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He was thirteen.
It was summer and his parents had been planning to spend the three months with their cousins. A big family vacation, a crowded one at one of their estates. Al-Haitham came because he was their son, but most of the days, he retreated to the library and when it wasn’t enough, he decided to find another solace in the garden. Away from judging eyes, poison-laced words, and pushed behind the adults’ back.
The shrubs were lush despite the dry season, thick foliage that provided a perfect canopy. The lake glimmered from the sunlight and though the border with the desert was merely separated by the thick tree lines, it was cool enough here. No one disturbed him, especially when it was still high noon. He walked the perimeter, brushing against desert flowers and bushes.
He nicked his fingers on patch of thorns and he was sucking on the wound before he noticed a pair of distinct ears not far from where he stood.
A jackal.
There was a jackal perching on a rock, eyes trained on him. It didn’t move, only stared down at him. Al-Haitham knew better than to run or panic, yet still his heart beat faster when it jumped off and strolled towards him. He stepped backwards, inch by inch, but the jackal merely sniffed the air between them before tilting its head.
Al-Haitham flinched when it went for his fingers, a yell at the tip of his tongue, and he almost did if not for the jackal huffing. It licked the blood, nudged them, then turned away after it seemed to deem his digits clean enough. He should have realized immediately this was not normal, unnatural in how animals like it usually behaved, not to mention its odd dark coat and too sharp eyes, but he was a child still and he sensed the jackal was being… kind. Somehow. Maybe it was foolish, delusional, yet he wanted to believe because it kept looking at him with a certain attentiveness that he knew but was rarely afforded to him.
He followed it, small feet trailing after its bigger steps until they reached a spot in a corner of the garden. A plant, one that he read possessed a hemostatic effect. The jackal circled around it once, as if wanting to say to him to take it.
“Thank you,” he said as he picked some leaves and crushed them.
And the jackal nodded at that.
“Can I repay you?” He then asked, pulp stinging momentarily on his fingers. “Do you want something?” The jackal blinked. “Food maybe?” Its ears perked up.
“Alright,” Al-Haitham nodded. “Wait here.”
He sneaked into the kitchen, avoiding the busy servants and to the pantry. The butcher had arrived with crates of meat this morning, in preparation of more feasts for the evenings because the family were glutton that way, especially his older nephews. Carefully, he filched three slabs of beef, still cold from the ice, and quickly returned.
The jackal bowed its head a little, had far better manners than some of his nephews, before it dug in. It licked the ground clean when it was done and stretched. But it didn’t lie down.
“You want to play?”
It swayed its tail. Al-Haitham trailed after it again, this time catching up to it easily. That afternoon he spent running around and rolling on grass. His maid sighed at the stains on his shirt, but it was the happiest he had ever been since he was taken in by his real father after his mother ran away. It was fun and maybe the jackal was bored like him. For all that he was a son of a renowned family of scholars, this was still a wonder to him, and he decided not to question it, until he must. He could keep it his own little secret.
---
His birthday happened during the vacation and while this meant a party, it was just an excuse to throw one for his relatives. At least, his stepmother tried to be nice about his day and gifted him expensive earpieces and phone. She wasn’t a perfect woman, she never called him her son except on paper, but she too was a product of ambitions and strategic marriage. Al-Haitham took the sympathetic gesture for what it was before he excused himself out to the garden when it got rowdier.
Bringing a plate chocked full of food and another slice of cake, he was looking for the jackal. It might not like the cake, but surely, it would like the wraps and chicken and fish. It didn’t seem tied to what a jackal should eat anyway. Al-Haitham didn’t get to call for it when he was pushed and the plates slipped out of his grip.
It was one of his older nephews. A stocky teen with a face that was perpetually frozen in a smirk. He had everything going for him, a spoiling father and a loving mother, a prodigy in the field of physics, and yet he often looked at Al-Haitham with an ugly green coloring his feature. All Al-Haitham ever did was point out simple mistakes in his formula when he showed his paper to everyone that one time and ever since then, he hated him.
His nephew smelled of alcohol and Al-Haitham frowned. He had been drinking his father’s wine in the cellar then. Explained why he wasn’t present at the dinner. Al-Haitham decided to leave, ignoring the other’s jeers and commands to stop. He was almost to the back door before he was pulled by the scruff of his collar, choking him a split second and thrown hard against the wall. Head cracking against the hard stone.
