I come from the water

i don't know where home is, but i suppose it's anywhere i go that's any good at all

Nate watches and waits, expecting a smirk, a low rumble of a laugh. Not the brow rising, the searching, like there’s a question he hasn’t answered yet. Perhaps... perhaps this isn’t something they have in common, which is actually a little more exciting, a chance for another first, to ride out something that could be very fun with the other man. And maybe, if Nate can’t partake in anything himself, he can live through Sunjata, can lean into the lowered inhibitions and loose tongue that comes with inebriation of any kind.

Thumbs soothe over cheeks again, like touch alone can chase away the flush that’s settled under tanned skin. It feels a little bit like there’s something here he’s missing, something about the embarrassment spreading through Sunjata seeming like more than just that. But Nate presses on, because he’ll never know what’s wrong if he doesn’t. ”I’ve got... a few things I’ve been holding onto. If you wanted to try something a little different.” Things rescued, only barely, from Sams home, and things confiscated from Delphine, though he doesn’t trust whatever she’d had as far as he could throw it (and he should, into the ocean, where no one can find them again).

”If you want.” The words are offered softly, Nate pressing every ounce of soothing gentleness he can into them. Really, he’s asking what’s wrong, because there’s something, digging at Sunjata like a splinter, like an old wound not healed properly, and he wants to help. Perhaps it’s not healthy, to step back so quickly into the role of a caretaker after his spiral, his breaking apart, but it’s all Nate really knows after a lifetime of being okay. And he’s steady enough to offer this support, to lean in and press their noses together, eyes locked on the other maN.

NATE

I saw the crosses of empty cathedrals whose prospects were hanging out in bars

It isn’t something he’s familiar with at all — it isn’t something he can recognize when it happens. It’s evident in the way he’d handled Delphine when she was high, an absolute uncertainty under what was wrong but knowing that something very much was. But Nate’s thumbs run along his cheeks and he swallows perhaps a bit harder than he anticipates, listening and searching.

But fuck, as if he doesn’t trust this man right here with everything he has and is.

So he hums thoughtfully, quiet for a brief moment as his gaze slips from meeting Nate’s to look to anything else along the Ascended other than those electrifying eyes. “We didn’t have anything like it in Korofi.” He begins, half tempted to trail off but… He can’t because Nate should know, Nate needs to know. So he takes almost a sharp inhale, arms tightening around Nate as he goes to meet his electric blues, chewing on the inside of his lip as he tries to figure out where to start.

“I… Did it once. With Phoebe.” There, that’s a good starting point. “I had the blight, and it kept getting worse when everyone else was getting better. Lusea had just arrived and… I went to Phoebe to ask questions, pissed about her getting better when I was getting worse. Was blighted, got really fucked up and drunk. I panicked, told her about the Trials.” There’s a moment when his jaw clenches, muscles feathering therein. “She gave me something to calm down… And that’s when I cheated on Luci.” He sums up as easily as he can, taking a deep inhale and focusing on Nate, unsure how the other man might take it, pausing to give him time — wondering if he will come to the same result as Hotaru had.

SUNJATA

i don't know where home is, but i suppose it's anywhere i go that's any good at all

Maybe Sunjata’s experience, or lack thereof, should have been obvious considering the way he’d been acting when he’d brought Delphine home, but it doesn’t click for some reason, written off as worry in the moment. Didn’t click, until this moment, and Nate thinks that’s as deep as it goes, that that’s the cause of the slight pull away, the flush. He smiles, gentle and bright, and tries to meet the other mans stormy eyes, nodding easily as Sunjata begins to explain, nothing like drugs in Korofi, sensible enough, even if he doesn’t quite believe it - there’s a difference between no drugs, and never encountering drugs, though, the other man had been a cop, of a kind, so...

The train of thought ends as Sunjata trails off, as he tightens his arms to a pressure even Nate can feel clearly. And it becomes very clear very quickly that there’s more, there’s worse, and Nate frowns, about to say you don’t have to do this when the attuned opens his mouth again, and he suddenly can’t say anything at all, can’t bring himself to inturtupt, to stop the wheels already in motion.

