[html] The night was still and quiet, despite it still being rather early. Jasper had found himself tired and weary quite early in the day and had settled down to try and sleep as soon as the sun was gone from the sky. Like most nights, though, the young male had terrible trouble sleeping. The evening was cool and lonely, which didn't help much at all with the fact that he still wasn't used to having to sleep outside. So, instead of simply laying there and staring at the sky, which he would've done any other night, the young male decided to make something of his time. The road was a familiar sight, something that he traveled down often, and he knew exactly where it led. The beach. He's spent quite a bit of his free time there, only because it seemed that not many other wolves had discovered it's location, the prime place to sit and feel sorry for himself.
Feet left asphalt rather quickly, making the transition from dirt to sand as he crossed the quiet beach. The waves were easy to hear and were almost calming, the way that they lapped at the sands. His intentions were to simply sit and watch the water, perhaps for long enough that it was cause him to drift off to sleep. It was unlikely, of course, but something that the young male could hope for. Continuing down the beach, the young de le Poer boy paid little attention to the happenings around him. Rather, he paid more attention to the path in front of him, hoping to find a good spot to settle down in.
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indent The noise had come back. He hadn’t heard the noise since he had been a young man, around his half-brother’s age. It had been footsteps then, and it was footsteps now. Gabriel’s eyes snapped open in the dark, fever-bright, vicious gold-yellow. They stared ahead blindly for several minutes, the eyes of a killer, his mother’s eyes. Kaena was gone, but she was still in his blood. She would live as long as her children lived.
indent His right hand was pulsing. The stigmata did not burn, as it had once, but he could feel the blood in it. His hand curled into a fist. The footsteps were louder then he expected. Pushing himself to his feet, Gabriel did not once question why he was on two legs (he didn’t recall much these days). Dirty, shoulder-length hair tumbled into his face, obscuring the scars, the gleaming eyes. He walked as a man possessed, as if these truly were the last days. Even when he came across Jasper, falling in step behind him, he did not for once consider letting him live because they shared blood. It was something else entirely that made him speak. “What are you doing here?” A thick voice, as if he had been swallowing nothing but sand and blood.
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[html] The unfortunate thing about sand, it hardly made a sound when someone was walking across it. That, paired with the sounds of the waves as they hit the shore, masked any noises that the larger male might have made. Poor Jasper couldn't pick up a scent either, not even the salty scent of the ocean that the air normally held near the beach, but the young male had yet to notice that fact. Blissfully ignorant, Jasper continued his way down the beach, even as the older male neared him and trailed behind him. It wasn't until the voice came that he realized that anyone was there at all. A voice that sounded much like a monster that most children had nightmares about.
Spinning quickly, obviously startled, his hair swung away from his eyes, just long enough to get a full view of the owner of the voice. He was to close for comfort, more horrible than Jasper had been expecting, and the sight of the other male caused Jasper to let out a shrill squeal, something like a girl, really. He stumbled back only a few steps before crashing to the ground completely, landing on his rear in the sand. His voice was shrill as he spoke, panicked and frightened. "What do you want?!" He completely ignored the question that he had been asked, not even sure if he'd heard it right the first time at all.
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indent Under his messy hair, Gabriel’s face was a mixture of odd emotions. His muzzle seemed locked in a faint snarl, and his lower jaw was slackened just enough to let the faintest glimmer of teeth show. Both of his eyes were remarkably hollow. They were not the eyes of the planning predator—they were the eyes of a man blinded by revenge, faith, love, and the stronger addictions in the world. They were the eyes of his mother and his father, of Jesus and the Devil and God. They saw everything and nothing, and this was what his half-brother was to him now.
indent Not until the boy fell, crying out, did Gabriel show anything. He began to laugh, a laugh that was nearly hysterical. He laughed because it was a ridiculous scenario and the impulse to kill was as strong as it had ever been. It was just too pathetic. He laughed at that, above all else. Advancing and leaning down, hair spilling over his shoulders, the scarred hybrid was grinning a wide Cheshire grin as he kept his eyes on the boy. “You scared? You sure look it,” he said, teeth gleaming in the dark, eyes wide and half-mad. His voice was the voice of a thousand long-dead martyrs and their salvation, and it was coated by blood and cigarette smoke, and his was his own voice in truth.
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[html] He could hear his heart pounding in his ears more than he could hear the ocean now. It was a frightening sound, one that reminded him just how bad the situation could be if he was that scared. Even now, even as the older male drew in closer, Jasper didn't recognize him as the half-brother that he had met in Bleeding Souls that day. Had it not been so dark and he not been so frightening, it was possible he would've recognized the coat color or even the voice, but not right now. His body seemed to almost convulse, he was shaking so badly, and the only thing that he could manage to do was to bring his knees up, curl them up close to him and try to cower behind him, however feeble that might have been.
"Y..yes.." Answering the question was better than not, he supposed, as he forced the frightened words from his mouth. His eyes closed for a brief moment, hoping in the back of his mind that he would open him and the creature would go away. Tears pushed from them as he closed them, fighting with all he had to not just break out in full tears. His eyes opened again though, only to find that very same face staring back at him, and he felt his stomach flip suddenly. "Please.." It was all he could manage, his voice strained and pathetic.
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indent “Please? Yes. Please...” The hybrid nearly whispered hearing but not hearing. His eyes had gone foggy, and he could no longer feel the ground under his feet. This was part of the evolutionary process—in order to rebuild, he had to break down. That was the simplistic truth of the world. Equal and opposite reaction. Nothing would be solved until he had that stranger’s heart in his hand and had spilled his guts onto the earth. The soul lived in the belly. The enemy’s strength was in his heart. Where had he learned that? He didn’t remember anymore.
indent Around his neck, the cross and the charm of Saint Christopher fell, dangling in the air as he extended his neck to smell the boy. He smelled like his father, though Gabriel would not recognize the man if they met. He barely recognized the scent, though it was deeply imbued in his psyche and unforgettable. It touched him like a ghost, the dream of a dream, the memory of falling in love, the first kill, the last time he had seen Faolin’s smile.
