he doesn't need the wolf's nose or the falcon's eyes to know it's not his forest, it's not wales. maybe it has to do with the essence and maybe it doesn't—maybe he's simply spent so much of his life dreaming of wales that anything other is wrong—but he can sense that the earth under his feet is not the kind he knows.
survival instincts kick in after a long minute of peering through the trees, rising without hesitation from what has been weeks of trying to let them settle. he listens for the hiss of mobile phones and crouches low to look for evidence of life in the brush and leaves. there's nothing to find, though—the wilderness around him is still in a way he's never seen.
for a moment, nathan considers waiting. if he stays where he is and makes camp, then he has a better chance of being found. but it was hard enough to sit and wait in the middle of nowhere when he knew someone was coming for him. wherever he is, there's no one searching this time. no one good, at least. he has to move. strategy, no matter how shaky, is the only way he'll soothe the rising panic in his chest.
he tries to keep track of his surroundings as he goes, plotting out the positions of memorable trees and berry bushes and other landmarks, drawing a map in his head. he considers going invisible, but the need is not persistent. he can't help but notice the lack of threat here even when all of it is unfamiliar, though he can't let that hamper his judgement. he couldn't if he wanted to.
when he hears the sound of a branch snapping, he turns, knees bent, ready to dip low into the foliage and let himself disappear. but it's not a stranger. it's not an animal, either.
it's gabriel.
nathan's heart leaps to his throat, already thudding enough to ache, and he has to bar his mind from the onslaught of thoughts that rises up just at the sight of gabriel's face even from this distance, the fall and sweep of his hair, the set of his shoulders as he steps between two pines, back-dropped by green. nathan knows that it isn't real. he knows—he knows now—that gabriel doesn't exist like this outside of his head. he knows he isn't supposed to let himself wander into thoughts like these after so long of drifting somewhere between real and false, the harsh reality and a dream. because he knows gabriel is dead, buried in a grave that nathan dug himself.
he's excruciatingly aware of the truth, which doesn't explain why the vision of gabriel still remains in startling clarity. and nathan shouldn't reach out—he's experienced the sharp bite of that disappointment too many times before—but he can't quite himself from it. there's no one around to hear him talking to himself, anyway. no arran to worry. and he thinks that it might feel good after so long to just— just let himself pretend for a second. something buckles inside him, from fear or elation or some strange concoction of the two.
he presses forward, fingers dragging along the rough bark of trees as he slips between them, gaze locked on gabriel's back as he continues in the other direction, fading light touching him in all the ways it should, in all the ways nathan's mind couldn't quite make line up on its own. ]
Gabriel? [ he calls, his voice raw and harsh in the overwhelming hush of the woods but determined none the less. he can't help it, he has to try, he wants something more than what's left— ] Gabriel, prove it's you.
[ prove he's not a hunter, prove he's not a delusion of desperation.
hope is not a thing nathan byrn has always had a lot of, but somehow, because it's gabriel, he clutches at the last thread. ]
[ on a long enough timeline, maybe all woodlands should start to look alike, but in fact gabriel's experience has been strongly the opposite. darker notes in the mossy carpet under his boots, the subtle shift of sunlight through pine canopies ...he tries to remember why he's here, with the alliance (for nathan, always nathan, that one constant like a heartbeat when he's forgotten fighting for the survival of all black witches), and it goes without saying the horrors of war number too many to count, yet what crops up in his mind most often, what seems irrationally the most unforgivable, is how often safety eludes him even in the forest. nathan thinks of him fitting in anywhere, and as a facet of his established persona that's nearly indelible, except when it comes to this. when the place he should fit most easily feels like a half-shed skin.
then again, maybe it's just that whatever ideas he had of home before nathan have crumbled in the face of all the loss rent through the landscape of last year. either way, what he notices most distinctly about his surroundings once he-- wakes up? arrives? something that is: now Here, rather than There--what he notices with most clarity, is how for the first time in months, it doesn't feel like anything is hunting him. of course, it doesn't feel like much else, either, as if he's in a theater backdrop of a forest rather than a real one, but for the moment even that lifts so much weight he feels himself relax just the minutest of degrees. less than he would if he knew where nathan was; before anything else that's his most immediate concern. that he might not be here doesn't so much as cross gabriel's mind, i have to stay with him still the north star to his storm-tossed ship.
he sets out at a good clip through the trees, scanning for signs of life; nathan could well be invisible, but gabriel thinks he's learned to recognize the signs of where he should be. all the hair on the back of his neck still jerks upright when he hears that soft, roughened accent - visibility in no way keeps nathan from moving as swift and silent as all loping, crawling, flying things - and on some detached level he finds it curious that that instant of shock feels both good and more severe than it ought, considering they were together so recently. it doesn't matter, it's been months since he bothered to question the intensity of the way everything in him reacts to everything nathan is. the demand for proof doesn't come as much of a surprise, though the desperation does: it had been gabriel who came up with this coded exchange, flippancy as strong as the very real need for certainty, but nathan has never sounded so--
well, so wounded in asking. gabriel wants to touch him, so much that his teeth ache and his fingertips itch with want, and he half reaches out before schooling himself back. words, first. he's startled to realize his throat is so choked with feeling he has to clear it before he can say anything. ]
You've been away a long time.
