"Mmm," he says lazily, snuggling closer. "Has it? I wasn't keeping track."

"Time sense. Vampire perk, not just me. But - over the next few hours - there is a best time to get dressed, and apparently it's in a minute and a half." (Nuzzle, nuzzle.) "I can only assume between the elapsed week and that fact that Her Majesty shows up a bit after that."

"Well, remind me to magic up some clothes, then," he says. The lace nightie he arrived wearing is in pieces around the room, and no two of the pieces are touching.

"Some of my things might fit you, too," Nathan says, "but sure, babe." He picks up his mate one-armed and starts rifling through his closet.

"Dunno if any of it's to your taste, of course." Nathan picks a flannel and a pair of jeans, but the minute and a half hasn't fully elapsed yet, so he doesn't set the Joker down to put either on yet.

"Most of it isn't," he says cheerfully.

(Nuzzle nuzzle nibble nibble, immunity to venom and a defense against the effects of the taste having been taken care of days ago.) "I don't have strong opinions about my wardrobe. I just get simple things."

"I'll make you pretty things," says the Joker, hugging him again. "'Cause you're pretty."

"You're pretty," Nathan returns. One more squeeze, just enough to crack a rib or two, and he sets him down on the mattress and shimmies into his jeans and shrugs on the flannel.

"You're such a sweetie," he says affectionately, and snaps his fingers for theatrics, and is abruptly dressed. It's the old Joker getup, purple suit and green vest and blue shirt. And a knife in his pocket, because really, he's hardly dressed without one.

Sure enough, there is presently a knock at the door.

"Come in," calls Nathan, sitting down on the mattress beside the Joker.

The doors do actually lock, more to tell would-be entrants when they're welcome than to actually keep anyone determined out. But of course she's got all the keys. Bella lets herself in. "It's been a week," she says mildly to her mint.

"I'm sure. Well, that's all," she says, inspecting the chain. "Thank you."

"See you in... I think a week and a half," she says. "Thereabouts." She waves and closes the door behind her.

"Now what?" Nathan inquires, insinuating.

"Now," he says, grinning, "I think we ruin these nice clothes I just made."

"More squares where that came from," says Nathan, and he pounces.

"Capital's not moving for another week, so if you mean now, then - well, yes. Always. Where to? Trains, planes, or automobiles?"

"Dunno yet," he says reflectively. "Let's hit the road and then see."

"You going to conjure me the Princess's golden bubbly as needed or should I fill up from the slaughterhouse before we go?"

"The gold stuff's tastier, right?" he says. "I'll magic it up for ya."

"Dramatically tastier, yeah, thanks babe. Better than human average, not better than singer," says Nathan.

"Babe," says Nathan, "I found a singer two times in my life, and if you get even that tasty, let alone better, you will never be able to pry my teeth out of you even by asking nicely, even if I keep my air filter, without magic. That kind of thing competes on a level with mate bonds. The Empress is alive because the the Emperor was already thoroughly into self-denial when he ran into her and anyone else would've eaten his mate."

"Well, it'd be delicious and bitey," says Nathan.

Nathan puts on his jeans from yesterday's brief meeting with the Empress (basically intact) and a new polo shirt (the flannel is hopeless) and cheerfully follows his mate's lead.

And a-wandering they go.

"If we're going to leave Safesun and walk to Jacksonville or wherever," says Nathan as they approach its edges, "I need daywalking clothes at a minimum - big stupid hat, sleeves past my fingertips - magic disguise barring that. This little problem being why Safesun is called that."

"I can magic you unsparkly," shrugs the Joker. "And make it so you can turn it on and off at will. Would that be nice?"

"That would be very nice," agrees Nathan.

"Vampire thing. We get renovated a little when we turn. Her Majesty's prettier than that alt of hers," Nathan points out. "I don't remember much about being a human but I remember being surprised when I saw my reflection for the first time after I changed. Said, 'Wait, I've always been the ugliest cuss this side of the Abyss.'"

"How'd it come to be cut up like that, anyway? I mean, I don't mind, but I'm magically besotted, I wouldn't be a bit less inclined to jump you if you didn't have a face."

"Bit far to go for a persona," observes Nathan.

"Not for me," he says, with his wide, crooked grin.

"I suppose you must like them or you'd've wished them away by now."

"I do," he says happily. "I love all my scars. Some of 'em would really make you sad, though, if I told you how I got 'em."

