"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.
Soft kisses suddenly don’t seem nearly enough. Once his lungs are filled he raises his head and finds Rama’s lips for himself, sucking and kissing and biting, mind still blank yet somehow filled with thoughts of only this man. He’s ravenous, kissing him like it’s the first and maybe the last time.
Once he finds his bones have returned to their rightful place, he returns his hand between them, hand finding Rama’s straining cock beneath the layers once more. “Can you undo these?” he growls softly, kissing the side of his mouth. “I’ll keep you warm…”
Francis kisses fiercely, very hungry for a man who'd just been boneless and breathless in the aftermath of what they've done together. Raju's happy for it — would have been happy to stay that way for five minutes, or half an hour, or the rest of the night if Francis had wanted it, and he's happy for this too, to feel the lips and the passion of the man who loves him, who's happy to love him, somehow.
At the pressure of Francis' hand a noise makes it out of Raju's mouth and sounds like a plea when it escapes, half into the open air and half into Francis' mouth when Raju turns his head, chasing that kiss at the side of his mouth and wanting Francis' lips squarely on his. As he kisses Francis, as he feels the pressure over him, he squirms, and turns his head to breathe out hard against Francis' cheek, and shifts his weight, hand on Francis' hip moving to press against the chair behind him and his other hand moving down. He shifts himself more to one side to reach his trousers better, ignoring the stiffness of an arm held in one place for too long to flick open the first layer of his trousers. His fingers feel in danger of being clumsy but they aren't, they're moving quick and sure and one layer is open, and he starts work on the next.
I'll keep you warm. Raju shivers, and he doesn't know why. "You do," he breathes out hard, pressing his forehead against Francis' temple. The second layer is halfway done, and in a couple seconds it'll be open, too. Then his drawers underneath, but those will be easy to bypass, in one way or another. Francis will figure it out. Raju trusts him to. "You do keep me warm. All the time."
He doesn't know what he's saying. He does know what he's saying. He's saying more than one thing at once. There's the fire Francis has lit inside him now, and then there's the literal, and the metaphorical: the cold is awful here, and it's awful all the time, and Francis doesn't need it kept away, not in the way that Raju does, but he always tries. He tries for Raju.
Even if he’d been completely healed, no broken ribs or bruised eye to carefully navigate around, he hadn’t believe his body was still made for something like this. He’s damaged, missing limbs and scarred all to hell; there’s never been a time when out on the ice that he imagined himself with someone. A lonely man being lonely for the rest of his life - pathetic, but it was his reality, his bed would always remain empty.
Because he’d never dreamed or imagined - and when he thoughts did stray it was always in the past, never the present - he’d never thought about things like logistics or how he was supposed to please another person being as he is. When his mind started to drift to thoughts of Rama he didn’t let himself consider how things might unfold, because they wouldn’t, of course, but if they did he assumed he’d be altogether lost.
It’s not the case at all. The two of them, even like this, the hurried, frenzied nature of this coupling on a goddamned chair of all places, seem to move together as though they’ve been doing this for years. They ask and softly plead or command, and there’s no part of himself that feels wrong or out of place. He was made for this, for whatever that’s worth.
Crozier tips his head slightly to kiss along his jaw, feeling Rama’s fingers work his trousers open just for him. There’s the first layer, then the second, and Crozier’s hand slips down to feel the final layer of fabric with a quiet shudder. It’s a shame he can’t see him properly; he knows he must be absolutely stunning, but at least he can feel him. His hand slides underneath the drawers to take Rama, neglected and aching, into his hand, palm feeling smooth skin and the arch of his length.
The feeling of Francis' hand is a hard shock that punches a strange noise out of Raju, one that starts life as a gasp, then grows into a low groan that keeps trading space with the whine it can't decide whether to turn into. The reality of wanting was one thing: stray thoughts, sensitive skin, accidental friction and tension hot inside him, cravings unmet, Francis' body lax and trusting against him, those are all manageable. Manageable and, in a way, familiar, the wanting only valuable in the chance it gives him to hold himself back. The reality of getting is something else, something Raju is completely unprepared for, hadn't known how unprepared until he couldn't not know it, until he's having to lock his hips to keep them from twitching again as he locks down the rest of his body, holding himself tense in every muscle but still, holding his breath for a moment before he speaks.
