Chapter Text
The warm afternoon sun bathed the endless expanses of fields and woods in its golden light. Yellow-green blades of grass, ripe grain and maize swayed in the fresh breeze that surrounded them. Amidst them, magenta and blue flowers stood out, adding a splash of colour to the otherwise earthy, neutral scene. They were known as meadow knapweeds and cornflowers. The rustling of the leaves and the chirping of the crickets completed this late-summer idyll, which brought back memories of days gone by from childhood.
A narrow path, marked by trampled earth, pebbles, sand and tufts of grass appearing here and there, wound its way between the fields, leading into a dense evergreen forest that stretched across hills and small mountains. A castle stood enthroned on the summit of a mountain. Despite its partly ruined walls, it stood majestically guarding the surrounding countryside; after all, it had already survived centuries and numerous wars.
“Come on!”, a voice suddenly echoed amongst the wheat and maize on the narrow path. It startled a few birds that were searching for insects and worms on patches of already mown meadow. “Otherwise it’ll be dark before we’ve even had a look at the castle!”
“I’m coming, I’m coming! Slow down!” groaned a thin voice. It belonged to a young man of twenty-four. His golden curls framed his androgynous, sun-kissed face, and his sky-blue eyes shone as brightly and alertly as ever. As usual, his lips were curved into a gentle smile, even though the rest of his body was racked with exhaustion and heat.
“It’s summer, Gilbert; the sun won’t disappear straight away, and we’re not in any rush, are we?” Gabriel finally caught up with his friend, who had been unspeakably jittery all day. More jittery than usual!
“N-No,” the man with snow-white hair admitted, looking slightly embarrassed, “That’s true. I just can’t wait to show you the castle! It’s going to be incredibly cool! I swear!” But there it was again: his restlessness. And that impatience. By now, it shouldn’t have come as a surprise to Gabriel. His lover had been a little whirlwind ever since he was a child. A trait that, on the one hand, made Gabriel shake his head, but on the other, drew him even closer to Gilbert. It was cute how much energy and enthusiasm he could muster once something filled him with passion and a zest for action.
“That’s for sure, mon coeur, but isn’t the journey part of this wonderful trip too? If you just walk from A to B, you’ll miss half the fun.”
“Says the one who’s just melting away in the sun. Are you sure you’d call that fun, Gabriel?” Gilbert retorted, raising an eyebrow sceptically as they now strolled along the path between the fields at the same pace.
“Oh, you know what I mean!” Gabriel’s cheeks flushed slightly, but he hoped Gilbert hadn’t noticed. “And don’t pretend you wouldn’t be nearly burnt to a crisp yourself if I hadn’t forced you to put on enough sun cream! You did put on enough sun cream, didn’t you? On your face too? On your shoulders? I don’t want you complaining about a sunburn when you get home!”
Gilbert chuckled softly. It was cute when Gabriel got flustered, then tried to tell him off, only to be as caring as ever again.
God, how he loved his boyfriend…
“Yeahhhhh!” Gilbert snapped off a blade of grass as he walked past, letting its ear of grain clatter against the other blades as he went. He felt the steady throbbing in his left hand. “In case you’ve forgotten, you’ve already bothered me with this this morning. Just like every morning. Every morning you make me sit on the bath like a child and smear that sticky, stinking muck all over my face.”
Gilbert may have said this in a rough and exaggerated way, but secretly he enjoyed these little moments of care more than anything else.
Gabriel’s gentle hands on his face… those tender touches…
No, Gilbert was losing himself in daydreams again. He had no time for daydreaming today. He had an unspeakably important mission to fulfil! More important than any message he’d ever had to deliver to a king, bishop or emperor!
This mission was… of a personal nature.
“I’m only doing this because I don’t want you to ruin your skin! Believe me. I know what I’m talking about.”
Oh-oh, dangerous territory. Retreat! Retreat!
A nervous laugh escaped the taller man and, for his own safety, he decided to look away for a moment. Gabriel had struggled long enough with the after-effects of certain burns on his body. His skin had since recovered thanks to numerous modern treatments, but he would probably be left with some scars for the rest of his life, and his skin remained more sensitive than ever. Sunbathing on the beach was out of the question for him – and for Gilbert too, due to his albinism.
