- NATE -
When you’re around
I don’t know how to hide my feelings
I don’t know how to hide my feelings
It’s hard to tell exactly how he’s feeling, as Hotaru sinks into him, moves with him easily. Hard to tell if it makes something in him soar, sigh out a breath of relief, or if it just hurts all the more, an ease that they could have grown comfortable in not given the chance to even be talked about. Nate’s shifted from one to the other and back again more than once, She’s here now though, for whatever reason, and that simple fact alone is enough to keep him from dipping too dangerously into one mood or the other.
Knowing the attuned’s condition makes it no easier to look upon, the sight of Sunjata languishing in their bed twisting all of Nate’s insides into knots. Pemota floats high above the bed, starlight drifting down from her, their connection the only reason Nate doesn’t worry when he finds the other man shifted, face hidden away from them. He lets Hotaru answer for herself, and struggles to meet her eyes when they turn back to him, lost in this strange reconnection, in his own turmoil.
”A lot’s happened, Ru.” The words come out with a shudder, a hiccuped attempt at a chuckle that only drags in his throat. It isn’t only bad that’s happened after all, no matter how much it might feel like the darkness outweighs the little good they’d carved out. He knows though, that that’s not the answer she’s looking for, and sighs, reaching out to rest a hand on Sunjata’s hip, his other hand rising to offer the same scrap of comfort to Hotaru, but falling short. ”We had a job, over Longnight. Clearing out the smuggling tunnels.” There’s a jerky lift of his shoulders, the rest of the story obvious seeming now. ”The... flaming octopus thing didn’t want to be cleared out.”
Then there is the matter of what’s happened to him, the catalyst of the entire spiral they’re on now, every new pain able to be traced back to that one. Those lost, empty weeks, Zeph’s injury, their involvement in the Fingers at all. Some guilty part of Nate even pulls the pain of what happened to Clem back onto his guilty psyche, if he hadn’t been hurt, he could have travelled with him to the temple, could have insisted he stayed, could have done something. And he still, still isn’t quite sure how to even talk about it, what it had done to him.
At least that’s a pain he’s spared, the unicorn that he’d only barely noticed trailing behind them making it’s presence known once again, stepping closer, too close, Nate tensing, a wary eye locked on it. The gaze doesn’t move at the abandoned’s confused words, though understanding clicks Nate having to look, and his first thought fills him with a sickly guilt, his stomach swooping. What do I do now? If Sunjata is healed, if that is what the unicorn had done, then his distraction, the subject of his unwavering focus is gone, and those lonely, endless hours are going to be filled with his own pain again.
A single trembling hand moves along his fiance’s body, to the bandage covering his side, and peels it back, Nate’s entire body sagging when he sees scarring, and not open wound. It isn’t perfect, isn’t complete, but it’s weeks of pain skipped past. His moment of weak selfishness is thrown to the side in favour of the way he all but collapses on top of Sunjata, squishing Ru in between them and not caring in the slightest. This is what he should have felt in the first place, relief that Sunjata is no longer in agony. Even his usual objections to magical healing don’t rise up, not now, not when he knew the length of recovery normally.
Knowing the attuned’s condition makes it no easier to look upon, the sight of Sunjata languishing in their bed twisting all of Nate’s insides into knots. Pemota floats high above the bed, starlight drifting down from her, their connection the only reason Nate doesn’t worry when he finds the other man shifted, face hidden away from them. He lets Hotaru answer for herself, and struggles to meet her eyes when they turn back to him, lost in this strange reconnection, in his own turmoil.
”A lot’s happened, Ru.” The words come out with a shudder, a hiccuped attempt at a chuckle that only drags in his throat. It isn’t only bad that’s happened after all, no matter how much it might feel like the darkness outweighs the little good they’d carved out. He knows though, that that’s not the answer she’s looking for, and sighs, reaching out to rest a hand on Sunjata’s hip, his other hand rising to offer the same scrap of comfort to Hotaru, but falling short. ”We had a job, over Longnight. Clearing out the smuggling tunnels.” There’s a jerky lift of his shoulders, the rest of the story obvious seeming now. ”The... flaming octopus thing didn’t want to be cleared out.”
Then there is the matter of what’s happened to him, the catalyst of the entire spiral they’re on now, every new pain able to be traced back to that one. Those lost, empty weeks, Zeph’s injury, their involvement in the Fingers at all. Some guilty part of Nate even pulls the pain of what happened to Clem back onto his guilty psyche, if he hadn’t been hurt, he could have travelled with him to the temple, could have insisted he stayed, could have done something. And he still, still isn’t quite sure how to even talk about it, what it had done to him.
At least that’s a pain he’s spared, the unicorn that he’d only barely noticed trailing behind them making it’s presence known once again, stepping closer, too close, Nate tensing, a wary eye locked on it. The gaze doesn’t move at the abandoned’s confused words, though understanding clicks Nate having to look, and his first thought fills him with a sickly guilt, his stomach swooping. What do I do now? If Sunjata is healed, if that is what the unicorn had done, then his distraction, the subject of his unwavering focus is gone, and those lonely, endless hours are going to be filled with his own pain again.
A single trembling hand moves along his fiance’s body, to the bandage covering his side, and peels it back, Nate’s entire body sagging when he sees scarring, and not open wound. It isn’t perfect, isn’t complete, but it’s weeks of pain skipped past. His moment of weak selfishness is thrown to the side in favour of the way he all but collapses on top of Sunjata, squishing Ru in between them and not caring in the slightest. This is what he should have felt in the first place, relief that Sunjata is no longer in agony. Even his usual objections to magical healing don’t rise up, not now, not when he knew the length of recovery normally.
I count in binary in my head
And you count clouds
And you count clouds
