hector sawiris

Late for work, again, the press of too many bodies as he struggles out of the underground- don’t walk into anyone don’t step on anyone’s shoes oh shit I’m so sorry-- and once he’s out on the streets of Charing Cross Hector tries to locate himself on the map of London’s streets at his feet. Manages to realize he’s walking the wrong way a moment later. Late late late, he thinks, rabbits and pocket watches in mind, and when he turns he-

Well, he manages to walk into someone after all.

There’s a moment between the collision and the vertigo of almost-not-quite falling- where he feels an abject sense of giving up. No proper word for it except- god would forgive me if I didn’t make it into work today, perhaps I can fall over on the street and call in to say I had an accident. But he stumbles and his hand clutches at the first thing he can reach to steady himself and if it turns out to be the other person’s sleeve he’s even more sorry for that.

His feet stop trying to trip him and his eyes flick up and he thinks- I’m so sorry, tries to convey the sentiment to dark skin and darker hair, to eyes the shade of--

( rivers at night, red stone bridge, dreams of deserts and oases, steel press of a gun against his forehead and- )

“Scusa-” Hector says, steadies them both and takes a step back. Un perfetto idiota, running across his mind, rather chastising. For a moment he expects to see cloudy skies and low mountains over the buildings. But it’s London’s crowded streets around him, the sound of buses pulling and tourist chatter and he- “Sorry,” he repeats, with the taste of copper in his mouth- his mouth pulls up in a smile and a laugh and for some reason he thinks that he doesn’t know Italian. “It’s- have we met?” I’m so sorry, my memory is terrible.

“So shy.“ Nostalgic. How Hector sidesteps and shifts from Orion’s demands that he lift his shirt. That he bare the dip of his navel, hipbones and soft skin. Orion wants to see it. The scar. They say never to tattoo reminders of lovers on bodies. Never anything permanent, because hearts are fickle and skin endures.

But there. Under the fraying fabric, sliding over Hector’s ribs, is a mark the man will wear for the rest of his life. Orion wonders if it hurts. Wonders if when Hector breaths, he can feel it. That tattoo of tattered skin.

His skin is damp from Hector’s mouth, and the fork slides wet between his fingertips as he cuts a slice. “I’ve shown you mine. The least you can do is return the favor. After all–this is my first visit to your home. It’s your turn.” The cake is soft in his mouth, sweet and slightly bitter with the rum, the cream melting as he rolls the different textures with his tongue and swallows. “To play the gracious host and make me feel accommodated.“

There is no avoiding it. This. Whatever the gravity between them can be called. It seems cheap to label it. To attempt to compress the history.

“Perhaps.“ There is no napkin, so he thumbs the cream from the corner of his mouth and sucks it clean. “You should consider adjusting your loyalties.”

He reaches into his pocket and sets a key on the table, latched to a brass keychain, an amber topaz notched at the end. The gem was sharp, angled, cut like a knife. Hector’s birthstone.

“I’ve changed the locks. Consider this… explicit permission to inconvenience me at your leisure.”

Silence, left in a vacuum. Sucking all his words in, his reply, leaving his lungs breathless. He breathes. Unmoored. Tip of his thumb curling into flesh, pads dragging across manicured nails.

He shuts his eyes. When he opens them again the world is out of focus.

"I don't understand." Hollowed out. The light gleaming on the key left on the table. He can see it without sight.

"You need to-" stilted, looking for the right word, the correct emotion, "You need to explain this to me. I don't understand." Feeble in its repetition even to his own ears.

Inside him a bubbling of hysteria, cut at the seams. Left to float up and out. Leaving his body like all the air in him.

He's a fool and if Orion doesn't tell him right now then Hector might get foolish ideas. There's no helping it after all. He's senseless and blind and--

Silence, again. Teeth aching, pressed together too long. Room too small, everything stuffed inside. Everything that can't get out straining at the slit in the windowsill, struggle of air bunching up at the blinds.

"What am I to you."

“I know.“ Strange. There are words waiting to be served, plated, perfectly garnished. But he swallows them down. Slouches forward, elbows on his knees, the mug between his palms. Hot–almost painfully so. Seeping into skin. And he takes a sip. Sets it on the table. Careful. The coffee sloshes before it settles. Ripples before it calms.

“You sell yourself short.”

