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 Posted: Sun Sep 28, 2014 8:26 am
before
He tries to remember what Stormy has told him - about how she feels responsible for Jack's appearance on the island, how she drowns beneath the weight of her guilt, how she feels like she's in the middle of a war between the two of them - past and present - and how she's not sure she can take it much longer if things keep happening. The dark circles beneath her eyes, making them appear hollow, are evidence enough of the truth of what she says; Gale still trusts her instinctively, even after she lied about her involvement with the Nevada incident.
(He calls it that privately, because otherwise it's too painful, because if he remembers how Stormy was before Nevada's death versus after, it's like two different people, and sometimes he feels the pain of her absence as acutely as Leslie's, because even if he didn't know Nevada as well as Stormy did, she was important and she was precious to the person he loves above all else. Calling it the Nevada incident takes away the pain, compartmentalizes, detaches himself from it, but he'll never tell Stormy that.)
He wants to be honest with her; and the honest truth is that he's never hated anyone as much as he hates Jack Hawthorn. Even the people he's met before, even the ones who have been mean to him, taunted him, treated him like he's not worthy to be there, even the ones who overlooked him and thought him nothing more than a child (who still think of him as a child), even Caelius don't compare. The level at which he truly loathes Jack Hawthorn scares him; he's never felt as passionately about someone as he does Jack, except Stormy, and obviously his emotions for Stormy are at the entire other end of the spectrum. What he feels for Stormy can't really rival anything, and that scares him too, but the intense, burning hatred that he feels just from hearing that name makes him frightened at what could happen.
At what he could do.
(Hands clenched around his neck, hands larger than his, squeezing tightly so that the air in his lungs feels constricted, like he doesn't have anything left inside of his body - "I can do whatever I damn well please. ******** you, you ********' piece've s**t. S'that what you're gonna do when she leaves? When she dies? Just," (he laughs)
No, Gale thinks, no, if she dies, I'll die too. A part of me will die even if I'm still living. I can live even if she doesn't, but I don't want to, I don't want to be in a world where she doesn't exist, I don't want to be alive if she's not here with me, even if she tells me that she's holding me back, even if she tells me that she wants me to be happy, even if she thinks leaving will bring me happiness, it's not true, it's a lie.)
It can't go on. He can't keep hating Jack Hawthorn, because all it's doing is making a mess of everything else, all it's doing is making his stomach and his heart ache with every breath he takes. It's making Stormy cry, it's making her hurt inside, and he can't do that to her, he can't bring her more pain after everything she's been through. When she hurts, he hurts, and he wants to throttle himself (and Jack and Jack) for making her look that way, for making her heart as fragile as it is.
It's a lot easier to start hating someone than it is to start, and boy has he ******** this up badly.
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Posted: Sun Sep 28, 2014 8:38 am
after
He used to have that nickname - After. Before had called him that, right after they had gotten out of their initial training, because he'd been Beta Five, and Before had been Beta Four and Bix had been Beta Six. Gale had been sandwiched between the two, and Bive had sounded stupid, so it had been After.
Sometimes he forgot about that. Sometimes he forgot about everything else except himself and his own selfish concerns.
(Sometimes he wished that he was more like Bix, that he was more capable of letting things just roll off his back and handle things with more grace. Sometimes he wished that Bix was really his older brother and could have taught him all of these things growing up so that he was a better adult (what a laughable word), so that he was a better person.)
(Sometimes he remembered Leslie and then he tried not to.)
He's sitting at his desk, in his little yellow house, and he can't concentrate, as much as he's trying to. The papers spread in front of him are all about the Horsemen and about the mission and about artifacts, but his head isn't maintaining anything he's reading, as though it's going in one ear and out the other. He lifts his hands and rubs his temples, trying to see if that will alleviate some of the headache beginning to form between his eyes, but so far all it does is remind him of how cold his hands are.
His hair is getting longer; it's past his shoulders now, a multicolored wave of red and gold and orange that needs to be pulled back and possibly redyed, but at the moment is falling free about his face, a few strands curling over his cheek. Gale lifts a hand and runs it through the sunset, as Stormy calls it, and closes his eyes, exhaling a long breath.