"My scars all have the same story. 'Fought with a vampire, he got his teeth into me'. Occasionally a 'she'. I wasn't so good with my timer in the early days, and now I don't get into fights. D'you want me to know your stories?"

He shrugs. "Do you want to hear 'em?"

"Well, on the one hand, they're about you, on the other hand they will apparently make me sad. I don't know. I don't think there's any good way for me to eat the people responsible, is there? Her Majesty would object, my eyes wouldn't match my hair color anymore, and also I imagine they're all in that other world."

"They're in that other world, you probably couldn't get there, if you did you probably couldn't find most of 'em, some of the rest are dead, and some of the rest of the rest I wouldn't want you to," says the Joker. "So all around, nope. No eating everybody who's ever fucked me over."

"Alas. I would, though, you know."

"I know you would, sweetie," he says affectionately. "And I like that you would. But I don't need you to do it."

"That's good, because it would be so inconvenient."

"I'm good at when," says Nathan, and then, "On a scale of days, this is a good time to ask about the one on your ankle and the set of them on your chest."

"...Oh."

"Oh, honey," he says with immense fondness. "Let me tell you about this lady. She hates my guts, for one thing, I'm everything she thinks is wrong with the world. Nnnot exactly a happy relationship. I wrote her a love letter that involved blowing up a hospital and setting her best friend's boyfriend on fire; she chased me up a half-built office building and then threw me off the top floor. Caught me halfway down, that's where I got the scar on my ankle. And that's what passed for good times with us. She left me hanging there for the cops to find, and I never saw her again."

"...And this makes her the love of your life."

"Sure it does," he says. "She's beautiful. Incorruptible. I'll always love her. But I don't really need to see her again. I could've gone back and forth with her like that for the rest of my life if Stella hadn't grabbed me away, but I'd rather be where I am."

"I'm glad you like it here," says Nathan. "With me." He squeezes his mate's hand. Just a little. Then a little more. "You're the love of my life, I knew it the instant I saw you."

"Mm," he says happily, squeezing back as hard as he can. "I love you too, sweetie."

The Joker laughs, and kisses him, and sets about demonstrating that right this second, Nathan is exactly the person he wants. In every possible sense.

Well, good. Humans don't have such good memories anyway. Maybe he'll forget all about her after long enough if Nathan tries - very - hard.

That is never going to work, but oh, are his efforts ever appreciated.

After some time, they resume their hike Jacksonvilleward. "What do you want to do when we get to Jacksonville?" Nathan asks.

"Not sure," he muses. "Wander around, see what's going on. If we don't find anything better to do, we can always get a hotel room."

"I do have a fair amount of decent imperial pay socked away," says Nathan. "I don't buy much, normally."

"Aren't you handy," he says fondly.

"I'd say call me sugar daddy, but you actually might, and I don't in fact find it appealing, I like sweetheart and honey better," says Nathan cheerfully.

He laughs. Maybe more than the joke strictly deserves.

"Am I funnier than even I think I am?" asks Nathan.

"Yep," says the Joker.

"Oh, good." Kisses! Handholding! And, after a long, long walk, Jacksonville!

"Not my favorite city. I like Castletown. Fond of Dublin, on days when the time's been ripe for getting away with it. Jaipur is nice, there's a capital near Jaipur, I think it's next on the itinerary when they're done in Safesun."

"Never been to any of those, either," says the Joker. "I don't even know where they are, except for Dublin."

"Castletown's on the Isle of Man, where I'm from, right between Britain and Ireland. Jaipur's in India."

"We should go see those sometime," he says. "And New York. You guys don't have a Gotham, I'm pretty sure, but New York City's the next best thing."

"I've never heard of a Gotham, and I've memorized some reasonably fine-grained maps," agrees Nathan, "but New York's good. I've only been there once. I didn't use to cross the ocean that frequently; had to defend my little island territory and couldn't typically afford more than a quick hop to tweak Siobhan's nose or annoy one of the Brits who have their island so overrun with vampires. There's a couple dozen of them with the place carved up, not that territory means much of anything anymore."

"I'll tell you about Gotham sometime, too," he says comfortably. "What is up with Siobhan, anyway?"

"She's a witch, got a..." Vague gesture. "Planning power. It's subtle, she didn't know she had it until Addy copied it. She's claimed the island of Ireland for herself - wiped out all the other vampires on it, she's amazing in a fight, eventually she added a mate and a coven sister and now she allows the coven sister's wife and their kid who's turned to live there and tolerates visits from assorted friends, but I used to drop by before it was allowed. Long as I'm good about asking my timer, she can't catch me, or at least never did it. So she doesn't like me so I'm still not allowed. She's friends with Her Majesty and she's one of the people who could take over whether Her Majesty liked it or not, so Her Majesty lets her have her immigration controls on her island."

