|
Post by Blaise Park on May 31, 2010 4:31:38 GMT -5
Blaise smiled slightly. "Good." Blaise reached out and tentatively patted the horse's muzzle and reminded himself that the thing's teeth were the least of his problems.
"You first. I want to see how you do it."
|
|
|
Post by Rhys Adler on May 31, 2010 4:41:35 GMT -5
"Alright."
Rhys headed over to Beau and patted his neck again. He stuck one foot in the right stirrup and one on the reins and hefted himself up into the saddle in one movement. He slid his foot back out of the stirrup and held it out of the way, sitting back far enough to give Blaise a little room.
"Just don't move the leg you're putting your weight on too much."
|
|
|
Post by Blaise Park on May 31, 2010 4:58:12 GMT -5
Blaise watched closely, then slowly climbed up onto the horse in front of Rhys. It was a bit cramped -- he was pressed against the other boy and was nearly on top of the saddle horn -- but it was significantly comforting to have a solid body nearby to hold him steady.
Blaise had been hoping Rhys would take the front, partially because he thought this would be a lot easier if he didn't have to actually look at the horse and partially because he was curious how Rhys would be affected by him clutching onto him through the whole ride, and this was almost as bad as riding the horse alone. But this was still nice, considering, and Rhys smelled really content.
"Ready when you are," he said. "But if you go too fast, I'm going to kill you."
|
|
|
Post by Rhys Adler on May 31, 2010 5:04:16 GMT -5
"Aw, don't worry," Rhys replied a little too cheerily. "I'll save that for your second ride. Just don't let me hit any trees I miss with your big head in the way."
He started the horse walking down the trail, arms halfway around Blaise's waist, holding the reins.
|
|
|
Post by Blaise Park on May 31, 2010 5:21:33 GMT -5
"If it's a tree that gets us, I think I'll consider this a success," Blaise replied. He adjusted himself slightly to try and put the saddle horn in a less awkward position, and eventually decided that there was very little he could do to make riding a horse feel less awkward. The jarring motion was kind of unpleasant and his legs were spread further than they were used to going, and if it weren't for Rhys he probably would have felt like he was about to fall off.
But as unpleasant as it was, it was at least not half as terrifying as it was before. If someone else was in charge of controlling the animal, it almost seemed a bit silly just how scared he'd been.
"You're pretty chipper about all this," he said. "I take it either you're enjoying the horseback riding or you just really like being behind me."
|
|
|
Post by Rhys Adler on May 31, 2010 5:36:02 GMT -5
Rhys was positively elated. It was a beautiful spring afternoon, filled with trees and grass and birdsong and the smells of outside. He almost wished he could go quickly on the old guy, or even jump, but he wasn't good enough to know how to do that anyway. In truth, it was mostly adolescent confidence that let him ride around without at least refreshing his memory a bit, but he ws doing all right.
"Yep," he chirped. Y'know what, fuck this. He ain't gonna stop, and I ain't gonna let him bug me. I can give better than he can anyway.
|
|
|
Post by Blaise Park on May 31, 2010 5:44:08 GMT -5
Blaise smiled in spite of himself and leaned back practically on top of Rhys. "It's really odd seeing you happy after you've spent the last few months acting miserable," he commented. "You should try it more often. I hear it can increase your lifespan."
|
|
|
Post by Rhys Adler on May 31, 2010 5:54:05 GMT -5
Rhys looked skeptically at Blaise, though he was still grinning himself.
"Yeah, I know. I'm happy, you're acting like a human being, it's like it's Opposite Day."
|
|
|
Post by Blaise Park on May 31, 2010 6:00:26 GMT -5
"If we're doing opposites, does that mean you'll chase me for a while? Because all this rejection is starting to crush my self-esteem." Blaise gave Rhys a mock hurt expression.
|
|
|
Post by Rhys Adler on May 31, 2010 6:05:38 GMT -5
Rhys blinked.
"Maybe if you flirted with your boyfriend instead of random guys who don't even like men you'd get rejected less, Sparky."
|
|
|
Post by Blaise Park on May 31, 2010 6:23:13 GMT -5
"Ouch. Though I probably deserved that." He shrugged. "It's not like I wouldn't, if he was here."
He hadn't really thought much about Alex during the past day, and he did feel at least a little guilty. Not really about Rhys specifically -- he didn't really see any issue with flirting with him, especially given that at this point it was almost more to harass Rhys than it was serious -- but he figured that nearly forgetting he actually did have a boyfriend was significant reason to feel guilty. He'd have to call him later, he decided. Probably before he got into his mom's wine.
"For the record," he said, "I still don't believe you're straight."
|
|
|
Post by Rhys Adler on May 31, 2010 7:08:43 GMT -5
Rhys chuckled. "Yeah, just a little."
"Seriously? Why? Just because I've never had a girlfriend? Because that's what it sounds like."
|
|
|
Post by Blaise Park on May 31, 2010 23:28:54 GMT -5
"It's more...just intuition." He smirked and glanced back at him. "And you are pretty defensive about it."
