I kept running for a soft place to fall

Hotaru

My head's a burial ground of your memory

Clarity has not been long rooted in her mind, but Hotaru is not a creature of indolence and procrastination. Not that she’d needed much external motivation upon coming to herself in the moss-thick greenery of a thicket she didn’t recognize, dirty and wounded with only Atlas standing guard over her prone form to assure her that something remained recognizable. Concern emanates from where his soul is irrevocably bound to hers, far more mature and concise than she remembers. Hotaru can’t recall much of anything of the past few days - gods let it only be days - but as she stares down at her own body, skinnier and bloodier than she remembers it being last she perceived it, her belly swoops low and heavy with the kind of preternatural knowledge that only dread can inspire. Something is terribly wrong.

Atlas bends his neck to her, and she boggles silently at how much he has grown seemingly overnight even as her grateful hands twist into his mane to pull herself from the earthen cocoon she awoke in. ”What the hell has happened Atlas?” Even spoken in soft undertone, her throat twinges in subtle warning, rendering her hoarse as she speaks. As if she hasn’t for some time. That feeling in her stomach seems to triple its mass, and the woman runs her hand over wind torn hair and stares helplessly at her bonded. Atlas responds only by kneeling, offering his body as her carriage in a way he could not have done before. Hotaru gingerly swings her injured leg across his withers, clinging to his mane as he rocks back to his hooves and immediately begins to stride out into the unrecognizable forest. Whatever may be lost and lacking in her own mind, it’s clear that Atlas will make up for it for her. She leans down and presses her cheek to the warmth of his shoulder, feeling the muscle move with each step taken. All the while her mind whirls, trying to make sense of itself, wondering what could have possibly happened to pluck her so fully from her own awareness. Terrified of it happening again.

In all of this, there is only the prevailing urgency to return home. Whether Atlas senses this or not, his path remains true, as if daring something try and interrupt his passage. Hotaru watches the sun rise higher in the sky, illuminating the unicorn’s golden dapples. She rakes her fingers through her hair - longer than she recalls - and bandages the long, shallow wound along her calf. Atlas stops only when she requests it, and only for long enough to allow Hotaru to wash clean in the chill of a small stream. He huffs and shuffles uneasily the entire time, and his pace is decidedly faster when once more she is astride him. It does nothing to settle her nerves.

The portal is a welcome sight, the beach even more so. Finally, recognition. Familiarity. Hotaru clings to it fiercely, even as her teeth clatter and her hands go white tangled in Atlas’ windswept mane. A little cold won’t stop her from returning home to her fiancés. To finding out what has happened.

They realize it in slow-dawning tandem. The house does not stand against the horizon where it always had before. Atlas can only get her so far before Hotaru is heedlessly leaping from his back, stumbling barefoot in the sand, battered knees scraping to push her back upright as she runs towards-

Black. Scorched. The skeleton of a home she had only just begun to call her own. Terror strikes into her valiant heart, tearing down all pretense and defenses as her fingertips touch ash. She looks like a wildling as she stands and spins uselessly, fear like glass in her stomach, where it hurts the worst and where she cannot reach in and tear it free. ”Nate! Sunjata!” Her screams pierce the relative calm of sea and shore, white-struck gaze frantic as she scours the horizon for any sign of her beloveds. What did she miss? Why wasn’t she here? Why can’t she remember? Hotaru stumbles away from the wreckage, soot staining her arms as she brings her hands to hold herself, braced against the chill. There’s another house in the distance, looming and unfamiliar. No question as to whether or not she’ll investigate it of course. No stranger or happy little family’s pleasant evening is worth more than finding out where her lovers are. And again she calls, her unused voice cracking like the lightning in her blood as desperation keeps her on her feet. ”Jata! Nate!”

there's a niche in his chest where a heart would fit perfectly

It’s been calm. Serene, almost. A late afternoon spent wandering the markets of Haulani, hand in hand, a parcel of fruit and sugar and special rum hanging from Nate’s shoulder as they make the trek back up along the hills, the ocean on one side and the jungle on the other. An evening that promises to be just as warm, just as serene, now that things have finally started to settle.

