In the depths—black depths, my friend, a burning black, a dark moon black; of curses—of his depression, Rodya is alone. Child and Mikolka both have abandoned him in fear and in disgust. His mind is his own, the walls are his own and he is by himself. Whether he walks the streets—even in this heat, the cold is so bitter, blood stilled, bitter cold—or huddles like a slovenly beast in his cupboard: he is alone. So, he withdraws.

He becomes filthier by the second, stewing in the blood of his cruelty and greed. The fever is a small thing, a trifling distraction. He is a king of evil deeds and all the finery in the world will not hide his shame.

"Come now, Rodya," Razumihin goads. He is very tired, stretched thin with care. He cannot remember why he stays, perhaps for Raskolnikov's beautiful sister, he does not know. The arrogant lines of her mouth are very similar to her brother's, yet she is a trembling thing who needs him far less than Rodya.

"Come now?" Raskolnikov mocks. There's something funny about this, something hysterical. "Come now, what? Dmitri Prokofich, I believe I have told you on more occasions than I can count to absent yourself from my life."

He is laughing deep within his throat, laughing and sweating, eyes gleaming a deep beautiful light that brusque beautiful Dounia has no chance to match. Raskolnikov, blood bathed Raskolnikov, mad for his arrogance and… the room, Razumihin thinks, is quite hot.

"Rodya, I have done far too much to abandon you now…" Razumihin is a beggar, Rodya thinks darkly. Tall and comely Razumihin with his smiling mouth and cheerful words. Tall doting Razumihin who moons after his sister when he is drunk.

"Mother and Dounia are quite taken with you, act out your maternal instincts with them," Rodya sneers. He watches the flush creeping into Razumihin's fine features. He is clean shaven again, Rodya cannot for the life of him imagine why. He has not shaved in… it has been a week, perhaps, since he took the axe from beneath his great leather wing? Self-idolatry, indeed. He is Satan now and he is repulsed by how deeply he loves the idea of it.

"Avdotya Romanovna…" Razumihin whispers, his tiny words swallowed up by the blackness of this tiny room. It had not seemed so small a moment before. "She thinks me a cad, a talkative fool who… she must be grateful towards… for… for taking care of her sick and… cruel, you can be quite cruel, Raskolnikov, her cruel brother…"

Rodya is hacking up laughter at him. "Talkative? Where are your words now, Prokofich? Lost to the holes in your pockets, much like your wit and your coin." Razumihin's fine, fine face darkens, still quite fine a sculpture indeed, how fine… how spectacularly Russian and kingly.

"What a bastard you can be," Razumihin protests, slumping his great shoulders and turning his carefree eyes towards the shadow-ridden corners. Rodya feels a rankling anger inside of him; those shadows are his to rule. Those corners are his place to hide and he is snarling before he quite knows what has happened.

"Go stand by the window." Razumihin stares at him in surprise and Rodya struggles against his own shock, struggles to explain his words—mad, you're quite a mad boy, you mad boy. "I cannot bear to be near you. To the window with you, you crowd me."

Razumihin looks very much like a boy, chastised by a father he adores. He is so shamefaced and Raskolnikov's lip curls. There is a delight to be had here, to manipulating this childish soul. It would serve Razumihin for invading the solitude Rodya so deserves. He's cut his ties (snipping one by one by one). Why Razumihin clings he cannot say.

"Natasya…" Razumihin coughs, embarrassed. "Natasya says you have not been eating. You must eat, Rodya, if you ever wish to be well again." He wishes for Rodya's health quite desperately, wants to air out this little room, clean every inch, replace all of Rodya's clothes, give him an appearance to match his intellect, his conceit.

Rodya spits at him from across the room. Razumihin cannot find it in himself to be offended; in fact it startles laughter from him. Petulance, for all of Rodya's fire it all seems to be so much petulance.

"Keh," Rodya sneers and sniffs, looking away. He is displeased, the little king of his little country is displeased and Razumihin finds himself opening the curtains and then flouting his exile. He sits beside Rodya, invades his moody aura with his smiling eyes. Even unshaven, filthy, and ill, Rodya is quite picturesque. Avdotya Romanovna does not match him in handsomeness, though she is a fair cry closer than Razumihin himself.

"Rodya, I think nothing should make you happier than if I were to leave… but there is something to provoking you." Razumihin's dark eyes glitter with pleasant mischief, Rodya observes. "Something to riling you, you cruel arrogant snob."

The corners of Rodya's eyes crease, incredulous laughter. He can hear his own words; his own thoughts echoed a thousand fold. The good of society, mixed with his own superiority. Yes, little Raskolnikov, try to reconcile your intellect with the emotional needs of your humanity.