("He's dead," she said slowly. "Remember? You don't have to worry about it anymore.")
He opens his eyes, tries to focus again, and gives up.
It's not before anymore, it's after, and he can't concentrate.
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Posted: Sun Sep 28, 2014 8:57 am
after
He wonders if there's a way to fix things, posthumously.
Probably not. He's probably already screwed things up, and besides, even if he did anything now - write a letter, leave a note, stop by the room, whatever - chances are, it would be taken as him just trying to alleviate his own guilt instead of actually feeling something for his death. A way to atone for his own sins, selfishly redeem himself, rather than to legitimately make things right.
Gale's not sure he's capable of lying that much.
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Posted: Sun Sep 28, 2014 9:03 am
a cottage by the sea
The little yellow house is tidy.
That's probably the best word for it. Neat and tidy, with everything carefully put into its spot without being obsessively clean. Gale likes it clean, but he doesn't like it sterile, to the point where everything is to be seen instead of touched, like a museum. He wants something comfortable, and always has; he's wanted a place of his own since he was a child, some place that's just his, that's only for him.
He worked very hard for this house; it's his pride and joy, his precious thing. He's built it from the ground up - twice, even, and even with all of the warnings about living in the town, even with all of the skeptics, even with everyone laughing at him, he still loves this little yellow house by the sea as though it were a part of him.
And maybe it is a part of him, maybe that's why he feels such attachment to him. He knows each and every room of it by heart, knows the layout and the placement of everything just from feel alone. Inside, it smells of tea and cinnamon and sometimes flowers, depending. The faint scent of the ocean permeates through the windows on occasion, depending if its high tide or not, and sometimes he'll see little shadows peering at him with bright red eyes, when he opens the door.
It's dangerous living here; he's away from most everyone else, barring the few hunters that live in town, and even then he's still not entirely safe. That's okay, though, because he's known that from the beginning; he's taken precautions to make sure his dear little house is safe from the storms that arrive.
(Except Stormy, she's the only storm he loves.)
The little yellow house in the middle of town is Gale's pride and joy, his heart, his soul.
But it's also just a house.
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Posted: Sun Sep 28, 2014 9:17 am
sleep little one
He feels tired.
He wants to sleep.
(He can't sleep, and Stormy isn't here, and he wants to just bury himself into the blankets and pillows and forget that the world exists, but every time he closes his eyes all he sees is darkness and red and blood, blood that seeps over his hands and makes his fingers sticky, blood that is a stark contrast to the flat black and white of the rest of the universe, and he's so tired but if he closes his eyes, he'll be back in those dreams, in those nightmares, and they suffocate him.)
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Posted: Sun Sep 28, 2014 9:22 am
reassurance
He is Gale Arthur Gentry.
Eighteen years old, born on December 6th, 1995. Five foot five inches in height (or maybe an inch shorter, unfortunately). Natural hair color is a deep blonde, and his eyes are amber, with hints of gold. Born and raised in England, in a small house on a street whose name he can't remember anymore. Recruited to Deus Ex Machina at age fifteen (too young, someone told him at one point, long ago, he should have been at least seventeen, it was a fluke, a mistake).
(Who's the mistake now, Gale thinks, with some satisfaction.)
He is a fully fledged hunter in the Death Division. His specialization is the retrieval of Horsemen Artifacts.
His weapon is currently a sniper rifle, formerly a fucanglong dragon by the name of Jinhai. Their relationship is close and symbiotic at best, and exasperated at worst, and Gale can no longer recall how he used to live without Jinhai's calm and steady voice inside of his head.
<< I care a great deal for you too, Gale. >> the dragon says, and Gale allows the warmth of Jinhai's thoughts to seep into the rest of his mind, coloring them softly with a gentle reassurance that he still exists and that he is still alive.
<< Don't give up on me now. >>
He sounds amused. Gale smiles.
Never, old friend.