His wound pulses. A throb for every heartbeat. He’s pushed himself to be here. Pain isn’t cheap, and he wonders if Hector is worth it.

“But, here. See for yourself.” He unbuttons his shirt. The fabric spreads. The wound is covered with gauze and white tape, but the skin around it is red, red, red. Furious and irritable. Was she worth it? Orion leaves his shirt open and takes another sip of coffee.

“Let me see yours.“ More command than request. And he is charmed by this room. The quaintness of it. Steeped in that every day, common man domesticity Orion has always lacked. So simple. The bones licked clean and stark white that everything about Hector was out in the open for Orion to peck at.

“An artist. Hector. Here I thought we were beyond secrets.” Fingertips on the top piece of paper, sliding it to the right. The drawing beneath is familiar. That profile, those eyes, that serrated curve of lips–

“Ah.“

Orion plucks the sketch of himself from the table. Holds it up to the light so the paper is translucent, the lines of pencil sharp, black, crude in it’s smudged curves and loops. He folds it in half. Then in quarters. Pockets it.

He isn’t so easily flattered. He’s been worshiped before–immortalized by hands on his edges and rounded hips, fingers in his mouth and palms on that wet slide of skin.

But with Hector–

“Here.”

Mostly on whim. Orion dips his fingers into the slice of Tiramisu. Digs, burrows, tearing apart the thick and foamy cream, the plush layers of cake before diving into the whipped, frothy, cool sweetness again.

“Try it.” Fingers scooping up the piece. Raising it to Hector’s mouth. Shifting the question of concern aside with intimacy.  “I’ve missed you.“

As close to a confession as he is capable of. Orion presses the tips of his fingers on Hector’s mouth. As if he can smother the it–the truth. Ill-fitted. Ill-suited. No room for–

“Open your mouth.“

He's kneeling, fingers skirting the length of the wound, a hairsbreadth from a touch. Beneath his knees the hardness of stone. If the cages- he thinks. If. And then he doesn't need the answer.

I'm sorry. In his mouth, the sickness. Seized in his chest. I'm sorry for being there. For watching you. For not looking. For trying to forget.

"Nothing to see." A deflection, hand stilling in its motion. He doesn't want to look up. Doesn't want to know what Orion would see, not when he can't hide it, too raw. Skin all flayed. And nothing Orion says feels real, not the flippancy- not the I missed you, not when it means nothing no matter how he construes it. A enigma of a sentence he cannot fathom. He wants to touch Orion, to make sure he's there, to steep this scene in reality once more.

Still his intent crumbles in defeat. A lull into a rhythm he's fallen away from. Too easy to fall back in. Parting his mouth, letting Orion push the cake between his lips. The only thing he can taste is the sugar, the cloying sweetness- the flavour lost on him. No thought behind it when he licks clean Orion's fingers, the rough pads of his fingertips on Hector's tongue.

So out of control in his own home. The drift of the thought, soldifying. Abruptly he's too conscious of his position. Heat rising in his cheeks. Embarassment. Frustration. Feet unsteady as he gets up, motion too swift, the sting of pain ignored. A somewhat hasty retreat is made back to the counter, he makes an attempt to locate whatever he was doing before Orion came. He hadn't been doing anything.

Hector picks up a fork instead. Deposits it beside the slice of tiramisu. Puts more space between them and tries to feel less uncomfortable in his own apartment.

Visitors come and go, drifting to the few rooms where the artists have arrived early. Business cards in wallets and pale champagne held between thumb and forefinger. A new exhibit, after all. VIP night. And all the while Hector remains rooted to his position, glass of water left full, the exhibit in front of him coloured in shades of red, black. Oddly enrapturing, even after twenty seven minutes.

There’s no neutral ground left. Nowhere safe, not any more. And certainly not this place, this gallery on the edges of what was once Capulet territory, who have had dealings with that cosca. But there’s more than a little madness in Hector’s veins now, that reckless blood, something wild in him come to stay.

i have no idea.

The problem is that Hector knows what love feels like. He’s in love with Hiran and he has been for as far back as he can remember. What he feels for Orion is nothing like that. But he’s a hypocrite because in some ways it’s horribly familiar. Except this time it’s almost reciprocated.

