singillatim | (closed)

The surprised twitch in Raju's expression, the way that for a moment he only looks at Francis instead of answering, probably answers on its own that the idea isn't something Raju's thought about doing for a second. But the man's thoughtful, calmly curious manner, the support in clasping Francis' hand and the way Francis had looked for a moment looking down at it, it all does its magic again: Raju doesn't respond with the immediate refusal, of course not, that a part of him wants to. It's a question, that's all. This is all miles from anything actually scientific, at least properly, but a useful, scientific kind of understanding needs all sorts of questions.

Raju opens his mouth and then closes it, frowning and slowly shaking his head. "I've had enough on my plate trying to get it to go away." His lips twitch into a tense little smile. One of his hands rubs its fingers together but more gently and more slowly than before, some of the sharp, restless energy behind it gone when Francis' hand had. "I wouldn't try it here, anyway. You've already had to move house once; I don't know if your ribs should take a second round."

It isn't his most convincing joke. Sounding more worried than amused doesn't give the humour anything solid to land on. But he doesn't have to be convincing, here. It might be better if he isn't; Francis might hear that it's a real risk, that way.

"Oh, my ribs certainly won't take a second round," he replies, gruff but good-humored. He looks down once more at their hands and then carefully unwinds them, reassured enough that whatever fears or anxieties Raju had his friend didn't judge.

"But we're surrounded by ice and snow. If it ever crossed your mind to try, outdoors may suit your purpose."

But he keeps the suggestion light in recognition of Raju's obvious discomfort. No pushing, just a recommendation in case he chooses not to ignore it. But it brings up a worrying point -- if Raju is this afraid of inadvertently hurting someone, is he no longer living with others?

"Are you still in the Community Center?"

Outdoors. Of course Francis is right, damn it. His smile twitches a little wider, fades as he gives a quick nod. That's the way to do it, of course. Some place away from the forest, stand there in the snow and let go of whatever control he might have over any of it.

There's no reason to try that yet. Learning to stop it is more important. He can keep focusing on that first.

Raju lifts his chin and his eyebrows, the question bringing his attention back. "Oh, not now, no," he says, voice easier as they move back to more reassuring ground. "I do know it would be too much of a risk, even if I only slept during the day. There are still plenty of cabins sitting empty, maybe I'll settle if I can find one with a good stone floor."

His smile, too, is easier, small but fits more naturally onto his face than the other one had. Cookpots full of meltwater, a place to sleep with less risk of catching if the water isn't enough, those are things that he can do. Control the circumstances, if he can't control the thing itself. It might be... an adjustment, but it's a necessary step, and one that he can take. Much better than standing outdoors some place and just letting go.

"Once I do I'll tell you where. If there were more just made of stone, like back in the city... I'll find something. I'm not sure what would be best yet. Not all of us know how to build a, um... an iglu?"

Crozier chuckles softly. “Mn, an iglu, yes. If you can be patient I’d gladly build you an ice hut of your very own, my friend. It just may be a few weeks before I’m out there cutting ice.”

But in all seriousness, he would help Raju find a place to stay if he was allowed.

“In the meantime, if you need somewhere to rest your head…”

He trails off without finishing the rest, realizing that he may have overstepped with his offer. He exhales a short laugh through his nose. “Or if you’d ever like to keep an old man company. I’d been fooling myself in believing I was better off being alone and lonely.”

Raju looks surprised, and then touched; a navy man would know better than most the pitfalls of living so close by other people and so he'd be ready, here, to take on its advantages; but so far as Raju could tell, Francis hadn't. Raju had never known where the man went to outside the couple brief times Francis had stepped into the Community Hall, not until he'd seen the crumbling iglu and heard the familiar accent coming from inside it. And Francis makes it sound now as if that had been on purpose.

And now this. Something blooms inside Raju's chest, a warmth and pressure, and the flames in the fireplace nearby flicker suddenly, flaring up a little. Raju's eyes move over to it. He takes a breath and lets it out, slow and regretful. His smile is gentle. "You wouldn't be safe," he murmurs. "I won't risk it. You've had enough rude awakenings in the middle of the night already. But, um..."

The wood in the fireplace pops, then shifts as one of the logs on the bottom crumbles. Raju watches it, then looks down at the floor, and then looks at Francis again, quiet pleasure on his face. "I won't mind the company when I'm awake, if you don't."

He could do that, couldn't he? Day in one place, night in another. He'd practically done it back at the Hall, spending as many hours as the sun allowed out and doing anything that wasn't inside. Come here only once his mind's had time to settle from the night. He could make that work.

"You make it sound like you were living apart on purpose," Raju goes on, wanting to know what he's guessing for certain. "What changed your mind?"

It surprises him that a man as astute as Raju hadn’t realized his isolation had been a choice. He goes from pleased at the thought of Raju spending time with him - all the manners of things he could teach someone so eager to learn, the thought of actually having something to look forward to instead of the grim day-to-day - to taken aback and a bit more tinged with sorrow.

He just barely stops himself from laughing, amused that he seemed to have cultivated a sort of ‘strange-man-in-furs’ persona rather than a deliberate attempt to safeguard his heart.

