This embrace is more deliberate, less desperate, but it hurts just as much. It could be tomorrow, Francis says, and a hard rush of air leaves Raju like he’s been punched in the stomach. The dread in tomorrow is a sharp burst of something like terror, the dread in years is slow and acrid at the bottom of his stomach, acid creeping into his throat. He winds his arms tight around Francis’ back, hiding his face against Francis’ hair, and doesn’t want it. He doesn’t want any of it, doesn’t want to go back to the uniform thick and hot around his skin, the unforgiving, inflexible stiffness in his back as assessing eyes move over him, horrors pressed tight inside him crowding into empty airless space. He doesn’t want to sail up to the bank of the river again and feel the weight of all the eager gazes, the certainty only in him, the desperate need that only he can lead them to all set against the impossible reality of him, all the weakness and fault lines in him that all their need can’t ever be allowed to see. For a moment he doesn’t want to be from anywhere, or going anywhere. All he wants is to be here, where there’s someone whose eyes fill up with the same tears that his do, where there’s someone who thinks it’s right to wrap their arms around him and hold him up.
Francis will keep him well. He always has. Raju doesn’t know how to say so. He pushes a mess of brief, blurry impressions at Francis instead: the gratitude and relief of the arms around him now, the image of Francis drunk and hurting not knowing why his husband has forgotten and abandoned him but carefully settling food every day out for him anyway, of thighs under his shoulders and looking up at Francis through a brittle sagging exhaustion and feeling the comfort and care of fingers running cool water through his hair. Francis rubbing Raju’s hands warm, tending so carefully to his feet— a million other things, the care and love in Francis’ every movement.
Raju had reassured Seetha when he had left, when he hadn’t known the reality of what he was leaving her to. He knows now, and doesn’t have any reassurance to give. Francis old enough and practical enough to know better, anyway; he wouldn’t believe it even if Raju could. But Raju’s grateful. Raju’s grateful and the love of him, being allowed here to build a life on top of it, is a river through him washing at the grime and sludge of years. The riverbed is ugly and polluted still but under the current, in tiny, invisible layers, its excess is washing away. He doesn’t have any reassurance to give but he has that. He couldn’t tell him half so well if he had to squeeze it into words, he couldn’t tell him any time but now, he feels the arms around him and he wants Francis to know it.
no subject
Francis will keep him well. He always has. Raju doesn’t know how to say so. He pushes a mess of brief, blurry impressions at Francis instead: the gratitude and relief of the arms around him now, the image of Francis drunk and hurting not knowing why his husband has forgotten and abandoned him but carefully settling food every day out for him anyway, of thighs under his shoulders and looking up at Francis through a brittle sagging exhaustion and feeling the comfort and care of fingers running cool water through his hair. Francis rubbing Raju’s hands warm, tending so carefully to his feet— a million other things, the care and love in Francis’ every movement.
Raju had reassured Seetha when he had left, when he hadn’t known the reality of what he was leaving her to. He knows now, and doesn’t have any reassurance to give. Francis old enough and practical enough to know better, anyway; he wouldn’t believe it even if Raju could. But Raju’s grateful. Raju’s grateful and the love of him, being allowed here to build a life on top of it, is a river through him washing at the grime and sludge of years. The riverbed is ugly and polluted still but under the current, in tiny, invisible layers, its excess is washing away. He doesn’t have any reassurance to give but he has that. He couldn’t tell him half so well if he had to squeeze it into words, he couldn’t tell him any time but now, he feels the arms around him and he wants Francis to know it.