The two men walked on in silence, adjusting their caps. Yet Gilbert found himself lost in thought once more as he watched his partner out of the corner of his eye.
Gabriel could truly count himself lucky that he was no ordinary mortal. A human would have died from burns of that severity, or would have been horribly disfigured for the rest of his life. As a personification, he was more resilient, and even if not every wound was reversible (Gilbert himself had centuries-old scars), they did tend to heal better.
I thank God and all his angels and saints that they did not take him from me…
That thought flashed through Gilbert’s mind as he caught sight of the red marks on the left side of Gabriel’s face and on his arms.
He’d almost lost him… over 700 years ago, when they were both still children. If only… if only it hadn’t been for Antonio and João… God, Gilbert owed them more than he could ever repay.
Gabriel had been born as the embodiment of the Order of the Templars. Back in 1118 in Jerusalem, the holy city of so many religions… In 1307, the Western world of that time turned against his knights and him. They were branded as heretics, sodomites, blasphemous monsters who had to be eradicated. In reality, none of this was true. They were fabricated accusations from the court of the Capetians, who, on the one hand, owed the Templars money, were themselves short of cash due to idiotic wars, and, on top of the king’s megalomania, were seeking a confrontation with the Papacy. Gabriel… didn’t stand a chance. Even though Pope Clement V did not believe the allegations, the Templars’ reputation had been so damaged that it was beyond repair, and the Order was dissolved in 1312. Gabriel’s livelihood had been cut off. He became… mortal. A dangerous situation, for he was still held captive by the French Crown, along with his Grand Master and several high-ranking knights. And then… the year 1314, when everything was to go up in flames. The king once again acted outside the bounds of the law. He did not wait for the judgement of the Church and its representatives, but sentenced the remaining Templars to death. On that day in March, Gabriel would have perished in the flames, and not a single scrap of his body would have remained. Yet, as if by a miracle… a merciful sign and gift from the God whom Gabriel loved and honoured with all his heart, he survived. How, Gilbert did not know. No one had seen him escape. Every onlooker had watched as his golden hair and peach-coloured skin were consumed by the flames. Everyone. Everyone was certain: that was it. It was done. It was over.
And yet…
And yet… a short time later… his body was found far away on the coast of the Kingdom of Castile. It could never be established how he had got there. Antonio and João could only confirm that he appeared to have been washed ashore and was found on the beach like a body recovered from the water. But given his terrible burns, it quickly became clear that this young lad had once been a victim of the fire. It was assumed he was dead, but amongst the people who found him, someone must have noticed how his chest was rising and falling slowly but steadily. So he was taken to the nearest hospital run by the Hospitallers. The brothers and sisters of the Order looked after him, even though at first they did not believe that this badly maimed young man would ever open his eyes. But then a miracle happened. The very worst open wounds and blisters healed faster than they would in any ordinary person. And although the young man’s body could barely take in any nutrients whilst in a coma, he did not lose weight. He remained robust, much to the surprise of his caretakers. They informed their representative from the Order – Johannes, though known to everyone as Joan – of this unusual recovery. Sooner than anyone could have imagined, he appeared in the Iberian lands, as though he had packed all his belongings the moment their letter arrived and ridden off on his brave brown steed.
Perhaps there was some truth in her hunch, for Joan was not merely a personification… He was Gabriel’s rival and friend. The patient’s description must have reminded him of Gabriel and given him hope that he might, after all, see his friend again. And indeed: the Sleeping Beauty lying on the bed had been his childhood friend. Joan recounted that tears immediately welled up in his eyes; he sank to his knees and praised and thanked God for giving his friend a second chance and a glimmer of hope. From that day onwards, Joan remained at that hospital on the Castilian coast and personally looked after his comatose friend, to relieve the burden on his fellow brothers and sisters in the Order. Yet even a representative with greater freedom than an ordinary brother had duties to fulfil. Joan had to return regularly to Rhodes, to his headquarters, leaving Gabriel behind. So he informed João and his brother Antonio, both representatives for parts of the Iberian Peninsula, who had already heard rumours of this special case requiring care. They, too, burst into tears when, after their long ride to the coast, they finally stood by the bedside of their beloved friend. For even though they were not related by blood, they loved one another as if they were brothers.
