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.
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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.