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.
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."
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.
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.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
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.
no subject
"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?"
no subject
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
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."
no subject
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."
no subject
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."
no subject
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."
no subject
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."
no subject
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."
no subject
"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?"
no subject
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."
no subject
“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.”
no subject
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.
no subject
“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.”
no subject
“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.”
no subject
no subject
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?"
no subject
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?"
no subject
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.
no subject
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."
no subject
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."
no subject
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."
no subject
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.
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)