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Post by Rhys Adler on May 30, 2010 4:51:42 GMT -5
"What?" Rhys half-glared at Blaise. "What the hell impression have you been getting then? No, I'm not."
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Post by Blaise Park on May 30, 2010 4:58:32 GMT -5
"Fine then, let's presume you're not gay," Blaise said. "Have you ever had a girlfriend?"
They were getting close to the stables; he could see the golf course ahead. Blaise wondered, idly, how much Rhys would have to drink before he forgot that he wasn't attracted to men.
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Post by Rhys Adler on May 30, 2010 4:59:48 GMT -5
"No," he said, mildly offended. "I ain't exactly dated a guy, either."
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Post by Blaise Park on May 30, 2010 5:07:26 GMT -5
"Well, then I'm sure you've at least liked a girl, haven't you?" he asked. Blaise tended to like anywhere from two to five people at any given time, and couldn't think of a point in time since high school that he wasn't interested in at least one person. He was bluffing more than just a bit, but he added, "If there was someone in specific you were interested in, I'm sure I could get you a date."
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Post by Rhys Adler on May 30, 2010 5:09:56 GMT -5
"I..." Rhys stared, mouth working, baffled. He couldn't think of anyone. He couldn't think of anyone at all. He... just really didn't think about it. Finally, he crossed his arms and glared at Blaise again. "Same answer. And if I wanted to date somebody I'd just ask them myself."
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Post by Blaise Park on May 30, 2010 5:17:43 GMT -5
"Never?" Blaise asked. "You've never been interested in a girl, you're not interested in men... You must have at least thought about sex in general, even if you haven't thought about anyone in particular."
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Post by Rhys Adler on May 30, 2010 5:19:18 GMT -5
"I- no," he nearly squeaked. "No," he repeated, maybe a little more forcefully than necessary. "Look, some people have hobbies, goddamn."
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Post by Blaise Park on May 30, 2010 5:24:57 GMT -5
Blaise smirked. "Well, I think I found your problem, then. You just really need to get laid. You'd probably come back in a much better mood."
The limo slid to a stop, and Blaise stretched his arms slightly. "Looks like we're here. Ready to watch me kill myself?"
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Post by Rhys Adler on May 30, 2010 5:26:33 GMT -5
Rhys just kind of stared at Blaise for several seconds.
"Yeah. Yeah, I think that'll be all right. Let's go."
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Post by Blaise Park on May 30, 2010 22:02:46 GMT -5
The stables were just ahead of them, attached to a sprawling field and a dirt path, as well as a set up for trick riding. The entire area was fenced off, leaving a small building as the only entrance. The entire range was painted a sleek, glossy white.
The inside of the building was decorated with trophies, prize ribbons, and various photographs of horses and their riders. The entire place had a very simple elegance to it, and smelled of vanilla air freshener.
Blaise spoke briefly to the woman at the front desk, who seemed to recognize Blaise and spoke to him for a few minutes in French before noticing Rhys.
She smiled warmly at him and extended her hand. "You aire ze friend of Monsieur Blaise, oui?" she asked in her thick accent. "My name is Madame Lefevre. 'Ave you ridden 'orses before?"
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Post by Rhys Adler on May 30, 2010 23:06:44 GMT -5
Rhys half-grinned at her and nodded. "Not by myself, but... yeah."
His grandparents didn't exactly raise anything, but the place jutted up against the land of people who did, so he'd gotten to ride with friends when he was small. Once or twice he'd even gotten to run around himself rather than being stuck in a pen or led around by an adult holding the reins, though there was always someone who knew what they were doing around.
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Post by Blaise Park on May 30, 2010 23:22:33 GMT -5
She beamed. "Très bien! Would you like to ride one of our more advanced 'orses, or would you feel more comfortable on ze beginner level? We offer instruction, if you need help with your basics."
She glanced at Blaise, and he reddened slightly and looked away. "...We don't need instruction," he muttered. "Just don't give me a horse that's going to try to kill me."
