Work Text:
"It is late now, I am a bit tired; the sky is irritated by stars. And I love you, I love you, I love you-and perhaps this is how the whole enormous world, shining all over, can be created-out of five vowels and three consonants." -Vladimir Nabokov
“Are you ready?”
Teddy flexes his fingers, feeling the strain of skin over bone, and looks up into aquamarine eyes. He thinks of his father’s hard stare and the way it could always cut through him like glass, right to the very truth of him. Can Matthew Ellis see the truth of him too?
Can Jonathan Pine?
“Sí.” He rocks on the balls of his feet, glancing back toward the dusty driveway, the modest house, the clothesline swaying gently in the wind.
Gently wasn’t an adjective he ever imagined would have a place in his life.
A heavy, firm hand enfolds around his own, fingers interweaving. Twin sets of callouses scrape together. Not the kind of callouses you get from hard labor, but the kind you get from cocking a gun, gripping a knife, throwing a punch. In this, him and Matthew are the same.
But in everything else? Well, how should Teddy know? He doesn’t even know who Matthew really is.
“This is what we fought for, Teddy.” His voice is a low scratch in Teddy’s ears, a pleasant sound that calms all his rattled nerves.
“I know.” He leans down and picks up his suitcase without ever letting go of Matthew’s hand. “Vamos.”
Teddy isn’t accustomed to people being honest.
Clara not only welcomed him into her home with open arms, just as she said she would, but she welcomed his wounded, white lover too. He isn’t used to this. The monastery he grew up in was kind, if not strict and solemn, but fuck, the last two decades of his life have been nothing but pure savagery. He’d almost forgotten what true hospitality felt like, without the constant suspicion of treachery always in the back of everyone’s mind.
Maybe Roper was right. Maybe he is a cowboy after all, because he chose the wild fucking west to be his playground. His home. He abandoned his faith and every sliver of goodness inside him. If there was any to begin with.
Clara is good, though. This he can tell.
And Matthew—in a less apparent way.
Maybe the two of them can be good enough to make up for all of Teddy’s bad. Because there’s no doubt about it: he is rotten. Maybe Eduardo Vidal had a ghost of a chance at being a halfway decent person. But Teddy Dos Santos was filthy from the moment he was given a name.
Then again, call him Eduardo or Teddy or Roper Jr., he’s still the same person. The rot is in his DNA, in his very blood, and he can feel it spreading like a hereditary disease. An inevitable sickness that his father passed on to him. Did he give it to the English boy too? To Danny? Was Danny good? Did his father's love and affection nurture the boy right into adulthood? Did it give him a sense of morality and virtue? Is that why he never loved Teddy, never even saw him as his own? Because Teddy's sense of virtue was fucked beyond repair?
In a sick sort of way, he wishes that were the case. That his father had a real, concrete reason for his indifference. Something deeper than his skin or his country.
But no, he shares the same diseased blood as his father. And if that's the case, then he has no doubt that Danny shares it too.
So then how did he end up here, with two guardian angels looking after him? Why should Clara offer him sanctuary and kindness and fucking kisses on the cheek? Why willingly invite a murderer into her home? And why should Matthew Ellis stay here well past the time his body needs to heal, when he could go home? Why stay for Teddy of all people?
Why?
Weeks pass. Quiet weeks. The quietest Teddy has experienced in years. The Colombian sun turns the days to heavy, lazy things and the clear skies make for beautifully cool, star-studded nights. Clara always retires early, but Teddy still isn’t quite cured of city life. He isn’t sure he’ll ever be.
He doesn’t know what keeps Matthew awake.
“Cigar?” Teddy asks, the flimsy, hundred-year-old rocking chair creaking beneath his weight. Matthew settles onto a fold-down camp chair beside him, heaving a sigh.
“That would be nice. Gracias.”
Teddy pulls out the extra he’d slipped into his pocket earlier today, having anticipated this moment, and hands it over. Matthew sticks it in his mouth and leans closer. Teddy feels his lips twitch with an almost-smirk as he slides his lighter from his pocket. He leans over, a spark of orange flickering to life with a metallic click. It bathes Matthew’s skin a tawny yellow, turns his ocean eyes almost green.
Click. The flame vanishes and Teddy knocks his cigar against Matthew’s, painfully aware of how close their mouths are. A heady cloud of smoke drifts up around them as they part, gazes returning to the brilliant night sky.