It’s a difficult thing to explain, the exile and the reason he hates the thought of being anyone’s captain. Difficult and humiliating and a reminder of just how much time he should be spending loathing himself instead of making friends.

He struggles for another beat, measuring his response with a tilt of his head and a glance away from Raju and the fire, both somehow connected to each other. “I’m a miserable person by nature,” he answers, “or at least I should be.” He so badly wants to care for them all.

“If I hide away and refuse leadership, live with my ghosts away from everyone else, I don’t have to watch another hundred men die.”

No more tearful embraces with a best friend or killing a man he’d come to love so well because he’d begged. No more frozen corpses reaching towards the horizon, no more half-starved, half-crazed last words from someone barely in their 30s. He had enough.

While Francis struggles to answer, Raju waits. He'd feel badly about asking a question that's hit a target he wasn't expecting, usually. In the months before this place there had been Akhtar, but before that Raju's friendliest conversations had been the false ones, filled with charm and niceties and the stilted, restrained thing the English upper crust called warmth. In those, seeing real emotion this way would mean that Raju needed to give some excuse to turn the conversation away to something else. But after that long night in this very room that'd ended with Francis sleeping soundly under Raju's hands and Raju feeling... everything he'd felt looking down at the man then, and after the... the strange relief of talking about the impossible things that had driven Raju out of his bed at the Community Hall, he doesn't regret hitting that sore spot, doesn't turn the subject away and knows Francis wouldn't expect him to.

"And now?" he murmurs as he watches Francis intently, leaning forward, looking curious and a little proud. Francis had said otherwise, hadn't he, not a moment ago, that he'd been fooling himself. The man who believes he should keep hiding wouldn't have invited Raju to live with him; the man who doesn't believe it is still trying, and Raju is proud of it. "Not better off that way after all?"

Such a simple question. Such a simple and yet complex and difficult question to answers. A frown tugs at his mouth and he considers the struggle between loneliness and self-preservation.

"I'm the oldest person here, Raju. I have experience in worse conditions than this, can hunt seal and caribou, fish and construct weirs, tell the poisoned herbs from the medicinal ones, track ice and magnetism, and I'm a complete waste of a man sitting out in the wilderness keeping to myself."

He's been selfish, and it had taken an outright fight to get him to see that he was doing more harm than good forcing himself into his isolation.

"No one's better off, even if more die."

Raju takes a slow breath. The pride in his face has deepened, etched into his expression with eagerness, and something in him is... relieved, energised, that hadn't been certain before. It's hearing the reason that's done it, hearing Francis listing all the things he can do that no one else can, that he's going to do it now because it's needed. Raju had seen it in more than just Francis' words, the terrible pain and fear and tiredness when he'd said he was afraid of all of it happening again, and here he is, saying these things too, meaning them. He can keep fighting after long, unendurable pain, after enduring it, after giving up, so—

So it's important. Having tried to shed the load, stepping forward and picking it back up again. It's important that they both can still fight. The fire starts shivering as if caught up in a breeze and Raju's fingers curl, eyes darting over Francis' face. Then one of his hands grasps tightly just above Francis' elbow, and the other cups the back of his neck.

He can't tell someone that much older that he's proud. Not in so many words.

"I'm glad to know you, Francis." He says it emphatically and then smiles, expression sunny and relieved. "We'll be better off now. For you being here."

Oh, it's much, much too intimate, the words, the grasp of his friend's hands on his elbow and neck. Much too intimate, like that night Raju saved him from his own crippling lonel--

Ah, right. Right, it makes all the sense in the world. Raju saved him from the tomb of his own making, of course everything after that was going to feel far too personal.

"I'm glad you'll humor an old man," he replies, trying to match the brightness of Raju's smile. And it is brilliant, and sincere. Hell, if only he could be as helpful and patient with Raju's problems as Raju's been with his. He's listened to his sorry story, dragged his sorry arse out of a pile of ice, kept him company when he'd asked, even visited to check in on him after.

"But words like that will go to my head," he adds with a laugh. "I'll do my best to serve, as I should have done when I first arrived."

Raju opens his mouth in an instinct from those old, more polite conversations to relieve that should have, and then doesn't. All his conversations with this man have been honest, and telling him the responsibility hadn't existed when he'd first arrived wouldn't be. Responsibility is heavy, unchanging; reasons won't shift it, either good ones or bad.

But, "You're facing it anyway," he says, still smiling. His voice rasps just a little, and he realises his throat is tight. "Even though it hurts." His hands on Francis give a squeeze and Raju looks proud, leans back, and lets his hands slip down to the floor behind him to prop him up. The fire is larger now, probably large enough to eat up more firewood than Francis had planned on, over the course of the day. Raju can bring more. If that's his price for staying here, it's a fair one.

Raju watches him, smiling, for a moment. "When I got here you had a nail in your mouth," he remembers. "What were you doing?"

Even though it hurts. Truer words were never spoken, it’s painful to be known and possibly relied on once more. Failure a second time would destroy what little remained of Francis Rawdon Moira Crozier.

