"You were like a little brother to him. And, like most older brothers, he was jumping at the chance to show you off."
Those words were so much like a punch to the gut that Solomon had to stop short in his tracks, or risk tripping over. Or worse. He glanced away from Ghastly so he could swallow through the lump, and his hand trembled with the effort to not grip Ghastly's arm too hard.
"You were like a little brother to him. And, like most older brothers, he was jumping at the chance to show you off."
It wasn't just the words. It was the feeling behind them. The quiet acceptance, the expectation--that's just how it was. Ghastly wasn't even surprised by it. He'd always known. Solomon hadn't. He'd been an only child. He'd never known. He'd never been able to see Skulduggery's eagerness as pride in Solomon himself.
"I was impressed by you too," he heard himself saying, his voice low to keep the huskiness out of it. He still couldn't quite muster the ability to resume walking. "Skulduggery liked to pretend he knew everything. At the time, you seemed like you actually did. Even more than Skulduggery. Even more than my mentors at the Temple."
Because Ghastly was magic-born, of course. He'd been a giant to a slender sixteen-year-old, a giant who would have looked like an ogre to anyone in Solomon's home village, who had taken one look at Skulduggery and bent on himself with laughing so hard. And then he'd gone to help his friend out of the water, still laughing, teasing almost at once. Solomon remembered standing there, shivering and hugging himself against the brisk wind, his hair flattened to his skull, and utterly at a loss as to what he was meant to do or say. He remembered feeling small, and unsure, and in retrospect--something he hadn't been able to recognise at the time--jealous of their camaraderie.
It had never occurred to him why Skulduggery might want to share him with his best friend.
"I was wrong." He didn't mean to say it. He wasn't even thinking well enough to plan on saying anything. "I thought he--I was wrong. If I'd been able to see it ..."
His voice threatened to break and he had to stop. If he'd been able to see what he apparently meant to Skulduggery, and not just what Skulduggery meant to him, things would have been very different. Except they weren't, he reminded himself. They weren't different. They were what they were and now he was seeing just what a mistake it had been, what could have been, and that burden felt almost too much to bear.
The steadiness of Ghastly's soul right then was more more helpful than Solomon had words to express.
no subject
Those words were so much like a punch to the gut that Solomon had to stop short in his tracks, or risk tripping over. Or worse. He glanced away from Ghastly so he could swallow through the lump, and his hand trembled with the effort to not grip Ghastly's arm too hard.
"You were like a little brother to him. And, like most older brothers, he was jumping at the chance to show you off."
It wasn't just the words. It was the feeling behind them. The quiet acceptance, the expectation--that's just how it was. Ghastly wasn't even surprised by it. He'd always known. Solomon hadn't. He'd been an only child. He'd never known. He'd never been able to see Skulduggery's eagerness as pride in Solomon himself.
"I was impressed by you too," he heard himself saying, his voice low to keep the huskiness out of it. He still couldn't quite muster the ability to resume walking. "Skulduggery liked to pretend he knew everything. At the time, you seemed like you actually did. Even more than Skulduggery. Even more than my mentors at the Temple."
Because Ghastly was magic-born, of course. He'd been a giant to a slender sixteen-year-old, a giant who would have looked like an ogre to anyone in Solomon's home village, who had taken one look at Skulduggery and bent on himself with laughing so hard. And then he'd gone to help his friend out of the water, still laughing, teasing almost at once. Solomon remembered standing there, shivering and hugging himself against the brisk wind, his hair flattened to his skull, and utterly at a loss as to what he was meant to do or say. He remembered feeling small, and unsure, and in retrospect--something he hadn't been able to recognise at the time--jealous of their camaraderie.
It had never occurred to him why Skulduggery might want to share him with his best friend.
"I was wrong." He didn't mean to say it. He wasn't even thinking well enough to plan on saying anything. "I thought he--I was wrong. If I'd been able to see it ..."
His voice threatened to break and he had to stop. If he'd been able to see what he apparently meant to Skulduggery, and not just what Skulduggery meant to him, things would have been very different. Except they weren't, he reminded himself. They weren't different. They were what they were and now he was seeing just what a mistake it had been, what could have been, and that burden felt almost too much to bear.
The steadiness of Ghastly's soul right then was more more helpful than Solomon had words to express.