He didn’t notice the slithering snake near them and hitched his breath when his nephew started pushing it with a stick towards him. Al-Haitham scooted away, but he only found a corner. His nephew grinned uglily and kept baiting it to his legs. One bite. It would take one bite to have his nerves failing and him gasping in excruciating pain as his system started to fail.
“Time to get rid of you,” his nephew sang. “Time to get rid of that failure of a harlot’s spawn.”
Al-Haitham pushed himself up, vision swimming and head pounding. He glared at the big boy, hands fisted despite his slight trembling.
Help.
Was his silent whisper.
Someone, help me.
There was static in the air. Like petrichor and metal. In the next blink, he saw a looming shadow behind his nephew, violet and with glowing eyes. It happened too fast. His nephew jolted as it tapped his shoulder, he stumbled, falling exactly on the snake’s tail and it bit him, latching on to him. Al-Haitham watched as he wheezed and coughed, blood running down his nose with bile collecting in his mouth. Desperate fingers grabbed at his ankle, but the shadow kicked them away. It knelt in front of him, razor-edged claws touching a sore spot on his forehead.
Al-Haitham didn’t remember what happened afterwards. Only that he was shaken awake by a panicking servant and taken inside. Wails of sadness reached his room from the window as his maid helped him change out of his dirty shirt and pants. For once, she didn’t comment on them. She gave him warm milk with honey and the cries of his aunt hadn’t dissipated, so Al-Haitham took his new earpiece and played a white noise in his ears.
His nephew was dead, but he couldn’t feel anything except relief.
That night he slept and dreamed of the figure.
In his dream, it rumbled to him.
Don’t cry. It’s alright now. You are safe, so go to sleep and dream a sweet dream.
---
Their summer was cut short, and his parents took him away from the estate first thing in the morning. He didn’t mind as his father practically shoved him into the passenger seat, closing the car door with a simple instruction to the driver to go straight home.
The jackal followed him to the city.
---
By now, Al-Haitham knew that it wasn’t a jackal per se, but still, he didn’t question it. In a way, it was his friend, even when it preferred to walk in the shadows and come out during the night or when they were all alone. It knew how to hide and how to move silently. The servants only saw some ears or tail, and whispers about a ghost circled amongst them. One that hung around their young master and often made the underneath of his bed its spot. Al-Haitham ignored the suggestion of an exorcism.
It accompanied him when it appeared and Al-Haitham felt better as he read and read and read. He found its presence a grounding anchor, especially if he got too deep into his head that the jackal just tugged at his shirt. It seemed to know its cue and was familiar with his schedule.
But the jackal never truly stayed. Only lingered momentarily before it went away to somewhere Al-Haitham didn’t know. That was alright though. They never made a binding contract and young as he was, he understood how such a thing, when forced, could only lead to misery. His mother had been a prime example and she had left him for her own survival in the end.
Al-Haitham wasn’t selfish. Something which he planned to stay that way.
Still…
… sometimes he admitted that things could get lonely when the jackal wasn’t here with him.
And one day, it did get unbearably so.
---
He was never close to his stepmother, but they acknowledged each other’s misery. As he grew older, they became comrades of sort. Her having to deal with in-laws’ expectations, playing the perfect wife, and masking blindness to her husband’s infidelities, while he weathered his father’s expectations, demands of perfection and beatings when he injected too much drug. Al-Haitham would go up to her room after a rough night and bring strong tea or offer her tissues and their favorite snacks as she inelegantly vented about everything through messy bites. In turn, she would attend school meetings for him and warned him whenever his father was in a foul mood.
For it was worth, she made it bearable for him to live in the huge house when even the servants avoided him. Al-Haitham wasn’t one to count favors, but when she fought and was dying of brutal cancer, he looked after her to her last breath. The grip she gave his hand as she died was the most softness she gave him.
The funeral was grand, and this was the biggest effort his father ever given his third wife. Al-Haitham poured dirt into the grave, a final farewell and a celebration for her being free. His father didn’t even stay until the end before he called up his matchmaker for a new wife.
The mansion became quieter without her clacking heels and hoarse voice. It was a barren land with no life in it except him. And when his father eventually sent him away to boarding school to impress his new woman, he packed everything in less than two hours before he hopped on the train.
School was boring and his peers steered clear of him. His teachers were no help in furthering his hunger for knowledge, so he picked up self-studying most of the weekdays. They never searched for him, never reprimanded him for fear of his status. One of the very few things that was actually beneficial to him.
He was all by himself.
