward as he talks, between sentences, hand rubbing hard against Francis' chest in slow, absent shapes. "Maybe especially then. I like when you try to do something for me, and can't help but hiccup instead. I like that you can't stop. I want every noise coming out of your mouth to be for me. I want you helpless and embarrassed under me as much as I want you moaning my name. Do you understand?"

Ram looks downright boyish when he smiles like that, but that perceived innocence quickly goes away when he starts kissing away at his chin and jaw, uttering those loving and things against his skin. Rama loves him so damn much, and he thinks that might have been his issue to begin with, his own disbelief that someone could be so sincere about him, of all the people in the world. What has he done to deserve such devotion? But what he sees now is that the how and why isn’t important - Ram just does, and he feels the same in turn.

At the small revelation he lets out another quiet sound, soft and a hair away from a whimper, breath hitching in his throat again. Finally he nods; he understands what Ram’s been trying to tell him. He understands fully. All these things belong to him, and are fully wanted.

“I’ll give you whatever you want,,” he murmurs, turning his head to touch their noses together. “I want it too. All of it.”

When Francis turns his head toward him Raju stills, the trail his mouth had been forging up Francis' jaw having done what it'd been meant to. So Raju feels their noses brushing, lets the moment settle only looking at him, close enough that he goes a little crosseyed trying it. His smile is warm and satisfied, but still: "We'll see," Raju challenges him. "The next time you get frustrated I'm going to tease you, and we'll see how much of it you want to give me then."

Then he moves for a quick kiss to the tip of Francis' long nose, and settles close to look at him again. "Your eyes are magnificent this close," he notes, the arm under him rubbing its thumb back and forth over Francis' shoulder while his other hand brushes its fingertips up and down Francis' side again. "I was at your thighs before, but I like looking too much to go back down there yet."

All the same, he can feel goosepimples rising again the longer they're still. Easier to notice the chill now that Francis' frustrations seem resolved. It's warmer underneath the blanket than it was, but tucked up around the headboard out of their way like it is the warmest thing is Francis with the body heat he puts off like a furnace. Raju shifts his body close to press against him while they decide what to do next, shivering a little.

Crozier’s own line of thought, which granted is mostly marveling at Ram’s long eyelashes and plump lips, is interrupted by the shiver. It might not have even been noticed if Rama hadn’t been pressed up so closely to him, but Crozier feels the rest of his body start to go cold. It simply won’t do.

“Come here,” he growls softly, grabbing Ram’s thigh that’s draped over him and pulling, guiding him (just a touch insistently) to slide himself on top of him. “None of that. Let’s warm you up.”

Raju's face curves into a broad grin as he follows Francis' insistent pull and finds himself on top of Francis again, knees spread to press against either side of Francis' hips. The position pulls his trousers tight, and the friction along with the closeness of Francis' cock starts to regain what the worry for Francis had lost him.

He sets his hands on Francis' stomach, moving them slowly and appreciatively upward to cup his pectorals. "And now? Warming me up is your idea." He punctuates his next question by lowering his hips just a little, thumbs swiping briefly over Francis' nipples. "What are you proposing, exactly?"

He bites at his lower lip as Ram’s still-clothed hips brush against his very much still erect cock, the slight pain from the chafe overwhelmed by the attention being paid to him again. “I propose a return to previous activities, though you already seem to be ahead of me there.”

But he hasn’t done much touching at all, and through another hiccup - fair quieter, and with a larger lull in between - he reaches between them and rubs his thumb and then his knuckles over the front of his trousers. “This must be agony, no?” He turns his hand to palm at him, finding the shape of him underneath the cloth and stroking slowly. “Should I relieve you?”

The pressure of Francis’ hand, his fingers, lets a sudden noise out from Raju’s throat, a pleading moan he hadn’t known was trapped in there until it escapes, and reflexively he tilts his hips to press more firmly against Francis’ touch, sucking in a sharp breath.

“Francis.” His voice is low and rough, and he has to hurriedly move one of his hands to the mattress beside Francis’ chest so he doesn’t end up leaning on Francis’ ribs. “It wouldn’t be agony if you weren’t…” He pauses for breath. “…touching me.”

He laughs breathlessly, head hanging, and clarifies, free hand cupping Francis’ cheek. “I wasn’t thinking about it. Was thinking about you.”

“I was thinking about myself as well,” he says, corners of his lips tugging upwards mischievously. He doesn’t stop the touch - he very well couldn’t after hearing Ram make such a gorgeous noise - and turns his head to kiss his calloused palm. “You look too tempting for me not to touch.”

He spares him for just a moment, fingers undoing his button and zipper so he can slip them into Rama’s trousers. There’s less cheek in the act than practicality, slowly he begins to push down the trousers so that they hang from Ram’s hips.

Raju laughs again and the laugh quickly turns into a brief moan, loud and unsteady breaths at the roughness of the trousers pushed down over him, a full body shiver at the sensation — not only the cold — of those sensitive parts of him exposed suddenly to the relative chill of the air. His hand moves down from Francis’ face, its trail slow and its end goal Francis’ cock.

“I was so caught up in…” He takes a loud breath, hips twitching. “…in looking at you. I forgot you were looking, too. I want you, Francis. What do you want?”

He laughs quietly; it seems absurd that he wouldn’t look at Ram, pretty picture that he is. He slides his hand back up his chest and cups one of his pecs, flicking his thumb over his nipple in reciprocity.

“Oh, Ram,” he sighs, the question sounding too big. He wants everything, but there’s a little tug at the back of his head that reminds him how delicious it had been to have been wanted so throughly by Ram. “I…I want you to have me in whatever way you choose. That’s what I want most.”

Raju squirms as Francis flicks his nipple, nearly laughing again, trying to focus on what Francis is saying. Francis thinks, and he decides, and Raju grins, wicked and pleased, and lowers himself nearly-onto Francis for a passionate kiss. "Then put your hand around us," he breathes into Francis' mouth, tilting his hips and feeling their cocks sliding together. "I'll help in a moment." While he says it Raju shifts his weight onto one hand; as Francis' hand moves Raju intends to give a gentle -- as these things go -- sudden twist to Francis' nipple, wanting the sensation to take Francis by surprise. Then he'll reach out for the oil they keep near the bed and wrap his free hand around Francis', helping him work the both of them over.

Crozier wraps a trusting arm around him and yelps loudly as his poor abused nipple gets another tweak by Ram’s strong hand. Cheeky bastard. He forgives him though as Ram takes the two of them in his palm, making them good and slick as he presses them both together, equally hot and aching. He hisses through his teeth and bends a leg to press his weight down through the sole of his foot.

Raju laughs and rolls his hips, moving his cock against Francis', breathing in hard and pressing a messy kiss to Francis' cheek, his jaw, his neck. "I want you," he gasps, "just this way. Feeling every inch of you under every inch of me. I've missed your waist, your stomach, your chest, your hips. I feel all of it." He rolls his hips again, this time letting the rest of his body writhe a little, too. "Just like this. What do you feel, Francis?"

He feels too much all at once, is what he feels. Heat and pressure and weight, skin against skin, firm muscles and strong hand and Rama’s indulgent lips, his expanding chest with each breath, the vibrations of the laughter against his own body - he feels it all at once, and his head spins slightly before he’s grounded by the attention to more sensitive areas. He grips his shoulder, trimmed nails digging into Ram’s skin as he bucks his hips back up into his hand.

“I feel like you might be trying to kill me,” he exhales, trying for dry and collected but quickly following it up with a shiver. “Chrissakes…I feel…how does your mind keep working when you feel this good? I can barely breathe, let alone talk!”

Raju makes a low, pleased noise, brushing his nose over Francis' skin and then resting his lips there against his neck, panting openmouthed. "But you're still talking," he breathes, slowing the movement of his hand as it reaches the tip of Francis' cock so he can swirl his thumb around it. "That's how. As long as you can still think..."

He pauses to pant, close enough to feel Francis' neck and jaw against his eyelashes when he blinks, close enough to smell his skin. His hips move again, without asking the rest of him. "...then I know I can do better."

"This is a involuntary action," he groans softly, finding the back of Ram's head and stroking his hair. "Like breathing...like..."

Like the hiccups, which he hasn't had in some time. He bites back a soft laugh and raises his hips again, encouraging more from Rama's hand. "Hiccups. Like hiccuping. I'm not sparing a single thought for anything but your hand on me."

