singillatim | Being born again into the sweet morning fog

Raju looks a little surprised. For some reason, the question does surprise him. It isn't something he'd thought about at the time, or since. He hadn't been there to enjoy himself. His gaze unfocuses, eyes narrowing, as he thinks about it.

After a moment he focuses on Francis again, frowning. "Some classes were more likely than others to make me the kind of friends I needed to. It was a nationalist college." Raju says it in a determined way, having decided that the words should come out whether or not they actually want to. He'd spoken to Uncle that way, before — maybe it's hard because that isn't who he is in this place, or with Francis. He doesn't even know whether Francis will know what that might mean about Raju's role there. But it's a part of the real answer, a part Raju had been about to only think, instead of say. But it's a problem that he means to solve, Francis thinking Raju's trying to hide himself, so he'd made sure to say it anyway.

"So I wasn't always paying as much attention to the work. But I liked..." Moving away from the officer's part of the answer allows his expression and his posture to start relaxing again, and as he realises the answer to Francis' question he gives him an amused, mischievous smile. "The philosophy, I think. If I had to choose. There was more arguing."

Edited 2024-05-01 11:23 (UTC)

‘Nationalist college’ is also one of those very telling phrases. Why would he bother enjoying anything with politics at a national college? But at least there was something —

Raju deserved to go to university. He’s got a big, curious mind, and it’s a shame he had to use it for subterfuge.

“I can see you enjoying arguing as a subject,” he smiles.

Raju's smile deepens, amused at that part of himself and at the fact that Francis knows it — he hasn't been very argumentative with Francis, has he? Maybe this morning, a little, but if that had been an argument then Raju hadn't won it, so how much does that count, really? — and he nods.

"What about you?" He watches Francis, thumb moving absently over Francis' back, feet shifting around to try to get more comfortable. Or at least, less uncomfortable. It isn't so bad, but now that he's warmer it's the only part of his body trying that way to get his attention, so it's easier to notice than it was. "You mentioned astronomy. Was that one of your favourites?"

Between that smile and the small movement of his thumb on his back, Crozier’s beginning to find it a little more difficult to focus.

“Mhm. Always. Magnetism is where I made my name, but I’ve always had a soft spot for heavenly bodies.”

He means planets. Stars. Nothing anything untoward, even though as soon as he says it he feels a piece of him curl up and die from embarrassment.

Raju leans forward, shifting his feet further out of the way so he can lean, weight on his elbow, without putting much pressure on them. His smile is softer now, less amused and more pleased, happy to get Francis talking about something he likes — particularly just now, when he needs it — and happy to learn about him. “Did you have a favourite of those? One you liked to look at more than the others?”

…Raju, please.

“Ah, if you’re asking whether I like the moon or the stars or the planets, my answer will always be the stars.”

There, no more innuendo, he can continue along with this perfectly normal conversation.

“The stars,” Raju says, sounding pleased even though he’s never had any horse in this particular race, and doesn’t have one now. Encouraging Francis to talk about it more feels good, almost as good as the warmth of their bodies held together under the blanket. “What about them? Did you always like looking at them the best?”

“Ah, this is going to sound poetic for a nautical man, but their steadiness. They’re constant, unchanging. I can be anywhere in the world, in the middle of nowhere or surrounded by a sea of unfamiliar faces, and I can look up and be greeted by old friends.”

…that isn’t poetic, he thinks. It’s foolish.

“But I’m fascinated by the ice, terrified by it even.”

"Is it poetic, or is it practical? When you've gone so far from home you need something for anchoring you, don't you. Trinkets from home for some. Maybe it's the stars for you. Something that will stay the same when you're always going some place new. You can spend the day terrified by the ice trying to crush your entire ship under it, and the night looking up at the one thing that isn't trying to kill you."

