Cairo feels Zayir’s gaze at his back. He feels the shiver that races up his spine, knowing that the other Arete pursues him. Zayir is an arrow swift, silent, cutting through the air. Cairo anticipates the moment of impact.
Cairo could count the seconds - if he could be bothered - that it takes for his companion to reach him. It is not long, yet longer than the avian stallion expected. Zayir affords him enough time to seduce another, to engage them for a night (Cairo’s first night in decades). The scent of his partner’s perfume, the touch of their skin, it is so different from the must of the catacombs. The violins are a far cry from the rattling bones buried with him deep beneath the earth.
Lazily Cairo moves with his partner, his body as graceful as the arch of a palm tree undulating in the midsummer’s breeze. There is an alcohol smile upon his lips. It is hot with the liquor, hazy with the high. His veins hum, hypnotic. His kohl lashes close over his golden eyes as he sinks into the feel of satin skin against satin skin. Ah, to be awake again - to be alive.
His partner’s eyes search his and when they arrive the smile is already gone. Cairo gazes at them with the scolding heat of the sun. It is uncomfortable. It is sharp, an avian beak pecking uncomfortably kisses along his partner’s throat.
And then the song ends and Zayir’s arrow lands at last. It’s strike is a burst of adrenaline. Yet Cairo’s heavy lidded gaze does not widen as it lazily turns toward his fellow Arete. Leonine, he watches Zayir, his former partner forgotten as they fall in step together. Their dance is like fighting, like loving. Their flanks brush, the touch electric, static dancing along his nerves. His crown of feathers tremble in their hues of midnight blue and golden stars.
Slowly he breathes out and it feels more intimate than it should ever be. Zayir speaks and oh how Cairo has missed that voice. “Careful, Zayir, or I might get the impression you have missed me.” A wicked smile darkens the corner of his gilded lips, deepening to burnished sunset.
A chill slithers down the joints of his spine as Zayir’s wing trails along the dip of his back. Aquiline eyes give nothing of his delight away as he tilts his head, his voice a purr, “If I minded, it does not matter, you are already here.” Then, stepping in, until they are breast to breast, his lips tip up to the curve of Zayir’s ear. The fine gilded leaves of his laurel leaf tremble with his breath and the words that trip off his tongue, “Was a look not enough for you, Companion?”
I thought you might have been dead.
They are the words Cairo does not say, for to speak them, to let their truth be known would be to turn his eyes from gold to stoney grey. Darkness, sadness, violence, anger, betrayal, they all broil together in the depths of his gaze and the weighted line of his downturned lips.
@Zayir
