singillatim | (closed)

He laughs again, enjoying the very gentle teasing thoroughly. He’s not so fragile, nor does he have anything like dignity or self-importance left - but mainly the first thing. Teasing between friends, it’s a nice change of pace for him.

“Is it the sad eyes or the fact that I’ve learned how to keep a still face whilst listening to minor annoyances?”

Raju breathes out a little laugh too. "Your patience, I think. I remember the first time we met, I kept expecting you to tell me to go away and you never did. And then you kept answering my questions! Terrible technique if you were trying to keep people from coming to you for things."

He starts rolling his foot on his heel again, tapping it against Francis' as he keeps grinning. "Maybe you're not as good at it as you think you are."

“Hell,” he laughs, knocking his foot back against Raju’s. He rubs under his ribs at the bandage and glances away, trying to hide the smile on his face.

“I don’t mind that kind of failure,” he finally admits. “If it brings people like you into my life.”

He doesn’t mean for it to be as significant as it sounds. He’s met so many people here that he’s enjoyed in some capacity - people he’d been desperate to push away when he first arrived.

Raju’s smile fades just a little, but only in surprise. Then he huffs a soft breath out of his nose, leaning forward. “I, ah…”

He taps a finger against the table. “I wasn’t sure how I was going to manage after leaving the Community Hall that way. I’ve only lived on my own a little bit; I guess I’m not used to it.”

Walking into a quiet cabin and looking around it at the abandoned things half-scavenged and thrown in corners to mold in the dark hadn’t been much like those first days of moving into his own rented rooms in Delhi, and it certainly hadn’t been like the later days, when Akhtar had been in near every day, as often as he could get away from everything else. Waking up this morning, comparing that to now, it’s… Well.

Raju takes advantage of his seat beside Francis to lean a little more and bump his shoulder. “So I suppose there are worse things for you to be terrible at,” he says. His smile isn’t a grin any more but it lingers, just as warm and softer.

In the days following little routines start to take shape. Small things, less focused on survival and more...well, frivolity is too light a descriptor for the kind of outings Crozier invites Raju along, but there is fun to be had in it all. He shares what he knows and takes advantage of the fact that Raju doesn't have mending ribs or just a single hand, and he has a little fun with a friend whose company he greatly enjoys.

Sleeping at the Community Hall, waking up there, it hadn't really mattered where he went, or when. There'd been a little of that in those last months in Delhi, nothing like the regimented routine that'd shaped his life in the barracks, but this place is something else again.

It isn't a routine, exactly, that Raju falls into. Sometimes Raju arrives later, or sometimes Francis is gone when he does— they each have their own business. But it's something, knowing where he needs to go when he wakes up. Knowing there might be someone there worth talking to once he does. Something about it helps.

Not that there's much time to fall into a routine anyway. It isn't a week later when that odd man, Methuselah, calls them together and gives them what should be good news, or hopeful news. But Raju's frowning as he hears some group behind him start talking over who's going to draw up the sign-up sheet Methuselah had suggested, looking around through whatever members of the crowd are lingering now that the announcement itself is done. The odd man wants whoever's going to leave soon, and there's one man in particular whose judgement Raju's learned to trust here, particularly if they're told that time is short. There.

"Francis," Raju calls, raising a hand and moving toward him. "What do you make of it?"

What does he make of it? Crozier can still feel a tightening in his chest, fear sharp and clean and wholly unexpected. The proposal of something so simple as a scouting party shouldn’t horrify him as much as it does, so he’s quiet during the meeting, trying to understand where this pain had originated and why his hand won’t stop shaking.

As the others begin to discuss the formation of a party amongst themselves he starts to walk away, wanting a little fresh air to gain in the hopes he’ll gain some perspective. Thankfully a distraction comes along in the form of a friend, and Crozier acknowledges the question with a soft grunt.

“We’re vulnerable enough as it is,” he tells him honestly, because Raju’s earned his candid opinion and then some. “Splitting us up, even temporarily, feels wrong. We could lose people all on a damned hunch.”

Raju nods, thoughtful, gaze distant as he crosses his arms over his chest. "And if no one went?" His voice is as thoughtful as his expression, not eager, saying the idea to see what he'll get back. "We've seen everything there is to see here, picked over the whole town again and again every time a new batch of us comes. If we're to find a way to go back, or to fight what we need to, the key has to be somewhere else. If this is the only way to look for it, don't we have to take the risk?"

