quotations, corambis
Apr. 8th, 2013 01:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thraxiosBefore we left the Mirador, I had asked to see Gideon’s body and been refused. I still wasn’t sure why, whether Stephen had decreed it part of my punishment or whether the body was truly so hideous that someone had wrongly considered it a kindness. My last memory of Gideon was of his cold anger, his voice saying flatly in my head, You have made your position perfectly clear, thank you. It was no comfort to know that he might have been willing to forgive me, that he had gone to his death because Isaac Garamond had sent him a message purporting to be from me. I had not killed him, but I could not begin to count the ways in which it was my fault he was dead. Strangled and dead and lost.
-
But what I felt was grief. I missed Gideon so much it felt like I’d been crippled. To say my heart was broken was trite, and in fact it didn’t feel broken. It felt gone, as if it had been wrenched from my chest, and though it continued to beat, it did so from some great, cold distance, like the moon in eclipse.
-
I remembered Gideon had rubbed Mildmay’s back when he’d started to get muscle cramps from coughing, and Mildmay had relaxed into his touch like a cat.
-
I remembered how happy he’d been, the day he found some book Gideon’d been wanting, how he’d been so bright you could’ve threaded a needle by the light he was giving off. And I remembered the way Gideon had hugged him, smiling so big it was like his face was going to crack wide open. And I said, “Gideon didn’t tease you.”
“No,” he agreed after a moment, not looking up. “Gideon didn’t tease me.”
-
“I suppose I could. I mean, if I weren’t under the binding- by- obedience. I think I know enough of the theory, and I could always consult the Mulkist books in the University library if I needed to. But what I brought back . . . it wouldn’t be Gideon.”
He said nothing, watching me with those feral green eyes.
“It would be a memory of Gideon,” I said. “A pattern of Gideon as he was. Not . . .” I thought of Prince Magnus, trapped forever and eternally at the age of fourteen, and I sat down heavily beside Mildmay on our swaybacked couch. “It wouldn’t be Gideon, who rubs your back when your muscles ache from coughing, or Gideon, who writes snippy notes in the margins of books of thaumaturgical theory, or Gideon, who . . .” I swallowed hard.
“Say it,” Mildmay said softly.
“Gideon, who kisses me openmouthed,” I said in a rush. “Gideon, who butters biscuits for me even when he’s mad at me. Gideon, who . . . who . . .”
“Say it.”
“Who loves me,” I said, and it hurt like tearing my heart out through the ribs of my chest. “Gideon loved me and I can’t have that back, no matter what I do.” I was crying, and I didn’t know when I’d started. “I can’t have him back and I miss him so much. I miss him so fucking much.”
“I know,” Mildmay said, and he put his arm around me, letting me hide against his shoulder, knowing, as I did, how dangerous, how fundamentally unsafe it was to confess to love. “I know.”
-
But what I felt was grief. I missed Gideon so much it felt like I’d been crippled. To say my heart was broken was trite, and in fact it didn’t feel broken. It felt gone, as if it had been wrenched from my chest, and though it continued to beat, it did so from some great, cold distance, like the moon in eclipse.
-
I remembered Gideon had rubbed Mildmay’s back when he’d started to get muscle cramps from coughing, and Mildmay had relaxed into his touch like a cat.
-
I remembered how happy he’d been, the day he found some book Gideon’d been wanting, how he’d been so bright you could’ve threaded a needle by the light he was giving off. And I remembered the way Gideon had hugged him, smiling so big it was like his face was going to crack wide open. And I said, “Gideon didn’t tease you.”
“No,” he agreed after a moment, not looking up. “Gideon didn’t tease me.”
-
“I suppose I could. I mean, if I weren’t under the binding- by- obedience. I think I know enough of the theory, and I could always consult the Mulkist books in the University library if I needed to. But what I brought back . . . it wouldn’t be Gideon.”
He said nothing, watching me with those feral green eyes.
“It would be a memory of Gideon,” I said. “A pattern of Gideon as he was. Not . . .” I thought of Prince Magnus, trapped forever and eternally at the age of fourteen, and I sat down heavily beside Mildmay on our swaybacked couch. “It wouldn’t be Gideon, who rubs your back when your muscles ache from coughing, or Gideon, who writes snippy notes in the margins of books of thaumaturgical theory, or Gideon, who . . .” I swallowed hard.
“Say it,” Mildmay said softly.
“Gideon, who kisses me openmouthed,” I said in a rush. “Gideon, who butters biscuits for me even when he’s mad at me. Gideon, who . . . who . . .”
“Say it.”
“Who loves me,” I said, and it hurt like tearing my heart out through the ribs of my chest. “Gideon loved me and I can’t have that back, no matter what I do.” I was crying, and I didn’t know when I’d started. “I can’t have him back and I miss him so much. I miss him so fucking much.”
“I know,” Mildmay said, and he put his arm around me, letting me hide against his shoulder, knowing, as I did, how dangerous, how fundamentally unsafe it was to confess to love. “I know.”