“It’s beautiful here,” Matthew comments quietly. Teddy grunts in agreement.
“The stars don’t seem quite so bright in the city, do they, amigo?”
“No.” Matthew’s smile is wistful. “No, they do not compare.”
“What are the stars like in England?”
Matthew squints as he searches his memory. Teddy traces those smile lines with his eyes, the delicate curve of his jaw, the shape of his mouth as he exhales smoke.
“In a place like London they’re almost non-existent. But in the peace of the countryside…” A barest shrug. “Well, isn’t the sky the same no matter where in the world you are?”
“Supongo que.”
“I always found that sort of… comforting. There are so many people in the world, all so divided, by distance and culture and prejudice—and yet we all share a sky.”
Teddy was never much one for sentiment. He used to put his comfort in things like the certainty that a black car would drive up the driveway on a specific day of the year. Then he grew up and put his comfort in material wealth. In power. In tyranny. Just like his father.
And everything he’s ever sought comfort in has failed him.
Have faith, Matthew told him. And he did. But not in himself. Not in his father, or that plane landing where it was supposed to, or even in God. No, his faith had been in Matthew.
And against all the odds, it worked. Matthew is still here. Both of them are alive, smoking cigars and staring up at the Columbian sky. His father is dead. And Matthew is still here.
“Why are you here, Matthew?” Teddy asks before he can stop himself. It sounds more abrasive than he meant it to. Matthew confirms this with a slight frown.
“Couldn’t sleep.” He pauses a moment, his eyes shifting about nervously before settling back on Teddy. “Old nightmares.”
Well, at least now he knows what keeps Matthew up at night. “No, I meant in Colombia. Why do you postpone returning home?”
“Oh, well, hm.” He sticks the cigar back in his mouth and takes a long drag. “Well, I wanted to help you settle. I promised you this, after all. I promised you that if we killed your father, you could finally have peace. You could have the life you deserve. Unfortunately, happily ever after’s aren’t always so easily obtained. Memory is a monster after all.” He finally meets Teddy’s eyes again and the sheer amount of honesty there blows him away. “I owed you, Teddy, for all the pain I caused you.”
“So that’s what this is? You are repaying a debt?”
“You make me sound cold.”
“Go home, Matthew.”
He grimaces, still looking at Teddy even after Teddy looks away. The whine of insects more than fills the silence, and yet a buzz of anxiety that not even a cigar can soothe rattles through him.
“My name is Jonathan,” he whispers.
“You already told me.”
“So why do you still call me Matthew?”
Teddy grunts, suddenly annoyed. “I don’t know Jonathan Pine. If I met him on the street, I would not recognize him. He is a stranger to me. It is Matthew I know. It is Matthew I care for.”
“Do you prefer it when I call you Teddy then?”
“I do not care what you call me. A name is a name.”
“So if I started calling you Eduardo, like your sister does, you wouldn’t mind?”
He pauses, glancing at Matthew and resituating in his seat. “Eduardo… he doesn’t exist anymore. Clara calls me that because she thinks that I am still her little brother. She doesn’t see what I really am—a killer, a liar, a thief.”
“Or maybe Eduardo is you. Maybe Clara and I are the only ones in the whole world who see you for who you truly are.”
Teddy’s palm smacks against the chair’s wooden arm. “And who is that exactly? A lonely, unwanted child? A pious disciple? A dog devoted to its master? A—”
“A good man.”
Teddy presses his lips together. Matthew holds his gaze, steady and unyielding and true. Truer than anything Teddy has a right to. A look with more love in it than his father ever had for anyone, much less him. A sudden and unbearable load of grief lands on him. It takes his breath away.
“What’s wrong?”
The cigar drops from Eduardo’s fingers and the grief surges up like a tidal wave, thick and pungent as oil. It slithers up his throat until he’s choking on it. It crowds in his windpipe until he’s drowning from the inside out.
"Teddy?"
His father is dead.
His father was going to kill him.
His father never loved him.
And suddenly, nothing else in the world seems to matter. Nothing but this insurmountable cresting wave of anguish. A dry sob rips itself from Eduardo’s throat and without remembering how it happened, his knees are in the dirt and his fingers are tracing his scars, his fingernails scraping his skin like they just need something sharp enough to cut, sharp enough to slice the pain clean away. Grief for a father he always hoped for and never had. Guilt for all the horrible, horrible things he’s done. And utter, unending loneliness.
