The swat at his fingers gets a faint, satisfied look out of Raju; Francis is lucky Raju isn’t really in a teasing mood. Then he bites at the inside of his lip, half-smiling against a rush of embarrassment. Francis had loved him as a husband after all so there’s no harm done — he can feel just now Francis gazing at Raju like a treasure, seeing something precious, and the flush on Raju’s face is coming as much from feeling that in such a strangely personal way, like looking out from Francis’ eyes himself, as from anything else — but another man sleeping next to Francis for warmth wouldn’t have done it that way, and all that time Raju hadn’t known it.

Still, of course Raju had slept that way: “That time, when you first let me sleep here, the aurora was...” He remembers the way it’d felt, the dread winding up tight in him. Raju’s free hand slips just under Francis’ shirt to brush its fingertips over Francis’ side and the comfort the moment he does it runs over him, unwinding the knot. He sighs, relieved. “…hard. I was…” Afraid. Habit is all that keeps him from saying it; of course Francis knows and knew that he was. “I thought all of it might come back. You lay next to me and held my hand. I felt… better, sleeping that close to you. I always do.”