And he loved the wonderful solitariness, but even someone like him couldn’t stand the loneliness for long.
The jackal had no name he could call and Al-Haitham stifled his frown.
---
End of the year meant holiday break and the dorm was empty before afternoon of the last day in the academic year started. His father sent him an envelope of his office holiday card, a word that he should spend his own off-days abroad if he wanted to, and a black card for his financial needs.
Al-Haitham crumpled the card, dumped it down the trash, and proceeded to buy camping gear. He had vague recollection of going to the forest and hiking hills in his childhood, supposedly with enough reading and watching tutorials, he would be fine. A week out there in the wild sounded heavenly.
He left with a note to the security team that stayed for the holiday and a quick note to his father’s secretary. Just in case. The weather was lovely and he enjoyed the feel of nipping air each time he woke up, though he disliked the dirt sticking to everything and couldn’t shower easily.
It was nice. Wonderful even. Until a storm surprised him. Unpredicted by the meteorological report. He waited it out in a hole between tree trunks, wet and miserable and cold. His tent had been blown away with most of his clothes rained on. There were breaks between the next hail and he decided to go down when the such one arrived.
He managed to get far when he slipped and a sharp crack snapped around his ankle. The rain fell down heavily again. He was stuck between some bushes. An ankle that was beginning to be swollen and a body quivering with tell-tale of hypothermia.
His teeth were chattering as he tried to use the satellite phone, hands shakily pressing the numbers. Lightning hit the tree close to him and he winced, the thunder deafening. No one would notice he was missing until after the seventh day like he wrote on the note and email. Granted that was if they checked at all. He tried dialing help once more, fighting through his numb hands.
Another flash above, another roar. He wanted to cover his ears and curled up. Then… ears. A familiar set of ears with a familiar shadow appeared in his peripheral. A hand was tapped against his arm and Al-Haitham looked to the jackal.
“Get help,” he croaked to it. “Go down and get help.”
It did just that.
---
The jackal kept perching at the foot of his bed. Ears pulled back and hunching. Al-Haitham sighed, holding his blanket when it dug at the fabric.
“I know, I know,” he said. “It was a foolish endeavor.”
It huffed and yawned.
“But thank you,” Al-Haitham put his arms on his knees. “For coming for me.”
It nodded, patting the bed with its paws before it lay down. Tail tucked in and looking comfortable with how fluffy the jackal became after it dried up. Its weight was warm on his leg, the other one being propped up and compressed with ice.
Al-Haitham slept deeper. More due to its presence rather than the medicine.
---
He stirred awake in the middle of the night, eyes snapping open. Sweat beaded his forehead and dampened his hair. As he adjusted to the gloom of the room lit by moonlight, he saw the jackal. Sitting on a chair near the window, two human legs crossed and two human hands holding a staff over its…. his lap.
They stared at each other. Teal and green against golden on a jackal’s head.
“Bad dream?” It- he asked. Voice smooth in its molten cadence.
Al-Haitham sat on the edge of the bed. Never once straying his sight away from him. “You… could say that,” he concluded. “But I don’t remember it anymore.”
“That means it’s nothing,” the jackal hummed. “Go back to sleep,” he said when Al-Haitham moved to the wide windowsill.
“Just a few minutes,” the young teen grabbed a pillow as padding. “I want to see the full moon over the view.”
They went silent. The jackal sitting still with floating bandages and wispy shadows, and him in his pajamas. The pamphlet about the school was right – the night view from their dorm was beautiful.
He traced the window glass when he spoke, warm breath fogging it.
“Who are you?”
A beat. A ticking clock echoed in the room. A sigh.
“I believe you would have figured it by now.”
Of course, he did. He just wanted to hear it from him.
“I am no god. Only a divine spirit given flesh,” the jackal said, staff now upright. “I am one but many, even as my brethren is dwindling day by day.”
Al-Haitham rested his cheek on his folded knee. He kept his gaze fixed on forward, on those eyes that hid and held many things. There were a string of words hanging off him and slowly he released them.
“What is your name?”
The jackal took a breath. Al-Haitham thought he wouldn’t answer.
“Cyno,” came two syllables. “My name is Cyno.”
A name. He had his name now. It rolled off his tongue smoothly. Simple and sacred. An ancient weight each moment he uttered it. He should be intimidated, perhaps even frightened, but he is not. He kept it safe in memories and lips.
“Call me should you need me,” he said, leaning forward to him, “and I shall come.”