Nate licks his lips, hands not moving away from Sunjata's face as he settles in to hear the other man's one experience, something like dread settling in the pit of his stomach. At least it's better than the directionless swirl of darkness from earlier had been. It starts off innocently enough, as much as anything else he's heard about the other man's past, though it breaks his heart to hear that the hardships hadn't stopped just because he was in a new world. And he can't quite imagine it, coming to a new place and immediately falling sick, immediately being gripped in the throws of confusion and anger. Nate manages, only barely, to keep his face schooled into something neutral, something encouraging, though he can't help the wince as the Trials come up again. Though, that wasn’t the end, couldn’t be, with how it hadn’t circled back around to what they’d been talking about, and-

Wait. What?

"She... gave you something, when you already..? And then slept with you?" There's a tremble in Nate's voice, in his hands, as he speaks, tries to clarify. It... it couldn't be like that, there had to be some part of this that he was missing, that he wasn't understanding. But there's no reason Sunjata would tell him anything less than the whole truth, no reason he'd lie, not about something like this, shitty ex or not. And it explains a lot, answers questions that Nate hadn't even had yet.

Maybe, if he could keep a cool head, he could work through it, could help Sunjata work through it, properly. He could be comforting, could be reassuring. All Nate wants, in the world, in this moment, is to be able to keep the other man safe, to bring happiness to him, but what is he supposed to do in the face of this, apart from grow senselessly angry, apart from shake and rage and tremble, where it wasn’t really his place.  ”I’m... oh darling.” Theres something heartbroken in the words, Nate pulling Sunjata in close, a hand moving to spread through his hair, the other wrapping around his shoulders. There is a fine line between pity and empathy and all Nate can do is hope he straddles it well, when everything within him is turmoil.

NATE

I saw the crosses of empty cathedrals whose prospects were hanging out in bars

He focuses the best he can on Nate as he unveils his story and experience, using the way the other man cups his face as some sort of tether while he waits for the ball to drop. He sees the wince with the trials, sees the shift as soon as he mentions what’s happened, the slight admission and summation of what happened — and the unfortunate part for him is that regardless of how many people have told him it wasn’t his fault… He still thinks it is. He hears the tremble in Nate’s voice, recalls the fierce anger of Hotaru when she’d heard about it, and he inhaled a deep breath to nuzzle his head into the hands that hold him.

“I, yeah…” He offers with a huff of a sigh, pausing to chew on his cheek. “I mean… I came onto her.” He rumbles, as if it makes any difference. “But I wasn’t myself, not really.” There’s a moment when he huffs out a laugh, though there’s little to no amusement in it. “I was so fucking faithful in Korofi and I came here and fucked it all up.” His gaze settles on Nate again, unsure what else to say, what he could say.

But then Nate’s in his space again, and Sunjata’s leaning even more into the touch and the embrace, the feeling of Nate’s fingers spreading through dark curls, the way his arm wraps around his shoulders, and Sunjata keeps his own arms tight around the Ascended. He can feel the light tremble in Nate’s hands, unable to hide his own spark of worry of sending Nate back onto his spiral as soon as the words leave the Ascended.

And just as he told Hotaru when she’d found out, Sunjata doesn’t know what to say. So he reverts, back to before, back when he took all the blame. “It’s okay.” He offers softly, a breath of a whisper as he presses his cheek against Nate’s and closes his eyes, letting the flush show along his skin, letting the heat of it seep into the Ascended.

SUNJATA

i don't know where home is, but i suppose it's anywhere i go that's any good at all

"No, that's not..." There's a struggle in Nate's voice, a schism between shaking anger and gentleness, but there is nothing but softness in his hands, as he tries to be the support that the other man needs, so soon on the heels of his own crumbling. At least they crack together, some kind of bare bones concession, they may both be broken, but at least they're together. His next words drip with venom, aimed at something he'd never be able to really touch, despite how badly he wants to.  "If she had any sense of... morality, she would have stopped you. She should have stopped you." Until this point, Nate had done his best to keep a neutral opinion of the midwife, to not let his opinion be tainted by what he'd been told, by what had been done, by the low simmer of guilt he still felt. This though, blew everything he thought out of the water, blackened the good he had once associated with Phoebe.

