cloud & light

They’ve spent too long together, pent up like this — crushed into the hold of a ship or bottled up in seminary, face to face and body against body. It had been guilty enough then, with the threat of discovery hanging over them, but here —

He smells like salt and soot; Rodrigues mouths against his neck and feels his throat rumble with stifled sound. His long white legs are uncovered, his long arms cinching around Rodrigues’ side, letting him slide in easy alongside such a long body in repose. He has broad bones beneath the skin, even where the body itself is pinched by hunger, and Rodrigues can study the topography of them under his grasping hands. Trying to comfort him, to link with him here and nothing else.

No talking. No words of reassurance. Not even thinking, as hard as it is to put from his mind exactly where and when they are, poised on the brink of their great work even as they’re pitifully sheltered at the edge of an unmapped territory, a sea of dark green. His own body fits nicely in the dark, hip grinding against hip, hands groping and touching indiscriminately — he’s suffocating against Francisco’s chest, choking in cloth, with a heartbeat filling his mouth. There are certain sins almost endemic to young men, and this is one of them — mutual defilement, his own slippery tugging grip. Francisco’s own big hand worrying between his own legs, trailing wet and blood-warm against Rodrigues’ belly, the two of them so close. Curled up on the ground, he can feel his friend’s breath against his face; his cheek prickles with the warmth of it.

Garrpe makes a sound, a hoarse breaking sound, and Rodrigues presses his hand over his mouth — abrupt enough to bruise his lips against his teeth, but Garrpe kisses his palm, the scraped heel of his hand, the hollow side of his wrist. He wants to feel that mouth against his — Rodrigues noses hopelessly in the dark, blindly hoping for their lips to meet and come away again, and they do. Clumsy kisses with scraping beards and the hard chip of teeth. It’s impossibly sweet, even in collision — a kiss of peace.

They haven’t been like this since they were much younger, and maybe he’s loved him since then, he’s held him in higher esteem than other men. He’s loved him ever since, and there’s no one he’d rather be with, here in a blackened sooty place far from anything familiar.

Before long Rodrigues finishes too, gasping. He can savor the weight of his body, the warmth between them in the sticky join of flesh. The smell of sweat is joined by the briny smell of sex.

The two of them lie in the cool dark, gulping down breaths, tangled in their garments — Francisco’s big chest rising and falling beneath Rodrigues’ resting head, his big hand coming up in a spasmodic gesture of comfort to touch Sebastião’s hair with his fingertips, where it lies against his collar. He can smooth tangles into ringlets, into soft waves like a figure in a painting.

No one’s seen them. Nobody’s discovered them like this, sunken into their private disgrace. Rodrigues’ throat feels tight, a guilty flare at forgetting their mission, even for a moment — but Garrpe’s hand stills its stroking against the nape of his neck, a covering and comprehensive weight, and he can shut his eyes.