Al-Haitham could almost touch the jackal like this, just a small imbalance and he would press his forehead against his. That thought was quickly dispersed before it took root.
“Thank you,” he said for the second time. Never sounded more earnest than this.
---
He didn’t call him in the beginning.
There was sanctity in the name. No entity was rash in sharing their name, it held a power that only names could give. Al-Haitham might have no worship to any god, but he understood respect. The name was held between his teeth, tamped down by his busy mind reading books and contemplating.
Yet he called in the end.
And he appeared.
The sight shouldn’t make him perceptibly lighter inside, but it did. He raised his book higher. The jackal – Cyno – talked now, ever since he spoke and Al-Haitham never knew how a voice could make such polarizing difference. Al-Haitham found it was not undelightful.
Silence he can handle. An absence of life, however…
He called him again. And again. And again.
A constant that existed in his days. It was good. A comfortable existence. He flew through his classes, perfect grades and records. Seventeen yet never once making close acquaintance with anyone his age. Only books and Cyno as company. Al-Haitham saw this and knew he wouldn’t have it any other way. He was content with this.
Cyno sighed each time he told him.
Even though he kept answering his calls and lingered longer than before.
---
And then the fires came. Everything and all at once.
The first time Al-Haitham truly called him out of sheer need was to save him from being suffocated.
---
His father had been proven to commit fraud and his business was bankrupt. He was called back home to be put into an arranged marriage in a bid to save their remaining fortune. The path of least resistance, Al-Haitham knew, was to nod. However, he couldn’t. Wouldn’t. He shall not be made a groom just for his father’s greed.
He chose the second path.
He shook his head.
He got slapped by an ashtray.
Smoke invaded his nostril after he could hold steady, and his returning vision saw flames. The thing about them was that they spread fast, almost like light, in the way they kept eating at everything. The door was locked, he was in the basement where his father’s office was. Creaks and grunts were above him, and more fires heating up the place.
He couldn’t breathe.
He called out – Cyno, take me out of this inferno.
He didn’t notice his father was still there and squeezed his neck.
No, not his father. Never was. Never would be. A monster wearing human skin. Al-Haitham clawed at the tight fingers, pushing with his knee. He must fight. He must. Because he didn’t want to die. Not like this. He wanted to live. Away from this hell and its devil.
Cyno.
Help me.
Perhaps he couldn’t hear him this deep underground. In this pit of the earth. He would die here. Under rubble and dirt and wood. Having to share a burial with the monster. He didn’t want it. He didn’t want any of this. He wanted-
The pressure was gone. He wheezed as he sucked in smoke for air.
Cyno took his arm and Al-Haitham didn’t see his father burned.
---
He wasn’t a child anymore, but he was still curled into the blanket the paramedics gave him. Half-hunched at the back of their vehicle, taking a lungful of oxygen from the cannister. His neck already started to bruise; sore each time he swallowed water.
The mansion had been reduced to ash and foundation and embers. He had nothing to his name. All the family fortune gone with him not accepting the marriage. His relatives wouldn’t take him in, and they would not reach him. It was relieving.
Cyno stood by the railing when he stepped out of the hospital room and onto the balcony.
“What will you do?”
Al-Haitham shrugged. Wind blowing through the thin hospital gown. He shuddered and Cyno stepped closer. “Find somewhere to live as priority. I can’t stay here. The bills will pile up,” he leaned on the banister. “Then, graduate early and find somewhere to work. I need to eat.” He huffed as he ruffled his hair. “It would take a while though.”
Cyno nodded.
He sighed. “Will you…” He murmured to his arm. “… Will you stay?”
Cyno looked at him as if it wasn’t obvious. It managed to get him to smile faintly. Cyno wouldn’t leave. The thought made everything less lonely.
---
He went back to school, asked for his diploma, and went his way. A plan in mind. But before he could put step one into motion, his grandmother found him. She was a stranger until she showed him an old, crumpled picture of a toddler on the lap of a young woman and another older one sharing the same hair color.
“Grandmother,” Al-Haitham said and there was the lost memory resurfacing.
“I looked for you the moment the news hit,” she smiled, and her wrinkled hands were familiar in his. “I’m sorry, I took too long. I shouldn’t have asked the others and went straight here.”
She was a brilliant scholar with a mind of a living library. Ostracized and disowned by her own children, his mother and her siblings, just because she refused to turn her talents to mere mora maker. A true scholar’s scholar. Al-Haitham missed her voice, that cadence of dignity that never failed to capture his ears.
