Between Dread and Dreaming

~  Between Dread and Dreaming ~

"Oh my," was all he could say, although he didn't look at all surprised. I staggered as I entered his bell tent, having come straight from an eighteen hour Camerupt ride across the desert, followed by a day and a half trip by car to the village at the border, high in the mountains. I looked like hell in khaki. "You're early."

Volo sat cross-legged at a small fold away writing desk. The bell tent was lit by a small gas lamp that roared quietly away in the corner, while the young Vibrava buzzed away on the outside, like shadows in the deep.

They say men of grey eyes are cold in nature. You look into them and it feels like falling onto hard slate. But Volo's eyes were something else. They were like looking at the grave of your beloved.

I dropped the burlap sack down on the desk, not caring what secretive document he was penning at the time; he penned so many, it was no doubt a trivial matter for him. This was far more important.
"Ah hah. It was a success, then?"
"It was."
"And after only, what is it now - two years?"
"Two and three months."
"As I say. Earlier than your initial proposition."
"The whole team worked very hard."
"I did always say you were born to crack the whip."
"I had incentive this time."
"Did you now?" He gave a wry smile. "For little old me? You shouldn't have."

With his long white fingers he carefully unknotted and opened the bag, before reaching in and plucking the tip of the tablet. He visibly shivered.
"It's just as they said it would be." He said, before even fully removing it, "Colder than the ice. Colder than a dead man's touch. Colder, I dare say, than the vacuum of space."
"It was bloody freezing down in that tomb, you know."
"I'm sure," he said, distractedly. "Where was it exactly?"
"In the hands of the emperor."
"Did the old boy put up much of a fight?"
"Yes, as it happens. We thought we could simply slip it out his hands, but the embalming methods of these people... they almost turned him into solid Gold."
"Delicious," Volo said, his eyes sparkling in the light ."Go on."
"We tried all manner of cutting saws. They didn't work. In the end we ended up using our Arcanine to melt the corpse and the sarcophagus. A shame. I really thought we could've preserved the body."
"And the plate was unharmed in all of this?" he inspected it under the light.
"Oh trust me. It was just fine."
"And how deep was the tomb, in the end?"
"Two miles."
"That's a very long way."
"Especially with angry Yamask on your tail."
"Its protectors even in death. Did you lose any men?"
"Three."
"Yes, well. You'll send my condolences to their families. We'll see they're well compensated" Then he checked himself. "My client, I mean."
"Of course."

I put my elbows on the desk and sighed.

"Volo. It's done now, isn't it? This is what you wanted?"

He delicately cupped his hands around mine. "Everything and more."

Forcibly he removed my hands from my face, and held them tightly in his, looking deep into my eyes. "You've been so brave, my little adventurer. So very brave."
"Then - then I can come back? I can stay with you?"
"You can stay." he said, beaming. "It's the least I can do."

For two years and three months I had led the excavation of a tomb immediately north of the Johto region, where the so called Emperor of  the beaker-crafting Sinjoh people was buried. This was not my standard University work. Rather, Volo had conscripted me on the part of some private collector in the Kalos region who had an interest in gathering authentic Plates. As a member of the Ginkgo Guild, not only did he sell his own wares, but also sourced more niche items for certain wealthy clients. Or so I heard. This particular task, however, seemed desperately close to his heart - given his reluctance to hand the task over to a third party. "Unfortunately, Dr. Takanashi, it would seem you're the ace in every collector's hole. In a manner of speaking," he chuckled then, in our first meeting. "I'd love to go down those depths myself, of course. But I doubt I'd manage to get out alive. They were so secretive, weren't they, those primitives? You're the only one, it seems, who knows how to coax their treasures away."

And now I had delivered him the one treasure he always sought.

He still hadn't let go of my hands.

What was it about this man from far away? My university work was everything to me. Everything in the name of research - documenting, preserving. I was no two bit grave robber. And yet, looking into those grey eyes, and listening to his whispers of ancient poetry and the world on the other side of ours and the light behind all things - and the way he gently kissed my forehead, like a father sending his boy off to war the day I left - what was it? God damn it, what was it that so impelled me to his command?

"You're filthy." He chuckled.
"Mountain roads do that to you."
"And you look much older."
"Desert sun does that to you."
"I like it." He determined. "It makes you look distinguished. Befitting of an archeologist."

I had worked myself near to death for this man and for what? To see this twinkle in his eye, as he ran them over the text of this damned thing, this black, festering plate.

"You haven't changed at all."
"I never do."

At that moment, he leaned in and kissed me straight on the lips. There wasn't a trace of stubble on his face, and his thin lips were soft against my chapped and peeling skin. "You've worked yourself to the bone, haven't you?" He said, pulling away for a second. "What a pity. What a pity."

