In the back of his thoughts something nagged at him. Sure as he knew his own name, knew the slightly acrid taste of sweat as it ambled down that smooth trail just below Justin's hairline, knew that he'd been destined to love him since before either of them were born, he knew something was about to change. He felt the ominous weight of it. He didn't know why, but he knew there'd be no more sending Justin back off to New York and no more sweetly agonized middle-of-the-night phone calls full of longing and sex so uncannily pure it put him off Babylon for a seeming lifetime.

Some would call it an ending. But it was a resumption.

There was no one mourning Brian Kinney when his mortal life ended. There was no one left to do so. They existed at his pleasure, his mercy - his need - and there was no longer a need. They had all ended, as well. Justin had told Daphne once that he'd seen the Face of God and his name was Brian Kinney, never knowing how very prescient his words were.

And with the end of Brian Kinney came the end of all that had existed around him.  

~::~

"Liakáda," he said when he opened his eyes and heard a husky laugh in reply.

"Welcome back, my Erastís." There was a breath of relief contained in the greeting.

He smiled at the image in front of him, all shiny like a freshly polished chalice. The soft drape of the young man's short, blue chiton was cinched on each shoulder with two fine brass brooches, baring the slight cording of his biceps and the deep musculature of his calves and thighs. The garment's edges were shot through with silver threads that matched the silver cord belted loosely at his slight waist. "You have worn your finery for my return, I see."

Liakáda let out a breath, a quiet noise of embarrassed dismay at being caught out in his vanity, but the pale flesh of his face colored pink with unspoken pleasure. "Was your experience all you hoped it would be?"

"More," he said. "And yet, less." He reached out and took the young man's hand, pulling Liakáda to his side on the bed of grass. "More potential for love than even we could imagine, but their pain and fear inhibits true acceptance of it."

"It was all a drama, my Erastís, a chimera of your own creation. This... our home... is what's real," Liakáda reminded his lover.

"Yes, this is real," Erastís whispered as his lips touched the cool, smooth skin of his lover's forehead.

"And you shall promise to never set your path away from me again!"

Erastís chuckled. "Did your days grow lonely in my absence, my little boy?"

"As did my nights. Eros himself wept for me," Liakáda pouted, barely keeping a bashful smirk from his lips. "And I'm not so little, beloved, nor have I been a boy for many lifetimes."

Erastís smiled at the impertinence of this beautiful man stretched out beside him on the grass. So like the young man his psyche created and his ‘mortal self' fought so stridently against loving. Strong, virile and independent. Erastís loved this man with a liberty of nature that Brian Kinney could never accept, had loved him, it seemed, since before they both were breathed into existence. "No, you are neither little nor a boy, but you are my little boy. Agoráki mou," he whispered as he kissed his lover. "Always, my little boy."

Liakáda pulled Erastís on top of him, sighing at the familiar press of that beautiful body against his. His blue eyes searched the glinting hazel of his lover, this man who was created to love and be loved, and recognized the eternity there and his heart began to sing again.

The moment he'd first seen this god, this paragon of sensuality, Liakáda had entreated his brother, Eros, to intervene on his behalf, to assure their pairing before the Gods. But intervention had been unnecessary. When Erastís encountered Liakáda in the halo of a Dyonisian fire, he immediately recognized his own eternity reflected back through the mirror of the boy's blue eyes. Zeus had smiled at the intensity of their connection, and raised his brow in Eros' direction. Eros shrugged slightly and disavowed any involvement in the feelings between the two. His beloved baby brother had fallen in love all on his own, and was loved in return. It was the rarest of things in their world of godly interventions and those rare moments were celebrated by all.

Now, resting beneath the weight of his Erastís, Liakáda listened to the waning song of his blood once again calming in his body, of his breath returning to its stasis, of the world righting itself in the wake of their reunion. It had all felt wrong while his beloved was finding out what his life could have been like if he'd been created as a mortal instead of a demi-god. He kissed the damp chest still heaving beside him.

"Tell me of your life as Brian Kinney," he requested quietly.

So Erastís told him of the broken lives he found among the mortals, of betrayal and the pain mortals inflicted upon themselves and one another in the name of love and their gods. Of fear and uncertainty he'd never encountered in this life, and was so unprepared to deal with. And he told him of his Sunshine, drawing a wide smile from Liakáda at his namesake. Even in a mortal existence, Erastís had sought him out, had clung to his eternity.

"You had a child there?"

"Yes. Gus."

"Do you wish we had a child, Erastís?"

Erastís cupped the face of his beautiful man and smiled. "I hold now everything I could need or want, Liakáda." He brushed the silk of gold away from his lover's eyes. "An eternity of everything."

This life of gods could be harsh, volatile and often violent. But that was true of mortal life, as well, Erastís had discovered. They harmed their children and their elders, played their friends against each other, inflicted immeasurable pain on the less fortunate, yet slumbered soundly in their beds at night. They belittled and decimated entire ethnicities on a cultural whim, and discounted love as love unless it met the judgment of a harshly rigorous criterion. He would take this, now, here, where he was unfettered in his capacity to love his Liakáda.

"There were many things about the mortal life that I admired," he admitted. "There is an enduring spirit, a desire to exist that we, as immortals, don't concern ourselves with, but that spark of insecurity about existence itself creates a dichotomy in the mortal spirit. They hold their loved ones close because they know it could all end in a moment, but then treat them as a stone to kick with the next breath. I became what they were in my forgetfulness." Erastís' voice had taken on a note of melancholy with the revelation. "I forgot you, agoráki mou."

"It was but a pretend, Erastís, a production of drama scripted by Hypnos and Morpheus themselves," Liakáda countered. "What profit would you have gained had they made it simple?"

"Of course you are correct, my wise, clever young god." He stood and pulled his lover to his feet, as well, collecting their garments and brushing stray grass from Liakáda soft hair. He let his gaze take in the astonishing beauty of this wise, young man, who grew warm again under the scrutiny.

"And... what profit have you gained, beloved?"

Erastís paused for a moment, collecting his memories, ordering his lessons learned. Finally, he answered. "I have been reminded of the very thing that orders the stars and allows us to feel the caress of a breeze, of the importance of that entity behind all other entities in all the imaginable worlds."

Liakáda smiled and kissed his lover's lips. "I love you, too, Erastís," he said softly. "Always."