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11-19-2013, 03:05 PM
"Afraid of decision, I buried my finer feelings in the depths of my heart and they died there."
It felt like years until he spoke.
Gabriel could see that the black stallion was alive: there was the irrefutable proof before him, the rise and fall of ribs he knew as well as he knew the hills of his homeland, and loved far more. There was his breath, tiny clouds of steam that curled and disappeared on the air. There was the roll of his eye beneath the velvet-soft lid, the warmth that bled from his body. All these things and yet the red stallion felt a fear he'd never felt in his life, not when worlds crumbled around him or demons asked after his soul.
Before he woke, there was time to do a brief, gentle examination, one where Gabriel found no physical wounds. There was just that smell, the feel of something off that made his stomach curdle, but he could find no blood. He shivered, he waited, he stood guard over the young stallion.
Then the gasp came, the lurch of Kostya's body, and Gabriel could only step back and watch, heart pounding as if to alert him again of its presence. He did not move as the dark stallion retreated, threatened him with flattened ears and a word hissed in his native tongue. He only waited, neck bowed, eyes dark, until he heard his name.
He stepped forward when Kostya stumbled, their eyes not leaving one another, not until Gabriel closed his to breath deep into the younger stallion's tangled mane.
“Me,” he said softly, and there was exhausted relief in his voice – but something below it, too, “is not the issue right now.”
We've got to stop meeting like this, he might have said, or something else half-serious and half-hysterical, but he did not. Maybe later, when Kostya stood steady and whole beside him, his sense of humor would be coaxed forward. But not now, not when Gabriel's heart still sat in his throat like a stone he couldn't swallow.
“Are you alright?” and that was the important question, wasn't it, even though the answer was blatantly clear, wobbling unsteadily before him; but there, on the heels of it, he asked the other: “Who did this?”Because he knew, knew at the core of him that was by turns hot as fire and cold and hard as ice, that the answer was a 'who' and not a 'what'.
And then, angry with himself for pushing questions on him but knowing the importance of the answer, he asked, “Where is Sasha?” Because even though he would never understand, not fully, the significance and magnitude and gravity of the bond between the two of them, he knew of it, just as he knew he would always be of secondary importance.
Gabriel could see that the black stallion was alive: there was the irrefutable proof before him, the rise and fall of ribs he knew as well as he knew the hills of his homeland, and loved far more. There was his breath, tiny clouds of steam that curled and disappeared on the air. There was the roll of his eye beneath the velvet-soft lid, the warmth that bled from his body. All these things and yet the red stallion felt a fear he'd never felt in his life, not when worlds crumbled around him or demons asked after his soul.
Before he woke, there was time to do a brief, gentle examination, one where Gabriel found no physical wounds. There was just that smell, the feel of something off that made his stomach curdle, but he could find no blood. He shivered, he waited, he stood guard over the young stallion.
Then the gasp came, the lurch of Kostya's body, and Gabriel could only step back and watch, heart pounding as if to alert him again of its presence. He did not move as the dark stallion retreated, threatened him with flattened ears and a word hissed in his native tongue. He only waited, neck bowed, eyes dark, until he heard his name.
He stepped forward when Kostya stumbled, their eyes not leaving one another, not until Gabriel closed his to breath deep into the younger stallion's tangled mane.
“Me,” he said softly, and there was exhausted relief in his voice – but something below it, too, “is not the issue right now.”
We've got to stop meeting like this, he might have said, or something else half-serious and half-hysterical, but he did not. Maybe later, when Kostya stood steady and whole beside him, his sense of humor would be coaxed forward. But not now, not when Gabriel's heart still sat in his throat like a stone he couldn't swallow.
“Are you alright?” and that was the important question, wasn't it, even though the answer was blatantly clear, wobbling unsteadily before him; but there, on the heels of it, he asked the other: “Who did this?”Because he knew, knew at the core of him that was by turns hot as fire and cold and hard as ice, that the answer was a 'who' and not a 'what'.
And then, angry with himself for pushing questions on him but knowing the importance of the answer, he asked, “Where is Sasha?” Because even though he would never understand, not fully, the significance and magnitude and gravity of the bond between the two of them, he knew of it, just as he knew he would always be of secondary importance.
gabriel