At the hand over his hair Raju shudders, his own hand pausing. After a moment his head drops the inch separating it from Francis' skin. "Me too," he whispers, opens his mouth to say-- Well. There's always been something powerful to it, the sensation of it, a hand moving gentle over his hair, and matching that comfort and particular kind of powerful want to this kind is strange. He can't think of how to say so outside I like it. But of course he likes it.

So he only makes a wordless noise, a cross between a brief, happy moan and a hum and starts moving his hand again, just a little tighter and faster than before. He finds himself breathing harder, chest pressing against Francis' with each breath, and pleasure and need building in him needs some place to go, and without thinking about it he takes a little of Francis' skin between his teeth.

In addition to his hand his thoughts are flooded with the sensation of Rama’s body pressed against his and his teeth on his skin. He tightens his hand in his hair briefly, encouragingly, hissing under his breath as everything starts to build like an orchestra leading to a crescendo.

“More,” he finds himself saying. “More, Ram, please…”

He can’t be certain what he wants ‘more’ of - the biting or the hand on him or the heavy breathing in his ear, but it’s all so wonderful his head is absolutely swimming.

The hard, shaking breaths he's taking sound loud against Francis' skin and the skin against his feels warm, fever-hot -- or maybe that's him. Or maybe it doesn't matter. Francis pleads for more and Raju's hand tightens and he rocks his hips once, then again more quickly, and then his body's curling up against Francis', free hand clenching desperately at Francis' shoulder, fingertips pressing hard into the muscle there. Raju's orgasm starts in heavy, rasping breaths but ends in a long low moan and then the tension and motion drains out from him, his grip over them softening as his cock does. He relaxes against Francis' body, realising his teeth had clenched around Francis' skin and letting go, pressing a series of slow kisses to the spot.

The kisses shift location a little as his body does; he's trying to slide to one side so all his weight won't be resting directly on Francis. He can keep going if Francis needs him to, but it isn't an option just now to keep holding himself up.

Crozier learns another new thing about himself as Ram bites into his skin - a little pain mixed with pleasure, or in this very specific case, Ram losing control and inadvertently sinking his teeth into him like a predator catching its prey, travels straight down to his cock and overwhelms the circuits in his brain. He gasps and lets out another one of those lose cries, that desperate sort of keening that came on from being played with like a beloved toy, then another as he feels Ram’s heat burn into him.

Just listening to him would have been enough. God knows how much he loves hearing Rama’s breath go shaky as he loses himself, but his hand continues too and Crozier twists and grasps until his hand finds Ram’s shoulder and he can anchor himself through his own release. It comes on fast and hard, and he’s only partially aware as the waves settle that the body above him has now sunk to one side.

Raju lies there, breathing. His thighs feel wet; he wants to clean it, but doesn't want to move away, so that's going to have to wait. The hand that'd been around their cocks drifts upward, over Francis' bare hip, up his side, down his chest and around his stomach, over his hips again. "I love that noise," he says, more breath than speech, and heaves himself up just a little so he can kiss up Francis' neck. "You sounded wonderful," Raju says, and kisses his jaw. "Beautiful," he adds, kissing the side of Francis' face.

He smiles lopsidedly, leaning into the kisses like a cat soaking up the sunlight. Rama loves his noises. It’s still a little hard to believe, but getting easier and easier to hear with each iteration. “I think…” he murmurs, fingers brushing down Ram’s back, “that I may love you.”

Raju lets out a hard, rough breath through parted lips, smiling. "Well, that's a relief," he mumbles, shivering under the brush of rough fingertips over his back and curling a leg over Francis, not caring what the gesture smears over Francis' stomach. He brushes his nose up the side of Francis' face as he talks. "Hate to think one of us was here for something else, after all this time," he goes on and lets his lips land in a gentle kiss next to Francis' eye, hand spread over his chest to touch as much as he can of him.

Crozier isn't thinking about cleaning mess or fetching clothes or anything that involves moving from this spot. His brain is still firmly in that post-climax haze, the gentle caressing and sweet kisses good but not quite enough to sate his cravings for him. He turns and takes Rama's chin into his hand, thumb brushing over his beard before he drags him down for slow kiss.

"I know you were worried," he teases, pulling back to suck on his lower lip indulgently.

"No." It's barely a word, moving slow and quiet out from his lips as they move back from kissing again. His eyelids are half closed and he studies Francis' eyes for a moment, then his hand slides over to the place on Francis' chest where Raju can feel the slow beat there against his palm. "I don't worry about that. I know your heart."

“Meeting my japes with sincerity,” he sighs, cupping Ram’s hand. “I know you know my heart. I know yours.”

It’s important for Ram to hear that now. He doesn’t doubt that he adores him - that rocky month is behind him, even if it still lingers in Ram’s mind.

Somehow hearing the sentiment back at him is a surprise; he feels something like shock running through him and then warmth immediately on its heels, filling all the spaces up that the shock had left behind. There's something about having that. The love is part of it, Francis' love for him. The knowing is a part of it too and it means more hearing it this way, the both of those parts together, with Francis' heart beating under Raju's palm and the warm, callused press of Francis' hand over his.

The only thing Raju can do with the feeling is move in to kiss Francis again. He's too relaxed for the kind of passion he'd pressed against Francis' lips before but the kiss is insistent anyway, and the moment he breaks it Raju leans his forehead against the side of Francis' and lets out a breath through parted lips. "Thank you," he breathes, his free arm sliding under Francis' neck, around his shoulders. If he was asked, he wouldn't be able to answer exactly what he's thanking Francis for; he thinks Francis would understand it, all the same.

He accepts the thanks even if his initial instinct is to hush him, because he does know him. He knows it's more than reassurance - it's release. None of the hurt from before is here with him now, none of the feelings of isolation and betrayal exist in the small space between them. He nuzzles his head against his and licks his lips absently, still tasting Ram on his tongue.

They really should tidy themselves up. He can give Rama another gift now though, and turns to extract himself from the embrace. "Stay there," he murmurs, slipping out from their tent to fetch what they need. His legs shake slightly as he walks to the lavatory and back; Jesus, what a time they've had.

The whining, protesting noise out of Raju as Francis slips out from their little shelter is brief but he means it, even if it hadn’t come out of him on purpose. Raju had meant to be the one to take care of him— but the air that’s let in as Francis leaves raises goose pimples over his skin again and he curls up even as he moves to the edge of the bed to wait for Francis to come back. If Francis is already out, and Francis is more suited to the cold than Raju anyway—

“You took too long,” Raju complains, reaching out once he sees a flash of thigh outside the blanket and wrapping a hand around it. Has it only been a moment? Yes. That doesn’t matter. “Come back in and warm me up.”

To be fair the hand that goes for his leg is a little chilled, but Crozier has a sacred duty to tease the hell out of the man he loves. “My delicate flower,” he smirks, crawling back under the blanket quickly to hand him the flannel. “Did you wilt while I was away?”

Raju gives that the kind of dismissive, derisive noise it deserves, grabbing the hand holding the flannel along with the flannel itself and tugging at both, trying to pull Francis at least halfway on top of him. "It is cold. And you're the one who took my clothes off. Your responsibility now."

“Mn.” They’re the right words, even if said in jest - Ram is his responsibility. He needs to care for him, even when he’s being a brat.

He slides a leg over Ram’s and guides the flannel, and additionally Ram’s own hand, down to clean him of their shared mess, thorough but still quick as a sort of mercy. When finished the flannel gets tossed onto the floor, a problem for tomorrow, and Crozier reaches up and gives one of Rama’s nipples a good tweak.

“You’re a pain in the arse,” he says fondly, finally moving to wrap his limbs around him.

Cleaning him off gets a small noise out of Raju, half appreciation and half complaint, allowed out of him easily and without thought regardless of how quick Francis manages to be. Then Francis tweaks his nipple and the half-complaint turns into a full one, louder, as Raju startles, curling up a little.

"What have I done?" he laughs, pulling at Francis arms to urge them around him more quickly. "I haven't done a thing to your arse!"

Crozier gets both arms around Rama, his hand around his waist and the other arm slid under his neck to hold around his shoulder. One leg gets folded over Ram, and then his body leans slightly so that some of his weight is pressing down on him.

“That’s right, you haven’t yet,” he chuckles, low and against Rama’s hair. “There now, are you warm?”

“Mmm.” Raju lets out a long breath against Francis, settling himself against the warm, solid expanse of him. They’ve slept in all kinds of positions by now and Raju’s preference changes with his mood, but right now this is just the thing.

