[ 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. ]
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?