I think… at the moment, Hector’s trying terribly hard not to fuck up. He doesn’t know what he wants from Orion any more, he’s at a loss as to how to define their relationship- and he’s scared to ask and he doesn’t want Orion to abandon him (yikes abandonment issues right there). So he’s letting everything happen on Orion’s terms, letting him define their relationship, going along with everything and capitulating to most every request. And that’s not great because if Hector lets himself be led by Orion, he’s too susceptible to falling in love, maybe the way Orion wants him to.

“Yes.”

Too forceful, too obviously a lie. If the way that she clutched at her side with a vice like grip wasn’t a dead giveaway. Didn’t they say that the poison was well and truly out of her system? How could she still be suffering like this, going through the vestiges of a horror that should not be taking this long to be purged from her body? As a way of proving that what she was saying was true, Juliana straightened up to her full height… or tried to, the attempt was pitiful at best because as soon as any sort of tension was placed on the lower half of her trunk, she was bending back over, a little less prominent but definitely not the show of pride that she had hoped she was going to make. If anything, she had ended up hurting it - and herself - further.

“… you do know who I am, right?” How she managed to make the question sound so dry and sarcastic despite the pain was beyond her; maybe she was so much stronger than even she had believed herself to be. “Why would you even want to lea-…” Speaking of flowers, Juliana’s eyes drifted to the ones in his hand, hating that she almost instantly smiled at the sight of them, that she already felt a fondness for them, for him, for the kind gesture that he even thought to make at all, regardless of whether or not it was a mistake at all, if he had intended it or not. 

Doesn’t mean he couldn’t still pull a fast one and hurt her though. God knows everyone was suspect now, everyone was just pulling tricks from their sleeve left, right and center. 

“If you came to kill me, you could just say so. It’s not like I can put up much of a fight. I’ll still scream your ears deaf, of course, and I’ll kick and bite you, but the way I’m looking right now…”

A half-step, decision still unmade. The heaviness, the weight. All dragged down on his feet, and he doesn’t know why he’s so unsure. May I, on his tongue, trapped in his esophagus, all the intent and still he cannot say it. Will you let me.

"Yeah-" too slow, hesitating over the words, he winces even as he says it- "I know who you are." And maybe he can't help it if he looks at her and remembers the first time he had seen her, when he was younger and she was too young, still a child. When did someone stop being a child? Maybe that was it, maybe this is why, and he's thinking too much and he's such a fool- and he shrugs, a little helpless. I don’t know why I came, I don’t know why I’m still here.

But there’s an ill expanse of silence as her words taper. Uneasy ripples, water spreading from their feet to the walls, slippery and deep- you could just say so. He opens his mouth and says nothing. The urge in him, thick as water, how he suddenly can’t find the words, can't find the voice for it, nothing except;

“I know.”

He does. He thinks, he knows-- with morbid certainty, he could slot his hands over her throat. Crush the windpipe, snap the bone. Red on the skin and all the blood inside her, all the guilt disippating as air. He could and he thinks he could get away with it, thinks that at this point anyone would. Hector swallows it down, the silent hatred of it in his gut. Churning. When he smiles it's a little frayed. “I won’t."

He took the paper from Hector gently and looked up to meet his eyes. But despite the warmth of his unsaid thanks, he didn’t say anything for long enough to be considered uncomfortable.  

“Kai,“ he said finally,  “I go by Kai, not Cyrus.“

The person in front of him was a stranger or, at the very least, Kai would pretend he was. Perhaps he recognized the person’s face in front of him, could say a name and a motive and a title if pressed, but he resolutely refused to acknowledge any of it.

“It is not much faster,” he traced over the paper with his fingers, “but more- familiar. And besides, I do not write for other people to understand, just to make sense of things for myself.”

“You used to write in Arabic?“ folding the piece of paper and tucking it away, he furrowed his brow, shifted his weight,  “Do you not anymore?”

“You-“ he repeated, pressing his lips together once more in confusion, “Your name– I do not know it.“

“Kai, sorry.” Smile brightening, apology in Hector’s voice. “I’ll remember that.”

“No, nobody could understand what I was writing.” He shrugs. The sun peering out from behind a cloud- too bright, a little blinding and he shifts to compensate. Blinking a little from the light, it takes a moment to remember what he was saying. “Definitely easier but.” A hum of consideration. “Harder when people asked if it was some kind of code. Took rather too long to explain.”

The sun disappears again. He blinks a little easier.