And they, along with their kings, had tried during the Templar trials to protect the knights in their lands and to convince the Pope and others of the Order’s innocence. To see how their efforts… João’s and António’s personal prayers for their friend’s salvation… were bearing fruit… was overwhelming.
Whilst João was away, they looked after Gabriel’s recovering body.
In the years 1316 and 1319, the Spanish and Portuguese kings respectively founded orders based on the Templars’ holdings in their respective countries. The surviving Templars who had remained safe in these regions of Europe formed the first generation. Perhaps this idea and the ambitions of the Iberian Peninsula in the preceding years were the reason why Gabriel’s body had survived. Whoever held the fate of the world in their hands – be it God or whatever one might call the great invisible power in the universe – that someone had not yet given up on Gabriel. The Order of Christ and the Order of Montesa… one of them, or perhaps both, had given him a new lease of life.
A foundation that kept him alive, despite the secularisation of the former and the strict exclusivity of the latter.
It was, and remains, complicated.
But Gilbert was infinitely… infinitely grateful to still have his Gabriel, his angel, by his side after all that chaos. The twenty-three-year-old constantly forgot that he had been the last to learn of Gabriel’s survival, for the joy of being able to hold him in his arms at all overshadowed any resentment he might have harboured.
(Moreover, a conscious decision had been made to tell Gilbert last about Gabriel’s survival, in case Gabriel never woke from his coma; and because, immediately after Gabriel’s execution, Gilbert had withdrawn into complete social isolation and, in his frustration and following orders, had brutally wreaked havoc across the Baltic states.)
“Hm?” Tilting his head, Gabriel blinked at his friend, who had been staring at him for quite some time. He knew Gilbert had his moments when he’d stare absently into space, but when his ruby-red eyes pierced him so directly, he felt as though Gilbert could look deep into his soul and who knows what he might find there! He had nothing to hide, he thought, but it still made him feel uneasy.
The rather cute sound his partner made and their fleeting eye contact instantly snapped Gilbert out of his daydreams, and he shook his head. Still, he could feel the hot blood rushing to his head and spreading across his cheeks – and that was exactly what he really couldn’t let Gabriel see!
“Gotcha!” Without waiting a second longer, he gave Gabriel a (more or less gentle) nudge from the side, sending him tumbling into the golden-yellow wheat field. As much as it surprised and startled Gabriel, he wasn’t about to let Gilbert get away with the shove. As he fell, he clung to his forearm, pulling the younger but taller man down with him, and they both tumbled into the wheat field, kicking up a cloud of dust. Gabriel landed on his back on the ripe ears of wheat. His golden hair was now completely dishevelled and he could taste the dry dust on his tongue. Gilbert’s body had followed his own; he was now crouching on all fours above him and sneezed softly as the fine dust tickled his nose. For a moment, there was silence between them. Sky blue met ruby red; and neither dared to move or utter a word. A warm fuzzy feeling surrounded them.
What was one supposed to do in that kind of situation?
Neither of them knew what to do next, and the longer they lingered like that, the faster their hearts beat in their chests. It was only when Gabriel let out a sneeze, which turned into a hearty yet embarrassed laugh, that Gilbert laughed too and sat up. His white hair stood on end in all directions, just as it used to during their training sessions as young knights. Gabriel’s lips curved into a smile.
A scene like this seemed familiar to him. How often had they romped through the grass and across the fields as children, whenever they’d been able to enjoy a brief spell of free time? Gabriel remembered these precious childhood memories well; after all, they were the few carefree rays of light in everyday life, when he was simply allowed to be a child.
“Ah!” Gabriel put his arms behind his head and closed his eyes with pleasure for a moment, breathing in the familiar scent of nature. “You know, Gil? This reminds me of the old days, when we were children… The rustling of the trees, the chirping of the birds, the smell of ripe grain and the summer breeze that wraps itself around us? Although the world can be a cruel place, it’s precisely these little timeless wonders that make this earth and life so marvellous… Don’t you think?”
“You’re talking like an old man on his deathbed again, darling…”, yet Gilbert couldn’t help but smile and close his own eyes for a moment, too, to grasp even a spark of Gabriel’s perception of the world. His ray of sunshine clearly had a gift for seeing the positive side of things, no matter how much crap and horror happened in his life.
But when he closed his eyes like that and let his other senses take the upper hand, he seemed to understand. He felt it in his heart. And his otherwise wild nature became gentler, calmer…
Moments like these… they were like heaven on earth. There was something to what Gabriel said.
