It’s the salt. It’s the wet. A thing that lives outside of itself. The fur of waves, matted against the cliff’s edge, the lip of the tide. The foam that froths beneath the man’s soles on his burned-orange walks along the sea’s mouth.
When he pulls back into darkness, it spends nights chasing moonlight—pouring it into the bellies of the fish. They are part of it, and they aren’t.
And it consumes itself in wait.
A glint of gold. Skin parting the tide like breath. The weight of a touch that never lands, peeling the surf back.
Night after night, the black-eyed body rises—its solid form a thing to measure itself by. But the man stays pressed against the sprawl of blue-black instead.
He drinks the sea in, and the sea drinks him right back.
Hard flesh sinking. The hide of the man’s feet in the sand. One step, another. The sea’s belly contracts with the urge to drown. It swirls around bone, breaking itself on stone.
A collapse of the face, so unlike that steady evening gaze. The land of mouth and eyes shifts as knees are submerged.
It licks up the pale spread of one thigh. The shock of cold so soft it dissolves. Moonlight bled into form.
The man lets out a sound that stills the beat of waves.
Ribs crack as they form—the snap of a collarbone, a jaw set to drown out sound. Saltwater clotting into scars along hips and thighs. Its chest as hard and wide as the man’s.
Between two shivering legs, the flatness of the sea made flesh. It surfaces from the wet that’s both part and none of it. Pushes up into the whip of the night, skin pebbled and raw around a mouth unfit to let the feeling seep out.
Hey—
Its eyes flick to the sound. The deep thrum that’s the man, a body moving through the dark.
Are you all right?
His gaze drags.
It keeps blinking, trying to shed the skin of tension from its limbs. The press of eyes along wrists and teeth. The lingering swipe between its hips. Then, all at once, the arms arc up.
Here, let me steady you.
Fabric wrapped around buttocks, made full by curved cloth. Hands gripping hips, softened by the snag and press of fingerprints.
You’re safe now—
It’s all right.
Somewhere, the sea and sky begin to blend.
I’m Terron. And you?
It blinks up at the man’s black eyes. Makes a sound that’s a boat shattering against rock.
You can’t speak?
It draws a hand up, light and crisp. Traces the swell of the man’s cheek. The bone is a thing to break itself on.
I’ll call you Shilo, is that all right? Always liked the sound.
Shilo leans into the hold around his core. Weight finding weight.
I’ve never known a boy quite like you before.