“I will be,” Raju answers, body and breathing relaxed while one hand reaches around to the leg folded over him and follows it up to the soft swell of muscle and fat above the thigh. “Now, what was that about your arse, Francis? ‘Yet’, you said?”

“Did I say that?” He hums innocently in his throat, rubbing Rama’s skin with his palm until it’s good and warm. “I can’t say anything with certainty in this place, now can I?”

“Now who’s being a pain?” Raju grins, his shifting under Francis’ hand only not squirming because he’s doing it so slowly, contented not only by the warmth of the friction but the gesture itself, the way Francis really is trying to warm him up. It’s hard to even pretend to sound like he’s complaining, and the grin makes it into his voice too.

“Teasing that way,” he goes on, hand on Francis’ arse squeezing slowly, lazily. “Not even letting me get annoyed about it.”

“I never said you couldn’t be annoyed,” he murmurs, wriggling slightly as his arse is kneaded like a piece of dough. Affectionately, of course.

He sighs softly and reaches up to pull at the blanket and make a little hole for some fresh air. He attempts to face it away from Ram though - he won’t mind having to breathe second-hand air if it keeps him warm.

Crozier finds Ram’s forehead and presses a kiss to his hairline.

"No, but I'm too..." Then Francis presses a kiss to his hairline and it's-- not too much, not at all, but too much to talk and feel it at the same time. There are certain gestures which come packaged not just with love but with care, the promise of care, and even after so long of living with Francis, in moments, it's a promise that still feels new. Like water pouring onto dry, hard baked mud. He pushes out a long sigh, eyelids half-lowering, and looks at whatever part of Francis is closest for a second or two. Then he shifts, reaching blindly to tug his side of the blanket off the headboard and onto them, and presses his face somewhere next to Francis' neck.

"...'m too happy to be annoyed," Raju mumbles into the warmth of him, content to let it go at that, content only to lie here. Maybe that's why he's been sleeping so well since he's been living in this little cabin, since they've started spending nights this way: only lying here this way is enough. Like this, wrapped around a man who does those things, it doesn't matter to Raju at all whether or not he sleeps.

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.

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?”

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.

He’s tempted to go right back to sleep once he’s reassured there’s no flood or fire or any need to jump into action, but obviously something’s bothering Rama. He doesn’t need a string to tell him that. He’s up and not covered and obviously agitated by something.

Crozier turns over and pushes the blankets aside, trying to look up at Rama, who’s sat himself up like he’s about to jump straight out of the bed and into the cold. He’s stiff, trying to breathe maybe to calm down an impending fit, and all the sleepiness falls away from Crozier in an instant. He sits up, quite obviously alarmed, and puts his hand into Ram’s shoulder.

Raju feels Francis moving but it’s the hand on his shoulder that prompts him to open his eyes. It’s alarm that he sees there, something about Raju now is doing more than wake Francis up, and the pinching at Raju’s brow deepens for a moment before he tries a smile. It comes with a tired look around the eyes and a flare of shame that tightens his throat and prompts him to cover Francis’ hand with his, the squeeze and smile meant to be reassuring.

It’s the hand with the strings he’d used, thoughtlessly; Raju’s smile tightens as his gaze flickers toward it, but he tries focusing on Francis’ face instead. Everything he feels when he looks at that dear, familiar face — a warm rush of gratitude, responsibility and determination, a soft, powerful thing that wants to wrap around the man in front of him and keep itself between Francis and the world’s cruelties — is more worth thinking about than old guilts and failures, scabbed over and rotting in his stomach. Those, only action and enough time to take it is ever going to wash out. In the meantime, they’ll probably fade enough with a walk around the cabin.

“Nothing’s on fire,” Raju repeats, smile a little tight, voice steady and soft. “You can go to sleep. I was just about to get up.” That last isn’t true, exactly. He doesn’t want to leave the bed, and everything for him inside it. But he’s already broken up Francis’ rest, so he’s going to leave the room until he can calm himself anyway, so he may as well make out like that had been his plan all along if Francis is going to stop worrying enough to settle down again.

‘Nothing’s on fire’ his arse. He knows that look, that far-away glance and the smile that doesn’t quite reach the rest of his face. Rama just doesn’t get up in the middle of the night for any reason but an emergency and to use the lavatory - and even then, it’s a bit of a struggle to get him to leave the blankets.

“Then I’ll join you,” he says, already moving past Ram to get out of bed and pull on a second pair of socks. “I’m already up.”

Might as well stoke the fire in the room or start one in the stove. Even at Ram’s insistence he couldn’t return to bed. Something’s wrong, and how is he supposed to find a moment’s peace if Ram’s pacing about the cabin feeling cold and plainly bothered. Even if he refuses to speak about whatever’s wrong - which he just may. He knows Ram likes to pretend his feelings are a locked fortress inside of himself, impenetrable and hidden, instead of written so plainly in his body language and expressions.

Raju stares at him, expression faded into surprise. That wasn’t how this was supposed to go. But Francis has outmanoeuvred him very neatly; Raju can’t very well tell him No, you would rather be comfortable. So he nods, swallowing and looking away, standing up to put on layers of his own. The set of his shoulders is high, posture curled against the cold, but he doesn’t grimace and complain about it the way he usually might. His gaze doesn’t know where to sit as he does it. Usually he would watch Francis, or his hands.

“Is it morning, then?” he mutters, restless gaze landing for a moment on a curtained window he can see through the doorway. He wouldn’t see any sun behind it even if the curtain was opened up, and that wouldn’t say anything about just what time it is. “Can’t tell.”

"No, I think it's too early to be morning." His internal clock is still sluggish; he'd wake up with lighter limbs and a clearer head if it was actually morning. Lifelong routine is the only thing that keeps him from succumbing to the polar night.

They stand up and raise their arms over their head in a slow stretch. It's odd, but it feels like there's another person in the room with them. A ghost perhaps, a shadow hanging over the cabin of some other time and place. Crozier's eyes dart around the room, absently searching for whatever it is that's so oppressively present.

His eyes fall on the bright, red string on his finger, and he realizes that's what the problem must be. Not his own string, not the strong thread that binds him and Ram together, but a string tied to Ram's finger that he can't quite see. That something that's haunting the room is in Rama's head.

"Did you have a nightmare?"

Seetha had usually been quick to get up in the morning. If she hadn’t woken up with bad dreams already, she knew she had to be quick if she wanted to catch Raju before he left for whatever needed to be done. Would she linger instead in the cold, the way that Raju does? He doesn’t know. He knows what the dream had told him: she’d gotten up with a smile, and gone in that direction. Where their stove had been. She’d opened the shutters before she lit it, as much for the air as the bright sunlight; it was already warm enough without a fire.

The question pulls his focus to Francis again. He must be worried, or he wouldn’t have gotten up — he’s just said it’s too early for that. But Raju can’t see his face to tell. It’s going to be dim like this all day.

“No.” His answer is simple and efficient, words not quite clipped. He doesn’t know if Francis’ night vision is better than his, so he tries a smile that comes out quick and tight. “I had a good dream.”

Then he moves into the sitting room, finding tinder and his tools to strike a spark and kneeling in front of the fireplace. He should give Francis more than that, shouldn’t he? He doesn’t know. Speaking to one of… well, to the one about the other feels… cruel. Francis must know some day Raju will have to—

A bit of wood catches fire and Raju grimaces at it, shifting to hopefully block it from view and trying to strike a spark even more quickly for some real fire to disguise it.

Anyway, Francis must know… the state of things. The way things will have to be, some day. It seems cruel to say anything about the part of him that feels that time should come even sooner.

Raju takes a deep, slow breath that doesn’t clear much of anything churning inside of him but is at least something to focus on, on clear air and the work of his hands and on trying to think of something he can stand to offer Francis instead.

There’s a swirling, black cloud lingering in the bedroom and then on into their parlor. Neither of them are familiar this fresh round of nonsense given to them by the Aurora, or the Darkwalker, or whatever supernatural created had decided to toy with them this week, but surely Rama knows that he can’t hide what he’s feeling from Crozier. And even if they weren’t connected, Crozier knows him well enough to see when the man he loves is overburdened by something.

He follows him into the sitting room and lights a few of the lanterns, bringing one over to the fireplace to help Ram with the stoking of the flames.

“What was the dream?” he presses, careful with his tone. Almost innocent in his ask, worried he might frighten Ram away like a skittish deer.

There’s something troubling him, something heavy and ever-present like a shadow. Something that even if Rama were to talk about it there may not be any catharsis, but he can’t pretend he doesn’t see it.

