There is something about Salah'Zar Slytherin that captures him, makes him want to pull close even though he is trying his hardest to be as far away as possible.
It's something he is a hairbreadth away from realizing, from naming each time he tries, and never succeeds. It's not lust, or not just lust – but it's not love either. Or is it?
He isn't supposed to be attracted to another man! Oh, should anyone find out, his honor – his life – would be in pieces! Oh the gods have mercy on him, he cries each time into his bed, when the stars are blood-red rubies in the monstrous black sky, and when he wakes, silent and almost dead from want and longing, he gasps for breadth, suffocating in the still and silent sea of his life, without a thing to turn his mind from sin, and swears that tomorrow, he'd stop. He'll end it.
But as the next day comes, blue eyes follow, unwilling, clothes smelling of lands never known, soft and silent steps of exotic worlds, hands painted with intricate designs. He follows, watches him bathe in the rooms that are all his, that are hidden well from all students and the women, a small 'oasis of home' that is only allowed for him and Gryffindor, like a lover's forbidden kiss, with glittering blues and greens and reds and yellows that shine in the sun, with complex curves – snakes in his Norse eyes – and pillars and water: water, water, water.
Salah'Zar Slytherin bathes so much Guthrik tends to wonder if it's his way of shedding his skin.
The Norseman leans against one of the exotic pillars, feet cold on the floor.
"Come and lie down. You should rest after that dragon."
"'Twas nothing.", he shrugs, and lies on the rug that is complex and colorful like Salah'Zar himself, and feels the other put a soft pillow under his head.
The Arab hums, and begins to paint his hands with the magic Guthrik knows can summon fears and spirits and demons, and heal and teach and help ghosts move on, and he closes his eyes against it. He feels the sunlight warm his face, hears the children and the earth, and suddenly, he just wants to go out, wants to leave, wants to be free again, instead of being locked up forever in this castle, unmoving and dead.
(Suddenly, he wants to hurt Salah'Zar, if for nothing else, then for the sound of his tears.)