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.”
He recognizes the need to self-soothe in Rama by the way he tries to find ways to touch him. He only somewhat understood it before, assuming there was something about the touch that made the anxiety lessen. Now however he senses there’s something more to it - he’s solid and whole under Ram’s hand, and some of this is a quick search to prove it.
He knows Ram was afraid. He was afraid for him, but how glad he is that even something so simple as a touch of a hand had helped as it did.
It’s the same for him. The nightmares, though still very much persistent, don’t haunt him for days on end when they appear. Rama takes away the pain and moves his focus away from the hurt.
They’ve been good for each other in that way, in so many ways.
“There’s something to be said about not facing these long nights alone.”
“You’re right.” Raju had spent so long working himself hard enough that he could drop, too exhausted to react to or remember his dreams, into a small bed in a barracks full of men who made the closed up thing inside him lock up tighter, closing him in on every side, and he’d learned to call it sleep. The idea of going back to that doesn’t bear thinking of; his mind flashes back to the familiar narrow frame of it and the feeling there, but the thought is easy to dismiss just now. He’s warm here laying wrapped up in a man who lights up like the sun at the chance to call him husband, and that happiness makes it easy to make this now the only kind of sleep he knows. He brushes the memory of that other life aside, lifting his hand from Francis’ stomach to his forehead, brushing Francis’ hair back from it.
“Go back to sleep, Francis,” he murmurs. “I’ll try not to wake you up this time.”
He gets a hint of those lonely barracks in the back of his mind, the extreme isolation and imprisonment laying on his chest like a heavy stone. Rama doesn't linger on the thought long though, and Crozier's back to the soft happiness that had been shared between them. He yawns quietly into the back of his hand.
"If you can't sleep, at the very least don't leave me," he relents quietly.
The request, the words Francis uses to ask, wraps itself around the core of him and gives a tug. His throat is tight, and so is his chest. It hurts, and it feels wonderful, radiating out into every place Raju can feel the press of Francis’ body against his. The feeling pushes him forward to kiss Francis, hasty enough that the press of their lips together is clumsy, insistent. And then Raju settles back, free hand still spread loosely over the back of Francis’ head, feeling the softness of his hair. Raju’s gaze darts over Francis’ face here and there, intent, memorizing him. But he keeps coming back to Francis’ eyes and then he settles himself there, in the deep blue with that hint of brown just around the centre, like touching down at the bed of a river.
“I won’t get up,” Raju answers and after another moment says it out loud, running his fingers slowly through the hair under them, feeling this man around and through him: “Where else would I want to be?”
There are so many places that Rama could wish to be instead of freezing his bullocks off in this freezing wilderness, but the sentiment is understood and appreciated in his typical silently grateful way. Grateful to be loved and cherished, grateful for this man in his life, grateful for every moment they have together.
He locks eyes with Rama for a second or two longer, those crystal-brown eyes with the obscenely long lashes, and then closes his in tired contentment. He smiles his response, letting his quiet happiness say what he might fumble in words, and allows himself to fall asleep again.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
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.”
no subject
He recognizes the need to self-soothe in Rama by the way he tries to find ways to touch him. He only somewhat understood it before, assuming there was something about the touch that made the anxiety lessen. Now however he senses there’s something more to it - he’s solid and whole under Ram’s hand, and some of this is a quick search to prove it.
He knows Ram was afraid. He was afraid for him, but how glad he is that even something so simple as a touch of a hand had helped as it did.
It’s the same for him. The nightmares, though still very much persistent, don’t haunt him for days on end when they appear. Rama takes away the pain and moves his focus away from the hurt.
They’ve been good for each other in that way, in so many ways.
“There’s something to be said about not facing these long nights alone.”
no subject
“Go back to sleep, Francis,” he murmurs. “I’ll try not to wake you up this time.”
no subject
He gets a hint of those lonely barracks in the back of his mind, the extreme isolation and imprisonment laying on his chest like a heavy stone. Rama doesn't linger on the thought long though, and Crozier's back to the soft happiness that had been shared between them. He yawns quietly into the back of his hand.
"If you can't sleep, at the very least don't leave me," he relents quietly.
no subject
“I won’t get up,” Raju answers and after another moment says it out loud, running his fingers slowly through the hair under them, feeling this man around and through him: “Where else would I want to be?”
no subject
There are so many places that Rama could wish to be instead of freezing his bullocks off in this freezing wilderness, but the sentiment is understood and appreciated in his typical silently grateful way. Grateful to be loved and cherished, grateful for this man in his life, grateful for every moment they have together.
He locks eyes with Rama for a second or two longer, those crystal-brown eyes with the obscenely long lashes, and then closes his in tired contentment. He smiles his response, letting his quiet happiness say what he might fumble in words, and allows himself to fall asleep again.