“I’m not a proponent for acting conservatively. If we’re stagnant then we should move, but I’m worried about the party. It’s dangerous, and the loss of some of those I’ve heard requesting to join the initial scouting…”

He’s thinking of his men, of course, Goodsir and Little and the absence they’d create in the community (and his own stupid, frail heart) if something were to happen to them.

“I think…I think my misgivings there are personal.”

Raju sighs a slow breath out through his nose and his head tilts further back, the line of his shoulders falling, posture melting in the same moment that his sharp, thoughtful expression does into sympathy. Of course he would feel that way, after everything the man’s already lost.

Raju’s arms uncross, one hand setting itself over the back of Francis’ neck , lingering there for a moment, then sliding down over his shoulder to squeeze at his arm. Raju’s eyes move over Francis’ face. “Would they agree not to go if you asked? Whoever it is you’re worrying for?”

The solidarity helps; at least Raju doesn’t think him silly, not that he imagined he would. “Some of the men,” he says quietly, pausing. “My men. Doctor Goodsir in particular. He fared poorly when he was separated from the rest, though through no fault of his own. I…”

He falters slightly. They’d listen if he asked, though Goodsir would argue if there was benefit to others. He couldn’t do that to them; what has he given them to earn that kind of trust again? And they’re their own men here, no rank or hierarchy to make them yield one way or another.

“I wouldn’t ask that of them. I can keep my worries silent.”

His men, of course. The ties of responsibility are the strongest ones of all; failed responsibility something else again. And of course that tie to Goodsir would be the strongest. And of course a man like the one in front of him would claim not to be their captain, as he had on that long, dark night when Raju had asked, but keep wanting to care for them like one anyway.

"You shouldn't have to. I—" Realisation and disappointment break over Raju's face; with his breath out his posture deflates a little. "I can't watch over them for you. I can't go. I— my..."

He has to brace himself, still, to say it. "The... the fire. In a mine. That would be worse than stupid."

His eyes are downcast, the set of his jaw frustrated. But this isn't about him. He looks back up at Francis, hand on his shoulder sliding down to his elbow. "I don't suppose seeing them well supplied would help? Weapons, food?"

Crozier seems to have the same realization - first a little hope, Raju going would solve this issue, or at least make him less anxious - and then the same sort of quiet disappointment. He doesn’t wear his on his face though, not wanting to place that burden back onto Raju just for having the sense to be cautious.

It’s just as well. He knows himself, the relief would only turn when he realized that Raju was also putting himself into harm’s way.

“That may allay some concerns,” he relents. “And I could always join the initial party to the mines. I could…see them off, so to speak.”

“So to speak.” Raju studies him. He might not call himself a captain anymore, but he thinks like one. Raju knows responsibility, what it can take sometimes to sate it. But if Francis thinks he couldn’t manage the whole journey, because of not-quite healed ribs or simple age, asking whether he’ll be going the rest of the way too might make him have to admit it.

“Will it help?” He keeps his voice low, aware of the people milling a little ways away. “Watching them go into it?”

He’s not sure if it’ll help, if anything but seeing the party return whole and hale will help. “It couldn’t hurt,” he tells him quietly. “And I’ll be nearby in case I’m needed.”

In case the worse should happen, but what the hell could he do if there was a disaster? Absolutely nothing.

He grunts and pushes his hand through his hair, clearly annoyed with himself. He’s at odds with the explorer side of himself and the parts of him so grief-stricken he can barely think straight, the rationalist he is versus the reality of failure.

Edited 2024-03-29 20:55 (UTC)

Raju breathes out slowly, expression solemn and faintly sympathetic, watching him. Needing to act but not being able is worse than anything else, and there's not a thing that Francis can do that will feel like it's enough to protect the men that he's lost already once. But before Francis has to watch them leave he can do something, can't he? And that might help at least until the last moment, when Francis has to let his men out of his sight.

"Come on," Raju says, squeezing at Francis' elbow and trying to lead him by it around the edges of the crowd, toward the kitchen and the basement's supplies beneath it. "We'll start packing. That will be one less thing they have to do. You have a weapon, don't you? I can lend you my knife for the journey. It isn't much, but it's better than nothing."

