#nate has spent a long time holding adam's brain cells for him

[bosspigeon]

OH. 48 for adam and nate,,, 🚶‍♂️

48. kisses with trembling lips

"We have got to stop meeting like this," Nate chuckles weakly, head lolling against the pillows when he hears the door click shut.

He can't see the scowl Adam is most assuredly wearing, but one does not know a man for centuries without gaining a sense of how he reacts to things like flirtatious comments delivered from one's sickbed. Not that Nate was making many flirtatious comments from his sickbed in those centuries. None that he can remember, at least. Or, rather, none that he would ever admit to remembering.

Blood loss does funny things to a man's head, after all.

"Do I need to call Dr. Tuft for a psychological evaluation as well?" Adam growls at him.

Well, he must be in much worse shape than he thought. He sinks deeper into the pillows propping him upright, tugging his blanket up over his bare chest to hide the bandages wound around his middle.

"You're upset with me," Nate observes astutely.

Adam laughs, and the bitterness sticks somewhere deep in Nate's still-healing gut, acrid and sharp as the venomous stinger that pierced him through not too terribly long ago. Perhaps mere hours ago, he thinks, depending on how long he slept. It's difficult to tell the time when he can't even see, and while vampires do have an innate sense of where the sun is at any given time whether they can see it or not, Nate is perhaps a bit addled by the circumstances, and is not currently at his best.

"You are lucid enough to understand that, at least."

"Bodes well for my recovery, don't you think?" Nate offers. He tries to sound cheery, but it falls flat.

Adam's footsteps are quiet and purposeful as he approaches Nate's bedside, and it will never cease to be a wonder how he can walk so softly in his thick-soled combat boots. He stands there, silent, for a moment that stretches on for what feels like years, but what are years when Nate has spent centuries aching at Adam's side?

The silence is torture, yes, but at least it's a softer one than he's used to.

Nate can feel the potential energy of Adam's tension practically radiating from him, a low hum of tangled nerves and taut muscle. He reaches out blindly, biting back a noise as the motion pulls at his slowly knitting wound. He clearly doesn't bite it back hard enough, because Adam graciously shifts close enough that Nate's hand can land somewhere on his person.

He squeezes lightly, just to be sure of what it is, and is perhaps visibly pleased than he should be at the gentle give of Adam's chest.

At least he can feel how hard Adam is fighting an indulgent chuckle, so he can't be too cross with Nate.

"Sit down?" he asks, and if he endeavors to sound just a touch more pitiful than he feels, that is no one's business but his.

The edge of the bed gives under Adam's weight, and he makes a point not to dislodge the hand resting on his chest, over his heart.

"You have to admit, it is a bit refreshing to have the roles reversed, isn't it?" Nate smiles rakishly, and he thinks perhaps he should be grateful for the acid burns, as the bandages over his eyes are protecting him from the force of the glare Adam is certainly giving him, because if he could see it, and if looks could kill, Nate would be dead and buried several times over.

"I do not see the humor in this situation," Adam grumbles.

"Nor did I any of the countless times I had to sit at your bedside, old friend," Nate retorts primly.

"That is—" Adam quickly realizes how close he is to shouting, and, not wishing to be hauled out of Nate's room by the scruff of his neck by the only nurse the Agency assigns to any of them at this point (he hopes Elidor's salary reflects how much work he puts in, dealing with their lot) lowers his voice to a furious hiss, "That is not the same thing, and you know it."

"Why not?" Nate fires back. "I've seen you in much worse shape than this, and far more often too." And it tore him apart every time, nearly pried to truth out of him, just in case every time was his last chance to tell the stubborn fool he loved him, but he always shoved at down at the last minute and told himself that stubborn fool was too damned stubborn to die.

"It's different," Adam insists, but his voice falters. "It's— You—"

It dawns on Nate slowly, and perhaps it's the sedatives and painkillers pumped into his system, and perhaps it's simply the side effects of centuries of repression that are to blame for how long it takes. "Oh," he breathes as it hits him. "Oh, Adam." He swallows hard, patting at the blankets until he finds Adam's thigh, and then further until he can find his hands, balled into fists in his lap. It takes some doing with his muddled dexterity, but he manages to pry them open, and slots his fingers clumsily between his commander's and squeezes.

Nate has been so caught up in the sheer, unadulterated elation of finally, finally having what he's wanted with every part of him for so long, he forgets sometimes that, for all the time he was aching, dragged under by the weight of feelings ignored, words unsaid, Adam was aching too.

He's been so tangled up in the... the honeymoon phase of this thing between them, that he has not even spared a moment to realize that now that they have this, whatever it is, whatever they're calling it, that now they have something new and precious to lose.

Perhaps he did realize it, even without conscious thought, seeing as he threw himself into harm's way the second Adam was threatened, never mind that, of the two of them, Adam is much more likely to walk away from a thirteen-inch stinger through his torso.

"Oh, Adam," he says again, stricken with guilt. "I'm... I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking, I only— You were distracted, and I thought—" He laughs and tugs Adam's hands to his mouth, brushing kisses across his knuckles. He knows the bruises there have healed, but he is deliberately gentle regardless, as if he could ever make up for the mess he's made.

Adam's hands pull away from his, and he tries to cling to them stubbornly, to dig in his heels and shake his head like a petulant child, but he stills when Adam pinches his chin between two fingers and tilts up his face, pressing his mouth to the bandages over his eyes, first one, then the other. When he kisses Nate's lips, his own are trembling, and while Nate can't see his face, he can taste salt in the air.

He knows better than to mention it. And if he sheds a few tears of his own, cupping Adam's face in his hands so he can kiss him back more deeply, pouring apologies he can't say into Adam's mouth, the bandages will do well to hide the evidence.

#the wayhaven chronicles #adam du mortain #a du mortain #nate sewell #n sewell #adam x nate #twc fanfic #prompt fic #pidge writes #i feel like it's not fair for me to write the inevitable hospital scene for all the other couples #and yet neglect adam and nate? #you know this has happened Several Times over the centuries #usually its adam is the bed naturally #as the party's tank #this time! surprise! it's nate #finally getting what he's desperately wanted for centuries may have made him Slightly Stupid #nate has spent a long time holding adam's brain cells for him #then the feelings moved in and the brain cells went on vacation #they're tired y'all #they deserve it #does this make any sense at all? #probably not #im writing this at 5am #LOVE MAKES THEM BOTH STUPID AND I LOVE IT #ITS WHAT THEY DESERVE