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From the full, summer winds of long days to the thin, rustling branches of the cork oak on high, the sun brushed color across the landscape and life into the valley where the two lay.
Frank, young and restless, with his cherry crushed cheeks and wide open heart, sighed as the rays of light sunk into his skin until he was warm all over.
Gerard, noble in name, hair dark as the night, brushed his hands down his lover's thigh, grazing the softness of the man’s satisfaction with his little finger.
“Oh, my love. I know nothing but I know the Gods themselves do not know peace, for the Gods have never rested beside a being as bright as you.” Frank laughed, joy and adoration pouring out of him like wine.
Gerard grasped the young man’s face in his palm and whispered, “I could sing my love of you for all of my remaining days and it would amount to only a drop in the ocean of the affection I feel for you.”
The two men joined in a kiss. Their lips, soft as petals, bloomed against each other. Their noises, the whistle of the grass, the flutter of birds’ wings; they all joined together to create an understated symphony of afternoon for the lovers. The earth was quiet, listening just the same.
“Do you think we shall return to the feast tomorrow, Gerard?” Said Frank, hard of breath, it having been stolen by his lover’s lips.
“Yes, I think we shall.” Said Gerard. “But only after I have taken you at least twice more beneath this oak. And once beside the river. And once bathed in the pink and orange as Sol begins his rest.”
He scattered kisses upon his lover’s form like fruit across an orchard. And as the sun set for the day, Gerard kept his promise. And Frank was so thoroughly loved by Gerard he felt the tenderness in his bones. And Gerard was so deeply loved by Frank the hours passed like years alone in the heavy heat of summer with his love.
*
After, their palms pressed and fingers interlocked like vines on a terrace, tight and strong and full of life.
“I fear I will be far too tired to return to the festival. You have worn my energy quite thin, my love.”
Frank leaned against his lover, muscles lax with gentle satisfaction. The skies had fallen into darkness and the two walked the trail into the city under the moon’s cool glow.
“For that I will never apologize. But I will join you in retiring to bed, if you believe your family would not oppose my company for the night. We can spend the day at the baths tomorrow if that would please you.”
Gerard was modest. He was as much an Iero as a soul could be without the blood running through his veins. The fourth finger of his left hand was empty, but he was treated just the same as if it were looped in gold.
Frank reminds him of this earnestly. “I am sure that the Ieros will never tire of your wild tales and welcome your presence as such, though I suspect young cousin Aulia will demand another lesson in fresco painting should you stay too long into the morning.”
“A lesson I will gladly grant onto her. Her talents will eclipse my own in a short while if I am not careful. I will be nothing but a forgotten muralist in her shadow.”
Gerard was staring so intensely into Frank’s eyes that he was sure he imagined the rumble. That it was his mind’s manifestation of the trembling of his own heart from the press of his lover's hands to his own, their love traveling through the skin and bone to his core.
But it became clear from the confusion and surprise on Frank’s face that it was not just Gerard that felt the tremble of the earth underneath their feet. The land had been quiet and gentle, but now it groaned.
“What was that?” Frank looked around as the shaking calmed and the scene returned to still.
Gerard gazed into the distance and noted a trail of smoke against the dark of the night, venting from the mountain beyond. “Vesuvius roars, it appears. The Gods are glad in our celebrations. Perhaps we should return to the fest at day's break.”
Frank rested a hand on his chest to return his composure before they continued. “No, let the youth celebrate. We can please the Gods at a separate time.
The two had started on the path home again when they felt the same rumbling beneath them.
“The shaking will not cease. Something is wrong.”
Gerard turned to the furious mountain once more. He could make out the black that continued to spew from its mouth. He knew better than to challenge them, but he could not help but feel like the scene was not a gift from the Gods, but something far worse.
“Hasten your pace, Frank. Best to hurry back and check on the house and the dogs. We would not want them running off again.”
Their feet were light on the ground as they rushed toward the city but the heaviness of the uncertainty facing them was a weight chained to their ankles.
*
Gerard remembered being a child watching fascinated as ants frantically moved through a hill. It was the sight that fell before him as he reentered the city walls. People scrambling and pushing past one another, not sure if they were running toward something or away from it. It was the summer, so dawn broke early as the men returned to their home. The sun offered no guidance to its subjects down below.
“Do you think…” Frank‘s thoughts trailed off, following a woman running, clutching her child to her chest.
The old pottery maker approached them and clutched their shoulders. “Seek shelter boys. Quickly, while you still can.”
They looked up and saw the sun hiding its face behind a plume of smoke, dimming the morning light more as the time passed. It was nothing but dust, fragments of mountains past, but swirling above their home and their future. It felt vengeful.
“The wrath of the Gods.” Gerard whispered to himself.
Frank shook him back from his thoughts. “Gerard. My house. It survived the last of these, back when I was a young boy. It will survive this one as well. Let us go.”
Gerard felt as though his heart was moving faster than his feet, quick as a hummingbird. He was moving quickly, surely, the buildings passing by in a daze. But it all felt slow, like pushing through mud.
