Twilight constant. The room is a celestial cradle, enveloping in secret two who have needed its nurturing. A cooling air breezes through the space, and the silver moon waxes brilliant platinum.
     Beside you, a man sleeps comfortably. His chin rests at your shoulder as he lies sprawled across your old bed as if he's lain next to you forever, claiming the space. His weight is supported by the down mattresses. One of his arms extends over your stomach, and the length of his body is pressed along your own.
     Michele could only rest after the second round of lovemaking. The weariness was evident in Giancarlo's eyes, but he pressed on for a third, the slowest of the night. He worried about your own tiredness, but after a long glance and evaluation, you seemed rather awake.
     The wind gusts pick up, and the body beside you moves again, moving closer despite the lack of anywhere to go. He inhales and exhales gently, biting his bottom lip unconsciously.

     There were so few instances where we could afford such a luxury as lying on the same pallet, god forbid a bed, smelling of ourselves and things that had come to pass. Sometimes in the wilderness, sometimes in the woods, a few times in my chalet. That is where we had agreed to meet. My chalet. To sleep on my furs. To be more then men who passed one another in the night. To do what we could not do at any other time together.
     Rest. Rest like this. To wake and to find you had taken over the bed, claimed it as much as myself. I could smile and grumble at it, my grumbles of no use because you knew how much I enjoyed it. Fruitless complaining.
     I did not find that familiarity, that laughter, that joy until I cooked orange mullet for a new friend. Giancarlo. We slept in my bed only once and then...
     Then he began to have these pains in the head. So much so I had to move my bed downstairs. I did it for him. I would do anything for him. So much, so fast, only a week or two, n'est-ce pas? And yet I gave as if I had been giving for a thousand years, loving for a thousand years.
     You were already there, Michele. You were looking for a friend, not Giancarlo. Where you found him, maybe that is happenstance. Maybe ... maybe his magic drew you, drew you because it would give you the ability to find me. Find me where your trail had gone cold.
     Thoughts, quick realizations, lightning conversations and an internal dialog causes Alire's eyes to open quickly. He blinks, several blinks to clear the waking mind, and then he turns his head to see you. Sleeping. That body, that face. The beloved Giancarlo. The beloved Michele. Sleeping. He looks to the ceiling, to the clouds moving overhead, the shining of the moon. Night time. His time. A wind lifts from...where? And you move in response to it.
     "Tesoro," Alire whispers. He hesitates to call you by name, what a trap that has been tonight. "Bello," he murmurs. Could he want more of you? Is this why the great form of your lover starts in motion?

     The body next to you wakes with a start. A jerk of the head upwards, eyes open, but not alert. Someone coming? A patrol? Late for prayers? A meeting? Why'd you let me sleep, Alire? We should never sleep, for they will take our lives if we are caught...
     Yet there is that voice. And no one is coming. I remember now. Your lover licks his lips, trying to shake the cobwebs from his eyes and the haze from his mind.
     "Alire," he smiles, comforted. The exhale is relief. It was no dream. "I am awake," he pronounces to the world...in Italian.

     A hand lays a touch upon you, gently. To still you, to comfort you, just to touch you. There is no cause for alarm. Even as you may be comforted by his touch, so too is he comforted by your Italian. Alire shifts, drawing you to him, closer if that is possible, a position where he might nuzzle, his mouth against your neck for that extra touch of comfort.
     "I did not mean to wake you," Alire murmurs in Italian, he smiles at your neck. You know he is lying. He did want to wake you a little. But just to doze again, more consciously doze rather than full-on sleep. "Soon, the sun will rise," he sighs it, he laments it. Still, in Italian. "I do not want to go to sleep without telling you that I love you, tesoro. And to have you hear it."
     Hear it to remember it. And when I go to sleep, will my spirit then wake? Will my soul and Michele's converse directly then? If only I could remember what happens. I only know that when I wake, I Am...
     "I love you, bello," Alire murmurs.

     The sun will rise. What does that mean? The sun will rise.
     Giancarlo turns over on his side to face you, still hard flushed at your side. "I love you, d'Avignon," he says in Italian again, speaking sleepily. A smile grows. "Always."
     If there is urgency to this, he is missing it. "We will sleep and then to prayers?"