"I don't think she'll be impressed."

"Well, if that's what you want to do I think I'd go through Maggie, she's the coven sister but she and the wife live in a little house now, not with Siobhan and her mate. Maggie's a lie detector, if we swore up and down we meant no mischief she might be able to talk Siobhan into it. If she likes you. She won't be at all inclined if she doesn't like you. She's reasonably neutral about me."

"Lie detector, huh? Fun," the Joker says brightly. "We can do that sometime too."

Nathan grins at him. It's a very sappy sort of grin.

Nathan consults his memory. "I have never been paid that exact compliment," he determines finally. "Thanks."

"What if you run out, though?" asks Nathan in mock distress.

"Bet you I wooooon't," he singsongs, grinning.

"In all of forever? You might have to learn a lot of languages," laughs Nathan.

"Guess we'll see, huh?"

Well, that's just adorable, Nathan has to hug him now.

The Joker hugs him back. Mm, snuggly. Despite the fact that it's like hugging a concrete pillar.

"Ooh," says the Joker. "Let's scandalize them!"

"How d'you want to scandalize them, babe? It's a hotel, I think they're used to giggling couples getting rooms."

"That a challenge, sweetheart?"

"Mm, I bet you could do it, but mostly I'm just itching to know how," Nathan says, nuzzling his mate's neck.

"We could fuck in the elevator," is the first plan that springs to mind.

"We could get arrested," Nathan points out. "Fucking in elevators isn't a charge I can get out of via hidden law."

"Getting arrested's not that big a deal for me," he says cheerfully. "If you don't wanna, though, that's fine."

"I don't think they'd put us in the same jail cell," Nathan points out, "and I'd be in Imperial type trouble if I clawed my way out."

The Joker pats Nathan's shoulder fondly.

"Any non-arrest-inducing ideas, babe?"

"Where's the fun in that?" he teases.

"In all the subsequent time we get to spend, not being arrested, in a hotel room," purrs Nathan. "That's where."

"Oh, honey, I lllike the way you think."

The Joker smiles beatifically.

By the time they get to the hotel room, he has managed to reduce Nathan to a growly puddle of want. The key card gets them in and then there is pouncing.

He loves Nathan's pouncing, he really really does. He also loves the way it feels when his bones unbreak themselves.

Nathan loves him. Loves that he can be careless, loves the way he can make him make all those noises, loves him like burning.

Well, there's disturbance of the peace, but they'd get a warning first, and they'd find all the participants uninjured if they insisted on having a closer look, so that's all right. How many screams does it take to get to the center of the Jacksonville Police Department? (Doesn't matter, the results will be invalid; Nathan got impatient and bit.)

"Love you too, baby," he says, snuggling up.

"It's a gorgeous colour," he says, and leans up to kiss Nathan's forehead. "I should make you a shirt that colour."

The Joker giggles softly, waits for Nathan to hang up, and then kisses him.

Mmm kisses.

"Did I give you a tummyache?" he inquires between kisses.

"Worth it," Nathan asserts.

It is indeed not long. "Not so fragile today, babe?" Nathan asks half a second after hauling his mate into their motel room en route to New York, squeezing his hand. "Don't feel like getting broke?"

"Thought I'd try it out," he says, squeezing back. "See what it's like when I'm less squishable."

"Well," says Nathan, "I guess it's like this," and they proceed to have unusually painless nookie.

"That was nice," the Joker concludes, cuddling up to him afterward. "I wouldn't want it like that every time, but it was nice."

"Whatever you like, babe," says Nathan comfortably.

"I love you more."

He shakes his head and laughs.

"Well, it's true. I don't mind, though," says Nathan, (nuzzle nuzzle), "long as you do love me back."

"How do you know?" he says. "And why do you want to? Where's this comparison coming from?"

Nathan considers this. "Have you been magicking your brain without telling me?" he asks. "'Cause if you haven't - pretty much a consensus for anyone who's been in love before and after turning, human brains couldn't hold a mate bond even if they had nothing else in 'em. Marcus says it too, he sees -" vague gesture - "relationships, he's thousands of years old, lots of chances to make observations."

"So," he translates, amused, "I can't love you that much 'cause I'm too stupid?"