"What a child you are," Rodya shrugs indifferently. Razumihin makes the whole room shake with his laughter and Rodya feels it creating chinks in his black armor. Heat overthrowing cold. Simplicity overthrowing belabored points.

"Child?" Razumihin giggles. "Child, indeed, Raskolnikov. I believe you are the child. Falling sick, refusing help out of pride, turning your loved ones away out of petulance, and scorning your last friend? No, Raskolnikov. You are the little boy, a moody little boy, too lazy to even shave."

His fingers are tracing lines across Rodya's jaw. Warm fingers, pulsing with heartbeat. It seems almost like the first time anyone has ever touched him, really. Dounia embraced him when she visited, yes? She had to; it is customary to embrace your family after an absence, yes? He had been carried home unconscious… Zossimov had inspected him. Expected contact, demanded almost. Yet Razumhin's touch is capricious, friendly and intimate. Rodya's flinch is delayed. Razumihin's eyes narrow and his hand hangs midair.

There is a lonely solitude between them in that moment. It threatens to wrap Rodya up, to choke the very life from him, to bind him to this room, to this his square yard of space, forever.

"Raskolnikov…" Razumihin says only once before his warm hand has molded the curve of Rodya's neck and his soft lips have pressed to Rodya's own. Razumihin lips and then his tongue taste of Vodka. Rodya's are cracked and dry and taste of stale air and illness. Razumihin's warm fingers tease the bristle on his jaw. The sunlight floods in the window and fills the room.

Their mouths part just barely, breathes still mingling between them. Razumihin's eyes are no longer laughing as they stare down into Rodya' brooding expression. Rodya licks his dry lips.

"What an immature prank you're pulling, Dmitri Prokofich," he carps faintly. His words trigger a grin, which spreads infectiously across Razumihin's face.

"Perhaps," he chuckles; his thumb caresses the underside of Rodya's jaw. Rodya wonders when he stopped being aware of the hand on him and his halfway to shrugging him off when Razumihin's impertinent mouth is upon him again. Razumihin's insolent body is very close to his own. That warm liquor-sweet mouth eventually leaves his again, but latches to the sickness at his throat, hands taunting instruments all along his skin.

"Perhaps… I will bring you out of your sulk somehow…"

Rodya makes soft reluctant noises at the touch of his hands and his mouth; he makes vulnerable little complaints as Razumihin thumbs buckles and buttons, sunlight glinting off each in turn as they are discarded to the floor. Razumihin's great frame seems to take up the entire room as he rears back to shed his own clothes. A vision of cleanliness, Rodya thinks sardonically and refuses to reach reverently to touch Razumihin's skin.

He turns his head away when Razumihin comes for his lips again. He feels the laughter against his neck, feels Razumihin's kiss at his pulse and fingers tickling the cage of his ribs. Those lips follow from sternum to the peak of body hair above his navel, and then down, fingers still toying at his very bones.

"You should eat more," Razumihin breaths across Rodya's tangle of pubic hair. Each exhale makes Rodya jump, his skin writhe around his organs and muscles.

"Be quiet about that, Prokofich," Rodya snarls from the tightness of his throat. Razumihin laughs again and Rodya closes his eyes.

"Arrogance…" Razumihin muses before the slickness of his mouth encompasses the erection Rodya would as soon have denied.

Arrogance, indeed. It has been… forever since Rodya has touched someone. He thinks this and thrashes futilely beneath the weight of Razumihin's great frame. It has been forever since anything has aroused Rodya, man or woman or murder. He feels Razumihin choking on more than he can swallow. It is a sickeningly cruel impulse to take his hair and force him to finish what he has started, but Rodya is weak with ejaculation at the very idea of it.

His semen drips in filthy rivulets across Razumihin's lips and on his cheek from where he startled back in surprise. Rodya is silent while Razumihin pants for breath, but at last they meet each other's eye. Razumihin silently wipes the semen from his cheek with a thumb and grins. It is an easy grin, bright as sunlight. Razumihin's eyes shines, for he is quite fond of what he sees: Raskolnikov flushed, skin with a faint luster, eyes soft and half-lidded.

Razumihin's chest still heaves, Rodya imagines he can hear that great heart beating rapidly in its cage, but perhaps it is only the blood in his ears. Razumihin runs his fingers through his dark hair and then down the length of his side, drawing Rodya's eyes downward with very little provocation. Razumihin waits, still erect.

"Please?" he asks. There is an inviting smugness to his tone that… perhaps is what draws Rodya in.