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Posted: Sun Sep 28, 2014 3:22 pm
sleep little one
He gets up and makes himself a cup of tea. The exhaustion eats at him, weighs down upon him, sinks into his very bones, and he wishes it was that simple to just fall asleep like he used to. The gentle scent of honey reaches his nose, and he tilts a few drops of it and a spoonful of sugar into his teacup, swirling it around with a little spoon before he brings it to his lips to drink.
A cliche, perhaps; maybe he was a walking stereotype, but tea has always made him feel better.
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Posted: Sun Sep 28, 2014 10:35 pm
three little words
He wonders about Jack.
Whether Jack was actually in love with Stormy, or if he has just used her all this time. Whether Jack is even capable of loving someone other than himself, if he is even capable of loving himself, or if it's all just a big show to put on for others. Whether, if things had been different, Stormy would have gone back to Jack had she not already been dating Gale at the time - if she would have gone back if he had told her he still loved her before Gale had.
(No, he erases that last thought quickly, hastily, because he trusts her, and she's already told him that he's in the past, that she wouldn't leave Gale, that she wanted him to move on.)
What exactly constitutes the word love, though? Gale has always known how he himself means it; he didn't use it until after they had been dating a while, in spite of becoming slowly more aware of his feelings before then. It seems like a lifetime ago, even if it isn't.
They'd met in December. His arm had been in a sling, thanks to Caelius, and she'd been making a snow dog while sitting on the ground. Gale remembers being nervous; she was the first hunter he'd met who was near his own age, and he wasn't sure how to talk to her.
(This was clearly evidenced during his awkward attempts at comforting her after a mission while trying to introduce her to Deus' world.)
He'd first kissed her in the infirmary, in June. She hadn't been ready yet; had asked him to be patient, to let them try again, and he'd said he'd wait for her.
On the (disastrous) cruise ship, still in June, he'd been breathless at her appearance, and had given her the charm bracelet, not out of a desire for reciprocation of his feelings for her, but out of a desire to make her happy, to make her realize that he was supporting her in whatever she chose to do.
And he'd asked her out. He'd never asked anyone out before, and he remembers being nervous, but she hadn't said no.
(She hadn't said yes either, but a non-answer was better than a rejection.)
He remembers that after the cruise there had been pain. Stormy had worried he was asking her out for the wrong reasons, but she had said yes. She had said okay, she had given him a chance, and he had taken it, and he had buried himself in that chance, let it wrap around his little world.
They'd had their first date in July.
He'd kissed her - a real kiss, his first real kiss (the one in the infirmary had been so light and so brief that sometimes he wondered if it even counted) - in her dorm room, after she had sung to him, and it had been breathtaking, magical, wonderful.
(Gale had been so inexperienced with romance; he'd watched everyone else around him find others to be with, while he'd sat on the sidelines, doubtful that he would ever get the same chance, and then it had happened and it had been wonderful and for the first time in his life he'd felt wanted, he'd felt needed.)
In November, he'd told her he loved her.
He didn't regret it, even if she'd been in pain, even if she'd been hurting inside, even if their emotions had been running high to the point of suffocating beneath them, he didn't regret saying it, because it had been true, because he'd loved her since their first date, probably, even if he hadn't recognized his own feelings until later.
Stormy hadn't said it back, and Gale hadn't expected her to.
(December.)
(There had been an embarrassing moment when he'd invited her to stay the night, and not just in the cuddling sense, only to have them both realize that it would be a mistake, and since then he hasn't asked, and he hasn't wanted to, because if Stormy wants to, she will let him know, and until then he is fine with just being together.)
(January. February. March. April. May. June. July. August.)
In September, nine months after he'd first said it, a year after they'd been dating, and almost two years since they'd first met, she had said she loved him and it had been the most beautiful moment of his life, even if the words surrounding it had been painful.
(Did she ever say it to Jack? Did he mean it when he said it to her?)
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Posted: Sun Sep 28, 2014 11:49 pm
a last refrain
I miss you.
Why did you have to leave me? Why did you have to go?
There is a part of my heart that isn't there and you took it with you when you left.
I said goodbye. I let you go.
At least, I thought I had.
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Posted: Mon Sep 29, 2014 7:46 am
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