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The sun rose earlier these days.
John never noticed it before. Or maybe he had, but never like this.
It was rare for him to wake before Alexander. The man subsided on minimal sleep, occasioning six hours at the most during the rare quiet periods. When the battalions were at their most exhausted and resources were depleting, he would sometimes crawl back into their cramped, shared quarters and rest his head for three or four hours. Those were the nights when John awoke and felt a wash of relief overtake him. He didn't allow himself to consider the nights when he didn't wake, when Alexander didn't return.
It was even rarer for him to wake up before Alexander on the days they did fall asleep together. Alexander woke while the morning star still sat in the sky, which tended to kiss the sun as it rose above the horizon.
John had never seen the beauty of the morning. He would crawl into bed late, and wake only when forced to. He never delighted in the break of day, the way Alexander did, with the vigour of a man who thrived with sunlight. He preferred the darkness of night, the mystery of the wash of milky starlight that crossed the horizon like the old gods of Greece and Rome had run their paintbrush across the sky.
Revolutions and wars didn't allow time to find the beauty and grace in things, unless the moments were stolen like this one.
Sitting upright in the bed, John laid his hand atop Alexander's hair. Threading his fingers through the curls, worn loose now in the privacy of their quarters, he took advantage of this moment to indulge himself. A tendril around his finger, thumb tracing the shell of Alexander's ear, nails at the nape of his neck. A litany of small, intimate gestures that were forbidden and unattainable once they crossed the threshold of the door and entered the public sphere.
The sky was akin to a watercolour painting, not unlike those John had seen while in England. Leaning forward to better see the view, John studied the array of colours. The sky reminded him of Alexander, on hot summer days; his cheeks pinkened by exertion and the heat, his hair spilling out around him as they lay on the grass in the shade and attempted to cool down. John lived for those moments, craved them, when their arms stretched out and fingers found one another; moments just for the two of them and the sky, in shades of azure and lapis lazuli, above them to bare witness. Maybe this, too, had been designed for them by the old gods.
His hand came to rest, fingers tangled within Alexander's hair. Far below, he could see a number of men that numbered those in Washington's service beginning their morning routines. And though he knew that they, too, ought to join them, John was loathe to break the stillness and quietness of this moment. If not for himself then, perhaps, for Alexander, who only seemed to find peace in his restless mind and body when he allowed sleep to overwhelm him at last.
The sun rose through the sky so quickly.
If only he could trap it, keep it. Save it, so it could be locked in time for all eternity.
Rain would be on the way. He recalled a sailor once explaining it to him. A pink sky meant good weather had passed, and, therefore, rain could likely be heading towards them shortly. There would be no outside afternoon siestas for him and Alexander in the coming days, no sojourns to a private copse where wandering eyes and gossiping lips could discover them. He had only now- they had only now.
Inevitably, Alexander awoke. John could feel it, the moment when he clawed his way out of the comfort of slumber and the mystery of his dreams. The rub of his cheek, stubbled with coarse golden hair, upon John's lap, the way his fingers curled and pressed upon his thigh in a gesture that was familiar and forbidden. If he refused to look away from the sunrise, if he kept his gaze upon the sky beyond the window, perhaps he could capture this moment and keep it close to his heart as though it were worn in a locket.
Alexander asked, with his voice thick and slurred with sleep, 'what time is it?'
At this point, John knew he ought to check. But if he were to move, if he were to confirm the time, then that would lead to Alexander drawing away and beginning his day. The day would drag them in separate directions, and John would be rendered to merely orbit the peripheries of Alexander's radiance.
The soldiers on the street began to disappear from view, slipping past the window pane and to locations unknown. John waited, counting them one by one, until the last one had run beyond his sight. Perhaps, if he held out, Alexander would linger in bed.
John couldn't withhold replying, though. Alexander would realise soon.
'Early,' he finally said, which was true enough. 'The men are doing their morning paces down the street.'
This would be the moment Alexander would roll over, because it seemed as though he could never merely indulge himself. He'd push back the bedsheets, which would be the first step to putting space between them that would only grow as the day went on. That void, horrid and cold between them, a shadow that split them in twain. There was never enough time for the two of them, and sometimes John fretted they would always be drawn apart. There would always be another war to wage, another battle to ride into. If not that, then social obligations and expectations would tear them apart; a life for them appeared cloudy and difficult to imagine.
But they could have this moment. This breath, this heartbeat, this stillness where, if he closed his eyes tight, he could believe he had stopped time itself. Him and Alexander and the warm sun on his face.