He's easily led away, glad to be able to both get away and feel like he's doing something. "Better than my snow knife." Bone versus metal - he knows which one he'd choose if he was in trouble.

"You'll have to give up fighting with bears for a while if you give me your knife," he says with a quiet sort of smile. "Do you think you can avoid the temptation?"

Raju looks back at him, then realises Francis is joking to try and cheer himself when he sees that quiet smile and smiles back, faintly but glad to see it. "You think I need a knife to fight a bear?"

Away from the stage, then around the beds. It's strange to walk by them now when just weeks ago he used to spend so much time there, and he glances inside the room as he moves past it. "There are weapons everywhere if you look hard enough," he says, moving past the doorway and into the kitchen. "I'm sure I'll make do. I'll have a pelt ready for you when you get back."

Raju stops, looking around. His grip on Francis' elbow loosens, but won't let go unless Francis moves away. He isn't thinking about it past a vague need to touch, to comfort him; mostly he's thinking about the stove. It isn't lit, of course, so it's a little colder in this room than it had been closer to the fireplace. The cold doesn't matter, but he hasn't quite stopped noticing it anyway. There are other things to be thinking of. "Sending cans along with them wouldn't work, would it? Too heavy. What else keeps?"

The light teasing and easy back-and-forth rids him of a lot of that strange and insistent panic that had found purchase in his chest. He smiles in response and follows him into the kitchen area, about as unbothered as the temperature here as he was outside. But that doesn’t negate the darkness, and he steps a little closer to him to rely on his guidance.

“Smoked fish and meat will keep,” he says, though he’s not sure if there’s a supply of that here. He just delivers what he can; whatever preservation needs there are he leaves up to those living in the community center. Everything else, the stock of dry goods that had been stored in abandoned pantries around town, were undoubtedly depleted by now.

Raju makes an acknowledging nose and leans forward, opening a cabinet with his free hand and squinting inside it. "Can never really tell what's going to be in here," he mutters, but finding food isn't the point here, is it? Not really. It's giving Francis a way to help the people he needs to keep safe, until the moment that he can't. Or distracting him. Or both, if he can manage it.

"Why fighting bears?" Raju asks, glancing back over at him. "Is that what your friends usually make a habit of doing? I suppose there are worse hobbies."

Crozier chuckles softly in the darkness, looking through one of the other cabinets and finding some ready-made rice and beans. “It’s because you’re strong and fit, so I assume it’s the sort of activity you might partake in.”

"Is that what you did when you were young?" He finishes looking in this cabinet and moves on. Dried beans. That won't do, will it? Or will it? Only if he can find some kind of bag. He makes a note of it. "Another way to keep fit during those long winters? I wouldn't think you'd find too many bears on many of those survey ships."

“Oh, plenty of white bears, but they’re incredibly dangerous. They’re one of the few species that’ll hunt man.”

He says it casually, as though it’s a very normal fact to pepper into a conversation. His focus is more on the food, and he finds a few strips of fruit leather and something that looks like dried apples to add to the stores.

“I was more of an overland trekker than a hunter. I could focus on the stars and not my surroundings that way.”

Raju looks at Francis again when he mentions the bears, looking surprised and interested — another thing worth asking Francis for stories about, when circumstances are different — and then notices the things Francis is finding. He seems to be having more luck than Raju, so Raju might as well focus on something to put those beans in. Drawers instead of cabinets. One, and then another... cheesecloth, there. And there must be twine somewhere in one of these others.

"And more of an explorer than a fighter?" It's a curious idea. Curious to realise that's not the sort of man Raju's spent much time around, not in any personal sense. It's hard to tell whether Akhtar had fit into that category or not, but it suits Francis. "I know that's what your expeditions were for, exploring. But did you get much combat training? So you could have dealt with something like that, if you had needed to?"

“Combat training? Absolutely not. We’re giving access to munitions and officers tend to carry weapons, but we’re not soldiers, we’re sailors. It’s why there are marines on most expeditions…ah, there’s some tea. That might be refreshing after a long day’s trek.”

He gathers what he can in his arms and carries it all to the nearest flat surface.

“It’s a different sort of life,” he adds quietly. “Exploration’s still the business of empire and conquest, but it’s less violent. We’re allowed to search for knowledge.”

Edited 2024-03-31 01:27 (UTC)

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Time Skip!

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