From being an Abandoned who had rarely left the Hollowed Grounds, to embracing the call of adventure, to dying and being reborn first as an Ascended and then as an Ancient, Maea has gone through quite the amount of changes in her life. One thing remains common, though, in her attempts to find out just where she belongs; she’s always had a craving for knowledge which has brought her to so many places and to meet so many people here in Caido. We can’t wait to see what else is in store for her!
Congratulations, Maea!
Credits
Court of the Fallen was created in October of 2018 by Odd, Honey, and Crooked.
Skinning and hosting by the epically talented Kaons, and functionality fanciness by the coding magic of Neowulf. If you ever see either of them around, make sure to show them some love!
You pump the blood so I can breathe, Don't let me go don't ever leave
Easy to say from the right side. Comes the snide retort, anger not meant from the other man clawing its way out of a crack, Nate shuddering when he hears his own words, almost flinching out of his husbands grip. Another whimper wrenches through his throat, Nate’s foot stomping and his nails digging into the attuned where they can.
A spark of hot irritation burns through the ascended as Sunjata doesn’t disagree with him, doesn’t keep arguing. And you put yourself in danger for it. And now it’s useless. Some of the wind is taken out of his sails by the declaration of love, by the reminder of the root of all of this, the storm calming to a breeze for the span of a breath.
Then irritation ignites again. That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever fucking heard, testa cazzo. Nate’s tone is still harsh, but there’s a struggle to it now, an effort to maintain it. You get fuck... fucking dropped on your head recently? S’pposed t’be smarter. Abject misery haunts Nate’s side of the bond, the hypothetical far too likely to be any comfort at all. Pressure rains down against his head, reminding him of a heartbeat, giving him something to cling to while he shakes and trembles his way through honesties he hasn’t even voiced to himself before.
She... she’d talk about you. Think about you. Obviously. A full body shudder runs through Nate, an instinctual terror from a world before Caido. Don’t want her to talk about you. He thinks urgently, at the same time as Don’t want her to think about you. The blunt edges of his front teeth scrape against Sunjata’s collarbone, the ascendeds jaw trembling. I don’t... want to know if I have to choose before... before it happens.
Nate knows in the moment, in the painful face of it, he will make the right choice. But right now, like this, he has it all. There is no choice.
The snide remark is something Sunjata tries to brush off, like water off a duck’s back, in the realization that Nate hasn’t left his grasp yet. He remains close, the whimper leaving him, the foot stomping, nails digging into Sunjata’s skin hard enough to leave little red crescents. And he doesn’t care, simply trying to smooth over the jagged cracks where he can, soon as Nate’s irritation comes through, Sunjata simply clinging to Nate tighter throughout it all. “I haven’t… Asked if it’s useless, yet. I try not to bring it up.” For the same reasons Nate didn’t want to bring him up.
The difference was that Nate was there, in the face of Safrin, had shown up and spoken to the goddess on his own – and Sunjata? Sunjata’s never seen the Voice without Nate. The difference lied there.
A quiet laugh leaves him, one that’s not really humorous but at least a slight bit amused in the face of Nate’s irritation, of the words that leave him, of the curse he doesn’t understand in a language he doesn’t know. “You know damn well better than anyone else that I’m not what one would consider a smart man, Nate.” He murmurs, ever so quick to self-deprecating himself when given the chance.
She’d talk about you. Think about you. Obviously
He clings to his husband as the shudder racks through him, keeping him together, feeling the teeth at his neck and simply tugging his wings tighter, pulling Nate into his embrace even further, arms scrabbling around the Ascended wherever he can, reaching and tugging and pulling to keep them as one. “Safrin’s making me choose. Every time I see her.” He says quietly, frowning as he tilts his head to press more dark kisses against the side of Nate’s head. “The Voice might make you have to choose too.” Before it happens, goes unsaid.
“But… If we step down, we don’t have to face it at every corner. We can live and wait for it, be far enough away that when it happens we’re not in the thick of it initially.” It’s a pipe dream, he knows, but the only thing Sunjata can cling to anymore is hope.
Hope that they make it out of this alive.
Hope that it doesn’t tear them apart.
Hope that if the war goes south for them both, they’ll always be together after they fall.
