Our Pan

((Well now, I suppose that was a go ahead? Thank you to all who are still reading.

::Marai: Eep! Oh dear.. I have bad news for you. (or not, depending on if I read your comment correctly).. This isn't a brother love fic. :( I get all squicked at incest. The brothers are close, but not THAT close. Heh. Thank you for the idea on the name. I've since changed it on the "cover" so to speak.
::Hannah: You liked Gabe, eh? His name comes from the fertile minds of a very close friend of mine. (I was struggling for a good name and she said "How about Gabriel?" just quick as a wink. It stuck! Who wouldn't want a healing angel named Gabriel? *w* Now, if we could just find out what's happening, eh?
::Jayn: Oh I'm glad you're enjoying it! Thank you so much for reviewing! Perhaps it will continue to intrigue!

Enjoy your stay!))

Our Pan; or The tale of my family tree

That night, Gabriel wanders his home, hot tea in hand, bathrobe over his sleeping pants, and violet fuzzy slippers on his feet. He'd laughed when his friends from the medical school had given him them.

"You are so straight looking, Gabe. No one would ever suspect your being gay. My dear, you simply needed something that shouted, I'm Flaming!" Cynthia had snickered into the hug he had given her. "Besides, one day, some boy is going to find it rather becoming and adorable to see you wandering around, your hair mussed by heaven knows what activities you two will have been doing, wearing your fuzzy slippers. Do be certain to wear them then. You will, of course."

"Of course," he'd assured her and kissed her.

The slippers don't help though, he considers as he looks into his tea cup. They make him think of that man back at the hall and his strange eyes that must be grey though Gabriel can't quite fix his mind on how they ended up being grey, nor what particular shade of grey they are. It feels much as if he's met a man made primarily of smoke. And how does one ...

What had he intentions of doing anyhow? He rubs his hand through his hair and sighs. "God only knows," he murmurs to himself, settling into a chair beside the radiator, setting his cup alongside him and picking up an appropriately boring book. He is in need of something to make him drowsy.

While Studs Terkel is not in the least bit a boring writer, nor are the transcribed accounts of the dead and dying either, the strain to keep his attention eventually wins out and he finds himself slipping lightly into a dream.

The soft touch on his arm, cool fingers and the feel of breath passing through the room, and Gabriel knows somehow that he's not woken up just yet. Still, there is an insistence to the moment and he opens his eyes.

"You," he whispers up into those eyes, a color that he can almost define. He suspects if he were awake at this moment and if the moment were real that he would know just what the color is. It's a physical pain to not know, however and he gasps, clutching his chest as it rocks through him.

"You hurt?" the soft voice from the heretofore silent man is soft, sweet, as ethereal as the rest of him. The cool fingers brush along the side of his chest and the pain eases. Gabriel sits up, wheezing as he attempts to catch his breath after it had so swiftly been torn from him.

"You are fine now," the man named Martin smiles and the pang in Gabe's chest is the normal kind. Gabe can only nod, silently, his words stolen just as Martin seems to have found them. "I am glad."

The dream is surreal in the reality of it. There is a strange smell, like burning sweet rye, and it makes Gabriel's eyes water. He breathes in deeply of the scent and it burns his throat going down. In desperation he fights against the hand that has been on his shoulder, holding him down as thoroughly as if he had a ten ton weight upon his chest.

"It will pass. It is just the moment," Martin whispers and Gabriel's eyes widen, watching the silver haired man lean closer to him, lips hovering over his. "But you've been kissed once," the speaking mute whispers again in what seems sadness. He turns his head and looks away, lifting his hand and moving away. He does not seem to take notice of Gabriel's attempts to free himself from the remaining weight of a hand that is no longer there.

"I weary of being alone," Martin says in a sob and wrapping his broken wing like arms around his slender frame, he drifts to the right. It is a slow drift and Gabriel fights it with every amount of will he has. The weight shifts, falls, he bursts from his chair into the middle of a field and stands, shocked, looking after mist that had been Martin.