There was a ringing in his ear and a sickness coursing through him. It sat deep in his gut. He tried to ignore it but it was ever present. It was telling him that he would not see the other side of this. Gerard silently thanked any Gods that were listening that Michael was away at sea.
There was a crash beside them that had Frank barreling into Gerard. At first they thought it was a statue that had fallen or an animal jumping from a roof but no, it fell from the sky. Like it was coming from the Gods themselves. Gerard stopped to look up and found that there were more. Large, like bricks or stones, coming from seemingly nowhere. But they rained down upon the city like pestilence. And the things broke around them like a fever.
“Hurry!” Frank pulled Gerard along.
It seemed the deeper into Pompeii they went, the greater the devastation grew. First, fire. In the homes, at stalls on the roads, trash discarded in the alleyways. Then, smoke. Both from the fires and from the ash that filled the air and the ground underneath their feet. Gerard looked around in terror.
But Frank could only run. The streets cracked beneath them and he ran. The people screamed and sobbed and he ran. The buildings that had stood for longer than they had been living, longer than they had been taking breaths, started to fall. Frank ran like he knew the location of paradise. It seemed to Gerard that what awaited them was anything but.
He was not hurt by the sight of the broken walls or the caved-in roof or even the doors, the doors upon which Gerard himself had painted a mural as a token of his affection for the family. It was a structure. One that held gentle touches and great laughter and juice in the morning and music in the evening and almighty, delicate care of its inhabitants, but a structure still.
Frank was screaming, he could tell. But he would not allow the sound of Frank’s agony into his ears. No, that would hurt far too much.
“We may grieve in the safety outside of the city walls. I have enough tears stored inside me to mourn every individual in this city, but I will not release it until we are away from here. Please Frank. Hold the image in your mind, back as you knew it. Carry it close to your chest, but come away from here.”
The stare of Frank was so blank, empty like a new canvas. Gerard wanted to draw happiness upon it, hope perhaps, but there was no more creation to be found here. He became pliant and Gerard dragged his lover away.
*
The heavens were dark now. But it felt like no night they had ever been present for. The heat sank into their bones and the smoke coated their throat. They coughed black as they rushed toward the outer edge of the city, so far from where they had been. He yearned for the afternoon they had shared what felt like minutes ago. He yearned for the hope that escaped him fleetingly, for the promise of joy to come.
Frank fell at his feet, heaving breaths. He crowded his body against a wall, beneath one of the remaining structures still standing.
“Gerard, I am so afraid.” He cried, tears creating bright red and orange reflections down his face, the fires burning around them mirrored on his cheeks. Gerard felt so small, seeing their doom in his lover’s eyes.
He was not so young as to believe there was anything left to be done. The heat flooded the air and threatened to choke them as if it were a tall wave pulling them under. The pounding of the ash and stone around them was taunting. The crackle of the mountain’s ceaseless rage was the undercurrent pushing it all toward them. Gerard knew that all that could be done was to find a comfortable place for him and Frank to spend their final moments, to share their final kiss.
“Do not let fear taint the moment between us, my sweet. I am here beside you. There can only be room for the love in our hearts. There is no space for fear between us.”
Gerard stroked the dirty hair of his lover behind his cheek and smiled. He had always sworn that face would be the death of him. He was so naive as to how, faced with the fact of his own demise, he would welcome the sight like salvation itself. He found he did not have to be strong for Frank. For Frank made him strong.
“Do you- do you think it will hurt?” Frank asked, eyes wide and churning with panic.
Gerard pulled the man’s body to his and wrapped him in a cocoon of safety. He kissed Frank’s forehead, to which Frank sobbed, a display of painful acceptance.
He dusted his words with sweetness like sugar, whispering into his ear. “As much as the kiss of sleep, my dear. You will close your eyes and when they open once more, it will be you and I amongst the Gods. The Elysian Fields will keep us safe forever.” He prayed deeply that the small offering would be enough to calm Frank. He wished that Frank would pass on dreaming thoughts of peace and tenderness and love exalting.
The Gods may have sealed their fate, but they could not steal their hearts. The moments before sleep were still their own to decide.
“I love you, Gerard. Do not let the darkness steal this truth away from your memory.”
Frank, tired and weak, sank to the floor. His breath was so thin, Gerard could hardly tell it was coming. He allowed his body to fall beside him and then they were like two trees grounded in a storm. Gerard grasped Frank’s trembling hands in his and brought them to his lips.
When the crippling sound of the roof giving way started overheard, Gerard took Frank’s neck in his palm and guided their lips together. They crashed like waves, like chariots, like buildings to the ground. Frank kissed as passionately as he could, with as little force was left in him. Gerard took it as he would take anything Frank was able to give, like the most precious gift. With the lips of his lover upon his, Gerard felt strong, as if he could defeat death itself.
Alas, that was not his fate. But feeling Frank’s heart beat against his own, he could think of no other way he would rather welcome his soul's final journey. It gave Gerard the courage to take no notice to the placidity overcoming Frank's once shivering form and speak once more.
“Just as I love you, Frank. But I will never forget, nor will you. Do not worry, for the earth itself will remember us. I can feel it. They will tell stories of our love for centuries to come.”