Through the Rafters
By Kay
Disclaimer: I don't own Everworld. As soon as I'm rich enough to buy it, that mistake will be rectified.
Author's Notes: David/Jalil SLASH implications—written post!books and fairly unedited. Sorry.
The sunlight is warm on David's face, and his eyelids flutter at the gentle touch of it.
His first thought when coming to is, 'Where am I...?' It is not the comforting, cool sheets of his bed in Daggermouth, and it certainly isn't the coarse fabric of a rickety cot in a tent placed in the middle of the third level of hell, with the sounds of battle raging outside. No, there is only quiet here, a soft rumbling of voices far away in the distance and the tumbling shift of his breathing as he slowly awakens in the heat.
He doesn't remember falling asleep. He doesn't remember anything except—
'Practicing,' his mind supplies. His sword. He feels it now in his left hand, still laying in the loose grip of his fist; the leather hilt slides against his callused fingers in a familiar stroke. He tightens his fingers around it, pulling in another deep breath before opening his blurry eyes and trying to sit up. It is a slow process.
It smells like hay.
Because it is hay, David thinks numbly, his arm propping up against the thick pile that he'd been sprawled against—the straw crunched under his heavy body, scratching through the fabric of his shirt. He winces. His muscles are aching.
'I was doing exercises in the barn,' he thinks absentmindedly, looking around with sleep-crusted eyes narrowed into dark slits against his face. The sun is beaming through the rafters—midday, then, and that means he's been there for the entire night. He's missed supper and breakfast together. Cursing silently, David struggles to right himself, stubbornly racking his memory for what may have happened.
"I thought you were going to sleep all day," a voice says nochalantly.
David whirls his head around, mouth open to demand answers—and then he snaps it shut with an audible clicking of his teeth. Pursing his lips, he nods greeting to the boy sitting a few feet away on a chest. "Why?"
Jalil raises an eyebrow, his face expressionless. He's sitting calmly on the wooden block, gawky legs folded under himself and with a thinly bound book open in his hands. A red, patchy blanket that David recognizes as one of the horses' is wrapped around his shoulders, even though it's obviously so warm that it's unneeded. "Because you were exhausted. After you came back from the battle, we all thought you'd just crash. But you came down here instead."
David passes his hand over his eyes. The reminder of the battle prods sharply into his brain, and he takes a deep breath and sighs. "Yeah. I needed... time."
"You worked yourself to the bone, I guess. I found you collapsed on the ground." Jalil shrugs, snapping his book shut and placing it to his side. His dark eyes are studying David's slumped form, still sitting in the scattered hay, with disapproval. "I didn't think we should wake you. You might insist on continuing, and then you'd accidentally decapitate a horse or something."
David almost laughs, but it turns into a cough halfway through. He glares at Jalil for the jab, anyway. "It was a long day."
"No doubt," Jalil agrees. He should be hot, his long sleeves spilling over his wrists and the blanket curled around his jutting shoulder blades, but he looks fine. David wishes he were like that. The sun was shining directly onto his face the entire time, and now his neck feels almost burnt. He absently touches the skin there lightly to feel the sting of it.
Then a thought occurs to him. "Were you here? The entire time?"
Jalil tilts his head. He taps the book beside him. "I needed to take a look at something. And I figured you'd be confused if you woke up to find a stablehand prodding you."
"Yeah," but David doesn't know how to feel about this. He feels... embarrassed. The red flush that gathers at the base of his neck and ears is more than the sun's effects now. "You didn't have to do that, though."
Jalil shrugs lightly.
"I'm serious."
"I didn't care," Jalil says easily. "I had to read this, anyway. Might as well have something that resembles company."
David picks himself up, refusing to glance at the other teenager. He brushes dirt and straw off of his jeans, scowling a little at the creaks in his knees. He needs the softness of a bed, but he's already awoken and the energy buzzes in his brain like flies.
"You want lunch?" Jalil hasn't moved. He's acting like this is normal.
"No," David says, but he really does. His stomach is aching for something to fill the black hole it's become during the battle and traveling—his feet are still sore, and his thoughts still muffled. But Jalil is there and looking at him, and David has the horrible suspicion that he can see everything, all his doubts and exhaustion and stupid ideas. And he doesn't want Jalil to see through him so easily, to view all the faults and mistakes he's made.
He wonders if he watched him while he slept.
"Suit yourself." Jalil sighs a little. He looks almost as tired as David feels now, and their eyes meet like that, straight across the drifting beams of light that shine through the rafters and into the stable. It's like looking into his own shadow, David thinks, unnerved. A reflection or something.
He supposes he should thank Jalil for leaving him to sleep—to rest without nightmares, lost in the exhausted and deep slumber of those worked to the bone. But he can't open the dry cavern of his mouth, and now Jalil is getting up silently and the moment is gone. The red blanket is tossed across a stable door and Jalil turns to smile politely at him.
"Coming?"
"Yeah," David says. He follows Jalil into the harsh light and closes his eyes at the strength of it. Red imprints on the back of his eyelids, fierce and blinding.
"Next time," Jalil is saying ahead of him, "try fainting somewhere more comfortable than a barn."
"Okay," he says, and stops because it feels like he's going to run into something if he steps forward again with his eyes closed. He blinks rapidly to clear the spots of light.
Jalil turns back. Serious, intent. "Really?"
David starts to say something. Stops. He looks at Jalil again as if trying to remember what he's heard in the past ten minutes, and then starts as if he's found something he didn't notice before. He blinks again. Pales. Frowns.
Jalil is looking at him. He slowly nods.
"Good," the young scientist says firmly, and turns and walks away. David watches him cross the courtyard quickly, book pressed tightly to his hip; he enters the castle through a wooden door without ever looking back.
David stands there for a moment. Then, putting a hand up to shadow his eyes, he stares up at the high sun in the sky and wonders when he'll be leaving again.
The End