Raju frowns at the fireplace. His hands hesitate, then work at striking a spark more quickly. The casual tone is reassuring; the words aren’t. Is there any way to answer him without sounding as if he’s telling a man who’s been as loyal and attentive and generous as any wife has ever been, as steady and reassuring as any husband, this lonely, wonderful man that Raju wants to leave him to go back?

“Even if I did… leave this place,” Raju starts, skipping ahead of answering to try and push through the knot of grief and guilt in his chest and get ahead of the problem, “I wouldn’t go home. Go south, I mean. I was further north before. I imagine that’s where I’d be if I was there again . But I never dreamed about being home. Before. After the first year, I think. By the time that was out. I stopped.”

He only realises as he’s finishing saying it that the guilt’s caught up to him then too, that he’s been feeling it crawling up his throat. He swallows and bends further down, blowing on the spark he’s made for a moment of calm, of empty mind, a wall between himself and it. The tiny, more unnatural fire that’s already lit itself flickers, and Raju ignores it. Francis will ignore it too, Raju knows, or at least he’ll be kind enough not to mention it out loud. But Raju isn’t sure what he’s going to want to know. For all it’d be easier if Francis had just gone back to sleep, though, Raju realises he doesn’t mind too much — at least, in theory — if he does have to talk more about it if it means he gets to feel Francis at his shoulder too, careful and kind and looking at him. Is that selfish, considering what a real explanation might entail? Francis has already lost everything once. Raju doesn’t know. It’s beyond him just now to figure it out.

Ah, a dream of home.

Crozier idly checks for sparks elsewhere as he leans in closer, readying a woolen sock to stomp out stray bits of failed restraint. The emotions he’s feeling are complicated, full of guilt and dread and sadness. Maybe it was a good dream, but it didn’t bring many good emotions along with it.

“Do you dream often of being home now?”

He wonders if home - his village - seems further away there than it does here. If the obstacles in his path are too solid and real to be ignored, unlike the ones facing him here. What’s the old adage, so close, yet so far away?

Is that what Francis is asking? Or is he asking Do you want to go home? Francis usually says exactly what he means. But anyone might try to ask a question like that without really saying it, wouldn’t they, so they don’t have to hear the words. Raju knows what he’d be answering, anyway, and he shakes his head quickly, jaw tight. The fire is mostly growing on its own now, and all Raju has to do is leave it alone. He doesn’t know what to do with his hands.

He reaches for the stump of Francis’ arm, looking at it instead of Francis’ face, pulling it closer to him as he leans to touch their shoulders together. I want to be here, he thinks, directing the idea at Francis on instinct, insistent but hardly knowing that he’s doing it, or that he’s sending it atop a wave of oily guilt and nausea.

“I have nightmares about home,” he says down at Francis’ arm. “I don’t remember the rest.” Then, in a grasping try at making this conversation something other than it is, he asks, “Do you dream about home? Ireland?”

It’s not a question that Rama wants to be there with him. It’s not something he’s ever doubted - but there was always a caveat. An unspoken caveat, but one that had always been understood and shared by almost every soul in Milton now.

He feels that caveat now. Even as he slips his arm around Rama to hold him closer to his body, he feels that desire to be any place but here.

“At times,” he answers, willing to be guided a little way away from his path. He’ll not be swayed though. “I dream of green.”

But he never longs for home, that’s the difference.

“Rama. I can feel…this string between us is heavy.”

When Francis slips his arm around Raju and pulls him even closer Raju looks over at him, surprised. Francis says I l dream of green and somehow Raju knows that what he actually means is No, not like you do. Raju can’t imagine that, not feeling that connection to the place he came from, the pull of its need. But Francis’ work is done, isn’t it, for better or worse. Maybe that’s the difference.

Francis goes on and Raju looks away from him, chewing at the inside of his lip. He watches the way the strings move as one hand picks restlessly under the nail of the other, that heaviness Francis must be feeling too pressing against the inside of him. “I’m sorry, Francis. I didn’t mean for you to…”

To feel… what? Raju would have to look at the roiling mass of it more closely to figure out the words. Instead he shrugs, feeling Francis’ chest against his shoulder as it moves. Francis knows what Raju means anyway, doesn’t he? He doesn’t need to say it.

“I know,” he tells him. No, Rama doesn’t need to apologize or explain, they’re both in this one together. Neither of them are trying hurt the other.

“Would talking lessen any of it?”

It. The pain and guilt. The inner turmoil. The pull of unfinished business at home and the complicated feelings he has towards Seetha and his village. Because Crozier feels all of it, shares these complicated emotions with him, but there are certain things he cannot name yet.

And some of these things he needs to hear from Rama’s own lips. It doesn’t feel right that they should invade each others’ brains to learn these things.

The question sees Raju frowning down at his hands, not in disagreement, but because he’s realising he can’t remember if it ever has. He can’t remember a time that he’s tried, for any of this.

Well, why would he have?

But talking to this man about leaving, even indirectly— But Francis already seems to know about that, or at leas doesn’t seem to feel the dread and wrongness of it cutting through him in the way that Raju does. So maybe it’s alright. Is it?

Simpler to just explain, instead of deciding if he should. He can do that with Francis in a way he couldn’t have with Seetha.

He tries to brush a thumb against the ragged, more faded thread on his finger, thinking of her. Of course his thumb goes right through. “There’s a thread here. It… it’s not… in good shape. I remember the day I left. She cried. I didn’t… I didn’t think anything of it.”

He remembers leaving, thinking it at Francis: the little boat under his feet, the movement of the river carrying him where he needed to be. Everyone he’d ever known, really known, on the bank all shouting with one voice, led by Seetha. His remembered pride in her, his eagerness and pride in himself, all painted over with the stain of each time he’s thought back on it since with bitter self-recriminations in his heart.

“I…” he tries to go on, but can’t sticks at the base of his throat. He shouldn’t ever be thinking can’t. Not about this. There’s more important things at stake than can’t.

It sneaks itself out anyway, though, written in the threads of the image Raju sends him after: Francis standing in the doorway of the little home they’ve made, looking very small at some long distance, alone there and looking out. Raju leans forward, elbows against his knees, and presses the heels of his hands against his eyes with his face twisted up. Before he’d closed his eyes against all of it he’d seen the more unnatural part of that fire escaping here and there over the edge of the brick, and he ignores it. It won’t grow without him, not the way a real one would, and if there’s any problem beyond that he has to trust Francis to take care of it. He can’t manage anything else.

The flames lick around the brickwork but stay contained, even as Crozier’s own thoughts become more uneven.

Rama doesn’t spend his days here hoping for a goodbye, but he doesn’t nor wish it either. Everything about the vision hurts - that poor woman, this poor, poor man, this unfortunate line of events, and Crozier allows for Ram’s guilt and sorrow and sickness with himself to fill his heart.

But he feels for himself too. How could he not? He doesn’t want to say goodbye to Ram anymore than Ram does, and the thought of more isolation and loneliness…

Crozier leans into Ram, his head resting on top of his. He replays the vision of Rama growing distant from his own point of view, that stiff upper lip he’d keep on his face as he stood in the doorway and watched him leave his life forever.

It’s terrible, and he can’t stop the thoughts of an empty sea of ice, legs strapped together as he waits by a breathing hole for a seal to emerge. He thinks of the long trek over uneven terrain, the sounds of men one by one falling dead in their tracks behind him, then eventually silence. The fluttering of papers and canvas, the sight of a circle of people dressed in furs, caring for him despite how ‘othered’ he is.

He doesn’t want Rama to have these thoughts, and he tries to bring himself back to a place of support. He’ll go on, as he always does. He hugs him tighter, as if he might disappear right then and there.

“There is no choice,” he tells him hoarsely. “There should be no hesitation. You know I understand.”