Nate is halfway through some forgettable anecdote about his grandmother when he stops. Cocks his head. There’s a ghost on the winds, the sound of his name, of Sunjata’s name, drifting towards them in a familiar voice. His first thought, after Leafchange, is that he’s not doing this again. He’s not chasing phantoms, not rushing after a figure that he won’t be able to catch. He can’t, they can’t. The story is gone, but he recovers, brushing off his distraction with a shrug, a laugh.

And then it comes again, bringing with it the realization that Leafchange is long over, that all these ghosts have faded, been explained by other things.

Did you... hear that? Silently said, though his steps have only barely slowed, just enough to be quieter as they wander closer and closer to home. Whether he notices it or not, Nate steps in front of Sunjata, just a little bit, unease and worry clenching his chest, trying to stifle the stupid scrap of hope.

Atlas comes into view first, grown so much that’s he’s almost completely unfamiliar, but there’s no time to really dwell on it. Because there, dirty and bedraggled and screaming, is another figure, so painfully familiar that Nate almost wishes his heart could beat, so at least he could feel it bruising the inside of his chest.

For a long moment, he’s silent, confusion and pain stealing the silver away from his tongue, tripping him up when he finally manages a single, quiet word. ”Hotaru?”

NATE

// so now you've done a little wrong and you need to be forgiven,
by the vicar and the company you keep //

He’s actually quite invested in the anecdote of Nate’s grandmother, having not been around for his own nor his grandfather. It’s that which he hangs onto, eager nods and little tidbits thrown in with questions to ask, when Nate abruptly stops, Sunjata nearly tripping as he attempts to stop quickly as well. And then? Then there’s a moment where he can hear the faintest call of his and Nate’s name, his stomach dropping, wondering if it’s another vision and praying that it isn’t. It was supposed to stop after Longheat, isn’t that what everyone kept telling him?

Until, of course, he’d continued to see his father, continued to have visions due to the drugs he’d been taking (despite his father becoming very, very much real). But he lets Nate take the lead, following suit, assuming that what he’d heard hadn’t been real, until it happens again and the laughter dies out on the wind, Sunjata’s heart thundering too much to make much sense of it. Yes. He says with no hesitation, just like before, along the cliffs of Aumakua when they’d seen her figure wander off in the distance. Was it worth it to follow and chase more ghosts?

But they trudge on, Sunjata behind Nate as they continue to walk, the Attuned chewing on the inside of his cheek while he focuses on literally anything but. But then he spies something over Nate’s shoulder, his head tilting now too, to spy a familiar unicorn, one that had healed him hadn’t he? After the lava octopus burns when Hotaru had come back?

And there, she’s there, a sudden confusion rampaging on the inside of his mind because he doesn’t want to believe it, not really. His feet start moving before he has a chance to catch up mentally, realizing that the only way to figure out if she’s real is to reach out. So he does, on the backend of Nate’s whispered question, the Flood stepping forward toward the woman, a tentative hand outstretched for her shoulder, scanning her for any immediate signs of injury. “Are you… Real?” He asks with pinched brows.

// this is the sin that i will confess to release myself
from consequence and everyone can tell //

SUNJATA

Hotaru

My head's a burial ground of your memory

She has no way of knowing what her absence has done to her twin stars. The past is naught but a convoluted fog, easily swept into the corners of her mind. Even with the proof of the passage of time staring her in the face, Hotaru doesn't linger on it. Avoidance is the name of the game. Whatever has transpired is nothing compared to the burning drive to find Sunjata and Nate. To find them safe. Not lost beneath the ashes and charred wood of a home that had just begun to grow on her. She can't waste time figuring out what she has missed, not when every moment alone further threatens the loss of the only happiness she has found in this wretched place.

