Work Text:
Early summer washed over Attica in a balmy wave of heat and sunshine. The lingering humidity that had been hanging over Greece since early Spring has since evolved into heavy rainstorms, stirring rivers and brooks and wetting dried clay into something sustainable, malleable, usable. The cerulean-blue sky—flecked with downy white and bruising silver, heavy with rain to come—is vibrant, more vivid than it should be in actuality. It’s not dim or dull as it was yesterday, when the sun was tucked behind thick cloud matting and swathed Greece in gray. Today, the sun’s a melting warmth, and Yuuji’s outside in the center of a broad clearing behind their home, caramel bleeding through young foliage of pillaring trees. The woods behind Athens are utterly silent with the coming breath of summer.
With an exception.
A few feet away in the cool shadow of an elder cypress, his lover, Megumi. He dozes lightly against the flattened grass, its scent sweet in swallowed rain and rich soil. He lies there, chest rising and falling in undulating rhythm, murmuring soft inert sounds that ebb the deeper he slumbers. Right now, he's the subject of Yuuji’s art. In front of him, a fat clay vase colored a dying red. His fingers work diligently around the neck, pulling and shaping until he has a rough outline of his desired form before going back in to smooth it down and even it out.
They stay like this for over an hour: Yuuji whispering behind his tongue as he works on his vase, carving out the knotting design at the top, Megumi sleeping beneath the tree, his snores gentle and tender like the notes in a lyre, or the stroke of a brush. Yuuji can't help himself to pause, gaze flickering over, staring at his husband. His eyes sweep across his hands, his nails, his face, the slope of his hips, his bent knees, his ankles, and the slightly disheveled linen wrapped about his body. Megumi looks so natural against the soil, as if he belongs there, as if he was born from nature herself.
Yuuji swipes his fingers along his apron, smudging off the wet clay before leaning forward with an outstretched hand to fix Megumi’s chiton. The fabric is crisp, breathable against the young heat: sleeveless and short, like Yuuji’s own.
You sleep so peacefully. I wonder what you're dreaming about.
His touch, ever-so-gentle, is soft enough to wake Megumi, who stirs with the waving grass like a doe. He scrunches his eyes first, dark brows knitting together as he chases consciousness, bangs feathered across his forehead. Then, as his body comes to, pushes himself up with a sigh and a tired flush to his cheeks. There’s something tender, something intimate seeing Megumi wake. Yuuji’s not a poet—he can't bother to pick up a pen and write about the beauty of it all, it's not his element—he can't pinpoint what's so delicate about seeing your lover wake up. Maybe it's the softness. Maybe it’s how they look, natural in their disarray. Maybe it's the way you glimpse at their soul, right when they wake when they're raw and bare and stripped of all their labors.
Maybe he is a poet.
“Lover,” Yuuji greets, quiet enough to be stolen by a breeze. The back of his hand finds Megumi’s cheek, cool knuckles brushing against warm skin before pulling away.
“Mm,” Megumi returns, hoarse from sleep, “Yuuji.”
He takes a moment to gather his bearings, to itch at the sleep in his eyes and stretch out his long legs, the muscle there lean and powerful beneath his sun-tanned skin. His eyelashes—long, black, sitting atop his lids semi-perfectly—are awkwardly crusted together in ebony peaks. Yuuji has to fight the urge to pick at them.
“Are you done?” Megumi asks, still soft, pulling himself to his feet to lumber over until he’s reached Yuuji’s side. Tired hands find working arms and fingers haphazardly graze over small nicking scars like practiced routine.
“Not yet,” murmurs Yuuji, eyes briefly flickering to a crumpled roll of papyrus charcoal-smudged with sloppy rendition of his planned design. Megumi follows his gaze, naturally, and finds the drawing propped upon a small protruding root, held in place with a stone. “I’m about to start painting, I’ll wake you when I’m done.”
Megumi doesn't respond. His eyes are stuck on the lazily drawn pattern, bottom lip pulled between his teeth as if he was thinking. A thumb drives circles into Yuuji’s shoulder: “I look lonely.” He nudges his forehead against the back of Yuuji’s scalp, nosing into the sun-warm hair as his hands draw upwards. “What else are you adding?”
