Raju’s eyes are wide, his efforts at the quartz and steel forgotten. He remembers it, knowing he was dying. Knowing that everything was going to be— He remembers the clumsy heaviness weighting more and more inside his limbs, the road against his cheek, arms around him, spending the moments before his eyelids became too heavy to lift looking up at a dear face, looking up past it at the sky.
He remembers knowing everything was going to be over soon. He remembers the feeling in his chest when he’d sat down, dropped down, while the man he’d spent the evening torturing laughed. The feeling of something escaping out of him and something forbidden taking its place there. Something open and light.
And then the arms around him. And the curve of Akhtar’s cheek.
And then the snow, the cold. Another chance; not a gift, but a reminder. What he should have remembered, inside him again now. And then one of the first few souls to greet him here had said, Still not convinced we’re not all dead, and it had been ridiculous, he couldn’t be, he couldn’t afford it, he can’t afford it, but there’s the… the thing that happens inside him now, the fire, and odd dreams are one thing but it’s true, isn’t it, that this isn’t anything that could happen in the world, not the living world, and Francis isn’t fanciful and he isn’t stupid and in this state he couldn’t lie, and they’d needed Raju, they still need him, and he’d thrown that away. He had let that go, let it lift away from him, and he’d been so…
His eyes are on Francis still, expression horrified, the stone and steel biting into the tight grip of his hands. He swallows.
He had been relieved. He had been so relieved, so grateful, to be able to just… To do what? To run to whom? For whom?
He had been grateful for the chance to die, grateful to do it in Akhtar’s arms. Grateful. And not for the sake of everyone else, who needed him. If they’re all dead here, if Raju is dead, what's still left of his family will be waiting by the river for him forever. There’s a weakness inside of him, and he’d given into it. For whose sake? For what?
Pain flares around Raju’s wrist and he gives his arm a sharp shake, reflexively trying to put out the fire that’s started there, then brings his arm closer to unwrap the cord from around his wrist with hurried, shaking fingers. The fire is on the pendant and growing from that side, and he picks at the cord from the other, and in a second he’s unwinding Seetha’s pendant away from him and throwing it into the fireplace.
For an instant he watches the fire catch onto the newspaper and begin to grow there, chest heaving, then he realises what he’s thrown away and scrambles to find it, closing one hand over the pendant and running the other over the cord to put out the flame.
He closes his eyes, breathing hard, and tries to remember words, phrases, snatches of the prayer fresh in his mind from the long night after he’d discovered the damned impossible fire in the first place. The fresh memory still carries with it some echoed reassurance, calm, and when he opens his eyes and his hand there are only embers glowing here and there over the cord, likely only visible because it’s dark.
Alright.
The idea is ridiculous, anyway. Francis is… confused. It’s alright. He’ll convince Francis that it’s alright.
“I know things are… strange right now.” His fingers are running over the pendant trying to wipe the burned spot away while he looks down at their efforts. The beginnings of a fire crackle very quietly next to him. His voice is distant and hard. But Francis isn’t well; Raju takes a bracing breath and tries, half-successfully, to soften the sound of it. “But this isn’t some… afterlife. They’re here, and we’re here. You’re here.
“Look,” Raju adds, looking at Francis again as the point occurs to him, voice insistent now, thumb moving over the pendant restlessly and then letting go of it as his hand reaches out to grasp at Francis' shoulder. Surely there's something useful here; what Raju remembers isn't conclusive, is a coincidence that set next to the impossibilities in this place ends up looking like something it's not. This will help. "You remember coming here, don't you? What were you doing before that? You weren't dying, if you were dead then you would remember it. I'm certain that once you're feeling better, your memories of your men will become clearer too. It's alright. You don't have to worry about it now."
cw idealizing dying (I think?) also this is embarrassingly long but Raju has a lot of feelings
He remembers knowing everything was going to be over soon. He remembers the feeling in his chest when he’d sat down, dropped down, while the man he’d spent the evening torturing laughed. The feeling of something escaping out of him and something forbidden taking its place there. Something open and light.
And then the arms around him. And the curve of Akhtar’s cheek.
And then the snow, the cold. Another chance; not a gift, but a reminder. What he should have remembered, inside him again now. And then one of the first few souls to greet him here had said, Still not convinced we’re not all dead, and it had been ridiculous, he couldn’t be, he couldn’t afford it, he can’t afford it, but there’s the… the thing that happens inside him now, the fire, and odd dreams are one thing but it’s true, isn’t it, that this isn’t anything that could happen in the world, not the living world, and Francis isn’t fanciful and he isn’t stupid and in this state he couldn’t lie, and they’d needed Raju, they still need him, and he’d thrown that away. He had let that go, let it lift away from him, and he’d been so…
His eyes are on Francis still, expression horrified, the stone and steel biting into the tight grip of his hands. He swallows.
He had been relieved. He had been so relieved, so grateful, to be able to just… To do what? To run to whom? For whom?
He had been grateful for the chance to die, grateful to do it in Akhtar’s arms. Grateful. And not for the sake of everyone else, who needed him. If they’re all dead here, if Raju is dead, what's still left of his family will be waiting by the river for him forever. There’s a weakness inside of him, and he’d given into it. For whose sake? For what?
Pain flares around Raju’s wrist and he gives his arm a sharp shake, reflexively trying to put out the fire that’s started there, then brings his arm closer to unwrap the cord from around his wrist with hurried, shaking fingers. The fire is on the pendant and growing from that side, and he picks at the cord from the other, and in a second he’s unwinding Seetha’s pendant away from him and throwing it into the fireplace.
For an instant he watches the fire catch onto the newspaper and begin to grow there, chest heaving, then he realises what he’s thrown away and scrambles to find it, closing one hand over the pendant and running the other over the cord to put out the flame.
He closes his eyes, breathing hard, and tries to remember words, phrases, snatches of the prayer fresh in his mind from the long night after he’d discovered the damned impossible fire in the first place. The fresh memory still carries with it some echoed reassurance, calm, and when he opens his eyes and his hand there are only embers glowing here and there over the cord, likely only visible because it’s dark.
Alright.
The idea is ridiculous, anyway. Francis is… confused. It’s alright. He’ll convince Francis that it’s alright.
“I know things are… strange right now.” His fingers are running over the pendant trying to wipe the burned spot away while he looks down at their efforts. The beginnings of a fire crackle very quietly next to him. His voice is distant and hard. But Francis isn’t well; Raju takes a bracing breath and tries, half-successfully, to soften the sound of it. “But this isn’t some… afterlife. They’re here, and we’re here. You’re here.
“Look,” Raju adds, looking at Francis again as the point occurs to him, voice insistent now, thumb moving over the pendant restlessly and then letting go of it as his hand reaches out to grasp at Francis' shoulder. Surely there's something useful here; what Raju remembers isn't conclusive, is a coincidence that set next to the impossibilities in this place ends up looking like something it's not. This will help. "You remember coming here, don't you? What were you doing before that? You weren't dying, if you were dead then you would remember it. I'm certain that once you're feeling better, your memories of your men will become clearer too. It's alright. You don't have to worry about it now."