Atlas hears them first, ears far keener than hers will ever be. His majestic crown swivels to the horizon, and the vague impression that comes across the bond is all Hotaru needs to spin on her bare heels and find them with her eyes. They're immediately recognizable to her, distance nothing to the familiarity that lies within her heart. Heedless of her crudely bandaged leg, she runs to meet them, heart rabbiting in her chest. Whatever hesitancy beleaguers them does not have its hooks in her, and she throws her arms around each neck, reaching high and trusting that they will catch her as they always have.

"Nate, Jata," she breathes in hoarse tones of salvation, as if incapable of saying anything else. Sunjata's words - more than just her name, which sounds so sweet coming from Nate's lips - register a little slow, but she pulls back enough to fix him with a scowl and the furrow of blonde brows. "Am I - of course I'm real!" Indignant and confused all at once. But to the more pressing matter - "But our house apparently isn't, what the fuck happened?" Turning her head over her shoulder towards Atlas, larger than any of them remember, she slowly returns her gaze to Sunjata and Nate's faces. A rare wave of vulnerability overtakes her heterochromic eyes, something like fear flickering in the corners. "What happened?" Because clearly it needs to be said again with more gravity, the soft warble of her voice revealing how uncertain she feels. Grasping at smoke that clings to her vacant memories, all while her hands grip tight to both men, terrified of disappearing again.

there's a niche in his chest where a heart would fit perfectly

Nate doesn't move, doesn't reach out, even as Sunjata is stepping past him, He falls into that stillness he's so good at, not even pretending to breathe as he stares, trying to make sense of what he's seeing, who he's seeing. It would be a lie to say that it doesn't hurt. It would be a bigger lie to say some part of him isn't soaring, even if he still doesn't move.

But this is no phantom, no barely there figment of their collective imagination. This is Hotaru, in the flesh. And he knows it, because he does, along with Sunjata, reach out to catch her as she runs, the action automatic, his mind still struggling to catch up, to make sense of this. He knows some of his confusion must spread to the attuned, because he can feel that same swirl pressing against his mind.

If his mind ever managed to catch up, he'd say something about last time, the vision they'd had of her, just after she disappeared, but he can't. Gods, he can't even manage anything clever, his voice hoarse when he answers her question simply. "We burned it down. Accidentally." It's easier to just respond, to just hold her, afraid she'll slip away once again, like smoke, like the memory he'd thought she was.

Perhaps its the tremble in her voice, perhaps its the shadow of some deep, unknowing fear in her eyes, but Nate seems to snap very suddenly back into the moment, actually properly looking her over now that she's pulled away from them. "I... we uh... we thought you..." No, he can't bring himself to finish that thought, though the struggle in his voice must betray his own fear, pain that he thought he'd locked away someplace deep and flightless. Funny how things like that kept coming back up.

"Are you alright?" He asks instead, letting his own mismatched eyes flick over her, if only so he can distract himself.

NATE

// so now you've done a little wrong and you need to be forgiven,
by the vicar and the company you keep //

It confuses him just as much as it confuses Nate, the sensation vibrating around his mind through the blood ring that’s settled on Nate’s finger – alongside their wedding rings that Sunjata doesn’t even focus on as Hotaru’s body is flung toward them, as arms are wrapped around both their necks – and of course they catch her, how could they not? He can feel that she’s real, the confusion that lingers in her own tones have him almost breathing a sigh of relief, his arm wrapping around her tight while the other wraps around Nate’s middle.

“We both got really sick with the Climb Fever.” He murmurs, sure that Hotaru had the same when it was evident that those that came from the deadly attempt to help Tanau resulted in sickness that spread through Caido. But they were healed now – Sunjata and Nate having taken the Voice’s cure, and the cure that the others had found with the help of the old gods, have cured everyone else. But he pulls her in a bit tighter, breathing her in, before letting her go just enough, keeping a hand on her to prove to himself she won’t disappear. “We didn’t know where you went… We looked for you.” And found ghosts and visions instead, Hotaru in vaporish visions that vanished on the second heartbeat, that disappeared with the wind.

