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 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.”

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.”

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 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.

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.

[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 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.

Singillatim - June Event, early in the month

Cont. Sing June Event