And then there are arms enveloping him, strong and corded and safe. Eduardo feels himself deflating into them. He feels Matthew’s—Jonathan’s lips against his forehead, brushing along his hairline. He feels his warm hand running down his cheek, skin on sweaty skin. He hears his heartbeat against his ear—thump, thump, thump.
He cries for so long and Jonathan never once leaves.
And he realizes, somewhere in the blurred recesses of his mind, how deeply he was craving this. How much he hungered to be held. To be cared for. To be touched like he was something precious, something divine, something worthy.
The extent of his father’s affection was a simple encouragement or a heavy, fearsome hand on the shoulder. Jonathan touches differently. When they danced together with Roxana, that kiss on the cheek at the airport, the way he held Teddy after telling him the truth about his father, and their almost-kiss right before the world went to shit.
Jonathan’s affection is reverent. It’s kind. Nothing about it scares Teddy. It only makes him feel wanted, truly wanted for the first time in his whole life. He leans into it, the way a dog pushes into a scratch behind the ears. He cries into Jonathan’s loose, linen shirt and in a strange moment of clarity, he thinks about how all he can smell is cheap laundry detergent and a faint whiff of sweat.
And the moment shatters.
Teddy pulls away, angrily wiping his face and falling back onto his elbows in the dirt. Jonathan lets him go. The drone of mosquitoes and chirping of crickets becomes a scream in Teddy’s ears. He clenches his hands into fists and realizes that they are shaking.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Jonathan asks, his tone full of patience.
“No.”
“Alright.” He watches Teddy the way one studies a painting, calmly taking in every detail and unearthing what they mean. “Do you want me to leave you alone?” he finally asks.
Panic seizes him, like a thousand snakes all roiling and knotting together in his chest. “—No,” he chokes out. Then, quieter, “por favor.”
Jonathan adapts so easily. He reaches out his hand, his eyes a midnight blue beneath the silvery moon. Teddy tries very hard to lose himself in those eyes, to forget everything, his pain and his innumerable regrets. But he’s still too raw. Like a fresh, gaping wound that can’t stop siphoning blood.
He swallows hard and it hurts. Like swallowing stones.
“I’m not going to hurt you, Eduardo,” Jonathan whispers. "Come. Let’s go lay down.”
His resolve crumbles. Teddy takes Jonathan’s hand. He follows him to bed.
“May I?” Jonathan’s fingers hover over the top button on Teddy’s shirt. The boy is staring straight ahead sightlessly, listlessly. He inclines his chin in some semblance of a nod and Jonathan begins to unbutton his shirt for him.
It’s a strange intimacy, especially in a moment as heavy with pain as this one. He can feel all of Teddy’s grief and guilt as if it were his own. Jonathan has burned so many bridges and crossed so many lines to take down Roper. He’s hurt so many people close to him. He’s gotten some of them killed. Like a dog with a bone—obsessive, unyielding, and most of the time, dangerous.
And now, a decade later, he has finally succeeded. For real this time. He should be... relieved. Free. Instead, he looks at the anguish written all over Teddy’s face and he feels only an ocean of guilt cascading over his head. He is responsible for not only taking Teddy’s father away from him, but for telling him the worst possible truth that he ever could’ve heard: that his father never loved him. That he didn’t even see him as his son.
And now he knows that his father would’ve killed him. Easily. Without flinching. With only a sliver of regret, like he was putting down his favorite mutt.
Pure, black hatred for Roper swirls like gas in Jonathan’s stomach, a noxious fume of loathing and rage and—and love. For this beautiful man in front of him. For this vulnerable son who only ever wanted his father to see him. To love him.
Jonathan gently peels the shirt from Teddy’s clammy skin and slips his right arm beneath his shoulder blades. He goes heavy and limp in Jonathan’s hold, allowing himself to be guided down to the bed. They move as one, connected, like the line where Teddy stops and Jonathan starts has been blurred. Like there cannot be one without the other.
Once they’re laid back, Teddy curls further into Jonathan. The action is almost... childlike. Like he's seeking asylum, a safe place to lay his head. His face tucks right into the crook of Jonathan’s neck like he was created for it, his breath fanning hot across Jonathan's collarbone. He folds his legs in between Jonathan’s and lays his arm across his stomach, clutching him like he’s a buoy in a storm. Like he's trying to stay afloat. Like he’s trying to keep Jonathan from leaving.
