___________________________________sonata - by adire___

There was that feeling again.

Sacrilegious, that's what it was. He was a taint. A blot on the purity of this quiet chapel of fading sunlight on wood-toned floors and mirrors that reflected multiple images of a single boy, like a flurry of identical sakura petals, all moving to the same dance.

But he remained in the thickly warm hallway nonetheless, watching through the window set into the door of the enclosed ballet studio.

And, helpless, he watched Gabriel cry.

Jared, fists clenched, closed his eyes and turned aside, resting his brow carefully to the wall, stifling the urge to slam his head as hard as he could. Gabriel would hear, would know that he was there, and he couldn't do that to him. If the boy only knew how many times this scene had been repeated, how much it tore Jared apart every time, to stand silent witness to those lovely struggles, and never be able to comfort his pain....not at the cost of his fragile pride, more fragile even than his broken body.

Damn it all.

It was getting harder to breathe, and Jared swallowed hard, lifting a hand to push his hair from his eyes with a tired sigh; it did little to tame the wild mess of brown that sprayed around his shoulders, but it calmed him, brought him back from the edge. He could still hear the music inside the room, the lilt of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, but those soft, muffled sobs were no longer so evident; perhaps they had quieted, perhaps Gabriel was standing again, stubbornly rising on blistered toes to stand at pointe, to pirouette, port de bras, all those other crazy-ass ballet terms Jared didn't even pretend to understand; all he knew was that they were important to Gabriel, and that somehow he made the odd French words become motion, poetry, fluid movements and expression and sheer, perfect beauty. It had been so easy for him, once. He had been so happy.

"Dance?" The doctor had given Gabriel such a blank, pitying look that Jared had wanted to hurt the man, impose his brutish body between that fool and the anguished, lovely violet eyes staring up at him, so long, so slanted, dewed with liquid pain that echoed in the crush of a slim hand clamping down on Jared's own.. "Oh, son, I'm afraid that.....I'm sorry. You'd best focus on walking.....with a break like that, your ankles can't handle much else."

"Break" had been a casual, callous word to use. Too clean for the gut-wrenching, heart-breaking crunch of shattered and mangled bone that had ruined Gabriel's life forever. Such a simple instance of chance, if only Jared had gotten off the train last, if only he'd been able to catch the smaller man's form to keep him from being swept away in the throng of boarders, held back to struggle like a swimmer against an undertow, until he finally managed to burst free just as the door was closing, catching his shirt, dragging him down, back, and the sound as his feet were jerked into the tunnel entrance and bent at such terrible angles before his shirt tore and his scraped, bruised body fell to the cement....

The memory still made Jared's jaw clench, his lips trembling. It should have been me. If only I'd been there to catch him.....Long months of painful healing, of therapy....Gabriel's muscles had atrophied in the casts, refusing to support his weight no matter how stubbornly he forced them against the floor, small and forlorn and pathetic in his hospital gown, with his oddly-hued grey hair falling all about him, twining with his limbs like symbols of his restraints. And always...always, he refused Jared's help, when his friend wanted nothing more than to hold him, to lift him away from the pain, to tell him I'll be your legs...I'll carry you anywhere that you want to go. This time...I'll be there to catch you.

"Leave me alone, Jared." Bitterness in that sweet voice, a bitterness that he had never heard before, something he'd hoped would never touch the innocent dreamer, the sylphlike fae that danced like faeries running along streaks of moondust. "I have to do this. I can't...be an invalid for the rest of my life."

"Gabe, you'll just make it wors--"

"How can it get any worse?!" Furiously Gabriel pounded his fists to Jared's chest, staring up at him with ravaged, fierce eyes bright with tears. "What could happen? I've lost everything, damn you....I'll never make it to Juliard....never dance....what does it matter if I can't walk again? I'm already useless....don't tell me I'll make it worse!" He'd nearly fallen, then, only his clawed grip on Jared's shirt holding him up....but when the larger man moved to catch him, the muted hazel of his eyes dark with concern, he had only shoved away, grasping on to the nearest handrail in the therapy center rather than allow his friend to help him.

He would never know how much that hurt.

But Jared would never know the true depth of what Gabriel had lost; he'd told him once that it felt like flying, even when it hurt. The rapture in his lips had been entrancing, and Jared wanted so much to kiss him, to taste that sweet entrancement from its source, but he didn't dare. He didn't dare love him, didn't dare need him, because Gabriel was meant for better things, better things than a simple-minded and earthy all-night sushi driver.

Better things than an empty, desolate dance studio and the agony of shattered dreams.