The comment of faithfulness though, brought back some guilt, a crime that he wasn't entirely innocent of, though he knew that wasn't what Sunjata was referring to, knew that what they had done was more of a technicality, an entanglement rather than an affair. "I'm sorry Jata." Comes the soft response, as Nate pulls him in closer, strokes his hair, his back. "You... you might have fucked some things up, but not everything. And it's not fair to count... things like this. That you were manipulated into."

Nate can feel the heat radiating off the other man, where he really shouldn't be able to, shame and guilt and embarrassment and things he can't even fathom, not really. It's too much, Gods everything Sunjata has been through is too much. "It's not okay. You don't have to say it, and you don't have to believe it." And again, Nate is stuck, unsure of how hard is too hard, unsure of what he's supposed to say. It's not fair to leave the other man like this, in this state of denial, of emotional self flagellation, but how much can he say before the attuned isn't willing to listen. Isn't willing to accept it.

It's Nate's turn to let out a humourless laugh, lower, pressed into the other's cheek. "You deserve so much better than this. Than all of this."

NATE

I saw the crosses of empty cathedrals whose prospects were hanging out in bars

Nate struggles in what he attempts to say, not like Sunjata has anything else to say to it. Not really. What was there to say anyway? It isn’t until the next sentence leaves and Sunjata chews on the inside of his cheek perhaps a bit harder – gnawing now almost near enough to draw blood if he really wanted to try, before a slow sigh slips from his nose, before his eyes are closing and he’s not sure where exactly to start. His lips part, but nothing comes out, and Nate’s hands are there in his dark curls, an apology though Sunjata can’t understand why Nate is apologizing when he had been the one that had asked for it.

An out, at the very least.

He stills, however, as Nate mentions manipulating, and his jaw tightens once more as he goes to bury his head into the Ascended’s dark hair. A weak laugh leaves him, with all the pent up feelings in his gut. “You sound like Hotaru.” He comments quietly, before he’s again trying to figure out where to start, if he should continue – but they’re already here, and perhaps this extra bit of opening up might help Nate at some point too. “Phoebe could’ve stopped me. And she didn’t.” He manages. “Instead, she gave me some tonic that had a bunch of random things that I don’t exactly know what they do… Cannabis oil, chamomile, some saint’s wort.” He pauses, reflecting a small amount, unable to come up with the rest of it. “I didn’t go home that night. How could I? I told her that and she… She told me that if I actually loved Lusea I would’ve left her to save her from my father.” His voice hitches there, accent thickening as he tries to figure out why the fuck he remembers it so clearly, and why the fuck it hurt so bad right now. “Because I knew what my father was capable of. That’s fucked, right? I…” But he’s trailing off now, trailing off as Nate continues to say that it’s not okay, and he’s swallowing down the fact that he wants to take the blame, that he always has taken the blame, and not once had he shoved it off to someone else.

Nate tells him he deserves so much better than this, and he doesn’t believe it either. He doesn’t believe the fact that he deserves to be treated so much better than he was because of everything he’s done. But it’s not his spiral, and his levelheadedness is waning, but he’s talking and it feels good to say it out loud, when perhaps someone’s listening.

SUNJATA

i don't know where home is, but i suppose it's anywhere i go that's any good at all

There's a more genuine cough of mirth that leaves Nate as his reaction is compared to Hotaru, and all he can think is a fierce good. Maybe two people saying the same thing, saying it was reprehensible that Sunjata been treated the way he had would get through somehow. Would chip away from of the guilt, so the wretched, festering wound could be eased, could start healing properly.

Nate does his absolute best to step away from his growing anger though, to put all of his focus on the other man, the details he offers. And he's sure Sunjata can feel the way his jaw works, the restless tremble in his hands, even as they continue their gentle ministrations. The ingredients that are offered up though, spark something specific, some dim recollection, and it takes him a moment to chase it down, the figure out what it is that makes him so uncomfortable with the particular mix. As effects and warnings slowly drift back into his mind, Nate leans back, a hard set to his jaw, an infuriated fire in his eyes, though it doesn't seem to affect his voice, calmer now than it's been this whole time, steady and utterly free of tone, of inflection. "Are you sure that's what was in it? Or some of it?" It feels cruel, to ask after it, to question the memories that he already knows are a struggle to share, to face, but he has to know exactly how angry he needs to be.

