Love is Always Write Anthology Volume 2

saw the man in the gas mask serving steaming jabs and ferocious kicks to his attackers.
    A gas mask was indeed his lucky charm.
    ****
    Blessed be the Universe for the lad is safe in my arms.
    ~ Sule Sarong's Personal Log - Standard date 5772.03.13
     
    Sule had taken care of the three idiots trying to force his lad, bringing him back to the city in his transport. They had several days before the rescue party arrived at the spaceport. It was sad to think that now that help was on its way, the survivors would start turning against each other.
    Trying not to traumatize the lad further, Sule had just pulled his clothes together and waited patiently for him to come back on his own. He caressed the disheveled locks he had dreamed about so many nights. Long, dark lashes begged him for a kiss, a kiss he couldn't bring himself to steal.
    Since Sule had never been close enough to the lad to learn the color of his eyes, he wondered. Sule knew they were fair, in plain contrast with his dark, manly eyebrows; eyebrows he tentatively traced not wanting to disturb the peaceful unconsciousness of this dreamboat.
    And when your eyes've shone
    Upon my face
    And your smile's blinded me
    With non-natural radiance
    I will happily die
    Knowing there's
    No more to yearn.
    Sule recited mentally as he caressed a pale cheek— with the back of his fingers— in a silent glide of nails and knuckles. As much as Sule didn't want to disturb the lad, he couldn't help himself. So close for him to have, it was impossible to put distance between them now.
    The vision leaned onto his hand with a pleased hum and opened his eyes. They were pale blue, like a cloudless sky in the moment the sun was at its highest. "Your name," the lad murmured, his voice rasped as if his throat was extremely dry.
    The gas mask came off, as Sule was just waiting for the lad to recognize him first, and Sule spoke, holding the lad's hand. "My name is Sule Sarong, your humble servant." He drew the hand to his lips and kissed it. "Allow me the gift of your name."
    The vision smiled, caressing with trembling fingers his stubbly cheek. "Alaric Aquinas," he pronounced calmly. "I owe you so much, Sule." This time he traced Sule's lips with a single, now steadier, finger.
    "You owe me nothing, Alaric. You safety is my biggest reward." Sule went to his feet to get something for Alaric to drink. He settled the gas mask on a nearby table and poured water.
    Wasn't Alaric a king who conquered Rome? How fitting.
    Alaric sat, looking at Sule with adoring eyes, and then assessed his state, as he accepted the offered glass. "Thank you. I'm a mess." There was mud and grass all over him. "I'm defiling your bed." He chuckled softly, "Please, forgive me."
    Sule sat again— close, so close— and smiled openly, "It doesn't matter. It's not that we will stay here for long. We must go to the spaceport by the Tyrrhenian Sea soon." He took the emptied glass from Alaric's hands, "I can offer you a bath, if it pleases you."
    "Only if you share it with me," Alaric uttered with a falsely solemn face.
    "Are you sure? After what happened to you, I wouldn't impose my presence in such an intimate way."
    "I'm positive I want you there with me, as I am positive there will be another dawn tomorrow."
    ****
    Sule had said his own name, stressing the final e, in the same way his tutor had done when Alaric was learning his vowels as a child. The tutor had held a card showing an animal with large, hanging ears and a long trunk that didn't exist in Nova Gaia but was still used to teach children the alphabet. "E-le-phan-t," his tutor had enunciated condescendingly. An action Alaric hadn't understood at the time but now was clear as water.
    Lately, Alaric learned that the inhabitants of an outer-rim planet had characteristics very similar to Earth's pachyderms. "The patterns of the Universe are repeated endlessly and with wisdom," his pappa had said in the middle of one of their frequent and entertaining discussions.
    As Alaric watched Sule strip— his brocade morning coat and waistcoat— and discovered the sultry coat of hair adorning Sule's chest as the white shirt became undone, he wished he hadn't gone through the chemical removal of all his body hair. The only follicles active in his body were the ones on his scalp and eyebrows.
    With the gas mask gone, a stark new concept of desire exploded inside Alaric. His fingertips still tingled with the sensation of Sule's incipient beard, and Alaric wanted that