"I..." he starts, as much a drawn out, shaking noise as a word. He realises he's hiding his face against Francis' shoulder, that the hand that'd been unbuttoning his trousers is gripping Francis' thigh. He tries to loosen his grip, and manages it just a little. He realises he can't quiet his gasping breath. That noise he's hearing is the fire somewhere, now louder. He can barely manage his body, suddenly; there's nothing he can do about it. "I won't... It won't be... long. I can't..."
He thought he might feel him melt against him, yield just for the briefest of moments and let himself be cared for, but of course it was never going to be that easy. He has to coax those moments out of him, but lucky for Rama he’s a very patient man.
“Easy,” he murmurs, “easy. Relax, Rama, try to breathe for me”
He shushes him gently again as he slides his hand slowly up, velvet skin under his palm, slick pooling at the head that he smears with his thumb. “Breathe, can you do that? You’re so tense, I want you to feel what I felt. I know you can, you’ll do that for me, I know. Just for me.”
Crozier turns and nuzzles against his head against his, trying to be solid for him, something to cling to. It puts pressure on his chest, just a little, but nothing aches or pains him. It’s worth a little discomfort for this man.
When Francis first tells him to breathe Raju's already doing it, has to so the pained noise he makes at Rama can make it out. But he stops again as Francis' hand moves, not able to stop his shuddering but controlling himself, chest tight with it, but Francis tells him again. Tells Raju — Rama — tells him to breathe, for Francis. Raju nods against Francis' shoulder, his neck, feels Francis' head moving against his and tries, letting his held breath out in a gust and pulling it back in again.
His hand is trying to clutch at what he realises by touch must be Francis' chest, gets so far as to brush against his shirt there but Raju moves it, presses it flat against the fabric of the chair behind him. He can't let go, can't move, or this is going to end too soon, but he needs to move, some of this needs to go somewhere so he slaps his hand against the chair, feeling the heat over and underneath his skin. But Francis is here. Francis is here, hurt, so the thing inside him can't let loose right here. Around him instead, a circle around the chair. A safe distance away. He feels Francis against him, and around him, and his breath shakes. Only them. The two of them, and Raju's self control. That's all that exists now.
There’s a fire in the cabin, a small rise of flame moving in a slow circle around their chair. The heat doesn’t touch Crozier, not the heat of the flames at least. Rama is the fire, and he burns against him.
He brings his hand down, makes a loose fist, and applies a soft pressure as he works his way along his length. Slow, careful, aware that Rama is sensitive and anything more might hurt him. He shudders as he strokes along back to the head; by touch alone he can tell Ram is as perfect as he’d imagined in his daydreaming.
The fire roars and Rama holds on, muscles so rigid Crozier thinks he could bounce a coin off of them. “Let go,” he urges him, gentle yet just a touch of sternness behind it. He quickly brings his hand up to his lips and sucks his thumb and forefinger, then pushes back into his drawers to use the added slick to massage and trace the tip while his palm squeezes and draws upwards.
Raju's breath comes in fits and starts and little gasps as Francis' hand moves, throat too locked down to make noise so he can hold on through the first time in this long that any hand has touched him this way. His forearm takes his weight against the chair so that hand can curl into a fist as tightly as he can hold it and let go that wonderful voice says, orders him, and Francis' hand is gone and just as quickly it's back and over him, moving, and it's too much, the hitched gasping of his breath tenses and tightens—
But let go Francis had said and with a stuttering, pained noise Raju does, and the noise sounds like a sob as Raju shakes against him. He wants to be touching the man who loves him, who was stern with him, let go, wants to be touching him more than he is, and his one hand moves toward Francis' side again, knows he can't be gentle enough now and moves down, trying to grab hard onto something that feels like a stomach, a hip, a thigh. His panting sounds like moaning and his breaths slow, and he feels wetness between his face and Francis' neck. He feels the heat of his own breath. The crackling of the flames is quieter. Raju still wants to be closer, to touch Francis more, and kisses his neck, then up to kiss his jaw, and then the side of his face, and then his mouth. Then he leans his forehead against Francis', panting, realises that his heart is beating fast when he feels it starting to slow.
"Francis," he says, voice raw. There's nothing in his head to follow it up with. He only wants to say the name, to feel the man and the love of him inside of his mouth.