His gaze flickers over toward Nate, before he licks his lips in idle consideration, and notices how there’s bandages on Hotaru, how dirty she had become, before he inhales a bit deeply and offers her a soft smile. “We got a new house. I’m Governor now. Let’s get you home and fed and cleaned up, yeah? And we can go over everything that happened?” He asks, giving Nate’s middle a quick squeeze. At least if Hotaru was in their house, he doesn’t imagine they could lose her again.

// this is the sin that i will confess to release myself
from consequence and everyone can tell //

SUNJATA

Hotaru

My head's a burial ground of your memory

There are far too many uncertainties abound to bring any level of calm or comfort to a woman as calculating as Hotaru in any other situation. But nothing has ever been the same since these two came into her life, flipping her upside down and inside out as if she was a child's puzzle in their quizzical hands. It's difficult to complain however when those same hands catch and pull her close, their natural scents so familiar to her she could find them even with all other physical senses stripped away. For a moment Hotaru merely clings to them, feeling their contrasting levels of body heat, only just barely holding back the desire to thread her sooty fingers through their hair as she is so fond of doing.

Speaking of soot - "I'm gone a few days and you accidentally burn our house down?" The incredulity and natural rhythm of exasperated endearment nearly conceals the shake of nerves that seems to tie knots around all three of them. Only for her throat to catch in an odd click of audible noise as Sunjata - he-

"Where did I go?" she says almost to herself, Atlas' consciousness a maelstrom of emotions she can't focus upon enough to parse. "How...how long was I gone?" That heavy horror she'd refused to name gleefully stealing any air she'd hoped to store in her lungs. Were it not for their hands still warm and steady upon her, she'd likely be stumbling backwards as soon as they release her. Her own tremble noticeably as she numbly reaches up to push her hair away from her face where the seabreeze continually rustles it. Nate's soft, crooning voice is a water-distorted murmur as she tries to quiet the alarms in her head enough to think. "Just...just a cut. I think." Nothing Atlas couldn't heal, but they'd both been far too singularly focused on getting home.

Home that apparently isn't home anymore. At least not the one she remembers. Hotaru feels ill with the implications. How much time did she lose? A season? Five? Does she even still belong here in their arms? Did they think she'd abandoned them, in the way she'd sought never to do after all the times it had happened to her? Without her conscious intention, she has committed the worst sort of betrayal in her own eyes, and the determination that had previously fueled her now drains away and leaves nothing but a shaken shell. Even so, there is nowhere they could not guide her where she would not follow, and her head nods slowly before she's aware she's agreeing to follow Sunjata to this...new home. A Governor's house. Gods. "There's not much to say, I...I don't remember anything." But he's right, they can go over that somewhere more comfortable than the skeleton of their old abode. Atlas comes up from behind to join them now that the initial reunion has passed, nose soft and warm on her shoulder as the woman reaches for one hand each from Nate and Sunjata. "Lead us home," she manages to say in some imitation of her previous spirit, throat constricting over the agonizing intrusive thought that this was one threshold she had wanted to be carried over. Radiant and newly wed instead of disheveled and newly found. But it seems even that dream has been stolen by the murk of time and amnesia.

there's a niche in his chest where a heart would fit perfectly

A few days? A few days? It's a hell of an explanation in three simple words, and it has something painful clenching tightly in Nate's chest, his brows pulling together in abject worry.

"You were gone..." He doesn't want to say it, his throat constricting so tightly the word comes out a whisper, a squeak. "Months. We don't... we don't know exactly when you..." Again, this is something he can't actually say. As if the very act of putting words to the fact makes it more real, makes the scar ache that much more. "You've been gone since Longheat. And... it's Deepfrost now." They'd searched, high and low, as well as their own addled minds could manage. Finding her now has guilt rising. She'd been somewhere, obviously, had they simply missed her? Overlooked something?

