Raju listens to Francis’ direction, his smile warm and gentle, feeling full of the soft thing he’d felt when Francis had said his name.

“I do,” he says, voice quiet and steady, confident. The loose circle of his hand tightens just enough to remind him he doesn’t have anything to slick the sensitive skin there with, but not so much that Francis’ skin pulls against his hand, only brushes it. As he keeps speaking his hand’s new grip moves upward.

“I do love you,” he goes on, never wanting to be any further from Francis’ face than he is right now, his thumb moving up to trace the edge of the head underneath it.