“But you’re right, Gabriel,” a soft laugh escaped him, “At least, I think so…”
Gabriel grinned in response, curiously opening one eye and catching Gilbert’s loving gaze upon him.
How wonderfully warm and soft his reddish-purple eyes sparkled… Usually they radiated energy and strength… but this time, calm and affection. It made Gabriel’s heart beat faster once again.
“Come here,” whispered the blond man, placing a hand on Gilbert’s upper arm, “Lie down beside me…”
He didn’t need to be told twice. Even though the destination of Burg was still nagging at the back of his mind. But when Gabriel looked at him with those wonderfully sparkling eyes and his irresistible smile, he couldn’t help but yield to his partner’s will.
He both hated and loved how weak his knight made him feel.
Gilbert lay down beside Gabriel in the field, placed his cap beside him and turned onto his side towards his lover, whose hair was already almost blending in with the colour of the golden wheat.
Oh, damn it. They’d been a couple for so long, and yet the sight of Gabriel and his manner still made him feel like a little boy experiencing his first love. How embarrassing!
“Nice, isn’t it? This little break will definitely do us good. After all, we’ve been on the road for a while now…”, Gabriel looked into Gilbert’s eyes; a glimmer of concern flashed in them, “And you’ve been acting so jittery and stressed all day.”
Bloody hell.
“Jittery and stressed? Me? I’m never stressed or jittery! I’m as calm as can be! Why on earth would I be stressed? Everything’s fine, isn’t it! Who said I was jittery? Well, it certainly wasn’t me!”
…
Gabriel left it at that. The very way he’d just tried to justify himself gave him away – he was definitely up to something. If only he knew what it was? However well he knew him, his mind was and always would be an enigma to him. Anything was possible.
“All right then! If nothing’s going on anyway, that’s fine. I was just worried.” – “There’s no need to worry about me!”
“I… don’t really think so. If you say so, I’ll worry even more, mon coeur.” Smiling affectionately, he brushed a white strand of hair behind his ear, which immediately made Gilbert’s cheeks flush red.
“Oh, come on…”, Gilbert mumbled, looking away, but Gabriel’s hand continued to caress his face. Gently, he kept running his fingers through his hair, over his ear with his fingertips, and finally over his cheek and jaw. Then he cupped his cheek and stroked it slowly and tenderly with his thumb. In that moment, Gilbert felt as though he were melting like ice in the sun, until he was nothing more than a puddle.
God… this angel…
Gilbert closed his eyes, for if he kept staring at Gabriel in the sunlight, he’d forget everything around him anyway – and why he was actually here.
“Chouchou…”, Gabriel whispered almost silently, yet Gilbert could feel that little word on his own lips, as delicate as a butterfly’s wing.
Should Gilbert abandon his plans and ask Gabriel right away?
No, what else had he come up with the idea of the castle for…?
Oh, he hoped he wouldn’t regret this decision later.
For a fleeting moment, Gilbert imagined he could feel a comforting warmth on the tips of his lips. They tingled pleasantly, as if fizzy sweets were stuck to them, and this fine line between closeness and freedom was driving him mad. Whatever this feeling was – whether it was a phantom or reality – it felt as though he were balancing a down feather on his mouth.
When Gilbert opened his eyes a weary crack, the tips of their noses almost touched. They were so close, yet so far apart.
Gabriel’s eyes were closed and he lay peacefully by his side like a Sleeping Beauty.
So had he merely imagined the kiss?
Gilbert turned his head to one side.
My God… It had really got to him. No one must ever find out about this. The incredibly cool, laid-back and awesome Gilbert had turned into an embarrassing softie. If only someone would just bury him already!
Gabriel opened his eyes and looked up at him.
Right, okay, maybe not.
To cover up once again just how smitten he was, he grabbed Gabriel’s straw hat – which had been lying on the ground next to him since the crash – and held it protectively over his sunburnt face.
“First you lecture me about sunburn, and then you’re lying there in the blazing sun with your burn scars,” Gilbert grumbled, though his actions still showed great concern.
Man, he didn’t want his Goldie to go through that pain ever again.