Home at least will be a relief, a safe place to talk, to put together the pieces of the puzzle and hope they can muddle together some kind of sense. Nate skips the hand entirely, that slight connection not feeling like nearly enough. In a single quick motion, he scoops Ru up into his arms instead, letting her head rest at the juncture where his shoulder and Sunjata's meet. He doesn't know the thought that crosses her mind, doesn't know how unintentionally close to it he's come, he just knows that he won't let her walk a step further injured.

The house is thankfully close, the still unfinished garden and patio greeting them before the front door does, a barrier that Nate let's the attuned take care of, a silent Lock it? sent through the bond, some kind of paranoia boiling hot in his guts.

NATE

// so now you've done a little wrong and you need to be forgiven,
by the vicar and the company you keep //

A few days has him stilling just as much as it has Nate. There’s a pang of hurt in his chest, of worry and fear at how the illness had progressed with Hotaru before she had been healed. But just like himself, those blocks of memory were simply gone, unable to drag them up unless he tried quite hard, in which case only flickers of memory even showed. His lips part to respond to her when Nate answers her question. So instead he puffs out a quiet sigh. “We were all very sick for the majority of Longheat…” He offers in a quiet accented rumble of an apology.

But he doesn’t say much else, not as he’s releasing Hotaru and Nate picks her up into his arms, Sunjata having nothing to say to it. Nate was the strongest of them and Hotaru was essentially the equivalent of a stick, right now. When was the last time she had eaten? Worry prickles along the bond, though, sure that Nate can sense it as they guide Hotaru and Atlas toward their new home, Sunjata remaining close as long as he can.

The door comes into view and Nate’s quiet hum through the attuned bond has him offering a quiet nod, stepping forward to open the door for the two of them, for Nate to carry Hotaru within the large expanse of building, a homey sensation within that’s greeted with warmth and vibrancy – so much more than what the prior house had held. In this one, there’s a Haai and Pemota awaiting, three small kittens falling over one another in their attempts to greet everyone that arrives through the door.

Once everyone is in, Sunjata closes the door and locks it, does a mental check to ensure the rest of everything is locked as well, before following Nate and Hotaru. “To the kitchen first?” To get her fed and looked at, before they could bring her upstairs to their large bathroom to clean her up. They don’t have any clothes of hers anymore, nothing that may have stayed likely burned in the house burning down. But they do have their clothes, despite the idea that she’d drown in them. But it was cold, and if they could offer her anything, Sunjata’s sure they would.

He immediately heads toward the kitchen to grab a glass and fill it with water to bring to them.

// this is the sin that i will confess to release myself
from consequence and everyone can tell //

SUNJATA

Hotaru

My head's a burial ground of your memory

Months.

It's like her soul is a spindly birch tree, and this singular word the mighty swing of an axe that fells it in one go. Staying on her feet is all at once a herculean task. Though looking away pains her with the threat that they might disappear the moment she does, it's the only way to give herself enough of a reprieve, enough scrapped together privacy, to keep her composure. "Months," she says softly, scarcely a breath much less a word. Hotaru does not sense their unspoken guilt, perhaps because she could never place blame upon them for this - this, her own brand of terrible fate coming to remind her that good things simply do not come without a price. Though that shadow had begun to retreat, she'd been crippled all at once by losing Rexanna, then Kiada, then herself.

But here she is, returned. Perhaps not hale and whole, but with her mind and heart intact. That's enough. For now, with them at her side, it will be enough.

The throbbing in her leg isn't apparent until Nate lifts her into his arms, and her pulse stutters as she turns to cradle against his chest. Sunjata is not far, his tall frame kept in the corners of her eyes, tracking his every move even as she focuses on Nate's chiseled jaw and the inky curling strands of hair that frame his regal brow. Even having bathed in the freezing river, she feels too unclean to touch him, but Hotaru has never denied her own avaricious impulses even with tainted hands. Her palm lifts to touch his cheek, pressing her forehead to his throat. A silent gesture, if only because her throat refuses to form words. It's easier to hide away in him than watch the world pass by. Only lifting her head when they arrive to take in the home they have rebuilt. Atlas leaves them at the front door, a gentle caress of his mind telling her he's only off to secure his own food after months of tending to them both.