He pulls his head back, reaching up to tug at Nate until his face is visible, so that Sunjata might press a devouring kiss to his husband's cheek, to his lips, wherever Nate lets him. To the end, right?
'cause i am haunted, i cannot tell a lie
i like you better when i am dead inside
SuNJATA
No permission needed for power play!
Feel free to use magic/force on Sunjata, without killing him <3
Sunjata speaks with an Australian accent and has a passive magic that makes him produce a subtle scent that matches exactly to whatever those around him most desire him to smell like.
07-13-2021, 05:39 AM (This post was last modified: 07-13-2021, 05:43 AM by Nate.)
You pump the blood so I can breathe, Don't let me go don't ever leave
The things they don’t talk about could fill a library, and Nate doesn’t even wait for the ink to dry on the latest volume before he’s shelving it, uncaring if whatever deal had been spun with the herald is still valid. There will be some twist to it, he's sure, but... for now they simply have to live with the consequences.
“Shut the fuck up asshole.” Nate sneers the words into Sunjata’s skin, more aggression in the snap of his teeth than in his hoarse, accented voice. Smart enough to marry me, huh? With the monotone shroud the words are marched out in, it’s impossible to tell if Nate is bragging, or combating Sunjata’s self depreciating bullshit with his own brand of it.
Safrin had made her choices perfectly fucking clear when she’d kicked him out of the lighthouse, when she’d cursed him, when she’d threatened his life. He knows he is being weighed against her in Sunjata’s heart, knows what he has to offer is meagre, but dense. Enough to get him this unexpected loyalty, when Nate is positive he would have pushed anyone else away long ago.
Argument springs to his lips easily, to the forefront of his mind even easier. He hasn’t had to choose yet, that’s the point, that’s what keeps things simple. And even as he wants to say it, Nate feels the urge to swallow the words, has the sense to be absolutely fucking ashamed of himself for taking the easy way out of all this. Another strangled sound leaves him, an obvious audio tell for what ebbs and flows in the bond, the ascendeds mind growing increasingly loud.
Bare feet scuff against the floor as Nate sways, trying to find an angle that brings them even closer. Step down... to a cottage in the wilds. In a bubble, without the spectre of war, without a divine clash above them, it sounds nice. Safe. An extension of leathery wings and warm arms and the only eyes that have ever been allowed to see him crumble. Sounds too good to be true.
Nate squints against the air on his face, the barest sliver of blue visible beneath his furrowed brows, a sliver that slips away as soon as Sunjata’s lips press against him. Yea. Yea, to the end. He shifts his head, giving in to the kiss as naturally as breathing, helpless against the attuned. You better fuckin’ mean it, yea? Don’t... don’t bother if you don’t. A crackling hand winks into existence just to pat Sunjata’s cheek, the gesture half intimacy and half threat. It goes running over the line when it slips into the attuned’s hair though, trying to pull him closer.
It starts with a hiccup against Sunjata’s lips, a twitch that sprouts into a giggle, hysterical and unstoppable and mortifying. If he could flush Nate would be scarlet, but as it is the light dancing beneath his skin simply dims, struggling through the flood of fluid in his cheeks, not to be confused with the lines dripping down them, his eyes overflowing, control of everything thoroughly snatched from Nate’s hands.
The sneer into his skin only brings another round of a huff of amusement from Sunjata, a snort passing through him that ruffles the curls he’s buried his face into. “You said yes.” He mutters into the dark locks. If they want to play that game, then Sunjata’s inclined to agree that they’re both idiots but at least they’re idiots together and hopelessly in love.
Luckily, though, there’s little more argument, not as Sunjata shifts with each tug and pull of Nate, pressing further and further – skin against skin, warmth against warmth. He wonders if he needs more of the snapdragon or if he simply needs to try and relax – unsure which would be better given their sudden and spontaneous heart to heart brought on by such a thing. He doesn’t get much time to wonder on it, not as a crackling hand arises and Sunjata leans into the touch, eyes shutting as soon as he spies the slight sliver of blue that swims in an opalescent sheen, his lips sparking more of those light veins that spark across Nate’s face.
