3.1 | six ways to sunday ✓

10

ONE YEAR LATER

THE BEST KIND OF LOVE TAKES TIME. It takes months, years, decades—entire calendars filled with small memories of first kisses and cups of coffee and small arguments. Julian believes that love is just like honey: thick and golden, like the feeling where he's slowly floating out of his universe and falling into someone else's. Love is slow—patient. It lingers behind the rhythm of heartbeats and the faltering of footsteps, until one day, he realizes that he'll do anything for his soulmate. Until one day, he realizes that he'd really love to find out whether or not his lover looks just as sleepy in the morning as he does in the few hours before midnight. Until one day, he realizes that he's instinctively buying snacks and clothes that aren't truly meant for him.

And then there's a different kind of love—quieter, softer, protective. It's reserved for special people, the people that he watched grow up and fall down and get back up again with blood streaming down from scrapes from learning how to ride a bicycle. This love is beautiful, too. It reminds him of a flower, always growing and growing until it reaches the sun. It's warm.

Maybe that's the beauty of love: the endlessness of it. How there's no end or beginning, and Julian thinks maybe he'll spend the rest of eternity figuring out the timeline.

Maybe.

***

Clarke, Julian learned, suffers from nightmares. They're not the silent ones anymore where he just shakes violently with tremors—no, they're full-bodied and intense and scary and so frightening that Julian's heart aches every time. The demon hasn't fed in a while and therefore had to shift into his human form just to remain sane, hair transforming into a duller shade of midnight but still just as beautiful.

But—nightmares. Nightmares. They're an ugly thing, all deformed with claws out until Julian's positive Clarke can't even breathe anymore. It starts when the boy murmurs something underneath his breath (they share one bed now), voice strained and tinged with wretched sorrow. Instinctively, Julian curls his hands around Clarke's palms—like now—and mutters sweet things into his ear: I'm here, it's okay, I'm here, baby, I'm here, please don't cry I'm here I'm here I'm here everything's okay you're okay.

It's been a year, and while Julian's body has healed, Clarke's soul hasn't. It takes time, but they have enough of it, so they'll be okay. Because he loves him more than moonlight, and Julian knows his soulmate is the strongest person—and demon—he knows.

"Clarke," Julian whispers, fingertips travelling to the boy's cupid's bow and pressing lightly to wake him up from his dark trance. His skin is hot, humid, hectic; there's perspiration glistening on the tops of both dark brows, almost as if he's drenched in a cold sweat. "Clarke, sweetheart, wake up. Wake up."

He watches quietly as Clarke's eyelids flutter open gently as if his lashes are regal butterflies, and he watches as Clarke sucks in a pained breath, scans Julian's body to make sure he's okay, and buries his head into the crook of the angel's neck. His breaths are panicked—too hot. Burning. "What?" the demon croaks out, dry lips brushing the skin of Julian's collarbones. "M'okay, m'okay, I promise—time? What time is it?"

Julian melts, fingers weaving into Clarke's glossy hair and breathing in his sandalwood, sea salt scent with just a hint of fresh danger. His ring feels light on his left hand, the platinum still shining amidst the dark, a reminder that they're bonded both spiritually and mortally. "Just past two," he says back, still so sleepy but worried. So, so worried. It's one day at a time: one day to process, the next day to recover, the third day to fall in love all over again. One day at a time. "What did you dream about? Talk to me?"