Snow

"David," he said again, and his voice was urgent, strained. David opened his eyes. Alec was staring at him. The film of wriggling things covering his eyes was gone and they were clear, startled. He moved the hand that was resting on David's stomach a little, fingers flying away when David arched into the touch.

"I thought--" he said, and moved his other hand away, took two, then three careful steps back.

"You're here."

David nodded.

"Shit," Alec said and the word was loud and edged with something wild, sharp. "You didn't leave. I told you to leave."

"I didn't want to."

Alec closed his eyes. When he finally opened them his face was carefully blank. "I'm sorry," he said carefully. "Did I--did I hurt you?"

David shook his head. Alec walked back with him in silence but didn't come in and when David turned around to ask him why Alec was gone, faded into the night.

He didn't come home until morning and when he did he didn't say anything, just splashed water on his face and then changed his shirt in the faint light of the fading moon and the slowly waking sun. When he was done he looked over at David.

"I'm not sorry about last night," David said carefully, heart pounding in his chest. He'd never said something like that to anyone. Before Alec all he'd had in his life were things to be sorry for.

Alec's expression didn’t change but David saw something flare, briefly, in his eyes. It was too dark for him to tell what it was.

"I am," he said quietly, and then he was gone again.

That night David expected awkwardness. He pictured a silent Alec, a strained meal. He bathed and washed glittering dust from his stomach. It had left a faint red scratch behind. He touched it, tracing where Alec's hands had been. He pictured--deep down and in a place he didn't know existed, not the dark place that called him before with his brother and sister but something deeper, sweeter--Alec turning to him like he had last night. He waited for night to fall.

It finally did and Alec brought Gladys in with him, said she was staying for dinner. He looked almost at David but just a little past him as he said it. She stayed until it was very late, the two of them telling stories about places and people and times David didn't know. She tried to include him but Alec would always turn the talk back around to what he said was "real," which seemed to be about dirt and rocks and people dying and nothing else.

"Things aren't always like that," Gladys said, and glanced in David's direction.

"Yes, they are," Alec said, and Gladys yawned, then coughed. "I best be going," she said and glanced at David carefully. "Come see me tomorrow?"

He nodded. Alec walked Gladys to the door.

"Listen to me," she said to him, low-voiced, as she left, and held one hand out. David watched as Alec pressed a handful of coins into it. "I'm not one to turn down a real dinner, a night where I'm not--but you--you're a fool for doing this. You know that, right?"

"I know what's real," Alec said.

"No," Gladys said sharply. "You don't. Open your eyes, will you?"

***

Alec never talked about the mines but David could tell the work he did there was hard from the way Alec walked at the end of the day, an almost hunched slow shuffle, nothing like his loose quick strides in the morning. And there was always the dust, dark and shining, that fell from him, that seemed carved into his hands, would sometimes drip to the floor as they sat in silence after dinner. Even just washed his hands were always speckled dark, the water clearing just enough dust to show cracked raw skin underneath. David skimped on his breakfasts and lunches for a week and brought a tin of salve in the square from an old woman who swore it would heal any cut, smooth all skin. He looked at the tin. It had a picture of a horse on it.

"Is this for horses?"

"Some people use it for horses."

David bit his lip. "But it works for people?"

The woman nodded and David took the tin home. It smelled nice enough, he thought, light and like lemons. He'd brought a few of those a while ago, cut them in pieces and put them in with the fish he was cooking. He thought they'd look pretty but they'd made the fish taste good too, added a wonderful tang and a smell that reminded David of the sun, of brightness. He put the salve on the table.

"What's this?" Alec said when he saw it.

"It's for you."

"It's for horses. I don't have a horse."

"You did."

"I did," Alec said slowly. "But I don't now."

"You sold her?"

"No, she's in the corner over there. Of course I sold her. The cart too."

"You miss her," David said softly.

"What?"

"Your mouth is all tight. When you're upset--"

"I'm not upset."

"Who did you sell her to?"

Alec ran a hand though his hair. "First person who made an offer. I just--I wanted to get it over with. I shouldn't have gotten attached but I did and--it was stupid. Things change. People change.

They move on. It's the way of the world. Nothing lasts."

"I don't think that's true."

"Of course you don't. You bought me horse salve. What do you know?"