I mean it, darling. He rumbles, throwing the nickname in there not in Korofi this time, wondering if it makes a difference. “Soon as we get back, I’ll talk to her. Tell her. She can figure it out from there and it won’t be… Won’t be our problem anymore.” He murmurs softly, nose brushing and pressing against Nate’s cheek as soon as the hand slips into longer dark hair.
The laughter is something that surprises him, but it doesn’t deter him. No, if anything Sunjata’s hands simply grasp at the Ascended more, pressing and pulling with enough pressure he’s sure Nate has to know. They eventually find their home in Nate’s hair – latching on and bringing him closer so that their foreheads align, so that Sunjata can try to stare into those electric blues. “Might be an asshole but you’ve gotta be the bigger one, remember?” He breathes with a soft laugh of his own, even if his brows pinch under the emotions that sway and shift within him. I love you. So. So. So. So. So fucking much, Nate Wrenzaok. His voice is a mere whisper on the bond compared to the whirlwind of Nate’s feelings, but he burns all the same with it – pressing and pushing Nate back toward the bed, away from the shattered glass and the tears. “Don’t you ever fucking think otherwise.”
'cause i am haunted, i cannot tell a lie
i like you better when i am dead inside
SuNJATA
No permission needed for power play!
Feel free to use magic/force on Sunjata, without killing him <3
Sunjata speaks with an Australian accent and has a passive magic that makes him produce a subtle scent that matches exactly to whatever those around him most desire him to smell like.
You pump the blood so I can breathe, Don't let me go don't ever leave
Sunjata will feel thorns grow through the bond as he laughs, the irritation now the weakest it’s been all night, not that that fact means Nate is any less dramatic. Yea, and I only fucking make good decisions! The words are all but shouted through the bond, the feeling of his teeth disappearing in lieu of the heavy thud of his forehead agaisnt the attuned’s shoulder.
Darling softens him in a way he didn’t expect, pouring down his spine and warming everything in his body. Nate knows it’s stupid. Knows it’s a trick he himself plays, when he wants to cut to the quick of someone, when he wants to make them shiver, and he is not immune to it. If anything, it has him nuzzling in closer, his lips pressed against skin in an extended kiss, Nate unable to bear the thought of pulling away. Where’re we gonna go? The wilds were vast, and while Nate knew his preferences, he was perfectly happy letting Sunjata pilot them through this.
It’s impossible to know which is more mortifying, the hysterical laughter attack, or the way Sunjata all but drags his face out of its safe crook, Nate immediately pouting, and pinching his face like a child. The urge to tear his eyes away is resisted, for now, part of Nate worried that if he looks away this time, there won’t be anything to look back at when he gathers his nerve again. I’m whatever you need me t’be baby, I’m just... good at being an asshole. For you, obviously.
A hand comes up to bat at Sunjata’s lips, trying automatically to stop the silent torrent of words. Fuck, shut up. Everything but a teary fondness has been scraped away from his voice. Somehow, Sunjata has managed to break through the layers of darkness and coagulated emotion to find something calm, something that is bright for now. I love you too fucker, jee-zus. Despite the nasally, whining words, Nate clings to his husband, letting himself be moved back to the bed easily, until finally his knees hit it and he goes falling back with an oof. Every hand he has tries to cling tight, to drag Sunjata down with him.
There's a flinch through the bond, at the loudness of which Nate shouts down it. But once he’s recovered he’s smothering it with warmth and light and a you do. Specifically when he’d chosen him. But his head tilts as he softens Nate further, arms wrapping around his husband tightly, pressing himself further into wherever he can. He leans slightly away if only to give Nate more room to press in, and there’s a deep thrumming of thoughtfulness that coats the bond. King’s End? By the water. Boondocks I think it was? He hums quietly, waiting a breath for Nate’s thoughts on it before he’s speaking again, smothering Nate in emotions and words and walking him back toward the bed again.
“You are good at it.” Sunjata comments, an unvoiced ‘because I need it and I need you’ pulsing along with it. He’s sure Nate will understand. But the hand rises, cupping his lips and mouth but it doesn’t quite stop the muffling sounds of a snort, his mental voice ringing loud and clear. “No.” He says aloud, muffled by the hand before they’re falling back and Sunjata might be sobering up but it’s nothing compared to how he can’t hold his own against Nate’s tug. He falls with his husband with an equal ‘oof’ before he’s scrambling up, wings flaring and blotting out light.
