You pump the blood so I can breathe, Don't let me go don't ever leave
Nates face twists in irritated indignation, upset at being called out, upset at being wrong in the first place. You get to love me because of her. The correction snaps out, Nate’s brows pulled into a single angry line. You get to know me because she brought us both here. Not anyone else. This at least is a fact, something that Nate can stand atop and frown down from. We’re here because of her. I’m better because of her. As if the scars that littered his naked body really spoke to something better than the dead end life he’d been snatched away from.
There is a shrinking, not physically, but through the bond, tendrils of Nate’s emotions drawing back, wrapping around himself to build a new wall, a new mask. Do you get it? Really? It seems they can’t ever stand on even ground, the more sensible Sunjata becomes, the more unravelled Nate gets. You’re bullshit. This whole fucking thing is bullshit. You can’t- The tirade cuts off as hands press against his face, whatever work Nate had put into walls and masks crumbling to rubble with the simple action.
The moment of breath is all it takes for Nate’s eyes to well up again, frustration and shame simmering in the bond if Sunjata cares to reach out to feel them, but he doesn’t look away. Doesn’t close his eyes. He listens.
It sounds like a dream. A sanctuary, away from the world, from the shadows that doggedly haunt their doorstep. Nate thinks about knocks in the middle of the night. Thinks about fires and sickness and pirate pricks. Thinks about a night on the beach that feels like it was a different life, where they talked and watched turtles and stars and things were simple. He lets himself dream of something like that again. Easy nights together. But reality crashes in, tears it’s ugly head far too soon, and an embarrassing whimper leaves Nate’s throat before he can stop it, his eyes finally closing as he presses his face in against his husbands shoulder.
An’after? He asks through the bond, throat too thick to voice anything. In two years, when we can’t hide? What then?
There is a shrinking, not physically, but through the bond, tendrils of Nate’s emotions drawing back, wrapping around himself to build a new wall, a new mask. Do you get it? Really? It seems they can’t ever stand on even ground, the more sensible Sunjata becomes, the more unravelled Nate gets. You’re bullshit. This whole fucking thing is bullshit. You can’t- The tirade cuts off as hands press against his face, whatever work Nate had put into walls and masks crumbling to rubble with the simple action.
The moment of breath is all it takes for Nate’s eyes to well up again, frustration and shame simmering in the bond if Sunjata cares to reach out to feel them, but he doesn’t look away. Doesn’t close his eyes. He listens.
It sounds like a dream. A sanctuary, away from the world, from the shadows that doggedly haunt their doorstep. Nate thinks about knocks in the middle of the night. Thinks about fires and sickness and pirate pricks. Thinks about a night on the beach that feels like it was a different life, where they talked and watched turtles and stars and things were simple. He lets himself dream of something like that again. Easy nights together. But reality crashes in, tears it’s ugly head far too soon, and an embarrassing whimper leaves Nate’s throat before he can stop it, his eyes finally closing as he presses his face in against his husbands shoulder.
An’after? He asks through the bond, throat too thick to voice anything. In two years, when we can’t hide? What then?
NATE
