There are a lot of sentiments squeezed into just a few breaths between them, but Crozier is a little dizzy from how much there is and how deeply Ram feels it. He takes a sharp, ragged breath - seeing himself as Rama sees him, feeling the way Rama feels about him, seems like a different person entirely. But it’s not a different person, it’s him; Ram feels these ways about him.

Even if he wanted to move on from it all he finds himself tripping over a word that somehow latched onto his brains Husband. Husband. Crozier’s husband. Married, Rama feels like they’re married, uses the word husband-

He repeats the word in his head, stilling as his embrace loosens enough for them to both breathe, though the intensity doesn’t lessen. He wouldn’t let him go now.

It shouldn’t be so significant. It’s just a word, just a symbol of what they already are to each other, but he’d never imagined being one in the first place. It brings back those rejections, the awkward weddings of friends, the marriages of his brothers and sisters, his own longing for that life he’d never have for himself. Somehow he’d fallen into a marriage and hadn’t even realized!