another place to shed my skin

You pump the blood so I can breathe, Don't let me go don't ever leave

Gods almighty, Nate had never been so wrong about something in his whole life. Sunjata’s voice wrapping around reality actually made it much, much worse. How... “How... dare you?” His voice doesn’t crack, somehow, but it does tremble with something that can only be described as wholly genuine bafflement. Tears flow freely now, hands lifting to smear them away before they return to Sunjata’s hair, pulling the length back out of his face. Fuck you. Just... fuck. A wet sigh blows directly into the attuned’s face while Nate thinks about what his husband might be thinking about.

It’s not pretty.

But now that it’s real, now that they’ve said it, it settles over Nate, an inevitability. The sudden knowing is almost as reliving as the wash of positivity that pours into him from his husband, a wave he is all too happy to drown himself in. Do you think your stupid little admirers will stop caring once you’re old enough? Against all odds, these are the first words to slip from Nate with any real ease. Then it’ll be just me. Net vir jou. He doesn’t even have the decency to sound anything other than smug about the idea, his hips pressing up against Sunjata.

A spark of something rekindles in Nate’s head, curling his lips and arching his body into Sunjata’s touch wherever it lands. Something that sounds like a moan even works it’s way between their lips as soon as Sunjata insists on the nickname. Why would I argue when you’re right, baby? Distantly, Nate thinks this flip feels sudden, even to him, but he aches for this, and what better reason is there to simply change?

The hand that had plucked the offending hair initial works its way up along Sunjata’s scalp, wrapping firmly around the base of a curled horn and squeezing. There’s something curious in the way Nate tries to drag it back, something that wonders how his husband is going to react.

NATE

in my darkness, you turned on a light

i hate the way you bring me back to life

What? Sunjata replies back, incapable of keeping the smile from tugging at his face, the way the corners – ruined or not – twist in a catlike edge. “You’re the one past thirty.” He huffs as if it makes a difference, given that he is and will be older appearance wise from here on out, despite the true age of Nate. There’s a second where he physically bites his tongue from making a comment that sounds something like ‘wow you look good for your age’, realizing that it’ll come out just as sad as the rest of the things he wants to say.

So after a few moments, he pushes and pulls the warmth and adoration, the love and wholehearted everything into Nate, only pausing with it as he barks a laugh so bright it surprises even him and when he peers back at his husband, his eyes are crinkled with amusement. I love it when you get all possessive. He mumbles somehow through the bond, before he’s pressing back against Nate with a huff of air that passes from his nose. My admirers can try all they want but they’re never going to be you. He hopes his point gets across, that despite how people tried to tug at him and pull him in random directions, they weren’t Nate. They could never even come close.

The kiss is devouring in all the ways Sunjata wishes it were, but it’s bright too even as the drugs have worn off more and more. He dives into it, grasping at it with fumbling hands as if he’s blind, only to latch onto it so that it doesn’t go away. This is how they communicate, the touch, the press and pull of one another. It’s the most open they’ve been in a long time and Sunjata’s hands travel across Nate’s skin as if he were a book, checking word for word for the meaning and supplanting his own.

That’s what I thought. He purrs back, his own smug satisfaction curling like smoke through the bond. He leans into each and every touch, humming at the residual feel of the moan that’s slipped from his husband, goosebumps rising on his skin as Nate’s hands lift up and up through his hair, until he finds a horn and it’s an immediate reaction in the way his wings twitch, curling in on themselves before opening fully again, an immediate reaction in the sharp inhale of breath, in the way Sunjata stills and tilts his head along with it, breaking the kiss and managing to peer down at Nate through half lidded steel. Ah. Bull by the horns, huh? His words are breathless, his tongue sweeping along his lower lip, grinding his hips down against Nate’s.

'cause i am haunted, i cannot tell a lie

i like you better when i am dead inside

SuNJATA

You pump the blood so I can breathe, Don't let me go don't ever leave

Amusement and appreciation both stroke some deep part of the ascended’s ego, his body loosening that much more, his face splitting around a wide grin. Don’t like other people touchin’ my stuff. Nate hums petulantly, rolling a shoulder. While Sunjata might not be stuff, he most certainly is Nate’s. They have the rings, they have the scars over scars, they have the home, all to prove it. Bet they wish they were me though, eh?

Hands drop again, squeezing and contorting the attuned’s checks while Nate just smiles up at him. ’M the only one lucky enough for you. I’m the only fucking person here who deserves you. A knife edge comes out of nowhere, Nate teetering again, the struggle obvious in the way he has to try out his grin more than once before it settles, obvious in the calculating edge to his eyes, the way he tilts his head back and looks so effortlessly effortless that it can’t possible be real.