Raju starts out serious — he means that part, very aware of the cord wrapped around his wrist — and ends it grinning. Francis' hunger for adventure, a hunger he's got somewhere in him even now, after everything, is a part of him Raju has always admired. But that doesn't mean he isn't going to tease about it if Francis brings it up.

There’s a very deep-seated secret that Crozier’s carried with him since his early days: he adores poetry, and always has. He doesn’t dare attempt it himself - that’d be dangerous - but he loves reading and listening and collecting.

“There’s also the navigational merits,” he adds teasingly. He has no problem being annoying when it suits him.

"Of course. But that's not why you like them." Raju smiles at him for a moment. "Are there any you always look for? What constellations do you like?"

“Polaris in the north, the Southern Cross in the south.” Again, for navigational purposes, but he likes that they’re constant.

“Mariners tend to be fond of the ones that help guide them. I learned other ways of looking at the stars with the Netsilik, Gemini, for one. They saw it as a great collarbone in the sky, and used the principal stars to track the length of the night.”

"You mean when the sun's stopped rising?" Raju looks just as fascinated as he is. Fascinating to imagine, in this moment when he doesn't have to deal with it. Fascinating to learn how the people to whom it's an expected part of their lives have learned to deal with it. Raju's never thought about anything like that before this place — or before meeting Francis, either. He's lucky to have met someone who knows so much about places like this, who enjoys talking about it. "Once you've tracked how long it should take to move, I suppose keeping time that way would be easy. But you have to be outside at night to see it."

Raju's grimace isn't a genuine one, and doesn't dislodge his smile. He's warm now, so the idea of that kind of cold almost doesn't bother him. "How cold does it get there, when the sun never rises to warm anything up? It must be terrible."

It gets cold in this place, he won’t deny that. Milton and the surrounding areas are still downright frigid at times, the kind that freezes the mucus membranes in the head and makes it difficult to breathe.

“It hurts to exist some days,” he answers. “And there’s no escape from it. There aren’t any trees or plants, no hills to block the wind, just pain in the joints and frozen cheeks.”

"This place must seem like a paradise to you." Raju snorts, amused at himself. "That's what you said when we met, I think, but I still can't imagine it. There might be plenty of firewood and hot springs close enough to walk to, but some nights I still suspect I'm going to freeze solid if it gets any colder."

His smile is playful, remembering the conversation this morning. "Or that my teeth might explode inside my head. Or who knows what else."

He pushes Raju back with his shoulder, but they’re still huddled together so the push only tugs on the blanket. “Oh, the melodrama. You won’t freeze.”

It’s the company for him, and the unexpected hope that’s been delivered to him here.

“Surely you aren’t freezing now, are you?”

"No, I'm very nearly warm." He shakes his head, still looking playful, even though he sort of means it. "Did I tell you, when I was growing up, it would be... I don't know, ninety? Or maybe higher? In the summers. Winters, maybe seventy. You're lucky I spent the last few years in Delhi, it can go all the way down to fifty there. Lower sometimes, but only if you're unlucky. Freezing, I think you'll agree."

He smiles faintly down at his hands, rubbing over one another as if they've got to keep themselves warm. They don't, now, but he supposes the topic's reminding them that things could be better. He shuffles around a little so he isn't facing Francis as head-on, wanting in that same spirit to lean against Francis and pull the blanket a little closer.

"You'd do as well there as I would at the poles, I think. Maybe it's a lucky thing that we met here instead."

"All the way down to 50! That's a summer heatwave in Ireland," he laughs, letting Raju lean himself against him. He nearly gives in and does the same. "You're warm-blooded. I knew it was difficult for you the moment we met - you were so ill-equipped for this place. It seems unfair."

But Crozier had been determined to help, and he truly hopes that he's accomplished some tiny piece of that for Raju.

"I would certainly melt if I were transported to your home. I'd die of heat stroke. Crossing the equator in wool is bad enough, but at least I got to keep sailing south."