If Francis had seemed unaffected by the idea before, he doesn’t any longer. Like Raju, he only must have been trying not to think about it, and telling him was a cruel thing after all—

But Raju doesn’t have anything in him that can finish the thought, not when he’s seeing — knowing — Raju leaving, the way it would feel, the way the isolation felt for Francis before, the men dying behind him. Being left behind, separate even from the people who find him after. Francis has lost enough already, Raju knew that, but in this moment he knows it and a whine pushes itself out from his throat. Francis understands, of course he does, the way Seetha had understood. Seetha had a whole village behind her and Francis only has what he’s trying not to think of now — what Raju can feel him trying to bury long enough to support Raju, to help him. Francis’ head is resting on Raju’s, Francis’ arm is around him, Francis would let a life he’s built back up in himself fall to ruin a second time without a fight only because Raju needed him to and Raju can cut that whining noise off now because he’s angry and he straightens, half-turning in Francis’ tight hold toward him to grip his shirt, breath shaky but expression fierce. It isn’t Francis the heat of this anger is turned toward, it’s— it’s—

Promise me— A large hand closing around his, slick with blood—

It isn’t anyone. He isn’t angry at anyone. He only is, at the pain, the necessity, the pointless cruelty of needing to and no choice and no hesitation. “I—“

He what? Won’t. Unimaginable. Even now he can’t bear to connect the word to anything. Can’t. Not true. He knows very well what he can do. Can’t bear to. But it hurts less to feel anger burning at the edges of the wound.

“You should have better than that,” he demands instead over the noise and heat of the fireplace behind him, voice low and rough and fierce. “You understand that too, don’t you?”

He’s witnessed the intensity of Rama’s anger plenty of times. Sometimes it’s a slow smolder, an inner seething that burns him up from the inside out, and sometimes it’s fierce enough to set fire to half a forest. But it turns on him now, and even though it’s not directed at him, he feels like it’s about to set him aflame.

“Yes.”

No.

No, of course he doesn’t! This happiness has all been a miracle, a stroke of luck, nothing that he’d ever expected to come across here, let alone dream of duplicating. Even if he’d wanted to. Even if he could.

Rama takes hold of his shirt his calm expression is betrayed by his inner melancholy. No, he’d mourn him, of course he would, mourn his loss and treasure all those moments he’d gotten to live again thanks to him.

“It’s okay, Ram,” he tells him quietly, trying to meet the fire with a little water. “It’s okay.”

It’s just life. Nothing stays forever.

“No it isn’t.” Raju’s answer is low and quick, instant on the heels of Francis’ quiet, mournful acceptance. Some part of him knows that Francis must be right to accept it, that Raju should keep accepting it too, but all of it hurts too much to bear being calm about it. “It isn’t!” he goes on, shaking at the fabric in his hands as if shaking the man himself. “You should have better than this! How is it right that I, I have to—“

Raju stares at him, jaw set stubbornly and brow drawn, but dread creeping into the look in his eyes. He has the sense of teetering on some ledge, outstretched arms and wobbling balance the only thing keeping him from finishing the thought out loud. Or from having it at all. How is it right, that I have to—

He feels Francis’ shirt wound in his fists. He feels the fire fierce and hot behind him. He sees the room behind Francis, the light and dark there shifting with the flames. He sees the face of the man he’s built a life with, a strong and handsome face, thin shapely lips and long sloping nose and high forehead, golden hair and blue eyes dark in the room’s deep shadows, and feels his lungs filling quickly with his quick breaths, and doesn’t think about anything else.

“You do,” he insists, still angrily but a little weakly too, now. But it’s safer ground, this part. It’s natural for a man to want to give his— who he’s made his home in every gift that he can think to, whether or not he can actually do it. “You deserve everything. You don’t understand that? The way that I see you?”

“Of course I see it, of course.”

Still soft, still gentle, his hand rising to cover Ram’s still gripping his shirt so hard that he worries he’s going to burst into flames.

He sees how he loves him. He sees it, he understands it. It isn’t fair, and all things aren’t equal. He’s at the end, Ram’s still near the beginning.

“But you have to live.”

That’s the crux of it; Rama has to live. He has love still waiting for him, a mission, duty, a life that could be lived just as fully. Crozier left those things and chose his isolation. There’s nothing for him after this, and that’s by choice. That’s how it must be.

If you go back tomorrow, I will have been happy. Gratitude among the sorrow, sweet nostalgia paired with loneliness. Both things can be exist inside a man’s brain.

Raju’s gaze dart here and there over Francis’ face, eyes narrowed, thinking. “I told you,” he decides, “that I… I knew what it was to want… to die. And I told you how I beat a man— I tortured him. He wasn’t the first. But this time, there weren’t any guards. Only me. When I stepped out he managed to capture a snake. I don’t know how. It bit me, and he said… he said I had an hour, and then I would die. And I was… I…”

But he’s already danced closer to the edge than this, hasn’t he, just in the last minute? Maybe that’s why he’s hesitating. It would have meant something different spoken on its own, without that damning How is it right that came before. He says it anyway, feeling his way through to the right word.

“I was… grateful. Relieved… Happy. I was happy, for the first time in… I don’t know. Years. Maybe longer. But here, I’m happy to live. I want to live. Because I’m here.” He’s shaking at Francis’ shirt again, or trying to with Francis’ hand over his, but even as intent as he is on convincing Francis to… on convincing him, a part of Raju is already asking what could happen after that. Francis agrees with him, says it isn’t… fair — a safer word than right, it could be right and still not fair — that all of this isn’t fair, and then… what?

Raju keeps pushing anyway, for agreement, or maybe for something more than that, no matter how impossible it might be. He can’t bear to do anything else.

“Here, where it doesn’t hurt. With you.” His gaze is darting over Francis’ face again but this time urgently, looking for something. Understanding, or agreement, or anything other than that mournful, loving acceptance that Raju can feel from him now. For Francis to fight. If Francis agrees Raju should fight this then, then… then something. Something he could put into words if only it was right to do it, if only the thought of it didn’t make all the heavy sludge and inward pointed knives and everything he feels on looking at that thread out to his home try to crawl back up his throat.

It doesn’t hurt with him. He doesn’t think he’s ever heard a compliment so beautiful or so profound - when they’re together it doesn’t hurt to live.

He inhales sharply and answers Ram’s searching glance by tugging him forward, right into his arms. He tugs him tightly right there on the floor, afraid for him, afraid for them both, and sad that things couldn’t be less complicated.

Rama has to go back if given the opportunity. It’s the right thing to do, even if it means facing all those things that can slowly kill a man’s soul. He doesn’t want that life for this man, this person that lightens his own burdens and makes him feel human, not like a shadow or a ghost. His loss would haunt him just as keenly as any other loss, if not more so. He’d be losing a part of himself this time.

He can’t argue it. He can’t, and it pains him to not be able to fix this.

Raju’s tugged against Francis’ chest. His arms are bent against it, hands still fisted in Francis’ shirt, and his face falls naturally against the crook of Francis’ neck. Francis’ arms are tight around him, smothering Raju’s desperate need to hear—

—something Francis could never give him, Raju realises, not wanting to know it but unable to help it held against the gentle warmth of him, the fire sounding faint behind the echo of Raju’s gasping breaths against Francis’ skin. You never would have asked, would you? He isn’t sure how much of the message makes it through — the thoughts he gets seem to be more impressions than words and his own now, as much as any idea can be, is quiet — but it isn’t something Raju could admit to out loud, the desperate, selfish shame of what he had been looking for. You’d sacrifice everything to help someone else, even people you’ll never meet. Asking for what you need instead never even occurred to you, did it? It never could have been different; that’s why I love you, after all.

His breath shudders in the small, damp space between his face and Francis’ neck, and his eyes burn. He can’t tell if the wetness on his cheeks is his own sweat or if it’s tears. He closes his eyes, and doesn’t try to figure it out.

Crozier can’t fix this. He can’t soothe the hurt or change the outcome if Ram ever were to go home. He can’t tell him he’d do differently, or that he wouldn’t be devastated or lonely if he did go. It’s frustrating and terrifying, and he grits his teeth and squares his jaw to keep himself from crying.

He can’t do anything but hold him, feeling the damp of sweat and tears and general misery as he leans his head against his. He silently apologizes, though he isn’t sure what he’s most sorry for - that he can’t fight for him, or that he’s willing for the both of them to suffer if it means Ram keeps his promise.

I want to live. I want to live, and I want you by my side, but I couldn’t live with myself.

He feels the depth of it when Francis thinks it, just what it’s like to feel that way. Wanting it and mourning it and regretting that he can’t do anything else but honour what someone who he loves needs of him even when making the sacrifice for it hurts that way. There’s something pure in it. He doesn’t think it feels that way inside Francis but once the feelings move into Raju’s mind they stand out, shining bright against the grime and the muck built up over years and the low, unrelenting refrain of I can’t, I can’t, I can’t and the cold knowledge of how false that refrain really is. Francis didn’t question what he needed to do. Francis didn’t try to argue Raju into changing his mind.

