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“The sun moves too fast,” he whispered to the wind.
The man beside him grumbled in the lull of slumber and turned over. His eyelids remained shut, but if one looked closely enough, they could pick out the movement of the shuttered eyes beneath.
Absently he reached down to thread his slender digits through the tangle of black atop the sleeping man’s head. They were soft, sleek, and prone to snaring around his hand as if trying to keep it there.
Of course, he already knew it would be.
The wind picked up again, peppering his skin with frozen kisses and infiltrating his lungs. Its song carried over the mountains with an almost haunting quality to it.
Chaghan Suren closed his eyes.
And breathed.
Under his palms, the cliff was rough and solid. The fabric of his clothes was smoother than usual, which pleased him. The shifting of that same material to reveal some of his skin did not.
He could almost convince himself the world had shrunk down just for him—to the sun in the distance, the song of the wind, and the man at his side.
Something warm buried into his hip.
Soft lips brushed against his porcelain skin and breath bestowed a bit of warmth into it. It was mere moments later when the rustling finally registered to his ears.
He was still too late.
A heavy weight settled across his lap and curled about his slender waist slightly.
Before he could stop it, a laugh bubbled free.
“Really?” He asked, amused.
Chaghan opened his eyes and fixed his gaze upon the fiend holding him hostage. He didn’t look like a man—no, if he was being honest, he looked like a boy.
A boy who was still innocent.
Who hadn’t been tortured in the labs for years.
Who hadn’t lost his entire race.
Who knew… peace.
“Who are you?” He uttered low enough for the wind to swallow his words. “I want to see you more.”
Even as he spoke, he knew the truth.
It was just a wish.
And wishes were for fairytales.
He smiled a fraction.
When he glanced up, he blinked rapidly and inhaled.
The sky was not blue. It was painted in vivid hues of deepening azure, oranges, reds, pinks, and purples. The hazy ball of fire was a deep orange now, almost toeing the line of blood.
Or maybe it was just him.
Chaghan manually exhaled when his brain failed to do it for him. He hadn’t realized how tight his grip had gotten on the locks of the other man’s hair.
“Mm…”
He gasped.
Altan Trengsin cracked a crimson eye open.
“…you’re pulling.”
He removed his hand and shook it out. His mouth was painfully dry out of nowhere—he swished his tongue around as if he could spread its moisture and revive it. The heat from Altan was alarmingly intense. He wondered if it was possible to get a burn.
“I didn’t realize,” he managed to say. “Are you alright?”
A crease made itself at home in the space between the other man’s dark brows.
“Of course I am. You didn’t pull hard enough for it to become unpleasant,” Altan replied and glanced at his hand. Something close to irritation or perhaps annoyance flashed over his features as his attention lingered.
“So you say, but you have been known to lie.”
The conversation stalled.
Altan pushed himself up and raised a brow. “Am I now?”
Chaghan did not like how unreadable his expression was.
The cold gales returned to life and whipped past. Bumps erupted over his flesh. He shivered.
“Do you want the palatable answer or my honesty?” He asked.
He leaned back on his hands and scooted away.
Altan followed.
“I want neither.”
Chaghan shrank back. He felt rather small in the shadow of the other man.
He swallowed.
“Then what do you desire, Altan Trengsin?” A pause. “What does your heart say?”
For an eternity, neither moved. Altan hovered like a statue over him, hands on either side of his body, bent over far enough for Chaghan to feel his every breath ghost over his face.
Eternity was a lie.
Altan pulled back. He sat on his heels as his hands found rest on his thighs. The man was staring, yet at the same time, he wasn’t. There was a faint cloud over the vibrant red of his eyes that betrayed him.
Chaghan mustered his courage and inclined his chin as he breathed, “You’re clenching your jaw. Keep doing that and you’ll ruin your teeth. The general population would be upset if you ruined your smile.”
The man blinked. He recoiled as if splashed with water before snapping his head down to stare at him once more.
He shifted.