"Where are you?" he calls into the soundless deep of a silent spring. "Martin! Where are you?"

Finding his words go nowhere but back to him, he sighs and begins to walk through the grass, tall as his waist. It seems wrong, and he has never realized how wrong until he'd tried it once, to walk without sound, to walk and not hear the grass move in response, yet to see it. Is he deaf, here? Or is there truly no sound?

The grass goes on, the hill rolling underneath him, the trees sliding about like water droplets on an all too hot iron skillet, never touching the ground, never staying long enough to be caught. He pants as he works his way across the meadow, every third step costing him two. Yet he knows he's making progress.

Above a sun shines in a sky too brilliantly blue to be real. It is much as he's imagined it being under the ocean, with the waves high above, capturing sunlight and turning it from gold into azure. And when he looks up at the clear sky, he isn't certain that there aren't ripples shuddering across the velvet surface high overhead. The grasses sway, they could be a kelp forest perhaps. But what cares he? He needs to find Martin. He wants to place the strange accent, like welsh or high english, yet not alike at all.

No, not want. He needs to. Time is running out. Morning will come and the dream will be over. He must find Martin! Suddenly, driven by the shortening of shadow, he is propelled into running. Yet it seems the faster he runs, the more quickly grow the shadows. He is panting and his throat burns for a much different reason.

The meadow's edge is still a goodly ways off when his foot drops, not meeting the same ground he's been upon. He stumbles and falls headlong into the green ocean bottom, hands splayed out to catch himself, yet catching himself on something warm, frightfully warm.

Raising his head, he looks down, shocked to discover he's fallen upon a body, his face chest level. Lifting eyes, he casts a glance across the sleeping face and sobs. "Martin," but his words are with less sound than they'd had at the beginning.

Clutching the clothing upon the young man, homespun, brown wool, scratchy and a discomfort to his civilized arms, Gabriel pulls himself up and gazes down at the beautiful face, eyes closed and lids dancing as some dreams pass under them.

"What now?" he mouths without a single peep coming back to him, with his voice stolen away. "What do I do now?"

It seems wrong, to have struggled against the sun, against the meadow, against it all, only to come up to nothing in the end, to be laying upon a beautiful man, to be breast to breast with a creature more fascinating than any he's ever seen, yet to not be allowed to look into those eyes, to see what color hides behind that grey smoke screen.

Gabriel douses his all too chilled hands in the warmth of Martin's hair. He sighs at the pleasure running through him. And while it's not that kind of dream, he knows that he's becoming aroused somewhere, at some distance from his self now. How something so simple could be so erotic, he won't ever know. It is merely that it is Martin, perhaps. Martin by sheer fact of being his own self, is erotic. His being filled with eroticism like others are filled with hope or joy or innocence.

"Oh come now," a small child's voice echoes and Gabriel looks up to see a small child, light brown hair falling over a rounded brow. The child is young, no more than nine or ten, and dressed in rags, burlap and pants of homespun wool it seems, roughly woven. "He always sleeps like this. You act as if you've never seen him sleeping, Pan."

Gabriel frowns, confused. "Pan?" and finding he can speak, looks back down. "Wake up, Martin. Please."

"I won't let you take him this time," the small child scowls petulantly. "You keep wanting to take him to the fair or to the river or to this or that. It is my birthday and I want him today. I'll make him sleep until you leave!" The child's dark black gaze seems reptilian, not human, there being no pupil, no iris, only black.

"I cannot leave him. I won't find him again," Gabriel begs. "Please, I must speak to him. He must tell me.."

"Tell you?" the child stands up abruptly, hands on hips in a show of defiance. "He'll tell you the same thing I'm telling you. He doesn't need you. None of us do! I want him today and he's promised he'd come with me to the wood. I'm sick of all of your wheedling and wanting and conniving." Then with a tilt of the head to one side. "You're acting funny. Why are you acting so funny?"

