Finding Atlantis - 9. Chapter 9

Aleksi walked with Aziz along the streets towards the Shad house. They were eerily similar, both tall, skinny, under dressed with spiky hair, though one was black and the other ice blond, nearly white by comparison. Aleksi found Aziz’s house fascinating, the tall spindly structure alive with the clutter and craft of so many lives. He wiped his feet on the mat at the door and trod carefully on the carpets within. Aziz let him wander unhindered, going to the kitchen to drop off his mother’s shopping.

Aleksi touched soft fingers to the various blue glass evil eyes, woven hangings, little wooden things that stood around on the low tables, statues and ancient artefacts, some of which he was sure originated with Krilla. He thought about the man from the street. Kinau, Krilla had called him, someone from home. But Krilla had said he was English and Kinau’s English had been rough, unused. Something was wrong there.

So that had been Krilla’s ex. Or one of them. It was always unsettling to meet your predecessors. Kinau had looked slightly ill and Aleksi couldn’t imagine that he had always looked that bad. Perhaps the older man suffered from heat exhaustion. He rubbed the stone bracelet around his wrist.

“Krilla gave you that?” Aziz asked from the open doorway. He came forward holding glasses of tea and went to the law table at the back of the room. Nodding, Aleksi went to join him.

“Yes, he brought it back this morning.”

“From the sea?” Aziz asked with a sceptical eyebrow.

“Yeah,” Aleksi frowned, “Why?”

“Be careful with him,” Aziz said, “I mean, Krilla’s a nice guy, hell, he’s my best friend, but he’s irrational. He goes away for days on end with no warning. Don’t get hurt by him.”

“Why,” Aleksi started, sounding shocked, “Why d’you say that?

“Oh come on Alek! I know about the two of you.”

“Oh.”

“I know about Krilla. Always have, and you aren’t as good at hiding it as he is. And he’s slipping. I saw those looks across the table this morning.”

“You think everyone knows?” Aleksi asked nervously.

“No. Krilla’s been here years and everyone thinks he’s straight. He has a pretend relationship going on with my girlfriend.”

Aleksi spluttered at that.

“And you don’t mind?”

“No,” Aziz grinned, “He’s cover for the fact I haven’t got the guts to ask her dad to let me marry her.”

“Huh. Weird.”

“Coming from you…” Aziz trailed off, looking worn, “Alek you need to be careful. Don’t expose Krilla. I don’t think anyone’s ready yet.”

They sat in unsure silence for a while, drinking tea.

“Did you know that man this morning?” Aleksi asked finally, sounding worried.

“No,” Aziz said, “But I recognised the name. Krilla mentioned him a couple of times. Not recently though.”

“He say much?”

“No. Just that he was a bastard and he was glad to be rid of him.” Aziz dragged a hand through his hair, “I don’t think he was expecting him to turn up.”

“And he’s defiantly not welcome,” Aleksi was surprised at the note of jealousy and childish petulance in his voice.

“Indeed.”

Aziz showed him around the rest of the house and eventually they found their way out into the garden as the sun begun to dip and sink and the air got colder. Aika began to make various noises involving dinner and they retreated indoors and were both snaffled to help. Aleksi was a dab hand with a good knife, paring vegetables with an ease that impressed even Aika.

The boys came home independently over a twenty minute stretch and they were all mildly surprised to find Aleksi left in charge of the bubbling pans. Tamil came in last, with word of Krilla. La Belle Mere was still moored in the harbour and Krilla had been spotted sulking in the lighthouse. Aleksi had tried to bolt for the door, but found Tamil’s hand on his chest.

“Leave him to it, he’ll come down when he’s ready, my boy.”

“But-” Aleksi couldn’t hide the pain and desperation in his voice, the look in his eyes a dead giveaway that he cared too much for a normal friendship.

“Stay here and eat with us,” Aziz implored, “Don’t run after him.”

All the tension in Aleksi went out of him suddenly and he collapsed in a long limbed huddle against the wall. He was shaking violently like a leaf in the wind.

“Alek?” Aziz’s voice was deliberately careful. He touched his new friend’s shoulder and Aleksi flinched involuntarily, “Dude, get up.”

Standing just behind his father, Yusuf’s eyes narrowed, thinking behind his long dark hair. And suddenly it seemed so obvious as Alek wiped a hand across his face and it came out damp with saline tears. He reached out and ruffled the short blond spikes.

“No worries friend,” he said easily, “If Krilla hasn’t sailed by now he’s not gonna. He’ll either turn up here or wait for you at the harbour. Eat with us. Smells good by the way, what is it?”

“Er…goat with…uh…you really think he’ll wait?” Aleksi asked, looking up at Yusuf’s waif thin form as Aziz groaned inwardly.

“Yeah, no worries.” Yusuf expertly lead Aleksi back into the kitchen, nattering away like nothing was wrong.