“Hm? Oh, that’s right…”, Gabriel laughed, slightly embarrassed, and placed his hand on Gilbert’s, which was holding his hat. “Thanks, Gilbert, otherwise I wouldn’t have realised until it was too late.”
How cute he was when he let his heart speak…
Gabriel couldn’t help but smile lovingly, knowing full well that it might make the hairs on the back of Gilbert’s neck stand on end even more. But he was simply too endearing not to.
“Yeah, yeah, if you hadn’t had me…,” Gilbert mumbled once more, “then you’d be just as much in the lurch as I am without you.” Then he fell silent. Oops, that might have been a bit too much. Again.
“That’s true…,” Gabriel sighed and took another deep breath of the country air, “Without you, my life would be grey and dreary. You’re quite right about that. That’s why I’m glad we’ve found our way back to each other.” Once again, the young man smiled more sweetly than ever. “The Lord must be looking out for us after all the trials we’ve had to endure.”
“Gabriel, you’re talking like some sort of philosophe again,” but the albino smiled gently, “But yes, I think I agree with you on that.”
Gilbert’s gaze wandered over the field around them. All sorts of flowers grew amongst the golden ears of corn, including some he hadn’t spotted at first glance.
“Because during the time when I thought you were gone forever, I didn’t want to know anything more about the world. It could have gone to hell for all I cared. I just wanted to sleep, forever.”
Terrible memories welled up inside him. He just wanted to forget that time.
The strikingly beautiful blue of a cornflower caught his eye. Gilbert breathed in and out gently as he looked at the flower out of the corner of his eye.
“Gilbert…” Gabriel didn’t want their conversation to take such a sombre turn. Above all, he felt guilty… He’d been away for so long… He’d been in a coma for so long, and even after he’d woken up, he’d not had the chance to get in touch with him for ages. The world hadn’t been safe enough yet, and Gilbert had already shut himself off.
The blond man lowered his gaze.
“I’m sorry.” – “Oh, it wasn’t your fault…” Gilbert replied promptly, his eyes still fixed on the cornflower. Lost in thought, he played with its stem and leaves.
“I’m not angry with you at all. Those were things beyond your control, my little sparrow.” Still fixated on the flower, he plucked it, admiring its magnificent star-shaped calyx. “If I’d been in your shoes, they’d have forced me to take some time to recover too… Because who knew whether you’d even be the same person after such a shitty stunt? And whether… you’d remember…”
For the blink of an eye, he thought of his brother.
Gabriel now looked to the side too and stopped what felt like just rambling on to Gilbert’s side.
“That’s true. You know…?” Gabriel let his hand glide over the stalks of wheat, “Right at the start, I really didn’t know who I was anymore, or who all those people around me were. It only came back with time… Just as I had to learn to speak, walk and write all over again. But Joan still told me a lot about us, whether I remembered or not. And at some point, the memories came back… in fragments, but they were real.” His sky-blue eyes sparkled as the wild magenta-coloured meadow knapweed beamed back at him. Its centre glowed almost as red as…
“I’m glad to be myself again.” – “I’m glad you can be yourself again.”
The words came from a single mouth, and in the blink of an eye their heads turned back towards each other. They laughed softly, their cheeks turning a faint shade of red. Then Gilbert looked once more into his partner’s sky-blue eyes and remembered the cornflower in his hand. A smile lingered on his lips.
“Hey… look…”, he began calmly, turning his upper body towards him and showing Gabriel the flower. “The cornflower? That’s your favourite flower, isn’t it?” Gabriel looked at it patiently in Gilbert’s hand, whilst Gilbert, for his part, had eyes only for Gabriel. “Yes, that’s true, but I’ve just realised…”, he quickly brushed a few golden curls behind Gabriel’s ear and tucked the flower into his hair, “It’s the same colour as your eyes…”
“Wh-”, this time it was Gabriel who was left speechless, and his face turned bright red within a matter of seconds. He felt the heat rising within him and his cheeks were burning like fire. Gilbert, on the other hand, grinned cheekily and smugly, whilst his magenta-coloured irises reflected nothing less than the most complete adoration.
“Hmph,” Gabriel said, embarrassed, pulling his straw hat further down over his face to hide his blush.
Why did he always do and say these things out of the blue?
“Hehe,” Gilbert held the back of his hand over his mouth, stifling his laughter, “Oh come on, Goldie, that really wasn’t worth mentioning. No need to be so embarrassed!”
