The house stood like a great still animal in the darkness, with its many eyes shining through the thickness of the banana trees. Allen knew where Tyki would be, sleeping, sprawled beneath the clean cotton sheet that Bianca had pressed that morning. The orchid by the bed would still be wilting, purple like the dark bruises fading on Allen's skin. His eyelids with their black lashes would flutter as he wandered through his dreams until the pink streaks of dawn appeared on the horizon and he awoke to find his lover gone.

Allen turned away for the last time, following the long stone path back to the main road. The sound of the night-insects surrounded him, filling his ears until he no longer noticed it, and he knew then that all his life, he would remember the taste of sweet cassava shared between them, and the heightened joy of shade in the afternoon when Tyki sat beside him with his swollen books. He would remember how it felt to breathe air that was so full with rain that it was hard to inhale, and to wrap his lips around a language so thick with song that it made him want to sing.

And he would have memories of those lunatic nights, the nights they spent alone, discovering emotions that neither had ever known.

As he boarded the bowing vessel, he looked out across the sprawl of the city, its few lights flickering faintly in the heavy velvet darkness, and said The Confiteor to the wind;

Confiteor Deo omnipotenti, beatae Mariae semper Virgini, beato Michaeli Archangelo, beato Joanni Baptistae, sanctis Apostolis Petro et Paulo, omnibus Sanctis, et tibi Pater: quia peccavi nimis cogitatione, verbo et opere: mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. Ideo precor beatam Mariam semper Virginem, beatum Michaelem Archangelum, beatum Joannem Baptistam, sanctos Apostolos Petrum et Paulum, omnes Sanctos, et te Pater, orare pro me ad Dominum Deum Nostrum.

Yet, Allen did not feel the sin dissolve from his body with the confession, he did not feel the braids of palm binding his heart loosen nor the smell of mangoes leave his now-tanned skin. And as he watched the sparse streetlamps of the harbor die with the breath of the rising wind, he sang an unspoken prayer, one that echoed in the chambers of his mind but he knew could never leave the threshold of his lips;

I Thank you, Our Father, for the time with which you have blessed me to love and to perhaps be loved. You alone know the reasons that drew us together. I promise to do all in my power to make fruitful the time you have given us. I beeseech you, Gracious Lord, to keep him safe in your hands. Amen.

Turning away from the luminous city, he added a final aside to the high vault of the sky.

God go with you, Tyki.

He crossed himself slowly, pressing a knuckle to his dry lips.

And may we never meet again.

Fin.

A/N: Okay, people seem to forget that The Black Order is a Christian organization, so hence the heavy Jesus-time at the end. Well, I do hope you enjoyed my little story! I worked hard on the yaoi, yes-sir. Reviews are MUCH appreciated! Obrigado!