singillatim | Being born again into the sweet morning fog

As Raju steps out he's running a hand over his hair trying to neaten it, but then the cold air hits his face. He grimaces, pulls the hood up and the coat tighter, and sighs very quietly as a little of the tension melts out of his posture. This is much better, of course, at keeping out the cold than what Raju's been going around in, not quite as much of a fight just to be outside as he'd been expecting and, like his gathered food, is something Francis had to give up before Raju could have. He'd tried to gather something himself for Francis' stores while he'd been gone, and found only a little. If he'd known that Francis would be feeding him, too, when he came back, Raju might have tried fishing instead.

"I can go back down to one of those huts soon," he says, trying to fit his hands up inside the parka's sleeves and pinch their ends shut, holding his arms close against himself. "I just have to find bait first. It doesn't have to be old fish like last time, I... I don't think. You showed me how to do everything else."

He thinks it’s a fine idea, and gives Raju an encouraging smile in return. Lord knows Raju’d be better suited for it anyway.

“Which way is your cabin?” he asks upon the initial crunch of the snow underfoot. He steals a glance at his friend to check for discomfort, but so far it seems like he’s more concerned with the initial hit of cold than the ache in his feet.

"That way," Raju nods, setting off easily on the path he'd walked here and back every day for all of a week or so. The feeling of the socks against the odd, sensitive soles of his feet is almost worse than the feeling of putting weight on it, and the way the not-quite-too-small shoes pinch make it easier to ignore even that, and think about the pinching instead. The other cabin isn't far, anyway, and discomfort doesn't matter. Especially when it isn't bad enough that it has to show. He's confident that getting there won't be a problem. "We should take everything we want from it in the next few days if we can. It'll be obvious by then I'm not going back, to anyone looking for a spare one."

Not that he hasn't spent more time away from it than he has inside, even while Francis was gone. Strange, how eager he'd been to go to even an empty cabin that belonged to someone else. More eager than he'd ever been to go back to the Community Hall at the end of a long, useless, frozen day, and that had always had other people living inside. Strange how eager he is now to start spending nights in Francis' cabin too, even though the idea is anything but safe. Still, if he can trust anyone to wake up to a face full of flames a few times a week and react in time, every time, to keep himself safe, it's a man like Francis. Not a fighter, not in terms of combat in the way that Raju is familiar with, but a captain, with years of experience dealing with crises. Likely a competent, capable man, for all that their first night in the room behind them, the dark around them and pale eyes shining too bright below in the shifting light of the dim fire, had left Raju with the lingering urge to protect the man from something. He isn't exactly certain what, now that he's thinking about it.

A wind blows around him and he hunches his shoulders against it, wrapping his arms around his chest. The posture's a lot warmer in Francis' fur coat than it is when Raju usually does it. "This coat is wonderful. I don't know how you ever take it off. You're certain you're alright without?"

He doesn’t see Raju falter in his step, but that doesn’t stop him from walker more closely beside him, brushing shoulder up against shoulder as they steadily trudge towards said cabin. “Just fine,” he reassures him, smile quiet and warm enough despite the lack of coat. “Live long enough in the snow and ice and you start to sense the subtle changes in temperature.”

As he walks he glances down at his sleeve, spotting the charred smear where he’d used it to smother the fire. It might be time to actually get himself some new clothes. Imagine that. He probably wouldn’t hear the end of it from Raju, in a friendly teasing sort of way.

“How much did you bring with you to the cabin?”

"Mm, not much," Raju says, feeling their shoulders brushing together as Francis walks closer to him. This couldn't be more different from the usual time after a nightmare, before those rooms in Delhi. He'd learned to let it sharpen him, harden the lines of his face under the always present gaze of the rest of the barracks, and push himself through until noon when he could eat and keep it down, and feel steadier. Then in those rooms laying still afterward with the sun on his face and thinking of nothing and doing nothing, surrounded by nothing but his own things, clothes, piles of his own books, that had felt like an indulgence even as it made it harder not to think of Seetha. And then this place had been somewhere in between, until he'd had to deal with the damn fire. And now this. That sobbing drifting out from the lights in the night sky will be bad when it comes and it's strange to be doing this too, knowing that and feeling this at the same time.

"Not the clothes. I found most of those after. I've been trying to find more now that I've got the room for it, but everything in this place is so strange. You saw what I had to wear underneath. I'm sure everything that's not was taken by everyone who got here before me already. I can't even find a proper iron, I think the ones here were all built for electricity." The thought makes him frown — it seems like such a strange, stupid choice — and then look curious as he looks over at Francis. Electricity was after his time, wasn't it? Or was it? Some time when Charles Darwin was young. Raju isn't sure whether he wants to ask about it. Curiosity wars with the knowledge of what else it means, how long dead the man beside him would be once Raju makes it home. Maybe better not to think about it.

The Netsilik had been generous enough to provide him an ice hut in the winter, a caribou tent in the summer. But he had been alone, always alone. They let him watch the children, join the men on the hunts and long waits by the breathing holes, sit by the women and help them scrape the hides, but at night he always went to sleep alone.