Her heart stutters in helpless romance as she is carried inside, eyes roving across every available surface. It's beautiful. Emanating a sense of welcome and belonging. The patter of tiny paws draws her gaze to the floor, and even exhaustion cannot stop her from crooning affectionately at the tiny kittens that skitter across the wood. Not that the starlit whale is any less noticeable. So much has changed. A gentle tap to Nate's arm - enough for him to notice, if he cannot feel the pressure - communicates her request to be set down in the nearest kitchen chair. Her hands don't shake as much as she grabs the glass of water, downing it embarrassingly quickly as it soothes her throat, already tired from speaking for the first time - that she can recall - in months.

Taking initiative if only to keep herself busy, she props her leg up and unties the crude bandage she'd created from her own ripped blouse. It's long and twisted, but thankfully not worryingly deep. Not that it keeps her gaze for long, looking instead at their surroundings with a wistful smile. "It's beautiful," she murmurs, feeling the high-strung tension beginning to fade now that she is warming up, surrounded by her two beloveds and the home they have created in her absence. Hotaru's eyes are suspiciously shiny as she looks up to them, hand reaching for Sunjata's, needing his touch as much as she'd needed Nate's. "I didn't know it was possible to miss you so much while still thinking I saw you only days ago." Her voice is slightly clogged as she says it. It's as if her heart knew to ache for them even as her mind washed away the memory of days missed.

there's a niche in his chest where a heart would fit perfectly

Sunjata's worry trickling towards him is a mere drop in the bucket, a handful of extra brambles in a near impassible thicket. Having Hotaru in his arms, and his sun at his side is a boon, a desperately needed soothing touch, but it is not nearly enough to outweigh all the concern, all the guilt. A spiral that he has only just been pulling out of begins to swirl anew, though it will remain ignored until he can tend to it, feed into it with misplaced blame and the dozens of what-if's. Right now though, it is manageable. Right now, despite the confusion, he is focused.

Mostly. The brush of fingers on his cheek, at once barely there and so obvious they all but burn him, nearly make Nate stumble. It's a touch he hadn't realized he'd missed, a touch he'd never thought he would feel again. His fingers tighten, just a little bit, holding her tight as they cross the final threshold of home.


A pulse of gratitude leaves him as he catches the click of the lock, once they step inside. "Kitchen first." He agrees in a rough rumble, stepping over the barrier of curious kittens, Pemota lingering high above him, her calming starlight washing over all of them, though that peace is distant. Nate sets Hotaru on the counter instead of a chair, the higher surface seeming more convenient. Sunjata has water, and Nate steps away to get out a pot, to start something warm, filling, and quick. Some leftover broth, some vegetables. They have bread somewhere.

No sooner is food in progress than Nate returns, quick hands searching for something to stay occupied with, and landing on the abandoned's leg. There's nothing truly worrying about the cut there, but he still reaches for the first aid kit, pulling out a proper bandage, and a cloth to clean away the dirt. Useless, considering they're going to go upstairs, to a real place to wash up, but he needs to be moving so he doesn't break down, so he can't even begin to.

"We missed you too." It's all he can manage, that telltale shine in his eyes as well, emotion clogging up his throat, making his hands shake. He withdraws again, to tend to food, to try and hide his face while he gets a hold of himself.

NATE

// so now you've done a little wrong and you need to be forgiven,
by the vicar and the company you keep //

The kittens draw forward, clamoring up on chairs and onto the counter and Sunjata doesn’t even find it in himself to tell them to get down as they investigate Hotaru, as they investigate Nate and the spiral Sunjata can feel the bits and pieces of through the bond despite how much Nate hides it. He tries to keep his own in check, searching for relief over worry, the fact that despite them having tried to find her and failing, that she was still here. She was here with them, home. She downs the water and he fills it up again, before her hand stills him.