He quickly straddles Nate, leaning over him toward his face again, hands running up his husband’s chest, over the snake and rat tattoo until the calloused hands stop at Nate’s collarbone and neck. He watches the sparks of light appear beneath his hands before his steel rises to Nate’s face and he’s leaning in further pressing a ghost of a kiss against Nate’s jaw, hovering there before he rises again and keeps his hands where they are. “I have never been happier than I have been with you.” He says quietly, running his fingers along the muscle of where Nate’s shoulder meets his neck.
'cause i am haunted, i cannot tell a lie
i like you better when i am dead inside
SuNJATA
No permission needed for power play!
Feel free to use magic/force on Sunjata, without killing him <3
Sunjata speaks with an Australian accent and has a passive magic that makes him produce a subtle scent that matches exactly to whatever those around him most desire him to smell like.
You pump the blood so I can breathe, Don't let me go don't ever leave
The less Sunjata rises to his barbs, the less Nate wants to make them. Whatever part of him wanted to fight and scream until theres blood in his mouth and under his nails is quieter, replaced by the urge to sit quietly and let himself be soothed. Kings End sounds nice. He offers, after a moment is spent picturing it. The ocean, plus isolation, plus gentler sun, plus his family for two blissful years. The only catch is after those two years, but right now it’s just lights on the horizon, the promise of a city and a war that they’ll be running towards no matter what path they take. Why not carve out the softest?
Lips fight off a smile at Sunjata’s words, the ascended stubborn to a fault, even if his insides are melting with warmth right now. He's lucky, it’s the only thing he can think. Lucky he’s ended up with Sunjata, lucky that their broken pieces fit together so well, lucky that the jagged edges that seems to make up all of him haven’t scared the other man off yet. You’re a dick. Nate presses the words out with no small measure of his smitten devotion, whatever gesture he’d been about to slip into interrupted by the slow fall back to the bed.
They fall together, at least, as if the attuned had a choice with how tightly Nate is clinging to him. He doesn’t expect his husband to move so quickly though, surprise widening the electric eyes that look up at Sunjata. All it takes is these few points of pressure to hold Nate down, all the heavy lifting done by the emotions building in his chest. It’s not uncomfortable, only unfamiliar, and though experience tells him those two things are one and the same Nate stays quiet. Breathes out, as hands move up his chest. Manages a quiet What are yo- before the kiss on his jaw silences him again.
Nate’s eyes could be made out of spun glass, for all the fragility they hold at the moment. It’s the calm before the storm, before it’s too much, and he has to snap, but once again Sunjata beats him, breathes out words that have the knee jerk anger stuttering to a stop in Nate’s chest. He stares up at his husband for a few seconds more, trying to catch his breath like it hasn’t been missing for years, and forces his lips to move around a response. “I’ve... never gotten this long with... anyone, before.”
It’s like a dream, he means to say. I wouldn’t trade it for anything, he means to say. Instead, his jaw trembles, teeth clattering with it, and he has to spit the next words out in one sound, so they don’t catch on his insecurities. “Love y’so fuckin’ much.”
Another hum of a laugh is leaving him when Nate calls him a dick, head cocking once they’ve landed in the bed before he scrambles, only to push out the words yeah, well, I’m yours. Get used to it. With nothing more than a smugness that has him nearly beaming. If he could glimmer with light as he knows Ronin could, he would be in this moment. Blinding, beautiful, light, burning the darkness of the past and the future to where it’s only them, only the right now, only the happiest bits.
But he pins his husband down, with deft arms, smirking behind the question that’s aired through the bond as he surges forward to press a kiss to his husband’s jaw, shutting that off as if it might give an indication. And when he pulls back there’s nothing but light behind the steel of his gaze, his jaw smoothed and not bunched with tension for once, his shoulders relaxed as he continues to run his hands over his husband’s scarred, muscled skin, absently wondering when he’d become so fucking strong lately.
The words soften the Attune, a relieved breath leaving his lips from a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. Hate to break it to you darling, but you’re stuck with me. He purrs through the bond, though the softer edged smile on his face is tinted with the lines of understanding. The ‘I see you’, the ‘you’re my home’ that glimmers in his gaze that he wants to say but doesn’t know how.