     "We don't go to prayers anymore," Alire says, there is some finality to that. No, no more churches. "I pray in my home," he admits with a smile, "...but I no longer serve the church or go to mass." He brushes your face lightly with his hand, he leans in and kisses you.
     "Remember, when the sun rises," he murmurs, speaking to Giancarlo, hoping he is in there somewhere, "... I sleep fast and hard. Do not try to wake me. You are welcome to sleep with me, of course." He smiles a little. "But you do not have to."
     And he begins to question if giving a night to Michele was the smart thing to do. Now... where is his Caesar? Where is his Giancarlo? Where is the clever magician with the ready smile? What have you done, Alire d'Avignon?
     "That is the price I have to pay," he says it, "... for staying with you forever. There ... is always a price, bello." He insists upon Italian. Perhaps it will give his Giancarlo a foothold. A way back to him. "Always a price to pay." Alire does not smile now. He waits to see if you understand.

     "I remember," his voice says, still smiling. "I remember..." Giancarlo murmurs softly. "We will sleep through Mass," he says happily, not knowing the idea of 'sleeping in'. "You will come to me," Giancarlo says, "...and we will talk and pray then."
     Giancarlo leans in and kisses you on the cheek. The arm repositions, and in the movement, Giancarlo suddenly looks up at the ceiling.
     "It still goes?" he chuckles, slightly surprised.
     "I can...make you a sunset instead?" Giancarlo grins, snuggling closer.

     The laughter of my bello is like music...
     Alire smiles, he looks to the ceiling and then back to your face. You, beautiful. That, amazing. "Si... for hours now... through all we have done, beneath the dark sky and the eyes of God." His lips make a slant. Yes, he delights in that and in what you have done. The bed you have tossed together. The cries you made. You, moving on him, in him. And Ian's words come back to him.
     Explode...in the way you can. In him, with him, upon him...
     Alire smiles, looking back to you, away from the night sky. "Sunset would be nice. Maybe when the sun is a half-disc at the horizon," he murmurs, "...and the sky is pink and red and gold..." He makes a request and why not? His arms surround you, he pulls you in for a tight hold. You feel so solid. "I love the way you feel," he whispers a thought aloud. "Like solid, delightful earth." Alire grins against your skin. "Beware, I think I am catching my second wind..."
     Wouldn't this be more like his fourth wind?

     Giancarlo laughs softly, but it comes from his stomach, rich and full even in its quietude. "Sunset it is," he whispers, taking a moment to look oddly at his hand, as if it were unfamiliar to him. But he shakes his head and looks across the room for a moment, closing his eyes.
     "Seri illustrere."
     The clouds spin and whir, like a great machine has been started. The dark background moves away, flying across the sky in descent and taking the silver moon with it. Off the horizon, if the door can be called such, there now sits a haze of pink and peach, fading blue and mauve. The sun does not move, but as clouds roll in the creamy spaces of heaven, the colors of earliest morn shift and glow softly, frozen in the moment.
     From Giancarlo, a lift of brows. A little surprising. But he swallows the look, hoping you did not see.
     "There," his Italian comes. "I know you like this time of day better than I ever did..."
     Another blink. Those tenses did not come out right.

     Alire did not notice the look, but he does here the tense shift, like off-key notes. It strikes him but he looks to the sky instead. "Yes, I do like that time. Not as much as midnight, I have come to love midnight. But sunrise and sunset, I never tire of seeing them. It is still amazing," Alire continues in whispers of Italian, "... and it always will be, bello, that you can do such things. I have no such talents."
     None, in fact. What are my talents? I actually have none, I think. Well, I can read but that is not so special anymore. I have good taste in music, but that is not a talent in and of itself. I am a good mediator. I suppose that stands for something. But is that a talent or a learned skill?
     "You are a bigger fan of mid-day?" he wonders. "I am always asleep. I do not get to see you, tesoro... what do you do during the day when I am resting as I must?"

     He pauses slightly, Giancarlo does. He has to think. Cesare would know the answer immediately. "I read or do...practice...study." Yes, that's it. Meetings. No, no meetings. "I used to...attend meetings. Now, I read my books. Or talk with you." The smile returns.
     "Or I go for cafe with Albizzina. Or have my lunch at Maretti's."
     Giancarlo sits up slowly. What is going on?
     There's a quick look to you and to him. To the clothes on the floor. Memories of the previous hours. Previous centuries. And him? Has he ever been as that? Expecting and having you as he did?
     "Alire?" he whispers, as if asking for a quick explanation.

