Cairo stands before him. He blocks Zayir’s path and alcohol is fanning his ire, his desperation. It fills him with the need to spread his wings forming a greater barrier to Zayir’s escape. Oh, anything to stop him leaving, anything to ease the ache in his soul, his bones. If he were in the catacombs, he would spread his wings, press them deep into the stone, a barrier to stop the gilded warrior ever leaving him. But, it is not Zayir who runs. It never is. Except for once and Cairo will make him remember it, over and over. He will fill Zayir up on guilt and hope he feels the pain of it as acutely as Cairo felt the agony of his leaving and how he fell into the arms of another man.
Zayir’s gaze turns hard and fierce. The gold of his face darkens, shadows drawing fiercely across him. It is the look of Cairo’s Commander, of a man used to being listened to upon the battlefield. His nape arches, his appearance turning godly. A shiver snakes its way violently down Cairo’s spine. He smiles at the way Zayir changes, at the way he sets himself against Cairo and this raging, twisting, rooted love between them. He smiles because he knows it is a front, because there is no place for such a look here, where the war is not for land or glory but love and need. “Commander,” Cairo purrs as the smile slips off his lips as suddenly as a stone dropping into the sea. It was a dig, a warning and he wonders how far it might sink through the armour Zayir has put up.
Zayir deflates, the thousand hurtful things upon his tongue held back by teeth and love. But not Cairo. Always he is the one to hurt and always his efforts hurt him more. But it is safer like this, to hurt others, before he becomes hurt. Or at least it usually is, until Zayir found his way into another man’s bed. The sting of it just will not abate. It festers within Cairo, like a wound earned upon the battlefield.
The wound is eased with the balm of Zayir’s answer. It should last longer than a few numbing moments, but it does not. The smile, however vindictive, however longing, is gone from Cairo’s lips and it does not return, not even with the confession of how much Zayir wants him. Yet his eyes soften, they darken, remembering their bodies pressed together, the weight of Zayir’s head upon his shoulder.
He has more questions, he always does. Each one an arrow straight into Cairo’s maelstrom of fears and desires. It cuts and scatters his thoughts and strikes true into his aquiline heart. Cairo judders with the agony of it. With each ask Zayir’s courage grows and he steps closer and closer until they are nose to nose, breath to breath. Their entities tangle, as they always have. Souls entwined, worlds colliding. Cairo does not waver. He stands bold as an eagle, his gaze trails over Zayir’s beautiful face.
“It’s not that.” Cairo breathes at last, his eyes trailing over Zayir’s face. To merely look is not enough. He reaches out to touch and his lips trail from Zayir’s brow, across his eye and down to his cheek. “You are too much for me, Zayir, and I am not enough for you.” Then, like a thief, he steals a kiss, pressing golden lips to golden lips. It is searing and raw and gone in a moment. Cairo flees with his stolen kiss, disappearing into the crowd.
But that isn’t as important of a question, as to why you always seem to leave. The question remains, aching, unanswered and yet fulfilled, like a prophecy.
@Zayir