He leans down again, hands lifting to run across his husband’s skin, to cup his face before his fingers thread through dark curls again. He presses another kiss to the edge of Nate’s scar on his cheek, to the middle on the bridge of his nose, then lastly to the eyebrow split in half by the rugged scar, before he’s pressing his forehead against Nate’s, lips a breath away from Nate’s own. “You’re my everything.” He finally manages to say, eyes shutting tight, long lashes skating across Nate’s sharp boned cheeks. “I love you too.” Like a prayer, like it’s gospel, like it’s in his veins and it’s the only thing he knows, the only thing he can breathe and know without a single doubt it’s true.
'cause i am haunted, i cannot tell a lie
i like you better when i am dead inside
SuNJATA
No permission needed for power play!
Feel free to use magic/force on Sunjata, without killing him <3
Sunjata speaks with an Australian accent and has a passive magic that makes him produce a subtle scent that matches exactly to whatever those around him most desire him to smell like.
You pump the blood so I can breathe, Don't let me go don't ever leave
All the ease he could ever for in the world seems to live on Sunjata’s face. If the cost to be looked at by such radiance is simply being seen, then he will expose every skeleton in his closet to the sun. Nate wants his husbands eyes to never look away from him, wants to be called darling and be stuck with him forever. “Promise?” The word all but moans out of the ascended’s throat, pressed out by a desperate breath he’d gasped in just for this.
Hands reach up, fingers threading through brown hair, candlelight catching on the honey blonde highlights from Longheat and ocean salt. Nate thinks Beautiful out loud before he can stop himself, electric eyes closing to hide away his own vulnerability, and just in time for lips to press along the scar spanning his face, the barely there touch he usually feels softer, more distant, and burning with the weight of intention. Brows pinch against Sunjata’s forehead as Nate pushes up against him in some backwards attempt to snatch more closeness.
Nate’s eyes only open again when he feels his husbands flutter closed, slipping into the cloak of the moon without realizing. “That’s all I want.” A whisper carried on less than a breath creeps into the attuned’s ear, Nate’s side of the bond finally quieting as he slips hesitantly into contentment. Fingers brush through Sunjata’s hair as if each strand were silk, a slow and deliberate exploration while the heavy weight of blue eyes maps each contour of his husbands face. Both journeys seem to pause at his temple though, a lightness there that has nothing to do with sun or salt, that immediately stops the breath Nate had only just started bothering with again.
It’s not fair, that he has to make a liar out of himself immediately, but the words leave him before he can even think, the pasture gate hanging open. I want to grow up with you. Grief has weighed in Nates voice before, but something about this is deeper than simple loss.
Promise. He says with all the conviction he can muster, pressed into the single word, a word of which he’s broken many of. But there’s something deeper about it this time, something that seems to suggest it’s a deeper thread, a golden spark among the silver. A vow as strong as the one they’d promised each other while sick when they’d married, as strong as the one they’d said when they’d cut each palm open and recited the Korofi version of the ceremony.
His head tilts this way and that, a rumble leaving his throat as Nate’s fingers thread through his dark hair, sounding as close to a rumbling purr as he can manage without being fully shifted. The out loud beautiful doesn’t still him, doesn’t make him shy away from Nate when he moves to hide. If anything, he nuzzles himself in closer, ruined cheek brushing against the pale wrist of the Ascended’s, a pulse of beaming light shot down the bond through the dark of Nate’s vulnerability that seems to try its damnedest to burn it away.
His eyes close, though, long lashes brushing against the sharp cheekbone beneath it. And it stays closed even as he feels Nate’s gaze on him, simply relishing in the quiet moment they have, one that feels like they haven’t had in forever. He’d missed this. How simple it was. How the only arguments they had were over what stupid thing Sunjata had done and gotten hurt by, for having Nate patch him up.
Not talk of war and death and the inevitable slow crawl to extinction.