Dinner, for all the strained preamble, was a surprisingly relaxed affair once Aleksi had stopped flinching anytime anyone spoke. Tamil managed not to glower and everyone else tried not to look surprised. Aziz gave a brief account of what had happened outside the café, and Aslan snorted in annoyance but refused to comment. Aika greeted the idea of Aleksi working for them on the Aikaterine with positive delight, as did Yusuf, who really didn’t like being much at sea anyway and was just dying to go off and study somewhere exotic and fun and busy. Along with Aleksi’s comment of his hatred of cities, cold and home Yusuf considered the matter entirely settled. Only Murat ate in silence, the youngest child observing the antics of his family through thought shuttered eyes.

After dinner Aleksi, Aziz and Yusuf stayed behind to wash up and clean. Yusuf dissolved into a fit of giggles as soon as Tamil was out of earshot.

“The look on your face,” He leant against the counter for support, “I swear you thought he was going to kill you.”

“He looked as if he might,” Aziz said dryly, “Alek what have you done?”

“Sorry,” Aleksi looked at his bare feet on the white lino of the kitchen floor, “I just…ah…”

“You love him don’t you?” Yusuf said sagely.

“I think so.”

“Just be careful Alek,” Aziz said, his tone imploring, “Now go on, run after him.”

Aleksi turned on one heel and dashed out of the house and along the rough streets towards the harbour at full pelt. From one of the high windows in the Shad house, Aslan watched him, thinking.

There was a figure on the harbour wall in the dark and Aleksi danced up the steep steps and began to make his way along to the end of the spur in the sea. The water was dark and cool, still and reflective as glass. Aleksi watched his own features, the lines of his body in the water. The figure at the end of the wall, when he drew too close not to have been noticed, was not Krilla. Aleksi stopped dead as Kinau turned pale green-blue eyes on him. They watched each other for a while, neither willing to break the contact. It was Aleksi who looked away first.

“So you’re his new boy,” Kinau said, speaking as if talking to someone who wasn’t actually there, “You are my replacement.”

“You used to date Krilla?” Aleksi asked, just to fill the weird silence.

“I suppose so. I think I was rather cruel to him at the time.”

“No wonder he left.” Aleksi said and then regretted saying it instantly. Kinau had stood up, and he was a far bit taller than Aleksi was and suddenly the blond man was scared. Kinau came towards him along the wall, his presence menacing.

“You realize he must come home some time. You can’t keep a fish out of water forever. It’ll die.” He turned his cold eyes on Aleksi and made the boy shudder, “I will fight you for him.” Kinau walked past and Aleksi felt a wash of cold slide across him, as though slipping into chilly water. He sank to his knees on the harbour wall.

It was embarrassing really, he thought from his prone position on the harbour wall, how quickly he’d fallen for Krilla. When there had been plenty of willing young and beautiful things in Istanbul and he hadn’t cared a bit. There had been a scene in the capital, so small that everyone had fucked everyone, or so it seemed. Perhaps that was the allure, because Krilla, a foreigner just like him, had chosen to live out here in the middle of nowhere and probably hadn’t had a date in years, or even in all the time he’d been here. You couldn’t fall in love this fast. It just didn’t happen. But that still didn’t shake the feeling he got around Krilla, the incredible draw of him. Aleksi rubbed the stone bracelet on his wrist and felt himself start to cry again.

“Inspecting the stones?” Krilla’s voice was soft, liquid. Aleksi looked up to see him standing there, so close he was surprised, his eyes dark and shining.

“Not really.” Aleksi tried to keep the sadness from his voice, the tears he had no explanation for and could not stop.

Krilla sat down next to him and pulled him into the curve of his shoulder, arm going tight about him, nestling his face in Aleksi’s soft spiky hair.

“Hush, hush,” he murmured softly, “What are these tears for my Alek, my shining one?”

“Shining one?”

“Yes. All glowing under the sun and the sea, all going gold and brown and white. C’mon,” he chided softly, smiling, “Smile at me with those pretty jade eyes of yours. Better.” They sat and stared out at the sea.

“I met Kinau.”

“Ah, is that right?”

“I think he wants you back.”

Krilla muttered something Aleksi didn’t understand and frowned.

“He never wanted me to begin with,” he said softly, “Bastard.”

“Krilla?” Aleksi hazarded after a long tense moment of silence.

“You can’t fall in love with me you know,” Krilla said, “You can’t trust me.” They both let that hang in the air for a long time as the moon rose higher in the sky, glinting silver on the sea.

“Do you trust me?” Aleksi asked eventually.

“Yes.” Krilla said, and his voice wavered.

Aleksi wrapped Krilla’s hand in his and stood up, bringing the fisherman with him. Somehow they made it along the narrow wall and down the steps, along the jetty to the boat. They stood nervously on deck for a while before Krilla slipped down into the shadows below. Aleksi waited on the deck, padding around in bare feet, breathing in the sea air. Finally he followed Krilla down and made his way into the little cabin in the prow. A big sheet of sail cloth had been rigged over the door as a curtain and inside the space was lit by the soft flame of a paraffin storm lantern. Krilla had folded away the bunks and taken three of the thin mattresses to make a bed, blanket wrapped and soft, on the floor. He sat on the edge of it, shirt off and nervous looking in the golden flame.