Really, if the ingredients Sunjata's remembers are right, then nevermind going home, it's a miracle he even made it through the night. "What kind of evil, heartless, monster says something like that?" Only someone who had never faced a day of struggle, who had never truly connected to another person would think that. And only the most inhuman would say it. Who aims to hurt more, in the face of suffering? "That's fucked." Nate confirms sharply, without hesitation, without a moment of thought. "It's all fucked. Everything about it, I..." He bites his tongue again, he's already said too much, spewed too much vitriol, but he can't help the way it wants to pour from him like a hose.

"What could you have ever done to deserve that?" Nate asks, soft again, trying so hard to keep himself tamped down, to focus on Sunjata. To be a set of ears, to be a voice of reason, of gentle reassurance.

NATE

I saw the crosses of empty cathedrals whose prospects were hanging out in bars

Oh, he can feel the hard set to Nate’s jaw, to the way that Sunjata’s is reflected in the way he works at his. But it’s not until Nate leans back, when the question reaches his ears that Sunjata’s not sure where to begin. He’s positive she’d said that, and if he filters through those hazy and shifting memories perhaps he can remember more. Because he can remember a fairly decent amount of things, some that wouldn’t otherwise matter, but perhaps it does in instances like this. One hand leaves Nate to run through his own hair, to brush the curls from his eyes as he offers a slow nod, a distant gleam to his gaze as he focuses on the memories and filters through.

“Valyrian root… Cannabis oil, chamomile… Hops oil.. lemon something, and yeah the rest of it.” He rumbles, before the haze clears and he’s focusing far harder on Nate as the vitriol reaches him and he’s not sure whether to feel satisfied or far more frustrated with what’s happened to him. But there’s an agreement, and in Sunjata’s defense he does as he always does. “We both weren’t really ourselves…” He swallows hard, trailing off a bit as he regrets even bringing it up.

But when Nate asks what he’s done to deserve it, Sunjata takes a deep inhale of breath, perhaps a bit too sharp – because he does believe he does, and it’s not his spiral. It’s not his spiral. He meets Nate’s gaze, a mirthless smile crossing his face. “It’s everything, isn’t it? I killed… How many people?” Too many. “I got my mother killed. I got Luci tortured and killed, I got my best friend killed here.” His shoulders rise and fall in a small shrug. “It’s a shame it’s not for better reasons.” He tacks on the end, letting his gaze search Nate’s face, anywhere but those electric blue eyes. “I kind of think that... It was always supposed to go this way, you know? Karma and all of that.” But he takes a deep inhale then, looking more fully at Nate now, diving into those swirling blues. “I'm okay, though. I promise.”

SUNJATA

i don't know where home is, but i suppose it's anywhere i go that's any good at all

With every new ingredient Sunjata offers, Nate bristles more, the connection finally clear enough that he can pull it all together, and the end result is terrible. Even in a small dose. "Do you know what any of it does? Did she tell you?" There's a renewed urgency in his voice, though he already knows what the answer is, doesn't bother waiting for it. And it makes him sick, adds a careless intention to the action. "How dare she call herself a healer." This is more to himself than the other man, Nate's gaze only rising as Sunjata again tries to claim blame for what had happened. "You couldn't have been yourself. Not with blight, and alcohol, and her... her fucking rap-" He stops himself suddenly, unwilling to say the word if Sunjata hasn't, unwilling to actually put it into the air between them.

It's a wonder how easily anger and concern have pulled him out of his earlier spiral. Something to focus on, a far better distraction than what Nate would usually seek out. Maybe one that some good could come from. "You didn't do any of that. You did what you were told, by people you had to trust, and they've been blaming you for it every since." Really, if there is anyone to talk to about avoiding blame, about twisting things to stay innocent, it's Nate, but he cannot fathom how the other man has gotten so twisted in the other direction. "You killed because you had to, to stay alive, you fought because you had to. You didn't pull the trigger." And maybe he's biased, maybe he doesn't have the whole story, but he doesn't see a single way anyone else could hear what the other man has shared and not come to the same conclusion. Perhaps, perhaps, he could have kept his head down, could have accepted his lot, what he was born to be, but that is a far worse, a far more insidious kind of violence.

