Having approached with such caution all this time, Jude doesn't actually know what he's being cautious of. Life is usually a trial and error, a long adolescent exploration. How long he can be out in the cold, how long he doesn't have to get up from his canvas, what raw plant pulp does to his hands over time. Nothing's quite come along to tell him no one cares if he holds Bodhi's hand in front of the whole damn village - or what happens when he holds it the wrong way, at the wrong time.

He's much likelier to fuck up while talking, which is a different kind of bad. That's always an uneasy silence that feels like a mutual sinking into tar.

And yet he knows, from observation, how he might approach Bodhi physically. A lot of it is just waiting for Bodhi to approach him, then trying to read the mood. Trying things the smallest bit at a time: finger to chin, a very slow and steady reach for a strand of hair. Tipping his head in when Bodhi kisses him, to see if it's alright to keep going.

Even if, hearing something like the shiver in Bodhi's voice, he wants to slide down his chair and make Bodhi the place to sleep, both of them buried under a blanket by the fire. He settles for shrugging the blanket off his arms to wrap around Bodhi's shoulders, dropping the corners into his hands without a brush of his hand.

"I'll just find a room upstairs," he says. "I don't feel like fighting my way home just to do this again."