There’s something heavy in the way that Nate says I want to grow up with you, something Sunjata can’t place. But he tries anyway, pressing and nuzzling in, nestling and fitting himself so that his scarred, tattooed chest presses against Nate’s own, arms rising to let his elbows rest on either side of Nate’s head, fingers remaining in the dark hair when his wings come down to blanket the two of them. I want nothing more than that too. He breathes, even if there’s the edge of confusion that settles like a stone in the calmed down waters of his soul. What is it? Because Nate had paused, his breath had stilled, and Sunjata can’t quite place it.
He doesn’t dare think it could be the fact that Nate’s got the possibility of immortality should the Voice win. He doesn’t dare think that it’s the other slow death their relationship crawls toward.
Until the end, right?
Until the end of whom?
'cause i am haunted, i cannot tell a lie
i like you better when i am dead inside
SuNJATA
No permission needed for power play!
Feel free to use magic/force on Sunjata, without killing him <3
Sunjata speaks with an Australian accent and has a passive magic that makes him produce a subtle scent that matches exactly to whatever those around him most desire him to smell like.
You pump the blood so I can breathe, Don't let me go don't ever leave
Closer should be a comfort right now. Nate wants nothing more than to soak in the warmth of his husbands embrace, all the space between them filled in. It helps, to an extent, in the way a blanket on a floor is better than nothing, but Nate knows he could have better. If he simply hadn’t noticed it, hadn’t let his eyes roam so long. And with that thought comes a pulse of guilt, the ascended blinking away the shine in his eyes while he desperately tries to stop himself from slipping backwards off the same cliff he’d just been dragged up.
He could lie. He... should lie, maybe, but no sooner does the thought come to him than it’s bleeding away, nothing quite sticking right as he stares at the silvery strands, so at odds with warm brown. Nate is so unwilling to speak the words out loud though, to give voice to the thought, but... he has to do something. He may have an eternity to sit and stare, but gods he is the only one of them that does.
With far less joy than last time, Nate plucks a single strand from Sunjata’s head, holding the hair up in the scant space between them, so close that its nothing but a blur in a shock of silver.
Once, a handful of lifetimes ago, Sam had asked if he regretted not being able to grow old with Sunjata. Once, a handful of lifetimes ago, Nate had laughed in his face and said immortality was much better. He was so fucking stupid. The ascended has to bite back the urge to rip the rest of the hateful little reminders out of his husbands head, his hands dropping to Sunjata’s shoulders.
There’s apprehension in the bond that Sunjata can’t quite place, no matter how much he tries. He thinks for a second his answer had been wrong – that Nate didn’t believe that he wanted it. The Attuned doesn’t realize he’s been holding his breath when his husband’s hand shifts, when there’s the pinch of something at his temple and his eyes are opening to squint down at his husband with the raise of a dark sculpted brow. Ow. He says gruffly through the bond, even if it’s plastered with every ounce of amusement to make sure Nate doesn’t think he’d actually hurt him.
No sooner does the amusement that coats the bond grow icy and cold at the sudden realization, the glimmer of silver that’s been plucked from his head. And there’s a million reasons why such a thing would cause Nate’s fear, Nate’s hurt. And there’s a million reasons why Sunjata doesn’t look at them too long. Instead, the silence stretches on as Sunjata’s forced to dance on his feet, hands still smoothing through dark wild curls as if it holds all the answers – as if he holds all the answers.
He has only one that springs to mind immediately, however shitty it is. “It’s just stress, Skatjie.” He murmurs, flashing a softer smile his husband’s way. “I’m not even thirty yet. Still got a year to go.” He hums with a playful quirk of his head, wings pressing in more to smother the Ascended between the weight of it and the rest of Sunjata’s body.
He doesn’t think about how they might not even grow old. He doesn’t think about how it might not even be old age that kills him.
So he masks over the attempts to pointedly not think about how he’s fucking going grey already, realizing belatedly that it’s Leafchange now and with it means both of their birthdays, even if his lies later in the season. He tips forward again, aiming to catch Nate in a kiss, one that might devour both their fear and anxieties or hopefully at least bandaid it. Speaking of birthdays, though. Happy birthday, mooi seun.
'cause i am haunted, i cannot tell a lie
i like you better when i am dead inside
SuNJATA
No permission needed for power play!
Feel free to use magic/force on Sunjata, without killing him <3
Sunjata speaks with an Australian accent and has a passive magic that makes him produce a subtle scent that matches exactly to whatever those around him most desire him to smell like.