You’ve always been better than me Raju thinks at him, admiration with barbed-wire failure twisting inward at the edges of it, and gratitude and love all the way through. His breaths are louder now and he shudders, the horror of his own selfish want beginning to come home to him. I shouldn’t have— and then comes the tight-chest feeling of holding his breath, the bare sensation of a completely empty room, the absence of what he’s all but admitted to but can’t bear uncovering completely even now.

“I’m sorry,” he rasps, throat tight, his thoughts now too specific to trust with sending any over, at least on purpose. But sorry feels true so strongly that maybe some of that leaks through anyway. It’s what he should be saying in a dozen ways; for asking Francis to convince Raju of something so selfish, for having the dream in the first place and not being good enough at hiding it, sorry with the whole of his home standing on the edge of the water watching him and growing smaller with every second passing, sorry on his knees with his feet bare in the snow and fire all around him all that time ago to a man whose final words have always been very clear. And Francis deserves to hear it, anyway. Raju’s arms pressed between them are starting to ache with the angle they’re bent at and Raju couldn’t bear to move, and he should be comforting Francis right now, and he shouldn’t have let any of this come out at all.

Even feeling the adoration behind the comparison makes him feel low. He’s not better, he’s a coward who’s tired of fighting. He wants to keep Rama for himself, for always, but how could he be so selfish? What does he really have to offer him? He can’t fulfill him like a wife might, and this place is freezing and miserable, and he’s quite a bit older, and so how many years does he actually have —

He realizes too far into the spiral that Rama might be able to hear all this inside his head, and he quickly tries to stop himself from falling into old habits. Ram doesn’t need to hear all that self-inflicted misery.

“Don’t be sorry. I would,” he whispers. I would love you forever, dreams and longing and burdens and all. Rama shouldn’t need to apologize for being pulled in two directions, or thinking of his own happiness for a goddamned change.

The horror of having allowed I don’t want into reality, into words, using those words to find excuses, of having tried even for a moment to convince a moral, dutiful man to hand him even a hint at those excuses to hide himself away from what has to be is starting to sink into him. A faithless, arrogant son, he knows, to avoid what his father’s ordered, a weak coward to want to ignore the needs of so many who—

There are thoughts in his mind a little ways behind those, running alongside them in parallel spiraling lines. These thoughts aren’t quick and sharp and hot; they aren’t his. Raju’s breathing quiets abruptly, still quick and shaky but startled away from whatever it’d been moving into. He’s a coward, the slow certainty that isn’t his had said, and a little of the distress twisting Raju’s face turns to focus as he tries to listen, pay enough attention to notice the rest of it. Selfish, the thought goes on, more of that bizarre paralleling of Raju’s own. Selfish, he knows, to want Raju — Rama, isn’t it, for Francis he’s Rama — to stay for himself, for always, when he doesn’t have anything to offer, too old, too… too something Raju can’t quite catch, not enough somehow, offering only something worse. And then Francis follows that one with a thought that must be purposeful, one Raju feels and has to close his eyes against the pain and the beauty of it.

He pulls just far enough back from Francis to look at his face with a steadying breath in through his nose. His expression is focused and determined; Francis’ face is blurry for a moment through the tears caught in Raju’s eyelashes until he blinks them away, lifting his chin for a closer-to-even look into Francis’ eyes. “You can say that and not know? It isn’t just that I don’t— that it’s going to be… hard to be there again. What don’t you have to offer me, Francis? You’ve given me everything.”

“Temporarily,” he says, voice hoarse. Everything is temporary and frail, because Crozier’s own existence feels so temporary and frail.

It doesn’t seem fair to bring this up now. Ram has too much in his mind, too much inner and outer turmoil for Crozier to now lay this burden on him. But he asked, and Crozier can only be honest. He pulls back and touches his hand to Ram’s face, so very aware of the lack of wrinkles on his handsome face. There’s maybe a gray here or there in his hair, but nothing apparent, no real marks of aging aside from the stress that he wears in his muscles.

He should speak plainly. “I can’t give you permanence. I’m older, Ram, and not in the best health. I can’t promise you tomorrow or the next day, not with any certainty.”

He can’t deny that he’s made Rama happy, because he can feel it in every touch and see it with every smile. But he isn’t the wise choice, he isn’t the one who can provide a solid future. What if he dies and leaves Ram here in the frozen wasteland alone? It’s nothing that he wants, for himself and for Rama, but it’s too real to be outright ignored.

Edited 2025-02-16 15:02 (UTC)

Temporarily. The word seems in line with the inevitable thing they’re finally talking about now. Raju feels the empty space where the pressure of Francis’ arm had been around him, watching Francis’ eyes while he touches his hand to Raju’s face instead, and doesn’t realise what Francis means until he goes on.

Raju’s eyebrows pinch together. The distraction from his own weakness has moved that disgusting, disgusted feeling back in him a little but it’s there, the grief and dread are more bearable just now but closer to the surface than they’ve been in some time and he’s drained, weakness and exhaustion biting at the edges of him the way it always does when the fire in him burns too hot for too long. In the day, after more sleep, maybe he’d have something different to say about this. Right now the only thing he thinks is, No, and it feels right to follow it.

“You’re not that old,” Raju insists, sharply. His fists uncurl from Francis’ shirt and he runs his palms briskly down Francis’ sides and then back up again. He’s solid and healthy and alive under Raju’s touch. No illness, no injury. His ribs are all whole and healed — but even reassuring himself of that sends the hard edged reality in that memory of the long days when those things hadn’t been true shivering across Raju’s shoulders and down into his chest. But that was a while ago, the eternity it’d taken Francis to heal and then plenty of time after, and Francis is healthy and strong now. No matter what he’s convinced himself of. “You’re talking like you’re about to fall over dead right here.”

He’s sturdy and solid now, but his insides…the rot in his bones, the scurvy in the muscles, the unseen damage to his organs. He has to be a realist about his health now, a middle-aged man who was poisoned and starved for years can’t possibly thrive.

But Seetha. Seetha is still young and vibrant, and yes the struggle remains for those two lovers to overcome, but he doesn’t doubt that Ram can accomplish what he set out to do. Rama seems like this invincible creature, powerful and driven, and whatever impossible things await him will be conquered.

“Not today or tomorrow…but I won’t be able to see you into old age. I’ll be here for as long as I’ll be here, but it’s not nearly…” He chokes on the words. “It’s not nearly what you deserve.”

“I deserve you.” Raju’s shaking him a little, again. He realises what he’s said; it doesn’t matter what he deserves. Not when it comes to what he has to do. Wanting so badly to doubt that, being so nakedly aware now of the weakness in him, makes it all the more essential that he not allow himself to so much as consider it now.

He’s almost breathing hard again, looking at Francis. He realises, with relief like a clean breeze blowing onto sweat soaked skin, that that isn’t why he wants to argue with Francis this time. He remembers the current of Francis’ thoughts, coward and selfish to want a man he’s so settled in devotion to to stay; it can’t be endured. The way Francis chokes on the words not what you deserve as he says them shouldn’t be endured.

“I’m going back.” Raju’s hands don’t clench over Francis’ sides. They don’t even twitch there. It’s some distant marvel that he can say it matter of factly, evenly even with the fact of it still clenching at the inside of his throat. Easier to do when he shuts the reality of it away from himself a little, and focuses on the fact that one was leading up to: “But not because you’re not enough to be worth staying for. What do I care about getting old? What does old mean to a man like me, a life like mine? It’d be a privilege, to live a life here with you. That’s what you give to me, Francis. And that’s enough.”

His eyes— they were burning, and he didn’t notice until now. He swallows, and blinks the blur in his vision away. It should be enough. It’s hard to figure out how to speak about this, to say should and have it mean the right thing, not a betrayal of the people he has to go back to, but just… just should be, that’s all. He wants it to be. But it’s not because of Francis, of all things, that he can’t afford to stay.

Raju can’t help but go on, his calm of a moment before eclipsed by desperation again. His hands do grip Francis’ sides this time. “I don’t give a damn how old you are,” he insists, voice coming out low and rough. “I’d stay anyway.”

It feels like it should be a victory - Rama will go back home if and when this place allows it. Crozier won't have to put up a fight or beg for Ram to see reason; one day the aurora will open up and Crozier will do as he's always done: he'll say goodbye. It should be a relief, but that would mean cutting himself off from the joy that's been living in his heart all these months.

He'd stay anyway. Rama would choose him if he could. It's not like Sophia at all, who wouldn't choose to be his wife even if the world hadn't been so judgemental. Ram would have him, age and one-hand and constant nightmares and melancholy and all.