He's shaking a little. That's alright. That's alright. Francis won't mind.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2024-07-01 11:39 am (UTC)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.
no subject
Date: 2024-07-01 02:55 pm (UTC)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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Date: 2024-07-01 03:36 pm (UTC)"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.
no subject
Date: 2024-07-01 08:07 pm (UTC)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.”
no subject
Date: 2024-07-01 10:13 pm (UTC)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?”
no subject
Date: 2024-07-02 12:30 am (UTC)It’s a little hard to meet Rama’s eyes as well, his fingers brushing dangerously close to where he’s currently straining against his clothes for him. He tries to swallow the lump in his throat, handless arm sliding over Ram’s shoulder as he tilts his chin up at the question.
Touch him…touch…?
He feels like his heart’s about to leap up from his chest and jump out his mouth. He wants to touch him, not just caress and explorer and hold as they’ve been doing. Crozier sucks in a very slow breath and nods.
“Yes,” he murmurs, his hand easing its grip slightly. He slides back to hold Rama’s hip, attempting that answer again in case his voice was too soft. “Yes, please.”
no subject
Date: 2024-07-02 02:45 am (UTC)"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.
no subject
Date: 2024-07-02 12:18 pm (UTC)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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Date: 2024-07-02 02:27 pm (UTC)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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Date: 2024-07-02 03:44 pm (UTC)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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Date: 2024-07-02 07:27 pm (UTC)“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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Date: 2024-07-02 11:55 pm (UTC)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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Date: 2024-07-03 02:54 am (UTC)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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Date: 2024-07-03 09:37 am (UTC)“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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Date: 2024-07-03 12:51 pm (UTC)"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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Date: 2024-07-03 02:48 pm (UTC)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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Date: 2024-07-03 06:57 pm (UTC)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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Date: 2024-07-03 09:16 pm (UTC)Soft kisses suddenly don’t seem nearly enough. Once his lungs are filled he raises his head and finds Rama’s lips for himself, sucking and kissing and biting, mind still blank yet somehow filled with thoughts of only this man. He’s ravenous, kissing him like it’s the first and maybe the last time.
Once he finds his bones have returned to their rightful place, he returns his hand between them, hand finding Rama’s straining cock beneath the layers once more. “Can you undo these?” he growls softly, kissing the side of his mouth. “I’ll keep you warm…”
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Date: 2024-07-04 01:08 am (UTC)At the pressure of Francis' hand a noise makes it out of Raju's mouth and sounds like a plea when it escapes, half into the open air and half into Francis' mouth when Raju turns his head, chasing that kiss at the side of his mouth and wanting Francis' lips squarely on his. As he kisses Francis, as he feels the pressure over him, he squirms, and turns his head to breathe out hard against Francis' cheek, and shifts his weight, hand on Francis' hip moving to press against the chair behind him and his other hand moving down. He shifts himself more to one side to reach his trousers better, ignoring the stiffness of an arm held in one place for too long to flick open the first layer of his trousers. His fingers feel in danger of being clumsy but they aren't, they're moving quick and sure and one layer is open, and he starts work on the next.
I'll keep you warm. Raju shivers, and he doesn't know why. "You do," he breathes out hard, pressing his forehead against Francis' temple. The second layer is halfway done, and in a couple seconds it'll be open, too. Then his drawers underneath, but those will be easy to bypass, in one way or another. Francis will figure it out. Raju trusts him to. "You do keep me warm. All the time."
He doesn't know what he's saying. He does know what he's saying. He's saying more than one thing at once. There's the fire Francis has lit inside him now, and then there's the literal, and the metaphorical: the cold is awful here, and it's awful all the time, and Francis doesn't need it kept away, not in the way that Raju does, but he always tries. He tries for Raju.
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Date: 2024-07-04 01:51 am (UTC)Even if he’d been completely healed, no broken ribs or bruised eye to carefully navigate around, he hadn’t believe his body was still made for something like this. He’s damaged, missing limbs and scarred all to hell; there’s never been a time when out on the ice that he imagined himself with someone. A lonely man being lonely for the rest of his life - pathetic, but it was his reality, his bed would always remain empty.
Because he’d never dreamed or imagined - and when he thoughts did stray it was always in the past, never the present - he’d never thought about things like logistics or how he was supposed to please another person being as he is. When his mind started to drift to thoughts of Rama he didn’t let himself consider how things might unfold, because they wouldn’t, of course, but if they did he assumed he’d be altogether lost.