The horse's foot hit something and jostled Blaise, and his hands gripped vice-like around Rhys' arm. "Fucking animal," he muttered. "This is why they invented cars."
|
|
|
Post by Rhys Adler on May 31, 2010 23:51:16 GMT -5
"Uh-huh." Rhys rolled his eyes. "Well, you're pretty damn aggre-"
Blaise tensed and grabbed his arm, and Rhys immediately pulled him back against his chest and held him steady. He kept Blaise there for a few moments, a bit confused as to what he was doing exactly, before realizing how close they were and twitching back, pulling his arm away from the boy.
"If I tried to make him trot you'd choke me to death," he rasped.
|
|
|
Post by Blaise Park on Jun 1, 2010 1:20:26 GMT -5
Blaise leaned back into Rhys' arms, the contact surprisingly comforting. He might be able to get used to riding horses if he was with Rhys, particularly if that meant Rhys would do that a bit more. He wondered how many times he could almost fall before Rhys stopped grabbing him like that. It was probably best not to test it.
He glanced at his watch. The time had gone by a lot faster than he thought -- they were down to the last half hour. "Jacques should be here soon. We should probably head back in a few minutes."
|
|
|
Post by Rhys Adler on Jun 1, 2010 1:36:49 GMT -5
Rhys sighed. "Damn. At least I had fun."
He pat the horse's side and turned him slowly around. "So what d'you wanna do once we get back?"
He wondered idly what this Jacques guy had actually been doing in most of this time, given that a McDonald's run took nowhere near two and a half hours.
|
|
|
Post by Blaise Park on Jun 1, 2010 1:57:55 GMT -5
"Hm, we could play video games, ask Sophie to bake us something, watch movies, raid the wine cellar..." He looked over at Rhys and grinned. "Hey, have you ever played 'I never'?"
Blaise loved playing 'I never' for two reasons: first of all, he got to find out all kinds of embarrassing information about people, and two, he got to get other people incredibly drunk. And alcohol and video games made a very interesting combination.
|
|
|
Post by Rhys Adler on Jun 1, 2010 2:19:27 GMT -5
"No?" Rhys looked skeptically at Blaise. "What's that?"
|
|
|
Post by Blaise Park on Jun 1, 2010 2:29:01 GMT -5
Blaise grinned. Oh, this was going to be fun.
"It's a drinking game," he explained. "One person says something they've never done, and anyone's whose done that has to take a drink. You play until you run out of alcohol or until someone gets so wasted they start ruining the game for other people."
|
|
|
Post by Rhys Adler on Jun 1, 2010 2:37:43 GMT -5
"You want to get me drunk, ask me embarrassing questions, and then I get to ask you embarrassing questions?" Rhys smirked. "All right. And when you pass out, I'll play your Xbox."
|
|
|
Post by Blaise Park on Jun 1, 2010 2:49:49 GMT -5
Blaise snorted. "And when you get so piss-drunk that you can't stand up straight, I'm going to kick your arse at DDR"
|
|
|
Post by Rhys Adler on Jun 1, 2010 2:50:56 GMT -5
"DDR?" Rhys raised an eyebrow.
"Wait, arse? What, are you British now?"
|
|
|
Post by Blaise Park on Jun 1, 2010 3:00:43 GMT -5
"It's a video game. Dance Dance Revolution. They have machines for it in shopping malls." Blaise rolled his eyes.
"What, do you think I became this fluent in English from a French school? I went to a boarding school across the channel for about four years. My father wanted to send me to school in Germany, but my mother wouldn't hear of it." Blaise wrinkled his nose. "What the hell sort of an accent is that you have, anyway?"
|
|
|
Post by Rhys Adler on Jun 1, 2010 3:08:23 GMT -5
"In... arcades? Oh, that thing, with the... buttons and whatever." Rhys thought he knew what Blaise meant, anyway; he'd never been a big video game person.
"I guess I never really thought about it." He shrugged. "You have a French accent, that's all I noticed. Uhm," he continued, "I lived with my grandparents in Texas from... somethin' like four until I was twelve. It kinda stuck."
|
|
|
Post by Blaise Park on Jun 1, 2010 3:34:28 GMT -5
"With the buttons," Blaise repeated under his breath. He had a feeling Rhys had no clue what he was talking about, which was going to make this even more fun.
Blaise had never been more relieved than the moment they pulled the horse into the stables. As fun as it had been harassing Rhys--and practically sitting in his lap--the saddle was rubbing him raw in unpleasant places and he was beginning to miss the feeling of walking on solid ground.
He pulled himself out of the saddle and hopped down, bracing himself against the fence as he tried to reacquaint himself with the feeling of standing.
He looked back up at Rhys. "If I ever get the bright idea to do that again, call me an idiot and tell me no fucking way."
|
|