sing your melody

His mouth pressed into a frown, eyes hard and distant as he pressed his hands together, fingers clasped so tightly he was sure he would loose feeling in them soon enough. “I’m fine,” he re-iterated, eyes boring straight ahead. “You saw what I am. So why are you here?” He finally spared the tiniest of glances out of the corner of his eye, and his entire facade threatened to melt under her caring look. “Don’t you have a wedding to attend.”

“I’m here because you need me here,” she insisted quietly, watching the way he’d reacted. She knew this wouldn’t be an easy conversation to have but she wasn’t going to just run away from him, nor would she leave him alone at a time like this. “I have nowhere else I want to be. I’ll sit here quietly if that is what you’d prefer but I’m not leaving,” she said with a sense of finality in the words, hoping he wouldn’t demand that she leave. 

fallingslcwly

He knew she was there. He could feel her eyes on him, and god, would it have been such a wonderful feeling had he not just reveled his truth to her. He didn’t dare turn to meet her gaze- he didn’t think he would be able to face the look on her face. Normally he didn’t care what anyone thought of him…but this was- well, she was different. “I’m fine,” he said after a moment, clearing his throat, answering her question before she even asked.

She would wait until he looked at her, she decided, although she did worry a bit that he wouldn’t look at her again. While it had been a lot to process and take in, she could feel everything that he was feeling and the one thing she knew was that he needed her even if he wouldn’t say it. Her hand moved to cover his when he spoke and she decided that was close enough to him turning to face her. “It is alright to not be fine,” she spoke quietly, hoping to reassure him. 

“That is a very good saying,” Capheus admitted while he wandered to the window, to the brilliant view of the Mexico City skyline. “In Nairobi we have a similar saying, you are never without home if you are always with heart. This is universal.” He turned back to Lito. “You are movie star? Just like Jean Claude. You are the maker of magic, my friend,” Capheus said, reaching a hand out to shake his shoulder, overcome with excitement.

Capheus was fascinating to Lito. He had an energy radiating off of him, an abundance of something he couldn’t quite put his finger on but he realized he loved the feeling. It reminded him of how he felt when Hernando would recite lines he’d helped Lito learn when the film would play on television, reminded him of the warmth he felt when his boyfriend’s voice would change in the most subtle of ways as he spoke passionately about something he cared about. It was like Capheus was simply in love with life or at least with the possibilities it came with. He had the fleeting wish that he’d been able to speak to him sooner. “The real magic is in the words, not in me. It’s all about interpretation and delivery. If I believe it, the audience will believe it. That’s the key to a good lie. Believe what you know to be false,” he explained, though he kept the words light. 

“In all the glory,” Capheus said, a wide grin splitting his face as he turned to his side. He hadn’t spoken to Lito yet, not on this level, and yet somehow he knew him. To Capheus, it was beautiful, and something that he didn’t question. Why question a gift. To be connected to someone on such a personal level, to be able to travel without leaving, to see without being, it was miraculous. “And…this is your house?” He raised his eyebrows as he stood suddenly to spin in Lito’s spacious, modern apartment. “This is like a movie! You live here? This is yours?”

“Si, this is my apartment,” Lito nodded, half a smirk on his face as he watched the other man look around in wonder. He tried to see his home from the other’s point of view, to take in the differences of their worlds and their cultures. “It’s not just mine. Hernado lives here as well as our friend Dani,” he explained, though neither of them were home at the moment. “Where we love is home, home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts,” he quoted from one of his movies. 

“What! My apartment smells like spaghetti and dreams, get the heck outta here Del- oh shit. Hang on…just…I’m gonna go check outside, you should stay behind me. Or not. You could go first. It sounded like someone running in the hallway…”

“Hey. Listen lady, you didn’t hurt my feelings but I could use a cuddle. I’m notafraid of the dark. Fight me. I can get the candles, I’m a big boy. Why’d you bring candles over anyway unless you were the one who wanted to cuddle…punk.”

“You are so mean to me, and here I am, opening my apartment to you, keeping you company…I don’t want to waste the battery what if we need it later? Hey, freak black outs is how it always starts, you know?”

“Okay, one, I’m not afraid of the dark. And two, I wouldn’t need a plot to cuddle, I’d just ask. Three, just help me find the flashlights…I would have to be watching that creepy shit- oh my god. Del. Look out the window…the whole fuckin’ city is dark.”

“No! I’m not that stupid. I mean, okay, that one time I thought the story they were running on aliens was real but it was really convincing! This is channel four, they’re saying it’s some kind of-…shit. Powers out.”