Raju looks up from Francis' arm to watch him closely, sharply interested as he always is in anything about Francis' life from before this place. He imagines it: losing his own hand, having to learn... well, everything, after. Francis has been learning for years, and he still couldn't take care of his own sleeve that once, when he'd been too angry to take care with it. Raju tries to imagine that kind of loss, the loss of assurance in himself, that he'll be able to take care of those things, and can't quite do it. And the way Francis says it, it seems like that'd happened when he'd been new with the people who'd taken him in and taught him so much of that knowledge and skill that Raju so admires in him now.
He lifts Francis' forearm and spends a moment studying it. The impulse, always, is to avoid the stump at the end, the part of a body that shouldn't ever see the open air. Raju pulls at Francis' arm and ducks his head to press a slow, lingering kiss to it. It's a marvel how much better, calmer and more stable, he feels afterward. He wonders if it's always going to be this way, touching Francis in all the ways he hadn't been able to before. Or simply hadn't thought to.
"You know so much about surviving here." But being calmer doesn't mean he isn't still going to complain: "But I haven't really learned anything. Not properly. Taste that fish; I didn't even get the herbs on it before it burned."
Cooking had been something he'd trusted others to take care of, before. The cook at the barracks, Seetha at home. But he needs to be the one to do it now, and that means doing it well. He grimaces a little.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2024-07-14 12:08 pm (UTC)He lifts Francis' forearm and spends a moment studying it. The impulse, always, is to avoid the stump at the end, the part of a body that shouldn't ever see the open air. Raju pulls at Francis' arm and ducks his head to press a slow, lingering kiss to it. It's a marvel how much better, calmer and more stable, he feels afterward. He wonders if it's always going to be this way, touching Francis in all the ways he hadn't been able to before. Or simply hadn't thought to.
"You know so much about surviving here." But being calmer doesn't mean he isn't still going to complain: "But I haven't really learned anything. Not properly. Taste that fish; I didn't even get the herbs on it before it burned."
Cooking had been something he'd trusted others to take care of, before. The cook at the barracks, Seetha at home. But he needs to be the one to do it now, and that means doing it well. He grimaces a little.