(no subject)
Date: September 1, 2000
Setting: Tadfield Manor, Belial's Chambers
Status: Private - Belial [Complete]
Summary: Belial is.
At this moment, Belial exists in the present. Only the second that is happening matters to him. Only the breath he is taking carries any measure of weight. His past is behind him, mirrored upon itself, endlessly reflecting, but he has stepped aside so it is only sound and fury and he is caught in nowhere between himself and the glass.
He looks out of the window, out onto the Manor grounds, and there is no light but the moon casting down faint rays on the purpled grass. Gabriel is behind him, on the mirror of his bed, sleeping peacefully with arms above his head, naked, laid over the sheets as carefully as some delicate work of art. Serene is the only word for it, and he is glad of it. Glad for all of it, glad for the risks that he has taken and glad for all that lies before them.
Belial can see his own image faintly on the windowpane, broken and scarred by dust and the crossbars and the shadow of the curtains. He is a ghost, with no identity, an empty place that is devoid of all attachment or loyalty to anyone or anything. And Gabriel fills this emptiness, Gabriel is the one thing he holds an unseverable tie to, and it is a bond of his own making, not a puppet string or tripwire laid to foil his dreams and wishes.
He puts his hand on the glass, forgetting the things he has only just thought and felt, the stains of worn-in apathy fading away with each breath. Snared in this moment, and he knew that it was a memory that he would never let slip from his grasp. How Gabriel had been there, so fragile, between his deft fingertips.
If he could not describe a time before Gabriel laid in his arms with anything but words of pain--though there was no real pain for him, only the bitter, hollow bite of betrayed trust and distant, unrelenting yearning--he could not describe what it was like to be with Gabriel with words at all. Humanity, century after century, spoke and wrote and fought wars to define what welled right beneath the skin. Truthfully, no words at all were needed, he knew, because when honestly felt, this nameless, definitionless thing ceased to be something that an individual must validate to others.
And this soft epiphany had crept upon him, too. It was a gentle puzzlement, hazed over by a taste of divine ecstacy and the scent of Gabriel's skin (--that left him wondering whether he smelled of Gabriel or Gabriel smelled of him--), and he found joy in its presence He had come to a conclusion without realizing that he was pondering, realizing that his beliefs were at odds.
All that mattered, in his world, was held in the soft flutter of an angel's sleeping breath.
Belial brings his hand away from the glass, intent on returning to Gabriel, and pauses to offer a whisper of a smile to the predawn dew.
Setting: Tadfield Manor, Belial's Chambers
Status: Private - Belial [Complete]
Summary: Belial is.
At this moment, Belial exists in the present. Only the second that is happening matters to him. Only the breath he is taking carries any measure of weight. His past is behind him, mirrored upon itself, endlessly reflecting, but he has stepped aside so it is only sound and fury and he is caught in nowhere between himself and the glass.
He looks out of the window, out onto the Manor grounds, and there is no light but the moon casting down faint rays on the purpled grass. Gabriel is behind him, on the mirror of his bed, sleeping peacefully with arms above his head, naked, laid over the sheets as carefully as some delicate work of art. Serene is the only word for it, and he is glad of it. Glad for all of it, glad for the risks that he has taken and glad for all that lies before them.
Belial can see his own image faintly on the windowpane, broken and scarred by dust and the crossbars and the shadow of the curtains. He is a ghost, with no identity, an empty place that is devoid of all attachment or loyalty to anyone or anything. And Gabriel fills this emptiness, Gabriel is the one thing he holds an unseverable tie to, and it is a bond of his own making, not a puppet string or tripwire laid to foil his dreams and wishes.
He puts his hand on the glass, forgetting the things he has only just thought and felt, the stains of worn-in apathy fading away with each breath. Snared in this moment, and he knew that it was a memory that he would never let slip from his grasp. How Gabriel had been there, so fragile, between his deft fingertips.
If he could not describe a time before Gabriel laid in his arms with anything but words of pain--though there was no real pain for him, only the bitter, hollow bite of betrayed trust and distant, unrelenting yearning--he could not describe what it was like to be with Gabriel with words at all. Humanity, century after century, spoke and wrote and fought wars to define what welled right beneath the skin. Truthfully, no words at all were needed, he knew, because when honestly felt, this nameless, definitionless thing ceased to be something that an individual must validate to others.
And this soft epiphany had crept upon him, too. It was a gentle puzzlement, hazed over by a taste of divine ecstacy and the scent of Gabriel's skin (--that left him wondering whether he smelled of Gabriel or Gabriel smelled of him--), and he found joy in its presence He had come to a conclusion without realizing that he was pondering, realizing that his beliefs were at odds.
All that mattered, in his world, was held in the soft flutter of an angel's sleeping breath.
Belial brings his hand away from the glass, intent on returning to Gabriel, and pauses to offer a whisper of a smile to the predawn dew.