"Enh, not the word I'd use. Vampires're faster, more capacious, but not more - creative, insightful, we just do more of whatever we were doing before we turned, per second. Smart human is an encyclopedia and a stupid vampire's a big old library of insipid high-def reality television shows. Technically more information in the second one, first is the better reference book."

The Joker giggles.

"Like, Her Majesty's bodyguard - Renata - she's dull as a post. She can, say, find prime numbers in her head better than some computers and better than any human even if you give the human pen and paper, but that's not smart, she's still dull as a post. But she's a post with lots of room in her dull-as-a-post head to fall hard for some dull-as-a-post mate if she ever runs into the right person."

"I love you, sweetie," he says fondly.

"I love you, babe."

"Guess what," he chirps.

"You've won the lottery and we're retiring to the Isle of Wight to raise chickens?" asks Nathan brightly.

Mmm. Squishable. Some squishing should happen, then.

Mmmm. Squishing.

Her Majesty meets them on the side of the highway they're tracing north, teleporting there at a moment when no cars are going by. "Hello again," she says.

"Anything for me to pick up today?" she inquires.

"Yep," he says, and squares her the whole selection again. "Have you been putting 'em to good use?"

"I teleported here, didn't I?" she asks lightly.

"So you did," he agrees. "Anything else?"

"A variety of things great and small. My sister Rosalie is at long last expecting a baby," she offers.

He claps his hands together and beams. "Aww, good for her!"

"She's very pleased. It was her least favorite thing about being a vampire, that she couldn't have one."

"Then I'm happy for her," he says. "That's sweet. You're sweet."

"Thank you. What have you been up to?"

"The very reason I'm still on newly-mated leave," says Nathan, grinning. "The very reason."

"Is your newly-mated leave going to stop?" inquires the Joker. "'Cause let me tell ya, the sex ain't."

"He gets six weeks of no non-emergency work," says Bella. "Then he's on the job again. I'll do my best to accumulate questions in batches, the way I do for Maggie when it's not urgent, so you can block off time to talk instead of being interrupted."

"I can do it while you're sleeping," Nathan says, kissing the Joker's cheek.

"Okay," he says, and smiles, and hugs Nathan.

"Conveniently, I haven't had any emergency timing needs lately. I'll leave you to the rest of your newly-mated leave," says Bella, and she waves.

"Congratulate your sister for me," he says, waving back.

"Sure." And she teleports away.

"And everyone was so worried you wouldn't get along," scoffs Nathan.

"Confounding expectations is fun," the Joker says cheerfully.

"Is something going to change when she's gotten to expect you to be all well-behaved, then?"

"Nope," he says. "'Cause I do get along with her."

"Well, that's good then. It's never fun when the new mate and the old friends don't like each other."

Grinning, the Joker kisses him.

Mmm kisses. There are some trees next to this here highway...

Ooh. Trees. They should go have sex against one!

Why, that's exactly what Nathan was thinking!

The tree may be somewhat the worse for wear after all this.

To be honest, the Joker is a little surprised when all is said and done (well, mostly done) and the tree is still standing.

"Didn't want to knock it onto the highway and cut off a lane of traffic," Nathan says when he sees the surprise on his mate's face. "Besides, it was serving as cover from prying eyes."

"You're so thoughtful," he giggles.

"Always, babe."

He fixes their clothes with a square, and they're on the road again.

[Hi, Emmett!] he says brightly. [Awwwwww, congrats to all three of ya.]

[Hey, as long as I have you on the sort-of-a-phone, Nathan's New Mate, have you got an actual name? Bella just keeps calling you "the joker", like it's your title or something,] Emmett says.

[Nope,] he says serenely. [You can call me the Joker too if you want. Or you can call me something else.]

[We'll put it on the list,] he says, grinning.

"Of all the stuff we're gonna do sometime," he says. "Like ask to get into Ireland, and see Castletown and Jaipur. That list."

"I should be asking the timer about those, shouldn't I?"

"If you wanna," he says serenely. "No rush."

"Mm." (Nuzzle nuzzle.) "Even on a scale of years, though, turns out the best time to go meet little Henry for the first time is in four days."

"Then let's do that," he says, nuzzling back.

"All right. I wonder how they cooked him up. If they turned Rosalie into a human for the duration, or a half-vampire, or just left her as-is plus whatever tweaks. Probably not nice to ask."

"We could ask Goldie next time we see her," he suggests.

