Rafael made a small, defeated sound and accepted his rice like a man accepting exile.
And still, somewhere between the third cup of ginger tea and the sixth day of Gregoris refusing to leave until Rafael's color returned, Rafael realized something that made his ribs feel too tight.
He was starting to look for him in rooms.
Not in the dramatic way of poems or propaganda. Not with desperate longing, not with foolish romantic hunger. But with the quiet, bodily instinct of someone who had begun to associate a presence with safety. With the way his shoulders eased the moment the security doors whispered open and Gregoris's ID pinged on the manor's system. With the way he listened for the weight of Gregoris's steps before he even saw him.
Gregoris didn't talk about it.
He didn't talk much at all unless it mattered, but Rafael began noticing the small ways Gregoris rearranged his life without announcing it.
