to feel that we exist, even though in pain
♠︎ ♕ ♠︎
August loosens a little, at that nod. It feels like the most human thing this stranger has done. The palomino nods, too, even has his expression slips back into neutrality. “I am. Or was. I’m…on a bit of a sabbatical.”
He expects the unicorn to say something more, after that (though their conversation so far hasn’t given him a reason to). With the water of the oasis cool in his belly he wouldn’t mind settling into conversation and letting the heat fade a little. Instead, silence spins out between them.
August has been looked at before - it used to be part of his job - but it’s been a long while, and he’s not sure it’s ever been quite like this. Whatever this is. It’s not want, and it’s not distaste, and it isn’t jealousy than he can tell (reasonable enough, there is nothing to be jealous of him for, not today and not for a while). It’s a little like the way the oversized hound is looking at him, which is just a little uncomfortable.
But he doesn’t dislike it, and he lets his mouth curl up in a smile for the unicorn to watch.
“Well. Thanks for sharing your shade. Guess I’ll head on.”
For a moment, he doesn’t move. There is an unless there, heavily implied, a pause and ellipsis in the dead space after the air was all silence again. He would stay, he knows, because he has nothing better to do, and because he feels a little reckless still, and because there is something in the hungry-empty gaze of this strange man whose body weeps gold that makes him want to linger.
But if there is no answer, then August goes.
@Raziel | <3