He jerked from his shadowed ruminations at the sound of the music stopping, lifted his head, tensing. If Gabriel was leaving, he'd have to make tracks, and fast, lest the slender dancer find him there; he'd distanced himself in his struggles, barely even acknowledging the difficult milestone of his returned mobility, ignoring Jared's congratulatory exuberance to force himself onwards. He never acknowledged the little things, the hot basins of water with Epson salts already waiting when he returned to their dorm room, the bandages and ointment resting on the bed. His pride would never allow it. Jared took comfort in the fact that he at least used them. It was almost a relief to see his swollen, bruised, and bloodied feet vanish beneath the swathing layer of white every night, though he was careful never to be caught looking; he'd never known how hardened and toughened a dancer's feet had to be to handle the pressure of the routines that they performed, until he saw the rigors that Gabriel suffered after months of inactivity.

Before he met Gabriel....he'd never have understood what it meant, to want something so badly that he would force himself through such pain to achieve it.

He listened tensely, shoving his hands into the pockets of his battered leather coat, but there was no halting, heavy thump-drag of exhausted footsteps, only the click of plastic, the push of a button. He was only changing the tape, and Jared relaxed with a heavy sigh, dared to glance in again.

Gabriel stood with his head bowed, hands gripping the railing running along the wall in a white-knuckled grip that stood out even against his pale skin; the cloudlike skeins of his hair poured over him like moonlight, barely caged to the tail at the nape of his neck, flowing over his shoulders and down his back and sticking to the sweat-slicked black unitard covering his lithe body. He was breathing hard, winded; if Jared strained, he could imagine that he heard those panting exhalations even above the music. He didn't recognize it at first, different from Gabriel's usual classical performance pieces, at odds with his tastes. Modern, slower, waiting, just as Gabriel waited, tension rising.

Like anyone worthy, I am flattered by your fascination with me....

Jared watched with his heart in his throat as the boy began to move. Slow, deliberate, a single arm flowing outwards in time with the soft piano beats, the thready voice, leading his head to fall back, enticing his body to arch.

Like any hot-blooded woman, I have simply wanted an object to crave....

Reaching hands, yearning, lifting, turning.....powerful, graceful. Perfect control. He saw him tremble with the strain, nearly break, held his breath.

But you, you're not allowed....you're uninvited.....an unfortunate slight.....

There--his feet flexed sharply, and he rose, slipping into motion with the crescendo of the music, extension, contraction, a rippling glissando dancing down his spine, a viridescent twist of his body. Pain slivered the air, hot, creasing his brow, drawing his eyes tightly shut, and Jared ached for him, ached for himself, watching this. He was dancing, yes, but at what cost, this tragic beauty? He should stop this.....stop this before Gabriel hurt himself any further. He would have....but he stood hypnotized, for it was beautiful. Haunting, watching Gabriel dance as his ghost. Gone was the ease, the effortlessness....but it was replaced by something different, a flow that rode the waves of shivering anguish, a sorrow that made every falter, every misstep into a perfection of its own. He couldn't dance as he was taught anymore.....so he danced in the only way that he knew how, with the only thing that was left in him: his pain, his fury, his loss.

And as he threw himself into leap and turn, adagio and allonge, demi-pointes and demi-ronds, penche and plie, wrapped in the cradling wings of streaming silken strands....Jared touched the glass barring them, eyes riveted. He could almost see the silvered notes rivering over every cord and twist of sinew, winding around him, playing Gabriel, conforming his body to the music, every chord and note, struggling to play a melody with an instrument so broken that the very discord of its note was poignantly appropriate....and he wished that he could touch that, just once. Touch Gabriel, and understand that passion, what drove him, what filled him when he closed his eyes and fell into the springtime of ethereal abandon.

Was it springtime in that world beyond the door, or winter?

Perhaps it was the winter winds that gave him wings....perhaps it was Jared's longing imagination, his desperate hope that Gabriel might reclaim what had been torn from him....but he inhaled sharply as that graceful frame arched back...and then twisted into an agile leap, soaring, flung upon the air like a dash of black paint, calligraphy in motion with its strange and esoteric lines. He saw everything in that moment....the taut stretch of slinking muscle, the delineation of every bone, the pure joy thrumming through every fiber of his being, suffusing his face with a transfixed abandon, pure bliss, and his heart lifted, soared with Gabriel.....

....and then fell as delicate toes touched the slick floor....and turned, twisting from beneath him, raising a terrible cry of pain. The floor rushed up to claim him, hard disappointment with its brittle, jagged arms.

He cried out as he met Jared's chest instead, caught by thick, long arms, a body thrown between his own and the floor, cushioning him, cradling him close.

....you're not allowed, you're uninvited....

"Don't, " he rasped, shoving at his chest....but this time, the larger man would not be deterred. Would not be turned away, or denied.

He knew what it meant, to want something with such passion. And, burying his face in Gabriel's hair, he held that one thing close, spent the tears that had been building behind his eyes. "No, " he forced out, hands nearly clutching at that thin back. "I won't let go....not this time. Gabriel....please....this time, just...let me catch you. Please."

I...don't think you unworthy....I need a moment to deliberate.....

Without saying a word, Gabriel buried his face in Jared's chest.....

....and wept.

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