There is nothing more distractingly soothing than the whisper of Sunjata’s hands on his skin. Nate can’t help but shudder in the face of it, his body latching on to every slight sensation and amplifying it, a sweet echoing chime that chased nearly everything else out of his mind. He wants to stay like this forever, want to live out their last two years locked in this closeness, but he can’t turn down the chance to tease.

Fuck yeah, moan for me. The sharp edge of a demand curls around the thought, though it’s clear by the way he pauses that Nate had not meant to actually broadcast it. He grins, huffing out a short bark of laughter when he does, and surges back up to recapture the attuned’s lips, smashing them together so hard he tastes the iron tang of blood and the greasy sweetness of fluid mixing on their tongues. Somethin’ like that. Nate rumbles, dragging his husbands head to the side and parting them again. You’re the one who’s gonna be doing’ the ridin’ though, cowboy. As if to demonstrate, he rolls his hips up, electric hands appearing and wrapping around Sunjata’s hips just in time to hold him in place. You think you can handle me, prinses?

NATE

in my darkness, you turned on a light

i hate the way you bring me back to life

I like being your stuff. He purrs back through the bond, voice ripe with amusement and playfulness with the underlying honesty that lingers. If he could have anyone – anyone – it would always be the Ascended. Of course they do. He quips back, a crooked smirk forming between the kiss before it’s broken.

There’s something for a split second that glitters behind the steel clouds of his eyes, of fragility, of being something that someone wanted in such a way that felt surreal. And the inhale he takes is slow and calculated, watching Nate fight to place that effortless smile before Sunjata’s lunging toward him mentally, sending all of his love and adoration through it until it’s thick like honey with it. I’m the lucky one. He manages to breathe through the thickness of it all, suddenly alight and burning with his husband’s attentions.

The demand has another smirk curling around his face from being half pinned by the hand on his horn, the room affecting him, the roll of his husband’s hips and the crashing of their lips together until he can taste the mixture of blood and fluid on his tongue. He breathes through his nose a pant of a whine, followed by a sharp inhale as he presses back against his husband. Do I— He’s cut off from finishing his thought by the way his head is tilted, the way they part, the way Nate’s staticky hands keep his hips in place and Sunjata’s flushing red once again with desire and lust and need, another hum of a moan slipping from his lips.

’Course I can handle you. He manages through the haze of his mind, hands rising to dig his claws into Nate’s sides, one hand drifting up a side of stars as he moves his hips a fraction, aiming to grind his hips against his husband’s, trying to slip back just enough that he might be able to situate himself better, even under the pressure of Nate’s multiple hands on his already beginning to bruise hips.

'cause i am haunted, i cannot tell a lie

i like you better when i am dead inside

SuNJATA

You pump the blood so I can breathe, Don't let me go don't ever leave

When you’re used to begging for drops of vinegar, a tidal wave of honey unfathomable, Nate helpless to be anything more than swept along in the torrent that pours from Sunjata. The insistent, incessant chittering in Nate’s head and his chest is frozen in its amber warmth, and he feels whole. Loved and needed and craved in all the ways he’d never let himself dream about. His brows pinch a second before his eyes flood, like he feels what’s coming but doesn’t know what it could be, like it’s never happened before.

Yeah you are. Nate agrees after a long moment, his gaze unblinking and filled with wondrous awe and absolutely glued to Sunjata. The words aren’t boastful though, not filled with the greasy pride he presents with everything else. They’re honest. Achingly honest. Sunjata has done something far more insidious than simply reaching into Nate and taking his heart; Sunjata has convinced Nate to carve himself open and offer anything. Everything.

He would forgive Sunjata for Kamaria if he was asked. He would offer himself up to Safrin’s wrath if he was asked. And Sunjata will never ask him to do any of the things he could, and that is why Nate gives him the power to.

A giddy rumble of laughter sweeps through the bond as Sunjata’s thought is cut off, hungry eyes plotting a path across tanned skin. You sound beautiful baby. Nate purrs, guessing at whatever his husband had been about to say. He grins, tongue wetting his lips before they’re moving to follow the burning path his eyes had made, from Sunjata’s collarbone to his shoulder, and from his shoulder to just under his ear.

“Why don’t you show me what you can do sonskyn?” The words hiss into the attuned’s ear, soft and velvety and full of renewed promise. A promise that is going to extend far beyond just this next time, a promise that is going to carry them until dawn colours the sky and Nate carries them back to the dark basement room of the VlamVloed, where they’d slept together for the first time. And if Nate prods his very inebriated husband to shift like that first night, that’s his own business and no one elses.

Fin ?

NATE