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His face.

Warm. It was warm, and it had weight. There was a palm along his jaw and fingers at his temple and a thumb on his cheekbone and every nerve Leo had forgotten he owned lit up under the contact.

He heard himself make a sound.

“I’ve got you.”

Nate. Nate was kneeling in front of him. When had he— it didn’t matter. His hand was on Leo’s face and his eyes were dark and enormous and fixed on him. His thumb moved, one slow stroke along Leo’s cheekbone and Leo all but melted into the touch.

“I’ve got you,” Nate said again, bringing his second hand up to Leo’s face as if it was a normal thing he could do. His palms were rough. Leo could feel his calluses against his skin and he almost sobbed.

“How,” he asked, voice sounding wrecked even to his own ears. He didn’t care. Dignity was for people who weren’t experiencing touch for the first time in fifty years.

“Don’t worry about that.”

“But you’re touching me.”

“Yeah.”

“You’re touching me.”

“I know.” Nate’s voice wasn’t steady either. He rested his forehead against Leo’s in a gesture that was so impossibly affectionate that Leo’s eyes went hot.

He was crying, but he couldn’t wipe his tears because if he moved, if he breathed wrong, if the world noticed what was happening in this room, it would take it back.

Nate wiped his tears for him.

Leo broke.

He fell into Nate and held on with everything he had, fists bunching in the medium’s shirt, actually finding grip as he sobbed and felt Nate’s arms close around him.

He could hear Nate’s pulse going fast, feel his breath stir his hair.

“Don’t let go,” Leo said it like a prayer. “Don’t let go.”

Nate didn’t. His arms held on tight, one hand spread between Leo’s shoulder blades and the other in his hair. Leo pressed his face into the curve of his neck. Once again smelling sawdust and coffee and something bitter. Nate’s chest rose and fell against him, alive, alive and holding him.

Time passed with each breath, and for once, Leo felt every second of it.

Slowly, very slowly, he stopped shaking.

And eventually he lifted his head to look at the man who’d just smashed through all his barriers.

Nate’s face was mere inches from his, his eyes wet and furious as they locked on Leo’s.

“Don’t you ever,” Nate said, low, “think you’re not worth remembering. Not ever again. I don’t care what the whole world doesn’t know. I know you.”

Leo didn’t think.

He kissed him.

Or Nate kissed him. Afterward he was never able to say who moved first, only that Nate’s lips were hot and rough and real, and Leo made another little sound that he couldn’t define as his fingers twisted in Nate’s shirt.

There was a faint bitterness on the medium’s lips, but even that was perfect. Made the whole thing seem less like a dream. Leo chased the taste with his tongue—and this time it was Nate who made a sound. A deep one.

His hand came up to Leo’s jaw again and tilted him, gently, into a slower kiss.

Fifty years, Leo thought, hazily. Fifty years, and the dark, and the whispering, and though he could not remember much of his life, he was sure he had never been kissed like this. In a lit room. By someone unashamed.