Jonathan massages Teddy's scalp with his right hand and hugs him with his left, holding him as close as humanly possible. They both lie awake, sweating a bit in the heat of the night. Every so often a breeze carries through the open window, ruffling the sheer curtains and giving them a glimpse of the stars.
Jonathan looks up at those stars and says a prayer for his beloved Eduardo. He hopes that someone is listening. He hopes they ease Teddy’s pain. Even if only a little.
More weeks go by. Matthew and Teddy shop for groceries at the nearest market and Clara cooks rich, hearty meals with the ingredients they bring home. Some mornings, when it’s still somewhat cool, they go on horse rides through the forest. Other mornings they sleep late, sometimes a tapestry of limbs, clammy and uncaring of it, other times close but not touching, a mirrored image, each other’s presence the only comfort they need.
Nights are mostly for star gazing, though on some weekends they venture into town in search of live music. When this happens, they dance. Always close, always a bit desperate and hungry, like the movement of their bodies is a language that cannot be communicated in words. Like it’s the only time they have to speak their true desires to each other. Teddy loves it. The real Matthew is a bit more reserved, more solemn, than the one he originally got to know. It is only when they dance that he feels familiar to Teddy again. Only then that Matthew lets himself go, lets himself sink into Teddy, lets himself feel.
But of course, the music always ends.
On the nights they can’t find any bands playing, they venture down to the beach and walk along the shoreline. Sometimes, on particularly hot nights, they go swimming. Other times they simply walk, hand in hand, vacillating between conversation and silence.
It’s one of these such nights, as they are strolling quietly with their arms around each other’s waists, that Matthew suddenly pulls to a stop.
Teddy looks over at him, a sliver of fear snaking its way between his ribs. “What is it, Matthew?” he asks, holding on a bit tighter.
“I love you,” he says, the words tilted upward, almost like a question. Teddy freezes right to the spot. Matthew meets his eyes—gemstones as bright as the ocean—and he grins so wide Teddy is afraid that he will break out into laughter. “I love you, Teddy.”
This time the confession doesn’t sound like a question. It sounds like a declaration. It sounds steady and permanent and indisputable.
“It should be obvious, by now. You should’ve already known. I should’ve already known.” He grips Teddy by the hips, tucking him in closer to his side. “I think a part of me always has. I love you deeply. I love you with every bone in my body. I will always love you, Teddy. I don’t think I could ever return to England now. Not unless you came with me. I—”
“Para, para.”
Teddy can feel a thousand feelings rising to the surface, but he cannot decipher a single one of them. Matthew is going too fast. He wasn’t prepared for this, but maybe he should’ve been. It’s been months since he first met Matthew Ellis and they’re still here, in each other’s lives and arms, and if that isn’t love then… well, Teddy’s never loved anyone other than his father. He doesn’t even know what love is. Especially romantic love.
He will fuck up everything they've built. He will fuck up Matthew. He will fuck up and then he will be left with nothing. Absolutely nothing.
“Matthew—no—no lo sé—” he breaks off, groaning in frustration. What is he trying to say? What does he want to say?
Matthew's elation wanes a little. “...What’s the matter?” he asks. “I didn’t mean to… to frighten you. It seemed like the right time.”
Teddy licks his lips, sighs, tries to think of the words and fails. Finally, he presses his forehead against Matthew's. “It is alright.”
Matthew smiles, but it is hesitant this time around. Like he doesn’t fully believe Teddy.
“I am just terrible with words,” he says, trying to convince Matthew, trying to bring that beautiful joy back onto his face. “But there is another way—something that I am not terrible at.”
He smirks and tips his chin forward, his lips finally, finally meeting Matthew's.
Matthew sighs into his mouth. Teddy wants to get drunk on his breath. Instead he pulls back just enough to whisper, “I’ve wanted to do that for so long, mi amor.”
This time Matthew does laugh, and he has the sort of expression he only gets while dancing as he grasps Teddy by the nape of his neck. “And I’m so glad that you finally did.”
With a firm tug, their lips slam together so hard that even their teeth knock together. This doesn't deter them. They only kiss harder, breathlessly and desperately. Teddy kisses him with all the want he has stored up since the first time he laid eyes on Matthew. With all the yearning. With all the adoration. He wraps his arms all the way around Matthew’s middle, thoughtlessly sliding up beneath his loose shirt and across his hot skin. Matthew opens his mouth and deepens the kiss, inviting Teddy in with a swipe of his tongue, sending a shiver all the way down his spine.