     He turns, he looks to you as you sit up and Alire sits up, too. "Yes, bello? Something is wrong?" Something is bothering you. There is only a glance spared for the clothing on the floor, clothing the two of you wrestled out of once things began in earnest. By the second round, you were both completely free of them.
     They are a symbol of how much a disarray things have been the past night. He thinks of it and instead looks to you. "What's the matter, ami," he murmurs. A hand rests against your side. There is no thought to the criss-cross marks against his skin. He is comfortable naked these nights. For the first time since the marks appeared.
     It is not that the marks were made, after all, that is important. It is that he survived them.

     "I don't do...sword practice," Giancarlo murmurs, closing his eyes a brief instant. When he opens them, he looks at the perpetual sunset, then to his own hands.
     "I keep," Giancarlo says softly, "I see pictures. Dreams. You and I...but not us. And we are," ah, he knows where this comes, "...dressed differently." In armors. Leather. Rough wools. Giancarlo stares at the bedding between you, lips parted as if entranced by a vision.
     He laughs softly. Something seen. Then, Giancarlo swallows. "It's another world," he whispers, his smile understanding. "And you are..." he grins, "...marvelous to see..."

     "I haven't held a sword in over a century," Alire notes. Ah, that was my talent. And horse riding. But all of my talents have faded into the obscurity of obsolescence. No one needs to do these things anymore. "The sharpest implements I hold these days are my pruning shears." In his garden, where he holds his meetings.
     Alire looks to you for a long moment. No... you are my Giancarlo and not my Giancarlo. You are my Michele and not my Michele. You, like me now, are some ...creature in between. "Dreams?" I wonder. "How long have you had these dreams, do you remember, bello?" A pause and he smiles, "What is so funny?"
     Alire sits back, a blush rising to his features. He could never take a compliment. "I am as I am. But I am glad you find pleasure in it."

     "You..." Giancarlo grins, hand to his mouth, "...were showing me a move, with your sword. You fell," he chuckles, then stifles it suddenly, feigning all Montrachet innocence. "I do not recall having such dreams," he explains, "...it is just happening now. I see...many things. And I am awake." He looks at you with some immediacy, not really sure what he's seeing.
     "I remember these things, but I do not remember them," he whispers. Eyes lift to the ceiling again. That bothers him, but he does not discuss that.
     "It is late for you," Giancarlo remembers, not really sure what part of the day it is, let alone a time. He's been in and out the last several, and the tick of the watch has been inconsequential. He smiles, enjoying focusing on you. It makes everything seem...normal. "I would sleep with you, but, I do not feel so tired, bello." He's used to your schedule, but it seems disrupted now. "Maybe, that is...just as well. I should..." an admission here, "...think about...things."

     Alire cocks a platinum eyebrow, he looks mildly suspicious. Me? Fall? And then it dissolves into a smirk. "I will take your word for it. I do not remember this..." He quiets that expression as you speak of dreams. He listens to you but he does not speak on it.
     "Lie down beside me," he makes the request in a whisper. "Until I fall ...asleep..." He worries. Does it show? Should I explain how it happens again? "Remember... I am fine, si? Just let me lie until I wake up again. It should be... twilight...maybe a little before." Alire leans in, he kisses you. He closes his eyes and he tastes you. "I love you, bello," he says again. Another kiss and he lies back, moving beneath the covers, getting comfortable with the pillows.
     "Maybe pile the pillows around me like you did my first night with you in Venezia," he grins. "That way, I will think you are lying beside me..."
     Yes, you have a lot to think about. So do I. But... I do not know what to think, bello. What is happening to you... what will happen to us...

     "I love you, bello Alire, always," he whispers. Giancarlo lies beside you, a smile returned regularly to his features. "I will remember you are alright," he confirms, pulling at the sheets. "And I will leave pillows for you and a small light."
     As he settles against you once more, Giancarlo lets out a tired exhale. But he is with you, and for him, that is all that matters.

Posted by rowan at June 03, 2003 03:25 PM