He slept alone in Terror, he slept alone in his rooms at the boarding homes, he slept alone when staying with Ross. Alone, alone, alone. Alone, save for these last few nights with Raju, and even with fear of fires he’s been…

He doesn’t know how he’s been, other than the warmth he feels in his chest as he gently bumps his shoulder against Raju’s. That feels real, as does his amusement at his need for an iron.

“An iron! You’re lucky you’ve got clothes without any holes in them!” He starts to laugh, softly and with his signature slight wheeze.

Raju couldn't agree less, but he finds himself smiling a little anyway. Hard to hold onto those other thoughts when the man himself is right here in front of him and laughing in that quiet way. Laughing at him, for reasons that don't hold any merit at all. Raju thinks he can forgive him anyway.

"I could repair a hole," he insists, disagreement undercut a little by the look on his face. "But hanging everything to dry can only straighten out so much, and it takes so long. Besides, if there are houses here they should have an iron that works, shouldn't they? I don't think that's too much to ask."

"You're ridiculous. God forbid you walk around with wrinkles in your trousers." He's clearly having a great time with this, teasing light and grin wide. Let Raju worry all he'd like about not being pressed and polished; it does no harm.

"We'll find you an iron. A proper iron. Then you can press my clothes while you're at it."

“I’ll have more work to do than that, if you think wearing something without any holes is lucky.” Raju lifts an arm away from his chest just long enough to pinch at that charred spot on the arm of Francis’ shirt . He’d been so guilty about it not fifteen minutes ago, so sure he was going to ruin everything Francis uses to make life bearable for himself here, even if the man himself did manage to keep himself safe.

But they’re going to move Raju’s things so he can stay, and whichever one of them the eager good cheer for that came from, it’s catching. Drawing attention to the damage now is almost easy. “No wonder you didn’t care about this, if that’s where your standards are.”

He used to have standards, but once you pick through the clothes of your dead crew those standards tend to fall and then never pick back up. Besides, who is he dressing for anyhow?

And what’s a little soot among friends?

He snorts a little and tugs his arm away like a petulant child. “You say one thing about the beard and I’m not going to salt your share of the food.”

Raju raises his eyebrows, pleased at the invitation and not particularly bothered about the threatened consequences.

“Why?” He grins, tucking his hand back into the warm soft space underneath its opposite arm again. “Were you thinking about it? I was only thinking about your clothes, but if you’re that concerned with the state of your beard too…”

He lets Raju have the last say on that matter, replying with a soft chuckle and a stroke of said beard.

“Facial hair was out of fashion back in England and Ireland. The most I ever had before this were large sideburns.”

“Mm,” Raju says thoughtfully, eyeing the side of his face and jawline. “And cleanshaven everywhere else? Hard to imagine it.”

And that, usually, is where Raju would leave it— but here is someone who already knows about both sides of his life. He realises he can go on. That he wants to go on, even to share just this one silly little thing. “I was, too, except for a moustache. I wore it that way for a long time, only grew the rest out some months before this place. I kept it a little cleaner than I do now, though. There’s only so much you can do here with only scissors and a comb.”

“Just the moustache, mn?” He turns his head slightly to regard Raju, the idea of a neatly-trimmed officer and not the student he’d pretended to be.

“Popular with the ladies either way I’m certain,” he surmises. “Still popular, if there were ladies to spare. Just quietly-haunted men in these woods.”

“Haunted by what?” It’s Raju’s turn to lean far enough to bump their shoulders together. His feet, a part of him realises, are hurting a little more now, but he notes it only vaguely; seeing Francis cheerful this way has been making it easier still to ignore the feeling, and they’re in sight of the other cabin now anyway.

“That terrible beard? You aren’t the only one. If there were any ladies to spare in these woods they would be too. If you only shaved you would chase the spectre away for everyone, and the ladies would be free to look again.”

Terrible might not be the word, exactly. But Francis is making it so easy to tease him about it, and a little exaggeration is just the thing to make his point.

He laughs again. Ridiculous, utterly ridiculous, but light and carefree and simple in all the ways it hasn't been for him these long years. "The beard's haunting us all now? And you think the rest of my face would spare us? You're an optimistic sort."

In all honesty he thinks the beard does some wonders in hiding up a somewhat plain face. He doubts it's the same for Raju.

"How much further to the cabin?"

Raju looks ahead again, still smiling, and jerks his chin in the direction of the cabin just visible behind the near hill. "Just there."

Walking on snow up a hill is even more frustrating than walking on snow on flat ground, but at least these shoes are better at it than the ones he came to this place in. He almost doesn't mind the way his steps slip a little more often than he wants them to.

"You don't like the way you look barefaced?" he asks as he makes his way up. "Then why shave all that time?"

“I’d turn more heads bearded. You know how the English are - standing out is one of the worst crimes you can commit.”