You pump the blood so I can breathe, Don't let me go don't ever leave
Nate can’t bring himself to feel bad, especially not as the complaint rings out along a pulse of amusement that doesn’t loosen the icy claws trying to drag his heart up through his throat. He feels them grip his husband as well, silence carving a home out between them, opening a gap beneath all the physical closeness. He wants to fill it, wants to feed it, but doesn’t know where to start, except by letting his greedy fingers dig into Sunjata’s back. A whine leaves him, head tipping into the fingers still petting through his hair, as if the world wasn’t slowly shattering.
“A year?” Nate scoffs, the fluid in his eyes overflowing enough to send shimmering lines racing back into his hair. His jaw trembles as he swallows, fingers opening to let the hair flutter away. If only all of their troubles could be lost so easily. Are you older than me now sunshine? As if he hasn’t done the simple math over and over in his head, as if he doesn’t know. Just... maybe it’ll sound better in Sunjata’s voice, rather than the panicked one in his head.
They slip closer together, Nate also very resolutely not letting his mind drift beyond their allotted two years. He focuses on a cottage. Focuses on summer storms and waking up late, of warm dinners and laughter and memories. Things for him to look back on after... after...
Band aid it does, a little coverup over a yawning chasm, but enough still to pretend, just for the night, just until Nate remembers how to bury these emotions in shallow graves. The smile that tugs at his lips is a quaking, nervous thing; a beaten dog afraid of even the kindest hands that reach towards it, no matter how hungry it might be for affection. Nate presses into the kiss like he wants to be devoured, like he wants to gorge himself on comfort until there’s simply no room for fear and hurt and futures. Until the chasm is filled.
Sunjata’s words make it harder, even as they ease him, another shivering spark running down Nate’s spine and arching his back. S’new? He hums distractedly, most of his focus poured into the act of licking his husbands mouth open, pressing their tongues together.
He tries to push down and away the whine that grips his husband, that airs despite the way Sunjata’s hands rake through his hair in the attempts to quell it. He hears the question, the scoff, the easy question of just how old Sunjata was in comparison, how Nate had been twenty-eight when he’d Ascended. And this season, this year marks the year past that. It’s all he can do to try and joke along, to try and make it as if it were a joke just to keep the sorrow from entering his heart.
A mask of another sort, he supposes. Almost. Got a couple weeks still then I'm twenty-nine. He murmurs through the bond, if only to keep his voice from breaking to say it audibly. He half wants to joke about Nate not letting it get to his head, to joke about how he doesn’t get to call Nate an old man anymore, but it all feels awkward and far too sad to say aloud. They’re little things he keeps tucked in, thinking of the future they have together, knowing that it’s unlikely they’ll get to have that death in old age, when Sunjata’s peppered and grey and Nate looks exactly the same.
All provided they make it out of the war anyway.
So he tries to soothe – to calm his waters just enough to fill Nate to the brim with a warming caress, to offer that affection they both crave, to fill him of waves that press and pull at the Ascended in ways that direct him to himself, in ways that will hopefully keep Nate’s mind from straying too far ahead. So he presses down when Nate’s back arches, smothering his husband in attention and deft fingers that dance through hair, that move to Nate’s neck, along his muscled shoulders, one breaking free and dancing down his side painted with stars.
It suits you. He says with every ounce of meaning in the words, opening up easily for Nate, to tangle their tongues, to press and grip as he loosens his sorrows to be replaced by the warmth of the room, the way that they’ve been here long enough and in this position that Nate’s warm too. And don’t tell me it doesn’t, ‘cause my mind’s already made up. He purrs back, wondering if Nate can feel the smirk that tugs his scarred cheek, at the way his breath hitches and his wings lift up a fraction, as horns of his nyala shift sprout from his head and thread through mostly ochre hair, sprinkled with hints of silver throughout.
'cause i am haunted, i cannot tell a lie
i like you better when i am dead inside
SuNJATA
No permission needed for power play!
Feel free to use magic/force on Sunjata, without killing him <3
Sunjata speaks with an Australian accent and has a passive magic that makes him produce a subtle scent that matches exactly to whatever those around him most desire him to smell like.