Aleksi was struck again by his beauty, the sheer sleek darkness of his skin, his hair falling like water, pooling in the hollows above his collarbones. Aleksi knelt in front of him and kissed away the little frown he wore there. Krilla tilted his face up and caught his mouth between dry, wanting lips and Aleksi took what was offered eagerly. The flame light looked good on them both as Aleksi stripped Krilla from his remaining clothes, sitting back on his heels to admire the long strong body displayed before him. Krilla stared at him with eyes as black as the deep sea.

Krilla pulled him up beside him and clung there, warm and welcome and fitting perfectly into the shape of Aleksi’s body. They kissed for what felt like hours in the near-dark of the cabin. There was wordless shuffling as Krilla rolled Aleksi’s body underneath him and then sat straddling his hips, a wide eyed look of confusion and innocence as he tried to work out what should happen next that made Aleksi’s heart flip.

So Aleksi did it instead, coaxing Krilla forwards, hands on his hips, not controlling, letting the other sink down onto him at his own speed. Even though that speed was torturously slow and gentle and Aleksi had to restrain himself from jerking up into him. Krilla acted almost like a virgin and it suddenly dawned on Aleksi that he’d never taken control before. Kinau didn’t look like the type not to get his way. He ran his hands over Krilla’s smooth chest and demanded of himself that he let this golden boy do just what he wanted. Krilla’s eyes were almost closed, a slit of inky blue between golden lashes, his strong, rough hands planted on Aleksi’s chest, supporting his weight as he lifted himself away from his lover. Aleksi bit his lip, restraining his pleasure until Krilla lent forwards, long hair tickling his chest, his breathing hitching painfully and whispered warm damp words into his ear.

“Please fuck me.”

Aleksi jerked up into him so hard he thought, as Krilla’s eyes went wide and round and two shades paler, that, irrationally, he’d broken this lovely creature. But then Krilla was clinging to him just as hard as Aleksi pounded into him and there were words, half whispered half cried, in the space around him as they speeded up.

“Kitta sona, oua ediama, kiianna…” Aleksi didn’t know any of it, didn’t recognise a word of the stream of fluid noise and it drove him mad. He cried out once as he felt warm wet heat splash over his tight abdomen and then growled Krilla’s name as he came.

They lay pressed together on the blankets in the little dark room. Aleksi listened to the faint hiss of the flame, the gentle sound of Krilla’s breathing, the wet slapping sounds of the sea against the hull. He chuckled to himself.

“Mmm?” Krilla half lifted his head from the pillow he’d made out of Aleksi’s shoulder.

“Talk about rocking the boat,” Aleksi said, grinning, “You alright?”

Krilla shifted, winced and readjusted his legs.

“No permanent damage,” he said, completely deadpan, and burst out laughing.

“I like this,” Aleksi, motion to the cabin, “Peace.” He said after a long pause, satisfied.

Krilla kissed him, warm and damp and perfect, and reached across him to turn out the light.

*

It was dark on the surface of the sea; the water was lit weirdly from below, beautiful and serene as though some vast sprawling city was spread out under the rolling surface of the water. Lights rose from below, glowing strongly like maddened fire flies. Where they broke the surface the water hissed and bubbled and grew warm to the touch. There was no sound but the quiet slap of water against the hull of the boat, and then the dripping splash of Krilla hauling his lithe form out of the water.

Aleksi turned to follow him, but the sails of the boat were up, and suddenly it was receding faster than the time it sailed away allowed, until it was nothing but a bright blue and white blur on the dark horizon. Aleksi called out to the boat, but the shape was long gone, and was alone in the vastness of the ocean. Panic rose up inside his chest and made him thrash and waste his energy, more lights rose from the deep and Aleksi swam around in tight little circles to avoid them. They only rose around him, as though attracted to his presence.

There was a bigger splash and something else rose from the water. It was lit, slightly gold, slightly green, just like the little lights and glowed fiercely from within. The height and shape of a man it raised from the surface slowly, until the glowing statuesque figure stood on the surface of the now glassy smooth sea. Aleksi shied from the shining man, awed and at the same time drawn in by the exquisite beauty of the thing. Just as he reached out to touch it the figure opened its mouth and screamed.

The figure became liquid, molten light that puddled and slopped back into the sea. Where gold touched sea the water hissed and spat and Aleksi had to swim away to avoid being burnt. More lights were rising now, and more figures, each staying long moments on the surface before screaming and melting away.

One figure was different from the screaming dying mass. The glowing green shape of the boy child, cross legged, thin and wide eyed, sat on the surface of the water, staring at Aleksi with round jade eyes. It was singing strange ineligible words to a haunting melody.

“Who are you?” Aleksi said.

The child thing turned its huge eyes on him so that the blond man felt his soul being examined.

“I’m you. Now wake up.”