One WIP down, 987247 to go...

[_backpages_]

I intended to post this last October but it wasn't finished yet. Better shockingly late than never, right?

Anyway around two years ago left_sider and I stumbled across news about Cyril Raffaelli's latest film, Djinns, a.k.a. Stranded. There was a minor Flailing Incident when we discovered that Cyril would be sporting period military gear, and then a major

Comments

Epilogue

[_backpages_]

I've been told that I 'always end stories too soon' and that fading to black is cheating. So here, have a bonus epilogue:

An hour after dawn the small company is almost ready to depart. Louvier packs the last of his own gear and straightens to survey the rest of the camp. The medic and two others are carefully maneuvering Michel onto his stretcher while the remaining members of the search party take down their tents, and beyond them Aroui is standing with the horses, tying his rolled blanket onto Asad’s saddle. Louvier’s throat tightens painfully. It is time.

Aroui nods over his shoulder as Louvier approaches, his hands busy fastening his small arsenal of weapons to the saddle. Louvier watches him secure the long curved knife, fighting a foolish urge to ask him to stay.

‘Are you sure you have enough water?’ he asks instead.

‘Yes.’ Aroui gestures toward Suhaib’s carefully balanced burden of water skins and bundled provisions. ‘We have more than we should need.’

‘Good,’ Louvier says automatically, and then his voice fails him as Aroui steps away from the horses to face him.

They study each other for a long moment, neither speaking. Words seem insufficient now after all that has passed between them. Aroui’s tagelmust shadows his gaze but Louvier meets his eyes-eyes that he had once thought so unreadable-and sees his own unrest reflected there. It seems leaving may be no easier than staying behind.

Louvier looks away, glancing toward the camp; no one is watching them and Asad’s bulk is a welcome shield from any curious eyes. So he faces Aroui again and takes a deliberate step forward and in the same breath Aroui’s arms close around him tight enough to ache. Louvier leans even closer and curls his hands around shoulders that he knows still bear fading bruises from the press of his fingertips three nights and a weary march and a lifetime ago.

The murmur of noise from the camp fades out, swallowed by the dull roaring in his ears. Louvier can feel Aroui’s heart racing also, the way the rise and fall of his chest falters with his wavering breathing. He thinks of the last time they stood this way, in the lantern room on the morning they left the citadel, when Aroui had paused before putting on his tagelmust and unexpectedly pulled him into a deep, lingering kiss. Louvier closes his eyes and wishes for impossible things.

Too soon Aroui releases him and draws away. Louvier steps back and takes a steadying breath but his words still come out sounding choked when he meets Aroui’s burning gaze again.

‘Safe journey,’ he offers simply, keeping his fists clenched at his sides to stop himself from reaching out.

‘And you as well,’ Aroui returns, his voice equally rough. As if on impulse he lifts a hand and settles it at the nape of Louvier’s neck, the brief touch somehow as intimate as a kiss. Then he turns swiftly away to swing into the saddle with the familiar fluid ease that Louvier has admired and envied from their very first meeting.

[to be cont.]