Lips find their way across throats, buttons snaps and chests are exposed, and soon they’re crumbling to the sand. Teddy climbs on top of Matthew, straddling him and planting a trail of kisses down his chest. Matthew's hand finds its way into Teddy's pants. Some articles of clothing are ripped away, others come off slower, more as an afterthought. Pretty soon though, nothing separates them but skin, and they lose themselves in each other. Teddy lets Matthew have all of him. He lets him overwhelm and commandeer every part of him. He surrenders.
And Jonathan surrenders too. He lets Eduardo have all of him. He strips everything away and bares his soul to Eduardo.
Somehow, someway, they become one.
The night is warm enough that afterward Teddy and Matthew simply retreat into the ocean to bathe off their sweat. Then they slip their underwear back on and bed down in a more secluded area of the beach, hidden by an alcove of rocks. They curl in up each other’s arms and stare at the Colombian night sky, studded with a necklace of glittering diamonds. Teddy feels so at peace that he actually manages to doze off, deliciously exhausted and content. When he wakes up the world is a hazy blue and lavender is bleeding into the sky.
Matthew brushes his hair back from his forehead and kisses it. “Buenos días,” he murmurs, his voice still rough with sleep.
“Buenos días, mi amor.”
Matthew smiles, and he’s so beautiful that Teddy wants to go for a round two. Instead, he rests his head against Matthew’s shoulder and watches the sunrise. The sky grows paler and paler until splatters of pink and orange streak across it and turn the ocean a bright, colorful canvas. Sun rays begin to peek over the horizon line and it feels as though the entire world were made of nothing but color.
Teddy adjusts so that he can gaze at Matthew. The morning sun paints his skin a rosy gold and makes the tips of his hair practically sparkle. And his eyes. His eyes are a bright, shimmering turquoise. Like a rare stone, breathtaking and unreal.
Matthew is unreal. He is something Teddy dreamed up. He has to be.
“Thank you,” he murmurs, though his throat feels tight and scraped raw. “Thank you for taking care of me.”
Matthew smiles warmly. “Oh Teddy,” he sighs, “you take care of me.”
He isn’t so sure that’s true, but it makes his chest feel full of warm, liquid sunshine anyway.
Matthew trails his fingers lazily down Teddy’s arm, eventually reaching the battlefield of scars rendered there. He pauses, as if unsure how Teddy will react, but when he doesn’t Matthew goes ahead and lightly traces their shapes. He doesn’t touch them like they're ugly things. Like they're something shameful to be hidden or tiptoed around. He does it worshipfully, like he can feel the very pain and guilt that drove Teddy to make them, like he has the utmost respect for Teddy and all the things he has endured.
“I’m so sorry,” he whispers, almost inaudible, “for all your pain.”
“It isn’t your fault, amado.”
“No. But I can’t stop thinking about it—picturing you as a small boy, always looking forward to that black car, always striving to earn his love. And I think about Roper—the Roper I know—and it is far too easy to imagine the way he treated you. The way he baited you, charmed you, and lied to you like he lies to everyone else. And I—I hate him. I want to—”
“He is dead, Matthew. The things you want to do to him have already been done.”
He chews on his lip. “I’m sorry. He was your father. It is insensitive of me to speak of him that way."
“No. He was a fucking bastard." Teddy smiles, all too familiar with the ugliness clouding Matthew's heart. He should be good and tell Matthew not to waste energy on hating someone who already had his reckoning, but then he would be a hypocrite, because Teddy still hates him too. Every single day. "Speak of him however you like.”
A hint of a smile ghosts Matthew’s face, but it is overshadowed by sorrow. “You are loved, Eduardo. If not by him then by your sister. By me.”
Teddy doesn’t know how to respond to that. He chokes. Those are the words he has always longed for, craved for with an insatiable hunger, and yet he does not know how to receive them. So he kisses Matthew again, because what he wants to say is ‘I love you’ but he is afraid. This is the best he can do for now.
This time the kiss is soft and languid, as holy as the Colombian sunrise and as gentle as the morning sea, lapping against the shore. Teddy hopes that Matthew can feel all his love for him in the kiss. He hopes he can taste the love on his tongue and inhale it directly from Teddy's heart. He hopes that is enough.
