Page 107 of Walking Wounded

“Yes.”

“Fuckingwhy?”

“Because I’m not going to be apart from you anymore. There’s nothing in the world I want more than you.”

If his legs weren’t jelly, Luke would get out of bed and pace. As it is, he rubs his eyes with the heels of his hands. “Jesus Christ. We haven’t even had sex yet. What if you hate it? What if you change your mind?”

“I won’t.”

“What if you…” He trails off when Hal curls his hands around his wrists and pulls him in close again, petting his hair like he’s an upset child. Which he sort of is in this moment.

Luke takes a deep, shuddering breath, sucks in the clean cotton smell of Hal’s shirt, and beneath that, his skin.

“I want to move to DC,” he says, and he realizes, when he says it, that he’d started wanting that well before Hal confessed that he loves him.

“I’ll do whatever you want,” Hal says, voice warm and sweet as honey.

“I want…” He thinks about his sad apartment, about the drudgery of his job, about being largely friendless and joyless, a trod-upon welcome mat of a human being in NYC. His voice catches. “Hal, I wanna come home.” To warm summers, and green grass, and Hal’s smile, sweet touches, and the happiness he lost somewhere along the way.

“Okay,” Hal says, and hugs him tight.

---