It was hardly official, by any means. He had promised him once to always be with him, and when he had first said it, it had been the sort of thing a careless child would say. It was the thing an adolescent who had little to no idea of life, much less a lifetime, much less infinite numbers of them, could ever comprehend.
But once, he had been called Koschei, and once, he had promised another person these things that he did not yet understand.
Funny what happens. They had gotten close and they had gotten to love each other to the point that they were quick to forgive and easy to overlook everything that had started to go wrong. The insanity turned him romantic. His reservation died down around this boy and his words became so open and honest that what had started as a mindless adolescent devotion took a turn for a tender, intimate connection.
He promised him forever. He used words that had more nuances than most languages had characters. He promised him love, possession, submission, dedication, always – forever. And he had called him mine. My Theta. My love.
Just a few years prior he had made fun of marriage. It was a foreign tradition, a ceremony that owned too much levity to be taken seriously. He had scoffed at the scripted words each person was meant to say, and then and there, he had turned around and made a vow as it should be, individualized and honest and entirely possible.
Promise to stay with you. Promise to hold you and to hold myself. Swear to let you in and to bring myself out to meet you. Swear to go with you, or to wait for you. Mostly I promise I will be the one who meets you, when you leave to come back. I will always wait for you.
And things twisted so much from there.
They were older now, pursuing higher studies, starting work in the assistant and studying sort of way. And their relationship got closer and simultaneously got strained. He was getting worse. His head pounded sometimes and sometimes, his lover would cry after their lovemaking. And he would kiss the places where nails had come to tear at skin, or where hands had been held high over head and strained too hard. He apologized and he kissed him and it was always so tender, afterward, that they could pretend nothing was wrong.
Theta is off more and more, and for longer, to study or to do the things that he does, that he is becoming more and more secretive about. One night after a few days not seeing each other except in the middle of the night, when one or the other crawled in bed with their partner, and nearly two weeks without connecting bodies, Koschei tells Theta that he loves him, and he renews his vows.
They make love and it is tender, and perfect. They pull away shuddering and he kisses Theta’s cheeks, and he does not know why his partner is shaking so terribly.
Theta is gone the next morning and he does not come back that day.
Nor the day after.
Nor the day after that.
And he manages to keep himself afloat, for a while. He gets more work and more studying done than ever, constantly keeping his mind busy to distract himself from the slight sound of drums, and from the loneliness he feels when he lies down to sleep.
Sometimes he even writes letters that he cannot send. They start off sweet, loving, hopeful.
By the end of the first year, they are quietly desperate.
Three years later he writes a last letter on a scrap of note that reads:
Dear Theta,
I love you. I need you.
Please come home.
And not long after this, he breaks from the waiting.
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