[ so familiar and simple, yet he can feel there is something much bigger than simple authenticity riding on such a small number of syllables. he steps closer, body language, patient, open. safe. ]
[ gabriel speaks—he speaks—and it's almost enough to send nathan crashing into his arms. it's nine, simple words but it's like nathan can breathe a little better in the next second. the gabriel nathan invented never spoke to him. he was just always there, making sure nathan never felt alone. but nathan can't let himself fall too far and fast before he's sure of this. he has to keep some ounce of control, even if it's only over this one thing. this one, earth-shattering thing. and in the end, if it is gabriel, he deserves the same reassurance he's giving to nathan now.
nathan wants to say you've been gone a long time back. because it's viciously apt. weeks, months passed, nathan recognizes that now. time went hazy for a while between the council building and his bramble den, but that doesn't matter. he knows gabriel has been missing from everything for what feels like forever, for what threatened to become forever and ever.
but he can't say that. it's not the code. ]
Wounded. [ comes the reply after a moment of jarred silence. his voice crackles around the syllables. he doesn't think he'd ever been more wounded in his life. ] Not lost.
[ but so, so close to lost. about to stagger off to somewhere he might not have come back from.
but gabriel is here. talking to him, the soothing lilt of his voice a crucial part of him that had slipped to the wayside in all of nathan's imaginings. and suddenly it doesn't feel like a risk to reach out, to bring gabriel close to him after so long spreading fingers over packed earth and thinking that was the closest they'd ever be anymore. now, he needs to know if that's a lie. he needs to see if there's still something left for him. ]
Gabriel?
[ it's a whisper as he steps nearer, clinging to a sense of trembling calm, knowing it's going to shatter. it takes everything nathan has to do this slowly, cautiously. his fingers skid along the inside of the wrist that gabriel's left hovering between them and it's more real than he's truly prepared for. his other hand touches gabriel's shoulder, to feel how solid he is. nathan inhales, lets his hand travel up to gabriel's neck, his fingers brushing soft strands of long hair.
he's reminded of the night he'd kissed gabriel in the bathroom, the one gabriel had kissed him in. everything had slowed down around them then, too; nathan afraid to rush anything, just wanting to feel in every capacity and let the world set itself to rights in the interim. he'd almost believed it could. nathan had apologized then, and he thinks he could apologize now. say he's sorry that he wasn't quick enough, that he wasn't calm or strong enough to make his magic work when he needed it, for failing to keep gabriel safe. but he thinks that's the kind of apology gabriel would not want.
and besides, right now that can't take priority. the only thing nathan can think to do is find gabriel's eyes and silently beg him to touch back, to hold him. it has to be gabriel that does it, to confirm that he, despite everything nathan knows, is alive. ]
[ the corners of gabriel's mouth slide up as nathan rounds out the other half of the circle made by the ends of their coded couplet, float lightly into that luminous, easy smile. he has the sense nathan thinks of him as a person who smiles often, and maybe that was true once. until the itchy, empty strangeness of a fain body set such heaviness in his mouth a smile felt like bending iron. or maybe before that, when white witches took michele away from him. they didn't see that she was raf's daughter, gabriel's sister; they saw a black candle burning, existing only to be snuffed out. nathan doesn't know that he was what balanced the scales after that, that his magic sang like a siren and drowning felt like the most peaceful thing gabriel had ever done.
he smiles now because he can't help himself, because it is so good, every time, to be reminded that nathan is still here. that gabriel can still stay with him.
even so a note of disquiet tips the curve of his mouth crooked; nathan touches him like he thinks he'll break, or dissipate into mist. but he won't, and clearly he too is reminded of that bathroom, that kiss, the suspended moment stretching the atmosphere thin, because when he does reach out to touch back, his hands settle on either side of nathan's too-slim waist. they pull, more determined than gentle until their bodies press tight together, from shoulders to hips to knocking knees, and the fan of olive branches his fingers make draws up to cup the back of nathan's neck, other arm secured around his waist. ]
Nathan...
[ an inadvertent echo, though more concern than question despite gabriel's lilty accent. there's a way he says nathan's name only in circumstances like this, like it's a raw wound that hurts because nathan hurts.
they're close enough that consonants turn into caresses, those not-quite-kisses where they share breath, one soul between them. ]
Nathan. Was I lost?