Hearing that he was ill equipped for anything makes Raju grimace, but he can't argue, not between the blanket and that old pair of shoes he'd still been wearing, determined not to let go of the things he'd had on him from home. He'll go back and get them once the frostbite is finally healed. They'll be in awful condition. They nearly are already. But he wants them, terrible soles and all.

He's glad, suddenly, that he doesn't have to push himself to make the trek out to do it yet, that he couldn't if he wanted to with his feet the way they are. It's freezing outside, and warm here, and in spite of the reason Francis had needed comforting in the first place there's something good about doing this with the blanket around the two of them tying them together, good in some deep way he doesn't really have the words for.

"Mhm," he says, working the arm between them out from being squeezed there and around Francis' back, to figure out what to do with it then once it settles somewhere. "If fifty is hot, we never would have met there. You'd have swooned in the heat at least once. Probably more than that. Did they really make you wear wool at the equator? I always thought people insisted on that even after they'd sailed all that way for vanity, or modesty, or something like that."

“Thankfully we’d brought a change of clothes,” he laughs. “No, they don’t make us wear the wool. You’d have a boat of dead sailors before we’d even had the chance to see ice.”

He smiles quietly. He remembers the journey to the Pitcairn Islands in his youth, swimming buck-naked in the ocean with the other ship’s boys to try to find some reprieve from the heat.

“Officers walked around nearly bare - linen shirtsleeves and waistcoat.” Scandal! “But it was still too damned hot for me. I don’t do well in heat. You’d have to roll me under a tree because I’d drop in the middle of the street.”

Raju pulls back just far enough to consider Francis, stray hand settling on the floor behind him with its arm close enough to brush Francis' back, his eyes moving down over Francis and then up over his chest. "No, a waistcoat won't do. That's where you went wrong. You need something thinner here," he sets his other hand on Francis' stomach and pulls it back a little once the gesture's done, fingers curled in the air near Francis' front while the blanket hangs over his shoulder, "and looser. Our uniforms needed a thin shirt underneath, and some days even that was too much. You need one layer only, designed to let the breeze in.

"But that wouldn't be just nearly bare, would it?" Raju adds, his smile growing into a teasing one, sounding amused. "Was the waistcoat as dressed down as you ever got on your ships?"

His lax posture stiffens ever-so-slightly as Raju touches where chest meets stomach. He’s convinced that he can hear his heart pounding, so there’s a bit of relief when he pulls his hand back and lets it hover.

“I walked about in my shirtsleeves,” he admits, letting it sound almost devious as it hits his tongue. “It’s unbecoming for an officer to be that underdressed.”

He turns his head away with another light chuckle. Time to run away from this topic of conversation! “I suppose we should eat. Are you hungry at all?”

"Mm." Raju looks over toward the kitchen, easily distracted even though the answer is a definite I don't know that Raju isn't really concerned with figuring out.

More important than Francis' question, though: "You'd have to move and let all the heat out." Raju huffs in amusement at himself, leaning over to bump against Francis' arm. He means it, but he doesn't want it taken seriously that he means it. He's always going to be cold, and he's always going to be a little bit annoyed about it. Better to laugh about that urge to whine over it instead. "Are you? I don't know when you usually eat."

He laughs again, a little lightheaded at the prospect of remaining under the blankets. But he’s with Raju on this one, he wants to stay in the warmth for as long as possible. “Just thought I’d ask. I’m more tired than hungry myself.”

"Really? We've hardly done anything." There'd been the trial of waking up, the walk into town, the bartering, the walk back and all that had entailed— yes, all that. But it's only been a few hours. And if Raju's tired too, well, that's how it's been for the last few days anyway, and there's no good reason for that either. The sore muscles and painful feet don't really account for it.

"You aren't that old," he grins, leaning into Francis again and making himself comfortable there as he pulls the blanket tighter again. "Besides, we've got a few hours of sunlight left, haven't we? You could do anything."

Being born again into the sweet morning fog

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