[ He flinches. He doesn't mean to but suddenly Daryl's there and it doesn't matter how often they've stood next to each other. Sometimes reflex just takes over, something burned even deeper than the training and all the years Gabe's spent carting a rifle across the universe. Sometimes people get close to him, move too fast, and he just -
Flinches.
But Daryl doesn't hit him. Just puts his hands on Gabe's face and presses their foreheads together. An old, familiar gesture. It has a weight to it. Importance. Gabe shudders, his throat suddenly tight. He can feel tears on his cheek. Not his own, this time.
Silently, he reaches up to hold onto Daryl's wrist. He presses into the contact. Selfishly, maybe. But it's something solid, something that isn't a memory come to trip him and drag him back down.
He thinks of the moment that Daryl described. Nine days out in the woods. No one came looking for him. And then back in the carnival, all those animatronic nightmares dredging the past up yet again. A brother who yelled and taunted him. The sound of a beating doled out to a child. Scars laid out for the first time. And he thinks of how it felt to hold this man, to trace out some of those same scars with his fingers. Learn them like topography. ]
History repeats.
[ His breath hitches. And he realizes, suddenly, that he's crying too. He didn't intend that. He ought to have better control than that. He holds onto Daryl's wrists and he cries as silently as he can. Weak. Least you can do, he thinks furiously, is laugh it off. Be the sniper. The body is nothing. The past is less.
no subject
Flinches.
But Daryl doesn't hit him. Just puts his hands on Gabe's face and presses their foreheads together. An old, familiar gesture. It has a weight to it. Importance. Gabe shudders, his throat suddenly tight. He can feel tears on his cheek. Not his own, this time.
Silently, he reaches up to hold onto Daryl's wrist. He presses into the contact. Selfishly, maybe. But it's something solid, something that isn't a memory come to trip him and drag him back down.
He thinks of the moment that Daryl described. Nine days out in the woods. No one came looking for him. And then back in the carnival, all those animatronic nightmares dredging the past up yet again. A brother who yelled and taunted him. The sound of a beating doled out to a child. Scars laid out for the first time. And he thinks of how it felt to hold this man, to trace out some of those same scars with his fingers. Learn them like topography. ]
History repeats.
[ His breath hitches. And he realizes, suddenly, that he's crying too. He didn't intend that. He ought to have better control than that. He holds onto Daryl's wrists and he cries as silently as he can. Weak. Least you can do, he thinks furiously, is laugh it off. Be the sniper. The body is nothing. The past is less.
So walk it off. ]