“Haitham,” she rubbed his hands, “You have been through so much and you have nowhere to go. So, I was wondering if you’d like to come with me? My house isn’t as grand as yours had been and there are no chauffeurs and maids, but you’ll have a roof, warm water, food and bed. How about it? What do you say?”
It was years of restrain that he didn’t immediately blurt out the “yes”.
From the shadows, he heard a chuckle.
---
Living with his grandmother was heaven and hell compared to his old abode. Her house was spacious but not for vanity. It was lived-in, warm and safe. She had a library which was her pride and joy, rows and rows of books, scrolls, and tablets. Some were under lock and key while some were displayed out in the open. Pure trove of gold.
He had his own room, and the distinct smell of wood was better than cold granite. There was no one else except him, her and the occasional cleaner coming in three times a week. It was perfect. A place he could finally call home. Because that was what it was. Home. His grandmother didn’t charge him rent and didn’t hang her generosity over his head.
“Just study well,” she winked after he was handed an admission envelope. “I know how much you love learning. Pick whatever darshan you want and I’ll help your tuition in exchange of doing good there.”
It was easy to choose. Haravatat. He would go to Haravatat.
---
He worked diligently after he got in. Reclusive and self-sufficient. His grandmother became his personal teacher, guiding him and pruning his mind in the right direction. They talked well into the night often, coffee turning cold and awful as they raised points, debates, and questions. With her, he flourished and flourished.
Having a new friend in the form of a Kshahrewar senior was a surprise. Kaveh was loud and the polar opposite, but he was intelligent and had an overflowing passion that shone brightly. A mirror that kept meeting him step by step, had him arguing and jabbing him with his sources. He was too easy to rile up, too sensitive with how much he wore his heart on his sleeve and yet he was the light of his darshan. A well-earned title.
His grandmother looked approving when he invited him over for dinner after the fool lost his wallet and hadn’t eaten the whole that he was close to passing out. Al-Haitham just made sure he didn’t lose brain power for the rest of the night. Somehow between Kaveh chattering merrily with his grandmother, he won her over with his charm and since then, he was a common fixture at the dining table.
Seeing them together like this, he was content.
A new normal that he began to enjoy and realized Cyno had not made himself a part of it.
---
It took a while for Cyno to appear after he called.
That had never happened before.
“Cyno,” he crosses his arms, “I haven’t seen you around lately.”
“I do not have to,” the swift reply is murmured. “I am not bind to anything, am I?”
“Yes, I know, but you have been disappearing often without warning.” More often too. “Is there something wrong?” Al-Haitham asks.
“There is nothing wrong. I am fine. I merely deign it fit to not disturb your life. You have much to do, after all,” Cyno replies, and it is too flimsy. Too flagrant.
Too obvious that it was almost insulting for the nonexistent effort.
“You…” Al-Haitham frowned, “… are avoiding me. Why? Is it because of my grandmother? Because of Kaveh?” He tilted his head. “Do you dislike them?’
It earned a huff.
“I do not. On the opposite, I believe they are good influence on you.”
“Then why?” It was the first time Cyno hesitated. Gods. Spirits. Whatever divinities they were. They did not hesitate. Al-Haitham didn’t understand. “Tell me.”
He wasn’t supposed to stall. Cyno never stalled. Yet he did. And Al-Haitham stepped forward. Waiting. For what – he didn’t, couldn’t, possibly know.
“I suppose over the time we have spent with one another,” Cyno hummed, “I have found myself to be attached to you.” He closed the distance between them, purple shadows brushing at mortal skin. “I see you, my dear Al-Haitham,” and there is an insurmountable warmth in how he said his name, “as someone I become quite fond of. Do you comprehend what that does to any being capable of such emotion?” He smiled and it was a true smile, not the one he used as if he couldn’t. “It makes you believe that person is yours.”
Al-Haitham looked at him. A crease on the corner of his mouth. “But I’m not yours,” he said, “I am no one’s. I belong only to myself. No human belongs to anyone. They are themselves.”
Cyno still smiled. Imperceptible and pallid. Grief in his ageless eyes. “That is why it is best for me to step away,” he replied, “before it causes trouble for both of us. I won’t subject you to this and you are not one who appreciates a complicated life. You are beginning to build it; I prefer that you keep building it. So, I shall bid you a goodbye now.”