"Jata, that's not karma. It's trauma." Maybe there's a bite of frustration, just in how quickly the words come from him, from the way they're clipped, but it doesn't seem to affect the rest of him, hands still gentle, face still worried. Eyes still brimming with concern, with love, with a contained anger. "Why do you keep saying that?" The words are simple, not accusatory, or pointed, just curious. Nate can see the splinters, can see the spiral, clear as anything in the stormy eyes that meet his, finally. Maybe it's a better approach, to pick at the method, instead of trying to convince Sunjata he was wrong about something that he had to have been saying was okay for too long.

NATE

I saw the crosses of empty cathedrals whose prospects were hanging out in bars

No, no she hadn’t told him what it did. She was sure he didn’t know what any of it even was. And she’d been right, because his forte wasn’t herbs and healing. It was destruction, and it always had been. It was what he was born to do, born to become, what he’d fallen into. But he has nothing to say when Nate continues on, not until the frustration and fury as Sunjata yet again tries to rationalize a thing that there wasn’t any rationality for. But the Ascended cuts himself off, and Sunjata sighs slowly though his nose, some quiet tone slipping from his throat. “I know.” It’s exactly what Hotaru had said, too.

And when the mention of all of the manipulation he’s been faced with, he has to do his best to not visibly flinch with it, to try and protest when Nate tells him he didn’t pull the trigger – because he had. It was self-defense, yes, but he’d still pulled it. He’d pulled it when the resistance was in its height. He’d pulled it on those he’d trained with since he was young in order to do something that he thought was right.

What a mess he truly was, and here he is stacking more onto Nate’s shoulders when he really should just be sitting down and shutting up and enjoying the nice morning for what it was. But he can’t, not now that the words are slipping from his throat, and this is perhaps the most he’s been able to talk about what’s happened to him, why he thinks the way he does, only stilling when Nate mentions it’s trauma, when the question reaches his ears and he has to think about it, when he sees those electric blues swimming with so much love and concern, that it almost hurts.

“I don’t know.” He says after a few moments of quiet, of stillness, of the burning in his ears and his neck. He doesn’t know why he keeps saying it, only that perhaps if he tries saying it enough times he might actually believe it one day. “I don’t remember a time where I didn’t have any trauma.” He admits, slowly, keeping his eye contact with Nate as if it might urge the point a bit more. “My mother didn’t tell me she loved me until after I won the Trial. There wasn’t a spark of happiness growing up that wasn’t shadowed by my father and my failures and weaknesses growing up.” Holy shit he’s going in deep. He takes a deep inhale and almost shudders under the memory, his hands moving back to keep Nate close as if the Ascended might drift away from him too if he lets go. “We had a live in make-up artist to fix me before my family had to do these stupid movie prompts.” Another pause as he dives in deep. “I almost drowned during my swim test when I was five or six. My leg got caught in a log in the floodwaters. And my father –” Another mirthless laugh leaves him. “My father was so fucking upset that I didn’t drown that day. That’s my first memory. Nearly drowning and paying for still breathing after it.”

SUNJATA

i don't know where home is, but i suppose it's anywhere i go that's any good at all

A part of Nate wants to grab Sunjata, to shake him and shout Do you? Do you know?, because how could he? How could he know and still pick up all the blame, still accept all the guilt? And maybe what he needs is a more insistent approach, a slightly rougher one, though Nate knows he can't bring himself to do it, especially not when he feels the flinch run through the attuned, despite his best efforts to keep it hidden.

That's a different kind of pain, a more understandable one, one that maybe, just maybe, he can actually deal with. "Don't worry about me. I'm not going anywhere, and I'm not letting go of you." Nate even manages to add a curl of his lips with it, something encouraging, even if it isn't exactly a smile. Even if it doesn't last at all.

