Men will tell you they love you when they fuck you and it means nothing. It's a lesson Illario learned when he started his training. They love your ass, they love they that a pretty thing has given them the time of day, they love the validation. But Jim isn't one of those people. Jim isn't a man like that. Even with the aphrodisiac humming in his veins, enough of his own sense remains to take it to heart.

Jim loves him.

Jim Kirk loves him.

He might have died and found himself in the Golden City as happiness rushes through him. Not bliss, not orgasmic ppleasure, but something that he has never heard and believed before now. Jim is kissing the breath from him, distracting Illario from the thrust of the other man's hips, and from the hot tears that run down his cheeks, unchecked and ablut to ruin the kohl around his eyes and the gold dust on his cheekbones.

Why it hits him so hard he doesn't know, but he buries his face as best as he can in Jim's shoulder and clings tightly, trying to hide those tears.

"I'm alright, amore. You would never hurt me."

He tries to control it, to shake it away, the emotion that bubbles up over him, bursting out. But how could he not cry, how could he fail to feel the overwhelming joy of it? He's loved. Not just by anyone, not by someone he doesn't love in return, but it's Jim. Jim, who he gives his heart to so freely. Jim, who he couldn't help but adore.

It takes a few seconds more, his nod is sure when it comes. He's okay, he really is. And if Jim meant to overwhelm him, he did so incredibly well, more so than anyone else ever has before. But Jim is so close, so safe, so comforting above him that the slower, gentle thrusts help, ease him back from hyperventilating and from sobbing. It's no longer a mad rut, a desperate need to be fucked and ruined. Now he feels... loved.

He shifts, as best he can, to nuzzle into Jim, lips against his jaw, kissing every bit of skin he can reach. He wants to be with this man, body and heart, still wants to give himself over entirely, but it's no longer mad with the aphrodisiacs. It's balanced, somehow, between desire and devotion.

"I love you, James Tiberius Kirk."

Letting go of any emotion is difficult, especially when you've been taught not to. Later, he'll be mortified about crying like that, but right now he's a mess of feelings - love and desire, that wonderful warmth of trust that fills him and leaves him bathed in that brilliant happiness- rather than writhing like a whore. He's certain the aphrodisiac is still having an effect, but it's better than it has ever been before. But is that because Jim is better than any man Illario has had before?

A faint flush appears on his cheeks when Jim says he'd do anything to make him feel better, but honestly, Illario can't imagine anything more incredible.

"You make me feel better than anyone else ever has," he manages, words coming out between the low noises of his pleasure, Jim still above him, careful, tender, but still buried in him, and Illario knows how close he is, feeling himself tottering on the edge of an orgasm.

It's the declaration, in perfect Antivan, and the shift of Jim's hips that tip him over, needing little else in this state to come apart at the seams for the man above him, gasping as his own hips jerk and jump without rhyme or reason, driving himself back onto Jim and letting the pleasure take him.

When Jim comes, the aphrodisiac rears it's head, Illario's bosy milking him for all he's worth, hips lifting and angling better, trying to keep Jim's pleasure going as long as possible, and the burst of orgasm prolonging Illario's own pleasure.

Illario's soft yesyesyes doesn't echo off the aquarium glass, it doesn't travel through the Lighthouse, but it pours over both of them, the way he shivers with it for Jim only.

"Oh amore-" he manages, breathing fast and hard, his blue eyes blown so dark there's almost no blue at all, trembling fingers stroking Jim's face.