"Goldie?" Pause. "Oh, Her Majesty? I suppose. She might not have done it herself, she might have just given Rosalie and Emmett the wishes."

"True," he agrees, "but she'll have a good guess on whether it'd be rude to ask them directly."

"You're right," agrees Nathan.

Whimsically, "When's a good time to ask her?"

"In - two weeks, I'm going to guess that's when she comes by for more coins," says Nathan. "So, after we meet Henry."

He laughs. "Okay."

"Her Majesty doesn't like being interrupted, so perhaps she's about to have a busy two weeks - or an unbusy two weeks, so she takes a lot of spare hours and goes off with her mate and really doesn't want to take calls," speculates Nathan.

The Joker giggles.

"Ah, mated vampires and their insatiable fascination with their mates," says Nathan, as though he is not just such a vampire.

"Yeah, you're one to talk," he says fondly.

"Ah, all those other mated vampires are fascinated by their mates, whereas I have the superior taste to be fascinated by mine instead."

"See any more trees?"

Nathan looks around at the dense tree-lining along the highway. "Gosh," he says, "not a one, we must have wandered into a desert when I was distracted by your loveliness?"

He beams. Not innocently. Not innocently at all.

Nathan picks him up and hustles him behind the nearest, sturdiest tree.

The Joker is going to remember this tree with great fondness.

They don't really make a lot of northward progress over the next four days, and then Nathan says, "Timer says now, for going to meet Henry, do you want to just teleport us to Jaipur?"

"Sure," he says, laughing, and spends a pentagon. They appear in an unoccupied room in the appropriate capital.

Rosalie kisses Henry on the forehead. "Thank you! Isn't he perfect? And he's all mine and Emmett's, and we thought we'd never - well, I do have you to thank for that, don't I, in a roundabout way?"

"Guess you do," he says. Cheerfully, "You're welcome!"

The Joker holds little Henry and cuddles him and makes even sillier faces than Nathan, and listens gravely to the burbling he gets in reply.

He giggles, and doesn't do anything about the nose. He'll just grow a new one, right?

The Joker progresses from making silly faces at Henry to making silly noises at him. He is enjoying himself tremendously.

Henry makes noises right back, babbling like a champ and uttering occasional words such as "up". A fair fraction of his words are not in English and the Joker may be forgiven for not recognizing them.

He giggles.

"He is," says the Joker, tapping the baby's nose.

There is further cooing over Henry, and then Henry says "thirsty", pronouncing the word quite clearly, and Rosalie takes him back to offer him a bottle of Elspeth's golden bubbly, which he sucks down greedily, and Nathan leaves her be, motioning for the Joker to follow.

Those are definitely the best parts.

"I love pink," the Joker declares.

"Then I am so glad there is a capital here so we have a reason to be in it, or I would've taken ages to think of Jaipur as a place we might choose to go out of all the cities in the world," laughs Nathan.

The Joker giggles and kisses him.

Mmm kisses. Always more than welcome.

"Love you, baby," he murmurs.

"Love you too, babe."

"Mm... best time to leave Jaipur's in fifteen minutes, best time to arrive in New York's in fifteen minutes plus a second."

"Kiss you delirious against this lamppost."

Nathan looks around. "Yeah? Where are we?"

"I don't remember the street," he says. "But you wouldn't believe the number of blowjobs I've given in that alley."

"I used to be a hooker," he explains carelessly. "Did I not say?"

"It has not come up, no."

"Not my favorite fun fact of the day."

"Why?"

Nathan shrugs helplessly. "I'm hardly one to talk. I was - married with kids, before I turned, at least I think they were my kids, everything before waking up ravenous is hazier than Beijing. But mate bond doesn't wanna share, not even retroactively."

"I'll do my best, then."

"Well, I don't know about fixing the core problem, but it'll soothe the immediate symptoms pretty damn well," says Nathan, brightening.

Best alley ever.

It is among the Joker's favourites, for sure!

After the alley has been used for its traditional purpose, Nathan says, "So what else should we see around here, babe? Show me the sights."

"Wonder if you've got a version of my old house here," he muses. "Let's find out."

They head for the relevant location.

"Is that a good thing or a bad one?" says Nathan, looking his mate over assessingly.

He shrugs. "Dunno. It just is. Well, it wouldn't be my house in my world, either; I burned the place down when I left."

"How come?"

"Was it architecturally offensive or am I going to hate this story?"

"You're gonna hate this story," he says, and gives Nathan a quick midstride hug.

