But his gaze is different. Everyone else sees the perfection I've honed through countless hours, flawless Damascus steel sharpened mercilessly. Justin sees everything else. He sees the swirling patterns I hide just beneath the cold, polished surface. His eyes judge each one, memorizing and cataloguing them for god-only-knows what purpose. Maybe he'll draw them, when he's bored in class and doesn't want to discuss the merits of pointillism with some overblown, self-important professor who can't stand students who are better artists than he himself is. No one is a better artist than Justin; no one else has eyes like his.

They see so many things. All my scars, every bruise dear old dad left on my tattered, marble body. Every word that cut into muscle, all the whispers that scraped and tore at my skin. He sees the old ones I make myself forget, and the new ones I don't ever mention. We have an understanding: I let him look so long as he pretends he doesn't see.

Right now, he's a little too far away for my comfort--probably perched right on the corner of the bed, so precariously that if I moved, he'd fall right on his ass, smooth cheeks slapping the floor. Not that I could actually move; any action might disturb his gaze and slice off something I'd rather have attached. Like my heart.

When he first shoved his way into my life, his constant, frantic movement drove me insane. Some days I wanted nothing more than to tie him down to the chaise and simply leave him there--just for a few minutes of blessed motionlessness. I live by a philosophy of an economy of motion; channel your energy wisely into seducing and fucking and making money. He spent his energy recklessly, bouncing and twisting like a rabbit on acid. Youth at its most frustrating. Save that energy, boy. Your libido is your friend.

This stillness is a constant reminder of yet another thing I'd rather forget; even though it's permanently tied to the man I can't live without. The boy caught the attention of my lust; the man enthralled my soul and as such my regret is somewhat limited. Still, even that bit of wine-tinged sorrow is all I can bear.

He's probably thinking; I can practically hear his brain humming like a finely tuned engine. He thinks almost all the time, probably even when he's asleep. The only time I'm sure he's not thinking is when my cock is so far inside him I can't find my way back out. I'd bet he's thinking about me. And himself. And mostly him-and-me.

That translucent entity that hovers in the corner of every room I occupy. Him-and-me. He likes to think about him-and-me, AKA 'us'. I've just about convinced him that I don't think about him-and-me, and that moreover I don't like to.

But I do. Him-and-me, he-and-I, us... Some days it's all I think about. The first thing on my mind when I wake, the last thing I wonder about before I sleep. Us makes me hard when I'm in meetings, makes me trip on the treadmill, makes me pause at green lights. I think about us. I like to think about us. I like us.

It's the best thing in my godforsaken life.

I don't regret us. I don't regret what it took to get us to exist. I don't regret him.

He loves me now. Before... before, he said he loved me. Now he shows me that he loves me. Before was words, now is action. And finally, FINALLY, he's getting it. In time, he'll perfect this language I'm teaching him. Love is the blood in our veins and has no written language. I say I don't believe in love; what I mean is that I don't believe in the words. I tell people like Mikey I love them because it's an easy way to say that he stands for something good and decent in my life. Good and decent doesn't begin to touch what Justin is. He is water, sunlight, the warmth of fire, the perfect patience of mountains. I breathe him in and swallow him down. If you cut me open, you'd find him wrapped inside my heart, Lord Rama to my Hanuman.

And slowly, slower than glaciers and climate change, he's healing my fractured, shattered soul. I can only hope with age he learns the patience he'll need to wait, and watch, and wait until I'm well enough to start walking again. Because if he can, and he does, then my first steps will be by his side. As will my last.

But for now, in this predawn chill, I'm cold and alone. He's there and I'm here and until one of us gives, I'm stuck thinking. Not that I don't like to think, but it's way too damn early for navel gazing. I've got a policy; no navel gazing before coffee. So I'll shift and shudder and like magic, his lithe, warm body is back where it should be. Chasing away the shadows, melting my frozen heart, healing me.