He knows Raju knows exactly what he means.

Crozier chooses to keep his attention on the cabin in front of them rather than risk a glance at Raju. He’s never been particularly ashamed of his appearance, but Raju is quite stunning. Like supernaturally so.

“Mhm.” Raju, on the other hand, isn’t afraid to look over, and and he doesn’t bother to hide the way he’s looking back and forth between the crest of the hill under his feet and his friend’s mostly-hidden jawline.He’s still looking as he makes it to the door, only glancing inside as he pushes it open. “Still, I’d like to see it some time. I’m saving the last of my shaving cream, maybe we could both use it if we ever want to look smart.”

He can feel Raju’s eyes on him, and he’s eager to change the subject. The stare is uncomfortable, even if he knows there’s no judgement behind it. What could he be possibly seeing?

“Perhaps,” he says quietly, and pauses in the doorway to look up at the quick-patch job in the ceiling.

“This place is worse off than mine.”

With a vaguely curious noise, Raju follows his gaze. Time to drop that particular line of teasing, it seems; maybe the man’s reached the limit of his interest in fashion. To hear him talking about it, it’s easy to believe that interest might be limited.

“It keeps the cold out,” Raju says, thinking more of the wood he’d climbed up to nail over the hole than the hole itself. “I think. The breeze, anyway. Most of the holes are in that room there.”

He gestures toward a room whose door is barricaded against any cold air coming through it with an old mattress, then walks past the clutter whoever used to own this place had left behind, halfheartedly straightened up by Raju only enough to get most of it out of the way, to disappear into the room with the largest closet to start picking through clothes. He wrinkles his nose as he does it; he’d forgotten about his last try at using one of those odd irons, the way trying to heat it up without the electricity its cord means it needs had melted some of that odd material the thing’s sides were made of. And the smell. Whatever it’d been made of smells awful when it melts. He should have dumped the iron outside in the snow. Well, it doesn’t matter now.

“I forgot,” he calls out the doorway, “there should be a pot in the lavatory, in the bathtub, if you’re looking for something to keep water in. The plumbing still works here.” Unlike in Francis’ cabin - but that doesn’t matter much, with the unending supply in this place of snow.

Crozier places his single hand on his hip as he looks around the cabin. It’s a mess, both the state of the structure and the various scattered clutter, but the plumbing is something to consider. He decides to have a further look around and gather up the various artifacts Raju’s managed to find during his time here.

He has a good look around and returns to the main room, bucket in hand.

“I wouldn’t have the first idea about how to fix the pipes, but this house has good bones. We can live at mine for a while and fix this place up, if that’s something you’d be interested in.”

Raju takes a couple steps out of the room he’s in to make talking easier. He’d intended to sit down, get off his feet for a moment, but he doesn’t want to shout out at Francis if they’re going to have a conversation about it.

“I don’t mind yours,” he says, hands moving as he folds a shirt as neatly and small as he can. Then he considers it a moment, since Francis made the offer.

He shifts his weight off one foot as he looks around. He hasn’t done much here, not like Francis has in his. It’s still all abandoned toys and molding clothes shoved into corners, furniture broken apart for the nails and wood and bizarrely bright photographs of people Raju’s never seen still on tables and hanging on the walls. The only things that Raju’s changed are the clothes in the room behind him and the few things he’s already told Francis he wanted to take. But that’s nothing that can’t be taken care of.

Well, being able to melt snow would be enough, if Francis had wanted to stay in the place that they just left. But there’s one benefit to this one if he doesn’t, and Raju smiles as he says it. “But I wouldn’t mind a water closet that works.”

“I didn’t think you’d object.” He has another glance around - yes, good bones, even with all the various holes in the walls and scattered bric-a-brac. “It’ll take a hell of a lot of work, but running water is almost too good to pass up.”

He joins Raju to help with his collection of clothes. He can fold…carefully.

Raju moves back into the room when Francis does, sitting on the bed and stretching his legs out in a deliberately unhurried way, careful to be casual instead of dropping onto it or sighing at the lack of weight on his feet, or anything else he wants to do. It’s safer to sit here than most places in the house, other than the cleared out space in front of the fire in the living room; he’d put time into washing the mattress and a set of sheets at some point in that week where he’d started spending his nights here and his days at the place he’s just come from, and if any animals have found their way into this room in the mean time the way they clearly have in the rest, they haven’t spent much time on the bed.

He spends a moment watching Francis curiously in a way he’d probably have avoided doing a few days ago — but after everything, it’s hard to imagine thinking he has to politely not notice all the different adaptations the man has to make to having only the one hand. With most, it might be bad form to bring too much attention to it. Here, Raju’s only curious about how he folds.

Not enough to watch more than a moment, though, especially not when it would mean keeping his own hands idle. “Hand me more from the closet there when you can, will you? Whatever looks warm. And if you laugh at it the way you did this thing—“ He lifts the bottom of the fur enough to tug the end of that stupid undershirt out past it, “—I’ll know I should leave it here.”

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