"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.
"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.”
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.
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?”
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.
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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..."
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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.
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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.
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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?
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"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."
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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.
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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."
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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."
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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.
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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.”
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"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.
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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.”
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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?”
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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.”
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"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.
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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.
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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?"
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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."
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“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.
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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.
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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.
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“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.”
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"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."
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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.
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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.
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