When Raju sits back so does he, and he takes full advantage of the offered segue to point out a few of the large holes in the walls. “Doing some very basic mending.”

It’s gone…so-so. He’s had to figure out how to nail something one-handed, which for him meant propping the nail up somehow so he could make the initial strike. The floor’s littered by all his failed attempts.

“I could use your help.”

"I'd like that." Pleasure creases Raju's face. It feels strange, a little, to smile so much. But he feels better. He pushes himself easily to his feet, moving over to the nearest wall and crouching to start picking up the nails scattered there. It's easy to guess what part of it Francis needs Raju's help with; Raju doesn't know much of anything about home repair, but he's sure he can hold a nail.

"You're lucky you have so many of these," Raju teases, grinning over his shoulder at Francis. "Do you know much about mending like this? I've never done any of it myself; I'm sure I was lucky the place I lived before was too sturdy to need it."

“I know enough to nail a piece of wood to another piece of wood.” And he’s lucky enough to have a second room to raid for things like said nails and wood.

“And I know enough that if I cover a hole then I won’t feel the breeze on my arse as I sleep at night.”

Raju breathes out a sudden, surprised laugh. For all Raju's learned about the man he's looking forward to spending the days with, he doesn't know his sense of humour yet.

"No repairs needed in that iglu either, then?" he asks, standing to set the handful of nails on an end table and unwinding the blanket from around him. It'll be chilly without it, because chilly is as warm as it ever gets here, but he'd rather be able to move. "Then I hope you've practised your aim with that hammer."

Ah, it’s a fine laugh. Good, he’s got a sense of humor under those intense eyes.

“I can pat snow one-handed,” he smirks. “The rest…I’m doing what I can.” He’s had to find things to stick the nails into to keep them upright— hence the shredded mushrooms Raju might find also littered about the floor.

Raju makes an agreeable noise, bundling the blanket up and setting it out of the way, surveying what they have to work with. Nails, pieces of wood of varying size. Holes or bits of damaged wood, likewise of various sizes, here and there in the cabin's walls. Bits of mushroom over the floor, for some reason.

"I'll hold the wood and the nails if you'd rather keep the hammer," he decides. "But if it gets too many of my fingers we have to switch."

He laughs quietly and climbs to his feet. It's best to start with the giant holes and then worry about the littler ones later. "What's your limit? Two, three fingers? Because I can't guarantee I won't hit you."

He's joking, of course. He can hold a hammer steady now that he's stone cold sober.

“Let’s start at three and work from there.” Raju smiles at him, corners of his eyes crinkling, and picks up a piece of wood and a nail or two, walking closer toward the fireplace again and looking around.

“Where do you sleep? In front of the fireplace here? The worst offender from there would be, ah…” He trails off as he turns, looking over all of the walls to try and pick out the most important point to patch up. Keeping the breeze off his arse might have been half a joke but half of it wasn’t, and wherever it is Francis has been sleeping should be fixed up first.

"You could lose five and still be functional."

And in case he looks his way he raises his non-hand for a cheeky wave.

Right, the wall. Which hole in particular is catching all the wind at night? He points to a spot that's let in the snow before. "This one. Let's start here, mn?"

Raju’s still laughing at the wave from the hand that isn’t there when he moves over to the spot that Francis pointed at.

“If you lose me all five you’re doing the rest of this yourself,” Raju grins, holding the wood over the hole with one hand and shifting the nails around in his other to hold one over the top edge of the wood, at the center. “And going back to… how were you managing before? Holding the nail in place with your teeth?”

Crozier picks up the hammer again, chuckling in slight embarrassment at the question. “Ah, I’d…I’ve been testing various supports for the nail that I can then pull away. Large mushrooms were the closest I’d come to solving my one-handed construction problem, but even then…”

Clearly it wasn’t that successful.

Raju's eyebrows rise. "Mushrooms?"

He looks at the evidence on the floor, which makes at least some kind of sense now, then back to Francis. He isn't afraid to make fun of it; his expression isn't holding back at all. "You really are lucky I came. You'd be using up the rest of your lunch next."

The amusement at Francis' expense hasn't run out but curiosity is sneaking up behind it, so at least half of Raju's tone is honest curiosity when he goes on. "Were they sticking, then? I wouldn't have thought they would at all. Was it the moisture?"

"Well of course they weren't sticking!" The actual process is far more ridiculous and humiliating. He sighs. "I had to set the plank on the ground, put the nail into the mushroom, tap the nail into the plank just enough to stabilize it, remove the mushroom and then drive the nail in the rest of the way in the correct place. So needless to say it wasn't at all successful."

Raju's laughing isn't as quiet this time, and by the time that Francis finishes explaining Raju's pressing his lips hard together, paying lip service to the idea that he's trying to stop and look serious, for Francis' sake. "A fine effort. Maybe you can call on me and just eat your mushrooms next time. Are you ready to start here, or do you need..."

He looks over at the shredded mushrooms on the floor and back again, eyebrows raised, expression expectant. If Francis wants to try his mushroom trick again, Raju's expression says, innocently, then Raju's willing to go over and get one.

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