It’s not the case at all. The two of them, even like this, the hurried, frenzied nature of this coupling on a goddamned chair of all places, seem to move together as though they’ve been doing this for years. They ask and softly plead or command, and there’s no part of himself that feels wrong or out of place. He was made for this, for whatever that’s worth.
Crozier tips his head slightly to kiss along his jaw, feeling Rama’s fingers work his trousers open just for him. There’s the first layer, then the second, and Crozier’s hand slips down to feel the final layer of fabric with a quiet shudder. It’s a shame he can’t see him properly; he knows he must be absolutely stunning, but at least he can feel him. His hand slides underneath the drawers to take Rama, neglected and aching, into his hand, palm feeling smooth skin and the arch of his length.
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Date: 2024-07-04 01:59 pm (UTC)"I..." he starts, as much a drawn out, shaking noise as a word. He realises he's hiding his face against Francis' shoulder, that the hand that'd been unbuttoning his trousers is gripping Francis' thigh. He tries to loosen his grip, and manages it just a little. He realises he can't quiet his gasping breath. That noise he's hearing is the fire somewhere, now louder. He can barely manage his body, suddenly; there's nothing he can do about it. "I won't... It won't be... long. I can't..."
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Date: 2024-07-04 04:09 pm (UTC)He thought he might feel him melt against him, yield just for the briefest of moments and let himself be cared for, but of course it was never going to be that easy. He has to coax those moments out of him, but lucky for Rama he’s a very patient man.
“Easy,” he murmurs, “easy. Relax, Rama, try to breathe for me”
He shushes him gently again as he slides his hand slowly up, velvet skin under his palm, slick pooling at the head that he smears with his thumb. “Breathe, can you do that? You’re so tense, I want you to feel what I felt. I know you can, you’ll do that for me, I know. Just for me.”
Crozier turns and nuzzles against his head against his, trying to be solid for him, something to cling to. It puts pressure on his chest, just a little, but nothing aches or pains him. It’s worth a little discomfort for this man.
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Date: 2024-07-04 05:39 pm (UTC)His hand is trying to clutch at what he realises by touch must be Francis' chest, gets so far as to brush against his shirt there but Raju moves it, presses it flat against the fabric of the chair behind him. He can't let go, can't move, or this is going to end too soon, but he needs to move, some of this needs to go somewhere so he slaps his hand against the chair, feeling the heat over and underneath his skin. But Francis is here. Francis is here, hurt, so the thing inside him can't let loose right here. Around him instead, a circle around the chair. A safe distance away. He feels Francis against him, and around him, and his breath shakes. Only them. The two of them, and Raju's self control. That's all that exists now.
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Date: 2024-07-04 09:26 pm (UTC)There’s a fire in the cabin, a small rise of flame moving in a slow circle around their chair. The heat doesn’t touch Crozier, not the heat of the flames at least. Rama is the fire, and he burns against him.
He brings his hand down, makes a loose fist, and applies a soft pressure as he works his way along his length. Slow, careful, aware that Rama is sensitive and anything more might hurt him. He shudders as he strokes along back to the head; by touch alone he can tell Ram is as perfect as he’d imagined in his daydreaming.
The fire roars and Rama holds on, muscles so rigid Crozier thinks he could bounce a coin off of them. “Let go,” he urges him, gentle yet just a touch of sternness behind it. He quickly brings his hand up to his lips and sucks his thumb and forefinger, then pushes back into his drawers to use the added slick to massage and trace the tip while his palm squeezes and draws upwards.
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Date: 2024-07-05 01:04 am (UTC)But let go Francis had said and with a stuttering, pained noise Raju does, and the noise sounds like a sob as Raju shakes against him. He wants to be touching the man who loves him, who was stern with him, let go, wants to be touching him more than he is, and his one hand moves toward Francis' side again, knows he can't be gentle enough now and moves down, trying to grab hard onto something that feels like a stomach, a hip, a thigh. His panting sounds like moaning and his breaths slow, and he feels wetness between his face and Francis' neck. He feels the heat of his own breath. The crackling of the flames is quieter. Raju still wants to be closer, to touch Francis more, and kisses his neck, then up to kiss his jaw, and then the side of his face, and then his mouth. Then he leans his forehead against Francis', panting, realises that his heart is beating fast when he feels it starting to slow.
"Francis," he says, voice raw. There's nothing in his head to follow it up with. He only wants to say the name, to feel the man and the love of him inside of his mouth.
He's shaking a little. That's alright. That's alright. Francis won't mind.
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