Gabriel, shaking his head, can think of nothing to say. The dream has gone on long enough. Should he not be waking up now? It seems wrong, somehow, as if he's trying somewhere to waken but isn't quite sure how to do so. He tries to stand but Martin's hand has crept up and holds his waist in a tender, terrible embrace. Two fingers rest against his skin and bind him.

"Let me go," Gabriel whimpers. "Oh please," and he stares at the child. "He won't let me go!"

But the creature is gone. A tussock of grass moves and the world remains silent, no more telling the direction of the parting than it tells him the songs of the birds in the trees.

He reaches for the tussock, hoping to use it for leverage and a soft moan, sensuous and perfect, dances across his throat. Freezing, Gabriel closes his eyes in horror and delight, feeling cooled air over his skin and lips, wet and chilled on his suddenly hot flesh.

"Love," that same, distant, perfect voice murmurs against his adam's apple. Gabriel finds the fight slipping out of his body as he goes limp in arms that are around his waist, tugging him against that chest he'd been striving to leave behind. Horror fills him and he wonders just when this all turned into a nightmare, when things began to go wrong.

And yet, it is a dream, is it not? He need only wake?

The idea of waking appeals to him so much that he strives toward it, struggling like a man drowning, hearing the soft cry of some great animal mourning it's lunch as if from afar. He sobs and claws his way toward wakefulness, breaking from the stifling waves of the ocean of sleep with a shout. His breath hot in his throat, almost to the point of burning, his lungs taking in air as if they had been deprived for far too long. He sits up, clutching his chest in fear, panting and staring at the ottoman just past his chair.

The subtle motion of shadow startles him and he sits up, staring in shock as the pale man emerges from the shadows.

"No!" he whispers in terror and pulls away, back toward the inner recesses of his chair, finding it no real shelter from the oncoming spirit.

Fingers trace his cheek and he closes his eyes, trembling. There is warmth here, but the dream is cycling back and forth. He stutters his breath, feeling another's breath on his lips, yet yearning for it. Then a butterfly's touch across his mouth. It is tender, innocent, lost, seeking... he moans. And he can hear his own moan.

He realizes then that he's woken with that distant erection he'd felt before. He sighs, edging forward, out of his hiding place against the chair, arching his back up into the soft easy comfort of the gentle kiss. It strikes him as odd that he's been kissed twice in one day, by two of the same manner of man. Twice after more than a handful of years without a single one.

Fingers delve into his hair, curl against the nape of his neck, he gasps, feeling another hand travel down his side to his hip, cupping his hip and then sliding around to grasp his erection. With a gasp, he bucks into it, not far from completion as his nightmare has left him in dire need. A pull, a gentle rhythmic slip of hand, his sleeping pants soft, but not soft as skin, soft enough however, and with a sigh that is part groan, the waves crash over him once more. He pulls back, arching against the back of the chair, whimpering as he's emptying himself into the heat that is that hand, and with it, a guttural groan of a name.

"Martin.."

His own voice startles him and his eyes fly open, staring at the empty room as his body shudders and his hip jerks one last time, his essence staining the inside of his pajama bottoms.

After catching his breath, Gabriel stares down at his body, spread wantonly upon the chair, legs spread wide, tell tale wetness at his thighs and hips and lower abdomen, his bathrobe opened and his torso for all the world to see. All the world in his own home, that is.

"Pathetic," he mutters at himself and stands, straightening his robe. He glowers at the book as if it were at fault for his strange dreams. Then running a hand through his hair, he yawns and lets out a sigh. Then pauses. Because the room smells faintly of something salted and sweet, like burned rye grass or the almost forgotten scent of another man.

He sifts through the scents in his sitting room a moment longer before he finally chalks it up to being the remaining hangers on of the dream. And with a sense of loss and incompletion, he stumbles to bed.