"I perform wonders for you...so you will grow young again."
-Amun to Amunhotep the IV
His Love is old, a sapling is gnarled now with him, joint brother's birthed into the world. Silver hair, like spun moonlight, still silky and more fine and narrow than even his lovestruck memory can recall. His own thick callused fingers, with skin not yet thin though that symptom of age will no doubt come, still thread their careful paths of wonder and reassurance through it.
"I am the earth, you are the sky, I will always hold you up," he whispers to those sun spotted ears.
He caresses a cheek wrinkled by time that was once smooth and pale, a fair patch of moon surface, and he wonders at how all his love is still preserved in that first moment of hand to cheek, of azure blue striking stern amber and the two burning for each other.
"You are the seafoam, and I am the waves, always at your back, never without you."
A frail body leans back into his own failing limbs. He cannot fathom the love which never ebbs and seems to have swollen to a pitch unreasonable; for there is no natural beauty anymore, no one stops as they once did to admire the now atrophied lithe muscled limbs, to marvel at the once pale, unblemished skin and feathered hair or youthful glow. Yet this man, in his world, will always represent the apex of Venusian amour, the culmination of Aphrodite's tender work.
His own hair is a speckled gray, his own skin leathered and tan, wrinkled. His sight has grown nearly as poor as their friend's, yet he sees more clearly than he ever has.
They are younger than they have ever been; blue meet his amber, they say everything wordlessly, they are light with youth.
They are babes now, in these failing bodies, because they say with absolute faith and simplicity: "I love you".
When they were a little older, just a spot of grey in his hair and crow's eyes tucked like perpetual smiles in the corner of his Love's eyes, they were less sure about that phrase.
Strong sure fingers would wind their way around his middle, hold him, a cheek resting against his back and the two settled like a conjoined mountain. He felt his love settle, it didn't burn so fierce, it was content, but it did not know itself yet.
They still fought monsters then, beasts, and battle was a dance of unity, one let out a breath and another drew it in, each falling upon each other and depending wholly on the pure fact that the other is their shield and sword.
They say their devotion to each other without words, their slow growing faith still silent, they know each other's meaning and they don't doubt it as they once did, but there is the smallest regret at words not spoken. Still, the silence envelopes them and holds them dear and close. He pulls his World close to him, wraps an arm around his World's shoulder blades, places his mouth against the crevice between neck and collarbone. They entwine themselves together each night and then is the only time words come to him.
"You're my pearl, my sunrise and sunset," he whispers, careful because the silence is stirred.
Silence is returned, but it is a good kind. He shifts his mouth to better worship, his hands palm over and skirt across all that is his.
"You're my sea, my sky, my breath," he whispers.
No words, just hands returning the praise, fingers raising psalms.
"My lungs, my heart, my eyes, my skin, my flesh," he still whispers, but his breath catches at the words, his body at the heights of holiness in a physical act of an altar and lamb cause him to barely let his tongue shape and mold sound.
They peak and stay afloat on clouds.
Finally the silence is taken and cast aside, the rarity of a precious gem.
"I know, you are mine," his World returns.
They are older again. What they have is fresh and raw, they burn for each other and have barely accepted it.
His Love is like water in his cupped hands, he will lose him, he will slip away and never return, those eyes never to hold his, those arms to never cling to him as if he is the earth. He is so afraid. His Love is too, he holds him fast and fierce at night, he barely tears his eyes away for fear of loss. And they have lost so much, too much, the fate bestowed on them is only so kind, but it deals cruelty with generosity.
He was supposed to lose his Love, to watch him slip away and die for a beleaguered light hardly worth the loss. The greater good has already taken, he implores, I have nothing left to give.
So they cling and they cling, and sometimes it's too tight so they fight, and then it is too far and they fear. They are oblique to each other and they struggle. They are different and they cannot accept the beauty of themselves. They love each other and it burns so hot that it hurts and scorches.
Despite the rage of such desperate closeness and sickly connection, they wake each morning and find the grain of sand which is slowly coagulating in its bivalve shell. It begs, time time time, give me time. So in those moments, dawn stretching up to hold them together for one more day, they sit in a peace that will grow with each day as the fear dwindles.
"Stay with me," he says, hand tenderly taking his Love's hand.
Blue hold him and acquiesce. The early morning binds the smelted little seed of what they will grow to be.
When they were ancient, and nothing acknowledged, anger and fear and desperation was all that existed. They fought and pushed and shoved, they killed each other with words. Primordial conception seemed impossible in this ruinous environment. He did not even know what love was, or what it could be.
Events caused waves of cold and heat, an up and down like the rage of an ocean, where wind screams and waves hit back, and they never see that they are each other's destroyers.
Then the end threatened. The storm stilled, they were quiet and stood at some dusk on some dirt. He felt everything meaning nothing fall away, all that was left was what he was to lose. He had placed a hand, quivering, trembling, craven hand, against a cheek. A hand had closed around his.
"You're my ocean," he'd breathed in quiet, feeling his heart slowly carved.
"You're my breath," his discovering Love said back.
"You're my sky," he ventured, daring to climb higher.
"You're my lungs," the ascent continued.
"You're my world," he sobbed.
He knew he was going to lose it all, he could not see the future because both were so old, life would not give them any more time.
"I know," was returned, the black cloak of a scythed man approaching.
"You're mine."
And he leaned forward, drawing his forehead against his now Love's. He wonders at being young again, at stealing more time, at cheating their old age, even as it has come to them while they are so young.
"I love you." And it is a promise he cannot explain.