Beside him, he felt Alexander move. As the mattress shifted beneath him, thin and worn by countless guests collapsing into it after an exhausting day, John braced himself for the chill of the morning air to fill the space left behind by his companion. But, by some grace of God, Alexander only pushed himself up to drape across John. His head laid upon his chest, while his hand draped across John's shoulder. John leant back against the wall, the pillows pressed into the small of his back as he wrapped an arm over Alexander's shoulder, hoping to keep him in place for as long as time allowed.
'Rain is coming,' Alexander said.
His bright eyes were locked on the slowly fading, pink-purple sky. John, gladdened to hear his prediction had been correct, tightened his arm around Alexander and permitted himself the opportunity to kiss the top of his brow. Under his arm, he felt Alexander breathe in deeply; the expanse of his lungs, the shift of his shoulders, that slight wheeze and tug and breathlessness that followed Alexander in the earliest hours of the morning until the day warmed and chased it away. There was a rub of his cheek, a press of his lips to his chest, and John thought he was about to melt.
'Can we stay here?'
'You know we can't.'
John heard the smile in Alexander's voice, as well as the hint of exhaustion that no doubt plagued him after days and weeks and months of following the troops from one battle site to the next.
'We could pretend,' John suggested. 'Even just for a little while.'
Beside him, Alexander gave a deep comforted sigh. His hand slid over John's chest, pulling at the fabric lightly. The sunlight had continued to spill into the room, the sky transitioning from its unusual deep pink to a more typical grey-blue. Underneath the blankets that had been tossed about haphazardly during the night, John felt Alexander's legs tangle between his own. The brush of the back of a foot against his leg, a hand against his cheek.
John closed his eyes and pressed his nose to Alexander's copper curls. Long ago, Aristophanes had declared within Plato's Symposium that people were eight-limbed and had two faces. Men such as John had been born from the sun, and, after being severed in two, spent his life craving to be made whole once more in its radiant warmth. Here he lay now, bathed in the rising sun and embraced in its warmth made man.
The sun would always call to John, with its glory and radiance. It would sing him, call to him in the darkness, and it would carry Alexander's voice. He would wake each morning to Alexander, with his vibrant eyes and rose-kissed hair, his face lit up by a candle's flame, if only given a chance. He was a child of the sun; he was John's sun. A world without Alexander was a world of night. And if he were Orpheus and if John found himself to be Eurydice, then he would be called from the darkest of nights by his word alone, if only given the chance.
But night had not come yet, and the eternal darkness had not yet clouded their eyes. The future was hazy for John, and had always remained elusive for him, but he found some semblance of it as he held Alexander in his arms. Although he knew well enough that the future he had in mind for them was a fantasy and the stuff made of dreams, he did permit himself to indulge in it for the interim. No one need know.
'John? Where'd you go? I lost you.'
No one bar Alexander. Even then, the idea of revealing part of his aching soul was almost too terrifying to admit.
John looked down, to where Alexander had still draped himself over his chest. He smiled, ever so soft, ever so wistful, as Alexander looked back up at him with those impossibly purple-blue eyes. Cupping his face, John ran his thumb across Alexander's cheekbone, skimming just under his eyes where dark circles lingered. His body no doubt craved sleep, which he so refused to give it.
A hand splayed upon his breastbone and Alexander perched his chin atop his chest. The smile that spread across his lips when John met his gaze grew wide. The freckles that danced over his nose and cheeks seemed to radiate in the daybreak, a collection of stardust and sunkisses that brought out the rosy tint in his skin. No matter where he went, Alexander would carry the sun with him. John's thumb swept over his cheek again, and he watched as Alexander's eyes fluttered shut.
'You'll never lose me,' John replied, his voice only just a breath above a whisper. 'I'll always find my way to you.'
A tremble went through Alexander, a shiver that started in his shoulders and ricocheted throughout his lithe form. His fingers curled at the linen of John's shirt as he eased his way up to press their lips together. Every kiss they shared still seemed as bewildering as the first. It didn't matter how often it happened, how frequently their lips or for how long; he'd always find himself breathless and giddy for the next. Kissing Alexander was like kissing the sun itself; warm and illuminating, a taste of the incandescent glow that spilled from Alexander himself.
'My dear, ever so beloved John.'
'My dearest Alexander.'
Like the moon followed the sun, forever chasing each other across the sky, John would follow Alexander. That would be his promise to him, forever and always.