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Post by Rhys Adler on May 30, 2010 23:26:32 GMT -5
Rhys looked at Blaise, his grin spreading despite his efforts. Wow. That's one more emotion I didn't think he was capable of.
"We can do somethin' easy, for his sake. Thanks, ma'am."
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Post by Blaise Park on May 30, 2010 23:43:26 GMT -5
Madame Lefevre smiled, shaking her head slightly. "If you will follow me, I will let you pick out your horses."
The stables themselves, which were adjacent to the main building, were filled to the brim with horses in every size and color imaginable, though most of them, Madam Lefevre explained, belonged to customers who lacked the time or the room to properly take care of their animals themselves. The selection of rental horses was much smaller, and located in the first group of stalls in the stable.
"Ze first five 'orses are our sweetest." She gestured to the first few stalls. "It will help you if you make friends with your horse first, yes?" She handed a handful of sugar cubes to each of them, then demonstrated holding out a few to the first horse. The horse sniffed her hand, then quickly gulped down the treat.
Blaise looked uncertainly from the sugar cubes in his hand to the line of beasts in front of him, then back to Rhys. "Um. You first. I'm still thinking."
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Post by Rhys Adler on May 31, 2010 0:24:25 GMT -5
Rhys took a few steps forward, looking over the horses. Some of the ones further down were staring at him, and a couple of them shied away as he moved closer, but the gentler ones seemed fine with him.
He walked up to a pretty black-and-white spotted one and offered it a sugar cube. It looked closely at him for a moment, then lowered its head to eat out of his hand. He stroked the horse's nose, then looked at Blaise.
"Whatcha thinkin' about?" he teased, not sure whether he was more amused or wanting to encourage him.
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Post by Blaise Park on May 31, 2010 0:54:03 GMT -5
"Don't be an ass," he muttered, stepping warily closer to one of the horses. "I'm thinking about why the hell I ever thought this was a good idea."
He held the sugar cubes out to a small chocolate colored mare, then jumped half a foot in the air and dropped half of them when she bent down to eat from his hand. She snorted indignantly at the lost treats.
Madame Lefevre handed Blaise another scoop of sugar cubes. "'Ere, you can try again," she said patiently.
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Post by Rhys Adler on May 31, 2010 1:20:10 GMT -5
Rhys' grin faded a little, and he felt kind of guilty for wanting to do something his host was clearly so freaked out about.
"Sorry," he said. "Uh. I didn't know..." Blaise jumped, and Rhys looked back at the horse. He fed him the rest of the sugar cubes and gave him a little pat on the head, then walked over to Blaise. He kind of wanted to say something, but if Blaise rankled so much over that, then he doubted he could think of anything that wouldn't make it worse.
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Post by Blaise Park on May 31, 2010 1:49:26 GMT -5
Blaise tried again to feed the sugar cubes to the horse, his hands shaking slightly but forcing himself to hold still. She bent to his hand and devoured the sugar cubes effortlessly, and Blaise jerked his hand away the moment she was done. He gave her a tentative pat on the nose.
Madame Lefevre could call her small and sweet as much as she wanted, but Blaise had seen rottweilers that looked gentler than this...thing, and he certainly couldn't imagine calling anything big enough to trample him like a bug small.
"If you 'ave settled on your 'orses, I can help you with ze saddles," Madame Lefevre said brightly. "You will 'ave two hours to ride, but no more. To stay out more is not good for ze animals."
"You won't be staying with us?" Blaise asked, a note of panic in his voice.
Madame Lefevre looked at him sympathetically and began strapping the saddle to Rhys' horse. "But no, monsieur, I am needed to watch the front. If you do not require lessons, surely you can ride for a few hours? Zey are very gentle animals."
She patted Rhys' horse on the muzzle, then fixed the reins and bit. "Zis is Beau. 'E will take good care of you, but 'e is old, so do not push 'im too much."
