Alfie was stripping him with a kind of panicked haste that Julien wasn't really sure was all healthy, but then at the same time he seemed to be caught up in the same kind of need to bring himself as close to Alfie as physically, humanly possible, so that Alfie's family, his family, nothing else would matter apart from how close they were. So it was that when Alfie pulled away, Julien arched up likewise, trying to tug his shirt off and not yet reaching for Alfie's, also subconsciously aware of the power shift here.