The sand sinks beneath his feet. The weight of his body displacing the granules to make space for him.
It leaves an imprint of his being as he walks, drawing closer and closer to the shore, where the waves lap and lick the earth.
His beloved sits just barely where the sea foam touches him, staring despondently into the distance. Where monsters and gods alike thrive, where the mortals roam the lands, laughing, living, loving.
He stops a few metres away and looks at where the sea expands into nothing but a mass of azure.
"Someone has come for you," he announces, crossing his arms as the gaping maw in his stomach widens.
The winds blow a bit harder, shaking the leaves of the coconut trees around them.
"They said they're here." He swallows, looking at his feet instead, where the sand has found solace in the spaces between his toes, "They're here to talk you away."
The man straightens up from where he sits, and the gust of wind that blows by combs his long black hair back, revealing a covered yet still prominent jaw, clenched tightly and a pair of sea-blue eyes suddenly renewed.
They sparkle beneath the late morning sun. And for a moment, his breath is caught. His lover is beautiful, with his sun-kissed skin and soft hair, facial hair that simply enhances the ruggedness of his countenance. His body chiselled through hard work and labour, a wit as sharp as a blade, an aim as true as the wind.
"They said that they're here to save you." He turns then, angry, and loath as he is to admit, heart broken. "Because you're not mine, supposedly."
There's a rustle that breaks through the calming sound of the water coming up the shore, and soon, his lover passes by him, their shoulders don't even touch.
He starts following a a distance away, making their way to the other part of the island where the Messenger awaits with a boat and bag strapped around his waist.
"Ah!" He calls with a coo, "Kal! I've been waiting for you--wait," the Messenger tilts his head, eyes roving up and down the other man's figure, before letting out a whistle, "Well, damn, what has happened to you?"
"20 years gone from my wide." He rasps out, throat like gravel from barely speaking.
He and Kal hadn't spoken ever since he screamed the Goddess, Diana's name in one delirious moment of wary and cognizant state days ago.
"Right," the Messenger nods, "Well, just hop on and I can lead you out of here."
The swirling pit in his stomach suddenly clenched up, tightening up and locking his body, as he blurts out, "Wait--"
Kal pauses half-way toward the awaiting boat. The Messenger is, unfortunately, gracious enough to look away and fiddle with the, frankly rough, raft he'd brought with him.
Then, Kal turns back to him. His hair is in a bit of disarray, the darkness beneath his eyes and the way his cheeks have sunken a bit is a frighteningly haunting thing to witness.
Was this what his lover looked like all this time? Had he been so blinded? But, no!
He gave Kal a paradise, free of burden, of age, of sickness and famine! Kal is lucky to have washed ashore on his island. Kal should be grateful he decided to take him in, in the first place!
"I--" He swallows, his nape is warm, but not due to the sun above them, but the gurgling emotions trying to rip out of his throat, "You are unlike any man I have ever known." He manages to croak out, haltingly, yes, but it's the one thing needed for him to get started.
"Well, you're the only man I know. And I--" He tightens his hold on his own arms, digs his nails down into the flesh and muscle there, "I apologise. I understand that it's quite overdue, however, I may have realised that I haven't been the most... Accepting of hosts.
"I hope you've seen my advances as sincere, as I truly do--" A hiccup escapes, and it takes him a few seconds to notice the wetness streaking down his cheeks.
When he takes a breath in through his mouth, it comes in stuttered and broken, quivering the lungs inside his chest.
"I love you, Kal. For you are the man among men, and I wish I had met you much earlier."
Kal's silence is a deafening thing, "This is a fact, and I have no care if you hate me for it."
His beloved takes a step forward then, hand outstretched to touch him, and instinctively, he takes a step back as he breathes in shakily.
Kal's eyebrows are scrunched, there's a saddened pout to his lips, and he almost looks... Remorseful.
"Let me speak," clearing his throat, he tells his first memory.
Of washing ashore on an unknown island, of never seeing a boat or ship pass by, of watching the sun rise and sun set, of hearing the birds caw and chirp, of the fruits the grow yet never seem to run out.
Of simply looking out into the horizon, and until suddenly, he never grew past the age of what he is today.
Of learning and discovering his sudden godhood. Of realising that no matter how many times he tries, he will never be able to leave an island that has wrapped its shackles on him.
But then--"You washed ashore, one day. Unconscious and in need of assistance. No man, no person has ever stepped foot on my island before. Never found my island--except for you.
"I nursed you to health, I nursed you until you were able to wake, and every day and night I spent by your side, you would say his name.
"You call out to him as if there's nothing else you need.
"Meanwhile, I gave you every thing I could! I gave you food, a shelter, safety! I gave you my heart, and you could barely sleep a night by my side!" He screams, throat hoarse and raw, "What does Bruce have that I don't, Kal! What!"
Kal's looks at him, meets his gaze steadily. "My heart, Alexander. That's what Bruce has."
Gritting his teeth, he races forward, hands planting themselves onto Kal's chest with a shove. It barely moves the man, body simply swaying with the move as he's forced to stumble backward from his own momentum. "I hate you, Kal."
"I love you," whatever speech he had to say next dies on his tongue, eyes growing wide with the confession, Kal looks down, reaches for his hand and gives it a squeeze, "I love you, Alexander. Just, not in the way that you want me to."
Immediately, he snatches his hand back. The meeting of skin to skin rings in the silence, unable to be drowned out by the passing winds. His palm tingles with warmth, both of Kal's and the friction of it.
There's a flushed mark, subtle but there that blooms on the man's cheek, half of it hidden by the scruff of his beard.
"I hate you, I hate you." He hiccups, tears flowing, it paints his cheeks in large streaks. "You know nothing of the sacrifice I had to make, you know nothing of life, and you know nothing of what others feel, of what love is.
"You are nothing but a monster and I wish you never washed up on my shore."
Kal bows his head then, the darkness of his hair hiding away his features. "Farewell, Alexander."
"You will never set foot on my island, do you hear me!? I curse you, Kal-El! I curse your entire bloodline." Kal sets onto the boat, as the Messenger starts pushing the boat away from the shore.
Kal is a nature as he readily arranges the sail to catch the breeze, letting it take him away as the waves push him away.
I hate you!" He stops just before the water touches him, just before the water burns, just before the water rejects him. "I hate you and you will find me ever again!"
"You will never know what paradise is! Never!"
Air leaves him as he sinks unto the sand, it itches along his skin and the droplets of water that touch him burns.
But it's better than the ache that Kal has left his chest in. It's better than knowing that the best man he's ever known is someone else's. It's better than the simple fact that Kal has never loved him and will never reciprocate it, no matter how long he'd confined Kal to his island alone.
It's better than knowing that he will never be loved.
"I have a paradise," Kal mumbles, refusing to turn around as he's taken farther and farther away. The shackles that had kept him are free.
The tightness that surrounds him whenever he tried to leave the island have disappeared.
The illusion broken as he spots the vague shape of a rocky section of the sea somewhere in the distance.
"What's that?" The Messenger asks, sitting by the edge of the boat and looking down into the water. "You say something?"
"Nothing," he answers, feeling a smile tug at his lips, "I can finally go home."
"Uh, yes. Well--" The Messenger presents a familiar bag, "This bag was incredibly hard to procure, mind you. And you're not exactly free from Poseidon's wrath as of yet."
And that news alone doesn't deter him. To see his wife? His son? He'll do anything he needs to.
Even if it means he has to become the monster that everyone has told him that he is.