Pragmatic. Rational. Objective. Al-Haitham was all three and the solution was incredibly simple. They should separate. For now. He had no thoughts for this certain type of affection. He didn’t have the space in his mind to even contemplate much about it. There were many, many things he wanted to break down and analyze and learn. A whole world for him to dip his hands and hungry mind into. He didn’t have time to spare for this kind of love.
It was a fitting suggestion. One that he ended up agreeing to in the end.
“Before I leave,” Cyno put away his staff, the obsidian weapon disappearing, “may I ask something of you?”
“Ask away,” Al-Haitham says and he won’t begrudge him of anything. Ten years he had been for him. Ten years and twice over he had saved his life.
The jackal head melded into the air, revealing hair as white as fresh snow and eyes the deep color of sunset. For a second, he could have fooled him as a mere man if not for the muted authority behind the gaze. Cyno held out his opened palm, free of the claw and bandages inlaid with sacred scripts.
“A touch,” he requested. Face like rent earth and parched soil. “Give me your hands before I go.”
He held them. His own limbs lukewarm against him. As if he was brushing against fog. Cyno rubbed a thumb over his knuckles and he tipped forward, pressing lips on to them. It is like being kissed by thunder and storm.
Cyno drew away before more time passed. “Goodbye, Al-Haitham,” he said as he released him. “May you live a good life.”
The wind rustled the trees, and he was gone. His presence vanished, Al-Haitham could feel it nowhere.
It was alright. This was what he wanted.
The ache was just a by-product of said decision.
---
Life went on.
Days passed. Months changed. Years moved by.
He graduated with honors, then worked as a scribe. Much to the gasps of his peers and to the expectant face of his grandmother. It was a steady career, he had freedom and his income was generous. He settled into his own house and had his own accomplishments. He had everything a decent man could want.
Kaveh became his closest friend, but they didn’t turn into something more. They were the best this way, polar opposites who bickered like sport and yet they were comfortable. The man never wanted to progress more than what they were and Al-Haitham didn’t wish anything else for him.
His life was quaint.
Quiet.
A name sometimes perched at his tongue. In his mind. Al-Haitham tried not to call. He did once. Out of curiosity, he reasoned. But he didn’t come. Al-Haitham wasn’t going to try again.
---
His grandmother lay on the hospital bed and patted his hand.
“I leave my books to you,” she said. A withered woman underneath all the tubes and white sheets.
“I’ll take care of it,” Al-Haitham promised. “You just rest now.”
They weren’t fooling themselves that she would get better. She was old. Lived through the decades until death caught up to her, greeting her gently like a long-lost acquaintance. Al-Haitham would miss her. Would remember her well and kindly.
“Al-Haitham,” she asked in the breaths before the end, “are you happy?”
“I am,” he replied and wondered why it felt off.
“Are you sure?”
He didn’t nod.
“I always wish for you to have a peaceful life, but I also want you to be happy,” she said. “I think you are close to the answer.” She grasped his fingers. Wise and withering. “I hope you’ll find it soon.”
The next hour, she went in her sleep.
Al-Haitham stood over her vigil with Kaveh and buried her with flowers.
---
He put the boxes of books in his library by himself in his mourning clothes. The answer came to him as he sorted the shelves, an invisible made visible when he finally understood. And that was the truth of it, that missingness which kept existing.
An explanation to why in the most silent hours, he felt lonely.
Lonely despite the life he lived.
It took a while, but Al-Haitham hoped he hadn’t forgotten. Hadn’t completely left him.
Once more, he tried to call his name.
“Cyno,” he whispered like a prayer and waited.
A shudder, a flickering of lights, then there is a shadow of a jackal. Al-Haitham turned, greeted by red eyes that hadn’t lost the pull they possessed.
“You’re here,” he said. Breathily. “You didn’t answer when I called you that time.”
Cyno walked to him, kneeling in front of him. Hand cupping his cheek. It still felt as if he was caressed by rumbling clouds. “I’m sorry,” he caressed him, “I was slumbering.”
“To forget?”
“Yes.”
He chuckled and moved so he faced him fully. “Do you still want to?”
“No.”
Al-Haitham leaned forward. Hands on the floor steadying him as he places lips on a cheek. “Good,” he smiled and stayed that way. “Will you stay?”
“Yes,” Cyno closed his eyes briefly. “If you allow me to.”
“I implore you to.”
“Then yes,” Cyno reciprocates the kiss. “I shall answer that wish.”
He also smiled. There was a laugh floating from them. Gentle and mirthful.
This felt good. A piece of paradise in his life.