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Post by Rhys Adler on May 31, 2010 2:28:47 GMT -5
He nodded. "I won't."
When everything was in place and Madame Lefevre had actually left, Rhys turned to Blaise. "You don't have to do this if you don't want," he said plainly. "Blame it on me or whatever, we can go, and I don't care how you feel like respondin' to that, I'm just gonna say it."
He very much wanted Blaise to stay, or at least to let him ride with no hard feelings, but...
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Post by Blaise Park on May 31, 2010 2:41:10 GMT -5
"I paid for this," he said flatly. "We're at least going to ride around until Jacques gets here with my cheeseburger."
Blaise gripped the saddle and very slowly managed to hoist himself onto the animal's back. The mare trotted forward slightly, and Blaise went sheet-white and grabbed the saddle-horn like his life depended on it. "Je ne t'ai pas dit bouger!" he snapped, glaring down at the horse.
This was humiliating and he had no idea what the appeal of this was supposed to be, but he was going to go through with this. There was no way some horse was going to get the better of him.
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Post by Rhys Adler on May 31, 2010 2:52:09 GMT -5
Hell, Rhys grumbled to himself, if he keeps up like this he actually might hurt himself. He put one hand on the horse's neck and looked up at Blaise, trying to be sympathetic.
"Then is there anything I can do to help you calm down? If you're scared you're not gonna be able to handle an actual problem- and if you keep yelling like that you might spook her, and you'll be in a world of shit then."
He twitched a little. "Or, hey, we could just let your machismo handle this, and I'll just murder you if you end up hurting the horse. Or yourself. Or me."
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Post by Blaise Park on May 31, 2010 3:03:17 GMT -5
Blaise took a deep breath and looked down at the horse, and while most of his mind was focused on screaming at him for how stupid this whole thing was and how he should have just sneaked Rhys into a club or something downtown, the gears in the back of his brain were working overtime to spin this to his advantage.
"I'm..." He sighed. "Look, I have no idea what I'm doing. I'm sure you can see that." Blaise pulled himself up and half dismounted, half fell off of the horse. He winced slightly. "I haven't ridden a horse since I was seven, and back then when I tried, I ended up breaking my leg in two places. It took forever to heal, and I had to get surgery."
He leaned against the fence and sighed. "I want to do this. I don't like being afraid of something, especially not something as stupid as a horse."
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Post by Rhys Adler on May 31, 2010 3:16:14 GMT -5
"Oh." There was a tiny part of Rhys' brain just beneath consciousness that was currently getting the shit kicked out of it for wanting to hug Blaise.
"Well..." He rubbed the back of his head. "This may not be the best way to put it, but you do kinda sleep in the same room as a guy who turns into a rabid animal three nights out of twenty-eight. Half your teachers are vampires, and one of the most human of 'em is that guy who carries his shotgun to class."
"I mean..." he tried again, and sighed. "That sounds really shitty, what happened to you, and it makes sense that it spooked you. But... you're not scared of a lot of things and I know you can do this. Okay?"
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Post by Blaise Park on May 31, 2010 3:36:04 GMT -5
Blaise thought for a moment, staring up at the giant brown monster that was looking at his jacket like it was an appetizer. He backed up away from the horse and turned toward Rhys.
"Okay. If you really want to help, I have an idea." Blaise looked from Rhys up to the cloudy looking horse Rhys had picked out. "I don't think I'm actually going to be able to concentrate on controlling a horse well enough to actually ride it yet, but I don't want to just sit out and do nothing. Why don't you just let me ride with you?" Blaise looked up at him hopefully.
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Post by Rhys Adler on May 31, 2010 4:10:53 GMT -5
Rhys looked into Blaise's eyes. Was this some kind of ploy to- yeah, probably, but did it matter? As far as he could tell, Blaise was genuinely frightened.
"All right." He shrugged. "We'll do that."
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