Great, now he was rubbing it in too! But Gabriel still couldn’t be angry with him.
“I’m not!” lied the blond, pressing his hat even tighter over his face the hotter he got.
That complete idiot! He was probably grinning like a Cheshire cat, too!
“Oh yeah? Then why are you hiding like that?” Gilbert carefully lifted the hat at one corner to catch a glimpse of his partner from underneath. For a moment, their eyes met and Gabriel loosened his grip on his hat; Gilbert pulled it away from his face. Gabriel had indeed turned so red that it was almost impossible to tell the difference between his unblemished skin and his scars.
Cute…
“You always do this out of the blue,” Gabriel muttered, without looking him straight in the eye. – “Hehe, of course! That’s how it has to be – that’s when it’s most effective!”
“Oh, just be quiet!” his lover interrupted him at once, yet for the life of him he couldn’t hold back the smile on his face. He both hated and loved the way he flattered him like that. Why on earth was he so outrageously charming?
Turning his head to one side, Gabriel briefly looked away from Gilbert and eyed the meadow knapweeds that had caught his eye earlier.
They really were the same colour as Gilbert’s eyes. They weren’t completely red, but more of a magenta. And their blossoms were wild, thread-like strands that reminded him of Gilbert’s tousled hair. If, according to Gilbert, his eyes were like cornflowers, then his were…
Whilst Gabriel was distracted like this, Gilbert secretly fumbled in his left trouser pocket. Yes, it was still there.
“Hey, Gabriel—” – “Gilbert!”
Gabriel cut him off and Gilbert withdrew his hand.
Later.
Gabriel’s ever-present smile had returned. Whenever Gilbert saw it, he immediately forgot all the worries in the world. “Yes?”
Before he knew it, Gabriel was tucking a knapweed into his white hair. This was followed by several flower calyxes, which he scattered amongst his locks as if Gilbert’s hair were his canvas and the flowers little colourful stars. “These ones look like your eyes. They’re magenta, but their centre glows as red and warm as your eyes when you speak passionately about something… And this one in particular,” he held up a single flower, whose fringed petals were snow-white whilst its centre glowed ruby-red, “reminds me most of you.”
Gilbert said nothing. Yet the heart in his chest felt as though it might burst, and his cheeks, the tip of his nose, his ears and even the nape of his neck glowed like the fiery red evening sun. His eyes widened and he held his breath.
“Hehe, the flowers really suit you… They shine like stars and really bring out your eyes. You look absolutely stunning with them, like a tuft of little flowers defying the frost in the depths of a snow-covered winter…”, said Gabriel softly, but from the bottom of his heart and with complete sincerity. The contrast between the flowers and his hair and skin made the sight almost fairy-tale-like, and it made his eyes appear all the more radiant and powerful.
Gilbert continued to stare at his partner in disbelief, his cheeks flushed crimson. Not a single coherent word would come out of Gilbert’s mouth. He began to stammer terribly; every sound he made was choppy! And he felt hot, red patches spreading across his neck.
This can’t be happening! He’d actually copied his gesture and now made Gilbert score an own goal. And a massive one at that! Damn it! That wasn’t fair!
And now Gabriel was even giggling so innocently! What on earth was that about?
“Don’t laugh!” the albino grumbled loudly, furrowing his eyebrows grimly.
But Gabriel wasn’t about to let anything spoil his good mood. “How am I supposed not to laugh when you’re looking so cute right now?”
“Pah, cute,” Gilbert shook his head, feigning disgust, “Your eyes must be playing tricks on you. Someone like me isn’t cute, but cool, strong and absolutely awesome.” Ashamed and incredibly embarrassed, the young albino sat up and was about to rip the flowers out of his hair, but he paused mid-movement.
Gabriel’s gesture, however… that really was cute.
He didn’t want to throw away this attention – even if it was just some flowers in his hair. “Never mind,” he sighed, stood up and stretched out thoroughly. So he’d just wander about looking cute today. If it made his partner happy, then so be it. After all, he was a fantastic friend! And that was what he wanted to prove today anyway, wasn’t it?
He now carried the flowers with greater conviction and held out his hand to Gabriel. “We should get going. Are you coming, Goldie?”
Once again, Gabriel smiled and gratefully took Gilbert’s hand. “Of course!”