The flickering embers behind the stove’s grate cast strange shadows on the side of Blake’s face. They made him look older. Like the hollows beneath his eyes were endless wells, and his lips had disappeared under their still water. Unable to speak. To breathe.
Gabriel took a few steps into the room. For all his pacing, those steps were the most difficult.
“Blake,” he breathed, an emotion more than a word. “Are you hurt?” It wasn’t what he wanted to say. Not even close. But it was safe. It was expected.
He didn’t answer for a long time. So long that Gabriel thought he wouldn’t. That he would continue icing him out. He didn’t know what he’d do if that was the case. Would he barricade the door? Lay across it like a petulant child, demanding he speak to him.
Blake half turned, sending the shadows skittering across his face. He was holding something in his hand. He was staring down at two battered boxes; the edges crumbled under his fingertips.
“I thought this would feel like a win—I thought…” he trailed off, his voice hoarse. “I thought if I could save just one life, if I could just do this one thing, I could somehow atone for all my failures. I could wash away the blood on my hands, but I—” he cut himself off, jaw clenched.
When he looked up from the boxes in his hand, Gabriel could see tears in his eyes. “All I did was wash the blood off with more blood.”
It wasn’t the blood smudged across Blake’s face. It wasn’t the boxes in his hand or the shallow way he was breathing. It was the look in his eyes. The pure despair shining from depths Gabriel thought he knew so well, that is what made him close the distance between them. He took both of Blake’s hands in his, lifting them.
“Look at your hands,” he said, squeezing until Blake finally looked down. “Do you see any blood?”
He scoffed and opened his mouth to argue, but Gabriel didn’t let him.
“Do you know what I see? I see hands that hold medicine. I see hands riddled with paper cuts from flipping through medical textbooks for hours on end. I see hands that are gentle enough to treat a traumatized patient but strong enough to set a dislocated joint. I see hands that taught themselves to stitch a woundanddarn a sock.” Gabriel brought his hands up, kissing each knuckle, hoping he could somehow replace what Blake saw with the truth.
“I see hands that saved me. That whipped open an ambulance door when he could have run to safety. I see hands that held me when I needed them. Hands that showed me pleasure I never thought was possible. I see hands that save, Blake.”
Blake shuddered, tears streaking through the dirt on his cheeks.
“You saved Judd,” Gabriel said, his lips still pressed to Blake’s knuckles. “You saved those refugees. Hell, you even saved that chicken’s leg. The one Tommy said would never walk right. You spent hours crafting a little brace, and now that stupid chicken follows Phin around everywhere.”
Gabriel dropped Blake’s hands so he could cup his face, wiping his tears away with his thumbs. The warmth from thestove felt good against his side, chasing away more than just the dark.
“And you saved me. Every single goddamn day. You give me a reason to wake up in the morning and a reason to keep going. Every time I was shoved into some hole. Hands shaking because I thought my next breath might be my last. That clicking in my ear and the sound of their claws on the asphalt, I thought of you. How I needed to live—not for you, but for me. Because I couldn’t bear the thought of missing a single second with you.”
“Blake, if it took the whole world going to hell for me to find you, then call me a sinner with no desire to repent.”
He sobbed, falling forward to bury his face in Gabriel’s chest. He wrapped his arms around Blake’s shaking shoulders, holding his pieces together so he wouldn’t fall apart.
It was the kind of crying that was more than just sadness. It was a purge. An ugly spillage of all the things that build up over time—the unsavory, festering emotions that only get stronger the farther they are from the light. Gabriel had seen it before. And it hurt him more than any bullet or blade. All he could do was hold Blake through it. Be the person he could lean on.
Gabriel wanted to apologize. To unburden himself of all his personal failings. Of his selfishness. To tell Blake that he would be better. But now wasn’t the time for it. Not when Blake was cracked open, his vulnerable underside exposed to the world. No, now was the time for Gabriel to hold him. To reassure him.
Blake eventually tapered off. Gabriel’s coat was soaked through with tears and snot, and Blake’s face was puffy. The tears had cleaned his cheeks, but his forehead and nose were still filthy. It made it look like he was wearing a mask.
Gabriel found a water bottle and wet a towel, wiping Blake’s face. He was staring at the boxes in his hand again.
“This insulin will save one girl’s life, but it cost that mother hers,” Blake said, his voice scratchy. “If I had just been payingattention, I could have stopped her. I could have used a belt as a tourniquet and?—”
“Hey,” Gabriel chided, lifting Blake’s chin to look at him. “Don’t do that. She knew what she was doing. Honor her sacrifice by giving that little girl a safe place. A future. That’s what she wanted.”
Blake swallowed. “How? How do I do that?”
Gabriel kissed Blake’s forehead. Under all the smoke and blood and death, Gabriel could still smell Blake. Smell the cheap motel shampoo and the faintest whiff of an old paperback that Gabriel knew he must be imagining, but it was there anyway.
“I don’t know,” Gabriel admitted. “But we’ll do it together. You and me. Side by side.”
For the first time that night, Blake’s eyes shone with something other than tears.
It wasn’t much, but it was something. And Gabriel was damn sure going to take it.
That night, after Blake was asleep on Gabriel’s chest, he stroked through his clean curls and stared up at the ceiling.