His steel gaze flickers back to her face, spotting the shine as her hand grasps his, and he abandons trying to help Nate in the kitchen (despite likely becoming more of a hindrance than anything else useful) and instead, slips to Hotaru, pulling her in tight against his chest as Nate sets up the food, checks on her leg. He tries to tuck her head against his tattooed and scarred chest, over a warm wool jacket that he’d been too distracted to remove.

And instead of giving into the sadness he so badly wants to, he tries something else. There’s a low hum of a laugh that leaves him, burying his face into her blonde crown, pressing a kiss there as he does so. “The sickness made it all blur together. I don’t remember much of it either.” It’s a bit of solace among the sorrow to help make it easier. But he does adjust his embrace with her to peer at Nate from over her head as he works to make the food. It’s okay, skatjie. He sends down the bond, before he’s pulling away a bit, to shed his jacket and reach into his pocket for his pack of cigarettes, lighting one and handing it to Nate in front of the stove, before he’s lighting his own and slipping back in front of Hotaru.

Ramone, the orange cat, hops into Hotaru’s lap with the absence of the Attuned while he tries to think of where to start. “Where do we even start…?” He admits absentmindedly before drawing in a sigh, a quiet puff of smoke as he draws the chair over to sit in front of her, to give her that closeness she hasn’t had in months. “I don’t remember hardly anything. Nate and I ended up getting married while we were both quite ill, somehow managed to remember the date picked. I think that's all Nate…” This is said with a hint of remorse for having lost Hotaru, having failed in their search for her, and still marrying anyway when she wasn't found.

“Remi and Ronin brought back a temporary cure. It worked for… Me and anyone else who wasn’t Ascended, didn’t work for the Ascended. That was after we accidentally burned the house down. I think we were… Trying to ward away ghosts or something? Thought a lot of light would help. Anyway…” His head tilts this way and that. “After that Nate and I went to Halo and the Climb to try and find a cure for them. Turns out Loren had what the Voice required. We tried to talk to him and he refused to give it up until he exhausted all other options. He eventually did, however, and the Voice made a cure for everyone who was willing to take it.” His gaze flicks over toward his husband as he pauses, waiting to see if he had anything else to add or if Hotaru had any questions.

// this is the sin that i will confess to release myself
from consequence and everyone can tell //

SUNJATA

Hotaru

My head's a burial ground of your memory

Her newly acquired perch on the counter only intensifies the easy way the home seems to open up and slot her into place. Where she had feared feeling replaced, forgotten, there is instead only a sense of belonging. Or perhaps that's just her tired mind conjuring up sensation to soften the blow of what's yet to come. But now isn't the time for her trademark pessimism. Sunjata is warm and solid behind her, his kiss like benediction lost between the golden strands of her hair. Hotaru presses into his chest, scars and ink both old and familiar alike a canvas of comfort that she is happy to sink into. Even so her eyes trail after Nate, and though she's not privy to the bond the two share she still knows. But she can't go to him, knows he needs a moment to collect himself in the same way she does. They're kindred spirits in that way, and no matter how she may personally long to reach out and bring him into her arms where he belongs, she won't steal this steadying moment from him.

Her nose wrinkles slightly at the smell of cigarettes, but it smooths out in the next moment as a brightly furred kitten crawls precociously into her lap. As if she could ever resist petting and coddling such an adorable creature. It gives her hands something to do, a distraction that helps calm her mind and settle her thoughts. The tiny, budding purr helps keep her tied to her body when she hears that she'd missed their wedding. Pain and regret seem such feeble words for what breaks loose in her chest. But there is no blame, and after a moment she forces her head up to ensure they can see that clearly in her eyes. "Nate has always been the planner," she agrees with a crooked smile. Forgiveness, if they dare to think they are in need of it, all for the taking in her expression. Apologies and commentary can wait for the rest of the explanation, which comes on Sunjata's husky tone. She's sure he could talk her into falling asleep there on the counter, given a bit more time.

