NATE
Something about this is different. Something between them makes it different, makes it easier to be looked at, even if he feels like every crack, every flaw is on display. Nate thinks he might cry. Thinks he might already be crying, and for the first time, there’s no voice in his head screaming for him to suck it up, screaming that he should do better, be in control of himself. It’s just Sunjata, around him, drowning out his insecurities and traumas, just for the moment. Just long enough for Nate to realize he doesn’t need to carry them all alone.
Nate moves with his lover, shifting wherever the other puts him, on his back again. He never thought he’d like being small, being vulnerable. Never thought he’d like being seen. Never thought he’d be able to bare pieces of himself kept locked away from the light for so long, but here he is, warmed inside and out by the sun, by his Sun. There’s still a whine when the kiss is broken, though it dies in Nate’s throat when the attuned doesn’t really move, doesn’t pull away, just looks at him.
His eye doesn’t close as a kiss is pressed to his forehead, his mouth opening automatically to return the sentiment, to force words to try and carry his emotions, but the next kiss shuts him up, makes him go still. So busy worrying about the scars inside, he forgets the one across his face. No, not forgets, ignores.
Nate can’t ignore this. This kiss pressed to his nose pulls a soft breath from him, the one over his ruined eye has him shaking, and the last one, under his eye, shatters something, whatever worn tape he’d been held together with splitting. ”I love you too.” He babbles, howls, fluid dripping down his face, into his hair and Sunjata’s hands.
The promise though. There isn’t a single part of Nate that disbelieves Sunjata. No part of him with any reason to doubt. A hiccup leaves Nate, just before their lips press together, as his hands, arms lift to wrap around his fiancé, to hold him close, just to hold him.
”I want to be with you forever, I want to be married, and home with you and...” A stream of consciousness, no thought too unimportant to be said out loud right now, because god, what if he keeps the wrong thing in, what if he regrets never saying these things? ”I love you, I love you so much, I’ll love you until... until the end, whatever it is, whenever, I don’t care. We’ll make a new house, and I... I’ll make you happy, as happy as you make me.”
the last ones here on earth