Their hands meet upon Yuuji’s collarbone. “Well, I was thinking about adding an animal. What would you think of a sheep?”
Megumi leans towards him. He’s fragrant—sweet in petrichor and ozone like the earth he’d been laying in just moments prior—and heated by the sun. Megumi lifts his hands to Yuuji’s face, fingers running along the subtle curve of his jaw. Their bodies fit so perfectly together: bends against curves, arcs against dips, flesh against flesh. He’s the other half of his heart, of his body, of his soul. Nothing in the world could substitute for him. Nothing in the world could substitute the feeling, the very feeling he’d first felt when he first laid eyes on Megumi, that deep-seated familiarity of knowing how it was going to be him. It was an interesting mix: an awkward stir in his gut, a simmering heat to his cheeks, a thumping heart, and a bone-deep ache.
In the marketplace just shy of night, his soul was laid out before him in the form of another.
It was always going to be Megumi.
In the fuss, in the dirt, in the grave, in Hades.
It’s always going to be Megumi.
Yuuji pulls his hands from Megumi’s wrists to dip them into the clay bowl of water sitting beside his drying vase. His lover doesn't stir, thumbs rubbing circles into Yuuji’s cheek like second-nature, eyes half-mast in prolonged thought.
“I don't want a sheep,” he says finally, tilting Yuuji’s head back to stare into him. “Put yourself next to me.”
“Why don't you want a sheep?” Yuuji questions, a crooked smile sprouting across his lips.
Megumi pinches him. “A sheep won't keep me company,” Then, he reiterates. “Put yourself next to me.”
There's an intensity in Megumi’s eyes, a spotlight that Yuuji’s seen a thousand times before. He sees it when Megumi wants something specific to eat, or when he wants Yuuji to go to sleep early, or when he wants help in the fields. It’s a demanding look, a look that won't take no for an answer.
“Alright,” he submits in a breathy laugh. Megumi bends down to pluck his hand away from the pot and kiss his clay-dirty palm. “Alright. We will be standing next to each other. It will take longer, though.”
“I don't care,” Megumi mumbles, muffled by Yuuji’s dirty palm, dried clay flaking off red-brown against his lips. “I want to see us together in your work. There is more to us than just me.”
Yuuji blinks once, twice, then nods. Wordlessly, he pulls his hands from Megumi once again to dip them into the water bowl and resume working on his piece with a new vision set in mind.
“What we’re looking at is old. Like, old old. On the front—” the woman in dirt-caked pants turns the pot. It’s broken towards the top, a long shard missing from the rest. “Features two men standing close together. We think it's part of a collection, my team and I, since we found a similar oenochoe, wine jug, just the other day. Each piece in this area usually consists of the same art style—which is a unique blend between usual ancient Greek pottery and techniques from Japan’s Jōmon era—and design: two people, sometimes one, sometimes more, so it's likely all made by one person.”
There’s an excited quiver to her hands as she speaks, her eyes frequently darting from the pot to the camera and back. Hair billows and tickles her face, but her hands are stone set on holding the vase.
“My team thinks the original artist lived roughly around here thousands of years ago—maybe about 400 B.C. Over the five year-long excavation here, we’ve found at least 20 roughly in-tact pots, drinking cups, plates, and occasionally coins or pouches. We have also found a lot of shattered pottery that we’ve been trying to piece together. It’s difficult since most of the pieces have been corroded and reduced to nearly nothing, but we’ve definitely had luck here and there. This—” she gestures to the pot with her shoulders. “Is one of our luckiest finds. Almost complete, save for that little missing spot at the top and a little erosion.”
With a thrilled sigh and a brief glance down to the ancient art within her palms, her nerves finally ebb.
“Again, two men on the front, close-knitted, probably friends considering the other arts we’ve found. If you want to stay tuned to the excavation, there’s a newsletter you can subscribe to on our website. Stay tuned for next week when we clean up this bad boy.”