Jonathan begins to wonder if Teddy will ever say 'I love you.'
They both know he does. He says it in a million other ways—with his body, his hands, with the way he looks at Jonathan. In the morning, tangled up in the sheets with the golden sun gilding the room, he'll look at Jonathan like he is something divine. At night, under the stars and surrounded either by cigar smoke or music and light and bodies. Then he looks at Jonathan with hunger. Sometimes during the middle of the day, while doing menial things like folding clothes or washing dishes, he'll look at Jonathan in a quiet way. Almost sorrowful, almost like he's waiting for the dream to end.
Teddy also tells him with his actions. A steaming cup of coffee waiting for him the second he enters the kitchen. Buying him one of his favorite foods on his way home from town. Taking Jonathan away and not telling him where they're going, until they're seated on a hilltop overlooking the ocean or buried deep in the woods by a pleasant stream. He'll iron Jonathan's clothes when he isn't around and leave books on his nightstand with specific passages underlined. Passages that seem to say the very things Teddy wants to, but can't.
He says it especially loud one day, out of nowhere: "What if we went to England?"
Startled, Jonathan looks up from his book. The afternoon sun beats down on them, creating harsh lines across Teddy's face. It doesn't change how beautiful he is, with his golden brown skin and dark, fathomless eyes. The sight of him still manages to make Jonathan's stomach tumble, all these months later. Like he's a teenage girl with a crush.
"Why would we do that?"
He shrugs. "You haven't been home for so long. I thought you may miss it. And I thought..." he rubs the back of his neck, tipping Jonathan off that this is important to Teddy. He sets the book aside. "Well, maybe you would like to show me some of the places you grew up. Places you have loved."
Jonathan can feel his heart swelling in his chest. "It's a long journey, Teddy."
“Sí. But we have been taking advantage of my sister's hospitality for months, amado. Don't you think it time we return to real life?"
"Real life doesn't have to be in England."
"No. But if we don't visit it—together—we may never know."
Jonathan nods, reluctant. He's grown to love Colombia. It's the first place he's ever lived, since he was a very small child, that he hasn't been completely alone. Jonathan's used to be alone. He's good at it. But now... he isn't sure he could ever go back to it. He thinks the grief would kill him.
"What is it, Matthew? You seem afraid."
Jonathan swallows, looking down the long driveway, to the winding road that vanishes into the tree line. "Am I?" He supposes he is. Afraid that if they disrupt this balanced rhythm they've so delicately crafted, the dream will end and reality will be dumped over top his head like a bucket of cold water. He's afraid Teddy will wake up and realize he doesn't want Jonathan anymore.
He's afraid of being alone again.
"What if you go to England and you—you see me. For the first time. Not Matthew, but Jonathan. What if you don't want him? What if you don't... love him?"
Teddy holds Jonathan's gaze until he's forced to look away, his skin crawling with anxiety. He hears the creak of wood and then Teddy is kneeling right in front of him, gripping his knees and looking up into his eyes. Jonathan sucks in a tight, shaky breath.
"Whatever your past, I am not afraid of it," he says. "Whatever you've done, or endured, I will be there. I will—" here is where he always chokes. Jonathan expected it. He's okay with it. He really is. He knows that Teddy loves him. He doesn't have to say it out loud.
"Te amo."
Jonathan's breath catches. Teddy reaches up and cradles Jonathan's face in his hands.
"Te amo, Jonathan Pine. Te amo mucho. Te adoro. Te necesito. Tienes mi corazón. Para siempre."
I love you, Jonathan Pine. I love you so much. I adore you. I need you. You have my heart. Forever.
Tears burn in Jonathan's eyes. Here is Teddy—Eduardo, on his knees and looking up at Jonathan like he is holy. Not like he's damaged goods, but like he's something worth having. Something worth keeping.
"Para siempre," he whimpers back. "Forever."
Eduardo climbs right into Jonathan's lap and kisses him. He kisses him and kisses him and kisses him like the whole world can be remade by it. Like all their scars can be healed. All the horrors erased. Like they can start again, rewrite the stars and repaint the sky the color of their love for each other.
"I love you," Eduardo breathes into his mouth.
"I love you," Jonathan finally exhales. "Forever."
"Para siempre."