"Oh."

"We can save it for later if you want."

"...Scale of days, this is a good time, probably because it'll bother me not to know."

"My father was a nasty piece of work," he says serenely. "A few of my scars are from him. So when I was fifteen or so, I blew up the house with him in it."

Nathan stops in his tracks to give the Joker a proper and stationary hug.

"I love you, and if that'd been your house, I'd be hard pressed not to break in and destroy whatever facsimile of your father might've lived there."

"With luck, there will never be anyone quite that accessible who I want to kill for you."

He hugs him some more.

"But if you don't want me to kill such people, at least point them out so I can report them to Her Majesty and get them blacklisted from immortality?" Nathan asks hopefully. "Then we can just outlive them."

He laughs. "Sure, okay."

Nuzzle nuzzle. They resume walking.

"Sure," says Nathan. "If you have someplace in mind I can come up with when to ask about obtaining it."

"Well, let's wander around and see what we run into."

Wandering - and possibly more ducking into alleys, as alleys present themselves - ensues!

"...Babe, you know my shiny gold credit card and the account connected to it could get us a nice place, even in Manhattan, right?"

"None of the amenities common to nice places really make a difference to me, but I'm puzzled about why you don't."

"Mm, I don't care that much," he says.

"I suppose magic can cover for whatever's wrong with any place we wind up with as long as we hide the non-Euclidean storage space when the landlord drops by. But - landlord sounds annoying, let's get a condo, let's own the place, not have to negotiate to be able to paint or put in a picture window or whatever."

The Joker grins. "Sure, okay."

Nuzzle nuzzle. Further wanderings.

Definitely.

However shall they celebrate?

They could christen every room in their condo. Purely for celebratory purposes. Yes.

Nate shrugs. "D'you want one? I'm comfy on any surface and don't sleep."

"...Did you ever have this much sex?" Nathan asks, moseying bedward. "I didn't think that was something nonmagical humans could do."

Nathan approves of this change!

Nathan has nothing he would rather do than hold his mate, all night long.

Nathan supervises for a while, but sewing doesn't have an intrinsic interest for him. At a good moment, he says, "I'm gonna go scope out our neighborhood, babe, I'll be back in half an hour or so."

"Have fun," he says absently, and blows Nathan a kiss before he goes back to cutting fabric.

Nathan's back half an hour later and he leans over the Joker, peering at the garment taking form.

"Gorgeous," comments Nathan.

Nathan peers at his sleeves. "Can I get a mirror?" he asks archly.

He conjures a full-length mirror attached to a nearby wall.

Nathan strikes a pose, and then another pose, mugging for his audience. "I am certainly a specimen," he says.

"You're beautiful," he sighs. "Now take that off so it doesn't get hurt when I drag you to bed and fuck you silly."

Unbutton unbutton unbutton. Deliberately slow and teasing. (There might be winking involved.)

"Sweetheart," he murmurs, leaning forward in his sewing chair.

The shirt is slid off. Nathan pauses to fold it, smirking.

Nathan traces that scar with one chilly finger, and the one on the Joker's neck, too.

"Yeah," he murmurs. "Those two. Well, I told you I usedta be a hooker, right?"

"Yeah?"

"So," he shrugs, "when I was sixteen or so, one guy made an offer he didn't want me to refuse. I told him to fuck off, he pulled a knife. I wasn't so scary in those days." He touches the scar on his neck. "Bad news for him, a knife to my throat doesn't mean shit." Then he sighs, and drops his hand. "Bad news for me, he got what he wanted anyway. I'm okay about it now, but for a while I wasn't."

Nathan hugs his mate very, very snugly. Not hard enough to break him, but just shy of that.

The Joker snuggles into Nathan's arms.

"You'd tell me if you ever didn't want - anything," says Nathan, "wouldn't you? I've gotten to the point where I start throwing you around without textbook verbal inquiries first - and - there are known cases of mate bonds being very confused when they're not reciprocated, although those were ones aimed at hybrids, we think the bond doesn't know what to do with a hybrid, a vampire will always have a symmetrical copy and a human it expects to be able to turn at least eventually but hybrids throw it off - but - you'd tell me. Wouldn't you?"

"I'd tell you," he says, pressing a gentle kiss to Nathan's cheek. "Promise."

"And if I ever do appear to be confused please feel perfectly free to wish me to Antarctica. I will eat penguins and be confused and I will not be able to hurt you. I couldn't stand it if I hurt you."

"I love you too."