There's more rage now, for more people he's never met, would never meet, and maybe it's just a really convenient target. Maybe some of it is his own traumas, focused on something much bigger, much more untouchable, so it can be focused somewhere other than inside. But it's just as useless here as it had been locked away, is put to the side in lieu of worry, of steady eye contact and reassurances that he in no way feels qualified to give. All Nate can do is hold on, struggle to not get swept away by the flood that's he'd asked for. What can he say that he hasn't already? What comfort can he offer that could stand up to a lifetime of pain and suffering? As useless as he might feel though, Nate does have one thing, one skill that might be worth something. He listens, lets Sunjata unload everything without flinching away, leans in when he's pulled, arms wrapped so tightly around the attuned that it had to be painful, though he imagines, a little distantly, that they're both far beyond the point of caring.

Nate is overwhelmed, completely and utterly, by the weight of what Sunjata has revealed. Of what he's had to live through. What he still carried, what he would probably carry forever. "I'm glad you're still breathing." He offers, quietly, feeling guilty that it's the first thing he can muster. "And... I'm glad that... despite all of that..." Nate licks his lips, holding onto his train of thought tightly so he didn't lose it, so it didn't fall into one of the cracks in him. "Despite everything, I'm glad you're you." It hurt to think about, hurt more than Nate could even put words to, but without it, the man he held in his arms would not be the same. Might not be here. And gods, that's selfish, and arrogant. Really though, it's what he has. Himself, his love. "I"m sorry you had to suffer so much to get here."

NATE

I saw the crosses of empty cathedrals whose prospects were hanging out in bars

He does know, but he still can’t admit it. Not when the floodgates open and there’s suddenly so much that he wants to tell Nate, to get him to understand why he acts the way he does, why he can’t help but to get to such lows that take him to the edge and brink of existing. Because he’d never truly been wanted, not really, not until he’d met Lusea and had a reason. Sure, he had his sister and his mother there, but with the ever looming presence of his father it was as good as nothing in the grand scheme.

It’s incredible the amount of relief it brings him to hear that he’s not going to go anywhere, that he’s not going to leave or let go, even when the attuned gets impulsive and gets into so much shit that he otherwise shouldn’t, when he gets into situations that could go so much better. And perhaps it helps, somewhere deep down, to see how someone could hear those hurts and troubles and still want to put up with it, put up with him.

But the gates are open and he’s flooding Nate with so much information that he really should reel it back, that he should try to consider the fact that it was Nate breaking not so long ago, and here he was already foiled by such a simple question of keeping the morning nice and going and ruining that too. But there’s his own quiet simmering anger within him at it, at the fact that he remembers being so jealous when Adam had told him that his mother had loved him, had cherished him growing up when it was the only thing Sunjata had wanted. Someone to love him for how he was, rather than what he could give them.

And he sees that in Nate, more and more, and he’s not sure whether it breaks him or builds him up more. But then Nate’s quiet comment, of being glad that he was still here, hits him somewhere deep and dark and quiet where it had been for a long time, and he’s pressing into Nate a bit more, going to rest his head on Nate’s shoulder and press his forehead to the Ascended’s neck. He can’t remember if he’s heard that specific statement before – that someone was glad that he was himself. It lifts this sort of shadow on his shoulder that’s been there for years, and suddenly he’s huffing a quiet laugh against Nate’s skin. “I’m sorry I ruined the nice morning we were having.” He pauses, withdrawing his head after a moment, fighting away the strange confusing mix within him. “But thank you… Really.” And he means it, from the bottom of his heart and what’s left of it, cracks and all.

He tries to catch Nate’s gaze again, exhaling another quiet sigh and plastering on a small smile, though the tension in his shoulders is far less taut. And perhaps he does need that little getaway Nate was mentioning – and if he trusted anyone to help him through it, it’s the man in his lap at this very moment – the one that loves him for him and nothing else. “I think I want to try it.” A softer admission, wondering if Nate even wants to keep on with it. At the very least, he was home and couldn’t do anything stupid this time, right?

SUNJATA

i don't know where home is, but i suppose it's anywhere i go that's any good at all

Like every other time they've come to this point, every other spiral they've navigated, Nate isn't actually positive what it is he says that breaks through. At this point, he's just glad he can pull Sunjata back into feelings, back into something that actually seems more like an baseline alright, rather than a numbness. The after had been the worst part last time, the most heartbreaking, and to avoid it now feels like a blessing.