He leaned in again. More passionate this time - I could feel the heat of his breath, even in the humid air of the bell tent. "Now rest, my little adventurer. You've done more of your share in the bargain. I'm a proud merchant, after all, and I make good on my word."

"Volo," I said, barely able to breathe. "Of all the treasures, all the places I've seen... they were all beautiful, but you.... you are something - "

He placed a finger over my mouth. He tossed his blue and yellow cap to the side, letting his golden hair spill down over his shoulders. He peeled away his soft linen shirt and tossed that away into the darkness, too. He had such a tall frame, but lanky at the same time, and as he straddled me on the lilac polyester cushion there were only two words on his lips: "Now rest."

His teeth sunk into my ear. I was so numb after the travelling, of the exhaustive two years of digging that I barely felt a thing. Then he kissed my cheeks; he ripped open the buttons of my shirt with a fierceness I didn't expect, and started kissing my chest, which time had decorated with wiry white and black pepper hairs of middle age.

The Vibrava hummed ceaselessly. You could hardly heart the unbuckling of each our belts, the tearing of fabric, the curse that he swore under his breath as his hair caught in a button. Soon we were both completely naked, dwarfed by our own shadows cast by the light of the lamp. I managed to wheeze out a laugh as I collapsed back, he on top of me.

This had been my dream. These two long years wading around in the dark. To hold him, as he'd promised I would hold him, come my success. His nude, slender body rubbed against my heavy, ugly frame - he kissed away my words of praise for him, as if they were mere specks of sand. "Volo," I gasped, "Volo - it was for you all along, wasn't it? Promise me, it was just for you. Not some old Kalosian. Not for science, or our history. Only for you."

He paused a second. Then he whispered in my ear, "I'm nobody special, my love. Just a go between. But soon, soon, thanks to you - that all might change."

His fingers pressed into every sinew of my body as he entered me, clawing at my flesh with the ravenous impulse of a Braviary breaking the neck of its prey. He was so light and so heavy at once, his breath falling like fire on my skin, his words becoming more and more patronizing "You've been such a good boy. A good little boy, going all that way down in the dark."

Everything about him was gold. From the trail leading down from his navel to the wild bangs that fell upon my chest as it heaved. I was his senior by many years, more heavier set and with far more experience in the field - so how could this man, who still had all the physical traits of boy, command me in such a way? Totally overcome me with his powerful scent, with his knowledge of higher things, with his odd turns of phrase and artistic tongue work?

I was the first to release. It felt like I might die, and I wouldn't have been entirely unhappy in that moment to have given up my soul. It would have been to the tune of Volo's high pitched laughter.

He licked my seed from my stomach, continuing to push into me for a hazy length of time until he himself released. By then I had lost myself to a fugue state, sticky with cold sweat and honeyed thoughts of Volo.

A short time later, once I recovered, I worked up the strength to ask.

"What is it really? The tablet?"
Volo chuckled lightly as he pulled his shirt back on and tugged the drawstrings. "A bargaining chip, if you like. Can you read it?"
Blearily, I tried to make out the text: "From two, solid...From three, Heart..."
"Close. It says, 'Two makes matter, and three makes spirit, shaping the world."
"Three? What does that mean?"
"It doesn't concern you."
"But surely - "

I looked up at him, then. He was fully clothed, and had resumed his place behind the writing desk. And his eyes - they had taken up all the qualities of slate. Colder still, as he pulled the tablet close to his chest.

"That'll be all for tonight, Dr. Takanashi."
"But...But I can stay... tomorrow..."
"Tomorrow? Oh, don't make me think about tomorrow. I've got to catch a ship to Hisui, unfortunately. Urgent business."
"But you said - "
"You're free to stay in the village as long as you need. I have permission from the elder. Continue with your Univesity work, or whatever."
"....And when will you be back?"
"Back? My love," and the grin returned to his face. "I never step back. Surely you know that by now."

I looked at him with bewilderment. The lantern was beginning to die away. "You're tired," he said. "Go and get some sleep now. I shan't wake you. But know that I am truly grateful for all you've done."

A final grin. "Bye now."

As if on command, without words to speak, I limped away out the door. It occurred to me then, and only then, how deep the gap truly ran between us. I was a Man who committed himself to time, to mapping it, to exploring it, to giving it physical space. And he was a boyish entity beyond it all, who toyed with it, who sucked on it like a Popsicle before spitting it on the ground in front of his so called "Light behind all things".

Maybe he was an angel. Or a devil on the long climb up. Nevertheless, it was the last I saw of him. The last I ever felt such joy or, indeed, such dread.