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Despite everything that life hadn’t seen fit to give Clementine—namely any sort of attraction of his own—he still wanted that. He wanted it so bone-deep that he’d never felt comfortable identifying as strictly asexual; even if he’d never had those feelings, he yearned for them. He wanted to feel that nearly-irresistible draw to another real person the way he did to fictional characters,
He wanted to want someone. A soulmate.
It’s like when you’re craving a certain ice cream but all you can find are the flavors you don’t enjoy, and you keep trying them hoping the next one might work out, but it never quite satisfies.”
“You’re a good little ally, Reggie,” Sissy cooed. “Now shut up and let the queers speak.”
Am I demi and gray-ace, or—” He wanted to say, or am I just a weird, broken asexual who’s wanting something so bad that he’s seeing it where it doesn’t exist,
“And even if I don’t fit a category, or what I think is my sexuality changes again—then there’s still nothing wrong with me?” Sissy’s voice went as warm as it was stable. “Whatever you are, Clementine, there’s nothing wrong with you.”
Those fantasies alone made Justin lightheaded and giddy, though, like he was fifteen again, learning what it felt like to have another boy breathe against his lips
All this time he’d thought he’d been yearning for the impossible, when he was simply… demisexual.
“If you didn’t have to be perfect, what would you be?” Dr. Clementine Hughes would be happy.
“My heart, for your pleasure.” Clem’s mouth parted against Justin’s touch with each word. “I told you I would peel back my ribs for you and I meant it.” Justin watched him with a tight inhale, then another. “Prove it, then.”
His anxiety still coursed under the surface, but, as he’d hoped, Justin had drowned it out with his skin and his smile, half bitterness and half honey.
Clementine was made to give himself away.
He kissed. Head tipping and body pressing forward, he caught whatever the vampire was about to say on his own tongue, tasting it with a ravenous delirium that shoved Clementine backward, thrusting him against the nearest table. There was no crossover, no hesitation,
As the kiss finally broke, they came apart in each other’s arms like half-shattered vases, their pieces intermingled.
We’re all living an existence we don’t deserve; we all have been given too much or too little and sometimes both at once. And wherever we can’t change that, we just have to do our best with it, to take care of those we love—and that should include ourselves. It has to include ourselves. We all deserve that, at least.”
“Just how much do you need me?” “Absolutely, excruciatingly, always.”
“Be with me, then.” Clementine smiled. “Always, and forever.”