"You didn't ruin anything." Nate says softly, earnestly. As angry as he might be at the situation, at the figures in Sunjata's past, there is nothing but tenderness for the other man, his hand moving to cradle the attuneds head close, his own head tilting into the embrace, just to steal that much more contact, that much more closeness. He almost doesn't let go, as Sunjata pulls back again, too soon. "And you don't need to thank me. You never need to thank me for this." A little grin crests his lips, blue eyes glittering with warmth, with an easy, obvious love. "We're in this together, right?"

Hands come back to cup Sunjata's jaw again, thumbs stroking over cheekbones, insistent and steady enough to provide a facade of body warmth just from the friction. Nate would be content to stay like this, if not forever, then at least a while longer, blue eyes meeting the steel gaze easily. He'd be content to sit in this new warmth, holding the other man and coming down from collective breakdowns. His hands pause at the admission though, head cocking to the side. "You sure?" At first, there's a part of him that doesn't think it's a good idea, considering what he'd just learned, but a much louder, much more spiteful part of him screaming that he knows what the fuck he is doing. He knows exactly what he has, exactly what it's supposed to do, and exactly what to do if something goes wrong.

Underneath it all though, there is something flattered, something unreasonably happy with the idea that despite everything, despite what Sunjata had revealed, what he'd gone through, there was enough trust there in Nate to try again. It has him grinning properly, finally, and leaning in to press a kiss against the other man before he's pulling away, too gracefully to really be fair (god his legs should be absolutely numb) and running upstairs, a "Be right back. Don't move!" thrown over his shoulder. And he is right back, hardly thirty seconds passing between the run up and the run back down, made slightly longer by a detour to the kitchen to grab the lighter.

Nate comes back to couch, stepping over the arm and plopping himself down next to Sunjata, emptying his hands onto the table in front of the couch and turning to face his partner, his lover. "You're sure, right?" There's a serious note in his voice, electric eyes searching the attuneds face.

NATE

I saw the crosses of empty cathedrals whose prospects were hanging out in bars

Nate tells him he hasn’t ruined anything, and honestly Sunjata doubts it. But he doesn’t press it – not with the state of the both of them on this day, wondering where exactly it had all gone to shit. But Nate’s cradling his head, and he can feel the closeness, gives into it with everything he has, his heartbeat surprisingly solid and smooth beneath the touch and contact, before Sunjata’s pulling away ever so slightly. The tension in his jaw releases easily with the words, a small nod that bumps his nose against Nate’s gently, that same softer smile crossing his face from before. “Until the end.” He offers quietly – wondering just how deep their agreement went, but passing it off because he’s focusing on Nate’s soft touch to his jaw, eyes fluttering shut when his thumbs stroke over his cheekbones there.

But they open a split second before he’s admitting that he wants to try. That perhaps if it helps with both Nate and himself, it couldn’t really be a loss, right? The smile grows a bit more genuine with the question, watching Nate’s head tilt to the side almost like a dog would have with a high pitched sound. “Yes.” He comments quietly, waiting to see if Nate decides it’s a good idea or not.

Who even cares at this point what’s a good idea and what’s not?

Nate grins then, after a few moments of contemplating, and Sunjata’s offering a quiet hum of a breathy laugh, leaning forward to meet Nate halfway in a soft kiss, before Nate’s pulling away and Sunjata’s ‘oofing’ quietly with the weight of the Ascended suddenly gone. “Okay.” He offers with a slightly louder chuckle, a lingering bit of amusement lining his face now rather than the awkward seriousness of their conversation. And just like in the blink of an eye, Nate’s back already, dropping the contents onto the table and Sunjata leans forward a bit to inspect them.

None of it is recognizable for him, so he looks to Nate with a raise of his brow – some of that fire returning back to him. “I’m sure.” He says, reaching out with a hand to squeeze Nate’s leg gently, before he’s looking back at the items brought. “But I’d like to know what they’ll do… Just to know what to expect.” He offers, thinking that’s reasonable enough. At least it wouldn’t be a surprise this time.

“What first?” He questions, head tilting back toward Nate with a raise of his brow, a small half smirk crossing his face – far more of the usual him as he regards his lover.

SUNJATA