He is a boy and he is sunshine.
His hair is gold like his mother’s ring; eyes a shining reflection of the ocean.
There is brightness that surrounds him—bursting from him as if he were the sun itself.
So much light inside someone so small.
He doesn’t know the word for what he feels for him.
Like hunger after sleeping all night.
Like thirst after swimming in the summer.
Like want after seeing a new toy displayed in the store window.
Like aches on bloody scraped up knees after school.
He holds onto the boy tightly, as if his life depends on it.
And maybe it does.
He is a man and he is everything—all things rolled into one.
Glass and steel; ire and calm; heart and fist.
He is still the sun shining even more brightly than before.
He still cannot think of the word.
But he knows desire, burning deep in his chest.
Like lipstick and silk stockings in a heated dance hall.
Like freckled shoulders and knobby knees in a cramped bed.
Like warm hands and breathy sighs under thin blankets.
Like bloody noses and bloody knuckles in damp alleyways.
He is forced to let go of the man.
He always is.
He is not a man, not anymore—but then again neither is he.
His sun is too bright and everyone sees.
He fears he will burn, fears because he happily would.
The word is on the tip of his tongue.
He yearns even as the world crumbles around him.
Like swift kisses in bombed out churches.
Like calloused caressing hands smelling of gun oil.
Like red lips and a red dress with fierce brown eyes.
Like blood-caked fingernails raking through dirty hair.
Not him, not him, not him—take anyone but him.
He falls.
The Asset sits prone, a ghost always waiting.
The Mission is almost over.
He looks up at the sun, feels its heat.
A word suddenly forms from nowhere, like a spark.
It has no meaning, but has importance.
A voice like gravel whispers:
“желание.” Longing.
The trigger is pulled.