(closed)

[load_aim_shoot]

Who: A. Rama Raju, Edward Little, Francis Crozier, William Gibson
What: experiencing/dealing with the horrors
When: after the recent Darkwalker attack, around the time of the town meeting, and after one of the aurora nights
Where: one outside the Community Hall, the other on the outskirts

Content Warnings: Ned's fire trauma, little mention of Raju's trauma that I'll CW for on the comment title. If anything else comes up I'll add! 

Comments

[fidior]

It seems to do— something, and it's both amazing and unnerving to witness for himself; even if the flame doesn't die, it quiets, even if only a little. It truly is connected to this man. It's a horrible thought, to be tethered to something so brutal and unrelenting as fire (it isn't only horrible, and some part of him must know that — fire, a source of warmth, of life, an essential part of survival in this cold place — but the memory of how sizzling black flesh smells and the wailing screams of his men are still too fresh for him to be able to see this inferno as anything other than a terror.)

But Raju is, somehow. Truly connected to this event.

He stares to the shed as he continues to breathe slowly and with intention, and then he's staring to Raju as the other man's wide eyes find him. 'It isn't working. Not well enough.'

But he's trying, and it's doing something, and the flashes of dread and horror and adrenaline that keep licking at Little like the flames themselves fizzle towards something that's once again encouraging instead; he shakes his head.

"It's all right. You've done something. Perhaps I can finish it now—"

Quickly, stooping for more handfuls of snow, he returns to the task before of trying to snuff out the flame, and trying to ignore the way getting closer makes his heart pump too hot, too fast. Before, it was an impossible attempt, working against what he didn't realise was Raju's own anger, or upset, fueling it all. But now.... Assuming that Raju doesn't fall to those biting emotions again, at least.... Little's eyes snap back to the other man as he works, nodding again.

"You've done well to ease it as much as you have. You should take a moment to rest now, gather your strength. I'll finish this."

He doubts Raju will relent so easily, but it's worth a try... And then, as he continues working, finds a question.

"Does it... cause you any physical pain? This... connection?"

[load_aim_shoot]

You've done well seems strange, a bizarre mismatch with reality. It isn't done well, it isn't done.

Optimism isn't the word, exactly, for Raju's outlook. He doesn't believe fate has bound everything in his life to always go awfully, he believes deep down inside him and always has that things are, eventually, going to start going well, that any event that he's a part of will eventually be made to turn his way. But it's an optimism centred not around some kind of friendly, naturally helpful universe, but around himself. Things will get better than they are, because Raju will refuse to stop until they have. There are people who need him to believe that that's true, that to push and push and push will see him coming out the other side with the world in the shape those people all counting on him so badly need it to be, and so he believes it. But here's there's this thing coming from him, this destructive thing, and the frightened, determinedly brave man in front of him is declaring that he can control it, can put it away where Raju can't, where Raju should have been able to, and failed to, is failing to—

The wood pops under the fire and Raju squeezes his eyes shut again with a thick noise making it out from the base of his throat, he tightens his fists, he focuses fiercely on the awful, cold air freezing the inside of his nose, the way it feels moving down his throat, on the feeling of his chest moving, his lungs inflating, and then pushing the air back out. The air is cold and painful when it comes inside him, and almost warm as it moves out. For a moment that's all there is. It's all he'll allow the world to be.

Some moments of that and the sharp edge of tension inside him eases. The tight line of his shoulders eases with it, and his fists loosen. His breaths come a little more slowly again. He leaves his eyes closed, trying not to think about the sound of the flames or the sound of whatever Little is doing with them while Raju stands useless here, while there's nothing he can do but stand useless in case even looking at the damn thing makes it worse, trying to think only about the question.

"I..." His brow furrows. It's hard to tell. There's never been much point in peering inside himself this way, and the muscles for reaching in that direction aren't developed enough for very precise work. Does this hurt? "I don't... think so. I feel..."

There's his failure, which it doesn't do to think about. Push it aside and keep going. Look past it. There's another man here, strong willed enough to overcome his own fear and failings, stepping forward where Raju can't. It's a breath of cool air winding itself around the heat raging in the rest of him. Rest now, gather your strength. I'll finish this. There's something about that, when Raju tries to figure out how he feels. Something. He can't find the words to say just what.

"Angry? I don't know. There's no pain." He opens his eyes, pulls his gaze away from the fire before he can do more than glance at it. He pulls his gaze down, and it lands on his feet.

"Except from this bloody snow," he mutters, sounding almost embarrassed, and it is embarrassing to be complaining about something like that now. But it's focusing on this or focusing on the thing that he's failing to control, and it does hurt, damn it, being cold this way. He'd run outside only thinking of keeping the flames from spreading inside where the people were sleeping, and he'd forgotten his shoes.

"And the cold," he goes on, shifting his weight while he focuses on the sharp, stinging cold under his feet, murmuring while the heat within and without him begins to dim. "It's worse like this, in the dark. Why are you out in it to be helping at all?"