The couple slept the night away, comfortable in each other’s arms, on a bed of grass. As usual when outside, the sunrise woke AJ. He slid from Brian’s arms and climbed to his feet. A foot away, by a tree, he watched the sun rise into the morning sky. In the language of his childhood, he welcomed the new day.
A pair of arms slid around his waist. “What was that, baby?”
AJ smiled and leaned into the embrace. “I was welcoming the day, as we did when I was a boy.”
“What language was it?”“Hmm, you know, I don’t know. Greek, I assume. One form or another.” Still smiling, AJ turned so that he could rest his forehead against Brian’s. He brought his arms up, wrapping them around Brian’s neck, one hand playing with the curls there. “I warned you, there’s a lot about my childhood that really, there’s no documentation for. Hell, half the people anymore think the Trojan war was a myth, or that it was a war brought on by the gods, and such crap like that.”
Brian rubbed his nose against AJ’s. “Do you hold the beliefs from your childhood?”
A smile curved AJ’s lips. He kissed Brian, then took his hand and led him back to the glade. Together, they silently gathered their clothes. Both pairs of pants were ok, but Brian’s shirt wasn’t. Still silent, AJ moved toward the ruined house. There he shuffled through things until he found a black case buried under some wood. He smiled and carried it from the wreckage.
With one hand he gestured for Brian to follow him. They didn’t go far. On the last of the grass as the edge of the sand, AJ sat down and gestured for Brian to do the same. AJ leaned against the tree and opened his little case. He ignored Brian’s surprised laugh.
Taking a needle out, AJ threaded it with deft hands, and then set about sewing up Brian’s shirt. As he stitched, he finally spoke. “I do hold a lot of my beliefs from my childhood. Not all, but enough. I’ve met so many civilizations, with so many different ways of viewing things. What I believe is probably a hodgepodge mix of all of them.”
“Is it really true that in Greece they worshiped that many God’s? Not just one or two, but all of them?”
“Yep. No matter what religions I learn about, or what I think I’m coming to believe, my mind falls back on those old beliefs. Did you know that, before a show when we all said our prayer, I wasn’t praying to God?” AJ tipped his head up and smiled before going back to his sewing. He had fixed one seam and had moved on to the other. “I used to pray to Ἀπόλλων.” The strange word had Brian looking at him questioningly. Realizing his mistake, AJ laughed. “Sorry, sorry. I forget, the names you know them by are different. That would be Apollo, who, among other things, was the God of Music.”
That surprised a laugh out of Brian. He was amazed as he listened to AJ talk, and watched him sew a shirt like he’d been doing it all of his life. “Apollo? That’s who you prayed to?”
“On those occasions, yes. For the sunrise, I was praising Γαῖα, Gaia, our Mother Earth, for her beauty. Also, I prayed to Ἥλιος, Helios, the God of the Sun, for rising and blessing us with his presence on another glorious day, and his sister Ἕως, the dawn.”
“How many different God’s did you have, Alex? An how on earth did you keep up with them all? To think that people actually believed there was a God for everything.” There was amazement in Brian’s voice that took the small sting out of his words. Choosing to keep his good mood, AJ held the needle in his mouth for a second as he shook the shirt out. Then, after cutting and knotting the string, he returned the needle to his sewing kit, and the shirt to Brian.
As he closed the kit, AJ looked up at the horizon. “We didn’t have problems keeping up with who was God or Goddess of what, or who the Titans were, or any of that. It was what we were raised to believe in. As for the multiple God’s business, that’s where I’ve drifted away from my childhood.”
AJ stood and brushed his pants off. Before too long Howie was going to be there, and that was when they were going to decide what they needed to do. If this was how Brian wanted to kill time, he didn’t have a problem with it. Honestly, it flattered him that Brian wanted to know about all this. He could tell it wasn’t out of humor or malice, but an honest desire to better understand his partner.
The waves crashed against the shore, echoing up the beach. AJ took Brian’s arm, pulling him to his feet. Then he linked their arms, and started to stroll down the beach.
“See, what I know is that there’s something out there. Whether it’s Buddha, or God, or Allah, I don’t know. For all I know, Zeus could be sitting atop his giant mountain, watching us all. But, even with their being one God, does that mean that the Greek’s couldn’t have had some of it right?”
“Some of it?”“Well, sure. God could be one person, male or female, anything we want. Look at the Greek Gods and Goddesses. What are they but parts to one whole? So yes, my people believed that they were separate, with relations to one another. But what if what we worshiped was all really just small parts of the whole?”
That had Brian going silent. He thought about it for a few moments, processing it away in his mind. When he spoke again, he didn’t pursue that line of thought. “How many God’s did you have in your village?”
“Well now, we had our main God’s, and there were the Titan’s, and the lesser Gods. There was a God or Goddess for just about anything, Bri.”
That thought was interrupted by a sharp tug against AJ’s mind. He froze in place, questing outward to see what was going on. He found the spark that was Howie, and it was rushing toward him at top speed. AJ turned himself to face the direction that Howie was coming from. His heart was beating faster as he watched Howie come tearing down the beach.
When he was just within earshot, Howie shouted “We’re leaving, now!”
AJ grabbed Brian’s hand and took off toward where the boat was. Halfway there Howie caught up to him.
“What’s going on?” Brian asked, running alongside his friend and his lover.
“Roth’s on his way to the other island.” Howie spat out, launching into the boat. Brian and AJ leapt in. Almost instantly AJ ran to the wheel while Howie untied them. The motor started, and within five minutes they were sailing away from the island. Brian moved to stand up by AJ, with Howie following right behind him.
They found AJ steering the ship into open water, with tears coursing down his face. Brian wiped them away gently. “Baby?” he asked.
AJ stared off in the distance, his heart breaking. He never moved, not even when a loud bang came from the direction of the islands. Brian spun, shielding his eyes against the sun to try and see what he could see. Odd sounds echoed out toward them, fading away the further out they got. But he could see the smoke rising from both islands. “What the hell?” he muttered.
A hand touched his arm, starling him. Brian looked down to see that Howie had the same wounded expression on his face that AJ did. “Sit down, Bri.” He said softly.
“What is that?”
“Sit down.” Was all Howie would say. So Brian moved up to AJ. “What isn’t he telling me?”
“He said before that Roth was coming. What you hear, what you see, means that he’s there.” Another tear escaped. It slid down AJ’s cheek and dripped off of his chin. “There’s no way we can confront him right now without knowing what he’s done to strengthen himself. This means we left those people, those wonderful people, to die.”
Darkness gripped Brian’s heart. Unwillingly he found his eyes traveling back to those clouds of smoke. They were far enough out now that sound didn’t carry, but he could still see the smoke. “Dear God.”