Christ, he's a lucky man. It makes him a little sick from the whiplash of the emotions, some of his own, some of Ram's. Maybe he is what Rama deserves. Maybe he can believe he's of some worth still, even if he has to claw the idea out from his self-loathing and sadness.

Crozier brings his fingers up to Ram's cheek, his own vision blurring around the edges as he wipes the damp from underneath his eyes. Ah, damn it all, he can't cry too. He smiles instead, watery and pathetic, and he tries to bring him into another embrace, this one slightly less awkward in the way they're twisted together. "We won't know when you'll get the opportunity to leave. It could be tomorrow, it could be in months. Years. I'll keep you well until we have to part." And be grateful for every single moment until then.

This embrace is more deliberate, less desperate, but it hurts just as much. It could be tomorrow, Francis says, and a hard rush of air leaves Raju like he’s been punched in the stomach. The dread in tomorrow is a sharp burst of something like terror, the dread in years is slow and acrid at the bottom of his stomach, acid creeping into his throat. He winds his arms tight around Francis’ back, hiding his face against Francis’ hair, and doesn’t want it. He doesn’t want any of it, doesn’t want to go back to the uniform thick and hot around his skin, the unforgiving, inflexible stiffness in his back as assessing eyes move over him, horrors pressed tight inside him crowding into empty airless space. He doesn’t want to sail up to the bank of the river again and feel the weight of all the eager gazes, the certainty only in him, the desperate need that only he can lead them to all set against the impossible reality of him, all the weakness and fault lines in him that all their need can’t ever be allowed to see. For a moment he doesn’t want to be from anywhere, or going anywhere. All he wants is to be here, where there’s someone whose eyes fill up with the same tears that his do, where there’s someone who thinks it’s right to wrap their arms around him and hold him up.

Francis will keep him well. He always has. Raju doesn’t know how to say so. He pushes a mess of brief, blurry impressions at Francis instead: the gratitude and relief of the arms around him now, the image of Francis drunk and hurting not knowing why his husband has forgotten and abandoned him but carefully settling food every day out for him anyway, of thighs under his shoulders and looking up at Francis through a brittle sagging exhaustion and feeling the comfort and care of fingers running cool water through his hair. Francis rubbing Raju’s hands warm, tending so carefully to his feet— a million other things, the care and love in Francis’ every movement.

Raju had reassured Seetha when he had left, when he hadn’t known the reality of what he was leaving her to. He knows now, and doesn’t have any reassurance to give. Francis old enough and practical enough to know better, anyway; he wouldn’t believe it even if Raju could. But Raju’s grateful. Raju’s grateful and the love of him, being allowed here to build a life on top of it, is a river through him washing at the grime and sludge of years. The riverbed is ugly and polluted still but under the current, in tiny, invisible layers, its excess is washing away. He doesn’t have any reassurance to give but he has that. He couldn’t tell him half so well if he had to squeeze it into words, he couldn’t tell him any time but now, he feels the arms around him and he wants Francis to know it.

There are a lot of sentiments squeezed into just a few breaths between them, but Crozier is a little dizzy from how much there is and how deeply Ram feels it. He takes a sharp, ragged breath - seeing himself as Rama sees him, feeling the way Rama feels about him, seems like a different person entirely. But it’s not a different person, it’s him; Ram feels these ways about him.

Even if he wanted to move on from it all he finds himself tripping over a word that somehow latched onto his brains Husband. Husband. Crozier’s husband. Married, Rama feels like they’re married, uses the word husband-

He repeats the word in his head, stilling as his embrace loosens enough for them to both breathe, though the intensity doesn’t lessen. He wouldn’t let him go now.

It shouldn’t be so significant. It’s just a word, just a symbol of what they already are to each other, but he’d never imagined being one in the first place. It brings back those rejections, the awkward weddings of friends, the marriages of his brothers and sisters, his own longing for that life he’d never have for himself. Somehow he’d fallen into a marriage and hadn’t even realized!

Husband. Raju knows the word has struck Francis in that odd new way of simply feeling it instead of being told; the word repeats itself in Raju’s mind somewhere. The repetition of it brings something calmer and settled in itself closer to the fore even as it hurts.

He and Seetha had held themselves separate from some part of it, hadn’t they? He’s always thought the two of them lived like they were married, but there’s something here they hadn’t had. The shared house is part of it, of course — even if Francis had been a woman there’d be no need to play at chastity with him, at his age. And with Francis there’s no great looming thing appending itself to every word that even hints at any future outside the necessary one, the as if they’re married here not exactly the same kind. Raju isn’t sure just what the difference is, but it’s there. He hadn’t thought almost like when he’d been thinking that moment that’s struck Francis so, hadn’t he? He’d thought himself as Francis’ husband, as simple as that. The fact of it feels settled, long established and true.

He’s going to leave Francis anyway.

He squeezes his eyes shut tighter for a moment, chest tightening, nauseous. But Francis is happy. There’s that much, too: Raju can’t tell Francis that he’s going to stay. But what he could say is a thing that’s made Francis happy.

Husband. Raju finds one of his hands running slowly up and down Francis’ back, realises he’d wanted to do it because touching Francis this way, as if to comfort, is comforting itself, to do it and feel the broad warm back under his hand.

“Husband.” He turns his face far enough from Francis’ head to say it. The word comes out cracked and unsteady; he swallows and settles himself closer to the rush of feeling running through Francis just now and leans back enough to see him, with a smoother teasing voice and a watery smile. “I’m not always sure if it’s the right word. But I like the way it sounds out loud, I think. It really surprises you that much?”

Despite their lock-step emotions and shared thoughts, Ram’s own misgivings can’t anchor his own happiness and surprise at the word. He’s loved enough to be someone’s husband - hell, someone wants him enough to bind themselves to him in that way. It was an outlandish prospect for him not too long ago, but it feels so natural and so right that it’s almost funny how gobsmacked he really is by it.

They’ve lived like spouses for ages now; the only surprising thing should be that it took him this long to realize it.

He pulls back slightly to wipe the damp from his face and smooth back Rama’s normally perfectly-kept hair. “Yes,” he admits, voice just as rough and thick with the weight of his own composure still breaking. “Yes, it’s surprising! I’ve been turned down so many times, and here I am at the end of the world and I’ve somehow…well. Stumbled into a marriage, I suppose.”

Who on earth does that?

And perhaps ‘husband” isn’t the correct word, but then what else would Ram be to him? And in a place with no rule of law or society to place judgement, who’s to say what’s right and what’s wrong? They make their own rules here. The happiness of this realization, that he may be a husband yet, takes the air out of his grief for one day losing this man that he loves. Who has time to think about such things now?

Francis smooths back Raju’s hair and Raju’s eyelids flutter nearly shut. He leans into Francis’ hand in the moment it’s there, the burst of feeling, of wanting the touch he always feels at a loving hand at his hair stronger just now with so much that feels precisely the opposite moving through him. His eyelids are heavy when it’s over an instant later but it’s easy to focus on Francis; the whole of Raju is already turned that way, and the shocked happiness he can tell Francis is feeling is refreshing. That’s as much of a relief as the touch was, in its own way; it isn’t often Francis feels quite like this, even while Francis’ face is damp, while his voice is rough. Francis is too happy to think much about Raju leaving him, just now; Raju’s made him too happy to, only by putting a word to what they are. Strange, that Francis can forget it. It isn’t in Raju to forget, quite, but connected as they are just now he can duck his head under the current of that rare, pure happiness, feel it running over his skin.

“Everyone who turned you down were idiots,” he declares, thinking some echo of what he’d shown Francis before, all those acts of dedication and compassion and care. The way his voice sounds, the way his face looks when he’s gentle. Raju’s voice is quieter now, tired, but very confident. His moving hand shifts from Francis’ back to his side, protective and careful over his ribs and firm over his stomach and then back up again, and then back down. “Look at what they missed.”

Then with a warm little smile, pleased at how the word pleased Francis, Raju corrects himself: “The husband they all missed.”

‘Look at what they missed.’ The cynical piece of himself responds with wordless, not-so-nice sentiments about his own middle-aged body, but the happiness knocks it all back from actually forming coherent thoughts. If Ram says so, then he needs to trust in it.

“They didn’t think I would be a good match for them,” he smiles, still radiating joy. He leans down and tries to find Rama’s cheek with his lips, pressing a gentle, tired kiss to his skin. “I must have just been waiting for you.”