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[html] Whether or not he knew it, the other male had brought back the feeling of danger that Jasper had often felt when he was away from Clouded Tears back when he lived in Bleeding Souls. He'd gotten over those feelings, at least for the most part, and found it easier to go and search the lands. Sure, he often tried to stay places where there was very little traffic, but the fact that he was even doing that impressed himself. That confident feeling was long gone now though, whether Jasper knew it or not, and it would likely not return for some time, if he even manage to make it away from the beach alive. He couldn't look at the face of the older male, not directly at it anyways, instead his eyes wandered frantically, down the beach, up the beach, at the legs and arms of the creature.
It wasn't until the glint of the necklace caught his eyes that he bothered to look higher, staring at the necklace a moment, searching through his memory. It was beginning to make sense, however slow, and as he sat there Jasper put the pieces together. The eyes, the coat color, and the necklace, all of it aided Jasper in recalling who the male was. "Gabriel?" He questioned quietly, perhaps even more frightened by the prospect that it was actually his half-brother and not just some stranger. He was almost certain he wouldn't make it out alive.
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indent They were not safe. No one was safe. There was a madman out in the wild, one who had desecrated his holiest sign and the bodies of women and children. He knew that. No one would be safe until he found that man and cut him down. This was the fire in his blood, the steel in his sword. He intended to destroy the world to find him, as he had done before. God’s Voice would tell him what to do. The Voice had never led him astray before.
indent It was not until Jasper spoke his name that Gabriel froze. His eyes seemed to burn out before they changed—something subtle, not entirely there. Then he frowned and drew back, as of yet unaware he must have looked mad. His hair remained in his face and his right hand was balled so tightly into a fist it had begun to bleed. This released, causing drops of blood to fall into the sand, and with the confusion deep in his face he spoke again. “What are you doing here?”
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[html] It wasn't the question that was asked but, rather, the voice that it was asked in that made Jasper finally break down in to tears. It was a much different voice than had been spoken before and how that was possible, Jasper wasn't sure. All he knew was that he'd never been so happy to hear a voice before, at least not since that night that something strange had happened to his father, though that moment hadn't even crossed his mind. One hand lifted to rub violently at his eyes, forcing the tears into his fur as he tried frantically to wipe them away. The other hand made motion toward the water, speaking in a still frantic, still frightened voice. Just because it had changed didn't mean that he was any safer than he was before. "I just wanted to look at the water!"
His voice was loud, much louder than normally, almost like an accused child that was frantically trying to point out that he had done nothing wrong. Even as his other hand returned to his body, wrapping tightly around his legs, the opposite hand continued to rub at his eyes, fighting away the tears that seemed to be to fast for him. "I just couldn't sleep." He continued to explain, more quietly than before, in hopes that he could convince his half-brother that he meant no harm at all.
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indent Gabriel was not possessed, as his father was. He was entirely in his own mind, driven only to the older, weaker part of his being. There was no outside influence. In times of desperation, he lost himself to rage and fury. He still smelled like blood. He could still taste the fear. The wind blew his hair in and out of his face and he looked down, finally aware of the pain in his hand. Of course. He would have found the spell broken by a half-brother who meant nothing to him. Jasper was neither friend nor enemy. He shared only a common father and that was not enough to save him in the end.
indent That was, perhaps, why his voice remained stern. “Don’t cry,” he commanded, lifting his bloody hand to his face. His tongue ran over the small cuts, cleaning it briefly. It would do. “It isn’t safe out here,” he added.
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[html] Jasper still wasn't sure what had happened out there with his father that day, even Rusalki wouldn't speak of it to him, but once Jasper finally go away from the beach, he would likely recall that time and finally be able to compare the two. For now, though, all he could do was rub away the tears. Stern words could be a powerful thing, though, and as Gabriel commanded him to stop crying he jerked his head up in response, gritting his teeth. The tears finally did cease and his other hand fell to rest with it's companion, holding himself tightly. Gabriel seemed less frightening than before, but even when he wasn't acting like a maniac, Jasper still found that he was very scary.
"I could go, then?" He practically squeaked, his voice quiet yet ringing with a faint tint of hope. Maybe he would walk away from the beach after all, and even in one piece. If he did manage to leave, it was likely that Jasper wouldn't return to the beach for some time, especially at night.
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indent The hybrid folded his ears back, and then suddenly lifted them, turning his head. He stared hard at the horizon, as if something was lurking in the forest. Perhaps to him it was. The scent was everywhere and the man would be coming soon. He would kill him. That was what he needed—that was everything. “Yeah. Go home.” Gabriel looked back to his half-brother, staring at him as if he was a stranger. In his eyes was the solemn promise and the solitary wisdom of the angel of death.
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[html] "O-ok.." He practically stuttered, only pausing long enough to watch Gabriel for a second more. Finally, scrambling to get to his feet, the boy with the tear-stained face stood, turning quickly away. Jasper couldn't just run off and forget what happened though, no. Instead, once he managed to rush himself a few feet away, he turned to look back, just to make sure. Whatever it was that had happened, Jasper couldn't trust that it was done and over with, and simply had to look back just to make sure he wasn't toying with him. Satisfied, at least for the most part, that he wasn't being stalked again, Jasper disappeared into the horizon.
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