He hated when other people stared intensely. That was his trick.
“I want to know,” Altan croaked, “if the man who smiles at me now is mine or if he is the one the world knows.”
Chaghan blinked back the burning in his eyes.
The light was beginning to vanish. If he looked up, he would notice the canvas above splashed not with the radiant palette of twilight, but with the rich shades of blue and violet swallowing them.
He suspected he could not have done so even if he wanted to.
Still, he did not try.
“Are you sure you want that? There’s a reason it lives in the dark—the world shuns ugly things.”
Altan jerked into motion without much warning. He leaned down until he was on his elbows leaning over the smaller man.
He cocked his head to the side. “I like to judge beauty for myself. The world is full of colorblind people who only see in narrow ranges.”
“Are you calling me colorblind?”
Altan froze.
His lips turned downward.
“I would say you don’t mean that,” Altan mumbled, “but I know you don’t care to waste your breath on pointless things.”
Chaghan pulled his knee up and pressed his foot into the ground. “Does it rankle you, what you find in the dark?”
His face screwed up and a pained noise broke free.
“Does it disgust you too, Speerly?”
His voice cracked.
Altan pressed his lips together. His expression contorted painfully into ruefulness.
“For once, I find myself incapable of feeling that.”
A hot tear slipped past the gates of his lashes and lids to trace a lonely path down his sickly colorless skin. He did not move to stop it.
“What is it like?”
Altan’s lips were wobbly when they twitched upward, but still, it made itself at home upon the stiff muscles.
“Wonderful.”
Chaghan tilted his head to the side with a laugh. “I would ask how it feels.”
The other man’s brow pressed closer. His mouth became a tense line.
“I will try for you.”
“I didn’t ask.”
Altan released a breath. “You don’t believe me. You don’t want to.”
He shifted on his back, suddenly aware of the cold sting from the stone penetrating his clothes.
“I would have said so if that were true,” he replied.
Altan scoffed.
“You are as much a heretic to the doctrine of honesty as I, Suren. Do not play saint now.”
“Such pretty words. When did you start reading the dictionary?”
The thick fingers of Altan’s hands curled into his palms. A low hiss of frustration escaped him.
“Stop it. You have begged time and time again for transparency from me, but when you finally get it, you do not reciprocate. I won’t have it,” he bit out.
He stilled.
Altan drifted closer and hovered just inches away.
And at last, Chaghan whispered, “I wish I had your eyes. Mine see only monochrome.” He licked his lips. “Especially when I turn them back around and peer within.”
Altan did nothing for a second.
Then his chest heaved and a sad laugh tumbled out. He at last dropped his forehead to press against Chaghan’s.
“Then they are yours. I will teach you, even if it takes the rest of my years.”
The tears had become a river, and he was too tired to fight them. He tipped his head back to rest on the stone as he wove his thin arms around Altan. The muscles of his back were solid and unyielding under his fingertips. He clung to that.
“…I would like that. Very much.”
Altan nodded. He never pulled away from him. In fact, if Chaghan moved, he did too.
“Good. Then you won’t protest since I was going to do it anyway.”
He laughed. It was sniffly, and interrupted by hiccups.
But it was genuine.
“There are circles under your eyes, Chaghan, and they are as dark as the sky,” Altan commented, at last rolling off to instead occupy the space beside him.
He swiped at his face and blinked. “I would hazard a guess that I could say the same of you, if I bothered to look.”
Altan chuckled. “Truce?”
“It’s cold,” Chaghan said as he bit his lip.
Altan rolled his eyes.
“Prissy.”
The taller man hauled him to his feet anyway.
They stood there, clad in shadows and kissed by silver moonlight, eyes locked. When the wind blew, Chaghan didn’t even shiver.
Altan lifted his hand.
And turned his palm up.
His head tilted to the side slightly.
Chaghan wasted only a beat before placing his hand atop and letting Altan show him the way.
Maybe it wasn’t as monochrome as he thought.