Title: Substantial
Author: smilingsoprano
Rating: K+ for intimations of a relationship in a strange format.
Pairings: Jon/Zahir. Ish.
Summary: Zahir communes with the Voice.
A/N: The italicized text is taken from Romeo's speech after the balcony (really window, but we'll ignore that) scene in Shakepeare's Romeo and Juliet. Slashy in a very odd non-explicit way. Written for Goldenlake's made of win fic competition, SMACKDOWN.
Night closes like a black cloak around Zahir, cool and comforting. He turns his attention to the small fire in his hearth, the coals gently smoldering as a few meek flames cast wavering red-gold shadows across the floor. He reaches out his hands to bathe them in warmth as his eyes drift closed.
O blessed, blessed night! I am afeard.
A shiver in the pit of his stomach, a frisson of the chill that races up his spine and tingles in his fingertips. It wouldn't happen again, would it? It couldn't.
Being in night, all this is but a dream,
His mind bleeds out into the dark, braiding gentle tendrils through his connection with the Voice, a warm blue presence in his thoughts. Trickles of smoke, curling around and around each other in an endless silence. Images flash between them, lightning-fast and sunstroke-bright. Each crackles and burns across the vast stillness, kindling a thousand fizzing sparks against the black.
Is it really an affair if they never touch?
No, Zahir tells himself, day in and day out. It's a fantasy, an illusion—prayers and moonbeams, held together by the smallest sparkling thread of spun-sugar hope.
Too flattering-sweet to be substantial.