Edited (the run ons, oh the run ons) 2018-01-13 10:12 (UTC)
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for gabriel | reunion
no subject
then again, maybe it's just that whatever ideas he had of home before nathan have crumbled in the face of all the loss rent through the landscape of last year. either way, what he notices most distinctly about his surroundings once he-- wakes up? arrives? something that is: now Here, rather than There--what he notices with most clarity, is how for the first time in months, it doesn't feel like anything is hunting him. of course, it doesn't feel like much else, either, as if he's in a theater backdrop of a forest rather than a real one, but for the moment even that lifts so much weight he feels himself relax just the minutest of degrees. less than he would if he knew where nathan was; before anything else that's his most immediate concern. that he might not be here doesn't so much as cross gabriel's mind, i have to stay with him still the north star to his storm-tossed ship.
he sets out at a good clip through the trees, scanning for signs of life; nathan could well be invisible, but gabriel thinks he's learned to recognize the signs of where he should be. all the hair on the back of his neck still jerks upright when he hears that soft, roughened accent - visibility in no way keeps nathan from moving as swift and silent as all loping, crawling, flying things - and on some detached level he finds it curious that that instant of shock feels both good and more severe than it ought, considering they were together so recently. it doesn't matter, it's been months since he bothered to question the intensity of the way everything in him reacts to everything nathan is. the demand for proof doesn't come as much of a surprise, though the desperation does: it had been gabriel who came up with this coded exchange, flippancy as strong as the very real need for certainty, but nathan has never sounded so--
well, so wounded in asking. gabriel wants to touch him, so much that his teeth ache and his fingertips itch with want, and he half reaches out before schooling himself back. words, first. he's startled to realize his throat is so choked with feeling he has to clear it before he can say anything. ]
You've been away a long time.
[ so familiar and simple, yet he can feel there is something much bigger than simple authenticity riding on such a small number of syllables. he steps closer, body language, patient, open. safe. ]
Were you lost?
no subject
nathan wants to say you've been gone a long time back. because it's viciously apt. weeks, months passed, nathan recognizes that now. time went hazy for a while between the council building and his bramble den, but that doesn't matter. he knows gabriel has been missing from everything for what feels like forever, for what threatened to become forever and ever.
but he can't say that. it's not the code. ]
Wounded. [ comes the reply after a moment of jarred silence. his voice crackles around the syllables. he doesn't think he'd ever been more wounded in his life. ] Not lost.
[ but so, so close to lost. about to stagger off to somewhere he might not have come back from.
but gabriel is here. talking to him, the soothing lilt of his voice a crucial part of him that had slipped to the wayside in all of nathan's imaginings. and suddenly it doesn't feel like a risk to reach out, to bring gabriel close to him after so long spreading fingers over packed earth and thinking that was the closest they'd ever be anymore. now, he needs to know if that's a lie. he needs to see if there's still something left for him. ]
Gabriel?
[ it's a whisper as he steps nearer, clinging to a sense of trembling calm, knowing it's going to shatter. it takes everything nathan has to do this slowly, cautiously. his fingers skid along the inside of the wrist that gabriel's left hovering between them and it's more real than he's truly prepared for. his other hand touches gabriel's shoulder, to feel how solid he is. nathan inhales, lets his hand travel up to gabriel's neck, his fingers brushing soft strands of long hair.
he's reminded of the night he'd kissed gabriel in the bathroom, the one gabriel had kissed him in. everything had slowed down around them then, too; nathan afraid to rush anything, just wanting to feel in every capacity and let the world set itself to rights in the interim. he'd almost believed it could. nathan had apologized then, and he thinks he could apologize now. say he's sorry that he wasn't quick enough, that he wasn't calm or strong enough to make his magic work when he needed it, for failing to keep gabriel safe. but he thinks that's the kind of apology gabriel would not want.
and besides, right now that can't take priority. the only thing nathan can think to do is find gabriel's eyes and silently beg him to touch back, to hold him. it has to be gabriel that does it, to confirm that he, despite everything nathan knows, is alive. ]
no subject
he smiles now because he can't help himself, because it is so good, every time, to be reminded that nathan is still here. that gabriel can still stay with him.
even so a note of disquiet tips the curve of his mouth crooked; nathan touches him like he thinks he'll break, or dissipate into mist. but he won't, and clearly he too is reminded of that bathroom, that kiss, the suspended moment stretching the atmosphere thin, because when he does reach out to touch back, his hands settle on either side of nathan's too-slim waist. they pull, more determined than gentle until their bodies press tight together, from shoulders to hips to knocking knees, and the fan of olive branches his fingers make draws up to cup the back of nathan's neck, other arm secured around his waist. ]
Nathan...
[ an inadvertent echo, though more concern than question despite gabriel's lilty accent. there's a way he says nathan's name only in circumstances like this, like it's a raw wound that hurts because nathan hurts.
they're close enough that consonants turn into caresses, those not-quite-kisses where they share breath, one soul between them. ]
Nathan. Was I lost?