"I remember coming home after...after Kia-" her voice breaks on the name, and she swallows hard. The grief is still so fresh, with all the time that has been stolen from her. "But the heat never seemed to go away even after returning. I remember trying to get to the water, and then I just...woke up somewhere entirely different." The faraway look to her gaze muddles further as she tries and fails to conjure up something more. Something tangible to give these two men who deserve more than her forgetfulness as a reasoning. "Atlas had been taking care of me. Shepherding me, I suppose. He carried me back here, and that's all I know." Pale fingers curl in the kitten's russet fur, careful not to tug despite how badly her hands desire to clench at the unfairness of it all.

The smell of food stirs her from her frustrations. Sunjata remains close, and she brushes a bare ankle idly against his knee, needing some form of touch after months without it. Starved for contact, for familiarity. Nate will orbit back as he always does, she won't rush him. Even so her words reach out, a lasso to pull him back. "It's not your fault, if that's what you're thinking. My stupid boys," she admonishes fondly, heart so full of aching love that her hand drifts upwards as if to claw it free and present it to them to win their forgiveness for herself. "If it's anyone's fault it's mine. I swear that nothing could have convinced me in my right mind to leave you. To miss so much. And I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm -" her voice breaks high into silence, and the tears come swift and unexpected. There isn't even time to sob, liquid spilling over in an abrupt release of emotions - relief, regret, exhaustion. Hotaru lifts a hand to brush them away harshly, trembling lips scowling down at the tears on her hand. "I love you. And I hope..." you still love me too. But Hotaru is a coward, too afraid of her own emotions to be so vulnerable even with them, and the words remain unspoken.

there's a niche in his chest where a heart would fit perfectly

No, it’s not okay. But it will be. It’s improving already, honestly, albeit in slow, sporadic fits.  The smoke is a welcome distraction, a soothing habit despite the lack of effect it has on him still. ”I wasn’t... as sick.” Nate maintains, even this admission an improvement from staunchly declaring himself the picture of health, as he had at the time. There was precious little he had to add though, his memory less spotty, but filled with nothing useful. ”I don’t remember talking to Loren.” A quieter addendum, meant mostly for his own ears, his brows furrowing as he tries to call something up. There’s the meeting with the Voice, the intention to talk to Loren, but the conversation itself is gone. A soft sigh leaves him and he pulls hard on his gifted smoke, reducing most of the stick to ash with a single too long breath.

The lasso does work, whether Nate sees it for what it is or not. He circles back to them, a bowl of lets-call-it-soup set on the counter beside Ru, the kitten that moves to investigate it (he cannot and will not ever be able to tell Lizzy and Lynyrd apart) lifted up onto his shoulder so it’s out of trouble when he leans in to wrap the abandoned up in a one armed hug, his other arm hanging back to invite Sunjata into the embrace, blindly grasping fingers brushing against his chest.

How Hotaru seems to read his mind he will never know, but Nate tries to not let her words lift her spirits too much. He will not blame her, and if he can’t blame himself, where is this twist supposed to go? What is he supposed to aim it at? ”I don’t blame you. I... don’t think either of us do.” He might now move, but there’s a twitch in his fingers, an invitation for Sunjata to confirm that they are on the same page. Hadn’t they done absolutely insane things while they were ill? Fuck, he’d wandered away, would have been lost completely if not for Mel.

His shoulders drop as Hotaru’s voice breaks into sobs, gone as quickly as they come on, that fact not stopping Nate from pressing his face into golden waves and hide himself away. After a moment, his mouth opens, but he can’t bring himself to actually say anything, can trust his voice to not crack if he tries. The sentiment is pushed silently towards Sunjata instead, trying to press words enough for both of them into the attuned’s mouth.

NATE