As he says it he has to turn his head to quietly yawn. As much as was and wasn’t resolved, waking in the middle of the night still isn’t ideal. But they’ve already stoked the fire, and it’s lovely and warm on the floor, so Crozier pulls himself back and climbs to his feet. “Stay there.”

Raju expects Francis to say something in defence of whoever it was — there was that woman he’s mentioned and, it sounds like, someone else — but Raju means it anyway, even knowing that. Francis wouldn’t be the man he is if he’d agreed. And insulting the strangers Francis cared about isn’t why Raju had said it, anyway.

Raju thinks maybe he really can feel the joy of this man he loves — the man he’s married and tied this life to — moving over him, warm and clear and pure. Francis’ lips press it into Raju’s cheek.

When Francis stands after that Raju rocks forward, still trying to lean into the feel of it before he has to catch himself. He looks up, not quite plaintive but not having expected the sudden shift away from him, either. “Don’t need blankets that much,” he mumbles, rubbing at the side of his face and trying to swallow the remains of the thick, acid feeling down his throat. “But you’d better get anything else you want while you’re at it. Once you’re back I’m not letting you up again.”

“That’s what I figured,” he calls over his shoulder, laughing as he goes. The moment for their cozy bed has passed, but they can make floor in front of the fireplace as comfortable as it was before they were sleeping on a proper mattress.

Oh, those early days, when the roof was still covered in holes and they practically lived in front of the fireplace. They had no idea what they were in for, did they? Crozier would have never guessed, that’s for damn sure. There’s more fondness and a hint of nostalgia that radiates from him as he gathers up the furs from their bed, and he pauses in the doorway for just the briefest of gazes towards the fireplace before he joins Rama once again. It’s hard to be worried about the future when the present has been so good to him.

Huddling up in the furs he sits back down beside Ram. “You were saying something about not letting me back up again?”

Raju leans to spread out the other one of the furs, huffing at him. Francis is laughing, nostalgic, and Raju’s not quite able to keep a faint smile off his face long enough to complain properly about Francis having walked off.

Once he’s got the one fur spread he answers Francis by grabbing at his shoulders and pulling, not concerned how they end up lying on down together so long as they do. “How can you be nostalgic for something happening now?” he asks, off the tenor of Francis’ thoughts a moment ago as he’d stopped to gaze at Raju and the fire. The furs are soft, as they always are; he tugs at the one Francis is huddled in, trying to unwrap it and make him share. “The only thing different then was that it was colder in here.”

Crozier ends up mostly sprawled out on top of Rama, very happily breathing a laugh into his neck as he entwines a leg with his. “Excuse me for being nostalgic for those early days. We were such idiots.”

Another laugh, breathed against Raju like a gift. Wrap it close enough around him and Francis’ happiness is beginning to seep in. Or maybe what Raju’s feeling is his own, something grown just from having him near, from seeing him like this. Maybe now it’s all the same, the feeling running through all the same places.

Francis is wrapping a leg around Raju’s and Raju curls it tighter, using the motion to pull the two of them that much closer. “Hm?” he asks, focused on their legs, and on working one arm between Francis’ neck and the fur over the floor. “Why? It was perfectly comfortable down here, and it’s warm. If you wake up sore I can always rub your back.”

“That’s not what I meant,” he chuckles, basking in the feeling of his body like a lazy cat sprawled out in a sunbeam. “But I’ll never turn away a back rub.”

Or any other kind of rub.

“I meant the two of us,” he continues, “sleeping practically in each other’s laps in the beginning. It was so…innocent, wasn’t it?”

Raju frowns and takes a moment to think about it. Describing it that way wouldn’t have occurred to him. It’s easier to think about those things now, unimportant things made important by its meaning to the man saying them, with the whole of Francis wrapped warm around him keeping the future away.

“You would know better than me,” he decides, resettling his head against his outstretched arm and curling his fingers to try and tickle at the back of Francis’ neck. “Once I left home I only met one man I cared enough for to get to know, and he had a home to get to when it got late. You didn’t act like you thought it was strange, sleeping next to me.”

Crozier idly swats at Ram’s fingers. “I didn’t act like it because it wasn’t strange. Not in any sense that I was used to trying to survive out in the cold.”

His gaze falls on Rama’s face, soft at the moment, and darling and dear. “But you’d lay your head on me like a pillow. How could I not be charmed?”

The swat at his fingers gets a faint, satisfied look out of Raju; Francis is lucky Raju isn’t really in a teasing mood. Then he bites at the inside of his lip, half-smiling against a rush of embarrassment. Francis had loved him as a husband after all so there’s no harm done — he can feel just now Francis gazing at Raju like a treasure, seeing something precious, and the flush on Raju’s face is coming as much from feeling that in such a strangely personal way, like looking out from Francis’ eyes himself, as from anything else — but another man sleeping next to Francis for warmth wouldn’t have done it that way, and all that time Raju hadn’t known it.

Still, of course Raju had slept that way: “That time, when you first let me sleep here, the aurora was...” He remembers the way it’d felt, the dread winding up tight in him. Raju’s free hand slips just under Francis’ shirt to brush its fingertips over Francis’ side and the comfort the moment he does it runs over him, unwinding the knot. He sighs, relieved. “…hard. I was…” Afraid. Habit is all that keeps him from saying it; of course Francis knows and knew that he was. “I thought all of it might come back. You lay next to me and held my hand. I felt… better, sleeping that close to you. I always do.”

Edited 2025-02-23 15:36 (UTC)

He recognizes the need to self-soothe in Rama by the way he tries to find ways to touch him. He only somewhat understood it before, assuming there was something about the touch that made the anxiety lessen. Now however he senses there’s something more to it - he’s solid and whole under Ram’s hand, and some of this is a quick search to prove it.

He knows Ram was afraid. He was afraid for him, but how glad he is that even something so simple as a touch of a hand had helped as it did.

It’s the same for him. The nightmares, though still very much persistent, don’t haunt him for days on end when they appear. Rama takes away the pain and moves his focus away from the hurt.

They’ve been good for each other in that way, in so many ways.

“There’s something to be said about not facing these long nights alone.”

“You’re right.” Raju had spent so long working himself hard enough that he could drop, too exhausted to react to or remember his dreams, into a small bed in a barracks full of men who made the closed up thing inside him lock up tighter, closing him in on every side, and he’d learned to call it sleep. The idea of going back to that doesn’t bear thinking of; his mind flashes back to the familiar narrow frame of it and the feeling there, but the thought is easy to dismiss just now. He’s warm here laying wrapped up in a man who lights up like the sun at the chance to call him husband, and that happiness makes it easy to make this now the only kind of sleep he knows. He brushes the memory of that other life aside, lifting his hand from Francis’ stomach to his forehead, brushing Francis’ hair back from it.

“Go back to sleep, Francis,” he murmurs. “I’ll try not to wake you up this time.”

He gets a hint of those lonely barracks in the back of his mind, the extreme isolation and imprisonment laying on his chest like a heavy stone. Rama doesn't linger on the thought long though, and Crozier's back to the soft happiness that had been shared between them. He yawns quietly into the back of his hand.

"If you can't sleep, at the very least don't leave me," he relents quietly.

The request, the words Francis uses to ask, wraps itself around the core of him and gives a tug. His throat is tight, and so is his chest. It hurts, and it feels wonderful, radiating out into every place Raju can feel the press of Francis’ body against his. The feeling pushes him forward to kiss Francis, hasty enough that the press of their lips together is clumsy, insistent. And then Raju settles back, free hand still spread loosely over the back of Francis’ head, feeling the softness of his hair. Raju’s gaze darts over Francis’ face here and there, intent, memorizing him. But he keeps coming back to Francis’ eyes and then he settles himself there, in the deep blue with that hint of brown just around the centre, like touching down at the bed of a river.

“I won’t get up,” Raju answers and after another moment says it out loud, running his fingers slowly through the hair under them, feeling this man around and through him: “Where else would I want to be?”

There are so many places that Rama could wish to be instead of freezing his bullocks off in this freezing wilderness, but the sentiment is understood and appreciated in his typical silently grateful way. Grateful to be loved and cherished, grateful for this man in his life, grateful for every moment they have together.

He locks eyes with Rama for a second or two longer, those crystal-brown eyes with the obscenely long lashes, and then closes his in tired contentment. He smiles his response, letting his quiet happiness say what he might fumble in words, and allows himself to fall asleep again.

Open RP

Singillatim - June Event, early in the month

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cw vague vague mention of suicide ideation

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cw: body horror

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Time Skip - a week or so after the Darkwalker attack

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cw accidental supernatural self harm

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